SAMBALPUR l Saturday l march 06, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 14 l CITY EDITION pant painTs motera red boss man Rishabh Pant cracked his first hundred at home to steer India clear of trouble against England on the second day of 4th Test partnership top crumble All-rounder Washington Sundar and Pant added 113 runs for the seventh wicket. They came together at 146 for 6. Sundar stayed unbeaten on 60 while Pant was out before close of play India’s top-order once again failed to live up to expectations. Though Rohit Sharma played well, others including Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane & Cheteshwar Pujara did not last long With a pacer short, both Ben Stokes and Jimmy Anderson worked overtime. Off-spinner Dom Bess was off mark. Skipper Joe Root had to step in to help Jack Leach share the burden 3 England toil The wicket-keeper batsman started cautiously to reach his half-century off 82. He brought up 100 in the next 33 balls to help India take an 89-run lead with three wickets in hand Rishabh Pant celebrates his hundred against England in the fourth Test in Ahmedabad on Friday | BCCI | P13 This is pant’s third hundred in 33 innnings 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 40% new faces in Didi’s list PR O N A B M A N DA L @ Kolkata The Trinamool Congress on Friday announced candidates for 291 of the 294-Assembly seats, fielding young and new faces including actors and sportspersons. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee will fight from Nandigram in East Midnapore district. T h e G o rk h a J a n m u k t i Morcha will be given three seats. Of the 291 TMC candiates, 114 are new faces, which works out to over 39%. The party has dropped octogenerian MLAs. Finance minister Amit Mitra and technical education minister Purnendu Basu will not contest. Besides, As many as 28 sitting MLAs, including five ministers, have been left out. “We are fielding 51 women candidates, up from 45 in 2016 Assembly elections,” said Mamata. Among the candidates are nine actors, two sportspersons and a retired IPS officer. The decision to give women more tickets is a calculated strategy to tap the rise in women vote share. “According to the final list released by the Election Commission, women voters in Bengal form 49% of the total. The g e n d e r- r a t i o i m proved from 956 in 2019 to 961,” said a TMC leader N o t a b l y, t h e number of minority candidates has been reduced to 40 from 57 in 2016. But at the same time, the party has given 79 tickets to those hailing from the scheduled caste (SC) community even though only 68 seats are reserved for the category It means, . SC candidates will contest on TMC tickets in 11 Assembly constituencies, which are not reserved for any category . Fielding SC candidates in unreserved seats will send a message to Dalit voters and those belonging to the Matua c o m m u n i t y, whom the BJP is desperately trying to woo, said a leader. The BJP had enjoyed Matuas support in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “Since the saffron camp failed to fulfil the promise of giving Matuas citizenship by implementing the CAA, Mamata took this move to bring back Dalit support,” said a leader of the ruling party. Seventeen candidates from scheduled tribe (ST) community also also been given tickets when Bengal has 16 seats reserved for STs. Tribal film actor Birbaha Hansda will contest from Junglemahal’s Jhargram constituency, which is not reserved for ST. After we come to power we will create Vidhan Parishad to accomodate senior and experienced leaders. We could not accommodate everybody especially those above the age of 80 years Mamata Banerjee ‘Insulted’ TN Congress wants to fight polls alone S K um a r e s a n @ Chennai IN what could be the end of long-time, but strained, friendship, the DMK and Congress may go different ways in this Assembly polls. The State unit of Congress, according to sources, wants to contest polls alone. A final decision on the matter would be taken by the party’s national leadership. State Congress leaders, it is said, feel “insulted” by DMK, which is offering very few seats for the party in the alliance. The decision was taken in an internal party meeting held on Friday, after TNCC chief, KS Alagiri, made an emotional speech. Accepting the numbers offered by DMK would amount to destroying Congress in TN, Alagiri reportedly said at the meeting. He, hence, appealed for another leader from the party to come forward to conduct talks with the DMK. In his speech, Alagiri also elaborated how the grand old party’s strength kept dwindling — one election after another — since it got into an alliance with Dravidian parties. Congress got 114 seats in 1980, in the DMK alliance. From there, the allocation plummeted to 61 in 1984, when it contested as part of the AIADMK combine. In 1989, Congress decided to contest alone and won 26 seats. By 2001, however, the number of seats contested reduced drastically to a mere 14. While elaborating these numbers, Alagiri got so emotional that he choked up, causing an uproar among those seated, who demanded that Congress contest this elections alone. AICC in-charge, Dinesh Gundu Rao, who was present at the meeting, remained silent all Urban India increasingly getting slouchy The outcome of a comprehensive national survey in 2017-18 on the risk of Indians picking up lifestyle diseases conveyed a pretty grim picture. The takeaways: 51.7% 52.4% urban adults physically inactive (30.9% in rural India) physically inactive urban women (36.1% in rural areas) express read Saudi asks India to use ‘cheap’ oil to cool prices New Delhi: International oil prices rose after OPEC and its allies ignored India’s plea to