Belgian court orders Choksi’s extradition A court in Antwerp on Friday cleared the extradition of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi, noting that his arrest by the Belgian authorities on India’s request was valid. Choksi (66) was arrested in Belgium on April 11 this year on an extradition request sent by the CBI, they said. He will be housed in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai Mehul Choksi hubballi l saturday l october 18, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 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 Key dates November 1 to 7 Vote chori: SIT raids ex-MLA Guttedar’s house E x p r ess Ne w s S e r v i c e @ Kalaburagi The CID’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Friday raided two locations in connection with the alleged voter list tampering case (vote chori) in the Aland constituency . Separate teams of officials searched the residences of former BJP MLA Subhash Guttedar in Gubbi Colony and Mallikarjun Mahantagol in Vivekananda Nagar. The officials reportedly examined several documents during the operation. Sources said SIT officials h ave b een camping in Kalaburagi for the past three days and have so far raided five locations, scrutinising documents. The raid at Guttedar’s house is significant, coming ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections. Option for citizens to do self-enumeration November 10 to 30 Pre-test of first phase in select locations in all states and Union territories. First phase includes Houselisting and Housing Census Apr 1, 2026 to Feb 28, 2027 Actual Census-2027 exercise in two phases Phase-1 Phase-2 From April 1, 2026: Includes Houselisting, compiling data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household Scheduled to begin on Feb 1, 2027: Population Enumeration, demo- graphic, socioeconomic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded Census-2027 system pre-test from Nov 10 M U K E S H RAN J AN @ New Delhi Setting the testing process of Census2027 in motion, the Centre on Friday said the first phase of the Population Census will be conducted in select areas across states and Union Territories from November 10 to 30. Parallelly, a digital self-enumeration window for citizens will be open from November 1 to 7, a gazette notification issued by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, said. The pre-test aims to assess the efficacy of the Census, which will be conducted between April 1, 2026 and February 28, 2027, in two phases. The test is meant to check for bugs in the systems, identify challenges and refine methods before the full-scale Census. Census-2027 will be the first such digital exercise in India. Caste enumeration too will be done for the first time after Independence. During the test phase, all aspects of the exercise — from questions, data collection, training, logistics and mobile application to software performance — will be assessed to rectify procedural/ technical issues. In Phase-1, the Houselisting Operation, data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. In Phase-2, the Population Enumeration (PE), demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded. The PE is scheduled to begin on February 1, officials said. The reference date for the Census is March 1, 2027, for most parts of India, while for Ladakh and snow-bound regions of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it will be October 1, 2026. Over 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors, along with around 1.3 lakh Census functionaries, will be deployed for the massive data collection exercise. This will be India’s 16th Census since the exercise began and the eighth after Independence. The official Gazette notification of the government’s intent to conduct the Census was published on June 16. Self-enumeration from November 1-7 A digital self-enumeration window for citizens will be open from November 1 to 7. It, too, will be part of the pre-test before the actual rollout of the exercise on April 1, 2026, officials said Dy CM, 19 freshers in new Gujarat ministry D i l i p S i n g h K s h at r i ya @ Ahmedabad Gujarat on Friday witnessed a total reset of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel’s ministerial team ahead of the local body elections, with the elevation Harsh Sanghvi as Deputy Chief Minister in a 26-member ministry that includes 19 freshers. The reshuffle blends caste arithmetic, political muscle and strategic messaging, while dropping several old and Congressorigin ministers. Sanghvi took the oath first, marking his formal elevation as Deputy Chief Minister, a position held by only five others in Gujarat’s political history. His rise is more than ceremonial as it cements his place as a key power centre in the government and reflects the BJP’s calibrated grooming of its next rung of leadership. The new ministry has seven Patidars, eight OBCs, three members of the Scheduled Castes, four Scheduled Tribes, and three women, including Rivaba Jadeja, wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja. Rivaba’s entry is both symbolic and tactical it blends celebrity pull with electoral arithmetic in Jamnagar. Of the 16 ministers in the outgoing ministry only six were retained while 10 others , were axe. Of the 25 members of the new council of ministers, nine are of cabinet rank, three MoS with independent charge and 13 MoS. HC restrains state from making appointments based on internal quota E x p r ess Ne w s S e r v i c e @ Bengaluru In a major development, the Karnataka High Court has restrained the state government from making appointments to the state civil services based on a notification dated August 25, 2025 introducing internal reservation for Scheduled Castes (SC) and sub-classifying the communities into three different groups. Passing an interim order on a petition filed by the Confederation of Untouchable Nomadic Communities of Karnataka and others belonging to nomadic and semi-nomadic castes under SCs, Justice Suraj Govindaraj clarified that the recruitment process can go on, but appointments cannot be made based on such a process. Granting time till November 5 to the state to file objections, the court adjourned the hearing to November 13. Praying the court to quash the notification, saying it is contrary to various judgments of the apex court, the petitioners stated that the government divided various SC communities into three groups A, B and C and distributed the 17% reservation. But the commission headed by retired high court judge Justice Nagamohan Das had recommended five groups after surveying the communities in early 2025. The sub-categorisation by the state government is unscientific, irrational and without adequate determining principles, their petition stated. They alleged that the state government came up with its own formula without adhering to the recommendations of the commission. The nomadic communities that the petitioners belong to are placed in Group-C with 5% reservation, below Groups A and B, which have been given 6% reservation.