MANGALURU  WEDNESDAY  JUNE 10, 2026  `9.00  PAGES 16  CITY EDITION PAY LESS FOR DOMESTIC AIR INDIA FLIGHTS IF YOU OPT OUT OF FOOD Air India said Tuesday it is mulling a proposal to offer cheaper flight tickets for flyers who opt out of food or snacks while booking a domestic flight A FULLY OPTIONAL SERVICE, SAYS CARRIER Unlike other airlines, Air India has always included complimentary meals in all its domestic flights. An Air India source said, “This will be a fully optional service. The move will reduce the fares by `500 to `600 for Economy class. It will not be introduced for Premium Economy or Business class.” The free beverage (coffee/water) served to all flyers will continue ■ 27% EYEING TO GET BACK COMPETITIVE EDGE ■ The move will initially be introduced on a pilot basis on routes including Delhi-Amritsar, Delhi-Chandigarh and B’luru-Hyderabad Another Air India source said the move is meant to make the carrier competitive. “Price-conscious passengers choose our competitor as their fares are lesser. If our fares reduce a bit, we get back our edge.” OF INDIA’S DOMESTIC AVIATION MARKET IS COMMANDED BY AIR INDIA 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 RESOURCE CRUNCH A CID team raiding Abhishek Banerjee’s office; Mamata Banerjee leaves Sonia Gandhi’s house in Delhi | PARVEEN NEGI CID raids Mamata’s office amid meeting with Sonia Buzz over Didi seeking INDIA bloc help to contest Basirhat LS bypoll PREETHA NAIR & SUBHENDU M A I T I @ New Delhi/Kolkata TRINAMOOL Congress chief Mamata Banerjee held closeddoor talks with senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi at her 10, Janpath residence on Tuesday even as CID teams in Kolkata raided TMC offices at her Kalighat residence and Camac Street. The meeting followed Sonia and Mamata’s warm hug at the Opposition INDIA bloc’s meeting the previous day . Just a day earlier, leaders of 23 Opposition parties vowed unity and better coordination among the alliance partners. According to sources, Rahul Gandhi told the Opposition meeting that if TMC and Congress had tied up in the West Bengal election, the results would have been different. Sources said Mamata and Sonia discussed the strategy between the two parties going forward. This was their first closed-door meeting after Trinamool’s defeat in the polls, and alleged attacks on party workers and MP Abhishek Banerjee after the elections. Signature probe CID officers in Kolkata said the raids were held to dredge out the original copy of TMC’s resolution book and attendance sheet containing signatures of 70 MLAs present at the May 6 meeting held at the party office No morality: TMC Trinamool Congress leaders Kalyan Banerjee and Kirti Azad accused dissident MPs of lacking political morality and deserting the party. Alleging a broader attempt to weaken opposition parties, Banerjee said, “They are destroying democracy” The meeting also comes amid speculation that Mamata is seeking the help of Congress and the INDIA bloc to contest a by-election from Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency. The seat fell vacant after the death of TMC MP Haji Nurul Islam. A rebellion within the TMC, with as many as 20 MPs decid- Kharge, 3 others to be elected to RS from state EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru ALL-INDIA Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge is set to be elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka for a second term. Along with him, Pawan Khera, Chairman of the media and publicity wing of Congress, senior Congress leader Mansoor Ali Khan and Prof M Nagaraja from BJP too are set to be elected unopposed from Karnataka. Kharge, serving as leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, was elected to the Upper House in 2020 for the first term after he lost elections from the Kalaburagi Lok Sabha constituency in 2019. His re-election enables him to continue as leader of opposition in the Upper House. Kharge has been an MLA for nine times and was Union minister for railways, Labour and handled other portf o l i o s d u r i n g t h e U PA government. Monday was the last day for filing nominations to the four Rajya Sabha seats. Of the five candidates who filed nominations, independent candidate Bhojanna Somaiya’s papers were rejected during scrutiny on Tuesday due to the absence of a valid proposer’s signature. With three Congress candidates and one from BJP left in the fray, all four are set to be elected unopposed. The formal declaration will be made after June 11, the last date for withdrawal of nominations. ing to form a separate group and align with the ruling NDA, has added to Mamata’s troubles. A majority of Trinamool’s 80 MLAs have already formed a separate group led by Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of opposition in the state Assembly . The timing of the raids on TMC offices as Mamata sat with Sonia, led to an uproar from TMC leaders. TMC joint secretary Derek O’Brien called it “political vendetta, shamelessly timed.” Two CID teams swept into TMC offices in Kolkata to probe allegations of forged signatures of party MLAs in connection with the election of Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of the Opposition in Bengal. A CID team was prevented from entering Mamata’s housecum-of fice by Subhashis Chakraborty, former Rajya Sabha MP. After waiting outside for about 40 minutes, thet managed to enter the office. Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata’s nephew and the party’s national general secretary, was also in Delhi and missed a 5 pm deadline to appear before the CID at Bhabani Bhaban. Big push to asset, land monetisation and disinvestment D I PA K M O N D A L A N D P U S H P I TA D E Y @ New Delhi WITH the Centre facing a significant resource crunch following a series of emergency measures to shield the economy from the West Asia crisis, the government has activated plans to mobilise additional revenue, official sources said on Tuesday. The measures include aggressively pursuing asset and land monetisation while also stepping up efforts to raise funds through disinvestment. Sources said senior government officials are holding weekly meetings with the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) to explore more avenues for resource mobilisation. The government hopes DIPAM would exceed the Budget target of `80,000 crore from disinvestment in FY27. One official said the proposed strategic sale of IDBI Bank, which had been put on hold due PRESS INTAKE Miffed KBG in Delhi, to meet top brass | P4 In Kuwait, PM bats for peace | P9 2-finger test banned | P10 Trader blames ‘Shakti’, kills wife, son, himself E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Mandya A 65-year-old textile merchant allegedly killed his wife and son before dying by suicide at his shop in Mandya in the early hours of Tuesday . In his death note, he blamed the government’s Shakti free bus travel scheme, saying women travelled to cities to purchase clothes instead of buying from him, leading to heavy losses in his business and rendering him unable to repay the loan taken from private finance firms. Prabhakar (65) strangled to death both his wife Jyothi (55) and son Santosh (30) at home, and later hanged himself to death at his shop. His son was married just a month-and-a-half ago. The tragedy occurred in Nehru Nagar in Mandya around 3.30 am, the police said. Prabhakar, who was said to be under severe mental stress, first strangled his wife Jyothi with a veil and then his son Santosh when he came to his mother’s rescue. Later, he went to his P7 shop in Nehru Nagar and hanged himself. CANDID INTERACTION Gukesh and the burden of being world champ S W A R O O P S W A M I N AT H A N D GUKESH, the youngest undisputed world chess champion in history has admitted that man, aging expectations has been one of the hardest things as world champion. “ much as you try As to switch off, you are still aware that there is this kind of elephant in the room,” he told a few Indian journalists after Norway Chess. “Like you are expected and also you expect something. I’m in general also an ambitious player and I keep going for wins. Considering all these things, it has been pretty hard. But, okay , I either break from it or grow through it.” In one of the most candid conversations by an Indian sportsperson, the 20-yearold said he had struggled for motivation during ‘parts of 2025’. “You can still do everything that you’ve been doing,” the 20-year-old said. “But the reason why you’re doing it is different. You’re not waking up striving for the World Champi- onship. But it doesn’t mean you have to lose motivation. There was obviously some, probably in parts of 2025, there was some motivation issues. But if you really love the sport, if you’re able to connect back to it, that’s why people keep saying, ‘find the reason why you started playing the sport’. I feel like external resources can never, they’re not reliable sources of motivation for a very long time. So, something that drives you from within, that’s something that I’ve been trying to connect with.” He vowed to keep fighting because ‘I don’t know what else I would want to spend the day with’. World champ to feature at Chennai GM The 20-year-old has decided to feature in his home tournament, the Chennai Grand Masters, India’s strongest Classical event. This wasn’t initially on his calendar but it’s an event that has fond memories. The fourth editions begins from July 16. to valuation concerns and lack of investor interest, is likely to be revived. The government has set a target of `10 lakh crore in asset monetisation during the fiveyear period from FY26 to FY30 under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) 2.0. Under NMP 1.0, it achieved nearly 90% of its `6 lakh crore target. At the same time, the Centre is accelerating the monetisation of idle and non-core public assets through the National Land Monetisation Corporation (NLMC). According to the DPE, approvals were received during FY26 for monetisation of assets valued around `10,048 crore. The gover nment has also launched a fresh Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) with an outlay of `18,000 crore to support MSMEs and the aviation sector. In addition, it has approved the creation of the Bharat Maritime Insurance Pool with a sovereign guarantee of `12,980 crore. Woman raped in D’gere; minor, 9 others arrested E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Davanagere IN a disgraceful incident that has come to light late, a 40-year-old woman was raped by 10 people, including a minor, at Basavapattana in Channagiri taluk of Davanagere district on June 3. The woman, who had quarrelled with her husband, a habitual drunkard, had walked out of the house in a huff. She was heading towards her parents’ home at a village (name withheld to protect the identity of the survivor) close to Basavapattana, when she stopped at a shop near the police station. Around 7.30 pm, the boy who is known to her as he is from , the same village, came near the shop on a motorbike and offered to drop her to the village. He gave the woman a soft drink and soon after drinking it, she fell unconscious. P7