tadepalligudem l friday l january 22, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Biden signs 17 orders, reversing Trump’s signature policies Hours after his inauguration, US President Joe Biden signed 17 executive orders, reversing some of the key foreign policies and national security decisions of Donald Trump Tackling pandemic Jeffrey D Zients appointed as the official Covid-19 response coordinator who will report directly to the President US’ ties with WHO restored. Dr Anthony S Fauci will head US delegation to WHO’s executive board The new president restored the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which Trump had disbanded Biden also launched a ‘100-day masking challenge’ Immigration Issued directions to fortify Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which provides temporary relief from deportation to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children The order also calls on Congress to enact legislation providing permanent status and a path to citizenship for these immigrants Ended the so-called Muslim ban, which blocked travel from several predominantly Muslim and African countries to the US Construction of border wall with Mexico halted. Legality of diverting federal money to fund the wall will be reviewed Climate Change Ending racial discrimination Shot off a letter to the UN that will pave the way for the US to re-enter the Paris climate accord, which it will officially rejoin 30 days from now Revoked Trump administration’s 1776 Commission, which recently released a report allegedly distorting the role of slavery in the US Directed federal agencies to report on equity in their ranks within 200 days, including how to remove barriers to opportunities in policies Ordered agencies to ensure Americans of all backgrounds have equal access to federal government resources, benefits and services In 2019, Trump had notified the UN that the US would withdraw from the coalition of nearly 200 countries World stocks racked up record highs on Thursday on the back of expectations of a major stimulus from the new US president. The Sensex also traded high during the initial hours, breaching 50,000 for the first time. It, however, closed 167 points lower at 49,624.76 | P10 I’m not joking when I say this: If you ever work with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I will fire you on the spot. No ifs, ands or buts Sensex breaches 50,000 President Biden’s warning to his political appointees 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 The ‘Nays’ have it, govt offer rejected Five dead in blaze at Serum plant, no impact on Covishield production S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i @ Mumbai Five persons — four men and one woman — were charred to death after a fire broke out at Serum Institute of India’s plant at Manjri in Pune on Thursday afternoon. The blaze occurred at an underconstruction building and all the dead were construction workers. Nine people were evacuated from the spot. According to a labourer who was working in the building at the time of incident, the mishap happened due to sparks welding works on the sixth floor. However, officials said the cause is yet to be ascertained. “We will carry out further investigation and ascertain the cause of the fire,” said Pune Fire Brigade chief Prashant Ranpise. The Manjari facility is where the Covishield vaccines are made. However, the building where fire broke out is around 1 km away from the Covishield vaccine manufacturing unit. Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla said Covishield vaccine production will not be hit due to the fire incident. It took over two hours for the fire brigade to put out the blaze, which broke out around 2:45 pm on the fourth and fifth floors of the building. It is believed sparks from the sixth floor immediately spread to the fifth and fourth floors due to presence of combustible materials. Clarifying that the fire broke out in the BCG vaccine section, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said, “According to preliminary information, the fire occurred due to an electric fault during the on-going construction works. But people should not jump to conclusions. The probe will reveal all details.” Serum chairman Cyrus Poonawalla said the company will give `25 lakh compensation to families of persons who died in the fire.p8 Small farmer unions in favour, big ones against proposal Tractor rally talks Meeting between farmer union leaders and the Delhi Police on tractor parade on Republic Day inconclusive Workers wearing protective gear walk after a fire broke out at Serum Institute’s plant at Manjri near Pune on Thursday | PTI HC gives nod to conduct Panchayat polls from Feb 5 E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Vijayawada Battlefield Tirupati Police foiled the attempt of Telugu Desam to take out ‘Dharma Parirakshana Yatra’ in Tirupati on Thursday ahead of Lok Sabha byelection. Telugu Desam State president K Atchannaidu and other leaders were detained in a private hotel in the temple town WHO said what I know DGP Gautam Sawang well and he is a good police officer. But now he is acting in an indifferent manner, ignoring the maintenance of law and order. It was high time for the DGP to follow the Indian Penal Code, not ‘Jagan Reddy Penal Code’ to safeguard the rights of people. The DGP should at least respect his