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News BriefChristmas

celebrated in Nagaland

Agency | Kohima

Christmas was celebrat-ed today throughout Nagaland as believers offered prayers for peace and unity in the Naga society. People in new clothes visited friends and relatives, extended greetings, offered cakes and held midnight ser-vices in churches and colonies as the sky lit up with fire crackers burst-ing from midnight. The rural areas too were il-luminated with decora-tions for the festive sea-son to culminate on the New Year.

Gold recovers on scattered

jewellers buying

Three killed in road mishap in

UP

Agency | New Delhi

Snapping the two-day losing streak, gold prices rebounded by Rs 125 to Rs 25,675 per 10 grams at the bullion market today on scat-tered buying by jewel-lers and retailers. Silver also edged higher by Rs 25 to Rs 34,325 per kg on increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers. Traders attributed the recovery in gold prices to some buying by jewellers as well as retailers.

Agency | Bareilly

Three persons were killed and nine others injured when a tempo hit a stationary truck in Fatehganj Paschim area here, police said today. The incident took place last night due to dense fog, when the speeding tempo rammed into the truck parked alongside a road in Fatehganj Pash-chim, killing Bhure (35), Kehmpal (28) and Ikrar (26) on the spot and in-juring nine others, they said. The injured have been rushed to the hos-pital, police said, adding that their condition is said to be stable. All the victims were travelling in the tempo van, they added.

Modi lands in Pakistan on surprise visit, meets Nawaz“Modi stuns with surprise”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Lahore today for a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in a surprise visit to this country--the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years

Kabul to Delhi via Lahore: Modi’s surprise

Sunvilla News | Ahmedabad

Muslims in the city cel-ebrated Eid-e-Milad-un Nabi (Birthday of the Prophet Muhammad) with festivity and fer-vour on Thursday. A ral-ly of devotees took place in various parts of the Walled City in the after-noon. “Groups from var-ious parts of the city con-gregated near Sidi Sayed Mosque as the vehicular traffic was diverted to the peripheral roads. Simi-lar to Tazia procession, thousands participated with ‘Alam Nishaan’ (pole with a star or reli-gious symbol on it) and flags. The community members remember the birth, life and messages

Agency | Abuja

A gas tanker truck ignit-ed an inferno at a crowd-ed industrial gas plant in Nigeria on Thursday, kill-ing more than 100 people lining up to refill their cooking gas cylinders in time for Christmas. The disaster took place in Nnewi, a predominantly Christian community in southeast Nigeria. By the time firefighters managed to put out the blaze, an Associated Press reporter counted the charred re-mains of more than 100 corpses. A witness, Eme-

ka Peters, said the fire broke out at about 11 a.m. when a tanker truck that had finished discharging fresh gas at the Chikason Group Gas plant left with-out waiting to observe the prescribed cooling time. “The fire exploded like a bomb, and the whole gas station went up in thick, black smoke amidst an explosion from cooking gas cylinders,” Peters said. “Many people were killed, and most of them were those that had been in the station queuing all day to get their cyl-

Agency | Vatican City

Pope Francis led the world’s 1.2 billion Ro-man Catholics into Christmas on Thursday, urging those “intoxicat-ed” by possessions and superficial appearances to return to the essential values of life. Celebrat-ing a Christmas eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis, whose nearly three-year-old papacy has been marked by calls for sobriety and compassion for the less fortunate, said Christmas was the time to “once more discover who we are”. He said ev-eryone should allow the simplicity of the child Je-sus, born into poverty in a manger despite his divin-ity, to infuse their spirit and inspire their lives. “In a society so often intoxi-cated by consumerism

Agency | New Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Lahore today for a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in a sur-prise visit to this country–the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years. Nar-endra Modi was received by Nawaz Sharif with a warm hug at the tarmac of Allama Iqbal Internation-al Airport after his unex-pected stopover here on his way back home after a day-long trip today to Af-ghanistan where he went

after concluding a two-day visit to Russia yester-day. Modi was accorded a red carpet welcome as PM’s special IAF Boeing 737 plane made a smooth touchdown at 4.20 local time(4.50 IST). He then took a chopper to proceed to Sharif’s Raiwind pala-tial residence in the out-skirts of Lahore. “Looking forward to meeting PM Nawaz Sharif in Lahore today afternoon, where I will drop by on my way back to Delhi,” tweeted Modi, who was on his first to Pakistan, as he wound up his visit to Afghanistan.

Agency | Kabul

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi on Friday spent some time with ITBP troops deployed to secure the Indian High Commis-sion here in Afghanistan as he lauded their cour-age and dedication by complimenting them with a ‘keep it up’ remark. The armed contingent of paramilitary Indo-Tibet-an Border Police (ITBP) force is stationed to guard the facility and diplomat-ic staff here since 2002. “The Prime Minister re-plied to the greetings of the troops with a ‘keep it up’ remark when he visited the High Com-mission. He clicked pho-

Over 100 killed in gas tanker truck fire in Nigeria

Keep it up: PM Narendra Modi tells ITBP squad at Kabul Embassy in Afghanistan

inders refilled.” He said the fire raged for hours. Peters, 36, said most of the corpses and the few badly injured victims were evacuated to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Univer-sity Teaching Hospital in

Nnewi. “Many of them were burned beyond rec-ognition, and I doubt if many family members of the dead victims would be able to identify the remains of their loved ones”, said Peter.

tographs with the con-tingent in the presence of Indian Ambassador Amar Sinha,” a senior force official in Delhi said. The troops were donning their patchy and cloudy camouflage com-bat uniform when they met Modi, who was in Afghanistan on way from Russia for a brief visit as he inaugurated the new Parliament complex of the country besides oth-er official engagements.

Apart from the main In-dian High Commission complex here, the ITBP also guards India’s four consulates in Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kanda-har and Herat. The force has about 300 comman-dos (both men and wom-en) stationed at these five locations keeping in mind the threat emanating from terror groups like al Qae-da to Indian assets and people working in the Mission.

Yuletide spirit joins Eid-e-Milad fervourof the Prophet and sang ‘Nasheed’ in his praise,” said Aslam Qureshi, a resident of Shahpur. For many organizations, the day, Christmas-Eve, be-came an occasion to reach out to various sections of life by playing Santa Claus. “Our teams visited several government hos-pitals on Thursday don-ning Santa costumes and distributed gifts, sweets and fruits to patients -es-pecially children,” said an EMRI official. A few NGOs also reached out

to slum areas and played Santa. The churches in the city geared up to hold Christmas service at mid-night as the Christians indulged in festivities by setting up scenes of nativ-

ity, decorating Christmas Tree and preparing cakes. People also indulged in the last-minute shopping as many retail outlets wel-comed the festivities with elaborate decorations.

Pope, on Christmas, urges return to essential values of life

and hedonism, wealth and extravagance, ap-pearances and narcissism, this Child calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, ca-pable of seeing and doing what is essential,” he said in his homily. The service for about 10,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica started with a long chant in Lat-in, known as the Kalenda, the traditional proclama-tion of the birth of Jesus. The great bells of St. Pe-ter’s then rang out and

the pope, dressed in white vestments, kissed a statue of the infant Jesus to start the solemn Mass. Securi-ty was tighter than normal for Christmas, with many police carrying out spot checks in the Vatican area. Everyone who entered the basilica, the largest church in Christendom, went through metal detec-tors. The 79-year-old Ar-gentine pope encapsulated in his homily some of the key themes of his papacy: mercy, compassion, em-pathy and justice.

“Spoke to PM Nawaz Sharif & wished him on his birthday,” Modi added in another tweet. Sharif turned 66 today. The vis-it came more than two weeks after Modi and

Sharif had an unscheduled meeting at climate change talks in Paris. The agen-da of the meeting is not known but the two lead-ers are expected to dis-cuss major issues which have rocked ties between the two countries. The relations between India and Pakistan have wit-nessed some positive de-velopments after chill for

several months. The two countries recently decided to launch a comprehen-sive dialogue after Mo-di-Sharif meet in Paris. “That’s like a statesman,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted about the surprise visit by Modi. “One should have such relations with the neighbours,” she added. The last visit to Pakistan by an Indian prime min-

ister was in 2004 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose 91st birthday fell today and who is credited with bringing about a thaw in relations with Islamabad. Pakistani authorities put security on high alert in Lahore especially around the airport area follow-ing the announcement of Modi’s brief visit to the eastern city. A heavy contingent of police and

Pakistan Rangers have reached the Allama Iqbal International Airport and taken charge of the securi-ty. “Security in Lahore has been put on high alert,” a senior police official said. He said police have also been deployed on the ad-joining areas of the air-port. A PM House spokes-man here said the Indian premier would stay in La-hore for about two hours.A PML-N source told that Sharif had invited Modi to attend the marriage of his granddaughter Mehrun Nisa which is taking place today at the Sharif’s Rai-wind palatial residence. “I cannot confirm but there are chances that Modi goes to Raiwind and holds meeting with PM Sharif at his residence,” he said.

