cHENNAI l saturday l july 06, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l VELLORE EDITION Ahead of Modi’s Russia trip, Army gets 35,000 ‘Kalashnikov’ rifles Indo-Russian Rifles Pvt Ltd has delivered the first batch of made-in-India Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifles to the Indian Army Amethi-based JV to make 6 lakh ak-203s Made in India with Russian technology IRRPL, located in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, is a joint venture of Indian defence PSUs with Concern Kalashnikov and Rosoboronexport of Russia. The first phase of the project has been completed with the production and transfer of 35,000 rifles to the Army, Rosoboronexport said. The JV plans to make over 6 lakh assault rifles for the Indian defence forces ■ “The Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifle is a version of the AK-200 rifle chambered for the 7.62x39mm cartridge used in the Indian Army. The weapon has the traditional advantages of Kalashnikov assault rifles: reliability and ease of maintenance,” Rosoboronexport said in a statement ■ AK-203s are manufactured in India in compliance with Russian technologies `1,26,887 cr Overall value of defence production in iNDIA in FY24, ACCORDING TO GOVT DATA 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 Keir Starmer is new British PM; eXPECTED TO KEEP UP GOOD TIES WITH iNDIA Labour ends conservative era in Britain tive contribution to deepen the ties between India and the UK AFTER sitting on the opposi- during your term in office.” tion benches for more than a Accepting defeat, Sunak said decade, the Labour Party on he respects the people’s manFriday stormed to power in the date. “I have given this job my UK, ending 14 years of Con- all. But you all have sent a clear servative rule. Labour leader message, and yours is the only Keir Starmer assumed charge judgement that matters. This is as the 58th prime minister after a difficult day, but I leave this his customary audience with job honoured to have been the King Charles III at Bucking- Prime Minister of the best ham Palace. country in the world,’’ “Our country has Sunak said in his resvoted decisively for ignation speech. change, for national reThe change of guard Whether you newal and a return of in London happens at voted Labour or politics for public serva time when the free not, in fact, ice,” said Starmer in especially if you trade agreement (FTA) his inaugural address between India and UK did not, I say to from a lectern outside you directly: ‘my is in the final stages. 10 Downing Street, the government will Star mer has often serve you’ official residence of maintained that he the British PM. wants good relations British Prime Minister Starmer, 61, noted with the Modi-led govKeir Starmer that people have beernment. The FTA also come disillusioned and featured in the party’s cynical about politics and his poll manifesto which stated priority is to restore their faith that they were committed to in government. pursuing a new strategic partPrime Minister Narendra nership with India. Modi congratulated Starmer Soon after taking charge, adding that he looks forward to Starmer named David Lammy a constructive collaboration to as his foreign secretary A back. strengthen India-UK relations. er of strong bilateral ties with Modi also commented on out- India, Lammy had said last going prime minister Rishi Su- month that he would be visitnak’s leadership: “Thank you ing New Delhi within the first Rishi Sunak for your admirable month of office if his party was leadership of the UK, your ac- voted to power. P9 War of words between Annamalai and EPS Villupuram: BJP chief K Annamalai called AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami a “traitor” whose party was setting a record in losing elections. In his retort, EPS said the BJP’s seat count has come down because of leaders like Annamalai | P4 @ New Delhi Bridge collapse: 14 Bihar engineers suspended Patna: After 10 bridges collapsed in a span of two weeks in Bihar, the state government on Friday suspended 14 engineers. “It was found that engineers were negligent and monitoring was ineffective... that is the main reason behind the collapses,” said Chaitanya Prasad, additional chief secretary of Water Resources Dept Terming the compensation amount of `10 lakh each to the families of the victims of the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy as ‘huge’, the Madras High Court on Friday questioned the rationale behind providing such relief aid. The first bench of Acting Chief Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq raised the question when a public interest litigation, filed by Mohamed Ghouse of Chennai praying for the court to strike down the state government’s order for providing the compensa- Over 20 Agniveers dead within a year of induction M AYA N K SINGH @ New Delhi On a day the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi continued to allege that compensation has not been paid to the next of kin of Agniveer Ajay Kumar who died in a landmine blast in J&K in January it emerged that , around 20 Agniveers lost their lives in less than a year of their induction. The first batch of Agniveers joined the Army in August 2023. Around 18 Agniveers who passed away are from the Army Most of them died in ac. tion or due to some ailment. The latest is of death by suicide in the Air Force, a first for an Agniveer in the IAF. Srikant Kumar Chaudhary, 22, allegedly died by suicide