express illustration HYDERABAD l Thursday l September 03, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 16 l LATE CITY EDITION Banks mobilise $127.23 billion in deposits from Indian diaspora: RBI India attracted $127.23 billion in Foreign Currency Non-Resident deposits under RBI’s special USD-INR forex swap facility till August 31, the closing date Total forex inflows touch $136.38 billion Scheme a big hit, closed one month early RBI’s special USD-INR forex swap facility for FCNR (B) deposits, Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowings and External Commercial Borrowings was launched on June 8 as part of efforts to strengthen India’s external sector position and support forex liquidity amid global uncertainties. The measures led to a surge in forex inflows totalling $136.38 billion as on August 31 ■ ■ Under RBI’s the FCNR (B) scheme, Indian banks offered attractive interest rates to mobilise foreign currency deposits The response has been strong enough for the RBI to advance the closure of the FCNR(B) window from September 30 to August 31, having already achieved its objective ahead of schedule FCNR(B) Deposits are foreign-currencydenominated fixed deposits 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 Retd Air Marshal Mishra is Ram temple trust CEO Selection panel reviews 5,558 applicationsl; Govind Dev Giri is new general secretary; Mahesh Bhagchandka the treasurer N A M I TA B A J PAI @ Lucknow THE Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Nyas, the trust that manages the Ayodhya temple, appointed former Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra as its first chief executive officer at a meeting held on Wednesday . A native of Deoria in Uttar Pradesh, Air Marshal Mishra led the Western Air Command during Operation Sindoor. The Ram temple trust also appointed former treasurer Govind Dev Giri as general secretary to fill the post vacated by VHP leader Sharad Champat Rai, who Sharma has been apchose to resign followpointed the spokesman ing the donation theft of the trust. scandal. Mahesh BhagchandAmong other decika is likely to be named sions, the trust antreasurer of the trust. nounced three new He is the chairman of trustees, including a M2K Group and a truswoman. The new trustee of the Ashok Singtees are Delhi-based hal Foundation. A relaJeetendra Mishra businessman Mahesh tive of the late VHP Bhagchandka, Ayodinter national presihya-based advocate Madan Mo- dent, he has also authored a book han Pandey and Nirmala Yadav on Singhal. , of Shikohabad. Madan Mohan Pandey had the aftermath Health crisis looms as water grid collapses lar monitoring, E. coli tests,” a WHO official said. The government is using portWith thousands feared dead or able water-testing kits, with missing and large parts of support from WHO and UNICEF , Nuwakot and Rasuwa buried as WASH (Water, Sanitation and under mud and debris, Nepal is Hygiene) interventions are exconfronting a second emergen- panded across affected areas. cy in the form of a health crisis. The water crisis is particuKeeping survivors larly serious in safe is becoming a Nuwakot and challenge as drinkRasuwa because seting-water systems tlements depend on have completely colGround Zero a network of smounlapsed, sanitation tain river a n d infrastructure is destreams. The Bhote Nepal seeks stroyed and access Koshi and Trishuli global climate to healthcare is are the principal reparation disrupted. river system Nepal’s PM Teams from World through the disBalendra Shah on Health Organizatricts, fed by tribuWednesday tion (WHO) Nepal taries including the blamed the flash and Ministry of Salankhu and Falafloods on climate Health and Family khu. Further downchange. “There is a Welfare are visiting stream, the Trishuli global contribution temporary holding joins the Narayani behind climate and shelter centres system before enterchange. And the to check survivors ing India as the responsibility to for signs of disease Gandak. manage and spread. Authorities Here, the drinkminimise its have also begun reging water pipelines effects also rests ular testing of feeding thousands on the global drinking-water of people are comcommunity” | P9 sources for E. coli, pletely destroyed. an indicator of faeIn Bidur Municical contamination. pality the biggest local body in , Tsering Gurung, Communi- Nuwakot, the main drinkingcation Officer at WHO Nepal, water system serving nearly said WHO is working closely 6,000 households has been damwith the Ministry of Health and aged. Around 7-8 km of pipeFood Safety, “to assess emerg- lines have been destroyed, while ing health needs and coordinate about 20 smaller water-lifting the health sector response to schemes serving scattered setthis emergency”. tlements have also been “Basically we are doing regu- affected.  , Continued on: P9 S V K RISH N A CHAI TA N YA @ Rasuwa (Nepal) Tankers drawing mountain water as the water pipeline network was washed away in the recent flash floods across Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts of Nepal | S V Krishna Chaitanya Sixteen months after BrahMos missiles were battle-tested during Operation Sindoor, the Indian side is examining a proposal to restructure the IndoRussian joint venture (JV) behind the supersonic cruise missile, including changes to its board and a plan to bring more engineering and R&D work inhouse, sources familiar with the matter said. The proposal looks at dropping DRDO’s Director General (Missiles and Strategic Systems) from the Indian side of the BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd board and setting up a dedicated engineering team within the company. Sources said it also envisages splitting the Chairman of Brah- Mos Aerospace and Director General (BrahMos) roles into two separate posts. The Russian side’s representation is proposed to remain unchanged. The proposed restructuring comes as BrahMos scales up to meet a sharp rise in domestic orders and exports. The Philippines, BrahMos’s first overseas customer, began receiving the missiles in 2024, while Indonesia and Vietnam have emerged as new buyers. Production has been ramped up. The BrahMos integration and testing facility in Lucknow has added around 20% to the programme’s overall production capacity, supplementing existing lines in Hyderabad, Pilani and Thiruvananthapuram. Indigenous content has risen to around The other members of the three-member selection panel are retired Supreme Court judge Pramod Kohli and retired Lt General Vishnukant Chaturvedi. The selection panel reviewed 5,585 applications and held discussions with 16 candidates. The final shortlist had three names, from which the trust picked Air Marshal Mishra. The other two shortlisted candidates, according to reports, were retired Major General Sanjay Pratap Singh Bisht and Shruti Hardwari. Congress leadership defers decision on Surekha E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e Final decision likely today @ Hyderabad The Congress high command on Wednesday deferred a decision on disciplinary action against Endowments Minister Konda Surekha, as it was quite late in the evening by the time AICC leader Rahul Gandhi returned to Delhi from Nashik. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, TPCC president B Mahesh Kumar Goud and AICC incharge Meenakshi Natarajan met party general secretary KC Venugopal in Delhi and discussed the issue. Revanth reportedly pressed the high command to take ster n action against Surekha and allow him t o re m ove h e r f ro m h i s Cabinet. The AICC leadership did not announce any action on Wednesday, reportedly asking Revanth to stay back in Delhi and meet Rahul Gandhi on Thursday Revanth is expected . to meet Rahul Gandhi on Thursday . For the record, Mahesh Kumar Goud told the media in The AICC leadership did not announce any action on Wednesday, reportedly asking Revanth to stay back in Delhi and meet Rahul Gandhi on Thursday Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy greets AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday Delhi that a report had been submitted to Venugopal and that they were awaiting the final decision of the AICC, Late in the evening, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy called on AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and discussed the political developments in the state. Kharge reportedly sought the views of Vikramarka and Uttam on the issue. After the meeting, Vikra- marka and Kharge travelled in the same car to attend the YSR Awards function. The row began on August 19 when Surekha’s daughter Sushmita, speaking at Geesukonda, alleged that Revanth and his brothers were “looting” the state. Sushmita alleged that Revanth had given land worth `200 crore to his brother. She said she would disclose details of the Chief Minister’s alleged misuse of office if his supporters challenged her claims. Modi to visit Delhi’s SRCC on Teachers’ Day in Gen Z pitch first-time voters through campus interactions and digital platforms Prime Minister Narendra Modi is Just three weeks ago, Modi had adexpected to address students at Del- dressed the convocation ceremony at hi’s Shri Ram College of IIT Delhi, where he interCommerce (SRCC)—a camacted with graduating stupus that once marked his dents and positioned youth national rise—on Septemas central to India’s future. ber 5 on the occasion of The upcoming interaction Teachers’ Day . at SRCC is expected to carry The proposed visit to the a similar tone, but in a more college, which is celebrating conversational campus its centenary year, comes setting. amid the BJP’s ongoing outModi last visited SRCC in reach efforts to draw young 2013 as Gujarat chief minisNarendra Modi voters to the party. In the ter. His speech then drew a wake of the recent students’ p a c ke d a u d i e n c e a n d protests and growing discontent marked one of his early high-profile among youngsters over education re- engagements with students in Delhi. forms to employment, party leaders The official confirmation of PM’s have turned their focus to wooing SRCC visit is awaited. I f r a h M u f t i @ New Delhi BrahMos board shake-up on cards J a v a r i a R a n a @ New Delhi been associated with the Ram Janmabhoomi case in local courts and is also associated with the VHP . Nirmala Yadav has been associated with the RSS. Air Marshal Mishra is expected to bring in discipline and management expertise in running the affairs of the Ram temple, search committee member Suresh Haware said. Haware is a retired nuclear scientist and former chief of Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust in Shirdi. 70%, against a target of 85%. Sources said BrahMos Aerospace had outgrown the governance structure created in 1998, when the programme was still under development. “It is now running four plants, supplying all three services and working against fixed export delivery schedules,” one source said. “It needs a structure suited to a production company rather than one designed around a development programme.” The proposal has also triggered concerns. Sources said the DRDO labs had provided much of the design base, testing infrastructure and specialist manpower behind the indigenisation. Removing the DG (MSS) from the board, they argue, could weaken BrahMos’ formal link with those labs. Anand Sai’s son gets bail in hit-and-run case E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Hyderabad Raidurg police produced B Shiva Sandeep Sai Anand, son of TTD board member Anand Sai, before a local court on Wednesday in connection with a hit-andrun case in which a restaurant worker was killed. The court granted him conditional bail. The accident occurred at Khajaguda around 4.15 am on Monday. Police said 31-year-old Nanda Kishor Kumar Ray, a native of Bihar, died on the spot, while another person was injured. Raidurg Inspector Thota Bhupathi said that the police, after registering a case, analysed CCTV footage from the Khajaguda area towards Financial District and traced one of the vehicles involved in the accident to B Shiva Sandeep Sai Anand. While granting bail, the court directed him to cooperate with the investigation. The case is under investigation. Minister: Act against CM 1st for ‘anti-party’ remarks E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Hyderabad Endowments Minister Konda Surekha on Wednesday said that if a section of Telangana Congress leaders was demanding disciplinary action against her, similar action should first be considered against Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy for repeatedly making statements on his continuation in the post and announcing party candidates for future elections. Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Surekha pointed to Revanth’s repeated statements that he would remain chief minister for 10 years and his remarks about party candidates for the next elections. She questioned whether such statements, made without a decision from the Congress high command, could also be viewed as anti-party conduct. Her remarks came against the backdrop of calls by a section of Telangana Congress leaders for disciplinary action against her over comments made by her daughter Sushmita. Surekha said that if action was being sought against her, the party should first examine the conduct of Revanth and other leaders. She also referred to complaints against Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and the wife of Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, and questioned why similar demands for action had not been made against them. continued on P4