FP The publishers permit sharing of the e-paper's pdf on WhatsApp and other social media platforms Vol. XLI No. 200 | INDORE | FRIDAY | DECEMBER 27, 2024 | Pages 16 ` 3 | Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2024-2026 | RNI No. 38281/83 FREE www.freepressjournal.in Sports Danish Kaneria on CT 25 hybrid model P.14 ESTD-1983 iii QUALITY @ VALUE EDITIONS: INDORE UJJAIN PRESS PUNE BHOPAL NASHIK WORLD MUMBAI E-paper Edit The dangers of river linking P.8 Baby freezes to death in Gaza Cinema Arjun falls victim to online scam P.13 GENTLE EXIT OF A GIANT REFORMER By invitation Sanjay K Jha I f a nation has to be reminded that the Prime Minister doesn’t inevitably signify brute power and crafty political manipulations, that the Prime Minister can be an embodiment of erudition and grace, you don’t have to dig deep into history to discover a Jawaharlal Nehru. You found Manmohan Singh barely a decade ago, a leader whose wisdom and humility accorded dignity to politics that has degenerated so much as to evoke ridicule, fear and suspicion from the masses. Manmohan Singh, who not only steered India out of economic turwould find  Singh  to be wise, bulence as the Finance Minister in thoughtful, and scrupulously honearly Nineties but introduced the est.”  He said Manmohan was a revolutionary right-based legispolitician with uncommon wislations as the Prime Minister bedom and decency. While his simtween 2004 and 2014, breathed his plicity and decency were last this evening at the ripe age of extraordinary, Manmohan’s per92. His demise, though immensely sonal integrity remained beyond tragic, should trigger a reproach. He exited the TRIBUTE national yearning for decorridors of power withcency and brilliance in out any taint on his perpolitics. Amidst the obscene politisona despite holding so many key cal propaganda nowadays, one is posts like Planning Commission tempted to recall what the Americhief, RBI governor, Finance Mincan president Barack Obama said ister and the Prime Minister. Barabout Manmohan Singh, “When ring some unsubstantiated barbs he speaks, the world listens!”         from his successor, even his   This wasn’t an off-the-cuff reenemies praised Manmohan’s honmark as Obama later wrote in his esty. in his memoir, “For the duration of  Manmohan’s personal traits aphis tenure as Prime Minister, I pear so precious today when we see politicians giving genocide calls and trading in falsehood, ministers making incendiary speeches, parliamentarians idolizing Gandhi’s assassin and issuing threats, legislators being caught for rioting and rape. The presence of politicians like Manmohan blunted the negative perceptions of the people about politicians. The intelligentsia as well as the ordinary folks on the streets saw in him a genuine person even as many were opposed to his economic philosophy of liberalisation. Manmohan too understood the ills of reckless liberalisation and free market and adopted a different approach as the Prime Minister, bringing in welfare schemes like MGNREGA, Food Security Act, Right to Information and Right to SPEEDING DEVELOPMENT | Move will help in ensuring proper development in residential campuses Govt to merge panchayats to form nagar parishad a press conference after the conclusion of Manthan programme at Kushabhau Thakre Convention Hall on Thursday evening. Underlining the welfare of youths, women, farmers and the poor, he said that the government wants to do welfare for targeted groups. Along with this, it wants that the income of farmers shall increase and how peasants could get benefitted through allied conventional business such as animal husbandry and others. Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL Some panchayats are situated in belts close to municipal corporations due to which unplanned development takes place. Hence contemplation has been done to merge two to four panchayats to form ‘nagar parishad’. This will help in ensuring proper works in residential campuses to come up later. This was stated by Chief Minister Mohan Yadav during fp Briefs The “Manthan” programme remained focused on how to provide impetus to economic activities in the state and to make the state better in terms of prosperity. The discussion was done to make cities prosperous and models of six states were also contemplated in the programme. Under the new and renewable energy head, it was pondered that the farmers who are unable to take the permanent electric connection shall get solar pumps. Education. No regime in independent India lifted more people out of poverty than the UPA headed by him. He delivered better economic growth than some others who accused him of policy paralysis.     Singh  demonstrated prime-ministerial dignity in his conduct and speech; protecting himself from the natural vices like arrogance of power and conspiracies against rivals. Even in election campaigns, he avoided vilification of opponents and false propaganda. 4Continued on | P6 Banks can charge over 30% interest on credit card dues: SC PTI Our Staff Reporter NEW DELHI BHOPAL Banks can charge over 30 per cent on credit card dues from customers after the Supreme Court set aside a sixteen-yearold National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission verdict, which held charging excessive interest rates amounted to an unfair trade practice. A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma said NCDRC's observations that the rate of interest in excess of 30 per cent per annum was an unfair trade practice was "illegal" The state Cabinet has decided to facilitate the issuance of birth and death certificates online. The Cabinet has approved the implementation of the Madhya Pradesh Birth and Death Registration Rules, 2024, on Thursday. The rules have been prepared in accordance with the draft rules received from the Registrar General Office, Government of India. Under this, various sections of Madhya Pradesh Birth and Death Registration Rules, 1999, have been amended. The main points of the amended rules include provi- 4Continued on | P6 China okays building of Tax cuts