RED FORT ADOPTED BY DALMIA GROUP FOR MAINTENANCE

              The iconic monument Red Fort has been adopted by the Dalmia group for maintenance under the "Adopt a Heritage Scheme". The contract was signed between the Dalmia group and the Ministry of Tourism at a cost of Rs. 25 crore for a period of 5 years. They won the contract beating IndiGo Airline and GMR Group.

              "Adopt a Heritage Scheme" was launched on 27th September, 2017 (World Tourism Day) by the President of India. The "Adopt a Heritage Scheme" invites private and public sector companies and corporate individuals to take responsibility for making heritage and tourism more sustainable through conservation and development.

              The undertaking of the Red Fort by the Dalmia Group is a part of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). The notification relating to CSR clearly states "Protection of National Heritage, art and culture including restoration of buildings and sites of historical importance and works of art".

               The Press Release clearly states that the project,"enables Dalmia Bharat to construct, landscape, illuminate and maintain activities related to provision and development  of tourist amenities. This includes various basic and advanced amenities such as public convinences, clean drinking water, cleanliness of the monument, accessibility for all, signage, cloakroom facilities, illumination and night viewing, survillance system, tourist facilities cum interpretation centre among others".

                While the report clearly laid out the contract details, the headlines were extremely misleading. People without going through the detail started giving their view by reading just some misleading and mischievous headlines. The Dalmia group will be charging people and the entry point and will also have their visibility to improve their brand image, but the entire process will not generate revenue for the Dalmia Group.

                This is actually Phase 2 of the "Adopt a Heritage Scheme". in Phase 1, places in Hampi, Leh, Qutub Minar, Ajanta Caves, Purana Qila, Safdarganj Tomb, Gangotri Temple, etc have been adopted by Corporates as a part of their CSR initiative. But no outrage was seen during that time because of lack awareness among people. Whereas the adoption of Red Fort by the Dalmia Group is widely criticised because of misleading headlines and  lack of proper information. People, nowadays, believe anything they hear and see in social media without going through the official statements.

               The "Adopt a Heritage Scheme" is a very nice initiative by the Government as it will minimise the Government's expenditure for the upkeep of the monument as well as it generated revenue for the Government.

              The Dalmia Group has already started planning on improving the amenities in Red Fort and will start the work from 23rd May as it will have to handover the monument temporarily to the Security in July for preparing the monument for Independence Day.

INDIA TO START 2019 WORLD CUP CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA

           

England and Wales will host the ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2019 which will played from 30^th May 2019 to 14^th July 2019. England gained the hosting right in 2006, when the hosting rights for 2011, 2015 and 2019 world Cups were awarded. The 2019 CWC will feature 10 teams, a decrease from the World Cup  in 2011 and 2015 which featured 14 teams. The teams featuring in 2019 World Cup are:

AUSTRALIA	BANGLADESH	ENGLAND	INDIA	NEW ZEALAND
PAKISTAN	SOUTH AFRICA	SRI LANKA	AFGHANISTAN	WEST INDIES

The schedule is not out yet, but what is confirm is that India will play their opening game against South Africa on June 5 instead of June 2. The reason behind the change of schedule is that the BCCI will have to maintain a mandatory gap of 15 days between IPL Final and International assignment as recommended by the Lodha Committee. IPL 2019 is scheduled to be played from March 29 to May 19. So a gap of 15 days means India could not play any game before June 4, so this change was initiated.

Another interesting thing is that ICC always start India’s campaign on big tournament with a Indo-Pak match which is a guaranteed sell out as it happened in 2015 world Cup (in Adelaide) and in 2017 Champion Trophy (in Birmingham) but in 2019 World Cup India will start their campaign against South Africa and will face arch-rival Pakistan on June 16.

The format of the fixture will be the same as in 1992 World Cup, where all the 10 teams will play against each other i.e. a total of 45 matches will be played while each team will play 9 games. The top 4 team will progress to the knockout stage.

The tournament opener will be played between the host England and South Africa at the Oval on 30^th May 2019.

Saquib Akhter, Signing off for the day. Thank You.