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 BHUBANESWAR 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 ee t h a N a i r @ New Delhi express read Rajnath to lead BJP manifesto committee New Delhi: The BJP has formed a 27-member election manifesto committee for the Lok Sabha elections with defence minister Rajnath Singh as its president | P9 WITH THIS ISSUE Act Two PLUS 12 PAGES 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 BJD loses its Stars as Anubhav, Akash quit; Priyadarshi joins BJP E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar In a major setback for BJD ahead of elections, three of its prominent leaders including a sitting MP and two former MLAs resigned on Saturday Two of them Kend. rapara MP Anubhav Mohanty and former Korei MLA Akash Das Nayak have been top Odia film stars and also the regional outfit’s star campaigners. Anubhav is the second sitting member of parliament of BJD after Bhartruhari Mahtab to quit the party. He had defeated the then sitting BJD MP and now the BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in a battle of prestige for Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after the latter had quit the regional party following his suspension. However, the actor-turnedpolitician had a continuous Anubhav Mohanty Akash Das Nayak BJP announces last 3 Lok Sabha candidates Bhubaneswar: The BJP on Saturday announced Bhartruhari Mahtab, Sukanta Panigrahi and Rabindra Narayan Behera as candidates for the Cuttack, Kandhamal and Jajpur Lok Sabha constituencies respectively | P3 run with controversies, mostly concerning his marital discord which played out in public, and fallen out of favour of the BJD high command. In his resignation letter to Priyadarshi Mishra BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Anubhav said, “Despite my unwavering loyalty and deep admiration for you sir, who I have regarded as a fatherly figure, I’ve been grappling with undisclosed concerns that have made me feel suffocated over the past four years.” He has not opened up on his plans but is set to join the BJP sources said. His Ol, lywood counterpart Akash and former MLA from Bhubaneswar-North Priyadarshi Mishra too resigned from the party Continued on P5 . 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
Express Network Private Limited publishes thirty three E-paper editions of The New Indian Express newspaper , thirty two E-paper editions of Dinamani, one E-paper edition of The Morning Standard, one E-paper edition of Malayalam Vaarika magazine and one E-paper edition of the Indulge - The Morning Standard, Kolkatta.