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ASSENG/2015/64205

PAGE 12

Vol. II

GLOBAL FEARS OVER INDIA’S TICKING TB TIME BOMB

Issue 111

Dibrugarh, Monday, November 7, 2016

How To Speak English

P7

5th State Level Indigenous Youth Faith Festival – 2016

Price -

5.00

P9

Pages- 12

INAS NEPAL FILM AWARDS TO BE HELD IN SIKKIM FROM NOVEMBER 9

culture of tribal people in written form.

He further requested her to help to preserve the faith and culture of Indigenous people in written or documentary form.

The DCM also announced to sanction Rs 1 crore to build RCC wall to protect the ground from encroachment and assured to allot funds for annual celebration of Indigenous Faith Day and expressed to press in the Assembly in support of the Priest Summon Act to preserve the age - old priest practices of Arunachal. He also donated Rs 3 Lakhs to the Organizing Committee in support to meet the huge expenses.

Dr Mohesh Chai local MLA who was attended the event as guest of honour said this scale of festival at Tezu has reassured in the people the capability to successful organize an event of this stature. The festival has been held first time at this bank of mighty Brahmaputra. “The platform has immensely facilitates youth to exhibit their hidden talent through culture, sports and games.

Simultaneously they should equally get rid of drugs menace which has virtually affected the youth”, the MLA expressed while appealed to the people at the festival.

Acknowledging the presence of Mrs. Yvette Claire Rosser, a research Scholar from USA in the festival, Chowna praise the attribution of foreign scholars in preserving the traditions and

Contd. on Page 3

HIGHLIGHTS The World Health Organisation's recent urban air quality database lists 10 Indian cities among the world's 20 worst polluted.

Since 2011, at least 94 Indian cities have not met national air quality standards.

CPCB only monitors 29 cities real time and has just one continuous air quality monitor at most locations.

ET Bureau New Delhi, 6 Nov

CM Pema Khandu accompanied by Union MOS for Information and Broadcasting, Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Union MOS Home, Kiren Rijiju and Singer Adnan Sami visited the Gompa here today at New Bomdila. The guests also visited the Thubchog Gatsel Ling Monastery situated in the heart of the town. The guests were offered traditional welcome and gifted with statues of Lord Buddha.

Unfazed by Chinese troops' 'sit-in', Army engineers finish canal work in Ladakh PTI Leh, 6 Nov

HIGHLIGHTS Army engineers have finished the work for laying a water pipeline for irrigation purpose in Ladakh

Unfazed by the ' sit-in ' by the Chinese border guards at Demchok in Ladakh that led to a face-off with Indian troops earlier this week, Army engineers have finished the work for laying a water pipeline for irrigation purpose for local villagers in Ladakh division.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops had entered the area near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and stopped the construction work.

The Chinese troops took positions on the perceived LAC and demanded that work be stopped as both sides need to seek permission before undertaking any such activity.

This claim was disputed by the Indian side which said that the terms of the agreement

Ex Servicemen Rally

Indian & Chinese troops have been in a stand-off since Wednesday in the area PLA troops had earlier entered an area near the LAC and stopped the construction work between the two countries state that information about construction needs to be shared only if meant for defence purposes.

for nearly a kilometre for irrigation purpose of the villagers in Demchok, located 250km east of Leh.

The sources said that while the face-off between the two sides continued for three days ending Saturday evening, the Army engineers, ignored the warnings by PAPF personnel and continued laying pipeline

According to the sources, the formula of 'active patrolling' adopted by the ITBP and Army ever since 2013 fortnight long stand-off near Daulat Beig Oldie has been reaping rich dividends and Chinese have been cautious in

carrying out incursion especially in Ladakh sector.

This time also, the sources said, army and ITBP personnel did not allow the PAPF guards to erect the hut and they were forced to take the material back to their base camp located a kilometre away at Demqog from the place of face-off.

Contd. on Page 3

Laxman Sharma, Digboi, Nov 6

Following the recovery of huge timber logs during the counter insurgency operation by the joint forces of Assam Police amidst dense forest of Tinkupani Rf in Jagun, the forest department immediately

Assam Rifles Ex Servicemen (ESM) Rally was conducted at Jairampur Battalion Assam Rifles under the aegis of HQ 25 Sector Assam Rifles on 06 November 2016.

The event was presided by Brig DK Singh, SM Commander 25 Sector Assam Rifles in presence of Colonel Rajesh Grover Commandant 13 Assam Rifles. The rally saw a mass participation of 110 ExServicemen and 92 veer naris including one gallantry award winner.

cmyk

Contd. on Page 3

ET Correspondent Jorhat 6 Nov

As the misty autumn arrives, people of flood ravaged Majuli forgets all their pain and sorrow as it is the time to celebrate the biggest festival of neo Vaishnavete culture, Raas Mohotsav on the island. As the November arrives the quiet island Majuli, erupts into a theatrical crescendo. For three consecutive days the island becomes the stage for a very unique celebration, Raas Mahotsav, capturing the essence of Lord Krishna’s adult life, his flirting with the gopis (milkmaids) of Vrindavan and them forgiving the impervious Lord eventually. Bereft of a religious streak, the festival is engrossed in a 500-year-old culture, folklore and plenty of

artistry, which folks from all over the world come to witness.

Buttressed by a lush green landscape reverberating with the cacophony of migratory birds on the bank of receding Red River, the State’s cultural epicentre Majuli is all set to celebrate Raas festival from thirteenth of November onwards as most of the satras and cultural troupes have completed their final round of rehearsal for the annual performances. Government officials and Majuli administration had informed that around sixty, both Satras and commercial, raas will be performed this year.

“We are expecting sixty raas to be performed this year," said one of the government officials. Along with the all the satras of the river island, historic Dakhinpat Satra is also preparing to celebrate its 176

number Raas Puja. "We are celebrating our 176th years of raas puja" said Dibakar Saikia, advisor of Dakhinpat Raas committee. "On account of that we will plant 176 trees and lit the same number of lamp" added Dibakar Saikia.

To mark completion of 176 years celebration of Raas Mahotsav, the historic Satra has decided to perform Raas for the first time outside the Satra buildings.

"In 175 years, we did not perform raas outside our satra building. This will be the first time that we are arranging to perform raas outside" said Dibakar Saikia.

Visiting this island in recent days one could able to soak in the festive ambience while strolling through the dewdrenched pathways of the remote villages during the breezy evenings.

Since 2011, at least 94 Indian cities have not met national air quality standards.

Many of these cities have been on the list from the 1990s, say officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) . Neither the Centre nor the states have put in place a plan to ensure that cities get taken off this list.The World Health Organisation's recent urban air quality database lists 10 Indian cities among the world's 20 worst polluted. But that doesn't seem to worry the CPCB or administrators either.

Contd. on Page 3

Khonsa Police arrested absconding accused Dunwang Phuksa

Investigation on to expose the illegal Constituent clans of Doming-Doruk timber network Tinkupani Rf in Jagun Erang comes under one umbrella

Assam Rifles reaches out to Veterans 33 Pieces of illegal timber logs recovered

Pranjal Bhuyan Jairampur, 6 Nov

Majuli gears up for Raas Mohotshava

There's something the hillside retreat of Parwanoo in Himachal Pradesh has in common with the industrial town of Korba in Chhattisgarh — both have consistently recorded higher than acceptable particulate matter (PM) levels.

swung into action and recovered 33 pieces of chopped timber logs from Tinkupani Reserve Forest area of Jagun Range under Digboi Division in Tinsukia District here this evening. 33 pieces of chopped timber logs were found lying in an inaccessible area between Assam –

Only 8.3% of startups are successful in getting funding, study says Only 8.3% of startups are successful in getting funding, a report

Only 8.3% of startups are successful in getting funding,

Arunachal border area of Tinsukia and Changlang District. Talking to the Eastern Today, M Tungnung the IFS Conservator of Forest Eastern Assam Circle who has been at the helm of affairs of the entire situations here Contd. on Page 3

In a landmark resolution adopted by Doming-Doruk Erang (DDE) for better unity among its constituent clans like Rukbo, Mengu, Mekir, Yommin, Yompang, Taknyo and Boring in their general conference held from 3rd – 6th November at Diking village, Pasighat, all the mentioned constituent clans agreed to come under one umbrella.

Informing about the general

conference and its landmark decision from the venue of the conference this evening, Indu Doruk, Chairman (Protocol & IP), Doming-Doruk Erang Conference 2016, said that, all the seven constituent clans of DDE has now came under one parental roof and henceforth their surnames will be called and known as Doming and Doruk.

The marriage among its constituent clans has also been declared restricted and banned, and anyone found violating the

restriction will be punished as per Bye-law. He also said that, there shall not be any separate organization or body in the name of constituent clans of DDE. It was also decided to maintain cordial relationship with other societies as usual.

While during the conference, Onom Doruk, President, DDE presented letter of appreciation and citation to pioneers of DDE in the honour of their contribution toward formation of DDE, added Indu Doruk.

The fourth edition of Northeast Festival 2016 kicks off amidst gusto and delight ANI New Delhi, Nov. 6

While the ratio of founded to funded companies globally was about 36–52%,

ET Bureau Chennai, 6 Nov

Staff Reporter Pasighat, 6 Nov

Exotic cuisine, rich heritage, colorful culture and tradition and music marked the beginning of the fourth edition of the Northeast Festival at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) here.

says an annual report on Indian venture capital and private equity on startups released by IIT-Madras.

Contd. on Page 3

BJP leader and former Assam minister Himanta Bishwa Sharma gracing the occasion, said, Contd. on Page 3

Accused Dunwang Phuksa ET Bureau Khonsa, 6 Nov Accused Dungwang Phuksa, 30 years Son of Late Jatpong Phuksa of Lower Kolam village PO/PS Lazu who was escaped from Legal Custody on 20th August 2016 from District Hospital, Khonsa while on routine medical check-up has been arrested again from Changlang by Khonsa Police.

Acting on a tip off regarding the presence of the absconding accused Dungwang Phuksa at Changlang, a team of Khonsa Police personnel was constituted to conduct raid.

A file photo of participants during the Northeast festival 2014. Source: From the website of Northeast festival 2014.

Contd. on Page 3

cmyk

Expressing euphemism over gracing the 5th State Level Indigenous Youth Faith Festival – 2016 as chief guest at the valedictory function of the festival, Chowna Mein DCM, Planning, PWD and Finance Minister of Arunachal Pradesh said that the impact of the festival will be felt in terms of how the youth are serious and committed to carry forward the legacy of our rich heritage will be apparently seen. “We should defend, protect and promote our age – old legacy of faith being carried since time immemorial.

It’s the onus for every one of us to safeguard our healing system, tradition and age –old ethos and I am proud to be amidst you where youth from across the state is putting all possible effort to showcase their respective identity”, he appreciated. Lohit, the holy

land of Parsuram Kund has blessed us immensely. “We have tremendous scope of tourism if developed a true sense of discipline and politeness”, he said.

P5

94 cities haven't met air quality standards in 5 years

ON BUDDHIST GOMPA VISIT

Chowna Mein appeals to endorse Indigenous Faith Bishnu Rana Tezu , Nov 6

PAGE 10

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

P2 A glimpse of Chhat puja at Digboi- its origin, celebration, significance Laxman Sharma, Digboi, Nov 6: The much awaited significant religious festivals of India known as Chhat Pujaworshipping the Sun God has commenced here this evening at the Immersion Point near AOD Centenary Park Digboi facing the setting sun amidst huge gatherings of devotes and general onlookers. The programme which is being organized

by Digboi Chhat Puja Palan Samity here attracts huge gatherings of religious devotees and general people from different fronts bears a historical significance in the sense that it has become a common place for the people of the Oil city to stand, workship and promote the cause of fraternity since the days immemorial.

Chhath is a Hindu festival celebrated each year by the people very eagerly.

This is very antique festival of the Hindu religion dedicated to the God of energy, also known as Dala Chhath or Surya Shashti. People celebrate this festival to offer thanks to the Lord Surya for blessing the life on the earth as ever. People worship the God Sun very enthusiastically and pray for the well-being, success and progress of their family members, friends, and elders. According to the Hinduism, Sun worship is related to the cure of a range of diseases such as leprosy, etc. he rituals at this day is to wake up early in the morning, take a holy bath in the Gange and keep fast for whole day, even people do not drink water and they keep themselves standing in the water for a long time.

They offer prasad and aragh to the rising sun. It is celebrated in the various

HOROSCOPE Aries

You're likely to gravitate toward those who can put on a show and carry your imagination to a far-off land today, Aries. Look for this quality in others instead of turning to the TV to satisfy this need. If you aren't careful, you may end up a couch potato all day, without talking to anyone. Take note that real life is much more enriching that anything that could come over the airwaves.

Taurus

Connect with those who carry you upward and encourage your fantasies today instead of those who try to bring you down to reality, Taurus.

There's a need for you to shine more brightly than usual, and there's no reason why this wish shouldn't be granted. Everything will work out splendidly for you as long as you align yourself with admirable people and noble causes, so go for it.

Gemini

You're likely now on the brink of completing a major move of some sort. Your first reaction may be to sit in solitary deliberation as you wrestle with the pros and cons of each piece of the situation. Try not to overload your head with too many details. Look at the overall picture. Perhaps you will find the answer you seek on a walk. During that time you can clear your head of unnecessary clutter.

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

Libra

Scorpio

Sagittarius

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

This is one of those days when you will be walking along and all of a sudden hear a street performer playing music. Suddenly your feet start to move and soon you're dancing. You find yourself boogying down the rest of the road. It won't take much to get you grooving.

Once you start, it may be hard for you to stop.

Go with it!

Don't take things that don't belong to you, Leo. Your penetrating eyes are apt to spot things that are easily pocketed, even though you know deep down that those things aren't meant for you to keep.

Your imagination might try to convince you that it's OK to pull such sneaky maneuvers, and you may be tempted. Don't deceive yourself.

You might need to put on the brakes today when it comes to love and romance, Virgo. Don't think that this means you have to break off any sort relationship that's in the works, but realize that you may need to take a more realistic approach to how you handle it. The problem is that you may be getting so caught up in the fantasy of things that you aren't tending to practicalities.

Water your plants today and make sure they're getting enough light, Libra. If you don't have any plants, take this opportunity to go to the nursery and pick up a couple for your home or office. Nourish the organic things in your life to help remind you of your own roots, which are extremely important for you right now. Sink deep into the Earth in order to understand the environment around you.

You're on a roll today, Scorpio. Don't let other people's insecurities or shallow understanding about an issue get in the way of your progress.

There's a distinct advantage to the way you approach things. Feel free to exert your will on those who need strong direction. If you're confident about the answer, don't be shy about saying so. If people don't like the way you're leading, they don't need to follow.

You may be wondering whose shoulder you should cry on, Sagittarius. Usually yours is the shoulder that everyone else likes to use. The collar of your shirt is probably soaking wet by now, thanks to all the tears that have spilled on you. Your compassion for others is definitely one of your biggest strengths, but be aware of the fact that it can also be one of your biggest weaknesses.

Your coals have been smoldering for a while, and there is a great deal of smoke pouring from your blackened embers, Capricorn. The good news is that there's apt to be a great gust of wind today, acting as the catalyst that ignites the flames. You've provided the heat and the fuel. The missing element of air is finally coming your way, so be prepared. The fire is apt to heat up quickly.

Be wary of big promises today, Aquarius. This could be one of those days when people are more likely to take a gamble because they're unrealistic about how things are going to work out. Don't be surprised if the stock market jumps as a result of the dollar signs that people imagine. It will be hard for others to resist when people receive promises of a big payoff.

Feel free to go shopping for yourself, Pisces.

While you're at it, you might as well pick up some things for others, too. You're apt to be in tune with the pleasant spirit of the people around you. On the other hand, if they're being especially negative or cranky, don't hesitate to just go elsewhere. Unfortunately, that may be easier said than done.

states of India like Bihar, UP, Jharkhand and Nepal.

According to the Hindu calendar, it is celebrated at 6th day of the month of Kartika (month of October or November).At some places, Chaiti Chhath is also celebrated in the month of Chaitra (March or April) few days after Holi. It is named as chhath because it is celebrated at the 6th day of the month of Kartika.

Chhat puja is very famous in the Dehri-On-Sone, Patna, Dev and Gaya.

Now, it is celebrated all over the country. It is widely celebrated in the various states of India like Bihar, UP, Jharkhand and Nepal too.

In the meantime, according to a member of the organizing committee, the scheduled activities of this year Chhat Puja has been decided. Nov 4 was the day of bathing and relish-

ing delicacies. Saturday, 5 November was the day of fasting. 6th November is the day of Sandhya Argh known as the evening offering while Monday, 7th November 2016 is the day of Suryodaya Argh and the Paran or breaking of the fast. Explaining the history and origin of Chhath puja Ashok Verma a member of the organizing committee reiterated that Chhath puja has the great significant in the Hindu religion and it is assumed that the oldest Purohits were requested by the kings to come and perform the traditional puja of the Lord Sun. They chant the ancient Rigveda texts and a variety of hymns for worshiping the Sun. In the ancient period, the Chhath puja were celebrated by Draupadi and the Pandavas of

Hastinapur (New Delhi) for solving their instant problem and regaining their lost kingdom.

In the meantime, the team Digboi Police headed by Inspector Chandan Milli of Digboi Police station and Digboi based 38 Bbattalion CRPF has been leaving no stone unturned to ensure the safe and peaceful celebration of the festival and deputed enough security forces in almost every celebration spots including Nazirating ghat, Digboi immersion pond, Bengali Balijan near Mamorani and several other to assist the devotees and provide security during the period.However, the celebration would conclude on 7 November with Suryodaya Argh and the Paran or breaking of the fast in the dawn.

Car lifters shot driver in Duliajan to Kathalguri in Duliajan.

When they have crossed Tingrai outpost they have convinced him to change their way and went through Pasuti village. And when they have reached an isolated area they tried to snatch the car key from the driver. When he have challenged them the two persons suspected to be car lifter beat him and fired him from a pistol that one of them was carrying. The bullet luckily was hit in his leg.

A Staff Reporter Duliajan, 6 Nov: In a weird incident for a hire driver, Bhaben Chetia, a driver based in Dibrugarh was shot by two persons who asked him drop them from

Dibrugarh to Kathalguri in Duliajan. The incident happened under Tingrai Outpost Police Station. The two persons have hired one Honda Emaze Car drive to drop them from Dibrugarh

Upon hearing the sound of the bullet, people passing by gathered and the miscreants escaped the scene immediately failing in their mission.

The injured driver was referred to the Assam Medical College in Dibrugarh and is out of danger now.

Devotees offering prayers to the Sun God on Chathh Puja in Dibrugarh on Sunday.

Photo by manoj pandey dibrugarh

Chhath Puja enters its third day; rain proves to no deterrent to devotees Manoj Kumar Ojha Doomdooma, Nov 6 ; Amid incessant rain, the devotees offered evening arghya (rituals) to Sun God on the Doomdooma , Dibru , Saikhowa and Brahmaputra river banks on the occasion of Chhath Puja today. The four-day ritual of worshipping Surya which began on 4th of this month will hit its auspiciousness crescendo with morning offerings tomorrow. The term Chhath refers to the sixth day of the lunar fortnight of the Kartik month. Chhath Puja is therefore celebrated six days after Diwali.

During this Puja, lakhs of devotees in Assam along with bordering Arunachal Pradesh and all five neighboring

states pay their humble respect to the setting and rising Sun like in many other parts of Northern India that is Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Surya is considered to be the giver of life and energy on earth .He is worshipped for curing all diseases and promoting the longevity of all human life. The Goddess who is worshipped along with Surya is Usha the Chhathi Maiya .

“It is also known as Dala Chhath. The festival is mostly popular among the people of Bihar, Jharkhand and Utter Pradesh but nowadays people across the globe of all communities also observe fast and offer religious rituals on riverbanks seeking blessings of the Sun God”, explains

Harivansh Puran.

