bhubaneswar l thursday l march 25, 2021 l `7.00 l PAGES 12 l late CITY EDITION CCI to probe ‘exploitative’ privacy policy of whatsapp The Competition Commission of India on Wednesday directed its investigation arm to conduct a probe into WhatsApp’s privacy policy Investigation to be concluded in 2 months Disclose To what extent is data shared The move came after the fair trade regulator prima facie found the firm has contravened competition law provisions through its “exploitative and exclusionary conduct” in the garb of policy update. The CCI directed its investigation arm, the director general (DG), to complete the probe into WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy and submit a report within 60 days  P10 ■ ■ The Commission said users, as owners of their personalised data, are entitled to know the extent, scope and purpose of sharing of such information by WhatsApp with other Facebook companies WhatsApp claims the update does not expand its ability to share data with Facebook but offers transparency about data usage CCI Observations are preliminary and won’t impact the merits of the case 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 Ball set rolling for appointing Ramana as CJI Bobde recommends him for the high office; in-house SC panel dismisses Jagan charges E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e the influencing of the Andhra High Court to stay a probe into an FIR filed by the Anti-CorrupWith just a month left for his tion Bureau against former Adretirement, Chief Justice of In- vocate General Dammalapati dia S A Bobde has recommended Srinivas and 12 others, includthe name of Justice N V Rama- ing his (Justice Ramana’s) two na as his successor. daughters, in the Amaravati Parallelly, an inland scam. house inquiry against With Bobde sending Justice Ramana folthe recommendation lowing a complaint by letter, Justice Ramana Andhra Pradesh Chief is now in line to be apMinister Jagan Mopointed as the 48th han Reddy on allegedCJI. He is expected to ly manipulating the take over as topmost Andhra Pradesh High judge of the land on Court’s roster to lean April 24 and will retire towards the Telugu on August 26, 2022. Justice N V Ramana Desam Party and its Only twice so far, the The call of supremo N Chandrabset procedure was not convention abu Naidu, was disfollowed — first when missed, paving the As per convention, Justice A N Ray was way for his appointappointed the CJI on the CJI ment as the new CJI. April 25, 1973 superrecommends the A bland statement senior-most judge seding three seniorissued by the Supreme most judges and next of the Supreme Court said: “A comwhen Justice M H Beg Court as his plaint dated 6th Octo- successor. The law was appointed the CJI ber, 2020 sent by the on January 29, 1977 suminister puts it Chief Minister of perseding Justice H R before the Prime Andhra Pradesh to Khanna. Minister who the Supreme Court Justice Ramana was advises the was dealt with under President on such appointed permanent the In-House Procejudge of the Andhra appointments dure and the same, on High Court on June due consideration, 27, 2000 and functioned stands dismissed. It be noted as Acting Chief Justice of Andthat all the matters dealt with hra High Court from March 10, under the In-House Procedure 2013 to May 20, 2013. Appointed being strictly confidential in na- as the Chief Justice of Delhi ture, are not liable to be made High Court on September 2, public.” 2013, Justice Ramana was eleAmong other allegations in vated as a judge of the Supreme Jagan’s letter to CJI Bobde was Court on February 17, 2014. @ New Delhi express read Naveen SOS to Centre over TTPS expansion plan Bhubaneswar: As NTPC finally shut down its 460 MW Talcher Thermal Power Station (TTPS) a week ahead of the planned closure, the State government woke up to the impending power crisis situation requesting immediate intervention of the Centre for early execution of the expansion plan | P3 3,68,457 India’s total active Caseload 47,262 Fresh cases recorded in the last 24 hours 23,907 Centre confirms double mutation in maharashtra S u m i S u k a n ya D u t ta @ New Delhi The Centre on Wednesday officially announced the detection of a new double mutant Covid-19 virus, in addition to several variants of concern (VOC) that have been found in at least 18 states in India. This newspaper in its March 17 edition was the first to report the two mutations — E48Q and L452R — found together in about 20% samples in Maharashtra. This double mutation second wave Odisha reports 170 new cases, cluster in Nuapada New Covid-19 cases surged further in Odisha on Wednesday with 170 persons from 23 districts testing positive in the last 24 hours. Fresh