bengaluru l saturday l september 05, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION SC asks 7 States to hike age of retirement of judicial officers The Supreme Court directed the states to amend the service rules and enhance the age of superannuation in the judicial service to 62 years addressing attrition in lower courts Noting that it is necessary to stop attrition of experienced and talented judicial officers and to ensure access to justice, the Supreme Court directed seven states to increase the retirement age of judicial officers in district judiciary from 60 to 62 years. Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, MP, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have consented to the proposal ■ 23 covers those who retired in march too ■ A three-judge bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi passed the order in the All India Judges Association (AIJA) versus Union of India (UOI) case The order also covers officers who retired on or after March 31, 2026. They can exercise the option if they have not taken up another job | P11 states/ut have been asked to share their viewpoint 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 CJP’s Saurav Das and Nagina MP Chandrasekhar Azad with the daughter of Sanjay Kumar | PTI Influencer held after CJP protest e x p r e s s ne w s s e r v i c e @ New Delhi DELHI Police detained selfproclaimed influencer Swatantra Bhardwaj in Uttar Pradesh on Friday hours af, ter the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) staged a protest outside the Parliament Street police station in Delhi demanding his arrest for assaulting a student’s father, a crime he bragged about in an interview. The detention came after CJP representatives including co-convenors Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, along with supporters, marched to the Parliament Street police station demanding Swatantra Bhardwaj’s Bhardwaj arrest. They were accompanied by Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) chief and Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad and MP Pappu Yadav, who met police officials and were assured that action would be taken against Bhardwaj within 72 hours. The protest followed a viral podcast clip in which Bhardwaj openly said he had orchestrated a violent assault on Sanjay Kumar, the father of minor student activist Nishu Azad during the Jantar Mantar protests. The CJP-led delegation sought addition of attemptto-murder, criminal intimidation and SC/ST Act provisions to the case and demanded a separate FIR over rape threats targeting Kumar’s daughter. Marijuana+ pilot 2 pulled alive from tunnel of Aug 4 Phuket nine days after Nepal floods AI flight sacked Preliminary AAIB report flags triple hydraulic systems failure in the Phuket-Delhi flight S LALITHA @ New Delhi AIR India on Friday terminated the services of the pilot-incommand of the Phuket-Delhi flight that experienced a series of technical failures on August 4, resulting in injuries to 24 people onboard. The airline’s action came hours after the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) released its preliminary probe report, expressing serious concern about the pilot’s drug use. Captain Sudeep Vashistha, 34, had tested positive for marijuana on August 12. “The Pilot-in-Command of the Phuket-Delhi flight tested positive for a psychoactive substance. In line with Air India’s zero-tolerance approach to violation of safety fitness or regu, latory requirements, the pilot’s employment has been terminated with immediate effect,” an Air India statement read. Sources said Captain Vashistha is planning to move court against the termination. According to the AAIB report, all three hydraulic systems of the flight failed within seconds of each other, triggering an autopilot disconnect, a brief ‘stall’ warning, and an altitude drop of 292 feet. TNIE broke the story on August 10 that the failure of all three hydraulic systems led to the accident. In its 10-page report, AAIB said its findings are after analysing the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. It said the flight took off from Phuket on August 4 at 6.11 am IST. As it entered the Kolkata Flight Information Region, the air traffic control instructed the pilots to climb from 34,000 feet to 36,000 feet. The accident occurred while the aircraft was cruising at 36,000 feet. E x p r e s s Re a d Drought-hit K’taka launches cloud-seeding prog Bengaluru: The state government on Friday launched the Rs 28.52crore cloud seeding programme to address the rainfall deficit. Water Resources Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy flagged off a special light aircraft for cloud-seeding operations at HAL Airport in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has said the government is conducting a survey on the drought situation and more taluks are likely to be declared drought-hit within the next 3-4 days | P4 Terrorist gunned down in Budgam encounter Srinagar: A terrorist was killed in an encounter with security forces on Friday, the second day of an ongoing anti-terror operation in the forest area of Yousmarg in Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam district. The operation was launched on Thursday evening in the Ashdar Gali area after security forces received inputs about the movement of a group of 2-3 terrorists from Pakherpora in Pulwama district towards