KOCHI l friday l February 26, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 16 l LATE city EDITION U.K. court rules Nirav modi can be extradited to India The fugitive diamantaire will now have to face trial in India in the K14,000-crore Punjab National Bank scam case British Home secretary to sign the order 14-day window to challenge decision District Judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Sam Goozee, will send his findings to the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Priti Patel, who is authorised to order an extradition under the India-UK Extradition Treaty. She has two months to make that decision. The Home Secretary’s order rarely goes against the court’s conclusions | P7 ■ ■ ■ Nirav Modi has 14 days to approach the High Court and seek leave to appeal after the Home Secretary has made her decision known Any appeal, if granted, will be heard at the Administrative Division of the High Court in London Nirav Modi is currently lodged at Wandsworth Prison Barrack #12 If extradited, He will be Lodged in Mumbai’s Arthur Road prison 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 Guns fall silent on LoC as both sides agree to enforce truce strictly M AYA N K SI N G H @ New Delhi Guns fell silent on the Line of Control and the International Border India shares with Pakistan on Wednesday-Thursday midnight in a surprising deescalation of tensions after both sides agreed to strictly observe all bilateral ceasefire agreements and protocols. The truce came about two weeks after China announced disengagement of troops in the Pangong lake in Ladakh from stand-off positions and both sides pulled back their troops. In the space of a fortnight, both the volatile China and Pakistan frontiers have become tranquil, indicating hectic back channel diplomacy, giving peace an unexpected booster shot in the often troubled neigh- Min plays blame game, but Prasanth has proof A J AY K A N T H @ Kochi THE stand-of f between the state government and the top bureaucrat who signed the controversial multi-crore deepsea fishing deal reached a boiling point with the fisheries minister reiterating on Thursday that the state was kept in the dark and the off i c e r re f u t i n g h e r claim. While Fisheries Minister J Mercykutty Amma pointed fingers at Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC) MD  N Prasanth regarding the signing of the memorandum of understand- ing — permitting US firm EMCC to conduct fishing off the Kerala coast — the IAS officer is learnt to have submitted his explanation to the chief minister, with evidence strong enough to clear his name. “To whom did he communicate  about the MoU?  He has not informed anything about the deal to anybody in the ministry. Also, he doesn’t have any right to sign  such an MoU with a foreign firm. We are waiting for the report of an inquiry against him based on which we’ll initiate appropriate action,” Mercykutty Amma told ● More on P4 TNIE.  EXPRESS READ Metroman joins BJP, says biggest moment Malappuram: Metroman E Sreedharan joined the BJP here on Thursday at a reception accorded to Vijaya Yatra led by BJP state president K Surendran. Sreedharan said joining the saffron party was the “biggest moment of his life.” TN demands -ve certificate, test on border E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Kozhikode AFTER Karnataka, Tamil Nadu is imposing restrictions on people travelling from Kerala, citing increase in Covid-19 cases in the state. The Nilgiris collector has made Covid negative certificate/test mandatory at border checkposts. The TN health department, in a government order dated February 24, said that people travelling from Kerala and Maharashtra must spend seven days under home quarantine and monitor health for another seven days.  ● More on P4 Biggest venue, shortest game Ahmedabad: The grandeur of the Narendra Modi Stadium will dwarf most things. Initially, focus was on the state of the art facilities. In less than two days the focus has shifted to the heart of the ground — the pitch. A strip with spin and unpredictability produced a match that ended in less than two days giving it the moniker — the shortest Test in post-War era. P11 Brief scores: England 112 & 81 (Ben Stokes 25, Axar Patel 5/32) lost to India 145 and 49/0 (Rohit Sharma 25 n.o). 