HYDERABAD  SUNDAY  NOVEMBER 22, 2020  `8.00  PAGES 26  LATE CITY EDITION TIBET’S LEADER-IN-EXILE VISITS WHITE HOUSE, A FIRST IN 60 YRS The head of Tibetan government-in-exile Dr Lobsang Sangay visited the White House on Saturday and met US officials Dr Lobsang Sangay Robert Destro MEETS U.S. COORDINATOR FOR TIBETAN ISSUES U.S. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOVT-IN-EXILE? Sangay, who is the President of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), was invited to the White House to meet the newly-appointed US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, Robert Destro. The move is likely to enrage China, which has already criticised Destro’s appointment, saying it amounted to political manipulation aimed at destabilising Tibet ■ ■ For the last 60 years, the head of CTA was not allowed to visit the White House as the US did not recognise the Tibet’s govt-in-exile Appointment of a Special Coordinator for Tibet and the US engagement with Sangay are being read as Washington tacitly lending legitimacy to the government-in-exile SANGAY HAD VISITED THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT LAST MONTH 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 AIADMK & BJP will fight polls together What have the DMK and the Congress done for this country or Tamil Nadu when they were in power for 10 years? - Amit Shah, Union Home Minister THE alliance between BJP and AIADMK will continue for the upcoming Assembly elections, in which the battle will be between ‘dynasty’ and ‘development’. This was the message conveyed during Union Home Minister and BJP’s election strategist Amit Shah’s visit to the State, which was turned into a celebratory event by its ally the AIADMK. Chief Minis, ter Edappadi K Palaniswami got a high-octane start to his party’s election campaign, with the Home Minister terming TN the best-governed State in the country . Shah was accorded a grand welcome at the airport. Overwhelmed by the crowd that had gathered by the roadside on his way from the airport to hotel, Shah stepped out of his motorcade to interact with the public. Shortly afterwards, he declared open the Kannankottai-Thervoy Kandigai reservoir and laid the foundation for infrastructure projects worth `67,378 crore at an event held in Kalaivanar Arangam. Speaking here, Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam said their party’s alliance with the BJP would continue for next elections. Amit Shah assured the Cen- LONG ODDS Trump’s bid to hang on to power weakens after twin blow EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE IN a major blow to US President Donald Trump’s efforts to hang on to the presidency , Michigan lawmakers from his own party said on Saturday they will not oppose the state certifying Joe Biden as the winner. Trump had met them at the White House and was expecting them to back his bid to overturn the election results in the state. “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan,” the state’s Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Speaker of the House L e e C h at field said in a joint statement after meeting Trump. Earlier in the day Georgia , had dealt another blow to Trump by certifying Biden as the state’s winner. “The numbers reflect the verdict of the people,” said Brad Raffensperger, the GOP secretary of state in Georgia. As of Saturday Biden has , 306 electoral votes and Trump 232. Trump has been waging a last-ditch effort to get leaders in Republican states to back his claims of electoral fraud and prevent them from certifying a Biden win. tre’s support for all the development schemes and welfare measures being implemented by the Palaniswami government. Shah also lauded the Tamil Nadu government’s Covid containment strategies and measures, which have brought down the case numbers by a substantial measure in the recent past. The State’s recovery rate at 97 per cent, Shah pointed out, was highest in the country. The Union Minister also did not miss the opportunity to train his guns on the DMK, which will be contesting for power in TN after 10 years. “The DMK would face rout in the elections, as only ‘democratic forces’ will prevail,” Shah said, while reminding the public about the 2G scam. “What has the DMK and the Congress done for this country or Tamil Nadu when they were in power for 10 years? Show the details of what you did in 10 years and let us have a public debate. I am ready to give accounts (of what NDA did for TN),” he added. Palaniswami thanked the Central government for restarting the economy, which went through a period of stagnation due to the pandemic and related restrictions, through multiple stimulus packages offered to various sectors. “In post- Non-agri owners can hide Aadhaar, caste details on Dharani EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad Amit Shah takes a jibe at the Opposition; says only ‘democratic forces’ will prevail T M U R U G A N A N D H A M @ Chennai PRIVACY MATTERS (Above) Home Minister Amit Shah launches projects worth `67,378 crore in Chennai on Saturday. CM Palaniswami and Dy CM Panneerselvam are also seen; Shah waves at the crowd gathered outside the Chennai airport | P JAWAHAR, DEBADATTA MALLICK SHAH OVERWHELMED BY CROWD AT AIRPORT Soon after leaving the airport, Union Home Minister Amit Shah sprang a surprise by breaking the protocol and getting out of his vehicle to greet his supporters. Later, at the State government function held in Kalaivanar Arangam, he sprang more surprises, by apologising for his inability to speak in Tamil. He also hailed the leadership of Palaniswami and Panneerselvam in the State’s development | P7 Covid economic recovery I am , happy to inform that Tamil Nadu stands second in the country in providing assistance under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme,” the Chief Minister said. “Public sector banks in the State have disbursed `6,980 crore so far.” In its endeavour to make Tamil Nadu a major investment destination, the State got Shah to inaugurate a slew of projects such as Phase-2 of the Chennai Metro Rail, an elevated highway along the Avinashi Road in Coimbatore, expansion of the Chennai Trade Centre, and a barrage across Cauvery . “Foundation has been laid for major infrastr ucture projects today,” pointed out Shah. The State also requested the Centre to approve its proposal to set up four industrial parks. After the event, Palaniswami and Panneerselvam held a 40-minute discussion with Shah at his hotel. OWNERS of non-agricultural properties have the option to hide their Aadhaar and caste details on the Dharani portal, the State government has informed the Telangana High Court (HC). They will be provided with a ‘privacy option’, using which they can also hide their property details from other users. In fact, the State government is seeking all details pertaining to the owners and their families for updating land records on the Dharani portal. The portal will function as a comprehensive repository of the record of rights of all immovable properties in Telangana, apart from ensuring seamless registrations and transactions, and instant mutation of properties, the government has stated. The data and process of Dharani will be compliant with the Information Technology Act in terms of secu- REGISTRATION OF NON-AGRI PROPERTIES DELAYED, TS GOVT AWAITS HIGH COURT NOD The registration of non-agricultural properties on the Dharani portal will not start on November 23 as announced earlier. The TS government has postponed it due to a case in the High Court which will hear the matter next on November 23. The registration can be started only after the court gives the green signal. This means that the process is likely to resume only after November 27-28. The officials have made all arrangements for the registration of non-agriculture properties and are ready to begin the process whenever the Court gave its nod for the same Unpaid for four months, Covid docs to go on strike D O N I TA J O S E @ Hyderabad AROUND 288 senior resident (SR) doctors, who were hired across six major Covid-19 hospitals in Telangana, have not been paid salaries for the last four months. Among them are the SRs of the King Koti District Hospital, who have decided to go on strike from Sunday The protest . comes at a crucial time, when the threat of a second wave of the pandemic is looming, and could impair public health efforts to combat the disease. In an emotional letter to the hospital’s Superintendent, the doctors said, “The payment of salaries and incentives to SRs and civil assistant surgeons posted at the District Hospital, King Koti, has not been done in spite of repeated requests. We have families to feed, loans to repay and homes to run. Failing in these basics leaves us no choice but to boycott our duties en masse.” (sic) The King Koti Hospital is one of the two nodal facilities for Covid-19 treatment in Hyderabad; the other being the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS). There are 95 SRs posted at the hospital, 61 at the Osmania General Hospital, 25 at the Mahbubnagar Government Hospital, 41 at the Niloufer Hospital, 45 at the Chest Hospital and 21 at the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital. All of them have not been paid since they were hired in July to augment the availability of doctors at these facilities. Meanwhile, the