tadepalligudem l saturday l april 27, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l city EDITION CBSE starts work to hold Board exams twice a year from 2025 There will be No semester system However, no semester system will be introduced, officials said. The education ministry and the CBSE will hold consultations with school principals next month for conducting board exams twice a year. CBSE will have to restructure its academic calendar to accommodate another set of board exams without impacting the undergraduate admission schedule The Ministry of Education has asked the CBSE to work out logistics for conducting board exams twice a year from the 2025-26 academic session Move to help students perform well ■ The ministry’s initial plan was to introduce biannual board exams from the 2024-25 academic session; it has now been pushed back by a year ■ Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said earlier that appearing for board exams twice a year won’t be mandatory for students ■ Students can appear for subjects they are ready and retain the best score NCF The reform is based on the suggestions in the National Curriculum framework 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 Polling complete in 14 states and UTs Rahul’s fate sealed in Wayanad Over 65% voter turnout in second phase of elections, crucial for NDA PR E E THA N AIR @ New Delhi in a relatively improved showing, the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections recorded over 65% voter turnout covering 88 seats across 13 states. According to election officials, the highest voting percentage was recorded in Tripura at 78.53% while the lowest polling was in Uttar Pradesh at 54.85%. In the second phase, Kerala, Karnataka and Rajasthan accounted for more than half seats. While elections to 14 seats were held in Karnataka, 13 seats in the desert state of Rajasthan, 8 seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, 6 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 5 seats each in Assam and Bihar, 3 seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and 1 seat each in Manipur, T ripura and Jammu and Kashmir. All eyes are on the high stakes battle in Kerala, where the BJP has been aggressively working to open its account. The contests in Wayanad, where former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is contesting, and Thiruvanan- 8 die of heat stroke In Kerala, eight persons died of possible heat stroke or other heat-related issues, amidst polling, in various constituencies, including Palakkad, Alappuzha and Malappuram. There is no official confirmation on the cause of these deaths Young voters after casting their votes at Purameri, Kozhikode | E Gokul Brisk polling in Tripura, low turnout in U.P. State Tripura Manipur Chhattisgarh West Bengal Voting 79.46% 77.32% 73.05% 71.84% J&K 71.21% Assam 71.11% Kerala 70.35% Karnataka 68.30% Rajasthan 62.46% thapuram where Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar is pitted against sitting MP Shashi Tharoor, are keenly watched. Other top guns in the fray in- Maharasthra 58.57% Madhya Pradesh 55.77% Bihar 55.08% Uttar Pradesh 54.83% (Source: ECI) cluded actor-turnedpolitician Arun Govil in Meerut, Karnataka deputy CM D K Shivakumar’s broth- Amid high drama, 5,900 Assembly and 1,103 LS papers’ scrutiny held E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Vijayawada Scrutiny of nominations filed for the 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies commenced on Friday across the State. While the nominations filed without proper and mandatory documents were rejected, there were reports about papers of some leaders kept pending. According to officials, more than 5,900 nominations have been received for Assembly constituencies and 1,103 for Lok Sabha segments. Last day for filing nominations was Thursday. Officials pointed out that thousands of candidates filed at least a couple of sets of nominations, making the scrutiny cumbersome. The number of nominations found to be in prescribed for- mat and the exact number of contestants for each MLA and MP seat will be known be known only on Monday after the withdrawal of nominations, officials explained. The scrutiny process witnessed some anxious moments at some places with the contesting candidates seeking rejection of the opponents’ nomination papers on various grounds. For instance, the YSRC demanded the rejection of TDP Nellore candidate Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy’s nomination. YSRC MP candidate V Vijayasai Reddy alleged that Prabhakar Reddy failed to disclose the investments and assets abroad in his affidavit, along with assets withheld within India and shareholdings in vari- ous companies. Vijayasai Reddy said he will take legal recourse over his opponent’s candidature. In Dhone, finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy’s nomination was accepted after high drama. Officials found that some of the mandatory parts in the papers were not filled. His nomination was ke pt pending till evening. Returning Officer Maheswar Reddy said Buggana’s nomination was accepted after making some adjustments. TDP’s advocates, Srinivasa Bhat and Bhaskar Reddy, said they will take legal action against the RO for accepting the flawed nomination without adhering to the Election ComP4 mission’s guidelines. er D K Suresh in Bangalore Rural, and former Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy (JDS) in Mandya. Meanwhile BJP’s Hema Malini, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat are seeking a hat-trick of wins from UP’s Mathura, Rajasthan’s Kota and Jodhpur, respectively . The second phase is crucial for the BJP-led NDA as it is seeking a third time under Narendra Modi’s leadership. The party’s performance in Rajasthan, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Bihar will greatly influence its plan to increase its tally from the 303 seats in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Voting machines get SC’s total vote of confidence Petitions seeking 100% cross-verification of votes rejected 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 Friday rejected all petitions seeking 100% cross-verification of votes cast on electronic voting machines (EVMs) with a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), saying suspicions of tampering were unfounded. It also turned down pleas to revive paper ballots. A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Dutta delivered two separate but concurring verdicts. “While maintaining a balanced perspective is crucial in evaluating systems or institutions, blindly distrusting any aspect of the system can breed unwarranted scepticism,” the court said, adding democracy is all about striving to build harmony and trust between all institutions. Justice Khanna in his verdict issued two directions. One, sealing and storing the Symbol Loading Unit after completing the symbol loading process for at least 45 days. And two, checking the burnt memory in the Botcha refutes Goyal’s claims on no land for railway zone E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Visakhapatnam Refuting the claims of Piyush Goyal that the State government has failed to hand over land for setting up a railway zone in Visakhapatnam, Education Minister Botcha Satyanarayana on Friday said, “It is deplorable that a Union Minister has made such remarks. His claims are nothing but lies.” Speaking to reporters in the Port City on Thursday , Botcha mocked the Union minister for boasting about developing the country in the past 10 years. “It was the NDA government that ruled AP from 2014 to 2019, but the assurance to set up the railway zone did not materialise,” he remarked. Asserting that the YSRC government has given land to the Railways for the project, Botcha sought to know why the ‘double engine sarkar’ in 2014 failed to fulfil the promise mentioned in the P4 AP Reorganisation Act. Gandhi buzz in Amethi and Rae Bareli N a m i ta B a j pa i @ Lucknow china not afraid of competition: Xi President Xi Jinping told visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that China is not afraid of competition as the latter raised concerns about Beijing’s support for Russia in the Ukraine war | P9 With the second phase of the general elections done and dusted — where Rahul Gandhi was a candidate in Wayanad — all eyes are on Saturday’s Congress Election Committee meeting, which is expected to take its call on Rae Bareli and Amethi, the two bastions of Gandhi family in Uttar Pradesh. The meeting comes amid intense speculation on the party fielding Rahul from Amethi and party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli. Highly-placed sources said both Priyanka and Rahul are likely to visit Ayodhya for a darshan of Ram Lalla before heading to Amethi and Rae Bareli. The buzz around Rahul’s candidature from Amethi picked up momentum from the fact that besides the renovation of the Congress office there, the guest house on the premises was also white washed. The process of filing nomination papers for both Amethi and Rae Bareli began on Friday and will continue till May 3. Sources claim that after the formal announcement of his candidature, Rahul may file his nomination papers from Amethi on May 1 or 2. However, there is no official word on it. A senior Congress leader hinted at the possibility of back-to-back filing of nomination papers by both Rahul and Priyanka during the narrow window between May 1 and May 3. However, the possibility of Robert Vadra, Priyanka’s husband, getting the Amethi ticket cannot be ruled out. Vadra had earlier gone vocal, claiming that the people of Amethi wanted him to represent them in Lok Sabha this time. Rahul was defeated by BJP’s Smriti Irani in Amethi in 2019. Rae Bareli has been a Congress stronghold since decades. Return to ballot paper unsound “We must reject as foible and unsound the submission to return to the ballot paper system. The weakness of the ballot paper system is well known and documented,” the bench said in its verdict microcontrollers of 5% of EVMs for tampering per assembly constituency by a team of engineers after the results are out. An EVM comprises three units — ballot unit, control unit and the VVPAT. All three are embedded with microcontrollers, which have a burnt memory from the manufactur- er. The request to verify the microcontrollers can be made by candidates who stand second or third in the elections. A written request has to be made within seven days after the results are announced. Those who make the request would foot the verification bill. But if an EVM is found tampered, the money would be refunded. Besides, the bench suggested that the ECI examine the possibility of machine counting of the VVPAT paper slips and see if it could add a bar code for each party along with the party symbol in the slips. Justice Dipankar Datta in his separate judgment said there seems to be a concerted effort to discredit, diminish and weaken India’s progress on every possible frontier and any such attempt has to be “nipped in the bud”. He added that EVMs have stood the test of time and the increased voting percentage was sufficient reason to hold that the voters have reposed faith in the current system.
Express Network Private Limited publishes thirty three E-paper editions of The New Indian Express newspaper , thirty two E-paper editions of Dinamani, one E-paper edition of The Morning Standard, one E-paper edition of Malayalam Vaarika magazine and one E-paper edition of the Indulge - The Morning Standard, Kolkatta.
27-04-2024 of The New Indian Express-Tadepalligudem