chennai l Thursday l October 10, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION Trio win Nobel chemistry Prize for work on protein structure David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were honoured for their work in predicting and even designing the structure of proteins David Baker John Jumper Demis Hassabis Baker awarded for designing new proteins Using AI to predict protein structure Baker designed a new protein in 2003 and his research group has since produced several new proteins, including those that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors. “David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins,” the Nobel Committee said in its statement | P15 ■ ■ Hassabis and Jumper created an artificial intelligence model that has been able to predict the complex structure of over 200 million proteins The shape of proteins is key as it determines their function. Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the two solved a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures 2020 when Hassabis and Jumper first used AI to predict protein structure 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 Knives out for Congress from INDIA bloc allies after Haryana debacle Shiv Sena (UBT), AAP, TMC lead the attack, say grand old party’s arrogance led to defeat P R E E T HA N A I R @ New Delhi 28 December 1937 — 9 October 2024 tata, ratan G u rbir S in g h @ Mumbai INDIA’s best known industrialist and chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, Ratan Tata, 86, passed away at South Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital late on Wednesday night leaving a vacuum in the formidable $100 billion Tata Group. Confir ming persistent speculation that the ailing cor porate leader had breathed his last, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran announced: “It is with a profound sense of loss that we bid farewell to Mr Ratan Naval Tata, a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have TM Krishna’s MS misogyny S Gurumurthy calls out the conferring of the ‘Sangita Kalanidhi MS Subbulakshmi Award’ on TM Krishna despite the latter’s misogynistic tirade against MS, who Nehru said was the Queen of Music Page: 11 express read SS workers’ pay released Chennai: Following a staff protest on Wednesday, the state school education department released the September salaries of over 20,000 employees under the Samagra Shiksha scheme | P2 shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation.” Paying condolences to the industrialist, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a post on X said: “He provided stable leadership to one of India’s oldest and most prestigious business houses.” As late as on Monday, when he was admitted to hospital, Ratan Tata took to X to scotch speculation about his ill health saying he was going in for a routine medical check-up. Ratan Tata started his career in the Tata Group in 1961 managing operations on the shop floor of Tata Steel.  Continued on: P16 THE Congress on Wednesday came under fire from its INDIA bloc allies who squarely blamed the grand old party for the poll debacle in Haryana, with several leaders accusing it of being ‘arrogant, overconfident and entitled’ and giving less space to its regional allies. Launching a scathing attack, the Shiv Sena (UBT) attributed the Congress’s poor show to the ‘overconfidence and arrogance’ of the party’s state leadership. In an editorial of Sena’s mouthpiece Saamana, it asked the Congress leadership to introspect and learn from its mistakes. The jibe comes at a time when Congress and the alliance partners are engaged in seatsharing talks ahead of the Maharashtra elections, scheduled for later this year. “The INDIA alliance could not win in Haryana because the Congress felt they would win Congress leaders Pawan Khera, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Jairam Ramesh, K C Venugopal and others after meeting the Election Commission of India | Parveen Negi on their own and they did not need any other partner in power. If they had shared seats with the SP, AAP or other smaller parties, the results would have been different,” said Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut. The Congress’ Haryana unit had unit refused to accommodate the AAP and the SP though , senior leader Rahul Gandhi was in favour of it. The party suffered another setback as its Uttar Pradesh ally Samajwadi Par ty on Wednesday released a list of six candidates for the upcoming Assembly bypolls. Sources said Congress leaders were upset about the SP’s unilateral move as it came in the middle of ongoing talks. Meanwhile, leaders of AAP and TMC were unsparing towards the Congress. AAP leaders also ruled out any truck with the Congress in Delhi assembly elections, scheduled for 10 Samsung workers held; end stir, FM asks union EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Chennai A month after Samsung workers started striking work at Sriperumbudur, Kancheepuram police on Wednesday arrested 10 workers from their houses and detained over 600 others from the protest venue. This comes a day after Samsung, firm in its stance of not engaging with the CITU-affiliated Samsung India Thozhilalar Sangam, entered into an agreement with a workmen committee at its Chennai factory . Eight arrested workers were let off after the magistrate had refused to remand them and two were remanded, CITU members said. The 600-odd detainees were released later in the day Meanwhile, the Madras . High Court, closing a habeas corpus petition filed by CITU’s E Muthukumar alleging illegal detention of workers, said there is no bar on their peaceful Police removing Samsung workers from protest venue | special arrangement protest. Union members said the protests will continue from the same site near the Samsung factory On Wednesday leaders . , Youth hurt in Chennai student clash dies express news service @ Chennai A 20-year-old Presidency College student, who was attacked allegedly by five students from Pachaiyappa’s College at the Chennai suburban terminal on Friday, succumbed to his injuries at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGG G H ) e a rl y We d n e s d ay mor ning. Periamet police, which arrested the five students on Friday evening, has altered the charges against them from attempted murder to murder. Security has been tightened at the suburban terminal and at both colleges to prevent any untoward incidents, police said. Demanding justice, some Presidency College students staged a protest on the campus, A Sundar until the police assured them of action. The college has declared a holiday till Tuesday . The Periamet police said the victim, A Sundar from Ponpadi in Tiruttani in the Tiruvallur district, was pursuing his first year in Political Science. Both his parents are daily wage labourers. Around 2.30 pm on Friday the police said, an argu, ment broke out between Sundar and two of his friends and the five students from Pachaiyappa’s College at the suburban terminal after the latter had asked the Presidency students to remove their college identity cards. This escalated into an altercation and the five students attacked Sundar, who sustained serious injuries and started bleeding from his ear, said the police. Passers-by alerted the cops who rushed him to the RGGGH. The police arrested thirdyear BA History student N Chandru (20), second-year BA Tamil student P Yuvraj (20), second-year BA History student S Easwar (19), and secondyear BA Economics students M Hari Prasad alias Bujji (20) and K Kamaleshwaran (19) on Friday evening. Sundar’s body was handed over to his parents on Wednesday afternoon. ‘Focus on edu’ On Friday, Govt Railway Police Egmore DSP Ramesh appealed to the students of the two colleges to focus on studies instead of getting into clashes with other college students due procedure Drama over Atishi’s ‘eviction’ from official house An u p V er m a @ New Delhi The never-ending political tussle between Delhi’s AAP government and the Lieutenant Governor has a new flashpoint: the Delhi chief minister’s official residence. Delhi Chief Minister Atishi’s office on Wednesday alleged that her official residence at 6, Flagstaff Road was forcibly vacated by Lieutenant Governor (L-G) V K Saxena on orders from the BJP . “For the first time in the history of the country, the Chief Minister’s residence was vacated. On the instructions of the BJP, L-G forcibly removed CM A man carrying goods on a cart leaves the residence of Delhi CM | PTI Atishi’s belongings from the CM residence. LG is preparing to allot the CM residence to a big BJP leader. The BJP which , has been out of power in Delhi for 27 years, is now trying to oc- early next year. Taking potshots at Congress, AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha penned a poem on X: “If you had cared about my wishes, it would have been a different matter, If you had taken care of our desires, it would have been a different evening. Today he too must be regretting leaving me, If we had walked together it would have been something else.” Several Opposition leaders including Congress’ Jammu and Kashmir ally Omar Abdullah, the Left parties, and Bihar ally RJD targeted the Congress and asked it to introspect and change its strategies. “Congress will have to go deep into it and find the reasons for its defeat,” Abdullah said. TMC MP Saket Gokhale said the attitude of not accommodating regional parties even in places where they felt they were winning, led to the shocking electoral setback. cupy the CM residence,” the Chief Minister’s Office alleged in the statement. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, “Despite official correspondence, the CM residence had not been allotted to Atishi, who is the rightful allottee as CM of Delhi. Although a temporary office was set up at the residence and meetings were held, the staff was later evacuated, and it was declared that the office would not operate from there.” Sources at the L-G’s office, however, said the owner of the CM’s residence is the Public Works Department, which takes possession of the resi- dence after it is vacated, makes inventory of goods kept there, and then, allots it to the next chief minister. “This house has not been allotted to CM Atishi yet and her allotted residence is still 17 AB Mathura Road. CM Atishi herself kept her belongings in that house without allotment and then removed it herself. This bungalow will be allotted to the CM immediately after duly preparing the inventory,” the sources said. The BJP claimed that the bungalow was not handed over to the Public Works Department and its keys were still with Kejriwal. Just moved Chief Minister Atishi moved to the bungalow in North Delhi’s Civil Lines area on Monday. It was occupied for over nine years by Arvind Kejriwal from DMK-allied parties, including VCK chief Thol Thirumavalavan, visited the protesters, in solidarity. However, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu urged CITU to end the strike, keeping in mind the interests of thousands of Samsung employees. He said the labour department is not opposed to the registration of the union and will adhere to the verdict to be given by the HC on the workers’ petition seeking direction to register the union. P4 RBI keeps repo rate unchanged at 6.5% for 10th time in a row B enn K o c h u vee d a n @ Mumbai The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5%, for the 10th time in a row, but changed its stance to ‘neutral’ that may lead to a cut in the forthcoming policies. According to analysts, the change in stance is the first step towards a rate cut and signals the beginning of the easing cycle as early as December. However, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, who completes his five-year term in December, refused to accept the policy stance change is a pivot. “The prevailing and expected inflationgrowth balance has created conditions for a shift in the monetary policy stance as there is greater confidence on last mile of disinflation,” he said. The banking Shaktikanta Das regulator also retained the retail inflation projection at 4.5% for 2024-25, with Das stressing the central bank will have to closely monitor the price situation and keep the ‘inflation horse’ under tight leash lest it may bolt again. RBI maintained status quo despite the US Federal Reserve lowering the benchmark rates by 50 basis points last month. The central banks of some developed nations have also reduced their interest rates. This was the first meeting after the RBI’s monetary policy committee was reconstituted last month. The three newly appointed external members are Ram Singh, Saugata Bhattacharya and Nagesh Kumar.