chennai l wednesday l june 10, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 18 l late city EDITION Pay less foR domestic Air India flights if you opting out of food Air India said Tuesday it is mulling a proposal to offer cheaper flight tickets for flyers who opt out of food or snacks while booking a domestic flight a fully optional service, says carrier Unlike other airlines, Air India has always included complimentary meals in all its domestic flights. An Air India source said, “This will be a fully optional service. The move will reduce the fares by `500 to `600 for Economy class. It will not be introduced for Premium Economy or Business class.” The free beverage (coffee/water) served to all flyers will continue ■ 27% eyeing to get back competitive edge ■ The move will initially be introduced on a pilot basis on routes including Delhi-Amritsar, Delhi-Chandigarh and B’luru-Hyderabad Another Air India source said the move is meant to make the carrier competitive. “Price-conscious passengers choose our competitor as their fares are lesser. If our fares reduce a bit, we get back our edge.” of india’s domestic aviation market is commanded by air india CBC 01101/13/0004/2627 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 Resource crunch A CID team raiding Abhishek Banerjee’s office; and Mamata Banerjee leaves Sonia Gandhi’s house in Delhi | pti/parveen negi CID raids Mamata’s office amid meeting with Sonia Buzz over Didi seeking INDIA bloc help to contest Basirhat LS bypoll preetha nair & subhendu m a i t i @ New Delhi/Kolkata TRINAMOOL Congress chief Mamata Banerjee held closeddoor talks with senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi at her 10, Janpath residence on Tuesday even as CID teams in Kolkata raided TMC offices at her Kalighat residence and Camac Street. The meeting followed Sonia and Mamata’s warm hug at the Opposition INDIA bloc’s meeting the previous day . Just a day earlier, leaders of 23 Opposition parties vowed unity and better coordination among the alliance partners. According to sources, Rahul Gandhi told the Opposition meeting that if TMC and Congress had tied up in the West Bengal election, the results would have been different. Sources said Mamata and Sonia discussed the strategy between the two parties going forward. This was their first closed-door meeting after Trinamool’s defeat in the polls, and alleged attacks on party workers and MP Abhishek Banerjee after the elections. Signature probe CID officers in Kolkata said the raids were held to dredge out the original copy of TMC’s resolution book and attendance sheet containing signatures of 70 MLAs present at the May 6 meeting held at the party office No morality: TMC Trinamool Congress leaders Kalyan Banerjee and Kirti Azad accused dissident MPs of lacking political morality and deserting the party. Alleging a broader attempt to weaken opposition parties, Banerjee said, “They are destroying democracy” The meeting also comes amid speculation that Mamata is seeking the help of Congress and the INDIA bloc to contest a by-election from Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency. The seat fell vacant after the death of TMC MP Haji Nurul Islam. A rebellion within the TMC, with as many as 20 MPs decid- ing to form a separate group and align with the ruling NDA, has added to Mamata’s troubles. A majority of Trinamool’s 80 MLAs have already formed a separate group led by Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of opposition in the state Assembly . The timing of the raids on TMC offices as Mamata sat with Sonia, led to an uproar from TMC leaders. TMC joint secretary Derek O’Brien called it “political vendetta, shamelessly timed.” Two CID teams swept into TMC offices in Kolkata to probe allegations of forged signatures of party MLAs in connection with the election of Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as Leader of the Opposition in Bengal. A CID team was prevented from entering Mamata’s housecum-of fice by Subhashis Chakraborty, former Rajya Sabha MP. After waiting outside for about 40 minutes, thet managed to enter the office. Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata’s nephew and the party’s national general secretary, was also in Delhi and missed a 5 pm deadline to appear before the CID at Bhabani Bhaban. HC asks TN to TN to issue key certificates review penalty in five days, tweaks process cuts by former mining official B ANBUSELVAN @ Chennai E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Madurai Suspecting foul play in the reduction of penalty imposed on a stone quarry operator in Tirunelveli for violations from `13.65 crore to `1.33 crore by the Commissioner of Geology and Mining in 2022, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has ordered the state government to review all such orders passed by the official and take appropriate action as per law. T he commissioner had passed the order under Rule 36-D of the TN Minor Mineral Concessions Rules on a petition filed by the operator against the penalty imposed by revenue authorities for illegal quarrying and transportation of gravel beyond permitted limit. Justice B Pugalendhi passed the verdict recently while hearing a petition filed by quarry operator C Ramesh against a government order dated August 22, 2025, which set aside the commissioner’s 2022 order.  P7 To reduce public hardship and expedite service delivery, the state government has decided to revamp the process for issuing community income and 24 , other certificates. Under the proposed reforms, deputy tahsildars posted at taluk offices will be empowered to issue most certificates across the state. The move, which will do away with the existing two levels of scrutiny by tahsildars and Revenue Divisional Officers (RDOs) for several categories of certificates, is expected to cut the processing time from the current 15 days to just five days. The new system is likely to come into effect from July . As part of the proposed reform, the regular tahsildar at the taluk level, who currently issues certificates, will be relieved of this responsibility and will instead focus exclusively on law-and-order matters and land administration.  