Indian tamasha at capitol Hill  About 20-25 people of Indian origin were part of the pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol building on Thursday  But the one who caught the eye was Vinson Palathingal, who was seen waving the Tricolour (pic). He hails from Kerala belagavi l saturday l january 09, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 16 l late city EDITION day after riots Pressure UP to remove Trump from Oval office E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e Amid buzz on the bumbling US President Donald Trump weighing options to grant himself an unprecedented pardon, pressure kept building up on his immediate removal from office, a day after the maverick’s supporters staged a failed coup by storming the Capitol Hill after his instigation. It now transpires that Trump later tweeted a video calling for peace and asking the mob to stand down only after White House counsel Pat Cipollone warned he would face criminal charges for inciting riots if he doesn’t do so. The Department of Justice is already preparing to go after the mob and all those who played a role in the riots, including Trump. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saw Trump’s incitement as sedition and demanded his immediate removal from office, Senate twitter Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pressed for invoking the 25th Amendment — which allows the Vice President to take over if the President is incapacitated — while also threatening to introduce a second impeachment motion. But Vice President Mike Pence declined the proposal. Trump has less than two weeks to complete his term as Joe Biden is scheduled to take his oath of office as the next President on Janu- ary 20. But with Trump’s aides describing him as psychologically fragile, and one Republican likening him to mad King George, there were concerns over letting an unstable person stay at the helm even for a brief period. Be that as it may Trump will not , to be present at Biden’s swearing-in ceremony. “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” he tweeted. The thought of self-pardon aparently crossed his mind when he offered clemency to a whole bunch of people in his inner circle, including his relatives. While there is no clarity on what he wants to legally firewall himself against, his dodgy income tax statements, a recent phone call he made to rig the ballot count in Georgia and Thursday’s incendiary speech to his supporters that led to the riots could qualify for criminal prosecution.  P9 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 Focus shifts to SC as talks fail Negotiations with farmers inconclusive; next meet on Jan 15; apex court hearing on Jan 11 E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi / Chandigarh The eighth round of talks between protesting farmers and the Centre on Friday could not end the stalemate as both sides stuck to their stated positions. They agreed to meet on January 15 to continue the talks. According to sources, the Centre made it clear that it will not repeal the laws but is ready to make amendments. The government also claimed many farmer organisations have supported the laws. The agitating farmers were told the Supreme Court will decide how to break the deadlock, sources said. The SC is likely to hear the case relating to the farm protest on January 11. The meeting at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi ended in less than two hours. Following Centre’s statement, some farmer leaders lost their cool and told the ministers that they will fight till their demands are met. The union leaders also did not take break for lunch or tea while the ministers took frequent breaks to discuss the situation. Some farmer leaders flashed placards bill wapsi toh ghar wapsi (repeal the laws and we’ll go home) and jitenge ya marenge (we will win or die). While Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar expressed hope that there will be some breakthrough in the next meeting, most union leaders said they have no such hopes. Bharatiya Kisan Union, Punjab (Rajewal Group) president Balbir Singh Rajewal said, “We knew there will be no decision in this meeting as the government has been adamant, but still we came for the talks. We will attend the January 15 meeting too, as we don’t want the government to claim that we are running away from talks”. ‘Govt tries to tire out farmers’ The Congress on Friday alleged the Centre is trying to tire out the farmers and said repealing the farm laws is the only solution | P7 ‘Solution unlikely in next meet’ Farmers’ union leader Balbir Singh Rajewal said he doesn’t expect any breakthrough in the January 15 meeting. “We told the govt as you are not repealing the laws and not ready to talk, face the agitation,” he said 13.90L E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ B e n g a l u r u Karnataka is likely to receive its first consignment of 13,90,000 anti-Covid-19 vaccine vials on Saturday or Sunday, and the Health Department is likely to start administering the vaccines from Monday itself. Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Friday said he has received communication from the Union Health Ministry that “tomorrow or the day after, we will probably be receiving 13,90,000 vials of vaccine for the state. It’s big, happy news Covid vaccine vials to arrive in Karnataka over the weekend for all of us.” The minister made the announcement after visiting Aster CMI Hospital in Bengaluru, which was one of the facilities where the Covid vaccination dry run was held on Friday . However, later, while speaking in Chikkaballapur, Sudhakar said the vaccine vials that will arrive, will be distributed to all the districts and will probably be administered to the priority category — health care workers — from Monday itself. “We have registered 6.30 lakh E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bengaluru 26/11 mastermind Lakhvi gets 5 years’ jail UK-India flights resume, chaos at Delhi airport PM to interact with CMs on Monday Lahore: Mumbai attack mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zaki-urRehman Lakhvi was sentenced to 5 years in jail on Friday by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court here in a terror financing case. New Delhi: Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Delhi airport on Friday as many passengers arriving from the UK complained against the national capital government’s belated decision on compulsary quarantine. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with chief ministers of all states on January 11 to discuss the Covid-19 situation and the vaccination rollout in the country, his office said on Friday. This will be the Prime Minister’s first interaction with chief ministers following the recent approval of two coronavirus vaccines for restricted emergency use by India’s drug regulator. The PM has often spoken with state chief ministers following the pandemic’s outbreak in the country. India is preparing for the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines. N A M ITA B A J PAI @ Lucknow DK district bans supply of poultry from Kerala In an attempt to allay any fears over consuming chicken and eggs after cases of bird flu were reported in neighbouring Kerala and some other states, the Karnataka Government on Friday clarified that there is no restriction on the sale of poultry products in the state. “There is no restriction on the sale of poultry products and people can consume them without any apprehensions,” Animal Husbandry Minister Prabhu Chavan said after chairing a virtual meeting with Deputy Commissioners of all the districts to review the situation. Adequate precautionary measures are being taken and no bird flu cases have been reported in Karnataka, he said. The statement from the minister came after chicken prices dropped drastically at some places, including Davangere and Chitradurga. Due to the fear of bird flu, the demand for poultry products, including eggs, has dropped noticeably . The minister said that except for poultry products from Kerala, Karnataka has not imposed restrictions on transportation of poultry products from any In view of the spread of bird flu in Kerala, the Dakshina Kannada district administration has banned the transportation of poultry from the state. In a notification, Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner K V Rajendra directed that vehicles taking poultry from the district to Kerala should be disinfected while re-entering the district after offloading. TCS Q3 net profit soars 7% other state. The state has banned entry of poultry products from Kerala and also sounded a high alert across the state, especially in the border districts. Officials of the Animal Husbandry, Forest, Rural Development, Police and other departments have been asked to work in coordination to keep a close watch on the situation. Chavan said officials in bordering districts of Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu, Mysuru and Chamarajanagar have been told to be extra vigilant and also report cases of unnatural death of birds. They have also been told to keep a close watch on poultry farms, bird sanctuaries and to keep water bodies P2 under surveillance.  The county’s largest IT company on Friday reported a 7.2 per cent rise in December quarter net profit to D8,701 crore on a consolidated basis, and seemed to suggest that the worst is behind by projecting double-digit revenue growth for FY22 | P14 The second dry run for the Covid-19 vaccine, held across Karnataka on Friday, was conducted smoothly, barring some technical problems, mainly in Udupi and Bengaluru. Vaccination centres experienced issues pertaining to network connectivity and non-receipt of the one-time password (OTP) by ‘beneficiaries’, generated on the CoWIN portal, leading to confusion and delays. The dry run — basically a mock drill ahead of the actual Covid-19 vaccination drive — was conducted across 281 health centres all over the state, which included district hospitals, medical colleges, taluk hospitals, community health centres, primary health centres, urban primary health care centres and private health centres. However, technical issues were experienced with the CoWIN portal, mainly in Udupi and Bengaluru. Health officials noticed problems with the OTP generation, a prerequisite to authenticate the identity of the person receiving the vaccination and to upload data on the CoWIN app. In Udupi, a frontline Covid warrior who had volunteered, failed get his OTP even after half an hour on his mobile phone at the Government MCH hospital. Vaccination officers later found it was not an anomaly, but that the beneficiary was not carrying the mobile phone seeded with his/her Aadhaar P3 number.  