SINCE 1928 MANU AND JEREMY SCRIPT GOLDEN HISTORY AT YOUTH OLYMPICS Pg 22 SAVING THE WORLD FROM ITSELF `2 EDIT Sunrise: 06:31 am Sunset: 06:16 pm ANURAG FEELS #METOO WILL MAKE THE INDUSTRY SAFER FOR WOMEN Pg 18 THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Vol. 62 No. 140 | WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 10, 2018 | 22 Pages EDITIONS : MUMBAI*, PUNE, INDORE, BHOPAL www.freepressjournal.in twitter.com/fpjindia GOT THEM! #METOO NETS BJP MINISTER REG. NO. MCS/048/2018-20; RNI NO. 1541/1957 M.P.C.S office Mumbai-400001 WEATHER 370C. 270C. Pg 8 “From thoughtless awareness you have to reach doubtless awareness” Her Holiness Mataji Nirmala Devi STORM KNOCKING AT MODI GOVT’S DOOR, M J AKBAR IN THE DOCK "...You were as talented a predator as you were a writer. It [the job interview] was more date, less interview”,  one senior says journalist before describing how M J Akbar drank vodka during the 'job interview' and then asked her to sit close to him. FPJ NEWS SERVICE New Delhi The #MeToo movement, which has caused a storm in the film industry and singed newsrooms, reached the doorstep of the Modi government with former editor and Union minister M.J. Akbar being named for sexual harassment by two journalists in the social media.Senior journalist Priya Ramani was the first among those who spoke out against Akbar's conduct. In a Twitter post put up on Monday Ramani re, vealed that her 2017 Vogue article titled 'We'll get you all one day' was about MJ Akbar. A day later, another of junior External Affairs Minister’s former colleagues, Prerna Singh Bindra, came up with charges of sexual harassment. In the article, Ra- mani described how MJ Akbar once interviewed her for a job at a newspaper where he was an editor. "...You were as talented a predator as you were a writer. It [the job inter- Men are afraid to meet view] was more date, less interview,"  Ramani wrote  her in article before describing how Akbar drank vodka during the 'job interview' and then asked her to sit close to him. Ramani said that Akbar did hire her and that she worked for him for many months but "swore I would never be in a room alone with you again." LATEST TO BE NAMED women alone: BJP MP FPJ NEWS SERVICE / New Delhi Even as an aghast nation listens, day after day to the out, pourings of women recounting their experiences of sexual harassment on social media, one of its democratically elected representatives had a rather shocking take on the subject. BJP MP Udit Raj has decried the #MeToo movement in India, calling it a ‘wrong practice’ and has dubbed it a blackmailing ploy He said . there were several instances of women receiving money from men and then setting their eye on their next target. He is worried that women have unleashed a campaign of terror and men, be they politicians or officials, are now so afraid that they are reluctant to meet women alone. Raj pointed out he had Fast News 9 DIE IN BHILAI UNIT MISHAP BHILAI: At least nine people were reported dead on Tuesday following a blast at the Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh, located some 32 km from Raipur. Fourteen people were undergoing treatment, Reuters reported, quoting the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), which operates the plant. The incident happened near a coke oven where a gas pipeline was being repaired. The blast was sudden and people working there had no time to escape. In June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated a modernised and expanded Bhilai Steel Plant to the nation. BUILDING SEALED THANE: A four-storey building here developed cracks following which nearly 300 people residing in it were evacuated, a civic official said on Tuesday. The Thane Municipal Corporation's emergency control room got a call on Monday night that a pillar on the second floor of the building located in Uthalsar area had developed cracks. Around 57 families were living in the nearly 35-year-old residential structure. LOAD-SHEDDING? MUMBAI: Parts of Maharashtra are likely to face power loadshedding in the coming days in view of the rise in electricity demand, Power Minister Chandrashekhar Bavankule has said. The load-shedding is likely to coincide with the upcoming festive season. The average requirement in this season is generally about 16,000 MW. But this time, due to the rise in demand, the actual requirement is around 20,000 MW, Bavankule told PTI. The minister, however, did not specify which parts of the state will face load-shedding. raised his voice about the misuse of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Dowry Act and others, and said, “Can’t this (#Metoo) be misused?". He further questioned the relevance of making allegations of sexual harassment after a decade, alluding to the case of actor Tanushree Dutta. Raj has suggested matters should be decided on a caseby-case basis, as, “Habitually women take two-four lakhs, level allegations on men and then pick another man. They steal, they blackmail. Aren't there cases of honey trapping? I accept it is in man's nature. But are women perfect? Can it not be misused? A man's life gets destroyed because of this,” Raj told reporters. However, he asserted that if someone has exploited a woman, the person should be ‘shot’. “#MeToo movement is important but what is the relevance of making sexual harassment allegations against anybody ten years later? How will the truth in these allegations be established after so long? The person on whom the allegations will be levelled, how much it will tarnish his image is worth giving a thought. A wrong practice is being initiated," he tweeted in Hindi. The lawmaker from the north-west Delhi constituency said the #MeToo movement was being used for blackmailing. “How is it possible that a girl who is in a live-in relationship can level rape allegations against her partner and he is booked and sent to jail? Priya Ramani STREE PRODUCER: PHYSICAL ABUSE Tanushree Dutta has opened a  of worms. The latest can disclosure is from Stree actress Flora Saini, who has accused former boyfriend and producer Gaurang Doshi of physical The victim abuse. Flora, who played the ghost in the movie, took to social media to vent her feelings. She shared a picture of hers from 2007 Valentine's Day when she "came home with a fractured jaw and a scarred soul for life." Flora has narrated her harrowing experience in a Facebook post, wherein she states: "That's me. Valentine's Day 2007, beaten up by a known producer Gaurang Doshi, who I loved and was dating then. This was the last of the one year abuse I took. Came out with a fractured jaw and a scarred soul for life.’’ The Kolkata-based Telegraph, of which Akbar was the founding editor, had carried a story on Tuesday based on tweets by Ramani. Since then, several other woman journalists have come forward with similar stories about Akbar holding interviews in hotel rooms. Shuma Raha, a senior journalist, said that she had gone through a similar experience at a hotel in Kolkata. "The whole experience of an interview sitting on a bed in a hotel room followed by an invitation to come over for a drink that evening, was rattling and deeply uncomfortable," she said. Contd. on P6 Fresh charges were levelled against a host of persons on Tuesday, which have appeared elsewhere in the media. SWABHIMAAN ROY: NOT ME Actor Rohit Roy has been accused of sexually harassing an unnamed woman. The accuser, who reached out to a journalist through social media, alleged that Rohit would send her 4"suggestive" messages when she was about 16-year-old. "He's harassed me on several occasions since, trying to get me to kiss him. Including when his wife (was) in the next room," she wrote. When News18 reached out to Rohit Roy for his comment, the actor strongly denied the allegations. He said, "I had checked the entire account, that's not me at all.’’ WRITER-COMEDIAN: COLLEGE ECHO Writer-comedian Varun Grover is the latest comic to be accused of sexual harassment. As per a tweet, a former student of Banaras Hindu University has alleged that Varun, who was a year senior to her at the university, tried to misbehave with her in 2001 on the pretext of working together in a play. Varun, however, was quick to dismiss all allegations. Contd. on P6 TN Editor arrested on Governor’s plaint, Magistrate frees him OUR CORRESPONDENT Chennai In what could be the first such case in the country R. , R. Gopal, Editor and Publisher of Tamil magazine Nakkeeran, was on Tuesday arrested under Section 124 of the IPC (assault on President/Governor) on a complaint from the Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan for publishing certain reports. However, Metropolitan Magistrate Gopinath, before whom the police produced Gopal, refused to remand him in judicial custody and set him free saying there was no ground to detain him under the said provision. Section 124 of the IPC deals with: “ Assaulting President, Governor, etc., with intent to compel or restrain the exercise of any lawful power”, an offence that could lead to imprisonment up to seven years. On Saturday last, T Sengottaiyan, Deputy Secretary to Governor, had submitted a complaint to the Chennai Police Commission alleging that since April, Nakkeeran had been publishing reports defaming Governor Banwarilal Purohit by linking him Contd. on P6 Nirmala Devi, who was working as assistant professor at the Devanga Arts and Science College in Virudhunagar district in south Tamil Nadu, shot into infamy in mid-April this year when an audio tape containing a purported conversation between her and a group of her students were leaked. In the audio, she was heard cajoling the girls to agree to do “certain favours” for “powerful” people in the Madurai Kamaraj University. In return they were promised seamless academic progression and monetary support. The girls refused to do her bidding. Contd. P6 drought situation in the state. Nine districts are worst affected, according to agriculture department officials. Sadabhau Khot, Minister of State for Agriculture, said the cotton crop was most affected. So was soybean, tur, urad and moong. According to preliminary reports, the situation in 201 talukas in Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nanded, Jalgaon, Gadchiroli, Nandurbar, Dhule, Satara and Sangli districts is alarming. In these districts, the yield in 141,255 hectares of was badly hit as the rain was below average, said the minister. The Nirmala Devi Case Nikki Haley quits CM rushes Ministers on mission drought as Trump’s envoy FPJ POLITICAL BUREAU Mumbai AGENCIES Washington In a sudden move, IndianAmerican US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley resigned on Tuesday be, coming the latest casualty in the fragile Trump administration just weeks ahead of the crucial mid-term elections. President Donald Trump has accepted her resignation, US media reported. The reason behind her resignation was not immediately clear. Haley who has long , been seen as a potential presidential candidate, said she had no intention of running for the presidency in 2020, as has been speculated. Instead, she said, she plans to campaign for Trump’s re-election. Haley acknowledged her policy disagreements with the president in an op-ed in the Washington Post last month when she criticized an anonymous senior administration official who penned an opinion piece in the New York Times, describing a chaotic administration in which many of the president’s aides disagreed with their boss. “I don’t agree with the president on everything,” Haley wrote. “When there is disagreement, there is a right way and a wrong way to address it. I pick up the phone and call him or meet with him in person.” Haley 46, was the senior , most Indian-American official in the Trump administration. She was confirmed as UN Ambassador four days after Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, and There will be no dearth of issues for the state government in an election year -half the state is already reeling under drought. Taking an early call, CM Devendra Fadnavis has instructed all ministers to rush to drought-hit districts and 201 talukas, review the situation first-hand and submit reports by October 25.The state will then submit a memorandum to secure relief from the Centre. “But we are not completely dependent on the Centre’s support. By the time we get funds from the Centre, the state will share and distribute financial help to drought-affected farmers,” said Chandrakant Patil, State Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation.On Tuesday Fadnavis chaired , a meeting which included the entire council of ministers, not just cabinet ministers, to discuss the severe Techie killed while trying to board train Nikki Haley quickly made it clear she saw the position as a steppingstone to a higher political office — a possibility that Trump may have resented. She was critical of Trump during the primary campaign and had backed Senator Marco Rubio in the Republican primary However, . before the general elections, she switched her position, saying she would vote for Trump. Born Nimrata "Nikki" Randhawa, Haley is the first minority and female governor of South Carolina, a deeply conservative state with a long history of racial strife. She is the first IndianAmerican woman Governor and the second Indian-American governor of any State. Prior to becoming governor, she represented Lexington County in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2005 to 2011. The daughter of Indian immigrants from Punjab, Haley worked at her family business before entering public life. STAFF REPORTER Mumbai A 31-year old software engineer was run over by a local train when he tried to board it while it was in motion on Sunday morning. He slipped and lost his balance. The incident took place on Dadar's Platform 1. The deceased was identified as Sudharshan Choudhary a resident , of Goregaon. According to the Railway Police Force, after getting a job with the International Business Corporation (IBM), Choudhary had moved to Goregaon in March. Every month, he would go to Karjat for trekking and on Sunday , too, he was about to join the trekking group on board the 5.58 Karjat local, when the tragedy occurred. “He was supposed to go for trekking on Sunday morning with friends. He was using the foot overbridge between Western and Central Dadar. Before he could reached the platform, the train had picked up pace and in a tizzy , he tried to board, but slipped and fell under the wheels,” Sudharshan Choudhary added an RPF official. An inspector of GRP , Dadar, said, “He tried to grab the pole but was dragged for about 50 to 100 metres along with the train, which had picked up speed." A doctor from Sion Hospital said Choudhary was declared dead on arrival and the cause of death was shock due to poly-trauma. Railway officials said they had to search the tracks to find his shoes and trousers. Finally they managed to find , his wallet. Contd. on P6 leads to low immunity, making them vulnerable to viral fever. For the fourth consecutive day, the city recorded maximum temperature of 37.2 degrees Celsius sand 33.5 degrees Celsius; the humidity level was 95 and 85 per cent at Santacruz and Colaba, respectively “Dry and . warm air from the north is raising temperatures,” according to KS Hosalikar, Deputy Director, Indian Meteorological Department. This state of affairs is expected to continue for a week before temperatures dip.As temperatures soar, viral fever seems to be laying citizens low. Dr Madhukar Gaikwad, medical superintendent of St George Hospital, said there has been a marked rise in the number of patients suffering from contagious disease, viral fever, headache and sore throat. “For the past one week, the number of patients visiting the Contd. on P6 It is so hot and it’s sickening GOING VIRAL SWAPNIL MISHRA Mumbai It is so hot that it is sickening. The sudden change in temperature has Mumbaikars jumping like a pea on a hot tin roof and whining about numerous health issues. Doctors say high temperatures are causing people to get dehydrated, which AMRAPALI DIRECTORS IN CUSTODY NEW DELHI: Three directors of embattled real estate firm Amrapali were on Tuesday ordered to be taken into police custody by the Supreme Court which castigated the company for playing "hide and seek" and not complying with its orders to hand over all the documents to the forensic auditors. A bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit said the directors -Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar -who were present in the court, would remain in police custody till they hand over all the documents of the group's 46 firms. "What is this happening? Why this hide and seek and blatant violation of the orders of this court?" the bench demanded from the counsel appearing for the group and added, "You are playing with the dignity of this court". The two auditors -- Ravi Bhatia and Pawan Kumar Aggarwal -- appointed by the court to conduct the forensic audit of Amrapali Group, said they have not yet received all the documents. Contd. on P6