THE SUNDAY Vol. 35 No. 50 | Sunday, September 15, 2024 | 33 Pages | `5 & for Pune `6 only | Reg. No. MCS/048/2021-23; RNI No. 46955/1988 M.p.c.s. office Mumbai-400001 FREE PRESS Leader in E-paper circulation l www.freepressjournal.in Weekend Transgender dholtasha pathak makes debut during Ganeshotsav Gradation for Marathi to go FPJ Political Bureau MUMBAI EDITIONS: 4Contd on | Nation fp Briefs KOLKATA CBI arrests ex-principal of RG Kar The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Saturday arrested Dr Sandip Ghosh, the former principal of RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata, in connection with the rape and murder of a junior doctor. The probe agency also arrested Tala Police Station SHO Abhijit Mondal in the case. Both Ghosh and Mondol will be produced before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Court in Sealdah on Sunday. According to the CBI, the duo was involved in disturbing the crime scene, tampering evidence, violating official rules, criminal conspiracy and misleading investigators. MUMBAI Eid holiday shifted to Sept 18 The Maharashtra government has rescheduled the Eid-e-Milad holiday in Mumbai from September 16 to September 18. The order was issued by an official notification on Friday. This decision follows requests from Muslim MLAs and organizations, who planned to hold Eid-e-Milad processions on September 18 to avoid conflicts with Ganpati immersion ceremonies. As per the notification, the change was made to ‘maintain peace and social harmony’ between the two communities. INDORE Army man held for rape An army man posted in Assam was booked for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in an Indore hotel on Saturday. The victim is the wife of a bank manager and had gone to meet the accused. In her complaint, the woman alleged that the accused had even tried to push a glass in her private parts causing injuries. The woman stated that she had met the accused a year ago when he was posted in Mhow. She added that the accused reached her place in the city, made an objectionable video and started blackmailing her before eventually calling her to a hotel where the alleged assault took place. The accused refuted the allegations and said that the woman had called him to Indore for a meeting. INDORE GOOD LIFE JOURNAL PUNE BHOPAL NASHIK KONKAN E-paper Live smart Women engineers are breaking barriers Why collagen is important for maintaining skin health Sunday Read Indian paraathletes to struggle for support CAMPAIGN MODE | Prime Minister says his focus is carving out a young leadership in Jammu and Kashmir ‘Terrorism’s last breath’ Agencies The gradation system for Marathi language prevalent at some schools is to be discontinued, a Government Resolution (GR) issued on Friday said. Further, the state government has clarified that learning and teaching of the Marathi language is compulsory which, in turn, will make it binding to hold exams as it happens for the other subjects. MUMBAI ‘Urban naxal’ slur on Congress JAMMU Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off his poll campaign in Doda by asserting that terrorism was taking its last breath in Jammu and Kashmir. He said that his government projected new leadership to counter dynastic politics that has destroyed "this beautiful region". Hours before Modi began his nearly 45-minute speech at the rally three terrorists were killed on Saturday morning in an overnight encounter with security forces in Baramulla district, police said. “This time, the (assembly) election will decide the future of Jammu and Kashmir, which has remained the target of foreign powers since Independence," he told the gathering. The prime minister said his government focused on carving out a young leadership in Jammu and Kashmir soon after "we came to power at the Centre in 2014". "The youths of J-K used to face the brunt of terrorism. The parties which encouraged familism by misleading people enjoyed power and did not allow young leaders to take root. He said these parties (Con- PM Narendra Modi with ‘Deepjyoti’, a calf born at the Prime Minister's official residence, in New Delhi. –PTI This assembly election is between three families and the youth. On one side, there are those three families and on the other, my daughters and sisters who are driven by their dreams. – Narendra Modi gress, PDP, and NC) never wanted the youth to join politics but "we challenged their intentions and the result was that 30,000 to 35,000 youngsters got elected (in the local body elections) and took control of J-K". In the years under the BJP government, the prime minister said, Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a new phase of development and the credit for that goes to these elected youth. "I salute them for their contribution," he added. "This assembly election is between three families and the youth. On one side, there are those three families and on the other, my daughters and sisters who are driven by their dreams. 