visakhapatnam l thursday l february 08, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION Twin Blasts rock Pak ahead of its general elections today Candidates are the targets for the blast The first blast happened outside the office of an independent candidate in Pishin district. Police say this blast was detonated remotely after a bag of explosives was left outside the office of the candidate. The second blast an hour later was also outside another candidate’s election office. Police say candidates are the targets, even their homes were attacked A day before Pakistan’s general elections, twin blasts shook up Balochistan on Wednesday leaving 30 people dead and 40 others injured No change in election schedule: Minister ■ ■ Pakistan’s Election Commission said security has been increased in Balochistan for Thursday’s election. Balochistan’s home minister Jan Achakzai said elections would be held as per schedule So far no one has claimed responsibility. Separatist groups operating in Balochistan are the prime suspects for the blasts | P9 50 election-related attacks occurred since sunday in Balochistan 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■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI We transformed AP in 5 years: FM Congress outdated party with Presents interim budget for FY 2024-25 with outlay of `2.86L cr, prioritises human capital divisive narratives, says Modi S G u r u S r i k a n t h @ Vijayawada RA J ESH KU M AR THAKUR E x p r e s s r ea d Loan misutilisation case: No relief for YSRC MP Hyderabad: Telangana High Court refused to grant relief to YSRC MP K Raghu Rama Krishna Raju and two others in a batch of writ appeals challenging single judge orders, but allowed them the liberty to approach the review panel within 3 weeks from the date of receipt of the order | P5 Poll panel allots party name to Sharad Pawar New Delhi: The faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by its founder Sharad Pawar, has been allowed to use the title—NCP Sharadchandra Pawar—as a one-time option for the Rajya Sabha elections for six seats of Maharashtra to be held later this month | P7 yogi pitch On shrines in Mathura, Varanasi Referring to Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, “We asked only for three places, there was no issue over the others.” | P8 Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath presenting the vote on account budget in the State Legislative Assembly on Wednesday I Express 1.56% KEY ALLOCATIONS BE 2024-25 `27,308.12 cr Capital expenditure Revenue deficit 2.19% RE 2023-24 Revenue expenditure `30,530.18 cr `2,28,237.77 cr AT A GLANCE `2,30,110.41 cr Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy proposed an interim budget (vote on account) with an estimated outlay of `2,86,289.27 crore for the financial year 2024-25 in the State Legislative Assembly on Wednesday . While the proposed revenue expenditure is `2,30,110.41 crore, the capital expenditure has been pegged at `30,530.18 crore. The revenue deficit is estimated to be 1.56%. As per the revised estimates for financial year 2023-24, revenue expenditure stood at `2,28,237.77 crore and capital expenditure at `27,308.12 crore. The revenue deficit for the period is 2.19%, whereas the fiscal deficit grew at an alarming 4.18%. However, the finance minister exuded confidence of bringing the fiscal deficit to 3.51% for FY24-25. In his 44-page budget speech, Buggana elaborated on the various welfare schemes and development initiatives that the State government has taken up in the last five years. The Finance Minister explained about the change the ruling YSRC has ushered in the various sectors that had been 3.51% Fiscal deficit 4.18% Segment Proposed Adv grant BC Welfare `29,001.31 cr `12,727.88 cr Major & medium irrigation `11,297.45 cr `3,765.83 cr Social welfare `9,291.55 cr `3,997.26 cr Housing `7,062.83 cr `2,354.28 cr Women, child and specially-abled `4,201.15 cr `1,400.39 cr Tribal welfare `4,133.73 cr `1,667.74 cr Minority `2,242.36 cr `828.09 cr Animal husbandry & fisheries `1,858.03 cr `619.34 cr suffering from bifurcation blues due to the “inept handling of the previous government”. Describing Andhra Pradesh @ Vijayawada Notification to fill 6,100 District Selection Committee (DSC) posts will be released on February 12, Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana announced on Wednesday While . the last date for submitting applications is February 22, candidates can download the hall tickets from March 5. Deadline for paying fees is February 21. Exams will be held from March 13 to 30 and the results will be announced on April 7. Further, Botcha attributed @ New Delhi PICKING up from where he left off in his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in Lok Sabha on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday trained his guns on the Congress again, accusing it of working against the interests of the marginalised sections of society and trying to create a wedge between north and south India. Replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks in the Rajya Sabha, Modi said the Congress had an ‘anti-reservation’ policy during Jawaharlal Nehru’s time to shut out people from the SC, ST and OBC sections. Modi claimed Nehru was against the idea of reservation and had