KOCHI, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Weekly Edition Regd. KL/EKM/710/2012-14 RNI No. TNENG/2000/49953 ISSN 0971 - 751X Vol. 15 No. 44 CITY EDITION 28 Pages Rs. 7.00 www.thehindu.in

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DISASTERS IN
THE MAKING

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ODI SERIES
BEGINS TODAY

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INSIDE
BACKROOM PLAYER

RSS has a say

in policy matters

Congress heads for split in T.N.

Row over
Digvijayas
Rahul remark

Vasan hits out at

high command for
neglecting State
Sruthisagar Yamunan

Special Correspondent
CHENNAI: The Congress in Ta-

NEW DELHI: The RSS has

emerged as a powerful
backroom player in the NDA
dispensation. From clearing
names of Chief Ministers to
discussing policy matters with
Ministers, it is playing as
important a role as the National
Advisory Council did in the UPA
government. Jatin Gandhi

NEWS | PAGE 8

DROPPING OIL PRICES

Jet fuel prices

cut by 7.3%
NEW DELHI: Jet fuel rates were
on Saturday cut by a steep 7.3
per cent, the fourth straight
reduction in prices since August
on the back of falling
international oil rates. The
price of aviation turbine fuel
(ATF), or jet fuel, at Delhi was
cut by Rs. 4,987.7 a kl to Rs.
62,537.93 per kl. PTI

NEWS | PAGE 8

mil Nadu looks set for another major split with the former
Union Minister G.K. Vasan
on Saturday hitting out at the
All India Congress Committee (AICC) for neglecting issues of the State and hinting
at the revival of the Tamil
Maanila Congress (TMC),
launched by his father, the
late G.K. Moopanar, just before the 1996 general elections.
Mr. Vasans outburst on
Saturday came after Congress president Sonia Gandhi
accepted the resignation of
B.S. Gnanadesikan as TNCC
president and replaced him
with Mr. Vasans long-time
rival and former Union Minister, E.V.K.S. Elangovan.

Heavy rush at
Bevco outlets
KOCHI: Bevco outlets across
the district were crowded till
Friday evening. The staff had to
wade their way through waiting
customers when they arrived to
open the outlets.

CITY | PAGE 3

MAGAZINE
4 Pages

LITERARY REVIEW
4 Pages

CLASSIFIEDS

Invoking the Valamana

Tamizhagam,
Valimayana
Bharatham (Prosperous Tamil Nadu, Strong India) slogan coined by Moopanar
during the launch of the TMC
in 1996 Mr. Vasan told reporters here shortly after the
appointment of Mr. Elangovan that the actions of the
AICC over the last few years

had been against the sentiments of party workers and

the people of Tamil Nadu.
When asked if he would
launch a new party, Mr. Vasan said he would hold discussions with his supporters
and announce the next step
on Monday.

STATE IGNORED: VASAN | PAGE 8

Modi meets Secretaries,

sets tone for next budget
Puja Mehra

CLOSURE OF BARS

NEW DELHI: Controversy

NEW DELHI: Three months

ahead of the presentation of
the Union Budget, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
called upon senior bureaucrats on Saturday to build upon the momentum and
positive atmosphere generated in the rst ve months of
the new government by shifting the emphasis of governance
to
measurable
outcomes.
At an informal interaction
over high tea at his residence,
Mr. Modi encouraged the
Secretary-rank officials to
come up with new ideas and

proposals for the forthcoming Union Budget to be presented in February next year
based on the suggestions being received on the MyGov
platform, according to an ofcial release.
Good things are starting
to happen We are one
team. Let us bring openness
in governance, come closer
and work together, the
Prime Minister told the officials assuring them of zero
political interference and
asking them to work fearlessly in the interest of the
nation.
New spending rules the
Finance Ministry introduced

a few weeks ago aim to address the issue of quality of

government
spending
through the stipulation that
all schemes and programmes
be monitored and evaluated
in terms of measurably dened outcomes, an improvement
over
the
outcomes policy of the Manmohan Singh government.
The Prime Ministers endorsement of outcomes-oriented spending is expected
to begin to reect in all new
schemes and projects.
He suggested that all Secretaries visit the place of
their rst posting to get new
insights.

4 Pages

Twitter says
sorry after
accounts snag
Yuthika Bhargava
NEW DELHI: Twitter users in

India on Saturday found that

some of their accounts had
been suspended. As the
suspension without any
warning sparked outrage
among users, Twitter India
clarified that the move was
not deliberate.
The issue with the
accidental suspension of
some accounts has been
resolved. Regret the
inconvenience. Thanks for
your patience, it tweeted.
A few users backed
Twitter, saying the incident
did not have political colour.

TWITTER APOLOGISES | PAGE 8

BJP eyes 10 crore new members

Gargi Parsai
NEW DELHI: Seeking to capitalise on the peoples support
for the party in the Lok Sabha
and Assembly elections, the
BJP launched an ambitious
membership drive on Saturday to enrol 10 crore new
members. The party has 3.25
crore members at present.
Launching the drive,
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi used the digital media
to register himself as the rst
member of the party he had
grown up with. Party president Amit Shah followed,
though his attempt to register himself was not without
glitches as the toll-free number lines got clogged.
Mr. Modi asked BJP workers to work with the same
zeal and energy as they did
during the elections. To be a
part of the BJP, when the

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit

Shah use their phones to enrol as members during
the partys membership drive in New Delhi on
Saturday. PHOTO: SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
party is in power, means that
every member has to be a
representative of the people.
The party must reect the diversity of the country and
workers must reach every
nook and corner of the country to register at least one

BJP member in every

village.
Encouraging people, particularly intellectuals, to participate in politics, he said
politics was not tainted.
INVOKES MAHATMA GANDHIS NAME |

PAGE 8

erupted after Congress general

secretary Digvijaya Singh
suggested on Saturday that
party vice-president Rahul
Gandhi take over as party chief
from his mother, Sonia Gandhi.
The party officially sought to
play down Mr. Singhs suggestion
as a personal view. Its a
general feeling of party workers
that the Congress has always
encouraged younger people to
lead it. Therefore, I think the
time has come when Rahul
should take charge,he had said.
Party spokesperson and
former Minister Anand Sharma
said Sonia was a source of great
inspiration for the party. Rahul
Gandhi is also an inspiration and
future of the party, he added.

BCCI claims
$41.97 m
as damages
from Windies
S. Dinakar
CHENNAI: The BCCI has

claimed $41.97 million as

damages from the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB)
for pulling out midway
through the tour of India.
The West Indies was
scheduled to play five ODIs,
a Twenty20 international
and three Test matches on
the Indian campaign. However, the team, locked in an
acrimonious dispute over
payment structure with the
WICB and the West Indies
Players
Association,
decided to fly out after the
fourth ODI at Dharamsala on
October 17.

Confidence shaken
A top-ranking BCCI
official told The Hindu, The
confidence and the morale
of the broadcaster and the
sponsors were shaken by
the West Indies action.
They and the BCCI had to
suffer a heavy financial loss
during the festival season.
The official added, The
five-match ODI series
against Sri Lanka, that
subsequently replaced the
remaining part of the West
Indies tour, was only
advanced from a later date
in 2015. So, the BCCI still
has to find a side to fit in
that slot.
The Board, at its working
committee meeting in
Hyderabad on October 21,
decided to suspend all
bilateral cricketing ties
with the West Indies and
pursue legal options.

BJP talks with Sena; Fadnavis

visits Thackeray memorial
Alok Deshpande
MUMBAI: A day after assuming
office as Maharashtras rst
BJP Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday
visited Shiv Sena founder Bal
Thackerays memorial, even
as the two parties held talks
on the Senas inclusion in the
Ministry.
The visit is seen as an indication that the BJP might
consider accommodating the
Sena in the Ministry. Sena
leaders want the issue to be
clinched before November
12, the day set for Mr. Fadnavis to prove his governments majority on the oor
of the Assembly.
Mr. Fadnavis is also yet to
declare Cabinet portfolios a
day after his government was
sworn in. Not only are Cabinet Ministers said to be jockeying for plum posts,
outcome of the talks with Sena will also impact Cabinet
formation.
Mr. Fadnavis has said the
portfolios will be declared
late on Saturday night or by
Sunday. Nine Ministers were
sworn in on Friday including
seven Cabinet Ministers and

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and

his Cabinet colleagues pay tributes to Balasaheb
Thackeray at Shivtirth in Mumbai
on Saturday. PHOTO: PTI
two Ministers of State.
The thaw in the relations
between the BJP and Sena,
which had turned frosty following disagreements on
seat-sharing before the Assembly polls, was evident

when Sena chief Uddhav

Thackeray relented following persuasion by senior BJP
leaders and participated in
the oath-taking ceremony.

NO PORTFOLIOS YET | PAGE 8

Setback to space tourism

as Virgin test flight crashes
Kenneth Chang
MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA: Space-

ShipTwo, a rocket plane that

is to carry tourists on a short
ride to space, crashed in the
Mojave Desert on Friday during a test ight, killing one of
the two pilots. The other pilot, who was able to eject from
the space plane, was taken to
a nearby hospital with injuries, said Ray Pruitt, the public information officer for the
Kern County Sheriffs Office.
Virgin Galactic, the space
tourism company created by
Richard Branson, acknowledged the accident on Twitter. The vehicle suffered a
serious anomaly resulting in
the loss of SpaceShipTwo,
said the company.
The test ight, the planes
rst under its own power
since January and the rst
since a switch to a new motor,

Debris of Virgin Galactics SpaceShip Two

in California. PHOTO: REUTERS
was conducted by Scaled
Composites, the designer and
builder of SpaceShipTwo.
Pruitt said SpaceShipTwo,
carried aloft by a large airplane, WhiteKnightTwo, took
off at 9:18 a.m. Pacic time
from the Mojave Air and
Space Port. WhiteKnightTwo
then ew to an altitude of
50,000 feet where it dropped
SpaceShipTwo. SpaceShip-

Twos motor ignited, and then

something went wrong.
Pruitt said the sheriffs ofce received a call after 10
a.m. that an aircraft had gone
down 20 miles northeast of
the city of Mojave. We have
located a debris eld, he said.
New York Times News
Service

VIRGIN CHIEF UNDAUNTED | PAGE 12

Mani issue bares widening rift in UDF

Girish Menon
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy with Finanance

Minister K.M. Mani at a function in the State
capital earlier this year.
CM
YK

Chief
Minister Oommen Chandy
and Kerala Pradesh Congress
Committee (KPCC) president V.M. Sudheeran were
strident in their defence of
Finance Minister and Kerala
Congress (M) [KC-M] leader
K.M. Mani, the target of an
allegation connected to the
renewal of liquor bar licences.
Such responses are but unlikely to address the trust deficit in their relations.
The relations between senior leaders of the Congress
and the KC(M) have been
strained for quite some time
now. The trust decit widened with speculations on Mr.
Manis move to shift camp to
the Left Democratic Front
(LDF). Even though the two
parties have travelled for-

ward by laying to rest such

speculations, there have been
many instances which suggested that the relations are
not on an even keel.
The allegation against Mr.
Mani, irrespective of its nature, serves to widen the trust
decit further.
The KC(M) has made it
clear that the party will face
the charges against its leader
politically. Mr. Mani termed
the charges baseless. He suspects a larger conspiracy.
He had taken a stern stand
on implementing prohibition
in stages, but now attempts
are being made to insult him
by raking up baseless charges.
Besides, it is clear that the
charges are trumped up as the
decision on bar licences does
not come under his purview
as the Finance Minister, he
says. With the United Demo-

cratic Front (UDF) government half way through its

term, it remains to be seen
how
this
will
affect
governance.
Interestingly, the UDF
leadership has been troubled
by internal problems rather
than campaigns by the Opposition coalition, which appears to be lukewarm to the
current round of allegations.
The rst half of the year
was spent on handling controversies over the latent differences between leaders on
the liquor policy.
The Congress partys defeat in the Idukki Lok Sabha
seat in the general elections
also contributed to the
strained relations with the
Kerala Congress (M). This
was followed by the speculation that Mr. Mani might
move over to the LDF.
KI-KI

SOUTHERN REGION

KOCHI

THE HINDU

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Panel to review NMR train safety

The railway is not built as per modern railway standards
Syed Muthahar Saqaf
SALEM: The Southern Railway

has formed a special team to

study the safety aspects of the
Nilgiri Mountain Railway
(NMR) following repeated
landslips in the recent past.
The last weeks landslip in
which huge boulders fell on
the track near Kallar railway
station, forcing the Salem
Railway Division to partially
cancel the train services between Mettupalayam and
Coonoor for ve days, has
prompted the Southern Railway to form the team.
Shubhranshu, Divisional
Railway Manager, told presspersons here on Saturday on
the eve of the eighth anniversary of the Salem Railway
Division, there was a general
view that NMR was not built
to the modern railway standards.
Judging by the present day
high safety norms, NMR was
considered as unsafe.
The Railways was operating trains on the NMR section
with utmost care and taking
all precautionary measures
for the safety and security of
the travelling public. Adequate staff members were
available to attend to any
emergency.
However, heavy rain triggered landslips on different
occasions. The team will inspect the spots where landslips occurred in the past and

A view of the Niligiri Mountain train. FILE PHOTO

also landslip-prone areas and
suggest remedial measures.
Mr. Shubhranshu said four
new oil-red steam locos indigenously manufactured by
the Goldenrock Railway
Workshop had been commissioned till date to improve the
services on the NMR section.
The Salem Railway Division is taking effective steps

sponse.
The NMR-specic mementos fetched from National
Rail Museum, New Delhi,
were being sold here. After its
success, it had been proposed
Souvenir shop
to open similar souvenir
The division opened a sou- shops in Uthagamandalam
venir shop at Coonoor Rail- and Mettupalayam Railway
way Station in October last stations, Mr. Shubhranshu
and it evoked a good re- added.

to attract more tourists. A Divisional Rail Museum is coming up in Mettupalayam with

life-size displays such as locomotives and coaches.

