MANGALURU  FRIDAY  OCTOBER 25, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 14  CITY EDITION PAC MEET POSTPONED AS SEBI CHIEF MADHABI BUCH DOESN’T TURN UP The Sebi chairperson skipped a Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee meeting on Thursday, prompting panel head K C Venugopal to put it off BUCH CITES ‘EXIGENCIES’ TO SKIP MEETING FURORE OVER JPC HEAD VENUGOPAL’S FIAT Venugopal said the panel received a message from Buch at 9.30 am that she and her team wouldn’t be able to appear before it due to “exigencies”. The panel’s proceedings remained deadlocked even during its second sitting amid the NDA members’ demand that Venugopal allow a vote on agenda items like summoning heads of regulatory bodies, an idea opposed by Cong MPs ■ ■ BJP member Nishikant Dubey moved a motion to drop five of the 161 subjects picked by the panel for its annual agenda, and called for a vote With NDA members in majority, Venugopal didn’t allow the motion. BJP members accused him of not letting them air their views. They later met Speaker Om Birla to protest against Venugopal’s unilateral decisions Trai chairman BRIEFLY APPEARED BEFORE JPC BUT THE MEET WAS CALLED OFF DUE TO PROTESTS 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 EAM bats for fair, durable solution to W Asia mess Jaishankar says disputes and differences should be resolved through diplomacy YAT H I R A J U @ Bengaluru A special court in the city on Thursday convicted seven accused, including Karwar Congress MLA Satish Krishna Sail and managing directors of some mining firms, in illegal iron ore extraction and transportation cases. This the first verdict in cases related to illegal iron ore mining in the state. Judge Santhosh Gajanan Bhat of the special court pronounced the judgment convicting the accused in six cases guilty of offences punishable under the provisions of IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act. He passed the order remanding the convicted, including Sail, to custody till the hearing on the quantum of sentence on Friday. The judge also cancelled their bail and surety bonds executed by them. The convicted are Mahesh Biliye, the then port conservator; Satish Krishna Sail, managing director of Sree Mallikarjun Shipping Private Ltd; Chethan Shah, managing director of M/s Ashapur Menechem; KV Nagaraj, director of Ms Swastik Steels (Hospet) Private Ltd; its former director KV Govindaraj; Mahesh Kumar K alias Kharadapudi Mahesh, partner of Shri Lakshmi Venkateshwara Minerals; and Prem Chand Garg, managing director of Shri Lal Mahal Ltd. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw briefs the media on the Cabinet’s decisions, in New Delhi | PTI The deployment period of the B1,000-crore VC fund in space sector is planned to be up to five years from actual date of start of fund operations. The average deployment could be B150-250 crore per year, depending on investment opportunities and fund need. IN a big push for infrastructure development in the NDA-ruled Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, the Union Cabinet on Thursday approved one mega Railway project with a total estimated cost of `6,798 crore. In another decision, the Cabinet approved the establishment of a Venture Capital Fund worth `1,000 crore for the space sector under the aegis of INSPACe to promote and oversee private sector participation in the sector. BALA CHAUHAN @ Bengaluru RESEARCHERS have sounded alarm bells at the falling fertility rate in peninsular India, which will have a long-lasting impact on their demography, economy, social fabric and political representation at the Centre. “All South Indian states are staring at an irreversible crisis of falling fertility rates far below the national average of 2.1. Tamil Nadu has the lowest fertility rate at 1.4, followed by 1.5 in Andhra Pradesh (AP), Telangana and Kerala, and 1.6 in Karnataka. This is cata- strophic as it is irreversible and has a long-lasting impact on demography, economy and political representation of these states in Parliament,” said Srinivas Goli, associate professor, Department of Fertility & Social Demography, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai. IIPS is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. As per the fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS5) CYCLONE DANA TO MAKE LANDFALL AT 120 KMPH Authorities in Odisha and West Bengal evacuated people, shut schools, and cancelled over 400 trains, as they braced on Thursday for the cyclone, which would make landfall in Odisha past midnight | P5 R A J E S H K U M A R T H A K U R @ New Delhi Total train accidents 55 Accident 48 40 35 40 36 27 *2024-25 (Up to August) 25 22 17 Derailments 18 Data based on a RTI reply Briefing the media after the Union Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs met, Information & Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, the two mega railway projects scheduled to be completed in five years will provide connectivity facilitate , ease of travel, minimise logistics costs, reduce oil imports and lower carbon emissions. The projects involve doubling the Narkatiaganj-RaxaulSitamarhi-Darbhanga and Sitamarhi-Muzaffarpur sections, covering 256 km in Bihar with an estimated cost of `4,553 crore, and the construction of a new line between Errupalem and Namburu via Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh, covering 57 km with an estimated cost of `2,245 crore, the minister said. The doubling of the rail line is expected to strengthen connectivity to Nepal, the Northeast and the border areas. The new Errupalem-Amaravati-Namburu rail line will traverse through NTR Vijayawada and Guntur districts of Andhra and Khammam district of Telangana. Falling fertility rate spells catastrophe for S India Now, senior rail officers tasked with safety inspection duty *2024-25 Cong MLA Sail among 7 convicted 2023-24 ILLEGAL MINING 2022-23 S Jaishankar, EAM 2021-22 International law should be adhered to and there should be zero tolerance for terrorism EXPRESSING concern over the grave situation in West Asia, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said that any approach that seeks to end the conflict has to be ‘fair and durable’, leading to a two-state solution. Speaking at the BRICS Outreach session representing India, Jaishankar said efforts must be made to resolve disputes