it not been for Babasaheb Ambedkar, the underprivileged sections would not have had any quota. Nehru, Modi said, was of the opinion that the affirmative action to uplift the marginalised communities in the country would promote non-meritorious people and bring inefficiency into the system. “Of late, I remember Nehru ji more often than not. He once Local Delhi court concurs with ED, summons Kejriwal J AIS O N W I L S O N @ New Delhi Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday appeared to lose some wriggle room as a local court summoned him to appear before it on February 17 in the excise policy scam case. It issued the order after taking cognisance of a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) complaining that Kejriwal had failed to comply with its summons in the case for the fifth consecutive time. “Prima facie offence under Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is made out and there are sufficient grounds for proceeding under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against accused Mr. Arvind Kejriwal,” Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra said in her order. As per Section 174, a person who intentionally disobeys the directions issued by the probe agency shall be prosecuted and punished with imprisonment extending up to one month or with a fine or both. The ED had issued summons to Kejriwal on October 30, November 2, December 18, Decem- Notification to fill 6,100 DSC posts on Feb 12 Express News Service as a “young State brimming with ambition and energy, but handicapped by the bifurcation-related disruption and losses”, the FM noted that be- ing a new State has provided it with an opportunity to start over. He added, “Over the last five years, our government has harnessed this opportunity with several path-breaking initiatives that have had a transformational impact on the lives of people. These initiatives are in close alignment with the intent of the Sustainable Development Goals and have delivered positive outcomes.” Drawing a comparison between the previous TDP regime and the current YSRC government, Buggana said the State ranked 14th as it recorded 11% GSDP in 2018-19. In 2022-23, Andhra Pradesh stood 4th with a growth of 16.2%, he pointed out. Further, he added that the State has been categorised as ‘Top Achiever’ in Ease of Doing Business for 2020-21. Pointing out that Andhra Pradesh ranked 12th in 2018-19 with an agriculture CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 8.3%, he said the State ranks 6th currently with a CAGR of 13% in agriculture. In line with the budgets introduced in the past years, the State government has proposed to invest heavily in human capP4 ital this time too. the drop in number of DSC posts to the increase in retirement age of gover nment employees. He explained that the announcement to fill 6,100 posts was made considering the anticipated vacancies until April 31, 2024. Speaking to reporters along with Principal Secretary (school education) Praveen Prakash and Commissioner Suresh Kumar at the Secretariat in Velagapudi, the education minister clarified that the parameters set for DSC-2024 will remain consistent with those P4 of 2018. ber 22 and January 3 demanding his attendance “to give evidence in connection with the investigation or proceedings under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)” on the alleged excise policy scam. Objecting to the summons as Jal Board scam The ED said incriminating documents, valuables of `1.97 crore and foreign currency worth `4 lakh were seized during raids on Delhi CM’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and others in the Jal Board scam | P10 “unsustainable in law”, Kejriwal had argued that the ED had failed to disclose the capacity in which he was being called — as a witness or a suspect. But under PMLA, the investigating officer is not required to disclose the capacity under which a person is summoned at the stage of probe, the agency said in its plea. It would be premature to label the summoned person either as a witness or an accused, it added. The agency told the court that the investigation carried out so far had revealed that the 2021-22 excise policy was formulated “as a part of a criminal conspiracy by the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party with deliberate loopholes to generate and channelize illegal funds” for themselves as well as the party . No bail to Sanjay The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused bail to arrested Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh in the Delhi excise policy scam. “No ground for grant of bail to the accused at this stage is made out,” the judge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday | pti The Congress’s thought process has become outdated and it is now outsourcing all its work. We are not happy to see such levels of decline and depletion of a party that ruled India for centuries. You have our full sympathies — Narendra Modi, Prime Minister wrote a letter to the chief ministers in which he had stated that he was against reservation. He had reasoned it would promote inefficiency amongst the people of eligible sections,” Modi said. In an apparent reference to Karnataka deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar’s brother and