BHUBANESWAR  SATURDAY  JULY 06, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 12  LATE CITY EDITION AHEAD OF MODI’S RUSSIA TRIP, ARMY GETS 35,000 ‘KALASHNIKOV’ RIFLES Indo-Russian Rifles Pvt Ltd has delivered the first batch of made-in-India Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifles to the Indian Army AMETHI-BASED JV TO MAKE 6 LAKH AK-203s MADE IN INDIA WITH RUSSIAN TECHNOLOGY IRRPL, located in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, is a joint venture of Indian defence PSUs with Concern Kalashnikov and Rosoboronexport of Russia. The first phase of the project has been completed with the production and transfer of 35,000 rifles to the Army, Rosoboronexport said. The JV plans to make over 6 lakh assault rifles for the Indian defence forces ■ “The Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifle is a version of the AK-200 rifle chambered for the 7.62x39mm cartridge used in the Indian Army. The weapon has the traditional advantages of Kalashnikov assault rifles: reliability and ease of maintenance,” Rosoboronexport said in a statement ■ AK-203s are manufactured in India in compliance with Russian technologies `1,26,887 cr OVERALL VALUE OF DEFENCE PRODUCTION IN INDIA IN FY24, ACCORDING TO GOVT DATA 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 KEIR STARMER IS NEW BRITISH PM; EXPECTED TO KEEP UP GOOD TIES WITH INDIA Left turn with mega Labour landslide in UK tive contribution to deepen the ties between India and the UK AFTER sitting on the opposi- during your term in office.” tion benches for more than a Accepting defeat, Sunak said decade, the Labour Party on he respects the people’s manFriday stormed to power in the date. “I have given this job my UK, ending 14 years of Con- all. But you all have sent a clear servative rule. Labour leader message, and yours is the only Keir Starmer assumed charge judgement that matters. This is as the 58th prime minister after a difficult day, but I leave this his customary audience with job honoured to have been the King Charles III at Bucking- Prime Minister of the best ham Palace. country in the world,’’ “Our country has Sunak said in his resvoted decisively for ignation speech. change, for national reThe change of guard Whether you newal and a return of in London happens at voted Labour or politics for public serva time when the free not, in fact, ice,” said Starmer in especially if you trade agreement (FTA) his inaugural address between India and UK did not, I say to from a lectern outside you directly: ‘my is in the final stages. 10 Downing Street, the government will Star mer has often serve you’ official residence of maintained that he the British PM. wants good relations British Prime Minister Starmer, 61, noted with the Modi-led govKeir Starmer that people have beernment. The FTA also come disillusioned and featured in the party’s cynical about politics and his poll manifesto which stated priority is to restore their faith that they were committed to in government. pursuing a new strategic partPrime Minister Narendra nership with India. Modi congratulated Starmer Soon after taking charge, adding that he looks forward to Starmer named David Lammy a constructive collaboration to as his foreign secretary A back. strengthen India-UK relations. er of strong bilateral ties with Modi also commented on out- India, Lammy had said last going prime minister Rishi Su- month that he would be visitnak’s leadership: “Thank you ing New Delhi within the first Rishi Sunak for your admirable month of office if his party was P9 leadership of the UK, your ac- voted to power. S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi Y E S H I S E L I @ New Delhi Britain’s Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria wave to the crowds from the doorstep of 10 Downing Street in London on Friday | AP/PTI LOOK WHERE IT CROSSED 400 TOTAL SEATS 650 28 BRITISH-INDIANS WIN iN ELECTION MAJORITY MARK 326 412 (+211) Labour Party 9 (-38) Scottish National 121 7 (-251) 29 LABOUR: Preet Kaur Gill, Kanishka Narayan, Navendu Mishra, Satvir Kaur Tan Dhesi, Seema Malhotra, Valerie Vaz, Lisa Nandy, Jas Athwal , Kanishka Narayan, Baggy Shanker, Harpreet Uppal, Warinder Juss, Gurinder Josan, Sonia Kumar, Sureena Brackenbridge, Kirith Entwistle, Jeevun Sandher, Sojan Joseph CONSERVATIVE: Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Claire Coutinho, Gagan Mohindra, Shivani Raja LIBERAL DEMOCRAT: Munira Wilson IND: Shockat A Patel, Iqbal Mohamed (+63) Sin Fein (+15) (FIGURES IN BRACKETS ARE INCREASE/ DECREASE FROM 2019 ELECTION) 71 Others Conservative Party * RESULT OF 1 SEAT PENDING AT PRESS TIME Plan for poll promise implementation: CM to secys EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE The government will have to complete what the previous one could not achieve in 24 years. We will have to work 24 hours a day to make Odisha a leading state of the country in five years @ Bhubaneswar CHIEF minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Friday directed secretaries of all departments to prepare a blue print for implementation of promises made by the BJP in its manifesto for the recently concluded Assembly election in the state. The chief minister after starting work from the CMO in the Lok Seba Bhavan met all secretaries and reiterated that the focus of the government will be on fulfilling the promises which are meant for the welfare of the people. “Our government is the people’s government and our