DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2024, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY `5.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 Gas cylinders, cardboard partitions, door to roof locked: Kuwait probe into building fire Engineer who joined father in same firm last week among dead 45 of 49 dead are Indians, officials say; IAF aircraft to fly bodies home after DNA tests Tenures of NSA Doval, PM’s Principal Secy Mishra extended Ajit Doval and P K Mishra HARIKISHAN SHARMA NEW DELHI, JUNE 13 THE APPOINTMENT Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the re-appointment of P K Mishra as the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister and Ajit Doval as the National Security Advisor (NSA). Two separate orders of this effect were issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Thursday. According to the orders, the appointment of both officials willbeeffectivefromJune10and it will be “co-terminus with the term of the Prime Minister or untilfurther orderswhicheveris earlier”. During the term of their office, they will be assigned the rank of Cabinet Minister in the Table of Precedence. However, the “terms and SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, JUNE 13 PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONS into the Kuwait fire incident in which 45 Indians were killed indicate glaring lapses: around two dozen gas cylinders on the ground floor of the seven-storey building, inflammable materials like paper, cardboard and plastic as partitions to separate the workers in the cramped rooms, locked doors to the rooftop that did not allow workers to escape to the rooftop, sources told The Indian Express Thursday. These details emerged as Indian embassy officials met the survivors and the Kuwaiti investigators began probing the fire incident that claimed 49 lives early Wednesday in an apartment building near Kuwait City. AccordingtoKuwaitiauthorities,45of the49deadhavebeen identified as Indians and three from Philippines. One body is still to be identified. About 50 others were injured in the blaze in the building that housed 196 migrant workers in Mangaf, south of Kuwait City. Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh, accompanied by Adarsh Swaika,Indianambassador to Kuwait, met some of the survivors and senior officials in the Kuwaiti government. Sources said that the probablecauseseemstobeashort-circuit on the ground floor, which was aggravated by the two dozen gas cylinders that were stored and kept there — the kitchen was located on the ground floor. The fire is said to have spread quickly, since the rooms had IN WAKE OF ATTACKS PM: Deploy full spectrum of counter-terror steps in J&K Takes stock of situation with Shah, L-G at review meeting; NSA too present Sreehari Pradeep, 27, was from Kerala’s Kottayam SHAJU PHILIP MoS External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh meets an injured Indian at a hospital in Kuwait. PTI Victims worked for firm whose MD was behind film on misery of workers SHAJU PHILIP THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JUNE 13 IN MARCH this year, Aadujeevitham,amoviethatcapturedthetrialsandtribulationsof aMalayaliimmigrantlabourerin SaudiArabia,wasreleasedworldwide.Amongtheco-producersof thefilm,whichmadeoverRs150 crore, was Kerala businessman K G Abraham. Months later, Abraham is in news again — most of the 45 Indians,including24fromKerala, who died in Wednesday’s fire at an apartment building in Kuwait areemployeesofafirmwherehe ispartnerandmanagingdirector. The firm, NBTC, was established in 1977 and now operates across Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. It PTI Building where the fire broke out, in Kuwait’s Mangaf. (Left) NBTC managing director K G Abraham. provides services linked to engineering and construction, logistics, hotel and retailing. Apart from NBTC, Abraham heads K G Group, which co-produced Aadujeevitham, or Goat Life in English. Hailing from Niranam in central Kerala’s Pathanamthitta THIRUVANANANTHAPURAM, JUNE 13 IT WAS only last week that 27-year-old Sreehari Pradeep started his first job, at the company where his father has been working for a decade. OnWednesday,themechanical engineer from Kerala was among the 49 people who died whenafirebrokeoutatanapartment building in Kuwait’s Mangaf area. The building was wheretheNBTCgroup,thecompany Sreehari joined days ago, housed several of its employees. Around 45 of the 49 people who died in the fire were Indians, and at least 24 of them were from Kerala, according to the state government. Like Sreehari, 44-year-old Binoy Joseph and 29-year-old SajanGeorge—bothfromKerala —hadalsonotbeeninKuwaitfor long. Binoy had moved to the country just five days ago to work for the NBTC group. Sajan, who had joined the company in April, had sent his first salary home only last week. Nithin Kuthoor, 26, had been working in Kuwait