BHUBANESWAR l friday l june 14, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l LATE city EDITION National interest: Germany primed for big Euro kick-off The three-time champions look to shake-off their listless recent tournament performances as the doors open for 2024 edition of Euros. A look France, Portugal start as favourites Holders Italy in the Group of Death Thanks to their depth, France, 2018 World Cup champions and 2022 runners-up, begin as favourites. The side is stacked with world-class performers, including Kylian Mbappe. Portugal, which is having a Golden Generation of sorts, rivals France in terms of squad depth. Can Cristiano Ronaldo, fresh of an underwhelming season in Saudi, win a second Euro? ■ ■ After failing to advance to the last WC, Italy, the defending European champs, enjoyed a serene qualifying campaign. However, they find themselves in a challenging group with Spain, Albania and Croatia Other teams that have a chance include England, who can lay claim to having the best players of Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga 24 Number of teams in the 2024 event. The final is set for July 14 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 NEET grace marks axed, retest offered S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi The Centre on Thursday cancelled the grace marks awarded to 1,563 students who took the NEET-UG entrance exam for medical courses following a national uproar and gave them the option of taking a retest on June 23. Those who take the retest will lose their pre-grace marks; those who don’t will get to retain their score minus the compensatory marks. The decision came after a four-member panel examined the controversy and suggested remedial measures to allay the fears of the students, the gover nment told the Supreme Court. The committee was of the view that the award of grace marks on grounds of loss of time while taking the test resulted in a skewed situation as it had to be limited to the quest i o n s t h at re m a i n e d u n attempted. The National Testing Agency (NTA) had earlier granted compensatory marks to students in six centres who had complained of loss of time. It created a furore amid allegations of paper leaks and other malpractices in some places. A vacation bench comprising justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta termed the NTA’s decision fairly reasonable and refused to stall the counselling for NEET-UG, scheduled to commence from July 6. They, however, said all the admissions will be subject to the outcome of the petitions that sought cancellation of the exam held on May 5 on the grounds of question paper leak and other malpractices. temporary arrangement Majhi to function from state guest house for now E x p ress Ne w s S er v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Students shout slogans against the alleged irregularities in NEET-UG entrance exam, in Kolkata on Thursday | PTI No concrete evidence of rigging: Pradhan “No concrete evidence of any kind of rigging, corruption or paper leak has been found so far in the NEET. The kind of politics being done on this issue is only an attempt to spread confusion and it affects the mental peace of the students,” Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said | P7 The bench also said it cannot expand the scope of the Centre’s decision to those students who had not approached the court yet. Advocate Kanu Agrawal, appearing for the Centre, said the retest results will be out on June 30, so those candidates too can appear for counselling. When the NEET-UG result was declared on June 4, as many as 67 students had a perfect score of 720. Thursday’s decision brought down that number to 61. The court ordered the NTA to file its reply by July 8 on the allegations of malpractices adopted by some students who took the NEET-UG exam. Around 24 lakh candidates took the exam. Its result was expected on June 14 but was announced on June 4. Even as the Mohan Charan Majhi government has taken the saddle, the chief minister’s office (CMO) is poised to function from the state guest house for the next few days till his office in the third floor of the Lok Seva Bhawan is ready . Official sources said, the CMO is being properly renovated and refurbished after which chief minister Majhi will move in. The walls of the chamber in which the chief minister holds office were freshly painted after the election results were declared. Raja Swain to be But a source pointed Pro-tem Speaker out that the chamber and its allied offices Senior most member n e e d m o r e of the Assembly and Athagarh MLA renovation. On his second day Ranendra Pratap in office, chief min- Swain will be the Proister Majhi went to tem speaker of the the state guest house new Odisha Legislative after returning from Assembly (OLA). his visit to Puri. The Governor Raghubar first floor of the state Das will