HUBBALLI  TUESDAY  NOVEMBER 12, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 12  CITY EDITION VISTARA MAKES ITS LAST FLIGHT AHEAD OF MERGER WITH AIR INDIA The airline operated its last international and domestic flights as an independent airline on Monday night ahead of its merger with Air India DELHI-SINGAPORE FLIGHT WAS AIRLINE’S LAST VISTARA’S ‘UK’ CODE GIVES WAY TO ‘AI2’ Vistara’s last domestic flight departed Mumbai for Delhi around 11.15 pm on Monday. Almost half-an-hour later, its last international flight, bound for Singapore, took to the skies from the Delhi airport. Vistara commenced its flight operations in January 2015. The airline, a joint venture between Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, will merge with Air India on Tuesday | P10 ■ ■ Post the merger, the airline’s ‘UK’ code will be replaced with a special four-digit Air India code — ‘AI2XXX’. Vistara has a fleet of 70 airplanes The merger marks the second major consolidation wave in the country’s fast-growing civil aviation space after Indian Airlines merged with Air India and Air Sahara merged with Jet Airways in 2006-2007 208 THE SIZE OF AIR INDIA’S AIRCRAFT FLEET POST THE MERGER WITH VISTARA 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 Zameer at it again, calls HDK ‘Kaala’ Ten militants killed in Manipur gunfight EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru Our ‘volunteers’ shot dead: Kuki-Zo Council recovered included three AK series rifles, four SLRs, two INTEN militants were killed and SAS rifles, one RPG, one Pump a CRPF jawan was injured in a Action Gun besides bulletgunfight in restive Manipur’s proof helmets and magazines. Jiribam district on Monday. “Accordingly a criminal case , Manipur police said in a state- has been registered and is bement that the incident occurred ing investigated into. Operaat around 3 pm when armed tions in and around Jakuradmilitants attacked the CRPF hor, under Borobekra Police post located at the Jakuradhor Station, Jiribam District conand Borobekra Police tinued to flush out Station, located armed militants. Renearby . inforcement teams “The security forces consisting of Assam retaliated strongly. Rifles, CRPF and Civil We condemn in the Due to the attack, one strongest terms the Po l i c e h ave b e e n CRPF constable name- violence and call for rushed there,” the Maly Sanjeev Kumar susnipur Police statethorough tained bullet injury investigations bring ment added. perpetrators to and has been evacuReacting to the gunjustice ated to Silchar Medifight, the Kuki-Zo cal College, Assam Council said its ‘volKuki-Zo Council and is under treatunteers’ were killed ment,” the statement and announced a total said. It added that the CRPF shutdown on Tuesday – from 5 and civil police personnel am to 6 pm. It said the protest is fiercely retaliated and the situ- “in honor of the victims and to ation was brought under con- express our collective grief and trol after 40-45 minutes of solidarity who were brutally heavy exchange of fire. shot dead”. Police said they searched the In its statement, the Council whole area after the firing demanded an immediate and ceased and found the bodies of thorough investigation “to 10 militants along with arms bring the per petrators to and ammunition. The weapons justice”. P R A S A N TA M A Z U M D A R @ Guwahati Uddhav fumes as ECI officials inspect his bag S U D H I R S U R YA W A N S H I @ Mumbai SHIV Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday trained his guns on the Election Commission of India (ECI) claiming its officials are selectively targeting opposition leaders. He said his bags and personal belongings were searched when he arrived in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal to campaign for the November 20 assembly elections. Thackeray asked if the ECI would inspect the bags of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis in a similar fashion. Disclosing this incident at a rally at Wani on Monday he asked his par, ty workers to check the identity cards of the searching ECI officials and inspect their pockets as well. According to a video footage of the incident shared by his party, when ECI officers approached him for search, Thackeray first asked them to introduce themselves and fired a volley of questions. “The way you inspected my bag, did you inspect the bags of Modi and Shah?” he asked. NEW CJI SWORN IN President Droupadi Murmu administers the oath of office to Justice Sanjiv Khanna as the 51st Chief Justice of India, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi on Monday | PTI Clean air a fundamental right, says SC bench S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi THE Supreme said on Monday that it is a fundamental right of every citizen to live in a pollution-free atmosphere, adding no religion encourages any activity that creates pollution. Pulling up the Delhi authorities over their failure to enforce firecracker ban during Diwali, a bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih said if firecrackers are burnt in this fashion, it will also affect the fundamental right to health of the citizens. “The right to live in a pollution-free atmosphere is a fundamental right of every citizen which is protected by Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Prima facie we are of the view that no religion encourages any activity that creates pollution or compromises with the health of the people,” the bench observed. The Delhi government issued an order banning the use of firecrackers on October 14. “We wonder why the Delhi government delayed the promulgation of order till October 14. It is quite possible users by that time must have acquired the stock of firecrackers.” Only one teacher in 6,158 govt schools in Karnataka R I S H I TA K H A N N A @ Bengaluru ABOUT 6,158 government schools in the state have just one teacher each, responsible for 1.38 lakh students, while 530 schools, with zero enrollment -- no students at all -- have 358 teachers. This shows a serious flaw in the system. While some schools have only a few teachers (one in many cases), others have excess staff despite having zero enrolment. The department, however, has said that teachers from zero-enrollment schools have been transferred to wherever there is