MANGALURU l sunday l october 04, 2026 l `12.00 l PAGES 26 l CITY EDITION Neighbours’ 5th gen stealth jets a cause for concern: iaf chief IAF chief Air Chief Marshal A P Singh called the arrival of fifth-generation fighters in India’s neighbourhood a ‘cause for worry’ iaf may have to look at other options Singh’s concern comes amid a backdrop of China already flying J-20 and J-35 stealth fighters and Pakistani pilots reportedly training in China ahead of their air force inducting Chinese fifth-generation jets. Singh said the the Air Force may have to look at “other fighter platforms” if the indigenous AMCA (advanced medium combat aircraft) project slips ■ 29 no decision yet on importing stealth jets ■ The twin-engine AMCA, designed by DRDO’s Aeronautical Development Agency, is India’s only home-grown stealth fighter The IAF chief, however, made it clear that no decision had yet been taken on importing a stealth fighter as a stop-gap. “Russia has offered the Su-57, but no decision has been taken yet,” he said | P9 fighter squadrons in iaf against a sanctioned strength of 42.5 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 GOLDEN FINISH: INDIA END ON HIGH Indraneel Das Express @ asian games Nagoya Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with Captain Smit Machchhar at a UAE hospital | PTI Express Read Five killed in boiler explosion in Tirupati Nellore: Five workers were killed when a boiler exploded at the TIL Healthcare unit in Sri City in Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh, on Saturday. While four workers, including a boiler operator, died at the site of explosion, another succumbed at the hospital | P7 1 lynched, 1 burnt alive over ‘cow smuggling’ Kolkata: A mob lynched two persons in Bagdogra near Siliguri town of West Bengal on Saturday over allegations of cow smuggling. According to reports, one person was burnt inside a vehicle, while the other was severely beaten up and died at a nearby hospital | P10 Didi loses 2 standing committees’ chair New Delhi: The Trinamool Congress lost chairpersonship of two key parliamentary standing committees following the re-constitution of departmentrelated panels by Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday | P9 Tejas Mk1A REVIEW MEETING after mid-Oct The IAF and HAL will hold the final review meeting with only two-three “minor” glitches in the jet’s radar now left to be ironed out | P9 UAE confirms crash axe use for Flydubai terror attack Hammam al-Hammami reportedly the co-pilot, motive not clear yet E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ New Delhi The co-pilot of Flydubai flight FZ1073 attempted to carry out a “terrorist attack” with a crash axe while the aircraft was flying from Dubai to Israel, the United Arab Emirates prosecutor general said on Saturday according to the state news agency WAM. UAE Prosecutor General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said an investigation had found that the co-pilot “had attempted to carry out a terrorist attack”. He said the co-pilot attacked the pilot inside the cockpit with a crash axe in a bid to take control of the aircraft. The co-pilot was identified as Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national. However, Emirati authorities and Flydubai have not publicly named him. Israeli officials had said the co-pilot was an Omani national, while Oman has not commented about it yet. A crash axe is normally kept in an aircraft cockpit for emergency purposes, including situations involving a crash or forced landing When Oman of the aircraft. The UAE prosecubarred him tor general said the probe into the from flying suspect’s motives, remained ongoing and that the findings would be Al-Hammami released after the completion of was previously the “necessary procedures”. barred from The incident took place last flying in Oman Wednesday aboard the Dubai-Tel over concerns Aviv flight. Most of the passenabout his radical gers were Israeli nationals. A reideological serve Flydubai pilot who was travviews, the Wall elling as a passenger took control Street Journal of the aircraft after the cockpit reported terror attack and landed safely at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia. The injured pilot, Indian national, Captain Smit Machchhar, is recovering well and remained under medical care, the Indian Embassy said. Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum praised Machchhar after visiting him in hospital. He said the pilot had “embodied the highest degrees of courage, responsibility and care for human , life”. “From us, and from the leadership of the nation, he has our full appreciation and praise,” Hamdan said. “We are proud that he is part of our team, and part of what the UAE stands for a nation of compassion, of peace and a nation of life,” he said. I T was like the last day of a wedding. Barring an equestrian event on Sunday morning, the festivities are over; done and dusted for the next four years. The overlays are being peeled one after the other. The temporary structures are getting dismantled and weary volunteers are slowly leaving their stations. Only the Closing Ceremony remains. After a slightly iffy start, the sun has been shining from an Indian perspective. India won as many as four gold on Saturday It began with . women’s archery and golf in the morning. The men’s cricket team kept their date with destiny before the men’s hockey team booked their LA28 spot. The highlight, though, arrived in the form of an incomparable run to gold in the women’s individual recurve archery . It was enough to propel India to fourth place in the medals tally with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze. However, it has to be noted that Uzbekistan could take the fourth spot if they win gold in the equestrian event on Sunday. Even if Saturday saw two of India’s beloved sides winning gold, the day belonged to Kumkum Mohod, the 17-yearold archer whose unerring ac- India players celebrate after beating Malaysia in the men’s hockey final to win the gold medal on Saturday | PTI Bright future What is heartening is that almost all the medallists from India are young while some of them made their debut. A healthy sign with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics just two years away curacy with a bow and arrow dethroned the might of the South Koreans. If she was raging in faraway Okazaki sports park, wrestlers — Aman Sehrawat was the standout — scorched the mat. On top of that, there was a welcome gold in golf — Pranavi Urs became the first Indian woman to bag gold. India cricket team’s win over Pakistan was the icing on the cake. Though there were no handshakes, they had the gold medal dangling around their necks at least — unlike in the Asia Cup which is still lying in the Asian Cricket Council headquarters. India’s overall medals tally (85) and gold (21) was well below the high of Hangzhou (107 & 28). But, after a head-scratching first week, this was a fine comeback. Over to Doha.  P13 Dissolve Assemblies elected after 2023, demands Kharge R a m a k r i s h n a B a d s e s h i @Kalaburagi AICC president and opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge here on Saturday demanded the dissolution of state Assemblies that were elected after 2023 and those that are facing allegations of malpractice during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters list. His demand followed revelations about Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi lodging their dissent 14 times in 11 months on the decisions taken by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Kharge told the media that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah too should resign as they have made Gyanesh Kumar to listen and act as per their (Modi and Shah) command. The two have provided legal immunity to Gyanesh by passing a bill in Parliament in December 2023, even as Opposition parties walked out, he alleged. Also, the NDA government has kept the Chief Justice of India out of the collegium that selects the chief election commissioner and election commissioners, he said.  CONTINUED ON: P4 CM meets central assessment team, seeks `7,142cr drought AID E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @Bengaluru With Karnataka facing severe drought conditions, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Saturday sought Rs 7,142.64 crore in relief from the Centre, urging the Central drought assessment team to make a fair assessment of the losses and provide assistance as per National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) norms. His request was to the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) led by Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ministry Joint Secretary Ajit Kumar Sahu that arrived in Karnataka to assess the drought situation. According to the state government, 177 taluks declared droughtaffected have suffered an estimated loss of Rs 46,324.50 crore. Karnataka had initially declared 101 taluks drought-hit and sought around Rs 3,700 crore. After bringing another 76 taluks under the list, the relief demand was re-estimated at Rs 7,142.64 crore. Shivakumar told the team that the drought-hit taluks were identi- express news service @ New Delhi The Central drought assessment team inspects an agricultural field in Tumakuru on Saturday. Deputy Commissioner Subha Kalyan informed the members that the district suffered crop loss worth an estimated Rs 159 crore due to deficient monsoon | EXPRESS fied through a scientific assessment in accordance with the Cent r e ’s d i s a s t e r- m a n a g e m e n t guidelines and without yielding to pressure. “Farmers are in severe distress. The Centre should come to their aid,” he said. The situation is serious as there is a rainfall deficit across most parts of the state. Inflows into reservoirs are low, while urban areas too are facing drinking water concerns, he said. Deputy Chief Minister and Revenue Minister G Parameshwara said the state briefed the central team on rainfall deficit, crop loss, drinking water availability, reservoir and lake storage, fodder availability, crop insurance, input subsidy and measures to prevent distress migration.  