MADURAI  SUNDAY  JANUARY 10, 2021  `8.00  PAGES 24  LATE CITY EDITION INDONESIA PLANE WITH 62 ABOARD FEARED CRASHED SUSPECTED DEBRIS FOUND IN SEA, SEARCH ON Pontianak-bound domestic carrier loses contact four minutes after take off from Jakarta on Saturday around 1 pm (IST) PLUNGED 10,000 FEET IN ONE MINUTE Teams have been dispatched to search the waters north of Jakarta. However, rescuers said suspected debris had been found in the sea. According to Indonesian Transport Minister Budi Karya, the Boeing 737-500 run by budget airline Sriwijaya Air had 62, including 12 crew, people on board. No radio beacon signal has been detected, officials said ■ ■ Tracking service Flightradar24 said on its Twitter feed said that the flight “lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after departure from Jakarta” The 26-year-old plane was of the 737 Classic series, not to be confused with 737 MAX that was grounded over safety concerns 2018 A LION AIR BOEING 737 MAX FLIGHT HAD CRASHED IN INDONESIA, KILLING 189 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 Party general council accords full powers to EPS, OPS to devise poll strategies, form alliances, & finalise seat-sharing talks with partners AIADMK endorses EPS as CM candidate for 2021 polls T M U R U G A N A N D H A M @ Chennai Vaccination starts on Jan 16, 3-cr frontliners to get jab first EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi THE vaccination drive against Covid-19 will begin on January 16, the Centre on Saturday announced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the preparedness for the exercise. “After the detailed review, it was decided that in view of the forthcoming festivals, including Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Magh Bihu etc., the Covid-19 vaccination will start from January 16,” said the Union Ministry of Health in a statement. The Drug Controller General of India had granted restricted emergency use or accelerated approval for two vaccines — Covidshield and Covaxin — which, according to him, had established safety and immunogenicity An esti. mated three crore healthcare and frontline workers would be the first to get the jab, followed by the above 50-year age, and the under-50 age groups with co-morbidities. Nearly 97 lakh beneficiaries are registered on the Co-Win vaccine delivery management system. Around 2,360 trained vaccine administrators, over 61,000 programme managers, two lakh vaccinators, and 3.7 lakh vaccination team will P7 carry out the exercise. CM Palaniswami and Dy CM Panneerselvam at the AIADMK general council meeting held in Chennai on Saturday | ASHWIN PRASATH AIADMK ADOPTS 16 RESOLUTIONS IN GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING The AIADMK general council adopted 16 resolutions, including seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to prevent the abolition of provincial councils in Sri Lanka, since the island government has reportedly being taking steps to scrap the councils. In another resolution, the AIADMK condemned DMK chief MK Stalin for levelling criticisms against the CM and the government in an undemocratic manner | P4 10 BABIES DIE IN FIRE AT MAHA HOSPITAL EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Mumbai A fire broke out at the Sick Newborn Care Unit of the Bhandara district general hospital, leaving ten infants dead on Saturday early morning. The fire brigade rescued seven children from the blaze suspected to have been sparked by an electrical short circuit. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray ordered a high-level six-member committee to probe into the mishap, besides announcing an ex gratia of `5 lakh each to the parents of the deceased children. Pointing towards the negligence of the hospital authorities, the disconsolate parents alleged that no staff was present when the fire broke out around midnight. A reply to a query under RTI Act in 2018 had revealed that the hospital was ill-equipped to deal with fire accidents, and had pointed towards a lack of safety equipment on the premises. Further, no fire audit has been done at the hospital since 2018. Soon after the mishap, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar ordered fire audits at all government hospitals across the state. Condoling with the parents, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Heartw r e n c h i n g t r a g e dy i n Bhandara, Maharashtra, where we have lost precious young lives. My thoughts are with all the bereaved families. I hope the injured recover as early as possible”. The health minister said of the ten children, seven had died due to suffocation, while three were burnt. P8 THE AIADMK general council on Saturday unanimously endorsed Edappadi K Palaniswami as its chief ministerial candidate for the ensuing Assembly elections. The general council