A walk through medieval waterways

Rishikesh Bahadur Desai
BIDAR: It was a memorable

trek for heritage enthusiasts

in Bidar on Saturday. They
walked through forest tracks
and grasslands on the outskirts of Bidar, exploring the
Karez system, the unique underground waterwaysbuilt by
the Bahamani Kings of medieval times.
The trekkers were part of a
team, brought to the historic
city by GoUNESCO, a Bangalore-based NGO as part of Go
Heritage Run, a heritage marathon
and
exploration
activity.
It was adventure all the
way as they used torches to
nd their way inside the caves
and crawled in places where
the passages were narrow.
And of course, they documented their journey by posing for seles. They walked a
total of 300 metres and
passed two air vents.
This is an incredibly
amazing rainwater harvesting structure. I have never
seen anything like this, said
Praveen Kumar, a Hyderabad-based engineer.
Resource person V. Govindan Kutty of Calicut University, who took the team on the
tour, pointed out that the Karez system was found in 12
towns and cities in India.
However, the system in Bidar is unique because it is
huge and built to allow officials on horsebacks to inspect
the water supply system.
The second important feature is that it is carved out of

Govindan Kutty, resource person, gives details of the Karez system to a team of
trekkers from GoUNESCO in Bidar on Saturday.
laterite rock, which is porous,
thus ensuring maximum
seepage of rainwater that is
ltered in the process.
What you get is puried
water, good enough to drink,
he said.
The Karez system is built
along a geological fracture.
Such fractures are formed at
the intersection of laterite
and basalt rocks and form lineaments or springs that yield
water, the expert said. He said

the water supply system was

between 550 to 600 years old
and was probably built by
Mahamud Gawan, the premier of the Bahamani Kingdom. He must have used
engineers from Persia as the
aqueduct technology was perfected in that country, Mr.
Kutty said.
A team of the Indian Heritage Cities Network that
mapped the Karez system using satellite-based data and

IRCTC woos Ayyappa devotees One killed in suspected tiger attack

with special tour package
R. Krishna Kumar

MYSURU: A tribal person was

The move coincides with Mandala-Makaravilaku season

S. Murali

MORE THAN A PILGRIMAGE

ONGOLE: In view of the fact

that Ayyappa devotees from
Andhra Pradesh account for
more than half of the 40 million pilgrims visiting Sabarimala every year, the Indian
Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited
(IRCTC) has come out with a
special tour package to combine pilgrimage with some
sight-seeing in Kerala.
Coinciding with the Mandala Makaravilaku season
from November 15 to 20, pilgrims who are part of the
four-night-ve-day tour programme can travel by Sabari
express to Ernakulam and by
road to Sabarimala and other
temples en-route the Vembanad lake, said IRCTC Assistant Manager K. Madhusudan.
Pilgrims from Ongole,
Guntur and Nellore and Secunderabad and Nalgonda in
Telangana can book tickets
on www.irctc.tourism.com,
he added.
Besides Sabarimala, pilgrims under the package tour

More than half of the 40 million pilgrims visiting Sabarimala

every year are from AP

Besides Sabarimala,
pilgrims will be taken
to other historic
temples in Kerala

Pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh and Telngana

can book tickets on www.irctc.tourism.com

A group of 50 pilgrims
can book an entire
coach in Sabari Express
from Vijayawada to
Ernakulam or Kottayam

They will also get

a chance to enjoy a
backwater cruise in
Vembanad lake

killed in what is suspected to

be a tiger attack in BRT Tiger
Reserve in Chamarajanagar
district.
The victim, identied as
Rajanna (55) of Chikkama-

lapura, had gone into Gundahalli forests on Friday

afternoon to graze his cattle,
reports said.
When he did not return, a
search was launched on Saturday by the village residents
of Chikkamalapura, and they
stumbled upon his footwear

and later his dismembered

body, a considerable distance
away.
Conservator of Forests
Lingaraju and other staff visited the spot and further investigations are on.
Four persons were killed in
separate tiger attacks in Ban-

dipur last December, creating

panic among the people of
the village surrounding the
forests.
A forester was killed in the
adjoining Nagarahole forests
when he was on patrol duty,
taking the total toll of deaths
to ve.

ground survey two years ago

found that the aqueduct is 1.8
km long and has 21 air vents.
There are two other Karez
systems in Bidar, inside the
fort area.
Vinay Malage, coordinator
of YUVA youth association,
who was part of the team observed that the Karez system
was being damaged by construction of buildings and destruction of watersheds
above ground.

DEATH

Research scholar
finds rare inscription

IRCTC will also

arrange flight
tickets for interested
pilgrims from AP
and Telangana

Ravikumar Naraboli

A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE
During the pilgrimage, devotees can enjoy the
amazing backwaters between Vaikom and Kochi,
which attract tourists from across the world
K. MADHUSUDAN, Assistant Manager, IRCTC

will be taken to the historic

Shiva temples at Kaduthuruthy and Ettumanoor and
the famous Bhagavathi temple at Chottanikkara near
Ernakulam.
During the pilgrimage, devotees can enjoy the amazing
backwaters between Vaikom
and Kochi, which attract
tourists from across the
world, Mr. Madhusudan
said. They can also enjoy the
backwater cruise in the picturesque Vembanad, the
longest lake in the country. A

group of 50 devotees can book

an entire coach from Vijayawada to Kottayam or Ernakulam every Saturday, he said,
adding: We will also arrange
ight tickets for interested
pilgrims. He said tour packages were also offered by the
IRCTC from A.P. to TirupatiAlamelumangapuram-Kanipakkam-Srikalahasthi
and
Shirdi-Shani Shingnapur in
Maharashtra, Puri-KonarkChilka lake in Odisha and
Kanniyakumari-Rameshwaram-Madurai in Tamil Nadu.

No question of division of
Karnataka, says Siddaramaiah

YADGIR: While out on a eld

visit, research scholar M.S.

Shirwal found a tablet with a
rare inscription in Brahmi
script in an agricultural eld
belonging to Sharanabasappa
Chapatli at Sirwal village in
Shahapur taluk of Yadgir district. The tablet, which is oneand-a-half-feet in height and
one feet in width, is engraved
with the words Tiwala Keen
Yini in Brahmi script.
It is believed to belong to
the era of Emperor Ashoka of
the Maurya Dynasty (3rd century BC). Dr. Shirwal told The
Hindu here on Saturday that
he found the tablet containing
the inscription in the agriculture eld owned by Sharanabasappa chapatli of Sirwal
village. He said that after
reading the script carefully
and comparing it with other
scripts of the same period, he
came to the conclusion that it
was written in memory of the
Sanyasini, who was held in
high esteem in Buddhism.
Buddhism thrived in this

M.S. Shirwal with the

tablet with rare brahmi
inscription of 3d Century
BC found in an
agriculture field in
Yadgir district.
region during the reign of
Emperor Ashoka. Many inscriptions and sculptures of
this era have been found in a
very bad state. Owing to lack
of awareness about the historical importance of such
tablets, people even wash
clothes on them.
Dr. Shirwal said the government should establish a
museum in the district headquarters to preserve items of
historical importance.

Seven killed as
car rams truck
Special Correspondent
ELURU: Seven persons were

VARIETY: Schoolchildren taking part in a cultural programme at the

inauguration of Karnataka Rajyotsava at Sri Kanteerava outdoor stadium in
Bengaluru on Saturday. PHOTO: V SREENIVASA MURTHY
Chitra V. Ramani
BENGALURU: There is no ques-

tion of the division of the

State, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said at the 59th Kannada Rajyotsava celebrations
here on Saturday.
We should not pay any
heed to people who are demanding separate Statehood.
Why did they not do anything
for the development of the region when in power?
Now that they are not in
power, they are demanding
the division of the State, he
alleged, in an oblique reference to statements by the former Minister and BJP MLA
CM
YK

Umesh Katti demanding separate Statehood.

Mr. Siddaramaiah said he
would not allow the division
of Karnataka at any cost.
The State that was unied
with the struggle and sacrice
of many people would remain
so.
The government, he said,
was committed to ensuring
the overall development of
the State, especially Hyderabad-Karnataka region.
He said the government
was committed to implementing the recommendations of the Nanjundappa
Committee on redressing regional imbalances.

With the special status accorded under Article 371J, regional imbalances could be
set right, he said.

Attempts foiled
In Kalaburagi, the police
foiled attempts by leaders of
the Hyderabad Karnataka
Yuva Horata Samiti and other
organisations to hoist a statehood ag at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Chowk.
In Dharwad, there was also
a protest, under Patil Puttappa, president of Karnatak Vidyavardhak Sangha, the
organisation that played a key
role in the State unication
movement.

killed in a road accident late

on Saturday night near Denduluru on the Kolkata-Chennai National Highway-5. The
accident occurred when a car
carrying a 10-member bhajan group from Mandapet in
East
Godavari
district
rammed a stationary lorry on
the road margin, according to
Superintendent of Police K.
Raghuram Reddy. The condition of three others was
stated to be critical.
All the victims, including
the vehicle driver, were from
the city.

Kamal Hassan
to join campaign
CHENNAI: Actor Kamal Hassan

will lead a dedicated band of

his fans and volunteers to be
part of the Prime Minister
Narendra Modis Swachh
Bharat Abhiyan or the CleanIndia campaign.
The actor will launch the
clean-up of theMadambakkamLake, adjoining the Tambaram-Velacherry Road, on
November 7.
KI-TRKM

NEWS

KOCHI

THE HINDU

FROM PAGE ONE

AICC ignoring Tamil Nadu

issues, says Vasan
Sruthisagar Yamunan

RSS having a field day in Delhi

It plays opinion maker inside and outside government
NEW DELHI: From clearing the

Delhi said they had time till

Monday to find a solution to
the crisis in the Tamil Nadu
unit of the party and that they
were in touch with the Vasan
camp. However, they were not
very optimistic of resolving
the crisis.
Sources said the leadership
was caught by surprise when
the controversy over the pictures on the new membership
cards was suddenly raised.
However, speaking to reporters here, Mr. G.K. Vasan
said the high commands directive against the issue of
new membership cards bearing the pictures of party stalwarts K. Kamaraj and G. K.
Moopanar, had upset large
sections of party workers in
the State. This is a wrong political approach to the legacies
of great leaders. Having created the controversy, a denial
from the AICC cannot be accepted, he pointed out.
Stating that the AICC had
acted against the sentiments
of the party workers of the
state, Mr Vasan said, This
was expressed to the AICC
time and again. But the response has not been one
which could strengthen the

names of first two Chief Ministers from among its cadres after the BJP came to power at
the Centre, to dealing directly
with Union Ministers to keep
the NDA government on the
Rashtriya
Swayamsevak
Sangh track and influencing
public opinion, the Sangh is
now having a field day in New
Delhi.
The Sanghs aim is to directly influence public policy from
within through meetings
planned at regular intervals
with top Ministers while
building a consensus outside,
sources in the RSS told The
Hindu. The role that the Sangh
and its affiliates now envisage
is similar to, if not larger, than
what the National Advisory
Council (NAC) headed by Sonia Gandhi played in the UPA
regimes.
The RSS has representation in the BJP at the highest
level. Their outlook and thinking converges and does not run
parallel on many issues, a BJP
leader said. He said the RSS
shares concerns with the BJP
and not directly with the government. But contrary to his
claims, six Ministers of the
BJP-led government have held
two meetings with leaders of
the RSS and Sangh-affiliated
organisations earlier this
week.
That was part of an effort to
ensure that the Sangh and the

G.K.Vasan
party. Even after the debacle
in the parliamentary elections, the AICC had turned a
blind eye to the issues of the
Tamil Nadu Congress, he felt.
Sources said Mr. Elangovans name was recommended to the high command by
party veteran from Kerala and
former Defence Minister,
A.K. Antony, who headed a
committee following the Lok
Sabha polls to analyse the reasons for the electoral debacle
of the party across the country. The former Shipping
Minister, while thanking the
senior Congress leadership
for having given him an opportunity to serve in the UPA
Ministry, nonetheless hinted
at reviving the TMC again in
the State.

Modi invokes Gandhiji to

draw people to politics
NEW DELHI: Encouraging intel-

lectuals to join politics, Prime

Minister Narendra Modi said
here on Saturday that if the
field was tainted, Mahatma
Gandhi would have never been
part of it.
Launching an enrolment
drive of the BJP, Mr. Modi said
times had changed, however,
and the era of mass agitations
in politics was over. Now,
whether in power or not, people expect a politician to be
relevant in public life, he said.
Mr. Modi, who has an RSS
background, said his vision for
the BJP was that it should become a party that was looked

upon in the world for its procedures, methods and mechanisms to find solutions to
peoples issues.
Unless perfect information comes from the grassroots and guidance comes
from the top, there cannot be
balanced decision-making.
The partys spread and the
workers development should
be simultaneous. The BJP is
far ahead and an inspiration
for others, he said. Earlier,
Mr. Shah said the drive from
November 1 till March 31 was
not to give more power to the
party but to connect with the
people. The BJP conducted a
fresh membership drive every six years.