Congress MP D K Suresh’s recent comment that South India should become a separate country, Modi said the grand old party was trying to divide the country for political gains. Modi said the Congress has become such an ‘outdated’ party that it can only think in 33x5 IN an apparent bid to strike an alliance with the BJP TDP , supremo N Chandrababu Naidu called on Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah and BJP national president JP Nadda in New Delhi late on Wednesday . Naidu reportedly appraised the duo about the prevailing political situation in the State. F u r t h e r, h e r e p o r t e d l y brought to Shah’s notice the irregularities in the voters list and sought the Centre’s intervention. It has been learnt that the leaders also held talks on the possibility of TDP joining the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The TDP chief is likely to retur n to Vijayawada on Thursday and closet with JSP president Pawan Kalyan and appraise him about the talks with the BJP leaders. According to sources in the BJP, if the party decides to UCC Bill passed, awaits Prez assent n a r e n d r a s e t h i @ Dehradun Fund right Congress leaders from Karnataka led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah staging a protest against the Centre in Delhi on Wednesday over the alleged injustice to the state in the devolution of taxes | Parveen Negi point counterpoint Cong alleged that injustice has been meted out to Karnataka in tax devolution and grants-in-aid Nirmala Sitharaman accused K’taka of having separatist mindset and spreading false narrative It demanded that the Centre undo the losses amounting to `1.87 lakh crore allegedly incurred by the state under the 15th Finance Commission “I want to assure the House (LS) that whatever has been recommended by the Finance Commission, I followed to the last word,” she said Naidu calls on Shah, Nadda in delhi P H a r e e s h @ Vijayawada terms of how to generate new narratives to divide the country. He said there is no doubt the BJP-led alliance will get its third consecutive mandate. Modi said in stark difference to the Congress’ stand against the SC/STs, the BJP-led government has always accorded top priority to the welfare of marginalised communities. Meanwhile, the Budget session of Parliament has been extended by one day till February 10 amid reports that the government will table a white paper on economy The session, . which began on January 31, was to end on February 9. join the TDP-JSP combine, the high command might seek a significant share of Lok Sabha seats, besides 10 Assembly seats. Sources in the yellow party also believe that the BJP might make such a demand. In that case, the TDP might have to leave 10 of the 25 LS seats in the State for its allies. If the saffron party joins the alliance, the TDP might have to allocate not less than 30 Assembly seats to its partners. While Pawan Kalyan’s JSP would get around 20 seats, the BJP is likely to contest 10 seats on the higher side. BJP sources said the party wants to be a guiding force of the alliance rather than play- ing second fiddle like it did after the 2014 elections. They added the party is likely to ask for Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Rajamahendravaram and Narasapuram MP seats, as it has won from these constituencies previously Ad. ditionally it might seek three , more segments — Araku, Ongole and Rajampet. BJP State president D Purandeswari had earlier unsuccessfully contested from Rajampet. Besides six Assembly segments, the party also reportedly wants Vizag North, Raj a m a h e n d r av a r a m c i t y, Kaikalur and Tadepalligudem — the seats it won from in P4 2014. The Uttarakhand Assembly on Wednesday passed the Uniform Civil Code bill through a voice vote after two days of deliberations. The bill now awaits President Droupadi Murmu’s assent for its enactment. The bill is expected to be the template for adoption by other BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and Assam. The assembly rejected the opposition’s demand to send the bill to a select committee of the House for vetting. In his reply to the debate, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the legislation comprises 392 sections, with major emphasis on succession rights. It establishes a uniform legal framework applicable to all citizens, encompassing crucial aspects such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, and even live-in relationships, irrespective of religious affiliation, he added. The Congress chose not to protest in the House during Dhami’s speech. “The bill’s paramount goal is to protect women’s rights,” Dhami said. The law applies to the whole of Uttarakhand and to people from the state living outside. Apparently to bar the practice of halala, the bill specifies “the right to marry the divorced spouse without any condition, such as marrying a third person before such remarriage”. It gives both husband and wife equal rights to seek divorce. The bill makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children in terms of property rights. Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami before the special Assembly session on Wednesday | PTI
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08-02-2024 of The New Indian Express-Vishakapatnam