chennai l Tuesday l November 22, 2022 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l vellore EDITION New norms to curb fake, paid reviews on Amazon, Flipkart E-commerce platforms will now have to disclose all paid consumer reviews of products and services on their sites Compliance will be VOLUNTARY INITIALLY New Standards to protect consumers The Department of Consumer Affairs on Monday launched a framework titled ‘Indian Standard (IS) 19000:2022 ‘Online Consumer Reviews — Principles and Requirements for their Collection, Moderation and Publication’. Initially, the standards will be voluntary for compliance by e-commerce firms but may be made mandatory if the menace continues ■ Online reviews play a vital role in making purchase decisions on e-commerce platforms and, therefore, reviews should be legitimate, accurate and not misleading, said Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh. “We are probably the first country in the world to formulate standards for online reviews,” he added IS 19000:2022 WILL BE applicable to EVERY platform THAT publishES consumer reviews 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 Many kids 5.6-magnitude earthquake in Indonesia kills at least 162, most of them children. Over 320 others injured; epicentre in Cianjur area TN mahouts, kavadis set for Thailand training 10 km, the US Geological Survey said Most of the victims died in collapsed buildings @ Chennai Come January, a group of young mahouts and kavadis from Tamil Nadu will fly to Thailand to be trained in scientific management of captive elephants. Thirteen bright personnel were selected from elephant camps at Theppakkadu in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and Kozhikamuthi in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve. They will spend five days and six nights at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, and learn to modern elephant care practices. Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary to the government, Environment, Forests and Climate Change Department, said, “There is no manual nor formal training given to these boys. The job of the mahout and kavadi should be made a little attractive and lucrative to retain some of the talent since the new generation is choosing to migrate to other jobs. Initiatives such as these would open a new chapter.” Most mahouts and kavadis belong to traditional elephant-taming communities such Malasar and Irular. Currently, the maintenance of camps and training of elephants is done as per traditional knowledge. They have never been exposed to other elephant camps or elephant training centres that adopt best practices with a modern scientific approach. P5 express read PMK out of AIADMK alliance for ’26 polls Chennai: PMK president Dr Anbumani Ramadoss announced on Monday that his party’s goal is to form a PMKled coalition government in Tamil Nadu in the 2026 Assembly elections. In the previous Assembly election, held in 2021, the PMK contested as part of the AIADMK-led alliance | P4 Chennai witnesses coldest day in 20 years Chennai: For the first time in 20 years, the daytime temperature in Chennai dropped below 250C, with the Nungambakkam weather station recording 24.90 C, which is 5.2 degrees below normal.A heavy rainfall warning has been issued for Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Ranipet, and Vellore for Tuesday | P2 Meta tools to protect minors on FB, Insta Meta, the company that owns social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said on Monday that teens’ privacy settings will be ‘private’ when they join. Plus, the Message button will be deactivated when their profiles are viewed by ‘suspicious’ adults | P10 Bandung Thousands of houses, shops, hospitals and a school in the town severely damaged West Java Toll expected to rise as more people are still trapped in collapsed buildings. Access to them cut off due to landslides Many of the dead were public school students who had finished their classes and were taking extra lessons at Islamic schools Cianjur is densely populated and prone to landslides. Its poorly built houses were reduced to rubble in many areas No reports of casualties or major damage in Jakarta Indonesia is prone to high seismic activity due to its position on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide Bali, the venue of the recent G20 summit, was unaffected | P9 Survivors receive medical treatment outside of a local hospital following an earthquake in Cianjur, West Java on Monday | AP heating up SV K RI S HNA C HAITANYA Indonesia Cianjur among 162 killed in Java quake Occurred at a shallow depth of Shallow but deadly tremors Jakarta Bogor First Rahul-Modi sparring match on Guj poll turf Cong leader takes break from Bharat Jodo Yatra, reaches out to tribals in his first rally those who have been thrown out of power by the people are now taking out a padyatra to Campaigning for the Decem- return to power. ber 1 first phase of Gujarat As“Some people