HUBBALLI  SUNDAY  MAY 03, 2026  `12.00  PAGES 24  CITY EDITION WOMEN’S T20 WORLD CUP: HARMAN & CO. AIM FOR GLOBAL GLORY After the home triumph at ODI World Cup, India look to create a dynasty in the shortest format at the event to be held in England this Summer Captain Harmanpreet at the squad announcement in Mumbai on Saturday | PTI AMANJOT, KASHVEE INJURIES BIG ISSUES CALL UP FOR NANDNI, COMEBACK FOR YASTIKA The biggest concern remains the injury blows to all-rounders Amanjot Kaur and Kashvee Gautam. Amanjot, crucial to India’s ODI 50-over WC win, is down with a back injury, while Gautam is expected to undergo knee surgery. In their absence, the all-rounder balance is a concern, and the selectors have tried to cover it up with Radha Yadav’s experience ■ ■ Chandigarh seamer Nandni Sharma, who had a stellar WPL season with Delhi Capitals, has earned a maiden international call Yastika Bhatia, who missed the ODI WC, has made a comeback as back-up keeper. England held the inaugural in 2009. In that event, India had reached the last four stage of the tournament | P11 2020 THEIR BEST FINISH CAME IN 2020 WHEN THEY REACHED THE FINAL 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 Major ECI crackdown after reports of violence following threats by TMC goons to voters S U B H E N D U M A I T I @ Kolkata OWN EVERY M O M EN T in WHITE IN an extraordinary move, the Election Commission (EC) late on Saturday ordered ‘fresh’ repolling in all 285 polling stations of the Falta assembly seat in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district on May 21 due to “subversion of democratic process” and “severe electoral offences”. Re-election in an entire assembly seat has not been ordered in the recent past. The fresh poll will take place on ThursASML SE BY day, May 21 and the EE T N LCO S I counting of votes will happen on Sunday May 24. , The Commission invoked its constitutional powers under Article 324 to annul the earlier polling on April 29, citing serious irregularities that compromised the integrity of the electoral process in a large number of booths. Earlier in the day, Falta was in the thick of things as it recorded tense moments leading to protests from a large section of voters who staged a protest for over seven hours, alleging they were receiving life threats from TMC workers in the area. Considering the situation in Army launches sovereign swarm capability push The project is structured in two phases over six months, beTHE Indian Army is looking to ginning with an initial twobuild its own sovereign swarm month stage focused on develwarfare capability and has be- oping an indigenous ground gun search for a joint develop- control station and software inment partner to develop an in- tegration framework. digenous swarm algorithm that “The focus is on creating a could eventually provide it secure common control layer with a unified command and over existing drone assets, with control framework for fully offline capability n e t w o r k e d d r o n e Indigenous built in from the outoperations. set,” the source said. control Top sources told this The second phase, The stress on paper that the Army spanning four months, indigenous has invited bids for the expands the model from control comes project and will hold a centralised control to amid persistent pre-bid meeting in the security concerns decentralised swarm second week of May. autonomy with onboard , over Chinese “This is far bigger than computing, indigenous components in simply acquiring ansoftware stacks and drone systems other swarm capabiligreater battlefield resilafter past ty,” a source said. ience. “The objective is vulnerability “What the Army is tryto test whether these scares triggered tighter scrutiny ing to do is build a prototypes can continue of military drone functioning in tougher, common architecture supply chains of its own, so swarm more realistic operaoperations are no longtional conditions,” the er tied to individual vendors or source said. proprietary systems.” It will test adaptive formaThe project comes at a time tions, task reassignment, colliwhen contemporary conflicts sion avoidance and the swarm’s have underscored the opera- ability to sustain operations tional value of networked even when communications drone swarms across surveil- are disrupted, drones are lost lance, logistics, payload deliv- or navigation systems come unery and adaptive combat roles. der strain. J A V A R I A R A N A @ New Delhi Falta, the ECI directed registering of FIRs against Israfil Chowkidar, gram panchayat pradhan at Hasimnagar and an associate of Jahangir Khan, Trinamool candidate from Falta, and another TMC worker Sujauddin Sheikh, to restore confidence among voters. Jahangir is a close lieutenant of Abhishek Banerjee, TMC national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP . The protesters, many of them women and holding BJP flags, blocked the road in Hasimnagar village. “TMC’s Israfil Chowkidar has threatened us that if these people win, they will burn our houses and indulge in bloodshed,” they claimed. The CRPF deputy commandant assured the demonstrators of ensuring their safety. Khan dismissed the allegations and said the women were “deployed” by the BJP. “If the charges are proved, I am ready to face the law,” he said. On Friday, the EC had ordered re-election in 15 polling stations of two Assembly seats in West Bengal — Diamond Harbour and Magarhat P8 Paschim. Re-poll: 87% turnout Repolling in 15 booths of two assembly constituencies in South 24 Parganas district concluded at 6 pm on Saturday. A voter turnout of 86.90% was recorded till 5 pm, with the figure from one booth still awaited. Mamata bullish West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday told counting agents of the party that it will secure over 200 of the 294 assembly seats. WITH THIS ISSUE HER LAST STAND PLUS 12 P AGES K’taka, Goa at loggerheads over control of islands S U B H A S H C H A N D R A N S @Karwar KARNATAKA and Goa could be headed