chennai l Thursday l July 30, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l vellore EDITION gulveer secures silver as boxers continue domination Gulveer Singh became the 1st Indian to win a CWG medal in men’s 10,000m while pugilists seal six medals on single day. A look... Gulveer Singh (L) poses with his silver medal late on Tuesday | afp Reigning asian champ puts on clinical show ■ 10 after flight cancellation, bags go missing Gulveer, the national record holder, clocked 27:49.78 seconds to claim silver in men’s 10,000m, finishing behind Australia’s Ky Robinson late on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Narender Berwal joined Ankush Panghal, Sakshi Chaudhary, Arundhati Choudhary, Jaismine Lamboria and Sachin Siwach in the semifinals to confirm six medals in boxing on Wednesday alone | P11 ■ The flight of Indian judokas and coaching staff from New Delhi got cancelled on Tuesday morning, leaving them stranded for more than six hours. They eventually left in the afternoon However, once they landed in Glasgow, some of the judokas could not find their luggage, which comprised their training gear and judogis ten medals have been assured so far in boxing across categories 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 Amidst ruckus, Lok Sabha CWC returns K’taka’s passes anti-paper leak bill Mekedatu project plan Rahul targets govt over alleged police excesses against student protesters Delhi Police files FIR over abusive posts against PM EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi speaking in the House on Wednesday | PTI pree t h a n a ir @ New Delhi AMID repeated disruptions and heated exchanges, the Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, even as the House descended into chaos after Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi alleged Union home minister Amit Shah was responsible for the police action against student protesters. Under the amended law, probe into paper leak cases must be completed within two months. It also raises the punishment for individuals involved in paper leaks to a maximum of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of up to `50 lakh. The bill was passed by voice vote after a stormy 10-hour long debate in which the government defended the amendments to the anti-paper leak law with stricter punishment, asserting that the measure was taken as it is “open to learning from experiences”. The proceedings turned acrimonious after Rahul alleged Shah “put pellets into the blood of our students” during the police action on protesters marching to Parliament on July 20 and claimed the home minister was absent from the House because he was “scared”. The remarks invited protests from Treasury benches forcing e x p r e ss r e a d TN docs blame state for loss of 151 medical seats Chennai: TN Medical Officers Association has blamed the state for negligence in handling the super-speciality (SS) medical seats case, in which SC ordered the surrender of 151 seats to All India Quota. Senior advocates named by the govt did not appear for the hearing, the association said | P2 TN govt seeks HC nod for appointing V-Cs to univs Chennai: TN govt has sought the Madras HC’s permission to appoint V-Cs to state universities, saying that the Supreme Court had vacated the stay granted by the HC against the universities amendment Acts passed by the state. The HC said it will consider all aspects and pass orders | P2 Speaker Om Birla to intervene. Birla told Rahul to confine his address to the bill. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju termed the remarks “highly objectionable” and demanded an apology. Some of Rahul’s comments were later expunged. Replying to the debate, Union minister Jitendra Singh categorically denied that bullets had been fired at students. “When there were no bullets fired, the question of ordering it does not arise. The authority to order firing rests with the district magistrate, not a minister,” he said, accusing Rahul of making irresponsible allegations without understanding administrative procedures. Rahul also took aim at the RSS, alleging it exercised control over the education system. Hailing the protesters, he said they showed greater courage than their parents in standing up against the government. “These children, brave, imaginative and powerful, stood there and faced everything that was thrown at them.” Defending the government, Jitendra Singh said it acted swiftly after the NEET paper leak controversy and 52 FIRs had been registered since the anti-paper leak law came into force in 2024. He claimed death by suicide linked to paper leak came down in recent years. Call for probe Rahul Gandhi demanded that Home Minister Amit Shah be sacked and called for an SC-monitored probe into police ‘brutalities’ This (students’ protest) was not anger, not violence, not hatred; this was an expression, deep expressions of the youth of this country, of the future generation of this country Rahul Gandhi, LoP, Lok Sabha Dipke: Stop harassing CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said the government should stop harassing the students who participated in the Jantar Mantar protests DELHI Police has registered a case over the circulation of objectionable and defamatory content targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media. It has also written to social media platform X to remove the objectionable posts made during the Cockroach Janata Party’s (CJP) protest. The case was registered by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of Delhi Police, which deals with cyber-related offences. The unit comes under the Special Cell of the force. Notices were issued directing to remove or disable access to the accounts as well as URLs, while ensuring that the relevant data, logs and subscriber information are preserved for evidence purposes. The police have mentioned the name of six handles in its notice. The case has been filed under Sections 351(3) (criminal intimidation), 353(2) (circulating false information, rumours, or alarming news-including via electronic media) and 356(2) (whoever defames another person) of the BNS. The police directed the platform to remove or disable