Kolkata: After sending two missives to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen for allegedly occupying parts of land leased to his family in an “unauthorised manner”, Visva-Bharati University on Thursday said it will conduct a joint survey of the land along with the economist’s side.

In a statement, the university sought a suitable date and time from Sen for the exercise.

“With reference to our earlier letters, this is to inform you that the university wants to survey/demarcate jointly the land mutated in your favour for the residual period of lease as per lease deal executed on October 27, 1943 vide resolution no 8 dated September 3, 2006 of the executive council of Visva Bharati and communicated to you on October 31, 2006,” the letter said.

The varsity, in the letter, said the joint survey will be conducted on at least two days, and sought to know a suitable date and time from Sen.

One of the previous letters issued by the university to Sen on January 27 stated, “You are in possession of 1.38 acre of land which is in excess of your legal entitlement of 1.25 acre. Kindly return the land to Visva Bharati as early as possible “

On January 24, the central university had issued a similar letter to Sen.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee last week came out in support of the economist and handed over land-related documents to the octogenarian during a visit to Birbhum.

Mumbai: The LIC management will soon meet the top management of the crisis-ridden Adani Group and seek clarification on the crisis being faced by the diversified conglomerate, chairman M R Kumar said here on Thursday.

LIC’s investment into Adani group firms’ stock has come under criticism by the opposition parties as well as investors after US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations against the Gautam Adani-led group, saying its companies manage and manipulate share prices, run offshore shell companies for round-tripping and lacking in corporate governance practices.

“Though our investor team has already sought clarifications from the Adanis, our top management could not contact them yet as we have been busy preparing the results. We are soon going to call them to meet us and explain. We want to understand what is happening in the market and in the group,” the chairman told reporters at the earnings conference on Thursday.

“We’ll be calling them in sometime soon to know how are they managing the whole crisis,” Kumar added.

Kumar, however, refused to give a timeline of the meeting between LIC and Adani group officials.

LIC, which is the nation’s largest institutional investor, is the second largest shareholder in most of the listed Adani group companies, with a cumulative investment of Rs 36,474.78 crore as of January 27, which in percentage terms is 4.23 per cent of the total public holding in those companies. But for LIC’s Rs 44.76 lakh crore investment asset under management, this is only 0.97 per cent.

As of January 27, this investment was valued at over Rs 56,000 crore, LIC had said on January 30, but since then these shares have further lost — cumulatively about USD 100 billion or about 60 per cent of their January 24 market value.

When asked, the chairman categorically said, “Our investments are still in the green and we have not made any provisions either for equity, which is the vast majority or for the debt. Our equity holding in the group is 4.23 per cent of the total public holding of those firms. But from our total market investment of Rs 44.76 lakh crore, this is only 0.97 per cent.”

He said the Irdai (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) norms on investment caps it at 15 per cent of a company’s equity, but “we have some exception wherein we hold more than 30 per cent in some companies”.

“Why should we be making provision when they are in the green. To some of the group companies (ACC and Ambuja Cements) our investments go back to more than two decades,” he said.

On January 30, LIC issued a public statement saying: “Our total holding in the Adani group companies under equity and debt a on date is Rs 36,474.78 crore. This was Rs 35,917.31 crore as of December 31, 2022. Total purchase value of these equities of the group companies, bought over the past many years, is Rs 30,127 crore and the market value for the same at close of market hours on January 27, 2023 was Rs 56,142 crore.”

LIC has exposure to all the 10 listed Adani group companies. However, it did not disclose about its exposure on an individual company basis.

Even after the Hindenburg report, LIC invested about Rs 300 crore in buying 9,15,748 shares in Adani Enterprises’ Rs 20,000-crore follow-on public offer as an anchor investor.

Kumar said, the book value of its Rs 44.75 lakh crore market asset under management is only Rs 6.87 lakh crore, and according to the same book value its exposure to the Adani group companies is only 4.23 per cent.

Since the publication of the Hindenburg report on January 24, three days before the launch of the group’s flagship Adani Enterprises’ Rs 20,000-crore follow-on public offer (FPO), the value of the group companies’ stocks have lost more than USD 100 billion or about 60 per cent from their January 24 value.

The FPO was fully subscribed but called off a day later by the management.

Dehradun: A protest by youths against recruitment examination paper leaks in Uttarakhand turned violent when the protestors clashed with police personnel and hurled stones at them here on Thursday.

The police resorted to a lathicharge to disperse the protestors. Some youths were injured in police action.

The clash between the protesters and the police caused a long traffic jam from Clock Tower to Rajpur Road.

Unemployed youths had staged a dharna here on Wednesday demanding a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in different recruitment examinations held by the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission.

Reacting to the police lathicharge on protesting youths, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said they were subjected to brutality for raising their genuine demands.

“The BJP government’s corruption in Uttarakhand is ruining the lives of youths. They were brutally lathicharged when they were staging a demonstration with their genuine demands against paper leak of recruitment examinations,” Gandhi said in a statement.

The youths were angry as police had allegedly forced them to lift their dharna on Wednesday.

The Uttarakhand Congress too reacted sharply to the “coercive manner in which the voice of youths was being silenced” by the state government.

The party will hold demonstrations in every district on Friday in protest against the atrocity against the youths, PCC vice president Mathura Dutt Joshi said.

Earlier on Thursday, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami appealed to the youths not to let themselves be misled by anyone, saying efforts are on to ensure that recruitment examinations are held in the state in a transparent way.

“We are soon going to bring the strictest anti-copying law in the country. It will be ensured that use of unfair means in recruitment examinations stops completely and they are held in a transparent manner. We will see to it that no injustice is done to the youth,” Dhami said.

“Our government is making decisions in favour of the youth. We have granted reservation to our sisters and daughters in government jobs. Everyone’s interest will be protected. My request to the youth is that they should not allow themselves to be misled by anyone,” he said.

The government has got irregularities in recruitment examinations thoroughly probed and the guilty have been sent behind bars, the chief minister said.

LUCKNOW: The stage is set for the three-day UP Global Investors; Summit (GIS-2023) beginning tomorrow. Billed as the state’s biggest business meet, it aims to push the state towards becoming a trillion-dollar economy. State capital Lucknow is being decked up to welcome around 10,000 delegates, including 400-plus international investors from nearly 41 countries, apart from top industry leaders, Union ministers, political bigwigs, ministers from participating countries and diplomats along with the CEOs of many leading companies and banks.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the event on Friday, President Draupadi Murmu will attend the meeting at the closing ceremony on Sunday. As many as 30 technical sessions based on different sectors such as IT, aviation, health, defence, animal husbandry and dairy, handloom, textiles, media, entertainment, sports and energy, among others, are planned for the meeting. As the preparations for the summit peaked on Thursday, a list of five industry captains, including Reliance Group chairman Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Manglam Birla, chairman of Tata Sons N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Dixon Technologies Sunil Vachani and CEO, Zurich Airport Asia Daniel Bircher is kept in advance. They are expected to speak briefly before PM Modi. Moreover, teams representing Birla Group, RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, Hiranandani Group, Mahindra Group, among others, will also be a part of the summit.

Besides inaugurating the mega event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also launch the global trade show and Invest UP 2.0. He will visit the exhibition hall and have a photo session with top industry leaders and special guests on the occasion. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will address the gathering while Uttar Pradesh minister for industry Nand Gopal Nandi will deliver the welcome address. Arrangements have been made for a live telecast of the inaugural session in all the districts.

Having set an initial target of receiving investment proposals worth Rs 10 lakh crore which was revised to Rs 17 lakh crore through this event, the UP government has already receive d proposals of over Rs 27 lakh crore through over 17,000 MoUs till the summit eve. It stands out to be around seven times the investment proposals (Rs 4.68 lakh crore) received during the previous summit in 2018.

CM Yogi Adityanath has asked all officials to conduct local investors’ summits at the divisions and district levels in addition to the international and domestic roadshows that the state government’s teams organized in 21 cities in 16 countries and eight cities in India. While the foreign roadshows fetched around Rs 7.12 lakh crore investment intents by signing 108 MoUs , the intents received through the roadshows in eight cities, including Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Chandigarh, stood out at Rs 8.93 lakh crore.

