hyderabad l tuesday l april 01, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 l late city EDITION IMD predicts April-June may be hotter than usual Photo: S Dinesh above-normal heatwave in telangana too India is likely to experience hotter-than-usual temperatures from April to June, with more heatwave days in central and western plains States likely to see above-normal heatwave days include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and the northern parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, IMD chief Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said in an online press conference on Monday ■ 536 normal monsoon forecast for india ■ IMD observed that the neutral trend of El Nino during the monsoon increases the chance of a normal monsoon this year for India April may witness up to 11 days of heatwaves, compared to the maximum normal of 7 days. Elevated temperatures during heatwave days risk lives of vulnerable populations like the elderly, children | P7 heatwave days recorded in india in 2024, the highest in 14 years 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 Succession speculation on Modi trashed by Fadnavis New Money Rules from TODAY With the new financial year starting on April 1, a series of financial changes will take effect Rubbishes Raut’s claim, says the PM would lead India beyond 2029 S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i & RA J E SH KU M AR THAKUR @ Mumbai/New Delhi New I-T slabs Under the new tax regime, no tax to be paid for salaried individual earning up to `12.75 lakh a year (Nil tax till `12 lakh + `75,000 standard deduction) Unified Pension Scheme Under this, Central government employees will get fixed pension equal to 50% of their average basic salary of last 12 months New UPI rules If your mobile number is inactive or unused for a long time, update it with your bank before April New 1, to avoid MF rules losing Fund houses access must deploy funds to UPI raised through payments new fund digiLocker offers within 30 business days Investors will be able to store their demat account holding statements and consolidated account statements directly in DigiLocker Goods and Services Tax Multi-factor authentication will be made mandatory for taxpayers for better security on the GST portal NDRF in Mandalay Personnel of the National Disaster Response Force at work at an earthquake-hit site in Myanmar. On Monday, they recovered seven bodies from quake-flattened buildings in the Mandalay region, where they were tasked with relief work | PTI Cong for quota in pvt institutes E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi Expressing concern over the under-representation of the backward classes in institutes of higher learning, the Congress on Monday asked the Centre to bring a law to provide reservation for SCs, STs, and OBCs in private educational institutions. Congress general secretary in-charge of communication Jairam Ramesh said a Parliamentary panel has recommended a new legislation to implement Article 15(5). The article empowers the state to introduce reservation in admission into educational institutions, including private ones, to uplift the marginalised sections. Ramesh noted that the Congress is committed to bringing legislation to implement Article 15(5) in private, non-minority educational institutions in the country . Explaining the chronology of legislation to implement Article 15 (5), Ramesh said the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admission) Act, 2006 was passed in Parliament and reservations for SC, ST and socially and educationally backward classes in central educational institutions introduced with effect from January 3, 2007. Citing the case of Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs Union of India on April 10, 2008, he said Article 15(5) is constitutionally valid for state-run and stateaided institutions and reservations in private unaided institutions left open to be decided in the appropriate course. In the IMA Vs Union of India May 12, 2011, he said, by 2-0 margin, Article 15 (5) is upheld for private unaided non-minority educational institutions. Citing another case, Ramesh said, “Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust versus Union of India Jan 29, 2014. By 5-0 margin Article 15(5) is, for the first time, upheld as it is explicitly . This means reservation in private educational institutions is valid, he said. Mandar Pardikar Mastermind takes inspiration from ‘Money Heist’ Gang uses gas cutters to steal gold Hides the gold in a well in Madurai All 6 arrested after 5 months Inspired by ‘Money Heist’, gang robs bank, held E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Davangere IN a bizarre case of life imitating art, six men who watched Netflix’s Money Heist and YouTube videos have been arrested for stealing 17 kg of gold worth `13 crore from a bank in Davanagere, Karnataka. Police recovered the stolen gold from a well in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The mastermind, Vijay Kumar, and his aides had planned the heist for six months. They targeted the Nyamathi branch of State Bank of India as it did not extend a loan to the mastermind who wanted to expand his bakery business. The theft was carried out on October 28, 2024. Six teams of police took five months before arresting Vijay Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Paramanand (all from TN), Ab- hishek, Manjunath and Chandru (all from Karnataka). The accused practiced for six months and sourced equipment like gas cutters from local stores in Shivamogga and Nyamathi. Soon after the crime, Vijay hid the gold in a trunk of a car in his house. Later, he hid it in a well in his ancestral home near Madurai. It was a professionally executed crime. They entered bank through a window, cut the safe with a gas cutter and robbed gold jewellery. They did it without leaving evidence — Dr Ravikanthe Gowda, IGP (east range) When things cooled down, he deposited the gold in banks apart from selling some of it in gold shops. While slipping out of the crime scene, the gang removed CCTVs and took away the digital video recorder and threw it in a lake. They threw chilli powder on their escape route to mislead dog squads. Police said their teams found technical evidence on involvement of persons from Tamil Nadu with aides in Nyamathi, leading to their arrests. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday rubbished speculation about Narendra Modi’s successor, a day after the latter visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Nagpur. He added that Modi would continue to lead the country beyond 2029, when the next Lok Sabha polls are due. Fadnavis was reacting to Uddhav Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s statement earlier in the day that Modi’s visit to the RSS HQ was to “announce his retirement” and discuss his succession plan. “In 2029, we will see Modi as the prime minister again,” Fadnavis told the media in Nagpur. “There is no need to search for his successor. He (Modi) is our leader and will continue,” he asserted. “In our culture, when the father is alive, it is inappropriate to talk about succession. That is Mughal culture. The time has not come to discuss it,” Fadnavis said. Raut had claimed that Modi’s successor would be from Maharashtra. Separately, former RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, too, said he was not aware of any talk of the prime minister’s replacement. “It appears that Modi’s successor will be decided by the RSS which is why Modi was srh complains cm orders V&e Probe over free ipl tickets issue M a n da rav i n d e r r e d dy @ Hyderabad A high-stakes controversy has engulfed the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) over allegations of blackmailing the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) IPL team management for free tickets. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has ordered a vigilance probe into the matter. The controversy erupted after the 2016 IPL champions’ general manager Srinath TB accused HCA president Jagan Mohan Rao of coercive tactics for complimentary tickets before SRH’s IPL match against Lucknow Super Giants at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Uppal on March 27. The SRH management has allegedly written a letter to the HCA warning the association that it would move its team’s home matches out of Hyderabad. TNIE couldn’t independently confirm the claim. In response, the HCA announced that Jagan Mohan Rao will not participate in meetings with HCA officials during the IPL season 2025. The controversy surrounds the allocation of complimentary tickets, with the HCA stating that they received only 3,880 tickets, not 3,900. “Mr A Jagan Mohan Rao, president, HCA, did not make any personal request t o b l o c k 3 , 9 0 0 t i c ke t s per match for his purchase,” the HCA’s response to SRH stated. The stadium has a seating capacity of around 39,000. “Please do not distort facts as 3,900 complimentary tickets were never handed over to HCA but only 3,880 tickets were handed over. A demand for issuing the remaining 20 complimentary tickets cannot be stretched to state that the president, HCA, demanded 20 free tickets. Your claim that you were informed that the president, HCA has instructed the return of 20 tickets for F-12 A Box is a baseless manipulation intended to malign him. HCA was given only 3,880 complimentary tickets ... you are incorrectly projecting the request to supply the balance 20 tickets as threat, blackmail and coercion,” HCA’s mail to SRH’s Srinath read. Vigilance and Enforcement Director General Kothakota Sreenivasa Reddy will conduct the investigation. Govt says it’s sole owner of Kancha Gachibowli land No survey conducted: UoH e x p r e s s ne w s s e r v i c e @ Hyderabad Amid the claim that some part of the 400 acres of land at Kancha Gachibowli, which is proposed to be auctioned by the Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TGIIC), is owned by the University of Hyderabad (UoH), the state government reiterated that it was the sole owner of the property and that even a survey was conducted on July 19, 2024 in the presence of university officials for boundary demarcation. In a press statement, the government stated: “On alienation of the above land in favour of TGIIC, zonal manager, Cyberabad, the corporation on July 4, 2024 requested the registrar, UoH, to entrust their officials concerned to conduct the survey work to fix up the common boundary points on the ground. TGIIC officials had contacted the registrar, UoH, personally along with their team on July 11, 2024, and explained in detail about the proposed project. The zonal manager also made a request through email to registrar@uohyd.ac.in on July 18, 2024, for conducting the survey . A copy of agreement signed by UoH registrar handing over 400 acres to AP government in 2004 in return for 397 acres in Sy Nos 36 and 37 Accordingly, with the consent of the registrar, UoH, survey work was conducted on July 19, 2024 in the presence of the UoH officials i.e. dy registrar, university engineer, and executive engineer and RI and mandal surveyor and the boundaries were fixed.” “The Buffalo lake and the Peacock lake are not part of the 400 acres land parcel being developed by TGIIC,” it added. The state government also clarified that TGIIC neither encroached upon the university land nor disturbed the existing water bodies and rock formations (Mushroom Rock) in the land.  Continued on P2 E N S @ Hyderabad Countering the claim of the state government, University of Hyderabad (UoH) said that no survey was conducted in July 2024 by the revenue authorities to demarcate 400 acres of land at Kancha Gachibowli. On Monday, in a statement, university registrar Devesh Nigam said: “The University of Hyderabad wishes to clarify that no survey was conducted in July 2024 by the revenue authorities in the university campus to demarcate the 400 acres of land resumed by the state government in 2006 from Ms IMG Academies Bharata Pvt Ltd. The only action taken thus far has been a preliminary inspection of the land’s topography The univer. sity also denies the statement of TGIIC in the press recently that it has agreed for such demarcation of the land. In fact, no demarcation of land has been done nor has the university been informed. The University of Hyderabad, an institution of eminence in its golden jubilee year, has been requesting the state government for alienation of its land. The university will forward the representations of the stakeholders to the state government to reconsider the points raised and request the state gover nment to conserve the environment and biodiversity in the area.” Continued on P2 called (to Nagpur) and discussions took place. Sangh’s discussions are held behind closed doors. The indications are very clear. The Sangh will decide the next leader, who could be from Maharashtra,” Raut claimed. As for choosing a successor for BJP’s national president J P Nadda, the party is reportedly in the process of shortlisting candidates. Among the frontrunners are Union ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupendra Yadav, along with three women—finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, BJP Parliamentary Board member Sudha Ya d a v, a n d D a g g u b a t i Purandeswari, party president of the Andhra Pradesh unit. The final decision is expected by mid-April, with the official announcement at the upcoming BJP National Council meeting in Bengaluru. Vanguard to set up GCC in Hyd, hire 2,500 staff E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Hyderabad Vanguard, one of the world’s top investment companies, has decided to establish its first Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Hyderabad. It is likely to open its office this year and is expected to hire 2,300 to 2,500 employees over the next four years. A delegation from Vanguard, led by its CEO Salim Ramji, met Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Monday at his residence. After discussions with the CM, Vanguard announced that it would scale up the Hyderabad office by immediately hiring engineers with a special focus on artificial intelligence, data and analytics, and mobile engineering. Welcoming Vanguard to Hyderabad, Revanth said, “I am delighted to welcome Vanguard to join the irresistible and unstoppable Hyderabad Rising vision. As part of Telangana Rising, we are shaping Hyderabad into a GCC hub for the world across domains and Vanguard’s endorsement will further strengthen our global positioning.”  Continued on P4 hYDERABAD dIALOGUES WITH mohan raghavan, head, department of heritage science and technology, IITH page 5 E x p r e s s Re a d Ailing man seeks govt help or mercy killing Nalgonda: Bedridden for 25 years due to muscular dystrophy, 44-year-old Jampala Gopal has made a desperate plea to the state government — either extend a helping hand or grant him permission for mercy killing. He is a resident of Maruti Nagar Nalgonda | P2