www.sunvillasamachar.com Ahmedabad2 / Dt. 26-12-2015, Saturday

- Kapilkumar M. HirparaEditor

Editors’ Picks

SATuRDAy, DECEMBER 26, 2015

QUOTE OF THE

DAYold is new friends: India-Russia ties need special nurturing

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Pres-ident Vladimir Putin, the 16th in the series of annu-al summits between India and Russia, is arguably of greater geopolitical significance than any before it. Though the public takeaways from this summit have to do with defence and economic cooperation, the most important conversations will have taken place behind closed doors. The region is unsettled as never before, holding out threats to both countries. The rise of the Is-lamic State has empowered jihadists who threaten Rus-sia, leading it to intervene in Syria; India, for its part, knows that the grim forces that have risen in West Asia could imperil its energy security and remittance rev-enues. The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, too, has caused great concern in both Moscow and New Delhi, raising as it does the prospect of a new jihad-ist-ruled space in the centre of Asia. India and Russia don’t see eye-to-eye on all these issues. In Afghanistan, for example, Russia has been seeking an alliance with the Taliban and Pakistan to hold back the Islamic State; India sees both as the source of the problem. The two leaders will have walked away with a clearer under-standing of their positions after Thursday’s one-on-one meeting, but building a common platform will need fo-cused work. Part of the problem has been that Delhi’s single-minded pursuit of its strategic relationship with the United States has led Moscow to reappraise the value of the bilateral relationship. Delhi has responded with a slew of military deals, notably the co-manufac-ture of Kamov 226 helicopters and the purchase of the S-400 Triumf air-defence system. Agreements are due to be finalised for work on new reactors at the Kun-dankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. The two countries have also committed to raising bilateral trade from $10 billion a year to $30 billion inside a decade. Energy-hungry India is, in particular, seeking greater access to Russia’s hydrocarbon resources. It will take more than defence or power deals, though, to give the India-Russia relationship the depth and significance it ought to have. Though India’s relationship with the US is of enormous strategic significance, so too is its rela-tionship with key powers like Russia. The central fact of American power is Washington’s growing unwill-ingness to risk the lives of its soldiers in distant wars, the consequence of a public that has tired of interna-tional commitments. Long considered a marginal actor, Russia has shown that it can, and will, step up to the plate in Asia. In future, India will need a variety of re-gional and big-power partners to pursue its interests in a complex world. Russia will, without doubt, be among the most important of them.

“I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective national identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live,”

- More than eight years after former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of his dream, who was born in the village of Gah, now part of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Rangoon first look: Shahid Kapoor makes for the ideal fauji!

Health Ministry launches programme to reduce anaemia among adolescents

Sadhana, Bollywood star and style icon, passes away at 74

Zarine Khan finally feels “famous” in Bollywood

Biopic on Sanjay Dutt likely to release in Christmas 2017

Agency | Hyderabad

Veteran film music com-poser Bappi Lahiri today (December 24) said he wants to make the sequels to his acclaimed short film “Slum Stars” to encourage slum children. “Children of slums don’t get oppor-tunity and encouragement. I wanted to encourage children of slums. ‘Slum Stars-2’ would be done in Kolkata, and ‘Slum Stars-3’ would be done in Hyderabad. The sequels would be made simulta-neously and released next year,” Bappi said here on the sidelines of an event. “Mother Teresa once told me (that) you should do

something for poor chil-dren in every part of India. They have got talent but they have got no support. I have composed songs for 645 films. My ambition is different now. I am do-ing second part (of ‘Slum Stars’) in Bengal and third part in Hyderabad. I would take good singers (for the upcoming films), who have not got any chance,” he said. “‘Slum Stars’ has won five awards. The film has gone for submission in Grammy. Nomination or winning award is nothing. But (what) I have done for the slum boys, this is the important thing,” the Dis-co King said.

Agency | Mumbai

Actress Zarine Khan says after spending five years in the film industry, she finally feels “famous”. The actress was appreci-ated for her performance in her latest film “Hate Story 3”, and feels ev-erybody is now talking about her. “The reaction to ‘Hate Story 3’ has been very surprising. Every-body knew about the film and everybody is talking about it. Finally, after be-ing for so many years in the industry, I have to say I feel famous now,” Za-rine said. Zarine made her debut opposite Salman Khan in the 2010 drama “Veer”. She followed it up with films like “Housefull 2” and some Tamil mov-ies. When asked if she has got her due as an actress, Zarine said, “Somewhere I do. People have called

Bappi Lahiri working on ‘Slum Stars’ sequels

Airlift has a belly-dance item number

Agency | New Delhi

Sadana, the actor who reigned over Bollywood as its style icon for many years, passed away in Mumbai on December 25 after a brief illness. The exact nature of her illness is yet to be ascertained. The veteran actress was 74 when she breathed her last at a Mumbai hospital. The yesteryear’s beauty, who enthralled masses with her graceful perfor-mances in Hindi films in the 60s and 70s, had retired from public life long back. The actress only kept in touch with her old pals like Asha Parekh, Helen and Wa-heeda Rahman. Sadhna was known for films like

Agency | New Delhi

Filmmaker Rajkumar Hi-rani’s upcoming biopic on actor Sanjay Dutt is likely to release during the festive season in 2017. Hirani’s debut film “Munnabhai MBBS” was released on December 19, 2003, while his last two blockbusters, 2009 comedy “3 Idiots” and last year’s “PK” were re-leased on December 25 and December 19, respec-tively. When asked if the biopic will follow the suit and release during Christ-mas, Hirani said, “We will begin shooting mid next year, roughly around June. So yeah, (the film will release) roughly around that time only. It will take that much time, one-one and a half years, so yes.” The biopic stars actor Ranbir Kapoor in the titular role and will touch upon every aspect of Dutt’s life - from the