These proposals received through UPGIS-2023, when fully implemented, are expected to bring a job boom by creating around 2 crore employment opportunities in the state. To invite investments, the state government had released policies for 25 different sectors, offering subsidies, grants, land etc. A special Nivesh Sarathi portal was set up for signing MoUs online and tracking them to ensure effective and quick implementation.

Drone show

CM Yogi Adityanath has told officials to conduct local investors’ summits at district levels. For the first time, investors and entrepreneurs from all 75 districts will participate in the opening ceremony. Cultural events and a drone show will also be conducted.

New Delhi: TMC MP Mahua Moitra on Tuesday launched a stinging attack on the government over the Adani-Hindenburg issue and said the billionaire businessman had ‘topi-pehnau-ed (duped)’ the country.

While participating in the debate on the ‘Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address’ in Lok Sabha, Moitra, without naming Adani, said that a famous person whose name starts with ‘A’ and ends with ‘I’ and is not Advani, who stinks of crony capitalism, had duped everyone.

Soon after she concluded her speech, there were angry exchanges between Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP members. Moitra was heard using certain objectionable words to which the Chair objected and urged members to avoid cuss words.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi asked Moitra to apologise out of morality and said if she does not it would reflect on her culture.

Moitra brought two birthday caps in the House to press her argument that the businessman being most talked about had “topi-pehnau-ed” the government.

She demanded that an enquiry be ordered against the activities of the Adani group.

Beginning her address by quoting from President Droupadi Murmu’s address, Moitra said, “Every word I utter is going to be an oblation and offering a truth into my ‘maha yagna’ of nation building.”

“I want to start off by saying as an ex-investment banker, I want companies to thrive. But I want honest, hardworking Indian companies to strive and not trapeze artists. As an MP colleague of mine likes to say the Chair always asked me not to get angry. I will not be angry for what I have to say. I will only say that we’ve all been fooled,” she said.

Moitra also alleged that the businessman gives the impression that doing things for him means that one would be in the prime minister and home minister’s good books.

Referring to a statement by the Adani group in which it had said that short-seller Hindenburg’s report was a calculated attack on India, she said, “The pride of India is not the wealth of one individual, pride of India lies in the robustness of its institutional structures.”

She said a company which is in infrastructure makes five to 15 per cent returns if they are lucky and if they get everything right, but the multiple with which this company ‘A’ was trading was absolutely outrageous.

Even Google, Amazon and Microsoft don’t trade on such multiples, she said.

“Honourable home minister, he has topi-pehnau-ed you…he is getting security clearances from the ministry of home affairs…Madam, finance minister he has topi-pehnau-ed you,” the TMC leader said.

“This man has been allowed to use LIC, SBI to get money as and when he likes. Honourable civil aviation, he has ‘topi-pehnau-ed’, you shipping minister, he has topi-pehna-ed you petroleum minister, he has ‘topi-pehnau-ed’ oil PSUs…power minister he has topi-pehnau-ed you,” she said.

“India is on its way to becoming the third largest economy in the world. Don’t let him smear your time in government, with a stink of crony capitalism. Please immediately order a full complete and thorough investigation into all matters…Our country’s reputation is at risk,” Moitra said.

She also said the House too has historically seen some of the greatest debates, some friendly, some not so friendly sparring matches.

“But it is more and less a sacred place where elected representatives could speak their minds without fear of favour…Today and I say this with a heavy heart, Lok Sabha is a space which stands out more for what cannot be said in this hall, then what can we say. The list of unmentionables is actually far longer than the list of mentionables,” she claimed.

“We cannot say China, we cannot say Pegasus, we can not say BBC, we cannot say Morbi, we cannot say Rafael, and sometimes we cannot even say Modi ji…,” she said.

The opposition has been demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe or a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the allegations of fraud and manipulation made by the US-based short seller Hindenburg Research against billionaire Gautam Adani’s companies that triggered an unprecedented stock crash. The group has denied the charges.

