TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 HYDERABAD
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THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN Police have identified the alleged lone gunman in the Washington DC shooting as Aaron Alexis of Texas, who served in the Navy.
HYDERABAD’S FIRST COMPACT AFTERNOON NEWSPAPER
CITY MISTREATS DISABLED PEOPLE WITH IMPUNITY
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The deplorable condition of the City’s disabled hostels are a pathetic indictment of the departments meant to be helping them. With substandard food and horrible treatment, the disabled persons don’t know whom to turn to.
THE
REPORT ON PG6
‘LIBERATING’ DOUBLE GAME Political parties are running with the hares and hunting with the hounds as it were. While all of them celebrated ‘Telangana Liberation Day’ today, many of them are trying to stall the division of the State — behind the scenes. Should we be surprised by our two-faced politicos?
SLAM, BANG, THANK YOU SIR!
Champions League Twenty 20, the biggest club T20 tournament in the world is on from today. Twelve of the best teams will vie with each other, over three weeks, for the coveted trophy with which comes $2.5 million. All but one foreign player, selected by more than one team, chose to play for his Indian club, stressing the popularity of our local clubs. Here’s a dossier on the lined-up clubs.
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
city events Weather for Hyderabad
Evening
Overnight
26°C Cloudy and clear skies with rain
New Delhi Mumbai Max 42 Max 32 Min 27 Min 30
Morning
Afternoon
22°C
26°C
30°C
Mix of cloudy and clear skies with rain
Mix of cloud and sun with showers
Mix of cloud and sun with showers
Sunny. Slight chance of a thunderstorm
Mix of cloud and sun with chances of rain
Chennai Max 35 Min 28
Bangalore Max 27 Min 20
Mix of cloud and sun with periods of rain
Mix of cloud and sun with showers likely
AROUND THE CITY: YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES EXHIBITION
Tiger Trail Food Festival Limelight, the restaurant at hotel Regenta is hosting a festival which promises to give you taste of history with each bite.. Savour some mouthwatering delicacies as one would during the days of the Rajas and Maharajas! Where: Hotel Regenta One, ISB Road, Financial District, Gachibowli When: Until Sept 22, 12:30pm to 11pm Contact: (040) 67300600
Painting Exhibition Mirthful Mysteries: Exhibition of Paintings by Pune artist, Pramod Apet are going to be on display. Where: Rainbow Art Gallery, Paryatak Bhavan, Begumpet When: Until Sept 17, 2013 Contact: (040) 44470687 Watercolour Paintings Portraits of Emperors :Exhibition of Water Colour paintings by Rajkumar Sthabathy will be on display. Make sure you don’t miss it! Where: Shristi Art Gallery, 267, road No. 15, Jubilee Hills When: Until Sept 18, 2013, 11am to 7pm Contact: (040) 2354-0023
SHOWS
FESTIVE SPIRIT: Malayalee nurses at Apollo Hospital celebrated Onam with much pomp and joy. The women wore Kasavu sarees, the traditional attire for auspicious occasions and decorated the floor with fresh flower mats.
Painting Exhibition ArtBeat: Group Show of Paintings is an art event which features works of various artists from Hyderabad Where: Poecile Art Gallery, GUV Vivilash Chambers, Road No. 14, Banjara Hills When: Until Sept 19, 11am to 7pm Contact: (040) 23550340
Walking Sticks Gallery Salarjung Museum recently opened a walking sticks gallery which puts on display the walking sticks collected by Salarjung himself. Where: Salarjung Museum, Afzalgunj When: Until Sept 30, 10am to 5pm Contact: (040)- 24576443/ 24523211
DINING
Contact: 9666003915 Kebab Buffet Looks like its raining kebabs in Hyderabad. Enjoy an amazing array of kebabs as part of a lunch which is priced at Rs. 399 + taxes (weekdays) and Rs. 649 + taxes (weekends). Where: The Great Kabab Factory, Road No. 12, Banjara Hills When: Until Sept 30 Contact: (040) 40208282/ 23302244
Lunch Buffet Enjoy a sumptuous meal at Khao Galli restaurant at the price of Rs.297. Where: Khao Galli, Ground Floor, Cyber Towers, Madhapur When: Until Sept 30 Contact: (040) 23420545/ 9912022261
Live Vibe with Krish Head over to News Cafe every Sunday to bring in the new week with a smile. Let Krish mesmerize you with his soulful music. Where: News Cafe, G-5- and F-49, Inorbit Mall, Hi-tech city When: Every Sunday, 8pm to 11:30pm Contact: (040) 40101234 Hindustani Vocal Hindustani Alap presents Omkar Dadarkar - a famous classical singer. Mark your calendars and don’t miss his performance Where: La Makaan, Lane next to CBAY, Road No. 1, Banjara Hills When: Sept 17, 7pm to 8:30pm Contact: 9642731329
Street Food of Mumbai At Golkonda Hotel, you get a chance to savour some of Mumbai’s choicest street delicacies. Head over to Melange for some mouth-watering chaat, kebabs and vada pav and get the feel and taste of Mumbai. Where: The Golkonda Hotel, Masab Tank When: Until Sept 29, 12pm to 10pm
Commissioner & Spl Officer
Helpline GAS BOOKING IVRS NO HP 9666023456 Indane 9848824365 BSNL Complaints HMWS & SB Complaints
198 155313
POLICE CONTROL ROOM Hyderabad 27852435 Traffic Control Room 27852482 DCP Traffic 23234065, 23243499F Pollution Control Board 23887500 ELECTRICITY General Complaints Breakdown Section
155333 23431178 23431179
MUNICIPAL CORPORATION
23262266 24166666R ENC 23225267 Engineering 23220418 MCH Tankbund 23225397 Emergency MCH Circle I&II 24525842 MCH Circle III 24736912 MCH Circle IV 23326975 MCH Circle V 23326976 MCH Circle VI MCH Complaints 1100 Head Office 23225397 IVRS CUM MANUAL ENQUIRY PHONE NUMBERS (TRAIN & RESERVATION) RAILWAYS Rail Nilayam 27833169, 27824216 Railway Information 131 Reservations 135 Recorded Information 1345 Enquiry (IVRS) 1331, 1332, 1333
WATER SUPPLY Complaint Cell Sewerage Complaint Hyd. Water Supply HOSPITAL General Hospital, Sec-bad Niloufer Hospital, Red Hills NIMS, Director, Punjagutta Osmania General Hospital Railway Hospital, Lalaguda Apollo, Jubilee Hills Care Hospital, Banjara Hills Care Hospital, Nampally Care Hospital, Musheerabad Care Hospital, Sec-bad Kamineni Hospital, LB Nagar
155313 23307328 23313163
27505566 23314095 23390933 24600146 27001134 23607777 30418888 30417777 30419000 30416666 39879999
BLOOD BANKS Blood Bank,Narayanguda Chiranjeevi Blood Bank Blood Bank Mediton Goal Red Cross, Vidyanagar ADRM Blood Bank Mythri Charitable Trust NTR Memorial Trust Care Banjara Hills
27567892 23559555 23226624 27633087 27035588 27550238 30799999 30418296 30417445
AMBULANCES Apollo 23548888, 23607777 Kamineni 24022222 Medwin 23202902, 23204616 Smile Line Dental Hospital 23747979 Red Cross 27627973 Niloufer Hospital 23314095 Gandhi 23320332 AIRLINES
Airport Director 27903785, 27906001 For Air India Flight Information Toll free (from any network) for IC Flights 18001801407 And for All Flights: 1800227722 Air India has revised its flight timings. For more information call (Toll free) 18001801407, 1800227722 from BSNL/MTNL 04023430334 from other lines and mobile Website; www.airindia.in TOURISM OFFICES AP Tourism, Hyd 23262152/53/54 Sec-bad 27893100 Dept of Tourism 23453110 India Tourism 23261360 AP Tourism information Centre (24x7) 23450444, 23455999 UK VISA OFFICE VFS India Pvt Ltd Building, 8-2-542/A, Sunil Chamber, Road No. 7
Beside Meridian School, Banjara Hills34. Working hours are from 8 AM to 1 PM And 2 PM to 3PM. MUSEUMS Salar Jung Museum AP State Museum Nizams Museum
24523211 232431300/7641 24521029
Readers’ views
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
news
YESTERDAY’S QUESTION
ARE SEEMANDHRA LEADERS MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR POLITICAL FUTURE THAN THE REGION’S INTERESTS? 40% 60%
YES (A) NO (B)
TODAY’S QUESTION
IN A COUNTRY WHERE PEOPLE ARE KILLED OVER CASTE, DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO CRIB OVER RACISM ABROAD? A)
YES
B)
NO
To vote visit www.postnoon.com
CRIME
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FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY
‘Fugitives’ who are very much in our midst! One such is Kamandalam Narsingdas Goud who runs a toddy shop at Shivajinagar and has around 28 non-bailable warrants pending against him.
The rich catch of crime n n n n n n n n
POSTNOON NEWS feedback@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: Absconding or untraceable is a common police parlance to denote a criminal wanted by law is not seen in his address or around. And the judiciary issues a non-bailble warrant against them and there rests the matter. But what happens in reality? These criminals do business as usual and go around doing more crime till by fluke, and not by design, one lands in custody. Here is a story of a criminal in the police records against whom around 28 warrants are pending. More shocking is the fact that two undergraduate students are part of a gang. The Cyberabad Police have apprehended two gangs of notorious criminals consisting of eight members and seized a cache of lethal weapons. The first gang was trapped by CCS
Kukatpally. The gang leader was identified as Kamandalam Narsingdas Goud, who was arrested along with two others. Interrogation revealed that they were assigned to eliminate one Waheed, a rowdy-sheeter in the Sanathnagar police station jurisdiction. Goud runs a toddy
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shop at Shivajinagar and he has around 28 non-bailable warrants pending against him. His associates are identified as Madupu Nagesh, 21, an ITI student, and Vadlamanati Kumthe, 22, a degree final year student. The trio have been having a rivalry with Praveen Das, another rowdy-sheeter and his gang after the murder of the brother of Praveen Das. The gangs wanted to eliminate each
Revolver - 1 Swords - 2 Daggers - 2 Baton swords - 2 Axe - 1 Car - 1 Sharp blades - 3 Cash - `5.50 lakh
other. On August 22, the three had been laying in wait for Waheed, who is allegedly behind the murder of Praveen’s brother. But Waheed got a wind of this and escaped. It was Waheed who notified the police of the gang moving about with weapons. In the second incident, the inspector of CCS Rajendrangar trapped a pseudo police gang headed by Dakuri Babu and four others including a woman. In this case too, a vehicle, swords, and cash were seized. It is alleged that the gang used to pose as police detectives and browbeat unwary people into submission who paid up fearing police action. The woman, Madhavi helped them. The other gang members are Bobli Kiran, Shiva Prasad, and Mahesh. Police said the gang thrived on extortions and sometimes as holy-men with powers to double currency and cheated gullible people. On some occasions, the gang members used prostitutes as baits to rob potential customers.
Fake quimam factory unearthed A man hit upon the idea of taking up dealership of products and pushing spurious stuff along with the original ones. Mohd SUBHAN mohd.s@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: Ban anything and a parallel setup comes in to being in no time. The City’s tobacco devotees have been consuming spurious products if the police information coming through is correct. The Task Force North Zone has unearthed a mini factory engaged in replicating popular gutka products, all with machinery, accessories and raw materials. The brain, Jaleel Khan was allegedly running a well-equipped factory at Achireddy Nagar, Falaknuma. He is said to be an expert in mixing and processing all popular tobacco brands complete with printed sachets and labels intact. He is a resident of Saifi Colony, Vateepally. Jaleel is a native of Aurangabad but was brought up in Hyderabad. He realised early in life the growing demand for quimam (pan masala) and its derivates.
Since, aaswar and gutka offer huge profit margins if manufactured locally, Jaleel began his enterprise assembling various raw materials from Begum Bazaar. He also arranged a screen printing facility to print duplicate stickers and tins similar to the genuine ones. He hit upon a clever ploy of taking up dealership of known products
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and pushed the spurious stuff along with the original ones. His operational areas are not limited to just Hyderabad, police found out. He has been supplying the stuff to towns like Nanded in Maharashtra and some border towns in Karnataka. A police surprise raid seized 19 printing screens, and Kashmiri and Raja Ratan quimam in huge quantities from a godown. The goods seized are valued at `8 lakh.
CITY BRIEFS GHMC rejects government merge order
Man booked for attempt to rape
Seemandhra bandh on September 24
TDP delegation to meet president over crisis
Need for doctors runs into millions
HYDERABAD: The GHMC council has rejected the State government’s order to merge 15 panchayats of Ranga Reddy district into the GHMC limits on Monday. GHMC Mayor Majid Hussain announced in the municipal council that there was no clarity in the GO, and as the GHMC was a facing funds crunch, the council was rejecting the order.
HYDERABAD: The Afzalgunj police have booked fruit merchant and financier Arun on charges of attempting to rape Y Geeta, a resident of Moazzam Jahi Market. Police said the man lured the woman who sells fruits with an offer of getting her fruits at a low cost on easy finance. When she came for the help, he pounced on her.
HYDERABAD: Demanding that AP be kept intact, the Samaikhya Rashtra Parirakshana Forum has given a call for a 12-day State bandh in protest against the CWC decision to carve out Telangana. As per the programme, besides the bandh on September 24, private schools will remain closed from September 23 to 30 in Seemandhra.
HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu will lead a delegation of party leaders to New Delhi later this week to exert pressure on the Centre to resolve the current crisis in Andhra Pradesh over the Telangana issue. The delegation will meet the president, prime minister and opposition leaders for an immediate solution.
HYDERABAD: Talking of the massive challenges India faces in the health sector, Minister of State for Tourism Chiranjeevi said that in the next decade India would need over 2.4 million doctors besides two million hospital beds. He said the government was aware of this and the National Rural Health Mission will take initiatives to meet the demand.
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News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 LAST YEAR... HERE The slowly choking Musi
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ast year we had reported on how the Musi river, despite being an arterial waterway, lies neglected despite more than one scheme in existence for over eight years to rejuvenate it. Even with the `335 Crores alloted to the Abatement of Pollution in the Musi and another `44 Crores for the Musi Revitalisation project, little has done to better its condition.
SEPTEMBER 17, 2012
NUMEROLOGY
$1.1 bn
is what insurers estimate it would take to rise the Costa Concordia. Raising the 290-metre 114,500-ton vessel — longer than the Titanic and more than twice as heavy liner has so far cost $800 million.
The chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used. Ban Ki-Moon, UN General Secretary
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THINGS WE LEARNT TODAY
The column that teaches everyone something new about the way the world functions.
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The double games that politicians play Major political parties in AP today celebrated ‘Telangana Liberation Day’, even as many of them are busy scuttling the formation.
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Guilty pleasures fuelling obesity crisis. A campaign called Junk Free Checkouts is being launched in the US which aims to force supermarkets to stop selling sweets near the tills in a bid to curb obesity.
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"Sting bee" ring for selfdefense. A karnataka pharmacist has devised a protective ring for women that stings an attacker just like a honey bee.
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Twitter IPO: The beginning of the end? The last of the big four to go public, the Twitter IPO suggests that future investments will be in industries other than social media.
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Russian film braves law to tell gay love story Winter Journey won a warm reception from critics, who predicted it would only reach a small audience.
CIVIC
They’re twice disabled Once by nature, and by the bureaucracy. Inmates of the City’s hostels for disabled persons are reporting a miserable existence because of the food and treatment meted out to them. Only, they don’t know who to turn to. MOHSIN ALI ali@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: Corruption is rampant in every aspect of administration of the hostels for disabled persons in the City. A talk with the inmates across the hostels reveals that they are served stale food, packed like sardines in their rooms and illtreated. Curiously, the officials admit mismanagement and had also suspended some functionaries earlier. However, this has proved a mild measure nobody is afraid of. There are 10 welfare government hostels for disabled persons providing shelter to physically disabled persons. Six, in Hyderabad and four in Ranga Reddy district. This correspondent who met inmates of the Champapet Welfare Hostel learned that despite the district collector suspending some officials, including the superintendent, for corruption, there has been no perceivable improvement in the situation. Their prime complaint is about food. They believe there must be a well-established corrupt system in place, since the situation has remained the same even after action against some erring officials. “The food being served to us is the worst in quality. We often skip one meal to avoid the distaste and survive only on two meals a day. We don’t know who supplies these sub-standard grains and condiments,” said an inmate, not wanting to be named. Responding to Postnoon
Despite the district collector suspending some officials, including the superintendent, for corruption, there has been no perceivable improvement in the situation.
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queries, assistant director of Ranga Reddy district Welfare Hostels for Disabled Venkat Reddy said, “The suppliers selected by the government through the tender system are sub-standard. “We have complained many times against the low-quality grains but they keep supplying the same. Nothing comes out of complaining to anybody,”
His words evoke visions of a depraved society. Then there is the perennial accommodation problem. Overcrowding is leading to packing inmates to double the capacity. If the capacity of a building is 90, there are around 200 inmates registered. Here, again, officials come out with the argument that accommodation is not forthcoming. People are unwilling to lend buildings to people with physical handicap, though they show sympathy in public, they lament. Assistant director of
Hyderabad District Welfare Hostel for Disabled D Sudarshan said he had been regularly representing the government and also inserting advertisements in newspapers for accommodation but they have all been in vain. Criticising the government Vikalangula Hakkula Porata Samithi member A Rambabu, said that the government is not serious about people with disabilities and has failed to serve them properly. He said that there are a total 42 welfare hostels for thousands of people with disabilities in the State, but the government owns only three buildings — one each in Warangal, Mahboobnagar and Vishakhapatnam — the remainder are housed in rental buildings where the rent itself takes away a good portion of the funds allocated. “The mess charges are very low, between Rs 500 and Rs700 per month whereas the mess charges in Osmania and Kakatiya universities are in the Rs1,100–1,300 range,” added Ramababu. Whatever the explanations, the fact remains that deep-rooted corruption has corroded the collective consciousness of our society.
IN MEMORIAM
Celeb-friendly Kabbalah rabbi dies at 86
LOS ANGELES: The founder of the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre, whose celebrity devotees include Madonna and Demi Moore, has died aged 86, the center announced Monday. Rabbi Philip Berg — known as Rav to his followers — had been ill since suffering a stroke in 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported. “The Kabbalah Centre is deeply saddened to announce the passing of our teacher, Rav Berg,” said a statement on its
website. The center, which was founded in 1965, has attracted criticism for the lucrative and celebrity-friendly way it presents ancient Jewish mysticism, the LA Times said. But the center said Berg had “created a path for millions to learn and live Kabbalah. The Rav has left us with incredible knowledge through thousands of hours of teaching, examples of courage that we will never forget, and the comfort of a Kabbalah
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Centre that we can all call home.” The first Kabbalah Centre was founded in 1922 by Rav Yehuda Anschlag, and the organization now has a presence in more than 40 cities around the world, it said. In addition to Madonna, celebrity followers include actor Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears.
Kabbalah is “the world’s oldest body of spiritual wisdom” and “contains the longhidden keys to the secrets of the universe as well as to the mysteries of the human heart and soul,” according to the LA center’s website. It said Kabbalah teaches “that the body is an instrument to do the work of the soul in this physical reality. Berg is survived by his wife Karen,”will continue their work and vision for the Centre,” the website said.
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News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
SECURITY SCARE
SMART THINKING
Firecracker locks down White House WASHINGTON: The White House was locked down in a sudden security alert Monday after a man threw firecrackers over the outer fence, sparking alarm hours after a gun massacre in Washington. A Secret Service source confirmed to AFP that the man set off firecrackers, discounting some earlier reports that shots were fired, in a incident that scrambled heavily armed security teams at the White House. Witnesses said uniformed
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Secret Service officers tackled a man outside the gate soon after the incident, as reporters and staff were quickly hustled back into the White House complex. Agents then cordoned off Lafayette Park opposite the White House, which is normally thronged by tourists in the early evening in late summer. AFP
POLITICS
T Cong agonised over delay What’s holding the T baby from being born is the question asked among TRS cadres and mid-rung leaders while top leadership is worried and are going to Delhi. Md INKESHAF AHMED ahmed.m@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: The delay in preparing the Cabinet note on the creation of a separate Telangana state has become a cause of concern for all T-Congress leaders. While their counterparts in Seemandhra are agitating tirelessly to keep the state united, the T-Congress leaders have become mere spectators waiting for the Central government to take the process forward. The T-leaders initially expected that the cabinet note on the separate state would be approved immediately after the conclusion of the Monsoon Session of Parliament in the first week of this month. But, nothing happened. The leaders’ plan to go to public with the sole objective of claiming the whole credit for Telangana formation has, therefore, gone awry. If this continues, much sheen of T formation would be worn off and the Congress may not gain from it. This is the reason that the T Congress leaders are going to Delhi to see what is holding up T.
The T-leaders initially expected that the cabinet note on the separate state would be approved immediately after the conclusion of the Monsoon Session of Parliament
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What worries the leaders more are the continued agitation by Seemandhra Congress leaders. The T-leaders are peeved at the way the Seemandhra leaders spread propaganda that Telangana state creation process was brought to a halt. “Our party high command is firm on creation of the Telangana state. It was in no mood to go
back on its decision at any cost. But, the Seemandhra Congress leaders are spreading canards to the contrary. This is hurting us more than anything else,” senior Congress leader and MP V Hanumantha Rao told Postnoon. He also took exception to the attitude of the CM on Telangana state issue. He alleged that CM
Kiran Kumar Reddy was speaking against the party Chief Sonia Gandhi for her decision on Telangana. Interestingly, the T-leaders plans to visit go to Delhi following the footsteps of their Seemandhra counterparts. “We will meet all party high command leaders and request them to speed up the division process. We think that the delay would only harm the party and benefit BJP in T region,” a senior congress told postnoon. The leaders are also planning to hold a huge public meeting in Telangana region in coming days. The meeting is likely to be held after T-JAC’s proposed meeting on September 29.
A ring with sting to protect women BANGALORE: Beware of assaulting women, as a Karnataka pharmacist has devised a protective ring to sting an attacker like a honey bee. “The gruesome gang-rape in New Delhi last year prompted me to devise a safety ring that can be worn by women on their right index finger to defend themselves against a potential rapist or killer,” device inventor Imran Khan told IANS here. What makes 30-year-old Khan’s ‘Sting Bee’ silver ring a reliable armour for self defense is a liquid chemical compound (Capsaicin) in the head of the ring, which on releasing from its micro tank, weakens an offender and immobilises him from attacking or assaulting any girl or woman. “As Capsaicin is four times hotter than Bhut Jolokia (pepper) and 300 times more spicy than Guntur red chillis (from Andhra Pradesh), it stimulates chemoreceptor nerve endings in skin and AROUND THE
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causes shooting pain for 45-60 minutes in an offender when injected into his body from the ring’s micro tank using a micro pump and a micro needle,” Khan said at a preview of the ‘Sting Bee’. A RFID tag on top side and a dual lock mechanism prevents misuse of the ring, which can be made of any safe metal. “The device is tamper-proof and easy to operate, as its micro tank with 0.2ml of the drug (Capsaicin) can be injected into even five persons at a time by unlocking it before an assault her and gives the wearer sufficient time to escape,” Khan asserted. He has tied up with a Mumbai-based jeweller to source the silver-made rings and with a city-based pharmacy to fill them with the drug concentrate. A silver-made ring will cost Rs.1,999, excluding tax (5%) and delivery charges. Re-fill of the canister will cost Rs.1,000 per fill. IANS
NATION BRIEFS Communal skirmish in Agra, 3 injured
Pakistan again violates ceasefire
Minor girl gang-raped by five minor boys
2 Nepalese nationals held with contraband
Odisha chit fund probe panel extends deadline
AGRA: A minor communal flareup erupted Monday evening here in the Taj city but was effectively contained, police said Tuesday. The scuffle broke out in Taj Ganj area between two groups of youngsters on a trivial issue. It soon escalated into stone-pelting from both sides. At least three people, including a priest, were injured.
SRINAGAR: Pakistani troops Tuesday fired at Indian positions in Mendhar sector on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, in yet another violation of the bilateral ceasefire, a defence spokesman said. The firing started at 8.40 am and till last reports came in, exchange of fire was still going on.
GUWAHATI: A 12-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by five minor boys in the Hatigaon area here. The girl was gang-raped near her home on Sunday night when her mother was out on work as a daily wage earner. The boys aged between 12 to 16 years, who are her neighbours, called her outside and then gang-raped her.
MAHRAJGANJ: Two Nepalese nationals were arrested after contraband was allegedly seized from their possession near the IndoNepal border here. Acting on a tipoff, the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) nabbed drug peddler Jan Lama (26) and Vijai Khadka (24), both hailing from Sarlahi district in Nepal, with 9 kg charas.
BHUBANESWAR: A commission probing the multi-crore-rupee chit fund scam in Odisha has extended the deadline for submission of complaints till September 30 as more people are coming ahead with grievances, a commission official said Tuesday. The panel had earlier fixed September 18 as the deadline.
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News TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
CIVIC
POLITICKING
Score-settling The double game trumps over rest While larger issues of economy and development are at stake, the merger issue was treated shabbily at the civic body meeting, where a consensus was possible but a fracas resulted.
ALEENA ALICE aleena.t@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: The general body meeting at the GHMC on Monday was a farce. First, the two-day meeting was curtailed to one day without any valid reason. Second, the mayor’s dictatorial attitude and antipathy towards the BJP led to a fracas and later arrest of the BJP members. While it was the job of the mayor to take the House with him, he failed in his duty by provocatively denying the BJP a chance to speak on public issues. Incidentally, the BJP agrees with the rest saying the GHMC has no funds and therefore the State government’s idea to
The mayor instructed the GHMC chief Krishna Babu, not to take up any developmental activities in the newly merged panchayats. incorporate 15 more panchayats into Greater Hyderabad was unreasonable. The party also wanted to discuss poor conditions of the roads with the impending Ganesh immersion. The chair refused to budge, leading to a protest dharna and later the arrest of BJP members by Nampally police. BJP leaders demanded that the mayor resign for failing in his duty. “The roads are in bad shape and so far no action has been taken. Ganesh immersion is just round the corner and if the roads are in such a state, there are chances of several accidents taking place. When we demanded answers for our questions, we were suspended from the meeting. It’s absolutely unfair,” said Bangari Prakash, the BJP’s floor leader. The only agenda taken up at the meeting in length was the merging of the gram panchayats into the GHMC limits. After discussing the problems of
the merger, all the parties unanimously opposed to the government's decision and turned down the proposal. The merger would hamper development and put additional pressure on the corporation to provide infrastructure, the AROUND THE
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council said. Mayor Majid Hussain strongly opposed the merger proposal and instructed the GHMC chief Krishna Babu, not to take up any developmental activities in the newly merged gram panchayats until the State government gives clarity on the issues pertaining to various departments. Important issues like town planning, conditions of the roads and other major issues, though on the agenda were only cursorily brought up by a few corporators at the meeting and no concrete decision was taken. The general body meeting which is supposed to be an important meeting to discuss major civic problems is losing its importance, says social activist Ramkrishna Murthy. “Because of a lack of initiave from officials, hundreds of civic problems go unattended. Half of the time is spent with political parties arguing over trivial issues, the rest to sort out what issue should be taken up. Where will they have the time to take up important subjects,” he questions. A close watch of the proceedings reveal that merger issue was turned into a scene for settling political scores. The Mayor and MIM seemed to be eager to tell the Congress and its CM that it can also puncture his tyre when occasion rises. It is common knowledge that the MIM and Kiran clash over some issues. But this time, the MIM also showed its antipathy to the BJP which it considers its arch enemy.
All the major political parties in AP today celebrated ‘Telangana Liberation Day’, even as many of them are busy scuttling the formation from behind the scenes.
INKESHAF AHMED inkeshaf.a@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: It was originally the idea of the BJP. The Hyderabad Liberation Day today was to be turned to Telangana Liberation Day. The party has nothing much to lose as its stakes are more in Telangana than in Seemandhra. But the game compelled others to follow, lest they be seen as anti-T. Of course, some gave it a different nomenclature: Hyderabad State Merger Day (TDP), Telangana Liberation Day (BJP and Congress and TRS Parties). But while all political major parties today celebrated the ‘Telangana Liberation Day’ with various programmes in their party headquarters, what surprised many was the about-turn shown by the YSR Congress party which has rejected bifurcation of the State. Their party headquarters at Jubilee Hills had a programme where the national
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flag was hoisted in the presence of a sizeable crowd. But its leaders had hard time explaining the event given their stance on the bifurcation. Senior leaders Jupudi Prabhakar Rao and Vasireddy Padma pleaded they were busy with managing the functions to answer. They were fumbling for words to explain the contradiction of the party stance and the said activity. It was obvious that leaders were apparently worried that this move would go against the party’s image as a votary of united Andhra Pradesh. “We are giving a weapon in the hands of our enemies to turn against us,” worried a YSRC leader, who though opposed to the move was part of a programme, told Postnoon seeking anonymity.
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FORBES LIST
3 Indian-Americans among 400 richest in US Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates retains the top spot for the twentieth straight year, at $72 billion. WASHINGTON: Three IndianAmericans figure among America’s 400 richest people with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates retaining the top spot on the Forbes list for the twentieth straight year, at $72 billion. Up $6 billion from 2012, Gates is once again the world’s richest person, having passed Mexico’s Carlos Slim in May. Topping the IndianAmerican list was Florida outsourcer Bharat Desai & family with a net worth of $2.2 billion in
The combined wealth of the Forbes’ 2013 ranking of the richest people in America is $2 trillion. The average net worth of a Forbes 400 member is $5 billion.
the 252nd position. He was followed California software manufacturer Romesh T Wadhwani with a net worth of 2.1 billion. California venture capitalist Vinod Khosla was ranked 352 with a net worth of $1.5 billion Investor Warren Buffett, the second richest is the biggest dollar gainer this year at $58.5 billion, up $12.5 billion from last year. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison at number three, worth
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$41 billion, is the same as last year; he is the only one in the Top 10 who did not add to his fortune. FaceBook founderMark Zuckerberg was the second biggest gainer at $9.6 billion. He returns to the Top 20 (number 20) at $19 billion after dropping to 36th position last year.
MUZAFFARNAGAR RIOTS
Walk the talk, BJP tells Akhilesh govt, Centre PANAJI: The BJP on Tuesday asked the union and the Uttar Pradesh governments to stop “issuing hollow statements” on the Muzaffarnagar riots and instead work to nail the guilty. The state unit of the BJP accused the Congress and the Samajwadi Party governments of paying lip service to the violence in Muzaffaranagar that left 48 dead. Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Monday said the guilty would be booked, but what stopped them from doing so, state BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak told IANS. “Both these governments have intelligence set-ups with them and police. So instead of issuing hollow statements, they should act,” the spokesman said. The spokesman questioned the divergent views emerging in the Samajwadi Party on the
ment to cover up its administrative and intelligence failure” and said such efforts will only increase the pain of the people displaced in the riots. He said the Samajwadi Party and the Congress “should ensure that the guilty behind the riots are booked”, he said. Earlier, state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai dared the government to arrest party legislators booked by the district administration for their alleged AROUND THE
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Congress president Sonia Gandhi during a visit to Muzaffarnagar.
Muzaffarnagar clashes. “SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said that the violent incidents in Muzaffarnagar were caste conflicts. However, Minority Affairs Minister Azam
Khan said these were the worst communal riots in India after the 2002 Gujarat riots,” Pathak said. He questioned what he called “efforts by the SP govern-
role in the Muzaffarnagar riots. “Two of our MLAs accused falsely by the police are attending the monsoon session of the assembly. I dare the government to arrest them,” Bajpai said, accusing the state government of falsely implicating the legislators. IANS
The combined wealth of the Forbes’ 2013 ranking of the richest people in America is $2 trillion, up from $1.7 trillion in 2012 and the highest ever, due in part to the strength of both the US stock and real estate markets. The average net worth of a Forbes 400 member is a staggering $5 billion, the highest to date, up from $4.2 billion last year. Net worth increased for 314 members, and decreased for 30 members. IANS
PAYBACK TIME
Death for top Bangladesh Islamist DHAKA: Bangladesh’s top court Tuesday sentenced to death a senior Islamist opposition official for murder during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan. Abdul Quader Molla, 65, the fourth-highest leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, is the first politician to be found guilty by the country’s Supreme Court after it rejected an appeal to AROUND THE
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acquit him of all charges. The court strengthened the original sentence handed down by the country’s controversial war crimes tribunal of life in prison, and imposed the death penalty. The original life sentence triggered widespread protests including by secular protesters angry over the apparent leniency. That decision and subsequent ones by the International Crimes Tribunal led to months of unrest by Islamists and secular groups that left at least 100 people dead. AFP
WORLD BRIEFS Rare twin storms batter Mexico, 40 dead
Malala receives top Amnesty award
No pre-conditions for talks with Taliban: Imran
Over 100 hostages in Philippines rescued
Beijing airport bomber on trial — on stretcher
ACAPULCO: Mexico reeled Monday from the rare one-two punch of major storms on opposite coasts that triggered floods and landslides, killing at least 40 people while stranding tourists in Acapulco. Thousands of people were evacuated as the two storms set off landslides and floods that damaged bridges, roads and homes.
LONDON: Amnesty International announced on Tuesday it had awarded its highest honour to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen shot in the head last year by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education. Malala will share the award with American singer and human rights activist Harry Belafonte.
ISLAMABAD: There should be no pre-conditions for peace talks between the government and the Taliban, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan said Monday. The PTI chief told reporters that delegations from the two sides should first meet, where demands could be put up, but within the framework of the constitution.
MANILA: As many as 107 people taken hostage by a rebel group have been rescued, the Philippines military said Tuesday. The crisis was on its ninth day after hundreds of armed rebels went to the city and fought with government troops. The group seized hundreds of civilians at four coastal villages and used them as shields.
BEIJING: A disabled Chinese man who set off a homemade explosive device at Beijing’s international airport went on trial Tuesday. Ji Zhongxing, who lost his left hand in the explosion in July, was wheeled into court wearing pyjamas and on a yellow stretcher, pictures posted on a social media account run by the court showed.
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SALVAGING MEMORIES
FALLOUT
Raising the Costa Concordia Raising the liner has so far cost $800 million and insurers estimate it could run to $1.1 billion once it is completed. LAURE BRUMONT feedback@postnoon.com GIGLIO ISLAND: Salvage operators in Italy lifted the Costa Concordia cruise ship upright from its watery grave off the island of Giglio in the biggest ever project of its kind. The sound of ship horns sounded across the water in celebration, mixing with applause and cheers in the port in a climax to the 19-hour operation. The 290-metre 114,500-ton vessel — longer than the Titanic and more than twice as heavy — rose like a ghost ship. The side of the giant ship that had been underwater was rusty and brown 20 months on from the Janaury 13, 2012 tragedy, contrasting with the brilliant white on the exposed side. “The parbuckling operation has been completed,” said Franco Gabrielli, head of the civil protection agency and project overseer, using the technical term for the rotation. Local residents and survivors spoke of an eerie feeling as the ship rose, saying it reminded them of the way the ship looked on the night of the tragedy that claimed 32 lives. “Seeing it re-emerge is emotional for me,” said Luciano Castro, a survivor who travelled to the picturesque island to witness the salvage. “I could not miss it. That ship could have been my end and instead I am here to tell the story,” he said.
School told to pay out $1.8mn TOKYO: A Japanese court ordered a kindergarten to pay $1.8 million to parents of four children who died after being put on a bus that drove towards a tsunami. Minutes after the giant undersea earthquake of March 2011, staff at Hiyori Kindergarten, which sits on a hill in the badly-hit city of Ishinomaki, sent children home on a route that took them towards the sea. Five children and one woman were killed when the bus was engulfed by the huge waves that swept over the seaside road as the bus was trying to turn around. Sendai District Court ordered the kindergarten and its then-headteacher to pay a combined 170 million yen in damages. The ruling is the AROUND THE
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The salvage is the biggest for a passenger ship ever undertaken and the position of the hulk posed unique challenges to the 500-person international salvage team. They also had to take special care since Giglio is in the heart of one of Europe’s biggest marine sanctuaries. The project has so far cost $800 million and insurers, who are picking up the bill, estimate it could run to $1.1 billion once it is completed. The man who gave the orders from a control room on a barge next to the ship was Nick Sloane,
a South African with experience on some of the world’s biggest shipwrecks. “I’m relieved. It was a bit of a rollercoaster,” a smiling Sloane said as he was mobbed by AROUND THE
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dozens of journalists and wellwishers in the port before a celebratory drink. “The scale of it was something we’ve never seen before,” he said.
Giglio islanders said they were happy at the prospect of the ship finally being refloated and towed away. “All the inhabitants are hoping and waiting,” said Giovanna Rum, owner of a maritime clothing shop on the island. The Costa Concordia struck rocks just off Giglio after veering sharply towards the island in a bravado sail-by allegedly ordered by its captain, Francesco Schettino. The bodies of Indian waiter Russell Rebello and Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi were never recovered.
first of its kind against a business in northeast Japan over deaths in the disaster, media reported. The kindergarten had argued it was impossible to know there would be such a big tsunami and the decision to send children home had been sound. But chief judge Norio Saiki said the kindergarten was “obliged to collect information actively after workers felt a giant earthquake lasting three minutes,” according to public broadcaster NHK.
SYRIAN CRISIS
Syria’s ‘chilling’ Sarin attack revealed UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria as ‘a war crime’. TIM WITCHER feedback@postnoon.com UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations revealed what it called “chilling” details of a sarin gas attack in Syria, leaving the major powers to battle over who was responsible. UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria as “a war crime” as the country’s conflict again spilled into neighboring nations, with Turkey saying it had shot down a Syrian military helicopter. UN experts said they had gathered “clear and convincing evidence” that surface-to-surface
rockets took sarin gas into the opposition-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21. The US, which had threatened a military strike on Syria over the attack, says more than 1,400 people were killed in Ghouta. Ban said the report prepared by the experts “makes for chilling reading.” He added that the use of sarin had been proved “unequivocally and objectively” and that the Ghouta attack was “the most signficant” with chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein unleashed poison gas in Halabja, Iraq, in 1988, killing thousands. Ban described how doctors treated civilians with no external
signs of injuries in the streets of Ghouta in the hours after the attack and that the weather conditions had maximized the casualties. “The downward movement of air would have allowed the gas to easily penetrate the basements and lower levels of buildAROUND THE
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ings and other structures where many people were seeking shelter,” Ban said. “The environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and con-
vincing evidence that surface-tosurface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used” in Ghouta, said the report by UN inspectors who were in Syria when the attack was staged. The experts concluded that “chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against civilians including children on a relatively large scale.” A separate UN-mandated independent human rights inquiry announced that it was investigating 14 alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Ban would not say who had carried out the attack.
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SHOOTOUT IN WASHINGTON DC
Lone gunman responsible: Authorities
Police have identified the alleged lone gunman as Aaron Alexis of Texas, who served in the Navy from 2007 to 2011 before becoming a defense subcontractor for computer giant Hewlett-Packard. WASHINGTON: US authorities probing the shooting spree at Washington’s Navy Yard, which left 13 people dead and eight injured, said Monday that a lone gunman carried out the killings. “We don’t have any evidence or indication at this stage that there was another shooter, even though we haven’t completely ruled that out,” said Washington mayor Vincent
Gray. Police chief Cathy Lanier stressed that: “we do now feel comfortable that we have the single and sole person responsible for the loss of life inside of the base today. “If anything changes as we continue to go forward, we certainly will make that available to the public,” she told a briefing hours after authorities said they were searching for two
The angry young man Alexis, 34, once told police he suffered from an anger-fueled blackout when he shot out a car’s tires, but was also known as a quiet man. WASHINGTON: A picture emerged of Aaron Alexis, the man accused of killing a dozen people at the Washington Navy Yard, as a decorated sailor with a troubled past and anger issues. Alexis, 34, once told police he suffered from an anger-fueled blackout when he shot out a car’s tires, but was also known as a quiet man who meditated regularly at a Buddhist temple in Texas and had taught himself to speak Thai. The defense contractor was killed in a gunfight with police, who have not yet speculated as to a motive for the shooting, which also left several people hurt. The FBI released two photos of a baldheaded Alexis, an African-American man who weighed about 86 kilos and stood at 6’1 feet. Born in New York, Alexis served in the military from 2007 until 2011, the US Navy said. “There is definitely a pattern of misconduct during his service,” a US military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP. The officer did not yet know if Alexis had been dishonorably discharged, but his record was clean enough to get hired at an HP subcontractor called The Experts, which worked on the Navy and Marine Corps’s Intranet.
Three years before he enlisted, Alexis was arrested in Seattle for shooting out the tires of a car parked near his grandmother’s house after construction workers had “disrespected him.” He told police that he could not remember firing the Glock .45 caliber handgun
until about an hour afterward, according to a Seattle police report. Alexis explained to detectives that he was in New York during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and described “how those events had disturbed him.” Detectives later spoke with his father, who told them his son’s “anger management problems” were due to post-traumatic stress disorder and that he had been an “active participant in rescue attempts” after the attacks. Formal charges were never processed because the paperwork never reached prosecutors, the Seattle Times reported. “From the outside, he was a quiet person,” J. Sirun, an assistant to the monks at the Buddhist temple Alexis attended in Texas, told the Washington Post. “But on the inside, I think he was very aggressive. He did not like to be close with anybody, like a soldier who has been at war.” “I didn’t think he could be this violent,” Sirun said. “I would not have been surprised to hear he had committed suicide. But I didn’t think he could commit murder.” “Oh boy, I can’t believe this,” Srisan told the Star Telegram. “He was always very polite to me.”
‘When will enough be enough?’ WASHINGTON: Senator Dianne Feinstein demanded an answer to America’s continuing gun tragedies, asking “when will enough be enough” in the wake of Monday’s horrific deadly shooting in the US capital. Feinstein, who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, helped lead a push for tighter gun laws in the wake of last December’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that
The gun-control effort, including Feinstein’s bid to ban assault weapons and highcapacity clips, failed in the Senate. left 20 children and six adults dead. That gun-control effort, including Feinstein’s bid to ban assault weapons and highcapacity clips, failed in the
Senate early this year amid fierce debate. Feinstein said she mourned the 12 people slain by a gunman at the Navy Yard in Washington, saying the killer was reportedly armed with a shotgun, an assault rifle similar to the one used in Newtown, and a semi-automatic pistol. “This is one more event to add to the litany of massacres that occur when a deranged person or grievance killer is able to obtain multiple weapons
— including a military-style assault rifle — and kill many people in a short amount of time,” Feinstein said. “When will enough be enough?” she added. Dozens of lawmakers returning from their districts spoke of the horror of Monday’s tragedy, but perhaps in recognition of the deeply divisive nature of the issue on Capitol Hill, few made open appeals to re-ignite the debate on the nation’s gun laws.
suspects and urged Washington residents to stay in place until the search ended. Police have identified the alleged lone gunman as Aaron Alexis of Forth Worth, Texas, who served in the Navy from 2007 to 2011 before becoming a defense subcontractor for computer giant Hewlett-Packard. He was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.
A TERRIBLE TIMELINE Killeen, Texas, October 1991: A man shoots dead 22 people in a restaurant, kills himself. Littleton, Colorado, April 1999: Two teenagers kill 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves. Atlanta, Georgia, July 1999: A stock market trader kills 12 people, including his wife and two children, kills himself. Red Lake, Minnesota, March 2005: A teenage boy kills two people and then goes to his school where he kills seven others before killing himself. Blacksburg, Virginia, April 2007: A student kills 32 people at Virginia Tech, before committing suicide. Omaha, Nebraska, December 2007: A 19-year-old man shoots dead eight people in a mall then kills himself. Fort Hood, Texas, November 2009. US army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan opens fire at his military base, killing 13 people and wounding 42. Oikos, California, April 2012: A male nursing student methodically kills seven people at a Christian university. Aurora, Colorado, July 2012: A man kills 12 people at a movie theater showing a latenight premiere of a Batman film in a suburb of Denver. Newtown, Connecticut, December 2012: A young man kills 26 people, including 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school. Miami, Florida, July 27, 2013: A gunman shoots dead six people in a shooting rampage in an apartment building before being killed by police. Washington DC, September 16, 2013: At least 13 people die in a mass shooting at a naval base in Washington DC, with police naming one of the dead as the alleged gunman.
