coimbatore l Sunday l march 16, 2025 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l LATE city EDITION SpaceX Launches Crew to Rescue two Astronauts stuck in space SpaceX launches a crew to replace NASA’s stranded astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — paving way for their return after nine long months Crew to Overlap for smoother Handover The relief craft is expected to dock into the ISS by Saturday night (US time) NASA wants an overlap so they Suni and Butch can brief the newcomers on station operations. Their departure along with two others is planned for next week, with a splashdown off Florida, finally bringing an end to their unexpected nine-month mission in space 4 astronauts to spend six months in space ■ Four astronauts, including two military pilots, will spend six months aboard the ISS after freeing the stranded duo ■ SpaceX’s new capsule needed battery repairs, delaying the launch. To save time, it switched to a used capsule, moving Wilmore and Williams’ return to mid-March 9 spacewalks made Williams the women’s record-holder 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 incentive of `349 per MT of cane Crop Insurance of `841 cr for 35L acres 1K CM’s Farmers Service Centres global exposure visits better income, organic thrust T M u r u g a n a n d h a m @ Chennai The `45,661-crore farm budget presented by Agriculture Minister M R K Panneerselvam in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Saturday laid thrust on food security, improving farmers’ income, crop diversification, organic farming and horticultural crops, mechanisation and imp rov i n g p a d dy a re a a n d foodgrain production in 29 nondelta districts. In five years, the total budgetary outlay for agriculture and allied sectors has gone up by nearly `10,000 crore from `34,221 crore in 2021-22 to `45,661 crore in 2025-26, the minister said. While the total g ross cropped area has increased from 146.77 lakh acres in 201920 to 151 lakh acres in 2023-24, the double-crop areas in the state have risen from 29.74 lakh acres in 2019-20 to 33.60 lakh acres in 2023-24, the budget stated. Tamil Nadu has also secured the first position in the country in ragi productivity, second position in maize, oilseed and sugarcane productivity, and third position in groundnut and minor mil- Focus areas of TN’s agriculture budget 2025-26 Total outlay `45,661 crore Minister M R K Panneerselvam calls on Chief Minister M K Stalin before presenting the exclusive agriculture budget in Chennai on Saturday | express let productivity. While allocations have been made for existing schemes, there is no dearth of new schemes in the budget tailored to the needs of the seven distinct agroclimatic zones and the diverse crops cultivated in these regions. The new schemes include plan to establish 1,000 CM’s Farmers Service Centres, Alter native Crop Cultivation Scheme to improve soil fertility and encourage cultivation of millets, a Village Outreach Campaign to provide techni- cal advice to farmers, Nutrition Farming Mission to increase farmers’ net income through higher production of horticultural crops, and hill farmers development scheme, among others. In one of the key announcements, the minister said that sugarcane far mers will be paid a special incentive of `349 per metric tonne of sugarcane for the 2024-25 crushing season. This is over and above the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) fixed by the union government. Agroforestry Policy to promote growth of valuable trees such as sandal, red sanders, mahogany Special package for paddy cultivation in 29 non-delta districts Exclusive scheme for 63,000 farmers in hilly regions `10 crore for establishing Tamil Nadu Cashew Board `1,477 crore for cooperative credit societies `2 crore for taking 100 progressive farmers on international exposure visit to Japan, China and Vietnam Subsidised agriculture machinery and implements to be provided to 17,000 farmers at an outlay of `215.80 crore in 2025-26 High-level CEC meet on linking Aadhaar, voter ID P r e e t h a N a i r @ New Delhi Amid a row over voter lists, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has called a high-level meeting on Tuesday to discuss the linking of the voter identity card with the Aadhaar card. According to sources, the CEC will discuss the matter with the Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Legislative Department Secretary Rajiv Mani and UIDAI CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar on March 18. This is at variance with the EC’s earlier position. In September 2023, the EC told the Supreme Court that the submission of Aadhaar number is not mandatory under Rule 26-B of the Registration of Electors (Amendment) Rules 2022. The EC further said that it is not mandatory to provide Aadhaar numbers for linking with the electoral roll, and it is considering issuing ‘appropriate clarificatory changes’ in enrolment forms to reflect this. In 2022, the then Union law minister Kiren Rijiju told the Lok Sabha that linking Aadhaar with the Voter ID is voluntary adding electors without an , Aadhaar number could ‘provide other optional documents as provided in the Form 6B’. According to him, the Elec- E C s t a n ce On March 2, EC said identical EPIC numbers or series were allotted to some electors from different states and UTs due to a “decentralised and manual mechanism” before shifting of the electoral roll database of all states to ERONET platform. In another statement, the EC said that since the allotment of the EPIC series in 2000, some Electoral Registration Officers did not use the correct series Allotment of duplicate numbers due to incorrect series could not have been detected as the states/ UTs were independently managing the electoral roll databases, EC said tion Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, allows Electoral Registration Officers to require the voter to provide their Aadhaar number for identification. However, this is voluntary he said. , The Tuesday meeting comes amid allegations of voter ID number duplication and fudging of electoral roll data levelled by the Opposition, including the TMC and the Congress. Several other parties have also demanded a discussion on the EPIC number duplication. express read States must achieve self-reliance, says CM Chennai: Speaking at the Madras HC on the occasion of the 75th year of the adoption of the Indian Constitution, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday said states must achieve self-reliance to safeguard their rights, as federalism has been affected due to issues in fund allocation by the central government | P4