BHUBANESWAR l sunday l OCTOBER 01, 2023 l `12.00 l PAGES 26 l JEYPORE EDITION RBI EXTENDS DEADLINE TO RETURN `2,000 bank NOTES TO oCTOBER 7 The Reserve Bank on Saturday extended the special drive to withdraw `2,000 bank notes from the system by another week, till October 7 96% of the notes have already COME BACK `2,000 note to remain legal tender The central bank said ever since it announced the decision to withdraw `2,000 notes on May 19, `3.42 lakh crore of such notes have been received into the system. That works out to 96% of the `2,000 bank notes that were in circulation, the RBI said. The earlier deadline to return was Sept 30. The RBI stopped printing `2,000 notes in financial year 2019 ■ ■ The RBI said the `2,000 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 `20,000 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 canada fallout High Commissioner Visa services halted to UK heckled by as diplomats felt Khalistani radicals unsafe: Jaishankar 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 it on their social media accounts, saying ‘he was not welcome’. Vikram The person who heckled Doraiswamy, Doraiswami 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 conThe sular issues and community issues,” organisers read a statement by the Indian High Comof the mission in London. The organisers, who interaction included senior community leaders and were a member of the Scottish Parliament, threatened were threatened by the three. To prevent and abused the situation from escalating, Doraiswaby these elements mi left. “One of the extremists attempted to Indian High violently force open the HC’s (Doraiswa- Commission, UK mi’s) car door,” the statement said, adding the timely reaction of an organiser helped avoid a bigger incident. “The vast majority of British Sikhs are amazing people but this tiny aggressive minority are not representative of them,” said Colin Bloom, former advisor to the British government. 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. Jaishankar, who had mentioned that Subramanian Canada was discussed during his interJaishankar action with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, said there was a difference of perception in the way the US and India looked at Canada. We have an “When Americans look at Canada ongoing they see something, we in India see problem with something else. It is important to talk it Canada which out. The US is close to Canada and a revolves good friend of ours. They have our point around of view, we have taken a reasonable permissivestance,” he added. ness on terrorism India is a democracy and doesn’t need to learn from other people about the S Jaishankar, freedom of speech, he said. “We don’t foreign minister think freedom of speech extends to incitement of violence. This is misuse of freedom,’’ Jaishankar pointed out. India’s point is that there is a climate of intimidation. Smoke bombs have been thrown at India’s missions, posters threatening violence have been put up. HC orders CBI probe into missing bank locker case E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Cuttack WITH THIS ISSUE Home Advantage PLUS 12 PAGES express read 8 killed, 49 injured after bus falls in gorge Coimbatore: At least eight people, including four women and a 15-year-old boy, died and 49 others were injured after a tourist bus fell into a 50-footdeep gorge near Marapallam on the Nilgiris Ghat Road around 5.45 pm on Saturday The mysterious case of a lawyer’s safe deposit locker which went missing along with gold ornaments and valuables reportedly worth more than `30 lakh from the Chandi Chhak branch of Canara Bank in Cuttack six years ago is back in focus with the Orissa High Court ordering a CBI probe into it. Earlier the high court had ordered a probe into the matter by the state CID-Crime Branch on August 8, 2019 after the lawyer Himanshu Patnaik and his wife Jyotsna Rani sought intervention into inaction of police. As per a complaint lodged with Cantonment police station on November 30, 2017, the lawyer claimed he still had the keys to the locker in the bank in which he had kept his family’s valuables. But the bank officials maintained the locker is no longer available for use as it had already been surrendered. The couple had filed a fresh petition seeking a CBI probe alleging failure of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of state CID-Crime Branch to find out the real culprits and trace their valuable articles. Advocate Jaydip Pal, arguing on behalf of the petitioner, submitted that the state investigating agency has not been able to conclude the investigation and file a chargesheet in the case even after four years. Taking serious note of it, Justice AK Mohapatra observed, “On careful examination of the materials before this court by the investigating agency this court was shocked to learn , that the valuable articles of the petitioners just vanished in thin air from the public sector bank and the investigating agency after thorough investigation (as claimed by such agency) found no clue whatsoever as to what happened to the valuable articles belonging to the Continued on P7 petitioners.”  medal of honour (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 Coming in December, PM’s vision document for India D i pa k M o n d a 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 govern- ment schemes are reaching saturation. “We have taken electricity to all villages, and all houses will have tap water connections by next year. With Ayushman Bharat, a large part of the population has been covered by health insurance. 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 document may focus on digital infra, new ways of transportation and communication, green and renewable energy, and taking delivery of healthcare and education to a new level. One of the ideas is to provide people with access to expressways within 100 km from any part of the country.