NAGAPATTINAM l tuesday l april 01, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION IMD predicts April-June may be hotter than usual Photo: S Dinesh above-normal heatwave in these states India is likely to experience hotter-than-usual temperatures from April to June, with more heatwave days in central and western plains normal monsoon forecast for india States likely to see above-normal heatwave days include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and the northern parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, IMD chief Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said in an online press conference on Monday ■ ■ IMD observed that the neutral trend of El Nino during the monsoon increases the chance of a normal monsoon this year for India April may witness up to 11 days of heatwaves, compared to the maximum normal of 7 days. Elevated temperatures during heatwave days risk lives of vulnerable populations like the elderly, children | P7 536 heatwave days recorded in india in 2024, the highest in 14 years CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Succession speculation on Modi trashed by Fadnavis New Money Rules from TODAY With the new financial year starting on April 1, a series of financial changes will take effect Rubbishes Raut’s claim, says the PM would lead India beyond 2029 S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i & R A J ESH K U M A R TH A K UR @ Mumbai/New Delhi New I-T slabs Under the new tax regime, no tax to be paid for salaried individual earning up to `12.75 lakh a year (Nil tax till `12 lakh + `75,000 standard deduction) Unified Pension Scheme Under this, Central government employees will get fixed pension equal to 50% of their average basic salary of last 12 months New UPI rules If your mobile number is inactive or unused for a long time, update it with your bank before April New 1, to avoid MF rules losing Fund houses access must deploy funds to UPI raised through payments new fund offers within digiLocker 30 business days Investors will be able to store their demat account holding statements and consolidated account statements directly in DigiLocker Goods and Services Tax Multi-factor authentication will be made mandatory for taxpayers for better security on the GST portal NDRF in Mandalay Personnel of the National Disaster Response Force at work at an earthquake-hit site in Myanmar. On Monday, they recovered seven bodies from quake-flattened buildings in the Mandalay region, where they were tasked with launching relief work | PTI Cong call for quota in pvt insts Express News Service @ New Delhi Expressing concern over the under-representation of the backward classes in institutes of higher learning, the Congress on Monday asked the Centre to bring a law to provide reservation for SCs, STs, and OBCs in private educational institutions. Congress general secretary in-charge of communication Jairam Ramesh said a Parliamentary panel has recommended a new legislation to implement Article 15(5). The article empowers the state to introduce reservation in admission into educational institutions, including private ones, to uplift the marginalised sections. Ramesh noted that the Congress is committed to bringing legislation to implement Article 15(5) in private, non-minority educational institutions in the country . Explaining the chronology of legislation to implement Article 15 (5), Ramesh said the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admission) Act, 2006 was passed in Parliament and reservations for SC, ST and socially and educationally backward classes in central educational institutions introduced with effect from January 3, 2007. Citing the case of Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs Union of India on April 10, 2008, he said Article 15(5) is constitutionally valid for state-run and stateaided institutions and reservations in private unaided institutions left open to be decided in the appropriate course. In the IMA Vs Union of India May 12, 2011, he said, by 2-0 margin, Article 15 (5) is upheld for private unaided non-minority educational institutions. Citing another case, Ramesh said, “Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust versus Union of India Jan 29, 2014. By 5-0 margin Article 15(5) is, for the first time, upheld as it is explicitly . This means reservation in private educational institutions is valid, he said. Mandar Pardikar Mastermind takes inspiration from ‘Money Heist’ Gang uses gas cutters to steal gold Hides the gold in a well in Madurai All 6 arrested after 5 months Inspired by ‘Money Heist’, gang robs bank, held Express News Service @ Davangere IN a bizarre case of life imitating art, six men who watched Netflix’s Money Heist and YouTube videos have been arrested for stealing 17 kg of gold worth `13 crore from a bank in Davanagere, Karnataka. Police recovered the stolen gold from a well in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The