KOLKATA: India's Rohit Sharma on Thursday wrote himself into the record books by becoming the first batsman to score two double hundreds in One-Day International (ODI) cricket and also became the highest individual scorer in the 50-over format.

He slammed 264 runs, with India scoring 404 for five in 50 overs against Sri Lanka in the fourth ODI of the five-match series at the Eden Gardens here.

The 27-year-old Indian, who had scored 209 against Australia in November last year, thrashed a mediocre Sri Lankan bowling line-up to all parts of the ground as he overtook compatriot Virender Sehwag's 219 against the West Indies in 2011.

Brief scores: India: 404/5 in 50 overs (Rohit Sharma 264, Virat Kohli 66, Angelo Mathews 2/44). — Agencies

India, US resolve impasse over food security;
clear way for WTO deal

NEW DELHI: Paving the way for implementation of trade facilitation pacts at WTO, India and the United States have resolved an impasse over food security-related issues while safeguarding interest of Indian farmers.

With the US agreeing to support India’s proposal on public stockpiling of food, it would now go for ratification by the WTO General Council to facilitate signing of Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that has been stalled for months.

Announcing the breakthrough, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that India and the US have successfully resolved their differences on the public stockholding issue for food security purposes in WTO. 

This will “pave the way for spurring the WTO to more such success,” she said, while expressing confidence that members would “take the matter forward in WTO in a constructive spirit”.

The Minister further said that many nations saw merit in India’s stand at WTO and that the US has also “appreciated and now openly supported our concerns on public stockholding.”

“India has never obstructed trade facilitation ... we were only trying to safeguard our farmer’s interests,” she added.

“WTO General Council will receive India’s proposal and US will support us,”  Sitharaman said, while adding that there was a greater understanding of India’s position after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US.

“India is a strong supporter of the multilateral trading system and we are committed to strengthen it. Bali agreement was not perfect. We had raised these issues for a course correction... We have raised our issues... We are happy to say our differences have been resolved,” she said in a series of tweets. — PTI

NAY PYI TAW: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and called for greater cooperation between their states and regions.

On day three of his visit to Myanmar, Modi met Medvedev ahead of the East Asia Summit.

Modi recalled his visit to Russia in 2001 and told the Russian leader "Am sure India-Russia ties will be strengthened", according to tweets posted by the Prime Minister's Office.

The Russian prime minister conveyed that India is a "close and valued partner for us".
Medvedev said: "There are many areas where we are cooperating", on the extent of Russia-India relations.

"Our federal units (states/regions) need to cooperate more - PM @narendramodi pitch reasonates with Russian PM Medvedev," said a a tweet posted by the external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.

Modi later posed for photographs with world leaders at the East Asia Summit.

Modi was also seen laughing and chatting with Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines before they proceeded to attend the EAS here, an MEA tweet showed.

Modi, Abbott and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key posed for a photo together. -IANS

CHANDIGARH: In its first major administrative reshuffle, the new BJP government in Haryana led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has transferred 26 senior bureaucrats.

Those transferred include 14 bureaucrats of additional chief secretary rank and 14 principal secretaries, a spokesman said here on Thursday.

This is the first major transfer of bureaucrats ordered by the Khattar government over 15 days after it assumed office Oct 26.

Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Rajan Kumar Gupta, who headed the finance department, has been moved to the power and renewable energy department. ACS Health Navraj Sandhu has been moved to the development and panchayats department.

ACS Home Roshan Lal will now head excise and taxation and mines department, while ACS Hardeep Kumar will now head the public works department.

SS Dhillon and KK Khandelwal, who were both principal secretaries to previous chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the Congress-led government, have been posted out.

Dhillon will now be ACS tourism and archaeology, while Khandelwal will be ACS sports. Ram Niwas will be the new ACS Health.

P. Raghuvendra Rao will now head the important town and country planning, urban estates and housing departments as ACS. TC Gupta, who held this portfolio during the Hooda regime, has been shifted as principal secretary-school education against a vacant post.

PK Mahapatra will be the new ACS home.
PK Das will be the new principal secretary-finance. Devender Singh will be the new principal secretary-industries.