ease production control, with Saudi Arabia asking New Delhi to instead use oil it bought at rock bottom rates last year. Brent crude on Friday rose 1% to $67.44 a barrel after the OPEC and its allies agreed not to increase supplies in April awaiting more substantial recovery in demand. Pinarayi had a role in gold smuggling, HC told Kochi: Customs informed the Kerala High Court that Swapna Suresh, prime accused in the gold smuggling case, has stated that foreign currency was smuggled at the instance of the CM and Speaker NCB files charge sheet against Rhea & 32 others Mumbai: The Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday filed its first charge sheet in the drugs case against Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik and 31 others in connection with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput 8.9 gm/day salt consumed by men 7.1 gm/day 2 servings per day average salt intake by women Men often took extra salt before having food Average consumption of fruits and/or vegetables one 28% adults useddaily or other form of tobacco 5 servings WHO’s recommendation 31.7% of them were in rural areas 20.5% in urban India 21.1 years mean age of initiation of tobacco through these developments. He made no attempts to placate the aggrieved cadre. It has been learnt that the DMK leadership is planning to wait for one more day and take , a decision based on how the national leadership of Congress reacts. DMK’s RS Bharathi dismissed the issue as an attempt by Congress leaders to placate unhappy aspirants. The ripples of this strain was felt in Puducherry where DMK , — which has been feeling that it’s weighed down by Congress — is trying to woo NR Congress into its Secular Democratic Alliance. 15.9% of respondents consumed alcohol 81.1% of adults were lifetime abstainers of alcohol (97.3% women and 66.1% men) 22.2 mean age of initiation of alcohol use 40.2% of adults 18–69 year age group had a clustering of three or more risk factors like daily tobacco use, inadequate fruits and/or vegetable intake, insufficient physical activity etc Shocker as foreign, Indian cadets get physical at Indian Military Academy V i nee t U pa d h yay @ Dehradun For the first time in the prestigious Indian Military Academy’s (IMA) history, groups of Indian and foreign trainee cadets got into a major scuffle, with reports suggesting at least three Indian cadets were admitted in a military hospital here with injuries. The IMA has ordered a probe into the incident that happened on the intervening night of March 3/4. “A case of scuffle involving Gentleman Cadets undergoing precommission training at Indian Military Academy, Dehradun has occurred on night 03/04 March 2021. The case is being investigated and followed up as per regulations governing the academy,” said the official statem e n t by t h e a c a d e m y. However, there was no official word on the hospitalisation. The two groups got physical after a heated argument. The foreign cadets were possibly from a country or countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, said sources. Aghast IMA veterans said they couldn’t recall any such flare-up in the past. Major (Retd) Masroof Raza, who was posted in the adjutant branch of the IMA from 1987- 89, which deals with foreign cadets, said, “To my memory nothing of this scale has been heard since Independence. I am sure there will be an inquiry and accountability will be fixed with adverse action ag ainst those responsible.” “Minor scuffles between foreign cadets have been known but anything like this between foreign cadets and Indian cadets is unheard of till now of course,” Major Raza added. Lt Gen V K Chaturvedi (Retd) said such matters of discipline are always viewed seriously and appropriate action taken. AIADMK releases first list of candidates T M U R U G A N A N DHA M @ Chennai THE ruling AIADMK on Friday released its first list of six candidates, including Chief Minister and the party’s joint coordinator, Edappadi K Palaniswami, and Deputy CM and AIADMK coordinator, O Panneerselvam, for the Assembly elections, scheduled for April 6. All the six candidates will be contesting the polls from their current constituencies. A decision in this regard was taken during a party meeting in Chennai on the day. Soon after the list was made public, the cadre gathered at the party headquarters and distributed sweets. They also cheered when Palaniswami and Panneerselvam emerged out of their chambers, and waved the victory symbol.Palaniswami and Panneerselvam will be contesting from Edappadi and Bodinayakkanur seats, respectively Inci. dentally, all the six candidates belong to different communities. The other candidates whose names feature in the first list are -- Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar (Royapuram), Law Minister CVe Shanmugam (Villupuram), SP Shanmug anathan (Srivaikuntam), and S Thenmozhi (Nilakkottai). Palaniswami and Panneerselvam, also interacted with secretaries of 73 party districts about selection of candidates and other related issues. With its archrival, DMK, planning to field strong candidates against the entire sitting Cabinet, the AIADMK, too, is weighing pros and cons of each ticket aspirant Mo Seva Kendras to take services to people’s doorsteps E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday dedicated the OdishaOne portal to the people of the State and inaugurated 3,000 Mo Seva Kendras through virtual mode to take government services to the doorstep of people. The services under the 5T initiative were also launched by the Chief Minister to mark the 105th birth anniversary of former chief minister Biju Patnaik. Announcing that the government is planning to set up more than 7,000 Seva Kendras across