SATURDAY 20 JULY 2024 www.thestatesman.com Pages 12 |` 5.00|LC Twitter.com/thestatesman Facebook.com/thestatesman INDIA’S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER SINCE 1818 KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR TRUMP URGES UNITY AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT IN RNC FINALE RECOVERY BUDGET P6 P9 SENSEX 80,604.65738.81 WEATHER Generally cloudy sky. Light rain or thunderstorms likely to occur. Maximum and minimum temperatures likely to be around 32°C and 27°C respectively. RAINFALL: NIL RELATIVE HUMIDITY Max. 88% Max: 32.5°C SUN RISES 05:03 hrs MOON RISES 17:44 hrs NIFTY 24,530.90269.95 Min: 27.2°C SUN SETS 18:22 hrs MOON SETS 03:26 hrs ` vs $ 83.66 Global Microsoft outage badly impacts airline services in India The outage grounded flights and crippled banks, hospital systems & media outlets worldwide massive global outage in US tech giant Microsoft’s systems badly disrupted services across multiple sectors worldwide, including in India, where airlines and airport services were majorly hit. The outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world. Millions of Microsoft Windows users are also experiencing the "Blue Screen of Death" error that causes their computers to shut down or restart. The company said it is due to a recent update of American cyber security company Crowdstrike. It cited a "configuration change in a portion of its Azure backend workloads" as the primary reason. In India, operations of major airlines like Indigo, Vistara, Akasa, Spicejet, and Air India, as well as airport services were affect- THUMBNAILS Personnel of the J&K Agriculture Department cultivate five lakh lavender mother plants, at Incha village in Ramnagar tehsil, Udhampur on Friday.  ANI Govt to introduce six Bills in Budget session of Parliament: Six Bills, including the Finance Bill 2024, will be tabled in both the Houses of the Parliament when it reconvenes for the Budget session next week, according to information available from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Besides the Finance Bill, the government is also expected to table The Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, The Boilers Bill, The Bhartiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, The Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill and The Rubber (Promotion and Development) Bill, when the Parliament reconvenes. Days after Zelenskyy’s remarks on PM’s Moscow visit, EAM speaks to Ukrainian FM STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE People wait in a queue outside an airline ticket office after the major disruption in Microsoft's cloud services, at an airport in Jammu on Friday.  ANI Passengers wait due to delays in airline services caused by the Microsoft global outage, at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Friday.  ANI ed, leading to long queues and slow check-ins. Operations at key airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata Bengaluru and Chennai, were impacted due to the tech outage. Online services including booking, web check-in and related services were hit and airlines resorted to manual checkin and boarding processes at various airports. The issue reportedly began at 10:45 a.m. and Former Foreign Secretary appointed next envoy to USA STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 19 JULY NEW DELHI, 19 JULY to New Delhi earlier this year and the meeting between President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Modi in Italy, I spoke with my Indian counterpart @DrSJaishankar about the further development of Ukrainian-India bilateral relation.” The Ministry of External Affairs, meanwhile, pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had emphasised the need for peaceful solutions to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, highlighting the devastating effects of violence on civilians and children during his official visit to Moscow. Former Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra was on Friday named as India's next Ambassador to the United States. He is expected to take up the assignment shortly, the Ministry of External Affairs said. The key ambassadorial position in Washington has been lying vacant since January 2024 after Mr Taranjit Sandhu's retirement. Mr Kwatra retired as Foreign Secretary earlier this month with Mr Vikram Misri succeeding him in the post. Mr Kwatra has previously served in China, the USA, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office and as India's envoy to France from August 2017 to February 2020. affected multiple airlines, including IndiGo, Akasa, and SpiceJet, causing significant inconvenience to passengers. IndiGo cancelled 283 flights due to the disruption caused by the Crowdstrike bug, the airline said on its website. Till 3 p.m, on Friday, 25 flights to and from Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport had been cancelled while over 70 were delayed. There were also reports of dozens of flights being cancelled at other airports across the country. Delhi airport said some of its services have been impacted and it is working to minimise the inconvenience to fliers. At Bengaluru, 90 per cent of flights operating out of Terminal 1 have been impacted and airlines are using manual methods to check passengers in. Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu has said the ministry and Airports Authority of India PARIS 2024: MANDAVIYA JOINS TOP OLYMPIANS IN PANEL DISCUSSION P12 SILVER 93,250 GOLD 75,605.00 A Full Moon on 4 August External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday had a telephonic conversation with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and discussed all aspects of bilateral relations between the two countries. The conversation between the two leaders took place days after Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy condemned the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, calling it a “devastating blow to peace efforts”. “A good conversation with FM @DmytroKuleba of Ukraine this afternoon. Spoke about further developing our bilateral relationship,” Mr Jaishankar wrote on X. In a social media post, the Ukrainian foreign minister wrote: “Building on my visit P7 STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 19 JULY Min. 80% TEMPERATURE ‘HARMONY VITAL FOR MSME GROWTH’ (AAI) are actively managing the situation using manual methods to ensure minimal disruption. The Union government said it was in touch with Microsoft and its associates in connection with the global outage. “Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. The reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue. CERT is issuing a technical advisory. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) network is not affected," said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, in a post on X. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) also issued an advisory, addressing the outage impacting Microsoft Windows systems. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), meanwhile, said some 10 banks and non-banking finance companies in the country faced minor disruptions due to the large-scale outage. (More on Pages 2, 9) BRENT CRUDE (IN $) 82.300.45 UPSC moves to cancel Puja Khedkar’s selection citing gross anomalies STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 19 JULY The Union Public Service Commission on Friday initiated action to cancel the selection of trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar who was being investigated for lying about her visual and mental disabilities and faking her identity to clear the prestigious civil services entrance exam. “The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has conducted a detailed and thorough investigation into the misdemeanour of Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar, a provisionally recommended candidate of the Civil Services Examination2022. “From this investigation, it has been revealed that she fraudulently availed attempts beyond the permissible limit under the Examination Rules by faking her identity by way of changing her name, her father’s and mother’s name, her photograph/ signature, her email ID, mobile number and address,” a notification by UPSC stated. “The UPSC has, therefore, initiated a series of actions against her, including Criminal Prosecution by filing a First Information Report (FIR) with the Police Authorities and has issued a Show Cause Notice (SCN) for cancellation of her candidature of the Civil Services Examination-2022/debarment from future examinations/selections, in accordance with the Rules of the Civil Services Examination-2022,” it added. The development came hours after the Maharashtra government submitted a report in the case to the Centre. The report revealed that Ms Khedkar fraudulently availed attempts beyond the permissible limit under the examination rules by faking her identity by way of changing her name, her father’s and mother’s name, photograph, signature, her email ID, mobile number and address. The UPSC also said it strictly adheres to its constitutional mandate, and conducts all its processes, including all examinations, with the highest possible order of due diligence without any compromise. Sexual harassment at Kolkata Raj Bhavan: SC seeks Centre, Bengal govt’s response on immunity to governors from criminal prosecution PARMOD KUMAR NEW DELHI, 19 JULY The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from the Central and the West Bengal governments on a plea by a former woman staffer of the Kolkata Raj Bhavan, who has alleged sexual harassment by the Governor CV Ananda Bose, challenging the immunity granted to the Governor under Article 361 of the Constitution. Granting liberty to the petitioner woman staffer to implead the Central government, Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a bench also comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra sought the assistance of the Attorney General R. Venkataramani in the matter. The bench posted the matter for hearing after threeweeks. Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Shyam Divan told the bench that Article 361 that grants state Governors immunity from criminal prosecution in any court during their term of office, was not a bar to the investigation. “It cannot be that there is no investigation. Evidence has to be gathered right now. It cannot be deferred indefinitely,” Mr Divan told the bench pointing to the distinction between investiga- tion and immunity from prosecution under Article 361. The petitioner has sought direction to the West Bengal police to carry out investigation in the matter and to record the statement of the Governor, and the framing of guidelines on how the immunity given under Article 361 can be exercised by the Governor. The petition urged the top court to decide “whether sex- ual harassment and molestation forms part of the discharging or performing duties by the Governor”, so as to grant him a blanket immunity under Article 361 of the Constitution. Article 361(2) of the Constitution reads: “No criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be instituted or continued against the President, or the Governor of a State, in any court during his term of office.” “This court has to decide whether a victim like the Petitioner can be rendered remediless, with the only option being to wait for the accused to demit his office, which delay will then be unexplainable during the trial, and render the entire procedure a mere lip service, without any justice to the victim herein," the plea stated. The petitioner has claimed such an immunity cannot be absolute and asked the top court to frame guidelines and qualification to the extent of immunity enjoyed by the office of the Governor. “The petitioner is aggrieved