Chennai l sunday l november 20, 2022 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l vellore EDITION Activist gautam Navlakha finally walks out of jail He was taken to a building in Navi Mumbai on Saturday where he will be living under house arrest for a month SC rejects NIA’s plea against house arrest Court deadline speeds up his release His release from Taloja Central Prison comes a day after the Supreme Court rejected the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) petition seeking to vacate its November 10 order granting house arrest on medical grounds. Navlakha was arrested in April 2020 over alleged inflammatory speeches made at the ‘Elgar Parishad’ conclave held in Pune in 2017 ■ With the Supreme Court setting a 24-hour deadline on Friday afternoon to put Navlakha under house arrest, a special trial court issued a release memo around 2.15 pm on Saturday ■ The CPI(M)-owned building where he will stay has CCTV cameras installed and a back door sealed on NIA’s request 70-year-old Navlakha walked out of taloja prison at 6 pm on Saturday 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 Deal in sight on loss & damage fund Broad across-the-board agreement awaits ratification as COP27 goes into overtime to clinch pact E xpress N ews S ervice @ New Delhi The COP27 summit in Egypt that went into overtime, on Saturday appeared poised for a deal over creating a fund for compensating poor nations who are victims of climate change worsened by rich nations’ carbon footprint. The agreement would need the approval of about 200 countries taking part at the Shar m-elSheikh summit. It would amount to a partial breakthrough as states remained locked over other contentious issues. Reports suggested that the draft was amended to include the European Union’s position that only the particularly vulnerable countries be eligible to tap the fund, not the ones with high oil revenues but classified as developing nations. The indication was to exclude the Gulf nations as beneficiaries. The potential loss and damage deal is part of the overall agreement that is still in a flux. “30 years of patience. The day has arrived. It is done. YES a new Fund for responding Loss and Damage in developing coun- tries….This is a unique moment a win for all citizens of the world,” Alpha Kaloga, lead negotiator for the Africa Group tweeted. Reports said that in an attempt to narrow the gap between countries’ climate change pledges and the targeted reductions needed to avert the adverse impacts of climate change, the draft text urges that states who are yet to upgrade their 2030 emissions, cut targets by 2023end. The draft, however, did not contain a reference that India and press Intake Death: HC fines Tangedco for not trimming trees near lines EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Madurai Observing that the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) is duty bound to conduct regular inspections to clear trees and other interferences to electrical lines, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the state power utility to pay `10.85 lakh compensation to the family of a man who was electrocuted to death after an electric line snapped and fell on him. The overhead cable snapped after a coconut frond fell on it. Justice R Vijayakumar passed the order on a petition filed in 2013 by S Suriyagandi, wife of the deceased. According to Suriyagandhi, her husband M Sathuragiri was working as a security guard in a courier company in Madurai and the couple had two minor children. On April 21, 2013, when Sathuragiri was on his way to bathe in a coconut grove, a frond fell on the electric line, which in turn landed on him leading to his death.  P5 The Future of Food WITH THIS ISSUE PLUS 12 PAGES Overwhelming majority with me: EPS to SC | P4 Prime Minister Narendra Modi with pontiffs from Tamil Nadu, while opening the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam, in Varanasi on Saturday | PTI Tamil world’s oldest language, says PM, puts it on a pedestal N a m ita B a j pa i @ Lucknow Likening the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam he inaugurated on Saturday to the holy confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to play down the dominance of Hindi and put Tamil on a pedestal as the oldest language in the world. In an indirect reference to the ongoing controversy over languages, he called upon countrymen to shed linguistic differences and strive for emotional and spiritual unity . Inaugurating the month-long KashiTamil Sangamam in Varanasi, the PM said the country was the proud home We must tell the to two of the oldest languages of the world with pride world. “The two regions are the centhat we are home tres of the world’s oldest languages, to Tamil, the Sanskrit and Tamil.” oldest language However, though Tamil is one of the in the world. We world’s oldest living languages, the naneed to be proud tion lacked in according it due honour, of this heritage and work towards he said. Seeking to strike a chord with Tamilians, the PM said: “It is the restrengthening it further sponsibility of 130 crore Indians to preserve the legacy of Tamil and enNarendra Modi, rich it. If we ignore Tamil, we do a Prime Minister