thrissur l wednesday l march 10, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Amid chaos, Trai suspends anti-spam rules for 1 week The decision follows disruptions in banking, credit card payment and other transactions that involve SMS and OTP generation New norms use blockchain technology Telcos blame payment companies The disruption happened after telcos implemented the new norms for commercial messages, which came into effect on Monday. The rules aim to curb unsolicited and fraudulent messages. SMSes and OTPs, when sent by banks and payment companies, are checked against the templates registered on the blockchain platform — a process called SMS scrubbing ■ On Monday, banking and telcos traded charges over the SMS, OTP disruptions. Telcos blamed it on the payment companies saying they did not register their content template before the deadline ■ “It has been observed that some of the principal entities have not fulfilled the requirements,” Trai also said in a statement 40 crore Messages failed to deliver on Monday, according to media reports 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 Rawat resigns to ouster, new CM to be named today CPM sees red over poster war & protests, not to budge an inch Party to stick to decision on choice of candidates, to announce 84 of its 85 names today V inee t U pa d h yay @ Dehradun Despite widespread open protests by cadre against party candidates, the CPM has decided to not budge an inch from its stance. The party will stick to its decision to allot Kuttiyadi seat to KC(M) despite strong resentment among local members. The CPM is set to announce 84 of its 85 candidates on Wednesday . The crisis in the CPM over candidate selection further deepened on Tuesday with many local leaders, including four branch secretaries, submitting their resignations in Ponnani. Party candidate K Santhakumari in Kongad and K R Jayananda in Manjeshwar too are facing stiff opposition from local leaders. On the Manjeshwar seat, the party district leadership will meet again on Wednesday . Giving the party a major headache ahead of the polls, poster campaigns were launched against P Rajeev’s candidature in Kalamassery K , R Jayananda in Majeshwar, P P Chitharanjan in Alappusha and P Salam in Ambalappuzha. Adding to its woes, resentment @ New Delhi Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian on Tuesday said banks must become more serious about allocating capital optimally and that senior management should be penalised for crony lending. “Crony lending is the elephant in the room. Financial sector in India has to take responsibility that it is the ultimate arbiter of capital and ensure optimal capital allocation,” the CEA said while speaking at a Ficci event. Subramanian said the quality of lending has remained a key challenge for the banks since the early 1990s, especially E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ T’Puram Sameer S V, a stencil artist, busy preparing campaign material for CPM at the Gunny Street near Valiyangadi in Kozhikode | T P Sooraj is brewing among the cadre against the decision to hand over Kuttiyadi and Ranni seats to KC(M) Jose K Mani faction. Though the poster war for and against candidates across the state has taken the leadership by surprise, the CPM is all set to enforce the decisions with an iron hand. The party leadership made it clear that P Nandakumar will be the party candidate in Ponnani. Party central committee member M V Govindan has more or less indicated that the party does not intend to back down from the list of declared candidates and seats. The party also dismissed reports that K T Jaleel could be moved to Ponnani from Thavanur. The party feels that T M Siddique, for whom the local party members have been rooting, is indulging in pressure tactics. Even when Paloli Mohammed Kutty and P Sreeraramakrishnan had contested from there earlier, a demand for Siddique’s candidature had come up. ● More on P4 Twelve CPI legislators --- including Revenue Minister E Chandrasekharan and Deputy Speaker V Sasi --- will seek people’s mandate again. Becoming the first major political party to announce candidates for the upcoming assembly elections, the CPI released its first list of 21 candidates on Tuesday. Vaikom MLA C K Asha is the only woman among them. A decision on the remaining four seats -- Chadayamangalam, Haripad, Paravoor and Nattika -- will be announced in two days, said party secretary Kanam Rajendran. Of KERALA those, Nattika and ChadayaASSEMBLY mangalam are the party’s sitELECTIONS ting seats. Along with Geetha Gopi, a few other names are also being considered for Nattika. In Chadayamangalam, sitting MLA Mullakkara Ratnakaran will stay away as he has completed three terms. Senior leader Pannian Raveendran features high on the priority list for the seat.  ● More on P4 2021 Cong group leaders lobby for loyalists in delhi Water minister among four candidates of Janata Dal(S) BJP election committee to finalise list tomorrow T’Puram: The Congress’ ‘I’ and ‘A’ group leaders are lobbying hard with the candidate screening committee in New Delhi. While former CM Oommen Chandy is lobbying for ‘A’ group loyalists including MLA K C Joseph, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has demanded seats for ‘I’ group leaders such as KPCC vice-president Joseph Vazhakkan. P4 T’Puram: Janata Dal (S) has announced its four candidates. While Water Resources Minister K Krishnan Kutty will contest from Chittur, fellow sitting MLA Mathew T Thomas will try his luck from Tiruvalla. Two other senior leaders, Jose Thettayil and Neelalohithadasan Nadar, will contest from Angamaly and Kovalam, respectively. T’Puram: Despite three rounds of meetings of the BJP core committee and a meeting of the election committee, the saffron party is yet to shortlist probable candidates for the assembly elections. However, BJP state president K Surendran said the candidates will be finalised during the formal meeting of the election committee on Thursday. P4 Stay away from crony lending, CEA to banks E xpress N ews S ervice Chandrasekharan, 11 other MLAs in CPI’s first list E xpress N ews S ervice @T’Puram e l se wh e r e After four days of intense lobbying to save his chair, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday tendered his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya, who asked him to