kochi l saturday l October 18, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 l late city EDITION time’s up for mehul choksi as belgian court okays extradition In a strong validation for India’s case, a court in Antwerp on Friday cleared the extradition of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi to India Key accused in K13,000 cr pnb fraud case to be housed in mumbai’s arthur road jail 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 ■ ■ 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 November 1 to 7 2026 2027 Apr 1, 2026 to Feb 28, 2027 Actual Census-2027 exercise in 2 phases Option for citizens to do self-enumeration Pre-test of first phase in select locations in all states and Union territories. First phase includes Houselisting and Housing Census Phase-1 Phase-2 From April 1, 2026: Includes Houselisting, compiling data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household November 10 to 30 Population Enumeration, demographic, socio-economic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded Scheduled to begin on Feb 1, 2027: Census system test for first phase from Nov 10 M U K ESH R ANJAN @ 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 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 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. 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. Potti swindled 2kg sabarimala gold, says SIT Remand report were clad in gold in 1998. Conniving with the other nine acUnnikrishnan Potti swincused, which include staff of dled around 2kg of gold from Travancore Devaswom Board, the Sabarimala artifacts after he swindled gold weighing taking them to Karnataka, about 2kg from dwarapalaka Andhra Pradesh and Tamil idols and pillars, under the Nadu, the remand report filed guise of maintenance. With by the special investigation the help of Smart Creations, team (SIT) in the Chennai, the gold court has was removed revealed. from the plates, After hoursand to cover it long interrogaup, 394g gold was tion, the SIT on plated on them, early on Friday the report said. It said Potti arrested Potti, a made financial p riest-tur ned gains by exhibitbusinessman, ing gold plates of who is the prime dwarapalaka accused in the idols and pillars two cases regisin various plactered in conneces. He received tion with the gold from sponSabarimala gold sors on the pretheft. He was lat- Unnikrishnan Potti being text of repairing er produced be- brought out of court in Ranni the plates. Howfore the Ranni on Friday | Shaji Vettipuram ever, the gold that Judicial First was received was not fully Class Magistrate Cour t, used, it said. which sent him to 14-day SIT The court granted the SIT custody . The SIT remand report said 14-day custody of Potti after Potti worked as an assistant to the team contended that his a temple priest at Sabarimala sustained questioning was rebetween 2004 and 2008 and quired to unravel the involvewas aware that the copper ment of the co-accused in the ● More on P5 plates of dwarapalaka idols cases.  E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @T’Puram 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 S U C HI T R A K A LYAN M O HAN T Y @ New Delhi EXPRESS READ 19 freshers in new Gujarat ministry 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 of Harsh Sanghvi as Deputy Chief Minister in a 26-member ministry that includes 19 freshers. P8 16 pages, including 4 pages of KOCHI Express 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 . A bench headed by Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan 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. 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 directed the Centre to come . out with an “equal opportunity policy” within three months of a report submitted by an advisory panel. The advisory panel will be headed by Justice Asha Menon, former judge of the Delhi High Court. 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’. 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. e c o n o m i c o u t l i er 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 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% year-on-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 ● More on P4 first half of FY26. The gold-plated sheets of the dwarapalaka idols at the Sabarimala temple, which were taken for restoration, being reinstalled on Friday | Express Gold-plated dwarapalaka idol sheets reinstalled How Sabarimala sponsor walked into his own trap Pathanamthitta: The restored gold-plated copper sheets of the dwarapalaka idols were reinstalled at the Sabarimala temple on Friday, coinciding with the opening of the hill shrine for the five-day monthly poojas. Soon after the opening rituals, the restored gold-plated copper sheets were affixed to the dwarapalaka idols that stand on either side of the sanctum. P5 Pathanamthitta: Unnikrishnan Potti’s dramatic fall began the day he stepped into the spotlight. His allegation that the pedestal of dwarapalaka idols were missing triggered a storm. However, within days, the devaswom vigilance recovered the missing pedestal from his sister’s house. That discovery led sleuths to “a larger operation involving theft and replacement of temple assets”.P5