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A DYING BREED
Nigerian wine tappers are the last of a generation BEN SIMON feedback@postnoon.com NSUKKA: The pay is low and the work involves scaling a 50foot tree multiple times a day with no safety net, so it is not surprising that Nigerian palm wine tappers are struggling to find fresh recruits. “No newcomers,” said Anthony Ozioko, a slight 63year-old, visibly drained after a mid-morning climb up a palm tree in the southeastern town of Nsukka. Nigerians have been drinking the sap from raffia trees, a species of palm, since long before the country existed. Palm wine was once the region’s main social drink, an almost mandatory offer at events such as weddings and concerts, although the proliferation of beer and foreign liquor has in part curbed the demand for the more traditional drink. Consumed straight from the tree, palm wine is a non-alcoholic drink and said by some to have medicinal qualities, especially for the digestive system. When fermented and distilled, palm sap produces a drink that recalls a bottle of Sprite, but with much less sugar and about as boozy as a standard bottle of beer. Experts say the consumer demand for palm wine is strong, but production is struggling amid a decades-long agriculture sector decline in Nigeria, where the oil industry, Africa’s largest, has become dominant. Attempts to develop the
Attempts to develop the palm wine sector have mostly floundered and the business largely remains as rudimentary as ever.
palm wine sector have mostly floundered and the business largely remains as rudimentary as ever: tappers climb the tree, process the sap and deliver it directly to a customer, typically someone who lives nearby. For young Nigerians the work seems to have little appeal. “I don’t want (my son) to be a tapper. I want him to be a pilot,” said Sabimus Nwudo as his neighbour Ozioko described the gruelling work and marginal
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profits. When a tree is ready to be harvested, the first task is “to make the road” by using a machete to cut divots up the trunk, which serve as slots for both feet and a locally made climbing aid that resembles a harness, Ozioko explained. His climb looked daunting
but he moved quickly, wedging his harness and feet in the precut divots, eventually securing himself at the top of the trunk, where he collected the sap that had dripped overnight into a bottle attached to the trunk. Ozioko’s expert movements made the work look deceptively safe but serious injuries and some deaths have occurred, locals said. Put simply, “if you don’t know how to climb it, you’ll
fall”, said the tapper, resting on a chair after removing a few bees from his latest haul and gulping down a cup. The industry is still “in its cradle” and has so far failed to attract any meaningful investment, said Isona Gold of the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR). Gold said he sees huge opportunities for growth but his vision for better organisation and higher profits for tappers has stalled. The plan calls for the formation of clusters of 10 tappers, each harvesting 150 litres of palm wine per day, with a series of local processing plants selling a bottled product — alcoholic or not — to vendors. The NIFOR plan estimates each tapper earning 120,000 naira ($750 or 570 euros) per month. If successful, “the young generation may want to go in”, Gold said. The key is private sector involvement, he added. But the lack of infrastructure speaks of a larger problem that has plagued Nigeria’s entire agricultural sector, which analysts say has suffered from a woeful lack of investment, both private and public, despite being the country’s top employment sector. Nigeria, with its estimated 167 million people, was the world’s largest rice importer in 2012, according to the US Department of Agriculture, bringing in 3.4 million tonnes. despite having the climate and land suitable for large-scale rice production. AFP
NANSEN PRIZE
Congolese nun wins UN refugee award GENEVA: A Congolese nun who has dedicated herself to helping women who have escaped cruelty at the hands of Ugandan rebels has won the annual Nansen prize awarded by the UNHCR, the refugee agency announced on Tuesday. Sister Angelique Namaika (in pic) receives the $100,000 UN prize named after the late Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who was the first League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
A member of the Augustinian religious order of Catholics, she has dedicated herself to helping women who escaped extreme cruelty at the hands of Ugandan rebel movement the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). She works in a remote northeast region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and through her Centre for Reintegration and Development, “has helped transform the lives of more than 2,000 women and girls who have been forced from their
homes and abused, mainly by the LRA,” the UN refugee agency said in a statement. “Her one-on-one approach helps them recover from the trauma and damage. On top of the abuse they have sufAROUND THE
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fered, these vulnerable women and girls are often ostracised by their own families and communities because of their
ordeal,” it added. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres commended the 2013 laureate: “The challenges are massive, which makes her work all the more remarkable — she doesn’t allow anything to stand in her way.” The Lord’s Resistance Army has waged a guerrilla campaign in Uganda since 1987. Since 2008, an estimated 320,000 people have been forced to flee in DR Congo’s north-eastern province of Orientale, including Sister Angelique herself. AFP
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ENVIRONMENT
Doomed deer freed to feed China’s elusive tigers In the mountains of northeastern China, conservationists looking to preserve the endangered Amur tiger are releasing deer into the area for the big cats to kill and eat. KELLY OLSEN feedback@postnoon.com WANGQING: Hundreds of Amur tiger, the world’s largest feline, also known as Siberian tigers and scientifically as Panthera tigris altaica, once roamed the lush pine and oak forests of Manchuria, but only around 20 still survive in the wild. Historically, China’s shamanistic Manchu people both revered and hunted tigers, with the Qing dynasty Kangxi emperor claiming to have killed 135 with bow and musket, according to Peter Dekker, an independent researcher of Qing dynasty weapons. China was once home to several tiger subspecies, but now their legacy endures more in folklore — “Where there are mountains, there are tigers,” goes one old saying — than in the flesh. Conservationists cite increased human settlement, logging and poaching of both tigers
— for use in Chinese medicine — and prey as among reasons for the dramatic population fall. “The prey numbers are very low in comparison to other countries,” said Rohit Singh of global conservation organisation WWF’s Tigers Alive Initiative. WWF has a project to increase deer numbers in the Jilin Wangqing National Nature Reserve in an effort to give the tigers — and even more endangered Amur leopards —a chance to thrive and multiply. In 2012 a total of 37 deer were released into the area, while last month a similar number were let go to feed the felines. But the tigers’ appetite is huge. Dale Miquelle, Vladivostokbased director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Russia Program, said one tiger needs to kill about 50 deer or wild boar a year to survive, and a prey population about 10 times that size was needed for the kill rate to be sustainable. “Whether it be red deer or sika deer or wild boar, you need
a relatively large number of animals,” he said by phone from Russia, home to a far bigger Amur tiger population estimated at about 350-400. “Ultimately the process will be about making sure that these (prey) animals are protected from poaching and that they have the area to expand their populations and that their habitat isn’t being destroyed by other activities,” he said. The Wangqing reserve is part of a corridor linking the Amur tiger population in China with the one in Russia, less than 100 kilometres (62 miles) away. The corridor is “very important for tigers,” said Tang Lijun, deputy director of the reserve’s administration bureau, adding steps had been taken to sharply reduce logging work in the area to help preserve it. Measures include schemes to provide forest workers with alternative sources of income as logging work declines, such as stakes in fish, fungus and other farming ventures.
Pick
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In 2012, a total of 37 deer were released into the area, while last month a similar number were let go to feed the felines. Estimates for worldwide wild tiger numbers run between about 2,700 to 3,200, said Joseph Vattakaven, a WWF conservation adviser and expert on the felines, down from an estimated 100,000 a century ago. Given the extremely low tiger and leopard numbers in northeastern China, sightings are rare. Footage collected by WWF last month showed an adult male Amur leopard, scientific name Panthera pardus orientalis and the world’s most endangered feline, walking through the Wangqing reserve forest, stop-
at the
ping to emit a sizeable yawn before stepping over a fallen tree limb and heading out of view. As recently as the 1970s Amur tiger numbers in China and Russia were about equal at approximately 150 each, Vattakaven said, but the Russian population rose “because of protection and other efforts”. Joe Walston, Asia executive director for WCS, added from New York: “If it hadn’t been for Russia there now would be no wild tigers in China. So the test really is for China to build on the efforts that have gone on in Russia.” A key factor, he added, was that China should avoid major infrastructure projects “that will divide and break up tiger habitats”. The WWF’s Singh said that while there were important ecological reasons to save tigers, they paled before one compelling fact. “It’s such a charismatic species,” he said. “You can’t just lose it. It’s such a beautiful species.” AFP
airport,
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COUNTER CULTURE
Russian film braves law to tell gay love story
Winter Journey has won a warm reception from critics, who nevertheless predicted it would only reach a small audience. ANNA MALPAS feedback@postnooon.com MOSCOW: A taboo-breaking Russian film tackling the topic of gay love may have earned critical plaudits but its makers fear few will ever see the movie given the crackdown on so-called “homosexual propaganda”. A controversial new law signed in June by President Vladimir Putin makes it legal to ban events that could be seen as promoting homosexuality to minors. Western stars including British actor Stephen Fry and US pop star Lady Gaga have publicly criticised the law, which so far has been largely used as a threat rather than enforced. So when the makers of Winter Journey, a passionate story of a gay classical singer falling in love with a street-wise petty criminal, pitched it to one of Russia’s main summer film festivals, Kinotavr, they were surprised it was refused. “For the organisers of the festival it was uncomfortable, because there is such a law, so they thought it was better not to get involved,” director Sergei Taramayev told AFP. “At least people who were in the jury told us that this was the reason why we were not accepted for Kinotavr.” The film’s co-writer Lyubov Lvova said she believed festivals feared they could lose funding if they showed the film. “At many festivals — Russian ones — this scared the organisers a lot. They were afraid of this law, that it could stop them getting financing for their festivals.” Taramayev said they did not even submit the film to Russia’s
main film forum, Moscow International Film Festival — opened by Brad Pitt this summer — because of the views of its organiser, Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov. “He supports the government’s line and is a very political AROUND THE
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Only a few Russian films have featured gay characters in a country where the fear and dread of homosexuality still casts a shadow.
director and we realised that they would not take us.” Nevertheless, Kommersant daily’s film critic Lidya Maslova argued that the film would “look great at any European festival.”
‘WE CAN’T QUITE BELIEVE THIS MIRACLE’ The film won prizes at the two smaller Russian festivals where it was shown, at the Window into Europe festival in Vyborg in northwestern Russia in August and at Moscow Premiere in September. The film takes its title from a Schubert song cycle, Winterreise, that the hero, Erik, a music student, is anxiously practising for a competition. His teacher slams his unemotional performance, until Erik is transformed by a chance meeting with his polar opposite: Lyokha, a manic, foul-mouthed youth from a dead-end provincial town who is frankly homophobic. “Don’t you have enough poofters already?” he asks, catching Erik’s adoring gaze. Nevertheless they click, and
share a climactic kiss. But ultimately, Lyokha is unable to accept his feelings. The film’s makers said they believed the low-budget film was awarded an 18 certificate because of the new law. The adults-only release is perhaps justified by scenes of smoking spliffs, vodka swilling and swearing, but probably not by the film’s one gay kiss. But the film’s makers expressed relief that the culture ministry permitted its release at all. “We still can’t quite believe in this miracle,” said co-writer Lvova. Only a few Russian films have featured gay characters in a country where the fear and dread of homosexuality, a criminal offence in the Soviet era, still casts a shadow. Homosexual relationships were legalised in 1993, but Russia’s medical establishment only ceased classing homosexuality as a psychiatric condition in 1999. The Creation of Adam (1993) about a man falling for his guardian angel is seen as
Russia’s first gay-themed film. Later films have included the 2009 drama called Jolly Fellows.
‘THIS ISN’T A GAY DRAMA’
Winter Journey won a warm reception from critics, who nevertheless predicted it would only reach a small audience. Kommersant praised Yevgeny Tkachuk’s “natural” performance, while Vedomosti business daily called the film “a very serious and subtle artistic statement”. Komsomolskaya Pravda called it “wonderfully talented.” Vedomosti critic Dmitry Savelyev praised the director for “not worrying about the danger of getting a reputation as a propagandist for influences that are alien to our people.” The actors however said they preferred not to call it a “gay film. “This isn’t a gay drama,” said actor Vladimir Mishukov. who played Erik. “It’s all exaggeration calling this a gay film. It’s a story about a romantic attitude to life,” added actor Yevgeny Tkachuk, who plays Lyokha. AFP
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Business
DOLLAR HIGHER IN ASIA AFTER FED RACE SLUMP
The dollar was stronger in Asia Tuesday after it slumped following a surprise weekend announcement that the front-runner to head the US Federal Reserve had withdrawn from the race.
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
The Twitter milestone A report said social networking can increase productivity and ‘unlock value’ to the tune of $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in key segments.
ROB LEVER feedback@postnoon.com WASHINGTON: Is Twitter’s stock offering the end of the social media era, or just the beginning? While Twitter appears to have carved out its niche in the social Internet, a big question now is how much growth and innovation remains in the space. Charlene Li at Altimeter Group sees a “last call” mentality around Twitter’s initial public offering (IPO). “Twitter is the last of the Big Four to go public,” she said on her blog. “In the social networking ecosystem, Twitter is seen as a must have in terms of a social strategy, and is the only major player left that is still up for grabs — YouTube (owned by Google), LinkedIn (IPO), and Facebook (IPO) are all spoken for. Other upstarts like Pinterest are just getting started so Twitter is going to be the talk of the town into 2014.” Trip Chowdhry at Global Equities Research said Twitter may be the final social media IPO. “The Twitter IPO symbolizes this industry is coming to an end, and future investments will be in some industry we don’t know,” he told AFP. But others who watch social media say Twitter and others have just scratched the surface of the sector’s potential. “We’re far from the end in innovation,” said Daniel Odio, an executive at the Californiabased Internet firm Share This, who has been involved in a number of technology startups. “I believe we are in the Dark Ages of social, there is so much opportunity,” he added. “The whole fabric of our existence is based on sharing, but digitally we haven’t really
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GREECE BACK ON TRACK?
ATHENS: The Greek economy is “back on track” but is likely to need another six years to return to pre-crisis levels, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said. “We are not out of the woods yet,” Samaras told a conference in Rome organised by the International Herald Tribune newspaper. “According to most (experts), we will not need a couple of decades, not a couple of generations, but only six years to get back (to) the pre-crisis levels of our standard of living and GDP,” he added. Samaras credited the tough economic reforms that his government has implemented to comply with its creditors the European Union, the IMF and the European Central Bank.
NUMEROLOGY
6.37% is the year-on-year proportinal rise in Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China in the first eight months.
cracked the code. Facebook has done part of this, and Twitter has created the ability to find people who are not your friends but who share a common interest... that’s why Twitter is good at disrupting governments.” A 2012 report by McKinsey Global Institute suggests social media is just getting started. The report said social networking can increase productivity and “unlock value” to the tune of $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in key segments of the world economy. This comes from “using social tools to enhance communications, knowledge sharing, and collaboration within and across enterprises,” the report said. “While 72 per cent of companies use social technologies in some way, very few are anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit. In fact, the most powerful applications of
social technologies in the global economy are largely untapped.” Twitter claims to have more than 200 million active users, but some analysts say the figure is closer to 500 million and growing rapidly, as it becomes a key platform for celebrities, politicians, journalists and others. The research firm eMarketer, for one, says Twitter is expected to earn $582.8 million in global ad revenue this year, and nearly $1 billion in 2014. Twitter, which launched in 2006, opened the door to advertisers in 2010 by allowing marketers to insert paid “promoted tweets” into user feeds. Olivier Toubia, a Columbia University business professor and co-author of a study on Twitter appearing in the journal Marketing Science, said Twitter is evolving as it becomes a mainstream outlet, similar in some ways to television.
