Ruturaj takes over from Dhoni as CSK captain CHENNAI: In his 15th year with Chennai Super Kings, M S Dhoni (left) will feature just as a player in the upcoming edition of the IPL, which begins at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Friday. Ruturaj Gaikwad (right), who has been with the franchise since 2019, will take over the mantle from Dhoni as CSK skipper | ASHWIN PRASATH HYDERABAD FRIDAY MARCH 22, 2024 `9.00 PAGES 36 LATE CITY EDITION 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 L O K SA B H A S E AT S I N T S Three parachute leaders find place in Cong list of five E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Hyderabad AS expected, the names of three BRS leaders who recently joined the grand old party were included in the latest list of candidates released by the Congress on Thursday . With this, the Congress has announced candidates for nine of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana. Khairatabad MLA and former minister Danam Nagender, who recently dumped the BRS and joined the grand old party, will contest from the Secunderabad Lok Sabha segment while former pink party leader and ZP chairperson Patnam Suneetha Mahender Reddy will contest from the Malkajgiri LS constituency . Sitting BRS MP Gaddam Ranjith Reddy will once again contest for the Chevella LS seat. Mallu Ravi, who resigned as the special representative of the state government in Delhi last month, has been given the nod to contest from the Nagarkurnool constituency, while Gaddam Vamshi Krishna’s candidature was cleared for the Peddapalli seat. Vamshi Krishna is the son of former Chennur MLA Gaddam Vivek. With his candidature cleared by the Congress high command, Nagender is expected to submit his resignation from the Telangana Assembly before filing his papers for the Secunderabad LS ticket. It may be mentioned here that the BRS has already submitted a petition to Telangana Legislative Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad, seeking the disqualification of Nagender as an MLA. Sources in the Congress said that Nagender would tender his resignation now. It may be recalled that the Congress did not win a considerable number of seats in Hyderabad, Rangareddy and MedchalMalkajgiri districts in the recent Assembly polls. WITH THIS ISSUE CITY’S BEST WEEKEND GUIDE 36 PAGES, INCLUDING 24 OF INDULGE (TABLOID) BJP funds came via Qwik, Future & big corporates THE Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the Centre’s notification setting up a fact-checking unit under the Press Information Bureau, saying its impact on freedom of speech and expression needs to be analysed. A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud set aside the March 11 Bombay High Court order refusing an interim stay on setting up of the fact-checking unit under the amended IT Rules to identify fake news targeting the Centre. The bench said the stay shall oper- @ New Delhi E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ New Delhi BIG DONATIONS From Future Gaming, TMC got `540 cr; DMK `509 cr; YSR Cong `154 cr; BJP `104 cr; Cong 50 cr From Qwik Supply, BJP got `395 cr; Sena+NCP `35 cr Keventer gave bonds worth `383 cr to BJP Vedanta gave donations to BJP, Cong, BJD and TMC Bharti Airtel donated to BJP, RJD, SAD, Cong, JD(U) Muthoot donated to BJP and NCP Bajaj group donations went to BJP, AAP Apollo Tyres bonds went to Cong Lakshmi Niwas Mittal donated to BJP Kiran Mazumdar Shaw donated to BJP, TMC, Cong Rungta Sons Pvt Ltd donated to Cong, BJP, TMC, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha Torrent pharma donated to BJP, AAP, Cong Natco Pharma gave bonds to BJP, TDP, TMC and BRS THE Trinamool Congress (TMC) was the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds donated by lottery king Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming & Hotel Services as it received `540 crore, followed by the DMK at `509 crore, YSR Congress `154 crore, the BJP `104 crore, and Congress at `50 crore, initial analysis of the full data uploaded by the Election Commission indicated. At `1,368 crore, Martin was the largest donor of electoral bonds to political parties. Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, which is considered to have links with the Reliance Group, donated `395 crore to the BJP, besides contributing `35 crore to the Shiv Sena and the NCP put together. Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd and its subsidiary Western Power donated a whopping `664 crore to the BJP. Besides, the group gave `195 crore to the BRS, `128 crore to the Congress and `85 crore to the DMK. The Megha group spent `1,186 crore on electoral bonds, making it the second highest donor to political parties. The next big donation to the BJP came from Kolkata-based Keventer Food Park Infra and its associate firms Madanlal Ltd and MKJ Enterprise, at `383 crore. Bharti Airtel with `132 crore and Vedanta at `128 crore were the other corporates that donated liberally to the ruling party . The new data includes alphanumeric numbers that can help match the bond buyers with the parties that redeemed the bonds. The ECI released two sets of data — 552 pages of details of redemption by political parties and 386 pages of donor details — cover electoral bonds purchased