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 ■ ■ bengaluru l wednesday l october 07, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION GST Council to halve time taken for refunds DIPAK M ONDA L @ New Delhi WITH GST Council meeting on October 8 set to take up major process reforms, businesses would be able to get refunds within a maximum of 17 days. Refund claims are proposed to be acknowledged within 10 days, and payments would be made in seven days, sources said. At present, refunds take 21-35 days. “If a refund claim is not acknowledged in 10 days, it will be deemed to have been acknowledged,” a source said. According to the finance ministry , from now on, any tax changes will happen once a year and they will come into effect from 1 April. This is to ensure tax certainty . The GST Council meeting will consider a broad package of process and structural reforms, with the focus shifting from rate changes to easing compliance, improving input tax credit, simplifying refunds and widening the scope of services and e-commerce under the indirect tax regime. Rahul, INDIA leaders hit street, briefly detained High drama as protest march to poll panel results in 9-hour standoff preetha nair & u d aya n k i s h o r e @ New Delhi A nine-hour sit-in by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other Opposition leaders at the ‘All India Radio’ premises ended in forcible detention by Delhi Police on Tuesday night, after the INDIA bloc’s march to the Election Commission headquarters turned into a prolonged standoff in the heart of the capital. The Gandhis and several other protesters were brought to the Kingsway Camp police lines after being taken into custody and were released around 10.15 pm. “To save the traitors of democracy, the remnants of democracy have been dragged through the mud. There will be a reckoning — not a single traitor will be spared,” said Rahul. Rahul had earlier said the protesters were prepared for a long haul until Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Ku- Rahul Gandhi waves the tricolour as he climbs atop barricades during INDIA bloc protest on Tuesday | Sayantan ghosh mar meets them. In the evening, the ECI said it did not receive any request from any political party seeking a meeting with its officials. Delhi Police moved in to detain the protesters as several Opposition leaders including from TMC, the Left parties, SP MPs and others joined the protest late evening. The dramatic standoff began with the march being stopped soon after it started from Parliament House around 10 am, following which the opposition MPs sat in front of Akashwani Bhavan just about 200 metres from the EC office. While most of the leaders including SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee and Derek O’Brien, and CPI(M) MP John Brittas, were detained and taken away in buses, Rahul and Priyanka pulled off a surprise by alighting from the bus and entering the All India Radio premises. MPs from the Biju Janata Dal, which has not been part of the INDIA bloc, also joined the march. However, erstwhile INDIA bloc members DMK and AAP leaders kept away  . P11 Physicist Francis Halzen, 82, at a conference in Bergamo, Italy. The Belgian scientist bagged the Physics Nobel for his work on neutrinos | AP | P14 E x p r e s s Re a d Milk price hike likely after Dasara, CM to take call Bengaluru: The cabinet has authorised CM DK Shivakumar to take a final call on the proposed hike in milk prices and the decision may be announced after October 23. The cabinet also approved the reorganisation of the Bengaluru City Police into five commissionerates | P3,4 11 Indians injured after vessel hit by projectile in Hormuz New Delhi: Eleven Indian crew members were injured on Tuesday after a Panama-flagged commercial vessel was struck by a projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the MEA said. The vessel was carrying 19 crew members, including 17 Indians | P12 Racket distributed 15k vials of fake antibiotics R a k s h i t h G o w d a @Bengaluru The SIT probe into the fake medicine racket has revealed that the accused had distributed nearly 15,000 vials of two spurious antibiotics Zavicefta and Emblaveo, for which Pfizer holds the rights, over the past one-and-a-half years. Special Investigation Team (SIT) officials said the preliminary probe revealed that the accused had been operating the network since April 2025. They allegedly filled the vials with a generic medicine instead of the genuine drug and used labels bearing the Pfizer name to make them appear genuine. The accused allegedly procured the original com- pany labels from Turkey, where the company has a manufacturing unit. A senior officer said they are waiting for the laboratory report to determine the chemical composition of the spurious drugs. They have traced the network of distribution of the vials, he added.  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