uniform. Otherwise, he should quit expressing his inability to stop the atrocities N Chandrababu, TDP supremo Clearing the decks for the conduct of elections to local bodies in the State as per schedule, a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday set aside the order of the single judge suspending the notification issued by the State Election Commission (SEC) to hold polls in four phases from February 5. The AP government is said to have moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict. On January 11, the High Court suspended the notification issued by the SEC on January 8 to hold panchayat elections in the State in four phases in February , following a petition moved by the government. The SEC appealed against the verdict before a division bench, which after hearing the arguments of the two sides, issued orders on Thursday . While the State argued that the atmosphere was not conducive to hold the elections in view of the Covid-19 vaccination drive, the SEC pointed out that coronavirus is under control in AP and it is not so alarming. The division bench of Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice C Praveen Kumar, while giving its verdict, said the conduct of panchayat elections and public health are of equal importance. The conduct of elections to local bodies is a constitutional obligation and the court cannot intervene in the notification issued by the SEC for holding elections, the bench said. It asked the government to take steps to ensure that the Covid vaccination process is not impacted due to the local body elections. The bench also pointed out that the Supreme Court did not allow postponement of local body elections in Kerala, Karnataka and Rajasthan and also issued guidelines that courts cannot intervene once the SEC issues notification for elections. Considering these aspects, the bench refused to intervene in the notification issued by the State Election Commission and set aside the order P4 of the single judge.  Govt moves SC The AP government is said to have moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict of setting aside the order of the single judge suspending the notification issued by the SEC to hold polls in four phases from February 5 YSRC leaders should realise that judges may change but justice will remain. There are checks and balances in democracy. Those getting majority votes will come to power and they will take oath to discharge their responsibilities abiding by the Constitution. But under the administration of this maniac (Jagan), they are doing whatever they want Farmers firm on holding the rally on the Outer Ring Road in Delhi, while police wary of disturbing law and order, want them to call it off Thousands of tractors for the rally from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan already parked on Delhi’s borders We unanimously rejected the offer. We want that besides repeaing the farm laws, the government should enact a legislation for remunerative MSP and the procurement of produce Joginder Singh Ugrahan, BKU (Ugrahan) head E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi/Chandigarh The government’s hopes of ending the deadlock over the farm laws before Republic Day were dashed on Thursday with the farmers unions rejecting the proposal to suspend the laws for two years or more and forming a joint panel to examine the entire gamut of issues. In a statement issued after two rounds of meetings, the first among the 32 Punjab unions followed by all the organisations under the Samyukt Kisan Morcha banner, the farmers said “the proposal put forth by the government yesterday was rejected.” “A full repeal of (the) three central farm laws and enacting a legislation for remunerative MSP for all farmers were reiterated as the pending demands of the movement,” the morcha said. But sources said the decision was not unanimous, with some smaller unions, who were in a minority, in favour of accepting the Centre’s proposal but with several conditions, while the bigger ones, mainly from Punjab, firm on continuing with the agitation. The sources said the majority view to reject the proposal was mainly two-fold. First, the protest was peaking and if they withdrew at this point, they may not be able to build up another movement in the future for a repeal of the laws in case the proposed committee rejects this demand. Second, 143 farmers had died during the agitation and if they were to accept the offer without getting the laws repealed, their sacrifice would have gone in vain. The split in opinion led to some heated exchanges during the meeting, the sources said, forcing a vote over the issue. “The consensus was that we should stick to our stand of repeal. Voting took place in the meeting of all the 40 unions in which most voted for rejecting the proposal,” a leader said. Joginder Singh Ugrahan, the leader of the largest union, said “we want the Centre to enact a legislation for remunerative MSP and also a law with the provision that the government procures these crops at MSP as it has been doing to date.” “The Punjab unions decided to reject the Centre’s proposal. They informed this at the joint meeting. There was a feeling that 143 farmers have sacrificed their lives and there is no point in settling for anything less than a repeal,” said All India Kisan Sabha general secretary Hannan Mollah The morcha paid homage to the farmers who have died