hyderabad l thursday l september 25, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 l late city EDITION Govt approves `70,000 Crore package to boost shipbuilding The Union cabinet on Wednesday cleared a `69,725 crore package to revitalise India’s shipbuilding sector and reduce dependence on foreign ships File Photo Push for atmanirbharta in shipping sector more medical seats at PG, UG levels The package will extend the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme, help launch a National Shipbuilding Mission, and set up a Maritime Development Fund. It is designed to boost domestic shipbuilding capacity and create substantial job and investment opportunities. It comes a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for Atmanirbharta in the shipping sector ■ ■ In other decisions, the cabinet approved the construction of a 4-lane highway and the doubling of a rail line in Bihar for `6,000 crore | P7 It also cleared proposals to strengthen and upgrade existing central and state government medical colleges and add 5,000 postgraduate medical seats and 5,023 MBBS seats at a cost of `15,034 crore `95,000 cr worth proposals approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday 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 Roll revision ‘dirty trick’ of BJP, says CWC 2 1) People gather outside the burning BJP office building in Leh after it was set ablaze by protesters; 2) Smoke billows out after a structure was torched; 3) People outside the burning Council Secretariat building that was the target of an arson attack | pti 5 KILLED in Leh riots R a m a s h a n k a r @ Patna Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday claimed that ‘mini-hydrogen, hydrogen, uranium and plutonium bombs’ were being readied for further exposing ‘vote chori’ (vote theft) by the ruling BJP in the next one month. He was speaking at the extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at Sadaqat Ashram, the party’s headquarters in Bihar. A political resolution adopted at the meeting dealt with several issues, including ‘vote theft’ and the Special InRahul Gandhi tensive Revision (SIR) of polls rolls in the election-bound Bihar. The CWC lauded Rahul for boldly exposing ‘vote theft’ and fighting ‘brazen attempts to subvert democracy’. It described the SIR in Bihar as another dirty trick from the BJP’s toolkit to manipulate electoral rolls. “Their aim is clear: to disenfranchise the poor, workers, backward classes and minorities,” it alleged. P8 1 80 hurt as violent protesters seeking statehood for Ladakh clash with police; BJP office torched F AYA Z WA N I @ Srinagar AT least five persons were killed and 80 others suffered injuries in Leh district of Ladakh Union Territory on Wednesday as protests demanding statehood and inclusion under Sixth Schedule turned violent. The angry young protesters pelted stones at policemen, torched the BJP office, and damaged public property. Some of the injured are in serious condition. According to sources, tension was brewing since Tuesday after two persons fell ill and had to be hospitalised during the ongoing hunger strike led by climate activist Sonam Wangchuk demanding Sixth Schedule benefits and right & wrong Karnataka HC rejects X’s plea on purge of content statehood for Ladakh. Following the violence, Wangchuk called off his hunger strike. On Wednesday, hundreds of youths took to the streets in Leh in response to a call by the Leh Apex Body for shutdown. Chanting slogans like “We will not beg for our rights,” the protesters clashed with security personnel. The youth pelted stones at policemen, who retaliated by firing tear smoke shells and resorting to baton charge. The protesters then set afire police vehicles and a BJP office. They also pelted stones on some government offices. Intense clashes continued throughout the day, resulting in casualties and injuries. Violence will defeat our five years efforts and agitation for statehood and 6th Schedule status to Ladakh Those responsible for orchestrating violence to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in Ladakh will be identified and stern action will be taken against them — Activist Sonam Wangchuk — Ladakh Lt Governor Kavinder Gupta The authorities clamped prohibitory orders and booked a Congress leader for allegedly making a provocative speech at the hunger strike venue. Speaking to this newspaper, LAB co-chairman Chering Dorjey said: “We have been agitating peacefully but it went out of control. There was anger; people were disappointed over the delay in talks and were perturbed over October 6 being fixed as the date for talks and not this month.” In its pushback, the Union home ministry charged that the violence was engineered by those trying to sabotage the dialogue process between the Centre and Ladakh groups. It said Wangchuk misled people through provocative mention of Arab Springstyle protests and references to Gen Z protests in Nepal. E x p r e s s Re a d India with Ukraine: Zelenskyy 1st HCA GCC outside US in Hyd HC stays ‘OG’ ticket price hike New Delhi: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that India along with China is a key funder of Russia’s war effort, asserting that Delhi is “mostly with Ukraine” | P9 Hyderabad: IT and Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu on Wednesday inaugurated HCA Healthcare’s Global Capability Centre (GCC) at Raidurg. This is the first GCC of the healthcare major outside the United States | P4 Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court, in interim orders, on Wednesday suspended a state government memo dated September 19, 2025, which allowed higher ticket prices for the Telugu film OG | P5 Yat h i r a j u @ Bengaluru The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday rejected a petition by X Corp challenging the authority of the government to issue content takedown orders under the Information Technology Act. No one can assume that they can treat the Indian marketplace as a mere playground where information can be disseminated in defiance of statutes or disregard to legality and later adopt a , posture of detachment, the court said. The petitioner urged the court to declare that Section 79(3)(b) of the Infor mation Technology Act, 2000 does not confer the authority on the Government of India to issue information-blocking orders under the Act. “The petitioner’s platform is subject to a regulatory regime in the USA... Under the Take It Down Act of the US, it chooses to follow the said Act as it criminalises the violation of orders of takedown, but the same petitioner refuses to follow the same in the shores of this nation (India),” said Justice M Nagaprasanna. “Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution, right to free speech and expression, is hedged by restrictions under Article 19(2) and is always subject to those reasonable restrictions,” the court observed. 3 16x16 HC allows TGPSC to proceed with Gr-1 appointments T G N a i d u @ Hyderabad In major relief to 563 successful Group-1 candidates, a bench of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday suspended an earlier order of a single judge that had set aside the results. The bench, comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin, allowed the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC) to issue appointment orders. It clarified that all appointments would remain provisional, subject to the outcome of writ appeals pending before the court. The appeals are scheduled for further hearing on October 15, 2025, with both sides required to submit written synopses by October 10, 2025. Earlier, on September 9, 2025, Justice N Rajeshwar Rao had set aside the final marks list (March 10, 2025) and general ranking list (March 30, 2025), directing TGPSC to manually re-evaluate all Group-1 Mains answer scripts following the method in Sanjay Singh vs. UPPSC (2007). If that proved unfeasible, a fresh Mains examination was to be conducted for all candidates who cleared prelims, Justice Rajeshwar Rao had said.  continued on P5