WARANGAL  SATURDAY  JANUARY 23, 2021  `7.00  PAGES 12  CITY EDITION SEBI PENALISES HDFC BANK FOR VIOLATING ITS ORDER Sebi has directed HDFC Bank to deposit `158.68 crore along with interest in an escrow account and pay `1 crore penalty LENDER INVOKED PLEDGED SHARES TO SORT OUT OUTAGE ISSUE IN 3 MONTHS The action comes after a probe by the Securities and Exchange Board of India found the lender unilaterally invoked securities pledged by stock broking firm BRH Wealth Kreators to the extent of `158.68 crore. This violated an interim order by Sebi restraining BRH from accessing the securities market and buying or selling in securities, directly or indirectly ■ ■ Meanwhile, HDFC Bank has submitted a detailed plan of action to RBI to address repeated service disruption issues due to outage The action plan will take 10-12 weeks for implementation. Last month, RBI had temporarily barred the bank from launching new digital banking initiatives and issuing new credit cards | P10 2% BANK’S SHARES FELL `30.25 APIECE TO `1,443.65 ON THE B.S.E. ON FRIDAY 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 Sparks fly in CWC meet, party shifts poll calendar to June R ICHA SHAR MA @ New Delhi THE Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Friday decided not to hold presidential elections in a hurry despite the growing dissent , among a section of senior leaders over the delay in addressing leadership issues and organisational polls. Election to the post of party president will now be held in June, said AICC general secretary K C Venugopal. According to sources, the decision to delay party polls was taken keeping in mind the upcoming as- sembly elections. The meeting witnessed heated moments with some leaders questioning the party’s reluctance to hold organisational polls. Several leaders, including those who wrote to interim party chief Sonia Gandhi about leadership vacuum, demanded organisational elections be held immediately but they were told that presidential elections will happen first. This group senior leaders like included Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidamabaram, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik. However, another group comprising Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, and former defence minister A K Antony were of the view that presidential elections should happen after the assembly polls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry are over. Sources said there were heated exchanges between Azad, Anand Sharma and Gehlot over the de- Govt to share probe info on deaths after jab to build trust BAIL FOR BHUMA AKHILA PRIYA IN KIDNAP CASE The former Andhra Pradesh Minister was granted a conditional bail by a local court in Secunderabad. She has been directed to furnish two sureties of `10,000 each | P3 S U M I S U K A N YA D U T TA @ New Delhi MAYOR AND DY MAYOR OF HYD TO BE ELECTED ON FEB 11 According to a notification issued by the TSEC, the newly-elected members of the GHMC council would be sworn in on the same day | P3 QUITE A HANDFUL In a high-risk pregnancy, the doctors of Mamidipudi Nagarjuna Area Hospital in Malkpet, helped a highly anemic Anitha from Karmanghat give birth to a baby boy weighing 4.2kg through normal delivery on Friday | VINAY MADAPU TS planning to start Covaxin rollout? EX PRESS N EWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad TELANGANA received a large consignment of 8,448 vials of Covaxin on Friday This translates to . 1,68,960 doses of the vaccine. With this, the State would be capable of vaccinating nearly 80,000 frontline and healthcare workers with two doses each. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which manufactures Covaxin, had previously sent about 20,000 doses to the State. However, the State has not started the rollout of the same citing difficulties in implementing the consent-related ICMR guidelines. It remains to be seen if the State, after the receiving of such a large batch of vaccines, will be keen to mand for organisational elections. Gehlot reportedly said the BJP doesn’t talk about internal elections like in the Congress and that the first priority is to fight the state elections. He also said the all of them are here because of the party to which Anand Sharma responded he has also worked for over 40 years for the party . In May Sonia will complete two , years as interim chief of the Congress after Rahul Gandhi decided to step down following the debacle in Lok Sabha elections in 2019. P7 8,448 Covaxin vials were delivered to Telangana on Friday. The State previously received 20,000 doses start the rollout. However, it is learnt that meetings are still going on at high level and sources said that the State is planning to roll out Covaxin soon. One of the contentious issues in the rollout is the consent forms that will have to be signed by the beneficiaries. This has been mandated considering the fact that the vaccine is yet to complete its phase GREEN NORMS VIOLATION State silent, Centre to probe My Home proj V NILESH @ Hyderabad AS Telangana government authorities remained silent, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) directed its Regional Officer in Chennai to inspect a real estate project at Narsingi by the well-known builder, My Home and submit a detailed report. The inspection has been ordered to investigate allegations of violation of environmental norms in