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Letter from the Editor World’s Largest Democracy Set to Become the Largest Economy

s a part of the broad set of nation-building initiatives, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had on September 2014 sown the seeds of ‘Make in India’. The core objective was to transform the country into a manufacturing hub concerning global perspective. Since the global economic slowdown had marred India’s growth till the end of 2013, the growth rate had deteriorated to its lowest level, breaking the record of a decade. As such, the Make in India initiative was started against the backdrop of the prevailing crisis. This initiative however rapidly turned into a rallying cry for the Country’s numerous stakeholders and partners. On the other hands, it was termed as a powerful, galvanizing call of action to India’s citizens and business leaders, apart from being considered as an invitation to the potential partners and investors across the world. Entire process transparently followed Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s principle of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. To start a movement, all private industry partners adopted fresh and multi-faceted strategies to inspire, empower and enable themselves. Initially, it needed a different kind of campaign to enrich the credibility and make their activities more credible. Meanwhile, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) chalked out its plan and worked in association with specialized agencies to build a brand new infrastructure like: a dedicated help desk, mobile App and a mobile-first website. The authorities though developed a brochure of 25 sectors that comprised relevant facts and information about the Make in India initiative, specific plan and policies, different industries and companies and required contact details of the businessmen or the concerned government officials.

Available data reveals that electronic goods industry is one of the fastest growing industries and is expected to achieve a growth of worth Rs 27,95,600 crore by 2020. In a view to promote higher exports of electronics and drive more massive investments by setting up port-based electronic manufacturing clusters, Government is working on an exportoriented policy for Electronic products. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had in October 2018 released a draft of India’s National Policy on Electronics. It was built on layers of a collaborative effort as the concerned department, initiated this process by inviting participation from Union Ministers, senior officials of the Government of India and state governments, the industry leaders and knowledge partners. After several creative steps it was anticipated that the manufacturing sector would contribute about 25% of the GDP by 2020. Outdated frameworks were replaced with upgraded systems making them more user-friendly and transparent. Unprecedented openings in various key sectors like: railways, defense, insurance and medical devices, apart from the higher level of FDI are the most striking indicator of progress. Meanwhile, the union ministry, in association with the World Bank, started identifying the core areas of improvement in the line of the World Bank’s ‘doing businesses’. At present the Country ’s credibility is stronger than ever and the days are not so far when the world’s largest democracy will turn as the world’s largest economy.

Till September 2019, the country’s manufacturing PMI stood at 51.40. finding multiple growth in different sectors, the companies started to spend more on hiring and up-skilling human forces.

Hariom Tyagi Editor-in-Chief

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February 2020

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BRIEFING 09 12 14

BUSINESS NEWS

COVER STORY

INTERNATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT

IN-DEPTH

Financial Literacy Sessions to Promote Angikaar Campaign

Int’l Biz.

UNION BUDGET 2020

E-commerce Industry of India Remains Growing

Union Budget 2020-21

NASA

29 6

NASA to Explore Active, Complex World of Solar System

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

DEFENCE Air Chief Marshal Interacts NCC’s RD Cadets in New Delhi

MAKE IN INDIA

ECO- TOURISM

Startup India: India jumped 29 places in the list of countries promoting selfemployment

Wing Guest Add Values to Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hot Tourists, Picnic Spots

BIZ. EVENTS

68 55

Farm Sector Growth Likely to Reach 3.1% during FY 2020: Professor Chand

EXCELUSIVE STORIES Ensuring Insurance to Smokers is Not Less Than an Irony!!

SPECIAL REPORT

th SURAJKUND

INTERNATIONAL CRAFTS MELA

February 2020

Carnival Making A Style Statement

OBSERVER DAWN

KW DELHI 6

ULTIMATE DESTINATION FOR INVESTMENT

ndia’s one of the leading real estate companies, KW Group is again in news for its quality projects and timely possession to the valuable buyers. After receiving large media coverage by renowned media groups, the recent development has now been covered by the India’s well-known business channel, Zee Business, on February 11, 2020. Here, the Zee Business correspondent has termed this business terminus (KW Delhi 6) as an ‘Ultimate Investment Destination’ for the investors that grab the opportunity for passive income as well. Besides, creative and incessant efforts of the KW Group, portions of credit go to the recently constructed ‘Hindon Elevated Road’, which connects Delhi – Noida to Meerut via Raj Nagar Extension, has played a pivotal role in its significant development over the past few years. The elevated road has actually drawn the attention of masses and turned the entire localities as a hub of residential as well as the commercial complexes. The KW Group’s much sought-after project, Delhi 6, at Raj Nagar Extension in Ghaziabad of Uttar Pradesh, has gradually turned to be an ultimate destination for investment. Significant features of this high-quality destination comprise commercial and residential complexes, apart from Banquet Hall, large playgrounds, swimming pool and various other facilities for all age groups, with special focus on kids. Besides, Delhi 6, the KW Group’s other renowned destinations for investment includes: KW Srishti, KW BluePearl and Rajnagar extension. Situated at Rajnagar

By Pravin Kumar Mishra

Major Highlights by Zee Business • This Magnificent Project is being managed and Governed by India’s leading Real Estate Giant, KW Group, at Raj Nagar Extension, Ghaziabad • With an attention-grabbing location, possibilities of high return cannot be ruled out from any investment in Delhi 6 • Construction of Elevated Road via Raj Nagar Extension has added values to this Promising Project

Extension of Ghaziabad, the KW Delhi 6 is a new commercial project that provides an ideal platform to the various promising brands and retailers under single umbrella. Riyaz Gangji, Nirula’s, Peter England, Reliance Smart, Van Heusan, LOUIS

February 2020

PHILIPE, MotiMahal, WOW China, Allen Solly and Raymond are among dozen other associated brands at KW Delhi 6. Dully approved by the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA), KW Delhi offers a free hold land that includes regal entrance, food court, water bodies, open air theater and 9D/11D theater, apart from numerous other outlets. Significantly, this magnificent destination, Delhi 6, has gradually as one of the most credible and unified destinations for shopping, amusement, business and hospitality. While talking to the Observer Dawn, English Magazine, the KW Group, Director, Mr Pankaj Jain, offered his utmost gratitude to the media for their widespread coverage, reflecting the facts about this noble project. “Our main focus is on providing the buyers with maximum required facilities without any reluctance or delays. Following the mandatory RERA norms, we have always focused on customer satisfaction. Besides, timely possession of the purchased property, the group has so far success availing all promised facilities to the buyers including the associated groups, companies and others”, he added. In a question asked by the Observer Dawn, Mr Jain said, “Our decade-long rapport in the market is all about the creative efforts of KW Group in delivering the property within the stipulated time frame and fulfilling the maximum possible demands of the buyers”. As a renowned real estate company in India, the KW Group prioritizes the buyers’ satisfaction on each and every step.

OBSERVER DAWN

Business News

UNION GOVT. STEPS UP TO GROW MULTI-PRONGED BUSINESS STRATEGIES Boeing’s Largest Supplier Lay Off 2800 Employees

he Boeing Companies’ largest supplier for the grounded 737 Max is laying off 2,800 employees, potentially complicating the future of the planemaker’s bestselling jetliner. “The job cuts are needed to reduce costs as Boeing prepares to halt output of the Max indefinitely. Once Boeing production starts up again, production of the Max will probably be lower than in 2019”, Spirit Aero Systems Holdings Inc., said. Spirit’s move signals that the company, which makes 70% of the narrow-body jet’s structure, expects a lengthy suspension in production. The supplier had continued to make parts for the aircraft after a global flying ban began in March after two fatal crashes. Spirit currently has 100 Max shipsets in storage. The layoffs indicate the worsening impact of the grounding on the US economy

as well complications that will face Boeing as it looks to restart production amid the tightest US job market in decades. The plane maker had held Spirit to the pre-crash production rate until December, when it decided to shut down the final assembly line with more than 400 undelivered jets in storage and no clear timeline for gaining clearance to resume flights. In a statement, the Spirit, CEO, Tom Gentile, said, “The difficult

decision announced today is a necessary step, given the uncertainty related to both the timing for resuming 737 Max production and the overall production levels that can be expected following the production suspension”. The move will stem some of the cost impact from the halted 737 output. Spirit fell 1.9% to $71.42 at 11:54 a.m. in New York. Boeing dropped 1.6% to $331.

The layoffs will hit employees at Spirit’s factory in Wichita, Kansas. The supplier also plans smaller cuts at Oklahoma plants in Tulsa and McAlester. Gentile, further said, the employees could be recalled in the future if Max production rises enough. In order to increase its role as an Airbus SE supplier and agreed in October to buy a Bombardier Inc. factory in Northern Ireland, which can make wings for the European plane maker’s A220 jet. Spirit has been looking forward.

NCP Chief Meets Anurag Thakur, Talks About Revival of PMC Bank

he Nationalist Congress Party Chief, SharadPawar, met Union Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Singh Thakur, to discuss possibilities of revival of the troubled Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank on January 13, 2020. While talking to the media, soon after the meeting, the RajyaSabhamember termed the discussion as – productive. The PMC Bank has been put under restrictions by the RBI, after a multi-crore scam came to light following which the deposit withdrawal was initially capped at Rs 1,000, causing panic and distress among depositors.Gradually the withdrawal limit was increased up to Rs. 50,000.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Business News

Union Government’s $5 Trillion GDP Growth Seems Incredibly Ambitious

rominent economist, R Nagaraj, believes that the Indian Government will need to grow at 9% to achieve the target of $ 5 trillion economies by 2024. “As of now it looks ‘unimaginably’ ambitious”, Nagarajan said.

Soon after assuming office for the second term in May 2019, the Narendra Modiled government set a target of taking the economy to $ 5 trillion over the next five years. But there have been several clouds over the economy since then, leading many to question, he added. At present India's GDP is being estimated at around USD 2.8 trillion. "The target appears exceptionally daunting, if not impossible, going by the record of the current decade. Last July, as per my estimate, India needed to grow on average at 9 percent per year

RA Proposed for Efficient Resolution of Financial Troubles

in real terms from the fiscal year 2020 to 2024 to achieve the target of 5 trillion dollar economy. "With the growth rate slumping, the goal looks unimaginably ambitious”, said Nagaraj, who is a professor of economics at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR). India's GDP growth is seen dipping to an 11-year low of 5 percent in the current fiscal, mainly due to poor showing by manufacturing and construction sectors, as per government data. The GD P gro w th i n the first quarter of 2019-20 was 5 percent, which further slipped to 4.5 percent in the subsequent three-month period. Talking about rising trade tensions, Nagaraj said the prospects of a reversal in declining trends look very unlikely. "India's exports to GDP ratio have steadily declined since the early 2010s. So, I don't see any signs of reversal of the declining trends," the prominent economist said. When asked whether a fiscal stimulus was the only way out of the slowdown, Nagaraj stressed that lowering of interest rates over the last few years had not helped and there was a need for fiscal stimulus.

In a Tweet, Pawar, said, "Had a meeting with the Union Minister of State for Finance, ShriAnurag Singh Thakur in New Delhi to raise the issue of revival of PMC Bank. We had a constructive exchange of views on the topic”.

or efficient and timely resolution of financial troubles at banks and financial institutions a Draft Cabinet note has proposed the creation of an empowered Resolution Authority (RA). It will also decide on the quantum of money depositors. “In case a bank fails, the RA could decide to pay depositors more than what they would have got in the normal course,” a Government officer said. Currently, fixed deposits are protected by the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) for only up to one lakh per account, irrespective of the amount of the deposit. This could make the process discretionary. However, there have been calls to enhance the insured amount, most recently when Mumbaibased Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank ran into trouble, affecting 915,957

depositors, many of them from the middle and lower-middle class. The proposal is part of a proposed law, which has been drafted about 17 months after the government was forced to withdraw the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017 (FRDI) in August 2018 because of a stiff opposition to its “bail in” clause that allowed for the utilization of a part of depositors’ money in the revival of a failed bank. According to the information procured from the concerned department, the new legislation is a modification of the FRDI Bill, 2017. The RA has been introduced in the place of Resolution Corporation (RC) because a corporation cannot undertake sovereign functions, particularly because most state-owned banks are created by legislations passed by the Parliament.

Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police have registered offences in the case. In December 2019, the EOW had submitted a 32,000-page charge sheet against five persons in the multi-crore PMC Bank scam.

The fraud at PMC Bank came to light in September last year after the Reserve Bank of India discovered that the bank had allegedly created fictitious accounts to hide over Rs 6,700 crore in loans extended to the almost-bankrupt Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL).

Apart from others, the charge sheet includes the name of former managing director of bank, Joy Thomas, former chairman,Waryam Singh, former director of the bank,Surjit Singh Arora and others.

According to RBI, the PMC bank masked 44 problematic loan accounts, including HDIL loan accounts, by tampering with its core banking system, and the accounts were accessible only to limited staff members. The Enforcement Directorate and Economic Offences

Forensic audit report of PMC bank and documents of properties purchased by the accused bank officials with kickbacks received by them for offering undue favor to HDIL and the Wadhawans were also enclosed with the report.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

International

36-YEAR-OLD INDONESIAN MAN CONVICTED FOR 136 RAPES IN UK The 36-year-old, Indonesian man, ReynhardSinaga, was found guilty of assaulting 48 men, whom he drugged after taking them back to his apartment from outside bars and clubs in the city of Manchester. Altogether four separate trials were made in this connection.

his Indonesian man was later identified as Britain’s most prolific rapist on after he was convicted in over 150 offences, including 136 rapes.

vulnerable and rendered them unconscious with a sedative, probably the party drug gamma-hydroxybutyric acid that is known as GHB”.

During four separate trials, Reynhard Sinaga, was found guilty of assaulting 48 men whom he drugged after taking them back to his apartment from outside bars and clubs in the city of Manchester.

Most of the victims were heterosexual and had little or no memory of the attacks. Sinaga was arrested when one of the victims woke up during an attack, fought him off and went to the police with one of his phones.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, most of them were lured by the offer of a place to sleep or more drink, and Sinaga filmed the assaults on his mobile phone.

Police discovered graphic material equivalent to 250 DVDs or 300,000 photos - depicting sexual assaults on Sinaga’s digital devices. Sinaga had said his victims were acting out sexual fantasies.

In a Manchester, a judge ruled that Sinaga must serve at least 30 years in prison for 159 offences committed between January 2015 and May 2017. A government prosecutor, Ian Rushton, described Sinaga as the most prolific rapist in British legal history.

Sinaga kept men’s belongings as trophies and looked them up on Facebook. The court was told, “Sinaga, who has lived in the United Kingdom since 2007, targeted young men who looked drunk or

The rape investigation is the largest in British legal history. It is the first time prosecutors have split charges across four separate trials.

DONALD TRUMP LIKELY TO HOLD AN EVENT IN AHMEDABAD The United States President, Donald Trump, is likely to hold an event similar to Prime Minister, NarendraModi’s successful ‘Howdy, Modi!’ during September 2019 in Hudson. Trump’s next visit to India is expected in February 2020, a saffron party insider said on condition of anonymity.

Trump and Modi are expected to sign a short-term trade deal that could grant the US companies more access to Indian markets and restore to India trade benefits withdrawn last summer. They will also discuss a longer-term trade pact that could include a Free Trade Agreement.

he date is yet to be finalized, but it is almost certain that the visit will happen in February.

“During his three-day visit to India, initially the US President’s visit will involve one Indian city apart from New Delhi, where both, PM Modi and President, Trump, will hold a Houston-like event. Although it yet to be ascertained, but as per our information, Ahmedabad could be that very city”, the party insider said. Americans of Gujarati origin are likely to join the Howdy Trump show. Besides, the event is being seen by the US President’s handlers as a good walk-up to this year’s US elections, especially given the number

of Gujaratis in the US. The Indian diaspora is an important vote bloc, especially in the US and the UK. In the latter, for instance, they played a significant role with the vote almost shifting en masse from Labour to Conservatives.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

According to the people cited in the first instance, Trump’s visit is likely to be preceded by a visit by US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, to finalize the trade deal. India wants the Generalized System of Preferences, which provides duty free access to the US to around 3500 products from India to be restored.

International

INDIAN-ORIGIN WOMEN ATTORNEYS APPOINTED AS JUDGES IN NEW YORK The New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, has appointed two Indian-origin women attorneys as judges to the criminal and civil courts with the effect from January 1, 2020.

hile, Judge ArchanaRao has been appointed to the Criminal Court, the 43-year-old, Judge DeepaAmbekar , was reappointed to the Civil Court in New York. ArchanaRao was first appointed as an Interim Civil Court Judge in January 2019 and has been serving in Criminal Court. Prior to this appointment, she has served with the New York County District Attorney’s Office for 17 years, most recently as the Bureau Chief of the Financial Frauds Bureau. Rao is a graduate of Vassar College and received her Juris Doctor degree from Fordham University School of Law. On the other hands, Ambekar was first appointed as an Interim Civil Court Judge in May 2018 and has been serving in Criminal Court. Earlier, she has served with the New York City Council as a Senior Legislative Attorney and Counsel to the Committee on Public Safety. Ambekar also served as a Staff Attorney with the Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received

her Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers Law School.Mayor made 28 judicial appointments and reappointments to Family Court, Criminal Court and Civil Court. The appointments were effective January 1, 2020. Speaking to the media, De Blasio said, “These appointees will represent New Yorkers proudly and work tirelessly to provide oversight of our courts”. She added, “Their work is essential in ensuring

that we are creating a fairer city for all”. All three including Family, Criminal and Civil Court are the part of New York State Unified Court System. While, the Family Court judges hear cases related to adoption, foster care and guardianship, custody and visitation, domestic violence, abused or neglected children and juvenile delinquency, the City’s Criminal Court handles misdemeanor cases and lesser offenses, and conducts arraignments.

UNSC THWARTS CHINA’S ILL-WILL TO HELP PAKISTAN RAISING KASHMIR ISSUE Among other failure attempts against India, China’s third consecutive effort to aid and abet its alltime ally, Pakistan, raise the Kashmir issue in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), has failed.

he country has however come in for sharp criticism from the other permanent members of the council, especially the US, Germany, Estonia and others. The diplomats, familiar with the matter, revealed that China tagged Kashmir onto a UNSC meeting called to discuss “Peacekeeping in Mali” and tried to force an informal discussion in the “miscellaneous matter or any other matter” category. The diplomats said that the Chinese representative claimed tensions were escalating between India and Pakistan and quoted the statement of Indian Army Chief, MukundNaravane, on the 1994 Parliamentary resolution seeking Pakistan’s vacation of PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir). The Chinese envoy further added that there were regular ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC). Beijing’s

said progress has been made and there was no need for the issue to be discussed. This time, the UK Envoy made it very clear that Kashmir was a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and had no place in the UNSC.

representative went as far as to say that the United Nations Military Observer Group in India (UNMOGIP) should be strengthened with more funds. Beijing’s pitch met with a very strong US and German pushback with the former saying that “this issue does not belong here” and should be addressed separately. Meanwhile, the US Ambassador criticized China for even raising the issue. Germany

February 2020

According to the envoy, the British PM had talked to both sides and come to the conclusion that it was for India and Pakistan to sort it out bilaterally. France said measures had to be taken to deal with the terrorists operating in the valley. The French envoy stressed that there was no need for the council to even discuss the issue informally. Russia too said that the matter should be resolved bilaterally under Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.

OBSERVER DAWN

ENTERTAINMENT

KANGNA WISHES MARIA FOR COMPLETING 50 YEARS IN BOLLYWOOD

he Bollywood actress, KanganaRanaut, now stepped up to highlight the achievements of her hairstylist, Maria Sharma, who completed her 50 years in the industry. This Bollywood actress is presently working on late actor-turnedpolitician, J Jayalalithaa’s biopic, titled – Thalaivi. Recently, the actor’s team shared few fresh pictures of her in a new look as a classical dancer to wish hair stylist Maria Sharma on her 50th work anniversary. These pictures show Kangana getting her hairdo done ahead of the film shoot. Kangna has her hair tied in a bun, which has been adorned with flowers. She is also wearing traditional South Indian jewelry and has her makeup suitable for a classic dance performance. Captioned as - Wishing Maria Sharma, a glorious five decades in the Indian film industry, the post was shared in many social media platform. The legendary hair stylist who worked with screen icons like: HemaMalini, Sharmila Tagore, Helen and ManishaKoirala completed 50 years on the sets of Thalaivi. This noted Bollywood actress, began her career with Maria Ji in films like: WohLamhe, Once Upon, A Time in Mumbai and others. Now, Maria is being witnessed putting her final touch on Kangana’s stunning Indian look for upcoming ‘Thalaivi’. Maria, who had a rough start in life as her husband died when she was just 20 years old. She went on to become one of the top artists in Bollywood while single-handedly raising her 2 daughters. Kangana’s fans loved the look and showered the actress with praise and congratulated Maria for her achievements. This Bollywood actress had enrolled herself in Bharatnatyam classes as a part of her prep for her role.

