thrissur l tuesday l October 20, 2020 l `7.00 l PAGES 14 l city EDITION Deadline for enGG college admissions pushed t0 Nov 30 Classes for freshers in engineering colleges and technical institutions will begin from Dec 1, the AICTE said on Monday Continuing covid situation blamed Online, offline or blended mode The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said, because of the continuing Covid situation in the country, requests from various state governments, and the fact that premier institutions like IITs and NITs are in the middle of the admission process, it has extended the admission deadline for first-year engineering courses to November 30 ■ ■ Classes may subsequently begin on December 1 through online, offline or blended mode, AICTE secretary Rajive Kumar said Institutions that have already started online classes have been asked to either postpone them or conduct special classes for those who are required to appear for final-year exams Revised Academic calendar for 2020-21 can be viewed at: www.aicte-india.org CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Oz on board, first Quad power play in Malabar drill China put on notice as four-nation initiative gets serious, full naval wargames this year M AYA N K SI N G H @ New Delhi IN a major strategic shift, Australia on Monday shunned its reservations against being seen as part of the Quad grouping and decided to send the Royal Australian Navy warships to participate in the Malabar series of naval exercises. Confirming the development, the Ministry of Defence said, “As India seeks to increase cooperation with other countries in the maritime security domain and in the light of increased defence cooperation with Australia, Malabar 2020 will see the participation of the Australian Navy .” Australia was had participated in the 2007 exercise but had withdrawn since then after China raised concerns against this construct. The upcoming exercise will be significant as the all Quad members countries — the US, Japan, Australia and India — will be participating after 12 years. It was first mooted in 2007 and China was always opposed to this grouping. All exercises usually have a ‘harbor phase’ involving personnel interaction. However, this year’s will be ‘non-contact - at sea’ with the personnel on their own ships having no interaction with those of other participating nations. The Union defence ministry said the exercise will strengthen the coordination between the Navies of all the participating countries. The Malabar exercises started in 1992 as a bilateral one be- tween Navies of India and the US. Japan joined in 2015. The annual exercise was conducted off the coast of Guam in the Philippine Sea in 2018, off the coast the Japan in 2019 and will be held in the Bay of Bengal Chinese soldier ‘strays’ into India, apprehended Indian Army apprehended a Chinese soldier who had “strayed” across the LAC in the Demchok sector of Eastern Ladakh on Monday. The soldier will be returned to the Chinese after completion of formalities | P9 Dist’s having candidates with criminal charges Bhojpur 39 Rohtas 37 Vijay Sethupathi tells reporters With criminal charges Gaya 49 E C gui d eli n es Supporters wave as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar arrives for a campaign rally in a helicopter, ahead of Bihar Assembly polls, at Atri in Gaya district on Monday | PTI 1 Particulars regarding criminal cases to be in bold letters 2 TAMIL film actor Vijay Sethupathi has opted out of the biopic on Sri Lankan cricketer, Muthiah Muralitharan, titled ‘800’, putting an end to the week-long controversy on social media. The actor took to Twitter on Monday to share a statement of Muralitharan. The former cricketer had sympathised with the actor for being targeted and requested him to leave the project. Muralitharan wrote, “I am making this request as I don’t want one of the greatest Tamil actors to be affected because of me. In addition, I also don’t want him to face any problem in the future because of this film.” In reply Sethupathi tweet, ed, “Nandri, vanakkam.” The actor had faced severe backlash in the social media for signing up to play the role of the Sri Lankan spinner. K u m a r V i k r a m , Ra j e s h K u m a r Thak u r & K an u Sa r d a @ New Delhi/Patna Siddharth Saurav is the Congress candidate from the Bikram seat in the ongoing Bihar elections. He has at least one criminal case against him and his election affidavit says among the charges he faces are of murder filed under Section 302 of the IPC. Raj Kumar Sah, the Lok Janshakti Party’s candidate from the Lalganj seat, has an attempt to murder case against him filed under Section 307 of the IPC. Both the Congress and the LJP should have, as directed by the Election Commission, published their criminal antecedents in newspapers, social media platforms and their party’s websites. But neither party has done so, at least until late on Monday night. The Congress and the LJP are not the only parties that have not complied with the EC’s directive to publicise details of the candidates with a criminal history . Former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s party, the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, is among the prominent parties that is yet to comply with the order. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) uploaded details of the criminal cases of its candidates late on Sunday night, which was past the deadline for complying with the EC’s order. In a significant verdict on February 13, 2020, the Supreme Court had ruled that all political parties must publish the entire criminal history of candidates along with the reasons for fielding them. “It shall be mandatory for political parties to upload on their website detailed information regarding individuals with pending criminal cases, including the nature of the offences and relevant particulars,” the court ruled. Following the apex court verdict, the EC, in an order passed on September 16, 2020, said that “details regarding criminal cases are to be published on three occasions during the campaign period.” The Kochi: Relatives of Covid patient C K Harris, who died while undergoing treatment at Ernakulam MCH have alleged medical negligence behind his death. Voice clip of a nurse claiming negligence has gone viral. P7 People make a beeline for fake Covid drug Kozhikode: Thanks to an ENT physician’s ‘discovery’ of nasal drops which can ‘resist Covid’ and a prominent vernacular daily reporting it, a medical store in Koyilandy is minting money. P2 @Kollam/T’Puram There have been several instances of indescribable ordeal suffered by Covid patients and their families during the pandemic, but what Noushad of Thalavoor in Kollam district had to endure could be one of the saddest. Noushad kept handing over food and clothes for his father Sulaiman Kunju at the Government Medical College Hospital (MCH) at Parippally in Kollam, to where he was never admitted, for 20 days, Details to be given for each case in separate rows first round of publicity has to be done “within first 4 days of withdrawal” of nomination papers. The second and third times the parties have to publish details of criminal candidates are “between (the) next 5th8th days and once between (the) 9th day till the last day of campaign,” the EC said. For the first phase of polling on October 28, the first round of publicity should have been done by all political parties by October 16 as the last date of withdrawal of candidates was October 12. But except for the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the BJP most , other prominent parties have not uploaded the details of their criminal candidates.  Continued on: P9 Four days after six mainstream Opposition parties launched a Peoples Alliance to unitedly fight for the restoration of special powers under Article 370 to J&K, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday grilled National Conference president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah for over seven hours in connection with the 2015 J&K Cricket Association scam. While most parties described the ED action as political vendetta, Abdullah asserted he was clean and that the fight for Article 370’s restoration will continue with or without him. In 2015, the CBI had registered a first information report into the alleged `113 crore scam when he was heading the state cricket association. Abdullah’s son Omar tweeted, “This is nothing less than political vendetta coming days after the formation of People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration”. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said, “ED’s sudden summon to Farooq displays the extent of Government of India’s nervousness about mainstream parties in J&K fighting as one unit. Also reeks of political vendetta...” T’PURAM AIRPORT Arguments ‘sour grapes’, HC dismisses state plea E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Kochi LAST RESPECTS Police officers offer the gun salute to Dr Joseph Mar Thoma, head of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, before his mortal remains were laid to rest with state honours at the Church headquarters in Tiruvalla on Monday | Shaji Vettipuram express read 27k CRZ violations in state, govt tells SC Kochi: The state government, in an affidavit filed before the SC, has admitted that 27,735 cases of Coastal Regulation Zone violations have been reported across Kerala. The affidavit was submitted on October 16 in response to a petition filed by filmmaker Major Ravi. Tallest Christ statue: K’taka HC stays construction Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Monday stayed the construction works to install the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ at Kapalabetta, about 80 km from Bengaluru. The court was acting on public interest litigation, which stated that the land for the statue was allotted illegally in 2017 by the then Congress government. The petitioners alleged that it was an attempt by Congress leaders D K Shivakumar and his brother D K Suresh to grab government land and fulfill their selfish ends by acting as the self-styled guardians of the Christian community. The court has restrained the Harobele Kapalabetta Abhivruddhi Trust from carrying out any further work | P7 Unaware of dad’s death, man gives namesake food for 4 days E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e 3 Farooq faces ED’s heat in cricket scam Faya z Wan i @ Srinagar Bihar parties flout SC fiat C O V I D O RDEA L Kin allege negligence killed Gulf returnee 319 Matter in newspapers should be published in at least 12 pt font size and the Arabian Sea this year. Experts welcomed the development. Commodore Anil Jai Singh, a noted defence analyst, said Australia’s participation in the exercise will send an important message to China. “China has opened so many fronts simultaneously and India has been always considerate towards Chinese sensitivities but China never cared,” he added. Australia’s decision to participate comes in the wake of Beijing’s erecting trade barriers in retaliation to Canberra’s demand for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. e x p r e ss ne ws s e r v i c e @ Chennai Total candidates in Phase I 1,066 Buxar 23 Vijay Sethupathi walks out of biopic on Muralitharan I replied to Murali’s tweet. When I said ‘Nandri, vanakkam,’ it means it’s over BIHAR that too for four days after the man’s death. Since October 13 when he died, Sulaiman’s body had been lying 41km away at the Thiruvananthapuram MCH morgue, with an ‘unidentified body’ tag attached to it. The case of the 85-year-old Covid patient from Thalavoor is the latest in the list of unfair treatment meted out to Covid patients. The incident came to light barely two weeks after Thiruvananthapuram MCH courted controversy by releasing the body of a wrong man to 5,022 new Covid patients in the state on Monday after 36,599 samples were tested. 7,469 recover from the disease the family of a deceased Covid patient. According to Noushad, though he had provided his c on t ac t nu mb e rs t o t h e Punalur taluk hospital authorities while admitting his father there, they did not make any effort to inform the family about the death. Instead, Sulaiman’s body was tagged ‘unidentified’ at the Thiruvananthapuram MCH and was shifted to its mortuary . “It’s depressing that we were supplying food and clothes when my father was lying in the mortuary said Noushad. ,” Hospital officials explained the goof-up occurred due to the admission of another patient by the same name to the hospital. On inquiry, it was learnt that his father was never admitted to the Parippally MCH, bu t t o t h e T h i r u va n a n More on P6 thapuram MCH.  THE Kerala High Court on Monday dismissed the state government’s petition challenging the Centre’s decision to lease out the right of operation, management and development of the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises. The court observed the arguments put forward by the state government are a classic example of the proverbial “sour g rapes”. T he state raised the ground of legitimate expectation, but the court rejected that too. A division bench comprising Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice C S Dias issued the order observing that it is a policy decision of the Centre and cannot be interfered with. The Kerala government had nominated the state-run KSIDC to bid under the Request for Proposal (RFP) issued by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), with a Right of First Refusal (RoFR) on the maximum bid coming within the range of 10 per cent. The bid failed and both have now turned against the very RFP under which they participated with an edge over others, observed the bench. Senior Supreme Court lawyer Vikas Singh, who represented the state, submitted that many clauses in the RFP were tailor-made to suit private players, but the court rejected the contention. The bench observed that the KSIDC cannot raise any claim  for legitimate expectation on behalf of the state. The KSIDC cannot challenge the RFP under which they bid and , lost. There was no erosion of the profit base as claimed by the employees’ unions and their apprehensions are misplaced, ● More on P6 the court said.  SIVASANKAR PLAYS POLITICS: CUSTOMS TO HC Bureaucrat says he is a pawn in the political game happening in the state E XPR E SS N E WS S E RVIC E @Kochi The customs on Monday told the Kerala High Court that M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the Kerala Chief Minister, is playing politics. The customs made the submission when senior advocate P Vijayabhanu, appearing for Sivasankar, stated that he was a pawn in the political game happening in the state. Countering that argument, the counsel for the customs -senior advocate K Ramkumar -- submitted that Sivasankar was contradicting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s statement (that the investigation is progressing in the right direc- tion), made during a press conference. When the anticipatory bail plea came up for hearing, Vijayabhanu submitted that a 95 batch IAS officer is being persecuted like a criminal by all the central investigating agencies for some other purpose. According to the petitioner, two customs officers arrived at his house around 5.50pm on October 16 with a summons directing him to appear before the investigators at 6pm. He was totally exhausted due to the constant travel between Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam. Besides, he was grilled by the agency till late night on October 15.  More on P6