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Archives for September 2018

5th Test: England reach 123/1

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England reached 123/1 in their first innings at tea on the opening day of the fifth and final cricket Test against India at the Oval here on Friday.

Veteran opening batsman Alastair Cook (66 not out) and Moeen Ali (23 not out) were at the crease for England at tea as the hosts added 55 runs in the second session without losing any wicket.

Cook, playing in his final international match, registered his 57th fifty in his 161st Test.

The 32-year-old left-hander, who resumed the session with an individual score of 37, got a reprieve at the same score. An away-swigning delivery from paceman Ishant Sharma was poked by Cook but Ajinkya Rahane dropped it at gully in the 31st over.

In the following over, Moeen too got a reprieve while batting on a personal score of 2. The left-hander got a thick edge off Jasprit Bumrah and captain Virat Kohli dropped the left-hander at third slip.

Cook and Moeen, then, batted with strong defences and played riskfree cricket to see off the session. They waited for the loose deliveries to score runs.

Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja, who took the wicket of Keaton Jennings (23) in the first session, was dealt with strongly by Cook and Moeen.

Brief scores: England: 123/1 (Alastair Cook 66 not out, Moeen Ali 23 not out, Keaton Jennings 23; Ravindra Jadeja 1/36) vs India at tea on Day 1.

(IANS)

RBI slaps Rs 1 cr penalty each on three public sector banks

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore each on three public sector banks for non-compliance with its directions on “Fraud – Classification and Reporting”.

According to the RBI, the penalty was imposed individually on all the three banks — Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Union Bank of India — on August 30, 2018.

The apex bank took into account the delay on the part of these banks in reporting fraud in certain accounts.

(IANS)

Air India seeks Rs 500 cr short-term loans

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National passenger carrier Air India has invited bids from banks for Rs 500-crore government guarantee-backed “Short Term Loans (STLs)”.

The airline has called for financial bids by September 10.

“Air India is inviting bids for Government Guaranteed INR Short Term Loans (STL) totalling to Rs 500 crore to meet its urgent working capital requirements,” the airline said in a tender document issued on Thursday.

“The tenure of the loan will be for one year (renewable) from the date of availing the STL. The amount of Rs 500 crore will be drawn during September 2018 in one or more tranches.”

(IANS)

It’ll be Modi vs India in 2019, say opposition leaders

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Indian elections are based on ideologies and not personalities, said key opposition leaders on Friday and stressed that 2019 general elections will be a “Modi vs India” affair.

Speaking at the launch of Congress parliamentarian Kapil Sibal’s new book “Shades of Truth – A Journey Derailed”, they said that “a very broad-based strategic coalition” would be formed in “at least 25 states” to take on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2019 polls.

After a brief address by former Vice President Hamid Ansari, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Charting the “all-round failure” of the government, Singh charged that the country is facing “an agrarian crisis, economic turmoil and deteriorating ties with neighbouring countries”.

He accused the Modi government of ignoring the plight of farmers, which has resulted in numerous protests in state capitals as well as the national capital.

Singh, Ansari and Sibal together unveiled the book to a packed house at the Nehru Memorial Museum Library here.

The book launch was followed by a panel discussion participated by Sibal, P. Chidambaram, Sitaram Yechury, Chandan Mitra and Sharad Yadav. They discussed the prospects of a joint opposition front for the 2019 general elections.

The panelists agreed that the opposition unity would be vital in the coming elections, with Sibal asserting that in “at least 25 states” a “very broad-based strategic coalition” would be worked upon to counter the BJP.

Chidambaram recounted that even in 2014 general elections, despite the wind in its favour, the BJP failed to attract the masses in several states like Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala and Odisha.

Sibal also noted that the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, both currently ruled by the NDA, would have a decisive role to play in the next elections.

On the question of who will be the prime ministerial candidate of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) against Modi, all panelists, except Chandan Mitra of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), maintained that a prime ministerial face is not important.

Yadav recounted a series of elections where a joint coalition had formed the government without declaring their prime ministerial candidate in advance.

“But, much water has flown through the Yamuna since the time you are talking about,” interjected Mitra, who recently quit the BJP to join its adversary in West Bengal. He said the voters are much more aware today and therefore a prime ministerial candidate is important.

