madurai l sunday l june 23, 2024 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l late city EDITION Photo: Shekhar Yadav Delhi, Dhaka sign agreements for maritime cooperation, railways Sheikh Hasina’s India visit saw her signing agreements in oceanography, health, medicine, disaster relief, digital, green partnership Conservation of Teesta in Bangladesh Dhaka’s armed forces to be modernised “Fifty-four shared rivers connect India and Bangladesh. We have been cooperating on flood management, early warning, drinking water projects. We have decided to start negotiations at the technical level for the renewal of the 1996 Ganga Water Treaty,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after summit talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina | P7 ■ India’s push to help Bangladesh in Teesta comes as China has also shown interest in the project. Sheikh Hasina is going on a state visit to China soon ■ Both the nations agreed to strengthen cooperation in defence. India will help Bangladesh in the modernisation of its armed forces and increase engagement on counter terrorism, de-radicalisation, border management 10 times Narendra Modi and Sheikh hasina have met since 2019 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 Conciliatory tone at GST meet Govt does not intend to send notices to businesses left, right and centre, says Sitharaman D i pa k M o n d a l @ New Delhi WITH THIS ISSUE In her first GST Council meeting after assuming the role of finance minister in the new government, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in a conciliatory mood as she reiterated that the Central government does not intend to send GST notices to businesses left, right and centre. “I want to reassure assessees that our intent is to make the GST assessees’ life easier. We are working towards less and less compliances,” she said at the fag end of the press briefing called to announce the decisions made in the 53rd GST Council. To buttress her point, she underlined that the Central GST department has sent notices to only 1,14,939 assessees, or 1.96% of the total 58.63 lakh active assesses till 31 December 2023. “Our intention is to make it Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chairs the GST Council meet on Saturday | PTI easier and simpler, less cumbersome,” she added. The same conciliatory tone was reflected in the GST Council decisions as it decided in favour of taxpayers in many ongoing thorny issues, including introducing the sunset clause for anti-profiteering provisions, exemption of GST on corporate guarantees, and reducing the amount of pre-deposit for filing of appeals under GST. The Council also decided to exclude Extra Neutral Alcohol used for manufacture of alcoholic liquor for human consumption under the ambit of GST. Some of the decisions would directly impact the common Kallakurichi hooch tragedy NEET & Unclean PLUS 12 PAGES 55 dead, but breakthrough in probe still seems elusive E X PRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Chennai Samathuvapuram Eight districts to get housing units to foster caste harmony E X PRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Chennai Minister for Rural Development I Periyasamy on Saturday said eight new Periyar Memorial Samathuvapuram habitations will be established across the state to promote harmonious living among members of various communities. The announcement was made in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Saturday during the minister’s reply to the discussion on the demands for grants of his department. The new Samathuvapurams will be built in eight districts including Cuddalore, Mayiladuthurai, Pudukkottai, Virudhunagar, Tiruchy, and Dindigul, at the earliest. The scheme was first launched during the DMK regime between 1996 and 2001. Other key announcements made by the minister include digging up of 5,000 small ponds across the state to save rainwater, promote agricultural activities, and improve the groundwater table. He said the project will be implemented at a cost of `250 crore through the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Periyasamy said the number of clusters providing jobs under MGNREGS has increased to 28,000 in Tamil Nadu. The state government has provided `41-crore job-days so far under the scheme, surpassing Uttar Pradesh, the minister said. The minister also said 10 new faecal sludge treatment plants will be set up at a cost of `20 crore to hygienically handle human waste in villages. Construction of 500 village panchayat office buildings at a cost of `150 crore, construction of 10 panchayat union offices at a cost of `6 crore, and proposal to buy 480 new vehicles for the rural development department at a cost of `44 crore are among the other proposals put forth by the minister.  