and differences through dialogue and diplomacy so that they don’t lead to armed conflicts or full-fledged wars. Referring to the multi-front war Israel is locked in in West Asia—with Hamas in Palestine, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the looming threat of a opening another front with Iran—he said the situation is quite serious. “Maritime trade has also been deeply affected. The human and material consequences of further escalation are truly serious,” he added. Jaishankar made these remarks while representing Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the outreach session hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazan in Russia on the final day of the BRICS Summit. During his speech, Jaishankar reiterated Modi’s message of peace, that this is not an era of war. Suggesting ways to create a more equitable global order, Jaishankar said the distortions in global infrastructure, which he termed “a legacy of the colonial era”, must be set right, adding that corrections must be done with respect for territorial integrity . Lamenting that the benefits of globalisation has been ‘very uneven’, Jaishankar noted that the Global South has long suffered neglect at the cost of the Western nations. However, a new global order is taking shape and global institutions such as the UN must undergo reforms to deal with the new reality . “We face the paradox that even as forces of change have advanced, some long standing issues have only become more complex... BRICS itself is a statement of how profoundly the old order is changing,” he said. 2020-21 Jaishankar interacted informally with the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Thailand. He also interacted with Egyptian prez Abdel Fattah El-Sisi M U K E S H R A N J A N @ New Delhi Deployment period of venture capital fund M AYA N K S I N G H @ New Delhi 2019-20 INFORMAL INTERACTION `6,798 crore railway projects for NDA’s Bihar, Andhra Pradesh Amid a spate of derailments, the Ministry of Railways has decided to involve its senior administrative grade (SAG) officers to conduct inspections to enhance safety . From now on, SAG officers will carry out two night inspections per month at roadside stations, level-crossing gates, or on footplates. This is in addition to regular daytime inspections of maintenance practices across all departments, which may include monitoring crew operations and visits to running rooms. They also have been tasked with conducting “ambush checks” at unmanned level crossings in collaboration with the police to check if safety measures are in place. The decision follows a safety review meeting on October 8, where a system was suggested for assigning officers for night inspections and to monitor the inspections carried out by other nominated officers. The ministry directed GMs and DRMs to implement this system and ensure daily oversight of night inspections. “A number of these accidents are avoidable as they are on account of failure of railway staff. It is essential that constant monitoring is done at all levels of the implementation of follow-up on laid down safety rules and procedures,” the ministry stated in its order. Besides, the ministry mandated senior officers to inspect the functioning of vigilance control devices on locos as well as crew lobbies and surprise checks of crews using mobile breathalysers. Youth washed away in B’luru stream E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Bengaluru A 19-year-old youth from Nadia district in West Bengal was washed away in the swollen Varthur stream on Thursday morning. Efforts are on to trace him. Izharul SK was collecting plastic bottles that were floating on the stream when he was swept away According to . R Kaleemullah, national executive member, Swaraj Abhiyan NGO, Izharul and his two uncles, who live in sheds near Varthur, went to collect plastic waste, such as bottles and bags dumped near the stream around 9 am. The stream was in spate, following heavy rain on Wednesday night. Izharul’s uncles tried to pull him out of the swollen stream, but could not. Personnel from the Fire and Emergency Services and the BBMP who launched search , operations, called them off late in the evening due to darkness. They will resume the search operations on Friday said an officer from the , Whitefield police station. data, only three states -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand -- have Total Fertility Rates (the average number of live childbirths a woman will have in her life) more than the replacement level of 2.1. Recently, AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin drew attention to falling fertility rates in their states, and urged families to have more children. “No country in the world has succeeded in revoking birth rates, despite huge financial incentives to have children. South Indian states are equivalent to many developed countries in the world, but not in terms of per capita income, standard of living and human development indicators like health and education. Though their contribution to the country’s exchequer is much more than the rest of India, they have lost out on their revenue shares from the Centre because of their lower populations. Fertility rate below 1.8 for a very long time will have a negative bearing on their economy said the demographer. ,” CONTINUED ON P5 MUDA PROBE CM moves HC against single judge’s order EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru CHIEF Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday filed an appeal before the high court questioning the single judge’s order upholding the governor’s sanction to investigate him in the alleged irregularities in allotment of 14 sites to his wife BM Parvathy in Mysuru by MUDA. Siddaramaiah filed the appeal with the registry of the high court a month after the order was passed by t h e s i n g l e judge dismissing his petition against the governor’s sanction to investigate him was issued on August 16. On September 24, the single judge held that the complaints received by the governor undoubtedly need investigation against Siddaramaiah since he is, undoubtedly, behind the allotment of 14 sites worth Rs 56 crore to his wife by MUDA at 3rd Stage, Vijayanagar, Mysuru, for acquiring her land at Kesare village, which is far away from Mysuru city, for formation of a residential layout. CONTINUED ON P4