4Contd on | Nation CBI-FBI action busts cybercrime network Poll math powers duty on edible oil Dharmesh Thakkar MUMBAI MUMBAI The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in coordination with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), busted a virtual assets and bullion supported transnational cybercrime network that targeted foreign victims, after simultaneous raids at seven locations in Mumbai and Kolkata. The federal crime investigation agency, as part of ongoing 'Operation CHAKRA-III' dismantled a sophisticated cyber crime network supported by virtual assets and bullion that had been targeting victims since 2022. The International Operations Division of CBI had registered a case earlier on Monday against the key accused Vishnu Rathi, and launched investigation into the conspiracy targeting US citizens between June and August 2022 by gaining unauthorised remote access to the victims' computer and bank account on pretext of offering technical support services. “The accused falsely informed the US based victims that their bank accounts had been compromised and that the bank funds were at risk, manipulating the victims into transferring USD 453,953 to The searches at the residence of suspect Vishnu Rathi led to seizure of 57 gold bars of 100 gm each Ravikiran Deshmukh cryptocurrency wallets controlled by them,” explained a senior CBI official. It is not clear whether the money transferred to cryptocurrency wallets belonged to one or several victims. CBI sleuths swiftly conducted extensive searches at multiple locations linked to the accused and raided locations across Mumbai and Kolkata over Thursday and Friday to seize incriminating data to expose a transnational cyber-enabled financial crimes network. The searches at the residential premises of Rathi led to seizure of 57 gold bars of 100 gm each, cash amount of Rs.16,00,000, mobile phones and laptop used to manage crypto currencies, details of lockers and other incriminating documents. Mastermind Rathi, who is from Mumbai, was arrested during the raids last week. The NDA government decision to lift export curbs on onions and Basmati rice and to increase import duty on edible oil which is set to bring soybean at the minimum support price (MSP) rates came as a major relief for the state BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP - the alliance partners in Mahayuti government. The government increased the basic customs duty on crude palm, soybean and sunflower seed oil from nil to 20 per cent, and the basic customs duty on refined palm, soybean and sunflower oil from 12.5 per cent to 32.5 percent. It also cut the duty on onion export to 20 per cent from 40 per cent, which was in place since May 4. CM Eknath Shinde and his deputies Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar were quick to hail the decision and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the decision to remove the MEP on onion exports. Although the export ban on onions had been lifted, the MEP was imposed. Due to this, the farmers had to face difficulties. 4Contd on | Nation 4Contd on | Nation Congress speaks a new lie daily. It is attacking the country's unity, imposing 'Naxalwadi vichar – Narendra Modi and anti-tribal in the country, it is the Congress family. They have now said that if they come to power, they will end reservation for Dalits and the downtrodden. It is the truth of this family," he said. Highlighting various welfare schemes launched by the Centre and the Haryana BJP government, he referred to the dismal fiscal scenario in HP where the employees have not been getting salaries on time while various welfare schemes of previous governments had come to a standstill. 4Contd on | Nation Move aside moon, there’s a new sheriff in town. Rather, a deputy sheriff, in the form of a mini-moon. The Earth’s gravity is in the process of capturing an asteroid that will pirouette around the planet from September 29 to November 25, according to the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. Asteroids that fail to escape Earth’s gravity and end up orbiting the planet for a short period of time are termed as mini-moons. The asteroid in question, 2024 PT5, is just 33 feet long. It will complete a loop around the planet, before breaking free of its orbit and disappearing into the vast vacuum of space. According to a New York Times report, mini-moons Gautam S Mengle he recently released limited series, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, sparked off a heated debate almost as soon as it was released. While it began with a certain section taking offence to the hijackers in the series “using Hindu codenames to purposely defame the religion”; actual survivors quickly came forward to state that these were the codenames used by the actual terrorists, and that the on-screen depiction was an accurate one. The ‘outrage’, however, opened up a debate on another subject: the decision to release Masood Azhar in exchange for the hostages. Azhar would go on to plan Cloudflare’s research found that 82 percent of Indian organisations that were hit chose to pay the ransom 4Contd on | Nation Reciprocal visits end in stalemate Didi turns up at protest site, junior doctors go to CM's residence but deadlock persists KOLKATA A day of twists and turns ended in stalemate again between the protesting doctors and the West Bengal Chief Minister as a delegation of the junior doctors left the Chief Minister's residence in the pouring rain late on Saturday evening. They claimed they had been turned away after having agreed to a change in a key condition that they would settle for the signed minutes of the meeting instead of videography which has been a sticking point. As they left the residence the doctors told the media that they were “crestfallen’ and said they would decide on the next steps after they reached the site of their protests for the