BHUBANESWAR TUESDAY OCTOBER 22, 2024 `9.00 PAGES 14 JEYPORE EDITION GOLD PRICE SOARS, SILVER MOVES CLOSER TO `1 LAKH / KG MILESTONE Gold price on Monday surged `750 to hit `80,650 per 10 grams (99.5% purity), while silver zoomed `5,000 to `99,500 per kg in the national capital DIWALI, GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS PUSH DEMAND PRECIOUS METALS SHINE IN FUTURES TRADE Bullion traders attributed the jump in gold prices to pick-up in buying by local jewellers to meet increased demand in the festive and wedding season. According to experts tracking the commodities market, the price escalation is also driven by the rising tensions in West Asia and uncertainties related to the US elections, prompting investors to pool their money into safe-haven assets ■ ■ ■ Further, a positive trend in the overseas markets as well as a fall in equity markets boosted the gold’s safe-haven appeal, experts said In futures trades on the Multi Commodity Exchange, gold contracts for December delivery jumped `493 or 0.63% to `78,242 per 10 grams Silver contracts bounced `2,822 or 2.96% to hit a high of `98,224 per kg `1,00,564 PRICE OF 1 KG SILVER ON MCX ON MONDAY FOR MARCH 5, 2025 DELIVERY CONTRACT 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 CHINA SIACHIN GLACIER DAULAT BEG OLDI INDIA, CHINA IRON OUT WRINKLES KARAKORAM PASS AKSAI CHIN Y JUNCTION, DEPSANG Both sides arrive at patrolling agreement on LAC Y E S H I S E L I A N D M AYA N K S I N G H @ New Delhi INDIA (LADAKH) DEMCHOK The fine print The pre-2020 situation was that the Army was patrolling till its line of perception in Demchok and Depsang. “Whether we can return to those areas will be clear in the fine print,” sources said RG KAR IMPASSE Medics call off fast after 2-hr talks with Didi E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Kolkata PROTESTING doctors in West Bengal called off their hunger strike on Monday following a two-hour meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. They also cancelled their proposed strike across hospitals in the state on Tuesday . The decision was taken after a general body meeting of the doctors in the wake of their meeting with Banerjee in the state secretariat. The doctors had launched the fast-unto-death protest on October 5 in response to the horrific rape-murder of their colleague at RG Kar Hospital in August. Their demands included safety and security within hospitals, systemic reforms in the healthcare sector, and removal of West Bengal’s health secretary . In the meeting, which was streamed live, Banerjee assured the doctors of her government’s resolve to address their concerns but she refused to remove health secretary Narayan Nigam without evidence against him. The doctors said they were not fully satisfied with the state government’s assurances but decided to relent out of respect for the parents of the RG Kar hospital victim. The parents had urged the medics to call off their fast in view of their deteriorating health. As of Monday six doctors had , been hospitalised due to health complications from the fast. “In the meeting, the body language of the state government was not positive,” said a doctor. FOREIGN Secretary Vikram Misri’s primary briefing on Monday was about the upcoming 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, but what was casually mentioned became the story of the day — that India and China have arrived at a patrolling agreement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. The jaw-dropping announcement of the thaw in eastern Ladakh came in response to a question from this reporter on the buzz on the possibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi having a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jingping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit. Israel conducted air strikes hitting a Lebanese association linked to Hezbollah, accusing it on Monday of financing the group’s weapons, as it expanded the scope of its raids beyond military targets | P11 “There are areas which for various reasons after 2020, they blocked us, we blocked them. We have now reached an understanding which will allow patrolling as we did till 2020... It is a positive development and I would say it is a product of very patient, very persevering diplomacy,” Jaishankar said At a different event later in the day, foreign minister S Jaishankar indicated that both sides had effectively gone back to the pre-2020 situation. “With that we can say the disengagement with China has been completed. Details will come out in due course,” he said. It was in 2020 that 20 Indian jawans died after a brawl with PLA soldiers in the Galwan valley along the LAC. Bilateral ties became frigid ever since. “Over the last several weeks, Indian and Chinese diplomatic and military negotiators have been in close contact with each other in a variety of forums. As a result of these discussions, an agreement has been made for patrolling arrangements along the LAC leading to disengagement and a resolution of the issues that had arisen in these areas in 2020. We will be taking the next steps on this,’’ Misri said. Sources indicated that there is