The Evening Wrap: At least 14 students, 2 teachers die in Vadodara boat capsize

At least 14 students and two teachers died after a boat carrying them overturned in a lake on the outskirts of Vadodara city in Gujarat on January 18, officials said. There were at least 27 students in the boat, Vadodara district collector A.B. Gor had said. A search operation was under way to trace the remaining students at the Harni lake, where the incident happened, they said. President Draupadi Murmu has offered condolences to the berieved families. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Distressed by the loss of lives due to a boat capsizing at the Harni lake in Vadodara. An ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh from PMNRF would be given to the next of kin of each deceased. The injured would be given ₹50,000.“ Gujarat’s Minister for Home and guardian Minister of Vadodara Harsh Sanghvi has rushed to Vadodara. Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has left for Vadodara. Gujarat Education Minister Kuber Dindor said, “I have just learnt that six children died after a boat carrying school students overturned in a lake.” “Rescue operations are underway. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the fire brigade personnel are on the job along with other agencies,” he said. Vadodara district collector A.B. Gor said there were 27 children on the boat. “We are trying to trace and rescue others,” he said. “A boat carrying school students, who came here on a picnic, overturned in Harni lake in the afternoon. The fire brigade has so far rescued seven students, while search is on for the missing ones,” Vadodara’s chief fire officer Parth Brahmbhatt said. Few local residents rescued some children before the fire brigade personnel reached the spot, he said. Expressing grief over the death of students and teachers, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge asked the State government to make every effort to save those missing after the accident. “Many students are still reported missing in this accident. Gujarat government and administration are requested to expedite the relief and rescue operations and make every possible effort to save the lives of the students,” he said in a post in Hindi on X. Death toll in Pakistan strikes on Iran rises to nine A day after Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Tehran in the wake of Iranian missile and drone strikes in Balochistan, Pakistan on January 18 conducted “precision military strikes” against what it called “terrorist hideouts” in Iran’s Siestan-Balochistan province that killed nine people. Iran’s attack and Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes have raised tensions in the volatile region, already roiled by Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the targeting of the merchant ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis. Pakistan military said it used multiple weapons, including killer drones, to carry out effective strikes against hideouts inside Iran used by militants of two leading Baloch terrorist groups responsible for recent attacks in the country. “The precision strikes were carried out using killer drones, rockets, loitering munitions and stand-off weapons. Maximum care was taken to avoid collateral damage,” according to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing. It said that “hideouts used by terrorist organisations namely Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) were successfully struck in an intelligence-based operation codenamed ‘Marg Bar Sarmachar’.” The targeted hideouts were being used by notorious terrorists including Dosta alias Chairman, Bajjar alias Soghat, Sahil alias Shafaq, Asghar alias Basham and Wazir alias Wazi, amongst others, it said. Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday called on Iran and Pakistan to show maximum restraint and solve their differences through diplomacy or risk playing into the hands of those who would like to see the region descend into chaos. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement noted that the two countries are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a grouping that Russia helped found. “It is regrettable that this is happening between friendly SCO countries, with which we are developing partnership relations. Further aggravation of the situation plays into the hands of those who are not interested in peace, stability and security in the region,” said Zakharova. Any anti-terrorist operation on another country’s sovereign territory had to be carried out in agreement and coordination with the authorities of that country, she said. Supreme Court to hear pleas by Bilkis Bano case convicts for more time to surrender The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear pleas by three of the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case seeking more time to surrender. The apex court had, in its judgment on January 8, given the convicts two weeks to report back to jail after concluding that the remission of their life sentence by the Gujarat government in August 2022 was illegal. The trio, Govindbhai Nai, Mitesh Chimanlal Bhatt, and Ramesh Rupabhai Chandana, has cited ill-health and impending family or personal commitments to urge for more time to give themselves up. Their pleas were mentioned before Justice B.V. Nagarathna, who had headed the Bench which ordered them to return to jail, on Thursday. Justice Nagarathna directed the Supreme Court Registry to seek the orders of the Chief Justice of India to re-constitute the Bench which had heard and pronounced the judgment on January 8. The Bilkis Bano judgment was delivered by a Bench of Justices Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan. Currently, Justice Nagarathna is presiding on a Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol. Justice Nagarathna asked the Registry to enquire from the Chief Justice whether the Bench with Justice Bhuyyan could be constituted on January 19 as the deadline to surrender given in the January 8 verdict draws to a close on January 21. Nai has sought a month to arrange care for his aged parents and said he himself was unwell. Chandana said his son was getting married and sought six weeks. Bhatt also asked for six weeks to harvest his crops. The 11 men were serving life sentence for the gangrape of a pregnant Bano, the rape and murder of her family members, including a two-month-old infant during the 2002 riots. The 251-page