kollam l saturday l October 31, 2026 l `10.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION bhutan glacial lake outburst triggers flood alert in india The glacial lake outburst at Sintaphu in Bhutan early on Friday triggered downstream alerts in low-lying areas of West Bengal and Assam 10,000 people relocated in assam, bengal rising trend of Himalayan hazards The outburst occurred at Sintaphu Lake near Wakila Mountain in Lungo, Laya Gewog, in Gasa district of Bhutan. Following this, the Central Water Commission issued a special advisory to authorities in West Bengal and Assam. More than 10,000 people were relocated to safer areas in West Bengal’s Alipurduar, and in Assam’s Dhubri and Kokrajhar districts | P7 ■ ■ Previous assessments by ICIMOD and UNDP identified 47 major potentially dangerous glacial lakes across the transboundary of Koshi, Gandaki, and Karnali river basins, authorities said on Friday Kathmandu-based ICIMOD said this event is part of a broader pattern of mountain hazards affecting countries across the region 70L cubic m of water was released from the Sintaphu Lake in bhutan 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 Ready for special session on ‘vote theft’, but Oppn won’t agree: Shah ‘Impeachment’ today at Kharge’s residence Union home minister Amit Shah said on Friday that the BJP is ready for a special Parliament session to discuss the alleged “vote theft” but the Opposition parties are not interested in discussion. “I challenge Rahul and Akhilesh. The BJP is ready to discuss every allegation inside Parliament ... But they will not discuss,” Shah said, dismissing the allegations against the poll panel as baseless | P8 INDIA bloc’s symbolic ‘public impeachment’ of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was postponed to Saturday due to rains, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said. The event will be held at Mallikarjun Kharge’s official residence | P7 Will serve people of India till my last breath: Modi Seen as riposte to Cong chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s ‘baap’ remark D I L I P S I N G H K S H AT R I YA @ Ahmedabad PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that he would serve the people of India till his last breath, in an indirect response to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s recent controversial remark that “even Modi’s father will have to go”. “Jeevan ke antim kshan tak janta ki seva main hi juta rahunga (I will continue to serve the people until my last breath),” Modi said while addressing farmers after inaugurating the Bharat Bovine Breeding and Research Centre at Bhildi town in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district. During the roadshow, Modi’s supporters were seen carrying placards that read Modi kahin nahi jayega (Modi is not going anywhere) as a direct counterresponse to Kharge’s comment made at a public rally in Bihar last week, which kicked up a political storm. In his address, Modi accused the Opposition parties of rejoicing whenever the country faces a crisis. He alleged they tried to spread panic over the E X PRESS RE A D PSC scam: Chairman, members named accused T’Puram: The crime branch special investigation team has named the PSC chairman, members and the commission’s officials aligned with the CPM as accused in the case pertaining to irregularities in the exam for the post of fisheries extension officer. P4 In a first, Rafale-M makes landing on INS Vikrant New Delhi: The Navy’s effort to integrate the French-made Rafale Marine (Rafale-M) with its desi aircraft carrier cleared a key milestone Thursday, when the fighter landed on INS Vikrant on its maiden attempt. P7 Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at an event in Banaskantha, Gujarat | pti There are those who wish to see the country in distress— they actually derive pleasure when the nation faces hardship. Whenever a crisis befalls the country, they find joy in it — Narendra Modi, PM availability of fertilisers and cooking gas amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Without taking names, he said: “They sowed fear among farmers, claiming fertilisers would become unavailable. They created artificial queues and created a sense of panic.” After laying the foundation stones for development projects worth `14,000 crore, he claimed farmers across the country have received or saved more than `50 lakh crore through major government schemes, adding that his government transformed agricultural support through direct transfers, fertiliser subsidies, MSP payments and crop insurance. Modi said his government has placed farmers, particularly small cultivators, at the centre of its policies. He also took a swipe at previous governments, accusing them of neglecting small farmers. “Since independence, the needs of these small-scale farmers were never understood, and they were never even consulted,” Modi said, adding that farmers cultivating small landholdings account for more than 85% of the country’s farming population. Highlighting the financial assistance extended to farmers, the PM said the agricultural budget has increased fivefold and around `4.5 lak hcrore has been transferred directly to farmers’ accounts under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. On Friday `18,000 crore was , released to nearly 10 crore farmers, including over 50 lakh beneficiaries in Gujarat. none of the Nipah victims received Remdesivir, says DOC P o o j a N ai r @Kozhikode A day after the government announced a probe into whether six Nipah deaths were linked to the administration of expired medicine, Dr A S Anoop, a critical-care specialist who had dealt with some of the cases, asserted on Friday that none of those patients had received