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 ■ ■ chennai l friday l february 02, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l vellore EDITION Housing Electricity ta x Re s e a r c h 1 cr households to get free electricity up to 300 units a month through rooftop solarisation. This perhaps is aimed at neutralising the AAP pitch of free electricity to the poor The government will withdraw old, petty tax demands up to `25,000 till 2009-10 and up to `10,000 for the five-year period till 2014-15, benefiting up to one crore tax payers A corpus of `1 lakh crore will be set up to offer 50-year interest-free loans to companies doing tech research. This will encourage private sector firms to scale up research and innovation FY25 Infra spend A new scheme will be launched in 2024-25 to help the middle class who are “living in rented houses, slums, or chawls and unauthorised colonies” to buy or build their own houses Infra spending to jump 11% to `11. 11 lakh crore (3.4% of GDP). Three economic rail corridors to be set up for energy, mineral and cement; port connectivity; and, high-traffic density Fiscal deficit estimate for next fiscal is 5.1% of the GDP and 4.5% in 2025-26 Nothing big-bang, Nirmala stays with fiscal consolidation D I PA K M O N D A L @ New Delhi NOTHING much was expected from the Interim Budget of 2024. In that sense, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lived up to expectations. The FM stayed away from big-bang populist measures but turned her short Budget speech into a self-congratulatory session. US approves sale of 31 Predator drones to India Y eshi S eli @ New Delhi The US State Department on Thursday approved the sale of 31 Predator MQ-9B drones and related equipment at a cost of $3.99 bn. The US Defence Security Cooperation Agency delivered the certification notifying the Congress of this sale. “This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defense partner,’’ the State Department said.  Full report: P12 Most part of the speech was dedicated to listing out the ‘achievements’ of the Narendra Modi-led government in the past 10 years, drawing a then-and-now comparison between pre- and post-2014 era. Stressing that the Modi government will come back to power after the 2024 general elections, she said: “In the full budget in July, our Gover nment will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of Viksit Bharat.” Sitharaman did not elaborate on the contours of that roadmap, but highlighted PM Modi’s key focus areas — the poor, women, youth, and farmers. But there too, no major announcements were made except for the `1 lakh crore cor- pus with 50-year interest-free loan for financing innovations. This is supposed to help the tech-savvy youth in pursuing their career in sunrise sectors. The speech did not offer any roadmap for job creation. In fact, the word ‘job’ appeared only once in the FM’s speech, that too as a passing mention. A couple of ‘populist’ an- A day after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a land scam, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren was produced before the PMLA court here, which sent him to judicial custody till Friday. While the ED sought his remand of 10 days, the court reserved its orders. Though Hemant Soren resigned on Wednesday night and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Champai Soren staked his claim to lead the new government, Governor C P Radhakrishnan is yet to show the green light. Amid fears of poaching by the BJP the JMM-led ruling al, liance chartered two flights to shepherd 43 of its 47 MLAs to Congress-ruled Telangana. But the flights couldn’t take off due to low visibility in Ranchi. After being holed up in their flights for over 1.5 hours, the 43 MLAs returned to the circuit house in Ranchi where they will spend the night. Champai Soren and a few others, including Congress leader Alamgir Alam, had stayed back to deal with the political crisis in the state. Alamgir Alam said they decided to fly their MLAs to Hyderabad after the BJP spread rumours On the fiscal front, the Budget put the best foot forward with a target of 5.1% of the GDP in 2024-25. The FY24 fiscal deficit target has been revised to 5.8% from the budgeted 5.9%. The FM also cut the government’s gross borrowing target for FY24 to `14.13 lakh crore, lower than the revised FY24 estimate of `15.43 lakh crore. Lower borrowing by the government means more funds up for grabs for the private sector. This stoked positive sentiments in the bond market with 10-year bond yields falling to 7.04%. The markets, though, were not too impressed with the Sensex shedding 0.15%. The Street is holding the cheer for the full Budget after polls.  P 7, 8, 9, 10 Puja resumes in Gyanvapi’s cellar; Muslims approach HC Soren in 1-day custody, no Guv call on new CM M U K E S H R A N J A N @ Ranchi n o u n c e m e n t we re m a d e, though. The FM proposed a scheme to help ‘deserving sections’ of the middle class living in rented houses, slums, or unauthorised colonies buy or build their own houses. She also announced 300 units of free solar power to one crore families. The finer details will be known only later. N ami ta B a j pai @ Lucknow Hemant Soren emerging from a court in Ranchi on Thursday | PTI that the ruling alliance was short of numbers. When Champai Soren met the governor at Raj Bhawan in the evening, the latter requested him to wait till he takes the final call as the situation in Jharkhand was peculiar, requiring seeking legal opinion. Hours after the Varanasi district court allowed the worship of deities inside the southern cellar on the Gyanvapi mosque premises in Varanasi, the first puja began past Wednesday midnight and continued till 3 am on Thursday . The puja was performed by Kashi Vishwanath temple head priest Om Prakash Mishra under the supervision of Acharya Ganeshwar Shastri Dravid. It commenced with the aarti of Lord Ganesh and Goddess Lakshmi and concluded with mangla aarti. While Mishra was app o i n t e d by S h re e K a s h i Vishwanath Temple Trust (SKVTT) to perform the puja, A priest performs puja in the basement of the Gyanvapi mosque | PTI Acharya Dravid had led the pran pratishtha rituals of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya last month. “The cellar was opened after 31 years for prayers,” said SKVTT president Nagendra Pandey It happened in the pres. ence of the district administration and the police around 10.30 pm on Wednesday . Both Pandey and Varanasi District Magistrate S Rajlingam said everything was done in compliance of the district court’s order. “Acharya Dravid was called to supervise the rituals as the puja was being performed inside the cellar after 30 years,” the DM said. Later, the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid (AIM) — the Gyanvapi mosque management committee — moved the Supreme Court challenging the district court’s order. But the SC directed them to the Allahabad High Court. AIM then knocked the HC’s door, which is expected to take up the matter soon. 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