bhubaneswar l saturday l september 13, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l late city EDITION sc: firecracker ban can’t be applicable for delhi-ncr only same rule should be used for pan-india A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran was hearing pleas on regulation of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR. “If NCR is entitled for clean air, why not people of other cities?... I was in Amritsar last winter and pollution there was worse than in Delhi. If firecrackers are to be banned, they should be banned throughout India,” the CJI said The Supreme Court on Thursday said if clean air was a right for “elite” residents of the capital, the same must extend to citizens across the country eye on air quality commission report ■ ■ The two-judge bench asked Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, to get a detailed report on the issue from the Commission for Air Quality Management The bench remarked that there would be status quo with regard to the cancellation of firecrackers’ licences by the authorities Sept 22 is when the matter will be heard next by the supreme court 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 Gen Z pick Sushila Karki sworn in as interim PM Married a N epal has made histo- decades of corruption. ry once again. The Born on 7 June 1952 in Biratcountry’s first female nagar, Karki is no stranger to Chief Justice, Sushila challenges. She became Nepal’s Karki, has now be- first female Chief Justice in come its first female July 2016 and served until June Prime Minister. She 2017. During her tenure, she was sworn in by President Ram- faced a no-confidence motion chandra Paudel at his office, from the Nepali Congress but Sheetal Niwas, on Friday It fol- remained steadfast in her com. lowed the dissolution of the m i t m e n t t o j u s t i c e a n d elected government headed by transparency . K P Sharma Oli. Throughout her career, she Karki and the Gen Z protest- refused to bow to political presers had made it clear that she sure or corruption — a reputawould step in only aftion that made her ter Parliament was the natural choice to dissolved — a demand lead the country that has now been fulthrough this transifilled. The House was tional period. dissolved with effect The Gen Z protest, from 11 pm, the Presiwhich began on Sepdent’s Office said. tember 8, quickly esFormer PM Baburam calated into a nationBhattarai and a clutch Namrata Sharma w i d e u p r i s i n g . Senior journalist and of diplomats, includStreets across Nepal ing from India, China women rights advocate. saw widespread vanand the US, attended Sharma can be reached at dalism, with both namrata1964@yahoo.com the swearing-in event. public and private @NamrataSharmaP September 12, the property damaged. fifth day of the Gen Z Daily life came to a protest, will be rememstandstill, hitting bered as a defining moment in daily wage earners particularly Nepal’s political history — a hard. In the process, the hidden day when the youth, united and wealth of top political leaders resolute, toppled a government, was exposed. Reports of sacks dissolved parliament, and of cash found in the homes of helped elevate a woman known Nepali Congress president Sher for her anti-corruption crusade Bahadur Deuba and Foreign to the highest executive office. Minister Arzoo Rana Deuba This unprecedented move- have shocked the nation. Enment inspired young people glo- raged citizens — not just Gen Z bally proving that when youth protesters — vandalised the , unite, they can dismantle en- houses of several accused Continued on: P9 trenched regimes and expose leaders. express read Suspect in Charlie Kirk’s shooting arrested Orem: US authorities said on Friday they had captured the man accused of killing prominent rightwing activist Charlie Kirk after a family member helped to turn him in, ending a frantic manhunt. “We got him,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox told a press conference. Cox identified the suspect as Tyler Robinson and said the arrest was made after one of Robinson’s relatives turned him in  | P11 revolutionary Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel administers the oath of office to Sushila Karki (top) as PM on Friday; and people celebrate outside the president’s residence | PTI/AP Snap polls on March 21 President Ramchandra Paudel fixed March 21, 2026, as the date for holding fresh Parliamentary elections, the President’s office said Karki is the eldest of seven siblings She grew up in a simple farming family in Biratnagar Karki married Durga Prasad Subedi, an erstwhile popular leader of Nepali Congress. They had met during her days at the BHU Subedi was a youth revolutionary member of Nepali Congress during the 1970s He was part of the group that hijacked a Royal Nepal Airlines aircraft to get INR 3 million to fund the party’s armed revolution against King Birendra Shah in 1973 The hijacked plane carrying Nepal Rastra Bank’s money landed at Forbesganj in India After retirement, Karki wrote two books, including ‘Nyay’, her biography Major scare as plane loses rear wheel, lands safely e x p r e s s n e w s s e r v i c e @ Mumbai A SpiceJet Q400 aircraft carrying 75 passengers made a safe emergency landing in Mumbai on Friday after losing a wheel shortly after takeoff from Kandla airport in Gujarat. The aircraft landed at Mumbai airport’s Runway 27 at 3.51 pm with all passengers and crew safe, Mumbai airport operator MIAL said. Operations at the airport were briefly impacted. The flight departed at 2.38 pm against the scheduled time of 1.25 pm from Kandla and landed in Mumbai at 3.51 pm, as per information available on flight track- ing website Flightradar24.com. “On September 12, an outer wheel of a SpiceJet Q400 aircraft operating from Kandla to Mumbai was found at the runway after take-off. The aircraft continued its journey to Mumbai and landed safely,” the airline said in a statement. There were 75 passengers onboard the Bombardier Q400 plane, which is used for operating regional flights, officials said. One of the officials said that one rear right wheel of the aircraft was missing. Only two months ago in July, a window frame of a SpiceJet aircraft to Pune from Goa came off mid-air. India vs Pak At `12 L/10 secs, marquee tie tops advertisers’ bill S w a r o o p S w a m i n a t h a n @ Bengaluru THE Indian cricketing economy continues to remain recession proof. Post the ban on real money gaming, it was looking