Pinarayi Vijayan. File Photo: Special Arrangment

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Kochi:

In a setback for the Left government in Kerala, the High Court here has said that waving of black flags at the Chief Minister’s convoy was not an illegal act and does not amount to defamation.

The ruling by Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas assumes significance as many Youth Congress activists faced police action for waving black flags at Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during the Nava Kerala Sadas, the state government’s outreach programme, last year.

“Though signs and visible representations can be a mode of defaming a person, still, showing or waving a black flag to a person cannot amount to defamation nor is it an illegal act,” Justice Thomas said.

The ruling came while quashing the final report against three persons for waving black flags at Mr Vijayan’s convoy in 2017 as it passed through North Paravur near here.

The court said that, generally, a black flag is shown as a mark of protest and as long as there is no law which prohibits it, such conduct cannot attract the offence of defamation.

It further said that in the instant case, the offence of defamation was alleged and cognisance was taken on the basis of a police report which were without any legal validity as such action can be initiated only on the basis of a private complaint.

The court further noted that a reading of the final report indicated that “no obstruction was caused to the Chief Minister’s convoy even temporarily, as the police party had blocked and removed the protesters immediately”.

“There is, hence, nothing to indicate that any obstruction was caused by the petitioners even temporarily to any person. Thus, the offence under section 283 (danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation) of IPC is not attracted from the allegations in the final report,” it said in its order of November 20.

The court also noted that according to the final report, when the accused were protesting, the police prevented them from obstructing the Chief Minsiter’s convoy, and in that process, the accused allegedly pushed and pulled at the officers’ uniform.

“Minimal push and pull is only natural while preventing a person from causing obstructions. The allegations do not indicate any obstruction caused in the discharge of the police duty. The allegations in the final report only indicate a trivial instance of push and pull by the petitioners.

“… this court is of the view that having regard to the nature of allegations and in the absence of any assault or injury on the police officers and since the duty of the police officers was not deterred, section 95 (act causing slight harm) IPC can be applied to quash the offence under section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) IPC,” the court said.

The petitioners were booked for the offences under sections 283, 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 500 (defamation) and 353 of the IPC for waving black flags at the Chief Minsiter’s convoy in 2017.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Thiruvananthapuram:

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Friday intensified his attack on the ruling Left government by accusing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of keeping him in the dark about ‘crimes against the nation’ being committed in the state.

The Governor also said that the chief secretary and the DGP were coming regularly to Raj Bhavan, “without authorisation from the chief minister” and now, “no more will they be welcome”.

Mr Khan, speaking to reporters here, said that the CM, while denying having used the terms ‘anti-national activities’ and ‘anti-state activities’ in any public statements, has conceded that he generally mentioned ‘crimes against the nation’ were committed in the state.

The Governor said this referring to a recent letter sent to him by Vijayan.

“What is a crime against the nation? What kind of activity is it? Is it not more serious? Should you (CM) not have briefed me? Was it not your duty? You have failed to do your duty,” Khan contended.

He further said that when such crimes against the nation are committed, he has to inform the President and the Central government and for that information was required.

“So, I wrote to the CM seeking information, but he did not even acknowledge it. He acknowledged my letter and responded to it 27 days later, only after I summoned the chief secretary and the DGP. But, he did not furnish any information.

“He (CM) does not come to the Raj Bhavan and he does not allow them (chief secretary and DGP) to come because he has something to hide. So, there is something fishy,” Khan said.

He said that the chief secretary and the DGP had been coming regularly to Raj Bhavan.

Khan said that the chief secretary also came to promulgate an ordinance when the Assembly was in session.

“I said it was not proper to do so as the Assembly was in session and to re-examine it. The chief secretary came again and said it was fine. So, I signed it. So, all this time they were coming without authorisation of the CM. No more will they be welcome,” the Governor said.

The Governor and the CM have been at loggerheads following Khan’s summons to the chief secretary and DGP seeking information about any alleged anti-national activities going on in the state.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hyderabad:

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has written to the Chief Ministers of eight states to get together for a strategy session to negotiate a better financial deal for states that contribute more to the Central coffers. Besides the four southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the list also includes Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab. Mr Siddaramaiah argues that higher income states are being pensalised for their economic performance. The current system undermines cooperative federalism and threatens financial autonomy of progressive states, he said.

His Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan has said they must stand together and fight, arguing that fiscal federalism is in threat.

The letter comes ahead of the 16th Finance Commission’s move to finalise criterion for devolution of Central funds. Already, finance ministers of Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab have met in Thiruvananthapuram to build consensus on their recommendations to the Finance Commission.

Over the last years, the tax share issue has been growing increasingly contentious, complicated, controversial and politically sensitive, with southern states getting increasingly vocal about getting an unfair deal despite their better performance.  

Karnataka has said it receives just 15 paise for every rupee it contributes to the Union. Kerala and Tamil Nadu get 25 paise and 29 paise for every rupee they give. In comparison, Uttar Pradesh gets Rs 2.73 and Bihar receives Rs 7.06 for every rupee they contributed.

Southern states contribute 30 per cent to the GDP, have 19.6 per cent population. But tax devolution declined from 21 per cent under 11th Finance Commission to 15.8 per cent under the 14th Finance Commission. 

The states are asking for a bigger share in central taxes. They say it should be hiked from the current 41 per cent to 50 per cent.

Their other demands and complaints:

• Southern states account for 62% of expenditure but get 37 per cent revenue share.
• Cess, surcharge account for 28 per cent of Central taxes and are not shared with states.
• The states want a reduction in Centrally sponsored schemes, allowing them to spend according to local priorities. Expenditure on Centrally sponsored schemes is more than three times the grants to states.
• They also say states that demographic discipline should not be punished.

Besides, the Deputy Chief Minister of Telangana, Bhatti Vikramarka, has sought that political representation of southern states be kept intact during delimitation. The good performance by states on population control, good governance, transparency should not be punished, he added. 

“Southern states, despite their significant contribution to the GDP of over 30 per cent and representing a considerable portion of the population (19.6%), have seen their share in tax devolution decline from 21.073 per cent under the eleventh finance commission to just 15.8 per cent under the 15th Finance Commission,” he said. 

A week is a long time in politics, and the last few days in Kerala have proven that yet again. August 31 saw the dramatic removal of Kannur strongman E.P. Jayarajan from his exalted position as the convener of the Left Front. Although many saw that coming in light of the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s (CPI-M) performance in the Lok Sabha election – Jayarajan faced heavy criticism for it – the timing took everyone by surprise.

Sources within the party revealed that it couldn’t wait any longer as the CPI(M) was beginning its triennial cycle of branch, local, area and district committee meetings in the run-up to the state conference in February, to be followed by the ‘Party Congress’ to follow in April. The party doesn’t generally take disciplinary action against its leaders once the calendar is set in motion.

The Many Allegations Against Jayarajan

Seeing red, Jayarajan quickly proceeded to vacate the flat provided to state secretariat members of CPI(M) and left for his native Kannur the next day, without waiting to partake in the party state committee meeting scheduled for September 1. Mathrubhumi reported that the decision to oust Jayarajan was taken in the meeting of four Kerala Politburo members of the CPI(M) – Pinarayi Vijayan, M.A. Baby, A. Vijayaraghavan and M.V. Govindan – where the chief minister was overruled over by the others through a majority of 3-1.

Jayarajan had been cutting a sorry figure ever since he began acting up after the elevation in 2022 of Govindan, his junior, as the state secretary of the CPI(M). The sulking had gone to the extent of not fulfilling his duties as the Left convener. To make things worse, he was accused of amassing wealth by fellow Kannur strongman P. Jayarajan, pointing out that his wife and son owned shares of the Vaidekam resort in Kannur. He was further pushed on the back foot when it came to light that the Rajeev Chandrasekhar-backed ‘Niramaya’ had taken over the operations of the resort following the revelation.

The BJP Link

Things came to a head when prominent state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sobha Surendran accused him of parlaying with the Kerala BJP in-charge Prakash Javadekar. Jayarajan confirmed it on April 26, the day Kerala voted for the Lok Sabha election. It also did not help his case that he had talked up the chances of the BJP candidates in the Lok Sabha polls when the CPI(M) had made its non-compromising attitude with the party the prime poll focus. All this, coupled with Left ally Communist Party of India (CPI)’s discomfort with Jayarajan, had made his position untenable-although he was expected to keep his chair till at least the party’s state conference in February.

It may be recalled here that E.P. Jayarajan’s biggest calling card was his unflinching loyalty to Pinarayi Vijayan over the years. In a 2014 interview with Malayala Manorama, Jayarajan had recalled how he met Vijayan as a student leader in 1963 and how the duo had remained close since then. In fact, it was due to Vijayan’s backing that Jayarajan escaped party censure on many past occasions.

