THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 2024 www.thestatesman.com Pages 12 |` 5.00|LC X.com/thestatesmanltd. Fb/thestatesman1875 INDIA’S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER SINCE 1818 KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR P9 SENSEX 79,942.18q426.85 WEATHER MIST IN THE MORNING. MAINLY CLEAR SKY. THE MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM TEMPERATURES WOULD BE AROUND 36 AND 21 DEGREE CELSIUS RESPECTIVELY. RAINFALL: Nil RELATIVE HUMIDITY Max. 94 % TEMPERATURE P5 NIFTY 24,340.85q126.00 P2 ` vs $ 84.09 GOLD 82,080.00 Canada accuses Shah of targeting Sikh separatists Canadian minister David Morrison admits that he leaked information on New Delhi’s alleged involvement in hostile activities to a US daily STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, 30 OCTOBER Min. 48 % Max: 36.1 °C (+5) SUN RISES 06:33 hrs MOON RISES 06:14 hrs CM ATISHI APPROVES ‘ANYWHERE REGISTRATION’ POLICY IMPLEMENTING POLL PROMISES A TIGHTROPE WALK FOR OMAR IN J&K CLOSING ARGUMENTS SHOW STARK CHOICE BETWEEN TRUMP HARRIS , Min: 21.0 °C (+5) SUN SETS 17:37 hrs MOON SETS 16:50 hrs THUMBNAILS Artists play the roles of Lord Ram, Lakshman and Sita and others during the Ayodhya Deepotsav for the Diwali festival celebrations in Ayodhya on Wednesday.n ANI T op officials of the Canadian government have claimed that India's Home Minister Amit Shah ordered a "campaign of violence, intimidation and intelligence-gathering" targeting Sikh separatists in Canada. According to international agency reports, the revelation was made by Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison who on Tuesday faced Parliament members of his country's national security committee. He admitted to leaking sensitive information regarding the Indian government’s alleged involvement in hostile activities on Canadian soil to a popular US daily. Mr Morrison told the committee that he had confirmed Shah's name to The Washington Post, which first reported the allegations a day before India recalled its six diplomats, including the High Commissioner, from Canada. “The journalist called me and asked if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person,” Morrison told Parliament members. However, he did not comment on how Canada knew of Mr Shah’s alleged involvement. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's national security adviser Nathalie Drouin told the committee that Canada has evidence the Indian government first gathered information on Indian nationals and Canadian citizens in Canada through diplomatic channels and proxies. The Globe and Mail reported that the leaked information not only pointed to Mr Shah, but also connected India to the killing of Sikh activist Sukhdool Singh Gill, who was shot in Winnipeg last year. On being quizzed, Ms Drouin said the decision to leak information to The Washington Post was part of a strategy to ensure a major US outlet reported on Canada’s stance in its escalating foreign-interference dispute with India. “We provided nonclassified information on our actions and the evidence linking the Indian government to illegal activities targeting Canadians, including lifethreatening threats,”Ms Drouin testified, adding that similar briefings were shared with Canadian opposition leaders. New Delhi had last month lashed out at Canada’s “preposterous imputations” on the involvement of Indian diplomats in the Nijjar case, warning that India “reserves the right to take further steps in response”. India had also ordered the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats, while also announcing its decision to withdraw the Indian High Commissioner to Canada and “other targeted diplomats”, citing security concerns after Ottawa identified them as “persons of interest” in its investigation into Nijjar’s killing. INDIA EMPLOY SPINNERS IN MUMBAI NETS TO TACKLE NZ SPIN THREAT P12 SILVER 1,09,000 BRENT CRUDE (IN $) 72.20p1.08 Disengagement complete; India, China to resume patrols PARWINDER SANDHU NEW DELHI, 30 OCTOBER The disengagement of Indian and Chinese troops from the Depsang and Demchok areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh was completed on Wednesday, bringing an end to days of speculation. Defence sources confirmed that following the disengagement, coordinated patrolling by both sides will commence, and ground commanders are expected to engage in discussions in the coming days. With troops pulling back to mutually agreed distances from the standoff points, a joint verification of the disengagement is underway. “Disengagement has been completed at Depsang and Demchok, and verification is in progress. Talks will continue at the local commanders’ level, and patrolling is expected to resume soon,” noted a source. Discussions on patrolling procedures will be handled by ground commanders of brigadier rank and below, and a ceremonial exchange of sweets is scheduled for Thursday, Diwali, it was revealed. Indian youth among best in innovation & technology: PM Modi AGENCIES NEW DELHI, 30 OCTOBER BJP MPs move HC for implementation of Ayushman Bharat Scheme in Delhi Five nomads killed, 10 injured in Odisha clash Seven elephants found dead in Madhya Pradesh reserve STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE BHOPAL, 30 OCTOBER: NEW DELHI, 30 OCTOBER Delhi BJP MPs have filed a joint writ petition in the Delhi High Court seeking the implementation of Centre's Ayushman Bharat Scheme in the national capital, party's state unit chief Virendra Sachdeva (photo) said on Wednesday. Addressing a press conference here, Mr Sachdeva accused the AAP government and Arvind Kejriwal of not allowing the people of Delhi access to the unique health insurance scheme, which is now expanded making it possible for the elderly, 70 years or above, in the country to access free treatment with the Ayushman Vaya Vandana Card. Slamming the AAP government for its decision to not implement the Centre's scheme in Delhi, he said when PM Narendra Modi expressed his pain over the people in Delhi, especially the elderly, being unable to avail of the scheme's benefits, the BJP MPs here decided to explore legal options to mitigate the problem. The BJP leader pointed out that the elderly, who usually feel shy of expressing their requirements, cannot avail of the benefits of the Centre's scheme because of the state government’s decision not to implement the same. With such a scheme that provides treatment of up to Rs 5 lakh for free of cost, the elderly population is bound to have a sense of independence. Mr Sachdeva further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wants to serve the elderly of the country, is not able to do so in Delhi and West Bengal because of the state governments’ indiscretion. Raising doubts over the health model of mohalla clinics, he dared AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal to prove 300 of 500 such clinics, claimed to be functional in the city, are operational. He sought an explanation from the Delhi government for the 65,000 fake medical tests in which patients' names disappeared. The episode has come to light even as fake medicines were caught being supplied to the Delhi government hospitals for which an inquiry is underway, he said. He alleged that the mohalla clinic model was floated to raise money through commission from tests in collaboration with private labs. Such is the condition of the state government hospitals that people are forced to rely onprivatehospitalsfortreatment whilemedicinesarenotavailable in 40 per cent of the mohalla clinics, he said. STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE ROURKELA, 30 OCTOBER Five persons were killed and ten others injured in a violent clash between two groups of nomadic tribes from Maharashtra in the Karamdihi area of Sundargarh district here. Amongst the five killed, three were women . The incident occurred on Tuesday night when the victims were asleep. The assailants have taken away one woman and two children. It is learnt that the mass murder took place because of alleged extra marital affairs. However, DIG Western Range, Brijesh Rai, who supervised the investigation said: “The investigation is in the early stages and I cannot comment on the extra marital angle as yet.” “Prima facie it is learnt that five persons have been killed and four are admitted into the hospital, while six others have also received medical attention outdoors.” At least seven wild elephants, from a herd of 13, have died at the world famous Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh while three are critically ill and undergoing treatment. Initially two elephants were found dead on Tuesday but during a search and investigations launched by the forest department’s patrolling teams, five more tuskers were also found dead. Another three were found seriously ill and senior officials and teams of veterinarians rushed to the spot to provide treatment to the sick elephants. The postmortem of the dead tuskers was also being carried out to ascertain the exact cause of death. Initial investigations indicate that the elephant herd may have grazed on crops that had been sprayed with pesticide, leading to their deaths. Digitally dead: Thousands of deprived pensioners struggle to prove they’re alive STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE JAIPUR, 30 OCTOBER A group of ‘digitally dead' pensioners presented themselves before the media here in Jaipur this week to prove to the government that they are alive. This may sound a bit of a bizarre tale, but it is very much a reality for the pensioners who spoke to the media of their digital exclusion from the pension list of the Rajasthan government that marked them as dead. Pension Parishad and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) facilitated the gathering to help make their views public, so that the authorities listen to them and resolve their problems arising out of the mass digital exclusion of pensioners. Jurists like Justice Madan Lokur and Prashant Bhushan, social activists Mathew Cherian and Nikhil Dey and others also spoke with the media on the subject. According to them, this digital exclusion is impacting lakhs of pensioners across India. This claim, they say, is based on evidence from across Rajasthan collated by people's movements. However, this is not about Rajasthan alone as similar problems have been reported from the states of Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Telangana, too. These are not isolated issues, they’re structural flaws, they pointed out. They produced before the media testimonies from affected pensioners including elderly, disabled, and widowed citizens who have been denied their rightful pensions due to administrative and digital barriers or mistakes. The group also presented testimonies and oral briefing from individuals whose pensions were unfairly cut. One example was Vidya, whose pension was abruptly stopped two years ago with no recourse for reinstatement, despite valid documentation. Another individual, Pani Devi (65) from Jawaja was marked as “out of state” in the system records, and subsequently denied pension support. Gudiya, a single mother, shared her story of grappling with Aadhaar issues that have prevented her from accessing the disability pension she is entitled for over one year. This pushed her family into crisis. These stories underline the urgent need for a system overhaul to ensure that pensioners are not at the mercy of arbitrary digital errors. While elaborating on the subject, Justice Lokur and Mr Dey said many of those denied pensions were wrongfully declared dead on the records whilst still being alive. Many were wrongfully marked as having left the state on the records, though some are not able to even step out of their own homes, let alone the state. Cancellation of pensions also happened because of “data mismatches” on account of data entry errors regarding gender, spelling mistakes ,age etc. Difficulties related to electronic KYC due to biometric authentication failures or data mismatches, inability to procure an Aadhar ID despite repeated attempts were also found in numerous cases. These errors were identified at the Panchayat/Block levels where officials were not in the position to correct them unless sorted out at the state level. In the case of disability pensions, for the last seven months, no new beneficiary has been able to apply or get benefits causing exclusion of an entire marginalised community, Mr Dey said. In this context, Mr Dey highlighted the compounded marginalisation faced by pensioners on account of their age, disability, or other vulnerabilities, describing the authorities' approach as insensitivity and disregard. The state forest minister Ramniwas Rawat expressed grief at the incident while ordering an inquiry by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the matter on Wednesday. Senior wildlife officials including National Tiger Conservation Authority’s Central Zone Assistant Inspector General Nandkishore Kale rushed to the spot along with officials of the state forest department. Veterinarians from the School of Wildlife Forensics and Health at Jabalpur and from the Pench and Kanha national parks also rushed to the spot to provide treatment to the ill elephants besides carrying out the postmortems of the deceased tuskers. Indian youth are among the best in innovation and technology, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. He said this in reply to GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, who lauded India for being the fastest-growing developer population on the planet. “When it comes to innovation and technology, Indian youth are among the best!” PM Modi said, in a post on X. Mr Dohmke called India’s rise as a global tech titan "inexorable". In its recent ‘Octoverse’ report, the Microsoft Copilot-powered developer platform said there are over 17 million developers in India building on the platform - representing an increase of 28 per cent in 2024. The report noted that AI has moved beyond the hype of 2023 as Indian developers and organisations prioritise results over experimentation. “India’s developers have gone a leap further: they’re increasingly using AI to build AI,” Mr Dohmke wrote on X. “India is now the fastestgrowing developer population on the planet,” he added. India is also the second largest developer community contributing to public generative AI projects on GitHub, just behind the US, with a 79 per cent increase from last year. The country also saw a 95 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth in contributions to these projects, placing itself third globally, after the US and Hong Kong. Mr Dohmke noted that India's booming developer community is using AI to build AI in record numbers, making it evermore likely that the next great multinational will come from India. The company predicts that India will surpass the US to become the world’s largest developer community by 2028. It is also driving societal change through popular open-source projects like ERPNext. This project from India has the most contributions in GitHub’s ‘For Good First Issue’, which connects contributors with projects addressing societal challenges and promoting sustainable development. West Bengal has done remarkably well in preventing Hepatitis B, finds national survey STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE KOLKATA, 30 OCTOBER The state government has done remarkably well in preventing Hepatitis B, as revealed by a recent national survey. A survey was recently conducted nation-wide under the National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme. As part of this, a detailed survey was carried out in the state among children below the age of five years to determine the prevalence of Hepatitis B. Bengal has performed well in this survey. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed satisfaction with the performance of the health department in this respect. In 2022, the state government launched a massive programme to vaccinate pregnant women and newborns to control Hepatitis B. The World Health Organization's parameters state that the prevalence of Hepatitis B should be less than 0.1 per cent of the total population. The recent survey in Bengal revealed a prevalence of 0.07 per cent, indicating the success of the state government's measures. The state government is committed to making the state Hepatitis B-free in the near future. The Chief Minister, who also holds the Health portfolio, has implemented a series of measures to improve healthcare access for the people. Bengal is the only state in the country where healthcare is free in state-run hospitals. Heart and kidney transplants are performed free of cost. Costly surgical interventions are also performed free of cost in state-run hospitals across the state. In 2016, the Swastha Sathi card was introduced, providing families with up to Rs 5 lakh worth of treatment. The card is issued in the name of the eldest woman in the family as a part of women's empowerment. After treatment in staterun hospitals, patients are transported home in ambulances free of cost. Due to persistent efforts by the state Health and Family Welfare department, institutional delivery has reached nearly 97 per cent of the population.