19112023-TTC-01.qxd 11/19/2023 12:55 AM Page 1 123 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 7 NO. 319 | 24 PAGES | ~7.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2021-2023 ESTABLISHED IN 1881 AFTER ALBANESE’S CHINA VISIT, PLA HARASSES AUSTRALIAN NAVY WORLD /thetribunechd HC SEEKS DETAILS OF 13 EX-MLAS OCCUPYING GOVT BUNGALOWS J&K ALL OR NOTHING: ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES ON VIRAT KOHLI IN ZONE RESIDENTIAL BLOCKS OF HIS OWN SPECTRUM KILL 47 IN GAZA BACK PAGE sunday | 19 november 2023 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com Amid setback, vertical drilling planned in Haryana Edu Dept team finds ‘true’ race against time to rescue 41 workers chargesofagainst principalmatch up Statements students, parents, teachers Army joins in laying 320m track for installation of machine on tunnel hilltop 5 options on table, work stopped to save lives, says govt Neeraj Mohan Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 18 The fate of 41 workers, trapped in the partially collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand for the past seven days, remains uncertain as the rescue operation was suspended on Friday. Rescuers are now planning to opt for vertical or directional drilling to evacuate the trapped workers. Questions are now being raised about the construction company’s failure to adhere to safety protocols, leaving the trapped workers without a crucial escape route or hume pipe, which is normally provided for emergency use. Expressing concern, geologist Prof SP Sati said, “The absence of an IN BRIEF Sale of halal-certified products banned in UP LUCKNOW: The UP Government on Saturday banned production, storage, distribution and sale of food products with halal certification while exempting products manufactured for export. PTI Haryana hikes wages of anganwadi workers CHANDIGARH: Haryana has hiked remuneration of anganwadi workers to ~14K/month for those with over 10 years of experience & to ~12,500 for those with up to 10 years of experience. INSIDE ChatGPT maker OpenAI ousts CEO Sam Altman SAN FRANCISCO: The board of the firm behind ChatGPT has fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — to many, the human face of generative AI — sending shock waves across tech industry. BACK PAGE Ludhiana hosiery factory owner kidnapped, shot at LUDHIANA: An industrialist, Sambhav Jain, was kidnapped by five persons from Laddu colony, an industrial area at Noorwala village, on Friday night. The kidnappers demanded Rs 5 crore ransom. As the victim tried to escape, they inflicted a bullet injury on his thigh in a moving car and also thrashed him. Later, they threw him out of the car and fled away without the ransom. The injured businessman, a resident of the Civil Lines, is undergoing treatment at DMC Hospital. INSIDE A drilling machine airlifted from Indore being brought to the rescue ops site in Uttarkashi on Saturday. PTI WHY ESCAPE TUNNEL NOT BUILT? PMO OFFICIAL AT SITE Questions are now being raised about the construction Bhaskar Khulbe, former adviser, PMO, and Mangesh company’s failure to provide an escape route or hume Ghildiyal, Deputy Secretary, PMO, arrived at Silkyara pipe, which is normally provided for emergency use. tunnel on Saturday to monitor the situation. escape tunnel or hume pipe from this critical tunnel has exposed serious lapses on the part of the construction company.” A project map, being circulated on social media, indicated the oversight in the construction of an escape continued on page 6 New Delhi, November 18 The government on Saturday said drilling into the partially collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi was stopped to save lives as earth movement was detected when a US auger machine cut through the rubble to lay pipes and create an escape passage for 41 trapped workers. In a late night statement, the Centre said five options had been finalised at a high-level meeting chaired by Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Dhami today and different agencies had been given the task of pursuing one option each. “After continued on page 6 Govt to summon IT firms on deepfake threat Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, November 18 A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concern over deepfake videos, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday warned social media platforms that immunity they enjoy under the “safe harbour” clause in the Information and Technology Act will not apply if they do not take steps to remove such content. According to the clause, an online platform cannot be NO IMMUNITY IF STEPS NOT TAKEN USE OF TECH BY CRIMINALS CHALLENGE Safeharbour clause,which mostsocial mediaplatforms havebeen enjoying... does not apply if they do not take adequate steps for removing deepfakes from platforms.Ashwini Vaishnaw, ITMIN Circumstances change rapidly due to influence of new tech & social media. Generative AI is used by criminals and problems like deepfake are coming to fore. held accountable, or has immunity, for third-party content posted by users. Vaishnaw said a meeting was Droupadi Murmu, PRESIDENT slated between government officials and major social media platforms to address the escalating concerns surrounding deep- fake technology. “They are taking steps... but we think many more steps will have to be taken. And we are soon going to have a meeting of all platforms... Maybe in the next three-four days, we’ll call them for brainstorming and make sure platforms make adequate efforts for preventing it (deepfakes), and cleaning up their system,” Vaishnaw told media. Asked about the participation of major entities such as Meta and Google in the impending meeting, the minister confirmed their inclusion. continued on page 7 Geetanjali Gayatri USED TO IDENTIFY VULNERABLE GIRLS Tribune News Service Chandigarh, November 18 A “paedophile” who subjected “vulnerable” girl students to sexual assault and “indecent” questioning, the accused principal of a government girls’ school in Jind would visit classrooms during the absence of teachers and touch girls inappropriately. The staff, teaching and non-teaching, chose to either look the other way and stay mum or claimed complete ignorance about the goings-on at the school. While the parents of the students who met the team of the Education Department pressed for a change of the entire staff at the school in the students’ interests, sources said the role of another teacher, recently transferred out, was also under the scanner. These are among the many findings of a team of the Haryana School Education Department which visited the Jind school for a thorough probe into the allegations earlier this week. The team met students, staff and parents during the day-long visit and recorded their statements. A report in this regard has now been submitted to the authorities. The sources pointed out that the report mentioned that the allegations against the accused principal, booked under Section 10 of the POCSO Act and Sections 341, 342, 354A of the IPC, “seem to be true” since the statements of students, continued on page 6 ■ The accused principal tried to identify “vulnerable” girls — those from economically weaker backgrounds, girls who were caught with mobile phones and those who skipped school ■ They were subjected to indecent questioning about boyfriends and sex, while the principal used lewd gestures and touched them inappropriately ■ During a 3-day trip of Class XI students to Amritsar, he misbehaved & used indecent gestures <
The Tribune, now published from Chandigarh, started publication on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan). It was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising four eminent persons as trustees.
The Tribune, the largest selling daily in North India, publishes news and views without any bias or prejudice of any kind. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language and partisanship, are the hallmarks of the paper. It is an independent newspaper in the real sense of the term.
The English edition apart, the 133-year-old Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).
