BHUBANESWAR l wednesday l april 03, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l late CITY EDITION DGCA seeks daily report as vistara cancels more flights The directive comes as the Tata group airline cancelled over 50 flights for the second straight day on Tuesday due to non-availability of pilots Airline told to ease passenger woes Pilots report sick to protest pay cuts The airline’s daily report to the DGCA will have details of flights being cancelled and delayed. The aviation regulator said it is monitoring the situation to ensure the airline follows the norms and passengers are not inconvenienced. Pilots of Vistara, which is in the process of getting merged with Air India, have been protesting cuts to their fixed pay | p12 ■ Several commanders and first officers of the airline’s A320 fleet reported sick on Tuesday to protest the pay cuts. The cancellations come amid a surge in travel demand due to the onset of summer ■ The new salary structure has been introduced to bring parity between pilots of Vistara and Air India as part of the merger 51.4% Vistara’s On-Time Performance on Apr 1, the lowest among scheduled airlines 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 State BJP chief Manmohan Samal to fight from Chandbali, OPCC president Sarat Pattanayak from Nuapada candidates chess secret service: BJP announces Cong releases players set for candidates for first list of 8 LS, gruelling time 112 Assly seats 49 Assly seats B i j o y P r a d h a n @ Bhubaneswar b i j ay c h a k i @ Bhubaneswar The BJP on Tuesday renominated 17 of its 22 sitting MLAs and named new faces for Bramhagiri and Malkangiri Assembly seats in place of the sitting legislators for the upcoming elections. Union minister of state for Tribal Affairs and Jal Shakti Bishweswar Tudu, one of the two sitting MPs who were denied renomination for Lok Sabha election, has not figured in the first list of 112 candidates. However, the party has named Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari for Brajrajnagar Assembly seat which he has lost thrice in the past. As the CEC is yet to clear names for the remaining 35 Assembly segments in a House of 147 seats, it is expected that Tudu may figure in the second list. He is likely to fielded from either Saraskana or Rairangpur seat. While Rairangpur MLA Naba Charan Majhi has been named as candidate for Mayurbhanj parliamentary constituency the par, ty is seriously contemplating to replace Saraskana MLA Dr Bhudan Murmu for his poor performance, sources said. Bramhagiri legislator Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra has given way to his niece and daughter of former Congress MLA late Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra Upasana for the coastal seat under Puri parliamentary constituency As Malkangiri MLA Adi. tya Madhi expressed his unwillingness to contest the upcoming polls due to serious health issues, the party has nominated a senior party worker Narasingh Madkami for the constituency . Prominent faces in the list include state BJP president Manmohan Samal, who has been Continued on P5 fielded from Chandbali. After a long wait, the Congress on Tuesday announced its first list of candidates for eight Lok Sabha and 49 Assembly seats in the state. The list includes president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Sarat Pattanayak who will contest from Nuapada Assembly seat while campaign committee chairman Bhakta Charan Das will enter the fray from Narla. The party has announced candidates for all Lok Sabha seats except Aska which will go to polls in the first two phases in the state on May 13 and May 20. The party is likely to leave the Aska seat to CPI under the INDIA alliance. It has also left the Birmitrapur and Bonai (ST) Assembly seats to the JMM. The party has repeated its lone Lok Sabha member from the state Saptagiri Ulaka from the Koraput seat while former MLA Bhujabal Majhi has been nominated from the Nabarangpur parliamentary constituency . Former chief secretary of Odisha and chairman of the election coordination committee Bijay Patnaik has been fielded from Paralakhemundi. However, it has not nominated any member of the Gamang family or former Koraput MP Jayaram Pangi who had returned to the party fold recently Former chief min. ister Giridhar Gamang, his wife and former MP Hema Gamang and son Sishir Gamang had returned to the Congress in January this year. Sitting MLAs Tara Prasad Bahinipati, Santosh Singh Saluja and Ramesh Jena have been renominated from Jeypore, Kantabanji and Sanakhemundi segments which they represented in the outgoing Continued on P5 Assembly . S w a r o o p S w a m i n at h a n @ Chennai JUST before the 2013 World Chess Championship, Viswanathan Anand caused