P5 also probing the role of Madhesh and Joseph Raja of Kallakurichi, sources said. The investigators are working to find out how methanol from defunct factories in Madhavaram near Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry was procured by the accused for being mixed with the locally brewed illicit liquor, sources said. During his address in the Assembly on Friday, Stalin had mentioned about two illicit liquor cases being investigated by the CB-CID in Chengalpattu and Villupuram district that were booked last year. In the Villupuram case, 21 people had been arrested and eight were jailed under the Goondas Act and 16 police personnel were facing departmental action. The chargesheet has been filed in the case, the CM said. In the Chengalpattu case, nine accused have been arrested, five have been jailed under Goondas Act and action has been initiated against six police personnel. Four days after the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy in which 55 people had died so far and more than 150 people are still hospitalised, breakthrough in investigation still seems elusive. The CB-CID, which is probing the case, is yet to make public the progress of investigation in the case. Though agency officials remain tight-lipped, sources said at least seven people have been arrested in the case so far, and two more are under the scanner. The Kallakurichi district police had already arrested Govindharaj alias Kannukutty his wife Vijaya and broth, er Dhamodhiran. Police have also arrested Madhan of Puducherry and one of his accomplices from the Union Territory sources said. , Chief Minister MK Stalin on Friday told the Tamil Nadu Assembly that 200 litres of illicit liquor mixed with methanol has been seized from them. Sources AIADMK MLAs led by party general secretary EPS stage a walkout from the Assembly on Saturday | P Jawahar AIADMK walks out; CBI probe demand rejected Min: ‘Med expert’ EPS confused about drugs 2 MLAs reject charge of nexus with accused AIADMK members led by Edappadi K Palaniswami staged a walkout from the Assembly for the second day on Saturday after their demand to discuss Kallakurichi incident during question hour was rejected by Speaker. Law minister Regupathy also rejected the opposition’s request for a CBI probe | P4 Rejecting Edappadi K Palaniswami’s allegations about lack of adequate antidote stocks in hospitals to treat methanol poisoning in the state, health minister Ma Subramanian said the opposition leader, who is a ‘medical expert’, is confused over drugs ‘omeprazole’ and ‘fomepizole’ | P4 DMK’s Sankarapuram MLA T Udhayasuriyan and Rishivandiyam MLA K Karthikeyan on Saturday said they would quit public life if PMK founder S Ramadoss and party president Anbumani Ramadoss can prove their allegations about the MLAs’ nexus with illicit liquor sellers in Kallakurichi | P4 said police are probing the role played by Madhan in supplying methanol from Puducherry to Kallakurichi. Another person under the agency’s scanner is Chinnadurai, a resident of Kallakurichi, who allegedly acted as the middleman between Madhan and Govindharaj. His accomplice Madhesh has also been picked up from Chennai, sources said. Police are More reports on p4 man. The Council decided to exempt some services provided by the Railways, such as sale of platform tickets, facility of retiring rooms/waiting rooms, cloak room services and battery-operated car services. To benefit students living in hostel accommodations outside the premises of educational institutes, the Council decided to exempt accommodation services from GST where the monthly rent per person is up to `20,000. Such benefits would be available subject to the condition that the accommodation is supplied for a minimum continuous period of 90 days. To deal with fake invoicing, the Council decided to roll out nationwide Aadhaar-based authentication of registered taxpayers in a phased manner. It also decided to implement a uniform rate of 12% on all milk cans. cmda Policy note on six satellite towns TN will soon develop six satellite towns in Minjur, Tiruvallur, Thirumazhisai, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, and Mamallapuram through a land pooling scheme States raise issue of borrowing limit in pre-budget meeting d i pa k m o n d a l @ New Delhi Opposition-ruled states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala have again raised the issue of borrowing limits imposed by the Centre depriving them of necessary funds leading to liquidity crunch. In a pre-budget consultation with the Centre here, Kerala finance minister K N Balgopalan requested that a special package of at least `24,000 crore be announced in the Union budget 2024-25 to tide over the current liquidity stress the state is facing due to borrowing limits imposed by the Centre. Tamil Nadu finance minister Thangam Thenarasu pointed out that because of the Centre’s diktat the state lost `8,500 crore of borrowing space over the last four years. In the meeting, most state finance ministers stressed the need for more funds for improvement of infrastructure in their respective states. Kerala’s finance minister highlighted the urgent need for a special capital investment of `5,000 crore for the state for fulfilling its part in the development of the Vizhinjam International Mother Port and the Port region. He also sought another `5,000 crore for financ- Demand to upgrade rail infrastructure TN’s FM said the state faced step-motherly treatment from the Centre on railway projects. Similar concerns were raised by the Kerala FM. He said that there is an urgent need to upgrade the railway infrastructure and introduce a high-speed railway corridor ing certain other infrastructure projects such as the ‘Tunnel Road link between Calicut and Wayanad’. Odisha deputy chief minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo sought dedicated budget allocations and resources for large-scale infrastructure projects, such as industrial parks and corridors, electricity grids and railway infrastructure. Chhattisgarh finance minister O P Choudhary urged financial assistance for development of the state capital region — Nava Raipur — as an industrial hub. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the media that on the issue of devolution of taxes, most finance ministers agreed to raise the issue at the finance commission. NTA head rolls; NEET-PG on hold 7-member panel to clean up nta To address the NTA mess, the Ministry of Education on Saturday announced the constitution of a high-level committee of seven experts, led by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan to review its performance and suggest course corrections | P7 Congress activists protest over the alleged irregularities in NEET-UG results, in Kolkata on Saturday | PTI RA J ESH K U MAR THAK U R @ New Delhi Beleaguered National Testing Agency (NTA) chief Subodh Kumar Singh was on Saturday sacked, days after Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan called out the agency for systemic failure in conducting major competitive exams like NEETUG and UGC-NET, affecting 35 lakh students. Singh was re placed by former home secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola, a retired IAS officer of the 1985 batch. Kharola was considered as a tough task master during his tenure in service. The Appointment Committee of Cabinet, while approving Kharola’s appointment as the new NTA director general, placed Singh in waiting for posting in the department of personnel, public grievance and pension till further orders. Parallelly, the Union Health Ministry decided to postpone the NEET-PG entrance examination, scheduled to be held on Sunday, as a “precautionary measure”. The Ministry of Health said it has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of the NEET-PG entrance examina- tion conducted by NTA for medical students. “It has accordingly been decided, as a precautionary measure to postpone the NEET-PG entrance examination, scheduled to be held tomorrow — 23rd June, 2024,” a statement issued by the ministry said. To clean up the mess, sources in the government said concerned departments, including intelligence agencies, have been directed to trace the origin of question paper leaks immediately . “If the culprits are not identified, the government will not hesitate to order a CBI probe into the racket,” a source said. Sporting life Finding neverland: Sports help refugees build bridges, integrate into society somah Ali Zada, during an interaction with this newspaper THIRTY-SIX athletes with as highlighted the beauty of sport many tales training in 12 disci- and its role in helping athletes plines, hosted by 15 countries integrate into society. Her representing more than 120 words were at times John million displaced people Lennonesque: ‘there is no across the world. All country or religion Sunday too...’ unified through sport. The International Ol“I am so lucky to be Special y m p i c C o m m i t t e e ’s chef the mission of a (IOC) Refugee Olympic team that’s from different Team is not just a team, it’s cultures, speaks different an amalgamation of myriad languages,” she said. “I sufemotions, stories of resilience fered a lot of discrimination and hope. because of my nation and of The sentiments echoed by my ethnicity We are from dif... the team’s chef de mission, Ma- ferent countries. The Olympic I n d r a n e e l d a s @ Chennai Games is the moment they will realise their dream.” Masomah, who was forced to flee Afghanistan for pursuing her passion, cycling, because of the Taliban government’s hostilities towards women playing sport, said the only thing that kept each of them sane while waiting for endless paper- work was sport. “When we arrive in a new country, we have to wait for paperwork and it’s a long process. During this period, we cannot do anything. We cannot learn the language. We don’t have access to education so we wait. Sport is the only possi- bility that helps refugees to just pass the time and wait. Most refugees in this period try to play a sport, also to remain h e a l t h y, m e n t a l l y a n d physically .” Masomah felt despite athletes not representing a country, refugees have the right to compete at the Olympic Games. “They have a lot of talent. They I suffered a lot of discrimination because of my nation and of my ethnicity... We are from different countries. The Olympic Games is the moment they will realise their dream - Masomah Ali Zada just need a chance. I know that it’s really difficult to be a refugee, but still, we have to keep going. We have a right to live and dream and thanks to the Olympic team that allows refugees to be part of international competition like Olympics.” She said how despite getting teased and stoned while cycling in Afghanistan and even while in France as a refugee she continued to dream. Finally in To, kyo Olympics she realised it when she represented the refugee team. Living a dream amidst the spirit of inclusion and inspiration.