Latest news with #Katyal
Indian Express
29-06-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
‘Forced to downsize': Once hubs for live performances, Gurgaon's BYOB venues hit by new restrictions
'While we are being forced to downsize without being heard, other states are looking at Gurgaon's Bring Your Own Booze (BYOB) joints as an example. Every year, there are new restrictions,' complains Gaurav Katyal (31), proprietor, Ebowla, Sector 30. After new restrictions kicked in earlier this month, Gurgaon's BYOB joints like Ebowla – once thriving hubs for live performances and hotspots to have alcohol at prices that are not marked up — have become shadows of their former selves. Referred colloquially as 'ahatas' and as 'taverns' in the excise policy, these joints have been restricted from hosting live events and musical performances. In the new Haryana excise policy, which came into effect on June 12, the licensing fee has also been increased, and the joints cannot expand beyond one floor — they have to operate within a 1,000 square metre area. Not just Katyal, many proprietors across the city are upset. Ebowla, he says, had to reduce its operational area by half, shut down its first floor, and pay Rs 1.8 crore as a licence fee to operate its BYOB unit. For its adjoining liquor store, it had to pay Rs 45 crore as license fees for 21.5 months. Its stage, including a space for the DJ, is now defunct. 'We would recover a significant amount of the hefty liquor store license fees through BYOBs. We would have (local) celebrities and dancers perform here to draw crowds. That's no longer the case. With the rise in expenses, our planned expansions in the city are on hold,' Katyal adds. According to him, new players would now be apprehensive of entering the sector. 'Even we are only in this business because we have a reputation of being solid players in this space. Varna ab kya rakha hain? (Otherwise, what is left now?),' he asks. The scene is no different for such joints at Golf Course Extension Road. 'Fifty workers at my joint lost their jobs, and their families are now suffering. If I cannot have music and you're increasing taxes, who will come anymore to even my joint?' says an owner on condition of anonymity. The state government, he adds, has ignored the middle segment of consumers. 'Can everyone afford to go to bars and restaurants to drink, with their marked-up prices? Ultimately, it will cause losses to the government in terms of revenue,' he says. Notices from the Excise Department on unpaid dues and pending rent under the previous policy have been pasted at the premises of several joints — Machan in Sector 29, Dakotta in Sector 32, and Where Else in Sector 59. 'We have been closed since June 11. Things are uncertain. Ab license renew hone ka koi aasha bhi nahi hain (now there is little hope of securing a new license),' says a staff member at Where Else. Dakotta, too, has been closed for now. Amit Bhatia, Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner (DETC), Gurugram East, tells The Indian Express that it is common for time to be taken for the renewal of licences and agreements between policies. 'The agreements between the liquor store operators and proprietors of taverns take time. Some initial losses and a drop in business with any rise in taxes is natural. Projected excise collections are on course, it is still early days to look too far ahead,' Bhatia says. Jitender Dudi, DETC for Gurugram West, says a clearer picture of the revenue impact can be known only once the auctions for vends in the 37 zones remaining are complete. 'These places were unregulated. We had got representations from restaurant associations about their business being impacted,' he says.
Time of India
21-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Parrot with neurology issuegets MRI scan, acupuncture
Mumbai: A parrot was put through an MRI scan and is undergoing acupuncture for a neurological disorder. Found by a car-washer under a vehicle in Chembur, the bird has ataxia — a neurological problem — but is showing signs of slow recovery. When it was found under a car, the parrot kept trembling. It could not bend its neck to have water from a bowl nor could it bite into food. An x-ray did not show anything much, said Dr Deepa Katyal Engineer who is treating the bird. "It had a traumatic injury to the tail. The shaking of its body pointed to ataxia which could be a neurological issue," said the vet, who specialises in pain management with special interest in neurological disorders. For a conclusive diagnosis, an MRI scan of the brain and spine was done at a facility for humans. "We needed to first be sure if it was a neurological issue. If yes, whether or not it was reversible," said Dr Katyal. To get the bird under the MRI machine, it had to be administered anaesthesia. While doing an MRI scan, movement is not allowed, while this bird was constantly moving. "Images would not have been possible without anaesthesia," the vet said, adding that a respiratory tube was attached to the little bird as an airway access while using injectable anaesthesia. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cardiologists: 1 Teaspoon of This Before Bed Melts Belly Fat Like Crazy Hollywood News | USA Click Here Undo The scan detected changes in the area of injury which pointed to lack of coordination between muscle and nerves. Also, the bird's tail bone, which has nerve endings, was affected. "The spinal nerve bundle also had inflammation," said Dr Katyal. The parrot is being administered painkillers, phototherapy and acupuncture. "Birds can't be over-medicated with drugs as blood flow to the liver and kidneys can get reduced, affecting their function long term," said the vet treating the bird at her clinic, Animal Wellness & Rehabilitation Centre, Chembur. The bird is being given acupuncture treatment thrice a week. Acupuncture helps strengthen the nerves, Dr Katyal said. It is also being treated daily with 'phototherapy', an advanced therapy in pain management which improves blood flow and reduces inflammation. It helps improve the affected part and helps regenerate new cells. In less than a week, the parrot started taking baby steps, and pecking at food, including being able to strip sunflower seeds. "It is walking slowly, but still staggers… Overall, it is showing improvement," said the doctor. "I hope its tail injury will regenerate into normal functioning soon, though such issues can take months."
