BEYOND MODI 21 JULY 2024 www.thestatesman.com ARROGANCE EVEN AFTER BEING DEFEATED: SHAH SLAMS RAHUL PAGE 6 Twitter.com/TheStatesmanLtd Facebook.com/thestatesman PAGE 5 NAYAR & DOESCHATE LIKELY TO JOIN INDIAN TEAM AS ASSISTANT COACHES PAGE 12 India’s National Newspaper since 1818 PAGES 12 | `5.00 | LC KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR Airport systems working normally: Aviation Ministry Passengers face continued problems and delayed flights as carriers strive to clear backlog AGENCIES NEW DELHI, 20 JULY T he Civil Aviation Ministry said on Saturday that airline systems across airports in India have resumed operations normally after a mega Microsoft Windows outage hit systems globally. According to the Ministry, travel adjustments and refund processes are being taken care of, as it constantly monitors the situation at the airports. “Since 3 a.m, Airline systems across airports have started working normally. Flight operations are going smoothly now,” the Ministry said in an update. “There is a backlog because of disruptions yesterday, and it is getting cleared gradually. By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved,” the statement read. However, passengers at airports across the country continued to face problems for the second day on Saturday with many flights delayed and several cancelled due to the backlog and knock-on Airport authorities have deployed additional staff to assist travellers and manage the congestion. effects of yesterday’s massive outage. Long queues and delayed flights were reported at Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai airports. A passenger at Delhi airport said that most of the flights are delayed. “I am travelling to London, and my flight is delayed by half an hour at least. There is a long queue outside the airport. Most of the flights are delayed,” the said.The IGI Airport in Delhi faced significant disruptions on Saturday morning as the Digi Yatra system, a biometric-based boarding system, remained non-operational. Long queues were observed at the departure terminals as passengers struggled to check in manually. Airport authorities have deployed additional staff to assist travellers and manage the congestion. At Chennai Airport flights continued to be disrupted, and air traffic affected due to the blue screen error for the second day. On Friday, hundreds of flights including those by Indigo, Air India, SpiceJet and Akasa Air were delayed and well over 200 flights were cancelled due to the Windows outage. At the Delhi Airport, more than 400 flights were delayed and over 50 were cancelled, as per data by flightradar24. Low-cost carrier IndiGo experienced delays and cancellations of its flights. It activated ‘war rooms’ at 4 metro airports to manage operations. The airline cancelled several more flights on Saturday and warned customers they may still experience delays and schedule disruptions over the weekend. Other airlines, including Akasa and SpiceJet, also reported disruptions in flight operations. Air India, on Saturday, said that none of its flights was cancelled due to the massive CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage, barring some delays due to the impact of the outage on airport services. UPSC chairman Manoj Soni resigns citing ‘personal reasons’ 5 years before term ends PM to inaugurate World Heritage meet today AGENCIES STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 20 JULY NEW DELHI, 20 JULY In a surprising turn of events, UPSC Chairman Manoj Soni has put in his papers, citing "personal reasons" nearly five years before the end of his tenure. Sources at the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) told ANI news agency that his resignation has not yet been accepted. Mr Soni's term was originally set to conclude in 2029. (Photo) “UPSC chairman Manoj Soni has put in his papers due to personal reasons. His resignation has not been accepted yet. It is a long procedure,” sources at DOPT told ANI over the phone. ANI attempt- ed to contact Manoj Soni, but he did not respond to calls or texts. Mr Soni, who began working with the UPSC as a member in 2017, was sworn in as the chairperson of the commission on 16 May 2023. His tenure was supposed to end in 2029.The sources emphasised that Mr Soni's decision to step down is not related to the recent controversy involv- ing an UPSC candidate accused of submitting fraudulent certificates to secure placement in the Indian Administrative Service. According to the sources, he submitted his resignation "long back".The UPSC has been embroiled in controversy following allegations against trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who allegedly forged identity papers to gain entry into the civil service. Before joining UPSC, Mr Soni served two terms as ViceChancellor of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University from August 2009 to July 2015, and one term as Vice-Chancellor of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda from April 2005 to April 2008. NEET: NTA publishes centre-wise data for medical entrance exam STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 20 JULY The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Saturday declared the state-wise and centrewise data of the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 