12092023-TTC-01.qxd 9/12/2023 12:38 AM Page 1 13 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 7 NO. 252 | 18 PAGES | ~5.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2021-2023 ESTABLISHED IN 1881 N KOREA’S KIM LEAVES FOR RUSSIA, TO HOLD TALKS WITH PUTIN WORLD /thetribunechd MHA DELEGATION VISITS VILLAGES ALONG LAC IN LADAKH J&K SEBI SLEPT OVER DRI INFO: PIL IN APEX COURT BUSINESS WHEREABOUTS OF CHINA’S DEFENCE MINISTER UNKNOWN BACK PAGE tuesday | 12 september 2023 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com India, S Arabia firm up energy ties, kick-start $50 bn refinery project Ajay Banerjee 2022-23 Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 11 India and Saudi Arabia today kick-started their stalled $50 billion refinery project and separately announced two joint working groups to channel Saudi investment into energy, railways, freight corridor, highways, gas grid, optical fibre and information technology. This came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman held the first Leaders’ Meeting of the Strategic Partnership Council. The Crown Prince is on a state visit here. The strategic partnership council has two verticals — foreign affairs and commerce. Both leaders spoke about the ‘refinery on the west coast’ of India for which $50 billion has been earmarked by Riyadh, said Ausaf Sayeed, Secretary (Overseas Indian Affairs), External Affairs Ministry. There have been delays, he admitted. The focus today was on how to expedite the project. A committee would look into this. “Both sides are keen that this is realised sooner than lat- ANNUAL TRADE $52.75BN $100BN SAUDI ARABIA PLANS TO INVEST IN INDIA (INCLUDING REFINERY) EIGHT PACTS & 2 JOINT WORKING GROUPS ■ Two joint working groups formed on investment in energy, railways, freight corridor, highways, gas grid, optical fibre and information technology ■ 8 pacts inked on coopera- tion in energy, digitalisation, electronics manufacturing, investment, export-import banks, desalination of seawater, lending to MSMEs ■ Both to explore cooperation in space & semiconductors; exchange draft pact for space cooperation on wider scale; discuss trade in local currencies PM Narendra Modi with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince and PM Mohammed bin Salman in New Delhi on Monday. MUKESH AGGARWAL ONE OF THE KEY STRATEGIC PARTNERS Saudi Arabia is one of our most important strategic partners. Our mutual cooperation is vital for peace and stability of the entire region. Narendra Modi, PRIME MINISTER ❝ er,” said Sayeed, who was India’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia when the refinery was first suggested in 2019. Saudi Aramco, UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and an Indian partner are jointly participating in ■ Will also look to expand defence ties; have conducted joint naval exercises and are looking at expanding these to other services the refinery. Initially, land had been identified at Raigad, Maharashtra, but things did continued on page 9 TDP protests Naidu’s arrest, 80 detained AMARAVATI: The TDP on Mon- Aditi Tandon day protested the arrest of its president and former Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu. Over 80 protesters were taken into preventive custody. PTI Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 11 Saudi Arabia today said it would soon set up an office at India’s Gujarat International Finance Tec City (GIFT City). Saudi Investment Minister Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih spoke about opening the office at the Saudi-India investment forum in New Delhi. “We will send a strong delegation from Saudi Arabia to India in the next few weeks to set up an office of ‘sovereign wealth fund’ in GIFT City,” Al-Falih said. The sovereign wealth fund, also known as the Public Investment Fund, manages over $700 billion in Saudi government money. The fund, established in 1971 by royal decree, currently has its headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and offices in Hong Kong, London and New York. GIFT City is India’s tax-neutral financial services centre and business district under construction in Gandhinagar district of Gujarat. In response, Union Commerce continued on page 9 A 14-member coordination panel was formed and tasked with working on the election strategy. RJD’s senior leader Manoj Jha on Monday said the meeting on September 13 was crucial as it came close on the heels of the Opposition bagging four seats against BJP’s three in the recent state Assembly bypolls. “The results of bypolls in six states were clear. Opposition parties won four segments and the BJP three. This shows that a narrative is emerging in our favour. Even in Bageshwar which the Congress lost to the BJP the margin was , small,” Jha said. In the byelection results announced on Friday, the BJP retained Dhanpur in Tripura and Bageshwar in Uttarakhand and wrested Bozanagar from the CPM in Tripura. continued on page 9 Punjab cops track fiscal