The opposition parties have alleged that the meltdown in Adani Group shares is a ‘mega scam’ that involves common people’s money as public sector LIC and SBI have invested in them and have questioned the government on steps taken by it.

Muzaffarpur: A complaint was filed before a Bihar court on Tuesday, against RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for allegedly denigrating Brahmins in a recent speech.

The petition was filed before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate of Muzaffarpur by advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha who has cited media reports of Bhagwat’s address on Sunday at Mumbai where he was attending a function held on the occasion of birth anniversary of Sant Ravidas, a medieval mystic poet and Dalit icon.

In his speech, in Marathi, the RSS chief had blamed “pandits” (the priestly class) for the rigid caste hierarchy that prevails in the Hindu society.

Some media outlets reported that Bhagwat spoke about “Brahmins”, who have been associated with priestcraft.
A statement was issued later by the RSS, the parent body of the BJP , denying that Bhagwat had referred to any particular caste and asserting that by the word “pandits” he implied the scholars of yore who condoned caste system.

Nonetheless, Ojha, a serial litigant who remains in news for his petitions against celebrities of all hues, has prayed that Bhagwat, be booked under IPC sections relating to hurt caused to religious feelings and breach of public peace.

Interestingly, Ojha has also ended up calling Bhagwat the chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as well as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an RSS affiliate.

The court has posted the matter for hearing on February 20.

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said there is no place for violence and Left Wing Extremism ideas in the “self-reliant New India” under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Chairing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday, he said the ministry’s policy in dealing with Left Wing Extremism (LWE) has three main pillars strategy to curb violence with a ruthless approach, better coordination between the Centre and states, and eliminating support for extremists through public participation in development.

Shah said the Modi government has adopted a policy of zero tolerance towards LWE and all kinds of violence.

There is no place for violence and LWE ideas in the “self-reliant New India” under the leadership of Modi, he said.

The home minister said the three-pronged strategy has given historic success in curbing LWE in the last eight years.

He said for the first time after nearly four decades, in 2022, the number of deaths of civilians and security forces has been brought under 100, and there is a 76 per cent reduction in violent incidents related to LWE in 2022 in comparison to 2010.

Besides, the number of civilian and security personnel who lost their lives in LWE incidents has come down by 90 per cent to 98 in 2022 in comparison to 1,005 in 2010, and the number of LWE-affected districts fell to 45 from 90.

He said the MHA is determined to destroy the entire ecosystem of LWE by financial choking.

The BSF air wing has been strengthened with the induction of new pilots and engineers in the last one year to aid operations in LWE-affected areas and save the lives of the country’s soldiers, he said.

Shah said the Modi dispensation has made several successful efforts for better coordination with governments of LWE-affected states without any party or ideology-related bias.

The Modi government is providing funds for modernisation of state police forces and assistance related to construction of fortified police stations in the affected states without any discrimination, he said.

The minister added that security as well as accelerated development in LWE-affected areas is the main focus of the government’s policy and it is taking several steps for the all-round development of these areas.

New Delhi: Doctors at a leading private hospital here on Tuesday said they have reported an “unusual” case of a nine-year-old girl who suffered epileptic seizures triggered by the smell of “mehndi” applied on her hand.

The case study has been published in the January 2023 edition of the Clinical Neurophysiology, the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said in a statement.

The department of neurology at the hospital recently reported “an unusual case” of a nine-year-old girl who was suffering epileptic seizures after application of “mehndi”, it said.

When she had suffered her first convulsion after application of “mehndi”, she had “abrupt loss of consciousness, leading to fall and convulsions for 20 seconds”, doctors at the hospital said.

Recently, she was brought to the hospital for further check-up, they said.

“Mehndi” is the art of making designs on someone’s hands with “henna”, a reddish-brown herbal dye.

According to Dr (Col) P K Sethi, senior consultant, department of neurology at the hospital, “This was an unusual case of reflex epilepsy, where epileptic seizures are consistently induced by identifiable and objective-specific triggers as against other epileptic seizures which are usually unprovoked.”

“In our reported case, seizures were consistently induced by the application of ‘mehndi’,” Sethi said.

In the hospital settings, “mehndi” was applied to the right hand of the patient.
“Henna” has a very distinctive earthy smell and as soon as the “mehndi” applied on her hand was brought near to the chest of the patient, she started having seizures, doctors said.

“Video-electroencephalography revealed an organised background with a posterior rhythm of 9 hz. The patient became restless which were followed by seizures,” the hospital said in the statement.

“In our patient, seizures were not triggered by mere application of ‘mehndi’ on hands and feet, rather it was the fragrance which acted as the stimulus leading to stimulation of functional anatomic networks,” Sethi said.

The patient was prescribed sodium valproate and parents were advised to avoid exposure to “mehndi”. The patient is stable now with no reported case of seizure, doctors said.

Gaziantep (Turkiye): Thinly-stretched rescue teams worked through the night into Wednesday, pulling more bodies from the rubble of thousands of buildings downed in Turkiye and Syria by a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 8,000, their grim task occasionally punctuated by the joy of finding someone still alive.

Turkiye’s disaster management agency said the country’s death toll had risen to 6,234 as more bodies had been recovered. Over 8,000 fatalities have been reported, including those from neighbouring Syria.

Amid calls for the government to send more help to the disaster zone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to travel to town of Pazarcik, the epicenter of the quake, and to the worst-hit province of Hatay on Wednesday.

Turkiye now has some 60,000 aid personnel in the quake-hit zone, but with the devastation so widespread many are still waiting for help.

Nearly two days after the magnitude 7.8 quake struck southeastern Turkiye and northern Syria, rescuers pulled a three-year-old boy, Arif Kaan, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Kahramanmaras, a city not far from the epicenter.

With the boy’s lower body trapped under slabs of concrete and twisted rebar, emergency crews lay a blanket over his torso to protect him from below-freezing temperatures as they carefully cut the debris away from him, mindful of the possibility of triggering another collapse.

The boy’s father, Ertugrul Kisi, who himself had been rescued earlier, sobbed as his son was pulled free and loaded into an ambulance.

“For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan,” a Turkish television reporter proclaimed as the dramatic rescue was broadcast to the country.

A few hours later, rescuers pulled 10-year-old Betul Edis from the rubble of her home in the city of Adiyaman. Amid applause from onlookers, her grandfather kissed her and spoke softly to her as she was loaded on an ambulance.

But such stories were few more than two days after Monday’s pre-dawn earthquake, which hit a huge area and brought down thousands of buildings, with frigid temperatures and ongoing aftershocks complicating rescue efforts.

Search teams from more than two dozen countries joined the Turkish emergency personnel, and aid pledges poured in.

But with devastation spread multiple several cities and towns some isolated by Syria’s ongoing conflict voices crying from within mounds of rubble fell silent, and despair grew from those still waiting for help.

In Syria, the shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by the country’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.

On Monday afternoon in a northwestern Syrian town, residents found a crying newborn still connected by the umbilical cord to her deceased mother. The baby was the only member of her family to survive a building collapse in the small town of Jinderis, relatives told The Associated Press.

Turkiye is home to millions of refugees from the war. The affected area in Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, where millions rely on humanitarian aid.

As many as 23 million people could be affected in the quake-hit region, according to Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organization, who called it a “crisis on top of multiple crises.”

Many survivors in Turkiye have had to sleep in cars, outside or in government shelters.

“We don’t have a tent, we don’t have a heating stove, we don’t have anything. Our children are in bad shape. We are all getting wet under the rain and our kids are out in the cold,” Aysan Kurt, 27, told the AP. “We did not die from hunger or the earthquake, but we will die freezing from the cold.”

Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkiye, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, authorities said.

In Syria, aid efforts have been hampered by the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held region along the border, which is surrounded by Russia-backed government forces. Syria itself is an international pariah under Western sanctions linked to the war.

The United Nations said it was “exploring all avenues” to get supplies to the rebel-held northwest.

In addition to the thousands killed in Turkiye, another 37,011 have been injured.

The death toll in government-held areas of Syria has climbed to 812, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,020 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets, with more than 2,300 injured.

The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkiye in 1999. (AP)