and redeemed from April 2019 until January 2024. “In compliance with the Supreme Court’s directions, SBI has provided data pertaining to electoral bonds to ECI today i.e. March 21. The ECI has uploaded it on its website as received from SBI on an ‘as is where is basis’,” it said. ate till the Bombay High Court finally decides the challenge to the IT Amendment Rules, 2023. “The challenge to the validity of 3(1)(b)(5) (of IT Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021) involves serious constitutional questions and the impact of the rule on free speech and expression would need to be analysed by the high court,” the bench said. The court was hearing a special leave petition by comedian Kunal Kamra and the Editors Guild of India seeking a stay on setting up of factchecking unit. EXPRESS READ Phone tapping case: Hard disks recovered from forest Hyderabad: The SIT probing the alleged phone tapping case involving former SIB DSP D Praneeth Rao on Thursday reportedly recovered the hard disks used by the accused to store data from an undisclosed location in a forest area | P3 SC raps TN guv for refusing to swear in Ponmudy as min Chennai: Voicing “serious concern” over the conduct of TN Governor RN Ravi for his refusal to reinduct senior DMK leader K Ponmudy as minister even after his conviction was suspended by it, the Supreme Court directed the governor to decide the issue within 24 hours | P5 Sign PPA or lose power: NTPC to TS govt EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad THE National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited made it clear that if the state government fails to sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) for Phase-II of NTPC-Ramagundam (3X800MW), it will be compelled to offer the power generated to the other states in the southern region. In a letter to the state government on January 29, 2024, the NTPC said that to ensure the timely availability of capacity and meet the growing power demand of the country, the Phase-II project needs to be EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE Bond list with alphanumeric numbers released Fact-check unit notification stayed, SC sends case to HC S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi KEJRI ARRESTED awarded on priority after financial closure. “Accordingly the PPA is to be , signed as a priority We are yet . to hear from Telangana Discoms regarding their willingness to procure power from NTPC Phase-II. It is therefore requested that your consent to take power be communicated immediately. If we do not receive any response from Telan- gana to take power from NTPC Phase-II by February 10, 2024, it will be presumed that Telangana Discoms are not interested. In such a case, the power will be offered to other states in the southern region,” the letter said. NTPC-Ramagundam was assured in the AP Reorganisation Act-2014. Phase-I of the project was recently dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the state government is yet to sign the PPA for the Phase-II of the project. The NTPC requested the state government to give its consent for the same at the earCONTINUED ON P2 liest. ‘Yet to hear from TS Discoms’ In its letter to the state government, the NTPC said: “The PPA is to be signed as a priority. We are yet to hear from Telangana Discoms regarding their willingness to procure power from NTPC Phase-II” Delhi Police personnel removing an Aam Aadmi Party worker protesting against the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal | PRAVEEN NEGI YOU READ IT HERE FIRST ON JUNE 22, 2022 HOURS after the Delhi High Court refused to grant any interim protection from coercive action to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday night arrested him in connection with a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy . This paper was the first to break the story on June 22, 2022 that federal investigative agencies were looking into the Delhi excise policy scam. The ED will produce Kejriwal before a Delhi court on Friday and seek his custody for interrogation. The arrest came amid high drama and protests by Aam Aadmi Party w o rk e r s , w h o thronged the CM’s official residence shouting slogans against the ED. Besides Delhi Police personnel, Rapid Action Force and CRPF teams were deployed around the CM’s residence during the operation. Kejriwal had skipped nine summons by the probe agency , claiming the notices were illegal and politically motivated. AAP leader Atishi said Kejriwal will not resign as CM and will run the city government from jail, if need be. She said the party’s legal team has moved the Supreme Court seeking an urgent hearing. The apex court is likely take up the matter on Friday . The case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in formulating and executing the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22, which was later scrapped. The ED alleges the accused were in touch Kejriwal for tweaking the excise policy in such a way to bring undue benefits to them. In return, they paid kickbacks to the AAP it was alleged. , Prominent AAP leaders like Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are already in jail in connection with the scam.
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