NAGAPATTINAM l friday l june 06, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Trump bans citizens of 12 countries from entering U.S. VISA Policy takes effect from monday The policy takes effect Monday at 12:01 am and does not have an end date. The travel ban applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen; apart from restricted entry for citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela President Donald Trump cited national security concerns to ban citizens of 12 countries from Africa and West Asia from entering the US trump cites ‘terrorism risk’ for move ■ ■ Since returning to White House, Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges Trump said nationals of countries being banned pose ‘terrorism’ and ‘public-safety’ risks, as well as risks of overystaying on their visas | P9 Jan 20 order seeking to identify ‘hostile attitudes’ toward U.S. behind fiat 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 Court poses 9 questions to K’taka govt; top cops suspended; judicial, CID probes ordered Heads roll as K’taka HC takes up suo-motu PIL YAT HIRA J U & ASHWINI M SRIPAD @ Bengaluru THE Karnataka government suspended Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda and four other police officials on Thursday evening, hours after Karnataka High Court registered a suo motu public interest litigation taking cognisance of the stampede at Chinnaswamy Stadium on We d n e s d ay, w h i c h claimed 11 young lives when the crowds were trying to enter the stadium for the celebrations organised by the IPL-2025 winners Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA). Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said after a lateevening cabinet meeting that he has ordered the DG & IGP M A Saleem to arrest representatives of RCB; DNA Networks, the event manager, and the KSCA. The Cubbon Park police, under whose jurisdiction steering jam Woman dies after being flung from out-of-control govt bus in Nellai Express News S ervice @ Tirunelveli A 43-year-old woman passenger died after she fell off a moving TNSTC bus that lost control near Idaikal in Tirunelveli on Thursday. Several other passengers were injured in the incident. While officials said the driver had failed to close the bus door, causing the death, sources said the vehicle may have lost control due to cracking of the steering rod. Around 54 passengers were on the government bus at the time of the accident. The deceased has been identified as M Jayalakshmi, a native of Anainthanadarpatti village. “Jayalakshmi had been residing in Mumbai for the past few years. She and her family had come to her native village for her children’s school vacation. On Thursday, she decided to take bath in ThamiM Jayalakshmi rabarani river at Papanasam and boarded a TNSTC bus from Alangulam to Papanasam at Anainthanadarpatti. When the bus neared Idaikal, it lost control. It began shaking violently , throwing Jayalakshmi out through the front door. The vehicle then veered into a farmland abutting the AlangulamAmbasamudram road,” sources said. “Jayalakshmi’s relatives, who noticed blood oozing from the nose and her head injury, rushed her to the Ambasamudram Government Hospital, where doctors declared her brought dead. A few other passengers who suffered minor injuries were treated as outpatients at a private hospital,” sources added. Pappakudi police have registered a case and arrested bus driver S Murugesh for causing death due to negligence. P5 Chinnaswamy Stadium falls, has already registered an FIR against the three. Siddaramaiah cited ‘substantial dereliction of duty’ while suspending Bengaluru City Police Commissioner B Dayananda; Additional Commissioner of Police, West Division, Vikash Kumar Vikash; Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) H T Shekhar; Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cubbon Park) C Balakrishna; and Inspector of Police (Cubbon Park) A K Girish, with immediate effect. The suspension order stated that the Office of the Commissioner of Police had failed to give a written reply rejecting permission to RCB to hold a victory parade on June 4. The Karnataka government ordered a judicial probe by a one-man commission headed by retired High Court Judge, Justice John Michael D’Cunha, besides a parallel probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Criminal Inves- Made-in-India Rafale fighter jet fuselages to roll out in 2028 MAYANK SINGH & MANDA RAVINDER REDDY @ New Delhi / Hyderabad K’taka home minister G Parameshara and police commissioner B Dayananda taking stock of the situation at Chinnaswamy Stadium | Allen Egenuse J COURT’S QUESTIONS TO STATE GOVT When and who 1 has taken the decision to hold the victory celebrations and in what manner? What steps 2 were taken to regulate the traffic? What steps were taken to regulate the public/crowd? 3 4 What medical / other facilities were arranged at the venue? Any assessment was made in advance on number of people, who may be present at the time of celebrations? 