BHUBANESWAR l tuesday l july 05, 2022 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l JEYPORE EDITION ‘Gujarat, karnataka are best states for startups in India’ The two states provide the best system for new entrepreneurs, according to States’ Startup Ranking 2021 released on Monday Meghalaya best performing small state Four states, 1 ut skip ranking exercise Meghalaya has been adjudged the best performer among smaller states, according to the ranking by the Dept for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade. The rankings are based on the initiatives taken to develop the startup ecosystem. Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Jammu & Kashmir have been included in the top performers category ■ Andhra, Bihar, Mizoram and Ladakh are ‘emerging startup ecosystems’. Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa are in the ‘Leaders’ category. West Bengal, Sikkim, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Lakshadweep did not participate in the exercise 26 action points Across 7 broad reform areas were evaluated for the ranking of states 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 Shinde wins trust vote; fresh BJB girl student death: Oppn demands CBI probe sparring on chief whip in SC E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Past-midnight strategy session Giving a sense of how he slipped out of Mumbai to begin his rebellion, Shinde said there was police nakabandi (security blockade). “But I know know how to evade it,” he bragged. While camping in Guwahati, he used to slip out of the hotel at midnight for strategy sessions when all other MLAs were asleep and return early morning, adding “the true kalakar (artist) of this government is Devendra Fadnavis” Ajit Pawar is leader of Oppn The NCP appointed Ajit Pawar as the leader of the Opposition. NCP is the single largest party in the Opposition with 52 MLAs while Congress has 44 MLAs. The Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena has just 14 MLAs. Ajit Pawar was deputy chief minister in the outgoing ministry E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Mumbai/New Delhi Rebel Shiv Sena leader and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday comfortably won the vote of confidence in the Assembly, but there was another round of legal sparring between rival Sena camps in the Supreme Court. While Shinde’s faction and the BJP together got 154 votes as against the simple majority mark of 145 in a 288-member House, the Opposition polled just 99. Three abstained (SP 2, MIM 1), while 10 Congress members, including ex-chief minister Ashok Chavan failed to show up. After the floor test, the Shinde faction requested Speaker Rahul Narvekar to disqualify 14 Sena MLAs, including Aditya Thackeray, for ‘violating the whip’ and voting for the Opposition. The Thackeray faction, too, made a similar complaint. Earlier, Uddhav Thackeray had issued a letter saying Shinde will be the Sena legislative party leader and Sunil Prabhu chief whip. But the ruling Sena faction appointed Bharat Gogawale the chief whip and the Speaker approved it on Sunday “This is . illegal, since only the party president has the right to make such appointments,” claimed Sena’s Lok Sabha member Arvind Sawant. The matter went to the Supreme Court with senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Thackeray, mentioning it before a bench of justices Indira Banerjee and J K Maheswari. The bench said it would be heard on July 11 along with other related matters. “The Speaker has no jurisdiction to recognise whips. This is changing the status quo of proceedings before this court. The Speaker yesterday at the stroke of midnight elected the whip,” P7 said Singhvi.  Athawale push for census of all castes PR E E T H A N A IR @ New Delhi Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale backs the idea of a nation-wide census of all castes and not just of Other Backward Classes. In an exclusive interview to this newspaper, Athawale said: “I have always supported caste census. My party’s position is that not only OBCs, all castes should be counted. This will provide clear data of the castebased marginalisation and deprivation.” He is the president of the Republican Party of India, a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. The assertion comes at a time when the BJP’s ally in Bi- protests,” he said. har, the JD(U), is ready to conMeanwhile, Athawale also duct a caste-based census in said that the Centre will look the state. “Now that many par- into the demands of various ties are demanding it, the Cen- tribal communities to recogtral government should con- nise Sarna as a separate relisider it,” he said. gion and include it in It also comes in the the religion column face of the Union govof the census. The ernment maintaining Jharkhand gover nin an affidavit to the ment has sent a proSupreme Court that a posal to the Centre in caste-based survey is this regard. not feasible. He said that the RoAthawale also alhini Commission, layed fears of a repeat constituted in 2017 to Ramdas Athawale of Mandal politics if a look into the sub-catecaste-based census is gorisation of OBCs, is carried out. “Now that the still working on the report. NDA gover nment provided “The government will take a 10% reservation for EWS cat- decision once the report is egory, we won’t see any more out.” THE alleged suicide of a girl student of BJB Autonomous College rocked the Assembly on Monday with the Opposition BJP and Congress members creating a ruckus over the issue and demanding a CBI probe. As soon as the House assembled for the day the Opposition , members rushed to the well and demanded a CBI probe into the incident. Coming down Unemployment soars in June Joblessness (Figures in %) Jan 2022 5.83 8.14 7.57 8.37 8.28 7.24 9.22 7.18 8.21 6.62 7.30 8.03 Feb 2022 Mar 2022 Apr 2022 May 2022 Jun 2022  Urban  Rural Sa m i k s ha G o e l @ New Delhi After some improvement in May, unemployment rate again soared in June to 7.80%, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)’s latest data. Joblessness had cooled at 7.12% in May 2022 compared with 7.83% in April.Urban joblessness rate fell 0.91% to 7.30% in June but rural unemployment moved up 1.41% to 8.03%, data show. Haryana witnessed the highest joblessness rate in June at 30.6% followed by Rajasthan at 29.8%. On the flip side, Madhya Pradesh reported a low rate of unemployment at 0.5%, Chhattisgarh and Odisha at 1.2% each and Tamil Nadu at 2.1%. “Recovery in the labour market has been slower, particularly in rural areas,” said Atul Pratap Singh, co-founder & CEO, Jobsgaar. heavily on the State government, they alleged that there has been a rise in cases of suicide in educational