bhubaneswar l monday l july 04, 2022 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late CITY EDITION Chess Olympiad’S BIGGEST MOVE WITH REcord ENTRIES With the registration coming to close on Sunday, the event will see the highest number of teams in its history hosts get opening, fields third team Bakre, ganguly & Co in the fray too The open category has seen a record-breaking 187 teams, the highest-ever for any Chess Olympiad. In order to even out the number, as per norm, FIDE approved a third team from the host country. India A will start as third seed in open section, while B team will be seeded 11th. In women’s section, 162 teams have registered and India A team is top seeds ■ Tejas Bakre will be leading the third team that will include ■ Grandmasters Surya Shekhar Ganguly (pic), Karthikeyan Murali, SP Sethuraman, Abhijeet Gupta and Abhimanyu Purani Russia and Belarus are banned from participation, while last edition winners China have opted out 187 number of teams registered in the open category 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 Reach out to marginalised among the minorities, Modi urges party Says BJP’s goal is to take the country away from politics of appeasement to fulfilment Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the BJP’s National Executive meeting in Hyderabad | PTI Our thinking is democratic, that is why when we built the PM Museum, we gave place to all prime ministers - Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Rajesh Kumar Thakur @ Hyderabad Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday sought to expand the BJP’s catchment area by advising the party to increase its outreach among the non-Hindu marginalised sections of the society like the Pasmandas among , the Muslims, for their equitable development. He made the point at the BJP’s National Executive meeting during a presentation by the unit in UP, where the party recently wrested the Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats that have a big Muslim population, hitherto held by the Samajwadi Party . Coming as it did after a recent hate speech by a party functionary led to riots across the nation, the advice was also perhaps meant to serve as a course correction. With the party gearing up to face polls in minority dominated states like J&K and Telangana, the message was to make the party more inclusive. He also called for taking out a Sneh Yatra (fraternity trip) to enhance affection and coordination in society by reaching out to all sections of society. He had made a similar suggestion at a meeting of party office-bearers last year. In his concluding address, Modi said the party’s goal was to take India from tushtikaran (appeasement) to triptikaran (fulfilment), adding that would lead to the goal of sabka vikas (development of all). Taking a dig at the Opposition, he said the country is now fed up of dynastic parties and the politics of appeasement. “Now it difficult for such dynastic political parties to survive longer as the people want politics of performance,” former Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad quoting the PM as saying. Modi also advised the party to learn from the failings of parties that are in terminal decline instead of mocking them, apparently alluding to the Congress. In his riposte at parties questioning the BJP’s democratic credentials, Modi asked them to look inward at the status of democracy within their own parties, saying they don’t even hold regular organisational polls. In contrast, Modi said the BJP was democratic. “That’s why the NDA built the Statue of Unity in Patel’s memory though he was a Congress leader,” he said. He called for “P2 to G2” (pro-people to good governance) approach in the party’s political and governP7 ance model.  Calls Hyd Bhagyanagar At a time when acrimony between the ruling TRS in Telangana and the BJP is peaking, the PM referred to Hyderabad as Bhagyanagar, and said Sardar Patel had laid the foundation of Ek Bharat (United India) by integrating the smaller regions into India. “Now, it is our (the BJP) historical obligation to build a Shreshtra Bharat BJP era Claiming that the next 30-40 years will be the BJP’s era, Amit Shah in his speech said the party will end family rule in both Telangana and West Bengal Covid spike in Odisha New cases go up to 346, TPR increases to 2.68 pc E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Odisha on Sunday witnessed a big spike in new Covid-19 cases with 346 people testing positive for the virus in last 24 hours. While the infections went up by nearly 50 per cent (pc) during the period, it was the highest surge in over four months. The State had logged 428 cases on February 22 when the third wave was receding. Of the fresh cases detected from 12,897 tests in 18 districts, the maximum 202 cases were from quarantine and 144 local contacts. The test positivity rate (TPR) shot up to 2.68 pc from 1.7 pc in a day The TPR rose to 9.91 pc in . Khurda, 5.22 pc in Cuttack, 2.99 pc in Sambalpur and 2.23 pc in Sundargarh. The active cases in the State have gone up to 1,310. The number of infections jumped by 100 pc in Khurda in 24 hours as the district recorded 189 cases, of which 90 pc were from the Capital city Bhubaneswar, followed by 51 from Cuttack, 13 from