Babri case: AIMPLB moves HC over letting off Advani, others No curbs on sale of poultry products in state E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bengaluru rival of the vaccines. As of now, there are 2,870 cold chain points and community health centres, public health centres and urban public health centres equipped with  3,201 ice-lined refrigerators (ILRs), 3,039 deep freezers, 3,312 cold boxes and 2,25,749 ice packs. This cold chain space available is sufficient to store all the childhood vaccines under Universal Immunisation Programme and the Inactivated Polio Vaccine received for Pulse Polio Campaign in January 2021, and also the Covid vaccines as well, when they arrive from the Centre. State-wide dry run smooth, but tech glitches persist A health worker is administered a dummy shot as part of the second Covid-19 vaccination dry run conducted at Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru on Friday | Meghana Sastry express read healthcare professionals across Karnataka till date. This includes more than one lakh workers from Bengaluru alone. Those who are left out, may be in some medical or dental colleges, have been requested to register too,” he said. After healthcare workers, people with co-morbidities and those above 60 years of age and other people working in the police and revenue departments will be vaccinated, he said. The state has readied the infrastructure in anticipation of the ar- snow time A vendor sells vegetables on the banks of Dal Lake after a recent snowfall, in Srinagar on Friday | pti Two Ayodhya residents on Friday moved a revision petition in the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court challenging the special CBI court’s acquittal of all 32 accused persons, including former deputy prime minister L K Advani, in the Babri Masjid demolition case. The special CBI judge S K Yadav had delivered the order on September 30, 2020 — his last day in office. The plea states the trial court committed an error by not convicting the accused persons despite ample evidence against them. “The judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective,” the petitioners alleged. The petition was filed by Haji Mahboob (74) and Sayyad Akhlaq Ahmad (81) on behalf of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. The duo was also party to the Ayodhya title suit in the Supreme Court. They urged the high court to summon the records from the trial court, hold all the 32 accused guilty and extend punishment to them by setting aside the CBI court order. Other than Advani, the special CBI court had also exonerated Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Representing the two petitioners, lawyer and convenor of Babri Masjid Action Committee Zafaryab Jilani said the revision petition was filed because the CBI did not file any appeal so far to challenge the verdict. The judge did not appreciate the evidence of conspiracy in the right perspective — Petitioners to the court State Planning Board to get makeover with new name, objectives E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bengaluru Taking a cue from the constitution of the NITI Ayog by the Centre, the State Government on Friday decided to rename the Karnataka State Planning Board as the Karnataka State Policy and Planning Commission and also revamp it. The government is also working on merging different schemes with similar objectives for better implementation. The first meeting of the board, chaired by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, decided to rename the board and constitute advisory committees, set up five technical divisions and also appoint research officers to assist it in its task that includes preparing policy documents and action plans for effective implementation of government programmes. The CM said the board will prepare a detailed report after holding consultations with experts for effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The government is fully committed to implementing 17 of the goals by 2030, the CM said. He also Focus Areas Bettering scores on six Sustainable Development Goals — poverty alleviation, zero hunger, gender equality, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and sustainable cities and communities Merging smaller schemes with similar objectives for better monitoring pointed out that the state is yet to achieve the desired level of progress as regards six of those goals — poverty alleviation, zero hunger, gender Number of schemes will be reduced, but not the number of beneficiaries and funds All projects with allocation of Rs 100 crore or more will be subjected to evaluation equality, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and sustainable cities and communities. With 66 out of 100 points, Karnataka is placed 6th in the country he noted. , Planning Board Deputy Chairman B J Puttaswamy said they have decided to merge smaller schemes to reduce clutter in the system and ensure effective implementation of projects. Smaller schemes with similar objectives will be merged so that they can be better monitored. While the number of schemes will be reduced, it will, however, not reduce the number of beneficiaries or the funds allocated, said Additional Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh.  Continued on : P4