Core sector output grows 18.1% in May Cement Coal Electricity Fertiliser Refinery products Steel Natural Gas Crude oil 26.3% 25.1% 22% 22.8% 16.7% 15% 7% 4.6% The eight core infrastructure sectors had grown 9.3% in April 2022 These sectors had expanded by 16.4% in May 2021 kozhikode l friday l July 01, 2022 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Fiscal deficit widens Higher expenditure pushed the Centre’s fiscal deficit at the end of May to 12.3% (K2,03,921 cr) of the annual budget target for 2022-23 (K16,61,196 cr) Fiscal deficit was at 8.2% of the Budget Estimate of 2021-22 during the year-ago period | P10 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 announcement We are pleased to announce the appointment of Santwana Bhattacharya as Editor of The New Indian Express with effect from today. She joined the group over a decade ago with rich experience in newspaper journalism and has been Executive Editor of TNIE. As Editor of TNIE and its Sunday Edition, she will be based in New Delhi. Manoj Kumar Sonthalia Chairman and Managing Director express read Buffer zone: State to file modification plea in SC Amid the unrest over the Supreme Court verdict making an Eco Sensitive Zone (ESZ) of one kilometre mandatory around protected forests, Kerala will approach the apex court with a modification petition. The state government has also decided to explore the possibility of bringing in a law to protect the human habitats in these regions | P4 IMD: Yellow alert till tomorrow in most dists The India Meteorological Department has forecast the strengthening of monsoon in the coming days as the weather conditions on the west coast have become favourable for more showers. The department issued yellow alerts for most districts till July 2 as the state received widespread rain on Thursday | P5 Protocol violation in CM-diplomat meet: Union min Killer landslide in Manipur Alert after river flow blocked The debris from the landslide has obstructed the flow of the Ijei river, creating a dam-like storage condition. The Noney district administration urged people to evacuate the area, warning that if there is a breach, the waters could inundate the low lying areas L aunching a scathing attack on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan has said that the CM had violated protocol by hosting the UAE consulgeneral at Cliff House, his official residence. “The CM and other ministers maintained relationship with the consul-general with ulterior motives,” Muraleedharan said while participating in Express Dialogues in Kochi. He said Pinarayi had admitted that the UAE consul-general had visited his house several times. “The diplomatic handbook of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) says that foreign missions should not interact directly with state g o ve r n ments. As someone who has taken the oath of allegiance to the Indian Constitution, the CM has the duty to tell the consul-general that he should communicate through the MEA. On what authority did Pinarayi and other ministers meet the consul-general?” he asked. Muraleedharan also alleged that there was a larger conspiracy behind the decision to transport the CM’s gifts using a foreign national with diplomatic immunity . “If the CM forgot to take the gifts during his trip to the UAE, a state government official should have been entrusted with the job to transport the items. The foreign national was given the task to ensure that if there is any probe in future, it doesn’t reach the CM,” Muraleedharan said. Seen as Shah’s masterstroke to diminish the Thackeray brand and curtail the ambitions of the former CM Pawar quip on Fadnavis NCP chief Sharad Pawar said the body language of Devendra Fadnavis showed he was not happy with being asked to be the deputy CM but accepted it against his will because of the discipline RSS inculcated in him. He also said drawing as many as 38 Shiv Sena rebels is not easy but Eknath Shinde pulled it off. “I have spoken with him over the phone and congratulated him.” L e s ly J o s e p h @Kozhikode already issued certificates to over 3,000 students in two weeks, including on Thursday . “We got the instruction to discontinue the tests by evening,” said District Sports Council president O Rajagopal. Anil P M, Kozhikode regional deputy director of Higher Secondary Education, said the department has been considering the swimming grace marks for Plus-One admission process for the past ● More on P4 six years.  AT least eight persons were killed after a hillock crashed down on a railway construction site at Tupul in Manipur’s Noney district in the wee hours on Thursday in one of the worst landslides in the region. Seven of the dead were Territorial Army (TA) personnel, who were deployed for the protection of the under-construction railway line from Jiribam to Imphal. Solomon L Fimate, sub-divisional officer of Noney, said 18 were rescued while over 50 were missing. Several TA jawans, railway employees, labourers and villagers are also among the missing. The toll is likely to go up as many people are trapped under debris. Also, the condition of some of the injured is critical. Sabyasachi De, chief public relations officer of Northeast Frontier Railway said an entire hillock van, ished after the landslide. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said Prime Minister Narendra Modi telephoned him and offered all help. Multiple agencies, including teams from the National Disaster Response Force, were working at the site, he added. He also announced an ex-gratia of `5 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased and `50,000 each for those injured. BJP curveball: Shinde CM, Fadnavis Dy 3,000 students fit for swimming ‘grace’, but dept yet to take call A day after a man and his son died while the latter was learning swimming to improve his chances for Plus-One admission, the Kozhikode District Sports Council cancelled its swimming tests on Thursday . The move followed General Education Minister V Sivankutty’s statement in the House that the department was yet to decide on awarding grace marks to students proficient in swimming for Plus-One admission this year. He also said the department had not entrusted any agency to issue such a certificate. Meanwhile, the council had PRASA N TA M A Z U M DAR @ Guwahati The provision of grace marks is included in the government’s Plus One prospectus every year. This year’s prospectus is yet to be published. The district sports council started the tests before the prospectus was brought out as is the usual practice Anil P M, Kozhikode regional deputy director, Higher Secondary Education S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i @ Mumbai With the BJP on Thursday pulling off a massive surprise by offering the chief minister’s post to rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde and persuading a reluctant Devendra Fadnavis to be his deputy, it appears to have killed multiple birds in one stone. From his humble beginnings as an auto driver to that of the CM, the rise of the four-time MLA and twice minister has indeed been meteoric. At the oath-taking ceremony, Shinde invoked Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray and Anand Dighe saying his government will follow in their footsteps. Sources saw in the day’s developments a masterstroke by A month and 4 rabies jabs after, girl dies of dog bite Express News Service @Palakkad A 19-year-old college student, who was bitten by her neighbour’s dog last month, died while under treatment for rabies at Thrissur Medical College Hospital (MCH) on Thursday . Sreelakshmi, of Padinjakara house in Mankara in Palakkad, was bitten on May 30 while she was leaving for her college in Coimbatore. Her relatives said she took the anti-rabies vacc in e s p re scribed by Sreelakshmi doctors after the incident. However, she suffered from high fever, one of the symptoms of rabies, two days ago and was admitted to the MCH. She died around 3am. “Sreelakshmi had taken four anti rabies vaccines after the incident. The first was taken from the MCH, two from the Palakkad district hospital and one from a private hospital. Still, she died,” said Sandeep, a relative. He said the family and the residents were in anguish and panic as the dog had bitten a couple of other persons. This included its owner who had tried to prevent the canine from attacking Sreelakshmi. ● More on P4 Anthrax in dead wild boars, dept swings into action Following the diagnosis of anthrax in dead wild boars at Pillappara in Athirappilly, health officials and veterinary team have stepped up vigil. Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde being administered the oath as Maharashtra Chief Minister by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai on Thursday | pti Union home minister Amit Shah. “By making Shinde the CM, the BJP has not just engineered a vertical split in elected representatives of the Shiv Sena, it also divided the party . More importantly it has dimin, ished the Thackeray brand and reduced him to a caricature. And Shinde will be controlled by the top leadership of the BJP for future manoeuvers,” said a source requesting anonymity . Besides, Shah clipped the wings of Fadnavis, the source said. “Fadnavis was CM from 2014 to 2019. He was also pro- jected as a potential prime ministerial candidate after Narendra Modi. And he has tacit support from the RSS. He was not ready to work as Shinde’s No 2. But Shah persuaded Modi that the Shinde-Fadnavis team would be best in the larger interests of the BJP in Marathadominated Maharashtra. Modi then called Fadnavis and persuaded him to take the job.” Shinde was light-weight minister in the Fadnavis cabinet earlier. The roles reversed on Thursday with Shinde becoming his boss. Fadnavis was hoping to be the new CM. “But it appears that the party leadership decided to not only rub salt on his wounds but also humiliate him by asking him to be deputy CM,” sources said.  P7