Mitra maintained that the prime ministerial candidate of the UPA must be from a regional party, whose credentials are well established.

Responding to an audience question, Sibal said that Congress President Rahul Gandhi has made it clear that he is ready to take on Modi, so there is no question of “whether or not he is up for it”.

“He is up for it and he has said that publicly,” Sibal quipped, adding that a prime ministerial face is not important before the elections.

He recalled that there was a debate before 2014 general elections that the country needs a strong leadership and a prominent face. “The great leader (Modi) has given us demonetisation,” he said.

“It will be Modi vs India,” said Yadav, as the panelists nodded in affirmation and loud claps by opposition leaders resonated in the packed hall.

On their projections for the 2019 general elections, the panelists reiterated that the coming together of the opposition parties at state level would result in their victory.

The attendees included opposition leaders across political parties, including Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference, Sitaram Yechury of the CPI-M, former JD-U members Sharad Yadav and Pavan Varma, TMC member Chanadan Mitra and a host of senior Congress leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Saman Khurshid and Shashi Tharoor, among others.

Chopper with 7 people aboard goes missing in Nepal

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A domestic helicopter of Altitude Air airline with seven people on board went missing in central Nepal on Saturday, officials said.

The chopper, en route from Samagaun of Gorkha district to Kathmandu, went out of contact with the air traffic control tower at 8.05 a.m, the Kathmandu Post reported.

There were six passengers including a Japanese tourist and five Nepalis on board, said Nima Nuru Sherpa, Managing Director at Altitude Air Pvt Ltd.

Though some local media reported about the possible crash in Dhading district, 50 km away from Kathmandu, the authorities could not confirm as the search and rescue operation was underway.

Tribhuvan International Airport General Manager Rajkumar Chhetri said that the helicopter was supposed to land in the capital at 8.18 am.

(Ians)

Hurriyat activist shot in J&K

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A Hurriyet activist was shot on Saturday by unidentified gunmen in Jammu and Kashmir’s Sopore area, police said.

The gunmen fired at Hakim-ul-Rehman Sultani from close range in Bomai area.

“He was immediately shifted to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival”.

The slain activist was affiliated with the group led by Syed Ali Geelani and had been recently released from jail.

(IANS)

Filmland break-ups are like messy murders: The blood doesn’t wash

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I hate to say this, but I saw it coming. Film Producer Madhu Varma Mantena had been in pain for a while. A week before he told me he has something important to tell me.

Then came the announcement that he and his wife of three years, Masaba Gupta, are bringing their marriage to an end. The announcement came on social media. This is where lives and relationships are made and unmade these days. Long live the sanctity of privacy.

Prior to Madhu, it was another friend, Arjun Rampal, who quit his marriage by “mutual consent”. Arjun told me he and his wife — married for 20 years — had parted “as friends”.

This, I find hard to believe. The effort to make a ruptured, amputated marriage look like a clean split is plainly an eyewash. Filmland marriages want to look squeaky-clean when they break up. But they are like messy murders. You can’t wash away the blood no matter how hard you try.

Hrithik Roshan and his former wife go on vacations with their children even after their marriage ended. It’s just not real. If they wanted to go on family vacations, why break the marriage? And if they did decide to mutually break the marriage, why the show of togetherness with pictures going up on social media even before the vacation has started?

I am pretty sure Madhu won’t go on post-marriage vacations with Masaba. He isn’t the media-friendly type and will refrain from indulging in ironic acts of simulated intimacy in a dead relationship.

Madhu has been gifted in what he has done. He has been involved in production and distribution of films in Hindi, Telugu and Bengali. In 2008, he co-produced “Ghajini”, the year’s highest-grossing Indian film. Since then he has produced “Rakht Charitra” in three languages, a political thriller “Rann” and the Bengali film “Autograph”, which did well.

Madhu co-founded Phantom Films with Anurag Kashyap, Vikas Bahl and Vikramaditya Motwane, which brought out successes such as “Lootera”, “Queen”, “Hasee Toh Phasee” and “Bombay Velvet”. Madhu’s next film, “Super 30” — on the IIT success story — is awaited.

I have to admit, though, that Madhu has been singularly unlucky in love. He was in a very comfortable relationship with actress-author Nandana Sen for nearly eight years.

