BHUBANESWAR l sunday l april 28, 2024 l `12.00 l PAGES 26 l late CITY EDITION hamas reviewing Israeli offer for ceasefire As attack looms Hamas did not reveal the Israeli proposal but it was in response to its offer two weeks ago. Egypt is trying to find a solution to the war Egypt playing peacemaker on Gaza Airstrike kills four children in rafah Talks are on over a six-week ceasefire and the release of 40 civilian and sick hostages in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Hamas’ statement came hours after an Egyptian delegation in Israel discussed a ‘new vision’ for prolonged truce in Gaza. Whether Israel’s proposal to Hamas on truce was tied to the Egyptian visit was not clear ■ An Israeli airstrike on Saturday morning hit a house in Rafah killing six persons, including four children. In another airstrike, five persons were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza overnight ■ BBC reported that Britain is considering deploying troops to ferry aid from a new port being built by the US in Gaza. No decision has been taken yet 14 U.N. staffers in Gaza are being probed for their role in Hamas’ Oct 7 attack 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 Adani, GMR, Fairfax look to bid for Puri international airport Hemant Kumar Rout officials of Idco and a multinational professional services firm. Several concerns, includAdani Group is reportedly ing land acquisition status, statkeen on developing the proposed utory approvals and future exinternational airport at Puri. pansions were discussed,” said The group is among the top- an official told TNIE. three bidders, which participatThe airport will have a capaced in the second round discus- ity of handling 4.6 million passion during the pre-bid meeting sengers per annum (MPPA) in on Friday . phase-1. The project for which Apart from Adani Group, rep- the Ministry of Civil Aviation resentatives of two other busi- (MoCA) clearance has been obness conglomerates - Fairfax In- tained will be developed in three dia Holdings Corporation and phases at an initial estimated GMR Group had also parcost of `5,631 crore. ticipated in the pre-bid The airport will be demeet and evinced interveloped in an area of est to develop the airaround 1,164 acre. The port to be named as Sri land parcel identified by Jagannath Internationthe state government inal Airport. cluded 68.81 acre of forOne of the biggest est and 221.48 acre of airport operators, Adaprivate land in Sini Group now operates pasarubali and Sandairports in seven cities The second round hapur areas under including Mumbai, Brahmagiri tehsil for of the pre-bid meeting was Ahmedabad, Lucknow which the acquisition and Jaipur. While Fair- conducted nearly process has already fax India owns a major- two months after begun. Idco invited ity stake in Bengaluru “Of the earmarked global bid for the International Airport, land, around 100-acre phase-1 GMR Group operates will be utilised for a construction of airports in Delhi, Hymulti-modal hub havthe airport at a derabad and Goa. ing all modern recreacost of `2,203 cr Official sources said tional facilities. Idco Sources this was the second will build a four-lane round of the pre-bid access road to the airmeeting was conducted nearly port from the existing national two months after Industrial In- highway. Besides, more than frastructure Development Cor- 1,000 acre has been identified for poration (Idco) invited a global future expansion of the airport,” bid for the phase-1 construction the official added. of the airport at a cost of `2,203 The construction of Puri aircrore in public-private partner- port is likely to be completed ship (PPP) mode. within three years. The bidders, “The representatives of these however, could not be contacted companies discussed with the for comment. @ Bhubaneswar 1 U’khand burns, IAF steps in 13 Mi-17 helicopter sorties try to extinguish the raging forest fires; state requests Army help NARENDRA SET H I @ Dehradun 2 1. A view of the forest fire in Uttarakhand. 2. An IAF helicopter fills water from the Bhimtal lake in Nainital district to douse the fire | Express red sea woes Houthis attack oil ship bound for India y e s h i s e l i @ New Delhi YEMEN-based Houthi rebels on early Saturday fired ballistic missiles on an oil tanker travelling through the Red Sea heading towards India from Russia. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said the Panama-flagged, Seychelles-registered Andromeda Star was attacked twice. The crew is safe and the vessel is en route to its destination Vadinar port in Gujarat. The incident occurred 14 nautical miles off Al Mukha, Yemen. Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree in a pre-recorded statement claimed responsibility for the attack. The oil tanker originated from Primorsk, Russia. “The first was an explosion close to the vessel and the second consisted of two missile attacks, which damaged the vessel,” according to UKMTO (United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations). The US military’s Central Command said there was a ‘minor damage’ to the oil tanker. Last year, Houthis said they will continue to target Israelbound vessels till it stops its assault on Gaza. Since November, they have launched more than 50 attacks on the ships passing through Red Sea, seized one vessel and sank another one. In recent times there was a lull in the Houthis attacks on ships. But from Wednesday the attacks restarted. Houthis’ successful attacks have been on vessels heading to of other nations than Israel. With forest fires engulfing the Nanda range in Nainital district of Uttarakhand, the Centre deployed a Air Force helicopter on Saturday to control the blaze. Parallelly, the state government requested the assistance of the Army . The IAF’s Mi-17 helicopter did 13 sorties, drawing water from the Naini and Bhimtal lakes in a Bambi bucket and emptying it over the flames in the Pines, Bhumiadhar, Jyolikot, Narayan Nagar, Bhawali, Ramgarh and Mukteshwar areas. Fire-fighting operations are expected to continue on Sunday as well. Nainital Sub-Divisional Magistrate Pramod Kumar said, “The wildfire is spreading uncontrollably from the pine for- 544 cases of forest fires in five months Uttarakhand witnessed 544 incidents of forest fire from November 1, 2023 to April 25,this year, of which more than 656.55 hectares of forest land was destroyed ests to the Lariyakanta forests. Efforts are on with the assistance of an IAF helicopter to extinguish it.” An ITI building was partially burnt in the massive fire in the pine forest near Nainital. The fire also reached dangerously close to the High Court Colony in Nainital but hasn’t caused any damage so far. The forest of Ladiyakanta in Nainital was also in flames. The fire brigade barely managed to control it. Dense smoke enveloped the road from Nainital to Bhawali, disrupting movement of vehicles for hours. Forest department sources said wildfires are spreading due to limited rainfall. Nishant Verma, nodal officer of Uttarakhand’s forest department for forest fires, said, “As of April 25, the forest department has recorded 146 cases of man-made fires. Of these, 17 individuals have been identified. As for 129 other cases, the perpetrators are unknown.” Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said all efforts are being made to control the fires. He did an aerial survey of the affected region and reviewed efforts to douse the fires with officials of the Kumaon division at the Forest Training Academy in Haldwani. Amid veteran vs fresher fight, all eyes on seer swing bowling P r a m o d k u m a r V a i d ya @ Hubballi Though a prominent pontiff bowed out of the contest after promising a scintillating match, the Lok Sabha election scene in Dharwad continues to be as intense and exciting. Influential Lingayat pontiff Dingaleshwar Swamiji had spiced up the polls by announcing his candidature but later opted out. While making his pitch, the Swamiji had sharply attacked sitting MP and Union minister Pralhad Joshi (61), accusing him of dishonouring the Lingayats and victimising its leaders. With the BJP repeating Joshi from Dharwad, the Congress hopes the Swamiji could be a force multiplier against him. At stake in Dharwad is the BJP’s prestige as it has held this Lingayat majority constitu- ency for seven consecutive terms. The Congress is trying its best to knock out Joshi. Their straight fight is being closely watched because of Joshi’s perceived proximity to the BJP brass. Instead of fielding a Lingayat against Joshi, the Congress gave the ticket to an AHINDA (a Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits coined by Karnataka’s first backward class leader Devraj Urs), which has stood firmly behind Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The party’s nominee, Vinod Asuti (34), who belongs to the Kuruba community and is a debutant in the LS poll. The Congress is playing the youth card against veteran Joshi. Also, district minister Santosh Lad has been campaigning vigorously for Asuti. For his part, Joshi is emphasising on the track record of the NDA government in ushering in development and his performance as a parliamentarian in the last two decades. As the constituency has eluded the Congress since 1996, its campaign is focused on the wider reach of the five guarantees implemented