PRIYANKA CHOPRA’S ENTHRALLING LOOK ENCHANTS SOCIAL MEDIA

riyanka Chopra’s enthralling look with her recent dress has again caught the attention of internet world. Here she opts for a black and gold mini dress for an event in Miami. She stepped out in an embroidered mini dress for an event in Miami and shared pictures of her look on Instagram. Priyanka wore an outfit from the shelves of Dior catching myriads of attentions in the social media platforms. Her black dress was adorned with matte gold motifs and featured a plunging neckline. Wearing a smart belt around her waist, she completed her look with black stilettos. This 37-year-old actress ornamented her getup with a dainty gold neckpiece and kept her make-up minimal. The actress applied an adequate amount of bronzer and made a statement with a nude brown lipstick. Her recent post on Instagram has garnered myriads of likes and comments from across the world. Priyanka’s fans and followers are overwhelmed as her admirers praised the actress’s attire in the comments section of her post. Prevalent social media comments by her fans and admirers comprise words like: gorgeous, stunning, beautiful etc. However, Priyanka Chopra’s active participation in works was last witnessed in Shonali Bose’s ‘The Sky Is Pink’. She is reportedly in negotiation for a role opposite actor Keanu Reeves in Matrix 4.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

ENTERTAINMENT

AMITABH BACHCHAN’S FOLLOWERS ELEVATED TO 40 MILLION ON TWITTER

fter Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, it’s the Bollywood megastar, Amitabh Bachchan, who caught the attentions of audience on Twitter. Number of followers of this megastar on Twitter has crossed 4 lakhs recently. Experts say that Amitabh Bachchan has turned into essentially the most adopted Indian after PM Modi on Twitter. Varieties of followers of Amitabh Bachchan on Twitter have crossed 4 lakhs. Bachchan has now exceeded Shah Rukh Khan by way of Twitter followers. Finding at the acme on social media, a large chunk of followers congratulated him. His followers and admirers showed their happiness soon after they came to know that Amitabh Bachchan had crossed 4 crore on Twitter. His followers are congratulating him otherwise. Some are sharing their image and their written traces on social media. This is an enormous completely happy event for the followers. Amitabh Bachchan has 14.1 million followers on Instagram. There are additionally completely different fan pages on social media that share their exercise. On Twitter, Amitabh Bachchan is followed by Shah Rukh Khan, who has almost 39.8 million followers. Amitabh Bachchan is behind PM, NarendraModi, who has 52 million followers on Twitter. It must be known to all that Amitabh Bachchan is likely to be seen in another Bollywood movie, Brahmastra.

Together with Mouni Roy, RanbirKapoor and Alia Bhatt, here the viewers will get to see many stars in this movie, which is directed by Ayan Mukherjee.

TANHAJI: 2020’S FIRST FILM

TO COLLECT RS 100 CRORE

jay Devgan’s recent film, Tanhaji, has become the 2020’s first Bollywood film to have collect over Rs 100 crore at the box office. Tanhaji denotes the story of an ‘Unsung Warrior’. This is the 100th film of Ajay Devgn’s career making him century holder at the box office. Taran Adarsh, a film trade analyst, broke the news on Twitter as the film barged into the Rs 100 crore clubs. Sharing the box office update, Taran wrote on Twitter – Tanhaji, AjayDevgn’s 100th film hits Rs 100 crore, chasing a big total today. Significantly, this is Ajay Devgan’s fifth consecutive film to cross the Rs 100 crore marks after De De Pyaar De (2019), Total Dhamaal (2019), Raid (2018) and Golmaal Again (2017). Although, it managed to cross the mark faster than his last two films, Golmaal remained his fastest film to achieve the feet. The movie had collected Rs 100 crore on day four and went on to enter the Rs 200 crore club. Besides, Tanhaji is also the first movie for another Bollywood actor, Saif Ali Khan, that has crossed Rs 100 crore after his 2013 film Race 2. Here Khan plays the role of the antagonist Udaybhan in the film. In 2015, Kajol had delivered Rs 100 crore film, Dilwale. Now she returns to play Ajay’s onscreen wife in the film. Recently, Taran had shared the day-wise collections of the film on Twitter. Tanhaji was released on around 3,880 screens in India in Hindi and Marathi version and on 660 screens in the overseas market.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

In-Depth

FINANCIAL LITERACY SESSIONS TO PROMOTE ANGIKAAR CAMPAIGN IIFL Home Finance Ltd, through on-ground activations, further promoted Angikaar Campaign, run by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). Financial Literacy Sessions were also organized in support of the Angikaar Campaign.

he IIFL Home Finance limited (IIFL HFL), a leading housing finance company, has on January 7, 2020 organized a series of activities including Financial Literacy Sessions, Yoga Camps, Plantations and Health Check-up Camps across the country. It was the part of an extension to the Angikaar Campaign, run by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). The main motive of the MoHUA is to provide the eligible beneficiaries of Prime Minister AwasYojana (PMAY), not just housing, but also to address their various pressing lifestyle challenges like – cleanliness, hygiene, and sanitation – apart from raising the requisite awareness about basic civic issues.

The various activities conducted under the Angikaar Campaign include – street plays, distribution of leaflets, posters, puppet shows, rallies, school awareness programs via workshops, competitions, vehicle announcements, health camps, pledge, plantation drives and more. The association of IIFL HFL has further bolstered the Angikaar Campaign, which also aims to bring the beneficiaries of the PradhanMantriAwasYojana (PMAY) under the fold of other Central Government Schemes. In order to educate the customers and enlighten them about the benefits of PMAY, IIFL HFL regularly conducts on-

The IIFL HFL’s awareness-raising initiatives were meant to further educate the PMAY beneficiaries about the best practices to maintain their new homes and enjoy several amenities and essential civic services. Over 200 people participated in these activities organized across cities including Indore and Naroda among others. The campaign also witnessed presentations aimed at educating the people about the benefits of CLSS under PMAY. Through all these activities under the Angikaar Campaign, IIFL HFL in a lent support to Prime Minister’s ‘Housing For All mission. The Campaign was launched by MoHUA to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

the-spot counseling for customers visiting its branches, felicitates CLSS beneficiaries at events, organizes awareness initiatives, gives presentations to defined audiences and proactively calls potential customers to educate them about the benefits of CLSS. For its continued support in facilitating beneficiary families avail benefits of CLSS Subsidy under PMAY, IIFL HFL has received the award for ‘Best Performing PLI’ under Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme for EWS/ LIG under PradhanMantriAwasYojana’ from Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, twice. Striving for the happiness of its customers, IIFL HFL has facilitated the subsidy amounting to over Rs 770 crores bringing happiness to more than 33,300 beneficiaries. The IIFL Home Finance Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of India Info line Finance Limited, which is an NBFC registered with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The company manages and shares the professional values and ethos of its parent and holding company India Info line Finance Limited. It has acquired and maintained a reputation for reliability, transparency of operation and absolute integrity.

In-Depth

GENERAL QASEM SOLEIMANI’S DEATH EXPOSES AN ‘OMINOUS SIGN’ The death of the top Iranian commander, General Qasem Soleimani, is an ominous sign not only for Iran, but its impact is being witnessed in various corners of the world. General’s death is also seen as a big loss to India. By Dr. Romesh Gautam, (Sr Advocate SC India & Limca Record Holder)

he slain Iranian commander, who was the Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has had decades-old friendly relations with India. Truly recognized for his creative efforts and positivity for India, Soleimani was considered as one of the trusted allies of the country. When we talk about the India’s national security, General Soleimani may be termed as the staunch supporter of the country. The slain General’s plan to rescue Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been languishing in a Pakistani jail on charges of spying for India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (ROW), shows his unselfish devotion our nation. The Pakistani military court had in April 2017 awarded Jadhav with death sentence on charges of ‘espionage and terrorism’.

The slain General’s plan to rescue Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been languishing in a Pakistani jail on charges of spying for India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (ROW), shows his unselfish devotion our nation.

Besides, General Soleimani supported India in building ties with Northern regions, preventing several mishappenings against India at Chabahar and Afghanistan. He had also gone out of the way to influence the Houthis in Yemen to call a cease fire until the then General, VK Singh, rescued Indian nationals.

However, his death has drawn the attention of various military forces across the world. Many senior military personnel in the US and NATO have condemned this US action, given the fact that this man was singularly responsible for wiping out ISIS from Iraq and Syria.

Being the commander of a top class Special Forces, not only the Indians but also the US Military personnel respected General Soleimani for his positive attitude and efforts in releasing the US Navy personnel, who had unknowingly entered into the Iranian waters.

On January 3, 2020, General Soleimani was killed by a targeted U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, which was approved by U.S. President, Donald Trump, who considered Soleimani as an imminent threat to the American’s lives.

THOUSANDS MOURNERS VOW JIHAD ON AMERICA

housands of mourners chanted 'Death to America' and 'America is the Great Satan' as they walked beside the coffins of Soleimani, architect of Iran's global military strategy, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Kataeb Hezbollah chief, in Baghdad. The pair had been riding in a two-vehicle convoy which was decimated by three missiles from an American MQ-9 Reaper Drone in the early hours of January 3, 2020 outside Baghdad International Airport. The strike - which also killed four Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards and five members of Iraq's proIran paramilitary network infuriated Tehran. The furious mourners vowed jihad on America. Iraq’s Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki, who also attended the funerals, threatened to order the expulsion of all US troops from the country. The Iraq PM termed it as a gross violation of Iraq's sovereignty. However, the US President, Donald Trump, has said that he had ordered the killing of Soleimani to prevent war, adding that the commander was plotting 'imminent and sinister' attacks against Americans.

(Courtesy: Mail Online)

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Int’l Biz.

ISABEL DOS SANTOS TURNED BILLIONAIRE:

LUANDA LEAKS

Among other mysteries, Africa’s richest woman made her fortune through exploiting her own country and corruption. Leaked documents reveal the facts that how she could manage to do all these. She was married to congolese art collector and businessman, SindikaDokolo. She got her education in UK, where she currently lives. Being termed as the Africa’s richest woman, with a fortune of some $2bn, Dos Santos has stakes in oil and mobile phone companies and banks, mostly in Angola and Portugal. So far as her diamond connection is concerned, Ms Dos Santos’s husband, SindikaDokolo, had signed a one-sided agreement in 2012 with Angolan state diamond company Sodiam. Both were supposed to be 50-50 partners in a deal to buy a stake in the Swiss luxury jeweler, De Grisogono. Entire fund was given by the state company. The diamond deal gets even worse for the Angolan people. The

er lucrative deals involving land, oil, diamonds and telecoms, occurred when her father was the president of Angola, a southern African country, rich in natural resources. The documents show how she and her husband were allowed to buy valuable state assets in a series of suspicious deals. The woman, Ms Dos Santos, says the allegations against her are entirely false and that there is a politically motivated witchhunt by the Angolan government. Former president’s daughter has made the UK her home and owns expensive properties in central London. More than 700,000 leaked documents elaborating her past activities were given access to the BBC Panorama. These were obtained by the Platform to Protect Whistle-blowers in Africa and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

the aspirations of the citizens of Angola.” The ICIJ have termed the documents as ‘Luanda Leaks’.

Speaking to the media, the head of Corruption Watch, Andrew Feinstein, says the documents show how Ms Dos Santos exploited her country at the expense of ordinary Angolans.

The woman had been put in charge of the struggling Sonangol in 2016 through a presidential decree from her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who kept a tight grip on his country for the 38 years, since he was in power. As per the documents, she left Sonangol,Ms Dos Santos approved $58m of suspicious payments to a consultancy company in Dubai called Matter Business Solutions.

“Every time she appears on the cover of some glossy magazine somewhere in the world, every time that she hosts one of her glamorous parties in the south of France, she is doing so by trampling on

The report also revealed that Ms Dos Santos appeared to have approved payments to her friend’s company after she was sacked. Isabel Dos Santos is the eldest daughter of ex-President, Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

documents reveal how Sodiam borrowed all the cash from a private bank in which Ms Dos Santos is the biggest shareholder. The billionaire has also made big profits from the telecoms industry in Angola. She acquired a 25% stake in the country’s biggest mobile phone provider, Unitel. It was granted a telecoms licence by her father in 1999 and she bought her stake the following year from a high ranking government official. Similarly, other leaked documents revealed the way she made fraud in illegal sale-purchase of plots of land from the state in September 2017. Her company bought a square kilometer of prime beachfront land in the capital Luanda with the help of presidential decrees signed by her father.

Int’l Biz. CORONAVIRUS STRAIN

OVER 140 SARS-LIKE VIRUS FOUND IN CHINA The Health officials in China have confirmed that almost 140 new cases of a mysterious pneumonialike virus were spotted across the region. Altogether three people have been killed till January 20, 2020, the health authority confirmed. By HUILENG TAN

ormally, it comes as the country’s peak holiday or the travel season is kicked off ahead of the Lunar New Year. The sparking impact over the spread of the viral strain and its possible impact is witnessed on the economic growth. Alexandra Phelan, the faculty research instructor in the microbiology and immunology department at Georgetown University, said, “It’s highly likely we’ll see this virus spread given that it appears there’s some form of human-to-human transmission and given the scale of travel in the lead-up to Chinese New Year”. Talking to the media on January 20, 2020, Phelan emphasized, “Looking further on, I think we’re likely to have cases around China and also there will likely be cases in other countries as people travel”. While the Sars-virus first emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late December, the 139 new cases that appeared over the weekend in China showed new cases in the capital of Beijing in the north of the country, as well as in the southern city of Shenzhen. This brings the total to more than 200 confirmed cases from the new coronavirus strain. Three of them have died. So far as its impact on traveler is concerned, hundreds of millions of Chinese travelers are expected to travel both domestically and internationally as Lunar New Year started on January 19, 2020. The situation

created fears of a further spread of the virus and kindling memories of the fatal Sars pandemic in 2002 and 2003 that killed nearly 800 globally.

The CDCP, however, said some of the patients have not had exposure to the animal markets. It suggests that some limited person-to-person spread is occurring.

South Korea had also confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus in a Chinese woman who flew to Incheon International Airport from Wuhan.

Airport authorities around the world have already stepped up health screening of travelers at their borders to pick up suspected cases. Measures include temperature screening.

Two cases have also been reported in Thailand and one in Japan. They involved two Chinese from Wuhan and a resident in Japan who had travel history to the city — where the virus is linked to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting that the virus had jumped from animals to humans, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) said on its Website.

However, as symptoms from the new Wuhan coronavirus infection are similar to that of other respiratory conditions, there will be “a lot” of travelers who would be wrongly picked up alongside, Phelan said. The experts believe that although, the nature and severity of the new coronavirus is still under investigation, it could pose a major risk to Asia Pacific Economies (APE). Meanwhile, the Asia head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank, Vishnu Varathan, said, “Human-to-human transmission will be (the) tipping point, and mass movements in China during CNY (Chinese New Year) may be an unwelcomed accelerant”. The virus first emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late December, the 139 new cases reported over the weekend in China included cases from capital Beijing in the north of the country, the southern city of Shenzhen. This brings the total to more than 200 confirmed cases. (Courtesy: CNBC)

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Int’l Biz.

MANUFACTURERS ALL SET TO UP-SKILL WORKFORCES IN 2020 As lack of skills and experiences troubling the manufacturing units in a historically tight labor market, the renowned companies are spending big to ‘up-skill’ their incumbent workers so as to ensure talented workforces. By KATE ROGGERS

Protolabs is looking to add about 70 workers to its workforce of 2,800.

hese units are set to spend $26.2 billion on internal and external training initiatives for new and existing employees. According to the Manufacturing Institutions these are meant to combat the shortage of available workers in 2020. Almost 70% of manufacturers believe that they are creating or expanding training programs for their workforce. Threequarters of respondents said up-skilling of workers would help them improve productivity, promotion opportunities and morale. The Executive Director, Manufacturing Institute, Carolyn Lee, said, “In manufacturing, you are constantly learning and growing, and the technological changes are enormous”. “What you are going to be able to continue to do as you layer new skills, on top of those fundamental skills, will make for a very interesting and dynamic career”, Lee added. According to the National Association of Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, which found the inability to attract and retain workers were a top concern, stressed that the skills gap had been a big challenge for manufacturers over the past nine quarters. During the third quarter, nearly 80% of respondents said they are struggling to fill open positions. The lack of available workers has even forced one-third of companies to turn down business opportunities. A rapid prototyping manufacturer, based in Maple Plain of Minnesota in United States,

Robert Bodor, vice president and general manager for the Americas, said, “We are a growth company, and employees are critical to everything that we do. We want to be sure we can keep talent with us”. While the company has been fortunate in retaining its workers, Bodor said the goal is to maintain a “good culture of continuous improvement”. As such, the Protolabs is investing in training its existing workforce, as well as new hires. In order to attract workers in this job market, Protolabs is offering new and flexible models with part-time labor, in addition to offering training and benefits such as a 401(k) plan with an employer match, employee stock-participation plans, and more. Bodor said, “We do both upskill

“What you are going to be able to continue to do as you layer new skills, on top of those fundamental skills, will make for a very interesting and dynamic career”

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

and bring in new people all the time — we are continually hiring so we have to train and onboard new employees — but we are reinvesting in our employees to create career paths and opportunities for personal growth”. “Our employees are critical to our success, so we want to be creating longevity with them”, he added. Securing the pipeline of future talent is a key to success for manufacturers. Data from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute found that some 4.6 million workers will be needed in the sector by 2028, but that 2.4 million of those jobs could go unfilled if steps aren’t taken to ensure proper training. Lee calls recruitment a “full-court press”. The goal of the organization is to close the skills gap by 25% by 2025. “We just need more people — period,” Lee said. “We have about 480,000 open jobs, and have been hovering around 500,000 openings in the past year after retirements and economic growth. We need to attract transitioning service members and veterans into the sector, and we need to bring the next generation of the workforce into the sector”, she added. Part of the recruitment efforts beyond training is showing potential hires the changes the sector has gone through — it’s not the manufacturing job of years past. Instead, its high-tech, clean, and can be lucrative for those who move up the ranks. (Courtesy: CNBC)

Int’l Biz.

WORLDWIDE OIL DEMAND UPSIDES TO ADVANTAGE BY 2020 Despite, worldwide oil demand forecasts goes lower than in previous years, the OPEC SecretaryGeneral, Mohammed Barkindo, has on January 17, 2020 said that the demand growth was still “robust” and could surprise to the upside over the course of 2020 as trade tensions subside. By PIPPA STEVEN

e stressed, “By and large what we see from our side is an upside potential of growth from the demand side of the equation, which will affect the total balance for the rest of the year”. We hope that some of the challenges that we had been facing in terms of international trade would be addressed soon, he added. In 2019, oil finished with an average gain of 35%, but prices remain well below their prior highs. Part of this is due to the shale production surge in the United States, which he said is a “major variable” in OPEC’s decisions. In December 2019, the OPEC+, a 14-member cartel as well as its allies, agreed to cut production by an additional 500,000 barrels per day for the first quarter of 2020. This lifted total production cuts to 1.7 million barrels per day, above the 1.2 million barrels per day cut agreed upon in December 2018. The OPEC’s largest producer, Saudi Arabia, also said that it would continue its voluntary cut of 400,000 barrels per day, effectively bringing the alliance’s total cut to 2.1 million

barrels per day. Barkindo stressed, “We remain focused on stability for the first and second quarter of 2020. The decision was to ensure that there’s no imbalance in these quarters”. As a part of the Midl-east tensions, Oil prices briefly spiked in early January as tensions between the U.S. and Iran mounted, and as traders digested what possible additional attacks in the oil-rich region could mean for production. “it has become of the ‘utmost importance’ to ensure the safety of oil infrastructure in the region, and that the cartel members remain committed to being the suppliers of last resort”, Barkindo. Further he said in September 2019, Saudi Arabia demonstrated this when the sovereign nation had quickly restored production following airstrikes on the country’s oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, which took an estimated 5.7 million barrels of oil offline. Barkindo said, “We have seen the worst disruption in recent history in September of last year and we have seen the record time in which Aramco and their crisis management team rose to the

February 2020

occasion and restored supply in less than 2 weeks”. Following those attacks, oil initially spiked 15%, but prices ultimately drifted back down and a few weeks later were back at pre-attack levels. At the beginning of January 2020, a similar story was played out, soon after the U.S. conducted an airstrike on January 2, 2020, killing top Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani. Subsequently, Iran retaliated on January 7, by firing missiles at multiple bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude hit its highest level since April, while international benchmark Brent crude surged to a nearly fourth-month high of $71.75. United States, President, Donald Trump, however said that Iran appeared “to be standing down” in the Middle East and that Washington would impose sanctions on Tehran instead of another military strike. Consequently, the oil prices dropped more than 4%. (Courtesy: CNBC) “Worldwide oil demand could surprise to the upside over the course of 2020”, said OPEC Secretary General, Mohammed Barkindo.

OBSERVER DAWN

Cover Story

INTERRAIT CUTTING EDGE AND FUTURISTIC By Yogesh Sood

igital transformation is not a destination – it is a never ending race track where the course keeps changing and newer, faster cars continue to enter the race track. The impact of technology is massive, from the wrist watch one wears to the car that they drive. Every single thing is digitized. In fact, more and more companies are using emerging technologies as a competitive weapon to maintain and develop their businesses. The pace with which transformation has occurred seems unbelievable, but will continue to grow at this exponential rate in the future. In response to dramatic changes in the digital enterprise, business users require access to on- demand services and a proven service management framework tailored to their unique specifications. A large number of businesses have to rely on broader portfolios of Advanced Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Cloud Technologies and Robotics. On the forefront of such wonderful technological frontier, Mr Asoke Laha is a shining example of wonderful leadership, who has done India proud in the Silicon Valley. Quality and value for customers from the basic ethos of his IT firm and his team in India along with the US and Canada.. InterraIT has been a leader in the Information Technology Industry since its founding in 1996. The company is a Global Software Services organization that delivers innovative business and technology solutions to Fortune 1000 companies. Accredited as ISO9001:2015 certified organization; it has also been listed as one of India’s Top 20 Best Employers by IDC-DQ Best Employers Survey. Headquartered in California, InterraIT’s operations are spread across 5 countries, with a sales network spanning the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, India and Japan. The company has two state of the art development centers in India, which are the focal point in servicing its esteemed customer base across the globe.

A SNAPSHOT OF INTERRAIT • Over 20 Years of Experience • More than 500 IT Projects • ISO 9001: 2015 Certified NMSDC Certified • 80+ Satisfied Clients Globally, • 5+ Years Average Client led by Entrepreneurs with Fortune100 • Experience Visionary leader in Application Modernisation Services

Today, InterraIT is one of the largest privately held offshore companies with global operations including India. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of IT and IT-enabled services with a distinct focus on providing product engineering services, web-based custom enterprise

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Advertorial

Cover Story including reporting, visualization, analytics and machine learning. InterraIT helps you utilize Data Lakes to end data silos in such fast growing and increasingly unstructured big data scenario. Their Data lake services help clients consolidate high-volume data sources into a single environment for use cases as diverse as historical, archival and cross-channel customer behavior analytics. Data Lake Architectures & Analytics Consolidate data, Accelerate data engineering processes & build flexible analytic applications Derive powerful Intelligence – Anytime, Anywhere

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION InterraIT’s key Differentiators applications and mobile application development. Having worked with customers from varied industries for more than 2 decades, the company consciously aligned itself with specific industry verticals which include Telecom, Retail, Financial Services, Logistics and Independent Software Vendors (ISV). This has helped InterraIT in developing tremendous domain specific knowledge and subject matter expertise resulting the ability to deliver in delivering innovative solutions and enhanced business value for its customers.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK INTERRAIT – DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OFFERINGS Digital Strategy and Innovation What separates digital leaders from the rest is a clear digital strategy combined with a culture and leadership poised to drive the transformation. InterraIT helps you achieve that by embracing digital strategic thinking and a programmatic approach to business process change whereby organizations can better engage with customers and deliver mass customized products and services that drive differentiation and outperformance.

Agile Applications and Digital Experiences Modern application platforms can empower organizations to create new customer friendly services, unlock data from other applications, and build the foundation of the digital core that will support the continuous transformation of the business. Agile applications and digital experiences bring in the best practices to successfully deliver projects: (i) use of multi-stakeholder workshops to prioritize requirements, (ii) test, build and integrate code daily – with associated code quality and testing tools, and deployment scripts

The nationwide network is supported by a strong workforce of over 1500 committed employees, apart from more than 592 Sales and service team to ensure a hassle free service, delivering to over 11 million happy, satisfied and smiling customers and utilities (iii) ensuring consistency between environments / checks and documentation of variations.

Digital Technology Enablement and Integration Integration of digital technologies can enable new ways of generating and safeguarding competitive advantage. In a world driven by disruptive technology, innovative organizations now have the power to improve their service offerings by investing, creating and inventing game changing products that not only provide a better way of doing things but also hold commercial value. Digital enablers would integrate not only hardware and software but also be a part of decision-making with the help of emerging technologies like IoT, machine learning and more.

They take businesses through the journey of cloud transformation to enhance performance and move faster with new software endeavours. InterraIT’s key differentiators include:

Enable Digital Transformation By providing integrated data, from disparate structured and unstructured sources, and by applying advanced AI and analytics on them, we provide real time insights for Digital Transformation.

Scalability & Flexibility Leveraging their dual shore flexible operations model, InterraIT is able to ramp up/ ramp down resources on projects through a tightly integrated forecasting process.

Improve Forecast Accuracy during AMS They don’t end with deployment! It keeps monitoring forecast errors during AMS, keep learning from actual data and keep improving implemented models.

Focus on Lowering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) By providing high quality services and customer satisfaction with a flexible, scalable and highly cost effective operational model.

Providing value through Cloud Transformation

Digital Data Lakes and BI

In the wake of the changing global market landscape, Enterprises need to offer greater business agility, responsiveness and cost efficiency. This has become a compelling reason why enterprises are moving to the cloud. Modernizing application platforms and delivering “IT as a Service” has become quite necessary to support unpredictable business requirements and multi-geography projects.

Data Lakes are used in enterprise IT scenarios dealing with a deluge of data ranging from raw data to transformed data which is used for various tasks

With multiple cloud options available – private, public or hybrid, it is important for the enterprise IT to choose the right

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Cover Story Legacy (IBM Mainframe/AS400) application to cloud, Integration strategy, Migration Strategy, Backup and recovery & Cloud Optimization.

Virtualization InterraIT has leveraged its core competency in the integration and automation of VMware virtual infrastructure... Modernize Data Centers Integrate Public Clouds.

Transform Security & Certify Your Products. With intimate knowledge of many VMware products our Virtualization consultants can help you with- Integration with VMware virtual infrastructure, Automation of business processes and IT, Manage the life cycle of IaaS machines with vRA, XaaS – Anything as a service, Plugin Development & VMware Certification Programs for Server, Storage, IOVP, with certification processing and L1 Support.

InterraIT’s key Differentiators configuration to implement a sound cloud strategy. Also with adoption of latest cloud technologies, the existing IT application portfolio might become more heterogeneous and complex. Hence it is important to facilitate seamless cloud integration to deliver greater business value and enhanced customer satisfaction.

INTERRAIT - CLOUD SERVICE OFFERINGS InterraIT - Cloud Solutions for Business-On-Demand Cloud Consulting InterraIT’s Cloud Consulting and Assessment services help our customers choose the RIGHT Cloud strategy using our... industry-leading frameworks. We analyze the application portfolio for Cloud readiness, assess and recommend cloud platforms, perform ROI/TCO analysis, design the implementation roadmap to enable Cloud deployment. We assess the customer’s need and provide them with plan and strategy for migrating their applications into the Cloud with appropriate Cloud Service Provider, which suits their need and meets the compliances required.

Application Design The company leverages partner PaaS solutions, & design, build and manage PaaS platforms directly for customers with services that include: Micro-services - Accelerating time-to-market with smaller and logical units of deployment, Containerization-Quickly move, enhance and scale applications with independent

Data Lakes are used in enterprise IT scenarios dealing with a deluge of data ranging from raw data to transformed data which is used for various tasks including reporting, visualization, analytics and machine learning containers enabling modular development and deployment. Agile- Adopting our agile framework, supporting its technical aspects and enabling agile testing, DevOpsChanging organizational culture, skills and approaches in a move toward end-to-end automation and continuous deployment.

Security & Migration Through a well-defined approach for cloud integration, migration and security. As enterprises are adopting more and more cloud applications; integrating environments (Cloud and on-Premise DC’s) & migrating to the cloud has become a crucial piece considering the following scenarios - On-Premise to Cloud. Cloud to Cloud ( One Cloud Service Providers (CSP) to another), Migrate

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Taking businesses through the journey of cloud transformation to enhance performance and move faster with new software endeavours. Key Differentiators include:

FASTER AND PREDICTABLE CLOUD TRANSFORMATION- RISK MITIGATED CLOUD ADOPTION Focus on lowering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by providing high quality services and customer satisfaction with a flexible, scalable and highly cost effective operational model

Improve forecast accuracy during AMS – We don’t end with deployment! We keep monitoring forecast errors during AMS, keep learning from actual data and keep improving implemented models.

Integrate cohesively with customer creating a seamless single team with an effective engagement model

Scalability & Flexibility: Leveraging our dual shore flexible operations model, we are able to ramp up / ramp down resources on projects through a tightly integrated forecasting process.

• Digital Mobility Services Anytime, anywhere availability for a borderless global enterprise For today’s borderless global enterprises, location centric activities have been replaced by a truly mobile workforce

Cover Story requiring an evolved IT infrastructure landscape. Collaboration, connectivity and communication are the need of the hour for organizations. To achieve a strong competitive edge, companies must provide their customers compelling mobile experiences and equip employees with actionable customer insights. As Organizations have started to realize the importance of mobility and are driven to adopt mobility, they face an associated challenge to keep up with the evolving Mobile technologies and the supporting infrastructure requirements.InterraIT’s mobility services help companies deliver intuitive mobility experiences across devices for their customers and employees without impacting security and usability.

InterraIT Mobility Services – Overview App Development, Testing & Support InterraIT has a dedicated mobile center of excellence. The group has rich set of expertise in multiple platforms, devices and architectures. It includes Native, Cross Platform Apps, MEAP Platforms, Public Cloud Integration, Deployment, Multi Device/Platform Testing, Agile and DevOps. We help clients develop and maintain enticing, feature-rich user applications, Migrate existing applications to new platforms, Reduce errors with automation tools, thoroughly test mobile solutions using our Mobile Automation Test Framework and mBrowser test solutions.

Mobile UX/UI InterraIT UX/UI consultants create compelling, interactive experiences for consumer and business mobile apps, games and sites. Mobile app design is much more than just visual effects. It greatly impacts app usability. We consider application needs and context when developing features and content to ensure a seamless user-centric experience. Our development team iterates and

creates together with the design team to deliver business value to our customers. Key steps include – Assessment, Market Analysis, Framework Development, Design Implementation, Prototyping, Validation & Usability Testing.

Mobile Analytics Successful applications are able to capture and leverage user behavior for positive innovation. With the use of mobile analytics, applications deliver the best ROI for your business. You can enhance the user engagement by bettering the features preferred by your target audience. Deriving insights from analytics help innovation by determining the frequency of features used. InterraIT has worked on implementing advanced mobile analytics to collect and analyze data for tuning UX and generating business value.

Mobility on Cloud Businesses can now leverage Mobility enabled ‘Enterprise solutions on cloud’ for

Successful applications are able to capture and leverage user behavior for positive innovation. With the use of mobile analytics, applications deliver the best ROI for your business

various operations and streamline process flows. Armed with in-depth expertise on Mobile... Cloud Computing and deep understanding of business needs, InterraIT has paved the way for providing integrated mobility & cloud solutions under a single umbrella. It incorporates cutting edge innovations for customization of client needs as well as the best practices of the related industry.

InterraIT Value Proposition We take businesses through the journey of mobile roadmap design and application design & development helping customers throughout their mobility journey with a portfolio of tools and services that maximize the potential of their mobility implementation. Find our key differentiators below:

Reusable components: Delivery efficiency with large repository or reusable components, test assets and global delivery model

Faster GTM with ready mobility solutions Established engagements across mobility lifecycle With considerable years of experience and more than 100 service projects successfully delivered. Focus on lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) By providing high quality services and customer satisfaction with a flexible, scalable and highly cost -effective operational model.

Integrate cohesively with customer Creating a seamless single team with an effective engagement model.

Scalability & Flexibility: Leveraging our dual shore flexible operations model, we are able to ramp up / ramp down resources on projects through a tightly integrated forecasting process. To conclude, in essence, the decision makers today should invest in targeted efforts to source data, build models, deploy advance analytics and use the insight to transform their organizational culture. Needless to say that InterraIT’s technical expertise, strong customer centric approach coupled with domain knowledge and experience of providing end- to- end solutions has made the company stay as a leader – always ahead of competition.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Cover Story

INTERVIEW WITH ASOKE K. LAHA, FOUNDER PRESIDENT AND CEO INTERRAIT

“AT INTERRAIT, QUALITY & CUSTOMER- CENTRIC FOCUS IS THE KEY” Mr. Asoke K Laha is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Interra Information Technologies, Inc., global software services organization that delivers innovative business and technology solutions to Fortune 1000 companies. It is headquartered in San Jose, California. He has led InterraIT since it was established in 1996. Mr. Laha has over forty years of professional experience in the software industry. He started his career as a software developer at GTE in the United States, and subsequently worked for Digital Equipment Corporation and Cadence Design Systems, all in the US. While in Cadence, he was appointed as the Managing Director of Cadence India, and relocated to India as an expatriate to build the subsidiary. During his tenure with Cadence India, Mr. Laha transformed the company from a start-up into a recognized and well-respected organization in the Indian software landscape. Mr. Laha received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and his Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He also completed Graduate studies from Northwestern University, Evanston, USA. He authored a number of articles published in respected magazines – IEEE Transactions, and IEE journals. He was visiting professor at IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Kanpur. He was also selected as “Distinguished Alumnus” by Jadavpur University. At present he is Adjunct Visiting Professor at Indian Institute of Finance. He is an avid student of management studies and leadership which he has been practicing and applying passionately in his day to day managerial work in India as well as the US. He has written extensively on these issues in print and digital media. He has addressed seminars and taken classes on these subjects in IIM - Kolkata and other distinguished forums and institutes. Mr Laha speaks to Observer Dawn Business Editor Yogesh Sood

Mr. Laha, let us begin with your company first, tell us something what you do and how you do it?

We are a service oriented company. We are one of the leading, die hard, passionate consulting companies who do not want to limit their work to one particular product area

Sure, thank you, we started our company Interra Information Technologies or in short InterraIT in Silicon Valley, USA in 1997. The company was started with prime objective of making our customers’ efficient and productive. We, the founders (all studied and worked in USA) planned to use our extensive experience in developing best software for large US corporations, for helping our future clients. So, we started making software and very soon had with us a number of great companies who needed and used our services in the global market. Since then it was a journey of adventures in old and new technologies, an obsession with quality and determination to give our clients the very best at most cost effective price.

competency and confidence have taken years to develop. Now InterraIT is one of the most sought after service consultancies in the world. Some of the world’s most distinguished companies take our services and there have been a very few quits from our client list really.

That comes to my question – what are the causes of your retention of old clients?

Quality, quality and quality. Of course, to maintain highest quality we have had to undergo a lot of hard self-assessment, lot of pains and sacrifices on the part of our individual team members and a very critical very self-demanding discipline and work culture right from the CEO to floor level workers.

You must have got certifications in quality too?

Did you offer products or services in general?

Yes of course. We have become ISO certified plus CMM level 5. But I would say the true value of our quality is recognized by the smile of our customers.

We are a service oriented company. We are one of the leading, die hard, passionate consulting companies who do not want to limit their work to one particular product area.

You cannot achieve great quality without a great team. How did you develop your team?

What are the domains and verticals you work into? I would like to describe it as “Everything under the sun which is needed by the customers”. We are today working in a whole gamut of domains and verticals and we have built our practices around them. Our software developers work in mobility, cloud, data and security, AI and BI, retail and healthcare, automobile and supply chain and you name it .Of course, this phenomenal

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Tell you what, I consider myself more a coach and a leader than a technology professional. Yes, I have spent several decades in the best corporate environment as a professional but my company has taught me a few other lessons which I had not learnt in the time I had been employed by other very big companies. I had to develop my team through trial and error method, by choosing and unchosing people, always targeting and hiring the very best talents I could find. I had all along been an avid

Cover Story

reader of management books. These books and authors taught me a hell of a lot about sourcing and managing talents. You know, the challenge in developing a great company is not just hiring good people but how to turn them into better. Likewise, it’s not enough to hire talents but to keep them and nurture them like a good gardener takes care of his plants and flowers. Dataquest did not put us in the top twenty employee list for nothing, it was possible because I devoted very significant part of my time and energy into learning and researching in human resource management studies.

commitment you devote towards the achievement is what makes it possible isn’t it? I think I have been driving this philosophy of complete ownership into my people’s head and heart over long. I myself try to set an example, not sparing me in the hardness of the task in any way. Even now I work minimum six long days a week and make it a point to keep me available to my people’s approaches on any important issue. I also try to play the role of CEO less and that of a coach more and more. Of course, at the end of the day we are all human beings and failures are only natural parts of our endeavor. But that should not affect our commitment nor dampen our zeal for change.

Business is always a risk taking game involving both discipline and luck. I am aware of that. I would describe the case like this. Doing business and running a company is like driving a car

Talking of human resource and your interest in management studies, do tell us more about what you do to motivate people? Before I talk about motivating others let me talk something of my basic human resource philosophy. I am a firm believer in self-motivation. If someone does not learn to motivate himself he will very likely degenerate into a weakling asking for more and more cuddling and lollypops from his bosses and peers. I tell my employees they are all Individualized Corporations in our company and each individual hold ownership and responsibility for his or her area of work. So, in real terms there is no up and down, only a flat platform where you create your own profit and credit bank and ultimately your reward and recognition system too.

That sounds very interesting. But is it not difficult to get this down to ground reality ? Any achievement is difficult for that matter. The energy and

Being a technology company you have to fight the usual challenges I am sure? The increasing competition, attrition of skilled people, technologies getting obsolete and overtaken by new skills, bad economy and slow down, among others? How do you fight them? Business is always a risk taking game involving both discipline and luck. I am aware of that. I would describe the case like this. Doing business and running a company is like driving a car. Any driver will like easy negotiable roads, fewer roadblocks, good weather to drive through. But in real world you run into traffic jams, rough weather, sometime wrong or dangerous roads in the hills, difficult terrains. What sustains you is your energy, self-belief and self-discipline. We have developed a set of values in our company. Honesty, transparency, team cooperation, a

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Cover Story

culture of curiosity that is all people should be encouraged to learn new things to keep alive in the market, and create an ecosystem of learning and experimenting.

Coming to the point of ownership again, do you think ownership is possible without a belief of yourself being a stakeholder?

Honesty, transparency, team cooperation, a culture of curiosity that is all people should be encouraged to learn new things to keep alive in the market..

Interestingly in my previous company – in my tenure as Managing Director of Cadence India – I offered stakes to many employees. In those days early ‘90s, that was a rare benefit offered to the employees. However, what I am trying to say is that you have to create a culture of alignment. If employees do not have a relation of trust with the management they can hardly bother to take ownership. There we are talking of a company culture and you cannot develop that if you yourself are not a believer and practitioner of that culture. Only then people trust and follow you and will take the risk and pleasure of ownership. I hope I made it clear.

Will you say a few words about your early years or the roots, so to speak? I come from a middle class background in Kolkata. I was an eldest son, had a number of siblings to take care of, did support my parents by doing tuition from a very early age, had a thoroughly conventional and authoritarian parenthood. But I had in me a fire and curiosity which took me ahead of peers and relatives, I always worked really hard to be number one in my class, got into Jadavpur university engineering studies and thereafter a full scholarship to study in the US. In US I had to face stiffest competition and challenges all of which I fought to the end and made my place at the end. My career in the big corporates in the US was fraught with many challenges

and opposition. It was not easy to establish oneself in a predominantly white country in 1970s and in a fiercely competitive surrounding.

Finally, Mr. Laha, tell us how you keep work life balance. A few words about your family? I am lucky with a very caring wife and a beautiful and very smart daughter who lives in America with her American husband. I am used to working long and hard on business which my family members understand and accommodate with. They are very patient with me. Of course, there are private parties and vacations.

Anything more you will like to tell us before we close? Yes, I would like to give your readers and patrons a message. I would like to offer them my services if they need any help or if they have any problem which I can try to solve with my experience and team. We are globally available, since you have a presence and readership in Middle East, we are open to work or collaborate with any companies and governments if there is an opportunity.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

NASA

NASA TO EXPLORE ACTIVE, COMPLEX WORLD OF SOLAR SYSTEM The four selected Discovery Program investigations of NASA are meant to develop concept studies for its new missions. These are not official missions instead the final selections may surface by the next year. However, the Discovery Program team has invited the scientists and engineers to design exciting planetary science missions. These would provide frequent flight opportunities for planetary science investigations. The main objective of the program is to address pressing questions in planetary science and increase proper understanding of the solar system. The Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, through a Press Release said, “All these are meant to create a fresh understanding about the most active and complex worlds of the solar system”. “Exploring any one of these celestial bodies will help unlock the secrets of how it, and others like it, came to be in the cosmos”, Zurbuchen said in the Press Release. A sum of $3 million would be allocated for each of the four nine-month studies to develop and mature concepts in this regard. Soon after, NASA will continue development of up to two missions towards flight.

