cre sco dit re tirupati l tuesday l march 04, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION Women borrowers grow 22% over the last five years: report The report, released by NITI Aayog CEO B V R Subrahmanyam on Monday, showed bulk of the loans was for meeting consumption demand self-monitoring credit habit sees spike women make up 35% of business loans The report, published by TransUnion CIBIL, Women Entrepreneurship Platform of NITI Aayog and MicroSave Consulting said as of December 2024, 2.7 crore women were monitoring their credit, a 42% spike from the previous year. Women’s share of the total self-monitoring base increased to 19.43% in December 2024, up from 17.89% in 2023, it said ■ ■ The report released on Monday said that among the women borrowers, 60% were from semi-urban and rural areas Since 2019, women’s share in business loan has increased by 14% and their share in gold loans has grown by 6%, with women accounting for 35% of business borrowers by December 2024, the report said 15 crore jobs will be created if women entrepreneurship is promoted 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 Bear children soon, so TN wouldn’t lose seats: CM to couples mlc polls Gade wins from Uttarandhra teachers’ constituency S V i s w a n at h @ Vijayawada Gade Srinivasulu Naidu of the Progressive Recognised Teachers Union (PRTU) has been elected as an MLC from Srikakulam - Vizianagaram - Visakhapatnam Teachers’ Constituency . Elections to the Uttarandhra Teachers’ Constituency, and East Godavari - West Godavari and Guntur - Krishna Graduates’ Constituencies were held on February 27. Counting of votes was taken up on Monday . The counting of votes for Uttarandhra Teachers’ Constituency was held at Andhra University in Visakhapatnam. Even if the TDP and the Jana Sena Party extended support to APTF candidate and sitting MLC Pakalapati Raghu Varma in the election, Gade emerged victorious. Interestingly, the B J P, t h o u g h part of the NDA government in the State, extended support to Gade. Despite Gade getting majority after the counting of first preference votes, election officials took up the elimination rounds as he could not get the required number of votes. Gade has increased his votes in the elimination rounds. But Gade’s win is yet to be declared officially . Congratulating Gade, TDP State president Palla Srinivasa Rao said the coalition government is committed to resolving the issues of teachers. He denounced the YSRCP propaganda that the victory of PRTU in the MLC election was a setback to the TDP-led NDA in the State, mentioning that alliance partners did not contest the poll. Meanwhile, the counting of votes for the two graduates’ segments is going on, and it is expected to take a day or two to P4 complete the process.  Call comes ahead of all-party meet on delimitation E x p r ess Ne w s S e r v i c e @ Nagapattinam wildlife Safari Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a lion safari at Gir Wildlife Sanctuary, on the occasion of the World Wildlife Day, in Gujarat’s Junagadh district on Monday | pti U.P. woman on death row in u.a.e. executed on Feb 15 S H E K HAR S INGH @ New Delhi A 33-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district on death row in the United Arab Emirates was executed on February 15, but it was communicated to the Indian embassy only on February 28, the Ministry of External Affairs told the Delhi High Court on Monday The submis. sion was made during the hearing of a plea filed by the woman’s father seeking to know her whereabouts. “The authorities are providing all possible assistance; her cremation will be held on March 5,” Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma said, adding that arrangements were being made to enable the woman’s family to travel to Abu Dhabi to perform her last rites. Mega DSC notification to fill 16,347 teacher posts soon E x p r ess Ne w s S e r v i c e @ Vijayawada In reply to a question in the AP Legislative Assembly on Monday HRD and IT Minis, ter Nara Lokesh informed that the Mega DSC notification will be issued soon to fill 16,347 teacher posts in the State. Slamming the previous YSRCP government for not issuing a single DSC notification in the last five years, he claimed that as many as 1,80,272 teachers were recruited through 13 DSC notifications issued during the TDP regimes in the last three decades. After the State bifurcation, the TDP government filled 16,701 teacher posts by issuing three DSC notifications in 2014, 2018 and 2019, he highlighted. As the question was raised by YSRCP MLAs, and they were not present in the House, Deputy Speaker K Raghu Ramakrishna Raju said they might know the answer by watching TV news. Lokesh sarcastically remarked that TV sets would be broken in P4 such a scenario.  With no legal recourse left, Justice Sachin Datta disposed of the plea, calling the entire episode a “sad and unfortunate” incident. Shahzadi was working as a caregiver in Abu Dhabi when her employer’s infant son passed away on December 7, 2022, after a routine vaccination. Thereafter, a video surfaced showing her confessing to the crime. However, her father alleged it was obtained through torture by her employer. The employer’s family handed her over to the Abu Dhabi police on February 10, 2023 . She was sentenced to death on July 31, 2023 and the appellate court dismissed her appeal on February 28, 2024. The MEA said the Indian embassy extended all help including filing mercy petitions. Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday encouraged newly-married couples to bear children as early as possible, citing the proposed delimitation of parliamentary constituencies that is expected to be done on the basis of population. His comment comes ahead of the March 5 all-party meet he has called for to discuss the issue. Solemnising a wedding organised by DMK’s Nagapattinam district secretary N Gowthaman’s family, Stalin said it is no longer necessary to advise newly-married couples to postpone childbearing. “A scenario has currently developed where parliamentary constituencies are delimited on the basis of population and the number of MPs would be higher when the populaChief Minister tion is high. Hence, M K Stalin I would not ask the couples to postpone their childbearing like in earlier times and, rather, would encourage them to bear children as early as possible,” the CM said. The DMK and other parties in south India have raised concerns about a proportional loss of representation when delimitation is done, according to the 84th amendment, on the basis of the first census completed after 2026 (the 2021 census has not yet been conducted). With the number of Parliamentary and Assembly seats set to be allocated in proportion to a state’s population, political parties in the south fear that their states, which have slowed population growth, may end up with a smaller share of representation while northern states may have more than at P5 present.  Rework formula on population skew, says TDP P r ee t h a N a i r @ New Delhi With the delimitation row intensifying, the NDA government’s key ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Monday said the current delimitation formula needs rework to address the concerns of the South. TDP parliamentary party leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu expressed confidence that the Centre has taken cognizance of the issue, adding Union home minister Amit Shah’s recent ‘pro rata’ statement was a signal in the right direction. He said the reconfiguration of p a rl i a m e n t a r y seats based on the Lavu Sri Krishna cur rent census data could drastiDevarayalu cally cut their representation in the Lok Sabha. “If the number of seats is increased on the existing formula of population census, Southern states will lose a considerable number of seats. That will invariably reduce our bargaining power in the foreseeable future in Parliament. We are seeing it after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Our bargaining power has been reduced compared to a big state with big numbers,” he said. Amit Shah had recently assured that after delimitation, on pro rata basis, not a single seat will be reduced in any southern state. “The government needs to rework the formula in such a way that seats are not increased only the basis of population. For example, like they give weightage to economically backward states when distributing central funds,” he said. AP embarked on a journey towards Vision 2047: Socio Economic Survey E x p r ess Ne w s S e r v i c e @ Vijayawada The Socio Economic Survey 202425 was tabled in the AP Legislative Assembly on Monday . According to the survey, Andhra Pradesh has embarked on a transformative journey towards Vision 2047, aligning with national aspirations and global best practices to foster sustainable and inclusive development across all sectors. The State government has taken up a policy driven approach to accelerate economic growth, enhance social welfare, and ensure environmental sustainability within a span of seven months and put in place a number of policies covering different sectors. The policies such as the AP Industrial Development Policy 4.0, the AP Integrated Clean Energy Policy the AP Semiconductor and , Display Fab Policy the AP MSME , New policies to ensure rapid economic growth Each of the new policies unveiled by the State government has been meticulously evolved to align with AP’s long and short term goals, ensuring a cohesive and structured approach to economic development and Entrepreneur Development Policy, the AP Electronics Manufacturing Policy the AP Establish, ment of Industrial Parks with Plug and Play Industrial Infrastructure Policy for 2024-29, and other policies rolled out by the government collectively form the backbone of Andhra Pradesh’s strategy to become a leading economy and a welfare State by 2047. , The comprehensive policy framework covers diverse sectors, including infrastructure, industry agriculture, education, health, care, tourism, environment, and social welfare, ensuring holistic progress. buch breather hc stays fir against ex-sebi chief Bombay High Court to hear on March 4 pleas by former Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and five others in case of alleged stock