Agency | New Delhi

From its nail-biting teaser, Ak-shay Kumar starrer ‘Airlift’ rules out any possibility of including a dance number. But the mak-ers have incorporated an inter-esting belly dance number that comes at a very crucial point in the film. “The movie revolves around Iraq’s attack on Kuwait that happened in August 1990. We wanted the change in the pro-tagonist Ranjit Katyal’s (Akshay) life to hit the audience harder. On the night of the attack, Ranjit is shown enjoying at a party. In a matter of a day his successful life

Agency | New Delhi

The Health Ministry of-ficially launched a pro-gramme on Wednesday to cut down on anaemia levels among the large adolescent population in the country. Anaemia is a medical condition in which a person suffers from lack of red blood cells/haemoglobin in his/her blood levels, result-

ing in fatigue, impaired physical growth and weariness. The condition occurs due to deficiency of iron. Government data show that at least 56 per cent of girls and 30 per cent of boys in the age group of 15-19 years in India are anaemic, with a large percentage suf-fering from moderate to severe anaemia. Under the programme titled

‘Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation’ (WIFS), adolescent chil-dren, who go to govern-ment or aided school as well as those who have dropped out, will be ad-ministered a tablet once a week for 13 months. Counselling and a prop-er information campaign will also be conducted to ensure timely implemen-tation of the programme.

Agency | Mumbai

Shahid Kapoor has been caught in the act! The actor was caught in ac-tion at the helipad in Film City, shooting for an in-tegral scene for his next film- Rangoon. The ac-tor looked every inch the army officer he plays in Vishal Bhardwaj’s film. Rangoon, a Casablanca style love story set during World War II is a Sajid Na-diadwala production and also features Saif Ali Khan and Kangana Ranaut. Sha-hid experimented with two looks-sporting a thick beard in one and minus a moustache in another -be-

Love in Simla, Parakh, Hum Dono, Waqt, Woh Kaun Thi. She was mar-ried to Love in Simla di-rector Ramkrishna Nay-yar who passed away in 1995. Sadhna didn’t have

any children. The actress who famously introduced the fringe hairstyle also known as Sadhna cut. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by IIFA in 2002.

fore going ahead with this one. But it was this look that everyone seemed to have liked more and hence Shahid decided to keep this as his look for the film. He’s been train-

ing hard in the gym for the taut body of an army jawan, giving up on carbs and even cigarettes to `look’ the part. And the efforts seem to have paid off. Salute to the fauji!

age of 17 till present. The 53-year-old filmmaker says he has finished the first draft of the movie and is “waiting to prog-ress” with it. Ranbir will beef up to essay the role of Dutt but Hirani says they have not decided just how much weight the “Tamasha” actor will gain. “We haven’t start-ed work in terms of all

that. We are right now at the scripting stage. Once we get into production then all those details will come in.” Dutt, 56, is lodged at the Yerwada prison in Pune where he is serving the five-year sentence for possession of illegal arms and am-munition in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.

is blown to pieces.” ‘Airlift’ is scheduled

to release on January 22.

me and complimented me, appreciated my per-formance. Something which has never hap-pened with any of my previous films.” Zarine is content with her career so far and feels she has come a long way despite being an outsider. “I feel content with my career.

When I look at the jour-ney so far, from my point of view, it is wonderful. I had no idea how the in-dustry works, how will my journey pan out. I was an outsider with no con-nection, and yet I have made it so far and that is a very good feeling,” she added.

www.sunvillasamachar.com Ahmedabad3 / Dt. 26-12-2015, Saturday

SPORTS ROUNDUPGovernment scraps minimum export price on onions to boost exports

Google’s Christmas doodle has paper dolls you can play with

Airtel, Idea, Reliance Jio Against Auction of 700MHz Band for Now

Agency | New Delhi

The Government of India on Thursday scrapped the minimum export price (MEP) on onions in a move to encourage out-bound shipments of the commodity. “All varieties of onions... can be ex-ported without any MEP,” Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification.MEP is the rate below which no trader is allowed to export.The rise in MEP restricts exports and im-proves domestic supply. In August, the Govern-ment had hiked minimum export price of onion to $700 (approximately Rs 46,347) per tonne from $425 (approximately Rs 28,139.25) a tonne, as prices at both wholesale and retail levels skyrock-

eted on lower output due to unseasonal rains.

Agency | New Delhi

In the festive spirit, Google has chosen to make its new doodle a collection of paper dolls and houses which you can actually play with. Take a printout of the page and viola! The company launched the doodle on December 23, just in time for the fes-tival season. Artist Robinson Wood has created several festive characters and items that were in-spired by papercraft models and cut-outs to appear in North and South America, Oceania and certain parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Though, it var-ies from region to region. Today’s Google Doo-dle, which is constantly changing every time you browse Google, takes you to the search results for “‘Tis the Season”, a Christmas album by Ameri-can singer Vince Gill and Australian singer Oliv-ia Newton-John, released in the 2000. It’s not just for Christmas that Google is spreading the festive spirit, recently it decorated its search result pages for Hannukah (Jewish festival) and Kwanzaa (Af-

rican- American festival).

Agency | New Delhi

Leading telecom operators like Airtel and Idea have asked regulator Trai not to auction the premi-um 700 MHz band until enough devices are avail-able for services that are to be provided through it. Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, which is yet to launch its 4G services, has also suggested two-year evaluation of the ecosystem before radiowaves in this band are auctioned. “It will be prudent to not auction the spectrum in 700 MHz band now. A rec-ommended approach would be to do an ecosystem evaluation in two years’ time and plan the auctions accordingly,” Reliance Jio Infocomm said in reply to Trai’s consultation paper on value of spectrum for the next round of spectrum auction. As per a paper of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of In-dia, the cost of delivering mobile services in 700 MHz band is approximately 70 percent cheaper than 2100 MHz band. Telecom major Bharti Air-tel said: “Any immediate auction of the spectrum in 700 MHz band will lead to underutilisation of the spectrum for several years and block industry’s fund” and therefore it should be auctioned “only after development of a strong device ecosystem”.

South Africa v England too close to call, says Kevin Pietersen

Injury-hit New Zealand likely to hand Henry Nicholls ODI debut

Ravi Shastri reveals reasons behind Ashish Nehra’s selection

SAFF Cup: India wary of Sri Lanka’s counter attack

2014 World T20 final failure was always at back of my mind: Yuvraj Singh

Parupalli Kashyap hopes for PBL opener against Kidambi Srikanth

Agency | Mumbai

Reigning Common-wealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap is ea-ger to take on friend and rival Kidambi Srikanth in his opening match of the Premier Badmin-ton League (PBL) that takes flight in Mumbai on January 2. Kashyap, who will play for the Hyderabad Hunters, will likely face Bengaluru Top Guns’ Srikanth on January 3 in a contest between the two sides. “I am awaiting my first match and hoping that it will be a clash against Srikanth. If we play against each other it will

Agency | London

The Test series between South Africa and England which starts in Durban on Saturday is “too close to call” according to former England skipper Kevin Pietersen. South Africa’s recent 3-0 series defeat in India has depleted confi-dence in the national side, and Pietersen believes En-gland can exploit it. “Not

that long ago I feared we would lose easily. But now it is too close to call. The two teams mirror each other,” Pietersen said in his column in the Dai-ly Telegraph. Pietersen said that both sides must address the fragility in their batting orders, with England too dependent on captain Alastair Cook and Joe Root and the

Agency | New Delhi

Yuvraj Singh’s dreadful innings of 11 in 21 balls in the World T20 final in Mirpur led to his ex-clusion and the stylish left-hander admits that it ‘always remained’ at the back of his mind during past year and half. Back in the T20 squad for the tour of Australia, Yuvraj is confident that he would be again able to redeem his international career. “I

didn’t end it well in 2014. I had a bad run in the final, and that was always at the back of my mind. I had to really work on my fit-ness, fielding and batting. I have done that in the last year and a half, and hope-fully the results will show in the coming seasons,” Yuvraj said on Thursday. For him, the entire focus is on getting selected for the World T20 at home, next year. “We won the tour-nament in 2007 and we

Agency | Napier

Any nerves that bats-man Henry Nicholls may have as he waits to see if he will make his in-ternational debut against Sri Lanka should be dis-pelled by the fact he will be in familiar surround-ings. The 24-year-old Canterbury left-hander is in line to make his in-ternational debut at Hag-ley Oval in either of the first two games of the five match one-day series as the team ponder how to juggle the side with-

out injured all-rounders Corey Anderson, James Neesham and Grant El-liott. Top batsman Kane Williamson is also a doubt due to a knee in-jury for the first match on Saturday. William-son scored 108 not out to lead New Zealand to a five-wicket victory in the second Test in Ham-ilton earlier this week but was limping badly during his innings with a heavily strapped right knee. “We’re just work-ing through that knee. It’s just a little bit niggly so

we want to make sure it’s a hundred per cent,” New Zealand batting coach Craig McMillan told Fair-fax Media while adding that Test batsman Tom Latham was on standby for the squad. “We’ll see how he feels. We need to get it right, if a little bit of a break will help it that’s something we’ll consid-er.” Should Williamson be ruled out, Nicholls could be a ready-made replacement for the num-ber three batsman, having scored heavily at Hagley Oval in domestic cricket.

