V ol . 6 5 N o. 2 19 | T H U R S D A Y | J A N U A R Y 1 3, 2 0 2 2 | 1 5 p a g e s GENERAL GOVT FISCAL DEFICIT ESTIMATED AT 10.4% IN FY22 LET US FLY...ALOFT IN A WORLD FREE OF COVID EDIT YOGI PROVES POLARISER FOR PARTY AS WELL PIC: SALMAN ANSARI – At Girgaum Chowpatty in Mumbai MADHURJI HAS CRAFTED AN UNBELIEVABLE PRODUCT: SAANAND VERMA Covid ups quest for safer homes CM Yogi loses 2nd Minister in 2 days RASHMI SHARMA / Lucknow COVID METER 46, 723 16,420 New Covid cases in State record a huge jump from 34,424 heard sooner or later. But when things came to the point that no one was willing to listen to me, I had to resign," Chauhan told NDTV when asked why he was quit- INFLATION AT 6-MONTH HIGH NOT COMMON COLD Omicron is not common cold, and this is a misconception that is spreading, the government's top Covid adviser K Paul has said. ting just before the elections. ‘‘I worked with dedication but I am resigning as I am hurt by this government's oppressive attitude towards CONTD. ON NATION PAGE More than 2,000 house registrations have been recorded in the first 12 days of January , according to the data available with the department of registration & stamps, Government of Maharashtra, generating Rs 121.49 crore in revenue through stamp duty . Shah wants Yogi in fray at Ayodhya OUR BUREAU New Delhi Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in a strategy meeting of the BJP leaders from UP on Tuesday night that Yogi Aditynath should contest the polls from Ayodhya to send out a message of aggressive "Hindutva" to party workers and supporters. The meeting, which was attended by Adityanath, as also deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, discussed this strategy to counter the exit of its OBC ministers and MLAs. The BJP thereby hopes to fight back the aggression being exhibited by backward castes. Shah was reportedly quoted as saying that “Yogi contesting from Ayodhya would help the party build up the narrative it has been CONTD. ON NATION PAGE SC ex-judge to look into security breach New cases in Mumbai record a rise of nearly 4,773. Rising prices of essential kitchen items pushed the retail inflation to a six-month high of 5.59 per cent in December, close to the Reserve Bank's upper tolerance limit of 6 per cent. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was 4.91 per cent in November 2021 and 4.59 per cent in December 2020. The RBI, which mainly factors in the CPI-based retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, has been tasked by the government to keep the inflation at 4 per cent with margin of 2 per cent on either side (that is, in the range of 2-6 per cent). Retail inflation has been rising since October 2021. In July, too, the rate of price rise was 5.59 per cent but it slowed in the subsequent two months, before starting to move up from October. FROM OUR BUREAU New Delhi Former Supreme Court judge Ms Indu Malhotra will head a 5-member independent inquiry committee set up on Wednesday by the Supreme Court to probe the security breach during PM Modi's visit to Punjab. "We are of the opinion that these questions can't be left to a one-sided inquiry Chief ," Justice of India N V Ramana said, reading out from the court's order, two days after the court decided to conduct the probe itself. Justice Indu Malhotra, who was a Supreme Court judge from April 2018 to March 2021, had her education in Delhi and has practised in the Capital. She was appointed judge directly from the bar in 2018. The others in the inquiry committee are: Director General of National Investigation Agency (NIA) or his nominee who is not below the rank of an Inspector General; the Director General of Police of the Union Territory of Chandigarh; the Additional Director General of Police (Security) of Punjab; and the Registrar General of Punjab and Haryana High Court. Without fixing any time limit for completing the CONTD. ON NATION PAGE SC notice on hate speech OUR BUREAU New Delhi The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Centre and the Uttarakhand government for response within 10 days on the anti-Muslim hate speeches made in Haridwar and Delhi last month. The notices were issued by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana on a petition filed by a Delhi-based journalist Qurban Ali and former Patna High Court judge Anjana Prakash, who practices in the Supreme Court as a senior advocate. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE Marathi boards must for shops SANJAY JOG Mumbai As part of the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government’s move to promote the use of Marathi, it will be binding on all shops and establishments in Maharashtra to display their signboards in Marathi. The state cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray approved the amendment to the , Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 2017, on Wednesday so that the shops and establishments with even less than 10 workers will have to display Marathi nameplates. The decision was taken as the government has received complaints that the shops and establishments with less than 10 workers were evading the provisions of the Act by not displaying nameplates in Marathi. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE Plants to offset modesty outrage plaint PLANT 10 TREES, GET FIR QUASHED: HC TO MAN, COMPLAINANT T NARSI BENWAL Mumbai Sunrise: 07:15 am Sunset : 06:20 pm In Mumbai alone, 2k-plus home sales recorded in first 12 days of Jan SWEETY ADIMULAM Mumbai The trickle is becoming a shower. A day after OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya and four MLAs resigned from Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling BJP has received another jolt. On Wednesday the UP For, est and Environment Minister, Dara Singh Chauhan, resigned from the cabinet. He had joined the BJP in 2015, after years in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He was made the head of the BJP's OBC Morcha and then a minister, after he won the 2017 assembly election. "It cannot be that I say something on one day and then resign the next day I . hoped my voice would be 290c. 170c. he Bombay high court on Monday ordered a man who had been booked for outraging the modesty of a woman living in his neighbourhood to plant 10 trees, if he wanted the FIR filed against him quashed. The HC has also asked the woman complainant to do the same. A bench of Justices Prasanna Varale and Anil Kilor was hearing a petition filed by one Sanjay Gangurde, seeking a directive to the Vikhroli police station to quash the FIR lodged against him in De- cember 2018 under charges of outraging the modesty of a woman living in his housing society . However, in an affidavit filed in November 2021, the complainant and Gangurde claimed that ‘sense prevailed’ over them and they had amicably settled their dispute. “We are the residents of the same society and there were cordial relations between us. However, after the filing of the FIR, better sense prevailed over us,” the parties stated in an affidavit filed by them. Even the complainant woman told the judges that the FIR had been lodged un- der influence of some ‘misunderstanding’ and thus she had no objection to the FIR being quashed. Taking note of these contentions, the judges said that in their opinion “continuation of the case would be nothing but a futile exercise”. “We find that no purpose would be served by keeping the FIR alive, except burdening the criminal courts which are already overburdened. We are of the considered view that there is no impediment in quashing the FIR in question,” the judges said. While quashing the FIR, the bench put a specific query to the CONTD. ON NATION PAGE Shravan Hardikar, Inspector General of Revenue (IGR), whose office is in Pune, attributes the driving factor to be the rising demand for housing especially among the lower-, middle- and higher-income groups. “With Covid, there is growing demand for safer homes and it is reflecting in the increased registration data,” he said. Safe homes mean spacious homes in neighbourhoods with amenities that include hospitals, schools and open spaces. Homebuyers can maintain social distancing in their homes if anyone is infected and needs to be quarantined. With all amenities being available at hand, they will not have to to go elsewhere in the pandemic. Hardikar further informed that with the improved the network availability in all their registration offices, the issues faced by homebuyers and developers in the process of home registration have decreased. “We have introduced e-registration to expedite the registration process but that is not the driving force behind the increase in registrations as of now. We are improving CONTD. ON NATION PAGE STRONG MEDICINE Tabs on buyers FOR DOCTORS, TOO of self-test kits Will act against pvt docs advising patients not to get tested: BMC DIPTI SINGH Mumbai The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to take a firm stand on doctors who are treating Covid patients without informing the civic body and the respective ward war rooms. The Mumbai civic body has warned of action against private doctors if they are found to be advising patients not to get tested for Covid despite having symptoms. The problem BMC officials are citing is that many individuals are found to be resisting Covid testing and the protocols to be followed. With the ongoing surge in cases, such reluctance will prove detrimental to their health; this is the opinion of healthcare professionals, senior BMC officials have indicated. “A large number of people with less severe symptoms are choosing not to get tested through RT-PCR but are instead opting for home self-test kits and are not reporting the result if they are positive, to the BMC ward war rooms or even their doctors. This reluctance to get tested might do more harm to the Covid-positive person and to society at large. We expect private doctors to help us with this. Since infection with the Delta variant could lead to an aggravated condition, we have urged citizens not to rely on the home-test kits and inform the BMC about testing CONTD. ON NATION PAGE Unsafe homes KALPESH MHAMUNKAR Mumbai The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation proposes to issue directions to chemists to keep a record of people who purchase self-test Covid kits from medical stores. The step has come after it was noticed that purchasers of such kits fail to register their names on the company website or app and thereby conceal their reports from the municipal corporation. “ per the procedure, a person who buys a selfAs test kit from a chemist Many fail to must scan the code register names and given on the wrapper of the kit and register thereby conceal their status report on reports from BMC the company website or app. The company then informs the corporation about positive patients. However, it has been observed that many people don’t upload their test results. So, we have decided to tell the manufacturer, distributor and the chemist to keep a record or note mentioning the name and number of the buyer and inform the BMC,” said Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani. “We have got information that as of now, three lakh self-test kits have come to Mumbai city and CONTD. ON NATION PAGE