FP The publishers permit sharing of the e-paper's pdf on WhatsApp and other social media platforms Vol. 14 No. 19 | BHOPAL | WEDNESDAY | JULY 3, 2024 | Pages 16 | ` 3 | Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2024-2026 | RNI No. mpeng/2010/35815 FREE PRESS ESTD-1983 iii QUALITY @ VALUE www.freepressjournal.com Sports COPA 2024: US eliminated with 1-0 loss to Uruguay P.14 EDITIONS: INDORE UJJAIN PUNE BHOPAL NASHIK Thousands flee as Israel bombs southern Gaza Cinema One more FEATHER in their cap P.16 TRAGEDY IN UP: Event organised in honour of a local guru 116 killed in stampede during religious function in Hathras Compensation announced Agencies At least 116 people, including women and three children, were killed after a stampede broke out at a religious event in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras on Tuesday, officials have said. The stampede occurred during a 'satsang' (prayer meeting) which was attended by hundreds. Visuals from the Community Health Centre showed several bodies being brought there in buses and tempos in the presence of crying relatives. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has taken note of the incident and, on his directions, a committee has been set up to investigate the incident. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Droupadi fp Briefs NARAYANPUR CG: Five Naxals killed in encounter Five Naxalites were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district on Tuesday, police said. The gunfight took place in a forest under Kohkameta police station area in Abujhmad, a hilly forest area when a joint team of personnel from different security forces was out on an anti-Naxal operation, a senior police official said. BAHRAICH Two brothers killed after house wall collapses Two brothers lost their lives when the wall of a house collapsed due to heavy rains at a village in Payagpur area here, police on Tuesday said. Vishram (16) and Aman (10) were killed when the wall of a house collapsed at around 5 am in Parsoli Trikoli village, they said. Payagpur SHO Karunakar Pandey said the two bodies were taken out from the debris and sent for post-mortem. NEW DELHI Shed collapses at Delhi's five-star hotel A couple suffered minor injuries when a portion of a shed near a swimming pool at a five-star hotel in southwest Delhi collapsed and fell on them, police said on Tuesday. "A PCR call was received at around 8.56 pm (on Monday) in PS (police station) RK Puram about caving/falling of roof and injury to husband and wife, who were staying at Hyatt Regency," the police said in a statement. A compensation of Rs 2 lakh each has been announced for the families of the dead and Rs 50,000 for the injured. Officials said a case will be registered against the organisers. Relatives outside a hospital where victims of the Hathras stampede are admitted, in Etah on Tuesday,. Murmu also expressed their condolences to the families of those who were killed and said they were praying for the speedy recovery of the injured. PM Modi said the Centre is extending all possible help to the Uttar Pradesh government. Hathras District Magistrate Ashish Kumar said that, according to numbers received from the community health centre, 50-60 people were killed. Officials in Etah district confirmed the deaths of an additional 27. "The stampede broke out in Phulrai village within the Sikandra Rao police station limits in Hathras. The injured are being taken to hospitals. Doctors at the community health centre have told me 5060 people have died. This was a private event and permission had been given by the sub-divisional magistrate. Security arrangements were made by the administration but the other arrangements were supposed to be made by the organisers," Kumar said. Chief Medical Officer, Etah, Dr Umesh Kumar Tripathi, said, "We have received 27 bodies, of which 25 are female and two are male. Some injured have also been taken to hospitals. We have heard that there was a stampede during a 'satsang'." Senior Superintendent of Police, Etah, Rajesh Kumar said three children were among those killed in the stampede. A woman who attended the 'satsang' said it was organised in honour of a local guru, Bhole Baba aka Narayan Saakar Hari, and the stampede broke out as the crowd began to leave. 4Continued on | P6 Five children die at shelter home, 32 hospitalised SDM reaches the facility, laughs out loud; removed and attached to election office Our Staff Reporter INDORE As many as five deaths of children in three days in the Bal Ashram of Shri Yugpurushdham NGO has sent the city officials on toes. Moreover, 32 inmates of the ashram were admitted to Chacha Nehru Hospital on Tuesday including Collector Asheesh Singh along with a team of doctors at Ashram eight of them in critical conditions. While the exact reasons for the deaths were yet to be ascertained, food poisoning and dehydration could be among the causes, the doctors said. The incident has shocked the city, leading to a comprehensive investigation and heightened concerns about the children's well-being at the ashram. Meanwhile, administration has constituted a high level committee to probe the matter along with mandating the health check-up of all the inmates in the ashram. According to officials, the first fatality occurred on June 30, with eight-year-old Shubh, a resident of the orphanage, E-paper Money India’s macro sweet spot to extend into 2nd half of FY25 P.13 WORLD HATHRAS MUMBAI succumbing to the illness. The officials claimed that he died due to epilepsy fits. The following day i.e. on July 1, two more children, Karan alias Shubham (12) and Akash (7), died, followed by two additional deaths including ChhotaGovind (5) and Rani (11), on Tuesday. The officials of the district administration, women and child welfare, and health departments were on-site inspecting the remaining children when the two inmates passed away on Tuesday, with symptoms of diarrhoea being particularly prominent. 4Continued on | P6 SEBI slaps notice on Hindenburg PTI NEW DELHI India's markets regulator SEBI has slapped Hindenburg Research with a show cause notice for alleged "unfair trade practices" in its 2023 broadside against the Adani Group a move that the US firm termed as 'nonsense' and an attempt to 'silence and intimidate' those exposing corruption. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in the June 26 show cause notice charged Hindenburg of "deliberately sensationalising and distorting certain facts" in the damning January 2023 report on the Adani group as well as working with a New York hedge fund to make its bet. Hindenburg, which published the notice on its website, said it made just USD 4.1 million from its declared positions on Adani stocks and criticised the regulator for not focusing its investigation into the January 2023 report "providing evidence" of the conglomerate creating "a vast network of offshore shell entities" and moving billions of dollars "surreptitiously" into and out of Adani public and private entities. It said while SEBI was seeking to claim jurisdiction over a US-based investor. 4Continued on | P6 Budget to focus on infra, culture FM Devda to present it today Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL The state government is going to present the budget in the House on Wednesday. Finance Minister Jagdish Devda is presenting the fifth budget in a row. According to sources, the budget worth Rs 3.60 lakh crore focuses on urban development, tourism, culture and infrastructure. The government is going to Opposition demands Sarang’s scalp, minister refuses to oblige House witnesses four-hour debate over calling attention motion Blames Congress gress raised a hue and cry over the issue. Leader of Opposition Umang Singhar said Sarang was associated with the scam. He said the permission had been granted to 219 nursing colleges when the Covid-19 was at its peak during 2020-21. There was no election of Nursing Council, Singhar said, adding that the colleges were given permission through verbal orders. Replying to the allegations, Minister Vishvas Sarang said that the nursing scam had taken place during the 15-month rule of the Congress government. Laws to give permission to the nursing colleges were made after the BJP government returned to power, Sarang said. In 2020, when the Congress government was falling, 353 colleges were given recognition letter, he said. As Nursing Council is an autonomous body, the minister does not get any file, he said. 4Continued on | P6 4Continued on | P6 Our Staff Reporter Mausi ji, moral victory toh hai na: PM’s Sholay dig to Cong Rahul’s objection PTI NEW DELHI Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday invoked an iconic scene from Hindi movie 'Sholay' to mock the Congress, saying that despite losing the Lok Sabha polls for a third time, the grand old party's refrain was -- "mausi ji, it is a moral victory after all". In a scathing attack on the Congress in his address in the Lok Sabha, Modi also called it "parjeevi (parasitic)" party and claimed that it ate into the votes of its allies. "The statements of Congress leaders have even surpassed film Sholay. You all would remember Mausi ji from the film. Teesri baar toh haare hain par Mausi ji, moral victory toh hai na (we have lost third time but Mausi ji, it is a moral victory). "Arey Mausi 13 rajyon mein zero seat aayi hai par hero to hai na (Mausi, we got zero PM Modi addressing LS seats in 13 states but I am a hero)," he said. "Party ki lutiya toh duboyi hai, arey Mausi party abhi saansein toh le rahi hai (Have sunk the party but it is still breathing)," Modi said. His reference was to the iconic comic scene from 'Sholay' in which Amitabh Bachchan's character goes to speak with the 'mausi' (aunt) of the character played by Hema Malini. He seeks Malini's hand for marriage with his friend played by Dharmendra and keeps mentioning the vices of his friend while defending Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla over portions of his speech in the House having been expunged, saying that removing his considered remarks from records goes against the very tenets of parliamentary democracy and that they should be restored. them simultaneously, giving hilarious reasons. In his address, Modi urged the Congress not to suppress the mandate under the garb of "fake victory celebrations". "Do not drown the mandate in intoxication of fake victory. Honestly understand and accept the mandate of the people," he said. 4Continued on | P6 PTI PRAYAGRAJ The Allahabad HC has observed that religious congregations where conversions take place should be stopped immediately, or the country's majority population will become a minority one day. Justice Rohit Rajan Agarwal made the observation while rejecting the bail application of one Kailash, who is accused of being involved in the religious conversion of several people from a village here. "The word 'propagation' means to promote, but it does not mean to convert any person from his religion to another religion," the court said. "In the instant case, there are serious allegations against the applicant by the informant that her brother, along with several others, were taken from their village to attend a gathering in New Delhi and converted to Christianity.” offgrid Horned frog found in Arunachal PTI SHILLONG Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have discovered a new frog species in Arunachal Pradesh's Tale Wildlife Sanctuary, marking a significant addition to India's herpetofaunal diversity, officials said on Tuesday. The new species is a for- est-dwelling horned frog discovered by a team of ZSI scientists from Shillong, Itanagar, and Pune. "The research, published in the current edition of the Zoological Survey of India, overturns an earlier erroneous report of the Maoson horned frog (Xenophrys maosonensis) in India, which was reported by ZSI researchers in Shillong in 2019," said Bhaskar Saikia, one of the scientists, to PTI. He explained that the revised conclusion regarding the species' identity came after further analysis re- vealed substantial genetic disparities between the Indian specimen and X. maosonensis from Vietnam and China, prompting a reevaluation. Saikia, along with his colleague Bikramjit Sinha, also from ZSI Shillong, led the research. The team included KP Dinesh and A. Shabnam from ZSI Pune, and Ilona Jacinta Kharkongor from ZSI Itanagar. 4Continued on | P6 NURSING SCAM BHOPAL Allahabad HC’s strong stand on conversions set aside Rs 70,000 crore for infrastructure under which many construction works other than roads will be carried out. In the budget, provision may be made for metro train in Jabalpur and Gwalior after Bhopal and Indore. The government will pay special attention on religion and culture. The budget will have provisions for development of those areas associated with Lord Krishna, besides other religious places across the state. It happened for the first time in the history of the state assembly that a debate was conducted over calling attention motion for four hours on Tuesday. The Congress demanded the then Medical Education Minister Vishvas Sarang’s resignation on nursing scam. Sarang, however, refused to quit. When Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla gave a clean chit to Sarang, the Con- MP ECONOMIC SURVEY 2023-24 Per capita income increased four times Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL The per capita income of the people of the state have increased to four times from the base year 2011-12 to 2023-24, the fact came in Economic Survey released by state government on Tuesday. Deputy Chief Minister Jagdish Devda said that the Economic Survey underlines the excellent economic progress of the state. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav will set new milestones of economic prosperity in the state. According to the survey report progress has been seen all sectors including agriculture, production and in service sector. In the year 2011-12 the per capita net income was Rs 38,497 which increased to Rs 1.42 lakh which is around four times. The Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) on current price for the financial year had reached to Rs 13,63,327 crore. This shows the expansion of Emerges as pulses producer State emerge as pulses producer, in the year 42.62% growth has been seen in the pulses, the production of oilseeds have also increased by 7.32%, in the production of the other grains slight increase has been seen. Growth in vegetables has also seen the production increases to 242.62 lakh ton in the year in comparison to 235.41 lakh ton to last year. Production of fruits has also increased to in comparison of 95.10 lakh ton. the economy in the state. The increase in value of commodities and service has been seen in the year. In last financial year the SDGP was 12,46,471 corers the increase of 9.37% has been reflected in the current year. 4Continued on | P6 NEET-UG row: SC to hear batch of pleas on July 8 PTI NEW DELHI The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on July 8 a batch of pleas related to the controversy-ridden NEET-UG, including those alleging irregularities in the examination held on May 5 and seeking a direction that it be held afresh. According to the cause list for July 8 uploaded on the apex court's website, the batch of 26 petitions would come up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. The National Eligibilitycum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. The NEET-UG, 2024 was held across 4,750 centres on May 5.