Govt ready to talk to Shaheen Bagh protesters but in a structured form: Law minister Prasad
New Delhi: Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said the government is ready to talk to the protesters at Shaheen Bagh to clear their doubts over the amended Citizenship law, but it should be in a "structured form".
This is perhaps for the first time a Union minister has expressed willingness to communicate with the Shaheen Bagh protestors who have been staging a sit-in since last 40 days to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act.
"Government is ready to talk to protestors of Shaheen Bagh but then it should be in a structured form and the @narendramodi govt is ready to communicate with them and clear all their doubts they have against CAA," he wrote on Twitter.
Prasad also shared a link of a TV debate in which he participated. In the debate, a person associated with the protest asked the minister why the central government was not trying to communicate with the protesters at Shaheen Bagh.
Prasad said it was a "good thing" that people were protesting for days but some people were heard saying on television that there would not be dialogue until the CAA was rolled back.
"If you want a government representative to talk, then there should be a structured request from Shaheen Bagh which says all the people there want to talk on the subject," Prasad said.
He made it clear that Shaheen Bagh was not the place to hold talks. "What if someone goes there and is mistreated," he said. The Shaheen Bagh protest site in southeast Delhi is at the centrestage of BJP's polls campaign.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
