Novak Dkokovic tirupati l sunday l june 26, 2022 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l anantapur EDITION Romance of Wimbledon: Djokovic defends title Serbian Novak Djokovic and Spain’s Rafa Nadal will reignite their famed rivalry at SW19 from Monday Iga Swiatek Rafael Nadal No night sesssions | There are no night sessions, unlike at Record player All eyes on Serena Swiatek’s current winning streak of 35, which encompasses six tournament titles in a row. She is tied for the longest by a woman this century Ranked a lowly 1,204 in the world and without a competitive singles match in 12 months, Serena Williams returns to Wimbledon targeting a record 24th Grand Slam and eighth title at Big W the other three Grand Slam tournaments Women Top three seeds Iga Swiatek Anett Kontaveit Ons Jabeur FIRST Second third Men Novak DJokovic Rafael Nadal Carlos Alcaraz $50 mn Total player compensation. $2.5mn EACH to women & men champs 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 climbs to Shinde meets Shah, Fadnavis? Covid tally195 in Vizag 462 in AP; Said to request expediting of govt formation; Uddhav to sack six rebel ministers on Monday S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i @ Mumbai Amid buzz on rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde flying in to Vadodara on Friday night and meeting BJP leaders Amit Shah and Devendra Fadnavis to discuss government formation, the ruling coalition in the state sought to pressure the dissidents further. According to highly placed sources, Fadnavis was seen at the Mumbai airport taking a Gujarat flight. “Rebel MLAs are getting restless. If there is delay in government forma- tion, things can go awry Shinde . wanted to urge Shah to immediately intervene to resolve the crisis, hence the meeting,” said a source. The leaders, however, were not available for comment. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray called a meeting of the Shiv Sena’s national executive, which authorised him to take decisions to revamp the organisation. On Monday Uddhav is expected to , recommend the sacking of six ministers to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari. Both sides continued playing mind games with the rebels calling their group Shiv Sena (Balasaheb) and Shinde as its leader. Parallelly, a technical battle was being fought with Deputy Speaker Narhari Jirwal rejecting a no-confidence motion against him sought by the Shinde camp as it was sent via a random email address and was not submitted in person to the Speaker’s office. In a counter-attack, the legis- Punjab in debt trap, says White Paper Jab-o-meter June 24 13,90,325 doses Take June 25 11,19,043 doses your shot Total: 1,97,06,96,547 NATIONWIDE June 24 June 25 Fresh cases 17,336 15,940 Recoveries 13,029 12,425 Deaths 13 20 W IT H T H IS ISSU E Anatomy of an Assassination PLUS 12 PAGES H a r p r eet B a j w a @ Chandigarh The AAP government in Punjab on Saturday admitted the state was being pushed deeper into a debt trap in a White Paper it tabled in the Assembly, but sought to blame the previous governments for the economic morass. The economies of quite a few state governments are under similar stress, but it is only Punjab that has accepted it upfront. Just last week, the RBI had warned that the economies of Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Bihar are in deep trouble. But Kerala sought to rebut it. Punjab’s debt has spiraled to `2.63 lakh crore and the state has `24,351.29 crore worth liabilities to service in the immediate term, the document said. “The current debt indicators of the state are probably the worst in the country pushing it , deeper into a debt trap,” it claimed. The White Paper was tabled by state finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on the second day of ongoing budget session. It quantified the current debt as a whopping 45.88% of the state GDP . Debt ballooned 44.23% in the last five years at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.6%, the document added. Pointing fingers at the previous Congress government, it said they left an immediate and medium-ter m liability of `24,351.29 crore. Of that amount, `13,759 crore will go towards non-payment of arrears of the sixth pay commission and `7,117.86 crore for power subsidy arrears. Gujarat riots Day after SC verdict, police arrest Teesta, ex-DGP Sreekumar E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Mumbai proud moment Vijayawada-based World No. 3 archer Vennam Jyothi Surekha (L) won an individual silver medal, and India’s first-ever gold in compound mixed team, along with Abhishek Verma (R), at the World Cup Stage-3 held in Paris on Saturday I Express express read S’bad riot: Rly police arrest ex-army man Hyderabad: The Railway Police on Saturday arrested Avula Subba Rao, accused of masterminding the acts of arson and vandalism at the Secunderabad Railway Station on June 17, in the wake of the Centre approving the Agnipath scheme for temporarily making recruitments in the armed forces. Three others — Malla Reddy, Shiv Kumar and Beesireddy — have also been apprehended | P5 Tobacco-free zone in and around Durga temple Vijayawada: With an aim to provide a healthy environment for the devotees visiting Sri Durga Malleswara Swamy Varla Devasthanam atop Indrakeeladri, NTR District Collector S Dilli Rao on Saturday declared the temple premises, including Durga Ghat and Ratham Centre, as a ‘tobacco-free’ zone. The collector directed the officials concerned to make arrangements and ensure the ban on tobacco is implemented strictly | P3 A day after a Supreme Court bench observed that people with vested interest had sought keep the 2002 post-Godhra riots pot boiling and suggested action against them, the police arrested activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar in Mumbai and Ahmedabad respectively on Saturday . The Gujarat Police sent its Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) to Mumbai to arrest Setalvad. The court’s ruling was widely read as pointing towards Setalvad’s NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, which worked extensively with many victims, including petitioner Zakia Jafri, whose family was a victim of the Gulbarg Society massacre. Setlavad was a co-petitioner in the case. As for Setalvad, she lodged a complaint at Santacruz against the Gujarat Police ATS for banging her door and assaulting her. Earlier in the day, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch arrested Sreekumar after registering a complaint and conducting a preliminary inquiry. The complaint named Sanjeev Bhatt, Sreekumar and Teesta Setalvad as accused, adding they misrepresented information, damaged the image of Gujarat and abused the legal process. According to the complaint, they had created a situation where false evidence was thrown against the Special Investigation Team probing the case, the trial court, the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court. JNTU-K suspends 11 students for ragging E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Kakinada The vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) in Kakinada suspended 11 students for 15 days from class work and for two weeks from the University hostel, after a complaint of ragging was lodged against them.   The suspended students ­ — nine third year and two second year— were pursuing Petrochemical Engineering at the University . Explaining what transpired, University Principal Dr MHM Krishna Prasad said, “On Monday when the first year student, , a native of Srikakulam, was leaving the mess after dinner, the seniors called him and asked him to do their lab report work. Later, the student informed his friend, also his intermediate classmate when they were studying in Visakhapatnam, of the inciAnti-ragging pan-India helpline: 1800-180-5522 E-mail: helpline@ antiragging.in An anti-ragging app, introduced by the UGC, is available on Android platform dent. Following this, they lodged a complaint on the National Ragging Prevention Project under the University Grants Commission (UGC) website.” The UGC then alerted the University VC, GVR Prasad Raju, who informed the principal and Kakinada district SP of the incident. An anti-ragging committee was constituted on T u e s d ay w i t h nine professors, including the principal and the hostel manP4 ager.  UGC’s ragging policy No act of ragging, major or minor, shall go unnoticed. No ragger, male or female, student or non-student, shall go unpunished. No institution that fails to take action against ragging shall not be allowed to operate. lature’s secretary issued disqualification notices against 16 rebel Sena MLAs, seeking their explanations in writing along with supporting documents by Monday 5.30 pm as to why they failed to attend a party meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday or face disqualification. However, the rebels refused to blink. “Since Shinde has the majority, our side should be heard first. Else, we will approach court and urge the governor to ask the government to prove its majority in the House,” P7 Deepak Kesarkar said. State of crisis A2,63,265 cr Total outstanding debt* How it ballooned 2,63,265 crore (2021-22) 1,009 crore 83,099 crore (2011-12) (1980-81) * 44.23% growth in debt over past five years E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Vijayawada/Visakhapatnam Like several other states, Andhra Pradesh, too, has reported a surge in the number to fresh Covid-19 cases, as it recorded a total of 56 new infections in the 24 hours ending 8 am on Saturday. Of the total, Visakhapatnam district accounted for 31 cases. Meanwhile, 42 patients in the State recovered from the virus during the same period. As per the Covid-19 dashboard of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the State has a total of 462 active cases and a cumulative caseload of 23.20 lakh. On Friday, seven NCC cadets had tested positive for Covid-19 at a camp conducted in Kakinada. With a total of 195 active cases, Visakhapatnam has registered nine per cent positivity against five per cent in other districts. Some students were also reportedly affected by the virus and are currently in isolation. Speaking to TNIE, Andhra Medical College Principal Sambasiva Rao opined that it was very early to attribute the rise in cases to the fourth wave although experts had earlier predicted that another wave was likely in June or July . Noting that the spike in fresh cases has been reported across the globe, the expert said it was natural to have a series of waves during a pandemic. “The first few waves have a severe impact, but slowly the virulence of the virus subsides,” he explained. However, only experts can predict how long these variants will sustain, Rao added. Meanwhile, experts opined that the surge in cases was due to the sub-variant of Omicron. The severity of the infection caused by the sub-variant is reportedly mild and does not require hospitalisation in most cases. They have advised people to adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour as norms were being flouted after the number of cases had dropped early this year.