at a hole but it’s on course to pass its first big test — ad rates for the group-stage encounter between India and Pakistan on Sunday as well as selling all available ad slots for the said game. Over the last few years, advertisements around live coverage of cricket’s marquee properties were fronted by real money gaming firms. But their exit hasn’t affected the market. Media planners have told this daily that the broadcaster, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI), has sold ‘all ad inventory for the India-Pakistan match’. Ad inventory is basically the India captain Suryakumar Yadav and Pakistan skipper Salman Agha | file pics total space made available by the broadcaster to the advertisers to purchase. It’s expected that ad rates for the Sunday encounter has been sold for well over `12 lakh for a 10 second slot. With there being the potential of two more matches between the rivals, the interest may only rise. It also kind of paints a picture as there has been calls of boycotting the game (some Indian brands did actively become part of this post the Pahalgam tragedy in April). But that hasn’t translated into reality “It’s all a ques. tion of visibility,” says Prahlad Kakkar, an advertising guru whose commercials came to dominate the cricketing ad space in the nineties and naughts. “It’s worth to pay `20 lakh for a 10 second slot for a game between India and Pakistan because everybody is watching it,” he says. “Even your personal cabbie will take time off to watch it. People watch it because it becomes more than a game in their eyes.” Kakkar is of the opinion that this particular tie has become bigger than the game because ‘of the sentiment involved’. OAS-2019 topper, Yearning for justice, tehsildar nabbed political solution on by Vigilance taking eve of PM’s visit `15,000 bribe Modi in Manipur today Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice’s demand to dissolve Nepal’s parliament accepted P r a s a n ta M a z u m d a r @ Imphal Manipur’s Imphal and Churachandpur have been decked up with the posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of his visit on Saturday—the PM’s first trip to the state since ethnic violence broke out two years ago. One of the posters put up overnight by the state government, captioned Viksit Bharat Viksit Manipur, says the PM will lay the foundation stone for development projects worth over `7,300 crore in Churachandpur and inaugurate projects of `1,200 crore in Imphal. Officials said the `8,500 crore worth of projects are for the entire state. On the ground, though, not many seem bothered about any development package. They are interested in other press- `71,850 crore ing issues — peace, normalcy, worth projects security, and resettlement. in 5 states Ask anyone in ChurachandApart from Manipur, pur and they will say the Kukis the PM will also visit expect the PM to offer a politiMizoram, Assam, cal solution to their problem Bengal, and Bihar — a separate administration in from Sept 13-15, and the form of a Union Territory . will unveil projects “We don’t consider it (develworth a total of opment package) as something `71,850 crore important. Separate administration is the people’s voice. We hope that the PM delivers justice,” said Kenedy Haokip, a Churachandpur-based civil society leader. There is subdued excitement about the PM’s visit but it is more among Kukis than Meiteis. Reason: it’s after 4 decades that a PM is visiting the Kuki-dominated Churachandpur. “Our foremost expectation is peace and a clear roadmap for the restoration of normalcy,” said Sonny Chungkham, an Imphal-based independent policy analyst. Robert Singh, also an internally-displaced person, is relying on the PM for resettlement. “Modi ji, please take us to our village,” said Singh, who had a drinking water plant in Moreh. “My life’s savings have got exhausted,” he added. La Nina likely to trigger October cyclones in state Odisha may witness a cyclone in October with emergence of a moderate La Nina phenomenon by this month-end, weather experts have predicted | P2 M AYAN K B HUSAN PANI @ Sambalpur Celebrated as the topper of Odisha Civil Services Examination in 2019, Aswini Kumar Panda’s career has taken vicious turn in flat six years. On Friday, the 29-year-old tehsildar of Bamra in Sambalpur district, who had once vowed to dedicate himself to public service, was arrested for allegedly taking a bribe of `15,000 to convert kisam of a land in a mutation case. Vigilance officials who arrested Panda said, the state administrative officer had first asked the complainant for `20,000 to approve the conversion of land kisam from agriculture to homestead and issue the record of rights (RoR). When the complainant said he could not afford `20,000, Panda climbed down to `15,000 but with a warning that the case would not be cleared otherwise. The complainant reported the matter to the Vigilance which laid a trap. Panda was caught in his office receiving the money through his driver, P Praveen Kumar. The full bribe amount was recovered from them. Following a raid at his office, searches were also carried out at Panda’s official and residential premises in Sambalpur and Bhubaneswar. The anti-corruption team seized `4.73 lakh in cash from his Bhubaneswar home. Both Panda and his driver were arrested and produced before a court. A case under Section 7 of the Prevention of Cor ruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, has been registered and investigation is underway . Panda’s arrest has come as a shock because his journey had once inspired many. An engineering graduate from Khetrapal village in Jajpur district, he had failed to clear the assistant section officer exam in 2018 only by half a mark. The next year, he cleared the state civil services exam in his very first attempt without any coaching and topped the list. At the time of his success, Panda had spoken of his big dreams. “My aim is to work for the overall development of the region and its people where I am posted. I am personally inclined towards education, health and women’s empowerment. I will try my best to deliver services to the lowest strata of the society,” he had said after the results were announced. He joined service in 2021 as a training reserve officer in Balasore, later worked as tehsildar in Mayurbhanj’s Shamakhunta in June 2023 before being transferred to Bamra in July But within . three months of his new posting, his bright career has come under clouds of corruption.