kottayam l Sunday l october 01, 2023 l `12.00 l PAGES 26 l city edition RBI EXTENDS DEADLINE TO RETURN K2,000 bank NOTES TO oCTOBER 7 The Reserve Bank on Saturday extended the special drive to withdraw K2,000 bank notes from the system by another week, till October 7 96% of the notes have already COME BACK K2,000 note to remain legal tender The central bank said ever since it announced the decision to withdraw D2,000 notes on May 19, D3.42 lakh crore of such notes have been received into the system. That works out to 96% of the D2,000 bank notes that were in circulation, the RBI said. The earlier deadline to return was Sept 30. The RBI stopped printing D2,000 notes in financial year 2019 ■ ■ The RBI said the D2,000 currency notes shall continue to be legal tender even beyond October 7, but asked the public to deposit or exchange then without any further delay From October 8, the notes can’t be exchanged at banks. People have to visit one of the 19 offices of RBI to get it done, the statement said A20,000 per transaction cap does not apply for depositing in RBI 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 Northeast monsoon likely to be normal: IMD Express news service @ New Delhi medal of honour: epic return and happy ending (From left) India men’s squash team won gold with a thrilling 2-1 win over Pakistan at the Asian Games; tennis stars Rohan Bopanna and Rutuja Bhosale were the other big performers as they bagged mixed doubles gold; Ayhika Mukherjee and Suthirtha Mukherjee shocked reigning world champion duo of Chen Meng and Wang Yidi to enter the women’s doubles semifinals, assuring India a historic table tennis medal | pti | P13 canada fallout India’s top envoy Visa service to UK heckled by halted as officials Khalistani group felt unsafe: Govt Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Vikram Doraiswami, was on Friday heckled by a small group of Khalistani radicals in Glasgow, Scotland, in what the Indian mission described as disgraceful. The Sikh Gurudwara Committee in a Glasgow Gurdwara had organised a community reception for Doraiswami. A group of Khalistani activists from outside Scotland turned up, physically intimidated the local Sikh community and tried to attack Doraiswami in his car. Some others tried to film this flare up and share Vikram it on their social media accounts, sayDoraiswami ing ‘he was not welcome’. The person who heckled Doraiswamy , went on camera to say that they needed to protect their religious rights and were upset with what was happening in Canada. “This interaction was to discuss consular issues and community issues,” read a statement by the Indian High Commission in London. The organisers, who included senior community leaders and a member of the Scottish Parliament, were threatened by the three. To prevent the situation from escalating, Doraiswami left. Threats to India’s diplomats in Canada and the risk in their going to the consulate offices was one of the reasons why India had to stop visa services for Canada, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. “We were left with no choice but to stop visa services for Canada. There was a campaign targeting our diplomats who felt unsafe travelling to the consulates. Thereby we had to stop. This was a law and order issue. Under the Vienna Convention our missions and diplomats had to be provided with a safe cover,” said Jaishankar, during a presser in Washington. Subramanian Jaishankar, who had mentioned that Jaishankar Canada was discussed during his interaction with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, said there was a difference of perception in the way the US and India looked at Canada. “When Americans look at Canada they see something, we in India see something else. It is important to talk it out. The US is close to Canada and a good friend of ours. They have our point of view, we have taken a reasonable stance,” he added. India is a democracy and doesn’t need to learn from other people about the freedom of speech, Jaishankar said. E X P R E S S R E AD Cartoonist and satirist Sukumar passes away T’Puram: Renowned cartoonist and satirist S Sukumar, 91, died in Kochi owing to age-related issues on Saturday. His real name is S Sukumaran Potti. He was the founder of Kerala Cartoon Academy and also Narma Kairali. For many decades, Sukumar made people laugh and ponder through his cartoons, writings and speeches. P5 ‘I am someone who was judged, criticised even before I took oath’ P4 Elathur train arson attack a ‘jihadi act’: NIA chargesheet E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Kochi The arson attack on the AlappuzhaKannur Executive Express in April was a jihadi act, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in the chargesheet filed against accused Sharukh Saifi at the NIA Court in Kochi on Friday . The NIA, in a statement, said the probe revealed that Saifi, 27, had chosen Kerala for the act involving terror and arson as he wanted to commit the jihadi act in a place where he would not be recognised. He had intended to return to normal life after the commission of the act aimed at creating terror in people’s minds, the statement said. According to NIA, Saifi was selfradicalised through various online propaganda materials that promoted extremism and Jihad. “In this process, he followed radical and hardline Islamic preachers, including those based in Pakistan, on social media platforms. He committed the arson as a jihadi act in pursuance of online radicalisation,” it said. On April 2, Saifi, a native of Shaheenbagh, New Delhi, poured petrol on passengers in D1 coach of Executive Express when the train crossed Elathur station in Kozhikode and set the train ● More on P5 on fire.  copy that! Engg student’s homework machine looks to ‘rewrite’ rules of assignment A n u K u r u v i l l a @ Kochi If there’s one thing that students, especially those in the professional stream, find bothersome is cumbersome writing assignments. Fed up with what is seen as a byproduct of rote learning, a fourth-year engineering student of Cheruthuruthy Jyothi Engineering College has come up with a machine that makes light work of the timeconsuming writing process. Devadath P R’s ‘homework machine’ is finding resonance with the student community not just in the state but also The homework machine nationally. Another student, Sidharth Punathil, assisted Devadath in the project. “Writing assignments were taking up most of my time, which I could have been spending researching or studying. It was becoming very tedious. So, one day when I was asked to submit an assignment, I thought of developing a machine that would do the job for me,” said Devadath. And why not? he adds. “ students do with assignAll ments is copy matter that is available in books and on the internet. Nothing is original,” says the robotics engineering student who is now planning to commercialise his invention. His first attempt was a failure after a teacher realised that the assignment that he had submitted was a ● More on P5 printout.  Coming in Dec, PM’s 2047 vision document D i pak M o n da l @ New Delhi Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil a vision document for India in December this year, according to top government sources. The government’s think tank Niti Aayog is believed to be working on it, which will draw a roadmap for resolving challenges India will face in the next few decades. “The challenges of the old century (roti, kapda aur makaan) have been resolved. The focus will be on how to address the challenges of the future. The PM’s Vision 2047 will outline strategies for the future,” said a top government official. According to sources, old gover nment schemes are reaching saturation. “Now, it is the time for India to close the door of the last century and prepare for the problems of the next century,” said the official. THE northeast monsoon that brings rain to five meteorological sub-divisions of south peninsular India between October-December is most likely to be normal, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Saturday The five states are . Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, Kerala and southinterior Karnataka. Nor mal monsoon would mean the region may receive 88% to 112% of the long-period average of 334.13 mm of rainfall. The northeasterly winds normally set in over the Bay of Bengal and south peninsular India, resulting in the onset of northeast monsoon rains in October. Similar to the southwest monsoon that drenches India from June to September, the northeast monsoon is another major and permanent feature of the Indian subcontinent’s climate system. According to the IMD, the southwest monsoon season has ended with India receiving “near normal” cumulative rainfall amid positive factors countering the effect of El Nino conditions. WITH THIS ISSUE Home Advantage PLUS 12 PAGES