22012023-TTC-01.qxd 1/22/2023 12:50 AM Page 1 123 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 7 NO. 22 | 24 PAGES | ~7.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2021-2023 ESTABLISHED IN 1881 SHAMI’S 3-WICKET SPELL HELPS INDIA CRUSH NZ IN SECOND ODI SPORT /thetribunechd PROTEST IN KISHTWAR OVER LAND EVICTION ORDER J&K RINGING THE BELL ON SHARENTING SPECTRUM CJI HAILS BASIC STRUCTURE DOCTRINE AS GUIDING LIGHT BACK PAGE sunday | 22 january 2023 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com Twin blasts rock Jammu days Access to BBC documentary ahead of Rahul’s yatra; 9 injured on YouTube channels blocked Tribune News Service Police suspect IEDs planted on vehicles parked at car repair market Arjun Sharma Army Chief reviews situation along LAC NEW DELHI: Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande on Saturday carried out a review of India’s military preparedness along the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim during a visit to the headquarters of the Eastern Army Command. Officials said senior commanders of the Kolkata-headquartered command briefed the Chief of Army Staff about operational matters, including deployment of troops. General Pande’s visit to the crucial command came nearly six weeks after a clash between Indian and Chinese troops in the Tawang sector of Arunachal. — PTI Jammu, January 21 Two blasts within a gap of about half an hour rocked Jammu today, leaving nine persons injured, the incident occurring two days ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in the city and five days before Republic Day amid heightened security across the UT. The first blast took place at 10.45 am in Transport Nagar area of Narwal on the outskirts of the city. The second explosion occurred 50 metres away around 11.15 am. A massive combing operation was launched by security personnel, including from the Army, at the blast sites and nearby Narwal bypass on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway. Forensic experts too were pressed into service. While the police remained tight-lipped about the nature of the blast, a sedan near which one of the explosions occurred was ripped apart. The 10.45 AM 11.15 AM 50 METRES First blast takes place in a sedan in car repair market Second blast, of lesser intensity, damages a jeep The distance between the 2 blasts in Transport Nagar area of Narwal Bomb squad officials inspect the site of the blasts at Narwal in Jammu. PTI GETTING FROM BAD TO WORSE Under the BJP rule, the situation in J&K is getting from bad to worse. Terror activities are rising with each passing day. Harsh Dev Singh, AAP ❝ other blast, said to be of lesser intensity, damaged a jeep. J&K Lt Governor Manoj REFLECTS DESPERATION Such dastardly acts highlight desperation, cowardice of those responsible. No efforts should be spared to bring culprits to justice. Manoj Sinha, J&K L-G ❝ Sinha said in a statement, “Such dastardly acts highlight the desperation and cowardice of those responsible. Take immediate and firm action. continued on page 6 Women wrestlers were called home, claims Punia Ravinder Saini WFI ASSISTANT SECY SUSPENDED Tribune News Service Rohtak, January 21 “Women wrestlers were called by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief to his Delhi house and he would try to touch them while promising help, including sponsorship,” alleged Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Bajrang Punia while talking with The Tribune over the phone today. Punia was among the The Sports Ministry has suspended WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar, a fallout of the allegations of sexual harassment against the sports body’s chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. The ministry also cancelled the championship that was to begin in Sharan’s UP stronghold of Gonda. INSIDE << Minister Anurag Thakur with wrestlers, including Bajrang Punia, at his New Delhi house on Saturday. PTI wrestlers who held a threeday protest against the WFI chief in Delhi. “There are many women wrestlers who have faced harassment, but they are afraid to speak out as the WFI chief is a powerful man. Such incidents also occurred during training Minister inspects goods vehicles, detects GST evasion worth lakhs Aman Sood Tribune News Service Rajpura, January 21 Truckers on the ShambhuRajpura-Sirhind section of GT Road were in for a surprise on Saturday when they saw a Punjab Cabinet Minister politely asking them to park their vehicles away from the highway and show the documents of the goods loaded. The truckers, their owners and the companies transporting goods were left astonished as Punjab Minister for Finance and Excise and Taxation Harpal Singh Cheema led the Tax Department teams in conducting a special drive to check fake bills. After an early morning tea at a dhaba with officers in Rajpura around 8 am, the minister led the secret operation. He was seen standing on the roadside, talking to drivers and also inspecting docu- riots, not released in India, but uploaded on YouTube ■ Govt tells YouTube to block multiple