The New Indian Express wishes its readers a bhubaneswar l friday l december 25, 2020 l `7.00 l PAGES 12 l late CITY EDITION BCCI to compensate ICC for T20 World cup taxes Nothing in agm about ganguly’s conflict If government doesn’t grant exemption, world body to be paid by Indian board for event in India in Oct-Nov 2021 BCCI’s annual general meeting in Ahmedabad was silent on possible violations of conflict of interest rules by its president. Members who attended the meeting said this topic was not raised. Complaints have been filed before the BCCI’s ethics officer, accusing Sourav Ganguly of flouting these rules. The ethics officer is yet to say anything about those. ■ 3 more teams in ipl, talk on more venues ■ The meeting approved the inclusion of two new IPL teams, which will take the total to 10, from the 2022 edition of the event There is a proposal to stage IPL matches in more cities. At present, cities the franchises represent host matches. The Covid situation will be considered before involving more venues national selectors were selected by cricket advisory committee 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 govt says assurances already given on all issues, adds msp system guarantee will be in writing Nothing new in fresh govt letter, say farmer unions E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi/Chandigarh a day after the protesting farmers ruled out any further talks until the government “draws up a new agenda”, the Centre on Thursday wrote to them again, reiterating it was open to negotiation and requested the farmers to suggest a date and time of their choice for the next meeting. In the letter, joint secretary in the Union agriculture ministry Vivek Agarwal stated the government is ready to discuss all existing issues with an “open mind”. “It is important for the government to have talks with all farmers unions of the country. The government has been talking with unions under the Sanyukt Morcha with an open mind and also desires to talk with you in the future as per your convince,’’ stated the two-page letter. The unions, however, termed the letter a “delaying tactic”. Bharatiya Kisan Union, Punjab (Lakowal) General Secretary Harinder Singh Lakowal said the Odisha starts tracking 61 UK returnees E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Odisha government on Thursday started an exercise to trace and test around 61 persons who have returned to Odisha in the last two weeks. The list of returnees was shared by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) with the State government. Of the 3,445 travellers who returned to India from Britain since December 7 via IGI Airport at Delhi, around 61, including 12 women, were from 15 districts of Odisha. On receiving the list, the State Health and Family Welfare department has sounded an alert asking districts and municipalities to track the returnees and intensify active surveillance in their areas. The highest 25 people have returned to Bhubaneswar, followed by five to Cuttack, four to Berhampur, three to Koraput, two each to Nayagarh and Nabarangpur and one each to Khurda, Sambalpur, Balangir, Jagatsinghpur, R a j g a n g p u r, Jajpur, Puri and Mayurbhanj. The DDMA has also shared the names, passport and contact numbers of the rest of the passengers whose whereabouts will be ascertained by the Covid monitoring cell. Additional Chief Secretary of Health department PK Mohapatra said “All inbound passengers from the UK will be subjected to RT-PCR test followed by genome sequencing at the designated laboratory Offi. cials have been directed to track them and start immediate contact tracing.” Besides, people who have returned from Britain between November 25 and December 23 are urged to self-register with the helpline no. 104 and 0674-2390466 for monitoring by rapid response teams and testing, Mohapatra said. Meanwhile, the three family members of the 34-year-old UK returnee, who was found Covid-19 positive a couple of days back, have tested negative. The returnee is under isolation in a dedicated Covid Hospital here and the report of genome study of his samples for the mutated SARS-CoV2 strain is awaited. unions will soon hold a meeting to discuss and prepare a reply . “In today’s letter again, the government is beating around the bush. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should call the protesting farmers with a concrete proposal but he is trying to find and talk to a select few farmers at Kutch in Gujarat,” Lakowal said. In its latest letter, which is in response to the farmers’ reply on Wednesday seeking “a concrete proposal” from the government, the Centre highlighted that it has already given written assurances on all issues raised by the unions in past meetings. It reiterated that the three new farm bills have nothing to do with the minimum support price (MSP) for procurement, but assured the farmers that the government will continue to procure crops on MSP. As things stand now, the agitating farmers are unwilling to stand down from their core demand for a complete withdrawal of the contentious farm laws and a legal guarantee from the govP7 ernment on MSP.  Rahul Gandhi with party leaders at the AICC headquarters in Delhi before leaving for Rashtrapati Bhawan on Thursday | Shekhar Yadav No democracy in India, claims Rahul 10 unions boycott meet on framing labour code rules E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying there is no democracy in the country and those speaking against the PM are labelled as terrorists. A Congress delegation including Rahul, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury met President Ram Nath Kovind and submitted two crore signatures of in support of the agitating farmers along with a memorandum seeking the repeal the three farm sector laws. “There is no democracy Any... one trying to take power from him will be dubbed as terrorist and anti-national, be it farmers, labourers or Mohan Bhagwat (RSS chief). He will make sure the wealth of people is transferred to crony capitalists. He will call people anti-nationals, terrorists to transfer the wealth of these people to three-four crony capitalists close to them,” Rahul alleged after meeting Kovind. The govt is stopping our MPs from moving out of our office. The PM needs to realise that there is limit to this - Rahul Gandhi, Cong leader “The government said that these laws are in favour of the farmers but the country is seeing that it is the farmers who are against these legislations. The farmers are in pain and also dying. The prime minister will have to listen to them. The way the agri laws were passed in the Monsoon session of Parliament in September, without any discussion and consultation, they need to be withdrawn,” Rahul said. Several Congress leaders, including party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, were detained as they were stopped from staging a protest march to Rashtrapti Bhawan. CM announces India’s largest hockey stadium at Rourkela E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Carrying forward his government’s promise to develop Odisha as a global sports destination, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday announced a world class hockey stadium at Rourkela, which is set to host