“It becomes less valuable as a word of mouth and viral marketing tool, but more valuable as a media outlet,” Toubia told AFP. “It becomes a way for companies to reach consumers, to broadcast content with lower barriers to entry.” Toubia said that with Twitter’s success, “it has lost a bit of its grassroots flavor.” But he maintained that “there is a lot more room for innovation” in social media. “Facebook and Twitter have shown it is possible to connect people all over the world,” he said, but noted that “consumers cannot react with millions of people at the same time.” “There are a lot of opportunities for smaller niche types of social media that will serve different needs that will connect people on a smaller scale in more meaningful ways,” he said. AFP
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WB MUST REFORM OR DIE WASHINGTON: The World Bank must be more selective and flexible in its work as its faces rising financial constraints and challenges from rivals, according to an internal strategy document. The choices include greater risk-taking, cutting back on bureaucracy and adapting commercial-like work with the private sector, moves which would move the institution beyond its traditional approaches to fostering development. “To deliver on the value proposition, the World Bank Group will need to reposition itself,” said the strategy document, prepared ahead of the bank’s annual meeting in Washington in October.
THUS SPAKE “In South America we work to feed the world. To criticize soy is to criticize the poor who have begun to eat.” GUSTAVO GROBOCOPATEL, ARGENTINA’S ‘SOYBEAN KING’, ON CLAIMS THAT SOYBEAN PLANTATIONS ARE DESTROYING THE AMAZON
BSE NSE
19,725.15 17.32
5,827.60 12.95
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Comment
HIGH-FLYING THOUGHTS
Wonder if the bureaucrat who has questioned families of martyrs demanding compensation also grew up with the patriotic fervour of ‘wanting to join the armed forces to do something for the country till the last drop of blood in the body’!
SYRIA
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CHEMICAL WEAPONS ATTACKS AT HEART OF MEDIA WAR MOHAMED HASNI
THE INSIDE STORY
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ar from Syria’s battlefields, the regime and rebels are waging a bitter media war, trading videos and statements accusing the other of atrocities that are impossible in practice to verify. Independent reporters struggle to confirm the allegations from both sides, because of the threat of kidnap in oppositionheld areas and the government’s reluctance to issue visas to the foreign press. This media battle reached new heights with the alleged chemical weapons attacks in the outskirts of Damascus on August 21 that are said to have killed hundreds of people. Footage published on social media websites purporting to show the aftermath of the attacks documented the latest bloody episode in the 30-month conflict that has killed more than 110,000. On the one hand, opposition groups circulated disturbing, but unverified, images of the victims, while President Bashar alAssad’s regime flatly denied that the footage was what rebels said it was. No independent journalists have had access to the site of the attacks, but opposition groups and Western governments used the videos as evidence in support
of their campaign for military strikes against Syria. “We have known the power of images since the Vietnam war,” says Lebanese sociologist Melhem Chaoul, pointing to the famous photograph of a young Vietnamese girl burned by napalm, fleeing naked and terrified from air strikes. At the height of US President Barack Obama’s moves towards military action against Damascus, US television channel CNN played videos on loop of people racked by convulsions and of dead children. The station said the footage had been shown to a small group of senators by the Obama administration to convince them to support military strikes in Syria. But the Syrian regime first said that the videos had been faked by rebels, and then that opposition fighters themselves had used chemical weapons to halt the army’s advance in the outskirts of Damascus and to prepare the ground for the Western attack they were calling for. Damascus also hit back by highlighting images of atrocities it attributed to rebels. One set of photographs, published by Paris Match, showed jihadist fighters beheading proregime militiamen, and images posted online by the New York Times apparently showed the summary execution of regime troops. The main opposition Syrian
This media battle reached new heights with the alleged chemical weapons attacks that are said to have killed hundreds of people. National Coalition, embarrassed by the images, tried to distance itself from them, issuing a statement on Thursday saying they “were not representative of the Free Syrian Army (its armed wing) or the Syrian people”.
THE END OF SOVIET-STYLE PROPAGANDA
Bassam Abu Abdullah, head
of the Damascus Centre for Strategic Studies, which is close to the regime, said that initially, Syrian state television had refrained from showing any “images of the horrors committed by the rebels”. But the state broadcaster now shows the footage “because everything is allowed in this dirty war when it comes to serving a political goal”, he said. Another challenge for the regime is to showcase its own military successes. One of the most recent examples was the ancient town of Maalula — a symbol of the Christian presence in the region — where television showed troops taking churches and convents.
Faced with the threat of strikes, Assad has not hesitated to defend his regime in public, giving interviews to French daily Le Figaro and US and Russian television stations. “In this case, the regime has moved from Soviet-style propaganda made up of a mixture of jargon and slow reactions to a 21st century communication,” a foreign journalist in Damascus said. “Assad knew to choose the media according to the countries he wanted to target... and tried to convince Western public opinion that striking his country was dangerous and wasn’t worth the effort,” the journalist said. Assad’s government has also denounced what it sees as the bias of the international press and rights groups like Human Rights Watch. HRW accused the army of massacring 248 Syria villagers in two coastal villages. “The West speaks of an alleged massacre in May in the Tartus region, but does not say anything about the sectarian one committed by the terrorists against a dozen (Alawite) villages at the beginning of August in the Latakia area,” a Syrian security official complained to AFP. “There were at least 1,000 dead — they cut the men’s throats, forced the women to walk naked in the streets, disembowelled pregnant women, but of course that does not interest human rights organisations or journalists,” he said.
EDITORIAL Wake up, the American dream isn’t hunky-dory
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he outrage by a section of the American society over Nina Davuluri winning the Miss America pageant should serve as an eye-opener to us Indians. We have, wrongly, always held the West in very esteem, expecting it to provide us greener pastures. When an overall understanding is had of the greener pasture, the picture is rather dull. Though one ventures out to another land enticed by a superior lifestyle, the compromise they end up having to live with does not make it worthwhile. And this, after denying our land of birth the fruit of a difficult upbringing, makes it all the more wrong. After providing the required foundation through education
READERS’ VIEWS
and so much more to make them useful citizens of the country, to be denied the returns after they become capable is not what India deserves. For that matter, we also leave the country with the promise that we will not add to the brain drain, and will come back to enrich our motherland with added colours. But, sadly, that is not what happens. Promises are forgotten and so are the contributions of our home land to our growth. The lifestyle in India has improved a lot of late, but the fad of leaving it to pursue a dream continues. And what are we achieving at the end of it all... second-class citizenry in an alien land.
We invite you to write to us comments, suggestions, viewpoint or just about anything to feedback@postnoon.com or # Plot No 550-A1,3rd Floor, Road No 92, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad-500033 Landmark – Volkswagen showroom or even by way of a call on 4067 2222. Editor: Dean Williams
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
workplace CALL IT A DAY
When is it time to Job hopping today is not only tolerated but also encouraged. When do you know it's time to put in your papers? Let’s find out.
AMY ROSE THOMAS amyrose.t@postnoon.com
QUIT? SIGNS TO LOOK OUT FOR
n You dread going to work in the morning. n You truly dislike the type of work you're doing. n You can't shake the feeling that you just don't fit in at the company. n You are getting passed over for promotions. n The work has become so routine you could do it in your sleep. n You have serious concerns about the financial stability of your organisation. Source: www.cnbc.com
U
nlike how it was in your father's era where sticking it out in the same company was a sign of commitment and loyalty, today it is more viewed as laziness. This is more so because job hopping, in today’s scenario is not just tolerated but also encouraged in most circles. According to a recent survey by ‘Right Management’, seventy-four percent of employees admitted to looking for new jobs while at work. "Our parents are used to the time when one would pass out of college and work in the same company for up to 20 to 25 years after which you retire with a fat pension. It was more about job security than your salary figure. Now people are shifting companies like never before. It is unusual to find someone sticking to one company for more than 15 to 20 years," Shikha P, an HR professional based in Delhi says. Meanwhile, there are also those who think that in this day and age where the attrition rate is soaring, you will largely benefit if you stick with the same
company. "The reason why the attrition rate has gone up to a whole new level is that people are feeling trapped when working for the same company for long. Most times, they think they deserve more and other times they think they are underutilized. However, this problem cannot be fixed. People are bound to feel the same way where ever they go. Only when you get noticed you will continue growing in the company. At the end of the day those people who climb up the ladder are those who show commitment and
dedication. Job hoppers are not usually considered for higher positions," HR professional Revathy Ramakrishna says. On the other hand, if you are dreading going to work each morning and completely dislike the kind of work you do each day then there is nothing stopping you from checking out other avenues. "All said and done, you must be happy at your work since you spent more than half your day in office. If you spent the whole night dreading work the next day, if you got
passed over for promotions more than once, then you know it is time to bid your farewell to the company. In such cases, the company doesn't deserve your loyalty and you can hop to another company without much of an afterthought," Hyderabad-based IT employee Nick Daniel says. It’s never a bad thing to keep those resumes updated. You never know when an opportunity comes knocking!
FAMILY DAY
Broadridge Financial Solutions (India) Private Limited, celebrated its Family Day at N Convention, Hi Tech City in Hyderabad. Designed with the ‘Carnival’ theme in mind, the event was attended by approximately 3,000 people (associates and their family members) who came together to celebrate a fun filled and interactive cultural evening. This year’s theme brought in a colourful celebration with an entertainment element for everyone. The celebrations kick started with the lamp lighting ceremony and welcome address by V Laxmikanth, Managing Director Broadridge India and John Hogan President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Broadridge Financial Solutions. The evening gained momentum with invigorating performances such as fusion dance, group songs and skits by Broadridge associates on popular Bollywood songs. The celebrations also included song and dance performances by family members of Broadridge associates.
DID YOU KNOW...
BlackBerry bidders, including private equity firms, are lining up to look at BlackBerry Ltd, but initial indications suggest that interest is tepid and buyers are eyeing parts of the Canadian smartphone maker rather than the whole company, several sources familiar with the situation said.
TRENDING...
Some tech companies are betting that smartphones will eventually serve a different role in the workplace. The “bring your own device” trend — employers cutting IT budgets by requiring employees to use personal phones instead of company-provided devices — creates a need for a new generation of special workplace communication apps.
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
spotlight FOODIES PITSTOP
NEW ON THE BLOCK
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Dwaraka Hotel launched LEVELS bistro, the latest addition to eateries at Road No.14, Banjara Hills. The event was graced by the presence of who’s who from the city.
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1 Deepika 2 Shikha and Shirisha 3 Sravanti and Karthik Reddy 4 Murtuza 5 Archana 6 Swetha Singh 7 Sirish Bharadwaj 8 Kaushik, Kalyan and Prashant 9 Kali Sudhir 10 Seema
PROFESSIONAL SKIN CARE
Page 3 Luxury Salon and Makeover Studio launched BABOR, premier skin care product from Germany at their Jubilee Hills branch.
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
health
ROUTING FOR A JUNK FREE CHECKOUT
Guilty pleasures fuelling obesity crisis
Parents vent frustration at checkout aisles full of junkfood in survey to kickstart new campaign ALEX DELMAR-MORGAN feedback@postnoon.com
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he Government will be urged to revisit proposals to ban unhealthy food from supermarket checkouts after a survey found that more than 90 per cent of shoppers believe the practice contributes to obesity. A campaign called Junk Free Checkouts is being launched today and aims to force supermarkets to stop selling sweets near the tills, which exploits the “pester power” of children who nag their parents to buy the snacks.
Nearly 2000 people took part in the Chuck the Junk Survey, of which the majority were women and twothirds had children The initiative, announced by the British Dietetic Association and the Children’s Food Campaign, comes in the wake of a nationwide survey in which 78 per cent of respondents said they found junk food at checkouts “annoying”. It also found that 83 per cent have been pestered by their children to buy junk food at the checkouts and 75 per cent have given in to their children and bought something because they were pestered. Nearly 2,000 people took part in the Chuck the Junk Survey, of which the majority were women and two-thirds had children. Health campaigners have long called for supermarkets to stop selling unhealthy snacks
near the till, a practice they say is often targeted at children with promotional deals. Speaking on behalf of the British Dietetic Association, obesity specialist Linda Hindle said: “Retailers are unwilling to stop pushing unhealthy food at the checkout and queuing areas. It may be lucrative for them but, as our survey found, it is deeply unpopular with customers and nudges purchasing behaviour in the wrong direction. “If retailers can’t act on their own, then we hope to see robust action from the Government to tackle this problem.” The Government appeared to perform a U-turn on the issue in July, when Anna Soubry, the minister responsible for public health, ruled out a clampdown on so-called sweet and chocolate “guilt” lanes in shops and supermarkets, just days after vowing to abolish them. Under its “responsibility
deal” launched in 2011, the Government has received pledges from all leading supermarkets and food manufacturers to lower the fat and salt content of food products and adopt clearer labelling. A Department of Health spokesman said other moves being considered by the Government included urging stores to spend more on marketing low-calorie products and ending the practice of herding shoppers through aisles of unhealthy snacks. Campaigners have attacked the code of conduct for not doing enough to tackle the issue. Asda, Morrisons and Tesco were found to be the worst offenders that stocked the most junk food at tills. Supermarkets are now being criticised for reneging on promises to change the way they sold confectionery a decade after a 2003 investigation by the inde-
pendent watchdog, the Food Commission. Experts say there is a weight of scientific research to show that the practice of stocking checkout aisles with sweets is a cynical ploy by supermarkets to tempt shoppers into buying sweets and other fatty and salty foods at the end of a tiring few hours’ shopping. Professor of marketing at EM-Lyon Business School, Agnes Nairn, told The Independent that shoppers’ buying patterns were likely to alter by the time they reached the checkout counter. “Consumers are more likely to go for something unhealthy when they are tired because they aren’t able to make the rational decision they would make otherwise,” she said. “Although they all know that a chocolate egg is not as good for them as fruit salad, if you have to do that in a hurry, they make the wrong choice.”
