kochi l tuesday l December 10, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 18 l late city EDITION Kremlin says Assad granted political asylum in russia The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia has granted political asylum to the former Syrian president who fled the country on Sunday UN security council to hold emergency meet Israel strikes suspected wmd sites Russian President Vladimir Putin personally made the decision to offer asylum to Assad, Kremlin said. The UN Security Council will hold an emergency consultation on the situation in Syria later Monday at Russia’s request. In Syria, small groups of armed men were stationed in the streets of Damascus. Most shops were shut and public transport was unavailable ■ ■ ■ Israel said it struck suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets in Syria to prevent them from falling into the hands of rebels In Syria’s north, a town held by Kurdish-led forces fell to the rebels In his first reaction to the fall of the Assad regime, US President Joe Biden called it “a historic opportunity” for the people of Syria 4,000 Syrian army soldiers have crossed into Iraq since assad’s departure 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 Revenue Secy Sanjay Malhotra is new RBI chief To assume charge on Wednesday; will have to fight high inflation and slowing growth B E N N K OCHUV E E DA N @ Mumbai Sanjay Malhotra IIT grad, master’s from u.s. An engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Sanjay Malhotra also holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Princeton University, US Inflation data on Thursday The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation will release the November retail inflation data on Thursday THE government on Monday appointed Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra as the 26th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Malhotra, 56, will assume charge on Wednesday a day af, ter the six-year tenure of incumbent Shaktikanta Das ends. A 1990 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS officer, Malhotra has been appointed for three years. He has extensive administrative experience of over 33 years working with various central and state government departments across finance, taxation, power, IT, and mining. Malhotra’s appointment comes at a challenging time as the central bank has to keep the country’s retail inflation within the mandated range of 2-6% while clearing the path for economic growth. His decisions will be watched keenly as the latest data shows retail inflation remains above RBI’s upper limit at 6.21% in October while GDP growth has slumped to 5.4% in the second quarter of FY25. The delayed announcement of the new RBI governor’s appointment, made just a day before Das’s tenure was to end, created a buzz that the incumbent might get another extension. That Das met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday also fuelled the speculation. Das was appointed as RBI governor after the abrupt exit of Urjit Patel on December 12, 2018. In 2021, he was given a three-year extension, which will end on December 10. Experts said the appointment shows the Central government’s preference for IAS officers as RBI governors, rather than bringing economists from outside. Munambam land is waqf property: IUML E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e ‘UDF took stand after consulting IUML leaders’ Pushed by its own leaders, including national organising secretary E T Muhammad Basheer, state secretary K M Shaji and MLA M K Muneer, the IUML has finally stated that the disputed land at Munambam is indeed waqf property . Until now, the party leadership, including state president Panakkad Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal and national general secretary P K Kunhalikutt y, h a d b e e n p l a y i n g hide-and-seek, without clearly coming out on the exact nature of the land. They didn’t contradict Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan’s repeated assertion Surendran: UDF shelter for communal forces Pathanamthitta: Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan on Monday said the UDF took a stand on the Munambam land issue following consultation with senior leaders of the Muslim League . P4 @ Kozhikode Kochi: Alleging that the Muslim League was trying to divide society and instigate communal riots, BJP state president K Surendran said the UDF has turned into a shelter for communal forces. that the land is not waqf property. The leadership had remained silent when some legal personalities close to the IUML hinted that the Munambam land was given to the Farook College management under a gift deed and therefore it cannot be considered as waqf. But close on the heels of Shaji stating that IUML does State to pay share value to TECOM, not compensation: CM E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ T’Puram Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said the state government will not give any compensation to TECOM Investments for withdrawing from the SmartCity Kochi project, but will pay the value of the shares