THIRUVANANTHAPURAM l monday l march 03, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l LATE city EDITION Britain, France to work with Ukraine to secure peace deal Starmer stresses restoring peace talks The European leaders are in London to discuss the ways to end the war. The meeting has been overshadowed by the extraordinary scolding of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy by US President Donald Trump, who shouted him down live TV on Friday. Starmer said he is now focused on being a bridge to restore peace talks, rather than “ramp up the rhetoric” The three countries will present the new ceasefire plan to the United States, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Sunday ■ €200 bn ‘european force to be sent to ukraine’ ■ Sunday’s summit is likely to include talks on establishing a European military force to be sent to Ukraine to underpin a ceasefire. Starmer said it would involve “a coalition of the willing” | P9 Next steps: Arming Ukrainians, including a European element to guarantee security, and providing a “US backstop” to check Putin likely to be released by eu to fund ukraine’s efforts 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 Spl court orders FIR against Buch No rift among Cong Team Kerala united, says Rahul; Shashi Tharoor makes amends, changes stance on his praise for Kerala’s startup ecosystem Anti-Corruption Bureau told to book ex-Sebi chief, 5 others for alleged stock market fraud Su d h i r Su r ya w a n s h i & B enn K o c h u v ee d a n @ Mumbai A day after Madhabi Puri Buch demitted office as the chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), a special court here directed registration of an FIR against her and five others in connection with alleged stock market fraud and regulatory violations. The order was passed by special judge Shashikant Eknathrao Bangar on Saturday on a petition filed by Thane-based jour nalist Sapan Shrivastava. Seeking a court-monitored investigation, the petitioner alleged large-scale financial fraud, corruption, and regulatory violations in the listing of a company . The court said prime-facie it shows there have been violations and there are documents to support the same; therefore, Shahabaz murder Police search houses of accused, seize nunchaku The complaint There is prima facie evidence of regulatory lapses and collusion, requiring a fair and impartial probe Special judge S E Bangar Sebi, BSE officials allegedly allowed listing of a firm that failed to meet regulatory norms, leading to market manipulation and loss for investors Court to monitor Court sees cognisable offence, to monitor the investigation & has sought status report within 30 days the Anti Corruption Bureau should file an FIR against the accused, it ordered. Apart from Buch, the officials against whom the court has ordered registration of the FIR are three whole-time members of Sebi—-Ashwani Bhatia, Ananth Narayan G, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney—BSE chief executive Sundararaman U’khand avalanche toll rises to 8, rescue act over N AR E N DRA S E T HI @Dehradun E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @Kozhikode Police officers investigating the death of a 15-year-old, who succumbed to serious head injuries he suffered during a clash between students in Thamarassery have extended the probe , to the families of the accused students. On Sunday the police raided , the houses of the five accused — all Class 10 students of GVHSS, Thamarassery — and recovered the nunchaku used to assault Muhammed Shahabaz on Thursday (February 27). They also seized the mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets during the raids that were held simultaneously. “The police have started recording the statements of the parents, siblings and friends of the accused. The mobile phones of their family members and footage from CCTV cameras in and around their residences are also being checked,” said Sayooj Kumar, S H O , Thamarassery . Shahabaz, a Class 10 student of MJ Higher Secondary School in Elettil Vattoli, died on Saturday while undergoing treatment at Kozhikode Medical College Hospital. The postmortem report said he died of brain and skull injury . The five students, who were taken into custody on Friday in connection with the assault, were shifted to the Observation Home in Vellimadukunnu. The police have collected the footage from all CCTV cameras near the tuition centre where the clash took place. Shahbaz’s father Iqbal Palorkunnu had filed a police complaint alleging that the assault on his son was planned and that the family members of the accused were involved in it. “The father of one of the accused is involved in gold smuggling and has connections with T K Rajeesh, a convict in the T P Chandrasekharan murder case. He had helped his son and his friends to beat up Class 8 students of their school last year. That matter was resolved through negotiations. He was in the area when Shahabaz was attacked on Thursday,” said ● More on P4 Iqbal.  