also accorded full powers to Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam to devise poll strategies, form alliances, and finalise seat-sharing talks with partners. The meeting also made it clear that the fight was between the two Dravidian majors, and that national parties had no major role. In his 40-minute speech, Pal- US President Donald Trump has been permanently suspended from Twitter due to the “risk of further incitement of violence”, the social media giant has announced, days after his supporters stormed the US Capitol and caused the deaths of four civilians and a police officer. The unprecedented move by the California-based social media platform comes after Trump tweeted that he would not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has said President Donald Trump should resign, making her the first Republican senator to say he should leave office as backlash grows against his goading of violent supporters who stormed the Capitol. “I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” Murkowski said. In an interview to a newspaper, Murkowski also threatened to leave the Republican party if it doesn’t cut ties with Trump tion. I will continue to serve the people of Tamil Nadu and our party in the coming days. I am confident that I can better my services to the people with the experience gained during the past four years,” Palaniswami added. He also stressed on the need to complete the formation of booth-level youth brigades and women’s units. Palaniswami then attacked DMK chief MK Stalin for spreading malicious and fake propaganda about the government. “The allegations made by him are far from truth,” said Palaniswami. FULL COVERAGE ON: P4 Trump all set to be impeached for 2nd time by Democrats TWITTER KICKS OUT DON PERMANENTLY GOP SENATOR ASKS TRUMP TO RESIGN aniswami promised to remain a faithful field worker and foot soldier of the party. Recalling his four-decade association with the AIADMK, he said, “The Chief Minister post is just a responsibility and not a privi, lege. I consider each and every member of the party to be as important as the Chief Minister.” He then thanked the general council for choosing him to lead the party into the next electoral battle. “I am not a tall personality like MGR or Amma. But, by their blessings, and that of God, I have accomplished the task given to me to my satisfac- EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE OUTGOING US President Donald Trump, accused of inciting his supporters to mount a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill — in which five people died — is all set to become the only US President to be impeached twice, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying she would move forward with impeachment if Trump did not resign immediately . “If he does not, I have instructed the Rules Committee to be prepared to move forward with Cong ressman Jamie Raskin’s 25th Amendment legislation and a motion for impeachment,” Pelosi said. According to reports, nearly 160 House of Representatives Democrats have signed on the bill, which congressmen Ted Lieu of California and David Cicilline of Rhode Island began drafting while they were sheltering in a place during Wednesday’s chaos at the Capitol. If the process goes ahead, it would be the second time the House has pursued impeachment against Trump. In December 2019, the lower chamber impeached him on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. But the Senate acquitted him on both the charges in February 2020. No US president has ever been impeached twice. However, the prospect of an impeachment conviction seems remote because of Trump’s Republican broad support in the Senate. President-elect Joe Biden said impeachment was for Congress to decide, but added in the same breath that he has felt Trump was not fit to serve. The White House dismissed the impeachment as a politically motivated move. Meanwhile, CNN has reported that there would be fresh violence ahead of Biden’s inauP9 guration on January 20. Signal, Telegram in race to replace WhatsApp as messaging platform BISMAH MALIK @ Bengaluru WATER SECURE The Manimuthar dam in Tirunelveli reached its full capacity of 118 feet on Saturday, prompting water discharge of 200 cusecs into Thamirabarani river | V KARTHIKALAGU Soon, read your favourite Tamil classics in English SUSHMITHA RAMAKRISHNAN @ Chennai EVER stumbled upon a good English translation of a foreign language book and wondered why no one ever did that to Tamil books that you grew up reading? The Tamil Nadu Textbook And Educational Services Corporation had exactly the same in mind, when it embarked on a project to promote Tamil literature translation into English. As a part of the first phase of this initiative, translation and publication of six Tamil books have been completed. The