manipulation | P8 SC lifts job bar on visually-impaired in lower judiciary S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi IN a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that visually-impaired persons cannot be denied the opportunity of employment in judicial services and struck down provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Judicial Service Rules that excluded them. The court said, “It is high time that we view the right against disability-based discrimination, as recognised in the RPwD Act (Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act) 2016, in the same stature as a fundamental right, thereby ensuring that no candidate is denied consideration solely on account of their disability .” The court’s two-judge bench, headed by justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan, pronounced the judgment on a batch of petitions — including a representation from a visually-impaired candidate’s mother from Madhya Pradesh — for denying quota to these candidates in judicial services of certain states. The candidate’s mother had last year written to the then Separate cut-off CJI challenging a rule in the for candidates Madhya Pradesh Judicial New Delhi: The Supreme Services (Recruitment and Court held that a Service Conditions) Rules that separate cut-off is to prevented visually impaired be maintained and candidates from being apselection made pointed in the state judicial accordingly for visuallyservices. The court converted impaired candidates as the letter into a suo motu petiindicated in line with the tion and decided to hear it. judgment in Indra In the 122-page judgment, Sawhney. Justice Mahadevan held that visually impaired candidates cannot be said to be ‘not suitable’ for judicial service and they are eligible to participate in selection for posts in judicial service. The verdict said the amendment made in Rule 6A of the Madhya Pradesh Judicial Service (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 1994, “falls foul of the Constitution, and is hence, struck down to the extent that it does not include visually impaired persons who are educationally qualified for the post to apply”. It also said that the provision to Rule 7 relating to additional requirements violated the equality doctrine and the principle of reasonable accommodation. “Any indirect discrimination that results in the exclusion of PwDs, whether through rigid cut-offs or procedural barriers, must be interfered with...,” the court said. Silly point Congress spokesperson gets no (K)Shama for body-shaming Rohit P r ee t h a n a i r @ New Delhi The Congress on Monday distanced itself from its national spokesperson Shama Mohamed’s ‘body shaming’ remarks on India cricket captain Rohit Sharma, saying that the party “does not endorse any statements” that undermine the legacy of sporting icons. A day before India versus Australia Champions Trophy semifinal match in Dubai, a needless controversy erupted after Shama, in her now-deleted post, said Sharma is “fat for a sportsman” and “Need to lose weight! And of course the most unimpressive Captain India has ever had!” The Congress was quick to respond after strong backlash from cricket fans and BJP leaders. In a statement on X, Congress leader Pawan Khera asked Shama to delete her social media posts and exercise greater caution in future. “Dr. Shama Mohammed, National Spokesperson of the Indian National Congress, made certain remarks about a cricketing legend that do not reflect party’s position,” he said. “She has been asked to delete the social media posts from X and has been advised to exercise greater caution in the future. The Indian National Congress holds the contributions of sporting icons in the highest regard and does not endorse any statements that undermine their The INC holds contributions of sporting icons in the highest regard & does not endorse any statements that undermine their legacy — Pawan Khera, Cong leader What is so world-class about him when compared to his predecessors? He is a mediocre captain as well as a mediocre player — Shama Mohammed, Cong spokesperson legacy he added. ,” The BJP has also waded into the controversy, and accused Congress of ‘body-shaming’ and disrespecting the World Cup champion. Responding to a post praising Sharma, Shama asked what was so world class about the current captain when compared to his predecessors like Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, M.S. Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri and the rest. “What is so world-class about him when compared to his predecessors? He is a mediocre captain as well as a mediocre player who got lucky to be the captain,” she wrote. India vs Australia India are 100 overs away from advancing to their fourth straight ICC final. Australia, however, could be tricky opponents. A look at the the first Champions Trophy semis... Spin it to win it On some tired Dubai decks, India’s spinners have had a lot of fun. They will deploy the same strategy against Australia, who has only one frontline spinner in Adam Zampa. Both teams, however, have depleted pace P11 bowling attacks.  Live: 2.30 PM IST, Dubai