a strong likelihood of the ModiXi bilateral. The prime minister will also have bilateral meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Dr Masoud Pezeshkian. The announcement came days after the US law enforcement department unsealed the second indictment in the alleged murder-for-hire attempt against Khalistani radical Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil, in which a former RAW officer was named and shamed. The two sticking points on the LAC that had defied resolution for this long are at Depsang and Demchok. Multiple military sources said that things will take time to get clear as “not much has changed on ground”. Troops continue to be stationed in the vicinity of the 832 km LAC on P9 Eastern Ladakh. to tackle the calamity A S I S H M E H TA @ Bhubaneswar THE impending cyclone over the Bay of Bengal is expected to hit north coastal Odisha on October 24 night or early next morning as a severe cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said here on Monday . Though the IMD has not yet projected the cyclone’s landfall point, the national forecaster said the system may approach the east coast between Odisha and West Bengal packing wind 100 km to 110 km per hour, gusting up to 120 km. The official word by the national agency was the cyclone may cross between Puri and Sagar Island as a severe category storm. However, the coordinates provided by the national weather agency pointed the rapidly developing system may cross the coast somewhere between Paradip and Dhamra. But the IMD said any marginal deviation in the system’s path cannot be ruled out. On the day a low pressure , area formed over east-central Bay of Bengal and adjoining north Andaman Sea. IMD DG Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said the system is likely to move in a west-north-west direction and intensify into a depression by Tuesday morning before turning into a cyclonic storm a day later over east-central Bay of Bengal. “Thereafter, it is expected to move north-westwards and EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bhubaneswar The cyclone’s track has been issued four days before it reaches OdishaWest Bengal coast and slight deviation in its path cannot be ruled out Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, DG IMD reach north-west Bay of Bengal off Odisha-West Bengal coast by Thursday morning as a severe cyclonic storm,” he added. Asked if Kendrapara and Bhadrak may face the maximum impact, Mohapatra said the cyclone’s track has been issued four days before it reaches Odisha-West Bengal coast and slight deviation in its path cannot be ruled out. Private weather forecaster Hoax callers to be put under no-fly list: Rammohan Naidu @ New Delhi AIR STRIKES ON HEZBOLLAH’S FINANCIER PRODUCT OF PATIENT DIPLOMACY: JAISHANKAR Cyclone may hit N Odisha CM sets ‘Zero Casualty’ coast with 110 kmph winds target as state gears up EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE ISRAELI Chances brighten for Modi-Xi talks TO deal with the menace of hoax bomb threats to airlines, the Centre plans to amend rules to place the culprits in the no-fly list and initiate criminal charges against them, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said on Monday. He said such threats will be made a cognisable offence, which will attract punishment and fines. Naidu said the government is considering amendments to the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982, to strengthen measures. “Even though most of them are hoax threats, we cannot take them lightly. The lives of passengers are important, the security sit- uation is important, and protocol is important,” he added. These hoax bomb calls also caused financial loss to airlines that had to divert flights for safety reasons. An airline official said the financial loss due to frequent diversions ranges from a few lakh rupees to a couple of crores per flight, depending on the size of the plane. The minister also announced the extension of affordable regional air connectivity scheme, UDAN, for 10 more years. Around 1.5 crore passengers have benefited so far. Meanwhile, CISF and BCAS brass met Home Secretary Govind Mohan on Monday Sources said the . threats originated overseas but their exact location could not be traced so far. Skymet said stor ms are known to abruptly change their track, timelines and intensity. The cur rent system’s travel is through a very restricted area from north Arakan coast to Odisha-West Bengal coasts and therefore remains susceptible. “It will be prudent to wait for some more time to pinpoint the cyclone’s landfall location. However, the coastline from north Odisha to West Bengal-Bangladesh looks more vulnerable and needs to be in a state of preparedness at a short notice,” the Skymet CONTINUED ON P7 said. CHIEF Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Monday said the entire state administration is on high alert and fully prepared to tackle the impact of Cyclone Dana as it is expected to hit the north coastal Odisha between Thursday night and Friday morning. Urging people not to panic, Majhi said the government is committedly working on the principle of Zero