KOttayam l tuesday l september 29, 2026 l `10.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Sensex tanks 1,124 pts to 6-month low amid surging crude, FII exit oil spikes after U.S. Rejects IRan truce Analysts said surging crude oil prices following the US-Iran stalemate over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and foreign fund outflows hit investor sentiment, triggering the selloff. Brent crude jumped 3.81% to $108.3 per barrel. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth I3,693.93 crore on Friday amid a sharp rise in US bond yields Sensex plunged 1,124 points to a six-month low on Monday amid a broader sell off triggered by Iran war uncertainties and weak global cues ■ 29 K17.17 lakh cr investor wealth wiped out ■ With the Monday’s slump, Sensex and Nifty have fallen by over 5% over the past month, wiping out I17.17 lakh crore of investor wealth Wall Street stocks fell in early trading on Monday. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index and Shanghai’s SSE Composite index ended lower while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index settled higher of 30 sensex stocks in red, with Infosys being the sole gainer in the pack 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 Teen gangrape in Delhi park has Nirbhaya parallel, says SC bench Bench led by Justice Pardiwala takes suo motu cognisance, seeks status report in 4 weeks Repeat offenders s u c h i t r a k a lya n m o h a n t y @ New Delhi CEC in crosshairs of CWC meet today Pa r v e z S u lta n @ New Delhi THE Congress Working Committee will meet on Tuesday to chart the party’s action plan to further pressure the Centre on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s exit. The Opposition has demanded Kumar’s removal since media reports revealed differences in the EC over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday told reporters he had called for the CWC to meet and discuss the issue. The INDIA bloc is likely to meet on this on Wednesday . “This issue concerns the entire country the existence , of our democracy and the survival of our country The ... EC’s own people have exposed them,” he said. Referring to a former Keralam official’s claim, Kharge said Kumar had become a BJP worker. Preparations for polls in five states are also on the CWC agenda. Meanwhile, the Congress staged protests in several cities. General secretary KC Venugopal on X said workers protested in over 1,000 districts and called on the Centre to sack Kumar. EXPRESS READ Govt weighs Waqf Board reconstitution Malappuram: The government is considering reconstituting the State Waqf Board amid questions over the eligibility of some of its members. While it is examining the possibility of replacing the entire board, a decision will be taken after assessing legal implications of removing the members found ineligible or dissolving the board as a whole | P4 WORRIED over recent reports of sexual violence cases in the Delhi-NCR region, the Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu co gnizance of the alle ged gangrape of a 17-year-old in a park near Lady Sri Ram College, and observed that “painful parallels with the 2012 Nirbhaya case were unavoidable.” A bench of justices J B Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran expressed concern over rising crimes against minor girls and women in the capital and directed the court registry to register a suo motu public interest litigation in the matter. “One cannot help but draw painful parallels with the 2012 Nirbhaya case, The bench sought a report on the manner in which the National Database on Sexual Offenders is being utilised by Delhi Police. “Whether the database is being regularly accessed for identification of repeat sexual offenders?” the court asked. raising the question of whether systemic law-enforcement mechanisms have made any meaningful progress in the decade since then,” Justice Pardiwala said. “The safety concerns emerging from this incident, however, cannot be viewed in isolation. This incident has also brought to light pre-existing complaints of recurrent sexual harassment faced by students of Lady Shri Ram College, situated in the vicinity of Aastha Kunj Park. Regrettably these prior grievances , failed to serve as a wake-up call for the police or the local administration,” the court said. On September 21 evening, three men — Asif, Hemant and his brother Manish — posed as police personnel and allegedly took turns to rape the 17-year-old girl inside the Aastha Kunj Park Noel proposes major Tata Sons rejig to stay private Be n n K o c h u v ee d a n @ Mumbai Tata Trusts on Monday proposed restructuring Tata Sons by merging two privately held arms — Tata Electronics Systems Solutions and Tata Consulting Engineers — with the group holding company, to take it outside the RBI’s definitions of an NBFC and a Core Investment Company (CIC). Noel Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, which owns 66.6% of Tata Sons, has opposed the listing, while the Tata Sons board recently decided to comply with the RBI’s September 11 directive to go public. The restructuring is meant to turn Tata Sons into an operating firm alongside its role as the group’s holding company while staying private. However, it requires approval from the Tata Sons board and a prior no-objection certificate from the RBI. The Trusts said it has asked the Tata Sons board to consider and approve the plan and apply to RBI for the NoC. “Tata Trusts, along with Tata Sons, will engage with the RBI on all aspects of the proposed reorganisation,” it said in a statement. Unlike a break-up or demerger of Tata Sons, the proposed restructuring would enlarge the holding firm by absorbing two operating, non-financial businesses. This would give it substantial operating revenue besides income from its investments in Tata group companies. N Chandrasekaran HC order to assess patented cancer meds’ affordability E x p r e s s Ne w s Se r v i c e @Kochi The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the Union government to collate data on the affordability of patented life-saving medicines and assess whether existing price control and subsidy measures were actually benefiting cancer patients, while also observing that