Although the Puja on the riverbank is offered only for two days yet the devotees who are called ‘Paraitin’ observe accurate rituals over a long period for four days . Today being the third day of the ritual, devotees are observing fast for the last twenty four hours. They will break their fast tomorrow morning after worshipping the rising Sun. The Kumhari Patti Road of Doomdooma has been decorated with huge welcome gates which have been devoted to Indian Army. The advertising Secretary of the central committee of Akhil Assam Bhojpuri Yuva Chhatra Parishad Manu Prasad Chouhan has extended his greetings to the people of Assam on the occasion.

Pregnant Elephant Killed at Goalpara Margherita Buddhists communities celebrate ; Trunk and Tail Chopped off Kathina Cibara Dhana Utsav

Mithun Baruah Margherita, Nov 6: Dharmachakra Buddha Vihar Committee organised Danottom Subha Kathina Cibara Dhana Utsav today at Golai Buddha Vihar premises. The programme began with Tiratna Vandana and Sutrapath which was followed by hoisting of world Buddhist flag by Bhikku Sangha. After that Kalpatru installation,

Buddha Puja was offered with taking allegiance to Panchasheel and S a n g h a d a a n . Ve n Ratnasri Bhikkhu, Head Monk of Dharmachakra Buddha Vihar chanted Mangal Charan.A felicitation programme was held where meritorious students from Barua Buddhist Community of HSLC and HS were felicitated in memory of Late Ajit Baruah where the Students were felici-

tated with a Assamese Foolam Gamocha, Certificate and a Trophy.

Post-lunch, Dharma Sabha was held where Buddhist monks from various places came and delivered discourses on Buddha’s teachings.

Later in the evening, candles were lighted at Dharmachakra Buddha Vihara Premises by Buddhist devotees followed

by Cultural Programme at the Conclusion.

Cinema Galleria Cinema Dibrugarh Junction Mall Screen-1 "DR STRANGE 3D " 1ST show at10:00 AM "SHIVAAY" 2ND show at 12:10 PM "AE DIL HAI MUSHKIL " 3RD show at 03:15 PM "DR STRANGE 3D" 4th show at 06:05 PM "SHIVAAY" 5th show at 08:15 PM

Screen-2 "AE DIL HAI MUSHKIL" 1ST show at 09:30 AM "PAGLI" 2ND show at 12:30 PM "GAANE KI ANNE" 3RD show at 03:10 PM "PAGLI" 4TH show at 05:50 PM "AE DIL HAI MUSHKIL" 5TH show at 08:30 PM

ET Bureau Goalpara, Nov 6: In yet another inhuman act, a pregnant elephant was killed by miscreants at Goalpara on Sunday.

Miscreants chopped off the tail and trunk of the elephant, leaving it bleeding to die. The mu-

tilated carcass of the jumbo was recovered from a field at Rangjuli in Assam's Goalpara district.

It may be mentioned, mutilated carcass of an elephant calf was recovered from the same spot,

a week earlier.

Aggression of humans into forest areas has shrunk the habitat for wildlife thus triggering man-animal conflict.

Caption: Pic a pregnant elephant was killed by miscreants at Goalpara on Sunday.

ATPA

Niranjan Panging leads Borbheta Sports Club to Semis ET Correspondent Jorhat, 6 Nov: Barbheta Sports club manage to write their names in semi final of ATPA sheild football tournament. On Sunday, Barbheta Sports club beat Moran Town Club 51 in a quater final match held in Jorhat Stadium.

Larlin Fela, of Moran Town Club score a goal on 27 minutes and give lead to his club to1-0. But soon the senerio is changed and Niranjan Panging of Borbheta equalize 1-1. A penalty is given to

Borbheta Sports Club when the ball touch the hand of Sujoy Mandal of Moran Town Club on the penalty area, which Niranjan turns to goal.

In the 62nd minutes of the game Niranjan again score a goal and lead his team to 3-1. Completely ended up the hope of Moran Town Club Niranjan scores his fourth goal on 84 minutes of the second half.

But there was still to come as the captain of Barbheta

Sports Club hit the net in the 89th minute, which concluded the match with 5-1.

Barbheta sports Club is the second team of Jorhat that had entered the Semi Final of the 53rd edition of ATPA sheild football.

Now the two under dogs, Milanjyoti Sangha and Barbheta Sports Club will in be action.

Tomorrow Milanjyoti Sangha, who defeated five time ATPA sheild champion in the quarters will face Oil India.

9-Yr-Old Trampled to Death

by Wild Elephants at Titabor

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Et Bureau Jorhat, Nov 6: A nineyear-old child was trampled to death by a herd of wild elephants on Sunday, at Titabor. The incident took place at Rangajan tea estate at

Titatbor in Assam's Jorhat District.

The deceased child has been identified as Guttu Nayak.

The herd of 40-50 wild tuskers are believed to have sneaked out of Gib-

bon Wildlife Sanctuary and have been wreaking havoc in the tea estate, triggering panic among the locals.The marauding herd also destroyed their thatched huts and property.

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

P3

Union Minister Rathore graces Deputy CM, Mein unveils superior quality VIP suite at Tezu closing ceremony of Buddha Mahotsava 2016 in Bomdila

ET Bureau Bomdila, 6 Nov: Chief Minister Pema Khandu accompanied by Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju and renowned Bollywood Singer, Adnan Sami landed today here to grace the closing ceremony of 3rd Buddha Mahotsava.

The guests were offered traditional welcome at

the Buddha stadium.

Union Minister Rathore is the Chief Guest for the closing ceremony and Adnan Sami the Guest of Honour.

Before proceeding towards the podium for formal inauguration, the guests paid visit to the traditional exhibition stalls. They also visited the traditional huts of the Bugun, Sajolang, Monpa, Sherdukpen and Sartang tribe.

To pray for the long life of the distinguished guests, the monks of the

Chilipam Monastery, Rupa performed a 30minute traditional chant.

The welcome address was delivered by Dakbom Riba, ADC, Bomdila and the vote of thanks by Dr Sonal Swaroop, DC, Bomdila.

The ceremony was also attended by Speaker TN Thongdok, Parliamentary Secretary (Health) Phurpa Tsering, Parliamentary Secretary (PHED) Kumsi Sidisow, MLA Bomdila Japu Deru and other dignitaries.

94 cities haven't met air quality standards in 5 years Contd. from Page 1

For the past couple of years when air pollution in Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow andVaranasi touched dangerous levels, the CPCB did nothing to ensure that its directions on meeting air quality standards were enforced.

It also ignored its own studies, commissioned from Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute in 2003, on the impact of air pollution on children over 15 years, which found serious physical and psychological impacts.

The Centre has made only one major decision this year to tackle air pollution--notifying BSVI emission standards for vehicles manufactured after April 2020, which will bring down particulate emissions from vehicles by 60%-80%.

The National Air Quality Standard notification, 2009, says safe standards for air should be met 98%

of the year, a criterion none of the cities monitored by CPCB meet.

Dipankar Saha, additional director, air laboratory at CPCB said: "This is not relevant anymore since we have started real-time monitoring of cities. We alert the non attaining cities every three years."

But CPCB only monitors 29 cities real time and has just one continuous air quality monitor at most locations.The rest are manual monitoring machines which are "highly inefficient" and at times "inaccurate", say experts.

"Only when there is pressure from the people and the judiciary, cities start acting on pollution.

There is no national policy.

Even the government's smart city project only makes a passing reference to air quality but doesn't make it binding on cities to meet this criteria," says Anumita Roy Chowdhury, head of Centre for Science

and Environment's clean air programme. CPCB's air quality bulletins routinely show Faridabad, Agra, Kanpur and Lucknow in "severe" or "very poor" categories.

This month for the first time CPCB used its statutory powers to direct municipalities in NCR to take steps to curb air pollution. "The air act gives us statutory powers to issue closure orders or cut electricity or water supply to industries that do not meet norms but it doesn't give us powers to penalize municipalities.

So our directions are not binding on them," said Saha. In this situation, he is not sure how air quality standards will be met in cities.

"CPCB and state pollution boards have the power to take immediate action," insists Kanchi Kohli of Namati Environmental Justice Programme. "They can hold municipalities accountable if they want to."

(With inputs from agencies)

Investigation on to expose the illegal timber network Tinkupani Rf in Jagun Contd. from Page 1

visiting various vulnerable locations told that in all 33 pieces of the said forest resources have been recovered, transported and seized accordingly and brought under the custody of the department.

Terming the ghastly act of merciless felling of matured timber logs by the miscreants as unfortunate, he told that the investigation was being carried out simultaneously combing the entire belt which might led the team to definite conclusion.

Meanwhile, Ranjan Chakroborty, the Deputy Commissioner Tinsukia told the Eastern Today here this evening that the District Administration has been geared up and the

team is committed to bring into light the exact nature behind what shocked everyone. According to him, investigation was being carried out besides interrogating the accused arrested to this effect. He did not deny the possibilities of conducting the operation in and around Jairampur and Nampong the two adjoining places of Changlang District of Arunachal Pradesh having timber mills with the help of its counterpart which agreed during a meeting held recently. It needs mentioning here that a strong network of smugglers from across the border area has been active for long carrying on their illegal timber trade. Procuring the raw materials from the

Reserve Forest to feed the timber industries in the neighboring state carrying through the marine ways, the miscreants earn easy money neutralizing the forest Rangers and the department as a whole mysteriously. It may also be admitted that due to lack of departmental coordination and resources, the service of the employees have become ineffective and delayed as alleged from various sources from time to time. However, Mr Tungnung assured to investigate into the matter from all possible angles and bring into light the exact happening, its causes and initiate steps after assessing the pros and cons of the monstrous event.

Bishnu Rana Tezu, Nov 06: High class VIP suite with conference hall is being unveiled by Chowna Mein DCM, Planning, Finance and PWD Minister Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh at the premises of Circuit House amidst presence of Dr Mohesh Chai local MLA, Danish Ashraf DC and Issac Pertin Lohit and galaxy of district’s Official. The spaces RCC Suite is having 2 (two) number of superior quality of rooms with balcony, two official bedded room and separate bathroom and toilet.

Lauding the PWD officials, the DCM says that the Lohit is the oldest district where top officials keep visiting and suite of this kind would facilitate VIP for their safe and cozy stay. He also appreciates the EE PWD Tania Raje, AE, JE and other team of staffs for constructing spaces and beautiful suite at low cost setting better repo of Eastern Arunachal in the roadmap of infra-

structure development.

In retrospection of dubious communication bottleneck of Lohit, he also expresses contentment about the pace of fast development and a radical change in the socio – economic aspect of this secluded area due to infrastructural development. The Mein further assured to sanction dormitory building within the Suite for drivers and security personnel.

MLA in his short speech

Chhath Puja at Pasighat Maksam Tayeng Pasighat, 6 Nov : Chhath Puja, the festival dedicated to the Sun God for supporting life on earth and ensuring prosperity and happiness in life, is also being celebrated here in Pasighat by the Behari and Nepalee communities where huge crowd of devotees were seen paying oblations to the setting sun on today evening.

The word Chhath means sixth in Nepali, Maithili and Bhojpuri languages and the festival is celebrated on the sixth day of the month Kartika of the Hindu lunar Bikram Sambat calendar. The word is a Prakrit derivation from the Sanskrit ?a??hi, meaning sixth. It is the longest and most Earlier in the morning at important festival after the Circuit House, the Navratri.

DCM was given red car- As informed by the believpet welcome by the DC, SP Lohit, HoDs and other ers, the very first day of Chhath starts exactly 4 public leaders.

also extended gratitude to the PWD officials for the completion of the Suite and evokes pleasure over the Suite.

“Dearth of superior quality of room lacked at the town but this VIP Suite has meet up the accommodation shortage”, he expresses.

days from Diwali and last for 4 more days. This day the people who observe fast take bath at a river or pond and prepare lunch.

The second day (5th day from Diwali) is known as kharna or kheer- roti. The people observe fast for the full day without taking even water and eat this kheer-roti as dinner after offering it to the rising moon and Goddess Ganga. This is the only time when they eat or drink anything from the starting of the day till the last day of Chhath. The third day is the main festival day (exactly 6th day from Diwali) of Chhath is observed by offering Surya Namashkar and fruits to the setting sun followed by the next day (exactly 7th day from Diwali) event of offering Surya Namashkar and fruits to the rising sun on the fourth or last day of Chhath.

Khonsa Police arrested The fourth edition of Northeast Festival 2016 kicks off amidst gusto and delight absconding accused become a part of one of the unexplored Dunwang Phuksa Contd. from Page 1 mainstream. We are destinations and it is a Contd. from Page 1

The team led by SI Chuman Chena, I.O. OC PS Khonsa, H/C (Driver) K. Monpa 4th IRBN, Const. U. Thinley, Const. T. Hatte, Const. H. Wangsu and Constable T. Hankhey under the closed supervision of Kardak Riba, Dy.SP H/Q Khonsa conducted raid at the suspected house, where the absconding accused was suspected to be present.

The accused was found

present at the house and was simultaneously over powered by the team while the accused was trying to escape. The accused has been bring back to Khonsa Police Station and kept in police custody for production before the Judicial Magistrate.

Earlier accused Dungwang Phuksa was arrested on 17/ 07/2015 in connection with PS C/No. 43/2015 U/S 302/ 34 IPC and he was in the police custody.

Assam Rifles reaches out to Veterans Contd. from Page 1

The Rally commenced with welcome song by the children of Assam Rifles Public School Jairampur.

Brigadier DK Singh addressed the rally and said that welfare of veterans and veer naris is a top priority for Assam Rifles. He said that this rally was organised with an aim of reaching out to the AR ESM fraternity renewing bonds between serving and retried personal, felicitating veer naris, gallantry award winners and addressing grievances pertaining to pension and other benefits.

The Commander lauded the veterans present for the dedication to the nation and said that the nation will never forget them. During the event the commander facilitated gallantry award winner Sub (Retired) Karna Bahadur Thapa giving him a token of appreciation. As a prelude to rally, Commandant 13 Assam Rifles conducted interaction with Assam Rifles Ex-

Servicemen for three days at Vijaynagar and heard their grievances and distributed solar lights from 24 to 26 October 2016.

Along with the ExServicemen rally a medical camp for the people of Jairampur, Jagun and Margherita was also conducted.

The veterans and veer naris were guided to various stalls and other facilities established at the venue for their benefits. These included stalls for addressing individual pension grievances, Assam Rifles Ex-servicemen Association (ARESA), medical checkup and treatment. There were stalls for opening bank account and bank loans.

Performance by Jazz band and Pipe band was also shown to the veterans and veer naris to conclude the event. At the end Brig DK Singh distributed gifts to ESM and veer naris of Assam Rifles, the oldest Para Military Force of country.

Unfazed by Chinese troops' 'sit-in', Army engineers finish canal work in Ladakh Contd. from Page 1 The fresh incident had erupted on November 2 when Chinese troops took positions on the LAC and demanded that work be stopped as either side needs to take permission from each other before undertaking any construction work, a claim disputed by the India which says that as per the agreement between the two countries, information about construction needed to be shared only if it was meant for defence purposes.

Both sides pulled out banners and have been stationed on the

ground, the sources said, adding the Army and ITBP troopers were not allowing the Chinese "to move an inch" ahead despite the PLA claiming that the area belonged to China.

The area had witnessed a similar incident in 2014 after it was decided to construct a small irrigation canal at Nilung Nalla under the MNREGA scheme which had been a sore point with the Chinese.

The PLA had mobilized villagers from Tashigong to pitch Rebos (tents) at Charding-Ninglung Nallah (CNN) Track Junction to protest Indian action.

“Our government is committed in promoting the northeast and our state, and such festivals attract more tourists. That way we are benefitted as our tourist inflow is going up every year. People get a positive impression about our state Assam and the entire northeast through such events”.

Chief guest Dr.Satyendra Garg, who is the Joint Secretary (Northeast) in the Ministry of Home Affairs, said, “It is a privilege to be here and I had a chance to work for the northeast for nine years. I love the northeast.

Our present government is working so that people from the northeast

investing more on infrastructure and on the Act East policy which surely will not only connect the northeast to India, but also to South East Asia.”

“I have many northeastern friends. I have visited before and every time we get to see new things. I am eagerly waiting for Papon. I am not new to the northeast, their culture is so unique.

It is so awe inspiring to watch their dances, traditions. It’s beautiful”, said Visesh, a student.

“It is a gathering for everyone. All religions, castes and creeds come here to enjoy the food and culture. Northeast India is

peaceful land. I have been to Kaziranga, Shillong and I have been a regular visitor in this festival”, said Piyali, a Delhiite.

In the evening a rock music contest between colleges, bands of Delhi and parts of northeast highlighted the young music talent of the region.

Fashion shows comprising the best northeast handlooms were showcased by around 20 young designers and models of the region.

Finally, the heartthrob of Assam and Bollywood singer Angaraag Papon Mahanta enthralled the crowd by performing some of his hits.

Only 8.3% of startups are successful in getting funding, study says Contd. from Page 1

Presenting the 'Inspiration and Momentum for the Gladiators' report at TiECON 2016 organised

by TiE Chennai on Saturday, Thillai Rajan, professor, department of management studies, IITMadras, said while the big picture of the Indian startup system was breathtaking with over Rs 1, 11,700 crore being invested in the period 2005-2015 and 16% annual growth in startups being funded, there still isn't enough capital for startups in the country.

Rajan also expressed concern over the low proportion of startups getting funded in India as compared to the global standard. While the ratio

of founded to funded companies globally was about 36 - 52%, the ratio for Indian startups was 511%, he said. For example, the percentage of global startups that are able to successfully raise capital in the grocery technology, healthcare and consumer healthcare and smart home and home improvement are 41%, 52% and 36% respectively.

The corresponding percentages for Indian startups are 5%, 10% and 11%.

A noteworthy trend in the last few years has been the evolution of angel networks. While many of them are organised around cities (such as The Chennai Angels, Mumbai Angels, and so on), there are other forms of

networks as well. The annual growth rate of the number of investments by angel networks made during the 2009-15 period has been around 75%.

In a span of seven years, the number of networks has increased 20 times, according to the report.

While the average angel round of investment increased from Rs 10.63 million in 2009 to Rs 46.46 million in 2015, the average investment ticket size saw an 8X jump from Rs 2.16 million in 2009 to Rs 16.95 million in 2015.

Rajan also observed the growth of incubators and accelerators in the country. More than 50% of the incubators had been set up in the last five years with over half of them located in Tier 2 and 3 cities, the report said.

Chowna Mein appeals to endorse Indigenous Faith Contd. from Page 1

Taloh Mugli former Minister also lauded the Organizing Committee, IFCSAP district unit and District Administration and police for organizing the festival of this stature.

Bai Taba Secretary IFCSAP state level also praised MLA, Dist Administration, police and public for extending immense courtesy and support to make the best

festival.

Earlier Nakul Chai Chairman Organizing Committee in his welcome address also extended gratitude to all participants to display their faith, culture and tradition in showing the world their rich indigenous faith. He also expressed apology of any inconvenience or shortages of hospitality on the part of being a host to the visiting guests.

Later, the DCM also

attended the Chhath Puja organized by Namsai Chhath Puja Committee at the bank of Noa Dihing, Namsai. It is an important Hindu Vedic festival, where devotees worship Sun god on this day along with his younger wife fondly called as Chhathi Maiya by the believers.

The people rigorously fast and abstain from even drinking water, take holy baths and offer prayers to the rising and setting sun on these days.