Britain’s Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria wave to the crowds from the doorstep of 10 Downing Street in London on Friday | AP/PTI Look where it crossed 400 Total seats 650 28 BRITISH-INDIANS WIN iN ELECTION Majority mark 326 412 (+211) Labour Party 9 (-38) Scottish National 121 7 (+63) Sin Fein (+15) (Figures in brackets are increase/ decrease from 2019 election) 71 Others while on sentry duty at the Air Force Station in Agra late on Tuesday night. He hailed from UP’s Ballia district. A Board of Inquiry has been set up to probe his death. Incidentally, the first death of an Agniveer within the Army was also by suicide. It had stirred a controversy as a military funeral was not accorded to him since it’s the Army’s policy not to glorify deaths by suicide. After Rahul Gandhi alleged in the Lok Sabha that Agniveer Ajay Singh’s family wasn’t given compensation, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh hit back, saying `1 crore compensation is paid to to families of Agniveers who die in the line of duty . tion, came up for hearing. “How can you give a huge amount of `10 lakh relief to each of the families of the hooch tragedy victims,” the bench asked. It felt compensation can be provided to the families of road accident victims, but giving such a huge amount to spurious liquor victims cannot be justified. Asking the state to work out a mechanism, other than paying compensation, for rehabilitating the families, the bench asked the counsel to get instructions from the government on reconsidering the amount distribution within two weeks. Days before the Supreme Court begins its hearing on petitions seeking the scrapping of the NEET-UG on July 8, the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday filed separate affidavits opposing its cancellation, arguing it would be counterproductive and seriously jeopardise the efforts of lakhs of honest candidates who took the test. “Scrapping the exam in its entirety would seriously jeopardise lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024,” the affidavit filed by the Union Ministry of Education said. It said demands for cancellation and the retest based on surmises and conjectures must be rejected. The NEET-PG 2024 will be held on August 11 in two shifts, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences announced. Scheduled to be held on June 23, it was put off a day before the exam For its part, the NTA, which conducted the exam, said the entire NEET-UG 2024 was carried out fairly and with due confidentiality without any illegal practices. It sought to rubbish the claim of mass malpractice during the exam, arguing it was “completely unfounded, misleading, and lacks any basis”. “It is submitted that the present case is not a case wherein the entire examination process conducted across 4750 centres in 571 cities (including 14 cities abroad) has TN BSP chief hacked to death by 6-member bike gang in Perambur Armstrong in a pool of blood. The weapons were left behind at the crime scene, said police. K Armstrong (52), Tamil The Sembium police have Nadu state president of the Ba- registered a case and are anahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was lysing CCTV footage to identify hacked to death by an unidenti- the suspects. They are also fied six-member gang, dressed checking Armstrong’s mobile as food delivery execuphone records. Soon tives, near Sembium after the incident, Depin Chennai’s Perambur uty Commissioner of on Friday evening. Pulianthope I Eswaran He was rushed to a and Assistant Comprivate hospital on missioner Praveen KuGreams Road, where mar went to the spot the doctors declared and conducted him dead. The body inquiries. was then sent to Rajiv Advocate & An advocate, ArmGandhi Government Ambedkarite strong was a promiGeneral Hospital for Armstrong, an nent Ambedkarite an autopsy. At least 10 advocate, was a voice in the city and is special teams have prominent remembered by many been formed by the Ambedkarite North Chennai resiGreater Chennai Po- voice and is dents as a political lice to trace and nab remembered by leader who educated the suspects. Two asso- many North and empowered severciates of Armstrong, Chennai al youngsters. Elected who were near him, residents as a as a councillor of sustained injuries and leader who Chennai Corporation are under treatment. in 2006, he unsuccesseducated and According to police, empowered fully contested the 2011 Armstrong, along with youngsters Assembly election a few of his party cadfrom Kolathur. The res, was overseeing construc- 4,000 odd votes secured by him tion work of a building at were slightly more than the Venugopal Street in Sembium winning margin secured by at around 7pm when the six- then deputy chief minister M K member gang came in two bikes Stalin over Saidai Duraisamy. and surrounded him. They al- He had been BSP’s state presilegedly hacked him with knives dent for 17 years. There are also and machetes and fled, leaving some cases against him. P5 Conservative Party The petitioner stated the solatium should be given only to accident victims and not to families of those who have committed an ‘illegal act’ of consuming illicit liquor for ‘attaining self-pleasure’. The government’s order to pay compensation to victim’s families is ‘unreasonable’ and ‘arbitrary,’ and those who died after consuming illicit liquor should not be treated as victims, he said. On what basis lesser solatium is given to victims of fire or other accidents, he asked. “The consumers of