BENGALURU  SATURDAY  JULY 20, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 20  LATE CITY EDITION TRUMP CALLS FOR UNITY IN HIS FIRST ADDRESS AFTER ASSASSINATION BID After formally accepting his third presidential nomination from the Republican Party, Donald Trump on Thursday said he will work for all ‘WILL BE PRESIDENT FOR ALL OF AMERICA’ DON TAKES POTSHOTS AT BIDEN, PELOSI Starting his 92-minute speech in a soothing and calm manner, he promised he would be a president “for all of America”, including Democrats, saying he wanted to heal the divided country. The 78-year-old also recounted in detail the attempt to assassinate him last Saturday, which he said deeply affected him, and narrated how sad he was about a supporter killed by the gunman ■ “I am not supposed to be here tonight. I stand before you... only by the grace of almighty God,” Trump said, recounting the assassination attempt on him ■ However, a few minutes into the speech, Trump shed his new-found softer image and wore his familiar bombastic avatar calling Joe Biden “the worst president in US history” and former House Speaker “crazy Nancy Pelosi” Record TRUMP’S PRESIDENTIAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH WAS THE LONGEST IN U.S. HISTORY 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 MASSIVE TECH BLACKOUT AFFECTS AIRLINES, BANKS, MEDIA OUTLETS CHAOS AT MAJOR AIRPORTS AS OPERATIONS DISRUPTED INDIGO CANCELS OVER 200 FLIGHTS Tech outage cripples world What exactly happened and how it created chaos EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi/Mumbai/Bengaluru AIRLINES, banks, media outlets, and financial institutions across the world were on Friday thrown into turmoil by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent histoy, caused by an update to an antivirus programme. The mass IT outage came after some widely used Microsoft 365 applications and services shut down for hours as a result of the update. There were unprecedented chaos in major cities, including in India, with flights grounded, communication shut down, and shops closed. Millions encountered the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, causing sudden system shutdowns or restarts. Microsoft, which said it was actively working to fix the outage, attributed the BSOD issue to a recent update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which admitted that its action affected Windows devices. In India, almost all the airlines and major airports were affected as they struggled to provide online booking, web check-ins, and flight status updates. IndiGo cancelled around Microsoft said the issue began at 1900 GMT on Thursday, after a defective update to CrowdStrike Falcon, an IT solution designed to protect Windows systems, ended up crashing the systems instead Passengers look at screens, some of them showing Blue Screen errors, at T3 of Delhi international airport on Friday | PTI 200 flights across the country . SpiceJet, Air India, Akasa, and Vistara also faced disruptions due to a technical error in Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing platform that powers critical systems. Throughout the day, airlines were seen doing manual check-ins and issuing hand-written boarding passes.Operations at key airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru were badly hit, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said his ministry and Airports Authority of India are actively managing the situation. Banking regulator RBI in a statement said that critical systems of most banks are not in SC to examine contours of guv’s immunity from criminal prosecution 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 Friday decided to examine the contours of the blanket Constitutional immunity governors in harness have from criminal prosecution, after hearing a plea filed by a woman employee of the West Bengal Raj Bhavan. She alleged that she was sexually harassed by incumbent Governor C V Ananda Bose. Article 361 of Constitution says no criminal or civil proceedings shall be instituted or continued against the President, or the Governor, in any court during his term of office. A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud asked Attorney General R Venkataramani to assist in the case and issued notice to the state government on the plea filed by the woman contractual staffer. “The petition raises the issue pertaining to the ambit of the protection which is afforded to the governor under clause (2) of Article 361 of the Constitution,” the bench said in its order of issuing notice to the state government and others. The court granted liberty to the petitioner to implead the Union government as a party in the petition. Senior lawyer Shyam Divan, appearing for the petitioner, argued that Article 361 should not be a bar against investigation. “Evidence has to be gathered right now. It cannot be deferred indefinitely he said. ,” The woman employee had moved the court on July 4 seeking a thorough probe into the case by the police and guidelines on the immunity enjoyed by gover nors. The victim claimed the governor called her on April 24 and May 2 on the pretext of offering a better job, but allegedly harassed her sexually within Raj Bhavan. EXPRESS READ UPSC cheating: FIR against Puja Khedkar New Delhi/ Mumbai: The Delhi Police Crime Branch has registered an FIR against probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar for allegedly misrepresenting and falsifying facts to obtain extra attempts in the UPSC examinations, officials said on Friday | P10 Asia Cup: India romp to 7-wicket win over Pak DAMBULLA: India started their Women’s T20 Asia Cup title defence on a rousing note, demolishing arch-foes Pakistan by seven wickets on Friday. India bundled out Pakistan for 108 and then chased down the target with 35 balls remaining | P15 cloud and that only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool, which created the chaos. “Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions, which have either been resolved or are being resolved. Overall, the Indian financial sector in the Reserve Bank’s domain remains insulated from the global outage,” an RBI statement read. Auto major Maruti Suzuki India said it had briefly halted production and dispatch operations due to the outage. Although many IT employees found it difficult to log into Microsoft applications on Friday no major setbacks were re, ported for the IT industry except production downtime. What is CrowdStrike that caused the chaos CrowdStrike is a US-based cybersecurity firm that provides incident response and threat hunting services. It is known for its expertise in detecting and responding to advanced threats Over 2,600 flights cancelled globally Out of more than 1,10,000 scheduled commercial flights on Friday, 2,691 have been cancelled globally, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium “Those who were using Microsoft Azure were not able to login,” an IT employee said. Meanwhile, in a statement around 7 in the evening, CrowdStrike said that the issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. P2,12,13 Protesters throw stones at police in Dhaka on Friday | AFP Indian evacuation from Bangladesh begins, stir toll 105 Y E S H I S E L I A N D P R A S A N TA M A Z U M D A R @ New Delhi/Guwahati WITH the situation in Bangladesh continuing to remain volatile and the toll of the student unrest over a contentious quota order reaching 105 on Friday hundreds of Indian students have start, ed streaming into the country . India was careful not to comment on the situation, with External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal saying, “We see this as an internal matter of the country .” Till Thursday over 300 people, mostly students , from India, Nepal and Bhutan, were evacuated via Dawki in Meghalaya. The Meghalaya government said 202 Indians — 198 students and four tourists — were evacuated. The students included 67 from Meghalaya, 95 from Nepal and seven from Bhutan. “On Friday, 96 students crossed the border at Gede-Darshana around 5.30 pm. None of the students waiting to cross back was left behind. Another batch of over 100 students are expected to cross into India during at night,’’ according to a source. “Around 13 Nepalese students were also permitted to enter India after their embassy made an official request,’’ the source added. The Indian Railways cancelled the KolkataDhaka Maitree Express on Saturday and Bandhan Express between Kolkata and Khulna on Sunday There are over 15,000 Indians in Bangla. desh, of which 8,500 are students. The Assam government has sought the Centre’s help for the evacuation of students stranded in the neighP12 bouring country . UP, U’KHAND HARDEN STANCE ON KANWAR N A M I TA B A J PA I @ Lucknow A day after it toned down the Muzaffarnagar police’s order asking eateries and shops along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their owners’ names, the Yogi Adityanath-led gover nment in Uttar Pradesh on Friday hardened its stance, saying the order will now be applicable across the state. Meanwhile, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami said similar orders to display the names, addresses, and mobile phone numbers of owners are already in place in his state. The Muzaffarnagar police had on Monday issued an order instructing hotels, roadside eateries, and shops that fall on the yatra route to display the names of their owners to enable the pilgrims to take infor med decisions and maintain the sanctity of their faith. However, after t h e a u t h o r i t i e s we re panned for allegedly trying to target Muslim traders, the order was reviewed on Thursday and it was left to the ‘free will’ of the eateries owners to display their names. With the latest government decision, displaying the information will be mandatory Kanwar Yatra . will commence on July 22 with the advent of the Hindu month of Shravan and conclude on August 2. The authorities have also made it clear that stringent action will be taken against those selling ‘halal-certified’ products. TOUG H TA L K Will probe all scams during BJP rule: Siddu ‘Will recall funds to Corpns’ CM on Friday admitted to the ST Corporation scam and said he will ask boards and corporations to send back funds released to them to the treasury to prevent scams. Funds will be released action plans is submitted, he said. Cabinet divided over job quota: CM CM Siddaramaiah on Friday revealed that his cabinet is divided over the proposed bill to provide quota for Kannadigas in private sector jobs. That’s why the bill was on hold. E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Bengaluru WITH Opposition BJP and JDS legislators trying to corner him over the alleged financial irregularities in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Cor poration, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday went on an offensive by declaring that his government would get all scams during the BJP rule probed and send those involved in them to jail. “They should understand, we are not scared of the ED (Enforcement Directorate) or BJP,’’ the CM said while responding to Opposition parties’ allegations in the Assembly The CM accused BJP of using ED . as its tool, while its legislators made allegations against the government on the instructions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Later addressing reporters, Siddaramaiah admitted to the scam in the ST corporation and said that his government has taken measures to ensure transparency in transaction of funds released to all boards and corporations. Earlier in the Assembly the CM said that , during BJP’s rule, several scams happened. “Ours is not Yediyurappa or Basavaraj Bommai government to let go those who embezzle government money We are not go. ing to spare anyone. We will not compromise with corruption,” he said. The previous government did not take any action against corruption or people involved in it. This resulted in rampant corruption now, he said. CONTINUED ON: P4 Drunk trio sleeps on rail track, run over SUBHASH CHANDRA NS @ Gangavathi (Koppal) THREE youngsters, who slept on a railway track after partying, were run over by a train in Koppal district on Thursday night. Mounish Pattar, 23, Sunil, 23, and Venkat Bhimanaik of Hirejantakal village in Gangavathi taluk of Koppal district started partying on the railway track at an isolated place in the village in the evening. After having a couple of drinks, they slipped into slumber on the track. The train, which was proceeding to Sindhanoor from Hubballi, ran over them around 9.30 pm. The incident came to light after the loco pilot alerted the station guard at Sindhanoor. Sunil completed his graduation a few days ago, while Mounish and Venkatesh were pursuing higher studies. Mounish’s father owns a shop near Anjanadri Hanuman temple, a senior police officer said. The body of Sunil was sent to Maski, his hometown, in Raichur district, after postmortem, the officer said.