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Patanjali’s Rs 1,600 crore food park in AIDC complex near Tezpur will impact ecological balance in the region besides generating employment: Sonawal New food park to generate 4,000 direct jobs Shambhu Boro, Tezpur, Nov 6: Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, laying the foundation stone of the big budget project costing around Rs. 1200 crore with the expectation of annual production of 6, 57, 000 MT state Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonwal said that that it is historical moment for the industrial development of Assam. Addressing gathering of about fifty thousand people on the occasion he also said that besides Ghiramari AIDC complex project the four other proposed projects in Kokrajhar, Sirang and Baska in Bodoland area and Seijusa area along the AssamArunachal border area in Sonitpur taken up by Patanjali will give a direct impact upon the ecological balance of the region.

Stressing on promoting lo-

cally available things in the region for the better health and life of the people the state Chief Minister in his speech also urge local people to extend their helping hand make the project a successful one.

“Herbal supplements have been used for thousands of years in the East and have had a recent resurgence in popularity among consum-

ers in the West. Millions people across the globe consume herbal remedies or high-dose vitamins, and the total number of visits to complementary and alternative medicine providers far exceeds those to primary physicians, amounting billions of money outof-pocket costs for complementary and alternative medicine annually”,

Sonawal added.

He said adding multiple factors contribute to the increased use of CAM, including the obesity epidemic, the prevalence of chronic disorders and pain syndromes, anxiety, depression, the general desire for good health and wellness, disease prevention, the increasing cost of conventional medicines, and the traditional belief that CAM is safer and more effective than prescription drugs that commonly have adverse effects. “Therefore we the people of this region being the owner of millions of plants and herbs should give priority in promoting this line”, the CM added.

Attending the event, BTC Chief Hagrama Hohilary said that the local people should take every advantage of these projects besides employment generation. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Managing Direc-

tor of Patanjali Ayurved, addressing the gathering said that the Balipara (Ghoramari) unit will generate direct employment for over 4,000 people.

Stressing a health hazard free nation, possible through using herbal product the Yuga Guru also stated that the locally available varied plants and herbs he further said that the standard of tea will be maintained. On the other hand, in his speech he further mentioned that along with herbal goods production it will take up the academic sector also for the quality resource person from the region. “We will not only confine within the manufacturing of wide range of production ranging from cosmetics, nutrition and kitchen essential, rather will devout ourselves in creating a good human resources through educational policy under

our project,” the Yuga Guru said. The mega event was attended by Acharya Balkrishna, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Railways, Rajen Gohain, Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Babul Supriyo, Industries and Commerce Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, Ranjit Dutta, Forest and Environment Minister Pramila Rani Brahma, PWD Minister Parimal Suklabaidya, Power and Revenue Minister Pallav Lochan Das, Members of Parliament, Ram Prasad Sarma, Kamakhya Prasad Tassa.

The Chief Minister of the state attending a public meeting at Haleswar near here gave away cheque of financial assistance of Rs. 23.48 lac to altogether 383 man-elephant conflict victims of Sonitpur District.

CEM Gorlosa identifies corruption as an obstacle to development; seeks people’s cooperation to make Dima Hasao a corruption free district Correspondent, Haflong, Nov 6: The Chief Executive Member, N C Hills Autonomous Council Sri Debolal Gorlosa has sought for people’s whole-hearted cooperation to make Dima Hasao a corruption free district of the State.

CEM Gorlosa inspired

by Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, while sharing his experiences of few months as CEM of NCHAC disclosed that the corruption has really been the prime obstacle for development, therefore, uprooting of corruption from our district has become the need of hour and for this people’s cooperation in this regards

is must.

Though he didn’t disclose about his plans and programmes for uprooting corruption but hinted that action against such officials who are in neck deep corruption would be dealt with iron hand as the Chief Minister has come down heavily.

There would be zero tolerance against corruption.

“If the people of our district extend their whole hearted co-operation then it would not be a hard task for our government to tackle the menace of corruption and to uproot it from our district and peace and development could be established permanently”, the CEM pointed out.

CM Sonowal gives lessons of life to HBC exhibition relives traditional students; urges to devout themselves Tangkhul wood crafts in nation building process Shambhu Boro Tezpur, Nov 6: Urging the student’s community to dedicate themselves in nation building process State Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said that schools play a pivotal role in building the main base for morally, socially and intellectually strong citizen for which the schools and teachers involved in the teaching profession should be dedicated in their working fields. The state Chief Minister who was attending in the three day 21st Founder’s Day of Assam Valley School here today.

He said that Assam is a land of potentiality and many resources, but to use these re-

sources people of the region are to be technologically and educationally fit. For making the new generation fit for this area, institutions like Assam Valley School has to carry out their responsibility with dedication and social obligation.

“Though Assam bears a lots of resources including forest, mineral and water resources, people from other parts of the country have conception that it is a land of difficulty and problems, but our resources and our potentiality outside the region we will have to transform our disadvantages into advantage.” He said urging the students to be hard worker as there is no any short cut to success. Sug-

gesting the students to enjoy the life with discipline, he also mentioned that the education should mould the life of an individual with a guarantee of quality of life.

He also said that for a better environment in the society both good governance and development will have to go hand in hand. He said, “God has given our body for labour but, not for a leisure life, without physical and mental labour nobody can prosper in life.” Urging the students to be a loyal to their elders he also said that besides academic students should give priority to the culture and sports and both the angles should be integrated with education. He also gave away the

Founder’s Award to the students and released the school’s year book. Earlier, officiating chairman of the board of governors, David Summerscale welcoming the gathering said that truth is the strength and with this moral Assam Valley School is carrying out their responsibility with a sense of belonging to the society. In the programme the students showing good performances in various areas including academic, culture and spots were awarded.

Prior to it on the first day of the programme, the concert of Western Music and dance was inaugurated at the main School Building by the Sonitpur DC, Manuj Kumar Deka.

CM WITH AMIR KHAN

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal met Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao in Guwahati. “I invited both of them to Brahmaputra Festival in April 2017 that we are organizing”, informed the CM. The CM have requested Aamir Khan to use the untapped beauty of Assam and Northeast India for film shooting and help promoting the region in India and abroad.

'Bill against indigenous people' Guwahati, 6 Nov: The Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), an anti-influx group, led by Supreme Court senior advocate Upamanyu Hazarika said the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, has ignored the fate of the indigenous people of Assam. The group made this statement in its response to the committee constituted for consideration of the bill on Thursday.

The letter, addressed to additional director of the Lok Sabha secretariat, New Delhi, said the group opposes the bill and requested the parliamentary panel to prioritize safe-

guarding of the rights of Assam's indigenous inhabitants.

The body said neither illegal migrants entering the state after the Assam Accord deadline of March 25, 1971, nor their children born in Assam should be granted citizenship. tnn The PVM criticized both the state government and other political parties for not making their stand clear so far. "The silence from state government and other political parties on the matter is disturbing. It is the duty of the state government and the political parties in Assam, particularly elected representatives to the

Assemblyand Parliament to appraise the Centre and the committee about the gravity of threat faced by indigenous people and take necessary steps. The only way in which the indigenous people in Assam can be protected from becoming a minority, is by reserving land and other resources only for those who were citizens of India and resident in Assam in 1951 and their progeny," the PVM added.

The public suggestions sought on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, by a parliamentary panel have rekindled the debate on 'foreigners' in

Assam. The Bill that proposes citizenship for migrant religious minorities (non-Muslims) from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, has run into opposition in the state with ethnic and students groups of here unanimously viewing that it would open floodgates for more migration to Assam, which in turn would further threaten the very existence of the indigenous people .

However, state's finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that India will have to accept Hindus who were compelled to leave from different countries as they have 'no other place to go'. (Agencies)

R Lester Makang Ukhrul, 6 Nov: Reliving the beauty of traditional Tangkhul wood crafting arts, the Hunphun Baptist Church (HBC) kicked off a grand exhibition cum sales of myriad woodwork items during an inaugural ceremony held at its campus here on Saturday.

Organized as part of HBC's fundraising project in connection with its upcoming Diamond Jubilee celebration to be held on 25-28 February 2017, the exhibition drew a large crowd of visitors and buyers from different walks of life.

Attending the inaugural function as chief guest, ex-

ecutive member ADC Ukhrul Admund Chiphang lauded the HBC's venture, while describing the team as industrious and talented.

He also said that the woodcrafts are at par with word class standard and added that the items could fetch a huge amount if exported to international market.

The exhibited items included unique coffee tables, decorative racks, single and double table with root legs, solid wood family dining table, flower stand, solid raw chair with table, solid wood dining chair etc with prices ranging from Rs.2999 to Rs. 49999.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the event, Diamond Jubilee committee secretary Tungsa Ragui said that it took eight months for the team to complete the project and added that they put in the best of their efforts and workmanship for the crafts.

Asserting that all the items were made by collecting stumps and roots of indigenous dead alder trees (Ngavaithing) from the forests and fields, Ragui said that not a single live tree was felled in the course of the entire craft project. "Hence, it did not cause any damage to the environment and ecology in any manner."

On the day first, the exhibition achieved a total turnover of Rs. 3.5 lakhs. "As of now, we provide home delivery service of all the items within the town and we are planning to make them available online shortly on our official Facebook account: hbcdiamondjubilee2017," Ragui added.

Ukhrul ADC members V Paothing, Kapangpam Zimik, Church elders, DLOs, Hunphun VA members, CO 41 AR, Deputy CO, well wishers and public members attended the inaugural function.

Centre for Science and Environment welcomes initiatives in announcing emergency measures A Staff Reporter Guwahati, Nov 6 : Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has welcomed the initiative by the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi to announce emergency measures for bringing down the super severe pollution peaks that have persisted for about a week, posing serious health risk for children, the ailing and the general public.

Said Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE’s executive director (research and advocacy) and the head of its air pollution control and sustainable mobility programmes: “This emergency situation demands emergency action. These measures will now require stringent enforcement.

However, vehicle restraint measures including odd and even and parking restraints must also be included immediately for effective im-

pacts.”

However, restraints on vehicle numbers with the odd and even scheme and parking restraints must also be implemented simultaneously. Specifically, point out CSE researchers, diesel vehicles including diesel trucks and cars should be controlled. Vehicles contribute hugely toxic emissions very close to where people are, thus exposing them to very high toxic risk when pollution remains trapped close to the ground level.

Along with vehicle restraint measures, the government needs to scale up and intensify the public transport system.

Globally, emergency action kicks in the moment pollution hits the worst air quality level according to the National Air Quality Index and persists at least for three

consecutive days. This is done to immediately reduce peak levels to protect children, those suffering from heart and respiratory problems, and also the general public.

In Delhi, there has been no respite from the choking haze of pollution since Diwali. Analysis of air pollution data from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee shows that on Diwali day (October 30) the air was already saturated – the 24-hour average level of PM2.5 was 347 microgramme per cubic metre (cu m) and was at ‘severe’ level which is the worst category according to the air quality index.

This further increased significantly post-Diwali when on November 2 the 24-hour average levels shot up to 577 microgramme per cu

m. Yesterday – almost a week later -- it was far worse at 639 microgramme per cu m.

The peak levels were even more horrendous and not breathable. On November 5, the four hour averages (12 noon – 4 pm) of peak levels were as high as 732 microgramme per cu m in Punjabi Bagh, 762 microgramme per cu m in Mandir Marg and 566 microgramme per cu m in R K Puram.

Said Roychowdhury: “Delhi has become a gas chamber.

It may recalled that the infamous London smog that had killed 4,000 people within a week during the December of 1952, had an average particulate level of about 500 microgrameme per cu m mixed with high levels of sulphur dioxide.”

East Zone Inter-University Volleyball Tournament commences in Guwahati A Staff Reporter Guwahati, 6 Nov: "East Zone Inter-University Volleyball Tournament commence today at Gauhati University premises. Though 45 universities from eastern part of the country send their entries, a total of 32 universities have registered their participation and joined the tournament.

The campus was witnessed March Past with

Flag Hoisting of '"Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi along with Gauhati University Flag. Dr. Suresh Kr Nath, Registrar, Gauhati University in his welcome speech appealed to all the participants to participate with sportsmanship spirit.

the participants. Dr. Subhash Basumatary, Director, Sports Authority of India, Guwahati Centre attended the inaugural function as guest of honour and appraised the organizers for organizing this mega event after such a long time.

Attending the function as chief guest Prof. Hari Prasad Sarma, Rector, Gauhati University wished good luck to all

Dr. Basumatary also appealed the student fraternity for taking active participation giving examples of last Olympic

winners. Dr. Ranjan Kr. Kakati, Director, Students Welfare, Gauhati University and organizing secretary of the tournament has offered vote of thanks to all the dignitaries and thanked to the Association of Indian Universities for entrusting this tournament to organize at Gauhati University, The tournament will conclude on 8 November and final match will be held at 7 pm on that day.

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

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NORTHEAST

INAS Nepal Film Awards to be Famous football player's ashes sprinkled held in Sikkim from November 9 in Mizoram football stadium 200 celebrities from Mumbai and Nepal to visit Gangtok PTI Gangtok, 6 Nov: Sikkim is all set to host the 4th edition of INAS Nepali Film Awards 2016 from November 9. Over 200 delegates from across 65 countries will be present at the event organised by the Sikkim chapter of International Nepalese Artists Society (INAS) in association with the state government.

The event will see over 200 Nepali film artists representing the Nepali Film Industry competing for the prestigious 16 categories while there will be delegates from 65 countries as participants.

The Governor of Sikkim will be attending this event as the chief guest, while the Chief Minister will be the guest of honour.

The special guest at the function is Surendra Kumar Karki, Minister for Information and Public Relations, Government of Nepal.

Veteran Bollywood actor and son of the hills Danny Denzongpa will be conferred with the 'Life Time Achievement Award' for his contribution to films in Indian Film Industry.

The CM Pawan Chamling will also be honoured with INAS Global Personality Award for his achievements in the field of Literature and Politics alongside The objective behind hosting this event is to make the younger generation aware of the contributions being made by the artists if Sikkim and neighboring states in the Nepali film industry.

Promoting Sikkim as a

new film shooting destination is also a major objective.

INAS was established in Copenhagen, Netherlands in the year 2012 to help, support, promote and encourage Nepali films and the artists in the international arena.

Since then, INAS has its presence and representatives having offices in 65 countries spread over Asia, America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

31 brick kilns closed in Tripura

ET Bureau Agartala, 6 Nov: Following directions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the Tripura State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) recently issued closure notices to 31 brick kilns in the state for noncompliance with environmental norms.

MK Das, scientist at the TSPCB, said the kilns had been operating without valid clearances from the board. In the inspection, it was discovered that they were flouting envi-

ronmental mandates. District magistrates have been asked to ensure their closure.

After a complaint was lodged against brick kilns in the state for violating environmental norms and causing pollution, NGT had issued notices to 348 brick kilns. NGT also instructed the board to file an inspection report.

Inspection revealed that five kilns had been running without the board's consent and 126 had taken consent for opera-

tions long ago but had not renewed these.

"Some brick kilns operate very close to human habitation, not following the statutory environmental mandates," Das said.

Two months ago, NGT had slapped fines of Rs 1 lakh against each of the 126 non-compliant kilns.

For those which are operating without any permission whatsoever, a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh was levied. However, 31 kilns did not deposit the fine within the stipulated period.

"We had issued at least four reminders. The last date was October 16. Finally, we had to close the non-compliant 31 brick kilns," Das said.

NGT is scheduled to issue the final decision against the illegal brick kilns on Wednesday. (With inputs from agencies)

ET Bureau Aizawl, 6 Nov: Mizoram gave him his wife and the space to hone his footballing skills.

Some 70 years later, it granted his dying wishes too.

The ashes of Herbert Winston Vaughan, who was a very famous goalkeeper of his time and a former British Army officer, were carried over 9,000 km from England and sprinkled across the Lammual Football Stadium in Mizoram capital Aizawl by his wife during a football match on Friday.

Vaughan died at a London hospital in January this year at the age of 89. He had wished that after his death, a special ceremony be organised during a

football match at the Mizoram stadium and his ashes sprinkled on it.

He had a very deep connection with the then Lushai Hills (now Mizoram) as it was here that he had briefly served in the British Army, improved his goalkeeping skills and found the woman of his life.

He had married Rokamlovi, a Mizo, in 1945. According to locals, he left India in the 1960s and settled down in Sheffield.

“He had wished that his ashes be scattered at the Lammual Football Stadium. So, after his death on January 19 this year, his family members contacted the Mizoram Football Association (MFA).

Tripura on cyclone alert, drizzling on for 72 hours ANI Agartala, 6 Nov: The Meteorological (MeT) department on Sunday issued cyclone alert in Tripura as neighbouring Bangladesh is likely to receive cyclone in the next two days after a depression has been formed in the Bay of Bengal.

Normal life has already been hampered since the last three days as the city is facing heavy rainfall and continuous drizzling.

Several parts of Tripura have been receiving heavy rainfall and the MeT has also issued a warning of heavy rainfall at isolated places over Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura.

Along with the capital city Agartala, many parts of Tripuraare also likely to get strong winds.

The rain is likely to continue for at least two more days.

‘No probe order, only checking facts’ GHADC fund misuse allegation Shillong, 6 Nov: BJP national spokesperson and Meghalaya in charge Nalin Kohli has said he has not directed an inquiry into the allegations of misusing Central funds but the party just wants see the facts. The statement came a day after NPP president Conrad Sangma denied the allegations on Thursday that there was misuse of Rs 100 crore in the GHADC. The GHADC executive council is led by NPP and is also supported by members of BJP. Speaking on the matter, Kohli said the party just wants to find out the facts as BJP has a zero tolerance policy towards cor-

ruption.

The Garo Students’ Union has alleged that the GHADC has misused Rs 100-crore central development fund and has flouted Niti Aayog guidelines in disbursing fund and allotting projects for different areas in Garo Hills.

However, NPP president Conrad Sangma had denied the allegations saying the GHADC Executive Council had adhered to the guidelines of Niti Aayog and that there was no question of any scam.

“If any one writes a letter and alleges something, it does not mean all such allegations are correct,” Sangma had said.

(Agencies)

Kohima, 6 Nov: A group of 14 organizations have resolved that Nagaland State should be exempted from the Indian Union’s proposed and yet-undefined Uniform Civil Code.

The Indian Union Government started an exercise this year to get views of all citizens of the Union on formulating a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The Law Commission of India (LCI) circulated a questionnaire on October 7, open for 45 days, that invited opinions on how to, if at all, construct a UCC to inform family laws/customary practices that govern marriage, divorce, adoption, guardianship and child custody, maintenance, succession and inheritance.

Organizations in the State took a strong stand against the “imposition” of a UCC on the Naga people at a ‘public discourse’ organized by the Dimapur Bar Association (DBA) at the Lotha Hoho Ki here today.

It was decided that this resolution will be forwarded to the LCI under the aegis of the Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC).

“Nagaland State should be exempted from the UCC,” maintained Tali Ao, President of the Nagaland Bar Association (NBA). He noted that life, liberty and justice for the Naga people would be put at jeopardy if any form of a UCC is applied.

A UCC in the Indian context is understood to be the state’s duty (Article 44 of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Indian Constitution) to “revise and reform” personal laws, ensuring social equality and secularism.

Highlighting the ‘Constitutional implications of UCC in the context of Nagaland State,’ NK Luikham, former president of the NBA, explained the various fundamental rights provided by the Indian constitution. He reiterated that Nagaland State should be left out from the purview of the UCC, but reminded that when a contradiction in law arises (eg. a law that may hinder right to freedom of religion), then a law made by the Indian parliament would prevail over any other. (Agencies)

They said they wanted to do something for him. We respected their request and organized the ceremony,” MFA secretary Tetea Vin told Express from Aizawl.

“We fixed the date and accordingly, informed them.