Fadnavis yet to announce

portfolios
Priyanka Kakodkar
MUMBAI: Twenty-four hours

after his government was

sworn in, Maharashtra Chief
Minister Devendra Fadnavis
is yet to declare Cabinet portfolios. Nine ministers were
sworn in on Friday including
seven Cabinet ministers and
two ministers of state.
Cabinet Minister Vinod
Tawde was keen on the Home
portfolio but the party high
command was less so, sources Devendra Fadnavis
say. Cabinet Minister Eknath
Khadse is set to get the Reve- of anonymity.
nue portfolio but is hoping to
While congratulating Mr.
get more than one key post.
Fadnavis, an editorial in parMeanwhile the Shiv Sena is ty mouthpiece Saamna on
pushing for ten cabinet Saturday had a few words of
berths and wants the Deputy advice. The new GovernChief Minister's post. It is al- ment is like a newly-wed
so pushing for key posts in- woman who initially pleases
cluding Power, Finance, her mother-in-law. In this
case, the mother- in-law is
Education and Health.
On Saturday, Senas Rajya the people of Maharashtra.
Sabha MP Anil Desai met Fi- You cannot take people for
nance Minister and senior granted. They have the power
BJP leader Arun Jaitley in to pull your ears when you
Delhi, reiterating his partys err, said the editorial. It is
demand for 10 Cabinet posts. true that there is no magic
According to Sena sources, wand to fulfil promises made
the party also demanded the to the people, but people of
Deputy Chief Ministers post. Maharashtra are looking at
The BJP is non-committal the new Government the first
on this demand, said a senior led by BJP, with a lot of hope,
party leader, on the condition it said.

Twitter apologises but

says change behaviour
Yuthika Bhargava
NEW DELHI: Several Indian

Twitter users reported that

their accounts had been suspended on Saturday. Rupa
Subramanya, whose account
was among those suspended
alleged that it was mainly
right-wing accounts that
were suspended, including
those of @AgentSaffron,
@Sushuptii,
@wallflower_ish, @sureshnakhua and
@readernewspaper.
Subramanya, who has
over 32,000 followers on
Twitter, said her account
was suspended without any
reason and Twitter told her
that she might have shared
something that made her account look like a spam account. She tweeted: Twitter
also warned me if I dont
CM
YK

BJP wary of straight

fight with AAP in Delhi
Varghese K. George

Jatin Gandhi

CHENNAI: Congress sources in

Gargi Parsai

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

change my behaviour I
may
be
permanently
suspended.
Another user with the
handle @Stupidosaur tweeted that his account too was
suspended and posted a
screenshot of the communication from Twitter. The
message said: Twitter has
automated systems that find
and remove multiple automated spam accounts in
bulk. Unfortunately, it looks
like this account @stupidosaur got caught up in one of
these spam groups by
mistake.
Twitter India message also mentioned that he needed
to change his behaviour to
continue using Twitter as repeat violations may lead to
permanent suspension of
the account.

Volunteers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh take part in a drill during a

training camp in Bhopal. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS
government do not work or
speak in public at cross-purposes, as was the case in the
previous NDA regime, he
said. In the BJP, a coordination committee headed by a
general secretary brought in
from the Sangh has been
formed to see that the party
does not stray from the RSS
agenda.
The Sangh and its affiliates
have also begun an elaborate
exercise to shape public opinion on issues that it has been
propagating for decades. On
October 12, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat met leaders from different fields in
New Delhi.
On the list of over 60 attendees were UGC Chairman Ved

Prakash, AIIMS Director M.C.

Mishra, Delhi University ViceChancellor Dinesh Singh, retired police chiefs, leading
doctors, lawyers and industrialists. An RSS leader said the
meeting was an annual affair
for the last four years but admitted that attendance was
the highest this time.
Starting last month, RSS
leaders Suresh Joshi, Datatreya Hosabole, Krishna Gopal
and Manmohan Vaidya have
had a series of meetings with
intellectuals, journalists, industry heads, lawyers and other thought leaders to share
the Sanghs worldview and
build consensus. The meetings will continue till
December.

Jet fuel prices cut by 7.3 p.c.

NEW DELHI Jet fuel rates were

on Saturday cut by a steep

7.3 per cent, the fourth
straight reduction in prices
since August on back of falling international oil rates.
The price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF), or jet fuel,
at Delhi was cut by Rs.
4,987.7 per kilolitre, or 7.3
per cent, to Rs. 62,537.93
per kl, oil companies announced on Saturday. Rates
were cut by almost 3 per
cent or Rs. 2,077.62 per kl
on October 1.
Declining international
oil prices have made imports cheaper, resulting in
price reduction.
In Mumbai, jet fuel will
cost Rs. 64,414.98 per kl as
against Rs. 69,610.50 per kl
previously.
The rates vary because of
differences in local sales tax
or VAT. Jet fuel constitutes
over 40 per cent of an air-

litre and diesel by Rs. 2.25

per litre.
The sixth reduction in
price since August has
meant that petrol costs Rs.
64.25 a litre in Delhi, Rs.
9.36 per litre less than what
it cost in July.
The second reduction in
lines operating costs and diesel rates in one month
the price cut will ease the has led to price coming
financial burden on cash- down to Rs. 55.60 a litre. Alstrapped carriers.
so, the price of non-subsiNo immediate comment dised cooking gas (LPG) was
was available from airlines cut by Rs. 18.5 to Rs 865 per
on the impact of the price 14.2-kg cylinder.
cut on passenger fares.
Since August, this is the
The three fuel retailers fourth reduction in rate of
Indian Oil, Hindustan Pet- non-subsidised LPG which
roleum and Bharat Petro- consumers buy after exleum revise jet fuel and hausting their quota of subnon-subsidised LPG prices market priced domestic
on the first of every month, cooking gas.
based on the average interNon-subsidised LPG in
national prices in the pre- Delhi was priced at Rs.
ceding month.
922.50 in July and rates
On Friday, oil companies have been reduced every
cut petrol price by Rs. 2.41 a subsequent month. PTI

Declining global oil

prices have made
imports cheaper,
resulting in price
reduction

The
Swadeshi
Jagran
Manch has organised similar
meetings on the Make in India campaign that it opposes,
to garner public support. If the
RSS could have its way, it
would like the government to
amend the Constitution and
repeal the Sixth Schedule that
grants special privileges and
greater autonomy to tribal areas in the Northeast.
It even wants the government to round off and deport
Bangladeshi immigrants. We
want a debate on these issues
first. Societys opinion makers
should know what we want. In
the past too, retired army
chiefs and generals have attended our meetings, a senior
RSS leader said.

NEW DELHI: The prospect of a

straight fight with the Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) and the
risk of an adverse impact on
Prime Minister Narendra
Modis image in the event of
a setback in Delhi are
making the Bharatiya Janata
Party wary of facing fresh
elections in the national
capital, said party leaders
who did not want to be
named.
The party is keen on
exploring the possibility of
forming a government in the
current Assembly unless the
Supreme Court hearing on
November 11 on a plea by the
AAP for its dissolution
forces an election, a BJP
functionary said.
The BJP would ideally like
to wait for the results of the
by-elections in three
Assembly constituencies.
Polling will take place on
November 25, but the
results will be announced
only on December 23.
The assessment of the
Rashtriya Swayamsewak
Sangh and the BJP is that
the AAP is on a strong wicket
in Delhi as Muslims, Sikhs
and the poorest sections of
society are united behind
Arvind Kejriwals party.
The continuing downslide
of the Congress has left
these social groups with no
option, which throws up the
prospect of a direct contest

Ajit Pawar, Rane figure

in the list of squatters

Rajnath seeks
change in
education system

MUMBAI: Only 19 out of 41 Ministers in the erstwhile CongressNCP government in

Maharashtra have vacated
their official bungalows so far.
NCP stalwart Ajit Pawar and
senior Congress leader Narayan Rane are the prominent
names in the list of squatters,
an RTI query has revealed.
As per the information received by activist Anil Galgali
from the State government,
Mr. Pawars colleagues, Chhagan Bhujbal, Jayant Patil,
Harshvardhan Patil and Patangrao Kadam, are also among
the 22 Ministers who are yet to
vacate their official residence.
However, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan vacated
Varsha, his official residence,
on Friday evening.
A Minister has to vacate his
official residence within 15
days of losing the post. For a

Sandeep Joshi

first extension of three

months, a rent of Rs. 25 per sq
ft is charged and Rs. 50 per sq ft
for another three months as
per rules, Mr. Galgali said.
Among Ministers who are
yet to vacate their bungalows
include Uday Samant, Sanjay
Savkare, Sanjay Deotale and
Vijaykumar Gavit, who had
fought the recent Assembly
polls on Shiv SenaBJP
tickets.
When contacted, exCongress minister of State, D P
Sawant told PTI that he has
sought an extension of one
month to vacate the official
premises as he could not vacate
it due to certain difficulties.
Meanwhile, former Minority Affairs Minister Naseem
Khan, whose name also figures
in the list of squatters, said he
was in the process of shifting.
PTI

Trilokpuri: NCM expresses concern over police bias

Anumeha Yadav
NEW DELHI: Members of the

National Commission for Minorities (NCM) who visited

Trilokpuri in East Delhi, following the recent communal
tensions in the area, have expressed apprehensions over
complaints of police bias.
NCM members have been
receiving complaints that a
disproportionate number of
Muslim youth have been arrested from the area after the
violence between October 24
and 27, even as the police refuse to register FIRs on behalf of individuals whose

shops have been damaged or

burned down.
We visited the area last
week. Many said they were
not even allowed to meet
their family members who

were arrested. We have communicated the residents

grievances to the Delhi Police. We have also sought
meetings with LieutenantGovernor Najeeb Jung, said

Farida Khan, member, NCM.

Following an application
by advocates Vrinda Grover
and Aslam Ahmed, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had, on

Makeshift temple removed; security continues

The Delhi Police said the
locals agreed to remove the
NEW DELHI: The makeshift
structure after they organised
temple or Mata ki Chowki in a jagran there on Friday,
Trilokpuri, where the trouble followed by a feast on
first started, was removed on Saturday morning. The
Saturday.
structure was removed after a
Kritika Sharma

between the AAP and the

BJP. Unlike in Haryana and
Maharashtra, where the BJP
was the default choice of
anti-Congress voters, the
party has a formidable
contender in the AAP in
Delhi.
The BJP, however, is
conscious that engineering a
minority government and
sustaining it would not be
easy and there is a section
within the party that
believes that election is a
better way out.
The AAPs plea for
dissolution has brought an
unprecedented question
before the apex court. In
2006, a Supreme Court
Constitution Bench
judgment that declared the
dissolution of the Bihar
Assembly in 2005
unconstitutional made two
points clear that the
Governor must accept
political realignments that
allow government formation
when there is no clear
majority and that the
Governors actions must not
favour any particular party.
The judgment was not
clear whether the Governor
could make that exploration
an endless process. The
question is whether by
delaying a decision on
government formation, Lt.
Governor Najeeb Jung is in
violation of the second
assertion in the apex court
judgment.

four-hour jagran a night

prayer on Friday night.
Over 1,000 riot police and
almost 30 police vans were
deployed in the 36 blocks of
Trilokpuri for the function,
said a police officer.

October 30, issued a notice to

the Delhi Police Commissioner for a detailed report within
two weeks.
At the Mayur Vihar police
station, records show that between October 24 and 27, the
police arrested 48 persons
37 Muslims and 11 Hindus.
The police and the Rapid Action Force abused us, hit us
with sticks and rifles, and
broke our doors. They took
anyone they could find, and
are not allowing anyone to
meet the boys they have arrested, said Mehrunissa Bi, a
resident of Sanjay Camp,
Block 27, Trilokpuri.

LUCKNOW: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday

called for overhauling of the Indian education system and
stressed that a value-based system that focuses on character
building of students was need
of the hour.
Lamenting that India has
been a victim of education
system introduced by British
historian Thomas Babington
Macaulay, he said:We are tied
in a set pattern and there is
need to come out of it. This is
wrong to think that all knowledge is with the western countries. They learnt from us, but
after the entry of Britishers a
mentality developed that all
the knowledge was with the
western countries.
The Minister, who was
speaking at a function in a private management institute,
asked why not a single Indian
institute figured among top
global universities for technical
institutes despite that the fact
that India followed a system introduced
by
Britishers.
Knowledge of other languages
is necessary; but where conversing in mother tongue
works, why should one speak in
EnglishTherefore, our Prime
Minister has decided that we
will converse in Hindi to the
possible extent. But this does
not mean opposing any other
language Mr. Singh also said
students should think in a free
manner in whichever language
they feel good and should focus
on character-building and following Indian values. We
should follow our ancestors in
never letting go of the genuineness and reality of our culture.