Khattar had earlier appointed bureaucrat Sanjeev Kaushal as his principal secretary. 

Two additional principal secretaries, Sumita Mishra and Rakesh Gupta, were also appointed in the Chief Minister's Office. -IANS

JAMMU: Pakistan Rangers fired at Indian positions overnight on the international border in Samba and Jammu districts, causing no damage, police said on Thursday.

A senior police officer told IANS in Jammu on Thursday, "Pakistan Rangers fired at BSF positions in Ramgarh sector(Samba district) on the international border during the night.

"BSF did not retaliate to Pakistan firing. They also fired a few shots towards BSF outposts in Makwal sector of Jammu district during the night".

Authorities are closely monitoring the situation on the international border and the line of control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir because residents of border villages will exercise franchise to elect representatives for the state assembly this year. -IANS

NEW DELHI: The Congress accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of spreading the “poison” of communalism and asked party men to fight those out to demolish Jawaharlal Nehru’s “liberal India”, intensifying the battle over his legacy.

While both Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Vice- President Rahul Gandhi did not take the name of Modi, the reference was obvious when they spoke at a party function on the evening of the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi.

Rahul Gandhi said “angry” people are nowadays running the country, and took a dig at Modi over the “Swachchta Abhiyan” saying “photo opportunities” are galore.

“These days, the foundation of love and brotherhood is being demolished. On one hand houses are being painted and roads are being cleaned. Photo opportunities are happening.

"Snaps are being taken. On the other hand, poison is being spread. The very foundations are being weakened,” Gandhi said.

In her speech made in the presence of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit, Sonia Gandhi asked party men to be united and strengthen the organisations and connect and fight those forces out to demolish Nehru’s vision of a liberal India.

“Massive attempts are on to destroy the vision of Nehru, the way he used to look at India. The forces, which are doing this are targeting not only his persona but also his ideology, his vision, his life-long contributions and struggle,” she said.

The Congress president said that had Nehru been alive, he would have asked all Congressmen to fight communalism of all hues by becoming a “valiant secular soldier” for protecting the soul of India.

Out of power for the last six months after a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, the party is utilising the 125th birth anniversary of Nehru to rally round non-NDA parties on a platform raising the pitch of secularism.

It has organised an international meet on November 17 and 18 for which it has not invited Modi, who it accuses of appropriating the legacy of freedom movement leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar Patel. Sonia Gandhi has extended invitations personally to leaders including Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee.

Rahul Gandhi, who repeatedly referred to his pet theme of politics of anger verus politics of love, said that Congress is the only party, which can fight the present dispensation.

The Congress Vice President, who was the face for his party’s Lok Sabha election campaign, acknowledged “mistakes” by his party.

"I am not saying that Congress has not committed mistakes. We have definitely committed mistakes. But there is no fault with our ideology...Congress is an organisation of love and brotherhood.

"...Today people with anger are running the country. They said do away with English. We should work only in Hindi. Had we done this after independence, our youths would not have been able to go to IITs, IIMs and foreign countries,” he said.

Attacking the Modi government he said, “big promises were made and it was claimed that this or that will happen. But nothing of that sort has come out so far. Only photo opportunities are happening. I am fully confident that it is the Congress party, which will once again lead the country.

He recalled a visit to Naini jail in Uttar Pradesh, where his great grandfather was lodged during the freedom movement.

Nehru had thanked the Britisher for putting him in the jail because that had helped him get over his anger.

The Congress dig on the sanitation drive of the government has come against the backdrop of the government’s plans to organise Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary as “bal swachhta varsh” (year of sanitation campaign by children).

Sonia Gandhi reminded Congressmen that the history of Congress is 129—years—old and it has always remained vibrant.

“All kinds of difficulties came during this period but we weathered them. We faced several storms and every crisis gave us new strength. This was because we learnt from our leaders how to face challenges,” she said.

Paying glowing tributes to the first Prime Minister, she said that the whole world was aware of the unparallelled place of Nehru in public life of the country.

“A person with so much power and authority and enjoying such love and trust could have taken the country to any direction.