Altogether 27 people, including Vaughan’s wife

and seven of their 10 children, had come from England and Spain. About a dozen relatives had also come from Shillong and elsewhere in India. After observing one minute’s silence in his honour followed by speeches and a photo session, the ashes

Manipur enters Guinness Book of World Records for distributing hearing aids ET Bureau Imphal, 6 Nov: Beating the record held by Gujarat earlier, Manipur on Saturday entered the Guinness Book of World Records for distribution of maximum number of hearing aids.In a grand hearing aid distribution ceremony held in Imphal, a total of 6,464 hearing aids were distributed, setting the record within eight hours, sources said.

Lauding the State Health Department, Manipur Chief Minister O. Ibobi Singh asserted that all credits should be given to the ground level workers.

“It is a proud moment for all of us in Manipur to create such a world record and all ASHA workers, nurses, doctors and officials of the state health department should be given the credits” Ibobi said.

Earlier Gujarat had set a record on September 17, 2016, distributing 1,700 hearing aids in such a

programme.Union Social Welfare Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot said that the new record will reintroduce Manipur and India to the world.

The union minister also promised all help from the Centre, adding that the Centre has provided Rs. 4.4 crore to Manipur for the event, the sources said.Chief Minister Ibobi also said the state would provide Rs.2 crore in addition to the Rs.4.4 crore provided by the Centre to conduct such events.

Meanwhile, Ibobi was handed over the Provi-

Mizoram and Ibobi Singh of Manipur – are among the 11 members.

The committee mostly consists of PCC presidents and CLP leaders of the states.

There are eight permanent invites, including former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi and S.C Marak.

Lapang was the last convener of NECC. The committee’s meeting will be held on a rotation basis in the states and the respective senior leader from each state will preside over the meet, the Meghalaya Chief Minister said.

Elaborating on how the Congress-led UPA tried to bring remote North East to the national mainstream, the Meghalaya Chief Minister said, “The centuryold party knew the pulse of varied ethnic groups in the region and accordingly gave them several special benefits like the North East Investment and Industrial Policy and the special category status.”

After its massive victory in the Assam assembly elections, the BJP had, in a show of strength, held the first political conclave of NEDA, which constitutes

as many as ten regional parties from the North East.

Party sources admitted that with BJP eying the remaining three Congress-ruled states of Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram the AICC has decided to spruce up its strategy to strengthen its position in these states and the rest of the North East.

A senior party functionary, on the condition of anonymity, said NECC would work towards improving the party’s image in these states and take up developmental issues.

Previously, NECC aimed at galvanising the party from the grassroots level and prepare it to face various elections in the northeastern states. But it became ineffective in the last couple of years with no meeting of the Committee held for a long time.

Sangma claimed that the BJP-led NDA is destroying the economy of the North East by choking central funds to the non-BJP states and added that it forced the Congress out of power in Arunachal Pradesh. (With inputs from agencies)

sional Certificate from Guinness World Records in a simple function at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat. The hearing aid distribution ceremony was organised by the National Programme for Prevention of Deafness, National Health Mission, Manipur and Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO) as part of the Centre’s Samajik Adhikarita Shivir and Distribution of Aids and Assistive Devices to Persons with Disabilities. (With inputs from agencies)

Shutdowns, blockades continue to hit life in Manipur

Cong’s NE Coordination Committee Nagaland State should reconstituted with Mukul as convener be exempted from UCC

ET Bureau New Delhi, 6 Nov: After a long hiatus and loss of power in the Northeastern states, the Congress on Saturday overhauled the party’s once forgotten North East Coordination Committee (NECC) with Chief Minister Mukul Sangma as its convener.

The Committee, the party felt, will give a fitting reply to the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

Having lost Nagaland, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to the BJP, the grand old party “reconstituted” the almost defunct NECC with all the present and former chief ministers and party heads, including former convener D.D Lapang and former chief minister S.C Marak.

“NECC was not defunct. It has only been reconstituted,” Sangma, flanked by former Arunachal chief minister Nabam Tuki and former Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari, said at the AICC headquarters here on Saturday.

Both the sitting Chief Ministers – Lal Thanhawla of

were sprinkled,” he said.

Vin said Vaughan had introduced the art of goalkeeping in Mizoram.

“He was born in Myanmar and spent a few years in Mizoram. During his footballing days at the stadium, he had introduced the art of goalkeeping. I was told he was among a very few who had first learnt the art of diving in India.

He was one of the best goalkeepers of eastern India then,” the MFA secretary added.

Vaughan was nicknamed “Jumbo” and “Zama”, the locals said. When Mizoram had won the Santosh Trophy in 2014, he had sent congratulatory messages to the MFA. (With inputs from agencies)

IANS Imphal, 6 Nov: Normal life in Manipur continued to be affected on Sunday in the wake of multiple strikes and blockades since October 30, with essential commodities either in short supply or available at inflated prices.

The state government failed to provide foolproof security to escort over 1,500 loaded trucks and oil tankers stranded on the NagalandManipur highway due to these strikes.

Drivers and their assistants as well as people hitching a ride on these trucks are facing starvation and health problems.

This week, three jeeploads of police offered to escort trucks to safety but drivers stranded on the National Highway-2 refused to come along.

Truck driver Rakesh Taorem said keys of their vehicles have been snatched by activists of the United Naga Council.

"A handful of policemen cannot provide ironcast

safety to us since the number of stranded vehicles is over 1,500. In the past, vehicles that broke down on the way were torched by protesters. The government should give us meaningful protection," he said.

A few petrol pumps operating till now shut down on Sunday. However, those selling fuel on the roadsides in the black market are doing roaring business.

Cooking gas is available, but at exhorbitant price in black market. Prices of consumer items too have shot up. Meat and fish brought from other states are in short supply.

L. Basanta, who hitched a ride on a truck from Guwahati, said: "There is a serpentine queue of loaded trucks coming from Nagaland at the Manipur border. There is no food for the stranded. Tribal villagers are not allowing stranded persons to hang around or even relieve themselves near their villages."

EDITORIAL

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

Today's quote

“

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

Albert Einstein

The Pollution Explosion Festivities must not damage our environment

Environment and pollution as issues do raise improbable heat in a democracy. Thus, it is in Delhi these days. The capital has been crowned as the most polluted city in the world. The level of pollution has reached a point referred to as hazardous, and been especially detrimental in the days following the festival of Diwali. On the night of Diwali in Delhi, PM10 ranged from 448g/ m3 to 939g/m3 as against the national safe standard of 100g/m3. To understand the causes of pollution in the city is essential to reduce the levels that it has been allowed to reach. The air and noise pollutions have direct consequences on the health of the most vulnerable, including children and women. A large section of the civil society has been calling for renewal of public transport services as a panacea to the persistent problem. The Government must take appropriate steps immediately and get rid of the shameful tag that the city has been marked with. Thus, the Delhi Government must realise that pollution as a problem is above politicking and partisan politics. If they require the support and expertise from the Centre, they ought to be forthright. This is the time for the Government to stand up for the people of the city. It is not merely power and political bonhomie that is at stake here but health and consequently the wellbeing of the most vulnerable among the citizen. The Government must realise that good health is a human right. Therefore, it is their constitutional responsibility to safeguard citizens' health. If they fail to act now, they would be failing not only the citizens that have reposed confidence in them but also their constitutional duty and above all moral obligation to act for the welfare of the citizenry. Civil society and the Centre should be readily available to provide all knowhow and technical capability that the Delhi Government will need to reduce the dangerous levels of pollution in the city. To simply blame it on State-Centre relationship has become a tiring excuse. Citizens of Delhi want efficient and intelligent action and sooner this can be done better it should be for all. If the subject is beyond the mandate and more importantly capacity of the city Government to tackle, it ought to made amply clear. Thus, Centre then can take the necessary steps and be made accountable hence.

It is high time that the Governments are made accountable. And vis-à-vis air and noise pollutions, it must either be the State or the Centre that ought to act. Elections are one form of accountability a democratic system provides, but equally significant are checks and balances that other branches provide. The point here is not to support judicial activism in any way but to merely direct the attention of the judiciary and the legislature to take into serious consideration the abysmal condition of the city’s air. The levels of pollution have reached a stage whereby they can permanently damage the respiratory system. Citizens of Delhi, and indeed of the rest of the country, need timely action.

Not yet dead, but dying The status of Sanskrit as one of the world's greatest languages is unquestionable. Thus, the publication of the first book in Sanskrit by the National Book Trust (NBT) ought to be joyously received. The NBT has rightly chosen Mahatma Gandhi to be the subject of its first Sanskrit book. Of course, the NBT must not limit itself to renowned national icons of the recent past. The primary responsibility of a book trust should be to create an architecture of knowledge for its readers of today and tomorrow. All steps in this direction must take into account the readers' ability to decipher what is presented to them, their inclination to sift through the vast amount of information readily available and the general and subjective notions that would serve their reading aims.

Keeping these in mind, the NBT should choose subjects which are relevant to the changing demographics of India. Political leaders are one important strand of modern India's history, but more significant are literary, moral and political classics. Translations of Indian classics are not easily available in the market today; it’s perhaps a hint for the NBT to assess where the wind is blowing. Sanskrit as a language is fighting for its survival.

Thus the Government must do more to save the language from extinction. If Sanskrit is allowed to perish, the Government and others active in promoting the language would be ultimately responsible for its demise.

To save the glorious language from extinction, research centres ought to be created and given full autonomy to do their work, including teaching, without any unnecessary bureaucratic meddling. Trying to make Sanskrit a part of school curriculum has done little to develop and advance its linguistic reach and interests. The only way forward on this is to create autonomous institutions packed with foremost scholars in the field and give them a free hand to run and do research in institutions that would be world-class not merely on paper but in its daily working and research output.

Perhaps India is the only country in the world that portrays an almost irresponsible attitude towards its greatest language. Sanskrit is above political wrangling and linguistic politics that had sadly been part of the formation of Indian States and political alliances. A language is a symbol of a civilisation. If there are no languages to guide a civilisation, it runs the risk of culturally floundering and wasting its creative energy. And Sanskrit as a language is supreme in its linguistic intricacies and sophistication. The importance of Sanskrit as a language is similar to the holy river Ganga, the mighty Himalayas and the vast Indian Ocean, in India's imagination. The Government must not limit Sanskrit's relevance merely to NBT but attempt a revival of a language that is professional and not just ministerial. It must be noted here with sadness that the country’s only Sanskrit daily, Sudharma, is fighting for its survival.

ong mentally?

P6

The new Normal: Hit hard where it hurts The Pakistani leadership, ISI officials as well as terrorists did not visualise that Indian forces would cross the Line of Control. They thought that it would business as usual. It’s a wake-up call for them Jai Kumar Verma Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won the 2014 Lok Sabha election on the agenda of economic development, initially made all-out efforts to inculcate cordial relations with all neighbours, especially Pakistan. He invited heads of all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) nations for his oath-taking ceremony and also paid a surprise visit to Lahore on Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s birthday.

India took no action against Pakistan even when the military-controlled Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)-backed terrorists attacked the Air Force base in Pathankot earlier this year. India provided conclusive evidence to Pakistan and requested it to act against the persons who trained and sent the terrorists. Pakistan sent a few more terrorists who attacked an Indian Army base at Uri in September, in which 19 Army personnel were martyred and more than 30 injured.

Besides these attacks, Pakistan was incessantly infiltrating terrorists, including suicide bombers, in Kashmir. ISIfunded separatist organisations and leaders made a big issue when security forces killed Burhan Muzzaffar Wani, self-confessed commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, in July. The

violent demonstrations, protests and strikes organised by separatist outfits has continued for months, many people have lost their lives and several more injured.

Not only this, Pakistani political leaders as well as General Raheel Sharif have been constantly seeking to intimidate India. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, in an interview, threatened that Pakistan hadn’t made the nuclear bomb to keep in a showcase and that it would “eliminate India” through nuclear weapons in case of a war.

Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff mentioned that “Kashmir is an unfinished agenda” of 1947.

The Pakistani leaders were indulging in antiIndia rhetoric, thinking that the political situation in India would not permit Indian forces to cross the borders. Nonetheless, the Modi Government took a bold decision and Indian forces conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on September 29. In the surgical strike, which occurred within a fortnight of the ISI-sponsored terrorist attack in Uri, Indian Armed Forces penetrated five to seven kilometres in PoK and destroyed at least four terror launch pads and killed more than 40 terrorists and their guides.

About nine Pakistan Army personnel, who were the trainers and handlers of the slain ter-

rorists, were also neutralised.

The Pakistani leadership, ISI officials as well as terrorists did not visualise that Indian forces would cross the Line of Control (LoC).

Later Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif termed it as “unprovoked and naked aggression”, while the Pakistan Army blatantly lied and stated that Indian forces had not crossed the LoC. Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt General Ranbir Singh very intelligently, clarified at a Press conference that the surgical strikes were not against the Pakistan Army but against militants who wanted to enter India with the ulterior motive of carrying out terrorist attacks here.

The ISI has increased infiltration efforts in J&K because crossing the border would be difficult once winter sets in. Also, the agitation in Kashmir is declining and anti-agitation sentiments are developing. The people of Kashmir have begun

realising that such agitations and demonstrations have destroyed the economy of the State.

The ISI is planning to carry out major terrorist activity in response to the surgical strikes by India. According to intelligence reports, more than 125 terrorists of L a s h k a r - e - Ta y y e b a , Jaish-e-Mohammed and other similar outfits have already entered the State this year. Several of them have been already exterminated in various encounters.

The Pakistan Army, which propagates itself as a saviour of its country, will not stop sending terrorists unless it finds that there is danger to their existence and Indian forces would enter not only PoK, which incidentally is Indian territory and illegally occoupied by Pakistan, but even other places in that country in hot pursuit.

The morale of the Indian Army and the paramilitary forces is high, as the local commanders are empowered to retaliate strongly against infiltration attempts as well as

against cross-border firings. The Indian security forces have killed enemy forces as well as foiled several infiltration attempts supported by the ISI and Pakistan Rangers. Important leaders of Pakistani terrorist outfits had to visit terrorist camps as well as border areas to persuade terrorists to cross the border as several jihadis were reluctant to enter India as they were afraid of being killed while crossing the border.

The stringent policy formulated by the Modi Government in Kashmir is giving results. Local Kashmiris are secretly providing information to security agencies about the hideouts of terrorists. The security agencies are conducting joint search operations and suspects.

The Modi Government is working on a twopronged strategy against Pakistan. The security agencies have intensified vigil on the border, and on the other hand New Delhi is isolating Pakistan in the world arena.

Indian policymakers do not want a full-scale war but they are retaliating in such a way that the cost of spreading terror is increasing for Pakistan.

No country criticised India for the surgical strikes. Pakistan sent 22 of its Members of Parliament to different world capitals to promote the Pakistani viewpoint about Kashmir, but they returned

empty-handed, as most countries told them to control the terrorists operating from their soil.

The lecturing by Nawaz Sharif at the United Nations on Kashmir in September was ineffective and UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon did not even mention Kashmir in his concluding speech. Pakistan was compelled to postpone the Saarc summit as several countries refused to attend. This, if anything, was a clear indication of the global isolation of Pakistan.

Further, in the recent summit of The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec), the member countries clearly let their displeasure known about Pakistan for assisting terrorism. Earlier, Prime Minister Modi had spoken emphatically on terrorism at the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in Goa. Although the names of terror outfits based in Pakistan could not be named in the final communiqué, largely due to China’s objections and Russia playing along, the message was clear to Islamabad that it was being branded as a state sponsor of terrorism.

(The writer is member, United Services Institute of India, and associated with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses)

Ban crackers? Sell your car first Bishwanath Ghosh I get nostalgic very easily, and right now — since we are still talking about the poisonous clouds left hanging in the air of the National Capital Region by the festival of Deepavali — my mind goes back to the time when I was a child and, like every other child, would look forward to the purchase of firecrackers.

The crackers would be purchased a few days before Deepavali so that they could be put out in the sun. Exposure to sun, it was believed, made them more potent. Purchases would also sometimes include toy guns that came with potashfilled cork pellets and paper strips. It helped that the colony we lived in was built around a playground, so whatever one did became a public spectacle. It is no fun, after all, to burst crackers or to light sparklers if no one is watching.

We had a neighbour, Mr.

Mishra, whose family would not light up even a phuljhari on Deepavali night, but two nights later, he would call the entire neighbourhood out to watch his fireworks.

He worked in the ordnance factory and had a colleague who was an expert in making the anaar or ‘flowerpot’ — a large ball of clay stuffed with all the required chemicals. Each anaar — he would buy only two — lasted for several minutes, bringing great joy to the spectators. We had another neighbour, Mr. Singh, who on Deepavali night always set aside two of those powerful green bombs, so that they could be burst at two in the morning. The idea, of course, was to wake up the entire neighbourhood and say Happy Deepavali once again.

Nothing untoward happened the next morning: the sun still shone brightly and the evening air was still fragrant from the flowering of the devil’s tree. No one

Firecrackers made of potassium chlorate mix are highly sensitive to friction.

coughed, no one sneezed.

That was the kind of Deepavali I grew up with, and if Nature provided mankind with a goback button, I would gladly revisit my childhood every Deepavali till my dying day — totally ignoring the say-no-tocrackers caution that has

been flooding my Facebook newsfeed in recent years.

I mean, what’s life without some fireworks — figuratively as well as literally. Look at the unadulterated joy on a fiveyear-old child’s face when he/she holds a sparkler. Do you really want

to turn that smile into a frown by telling the child: “Look, you are burning your father’s money”; “Look, you are releasing harmful chemicals in the air”; or, “Look, your poor dog is getting scared.” And how long do the fireworks last anyway: three

hours at the most?

If Delhi is under a pall of poisonous air today, that is because of its own doing. The entire National Capital Region is like a tumbler that can hold 500ml of water and is already 490ml full. Pour 20ml into it and the water spills over: everybody blames the 20ml for the spillover, but no one really notices the 490ml already there.

If one night of Deepavali can turn the air of Delhi 10 times more dangerous to breathe, you can imagine how polluted it already is — and nothing is being done about it. Before you preach say-noto-crackers, how about selling your car and buying four bicycles instead — one for each member of the family? Once you start cycling to work, you will find the toxins reducing, not only from the air but also from your body.

You will save not only on fuel but also on medication for hypertension and diabetes. But the big question is: Will you do that?

How do I become strong mentally?

To answer it, I studied the most mentally tough people on the planet—the Navy SEALs. Here’s what they do:

Source: Quora

They eat the elephant. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Take insurmountable goals and break them down into smaller objectives.

They use visualization. They run vivid scenarios of themselves succeeding over and over inside their heads. This maximizes the chance of success when the time comes.

They practice emotional control. They use breath-

ing techniques such as the “4 by 4 for 4” (4 seconds in, 4 seconds out for 4 minutes) to keep their stress levels under control.

They use self talk. They reframe external events in a positive light. They understand that it is not the EVENT but their INTERPRETATION that matters.

They celebrate small victories. They see the beauty of small victories in tough times. This keeps morale high so they can keep fighting the good fight.

They value their tribe. They care for their team. Lose the tribe and you lose everything.

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

POETRY

OP-ED

P7

By-Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta

Like salad for the soul she was gone, I opened Just William. A piece of paper with lines from an Emily Dickinson poem fell out, copied in my mother’s tiny, precise, rounded handwriting: “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers-/ That perches in the soul-…”

In her last months, when she was too frail for novels, my mother read the poetry of Arun Kolatkar. She read Jejuri and Sarpa Satra and the Kala Ghoda Poems. One morning, after coughing sleeplessly through the night, the metallic cough that the doctors had warned would result when the cancer reached her lungs, she pointed with her treatmentburnt fingers to Kolatkar’s poem ‘An Old Woman’.

“And you are reduced/ to so much small change/ in her hand.”

A thing to have everyday This term at school, my tenyear-old son is learning about similes, metaphors and poetry. “My eyes are dark like the night,” he wrote this week, as part of his language homework. I thought he had finished, and waited for him to move on to his maths homework. But he was still writing. He added: “Before Diwali.”

