FP The publishers permit sharing of the e-paper's pdf on WhatsApp and other social media platforms Vol. 14 No. 194 | BHOPAL | FRIDAY | DECEMBER 27, 2024 | Pages 16 ` 3 | Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2024-2026 | RNI No. mpeng/2010/35815 FREE www.freepressjournal.in Sports Danish Kaneria on CT 25 hybrid model P.14 ESTD-1983 iii QUALITY @ VALUE EDITIONS: BHOPAL UJJAIN PRESS PUNE INDORE NASHIK WORLD Govt to merge panchayats to form nagar parishad E-paper Edit The dangers of river linking P.8 Baby freezes to death in Gaza SPEEDING DEVELOPMENT | Move will help in ensuring proper development in residential campuses MUMBAI Cinema Arjun falls victim to online scam P.13 Banks can charge over 30% interest on credit card dues: SC Ex-PM Manmohan Singh, architect of India's economic reforms, passes away at 92 Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL Some panchayats are situated in belts close to municipal corporations due to which unplanned development takes place. Hence contemplation has been done to merge two to four panchayats to form ‘nagar parishad’. This will help in ensuring proper works in residential campuses to come up later. This was stated by Chief Former RTO constable’s anticipatory bail rejected Minister Mohan Yadav during a press conference after the conclusion of Manthan pro- A former RTO constable, who was recently searched by the Lokayukta police on allegations of possession of disproportionate assets and a "linked" seizure of Rs 52 crore gold and cash from an abandoned SUV, on Thursday filed an application for anticipatory bail in the Special Court of Lokayukta Bhopal. The Court, after hearing the case, rejected the application, said the officials here. Speculations were made that former RTO constable Saurabh Sharma had returned to India from Dubai and may be hiding in Mumbai. 4Continued on | P6 fp Briefs PATNA Chaos Over Raghupati Raghav... A Patna event to mark the birth centenary of former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee witnessed dramatic scenes yesterday over a folk singer's rendition of the bhajan, "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram". Devi, a folk singer, had started singing "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram", closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, when a section of the audience started protesting. MUMBAI RBI sets up panel on ethical AI use The Reserve Bank on Thursday announced the setting up of an eightmember committee to develop a framework for responsible and ethical enablement of artificial intelligence (FREE-AI) in the financial sector. remained focused on how to provide impetus to economic activities in the state and to make the state better in terms of prosperity. The discussion was done to make cities prosperous and models of six states were also contemplated in the programme. Under the new and renewable energy head, it was pondered that the farmers who are unable to take the permanent electric connection shall get solar pumps. Now get birth & death certificates online Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL gramme at Kushabhau Thakre Convention Hall on Thursday evening. Underlining the welfare of youths, women, farmers and the poor, he said that the government wants to do welfare for targeted groups. Along with this, it wants that the income of farmers shall increase and how peasants could get benefitted through allied conventional business such as animal husbandry and others. The “Manthan” programme The state Cabinet has decided to facilitate the issuance of birth and death certificates online. The Cabinet has approved the implementation of the Madhya Pradesh Birth and Death Registration Rules, 2024, on Thursday. The rules have been prepared in accordance with the draft rules received from the Registrar General Office, Government of India. Under this, various sections of Madhya Pradesh Birth and Death Registration Rules, 1999, have been amended. The main points of the amended rules include provision of digital registration, electronic delivery of birth and death certificates, creation of national and state level databases of registered births and deaths, facilitating the registration process of adopted, or- Solarisation of 11 KV feeders There was a demand of farmers that they shall get electricity for irrigation during the daytime as well. Currently, the government is unable to do so. To sort out the problem, the Cabinet has decided to do solarisation of 11 KV feeders. phaned, abandoned, surrogate children and children from single parents or unmarried mothers, etc. Rs 778.91 cr for Kshipra ghat construction- The Cabi- net granted administrative approval of Rs 778. 91 crore for the construction of ghats of 29.215 km length from Shani Mandir to Nagda bypass on the banks of Kshipra river for the convenience of devotees during the upcoming Simhastha. Discussion on making state fully-irrigated- Discussion was done to make the state fully irrigated in the next five to ten years. The necessary directives have been given to the officers in this regard. Moreover, a decision has been taken to construct Atal Gramin Seva Sadan in every village. Parvati-Kalisindh-Chambal project: Approval to group cost of Rs 28,798 cr Under the revised Parvati-Kalisindh-Chambal river link project, administrative approval was given for the project group cost of Rs 28,798.2 crore and catchment area of more than ??4,72 lakh hectares. The approved projects will provide a total of 4.73 lakh hectares of new irrigated area in 10 districts of Malwa and Chambal region. PTI PTI NEW DELHI NEW DELHI Banks can charge over 30 per cent on credit card dues from customers after the Supreme Court set aside a sixteen-yearold National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission verdict, which held charging excessive interest rates amounted to an unfair trade practice. A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma said NCDRC's observations that the rate of interest in excess of 30 per cent per annum was an unfair trade practice was "illegal" and an interference with the clear, unambiguous delegation of Reserve Bank of India's powers. The court said the ruling was contrary to the legislative intent of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. In the opinion of the apex court, banks had in no manner made any misrepresentation to deceive the credit card holders. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms, died here on Thursday night. He was 92. Singh's death was announced by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, where he was admitted in the Emergency ward around 8.30 PM in a critical condition. An AIIMS bulletin said "he was treated for age related medical conditions and had sudden loss of consciousness at home" on December 26. "Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to medical emergency at AIIMS Delhi at 8.06 pm. Despite all efforts, he could not be revived and was declared dead at 9.51 pm," said the bulletin. ‘500 teachers skip schools, hire proxies’ Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL School education minister Rao Uday Pratap Singh on Wednesday said about 500 teachers remain absent from schools. Singh made the statement at an event ‘Shiksha Mahakumbh’ in Raisen to commemorate the birth centenary of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The minister said systemic flaws have hampered quality education in the state. After Singh addressed the programme, a short clip of his Transmission tower Panchayat secretary collapse claims 3 lives turns out to be Two deceased petrol pump owner were brothers Our Staff Reporter Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL BHOPAL/ASHTA Three labourers were killed and five others injured after a 400 KV transmission line tower fell on them in Sidhi district on Thursday, the police said. The incident took place in Aamdad village under Rampur Naikin tehsil at around 12:30pm, the official said. A 400 KV transmission line has been established between Satna district and JP Nagar power plant in Sidhi. Sidhi superintendent of police Ravindra Verma said, "The labourers were replacing old transmission towers with new ones when a tower collapsed on a group of labourers, killing two on the spot, while the third succumbed to injuries en route to hospital. Five persons The Special police establishment (SPE) Lokayukta police Ujjain has conducted raids at three premises of a panchayat secretary in Ashta, posted in Shajapur and found that he is the owner of a petrol pump, the officials said here on Thursday. The police have registered a case against the secretary for disproportionate property against the known income. Presently, he is posted at Semli Kheda and Harukhedi of Shajpur district. SP Anil Vishwakarma said a complaint was filed against panchayat secretary Murlidhar Sharma. The team then conducted raids at three premises of ‘Bhairav Trades Tiles shop’ were injured and have been admitted to Sanjay Gandhi Medical College, Rewa." He added that among the three deceased, two are brothers. The labourers belonged to West Bengal, he added. situated on Bhopal-Indore Road in Ashta and a house in Ambika Colony behind Kalapipal panchayat and a house in Bamulia Muchhali village. The team also reached the petrol pump and searched the documents and found out about his partnership. The police have also found huge investments in tiles trading. The total plot size is 10,000 square feet and the secretary owns 5,000 square feet plot and also in half partnership in a business. A house built on a 2,000 feet plot was also found, where several tenants are residing. An SUV was also found in the name of the secretary, the SP added. The SP added that the team is searching the details of the property and also of the bank account details. Hathras school horror Boy strangled to death for holiday Biswajeet Banerjee LUCKNOW The brutal murder of 11year-old Kritarth, a Class 2 student at DL Public School in Hathras, has sparked outrage and raised troubling questions about hostel safety and accountability. While the police claim the crime was committed by a senior student wanting a school holiday, the victim’s family has accused the school man- agement of negligence and a cover up. Kritarth, a resident of Chursen village in Chandpa, was strangled to death with a towel on the night of September 22, while sleeping in the school’s residential hostel. His body was discovered the following day in the car of the school manager, Dinesh Baghel. The police detained a Class 8 student, who allegedly confessed to the murder. The accused claimed he wanted the school to close temporarily and devised the chilling plan after reading online that schools shut down following serious incidents or deaths. “I thought if I killed a junior student, no one would suspect me, and the school would declare a holiday,” the accused told the police. Investigations revealed that the accused had broken CCTV cameras near the hostel stairs four days before the Singh, who was prime minister for two terms in the Congress-led UPA government from 2004 to 2014, had been in poor health for the last few months. He is survived by wife Gurcharan Singh and three daughters. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her mother Sonia Gandhi reached the hospital as soon as the news of his hospitalisation became known. Singh, who was finance minister under the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao, was the architect and the brainchild of economic reforms in 1991 that pulled India from the brink of bankruptcy and ushered in an era of economic liberalisation that is widely believed to have changed the course of India's economic trajectory. Singh died as the Congress party concluded its Congress Working Committee meeting at Belagavi in Karnataka, where all top party leaders were present. It is believed that party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi are on their way to Delhi from Belagavi. murder to avoid being caught. He had also attempted to strangle two other students in the months leading up to Kritarth’s death but failed. On the night of the murder, the accused allegedly used a red towel to strangle Kritarth. The accused then discarded the towel behind the school, later retrieving and re-discarding it. 4Continued on | P6 statement went viral on social media. In his statement, Singh admitted to knowing "around 500 teachers who do not attend schools." He further alleged that in some cases, proxy individuals have been hired to teach in place of the actual teachers. The issue is prevalent even in his own district with approximately 100 such teachers, he added.  The statement attracted criticism from the Congress with senior party spokesperson Bhupendra Gupta stating that if the minister was not even capable of suspending those 100 teachers of his own district, he should resign from his post, he does not have any right to be a school education minister. Gupta further said that if he is helpless, then inform the matter to the Prime Minister. He added that if he is helpless or this information is not factually correct, then the Chief Minister should take cognisance and give a clarification. Meanwhile, following uproar and serious concerns about the quality of education, the minister gave a clarification on Thursday. Singh told mediapersons: “We are focusing on reform instead of punishing teachers. I have communicated with the teachers and there are good and weak in all classes.” He added that those who are not doing good work have been identified.