requirement. The total number of single-teacher schools in the state decreased by 202, from 6,360 in 2023-24 to 6,158 in 202425. However, the enrollment also dropped by 33,794, which experts link to a rise in dropout rates. Lack of subject teachers is driving students away. As in many cases, teachers are assigned only to teach EXPLOSION TRIGGERS FIRE AT INDIAN OIL REFINERY IN GUJARAT Kannada or social studies and not core subjects such as mathematics and science or even English. At the same time, to maintain the “100% pass rate,” schools often “push academically weaker students out”, according to experts. Child rights activist and executive director of Child Rights Trust Vasudev Sharma said teachers in these schools only teach Kannada or social studies. “Parents, understandably want their chil, dren to attend schools where maths and science are taught. As a result, many opt for aided or private schools,” he said. Moreover, by the time a student reaches the upper primary level, schools deliberately push out those who are not academically strong to maintain “the 100% pass rate” in Class 10, a figure that, he argued, does not reflect real education standards, but hides the system’s failure. He said no one questions why dropout rates surge between Classes 7 and 8, and Class 10. A 32-year-old worker was killed in the fire at the refinery in Vadodara. A benzene storage tank at the facility caught fire after the blast | P8 COP29 OPENS India must adopt more robust Met system SV KRISHNA CHAITANYA E X P R E SS I N B A K U I NDIA has to enhance its meteorological infrastructure and adopt a more robust multi-hazard early warning system to avoid loss of lives and minimise the impact of climate change, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Celeste Saulo told this newspaper on Monday . The WMO State of the Climate 2024 was released during the United National Climate Conference (COP29), which began in Baku, Azerbaijan, earlier in the day The report issued a . red alert as 2024 is on the track to be the warmest year on record. From January to September this year, the average global temperature was 1.54°C above pre-industrial level. However, seen from a long-term perspective, the average warming is below 1.5°C. Saulo said WMO works very closely with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), whose Director General of Meteorology Mrutyunjay Mohapatra is one of the three vicepresidents of WMO. “India is very active and making good investments to enhance meteorological services. But, India being such a large country , there is a lot of scope for improvement. Especially in bringing the Met , services into the value chain. Active engagement between the Met department and other ministries like agriculture, health and disaster manage- ment is vital,” she told this newspaper on the sidelines of the WMO presser. When asked about events like the Wayanad landslide disaster, which killed over 400 people, the WMO chief said this is where multi-hazard early warning system will come in handy . “There are many things happening at the same time. We need to analyse and react in a holistic way We need . the Met services as well as other agencies to work closely so as to understand the risks.” India is also facing a serious threat of sea level rise, given its its long coastline and dense population near the coasts. Saulo said, in March, the WMO will release a more detailed report, which would look at the regionwise impact due to sea level rise. CONTINUED ON: P9 WITH just two days for byelections to the legislative Assembly in the state, Housing and Waqf Minister BZ Zameer Ahmed made a controversial remark by calling Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy “Kaala (dark complexion) Kumaraswamy”. BJP and JDS leaders were quick to launch a scathing attack on Zameer for his derogatory remark and urged Ramanagara Police to initiate action against him. While campaigning for Channapatna Congress candidate CP Yogeshwara on Sunday EXPRESS READ SC rejects bail plea of ex-MP Prajwal Revanna NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday denied bail to former JDS Lok Sabha member Prajwal Revanna, accused of rape and sexual assault. Rejecting the bail plea, a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma observed Revanna was a “very influential person”. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the politician, argued that the chargesheet had been filed in the case without the charge of Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code | P5 HD Kumaraswamy BZ Zameer Ahmed evening, Zameer said, “If there is anyone who can defeat ‘Kaaliya Kumaraswamy’, it is tiger Yo geshwara.” During his speech, the minister used words such as ‘Kaaliya’ and ‘Kaala’ to target Kumaraswamy. A video of the speech has gone viral and netizens too have slammed Zameer. JDS leaders, who expressed their anguish online, also sought Zameer’s resignation. “Through this remark, Zameer has insulted the community to which Kumarawamy belongs. He also tried to disturb peace and harmony in society they said. ,’’ Be it Overseas Congress chairperson Sam Pitroda or Zameer, it has become a habit for Congress leaders to indulge in racism. They only know to divide society It is their culture . and JDS is not scared of them, they said. They also tagged Congress leaders, including AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, and questioned Zameer about P4 the colour of their skin. 315 Gadag farmers fought legally against Waqf claims, got back land R A G H O T TA M K O P PA R @ Gadag FARMERS from the Gadag district and its surrounding areas, who launched a legal battle in August 2022 against the local Waqf Board’s claims over their lands, have now got their proper ties back in their names. In all, 315 farmers went to a local court against the claims of the board over their lands. Many of them have now launched a campaign to raise awareness among other farmers who are facing a similar problem. Many have been deprived of crop insurance compensation and other government facilities because of the row over ownership of their lands. Farmers, most of whom are illiterates, did not know what was happening with regard to the ownership of their lands as they have been listed as Waqf properties. CONTINUED ON P5