tirupati l saturday l december 21, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION Google trims its top team by 10% to improve efficiency Google has cut its number of top management roles by 10% in its push for efficiency, the US firm’s CEO Sundar Pichai told staff in a meeting Move to simplify company structure Some roles changed to non-managerial According to a Business Insider report, Pichai told staff the process to trim the company’s top team has been going on for the past two years, adding the larger goal is to simplify the company structure by reducing layers of managers that hinder growth. The report quoting Pichai said the efficiency push included a 10% cut in managers, directors, and vice-presidents ■ The efficiency push has coincided with AI rivals such as OpenAI ■ A Google spokesperson said some of those roles were changed to nonmanagerial positions while others were eliminated entirely unleashing new products that threaten Google’s search business ■ In 2022, Pichai had said he wanted Google to be 20% more efficient 12,000 Number of jobs Google eliminated in January 2023, biggest in its history 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 Session ends, discord doesn’t B R Ambedkar issue set to resonate in the forthcoming Delhi and Bihar assembly elections P r e e t h a N a i r @ New Delhi Firefighters douse the fire at the site of the accident on the Jaipur-Ajmer Highway, in Jaipur, on Friday. Inset: A charred vehicle | pti Toll may go up as many are critical The injured were rushed to the SMS hospital in Jaipur in more than 25 ambulances. A total of 43 people were brought to the hospital, seven of whom are on ventilator support, Dr Deepak Maheshwari, Principal, SMS Medical College, said. Some people with minor injuries left the hospital after dressing. Officials at the spot indicated that the casualty count may go up Flames engulf 300-metre stretch People reported witnessing flames from nearly 1 km away as thick black smoke filled the sky. The crash initially affected a nearly 300-metre stretch of the highway, leading to a long queue of vehicles. The traffic thickened with time and by afternoon choked the arterial road, leading to diversions WG woman receives dead body in parcel P h a n i n d r a Pa pa s a n i @ Vijayawada In a shocking incident, a woman in Yendagandi village of West Godavari district received a parcel containing the body of an unidentified person on Thursday night. The incident was reported at Yendagandi village in Undi mandal of West Godavari district. The parcel also contained a letter demanding the woman, identified as Naga Tulasi, `1.3 crore. She immediately alerted the police, who rushed to the spot and collected clues from the scene. The body was sent to Bhimavaram Government General Hospital for post-mortem. Elaborating on the case, West Godavari Superintendent of Police (SP) Adnan Nayeem Asmi told TNIE that Tulasi had sought financial aid from Kshatriya Seva Samithi for constructing her house. In response, the organisation had sent her two consignments containing tiles and paint a few months ago. When she asked for more help, representatives of the Samithi reportedly promised to send her electrical appliances, including lights, fans, and switchboards. They had confirmed the same through a WhatsApp message. Subsequently, a person delivered a box to the woman at her doorstep on Thursday night and even informed her that it contained electrical appliances.P4 11 killed, 40 injured as LPG tanker hits truck and explodes R a j e s h A s n a n i @ Jaipur AT least 11 people were killed and over 40 others seriously injured when an LPG tanker exploded after colliding with a truck near Bhankrota on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway on Friday morning. Over 20 of the injured suffered more than 50% burns. Sources said they fear the toll could go up as the condition of many of the injured is very serious. The Bharat Petroleum LPG tanker was going from Ajmer to Jaipur when the accident happened. At around 5:45 am, the tanker was attempting a U-turn near Delhi Public School on the outskirts of Jaipur when another truck rammed into it. Sushant Kumar Singh, deputy general manager (fire and safety) of GAIL India, said five nozzles on the tanker broke in the impact of the collision, releasing liquid LPG all over the area. The leaked gas ignited due to a spark, leading to a massive explosion that left the entire vicinity in flames. The fire spread across a 300metre radius, reducing dozens of vehicles to ashes. Among the destroyed vehicles were 29 trucks, two passenger buses, two gas tankers, three cars, three motorcycles, and two pickup vehicles. A nearby pipe factory and a sleeper bus were also severely damaged. Eyewitnesses reported seeing massive flames that were visible from miles away, trapping many individuals in their vehicles. Over 30 fire engines were rushed to extinguish the flames. To prevent further escalation, the LPG gas pipeline beneath the highway was shut off. Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma visited the injured in hospital. He also announced financial assistance of `5 lakh each for the families of the deceased and `1 lakh each for the injured. The winter session of Parliament, which saw unprecedented clashes between the Opposition and the ruling BJP, came to a close on Friday with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar cautioning the members to maintain dignity and decorum of the Houses. Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned sine die amid protests by the Opposition and treasury benches over the alleged insult to B R Ambedkar and directions by Speaker Om Birla to members against holding protests at any gate of Parliament. While Lok Sabha’s productivity was 57.87% in 20 days, passing four bills, the corresponding figure for the Rajya Sabha was 40.03% in 19 days and the passage of three bills. The session may perhaps go down in parliamentary history for setting a grim record for several reasons — from an ugly scuffle between the NDA and INDIA bloc members and a noconfidence motion by the Opposition against Upper House chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar to a bitter discourse on Constitution and daily disruption of the House proceedings by both MoUs with tBI and physics wallah The State government inked deals with Physics Wallah and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) in a bid to modernise higher education and prepare students for global opportunities | P4 Payment for paddy ryots in 2 hrs: CM K K a lya n K r i s h n a kum a r @ Vijayawada The government is committed to fair paddy procurement practices and ensuring that payments are made to farmers efficiently through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) within two hours, said Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu during a press meet at Dhanekula Engineering College on Friday after a field visit to a Rythu Seva Kendram (RSK) and a rice mill in Ganguru village. Pointing out that a 40% rise in paddy procurement has been recorded this year, he said 22 lakh tonnes has been collected from 3.7 lakh farmers, compared to 12.55 lakh tonnes last year. He highlighted that payments for 93% paddy procured CM N Chandrababu Naidu at a rice mill in Ganguru village on Friday | Express were made within 24 hours. Further, Naidu warned of strict action under the PD (Preventive Detention) Act against those resorting to rice smuggling. “We will ensure the term ‘rice smuggler’ is not heard in the State,” he asserted. During his visit to the RSK, he interacted with Akunuri Sambasiva Rao, a farmer who shared his difficulties in reading government messages related to paddy procurement. P4 Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other INDIA bloc MPs during their protest against home minister Amit Shah over his remarks on Ambedkar | Shekhar yadav special team of police to handle Rahul case A special team of the Delhi Police is expected to take over the probe into the FIR filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for allegedly ‘assaulting’ BJP MPs, sources said. Given the conflicting claims, the team plans to call MPs present during the scuffle to piece together the sequence of events. The police will examine CCTV footage and speak to the injured MPs | P7 sides — to name a few. The main highlight of the session — a two-day debate on the 75th year of Constitution snowballed into a major point of confrontation between the BJP and the Congress over Union home minister Amit Shah’s comment on Ambedkar in Parliament. During his speech on the Constitution, he said, “It has become the new fashion to say ‘Ambedkar, Ambedkar, Ambedkar’. Had they chanted God’s name as many times, they would have found a place in heaven.” The scuffle outside Parliament on Thursday led to an FIR against Leader of Opposition Reckless claim mea ticks off Yunus govt for aide’s remarks India has lodged a strong protest with Bangladesh over a now-deleted social THE government on Friday media post by a key aide of informed the Lok Sabha that Dhaka’s interim govern2,200 cases of violence ment claiming certain areas against Hindus and other of Indian territory should minorities were reported be part of Bangladesh. from Bangladesh this Mahfuz Alam, year up to December known for his pro8. Minister of State vocative comments, for External Affairs had also posted on Kirti Vardhan Singh Facebook earlier a gave the information map pur por tedly in a written response, showing parts of citing data from miWest Bengal, Tripura nority and human and Assam as parts rights organisations. of Bangladesh. He He said the Indian deleted the post later. High Commission in Alam is a de facto Dhaka is closely We would like minister in the Muto remind all monitoring the situahammad Yunus-led concerned to tion, adding that New be mindful of interim government Delhi has raised the of Bangladesh. their public issue with Dhaka. “We would like to comments “The Government remind all concerned of India has ex- Randhir Jaiswal, to be mindful of their pressed its concerns