def clean_text(text):
    """Replaces HTML specific punctuations and symbols to their commonly occuring counterparts.
    Adds spaces around punctuations(excluding >, < symbols, which are used around xml/html tags).
    """
    #    print("Before replaces:", text)
    replaces = [("’", "'"), ("“", '"'), ("”", '"'), ("&", "and"),
                ("∆", "[DELTA]")]
    for elem in replaces:
        text = text.replace(*elem)

    for elem in [".", ",", "!", ";", ":", "*", "?", "/", '"', "(", ")", "^"]:
        text = text.replace(elem, " " + elem + " ")

    #    print("After replaces:", text)
    return text