the Yousmarg forest area in Budgam | P12 Ripped door of the overhead luggage compartment of the Aug 4 AI flight | File pic Damages to aircraft According to AAIB, the aircraft suffered some damages. The overhead ceiling panel was cracked at 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 18th, 19th and 20th row. The forward right hand emergency exit handle was broken. The passenger unit panels were found dislocated and bent Citing the post-flight report generated by aircraft maintenance personnel, the AAIB said loss of pressure in the green hydraulic system was detected at 09:32:43 am. Four seconds later, the blue and yellow hydraulic systems also failed. At 9:32:48 am, the autopilot got disconnected and a continuous chime alert was sounded. At 9:32:51 am, a ‘stall’ warning was triggered for two seconds. The co-pilot, who was flying the plane, tried to take control of the situation but could not. The captain then took over. At 9:32:52 am, the blue hydraulic system recovered, followed by the yellow and green systems. This resulted in recovery of the flight control systems and normal operating conditions were restored. S V KRISH N A CHAITA N YA @ Kathmandu Two workers trapped inside a tunnel of the Trishuli-3A Hydroelectric Project in Rasuwa were rescued on Friday, nine days after a devastating flood tore through the Bhote Koshi river system, raising hopes that others missing inside underground hydropower structures could still be found alive. The rescued workers were identified as Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan. Sah briefly said he was chanting ‘Hare Krishna mahamanta’ for the past nine days. Both were pulled out from the tunnel by a joint search and rescue team and airlifted to a hospital. The breakthrough came as rescue teams continued a race against time across several hydropower projects damaged by the August 26 disaster. One body was also recovered during the Trishuli-3A operation, while the search for others trapped inside the tunnel remains underway . Around 900 workers have been reported missing from hydropower sites. The scale of the underground rescue operation has been immense. Teams have had to clear col- E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bengaluru Big data 275: Indian nationals missing 166: Indians rescued so far 1,907: Indians safely crossed into Nepal from China 95 tonnes: Relief material supplied to Nepal on 7 aircraft 54: Personnel sent to support relief and rescue efforts 30: Tunnel rescue experts deployed in Nepal 19: Forensic experts 5: Medical team members 21 tonnes: Relief material flown to Kathmandu on Thursday lapsed sections, remove huge quantities of mud and debris, drain flooded passages and create access routes into tun- IN 1980, Delhi publisher Vision Books published My Truth, the closest to an Indira Gandhi official autobiography Printed as . a series of interviews with a French journalist, it includes her childhood, Jawaharlal Nehru advising her to be physically active, touches upon her marriage and contextualises “her truths” of her momentous years— the Bangladesh Liberation War and Emergency — for all readers. nels that were cut off by the disaster. Excavators, mud pumps, generators, cameras, rafts and other equipment are being used at different sites to reach workers who may still be trapped. At Trishuli-3A, the rescue operation involved 75 Nepali Army personnel and 18 personnel from the Armed Police Force and Nepal Police, along with technical experts.  Continued on: P14 kicks off today halo in the sky A luminous ring of light, also called as 22-Degree Halo, was visible in Bengaluru and Mysuru on Friday afternoon. Experts said while this is not a rare occurrence, it is not a normal sight either | Udayashankar S The Odisha Literary Festival, eastern India’s flagship literary event organised by The New Indian Express, will be a two-day celebration of literature, arts and music. With 25 sessions and more than 40 speakers, the 14th edition will be on the theme ‘Resurgence of the Word’ and will celebrate the many ways in which literature and the arts engage with the realities of everyday life | P7 A day after the Karnataka cabinet decided to withdraw the controversial Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) (Amendment) Bill, 2026 that would have allowed the government to use up to 5% of public parks for infrastructure and utility projects, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar here on Friday spoke about exploring alternative routes to implement the proposed 16.5-km tunnel road from Hebbal to Silk Board. He hinted at dropping the idea of using a portion of Lalbagh for the project as proposed earlier. Taking on BJP, he rejected that it was a U-turn by the government. “We are not selling parks. There is no intention to take over Lalbagh. Alternative routes (for tunnel road) will be examined,” he told reporters. “I have no reason to do a Uturn. We have respected people’s sentiments. The Bill has been withdrawn only to facilitate a detailed discussion in the legislature. There is no question of prestige. If people oppose a Bill, the government can withdraw it,” he said. He accused BJP of consistently opposing major infrastructure projects in Bengaluru. “If Bengaluru has any curse, it is BJP Let them tell us of one . major project that they started during their tenure,” he said. Tunnel roads and double-decker corridors are necessary to address Bengaluru’s traffic congestion, he said, and challenged those opposing the tunnel road project to suggest alternatives. Preparations are under way to give the Mysuru Dasara celebrations a new look. Discussions have been held with the Indian Air Force and the defence ministry to include an Indian Air Force contingent in the celebrations. Cultural performances representing different parts of South India, North Karnataka, including Bidar and Kalaburagi, will also be showcased, he said. ISRO launches India’s first-ever ‘Eye in the Sky’ B o s k y K h a nn a @Bengaluru The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) created history in the wee hours of Friday by successfully launching the advanced Earth Observation Satellite (EOS)-05 into a geo-orbit, recording a first in placing an imaging satellite in a high-altitude orbit of 36,000 km altitude. This successful launch comes as major relief for the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) programme following the unsuccessful EOS-03 (GSLV-F10) mission in 2021, and also after the two failed missions of PSLV-C61/EOS-09 in January 2026 and PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 in May 2025. The EOS-05 satellite has been placed in a geosynchronous orbit above the South Asian landmass, which means it will remain stationary in relation to the location above which it has been parked in space, synchronising its revolution around Earth in tandem with the rotation of the planet. The 2,367-kg satellite – the heaviest that GSLV Mark II has put in space so far – was launched on board the GSLV Mk II-F17 mission (GSLV-F17) at 2.55 am from the second launchpad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota amid light rainfall. After What does it do? EOS-05 will provide real-time data for weather monitoring, cyclones, floods and cloudbursts. It carries multi-spectral and hyper-spectral bands to capture field images every 5 minutes & entire country every 30 minutes. It will relay info to ground stations every 30 minutes HarperCollins gets to be the publishing biggie of the year It was also not a time known for high-voltage book launches and announcements. In comparison, the notice of her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, has gone out with a bang, a bump, and again a second blow of the trumpet. While it has generated excitement about its contents, the bigger excitement has been about a story of ‘refusal’. A worker rescued from a tunnel at Trishuli 3A hydropower project | EXPRESS Lit fest Odisha event So n i a m e m oi r Pa r a m i ta G h o s h @ New Delhi CM: No U-turn, will explore new routes for tunnel road First came the announcement of Alfred A Knopf (an imprint of Penguin Random House) publishing it, then a clarification that Penguin India is not its India publisher, and finally the HarperCol- lins announcement. The publishing biggie of the year no doubt belongs to HarperCollins, which on Friday morning confirmed it was publishing Sonia’s memoir, one of the most anticipated political ‘autobiographies’ of our times. The book hits the stands in ‘A unique lens on India’ HarperCollins described the book as a “dramatic account, at once epic and intimate, [it] gives readers a unique lens on India ... offering an insider’s perspective on political, economic and social changes over 50 years. India on November 10, 2026. Sonia, the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party , has had both a ringside and an insider’s view of Indian politics, as a member of the NehruGandhi family which has been , at the helm of affairs for over 50 years at the Centre. In My Truth, Indira Gandhi’s interviews with a foreign journalist were aimed at shoring up her international reputation as well. Sonia has spoken directly to her home in her own words and without any mediation. the orbit-raising operations are completed, the satellite is to be placed above the South Asian land mass at an inclination of 19.28 degrees to the equator. This was the 107th launch from SDSC Sriharikota and the 19th of the GSLV . Once operational, EOS-05 will become India’s first dedicated imaging satellite from the geo-orbit, providing “strategic data” for the country, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said after the launch, while describing EOS-05 as a “strategic satellite”. CONTINUED ON: P7 The GSLV-F17 rocket carrying EOS-05 satellite lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre | ISRO Five undertrials try to kill warder at city central jail E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bengaluru In a horrific incident, five undertrial prisoners allegedly assaulted a jail warder at the Bengaluru Central Prison and tried to strangle him to death following a dispute over articles being brought into the prison. The Parappana Agrahara police registered an FIR against the five accused. They have been identified as Mohammad Muzammil, Abdul Shafghan, Mohammad Rizwan, Niyaz and Kalandar Shafi, all undertrials lodged at the prison. The victim, Manjunath Haveli, who has been working as a jail warder at the prison since 2019, is currently working as a case handler in the convict division. According to the complaint filed by Manjunath HG (50), incharge superintendent of the prison, the incident took place around 10.45 am on Wednesday , when Haveli had gone to Annex-1 Prison to collect some information. P5