P7 Big push to asset, land monetisation and disinvestment D i pa k M o n d a l a n d P u s h p i ta D e y @ New Delhi With the Centre facing a significant resource crunch following a series of emergency measures to shield the economy from the West Asia crisis, the government has activated plans to mobilise additional revenue, official sources said on Tuesday. The measures include aggressively pursuing asset and land monetisation while also stepping up efforts to raise funds through disinvestment. Sources said senior government officials are holding weekly meetings with the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) to explore more avenues for resource mobilisation. The government hopes DIPAM would exceed the Budget target of `80,000 crore from disinvestment in FY27. One official said the proposed strategic sale of IDBI Bank, which had been put on hold due to valuation concerns and lack of investor interest, is likely to be revived. The government has set a target of `10 lakh crore in asset monetisation during the five-year period from FY26 to FY30 under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) 2.0. Under NMP 1.0, it achieved nearly 90% of its `6 lakh crore target. At the same time, the Centre is accelerating the monetisation of idle and non-core public assets through the National Land Monetisation Corporation (NLMC). According to the DPE, approvals were received during FY26 for monetisation of assets valued around `10,048 crore. The government’s fiscal burden has risen sharply following a series of support measures announced in recent weeks. It has created a `1 lakh crore Economic Stabilisation Fund to build fiscal buffers and respond to emergencies such as supplychain disruptions and sectoral shocks. Of this, `10,000 crore has been allocated for oil marketing firms to stabilise aviation turbine fuel prices. The government has also launched a fresh Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) with an outlay of `18,000 crore to support MSMEs and the aviation sector. In addition, it has approved the creation of the Bharat Maritime Insurance Pool with a sovereign guarantee of `12,980 crore. Gaming verdict windfall The govt hopes for a windfall from the favourable SC ruling in the GST dispute involving online gaming companies. Officials estimate that tax demands of around `1.5 lakh crore are under litigation Sops to adversely hit revenue The `10 per litre excise duty cut on fuel and the tax waiver for FIIs in govt securities is expected to adversely impact revenue. The excise duty reduction alone could result in a revenue loss of around `1.23 lakh crore delimitation bill Spl session possible if govt has the numbers RA J ESH KUMAR THAKUR @ New Delhi The ruling NDA government is open to reworking the delimitation bill to specify upfront that Lok Sabha seats across all states would be uniformly raised by 50%, if it were to muster two-thirds majority for the passage of the legislation. It could even call a special session of Parliament — ahead of the Monsoon session, which is slated to begin in the second week of July — if it is confident of the numbers game. An oral assurance on the 50% formula was made by Union home minister Amit Shah during the previous session of Parliament, but the Opposition was not convinced and the bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha on April 17. “If we get the required majority in the House, we would convey the special session of Parliament to pass the delimitation bill,” a senior BJP leader said. The proposed legislation is otherwise sound and the legal framework would remain intact, the leader added. “A uniform 50% increase would raise the LS seat count from 543 to about 815. So, the current cap of 550 seats was raised to 850,” a top source said. When the bill fell on April 17, the NDA was short of 54 votes — 298 ayes against the required 352 — out of 528 members present and voting. It already has 20 TMC rebels in the bag and is scouting for more, including from the South. ‘Singappen’ for women’s safety rolled out in TN E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Chennai The ambitious Singappen Special Force (SSF) to prevent crimes against women was launched by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay on Tuesday. The force has been rolled out with 280 personnel in 70 patrol units. The strength of the force will be increased to 2,545 members in a phased manner and `354 crore will be allocated in the first phase. The personnel will be equipped with advanced surveillance drones, four-wheeler and two-wheeler patrols, and CM C Joseph Vijay launched Singappen Special Force in Chennai on Tuesday | P Jawahar body-worn cameras with livestreaming and video call option. Speaking at the launch, the CM asserted that drugs must be eradicated for women’s safety and the new force will play a vital role in preventive policing to stop crimes before they occur. “For the first time in India, drone patrolling will be introduced to prevent crimes against women,” he said. The CM said the roots for crime against women could be invariably traced to drugs and that menace had to be eradicated first. Taking a dig at the previous regimes led by the DMK and the AIADMK, the CM said, “This (drug menace) didn’t just sprout out of nowhere overnight. This is a problem that has been around for years.” P7 candid interaction Keeping spirit alive: Gukesh and the burden of being a world champion s w a r o o p s w a m i n at h a n D GUKESH, the youngest undisputed world chess champion in history, has admitted that managing expectations has been one of the hardest things as world champion. “As much as you try to switch off, you are still aware that there is this kind of elephant in the room,” he told a few Indian journalists after Norway Chess. “Like you are expected and also you expect something. I’m in general also an ambitious player and I keep going for wins. Considering all these things, it has been pretty hard. But, okay I either , break from it or grow through it.” In one of the most candid conversations by an Indian sportsperson, the 20-year-old said he had struggled for moti- World champ to feature at Chennai GM Gukesh has decided to feature in his home tournament, the Chennai Grand Masters, India’s strongest Classical meet. This wasn’t initially on his calendar but it’s an event that has fond memories. The 4th edition begins from July 16 and is an eight-player single round robin event. In the inaugural event in 2023, he won it to qualify for the Candidates. vation during ‘parts of 2025’. “You can still do everything that you’ve been doing,” the 20-year-old said. “But the rea- son why you’re doing it is different. You’re not waking up striving for the World Championship. But it doesn’t mean you have to lose motivation. There was obviously some, probably in parts of 2025, there was some motivation issues. But if you really love the sport, if you’re able to connect back to it, that’s why people keep saying, ‘find the reason why you started playing the sport’. I feel like external resources can never, they’re not reliable sources of motivation for a very long time. So, something that drives you from within, that’s something that I’ve been trying to connect with.”