Vol. 67 No. 92 | MONDAY | JANUARY 15, 2024 | 23 Pages | `5 & for Pune `6 only Quality at Value www.freepressjournal.in EDITIONS: MUMBAI*, Pune, Nashik, Konkan, Indore, Bhopal, E-paper VARUN DHAWAN'S NEXT EDIT Actor joins hands with Atlee along with Keerthy Suresh and Wamiqa Gabbi P21 AUTOMOBILE EXPORTS FROM INDIA FELL 21% IN 2023: SIAM POSITIVE RUNUP TO LS POLL P15 Exports in 2023 stood at 42,85,809 units compared to 52,04,966 units in 2022 P11 Mo Sark ki Guarantee odi kar e Government of India CBC 22 2201/13/0149/2324 Modern Farm ming, Prosperous Farmers Scan for more information Hamara San nkalp Vik it Bh t Viksit Bharat THE FP BULLETIN 8-HOUR WAIT AT AIRPORT P assengers aboard two Air India (AI) flights experienced over eight hours and another two and a half hours of delay due to adverse weather conditions at Delhi airport. Air India Flight AI 185 from Delhi to Vancouver was grounded in Delhi after 8 hours, as the weather at the Delhi airport was unsuitable for takeoff. In the second instance, an Air India flight from Frankfurt to Delhi (AI-120) landed at the airport at around 7:48 am and as the parking space at the airport was full, the captain of the aircraft struggled for about two and a half hours to park the aircraft in the parking space. SRINAGAR WARM, DELHI IS COLDER: Srinagar in Kashmir on Saturday recorded the maximum temperature at 15 degrees Celsius, the highest in the month of January in the last two decades. On Sunday, the temperature was down to seven degrees but it was still higher than that in Delhi where the minimum temperature dropped to 3.5 degrees Celsius. RAHUL’S MID-LIFE CRISIS desperate gambit, city Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad urged Deora to reconsider his decision, in view of his famiEX-CONGRESS MP Milind Deora, 47, ly’s 50-year-old connection with the who had, as recently as Saturday, de- Congress. But Deora is convinced the bunked as ‘rumours’ reports about his Congress is no longer the party it used defecting to the Shiv Sena (Shinde), quit to be and the transition had to happen the Congress on Sunday – among the sooner or later. last of the young Turks to do so (the Milind is one of the two sons of the likes of Jitin Prasada, Jyotiraditya late Congress leader Murli Deora who Madhavrao Scindia and RPN Singh hav- had lorded over the city Congress for ing preceded him.) several decades. Milind’s brother Deora ‘switched’ sides with folded Mukund is a private citizen who has ashands and joined Chief Minister Ek- siduously stayed away from politics. nath Shinde’s party, taking the plunge Sources in the Congress blamed on a solemn assurance from Shinde that Rahul Gandhi for Milind Deora’s he would be elected to the Rajya Sabha.  decision to defect. Deora was deA beaming Shinde welcomed Deora feated for the second time in the and hoped that the ex-Union minister Lok Sabha elections in 2019 from would strengthen the Shiv Sena. In a the Mumbai south constituency . S BALAKRISHNAN & KALPESH MHAMUNKAR / MUMBAI M ost of the INDIA bloc leaders who are targeting Milind Deora are driven by their self-serving agenda, but the situation needs to be analysed from Rahul Gandhi’s perspective. Deora’s exit is another addition to the list of the many Rahul loyalists  who have left the Congress — R P N Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jitin Prasada — all his contemporaries. This speaks volumes about the manner in which Rahul and/or his  team handle party affairs. The pattern which emerges is: first, Rahul develops proximity cultivates the coterie and then, with time, his team , alienates those very people. Whether this is a trust deficit or bad management, Rahul will have to contemplate, as he embarks  another Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, as one of the on most prominent opposition leaders in the country . His style of managing his close-knit people is in stark contrast to that of his mother Sonia Gandhi, who, in the face of cultural  and political odds, still remains a unifier. When the best of Congress leadership fails to placate and ameliorate the disgruntled elements within and outside the party it’s Sonia who rises to the occasion  the prime , as harmoniser and consolidator. Whether during the UPA time or in the current INDIA era, Sonia has proven to be a far better integrator and reconciler.  CONTD. ON NATION FPJ NEWS SERVICE/ MUMBAI  C hief Minister Eknath Shinde has said Milind Deora’s joining the Shiv Sena (Shinde) was only a trailer. The main feature is yet to come, he promised. His statement is significant in the context of reports that the Mahayuti, comprising the BJP Shiv Sena (Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar), is planning to engineer a split in the , Congress, well before the LS elections. It is learnt that already feelers have been sent to several Congress MLAs and leaders and tempting offers have been made to them. FPJ NEWS SERVICE / MALE Kashi's Pandit Ganeshwar Shastri, who has set the Muhurta date, explains consecration can happen only within a brief window of 1 minute 24 seconds on January 22 BISWAJEET BANERJEE / LUCKNOW As the debate intensifies over the timing of the consecration of Ram Lalla on January 22, the scholar responsible for setting the "mahurta" time for Pran Partishtha has broken his silence. Kashi's Pandit Ganeshwar Shastri, who declared the Pran Pratistha Muhurta, said that January 22 is the most auspicious date for the consecration. "If the consecration does not happen now, then we would have had to wait for Ram Lalla for 30 months, i.e., till June 2026," said Pandit Ganeshwar Shastri. According to him, Lord Ram will be consecrated on January 22 from 12:29:8 pm to 12:30:32 pm, within a brief window of 1 minute 24 seconds. Explaining further, Shastri highlighted the significance of completing the consecration within the prescribed time, emphasizing that the conse- cration of Ram Lalla in an incomplete temple aligns with scriptures. He pointed out that according to rituals, incomplete houses, including the house of Ram in Ayodhya, can be entered. Moreover, Shastri underlined the lack of auspicious time for Pran-Pratishtha for two and a half years if not performed on January 22, extending till June 15, 2026. Even the auspicious occasion of Ram Navami on April 17 this year was dismissed, as it falls on a Sunday a day considered , inauspicious for significant ceremonies. CONTD. ON NATION Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu has formally asked India to withdraw its military personnel from the country by March 15, Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim, the public policy secretary at the President's Office, said at a press briefing on Sunday . “Indian military personnel cannot stay in the Maldives. This is the policy of President Dr Mohamed Muizzu and that of this administration,” he said, according to the SunOnline newspaper. There are 88 Indian military personnel in the Maldives, according to the latest government figures. Maldives and India have set up a high-level core group to negotiate the withdrawal of troops. The first SUICIDES ON TRACKS UP BY 21% In 2023, 121 people died by suicide – 100 men & 21 women: GRP report  metres in around 67 days. The ‘Yatra’ will culminate in Mumbai on March 20/21 after crisscrossing 100 Lok Sabha seats. Addressing a public meeting in Thoubal, which is south of Manipur’s capital Imphal, Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that perhaps for the BJP and the RSS, Manipur was not a part of India. CONTD. ON NATION KAMAL MISHRA / MUMBAI In a disturbing development, suicides on Mumbai’s suburban railways went up by a steep 21 per cent in 2023, according to data released by the Government Railway Police recently In all, 121 people . died by suicide – 100 men and 21 women, the report said.  The data further revealed that 82 suicides were reported on the Central Railways’ suburban section and 39 on the Western Railways’ suburban section. Kalyan (43 cases) and Palghar (23 cases) Government Railway Police jurisdictions reported the highest numbers, highlighting the specific areas of concern. LAST WORD In 2022, there were 100 suicides reported (80 men and 20 women) in suburban MMR, with the CR and WR suburban sections recording 72 and 28 deaths respectively .  Government officials attribute the surge to the perceived low chances of survival on railway tracks, emphasising the complex nature of suicide. However, a senior motorman, speaking anonymously ex, posed a potential underreporting of cases due to familial pressures. The reluctance to categorise deaths as suicides stems from concerns over insurance claims, creating a discrepancy between official figures and the actual extent of the issue. CONTD. ON NATION TAILPIECE Ayodhya fervour pushes Ram Charitmanas online The fervour about the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya has even impacted Gita Press. The Gorakhpur-based publishing house has decided to make Ram Charitmanas available online as the iconic scripture, along with Hanuman Chalisa and Sunder Kand, has flown off the shelves across all outlets because of the unprecedented demand for religious texts. The scripture would be accessible on its website I www.gitapress.org in 10 languages, including Oriya, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannad, English, Bengali, Hindi, Assamese, and Nepali, by January 15, Agarwal said. Gita Press also plans to upload other texts such as Ayodhya Darshan (new edition) and Ayodhya Mahatmya. “To cope with the overwhelming demand, we have upgraded the server, allowing up to 1 lakh people to read or download the text simultaneously Agarwal said. ,” The “unprecedented” situation in the run up to the consecration ceremony has led to f Mumbai is the financial capital of India,  South the Mumbai Lok Sabha constituency is easily at the core of the metropolis. It is important because it is the richest seat in the country It houses powerful . financial institutions like the Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, Bank of India, HDFC Bank, the Bombay Stock Exchange, Life Insurance Corporation, New India Assurance, corporate and residential addresses of the likes of Mukesh Ambani, cotton textiles and pharmaceutical  markets et al. The famed Mumbadevi temple, after which the city is named, is situated here. Prestigious clubs like Bombay Gymkhana, US Club, CCI and NSCI are located here.  