DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● POSTAL REGN. NO. JAIPUR CITY/001/2024-26 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2024, JAIPUR, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES `6.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 TOP CHINESE OFFICIAL MEETS INDIAN ENVOY ChinaconfirmsLACtalksprogress:Able % toreducedifferences,someconsensus 7.90 FOR 444 DAYS FD 1800 419 8300 (Toll Free) Follow us @PSBIndOfficial Two sides agreed to reach mutually-acceptable resolution at early date, says Beijing military EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 26 EXPLAINED FOREIGN POLICY BIDENAND INDIA-USTIES PAGE 17 THE CHINESE Defence Ministry said Thursday that China and India have been able to “reduce differences” and build “some consensus” on disengaging troopsfromfrictionpointstoend the standoff along the Line of ActualControlineasternLadakh. It said they agreed to maintain dialoguetoreacharesolutionacceptable to both sides at an “early date”. TheChineseForeignMinistry said Li Jinsong, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, metwithPradeepKumarRawat, India’s Ambassador to China. The Chinese Defence Ministry’s statement and the meeting with the Indian envoy came on the day The Indian Express reported that India and China had made “significant progress” in narrowing their gap on pending issues along LAC in easternLadakh.Thisincludedexploringthecontoursof apossible External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi solution that factors in their respectivepre-April2020positions while agreeing to address exist- ing issues in Arunachal Pradesh. Sourcessaidthismightimply thatIndiantroops,whoseaccess tocertainpatrollingpointsalong the LAC in eastern Ladakh were blockedeitherbyChinesetroops or due to the implementation of the buffer zones created in the backdrop of disengagement at specific friction points, might be close to accessing them again. In Beijing, Zhang Xiaogang, spokespersonfortheMinistryof National Defence, told a media briefingthatundertheguidance of their two leaders, China and India have maintained communicationwitheachotherthrough diplomatic and military channels including between the two Foreign Ministers and China’s Foreign Minister and India’s National Security Advisor and through theborderconsultation mechanisms. BothChinaandIndiathrough talks were “able to reduce their differences and build some consensus besides agreeing to strengthen dialogue to accommodate each other’s legitimate CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 HIMACHAL GOVT SAYS NO DECISION YET Eatery to display owner ID: Minister leaves Cong red-faced, summoned 98 of 749 HC judges have assets in public eye — Kerala tops with 37 of 39 judges, Delhi has 11 of 39 MANOJ C G & SAURABH PARASHAR JUDGES’ ASSETS SHEET FROM 7 HIGH COURTS NEW DELHI, SHIMLA, SEPTEMBER 26 THE HIMACHAL Pradesh government has distanced itself from the statement by its Public Works Department and Urban Development Minister Vikramaditya Singh that a decision had been taken that every eatery and food stall in the state mustdisplaytheowner’sIDcard. Vikramaditya’sstatementon Wednesday came as a surprise as the Himachal Congress governmentseemedtobefollowing the lead of the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which had issued similar orders a day earlier. OnThursday,aspokesperson of the Himachal government said that a committee had been BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY High Court CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PAGE 16 No mention 12 10 No mention Chhattisgarh 17 2 No mention 50 2 No mention Kerala 39 37 No mention Madras 62 5 No mention Note: Total number of Judges includes Chief Justices of respective High Courts as well as Additional Judges. Source: Websites of all 25 High Courts and Department of Justice, as on Sept 18, 2024 SUPREME COMMANDER AT SIACHEN SHYAMLAL YADAV NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 26 President Droupadi Murmu with soldiers during a visit to the Siachen Base Camp on Thursday. PTI RAJASTHAN BJP MLA ‘purifies’ Congress turncoat councillors with Gangajal, gomutra TO PURIFY the Jaipur Municipal CorporationHeritage(JMCH)office from “stains” of corruption and to “convert” turncoat Congress councillors into “Sanatanis” before they could lend support to the BJP, the party’s Hawa Mahal MLA Balmukund Acharya Wednesday sprinkled a combination of Gangajal and gomutra (cow urine)onthe