My eyes are dark like the night before Diwali.

My son gets poetry instinctively. He listens to Bob Dylan, plays the harmonica, and gets that things are interconnected, tangled up, strongly felt, sometimes beautiful, and that there is a mystery at the heart of it.

It took me much longer.

When I was in high school, a bit older than my son is now, I read Nissim Ezekiel’s poem, ‘Night of the Scorpion’, in a school anthology.

“I remember the night my mother/ was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours/ of steady rain had driven him/ to crawl beneath a sack of rice.”

As a schoolgirl growing up in the city, in a nation that was eager to modernise, I had never seen a scorpion, or a sack of rice, or even a village.

I found it strange, unsettling and cruel that the family and the neighbours seemed to do nothing to heal the poor woman. That the father of the narrator had even “poured a little paraffin/ Upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.”

How could he bring himself to do that? Why didn’t they just go to a doctor? Why were they not doing anything to solve this? What mumbo jumbo was this? It felt foreign and unconnected to me.

I was baffled and angry.

Stung by a scorpion My father, who is usually a man of few words, told me a

WORD COUNTS

I started Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan tetralogy all jumbled up. A book store had a special order of the Europa editions of her nov-

story about his childhood. He was born in pre-Independent India. As a child, he had walked barefoot to his village school till the tenth standard when his eldest brother was able to buy him his first pair of shoes. My grandparents’ family had a cow named Lakshmi and a calf named Venkatraman. As the youngest boy in the house, it was my father’s task to walk the cow and her calf to the Cauvery River early in the morning, bathe the animals and bring them back. It was a long and difficult route; they had to cross the railway line on the way. To add to his struggle, the cow ambled along and the calf was as frisky as a young pup. On the way back from the river one day, my father was bitten by a scorpion. He was in unbearable pain, his body began convulsing.

“You know, something worked,” said my father. “I don’t know how it happened.

The shivering stopped.”

“It still hurts to think of it,” says my 81-year-old father, shaking his head, when I ask him now about the incident.

Thank God the crab picked me and spared my children.

Through the day, my grandparents tried everything: prayers, poultice, consecrated ash, weeping. Those were days when children could die after two days of fever; who could fight a scorpion’s poison?

Finally, after nightfall, someone mentioned a nightwatchman in a nearby neighbourhood who was also a Sufi healer. Without a moment’s hesitation, my father’s elder brother lifted up the little child in his arms and ran all the way to the healer.

I can imagine it now: the older boy standing in front of the healer, panting, his eyes desperate, his younger brother in his arms. Family members and neighbours standing around silently. The healer sighing, putting down his lantern and his lathi. Settling his blanket on his chair. Standing up. Murmuring a prayer for a few minutes.

Ezekiel’s poem had led me right up to a moment in my father’s childhood. It had shown me a way to talk to my father.

Being a parent Reflecting on the final lines of Ezekiel’s poem today, as a mother with two children, I think of what it means to be a parent. I feel a pang of fear and comprehension: “My mother only said/ Thank God the scorpion picked me/ And spared my children.”

Those were exactly my mother’s words on the day she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer: Thank God it’s not my children.

In her weeks and months in the hospital, my mother read more and more poetry. She read novels too, as she always had, but sometimes she would pause and pick up a book of poetry.

She especially read Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson. You should read more poetry, she told me.

Sometimes she would copy out small verses on scraps of paper, and leave them absently within the pages of the novels she was reading at the time. She loved reading Richmal Crompton’s William books. The chemotherapy sessions were intense and left her devastated for days, but she still needed to undergo them. It was rather like the bit of paraffin and the match in Ezekiel’s poem. To help her get through the chemotherapy, my husband bought her the entire set of William books.

One day, many years after

One of my high school English teachers used to say that poetry was salad for the mind: crisp and crunchy and green, a good thing to have a bit of everyday. A useful thing to learn, she would say, when you have to wait at the bus stop or in the doctor’s waiting room. She made us memorise poems, bless her heart. Bits of poetry remain in my memory now, thanks to her.

“It takes much time to kill a tree,/ Not a simple jab of the knife/ Will do it...”

Or: “Weavers, weaving at break of day...”

There was a poem, ‘Abou Ben Adhem’, by James Leigh Hunt. I would stand at the bus stop waiting for the BTS Number 20 bus, and as I shifted restlessly from foot to foot, waiting for the bus, my mind would go to “Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)”.

The habit of memorising poems stayed with me in college.

A couple of days back, in traffic on the way to work, I looked at the great, overarching canopy of trees on the Old Airport Road and thought of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, one of the loveliest things I have read: “That time of year thou mayst in me behold/ When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/ Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang…”

Suddenly, for that moment, as the Bangalore sun shone down through the lacy branches, I got it. That things are interconnected, tangled up, strongly felt, sometimes beautiful, and that there is a mystery at the heart of it.

Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta is in the IAS, currently based in Bengaluru.

A demonstration at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health, in Liverpool, U.K, to highlight the gaps in the Indian programme.

TUBERCULOSIS FIGHT

By-Vidya Krishnan

Global fears over India’s ticking TB time bomb Eighteen months after the Indian government launched the “TB Free India” campaign, nine policy changes under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) are yet to be implemented. The delay has raised concerns among the international public health community which believes that drug resistant TB (DR-TB) — currently spreading at an alarming rate in India — will not remain confined with the borders if the Indian government does not show urgency.

The main gaps are regarding the government’s failure to roll-out Fixed Dose Combinations (FDCs) for tuberculosis (TB) patients living with HIV; the failure to provide A child-friendly TB regimen and the glacially slow pace of scaling up availability of a new drug Bedaquiline, which can treat multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).

High disease burden According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest annual report on TB, India shoulders the maximum number of TB patients — 2.84 million Indians contracted the disease in 2015 alone. “India has more patients living with drug resistant TB than any other country in the world — with an estimated 79,000 persons becoming sick with this disease each year. Furthermore, there is evidence that India is home to the most serious “hotspots of MDR-TB transmission, especially in cities like Mumbai. The resistant form of TB is spreading in India at alarming levels, but since TB is airborne, it is not confined within the borders of the country, and the high rates of MDR-TB in India

spell trouble for the entire Southeast Asian region and beyond. In fact, even in low burden countries like the U.S., there have been documented cases of people who have travelled to the India and brought extensively drug-resistant TB (XDRTB) back to the U.S. India must do whatever it can to stop the transmission of TB both within and beyond its borders, and this can best be accomplished with early diagnosis and effective treatment. The continued unwillingness of the Indian government to provide adequate diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of all forms of TB tarnishes India’s reputation on the international stage,” said Prof. Jennifer J. Furin, lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

India’s apathy India has been listed among the High Burden Countries along with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Philippines, the Russian Federation and South Africa but in sheer numbers India is home to maximum number of TB patients, patients with TB and HIV, patients with extreme form of drug resistance called XDR TB. Lack of Indian delegates at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Liverpool, U.K., has raised further questions about India’s commitment to meet global TB targets. Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director of the Global Tuberculosis Programme, WHO, said, “If India does not move, the world does not move. We cannot do much without India as they have nearly 30 per cent of the TB cases there.”

With an objective to send an “urgent” message to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, activists interrupted the only session attended by an Indian Health Ministry official at the conference reading out a list of demands to address the gaps in implementation. The delay has resulted in a campaign called #BrokenTBPromiseswhich essentially counts each day until Mr. Modi fixes the 9 promises.

However, Dr. Jagdish Prasad, Director General of Health Services, Health Ministry, stunned the international delegates by calling protesting activists ‘mentally unstable’ during the session. When probed about the delay in rolling out TB drugs, he said, “In India, when a son wants to marry someone’s daughter, it takes over 6 months to arrange the marriage. It is [the] same with policies. We do not want to discuss our internal problems in a foreign country.”

While modern TN care tools like Gene Xpert (to rapidly and accurately detect TB) and new drugs like Bedaquiline and Delamanid (that treat drug resistant TB) are available, the Indian government has not been able to scale up treatment options in the public sector in the last year. The roll-out of bedaquiline has been slow with only 36 patients being enrolled in the Delhi hospitals nearly six months after the launch of Bedaquiline in the national programme. Additionally, the government has not made FDCs available in the government programme yet.

The situation in India is very troubling for us in the international community, added

Dr. Furin. “Thousands of people have extreme form of DR TB, for which an effective new therapy is available for over 3.5 years. That fewer than 100 people in India have been able to access this treatment is appalling,” added Dr. Furin, who was one of the protesters.

“We are respectful of our colleagues in India who are working hard within the system but when they don’t come to conferences like these, it seems like they don’t want to acknowledge the reality of the disaster that TB and DR-TB is in India. I think it is time for the international community to stop being polite with India because the news that comes out of India is worse and worse every time,” she added.

The nine gaps identified by the activists include: 1. Roll-out of daily FDC drugs for people with HIV (PLHIV); 2. Roll-out of appropriately dosed paediatric drugs for children; 3. The scale-up of GeneXpert, a test that can diagnoses drug resistance in less than two hours; 4. The scale-up of drug susceptibility testing; 5. Roll-out of TB drug Bedaquiline to treat drugresistant TB 6. Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for PLHIV to treat latent TB infection; 7. Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for children under five who are in close contact with people living with TB; 8. The provision of Rifabutin for treatment of TB co-infection with HIV; and 9. The immediate end to use of the category II retreatment regimen.

Story of the other writer

els in English translation, their fabulous covers being an immediate draw. The final book was not yet out in English, and as is my habit

when attracted to an unread series, I started with the second book. (Don’t ask.) It also helped that the editions had cover flaps. (A big

takeaway from endless con- many books and such sucversations with other read- cess. For the new Ferrante ers is that we are divided ir- reader, such speculation is reconcilably into two diversionary, as you are groups, those who adore compelled to swing from cover flaps, and those who one book to the next, till you hate them. I’m a life mem- have read them all, and have ber of the former, smaller in the process become progroup.) Having judged the tective about her privacy. books by their covers, and Coincidentally, when I finished the books, been won over by the endorsements Mini Kapoor I was offered a potential interprinted within, it seemed that all I needed to view (it didn’t happen). Exknow about the writer was cited, I went back to reread on the back flap of the book, her books as homework, The Story of a New Name: and now I could not shake “Elena Ferrante was born in off the temptation to keep a Naples. She is the author keen eye out for some telling detail so that I could of…”. frame questions to get Clues about identity Having read — inhabited never-before-elicited clues actually — her Neapolitan about her identity. saga thereafter, it remained In the time since, an Italian just a curiosity that Elena journalist has claimed to Ferrante was a pseudonym, have conclusively identified that she had managed to the ‘real’ Ferrante, a wellprotect her (some specu- regarded Rome-based lated his, arguing that these translator called Anita Raja feminist novels of love and — but back then that secfriendship were written by ond reading was disconcerta man) identity through so ing, as if the opportunity to

interact with Ferrante had taken me away from the deeper reading of her fiction that had been so nourishing.

Reading Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (Europa Editions), a collection of her interviews and letters just out in English translation, it’s interesting to see how persistently, almost to the exclusion of much else, she is questioned on identity, and how patiently she answers the question each time, year after year.

She told a Turkish journalist in 2015: “One need only glance at the publishing history of my books to realise that it’s not the absence of the writer that has produced their success but their success that has made the subject of my absence central… what has been surprising is the discovery that those who became aware of the books later, at times as a result of the media attention, at least here in Italy, encounter them with an initial distrust, if not

hostility, as if my absence were an offensive or culpable type of behaviour.”

At one point another interviewer asks, “Who is Elena Ferrante? How would you define her?” Ferrante replied: “Elena Ferrante? Thirteen letters, no more or less.

Her definition is all there.”

It’s a wonder how many different ways Ferrante answers questions about her resolve to keep her identity secret — there is no resort to stock answers, there is no evasion.

As she takes on the question from different angles, interview after interview, it becomes clear that there is more than vanity here in choosing to publish a collection of interviews and writings on her refusal to reveal her identity. To be “Elena Ferrante” is for the author of these beloved novels essential to her craft.

An essential separation She tells an interviewer in 2002: “I’ve always had a tendency to separate everyday

life from writing. To tolerate existence, we lie, and we lie above all to ourselves.

Sometimes we tell ourselves lovely tales, sometimes petty lies. Falsehoods protect us…

Instead, when one writes one must never lie. In literary fiction you have to be sincere to the point where it’s unbearable, where you suffer the emptiness of the pages.

It seems likely that making a clear separation between what we are in life and what we are when we write helps keep self-censorship at bay.”

Who knows what the Italian investigative journalist who went after the income details of writers suspected to be Ferrante really wanted to out. But the fact that so many of her readers were disturbed by this “outing” shows that they — we — had internalised, however incoherently, the need for a separation that made her books possible. Hearing her explain it, interview after interview in one volume, helps.

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

P8

INTERNATIONAL

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump in dead heat, scrambles to swing states PTI Washington Nov 06: Locked in a neck-and-neck battle, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have made a last minute dash to key swing states to woo undecided voters as major polls on the final weekend before the election day showed the race for the White House was too close to call.

While Clinton is banking on star power to lock in her narrow poll lead, hosting weekend pop concerts with Beyonce and Katy Perry, Trump has embarked on a cross-country blitz through Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire.

Clinton and Trump -- along with their surrogates -crisscrossed battleground states in their final push to rally voters and announced additional stops till late Monday.

Clinton, 69, would deliver her final address at a midnight rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Clinton and Trump -- along with their surrogates -crisscrossed battleground states in their final push to rally voters and announced additional stops till late Monday.

"Clinton will lay out her plans to create an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, and her vision for an America that is stronger together," her campaign said.

However, a bigger rally has been reserved for earlier in the night when Clintons -Hillary and Bill -- would be joined by the Barack and Michelle Obama in Phila-

delphia. They will also be joined at the event by Jon Bon Jovi, who will perform Clinton will urge Pennsylvanians to elect her president on Tuesday and continue pushing for the "American ideals of progress, inclusion, equality and strength," that were enshrined in the Constitution in 1787, it said in a statement.

"Along with President Obama, she will also lay out how the division and dangerous views espoused by Donald Trump in his campaign make him unqualified, unfit and unworthy to lead this great nation," it said.

Encouraged by the polling figures, Trump, 70, also announced several new stops, including the Democratic stronghold like Minnesota.

"We're going into what they used to call Democrat strongholds where we're now either tied or leading.

We're going to Minnesota, which traditionally has not been Republican at all, and we're doing phenomenally.

We just saw a poll. We're going to Colorado, where we're doing phenomenally well. We're doing well everywhere," Trump said.

In a security scare, Trump was bundled off stage by Secret Service agents at a rally in Nevada after someone in the crowd shouted "gun" which led to a commotion.

A Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement that there was commotion in the crowd at the rally here when an "unidentified individual" shouted "gun," though no weapon was found after a "thorough search".

Clinton (44 per cent) and Trump (43 per cent) are in a fierce battle among likely voters nationally A Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement that there was commotion in the crowd at the rally here when an "unidentified individual" shouted "gun," though no weapon was found after a "thorough search".

Clinton (44 per cent) and Trump (43 per cent) are in a fierce battle among likely voters nationally -- including those who are undecided yet leaning towards a candidate or who have already voted, McClatchyMarist poll said.

In September, Clinton led Trump by six percentage points in the same poll.

24-yr-old Pak Pak province seeks to halt NatGeo Girls deportation woman files petition PTI Peshawar, Nov 06: Authorities in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have temporarily halted the deportation of Sharbat Gula, National Geographics iconic greeneyed Afghan Girl, for using fake ID cards to stay here and will request the federal government to grant her refugee status.

Gula, who was immortalised after her haunting picture taken at a refugee camp in Pakistan in 1985 was carried by the magazine on its cover and became a symbol of her countries wars, was arrested on October 26 from her home here.

A special anti-corruption and immigration court in Peshawar ordered Gulas deportation to Afghanistan on Friday after serving a 15day jail sentence besides slapping a fine of 1,10,000 rupees (USD 1,100).

Gula will complete her sentence on Wednesday.

The spokesperson for the provincial government Mushtaq Ghani told The Express Tribune those di-

rectives not to deport Gula for the time being had been forwarded to the Home and Tribal Affairs Department, adding that the case needed to be taken up at the federal level.

"We will request the federal government to grant her refugee status," he said, adding that the move would create a better image of the province.

"This is not against the verdict," said a source.

"This just temporarily halts the process on humanitarian grounds."

Pakistans Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had indicated that Gula may be released on humanitarian grounds.

However, officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said that the court orders would have to be carried out in letter and spirit.

Another official said that the special courts decision could only be challenged in the Supreme Court. However, he said, because Gula admitted to the crime, any appeal would only lengthen her stay in jail.

Gula, who was dubbed as Mona Lisa of Afghan war, was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for alleged forgery of a Pakistani Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC).

She gained worldwide recognition when her image was featured on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic Magazine at a time when she was approximately 12 years old.

According to interim charge sheet submitted on November 1, the prosecutor said that she accepted the main charge of faking her identity to get the CNIC. Gula said that her late husband, Rehmat Gul, had earlier made a manual national identity card in 1988, which was used to get the CNIC with the help of an agent who was bribed.

Pakistan has been tackling the Afghan refugee crisis for over three decades. It is estimated that some three million Afghan refugees are living in Pakistan, half of whom are unregistered.

Obama campaigning full-time for Clinton, says Trump Obama is on an electioneering blitz for the last few days, crisscrossing some of the key battleground States including Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

(File Photo) PTI Washington, Nov 06: In a sharp attack on Hillary Clinton, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said US President Barack Obama is campaigning full-time for her as the Democratic nominee’s rallies do not attract many people. “This guy is campaigning fulltime,” Trump told his supporters in Tampa, Florida – a theme he repeated in his other rallies during the rest of the day yesterday.

“She can’t campaign for

herself. Nobody shows up to her meetings. The only way she gets them to show up is when she has a star come. That’s the only way.

Otherwise, she gets 500 people, 400 people, and by the way, the cameras never shows that,” Trump said.

Obama is on an electioneering blitz for the last few days, crisscrossing some of the key battleground States including Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

In all these rallies, Obama

has been drawing thousands of his supporters many of whom stand in line for several hours to listen to his speech.

Trump alleged that Clinton is taking the help of Obama as her rallies do not attract that many people.

“Can you imagine if I had a small crowd? There would be headlines all over the world, ‘Trump is not — you know, is not doing it,’ right? But she has these little crowds show up. It’s a big problem. Look, she can’t do more than one or two a day because she has no energy, but she can’t do it because they can’t get any people,” he said.

“But Obama goes and campaigns for her. He ought to spend time in the Oval Office getting jobs, defeating ISIS, strengthening up our border,” he said.

“A Trump administration will end this nightmare of violence. We will protect American lives. We will cancel all federal funding of sanctuary cities,” he added.

Early this week, Trump had described Obama as Campaigner-in-Chief.

for sex change

Muslim Women PTI Lahore, Nov 06: A 24year-old Pakistani woman has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court seeking permission to undergo sex change after doctors in the conservative country refused to perform the surgery without court order.

The girl filed the petition through advocate Naseer Husain Sindhu in the LHC yesterday.

The petitioner, a resident of Kasur district, some 40 kms from here, said she had started feeling physical changes in her body when she was 14.

She said she began consulting gynecologists at a private hospital here after feeling frequent pain and gender disorder.

"Doctors at Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore have suggested me to immediately undergo surgery for a sex-change. However, the surgeons I ap-

proached refused to conduct the required surgical procedure apprehending possible legal action against them as they are not clear about what the law says in this regard.

"The doctors have advised me to first get permission for the surgery from a court of law," she said.

The procedure is not available at Fatima Memorial Hospital and the petitioner has requested the court to allow her to undergo a sex-change surgery in the light of her ultrasound scan report.

