bhubaneswar l friday l november 25, 2022 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l jeypore EDITION Imran-baiter Asim Munir appointed Pak army chief Lt Gen Munir is a former top spy, having served as chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence as well as the Military Intelligence Lt. Gen. Syed Asim Munir Will take charge by the end of this month Unlikely to breach ceasefire with India However, his stint as the spy chief at the ISI was the shortest ever as he was replaced by Lt Gen Faiz Hamid within eight months on the insistence of then-prime minister Imran Khan in 2019. Munir will take up the most powerful position in the coup-prone country following Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa’s retirement on November 29 after two consecutive three-year terms ■ ■ Pakistan President Arif Alvi, who was earlier associated with Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, flew to Lahore to meet the former cricketer to hold consultation on the appointment According to experts, Munir is unlikely to breach the ceasefire pact with India as his focus will be sorting out domestic issues Pulwama Munir was the i.s.i. chief when the 2019 terror attack took place 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 Families meet ex-Navy officers in Qatar custody Embassy seeking further consular access when these officers will be repatriated to India. While families members of Families of eight former naval offic- some of the detained officers have ers detained in Qatar since August- been learnt to have been given access end, on Thursday got to interact with to meet them, there are reports sugIndian envoy Deepak Mittal at a ‘Meet gesting that members of other famithe Ambassador Open House’ session lies have been allowed to go to Doha organised by the Indian Embassy in from India to do so. Doha. While some of them met him in Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar’s person, others got to speak to visit to Doha on the invitaAppeal by him online. tion of the Qatar government family “Only family members to attend the inaugural cerewere permitted to ask ques- Ex-commander mony of FIFA 2022 had raised tions and on a one-on-one ba- Punendu Tiwari hopes of the release of these sis. The details of course eight ex-officers. Though is among the have been kept under wraps. Dhankar did have a private eight officers Indian Ambassador to Qatar audience with the Amir of held captive in Dr Deepak Mittal spoke with Qatar. His sister Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hathem. Queries by those other mad Al Thani, there is no Dr Meetu than the family members clarity on whether he raised Bhargava has were not addressed,’’ sources appealed to the it with him. The meeting said. The Indian Embassy PM to bring back wasn’t structured, according had issued a circular earlier to the Ministry of External her brother saying that they would be Affairs. ready to listen/redress any India’s embassy in Doha is urgent consular issues or grievances regularly raising the matter with the of Indian nationals living in Qatar. Qatari authorities and seeking further It has been close to three months consular access. No official comments since the eight former naval officers have been made by Qatar about the enwere taken into custody by the State tire episode till now. Queries raised Security Bureau (Ministry of Interior, with Qatar’s Embassy in India, too, reQatar). There is hope but no clarity on mained unanswered. Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi State govt presents `16,800 cr supplementary budget E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar THE state government on Thursday presented the first supplementary budget of `16,800 crore for 2022-23 with focus on water resources, panchayati raj and drinking water, health, rural development, education and disaster management sectors. Panchayati Raj Minister Pradip Amat presented the budget on behalf of Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari. The budget exercise aimed to keep the rural population and farmers happy by allocating a sub- stantial chunk of funds for these two sections. While `552 crore has been allocated for rural housing, wage employment, provision of drinking water and rural infrastructure, `200 crore has been kept aside for assistance to farmers who suffered crop loss during kharif season in 2021. Amat said keeping in view the needs and expectations of the people in a welfare state, the supplementary budget is aimed at fulfilling the requirement of funds for public welfare and development activities mainly through re-allocation of available resources and receipt of tied up resources from various sources. The budget is projected to maintain revenue surplus, contain fiscal deficit within three percent of the Gross State Domestic Project (GSDP) and maintain debt-GSDP ratio at the year end within the mandated 25 percent. Till September 2022, the debtGSDP ratio is 12.6 per cent (pc) and the interest payment to revenue receipt is 2.8 per cent. The minister said capital outlay for 2022-23 will exceed 5.5 pc of the GSDP including the supplementary budget. “This will help boost the economic growth and enable the state to carry forward different developmental and welfare programmes,” he said. The supplementary budget includes `4,934 crore administrative expenditure, `9,200 crore programme expenditure, `2610.46 crore disaster response fund and `55.54 crore transfer from state. The allocations under administrative expenditure and transfers to local bodies will be financed against adjustments and surContinued on P7 render.  What was the tearing hurry in Election Commissioner appointment, asks SC S h r u t i K a kk a r @ New Delhi high five Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo became the first man to score in five World Cups when he converted a penalty against Ghana during World Cup in Doha on Thursday | AP A day after calling for the file related to the appointment of former IAS officer Arun Goel as election commissioner, the Supreme Court on Thursday fired a volley of questions at the Centre over the “lightning speed” with which the whole procedure was completed. While perusing the document submitted by the Centre, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice K M Joseph remarked that usually, such sensitive appointments are made after careful scrutiny and contemplation but in Goel’s case, the file has been cleared in one day, showing ‘tearing hurry’. Noting that the post of EC was lying vacant from May 15, Justice Rastogi asked Attorney General R Venkataramani what prevailed on the government to appoint Goel within a “shortest possible time” and “in a super-fast mechanism”. “What is the evaluation here?” he asked, adding that the bench is not at all questioning Goel’s credentials but only the appointment process. Strongly urging the bench not to conduct a “mini trial”, Venkataramani said he can show a number of appointments made after 2015, where the entire process was completed in a matter of a day or two. Continued on P7  Parties to file written submissions in 5 days After the arguments, the top court reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of ECs and the CEC and asked the parties to file written submission in five days