KOCHI l friday l october 10, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 18 l LATE city EDITION exam centres to be allocated based on aadhaar addresses Starting from 2026-27 academic session, the NTA will assign exam centres for JEE Main, NEET-UG, and CUET-UG solely on Aadhaar card address new policy aims to enhance fairness Candidates will no longer have the option to select preferred test cities, unlike the previous system allowing three to four choices. The policy aims to enhance fairness by reducing instances of impersonation and cheating during national-level entrance exams. Rural students will benefit from centres assigned closer to their Aadhaar-based addresses Jan ’26 strict verification rules in the offing ■ Candidates studying away from their permanent addresses must ensure their Aadhaar details are updated; name and date of birth on Aadhaar must exactly match Class 10 marksheet, NTA has said ■ SC, ST, OBC, EWS, and PwD candidates must ensure their category certificates match both Aadhaar and Class 10 records for benefits is when The new centre allocation system will debut with JEE (Main) 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 PM calls Trump, hails Gaza truce, discusses trade and Qatari officials, it marks the first phase of a 20-point USPRIME Minister Narendra backed peace framework. Modi on Thursday held a phone “We welcome the agreement conversation US President Don- on the first phase of President ald Trump, congratulating him Trump’s peace plan. This is also on the announcement of the a reflection of the strong leaderGaza ceasefire deal and review- ship of Prime Minister Netaning the status of bilateral trade yahu,” Modi said. negotiations. Modi described The Modi-Trump call also reTrump as a “friend” in a post on vives the possibility of a meetX and praised the “success of ing between the two later this the historic Gaza peace plan”. month on the sidelines of the “ I s p o ke t o m y ASEAN Summit in friend, President Kuala Lumpur. Both Trump, congratulathave been invited, and ing him on the success going by the diplomatof the historic Gaza ic calendar, it may be We hope the release of peace plan. We also rethe last multilateral hostages and viewed the progress in event this year where enhanced trade negotiations and they can meet. “This is humanitarian agreed to remain in a multifaceted relaassistance to the close contact in the tionship. We are confipeople of Gaza coming weeks,” Modi will bring respite dent of sailing through posted on X. to them and pave this phase,” said a Later, Modi called Is- the way for lasting source, adding “the peace raeli Prime Minister trade ne gotiations Benjamin Netanyahu have been going on Narendra Modi, PM and congratulated him and the next round is for the peace deal. Acbeing planned.” cording to a statement by the Trade tensions between India I s r a e l i P M O, N e t a n ya h u and the US escalated after ‘paused’ the security cabinet Washington imposed a 50% tarmeeting discussing the Gaza iff on certain Indian goods. deal to take Modi’s call. While talks have resumed, The Gaza deal—announced many sticking points remain. by Trump on Truth Social—in“The relationship is going cludes a ceasefire, the release of through an unexpected patch,” all hostages held in Gaza, a par- said a source familiar with the tial withdrawal of Israeli forc- talks, adding, “despite that, es, and a large-scale prisoner there is a strong personal equaexchange. Negotiated in Cairo tion between Modi and Trump.” Joy, relief in Gaza: P9 with the US, Israeli, Egyptian,  J AYA N T H J ACOB @ New Delhi Much-awaited NH 66 to be reality by Jan, says Riyas E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @T’Puram The highly-anticipated national highway project, NH 66, will be inaugurated in January. Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate the completed stretches of the 678-km-long highway state Public , Works Minister P A Mohamed Riyas said on Thursday . The decision was taken during a meeting that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Riyas held with Gadkari earlier in the day After the meeting, Riyas told reporters that over . 450 km of the highway project is already over. At the meeting, it was decided that a number of other projects, including the Palakkad-Kozhikode Greenfield Highway which would reduce travel time between the two , cities to one-and-a-half-hours from the current 3-4 hours, ● More on P4 would also be inaugurated in January  . ‘Global stability pillar’: £350 mn missile deal part of deepening ties with the UK J aya nth J a c o b @ New Delhi India and the UK on Thursday cemented a new phase in their evolving relationship, unveiling a wide-ranging set of agreements across trade, defence, education and technology, as prime ministers Narendra Modi and Keir Starmer expressed a strong commitment to build on the momentum of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) signed in July and highlighted a deepening strategic alignment amid shifting global power dynamics. “India and the UK are natural partners. In today’s time of global uncertainty our growing partner, ship stands as an important pillar of global stability and economic progress,” Modi said after the meeting with Starmer. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his UK counterpart Keir Starmer in Mumbai | PTI Both leaders hailed the potential of CETA to double bilateral trade by 2030 through tariff cuts, greater market access, and enhanced investment. Accompanied by the UK’s largest-ever business and academic delegation to India, Starmer described India as a “global player” with a “remarkable growth story”. Cong pinning hopes on D K Shivakumar magic in Kerala too? K S SR E E J I T H @T’Puram Will there be a D K Shivakumar effect in the Kerala assembly election as had happened in Telangana? The question has popped up with the appointment of Harsha Kanadam, a protégé of the Karnataka deputy CM, as chairperson of the Congress state war room in Thiruvananthapuram to oversee its campaign and strategy formulation. It doesn’t mean Shivakumar will be directly involved in Congress’ election strategy planning, but there are enough straws in the wind that suggest the ace strategist’s possible deep involvement in the process. “Shivakumar had played a pivotal role in the campaign and Congress’ subsequent return to power in Telangana,” a leader from Karnataka told TNIE. “He held no official positions, but was camping in Telangana to oversee the campaign and drawing up strategies. In the last Lok Sabha election also he helped the Congress in Kerala,” he said. Of the five states going to polls next year — Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry the high command pins high hopes on , ● More on P4 Kerala to wrest power.  express read 3 Cong MLAs suspended for assault T’Puram: The assembly session was cut short by a day to end on Thursday as the Opposition intensified protest over the Sabarimala gold-plating issue. Three Congress MLAs, accused of attacking the watch and ward personnel, were suspended hours before the session was to end | P4 18 pages, including 4 pages of KOCHI Express laszlo krasznahorkai Literature Nobel for master of the ‘long form’ e x p r e s s ne w s s e r v i c e @ Chennai LASZLO Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian novelist known for protracted sentences—some of which run into hundreds of pages—and whom a fellow writer termed “master of the apocalypse”, was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday . Krasznahorkai (pronounced CRAS-now-hoar-kay), 71, who has written five major novels, hopped into limelight with his debut Satantango in 1985. The Nobel Committee would go on to term it “a literary sensation” of its time. The book was adapted nine years later by Hungarian film-maker Bela Tarr into a 415-minute-long film acclaimed by many. Tarr also filmed his next masterpiece The Melancholy of Resistance as Werckmeister Harmóniák (2000). This particular novel has one sentence spread over 280 pages, and is known as the book that defined his ouevre to a very great extent. Other famous books include War and War (1999), Seibo there below (2008), and Herscht 07769. Krasznahorkai describes his writing style as “reality examined to the point of madness”. Follows Imre Kertesz Born in Hungary in 1954 into a middle-class Jewish family, Krasznahorkai grew up on the outskirts of Budapest. He is the second Hungarian novelist, after late Imre Kertesz (2002), to bag the Nobel prize A key outcome was the announcement of a £350 million defence deal under which the UK will supply Lightweight Multirole Missiles (LMMs) to the Indian Army The missiles, manufactured . by Thales in Northern Ireland, will not only boost India’s defence capabilities but also support 700 jobs in the UK. The two sides also agreed to move forward with a government-to-government framework for future defence deals and signed a military training cooperation agreement, including an exchange of flying instructors between the Indian Air Force and the UK’s Royal Air Force. In the education sector, the UK announced approvals for two new university campuses in India. Lancaster University will open in Bengaluru and the University of Surrey in Gujarat’s GIFT City P7 . Cancelled luxury bus operators halt Kerala services Passengers travelling to B’luru, Chennai and Hyd stranded as operators stop trips alleging assault on drivers | P5