Time of India
15-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Covid cases on the rise to 38 so far; middle aged take worst hit
Ludhiana: A total of 38 Covid cases, including two deaths, were reported in Ludhiana district by Saturday. Urban areas of the city have reported more cases than rural areas. Most of the patients are young and middle-aged. According to data from the health department, of the 38 cases reported till June 14 this year, 23 patients are male and 15 are female. Maximum of 11 patients were in the 35 to 44 years age group. This is followed by the 15 to 24 years age group, which accounts for 10 cases. There is no case in the 0 to five years age group and three cases in the 55 years and above age group. The casualties include a man in the 35 to 44 year age group and a woman in the 55 years and above age group. A recent report says that of the 38 cases reported till June 14, 29 cases are from urban areas and nine from rural areas. This means that 76.3% of cases reported in the district are from urban areas. The report also says that one of the two patients who died is from the urban area and one from a rural area. Health officials said that most of the patients, who are in the 35 to 44 years age group, are asymptomatic. A health department officer, asking not to be named, said that 50% of cases are in the 25 to 44 years age group, and there are just three cases above 55 years. He added that it was good that fewer persons aged 55 and above were being affected as they tend to have weak immunity. The officer said that there was no reason to panic but asked residents to take precautions, especially while going to crowded places. He added that both patients who died had previous health issues. Meanwhile, health experts advised the elderly to be vigilant. Former IMA Punjab president, Dr Sunil Katyal, attributed the higher number of cases among the middle aged because they are more mobile and likely to go to crowded areas. However, he added that elderly persons need to be on guard as many of them have co-morbidities and less resistance to diseases. Dr Katyal asked the elderly to wear masks, saying that masks would also protect them from other respiratory viral diseases besides Covid. Box 1: Age-wise details Age group | Male patients | Female patients 0-5 years | 0 | 0 6 to 14 years | 1 | 2 15 to 24 years | 6 | 4 25 to 34 years | 7 | 1 35 to 44 years | 8 | 3 45 to 54 years | 1 | 2 55 years and above | 0 | 3 Total | 23 | 15 Box 2: Covid report dated June 14 - Total cases: 38 - Home quarantine completed: 21 -Active cases: 15 - Home isolated: 13 - Deaths: 2 Box 3: Public advisory by health department: 1. Mask usage: Wear masks in crowded or poorly ventilated areas 2. Symptom awareness: - If experiencing fever, cough, sore throat, or breathing difficulty, isolate yourself, wear a mask, and consult the nearest health centre 3. Precautionary measures: - Maintain hand hygiene and avoid unnecessary gatherings. - Ensure proper ventilation in indoor spaces. MSID:: 121861227 413 |
Scroll.in
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
‘The Last Time I Saw You': A compelling portrait of an artist grappling with the loss of his muse
In his poem "Tonight I Can Write", Pablo Neruda states that 'Love is so short, forgetting is so long'. Akhil Katyal's lates t collection of poetry, The Last Time I Saw You, is centred around a similar crisis of love and loss. In the very first poem of the collection, "Etymology", Katyal draws this connection, likening grief to 'a sudden expansion of time' and 'a traffic of remembering'. And it is this exploration into fragments of memory – and its unconscious manifestations – that form the strongest parts of this collection. Even the title – 'The Last Time I Saw You' – brings to mind a sense of being anchored in a moment from the past – one that quietly intrudes on the present. Attraction and dread Katyal's poems focus on the routines relationships function within – and how they are interrupted by heartbreak and abandonment. In the poem 'First Days', we enter a sepia-tinged memory of the 'dailiness' that a relationship begins to inhabit from its very beginning. While the speaker admits that 'the chips were already falling' the first night he spent with the lover, the poem ends in a moment of shared quiet – the lover 'quietened the city' for the speaker of the poem. In contrast to this peace, in poems like 'The Nape of His Neck' and 'For G, One Evening Returned From Work', we see the breathlessness of desire reflected in the internal rhyme deployed by Katyal – with attraction and dread coexisting in the speaker's psyche. In the title poem, Katyal's speaker maps a day that's cut with moments of heartbreak against the backdrop of an emptying city filled with 'a grey stillness, quietly spreading' – seemingly a reference to the coronavirus pandemic. Katyal's speaker