the Centre had the right to use a patented invention for government purposes without the patent holders’ permission. While hearing petitions filed by two breast cancer patients, one of whom died while the case was pending, Justice Harisankar V Menon observed that the government had not placed on record the data required to determine whether patented cancer medicines were affordable. He said data on the number of persons affected by the type of cancer, those consuming patented medicines, those not consuming it citing high prices should be collected from hospitals. Saying there could be no doubt that the government was required to provide all necessary facilities to citizens to ensure access to healthcare, including life-saving treatment, the HC observed that the Union government can invoke Section 100 of the Patents Act, which allows the government, or a person it authorises in writing, to use a patented invention for government purposes without the permission of the patent holder. “The government, people and stakeholders...should ensure no man is refused or refuses treatment exclusively due to financial constraints,” the court said.  ● More on P4 Noel Tata near Kalkaji Mandir. It was also submitted before the court that at least 13 cases of sexual assault have been reported in the national capital this month. In another case last month, a 16-year-old girl, who boarded a sleeper bus in Greater Noida, was allegedly gang-raped by its conductor and driver and abandoned near Kashmere Gate, more than 40 km away in Old Delhi, on August 4. The two accused have been arrested. In the third case, a 17-year-old girl was gang-raped and killed in Swaroop Nagar area. The court ordered the police commissioner to form teams for each police district to conduct a survey of parks, roads, public transport facilities, markets and educational institutions. A s w i n A s o k K u m a r @T’Puram Avoiding listing Tata Sons classified as an Upper Layer NBFC, triggering RBI listing requirement Restructuring plan by merging Tata Electronics Systems Solutions and Tata Consulting Engineers with Tata Sons Merger will give Tata Sons better operating revenue, reducing its reliance on financial investments Merged entity will have I1.05 lakh crore in operating revenue, against I40,072 crore from financial assets Group investments will account for less than 90% of net assets, taking it outside the CIC definition Class 6 too to get 3-language policy relaxation: SC express news service @ New Delhi IN a major development on the implementation of the National Education Policy in schools, the Supreme Court on Monday directed that the relaxation given to classes VII, VIII and IX under the three-language policy be extended to Class VI as well. A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant did not accept the Union government’s plea that relaxation was not needed for Class VI. The direction comes as a breather for around 28 lakh Class VI students. It ensures that under the transitional arrangement, the third language will remain part of studies but students will not have to write a separate Board examination in Class X for it. bronze show God by her side, Vithya breaks oldest nat’l record H ER initial target to break the women’s 400m hurdles national record — the country’s longest-standing and one of its most famous athletics records — was at the India Athletics Final Series in Delhi on September 10. Vithya Ramraj stumbled on a hurdle and missed out. If she had succeeded in Delhi, the natural progression would have been a sub-53s here. But God had other plans as Vithya broke PT Usha’s record set in 1984 LA Games at the Asian Games here on Monday . The conditions were not ideal. Rain was battering the sprawling Indraneel Das Express @ asian games Nagoya Paloma Mizohu Sports Park arena. Vithya, a firm believer, had only one wish: for the rain to stay away When she was warming up, . it had already started raining. However, God did answer her prayers when she needed it the most. The interlude was enough for her to complete the race; the initial burst off the blocks was slow, but she picked up her rhythm An emotional Vithya Ramraj with her bronze medal on Monday | PTI in the next six hurdles. With the crowd breaking into a cauldron of noise, the runners picked up the pace. The giant display board dis- 3 out of 10 CPOs to be women as police go for recruitment reform played her timing: 54.75s. The smile never left when she walked into the mixed zone. “I prayed to God,” she kept repeating. It took the athlete from Coimbatore three years to break the record after equalling Usha’s record at the Hangzhou Asian Games. In the end, a bronze medal was a fine reward. Vithya’s personal coach Nehpal Singh had told her that she would break the 55-second barrier. “When my coach said you are around 55s, I never believed him,” she said. “But today (Monday), I believed him. My coach is with me, my God is with me.” Soon, three of every 10 civil police officers (CPOs) appointed in the state will be women, as Kerala Police undertake a significant overhaul of the CPO recruitment process. In a letter to additional chief secretary (home), State Police Chief Ravada A Chandrasekhar proposed changing the male-female recruitment ratio for CPOs from the existing 9:1 to 7:3, which will eventually lead to achieving the target of one-third female officers in the state. Sources in the police force said the recommendations have been reviewed by the home department and are with the chief minister’s office. The proposal is likely to be reviewed by the cabinet soon. The PSC handles the recruitment of male and female police personnel via separate marklists. It was later proposed that every 10th CPO vacancy should be reserved for women. Now, the latest proposal, if approved, would mean that the first seven vacancies will be reserved for men and the subsequent three for women constables. Terming the step revolutionary Home Minister Ramesh , Chennithala said it was high time women’s representation was increased in all domains, including police force. “At least 50% of our population is women. The move should be seen as the continuation of the government’s decision to appoint 63 women as SHOs in the state,” Chen● More on P4 nithala told TNIE.