chennai l wednesday l december 24, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION chinnaswamy stadium fails to get approval to host matches Committee to submit report to govt The Vijay Hazare Trophy matches, supposed to be held at M Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru, moved elsewhere after government denied permission Games moved to BCCI CoE, says KSCA Following the stampede during RCB’s IPL celebrations on June 4, the stadium has not hosted any games. The Karnataka State Association sought permission to host without any crowd. The state home minister had constituted a committee that visited the venue to review on Monday and denied their request. They will submit the findings to the government ■ ■ With no permission to host the 50-over matches, KSCA said in a statement that the fixtures have been moved to BCCI Centre of Excellence for the time being Both Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant, who were supposed to play at the venue, will now turn up for Delhi against Andhra at BCCI CoE | P17 May 3 was when the last official IPL match was held at the venue 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 Jaishankar announces aid, builds on First Responder role, commitment to reconstruction $450 mn relief package for cyclone-hit Sri Lanka j aya n t h j a c o b @ New Delhi J aya n t h J a c o b @ New Delhi India on Tuesday pledged a $450 million reconstruction and recovery package to Sri Lanka following the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah, Exter nal Affairs Minister S Jaishankar announced during his visit to Colombo as a special envoy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking after talks with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, Jaishankar said he carried a personal message from Prime Minister Modi to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, whom he met earlier in the day. “The letter from Prime Minister Modi builds on our First Responder role and commits a reconstruction package of $450 million.” Jaishankar said the package would comprise $350 million in concessional lines of credit and $100 million in grants. The assistance will focus on rebuilding roads, railways and bridges; housing; health and education facilities; agriculture; and strengthening disaster preparedness. “We are conscious that work towards mitigating the impact of Cyclone Ditwah must be done in the quickest time possible,” he said and added that India and Sri Lanka were finalising coordination mechanisms for rapid delivery . Jaishankar also pointed to longer-term support, including boosting Indian tourism and foreign direct investment. “India stands firmly with Sri Lanka more than ever before,” he said, expressing confidence in the island nation’s resilience as it recovers from the disaster. Detailing India’s emergency response, Jaishankar said relief operations under Operation Sagar Bandhu began on the day Cyclone Ditwah made landfall. “Our Aircraft Carrier goyal meets eps AIADMK-BJP talks begin, seat matrix starts doing rounds Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Arjun Ram Meghwal with AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami in Chennai | express T M u r u g a n a n d h a m @ Chennai The AIADMK, which leads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, and the BJP began preliminary talks for the 2026 Assembly election, including plans for a joint campaign of leaders and assessment of the current political situation in the state, on Tuesday . The talks held at a hotel between the AIADMK team led by general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami and the BJP team led by Piyush Goyal, union minister and BJP’s poll in-charge for TN, lasted 90 minutes. Goyal met Palaniswami after consulting the office-bearers of NDA will have the BJP high-level committee at the party a sweeping headquarters in Chennai. victory in the After the talks, rumours started doing 2026 poll. TN the rounds about EPS’ purported nod for has suffered inclusion of former CM O Panneerselunder DMK vam and TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK in Piyush Goyal the larger NDA alliance as separate political entities and not under AIADMK. It was also speculated that AIADMK wanted to contest in 170 seats and allocate 23 seats each to BJP and PMK. A key AIADMK functionary however, said the party’s will, ingness to contest in at least 170 seats could be an intelligent guess considering that the total constituencies is only 234, but the number of seats to be apportioned to individual NDA allies was not discussed in the meeting. As per sources, BJP leaders seem to have expressed willingness to send double-digit number of members to the Assembly and they would soon come up with the list of constituencies they would like to contest.  