quite the stir by naming his seconds in t h e p r e - e ve n t m e e t . “ K Sasikiran, Sandipan (Chanda), (Radoslav) Wojtaszek and (Peter) Leko are my first seconds,” the then defending champion had said. The ball, then, was in M a g n u s C a rl s e n ’ s court. Would the Norwegian return the favour by publically reve a l i n g h i s s e c o n d s ? “ I appreciate Mr Anand’s openness about his team,” he had said. “And I’m not going to return his favour.” Normalcy was quickly restored for elite chess players seldom reveal the iden- tity of their seconds before an important event. For seconds are the army of backroom staffers working to bring home the title. Complete secrecy is the only name of the game. During an interaction with this daily, R B Ramesh, coach of R Vaishali and R Praggnanadhaa (the siblings will be in action at the Candidates from Thursday in Toronto), plead the Fifth whenever he felt it would be in danger of revealing details of the multiple camps they had in the lead up. He refused to even reveal the dates of the camp. “Don’t want to go too much into the dates; I will just say we have done our bit,” he said. “We have prepared professionally Everyone will have done . the same.” It has since been reported that Praggnanandhaa, Ramdev ‘apology’ humbug, says SC, seeks fresh reply Bhubaneswar: With the national weather forecaster predicting one of the harshest summers in the state this year, Chief Electoral Officer Nikunja Bihari Dhal on Tuesday sought self-regulation of campaigns by all political parties to effectively tackle the climatic challenges at the hustings | P3 Biden, Xi discuss Taiwan, AI in a push to return to regular talks Washington: US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan, AI and security issues on Tuesday in a call meant to demonstrate a return to leader-to-leader dialogue. White House described it as candid and constructive. AAP ka Sanjay gets bail after ED says no objection to it S u c h i t r a m o h a n t y @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case linked to Delhi excise policy scam. During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju appearing for the ED told the court that the probe agency has no objection if Singh is released on bail. “I am making the statement without going into the merits of the case and keeping all the rights and contentions open,” Raju said. The bench had asked Raju to take instructions on whether the ED needed further custody of Singh. “We allow the present appeal and direct that Sanjay Singh be released on bail during pendency of trial on terms and conditions set by the trial court,” a two-judge bench of the court, headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said. The court directed Singh not to make any comments about the case while on bail. The bench further said the bail granted to Singh should not be treated as “precedent” and it will not be of much help to other jailed AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal. The ED arrested Singh in October. It had said Singh received proceeds of crime to the tune of `2 crore. During Tuesday’s hearing, the bench told Raju no money has been recovered from Singh’s possession and the bribe allegations can be tested in the trial. “Maybe a lot of time has passed but all this can be examined in trial and tested in a witness box,” it said. Reacting to the bail order, Singh’s wife Anita Singh said her happiness is incomplete with three of her “brothers”, Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and Satyendar Jain, still behind bars. Sanjay Singh No money has been recovered from his possession and the `2 crore bribe allegations can be tested in the trial. There is no trace of it. Maybe a lot of time has passed but all this can be examined in trial Supreme Court Big day for democracy, Says AAP Reacting to the Supreme Court’s order granting bail to its Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday called it a “big day for democracy” and hoped the “mountain of lies” created by the BJP will collapse in the coming days. “This is a big day for democracy in the country and a moment of happiness and hope,” senior party leader and Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a press conference who qualified for the Candidates (an elite eight-player event which will identify the Challenger for the world title match) has hired Peter Svidler, a former World No. 4. V Saravanan, an IM who works at chess.com, takes this daily through why secrecy is important. “It’s existed for a long time because you do not want to give your opponents the smallest of clues,” he tells this daily “Let’s take Svidler’s case. . He’s a legend for his Gruenfeld Defense with black pieces. He’s known for his dynamism. Those