Agency | New Delhi

Team India director Ravi Shastri on Thursday dis-closed the rationale be-hind recalling Ashish Nehra to the T20 side for the upcoming Aus-tralian tour. Veterans Yu-vraj and Nehra were the surprise picks in India’s T20 side. With the ICC World Cup T20 to fol-low after the tour Down Under, the experience of the duo is being looked at to strengthen the team. “Both Yuvraj and Nehra have been rewarded for hard work, for the hours put in by them,” Shas-tri told The Telegraph. “Both are experienced and T20 is such a short format that there’s little time to think... Experi-ence comes into play in a big way. Experience is

be an exciting game, giv-ing the in-stadia crowd as well as the viewers an exhilarating game of badminton,” said Kashy-ap. “Also With Lee Chong Wei in our team, we look a formidable line-up and we are all set to give a tough time to the opponents.” PBL will

see its six franchisees -- Delhi Acers, Hyderabad Hunters, Bengaluru Top Guns, Chennai Smash-ers, Mumbai Rockets and Awadhe Warriors -- compete to take the tro-phy on January 17. The opening day will witness Awadhe Warriors take on Mumbai Rockets.

hosts relying on Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers. “South Africa will rely on two big fish in Amla and AB de Villiers. The rest of the batters have much to prove,” Pietersen said. “But it is the same for En-gland. “Their big fish are Cook and Joe Root. Nick Compton is back in the side trying to rebuild a career, Alex Hales is un-tried in Test cricket and James Taylor has never played in such bouncy, quick conditions.” South Africa-born Pietersen said another series defeat would pose difficult ques-tions about South African cricket which, like other sports, have adopted quo-ta systems for non-white players.

a massive plus and I’d probably turn to Nehra if 15 balls remained and the opposition required just 20 runs. In such situ-ations, experience comes to the fore. That makes a big difference,” he further added. Of late, the Indi-ans have not performed well in the T20 format. From losing against Zim-

babwe to the series de-feat against South Africa, winners of the inaugu-ral T20 World Cup have gone off the boil in the shortest version of the game. Nehra was impres-sive in the IPL earlier this year and a good show in Australia could earn him a place in the World Cup squad as well.

Agency | Thiruvanantha-puram

India head coach Ste-phen Constantine is wary of the fact that Sri Lanka can hit them on the count-er attack when the two outfits meet in a South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Cup tie on Friday. Constantine spoke of the opponent’s strength and said there would not be any easy games for India in the tournament at the Trivandrum Internation-

al Stadium. “They play a defensive formation and will hit us on the counter attacks. They have some decent players and work extremely hard,” the Brit-ish tactician said. “There are no easy games for us -- in fact, against anybody. I expect Sri Lanka to give everything they have. We have to be patient and see what happens.” Con-stantine also said he is rebuilding the squad with young players and that it

really enjoyed every bit of it. The whole country was thrilled for us. If we can repeat that somehow, after the 2011 World Cup, it would be a huge victo-ry for the guys,” Yuvraj said. The hero of India’s 2007 and 2011 world title triumph said that for any top international player, it is difficult to motivate themselves while playing domestic cricket but that’s the only way out. “Yes, you want to play the game till you enjoy it, wheth-er you are playing at the domestic or international level. It is hard to motivate yourself to play domestic cricket but you also have to realise that it is the only way back. That was my motivation key to do well at that level having an eye on the prize.”

will take some time be-fore they can give results. “When I took over I had to make a choice -- either to continue with the tried and tested whose average age was around 30, or to rebuild the squad. I opt-ed for the second despite being aware that it won’t deliver you immediate results,” he said. There are a list of injury con-cerns for Constantine and he added playing them would mean that they would aggravate it more. “We have lost Sandesh (Jhingan who’s also an Under-23 Player), (Cav-in) Lobo and Seityasen Singh. Anas (Edathodi-ka) pulled a hamstring and we had to release him too. Besides, there are a number of guys whom we need to be careful with,” Constantine stated.

www.sunvillasamachar.com Ahmedabad4 / Dt. 26-12-2015, Saturday

Correspondent | Surat

District court of Surat has given a unique pun-ishment to those caught drunk by Amroli and Katargam police. When 11 drunkards were pro-duced in district court by police, the judge asked them to clean the New

Civil hospital and other government hospitals on December 25. A letter in this regard was sent to Resident Medical Offi-cer(RMC) of New Civil hospital instructing him that he should assign cleaning task to accused who were caught for drinking by police.

Correspondent | Lothal

It was Thursday, a just another weekday, but Lo-thal museum was busy with footfalls of dozens of tourists. Bus loads of vis-itors from various parts of Gujarat, India and abroad were seen curiously view-ing the showcased objects here. It was nice to see a Japanese group of tour-ists, arrived with a profes-sional Japanese speaking guide. But a glass show-case meant to feature copper and bronze items discovered during Lothal excavation is complete-ly empty! Labels were still there intact inside the glass showcase, but items like beads, blade axe, spearhead, needles, spear, arrow heads, blades, nails, fish hooks etc were not there in display. Visitors are told by ASI employees on duty that this partic-

Sunvilla News | Ahmedabad

Around 98% students who’d appeared for se-mester III of Class XII science stream cleared the board exams. Of the near-ly 1.33 lakh students in A group (Physics, Chemis-try and Mathematics) and B group (Physics, Chem-istry and Biology), only 2,681 students failed. The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Edu-cation Board, on Thurs-day, declared the results. Board officials said that of the 1.33 lakh students who appeared for the ex-amination, 3,542 scored over 90 per cent marks, while 11,525 students scored over 80 percent. Officials said many stu-dents scored 100 out of 100 in subject papers — 1,554 students in Chemis-try, 1,514 in Physics and 1080 students in Mathe-

matics. The pass out per-centage of English-medi-um students was 98.88%, while it was 98.23 percent for Gujarati-medium stu-dents, said officials. Out of 9631 students who ap-peared from Ahmedabad city, the 99.11 percent cleared their exams and only 80 students failed. Of the 6024 students from Ahmedabad rural, only 41 failed. Surat district had the maximum, 885, stu-dents scoring over 90% marks, followed by Ra-jkot (593), Vadodara (255) and Ahmedabad (235). Officials said that of the 69,532 students who ap-peared in A group 1,836 students got A1 grade, while 6,418 students got A2 grade. Similarly, in B group, of the 63,727 ex-aminees, 1,704 students got A1 grade, while 5,100 students got A2 grade.

Sunvilla News | Ahmedabad

Cellphone services are yet to reach 1,275 villag-es in Gujarat, according to the Union Ministry of Communication and Information Technolo-gy. In a statement in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informed the House that there are over 55,669 villages in the country which have no telecom service. Of these, the most are in Odisha (10,389 villages), Jharkhand (5,949) and Madhya Pradesh (5,926). The minister’s statement also showed that funds were not allocated or spent during 2014-15 and 2015-16 (till Octo-ber) for the expansion of telecom services in Gu-jarat under the Univer-

Sunvilla News | Gandhinagar

Vice-Chancellor of the only Sanskrit University in Gujarat Prof Ark Nath Chaudhary, who was listed among the main speakers, did not turn up at the first state-wide ‘Sanskrit Adhiveshan’ organised by Samskrita Bharati, an organisation supported by the Rashtri-ya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Among other key speakers were IPS officer P P Pandey, currently on bail in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, and Gu-jarat Sahitya Academy president Bhagyesh Jha. Rural development com-missioner Jayanti Ravi replaced Prof Chaud-hary at the eleventh hour of the event on Thurs-day. On the absence of Prof Chaudhary, Krish-na Prasad Nirola, state

Sunvilla News | Ahmedabad

A few days after Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) received minority share-holders’ approval for handing over the Guja-rat plant to the parent company, Suzuki Mo-tor Corporation (SMC), the Gujarat government reworked the ‘state sup-port agreement’ (SSA) in favour of the SMC. All benefits offered to MSIL have now been extended to Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Limited (SMG-PL) which is implement-ing the project at Hansal-pur. The Gujarat cabinet had given in-principle approval to the compa-ny’s proposal for allow-ing SMGPL to set up the Hansalpur plant on the same terms and con-ditions as fixed in the agreement under ‘Mega Project’ policy. Howev-er, unlike other benefits, MSIL will not be able to transfer Hansalpur land

year : 02, Issue : 02 “Sunvilla Samachar” (English) Daily Morning Newspaper Printed at “Sunvilla Samachar(Daily) Printing Press”, Survey No.: 1624-25-26, Final Plot No.F/P/537, urmila Compound, Opp.Ambica Estate, G.D. School Road, Saijpur Bogha, Ahmedabad -382340 and Published at A-24, Shardha Apartment, Thakkarbapanagar Road, Bapunagar, Ahmedabad-382350. Mo.: 9687612324, by Owner, Printer, Publisher : Aksheshkumar S. Savaliya on date 26-12-2015 (Saturday), Editor : Kapilkumar M. Hirpara* (*Responsible for selection of News under the PRB act). RNI No. : GuJENG/2014/59629

No network for mobile users in 1,275 Gujarat villages: Centre

Sanskrit varsity V-C skips first Sanskrit Adhiveshan

Correspondent | New Delhi

Fencing work on In-dia-Pakistan border in Gujarat/Sindh sector of Rann of Kutch will be completed in next 36 months as per Minister of State, Home Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju. Fenc-ing work will take place only in feasible areas de-pending on the climatic conditions in the Rann of Kutch. Rijiju said, “the Government has sanc-tioned barbed wire fenc-ing of 2071.42 km along the Indo-Pakistan bor-der. Out of this, fencing of 1986.98 km has been completed and balance is in progress. The balance work in the State of Gu-jarat may take about 36 months for completion

A unique punishment by court to 11, caught for drinking in Gujarat

Border fencing work in Rann of Kutch to be completed in next 3 years

Make in India: Two top GoI officials on Gujarat visit on Saturday

Gujarat government extends Maruti benefits to parent firm Copper and bronze items withdrawn

from display at Lothal museum

to SMGPL. Industries commissioner Mam-ta Verma said the state cabinet had approved he company’s proposal to change its name as a part of he company’s internal arrangement. “As there is no change in the invest-ment plan, the incentives offered o the company remain the same,” said Verma. The new com-pany has been offered 100% exemption on VAT up to a maximum of 15 years — this is equivalent to its total in vestment in the state. Moreover, in-frastructure development cost will be covered un-

der various other govern-ment schemes. The state government has given 670 acre land at around Rs 643 per sq m. In June 2012, the MSIL had sig ned SSA with Gujarat government for purchase of land near Hansalpur to set up an all new manu-facturing facility. Chief financial officer, MSIL, Ajay Seth, said all bene-fits given to MSIL under the SSA have been trans-ferred to SMGPL and Gujarat Government has approved it. “No land has been transferred. Land will be leased to SMG-PL,” said Sheth.