“But it was his deep conviction in justice and liberty that he took the country on a path in which institutions were given more importance than an individual. He engaged in a politics, which allowed play to all kinds of thoughts,” she said.

“He established scientific institutions without which the Mars Mission today was not possible,” Gandhi said.

The Congress President also said that it was the good fortune of the country that after independence it got the visionary and farsighted leadership of Nehru, who had established a number of scientific institutions and created industrial infrastructure and augmented irrigation facilities.

At the function, Dikshit administered an oath to Congress workers in the name of Nehru to commit themselves to the ideals of secularism, pluralism and progressiveness espoused by him.

Wednesday’s functions marks the beginning of the year—long celebrations of Nehru throughout the country being organised by the Congress party. — PTI

MUMBAI: A day after the Devendra Fadnavis led government won the floor test by a voice vote, its former ally Shiv Sena on Thursday accused the Maharashtra government of violating constitutional provisions by proving its majority amid high chaos and strangulating age-old traditions of the state.

The Sena also said termed the BJP's claim of running a clean government as "false".

"The BJP had promised clean governance when they came to power. Forgetting all their promises made to the people, they (the BJP) have violated the constitutional provisions while seeking a trust vote. This has proved that all the claims of running a clean government were false," Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

It added that by violating the norms of the House and ignoring the traditions, they have "cheated" the people of the state, for which they will not be forgiven.

"Will people henceforth trust a party that has violated all the norms and strangulated the age-old traditions of the state only to win a trust vote? You have broken the trust of people who gave you the largest mandate for which you will never be forgiven," it said.

"If you were so confident of getting the majority, you could have ceded to the opposition parties demand of division of votes. You have to answer the people for running the government without winning the trust vote," it said.

The Sena said that though the BJP has succeeded in winning the motion amid the chaos prevalent inside the house, but the opposition parties will not accept this majority, unless proven constitutionally on the floor of the house.

As soon as speaker Haribhau Bagde declared the one line motion by BJP's Ashish Shelar seeking confidence as passed on the floor of the house, utter chaos broke out inside and outside the Assembly.

The Speaker suspended five Congress MLAs for two years, after accusing them of pushing and injuring Governor Rao.
Congress called the Speaker's ruling "a murder of democracy", while Sena termed the day as a "black day" for Maharashtra. -PTI

PANDARI: The doctor whose sterilisation of 83 women in less than three hours ended in at least a dozen deaths said on Thursday the express operations were his moral responsibility and blamed 'adulterated medicines' for the tragedy.

RK Gupta, who says he has conducted more than 50,000 such operations, denied that his equipment was rusty or dirty and said it was the government's duty to control the number of people that turned up at his family planning "camp".

"It is up to the administration to decide how many women would be kept for operation," a visibly upset Gupta told Reuters from the police station, where he is being held in custody. He faces charges of causing death by negligence.

"If they kept in that place 83 women, it is my moral responsibility to operate (on) all the women. If I decline to do that, I would have faced public agitation," said Gupta, who was awarded a state honour 10 years ago for his sterilisation work.

Gupta said health workers gave the women ciprofloxacin, a commonly prescribed antibiotic, and ibuprofen, a pain killer, after the operations, which were conducted in a grimy room of an unused private hospital in a village called Pandari in Chhattisgarh.

At least 13 women have died so far, with scores more still hospitalised and some critically ill. Some of the sick women were operated on by a different doctor at a second camp on Monday. Gupta said this was evidence he was not to blame.

"I am not the culprit. I have been made scapegoat. It is the administration which is responsible for this incident," he said, speaking in a dimly-lit police hostel room after being taken into custody from a friend's house on Wednesday night.

The government of Chhattisgarh banned five batches of drugs and a batch of surgical cotton wool on Wednesday pending further investigations.

The banned medicines include Indian-made brands of ciprofloxacin and ibuprofen and were used in Gupta's sterilisation camp, a government statement said.

State government officials who run sterilisation programme are often pressed to meet quotas.

Protocols state that doctors should spend at least 15 minutes on each operation and perform a maximum of 30 in a day. Several doctors told Reuters it was common to perform up to 90 sterilisations a day, leaving little time to maintain hygiene.

Gupta said it was the responsibility of the government to clean the clinic, which the police say was filthy, and to provide him with more instruments. Asked why he didn't complain, Gupta said the conditions were normal and he kept his equipment clean.

Gupta said he generally took between two and five minutes on each operation, and that this gave two assistants time to clean scalpels.

He said allegations by a senior government official that the tools were rusty were untrue and that he wore gloves and a gown.

"They are dipped in spirit after an operation and then reused. If I feel it is not working well I change it. I do about 10 operations with the same knife. Towel clips are also reused after being dipped in spirit," he said.

The police say the room used as an operating theatre was hung with cobwebs, and that the fast turnover of operations meant there was no time to change bloodied sheets. Activists say the rushed nature of the programme meant disaster was almost inevitable at some point.

"It's a mystery," Gupta said of the deaths. "I never came across any such complications in the past." — Reuters

NEW DELHI: The government today raised excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 1.50 a litre, but consumers will be spared of any price increase as oil firms would adjust it with a reduction in retail rates that was due this weekend.

The move will boost government revenue by about Rs 13,000 crore to contain budget deficit.

With a steep fall in international crude prices, oil marketing firms were expected to cut retail fuel prices by about Re 1 a litre with effect from November 16 after a fortnightly review.

Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer, said the excise duty hike will not be passed on to consumers and will be adjusted against the reduction in rates that was due this weekend.

The fall in international oil prices had resulted in six consecutive reduction in petrol prices since August and two in diesel in the last one month.

Excise duty on normal or unbranded petrol was hiked from Rs 1.20 per litre to Rs 2.70 per litre and unbranded diesel from Rs 1.46 a litre to Rs 2.96, a government notification said.

The same on branded petrol was raised from Rs 2.35 a litre to Rs 3.85 a litre and on branded diesel from Rs 3.75 to Rs 5.25 per litre.

"For the moment, we are not passing on the increase in excise duty. It is being absorbed by companies and will be adjusted against review in rates which was due on Saturday," IOC Chairman B Ashok said.

Revision in rates will be considered at the next fortnight (end of November), he said. "As and when we look at price revision, whenever it is due, we will look at the situation and decide on revising rates then." Before the duty hike, petrol's cost was Rs 64.25 a litre in Delhi and diesel's Rs 53.35 a litre. They will continue to be priced at the same rates.

"There is no increase in retail prices," he said. — PTI

WASHINGTON: Two US-based rights groups have filed a lawsuit against the US Army for allegedly not enlisting a Sikh student in the Reserve Officer Training Corps programme, unless he shaved his beard and cut his hair.

The lawsuit, filed by United Sikh and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) yesterday, in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asks the court to order Army officials to permit Singh to enlist in Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) while maintaining his religious practices.

The two groups alleged that the student was denied enlisting, unless he shaved his beard, removed the turban and cut his hair.

Iknoor Singh, a student of Hofstra University had requested a religious exemption from military rules so that he could join ROTC – pursuing his life-long dream of serving in the Army – without violating his faith, United Sikh said in a statement.

But Army officials rejected his request, it alleged.

The lawsuit argues that the Army's denial of the religious exemption violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which provides heightened legal protections for religious exercise.

"Sikhs have a rich tradition of military service around the world, where they are permitted to serve with their articles of faith intact," Manmeet Singh, a staff attorney with United Sikhs, said.

"Our client should not be denied the honour of joining ROTC merely because of his faith," he added.

United Sikh alleged that after first claiming that Singh's requested accommodation would undermine readiness, unit cohesion, standards, health, safety, and discipline, the US Army officials later switched tactics and said they could not rule on Singh's request because he had not "formally enlisted".

They admit that, once he enlists, Singh will have to comply with the rules and violate his faith "unless and until" an exemption is granted.

"Our military should strive to welcome and accommodate recruits of all faiths," said, Heather L Weaver, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Program on the Freedom of Religion and Belief.

"Religious diversity is a strength, not a weakness," Weaver added.

Born and raised in Queens, New York, Singh speaks four languages (English, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu) and hopes to one day become a military intelligence officer. -PTI