for five years, but only Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves New Delhi for the G7 summit in Italy on Thursday. ANI REPORT,PAGE10 curity forces. He also took stock of the security situation in the Union Territory from Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. NationalSecurityAdvisorAjit Doval and other senior officials were present at the meeting, sources said. The Prime Minister, sources said, was given an overview of the security-related situation in J&K and was apprised of the counter-terror efforts being undertaken in the region. Hewasalsobriefedonefforts by the local administration to counter such incidents in future. AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA NEW DELHI, JUNE 13 IN THE wake of a series of terror attacks in the Jammu region, including on a bus carrying pilgrimsnearReasi,PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, who chaired a meeting Thursday to review the situationinJ&K,directedthe“deployment of the full spectrum” of “counter-terror capabilities”. The Prime Minister, sources said, spoke to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and discussed counter-terror operations and the deployment of se- CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 MAXIMUM IN 15 YEARS OF DATA This summer: Most number of heatwave NEET: Retest for 1,563 RAJKOT GAMEZONE FIRE candidates, Pradhan ‘Top officials have to go’: HC asks state days and still counting govt to carry out fact-finding inquiry More days, bigger spread, more says no paper leak severe — first time even in HP and J&K CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Grace marks withdrawn, retest result by June 30: NTA to SC; Opp for probe ABHINAYA HARIGOVIND & ANANTHAKRISHNAN G NEW DELHI, JUNE 13 AMIDTHErowovertheNational Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) 2024 results, including allegations of a paper leak, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Thursday that there was no evidence of a paper leak. Pradhan, who returned for a secondinningsastheheadof the Ministry and took charge Thursday,madetheremarkeven as the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced that a NEET retest would be conducted for 1,563candidateswhoweregiven ‘gracemarks’for‘lossoftime’during the exams. It said that these ‘grace marks’ stand withdrawn. On Wednesday, The Indian Expresshadreportedthataretest for these 1,563 candidates was amongtheoptionsbeingconsideredbyafour-membercommit- The Indian Express report published on June 12 teeformedlastweekbytheNTA. Pradhan said: “This year, 24 lakh students took the NEET. Around 13 lakh students qualified. There are 4,500 exam centres for NEET, and there are centresinothercountriesaswell.The exam happens in 13 languages. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE AHMEDABAD, JUNE 13 EMPHASISINGTHATinstitutional heads,includingmunicipalcommissioners, are responsible for everythingthatgoesonattheinstitution, the Gujarat High Court Thursday directed the state government to constitute an independent fact-finding committee to inquire into the role of erring higher officials in the Rajkot fire incident that killed 27 people. The court also instructed the education department to carry outinspectionsatallcategoriesof schools — pre-primary, primary, secondaryandhighersecondary — across all districts in both city and rural areas within a month from Thursday (June 13). RecountingtheMorbibridge collapse, Harni lake boat capsize in Vadodara and the gamezone fire, the division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 JusticePranavTrivedimincedno words to remark that the “inefficiencyinthedepartment(urban developmentandurbanhousing department [UDD]) is writ large on the face of the record”. Hearing the suo motu public interest litigation instituted following the Rajkot blaze, CJ Agarwal observed that top officers, who are at the helm of affairs, had even attended the inauguration of the gaming zone. “The top ones (officials) have TMC MP Yusuf Pathan gets notice over encroachment in Vadodara EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE VADODARA, JUNE 13 NEARLY A week after he was electedastheLokSabhaMPfrom Baharampur in West Bengal, TrinamoolCongress(TMC)leader Yusuf Pathan has received a notice from the BJP-run Vadodara MunicipalCorporation(VMC)for allegedly encroaching a plot of Yusuf Pathan was served the notice on June 6 land that belongs to the civic body.Thecricketer-turned-politicianhasbeengiventwoweeksto cleartheencroachment,thecivic body said, denying that it was a "political move". On Thursday, the issue came to light after former Vijay Pawar, BJP corporator from Ward 14, wrote a letter to Standing CommitteeChairmanDrSheetal Mistry, demanding that the encroachment be cleared off the land and it be fenced immediately by the civic body. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 togo(beremoved)andthenaninquiry has to be conducted by the urbandevelopmentdepartment... The SIT (Special Investigation Team)reportcanonlybewithregard to the incident. There has to be a disciplinary inquiry and for disciplinary inquiry, there has to be a fact finding inquiry (to find) as to who was at fault," she verbally remarked, adding, "We are notgoingtobelievetheywerenot aware.. If secretary UDD says in THE MOST INTENSE EVER State Number of Previous highest heatwave days * since 2010 EXPRESS NETWORK 27 19 (2010 & 2016) Uttar Pradesh 20 17 (2012) Gujarat 17 9 (2010) Telangana 16 14 (2016) Tamil Nadu 14 11 (2019) Karnataka 13 4 (2020) Himachal Pradesh CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Odisha 12 0 Kerala AMITABH SINHA NEW DELHI, JUNE 13 NON-BAILABLE ARREST WARRANT AGAINST BSY MUSLIM ALLOTED FLAT, PROTEST IN VADODARA PAGE 11 THIS SUMMER season is still on but it is already set to emerge as the one that produced the most intense heatwave the country has experienced — at least in the last 15 years for which heatwave data is available. This year, heatwaves began early, were far more widespread and intense, and lasted longer 5 0 *This season (until June 9) than usual. At least eight states recorded their highest number of heatwave days since 2010, data from the India Meteorological Department shows (see table). Two states, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala, recorded heatwaves for the first time this year. Odisha registered as many as 27 heatwave days between March 1 and June 9, IMD data shows. This was the highest CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 At Amazon warehouse, an oath: No toilet, water breaks till targets met PAGE 1 ANCHOR AISWARYA RAJ GURGAON, JUNE 13 ON MAY 16, after their team’s 30-minute tea break ended, a 24-year-old worker in one of Amazon India’s five warehouses in Haryana’s Manesar was asked totakean“oath”thattheywould nottaketoiletorwaterbreaksuntiltheirtargetisachieved.Thetarget:unloadingpackagesfromsix trucks, measuring 24 feet each. Over the past month, the “inbound team” at the warehouse has taken the oath around eight times,particularlyonhecticdays when the workload is more, employees confirmed to The Indian Express. The “outbound team”, whichtookthepledgeonce,isremindedof theirtargetsdaily.The outbound team takes care of articlesmeanttobeshifted/shipped out of the warehouse, while the inboundteamdealswitharticles received from other sources. AnAmazonIndiaspokesperson,whenaskedaboutthis,said, “We’re investigating these claims, but to be clear, we’d never make these kinds of requests on our employees as part of standard business practice. If we discovered an incident such as the one that’s been alleged, we’d immediately put a stop to it and ensure the manager involved was re-trained on our expectations of team support, health,andsafety.We’llcontinue to investigate.” The 24-year-old, who works five daysaweek,ten hours a day, and earns Rs 10,088 a month, said, “Even if we work without any breaks, including the lunch and tea breaks that are 30 minutes each, we can’t unload more than four trucks a day.” “Just two days ago, we took a pledgethatwewouldforgowater andwashroombreakstoimprove The Amazon warehouse in Manesar near Gurgaon. Express performance and attain the target,”heclaimed,addingthatseniors even go as far as to check washrooms and other places to ensureworkersarenotspending unnecessary time there. “The worst affected are women. The trucks are hot from being parked outside, and when they unload articles, they get exhausted quickly,” he said. Amazon has faced such allegations abroad too. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the US had in 2022 and 2023 issued citations againstthecompanyoverunsafe working conditions, ergonomic hazards and failure to properly reportinjuriesatsixwarehouses, The Guardian reported. In India, labour associations haveallegedthatrulesunderthe Factories Act, 1948 are flouted at the five warehouses that operate in and around Manesar. As Haryana has amended its work hourstolessthan10hoursaday, the company now has its employees working from 8.30 am to6.30pm.AspertheAct,if afactoryworkerworksformorethan ninehoursadayorover48hours aweek,heisentitledtotwicehis ordinarywages.However,workers’rightsgroupsclaimthisisnot being fulfilled. TheActalsofixesintervalsfor rest: “... no worker shall work for more than five hours before he has had an interval for rest of at least half an hour”. A woman working at the Manesar warehouse said there is no restroom on the premises. “If weareunwell,theonlyoption is to go to the washroom or lockerroom.Thereisasickroom with a bed, but workers are asked to leave after 10 minutes,” she claimed. Her department, of customer returns, took the oath as well. “Say it after me, we will attain the target, we won't go to the washroom, we will not drink,” she repeated the oath. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad