HYDERABAD l sunday l june 21, 2026 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l LATE CITY EDITION IAS officer elected v-P of global anti-money laundering body Union Culture Secretary Vivek Aggarwal was elected as the vice president of the Financial Action Task Force during its plenary in Paris Aggarwal’s election a big win: MEA Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal described Aggarwal’s election as a “major win” for India. “The appointment places an Indian official at the apex of the global standard-setting body for antimoney laundering and counter-terrorist financing,” the ministry said. The FATF vice president is elected by delegates from the member countries ■ 200 First Indian ever to hold the post ■ It will be the first time an Indian is holding the post. Aggarwal will succeed Giles Thomson from the UK, who was elected FATF president Aggarwal’s appointment puts the focus on Pakistan. India has repeatedly sought to bring Pakistan back onto the FATF “grey list”. Pakistan was removed from the watchlist in October 2022 | P7 Jurisdictions sent delegates to paris for the june 17-19 FATF plenary 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 ECI flags nearly 90 lakh voters ahead of SIR in TG Mapping status 3,38,26,448 PIC: Vinay Madapu Nearly 90 lakh electors in Telangana have been flagged with discrepancies during a pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise undertaken ahead of the comprehensive revision of electoral rolls, Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) C Sudarshan Reddy said on Saturday . According to the CEO, around 89.88 lakh electors were found to have anomalies after election authorities cross-verified approximately 2.38 crore mapped voters against electoral data from the 2002 rolls. Telangana currently has 3.38 It’s all in the figures, SIR Total electors Unmapped 99,64,126 Mapped 2,38,62,322 (70.54%) Electors with anomalies 37.67% 89,88,175 Every eligible citizen will be provided with an enumeration form irrespective of caste or religion. There will be no distinction between Muslim and Hindu voters during the enumeration process to update rolls, not remove genuine voters – C Sudarshan Reddy, CEO, Telangana crore registered voters. Officials said the majority of the discrepancies are minor and can be resolved through verification hearings, scrutiny of documents and field-level checks. “In cases involving minor anomalies, notices will be issued and hearings conducted. After examining the clarifications and supporting documents, most of these cases can be corrected,” Sudarshan Reddy said. As of Saturday, election authorities had mapped 2.38 crore voters, accounting for 70.54% of the electorate. Around 99.64 lakh voters are yet to be mapped. In absolute numbers, Ran- Last pen-and-paper exam 22.8 lakh to take NEET retest today High security measures in place across 95K centres S l a l i t h a @ New Delhi WITH THIS ISSUE The Young Sound Wave PLUS 12 P AGES After `150 crore assets, ACB finds `1.5 cr cash + gold in official’s locker MORE than 22.8 lakh medical aspirants will appear for the NEET UG re-examination on Sunday, nearly seven weeks after the original test was cancelled following a question paper leak that triggered nationwide outrage. The re-examination will be held from 2 to 5.15 pm across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad. Candidates with disabilities (PwD/PwBD) eligible for compensatory time will be allowed to write the examination till 6.20 pm. Nine states will see more than one lakh candidates each, led by Uttar Pradesh, foll o w e d by M a h a r a s h t r a (2,22,905) and Rajasthan (2,03,470). Lakshadweep has the lowest number with just 141 candidates. As many as 5,401 foreign candidates will also take the test. The Centre has installed 1,38,560 CCTV cameras with live feeds being monitored at national, state and ministry levels. As many as 51,311 jammers have been deployed Our mock drill was a success. We checked working of jammers, CCTVs, seating positions, and biometrics infra NTA Abu Dhabi aspirant’s choice: NTA The NTA on Saturday claimed that the allotment of Abu Dhabi as exam centre for a Nagpur NEET aspirant was done as the request came from the candidate. NTA later alloted Nagpur as his new centre | P7 across the 95,000-plus examination centres to prevent electronic malpractice. A nationwide mega mock drill conducted on Saturday was declared successful. “We checked working of the jammers, CCTVs, seating arrangements, biometrics and police deployment,” an NTA official said. “NTA has in place a multi-layered security framework, including secure handling of confidential materials, GPSenabled vehicles with police escorts for movement of exam materials, CCTVs at all centres linked to centralised control rooms, and biometric authentication.” The National Medical Commission has directed all medical colleges under its