for those Brahmaputra superdam earning upto Rs 15L? PATNA Chaos over Raghupati Raghav... A Patna event to mark the birth centenary of former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee witnessed dramatic scenes yesterday over a folk singer's rendition of the bhajan, "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram". Devi, a folk singer, had started singing "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram", closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, when a section of the audience started protesting. MUMBAI RBI sets up panel on ethical AI use The Reserve Bank on Thursday announced the setting up of an eightmember committee to develop a framework for responsible and ethical enablement of artificial intelligence (FREE-AI) in the financial sector. K J M Verma BEIJING In a move that is sure to raise eyebrows in New Delhi, China has approved the construction of the world's largest dam, touted as the planet's biggest infra project costing USD 137 billion, on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to the Indian border. The move has lower riparian implications both for India and Bangladesh. The dam is to be built at a huge gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh. PTI reports that the state run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday said that the Chinese government has approved the construction of a hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra. The ‘mother of all dams’ with projected cost of $137 billion, is set to dwarf any infrastructure project on the planet The total investment in the dam could exceed one trillion yuan (USD 137 billion), which would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet, including China's own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday. The Brahmaputra Dam presents enormous engineering challenges as the project site is located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur. 4Continued on | P6 FP News Service NEW DELHI The government is vetting a proposal to lower income tax for individuals earning up to Rs 15 lakhs annually in its upcoming budget, according to two government insiders, cited by Reuters. The initiative is designed to ease financial pressures on middle-class citizens and encourage consumer spending as economic growth slows. If approved, the tax adjustment could significantly impact millions, particularly urban residents contending with rising living expenses. The measure centers on the 2020 tax framework, which offers reduced rates but removes popular deductions such as those for housing rentals. Under this system, incomes between Rs 3-15 lakhs are taxed at rates ranging from 5 per cent to 20 per cent. Earnings above this range are taxed at 30 per cent. Taxpayers can choose between the newer 2020 regime and a traditional system that includes exemptions for housing and insurance but imposes higher rates. While no final decision has been made on the extent of the tax cuts, government officials expect clarity closer to the budget presentation on February 1, said Reuters. The finance ministry has not issued any official statements on the matter. According to one of the sources, a reduction in tax rates could encourage more individuals to switch to the simplified 2020 regime, potentially balancing any revenue shortfall. India’s tax revenues largely depend on high-income earners, with those earning over 10 million rupees annually taxed at the top rate of 30%. 4Continued on | P6 Hathras school horror Boy strangled to death for holiday Biswajeet Banerjee LUCKNOW The brutal murder of 11year-old Kritarth, a Class 2 student at DL Public School in Hathras, has sparked outrage and raised troubling questions about hostel safety and accountability. While the police claim the crime was committed by a senior student wanting a school holiday, the victim’s family has accused the school man- agement of negligence and a cover up. Kritarth, a resident of Chursen village in Chandpa, was strangled to death with a towel on the night of September 22, while sleeping in the school’s residential hostel. His body was discovered the following day in the car of the school manager, Dinesh Baghel. The police detained a Class 8 student, who allegedly confessed to the murder. The accused claimed he wanted the school to close temporarily and devised the chilling plan after reading online that schools shut down following serious incidents or deaths. “I thought if I killed a junior student, no one would suspect me, and the school would declare a holiday,” the accused told the police. Investigations revealed that the accused had broken CCTV cameras near the hostel stairs four days before the Now get birth & death certificates online murder to avoid being caught. He had also attempted to strangle two other students in the months leading up to Kritarth’s death but failed. On the night of the murder, the accused allegedly used a red towel to strangle Kritarth. The accused then discarded the towel behind the school, later retrieving and re-discarding it. 4Continued on | P6 Solarisation of 11 KV feeders There was a demand of farmers that they shall get electricity for irrigation during the daytime as well. Currently, the government is unable to do so. To sort out the problem, the Cabinet has decided to do solarisation of 11 KV feeders. sion of digital registration, electronic delivery of birth and death certificates, creation of national and state level databases of registered births and deaths, facilitating the registration process of adopted, orphaned, abandoned, surrogate children and children from single parents or unmarried mothers, etc. Rs 778.91 cr for Kshipra ghat construction- The Cabinet granted administrative approval of Rs 778. 91 crore for the construction of ghats of 29.215 km length from Shani Mandir to Nagda bypass on the banks of Kshipra river for the convenience of devotees during the upcoming Simhastha. Discussion on making state fully-irrigated- Discussion was done to make the state fully irrigated in the next five to ten years. 4Continued on | P6