P4 Six, including 3 minors, held Before Samba, Brazil team skips CM’s dinner after fight over Insta post friendly tie s u b h e n d u m a i t i @ Kolkata THE much-awaited Brazil-India friendly at Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday evening was overshadowed by a last-minute snub on Friday night. The Brazilian side boycotted a dinner hosted at JW Marriott by C h i e f M i n i s t e r S u ve n d u Adhikari after being made to wait for 10 minutes during a photo session. Senior leaders, ministers, bureaucrats and others jostled for selfies with the Samba stars, delaying the event. The visitors, clearly miffed, skipped both the dinner and the accompanying musical performance by a noted percussionist, sources present at the venue said. The CM, who was to attend after campaigning in Nandigram for the BJP’s Hasirani Rath, stayed away agter he learnt about the development. The episode, described by sources as a loss of face for the organisers due to mismanagement, went viral on social media. Sports minister Indranil Khan and AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey did not respond to Vinicius Junior during the friendly with India in Kolkata on Saturday | PTI queries from this paper. Meanwhile, security was ramped up for the high-profile fixture on Saturday, billed as one of the city’s biggest in recent years. More than 300 CCTV cameras monitored the area. Spectators were not be allowed to carry outside food or water bottles inside. The heightened focus on access control came against the backdrop of the chaos that unfolded during Argentine star Lionel Messi’s visit to the city in December. This time, officials took particular care to ensure the prescribed entry procedures were followed strictly . Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior led the visitors as the marquee name on the pitch. P13 150 detained on Day 2 of stir against CEC E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Hubballi Six persons, including three minors, have been detained over a social media post that led to kidnapping and assault in Old Hubballi recently . It all started with a post on Instagram by a minor. Soon after he posted it, his friends commented on it and soon, it caught the eye of his detractors too. On September 29, they called him near a hotel and thrashed him, telling him that their diktat ran in the area. On October 1, the attacked minor kidnapped a boy who was part of the gang that , thrashed him. The boy was beaten black and blue and dropped at KLE Hospital on the outskirts of Hubballi, the source added. “The investigation is going on into the incident and it is being probed from all angles. The Kidnapped boy is being treated at KIMS Hospital in Hubballi,” the source said. Child specialist Kavan Deshpande said excessive use of social media apps and lack of monitoring by parents is leading to such problems. “Mobiles and other gadgets should be used to learn good things. Guardians have to take care of their wards, otherwise immature minds will fall into such traps,” Deshpande warned. ACTIVISTS of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) staged a protest for the second consecutive day against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, with around 150 protesters detained while they were marching towards Jantar Mantar amid heavy police deployment on Saturday . The protesters began marching from Patel Chowk next to the Election Commission’s office, towards Jantar Mantar, where security personnel had erected barricades and deployed additional forces to prevent the demonstrators from reaching the designated protest area, according to an official. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Nitya Ramakrishnan and Pallav Sisodia, along with Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, joined other students during the march. Sibal said that he was walking in protest for the first time because the rights of lakh of people had been taken away by the Election Commission. Around 150 protesters, including Yadav, Bhushan, Bora and CPI(M-L) leader N Sai Balaji, were detained. Later in the evening, Sibal said he would hold a press conference to expose the “deliberate deletions” carried out in his former constituency in Delhi from where he was sent to the Lok Sabha in 2004 and 2009. “Women protesters, journalists, and lawyers were manhandled by male police,” AISA said. 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