5 Whether persons injured were given immediate medical attention at the venue? If not why? 6 tigation Department (CID) into the stampede. He said they have given 30 days’ time to the Justice D’Cunha Commission to submit a report. Earlier in the day, a High Court division bench of acting Chief Justice V Kameswar Rao and Justice CM Joshi passed the order registering a suo motu PIL while taking cogni- How much time 7 was taken to take the injured to the hospitals? Whether any Standard Operating Procedure has been formulated to manage a crowd of 50,000 and above in any sports event 8 Any permission was sought to organise the event? 9 sance of the fatal stampede, seeking the reasons leading to the tragedy, and whether it could have been prevented. The court also issued a notice to the state government and directed it to submit replies on the further status report based on nine questions (see box) by June 10, the next date of hearing. IN a major boost to India’s defence manufacturing sector, French aviation giant Dassault Aviation has joined hands with Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) to build a dedicated facility in Hyderabad to manufacture Rafale fighter jet fuselage for global markets. On Wednesday, both companies signed production transfer agreements. The deal is expected to strengthen the country’s aircraft manufacturing skills and support the global aerospace supply chain. The Hyderabad facility will make key structural parts of the Rafale jet, including lateral shells of the rear fuselage, the complete rear section, central fuselage and front section. The first fuselage sections are ex- CHENAB RAIL BRIDGE 1,315 metres long steel arch bridge PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate it on Friday 30,000 tonnes steel used to build the bridge 260 kmph Jammu & Kashmir Udhampur Can withstand wind speeds of up to 260 kmph Bridge will enhance connectivity between Jammu and Srinagar | Built to last 120 yrs | Project cost: `1,486 cr 17 spans 133.7m Max. height Total length 1.3 KM Situated at a height of 359 m above the river File photo express read TN govt notifies Greater Flamingo Sanctuary CMRL signs pact to get driverless train by 2027 Anbumani meets dad at Thailapuram residence Chennai: The TN government notified the establishment of the Greater Flamingo Sanctuary at Dhanushkodi in Ramanathapuram on 524.78 hectares of land on the occasion of World Environment Day on Thursday. Located within the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve, the sanctuary is a critical stopover for the birds along the Central Asian Flyway | P4 CHENNAI: The city is set to receive its first driverless metro train by February 2027 under a `1,538.35-crore contract signed by Alstom Transport India and CMRL on Thursday for Phase 2 of the Chennai Metro project. The contract covers supply of 32 driverless three-car Unattended Train Operations (UTO) trains consisting of 96 cars | P2 Villupuram: PMK president Dr Anbumani Ramadoss met party founder Dr S Ramadoss at the latter’s Thailapuram residence on Thursday morning. As per sources, the conversation centered on three major points, including Anbumani’s continuation as party president and key leadership role for Ramadoss’ grandson Mukundan | P4 TASL said its partnership with Dassault will strengthen India’s position as a key player in the global aerospace supply chain pected to roll off the assembly line in FY2028, with the facility expected to deliver up to two complete fuselages per month. Dassault Aviation’s chairman and CEO Eric Trappier said this is the first time Rafale fuselages will be made outside twad board racket salary looted in tn: workers lose `90 crore a year T HINAKARAN RA J AMANI @ Tenkasi/Tirunelveli World’s highest railway arch bridge Key partnership In a case of systematic corruption that’s been going on for years, nearly `90 crore is allegedly being looted every year by officials and contractors of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board through an organised racket of underpayment to contract staff across the state. According to a complaint filed last month by the Tirunelv e l i - Te n k a s i Bharathiya TWAD Board Contract Labourers Union to the MD of the Board, Kiran Gurrala, while the minimum wage fixed for nearly 12,000 labourers working in Combined Water Supply Schemes (CWSSs) across TN is `15,401, they are actually being paid only between `7,500 and `9,800 per month, a shortfall of nearly 40% to 50% of the actual salary. The rest of the amount, `7.42 crore every month from the funds allotted for their salary is being , allegedly pocketed by officials and contractors. Multiple communications sent to the TWAD Board over the years by stakehold- er departments such as labour, Provident Fund, and CM’s office have acknowledged the rot in the system but all the corrective actions proposed have been successfully stonewalled by racketeers, workers alleged. According