administer guest house has been him the oath of office temporarily convert- at 11 am on Friday. ed into CMO. Two Swain will administer senior officials from the oath to the newly the CMO, additional elected members on secretaries Subhran- June 18 and 19. su Mishra and Lala Members of the House Manoj Ray assisted will elect the Speaker the chief minister in on June 20, said a his official works on notification from Assembly secretariat. Thursday . After taking oath on Wednesday Majhi had presided over the , first cabinet meeting in Lok Seva Bhawan. But he had not visited the chamber earmarked for the chief minister on third floor. After beginning work from the guest house, the chief minister called several senior officials and issued directions for immediate completion of the CMO. He also held separate discussions with officials of the H o u s i n g a n d U r b a n D eve l o p m e n t Continued on P5 department. Doval gets third consecutive term as NSA Ajit Doval (left) and P K Mishra R AJ E S H K UMA R THA K U R @New Delhi Available on Scan the QR code for further details *Basis lab test in controlled environment on protein damaged hair after five washes Spymaster Ajit Doval was reappointed National Security Advisor (NSA) for a third consecutive term and so was bureaucrat P K Mishra as the principal secretary to the prime minister with effect from June 10, the government said on Thursday . Their terms will be co-terminus with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or until further orders, whichever is earlier, a government statement said. Both will continue to hold the rank of cabinet minister in the table of precedence. They accompany Modi whenever he goes abroad, like he did on Thursday for the Group of Seven summit in Italy. The appointments indicate the PM’s trust in these top officers. After retirement as Intelligence Bureau director in 2005, Doval founded the Vivekananda International Foundation, a public policy thinktank. He worked with the IB for more than 33 years in different roles and in areas like the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, and Punjab. Modi picked him as the country’s fifth NSA in Continued on P5 2014. CM fulfils 1st promise, Srimandir opens all four gates for devotees R a j K u m a r M o h a n t y/ D i a n a S a h u @ Puri/Bhubaneswar A four-year-long demand of Lord Jagannath’s devotees seeking entry through all four gates of the Shree Jagannath temple at Puri was finally fulfilled on Thursday, within hours of the Mohan Charan Majhi g ove r n m e n t t a k i n g o at h i n Odisha. After ‘Mangala Alati’ - the first ritual of the temple - the four gates of the shrine were opened in the presence of Chief Minister Majhi, deputy CMs KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida, cabinet ministers, MLAs and Puri MP Sambit Patra. After offering prayers in the sanctum sanctorum, Vimala and Mahalaxmi temples, they paid their respects at the Mukti Mandapa - the high seat of religious scholars in the shrine. The CM and other dignitaries went around the Parikrama and met locals and servitors. Incidentally no special provisions were , put in place by the district administration or police for the visit of CM and his ministers who arrived in Puri on Wednesday night after the first cabinet meeting in Bhubaneswar. “We passed the proposal to open all four gates of Mahaprabhu Lord Jagannath’s temple in yesterday’s cabinet meeting. Today at 6:30 am, I, along with deputy CMs, ministers CM Mohan Majhi sits on Baisi Pahacha of Puri Jagannath temple along with Dy CMs KV Singh Deo, Pravati Parida and ministers during his visit to the shrine, on Thursday | DEBADATTA MALLICK and Puri MP attended the Mangala , Alati. In the presence of everyone and the district administration officials, all four gates of the shrine were opened. All other issues of the temple will be resolved by the government on a priority basis,” Majhi said after stepping out of the temple. The cabinet had also cleared a proposal for creating a corpus fund of `500 crore in the next state budget for conservation, maintenance and management of the temple. Opening of the four gates of Srimandir is the first election promise that the new government has fulfilled. The issue had figured promi- nently in the BJP’s election manifesto for Odisha and was raked up by several party leaders during their poll campaigns. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the state government, which was then led by the BJD, had decided to close all the doors for devotees except the Lions Gate. With only one gate open for the entry of devotees, it often led to overcrowding outside the temple, and poor crowd management worsened things further. For devotees, who had a hassle free ‘darshan’ on opening of the g at e s, i t w a s a m o m e n t o f Continued on P5 celebration.
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