purview not to grant leave to students on June 20 and 21. The move comes in the backdrop of instances when medical students were found to be involved in illegal activities that affect the exam process. This is the last time NEETUG is being held in written format. From next year, it will be held in online mode. e n s @ Hyderabad Four days after unearthing assets worth over `150 crore in raids on various locations linked to Survey and Land Records (Multi Zone-II) Deputy Director Sunkari Narahari Rao, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Saturday recovered `1.5 crore in cash, 12 gold biscuits weighing 100 grams each, and nearly 2 kg of gold and diamond jewellery from two bank lockers held in the name of his wife. The searches were conducted as part of the ongoing investigation against Narahari, who has been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. The two lockers at a private bank in Shalibanda in the city were opened after the ACB obtained search warrants from the Special Court for SPE and ACB Cases, Hyderabad. According to the ACB authorities, the valuables recovered from the lockers were in addition to the disproportionate assets already detected during the investigation. continued on p5 CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke with supporters at a protest meet in New Delhi Saturday | Sayantan Ghosh Drama at Jantar Mantar as CJP refuses to end protest A d i t i Ray C h o w d h u r y @ New Delhi OVER 200 people associated with Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) were still lingering with placards at the Jantar Mantar protest site even as the clock ticked 9 pm on Saturday night. Delhi Police had allowed the protest meet from 1 pm till 5 pm only . In what remained a visibly peaceful protest, determined faces stood firm amid the sweltering heat. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke announced in the evening that the protest will continue till the time the Sonam Wangchuk joins in Climate activist Wangchuk, who has earlier joined two of CJP’s protests, announced that he would go on a hunger-strike from June 27 if the education minister does not resign education minister resigns. The protest was also joined by climate and social activist Sonam Wanchuk. “I request Delhi Police, since youth are here from all over the country they want to , continue the sit-in. The protest has been peaceful, we request Delhi Police to extend our permission. We are innocent students,” Dipke said, appealing to more people to join them at Jantar Mantar. Police, however, refused to allow them to continue, and cited a court order that protests can’t continue after 5 pm, before asking them to leave. gareddy recorded the highest number of electors with anomalies at 11.44 lakh, followed by Hyderabad at 8.65 lakh and Medchal-Malkajgiri at 8.45 lakh. In percentage ter ms, however, Medchal-Malkajgiri recorded the highest anomaly rate at 65%, followed by Rangareddy at 52.70% and Narayanpet at 44.16%. The CEO announced that the SIR of electoral rolls will begin on June 25. Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will undertake a door-to-door distribution of enumeration for ms between June 25 and July 24. continued on p4 Provide Wi-Fi: DGCA to all airlines S La l i t h a @ New Delhi Only on 28 AI aircraft Air India website shows in-flight Wi-Fi is avaiable on 28 aircraft— six Boeing 787-9, six Airbus A350900, 10 Airbus A321 and six Boeing 777-300. The retrofit Boeing 787-8s are provisioned to offer Wi-Fi The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has requested that all domestic airlines provide Wi-Fi internet access to their passengers on board. As of date, only 28 Air India aircraft offer such connectivity . Multiple airline executives said it is highly unlikely that the airlines would comply with the request. A communication issued on Friday (June 19) by the Deputy Director General of DGCA, A X Joseph, to the Accountable Manager of all airlines states, “Rule 29B of the Aircraft Rules 1937 allows the use of internet services by passengers on board an aircraft in flight Carriers warn of cost An airline executive said, “The expenses for retrofitting will run into crores and the aircraft needs to be pulled out of operations temporarily. It can be considered for new aircraft, but not on exisiting ones” through Wi-Fi for use of smartphones in flight mode or airplane mode.” It has been issued as a Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) too, it added. IndiGo did not respond to this reporter while Air India Express sought more time to get back on the matter. A SpiceJet source said the airline has been offering an inflight entertainment system ‘Spice screen’ for all its passengers since August 2020, using which they can view movies and other content available. Asked about the possibility of incorporating Wi-Fi services, an airline source said, “It is not an easy process. The aircraft needs to have antennae to receive a signal. For that, we need to create a hump in the fuselage. It is a costly and timeconsuming affair.” Another airline executive said the cost would ultimately be borne by the consumer. “If we add `100 or `200 as Wi-Fi charges, the passenger might even not be interested,” the executive said. Fix meeting with Vaishnaw on IRFC loan: CM to Kishan E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e @ Hyderabad Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has asked Union Minister G Kishan Reddy to arrange a meeting with Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw during his visit to New Delhi on June 22 and 23 to discuss financing by the Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) for the takeover of Hyderabad Metro Rail Phase-I and the construction of Metro Rail Phase-II. In a letter to Kishan on Saturday Revanth said: , “I shall be in New Delhi on Monday (June 22) and Tuesday (June 23) and would request you to kindly arrange a meeting during this period so that both of us may jointly meet the Railway Minister and discuss the issues concerned.” Revanth further said that, given the importance of the Hyderabad Metro Rail as a critical urban infrastructure project for Hyderabad and Telangana, an early resolution of the pending issues was essential. He stated: “The proposed meeting would provide an opportunity to place all relevant facts on record. I shall also bring along copies of the relevant agreements and supporting documents to facilitate the discussion.” It may be recalled that the IRFC sanctioned `13,600 crore in May for the takeover of the Hyderabad Metro Rail project from L&T. However, the funds have not yet been released. The chief minister had earlier alleged that Kishan was responsible for delaying the release of the loan. Kishan, however, insisted that he had no role in the matter. In this context, Revanth had written to Kishan on June 16 seeking his cooperation in securing the release of the loan amount and obtaining approvals for the Metro Phase-II expansion. This is the second letter written by Revanth to Kishan on issues related to the Metro project. (Left) Padamsinh Patil; (right) Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Omprakash Raje Nimbalkar | PTI Op Tiger hits murder case acquittal roadblock questioned, adding there has been no closure for his family . Omprakash was among the A special CBI court’s verdict six of nine Lok Sabha members acquitting all nine accused in who skipped a recent parliathe 2006 Pavanraje Nimbalkar mentary party meeting called murder case appears to have by the Uddhav Sena in Delhi. If stalled Deputy Chief Minister he backs off, rebels would be Eknath Shinde’s plan of engi- short of the two-thirds majorineering a second split ty mark in the parliain the Uddhav faction Fresh notice mentary party, botchof the Shiv Sena. The Uddhav Sena ing their proposed Dr Padmasinh Pamerging with the issued another til, BJP MLA Rana- notice to six MPs Shinde Sena. jagjit Sinh Patil’s faOmprakash also for skipping the ther, and eight others said he has not uttered parliamentary were accused in the party meet, asking a word against party case. The court ac- why action should chief Uddhav Thackquitted them all cite r ay a n d A d i t y a not be taken ing lack of evidence. Thackeray and will against them The verdict left Omnot speak ag ainst prakash Nimbalkar, a Lok Sab- them irrespective of his future ha member from the Uddhav course. Efforts are afoot for his Sena camp who was weighing patch-up with Uddhav. the possibility of defecting to On the other hand, “the court the Shinde group as part of order is the only reason Omwhat was called Operation Ti- prakash is yet to join the rebelger, furious. lion. He expressed he displeas“If all accused are acquitted, ure to Shinde,” said a source then who killed my father?” he requesting anonymity . S u d h i r S u r ya w a n s h i @ New Delhi express read Bandi’s son granted 5-day interim bail to write exam TG may complain to RBI against SBI over land row A Hyderabad court granted a fiveday interim bail to Bandi Sai Bhageerath, son of MoS for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar, in a POCSO case. He was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 17year-old girl. He was granted interim bail to appear for his BBA exams. As part of its tough stand against the SBI over the disputed land issue in Raidurg, the state government is considering filing a complaint with the RBI. It is also examining the option of taking up the matter with the Union Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office. P4 Today's matches S Ba c h a n J e e t S i n g h @ Hyderabad Spain vs Saudi Arabia l 9: 30 PM Belgium vs Iran l 12:30 AM* Uruguay vs Cabo Verde l 3:30 AM* New Zealand vs Egypt l 6:30 AM* Live on United8 Sports & ZEE5 (*IST Monday)