cases continued to remain above 100 for the fifth time in last six days | P2 Fresh cases active case 170 937 has not been seen anywhere else globally yet. The Union health ministry said since Indian SARSCoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) began its work, 771 VOCs have been detected out of 10,787 positive samples shared by states. They include 736 samples that tested positive for the UK variant, 34 for of the South African variant and one of the Brazilian variant. These samples came from 18 states across the country . “Such (double) mutations confer immune escape and increased infectivity. These mutations have been found in about 15-20% of samples and do not match any previously catalogued VOCs,” the ministry said. Also, of the 2,032 samples from all 14 districts in Kerala sequenced so far, the N440K variant that is associated with immune escape has been found in 123 from 11 dis- He m a n t K u m a r R o u t @ Bhubaneswar In the midst of the threat posed by the new Covid-19 variants across the country three , samples from Odisha were found to be carrying the highly infectious UK strain and one having double mutation. Of the 771 variants of concern detected among 10,787 positive samples from 18 states, three are from Bhubaneswar. The three belong to one family who had returned from Britain in mid-December last. The person found with the double mutation variant is from Nuapada district and had returned from Maharashtra. All the samples had been tested in December. Additional Chief Secretary of Health department PK Mohapatra said the government was well aware about presence of new strains in the State and it was deliberately not made public to avoid unnecessary panic among people. The State government claimed all precautionary measures and follow up ac- national para athletics meet in darkness A s h i m S u n a m @ Bengaluru IF a last minute change of venue sounded extreme enough, para-atheletes at the ongoing National Para Athletics Championships were in for a rude shock on Wednesday night. For shot put was conducted with help from mobile phone lights and car headlights at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium. The Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) didn’t respond to calls but the videos doing the rounds painted a sorry picture about sport in India. This incident under the Bengaluru lights was the latest in a series of snafus the PCI has seemingly entangled itself in since March 21. First, they shifted the competition from Chennai to Bengaluru leaving some athletes stranded. Even if they couldn’t be blamed for that as TN government denied permission due to rising covid cases, the first day itself has eyebrowraising episodes play itself out. First, de­ iding to organising a para c meet at a venue not friendly to whe­ elchairs. Then, there were multiple reports of Covid-19 breaches, including not adhering to SOPs, a fact acknowledged by Sports Authority of P11 India.  Thumbs up for delivering development in Assam, but a big no for price rise Dibrugarh ROAD NETWORK IN ASSAM (in km) Nagaon Year 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Source: Economic Survey 2017-18 I f upgrading of national highways and construction of roads in the rural belts of Assam could win an election, then the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party should race to power, leaving in its wake a Congress-led alliance and a large number of smaller, ethno-nationalist political parties. From Tinsukia in the eastern tip of the state to Nagaon in middle Assam and beyond, dumper trucks, JCBs, bulldozers and road rollers work through the day, forcing traffic to weave left and right at regular intervals. While rural roads are being metalled, the national highways are being four-laned. “The BJP has done a lot of development work, it has made roads, toilets and houses,” said Sanjib Bora, an owner of a shack restaurant next to the national highway in Chabua, Tinsukia. “People here will support the BJP for this.” Bora’s sentiment was endorsed by Dhanesh Pegu, also a roadside dhaba owner in Dhemaji district next to the recently-opened Bogibeel bridge, the longest one on the Brahmaputra river. “Modi ne bahut kaam kiya hain (Narendra Modi has done a lot of work),” he said. Assam Polls H K h o g en S i n g h @ Dibrugarh/Nagaon (Assam) “Take the Bogibeel bridge for instance, The foundation stone was laid by (H D) Deve Gowda, then (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee did some work but after that there was a Congress government both at the Surfaced Unsurfaced National State Major road road Highway Highway dist. road 21,200 22,700 23,747 23,948 25,546 27,003 tricts. This variant was earlier found in 33% of samples from Andhra Pradesh, and in 53 of 104 samples from Telangana. N440K has also been reported from 16 other countries, including the UK, Denmark, Singapore, Japan and Australia. Though VOCs and a new double mutant variant have been found in India, they have not been detected in numbers sufficient to explain the rapid increase in cases in some states, the Centre said. UK, double mutant strains in Odisha too p o l i t ic a l p u l s e assam ‘letter bomb’ Recoveries in a day 24,300 2,848 22,800 3,069 21,753 3,069 20,914 3,834 19,316 3,862.53 18,551 3,900 Centre and in the state but nothing happened. When Modi came he finished the bridge,” Pegu said. It’s no wonder then that from Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister Sarabanda Sonowal and state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to the ordinary BJP karyakarta (worker), development is one of the main talking points. “What we have done in the past five years the Congress could not do in 15,” said Tutun Kar at the party’s dimly-lit and sparse Nagaon district office. Assam’s Swachh Bharat Mission says more than 35.64 lakh toilets have been built since October 2014, with a 62% increase in households with the facility As for hous. ing, state culture minister Naba Kumar Doley said in May 2020 that 2.7 lakh houses have been built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The latest data on the increase 3,134 3,134 3,134 2,530 2,530 2,530 4,413 4,413 4,413 4,379 4,379 4,379 Rural road Urban road 36,544 36,544 36,544 36,544 36,544 37,030 1,409 1,409 1,409 1,409 1,409 1,615 in road network is not available but according to the Assam Economic Survey 2017-18, surfaced road increased from 21,200 kms in 2011-12 to 27,003 kms in 206-17. National highways in the state increased from 2,848 kms to 3,900 kms in the same period. But the positive sentiment around the Assam government’s development record is somewhat marred by the price rise. “Everything is so expensive now, dal prices have gone up and mustard oil now costs almost Rs 150 (a litre). I voted for Modi the last time, I am not sure this time,” said housewife Sarita Pegu in Dhemaji. Noor-ul-Islam in Nagaon concurs with Sarita on inflation. “There is no doubt the BJP government has brought development but what about the price rise? If they have given us Rs 2 in our bank accounts, they have taken away Rs 98,” he said.  Continued on: P7 tions were taken after the UK strain was found in the samples sent to National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune for genome sequencing. “They tested positive after their arrival and were treated in a Covid hospital here. Comprehensive tracking of close contacts, their prompt isolation and testing were done. All measures were put in place to ensure that it did not spread,” he said and appealed people not to panic as the infection was confined to the three CONTINUED ON: P5 only . Modi slams Didi, says no one is ‘outsider’ in Bengal Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hit out at Mamata Banerjee for her ‘outsider’ remark, saying no one is an outsider in Bengal | P7 Thackeray starts damage control over allegations S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i @ Mumbai Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray called an urgent meeting of senior Cabinet ministers at his residence on Wednesday to discuss the political situation following the explosive letter written by ex-Mumbai commissioner Param Bir Singh. The meeting was in the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s observation that Singh’s allegations against Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh were “quite serious”. Singh had approached the SC challenging his transfer but the apex court directed him to approach the Bombay High Court. According to a minister who attended the meeting, the state government will take the legal course. “A strict message has to be sent to officers who go against the state. Besides, officers with links to the BJP and RSS should be identified to take action against them for leaking information to the Opposition,” he said. The Cabinet meeting was attended by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, NCP state president Jayant Patil, and Congress’ Balasaheb Thorat. Earlier, in a purported ‘cleanup drive’, the Maharastra government had on Tuesday night transferred 86 police officers including 65 from the Mumbai crime branch, many of whom reportedly close to Singh and suspended assistant police inspector Sachin Waze, who is in NIA custody for his alleged role in the Antilia explosives scare case. The NIA said on Wednesday it has has invoked UAPA provisions against Waze.