chennai l saturday l january 11, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION Laurene powell Jobs to observe kalpavas at kumbh The American entrepreneur and widow of Steve Jobs is set to observe an ancient spiritual practice of austerity at Maha Kumbh Understanding the Spiritual Practice Maha kumbh: A Spiritual Gathering Kalpvas is a month-long period of austerity, meditation and selfpurification, deeply rooted in the Sanatan tradition. Practitioners, known as Kalpvasis, renounce comforts, live in temporary tents, and engage in daily worship, including holy dips, spiritual discourses and devotional music. The practice is meant for inner purification and spiritual growth ■ ■ The Maha Kumbh, organised every 12 years, is a religious gathering of Sanatan devotees attracting millions from around the world Laurene is likely to stay at the camp of Swami Kailashananda (pic), the Mahamandaleshwar of Niranjani Akhara. She will be there till the third Amrit Snan (royal bath) on Mauni Amavasya on January 29 JAN 13 WHEN THE MAHA KUMBH MELA KICKSTARTS IN PRAYAGRAJ IN U.P. 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 India cagey about Starlink licence after Manipur breach Govt may not give any exemption to Elon Musk firm or treat it as a special case R A K ES H K U M A R @ New Delhi Chief Minister Stalin introducing two new bills in the Assembly on Friday | Express CM proposes stricter penalties for crimes against women, kids E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Chennai Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday introduced two Bills in the Assembly to award stringent punishments, including death sentence, for offences committed against women and children in Tamil Nadu. The bills will amend the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023 for the state and the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, 1998. Harassment through digital and electronic means will also be brought under the ambit of the 1998 Act through the amendments that will take effect on the date of notification by the state government. Introducing the bills, the CM said punishment for heinous crimes against women should remain a deterrent for those who tend to commit such crimes. Though punishment for crimes against women has been defined under the BNS and the TNPHW Act, there is a need for making these punishments more stringent, he said. While majority of the proposed amendments were related to increasing the jail term or penalty for various kinds of offences, the amendments to TNPHW Act included some other key changes. For instance, as per the amendments proposed to the Act, all persons-in-charge of an “education institution, hostel, temple or other places of worship, cinema theatre, hotel, restaurant, hospital, any home or hostel for care and protection of women and children by whatever name called, mall or any other precinct” should install CCTV cameras, lights and “such other measures as may be prescribed” to prevent harassment of women. Similarly, the persons-incharge of such places, on receiving a complaint from an aggrieved person, should report to the police “about harassment of woman within 24 hours of the occurrence of the incident.”  P6 IN a setback to Elon Musk’s satellite communication company Starlink, India may not allow it to operate in the country due to security concerns. The government will do a thorough risk analysis and look at all aspects before considering the firm’s application for a licence, a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) official told this newspaper. The government’s decision comes in the wake of discovery of Starlink satellite antennas and routers from Manipur and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the DoT official said, adding: “Incidents like these have prompted the government to scrutinise Starlink’s licence application.” Gauri Lankesh murder accused out on bail A Bengaluru court granted bail to Sharad Bhausaheb Kalaskar, citing delay in trial. With this, all the 17 accused persons facing trial in the case are now out on bail | P9 Madurai-Thoothukudi railway line shelved as per TN’s wish: Vaishnaw B A NB U SE LV A N @ Chennai The minister inspecting a Vande Bharat coach at ICF in Chennai | P Jawahar In a surprising development, Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said the construction of 143.5km-long broad gauge (BG) railway line from Madurai to Thoothukudi via Aruppukottai, at a cost of `2,054 crore, has been shelved as the Tamil Nadu government did not want the project. To a specific question from TNIE on whether the project has been dropped, the minister, who was visiting the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai, said, “The Tamil Nadu government has informed us in writing that it does not want the project.” The minister, however, did not elaborate on why the state did not want the project. The minister was asked the question by pointing to the state government disbanding the land acquisition (LA) unit in Madurai, set up specifically for acquiring land for the project, from January 1. Revenue officials assigned to the unit have also been transferred out. While the railways funds the entire project, including compensation paid for land acquisition, it is the responsibility of the state government to acquire the land and hand it over to the railways. The project work, announced in 2011-12, was started by the Southern Railway in 2016 and only around 14% of the work has been completed so far. A sum of `324 crore has already been spent.  