P9 Bluebird mission countdown begins ISRO will launch the Bluebird Block-2 on board its heavy-lift launch vehicle LVM3-M6 at 8.54 am on Wednesday from Sriharikota. Bluebird Block-2 is a communication satellite of AST SpaceMobile, US INS Vikrant and INS Udayagiri were present at Colombo and delivered relief material, after which helicopters were deployed,” he said. Indian Air Force Mi-17 helicopters operated in Sri Lanka for more than two weeks, while an 80-member National Disaster Response Force team carried out rescue and relief work. The Indian Army also set up a field hospital near Kandy with 85 medical personnel, providing emergency care to over 8,000 people. Besides, army engineers erected a Bailey bridge at Kilinochchi, while another bridge at Chilaw is currently under construction. According to a World Bank report, the cyclone caused $4.1 billion in damage. India, Bangladesh summon envoys amidst protests A Bailey Bridge built by the Indian Army in Lanka’s Kilinochchi; and (inset) S Jaishankar hands over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s letter to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake | PTI CM urges Jaishankar to protect TN fishers Chennai: CM MK Stalin on Tuesday urged External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to intervene to secure the early release of TN fishers and boats detained by SL Navy, and to work towards a permanent solution to the issue. He said 248 TN boats and 62 fishers are in SL custody now | P6 INDIA and Bangladesh summoned each other’s envoys on Tuesday to lodge formal protests over developments straining bilateral ties, as widespread demonstrations erupted across India following the lynching of a Hindu man in Bangladesh. Dhaka summoned Indian High Commissioner Pranay Verma on Tuesday morning, expressing concern over an “unsatisfactory security situation” at Bangladesh’s missions in India. Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam raised issues related to protests outside diplomatic premises in New Delhi, Kolkata and Agartala. “The foreign secretary conveyed Bangladesh’s serious concern and emphasised the host country’s responsibility under the Vienna Convention to ensure full protection of diplomatic premises,” a source said. Hours later, India summoned Bangladesh High Commissioner Riaz Hamidullah for the second time in a week over security concerns for In- express read Security personnel outside Bangladesh High Commission | PTI dian missions in Bangladesh. India urged a thorough probe into student leader Hadi’s death rather than blaming India, noting that unverified claims sparked anti-India protests, including an attempt to storm the Indian Assistant High Commission in Chittagong. The exchanges followed protests by Hindu right-wing groups across New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Jammu, among many, against the December 18 lynching of Dipu Chandra Das, 25, in Mymensingh, allegedly over blasphemy charges. In New Delhi, VHP and Bajrang Dal cadres broke barricades and attempted to march towards the Bangladesh High Commission. Assessees sore over taxman’s ‘nudge’ to rectify ITR DIPA K MONDAL @ New Delhi Holiday mood dampened for lakhs of taxpayers ahead of the Christmas and New Year with the tax department seeking clarification about the discrepancies in their returns for assessment year 2025-26. Sources said the income tax department’s automated risk mana g ement framework flagged a high volume of c a s e s wh e re re f u n d claims are substantially high and do not align with official data. Such refunds have been put on hold pending verification. Tax professionals noted a surge in alerts targeting taxpayers who may be misreporting information. Key triggers for these investigations include Form 16 mismatches, suspicious deductions, and non-disclosures of assets. According to the income tax department, ‘identified’ tax- payers are being contacted through SMS and email under the Non-intrusive Usage of Data to Guide and Enable (NUDGE) campaign to correct errors. The due date for filing revised ITRs is December 31. Sources said 5-10 lakh taxpayers have been contacted under NUDGE campaign so far. CM: Religious buildings exempted from NOC Chennai: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Tuesday announced that religious buildings that have started functioning between 2019 and 2024 in adherence to TN Combined Development and Building Rules, 2019, will be exempted from NOC from collector for planning permission | P5 Man sets wife, three more on fire; kin dies Virudhunagar: A man set his second wife, her mother-inlaw from first marriage and her two children ablaze while they were asleep following a dispute over a compensation of `11 lakh in an accident death case. While the woman’s mother-in-law died of burns, others remain critical | P6 UP bid to withdraw lynching case rejected LUCKNOW: A fasttrack court in Surajpur on Tuesday rejected the Uttar Pradesh government’s application to withdraw charges in the 2015 Mohammad Akhlaq lynching case, while directing that the trial be fast-tracked