For Pakistani migrants, saga of unfulfilled promises

Most of them on
long-term visas,
seek citizenship
Aarti Dhar
JODHPUR: Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement of the merger of Person
of Indian Origin (PIO) and
Overseas Citizen of Indian
(OCI) cards to relax visa
rules may have brought
cheer to Indian Americans,
but it has been a disappointment to thousands of migrants from Pakistan living
here.
A large number of such migrants have been coming to
India in large numbers, particularly since 1991, and they
have been demanding citizenship, which, at present, is
difficult to get. Most are on
long-term visas, which do
not entitle them to basic government facilities such as
bank, health and education
facilities. A substantial number come on pilgrimage visa.

task force by the Home Affairs Ministry, we have heard

nothing else, Mr. Sodha told
The Hindu here.
There are seven migrant
camps in Jodhpur which receive an ever-ending flow of
migrants almost every week
by Thar Link Express, the
weekly train between India
and Pakistan. Most of those
who come never return as
minorities have been facing
difficult living conditions in
Pakistan since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in
1991. The situation worsened
with the strengthening of the
Taliban.
However, life is tough for
the migrants here. They primarily belong to the Scheduled
Castes
and
the
Scheduled Tribes and live in
camps on the outskirts of the
city, which lack even basic
A scene at the Alkausar Nagar migrant camp at Jodhpur.
facilities for water supply,
PHOTO: ROHIT JAIN PARAS
education, health and even
The Bharatiya Janata far, says Hindu Singh Sod- Prime Minister Narendra shelter. The camp at AlkauParty, at the time of the As- ha, president of the Seemant Modi who promised to look sar Nagar does not even have
sembly and Lok Sabha elec- Lok Sangathan, an organisa- into their issues during an a toilet, one of the focus artions, promised to look into tion working for the cause of election rally here. We have eas of the Prime Minister;
our issue, but there has been the migrants.
been waiting since then. Ex- neither does it have regular
no movement forward so
It was none other than cept for the setting up of a water supply. We have to

get water from the nearby

Madrasa, our children do not
get admission in government
schools and we cannot afford
private schools, says a fresh
migrant who came to Rajasthan with his family just last
month but did not wish to be
identified for fear of persecution of his family back in
Karachi.
Those who get long-term
visas have to wait for seven
years before they are entitled to apply for Indian citizenship, which is not an easy
task. Many people also return because the living conditions are so bad here, but
the inflow of people still continues. Government agencies often cite security
reasons for grant of citizenship, though most of us were
citizens of undivided India;
they can at least give us refugee status, says Mr. Sodha,
who was a migrant but is
now an Indian citizen. The
migrants are settled in
Barmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner
and now Jodhpur because
the Thar Express arrives
here.
KI-KI

NATIONAL

KOCHI

THE HINDU

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

India forces U.N. to review peacekeeping

New Delhi still upset, says Security Council should have set up panel
Suhasini Haidar
NEW DELHI: Under pressure

Secretary General is not binding, an official source told

The Hindu, calling for a greater role for India and other
contributing nations in the
UN process.
In the past few months, India has taken up the issue of
changing mandates and a
lack of consultation by the Security Council that appoints
the missions. In particular,
India had objected after the
killing of three Indian peacekeepers, or blue helmets, in
South Sudan when rebels attacked their base, while 39
have been killed on peacekeeping duty in the Congo.
At the U.N. General Assembly this year, India had
called for a greater role in the
decision making about peacekeeping operations, especially in areas of internal political
conflict. The government also
raised the issue strongly with
the U.N. Peacekeeping chief

from India over the safety of

United Nations Peacekeeping
forces, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set up a
14-member panel, including
an Indian to review peacekeeping operations worldwide.
The panel, headed by Jose
Ramos-Horta, the former
President of East Timor, will
include Lt. General Abhijit
Guha, a retired Indian Army
officer who now holds a U.N.
post.
In a statement, Mr. Ban
said: Peace missions today
are increasingly called on to
confront politically complex
and challenging conflicts, often in volatile security environments where operations
are directly targeted.
While there was no official
reaction to the announce-

ment, Indian officials said

they were disappointed since
the panel had not been set up
by the Security Council. We
have been calling for a review

Rajani Sankaran
takes over as
BHAVINI chief

Dont facilitate surrender of

our cadre, Maoists tell scribes

With 8,132 soldiers on U.N. missions, India is the

third largest contributor of peacekeeping forces.
FILE PHOTO

of the way the peacekeeping

operations are being mandated, for that it should be under
the Security Council, as a
panel appointed by the U.N.

Herve Ladsous when he visited New Delhi in July.

Speaking to The Hindu,
Mr. Ladsous had agreed with
the Indian contention, saying
that, What used to be monitoring, observing missions
are now multi-dimensional.
What has happened is unacceptable with people massacred right next to our blue
helmets.
With 8,132 soldiers on UN
missions, India is the third
largest contributor of peacekeeping forces, after Bangladesh and Pakistan. It has
suffered the highest casualties in UN peacekeeping operations, with an estimated
157 Indian soldiers being
killed since 1950. The move
for a bigger role in deciding
UN peacekeeping mandates
is seen as part of the bigger
push by India for a permanent seat at the Security
Council.

Debt pushes farmer to

suicide in Uttar Pradesh
Mohammad Ali
MEERUT: A farmer in Bijnore
district who committed suicide on Tuesday took the
extreme step after being
unable to withstand the
pressure to repay loans totalling Rs. 1.80 lakh he owed
a national bank, local farmer co-operatives and money
lenders, police have said.
Ashok Kumar, a resident
of Shahpur Dhamedi village, allegedly hanged himself from a tree in his farm.
S.K. Singh, the Station
House Officer of Shivala
Kalan police station, told
The Hindu on the phone
that preliminary investigation suggested that Mr. Kumar was under pressure
from the money lenders to
pay back the loan and had
received several notices.
According to unofficial
estimates, Kumars would

be eighth case of a farmer

ending life in Western U.P.
Family members said
Kumar, who owned six
bighas of farmland, had taken a loan of Rs. 50000 from
a national bank under its
Kisan Credit Card scheme
about seven years back.
But the bank debt increased to Rs. 95000 because he could not pay back
even a single instalment.
He had taken Rs. 45000
from the local farmer cooperative, Rs. 10000 from
the sugarcane farmer cooperative and Rs. 30,000
from local money lenders.
He was last seen by his
family
members
on
Wednesday afternoon. He
told them that he was going
to his farm to fetch grass for
the cattle. But at about 5
p.m., his body was seen
hanging from a tree on his
farm, said the SHO.

Shakti Mills case: death confirmation

hearing to begin on December 5

Vinaya Deshpande
Three women members of
SRC secretary terms
the PLGA were caught and MUMBAI: The Bombay High
RAIPUR: The banned Commutortured before being killed. Court will begin the confirMaoist surrenders in
nist Party of India (Maoist)
Bastar IG S.R.P. Kalluri is mation hearing on the death
Bastar as fake and
has warned journalists workmisleading the media. The sentence awarded to the
engineered
ing in Chhattisgarh against
journalists should not believe three convicts in the Shakti
helping the police in carrying
the police version on surren- Mills gang rape case on Deout surrender of Maoist
ders and encounters. We ap- cember 5. The court has recadres.
them of being police peal our journalist brothers fused to club the death
We appeal to the journal- informers.
to come to the spot and verify penalty confirmation hearing
ist brothers to condemn the
The SRC secretary termed facts before writing, added with the writ petition filed by
fake surrenders and stop en- the spate of Maoist surren- the press statement.
the convicts Vijay Jadhav
couraging those who have de- ders in Bastar in the past few
The Maoists party secreta- (19), Mohammed Salim Ansaceived
the
peoples months as fake and ry also appealed the journal- ri (28) and Kasim Bengali (21)
movement. The journalists engineered.
ists to stop defaming the challenging the constituwho support the surrendered
CPI(Maoist) for red terror. tional validity of Section
376E of the Indian Penal
Maoists will be termed as an- Surrender policy
The new surrender policy Bandh call
Code. The legal provision
ti-people by the party, said
We are not terrorists, but provides for a maximum senGanesh Uike, secretary of the is acting as a tool for corrupt
South Regional Committee police and paramilitary offi- we are patriots and we are tence of death for repeat
(SRC) of the CPI(Maoist), in a cers to loot money. The police fighting for the people. We offenders.
and administration is mis- are standing against many
We are not inclined to
press statement.
leading the media about sur- multinational
companies, club the two petitions, JusCriticised
renders. Common people and preventing
them
from tices V.K. Tahilramani and
The Maoist leader criti- activists working in Bastar snatching land from tribal A.K. Menon said after public
cised senior journalist and are threatened with arrest people. The media should prosecutor Sandeep Shinde
president of Bastar press club and are asked to pose as sur- support us rather than sup- pleaded for it. The court
Karrimuddin for giving fi- rendered Maoists. In many porting the exploiter gov- asked about the main contennancial assistance to a sur- cases, former Maoists, who ernment, said the Maoist tion of the writ petition filed
rendered Maoist cadre a few quit the party many years ago, leader calling for Dandaka- by the accused, after which it
days ago.
are
being
re-arrested, ranya bandh on November 8 declined to club it.
Karrimuddin is a senior claimed Ganesh Uike, whose against the Narendra Modi
The government is likely to
journalist. It does not behove name has figured in almost all governments Brahmnic and mention the writ petition filhim to encourage those (sur- the major incidents of vio- fascist policies.
ed by the accused, before another Division Bench of the
rendered Maoists) who have lence against police in the last
Charges denied
court next week. But irredeceived the peoples move- five to 10 years.
Mr. Karrimuddin has de- spective of when that petition
ment. He should not repeat
Mr. Uike alleged that in the
this, said the Maoist leader. past few months Bastar police nied the allegations and said will be heard, the Bombay
The banned outfit had and paramilitary forces had that he was just giving reward
killed two journalists work- killed many civilians and money to a surrendered
Maoist at a ceremony.
ing Bastar last year accusing branded them as Maoists.
Pavan Dahat

CHENNAI:

Senior
IAAS officer Rajani
Sankaran
on Saturday took
over
as
Chairman
and Managing Director of Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd (BHAVINI).
As I retired yesterday[Friday], our Director [Finance]
Rajani Sankaran has taken
over as Chairman and Managing Director, Bhavini from today. It is a temporary posting
for three months till a new
head for the company is finalised, former BHAVINI CMD
Prabhat Kumar told PTI.
Asked whether she was the
first woman to head a nuclear
establishment, he said, It is
true. Though she is a bureaucrat, I am sure she has the potential to head the company
until a new head is finalised.
A 1989 batch Indian Audit
and Accounts Service (IAAS)
officer, Ms.Sankaran had a
Fellowship in International
Auditing from the General Accountability Office, USA. She
was earlier Accountant General (Commercial and Receipt
Audit), Tamil Nadu, Principal
Director of Audit (South Central Railway) and Southern
Railway. PTI

CM
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(From left) Mohammed Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav

and Kasim Bengali, who have been sentenced to
death by a Sessions court in the Shakti Mills
photojournalist gang-rape case. FILE PHOTO: PTI
High Court will now start
hearing the death confirmation petition from December
5.
The sessions court had, in
April, convicted Jadhav, Ansari and Bengali, along with
an accused named Siraj Khan,
for the rape of a photojournalist on the premises of
Shakti Mills in the city in August last year. While Siraj was
awarded life imprisonment,
the other three accused were
given the death sentence as
they were also convicted for

raping a telephone operator

on the same premises earlier.
The
government
had
pleaded for the death sentence to them as per the
amended provision under
Section 376 (e) of IPC. This is
the first time the section has
been applied.
After being awarded the
death sentence, the three
convicts moved the Bombay
High Court and filed a writ
petition challenging the constitutional validity of the relevant section of the IPC.

Glut in tomato;
consumers,
ryots red-faced
Staff Reporter
PUNE: A bumper tomato crop
has led to a freefall in prices of
the red fruit across Nashik
and Pune districts in Maharashtra, causing panic and despair among farmers.
According to market sources, tomato prices have plummeted sharply from Rs. 35 per
kg to an incredible Rs. 2 a kg
in barely a fortnight. Ironically, the retail price of tomatoes
in most cities in the country
continues to hover around Rs.
35 a kg.
Until recently, I was making Rs. 150-200 per crate of
tomatoes. Now, I get a paltry
Rs. 40 per crate which roughly holds 20 kg of tomatoes,
said Nana Shitole, a farmer in
Nashiks Chandwad Taluk,
speaking to The Hindu.
For 60-year-old Appa Deokar in Dindori taluk, the tomato crop has been the bane
of his life this year. In July, a
plant disease wrecked my tomato crop, almost halving my
output. And now, a bumper
harvest is forcing me to throw
away the excess.
Heavy and prolonged rain
this monsoon have led to a 20
per cent increase in the tomato cultivation area across
Maharashtra. This has translated into excess supply but
low demand, said Shiram
Gadhave, president, Vegetable Growers Association of
India (VGAI).
Farmers are getting a pittance at Rs. 3-4 a kg, while
their production costs are
anywhere between Rs. 7-10 a
kg, said Mr. Gadhave, remarking that as tomato was a perishable commodity, farmers
had no choice but to make do
with whatever price that was
on offer.

Reopen 1984
riots cases:
Amnesty
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI: Amnesty International has demanded that the
Union government reopen
investigations into the 1984
anti-Sikh riot cases.
The organisation launched
an online campaign for which
it claims to have received
91,273 endorsements. The
campaign is aiming at collecting 1.5 lakh endorsements.

KI-KI

KOCHI

10

THE HINDU

CM
YK

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

KI-KI

KOCHI

THE HINDU

11

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

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of a submission. If a submission is not published within eight weeks, consider it to be out of the reckoning in most cases owing to dearth of space.
The publication of an article is not to be seen as The Hindu endorsing the viewpoint in any way.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Surya Lakshmi C.

ll women love their hair,

whatever its style and
state. Right from childhood,
I was keen to have long,
thick and lustrous black
hair. My cousin had it up to
her knee, and I just loved it.
One of my favourite deities,
Sita, is said to have had that
kind of hair, which she decorated with a golden plait and
plait-bells. One could see in
pictures the long golden
plait on the day following
Ramanavami, the day Ram
and Sita were wed.
I did not aspire for the
golden stuff, but definitely
longed for long and thick
black hair. During childhood
I attended a dance recital.
Its heroine, Satyabhama,
would typically spin around
her plait by holding it in the
middle, and over her right
shoulder, as she sang. I was
impressed. I would do whatever it took to have my black
hair thick, long and lustrous.
I agreed to get my hair
tonsured twice in the hope
of that happening. I learnt
that my neighbour had applied shoe-flower-infused
coconut oil for thick, lustrous and long hair; so I followed suit. I would rub red
shoe-flower petals on to my
scalp for thickness and wash
my hair with bitter soap nut
to ensure its health. I would
feel proud every summer
when my mother made a
flower-plait with jasmines, a
plait which grew thicker and
longer by the year. I did not
have the thickest and long-

est hair in school, but it was

good enough. By the time I
left school, it would hit the
person sitting by my side
when I swung my plait back.
In college, I learnt of the
Prabandha Kanya, whose
plait typically resembled a
shiny black cobra. I admired
the models hair in a hair tonic advertisement. To make
my hair smell good, I washed
it with shampoo. A pest infested all shoe-flowers in my
garden, so I tried different
hair oils, whatever was suggested by anybody. I now did
not face the threat of tonsure
as the family considered it inauspicious for a young girl. I
lengthened my hair with
fancy, long plait-bells, whenever I wanted to see it cross
my knees.
Now I was into a job, I had
no time for my hair, which
became weak, lacklustre and
full of split-ends and dandruff. It demonstrated my
carelessness. Yet, I was too
fond of it to have cropped it. I

hoped Id be able to nurture it

to its glorious days, someday.
That day arrived when I
happened to meet a Keralite
colleagues wife. Do we have
Prabandha Kanyas and Satyabhamas even in these
days, I wondered. She would
not have required false hair,
as I did, when she got married. Her lovely hair added to
the four long rows of jasmines she was sporting. I
promptly asked her about
the secret of her hair. She revealed it as Ayurveda, and explained the process.
Thanks to my colleagues
wife, my hair regained its lost
glory after many decades. My
genes ensured the black hue
of my hair. I was at peace with
myself until one afternoon,
when I read a news item on
the trauma faced by chemotherapy-administered cancer patients because of loss of
their hair and the noble gesture of teenage college girls. I
was upset. I brought my plait
over my right shoulder and
examined it. My thick, long
and lustrous black hair did
not give me happiness this
time.
Then I was inspired by the
noble souls of Womens
Christian College, Chennai,
who, on World Cancer Day
2014, gave up their hair to donate wigs to cancer patients.
Whats the use of going ga-ga
over it, if it cant even emulate a teenager in making a
traumatised cancer patient
smile, I asked myself, and
headed for the salon, before I
could have second thoughts.
dr_csl@yahoo.co.in

P.J. Sanjeeva Raj

he proliferation of
rock pigeons (Columba livia) on highrise buildings all over
the world seems to coincide
strangely with the disappearance of house sparrows. Both
are synanthropic birds that
crave to be around human
dwellings, the sparrows indoors and the pigeons outdoors. But the patterns of
human habitats and lifestyles
seem to influence urban wildlife profoundly.
There are three types of rock
pigeons: the ancestral rock pigeon in the wild, the domesticated ones, and the feral ones.
They can interbreed; they are
all but one species. Doves are
different from pigeons. The
wild rock pigeons live on rocky
mountain cliffs and the seashore. They are said to have
originated 5,000 to 10,000
years ago in the eastern Mediterranean region.
The Sumerians of Mesopotamia (what is southern Iraq today) seem to have started
domesticating them from
about 3000 B.C., breeding an
amazingly wide diversity of
fancy breeds. The Mughal emperors (who ruled from 1526 to
1858), particularly Akbar, fancied them. Akbars keepers
reared for him about 20,000 pigeons. Of these, they used to
carry along about 500 fantails,
his favourites, on his camps.
Charles Darwin had a dovecote (pigeon house) in the garden of his country estate at
Down House in Kent during
1850-1856. This was no hobby.
He conducted breeding experiments to produce bewildering
varieties (breeds) to study artificial selection and natural se-

Why you ought to pause before you leap

N. Parameshwaran

he petroleum outlet was

on the left of the signal
lights at the junction of JLB
Road and KRS Road. I was
there filling up my twowheeler. I paid for the fuel,
shut the petrol tank and
looked up to see that the
green light was still on and
that there were five seconds
left. I darted off, entered the
junction and turned right to
the road where there were the
flower-sellers. I wanted to
buy flowers for Deepavali,
you see. Just then, a big black
car, which also wanted to
cross before the red light
came on, came speeding
down the road with the horn
blaring and entered the junction on my right almost parallel to me. Fortunately for me,
the car driver braked and
swerved to the left, letting me
go. Of course he cursed loudly. I crossed the junction and
reached the line of flowersellers all in one piece. One of
them admonished me for my
rashness.
I was shaken. I could hardly
believe I had done what I had
done. I was not a rash driver.
At my age I could not afford to
be. On my two-wheeler my
speed was always well below
40 kmph. I dont usually lose
my cool in city traffic and always go by the rules. So I was
aghast at the way circumstances the sight of the line
of flower-sellers on the right
side of the junction, the green
light beckoning, the sudden
onrush of blood and consequent loss of caution and
judgment contrived to

force me to commit the folly

which could have proved
fatal.
I got the flowers and rode
homeward, my mind musing
on what would have been had
things gone wrong.
I recalled with trepidation
the big car. It was a big black
monster at top speed and, had
it hit me, it would have flung
me several metres. There was
no telling what would have
happened to me. Perhaps it
would have been curtains for
me. I would have passed into
history. A bubble would have
been burst. This poor player
who had strutted and fretted
his hour upon the stage would
have been heard no more.
This tale told by an idiot full
of sound and fury signifying
nothing would have ended
abruptly.
Or, if I had survived, I
would have broken one or two
bones and been bed-ridden
for a few months with all the
attendant inconveniences, an

ordeal dreaded by every ageing individual.

The unpredictability, the
uncertainty and the fragility
of life hit me as never before. I
was baffled that a senior man
like me should have rushed
like mad into the danger zone,
undone by nothing more than
the play of the signal lights.
These were deeply sobering thoughts, and I heaved a
big, big sigh of relief that I had
escaped all that. I was grateful
I was alive and well, that I
could view my favourite serial
that evening, that I could go
to the badminton court tomorrow, that I could continue reading that interesting
book, and that I could now
wear that new shirt for Deepavali and celebrate the festival with dear ones.
The sun shone, the birds
flew
overhead,
vehicles
blared their horns, and life
flowed on uninterrupted.
Nothing seemed to have
changed outwardly. But there

were changes inside me.

Suddenly I understood the
truth of the philosophy that
we should live our life every
day as if it were the last day
for there is no certainty that
we will be alive tomorrow.
How true! How very true!
This realisation led me to
other things as well. I could
feel my worries and grievances shrinking. I actually smiled
at some of my grouses: the
neighbour who often parked
his car right in front of my
gate, the young couple next
door who had their supper as
late as 11 p.m. and went on
talking and arguing late into
the night, another neighbours dog that barked all
night, and so on. Even the major worries, the slings and arrows of an outrageous
fortune, began to look more
imaginary than real. Well, I
could be said to be putting
things
in
the
proper
perspective.
parameshwaran_n@yahoo.co.in

GIVE THOSE

pigeons some space

The house sparrows are all but gone,
lets make sure these birds remain
lection in survival and
evolution. Some of the domesticated ones might have escaped as runaways back into the
wild, as ferals in search of cliffs.
But they seem to be returning
to our cities, which are providing them concrete cliffs on
high-rises.
Air-conditioned apartments
in these cliffs, with closed
doors and windows, windows
with broad ledge-like bases

outside, window sills above to

ward off rain and shine, provide
excellent niches for these feral
pigeons for courting, roosting,
and even nesting and breeding.
Unfortunately, changed urban
architectural designs and lifestyles have deprived our conservative sparrows of their
humble habitats of tiled
houses, driving them away far
from cities. Flocks of these feral pigeons comb every bit of

Nirmala Varma

sheet of paper and pen, I logged

into GMail, and with the rule of
elimination tried several combinations. That worked, to my
utter delight and surprise, and
the page magically opened. I
quickly reset the password and
noted the recovery e-mail id,
the secure question and all.
With a sense of relief, I scribbled the new password in the
Every now and then
form of various cryptic clues all
around the house the telepeople are creating
phone diary, calendar and the
passwords which
notepad. Finally, with a very
strong feeling of security and
demand patience,
satisfaction, I signed out.
ingenuity and
Every now and then people
are creating passwords which
a bit of jugglery
demand patience, ingenuity
and a bit of jugglery. We are
cautioned not to use nicknames, birthday or anniversary
dates and school or college
names, in short not to create
anything that might be very familiar or too easy to remember.
The trick, therefore, lies in
living out your fantasies, digging deep into mysterious references, a reference known
age, try again, stared at me.
only to you. And so, with a
So for the next three to four sense of achievement, a passdays it was me and Google, try- word is created. A page solely
ing different combinations. for passwords is also created,
What little I remembered of going by the number of them
my password proved futile. My an individual has. Scrolling to
heart went out to my unopened the bottom line, since a passinbox.
word is that one vital link to
Panicking, I contacted a few connect to the virtual world, its
of my students who I knew had role cannot be undermined or
an edge over me as far as tech- overlooked.
nology was concerned. SwalYet, one can only wonder if
lowing my pride, I had to there could be passwords to
confess before them my inabil- unlock the human emotions to
ity to log in. They patiently enter a persons mind and deheard me out and tried to help lete any anger, hatred lurking
there, or a universal password
me but to no avail.
Tearfully, I had to come to whereby we can reach out to
terms with opening a new ac- people across the globe irrecount. Sighing over the loss of spective of gender, caste, creed
memorable links, mails and or nation. It may not be posphotographs, I decided to give sible, but who can tell?
nimyvarma@gmail.com
it one last try. Armed with a

hat is supposed to be intrinsically strong, have

different characters, be casesensitive, kept as a secret and
can only have a single owner?
Not many guesses for that
its a password.
Remember Enid Blytons
The Secret Seven and their
password, meetings and investigation of mysteries. Well,
passwords are not pass any
more. They are not just for
children to have a thrill and a
bit of excitement either. In the
cyber world its the key to unlocking sites and unravelling
new worlds. It helps operate
your bank account, buy movie
tickets, shop from home, plan
your travel, and much more....
My own tryst with passwords began the day I opened a
GMail account. Im not techsavvy, and I have my limitations when it comes to using
the personal computer. My
profession demanded that I acquire certain computing skills,
whereas in my personal life I
have to occasionally log in to
glean some information or
view popular videos, and so on.
I was soon at ease managing
my e-mail, and the password
was also taken care of. But I
was blissfully unaware of privacy settings. My complacency
crashed when, after a hiatus of
five weeks I tried to log into my
account. The message, your
password is incorrect, did not
perturb me the least, even
though it flashed even after
three unsuccessful attempts.
With apprehension and also
a cocky sense of confidence I
went to the password assistance page, where a series of
questions with multiplechoice answers were settled.
Yet at the last page, the mess-

Odour, Odour: what artificial

air-fresheners could be doing
Tiny Nair

inda B. Buck and Richard

Axel were awarded the
Nobel Prize in Medicine and
Physiology in 2004 for their
research into understanding
the science behind the perception of the sense of smell.
Their work led to the subsequent discovery of more
than 1,000 different genes
responsible for appreciating
different types of odour,
though some of these remain
dormant in many people.
My wife strongly believes
that in my case 999 of them
dont work, except for the
one responsible for the smell
of coffee.
Such statements make me
philosophical. Does she understand that the perception
of smell of a stray dog is 10
million times more astute
than that of the most intelliCM
YK

gent human on earth?

Despite the fact that I cannot differentiate burnt toast
from incense sticks at 10
feet, I am pretty sure there is
a change in the perception of
smell, from the consumers
perspective. Today, enter
any room and chances are
that you would smell lavender, vanilla, rose or some exotic wild flower, depending
on the owners taste and
budget. From the stinking
toilets and dark closets, the
technology of good smell has
travelled out to boardrooms
and car interiors. The naphthalene-balls of yesteryear
have given way to sophisticated air-fresheners.
Air-fresheners come in
different shapes and sizes,
from solid cakes to liquid
dispensers, from aerosol
cans to battery-powered
canisters; the business of

good smell has invaded every

nook and corner of our life.
With an estimated $8 billion
annual worldwide sales, the
air freshener market is growing every year.
The underlying technology
is simply brilliant. An air
freshener is not just a perfume. The fragrance needs to
remain suspended in the air
so that the stale smell is kept
away long enough. To do that,
scientists had to piggyback
the fragrance on top a molecule, one that is easy to aerosolise and at the same time
remain suspended for a long
period without getting precipitated or blown away.
Phthalates (pronounced
tha-lates) were first introduced as an additive to plastics to make it more plastic,
replacing the pungent camphor, which was used till
1920. Phthalates quickly be-

OPEN PAGE

came popular. Their use increased

from
plastic
wrappers to toys, from packaging materials to cosmetics,
and they became an integral
part of human society.
Human exposure to phthalates is so ubiquitous that it
took years of research to confirm that they are toxic to us,
but when they did, the data
were disturbing. Phthalates
tend to suppress androgenic

hormones, alter growth and

development and cause neuro-endocrine disturbance; we
call them gender-benders.
Growing kids happen to be
the most susceptible group.
Over the years the data became stronger and in 2008,
under pressure from the Environmental Working Group
(EWG), the U.S. Congress
banned six different phthalates from childrens toys and

grain and seed off the ground,

as if in a feeding competition.
They leave none for sparrows.
Right now, feral pigeons on
apartments, heritage buildings
and architectural showpieces
are detested as pests or vermin.
In some advanced countries
they are contemptuously referred to as rats with wings.
Their droppings cause defacement and stench, and many
consider their constant cooing,

Passwords
galore to
manage

cosmetics.
The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) last
year randomly tested 14 commonly available brands of airfresheners in the U.S. market.
Twelve of them contained
high levels of phthalates. Surprisingly, none of them listed
phthalates as a constituent of
their product. This subsequent uproar resulted in the
withdrawal of these brands
from the U.S. market.
But that is just the tip of the
iceberg. One way to keep the
fragrance float in air is to add
small amounts of terpene,
acetone, toluene and dicholoro-benzene. They reliably do
their job, keeping your olfactory nerves happy but they
do something more.
Terpenes react to ozone
and create pungent formaldehyde, which notoriously
causes broncho-spasm (ask
any medical student going to
the anatomy dissection hall),
acetone is toxic to blood and
heart (read the warning on
the nail polish remover container) while toluene targets
the central nervous system.