work should reflect this in every sphere,” he said. The chief minister said that the departments should start work immediately and prepare action plans for implementation of different promises made in Mohan Majhi, Chief Minister Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi at the all secretaries meeting | EXPRESS the manifesto. There should be a fixed timeline for execution of the schemes. Majhi, however, acknowledged that all the promises cannot be implemented at the same time. Some can be implemented within 100 days, others will take more time, he said and added that work for the promises should start immediately . Stating that a government should remain accountable to the people 24 hours a day, the chief minister asked the secre- Govt, NTA affidavits oppose demand to scrap NEET-UG taries to ensure that this is reflected in the functioning of their respective departments. Majhi said, in 12 years, Odisha will complete 100 years of its creation as a separate state. Similarly the country will reach , 100 years of its independence in 2047. “Keeping in view both these milestones, the government should prepare a Vision-2036. The government will have to complete what the previous gover nment could not achieve in 24 years. We will have to work 24 hours a day to make Odisha a leading state of the country in five years,” he stated. The chief minister also said that the focus of the government should be on resolving the grievance of the common people. “If we meet people and discuss their problems, they will develop confidence for the government and administration. There should no wall between the people and government,” he said. The chief minister asserted that the focus of the government will be on education, health, social justice, improving the standard of living of people and create an atmosphere of transparency and honesty in the administration at all levels. Chief secretary Manoj Ahuja, development commissioner Anu Garg, additional chief secretary in the CMO NB Dhal, all the additional chief secretaries and secretaries attended meeting. DAYS before the Supreme Court begins its hearing on petitions seeking the scrapping of the NEET-UG on July 8, the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday filed separate affidavits opposing its cancellation, arguing it would be counterproductive and seriously jeopardise the efforts of lakhs of honest candidates who took the test. “Scrapping the exam in its entirety would seriously jeopardise lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024,” the affidavit filed by the Union Ministry of Education said. It said demands for cancellation and the retest based on surmises and conjectures must be rejected. NEET-PG on August 11 The NEET-PG 2024 will be held on August 11 in two shifts, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences announced. Scheduled to be held on June 23, it was put off a day before the exam For its part, the NTA, which conducted the exam, said the entire NEET-UG 2024 was carried out fairly and with due confidentiality without any illegal practices. It sought to rubbish the claim of mass malpractice during the exam, arguing it was “completely unfounded, misleading, and lacks any basis”. “It is submitted that the present case is not a case wherein the entire examination process conducted across 4750 centres in 571 cities (including 14 cities abroad) has HATHRAS TRAGEDY Administrative lapses led to stampede: Rahul M AYA N K S I N G H @ New Delhi LEADER of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday said there were administrative lapses that led to the recent Hathras stampede, which killed 121 people, but added that he did not want to make it a political issue. “There have been mistakes and those should be looked into. The most important thing is that the bereaved families from the poor and deprived sections of society must be given more and more compensation in this difficult hour,” he said. Rahul urged UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to arrange generous financial relief. “It will be insignificant if delayed and paid after six months, a year,” said Rahul, who visited Aligarh and Hathras to meet the injured getting treatment in hospitals. Both the UP and the Central governments have already announced ex-gratia of `2 lakh each to the next kin of the deceased and `50,000 to the injured. So, each family that lost its kin would get `4 lakh and the injured would get `1 lakh. Rahul, who met the relatives of the victims in a On a day the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi continued to allege that compensation has not been paid to the next of kin of Agniveer Ajay Kumar who died in a landmine blast in J&K in January, it emerged that around 20 Agniveers lost their lives in less than a year of their induction. The first batch of Agniveers joined the Army in August 2023. Around 18 Agniveers who passed away are from the Army . Most of them died in action or due to some ailment. The latest is of death by suicide in the Air Force, a first for an Agniveer in the IAF. Srikant Kumar Chaudhary 22, , allegedly died by suicide while on sentry duty at the Air Force Station in Agra late on Tuesday night. He hailed from UP’s Ballia district. A Board of Inquiry has been set up to probe his death. Incidentally, the first death of an Agniveer within the Army was also by suicide. It had stirred a controversy as a military funeral was not accorded to him since it’s the Army’s policy