continue in a caretaker position for now. Rawat is the first BJP chief minister to be replaced midstream during the Modi-Shah tenure at the helm. It’s also being read as an indication to other party chief ministers to perform or perish. Had Rawat stayed on, he would have completed four years as CM. T h e B J P ’s Uttarakhand legislature party is scheduled to meet at 10 am on Wednesday to selected its new leader. T h e p a r t y ’s central observers, including national vice-president Dr Raman Singh and national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam, will oversee the change of guard. Leaders like Dhan Singh Rawat, Anil Baluni, Ajay Bhatt and Surendra Bhatt are in the race to replace Rawat. There is some buzz on the party experimenting with a Brahmin as the new CM, in which case Baluni could be the front-runner. “Since the party has already given opportunities to Thakurs, it may want to put a Brahmin at the helm to balance the vote bank in the state,” said a source. The oath taking ceremony for the new CM is said to be scheduled on March 11. when it came to large loans in the infrastructure sector and advised banks to give loan on c re d i t wo r t h i n e s s o f t h e company . “Banks need to ensure that capital allocation to the infrastructure sector is to creditworthy borrowers. The Economic Survey also highlighted that the banking sector’s problems originated from large loans that were not necessarily lent to the most creditworthy borrowers. This problem gets accentuated in the context of infrastructure,” he said. Subramanian also suggested that the compensation of senior management in banks must be linked to the quality of credit. express read AG notice to Customs chief on contempt plea Kochi: The Advocate General has issued a notice to Sumit Kumar, Customs Commissioner, on a plea seeking a contempt case against him for ‘leaking’ gold smuggling accused Swapna’s statements. P5 TN places restrictions on people from Kerala Palakkad: Tamil Nadu has imposed restrictions on travellers from Kerala to the state. However, a Covid negative certificate is not mandatory. P5 Election panel replaces Bengal DGP Virendra New Delhi: Amid concerns of violence flagged by the BJP, the Election Commission has axed West Bengal DGP Virendra and replaced him with Neeraj Nayan. Vote for Church’s future: Jacobite bishop to faithful E xpress N ews S ervice @Kochi CALLING upon the faithful to cast their votes for the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in the coming assembly elections, metropolitan trustee Bishop Joseph Mar Gregorios asserted on Tuesday that the faction should ensure it gets back the churches it lost to the Orthodox faction. The bishop was speaking to reporters after an urgent synod meeting of the Jacobite Church at the Patriarchal Centre in Puthencruz. The bishop said the management committee would take a final call on the Church’s political stand. Referring to the implementation of the 2017 SC order granting the Malankara Orthodox faction possession of over 1,000 churches and properties attached to them, the bishop asked the faithful to bear in mind to ensure they don’t lose ● More on P5 more churches.  call for grandeur Organisers firm, Thrissur Pooram gets political colour E xpress N ews S ervice @Thrissur With the assembly elections around the corner, organisers of the state’s signature temple festival, Thrissur Pooram, have started mounting pressure on the government to take a final decision on allowing the full rituals and ceremonies this time. And the opposition Congress and BJP have extended their support to the demand. Unlike last year when the festival was limited to temple rituals in view of the Covid restrictions, the organisers know that the LDF government cannot ignore their demand, especially in the backdrop of the Lok Sabha poll setback the front had suffered in 2019 because of the public anger over its Sabarimala gamble. In a meeting with District Collector S Shanavas on Tuesday, representatives of Thiruvambady and Paramekkavu Pressure tactics, but not first time It is not the first time, the pooram organisers have used the assembly polls to exert pressure on the government. In 2016, soon after the Puttingal temple fire tragedy, there was uncertainty regarding the Pooram fireworks but the participating temples launched a protest. devaswoms sought a final decision on the matter so that arrangements can be made accordingly . Both devaswoms have taken a stand to not compromise on the rituals and elephant parade of the pooram this time. At the meeting, the collector did not commit himself on this and left the decision to the state government. He said he would submit a plan for conducting the pooram and its exhibition safely by complying with the Covid protocol. The pooram falls on April 23 this ● More on P5 year.  Why are there Covid restrictions only for Thrissur Pooram when political leaders organise big rallies attended by thousands of people? G Rajesh, secy, Paramekkavu Devaswom India ticks off UK for holding debate on farm stir, summons envoy P U S H K A R B A N A K A R @ New Delhi A day after the UK Parliament held a debate on the farm protests and the three farm laws, the Ministry of External Affairs summoned British High Commissioner Alex Ellis to express New Delhi’s opposition to the “gross interference”. “Foreign Secretary summoned the British High Commissioner and conveyed strong opposition to the unwarranted and tendentious discussion on agricultural reforms in India in the British Parliament. Foreign Secretary made it clear that this represented a gross interference in the politics of another democratic country. He advised that British MPs should refrain from practising vote bank politics by misrepresenting events, especially in relation to another fellow democracy a terse statement from the ,” ministry read. Earlier, the Indian High Commission in London dismissed the debate as being based on false assertions and without substantiation of facts. British parliamentarians held the debate on Monday in response to the e-petition initiated by Liberal Democratic Councillor Gurch Singh. UK law mandates that any petition which garners over one lakh signatures must be debated in Parliament. According to a former diplomat, the harsh tone of British MPs indicates India’s handling of the farm protests has not gone down well with them.