1-4 dichloro-benzene is
known to cause bronchial
asthma and decreased lung
function. The very fact that
these molecules remain suspended for long after you
press that nozzle makes the
toxicity more profound for
the poor consumer.
From the office to the car,
from home to restaurant,
waiting halls to rest rooms,
the fragrance, tagged by the
phthalates and company, follow you wherever you go, in
effect forcing you to inhale
the chemicals for far longer
than you can imagine or your
kids can tolerate.
If you are one of those who
are finicky about bad odour,
here is a piece of advice before you press that nozzle.
There is an economically viable and technologically simple solution available to get
rid of the problem of bad
smell. Open the window and
let the fresh air and sunshine
in.
I have tried it; it works very
well for me even with that
single functioning gene.
tinynair@gmail.com

moaning and flapping of wings

a nuisance. Feeding pigeons in
the open is forbidden by law in
some countries.
Changes in architectural features on the exterior of highrise buildings that often do not
leave any flat ridges, and also
running cables over possible
perching sites keep feral pigeons away. Community dovecotes may be constructed in
protected public places such as
parks and playfields. Feral pigeons, unlike sparrows, are
largely unaffected by pesticides, because they feed their
squabs (young ones) with pigeon milk or crop milk, not
pesticide-contaminated
insects as sparrows give their
nestlings. Unlike long-distance
homing pigeons or passenger
pigeons, feral pigeons do not
seem to be affected by electromagnetic radiation from cellphone towers.
Rock pigeons have incredible
cognitive capacity. This, coupled with their amazing navigational skills, enable them
during aerial sorties to scout
for suitable cliff-like structures
in cities. Pigeons can fly at
speeds of 75 to 100 km an hour
for distances of 800 to 1,000
km at a stretch. They are
known to recognise the residents of their block by their facial features, voices and calls.
They can recognise them by
their photographs! That was
how carrier pigeons delivered
messages to soldiers on the
warfront during World Wars.
If the pigeons too, like house
sparrows earlier, are chased
away from our habitats back into the wild, the next invaders
on to our habitats in India may
be the common crow or the
squirrel. The choice is ours.
rajsanjeeva@gmail.com

Of station
and status
J.A.R. Moorty

t took a beggar to convince me that status

consciousness is not confined to the high and the
mighty. I was sipping tea at
a roadside stall in Delhi
when the stall-owner
called out to a mendicant
standing at some distance,
Why arent you coming
here nowadays? The response: Baoji, Ive been
going elsewhere. You see, if
I were to beg in the same
place every day, what izzat
will I have!
Consider this, from a
slightly higher plane. In
1974, when I was still in
college, I had the privilege
of being allowed to stroll in
Rashtrapathi
Bhavans
Mughal Gardens. I walked
up to a mali painstakingly
priming some plants and
asked, Under how many
Presidents
have
you
worked? He drew himself
to his full height and informed me: Look here,
Ive worked with four presidents. Obviously, he considered the First Citizens
his colleagues. This was a
lesson in dignity of labour
and pride in ones work.
In the bureaucracy, obsession with ones status
can reach dizzy heights, as
reflected in matters like
seating arrangements in
meetings, the fleet of staff
cars and the number of office boys at ones disposal.
Experience tells me that
the persons most conscious of their status are
those newly elevated as officers. One can discern a
change in the way of dressing (neckties even in sweltering heat), gait and, yes,
in their new-found love for
English.
Unfortunately, it can
lead to hilarious situations.
A youngster hosted a party
in the office to celebrate his
marriage. His newly promoted Section Officer felt
this was the right occasion
to say something wise. He
said: Mr. Gupta, we look
forward to many such
treats from you in the future. The youngster responded with gusto: Sir,
how many times should I
get married?
That Section Officer decided to say something
good about a subordinate,
but ended up with: Sir, he
works hardly and even
sleeps in the office. Evidently, what he wanted to
convey was that the person
was a dedicated worker
who would stay on overnight in office when there
were deadlines to be met.
jarmoorty@gmail.com
KI-TRKM

12

INTERNATIONAL

KOCHI

THE HINDU

Kidnapped girls converted, married: Boko

No more than 38
dead or missing,
says Sri Lanka Outfit chief Abubakar Shekau releases video dashing hopes of prisoner exchange

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Egypt: 8 arrested over gay wedding

KOSLANDA: Sri Lanka on Sat-

urday reduced to 38 the number of dead and missing from

a mudslide at a tea plantation
after giving an initial toll of
over 300.
Police spokesman Ajith
Rohana said interviews with
survivors and officials found
the number of victims was far
below early estimates by disaster
management
authorities.
There had been a lot of
confusion about the casualties, but we arrived at our gures after a thorough and a
proper investigation, Mr.
Rohana told AFP. We have
all the names of the 38 people
who are dead or missing.
Five bodies have been recovered, Mr. Rohana said, as relief workers kept up the
search for more victims of
Wednesdays disaster.
Authorities initially estimated the number of presumed dead at 300 and then
reduced the toll to 100 three
days ago.
Police said they had discovered many of the people
thought to be dead or missing
were at work or school when
their homes were swallowed
by mud at the Meeriyabedda
tea estate, 200 kilometres
(125 miles) east of the capital
Colombo. The number of
houses destroyed has also
been lowered to 66 from an
earlier gure of 150. AFP

MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA: Abubakar

Shekau, leader of Nigerias Islamic extremist group Boko
Haram, on Saturday said he
had not agreed to any ceasere with the government and
said more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls had been
converted to Islam and married off.
In a new video released late
on Friday, Abubakar Shekau
dashed hopes for a prisoner
exchange to get the girls
released.
The issue of the girls is
long forgotten because I have
long ago married them off,
he said, laughing.
In this war, there is no going back, he said in the video
received by AP in the same
way as previous messages.
Nigerias chief of defence
staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex
Badeh, announced on October 17 that Boko Haram had
agreed to an immediate ceasere to end a 5-year-old insurgency that has killed
thousands of people and driven hundreds of thousands
from their homes in northeast Nigeria.
However, attacks and abductions have continued this
week with the extremists
seizing Mubi, a town of more
than 200,000 people. Fighting also continued on Friday
in Vimtin.
Shekau announced in Au-

gust that Boko Haram wanted to establish an Islamic

caliphate along the lines of
the Islamic State (IS). Fleeing
residents have reported that
hundreds of people are being
detained for infractions of
the extremists version of
strict Shariah law in several
towns and villages under
their control.
Boko Harams kidnapping
of 276 schoolgirls taking exams at a boarding school in
the remote northeastern
town of Chibok in April
prompted an international
campaign for their release
and criticism of Nigerias
government for not taking
quick action to free them.
Dozens of the girls escaped

indicated that the girls have

been broken up into several
groups and that some may
have been carried across borders into Cameroon and
Chad.
The government had said it
had negotiated with two Boko Haram leaders in Chad,
with talks hosted by President Idriss Deby, and that it
was condent the girls would
be freed soon. But Boko Haram has many factions.

Boko Haram chief

Abubakar Shekau. FILE

Bad news for Goodluck

Shekaus announcement
further discredits the governon their own in the rst cou- ment of President Goodluck
ple of days, but 219 remain Jonathan, who on Thursday
formally announced his canmissing.
Unconrmed reports have didacy for elections in 2015,

PHOTO: AP/VIDEO GRAB

in Africas most populous nation. Nigeria, with some 160

million people, is divided almost equally between Muslims who dominate the north
and Christians in the south.
The West African nation is
the biggest oil producer on
the continent and boasts its
biggest economy.
Mr. Jonathans failure to
curtail the insurgency and
many corruption scandals
are not, however, expected to
dim his chances of electoral
success. Still, the upcoming
election is expected to be the
most hotly contested since
his Peoples Democratic Party took power after decades
of military dictatorship ended in 1994. AP

Girls families shocked, but not surprised at Abubakars claims

KANO, NIGERIA: Families of the in which he also said that all we never took the ceasere

219 schoolgirls held for more

than six months by Boko
Haram militants on
Saturday said they were
shocked but not surprised at
fresh claims that the
teenagers had been married
off.
Boko Haram leader
Abubakar Shekau made the
claim in a new video
obtained by AFP on Friday,

the girls had converted to

Islam and rejected claims of
a ceasere and peace talks.
The head of the Chibok
Elders Forum in the
northeast Nigerian town,
Pogo Bitrus, told AFP: It is
shocking to us, although we
know that Boko Haram is
not a reliable group. We
were sceptical about the
talks to release our girls and

seriously because since the

announcement, they have
never stopped attacking
communities, said Mr.
Bitrus, whose four nieces
are among the hostages.
We are only hoping the
government will step up
whatever efforts it is
making to quell the
insurgency.
Shekau indicated in

earlier video messages that

the girls would be sold as
slave brides and that some,
but not all, had converted to
Islam.
His latest claim that they
were now all Muslims and
had been married off
chimes with testimony from
former hostages that forced
conversion and marriage are
commonplace in Boko
Haram camps. AFP

100 IS fighters killed in last 3 days

Branson keeps stiff upper lip
after Virgin spaceship crashes
Intense fighting broke
SURUC, TURKEY: Fighting raged

ABORTED DRY RUN: The three-image combo photo shows the Virgin Galactic
SpaceShipTwo separating from the carrier aircraft before exploding in the air
during a test flight on Friday. PHOTO: AP
LOS ANGELES: Undaunted by
Fridays crash of the Virgin
Galactic tourister spacecraft,
Virgin chief Richard Branson
on Saturday vowed to push
forward toward the dream of
commercial space ight.
SpaceShipTwo crashed on
a test ight in California, killing one of two pilots and scattering debris across the
desert and raising questions
about the programmes
future.
Weve always known that
the road to space is extremely
difficult, and that every new
transportation system has to
deal with bad days early in
their history, said Mr.
Branson
Space is hard, but worth it.
We will persevere and move
forward together, he added
in a statement.
Television images showed
the wreckage of SpaceShipTwo, a test vehicle that ies to
the edge of space, amid brush
east of Mojave, a few hours
drive northeast of Los

Angeles.
The incident is the second
disaster involving a U.S.
spacecraft this week, after an
unmanned Orbital Sciences
rocket carrying supplies to
the International Space Station exploded after launch on
Tuesday.
It is also a huge blow to the
British tycoons long-held
dream of offering the rst passenger space ights, seat reservations aboard which have
already been snapped up by
Leonardo DiCaprio and other
celebrities.
The Virgin chief is due in
Mojave, where the California
Highway Patrol conrmed
that one pilot had died and another was seriously injured
and taken to hospital.
The spaceship had been
carried aloft on a bigger aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo and then released
for a test of its rocket engine
above the Mojave desert, the
latest in a series of tests.
Stuart Witt, head of the Mo-

jave Air and Space Port, said

WhiteKnightTwo took off at
9.20 a.m. (local time), and released SpaceShipTwo at an altitude of 45,000 feet at 10.10
a.m., after 50 minutes of ight.
Two minutes later, Mr.
Witt said, it became clear as he
watched from the space port
that something had gone
wrong, even though there was
nothing obvious visually from
the ground. If there was a
huge explosion, I didnt see
it, he said. From my eyes
and my ears, I detected nothing that appeared abnormal.
More than 500 people have
already reserved seats and
paid a deposit on the
$250,000 ticket price for a
minutes-long
suborbital
ight on SpaceShipTwo,
which
can
carry
six
passengers.
The SpaceShipTwos rst
commercial ight has been repeatedly delayed, but was tentatively forecast for the rst
half of 2015, before Fridays
crash. AFP

in the Syrian border town of

Kobane on Saturday after jihadists launched a new assault on Kurdish militia
bolstered by the arrival of
heavily armed Iraqi peshmerga forces.
The roughly 150 Iraqi ghters, many of them chanting
Kobane, received a heros
welcome as they crossed the
border from Turkey late on
Friday to join fellow Kurds.
Fierce clashes in and
around Kobane have killed
about 100 IS ghters in the
past three days, the Syrian
Observatory for Human
Rights reported.
Fifteen Kurdish defenders
also lost their lives on Friday,
according to the Britain-

law.
The United States, along
with European and Arab alout late on Friday
lies, has conducted daily air
between Kurdish
raids against the group.
forces, IS in Kobane:
Intense ghting erupted
Syrian Observatory
late Friday in the town and
continued during the night as
Kurdish ghters fended off a
based monitoring group, new IS attack in the north of
which relies on a wide net- the city, the Observatory
work of sources inside Syria. said.
It said in total 958 people
had been killed since IS Ergogan hits out
Turkish President Recep
launched an assault on Kobane in mid-September Tayyip Erdogan took aim at
576 IS jihadists, 361 Kurdish Western leaders for focusing
too much on the battle for
ghters and 21 civilians.
IS has seized large parts of Kobane: Why are coalition
Syria and neighbouring Iraq forces continually bombing
for a self-proclaimed caliph- Kobane, a border town where
ate, imposing its harsh in- none are left but 2,000 peoterpretation of Islamic sharia ple ghting? AFP

CAIRO: An Egyptian court jailed

eight men for three years on
Saturday over a video
prosecutors claimed was of a
gay wedding, which went viral
on the Internet.
Homosexuality is not
specifically banned under
Egyptian law, so the men,
arrested in September, were
convicted for broadcasting
images that violated public

decency. The court also

sentenced the eight to three
years of probation once they
have served their terms.
The video, filmed aboard a
Nile riverboat, shows what
prosecutors said was a gay
wedding ceremony, with two
men in the centre kissing,
exchanging rings and cutting a
cake with their picture on it.
In the past, Egyptian
homosexuals have been jailed
on charges ranging from
scorning religion to sexual
practices contrary to Islam,
the countrys dominant
religion. AFP

Lithuania bans energy drinks to children

VILNIUS: Lithuania on Saturday
enacted a ban on selling energy
drinks to anyone under 18, in
what officials in the Baltic
country claimed was a global
first.
Its a revolutionary
development the world over:
we didnt find a single other
country to have this kind of
ban, health ministry official
Almantas Kranauskas told AFP.
Under the law which
Parliament adopted in May,
selling energy drinks to minors
is now punishable by a fine of
up to 400 litas ($146).
A recent survey showed 10
per cent of school-aged youth
consume energy drinks at least
once a week in this EU Baltic
state of three million people,
Mr. Kranauskas said.
He argued that high levels of

taurine and caffeine found in

some energy drinks could lead
to hyperactivity and addiction,
adding that some scientists
suggest they could also be a
gateway to drugs.
Maxima, the biggest
supermarket chain in the three
Baltic states, said it would
move energy drinks to less
visible locations and use
monitoring and special banners
to implement the ban. AFP
(Picture from AFP shows a
poster stating the ban in a shop
in Vilnius on Saturday.)

Iran defends human rights record

GENEVA: Iran defended its

human rights record on Friday,
striking back at the West for its
criticism about a woman
hanged for murder in an alleged
rape case.
Mohammad Javad Larijani,
secretary-general of Irans
High Council for Human Rights,
was responding to calls from
Western powers, including the
United States, at a U.N. debate
to allow freedoms of
expression and religion, as well
as their concerns at a rise in
executions.
Reyhaneh Jabbari was

hanged at dawn on Saturday in

Tehrans Evin prison for the
murder of a man she said had
tried to rape her. The dead
mans relatives refused to
grant a reprieve within the
10-day deadline set by Sharia
law in force since the 1979
Islamic Revolution.
Though we are very sorry
that two nationals lost lives,
capital punishment or qisas is a
unique particularity of our
system. I think it is of worth for
Western countries to look into
it, Mr. Larijani said. The idea
that there are only good things
in western community the
West and the rest this is a
very destructive idea for
human rights, he told the
Geneva forum holding a regular
review of Irans record.
Reuters
(An activist in Islamabad
remembers Reyhaneh Jabbari
on Friday in an AFP photo.)

Nationwide blackout in Bangladesh Anger in Hong Kong as

DHAKA: A massive nationwide

power blackout hit Bangladesh on Saturday after a

transmission line failed, leaving homes, businesses and
shops in the densely-populated
country
without
electricity.
Power was restored in
some parts of the capital Dhaka after several hours, and authorities said they hoped to
have electricity back on
across the nation of 155 million by Saturday evening.
Local media said the problem stemmed from a technical problem at an electrical
substation that was distributing power from India, but
government officials would
not conrm the reports.
Engineers are working to
x the outage, senior power
ministry official Masud Alberuni told AFP, adding that all
areas linked to the national
electricity grid had been hit.
The national grid tripped
close to mid-day, said Mr.

protesters compared to slaves

PALL OVER MALL: A shopping mall in Dhaka is

enveloped in darkness on Saturday. PHOTO: AP
Alberuni.

Cascading effect
All the power-generating
stations in the country automatically shut down in a cascading effect, he added.
The outage marked the rst
time the whole country has
been without power since
November 2007 when Bangladesh was hit by a devastating cyclone. Many people

in rural chronically energyshort Bangladesh, used to

regular power cuts lasting
many hours, did not know
that the blackout was nationwide. But homes and shops
went without power, and elevators were halted.
The presidential palace,
the prime ministers office,
government offices and television stations were all hit by
the outage. AFP

HONG KONG: A prominent businesswoman has sparked outrage in Hong Kong by

comparing the citys pro-democracy protesters to African-American
slaves,
suggesting they might need to
wait for a while to win the
freedoms they are seeking.
American slaves were liberated in 1861 but did not get
voting rights until 107 years
later, so why cant Hong Kong
wait for a while? Laura Cha,
an HSBC board member, was
quoted as saying by The Standard newspaper on Friday.
An online petition calling
for her to apologise, and for
her fellow HSBC board members to denounce the comments, has gathered nearly
7,000 signatures.
Pro-democracy
demonstrators have held mass street
rallies in Hong Kong for more
than a month, demanding

Businesswoman
Laura Cha tells Hong
Kongers to wait for a
while to attain the
freedom they seek
Beijing grant free leadership
elections to the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
Ms. Cha, who also sits on
Hong Kongs Executive
Council, has said she did not
mean any disrespect with the
comments and regrets that
they have caused concerns.
We nd it extremely distasteful and insensitive to
compare the voting rights of
average, natural-born citizens of Hong Kong to the path
of voting rights of slavery,
wrote Jeffrey Chan, who
started the petition on
Change.org. AFP

Spain imposes Google Tax

Alex Hern

take because of the overwhelming market power of

The Spanish government has
Google.
successfully passed a new
The Google tax isnt the
copyright law which imposes
only component of Spains
fees for online content aglaw, which tightens up existgregators such as Google
ing regulation. Once it comes
News, in an effort to protect claiming that it secured 10 into action at the beginning
its print media industry.
billion views to newspapers of 2014, the country will also
The new intellectual prop- websites every month.
require websites to remove
erty law, known popularly as
The company says that it links to material that inthe Google Tax or by its is disappointed with fringes copyright, even if the
initials LPI, requires servic- Spains new law. We believe websites themselves dont
es which post links and ex- that services like Google make money from the infrincerpts of news articles to pay News help publishers bring gement. It doesnt require
a fee to the organisation rep- traffic to their sites. As far as copyright holders to go
resenting Spanish newspa- the future is concerned, we through a judge before depers, the Association of will continue working with manding links be removed,
Editors of Spanish Dailies the Spanish publishers to while imposing nes of
(known by its Spanish-lan- help increase their revenues 600,000 on sites which
guage abbreviation AEDE). while we evaluate our op- dont act.
Failure to pay up can lead to tions within the framework
The law also applies to the
a ne of up to 600,000.
of the new legislation.
third party sites providing
The law is the latest volley
A similar law passed in hosting or payment services
in the war between Europe- Germany saw Google remov- to the infringing site, somean newspapers and Google. ing the affected newspapers thing that has led opponents
The publishers accuse the from Google news altogether of the law to label it as censearch rm of using their before the publishers sorship, comparing it to the
copyrighted material to eventually came back and nancial boycott of Wikibuild up a news service with- asked to be relistedafter see- leaks. Guardian
Limited,
out doing any reporting of its ing their traffic plummet, a Newspapers
own; Google defends itself by stepthey saidthey had to 2014

Newspapers can
charge the search
engine for listing links
on Google News

CM
YK

KI-KI

KOCHI

THE HINDU

13

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Russia invites India to jointly develop hydrocarbon projects

BUSINESS

Indian companies will be able to participate in development and production of hydrocarbons in the Arctic and in East Siberia, Russias
Deputy Minister of Energy Yuri Senutin told TASS news agency on Saturday in Moscow. Russia has also suggested involving India in
Russian gas projects, including in the Sakhalin-1, where a second stage of an LNG plant will be built. IANS

BRIEFLY
Import tariff value on
gold, silver cut
NEW DELHI: The government

on Saturday slashed the

import tariff value on gold
to $391 per 10 grams and
silver to $551 a kg following
weak global price trends.
During the last fortnight,
the tariff value on imported
gold was fixed at $401 per
10 grams and on silver at
$575 a kg. The import tariff
value is the base price at
which customs duty is
determined to prevent
under-invoicing. It is
revised on a fortnightly
basis taking into account
global prices. The decrease
in tariff value on imported
gold has been notified by
the CBEC, an official
statement said. PTI

Govt extends Finance

Commissions term
NEW DELHI: The government

has extended the term of

the 14th Finance
Commission by two
months to December 31.
The proposal of extension
of time period by two
months for submission of
report by the Fourteenth
Finance Commission has
been considered and
approved by the Cabinet,
an official release said on
Saturday. The Commission
had sought two months
extension for the
submission of its report by
up to December 31 to
examine financial
projections, carry out
consultations with the
government of Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana in
view of additional term of
reference made to it.
The Commission was to
submit its report on the
basis of its terms of
reference by October 31,
covering five years from
April 1, 2015, to March 31,
2020. PTI

Festivals fail to cheer auto majors

Sentiment remains subdued during October
Yuthika Bhargava
NEW DELHI: Even as major car
makers such as Maruti Suzuki
India, Hyundai Motor India
and Honda Cars India posted
growth in sales in October,
the festive month, which usually accounts for 30 per cent
of annual sales for automobile companies, did not fully
deliver on the hopes of turnaround pinned on it.
Companies such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors
and Ford registered a decline
in sales as sentiments remained subdued.
Maruti Suzukis domestic
sales rose just one per cent to
97,069 units. The company
said less number of working
days during the month impacted sales.
Its recently launched midsized sedan Ciaz received
good response with the company selling 6,345 units during the month.
Hyundai Motor India reg-

istered an increase of 5.57 per

cent in sales to 38,010 units.
Company Senior Vice President (Sales and Marketing)
Rakesh Srivastava said there
was increase in sales in the
additional and replacement
buyers segment with demand
led by new models like Elite
i20, Xcent, coupled with festival buying.
Honda Cars India had a
good month, posting 18.08
per cent increase in sales to
13,242 units. We have
clocked excellent sales during
the year so far, company Senior Vice-President (Marketing and Sales) Jnaneswar Sen
said.
Mahindra & Mahindra has
reported 15.71 per cent decline in sales at 40,274 units
last month. Our sales for October remained subdued on
the back of overall sentiment
and high interest rates, its
Chief Executive, Automotive
Division and International
Operations (AFS), Pravin

Shah, said.
Tata Motors said the muted market sentiment continued to impact overall sales.
Its total sales of passenger vehicles for October stood at
11,511 units, lower by 19 per
cent. Toyota Kirloskar Motor
said its sales in the domestic
market were 12,556 units
during the month, down 4.6
per cent. Company TKM Senior Vice President (Sales and
Marketing) N. Raja said, We

Gold prices likely to

maintain negative bias
Ramnath Subbu

MUMBAI: The recent international developments saw gold

lose Rs.1,000 per 10 grams
over Thursday and Friday,
and breach its 15-month low
of Rs.26,500 in the domestic
market. This was on the back
of gold falling to a four-year
low of $1,167 an ounce internationally during the week on
strengthening of the dollar
and better U.S. economic data
as also news about Japans
central bank deciding to accelerate the pace of quantitative easing. In Mumbai, gold
have maintained the sales moved up by Rs.70 on Satvolumes as September in the urday to close at Rs.26,380.
Commodity analysts felt
domestic market and hope to
see growth in the next two that at $1,180 an ounce, gold
had breached a significant
months.
Ford Indias domestic sales technical support level. Bealso declined by 26.62 per low this level, it is not lucracent to 6,723 units. Nissan, tive for miners to produce
too, reported a 15.86 per cent gold, and they would, in all
decline in sales at 4,106 units. likelihood, curtail producIn the two-wheeler seg- tion, said Vikas Vaid, Prodment, TVS Motor Company uct Head, Commodity &
posted 18 per cent rise in sales Currency, Prabhudas Lilladher Group. At these levels, gold
at 1.73 lakh units.

is technically in a bearish
trend and while bargain-buying could happen in spurts,
there is clearly a negative bias
to prices.
Gold does not hold much
fancy but for investors, there
is no doubt an opportunity to
buy gold as gold continues to
retain its safe haven status,
Mr. Vaid said.
In the Indian context, with
Diwali buying having wound
down, there is no reason for
demand for physical gold to
revive. A booming equity
market, which rallied more
than 30 per cent in the last
year, is seeing investors exit
gold in favour of equities.
Bhargav Vaidya, bullion
analyst and director, India
Bullion & Jewellers Association (IBJA), felt that the gold
price was likely to remain
weak and its price in India
could decline further.
It depends on the rupeedollar rate and the rupee has
been quite stable. We are unlikely to see any dramatic
swing in price, he said.

Disaster cover: Centre vetting task force report

G.Balachandar
CHENNAI: There has been a notable progress in the efforts to
bring out an exclusive insurance cover for natural catastrophe as both the Home and
Finance Ministries are presently examining a Task Force
report on implementing a
programme in the country.
There have been co-ordinated efforts among all stakeholders that include Ministry
of Home Affairs (MHA), Department of Financial Services (DFS) of the Ministry of
Finance, NDMA (National
Disaster Management Authority) and IRDA (Insurance
Regulatory and Development

Authority) in the past year to

identify solutions towards disaster relief and risk mitigation
through
insurance
mechanism.
Discussions papers prepared and deliberated at various levels in the Government
resulted in identifying certain
key areas to be pursued towards disaster risk mitigation. Following this, a Task
Force prepared suggestions
for implementation. At present, this Task force report is
receiving the attention of
DFS and MHA, said R Chandrasekaran, Secretary General,
General
Insurance
Council.
Actually, all Insurance

products cover loss caused by

natural disasters. But, insurers opine that a stand alone
(exclusive) natural catastrophe insurance product will
amount to anti-selection
against insurers. At the same
time, insurers also feel that
there could be an exclusive
disaster insurance product
with appropriate premium /
claim subsidy from the government (as in the case of National
Crop
Insurance
Schemes) to cover a significant segment of the population (say, a district or a few
districts as a whole, he
added.
At present, government disaster relief funds are meant

only for relief and rehabilitation immediately following a

disaster and not for reconstruction of the assets / affected areas.
Disasters are classified as
natural or man-made. Manmade disasters include collapse of buildings, stampede
and such other disasters
where a large number of public get affected. One suggestion being made is to make
public (Third Party) liability
covers mandatory for public
places. There is also a suggestion to enable NDRF (National Disaster Response
Force and SDRF (State Disaster Response Fund) as well as
other critical infrastructure

establishments to buy parametric insurance covers to

augment their financial capabilities to bear losses arising out of severe disasters.
Parametric
products
would require a well documented simulation models
for various disasters such as
earthquakes, floods or cyclones. These models are being developed for India and
for these three perils there is
significant progress in the
validity of model results,
said Mr.Chandrasekaran.
Referring to models in
other markets, he pointed
out that in countries that
were prone to natural catastrophes, either insurance

awareness was high or such

insurances were increasingly
getting mandated by governments. This is one of the solutions being suggested for
providing disaster insurance
covers, he added.
Chola MS General Insurances Managing Director S S
Gopala Rathnam, who is part
of many insurance industry
committees, stated that a
carefully orchestrated disaster insurance scheme would
not only provide cover for
losses, but also result in a lot
of savings for the government. Things are definitely
moving in the right direction
over the past few months he
added.

Audi recalls
6,758 units
of A4 sedan
Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI: German luxury car-

maker Audi will recall 6,758

units of A4 sedans in India,
manufactured between November, 2011, and October,
2014, to update software in
airbag control unit.
This activity is specific to
Audi A4 cars manufactured
between November, 2011, and
October, 2014. There are
6,758 Audi A4 identified for
this software update campaign, the company said in a
statement.
Audi dealers, it said, will
get in touch with customers
across the country to arrange
for an appointment at their
workshop for a software update towards setting parameters for airbag control unit.
The software update will take
less than 30 minutes a car.
The safety of our customers and long-term service life
of our vehicles for better reliability remain our top priorities at Audi. To ensure the
same, we conduct regular
programs to constantly monitor the quality of our products, it added.
The recall of A4 sedans in
the domestic market is part of
the companys recall of 8.50
lakh units of the A4 sedan
globally to repair defective air
bag. Nearly half of the units
were sold in China and
Germany.
BULLION RATES
November 01 rates in rupees with
previous rates in brackets

Chennai
Bar Silver (1 kg)
Retail (1 g)
24 ct gold (10 g)
22 ct gold (1 g)
Delhi
Silver
Standard gold
Sovereign

36,040
38.60
26,420
2,470

(35,695)
(38.20)
(26,340)
(2,463)

36,250 (36,150)
26,550 (26,500)
23,800 (23,900)

SPORT
Vaz nets the
winner for Sesa
MARGAO: Sesa Football Academy defeated Mohammedan
Sporting 1-0 in a Group C quarterfinal league match of the
127th Durand Cup football here
on Saturday. Sesa found the
winner in the 48th minute
when Jaison Vaz, who received
a pass from Myran Pereira inside the box, uncorked a stiff
grounder that beat the rival
goalkeeper Arnab Das Sharma.

Indian Navy posts win

TIME TO SMILE: S. Chikkarangappa, coming off a personal tragedy, celebrates

his title win at the India Masters on Saturday. PHOTO: K. MURALI KUMAR

GOLF

Chikkarangappa prospers
while Jha falters
Principal Correspondent
BENGALURU: An unflappable S.
Chikkarangappa put together a
final round of five-under-67 to
march to a remarkable twostroke victory over Abhishek
Jha in the Asian Development
Tours Take Solutions India
Masters.
Jha had held a six-shot lead
over Chikkarangappa going into Saturdays play at the Eagleton Golf Resort here, but while
he faltered, the latter flourished, making the sort of dramatic comeback he has now
developed a penchant for.
Jha, disconsolate at the end,
finished with a card of threeover-75 and a four-day total of
272.
Two shots behind him was
Nils Floren (274), while C. Muniyappa and Niall Turner were
tied for fourth (275).
This was my first win as a
pro on my home course, a
beaming Chikkarangappa said
later. I always felt something
was missing. For the last two
CM
YK

weeks, after my grandfather

passed away, golf wasnt even
on my mind. I dedicate this win
to him.
In the morning, Jhas sixstroke lead over Chikkarangappa withered away steadily, bogeys on three and four giving
his rival a foot in the door. The
latter, meanwhile, made two
birdies on the front nine and at
the turn had reduced the advantage to two shots.
When Jha three-putted to
bogey the 12th, the gap narrowed further.
It seemed inevitable that
Chikkarangappa would draw
level and he did it in style, with
a monster putt for birdie on the
15th. His chip out of a greenside bunker had gone some 40
feet past the flag, but the recovery was splendid and brutal.
Things unravelled quickly
for Jha thereafter, a double bogey on the next hole when his
shot out of the second cut just
refused to travel handing his
rival a two-shot lead, and effectively the title.

Jha, chasing a maiden triumph, could only stare at the

ground while Chikkarangappa,
training-mate and good friend,
put an arm around his shoulder.
I want to play that last
round again, Jha smiled wryly
later.
I didnt pace myself well. I
didnt know how to go about it.
It has nothing to do with technique or strategy. It had been
five years since I last led a fourday tournament. Next time in
this situation, Ill conduct myself better.
Chikkarangappas
fourth
professional victory earned
him a cheque for $12,250, presented by the ICC Chairman, N.
Srinivasan, and a two-year exemption on the ADT.
The scores: 270: S. Chikkarangappa (64, 70, 69, 67); 272: Abhishek
Jha (66, 66, 65, 75); 274: Nils Floren
(71, 62, 74, 67); 275: C. Muniyappa
(69, 68, 72, 66), Niall Turner (67, 70,
70, 68); 276: S.S.P. Chowrasia (74,
68, 69, 65), R. Murthy (71, 68, 64, 73);
277: Pijit Petchkasem (65, 73, 70, 69).

Earlier, substitute Riyadh B.

scored the match-winner as Indian Navy defeated Tuff Laxmi
Prasad SC 3-2 in a Group A
quarterfinal league match.
After Ndbuisi Opera of Tuff
Laxmi Prasad cancelled Britto
P.M. and V. Lalchhuanmawias
strikes, Riyadh scored the winner for the visitor and helped it
finish the league engagements
with three points from two
matches.
Salgaocar FC, which plays
Tuff Laxmi Prasad SC on Monday, needs just a draw to enter
the semifinals.
The results (quarterfinal league):
Group A: Indian Navy 3 (Britto P.M.,
V. Lalchhuanmawia, Riyadh B.) bt Tuff
Laxmi Prasad SC 2 (Ndbuisi Opera 2).
Group C: Sesa FA 1 (Jaison Vaz)
bt Mohammedan Sporting 0. PTI

ATHLETICS

The best will be seen in action

Indian Super League forces shifting of throw events to warm-up area
Uthra Ganesan
NEW DELHI: Some of the best athletes in the country, including
the golden quartet that retained the womens 4x400m
relay title in record time at the
Asian Games, would be in action at the ONGC National
Open Athletics Championships
here from Sunday.
The event, though, is unlikely to see the participants push
themselves too hard at the season-ending event.
The Championships, returning to Delhi after 10 years,
would be held from November
2-5 at the Jawaharlal Nehru
Stadium with over a 100 entries
received.
However, with the Indian
Super League football matches
being held at the same venue,
SAI has decided to host the
throwing events in the warmup area and not inside the main
stadium, upsetting the organisers, Athletics Federation of India (AFI).
The likes of quartermilers
M.R. Poovamma, Ashwini Ak-

Double for
Ranjeet

CRICKET

KOLKATA: Fourth-seeded V.M.

Ranjeet of India defeated compatriot and top-seeded N. Sriram Balaji 6-3, 6-4 in the
singles final to win the Jaidip
Mukerjea $10000 ITF future
tennis tournament here on Saturday.
The title justified Ranjeets
consistent showing as he never
dropped a set in the tournament. Ranjeet rattled the top
seed with accurate returns that
made the difference in an evenly-fought encounter.
The title was decided in one
hour 40 minutes with Ranjeet
prevailing over Balaji and winning his first futures title in the
city.
Ranjeet, who teamed up with
Balaji on Friday to win the doubles title beating N. Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Vishnu
Vardhan, thus clinched a double crown.

ABU DHABI: Pakistan tightened

its grip on the second Test and
the series after the third days
play, stretching its overall lead
to 370 at stumps here on Saturday.
Pakistan was 61 for two at the
close in its second innings with
Azhar Ali unbeaten on 21 and
Younis Khan on 16 after another Australian batting collapse.
Australia was dismissed for
261 in its first innings, 309 behind Pakistans 570 for six declared, but Misbah-ul-Haq did
not enforce the follow-on.
That put Pakistan in a strong
position to win its first series
against Australia in 20 years.
Pakistan won the first Test
by 221 runs in Dubai.
Mitchell Johnson (two for
29) gave Pakistan an early scare
with the wickets of Ahmed
Shehzad (14) and Mohammad
Hafeez (three) but Azhar Ali
and Younis Khan ensured Pakistan did not surrender its
strong position.

The result: Singles final: V.M.

Ranjeet bt N. Sriram Balaji 6-3, 6-4.

Principal Correspondent

kunji, Mandeep Kaur and Sini

Jose and middle and long distance runners like O.P. Jaisha,
Kavita Raut and Ghamanda
Ram have confirmed participation.
Commonwealth games medallist triple jumper Arpinder
Singh and long-jumper Mayookha Johny would also be
seen in action, as would be hurdler Siddanth Thingalaya.
Walkers Khushbir Kaur,
fresh from her bronze-winning
effort at Incheon, K.T. Irfan,
Gurmeet Singh, Deepmala Devi
and others would be the first to
be flagged off with the 20km
walk early on Sunday morning.
Discus thrower Seema Punia,
though, has given the event a
miss.
The 5,000 and 10,000m
champion Preeja Sreedharan,
who announced her retirement
from international competition after the Asian Games,
would also be hoping to come
good after a disappointing outing at Incheon.

K.T. Irfan. FILE PHOTO

been listed with more than one
team.
Jaisha, for example, has been
listed a runner for both Punjab
and Railways while Sini Ajith
Markose has been entered in
the 800m and 1500m by both
Karnataka and ONGC.
A final decision on their

Same athlete, two teams teams would be taken only after

However, some athletes have

the

technical

committee's

meeting with the team managers. The athletes, though, are

battling fatigue and a long competitive season and are expected to perform far below their
best. Im going for the gold at
the Championships.
There will be less pressure
now and I will go all out to finish the season on a high. (But)
this is the last race of this season and I may not be able to
focus on my timing, Poovamma admitted.
The AFI, though, is upset at
being forced to move throwing
events javelin, shot put, discus and hammer throw out of
the main arena, adecision the
SAI has defended.
Even before these guys approached us, the stadium had
been booked, developed and
paid for by ISL organisers.
The AFI knew of the football schedule and were okay
with holding events in the
warm-up arena. But we cannot
simply wave away ISL because
AFI suddenly decides to hold
an event here, Stadium administrator Shiv Sharma said.

Hamilton tops

Pakistan tightens grip on Test

Australia once again failed to
post a big total, with Mitchell
Marsh hitting 87 and Michael
Clarke scoring 47.
Clarke added 64 for the sixth
wicket with Marsh.
But wickets fell at regular intervals, with Yasir Shah dismissing Brad Haddin (10) and

Johnson for a duck to leave

Australia struggling at 199 for
eight.
Marsh added 62 for the ninth
wicket with Peter Siddle but
miscued a defensive shot and
was caught off Imran Khan. He
hit 13 boundaries and a six during his 116-ball knock. AFP

SCOREBOARD
Pakistan 1st innings: 570 for
six decl.
Australia 1st innings: David
Warner c Yasir Shah b Rahat Ali 19,
Chris Rogers c Sarfraz Ahmed b Imran Khan 5, Nathan Lyon b Rahat Ali
15, Glenn Maxwell b Zulfiqar Babar
37, Michael Clarke b Imran Khan 47,
Steve Smith lbw b Zulfiqar Babar 0,
Mitchell Marsh c Rahat Ali b Imran
Khan 87, Brad Haddin b Yasir Shah
10, Mitchell Johnson c Mohammad
Hafeez b Yasir Shah 0, Peter Siddle c
Yasir Shah b Mohammad Hafeez 28,
Mitchell Starc (not out) 0; Extras
(lb-6, nb-7): 13; Total (in 67.2 overs):
261.

Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-34, 3-75,

4-97, 5-100, 6-164, 7-193, 8-199, 9261.
Pakistan bowling: Imran Khan
14-1-60-3, Hafeez 5.2-0-13-1, Babar
25-5-94-2, Rahat Ali 9-0-41-2, Yasir
Shah 14-2-47-2.
Pakistan 2nd innings: Ahmed
Shehzad b Johnson 14, Mohammad
Hafeez c Starc b Johnson 3, Azhar Ali
(batting) 21, Younis Khan (batting)
16; Extras (b-7): 7; Total (for two
wkts. in 21 overs): 61.
Fall of wickets: 1-14, 2-21.
Australia bowling: Johnson 3-029-2, Lyon 10-3-19-0, Starc 5-2-6-0,
Siddle 3-3-0-0.

AUSTIN: Championship leader

Lewis Hamilton topped the
times again in Saturday morning's third and final free practice session for Sunday's United
States Formula One Grand Prix.
The 29-year-old Briton, who
was fastest in both practice sessions on Friday, was more than
seven-tenths of a second clear
of Mercedes teammate and title
rival Nico Rosberg.
It was another dominant performance from Hamilton who
holds a 17-point lead over Rosberg with three races, including
the season-finale Abu Dhabi GP
where double points will be
awarded, remaining.
Felipe Massa was third
quickest for Williams ahead of
teammate Valtteri Bottas. Twotime champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari was fifth and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull sixth.
Nico Hulkenberg was seventh for Force India ahead of
compatriot Adrian Sutil of
Sauber, Kimi Raikkonen in the
second Ferrari and Jenson Button who was 10th for McLaren.
KI-KI