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Technology GAME ZONE
GTA V HITS THE STREETS...HARD
GLENN CHAPMAN Agence France Presse
SAN FRANCISCO: Unabashedly brutal “Grand Theft Auto V” hits the streets Tuesday in a sequel that promises to enthral fans of the blockbuster videogame franchise. Rockstar Games spent five years crafting the new instalment and the time has paid off for gamers, according to a slew of reviews giving the title top marks. “GTA V has been worth the five-year wait,” said computerandvideogames.com digital manager John Houlihan. “You can really see the maturity in this version, the graphics look sensational — it really is like being in a virtual copy of LA.” GTA V is set in a fictional city of Los Santos based on realworld Los Angeles and its nearby hills and beaches. The videogame franchise has won legions of fans and cadres of critics with game play in which triumph depends on acts such as carjacking, gambling and killing. Play in Grand Theft Auto games has included simulated sex with prostitutes and drunken driving. The latest version is
said by reviewers to be rife with more of the same, along with profanity-packed dialog. “GTA is essentially the ‘Sopranos’ of videogames,” Tech Savvy analyst Scott Steinberg said, making a reference to a hugely popular US cable television series centered on Mafia characters. “Everyone talks about the series as violent, but compared to what you are seeing in the movies and on television GTA is relatively tame. Certainly, it is a mature game for mature audiences .” GTA V is billed by the New York City-based videogame publisher as the “largest and most ambitious” title to date in the franchise that has sold more than 114 million copies since its debut in 1997. “Grand Theft Auto V builds on everything we’ve learned
In a new approach used in GTA 5, gamers take on the roles of three different main characters whose paths eventually merge.
about open world gaming,” said Rockstar founder Sam Houser. Versions of “GTA V” for play on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 videogame consoles or personal computers powered by Windows software will launch worldwide Tuesday in respective time zones. There were reports on Monday that Amazon accidentally delivered copies of the videogame to lucky gamers in Britain who had placed early orders online. “There has been a huge buzz about the game,” Rashaan Walker told AFP as the clock ticked down on a midnight launch event at the San Francisco area Best Buy shop where he is a sales supervisor. Walker, a 26-year-old GTA fan, had in mind to stick around after the end of his shift to pick up a copy of the game. “It’s exciting,” Walker said while explaining his love of the series. “In this one you can go online and bring together a clique of friends and do terrorizing and doing whatever you want.” He was also keen to see how the overarching storyline of the series progresses. In a new approach used in GTA 5, gamers take on the roles of three differ-
ent main characters whose paths eventually merge. “This really is a blockbuster that almost dwarfs the movies in some way,” Houlihan told AFP. “GTA V is really a cultural phenomenon. You’ll find people tonight queueing around the block to play it, people taking days if not the whole week off work to explore this vast virtual world.” Houlihan said it was rumored that the production budget for the game was in the vicinity of $270 million. The franchise’s appeal is fueled by captivating story lines and an open-world format that lets players go wherever they wish in game worlds. “It gives you a complete virtual playground to go and explore,” Houlihan said. “You can rob banks or you can do a yoga lesson or you can fly a plane or you can play tennis or you can do what I sometimes do which is just wander round the world in a really flashy car and listen to some of the hilarious radio stations — so there really is everything for you to explore, it’s a world of possibility.” The game will also let people play with or against one another online.
GOOGLE BUYS BUMP SAN FRANCISCO: The startup behind popular smartphone apps for sharing contacts, pictures or other data by “bumping” smartphones together announced on Monday that it has been bought by Google. Bump Technologies cofounder and chief David Lieb did not disclose terms of the deal bringing his team into the Google fold but leaving its popular Bump and Flock applications available to users. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to join Google,” Lieb said in a message at the Bump website. The technology website AllThingsD reported the deal was worth between $30 million and $60 million.
WICKR GOES ANDROID
SAN FRANCISCO: Startup
Wickr released snoop-thwarting messaging software tailored for Android-powered smartphone or tablets, following last year’s release of the program for Apple devices. “Wickr not only offers the most secure form of correspondence but also helps protect our users’ contacts as we anonymize this information before it leaves the senders phone,” said startup co-founder Robert Statica. “Wickr does not collect any personal information on users.”
IRAN’S FELINE PROBLEM TEHRAN: Iran has settled on a Persian cat as the best candidate for its latest trial for a manned space mission it hopes to make by 2020, state media reported Monday. The feline would be following in the footsteps of a menagerie of dogs and monkeys who were among the early stars of the US and Soviet space programmes in the 1960s. But the announcement of its planned foray into the atmosphere aboard Iran’s Kavoshgar satellite carrier prompted an outcry from animal rights groups. “Iran’s archaic experiment... is a throwback to the primitive techniques of the 1950s,” said Peta’s spokesman Ben Williamson.
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Entertainment HIT JODIS
CINE BYTES
SOUTHERN FILM INDUSTRY CASHES IN ON HIT PAIRS
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he film industry in southern India has a history of cashing in on a trend. From subjects to narrative style to technology, the industry has capitalised on everything that has clicked at the box-office. The latest trend seems to be casting a pair on the big screen more than once to reap benefits of such an association. Nithiin Reddy and Nithya Menon, most bankable pair in the industry, have starred in two back-to-back Telugu blockbusters Ishq and Gunde Jaari Gallanthayyinde (GJG). "I loved the chemistry between Nithiin and Nithya in Ishq. I knew the pair would hit it off if I cast them again because I had a strong story to complement it. Luckily, it worked in our favour and audiences liked them too," GJG director Vijay Kumar Konda said. "The concept of a successful pair only works when the actors are backed by a strong script. Audiences don't pay money to merely come and see the faces of the actors. They want a good story to support the performances of their favourite pair," he added. For Telugu actor Vishnu Manchu, who has paired up again with Hansika Motwani in an upcoming yetuntitled multi-starrer, it's the comfort factor with his co-
star."Many believe that I opted to work with Hansika again because our previous collaboration turned out to be highly successful. But the truth is that I enjoy working with her. We have a lot of comfort between us and there is no room for ego," he said. Vishnu and Hansika were previously seen together in Telugu romantic comedy Denikaina Ready, which was a box-office success. How often can a pair come together on screen? Vishnu recommends it should not be two immediate films and
there should a good time gap between the two releases. "My last film with Hansika was in 2012. Soon after that, I started working for a different film, but we are shooting now for our next film that's expected to release towards this year-end. In essence, there has been a gap of at least one year and in between I'm doing another film," said Vishnu. "When a pair features in two back-to-back films within a short span of time, it might affect the second film. This is because the audiences would have just seen the pair on posters, hoardings for the first film and when the second film comes out, it would still look like the earlier film," he added. In Tamil, Arya and Nayanthara featured in 2010 hit Boss Engira Bhaskaran. Following the success of this pair on
screen, their lives were filled with linkups. "Audiences loved Arya and Nayanthara as a couple so much that they wanted them to become real life couples. This continued for years and only doubled when the pair announced they will feature in a film together," a leading producer said. Arya and Nayanthara have teamed up again for Tamil romantic drama Raja Rani slated to release later this month. "The makers of Raja Rani cashed in on the popularity of the pair by making them play a married couple in the film. Audiences would definitely flock to theatres to see them as husband and wife. No wonder even the first teaser of the film was featured on them when the film is a multi-starrer," he added. Hansika and Silambarasan, who are dating each other, are busy shooting for Tamil films Vaalu and Vettai Mannan. "The pair recently revealed that they were seeing each other. This could very well work in favour of the film as audiences would want to see how their real-life chemistry get transformed on screen," said trade analyst Trinath. Southern actress Swathi Reddy has teamed up for the second time with actors Nikhil Siddhartha and Jai in Karthikeya and Vadacurry, respectively. "I seriously don't know if something called a hit pair will guarantee success. It might work for a few films, but I believe the success of any film finally rests on its content and not on its lead actors," said Swati. IANS
Thammareddy Krishnamurthy dies at 93
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elugu producer Thammareddy Krishnamurthy passed away Monday. He was 93. "He died early yesterday morning due to some old age related issues at CR Foundation home for the aged in Kondapur (Andhra Pradesh)," a family friend said. Born in 1920 in Chinapalaparru village in Krishna district, Krishnamurthy started his career with theatre.
Rahul to wed Chinmayi next year
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ctor Rahul Ravindran will marry singer-dubbing artist Chinmayi Sripada early next year. The parents of the couple have mutually agreed to the wedding. "Chinmayi and I have been seeing each other for a few months now and our parents have met and agreed for the wedding," Rahul said. IANS
Rajamouli calls for unity in Telugu community
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ne of Tollywood’s most popular and successful directors, SS Rajamouli, is of the opinion that the central government should either divide the state or postpone the division till the general elections next year. He posted this comment on microblogging site, Twitter. He further went on to add that irrespective of whether the state divides or not, the Telugu community should stick together.
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Entertainment TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
ENTERTAINMENT UNLIMITED
CINE BYTES
q~åáëÜ~I=^éççêî~JpÜáäé~= in Bigg Boss - Saath 7 house A celebrity couple, a daily soap queen, a video-jockey and a British-Indian actress were among celebrities who entered the Bigg Boss house on Sunday, and it seems that in their battle to survive for over three months they would serve a lot of drama. Salman Khan, who is hosting the show for the fourth consecutive season, threw open the doors of the house and welcomed the guests. Based on the theme of ‘hell’ and ‘heaven’, the house has been divided into two parts. It’s separated by a wired mesh and like its name the hell side is low on comfort level. It was Tanisha Mukherjee who entered the house first. VJ
Andy followed her and as expected he sauntered in his signature style dressed in shorts and a blazer. Tanisha and Andy, who took the heaven side of the house, were given the task to allot heaven or hell to other inmates. Actress Gauhar Khan entered the house next and close on her heels was screen actress Ratan Rajput. While Gauhar was sent to heaven, Ratan was allotted hell. Next up was celebrity couple Shilpa and Apoorva Agnihotri. They might be husband and wife in real life, but in the show they were separated as Shilpa was sent to heaven, while Apoorva to hell. Bodyguard fame, British-
Indian actress Hazel Keech and TV actress Kamya Punjabi were sent to the less comfortable side in the house. Kushal Tondon and Rajat Rawail were next and while the former was given hell, the latter was sent to heaven. Newcomer Elli Avaram, who is a part of an upcoming film Mickey Virus, was the next contestant and she was sent to hell. When Indian wrestler Sangram Singh entered the Bigg Boss house, Tanisha and Andy both decided to send him to heaven because of his achievements. Balika Vadhu fame actress Pratyusha Banerjee and actor Armaan Kohli were sent to the hell side of the Bigg Boss
house. Anita Advani, who claims to be late superstar Rajesh Khanna’s live-in partner, was the last contestant and she was allotted heaven. This year the Bigg Boss house has been erected in Lonavala and contestants will be locked inside the mansion for 105 days. Bigg Boss - Saath 7 will air every night at 9 pm on Colors channel. In terms of glamour, Akshay Kumar came to promote his upcoming film Boss. Comedian Kapil Sharma too joined Salman on the show for an act and he entertained along with Upasana Singh and Ali Asgar.
Dilip Kumar in ICU, condition stable
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eteran actor Dilip Kumar continues to remain in Lilavati hospital’s ICU. But his condition is stable, a aide of his wife, actress Saira Banu, said. The 90-year-old was hospitalised Sunday evening after he complained of feeling uncomfortable. “He is in ICU, but doctors have said that he is fine and his condition is stable,” Saira Bano’s manager Murshid Khan said. IANS
IANS
OASS wins best film at LIFF
A
bhinav Shiv Tiwari’s OASS, a movie on human trafficking, was named the best film at the second edition of the Ladakh International Film Festival (LIFF). It also won the best screenplay, and Divya Chhetri was awarded the best actress for the same movie. Sewan Sing Yein won the best actor for KO:Yad. IANS
Ileana D’Cruz: It’s fun to work with Saif Ali Khan!
D
irected by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, Happy Ending features Saif Ali Khan and Ileana D’Cruz as the lead jodi. “I am working with Saif; and it was not a conscious decision to work with a Khan. It just happened. I read the script and I liked it. I am having lots of fun on the sets with him. It’s so much fun to work with Saif,” said Ileana.
Entertainment TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
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Entertainment TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
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Entertainment TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
DOTING MOM
CINE BYTES
KATE WINSLET did negative role
TO IMPRESS CHILDREN A
ctress Kate Winslet said that she accepted to play a negative role in movie Divergent because she wanted her children to think that she is “cool”. The 37-year-old is expecting her third child and has two children (daughter Mia and son Joe) from previous marriages. “I didn’t have any hesitation at all. It was such a great script. It’s a fantastic book. My daughter is going to be 13, and my son is almost 10, and they’re getting to that age where this is the type of literature they’re going to be reading very soon,” MTV News quoted Winslet as saying. “...My daughter suddenly had a new found respect for me. I’m just going to go with that. I did it because I wanted my kids to think I was cool,” she added. - IANS
Tom Hardy, the next James Bond?
T
om Hardy is reportedly being considered to play the secret agent in the next James Bond film, once Daniel Craig finishes his contract with the franchise. According to the contract, Craig, who was last seen with Skyfall, is bound to star in two more James Bond movies. However, the search for his replacement has already begun and Hardy seems to fit the bill. IANS
Paris Hilton content with her life
S
ocialite Paris Hilton is happy with the way she has lived her life. “For me, the most important thing is that I’ve lived my life honestly. I’ve made mistakes but I’ve had more hits than fails, and I can say I’m happy and every day I’m working to achieve my dreams,” OK! magazine quoted Hilton as saying. IANS
Selena and George cosy up
S
inger Selena Gomez reportedly spent some intimate time with Union J band member George Shelly. Gomez performed with Union J members in Portugal and later partied in her room. “She invited all the Union J boys and some other members of her entourage to her room and they had a great time drinking and dancing,” thesun.co.uk quoted a source as saying. IANS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Chai Time
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Riches may enable us to confer favours, but to confer them with propriety and grace requires a something that riches cannot give. Charles Caleb Colton
KAKURO
QUICK CROSSWORD
26
SUDOKU How to play kakuro Kakuro is a popular game similar to sudoku in some ways. But is also suitably different. The key question: ‘How do you play kakuro?’, well here are the rules of kakuro. The answer: The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can be of any size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword, some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some cells will contain two numbers. However, in a crossword the numbers reference clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get! They denote the total of the digits in the row or column referenced by the number. Within each collection of cells — called a run — any of the numbers 1 to 9 may be used but, like sudoku, each number may only be used once. Let’s have an example to explain this concept more clearly: In the image above, which shows a section of a kakuro puzzle, you will see the numbers ‘26’ and ‘14’ in the top row. Look at the 14. This means that the total of the three cells underneath must sum to 14. Therefore 9, 4, 1 could be the answer, or perhaps 7, 4, 3 and so on... So, how do you work out the actual combination? Well, this is done through elimination and cross-referencing. For instance, as you work out the answers for other kakuro clues, this will naturally limit the valid combinations, and hence the answer for this particular run. Note the second cell in row two — it contains two numbers, 30 and 11. The 30 refers to the vertical run underneath the number 30 and the 11 refers to the two cells to the right, horizontally, of the number 11.
