Vol. 65 No. 346 | WEDNESDAY | JUNE 15, 2022 | 16 Pages | PM’s JOSH, YOUR ‘JAZBA’ MARKETS CLOSE AT 10-MONTH LOW ON RISK-OFF SENTIMENT You are first choice, Didi tells Pawar SANJAY JOG MUMBAI Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, on Tuesday, during his meeting with the Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief minister, reiterated that he is not the opposition’s candidate for Presidential election. However, Pawar, who was accompanied by his confidant and party MP Praful Patel, made a strong case for opposition and like-minded parties to come together and bury the hatchets to put up a strong and formidable candidate against the BJP. As reported by the Free Press Journal, Pawar pulled out from the race despite the Congress, the TMC, the AAP  and  Shiv Sena backthe ing his name as Opposition candidate. Tuesday’s interaction between Pawar and Banerjee took place ahead of a meeting convened by the Trinamool Congress chief on June 15 to take forward the discussion on the joint candidate. An NCP MP told the Free Press Journal, ‘‘Mamata requested Pawar to be the Opposition’s candidate saying that he enjoys a good rapport and friendship with leaders across the board, which is crucial at this juncture. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE EDITIONS: MUMBAI*, Pune, Indore, Bhopal, Konkan, E-paper EDIT BULLDOZERS: AN EYE FOR AN EYE? OUR BUREAU NEW DELHI The Centre on Tuesday unveiled a "transformative" Agnipath scheme aimed at enhancing the youthful profile of the armed forces and trimming their burgeoning salary and pension bills. Under this scheme, there will be recruitment of 45,000 soldiers, airmen and sailors on a short-term contractual basis for a period of four years. They will be between 17.5 and 21 years of age. These recruits, to be called 'Agniveers', will receive extensive training for six months and serve in harsh conditions. The recruitment is set to kick within 90 days and the first batch will be ready by July 2023. During this period, they will be paid a monthly salary between  Rs 30,000- Rs 40,000 of plus allowances. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE After defacing websites nationwide, a Malaysia-based group of hackers has trained its sights on the official website of the BJP OPERATION 70 STATE SITES HACKING ON ARE RESTORED STAFF REPORTER MUMBAI GAUTAM S MENGLE MUMBAI The nationwide hacking and defacement of Indian websites led by a Malaysia-based hacker group is just one part of a massive cyber attack aimed at India. The Free Press Journal has learned that the same group of hackers has already attacked scores of bank accounts as well as Facebook accounts and has now trained its sights on the official website of the Bharatiya Janata Party . Since Monday hundreds of Indian websites, , both government and private, have been hacked and the home pages have been replaced by a message, stating that this is retaliation for suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s recent derogatory comments on Islam. Indian cybercrime agencies have been working overtime to restore the hacked websites, which include at least one embassy website and one police commissionerate in Maharashtra. A deeper investigation into the matter, however, indicates that this is just the tip of the iceberg. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE Even as the country is reeling under a sustained cyber attack on its websites, the Maharashtra cyber department, over the last two days, has restored at least 70 hacked websites based in the state, including three government websites. These include the websites of the Thane Police, the Mumbai University and the Maharashtra Judicial Academy in Uttan, Thane district. The Maharashtra cyber department has declined to reveal the names of all the affected websites, as revealing their identities could amount to leaving them vulnerable to more such attacks. “ After recent incidents of a communal nature in various places in the country , we have observed by our monitoring of social media and other platforms that some hacker groups have given a call to hack and deface Indian websites. It is reported that many Indian sites have been attacked in the last three days,”  Pandey said. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE PROTOCOL V/S POLITICS? Ajit Pawar speech gets omitted It was a day when the conflict between politics and protocol played itself out in Maharashtra – and that too during PM Modi’s visit to Mumbai. First, the protocol: Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray was, on Tuesday, told to get out of his Revved up drive against banned plastic SHEFALI PARAB-PANDIT MUMBAI The drive against banned plastic, which came to a halt in the city during the Covid pandemic, will be re-initiated from July 1. The BMC has alerted the public through a notice issued on June 1 that stringent action will be taken against those using banned plastic, including single-use disposable plastic. This time, the civic body is working on the strategy to make the action CONTD. ON NATION PAGE father Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s car by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s security. Sources said the SPG did this as Aaditya’s name was not in the list of VIPs who were scheduled to receive the prime minister in Mumbai. The incident took place before the PM’s arrival at the Navy base in Colaba. Uddhav, who was clearly perturbed at the intervention of the PM’s security retinue, told the Special Protection Group personnel that ‘‘ aditya is not just his A son, but also cabinet minister, and so he could receive the PM as per protocol.’’ CONTD. ON NATION PAGE SANJAY JOG MUMBAI The rift between Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray yet again surfaced on Tuesday when the Governor not only showered praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying ‘’Modi hai to mumkeen hai’’ but also sought his interven- Relief for drunk TTE who urinated near lady’s berth URVI MAHAJANI MUMBAI While granting pre-arrest bail to a railway Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE), who urinated near a woman's berth in an inebriated state, the Bombay High Court has rapped him saying that “a custodian of the railway has engaged in an act which is unpardonable”. Justice Bharti Dangre, while granting relief to suspended TTE Munesh Chand Meena, also directed him to shell out Rs 25,000 for a water cooler to be installed at Thane railway station for his obnoxious behaviour towards a passenger. According to the prosecution, on March 7, a woman was traveling by the Nizamuddin - Pune Duronoto train. When the train was heading towards Pune railway station, she could hear water dripping near her berth and hence she got up to look. She saw a person urinating near the berth. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE tion in solving various problems faced by the state. The Governor complained about Thackeray-led government for not doing enough for the resolution of a number of issues. The Governor took the opportunity to list out the problems in the state, including the water scarcity in the state’s tourism capital Aurangabad before Modi who inaugurated the Jal Bhushan Building and Gallery of Revolutionaries at Raj Bhawan in Mumbai. The Governor’s outreach came days after leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis led the JanAkrosh rally at Aurangabad on the water scarcity issue. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE BETWEEN THE LINES SUMMONS TO PARAB M aharashtra Transport Minister and Shiv Sena leader Anil Parab has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case. He has been asked to appear before the probe agency on Wednesday. M MALIK ROLE IN TAPPING umbai cyber police on Tuesday approached a special court seeking permission to question jailed Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik in a case related to alleged illegal tapping of phones and leak of documents related to transfers. For 3 cr kids, no tales of first-grader FIRST TIME IN A REAL SCHOOL, WITHOUT EVER SETTING FOOT IN STD I CHAITALI DHARAMSHI MUMBAI 320c. 260c. Sunrise: 06:01 am Sunset : 07:17 pm 45,000 soldiers, airmen and sailors to be hired on contract, 25% will be retained, others cycled out after 4 years; will help prune Armed forces’ salary/pension bill Aditya made to get Guv’s pat for PM, out of Uddhav’s car brickbats for CM SANJAY JOG MUMBAI TV ACTORS HAVE NEVER REALLY BEEN WELCOMED IN BOLLYWOOD: URVASHI DHOLAKIA Fast forward to about 20 years from now -- about 3-3.5 crore students (give or take a few lakhs) in India are likely to graduate without ever having stepped into an actual Std I classroom for that first whiff of school life. In two decades, the pandemic will probably be a distant memory, but these kids will go through life never having been initiated into the traditional ritual of ‘going to school’ and this is more or less the sto- ry across the world. Today (June 15), these kids will have ‘skipped’ a grade, so to speak, and will directly find themselves in Std II or Std III. If one were to ask them how their Class I experience was, they are likely to say it mostly involved sitting ‘in attendance’ before an impersonal computer. The Free Press Journal spoke to some such kids in Mumbai, who said they were eager to see a school for the first time because while online classes had their own charms, an actual, physical school is quite something else and they would like to find out. “I am excited to go to school now,” said Yatharth Bhavika Hitesh Dand, a student of Class II at the Guardian School in Mumbai, who has never been to a physical school before. “I am looking forward to going to school. At home, for the last two years, I have enjoyed writing and reading. I used to finish my schoolwork on time. I also participated in extracurricular activities such as mental math, art and craft, phonics, and other subjects that made me feel like I was in CONTD. ON NATION PAGE school.” Jobs for 10 lakh in 1.5 yrs P rime Minister Narender Modi has asked various government departments and ministries to undertake the recruitment of 10 lakh people on a "mission mode" in the next year and a half, his office said on Tuesday. The direction came following a review of the status of human resources in all government departments and ministries, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said. The government's decision comes amid Opposition's frequent criticism of it on the issue of unemployment. A large number of vacancies Fastest annual rise in WPI in 30 years FPJ DESK NEW DELHI Wholesale price-based inflation surged to a record high of 15.88 per cent in May stoked by , high global energy and raw material prices combined with a weak rupee. Significantly this was the , fastest annual rise in India's wholesale prices in more than 30 years, raising expectations CONTD. ON NATION PAGE for yet another interest rate intervention by the RBI. The WPI-based inflation maintained its upward trajectory for the third month in a row, and remained in double digits for the 14th consecutive month since April last year. It was also, according to economists, the highest since August 1991. ‘‘The high rate of inflation in May 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of 3 drown at Juhu mineral oils, crude petroleum and natural gas, food articles, basic metals, non-food articles, chemicals and chemical products and food products etc, as KALPESH MHAMUNKAR  MUMBAI Three persons, including a minor, drowned at Juhu Chowpatty around 4pm on Tuesday, at a spot behind the J W Marriott hotel. Two of the three deceased were siblings, and part of a group of four who had come from the Chembur-Vashi Naka area for an outing on the beach.  Two brothers, Kaustubh Gupta, 18, and Prathamesh Gupta, 16, and one of their two friends, Manohar Aman Singh, 21, who had accompanied them to the beach drowned.  Their against that in the corresponding month of the previous year," the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation was 15.08 per cent in April and 13.11 per cent in May last year. Considering the old series, the last time WPI inflation was higher than this was in August 1991, when it was at 16.06 per cent. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE bodies are yet to be recovered.  Flood rescue teams, Coast Guard and Navy divers were deployed in search operations, which were stopped as the light faded and are expected to resume tomorrow morning.  According to Chief Fire Officer Hemant Parab, “ lifeguard, A Manohar Shetty informed the fire brigade , about the incident. By 4pm, the department swung into action. We also called the Coast Guard and Navy to join the rescue operation but have yet to trace them.” An eyewitness who was present at Juhu Chowpatty on Tuesday afternoon claimed to have seen one youth drowning in the sea. CONTD. ON NATION PAGE