Vol. 66 No. 178 | WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 30, 2022 | 18 Pages | THE FP BULLETIN Ambedkar, Uddhav pact T he Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi will form an alliance in the upcoming BMC elections. CITY Aaftab’s narco analysis okayed A Delhi Court on Tuesday allowed the plea of Delhi police seeking permission to produce Aaftab Amin Poonawala at FSL Rohini for Narco Analysis from Tihar jail. NATION EDITIONS: MUMBAI*, Pune, Nashik, Konkan, Indore, Bhopal, E-paper ‘CREDITORS LOST 70% OF `7.90L CR UNDER INSOLVENCY RESOLUTION PROCESS’ ‘IT WAS A BIG STEP FOR ME TO DO SALAAM VENKY,’ SAYS KAJOL EDIT Adani to redevelop Dharavi KEEP FILM FESTIVALS ABOVE REPROACH Adani Properties promises to invest `5,069 crore in the project, more than twice as much as DLF ATEEQ SHAIKH / Mumbai has Properties Adani emerged as the highest bidder to redevelop Asia’s second largest slum Dharavi. “ Adani Properties quoted Rs5,069 crore and emerged as the company to get the project,” said SVR Srinivas, Chief Executive Officer, Redevelopment Dharavi Project. “The second highest bid was from DLF with an investment of Rs2,205 crore. Developers’ Naman financial bid was not opened as they did not pass the technical scrutiny process.” The criterion for selecting the winner was based on the investment amount. The minimum stipulated was Rs1,600 crore. Prior to bid submission, there were eight companies interested in the project. However, only three submitted the documents on Nov 15. CONTD. ON NATION TOTAL REDEVELOPMENT AREA: 259 hectare MUMBAI’S AREA: 60,340 ha FREE HOUSING: 60,000 families COMMERCIAL UNITS: 13,000 REHABILITATION CARPET AREA: 405 Sq Ft REHABILITATION DURATION: 7 Years Fisherfolk oppose connector project F ishermen are seeking alterations to the design of the 1.6km long Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) Nariman PointCuffe Parade Connector CITY project. 2 more justices for Bombay HC T he Centre on Tuesday notified the appointment of two additional judges senior advocates Santosh Chapalgaonkar and Milind Sathaye - to the Bombay CITY High Court. Moily defends collegium system S enior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Tuesday attacked Law Minister Kiren Rijiju over his remarks on the issue of appointments of judges, saying it was “unbecoming” of the minister to “throw a challenge” to the SC. NATION Great Barrier Reef endangered: U.N. A landmark UN report released on Tuesday has recommended Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef to be added to the list of world heritage sites that are “in WORLD danger”. Paper project gets land in Raigad T he State Government on Tuesday handed over the land allotment letter to Sinar Mas Pulp & Paper, Indonesia, for an investment of Rs 10,500 crore in MONEY Maharashtra. Dog, walker attacked in lift S unil Rathod, a 24-year-old dog-walker was allegedly beaten up by the members of a housing society in the Saki Naka area of Andheri for taking the dog in the lift. CITY The hitch-hiking leopard T he leopard which caused a havoc in Kalyan last week, most likely traveled along with a vegetable vendor in his truck from Nashik, say CITY locals. Kharghar, a dry zone T he PMC administrative meeting passed a proposal to make Kharghar node a noCITY liquor zone. DIRECTOR’S PLAINSPEAKING TRIGGERS BACKLASH FROM ENVOYS, FILM TEAM THE KASHMIR FILES PTI / New Delhi It was all about diplomatic ties, political sparring and Holocaust recalls on Tuesday as Israeli filmmaker and International Film Festival of India international jury chair Nadav Lapid emerged the centre of a furious debate over his comments on The Kashmir Files (2022). A day after the director described the film as “propaganda” and “vulgar”, Israel’s Ambassador to India Naor Gilon said he had abused In- dia’s invitation and should apologise while Israel’s Consul General to Midwest India Kobbi Shoshani said the debate would strengthen IndiaIsrael ties. Mr Lapid’s fellow jury members distanced themselves from his views. The controversy also saw The Kashmir Files back in the news with the BJP and the Congress at loggerheads and artistes such as Anupam Kher and Swara Bhasker weighing in. Mr Agnihotri compared his film to Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust epic Schindler’s