institutions. A first-year MBBS student of Bhima Bhoi Medical College and Hospital at Balangir had allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the college hostel building on April 22. The Opposition members demanded that question hour should be suspended and the incident should be discussed as E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Crimes against Women Year ODISHA continues to have the dubious distinction of reporting a disturbing number of rape cases including sexual assault on minors despite claims of the State government on initiating several measures for women empowerment. According to a written reply given by Minister of State for Home Tushar Kanti Behera in response to a question from Congress MLA Santosh Singh Saluja in the Assembly on Monday, the State recorded 15,715 rape cases including sexual assault on 5,584 minors during a 40-month period from 2019 to April, 2022. The number of rape cases increased every year during the period compared to the preceding year. The Minister said that while 2,950 rape cases were registered in 2019, the number increased to 2,984 in 2020. The cases increased to 3,327 in 2021 while the first four months of the year till April 30 witnessed 868 cases. The total crimes against women in the State in- Rape Cases Sexual Assault (minors) 2022 868 432 (till may) 2021 3,327 1,871 2020 2,984 1,646 2019 2,950 1,635 Odisha recorded 15,715 rape cases including sexual assault on 5,584 minors during a 40-month period till April, 2022 creased from 20,274 in 2018 to 23,183 in 2019. The data released by the Minister showed that total crimes against women increased to 25,489 cases in 2020 during the peak of Covid-19 pandemic. More disturbing aspect of the facts released by the Minister showed that sexual assault on minor girls also saw a steady rise during the period. While 1,635 such cases were recorded in 2019, the number increased to 1,646 in 2020. The cases touched 1,871 in 2021 while during the first four months of 2022, Odisha has registered 432 cases of assault on minor girls. CONTINUED ON: P5 Jab-o-meter July 3 1,78,383 doses Take July 4 10,09,757 doses your shot Total: 1,98,08,49,980 NATIONWIDE July 3 July 4 ODISHA Fresh cases 16,103 16,135 Fresh cases Recoveries 13,929 13,958 Recoveries Deaths 31 24 Deaths E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Chandigarh roots of tradition Tribal women selling the forest collections of tuber and bamboo shoot at the local market of Dhondabadi in Koraput district | paresh rath No Service Charge Regulator just shrunk your food bill! Pa r v e z S u ltan @ New Delhi The next time you walk into a favourite restaurant for a meal, you can expect the food bill to be lower than before, as the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has just barred the default levy of ‘service charge’ on it. If it is not, you can file a complaint against the eatery . Also, service charge can’t be collected by adding it along with the food bill and levying GST on the total amount, the regulatory body said in its new guidelines. You can still tip the waiter if you feel the service is superb, but that is your personal choice. And no restaurant can refuse services over non-payment of service charges. The guidelines, released on Monday, seek to prevent unfair trade practices and violation of consumer rights. However, Pradeep Shetty , joint honorary secretary of Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India, says industry is already following the guidelines. “Nobody was forced to pay the serv- soumyadip sinha Majhi raised questions over the administrative capabilities of the Higher Education department and alleged that because of its laxity cases of ragging are , on the rise in the State. He demanded that more strict legislation should be enacted by the government to completely eradicate ragging. The law and order situation in the State has collapsed, he said and added that the University Grants Commission (UGC) had also given information on the rise of ragging CONTINUED ON: P5 cases. In 40 months, Odisha reported 15K rape cases Himachal bus falls into 200-ft gorge, kills 13 Thirteen people were killed and two others injured after a bus fell into a 200-ft gorge in Sainj valley of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh on Monday . The bus was on its way to Kullu from Shainsher when the driver lost control at a hairpin bend near Jangla village. Rescue work started late because of the remote terrain. Deputy Commissioner of Kullu Ashutosh Garg said the accident happened around 8.30 am. Bus conductor Gopal was among the injured survivors. They been admitted to the Kull u re g i o n a l h o s p i t a l fo r treatment. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur visited the accident site, assued all help and ordered a probe into the incident. He announced an ex-gratia of `5 lakh to the next of the kin of the victims. Parallelly the Cen, tre announced a relief of `2 lakh for the victims. the government has failed to provide security to the students. However, Speaker Bikram Keshari Arukha asked the members to raise the issue during Zero Hour. After the Speaker rejected their demand, the members intensified their slogan shouting in the well. As pandemonium continued, Arukha adjourned the House from 10.30 am to 11.30 am. When the House reassembled, Opposition chief whip Mohan ice charge,” he claims. The new guidelines come as a big relief to consumers as most restaurants and bars levy 5-12% service charge on food bill. The bill could burn a bigger hole in your pocket if service charges are levied on liquors because many states levy a hefty value-added tax on the same. So, watch your food bill the next time you eat out. If you are levied service charge, you can ask the restaurant to remove it. Alternatively , you can lodge a complaint on the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) by calling 1915 or through the NCH mobile app. You may also file a complaint with the Consumer Commission through the e-daakhil portal (www.e-daakhil.nic.in). The complaint may also be emailed to CCPA on com-ccpa@nic.in. JULY 3 JULY 4 346 65 0 245 129 0 e x p r e ss r e a d Putin declares victory in Donbas Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, one day after Ukrainian forces withdrew from their last remaining bulwark of resistance in the province. Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk | P9 Covid uptick: BMC SOP for malls Bhubaneswar: With the daily infection count hovering over 100, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation issued fresh SOP for malls, shopping centres, commercial establishments and market places directing them to ensure adherence to Covid norms | P2