kalaburagi l saturday l october 18, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l city EDITION time’s up for mehul choksi as belgian court okays extradition Key accused in `13,000 cr pnb fraud case Choksi is a key accused in the over $1.6 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, along with his nephew Nirav Modi. He fled India in January 2018, just before the scam came to light. In November 2023, Choksi reportedly traveled to Belgium for medical treatment. The CBI and ED made an extradition request to Belgium, leading to his arrest on April 11 this year In a strong validation for India’s case, a court in Antwerp on Friday cleared the extradition of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi to India to be housed in mumbai’s arthur road jail ■ ■ Indian authorities have assured their Belgian counterparts that Choksi would be housed in Barrack 12 at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, with no chance of overcrowding or possibility of solitary confinement Nirav Modi, declared a fugitive economic offender, has been lodged in a London jail since he was held there in 2019 based on India’s request Jan 2018 is when pnb officials realised about the massive fraud 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 2025 2026 November 1 to 7 Apr 1, 2026 to Feb 28, 2027 Actual Census-2027 exercise in 2 phases 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 M o h a mme d Ya c o o b @Bengaluru The Karnataka State Contractors’ Association set the December 1 deadline to the state government to release pending dues of Rs 33,000 crore. It threatened to stop all ongoing work across the state. Association president Manjunath R said on Friday that they met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and he promised to address their concerns. “We have waited for 2.5 years. We will wait for 44 more days. If dues remain unpaid, we will not only stop work, but also approach Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal,” he added. “The CM said he will hold a meeting after the festival. If the problem is not resolved, we will complain to the governor in December,” he warned, explaining the plight of contractors, who often switch off their phones during festivals to avoid demands from workers for pending salaries and bonuses. The association claimed that corruption still exists, but their main focus is to get pending dues cleared. “I have said in the letter that the percentage of commission to release the money has doubled. I did not say 40%, 60% or 80% commission. Small contractors are consuming poison. I am not saying there is no bribery in the Congress government. I am not saying there is no commission. We will reveal all in December,” he added. M U K E SH RA N J A N @ New Delhi Setting the testing process of Census-2027 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 The 16-year-old Tanvi Sharma advances to semifinals of BWF World Junior Championships | P13 Houselisting, compiling data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household Phase-2 Scheduled to begin on Feb 1, 2027: Population Enumeration, demographic, socio-economic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded 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, socio-economic, 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 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. The last Census was conducted in 2011. The next one was to done in 2021, but had to be postp oned d ue to t h e C ov i d pandemic. press Intake Siddu says survey for all sections | P4 Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel (left) during the swearing-in ceremony; and Rivaba Jadeja takes her oath of office as a minister in Gandhinagar on Friday | PTI Dy CM, 19 freshers in new Gujarat ministry @ Ahmedabad woman to confirm medal in 17 years From April 1, 2026: Includes To check for system bugs, identify challenges, refine operations D i l i p S i n g h K s h at r i ya historic tanvi 1st indian Phase-1 Census system test for first phase from Nov 10 clear dues Contractors’ assn sets Dec 1 deadline to govt 2027 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 Congress-origin 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 were axed. Hardik Patel sidelined Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor, once fiery faces of agitations that shook the BJP, find themselves sidelined within the party. With other Congress defectors also dropped, the BJP has sent a sharp message: the path to power runs through loyalty SC forms panel to protect transgender rights S U CHITRA K ALYA N M OHA N T Y @ New Delhi In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Friday awarded compensation to a transwoman whose appointment as a teacher was terminated by two private schools in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, respectively, based on her gender identity. The court directed the Centre, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat governments and the school in Gujarat to pay `50,000 each to the petitioner for the discrimination she faced. “We have awarded compensation for the way she was handled, and her services were terminated. We have taken serious cognisance of the mat- ter,” said a bench headed by Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan. The court delivered the verdict on a writ petition filed by Jane Kaushik, who was dismissed from service on account of her gender identity. The court made it clear that it has formulated guidelines till the Government comes out with a policy document. “If any establishment does not have guidelines, we have prescribed that you will follow these guidelines till the Union comes out with a policy it said. ,” The court expressed concern over the discrimination faced by transgenders despite the enactment of a law in 2019, and directed the Centre to come out with an “equal opportunity policy” within three months of a report submitted by an advisory panel. The panel will be headed by Justice Asha Menon, former judge of Delhi High Court. The bench said the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019 and its corresponding rules have been “brutishly reduced to dead letters”, and the Centre and the states have exhibited a ‘grossly apathetic’ attitude towards them. “The community continues to face discrimination and marginalisation, with a scarcity of healthcare, economic opportunities and non-inclusive educational policies adding to their struggles,” the bench said in its order. Ex-SC judge to probe Leh riot F aya z W a n i @ Srinagar THE Union Home Ministry on Friday moved to address a key demand of the protesting Ladakh groups by announcing a judicial inquiry headed by a retired Supreme Court judge into the violent clashes of September 24 in Leh, which claimed four lives, including a 1999 Kargil war veteran. The judicial probe, to be headed by Justice B S Chauhan, will investigate the ‘circumstances leading to the serious law and order situation, the police action and the resultant unfortunate deaths of four people’. Retired district and sessions judge Mohan Singh Parihar will function as judicial File photo secretary, while IAS officer Tushar Anand will be the administrative secretary . The September 24 clashes between security forces and protesters who were demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule status for the Union territory, left four civilians dead and 90 injured, escalating a monthslong agitation. No appointments based on internal quota: HC E x p r e s s N e w s Se 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 announcement of the probe comes as an attempt to restore dialogue with the representatives of the ongoing movement, the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which suspended talks with MHA’s high-powered committee (HPC) following the violence. The decision comes on a day when authorities reimposed restrictions in Leh district of Ladakh ahead of Saturday’s twohour silent march and a blackout called jointly by Leh Apex Body and KDA to push for Sixth Schedule status and statehood for Ladakh. The administration has banned processions in the district without prior approval. Vote chori Former MLA’s house raided in Kalaburagi E x p r e s s N e w s Se 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 have been camping in Kalaburagi for the past three days and have so far raided five locations, scrutinising documents.