construction of the project, includRevanth’s ing violation of GO 111. The allegacomplaint tions were made by TPCC working The inspection president and Malkajgiri MP A has been ordered Revanth Reddy in his letter to the to investigate MoEF last year. The information came to light on violation of environmental Friday after MoEF submitted a counnorms based on ter affidavit in the National Green allegations Tribunal, where a petition filed by made by Reddy in the same matter is being Congress leader heard in which he complained that A Revanth the MoEF and Telangana governReddy in his ment are not taking any action in the letter to the matter. The MoEF in its counter affidavit MoEF last year mentioned that it had written twice to the Telangana State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) asking it to submit a report in the matter. However, the SEIAA did not follow through and the MoEF had to step in. It may be mentioned here that the NGT Chennai had also ordered an investigation last year by a Joint Committee of officials from central and State government agencies to look into the matter and submit a reCONTINUED ON P4 port. III trials and it has been launched on emergency basis on a trial mode authorisation. This has caused apprehensions among many people in taking the vaccine shot. Bharat Biotech had previously released a statement advising against use of the vaccine if one had certain allergies. However, Telangana’s health officials are known to support the vaccine and even openly said that they would take the Covaxin shot to create confidence among healthcare workers. The vaccine administration for government healthcare workers has nearly ended and from Monday , private healthcare workers’ inocuMORE ON P7 lation will begin. THE Centre has decided to make public the findings of probes into all serious adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) for Covid-19 from next week to build confidence around the vaccines, as they have received less than enthusiastic response from beneficiaries so far. Ever since the rollout of the vaccines a week ago, five deaths have been reported, but their AEFI reports tied them to comorbidities and not the vaccine. But the fatalities seem to have exacerbated the vaccine hesitancy among healthcare workers. “It is an attempt to improve communication with the targeted groups and build trust,” said a health ministry official. A member in the ICMR’s ethics panel explained that as the rollout advances, particularly in those who are in their 70s and 80s, there could be more such deaths. PM dispels fears PM vNarendra Modi on Friday said he went by the decision of scientists on the vaccine rollout, adding it was not a political call, and obliquely referred to the controversy around the nod to Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin | P7 Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Piyush Goyal during talks with farmer unions, in New Delhi on Friday | PTI BEST OFFER REJECTED, TALKS SLIP BELOW FREEZING POINT Both sides meet for just 20-25 mins; no fresh date for dialogue set; govt asks unions to give final response today EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi/Chandigarh AFTER protesting farmers rejected the government offer to keep the three farm laws in abeyance, differences between the two sides widened with the Centre saying it had nothing more to offer and blaming the farmers for the failed talks on Friday . No date was set for the next meeting, indicating there was no common ground. Sources said agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar expressed unhappiness at the farmers sharing with the media their decision to reject the government’s offer on Thursday . Tomar said the farmers did not have their own welfare in mind even as they were threatening to intensify their stir. “The talks remained inconclusive as farmers’ welfare was not at the heart of the talks from the unions’ side. It’s sad,” he said. Tomar urged the farmers to reconsider the proposal as it was in the interest of farmers and the country, and threw the ball in their court. “The unions said they only want the repeal of the laws despite the Centre seeking alter native suggestions. We asked them to reconsider our proposal and convey their decision tomorrow,” he said. “The government has made it clear that the three laws will not be repealed and that it had made its best offer. They told us to recon sider thei r p roposal, ” Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Balbir Singh Rajewal said. The far mers said although they were at the venue for five hours, the two sides were face-toface for less than an hour. “The meeting actually happened for only 20-25 minutes. The Centre kept saying we should accept their proposal,” said Shiv Kumar Kakkaji Sharma of the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh. With the talks deadlocked, farmers are now preparing for the tractor rally on Republic Day . “We informed the police that it is for the government to ensure the rally is peaceful,” Rajewal P7 said. Threat to leaders At least three farmers leaders were allegedly threatened over the phone or through social media while one of them accused the police of damaging his car’s windscreen The talks remained inconclusive as farmers’ welfare was not at the heart of the talks from the unions’ side. It’s sad Narendra Singh Tomar, Agriculture Minister