BHUBANESWAR l thursday l november 26, 2020 l `7.00 l PAGES 14 l JEYPORE EDITION diego armando maradona. October 1960-november 2020 The world of sports and the world in general suffered perhaps the shock of the year: Argentine football great no more death caused by heart attack Known the world over for leading his country to victory in the 1986 Mexico World Cup almost single-handedly, Maradona was suffering from various ailments for many years. The latest one saw him undergo brain surgery at a Buenos Aires hospital earlier this month. According to an unnamed source close to him, the cause of his death was heart attack. ■ 34 people’s choice: the best player ever ■ In a glittering and controversial career, his second goal against England in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal is widely regarded as the best in the history of the international game. In a poll conducted by FIFA in 2000, Maradona was chosen Player of the Century, pushing Brazil’s Pele to the second spot. goals In 91 matches for argentina. set up more than he scored 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 Authorities said wind speed of 120130 kmph can be felt during the landfall around Puducherry IMD says even after landfall, the system is likely to maintain its intensity for about 6 hours Chennai Gale wind speed reaching 65-75 kmph very likely to prevail over interior districts Fire officials rescue people affected by the flood due to incessant rains at Velacherry in Chennai on Wednesday | ASHWIN PRASATH Puducherry Cuddalore Nagapattinam no calm before the storm 1.21 lakh people given shelter in 1,370 relief camps across Delta E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Chennai IT has been a nail-biter, as the severe cyclonic storm Nivar kept shifting its movement and patter ns throughout Wednesday, keeping public and disaster-management officials waiting in anticipation. It weakened and gained intensity on multiple occasions, and is expected to make a landfall post Wednesday midnight. At 8.30 pm on Wednesday, the storm was about 80 km east-southeast of Cuddalore, and about 160 km away from Chennai. It was moving northwestward at 14 kmph. Heavy to very heavy rainfall has been predicted in the Delta districts, northern parts of the State including Chennai, and in Puducherry. By 10.30 pm, according to the officials, the storm will intensify and wind speeds exceeding 120 kmph, gusting to 145 kmph, can be Public holiday today in 16 dists of TN and in Puducherry felt during the landfall. Cuddalore received the highest rainfall ahead of the cyclone, at 98 mm, followed by Puducherry at 82 mm, and Chennai and Karaikal at 69 mm each. Several areas of Chennai witnessed waterlogging despite hightechnology machinery being deployed to clear out blocks. Low-lying areas and former lake-beds that have now turned into habitations witnessed flooding. The airport was shut for 12 hours and small aircraft were moved to safer spots. Even before the actual storm hit, the city lost 80 trees to rain and strong winds. “A total of 1.21 lakh persons belonging to 34,389 families have been given shelter in 1,370 relief camps in Delta districts,” said minister RB Udhayakumar, who met the media late in the evening. IFS officer in Vigilance net, searches in 4 states E xpress N ews S ervice @ Bhubaneswar In a cross-country operation and one of its biggest, the Odisha Vigilance carried out searches in four states following allegations of senior IFS officer Dr Abhay Kant Pathak accumulating disproportionate assets to his known sources of income. In Bhubaneswar, searches were conducted at Pathak’s residence, office, his 3 BHK flat in Vivekananda Marg, house of a relatives and a driver, among others. There were reports of huge cash being seized from a house in Ghatikia in the Capital city. Similarly, the anti-cor ruption agency’s sleuths conducted searches at a flat in Koregaon Park and farmhouse at Bhugaon area in Pune. Vigilance sources said, the searches were conducted at five places in Bhubaneswar, seven places in Mumbai and Pune, at different places in Bihar and Rajasthan’s Udaipur by 150 officers and staff of various divisions of the Vigilance Directorate of Odisha. Pathak, an Additional PCCF ranked officer in charge of Plan, Programme and Afforestation, has been overseeing the department’s massive plantation acP7 tivities for last 3 years. “Two Naval ships have been roped in from Visakhapatnam, and are stationed off Tamil Nadu coasts, to deal with emergencies.” The minister said that 1.89 per cent of cellphone towers in the State have been affected by rains. “Of a total of 22,017 towers in the State, 286 have been affected. However, since there is no disruption caused to the Optical Fibre Cable network, communication channels remained open in all areas.” Of the 1,600 feeders of the electricity board, only 91 are under repair due to water stagnation and others are functioning well,” the minister added. In Nagapattinam, a district ravaged by cyclones, Gaja and Ockhi, in the recent past, the fishing community was immersed in worry and prayers for the storm to pass with minimal damage. “We have @ New Delhi A Supreme Court bench on Wednesday vacated a media gag order issued by the Andhra Pradesh High Court on reporting about a first information report (FIR) filed by the state’s Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) in the Amaravati land scam case. The case became a hot potato as the FIR names former advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas and two daughters of a senior apex court judge. However, the bench did not lift the high court’s stay into the ACB probe. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan issued notice and slated the matter for final hearing in January last week. It also asked the high court not to decide on Srinivas’ writ petition till it (SC bench) adjudicates the matter. During the hearing, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, appearing for the Andhra government, argued that the interim high court order barring probe and gagging the media, couldn’t have been passed at all. The writ petition by Srinivas, Dhavan said, alleged malafide but offered nothing on record to corroborate it. “This was an entirely a political writ not seen the waves rise this high ever before,” said Lakshmanan, a fisher man from Thirumullaivasam. “We faced severe losses during the last two cyclones and have just started rebuilding our lives. We cannot afford to lose once again,” he said. Most fishermen along the coast have brought their boats to the land using tractors, to minimize the damage. A rubble mound wall under construction at Tarangambadi was thrashed down by tides earlier in the day. The locals made an appeal to the State to increase the wall’s height and width to avoid damage in the future. In Thanjavur and Tiruvarur, farmers got minor relief when the Met department announced that the storm was moving northward. They are hoping the damage caused to standing crop and stored produce would be minimal. on war footing E xpress N ews S ervice @ Bhubaneswar/Cuttack Kalia, one of the conjoined twins who had been separated in a highly acknowledged surgical feat at AIIMS-Delhi in 2017, succumbed at the SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack, on Wednesday evening. The twins had been under treatment at SCBMCH since their discharge from AIIMS last year. The five-year-old Kalia had been suffering from complications for the last few months. A special ICU was set up in the first floor of the casualty where he was under treatment. He had developed pneumonia and was put on ventilator support on September 28. His condi- petition against the CM and this government,” he emphasised. Pointing to suspicious transactions involving Srinivas and others, Dhavan said, “Should such a complaint be investigated or not? This is the simplest question here.” Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the former A-G, said, “My client is targeted because he was appearing for the (former) CM. This case reeks of malafide. This is worse than Emergency CBI did not do . anything. My reputation is being damaged.”  Continued on: P9 something extraordinarily special? Media can be gagged only if there is real and substantial risk of prejudice. “Is there something extraordinarily special in the plea that such orders had to be passed?” Dhavan asked tion had thereafter improved and was taken out of ventilator. “On Wednesday evening, his condition deteriorated again and had to be put on ventilator support. He had developed septicemia and succumbed to cardiac arrest at 9.10 pm,” SCBMCH Superintendent Prof Lucy Das informed. Born to Bhuyan Kanhar and Puspanjali of Kandhamal district, the twins fused at the cranium, had been separated after a CB to probe Nayagarh minor murder case 30 teams of NDRF pressed into action in TN, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh Indian Navy deploys 2 ships to assist relief works 80 trees uprooted in Chennai ahead of cyclone 10 boats with 60 fishers still at sea off Karaikal coast 50,000 people moved to relief camps in Cuddalore Schools to remain shut till Nov 28 in Puducherry Separated conjoined twin Kalia dies SC lifts Andhra HC’s media gag order on Amaravati land scam reportage E xpress N ews S ervice Under construction seawall in Nagapattinam struck by high tides As of 8.30 pm on Wednesday, the storm was moving northwest with a speed of 14 kmph two-stage surgery, which entered record books as the first such procedure in India, at AIIMSDelhi in October 2017. After remaining under supervision of a big team of doctors for over two years there, the separate twins were shifted to SCBMCH on September 7 last year. Although the condition of Jaga had improved, Kalia was not keeping well. “We regret to inform that Kalia is no more. Despite best efforts, the doctors could not save him. We wanted both the siblings to be discharged from the hospital well and healthy, but the weakest among them succumbed. It is a loss to the State,” Additional Chief Secretary of Health department PK Mohapatra said. CONTINUED ON: P7 E xpress N ews S ervice @ Bhubaneswar A day after a couple from Nayagarh attempted self-immolation outside the State Assembly demanding justice for their dead daughter, the government on Wednesday admitted that the five-year-old child was kidnapped and murdered and handed over the case to the Crime Branch. The announcement of a Crime Branch probe was made by Minister of State for Home Dibya Shankar Mishra in the Assembly . Making his statement in the House, the Minister said, the victim’s father had lodged a complaint after the girl went missing on July 14, 2020. A case was registered on the same day With the help . of VHF waves and sniffer dogs, the skeletal remains of the victim packed in a bag were traced to the backyard of her house on July 23. “Circumstantial evidence points out that the minor girl was kidnapped and murdered. The remains of the body were then sent to Cuttack SCB for postmortem which revealed that the girl was 5 to 6 year old but there was Circumstantial no evidence to prove that she was evidence points raped before being murdered. Later, a out that the DNA test was also conducted to con- minor girl was firm that the victim is the daughter of kidnapped and murdered. In the the complainant,” the Minister said. In the course of the investigation, course of the investigation, police have so far interrogated 34 per- police have so far sons. This apart, lie detector (poly- interrogated 34 graph) test was conducted on four per- persons. sons to extract more details, he said, adding that Nayagarh SDPO is cur- Dibya Shankar Mishra, Minister of rently investigating the matter. As the issue rocked the Assembly State for Home with the Opposition demanding a statement from the Chief Minister, Speaker SN Patro directed the Minister of State for Home to give a statement in the House. However, the Opposition BJP and Congress are not happy with the CB probe as the parents of the victim have been pointing fingers at Minister Arun Sahoo. Leader of Opposition Pradipta Naik said that there is every chance of the government influencing the investigation as a Cabinet Minister has been dragged into the case. “We don’t expect a fair probe as the Home Minister did not mention anything about the involvement of the Minister Sahoo in his statement,” Naik said and demanded that the investigation should be handed over CONTINUED ON: P7 to an independent agency . express read Prefix ‘0’ to call mobile numbers New Delhi: Starting January 15, you will need to prefix ‘0’ to mobile numbers if you are calling from a landline. The move is to free up sufficient numbering resources for future use, the Department of Communications said Naveen writes to Modi, seeks national guidelines Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has urged the Centre to issue national guidelines for Class X and Class XII Board examinations of 2020-21 academic session which has been badly disrupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister said that the students, parents and teachers are in a state of uncertainty in the absence of clarity on academic session and conduct of the examinations | P2 Congress loses its best backroom crisis manager R ic h a S h a r m a @ New Delhi ahmed P a t e l ’s d e m i s e couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Congress, which is struggling to deal with the revolt by a group of veteran leaders seeking radical changes in the party. His death could, however, pave the way for organisational and generational changes in the party . Patel, 71, who passed away in a Gurugram hospital on Wednesday following complications related to Covid-19, was known for his political acumen to take everyone, including the warring young and old guards, together. According to sources, he worked hard to settle the internal strife within the party till his last. When voices were raised against the party high command, Patel ensured to reach out to the dissenting leaders who wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi. Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot was candid to say that in the current situation, Congress Ahmed Patel  Aug 21, 1949  Nov 25, 2020 will miss Patel even more. Senior Cong ress leader P Chidambaram said, “Whence do we find another like him?” When the Rajasthan politi- cal crisis was at peak, Patel was holding back-channel talks to manage the situation arising out of rebellion by Sachin Pilot. He was part of the three-member committee that looked into issues between Pilot and Gehlot. Patel was part of all major decision-making committees in the Congress. “The road to 10 Janpath (Sonia Gandhi’s official residence) passes through 23 Mother Teresa Crescent (Patel’s residence),” said a senior leader.