to the information shared by former TWAD Board MD V Dakshinamoorthy with the labourers in 2022, as many as 11,597 labourers — mostly electricians, pump operators and maintenance assistants — have been working in CWSSs across TN and they are entitled to be paid at least `15,401 monthly . In the petition submitted to MD Gurrala, the union said, “Instead of crediting the full salary to our bank accounts, the illegally-truncated wage is paid in cash to us without receipt. While a higher salary is shown to have been paid to us in the official records with the connivance of Executive Engineers (EEs) in each district, `7.42 crore is being swindled every month from our wages.” The petitioners also alleged that “in every threeyear contract cycle, about `267 crore of our money is being siphoned off ”.  P5 Ashwini Lohani new chief of pm museum & library Former CMD of Air India and ex-chairman of the Railway Board Ashwani Lohani has been appointed as the director of the Prime Ministers Museum and Library France. “This is a major step in building our supply chain in India,” he added. Sukaran Singh, CEO and managing director of Tata Advanced Systems, said the partnership shows India’s growing role in global aerospace. “Making the entire Rafale fuselage in India proves the strength of our partnership with Dassault and the capability of our aerospace ecosystem,” he added. Dassault Aviation has till now delivered over 10,000 military and civil aircraft (including 2,700 Falcons) in more than 90 countries over the last century. It has deep expertise in design, production, sale and support of all types of aircraft. Tata Advanced Systems Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, has a strong portfolio of joint ventures with global aerospace and defence firms, a statement said. Maoist top gun Sudhakar shot dead in Bijapur encounter E J AZ KAISER @ Raipur IN a big blow to the Maoist leadership, security forces eliminated CPI (Maoist) central committee member Narasimha Chalam alias Sudhakar, 67, in the National park area of Bijapur on Thursday . After neutralising CPI (Maoist) general secretary Basavaraju on May 21, the death of another senior leader comes as a severe blow to the banned outfit. Acting on specific intelligence, a joint team of personnel from district reserve guard, STF, and CoBRA launched a coordinated operation on June 5 inside Indravati National Park. “An encounter ensued following which forces recovered the body of CCM member NarSudhakar asimha Chalam, with an AK-47 rifle. He is responsible for a host of violent incidents,” P Sunderraj, IG (Bastar range) told this newspaper. Intelligence inputs hinted about the presence of Gautam along with Telangana State Committee Member Bandi Prakash, Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee Member Pappa Rao and several other armed Maoist cadres in the area. As the in-charge of the Maoist ideological training school (RePOS), Sudhakar was involved in misleading and radicalising youth with violent and anti-national ideologies. So far this year, 186 bodies of Maoist cadres have been recovered in Bastar region that comprises seven districts in south Chhattisgarh. new alliance Mahua Moitra, Pinaki Mishra In Coalition of the Willing Express News Service @ New Delhi/Kolkata IN a quiet closed ceremony that flew under the radar, and possibly under the political grapevine, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra has married Supreme Court lawyer and former BJD MP Pinaki Misra. Neither Moitra (50) nor Mis- ra (65) issued any official statement on the wedding but the TMC MP posted a photo of them together, in a way confirming the news but without divulging the details. Reports said they married in Germany on May 30. The fierce speaker seen sparring in Parliament with trademark fire and flair, traded her punchlines for pallu—and looked every bit the graceful bride in traditional attire, topped off with gold jewellery that did a fair bit of sparkling on its own. Her new husband brought a cool, courtroom calm to the equation—a senior lawyer and ex-MP from Odisha. Despite their prominent roles in public life, the two managed to keep their nuptials out of the limelight. The low-key wedding caught many off guard, especially given Moitra’s recent headline-heavy year, which included a public spat lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, the man who accused her in the “cash-forquery” scandal that led to her expulsion from the Lok Sabha last December. The news of their wedding broke after some media outlets accessed the couple’s photograph has been enough to send ripples through political and chatterati circles alike. In a world where personal lives of public figures are often dissected in real time, their decision to keep things private is radical as it is intensely private. Born in Assam, Moitra grew up amid tea estates and privilege, before heading off to the US to study economics and math. Her political journey started in 2008.