SAMBALPUR l Saturday l november 28, 2020 l `7.00 l PAGES 12 l CITY EDITION Govt caps cab AGGReGATORS’ COMMISSION AT 20% of fare As per the guidelines issued by the Union Transport ministry on Friday, 80% of the total fare must go to driver partners surge pricing limit fixed at 1.5% In what could be a relief to the riders, the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines stipulate that for the surge price imposed during peak hours be capped at 1.5 times the base fare. It also allows the aggregator to charge a fare that is 50% lower than the base fare when the demand is low. Where taxi fare has not been determined by the local government, `25-30 will be the base fare ■ 15-day All-female pool option for women ■ ■ Drivers welcomed it, but said the commission should be capped at 10%. At present, cab aggregators charge 25-30% According to the guidelines, women riders opting to pool their trips should be able to do so with only female passengers Cancellation fee of 10% applicable to drivers if they cancel trips | P10 Training must be provided for new drivers by the Aggregator 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 N AYA G A RH M INOR M UR D ER CM agrees to SIT probe demand, Oppn seeks Arun ouster E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Police fire water canon on farmers marching towards Delhi, protesting the Centre’s farm reforms, at Singhu Border | Shekhar Yadav After intense clashes at the Delhi border, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar reaches out, invites farmers’ organisations for a fresh round of talks on the new farm laws on December 3 With the AAP supporting the agitation, the Delhi govt rejects the Delhi Police’s request to convert stadiums inside the city into temporary jails to house the detained farmers CHIEF Minister Naveen Patnaik announced on Friday that the State government is ready for an investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the kidnapping and murder of five-year-old girl in Nayagarh district following persistent demands by the Opposition in the Assembly . Taking part in the Assembly proceedings through video confer- ence, the Chief Minister announced that if SIT investigation is required, the State government will do it immediately However, as . the Chief Minister spoke, the BJP and Congress members continued to raise slogans demanding the resignation of Agriculture Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo for his alleged role in protecting the main accused. “My government is always committed to free and fair investigation and we want justice to be done,” the Chief Minister said and requested all the members to cooperate and participate. “I am deeply saddened by the incident. My government will always stand for rule of law,” he said. But noisy scenes continued in the House even after the announcement by the Chief Minister. BJP members created a ruckus in the House demanding a CBI INSIDE probe into the incident forcing Speaker Surjya Narayan Patro to first adjourn proceedings for 30 minutes, then for the entire day . Earlier in the pre-lunch session, pandemonium prevailed in the House with the Opposition members unrelenting on the issue. Leader of the Opposition Pradipta Kumar Naik said that the BJP is firm on its demand for the oust- Fear forces parents to FLEE home P3 Delhi gate opens after clashes As bookings and payments were made through Bhubaneswar-based travel The Odisha government agencies, their role is also on Friday suspended Ab- being investigated by Vigihay Kant Pathak from serv- lance. Besides, details of ice, hours after the anti- income tax returns, investcorruption wing arrested ments in shares, mutual the 1987 batch Indian For- funds and other market inest Service officer along s t r u m e n t s a r e b e i n g with his son Akash on ascertained. charges of accumulating The Vigilance also constim a s s i v e “ i l l - g o t t e n ” tuted a 20-member Special wealth. Investigation Team to thorAt the end of two days of oughly investigate all ascross-country search oper- pects of the case. Services ation, the officer’s dispro- of cyber and cell phone foportionate earnrensic experts are ings were being requisicalculated at `9.35 tioned by the agencrore, about 435 cy for retrieving per cent of known mobile and comHuge cash sources of his puter related data deposits were income. from the seized made in private devices. A case under banks through P r eve n t i o n o f After their arCorruption Act, deposit slips and rest, the father-son 1988 has been regATM counters. duo was produced istered against before Court of Details of the IFS officer and operations of the S p e c i a l Ju d g e his son. Vigilance ( Vi g i l a n c e ) i n sleuths are verify- banks concerned Bhubaneswar and ing if there were are being probed remanded in judi‘benami’ transaccial custody till Vigilance sources tions and purDecember 9. The c h a s e o f IFS officer told TV property . channels that his son, by The anti-corruption wing virtue of his position in a said huge cash deposits private company, was getwere made in private banks ting a salary of ` 1 crore through deposit slips and and that none of the wealth ATM counters. “Since high was ill-gotten. value transactions have Abhay was posted as Adbeen made in the accounts, ditional PCCF, Plan Prodetails of operations of the gramme and Afforestation banks concerned are being since June 2, 2018. His son probed,” said an officer. had donated ` 5 lakh to the The Pathaks were found Chief Minister’s Relief to have splurged huge Fund in April allegedly posamounts, running into at ing as MD of Tata Motor’s least ` 3 crore, as per the Transport Division. FollowVigilance, on charter flights ing a complaint from Tata which they used at least 20 Motors, Crime Branch is times during the lockdown. investigating him too. E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Farmers permitted to hold protest at Capital’s Burari ground, but opt to stay put at border @ New Delhi/Chandigarh/Lucknow Thousands of farmers from Punjab and Haryana clashed at least thrice with the Delhi Police on Friday as they were prevented from entering the Capital even as Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar urged them to end the agitation and come for the third round of talks on December 3. “The government has always been ready to discuss issues. We have invited farmers’ organisations for another round of talks on December 3,” Tomar said in a statement. But his appeal hardly found any takers as the farmers stayed put at Delhi’s doorstep, blocking the national highway to Chandigarh. They also ignored the Delhi Police, which after blocking their entry into the Capital, permitted them to go to the Nirankari ground in north Delhi’s Burari area to stage their protest. The Punjab and Haryana farmers received support from their Uttar Pradesh counterparts, with the Bharatiya Kisan Union holding sit-in protests across several districts of west UP and blocking high- ways. Other than the Yamuna Expressway, the BKU protested at Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bijnor, Hapur, Shamli, Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Noida, Moradabad and Saharanpur. Officials in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs maintained that the government is in constant touch with the concerned states to maintain the law and order situation. In many areas along the Delhi border, such as Tikri, Singhu border, protesters refused to move to the Nirankari ground. At Tikri border, the Delhi Police took hundreds of far mers to the Nirankari ground but the protestors returned to the border. At the Singhu border, the farmers instead sought permission to protest at the Ramlila maidan instead. “We are not moving anywhere now. We have enough dal, wheat and gas to prepare our own food. We will stay here till Saturday morning as more farmers are coming to join us. We are also in talks with our unions and representatives. Once they reach, we will move to the Nirankari ground,” said farmers at the P7 Singhu border. OTT PLATFORMS haVE democratised cinema’ Recession stays, but recovery faster than thought @ New Delhi India’s economy, on a slowdown path since March 2018 and pummelled by the coronavirus pandemic, has officially entered recession with GDP growth contracting 7.5% year-on-year in the July-September 2020 quarter. This is, however, a notable improvement from the mindnumbing 23.9% decline in the previous three-month period (April-June 2020). Recession is when economic growth rate is negative for two consecutive quarters or more. Assuming a 5-6% trendline Chirag biggest loser as Sushil Modi gets RS by-election ticket FILMMAKING is a political act and so is art, said filmmaker Mira Nair | P2 E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e Core output shrinks Contracting for the 8th straight month, the output of eight core infra sectors fell 2.5% in October, mainly due to decline in production of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and steel growth, the effective output loss during the first half of the current fiscal is upwards `20 lakh crore. On the brighter side, the data released by the National Statistics Office on Friday CONTINUED ON: P5 ‘High-flying’ IFS officer Abhay Pathak, son Akash arrested “While a section of farmers want to block the highway to pressure the Centre, others want to protest at the designated Nirankari ground,’’ said a farmer leader on condition of anonymity E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e er of the minister and a CBI probe into the kidnapping and murder case. The minor girl was killed by a well organised organ trade racket, he alleged. Alleging that the government is protecting the minister by not announcing a High Court-monitored SIT, leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Narasingha Mishra said that a free and fair investigation cannot be ensured unless the minister resigned. have come as a relief as various projections had pegged GDP g rowth to be much worse. Even Reserve Bank of India’s forecast was a contraction of 8.6%. This, according to economists, shows the economy is healing faster than thought. In absolute numbers, national output fell to `33.14 lakh crore from `35 lakh crore recorded in the year-ago period. In the previous quarter, it had stood at `26.9 lakh crore. So, on a sequential basis, it amounts to a g rowth of 23.2%. While the danger of a second wave of the pandemic still looms large, experts believe the worst may be over as most economic parameters have improved on the back of resumption in economic activities. For example, manufacturing and electricity sectors bounced back, growing 0.6% and 4.4%, respectively. Agriculture continued to grow, at 3.4%, while the trade and services sector showed lower-than-expected contraction at 15.6%. express read Decision to cut ceiling for non-MBBS teachers sparks fear of job losses New Delhi: A recent decision by the National Medical Commission to reduce the ceiling for non-medical teachers in medical colleges and even doing away with their appointment altogether in few subjects has sparked fear of job losses by such faculties in various parts of the country | P7 Odisha’s medical colleges to reopen from Dec 1 Odisha government on Friday decided to reopen medical colleges from December 1 and implement a non-negotiable examination calendar to ensure uniformity in conducting examinations | P2 E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi The BJP on Friday nominated former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for the Rajya Sabha by-elections from the state necessitated after the demise of former Union minister and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) founder Ram Vilas Paswan. While the LJP was hoping to get a party nominee into the Rajya Sabha, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) didn’t want any truck with the Chirag Paswan-led outfit. With the BJP leaning towards Nitish’s side, the JD(U) appears to have won this round against the LJP . The Rajya Sabha ticket is also a clear indication of the BJP taking Sushil Modi out of active politics at the state level, creating the ground for a role for him at the national level either in the government or the party It also . indicates that the BJP wants to groom an alternative leadership in Bihar to expand its footprint by accommodating representatives of the extremely backward castes as a counter to the social base of the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal. The BJP had committed an RS seat for Ram Vilas Paswan in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections during its seat-sharing deal.