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New Delhi, Feb 10: The government is set to privatise Central Electronics Ltd, a CPSE under the Department of Science and Technology, by selling its 100% stake with management control and has invited the Expression of Interest for the same by March 16.

The selected bidder will be required to lock in its shares for a period of three years during which it cannot undertake the sale of its stake in CEL, the PIM (Preliminary Information Memorandum) said.

"The government of India has 'in-principle' decided to disinvest 100 per cent of its equity shareholding in CEL (which is equivalent to 100 per cent of the total paid up equity share capital of CEL) through Strategic Disinvestment with transfer of management control (Strategic Disinvestment or Transaction)," DIPAM, the Disinvestment Department, said.

The process for the transaction has been divided into two stages, namely, Stage I and Stage II.

After BPCL and Air India, this is yet another CPSE which government is slated to privatise if it gets offers from bidders.

The government has set a challenging target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore disinvestment proceeds from CPSE sell-offs and IPOs, OFSs (Offer for sale) in the next fiscal and it going out all guns blazing to meet that target after revising this fiscal target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore to Rs 65,000 crore.

The Interested Bidders (which can also include employees of CEL) must have a minimum net worth of Rs 50 crore as on March 2019. DIPAM has released complete invitation Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM) of CEL. Resurgent India Limited is the advisor to the Transaction.

CEL is a pioneer in the country in the field of Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) with the distinction of having developed India's first Solar cell in 1977 and first Solar panel in 1978 as well as commissioning India's first solar plant in 1992.

More recently, it has developed and manufactured the first crystalline flexible solar panel especially for use on the passenger train roofs in 2015.

Its solar products have been qualified to International Standards IEC 61215/61730. CEL is further working on development of a range of new and upgraded products for signaling and telecommunication in the railway sector.

In the SWOT analysis of the CPSE, DIPAM has stated under weakness that "the company has weak financial loss due to past losses, high manufacturing cost and non payment of dues by state nodal agencies affecting the financial position of the company".

The CPSE has adequate land for expansion, the SWOT analysis said adding "the CPSE faces threat of dumping of solar cells at very low rates which makes solar PV manufacturing industry unviable".

Entry of new players in the market for solar products and railway signalling systems also is cited as a threat.

New Delhi, Mar 12: TMC MP Saugata Roy said Home Minister Amit Shah should resign for "failing" to control the riots in Delhi and demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge.

Participating in a discussion on the violence in Delhi in Lok Sabha, Roy said the Delhi riots happened 72 years after Mahatma Gandhi was killed by a Hindu fanatic.

"Gandhiji has been murdered again in Delhi by, you know who," Roy said while addressing the Chair.

Taking on BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi for defending BJP leaders for their controversial remarks, which he claimed instigated the violence, Roy said he has seldom heard such a communal speech ever.

Dubbing the BJP MP as "Devil's Advocate", Roy said, "She spent five minutes defending the most hated man. May I quote (William) Shakespeare and call her the Devil's Advocate?...She is the best Devil's Advocate possible. She has also been an advocate for the Delhi Police which has shown total inaction and ineptness in this whole riot in Delhi."

Thereafter Roy trained his gun at Shah, who was present in the house while the TMC MP was speaking.

He said that when the riots started on February 24, Home Minister Shah was sitting in the front row at Motera Stadium (in Gujarat) welcoming US President Donald Trump.

"When Mr. Shah should have been in Delhi Police control room, he was welcoming Mr. Trump at Motera. There was no order to the police. Then on 25th, things went out of control. Armed mobs fought with each other on the streets of Delhi," Roy said.

Demanding resignation of Shah, Roy raised questions on NSA Ajit Doval's visit to the riots-affected areas on February 26 and asked what was the Home Minister doing.

"Is it NSA's business to control ordinary law and order situation? Why was the Home Minister absent in action? There is no explanation for the same," he said.

The TMC leader said he feels bad standing face-to-face with Shah.

"He is still young, he has a good future. He should acknowledge responsibility for his failure to control or stop Delhi riots and bring peace in three days. In the name of God, go and do not stay in the Home Minister's position," Roy said, adding he is the man who could not prevent riots in Delhi, at a place 10 kilometres away from the Home Ministry.

Roy demanded a judicial inquiry into the riots by a sitting Supreme Court judge and complete rehabilitation for all the riot victims.

Kolkata, Jan 1: US-based Bangladeshi author and playwright Sharbari Zohra Ahmed feels that the people of the country of her origin are more alike than different from Indians as they were originally Hindus.

But Bangladeshis now want to forget their Hindu roots, said the author, who was born in Dhaka and moved to the United States when she was just three weeks old.

Ahmed, who is the co-writer of the Season 1 of 'Quantico', a popular American television drama thriller series starring Priyanka Chopra, rues that her identity as a Bengali is getting lost in Bangladesh due to the influence of right-wing religious groups.

"How can Bangladesh deny its Hindu heritage? We were originally Hindus. Islam came later," Ahmed said while speaking to PTI here recently.

"The British exploited us, stole from us and murdered us," she said about undivided India, adding that the colonialists destroyed the thriving Muslin industry in Dhaka.

Ahmed said the question of her belief and identity in Bangladesh, where the state religion is Islam, has prompted her to write her debut novel 'Dust Under Her Feet'.

The British exploitation of India and the country's partition based on religion has also featured in her novel in a big way.

Ahmed calls Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during World War II, a "racist".

"He took the rice from Bengal to feed his soldiers and didn't care when he was told about that.

"During my research, I learnt that two million Bengalis died in the artificial famine that was created by him. When people praise Churchill, it is like praising Hitler to the Jews. He was horrible," she said.

The author said her novel is an effort to tell the readers what actually happened.

"Great Britain owes us three trillion dollars. You have to put in inflation. Yet, they (the British) still have a colonial mentality and white colonisation is on the rise again," Ahmed, who was in the city to promote her novel, said.

The novel is based in Kolkata, then Calcutta, during World War II when American soldiers were coming to the city in large numbers.

The irony was that while these American soldiers were nice to the locals, they used to segregate the so-called "black" soldiers, the novelist said.

"Calcutta was a cosmopolitan and the rest of the world needs to know how the city's people were exploited, its treasures looted, people divided and hatred instilled in them," she said.

"Kolkata was my choice of place for my debut novel since my mother was born here. She witnessed the 'Direct Action Day' when she was a kid and was traumatised. She saw how a Hindu was killed by Muslims near her home in Park Circus area (in the city)," Ahmed said.

Direct Action Day, also known as the Great Calcutta Killings, was a massive communal riot in the city on August 16, 1946 that continued for the next few days.

Thousands of people were killed in the violence that ultimately paved the way for the partition of India.

'Dust Under Her Feet' is set in the Calcutta of the 1940s and Ahmed in her novel examines the inequities wrought by racism and colonialism.

The story is of young and lovely Yasmine Khan, a doyenne of the nightclub scene in Calcutta.

When the US sets up a large army base in the city to fight the Japanese in Burma, Yasmine spots an opportunity.

The nightclub is where Yasmine builds a family of singers, dancers, waifs and strays.

Every night, the smoke-filled club swarms with soldiers eager to watch her girls dance and sing.

Yasmine meets American soldier Lt Edward Lafaver in the club and for all her cynicism, finds herself falling helplessly for a married man who she is sure will never choose her over his wife.

Outside, the city lives in constant fear of Japanese bombardment at night. An attack and a betrayal test Yasmine's strength and sense of control and her relationship with Edward.

Ahmed teaches creative writing in the MFA program in Manhattanville College and is artist-in-residence in Sacred Heart University's graduate film and television programme.