MADURAI  MONDAY  NOVEMBER 30, 2020  `7.00  PAGES 28  LATE CITY EDITION EXPECT HARSHER WINTER IN THE NORTH, WARNS MET DEPT There is also a higher chance of cold wave this winter, the Indian Meteorological Department said on Sunday LA NINA BLAMED FOR ABNORMAL CHILL DELHI TO SEE COLDEST NOVEMBER IN 10 YRS “Below normal minimum temperatures are likely over most subdivisions of north, northwest, central and few subdivisions over east India,” the IMD said in its winter forecast. It blamed it on the prevailing moderate La Nina conditions. La Nina happens when the surface water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean cools. This leads to a drop in global temperature ■ ■ Temperatures in several parts of north India, including Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan, were normal on Sunday Delhi is set to record its coldest November in 10 years. Average minimum temperature in the city from Nov 1 to 29 was 10 degree Celsius. The normal minimum for the month is 12 degrees Celsius 7 degrees CELSIUS WAS DELHI’S MINIMUM TEMPERATURE ON SUNDAY 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 LIBERAL INVOKING OF SEDITION LAW IN BJP-RULED STATES SANA SHAKIL/RITWIKA MITRA @ New Delhi WHEN the Bombay High Court last week berated the Mumbai Police for slapping sedition charges against actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli, asking “if anybody doesn’t fall within the line of the government, will that be sedition,” it was only underlining the increasing trend of governments to misuse this colonial law. Data maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau, which started collating sedition numbers since 2014, shows that while there were 47 cases registered under Section 124A of the IPC (sedition) that year, it jumped to 93 in 2019, an increase of 98%. While 27 states or Union Territories had not registered a single sedition case in 2014, that number fell to 19 last year, indicating more state governments were willing to charge people under the stringent law. An analysis by this newspaper showed that BJP state governments invoked the law more than non-BJP ones. This is best illustrated by the experience in Karnataka, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. The first two have BJP regimes while J&K is under Central rule. In all the three, there was a spike in sedition cases after they came under BJP rule. In 2019, Karnataka saw the maximum sedition cases ( 22), followed by Assam (17) and J&K (11). Under Congress rule in Karnataka, two cases were filed in 2018; three each in 2015 and 2016; and none in 2014 and 2017. Assam recorded 17 sedition cases each in two consecutive years of 2018 and 2019 — slightly lower than 2017 when it recorded 19 cases — the highest in the country for that CONTINUED ON: P7 year. NUMBERS SAY IT ALL  2014  2015  2016  2017  2018  2019 Jammu & Kashmir 0101  12  11 Punjab 01 0 000 Himachal Pradesh 101 501 Uttar Pradesh 006  1  0  10 Bihar  16  9  0  0  17  0 Haryana  0  3  12  13  1 2 Arunachal Pradesh 000 000 Assam 100  19  17  17 Nagaland Tripura  0  0 00 00 00 08 00 Delhi 002 011 Rajasthan 01 1 1 04 Manipur 01 00 4 1 Gujarat 020 00 Madhya Pradesh 002 111 Maharashtra 010 002 Goa 8.33% 0 0 0 Karnataka  0  3  3  0  2  22 Kerala 53394 Farmers reject govt proposal Say it came with strings; decide to block three more entry points into Delhi to choke it H A R P R E E T B A J W A @ Chandigarh REFUSING to accept Union home minister Amit Shah’s offer to re-locate to the Burari grounds in north Delhi to begin the talks process, Punjab farmers on Sunday continued to stay put on the Delhi border, attacking the proposal for having pre-conditions. While the far mers have parked themselves on the Singhu and Tikri borders, they decided to block three more entry points into Delhi —Ballabgarh, Daruhera and Hapur. Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla wrote to the 32 protesting farmers’ unions in Hindi on Saturday citing the winter chill and the fear of a spike in Covid cases because of the massing, to persuade them to shift to Burari. Once they re-locate, a team of Union ministers would be ready to hold talks with them at Vigyan EXPRESS READ MBBS/BDS counselling to resume today Chennai: The counselling for MBBS and BDS courses which was postponed due to Cyclone Nivar will resume from Monday. It will take place at the Nehru Outdoor Stadium in Periamedu near the Central Railway Station. Navy recovers debris of crashed fighter jet New Delhi: Indian Navy’s search and rescue teams on Sunday located the turbo charger, fuel tank and some other parts of the MiG-29K fighter aircraft that had crashed into the Arabian Sea on Thursday. One of the two pilots is still missing. Singhu Border Hapur Tikri Border DELHI Daruhera Ballabgarh Farmers blocking the Singhu border in Delhi on Sunday | PARVEEN NEGI Bhavan, the letter said, but it failed to get traction. Shah’s offer was unanimously rejected at a meeting of all 32 Punjab farmers unions at the Singhu border. “We are ready for talks, but the Union government should not impose UP police registers first case under new anti-conversion law in Bareilly N A M I TA B A J PA I @ Lucknow POLICE in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district registered the first case under the state’s new anti-conversation law on Saturday, just hours after it was promulgated. It was on a complaint filed by a resident of Sharifnagar village, against a young man who allegedly tried to force his daughter to convert to Islam and marry him. The accused, the complainant alleged, was trying to “coerce, coax and allure” his daughter to convert to Islam and marry him. The accused is absconding. Sources said the girl used to frequently complain about the man. Initially, she tried to avoid him fearing disrepute. But when she consistently refused his advances, he threatened to abduct her. The harassment did not stop even after she got married in June. T h i n g s g o t u g ly when the man visited the girl’s house on Saturday He pressed her family to . bring her back from her inlaws’ house. When they refused, he threatened to kill them. “He was not listening to us, and was mounting pressure Jharkhand  18  0  0  1  18  3 Odisha 201 302 S K U M A R E S A N @ Chennai Chhattisgarh  1  0  0  0  3 1 Telangana  0  1  2  0  0  1 Andhra Pradesh  1  0  1  0  1  0 Tamil Nadu  0  0  0  3  1  4 2014: Seven booked for sedition in Kerala for not standing up during national anthem 2016: JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar charged with sedition for allegedly raising anti-national slogans 2018: Activist Sudha Bhardwaj and others booked under various charges, including sedition and supporting Maoists; continue to be in jail 2020: Sedition charge slapped on Keralite journalist Siddique Kappan, who was on his way to Hathras to cover the Dalit gang-rape and murder case Source: NCRB 2014-2019 2014: 60 Kashmiri students in UP charged with sedition for cheering Pakistan in a cricket match; charges dropped later on me and my family through abuses and death threats to fulfil his desire,” the girl’s father alleged. On Saturday night, the father approached the police. A case was soon registered under the provisions of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020. Violation of the code is punishable by a jail term of up to five years and a fine of `15,000. In case the victim is a minor, or someone from SC or ST, the jail sentence could stretch up to 10 years. Vaccine firm refutes charge of side-effects by volunteer EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi/ Chennai THE Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) on Sunday refuted charges by a volunteer that its Covishield vaccine has serious side-effects, and threatened to seek damages of over `100 crore for raising, what it called, “malicious” allegations. The volunteer, a 40-year-old Chennai resident, has alleged that he suffered serious “neurological” side-effects after taking the experimental dose during the trial which is sponsored by the SII and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). He has sent a legal notice to the SII seeking `5 crore as compensation. The vaccine major, however, said that the allegations in the notice are “malicious and misconceived”. “While the SII is sympathetic with the volunteer’s medical condition, there is absolutely no correlation with the vaccine trial and the medical condition of the volunteer,” it said, adding that “the volunteer is falsely laying the blame for his medical problems on the vaccine trial”. It also said the claim is “maP4 licious”. WITH THIS ISSUE THE ESSENTIAL CAMPUS DIGEST YOUR LIFE COACH 28 PAGES, INCLUDING 16 OF edex (TABLOID) Health concerns may keep Rajini off politics West Bengal 24 1 1 04 SOME PROMINENT CASES 2012: Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi booked for allegedly mocking national emblem in his cartoon; charges dropped after nationwide outrage any pre-condition,” the leaders said and likened the Burari ground to an open jail. “Instead of going to the ‘open jail’ in Burari, we have decided to lay siege to Delhi by blocking all five main entry points into the national Capital. As we have ration of four months, we are prepared for a long haul,” they said. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot sought to add pressure by writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to reconsider the three new farm laws against which farmers are staging protests. In Hyderabad, Shah sought to reach out to the farmers, saying their agitation was apolitical. Later, he as well as Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar got into a huddle at BJP president J P Nadda’s house in Delhi to discuss the tangle. SHAH SHOW IN HYDERABAD Union Home Minister Amit Shah holds a roadshow in Hyderabad’s Warasiguda on Sunday as part of BJP’s campaigning for the December 1 Greater Hyderabad Municipal Cooperation election | S SENBAGAPANDIYAN IN what could turn out to be his first official announcement, filmstar Rajinikanth is likely to put a closure to all speculation about his political plunge on Monday during a meeting with senior functionaries of the Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM), the political incarnation of his erstwhile fan club. Highly placed sources in the RMM said the actor is expected to address his supporters at the Raghavendra marriage hall, owned by him at Kodambakkam, via video conference. Around 35 senior functionaries of the fan club, mostly district secretaries, have been invited. Though a section of his fan club members is hopeful of him joining politics, TNIE has learnt that Rajinikanth is likely to convey to them that he will not be able to join politics due to genuine health reasons. The actor, who will tur n 70 next month, has been adv i s e d by d o c t o r s against embarking on any hectic political activity . What is, however, not clear is whether Rajinikanth will actually make a final announcement at the end of Monday’s meeting. In any case, the intent behind this meeting is that the expectations will wane, thereby reducing the pressure on him. This meeting may be the actor’s way of mentally preparing his supporters P4 to not get disappointed. FRIEND OF VEHICLES Vintage bike collector breathes easy as cyclone spares him J AYA K U M A R M A D A L A @ Nagapattinam AS Cyclone Nivar made a landfall on Wednesday night, thousands of people along coastal Tamil Nadu were staying awake to save themselves from the storm’s wrath. Amid all the anxiety a 55-year-old man near , Sirkali was keeping a close watch on a warehouse which was carefully corrugated with metal sheets. For sure, all his Subramanian and his team of five workers stay busy tending the vehicles throughout the day | EXPRESS eyes and heart were set on that small structure as it housed his prized possession — Vintage vehicles. For A Subramanian, a resident of Thiruvenkadu, life revolves around his vintage vehicles. With over 170 motorbikes and 5 cars which are over halfa-century old, the man stayed awake all night to make sure no damage happened to them. Sharing his emotions about the stormy night, Subramani- an said he had made preparations to brace for the winds. “I chopped branches of trees and removed all dangerous things around the warehouse. However, the constant fear of damage did not let me sleep.” His vintage bikes include Java, Lambretta Lamby, Rajdoot, Vijai super and Dart, all manufactured before 1950. Subramanian started collecting vintage vehicles “as a matter of pride”. “Twenty years ago, when our family was poor, I asked my friend to give his car for a drive. But he insulted me by saying that I needed a ‘status’ to drive his car. On that day , I became determined to build my reputation, and now, I am a curator of very selected vintage collection of motorbikes.” Since the collection involves old technology, engineering students and enthusiasts visit him often to look at the P4 vehicles. DIVINE LIGHT Maha Deepam was lit on the 2,668-foot-high Annamalaiyar Hills on the occasion of Karthigai Deepam festival, in Tiruvannamalai on Sunday | S DINESH