Sundargarh, seven each from Balasore, Jagatsinghpur and Nuapada and Shinde govt clears Speaker poll test, trust vote today S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i @ Mumbai Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday won the first round of his fight against the Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena in the Assembly, when his government managed to get the ruling coalition’s candidate elected as Speaker. The government is scheduled to take its confidence vote on Monday . BJP’s candidate Rahul Narvekar won by 57 votes against the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s joint candidate Rajan Salvi. Narvekar was supported by the Shinde group. He got 167 votes against Salvi’s 107. SP and MIM members abstained. Besides, seven NCP MLAs were absent, including Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh, who are in jail. Also, two members each from the BJP and the Congress failed to show up. Thackeray’s Sena asked acting speaker Narhari Zirwal to take on record that 39 Sena MLAs in the Shinde camp cross-voted against the party whip. Parallelly the Shinde camp put on , record that 16 Sena MLAs crossed-voted. Deepak Kesarkar, spokesperson of the Shinde camp, said its chief whip Bharat Gogawale had asked all Sena MLAs to vote for Narvekar. Constitutional experts said since both camps have complained against cross-voting, the Speaker will hear the matter and give his verdict. “Only after that can they approach a court against the Speaker’s decision, if necessary .” SC judge sees need to rein in social media E x p r e ss N e ws Se r v i c e @ New Delhi Supreme Court judge Justice J B Pardiwala on Sunday warned against personal attacks on judges, saying they were creating a dangerous scenario, while delivering the Justice Khanna Memorial Lecture. Observing that personalised opinion on social media was harming judicial institutions, he said it needs to be regulated. “Personal attacks on judges for their judgments leads to a dangerous scenario...Judges have to think about what the media has to say instead of what the law has to really say. This harms the rule of law,” the judge said. He noted that social media is primarily being used to express “personalised opinions” a g ainst judg es, r at h e r t h a n a “ c o n s t r u c t ive critical appraisal” of their judgments. “This is what is harming the judicial institution and lowering its dignity. This is where digital and social media have to be regulated throughout the country to preserve the rule of law under our Constitution.” The judge pointed out that Constitutional courts were okay with criticism but the problem is with the “half truth” is being pursued on social media. “A trial is supposed to be carried out by the courts. Trials by digital media are undue interference for the judiciary. This crosses the Laxman Rekha and is all the more problematic when only half truth is pursued. Constitutional courts have always graciously accepted informed dissent and constructive criticism,” the judge said. Pardiwala, as part of the two-judge bench, had pulled up BJP’s Nupur Sharma for her hate speech. life-savers on rope Soldiers evacuating a youth in a make-shift winch across the Chenab river in J&K on Sunday. Ankit Kumar, 24, had suffered injuries to his hands and legs while in his farm and had to be shifted to a hospital in Kishtwar district | special arrangement five each from Rayagada and Sambalpur. Although Puri reported four cases, health experts fear the pilgrim town that witnessed a congregation of lakhs of devotees on the occasion of Rath Yatra on July 1 may see a spike in coming days. Not only in Puri, large congregations of devotees and visitors were also seen in districts like Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Koraput, Kendrapara and Keonjhar for the annual Car festival. Anticipating a surge in cases, the State government has kept Covid beds with oxygen supply ready in most of the district headquarters. Health authorities said they are keeping a close watch on the rising trend and initiating measures as appropriate. Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the infections are mostly urban-centric and the disease severity is less among the patients as less than one pc people is hospitalised. “The second half of July is crucial as cases may rise due to the festival. But, we are ready to tackle any exigencies,” he added. Crew on leave, most Indigo flights delayed E x p r e ss N e ws Se r v i c e @ New Delhi If you were booked on an Indigo flight on Saturday, there was every possibility that you had spent more time at the airport than the destination. The reason? On Saturday, more than 50% of IndiGo flights were delayed because crew, including pilots, went on ‘sick leave’. Though there was no official confirmation, there are indications that this was linked to a recruitment drive conducted by Air India. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, however, has taken notice of the delays and has sought a report from the airline. “We have noted the development and sought a report from the airline,” DGCA told this newspaper. If sources are the believed, less than 45% of the flights operated by IndiGo were on time on Saturday due to shortage of CONTINUED ON: P5 crew.