MANGALURU: VHP leader Sharan Pumpwell on Sunday openly claimed that their Hindutva activists murdered Mohammed Fazil to avenge Praveen Nettaru’s murder in Sullia.

Addressing the Shourya Yatra of the VHP at Ullal, he said, “Hindus showed their power in Gujarat and it is not a massacre. Bajrang Dal is ready to fight if needed. When Praveen Nettaru was murdered, the entire Hindu community wept.

We wept for the sacrifice of a good karyakartha. But our karyakartas did not keep quiet. We killed Fazil in public view in Surathkal. You must have seen the video, of how brutally he was murdered. That is our power,” Sharan said.

He said there is a need for a Hindu MLA at Ullal. “There may be many terrorists in Ullal. If NIA conducts searches, they need to be traced. Though PFI is banned, their workers are plotting to murder our activists,” he said.

BHUBANESHWAR: Odisha’s Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das died of bullet injuries on Sunday, Apollo Hospital officials said.

Earlier in the day, Das was shot and grievously injured when he got out of his car, allegedly by a police officer who was captured.

Naba Kishore Das was shot at by an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of police near Gandhi Chowk in Jharsuguda district’s Brajrajnagar at about 12:15 pm on Sunday.

He was stepping out of his vehicle when bullets hit the left side of the minister’s chest. He immediately collapsed into the seat of his vehicle. A police inspector and a youth who were standing near the minister sustained minor injuries.

Sources said the accused ASI Gopal Das who was posted at Gandhi Chowk police outpost fired at least four rounds at Naba Das when he stepped out of his car to attend a party function in Brajarajnagar.

Naba Das was immediately rushed to District Headquarters Hospital in Jharsuguda and was later airlifted to Bhubaneswar for further treatment. 

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik condemned the attack and ordered a Crime Branch inquiry.

A Crime Branch team is expected to reach the crime scene soon.

Unconfirmed reports said that ASI Gopal Das had been posted as the personal security officer of the health minister earlier but was later transferred to Jharsuguda district.

Naba Das was reportedly supposed to attend a party programme scheduled near Gandhi Chowk. 

Brajrajnagar SDPO, Gupteswar Das confirmed that the accused ASI had shot the minister with his issued weapon. “However, the motive behind the shooting is not clear yet. An investigation has been launched into the incident,” he added.

The minister, a strongman in the mining hub of Jharsuguda, had switched over to the BJD from the Congress ahead of the 2019 elections. He is known to have business interests in coal mining, transportation and hospitality sectors.

SRI NAGAR: Life in Kashmir was disrupted on the final day of the ‘Chilla-i-Kalan’, the harshest winter period in the region, on Monday as fresh snowfall snapped the Valley’s connections with the rest of the country, affecting surface and air traffic, officials said.

Moderate to heavy snowfall was recorded in the plains of Kashmir, while the higher reaches experienced heavy to very heavy falls, they said.

The officials said Srinagar received about seven inches of fresh snowfall, Gulmarg more than a feet, Pahalgam nine inches, Gurez 1.5 feet and the plains of Kupwara district around four inches. In the upper reaches, it was around one-two feet.

They said the snowfall started late Sunday night in most places and continued till the last reports came in. The snowfall brought normal life to a halt and snapped the Valley’s connection with the rest of the country, the officials said.

The Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was closed for traffic due to snow and landslides at many places along the arterial road. Train services on the Baramulla-Banihal route were suspended due to accumulation of snow on the tracks, they added.

The officials said the bad weather affected air traffic to and from the valley as flight operations at the Srinagar airport were suspended. Visibility is very poor and there is snow accumulation on the runway, they said.

The meteorological department predicted heavy snowfall, and rains with thunderstorm in the plains of Jammu, over the next 12 hours. Expect gradual decrease in the precipitation from Monday night, it said.

Meanwhile, the minimum temperature improved across the Valley but stayed below the freezing point.

‘Chillai-Kalan’ — the 40-day harshest winter period when the chances of snowfall are maximum and most frequent — began on December 21 last year.

While it ends on January 30, the cold wave continues even after with a 20-day-long ‘Chillai Khurd’ and a 10-day-long ‘Chillai Bachha’ following it.

NEW DELHI: US short seller Hindenburg Research has rejected Adani Group’s charge that its report was an attack on India, saying a “fraud” cannot be obfuscated by nationalism or a bloated response that ignored response to key allegations.

Commenting on the Adani Group released late on Sunday evening in response to its report, Hindenburg said it believed India was a vibrant democracy and an emerging superpower with an exciting future and it was Adani Group which was holding it back through “systematic loot”.

 that said its two-year investigation found Adani Group “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.

Hindenburg said the response by the conglomerate run by Asia’s richest man Gautam Adani “opened with the sensationalistic claim that we are the ‘Madoffs of Manhattan’.

Adani also claimed we have committed a “flagrant breach of applicable securities and foreign exchange laws.” “Despite Adani’s failure to identify any such laws, this is another serious accusation that we categorically deny,” it said.

Adani Group had on Sunday evening likened the damning allegations levied by Hindenburg to a “calculated attack” on India, its institutions and growth story, saying the allegations are “nothing but a lie”.

