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Pinarayi Vijayan strikes back as Kerala Vigilance picks up Swapna’s close aide

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Hours after Swapna Suresh, prime accused in the gold smuggling case, slammed Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family for their role in the entire episode on Wednesday, her close aide and now colleague P.S. Sarith was picked up by the Vigilance wing of the police from their flat at Palakkad. Sarith is also an accused in the gold smuggling case.

Hearing about it, Swapna said she has no clue who took Sarith away and this is nothing but retaliation for her revelations.

The media and the local police also descended at the flat where Swapna and Sarith live with her children. Even the local police initially had no clue of who took away Sarith in a Swift Car.

It was revealed later that it was the Vigilance department sleuths who picked Sarith. Hearing about this, Swapna lost her cool and screamed politics is a dirty game.

“The Vigilance has only one case and it pertains to collection of commission in the construction of Life Mission flats. But in the case the 5th accused is M. Sivasankar (former principal secretary of Vijayan and top IAS official, who was also in jail for several weeks and is now out on bail in the gold smuggling case). I am the 6th accused and Sarith is only the 7th accused. They have not served any notice and instead they picked him and it was Sivasankar who should have been picked up first. We are not scared of any investigation as we all were in jail for months,” said an angry Swapna Suresh.

Meanwhile, in a related development on Wednesday morning Vijayan had a closed door meeting with police chief and his deputy.

Soon after that former State Minister and Left supported legislator K.T. Jaleel arrived at the police station next door to the State Secretariat, here and registered a complaint against the baseless allegations levelled against Vijayan, his family and himself.

“I have filed a complaint against these baseless allegations levelled by an accused in the gold smuggling case. This is nothing but a conspiracy hatched against the state government and both the Congress and the BJP have joined in this campaign,” said Jaleel.

“All these allegations which she has raked up again have all been probed by three national agencies and today she has aired the same, but with a lot of spice. We are all supremely confident as all these national agencies probed everything and found nothing. The role of P.C. George and his relation with Swapna is conspiracy,” added Jaleel.

Meanwhile across the state, angry supporters of the Congress led UDF took to the streets demanding resignation of Vijayan and at several places they burnt the effigy of the Chief Minister.

But Vijayan moving around with massive security cover while taking part in a meeting here said, in 2018 the state faced the worst floods in a century.

“Later, the state witnessed a never seen before barrage of allegations (gold smuggling case in July 2020) and it went on and on, with various agencies probing it. Finally the people of Kerala gave us a second successive term in office. The people dismissed all the allegations stating that this is their government. The people are with us,” said Vijayan, who is yet to interact with the media on this issue.

State BJP president K. Surendran asked Vijayan to quit and face the probe as an ordinary citizen.

“Swapna Suresh has told the court everything and hence Vijayan should quit and face a probe and come clean,” said Surendran.

Leader of the opposition V.D. Satheesan, leading the protesters at Kollam, said the probe by various agencies came to a standstill after several Kerala BJP leaders teamed up with the CPI-M to stop this probe then.

“But now things have again come out in the open and it’s strange that when Oommen Chandy had to face lot of issues, that law seems not applicable to Vijayan. This cannot happen. We are looking into all options on how this new revelation needs to be taken up at all fronts,” said Satheesan.

Earlier in the day, Swapna said she has no political or any personal agenda.

“I don’t know about politics and I do not care who is ruling the state, then or now. I have given a statement under 164 of CrPC in the past but none came out. Allow me to live, it’s difficult for me to live. Those ladies, who are wives and daughters including Kamala Vijayan (wife of Vijayan), Veena (daughter), are leading a luxurious life while I am suffering,” said Swapna.

On Tuesday, Swapna first accused Vijayan, his wife and daughter that they had a role in shady things like transferring currency notes to the UAE and also on a few occasions transferred vessels which were used to make biriyani from the residence of the UAE Consul general here to Vijayan’s residence and it contained metal objects.

Education

20-Year-Old Indian Student Wins Global Memory Championship 2025, Recalls 80 Numbers In 13.5 Seconds

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New York: Vishvaa Rajakumar, a 20-year-old Indian student, has won the Memory League World Championship 2025 by memorising the order of 80 random numbers in 13.50 seconds and 30 images in 8.40 seconds.

Memory League World Championship is an intense online competition.

According to the Memory League website, Rajakumar is ranked No 1 with a score of 5,000.

Rajakumar memorised 80 numbers in 13.50 seconds and 30 images in 8.40 seconds during the championship held recently.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Rajakumar is a student of Puducherry-based ManakulaVinayagar Institute of Technology.

Speaking to The New York Times on his technique and strategies of memorisation, Rajakumar said,”Hydration is very important because it helps your brain. When you memorise things, you usually subvocalise, and it helps to have a clear throat.”

“Let’s say you’re reading a book. You’re not reading it out loud, but you are vocalising within yourself. If you don’t drink a lot of water, your speed will be a bit low. If you drink a lot of water, it will be more and more clear and you can read it faster,” he said.

Rajakumar said he was crying when he achieved the feat.

“They give you 80 random numbers that they display on a screen. You have to memorize all of those numbers as fast as possible, then click a button and a recall sheet appears. I wrote down all of the 80 digits — and I got them all right. My fastest time to memorize 80 random digits in this World Championship was 13.5 seconds, so almost six digits per second,” he to the newspaper.

He said after the completion of college, he would try to be a memory trainer and create a memory institution in India to teach other people these techniques.

“My goal is to make it big,” he said.

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National News

SC Collegium recommends appointment of permanent judges in Bombay, Madras HCs

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New Delhi, Feb 21: The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by CJI Sanjiv Khanna, has recommended the appointment of 3 permanent judges in the Bombay High Court and 4 permanent judges in the Madras High Court.

“The Supreme Court Collegium in its meeting held on 20th February, 2025 has approved the proposal for appointment of the following Additional Judges as Permanent Judges in the High Court of Bombay: (i) Shri Justice Shailesh Pramod Brahme, (ii) Shri Justice Firdosh Phiroze Pooniwalla, and (iii) Shri Justice Jitendra Shantilal Jain,” said a statement uploaded on the official website of the apex court.

The statement added that the term of Justice Manjusha Ajay Deshpande, an Additional Judge, be extended for a year.

In a separate statement, the SC Collegium said that it has approved the proposal for the appointment of Justices Ramasamy Sakthivel, P. Dhanabal, Chinnasamy Kumarappan, and Kandasamy Rajasekar, as permanent Judges in the Madras High Court.

The Chief Justice and Judges of the High Courts are to be appointed by the President under clause (1) of Article 217 of the Constitution.

The Chief Justice, while sending his recommendation for appointing an additional Judge as a permanent Judge, must, along with his recommendation, furnish statistics of month-wise disposal of cases and judgments rendered by the judge concerned as well as the number of cases reported in the Law Journal duly certified by them.

The information would also be furnished regarding the total number of working days, the number of days they actually attended the court and the days of their absence during the period for which the disposal statistics are sent.

Additional Judges can be appointed by the President under clause (1) of Article 224 of the Constitution.

As per the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) regulating the appointment of HC judges, the Chief Justice of the High Court should not make a recommendation for the appointment of an additional Judge when a vacancy for a permanent Judge is available.

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National News

Rekha Gupta govt terminates AAP volunteers, other staff posted by Kejriwal, Atishi offices

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New Delhi, Feb 21: The BJP’s new government in Delhi led by Rekha Gupta has relieved from duties all officials or employees who were deployed by the previous AAP government in diverted capacity in the offices of Chief Minister and Ministers and sent them back to their respective departments, said an official on Friday.

A note prepared by Deputy Secretary (Services) Bhairab Dutt on “Termination of co-terminus appointments in the offices of Chief Minister or Ministers” was circulated among all departments on Thursday, reminding them about the impending fresh appointments.

The government order said that the formation of a newly-elected government warrants fresh appointment of staff of all categories as appointments automatically get terminated on the resignation of the then Chief Minister and Ministers.

Accordingly, the deployment and appointment of officers has to take place afresh after taking of oath and assumption of office by the new Chief Minister and Cabinet Ministers, it said.

While terminating the services of the AAP government’s appointees – mostly consultants, advisers or officers on special duties — Deputy Secretary Dutt cited the Central government’s instructions for the appointment of co-terminus staff.

“Whenever new Ministers are appointed, Ministries/Departments of Government of India have been authorised to create, on their personal staff, posts of various grades. Such posts are to be continued by the Ministries/Departments as long as the Ministers concerned hold office and are to be treated as automatically abolished on their demitting office,” it said.

In other words, the posts created on the personal staff of the Ministers are co-terminus with the tenure of the Ministers.

Accordingly, all co-terminus appointments made earlier in the office(s) of former Chief Minster/Cabinet Ministers stand terminated. The offices of the Chief Minister and Ministers will submit fresh proposals to the General Administration Department (GAD) for co-terminus appointments, according to the government order.

To avoid confusion, regular staff of DANICS/DSS/Steno cadre will continue to work in their respective offices under the newly sworn-in Chief Minister/Minsters till further orders, it said.

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