A Malabar Rebellion

The exit of Jayarajan had barely registered when P.V. Anwar, a Left-backed independent legislator from Nilambur, launched another volley. He publicly leaked damaging phone transcripts between himself and the (former) Pathanamthitta Superintendent of Police (SP) Sujith Kumar, levelling a string of sensational allegations against the Chief Minister’s Office and the home department, which is held by Vijayan himself.

Anwar suggested that Kerala’s Additional Director-General of Police (ADGP)-in charge of law and order, M.R. Ajith Kumar, known to be Vijayan’s close aide, was operating a crime syndicate. It supposedly involved gold smuggling and phone-tapping of state ministers, among other violations. Anwar accused Kumar of being involved in a murder case too. He further targeted Vijayan’s powerful political secretary P. Sasi – who is an old Kannur hand with a controversial past and known to steer the state home department from behind the scenes – for the mess.

Anwar’s Tactful Ways

Vijayan was left in a bind. At an official function in Kottayam – attended by Ajith Kumar – he hinted that he was willing to act against the officer, but, by that very evening, he did a volte-face. By then it must have dawned on him that if Ajith Kumar was sacked, it would only lead to the demand for the ouster of Sasi, and that would ultimately put the blame on himself. Ultimately, Vijayan did institute an inquiry against Ajith Kumar, but it seemed largely farcical given that the probe officers were Kumar’s subordinates. 

Anwar treaded tactfully. He met Vijayan soon after and personally handed over a list of his allegations, careful not to launch a frontal assault at the CM. But the fact that he found public support from another Left-backed independent legislator from Malappuram, K.T. Jaleel, a minister during Vijayan’s first term, only piqued curiosity. Both Jaleel and Anwar have been mired in controversies in the past for corruption and nepotism. In fact, Jaleel was disqualified as minister following a Lokayukta verdict against him; Anwar has had multiple run-ins with the law over allegations of encroaching and squatting on public property, and the illegal construction of a check dam.

What is also interesting is that on social media, the CPI(M) rank-and-file has been backing Anwar and his allegations to the hilt, putting the party in a quandary. It is a fact that the home department has had a lot of flak in the past couple of years ever since P. Sasi took over. The lack of democratic functioning of the CPI(M) meant that the lower rungs in the department could hardly raise their voices against anything.

For Brutus Is An Honourable Man

It has now been a week since Anwar went to the press with his allegations. But there has been no let-up. If anything, he has only raised the stakes by playing up his claims, capturing Kerala’s airtime like none other in recent times. For some, Anwar is a hero. For others, he is a useful instrument. The only commonality is that for most people, his past indiscretions seem easily forgettable now. 

Anwar has also been careful not to take on the CM directly. In fact, he keeps reiterating his faith that Vijayan will turn things around, just like Marc Antony kept referring to Brutus as an honourable man. But the real intent isn’t lost on anyone. When SP Sujith Kumar was finally suspended in a couple of days, Anwar celebrated it on social media, saying that this was the “first wicket to fall”. So, is M.R. Ajith Kumar the ‘second wicket’, to be followed by Sasi – and then Vijayan? 

Can Vijayan Survive This Coup?

As of now, nobody seems to know what Anwar’s exact plan of action is. Some, like former CPI(M) Malappuram district secretary P.P Vasudevan, have called him a ‘trojan horse’. It is also more than probable that a faction within the CPI(M) is backing Anwar. Anwar is purportedly close to P. Jayarajan, but he is equally close to the CPI(M) Kozhikode district secretary, P. Mohanan. It is also being assumed that he has M.V. Govindan’s backing.

Anwar’s charges have already caused enough damage to Vijayan. The CPI(M) branch meetings underway have been witnessing heavy criticism of P. Sasi and the chief minister himself, virtually unheard of in the recent past. Is Vijayan’s grip on the party apparatus loosening? Or is this a palace coup in motion? Whatever it is, only time will tell whether Vijayan can survive the ides of March come April, when the CPI(M) Party Congress will be held. 

(Anand Kochukudy is a senior journalist and columnist)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Thiruvananthapuram:

A wife is succeeding her IAS officer husband as the Chief Secretary of Kerala, a first in the state’s history.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan pointed to this rare occurrence on Friday during the farewell ceremony organised for outgoing Chief Secretary V Venu, who will retire from government service on August 31.

Venu will be succeeded as Chief Secretary by his wife Sarada Muraleedharan, who currently holds the post of Additional Chief Secretary.

Mr Vijayan recalled many instances in the state where couples, both of whom were in the civil service, have transferred the duties of Collector from one to the other.

He said that there have also been instances where both husband and wife have headed departments and become chief secretaries at different times.

“However, this is the first time in the history of Kerala that the post of Chief Secretary has been handed over by the husband to his wife,” he said.

On this rare transition in the state’s bureaucratic history, Muraleedharan said it was an odd moment for her as she bids adieu to her husband who will retire on August 31.

She said that both of them worked together as civil servants for 34 years, but she never gave much thought to the fact that they will not leave the service together.

“Now I am a bit anxious as I have to continue in service for another eight months after his retirement,” she said.

The Additional Chief Secretary, in her welcome address, also said that her husband recently in an interview remarked that the Chief Minister was one of the most professional leaders in power that Kerala has seen.

The Chief Minister, in his speech bidding farewell to Venu, praised him for the work he did in various departments in the state government over the years.

“A medical doctor, dramatist, bureaucrat and a prominent personality in many capacities. This is a speciality that is not common to ordinary civil servants. He was able to advance both artistic and administrative work,” Mr Vijayan said.

Venu, in his farewell speech, said that while he was gradually feeling a sense of relief as he set aside the burden he was carrying, he too was anxious when he thought of leaving a long familiar world of government service to that of a private citizen.

He said that when working as a government official, “We often forget that there will be a life after this”.

“Usually, government officials get some time a couple of months before their retirement to meet friends, put things in order… But, tomorrow I have to tomorrow go to the office, my last day in service, hold my last review meeting and hand over various responsibilities to others before I retire,” he said.

The outgoing Chief Secretary also said that as he looks back at his years of service, he was fortunate to have been able to work with and learn from the shining stars in the socio-political sphere of the state.

He also recounted his experiences working with various political leaders, including former Kerala Chief Minister E K Nayanar, over the years.

Venu also said that he got to learn a lot from Chief Minsiter Vijayan, whom he called a ‘guru’, as he was a pillar of support and a source of guidance while dealing with the fallout of the recent devastating landslides in Wayanad district of the state.

“I have learned a lot from him,” he added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tragedies like the Wayanad landslides repeat themselves partly because their lessons are not brought to bear on our understanding of the local amplifiers of extreme events. A view of a mountain of the Western Ghats in Wayanad, Kerala, November 15, 2022.
| Photo Credit: Nakkeeran Raveendran/Unsplash

At no place on the earth is the climate risk zero — yet when natural hazards strike, the resulting loss of lives, livelihoods, and assets sting. Disaster management and recovery play a crucial role in alleviating the pain. Unfortunately, however, a blame game may follow asking whether early warnings could have averted the tragedy.

Any early warning that may have been issued will always start with the weather forecast for the area where the hazard manifested. Proactively mitigating disasters instead of always managing them after they happen requires climate risk outlooks that go out to a decade or longer.

Further, post-facto analyses of deadly disasters — like the landslides in Wayanad, Kerala, on July 30 — often do not appreciate the fact that broad warnings of risks can hardly be translated to specific actions. For example, if we declare the entire Western Ghats to be vulnerable to landslides, governments can develop and enforce regulations to protect the whole range from deforestation, development, monoculture plantations, etc.

However, doing so will mitigate some landslides; it won’t get rid of extreme events induced by climate change anytime soon. Some landslides will occur anyway even if the Ghats enjoy the fullest protections from human perturbations because the risk is never zero.

Predictions for disaster management, mitigation

Similarly, the predictions of models will also always be imperfect. If we are to improve their ability to predict extreme events more accurately (in terms of their location and amplitude), we need to fully understand the effects of local drivers that could exacerbate the climate’s effects. After every extreme event, someone claims global warming is a contributor — yet the relationship between local events and global warming complicates the truth of such claims.

The drivers of climate extremes originate from a far-away place but are usually exacerbated by some regional, location-specific factors.

For instance, a 2015 study (which included this author) indicated that coastal sea surface temperatures have a strong influence on heavy rain along India’s west coast. Wayanad district lies about 80 km from this coast. Monsoon winds stream across the equator and continue to load up on moisture as they turn southwesterly and head towards the Western Ghats. As they approach the coast, the winds sense they will have to climb the Western Ghats and slow down. Slower winds reduce the evaporation over the coastal ocean and the coastal waters tend to warm up — and warm waters exert a strong control on the atmosphere and rainfall.

Such a warming is typically seen up to 10 days ahead of a heavy rain event over the coastal ocean. Global models typically miss such local, small-scale warming or cooling processes and tend to underestimate the amount of rain in an extreme event. Enhancing the coastal observations and assimilating them into forecast models is expected to improve predictions.

This is also why adopting location-specific measures like legal protections for biodiversity can help mitigate disasters. Governments can also bolster their regulatory strategies using predictions of the climate up to a decade in the future and combining each prediction with hyperlocal risks.

Similarly, national and local governments will have to work together and share monitoring, reporting, and verification responsibilities to mitigate risk. Finally, all these consequences of the relationship between global warming and local events will have to be accounted for in budgetary provisions. Otherwise, mitigating disasters may not be sustainable.

Further, predictions with a lead time of a few weeks could help disaster management personnel mobilise towards locales with the highest imminent risk and avoid surprises. This is where the location-specific drivers can help ensure the hyperlocal risk information is reliable in crisis times.

Coarse global to fine hyperlocal

Global models provide seasonal outlooks and predictions at the short (1-3 days), medium (3-10 days), and extended (2-4 weeks) ranges. They have been getting better at offering outlooks of the monsoon, the El Niño and La Niña events, and early extreme-event warnings. Researchers around the world — in academia and national laboratories — constantly diagnose imperfections in these models and remove them.

One particular approach to improving the models is called downscaling, especially to enhance predictions of extreme events like small-scale heavy rain. In downscaling, researchers use a global model to drive local predictions in a higher resolution regional model to capture the weather at scales that the global model will miss.

Of late, they have been executing such two-tier strategies using techniques in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Their costs are lower than those incurred by running a high-resolution regional model. Such AI/ML approaches are also many times faster than regional models, further lending themselves to more effective disaster management.

Spotting location-specific amplifiers

Tragedies like that in Wayanad on July 30 tend to repeat themselves partly because their lessons are not always brought to bear on our understanding of the local amplifiers of extreme events. Simple changes in land use patterns — associated with urbanisation, say, or the deforestation of mountain slopes — could lead to a crushing cloudburst and or a punishing hailstorm.

The relatively more coarse resolutions of global models — which deal with changes in the tens of kilometres — tend to miss such local features and add to their imperfections. To acquire a better sense of the effects of these features and thus enable regional dynamic or AI/ML downscaling for hyperlocal predictions, we need more local data of weather and climate variables.

Disaster mitigation efforts are crucial to weather-proof the country and make it more climate-resilient at longer timescales. To this end we urgently need a data network that supports the mapping of local extreme event amplifiers.

Raghu Murtugudde is a professor, IIT Bombay, and emeritus professor, University of Maryland.

New Delhi:

 BJP leader V Muraleedharan hit out at the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government over the recent landslides in Wayanad that claimed the lives of over 160 people and said that state was paying the price of the state government’s ‘casual approach.’

This comes after Home Minister Amit Shah’s assertion in Parliament on Wednesday that the state was warned as early as July 23 about a potential natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.

Speaking to ANI on the Wayanad landslide incidents, BJP leader V Muraleedharan said, “Home Minister Amit Shah in the Rajya Sabha very specifically mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stands with the people of Kerala like a rock and there can be no doubt about that.”

“Amit Shah also said that had the Kerala government worked with alertness when the NDRF battalions landed, that would have saved a lot. He said that he doesn’t want to blame anyone, but at the same time, he put the facts before the house, saying that on July 23, 24, 25 and 26 of July, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued warnings and asked the state government to be prepared and initiate the evacuation of people, but the Kerala government didn’t heed the warning messages.”

Adding further, he said, “Moreover, many agencies in the past have been alerted about the possibility of landslides in the area. In 2020, the Kerala disaster management authority warned that there was an impending tragedy and advised relocating 4,000 families,” said Mr Muraleedharan.

“The village of Mundakkai, which has now been affected by the landslide, was identified as one of the 18 landslide-prone places in the district disaster management plan. But the state government did not pay heed to it and now Kerala is paying the price because of the casual approach of the state government,” said Mr Muraleedharan.

“This area has been identified as an ecologically sensitive area. Despite that, there are more than 300 illegal construction projects in the area. No action has been taken to remove those,” he added.

Meanwhile, the disaster sparked a heated exchange of words among political leaders.

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan refuted Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s assertion in Parliament on Wednesday that the state was warned as early as July 23 about a potential natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.

“This is not the time to blame each other. However, reports from the Rajya Sabha indicate that the Union Home Minister claimed they had issued a warning, and Kerala did not respond appropriately,” the Kerala Chief Minister said in a press conference.

Mr Vijayan stated that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had only issued an orange alert for the district prior to the landslides. However, Wayanad experienced over 500 millimetres of rainfall, far exceeding the IMD’s predictions.

After two massive landslides struck Wayanad, Kerala, on Tuesday morning, causing extensive destruction, rescue operations are being intensified, political leaders are engaged in discussions, and financial aid is being mobilised for the region.

The first landslide occurred in Mundakkai, a town, and the second in Chooralmala. The massive landslides wreaked havoc in the region, damaging houses and roads, uprooting trees, and swelling water bodies, which hindered rescue operations. Relief and rescue efforts are currently underway.

The landslides in Mundakkai and Chooralmala, Wayanad, have resulted in 167 confirmed deaths, as per the Kerala Revenue Department.

According to sources from the Department of Information and Public Relations (PRD) Control Room in Wayanad, 96 victims have been identified, including 77 men, 67 women, and 22 children. Post-mortem examinations have been conducted on 166 bodies and 49 body parts.

A total of 75 bodies have been handed over to relatives. Rescue personnel have brought 219 individuals to hospitals; 78 are still receiving treatment, while 142 have been moved to relief camps.

In Wayanad, 73 people are hospitalised, and five in Malappuram. Amid the rising death toll, the Indian Army has intensified its efforts to rescue people stranded after the landslides.

According to the Ministry of Defence, “The Army has set up a “Command and Control Centre” headed by Major General VT Mathew, General Officer Commanding, Karnataka and Kerala Sub Area, along with Brigadier Arjun Segan, at Kozhikode for coordinating HADR efforts.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kozhikode:

The activists of KSU and MSF on Saturday waved black flags at Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Kozhikode, protesting against the alleged shortage of plus-one (Class 11) seats in schools across the northern Kerala region of Malabar.

Kerala Students’ Union (KSU) and the Muslim Students’ Federation (MSF), the students wing of the Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League respectively waved black flags at Vijayan when he reached here to take part in a Kerala NGO Union event.

Nadakkavu police said 12 activists were taken into custody in connection with the Saturday evening protest.

The opposition parties in Kerala are protesting against the apathy of the state government in resolving the issues related to the alleged shortage of plus-one seats in schools of northern Kerala.

The Left government has been facing flak over the issue after a girl student in Parappanangadi in Malappuram district in the region died by suicide on June 11 allegedly over anxiety about whether she would get a seat for plus-one to continue her studies.

While the Congress has been demanding that additional plus-one seats be allotted in schools in the Malabar region to address the alleged shortage of seats there, the Kerala government has claimed that there is no crisis in plus-one admissions at all.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kochi:

The Kerala High Court today directed that notices be sent to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his daughter T Veena in a petition by Congress legislator Mathew Kuzhalnadan, accusing them of corruption.

On Tuesday, the Director General of Prosecution questioned the petition, but the court, after hearing both the sides, directed notices to be sent to Chief Minister Vijayan and Veena and posted the case for July 2.

Speaking to the media, Mathew Kuzhalnadan said, “This is a normal procedure and now the case will be heard in detail and we will wait for that.”

Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan said the Congress was strongly behind Mathew Kuzhalnadan’s legal fight.

Mathew Kuzhalnadan approached the high court after a vigilance court rejected his plea seeking a court-monitored probe into the allegations of corruption against the Chief Minister and his daughter.

He had sought a probe by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department into the allegations that Veena Vijayan’s IT firm Exalogic got monthly gratification from a Kochi-based mining firm, Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL), for mining sanctions.

Several agencies, including the ED, SFIO and Income Tax Department, have recorded the statements of many people, except T Veena in the case. The case was highlighted by the Congress leader last year based on an Income Tax Settlement Board statement which pointed out that Exalogic received Rs 1.72 crore from CMRL.

A similar petition was earlier filed by a Kochi resident on alleged corruption by Chief Minister Vijayan, but the petitioner died.

Following this, the High Court appointed an amicus curiae. The court today said both petitions, though similar in nature, would be heard separately.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)