by the Siddaramaiah government and the other guarantees in the party’s manifesto. That apart, the party has been stitching alliances with various social and caste groups to further strengthen its AHINDA plank. Illustration: Mandar Pardikar The Congress is missing the services of its strong Lingayat leader Vinay Kulkarni, who was pitted against Joshi in the last two polls. But the Supreme Court barred his entry into the district while granting him bail, since he is an accused in the murder of BJP member Yogishgouda Goudar. Performance wise, Joshi has done well. But the Congress is aggressively playing the Lingayat card to change the narrative. The BJP enjoys enough support among the Lingayats, but its victory would depend on how things pan out on the polling day . The shocking murder of Neha Hiremath, the daughter of a Congress corporator is a red hot poll issue. By politicising it as ‘love jihad’, the BJP is trying to consolidate the Hindu votes. Dharwad goes to polls on May 7 when voters will have to choose between a veteran and a fresher. Ahead of the Game WITH THIS ISSUE PLUS 12 PAGES Naveen to file nomination for Hinjili on April 30 Express News Service @Bhubaneswar Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik will file his nomination papers from the Hinjili Assembly constituency on April 30. The constituency will go to polls on May 20. Patnaik will file his nomination at the office of the sub-collector, Chhatrapur in Ganjam district at 12.35 pm after paying obeisance to the presiding deity Tara Tarini at the hill top shrine. As per the tour programme of the chief minister, he will leave Bhubaneswar by helicopter at 10.25 am and arrive near Tara Tarini at 11.5 am. After offering prayer to the deity, he will proceed to Chhatrapur circuit house, After a brief stay he will go to the sub-collector office to file his nomination. He will return to Bhubaneswar immediately after filing the nomination papers. The chief minister will be accompanied by 5T chairman VK Pandian. vanuatu dare to dream Fantasy cricket: From picking fruits & berries to beating full-member team K a lya n i m a n g a l e @ Chennai The moment Maiyllise Carlot hit the winning runs against Zimbabwe at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, Tim Cutler, the CEO of Cricket Vanuatu, a self-declared bad watcher of the game, felt like he was living in a world of fantasy Af. ter all, the lowest-ranked team amongst those gathered for the Global Qualifiers for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, had just beaten the full-member nation, on their debut, a week after they successfully conducted a crowd-funding exercise for their playing kits. What makes their story even more fascinating is that if they were not playing cricket, most of the players would have been picking fruits and berries away in Australia, Vanuatu’s neighbouring nation. The players live there nine out of 12 months to earn money, practice after their daily chores and kept the love for the sport burning. On Thursday along with Cut, ler, Vanuatu had one of their biggest supporters in the stands too. Rodney Prestia, CEO of I Comply Horticultural Compliance And Labour Management — the company that has hired eight players from the squad to work in Australia. The players are currently on leave from their seasonal jobs. Some of them flew directly from Aus- tralia and many will go back to their jobs. “Basically everyone who shone yesterday works for us,” , Prestia, who surprised the squad by flying to Abu Dhabi, told this daily Nasimana Nav. aika, who took the four wickets, captain Selina Solman, Rachel Andrew, who took two wickets, Vicky Mansale, opening batter, Valenta Langiatu and others, eight of the playing 11 all work for the company. “Australia have a partnership with Vanuatu called a Seasonal Work Program, where workers can go to Australia for seasonal work. They are working in a town called Stanthorpe, three hours from Brisbane. The players have been picking tomatoes, capsicums and strawberries,” he said. After work at 4pm, players start their practice on a ground close to their accommodation. Prestia gave credit to the former Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau for the programme. “The then PM was a little bit critical for taking all the good sportspersons out of Vanuatu. The government said, we are trying hard to develop players but we lose them to Australia to fruit picking because we can’t compete with the salaries on offer. He said we have to try and find a way we can do both. So we started this program with beach volleyball P13 first and then cricket.”
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