bhubaneswar l monday l november 30, 2020 l `7.00 l PAGES 30 l 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 below the 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 S a n a Sh a k i l / R i t w i k a M i t r a @ 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: P10 year.  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 ee 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 Farmers blocking the Singhu border in Delhi on Sunday | Parveen Negi Pathak fallout: BJD sacks would-be in-law Pradeep E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar 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 West Bengal 24 1 1 04 Jharkhand  18  0  0  1  18  3 Odisha 201 302 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 WITH THIS ISSUE THE ESSENTIAL CAMPUS DIGEST 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 YOUR LIFE COACH Source: NCRB 2014-2019 2014: 60 Kashmiri students in UP charged with sedition for cheering Pakistan in a cricket match; charges dropped later Assembly adjourned 30 days early E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Some prominent cases 2012: Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi booked for allegedly mocking national emblem in his cartoon; charges dropped after nationwide outrage The arrest of senior IFS officer Abhay Kant Pathak and his son for amassing massive wealth disproportionate to income had its first big political fallout on Sunday with the BJD expelling former minister and Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahy from the party . Though BJD attributed his expulsion to Panigrahy’s ‘anti-people activities’ following an order from Chief Minister and party supremo Naveen Patnaik, the three-time MLA’s personal links with the IFS officer and his son is said to have cost him his place in the ruling party. Pathak’s son Akash was set to marry Panigrahy’s daughter on December 11 and they had close family links. Panigrahy is also under scanner after Akash’s arrest. The latter is being probed for making fake recruitment by impersonating as a top executive of Tata Motors. The Crime Branch and State Vigilance have come across interview details and letter of intent issued to job seekers of Gopalpur purportedly by Akash. They are probing alleged financial transactions in the recruitment. The State Vigilance, during its raid, had found `9.4 crore in the bank accounts of Akash of which `8.4 crore was made in cash deposits at Bhubaneswar. Another `70 lakh was deposContinued on: P7 ited in Ganjam.  30 PAGES, INCLUDING 16 OF edex (TABLOID) Even as the government is facing heat over the Nayagarh minor girl murder case with the BJP baying for Agriculture Minister Arun Sahoo’s removal, the Winter session of the Odisha Legislative Assembly was adjourned sine die on Sunday , more than 30 days ahead of schedule. The session was to end on December 31. Speaker SN Patro adjourned the House sine die after the passage of Appropriation Bill of `11,200 crore amid ruckus by the BJP. As the House took up discussion for the Appropriation Bill, the BJP members were seen shouting slogans in the well of the Assembly . Leader of the Congress Legislature Party Narasingha Mishra initiated the discussion on the Bill. Some BJP members attempted to climb onto the Speaker’s podium even as the Congress members maintained that there is no point in disrupting the proceedings after the Odisha government announced a High Court-monitored Special InvestigaContinued on: P7 tion Team (SIT) for the case.  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 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 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 for 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 P9 discuss the tangle.