are doing a sembly elections became spicy padyatra to get back to power. on Monday with Congress lead- They are also taking along er Rahul Gandhi adthose who had stalled dressing his first poll the Nar mada dam rally in the state, and project for 40 years Prime Minister through litigation and Narendra Modi mockkept Gujarat thirsty. ing him over his In this election, people Bharat Jodo Yatra. of Gujarat will punish At a rally Rahul adthose who were dressed in Mahuva in against the Narmada Surat district after project,” he said, altaking a break from luding to anti-dam acThere was a time the yatra, he sought to tivist Medha Patkar when there was strengthen his party’s joining Rahul’s yatra acute water traditional bond with shortage. I had said in Maharashtra a few tribals in Gujarat, saydays ago. Surendranagar ing they have the first district will be the He went on to attack right to land and for- biggest beneficiary the Congress claiming of the Narmada est resources across it does not talk about project. Today, I the country . development during stand validated Criticising the term elections any longer. Vanavasi used by the “Instead, Congress BJP to describe the leaders are saying tribals, Rahul alleged they will show Modi that the real intention his aukat (status). Just behind using this look at their arroterm is to keep the gance. They do belong tribal population in to a royal family while , the forests, far away I am merely a servant from modern educahaving no aukat,” tion and health faciliModi quipped. ties. Pointing out that At Rahul’s rally, the Adivasis are real They want you to Bharatsinh, son of live in the jungles. owners of the land former Congress heavAfter that, they and forests in India, start taking away yweight Madhavsinh he went on to allege Solanki, attempted a the jungles from that the current dis- you. If it continues, live translation of his pensation at the Cen- in another 5-10 yrs, speech in Hindi into tre wants strip the tri- all the jungles will Gujarati but made a bals off their land and be in the hands of 2 hash of it. The crowd give them away to a to 3 industrialists cheered as Bharatsinh few industrialists. was taken off midway As for Modi, he took by candidate Anant pot shots at Rahul without Patel. Rahul went on speaking naming him at a public meet- in Hindi much to the relief of ing in Surendranagar, saying the gathering. D i l i p S i n g h K s h at r i ya @ Ahmedabad Slowdown coming, warn Goldman Sachs, Crisil e X P RE S S n E W S s e R V I C E 2023 growth forecast @ New Delhi WHILE India has so far managed to steer clear of the heat of the global slowdown, rating agencies feel the coming year will be different, as they continue to cut the country’s GDP growth projection for 2023. In the latest round of revisions, Goldman Sachs, Crisil and Icra have slashed India’s growth prospects. While Goldman Sachs has cut India’s growth projection to 5.9% in calendar year 2023 from 6.9% Saka, Rashford shine for England Bukayo Saka and Marcus Rashford put last year’s European Championships loss behind them, combining to score three goals in England’s 6-2 rout of Iran on Monday. Both players missed penalties in the shootout loss to Italy in the Euro 2020 final and were then subjected to racist abuse. A year later, Saka scored twice at Khalifa International Stadium and Rashford came off the bench to add another with his first move Reserve Bank of India 7% Crisil 7% Goldman Sachs 5.9% Moody’s 4.8% growth this year, Crisil revised down India’s FY23 growth forecast to 7% from 7.3% projected earlier. On its part, Icra halved the FY23 second quarter growth estimate to 6.5% citing higher input costs and low external demand. England hit Iran for six The 2020 Euro finalists have started their World Cup campaign with a massive 6-2 win over Iran. A look.. Congress to move SC against release of Rajiv case convicts P r e e t h a n a i r @ New Delhi DAYS after the Centre moved the Supreme Court against the premature release of six convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Congress on Monday said that it will file an intervention application in the review petition filed by the government. “We will file an intervention application in the review petition filed by the Centre,” AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh told this newspaper. Intervention application means that a third party (intervener) may file a plea to ‘interrupt’ the proceedings of a case and claim a right to hearing in the interest of justice. Sources said the Congress will file the application in a few days, probably this week itself. On November 11, the Supreme Court had granted premature release of Nalini Sriharan, Robert Pais, Ravichandran, Suthenthira Raja alias Santhan, Shriharan alias Murugan and Jaikumar, who were serving life sentence in the case. After 55 years, Tirunelveli man flies to Malaysia to find father’s grave Fifty-six-year-old Thirumaran has no memory of his father. He’d heard that his dad K