mastermind, Vijay Kumar, and his aides had planned the heist for six months. The accused targeted the Nyamathi branch of the State Bank of India because it did not extend a loan to the heist mastermind who wanted to expand his bakery business. The theft was carried out on October 28, 2024. Six teams of police took five months before arresting Vijay Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Para- manand (all from TN), Abhishek, Manjunath and Chandru (all from Karnataka). The accused practiced for six months and sourced equipment like gas cutters from local stores in Shivamogga and Nyamathi. Soon after the crime, Vijay hid the gold in a trunk of a car in his house. Later, he hid it in a well in his an- It was a professionally executed crime. They entered bank through a window, cut the safe with a gas cutter and robbed gold jewellery. They did it without leaving evidence — Dr Ravikanthe Gowda, IGP (east range) cestral home near Madurai. When things cooled down, he deposited the gold in banks apart from selling some of it in gold shops. While slipping out of the crime scene, the gang removed CCTVs and took away the digital video recorder and threw it in a lake. They threw chilli powder on their escape route to mislead dog squads. The government has awarded the chief minister’s medal to 10 police personnel who successfully cracked the case. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday rubbished speculation about Narendra Modi’s successor, a day after the latter visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Nagpur. He added that Modi would continue to lead the country beyond 2029, when the next Lok Sabha polls are due. Fadnavis was reacting to Uddhav Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s statement earlier in the day that Modi’s visit to the RSS HQ was to “announce his retirement” and discuss his succession plan. “In 2029, we will see Modi as the prime minister again,” Fadnavis told the media in Nagpur. “There is no need to search for his successor. He (Modi) is our leader and will continue,” he asserted. “In our culture, when the father is alive, it is inappropriate to talk about succession. That is Mughal culture. The time has not come to discuss it,” Fadnavis said. Raut had claimed that Modi’s successor would be from Maharashtra. Separately, former RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, too, said he was not aware of any talk of the prime minister’s replacement. “It appears that Modi’s successor will be decided by the RSS which is why Modi was srh complains T’gana Vigilance Probe over free ipl tickets issue Express News Service A high-stakes controversy has engulfed the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) over allegations of blackmailing the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) IPL team management for free tickets. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has ordered a vigilance probe into the matter. The controversy erupted after the 2016 IPL champions’ general manager Srinath TB accused HCA president Jagan Mohan Rao of coercive tactics for complimentary tickets before Hyderabad’s IPL match with Lucknow at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Uppal on March 27. Allegations are that HCA office bearers harassed and blackmailed SRH for 20 free tickets forcing the SRH management to write a letter to HCA threatening that it will move out of Hyderabad. In response, the HCA announced that Jagan Mohan Rao will not participate in meetings with HCA officials during the IPL Season 2025. The controversy surrounds the allocation of complimentary tickets, with the HCA stating that they received only 3,880 tickets, not 3900. “Mr A Jagan Mohan Rao, president, HCA, did not make any personal request Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) minister P K Sekarbabu on Monday said the Shri Dharmaraja Draupadi Amman temple in Melpathi in Villupuram district will be reopened for public worship in a week. The temple has remained shut for public worship for nearly two years since June 2023, after Dalits were denied entry by caste Hindus. Last month, the Madras High Court ordered the temple be reopened for public worship. Addressing reporters in Chennai after inspecting various ongoing project works, including the renovation of Victoria Public Hall, the minister said the government is taking all measures to reopen on temple and poojas are being performed there. The situation is ripe for the reopening because of the efforts being made by the government, he said. Sekarbabu was responding to a question regarding NTK leader Seeman’s recent announcement of staging a “temple entry” protest in this regard. The minister, without mentioning the leader, claimed that some people were “doing politics” with the intention of taking credit just when the government’s efforts are about to bear fruit. Earlier, Seeman had accused the government of not