MADURAI l tuesday l december 03, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l LATE city EDITION Biden pardons son Hunter, says charges politically motivated Outgoing US President Joe Biden has issued ‘a full and unconditional pardon’ saying Hunter Biden is being targeted only because he is his son Hunter faced gun, tax evasion charges Hunter Biden was convicted early this year on federal gun and tax charges and was set to appear soon in Delon, California, where he faced the potential of lengthy prison sentences. Prosecutors said Biden, 54, lied about his drug use on a federal form when he bought a handgun. He had pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges in Los Angeles in September | P11 ■ U-turn His criminal records to be wiped clean ■ The federal tax evasion case is about non-payment of $1.4 mn in income tax from 2016-19. He is charged with showing $5 mn spent on drugs, escorts, luxury hotels, cars, and clothing as business expenses The tax charges carried up to 17 years and gun charges 25 years jail term. The pardon means he won’t go to jail or have a criminal record Joe biden had repeatedly ruled out Presidential pardon to save his son 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 Oppn, govt find common ground, Parl logjam ends Uthangarai records 50cm rain R A J A L A K S H M I S A M PAT H @ Tiruvannamalai R A J ES H K U M A R T H A K UR @ New Delhi Takht orders punishment for Sukhbir H a r p r e e t B aj w a @ Chandigarh Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal was on Monday directed by the five high priests of the Akal Takht to perform as sewadar (guard) at the Golden Temple, wash utensils at the community kitchen and polish shoes of devotees there, as religious punishment for the ‘sins’ committed during his watch as party president between 2007 and 2017. His father Parkash Singh Badal was chief minister of a SADBJP coalition government during that period. The SAD was directed to accept Sukhbir’s resignation from presidentship of the party in three days and form a committee to hold fresh elections for SAD’s leadership within six months. The Takht set up a separate panel to oversee the whole process. Photo: Dinesh S Over 20 vehicles were washed away by rains due to cyclone Fengal on Monday in Uthangarai, Krishnagiri district | Express Tungsten mine TN plans assembly resolution CM will move resolution in Assembly on December 9 urging centre to cancel licence given for mining tungsten in Madurai | P2 Low food weightage in CPI under new base year D I PA K M O N D A L @ New Delhi WITH the debate raging over weightage of food inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), government sources said the weightage of food in the index would come down automatically once the new base year is adopted. The National Statistics Office is working on a new base year, which could be 2022-23 or 2023-24 and could kick in by late 2025 or early 2026. Currently, the government uses 2011-12 base year for inflation and GDP calculation. “The debate over the weightage of food items in CPI basket would be over once the new base year is adopted. The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey report of 2023-24 would be released in a few weeks. After that, we will decide on the base year,” said a senior official. According to the 2022-23 survey the share of food in house, hold consumption has fallen from 52.90% in 2011-12 to 46.4% in rural areas and from 46.62% to 39.17% in urban areas. The share of cereals from the consumption basket has fallen from 10.69% in 2011-12 to 4.89% in 2022-23 in rural areas and from 6.61% to 3.62% in urban. The 2023-24 survey saw further fall in the share of food items in the consumption basket. Currently, food has a weightage of 44.6% in the combined CPI. Cereals have a weightage of 10%. In October, the retail inflation crossed 6% after 14 months. On the question of why the real inflation for the common man feels much more than the official numbers released, a senior official said the government’s number is arrived at by taking price samples from over 2,500 urban and rural markets across all states, but the general perception of inflation is based on the experience of 4-5 metro cities. Impact on RBI’s target As inflation remains high, there was a suggestion to keep food inflation out of RBI’s inflation targeting framework to keep retail inflation at 4% Prospects for rate cut may grow Due to high food inflation, RBI has been deferring interest rate cut since Feb 2023, which has become a point of tiff between govt and RBI Ball set rolling for ‘election’ of Maha CM S u dhi r S u r ya w an s hi @ Mumbai Setting the ball rolling to name its chief ministerial candidate, the BJP’s central parliamentary board on Monday appointed Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman and former chief minister of Gujarat Vijay Rupani as observers for the first legislative party meeting of the BJP in Maharashtra. The meeting expected on Wednesday would elect its leader, who would possibly take the oath of office as the new chief Nirmala Sitharaman and Vijay Rupani minister at a ceremony on Thursday at Azad Maidan here in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sources in the Shiv Sena said caretaker Chief Minister `5K aid for all pds cards in pondy T’malai landslide: Houses, farms under 5 bodies recovered, water as record rain search on for 2 others hits north, west TN Consensus emerges to hold discussions on Constitution in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Houses have lost almost all working hours due to protests by opposition parties demandTHE government and opposi- ing discussions on various