the State with at least one in each gram panchayat and one for every 25,000 population in urban areas, he said, people can now visit the nearby Kendras for payment of electricity and water bills, receiving necessary certificates, payment of taxes and availing various other public services. Stating that services and dignity to people are the cornerstones of his government, People can now visit the nearby Naveen said the portal (www.odishaone.gov.in) Mo Seva Kendras is an integrated service delivery framework for payment of for government to citizen (G2C) services. The electricity and services can be availed individually or through water bills, the common services centres (CSCs). receiving The Chief Minister said the government necessary has developed the OdishaOne portal to ensure certificates, swift delivery of online services at these facilipayment of taxes ties. More than 100 services of various departand availing various other ments have been integrated into this platform public services and around 400 services will be added in future, he added. Stating that Biju Babu always Naveen Patnaik, wanted the benefit of technology to reach eveChief Minister ry village of Odisha, the Chief Minister said the Mo Seva Kendra is a move to empower the common people by taking services to their doorsteps. He said people can now access online services of various departments through this single portal. The Chief Minister also interacted with several beneficiaries of Konark, Hinjili, Atabira, Nabarangpur, Bhadrak and Gajapati on the benefits to be available at Mo Seva Kendras. Secretary 5T VK Pandian and senior officials were present at the launch. Naveen unveils India’s first World Skill Centre in Bhubaneswar E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday inaugurated the World Skill Centre (WSC) at Mancheswar here, describing it as a milestone that adds a new chapter in skill ecosystem of Odisha. India’s first and one-of-itskind skill centre, the WSC will be a premier institute to impart advanced skills and create globally employable youth in the State, he said. The centre, built over an area of 4.5 lakh sq ft, has been developed at an investment of `1,342.2 crore on a cost sharing basis with the Asian Development Bank under the Odisha Skill Development Project. The 18-storey state-of-the-art building with a helipad is now the tallest structure in the State.  It will provide skills training to 3000 students in eight trades. The courses include Facility Technology in Mechanical Services, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Vertical Transportation, Mechatronics, Electrical Technology, Precision engineering and Hair and Fashion Design. The State government has partnered with Institute of Technical Education Services (ITEES), Singapore to support World Skill Centre at Bhubaneswar | Express Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA) in operationalising the centre. The Chief Minister reiterated that skill development is a top priority for the government. “Our aim is to meet the aspirations of the youth as well as create a pool of increased opportunities for them. We are intensely investing in the future of youth by creating infrastructure and mechanism for making them future ready he said. ,” He stated, “The WSC will further support our endeavour by providing advance skill training to our youth and prepare them for competing at global level. It will take a lead in transformation from present to future for all ITIs and polytechnics in Odisha.” OSDA Chairman Subroto Bagchi said that the WSC will add a new dimension to promote Skilled-In-Odisha as a global brand. The State will create Odisha Skill Vision 2030 that will guide all future efforts in the skill development sector. Skill Development and Technical Education (SDTE) Minister Premananda Nayak, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra, SDTE secretary Sanjay Kumar Singh and industry leaders were present at the event. OTT norms weak, need strong law to police content, says SC E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Friday said the Centre’s guidelines to regulate the functioning of digital platforms are weak as they don’t offer any mechanism to block objectionable content or stipulate penal provisions for those who violate the norms. A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan noted the rules were more in the form of an advisory, and not law. “These rules do not talk about prosecution or punishment in case of a violation. It cannot be done without a legislation,” the bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre. The court was hearing a plea by Aparna Purohit, India head of Amazon Prime, for anticipatory bail in connection with FIRs against her over the controversial web series Tandav. There are two FIRs filed against her — one each in Greater Noida and Lucknow. The hearing also witnessed sharp exchanges between Mehta and senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Purohit. On the court’s remark on Thursday that some over-the-top (OTT) platforms were showing even pornography, Rohatgi said it is not true. “There is no such thing on Amazon Prime and Netflix. I see them every evening. There is no such content,” Rohatgi said. “The Bench meant porno- graphic,” said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Central government. “I see so many shows. There is no por nog raphy,” Rohatgi averred. On Thursday, the SC had expressed concern over adult content on some OTT platforms, saying there should be a mechanism to prevent such programmes being streamed. Reprieve for Purohit SC gave Amazon Prime India head Aparna Purohit interim protection from arrest but directed her to cooperate with police investigation