SRs at TIMS boycotted duty on Saturday on a different issue — the State government revoking quarantine leaves despite the Centre making the provision mandatory. In a letter to the TIMS Director, the SRs demanded that quarantine leaves be granted so that they can isolate themselves regularly to reduce the risk of infecting their families. There are 96 Covid patients admitted to the facility . BRANCHING OUT PG Ayurveda doctors can now perform surgeries EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi LEAN & MEAN The first Varunastra being launched in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. G Satheesh Reddy, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO, flagged off the heavyweight torpedo which is being delivered to the Indian Navy by the BDL EXPRESS READ Agitating Punjab ryots agree to let train movement Chandigarh: After two months of agitation, all 31 farmer bodies in Punjab on Saturday decided to lift rail blockade and allow movement of trains in the state from November 23. The decision was taken after Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh spoke to the agitating farmers. However, the farmers said they will resume protests after 15 days if the Centre does not withdraw the three contentious farm laws | P10 WITH THIS ISSUE KID YOU NOT PLUS 12 PAGES CATCH 22 Electric fences, meant to keep boars out, turn deathtraps for ryots S R A J A R E D D Y @ Adilabad MAN-animal conflict, this time with wild boar, is claiming lives in erstwhile Adilabad district, literally! Farmers in villages, located near forests, have been complaining about the animals destroying their crops. Desperate to save their produce, many have installed electric fences, which are now turning into death traps for the farmers. Just this month, two farmers got electrocuted when they accidentally came in contact with these fences. The incident took place on November 18 when G Chandu and A Ganapathi were passing through the fields in Dadoojipet village to reach their farms at Allampelli vil- rity of data and transact i o n s. T h e s h a r i n g o f Aadhaar details will be optional for the owners of nonagricultural properties, the government has informed the HC. As for owners of agricultural properties, it has said insistence of Aadhaar is permissible as per the Supreme Court’s judgment in the KS Puttaswamy case as the State is implementing Rythu Bandhu. It will not collect the owners’ caste details, but their social/community status such as SC/ ST/BC/OC is being recorded as per the Constitutional CONTINUED ON P5 scheme. lage in Kaddam mandal of Nirmal district. They came in contact with an electric fence set up in one of the fields and died. Last month, a father and son, K Ramullu and Murali, got electrocuted by the electric fence that they had installed in their farm at Bhosi village in Thanoor mandal of Nirmal district. In another heart-wrenching incident, a woman farmer, R Laxmi, killed herself recently at Repalliwada village in Thandu mandal of Mancherial district as wild boar destroyed her cotton crop. In erstwhile Adilabad district, farmers are going to great lengths to protect their crops from wild boar, deer and mon- keys. They are making fires and tying bright-coloured sarees around their fields. “The government should control the wild boar population which has drastically increased. There have been incidents of the animals attacking farmers. I have sowed Bengal gram and have to go to the field every night to check on the crops,” R Rajesh, a farmer from Nirmal, said. POSTGRADUATE degree holders of Ayurveda can now perform orthopaedic, ophthalmology, dental and ENT procedures as well as surgeries, besides general surgery . The Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) said in a gazette notification that those holding masters in Ayurveda will get formal training for such procedures and surgeries, hitherto done only by practitioners of modern medicine. It amended the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations 2016, to allow the PG students to practise general surgery . The Act has also been renamed Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ay u r v e d a E d u c a t i o n ) Amendment Regulations, 2020. The training modules for surgical procedures will be added to the curriculum of Ayurvedic studies. The gazette notification says the students will be trained in two streams of surgery and would be awarded titles of MS (Ayurved) Shalya Tantra (general surgery) and MS (Ayurved) Shalakya Tantra (diseases of eye, ear, nose, throat, head and oro-dentistry). The development indicates the growing emphasis on traditional medicine under the Modi government.