the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Men’s Hockey World Cup India 2023 along with the State capital Bhubaneswar. The stadium with a capacity of seating 20,000 spectators is billed to be the biggest hockey stadium in India. Announcing this in a video message, Naveen said, “As a tribute to the contribution of Sunda- rgarh to Indian hockey, I would like to announce that we will build a new international level hockey stadium in Rourkela with a seating capacity of 20,000. The new stadium is going to redefine the sports landscape in the region.” He stated that the stadium along with the allied facilities will be developed as a benchmark for other hockey stadiums around the world. Spread over 15 acres of land, the stadium will be constructed in the Biju Patnaik University of Technology campus in Rourkela. Besides, the work to develop synthetic hockey turf in each of the 17 blocks of Sundargarh district has already commenced. Describing Sundargarh district as the powerhouse of hockey talent, the Chief Minister said many great players from there have represented the country at the international level. The India team led by players like Dilip Tirkey and Sunita Lakra has brought laurels for the country, he added. Popularity of hockey among the people can be seen across the district, he said, adding, the support of people of the district to hockey players is unparalleled anywhere in the world. The stadium will have all the modern amenities and offer a unique experience. It will emerge as the best venue for field hockey in the world, he reiterated. A high level team including senior officials from the State government, FIH, department of Sports and Youth Services and Hockey India had visited Rourkela recently and reviewed the infrastructure and allied facilities in the city to host the much awaited hockey event. We will build a new international level hockey stadium in Rourkela with a seating capacity of 20,000. The new stadium will redefine the sports landscape in the region - Naveen Patnaik, CM E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi Several trade and labour unions on Thursday boycotted a virtual meeting called by the Centre for tripartite consultation to frame rules for four labour codes, saying physical presence of all stakeholders is necessary for such an exercise. They also sought separate meetings to discuss each code threadbare. As for the RSS affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), it participated in the meeting and demanded that the new wage definition limiting allowances at 50% of the total salary should not be frozen. While the union cited the Supreme Court’s verdict in a Vivekananda Vidyalaya case last year to butBMS against 50% tress its point, the fact remains that the 50% cap would inallowances cap crease social security deduc“The wage definition tions like provident fund. limiting allowances to 50 The BMS also demanded the per cent of total salary scrapping of the maximum should not be frozen.... daily work hour limit set at 12 Group 4 Security case (of in the code, called spread over, SC) previously has saying most countries in the mandated 100 per cent world do not have such a proviallowances to be part of sion. Instead, overtime with salary,” the BMS said double wages should be provided, it said. Also, for calculating minimum wages, the average family size should be taken as six members, it recommended. The framing of rules for the four labour codes — The Code on Wages, The Industrial Relations Code, The Social Security Code and The Occupational Safety Health , and Working Conditions Code — is currently underway . Draft copies of the rules have been in public domain since November for offering suggestions. While the government packaged the new labour codes as major reforms for employee welfare and social security trade unions alleged that the provisions will expose , workers to the hire-and-fire regime. express read wELCOME RELIEF Struggling UK gets its X’mas gift in last-gasp post-Brexit trade deal E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e After months of acrimonious talks, the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) finally reached a postBrexit trade agreement on Thursday — just in time to avert New Year chaos for crossborder traders and eventually bringing a sense of certainty to businesses. The pact also averts the much-feared “no-deal” scenario that would have sparked economic turmoil and disruption to the flow of goods and medicines. The deal, which will complete Britain’s separation from the EU, will now go to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for approval. The breakthrough came four-and-a-half years after the UK voted to leave the EU. The agreement was delayed because deliberations had been stuck for months after the two sides were unable to reach consensus on certain areas. Gradually, talks whittled down differences between the two sides to three key issues — fair-competition rules, mechanisms for resolving future disputes and fishing rights. The rights of EU boats to trawl in British waters was the last obstacle to be resolved, according to reprots. However, some aspects of the future relationship between the 27-nation bloc and its former member remain unresolved. Now, the deal needs to go through a series of legal hoops. EU leaders, the European parliament, and the UK government will need to approve the deal. The legal text of the agreement will need to be translated, reviewed and approved by all 27 EU member states. Britain withdrew from the EU on January 31, and the transition period expires on December 31. VIMSAR gets a 64-yr-old student Sambalpur: It’s never too late to learn. Proving that learning knows no age limit, Jaya Kishor Pradhan, a 64-year-old retired bank manager, took admission in VIMSAR, Burla here on Thursday | P4 . Congress, Left to fight Bengal polls together X’MAS message A 120ft-long, 50ft-wide 3D sand art of Santa Claus created by Sudarsan Patnaik at Puri beach on Thursday | Express | P4 Get ready to live in a printed home A private company has managed to build India’s first 3-D printed ground-plus-one floor building with reinforcements, in Kancheepuram. Here’s the lowdown… 106 printing hours taken to make the building 30-35 yrs average life expectancy of the building; same as conventional homes The concrete mix that has been used is made indigenously with the regularly available construction materials Welded mesh is being used. This satisfies provisions in the Indian Codes and optimizes the cost of construction 700 square feet built-up area New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday formally approved its electoral alliance with the Left parties for the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal. The Left and Congress had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Bengal separately | P8 The building was printed with both vertical reinforcement bars and horizontal distributors using welded mesh that satisfy provisions in the Indian Codes 3-D printing will not only accelerate the pace of construction but also significantly improve the build quality. This achievement will certainly give a huge fillip for the mass housing segment MV Satish, Senior Vice President, Larsen and Tubro