videos showing first of two-part series ■ Also directs Twitter to block over 50 tweets containing links to such videos CONG: WHY DID VAJPAYEE REMIND MODI OF RAJ DHARMA? Criticising the government for ‘censoring’ the documentary, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “PM and his drumbeaters assert that the documentary is slanderous. Censorship has been imposed. Then why did PM Vajpayee want his exit in 2002?” ed a “colonial mindset”. While it was not made available in India by BBC, some YouTube channels appear to have uploaded it to promote an antiIndia agenda. YouTube has been instructed to block the continued on page 6 IN BRIEF Drunk officer makes hoax call to delay train, held NEW DELHI: An IAF officer was on Saturday arrested for allegedly making a hoax bomb call to delay the departure of Mumbai Rajdhani Express from New Delhi. He was to board the train, but got late. PTI First intranasal Covid vaccine launch on R-Day BHOPAL: Homegrown vaccine maker Bharat Biotech will launch its intranasal Covid vaccine iNCOVACC, the first of its kind in India, on January 26, company’s CMD Krishna Ella said on Saturday. PTI Rahul capable of becoming PM, says Sena’s Raut JAMMU: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was capable of becoming the Prime Minister and no third front would be successful without the grand old party. INSIDE Ambika Sharma SUTLEJ, RAVI, BEAS BASINS HIT MOST Tribune News Service 38 DETAINED ■ 38 persons detained for not having genuine documents ■ Fine of ~60 lakh to be imposed Excise and Taxation Minister Harpal Cheema (left) checks papers of a truck driver near Rajpura on Saturday. TRIBUNE PHOTO: RAJESH SACHAR ■ BBC documentary on Gujarat Snow cover in HP shrinks by 18.5% ■ Around 150 vehicles checked ments. Accompanied by senior officials, including Taxation Commissioner KK Yadav, Additional Commissioner-I Viraj S Tidke, Director Investigation HPS Ghotra and others, the minister ensured that the trucks with documents were allowed to leave and the ones without proper documents were detained. “The message to everyone is clear. No one will be allowed to evade taxes and no ‘sifarish’ will work. We will not tolerate any laxity on part of my department,” Cheema told The Tribune. Sources said that the minister had been getting first-hand information continued on page 6 camps. I have learnt that some coaches were involved in such activities,” Punia said. He alleged that selections for international tournaments too were “influenced” and a woman wrestler was forced to undergo selection trial twice last year. “She cleared the first trial but the following day was asked to appear in a second one. This time, she lost and her name was struck off,” Punia said. New Delhi, January 21 The government has blocked access to the BBC documentary, “India: The Modi Question”, which was uploaded on multiple YouTube channels, besides barring tweets sharing the links of the same. Sources said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued the directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos showing the first episode of the two-part documentary. Orders were also issued to Twitter to block over 50 tweets containing the links of such videos. The directions were reportedly issued by the Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, on Friday using the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021. Both YouTube and Twitter have complied with the directions, the sources said. The BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots has already been trashed by the Ministry of External Affairs as a “propaganda piece” that lacked objectivity and reflect- TWEETS SHARING LINKS BARRED Women clear the snow at Kaza in Lahaul-Spiti on Saturday. PTI Solan, January 21 A decrease of 18.5 per cent has been observed in the total area under snow in Himachal Pradesh in 2020-21 winters vis-a-vis 2019-20. The mapping of seasonal snow undertaken by the Department of Environmental Science and Technology (DEST) through satellite images has led to this startling observation. The data shows that the area under snow of all the four major river basins in Himachal Pradesh — Ravi, ■ Area under snow of all four major river basins — Ravi, Sutlej, Chenab and Beas — shrunk in 2020-21 ■ Sutlej and Ravi basins show the most reduction of 23% ■ There was 19% reduction in Beas basin and 9% in Chenab basin Sutlej, Chenab and Beas — shrunk in 2020-21. Lalit Jain, Director, DEST, today informed that as per the latest study undertaken on seasonal snow cover in the state, it has been found that there is an overall decrease in the area under snow in the winter of 2020-21 with Sutlej and Ravi basins showing the most drastic reduction of 23 per cent. This was followed by 19 per cent reduction in the snow cover of the Beas basin and 9 per cent in Chenab basin. The recent study reveals that the glaciers in Chenab basin exhibited a reduction in their area by 3.51 per cent during 2001-18 in terms of clean glaciers and 1.17 per cent in terms of glaciers covered with debris cover. continued on page 6 Lopsided: 302 citizens slam film in open letter New Delhi, January 21 Over 300 citizens, among them retired judges and bureaucrats, on Saturday slammed the BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots as “delusional”, saying it reeked of “colonial mindset” and was “mind-numbingly unsubstantiated”. “This documentary is not a neutral critique. It is not about exercising creative freedom and it is not even about a divergent, anti-establishment point of view. It is in fact a visibly motivated chargesheet against our leader, a fellow Indian and a patriot. We cannot allow just about anyone to run amok with their deliberate bias, their vacuous reasoning hiding behind phrases like ‘it was widely reported’ or that ‘there were pretty credible reports’,” the 302 signatories said in an open letter which continued on page 6 Bomb scare, Goa flight diverted to Uzbekistan New Delhi, January 21 A Goa-bound chartered flight from Perm, a city in Russia, with 238 passengers on board was diverted to Termez in Uzbekistan in the early hours on Saturday after the authorities at the Dabolim airport in Goa received an email claiming there was a bomb on the plane. 238 evacuated; monitoring situation: Russian Embassy This is the second such incident on the Moscow-Goa route involving the same airline in less than two weeks. On the previous occasion, the plane was diverted to Jamnagar in Gujarat. It later turned out to be a hoax call. In the present case, the flight, operated by Russian airline Azur Air, was scheduled to land at the Dabolim airport in South Goa at 4.15 am. “The flight was diverted to Uzbekistan after an email was received by the office of the Dabolim airport director, which said that a bomb was planted on the plane. The flight was diverted before it entered the Indian airspace. continued on page 6 Reckless construction bane of Millennium City ‘Schools of Eminence’ in Punjab’s 23 districts soon Geetanjali Gayatri CHANGING SKYLINE Tribune News Service Gurugram, January 21 Reckless construction, a changing skyline, shrinking green cover, cramped streets and no parking spaces— Gurugram’s face has been changing drastically and it has begun only recently in Haryana’s Millennium City. The single housing units continue to be razed to the ground in plotted sectors, making way for four-storeyed buildings with a new owner for each apartment. While the floor-wise registration has made housing a bit “affordable” in an expensive city like Gurugram, the flip side is that the services are being stretched and burdened with infrastructure augmentation failing to keep pace with changes on the ground. ■ Haryana Government has allowed one extra floor along with stilt parking in Gurugram ■ This has put additional burden on the already-stressed infrastructure in the city ■ The city’s population has crossed 27 lakh ■ Water supply is under strain in summers while traffic jams are a routine in peak hours << Under-construction multi-floor houses in Gurugram. S CHANDAN “We are gradually upgrading services in keeping with the Gurugram-Manesar Urban Complex Plan 2031, which has projected a population of 42.50 lakh. However, given the pace at which the population is rising, the city is likely to reach this projection much earlier,” says a Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) official. The city’s population has already crossed 27 lakh. The water supply is under strain in summers and the roads seem to be shrinking amid the unprecedented increase in vehicles. Untreated sewage is being let into drains and the demand for facilities is spiralling as new buildings continue to add floors and families. With new construction underway in almost every lane of each sector, the reasons are continued on page 6 Today’s issue is of 24 pages, including six-page additional pullout (Spectrum) and four page Jalandhar Tribune. Mohali, January 21 Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann today launched the ‘School of Eminence’ project at the ISB here today, describing it as a giant step towards making Punjab a frontrunner in the education sector. “Such schools have already revolutionised the education sector in Delhi. Now it is the turn of Punjab,” he said. The CM said 117 such schools would be set up in 23 districts — the purpose being to help bright students in government schools to compete with those in private schools in various exams. These ‘Schools of Eminence’ would be named after martyrs and national leaders. continued on page 6 Rajiv Gandhi School in each HP constituency SHIMLA: The HP Government has announced 68 “Rajiv Gandhi Model Day Boarding Schools”, one each in every Assembly constituency. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, holding a meeting of senior officers of the Education Department, said these schools would be equipped with “cutting-edge technology.” He asked the officers to identify land for these schools. Besides a sports school and a sports college, an indoor stadium would be constructed in Jubbal-Kotkhai area, the CM said. He proposed new courses at HP Technical University, Hamirpur. — TNS