MANGALURU  WEDNESDAY  NOVEMBER 06, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 14  CITY EDITION PAWAR, 83, HINTS AT RETIREMENT FROM PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS The NCP (SP) chief on Tuesday said that he was contemplating whether to seek another Rajya Sabha term after his current tenure ends in 2026 ‘ONE HAS TO STOP, STEP ASIDE AT SOME POINT’ WILL CONTINUE TO WORK FOR THE PEOPLE Speaking at a campaign rally for grand-nephew Yugendra Pawar at Supa in Maharashtra’s Baramati assembly constituency, Sharad Pawar said that he has to stop at some point for the new leadership to take over. The veteran leader, who has won 14 elections in his political career, entered the Maharashtra assembly in 1967 and became the chief minister in 1978 ■ ■ The decision not to seek Parliamentary position does not mean a complete retirement from the social sphere, Pawar clarified | P10 “I will not be in power, but will continue to work for the people, work for the drought-affected regions, marginalised segments of society,” he said, adding that he will now focus on installing a new leadership SEVEN TIMES PAWAR WON THE LOK SABHA POLLS; HE ENTERED RAJYA SABHA IN 2014 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 US votes to elect its 47th President AGENCIES Republican vice-presidential nominee J D Vance and his wife Usha Vance arrive to vote at the St Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church on Tuesday | AP/PTI FIR AGAINST 3 Staffer found hanging in tahsildar’s office in B’gavi S U N I L PAT I L @ Belagavi AN employee was found dead in a suspicious manner at the office of Tahsildar Basavaraj Nag aral here on Monday morning. Rudreshwar Yadavannavar, 35, was found hanging from the ceiling fan inside the office of Nagaral in the city . In his last Whatsapp message, Yadavannavar said, “Tahsildar Basavaraj Nagaral, Somu Dodwadi, PA of Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar, and FDC Ashok Kabbalger are responsible for my death. Many employees are facing injustice in our office and all should fight unitedly against it.’’ After shifting the body from the tahsildar’s office, Belagavi police registered an FIR against the three people named by Yadavannavar in his Whatsapp message. Yadavannavar, who hailed from Mudalgi town, was residing in Belagavi’s Ambedkar Nagar. He was working as SDC in the tahsildar’s office. His wife Girija Ankalagi works as a village accountant (VA) in the same office. After having dinner at home, Yadavannavar went to the tahsildar’s office around 10 pm. He informed the security guard there that he had some work in the office and went in. However, he was found hanging in the tahsildar’s office on Tuesday morning. According to sources, Yadavannavar was disturbed over his recenttransfer to the office of Shri Renuka Devi Temple Trust, Saundatti. He was relieved of his duties on Monday . He had been posting messages in the Whatsapp group, ‘Tahsildar Belagavi All Staff ’. DCP Rohan Jagadish said the police have launched an investigation. Yadavannavar hanged himself from the ceiling fan with a veil. He said the three accused were absconding and a search is on to nab them. MILLIONS of Americans on Tuesday headed towards polling stations across the United States to elect the 47th President between Republican leader Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in an election billed as one of the most consequential contests for the White House in decades. Voting across the country began at 6 am local time. New Hampshire was the first state where polling started. According to US media reports, the early hours of voting were smooth with scattered reports of extreme weather, ballot printing errors, and technical problems causing delays. The early votes included record numbers in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner. Over 82 million voters across the US had already voted before the main election day. These votes were sent in either by mail or by visiting the polling station in person. According to an Associated Press report, Republican voters were casting early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections. Both Harris and Trump are fighting for every vote, especially in the seven key battleground states of Arizona, Ne- RESULTS COULD TAKE SEVERAL DAYS Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon said results may take several days, as vote tallies will come in at different times across states, and close results could delay a final call. “We may not know the results of this election for several days,” he said vada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. The race remained stubbornly deadlocked for weeks, with some of the election forecasters giving 60-year-old Vice President Harris an edge over former President Trump, 78, in some of the key battleground states like Pennsylvania. After casting his vote in Florida, Trump said said if he lost the elections, he would be the first one to acknowledge it if it’s a “fair election”. This is the first presidential vote since Trump lost to Joe Biden four years ago. Right to take over pvt property not total: SC Not all pvt property can be taken over for common good: 7:2 verdict S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi THE Supreme Court in a 7:2 ruling on Tuesday held that states were not empowered under the Constitution to take over all privately-owned resources for distribution to serve the “common good”. A nine-judge bench of headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, however, said states can stake claim over private properties in certain cases. With this, the court settled the Property Owners Association vs State of Maharashtra case, which is one of the oldest pending before the court. While Justice B V Nagarathna partially concurred with the majority, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia wrote a dissenting verdict. The question before the court was whether “material resources of the community” in Article 39(b) could include privately owned property . The case also involved chal- POSTULATING RIGID ECONOMIC THEORY “In Bhim Singhji, Justice Krishna Iyer cited Karl Marx to observe that taking over large conglomerations of land is necessary to make Article 39 a ‘constitutional reality’... (It) amounts to endorsing a particular economic ideology for our economy,” the CJI said lenges to Chapter VIIIA of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act, 1976 introduced in 1986. The chapter allowed the Mumbai Building Repair and Reconstruction Board to acquire certain “cessed properties” for restoration with the consent of 70% of the residents. The majority verdict authored by the CJI criticised the opinion of Justice Krishna Iyer in a 1978 case, where the latter ruled that all privately owned resources can be acquired by the state for distribution under Article 39(b). “The doctrinal error in the Krishna Iyer approach was, postulating a rigid economic theory, which advocates for greater state control over private resources, as the exclusive basis for constitutional governance,” the verdict said. However, Justice Nagarathna found the observations against Justice Krishna Iyer harsh and unwarranted. The bench said the vision of the framers of the Constitution to establish economic democracy and trust the wisdom of the elected governments was the “backbone of the high growth rate of India’s economy... To scuttle the constitutional vision by imposing a single economic dogma which views the acquisition of private property by the state as the ultimate goal would undermine the values and principles of our Constitutional framework,” the verdict said. SC UPHOLDS U.P. BOARD OF MADARSA EDU ACT, NULLIFIES HC ORDER WRONG CALL The court said the HC had ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater by striking down the entire law on the ground that conferment of higher edu degrees were not constitutional S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi IN a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act 2004, and set aside the Allahabad High Court’s order declaring the Act unconstitutional. “We have upheld the constitutional validity except for a small extent. , The HC erred in holding that the statute is bound to be struck down if it violates secularism,” a threejudge bench led by the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said. The court, however, held that the Madarsa Act, to the extent it regulates higher education, including the degrees of Fazil and Kamil (bachelor and postgraduate level degrees given by madrasas), is in conflict with the UGC Act and hence unconstitutional. The court said a statute could be declared ultra vires only on two grounds — being beyond the legislative competence or violating fundamental rights or any other Constitutional provision. As for regulations relating to the quality of the education, the state is empowered to enforce them. The Act does not directly interfere with the day-today administration, the bench pointed out. Govt to sell 2.5% in HZL to raise `5K cr M O N I K A YA D A V @ New Delhi THE Centre on Tuesday announced its plan to divest up to 2.5% of its stake in Hindustan Zinc through an offer for sale (OFS) set to commence on November 6. The floor price for this offering has been set at `505 per share. The government is likely to raise `5,000 crore through the OFS. The government plans to sell approximately 5.28 crore shares amounting to 1.25% of the equity, with an option to add another 1.25% of equity The offer . will be available for non-retail investors starting November 6. These investors will have the opportunity to express their interest in carrying forward any unallocated bids to the following day November 7. , Retail investors will have the opportunity to submit their bids on November 7. According to OFS regulations, only retail investors and employees will be permitted to place their bids on Thursday Non-retail investors . who place their bids on Wednesday