It said the report was driven by “an ulterior motive” to “create a false market” to allow the US firm make financial gains by dragging stock prices down.

The document is “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and concealed facts relating to baseless and discredited allegations to drive an ulterior motive.”

“This is rife with conflict of interest and intended only to create a false market in securities to enable Hindenburg, an admitted short seller, to book massive financial gain through wrongful means at the cost of countless investors,” it had said questioning the credibility and ethics of Hindenburg.

Hindenburg responded saying Adani Group “predictably tried to lead the focus away from substantive issues and instead stoked a nationalist narrative.

“Adani Group has attempted to conflate its meteoric rise and the wealth of its Chairman, Gautam Adani, with the success of India itself,” it said.

“We disagree. To be clear, we believe India is a vibrant democracy and an emerging superpower with an exciting future. We also believe India’s future is being held back by Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation.” Stating that a “fraud is fraud even when it’s perpetrated by one of the wealthiest individuals in the world,” it said Adani’s ‘413-page’ response only included about 30 pages focused on issues related to the report.

“The remainder of the response consisted of 330 pages of court records, along with 53 pages of high-level financials, general information, and details on irrelevant corporate initiatives, such as how it encourages female entrepreneurship and the production of safe vegetables,” it said.

“Our report asked 88 specific questions of Adani Group. In its response, Adani failed to specifically answer 62 of them. Instead, it mainly grouped questions together in categories and provided generalized deflections.” It thereafter went on to reiterate its allegations and how Adani Group has failed to respond to them.

The report by the tiny New York firm that specialises in short selling led to Adani Group losing more than USD 50 billion in market value in just two trading sessions last week and Adani himself losing in excess of USD 20 billion, or about one-fifth of his total fortune.

In the report, Hindenburg called out the conglomerate’s “substantial debt”, which includes pledging shares for loans; that Adani’s brother Vinod “manages a vast labyrinth of offshore shell entities” that move billions into group companies without required disclosure; and that its auditor “hardly seems capable of complex audit work”.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The RSS has started calling on opinion makers and intellectuals at their residences in an attempt to build bridges. While the CPM and Congress publicise such visits, RSS has been at it in its trademark diligent and quiet manner — devoid of any media blitz. Powered by its over 6,000 shakhas in the state, RSS’ outreach will focus on ideologues of all persuasions ahead of the organisation’s centenary in 2025.

The RSS has never been able to take advantage of its presence in the state. Its previous leadership under prantha karyavahak P Gopalankutty Master had formed ‘sakthi kendras’ across the state where booth in-charges as well as voters’ list in-charges were assigned to visit every household. Now it is taking the drive to the next level. The sampark vibhag has initiated house visits at taluk, district and state levels.

A top RSS leader told TNIE that they have identified people from nine walks of life, from social commentators, columnists, editors, film personalities, politicians to fellow political travellers.

“The RSS’ main aim is to enhance its presence in the state, where it has the most number of shakhas in the country. For some time, we have seen intellectuals and prominent personalities targeting us without realising our work. We wanted to bridge that gap in the run-up to our centenary year in 2025,” a top leader said.

Veteran filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan was in for a surprise when RSS leaders from the local shakha visited him recently. He confirmed the visit. Another prominent person from the left camp received a book on Ayodhya and pamphlets on the RSS during one such outreach. The RSS leadership said the house visits had nothing to do with the imminent Lok Sabha elections.

BENGALURU:  The Outer Ring Road Line will register a unique first for Bengaluru Metro as the first full overhead U-girder will be launched on Friday night near its Bellandur Metro station. The girder runs to a length of 28 metres and has been cast in a yard at Gunjur.

In all projects of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) so far, the girder has been erected using cranes. “It is for the first time a launcher will be used which will lift the girder above the work site and launch it and this is being done along the Silk Board-KR Puram Line.  The lift will be done once for 3 or 4 km,” said a top Metro official.

Girder is a crucial part of civil infrastructure as the viaduct, on which the rails are laid, will come up on it.
“Contractor AFCONS has readied the girder under Metro supervision. The U-girder weighs 160 tonnes. It will take us just one day to complete the work as compared to a minimum of seven days that the traditional method of casting segments and then linking them to form a girder used to take,” the official said. Two U-girders are placed on every span. “We have completed work on 13 spans so far and all the girders were brought together as segments and made into one whole at the site,” the official said. The line will have 330 spans, he added.

Line & Power Block gets nod
The Bengaluru Railway Division has permitted BMRCL to carry out work relating to launch of its open web girder between Carmelaram and Baiyappanahalli Metro stations. The delay in launch of this girder has ensured that work between K R Puram and Baiyapanahalli Metro station could not be completed on the Reach-1 Extension line with the line set to be partially launched in March.

According to a communication issued by the Senior Divisional Operations Manager of Bengaluru Railway Division on Friday, line and power block will be undertaken for 22 hours spread over a week, beginning January 29.

BMRCL will launch a 65m open web girder above the railway tracks here. Railways had initially approved a Line Block between December 8 and 31, but BMRCL was not in a position to launch the girder as preliminary work was not completed.