NASA’s Selected Proposals Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging Plus (DAVINCI+) The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging Plus will analyze Venus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed, evolved and determine. Whether, the planet (Venus) ever had an ocean. The DAVINCI Plus plunges through Venus’ inhospitable atmosphere to precisely measure its composition down to the surface. The instruments are encapsulated within a purpose-built descent sphere to protect them from the intense environment of Venus. The “+” in DAVINCI+ refers to the imaging component of the mission, which includes cameras on the descent sphere and orbiter designed to map surface rock-type.

Io Volcano Observer (IVO) The Io Volcano Observer would discover Jupiter’s moon, Io, to learn the way tidal forces shape planetary bodies. The ‘Io’ is heated by the constant crush of Jupiter’s gravity and is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. However, it could yet be ascertained whether a magma ocean exists in its interior. By using ‘closein flybys’, the IVO would assess how magma is generated and erupted on Io.

TRIDENT It is meant to discover the facts regarding ‘Triton’, a unique and highly active icy moon of Neptune. Trident would help understand pathways to habitable worlds at tremendous distances from the Sun. NASA’s Voyager 2 mission showed that Triton has active resurfacing— generating the second youngest surface in the solar system—with the potential for erupting

Developers have been demanding an increase in the minimum number of people required to take a company to NCLT to two-thirds of the total homebuyers in a project

February 2020

plumes and an atmosphere. Coupled with an ionosphere that can create organic snow and the potential for an interior ocean, Triton is an exciting exploration target to understand how habitable worlds may develop in our solar system and others. Using a single flyby, Trident would map Triton, characterize active processes, and determine whether the predicted subsurface ocean exists.

Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) It would study and map the surface of Venus, so that it could determine the planet’s geological history and understand reasons behind the differently development Venus developed. The planet has developed differently than the Earth.

OBSERVER DAWN

UNION BUDGET 2020

NIRMALA SITHARAMAN

Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India

UNION BUDGET 2020-21 OD Bureau

he Union Budget 2020-21 has been prepared reader-friendly. The documents submitted by the Union Finance Minister, N Sitharaman, shows receipts and expenditure as well as the Fiscal Deficit (FD), Revenue Deficit (RD), Effective Revenue Deficit (ERD) and the Primary Deficit (PD) of the Government. This apart, it also showcases a pictorial account of sources of receipts, their application, the details of debt and deficit indicators, sources of deficit financing and trends and composition of important budgetary variables through charts and graphs. While, fiscal Deficit is reflective of the total borrowing requirements of Government, the revenue Deficit refers to the excess of revenue expenditure over revenue receipts. Effective Revenue Deficit is the difference between Revenue Deficit and Grants for Creation of Capital Assets. Primary Deficit is measured as Fiscal Deficit less interest payments. As such, budget 2020-21 reflects the Governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s firm commitment to substantially boost investment in Agriculture, Social Sector, Education and Health. This is substantiated by increase in expenditure of ` 3,43,678 crores over RE (2019-20) while keeping the fiscal deficit at 3.8% of GDP.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

UNION BUDGET 2020

BUDGET OUTLOOK 2020 – 21

Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has on February 1, 2020 presented the first Union Budget of the third decade of 21st century in the Lower House of Indian Parliament. Aimed at strengthening the Indian economy through a combination of short-term, medium-term and long-term measures, Union Finance Ministerunveiled various far-reaching reforms.

Major Highlights Three Significant Themes Incorporated in the Budget:

• NABARD Re-finance Scheme to be further expanded. • Comprehensive measures for 100 water-stressed districts proposed.

1. Aspirational India – Under this, all sections of the society seek better standards of living, with access to health, education and better jobs. 2. Economic development for all – As indicated in the Prime Minister’s motive of “Sabka Saath , Sabka Vikas , Sabka Vishwas”, this section will involve reforms across swathes of the economy. At the same time, it will focus on yielding more space for the private sector. 3. Caring Society – This section include both humane and compassionate. Antyodaya is an article of faith.

• Blue Economy: Rs. 1 lakh crore fisheries’ exports to be achieved by 2024-25; 200 lakh tonnes fish production targeted by 2022-23; 3477 Sagar Mitras and 500 Fish Farmer Producer Organizations to involve youth in fisheries extension; Growing of algae, sea-weed and cage culture to be promoted; Framework for development, management and conservation of marine fishery resources. • Kisan Rail to be setup by Indian Railways through PPP:

Three broad themes are held together by: Corruption free, policydriven Good Governance, Clean and sound financial sector.

To build a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables (milk, meat, fish, etc; Express and Freight trains to have refrigerated coaches.

Major components of Aspirational India

Krishi Udaan to be launched by the Ministry of Civil Aviation

• Agriculture, Irrigation, and Rural Development • Wellness, Water, and Sanitation • Education and Skills Multiple Action Points for the development of Agriculture, Irrigation and Rural areas A sum of Rs. 2.83 lakh crore would be allocated for the below given 16 Action Points for development

Both, international and national, routes to be covered; North-East and tribal districts to realize improved value of agriproducts. • One-Product One-District for better marketing and export in the Horticulture sector. • Balanced use of all kinds of fertilizers - traditional organic and innovative fertilizers. • Measures for organic, natural and integrated farming:

• Rs. 1.60 lakh crore for Agriculture, Irrigation & allied activities. • Rs. 1.23 lakh crore for Rural development & Panchayati Raj. • Agriculture credit • Rs. 15 lakh crore target set for the year 2020-21. • PM-KISAN beneficiaries to be covered under the KCC scheme.

Jaivik Kheti

Zero-Budget Natural Farming Integrated Farming Systems in rain-fed areas to be expanded

Multi-tier cropping, bee-keeping, solar pumps, solar energy production in non-cropping season to be added • PM-KUSUM to be expanded Altogether 20 lakh farmers to be provided for setting up standalone solar pumps; Another 15 lakh farmers to be helped to solarise their gridconnected pump sets; This scheme is meant to enable the farmers to set up solar power generation capacity on their fallow/barren lands and to sell it to the grid. • Village Storage Scheme It would be run by the SHGs; It is meant to provide the farmers with good holding capacity and reduce their logistics cost. • Women, SHGs to regain their position as Dhaanya Lakshmi. • National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development(NABARD) to map and geo-tag agri-warehouses, cold storages, reefer van facilities, etc. • Warehousing in line with Warehouse Development and

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

UNION BUDGET 2020 Regulatory Authority (WDRA) norms: Viability Gap Funding for setting up such efficient warehouses at the block/taluk level; The Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) to undertake such warehouse building. • Financing on Negotiable Warehousing Receipts (e-NWR) to be integrated with e-NAM. • State governments who undertake implementation of model laws (issued by the Central government) to be encouraged. • Livestock Doubling of milk processing capacity to 108 million MT from 53.5 million MT by 2025; Artificial insemination to be increased to 70% from the present 30%; MNREGS to be dovetailed to develop fodder farms; Foot and Mouth Disease, Brucellosis in cattle and Peste Des Petits ruminants (PPR) in sheep and goat to be eliminated by 2025. • Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana – Almost 0.5 crore households mobilized with 58 lakh SHGs for poverty alleviation. Wellness, Water and Sanitation • Rs. 69,000 crore allocated for overall Healthcare sector. • Rs. 6400 crore (out of Rs. 69,000 crore) for PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY): More than 20,000 hospitals already empanelled under PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY); Viability Gap funding window proposed for setting up hospitals in the PPP mode; Aspirational Districts with no Ayushman empanelled hospitals to be covered in the first phase; Targeting diseases with an appropriately designed preventive regime using Machine Learning and AI; • Jan Aushadhi Kendra Scheme to offer 2000 medicines and 300 surgicals in all districts by 2024. • TB Harega Desh Jeetega campaign launched - commitment to end Tuberculosis by 2025. • Rs. 3.60 lakh crore approved for Jal Jeevan Mission: Rs. 11,500 crore for the year 2020-21; Augmenting local water sources, recharging existing sources, and promoting water harvesting and de-salination; Cities with million-plus population to be encouraged to achieve the objective during the current year itself, • Rs.12, 300 crore allocation for Swachh Bharat Mission in 2020-21: Commitment to ODF-Plus in order to sustain ODF behavior; Emphasis on liquid and grey water management; Focus also on Solid-waste collection, source segregation, and processing.

Education and Skills • Sum of Rs. 99,300 crore for education sector and Rs. 3000 crore for skill development in 2020-21. • New Education Policy to be announced soon. • National Police University and National Forensic Science University proposed for policing science, forensic science, and cyber-forensics. • Degree level full-fledged online education program by Top-100 institutions in the National Institutional Ranking Framework. • Up to 1-year internship to fresh engineers to be provided by Urban Local Bodies. • Budget proposes to attach a medical college to an existing district hospital in PPP mode. • Special bridge courses to be designed by the Ministries of Health, and Skill Development: To fulfill the demand for teachers, nurses, para-medical staff and care-givers abroad; To bring in equivalence in the skill sets of the workforce and employers’ standards

• 150 higher educational institutions to start apprenticeship embedded degree/diploma courses by March 2021. • External Commercial Borrowings and FDI to be enabled for education sector. • Ind-SAT proposed for Asian and African countries as a part of Study in India program.

Economic Development Industry, Commerce and Investment • Rs. 27,300 crore allocated for 2020-21 for development and promotion of Industry and Commerce. • Investment Clearance Cell proposed to be set up: To provide “end to end” facilitation and support; To work through a portal. • Five new smart cities proposed to be developed. • Scheme to encourage manufacture of mobile phones, electronic equipment and semi-conductor packaging proposed. National Technical Textiles Mission to be set up: With four-year implementation period from 2020-21 to 2023-24; At an estimated outlay of Rs 1480 crore; To project India as a global leader in Technical Textiles. • New scheme NIRVIK to be launched to achieve higher export credit disbursement, which provides for: • Higher insurance coverage; • Reduction in premium for small exporters; • Simplified procedure for claim settlements. • Turnover of Government e-Marketplace (GeM) proposed to be taken to Rs 3 lakh crore. • Scheme for Revision of duties and taxes on exported products to be launched. • Exporters to be digitally refunded duties and taxes levied at the Central, State and local levels, which are otherwise not exempted or refunded. • The Ministries to issue quality standard orders as per PM’s vision of “Zero Defect-Zero Effect” manufacturing.

Infrastructure • Rs.100 lakh crore to be invested on infrastructure over the next 5 years. • National Infrastructure Pipeline: Rs. 103 lakh crore worth projects; launched on 31st December 2019; More than 6500 projects across sectors, to be classified as per their size and stage of development. • A National Logistics Policy to be released soon • National Skill Development Agency to give special thrust to infrastructure-focused skill development opportunities.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

UNION BUDGET 2020 Electricity: • “Smart” metering to be promoted. • More measures to reform DISCOMs to be taken.

Power: • Rs.22, 000 crore proposed for power and renewable energy sector in 2020-21. • Expansion of national gas grid from the present 16200 km to 27000 km proposed. • Further reforms to facilitate transparent price discovery and ease of transactions.

New Economy Policy to enable private sector to build Data Centre parks throughout the country to be brought out soon; Fiber to the Home (FTTH) connections through Bharatnet to link 100,000 gram panchayats this year; Rs.6000 crore proposed for Bharatnet program in 2020-21. • Measures proposed to benefit Start-ups • Project preparation facility for infrastructure projects proposed. • Infrastructure agencies of the government to involve youthpower in start-ups. • Rs.1.7 lakh crore proposed for transport infrastructure in 2020-21.

Highways: • Accelerated development of highways to be undertaken, including: 2500 Km access control highways; 9000 Km of economic corridors; 2000 Km of coastal and land port roads and 2000 Km of strategic highways. • Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and two other packages to be completed by 2023. • Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway to be started. • Proposed to monetise at least 12 lots of highway bundles of over 6000 Km before 2024.

Indian Railways • Five Significant Measures: Large solar power capacity to be set up alongside rail tracks, on land owned by railways; Four station re-development projects and operation of 150 passenger trains through PPP; More Tejas type trains to connect iconic tourist destinations; High speed train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad to be actively pursued; 148 km long Bengaluru Suburban transport project at a cost of Rs 18600 crore, to have fares on metro model. Union Government to provide 20% of equity and facilitate external assistance up to 60% of the project cost.

Indian Railways’ achievements: 1. 550 Wi-fi facilities commissioned in as many stations. 2. Zero unmanned crossings. 3. 27000 Km of tracks to be electrified

Ports & Water-ways: • Corporatizing at least one major port and its listing on stock exchanges to be considered. • Governance framework keeping with global benchmarks needed for more efficient sea-ports. • Economic activity along river banks to be energised as per Prime Minister’s Arth Ganga concept.

Airports: • 100 more airports to be developed by 2024 to support Udaan scheme. • Air fleet number expected to go up from present 600 to 1200 during this time.

A digital platform to be promoted to facilitate seamless application and capture of IPRs; Knowledge Translation Clusters to be set up across different technology sectors including new and emerging areas; For designing, fabrication and validation of proof of concept, and further scaling up Technology Clusters, harboring test beds and small scale manufacturing facilities to be established; Mapping of India’s genetic landscape- Two new national level Science Schemes to be initiated to create a comprehensive database; Early life funding proposed, including a seed fund to support ideation and development of early stage Start-ups. • Rs.8000 crore proposed over five years for National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.

Caring Society • Main Focus on Women & child; Social Welfare;

Culture and Tourism • Allocation of Rs. 35,600 crore for nutrition-related programmes proposed for the FY2020-21. • Rs.28, 600 crore proposed for women specific programs. • Issue about age of a girl entering motherhood - proposed to appoint a task force to present its recommendations in six months’ time. • Financial support for wider acceptance of technologies, identified by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to ensure no manual cleaning of sewer systems or septic tanks, to be provided. • Rs. 85, 000 crore proposed for 2020-21 for welfare of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes. • Rs. 53, 700 crore provided to further development and welfare of Scheduled Tribes. • Enhanced allocation of Rs. 9,500 crore provided for 2020-21 for senior citizens and Divyang.

Culture & Tourism • Allocation of Rs. 2500 crore for 2020-21 for tourism promotion. • Rs.3150 crore proposed for Ministry of Culture for 2020-21. • An Indian Institute of Heritage and Conservation under Ministry of Culture proposed; with the status of a deemed University. • 5 archaeological sites to be developed as iconic sites with onsite Museums: • Re-creation of the Indian Museum in Kolkata, announced by Prime Minister in January 2020. • Museum on Numismatics and Trade to be located in the historic Old Mint building in Kolkata.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

UNION BUDGET 2020 • 4 more museums from across the country to be taken up for renovation and re-creation. • Support for setting up of a Tribal Museum in Ranchi (Jharkhand). • Maritime museum to be set up at Lothal- the Harrapan age maritime site near Ahmedabad, by Ministry of Shipping. • State governments expected to develop a roadmap for certain identified destinations and formulate financial plans during 2021 against which specified grants to be made available to the States in 2020-21.

• Factor Regulation Act 2011 to be amended to: • New scheme to provide subordinate debt for entrepreneurs of MSMEs by the banks • Window for MSME’s debt restructuring by RBI to be extended by one year till March 31, 2021. • An app-based invoice financing loans product for MSMEs to be launched. • Export promotion of MSMEs:

Environment & Climate Change

• Deepening Bond Market. Certain specified categories of Government securities to be opened fully for non -resident investors also.

• Allocation for this purpose to be Rs.4400 crore for 2020-21. • Proposed to advise the utilities to close the running old thermal power plants with carbon emission above the pre-set norms. • States that are formulating and implementing plans for ensuring cleaner air in cities above one million to be encouraged. • PM launched Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) with Secretariat in Delhi. Second such international initiative after International Solar Alliance.

Governance • Clean, corruption-free, policy driven, good in intent and most importantly trusting in faith. • Taxpayer Charter to be enshrined in the Statute will bring fairness and efficiency in tax administration. • Companies Act to be amended to build into statues, criminal liability for certain acts that are civil in nature. • Major reforms in recruitment to Non-Gazetted posts in Government and Public sector banks: • A robust mechanism to be evolved for appointment including direct recruitment to various Tribunals and specialised bodies to attract best talents and professional experts. • Contract Act to be strengthened. • New National Policy on Official Statistics to: • A sum of Rs. 100 crore allocated to begin the preparations for G20 presidency to be hosted in India in the year 2022. • Development of North East region: • Development of Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh:

Financial Sector • Reforms accomplished in PSBs; • Governance reforms to be carried out to bring in transparency and greater professionalism in PSBs; • Few PSBs to be encouraged to approach the capital market to raise additional capital; • Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) permitted to increase Deposit Insurance Coverage to Rs. 5 lakh from Rs.1 lakh per depositor; • Scheduled Commercial Bank’s health under monitoring through a robust mechanism, keeping depositors’ money safe; • Cooperative Banks to be strengthen by amending Banking Regulation Act for; • NBFCs eligibility limit for debt recovery reduced from:Rs. 500 crore to Rs 100 crore asset size and Rs 1 crore to Rs 50 lakh loan size. • Private capital in Banking system:Government to sell its balance holding in IDBI Bank to private, retail and institutional investors through the stock exchange. • Easier mobility in jobs: Auto-enrolment in Universal Pension coverage andInter-operability mechanism to safeguard the accumulated corpus.

Financial Market

FPI limit in corporate bonds increased to 15% from 9% of its outstanding stock. • New legislation to be formulated for laying down a mechanism for netting of financial contracts. • Debt Based Exchange Traded Fund expanded by a new DebtETF consisting primarily of Government Securities. • A Partial Credit Guarantee scheme for the NBFCs formulated post the Union budget 2019-20 to address their liquidity constraints.

Infrastructure Financing

• Rs.103 lakh crore National Infrastructure Pipeline projects earlier announced. • Rs 22,000 crore to cater to the equity support to Infrastructure Finance Companies such as IIFCL and a subsidiary of NIIF. • IFSC, GIFT city: full of potential to become a center of international finance as well as a center for high end data processing.

Disinvestment

• Government to sell a part of its holding in LIC by way of Initial Public Offer (IPO). Fiscal Management • XV Finance Commission (FC):XV Finance Commission has given its first report for FY2020-21; Recommendations accepted in substantial measure; Its final report for five years beginning 2021-22 to be submitted during the latter part of the year. • GST Compensation Fund: Balances due out of collection of the years 2016-17 and 2017-18 to be transferred to the Fund, in two installments; Hereinafter, transfers to the fund to be limited only to collection by way of GST compensation cess; Overhaul of Centrally Sponsored Schemes and

• Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority of India Act to be amended to: Strengthen regulating role of PFRDAI; Facilitate separation of NPS trust for government employees from PFRDAI; Enable establishment of a Pension Trust by the employees other than Government.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

UNION BUDGET 2020 Central Sector Schemes necessary; To align them with emerging social and economic needs of tomorrow; To ensure that scarce public resources are spent optimally. • On the recent debate over transparency and credibility of projected fiscal numbers, it is assured that procedure adopted is compliant with the FRBM Act. • For the FY 2019-20: Revised Estimates of Expenditure: at Rs.26.99 lakh crore Revised Estimates of Receipts: estimated at Rs.19.32 lakh crore. • For year 2020-21 Nominal growth of GDP estimated at 10%; Receipts: estimated at Rs.22.46 lakh cr; and Expenditure: at Rs.30.42 lakh cr. • Significant tax reforms for boosting investments recently undertaken. However, expected tax buoyancy expected to take time. • Fiscal deficit of 3.8% estimated in RE 2019-20 and 3.5% for BE 2020-21. • A good part of the borrowings for the financial year 2020-21 to go towards Capital expenditure that has been scaled up by more than 21%.