illicit liquor are not freedom fighters or social activists who have laid down their lives for the cause of the public,” the petitioner said. Fine looms, TN rushes to shore up renewable power @ Chennai Tamil Nadu has stepped up its efforts to sew up deals to meet the 2024-25 target of 29.91% of power to be derived from renewable energy sources. The state power utility how, ever, may find it difficult to meet the target set by the union power ministry . Failure to achieve this renewable purchase obligation (RPO) may cost state power utilities dearly as the ministry has fixed penalties. A senior official of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) told TNIE that the utility faces a fine of `3.72 for every unit of shortfall if it fails to meet the target by the end of this fiscal (March 31 of U.P. stampede Rahul blames it on lapse by administration Express News Service L 3.72/unit penalty S GU R UV A N M I K A N ATH A N suffered systematic failure, as it has not been vitiated by all pervasive factors of unfair means or paper leak etc,” the agency said. It added that the alleged irregularities were confined to certain centres in two cities — Patna and Godhra. The NTA said other individual instances of the alleged use of unfair means are very few and do not have any co-relation with the malpractices referred to by the petitioners. In all, 63 cases of use of unfair means were reported, and a committee submitted its recommendations for action. The panel recommended withholding the results of 33 candidates, debarment of 22 up to three years and declaring the result of nine. Exam functionaries of NEET (UG) 2024 have also registered 13 FIRs in cases of unfair means at different exam centres, the NTA said. @ Chennai (-251) 29 LABOUR: Preet Kaur Gill, Kanishka Narayan, Navendu Mishra, Satvir Kaur Tan Dhesi, Seema Malhotra, Valerie Vaz, Lisa Nandy, Jas Athwal , Kanishka Narayan, Baggy Shanker, Harpreet Uppal, Warinder Juss, Gurinder Josan, Sonia Kumar, Sureena Brackenbridge, Kirith Entwistle, Jeevun Sandher, Sojan Joseph CONSERVATIVE: Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Claire Coutinho, Gagan Mohindra, Shivani Raja LIBERAL DEMOCRAT: Munira Wilson IND: Shockat A Patel, Iqbal Mohamed HC to TN: why `10 lakh aid to kin of hooch victims? R SIV A K U M A R @ Chennai NEET-PG on August 11 S u c h i t ra K a lya n M o h a n t y y ESHI s ELI @ New Delhi express read Govt, NTA affidavits oppose demand to scrap NEET-UG till fiscal 2029-30 RPO targets ministry of power(in %) fixed by 2024-25 27.35 2025-26 2.1 2026-27 2.7 0.67 0.38 1.5 28.24 1.45 1.22 29.94 1.97 1.34 2027-28 2.45 3.30 31.64 1.42 2028-29 2.95 3.90 33.10 1.42 2029-30 3.48 Wind 4.50 Hydro 34.02 1.33 Distributed engery 2025). “The penalty clause has been introduced for the first time,” sources said. The RPO mandates all electricity distribution licensees to produce or procure a minimum quantity of their energy requirement from renewable sources. To escape the penalty clause, efforts are on to procure addi- Others Source: Ministry of Power tional solar power in the state. Tangedco has signed a deal with Solar Energy Corporation of India to procure 1,000 MW and is expected to enter into another agreement to purchase an additional 1,500 MW. “We also have 3,750 MW of renewable energy projects in various stages of completion. This includes 3,100 MW of so- lar, 350 MW of wind, and 300 MW of rooftop solar,” said a senior Tangedco official. Officials, however, believe that it may be impossible to achieve the target of 29.91%. “In 2023-24, the state consumed 1,28,213 million units (MUs) of energy, with Tangedco procuring around 24,000 MUs of green energy. For the current financial year, Tangedco needs to procure approximately 39,000 MUs of green energy. Achieving this target is impossible,” said a senior official. Tamil Nadu, known for its wind energy, has an installed capacity of 10,592 MW from wind. It produced 13,500 million units in 2023-24, way below the potential as most windmills are above 20 years old. P5 Rahul Gandhi consoles a woman, whose family member was a victim of the Hathras stampede, in a village | PTI Nam i ta B a j pa i @ Lucknow Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday said there were administrative lapses that led to the recent Hathras stampede, which killed 121 people, but added that he did not want to make it a political issue. “There have been mistakes and those should be looked into. The most important thing is that the bereaved families from the poor and deprived sections of society must be given more and more compensation in this difficult hour,” he said. Rahul urged UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to arrange generous financial relief. “It will be insignificance if delayed and paid after six months, a year,” said Rahul, who visited Aligarh and Hathras to meet the injured getting treatment in hospitals. Both the UP and the Central governments have already announced ex-gratia of `2 lakh each to the next kin of the deceased and `50,000 to the injured. So, each family that lost its kin would get `4 lakh and the injured would get `1 lakh. Rahul, who met the relatives of the victims in a park, later said most of the injured had complaints about the administration. “The required police mobilisation to handle such a gathering was not there.” Most of the victims seems annoyed with the Bhole Baba, who held the congregation but fled after the stampede.
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