judgment authored by Bano had described the crimes of the men as “grotesque and diabolical crime driven by communal hatred”. The court had made scathing remarks about the ruling BJP government in Gujarat for acting “in tandem” with the prisoners to order their early release after “usurping the power” to do so. Monday’s judgment came as a blow to the Centre which had approved the men’s premature release. “A woman deserves respect howsoever high or low she may be otherwise considered in society or to whatever faith she may follow or any creed she may belong to. Can heinous crimes against women permit remission of the convicts by a reduction in their sentence and by granting them liberty?” Justice Nagarathna, had observed in the judgment. Poll violations: Election Commission of India recommends suspension of IAS officer, 5 others The Election Commission of India (ECI) has recommended suspension of an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer along with two more officers and three outsourcing employees for allegedly and unauthorisedly downloading about 34,000 Electors Photo Identification Cards (EPIC) between March and April in 2021 in Tirupati Assembly Constituency, during the time of Tirupati Lok Sabha by-elections. Further, the ECI has ordered for a police inquiry into the allegations. The ECI, reportedly, has established prima facie in this case through the official servers of the Commission, from where the alleged EPIC cards were downloaded and misused during the by-elections. Sources in the ECI informed that all these EPICs were downloaded from the login of the then Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), who was working as Commissioner of Tirupati Municipal Corporation. At present, the ERO is discharging duties as a Collector of a district. The ECI has also recommended the suspension of the then Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and outsourcing employees. The ECI has initiated these actions based on a recent complaint lodged in December 2023 by the BJP against the violations in the electoral rolls pertaining to the Tirupati Lok Sabha by-elections. The file related to the suspension of the then ERO and others is with K.S. Jawahar Reddy, Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh, who is likely to take appropriate action within a couple of days, according to sources at the State Secretariat, Velagapudi in Guntur. Sources informed that for any modifications, changes and downloads of the EPICs from the ECI servers, the login credentials of the ERO is a mandate. To login into the ECI website through the ERO, the authorised officer’s mobile number gets a one-time password (OTP) and entering it is necessary before doing any operations in the portal. At that time, the ECI allowed the EROs to operate the portal for entire day, after they login once in a day. The sources further informed that the IAS officer has denied his alleged role in it but as per the position he held at that time, he is under the radar of the ECI and has to face the inquiry and prove his innocence. Still, he is one of the main responsible officers for the misuse of his login and downloading the EPICs. Opposition parties had then alleged that the ruling YSR Congress Party manipulated the EPICs and cast votes through fake voters. In that by-election, the YSRCP’s candidate Maddila Gurumoorthy had defeated former Union Minister of State Panabaka Lakshmi of the TDP by a margin of over 14% votes. State reason for prescribing antimicrobials, Health Ministry tells doctors The Union Health Ministry has asked doctors to make it a mandatory practice to write the indication (reason/justification) while prescribing antimicrobials, and directed pharmacists to stop over-the-counter sale of antibiotics, and sell them only with the prescription of a qualified doctor. The Ministry’s latest direction cites the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials, which it said is one of the main drivers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The letter issued by the Ministry to all medical and pharmacist associations and doctors of medical colleges said that it is estimated bacterial AMR is directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019, while 4.95 million deaths were associated with drug-resistant infections. Stating that AMR puts many of the gains of modern medicine at risk, the Ministry said that misuse and overuse of antimicrobials is one of the main drivers in the development of drug-resistant pathogens. “With few new antibiotics in the Research and Development pipeline, prudent antibiotic use is the only option to delay the development of resistance,” the Ministry said in its communication. It further explains that AMR threatens the effective prevention and treatment of infections caused by resistant microbes resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death. Treatment failures also lead to longer periods of infectivity, and the prohibitively high cost of second-line drugs may result in failure to treat these diseases in many individuals, the Ministry added. According to the Ministry’s direction, the change must begin from the medical college itself. It notes that medical colleges not only provide tertiary healthcare in the country but are also hubs for the education of the younger generation of doctors, so this makes it important that doctors at medical colleges set an example of the judicious use of antimicrobials for the next generation of doctors who will face crises in much more severe forms. Pharmacists have been told to implement Schedule H and H-1 of the Drugs and Cosmetic Rules, and sell antibiotics with only one valid prescription. “It is important that doctors mention exact indications on their prescriptions while prescribing antimicrobials,” the communication noted. In brief Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees to expect more job cuts at the Alphabet-owned company this year, The Verge reported, citing an internal memo. Pichai said in the memo that the layoffs this year were focused on removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas, according to the report. “These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team,” Pichai informed all employees in the memo. “We have ambitious goals, and will be investing in our big priorities this year.” Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 18 January 2024 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( At least 14 students and two teachers die as boat overturns in lake near Vadodara [At least 14 students and two teachers died after a boat carrying them overturned in a lake on the outskirts of Vadodara city]( in Gujarat on January 18, officials said. There were at least 27 students in the boat, Vadodara district collector A.B. Gor had said. A search operation was under way to trace the remaining students at the Harni lake, where the incident happened, they said. President Draupadi Murmu has offered condolences to the berieved families. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Distressed by the loss of lives due to a boat capsizing at the Harni lake in Vadodara. An ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh from PMNRF would be given to the next of kin of each deceased. The injured would be given ₹50,000.“ Gujarat’s Minister for Home and guardian Minister of Vadodara Harsh Sanghvi has rushed to Vadodara. Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has left for Vadodara. Gujarat Education Minister Kuber Dindor said, “I have just learnt that six children died after a boat carrying school students overturned in a lake.” “Rescue operations are underway. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the fire brigade personnel are on the job along with other agencies,” he said. Vadodara district collector A.B. Gor said there were 27 children on the boat. “We are trying to trace and rescue others,” he said. “A boat carrying school students, who came here on a picnic, overturned in Harni lake in the afternoon. The fire brigade has so far rescued seven students, while search is on for the missing ones,” Vadodara’s chief fire officer Parth Brahmbhatt said. Few local residents rescued some children before the fire brigade personnel reached the spot, he said. Expressing grief over the death of students and teachers, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge asked the State government to make every effort to save those missing after the accident. “Many students are still reported missing in this accident. Gujarat government and administration are requested to expedite the relief and rescue operations and make every possible effort to save the lives of the students,” he said in a post in Hindi on X. Death toll in Pakistan strikes on Iran rises to nine A day after Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Tehran in the wake of Iranian missile and drone strikes in Balochistan, [Pakistan on January 18 conducted “precision military strikes” against what it called “terrorist hideouts” in Iran’s Siestan-Balochistan province that killed nine people](. Iran’s attack and Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes have raised tensions in the volatile region, already roiled by Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the targeting of the merchant ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis. Pakistan military said it used multiple weapons, including killer drones, to carry out effective strikes against hideouts inside Iran used by militants of two leading Baloch terrorist groups responsible for recent attacks in the country. “The precision strikes were carried out using killer drones, rockets, loitering munitions and stand-off weapons. Maximum care was taken to avoid collateral damage,” according to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing. It said that “hideouts used by terrorist organisations namely Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) were successfully struck in an intelligence-based operation codenamed ‘Marg Bar Sarmachar’.” The targeted hideouts were being used by notorious terrorists including Dosta alias Chairman, Bajjar alias Soghat, Sahil alias Shafaq, Asghar alias Basham and Wazir alias Wazi, amongst others, it said. Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday called on Iran and Pakistan to show maximum restraint and solve their differences through diplomacy or risk playing into the hands of those who would like to see the region descend into chaos. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement noted that the two countries are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a grouping that Russia helped found. “It is regrettable that this is happening between friendly SCO countries, with which we are developing partnership relations. Further aggravation of the situation plays into the hands of those who are not interested in peace, stability and security in the region,” said Zakharova. Any anti-terrorist operation on another country’s sovereign territory had to be carried out in agreement and coordination with the authorities of that country, she said. Supreme Court to hear pleas by Bilkis Bano case convicts for more time to surrender [The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear pleas by three of the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case seeking more time to surrender](. The apex court had, in its judgment on January 8, given the convicts two weeks to report back to jail after concluding that the remission of their life sentence by the Gujarat government in August 2022 was illegal. The trio, Govindbhai Nai, Mitesh Chimanlal Bhatt, and Ramesh Rupabhai Chandana, has cited ill-health and impending family or personal commitments to urge for more time to give themselves up. Their pleas were mentioned before Justice B.V. Nagarathna, who had headed the Bench which ordered them to return to jail, on Thursday. Justice Nagarathna directed the Supreme Court Registry to seek the orders of the Chief Justice of India to re-constitute the Bench which had heard and pronounced the judgment on January 8. The Bilkis Bano judgment was delivered by a Bench of Justices Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan. Currently, Justice Nagarathna is presiding on a Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol. Justice Nagarathna asked the Registry to enquire from the Chief Justice whether the Bench with Justice Bhuyyan could be constituted on January 19 as the deadline to surrender given in the January 8 verdict draws to a close on January 21. Nai has sought a month to arrange care for his aged parents and said he himself was unwell. Chandana said his son was getting married and sought six weeks. Bhatt also asked for six weeks to harvest his crops. The 11 men were serving life sentence for the gangrape of a pregnant Bano, the rape and murder of her family members, including a two-month-old infant during the 2002 riots. The 251-page judgment authored by Bano had described the crimes of the men as “grotesque and diabolical crime driven by communal hatred”. The court had made scathing remarks about the ruling BJP government in Gujarat for acting “in tandem” with the prisoners to order their early release after “usurping the power” to do so. Monday’s judgment came as a blow to the Centre which had approved the men’s premature release. “A woman deserves respect howsoever high or low she may be otherwise considered in society or to whatever faith she may follow or any creed she may belong to. Can heinous crimes against women permit remission of the convicts by a reduction in their sentence and by granting them liberty?” Justice Nagarathna, had observed in the judgment. Poll violations: Election Commission of India recommends suspension of IAS officer, 5 others The [Election Commission of India (ECI) has recommended suspension of an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer along with two more officers and three outsourcing employees]( for allegedly and unauthorisedly downloading about 34,000 Electors Photo Identification Cards (EPIC) between March and April in 2021 in Tirupati Assembly Constituency, during the time of Tirupati Lok Sabha by-elections. Further, the ECI has ordered for a police inquiry into the allegations. The ECI, reportedly, has established prima facie in this case through the official servers of the Commission, from where the alleged EPIC cards were downloaded and misused during the by-elections. Sources in the ECI informed that all these EPICs were downloaded from the login of the then Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), who was working as Commissioner of Tirupati Municipal Corporation. At present, the ERO is discharging duties as a Collector of a district. The ECI has also recommended the suspension of the then Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and outsourcing employees. The ECI has initiated these actions based on a recent complaint lodged in December 2023 by the BJP against the violations in the electoral rolls pertaining to the Tirupati Lok Sabha by-elections. The file related to the suspension of the then ERO and others is with K.S. Jawahar Reddy, Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh, who is likely to take appropriate action within a couple of days, according to sources at the State Secretariat, Velagapudi in Guntur. Sources informed that for any modifications, changes and downloads of the EPICs from the ECI servers, the login credentials of the ERO is a mandate. To login into the ECI website through the ERO, the authorised officer’s mobile number gets a one-time password (OTP) and entering it is necessary before doing any operations in the portal. At that time, the ECI allowed the EROs to operate the portal for entire day, after they login once in a day. The sources further informed that the IAS officer has denied his alleged role in it but as per the position he held at that time, he is under the radar of the ECI and has to face the inquiry and prove his innocence. Still, he is one of the main responsible officers for the misuse of his login and downloading the EPICs. Opposition parties had then alleged that the ruling YSR Congress Party manipulated the EPICs and cast votes through fake voters. In that by-election, the YSRCP’s candidate Maddila Gurumoorthy had defeated former Union Minister of State Panabaka Lakshmi of the TDP by a margin of over 14% votes. State reason for prescribing antimicrobials, Health Ministry tells doctors The [Union Health Ministry has asked doctors to make it a mandatory practice to write the indication (reason/justification) while prescribing antimicrobials]( and directed pharmacists to stop over-the-counter sale of antibiotics, and sell them only with the prescription of a qualified doctor. The Ministry’s latest direction cites the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials, which it said is one of the main drivers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The letter issued by the Ministry to all medical and pharmacist associations and doctors of medical colleges said that it is estimated bacterial AMR is directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019, while 4.95 million deaths were associated with drug-resistant infections. Stating that AMR puts many of the gains of modern medicine at risk, the Ministry said that misuse and overuse of antimicrobials is one of the main drivers in the development of drug-resistant pathogens. “With few new antibiotics in the Research and Development pipeline, prudent antibiotic use is the only option to delay the development of resistance,” the Ministry said in its communication. It further explains that AMR threatens the effective prevention and treatment of infections caused by resistant microbes resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death. Treatment failures also lead to longer periods of infectivity, and the prohibitively high cost of second-line drugs may result in failure to treat these diseases in many individuals, the Ministry added. According to the Ministry’s direction, the change must begin from the medical college itself. It notes that medical colleges not only provide tertiary healthcare in the country but are also hubs for the education of the younger generation of doctors, so this makes it important that doctors at medical colleges set an example of the judicious use of antimicrobials for the next generation of doctors who will face crises in much more severe forms. Pharmacists have been told to implement Schedule H and H-1 of the Drugs and Cosmetic Rules, and sell antibiotics with only one valid prescription. “It is important that doctors mention exact indications on their prescriptions while prescribing antimicrobials,” the communication noted. In brief [Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees to expect more job cuts]( at the Alphabet-owned company this year, The Verge reported, citing an internal memo. Pichai said in the memo that the layoffs this year were focused on removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity in some areas, according to the report. “These role eliminations are not at the scale of last year’s reductions, and will not touch every team,” Pichai informed all employees in the memo. “We have ambitious goals, and will be investing in our big priorities this year.” Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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