Madhu, Nandana and I had dinner once in Mumbai where they just couldn’t keep their eyes and hands off one another. When that relationship ended, Madhu, who always gets into relationships thinking they are for keeps, was determined to find love again. He got into another relationship with an author which ended as suddenly as it had begun.

Masaba seemed to be for keeps. Madhu just couldn’t get enough of her. Smothering your partner with love could create serious space problems. It did for Madhu’s marriage. He is now single and not quite ready to mingle. There is a lot of pain in the parting.

Madhu never wanted the marriage to end. But the show business saps you. Only the thick-skinned survive. Star-wives who have successfully managed to forge a life of their own, away from their star-husbands’ shadows have succeeded in keeping their marriages going. You think they don’t know about their husbands’ furtive flings?

Madhu’s marriage with Masaba was a fairytale coming together of two people. It soured because they never found a middle-ground between his targets as a producer and her goals as a dress designer.

Now as things stand, barring one, every one of the partners at Phantom — Anurag, Vikas and Madhu — has a broken marriage behind him.

If I was the fourth partner at Phantom, I’d seriously think about breaking away from the business, before another — a graver — break happens. But then you never know: Vikramaditya may turn out to be an outlier.

Zuckerberg seeks more time to fix Facebook

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As countries over the world including India face elections amid the spread of fake news and political interference on social media platforms, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has asked for some more time to fix his network that has over two billion users.

In a post on Friday, Zuckerberg said that Facebook started on the platform sanitising project in 2017 and “even this work will extend through 2019, I do expect us to end this year on a significantly better trajectory than when we entered it”.

“My personal challenge for 2018 has been to fix the most important issues facing Facebook — whether that’s defending against election interference by nation states, protecting our community from abuse and harm, or making sure people have control of their information,” the Facebook founder wrote.

After his grilling in the US Congress in April over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, COO Sheryl Sandberg again testified at the US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on election security on September 5.

Along with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, she faced the committee which is probing the Russian interference from an angle to publicly hold Facebook and Twitter accountable for allowing Russian operatives on their platforms.

“I’m spending a lot of time on these issues, and as the year winds down I’m going to write a series of notes outlining how I’m thinking about them and the steps we’re taking to address them,” said Zuckerberg.

The first note will be about the steps Facebook is taking to prevent election interference on Facebook, which is timely with the US mid-terms and Brazilian presidential elections approaching.

“I’ll write about privacy, encryption and business models, and then about content governance and enforcement as well in the coming months,” he added.

Vajpayee’s ashes immersed in Yamuna at native village

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday immersed the ashes of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Yamuna river in his native village of Bateshwar, Agra.

Adityanath reached Bateshwar in a chopper and later drove to the Rani Ghat where the district administration had made elaborate arrangements.

He first prayed at the temples on the banks of the river and then immersed the ashes.

Ranjan Bhattacharya, Vajpayee’s son-in-law, was also present along with the state’s Medical Education minister Ashutosh Tandon.

Adityanath also visited the house where Vajpayee spent his childhood, a district official said.

The 60 square yard house is likely to be converted into a memorial and museum.

A small tourist circuit is also likely to be created here which will include a ‘yagyashala’, park, the series of temples and the Janglat Kothi where the Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart, as a child, had raised the banner of revolt against the British empire, the official added.

(IANS)

Bengaluru to host Aero India air show in February

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The Defence Ministry on Saturday announced that the next edition of the biennial Aero India air show would be held here from February 20 to 24, 2019.

“The government has decided to hold the Aero India 2019 in Bengaluru from February 20 to 24, 2019,” said the ministry in a statement from New Delhi.

The five-day event will be held at the Yelahanka base of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on the city’s northern outskirts amid tight security.

“The trade event will showcase technologies and products of global and Indian aerospace and defence firms, with static and flying display of military and civil aircraft, including fighters, jets, helicopters and air weapons.

“Besides global leaders and investors in the aerospace industry, think-tanks from the world over will participate in the show, providing an opportunity to exchange information, ideas and new developments in the industry,” said the statement.

“The air show will also give fillip to the domestic aviation and further the cause of ‘Make in India’. The defence production department is committed to ensure a result-oriented air show,” added the statement.

(IANS)

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