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 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM 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 No Hand-outs, state units told to raise funds Cash-starved Congress cuts down on advert spend in print, TV; uses social media instead P r eet h a N ai r @ New Delhi express read Rajnath to lead BJP manifesto panel New Delhi: The BJP has formed a 27-member election manifesto committee for the LS polls with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh as its president. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union minister Piyush Goyal are the committee’s convener and co-convener respectively. The committee includes 11 Union ministers. P9 The New Indian Express wishes its readers a Happy Easter 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 Congress has already started raising funds through crowdfunding, says party MP B Manickam Tagore. “We have scaled down on our expenditure on campaigns through 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. 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 The Congress is trying to go organic mostly because of the cash crunch Vaibhav Walia, Chairman of Cong war room for polls NewsClick case: Editor Prabir named accused All 3 accused acquitted in Riyaz Maulavi murder case U J W A L J A L A L I @ New Delhi E x p r ess N ews Se rv i c e @ Kasaragod 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 editorin-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. The District and Sessions Court in Kasaragod on Saturday acquitted all the three accused in the case pertaining to the murder of Riyaz Maulavi, a madrassa teacher, at Choori in the district in 2017. Judge K K Balakrishnan let off Ajesh, Nidhin Kumar, and Akilesh, alleged RSS workers, as the “prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the victim was murdered by the accused”. The prosecution case was that the accused barged into the room of Maulavi at the mosque in Choori on March 20, 2017, and attacked him while he was sleeping. The prosecution had argued that the accused are RSS workers, who nurtured hatred towards local Muslims. But the court said “the prosecution failed to establish any kind of connection of the accused with RSS”. Coming down heavily on the police, the court observed that “the investigation is not up to the standard and is one-sided. So, the accused are entitled to the benefit of doubt.” The accused were apprehended within three days of the incident and the chargesheet was submitted in 90 days. The three remained in judicial custody as they were denied bail. The case was investigated by a team led by Inspector P Sudhakaran under the supervision of SP (Crime Branch) A Sreenivasan. The prosecution examined 97 witnesses and produced 215 documents and 45 material objects in the case. Advocate Binu Kulammakad, who appeared for the accused, said the three were unjustly detained in prison for ● More on P6 seven years. Pollscape Pariyaram stands out amid poll buzz It’s election season, but Pariyaram, in Thiruvananthapuram district, is devoid of all the buzz associated with a poll campaign. One will not get to see even a single poster, flex board, graffiti or flag in the village, a decision taken by residents nearly 40 years ago. P5 A game of musical chairs As many as 27 MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha changed their political affiliations as on March 15, 2024. While some left their parent party and went solo, many shifted to another party. P7 WITH THIS ISSUE Act Two PLUS 12 PAGES Forest fires rage across India at 600-plus points J iten 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 Maharashtra Andhra Pradesh Telangana Odisha Chhattisgarh Uttarakhand Madhya Pradesh Karnataka Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Forest fire points 134(6) 94(8) 82(5) Source: 63(2) Forest 56 Survey of India 44 Large 37(4) fire 26(1) events of at least 24 3 days in 20(3) brackets
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