Ramamurthy and former BSE chairman Pramod Agarwal. Responding to the court order, Sebi said it will challenge the it. In a statement issued on Sunday, the markets regulator said it was not given a chance to represent itself and that none of the officials named in the petition was in their current positions when the alleged misdeeds happened. Terming the complaint ‘frivolous’, Sebi alleged that the petitioner is known for filing such petitions in the past. “The applicant is known to be a frivolous and habitual litigant, with previous applications being dismissed by the Court, with imposition of costs in some cases,” it said. Echoing similar views, the BSE said: “The application is frivolous and vexatious in nature,” adding that the court has not issued any notice or granted any opportunity to place the facts on record. In a late-evening statement, the BSE said the company in question is Cals Refineries, listed in 1994, and the officials named in the application were not in their respective positions at the time of listing and were not connected with the company at all. “BSE is initiating necessary and appropriate legal steps in this regard,” it added. Rescuers on the job in Chamoli district on Sunday | Express Dhami condoles deaths Dehradun: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami expressed grief at the death of eight workers in the avalanche in Chamoli district THE bodies of the last four trapped labourers were pulled out from the site of the avalanche-hit Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Chamoli on Sunday, taking the death toll to eight as authorities ended the nearly 60hour rescue operation. Army doctors said 46 workers who were rescued on Saturday have been brought to the military hospital in Jyotirmath. Two of them have been refer red to AIIMS, Rishikesh. Three of the workers are in critical condition. The body of the last missing worker has also been retrieved, said Army PRO Lt Col Manish Shrivastava. The avalanche hit the BRO camp between Mana and Badrinath on Friday burying , the 54 workers inside eight Unbeaten containers and a shed. Earlier, it was believed that the total number of trapped labourers was 55 but one of them was on unauthorised leave and had reached home safely . More than 200 personnel from the disaster management authority, ITBP, BRO, NDRF, SDRF, IAF, district administration, health department and fire brigade were engaged in the rescue operation. Located three kilometres from Badrinath, Mana is the last village on the India-Tibet border at a height of 3,200 metres. Among the deceased are four from Uttar Pradesh: Jitendra Singh, Manjeet Yadav, Alok Yadav, and Ashok Paswan; two from Himachal Pradesh: Mahender Pal and Ramesh Chand; and two from Uttarakhand: Anil Kumar and Arvind Kumar Singh. leaders in Kerala, says Rahul Gandhi E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @T’Puram Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday sought to dispel the notion there is a rift among the party’s leaders in Kerala following its MP Shashi Tharoor’s recent remarks praising the achievements of CPM-led government in the state, saying they stand united. His comment came in the wake of a meeting between the Congress’ central leadership and the party’s leaders from Kerala at Indira Bhawan on Friday to discuss the strategy and the way forward ahead of next year’s assembly polls. Following Tharoor’s remarks, the Congress brass issued a warning that strong action will be taken against those making comments that go against the party’s interests. Posting a picture of the Kerala leaders’ interaction with the media after the meeting on Facebook, Rahul wrote: “They stand as one, united by the light of purpose ahead.” His post was accompanied by the hashtag Team Kerala. The three-hour meeting at the Congress’s Indira Bhawan headquarters on Friday had discipline, unity and the strengthening of the state organisation as its running theme. Sources said Gandhi asked leaders present at the meeting to be very careful and not to do or say anything that does not toe the party line. In the meeting, Mallikarjun Kharge laid stress on discipline, ensuring unity and filling up vacant posts to strengthen party’s Kerala unit. Days after his praise of the growth of Kerala’s startup ecosystem under the LDF government drew flak from his party colleagues, prompting Congress high command’s intervention, MP Shashi Tharoor has taken a U-turn. In a post on X, Tharoor said the growth of startups should not remain confined to paper alone. “Dismayed to see that the Kerala start-up entrepreneurship story is not what’s been reported. The only silver lining is that at least the Gover nment of Kerala’s claims point to the right intentions. We need more MSME start-ups — and not just on paper. Kerala must head this way!,” he posted on X. Tharoor stated his new position while referring to a report published by a newspaper that highlighted the closure of several small and medium enterprises in the state. “There’s more about what the official numbers conceal,” Tharoor added. Meanwhile, state Congress president K Sudhakaran welcomed Tharoor’s willingness to change and correct, emphasising that the MP had not made any serious mistakes. “Tharoor has clarified everything he said. I thank him for his big heart,” Sudhakaran said in Kozhikode on Sunday . Reaffirming his support for Tharoor, Sudhakaran said he would protect him like the ap● More on P4 ple of his eye.  