16 pages, including 4 pages of KOCHI Express Eight SDPI activists held over RSS youth’s murder Alappuzha: The Special Investigation Team led by District Police Chief G Jayadev arrested eight SDPI activists in connection with the murder of Nandhu R Krishna, 22, an RSS shikshak of Nagamkulangara at Vayalar near Cherthala, on Thursday. P4 bourhood. “Both sides agreed for strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing along the Line of Control and all other sectors with effect from midnight 24/25 February 2021,” both countries stated in a joint statement. Indian Army officials attributed the truce to the realisation on both sides of collateral damage as innocent civilian lives were needlessly lost in the cross-border firing. “One of the aims is to safeguard the lives of innocent civilians as we are bound to retaliate to ceasefire violations,” said a senior Army officer. This agreement will be a big relief for the people living on the border and their cattle. The Union home ministry Vishnunarayanan Namboothiri1939-2021 Poet who perfectly blended tradition with modernity E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ T’Puram NOTED poet, literary scholar and teacher Vishnunarayanan Namboothiri died at his residence Sreevalli Illam in Thycaud here on Thursday. He was 81. The health condition of Vishnunarayanan, who was not keeping well for the past few months, deteriorated a few weeks ago, his family said. His body will be kept at Bharat Bhavan here from 8am to 12 noon for the public to pay homage. The funeral will be held on Friday at 2pm at Shanthi Kavadom crematorium. He is survived by wife Savithri Antharjanam and daughters N Aditi and N Aparna. Vishnunarayanan was known as the representative of a poetic culture that blended tradition with modernity. Even while dealing with modern themes, a spiritual aura permeated his works. Besides Malayalam, his poems embody the ancient Vedas, Sanskrit literature and European poetic traditions. Born on June 2, 1939 at Iringol in Thiruvalla, Vishnunarayanan worked as English faculty in various government colleges. He retired as Head of the Department of English from University College, Thiruvanan● More on P5 thapuram.  has built community bunkers in the villages along the LoC to safeguard the lives of civilians caught in the border crossfire. As many as 70 civilians on the Indian side of the LoC were killed in the cross-border firing between 2018 and 2020 while 341 others were were injured during the same period. However, there won’t be any let up in the deployment of forces. The decision to strictly enforce truce was taken by the Di- No letup in taking on terrorists The truce will not stop the Army’s fight against infiltrating terrorists. “The operational posture won’t change and we will follow the policy of zero tolerance to any action from the other side,” an officer said rectors General of Military Operations on both sides, who agreed to address each other’s core issues and concer ns, which have the propensity to disturb peace. “We have always maintained that we are committed to addressing issues, if any, in a peaceful bilateral manner,” MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said. (Inputs from Pushkar Banakar) Govt tightens grip on social media New rules call for strict monitoring, tools to trace sender of objectionable messages Code of Ethics The Centre said the new rules will establish a “soft-touch self-regulatory architecture and a Code of Ethics and 3-tier grievance redressal mechanism” for news publishers & digital media. R i t w i ka M i t r a @ New Delhi The Centre on Thursday announced sweeping regulations for social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, online streaming or over-the-top (OTT) services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to protect users’ interest and curb fake news and other harmful content. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will have to deploy automated tools to remove objectionable content. In the case of a government or court order, they must take down the flagged content within 36 hours. Over The Top  Social media platforms must remove content depicting nudity, sexual acts or morphed images of women within 24 hours of receipt of complaints  Social media intermediaries to publish a monthly compliance report on complaints received, action taken, and content removed proactively  Code of Ethics for OTT platforms, online news and digital media entities  A grievance officer should be appointed to deal with complaints  OTT platforms to self-classify content into five age-based categories - U (Universal), U/A 7+, U/A 13+, U/A 16+, and A (Adult) The new rules will require messaging to enable ‘traceability’ so that the sender of harmful messages could be identified. Experts fear this could result in compromising end-toend encryption. Also, if a social media platform decides on its own to remove a user’s content, it must inform the user in advance and explain the reasons. Digital news media publishers should follow Press Council of India’s norms of journalistic conduct and adhere to the programme code under the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act.