by the sexual advances/harassment made by the constitutional authority – the Governor, State ofWest Bengal in the premises of Raj Bhavan itself. However, due to the blanket immunity bestowed under Article 361, Constitution, petitioner is left remediles despite the offence against her person, and therefore is constrained to approach this apex court directly,” states the petition. The plea said that the immunity provided by Article 361 should not be absolute, particularly in cases involving illegal acts or violations of fundamental rights. The petition says that the immunity cannot impair the police’s powers to investigate the offence or even naming the perpetrator in the complaint/FIR, despite specific averments to that effect. Dented corn ethanol, a pathway UP govt extends order to display names of shop owners along Kanwar Yatra route to entire state for India’s decarbonization STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE LUCKNOW, 19 JULY Undeterred by criticism from the opposition and even NDA partners, the Uttar Pradesh government on Friday ordered the display of the names of owners of food and beverage shops situated along the Kanwar yatra routes across the entire state. Earlier, the Muzaffarnagar district adminstration had issued the directive early this week, followed by similiar measures in Saharanpur and Shamli, but now it has been extended to the entire state. The Uttarakhand government also issued a similar order to dhaba and hotel owners on the highways, on the Kanwar Yatra route, to display their names and mobile numbers. SP President AkhileshYadav, BSP chief Mayawati and Con- gress have already opposed the decision taken by the Muzaffarnagar authorities. UP CM Yogi Adityanath, however, has made it clear that shopkeepers will have to display their names on Kanwar Yatra routes in the entire state. Amid the debate and war of words between the opposition and ruling party leaders, shopkeepers and street ven- dors have been putting up nameplates in front of their shops, including their names and other details, since Thursday evening. Along with the leaders of opposition parties, NDA allies have also opposed the move by the UP government. The KanwarYatra begins on 22 July in the holy month of Shravan in which around 5 crore people in UP participate. JD(U) leader KC Tyagi said that an even bigger Kanwar Yatra takes place in Bihar, but no such order is implemented there. The restrictions that have been imposed are a violation of the Prime Minister's slogan of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas'. This order is not applicable in Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand. It would be good if this should be reviewed, he said on Friday. UP RLD president Ramashish Rai in a tweet on X said that the administration in UP directing shopkeepers to display their name and religion at their shops is a step that promotes caste and sect. The administration should take it back.This is an unconstitutional decision, he stated. Congress General Secretary Priyanka GandhiVadra on Friday slammed the UP government’s order and demand- ed its immediate roll-back. Asserting that the order is an attack on the Constitution of India, she called it “divisive”. Muslim religious leader Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi Barelvi, on the other hand, said that the instruction was given to to prevent Hindu-Muslim confrontation and he supports it. The Maulana alleged that Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav is politicising the issue. I request him not to create division between Hindus and Muslims, he said. UP Minister of State for Skill Development Kapil Dev Aggarwal said that the opposition is unnecessarily giving importance to the matter. “What's the harm in transparency? The rules are not for any caste or religion. Shopkeepers from all over the society have been asked to do so,” he said. CMYK STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 19 JULY Highlighting the importance of bio ethanol derived from dented corn, J P Gupta, chair, Environment Committee, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Friday said it represents a technologically mature and economically competitive pathway for India’s de-carbonization and sustainable development. Dr Gupta said that the dented corn ethanol embodies “Food, Feed, and Fuel,” and added that the beauty of the same is that no other source provides the dual use. He further said that it will not only provide a good source of energy, but will also help change the financial condition of the farmer, as more demand will increase more income. Dr Gupta in his address at the 4th International Climate Summit organised in New Delhi by the PHD chambers of commerce and industry, further pointing out the use of corn ethanol mentioned that it has the potential of replacing 100 per cent use of gasoline in the flexi engines, can be used as aviation turbine fuel, and also be a replacement for LPG etc. Dr Gupta further said that the dented corn is particularly advantageous for ethanol production due to its high starch content of 70-75 per cent, compared to the 20-30 per cent in normal corn, and because of this, as a result it produces greater ethanol yield, which is 2.8 gallons per bushel versus 1 gallon per bushel from normal corn, he claimed. One more advantage of dented corn is that the same is the most produced crop globally, he added. Dr Gupta also said that it makes for a good raw in the production of special chemicals and thermoplastics, also providing an answer to climate change, with its contribution in up to 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as compared to the fossil fuels. He said that the PHD chambers has been in the forefront in charting the pathway for the decarbonization of India through green hydrogen, and has hosted three international climate summits and authoring three knowledge books on green hydrogen.