Direct Tax Direct Tax Proposals - To stimulate growth, simplify tax structure, bring ease of compliance, and reduce litigations. • Personal Income Tax Significant relief to middle class taxpayers; New and simplified personal income tax regime proposed: Taxable Income Slab (Rs.) Existing tax rates New tax rates 0-2.5 Lakh

Exempt

2.5-5 Lakh

5-7.5 Lakh

20%

10%

7.5-10 Lakh

20%

15%

10-12.5 Lakh

30%

20%

12.5-15 Lakh

30%

25%

Above 15 Lakh

30%

Tax payment on ESOPs deferred • MSMEs to boost less-cash economy Turnover threshold for audit increased to Rs. 5 crore from Rs. 1 crore for businesses carrying out less than 5% business transactions in cash. • Cooperatives Parity brought between cooperatives and corporate sector; Option to cooperative societies to be taxed at 22% + 10% surcharge and 4% cess with no exemption/deductions; Cooperative societies exempted from Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) just like Companies are exempted from the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT). • Tax concession for foreign investments Hundred percent tax exemption to the interest, dividend and capital gains income on investment made in infrastructure; Priority sectors before 31st March, 2024 with a minimum lockin period of 3 years by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of foreign governments. • Affordable housing Additional deduction up to Rs. 1.5 lakhs for interest paid on loans taken for an affordable house extended till 31st March, 2021. Date of approval of affordable housing projects for availing tax holiday on profits earned by developers extended till 31st March, 2021.

Tax Facilitation Measures • Instant PAN to be allotted online through Aadhaar. • ‘Vivad Se Vishwas’ scheme, with a deadline of 30th June, 2020, to reduce litigations in direct taxes – Waiver of interest and penalty - only disputed taxes to be paid for payments till 31st March, 2020; Additional amount to be paid if availed after 31st March, 2020; Benefits to taxpayers in whose cases appeals are pending at any level.

• Around 70 of the existing exemptions and deductions (more than 100) to be removed in the new simplified regime; • Remaining exemptions and deductions to be reviewed and rationalised in coming years; • New tax regime to be optional - an individual may continue to pay tax as per the old regime and avail deductions and exemptions; • Measures to pre-fill the income tax return initiated so that an individual who opts for the new regime gets pre-filled income tax returns and would need no assistance from an expert to pay income tax; • New regime to entail estimated revenue forgone of Rs. 40,000 crore per year. • Corporate Tax Tax rate of 15% extended to new electricity generation companies and Indian corporate tax rates now amongst the lowest in the world. • Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) DDT removed making India a more attractive investment destination; Deduction to be allowed for dividend received by holding company from its subsidiary; Rs. 25,000 crore estimated annual revenue forgone. • Start-ups: Start-ups with turnover up to Rs. 100 crore to enjoy 100% deduction for 3 consecutive assessment years out of 10 years.

• Faceless appeals to be enabled by amending the Income Tax Act. • For charity institutions: Pre-filling in return through information of donations furnished by the done; Process of registration to be made completely electronic; Unique registration number (URN) to be issued to all new and existing charity institutions; Provisional registration to be allowed for new charity institutions for three years.

CBDT to adopt a Taxpayers’ Charter • Losses of merged banks Amendments proposed to the Income-tax Act to ensure that entities benefit from unabsorbed losses and depreciation of the amalgamating entities.

Indirect Tax • GST Cash reward system envisaged to incentivize customers to seek invoice; Simplified return with features like SMS based filing for nil return and improved input tax credit flow to be implemented from 1st April, 2020 as a pilot run; Dynamic QR-code capturing GST parameters proposed for consumer invoices; Electronic invoice to capture critical information in a centralized system to be implemented in a phased manner; Aadhaar based verification of taxpayers being introduced to weed out dummy or non-existent units; GST rate structure is being deliberated to address inverted duty structure.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

UNION BUDGET 2020 • Customs Duties Customs duty raised on footwear to 35% from 25% and on furniture goods to 25% from 20%; Basic customs duty on imports of news print and light-weight coated paper reduced from 10% to 5%; Customs duty rates revised on electric vehicles and parts of mobiles; 5% health cess to be imposed on the imports of medical devices, except those exempt from BCD; Lower customs duty on certain inputs and raw materials like fuse, chemicals, and plastics; Higher customs duty would be imposed on certain goods like auto-parts, chemicals, etc. which are also being made domestically. • Trade Policy Measures Customs Act being amended to enable proper checks of imports under FTAs; Rules of Origin requirements to be reviewed for certain sensitive items; Provisions relating to safeguard duties to be strengthened to enable regulating such surge in imports in a systematic way; Provisions for checking dumping of goods and imports of subsidized goods being strengthened; Suggestion for reviews of exemptions from customs duty to be crowd-sourced.

• Excise Duties It has been proposed to be raised on Cigarettes and other tobacco products, no change made in the duty rates of bidis.

Unprecedented Milestones and Achievements of Indian Economy • India now the fifth largest economy of the world. • 7.4% average growth clocked during 2014-19 with inflation averaging around 4.5%. • 271 million people raised out of poverty during 2006-16. • India’s Foreign Direct Investment elevated to US$ 284 billion during 2014-19 from US$ 190 billion during 2009-14. • Central Government debt reduced to 48.7% of GDP (March 2019) from 52.2% (March 2014). • Two cross-cutting developments:Proliferation of technologies and Highest ever number of people in the productive age group (15-65 years). • GST removed many bottlenecks in the system. Future Aim for sustaining India’s unique global leadership, driven by Digital Revolution • Seamless delivery of services through Digital Governance. • Improvement in physical quality of life through National Infrastructure Pipeline. • Risk mitigation through Disaster Resilience. • Social security through Pension and Insurance penetration.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

UNION BUDGET 2020

UNION BUDGET 2020 VISIONARY & GROWTH ORIENTED Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitaraman’s second Budget was presented in the backdrop of deceleration in economic growth. The subtext of the budget conveys the impression that the government believes economic challenges is cyclical and not structural. Transparency on data, efforts to boost growth and tax cuts are welcome steps. The 16 –point plan of action for agriculture represents a comprehensive set of measures for growth of this crucial sector. By Yogesh Sood

he Union Budget 2020-21 has made a decisive push to reverse the slowdown of the Indian economy by unveiling a multi-pronged set of far-reaching measures. This ranges from putting more money into the pockets of the people, helping the agrarian sector to double the farmers’ income to the removal of dividend taxation on companies to boost the business bottom lines. Devising a budget in fiscally challenging times is an onerous task but, Finance Minister, NirmalaSitaraman, did a dexterous balancing act by apportioning adequate outlays for capital expenditure by ensuring that a large part of government borrowings would go towards this. The government thus, indicated its’ continuing push towards infrastructure projects over and above the creation of capital assets in sanitation and water conservation as part of the overall goal to bring Ease of living for every citizen so as to “leapfrog to the next level of health, prosperity and wellbeing”, as the budget eloquently explained.

With an emphasis on capacity building and empowerment of marginalized sections of society including farmers, the Union Budget intends to ensure, as said by Sitharaman, "our people should be gainfully employed. Our businesses should be healthy. For all minorities, women and people from SCs and STs, this Budget aims to fulfil their aspirations”. The government has increased the outlay for digital India program by 23 percent to Rs 3,958 crore for 2020-21 compared to the actual allocation in the current fiscal. The budget proposes to give Indian economy an impetus to emerge as more vibrant and stronger. The increase has been mainly on account of incentives to be given for electronic manufacturing, research and development, development of manpower for the segment, cyber security and promotion of IT and IT enabled services. The finance ministry had allocated Rs 3,750.76 crore in the previous budget but the same was revised downward to Rs 3,212.52 crore, according to the budget document. “The Government has been taking several initiatives on continuous basis for promotion of electronics manufacturing in the country to provide an enabling environment for the industry to compete globally. Electronics manufacturing is one of the important

UNION BUDGET 2020 Among the broad category of economic stakeholders, in the agriculture, irrigation and rural development, new proposals encompass viability gap funding for creation of efficient warehouses, a seamless national cold supply chain for perishables and higher provision of farm credit of Rs. 15 lakh crore for the next fiscal. A massive outlay of Rs. 99,300 crore for education and about Rs. 3200 crore for skill development has been set apart for the next fiscal.

pillars of the Digital India Program and the target to achieve net zero imports is a striking demonstration of intent”, the document said. Government has increased provision for promotion of Electronics and IT hardware manufacturing through modified special incentive package scheme, electronics development fund and electronics manufacturing cluster to Rs 980 crore from Rs 690 crore in the current fiscal. The research and development programme under the Ministry of Electronics and IT will get 75 percent higher fund in 2020-21 compared to Rs 435 crore in the current fiscal. The fund is envisaged to be spent on R&D activity in Electronics, nano and microelectronics including semiconductor integrated circuit layout design registry, medical electronics and health informatics, innovation promotion and start-ups, high performance computing including National Supercomputing Mission, open source etc.The fund allocation for cyber security projects and promotion of IT and ITeS industries have been increased to Rs 170 crore each from Rs 102 crore and Rs 90 crore respectively. The government has increased allocation for National Knowledge Network to Rs 400 crore from Rs 274 crore in the current fiscal. Government has slashed funds for promotion of digital payment by more than half to Rs 220 crore for 2020-21 from the Rs 480 crore it allocated for the current fiscal. The fund for PradhanMantriGramin Digital SakshartaAbhiyan will remain unchanged at Rs 400 crore in the upcoming fiscal year, according to the budget document.

The government has increased allocation for National Knowledge Network to Rs 400 crore from Rs 274 crore in the current fiscal. Government has slashed funds for promotion of digital payment by more than half to Rs 220 crore for 2020-21 from the Rs 480 crore it allocated for the current fiscal. Under the ‘National Infrastructure Pipeline’ project of Rs. 102 lakh crore spread over five years, a sum of Rs. 22,000 crores was allocated this fiscal year for equity to fund scores of infra finance companies. This would help leverage it manifold and extend much-needed long-term finance for infra projects across domains. As the requisite relief measures to the real sectors of the economy entailed deviation from the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, fiscal deficit for 2019-20 would overshoot the target of 3.3 percent of GDP to 3.8 percent. This 0.5 percent spurt is justified on the ground that a vibrant economy like India cannot afford to lose its growth steam. The budget kept the deficit number sustainable to ensure intergenerational equity in fiscal management.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

In order to ensure that people are left with enough disposable incomes after discharging their tax liabilities, the budget has come out with a simplified and new tax regime as an option to the old one sans the plethora of exemptions and reliefs for the optional beneficiaries. In a bid to end tax disputes for fostering trust in taxpayers, disputed tax dues is to be settled; only the amount of the disputed taxes would have to be paid and interest and penalty would be waived for a short span till June 2020. To stabilize receipts from goods and services tax (GST) simplified GST return and fully automated refund process would be in place. For companies to grow to their full potentials, the concessional corporate income tax rate of 15 percent to new domestic companies in manufacturing announced in last September would be extended to the power sector. For Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) of foreign governments and other foreign investment, tax concession is to be provided, while the extant tax benefits to ‘Start-Up’ by way of deduction of 100 percent of their profits are enhanced by increasing turnover limit and period of eligibility. Specified categories of government securities would be opened for non-resident investors. Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) limit for corporate bonds would be increased from 9 to 15 percent in order to deepen the domestic debt market. The Budget has provided for concessional tax rate for cooperatives and hike in turnover threshold for audit of micro, small and medium enterprises to ensure a hasslefree milieu. The government is hopeful of raising additional resources to fund its development programs mostly through sale of strategic assets with the disinvestment target at Rs. 2.10 lakh crore for the next fiscal, against Rs. 65,000 crores in 2019-20. The budget is an adroit and healthy mix of tax cuts and investment for productive segments to revive the growth. The projected nominal GDP for the next fiscal is 10 percent. All these measures will give a strong impetus to ramping up investment which is critical to bring the economy to a high growth trajectory.

UNION BUDGET 2020 BUDGET ANALYSIS POLITICAL LEADERS AND BUSINESS TYCOONS Prime Minister, Narendra Modi

he first Budget of this new decade is #JAN JanKa Budget. It combines futuristic vision with a definitive action plan for growth. The budget will boost income, investment, demand and consumption. It will strengthen our financial systems and the credit flow.

Amit Shah, Union Home Minister Rahul Gandhi, INC President

n this budget , the Modi Government has taken effective steps to rationalize the tax system, boost the basic infrastructure, strengthen the banking system, promote investment and ease of doing business , which will further the Modi Govt.’s resolve to Make in India a five trillion economy.

ur Youth want jobs. Instead they got the longest Budget speech in parliamentary history that said absolutely’ nothing of consequence.PM &FM both looked like they have absolutely no clue what to do next.

SitaramYechury, General Secretary, CPI (M)

ust platitudes& slogans, nothing substantial to alleviate people’s misery, growing unemployment, rural wage crash and farmers’ distress suicides.

Anurag Singh Thakur, MOS for Finance

Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani, President, NAREDCO and MD, Hiranandani Group

he budget is aimed at boosting incomes and purchasing power of people. Keeping the same in mind, Middle class has been given top priority. New tax regime has been proposed to provide significant relief to individual taxpayers. The grant of 100%tax exemptions for Sovereign wealth funds for their investments in infra sector is expected to give a boost to infra investments. Abolition of DDT will serve beneficial to the global yield-seeking infrastructure –investors in India.

nion Finance Minister has covered almost all major sections of the economy in her proposals. The proposals seem structured for medium to long term results. We do not see anything that may have an immediate impact and would kick-start the economy. Another point is that the liquidity issue, which is a major challenge for the Indian economy in general, and the real estate in particular, one cannot see any major relief.

Piyush Goyal, Commerce and Industry Minister

series of steps have been taken in the budget which encompasses almost every section of the society and every aspect of the national economy. All of them put together collectively will be seen as a leg up to investment and growth. All the investments proposed in the budget, be it in roadways, seaways and more are to give more income to the people. This is a budget which balances fiscal prudence with all the sections of the country for a better future of the country.

For real estate, ‘affordable’ remains the government’s favorite in housing, with the previous tax exemptions for both homebuyers and developers being continued for one more year. Commercial real estate segments may witness a boost, with the focus on warehousing, data centers, schools, hospitals and hospitality.

Dr D K Aggarwal, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry

he focus of the Budget on the Agriculture sector with pinpointed 16 action points to double farmers’ income by 2022 is highly encouraging. The focus on agriculture will create tremendous demand in the economy, boost manufacturing and services sector activities and rebound the economic growth trajectory of the country. The three themes of aspiration, development and compassion would become the pillars of strong and sustainable growth of the country. The focus on economic development is the need of the hour to rejuvenate the growth momentum of the country, he said. The abolition of DDT, a long standing demand of the industry, is highly encouraging as it will further make India an attractive destination for investment. Overall the budget is growth and welfare oriented.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Defence

AIR CHIEF MARSHAL INTERACTS NCC’S RD CADETS The Air Chief Marshal, RKS Bhadauria, who is the chief of the Air Staff, has on January 11, 2020, visited the Republic day Camp of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) and interacted the cadets.

he Chief of Air Staff, reviewed a ‘Guard of Honor’, presented by the smartly turned out cadets from all the three wings of the NCC that comprised the cadets of Army, Navy and the Air Force. This was followed by a brilliant Band Display by the cadets. The CAS also inspected the well laid out ‘Flag Area’, prepared by the cadets from all 17 NCC Directorates, depicting various social awareness themes. He was given a brief by the cadets, on their respective models. Thereafter, the CAS visited the ‘Hall of Fame’, a proud possession of the NCC, with display of rich archival collection of alumni photographs, models, motivational and other visual delights of the three wings of the NCC. The Air Chief Marshal, along with other distinguished guests, later witnessed a spectacular ‘Cultural Programme’, by the talented cadets in the NCC auditorium. Congratulating the cadets for their soldierly bearing, while on parade and a captivating cultural programme, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, lauded the stellar role played by this premier organisation in shaping the youth of our Nation, thereby enabling them to shoulder the responsibilities of bulding a strong Nation. The CAS assured the NCC of the continued support of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in conduct of all their activities.

4TH ARMED FORCES VETERAN DAY OBSERVED The Indian Army Personnel, apart from several others, has on January 14, 2020 celebrated Armed Forces Veterans Day at Manekshaw Centre, Delhi Cantt and several other locations across the country.

ince 2017, Armed Forces Veterans Day is observed each year on 14th of January as a mark of respect and recognition of the services rendered by Field Marshal KM Cariappa OBE – fondly known as Kipper – The first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Armed Forces who retired on 14 January 1953. Commemoration of Armed Forces Veterans Day acknowledges and honors the selfless devotion and sacrifice of our veterans in the service of the nation. Admiral Karambir Singh, the Chief of the Naval Staff was the Chief Guest at the Veterans Day function at Mankeshaw Centre. The Chiefs of Army and Air force were also present for the function. Samman and VayuSmavedna, Army and Air force Magazines respectively were released during the function which was attended by more than 2600 veterans, several banks, CGDA, DGR, KSB, ECHS and welfare organizations of the three services.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Defence

FROZEN ZANSKAR RIVER OF LADAKH MELTS, IAF RESCUE 50 TREKKERS As portions of the frozen Zanskar River melted, altogether 50 trekkers, comprising nine foreigners, local guides and porters got stranded in Ladakh during the second week of January 2020. All were the part of the ongoing Chadar Trek.

he melting caused the flow of water to become so strong that it was very difficult for the trekkers to continue their march across the river on foot. The stranded trekkers managed to move to Niraq, a small camp site upstream and were waiting to be rescued. To carry out a rescue by helicopters, a makeshift helipad was prepared along the river bank. ALH helicopters were immediately pressed into action from Air Force Station at Leh. However, the IAF’s helicopters rescued 107 individuals during the last two days. The rescued trekkers include one male and one female from France and four male and three females from People’s Republic of China, who as per the information were rescued from Padum. IAF will continue the ongoing rescue operation till all the stranded trekkers, guides and porters are evacuated and brought to safety. Additionally, in order to provide medical facilities to the stranded trekkers a medical officer and a medical assistant were also flown from AF StnLeh to Niraq. The team has set up a medical assistance camp at Niraq in order to provide the stranded trekkers with basic medical assistance. Entire operations were undertaken by the IAF in close coordination with Ladakh’s newly formed Civil Administration, nearby Indian Army units and local Disaster Relief Teams.

ARMY AIR DEFENSE CELEBRATES 27TH RAISING DAY The Army Air Defense of Western Command has on January 10, 2020 celebrated its 27th Raising Day at the premises of Chandimandir, Chandigarh.

he solemn occasion was marked by wreath laying ceremony at ‘Veer Smriti’, where Major General, RS Thakur, Major General Army Air Defense, Headquarter Western Command along with others serving officers, JCOs and Jawans of Army Air Defense paid their rich tributes to the martyrs. They stressed on the selfless devotion and supreme sacrifice of the Jawans and the officials. The Army Air Defense warriors have displayed exceptional courage and valor during

various operations and have been awarded with large number of individual gallantry awards. During Indo-Pak conflict in 1971, altogether four Air Defense Regts were conferred with honor titles – Chhamb, Samba, Amritsar Air field and Basantar River. Lieutenant General RP Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command extended his greetings to all ranks, their families and veterans of the

February 2020

Corps on this day. He commended the professionalism displayed by Army Air Defense personnel in discharge of their duties and always living up to their illustrious motto of ‘Akashe Shatrun Jahi’.

OBSERVER DAWN

Defence

PARLIAMENTARY ORDER IS AWAITED TO RECLAIM POK “Indian Army is all set to take appropriate actions on reclaiming Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), provided we are given mandatory parliamentary orders on the same”, said Army chief, General MM Naravane, during his first Press Conference in New Delhi on January 11, 2020.

“T

he parliamentary resolution denoted that entire Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India. It means entire area including the PoK should also be in our possession. As such, if we are ordered we would start chalking out our plan on that issue with immediate effect”, the Army chief told the reporters. Naravane stressed that allegiance to Constitution should guide them time to time. “Justice, liberty, equality and fraternity as enshrined in Constitution must guide us,” he added. He termed the creation of the post of Chief of Defense Staff a as ‘Big Step’ towards the integration of all the three forces of Indian Defense system. “The Army will not leave any stone unturned in ensuring success at our level best”, Naravane said. The Army Chief emphasized, “Actually the formation of Combined Defense Service (CDS) and the creation of a department of military affairs is a very big step towards integration” adding that the focus was on preparing the Army for future wars that are supposed to be ‘Network-centric and Complex’.

“Integration will also be within the Army and the integrated battle group is just one example of that. But I also want to assure everyone that in this process of integration we will take everyone along. Nobody will be left behind,” he said.

The Army chief’s remarks come days after Gen Bipin Rawat took over as India’s first Chief of Defense Staff with a mandate to bring in convergence in functioning of the Army, the Navy and the Indian Air Force and bolster the country’s military prowess.

