NEW IPL RULES Ahead of the 2025 season, BCCI has made some major changes in the rules in the all-captains meet. A look... SALIVA BAN REVOKED BHUBANESWAR  FRIDAY  MARCH 21, 2025  `9.00  PAGES 12  JEYPORE EDITION The usage of saliva on balls had been banned since covid pandemic, but it has been lifted for the IPL from hereon. This came after appeals from several star bowlers including Mohammed Shami. SLOW OVERRATE BAN The IPL will enforce demerit points for captains if they fail to adhere to optimal over-rate. Mandatory ball change after the 11th over in second innings for night games CWG 2030: INDIA SEND EXPRESSION OF INTEREST India have formally submitted Expression of Interest to host the Centenary Commonwealth Games at Ahmedabad. The letter of interest was sent by PT Usha as the chief of Commonwealth Games Association of India on March 13 | P11 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 Elon Musk’s X sues Indian govt over content blocking R A K E S H K U M A R @ New Delhi ELON Musk-led-social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court against the Centre, accusing it of illegally blocking content on the platform. The petition, filed on Thursday, alleges the government is circumventing established legal safeguards and procedures in its bid to censor online content. According to X, the government is improperly using Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act to issue content blocking orders. It argued that this section is not intended for such purposes and that the government is deliberately bypassing the more stringent requirements of Section 69A of the IT Act and the associated Blocking Rules. Section 69A is the legally defined route by which the government can restrict access to online content that is deemed harmful to the nation’s interests. However, this process is regulated by the 2009 IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, which require a structured review process before blocking decisions are made. Section 79(3)(b) says if a government agency flags illegal content, the platform must take it down within 36 hours or risk being liable for third-party content. 30 more Naxals killed in C’garh E J A Z K A I S E R @ Raipur AT least 30 members of the banned CPI (Maoist) were killed in two separate encounters in Bastar division on Thursday, as security forces intensified operations against left-wing insurgency in south Chhattisgarh. “A joint team of the District Reserve Guards (DRG) from Bijapur and Dantewada, Special Task Force, CRPF and elite CoBRA force was out on search operations based on specific intelligence inputs. Around 7 am, an encounter broke out in the dense forest along the inter-district border area of Bijapur-Dantewada, where 26 Naxalites were neutralised. During the exchange of fire, DRG jawan Raju Oyami lost his life,” said Jitendra Yadav, Bijapur district police chief. In another gunfight at Kanker district in the north Bastar region, a combined team of the Border Security Force, Bastar Fighters and DRG gunned down four Maoists close to the Abujhmad jungle of Narayanpur. No security personnel sustained injuries in the Kanker encounter. The recovered bodies of Maoists are yet to be identified and the casualty count of the red rebels may rise further, the officer said. The forces also recovered 21 weapons, including an AK-47, two Self-Loading Rifles, one INSAS rifle, three BGL rocket launchers, and explosives among Jawans returning from the encounter site in the forest area at Bijapur-Dantewada border, in Bijapur on Thursday | ANI others from the encounter site. Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated that the security forces had achieved another big success in the mission to eliminate Naxalism under the ‘Naxal Mukt Bharat Abhiyan’. Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai praised the commitment of the security personnel. “We are achieving historic success in the fight against the Maoists,” he said. So far this year, 113 Maoists have been eliminated in various encounters in the state. Last year, Maoists lost 219 of their fighters in anti-insurgency operations. The series of encounters during the last one year are part of the renewed strategy to eliminate Maoist influence in Chhattisgarh by March 2026. Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker and Narayanpur are among the seven Maoist-affected districts of Bastar division. US detains Indian student for alleged Hamas support A G E N C I E S @ Washington, D.C. US federal authorities have detained an Indian citizen who came to the country legally on a student visa and threatened to deport him claiming he posed risk to American foreign policy . Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, was detained by masked agents from outside his home on Monday, US media reports said. His visa was revoked due to his alleged ties with Hamas. Suri was being targeted because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife Mapheze Saleh, a US citizen, his lawyer said in a lawsuit seeking his immediate release. Some reports said Saleh’s father served as a senior political adviser to the Hamas leadership. Confirming Suri’s detention, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson claimed Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” The incident comes days after another Indian student, Ranjani Srinivasan, ‘self-deported’ following cancellation of her visa over her alleged support for Hamas. 3rd party agencies to conduct fire safety audit A S I S H M E H TA @ Bhubaneswar TO bring transparency in fire safety certification that can boost ease of doing business in Odisha, the state government has effected an amendment in the rules which now allows expert third-party agencies to carry out fire safety audits at commercial establishments twice a year. As per the Odisha Fire Prevention and Fire Safety (Amendment) Rules, 2025, licenced agencies will conduct audit and examine whether fire prevention and safety measures are maintained as per rules before issuing fire safety certificates. The new rules stipulate fire safety inspection by the expert agencies will be carried out twice a year in commercial es- tablishments. For residential buildings, the certificate will be valid for one year. This is in departure from the earlier norms which required inspection of commercial and residential buildings in two and five years respectively during the renewal of fire safety certificates. Due to long gaps in the inspection periods, it was difficult to ascertain if safety measures were fully operational in the commercial establishments and residential buildings which also enhanced risks of mishaps. The building owners too experienced hurdles during renewal of fire safety certificates. Director General of Fire Services, Sudhansu Sarangi said the new rules would ad- dress the loopholes and simplify the process. “The state government has liberalised the fire safety regulations to enhance ease of doing business. We will now have third-party empaneled vendors to undertake fire prevention/ safety measures and then carry out audits at commercial establishments twice a year,” he said. Once the vendors are engaged across the state, Sarangi said, Fire services directorate will scrutinise 2 per cent of the audits to ensure they are not abusing the system and fire safety is not compromised. The amendment mandates that certificates generated by the licensed agencies will be uploaded on Fire department’s portal with a minimum of 20 photos as evidence of different stages of inspection. The department will also facilitate training programmes for the third-party vendors to ensure high standards are maintained during inspections and quality of audits is not impacted. The Odisha Fire Prevention and Fire Safety (Amendment) Rules were introduced as part of the reforms mandated and monitored by the prime minister’s office (PMO) to improve the ease of doing business across the country . The state government’s objective is to make Odisha an attractive destination for investments and prevent harassment of establishment owners. The initiatives are being monitored by a group of officers under Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja.