visakhapatnam l saturday l september 19, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION trai tightens rules to put end to spam calls and messages TRAI on Friday said that telecom companies will now use AI to detect suspected spam numbers and share this information with each other no blocking of banking, govt-tagged calls penalty for unsolicited, robo-calls Under the amended regulations, if five or more numbers associated with a sender are flagged within 10 days, further investigation and graded action will follow, including KYC re-verification, physical verification, barring of outgoing services and disconnection for repeated violation. The order also said apps like Truecaller cannot block or tag 140, 1600, and 1601 calls ■ ■ Entities using calls initiated by an application or software (A2P calls) will have to pre-declare their use and numbers to their provider, while calls made without such declaration will be treated as unsolicited A termination charge of up to 5 paise per minute has also been introduced for A2P calls, barring authority-authorised calls 15 days time given to consumers to file appeals against any resolution 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 TMC’s Nandigram pick diaspora comes to quits, Didi backs Cong, fore amid chaos its nominee arrested Indraneel Das sion left the Mamata Banerjee faction in dire straits. Since the IN a theatrical turn of events, party did not field a dummy Trinamool Congress candidate candidate, it can no longer conSanchita Dey Pradhan, fielded test the seat. by Mamata Banerjee for the OcHaving lost the party its sym, tober 6 bypoll in Nandigram, bol and now its candidate, Banturned the tables on her men- erjee said at her Kalighat resitor by withdrawing her nomi- dence that she would support nation papers on Frithe Congress candiday afternoon minutes date in Nandigram. after meeting Chief “My party will never Minister Suvendu support the BJP,” she Adhikari at the state Today is a black day said. “Today is a black in the history of secretariat here. day in the history of T h e w i t h d r aw a l democracy, which democracy It is unfor. came a day before the is unconstitutional, tunate, unconstituanti-democratic last date for filing and biased. It’s just tional, anti-democratnominations. A photo- fulfilling interests ic and politically graph of the meeting, biased. It is just servof a particular which lasted about an ing the interests of a political party hour, went viral on soparticular political Mamata Banerjee cial media, though party she said. ,” this paper could not Faced with no verify its authenticity . choice, Mamata announced Sanchita’s movements had support for Congress candidate appeared mysterious since Milan Pradhan. “We are exmorning, according to sources tending our support to Conclose to her. She did not speak gress in Nandigram,” she said. to the media when she left her The impact of Sanchita’s withresidence. She withdrew her drawal was soon overshadowed nomination at the office of the by Pradhan’s arrest, who was sub-divisional officer in Hal- picked up from a hotel in Chandia, Purba Medinipur. Her deci- dipur in an old murder case. s u b h e n d u m a i t i @ Kolkata Express read 21 states may adopt U’khand UCC model New Delhi: THE Centre may do away with a national Uniform Civil Code draft, with the Uttarakhand UCC likely to serve as the template for similar laws in as many as 21 NDA-ruled states, law ministry sources said. The Centre has so far chosen to allow NDA-ruled states to frame their own code instead of a central legislation. Collision: India rejects Pakistan’s allegations New Delhi: INDIA rejected Pakistan’s allegations over the recent collision between an Indian Navy warship and a Pakistani naval vessel in the western Arabian Sea. The MEA said INS Kolkata was on a routine deployment when Pakistani naval vessel PNS Hunain carried out “dangerous overtaking manoeuvre”. EC allots new symbol to 2 factions The ECI allotted the Didi faction the name ‘Mamata All India Trinamool Congress’ and ‘Football Player’ symbol, while the rival group got ‘Democratic Trinamool Congress’ and ‘Envelope’ symbol | P7 Assam TMC withdraws candidate The Assam unit of Trinamool on Friday said the party will not contest the Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll to protest the ECI’s decision to freeze party’s original name and symbol Express @ asian games Nagoya T he Union sports ministry Indi, an Olympic Association (IOA) officials as well as the Indian diaspora in Nagoya have stepped in to ensure that Indian athletes and their coaches aren’t overly disturbed during the course of the Asian Games. Following various teething issues — including people stranded at the airport as well as spending a considerable amount of time without accommodation and food — the focus has now shifted to ensuring that athletes don’t suffer. During an informal chat with select mediapersons, sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who is here for a few days, revealed their threepronged strategy. When he learnt about the ordeal faced by athletes upon landing in the city as highlight, ed by this daily first, the ministry stitched together a mitigation plan. The first layer starts with two persons stationed at the airport who will fast-track their exit. The second would be at the village where three persons will help them with their accommodation. If these seem routine, the sports minister said that with the help of the India embassy they have , reached out to the 2,000-strong Indian diaspora. “There are more athletes Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya with IOA President PT Usha in Japan | pti who will come here and if they are short of rooms, we have identified some 10-15 houses in case athletes need to be adjusted or need to freshen up in case there is a delay,” he said. IOA chef de mission, Sahdev Yadav, had said how India were forced to book hotels at the last moment. “Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games Organising Committee informed us that more than desired athletes had come and they would not be able to give accommodation,” he said. “We have booked 16 rooms and will book 10 more.” As of Friday things are okay , . As for Nagoya, there couldn’t have been a more disastrous start to the Games. First, a heavy downpour that submerged the city days ahead of the Games. Then, there was the logistical nightmare. Now? A threat of a severe storm with wind blowing at 100km per hour on Monday However, . the organisers have said that all mitigation measures are in place. greenfield proj MDL signs pact with NSHIP-AP to build shipyard S V i s w a n at h @ Vijayawada Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL), a Navratna Defence PSU under the Ministry of Defence, has signed an MoU with National Shipbuilding and Heavy Industries Park-AP (NSHIP-AP) to develop a moder n greenfield shipyard at Dugarajapatnam. Capt Jagmohan (Retd), Chairman and Managing Director, MDL, and Praveen Adhithya CV Managing Director, NSHIP, AP signed the MoU in the pres, ence of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday . Speaking on the development, Naidu said the State will leverage its long coastline, strategic location and industrial ecosystem to drive growth in the maritime sector. Stating that India has set an ambitious vision of becoming one of the world’s top five shipbuilding nations by 2047, he asserted that AP is committed to being at the forefront of this drive. Naidu said the Dugarajapatnam shipbuilding cluster, with MDL as the Anchor Shipyard, will position AP as a major shipbuilding hub, and attract investments and ancillary inP4 dustries to the State.