are the kind of clues you don’t want your opponents to know.” The aspect of secrecy — almost akin to an espionage operation — isn’t just unique to Ramesh. Gukesh’s coach, Vishnu Sara- Yoga guru Ramdev after appearing before Supreme Court in connection with the Patanjali ads case on Tuesday | pti S UCHITRA K A LYAN MOHANTY @ New Delhi THE Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on Patanjali Ayurved for putting out misleading advertisements to promote its products by running down modern medicine. A bench headed by Justice Hima Kohli also refused to accept the apology tendered by the firm’s founder Baba Ramdev and managing director Acharya Balkrishna but gave the company one last chance to file its response within a week and fixed the matter for further hearing on April 10. Both Ramdev and Balkrishna were present before the bench on Tuesday, in compliance with an order for their personal presence in court. Ramdev tendered unconditional apology before the bench, also comprising Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, for violating the order restraining the firm from issuing misleading advertisements, but the court was annoyed by the phraseology of the affidavit submitted by Balkrishna. “This is all humbug. You say ‘if the court feels, etc’... We cannot look into your heart! This is not how contempt cases are dealt with,” the bench said. The bench also warned the duo that it would take note of ‘perjury’ as certain documents, which were said to be attached with other papers, were created later on. “This is a clear case of perjury We are not closing the doors on you . but we are telling all that we have noted,” it said. Senior advocate Vipin Sanghi, appearing for Patanjali, said the firm’s media department was not aware of the court’s direction not to continue with advertisements. The bench asked how can the department be a standalone island within the company “We . do not wish to accept that the media department does not know what is happening in this court. This is more of a lip service,” said Justice Kohli. vanan, also maintained silence when he was asked about the event (the 17-year-old will be helped by Grzegorz Gajweski during the meet). The IM explained further. “Gajewski is known to be an expert in openings (the first phase of the game).” Koneru Humpy one of two In, dian women in the field, flat out refused to answer questions about the event. Vidit Gujrathi (one of three Indian men in the field) did of his two members ahead of the tournament (Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Daniele Vocaturo) but said he preferred to hide the identities of the others in the team. Candidates is a gruelling three week event with 14 games of Classical P13 Chess. ECI orders transfer of 2 IAS, 6 IPS officers to non-poll related posts E x p r ess Ne w s S e r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday ordered immediate transfer of eight bureaucrats including two collectors and four superintendents of police (SPs) from their current postings to non-election related posts. IG Central Asish Kumar Singh, Cutttack DCP Kanwar Vishal Singh, Cuttack collector Vineet Bhardwaj, Jagatsinghpur collector Parul Patawari, Angul SP Sudhansu Sekhar Mishra, Ganjam SP Saravama Vivek M, Khurda SP Jugal Kishore Banoth and Rourkela SP Mitrabhanu Mahapatra have been directed to be transferred to non-election related posts. In a letter to the state chief secretary, ECI secretary Rakesh Kumar said the transfers be effected immediately and a express read Self-regulate campaigning to tackle heat conditions: CEO to parties (From left): R Praggnanandhaa, R Vaishali and D Gukesh 10 Maoists killed in C’garh encounter with security personnel compliance report should be submitted. The ECI has asked the state government to recommend a panel of three eligible officers in respect of each of the posts for filling up of the vacancies. The ECI move has come in the midst of allegations from Opposition political parties regarding biasness and misuse of power and position by some government officials. On March 9, a BJP delegation had met the chief electoral officer (CEO), Odisha, over the delay in transfer of government officers before the general elections. The party had alleged that some police officers were continuing at their place of posting even after five years. The ECI on March 21 had issued transfer order of Dhenkanal collector along with SPs of Deogarh and Cuttack Rural. AT least 10 members of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), including a female cadre, were on Tuesday killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces in Bijapur district, about 350 km south of Raipur | P5
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.