Ramasundaram alias Poonguntran taught at a school in Malaysia and died there just six months after he was born. Armed with information from a Google search, P Thirumaran, now an activist in Venkadampatti village of Tirunelveli Just hours before the first match on Monday, players wearing armbands in support of the “OneLove” campaign were set to take the field, FIFA warned they would be shown yellow cards — two of which lead to a player’s expulsion from that game and also the next. That changed the calculation for the seven European teams, which may have expected to be fined for the gesture Group C: Argentina vs Saudi Arabia, 3.30 PM, Mexico vs Poland, 9.30 PM Group D: Denmark vs Tunisia, 6.30 PM, France vs Australia 12.30 AM on Wednesday England’s Bukayo Saka (L) celebrates scoring his team’s second against Iran on Monday | afp district, recently set out on a quest to find his father’s grave. Not only did he succeed, but he also got to learn about his father from the late man’s students. “My father was 37 when he died of an illness in 1967. My mother Radhabhai buried him and brought me back to India. She died 35 years ago,” Thirumaran tells TNIE, adding that he’d always wanted to find FIFA says no to OneLove armbands Today’s matches Mission accomplished THINA K ARAN RA J AMANI @ Tenkasi “We expect growth to be a tale of two halves in 2023, with a slowdown in the first half,” Santanu Sengupta, India economist at Goldman Sachs, said in a note on Sunday. “In the second half, we expect growth to re-accelerate as global growth recovers, the net export drag declines, and the investment cycle picks up,” he added. Crisil, which sees GDP growth further slowing down to 6% in fiscal 2024, cited the slowdown in global growth that has started impacting In- where his dad was buried. “I knew he worked at a school called Kerling Thotta Thesiya Vakai Tamil Palli in Malaysia’s Kerling. Through Google, I found that the school building is dilapidated and the school had been moved to another location. I got the headmaster Kumar Chidambaram’s email address and told him I wanted to find my father’s grave,” Thirumaran recalls. Continued on: P5 dia’s exports and industrial activity “This will test the re. silience of domestic demand,” said Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist at Crisil. India’s merchandise exports dropped 17% in October 2022 to $29.73 billion from $35.78 billion in the same month a year ago, while merchandise trade deficit rose to $27 billion. According to Aditi Nayar, chief economist at Icra, Q2FY23 economic growth will slow down on account of mixed crop output and the ripple effect of global slowdown. Record-breaker Jagadeesan lights up Chinnaswamy BENGALURU: Less than a week after being released by Chennai Super Kings, TN batter N Jagadeesan has stacked up record after record in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. Monday was the highlight of all as Jagadeesan smashed a record-breaking 277 against Arunchal Pradesh at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, registering the highest-ever individual score List-A cricket Full Coverage Page 12 Over `10K, moneylender kidnaps 2 women, abets suicide bid of man; held On hearing about this, Kanthaiya released Banu and her mother the next day in the hope A 43-year-old man was arrested of escaping police action, offion Monday for kidnapping a 28- cials said. “Banu met her husyear-old woman and her moth- band and lodged a police comer for failing to repay a debt of plaint. After a preliminary `10,000 in Tirunelveli. inquiry, Kanthaiya He also allegedly abetwas arrested under ted the suicide attempt sections of the IPC of the woman’s and the TN Prohibihusband. tion of Charging ExorThe woman, Siddhibitant Interest Act,” ka Banu, who runs a police said. Kanthaiya soup shop in Moolakahas three pending Kanthaiya raipatti, bor rowed criminal cases, includ`10,000 from the acing a case for charging cused, Kanthaiya, ‘Business hit exorbitant interest. as devotees from KTC Nagar, the Meanwhile, Badufasting’ Moolakkaraipatti posha was discharged lice said. “She couldn’t from hospital. He deBadusha said pay the weekly intermanded police protecthey couldn’t est of `1,000 for the repay the debt as tion from the accused, past three weeks. Kan- their meat-soup saying Kanthaiya may thaiya threatened her, business slumped soon be released on and on November 16, bail. “We borrowed since Ayyappa kidnapped Banu and devotees began `10,000 in August and her mother in his paid `8,000 as interest, their Karthigai vehicle.” but the principal refast, giving up He then called up mains the same. While meat Banu’s husband lending money, he said Sulthan Badusha and demand- we could repay it whenever posed repayment of the loan as sible. But within a week, he deransom, police said, adding manded `3,000 as weekly interthat Badusha attempted suicide est. We negotiated and brought and was hospitalised. it down to `1,000,” he said. THINA K ARAN RA J AMANI @ Tirunelveli