EXPRESS READ Vidarbha clinch third Ranji Trophy title Over the moon Pvt firm makes lunar landing on 1st attempt American private aerospace firm Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA after touching down on the moon on Sunday | P9 India march on Men in Blue beat New Zealand by 44 runs to finish on top of Group A on Sunday. A look... proteas face Black Caps test With the loss against India, New Zealand finished second in Group A. They will be flying to Pakistan, along with South Africa who topped the Group B, where the two teams play the second semifinal in Lahore on Wednesday Semifinal line-up India vs Australia, Dubai, Tuesday Varun Chakravarthy(L) celebrates a wicket on Sunday | AP Nagpur: Vidarbha clinched their third Ranji Trophy title after prevailing over Kerala on the basis of first-innings lead in the final in Nagpur on Sunday. The match ended in a draw after the hosts held on till the afternoon session on the fifth day, reaching 375 for 9 in their second innings. The fate of the contest was all but sealed when Vidarbha took a 37-run first innings lead, having dismissed first-time finalists Kerala for 342 after making 379 in the first innings. P11 ECI allays concerns over duplicate voter numbers Varun takes fifer In what was his first game of the tournament, Varun Chakravarthy took five wickets for 42 runs and in the process helped India defend the target of 250. On the slowish Dubai surface, the spinner from TN rattled the New Zealand middle-order to ensure India remain unbeaten Tharoor says startup growth shouldn’t be confined to paper South Africa vs New Zealand, Lahore, Wednesday M U K E SH RA N J A N @ New Delhi THE Election Commission of India has moved to calm concerns over duplicate voter ID numbers, clarifying that identical EPIC numbers don’t indicate fake voters. The issue came to light after several social media posts flagged the issue and claimed that electors in different states were being assigned similar EPIC numbers. In its response, ECI said while some electors may share the same elector photo identity card (EPIC) number, their demographic details, assembly con- stituency, and polling booth information differ, and that they can only vote at their polling stations in their respective constituencies. The duplicate EPIC numbers were caused by a decentralised and manual mechanism used before the electoral roll database was shifted to the ERONET platform. “This resulted in certain State/UT CEO offices using the same EPIC alphanumeric series and leaving a scope for the possibility of duplicate EPIC numbers being allotted to electors in different constituencies in different states,” ECI said. taking a toll Diabetes-related deaths in Kerala nearly doubled over past 10 years U nn i k r i s h n a n S @ T’Puram Deaths due to diabetes mellitus in Kerala have nearly doubled over a decade, reflecting the growing toll of the disease on both morbidity and mortality in the state. According to the Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD) 2023 report by the department of economics and statistics, the share of diabetesrelated deaths as a percentage of total MCCD deaths rose from 10.3% in 2014 to 19.09% in 2023. This alarming trend comes at a time when a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research-India Diabetes (ICMRINDIAB) estimates that nearly 42% of the population in the state is either diabetic or prediabetic. While cardiovascular diseases continued to be the leading cause of death at 26.44%, the sharp rise in diabetes-related fatalities (20.45%) was especially significant in 2023. Compared with the previous year, the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases declined by 3.36%, whereas deaths from endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases — which include diabetes— rose by 6.8%, with diabetes accounting for over 93% of these deaths. “Diabetes is a major co-morbidity contributing to various diseases, including cardiovascular, liver and renal conditions. Given the high prevalence of diabetes, its impact is becoming increasingly visible in the rising death toll from related diseases. Moreover, we are seeing an increasing proportion of younger people being affected by diabetes, signalling a shift in the age demographics of those affected,” said Dr P K Jabbar, director and CEO of the Indian Institute of Diabetes (IID). The report indicates that diabetes-related deaths predominantly occur after the age ● More on P4 of 30.  RISING CONCERN Diabetes-related deaths as % of total MCCD deaths 2014 - 10.30 2019 - 13.31 2015 - 9.56 2020 - 14.25 2016 - 7.85 2021 - 10.91 2017 - 9.77 2022 - 12.61 2018 - 11.86 2023 - 19.09 What is MCCD? MCCD is a formal process by which a medical professional certifies the cause of death of an individual. MCCD provides detailed information about the disease or condition that led to death, helping authorities track mortality patterns, plan healthcare policies, and conduct epidemiological research. Source: Economics and statistics dept; MCCD 2023 report is based on data from 150 hospitals in five urban bodies