Casualty and taking all possible measures to ensure their safety and security . Reviewing the preparedness of the administration to deal with the situation, Majhi directed officials to ensure each and every person residing in the path of Dana is evacuated to safe places before the storm surge. All the people in villages under the projected track of Dana should be shifted to the cyclone shelters before it hits the Odisha coast. Not one person in the vulnerable and low-lying area should be left behind, he stressed. He directed the district collectors to ensure that the cyclone shelters are equipped with all facilities including electricity and drinking water. The shelters should have adequate stock of medicine, food materials and baby food, he added. The chief minister was in- The government is committedly working on the principle of Zero Casualty and taking all possible measures to ensure the safety and security of people. Mohan Majhi, Chief Minister formed that teams from NDRF, ODRAF and Fire Services are ready to be deployed and start movement to the vulnerable areas soon. Stating that deaths also occur due wall collapse during cyclone and heavy rains, he said all weak houses should be identified immediately and people residing in them shifted to shelters. Weak billboards and signboards should be identified in urban areas and dismantled as these also cause havoc and fatalities during the cyclone, he said. The chief minister asked Energy, Works and Rural Development departments to be ready with plans to ensure that basic services like electricity and telecommunication connectivity are restored in the affected areas as early as possible. CONTINUED ON P7 EXPRESS READ NIA probe ordered into Ganderbal terror attack The MHA has handed over the probe into the attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, in which a doctor and six migrant workers were killed late on Sunday evening, to the NIA, as a four-member-team has left for the Union Territory, sources said on Monday. The sources said, preliminary investigation revealed that the terrorists involved in the attack belonged to the Pakistanbased Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) offshoot | P9 SC’s interim stay NCPCR move to close madrassas The SC on Monday stayed the recent orders of UP and Tripura governments which directed that all students in unrecognised madrasas and non-Muslim students studying in governmentaided madrasas be shifted to government schools. A three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, in its interim order, stayed the operation of the communication issued by the NCPCR to states to shift students from unrecognised madrasas to government schools | P9 SECULARISM PART OF STATUTE’S BASIC STRUCTURE, SAYS SUPREME COURT S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y RETROSPECTIVE EFFECT CHALLENGE THE Supreme Court on Monday said secularism had always been held to be part and parcel of the basic structure of the Constitution. A twojudge bench of the court comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar made the observation while hearing a batch of petitions filed by former Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain and others, challenging the insertion of the words “socialist” and “secular” in the Preamble of the Constitution. The addition came through the 42nd constitutional amendment moved by the then Indira Gandhi government in 1976. Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay said he was not against the words “socialist”, “secular” or “integrity” but was against their insertion into the Preamble in 1976 with retrospective effect from Nov 26, 1949 @ New Delhi “This court has in a number of judgments held that secularism was always part of the basic structure of the Constitution. If one looks at the right to equality and the word ‘fraternity’ used in the Constitution, there is a clear indication that secularism has been held as the core feature of the Constitution,” the bench said. “When secularism was debated, there was only the French model. The Supreme Court has struck down statutes that go against secularism. You may look at Article 25. For socialism, we have not followed the Western concept and we are happy about it,” Justice Khanna told the petitioners. He said there were different meanings of socialism and one “should not take the meaning adopted in Western countries”. “Socialism can also mean there has to be a fair opportu- nity for all — the concept of equality Let us not take it as a . Western concept. It can have some different meanings as well. Same goes with the word secularism,” he said. Swamy submitted that the Preamble was a declaration made on November 26, 1949 and therefore, adding further words to it through a subsequent amendment was arbitrary He said it was wrong to . say that according to the present Preamble, the Indian people agreed on November 26, 1949 to make the country a socialist and secular republic. The Preamble cannot be altered, varied or repealed, he argued. The bench said it would examine the matter and posted it for further hearing on November 18.
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