access to the flagged accounts as well as URLs immediately, while ensuring that the relevant data, logs and subscriber information are preserved for evidence purposes. The police have also intensified the probe into the Jantar Mantar violence. Dossiers of 216 suspects have been sent to all district police units in Delhi for verification, sources said. SC nixes ’21 Office Memorandum for retrospective green approval S U C H I T R A K ALYA N MOHA N T Y @ New Delhi The Supreme Court, in a unanimous verdict on Wednesday, quashed a 2021 Office Memorandum (OM) that allowed the Centre to grant retrospective environmental clearances (ECs) to projects that had commenced without the green nod. Starting any project without prior environmental clearance is against the rules, a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi noted. “Even if the government wishes to frame a rule allowing clearance to be granted later, it Landmark decision 2021 Office Memorandum (OM) allowed Centre to grant retrospective green clearances Court said govt can grant post-facto approval through valid statutory notifications alone and not by issuing an OM Verdict won’t affect projects already approved must issue a formal notification under the law; this cannot be done merely through an office memorandum,” the bench noted. It gave some leeway to the government and held that the judgment will apply prospectively and the projects granted green nod earlier will remain undisturbed. “The 2021 OM was deemed violative of Article 14 (Right to equality) and Article 21 (Right to life) of the Constitution, failing the test of proportionality and reasonableness,” the bench said, adding that the government is restrained from issuing future administrative orders for post-facto ECs. Manmohan finally cleared in coal scam case S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared late former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the coal block allocation case, 11 years after a Delhi special court turned down the CBI’s closure report that gave Singh a clean chit. “We are satisfied that there were no compelling reasons for the learned sessions judge to turn down the closure reports by the CBI and to take cognizance. Consequently, we allow the SLP and set aside the impugned orders...and close the matter on merits,” said a threejudge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. The coal scam refers to the allotment of coal blocks through a screening committee instead of competitive auctions be- Manmohan Singh tween 2004 and 2009. In March 2015, months after the CBI filed its closure report in the case granting Singh a clean chit, a Delhi special court summoned the former PM as an accused over an alleged irregular allotment of TalabiraII coal block to Hindalco. The trial judge had said there was prima facie evidence against Singh, who was coal minister at the time of the scam. S V K R I S H N A C HA I TA N YA @ Chennai Amid a war of words between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over the controversial Mekedatu project, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has returned the Detailed Project Report (DPR) submitted by Karnataka, saying the proposal does not conform to the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) award and the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment. As per official documents available with TNIE, the CWC had returned the DPR to Karnataka on June 29 for suitable alterations as the state had proposed to expand the volume of water that could be stored for consumptive use by 2.2 tmcft. The upper riparian state had also introduced a completely new component, the Shivanasamudra Run-ofRiver Power Project, involving construction of a diversion weir across Cauvery in the revised project , report. The CWC’s observations came after it examined a compliance report submitted by Karnataka on April 21, 2026, in response to queries raised by the commission on the original DPR submitted in 2019. When Karnataka first proposed the Mekedatu project in 2018, it was presented as a balancing reservoir intended to divert about 23.75 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of water to DKS invites vijay to see catchment areas CM C Joseph Vijay has declined Karnataka CM DK Shivakumar’s invitation to inspect the Cauvery catchment areas in the state by helicopter, sources said. Vijay will meet his Karnataka counterpart at the latter’s office in the Vidhana Soudha complex in Bengaluru on August 3 to discuss the release of Cauvery water and return to Chennai. Chief Secretary M Saikumar and other IAS officers will accompany the CM | P5 provide an additional consumptive use of 4.75 tmcft for drinking water supply to Bengaluru and nearby areas. Based on this, the CWC gave an “in-principle” clearance for preparing the DPR in November 2018. However, in its revised proposal submitted this April, Karnataka had introduced the Shivanasamudra Run-of-River Power Project and increased the proposed consumptive use from 4.75 tmcft to 6.95 tmcft. The CWC noted that these were major changes that were never part of the original DPR submitted in 2019. The commission also questioned Karnataka’s justification for constructing a reservoir with a live storage capacity of 59.46 tmcft.  P5 Tasmac graft DVAC books Senthil Balaji, raids 45 places EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Chennai The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on Tuesday registered a case against former minister and DMK MLA V Senthil Balaji, former Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) managing director S Visakan and several others for criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption over alleged irregularities in the state-run liquor retailer’s procurement and tender procV Senthil Balaji e s s e s. T h e FIR also referred to the alleged collection of “party fund” from bar owners. On Wednesday, DVAC teams conducted searches at 45 locations across Tamil Nadu, including 14 places in Chennai, and seized digital evidence and incriminating documents. In one place, as the owner could not be traced, the properties were sealed in the presence of revenue officials.  P5