growth of Core sectors at 7.9% in Sept, highest under new series THIRUVANANTHAPURAM l thursday l october 22, 2026 l `10.00 l PAGES 18 l LATE city EDITION Production in key infrastructure industries rose 7.9% in September, the fastest pace under the new series, official data showed on Wednesday Among segments, iron ore output rose by 18.4%, electricity by 11.4%, coal by 10.7% and refinery products by 10.3%, the data showed. Cement production rose 9.8% and steel by 4.9% in September compared with the same period last year. However, fertilisers (-11.7%), natural gas (-4.6%), and crude oil (-1.4%) output fell during the month under review The core sector expanded by 3.1% in September last year and 5.9% in August 2026, according to the government data 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 Bilateral trade pact with India pretty close: Trump Speculation rife as US prez claims it would be a “different kind of deal” D I PA K M O N D A L @ New Delhi Bilateral trade to be $500 bn in 3 yrs: Gor Signalling that the IndiaUS trade deal could be sealed US Ambassador to India soon, US President Donald Sergio Gor has said that Trump has said the pact is Washington has set an “pretty close” to being finalambitious target to double ised. Speaking to reporters at a its bilateral trade with India White House briefing on Tuesto $500 billion in the next day (US time), he termed it three years. Speaking at an “much different kind of deal” event in Mumbai, Gor cited without elaborating. opportunities in technology, “They want to make a deal. pharma and investment We’re going to make a deal. Pretty close, yeah,” Trump told reporters when asked about the Rubio, who reached India on prospects of the India-US trade Tuesday, is scheduled to leave pact which has been in the on Thursday . making since February 2025. Union commerce minister Trump’s statement comes at Piyush Goyal has also indicata time when Secretary ed that the agreement is of State Marco Rubio 99% ready and both is on a three-day visit sides were doing the leto India. It also comes gal scrubbing of the days after the US trade pact. He said the waived fresh sanctions deal would be signed that threatened up to when the tariff struc100% tariff on India ture is finalised and othfor its purchases of er issues such as antiRussian crude oil. dumping measures and Donald Trump Earlier, Rubio told Section 301 are media that the India-US trade addressed. talks were down to technical “The bilateral trade agreedetails, adding that “it is some- ment’s first tranche has been thing we anticipate seeing in a finalised. It’s going through the matter of weeks, not months”. final contours, the legal draftHe also attributed the US’s ing, and we hope to be able to sanctions waiver to the efforts finalise that soon and operato finalise the trade deal, while tionalise that once we get comhighlighting that a comprehen- parable advantage or competisive trade deal was almost com- tive advantage over our peer plete, hinting at the possibility countries,” Goyal said during that it could be signed during Centenary Conclave inaugurahis visit to India. tion of SRCC last week. Rubio’s jam session at RIL in Jamnagar KIIFB spent `216cr on govt anniv celebrations Govt shows, KIIFB’s bill Ente Keralam celebrations: K216 cr, more than double the K87 cr released for SC/ST projects CM with Me (2025-26): K6.14 cr Campaign against Centre’s borrowing curbs: K5.4 cr KIIFB auditor: Cannot vouch for the authenticity of expenses Source: KIIFB annual reports, Sudha Pillai committee report M S V id yanandan @ T’Puram A `5.4-crore nationwide campaign condemning the borrowing curbs imposed by the central government was among the publicity expenses worth hundreds of crores that the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) took on its books. When KIIFB’s own auditor sought to know how the campaign was related to its functioning, the management reasoned that it was “un- avoidable to sustain the existence of KIIFB”. In fact, the borrowing curbs stemmed partly from KIIFB’s own loans, which the Centre counted as state borrowing from 2020-21. An analysis of KIIFB’s annual reports from 2016-17 to 2025-26 reveals that it spent nearly `475 crore on publicity and promotional programmes. Nearly half of this, `216 crore, was towards ‘Ente Keralam’, the previous LDF government’s anniversary celebrations, over three years. It is more than double the `87 crore the board ever released for SC/ST development projects. KIIFB spent `52.03 crore on Ente Keralam in 2022-23, `67.45 crore in 2023-24 and `96.44 crore in 2025-26. The amounts were booked as project costs on the basis of government orders. For 2023-24, the auditor said it was “not able to express our opinion on authenticity of expenses” relating to Ente Keralam and other items.● More on P4 R A K E S H K U M A R @ New Delhi AS part of his efforts to encourage Indian refiners to buy more Venezuelan crude, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday visited Reliance Industries (RIL)’s oil-refining complex in Jamnagar, Gujarat. On Tuesday, Rubio had said Indian refiners should process more Venezuelan crude oil. In Jamnagar, Rubio and his entourage including US Ambassador Sergio Gor were welcomed by RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani, his wife Nita, and Marco Rubio their children Isha and Anant. They were given a tour of the refinery complex and were briefed on Reliance’s new energy giga-factories, RIL said in a statement. “The visit included discussions on the global energy landscape and opportunities for commercial partnerships across conventional and new energy .” Rubio also met business leaders Gautam Adani and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran in Mumbai on Wednesday . F o u r c a t e g o r i es Final jury meeting to choose winners of RNG Sahithya Samman today Parami ta G hosh @ New Delhi All literary awards serve as signals of quality. They have their curatorial emphases and specific ambitions. Words that last, writers who take the job of imagination seriously , mark it with integrity, and speak in a unique voice, capturing attention in a crowded world of content. The Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman (RNGSS), instituted in honour of Ramnath Goenka, a stalwart of Indian print media and founder of The New Indian Express Group, returns for its fourth edition with a sharper aim. TNIE’s shortlist was decided after a meeting of the internal jury, comprising Santwana Bhattacharya, Editor, The New Indian Express Group; K Vaidyanathan, Editor, Dinamani; and Ravi Shankar, Consulting Editor, Sunday Magazine. Books published between July 2025 and June 2026 were considered for the longlist across three categories— Fiction, Non-Fiction and Debut. The fourth category the RNGSS , Lifetime Achievement Award, honours distinguished literary figures whose contributions have enriched Indian literature over the course of their careers. In the Best Fiction shortlist are Amitav Ghosh’s Ghost-eye, a climate-crisis novel that is about families, food and marginalisation; Rahul Bhattacharya’s Railsong, about a woman who grew up in an Indian railway township against the backdrop of a nation in motion, as steam engines gave way to diesel and India passed through the tumultuous 1970s; Geetanjali Shree’s Once Elephants Lived Here, an unsettling short story anthology of people caught in their pasts; and Ashwin Sanghi’s Ayodhya Alliance, a cross-cultural story in which an Indian industrialist and a South Korean technocrat uncover an ancient metallurgical force. Four books are part of the Best Non-fiction list, including Abhishek Choudhary’s Believer’s Dilemma — Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power 1977-2018, a mapping of the , Hindu Right movement from the margins to a party of power, and its first prime minister. Continued on: P9  EXPRESS READ SC stays police’s probe against Pinarayi New Delhi: IN a major setback for ED, the Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed for a week the police probe taken up on ED’s recommendation against former CM Pinarayi Vijayan in the CMRL-Exalogic case and cautioned the central agency against exceeding its statutory limits and meddling with the powers of other agencies. P4 18 pages, including 4 pages of THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Express