vijayawada l saturday l october 18, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l late 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 Custodial torture HC raps police for routine abuse of power E x p r e ss N e ws S e r v ic e @ Vijayawada The Andhra Pradesh High Court has strongly criticized the state police for rampant custodial violence and abuse of power, stating that summoning citizens to police stations, illegal detentions, and brutal beatings have become routine practices. The court emphasized that police must enforce the law, not take it into their own hands, as this violates constitutional rights. The case centers on Golla Jayapal Yadav from Chippagiri village in Kurnool district, who filed a petition in 2016 alleging illegal detention and torture by officers at Kurnool Central Crime Station (CCS). Yadav claims that in 2016-17, police subjected him to severe beatings, leaving him unable to walk even after eight years. Justice Battu Devanand, hearing the petition, expressed shock at the evidence, including photos of Yadav’s injuries, and questioned, “Would anyone beat a person so badly that they can’t move for eight years? This is utterly barbaric.” The court highlighted how Yadav’s complaint led to an FIR against CCS officers, but police dismissed it as ‘false’ without proper evidence or court apP4 proval.  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 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-2 Phase-1 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, demographic, socio-economic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded Census system test for first phase from Nov 10 To check for system bugs, identify challenges, refine operations M U K E S H R A 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 chal- lenges 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 perfor mance — 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 Ex-SC judge to probe Leh riot F aya z W ani @ 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 Lokesh’s ‘Spicy’ post irks K’taka, Pemmasani justifies incentives S Guru S rikanth @ Vijayawada A spicy post by IT Minister Nara Lokesh on October 16, celebrating Google’s AI Data Center investment in Visakhapatnam, has sparked a heated debate on social media. The investment, the largest outside the USA for the tech giant, drew both praise and criticism. Lokesh’s post on X read, “They say Andhra food is spicy . Seems some of our investments are too. Some neighbors are already feeling the burn,” accompanied by symbols of hot chilli and flames. The veiled dig at IT hubs like Karnataka and Telangana drew a strong rebuttal from Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge, who highlighted Andhra Pradesh’s Rs 1.61 lakh crore debt, questioning the state’s boasts about investments. When asked for his take, Minister of State for Rural Development and Communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar defended the need for initial incentives and discounts to build ecosystems for new businesses. “Such sacrifices are essential. Just as launching a new product requires freebies or discounts to attract buyers and ensure progress, Andhra Pradesh—a smaller state—must offer these to draw investors; otherwise, no one would come,” he stated. Pemmasani added that such generous terms may not be extended to future projects or at the same scale, noting that established states like Karnataka have mature ecosystems P4 allowing them greater leverage.  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 D ili p S in g h K shatriya @ 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 Con- gress-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 others were axed. Amid the smooth transition was a quiet purge, particularly of Congress turncoats. Out of five such ministers in the pre- vious cabinet, only two survived — Kunwarji Bavaliya and Arjun Modhwadia. The rest were shown the door. Of the 25 members of the new council of ministers, nine are of cabinet rank, three MoS with independent charge and 13 MoS. Gujarat has seen only five Deputy Chief Ministers in the past: Chiman Patel and Kantilal Ghiya (1972), Keshubhai Patel (1990), Narhari Amin (1994), and Nitin Patel (2016-21). Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which suspended talks with MHA’s highpowered committee (HPC) following the violence. On Friday, authorities reimposed restrictions in Leh district of Ladakh ahead of Saturday’s two-hour 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, any rally or a march in the district without prior written approval of the competent authority . inter-state competition 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. Dy CM, 19 freshers in new Guj ministry 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 monthslong agitation. The probe is an attempt to restore dialogue with representatives of the ongoing movement, the Leh Apex express read DA talks Government to hold talks with employee unions Vijayawada: The AP government will hold discussions with employees’ unions on Saturday to discuss Dearness Allowance (DA) and other financial issues, as directed by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. A group of ministers, including Payyavula Keshav, Nadendla Manohar, and Satya Kumar Yadav, along with Chief Secretary K Vijayanand, will lead the talks with employee association leaders. Despite the government’s financial constraints, the Chief Minister has instructed officials to address employee issues, prompting the meeting. ‘Elephant population in AP nearly doubles’ U sha P e ri @ Visakhapatnam The elephant population in Andhra Pradesh has been estimated at 120, according to the ‘DNA-based Synchronous All India Elephant Population Estimation (SAIEE) 2021-2025’ conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). The study noted that the estimate carries a standard error (SE) of 9, with a 95% confidence interval ranging between 103 and 138 elephants. Compared to the previous estimate of 65 in 2017, this indicates a significant increase over the years. The WII report mentioned that the survey was conducted across 3,456 trails covering a distance of 16,597 kilometers, which included 3,430 transects spanning 6,637 kilometers and 11,090 plots. This comprehensive assessment provided a detailed evaluation of the state’s elephant population and habitat distriP4 bution.  Awards compensation Supreme Court sets up equal opportunity panel to protect transgenders S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A 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 . A bench of 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 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 adviso- ry 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 to- wards them. “The community continues to face discrimination and marginalisation, with a scarcity of healthcare, economic opportunities and noninclusive educational policies adding to their struggles,” the bench said in its order. It made various suggestions, including asking the Centre to consider formulating and issu- ing specific directions to ensure that no transwoman is arrested without the presence of a female officer. It suggested that all establishments, including workplaces, may cultivate an environment that is genderinclusive and conducive to the free expression of identity by transgender persons, without fear or stigma.