list comprises a range of books; the oldest being a mod- ern translation of Thiruvalluvar’s Thirukural, and the most recent being Rajam Krishnan’s Suzhalil Midakkum Deepangal. When asked why Thirukural when there are already so many translations available, Mini Krishnan, the coordinating editor of the project, said, while many of the translations were scholarly or poetic, the aim of picking this translation was to shine light on the creative translation of PS Sundaram. “It’s more than being skilled in two languages. He has a creative flare in English too,” she said, adding that each published translation was picked by a handful of advisors. WITH WhatsApp’s new privacy policy receiving flak from all over, rival platforms Signal and Telegram have reported a sudden spike in downloads. The quit WhatsApp campaign got momentum after the richest person in the world, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, tweeted that everybody switch to Signal. In the frenzy that followed, Signal’s registration systems reportedly crashed as it could not handle the surge of new users coming on board. The new privacy policy, which will kick in from Febru- ary 8, requires users to agree to let owner Facebook and its subsidiaries collect sensitive data. According to data sourced from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, downloads for Signal and Telegram in India jumped 55% and 14%, respectively, on a week-on-week basis, in the first week of January. In contrast, the growth for WhatsApp has remained flat between December 26 and Januray 6. However, WhatsApp still remains the leader with 430 million users in India against Telegram’s 45 million and Signal’s EXPRESS READ Sailors stuck in China to return on January 14 New Delhi: Minister of state for shipping Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday announced that the 23 Indian sailors stuck onboard MV Jag Anand in China will return to India on January 14. The minister also announced that that the vessel is set towards Chiba in Japan WITH THIS ISSUE INDIA’S BREAD REVOLUTION PLUS 12 PAGES 1-2 million users, according to Counterpoint research. The Facebook-owned app recorded 2.4 million downloads in India, while Telegram had 1.6 million and Signal 17,000 between January1 and 6. On Saturday, WhatsApp clarified its latest update does not change its data-sharing practices with Facebook. WhatsApp head Will Cathcart issued a series of tweets to claim the company’s updated policy is transparent. He added the new policy doesn’t include sharing private chats with Facebook. A boon to deep-sea research Chennai: Union Minister for Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Dr Harsh Vardhan dedicated “Sagar Anveshika”, a new coastal research vehicle, to the nation at the Chennai Port on Saturday. Sagar Anveshika, which is only the second of the two such coastal research vessels, was built for the National Institute of Technology (NIOT) by Titagarh Wagons. It enables scientists to go as deep as 3 km into the Indian Ocean to research and collect data on ocean resources. The scientists could stay for up to 15 hours in the sea, said the Union minister | DEBADATTA MALLICK INDIA-AUSTRALIA SERIES Bumrah, Siraj ‘racially abused’; team lodges complaint V E N K ATA K R I S H N A B @ Chennai RACIAL abuse reared its ugly head on Saturday when India team management lodged an official complaint against abuses, allegedly racial, hurled at two of its players during the third Test against Australia in Sydney The matter was taken . up with International Cricket Council match referee David Boon and security officials at the Sydney Cricket Ground. According to team sources, it involved pacers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj who Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj were allegedly subjected to racial abuse during the Sydney Test | AFP pointed out they were “racially abused” by a section of the crowd. It is learnt that some spectators started hurling abusive words at Bumrah and Siraj while they were fielding in the boundary. As the day progressed cuss words apparently turned racial. It is learnt that Siraj was allegdely subject to even monkey word, which led the pacer to inform stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane. The matter was brought to the notice of the on-field umpires Paul Reifel and Paul Wilson and Boon. According to a member of the Indian team, Boon and the SCG security officials have already spoken to the players and are set to review the video footage to identify the fans. No Brisbane, BCCI requests CA It is learnt that the BCCI has requested Cricket Australia to shift the fourth and final Test from Brisbane. The BCCI apparently cited the UK variant of the coronavirus as the reason for not travelling to Brisbane and requested Sydney be the venue.