Dept for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade on Monday notified changes in FDI policy to let overseas cos with Chinese shareholding of up to 10% invest in India under automatic route SAMBALPUR l tuesday l march 17, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l CITY EDITION New norms for FDI to draw china notified Earlier, foreign firms with shareholders from China or other countries sharing land border with India had to seek mandatory approval to invest in India A decision to ease the FDI norms was taken by the Union Cabinet last week During the Covid-19 pandemic, govt had tightened FDI policy through Press Note 3 (2020) to curb opportunistic takeovers/ acquisitions of Indian companies Countries that share land borders with India are China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, and Afghanistan Press Note 3 has now been amended to ease the restrictions 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 Ray rides cross-vote tide as ICU blaze kills 10 patients in SCB MCH BJP pips Oppn in RS election S U D A R S A N M AHA R A N A @ Cuttack/Bhubaneswar BJP’s Samal & Kumar, BJD’s Misra win; 11 Oppn votes steer Dilip Ray B i j ay C h a k i @ Bhubaneswar Cross-voting marked the Rajya Sabha elections in Odisha on Monday with the BJP securing two seats, BJD managing to push through its first nominee and BJP-backed Independent Dilip Ray staging a scintillating comeback to the Upper House of the Parliament after 14 years. Two official BJP candidates, state unit president Manmohan Samal and Sujeet Kumar won the polls while the first BJD candidate Santrupt Misra also made it despite cross-voting by at least six legislators of the regional outfit. But the major development was the return of Dilip Ray who won , with the help of cross-voting from at least 11 BJD and Cong re s s l e g i s l at o r s. While the official candidates of the BJP Samal and Kumar polled 35 first preference votes each, the Misra got 31. The fight for the fourth seat between Ray and the common Opposition candidate Dr Datteswar Hota went down to the wire with both tied at 23 first preference votes. Ray sailed past in the close contest with the help of second preference votes. With this, the Rajya Sabha polls in Odisha turned Manmohan Samal Sujeet Kumar out to be a repeat of the 2002 elections when Ray had won despite his expulsion from the BJD with cross-voting by more than a dozen MLAs of the BJD and Congress. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi congratulated the state BJP president Samal, Kumar and Ray on being elected to the Rajya Sabha. He said their victory marked an important milestone in the collective resolve to build a Samruddha Odisha. He expressed confidence that their presence in the Upper House would further strengthen the state’s voice on issues related to Odisha’s interests, development and public service at the national level. BJD president and leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik strongly condemned cross-voting by a number of BJD MLAs, defying the official whip.  Continued on P5 Dilip Ray Santrupt Misra How the numbers played out  BJP legislators:  79  Independents :  3 Total :  82  BJD legislators :  (2 under suspension) 50  Congress :  14 MLAs  CPM :  1 Total: 147 MLAs in Assembly  BJP 1st preference votes: Samal and Kumar received 35 each.  BJD 1st preference votes: Misra got 31 votes, Hota got 11 BJD, 11 Congress and 1 CPM vote, tally 23  Dilip Ray 1st preference votes: 12 surplus votes of BJP; 8 BJD (including 2 suspended members) and 3 Congress MLAs, tally 23  Ray and Hota tied at 23 after first preference votes; BJP’s second preference votes simply won the game for the former Union minister At least 10 patients, including a 101-year-old man, died after a deadly fire broke out in the trauma care ICU of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack in the wee hours of Monday . Four patients, who were rescued from the ICU, are stated to be in critical condition and admitted to other critical care units in the hospital. Around 11 hospital staff have suffered injuries while trying to evacuate the patients. According to reports, 14 patients were admitted to the 23bed ICU located on the first floor of the four-storey trauma care building. The fire is believed to have started from an electric short circuit in the air conditioner at around 2.40 am. The gutted trauma care ICU of SCB MCH in Cuttack on Monday | Rashmiranjan Mohapatra The hospital and the ICU staff were the first responders but the blaze became uncontrollable and soon smoke and flames engulfed the unit. As most of the patients were on ventilator and oxygen support, freeing them from the medical support systems and evacuating them proved a herculean task. Sources said the water sprinklers on the first floor did not function, nor did the alert go off. Sources said the general electricity department (GED) Not in talks with US over Hormuz: MEA D I PAK M O N D A L @ New Delhi india has not held any bilateral discussion with the US on policing the Strait of Hormuz, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said on Monday . The clarification came in response to a question on whether the US had approached India to send warships to secure the Strait, which is currently under Iran’s control. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump had said that he told seven countries to send warships to the Strait. “I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their own territory,” Trump said, claiming the shipping channel is day not something the US needs because of its own access to oil. Trump said China gets about 90% of its oil from the Strait, while the US gets a minimal amount. Rakesh Kumar Sinha, special secretary in the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, said two LPG carrie r s — S h iva l i k a n d N a n d a Devi—successfully crossed the 17 conflict zone on March 13. Shivalik carrying 46,000 MT of LPG reached the Mundra Port on Monday evening. “20,000 MT will be unloaded at Mundra and 26,000 MT will be unloaded at Mangalore,” an Adani group spokesperson said. Shivalik is carrying LPG ordered by IOCL. Nanda Devi is expected to arrive at Kandla Port soon. Another Indian vessel, Jag Laadki, which departed from UAE on March 14 carrying 81,000 tonnes of crude oil, will reach Mundra on Tuesday . had, for some reason, deactivated the alert system while the public health engineering organisation, in charge of water supply, had not filled the sprinkler network. The hospital staff employed fire extinguishers to put out the blaze inside the ICU in the first instance. “When the flames started leaping, the call went out to the fire station unit on the hospital premises at 2.58 am. The 15-20 minutes did matter,” they said. Sources said, while three of the 14 patients were charred to death, seven others succumbed to asphyxiation. The rest four were rescued in critical condition. The evacuation was carried out by using stretchers through stairs as power supply was cut off resulting in halting of the lift service after the fire Continued on P5 broke out.  E x p r e s s Re a d ECI purges Mamata’s top bureaucrats Kolkata: In an unprecedented shake-up of the top administration in West Bengal hours after announcing the poll schedule, the ECI removed chief secretary Nandini Chakraborty, home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena, Director General of Police Peeyush Pandey, additional DGP (Law and Order), Vineet Goyal, and Kolkata’s Commissioner of Police Supratim Sarkar in one sweep. While major transfers do happen after MCC kicks in, never before has the top administration been ejected in one go | P5