Advocate Sindhu said there has been no bar in the Pakistani law to undergo sex change surgery.

"But since some social stigma is attached to this kind of thing (sex change), surgeons are usually apprehensive and shy away from performing such procedures here," Sindhu said.

4 killed, 40 hurt in pile-ups as smog blankets China

Representative image (Photo: Shutter stock) PTI Beijing, Nov 06: At least four persons were killed and 40 others injured on Sunday in multiple pile-up accidents along an expressway in Shanghai as heavy smog engulfed several cities in China.

Several road accidents were reported along the S32 expressway in Pudong New Area due to foggy weather.

Hospitals in Pudong, Zhoupu and Shuguang cities received 44 people, Shanghai municipal health department said.

Four of them died despite medical efforts, and among the other 40, nine were seriously injured, state-run

Xinhuanews agency reported.

Shanghai weather station at 6 am issued an orange alert on heavy fog, the second highest level in China's weather alert system, which means a fog with visibility of less than 200 meters in the following six hours.

Meanwhile, heavy pollution continued to haunt China as a spell of heavy smog, which has enveloped northeastern and northern parts, has affected more than one tenth of country's land territory.

Some 6.30 lakh square km of land in northeastern China and 3.80 lakh square km of land in northern

China have been under the influence of the latest smog spell. Adverse meteorological conditions were to blame, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Saturday.

Seven provinces and municipalities, including Beijing and Tianjin, saw their air pollution index hike, with Air Quality Index readings hitting 500 in 11 cities in northeastern China over the November 3-5 period.

In northern China, average density of PM2.5 - airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter peaked in multiple cities on Friday, but air pollution ebbed on yesterday, the MEP said.

The ministry said it had already sent 12 inspection teams to the Tianjin municipality and the provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Shandong for emergency inspections.

Problems found by the inspections teams so far included weak emergency responses and inadequate countermeasures against heavy air pollution, suspected excessive discharge by 39 enterprises, and largescale straw burning, the report said.

China must act against separatist forces in HK: Panel PTI Beijing, Nov 06: Amid deepening political crisis over defiant assertions by newly-elected pro-independence legislators that Hong Kong is not a part of China, a top Chinese legislative panel asked the government to intervene and take control of the situation, underlining that such a challenge posed a threat to national security.

"A handful of Hong Kong legislators-elect violated the oath intentionally, publicly advocating Hong Kong independence and insulting the Chinese nation at the swearing-in ceremony for the sixth Legislative Council (LegCo) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)," said an official statement issued after a meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee last night.

The legislative panel said that two Hong Kong lawmakers' words and actions "posed a grave threat to national sovereignty and security."

If such a situation where to persist, the committee said, it would hurt the interests of Hong Kong's residents and the country's progress.

NPC, often termed as the rubber stamp of ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), is China's highest

legislature with strength of about 3,000 members. It meets annually once.

A Standing Committee NPC consisting of 150 important members holds bimonthly sessions to deliberate and legislate on important issues.

The panel met yesterday for the first time to deliberate on the crisis deepened after two pro-independence legislators, Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Leung, from Youngspiration party expressed support for Hong Kong's independence from China while taking oath in LegCo last month and used a derogatory term to describe Beijing.

Yau and Leung of the radical Youngspiration party altered their oaths to insert a disparaging Japanese term for China. Displaying a flag reading "Hong Kong is not China," they vowed to defend the "Hong Kong nation." Leung crossed his fingers while Yau used the Fword in her pledge.

Their oaths were ruled invalid but attempts at a doover have resulted in mayhem in the legislature's weekly sessions.

Criticizing the actions of the pro-independence legislators, the NPC statement said that in recent years, advocacy of "Hong Kong independence" has emerged in

some sections of Hong Kong society.

"Some people have displayed Hong Kong independence flags and established Hong Kong independence organizations. They have even pursued violence," the statement said.

"These words and actions have openly challenged the Basic Law, hampered the normal operation of the authorities of the Hong Kong SAR and undermined the rule of law in Hong Kong," it said.

"They have hit the bottom line of the 'one country, two systems' principle and posed a grave threat to national sovereignty and security," the statement said.

"If the situation is allowed to continue, the immediate interests of residents in the SAR and the development interests of the nation will be damaged," it said, stressing that the central authorities cannot afford to idly sit and do nothing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

In a bid to set at rest the controversy over the oath, the Standing Committee has approved an official interpretation of the oath to be taken by the Hong Kong legislators.

The Standing Committee will conclude its deliberations tomorrow.

"Clinton presidency will grind US govt to a halt" PTI Washington, Nov 06: Donald Trump has claimed that the "scandals and controversies" hanging over Hillary Clinton's bid to presidency will continue through her tenure and warned that the "unprecedented" crisis erupting from the situation would grind the US government to a halt.

Trump, who has so far refused to release his personal tax records, said the FBI investigation surrounding Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state would make it virtually impossible for her "to govern or lead our country".

At an election rally in Reno, Nevada, he said the FBI has reopened its criminal investigation

following the discovery of another 650,000 emails - probably including the 33,000 emails Clinton destroyed after receiving a Congressional subpoena.

The FBI's announcement nearly a week ahead of the November 8 polls to review new Clinton emails has reignited questions about her use of the private email server and armed the New York tycoon with an issue to rally the undecided voters.

Both the candidates have been in frenzied campaigns across the battleground states to make sense of an unusually muddied picture. A late Republican surge in opinion polls appeared to have peaked and put Trump withing the margin of error.

Nonetheless, Clinton has managed to cling to her lead.

But at the rally yesterday, Trump kept up his attack on Clinton claiming the FBI was also conducting a second criminal investigation into her illegal 'Pay-ForPlay' corruption at the State Department. "It is very likely that FBI Director (James) Comey, and the great special agents of the FBI, will be able to collect more than enough evidence to garner indictments against Hillary Clintonand her inner circle - despite her efforts to disparage and discredit them."

"If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under

felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt," the 70-year-old Republican candidate warned.

"We need a government that can go to work Day 1 for the American people. That will be impossible with Hillary Clinton, the prime suspect in a massive farreaching criminal investigation. Her current scandals and controversies will continue throughout her presidency, and will make it virtually impossible for her to govern or lead our country," he said.

Trump alleged that if the 69-year-old Democrat ever got into the Oval Office, she "would rob this country blind."

"If we win, the corrupt politicians and their spe-

cial interests lose. If they win, the American people lose," he said. "If you want a government that will secure your borders, stop the massive inflow of refugees, lower your taxes, bring back your jobs, grow your economy and protect your family: vote for Donald Trump," he told his supporters at the rally.

Earlier in the day in Tampa, Trump claimed there would be a lot of "bad emails" in the latest discovery from the laptop which was shared

by Huma Abdein, a close aide of Clinton, and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner. "They discovered it on Anthony Weiner's - think of that can you imagine? Anthony Weiner has probably every classified email ever sent," he said.

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

EDUCATION How To Speak English

Today’s lesson is important, because MANY students write to me and ask how they can become fluent – so here are my top 10 tips for speaking fluent English 1) UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NO “MAGIC BULLET.” That means there is NO secret and super-effective way to guarantee fluency very fast.

Yes, there are different methods, and some are more effective than others. For example, a good English course should balance all the areas of language (speaking, listening, vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing). If any of those elements are missing, then you will have difficulty becoming fluent.

Also, different methods will appeal to different people. I personally do very well with memorization; other people hate memorization. Some students can pick up English easily from informal conversations; other students prefer a more organized and structured method.

Still, becoming fluent in English – or any language – is a long-term process.

If anyone says they have “the secret” to instant fluency… don’t believe them!

2) USE ENGLISH IN

YOUR DAILY LIFE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. It’s more important to have frequent contact with English than to have hours and hours of study. Using English for 10 minutes a day, every day, is better than studying for 1 hour only once a week.

Even if you don’t live in an English-speaking country, there are still many ways to do this!

Here are just a few suggestions for making English part of your daily life: Listen to English as you drive to work.

Read the news online in English instead of in your native language.

Practice thinking in English while you are doing housework or exercise.

Read articles, listen to podcasts, and watch videos in English about topics you enjoy (this is important! You will make much more progress if you are having fun during the process).

3) BALANCE THE AREAS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING. Reading Writing Speaking Listening Grammar Vocabulary Many students make the error of focusing too

much on one or two areas, and they end up being weak in the other areas. One tip is to dedicate one day per week to studying and practicing each area.

4) GET A REGULAR SPEAKING PARTNER THROUGH A “ CO NVE RS AT I O N E X C H A N G E ” WEBSITE. You can’t just study English… you need to USE your English!

If you have nobody to speak with in daily life, you can find a speaking

meet native English speakers who want to learn your native language – this way, you can both help each other learn and practice.

5) READ, WATCH AND LISTEN TO ENGLISH IN MANY DIFFERENT CONTEXTS. If you only watch news programs in English, then you will be able to understand a more “formal” style of English, but not a typical conversation between two native speakers, which is often filled with idioms and slang.

On the other hand, if you only watch movies and listen to songs in English, then you might not be able to understand (or write) a more academic article. And if you only use English for work, then it will be hard to talk about other topics because you won’t have the vocabulary.

So make sure to diversify your English input: fiction and non-fiction formal and informal lectures and conversations

Reading as you listen helps you acquire the spelling, pronunciation, and organization of written and spoken English

partner online through a “conversation exchange” website. On these websites, you can

serious subjects and comedy etc.

6) LEARN TO

THINK IN ENGLISH. This is one of the biggest keys to English fluency – but how can you learn it?

There’s a step-by-step process you can follow: First, beginning to think with individual English words Then progressing to thinking in English sentences Finally imagining entire conversations and stories in your head in English (Read this lesson for a more detailed explanation with examples).

This is one of the best ways to practice English, because if you make a “mistake,” nobody knows about it!

Also, you can practice thinking in English anytime, anywhere. No need for a textbook or classroom. The earlier you begin the habit of thinking in English, the easier it will be to speak fast.

7) SAY THINGS WITH DIFFERENT WORDS – BE CREATIVE! Two big obstacles to English fluency are lack of vocabulary and pauses / hesitations.

This usually happens because you have an idea, but you can’t express it in English. It can be really frustrating.

However, if you don’t know a particular word, try to think of alternative ways to express your idea.

Here’s an example: in a conversation about cooking, my student didn’t know the word “onion,” so instead he said, “the white vegetable that when you cut it you cry” – it was a perfect description, and I understood exactly what he wanted to say!

This is also important for English sentences.

Sometimes you want to say something a certain

P9

Your fluency reflects your listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills

way because you are translating directly from your native language, but you don’t know how to construct the phrase in English.

Of course, learning to think directly in English will help you avoid this problem – but also try to be open-minded and flexible in thinking of different ways to say the same message.

Native English speakers also have many ways to say the same thing – just look at this list of different ways to say “hello” and “goodbye” in English.

8) PRACTICE TALKING TO YOURSELF. This is REALLY an excellent way to develop your fluency and build your confidence. There is no pressure to be perfect, and nobody else will hear your mistakes.

For speaking ideas, go to this website and choose a topic. Imagine somebody is asking you the question. Then prac-

tice answering it by talking to yourself out loud.

Yes… it feels a little bit silly. But you can do it alone where no one will hear you, and it’s a great step to putting your English into practice.

9) DON’T THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT GRAMMAR, AND DON’T WORRY ABOUT MISTAKES. One of the biggest “mental blocks” for English learners is being nervous or afraid to make a mistake – or embarrassed if they don’t speak perfectly.

But remember: Communication is MUCH more important than perfection!

Here’s an example: Imagine someone says, “Yesterday I go to party in beach.”

This sentence is incorrect; it should be: “Yesterday I went to a party on the beach.”

However, even with the errors, it still communicates the message SUCCESSFULLY!

Of course with time you will want to correct your mistakes – but for everyday speaking in general, RELAX and remember that mistakes are not fatal; the important thing is to communicate.

10) DON’T GIVE UP… NEVER STOP LEARNING! I’ve had a lot of students who study for a few years, then stop… then start again, then stop for a long time, then restart… maybe you have done this, too.

The problem is that you often lose the progress you made before, and then becoming fluent takes much, much longer.

But the good news is that you don’t need to be a genius to become fluent in English – you just need to have dedication and practice consistently.

If you do this, you WILL reach your goal of English fluency.

ENGLISH – THE IMPORTANCE OF FLUENCY

Fluency – The word fluent comes from the Latin root meaning ‘flow’ – Fluency is a speech language term that means the smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are joined together when speaking quickly – Language fluency is used informally to denote a high level of language proficiency, whereby language use if

smooth and flowing, as opposed to slow and halted When it comes to communicating in more than one language fluency is certainly desirable, but it is not essential for communication to take place.

You can communicate with a native speaker if you have only a mild proficiency in English, but being truly fluent in the language offers many advantages, particularly in

the business world.

English: the international language of business English is now widely accepted as the official language of business around the globe. Most foreign companies have adopted it as the most effective means of gaining access to global commerce and trade.

Why English?

One of the biggest reasons for the uptake of English around the globe

is the wide proliferation of North American and European companies trading internationally. A large percentage of multinational corporations originated in the US, and they continue to be headquartered in this country.

Their influence throughout the global business community is quite predominant, and in order for other companies around the world to communicate and trade with them you need to learn the lingo.

The emergence of the internet now plays a huge role in the spread of English internationally too.

English predominates the online world, as can be seen on social media, messageboards, and the fact that most foreign websites provide means for translation into English.

Why is fluency important?

So we’ve accepted that English is the official business language these days. So what are the advantages of being fluent in business English as opposed to just proficient?

In practical terms, the better you can speak the language, the better you can negotiate – and not just with native English speakers. If you work for a German shipping company you may need to speak English to speak to a Russian exporter, for example.

This is the age of the internet and online com-

merce, and if you’d like to set up your own online business then wouldn’t you like to be able to reach out to the 1 billion English speakers on the World Wide Web? The higher your level of fluency in English the better it is for your employer, as you present a more efficient, professional image for your company when doing business with others.

Knowing that you have full command of the language means that your employer can feel wholly confident putting their trust in you. It’s cheaper for them too as they don’t need to hire interpreters or spend time and money correcting linguistic mistakes.

When an employer has full confidence in your abilities it allows you to progress further within the company, with your employer more confident in entrusting you with more responsibilities – so it can lead to higher pay and more job opportunities.

The more fluent you are in English the more job opportunities will be open to you, giving you a far wider choice of career prospects and often higher pay.

On a personal and business level it allows you to travel more. Whether for business or pleasure, a firm grasp of English allows you to succeed in a wide range of countries.

Understanding different

levels of fluency Not all levels of fluency are the same and, in fact, even native English speakers can fail to be fluent in their own language if they are not properly educated. Here we take a look at what it means to be fluent at different levels of business English.

Business level fluency When applying for jobs you may see positions advertised for those with a ‘business level fluency’ in English. What do employers mean? Here they’re looking for someone who can conduct business in English without the need for a native English speaker to be there. That means being able to converse with other staff, customers and clients, as well as being able to read and write emails and company documents.

Six levels of fluency In the 1980s, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was put together by the Council of Europe, with the aim being to provide a method of learning, teaching and assessing which applies to all languages in Europe. It features six reference levels that are becoming increasingly accepted as the European standard for grading an individual’s language proficiency and fluency. So, according to the CEFR your level of fluency may have reached: Basic – Breakthrough level Basic – Elementary level

Headphones for online listening resources

These levels indicate that you can interact in a simple way with English speakers when the person you are communicating with talks slowly and clearly. At this basic level of fluency you’ll be able to introduce yourself and ask and answer basic and familiar questions.

Independent – Intermediate level Independent – Upper intermediate level At these independent levels of fluency you’ll generally by able to communicate well while travelling independently where English is spoken, and will be able to understand more complex texts, thoughts and ideas in English. This level of fluency allows you to communicate with na-

tive English speakers quite naturally, without either of you finding the conversation hard work.

Proficient – Advanced level Proficient – Mastery or proficiency level At the proficient level of fluency you’ll not only be able to understand a wide range of more demanding, longer texts as well as virtually everything you hear in English, you’ll also be able to express your ideas fluently and spontaneously without having to stop to think of the correct words or phrases to use. You’ll be able to differentiate finer shades of meaning in texts and in the spoken language, attaining fluency in writing, reading, listening and speaking.

NATION

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

PM Modi set to be mascot of 'Incredible India' campaign

BJP will form next government in Uttar Pradesh: Khattar PTI Yamunanagar, 6 Nov: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has expressed confidence that BJP will form the next government in Uttar Pradesh in the coming 2017 elections.

"BJP will emerge victorious in UP," Khattar said.

"If other parties form alliances in Uttar Pradesh, it will directly benefit the BJP," he said while addressing a public rally in Jagadhri here.

On being asked about the SYL canal issue, the Chief Minister said, "the matter lying pending in the Supreme Court has been expedited by the present state government and the judgement would have to be accepted by all."

Notably, Haryana Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution on November 4, condemning Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's recent statement that Punjab or Punjabis will not accept any verdict against his state's interest on river waters.

Attacks on Hindus

Sushma Swaraj asks Indian envoy to take up issue with Sheikh Hasina PTI New Delhi, 6 Nov: In the wake of fresh attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has directed the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka to convey to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina India's grave concern over safety and security of the community in that country.

"I have asked Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka to call on the Prime Minister and express our grave concern about the safety and well-being of the Hindus in Bangladesh," Swaraj tweeted on Sunday.

In fresh attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, unidentified miscreants set ablaze houses of some of them and damaged two temples in central Brahmanbarhia district where several places of worship of the

minority community were vandalised a few days ago.

The place where at least 15 temples and more than 20 houses were vandalized after a Facebook post deemed offensive to Islam sparked outrage in the country.

Police in overnight drives detained 33 persons for their alleged involvement in the synchronised attacks on Hindus in Brahmanbaria on October 30.

Earlier also, India had taken up with Bangladesh the issue of safety and security of the minorities.

Bangladesh's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had said the attacks on several Hindu temples in Bangladesh were carried out under a well-orchestrated plan aimed at grabbing lands of the minority community.

India, Sri Lanka set up Joint Working Group to address fishermen issue

ET Bureau New Delhi, 6 Nov: India and Sri Lanka have agreed to set up a Joint Working Group on Fisheries (JWG) and a hotline between their Coast Guards to address the long-standing issue of fishermen from Tamil Nadu being arrested, the External Affairs Ministry said here on Saturday.

The decision, taken during talks between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in New Delhi, came three days after fishermen of both countries failed to reach an agreement on ending fishing in Sri Lankan waters by Indian fishermen.

Regular meetings planned

P10

“The [Foreign] Ministers exchanged views on possible mechanisms to help find a permanent solution to the fishermen issues,” a statement issued here said. It was also decided that the JWG would meet every three months while the Ministers of Fisheries on both sides would meet every six months beginning January 2017 along with Coast Guard and Naval representatives to discuss the protracted issue.

On Wednesday, the Rural Fishermen Society president offered a deal for Indian boats to be allowed to fish in Sri Lankan waters for 85 days every year for the next three years before they are phased out. Rejecting that offer, fishermen from Jaffna said they wanted

an immediate end to “bottom trawling”, a practice that depletes the ocean’s resources, and refused to return more than 100 trawlers seized by Sri Lankan authorities since 2014.

The terms of reference of the JWG includes “expediting the transition towards ending the practice of bottom trawling at the earliest”, as well as framing procedures for returning fishermen arrested by both sides, and the possibility of joint patrolling.

However, the issue of their seized boats is unresolved, and has been an emotive issue in Tamil Nadu, with the State government writing to the Centre on several occasions to negotiate for their release.. “The issue of the release of detained fishing vessels will be discussed at the first JWG meeting,” the statement said.

Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Radha Mohan Singh, Sri Lankan Minister for Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Mahinda Amaraweera, as well Minister of State for Road Transport, Highways & Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan and Sri Lankan MP M.A. Sumanthiran participated in the discussions.

PTI New Delhi, 6 Nov: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to be the mascot of 'Incredible India' campaign with the tourism ministry finally deciding to do away with plans to rope in any Bollywood stars, including Amitabh Bachchan, for the role which was lying vacant after ouster of Aamir Khan earlier this year.

No Bollywood actor will be engaged for the campaign aimed at attracting foreign travellers and video footages of Modi during the last two-and-a-half years where he has talked about tourism in India and abroad, will be used for the campaign, a senior ministry official said.

The ministry is planning to use — for radio and audio release — two types of videos of different durations where Modi had talked about the uniqueness and diversity of the various places in the country, the

official said.

At present, the ministry is "working on selecting the footages", the official said, adding that the campaign would be released in the next 40-45 days as the Indian 'tourism season' starts

by November-end due to favourable weather as also the Christmas holidays and New Year celebrations.

The official said the process of selecting the agency, which will carry out the task of running the campaign, is also under the process.

Earlier, tourism minister Mahesh Sharma had endorsed Modi's persona for the role, saying he is the "best face" to promote Incredible India campaign. He had asserted that the country has witnessed a jump in the tourists inflow from the countries the Prime Minister had visited.

He had said that the ministry need not have any Bollywood face for the

HIGHLIGHTS No Bollywood actor will be engaged for 'Incredible India' campaign.

Video footages of Modi will be used to attract foreign travellers.

The new campaign will be eleased in next 40-45 days.

Prime Minister Modi campaign to attract tourists from overseas.

"The perception about India has changed significantly in the last two years with Prime Minister Modi visiting a host of countries during the period. So, who else could be the better face for Indian tourism than our Prime Minister," Sharma had said.

Supporting Sharma's remarks, a senior ministry of-

India inflicts heavy damage on Pakistani posts after unprovoked shelling killed 2 soldiers PTI Jammu, 6 Nov: Two Army jawans were killed and three others — two soldiers and a woman — were injured as Pakistani army opened fire in a bid to facilitate two infiltration bids along the Line of Control (LoC) in Krishna Ghati and Poonch sectors of Poonch district on Sunday.

The Indian Army said that while the infiltration bids were foiled, it has also inflicted heavy damage to several Pakistani posts across the Line of Control in Poonch sector.

"One soldier was killed in Krishna Ghati sector earlier in the day while foiling infiltration bids, another soldier was killed and two others were injured in cross-border firing in the Poonch sector of Poonch district," a senior army officer said.

Two infiltration bids assisted

by Pakistan ceasefire violation was foiled in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch, the officer

said.

The soldier killed in the Krishna Ghati sector has been identified as Sepoy Gursewak Singh (23) of 22 Sikh Regiment. Singh is a resident of Taran Taran area of Punjab.

The injured woman has been identified Saleema Akhtar (28), a resident of Poonch. Akhtar has been admitted to the local hospital in Poonch where her condition is stated to be stable, a police officer said.

"The identity of the second soldier killed in Poonch sector and those injured will be shared later after their families are informed," the officer said.

He said that unprovoked ceasefire violation in Poonch sector continued.

"Our troops are responding befittingly, there has been heavy damage to Pakistan army posts," the spokesman said.

"The Army foiled two infiltration bids on the intervening night of November 5, 6 along Line of Control (LoC) in

Krishna Ghati Sector," he said.

"The infiltrators opened fire while trying to sneak back towards Pakistan-occupied Kashmir side of Line of Control (LoC). In the ensuring firefight with infiltrators Sepoy Gursewak Singh suffered gunshot wound and succumbed to his injuries while being evacuated," he said.

At least four places came under indiscriminate shelling and firing by Pakistani army targeting civil and defence facilities and civilian areas, the officer said.

"Unprovoked ceasefire violation by Pakistan army in Poonch sector from 1015 hours using 120 mm mortars, 82 mm mortars and automatic weapons," the spokesman said.

He said the Indian army effectively and appropriately retaliated the fire using same caliber weapons, shelling and firing exchange was still on.

Delhi Air pollution

Kejriwal orders odd-even scheme, bans construction ET Bureau New Delhi, 6 Nov: The Delhi government will soon bring the car rationing interim scheme back in the city, in view of the rising air pollution levels. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called an emergency Cabinet meeting at his residence on Sunday afternoon to discuss the punitive measures to be taken to bring down the rising pollution levels.

Mr. Kejriwal said that the car rationing, odd-even scheme will return soon and preparations will start. "We also need to stop politicising the pollution issue. It is mainly due to crop burning in neighbouring States. But we all have to come together to fight it," he said in the press conference held soon after the Cabinet meeting.

Announcing a slew of decisions, Mr. Kejriwal said that the schools in the city will remain shut for the next three days. For the next 10 days,

Heavy smog reduced visibility to 200 meters early on Sunday. construction work will not be allowed in the city, use of generator sets will be banned, water will be sprinkled on the roads. Vacuum cleaning by Public Works Department (PWD) on 100-feet wide roads will be carried out.

The government will also shut the Badarpur plant and the

transport office. He said that burning of leaves will not be allowed and if found, salaries of the concerned officials will be deducted. "We have sought Centre's help. We have asked them for artificial rains through helicopter and cloud seeding," Mr. Kejriwal noted.

(With inputs from agencies)

Why we have failed to tackle air pollution: 5 reasons ET Bureau New Delhi, 6 Nov: Neither the Centre nor the states have put in place a plan to tackle rising pollution in cities across India. Here are five reasons why we have failed to tackle the pollution menace.

1. We are not monitoring air quality in real time: 573 places still monitor air quality manually The Central Pollution Control Board gets realtime air quality data from only two or three monitoring stations in most cities. This gives a skewed picture of air quality sta-

tus and compromises policy-making. Most cities depend on manual monitoring stations, which use obsolete technology, and data is released just twice a week.

2. We don't know the sources of air pollution: 2008 was when data on pollution sources was last collected in cities A study by IIT Kanpur for Delhi revealed that the contribution of each source of pollution—vehicles, waste burning, construction dust— changes with the seasons, but most cities

don't have this information. Bengaluru's emissions inventory was conducted in 2010 and Chennai's by IIT Madras in 2011, while Kanpur, Mumbai and Pune released their reports in 2010.

Delhi, for instance, is still short of 5,000 buses; it hasn't implemented SC directions on prohibiting waste burning or ensuring construction projects don't pollute. Data for most cities makes it obvious that air pollution is not high on any government's priority list.

4. Ignoring health risks: 8.5% of GDP — Welfare costs and lost labour 3. Governments fail to income due to air polluenforce: 94 cities don't tion in 2013 as per World meet national air qual- Bank report ity standards, says While air pollution is hurting the country's exCPCB But no city administra- chequer, it's also assocition seems worried about ated with certain cangetting off that list. cers, lower birth weight,

premature birth, strokes and respiratory disease.

Across the country, air pollution is linked to 6.7 lakh premature deaths.

5: People aren't pitching in The Deonar landfill fire drew attention to Mumbai's waste problem, while Delhi's three landfills are constantly on fire exposing lakhs of people to carcinogenic emissions. This is a common problem in all cities.

If people segregated garbage at home, there would be no burning of waste. People can also choose public transport, or pick electric and CNG vehicles.

ficial said tourist inflow from countries like the US, Germany, Fiji, Brazil, Australia, the UK, Canada and Myanmar, among others, has witnessed a significant jump after Modi's visit to these nations.

Earlier names of megastar Amitabh Bachchan+ and actress Priyanka Chopra+were doing rounds for the campaign aimed at promoting India as a

favourite tourist destination abroad after actor Aamir Khan's ouster as the campaign's brand ambassador.

Though it was believed that Khan was eased out of the campaign+ in January after being associated with it for several years for his remarks on perceived intolerance+ , the tourism ministry had maintained that he was not hired by the government and that the contract with the advertising agency which engaged him had expired.

Army launches 'School Chalo' operation in South Kashmir PTI Awantipora, 6 Nov: After 'Operation Calm down' in South Kashmir, Army is now focussing on another operation -- 'School Chalo', under which it identifies areas and provides students with free coaching and make them participate in extra-curricular activities.

"We know we have to deal situation on the internal front and we are doing that with desired results. But simultaneously during my interaction with locals, I felt they were worried about the studies of their children, but at the same time anxious about their security. That is where I asked my boys to work out a plan for providing education to students," says Major General Ashok Narula, General-Officer-inCommand of 'Victor Force'.

The army had launched Operation 'Calm Down' in August- September to clear different parts of the Valley of militants and protesters using minimum force.

With educational institutions remaining closed for about five months now and over 30 schools being burnt down over the past weeks, Gen Narula's directions under the 'School Chalo' programme is increasingly becoming popular in the Valley.

Various formations under his command have started identifying teachers in localities and urging them to hold classes in schools or community houses to impart education to children,

who have been deprived of it ever since trouble broke out on July 9 this year, a day after Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter.

"Besides being an army officer, I am a father of two children. So here I approached the issue as a father and not as an Army officer and ensured that these children should hold books in their hands, rather than a stone," Narula said.

Using a local slogan 'Chyem ne zaroorat Daulato-Rubab, Faqat Gochum School te Kitab (I don't need money and fame, I need books and school)', the army offcers and men now perform a different kind of task -- to convince the parents to send their wards to make-shift dwellings to study.

Army officers cited the performance of 292 students who were studying in the Army Goodwill School at Pahalgam who were being taught by well qualified teachers.

"Unhindered by the turmoil which had engulfed the state, these students have not only finished and revised their syllabus but have also participated whole-heartedly in various functions like Eid, Independence Day etc. These (activities) were also the reasons given to parents in other localities to convince them to send in their children," said Narula.

Large cache of explosives seized in Siliguri ET Bureau Siliguri, 6 Nov: A large cache of explosives and detonators was seized by police at the Siliguri town in North Bengal. Acting on a tip off on Saturday night, police raided a house in the Darjeeling More area of the town and arrested three Nepalese citizens.

“We have seized 609 gelatin sticks, 200 detonators and 630 metres of cordex wire (used in explosives),” Commissioner of the Siliguri Metropolitan Police C.S. Lepcha told The Hindu on Sunday. Ms. Lepcha also said that three Nepalese citizens — Dawa Shering Bhutia alias Dawa Gurung (50), his wife Puja Limbu (35) and Krishna Prasad Adhikari (40) — were arrested during the raid.

According to police sources Bhutia is a “professional carrier,” who delivers various equipment to vendors. However, police did not disclose the

details of the equipment he used to deliver. “While Bhutia worked in a coal mine in Shillong in Meghalaya, Adhikari worked as a security guard in an automobile shop in Siliguri,” sources said, adding that they have been living in Siliguri for nearly three months in a rented house.

However, the police is yet to ascertain the accuseds’ exact motive behind possessing the explosives and whether they are related to any outfits . “We are probing all aspects of the case.

It is too early too say whether the accused are related to any outfits as the investigation is going on,” Ms. Lepcha said.

Locals said that there is considerable tension in the area following the development as this was the “first time such huge quantity of explosives” have been seized in the town. (With inputs from agencies)

DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

P11

BUSINESS

India rises to 2nd spot on global biz optimism index' Ensure timely inspections India improved its ranking by one spot in a global index of business optimism, with policy reforms and Goods and Services tax (GST) expected to become a reality soon, says a survey.

New Delhi, Nov 6: India improved its ranking by one spot in a global index of business optimism, with policy reforms and Goods and Services tax (GST) expected to become a reality soon, says a survey.

According to the latest Grant Thornton International Business Report, India was ranked second on the optimism index during the third quarter (July-September 2016).

Indonesia took the top spot, with the Philippines coming in third.

India was ranked third during the April-June period after being on top for two consecutive quarters.

"The improvement in the optimism ranking in the recent past clearly reflects that the reform agenda of the government and its efforts on improving the climate for doing business are having an impact," Grant

India rises to 2nd spot on global biz optimism index' Thornton India LLP Partner – India Leadership Team Harish H V said.

High business optimism was also complimented by the rise of employment expectations. India regained its top position on this parameter, from second position in the April-June period, while profitability expectations also moved up. "...all the programs and initiatives of the government

as well as its focus on building relationships with all major economic powers has made India a bright spot in the global economy," Harish said, adding the recent push for GST augurs well and should give a further boost to business optimism.

While India continues to be amongst the top five countries citing regulations and red tape as a constraint on

Ola wants govt to stop 'capital dumping' by rivals Mumbai, Nov 6: Though heavily funded by foreign investors like Japanese Soft Bank Group, leading cab aggregator Ola has said government should bring in regulations to stop "capital dumping" which is distorting the market.

"There is an urgent need for adequate regulation to curb predatory pricing and capital dumping in the ecosystem in the interest of co-existence of all players in the ecosystem," Ola's Chief Operating Officer Pranay Jivrajka told PTI over phone from Bengaluru.

While he did not name the company's deep-pocketed arch-rival Uber, he said foreign capital should not be used only to offer disruptive pricing.

The comments are interesting as Ola has secured foreign capital worth over USD 1.2 billion from investors like SoftBank, DST Global, Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital, among other players. It is scouting for another round of funding from the Japanese company and others.

Ola's previous fund-raising of USD 500 million last November was also from SoftBank.

Media reports said Ola, the third most valuable startup in the country, is looking at raising around USD 600 million in this round.

Asked about this, Jivrajka said the company is adequately capitalised now

and that as a policy, it does not comment on market speculation.

He evaded a direct answer when pointed out that his own company is almost fully funded by foreign capital, saying capital should not be used just to offer disruptive pricing.

"Capital should be used for sustainability," he added.

On predatory pricing, he said Ola's prices on an average are 20 per cent higher than Uber's and in almost all cities where the American firm is not present; the Bengaluru-based startup's operations are profitable.

Broadly welcoming the recently released Maharashtra City Taxi Rules of 2016, Jivrajka said the policy is forward-looking, comprehensive and inclusive in nature.

"We made three recommendations to Maharashtra. The most important is the need for a review of the proposed high licence/permit fee of Rs 2.61 lakh for vehicles of 1,400-cc and above as this is bound to fall heavy on drivers as they never factored in this while taking their loan and will add over 30 per cent capital burden for them," he said.

He said this high cost of permit is not there in any other state.

Karnataka, Delhi, Kerala and Chandigrah have come out with regulations for cab aggregators but none of them have such high permit fees, he added.

Jivrajka said this high entry cost will be deterrent to entrepreneurs and would eventually make rides costlier for customers.

Ola also wants a review of the rule that makes it mandatory for an operator/ aggregator to have 50 per cent fleet with above 1,400cc engines.

"Fleet composition should be best left to the choice of drivers which is done according to the demand from consumers," Jivrajka said, adding Mumbai does not need so many premium taxis.

Ola is present in 102 cities and claims over 4,50,000 drivers on its platform with cabs, auto-rickshaws, taxis and bike taxis (in Gurugram).

Uber too had sought review of these norms while welcoming the rest of policy proposals.

According to Uber, the proposed stipulation that more that 50 percent of the vehicles on ride-sharing platforms should be over 1,400cc would result in disappearance of economical and fuel efficient vehicles from the platform.

"It also takes away the freedom and flexibility of drivers to have the vehicle of their choice, forcing them to buy more expensive cars which will in turn increase fares," Uber had said, adding that capping pricing prevents market forces from determining lower fares when possible. (PTI)

GST Compensation Bill to detail revenue foregone by states

New Delhi, Nov 6: Government will introduce a bill in the winter session of Parliament beginning next week tabulating the revenue likely to be foregone by each state on account of subsuming of local taxes and the Centre's contribution to make up for the loss.

The GST Compensation Bill will provide a legal backing to the Centre's promise to compensate the states if their revenue growth rate falls below 14 per cent in the first five years of the GST roll out.

The base year for calculating the revenue of a state has been decided as 201516.

"The compensation law would have the taxes subsumed and the revenue for-

gone by each state on account of GST implementation. It will give details on how the Centre plans to raise funds for compensating the revenue loss," an official said.

A separate law will give the provisions a statutory backing and there will not be any case of any understanding error between the Centre and the states in future. The winter session of Parliament begins on November 16.

The officials of the central government will finalise the draft GST Compensation Law by November 15 and thereafter it would be circulated to the states. The GST Council in its meeting on November 24-25 will discuss the proposed law.

Goods and Services Tax (GST) will replace all indirect taxes on goods and services imposed by central and state governments.

The Centre and the states have converged to a fourtier GST tax structure of 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent and keeping out essential items out of the purview of the new taxation regime.

The Centre will, however, impose a cess on luxury items like high-end cars and demerit goods including tobacco, pan masala and aerated drinks, over and above the the highest 28 per cent.

Under the structure, the clean energy cess and cess on luxury items and demerit goods would be utilised to create a Rs 50,000 crore fund every year which will be utilised to compensate the states for first five years of GST roll out.

The official said the bill would also specify how much revenue is being raised from which item by way of levy of cess and also the way it is reimbursed to the states, thereby leaving no room for ambiguity.

Besides, it would also specify that at the end of five years if there is a surplus in the cess pool, in what proportion it should be decided between the Centre and the states, the official added.(PTI)

growth, for the first time in the year, the country's ranking on this parameter has dropped from second to fourth.

As per the survey, 59 per cent of the respondents have quoted this as an impediment in the growth prospects compared to 64 per cent in the previous quarter.

The report is prepared on the basis of a quarterly conducted global business survey of 2,500 businesses across 36 economies.

Meanwhile, in terms of revenue expectations, India slipped to third position from top in the previous quarter.

In spite of the downturn, India is much ahead of China where only 30 per cent respondents expect an increase in revenue, whereas in India, 85 per cent respondents have voted in favour of increasing revenue.

The survey further noted that 68 per cent of respondents have voted for an upsurge in selling prices.

On this parameter too, China lags India with only 10 per cent of respondents expecting an upsurge in selling prices. The global average is 19 per cent.

Globally, business optimism stands at net 33 per cent, rising 1 percentage point from the previous quarter but falling 11 percentage points over the year.

"Political events such as Brexit and the US presidential election understandably rattle the global economy and test the resilience and elasticity of businesses worldwide. In general, businesses do not like uncertainty, and that is what is happening," Grant Thornton Global CEO Ed Nusbaum said.(PTI)

BSE receives 854 investor complaints in H1 FY17; fixes 683 New Delhi, Nov 6: Leading stock exchange BSE has received 854 complaints against 735 companies pertaining to non-receipt of shares and debt securities, among others, in the first half of the ongoing fiscal.

The exchange has resolved 683 grievances against 546 listed companies in the AprilSeptember period, as per the data compiled from the exchange's website.

Complaints made against the firms included non-receipt of money, shares, demat as well as physical, non-receipt of debt securities, corporate benefits, entitlements and interest.

Of the total complaints received, 785 were against ac-

tive companies while 69 were against suspended firms.

Out of the total complaints resolved, 633 were against active companies whereas 50 were against suspended firms.

At the end of September Vatsa Corporation, with 1,080 complaints, had the highest number of complaints still pending against it.

Companies with pending investor complaints as of October end, include Montari Industries, Arihant Industries, Enkay Texfoods Industries, Montari Leather, Mukerian Papers, Pentafour Products, Lan Eseda Industries, Geodesic Ltd.(PTI)

Tata Sons to reach out to muster independent directors’ support

Tata Sons to reach out to muster independent directors’ support Mumbai, Nov 6: With all independent directors of Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) backing Cyrus Mistry’s leadership abilities, Tata Sons now plans to reach out to other independent directors that are on the board of several other Tata entities to explain

their side of the story and the reasons that forced them to remove Mistry from the chairman’s post at Tata Sons.

In the coming weeks, several Tata companies will be holding board meetings to consider the quarterly financial results. (Agencies)

in deptt: CBDT to taxman

New Delhi, Nov 6: The CBDT has issued a stern directive to the taxman to ensure that targets related to inspection and vigilance in the I-T department are completed on time as there has been a shortfall of about 70 per cent in these initiatives in the last few years.

A communication in this regard has been issued by new CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra to all the regional I-T chiefs recently.

"Vigilance...is not a standalone activity and the focus on vigilance should not be limited to the duration of the vigilance awareness week (Oct 31-Nov 5) only. It is a management function to be exercised by all supervisory authorities for overall risk

management in any organisation.

"A supervisory officer cannot absolve himself from vicarious liability if the supervisor who has the right, ability or duty to control the activities of a subordinate does not take steps to prevent the acts of mis-demeanor by the subordinate," the CBDT boss wrote.

He added the initiatives in this regard in the tax department have not been up to the mark in the recent past as "inspections and reviews are important preventive vigilance functions and periodical inspections of the work of a subordinate can give timely alerts about any wrongdoing by

officers."

"However, I am constrained to point out that the laid down procedure for conducting inspections/reviews by the Chief Commissioners, the Commissioners and the Additional Commissioners is not being followed and only about 25 per cent-30 per cent of the targeted inspections have been conducted in the past 2-3 years.

"I request you to give your immediate attention to this area and ensure that the targets and timelines in this regard are strictly adhered to," he wrote.

Chandra also invited suggestions from the field formations to enhance vigilance measures in the department.(PTI)

KPMG India CEO Richard Rekhy to retire KPMG International Chairman John B Veihmeyer thanked Rekhy for the enormous contribution he made, not only to KPMG India but also to the wider Indian economy New Delhi, Nov 6: Leading professional services firm KPMG India today said its CEO Richard Rekhy plans to retire and will continue to serve in the position till a successor is found.

While specific reasons for the decision were not disclosed, KPMG India Board said it has respectfully accepted Rekhy's decision after due deliberations.

Rekhy has been serving as CEO since 2012 and during his tenure the company has attracted over 70 partners from other industries and across the professional services sector.

KPMG in India has around 1,100 staff and in recent times the company has seen attrition of various partners.

"Richard Rekhy plans to retire as CEO of the firm...

In accordance with KPMG India's governance, the Board of KPMG India will run the succession process over the coming few months," KPMG India said in a release.

Rekhy will continue to serve as CEO until his successor is ratified by KPMG India partners.

In the release, KPMG India Board said it has "respectfully accepted Richard's decision to retire" after due deliberations and recognising his stellar professional as well as personal contributions to the India firm over the last many years as the CEO and in his prior leadership roles.

KPMG India CEO Richard Rekhy.

"The India Board recorded its sincere appreciation of Richard's commitment and his drive to lead the firm as being the clear choice for our clients and our people," it said.

Rekhy said he has been incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to lead KPMG India through a time of such strong growth.

"I feel now is the right time for the firm to choose its next leader. As my fellow partners make this choice I will be focused on continuing to serve our clients and staff," he noted.

KPMG International Chairman John B Veihmeyer thanked Rekhy for the enormous contribution he made, not only to KPMG India but also to the wider Indian economy.

"Since he took office in 2012 KPMG India has been growing rapidly, with revenue, along with

the number of partners, directors and professionals, doubling.

"Over this same period KPMG India has become a magnet for senior talent, attracting over 70 partners from other industries and across the professional services sector," he said.

In India, KPMG, which has a client base of more than 2,700 companies, is into diverse areas including financial and business advisory, tax and regulatory, and risk advisory services, as per its website.

In an interview to PTI last month, Rekhy had emphasised the need for "mindset" change among policymakers and said a lot has happened on improving the ease of doing business in India but a lot more has to happen in this regard.

On Friday, rival PwC India elected Shyamal Mukherjee as Chairman of PwC network of entities in the country for a four-year term beginning January 1, 2017. (Agencies)

Defence, trade to be focus of UK PM Theresa May's talks with PM Modi However, May's official spokesperson said that UK would not pursue a FTA with India while it still remained in the EU London, Nov 6: Defence, security and trade relations will top the agenda of talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart Theresa May as they will cover the "breadth" of ties, a top Downing Street official has said.

The two leaders will discuss the "breadth" of India-UK relations during their working lunch at Hyderabad House on Monday afternoon, May's official spokesperson told reporters at Downing Street here.

"It will not be about how many deals are signed or that kind of transactional visit but more about the depth of the ties and working towards creating more jobs and growth in both countries. Defence and security will be an important

part of the bilateral discussions. We are keen to develop that partnership and see how we can put in more energy and enthusiasm into that," she said.

"Why the prime minister is going to India for her first bilateral visit outside Europe, and her first trade delegation, is because India matters to us -- now more than ever. In the context of Britain leaving the European Union (EU), the aim is two-fold -- to build on the groundwork already done to bring down trade barriers and deepen the UK's relationships outside the EU," she noted.

In reference to discussions on a potential India-UK free trade agreement (FTA), the spokesperson stressed that the UK would not be pursuing a bilateral trade deal

with India while it remains a member of the EU. "We will continue to support the India-EU FTA, respecting our rights and obligations within the EU," she said.

While there has been wide speculation over a potential India-UK FTA, Britain remains inhibited from openly pursuing bilateral trade negotiations until Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty triggers the official process of Brexit.

May will begin her India visit by opening the IndiaUK Tech Summit on Monday morning alongside Modi.

Following her bilateral talks with Modi, both leaders will issue a joint statement.

While in New Delhi, she is also expected to visit the Gandhi Smriti and War

Memorial at India Gate.

On Tuesday, she will leave for Bengaluru, where she has a series of business engagements as well as an address to a tech summit.

The British premier will be accompanied by 40 small and medium enterprise (SME) representatives from across the UK, many of whom are on the lookout for a foothold in India.

The recent tightening of the Tier-II intra-company transfer visas, expected to hit Indian information technology companies the hardest, is expected to be on the agenda from the Indian side.

However, Downing Street stressed the UK remains open to the "brightest and the best" from India and that Indians had been issued more work-related vi-

sas than the US, China and Australia combined.

On the sharp decline in Indian student numbers coming to study in the UK over the years, she highlighted that 89 per cent of all Indian students who applied to study at UK universities were given visas.

"This visit is about highlighting that the UK-India relationship really matters.

The UK is the largest G20 investor in India and India is the second largest job creator in the UK. There are strong bonds and ties there and it is important to keep up the momentum," the spokesperson said.

May will be accompanied by international trade secretary Liam Fox and minister of state in the Department for International Trade, Greg Hands.(PTI)

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DIBRUGARH, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7

P12 INDIAN SUPER LEAGUE 2016

FC Pune City secure first home win of season after pipping Atletico de Kolkata PTI Pune, Nov 6 : FC Pune City resurrected their chances in the Indian Super League (ISL) with a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) in Pune on Sunday.

Goals from Eduardo Ferreira (41st minute) and Anibal Rodriguez (penalty, 56th minute) were enough for Pune City to score their first home win of the season and jump two places to sixth on the table.

Iain Hume had kept Atletico de Kolkata in the game after converting a penalty in the 69th minute but Pune held on for an important win at Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium at Balewadi in Pune.

Eduardo Ferreira celebrates after scoring a goal in the 41st minute.

ISLEduardo Ferreira celebrates after scoring a goal in the 41st minute.

Image courtesy: ISL Pune City were at the bottom of the table with six points prior to this clash but are now placed sixth, above Kerala Blasters (9 points) and FC Goa (7 points).

Eduardo Ferreira celebrates after scoring a goal in the 41st minute.

Image courtesy: ISL

The win was also important for Pune City head coach Antonio Habas, who was up against his former club. After two successful seasons with Atletico de Kolkata, Habas had switched to Pune City and was under-pressure to deliver for his new employers.

Pune City took the field determined to get a positive result and end a

wretched run of form that saw them win just one match in the first phase.

The Pune City players stuck to a plan, but it were Atletico de Kolkata who had the first chance of the match. It was created

by ATK marquee Helder Postiga in the eighth minute when the Pune defence was re-

treating.

The former Portugal striker took advantage of the space available for him and took a powerful shot which was not too far away from the top left corner.

After much probing, Pune City took the lead in the 41st minute through Ferreira. Just a few minutes earlier, the Brazilian needed medi-

cal attention after clashing with Postiga. He had a cut on his face just below his right eye but continued bravely and headed home Jonatan Lucca's corner to give his team the lead.

Pune City made it 2-0 in the second session after the referee adjudged Pritam Kotal to have handled Tato's cross inside the danger zone.

Pritam protested, along with several other ATK players, but the referee stuck to his decision.

Anibal Rodriguez stepped up to take the spot-kick and converted even though ATK goalkeeper Debjit Majumder had managed to get his hand to the ball.

The visitors were thrown a lifeline in the 68th minute when Postiga won a penalty, having being brought down by his Pune counterpart Mohammed Sissoko.

Hume's penalty was initially saved by Edel Bete but could do nothing to stop the rebound.

For the rest of the match, Pune City held on to their lead to pocket an important win.

South Africa make big strides towards victory Australia 244 and 4 for 169 (Khawaja 58*, Rabada 3-49) need another 370 runs to beat South Africa 242 and 8 for 540 dec (Duminy 141, Elgar 127, Philander 73, de Kock 64) Australia, Nov 6: 0%. Zero.

No chance. None at all. That, according to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, is the likelihood of rain in Perth on Monday. Coincidentally, it is also the chance of Australia winning the WACA Test and, thanks to that forecast, their hopes of escaping with a draw are not much higher. By stumps on day four, a South Africa victory was all but assured. It was a day of great South African entertainment, most notably fielding magic from Temba Bavuma and bowling brilliance from Kagiso Rabada.

Perhaps the least surprising element of the day was the decision of Faf du Plessis to delay his declaration, allow his lower order to provide some entertainment with late lusty blows, and grind Australia down further and further. For more than nine years - until the tour of India last November South Africa had not lost a Test series away from home. At the heart of this remarkable feat was a certain conservatism, a determination first not to lose, and only then to consider winning.

So when du Plessis had his lower order bat on and on, their lead passing 400, then 450, then 500, and nearing 550, it was not a great shock. He also had to factor in the absence of his best and most experienced bowler Dale Steyn, who suffered a serious shoulder injury earlier in the match. With that in mind, you could understand why he would set Australia 539, requiring them not only to break the record for the highest successful Test chase, but to break it by more than 100 runs.

By stumps, they were 4 for 169, still 370 runs adrift of their target, with only the wicketkeeper and bowlers still to come. Usman Khawaja was well set on 58, but will need to re-establish his innings on the fifth morning. Mitchell Marsh, under pressure to justify his ongoing position in a Test top six, was on 15. The ball was jagging off cracks, jumping,

Kagiso Rabada took 3 for 49 on the fourth afternoon staying low, spinning - doing all the things that make batting most difficult. Australia's task was monumental.

South Africa have dominated the past three days at the WACA, a most impressive accomplishment given the injury to their spearhead before that ascendancy really began.

But the rest have displayed true Steyn-less steel, which has only added to the gloss of their performance. In Australia's second innings it was Rabada who stepped up, dismissing Shaun Marsh, Steven Smith and Adam Voges, to finish the day with 3 for 49. He also had Khawaja dropped at slip.

But first came Bavuma's breathtaking run-out of David Warner, the one man who, because of his recent form and his incredible record at the WACA, might have made Australia believe in a possible win had he stayed at the crease for a few hours. Warner had 35 at better than a run a ball when he pushed a Rabada delivery to cover and Bavuma, fielding at point, raced to the ball and then in one fluid action picked up, dived and threw down the stumps at the bowler's end.

Perhaps Bavuma is secretly a

Rhodes scholar - a Jonty Rhodes scholar, that is - for there was more than a hint of that illustrious predecessor in this effort. Such was the surprise of the feat that Warner appeared not to be stretching to his full capacity to make his ground, perhaps believing nobody could possibly do what Bavuma did. Bavuma was even too quick for the umpire Aleem Dar, who had not had time to take an optimal side-on position.

It was a key moment, though to call it match-turning would be unfair to South Africa's outstanding work of the previous two-and-a-half days. Matchturning would have been if Warner had batted on until stumps and reached 150 at a run a ball. Bavuma's effort, brilliant though it was, simply ensured the match was not carried off in some unforeseen direction by Warner. South Africa had been on top, and Bavuma kept them there.

Then came the reward for Rabada, who, later in the same over had Shaun Marsh caught at second slip for 15. Australia had tumbled from 0 for 52 to 2 for 52 within one over, and briefly the score was 3 for 52 in the next over when Khawaja was given out caught

behind off Keshav Maharaj first ball, only to be reprieved on review when the third umpire found the ball had brushed the flap of his pad rather than his bat as he played back to cut.

Still, the momentum was all with South Africa, and a 92-run stand between Khawaja and Smith did little to change that.

Rabada was the man who broke that partnership, his persistent fourth-stump line and ability to nibble the ball around finally accounting for Smith, who drove outside off and tickled a catch behind for 34. Adam Voges followed in similar fashion in Rabada's next over.

Rabada should also have had Khawaja caught behind on 41, a thick edge flying between the wicketkeeper and first slip.

Hashim Amla moved low to his right and grassed the chance, but Quinton de Kock could have made it comfortably had he chosen to move to his left. Instead, Khawaja was given a life and went on to bring up his halfcentury, off precisely 100 deliveries.

But then, a solitary fifty wasn't much good to Australia. South Africa had four batsmen who passed that milestone in their second innings, and two of those went on to post hundreds.

The fourth day began with

South Africa on 6 for 390 and Australia knew that with quick wickets, they might give themselves the slim chance of a gettable target. As it happened, South Africa batted on to add 150 to their total for the loss of only two wickets.

Vernon Philander was the last man out, bowled by Smith, who had not introduced himself into the attack until the 159th over of the innings, for 73. Keshav Maharaj had struck three sixes and provided some late entertainment with 41 not out from 34 balls. And earlier, de Kock had struck 64 before he was caught at cover off Mitchell Marsh. His partnership of 116 with Philander had been the crowning frustration for Australia.

Not that they helped themselves. Philander had been put down on 29 when he top-edged a hook off Mitchell Starc and at fine leg Josh Hazlewood ran around but parried the ball over for six, seemingly worried about stepping over the boundary. With just a little more awareness of his surroundings, he could have turned it into a moderately straightforward take. But it was symptomatic of Australia's fielding in the second innings, during which several chances went down.

There were also a couple of reprieves on review for de Kock, but Australia could not complain about those. In the end, du Plessis declared soon after lunch with South Africa on 8 for 540. Australia needed 539 to win. Only once in Test history has any team scored more than 500 in the fourth innings, and even that did not result in a win, for England's 654 for 5 in the infamous timeless Test of 1939 came in pursuit of 696.

The highest successful chase in Test history was the 418 scored

by West Indies against Australia in Antigua in 2003, and Austraia's highest was 404 back in 1948.

The statisticians can close their books for now, because by stumps on day four, all of those records remained very safe indeed.

Sania Mirza split from Martina Hingis after the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Sania Mirza struggles to be candid, rules out biopic New Delhi, Nov 6 : Sania Mirza is a youth icon and as popular as any other sports personality in a country where cricketers enjoy a special status.

However, the tennis star refuses to follow one path which cricketers have taken of late.

Sania, the world No 1 doubles player and India’s only WTA title winner, has said she refused a proposal to make her biopic, like ‘MS Dhoni: The Untold Story’, based on India’s limited overs captain MS Dhoni which was released on September 30. That was preceded by the one on former India skipper Mohd Azharuddin, who was banned for match-fixing in 2000.

Eventful career However, Sania made a candid admission: there is only so much she is willing lay bare in the public.

While she continues to win laurels in tennis, Sania has been repeatedly dragged into controversies, be it over her marriage to Pakistan cricketer, Shoaib Malik, or through court petitions that have questioned her patriotism or her religious beliefs.

“It’s true some people approached me for this (biopic),” she said in an interview with HT here during a brief visit. “I spoke about it too, but to a large extent I don’t think it is possible. For me, it’s quite

difficult to speak out on everything about my life to the public.”

Although Sania finished the year as the women’s doubles world No 1, missing out on a mixed doubles bronze medal at the Rio Olympics rankled.

“Some losses sting more.

Every setback hurts you, but some leave you hurting forever. Usually I recover in a day of two, but my loss at the Rio Games kept me thinking about it for long. I took two weeks to recover,” she said.

“Winning a medal at the Olympics was very important for me and that’s why I was in tears after losing the opportunity.”

Fresh Beginning Sania, however, admitted life can’t stop there. “I won two tournaments after Rio as I believe life doesn’t stop for one even after a big loss. I am still enjoying the No 1 status in doubles, and that’s sport.”

Sania and Bopanna were among India’s medal hopes, but lost to Czech Republic’s Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek in straight sets in the bronzemedal tie.

“We came very close to the medal but couldn’t win. I am happy to finish fourth at the Olympics as I believe even that is a rare achievement. Many can’t think even of this,” said the player, who turns 30 on Nov 15.

“Many Indians like Abhinav Bindra and Dipa Karmakar finished fourth (in Rio) and it was a big achievement for the country even when some people were cribbing about India coming back with just two medals,” said Sania.

“I don’t know what happens after four years when we plan for the Tokyo Olympics. If I am fit and kicking, I may again be pushing myself for that, otherwise someone else would be carrying India’s hopes.”

Sania split with Swiss former world No 1 Martina Hingis after the Rio Games. “It is good that even after that she has been doing well.”

Sania, who won nine titles with Hingis, said: “Even after splitting, I have won three titles out of five events. Martina and I really worked hard and we had amazing results together. I am enjoying my game with my new partner and hope our association continues.”

Busy with preparations for her sister Anam’s marriage, she will resume training for 2017 after that.

Sania picked Ankita Raina among the upcoming women players to watch out in singles. “Tennis is very competitive sport and I believe one should start playing at the age at 4.”( Agencies)

India v England, 1st Test, Rajkot: Domestic match must for comeback post injury, says Kumble HIGHLIGHTS Kumble stressed on importance of being fully fit rather than trying to get quickly fit.

There have been instances of player breakdown in their bid to make a quick comeback post serious injuries.

Kumble was sad for both Rahul and Rohit.

Rajkot, Nov 6: Chief coach Anil Kumble has laid down a "protocol" that a player recuperating from injury needs to play "domestic cricket" in order to be considered for a comeback in the national team.

In the past, there have been instances of player breakdown in their bid to make a quick comeback post serious injuries.

With Rohit Sharma (quadriceps), KL Rahul (hamstring), Shikhar Dhawan (thumb fracture) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (back) in the injured list, Kumble feels that "communication with players is key" as one can understand their eagerness to comeback.

"Communication is key in any team activity. Whether doing

well or not, communication with injured players is equally important. Having played the game, I know exactly what goes through players' mind while watching somebody else playing. While he expects the team and that player to do well, it is important to keep all of them in loop," Kumble said.

He was sad for both Rahul and Rohit, who recently sustained a serious thigh injury which might require surgery.

"It is unfortunate that KL Rahul, who batted brilliantly is missing out. So is Bhuvi, Shikhar. And it's a big blow for Rohit. Specially feel sad for Rohit as he was doing well in Test format. Obviously we all know the importance of Rohit in shorter format."

"One needs to understand that injuries are part and parcel of a player's life," Kumble said.

Kumble then spoke on importance of being fully fit rather than trying to get quickly fit.

"Timing of injuries is not ideal for them. They realise it's an occupational hazard. One should not look at coming back quickly. That might not help the individual and also let the team down. I believe in comeback when someone is 100 percent. We are trying to set certain protocols. We want people to play domestic cricket if it's happening. Play under pressure before coming back.

"One needs to understand that injuries are part and parcel of a player's life."(PTI)

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Editor: Prahlad Hammey

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