WESTERN COMMAND MARKS 72ND ARMY DAY The Western Command of Indian Army has on January 15, 2020 celebrated 72nd Army Day at Chandimandir in Chandigarh. The Army personnel paid homage to the gallant soldiers, who laid down their lives for the Nation.

he Army Day is observed to commemorate the beginning of a new era after an Indian Officer, General KM Cariappa, OBE (later Field Marshal), who took over the reins of Indian Army. He had succeeded the last British Commander in Chief, General Francis Roy Butcher, on this very day in 1948. Later on he became the first Commander-in-Chief of Independent India. The occasion was marked by a Wreath Laying Ceremony at ‘Veer Smriti’, Chandimandir. Lieutenant General, G S Sangha, Chief of Army Staff, Western Command laid the wreath on behalf of all ranks of the Western Army and paid homage to the valiant heroes. On this day, the Western Army reaffirms its commitment and firm resolve to ensure safety, security and sanctity of the Nation and its borders.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Defence

INDIAN ARMY OBSERVES 4TH TRI-SERVICES VETERANS’ DAY The Army personnel on January 14, 2020 observed ‘Tri-Services Veterans Day’ at the premises of Chandimandir (Chandigarh cant) in Chandigarh. The event was organized under the aegis of ‘Western Command’ of Indian Army. The main ambition was to alleviate the challenges faced by theArmy veterans and their dependents.

ver 300 veterans, including Veer Naries and their Next of Kins, made their auspicious presence during the occasion. The event was widely publicized by means of SMS, pamphlets, Newspaper advertisement and personal interactions in order to create awareness among the masses. On commencement of the event, relevant details of all veterans were registered at the “Veterans Sahayata Kendra”. Representatives of VSRC and ECHS were at hand to assist the Veterans in resolving their pension issues and other grievances. The gathering witnessed the solemn presence of Lieutenant General GS Sangha, Chief of Staff, HQ Western Command, who personally interacted with the Veterans and enquired about their Welfare. The majestic event commenced with the Veterans paying their homage at the Veer Smriti. The event was organized with special focus to address the basic grievances of the veterans and to raise Veterans awareness regarding benefits entitled to them. Meanwhile, those attended the program were served tea and refreshment post conduct of the event. The Veterans appeared elated and applauded the efforts put in by HQ Western Command and its formations in conducting the event befittingly.

The majestic event commenced with the Veterans paying their homage at the Veer Smriti. The event was organized with special focus to address the basic grievances of the veterans and to raise Veterans awareness regarding benefits entitled to them

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Make in India

STARTUP INDIA: INDIA JUMPED 29 PLACES IN THE LIST OF COUNTRIES PROMOTING SELF-EMPLOYMENT

total of 21,778 startups were started in Startup India, an important program to promote self-employment. According to the Global Innovation Index (GII) report, India has reached 52nd position in 2019. India’s ranking in the year 2015 was 81. India has become the first developing country to release the Global Innovation Index (GII) in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2019 have been simplified keeping in mind the needs of small industries and startups to encourage innovation in the past year. This led to a reduction in procedural expenditure and more and more entrepreneurs come forward for innovation. The Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) implemented the new Export Credit Insurance Scheme (ECIS) for exporters and named it ‘Nirvik’. Under this scheme, insurance coverage was extended by banks for export credit. This range has been increased from the present 60 percent average to 90 percent for both principal and interest. A portal has been released for ‘Transport and Marketing Assistance (TMA)’ scheme for specific agricultural products. A database has been prepared for all pending claims under ECGC. This will be an important means of providing

The Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) implemented the new Export Credit Insurance Scheme (ECIS) for exporters and named it ‘Nirvik’.

information to exporters. The online ‘Origin Management System’ provides all exporters with a single window for all free trade agreements (FTAs), preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and all agencies. India has 15 countries with FTAs and PTAs. Duty Exemption or Export Excise Tax (RODTEP) scheme was introduced in place of the Merchandise Export (MEIS) scheme. This would be in line with the provisions of the World Trade Organization to promote exports. Textiles and all other sectors with

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

incentives of up to two percent on MEIS will be covered under RODTEP from January 2020. A capital of Rs 389 crore was invested in Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC). This provided additional support to exporters for emerging and challenging markets such as Africa, CIS, Latin America and Asian countries. The National Export Insurance Account (NEIA) was given a grant-in-aid of Rs 300 crore. This will increase the ability to support export projects in challenging markets.

Make in India

WHAT IS MAKE IN INDIA?

ake in India is a quite popular initiative. Very rarely though, we come across questions like, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is Make in India all about?â&#x20AC;? So, we thought of explaining the campaign to you anyway!

medicine, hospitality, tourism, health, railways, leather, etc.). This attractive scheme for foreign companies has a resource-rich proposal for setting up manufacturing powerhouses in India.

The Make in India program was launched in New Delhi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 September 2014. This was an initiative to invite the main business investors from all over the world (national and international) to invest in India. But this is a big opportunity for all investors to set up their business in any sector in the country (production, textiles, automobiles, construction, retail, chemicals, IT, ports,

To make it a global hub for trade (from satellite to submarine, from car to software, from medicinal to port, from paper to energy, etc.), with the improvement of the digital network market in the country, India is focused on building effective physical infrastructure. The Make in India campaign symbol (derived from the national emblem of

India) is a huge lion with many wheels (indicating the path of peaceful progress and bright future). A lion with multiple wheels indicates courage, strength, tenacity and intelligence. This national program has been designed to transform the country into a global trading hub as it has attractive offers for local and foreign companies. In order to improve the condition of the youth of the country, the focus of this campaign is to generate a large number of valuable and respected jobs along with enhancing skills in about 25 sectors. This includes automobiles, chemicals, IT and BPM, aviation industry, pharmaceutical, construction, power-related machines, food processing, defense, manufacturing, space, textiles, textile industries, ports, leather, media and entertainment, health, mining, tourism and hospitality. , Railways, automobile components, renewable energy, biotechnology, roads and highways, electronic bodies and thermal energy. Successful implementation of this scheme will help in building 100 smart city projects and affordable houses in India. Its main goal is to generate solid growth and valuable employment in the country with the help of major investors. It will benefit both sides, both investors and our country. The Indian government has created an online portal (makeinindia.com) and a dedicated support team for effective and easy communication of investors. A loyal cell is also dedicated to answer all queries of trading companies at any time.

AMAZON FOUNDER JEFF BIJOS SAID - WILL EXPORT $ 10 BILLION 'MAKE IN INDIA' PRODUCT

mazon founder Jeff Bijos said the company would use its global reach to export $ 10 billion of 'Make in India' products. The world's leading e-commerce company Amazon has also announced an investment of one billion dollars i.e. about 7,000 crore rupees on digitalisation of India's small and medium enterprises (SMB). Jeff Bezos made this announcement while addressing the Amazon Possible Conference on Small and Medium Enterprises. Bezos said the company will export $ 10 billion of 'Make in India products by 2025 through its global reach. This two-day conference will discuss how small and medium enterprises can be made aware of technology. Bezos also said that the Indo-US alliance will be the most important in the 21st century. Bezos will be traveling to India this week. He will meet top government officials, industrialists and SMB entrepreneurs.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Make in India

TOP 5 REASONS TO ATTEND

THE MAKE IN INDIA

CONCLAVE! By Shrishti S. Nagar

Some five years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the concept of Make in India, an initiative that primarily focused on using the raw talent and skill of India in order to establish the country as one of the top manufacturing hubs of the world. Now, a general need was felt to assess, evaluate and analyze the progress made in this regard. This gave birth to the path- breaking concept of the Make in India Conclave. MIC 2020 expects presence of around 1000+ CxOs, Business Heads, Indian Government decision-makers, Policy Makers, Young parliamentarians and Gen-next leaders. They would deliberate on changing ecosystem, disruptive technologies and policy imperatives for making India a self-reliant economy. Here are the top 5 reasons, which will convince you to attend this conclave too:

Address by Central Ministers and Secretaries

he Make in India Conclave will be inaugurated by President/Vice President of India. Every Session will be addressed by the policymakers and Central Ministers of the Ministry under which the concerned sector falls.

Opportunity to meet 1000+ Business Delegates including CxOs

ore than 1000 CxOs from different sectors are to attend this conclave. Make in India Conclave provides you an opportunity to build life-long relationship with Top Performers of your industry. Conversations often turn into friendships with professionals who become your supplier, or a trusted advisor when you have a business dilemma. Mingle with the best in the industry: your fellow members. Whether it is suppliers, sustaining members or retailers, you’ll find great people who share your values and commitment to professionalism.

Insights by Renowned Speakers and Influencers

he Make in India Conclave features an exciting lineup of keynote speakers. In addition to that, the Conclave has a robust schedule of sessions on topics vital to the top sectors of Make in India, such as Aviation, Biotechnology, Chemicals, Construction, Defense manufacturing, Electrical machinery, Electronic system design and manufacturing, IT and BPM, Oil and gas, Pharmaceuticals, Renewable energy, Roads and highways, Thermal power, Wellness, and much more. There’s always something for you to enjoy and learn. Just relax and enjoy the inspirational and motivational sessions.

Superstar Awards

nother mega attraction is Superstar Award under various categories justifying the concept Make in India. Superstar Award organized by Observer Dawn is a kind of award that recognizes and rewards excellence across all sectors in India who are involved in building a new India and have achieved a milestone. Superstar awards have an aim to welcome and felicitate those who have contributed substantially to accelerate growth in India’s industry as well as real estate and bolstered nation’s growth story.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Make in India

Numbers say it all!

MIC 2020 is an amalgamation of 50+ Countries, 100+ Exhibitors, 135+ Award Nominees, 200+ Speakers, 800+ CXOs, and more than 4000 visitors. Do the math: Two days filled with 8 networking sessions (all with food and beverages), led by industry experts and renowned speakers. Make in India Conclave is not just the best event in the industry, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the best bargain. Register now by visiting

www.makeinindiaconclave.com

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Make in India

THE WORLD WILL SEE THE POWER OF ‘MAKE IN INDIA’ IN DEFENSE EXPO 2020 “Indian Army is all set to take appropriate actions on reclaiming Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), provided we are given mandatory parliamentary orders on the same”, said Army chief, General MM Naravane, during his first Press Conference in New Delhi on January 11, 2020.

t has been recently decided by the government to decorate a large tableau of the strategic power of the country at the Defense Expo-2020. Five state-of-theart weapons of the Ordnance Factory Board will show the world the power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’. The objective of the government is to persuade foreign companies to invest by setting up their units in Uttar Pradesh or other states of the country, but the government wants to present India as a competent and useful partner rather than needy and desperate . The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) is working on the Make in India project of the

Modi government. Many weapons, including rockets launchers, and military equipment have been made in various Ordnance Factories. They have also been displayed in forums related to defense products. Now such a special occasion is the Defense India Expo being organized by the Ministry of Defense in Vrindavan sector of the capital Lucknow from 5 to 9 February. The board has been given a big stall at the expo, in which many ordnance factories will showcase their state-of-the-art defense products. Ordnance factories of Kanpur will have a special role in this. A senior official of the Ordnance Development Center said that four guns and one mine protective vehicle are being presented by the board.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

The gun system developed by Ordnance Factory Kanpur and Field Gun Factory Kanpur as well as the mounted gun system by Gun Carriage Factory Jabalpur are being displayed. At the same time, Ordnance Factory Medak is bringing upgraded BMP and upgraded MPV. All these weapons and defense equipment are of international standard and their technology has also influenced many countries.

These will be the major attractions: Dhanush Cannon: This gun of international standard 155 mm 45 caliber has been developed on indigenous technology. Its weight and firepower are higher than the 155 mm 39 caliber foreign cannon Bofors.

Make in India

Sharang Cannon: The Sharang Cannon developed by the Ordnance Factory Board is of 155 mm caliber. Its barrel length is 7035 mm and weighs 8450 kg, while the firepower is 36 km. Mounted Gun System: The mounted gun system has been developed by the gun carriage factory Jabalpur. There is a cannon on the truck, which can be taken under any circumstances according to the need of the army.

Upgraded weapons to arrive from Medak The Mine Protective Vehicle (MPV) used by the Indian Army and the Central Reserve Police Force was upgraded by Ordnance Factory Medak. For this, the Golden Award was given to the Ordnance Factory Board in Dubai in 2016. The same factory developed the upgrade BMP working on the infantry combat vehicle.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Make in India

10 FACTS THAT YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT

VIGYAN BHAVAN!

Vigyan Bhawan is a premier convention centre of Government of India in New Delhi. Many of you might already have attended the events hosted in the Vigyan Bhavan. However, We are very sure that you won’t be knowing the following points about it. Go on, and read about these 10 facts about Vigyan Bhavan that led us to finalize it as our venue for Make in India Conclave 2020! By Shrishti S. Nagar

igyan Bhavan was built in the year 1956, almost a decade after our independence. The main building was designed in 1955 by R.P.Gehlote of Central Public Works Department (CPWD) belonging to Jaipur.

t only hosts National-level functions and conferences, and functions by the Government of India, State Governments, PSUs and Autonomous Bodies order by priority given. It is allotted to NGOs/Private Enterprises where the President, Vice President or the Prime Minister of India is present.

ver the years it has been the venue of conferences of national and international stature, including Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and 7th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1983, and SAARC Summit.

t is managed by the Directorate of Estates, under the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, and maintained by CPWD.

he architecture of Vigyan Bhavan incorporates elements of British Raj architecture, evident in the nearby buildings of the Secretariat Building and of Lutyens’ Delhi along with Hindu and Mughal architecture, as well as ancient Buddhist architecture, especially the chaitya arches of Ajanta Caves. The overall style of the building remains modernistic with revivalist elements.

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he main feature of the complex is the Plenary hall, with a seating capacity of over 1200(922+326+37) delegates, besides it has six smaller halls with capacities ranging from over 65 delegates to over 375 delegates.

he building also has a VIP Lounge, the Office block for on-site offices, secretariat and a documentation centre, a Studio, a Business centre and an Exhibition hall.

&B services at ‘The Atrium’ at the centre are managed by the Ashok Group of the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC).

Make in India

he adjacent building is called the Vigyan Bhavan Annexe added later on with four Committee Rooms and a separate Media centre. The annexe also houses the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER) of Government of India. The Vigyan Bhawan Annexe stands adjacent to the Vice President House.

he Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;MAKE IN INDIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; initiative in Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on September 25, 2014. It is a mere coincidence, that we are going to organize the Make in India Conclave at the same venue!

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Make in India

5 BENEFITS INDIA WILL MAKE THROUGH THE

MAKE IN INDIA PROJECT

ou must have noticed that every year India’s exports are less than its imports. Just to change this trend, the government started the “Make in India” policy in order to initiate the campaign of manufacturing goods and services in the country itself. In this scheme, emphasis is on manufacturing of goods in India by foreign companies. Therefore, this scheme will create jobs in the country as well as the country will also know about new technology. Through this project the government aims to get more capital and technical investment in India. After the launch of this project, the government has increased the FDI limit in many areas but in areas of strategic importance like 74% in space, defense - 49% and 26% of the news media have not yet been fully opened up to foreign investment. Currently, there is no restriction on FDI in tea gardens. It is also proposed in the project that the intellectual property rights of the inventors and manufacturers who are ready to manufacture their products in India should be taken care of. In a very short time, the government has replaced the old structure with the latest one so that innovation and skill development can be enhanced. India has improved its ‘ease of doing business’ ranking from the current 130. For this, by organizing meetings with the World Bank, many steps have been taken in the direction of developing the right framework of development.

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Make in India

1 Promoting India’s Economic Development

Enhancing the ‘Make in India’ campaign will increase exports and manufacturing. The growth in exports will improve the economy and transform India into a global hub of manufacturing through

global investment using existing technology. The manufacturing sector currently contributes only 16% to India’s GDP and the government aims to increase it to 25%.

India has improved its ‘ease of doing business’ ranking from the current 130. For this, by organizing meetings with the World Bank, many steps have been taken in the direction of developing the right framework of development #

Opportunity to Attract More FDI

Make in India has become a hub for investments. DIPP secretary Amitabh Kant said in 2016 that he had received investment commitments of Rs 15.2 lakh crore and investment inquiries worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Maharashtra got an investment of 8 lakh crore rupees.

Developing India as a Manufacturing Hub

India has to be developed as a manufacturing hub so that the products made here can be sold in any corner of the world. Through ‘Make in India’, the government will give tax rebate to companies of various countries in India to make their industry. It will encourage you to invest in India so that India’s import bill can be reduced and employment can be generated in the country.

More Employment Opportunities

This campaign is also said to help the young talents who are skilled in innovation and entrepreneurship skills. The government will provide financial assistance to such people through programs like Mudra Yojana so that new start-up companies can be developed in the country, which will be able to play an important role in employment generation.

February 2020

Promotion of Defense Investment in India

Through the ‘Make in India’ project, foreign defense companies are considering setting up their factories in India. The Ministry of Defense in India is auctioning a 600 billion contract for the design and construction of the Fighting Infantry Combot Vehicle (FICV). In February 2016, Lockheed Martin stated that it was “ready to manufacture the F-16 in India and support the Make in India program”. In February 2017, Lockhead stated that it was a local partner in India. Also, the F-16 intends to manufacture Block-70 aircraft if the Indian Air Force agrees to purchase these aircraft.

Through this project the government aims to get more capital and technical investment in India

In summary, it can be said that in the coming time, through the ‘Make in India’ project, foreign companies in India will set up their factories in India, which will reduce India’s import bill and create new employment opportunities in the country and make India a manufacturing Will emerge as the new superpower of the region.

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Make in India

BIG DISCOVERY IN INDIA REGARDING LITHIUM ION BATTERY, REALM OF CHINA WILL END

discovery has the power to change the world. The monarchy of China, occupying the Lithium mines cunningly from around the world might come to an end. Currently, Lithium used in Lithium Ion batteries made for electric vehicles worldwide is under Chinese occupation. About 65 percent of the lithium reserves in the world are found in Bolivia and Chile. But the mines there are occupied by China. Due to this, the worldwide battery prices are not decreasing. In this direction, a startup in India has discovered the alternative of lithium ion battery. This will change the world of batteries. This battery is inexpensive, light and gets fully charged in 15 minutes. The biggest thing is that its production material is sufficiently available in India. Only last month, both the founders got a place in Forbes India's Under 30 list. The discovery has been made by Mumbaibased startup Gigadine Energy. This startup has only 8 people including the founders. This battery has been prepared by the team of its founders Zubin Varghese and Ameya Gadiwan. This battery can be fully charged

in just 15 minutes. At present, 40 percent of the total cost of electric vehicles is only the cost of the battery. In this case, this cheap battery will reduce the price of electric carriers. This battery is made of carbon. According to the founders of the startup Gigadine Energy, Zubin Varghese and Ameya Gadwan, they have used carbon and its derivatives instead of lithium ion. The life of such a battery is longer and it gets charged soon. According to these people, the country has sufficient carbon reserves. Therefore, there will be no problem in its mass production.

Mission 2030, the domestic market of EV batteries in India can reach $ 300 billion by 2030.This battery has 50 times more capacity than lithium-ion battery.

The Indian government wants to create a 100 percent electric vehicle market in the country by 2030. But the biggest hurdle in this is the battery for electric vehicle batteries. According to Gigadine, their battery capacity can be increased, which will solve many problems. Gigadine Energy plans to begin commercial production of this new battery by early 2020. The prototype that the startup has designed has a capacity of up to 1 kilowatt hour (KVH). According to Niti Aayog's Electric Vehicle

Zubeen and Ameya left college and started Gigadine Energy in 2015. He claims that the life of batteries designed by his technology is up to 50 times longer than the commonly used lithium-ion batteries. This startup has also applied for some patents. The company wants to become the country's first supercapacitor-based battery manufacturer. The company wants the batteries made with their technology to be used not only in electric vehicles, but also in other consumer devices.

CONQUERING THE WORLD ….. “Let us see together …. Let us come together…..Let us discuss together and Let us work together..., it will reach you out a propitious conclusion and prosperity”, these are essence of our Make in India Conclave 2020 (MIC 2020). By Pravin Kumar Mishra

ere we’ll provide you with another chance to recall and cash on the above ‘Mantras’ for achieving your business goal. Covering almost all sections, especially among the manufacturing units of the country, the Make in India Conclave – 2020 welcomes you to an ever greener pasture. Following the footprint of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who coined the concept of ‘Make in India’ in the year 2014, our candid effort, is destined to offer all the valuable participants a common platform to make their dreams come true. As the main objective of the ‘Make In India’ is to utilize existing Indian talents, generating employment opportunities and empowering secondary and tertiary sector,

this promising program will, undoubtedly, play a significant role in the economic growth of the country. Attracting investments from across the globe and strengthen India’s manufacturing sectors are among the other priorities of ‘Make In India’. It is governed and managed by the Union Government’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Prominent Management Guru, Philip Kotler, has truly said - “Good companies will meet needs, great companies will create markets”. Here, Mr Kotler explained the fundamentals of marketing in just a sentence. The above quote guides us understand the need of people, product, consumer

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and manufacturer. That implies – Unless we understand the people or their need, we cannot make a right product, Unless we understand a product, we can’t create a market, Unless we create a market, we can’t explore our product! In Similar ways, Unless we understand the diversified manufacturer of different or similar products, we can’t analyze the existing products or long for a relevant product, Isn’t it? As such, all we need is to understand the facts and explore our ideas to generate a unique concept. But these could be possible through a good chain of networking, that would enable us display our products in different ways. More significantly, the spirit of the above quote can transparently be witnessed in the concept of ‘Make In India’, as was placed by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, about 5 year ago.

EXCLUSIVE STORIES

ENSURING INSURANCE TO SMOKERS IS NOT LESS THAN AN IRONY!! Seeking insurance for any unidentified or mysterious incident or accident is common. Ironically, it seems strange, when the matter comes to cover any individual from a self-created/unwarranted or invited loss or disease. By Pravin Kumar Mishra

ncongruously, various insurance companies have launched Term Insurance for Smokers. These companies promise the sufferer not only to give marginal benefits, instead the companies promise to provide their families with required assistance to the survivors of the deprived families. There may be some positive thoughts behind making provisions for such kinds of insurances, but it would somehow motivate the smokers to ignore the bad effect of smoking. When the Observer Dawn analyzed, it came forth that there are various insurance companies in India that offer significant insurance products for different categories of smokers. On the other hands, the insurance companies also highlight penalty provision for those incorporating wrong information to the insurer. In short it may be summarized that the kind of smokers looking to avail Term Insurance are supposed to provide the insurance

the premium amount fixed for the smokers are typically higher than regular insurance premiums, as it covers higher level of risks than regular customers.

The insurance companies have however classified smokers into different categories: â&#x20AC;˘ A typical smoker â&#x20AC;˘ A preferred smoker and â&#x20AC;˘ A table rated smoker

During an exclusive discussion with the Observer Dawn, a senior officer of a renowned insurance company highlighted some significant features of Term Insurance Plan for Smokers in India. Although, the terms and conditions for term insurance for smokers differs from company to company, but normally it covers the smokers above the age group of 18 years, while the maximum age to cover such smokers has been fixed up 75 years. Similarly, the minimum policy term varies between 5 - 10 years; the maximum policy term has been set from 30 - 40 years. The minimum charges for such insurances from Rs 3 lakh in India.

While, the typical smokers are considered to be with small health issues, preferred smokers are often considered to be fit. The table rated smokers are considered under remarkable physical issues. Consequently,

Renowned companies offering different kinds of insurance plans are as followsAviva i Life, iTerm Plan from AegonReligare, HFDC Life Click 2 Protect Plus Plan, Bharti AXA Life eProtect Plan and others.

company with all relevant information regarding their smoking habits.

Classification of Smokers

The companies also threaten the candidate for dire consequences, if he/she furnishes manipulated or wrong documents or information.

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EXCLUSIVE STORIES

A GLOBAL FEST DEDICATED TO LORD APOLLO Different Facets of ‘MAKAR SANKRANTI’ Across the World…..

Although, every country in the world has different cultures, traditions, costumes and festivals, but sometimes, majorities of them seem to end up their festive celebrations with almost similar theme or objective. By: Pravin Kumar Mishra

ne of them is the theme of ‘Makara Sankranti or Maghi’, is a festival day in the Hindu calendar, dedicated to the deity Surya. It is observed each year in the lunar month of Magha which corresponds with the month of January as per the Gregorian calendar. Besides, people across the country also celebrate their harvests during these periods.

Apart from dozens other, the festival, MakarSankranti, is often termed as Lohri in Punjab, Pongal in Tamilnadu, MaghBihu in Asam, Maghi in Punjab, Uttarayan in Gujarat and other names in different states of India. On the other hands, this renowned feast is also known as the ‘harvest festival’ across the world and celebrated with varying tests ….. Let us see few of these:

1 Thanks Giving Day in USA

n United States of America (USA) ‘Thanksgiving Day’ is a popular fest that is often termed as the Harvest Festival. It is essentially a U.S holiday that falls on the fourth Tuesday of November where individuals celebrate the day with their loved ones sharing a wholesome meal comprising a turkey and other items. It originated in 1621, when Pilgrims celebrated their successful wheat crop with a three-day feast where they shared their meal of partridge, wild turkey and fish with Native American tribes.

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EXCLUSIVE STORIES #

2 Harvest Moon Festival of China

uch publicized ‘Chinese Harvest Moon’ Festival is celebrated year on Fifteenth day of the Eighth Month of the Chinese lunar calendar. It is observed in honor of the harvesting of the rice and wheat crops. Families gather together to view the full moon, which is regarded as a symbol of harmony, luck and abundance during the Festival. Comprising varieties of delicious foods, they consume different kinds of moon cakes with a good cup of piping hot Chinese tea. Meanwhile, they keep up lanterns to mark the holiness of the feast.

5 Israel’s Sukkot Festival

ften celebrated in Jerusalem of Israel, Sukkot Festival is the bountiful harvest festival of the country. It is meant to recall the citizens about the time when the Israelites wandered the desert living in temporary shelters. As a result, families build makeshift huts, or sukkah with roofs open to the sky where they eat and sometimes sleep for seven days.

3 Flower Festival of Portugal

he Madeira Flower Festival of Portugal is normally celebrated in the month of April. It is meant to mark the arrival of spring. Additionally, each of the island’s children brings a bloom to create the colorful Wall of Hope and the streets are lined with elaborate flower carpets.

Harvest Festival of 6 Rice Indonesia

ice Goddess.DewiSri, is worshipped in Bali (Indonesia), as rice is the staple crop across the region. And, during this festival, villages are decorated with flags and simple bamboo temples dedicated in honour of the goddess are erected in the most sacred corners of the rice fields.

4 Lammas Festival of United Kingdom

he ‘Lammas Festival’ in the United Kingdom is observed to mark the beginning of the harvest season when food is in abundance and the light begins to wane, Lammas is a festival where Britons bake bread from the new crop to leave on church altars.

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EXCLUSIVE STORIES

EPIPHANY

HOLY-DIP ON ‘EPIPHANY’ MARKS REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST Epiphany is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ… OD Bureau

housands of lakhs of Orthodox Christian worshippers often take a holy bath every year on January 6 to observe Epiphany festival. As per the tradition, they plunge into the icy waters of rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to retrieve crucifixes tossed by priests in Epiphany ceremonies. The ceremony is meant to commemorate the baptism of Jesus Christ. Epiphany is basically meant to celebrate the revelation of baby Jesus to the world. It is considered as a pious day falling in the month of January (traditionally on January 6 onwards in Western Christianity). The

festival celebrations normally start almost 12 days after Christmas.

Epiphany celebrations. In 2020, this holy festival fell on Monday, January 6.

As such, in some of the Eastern Orthodox churches Epiphany is observed on January 19, since their Christmas Eve falls on January 6.

Similar ceremonies marking Epiphany were held across Greece on river banks, seafronts and lakes, where Orthodox priests throw a cross into the water and swimmers race to retrieve it.

With varying tests and styles, Epiphany is celebrated at different places on different days. At Piraeus suburb, near Athens, Group of pilgrims often jump to catch the cross during water blessing ceremony meant to mark the

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According to the tradition, those who retrieve the wooden cross will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy throughout the year. As soon as the cross is fished out, the priest sprinkles believers with water using a bunch of basil.

EXCLUSIVE STORIES in those people. In Milan, city officials served hotel lunch to 200 homeless people to mark the day. In the sleepy mountain city of Kalofer in central Bulgaria, dozens of men dressed in traditional white embroidered shirts waded into the icy Tundzha River before waving the national flags and singing folk songs to mark the occasion. Led by the town's mayor, inspired by bass drums and bagpipes and fortified by homemade plum brandy, they performed a slow "mazhkohoro," or men's dance, stomping on the rocky riverbed. Braving sub-zero temperatures, the men danced for nearly half an hour, up to their waists in the freezing water, pushing away chunks of ice floating on the river. The town of Kalofer has applied to the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO for this traditional ritual to be inscribed as part of the ‘Intangible cultural heritage of humanity’. Epiphany marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas, but not all Orthodox Christian churches celebrate it on the same day. While the Orthodox Christian churches in Greece, Bulgaria and Romania celebrate the feast on Jan. 6, Orthodox Churches in Russia, Ukraine and Serbia follow the Julian calendar, according to which Epiphany is celebrated every year on January 19, as their Christmas falls on January 7. Experts believe that the great festival of Epiphany is somehow dedicated the sun god and is celebrated throughout the world on different days every year during the months of December and January.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis urged the faithful to reject – ‘the god of money’ as well as consumerism, pleasure, success and self. In his Epiphany homily Monday in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis encouraged people to focus on serving others, not themselves

The religious holiday of Epiphany is also celebrated in some Western Christian churches as Three Kings Day, which marks the visit of the Magi or three wise men, to the baby Jesus and closes out the Christmas season. At the Vatican, Pope Francis urged the faithful to reject – ‘the god of money’ as well as consumerism, pleasure, success and self. In his Epiphany homily Monday in St. Peter's Basilica, Francis encouraged people to focus on serving others, not themselves. He urged the faithful to concentrate on the essentials by getting rid of what he calls ‘Useless things and Addictions’ that numb hearts and confuse minds.

Epiphany Bath 1 – Pic: Girls participating in a holy bath to celebrate Epiphany in the city of Kandalaksha of Russia. Epiphany ’s holy bath 2 – Dozens Devotee jump from the boat to catch the holy ‘Cross’….. Epiphany Bath 3 - Pic: Over a dozen boys from St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral jumped into the icy water to catch and save the holy ‘cross’ while celebrating Epiphany, a ceremony that commemorates the baptism of Jesus Christ. Epiphany bath 4 - People throngs together to take an icy cold water at the occasion of Epiphany in Ukraine.

Francis said, the believers should aid those suffering on life's margins, as Jesus is present

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Eco- Tourism

WING GUESTS I

f media reports are to be taken into consideration, rampant snow-falls in the Himalayan regions have pushed the varieties of migratory birds towards wetlands on the plains, green covers and waterbeds, situated across the Indian subcontinent. It is believed that the usually live in the high altitude prefer to move down towards the areas of low altitude. On the other hands, those living in the areas of low altitude, are pushed further down and ultimately reach towards the plain. Analysts believe that the popular picnic spots situated in and around the Indo-Gangetic plain that covers vast portions of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Himalayan regions covering Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir are where the winged guests are going to attract tourists. Regular snow fall and rain caused by the western disturbances have created multiple troubles across the Himalayan regions and suburban areas over the past one week. The birds, including the migratory and some residents, of Himalayan regions, are the worst affected among others. Renowned bird watcher, Prabhat Thakur, believes, “Sudden snow-fall causes multi-dimensional problems for the migratory birds as they have to move from their present habitats to another in search of shelter and sources of livelihood. The birds of higher altitude move down to lower altitude areas and those which live in the low altitude areas of Himalyan regions find their shelter in nearby plain lands”. Kinds of birds usually move from Himalayan regions, comprises domestic as well as the migratory birds, mostly arrive here flying over the highest peaks, facing immense physiological and climatic challenges in the world. Gadwall, Shoveller, Graylag Goose, Pintail, Bar headed Goose, Red Crested Pochard, Coot and Mallard, Northern pintails, spot-billed ducks, spoon-billed ducks, shovelers, mallards and coots are among other birds that usually arrive across the wetland as well as the dry regions. Okhla bird sanctuary, National Zoological Park, Yamuna Biodiversity Park, Wazirabad area, Nazafgarh drain, Yamuna River and nearby waterbeds are their usual homes in Delhi and NCR. Noticeably, portions of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh have witnessed sporadic snow-fall, especially in the areas of Kashmir valley over the last few days. Consequently, the valleys witnessed incessant fogs and regular snow-fall during the last week of December that had cut off the areas for hours from rest of the country. These species of migratory birds make portions of Indian plains and adjacent regions as their feeding or breeding grounds every year during winter -

ADD VALUES TO INDIA’S HOT TOURISTS, PICNIC SPOTS Pravin Kumar Mishra

Not only the foreign tourists, instead there are the species of foreign birds that often add value to the hot picnic spots every year during winter. These wing guests prove to be a major attraction for the tourists in several parts of north India especially during the months of December to February.

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Eco- Tourism SIBERIAN CRANES

hey are snowy white color birds and migrate during winter to India. These cranes are omnivorous and often breed in the arctic tundra of Russia and Siberia. Siberian Cranes or snow cranes are critically endangered species of migratory birds. Once nested in western Siberia, vast populations of Siberian Cranes flock to India during winters. A large chunk of this bird was recently extirpated across few reasons.

BLUE TAILED BEE EATER

lue Tailed Bee Eater is a strongly migratory bird normally found in much of peninsular India. This species is a richly colored near passerine bird breeds in farmland and most often seen near large water bodies. Blue Tailed Bee Eater nest underground in sandy banks or open flat areas near water bodies and predominantly feed on Indian bees, Honey Bees, wasps and hornet.

INDIAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MOST ENTHRALLING, GOLDEN-FRONTED LEAF BIRDS Leaf-birds, also known as Chloropsis, are often found in India, are among the most enthralling wing guests across the country. In India, there four kinds of such birds are witnessed. Normally they are largely green, slender in build, with a mediumlength tail and the habit of dwelling in the top or mid-canopy. They feed on fruits, insects and even nectar. There are four kinds of leaf birds are often witnessed in India. While, the Orange-bellied Leafbird is restricted to the lower and middle Himalayas, the Blue-winged Leaf bird is found in the Northeastern lowlands. The very similar (and recently split from Bluewinged) Jerdonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Leaf bird Chloropsis jerdoni is mostly seen across the peninsular regions. On other hands, the Golden-fronted Leaf bird is widespread across the entire region.

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Eco- Tourism

BAR HEADED GOOSE

ar Headed Goose is the highest flying bird in the world and migrate to India every year in winter season. The bar headed goose migrates over the Himalayas and spend their winter in Assam to Tamil Nadu states of India. This is a kind of goose that often breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes and winters in South Asia and across the peninsular India. This species is gray and white with two horseshoe-shaped, brownish-black bars on the back of its white head. The body is gray overall, and the bill and legs are pink, orange, or yellow.

GREATER FLAMINGO

reater Flamingo is one of the largest of all species of the flamingo family. These are mostly found in the Indian subcontinent. The migratory birds found in parts of NalSarovar Bird Sanctuary, Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary, Flamingo City and in the Thol Bird Sanctuary of Gujarat during entire winter season. Greater Flamingo and Lesser flamingo are the most beautiful migratory birds found in India, Sewri Mudflats, Bhigwan Bird Sanctuary, Chilka Lake and Jawai Dam Sanctuary are few best places to spot Flamingo in India. Besides, this is the also the bird of Gujarat and is known as a resident. This species is mostly found in comparatively small areas. This astonishing bird species was earlier considered a migratory bird but recently it has been classified as a resident.

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Eco- Tourism BLUE-THROAT

lue-throat is a small brightly colored passerine bird from thrush family and winters in North Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Keoladeo National Park of Bharatpur in Rajasthan is one of the best places to spot migratory birds coming to India in winter season. Actual focal point of this charming bird, bright-blue bib is featured by two stripes: one rust-colored, the other black. As is typical among birds, it is male Blue throats that display more extravagant plumage than their female counterparts, whose throats do not feature this blue patch. Upper parts on both males and females are grey, while the under parts are white. And, both birds have a habit of fanning their tails, exposing a chestnutcolored patch near the tip of the tail.

BLACK WINGED STILT

imantopus is the scientific name of Black Winged Stilt. It is derived from Greek meaning “strap foot” or “thong foot”. is a very long legged wader bird and become a regular migrant to India, mostly found around the wetland and lakes of Bengaluru and of Karnataka. The bird has 5 subspecies named as Black necked stilt, Black winged stilt, White backed stilt and White headed stilt.

DEMOISELLE CRANE

The breeding habitat of all these species of stilts are marshes, shallow lakes and ponds, Basai Wetland, Pune shallow lakes and Gujarat water ponds are the few places to spot black winged stilt. They also make a repeated high-pitched barking call and lay a clutch of three to four eggs.

he name of this small Eurasian crane is derived from the French word for young woman or maiden, a reference to the crane’s graceful movements and petite appearance. In comparison to others, North America’s whooping crane is some 5 feet tall, has a 7½-foot wingspan and weighs 15 pounds.

The long, distinctive legs of the black-winged stilt account for nearly 60% of its height. Outside of the breeding season, the bird is a social species and can be found in groups of up to 1,000. Their lifespan is about 20 years.

Demoiselle cranes are migratory birds and spend the winter in the Indian subcontinent. These cranes are smallest species of crane lives in a variety of different environments, including desert areas of Rajasthan. Khichan village of Rajasthan is known for a large number of demoiselle cranes where local people feed the birds, Last year 15000 demoiselle cranes have visited the village.

February 2020

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Eco- Tourism

Most Impeccable, Inaccessible Spots Along the Edges of

BLUE PLANET

uman beings have left no stone unturned in making their presence felt on every spot on the globe. The historical retrospect suggests that in the course of their history they left their mark at every nooks and corners. Perhaps, there is hardly any place where nobody visited before. Either we talk about the deepest darkest ocean and undiscovered underground caves or any dreary location across the world, the effects of human activity are evidently witnessed. Still there are myriads of locations where people live but that involve a difficult journey. These places are often without regular access to the modern amenities found in the developed world. While, the weather can be punishing in some, others seem little slices of sunny heaven. As such, a list of almost eight places have been prepared where the number of peopleÂ¸ out of the permanent population, is as low as 50. Eight remotest spots on the earth where people can plan to have a wonderful visit. These are:

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Eco- Tourism

01 Arizona’s Supai Village

he Grand Canyon is one of the most visited locations in the United States, the nearby Supai Village is the worst visited often. Being termed as the hub of the Havasupai Tribe, Supai is a remote village located in the SouthWestern branch of the Canyon. Tourists are welcome at the protected reservation, but it takes a rugged 8-mile hike or horseback ride, unless you can snag a helicopter. Havasupai means “People of the Green Blue Waters” in reference to the four beautiful waterfalls to be found along the Havasu Creek. The waterfalls serve as the community’s water source. The 208 permanent residents get their mail via mule.

Island 03 Socotra of Yemen by Rod Waddington under CC BY-SA 2.0

his amazing Island of Yemen is unusual in that it has 40,000 residents yet only built its first road in 2011. It is also the home to 800 rare species of plants, some with such odd shapes that they look like they came from another planet. In fact, the unusual appearance of these plants, 1/3 of which cannot be found anywhere else on Earth, is evidence of life’s ability to adapt to the environment. The island is located about 400 miles from the capital of Yemen and has a tropical desert climate. You can fly there from Sanaa.

he tiny Pacific island of Palmerston is often visited by a supply ship twice a year. Obviously, the long and hazardous journey deters the wills of all, but the most courageous visitors enjoy it. The most interesting is that there are only 62, 59 of whom are direct descendants of a man named William Marsters, who have settled there 150 years ago. The visitors may have to feel nine days with a fear of being hit by a tropical storm, thousands of miles from rescue. It appears, far bigger than one would imagine. This is the journey to the island at the end of the earth. This is located about 2,000 miles Northwest of New Zealand. There are no shops or markets on Palmerston because the community does not use money except to purchase supplies from the outside world. This Island is typically visited by a supply ship twice a year, but it is not uncommon for residents to go up to 18 months without a shipment. The 8-day-long boat voyage starts from Tahiti. The residents are very welcoming of visitors and invite them to stay in their personal homes. One can hardly believe that there are only two telephones, apart from 6 hours of electricity and 4 hours of internet access on the island.

Siwa 04 Egypt’s Oasis

he Siwa Oasis is not regularly visited because it is a 5-hour bus ride from Cairo, despite this is the historically exciting location of Cleopatra’s Bath. But the area’s isolation in the middle of the Western Desert has kept the residents’ Siwi language and Amazigh culture very well preserved. If you can handle the bus ride, you will be rewarded with the chance to swim in Cleopatra’s Bath, a luxurious mineral spring, as well as sample delicious locally-grown olives and dates. There is an eco-lodge built of mud and salt available to house visitors.

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

Eco- Tourism

05 Alaska’s Utqiagvik (also known as Barrow)

arrow was the name given in honor of Sir John Barrow, 2nd, who was the Secretary of the British Admiralty, though it is not clear written anywhere. The archeological evidence suggests that people have been living there since at least AD 500. The native people call the city Utqiagvik. And hence, this frigid city has two names – Utqiagvik& Barrow. Despite the 3-month “warm” season consisting of temperatures around 36F (cold season averages 3F with 65 straight days of darkness), an impressive 4,429 people make their home in Utqiagvik. They heat their homes with natural gas and have water and sewer service, as well as phone, mail, radio, cable, and internet. There are hotels and restaurants. However, the city is only accessible One and half hours of plane ride from Anchorage.

Oymyakon of Russia

ith an average temperature of -58 degrees, this remote and inaccessible location of Russia is the coldest frequently inhabited place on the planet. Daring visitors may choose to put Oymyakon as their dream place. Before travelling to a treacherous drive on the ‘Road of Bones”, the visitors

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

are supposed fly from Moscow to either Takutsk or Magadan to reach Oymyakon. The flights put the visitors about 560 miles away from the destination. There is no running water because everything is frozen, so be prepared to use an outhouse – quickly! It is impossible to grow crops in this climate, so typical meals include frozen fish, reindeer meat, and (get ready for this) ice cubes of horse blood with macaroni. Somewhere around 500 residents make their lives in this frozen locale, a place that experiences 21 hours a day of darkness.

Eco- Tourism

08 Cocos (Keeling) Islandsof Bantam

Pitcairn Island of British Overseas Territory

oing back to the historical story â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Mutiny on the Bounty, the visitors must be familiar with this amazing place, Pitcairn Island. The location was settled by the mutineers in the year 1790.

ovens, burial sites, and stone gods. Pitcairn Island is a British Overseas Territory located 3,300 miles from New Zealand, which plays the role of the islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s administrative headquarters. Today 50 people call Pitcairn their home. Tourists who undertake a 32-hour yacht ride visit regularly, but rarely does a new resident settle there.

he isolation of the Cocos Islands, located about 1,700 m i l e s f r o m Pe r t h , Australia, has kept the traditional oral language and religious and cultural practices of the native Cocos Malay thriving. About 600 people call the islands their home. But despite its isolation, the area also invites tourism. Residents are welcoming and have made efforts to provide activities like snorkeling, surfing, kitesurfing, and bird watching available to visitors. There are flights twice a week from Perth.

There were earlier settlers, however, as the mutineers discovered the remains of a Polynesian establishment, including earthen

February 2020

OBSERVER DAWN

BIZ. EVENTS

FARM SECTOR GROWTH LIKELY TO REACH 3.1% DURING FY 2020: PROFESSOR CHAND The NITI Aayog Member, Professor Ramesh Chand, said that India’s farm sector growth for the current fiscal is expected to remain higher at 3.1% as compared to 2.9% in the fiscal year 2019.

rofessor Chand was addressing the renowned businessmen and other audience during the Second National Conference on Food Value Chain Partnerships in New Delhi on January 16, 2020. The hours-long event – 2nd National Conference on Food Chain, was organized by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM). He further said, “The role of private sector in Indian agriculture sector has to come in a big way. As I think, we need more competition in agriculture. Besides, more investment and a different face of agriculture from traditional to modern are the need of the hours. However, the movement of agriculture from present stage to higher level could be possible only with the active involvement of private sector”. “Unless we increase corporate sector’s investment and involve them from seed and continuing it up to sale, it would be difficult to cause a breakthrough in growth of agriculture and doubling farmers’ income”, said Professor Chand. Speaking about the present role of NITI Aayog, he said that the NITI Aayog was trying to convince the Union Government to make up its mind in terms of Model Land Lease Act. On the APMC Act and Agriculture Produce Contract Farming Act, he said the states need to be encouraged by the authorities concerned to adopt these laws. Stating that there is a big knowledge gap in the area of food value chain, the NITI Aayog Member said, “Without bringing agriculture into picture and value chain kind of things, it will be very difficult to create more jobs in future. Agriculture is coming back into the development agenda. Food value chain is one very-very important element for economic development of emerging economies”. Meanwhile, Dr Ashok Dalwai, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), National Rainfed Area Authority, in his keynote address, said, “In a view to avoid food wastage, we need to build an infrastructure to store what we cannot consume”.

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

Dr B.N. Srinivasa Murthy, horticulture commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare said, “We can easily compete with any western country in food value chain partnerships if we focus on micro-level products like coconut, honey, wine and more”. Deepak Bagla, CEO, Invest India in his address said that there is no way India can reach the $5 trillion economy goal without an agricultural revolution. SagarKaushik, Global COO, UPL also said that the value our farmers are producing is the second largest in the world. “In order to move forward in the food value chain partnerships, there is a need to focus prominently on the area of food processing”, said the UNIDO representative in India, Rene Van Berkel.

BIZ. EVENTS

UNION GOVERNMENT EXERTING ALL EFFORTS TO SUSTAIN NATURE & RIVERS: RATTAN LALKATARIA

oncern over the ecological and environmental imbalances caused by rampant pollutions or other such activities, the union as well as the state governments are exerting efforts to improve the situation. The government is putting much emphasis on preservation and protections of naturel sources and resources. “As such, the government is taking all efforts for sustaining nature and rivers. The Government departments are also taking other steps, as we pass through the challenges of climate change”, said Rattan LalKataria, Minister of State, Ministry of Jalshakti. Kataria was speaking during his inaugural speech at GEM International Sustainability Conclave & Expo 2020, organized by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries (ASSOCHAM). The program was organized at the premises of India Habitat Center in New Delhi. The two-day-long event that started on January 23 was ended on January 24, 2020.

“Altogether 106, out of 306 sanctioned river projects, have already been completed as of now. Government is serious about nature and sustainable development. Such conferences would go a long way in solving the challenges that may come in the way of implementing sustainability programs and will give a fillip to sustainability initiatives of public and private sector enterprises all across the country”, Kataria said while extending his best wishes to the organizing committee members and others for the two-day-long Conference and Expo. During his inaugural address, Dr. NiranjanHiranandani, the President, ASSOCHAM, said, “The costs should not be the main factor in our sustainability efforts but our full effort should be on creating a sustainable development environment for all. We have resolved to come up with a white paper within a month on our ways to reduce Delhi’s pollution by 33% before the end of 2020”. The ASSOCHAM, Secretary General, Deepak Sood, in his welcome address said, “We are committed to the cause of sustainability and sustainable development. We are happy to see the participation

ASSOCHAM, President, Dr. NiranjanHiranandani, while delivering his keynote address at the GEM International Sustainability Conclave & Expo 2020 at India Habitat Center on January 23, 2020.

The ASSOCHAM, Secretary General, Deepak Sood, in his welcome address said, “We are committed to the cause of sustainability and sustainable development. We are happy to see the participation of people not just from the industry also from all walks of life including the international delegates of people not just from the industry also from all walks of life including the international delegates. We will continue to hold such event initiatives to deliberate on new ways that we all can contribute to sustainable environment and development”. Besides several industry stalwarts including Pankaj R Dharkar, Chairman, Council for Green & Eco-friendly movement (GEM), Ar. Sapna, Vice-president, Council of Architecture, K. Narayana Rao, Group Dy. MD, Delhi International Airport Ltd., S.K. Lohia, MD & CEO, Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Ltd (IRSDC) and Dharanidhar Khatiwada, the Director General, Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), Nepal are among those attended the program. Meanwhile, the Vice-President, Council of Architecture, MsSapna, during her

February 2020

The second edition of the reference guide for GEM Sustainability Certification Rating Programme was launched at the GEM International Sustainability Conclave & Expo 2020.

The Vice-President, Council of Architecture, Sapna, during her special address at ASSOCHAM’s GEM International Sustainability Conclave & Expo 2020.

special address at the GEM International Sustainability Conclave & Expo 2020, said that was not an option anymore. “We need to realign our priorities for a green future and act properly to achieve utmost fruit”, she added. The ASSOCHAM organized GEM International Sustainability Conclave and Expo 2020 to facilitate discussion and promote environment friendly green building design and construction. The International Conclave and Expo was attended by more than 400 renowned Architects from across India and a b r o a d , M E P, E n v i r o n m e n t a n d Sustainability Consultants including the prestigious delegates from the Apex Chambers from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan, MoHUA, MoEF& CC, MNRE, DST, NBCC, CPWD, BEE, CREDAI, ISHRAE, ASHRAE, IAQA and FSAI and many more.

OBSERVER DAWN

SPECIAL REPORT

th SURAJKUND

INTERNATIONAL CRAFTS MELA

CARNIVAL:

Yogesh Sood

MAKING A STYLE STATEMENT By Yogesh Sood

The President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind inaugurating the 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela, at Surajkund, in Faridabad, Haryana on February 01, 2020. The Governor of Haryana, Shri Satyadev Narayan Arya, the Chief Minister of Haryana, Shri Manohar Lal and other dignitaries are also seen.

A stupefying bonanza of vivid art, craft, music and dance, colorful ambiance, ethnic cuisines, and an immersive cultural ethos â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Yes, we are talking about the Surajkund International Crafts Mela 2020 that is ongoing in Faridabad, Haryana to blow your mind yet again! The Mela is open from February 1 to 16th as this festival has come to occupy a place of pride and prominence on the international tourism calendar for its display of crafts, culture and cuisine of India in an aesthetically created ambience. A Report by Observer Dawn Special Correspondent Yogesh Sood

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

ccupying a place of pride on the international tourist calendar since 1987, the fair observes more than a million visitors every year, thousands of which are foreign tourists. Mud smeared walls; murals depicting rural Indian life and colorful festoons greet visitors at the 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela in Faridabad. The fairground has been dotted with stalls displaying variety of handicrafts items from all over the world such as the colourful glass lanterns from Turkey, wood and shell mosaics articles from Syria, carpets from Afghanistan to name a few. Uzbekistan has been provided a dedicated area in the international section of the fair, where visitors can explore the traditional crafts items, such as decorated plates, wooden jewellery, local weaves, embroidered shawls, bags, bed sheets and like. The mela, one of the largest crafts and handloom

SPECIAL REPORT Shri Vijai Vardhan, Additional Chief Secretary, Tourism, Haryana said “Surajkund International Crafts mela is a unique fair which celebrates the heritage of India. He further stated that craftsperson are the soul of this mela and are treated as guests during their entire stay. Both Uzbekistan and Himachal Pradesh will add a distinct spark to this mela. He added that “ It is heartening to that the Surajkund Crafts Mela hosted for the first time in 1987 to showcase richness and diversity of the handicrafts , handloom traditions and the rich cultural heritage of India has become now a tourist event with immense popularity overseas. With England participating in this edition, we will see more and more participation from countries across the globe”. fairs in the country was inaugurated by the President Ram Nath Kovind on February 1. The theme state this year is Himachal Pradesh, while the Partner Nation is Uzbekistan. More than 30 countries are participating at the fair, which will continue till February 16. For the first time, the fair will see the participation of craftsmen from England. Getting more and more attractive, fun, and consumer-friendly each year, the Surajkund Mela is not just the best platform for the skilled craftsmen and artisans of India and 30 nations to show their talent, but also a wonderful opportunity for the public to learn about their vibrant culture and get to respect the age-old craft that is better than any machine produce. Secretary Tourism Mr. Yogendra Tripathi said that “the mela has helped in revival of the Crafts heritage of India. This year through a memorandum of understanding signed between the British

and the Surajkund Crafts Mela, the mela will host artisans and craftsmen from England for the first time .He added that this crafts fair helps thousands of craftsperson from across India to showcase their art and products to a wider audience. Thus, the Mela has also helped in reviving the heritage craft of India. A benchmark was set in the history of Surajkund Crafts Mela as it was upgraded to an International level in 2013. In 2019, more than 30 countries from Europe, Africa and Asia participated in the Mela. This 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela 2020 has got an enthusiastic participation from Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan,Egypt,Ethopia, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Malawi, Namibia ,Nepal, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria , Tajikistan, Tunisia, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Unite Kingdom, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

February 2020

Mr. Vardhan further emphasized the importance of Uzbekistan as the historic culture capital of the world and how the common cultural routes and ancient ties will now come alive in the mela. Himachal Pradesh is coming back to the mela second time again with spirit and Enthusiasm. This year the mela will showcase three fashion shows and participation of a record number of 40 countries. His Excellency Mr. Farhod Arziev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Uzbekistan to India said “this mela has a symbolic importance that represents centuries of cultural link between India and Uzbekistan and it is a celebration of Friendship and cultural ties that both countries share. It will be our sincere effort to provide support to the artisans and craftpersons to promote

OBSERVER DAWN

SPECIAL REPORT the art more and more on such platforms.” Ambassador of Uzbekistan to India, Farhod Arziev added that a high level delegation of Uzbekistan comprising 100 artisans and craftsmen are participating in the 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela. He said that this is part of continuous efforts of the Uzbekistan Government to support its craftsman globally. He wished the success of the fair and hoped that the friendship between India and Uzbekistan would last forever.” Mr. R.D. Dhiman, Additional Chief Secretary, Tourism, Himachal Pradesh thanked the Surajkund Mela Authority for giving them an opportunity to be the Theme State for this edition of the mela. He further stated that such platforms promote the culture and crafts of a region and Himachal Pradesh will be creating a mini Himachal in the mela premise with its craftsperson, performers and handicrafts. He appreciated and lauded the efforts of Haryana Government and Haryana Tourism for organizing such a grand event. Ritu Beri, Advisor 34 th Surajkund International Crafts Mela cum tourism Ambassador of Uzbekistan said ‘’that this is an important day for both India and Uzbekistan to have come together during such a coveted event. She congratulated all the artists who helped design the mela ambiance and that she was proud to be part to be associated with Surajkund Mela.” The mela ground spread over 43.5 acres of land houses over 1000 work huts for craftsmen. Ethnic traditional and sustainable materials has been brought into use to design elements such as bamboos for gates and pole lights , cane and metal tokris as diyas and standing lights , fabrics for buntings , kites and other props. Jointly hosted by the Surajkund Mela Authority and Haryana Tourism in collaboration with the Union Ministries of Tourism, Textile, culture and External Affairs, this festival has come to occupy a place of pride and prominence on the international tourism calendar for its display of crafts, culture and cuisine of India in aesthetically created ambience. Himachal Pradesh being the theme state of this year’s Surajkund mela. A replica of Ram Bagh Gate, Manali, a permanent replica of Bhimakali Temple, Sarahan, one Apna Ghar in traditional Himachali style and five temporary gates have been set up at different entry points to the mela ground to reflect the culture of the hill state. Apna Ghar , a themed space dedicated top showcasing the rural life of the host state features relics from Himachal and Haryana.Maha Singh Puniya , a Professor of Kurukshetra University said “ We are showcasing over 100 antiques from Haryana including

vintage ploughs, traditional weaves And vintage radios, Items of cultural significance include hookahs, traditional swings and décor hangings . “. The idea is to highlight the traditional rural practices of the States. A Himachali cultural night on February 4, performances by cultural troupes from the state, 70 stalls of artisans and a food court serving Himachali dishes will be there. A fashion show will be organised on February 9 on the theme ‘Unforgettable Himachal’ by designer Ritu Beri. Hailing the contribution of fairs like Surajkund International Crafts Mela in economic self-sufficiency, President Ram Nath Kovind said that we should adopt the basic mantra of 'Local for a bright tomorrow ’ as giving priority to local products would be of great help to the craftsmen and small entrepreneurs of the area. Speaking after inaugurating the 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela at Surajkund in Faridabad, he added that through various public welfare schemes of the Central Government, many programs of skill and employment are being run to make the minorities, especially women self-reliant. One of them 'Hunar Haat' has proved to be a strong campaign in providing employment opportunities to artisans, craftsmen and chefs. He said that under ‘Hunar Haat', 2.65 lakh skilled people

OBSERVER DAWN February 2020

belonging to minority community has been provided employment opportunities.The President was accompanied by his wife Savita Kovind. Haryana Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya , Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh Jai Ram Thakur. President Kovind said as Lakhs of people would come to see Surajkund Mela, the message of Mahatma Gandhi for the spread of hygiene, Khadi-products and handloom items can be easily conveyed to the people in this fair. Congratulating the craftsmen and artists from various states and abroad, Kovind said that the Surajkund International Crafts Mela has become an established platform to showcase the art-skills, talent and entrepreneurship of the people of India. He said that the fair is organized to preserve and promote the dying art of handicrafts and special art forms of handlooms and to provide an appropriate platform for artisans to showcase their work.He said that this year Himachal Pradesh is the "Theme State" and Uzbekistan is the 'Partner Nation'. In this fair, the cultural heritage and traditional art of Devbhoomi Himachal Pradesh is being featured. He said that this fair also presents an excellent opportunity to witness the rich culture and the traditional art forms of Uzbekistan.

SPECIAL REPORT come. Apart from the cultural vibes which pervaded the mela ambiance with dance and song troupes and ethnic flavours to savour the visitors to the mela witnessed a scintillating fashion show by Ritu Beri. The fashion show titled ‘Ferghana Fantasy’ by Ritu Beri saw droves of people in a jam packed amphitheatre and what followed was an extravaganza in fashion. Ritu Beri presented to the audience an eclectic display of designer dresses inspired by the by ethnic traditions of Uzbekistan and Ferghana in particular.

President Kovind said Kullu Dussehra of Himachal and Surajkund Mela of Haryana, have attracted tourists from the country and abroad in the last few years. Welcoming President Kovind, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said, “We have implemented the State Cultural Policy 'Kalash' (Arts and Culture Haryana) to provide various genres and platforms to the artists of the state”. A project has also been initiated for the preservation of all the state protected monuments and to protect their exterior design. An Atlas of the ongoing work on the projects of Harappa sites in Haryana would be published soon, he added. Khattar added the folk songs, arts and artefacts of Haryana show the eternal legacy of love, devotion and hard work developed and nurtured by the people of Haryana. An agreement has been signed between the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Department of Cultural Affairs, Haryana to jointly organize various cultural and arts related programs. Under this agreement, the Haryanvi culture and art are being displayed not only in our country but also abroad. He said Kurukshetra has been included in the “Srikrishna Circuit” under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme by Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. Under this scheme, development works on various pilgrimages were being done in the State. Khattar said in the Shivalik region, the Kalka to Kalesar stretch is also being developed from tourism point of view. He said that our plan is to revive the Saraswati River and develop the areas associated with the Saraswati as tourist and pilgrimage sites internationally. Adibadri is the pilgrimage site on the Saraswati River situated on the border of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. At present, the origin of River Saraswati

is considered as Adibadri which is a very beautiful scenic site and is being developed as a pilgrimage site. Speaking on this occasion, Himachal chief minister Jai Ram Thakur thanked Khattar for giving an opportunity to Himachal Pradesh to become a theme State in the 34th Surajkund International Crafts Mela. He said that Himachal Pradesh got this opportunity again after a period of 24 years. Thakur added “Haryana and Himachal shares lot of similarities in their arts and culture and fairs like Surajkund Mela provides an appropriate platform to the artisans and craftsmen to showcase their products. Work is underway for the expansion of two Airports in Himachal and this would attract more tourists from the country and abroad to Himachal. Apart from this, the Government plans to set up a new Airport to give further boost to tourism in the State. Efforts are also being made to further promote water sports, snow skiing and paragliding.” As the mela picks up momentum, visitors are lining up to grab the best of crafts and handicrafts from across the nation. If you are looking for sprucing up your ethnic collection, make sure you visit the Surajkund International Crafts mela for a range of traditional handicrafts, Sarees, Shawls, Pottery, Stone Sculptures to exquisite carpets....... just don’t wait!!! Come witness a world of fashion and culture from the heart of Central Asia come alive at the Chaupal in the Surajkund international Crafts Mela.

Surajkund Mela makes a style statement The second day of mela gave the visitors an experience to remember for a long time to

February 2020

The dress designs displayed intricate Ikat work from Uzbekistan with fabrics and embroidery that symbolised Uzbekistan’s heritage and culture. As the models sashayed down the ramp the audience was left spellbound with the bold designs and style statements envisaged by the ace designer Ritu Beri. This stylish extravaganza does not end here; Ritu Beri has two more shows lined up to enthrall the fashion lovers on 7th and 9th February, 2020 with inspirations from tribal art and the land of gods – Himachal Pradesh respectively. Visitors can also add some ethnic style to their wardrobe with traditional handloom items from across the country. Artisans bestowed with national awards are displaying their traditional fabrics and dress materials from various Kashmir, West Bengal to Telangana. Aijaz Ahmad a national awardees has brought ‘Kani Shawls’ a special from Kashmir valley. With a range of ethic and modern designs these shawls a must for winter wardrobe. Nasruddin Ansari from Kota, Rajasthan has brought Doria Sarees for the 9 yard lovers. Made of pure silk these sarees are a specialty of the region and he states that this art has been passed down to him since generations. Apart from sarees he is also offering dupattas and suits made with a mix of cotton and silk. Jella Sriniwas from is another master craftsperson from Telangana who won the national award in the year 2014 and has brought tan and dye Ikat work from his state. He has a range of items to offer from intricate design in suits, sarees dress materials, dupattas and even bed sheets. There is a plethora of traditional handloom and handicrafts to discover at Surajkund Mela, make sure you buy bagsful and help such crafts flourish for times to come. The cultural evening is lined up with a mesmerizing Haryanvi programme which depicts the ethnic traditions of Haryana.

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