last month and DIALOGUE OF THE DEAF? Mamata at the protest site on Saturday. –ANI conferred with fellow agitators. “We were told that even videography cannot take place from our side. Since the Chief Minister had requested us personally, we held a personal meeting amidst our delegation and to show respect to the SEBI chief invested in Chinese funds: Cong Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar NEW DELHI The Congress on Saturday asked “Is the PM aware that the SEBI chairperson has been investing in Chinese firms at a time when India is facing geopolitical tensions with China?” The question came from party general secretary Jairam Ramesh soon after its head of media and publicity Pawan Khera claimed in a press conference that Madhabi Puri Buch held foreign assets from 2017 to 2021 and questioned when she first declared these assets, which included investments in Chinese funds, to government agencies. 4Contd on | Nation Earth to get mini-moon for 2 months Agencies invitation several dastardly attacks against India, including the Pulwama attack of 2019. In 2024, India faces a similar threat, one that seems to have very little prevention and no cure - the threat of ransomware attacks. And the Kandahar analogy is not without reason: Those hit by ransomware attacks are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Earlier this year, Cloudflare, a US based cybersecurity and research agency, conducted a study into the cyber threat landscape for each country in the Asia Pacific region based on incidents reported from, but not limited to, June 2023 to June 2024. The results, which were released this week, identify ransomware attacks among the top threats faced by Indian organizations. Simply speaking, a ransomware attack is a cyber attack where your data is captured and the attackers demand a hefty amount as ransom in exchange for releasing it back to you. This is usually done by slipping a malware - a software designed for malicious purposes - into your server. Aritra Singha Short-term satellite NEW YORK By T Rajesh Moudgil CHANDIGARH In his first election rally in Haryana the Prime Minister described the Congress Party as a "a new form of urban naxals’’. "Today's Congress has become new (naya roop) form of urban Naxal. They do not feel any shame in speaking lies," Modi said. "When their lie is caught, they still feel no shame. The Congress speaks a new lie daily. It is attacking the country's unity regularly and is imposing 'Naxalwadi vichar' (Naxal thoughts)." Addressing a rally at Kurukshetra ahead of the upcoming October 5 state assembly election, Modi alleged that appeasement has been Congress’ biggest aim and it could do anything to achieve it. He said the Congress has done nothing for farmers and the party's "royal family" intends to end reservation for Dalits but as long as he was there, he will not allow this. "If there is anybody who is the biggest anti-Dalit, anti-OBC The unequal war on ransomware are not just astronomical bodies. Quite often, rockets that have broken off from spacecrafts have also assumed the status of a minimoon. The European Space Agency’s star-mapping spacecraft Gaia was once also mistakenly christened as a mini-moon. 2024 PT5 was discovered on Aug. 7 using the NASAfunded Asteroid Terrestrialimpact Last Alert System, or ATLAS. The origin of this ‘asteroid’ is believed to have stemmed from Earth’s ‘permanent’ satellite, the moon. Paul Chodas, the di- rector of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that it’s “possibly a piece of ejecta from an impact on the moon.” However, it is worth noting that for an object to qualify as a mini-moon, it has to complete one full revolution around the Earth. 2024 PT5 is only expected to perform a semi-circular or a horseshoe orbit. So it may not officially be conferred the status of ‘mini-moon.’ 4Contd on | Nation Chief Minister we had agreed to hold the meeting with the minutes of the meeting duly signed by both the parties. While we were holding our personal meeting we were told that it is too late and the MoS health, Chief Secretary, Health Secretary left in front of us and the door was closed,” said the protesting doctors. Earlier in the evening the delegation of 30 doctors stood steadfastly in the rain outside the residence of the Chief Minister refusing umbrellas and offers of tea. Mamata had contended that since the matter was subjudice videography would be organised by her and released to the doctors after getting a nod from the SC. 4Continued on | P11 Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi colluding with Amazon, Flipkart: CCI Agencies NEW DELHI Samsung, Xiaomi and other smartphone companies colluded with Amazon and Flipkart to exclusively launch products on the e-commerce firms' Indian websites in breach of antitrust laws, according to regulatory reports seen by Reuters. Antitrust investigations conducted by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) have found that Amazon and Flipkart violated local competition laws by giving preference to select sellers, prioritising certain listings, and steeply discounting products, hurting other companies, Reuters reported this week. The CCI's 1,027-page report on Amazon also said the Indian units of five companies - Samsung Xiaomi, Motorola, Realme and OnePlus - were "involved in the practice of exclusive" phone launches in "collusion" with Amazon and its affiliates, breaking competition law.
