BELAGAVI  WEDNESDAY  MAY 18, 2022  `9.00  PAGES 12  LATE CITY EDITION ALL GREEN CARD PETITIONS TO GET PROCESSED IN 6 MONTHS? An advisory panel has voted to recommend the US president that all green card applications be processed in six months WILL PUSH FOR STREAMLINING OF PROCESS COULD BENEFIT THOUSANDS OF INDIANS The President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (PACAANHPI) has recommended that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) remove redundant steps, introduce automation wherever possible and improve its internal dashboards and reporting systems to speed up the process ■ ■ Additionally, the panel will recommend that the National Visa Center, which schedules and conducts visa interviews, double its human resource capacity over the next three months The proposals, if adopted, may benefit thousands of Indians, some of whom have been waiting for decades to get green card 4,21,358 PENDING INTERVIEWS IN APRIL. ONLY 65K FAMILY GREEN CARDS ISSUED IN 2021 CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Protect ‘Linga’, Cosmetic surgery to remove fat kills 21-yr-old actress let Muslims free entry to pray: SC EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru Advocate commissioner leading survey of Gyanvapi sacked; 2 more days to file report P R AT H M A S H A R M A A N D N A M I TA B A J PA I @ New Delhi/Lucknow registered a case. The actress, a resident of Chikkabanavara, had acted in some TV serials. Her father, a businessman, stated in the complaint that Chethana went to the cosmetic centre with her friend without informing her parents. She had gained some weight WHOLESALE INFLATION AT RECORD HIGH OF 15% 3.68% According to the FIR, Advantage Strategic Consulting, a company linked to Karti, got B50 lakh from the Vedanta Group to organise visas for 263 Chinese nationals in 2011, when P Chidambaram was Union home minister. The visas were meant to help expedite the delayed power project @ New Delhi Oct 2021 Apr 2022 -1.57% Apr 2021 Oct 2018 Apr 2019 Apr 2018 Oct 2017 Apr 2017 Oct 2016 icy to be super-live, and the monetary policy committee may frontload rates by another 25-50 basis points. FY23 could thus further see rates going up by 100-125 basis points, with the RBI now showing its intent to keep real rates above neutral,” said Madhavi Arora, lead economist at Emkay Global Financial Services. Retail inflation data registered an eight-year high at 7.79% in April. In a bid to tame inflation, the RBI this month raised the repo rate by 40 basis points to 4.4% and cash reserve ratio by 0.5%. Days after the Union commerce ministry banned wheat exports, on Tuesday it gave some relaxation to consignments registered with the customs on or before May 13. It also allowed a wheat consignment headed for Egypt, which was already being loaded. “The order served three main purposes: ensure India’s food security and check inflation, it helps other countries facing food deficit, and it maintains India’s reliability as a supplier. The order is also aimed at preventing hoarding,” the Centre said in a statement. KEEPING up the pressure on senior Congress leader and for mer finance minister P Chidambaram, the CBI on Tuesday conducted raids and searches at his son Karti’s residence and office premises across nine cities, in a fresh case relating to alleged acceptance of `50 lakh bribe for facilitating visas for Chinese employees working for a power project in Punjab. The raids were carried out at Chidambarams’ properties in Chennai, Mumbai, Koppal (Karnataka), Mansa (Punjab) and Jharsuguda (Odisha), CBI sources said, even as the agency was wary of disclosing the nature of documents it seized in the course of its operations. ‘Not cut, added info on Shaheed in textbook’ S H I L PA P @ Bengaluru The state education department’s textbook revision committee has retained information on Tipu Sultan and the Anglo-Mysore wars, removed “irrelevant information” about the Tiger of Mysore, while including the speech on ‘person- ality development’ by KB Hedgewar, the founding Sarsanghchalak of the RSS for Class 10 students. The committee has also introduced additional information on Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Swami Vivekananda in the revised Kannada first language textbook for Class 10, besides EXPRESS READ LIC sees lacklustre debut in stock market, lists at over 8% discount WRATH OF RAIN A collapsed bridge after Bogadi Lake overflowed in Mysuru on Tuesday. As the city received heavy