on the official website. The Supreme Court on 18 July directed the NTA to announce the results of the NEET UG by 20 July. The applicants will be able to check and download their results on the official website, that is https://neet.ntaonline.in/frontend/web/common-scorecard/index by entering their login credentials. A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ordered that result should be published separately, city-wide and centrewise, by 12 noon on Saturday. The apex court passed the direction to the NTA to publish the results, after the petitioners-students urged it to direct the testing agency to publish the result of all students to bring in some trans- parency. The top court in its order stated: "The petitioners have submitted that it would be appropriate if the results of the NEET-UG 24 exam is published on the website so as to bring about some transparency on the centre-wise marks obtained by candidates. We direct the NTA to publish the marks obtained by students in the NEET-UG 2024 exam while at the same time ensuring that the identity of the students is masked. The results should be declared in relation to each centre and city separately."The bench said it will continue the hearing of pleas alleging paper leak and malpractice in NEET-UG 2024 exams, on 22 July. The 46th World Heritage Committee Meeting beginning in New Delhi on Sunday will showcase India’s diverse and unique cultural and natural heritage to the world, taking the country's cultural glory to new heights, according to Union Minister of Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. The meeting, hosted by India for the first time, is scheduled to conclude on 31 July. It will be inaugurated by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi tomorrow. The inaugural ceremony will also be graced by Madam Audrey Azoulay, Director General, UNESCO and other senior officers from the UNESCO World Heritage Secretariat along with other high-level dignitaries like Culture Ministers, Ambassadors, and domain experts from various countries. Mr Shekhawat highlighted that this is the first mega event to be hosted by India in the third term of Prime Minister Modi. He applauded the Culture Ministry for organizing this meeting with a whole-of-government approach within a short span of 40 days. “The international meeting of this scale will further strengthen India’s soft power in the world and provide an opportunity for global audience and outreach,” he added. Highlighting the logo of the 46th World Heritage Committee meeting, the minister said it is inspired by the World Heritage Site of Hampi. ‘Reports of excess mortality during 2020 misleading’ STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 20 JULY The Union Health Ministry on Saturday said the media reports highlighting the findings from a paper published in an academic journal claiming excess mortality in 2020 is misleading. In a statement, the Ministry said: “Some media reports have highlighted the findings from a paper published today in an academic journal Science Advances on life expectancy during the Covid19 pandemic in India in 2020. These are based on untenable and unacceptable estimates.” While the authors claim to follow standard methodology of analysing National Family Health Survey, there are critical flaws in methodology, it said. “The most important flaw is that the authors have taken a subset of households included in the NFHS survey between January and April 2021, compared mortality in these households in 2020 with 2019, and extrapolated the results to the entire country,” the Ministry said. Stating that the NFHS sample is representative of the country only when it is considered as a whole, it said: “The 23 per cent of households included in this analysis from part of 14 states cannot be considered representative of the country. The other critical flaw is related to possible selection and reporting biases in the included sample due to the time in which these data were collected, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.” “It is strongly asserted that an excess mortality of about 11.9 lakh deaths reported in the Science Advances paper in 2020 over the previous year is a gross and misleading overestimate. It is noteworthy that excess mortality during the pandemic means an increase in deaths due to all causes, and cannot be equated with deaths that were directly caused by Covid-19,” it added. The Ministry further said: “The paper reports results on age and sex that are contrary to research and programme data on Covid-19 in India. The paper claims that excess mortality was greater in females and in younger age groups (particularly 0-19 year old children). Data on about 5.3 lakh recorded deaths due to Covid-19, as well as research data from cohorts and registries consistently shows higher mortality due to Covid-19 in males than females (2:1). These inconsistent and unexplainable results in the published paper further reduce any confidence in its claims.” “The all-cause excess mortality in 2020 compared with the previous year in India is markedly less than the 11.9 lakh deaths reported in the Science Advances paper. The paper published today is methodologically flawed and shows results that are untenable and unacceptable,” it added.