and opt to carry forward any unallocated bids to the following day will also have the option to revise their bids. Hindustan Zinc, a subsidiary of Vedanta, is a major producer of zinc, lead, and silver. Based in Udaipur, the company operates various mines and smelters, focusing on mining practices, resource conservation, and maintaining its position in metal production. The government holds 29.5% in the company . HDK CASE BOOKED AGAINST UNION MIN The case has been registered based on a complaint by a police officer, who alleged that the former had threatened him in connection to a mining case probe | P4 HC notice to CM, kin, CBI, Centre & state govts CM TO BE QUIZZED TODAY YAT H I R A J U @ Bengaluru GUJARAT ACCIDENT A temporary structure that collapsed at a construction site on the MumbaiAhmedabad Bullet Train corridor in Gujarat’s Anand district, killing three persons on Tuesday. The incident took place at Vasad village | ANI THE High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday issued notices to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his wife BM Parvathi, brother-in-law Mallikarjuna Swamy, Union and state governments, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and others on a petition filed by a social worker seeking transfer of the probe by the Lokayukta Police into the MUDA case to the CBI. Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order after hearing the petition filed by Snehamayi Krishna from Mysuru for an independent, fair, transparent and impartial investigation into the alleged CM Siddaramaiah offers prayers at a temple during the election campaign in Shiggaon on Tuesday MUDA scam. Adjourning the hearing to November 26, the court directed the Lokayukta Based on a notice issued by the Lokayukta Police, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will appear before the investigation officers in Mysuru on Wednesday. Police to submit details of the probe it conducted till November 25. When the court sought to know the need for the CBI probe, senior counsel KG Raghavan, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the investigation is not being done in a proper manner and people have no confidence in it. The investigation itself as a process must instill public confidence, he argued. The petitioner alleged that the CM has immense power and influence over the state departments, especially investigating agencies such as the Lokayukta Police. Such being the case, an investigation by a state agency into the allegations against the CM would not be impartial. CONTINUED ON P4 No toilets in this colony, tribals walk miles to attend nature’s call Graft: Wine merchants to A S H W I N I M S R I PA D @ Ramanagara HALAPPA (name changed) lives with his wife and children in a small three-room house at Iruliga Tribal Colony just three , km from the deputy commissioner’s office in Ramanagara. In front of his house, there is a small room, which was supposed to be a toilet. However, Halappa’s family uses it as a storeroom. The reason for this is the colony is on a rocky surface and a pit for a septic tank can’t be dug there. Similar rooms have been built near 74 houses in the colony where around 300 nomadic , and semi-nomadic tribal people live. Instead of using those rooms as toilets, they are using them for other purposes. Unable to use the toilets for want of septic tanks, they walk almost one km from their colony to attend nature’s call every morning. “The government gives us Rs 14,000 to construct a toilet. Our colony is on a rocky surface. To dig a pit, we have to spend Rs 3,000 per foot. We need an eightfoot pit for a septic tank. We need at least Rs 24,000 for each pit. With no help coming from the state government, the toilets remain incomplete in the colony Halappa told TNIE. ,” M a n y f a m i l i e s l ive i n thatched huts that leak whenever it rains. Those who have received funds under government’s housing schemes, have added three rooms -- a living room, bedroom and a kitchen to their huts. CONTINUED ON P4 down shutters on Nov 20 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru A woman near her thatched-roof hut in the Iruliga Tribal Colony, located just 3 km from the deputy commissioner’s office in Ramanagara | NAGARAJA GADEKAL WITH only a week for the November 13 byelections to the Legislative Assembly the state , government is facing another corruption allegation. This time in the Excise Department. The Federation of Karnataka Wine Merchants’ Association has accused Excise officials of collecting bribes from them. Members of the association have threatened to shut their shops across the state on November 20 in protest against the “monthly collection” by Excise officials. They demanded that the Excise portfolio be handled by CM Siddaramaiah, who also holds the Finance portfolio. In a statement, the members alleged that the Excise officials collected money from them every month, stating that they have to give bribes for their P5 transfer and promotion.