CHENNAI: Will the DMK government’s first budget under the leadership of MK Stalin have a growth plan for southern districts? All eyes will be on State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan, who was elected from Madurai Central constituency, as he would present the Budget on Friday, to see what vision he has to develop the southern region of the State.

The region lacks equitable development, resulting in huge migration of workforce from Madurai, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts to Chennai and Coimbatore.

Although funds could be a constraint for planning projects now, the Finance Minister is unlikely to ignore the south. A few announcements aiming at the region’s development can be expected, says Ligi George, Managing Director, Madras Suspensions and former chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (Madurai Zone).

It is learned that the government had held various meetings in this regard with trade bodies and elicited their suggestions.

“The government should come out with a massive plan like building an electronics city in any of the southern districts as it would have access to Thoothukudi Port. This should be similar to what Gujarat did by creating a financial city. Rather than going for a piecemeal approach, the government should have a vision, or create a master plan on how it would develop the southern districts,” George adds.

While the new industrial policy, which came into effect recently, talks about a flexible capital subsidy of 40 percent to industries, which invest in southern and backward districts, industrialists say this is just a good plan on paper.

“Until there is no real commitment from the government or a phased plan to pursue growth in these districts, there won’t be equitable development,” says George, who feels that Palanivel Thiagarajan with his experience abroad could be a game-changer.

Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Srivats Ram says that there is a need to identify the export potential of each district and work towards identifying one exportable product and building the necessary infrastructure.

“This would enable sustainable and equitable economic development in the State,” he says.

Former Confederation of Indian Industry chairman of Tamil Nadu State Council Hari K Thiagarajan says he expects a budget announcement pertaining to southern districts. This could be pertaining to the Chennai- Kanniyakumari Industrial Corridor, which is a part of India’s East Coast Economic Corridor and connects India to the production networks of Southeast and East Asia.

“We are expecting some subsidies to be given for the Madurai-Thoothukudi corridor. But I think there needs to be a huge effort on the government’s part to achieve development here,” says Thiagarajan.

“Giving stamp duty waivers and power generation tax incentives will not help anymore. There needs to be a big push from the government. Manufacturing could play a key role here. The focus could be on batteries for e-vehicles or hydrogen fuel cells. Since land is cheaper here than in Chennai, the government should definitely push large retail investment, which is coming to Chennai, to south Tamil Nadu and offer more subsidies. The previous government failed to woo investments into the southern districts,” Thiagarajan adds.

A mega industrial park between Madurai and Thoothukudi, with major infrastructure similar to the parks in China could be planned. “Once the infrastructure is created then the State government should go in for a plug and play policy,” says Thiagarajan, adding that, “If one such hi-tech industrial park is set up, investment would start flowing in.”

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday alleged that India and Afghanistan were behind last month’s suicide attack on a shuttle bus in the country’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese engineers.

The bomb attack took place in the Dasu area of Upper Kohistan district where a Chinese company is building a 4,300-megawatt hydropower project on the Indus river.

At least 13 people were killed when the bus carrying Chinese engineers and workers to the site of the under-construction Dasu Dam exploded on July 14.

The bus fell into a deep ravine after the explosion.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad after the completion of the probe, also assisted by Chinese experts, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Afghan soil was used and the vehicle used for the attack was smuggled from Afghanistan.

He accused the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) of carrying out the attack.

“It was a blind case but Pakistani institutions managed to trace it,” Qureshi said, alleging that there is a nexus of the two agencies which were behind the incident.

He said the Pakistani authorities examined footage of 36 CCTV cameras while the area under the investigation was almost 1,400 kilometres.

Last month, Pakistan alleged that the mastermind of an attack near the residence of banned Jamat-ud-Dawa outfit chief Hafiz Saeed in Lahore on June 23 was “an Indian citizen” and he was associated with R&AW.

Later it claimed that a “common link” has been established between the Dasu blast and the explosion outside Saeed’s house.

India has previously trashed as “baseless propaganda” Pakistan’s claim that it was behind some attacks in Karachi and Lahore and asked Islamabad to take “credible and verifiable” action against terrorism emanating from its soil instead.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi last month asked Pakistan to focus on setting its own house in order in containing terror networks and said that the international community is well aware of that country’s credentials when it comes to terrorism.

“It is not new for Pakistan to engage in baseless propaganda against India. Pakistan would do well to expend the same effort in setting its own house in order and taking credible and verifiable action against terrorism emanating from its soil and terrorists who have found safe sanctuaries there,” Bagchi said on July 8 in New Delhi at an MEA briefing.

“The international community is well aware of Pakistan’s credentials when it comes to terrorism. This is acknowledged by none other than its own leadership, which continues to glorify terrorists like Osama Bin Laden as ‘martyrs’,” he said.

On Thursday, Qureshi claimed that the first target was the Diamer-Bhasha dam site in Gilgit-Baltistan but on failing to target it, the terrorists targeted the Dasu project.

He said the authorities have traced the handlers and the people connected with it.

The Chinese officials have visited the crime scene and were updated about the investigation, Qureshi said, adding that China was satisfied with the probe.

Director-General of Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Javed Iqbal, who also briefed the media on the occasion, said that it was a suicide attack and a thumb and a limb of the attacker were found at the scene.

He said the suicide bomber was identified as Khalid aka Sheikh and he was an Afghan national.

Iqbal said 14 people were involved in the attack, and the group was led by a person named Tariq, a member of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

He claimed that Tariq and another person Muawiya were trained by NDS and R&AW for this attack.

“We have so far arrested three suspects and are going to nab others,” he said.

Separately, the Foreign Office said that the Pakistani authorities have conducted thorough investigations of the incident and shared the findings with the Chinese side at every stage.

The planning for the terrorist attack was done in Afghanistan, with provision of material support as well, including the vehicle, while the suicide bomber was trained in Afghanistan and brought to Pakistan to carry out the attack, it claimed.

“Some of those involved in the attack have been arrested, while others are at large in Afghanistan. An MLA (Mutual Legal Assistance) request is being made to the Afghanistan Government,” the FO said in a statement.

“We would not allow any hostile force to undermine the iron-clad friendship between Pakistan and China,” it said.

Pakistan had initially said that the accident was caused due to technical problems and later an explosion occurred due to gas leakage, while China has from the beginning called it a terrorist attack due to which the vehicle fell down.

Beijing also sent a 15-member team of experts to Pakistan to probe the incident.

The Dasu bus blast had accentuated Beijing’s concerns as thousands of Chinese personnel are working on the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan installations, projects and personnel in Pakistan.

For Pakistan, ties with China are crucial due to its increasing economic dependence on Beijing.

This year, the two nations are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations and more than 100 celebratory events have been planned of which over 60 events have already been held so far.

MATHURA: A special court here awarded a man life imprisonment till last breath for kidnapping and raping his stepdaughter, saying he deserved no leniency as he was the custodian of the girl, a minor when the incident happened eight years ago.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act court judge Amar Singh also imposed a cumulative fine of Rs 2 lakh on convict Saubi.

“The learned Additional Special Judge POCSO Act, court no 2, Amar Singh also ordered the government would pay Rs 2 lakh to the victim girl in case the convict fails to deposit the fine,” Additional District Government Counsel (ADGC) Subhash Chandra Chaturvedi said.

Sharing the details about the incident, Chaturvedi said that on February 2, 2013 Saubi kidnapped the girl, who was 15 then, and raped her when her mother had gone to a relative’s place.

Upon her return, the mother filed a complaint against Saubi, also alleging he stole a motorbike, Rs 1.05 lakh cash and jewellery.

An FIR was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her for marriage) and 376 (rape) on the woman’s complaint.

Four years after the death of her first husband, the woman had married Shaubi, a resident of Aligarh, expecting him to support the family, the ADGC said.

After the marriage, they started living together in Karahari village under Surir police station of Mathura district.

Saubi’s counsel requested the court to take a lenient view of the matter as his client is poor and a first-time offender, the ADGC stated.

The judge rejected the plea, saying since the accused was the father and the custodian of the girl, what he did was a heinous crime that merited an exemplary punishment.

The convict also deserved a severe punishment since the girl was less than 16 years of age when he subjected her to the crime, he said.

The judge then awarded the convict 10 years rigorous punishment and Rs 50,000 fine under section 366 of the IPC, and life imprisonment (till his last breath)) and Rs 1.50 lakh fine under section 376, the ADGC said.

In case the convict fails to deposit the fine, the government would pay Rs 2 lakh to the victim as compensation, cancelling bail of the convict, the judge ordered.

NEW DELHI: A juvenile allegedly killed a woman after her four-year-old son urinated in front of his house in Rohini area in Delhi, police said on Thursday.

Police were informed at 11.22 pm about the killing.

A case was registered at Aman Vihar police station and investigation was taken up, a senior police officer said.

“During investigation, a juvenile has been apprehended. Both the accused and the victim reside nearby in the same locality. An altercation had taken between them over trivial issues,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini) Pranav Tayal said.

One such argument broke out between them after Rana’s four-year-old son urinated in front of the house of the accused, the DCP said.

Some shop owners had also tried to hold mediation between the two a few days ago, police said.

On Wednesday around 10 pm, the juvenile again went to talk to Rana in her shop, but the matter was not sorted out and the accused killed her with a razor and fled away, police said.

MUMBAI: Mumbai has recorded its first death due to the Delta Plus variant of coronavirus with a 63-year-old fully vaccinated woman succumbing to it in July, a civic official has said.

Following her death, at least two of her close contacts have also been found infected with the Delta Plus variant, which is considered highly infectious, he said.

It is the second death due to this variant in the state as it had claimed the life of an 80-year-old woman from Ratnagiri district on June 13.

That woman had not taken even a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, officials said.

In the latest case, the woman, a resident of eastern Mumbai suburb of Ghatkopar died on July 27 while undergoing treatment in a hospital ICU.

The woman had taken both the doses of Covishield vaccine, but tested coronavirus positive on July 21 with synonyms like dry cough, loss of taste, bodyache and headache, he said.

She was put on oxygen support and given steroids and Remdesivir as part of the treatment, the official said, adding that she did not have any travel history or history of reinfection.

Six close contacts of the deceased woman have also tested coronavirus positive.

After their samples were sent for whole genome sequencing, two of them were found to have been infected with the Delta Plus variant, and the result of others is awaited, he said.

Two days back, the Maharashtra government had said that as many as 20 new cases of the Delta Plus variant were detected in the state on Wednesday alone and seven of them were in Mumbai.

With this, the number of patients found infected with this variant in the state had increased to 65, said a statement issued by the health department.

Out of the newly detected cases, seven were in Mumbai, three in Pune, two each in Nanded, Gondia, Raigad, Palghar, and one each in Chandrapur and Akola districts, it had said.

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday alleged that the party’s official Twitter account as well as that of a large number of its leaders and workers have been blocked by the microblogging site.

This comes close on the heels of the blocking of party leader Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account after he shared pictures of the family of the nine-year-old alleged rape and murder victim last week in violation of the law.

Congress social media department head Rohan Gupta said the party’s official Twitter account and around 5,000 accounts of its top leaders and workers have been blocked by Twitter.

He alleged that Twitter is acting against Congress leaders under pressure from the government.

“Twitter is clearly acting under government’s pressure, as it did not remove the same pictures shared by the Twitter accounts of National Commission for Scheduled Castes for a few days,” Gupta said.

The Twitter accounts of AICC general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, K C Venugopal, Ajay Maken, party’s whip in Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore, Assam in-charge and former Union minister Jitendra Singh and Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev have also been locked, the party said.

“So! After Shri @RahulGandhi, the Lord @narendramodi Ji and Vassal @Jack & @twitter have locked @rssurjewala, @ajaymaken & @sushmitadevinc. @INCIndia registers its protest and promises to continue the fight for each and all being wronged! We shall hold on @AshwiniVaishnaw Ji,” tweeted Pranav Jha, AICC secretary in-charge of party’s Communications Department last night. His account was later blocked too at night.

“The list goes on. @Twitter locks @JitendraSAlwar and @manickamtagore and many more. Doesn’t Modi Ji understand that we @INCindia’ns have a legacy of fighting even from behind the locks of kaala paani,” he had asked in another tweet.

“He thinks the virtual locks of Twitter will deter us from fighting for India,” Jha said.

The Congress has accused Twitter of acting against Gandhi’s account under pressure from the government.

Gandhi had tweeted pictures with the family of a nine-year-old victim of alleged rape and murder in Delhi last week.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) took cognisance of Gandhi’s tweet and directed Twitter to act against the Congress leader’s account for violating the privacy of a minor victim, mandated by the laws of the land.

Kabul, Aug 12 (AP) The Taliban captured a police headquarters Thursday in a provincial capital in southern Afghanistan teetering toward being lost to the insurgents as suspected US airstrikes pounded the area, an official said.

Fighting raged in Lashkar Gah, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities in the Taliban heartland of Helmand province, where surrounded government forces hoped to hold onto the capital after the militants’ weeklong blitz has seen them already seized nine others around the country.

Afghan security forces and the government have not responded to repeated requests for comment over the days of fighting. However, President Ashraf Ghani is trying to rally a counteroffensive relying on his country’s special forces, the militias of warlords and American airpower ahead of the U.S. and NATO withdraw at the end of the month.

While the capital of Kabul itself has not been directly threatened in the advance, the stunning speed of the offensive raises questions of how long the Afghan government can maintain control of the slivers of the country it has left. The government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities as thousands displaced by the fighting fled to Kabul and now live in open fields and parks.

The fighting around Lashkar Gah has raged for weeks. On Wednesday, a suicide car bombing marked the latest wave to target the capital’s regional police headquarters. By Thursday, the Taliban had taken the building, with some police officers surrendering to the militants and others retreating to the nearby governor’s office that’s still held by government forces, said Nasima Niazi, a lawmaker from Helmand.

Niazi said she believed the Taliban attack killed and wounded security force members, but she had no casualty breakdown. Another suicide car bombing targeted the provincial prison, but the government still held it, she said. The Taliban’s other advances have seen the militants free hundreds of its members over the last week, bolstering their ranks while seizing American-supplied weapons and vehicles.

Niazi criticized ongoing airstrikes targeted the area, saying civilians likely had been wounded and killed.

The Taliban used civilian houses to protect themselves, and the government, without paying any attention to civilians, carried out airstrikes, she said.

With the Afghan air power limited and in disarray, the U.S. Air Force is believed to be carrying out some series of strikes to support Afghan forces. Aviation tracking data suggested U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, F-15 fighter jets, drones and other aircraft were involved in the fighting overnight across the country, according to Australia-based security firm The Cavell Group.

It’s unclear what casualties the U.S. bombing campaign has caused. The U.S. Air Force’s Central Command, based in Qatar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Taliban appeared to be pressing into the capital of Ghazni province, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. Wahidullah Jumazada, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, acknowledged the insurgents had launched attacks from several directions on the capital, but insisted the government remained in control.

The Taliban posted a video online claiming they had made it inside the provincial capital.

The success of the Taliban offensive also calls into question whether they would ever rejoin long-stalled peace talks in Qatar aimed at moving Afghanistan toward an inclusive interim administration as the West hoped. Instead, the Taliban could come to power by force or the country could splinter into factional fighting like it did after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

The multiple battle fronts have stretched the government’s special operations forces while regular troops have often fled the battlefield and the violence has pushed thousands of civilians to seek safety in the capital.

The latest U.S. military intelligence assessment is that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a couple of months.