councillorsas well on the premises. The councillors and the officials also “drank” the combinationsymbolicallyasitwassprinkled on their faces, including their lips. The BJP had removed sitting JMCHMayorMuneshGurjarfollowing charges of corruption against her, replacing her with File not uploaded 31 Karnataka formed to frame a policy on street vendors, and was yet to take a decision. “So far, the state government has not made any decision regarding the mandatory display of nameplates or any other form of identification by vendors at their stalls,” the statement said. Sources said this followed a message by an upset Congress central leadership to Chief 11 55 Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu; Vikramaditya Singh 39 Punjab & Haryana JAIPUR, SEPTEMBER 26 ISRAEL REJECTS U.S.-BACKED LEBANON CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL KEY EXECUTIVES QUIT OPENAI, CEO SAYS NO LINK TO FOR-PROFIT PLAN Total Judges Assets in For others what at present public domain website states Delhi HAMZA KHAN THE WORLD Assets of only 13% of HC judges in public domain, most from three courts: Data SC rejects Gujarat Govt plea for review of Bilkis order, remarks ANANTHAKRISHNAN G NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 26 THE SUPREME Court on Thursday dismissed the Gujarat government’s plea seeking review of its January 8 judgment that cancelled the remission granted to 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case. The bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said, “Having carefully gone through the Review Petitions, Remission to Bilkis Bano case convicts was cancelled the order under challenge and the papers annexed therewith, we are satisfied that there is no error apparent on the face of the record or any merit in the Review Petitions, warranting reconsideration of the order im- pugned. The Review Petitions are, accordingly, dismissed. Pendingapplication(s),if any, shall stand disposed of.” The state government had sought a review stating that some of the comments in the January 8 judgment were “not only highly unwarranted and against the record of the case” but “caused serious prejudice to the State”. The review petition termed as “extreme observation” the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Emergency film: CBFC panel for 13 changes, HC to hear matter Monday MLA Balmukund Acharya also sprinkled the premises of the civic body its own pick of Kusum Yadav, propped up with the support of seven Congress turncoats and one independent to cross the halfway mark. On Wednesday, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 OMKAR GOKHALE MUMBAI, SEPTEMBER 26 THE REVISING committee of the CentralBoardofFilmCertification (CBFC) has cleared Kangana Ranaut’s film Emergency for a U/A certification, provided the filmmakers make 13 changes includingcuts,insertionsandmodifications,manyof whichpertain toscenes found objectionable by A poster of the film Sikh groups. On Thursday, the CBFC informed the Bombay High Court that its revising committee had suggested some cuts before the film’s release. The CBFC was responding to a plea by co-producer Zee Entertainment which alleged thatCBFCwas“illegally”and“arbitrarily” withholding certification for the film. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 OF THE 749 judges currently shown as posted in the 25 High Courtsacrossthecountry,theassetsof only98areavailableinthe public domain through declarations posted on the official websites of these institutions — just 13 per cent of the total number, according to official data re- viewed by The Indian Express. Of these, three High Courts constituteover80percentof the assetdeclarations(seechart):the Kerala High Court tops with the details of 37 out of 39 judges available on its website; the Punjab and Haryana High Court has uploaded the information of 31 of 55 judges; and the Delhi High Court has posted details of 11 of 39 judges. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 First time since 2019, Erdogan skips Kashmir mention in UN speech SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 26 FOR THE first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not mentioned the issue of Kashmir in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly. This comes at a time when Turkey is making a bid to be a part of the BRICS grouping. “We maintain our will to develop our relations with BRICS, which brings together emerging economies,” he said during the course of his speech at the 79th UN General Assembly in New York. The founding members of BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Foraseat atBRICS TURKEY IS very keen on joining the BRICS, a grouping which has India as one of its founding members. New members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE joined on January 1 this year and Erdogan is expected to attend the summit in Kazan, Russia next month. Buried in Bengal hospital waste: Mismatched data, grey market PAGE 1 ANCHOR JAY MAZOOMDAAR KOLKATA, SEPTEMBER 26 BEHIND THE corruption allegations surrounding the disposal of bio-medical waste from government hospitals in West Bengal — a key strand being probed by the CBI in the R G Kar Hospital case — is a booming grey market, with unauthorised commercial reuse, according to an investigation by The Indian Express. Experts estimate that on an average,ahospitalgenerates100 g of plastic waste every day per bed — from surgical gloves to saline bottles, IV tubes, syringes etc. Once used, discarded, sterilised and shredded, this fetches Rs 5 at Rs 50/kg from a recycler and when sold illegally and repackaged, each item finds its way back to the market with a total price tag of Rs 75-100 – almost a 20-fold spike. Discrepancies in state government data point to glaring gaps in the way waste is treated. Consider these: ■ In 2014, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) records, 47% of bio-medicalwastegeneratedbyhospitals went untreated in West Bengal. Barely two years later, despite the number of beds remaining about the same at 1 lakh, the waste generated, curiously, fell by as much as 36 per cent. And the share of untreated waste fell to zero. ■ In the nine years between 2014 and 2023, there has been a 63% increase in the number of hospital beds (private and government)inthestate–from1.03 lakh to 1.68 lakh. In that period, the quantity of bio-medical wastehasincreasedbybarely2%. ■Whilethenationalaverage MEDICAL WASTE IN WEST BENGAL Year 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 Beds 1.03 1.03 1.06 1.15 1.17 1.26 1.28 1.33 1.45 1.68 Waste 42.2 32.8 26.9 29.8 34.1 41.6 43.5 42.3 38.9 43.1 Treated 22.7 23.6 All 29.9 All All All All All All Beds in lakhs, Waste & Treated in Tonne/day of bio-medical waste per hospital bed per day increased from 277 gm in 2014 to 286 gm in 2022, it fell from 409 gm to 256 gm in West Bengal. ■ In the year 2017, records show, the quantity of bio-medicalwastetreated(29.89tonnes) exceededthequantitygenerated that year, 29.77 tonnes. Asked about the discrepancies in data and the mismatch between the number of hospital beds and the quantity of waste generated, West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) chairman Kalyan Rudra referred to the authority's official website “for necessary details” and declined to comment further. Butthosenumbersdidnotgo unnoticed. The CAG's Audit Report (General & Social Sector) for 2017-18: “WBPCB (West Bengal Pollution Control Board) was intentionally understating and manipulating the BMW (bio-medical waste) generation figure to make it appear that all generated BMW was being treated before disposal.” That was the year BioMedical Waste Management Rules, 2016 was notified and the CAG had reasons to believe that the WBPCB was striving “to avoid a negative portrayal of the Jaipur State” with figures “understated at least by 49.52 per cent” given the bed strength. Experts point out that given theaveragequantityof bio-medical waste generated from a hospital bed in India -- 286 grams in 2022 — Bengal’s 168,323 hospital beds in 2023 were likely to generate an additional 5 tonnes of hospital waste daily. A former member of the state's pollution control board saidthatit's“difficultto quantify howmuchhospitalplasticwaste is sold untreated" for reuse. “Some of the unrecorded waste is perhaps dumped with the general waste due to a lack of awarenessorcare.Butbyanyestimate,atleast15tonnesof plasticwasteisgeneratedinBengal’s hospitals. If even half of that finds its way back to the market, the money involved is substantial and the risk posed is grave,” said the former official. A retired official of the state Health department acknowledged that “enforcement was lax” from their side, too. “So many healthcare facilities simply threw away their waste. Ten years ago, we did not have enough waste treatment plants either. But what the CAG perceived as a problem of low CONTINUED ON PAGE 2