tirupati l tuesday l february 20, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION Water bell scheme in Kerala’s schools to keep kids hydrated As temperatures begin to soar, the Kerala govt on Monday directed schools to ring the bell twice a day so as to remind students to consume water ‘Drink water even if you don’t feel thirsty’ Pilot project on hydration began in 2019 Education minister V Sivankutty asked schools to ring the bell at 10.30 am and 2.30 pm as a remainder to students to take water. He advised students to drink water even if they did not feel thirsty. Consuming enough water is the only way to fight adverse impacts of heat, the minister said. He ordered schools to make arrangement for supply of clean drinking water ■ ■ Kerala officials claimed that it was the first state in the country to implement such an initiative in 2019 in a few schools. The scheme has now been extended to all schools in the state. Taking a cue from Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka have implemented it, they said Four districts of the state to have above normal temperatures 5 mins water break will be given for students to hydrate themselves 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 Farmers reject offer, set to resume stir Centre had suggested guaranteed MSP regime for five crops — tur, urad, masoor, cotton and maize — for five years H ar p r e e t B a j w a @ Chandigarh The permanent campus of IIMV, which will be inaugurated virtually by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday | Express PM to inaugurate new campuses of 2 institutes E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v ic e @ Vijayawada Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually inaugurate the permanent campus of Indian Institute of Management Visakhapatnam (IIMV) and the campus of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kurnool (IIITDM) on Tuesday . The inauguration of the campus marks a significant milestone in the journey of IIMV , one of the India’s premier management education institutions. The foundation stone for the permanent campus was laid by the then Union Minister for Human Resources Development Smriti Irani on January 17, 2015. The inauguration ceremony will be attended virtually by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy Union Minister for , Education, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan and others. IIMV is a green campus, constructed on 241.50 acres, amidst 8,500 trees. The land has been made available by the State government free of cost. With a built-up area of about 62,350 square metres, IIMV has been constructed at a cost of `472.61 crore. It has a digitally enabled state-of-the-art facility with 5-star GRIHA rating equipped with 1500 kWp solar power bank connected to the grid, 216 kilo litres per day water treatment plant, and a 150 KLD sewP4 age treatment plant. Farmer leaders on Monday rejected the Centre’s offer of a guaranteed minimum support price for five crops for five years, stating they wanted the mechanism to apply for all 23 crops and not a piecemeal deal. They also announced the resumption of their ‘Dilli Chalo’ march from both the Shambhu and Khanauri inter-state Punj a b - H a r ya n a b o r d e r s o n Wednesday peacefully . The Centre made the proposal during the fourth round of talks it had with the protesting farmers on Sunday night. The guarantees would come from three Central cooperatives — the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketi n g Fe d e r at i o n o f I n d i a (NAFED) — and not from the government direct. After the meeting, Union minister for food, commerce and consumer affairs Piyush Goyal said, “we had positive talks and have proposed a very innovative, out-of-the-box idea. The crops which the government has proposed to buy on assured MSP are tur urad and , masoor besides cotton and maize.’’ Apart from Goyal, ministers Arjun Munda and Nityanand Rai participated in the Chandigarh mayor polls SC raps returning officer, calls for ballot papers S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi THE Supreme Court on Monday slammed Anil Masih, the returning officer (RO) of the January 30 Chandigarh mayoral polls, for allegedly “defacing ballot papers” and sought the ballots and the video recording of the counting for the court’s perusal. The bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardi- wala and Manoj Misra said it may consider declaration of results on the basis votes already cast instead of ordering fresh polls. The BJP had won the Chandigarh mayoral polls after defeating the AAP-Congress alliance candidate after the RO declared eight votes of the coalition par tners as invalid. Manoj Sonkar of the BJP was declared winner after polling 16 votes against AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar’s 12. Sonkar, however, resigned later, while three AAP councillors defected to the BJP . “We are deeply conc e r n e d ab o u t t h e horse-trading,” the bench remarked, and fixed the matter for further hearing on Tuesday at 2 pm. The apex court said the RO must be prosecuted for interfering in elections. talks. “We have proposed that the CCI, NCCF and NAFED enter into a contract with farmers who grow tur, urad, masoor, maize and cotton for buying their crops at MSP for next five years. There will be no limit on the quantity purchased and a portal will be developed for this,” he said. The proposal is meant to prod farmers into crop diversification away from the water guzzling paddy . Hours later, Sarwan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, president of Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Sidhupur) who took part in the talks with the Centre that went on past midnight, said, “We reject the proposal as it is not in the favour of farmers.’’ The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, which is not part of the talks, rejected the proposal outright. Guessing game over, Nath, son to stay in Congress anuraa g sin g h @ Bhopal Ending speculation of whether or not Congress veteran Kamal Nath and his son Nakul would leave the party and join the BJP, Nath loyalist and former state minister Sajjan Singh Verma on Monday said both would stay in the grand old party . “Nakul Nath will contest the coming Lok Sabha polls as Congress candidate,” Sajjan told reporters outside Kamal Nath’s residence in New Delhi, adding that the veteran leader had authorised him to brief the media. Kamal Nath on Monday had a meeting with Congress leaders from Madhya Pradesh for about an hour-and-a-half over the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls and Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which comes to the state on February 22, Sajjan said. After the yatra leaves the state, Nath will start touring the state for the Lok Sabha polls, he added.
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