• In a statement in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the Telecom Minister informed the House that there are over 55,669 villages in the country which have no telecom service.

sal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) — fund earmarked to to provide quality information and communication technol-ogy services at afford-able prices to people in rural and remote areas. In 2012-13 and 2013-14, Rs 1.51 crore and Rs 0.20 crore, respectively, were allocated to Gujarat for USOF schemes. “Since

the demand of telecom services is price sensi-tive, the level of teleden-sity is also determined by the purchasing ability of consumers. The increase in rural teledensity has gathered momentum in recent times, but the wide gap between rural and urban teledensity can be explained by the difference in purchasing

power of rural and ur-ban consumers,” Prasad stated. The purchasing power of an agricultural household in rural Gu-jarat, which has 17,843 villages, also appeared to be low. According to the situation assessment survey of agricultural households conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the average monthly in-come of an agricultur-al household in Gujarat during 2012-13 was Rs 7,926, and the monthly consumption expenditure was Rs 7,672. In Gujarat, the rural teledensity is about 62 percent (Sep-tember 2015).

chairman of Samskrita Bharati, said, “He was to attend the event, but could not as his wife was unwell. So at the last minute, we invit-ed Jayanti Ravi and she obliged.” When contact-ed, Prof Chaudhary said, “My wife’s health did not permit me to attend the event in Gandhinagar.” “I won’t be able to reach on the day two even,” he added, when asked if he

would attend on the last day of the event where Governor O P Kohli is scheduled to be the chief guest. The Somnath San-skrit University was es-tablished by the Gujarat government through an Act of the Legislative Assembly, passed on April 12, 2005. It was one of the among sev-eral special universities established by the then chief minister Narendra

Modi. Samskrita Bhara-ti was also actively in-volved in the inception of the Sanskrit Universi-ty. From a total of 116 in its first academic session in 2006-07 to over 260 students at present reg-istered on the campus, the university has given affiliation to 35 colleges across Gujarat. Keep-ing with the theme, all the special invitees ad-dressed the gathering of over 500 Sanskrit schol-ars, experts and follow-ers of the language from across the state. “San-skrit is being promoted and used today but if we use the language in every walk of life, the situation will be much better than this,” said Bhagyesh Jha.

Sunvilla News | Gandhinagar

Two top officers of Gov-ernment of India will be visiting Gujarat ahead of the ‘Make in India week’ event. Secretary Depart-ment of Industrial Policy and Promotion Shri Ami-tabh Kant (IAS) and Joint Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Smt Kalpa-na Awasthi(IAS) will be

in Gujarat on Saturday in connection with up-coming ‘Make in India’ week event of central government. Apart from their other engagements they are also scheduled to interact with media persons. Make In India is a major national ini-tiative, designed to facil-itate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill

development, protect in-tellectual property and build best-in-class man-ufacturing infrastructure. Make In India week is a flagship event that is aimed at propelling the Indian economy by forg-ing enormous global en-gagement with Indian industry in the form of partnership and invest-ment.

in feasible areas depend-ing on the climatic condi-tions.” On Indo-Myanmar border he said, “the fenc-ing along the Indo-Myan-mar border bas been sanc-tioned only in the State of Manipur for a stretch of 10.00 km, out of which about 4.00 km of work has been completed. The fencing work has been stopped due to the protest from the Government of Manipur and local pop-ulace.” On Indo-Bangla-

desh border Rijiju said, “the Government has sanctioned barbed wire fencing of 3326.14 km along the Indo-Bangla-desh border. Out of this, 2708.77 km of fencing has been completed. The target for completion of the project is by March, 2019.”

ular showcase received rain water due to leakage from walls inside the mu-seum last monsoon. The items in exhibition in this showcase are there-fore withdrawn. Now the fact is, monsoon has departed long ago and winter has started, but the items are not brought back to display, neither any repair has been start-ed to fix the water leak-age issue which it seems is limited to at least two showcase areas. Visitors when inquire are told that one more showcase where conch and shell

made items recovered from Lothal excavation site are kept for display also received leakage due to rain. While the items are still in display, the background clearly shows rain water effect. While showcased items are amazing and the mu-seum offers even better experience than the actu-al excavation site located next to it, the architecture and structure of the years old museum building is not up-to-the-mark. It has to be better, especially when it comes to safety of objects displayed.

Gujarat Class XII science results: 3,542 score over 90%