not to glorify deaths by suicide. After Rahul Gandhi alleged in the Lok Sabha that Agniveer Ajay Singh’s family wasn’t given compensation, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh hit back, saying `1 crore compensation is paid to to families of Agniveers who die in the line of duty . Rahul Gandhi consoles a woman, whose family member was a victim of the Hathras stampede, in a village | PTI park, later said most of the injured had complaints about the administration. “The required police mobilisation to handle such a gathering was not there.” Most of the victims seemed annoyed with the Bhole Baba, who held the congregation but fled after the stampede. Odisha to reintroduce tigers in Debrigarh, supplement STR BRIDGE COLLAPSE: 16 BIHAR ENGINEERS SUSPENDED After 10 bridges collapsed in a span of two weeks in Bihar, the state government on Friday suspended 16 engineers. “It was found that engineers were negligent and monitoring was ineffective... that is the main reason behind the collapses,” said Chaitanya Prasad, additional chief secretary of Water Resources Dept | P7 @ Bhubaneswar IN a bid to revive the endangered big cat population in the state, the Odisha government has decided to go for reintroduction of tigers in Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary and supplementation of the striped predators in Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) from Central India landscape within next four months. Sources in the wildlife wing of the Forest department said Odisha will receive five tigers, three for Debrigarh and two for Similipal, as part of the big cat relocation project that will be taken up for the second time in the state. Tigers from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra will be brought for this purpose. A senior forest official said the department received permission from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to bring the big cats to Debrigarh in January and Similipal in May Accordingly the . , Hirakud Wildlife Division has been asked to introduce three tigers - one male and two females - to Debrigarh sanctuary from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in next two months. The timeline for execution of the project is August 31. A series of meticulouslyplanned conservation methods that improved the prey base in Debrigarh sanctuary significantly, has equipped the Hirakud Wildlife Division to reintroduce tigers to the land- scape. A dispersing male tiger from Udanti Sitanadi tiger reserve in Chhattisgarh was also spotted in the sanctuary multiple times last year. Similarly, the Forest department has planned to supplement STR with two more fe- More than 20 Agniveers dead within a year of induction N A M I TA B A J PA I @ Lucknow BACK ON TRACK SUDARSAN MAHARANA suffered systematic failure, as it has not been vitiated by all pervasive factors of unfair means or paper leak etc,” the agency said. It added that the alleged irregularities were confined to certain centres in two cities — Patna and Godhra. The NTA said other individual instances of the alleged use of unfair means are very few and do not have any co-relation with the malpractices referred to by the petitioners. In all, 63 cases of use of unfair means were reported, and a committee submitted its recommendations for action. The panel recommended withholding the results of 33 candidates, debarment of 22 up to three years and declaring the result of nine. Exam functionaries of NEET (UG) 2024 have also registered 13 FIRs in cases of unfair means at different exam centres, the NTA said. male tigers from Central India, preferably Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, to improve genetic diversity of the big cats in the protected area. Though Similipal has a unique population of melanistic tigers, in-breeding and a closed population with almost no migratory flow in or out have emerged as a looming threat for the striped predators in the STR that has no nearby breeding source population. Keeping this in view, the department had sought permission from the NTCA to introduce big cats from other landscapes to improve genetic diversity of this isolated tiger population. An official of STR said initially they had planned to bring , male tigers from outside for the supplementation programme in Similipal. However, in view of the risk the males could pose to cubs, they decided to go for relocation of female tigers from the Central India landscape. Currently Similipal has around 27 tigers and 12 cubs. The timeline for implementation of tiger supplementation programme in the protected area is October 31. Apart from tiger reintroduction, sources said the wildlife wing of the Forest department has initiated measures for relocation of black buck, spotted deer, barking deer, sambar, mugger, saltwater crocodile and gaur from Nandankanan Zoo and other parks to forests in different divisions. EXPRESS READ Monsoon strong, flash flood alert for next 24 hrs New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department on Friday issued an alert on flash floods in next 24 hours due to prevailing strong monsoon systems as it predicted widespread intense rains in northwest and east India, northeast region, Western Ghats and Gujarat. In addition, IMD predicted isolated extremely heavy rainfall over northwest regions, east and northeast regions in the next 4-5 days. It has issued a red alert over Uttarakhand, north-eastern states for the next few days | P8