Here are the big stories from Tamil Nadu today

Welcome to the Tamil Nadu Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today.

Presenting Tamil Nadu’s agriculture budget for the year 2023-24 in the Assembly at Chennai, Agriculture -Farmers Welfare Minister M.R.K. Panneerselvam proposed to implement Tamil Nadu Millet Mission for a period of five years, at an estimated cost ₹82 crore, with funds from both Centre and the State. Subsidy is to be given for bringing millet cultivation to fallow lands and crop diversification to millets in 50,000 hectares. Training programmes are to be held for millet farmers.

Further, an overseas training programme is to be implemented for farmers, through which 150 farmers would be taken to countries such as Israel, Netherland, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Philippines etc. Citing reason, the Minister said adoption of high yielding technology had resulted in high productivity in some countries.

The Madras High Court has reserved its verdict on a plea for a CBI probe into the December 2022 Vengaivayal incident of human faeces found in an overhead tank, that supplies water to Scheduled Caste residents, after indicating that it might appoint a retired High Court judge to monitor the ongoing probe by the Tamil Nadu police.

Acting Chief Justice T. Raja and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy are to pass orders on a later date after Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran submitted a status report of the investigation being conducted by Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID). The court was informed that 147 people were examined so far and they had made contradictory statements.

Following the death of a female wild elephant, aged between 30 and 32 years, in Coimbatore district, due to injuries caused by a country-made bomb, the Forest Department registered a case and began an investigation into the incident.

“According to the post-mortem findings, the elephant died of injuries caused by the explosion of a country-made bomb (avittukai) in its mouth. The case was registered based on the autopsy findings,” said District Forest Officer T.K. Ashok Kumar.

The elephant died on Sunday, two days after it was captured for treatment from a village near Karamadai in Coimbatore district, by a field staff who noticed that it was not eating fodder nor drinking water.