It was in the past it was represented by giants like the late S.K. Patil, who was the uncrowned king of Mumbai having the solid support of India Inc. CONTD. ON NATION Pran Pratishtha: If not now, ‘LEAVE MALDIVES’ BY MARCH 15 then we wait till June 2026 Cong yatra to set tone for LS polls BISWAJEET BANERJEE LUCKNOW S BALAKRISHNAN / MUMBAI Both in 2014 and 2019, he was trounced by trade union leader Arvind Sawant from the Shiv Sena. Sawant is part of the inner circle of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray . Deora, who was in the core group led by Rahul Gandhi, was expecting to be fielded by the Congress in the May 2022 election to the Rajya Sabha. However, he was stunned when Rahul Gandhi handpicked Imran Pratapgarhi, a poet from Uttar Pradesh, and fielded him from Maharashtra for the Rajya Sabha. Pratapgarhi, 38, was trounced in the LS election from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh in 2019, by over five lakh votes. ‘‘Yet, Rahul forced the MPCC to accommodate him in the Rajya Sabha. For two years, Milind put up with the huCONTD. ON NATION miliation. Picture abhi baaki hai: CM NEELU VYAS / QUICK ANALYSIS Unmindful of the controversy over the exit of an old associate Milind Deora, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday hit the Manipur political track running, hoping to set the tone and tenor of the narrative in the run-up to LS polls. Going by sheer numbers, Rahul will travel through 15 states and cover over 6,700 kilo- SOBO – THE HOT SEAT DESERTED BY OLD GUARDS & YOUNG TURKS Rahul needs to take a cue from Sonia FPJ NEWS SERVICE / IMPHAL 7 crore 30 l lakh Kisan Credit Cards distributed; Loans worth L th t farmers to fa the sacred texts selling “like hot cakes”, according to Kamal Agarwal, President of Bhootnath Adrash Vyapar Mandal in Lucknow. “This is the first time since its establishment that the Press is facing such a challenge,” said Gita Press trustee Devi Dayal Agarwal. The surge in demand began as early as October, with an as- tounding 3.27 lakh copies of Ram Charitmanas and 13.50 lakh copies of Hanuman Chalisa being sold in the past three months alone, according to Lalmani Tiwari, the manager of Gita Press. “The current stock is rapidly depleting, posing a significant challenge to meet the demand,” he said. In Kanpur, Gita Press outlets have already run out of stock for Ram Charitmanas and Hanuman Chalisa. Outlets in various regions have reported an overwhelming demand for these sacred scriptures. CONTD. ON NATION 11 cyber crime cases daily in city MEGHA KUCHIK / MUMBAI M umbai Police have filed a staggering 3,883 cases of cybercrime in the first 11 months of 2023, which translates to an astounding 11 cases being filed every day during that period. The police has in that time frozen bank accounts with a total of Rs26.48 crore that had been lost to cyber frauds through various means such as phishing attacks, online job scams, KYC update scams, OTP fraud, and sextortion, according to the cyber crime department of Mumbai Police. However, data on how much of the money was returned to the complainants in these cases was not readily available. As many as 936 people were arrested in connection with these cases by the police in the five cyber crime police stations, according to an official. CONTD. ON NATION meeting of the group, at the foreign ministry headquarters in Male on Sunday morning, was also attended by Indian High Commissioner Munu Mahawar, the report said. The Indian government did not immediately confirm the media report or comment on it. The formal request for the withdrawal comes amid a row between the two nations against the backdrop of derogatory comments posted by three deputy ministers of the Muizzu government against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Muizzu suspended the three ministers whose social media posts stirred concern in India and called for a boycott by Indian tourists who ranked highest in numbers followed by Russia. Chinese tourists figured third. CONTD. ON NATION Mumbai becoming warmer KALPESH MHAMUNKAR MUMBAI Mumbai, which was cool at the end of December and the beginning of January has , started becoming warmer. The minimum temperature of Mumbai on Sunday was 22° Celsius with the maximum at 33° Celsius. It is expected to stay in this range for four to five days. This is a departure from the normal trend of the minimum temperature staying between 16 and 19° Celsius in January . “In India every year, northern winds carry a cool breeze from the Himalayas. However, this year there is no westerly disturbance and thus there is not much snowfall in the Jammu and Kashmir region. There is thus not much of a dip in the temperature in Mumbai,” said Sunil Kamble, senior scientist and head of the Mumbai centre of the IMD. The AQI of Mumbai was 102 on Sunday In Sion, Maz. gaon, Malad and Seweri areas, the AQI were was between 100 and 125.