SAMBALPUR l Thursday l march 14, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 l CITY EDITION Investors lose `13.47 lakh cr in single day as markets crash file photo sTreet sees red as sectoral indices tank Utility, energy and metal stocks witnessed heavy losses. Though the benchmark indices began on a positive note, post lunch all sectoral indices closed in red. Power Grid, NTPC, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, JSW Steel, Airtel, Titan, RIL, HUL were the losers in the Sensex. The BSE Smallcap gauge fell by 5.11% and midcap index fell by 4.2%. Only 400 stocks advanced | P10 Nifty plummeted 1.51% to 21,997.7 and Sensex fell 900 points as the markets witnessed selling pressure amid a sharp fall in smallcaps, midcaps spooked by SEBI’s statement on froth ■ ■ A few days ago, SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had said that there are “pockets of froth” in the small- and mid-cap stocks Banking veteran Uday Kotak tried to assuage investors saying there may be some ‘early froth’ but the markets are not out of control. Froth is the market condition that appear prior to a bubble 3,516 STOCKS FELL on Wednesday as the markets witnessed heavy selling 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 Nitish in, Rohini panel report on back burner OBC sub-categorisation was earlier seen as counter to caste census P reet h a N a ir @ New Delhi With the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government back in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Modi government seems to have put the much vaunted Rohini commission report on ‘revising the reservation percentage of OBCs’ on the back burner. It was widely believed that the Centre would implement the Rohini panel report on subcategorisation of OBCs to counter the Bihar government’s caste survey data which was published in October last year. The Bihar caste data, which pegged the backward caste population at 63%, sparked a renewed demand from the Opposition for a nationwide caste census and review of reservation for the backward classes. While the Union government was noncommittal in a national caste census, it was looking to woo the most backward classes by implementing the Rohini committee report and conferring some benefits on them, a source said. However, the Rohini panel report, which was submitted to the government in July last year, is yet to be published. It is learnt that the report revealed that less than 1% of dominant backward castes Justice (Retd) G Rohini Terms of reference The terms of reference of the Rohini committee included examining the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among OBCs in the Central List and to work out a scientific mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters for sub-categorisation within the OBC community have cornered 50% of the reservation benefits in admissions to central educational institutions and recruitment to central services. Of the 2,600 communities in the central OBC list, 938 sub-castes have no representation in the reserved seats. For equitable distribution of benefits, the commission has proposed to divide OBCs into subgroups with sep- arate reservation percentages. However, sources said that with Nitish Kumar’s re-entry into the NDA, the BJP is confident of defusing the caste challenges from the Opposition. “The BJP’s main worry was the consolidation of the Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) vote bloc in Bihar. With Nitish, a Kurmi leader, back in the NDA, the party need not worry about the political ramifications of caste census. So the government will keep the Rohini panel report in cold storage for the time being. The gover nment is aware that the Rohini panel report will lead to political realignments as it subcategorises all OBC groups,” said a leader. The Rohini commission was tasked with putting together a comprehensive pool of scientific data on sub-categories to as to ensure equitable redistribution of the 27% quota benefits for the OBCs among all subcommunities. According to sources, in its recommendations, the commission is learnt to have adopted a balanced approach to ensure fair distribution of reservation benefits among various castes, Though the panel was to submit its report by January 2, 2018, it was given 14 extensions since then. Friday date for SC hearing against EC search panel suchitra kalyan mohanty @ New Delhi THE Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear on Friday a batch of petitions filed challenging the Chief Election Commissioner Act, 2023, which had dropped the Chief Justice of India (CJI) from the selection committee to pick the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs). The Act was challenged by various petitioners, including the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Congress leader Dr Jaya Thakur and others. The hearing comes at a time when the government is expected to fill two vacancies of election commissioners soon to ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The search panel would include the prime minister, a cabinet minister nominated by the PM and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. CJI was excluded from the new law which came into force in January . Last week, election commissioner Arun Goel put in his papers three years before his tenure was to end. Mystery shrouds his exit as he was in line for promotion as the chief election commissioner after incumbant Rajiv Kumar’s retirement in February next year. Last month, his colleague Anup Chandra Pandey had retired. Earlier, the court had refused to stay the Election Commissioner Act, 2023, but said it would examine the matter next month. But the petitioners moved the court again following Goel’s exit. Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for ADR, sought urgent listing and hearing of its petition since fresh appointments were expected shortly Justice Sanjiv . Khanna, who led a three-judge bench, said, “I just got the message from the CJI that it will be listed on Friday .” Health is wealth People draw a rangoli with message ‘Kidney Health For All’ at AIIMS on the eve of World Kidney Day in Bhubaneswar, on Wednesday | DEBADATTA MALLICK e x p r e s s r ead CM to meet BJD leaders today as talks drag Bhubaneswar: As the proposed BJD-BJP alliance drags along with no clarity offered from both the sides, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has convened a meeting of his party’s senior leaders at Naveen Niwas on Thursday. Meanwhile, the saffron party’s second list of candidates released on Wednesday | P3 ACU’s commandos to check pitch invasion Chennai: The Indian cricket board’s Anti-Corruption Unit has put in place a plan to curb pitch invasion during IPL. The project had already started and it will see some 20-25 commandos manning the inner ground to check people getting into the playing arena. They will be under an SLO | P15 Satellite survey detects over 17 lakh fake plots registered for paddy sale under MSP B i j o y P r a d h a n @ Bhubaneswar In a shocking revelation, it has come to fore that over 17 lakh plots registered as paddy fields by farmers during 2023 kharif marketing season (KMS) for sale of surplus paddy under minimum support price (MSP) in the state are fictitious. Ponds, forest land, orchards, and land with non-paddy vegetation, even schools and other buildings, have been shown as paddy fields, it has been found. After receiving reports from field staff from districts that stated a large number of plots were found to be fake upon physical verification, the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department conducted an internal verification of all the registered plots. As registration numbers of around 20.10 lakh plots did not match with the Odisha land records (Bhulekh), the department asked the Odisha Space Application Centre (ORSAC) to conduct a satellite survey of such plots. “The satellite survey revealed that a staggering number of 17.93 lakh plots are not genuine. What is disturbing is that water bodies like village ponds, river, forest land, gochar land, orchards and plots Deogarh’s Paudi Bhuyans get rights over their habitat D i a n a S a h u @ Bhubaneswar Odisha’s Paudi Bhuyans, residing in Deogarh district, have become the fourth Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in the country to get habitat rights under Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. The tribal community resides in 32 villages under Barkote block of Deogarh. As per the local Paudi Bhuyan Development Agency, while the total habitat area is 52,151 hectare, the forest area is 19,589.3 hectare. It has been approved by the sub-divisional level committee under FRA and was informed to the Deogarh administration by the ST and SC Development department on Wednesday . There are 75 PVTGs in the country of which three Bharia in Madhya Pradesh and Kamar, Baiga tribes in Chhattisgarh have received habitat rights. Habitat rights are given to PVTGs under section 3(1) (e) of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, also known as FRA. Under section 2(h) of FRA, habitat includes the area comprising the customary habitat and such other habitats in reserved forests and protected forests of primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities and other forest dwelling STs. Accordingly, the habitat rights will provide Paudi Bhuyans rights over their customary territory of habitation, socio-cultural practices, economic and livelihood means as well as protection and conservation of their natural and cultural heritage. Commissioner-cum-secretary of the department Roopa Roshan Sahoo said this will ensure security for the tribal community’s future with guaranteed rights. “It is a significant step towards achieving the vision as pronounced in PM-JANMAN, which is to ensure the rights and meet development needs of PVTGs,” she CONTINUED ON P7 said. No relief for Cong as HC junks plea against `100 cr tax recovery E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ New Delhi IN a setback to the Congress, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday upheld the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT)’s decision not to stay the tax demand notice to the grand old party for recovery of over `100 crore dues for the 201819 assessment year. A division bench of judges Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said there appears to be no fundamental infirmity in the ITAT order of March 8 and rapped the Congress for its lackadaisical approach to the tax demand. The tax department’s proceedings against the Congress had started in 2021 but the party did not do anything for Exemption Congress had declared ‘nil’ income for AY2018-19 claiming exemption of `199 cr under Section 13A, which allows political parties to accept donations without tax liability. But I-T dept rejected it as return was filed late and cash donations was above `2,000 t wo ye a r s, t h e c o u r t noted. “An assessee in default can neither be permitted nor expected to adopt such a casual or lackadaisical approach while faced with a tax demand which had remained outstanding right from 2021 and in respect of which no protective measures were sought or adopted for almost two years between 2021 and 2023,” the bench said. The HC, however, allowed the Congress to move a fresh stay application before the ITAT bringing to its notice the tax recovery of `65 crore. Senior advocate Vivek Tankha, appearing for Congress, said the action will affect the party ahead of polls and it needs protection from courts. Advocate Zoheb Hossain, appearing for the I-T department, said it is wrong to say the proceedings have be gun just before elections. He told the court that the original tax demand was `102 crore and together with interest it rose to `135.06 crore. Village ponds, river, forest and gochar land, orchards and In some cases schools and offices were also recorded as agricultural land Officials with non-paddy vegetation are shown as paddy fields. In some cases schools and government establishments were also recorded as agricultural land with paddy crop,” sources in the department said. In many cases, several members of a family have registered a single plot in their names for sale of paddy under the price support system while in others, farmers have fraudulently registered land belonging to another person in their names, sources added. The department is learnt to have cancelled all such fictitious registrations and directed field staff for physical verification of the questionable plots. “In cases where online token have been issued for procurement of paddy, they have been withheld and instructions issued to district officials concerned not to purchase paddy from farmers who are put in ‘grey list’ till further orders,” the officer CONTINUED ON P7 said. Gadkari, Goyal, Anurag, Khattar in BJP second list R AJ E S H K U M A R T HA K U R @ New Delhi The BJP repeated three Union ministers and fielded one minister for the first time in the Lok Sabha elections, in its second list of candidates for 72 seats in 10 states. Union Minister Piyush Goyal will make his début from the safest of Lok Sabha seats — North Mumbai. The party repeated Union ministers Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Anurag Thakur from Himachal Pradesh’s Hamirpur and Pralhad Joshi from Hubali-Dharwad. Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni will enter the fray from Garhwal in Uttarakhand. As expected, outgoing Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar got the Karnal LS ticket. Besides, former chief minister of Karnataka B S Bommai has been fielded from Haveri. Delhi and Karnataka saw the maximum changes in the second list. In Delhi, the party dropped six of its seven sitting MPs while in Karnataka the axe fell on leaders like Anant Hedge and Pratap Simha. In Delhi, two new candidates — Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi and Yogendra Chandolia from North West Delhi — have been fielded to deflect anti-incumbency. Sources said the dropped MPs would be made prominent players in the assembly elections against AAP candidates because of their deep and strong local influences. In Karnataka, former chief minister B S Yediyurappa’s son B Y Raghavendra will enter the fray from Shimoga while youth wing head Tejasvi Surya has been repeated from Bengaluru South. Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar, who belongs to the erstwhile Mysore royal family is the replace, ment for Pratap Simha in Mysore. Pankaja Munde from Beed in Maharashtra and Shobha Karandlaje from Bangalore North are among the prominent women faces on the list. Visitors banned from Olive Ridley nesting grounds in the state Odisha government on Wednesday banned visitors from entering the nesting sites of Olive Ridley sea turtles along eastern coast of the state | P2
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