the firm has invested in the joint venture. Pinarayi said the entire 246 acre will be owned by the government. TECOM, a subsidiary of Du- bai Holding, owns 84% stake in SmartCity Kochi, while the state government holds the remaining 16%. Addressing a press conference on Monday , the CM said the land will be taken over by the state government and leased out to IT and other private companies keen to establish their ventures in the property. He pointed out that Infopark, the IT park adja- EXPRESS READ India raises attacks on Hindus in top-level meet with new B’desh govt for filmmaker shaji n Karun New Delhi: Voicing concerns over the safety of minorities in Bangladesh, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Monday raised the issue of attacks on Hindus during the first high-level diplomatic engagement between New Delhi and Dhaka since the Muhammad Yunus-led interim govt took power in August. P10 The highest film award instituted by the state govt carries a purse of H5 lakh, a citation and a statuette | P4 18 pages, including 4 pages of kochi Express J C Daniel Award `800 cr in 4 days, Pushpa rules box office S h r e ya s Pa n d e Ever since he rose on the screen in 2021, Allu Arjun’s Pushparaj has become an unstoppable force of nature. His staggering refusal to bow down to authority found universal resonance as the film became among the first blockbusters in the post-pandemic era. With Pushpa 2: The Rule, he goes to the next level, bringing more style to his persona as he swings around in a sari, breaking bones with a touch of vulnerability. His over-the-top action and rousing dialogues are finding an immense release in audiences globally, as is evident from box-office numbers. With a worldwide gross of `800.50 crore, the film has collected `529 crore in India (net) in four days in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada. It opened at the box office, earning a whopping `164.25 crore, surpassing the opening day numbers of Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal (`63.8 crore), Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan (`75 crore), Yash’s KGF: Chapter 2 (`116 crore) and Prabhas starrer Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (`121 crore). The Sukumar directorial, however, saw a steep decline on Day 2, making `93.8 crore. It picked up again over the weekend, raking `119.25 crore on Saturday and `141.5 crore on Sunday . not share Satheesan’s view on Munambam land, Basheer told reporters in New Delhi that Munambam is indeed waqf land. “At no point had the party said it was not waqf property . All documents prove this fact,” he said. Though Basheer said he doesn’t want to contradict Satheesan’s claim, it was very clear that all in the party are not happy with the leader of Opposition’s stand. IUML had placed Sadiq Ali Thangal at the centre of the fire-fighting mission to douse the communal flare-up between communities over the land. Thangal had met the Latin Catholic bishops as part of his mission, but many in the IUML believed that the peace mission should not be taken up by concealing the facts about the land and by compromising the waqf claim. Also, the suggestion of the Muslim Coordination Committee that met under the leadership of Thangal in Kozhikode last month was to find a lasting solution without forsaking the ● More on P4 waqf claim.  cent to SmartCity Kochi, is 99% occupied. “Since the UAE has an emotional connect with Malayalis, and the SmartCity Kochi agreement being a product of the cooperation between the UAE government and state, the government wants to find the proper value of the foreign partner’s investment and repay them. If the government moves with arbitration proceedings, it would drag for years, delaying the allotment of the land to the companies keen to enter or expand in Kochi,” he said. The state has formed a committee to prepare the withdrawal policy . “The government will have to repay the value of the shares TECOM bought in the SmartCity Kochi. The current situation has emerged following the decision of Dubai Holding to stop operations outside Dubai,” ● More on P4 he said. Reservation can’t be based on religion: SC S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi Religion cannot be the basis for granting reservation, the Supreme Court said on Monday, while hearing a batch of pleas, including one by the West Bengal government, challenging the Calcutta High Court’s decision to quash the Other Backward Class (OBC) classification of 77, mostly Muslim, communities. A two-judge bench of the court, led by Justice B R Gavai and Justice K V Viswanathan, observed, “Reservation cannot be on the basis of religion.” In its May 22 verdict, the high court had said, “Religion indeed appears to have been the sole criterion for declaring these communities as OBCs.” Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, told the court that, “This reservation is not based on religion but backwardness which has been upheld by the court. Even for Hindus, it is on the basis of backwardness.” The Supreme Court adjourned the matter to January 7 for a detailed hearing.