rain, many areas were flooded and water entered houses in many localities | UDAYSHANKAR S Mangalore University spends `6L to hold Syndicate meeting in Bengaluru EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Mangaluru SYNDICATE members of Mangalore University held a meeting at a luxury hotel in Bengaluru on Monday, which was objected to by a former Syndicate member, Dr SR Harish Acharya. Acharya said that as per rule, Syndicate meetings should be held at the university’s administrative office or within the university jurisdiction. However, the university has unnecessarily spent public money to organise the meeting in Bengaluru, he added. He alleged that Vice-Chancellor Prof Subramanaya Yadapadithaya, whose tenure is set to end in a year, organised the meeting at a high-end hotel to please the Syndicate members and to cover up his ‘incompetency’ and ‘illegalities’. “The total expense of Bengaluru meeting, including the flight charges and incidentals, has run up to `6 lakh. A complaint will be filed with the Governor and higher education minister,” he said. Prof Yadapadithaya, however, justified the meeting, saying it was done to exert pressure on the higher education minister to get university’s long-pending works cleared. The previous Syndicate meeting had decided to hold this month’s meet in Bengaluru to facilitate an interaction with the minister and members of the Karnataka State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) to push long-pending works, like affiliation of three constituent colleges, filling up of vacant teaching posts and others, he added. Mumbai: The country’s largest insurer LIC made a lacklustre debut on stock exchanges on Tuesday, listing at over 8% discount after a successful IPO which fetched B20,557 crore. As against the issue price of B949, shares of LIC listed at B872, a discount of B81.80 apiece, on the BSE. The stock listed at B867.20, showing a discount of Rs 77 apiece, on the NSE | P10 Anti-Conversion Bill gets nod from Governor amid pushback Bengaluru: Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Tuesday gave his assent to the Anti-Conversion Bill. With this, the law to check forcible conversions comes into effect in the State amid opposition. A person who wishes to convert to another faith must give a declaration at least 30 days in advance to the District Magistrate | P4 Elon Musk hints at paying less for Twitter, says 20% accounts spam Detroit: Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave the strongest hint that he would like to pay less for Twitter than his $44 billion offer made last month. Musk told a Miami technology conference that a viable deal at a lower price would not be out of the question. Also at the All In Summit, Musk estimated that at least 20 per cent of Twitter’s accounts are spam bots. where she was declared brought dead. The hospital informed the police that she had suffered a cardiac arrest. Her father alleged the hospital did not take the consent from parents before the surgery and demanded action against Dr Sahebgowda Shetty who owns the clinic, the investigating officer said. “An FIR has been registered,” he said. P5 Karti got `50 lakh from Vedanta Group: ED EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE 0.00% -1.9% Apr 2016 Oct 2015 Apr 2015 Oct 2014 -4.76% 1.31% 3.62% 0.87% -3.42% 3.24% Oct 2020 1.27% around the waist and the doctors at the centre advised her to undergo the liposuction surgery her father stated. Chetha, na went through the procedure and the same evening, she developed breathing difficulties, as, it is said, fluid had accumulated in her lungs. But as the centre does not have an ICU, she was shifted to another hospital in Manjunath Nagar, A CBI official gestures to the media during a raid at former Union Minister P Chidambaram’s residence in Chennai on Tuesday | R SATISH BABU CBI raids premises of PC, Karti in cash-for-visa case 5.54% 3.85% 3.72% 10.74% Oct 2019 6.70% 5.06% Apr 2014 was said to have been found) was passed ex-parte without serving to us...What was the tearing hurry the way the premises was sealed?” he asked. However, the bench refused to issue a stay order. The court issued notices to the petitioners and the UP government and posted the matter for next hearing on May 19. In Varanasi, trial court judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar sacked his court-appointed advocate commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra for engaging a private cameraman for