HYDERABAD  TUESDAY  DECEMBER 03, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 18  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 CRIMINAL RECORDS TO BE WIPED CLEAN 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 ■ ■ 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 U-turn 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 It is people’s responsibility to protect govt: CM common ground, Parl logjam ends M A N DA RAV I N D E R R E D DY @ Hyderabad 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 versary of its adoption. of bribery and fraud by The breakthrough was US prosecutors. In adachieved in a meeting dition, intense opposiof floor leaders of varition protests over isous parties with the sues such as the Lok Sabha Speaker, Sambhal violence and where consensus the unrest in Manipur emerged to let both have led to repeated adCongress, Houses function journments in both the TMC differ smoothly from Tuesday Lok Sabha and the RaWhile the onwards. It was also dejya Sabha. Congress is cided to hold debates However, certain opkeen to push on the Constitution in position parties, notathe Adani row bly the Trinamool Conboth Houses. Parliamentary Af- in Parliament, gress, have prioritised the TMC feel fairs Minister Kiren Riother issues over the price rise and jiju later told reporters Adani controversy. that the Lok Sabha unemployment They have called for deare the more would hold discussions bates on unemployon 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 oppositionwould conduct the deruled states in fund bates on December 16 and 17. allocation. “The government has agreed Meanwhile, the BJP has acto 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 similar optimism. has upheld and strengthened Since the winter session constitutional principles durstarted on November 25, both ing its tenure of over 10 years. RAJESH KUMAR THAKUR @ New Delhi Takht orders punishment for Sukhbir H A R P R E E T B A J 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. Flanked by his Cabinet colleagues and others, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy flags off an ambulance during the Aarogya Utsavalu in Hyderabad on Monday | VINAY MADAPU 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, TERRIFYING TALES 90 personnel have formed teams and monitoring tiger movement  Drone cameras as well as 30 trap cameras have been arranged  So far this year, 2 tiger attacks on humans reported in which one farmer was killed and another injured  As many as 31 attacks took place on cattle in the last three months in erstwhile Adilabad district S R A J A R E D D Y @ Adilabad WHAT is the reason behind the failure of forest officials in anticipating the migration of tigers into Telangana territory? It is being attributed to delays in paying wages to contractbased base camp watchers, who are crucial for monitoring wildlife movement. The base camp watchers, who track animal movements PRESERVE BODIES OF SLAIN MAOISTS TILL Tuesday, allow relatives to view bodies, Telangana High Court orders Eturunagaram police | P4 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 are suggestions 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 Brother kills woman cop for intercaste marriage EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad IN a chilling incident, a 27-yearold constable, Kongara Nagamani, was allegedly murdered by her brother who was stated to be upset with her for marrying a man from another caste, at Ibrahimpatnam of Rangareddy district on Monday . Ko n g a r a P a r a m e s h w a r rammed Nagamani’s scooter while she was on her way to join duty at Hayathnagar police station, and when she fell on Some people launched an artificial movement to get DSC and Group-I exams postponed. We won’t postpone the exams as we don’t want youth to do rounds of coaching centres A Revanth Reddy, Chief Minister a programme organised by the Health department to celebrate the first year of Congress rule. “The BRS never fulfilled the aspirations of the youth of Telangana. BRS never focused on addressing unemployment, it neglected health and education,” Revanth said. He added that the BRS regime treated the Telangana Public Service Commission as a political rehabilitation centre. “The Watchers let guard down, tiger seizes the moment Low food weightage in CPI under new base year D I PA K M O N D A L @ New Delhi ASSERTING that his focus was solely on development and welfare activities, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Monday appealed to the people of Telangana to shield him from the baseless allegations being levelled against him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao so that he could concentrate on his work. “The responsibility to rebut their baseless allegations is yours, because I want to concentrate on my responsibilities. This government is yours. It is your responsibility to protect the government which you elected,” he told the gathering at the road, slit her throat the couple moved to with a knife. Mansoorabad. Relatives said that They retur ned to Nagamani and her husRaipole on Sunday Af. band Bandari Srikanth ter Srikanth left for hailed from the same vilwork on Monday, she lage, Raipole. They got started for HayathnaK Nagamani married on November 10 gar. “Even as I was at Yadagirigutta after eight speaking with her at 8.51 years of courtship. However, am, I heard a loud noise. When I their marriage angered Para- asked her what happened, she meshwar who allegedly told his told me that her brother hit her sister that he would not give her with a car and that she fell down. the share of the family property She told me that he was about to and also threatened to kill her. kill her,” Srikanth’s complaint CONTINUED ON P5 With the threats continuing, said. We got married on November 10. We were in love for 10 years. He (Parameshwar) might have inquired about her whereabouts and killed her today when she was going for duty B Srikanth, husband of K Nagamani and relay information to forest officials, have been unpaid for two months. As a result, many were inactive, causing a lapse in monitoring during the critical tiger mating season when movements are typically higher. Watchers are trained to detect tiger presence, often relying on visible signs like pugmarks, and even invisible ones like smell. This led to vital information not reaching senior officials who in turn could not order precautionary steps. In fact, with watchers inactive, senior officials could not track the tiger that attacked and killed a woman last week, despite camera traps capturing footage in the last CONTINUED ON P2 one month. Congress government has completely revamped the Commission. The previous government appointed RMPs and deputy tahsildars as Commission members. We don’t want to make the TGPSC a political rehabilitation centre and that is why we appointed a senior IAS officer as the chairman of the Commission,” Revanth said. He accused the previous administration of failing to conduct competitive examinations. “Earlier, competitive exam papers used to be sold in Xerox centres. They did not make recruitments with commitment and with responsibility. No state in the country filled over 50,000 jobs within one year, except this government,” Revanth CONTINUED ON P4 said. EXPRESS READ Four vegetable vendors killed as lorry runs amok Hyderabad: Four vegetable vendors died and another four were injured when a lorry ran over them at a roadside market at Aalur in Chevella mandal of Rangareddy district on Monday. They were identified as N Ramulu, D Krishna, Jameel and S Sujatha. CS of AP, TG discuss bifurcation issues | P5