in the movement so far. N Chandrababu Naidu, TDP chief and Opposition Leader `5,81 L The WHO and Centre are repeatedly telling that elderly people have to take extra care. Keeping in view the public health, the State government had opposed the conduct of the local body elections Cost of each vehicle Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, Government Advisor Opposition Leader Chandrababu Naidu’s comments against DGP Gautam Sawang are derogatory in nature and are fit for a suit for damages. Naidu’s attitude is more coercive and he has been acting as an irresponsible Opposition Leader Solar plants: Govt not to burden Discoms Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, Government Advisor (Public Affairs) Amid concerns that establishment of 10,000 megawatt (MW) solar plants may further burden the cash-strapped power distribution companies (Discoms) with fixed costs, the State government has clarified that it will bear the cost accrued due to backing down of thermal units, balancing cost and other charges, if any, for a period of three years from 2023-24. Some of the AP State Electricity The BJP has not announced ‘Chalo DGP Office’ as claimed by the police in the notices served to BJP leaders. Since you kept many leaders under house arrest, many people reached the DGP office at Mangalagiri. We did not announce any programme to lay siege to the DGP office Somu Veerraju, BJP State president E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Vijayawada Board engineering associations and other experts raised reservations with the proposed mega solar power plants as the State has surplus energy and that integrating more solar power can be done only after backing down the existing thermal units. They are contending that backing down of thermal units or those units with which the Discoms have power purchase agreements, will result in payment of fixed costs, in addition to the procurement costs related to the solar power. This, they argued, will burden the Discoms. The arguments were submitted to the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) during the threeday public hearing as well. In response to these, the government has made a statement in the public hearing noting that it will extend support to the P4 Discoms.  Habitual offender held for stealing 3 silver lions @ Vijayawada The chariot of Kanaka Durga temple in Vijayawada from which three silver lion statues were stolen | express The police reportedly achieved a breakthrough in the four-monthold theft case of three silver lion statues from the Kanaka Durga temple chariot with the nabbing of a habitual offender from West Godavari district. The missing of lion statues from the chariot in September last year created a sensation as it took place close on the heels of the chariot fire at Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Antarvedi. Following the incident, the government ordered an audit of temple properties and reviewed the security at temples across the State. During the audit, the missing of three silver lion statues weighing around 16 kg came to light. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed to probe the missing silver lion statues, but it could not make any headway in the case. According to sources, the West Godavari district police nabbed the 9,260 `539 cr `830 cr Total No. of Total cost of MDUs procured MDUs `3,48,600 Subsidy for beneficiary 700 MDUs Cost of scheme per annum 2,300 MDUs Sponsored by Sponsored by ST Corporation SC Corporation 3,800 MDUs BC Corporation MDUs are equipped with GPS  Swarna variety fine rice to be distributed to ration card holders  All rice bags are sealed and tagged with unique code  Biometric system to be implemented express read Breakthrough E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e ration at your doorstep Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy flagged off 2,500 Mobile Dispensing Units (MDUs) in Vijayawada on Thursday for door delivery of rice and essentials to beneficiaries in Krishna, Guntur and West Godavari districts under the Public Distribution System habitual offender in a property offence case. During questioning, he spilled the beans. The West Godavari police alerted their Vijayawada counterparts, who took him into custody for questioning. The offender disposed of the stolen silver lions to a jeweller in Tuni who melted them. The jeweller was also taken into custody sources said. A po, lice official said the details of the arrest of the offender in the silver lion theft case would be divulged to the media in a couple of days. Siraj visits dad’s resting place Hyderabad: The first thing Mohammed Siraj did upon landing was to pay respects to his father, who had passed away when he was in Australia. After going home, he addressed a press conference, where he dedicated his performance to his dad. He said that racial abuses he faced in Australia made him stronger mentally. He said it was good to be back home.  P11 Sasikala tests positive for Covid-19 Bengaluru: VK Sasikala, the jailed close associate of former Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa, has tested positive for Covid-19. She has been shifted to the ICU at Victoria Hospital. “She is being given oxygen and is not on ventilator support. We are closely monitoring her,” said Dr CR Jayanthi, Director-cum-Dean of Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute.