In a strong validation for India’s case, a court in Antwerp on Friday cleared the extradition of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi to India time’s up for mehul choksi as belgian court okays extradition Key accused in K13,000 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 kollam l saturday l October 18, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 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 2025 November 1 to 7 Pre-test of first phase in select locations in all states and Union territories. First phase includes Houselisting and Housing Census Potti swindled 2kg sabarimala gold, says SIT Remand report 2027 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 2026 Phase-1 From April 1, 2026: Includes 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 E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @T’Puram Unnikrishnan Potti swindled around 2kg of gold from the Sabarimala artifacts after taking them to Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the remand report filed by the special investigation team (SIT) in the court has revealed. After hours-long interrogation, the SIT on early Friday morning arrested Potti, a priest-tur ned-businessman, who is the prime accused in the two cases registered in connection with the Sabarimala gold theft. He was later produced in the Ranni Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, which sent him in 14-day SIT custody . The SIT remand report said Potti worked as an assistant to a temple priest at Sabarimala between 2004 and 2008 and was aware that the copper plates of dwarapalaka idols Census system test for first phase from Nov 10 To check for system bugs, identify challenges, refine operations MUKESH RAN J AN @ 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 be- tween 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, socio-economic, 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. press Intake Zelenskyy to push for arms as he meets Don | P9 SC sets up equal Ex-SC judge to opportunity panel to probe Leh riot protect trans people F aya z W a n i @ Srinagar SUCHITRA KALYAN MOHANTY @ New Delhi E X P RE S S RE A D Gujarat cabinet rejig: CM brings 19 fresh faces Gandhinagar: In a major reshuffle, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Friday inducted 19 fresh faces in his council of ministers and retained six from his previous team, including Harsh Sanghavi who was elevated as Deputy CM. With this rejig, the total strength of the council of ministers has now gone up to 26, including the CM, from 17 earlier. The cabinet restructuring took place two years before the state assembly elections in 2027 and months ahead of the local bodies polls. 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 matter,” 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 for. mulated 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 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 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 months-long agitation. D o g g e d C P I D i v e r g e nc e Coconut and gold fuel Kerala’s inflation R a j e s h R a v i @ Kochi Kerala’s deep love for coconut — and gold — is sending its inflation soaring, far above the national average — making it one of the most fascinating economic outliers in the country . In September, Kerala’s inflation rate inched up to 9.05% from 9% in August — the highest rates among major states — while the national average cooled to 1.54% from 2.07% over the same month-on-month period. According to SBI Research, the oil and fats component, particularly with the steep rise in coconut oil prices, is driving this trend, which has been exacerbated by local preferences and the climate-related impact on coconut production. With gold prices rising to new highs, Kerala’s consumer price index (CPI) has been further fuelled by its higher weighting for personal care, which includes the yellow metal. The numbers are stark: Gold inflation stands at 46.87% yearon-year, silver at 41.75%, while coconut oil prices have surged 108.70%. Coconut and copra inflation touched 73.67%. Paras Jasrai, senior analyst at India Ratings and Research, told TNIE that gold prices have nearly doubled over the past year, and with the precious metal accounting for a major share in Kerala’s consumption basket, this surge has sharply pushed up inflation. The “miscellaneous” category — covering gold and other services — recorded a steep 10.2% rise in the first half of ● More on P4 FY26. While food inflation has dropped nationwide, Kerala’s food and beverages inflation stayed inflated at 8.5% over the same period, reflecting how local tastes and habits can shape a state’s economic story Paras Jasrai, senior analyst at India Ratings & Research were clad in gold in 1998. Conniving with the other nine accused, which include staff of Travancore Devaswom Board, he swindled gold weighing about 2kg from dwarapalaka idols and pillars, under the guise of maintenance. With the help of Smart Creations, Chennai, the gold was removed from the plates, and to cover it up, 394 gm gold was plated on them, the report said. It said Potti made financial gains by exhibiting gold plates of dwarapalaka idols and pillars in various places. He received gold from sponsors under the pretext of repairing the plates. However, the gold received in that manner was not fully used, it said. The court granted the SIT 14-day custody of Potti after the team contended that his sustained questioning was required to unravel the involvement of the co-accused in the ● More on P5 cases.  The gold-cladded sheets of the dwarapalaka idols at the Sabarimala temple, which were taken for gold plating, being reinstalled on Friday | Express Gold-plated Dwarapalaka sheets reinstalled Pathanamthitta: The restored gold-clad copper plates of the dwarapalaka idols were reinstalled at the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple on Friday, coinciding with the opening of the hill shrine for the five-day monthly poojas. Soon after the opening rituals, the restored goldplated copper sheets were affixed to the dwarapalaka idols that stand on either side of the sanctum. P5