The New Indian Express Wishes its readers a TIRUCHY l thursday l october 31, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l LATE CITY EDITION Buckingham Palace confirms TNIE report on Charles’ secret India visit The Buckingham Palace confirmed King Charles and Queen Camilla visited Bengaluru for wellness treatment before returning to the UK from Samoa Charles and Camilla during one of their previous visits for treatment | Source: SIHHC B’luru Stop was to break long trip to U.K. not connected to cancer treatment A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the stopover was to help break the long journey to the United Kingdom from Samoa. “Their Majesties had a short private stopover in India to help break the long journey back from Samoa,” the spokesperson said. They arrived on October 27 and stayed at Soukya International Holistic Health Centre located in Whitefield, Bengaluru ■ ■ ■ Charles is under treatment for cancer after being diagnosed with the disease earlier this year. Sources said the visit was not connected to the cancer treatment, which he will resume upon return to the UK He planted a Jacaranda sapling in the Soukya campus, an official said Charles and Camilla were on a 10-day official trip to Australia and Samoa Our offices and press will remain closed today and there will be no issue of the paper on Friday 75-yr-old King Charles’ last visit to soukya retreat was in 2019 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 Disengagement Canada minister says complete, troops he outed Shah identity to swap sweets Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi India, China wrap up troop pullback from Demchok & Depsang; joint verification is on cation process is progressing and talks are currently on Patrolling will soon begin about the routes, schedule, and at Demchok and Depsang the patrolling size. Each patrolPlains in eastern Ladakh, as ling unit will have a maximum Indian and Chinese troops have of 20 personnel, who will be completed disengagement at carrying their weapons. these friction points along the “The withdrawals are mutuLine of Actual Control (LAC), al and will proceed in phases. sources said on Wednesday To Patrolling may take time, de. mark the de-escalation of ten- pending on the removal of sions and improvestructures set up ment in the overall since the April 2020 mood, the military clashes. Physical personnel will celeverification and surbrate Diwali by exveillance are being changing sweets at conducted in these the traditional areas,” sources points along the said. 3,488-km long LAC. The current disSweet spots engagement is only “The disengagement is complete Troops will exchange for Depsang and and modalities for sweets at traditional D e m ch o k . A r my points — the five patrolling are being sources said that Border Personnel firmed up between talks regarding paground command- Meeting (BPM) huts trolling in other on each side of the ers,” said an Army stand-off points in source. Troops from Line of Actual Control Eastern Ladakh will both sides have dis- spread out in Eastern continue. Troops engaged and shuf- and Western Sectors from both sides have fled back to their already disengaged designated points as per the de- from five other friction points, cision firmed up between the which came up in May 2020 afCorps Commanders of India ter the People’s Liberation and China. Army moved in its personnel The disengagement process in these areas after the clashes involves joint verification on at the Finger Four on the North the ground regarding the troop bank of the Pangong Tso. The and equipment pullback to a patrolling limits and buffer mutually agreed distance from zones in areas found no menthe face-off sites. Sources told tion in the agreement for Demthis newspaper that the verifi- chok and Depsang Plains. MAYAN K S INGH @ New Delhi TV5 owner B R Naidu is the new TTD chairman D S u r e n d r a K u m a r @ Tirupati The Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday announced the new governing board of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), with TV5 owner Bollineni Rajagopal Naidu, popularly known as B R Naidu, as the chairman. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s selection, while widely anticipated, ends weeks of speculation surrounding the composition of the TTD board. B R Naidu Wi t h t h re e MLAs from Andhra Pradesh, five from Telangana, three from Karnataka, two from Tamil Nadu, and one each from Gujarat and Maharashtra, the Board includes a diverse group of people. Another member is likely to be appointed soon, with the nomination anticipated to come from the BJP an al, liance partner. Former Union minister Panabaka Lakshmi, former Chief Justice of India H L Dattu and Bharat Biotech Cofounder Suchitra Ella found seats on the TTD board. express read Kannada actor gets interim bail in murder case Bengaluru: Kannada actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, arrested four months ago in the Renukaswamy murder case, was granted interim bail for six weeks by the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday to undergo spine surgery. His friend Pavithra Gowda is a co-accused in the case | P5 Chennai corpn bins move to charge fee for soccer turfs Chennai: Following strong opposition, Chennai Corporation has withdrawn its decision to levy user charge for football turfs. Mayor R Priya announced the decision on Wednesday. The civic body had planned to charge an hourly user fee of `1,200 for teams | P4 Let there be light Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra general secretary Champat Rai offer prayers at the Ram Mandir on the eve of the Diwali festival, in Ayodhya on Wednesday. This is the first Diwali after the Ram Lalla idol was consecrated in the temple | PTI A Canadian minister admitted before a parliamentary panel that he outed Union home minister Amit Shah’s name to a US newspaper as having allegedly ordered a campaign of violence, intimidation and intelligence-gathering targeting Sikh separatists inside Canada. Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison told members of the national security committee that he had confirmed Shah’s name to The Washington Post, which first reported the allegations in connection with the murder of Khalistani radical Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June last year. But Morrison did not share any proof of Shah’s alleged involvement in the case. “The journalist called me and asked if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person,” Morrison told the committee. Bilateral relations went into deeper freeze after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently alleged that the Indian government had a role in the killing Nijjar. Both sides expelled six diplomats each. While India accuses Canada of not even sharing a shread of evidence to support its theory, the latter claims it has ample proof. Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, told the committee that Canada has evidence the India gathered information on Indian nationals and Canadian citizens in Canada through diplomatic channels and proxies. The information was then passed to a gangster, Lawrence Bishnoi. @ Madurai “Privacy as a fundamental right includes spousal privacy and evidence obtained by invading this right is inadmissible,” said the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently while ruling on the admissibility of phone call records as evidence in a divorce case. Justice GR Swaminathan made the observation while de- ciding on a petition filed by a woman against an order passed by a subordinate court in Paramakudi which had dismissed her plea to reject the mobile call records obtained by her husband without her consent. The husband had submitted the call data before the lower court to prove his charge of adultery against the wife. The judge cited several verdicts pro- nounced by courts across the world on the issue. While deliberating on the reasons attributed by Indian courts for admitting such evidence, the judge noted that the most common justification came in the form of Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, 1984, which allows Family Courts to receive inadmissible evidence. Disagreeing with the above view, Justice Swaminathan The annual Diwali celebration for the Indo-Canadian community at Parliament Hill was abruptly cancelled by Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre. According to the organisers, the Overseas Friends of India Canada, this was communicated to them abruptly without any explanation. The festival had been celebrated there for the past 23 years New rules in place to analyse, grade bomb threat to flights MU K E S H RAN J AN @ New Delhi Motorists were caught unawares by the sudden downpour in Chennai on Wednesday | P Ravikumar Downpour batters Chennai; rain alert for 15 dists today E X P RE S S NEW S S ERVICE @ Chennai Parts of Chennai received a heavy spell of rain on Wednesday afternoon, dampening Deepavali festivities briefly in the city Anna Nagar West recorded 11cm of . rainfall, with around 10cm being received in an hour. Kolathur, Villivakkam, Korattur, Ambattur, Padi, KK Nagar, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, Ashok Nagar and Valasaravakkam, too, recorded heavy downpour. “About 100mm in one hour of which 78mm recorded in just 30 minutes between 12.10 and 12.40pm was one of the heaviest spells in recent days. Even during the 213mm rainfall recorded on October 15, we did not see such consistently heavy showers,” said weather blogger K Srikanth. Villivakkam recorded around 9cm of rain while Kolathur and Shenoy Nagar recorded around 7cm. The surprise showers resulted in temporary waterlogging in Korattur, Padi, Anna Nagar, Ambattur, Teynampet and KK Nagar areas. By late afternoon, water drained in most places without manual intervention. But localised waterlogging was witnessed in some places, including VOC Nagar in Anna Nagar East and 4th street of C Sector in Second Avenue, where water failed to drain even after a few hours. The Regional Meteorological Centre said that on Deepavali day on Thursday , there may be isolated heavy rain in 15 districts — Dindigul, Madurai, Tiruchy, Karur, Namakkal, Salem, Erode, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Tirupattur, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur and Perambalur.  Continued on p5 Spousal privacy a fundamental right: HC in divorce case J EGA D EE S WARI PAN D IAN Diwali fest on Parliament Hill off said there is no legislative validation for evidence obtained by violating the fundamental right to privacy . The discretionary power conferred on the family court under Section 14 cannot be an excuse for courts to carve out exceptions on their own, he added. Justice Swaminathan also referred to the 94th Report of the Law Commission of India that suggested exclusion of evidence unlawfully obtained in criminal cases. P5 There’s no legislative validation for evidence obtained by violating the fundamental right to privacy Judge, Madras HC The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has issued new rules to deal with the recent avalanche of bomb threats to flights across the country They include . figuring out the pseudonymous or anonymous nature of the social media handle from where the threat emerges, geopolitical analysis and the presence of VIPs on board before determining the nature of the threat, officials said on Wednesday . If the threat is categorised as specific, it would trigger the whole range of established security protocols of diverting an aircraft, sending it to an isolation bay, and conducting fresh anti-sabotage checks of passeng ers and their belongings. But if it is determined a hoax, the flight will be allowed to proceed normally Hun. dreds of hoax calls were categorised as non-specific ever since the new rules kicked in on October 19, avoiding all the hassle, sources said. Before the rules were revamped, all flights that received bomb threats had to be immediately grounded for security check. Over the past few weeks, over 510 flights received hoax bomb threats. Recently the National Investigation Agency , positioned its cyber wing personnel with the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC) and stationed them at each of the major airports across the country. The BTAC is tasked with analysing the threat and decide whether it is specific or serious or non-specific or hoax.