ACROSS
PREVIOUS PUZZLE ANSWER
SCRIBBLING PAD
1 Bay of Pigs org 4 Some airliners 10 Blockheads 14 Branch 15 Pointless end? 16 Sandpaper surface 17 Daytime drop-off? 18 Most important 20 ‘Weekend Update’ show, briefly 21 In ___ (wowed by) 22 Business owner’s contract 23 ‘The doctor ___’ 25 ‘Employ’ attachment 26 Not exactly middle-of-the-road 31 Lisa, to Bart 34 Springtime zodiac sign 35 Shipped off 36 Seventh-day activity 37 Shipping allowance 38 Spring features 39 Relaxed condition 40 ___ d’oeuvres 41 ‘Bus Stop’ playwright William 42 Specialized racehorse 43 SAT takers, frequently 44 In perfect condition 46 Polynesian paste 47 Wheelchair access 48 Nautical direction 51 Yuletide number 54 Kegger necessity 57 Reached the low point 59 Versatile playing card 60 Use an auger 61 In a melodic style 62 It’s penned up 63 Mighty Joe Young and kin 64 Common hunting dog 65 Wedding announcement word
DOWN
1 Some drink containers 2 Qom home 3 Rock band equipment 4 What’s in the fine print 5 ___ Plaza (hotel chain) 6 Carton sealer 7 Hockey great Phil, familiarly 8 Foam toy brand 9 Word before ‘Lanka’ 10 Fairy tale man-eaters 11 Soprano’s strain 12 Goes on like a glove 13 Eyelid swelling 19 Cassini of couture 24 Proofreader’s marks 25 Tolkien tree creatures 26 Strips of wood 27 Shortstop’s faux pas 28 For ___ (cheaply) 29 Bay sound 30 Shoreline indentation 31 Skipper 32 Early Japanese immigrant 33 Violinist Isaac 36 Furnish with more weapons 38 Roman’s 103 42 Book of biblical songs 44 Cowboys quarterback Tony 45 Wake from sleep 46 Party spreads 48 ‘Dancing Queen’ singers 49 Cartoon flapper Betty 50 Raison d’___ 51 Parrot’s beak part 52 Way into a mine 53 Tooth or plant part 55 Reason to use Stridex 56 Small dog breed, briefly 58 Women with shavers
Chai Time TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 Thiruvaikumar
STAR POWER for 18-9-2013
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As per Hindu panchang thiruvaikumar@yahoo. co. in, 040-27177230 / 9177596118
ARIES
TAURUS
GEMINI
CANCER
LEO
VIRGO
LIBRA
SCORPIO
SAGITTARIUS
CAPRICORN
AQUARIUS
PISCES
Promotion but with transfer on the cards for some employees; they are advised to accept the same. Avoid unwanted arguments and petty clashes with friends and relatives. Adjust with family members at home to maintain a harmony.
STRIP TEASE AGNES
Employees are advised not to entrust important responsibilities of theirs to others as their name will get spoiled by inept handling. Enemies might be active and hence you need to be extra cautious. A peaceful atmosphere is likely to prevail.
Businessmen are likely to see a steady growth. They need to involve themselves directly while signing new contracts rather than entrusting it to someone else. Be careful with friends who might not be good. Expenses need to be controlled.
You have to change your attitude and be flexible so that work gets completed successfully. Transfer and additional responsibility on cards for employees; it is good for them to accept it without hesitation. Influx of relatives will bring joy.
Laziness and anger must be avoided as it will spoil your career prospects. Employees need to work with self-confidence and focus on work, which will earn them recognition. But non-stop efforts and shrewd action will yield desired results.
You need to give due respect to elders of the family and implement their suggestion. Employees will be happy as even tough problems at workplace will be resolved amicably. Businessmen will reach greater heights in their respective fields.
While planning to purchase property, be sure to study documents thoroughly. Children will make you happy. Unwanted blame is likely, hence be careful in expressing your opinions and also while helping others. Financial position is set to improve.
Good growth is assured for businessmen as their efforts start yielding results now. Heldup work will resume and get completed successfully without any further problems. Financial assistance expected from a bank is likely to get sanctioned.
Hurdles in the way of performing good events will disappear. Your approach needs drastic changes so that you can achieve set goals. Those employed are opportune enough to get chances abroad that will give good scope for a bright future.
TAROT READ
Sumaa Tekur
tarotreadhyd@gmail. com
ARIES:
GEMINI:
King of Wands – You’re on the lookout for enlightenment. You want to feel more in control of your inner peace. This is possible if you let go and have positive energy.
LEO:
Six of Pentacles – You’re searching high and low for something you’ve misplaced. It is bothering you too much. You will find it in the most unlikely of places.
LIBRA:
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
The Devil – Someone is thrusting too many ideas at you. You want to be left alone and want to take some time out. But is it a good idea now?
SAGITTARIUS:
Seven of Pentacles – Go for a long drive and enjoy the time to think and spend quality time with your loved ones. You will return refreshed.
TAURUS:
Death – You tend to constantly worry about becoming fat. There are things that you need to do. Do these and stop worrying. There’s little in your own control.
CANCER:
Nine of Swords – Your mind is filled with doubts and apprehensions. Do not worry about the future. It’s more important that you clean your mind of garbage.
VIRGO:
Seven of Swords – You feel sandwiched between two groups. You know which side you want to be on but you worry about what people might think.
SCORPIO:
Knight of Pentacles – Make optimum use of all the resources at your disposal. If you need to reach out to colleagues and get their support, do so.
CAPRICORN:
Ten of Pentacles – There is a curse that you need to deal with. You may not know how or why exactly you are caught in the middle of this but you are.
PREVIOUS SOLUTIONS
PISCES:
Page of Cups – Do not break a promise, no matter how difficult it might be to keep it. You may have to go out of you way to work things out.
NUMBER GAME
There will be a situation when you will have to haggle for a seat. Do what’s within your means. Do not stretch yourself. For, it may not be worth it.
SCRABBLE
AQUARIUS: The Chariot –
POOCH CAFE
Avoid friends who praise in front of you but abuse you when you are not around. Avoid a third person’s help to mediate between you and your spouse; sort out the problem between you’ll. Spouse’s health could be a cause for concern.
for 18-9-2013
Four of Pentacles – There is no ideal situation when it comes to partnerships. You have to make some compromises and tread the middle path sometimes.
NON SEQUITUR
You need to adopt a slow-andsteady approach so that work will get completed without difficulties. Hurdles in the way of performing happy events at home will disappear. Marriage of son or daughter is to be performed successfully.
SUDUKO
Ego clashes with spouse will end. Happy events will take place at home in a line. Avoid wasteful expenditure and extravagance so that there won’t be any need to take financial help from others. Women might get an unexpected fortune.
Boggle HONDA MAZDA NISSAN SUBARU Vol: 3, No 57 RNI No: APENG/2011/39337 Published for the proprietors, Scribble Media and Entertainment Pvt Ltd, by V Harshavardhan Reddy, at # Plot no.550-A1,3rd floor, Road no-92, Jubilee hills, Hyderabad-500033 and printed by him at Jagati Publications Ltd, Plot No D-75&E-52, APIE Industrial Estate, Balanagar, Ranga Reddy Dist, Hyderabad – 500037, Editor: Dean Williams – Responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. For feedback, please write to: feedback@postnoon. com and for subscription, please call 040-23541412,
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Entertainment TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
ACTOR-TURNED MUSICIAN
Vin Diesel offered musicals A
ctor Vin Diesel might be known for playing the tough guy in movies, but he is being offered musicals now. The offers came pouring in after Diesel uploaded a video of him singing his version of Rihanna's song Stay in a bar, reports femalefirst.co.uk. It was his girlfriend Paloma Jimenez's idea to upload the video online. "Oh, my god! You know what that was? That was an alternative to sending a Valentine's Day card. When my girlfriend saw it, she said, 'You have to give that to your fans!," Nuts magazine quoted Diesel as saying. "I'd made other videos of me signing on my page before. It was no big deal. When I was singing Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire no one gave a s**t. Then a studio called me and said they wanted me to do a musical," he added. IANS
CINE BYTES Kanye-Kim find new friends in Beckhams
C
elebrity couple Kanye West and his girlfriend Kim Kardashian have reportedly found new best friends in another power couple — Victoria and David Beckham. "The two couples look like they'd be unlikely foursome, but they are really clicking," a source said. IANS
Insidious 2 sets $41 million in record
Good scent sticks in Justin Bieber's memory
J
ustin Bieber says that certain scents are attached to his memories. "Scent is definitely something that sticks in my memory. There are certain smells — trees, plants, foods — that just remind me of being home in Canada," Pops magazine quoted Bieber as saying. IANS
B
oosted by a Friday-the-13th launch, FilmDistrict’s lowbudget scarer sequel Insidious Chapter 2 beat expectations with an estimated $41.1 million, making it the largest opening in September for a horror film. Insidious 2 cost just $5 million for making.
sports
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
EUROPEAN BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
TOUR OF BRITAIN
Italy stun champs Spain The Italians beat the reigning champions Spain at the 2013 European Basketball Championships. LJUBLJANA: Italy stunned two-time reigning champions Spain on Monday as the four quarter-final match-ups were set with Serbia and Croatia as the two top seeds at the 2013 European Championships. Alessandro Gentile poured in 25 points and Marco Belinelli of the Chicago Bulls collected 16 points and eight rebounds in Italy’s 86-81 overtime defeat of Spain. “We went against the best team in the European Championship. We already knew how tough this game would be. But we deserved this win. We never gave up,” said Italian guard Pietro Aradori, who scored 17 points in helping Italy take third in Group F with a 3-2 record. In the final eight, the Italians — looking for their first medal since 2003 bronze — will face off against Lithuania on Thursday. Spain wasted a 32-point, 10rebound showing from Marc Gasol in dropping their third game of the tournament and finishing fourth in the group at 2-3. “I thought that we had the game under control for the first three quarters. We were playing good defence and we were able to run and get easy shots. But then in the fourth quarter... we stepped down defensively and couldn’t get back into the game,” said the Memphis Grizzlies center. Spain’s quarter-finals opponent Wednesday will be Group E winners Serbia. Spain came into the day wondering if they would even have a chance to defend their
last two titles and still become the first nation to three-peat since Yugoslavia in 1977. The winner between Spain and Serbia will take on the winners of Wednesday’s other quarter between hosts Slovenia and France. Slovenia finished the group stage on a sour note, losing against Finland 92-76 in a hard fought game — though Slovenia knew beforehand that they were placed second in the group and Finland eliminated.
Spain wasted a 32point, 10-rebound showing from Marc Gasol in dropping their third game and finishing fourth in the group at 2-3. Bostjan Nachbar paced the Slovenians with 15 points but that wasn’t enough as they dropped to 3-2. Finland, who received 17 points from Gerald Lee, showed a last bit of fight in improving to 2-3 and finished fifth — ahead of Greece. Needing a victory of their own and a Spain defeat to reach the knockout stage, the Greeks gave Croatia all they could handle but lost in double overtime 92-88. Bojan Bogdanovic tallied 22 points while Ante Tomic collected 15 points and 12 rebounds as Croatia took Group F honours with a 4-1 record and will face Ukraine in the final eight.
“We are here for the quarterfinal game, knowing that Croatia have not played past the quarter-finals in a long time. We are determined to do that. I’m sure we will,” said Croatia coach Jasmin Repesa. The Greeks, considered with a puncher’s chance at a podium
finish, finished 1-4 despite Yannis Bourousis scoring 21 points and Vassilis Spanoulis hitting for 18 points. EuroBasket 2013 takes a day off on Tuesday and will resume on Wednesday with the SerbiaSpain and Slovenia-France quarter-finals. AFP
Ciolek wins second stage The 26-year-old came third on Sunday’s first stage in Scotland and finished in just over five hours to claim the leader’s jersey. LONDON: Germany’s Gerald Ciolek won the second stage of the Tour of Britain on Monday after pipping Sam Bennett to the finish line to become the new race leader. MTN Qhubeka’s Ciolek and Irish rider Bennett (An PostChain Reaction) moved past Thomas Lovkvist of IAM Cycling, who was leading with 500 metres to go, before the German edged out Bennett in a sprint finish to claim victory. The 26-year-old, who won the Milan-San Remo in March this year and came third on Sunday’s first stage in Scotland, finished in just over five hours to claim the leader’s jersey. Great Britain’s Simon Yates is up to second in the general classification after coming fourth, with riders covering 186.6km including the race’s first Category 1 climb, on the Carlisle to Kendal stage. Former Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins crossed the line 17 seconds off the lead for Team Sky and is 12th overall, but there was more disappointment for Omega Pharma QuickStep’s Mark Cavendish, who darted out in front of the leading group with 10km left before Lovkvist started to build up a lead with 8km to go. Cavendish had the platform laid for him by his team-mates on Sunday’s first ride from Peebles to Drumlanrig Castle, but he was boxed in and slipped off the pace. And on Monday he finished down the pack. AFP
HARSH SPOTLIGHT ON CYCLING
USADA comes to Horner’s defence
MADRID: The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has confirmed they do not consider Tour of Spain winner Chris Horner to have missed a drug test after Spanish antidoping authorities turned up at the wrong hotel to carry out a test on Monday. The 41-year-old American became the oldest ever winner of a grand tour in Madrid on Sunday. The Spanish authorities had been asked to carry out the test on behalf of USADA and
attended the hotel The 41-year-old American where the majority became the oldest ever of Horner’s RadioShack team winner of a grand tour in were staying on Madrid on Sunday. Monday morning. H o w e v e r , RadioShack confirmed that Horner was instead staying at a different hotel with his wife on Sunday night and had communicated his location, phone number and one-hour time window to be tested to the USADA. where“Chris Horner updated his abouts
with USADA before the start of the final stage, giving the agency the name of his hotel for the night, phone number and room number for his one hour window between six and seven a.m. “This is all according to the rules and Chris Horner received a confirmation email,” they said in a statement accompanied with a copy of the said emails Horner sent to and received from USADA. In response USADA admitted that there had been no
wrongdoing on Horner’s part and that they had not passed on the information regarding Horner’s change of whereabouts before the testers visited RadioShack’s hotel. “In response to public statements from Team RadioShack today concerning Chris Horner, USADA can confirm that we were coordinating an out-ofcompetition test with the Agencia Española de Protección de la Salud en el Deporte (AEA) while Mr Horner was in Spain.” AFP
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sports TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
BMW CHAMPIONSHIP
Zach attack fells Furyk
CHICAGO: Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, fired a six-under par 65 Monday to win the US PGA’s $8 million (6 million euros) BMW Championship after Jim Furyk squandered his sixth consecutive 54-hole lead. Johnson, a 37-year-old American, fired a final-round 65 to finish 72 holes on 16under par 268, two strokes ahead of countryman Nick Watney, who closed with a 64, with Furyk another shot adrift after a final-round 71. Johnson captured the $1.44 million top prize and his 10th career title, his first since last year’s John Deere Classic, as well as giving himself a chance to win the $10 million tour playoff crown in the season-ending Tour Championship that starts Thursday in Atlanta. “It’s extremely difficult,” Johnson said of the importance of his 10th win in 10 PGA seasons. “The parity on the tour and in the world is second to none. I’m just thankful it has been 10 years and hopefully many more.” World number one Tiger Woods, Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, Australian Adam Scott and American Matt Kuchar can also claim the playoff title with a victory in the 30-man showdown at
East Lake. Furyk botched a chance for his 16th career title and his first since winning the 2010 Tour Championship with another final-round failure, following on from last month’s PGA Championship when Jason Dufner passed him to win the year’s final major title. England’s Luke Donald, a member at host course Conway Farms, shared fourth with Aussie Jason Day and Americans Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker on 273. That allowed Donald to jump from 54th to 29th in the PGA season points race and qualify for the Tour Championship. “I knew I had to go pretty low,” Donald said. “Fortunately I got it going a little bit on the back nine when I needed to.” Watney jumped from 34th to 12th with his runner-up effort to also make the field in Atlanta, with England’s Lee Westwood and American Harris English bumped out. “I knew I needed to have a good week,” Watney said. “The guys ahead of me were ahead of me for a reason. They’ve been playing well all year. Luckily for me I kind of pulled everything together.” Aussie Matt Jones fell
Johnson fired a final-round 65 to finish 72 holes on 16-under par 268, two strokes ahead of countryman Nick Watney, with Furyk another shot adrift. short, sharing seventh on 274 to finish 32nd in points. Furyk, who fired only the sixth 59 in US PGA Tour history on Friday to match the record-low for 18 holes, led Stricker by a stroke when they began the final round on Monday, a day late due to storms that halted play Sunday before the last 22 players in the field of 70 could tee off. Stricker opened with a bogey to fall back, as did Woods, who began five back but was never able to make a charge for the lead. Furyk birdied the par-4 fourth hole to stretch his lead and began
the back nine with a birdie to reach 15-under, two shots in front of Johnson, who birdied the par-3 second and had back-to-back birdies at the seventh and par-5 eighth. But when Johnson birdied the par-4 12th and Furyk took a bogey at the par-3 11th, the US duo were deadlocked atop the leaderboard at 14-under, with Watney only one stroke back. Watney birdied the par3 17th and closed with a par to reach the clubhouse at 14under with a share of the lead while Furyk stumbled with a bogey at the 13th before making a birdie at the 14th to remain in the lead trio. But Johnson birdied the par-4 16th to reach 15under and made a 13-foot birdie putt at the 17th to grab a two-stroke lead. AFP
DOPING
Cilic banned for nine months Cilic tested positive for the stimulant nikethamide at the Munich Open in May.
LONDON: Croatia’s Marin Cilic has been handed a nine-month doping ban, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced on Monday. The 24-year-old, currently ranked 24th in the world, has had the ban back-dated to May 1 this year, meaning he will be able to return to action on February 1, 2014. Cilic’s doping violation came when he tested positive for the stimulant nikethamide at the Munich Open in May. “The International Tennis Federation announced today that Marin Cilic has been found to have committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under Article 2.1 of the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme (presence of a Prohibited Substance in a Player’s Sample),” a statement
confirmed. Cilic, a former number nine and 2010 Australian Open semifinalist, provided a urine sample during the Munich event and a WADA-accredited laboratory in
Montreal found it to contain nikethamide, which is banned under section S6 (Stimulants) of the 2013 WADA List of Prohibited Substances and Prohibited Methods.
The Croatian, who said he would appeal his ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, claimed he was unaware that Coramine tablets he bought contained nikethamide, for which he did not hold a valid Therapeutic Use Exemption. “The substance in question originated from a glucose tablet purchased at a pharmacy in France. Unbeknownst to me, the glucose tablets contained a substance that is banned in competition,” Cilic said in a statement. An Independent Tribunal agreed that Cilic ingested the nikethamide inadvertently. Therefore he met the preconditions of Article 10.4 of the programme, which entitles him to a reduction of the period of ineligibility based on an assessment of his fault. AFP
INDYCAR
Montoya heads back to IndyCar The 37-yearold South American racer will jump to Ganassi rival Penske when he returns to the IndyCar Series in 2014. CHARLOTTE: Colombian racer Juan Pablo Montoya said Monday that he will leave the US stock car racing circuit next year to return to IndyCar with the Roger Penske Racing Team. Montoya competed in Formula One from 20012006 but then departed to drive in the closed-cockpit National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) series for car owner Chip Ganassi. The 37-year-old South American racer will jump to Ganassi rival Penske when he returns to the IndyCar Series in 2014. “I am really excited to join this legendary team beginning next year,” Montoya said in a statement. Montoya is the only driver who has won the Indianapolis 500, Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Daytona. His 11 open-wheel victories include the 2000 Indianapolis 500. Montoya won the 1999 season title as a rookie in the IndyCar CART series. While driving for Williams and McLaren in F1, Montoya won seven Grand Prix, including the 2003 Monaco GP, and had 30 podium finishes. In NASCAR, Montoya won in 2007 at Sonoma and 2010 at Watkins Glen. He managed 24 top-five finishes and nine pole positions in 244 starts. “Juan is a proven winner at all levels of motorsport,” said Penske. “He has won a lot of races and championships and he has an extremely passionate fan base. We look forward to building on his successes together.” AFP
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sports TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
END OF A ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’?
How BCCI and CSA fell out of love India was the first country to host South Africa after the formation of a racially unified board in 1991, ending 21 years of isolation caused by the South African government’s apartheid policy.
COLIN BRYDEN feedback@postnoon.com CAPE TOWN: At the dawn of what became popularly known as the new South Africa, there was a special relationship between the country’s cricket officials and their counterparts from India. It is a relationship that Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Haroon Lorgat and
An Indian tour is a massive money-spinner, and South African officials are wary about making any public comment that could jeopardise it. Sanjay Patel, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), will try to repair this week. The two men are attending the International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executives meeting in Dubai, where they will discuss “scheduling issues” that threaten India’s tour of South Africa at the end of the year. India were the first country to host South Africa after the for-
mation of a racially unified board in 1991, ending 21 years of isolation caused by the South African government’s apartheid policy. India were also the first country to make a Test tour of South Africa in the post-unity era. Both events were heavy with symbolism and bonhomie. In subsequent years the friendship was cemented when South Africa hosted the Indian Premier League at short notice in
2009 when it had to be moved from India. South Africa and Australia became partners of the BCCI in the lucrative Champions League Twenty20. The first hint of trouble came when it emerged that the Indians were not happy about the prospect of Lorgat being appointed chief executive of CSA. He had seemingly upset them while filling the same post
at the ICC. CSA announced in July an itinerary that included three Tests, seven one-day internationals and two Twenty20 internationals. The number of matches was in accordance with the Future Tours Programme (FTP) agreed by ICC member countries more than three years ago. The Indians complained that they had not agreed to the
itinerary — although South African officials claim they have correspondence proving that there were detailed negotiations about the fixtures. It came as a shock to CSA when India unilaterally announced a tour by the West Indies — which was not part of the FTP — which will end on November 27, nine days after the tour of South Africa is due to start. A further shock came when it was announced that India’s scheduled tour of New Zealand would start with a one-day international on January 19 — the day when the third and final Test in South Africa is due to finish. An Indian tour is a massive money-spinner, and South African officials are wary about making any public comment that could jeopardise it. But there is a belief that it would be possible to condense the tour and play most if not all of the international matches by cutting down on warm-up games and rest days. It was reported that the BCCI was working on back-up plans for a triangular one-day series in case the South African tour was cancelled — although this would place the Indians in breach of their obligations under the FTP. AFP
AUSTRALIA IN ENGLAND
Watsone guides Oz to series win
Watson, involved throughout in a trip that saw Australia arrive in Britain in May before their early Champions Trophy exit was followed by a 3-0 Ashes series loss, made 143 in a total of 298 all out. JULIAN GUYER feedback@postnoon.com SOUTHAMPTON: Shane Watson’s century saw Australia to a 49-run win over England in the fifth one-day international at Southampton on Monday as their lengthy tour ended with a 2-1 series victory. Watson, involved throughout in a trip that saw Australia arrive in Britain in May before their early Champions Trophy exit was followed by a 3-0 Ashes series loss, made 143 in a total of 298 all out. Together with Australia captain Michael Clarke (75), he shared a fourth-wicket partnership of 163, on a ground where they’d both played for Hampshire, after their side had slumped to 48 for three in this
day/night clash. Durham all-rounder Ben Stokes led England’s attack with an ODI best five wickets for 61 runs, the 22-year-old all-rounder starring as Australia fell just short of 300. England debutant Chris Jordan, in for fast bowler Steven Finn (side strain), took three for 47 after his first ball in international cricket was hit for four by Finch, whose last match on the ground saw him score a Twenty20 world record 156 against England last month. But Australia had more than enough runs as they enjoyed a win over England ahead of the return Ashes series ‘Down Under’ starting in November. “I’m extremely happy to win the series,” said Clarke. “To a lot of people this ODI series does
not mean much, but to the Australia players it means a lot. “I don’t know whether it will have much impact on the Ashes
back home but we get the flight back home tomorrow (Tuesday) a lot happier as a one-day side certainly,” the man-of-the-series
explained. “The Ashes is still a way away but everyone is excited about that and the players are thinking about it already, but our focus has to be on the seven ODIs in India first.” Man-of-the-match Watson added: “Things have changed for the better in a big way. We are playing the brand of cricket we enjoy and everyone is very excited about what lies ahead.” Meanwhile stand-in England captain Eoin Morgan, leading a side missing five rested Asheswinners including regular skipper Alastair Cook, remained upbeat. “We prioritise Test cricket and with back-to-back Ashes series we have to be picky and choosy. But the next best guys here have done really well.” AFP
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
sports
DON’T PAY ME TILL I’M FIT: KAKÁ
Milan’s Kaká could be out for up to a month with a thigh injury but he has said that he does not want to be paid until he is fit again. Kaká, playing in his first game for the Italian club since rejoining the club from Real Madrid for free, suffered a left adductor problem in the 2-2 draw at Torino.
ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
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From zero to hero and back again Swansea’s Jonjo took only 87 seconds, but minutes later he was responsible for Liverpool equalising. It was his assist in the second half, however, that led Michu to level the scores. SWANSEA: Swansea midfielder Jonjo Shelvey went from hero to zero and back again in a dramatic 2-2 draw against his former club Liverpool on Monday. Shelvey took just 87 seconds to open the scoring at the Liberty Stadium with his first goal for Swansea since being sold by Liverpool in pre-season. The 21-year-old didn’t have long to savour the moment of revenge as he produced two careless passes that led directly to Liverpool taking the lead with goals from Daniel Sturridge and Victor Moses before half-time. But he finished with a smile on his face after providing the assist that brought Michu’s equaliser midway through the second half. Shelvey’s evening to remember brought an end to Liverpool’s 100 percent start to the season, but the Reds still moved to the top of the Premier League table, one point clear of Arsenal and Tottenham, despite the end of their threematch winning run. “I just want to say sorry to the Swansea fans for the two bad mistakes
that gifted Liverpool a draw,” Shelvey told Sky Sports. “You just want to go into a hole where nobody can see you when you give the ball away for the other team to score, but it has happened to great players over time. “I showed a bit of character to keep getting on the ball. I still feel I have given Liverpool a draw but it was a great game to play in.” Reds boss Brendan Rodgers added: “Jonjo Shelvey is an outstanding young player, but he knows he has things in his game he needs to improve on. “He will only do that from playing. Tonight was a steep learning curve for him.” Rodgers allowed Shelvey to leave Liverpool after three inconsistent seasons, so it was clearly a sweet moment when he gave Swansea the lead with less than two minutes played. After making a hash of an attempted volley from long-range, Shelvey recovered his composure and surged away from Liverpool’s new $28.6 million centre-back Mamadou Sakho before clipping a fine
finish past Simon Mignolet after his first effort was blocked by Martin Skrtel. It was the first goal Liverpool had conceded in the league this season and Shelvey celebrated wildly. But within two minutes he was looking to the sky in dismay after his careless mistake gifted Liverpool their equaliser. Picking up possession just outside his own penalty area, Shelvey flicked a woefully under-hit pass back to goalkeeper Michel Vorm without noticing the lurking Sturridge, who gleefully rifled home a cool left-foot finish. Liverpool had made their best start to a campaign since 1994-95 and they took the lead as Shelvey’s match took another turn for the worse in the 36th minute. Under no pressure, the midfielder played a dreadful pass straight to Moses and the punishment was instant. Remarkably, Shelvey played a major role yet again as he finally provided an assist for his own team, timing his run to meet a through ball with a clever flicked header into the path of Spanish forward Michu, who slotted past Mignolet. AFP
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PREVIEW
Moyes pumped-up for Bayer test Moyes’s Everton side were beaten by Villarreal in the qualifying rounds in 2005.
LONDON: David Moyes admits he can’t wait to savour his first taste of Champions League action with Manchester United as his team prepare to open their campaign on Tuesday. United’s clash with German club Bayer Leverkusen at Old Trafford is the first stage of Moyes’s longawaited chance to test himself against the best in Europe. The closest Moyes had previous come to taking part in the group stages of the continent’s elite club competition came with Everton in 2005 when his side were beaten by Villarreal in the qualifying rounds. But, after 15 years in management, his moment has finally come and the Scot says he is already relishing every moment of his involvement in the competition.
“I am really looking forward to the Champions League,” Moyes said on Monday. United’s European history stands comparison with the very best clubs in the world. And if Moyes needed any reminding, he quickly understood the situation when he took a visit from United legend Bobby Charlton in the early days of his reign. “It was a really important moment for me when Sir Bobby said he wanted to see me in my office,” he said. “Everybody, when they see Bobby Charlton, is in awe of him. “He was an incredibly humble man and he explained what it is like to be at Manchester United and what a Manchester United manager should be like. I will keep what he said to myself.” AFP
Bale could get CL start Bale, who joined Madrid for more than $120 million earlier this month, started and scored in Real’s 2-2 draw with Villarreal on Saturday. MADRID: Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has not ruled out the possibility that Gareth Bale could start his side’s Champions League opener against Galatasaray as a substitute. Bale, who joined Madrid for more than $120 million — this figure is disputed with English sources putting it considerably higher — earlier this month, started and scored in Real’s 2-2 draw with Villarreal on Saturday. However, having missed the majority of pre-season whilst negotiations between Tottenham Hotspur and Madrid dragged on over his transfer, Ancelotti is wary of handing the Welshman too great a workload just days into his Madrid career. “We need to be careful with him because he played 60 minutes after a difficult pre-season,” the Italian told a press conference on Monday. “We will see how he is tomorrow and take a decision, but he didn’t have any problem after the
game against Villarreal.” The 24-year-old started on the right side of Madrid’s attack at El Madrigal at the weekend, but it was on one of his rare forrays in the middle of the area that he managed to slide home his first goal for the club and Ancelotti suggested he could occupy a variety of positions in the coming weeks. “Bale can play in all the positions in attack. He is not a number nine, but the position he likes is anywhere in the line behind the main striker and that is why he started on the right.”
Ancelotti is wary of handing the Welshman too great a workload just days into his Madrid career.
And there was great news for Madrid on Sunday as Ronaldo signed a new contract that will tie him to the club for the next five years.