TIRUNELVELI l Monday l January 29, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l CITY EDITION West Indies, England script historic away Test victories Thousands of miles away from each other, India and Australia, two indomitable Test sides at home, suffered shocking defeats on Sunday... Pic: Sri Loganathan Velmurugan Shamar Rallies Wi to win in Oz after 27 yrs hartley hands India bitter defeat Everytime West Indies do well, cricketing world heals a little. Sunday was one such day as pacer Shamar Joseph — who had broken his toe the previous day, who was nowhere near the WI team a few months ago — rose to the occasion, took seven wickets to help West Indies beat Australia by eight runs in Brisbane — their first Test win in Australia since 1997 ■ ■ Ollie Pope, who missed his double century, and Tom Hartley — both had nightmarish show in the first innings — were the heroes in the second as India lost by 28 runs after securing a 190-run lead Hartley took seven wickets on Day four, including the top four batters, as the hosts failed to chase the target of 231 | P11 2000 The last time India lost a home TEst after taking 1st innings lead (SA) 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 Nitish back in NDA, swears in UGC drops proposal as Bihar CM for the ninth time to de-reserve SC/ST posts in varsities BJP’s Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha become deputy chief ministers People won’t forgive this betrayal: Cong R A M A S H A N K A R @ Patna CURTAINS fell on the week-long political drama in Bihar on Sunday with Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar taking oath as chief minister for a record ninth term -this time with the support of his old ally the BJP , . Soon after taking oath as the CM of the new NDA government, Nitish said: “I am back where I was earlier. I had gone with other another alliance for some time. But now I am back and will remain here forever.” Earlier in the day Nitish met Gov, ernor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar and submitted his resignation as the Mahagathbandhan chief minister. After that, he staked claim to form a new government with the support of the BJP and its allies. He claimed the support of 128 MLAs — 45 from JD(U), 78 from BJP 4 from HAM and , 1 Independent. Bihar has 243 assembly seats. In the swearing-in ceremony held on Sunday evening, Nitish, Vijay Kumar Choudhary Vijendra Prasad Ya, dav, Shravan Kumar from the JD-U; Samrat Choudhary Vijay Kumar Sin, ha, and Prem Kumar from the BJP; Santosh Kumar Suman from HAM; and, Sumit Kumar Singh (Independent) took oath as cabinet ministers in Former grassroots bjp worker to deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha, an experienced uppercaste BJP leader, has held various posts , including that of Bihar Assembly Speaker and the state’s leader of the Opposition. Starting off as a grassroots BJP worker, Sinha, 64, made his debut in the Assembly in 2010 and got a ministerial berth seven years later. He belongs to the influential Bhumihar community, was an active member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad — the RSS’ student wing P r e e t ha n A I r @ New Delhi Nitish Kumar with Bihar Governor Rajendra Arlekar after the swearing-in ceremony | PTI the presence of BJP president J P Nadda and other dignitaries. All of them had earlier served as ministers in the NDA government after the 2020 assembly election. Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha will be the two deputy chief ministers. Earlier, rumours were rife that Sushil Kumar Modi, who had served as deputy chief minister during the NDA regime earlier, might be inducted in the Nitish cabinet as deputy CM. As soon as the swearing-in ceremony started and the name of Nitish was announced, BJP supporters chanted ‘Jai Sriram’. Later, slogans in favour of Nitish and other ministers echoed in the air.  p8 obc leader whose fortunes rose with BJP An OBC leader of the BJP in Bihar where the party wants to transcend its “proupper caste” image, Samrat Choudhary has had a meteoric rise since he joined the outfit nearly seven years ago. Samrat was a minister in the government headed by Rabri Devi, the RJD supremo’s wife. In 2014, he became part of a rebel faction and joined the JD(U) government. Three years later, he grew disenchanted with the JD(U) and joined the BJP The latest political somersault by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar invited sharp reactions from the Opposition INDIA bloc on Sunday, with the Congress and other parties warning him that the people will never forgive his “betrayal”. Soon after Kumar announced his decision to form a government with the BJP’s support, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the alliance members had an inkling of his decision to leave. “There are many like ‘Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram’ in the country . We already knew this, but we did not say anything to keep the INDIA alliance intact. If we say something wrong, a wrong message will go out. Lalu Prasad Yadav ji and Tejashwi Yadav ji had already given us this information,” Kharge said. Comparing Kumar to a “chameleon”, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “Nitish Kumar, who frequently changes political partners, is giving tough competition to the chameleons in changing colours.” Ramesh said a “political drama” is being created to divert attention from Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which is set to enter Bihar. The Congress leaders said Kumar’s exit won’t affect the alliance’s electoral prospects. However, political observers say it will have a ripple effect on the equation of alliances in other states. Speaking to this newspaper, political analyst Sandeep Shastri said, “All the other partners will now play hardball with the Congress.” Six friends killed as car collides with truck in TN E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I CE @ Tenkasi Six young friends, who were returning from Courtallam after a vacation, died in a car crash after their vehicle collided head-on with a truck carrying cement bags near Kadayanallur in Tenkasi in the early hours of Sunday. Chief Minister M K Stalin has announced a solatium of `2 lakh each to the kin of the victims. The deceased were identified as M Karthik (24), M Mukesh alias Mano (19), P Subramanian (27), G Vel Manoj (24), R Muthamil Selvan (22) and M Pothiraj (30). While five of them were crushed to death on the spot, Muthamil Selvan died on the way to hospital. The deceased, who were from Puliyangudi in Tenkasi district, had gone to Courtallam to take bath in the waterfalls. When they were returning to Puliyangudi, Karthik, who was driving the car, lost control and the vehicle collided head-on with the cement truck between Singilipatti and Punnaiyapuram on Thirumangalam-Kollam highway road. The Chokkampatti police and fire and rescue service personnel rushed to the spot after being informed about the accident. The mangled remains of the car, which was run over by the truck after the collision, was cleared from the spot to restore traffic movement. The bodies of the accident victims were sent to Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital for postmortem by the police. The truck driver, P Prakash of Thiruvannamalai, was arrested by the police. Tenkasi SP T P Sureshkumar inspected the spot. Sankarankovil MLA E Raja and Vasudevanallur MLA Sathan Thirumalaikumar also visited the spot. CJI D Y Chandrachud hands over a statue of B R Ambedkar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi | PTI Long vacation, adjournment culture need to go, says CJI s u c hi t ra ka lyan m o han t y @ New Delhi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that ‘ease of justice’ is the right of every citizen and the Supreme Court is its medium. Addressing the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Supreme Court, the PM said the Centre has sanctioned `800 crore for expansion of the SC building. Stressing the need for an empowered judicial system as a part of Viksit Bharat, Modi asked the apex court to work towards capacity building of stakeholders to ensure the transition from old laws to the new regime is seamless. Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, speaking at the same function, said the judiciary needs to begin “difficult conversations” to remain relevant as an institution. He said the ‘adjournment culture’ and long vacations need to go, to tackle the issue of case backlogs. “We must emerge out of the adjournment culture to a culture of professionalism,” the Chief Justice of India said. The Chief Justice of India urged all stakeholders to have a meaningful conversation on long vacations and think of alternatives such as flexitime for lawyers and judges to dispose of cases in a reasonable timeframe. Commenting on the 65,915 cases pending cases in the SC, CJI asked: “There has to be a radical change in the approach to decision making. In our desire to ensure justice in each individual case, should we risk the Court becoming dysfunctional.” It’s murder of reservation, says DMK “While there is continuous accusation that seats reserved for SCs, STs & OBCs are given to general candidates, the BJP is now trying to institutiona lise it. This is murder of reservation,” says DMK This is only a draft. This is a document that has various Acts & SC orders. Final version will not have provisions on dereserving vacancies M Jagadeesh, UGC chairman S u b ashini Vi j ayak u mar @ Chennai After a nationwide backlash for the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) draft guidelines on procedure for de-reservation of vacancies in higher education institutions (HEIs), UGC chairman M Jagadeesh Kumar told TNIE that de-reservation will not find a place in the final guidelines. “This is only the draft and not the final guidelines. This is a comprehensive document that puts together various Acts and Supreme Cour t judgments on reservation. The final version will not have de-reservation provisions,” Kumar said. The UGC draft, first reported by TNIE on Sunday, said, “There is a general ban on dereservation of reserved vacancies (for SCs, STs, and OBCs) in case of direct recruitment. However, in rare and exceptional cases when a vacancy in a Group A post cannot be allowed to remain vacant in public interest, the university concerned may prepare a proposal for de-reservation of the vacancy .” The UGC, in a separate post on ‘X’ on Sunday, quoting its chairman, said, “This is to clarify that there has been no de-reservation of reserved category positions in Central Educational Institutions (CEI) in the past and there is going to be no such de-reservation. It is important for all HEIs to ensure that all backlog positions in reserved categories are filled up through concerted efforts.” The Union Ministry of Education has also responded to the TNIE report. “Reservation in CEI is provided for all posts in direct recruitment in teacher’s cadre as per the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019. After enactment of this Act, no reserved post is to be de-reserved. The Ministry of Education has given directives to all CEIs to fill up the vacancies strictly as per the 2019 Act,” the union education ministry said.  P5 impact Express read Guv meets Keezhvenmani survivor amid stir by CPM Nagapattinam: Governor RN Ravi on Sunday met G Palanivel, a survivor of the Keezhvenmani massacre in which 44 workers were burnt to death 55 years ago, and his family members in Nagapattinam amid sloganeering and black-flag protests by CPM and Congress members | P4 Bengal must lead fight against injustice: Rahul Siliguri: Amid differences between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress over seat sharing in Bengal, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ in north Bengal on Sunday called on the people to lead the fight against injustices and help reunite the country ram is in everyone’s heart, says Modi In the first Mann Ki Baat broadcast of the year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Ram temple consecration ceremony brought people together, making the country’s collective strength visible to all