documents the 'quiet file' of migrant workers forced to leave the city on the day his lover leaves him. He admits that he doesn't remember the colour of that 'fateful' sky. Katyal juxtaposes the impending tragedy of heartbreak with the political tragedy of forced migrancy – the absence of the lover and the absence of the city's workforce cause the future 'to stop answering'. The city is as much a character in Katyal's poems as the lost lover – the city is a stage for memory, fantasy, and moments of reckoning with loss, as we see in poems like 'The Photograph, Now Untraceable' and 'When the Night Market in Bhogal Closes'. Katyal's fascination with spaces doesn't stop with his poems about Delhi – he situates poems in the space of the domestic. In 'The Room Became Ordinary Again', the speaker revisits the space of his bedroom, finding that it's been transformed from the sacred space it once was into a regular room, that 'no longer housed miracles'. Similarly, in 'On One Of Those Long Walks', the speaker visits his former lover's neighbourhood. Fretting over his appearance, he plays a 'game of lost and found', seeing his former beloved in every stranger on the street – despairingly, he ends the poem saying 'All the people in the world/ keep turning out not to be you.' Suffering through the senseless confusion of abandonment, the speaker turns to language to make sense of his new reality. In 'I Translate Your Name Into Nine Languages', we see the speaker look at the lover in different ways, while in 'Nickname', he mourns the loss of the lover through the metaphor of a nickname as something that breeds intimacy. Here, language provides some clarity in the face of heartbreak, but in poems like 'Day One of Learning Italian', the speaker confronts the limitations and challenges of language – how it 'doesn't allow you to step out of everything'. In 'Scrabble', the possibilities of a relationship coalesce with the possibilities of language – we get a sense that the speaker scrambles to make meaning out of what he has, with a kind of fervent desperation. The confusion of the absence of a lover is conflated with the complexity of language. Wisdom of literary heroes Though the speaker recognises the failure of language to save him, we see him seek wisdom from his literary heroes. This collection from Katyal is rife with references, from Eunice De Souza, who makes an appearance more than once, to Mary Oliver and Rilke. In 'When', the speaker confronts the legacy of departed artists like Begum Akhtar and Agha Shahid Ali, while thinking simultaneously of the nature of endings – how sudden and destabilising they are. While some literature allows the speaker to go deeper into his own pain, other writing provides an escape, as we see in 'I Step Out of Grief' – where the lovelorn speaker seeks comfort in the mythology of writers from different geographies and eras. The name of the lover echoes in between the lines of Katyal's verses – never said, but always alluded to. The lover is an absent axis around which these poems revolve, dizzying in their unspent desire. The lover is an anchor of sorts, pulling poems back to themselves – the object the poet uses to make sense of the world he lives in. Simultaneously, these poems seek to comprehend the loss of this clarifying object – what does the world look like in the aftermath of heartbreak? Katyal is at his strongest in this collection in confronting the questions that come with loss – his brief digressions from these questions are certainly interesting, but ultimately don't compare to the startlingly clear reflections on memory that this collection provides. In weaving together reflections on language and space with the unsettling starkness of heartbreak, Katyal creates a compelling portrait of an artist grappling with the loss of his muse.
Reuters
12-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Ex-US solicitor general Neal Katyal joins law firm Milbank
Feb 12 (Reuters) - Former Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal has left the partnership of international law firm Hogan Lovells to join rival Milbank, the New York-founded firm said Wednesday. Katyal will lead Milbank's appellate practice from Washington, the firm said. Katyal, whose corporate clients have included Google, Nvidia and Coinbase, has argued more than 50 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, according to his new firm. Katyal, a vocal critic of Republican President Donald Trump, represented Hawaii in the U.S. state's opposition to challenging the first Trump administration's travel ban that sought to block people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. He also worked with the state of Minnesota supporting its prosecution of Minneapolis police officers for the death of George Floyd in May 2020. Hogan Lovells had no immediate comment on Katyal's departure.