P9 The Musk-owned firm has been seeking certain exemptions to enter the Indian market, citing technical limitations. Sources said the Centre was earlier open to easing some conditions for Starlink as a special case, but it is now treading very cautiously . Till date, the government has granted licences to Bharti Groupbacked OneWeb and the Jio-SES joint venture Jio Satellite Communications to provide satellite communication services in the country Musk’s Starlink and Ama. zon’s Project Kuiper have also applied for licences but neither has been approved by the government. In 2021, Starlink courted controversy when it accepted preorders from Indian consumers before obtaining the licence to operate in the country Follow. ing this, the DoT asked it to refund the pre-orders. Fresh problems for Starlink emerged in December 2024 when the company’s routers and antennas were discovered in ethnic strife-torn Manipur. Additionally, police in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands found that drug smugglers were using Starlink Mini—a portable satellite communication device with an integrated WiFi router—to communicate. Although Musk claimed that Starlink had “turned off ” its services in India, security agencies suspect the devices were used in sensitive areas like Manipur, providing internet access to militant groups. Hence the government’s rethink on Starlink. SC junks pleas seeking speedy implementation of women’s quota 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 dismissed two public interest litigations (PILs) against the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Act, popularly known as the Women’s Reservation Act, which reserves one-third seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The petition filed by the National Federation of Indian Women, the women’s wing of the Communist Party of India, challenged the constitutional validity of the clause that stipulates delimitation of constituencies as a prerequisite to implementing the Nari Shakti Vandan Act. The SC said NFIW can approach the high court if it wants to challenge the constitutionality . The other plea by Congress leader Jaya Thakur said the Constitution amendment for the women’s reservation law can’t be withheld indefinitely for the Census and delimitation. “We don’t find any merit in the batch of pleas filed before us. The same are rejected,” a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and P B Varale said in its order. On November 3, 2023, the top court while hearing Thakur’s plea had said it would be “very difficult” for the court to strike down a part of the women’s reservation law which would come into effect after the census. The Constitution amendment bill to implement women’s reservation in legislature got parliamentary nod on September 21, 2023. The law will be implemented only after conducting a fresh census followed by a delimitation exercise — redrawing of Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies. Mistakes are inevitable, I’m human, not God, says PM R aj e s h kumar thakur @ New Delhi PRIME Minister Narendra Modi in his debut podcast described himself as a person for whom designation holds no significance in his dedication to serving the nation. In a candid tete-a-tete hosted by Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath, the prime minister said that his designations and s i t u a t i o n s m ay h ave changed but he still remains the same individual who once used to sit on the floor. Modi said he is always willing to abandon old ideas and adopt new ones if they align with his core ideology of “Nation First.” In a reply to a question if he had planned for the future beyond his tenure, focusing on training people he trusts for the next 20-30 years, Modi said, “I can see people with a lot of potential. When I was in Gujarat, I would say that I want to prepare a team for the next 20 years. I am doing it. My success lies in how I prepare my team who will be able to deftly handle things. This is my benchmark that I’ve set for myself.” Stressing the need for participation of youth in politics, he said that the country needs young leaders who are driven by a mission rather than ambition for top positions. When asked about his early approach to leadership, Modi said, “When I became CM, I said I will not do anything for myself. I will not do anything wrong out of bad intentions. I have made it a mantra of my life. Mistakes are inevitable. I must have made mistakes. I am a human too, not a god.” He also reiterated his commitment to reserving one-third of seats for women in legislative assemblies and the Lok Sabha in the near future. Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks to Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath in a podcast | PTI hush money case Don gets felony sentence without any punishment Agencies The government is taking the suspected use of Starlink devices in Manipur very seriously and is carefully considering all aspects before granting licence to the Elon Musk company DoT official express read DMK will contest Erode East bypoll, says Congress Chennai: K Selvaperunthagai, TNCC chief, on Friday announced that the party’s ally DMK will contest the Erode East bypoll on February 5. The seat fell vacant following the demise of Congress leader and MLA E V K S Elangovan | P7 ISRO to bring SpaDeX sats closer for docking Bengaluru: The two Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) satellites that ISRO is hoping to unite are at a distance of 1.5 km and will be brought closer on January 11, the space agency said on Friday | P9 US President-elect Donald Trump was on Friday sentenced in the hush money case without any punishment. It will make him the first person with a felony conviction to serve as president. In a post online after the sentencing, Trump called the trial a “despicable charade” and said he will file an appeal. Trump’s sentence was his first-ever so far. Manhattan Judge Juan M Merchan awarded him an unconditional discharge on all 34 counts, doing legal gymnastics since he is president-elect. He was charged with 34 felonies and convicted by a jury on every count in May last year, yet he got full discharge. Trump was found guilty of fudging his business’ records to conceal a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid in 2016 not to tell the public about her sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump, however, rejected the claim. And the allegations didn’t have an impact on voters, who elected him to a second term. Judge Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old accused to up to four years in prison. Instead, he chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case. Merchan said when facing any defendant, he had to consider any aggravating factors before imposing a sentence. But the legal protection that Trump will have as president is a factor that overrides all others. “Despite the extraordinary breadth of those legal protections, one power they do not provide is that they do not erase a jury verdict,” Merchan observed. Briefly addressing the court virtually Trump , said, “It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and obviously that didn’t work.” , The prosecution requested no prison, probation or fine as a sentence. Judge Merchan obliged. He called it an extraordinary case and a paradox with a lot of attention but ordinary court proceedings. Prosecutors, however, criticised Trump’s fierce attacks on the legal system.  P15