taking adequate action despite the Madras High Court’s order. Stating that the people are aware of Chief Minister M K Stalin’s efforts towards building unity, minister Sekarbabu said that the people would not buy into such “fake protest announcements”. P5 @ Hyderabad @ Chennai/ Villupuram A Revanth Reddy to block 3,900 tickets per match for his purchase,” the HCA’s response to SRH stated. “Please do not distort facts as 3,900 complimentary tickets were never handed over to HCA but only 3,880 tickets were handed over. A demand for issuing the shortly supplied balance 20 complimentary tickets cannot be stretched to state that the president, HCA, demanded 20 free tickets. Your claim that you were informed that the President, HCA has instructed for the return of 20 tickets for F-12 A Box is a baseless manipulation intended to malign him. HCA was given only 3880 complimentary tickets ... you are incorrectly projecting the request to supply the balance 20 tickets as threat, blackmail and coercion,” HCA’s mail to SRH’s Srinath read. Vigilance and enforcement Director General Kothakota Sreenivasa Reddy will conduct the investigation. ‘not illegal immigrant’ wanted for the murder of P Kaleeshwaran, a history-sheeter A 29-year-old history-sheeter who was murdered by a gang on was shot dead by a police in- March 23 in Austinpatti, on the spector in an encounter outskirts of the city Ka. on Monday evening in leeshwaran was the the Keerathurai police nephew of former DMK station limits in Madurai councillor VK Gurusamy . city after he allegedly at, Gurusamy has a two-dectempted to escape by atade-long rivalry with a tacking two police congang linked with late AIstables and firing an V Subash ADMK functionary Raillegal country-made pis- Chandra Bose japandian due to which at tol at the inspector. least 20 people have died, Police identified the deceased Kaleeshwaran being the last. as V Subash Chandra Bose of Bose was a close associate of Pangajam Colony in Teppaku- Rajapandian’s near relative Vellam in Madurai city. He was laikaali, police said. P5 R S I V A K U M A R @ Chennai Noting that the case of a 37year-old woman, born in India to Sri Lankan refugee parents and married to an Indian citizen, presents a “unique circumstance” and holding that she cannot be considered an illegal immigrant, the Madras High Court has ordered the union government to consider her application for Indian citizenship “on its own merits in accordance with the law”, without deporting her from India. The court also directed the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to treat her application as a special case to exempt her from applying through online portal, as the portal does not accept applications filed by persons with Sri Lankan background. The Indian citizenship and passport granted to the woman (S Ramya), an employee of a private firm in Coimbatore, were revoked earlier by authorities, who insisted that she should go back to Sri Lanka and re-enter India legally with a valid visa before submitting an application. The revocation came after After 2 years, temple in Melpathi all set to reopen Express News Service History-sheeter shot dead by police in Madurai encounter Consider citizenship plea of SL refugees’ daughter: HC Vi g n e s h V @ Madurai called (to Nagpur) and discussions took place. Sangh’s discussions are held behind closed doors. The indications are very clear. The Sangh will decide the next leader, who could be from Maharashtra,” Raut claimed. As for choosing a successor for BJP’s national president J P Nadda, the party is reportedly in the process of shortlisting candidates. Among the frontrunners are Union ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupendra Yadav, along with three women - finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, BJP Parliamentary Board member Sudha Ya d a v, a n d D a g g u b a t i Purandeswari, party president of the Andhra Pradesh unit. The final decision is expected by mid-April, with the official announcement at the upcoming BJP National Council meeting in Bengaluru. authorities found her case to be in contravention of the provisions of the Citizenship Act. The authorities found that she was born on December 24, 1987, while the Citizenship Act, as per a 1986 amendment, states that any person born in the country after July 1, 1987, cannot claim citizenship solely by birth if both the parents are not Indian nationals. The order was passed by Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy recently while disposing of a petition filed by Ramya, who got married to D Purushothaman, an Indian citizen, in 2014. The couple have a nine-year-old child, studying in a private school in Coimbatore. P5 limits on entry to kodai, nilgiris from today Starting Tuesday, tourist vehicle entry to the Nilgiris will be restricted to 6,000 and 8,000 on weekdays and weekends, respectively; similarly, it is 4,000 and 6,000 for Kodaikanal | P2