istion parties on Monday agreed sues. The Congress has been to break the week-long Parlia- particularly vocal about the inment deadlock by holding a dis- dictment of Adani Group chaircussion on the Constitution to person Gautam Adani and othcommemorate the 75th anni- er company officials on charges of bribery and fraud by versary of its adoption. US prosecutors. In adThe breakthrough was dition, intense opposiachieved in a meeting tion protests over isof floor leaders of varisues such as the ous parties with the Sambhal violence and Lok Sabha Speaker, the unrest in Manipur where consensus have led to repeated ademerged to let both Congress, journments in both the Houses function TMC differ Lok Sabha and the Rasmoothly from Tuesday While the jya Sabha. onwards. It was also deCongress is However, certain opcided to hold debates keen to push position parties, notaon the Constitution in the Adani row bly the Trinamool Conboth Houses. Parliamentary Af- in Parliament, gress, have prioritised the TMC feel other issues over the fairs Minister Kiren Riprice rise and Adani controversy. jiju later told reporters that the Lok Sabha unemployment They have called for deare the more bates on unemploywould hold discussions on the Constitution on pressing issues ment, price rises, and December 13 and 14, that should be the Centre’s alleged while the Rajya Sabha raised by Oppn bias against oppositionruled states in fund would conduct the deallocation. bates on December 16 and 17. Meanwhile, the BJP has ac“The government has agreed to this,” Rijiju said, adding that cused the Congress of violating he expected parliamentary pro- constitutional norms during ceedings to resume smoothly. its time in power. The BJP has Several opposition leaders who also emphasised that the attended the meeting expressed Narendra Modi government has upheld and strengthened similar optimism. Since the winter session constitutional principles durstarted on November 25, both ing its tenure of over 10 years. bus, train services hit Eknath Shinde, NCP chief Ajit Pawar and BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis would get into a huddle in Mumbai on Monday and later fly to Delhi to finalise the power-sharing arrangement of the Mahayuti alliance with the BJP’s top leadership. However, no such meeting took place. Shinde, who had returned to Thane after a bout of infection from his native village, Daregaon, in Satara district, once again fell sick and reportedly did not meet even his party leaders on Monday . If the BJP is not able to give the CM’s post to the Sena because it is the single largest party with 132 seats, then it should at least concede key portfolios like finance and home to the ally Senior leader of the Shiv Sena S V K R I S H N A C H A I TA N YA Five bodies, trapped in a house buried under mud and rocks triggered by a landslip due to the torrential rain on Sunday were recovered late on Monday at Annama, laiyar Hill in Tiruvannamalai district following the hectic search operation since early Monday morning. Efforts are on to rescue two others who are trapped, sources said. The landslide buried two adjacent houses in VOC Nagar. Bodies of R Meena (25), her son Gowtham (9), S Ramya (13), M Vinothini (14) and M Maha (10) have been identified. N Rajkumar (28), husband of Meena, and his daughter Iniya (7) are still missing. According to residents, Rajkumar, Meena and other parents of the locality are all employed at a brick kiln at Thandarampet, 20km away Most families in the area . are relatives and would take care of each other’s children when the parents go to work at the kiln. Some of them would stay and work at the brick kiln all week long and would come home to their families on weekends, they added. Vinothini, Maha and their 16-year-old brother Surya were residing with their grandmother Rani (65) in the house located next to Rajkumar’s place. Rani had stepped out to buy groceries when Surya, sensing something amiss, sounded alarm, asking his siblings to exit the house with him. “Instead, they ran into Rajkumar’s house,” Surya told TNIE. “When they tried to come out, the door got jammed and trees started falling on the house,” he added. Ramya, daughter of A Saravanan (30) and Meenakshi had already been playing with Rajkumar’s children in their house at the time of the incident. Meenakshi, who was nearby, said that she attempted to save her daughter but couldn’t.  P5 The record rainfall, unseen in the past two decades, which pounded Puducherry, Villupuram and Cuddalore districts on the north Tamil Nadu coast and Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts over the last two days, blocked access to several villages and residential colonies, inundated thousands of acres of crops and stranded hundreds of passengers as rail and road traffic was hit. In 24 hours ending at 8.30 am M o n d ay, U t h a n g a r a i i n Krishnagiri district received 50cm rainfall, Kedar in Villupuram clocked 42cm, and Karur in Dharmapuri recorded 33cm. Cuddalore and Tiruvannamalai had recorded 16cm each. Vehicles and roads were submerged in several parts of Villupuram and Cuddalore. Traffic was temporarily stopped on the Chennai-Tiruchy national highway With water rising on . an arterial bridge between Vikravandi and Mundiyampakkam in Villupuram, Southern Railway on Monday suspended operations on the stretch. P5 @ Chennai CM Stalin inspects relief work at Aragandanallur on Monday | Express Stalin requests `2K cr from centre Chennai: CM Stalin on Monday asked PM Modi to release `2,000 crore from the NDRF for emergency restoration and rehab in TN. Pondy CM N Rangasamy announced aid of `5,000 to each family ration card holder | P4