MEA spokesperson public comments. about such incidents, While India has reincluding the demolition of peatedly signalled interest the Jagannath Temple in in fostering relations with Bangladesh, the attack on a the people and the interim Puja mandap in Tantibazar, government of Bangladesh, Dhaka, and the theft at the such comments underline Jeshoreshwari Kali temple the need for responsibility in Satkhira during Durga in public articulation,” MEA Puja 2024,” he said. s p o ke s p e r s o n R a n d h i r In another development, Jaiswal said. Express News Service @ New Delhi new study Only 24.9% of Andhra’s coastline stable, 31% eroded U s h a P e r i @ Visakhapatnam Thirty-one per cent of Andhra Pradesh’s coastline is eroding, 44 per cent is accreting, and 24.9 per cent remains stable, according to a report by the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR). The report, titled ‘Management of Coastal Erosion along Andhra Pradesh - Shoreline Change Atlas of Andhra Pradesh,’ provides a detailed analysis of erosion and accretion patterns along the State’s 1,027.5 km-long coastline. The study covering the period from , 1990 to 2022, indicates that 318.96 km of the State’s coastline have experienced erosion, 256.32 km remain stable, and 452.3 km are under accretion. While erosion means the land near the sea is being worn away by waves, currents, and storms, accretion means the opposite. An expert in the subject explained that accretion means the build up of sand and sediments, creating new land. However, this could be both The eroded shoreline at Gokul Park in Visakhapatnam | G Satyanarayana good and bad. In Andhra’s case, accretion is not necessarily bad on its own, but must be carefully managed. If it leads to an imbalance, like worsening erosion elsewhere or affecting local livelihoods and ecosystems, it could become problematic. Sustainable coastal management can help balance the benefits and risks. The study, conducted using Resourcesat-2 and LISS-IV satellite data, excluded river and creek areas and focused on the P4 shoreface length.  Rahul Gandhi after the BJP filed assault charges against him for causing injury to two of its MPs. With both the Congress and the BJP escalating the issue outside Parliament, it is bound to gain more traction and dominate the narrative in the forthcoming Delhi and Bihar assembly elections. Most part of the 25 day-long session revolved around two tycoons. While Opposition members demanded a debate on the US indictment of businessman Gautam Adani, the treasury benches sought to counter it with the alleged links between the Gandhi family and US billionaire George Soros. Battle lines were also drawn over INDIA bloc’s impeachment motion against Chairman Dhankhar for his alleged partisan conduct in the House. Though it was rejected by deputy Chairman Harivansh, it was the first time that such a motion was made against an RS presiding officer. The Lok Sabha also saw the introduction of the important ‘One Nation, One Election’ legislation, amid fierce protest by the Opposition. But the bill didn’t get two-thirds majority at the introduction stage. Subsequently, it was sent to a 39member JPC for vetting. Your cuppa is healthy, US food regulator finally agrees P r a s a n ta M a z um d a r @ Guwahati With the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognising tea from the Camellia sinensis plant is a healthy beverage, the North Easter n Tea Association (NETA) raised a toast to it. On December 19, the FDA issued a rule to update the “healthy” nutrient content claim to help consumers identify foods that are particularly useful as the foundation of a diet that is consistent with dietary recommendations. “Fantastic news for the tea industry,” said Peter F Goggi, the president of Tea Association of the USA. “Tea is now officially recognized as a healthy beverage and tea can now claim this descriptor,” he added. Bidyananda Barkakoty, adviser to NETA and former vice chairman of Tea Board said, “We are extremely happy to know that tea derived from Camellia sinensis has got this recognition. Research worldwide has found the health benefits of drinking tea,” Barkakoty said terming it a “wonder drink”. The NETA urged the Centre to promote tea as a “healthy, lifestyle and wellness” beverage. Dipanjal Deka, secretary of Tea Association of India, Assam branch, said, “Ours is camellia assamica (Assam bush). I think the recognition is for tea in general. It is a good thing for us,” he added. The FDA in a statement said, “We agree that tea is derived from the plant Camellia sinensis…We previously recognized that green tea is made from Camellia sinensis in our response to a qualified health claim petition regarding the relationship between green tea and certain cancers.” “At this time, we do not have sufficient information to determine whether herbal infusions should automatically qualify for the ‘healthy’ claim. We, therefore, extend automatic qualification for the ‘healthy’ claim to tea—derived from Camellia sinensis—and not to herbal infusions.”