great disservice to the nation, and if we keep Tamil confined in restrictions and barriers, we will do great harm to it. We have to remember to remove linguistic differences and establish emotional unity in the country .” Addressing a gathering of around 2,500 delegates from Tamil Nadu on the lawns of the BHU amphitheatre, Modi hailed Kashi and Tamil Nadu as timeless centres of culture and civilisation. He exhorted people of different regions to organise more such events to celebrate the cultural, spiritual and ideological oneness of the country . TN to present a study on its healthcare model at World Economic Forum in Switzerland | P5 Savukku Shankar released from Cuddalore prison on Saturday | P4 Winter session of Parliament from Dec 7 to 29; will have 17 sittings | P7 Prime Minister Modi inaugurates Arunachal’s first greenfield airport in Hollongi | P7 Farmers hit back at Punjab chief minister over comment slamming dharnas | P8 alert Heavy rain in north tn on nov 21-22 A well-marked low pressure area formed over Bay of Bengal may concentrate into a depression in next 24 hours and move towards tn, Pondy, South ap coasts | P4 the b ea u t i f u l g ame Infantino burst ahead of big kick-off S i d d h a nt h Ane y @ Doha In the parking lot of Doha’s international airport I found myself sucked into a conversation between four friends. They were discussing congestion rules put in place to ease some of the traffic issues that may come up over the course of the next month as over a million football fans descend on the first nation in the MENA region to host a FIFA World Cup. An Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Qatari and an Indian, each had their own understanding of who could drive when and where. “Welcome to Qatar,” one of them told me with a smirk, before adding, “Where no one knows what’s going on, and everybody is happy .” Everybody that is, except FIFA boss , Gianni Infantino. In an extraordinary monologue that went on for almost an hour Infantino hit out at the hypocri- FIFA chief Gianni Infantino | afp sy of the West. “I’m European,” he said. “I think for what we Europeans have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people.” It was a clear message to the mostly white- cis-male columnists who have this year developed a remarkable expertise in the conditions of work and life (and death) of the migrant workers, a vast majority of them from South and Sousteast Asia, who have built this city and the world’s grandest stage. “Today I have strong feelings. Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay Today I . feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker,” he said. “I feel this, all this, because what I’ve been seeing and what I’ve been told, since I don’t read, otherwise I would be depressed, I think.” On Sunday hosts Qatar and Ecuador play the first game of the tournament and focus will shift to the football, like Infantino wants. But the conversations, and the movements, that have been sparked will continue…  More on Page 11 some other negotiators had earlier requested on phasing down use of “all fossil fuels”, with the text referring to only phasing down of coal, which had been agreed to in last year’s summit. The European Union is pushing for strong wording on the 1.50C target cap for global warming in the overall deal. “We need to get a deal on 1.50C. We also need strong wording on mitigation and that’s what we’re going to push,” said Ireland’s Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan, who is also the European lead negotiator on loss and damage. Govt docs threaten to hold stir, boycott surgery without prior notice. The TNGDA, at a meeting held on Saturday adopted , Multiple doctor associations in a resolution to conduct statewide Tamil Nadu have rallied beprotests if the doctors are arhind the doctors accused of rested in the case. Priya criminal negligence in the A statement from the assocideath of 17-year-old footballer death ation, which pointed out varicase Priya in Chennai last week. ous Supreme Court guidelines While Tamil Nadu Governon medical negligence, said, ment Doctors Association “Criminal action under section (TNGDA) on Saturday urged 304 (A) of the IPC (death due to Chief Minister MK Stalin to negligence) should be taken take steps to drop criminal proagainst doctors only if medical ceedings initiated against the experts point out criminal negdoctors, a service doctors’ body ligence in their investigation. has threatened to boycott all elective Even in such cases, doctors should surgeries in government hospitals not be arrested. In the present case, E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Chennai the expert committee has only pointed to civil negligence in its report. It is disappointing that Tamil Nadu police have ignored the SC guidelines and treated them like criminal accused.” The association appealed to the CM to drop charges under Section 304 (A) of IPC and urged the government to take only departmental action. It also expressed displeasure over the Madras High Court denying anticipatory bail to two doctors in the case. The association has also said that it has sought the support of nurses union and Indian Medical Association (IMA) in the matter.  P5