the Gyanvapi survey who went about leaking information to the media in flagrant violation of the confidentiality mandate. It was special advocate commissioner Vishal Singh who outed Mishra’s lensman R P Singh leaking the survey’s proceedings. Singh has now been tasked with submitting the survey report and granted two days to do so. MAKING SENSE OF WPI PEAK Y-O-Y (%) Oct 2013 The Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi that is in the eye of a storm | PTI INDIA’S wholesale price-based inflation jumped to an all-time high of 15.08% due to acrossthe-board rise in prices, including those of food and fuel. Continuous high inflation — both retail and wholesale — would further put pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to hike interest rates in its June monetary policy . The WPI inflation has been in double digits perpetually for the last 13 months. Overall inflation in food articles was recorded at 8.35%. In the food basket, the highest inflation was observed in the items like vegetables, potato, fruits and wheat at 23.24%, 19.84%, 10.89% and 10.70%, respectively Crude pe. troleum and natural gas rose by 69.07% year-on-year, while petrol witnessed a surge in prices by 60.63%. In the fuel and power baskets, inflation stood at 38.66%, whereas in manufactured products it was 10.85% and oil seeds 16.10%. Also, core inflation accelerated for the third consecutive month to 11.1% from 10.9% in March 2022. “We see June’s pol- 15.08% 13.83% Apr 2020 M O N I K A YA D A V @ New Delhi Apr 2013 THE Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that the area where a ‘Shivalinga’ was indicated to have been found in the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi a day ago should be fully protected, but the rights of Muslims to enter and offer prayers must not be infringed. The court was hearing a petition challenging a Allahabad High Court order that had permitted the inspection and videography of the premises. “In order to obviate any dispute on the meaning and content of the order of the trial judge, the operation and ambit of the order dated 16 May 2022 shall stand restricted to the extent that the District Magistrate, Varanasi shall ensure that the area where the Shivalinga is stated to have been found, as indicated in the order, shall be duly protected. The above direction shall not in any manner restrain or impede the access of Muslims to the mosque or the use of the mosque for the purpose of performing namaz and religious observance,” a bench led by Justice D Y Chandrachud said in its interim order. Senior advocate Hufeza Ahmadi, appearing for the Anjuman Islamia Masjid Committee, sought a stay in the trial court’s proceedings in Varanasi. “The order (to seal the wuzu khana where the Shivalinga A 21-year-old Kannada TV actor, Chethana Raj, died while undergoing a cosmetic liposuction, or fat removal, procedure in Bengaluru on Monday evening. Chethana, who was operated at a private hospital at Rajajinagar in Bengaluru earlier in the day allegedly devel, oped complications the same evening. Her family alleged that Chethana died because of negligence by doctors at Dr Shetty’s Cosmetic Centre where she underwent the procedure. Based on a complaint filed by Chethana’s father Varadaraju, the Subramanyanagar police including chapters on four other leaders, the chapters on whom were removed in 2014, education department’s textbook committee head Rohit Chakratheertha told TNIE. Opposition leaders — including Delhi CM Arvind Kejrival — had criticised ‘removal’ of a chapter on Bhagat Singh. P4 Chidambaram’s son Karti is alleged to have taken the bribe in 2011 for facilitating visas for about 300 the Chinese employees working at the Talwandi Sabo Power Project in Punjab. A super-critical 1,980 MW thermal power project, the Talwandi Sabo plant is located at Banawala in Punjab’s Mansa district. This is the second time Karti has come under CBI’s scanner. Karti was arrested in 2018 in the INX Media case. This was followed a year later with the CBI arresting Chidambaram. According to the FIR, Karti accepted `50 lakh for facilitating visas for the Chinese nationals. The money was allegedly sent to an account of one of Karti’s companies to “devise a back door way to defeat the home ministry ceiling on visa”. SEC POLLS TO BE PLEA ON ZP, TP HEARD ON MAY 23 Karnataka HC on Tuesday adjourned hearing of a plea filed by the State Election Commission over the legality of the law enacted to take away powers | P4