for a stiff standoff over the ownership and development of islands, which were surveyed and named by the Uttara Kannada district administration with the intent of promoting them for tourism. Karnataka surveyed these revenue islands near Karwar and Bhatkal recently. But in a counter-move, Goa announced this week that it would conduct its own survey of islands till Bhatkal. With Karnataka in no mood to relent, district in-charge minister Mankal Vaidya declared that the state would not cede an inch of land to Goa. After a report appeared in The New Indian Express that Karnataka was planning to develop these remote, uninhabited and unnamed islands, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant asserted that he would not allow Karnataka to P5 take up projects on these islands. EXPRESS READ Indefinite transport stir from May 20 Bengaluru: The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation on Saturday declared an indefinite strike from May 20 if the state government fails to fulfil their demands | P4 of pay hike and release of salary arrears IPL FINAL Bengaluru’s turn but BCCI yet to finalise venue EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Chennai IN March 2026, Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) had said that Bengaluru would host the final and a playoff match of this year’s edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). However, with the schedule for the play-off and final yet to be announced, Devajit Saikia, board secretary refused to , confirm whether Bengaluru will retain the right to host the final as defending champions. “We are working on which can be the appropriate venue for the IPL playoff and the final,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Indian squad announcement for the women’s T20 World Cup. “You keep on guessing, but I am not going to give a reply We are taking a call . in two days.” Usually the defending cham, pions host the final and a playoff game. That practice, however, was not followed in 2025 when the final was moved from Kolkata to Ahmedabad (the BCCI had cited the threat of rain) and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the title. It remains to be seen whether the board allots one of the year’s marquee clashes to Ahmedabad this year as well. Action against RR Meanwhile, days after Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag was fined 25 per cent of his match fee for vaping in the dressing room, Saikia confirmed that the board is exploring options to take stringent action against the franchise. “We are exploring some other options on how to rein in the teams which are violating the norms,” he said. “We will be taking some action. We are looking at the various terms and conditions and protocols of IPL on how the teams should behave. It is not only the players or the officials. As a team, they have to maintain certain decorum so that the image of IPL is never adversely affected. To ensure that, we have to take a call and we will be taking some action.” We are working on which can be the appropriate venue for the IPL playoff and the final. We are taking a call in two days Devajit Saikia, BCCI secretary Iran didn’t want war, it was forced on us: Top cleric B A L A C H A U H A N @Bengaluru Locals stage a protest in Falta on Saturday after being allegedly threatened and assaulted by a TMC leader | PTI NO SC ORDER ON TMC APPEAL OVER COUNTING S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi A special bench of the Supreme Court on Saturday refused to pass any order on a Trinamool Congress plea challenging the decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to appoint only Central government employees and PSU staff as counting day supervisors in West Bengal. A two-judge bench of justices P S Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi observed that the ECI has the liberty to choose the counting personnel it wants to deploy Besides, the ECI’s April 13 circular provides . for deployment of state government employees as well, so it cannot be said to be incorrect, the court reasoned. For its part, the ECI assured that the state’s nominee will be present during counting. “No further orders are necessary in this case except to record the statement of Dama Seshadri Naidu that the Election Commission will implement the circular dated 13th April, 2026 in true letter and spirit,” the bench said. MORE than 60 days into the war that has destabilised the global economy and sent oil prices spiralling out of control, there are no signs of the Iran war ending soon. While there is no decisive military or diplomatic win for the United States or Israel even after two months, for Iran it is a war they never wanted. “Iran never wanted war, it was forced on us. We don’t want it still, but if the enemies persist then Iran is ready to sustain the war even if it goes up to 10 years,” Dr Abdul Majeed Hakim Ilahi, representative of the Supreme Leader of Iran, told The New Sunday Express. He was in the city to attend the prayer meeting of the former Supreme Leader, late Ayatollah Khamenei. “They (US and Israel) thought the war would end in three days; Iran will buckle and they will split it into five countries. That did not happen, nor will it ever happen in the future. Iranians will shed their blood but not give an inch of their land away The enemies spoke about . regime change, little realising that Iran has a Constitution and they can’t change it. The US claims that it has bombed all our nuclear sites, yet President Trump accuses us of having nuclear weapons! We are signatories to the NPT and have the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology for electricity and medicine under the NPT,” he added. Dr Ilahi said the war that the US and Israel launched on February 28 was to “cover up individual issues (of US President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu).” P5 | KEVIN NASHON Rare full Falta repoll fiat Dr Abdul Majeed Hakim Ilahi speaks to TNIE in Bengaluru on Saturday