Meloni moment as Pak PM bats for Nobel to Don Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif speaks as US President Donald Trump and Britain’s PM Keir Starmer, flanked by Italian premier Georgia Meloni, watch during the Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh early on Tuesday. It was a facepalm moment for Meloni as soon as Sharif pitched Trump for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize villupuram l Wednesday l October 15, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l city EDITION 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 Amid rift buzz, BJP’s first list out ‘threat to states’ SC extends stay over ED probe in Tasmac case Deputy CM Samrat Chaudhary and former Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav get tickets r a m a s h a n k a r @ Patna SUCHITRA KA LYAN MOHANTY @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended its order restraining the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from taking any coercive action against the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) in the alleged `21,000 crore scam till a three-judge bench rules on the review pleas challenging certain provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Kapil Sibal, appearing for TN and Tasmac, questioned the ED’s action citing Section 66(2) of PMLA which requires the ED to share with competent authority information about the commission of a predicate offence. Kapil Sibal told a bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran that 47 FIRs were filed against liquor outlet operators over allegations of corruption from 2014-21, but ED entered the scene in 2025 and raided the Tasmac headquarters and took the phones and devices of its officers. “Who is ED to investigate corruption,” asked Sibal. The CJI-bench asked whether the ED’s actions would not amount to encroaching upon the state’s investigative powers. “What happens to federal structure? Who controls law and order,” CJI Gavai asked.  P5 Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian (R) at an event in Delhi | Express $15 bn Google AI hub joint venture in Vizag R a k e s h K u m a r @ New Delhi Technology giant Google on Tuesday announced a partnership with Adani Enterprises and Airtel to develop India’s largest AI data centre campus and new green energy infrastructure in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The new hub will bunch AI infrastructure, data centre capacity new large-scale , energy sources, and an expanded fiber-optic network at one place. The 1-GW hyperscale Google Data Centre is expected to generate approximately `10,000 crore in revenue for Andhra Pradesh. Google’s investment of about $15 billion (USD) over five years (2026– 2030) will create 5,000–6,000 direct jobs and 20,000–30,000 total jobs in the state. The MoU was signed in the presence of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh, and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. Kurian said this is the company’s largest investment outside the US. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a social media post, said that the multi-faceted investment aligns with the vision to build a Viksit Bharat. “It will be a powerful force in democratizing technology It will . also ensure AI for All, delivering cutting-edge tools to our citizens, boosting our digital economy and securing India’s place as a global technology leader!” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said through this gigawattscale initiative, “we will bring our industry-leading technology to enterprises and users in India, accelerating AI innovation and driving growth across the country .” Amid speculations that the NDA seat-sharing deal has left him grumpy Janata Dal (Unit, ed) chief Nitish Kumar on Tuesday gave away tickets, bypassing the earlier practice of announcing names of candidates at a press conference. On the same day BJP which , , is now on an equal political pedestal as the JD(U) in terms of seats contested, released the first list of 71 candidates, nine of whom are women. Springing a surprise, the BJP denied a ticket to Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav, a seven-term legislator, while fielding Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary in a direct election after over a decade. Chaudhary has been fielded Dad Lalu proposes, son disposes RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav late on Monday night gave away party tickets to 10 candidates at his home, but was stopped when his son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav insisted that the ticket distribution should take place only after consultation with alliance partners. The candidates were then asked to return their tickets, though enthusiastic ones like Sunil Singh, who quit JD(U) to join the RJD, went ahead and filed their nomination | P8 from Tarapur in Munger while his colleague and deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha will contest from Lakhisarai. Rajiv Kumar Singh of the JD(U) had won the Tarapur seat in the by-election held in 2021. This time, the seat has gone to BJP . Samrat Chaudhary, a member of the legislative council (MLC), recently hogged the limelight after Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor accused him of misleading courts about his real age to get reprieve in a murder case. Nand Kishore Yadav, a veteran MLA from Patna Sahib has been replaced by new candidate, Ratnesh Kushwaha. Former Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav, who lost to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s eldest daughter Misa Bharti in the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Patliputra, has been fielded elephant population down 18% j i t e n d r a c h o u b e y @ New Delhi INDIA’S elephant population has plummeted by approximately 18% since the 2017 census, marking the third consecutive decline since 2012. The steepest drops occurred in the Northeast Hills, Brahmaputra floodplains, and Central India, with Karnataka retaining the highest elephant numbers, followed by Assam. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), responsible for the census, adopted a new DNA- based mark-recapture technique for the 2021-2025 estim at e, re n d e r i n g d i re c t comparisons with prior counts impossible. Unlike previous methods—direct counts, waterhole surveys, footprint mapping, and thermal imagery—the new approach establishes a fresh baseline for future monitoring. The latest estimate pegs India’s Asian elephant population around 22,446 (range: 18,255–26,645), a loss of over 4,000 elephants since 2017’s count of 27,312, which was down 3,000 from 2012. The Western Ghats host the largest population at 11,934 (down from 11,960 in 2017), followed by the Northeast Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains at 6,559 (down from 10,139). The Shivalik Hills report 2,062 elephants (slightly down from 2,085), while Central India and the Eastern Ghats have 1,891, a sharp decline from 3,128. from Danapur, the seat currently held by criminal-turned politician Ritlal Yadav. Sources said the JD(U) boss is peeved over a few seats allotted either to the BJP or the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas). LJP has got 29 seats, despite not having a single MLA. It appears that Kumar, who is known to dump allies and forge new coalitions at will, was angry that his party was not given the lion’s share in the seat deal. It was not clear at the time of going to press how many JD(U) candidates got tickets during the day. However, prominent among those who did are minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav, state JD(U) chief Umesh Kushwaha (Mahnar) and gangster-turned-politician Anant Kumar Singh. express read Ensure 20% pulp content in mango beverages: CM Chennai: CM MK Stalin has requested PM Narendra Modi to instruct the mango fruitbased beverage manufacturing industries to ensure at least 18%20% pulp content in beverages to increase pulp off-take and to improve beverage quality. 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