TUESDAY 27 FEBRUARY 2024 www.thestatesman.com Pages 12 |` 5.00|LC INDIA’S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER SINCE 1818 Twitter.com/thestatesman Facebook.com/thestatesman KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR WEATHER PARTLY CLOUDY SKY. THE MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM TEMPERATURES WOULD BE AROUND 30 AND 21 DEGREE CELSIUS RESPECTIVELY. RAINFALL: 0.0 mm RELATIVE HUMIDITY Min. 50% Max: 30.0 °C (+1) SUN RISES 06:00 hrs MOON RISES 20:06 hrs Min: 21.5 °C (+1) SUN SETS 17:38 hrs MOON SETS 07:30 hrs TRIDIB BAPARNASH New Moon on 10 March THUMBNAILS Divyangjans (Specially-abled) perform during a day-long 'Purple Fest' organised at Amrit Udyan, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on Monday.  ANI Renowned ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas passes away at 72: Acclaimed playback singer and ghazal maestro Pankaj Udhas (72) passed away here after a prolonged illness, a close (PG 5) associate said on Monday. NEW DELHI, 26 FEBRUARY matured half century from ShubmanGillcoupledwith a gritty knock from Dhruv Jurel successfully countered England’s spin threat to win the fourthTest by five wickets inside fourdaysandhelpedIndiatoanunassailable 3-1 lead with one to play. Thetriumphalsohelpedthehosts retain their proven record of having not lost a Test series at home in more than 11 years. After skipper Rohit Sharma and YashasviJasiwalsetthetoneforIndia’s chase of 192 with a 84-run stand for the opening partnership, they suffered a substantial wobble, losing five wickets for 36 runs in 20.5 overs tobe120for5,needing72moreruns for victory. Gill and Jurel then held the innings together with an unbroken partnership of 72 runs to see the team home. England’syoungspinners,Shoaib Bashir andTom Hartley made India toil in the second hour of the morning session after the hosts resumed on40withoutloss,needing152more. The first hour, however, belonged A to India, with Rohit and Jaiswal adding 42 runs in the first eight overs of the day. The Indian captain slammed Anderson for six over mid-on to take his side past fifty, leaving them with 140moretoget.HeandJaiswalpulled out the sweeps and reverse-sweeps against Bashir and Hartley as they kept the boundary count up.There was an urgency in the England camp, and it eventually needed an age-defying catch from the 41year-old James Anderson to get the first breakthrough with the wicket of in-form Jaiswal, who once again impressed with a 44-ball 37. India preferred a watchful approach, putting on just 34 runs in the 19.3 overs until lunch, before Hartley struck by sending back Sharma to peg the hosts back to 99 for2.Rohit,wholookedinfluenttouch during his 81-ball stay, scoring 55 runs, nicked behind a ball outside off. Bashir then removed Rajat Patidar for a six-ball duck next over with alengthballthatturnedfromoffinto the inside edge for Ollie Pope to collect at short leg as India headed to the lunch interval needing 74 with seven wickets in hand. PM launches railway projects worth `41,000 crore STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 26 FEBRUARY Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched railway projects worth Rs 41,000 crores and said India’s youth will be the real beneficiaries of Viksit Bharat (Developed India) and they have the maximum right to decide how Viksit Bharat will unfold. Lakhs of people joined the Viksit Bharat Viksit Railways event from 500 railway stations and 1500 other venues. Mr Modi inaugurated 2,000 railway infrastructure projects virtually. The Prime Minister said that the development projects of today will create employment and self-employment opportunities for lakhs of youth, while also benefiting those study- CM Mamata in Bankura on 3-day Junglemahal visit Shubman Gill & Dhruv Jurel steer India to series victory with hard-fought five-wicket win Max. 65% TEMPERATURE India’s young brigade aces England’s Bazball ing in schools. He thanked the youth for bringing dreams of railways in Viksit Bharat to reality through various competitions and congratulated the winners. “Whatever India does today, it does it with an unprecedented speed and scale. We dream big and work tirelessly to realise it. This resolve is visible in thisViksit BharatViksit Railway programme,” he said. Mr Modi said he had launched 2000 projects, while the third term of his government is about to start in June. The speed and scale of work undertaken by the government already makes people wonder. Few days back, he had launched dozens of institutions like IITs and IIMs. The revamping work of 500 stations in 300 districts of 27 States had started on Monday, he said. The Prime Minister said the Gomti Nagar station has undergone a complete transformation. Work on 1,500 projects of road overbridges and underpasses has been taken up simultaneously. Projects worth Rs 40,000 crores are taking off in one go, he said. For decades, he said, the Indian Railways was the victim of self-centered politics. Now it stands for ease of travel for Indian people, he added. Now, there is no more crying over losses in railways; now it is passing through a major phase of transformation. This has happened because India has moved from the 11th to the fifth place in the rank of world economies, he said. Ten years back, the railways’ budget was Rs 45,000 crore. Today when the Indian economy occupies the fifth place in the world, the railways annual budget this year has reached Rs 2.50 lakh crore, he said. “Just imagine, when India occupies the third place among world economies, how large will be the scale of our capacity. This is why Modi is fully dedicated to make India the world’s third largest economy,” he said. MEA rejects reports about Indians seeking discharge from Russian Army STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 26 FEBRUARY India on Monday dismissed as inaccurate reports claiming that Indians with the Russian Army are seeking help for discharge, adding that "each and every case" has been strongly taken up with the Russian authorities. "We have seen some inaccurate reports in the media regarding Indians with the Russian army seeking help for discharge," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement. "Each and every such case brought to the attention of the Indian Embassy in Moscow has been strongly taken up with the Russian authorities, and those brought to the attention of the Ministry have been taken up with the Russian Embassy in New Delhi. Several Indians have already been discharged as a result. Several Indians have already been discharged as a result," the statement read. In the second over after the break,Bashirtiltedthegamemomentarily in England’s favour with wickets off consecutive balls. The Somerset off-spinner first dismissed Ravindra Jadeja (4) caught by Jonny Bairstow off a full toss, then got one to turn from outside off, beating Sarfaraz Khan’s (0) defensive prod to take a thin edge onto the pad and into Pope's hands at backward short-leg. The mini-collapse gave England the confidence but Jurel, who drove a fuller length delivery through the covers, came up with a positive response to not only survive the hat-trick ball but also bring the target under fifty runs. With Gill at the other end, Jurel initially took the lead role in their union, reaching 32 off 70 balls before the Mohali right-hander, whowasbattingon39from119,came all guns blazing.With 20 needed, Gill launched Bashir over long-off, and then, two balls later, raised his fifty by clearing the fence at deep midwicket. Jurel, at the other end, pulledHartleyforaboundarybefore bringing up the winning runs with a double by working Harley off his legs. STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE KOLKATA, 26 FEBRUARY Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today left for Junglemahal on a three-day tour. She is supposed to lay the foundation stone and inaugurate various government developmental projects in the three districts of Bankura, Purulia and Jhargram. A source in the know claimed that the chief minister is likely to inaugurate projects worth Rs 2,500cr in the three districts in the Junglemahal. With as many as four Lok Sabha seats in the region, the ruling Trinamul Congress is targeting the tribal voters ahead of the general elections. Sources at Nabanna claimed that in Purulia she is likely to unveil many government projects. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the ruling party had managed to reclaim some of the lost ground in the region, which had voted for the BJP in the last LS polls in 2019.