chennai l Thursday l October 22, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 18 l late city EDITION growth of Core sectors at 7.9% in Sept, highest under new series Production in key infrastructure industries rose 7.9% in September, the fastest pace under the new series, official data showed on Wednesday iron ore, electricity drive growth up from 3.1% growth seen last September 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 This is the fastest pace of growth under the new series that was started in June. The base year has been shifted to 2022-2023 and expanded from eight to nine sectors by adding iron ore | p12 5.1% cumulative growth rate of core sectors during April-Sept 2026 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 CJP’s Das, Ranka released from Tihar jail India pretty close: Trump U D AYA N K I S H O R E @ New Delhi Speculation rife as US prez claims it would be a “different kind of deal” Rubio’s jam session at RIL in Jamnagar D I PA K M O N D A L @ New Delhi Signalling that the IndiaUS trade deal could be sealed soon, US President Donald Trump has said the pact is “pretty close” to being finalised. Speaking to reporters at a White House briefing on Tuesday (US time), he termed it a “much different kind of deal” without elaborating. “They want to make a deal. We’re going to make a deal. Pretty close, yeah,” Trump told reporters when asked about the prospects of the India-US trade pact which has been in the making since February 2025. Trump’s statement comes at a time when Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on a three-day visit to India. It also comes days after the US waived fresh sanctions that threatened up to 100% tariff on India for its purchases of Russian crude oil. Earlier, Rubio told media that the India-US trade talks were down to technical details, adding that “it is something we anticipate seeing in a matter of weeks, not months”. He also attributed the US’s sanctions waiver to the efforts to finalise the trade deal, while highlighting that a comprehensive trade deal was almost complete, hinting at the possibility that it could be signed during his visit to India. Rubio, who reached India on Tuesday, is scheduled to leave on Thursday . Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal has also indicated that the agreement is 99% ready and both sides were doing the legal scrubbing of the trade pact. He said the deal would be signed when the tariff structure is finalised and other issues such as anti-dumping measures and Section 301 express read Vummidi Ethiraj, who crafted Sengol, dies at 99 Chennai: Veteran jeweller Vummidi Ethiraj (99), who played a key role in crafting the historic Sengol installed in the new Parliament building, died in Chennai on Wednesday. President Droupadi Murmu, Vice-President CP Radhakrishnan & PM Narendra Modi mourned his death | P2 AI uncovers PHP bug, 70% websites at risk Washington: AI has helped uncover a critical security flaw in PHP, software that powers up to 70% of the world’s websites, triggering a global race to patch vulnerable systems before hackers exploit it. Developers urged users to install the critical security update on Wednesday | P11 US President Donald Trump Bilateral trade to be $500 bn in 3 yrs: Gor US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor has said that Washington has set an ambitious target to double its bilateral trade with India to $500 billion in the next three years. Speaking at an event in Mumbai, Gor cited opportunities in technology, pharma and investment are addressed. “The bilateral trade agreement’s first tranche has been finalised. It’s going through the final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get comparable advantage or competitive advantage over our peer countries,” Goyal said during Centenary Conclave inauguration of SRCC last week. Trump’s latest comment that the trade pact will be a “different kind of deal” has triggered speculation about the final shape of the agreement. A commerce ministry spokesperson refused to comment on Trump’s statement. “There is no comment on this from the department,” the spokesperson said when contacted. Analysts TNIE reached out to for comment said nothing much could be read into it. 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 their children Isha and Anant. They were given a tour of the refinery complex and were briefed on ReMarco Rubio liance’s new energy gigafactories, RIL said in a statement. “The visit included discussions on the global energy landscape and opportunities for commercial partnerships across conventional and new energy .” RIL’s Jamnagar facility is the world’s largest single-site oil refining complex with a combined processing capacity of 1.4 million barrels per day. The firm has a total refining capacity of 68.2 million tonnes per annum. Rubio also met business leader Gautam Adani and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran in Mumbai on Wednesday . A court here on Wednesday ordered the release of CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, arrested for allegedly violating a “peace bond” while trying to protest at Jantar Mantar, even as the Delhi High Court made scathing remarks against them over a purported “regime change” statement. The CJP co-conveners were ordered to be released by the Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) after they were produced before the SEM court on expiry of their seven-day judicial custody Both gave written under. takings that they won’t breach peace or call for protests at Jantar Mantar as long as the site remains denotified. Earlier, Justice Subramo- S V K R I S H N A C H A I TA N YA @ Chennai Two low-pressure systems are set to influence weather over the Bay of Bengal, bringing prolonged rainfall to Tamil Nadu, with the second system likely to intensify further and potentially develop into a cyclone. The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC), Chennai, has forecast widespread rain, with heavy to very heavy spells likely across several districts over the next few days as the northeast monsoon remains active. According to the RMC, a lowpressure area formed over the southwest Bay of Bengal off the Tamil Nadu coast at 5.30 am on Wednesday . A second low-pressure area is likely to form over the southeast and adjoining east-central Bay of Bengal around October 23, under the influence of an upperair cyclonic circulation over the P ra v eena S A @ Chennai CM Vijay is briefed by an official about the rainwater harvesting system at TN Water Supply and Drainage Board headquarters in Chepauk on Wednesday | Express jay on Wednesday inaugurated an awareness campaign on rainwater harvesting and launched ‘Thuli’, the campaign’s raindrop logo, at an event on Marina Beach in Chennai. nium Prasad of the HC heard their petition against the SEM’s October 19 order remanding them to two days’ judicial custody. The judge said the purpose of police permission for a protest was to prevent “unwanted persons” from joining the protest group and ensure that a peaceful agitation does not escalate into violence. The HC refused to interfere with Two low-pressure areas over Bay to bring prolonged rain State orders local bodies to enforce rainwater harvesting in all buildings The state government has directed local bodies across the state to enforce mandatory rainwater harvesting in all buildings, both urban and rural, and restore defunct structures as part of a statewide campaign to promote rainwater conservation during the northeast monsoon. The order, issued on October 16, calls for inspections of government offices, schools, hospitals and other public institutions, besides residential and commercial buildings, to ensure that rainwater harvesting systems are functional. Chief Minister C Joseph Vi- Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das (left) and Ashutosh Ranka after their release from Tihar jail in New Delhi on Wednesday | Parveen negi their judicial custody and asked them to await the outcome of their hearing before the SEM. Justice Prasad said the questions surrounding the locus and motive of the petitioners had to be looked into. “You suddenly hear something like a regime change… You suddenly hear something (against) which we normally do by a ballot” the judge said, remarking that Das and Ranka, aged 27 and 31 respectively, were “not Gen-Z”. Clarifying that he had not made observations on the merit of the matter, the judge let the duo withdraw their plea. Both were remanded in custody for five days on October 14 after being detained for entering the denotified protest site of Jantar Mantar. Their custody was extended on October 19. Under the order, rooftops, rainwater channels, filter chambers, recharge pits and wells will be cleaned and desilted, while non-functional structures will be restored wherever technically feasible.  P7 Boulders and mud that slid onto the Pollachi-Valparai Ghat Road following heavy rain on Wednesday | Express Gulf of Thailand and adjoining parts of Thailand and Myanmar. The circulation is expected to emerge into the North Andaman Sea and move west- northwestwards. Chennai and its surrounding districts experienced widespread rainfall in the 24 hours ending 8.30 am on Wednesday with MGR , Nagar recording the highest rainfall at 15 cm, followed by Vadapalani with 14 cm. Saidapet, Chennai Airport, Alandur and Kolapakkam in Kancheepuram district received 13 cm each, while Meenambakkam, the DGP Office and several other locations in Chennai recorded 12 cm. The downpour caused waterlogging in several localities, particularly T Nagar, Saidapet, Velachery and the OMR. In Coimbatore district, heavy rain triggered a landslip on the Pollachi-Valparai Ghat Road, with boulders and mud falling near the second and ninth hairpin bends. Traffic was disrupted, and Highways Department personnel undertook clearance work.  P7 Vandalur zoo shut for 2 days after H5N1 confirmed in birds S V K R I S H N A C H A I TA N YA @ Chennai Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur will remain closed to visitors on Thursday and Friday after the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal, confirmed H5N1 avian influenza infection in water birds at the zoo on Wednesday The zoo . is scheduled to reopen on Saturday . The zoo reported the deaths of seven water birds between October 3 and 9. The birds included four painted storks, a grey pelican, a grey heron and a darter. Their carcasses were found in the Vedanthangal bird enclosure, the zoo’s largest and most popular enclosure, which houses around 150 birds belonging to 10 species. “There have been no further reports of sickness since October 9, indicating that the situation has remained stable for the past 12 days. We received confirmation of H5N1 infection on Wednesday and have decided to close the zoo for two days as a precautionary measure,” zoo director T Ritto Cyriac told TNIE. The zoo has initiated disinfection and sanitisation measures and is implementing biosecurity protocols in accordance with the union government’s guidelines.  P7 U’khand ends Friday off for madrasas N A R E N D R A S E T H I @ Dehradun The Uttarakhand government has ordered madrasas recognised as schools to switch to Sunday as the weekly holiday instead of Friday, with immediate effect. “All recognised institutions must follow the rules laid down by the education department and the authority,” Surjeet Singh Gandhi, chairperson of the Minority Education Authority, which replaced the Madrasa Education Board in July said. He , said schools operate from 8 am to 1 pm, and the schedule won’t prevent students and staff from attending Friday afternoon prayers which are typically held after 1 pm. The Opposition slammed the order, which comes ahead of the assembly elections. Congress spokesperson Pratima Singh alleged that whenever polls approach, the BJP reverts to “the politics of polarisation and communalism”. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami hailed it as a step towards bringing a uniform system. An official said 452 madrasas had previously been recognised by the Madrasa Board. Of them, 76 have so far received recognition under the new system. Four categories Final jury meeting to choose winners of prestigious 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 en- riched 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. They are: 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; Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat’s God’s Own Empire, a dramatic period novel about Marthanda Varma, the first monarch of Travancore; Ghazala Wahab’s The Hindi Heartland, a book that debunks the idea of the region as a monolith, arguing for its plurality in history , culture and politics and the way to reclaim its diverse roots; and Shaan Kashyap’s Who Owns the Past, on the official histories of colonial to modern India and the historians who wrote them. The contenders for the Best Debut award are: Never Logged Out — How the Internet Created India’s Gen Z by Ria Chopra on the constantly ‘connected’ generation; Mohsin Khan’s Allah Miyan’s Workshop on the doubts and disquiet of a Dickensian boy hero; Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew’s The Remnants of Rebellion, about a Syrian Christian family of Kerala in the backdrop of caste oppression and emerging Hindu nationalism; and Sowmiya Ashok’s The Dig: Keeladi and the Politics of India’s Past, on the archaeology of Keeladi, its centrality to the storytelling about Tamil Nadu and the politics of presenting competing stories about the past. A jury meeting in Delhi, comprising the external and internal jury, will choose the winners from the shortlist on October 22. Chaired by author and parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor, the external jury includes economist Sanjeev Sanyal and author-historian Vikram Sampath. The winners will be announced at a prestigious award ceremony in Chennai, the TNIE headquarters, on December 2.