trail of drug smugglers, bust 3 hawala modules After firm’s refusal, Haryana Govt steps in to insure crops Jupinderjit Singh HISAR: A day after the government asked banks to refund the premium of farmers who got their crops insured this kharif season, following an insurance firm refusing to implement the scheme in “cluster 2”, comprising Hisar, Jind, Ambala, Gurugram, Karnal, Mahendragarh and Sonepat, it has assured the farmers that the Agriculture Department will insure the crops if the firm does not provide cover under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. INSIDE SC expresses concern over stray dog menace NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday expressed concern over the rising number of canine attacks and said it would see what could be done to deal with the menace. TNS Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 11 In a rare exposure of the system of payments to drug smugglers, the Punjab Police have established a financial trail of three modules, which were collectively sending over Rs 2 crore drug money daily to smugglers based in Pakistan and Afghanistan via the hawala network in Dubai, Canada and the US. The Tarn Taran police have arrested 13 persons, including three managers of these mod- New Delhi, September 11 The maiden meeting of the coordination panel of the opposition INDIA bloc will discuss a plan for pre-Lok Sabha poll seat-sharing possibilities, and joint election campaigns and rallies. At their last meeting in Mumbai, INDIA leaders had said a preliminary agreement on seat-sharing “as far as possible” was likely to be reached by September 30. BJPpoll committee likely to meet same day DRUG MONEY SENT VIA DUBAI, CANADA, US ■ The modules were sending over ~2 cr drug money daily to smugglers in Pak & Afghanistan via hawala network in Dubai, Canada & US ■ These modules attracted youth working with food delivery servules. One of the modules was being run by a suspended jawan of the BSF Four deliv. ery-cum-collection agents have been arrested in multiple operations in the past three weeks. Questioning of the accused ices or courier agencies with the lure of better salary ■ Their job was to drop packets at scheduled locations or give these to agents; also collected currency packets from bus drivers and seizure of data from diaries, phones and computers have provided the police several contacts of the accused in India and abroad. “The contacts and account continued on page 9 Poor drainage led to Shimla’s rain mayhem Pratibha Chauhan Tribune News Service The damaged Nabha-Phagli link road in Shimla. FILE PHOTO Shimla, September 11 Even as factors like poor drainage and saturation of the water-retention capacity of the soil are being attributed to the monsoon devastation in Shimla, the state government is engaging the services of experts to look deeper into factors which resulted in mountains sinking at 200 places across the state. The findings of a six-mem- WINSOME TON Sovereign wealth fund office to come up in India INDIA panel to meet tomorrow, seat-sharing, campaign on table IN BRIEF NIFTY SCALES STATEWIDE STUDY NEXT ■ Saturation of water-retention capacity of soil being blamed for devastation in Shimla ■ Officials in touch with experts to discuss timelines & logistics for a statewide study ber committee, which had been entrusted with the task of looking into the causes of landslides in the state capital, have continued on page 9 edit: HP schools damaged Today’s issue is of 18 pages, including four-page Jalandhar Tribune. c m y b 20,000 PEAK ■ The NSE barometer on Monday scaled the record 20,000-mark for the first time ■ It hit its all-time high of 20,008.15 in intra-day trading before finally closing at at 19,996.35 points SC: Can Editors Guild be booked for report? NEW DELHI: A three-judge Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Monday wondered if FIRs could be registered against Editors Guild of India members for a report they published on the local media’s coverage of the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur. BACK PAGE Virat Kohli (122*) celebrates his century during an Asia Cup tie against Pakistan in Colombo on Monday. KL Rahul scored 111*. India won by 228 runs. AP/PTI Senior govt officers can be prosecuted for corruption in pre-2014 cases too: SC Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, September 11 Thousands of public servants on Monday lost a legal shield in the pre-2014 corruption cases as the Supreme Court ruled that its verdict in Subramanian Swamy’s case striking down Section 6A of the Top court’s 2014 verdict striking down immunity to apply retrospectively Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946, will have retrospective effect. In a unanimous verdict, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said, “The declaration made by the Constitution Bench (in May 2014) in the case of Subramanian Swamy will have retrospective operation. Section 6(A) of the DSPE Act is held to be continued on page 9