Bharat Ratna conferred on P V Narasimha Rao President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour, on former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao posthumously at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. P V Prabhakar Rao, the son of the former prime minister, received the award | PTI visakhapatnam l sunday l march 31, 2024 l `12.00 l PAGES 26 l late city EDITION 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 Govt barred from No Hand-outs, Congress using volunteers state units told to raise funds to give pensions i-t Dept heat P r ee t h a N a i r @ New Delhi ECI directs State govt not to release results of TET & postpone Teacher Recruitment Test E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Vijayawada express read Inquiry launched into student’s suicide Visakhapatnam: The Department of Technical Education has initiated an inquiry into the death of a student, who reportedly died by suicide at Kommadi Chaitanya Polytechnic College in Visakhapatnam on Friday | P3 WITH THIS ISSUE Act Two PLUS 12 PAGES The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued directions against utilising services of volunteers for distribution of cash benefits under any scheme, including social security pensions, as long as the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in force in the State. According to Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Kumar Meena, the ECI also ordered that hand-held devices like mobiles and tablets provided to volunteers should be deposited with the District Election Officers till the MCC is lifted. Going through the order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court while dealing with a petition filed by the Citizens for Democracy against the usage of volunteers in distribution of government schemes, continuous complaints against the volunteers influencing elections at grassroots level, the ECI issued directions against distribution of pensions and benefits of other schemes to the beneficiaries by volunteers. The directions of the Election Commission come at a time when the government is making arrangements for the distribution of social security pensions through 2.66 lakh volunteers from April 3. Similarly, the poll panel also issued directions not to release the results of Andhra Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (APTET) and not to conduct the AP Teacher Recruitment Test (APTRT) exams till the conclusion of the elections, the CEO said, adding that directions to this effect came to his office on Saturday . After going through the proposals sent from the State government on releasing the results of APTET and conduct of APTRT examination, the Election Commission of India (ECI) took a decision to postpone both of them until MCC is lifted. ‘Use DBT or regular govt staff’ Govt advised to make alternative arrangements for distribution of benefits of ongoing schemes using DBT preferably or through regular govt employees SERP to explore alternative Sources said officials of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) will hold a meeting on Sunday to discuss the alternatives for distribution of pensions Facing heat from the Income Tax department, the cash-strapped Congress party had cut down its advertisement spending in print and electronic media for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The party’s High Command has already sent a missive to all the state units to mobilise funds through the door-to-door campaign or by reaching out to the people. It is also giving a big push to its election campaign through various other means such as social media platforms, influencers, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the party was not able to even spend `2 for campaign work as it’s accounts have been frozen. In Tamil Nadu, the Con- gress has already started raising funds through crowdfunding, says party MP B Manickam Tagore. “We have scaled down on our expenditure on campaigns through Two more I-T notices “We got two more notices on Friday night. Today I don’t know how many more we will get. We got tax notices from the time of Sitaram Kesari (1993-94). It is not surprising anymore. I get surprised if we don’t receive notices,” said party leader Jairam Ramesh print and visual media. It may cost `50 crore to run a day’s campaign on national media. We don’t have that kind of funds now,” said Tagore. “The I-T action came as a big setback on the eve of the elections. The situation could have been handled better if we had known about it six months back,” he said. Given the lack of resources, the party is lagging behind the BJP on advert spending, points out Vaibhav Walia, chairman of the Congress war room for the Lok Sabha polls. “The first phase of elections is just 19 days away but we haven’t had any major campaign in any newspaper or TV. Though we tried to give an ad on the electoral bonds, most newspapers refused to publish it,” he said. “The Congress is trying to go organic mostly because of the cash crunch. We are trying to put out our content on social media,” he adds. In Kerala, as the central leadership has asked party leaders to raise funds on their own. Editor Prabir named accused in NewsClick case U J WA L J A L A L I @ New Delhi The Delhi Police on Saturday filed a chargesheet running into nearly 8,000 pages in the NewsClick case under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in which Prabir Purkayastha, founder and editor-in-chief of the newsportal, is the prime accused. According to official sources, the chargesheet which named Purkayastha and his company , PPK NewsClick Studio, as accused, includes details of the 480 electronic devices that were seized in multiple raids during the investigation. Additional sessions judge Hardeep Kaur listed the matter on April 16 for hearing arguments on taking cognisance of the chargesheet. Sourced told this paper that NewsClick human resources department head Amit Chakravarty has been made approver. He had in December requested in court he be made a witness. Forest fires rage across India at 600-plus points J i t en d r a C h o u b e y @ New Delhi There are at least 600 forest fire points in India at present, including 30 large fire events that have been active over three days in the Central and Southern regions. The Forest Survey of India’s fire tracking portal showed on Saturday that Maharashtra has the highest number of forest fire points, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. In terms of large fire events, Andhra Pradesh is at the top followed by Maharashtra. Maharashtra has 134 forest fire points, six of which have been raging for more than three days. Andhra Pradesh has eight major fire events out of 94 forest fire points. While Telangana has 82 fire points at present and five large fire events, Odisha has 63 fire points and two large fire events. (see table) According to NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System, the spatial resolution of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) satellite shows that forest fires are raging nationwide especially in the Central, Western and Southern regions since the past week. IMD scientists say high temperatures and extreme dryness provide favourable conditions for a natural fire. Major fire points as on March 30 States Forest fire points Maharashtra 134(6) Andhra Pradesh 94(8) Telangana 82(5) Source: Odisha 63(2) Forest Chhattisgarh 56 Survey of India Uttarakhand 44 Large Madhya Pradesh 37(4) fire Karnataka 26(1) events of at least Rajasthan 24 3 days in Tamil Nadu 20(3) brackets
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31-03-2024 of The New Indian Express-Vishakapatnam