BJP tries to make capital of Kharge jibe at Modi GUJARAT ELECTIONS 2022 PTI / New Delhi Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s ‘Ravan’ barb at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday triggered a slugfest with the BJP calling it an insult of every Gujarati and the Opposition party calling the attack on its leader an “anti-Dalit tirade”. BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra asked voters in Gujarat to do “100% voting for the son of the soil” to take “revenge” for the “insult”, as he invoked various remarks made by Congress leaders over the years against Mr Modi. Taking a swipe at Mr Modi at a rally in Behrampura area of Ahmedabad city on Mon, day Mr Kharge said the Prime Minister tells people to vote “looking at his face”. Are you 100-headed like Ra“ van?” he quipped. Taking exception to the re- ALL SET FOR DEC 1 I To the polls: 89 seats I Total voters: 2,39,76,670 I Male: 1,24,33,362 I Female: 1,15,42,811 I Third gender: 497 I Booths: 25,434 I Urban: 9,018 I Rural: 16,416 marks, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel in a tweet said, “Bereft of any development agenda and support from the people, the Congress is out to abuse Gujarat and Gujaratis.” CONTD. ON NATION 84 TREES IN A AREY C AN BE AXED IF TREE AUTHORITY AGREES T he Supreme Court on Monday permitted Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) to raise with the relevant authority its plea for felling 84 trees at Aarey Colony to construct train ramps for its car shed project. In 2019, the apex court had taken suo motu cognisance of a letter petition addressed to the Chief Justice of India by law student Rishav Ranjan seeking a stay on the CITY felling of trees in the colony. Israeli filmmaker and IFFI jury head Nadav Lapid List (1993). The multiple Oscar-winning movie was refer, enced by many including Ambassador Gilon, who wrote an open letter put out in a series of tweets. CONTD. ON NATION AIIMS restores key data IANS / New Delhi The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said on Tuesday that eHospital data has been restored on its servers. The network is being sanitised before full services can restart, the hospital said. “The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber se,” curity AIIMS said. All hospital services continue to run on manual mode. On November 23 AIIMS’ servers were hit by a ransomware attack. The India Computer Emergency Response Team, Delhi Police and representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs are investigating the incident. SPECIAL HIGHWAY SAFETY DRIVE FROM TOMORROW T he State Transport Department is launching a special road safety drive on highways connecting Mumbai and Pune from Dec 1. The six-month campaign, titled ‘Suraksha’, will deploy 30 transport officials from Mumbai, Panvel, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune. Twelve teams will educate motorists about road safety and the need CITY for driving discipline. Netizens turn to social media to defy Beijing CHINA’S ZERO-COVID PROTESTS AFP BUREAU / Beijing Protesters in China opposing the Xi Jinping regime’s zero-Covid policy are using blocked dating apps and social media platforms to evade censors and share information with each other. Netizens are saving videos, images and accounts of protests on platforms abroad before official censors can delete them, according to the . Reuters news agency Many rely on virtual private networks (VPNs), which are banned, to get past China’s Great Firewall and on to encrypted messaging apps. For three days starting Nov 25, protesters gathered in several cities across the country in a show of civil disobedience unprecedented since President Xi as- sumed power a decade ago. Frustration with the policy had been building, but the spark for the protests was an apartment building fire in Urumqi that claimed 10 lives. Authorities denied accusations on social media that a lockdown had prevented people from escaping the blaze. However, that did not stop people in Urumqi from taking out protests. Videos of the protests were posted on the apps Weibo and Douyin, and censors tried to scrub them from the platform . quickly But they were downloaded and reposted not only across Chinese social media but also to Twitter and Instagram, which are blocked. Residents of other cities and students on campuses then organised their own gatherings, which they in turn filmed and posted online. “People are watching and playing off each other,” Reuters quoted Kevin Slaten, head of research at China Dissent Monitor, a database run by US-based nonprofit Freedom House, as saying. via communicating Protesters WeChat, the most popular app in China, keep information to a bare minimum, the Reuters report said. CONTD. ON NATION PIC: SWAPNIL SAKHARE STATE NOD FOR 12 SELF-FINANCED BMC SCHOOLS A mid a war of words over closure of Marathi schools in Mumbai, the Government has approved 12 self-financed schools run by the BMC. These schools are already operational since June, awaiting the state’s nod. The BMC will bear the expenses for these schools and no fee will be charged. However, the state will not provide any financial assistance or grant either. The BMC has earmarked Rs2,780 crore for the education sector for CITY 2022-23. Retail digital rupee pilot in 4 cities tomorrow PTI / Mumbai The Reserve Bank of India will launch the pilot for a retail digital rupee (e-R) in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar on Dec 1 and later expand it to nine more cities in the initial phase. This comes a month after the RBI started a pilot in the digital rupee wholesale segment on Nov 1. The first phase of the retail digital rupee will begin with four banks — State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank — in four cities across , the country it said. “The e-R would be in the form of a digital token that represents legal tender,” the RBI said in a statement. “It would be issued in the same denominations that paper currency and coins are currently issued.” The digital rupee would be distributed through intermediaries (banks). RBI said users will be able to transact with the e-R through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile devices. 31 c. 25 c. 0 0 Sunrise : 06:54 am Sunset : 06:00 pm Air India, Vistara to merge by Mar 2024 Singapore Airlines will invest `2,000 cr in Air India, hold 25.1% stake in merged entity PTI / New Delhi We are excited with the opportunity of creating a strong Air India which would offer both full-service and low-cost service across domestic and international routes. 25.1% stake in an enlarged Air India Group with a sigIn a major consolinificant presence dation in the Indiin all key market an aviation space, segments. the Tata Group on SIA said it inanTuesday tends to fund the nounced the merger of Vistara with – N Chandrasekaran, investment entireAir India. Follow- Tata Sons and Air India ly from its internal ing the deal, VisChairman resources, which stood at Singapore tara co-owner Singapore Airlines (SIA) will hold $ 17.5 billion as of Sep 30. In a separate release, the 25.1% in Air India. The deal is expected to be Tata Group said that with the completed by March 2024, sub- consolidation, Air India would ject to regulatory approvals. become the country’s leading Tata Sons owns 51% in Vis- domestic and international carrier with a combined fleet tara. The rest is with SIA. SIA said Vistara and Air In- of 218 aircraft, “making it India would be merged and it dia’s largest international carwould invest Rs2,058.5 crore in rier and second largest domesAir India. This would give it tic carrier”. CONTD. ON NATION Our system itself is punishment: S.C. PTI / New Delhi “The criminal justice system of ours can itself be a punishment,” the Supreme Court observed while discharging three persons accused of abetment of a suicide in Punjab in 2008. In an order passed on Nov 24, the court observed that the appeals arising out of the April 2009 verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, dismissing the pleas filed by the three accused assailing the trial court’s order framing charges against them, remained pending for 13 years. “Fourteen years on an issue of abetment of suicide in an episode where a student was reprimanded for misconduct in college and an endeav- our to take disciplinary action and call the father, though the parent did not turn up, and subsequently the child committed suicide… an unfortunate situation!” the bench of Justices SK Kaul and AS Oka remarked. CONTD. ON NATION COVID JABS NOT COMPULSORY, CENTRE TELLS S.C., NATION