Remdesivir from Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital. The treatment records and circumstances surrounding the deaths did not support the suggestion that the patients had received Remdesivir, Dr Anoop told TNIE. “Of the 13 people who tested positive for Nipah in the state between 2023 and 2025, six died and seven recovered. None of the six who died had received Remdesivir from MCH, Kozhikode,” he said. However, he questioned why the department continued to stock the antiviral drugs after they had expired. Meanwhile, Health Minister K Muraleedharan said the government would draw no conclusions until the expert committee completed its probe and submitted its report. He told reporters that the information presented in the press Intake Assembly session exposes chinks in Left front armour | P5 Look into Form 7 applications in UP: SC to EC | P7 India’s poverty decline among fastest globally: World Bank P U S H P I TA D E Y @ New Delhi India has recorded one of the fastest declines in poverty globally with the share of its population living below poverty line falling from 57.7% in 2011 to 16.1% in 2023, a World Bank report said. The report titled India Poverty and Equity Brief: October 2026, released on Friday, said India lifted 496 million people out of poverty during this period. It, however, flagged wage disparities, noting that median earnings among the top 10% of workers were 13 times that of the bottom 10% in 2023. According to the report, India made remarkable progress in reducing poverty across monetary and non-monetary dimensions. Extreme poverty measured , against the $3-a-day threshold, also fell sharply from 27.1% to 2.6%, it noted. The World Bank expects poverty to decline further, with the rate at the $4.20-aday threshold projected to fall from 14.2% in 2026 to 12.1% by 2028. The improvement is expected to be driven by strong consumption growth, rising employment, particularly among women, and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government’s sustained policy efforts were yielding tangible results, strengthening the foundations for inclusive growth and greater economic opportunities. “This is the reason why NDA government wins people’s trust and mandate of our citizens,” she said. Govt promises unfulfilled Rescue hero’s family sinks into debt Home minister had promised me a job. Some newspapers reported that we would get Rs 8 lakh as compensation. But nothing has materialised so far — Shafiya M S V idyanandan @T’Puram Fourteen-year-old Arshan walked ahead to show their new home, still under construction, his feet in sandals a size too large. When asked about them, he smiled sheepishly. They were his own, he said, bought recently He chose them the way his . father would have. His father never counted the cost when it came to his family but was careful with every ru, pee he spent on himself. “I’m still growing,” Arshan explained. “This way I won’t need a new , pair anytime soon.” A Class IX student, Arshan R is the elder son of R Rajesh, who won Keralam’s heart with his final act. On August 1, during a flood rescue mission in Kannur, he gave his own life jacket to a farmer stranded in the swollen Kariangode river, and was swept away by the current. The family is sliding into hardship The family of Rajesh, who died during a flood rescue in Kannur, at their old house at Kalliyoor in Thiruvananthapuram | B P Deepu and Arshan was the first to sense it, his mother said. Amid the confusion that followed his father’s death, he could not get his KSRTC concession card. A one-way ticket to school costs `15. With money running short, he now makes return journey on foot. Three months after the tragedy, Rajesh’ family is struggling to make ends meet. With the government’s promise of compensation and a job for his wife yet to materialise, they are left unsure of their next step. The family of five, including Rajesh’s parents and his wife Shafiya, lives in an old, cramped house at Kalliyoor in Thiruvananthapuram. Their new home, a modest single-storey house, is being built under the LIFE Mission ● More on P4 housing scheme.  assembly was based on reports from responsible health department officials. “There are several doubts about the medicine, including whether it was administered after the sell-by date. We will investigate the matter before taking a decision,” he said. Dr Anoop said, “Following the 2018 and 2019 outbreaks, we began administering Remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to Nipah patients. However, there is still no conclusive evidence of how far these drugs improve patient outcomes, as human studies remain limited.” Recalling the 2023 outbreak, Dr Anoop said the first patient was admitted to MIMS Hospital, Kozhikode, where he works. Doctors began suspecting Nipah upon learning that the patient’s father had died with similar symptoms. “The father’s samples were preserved at the hospital where he was treated. We sent samples from the father and son for testing, which confirmed Nipah. We managed to save the son, but his father died before the infection was diagnosed. This establishes that the father was not administered Remdesivir,” he said. ● More on P4 6 killed in chopper crash na r end r a sethi @ Dehradun SIX people, including a pilot and five pilgrims, were killed when a chartered helicopter flying from Badrinath to Dehradun crashed near Chai village in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli on Friday officials said. , The passengers were residents of Bengaluru, while the pilot, Captain Himanshu, was from Delhi, Chamoli Superintendent of Police Surjeet Singh Panwar informed. VT-HCX, an AS350 B3 helicopter, operated by Trans Bharat Aviation, took off from Badrinath at 1.14 pm for Sahastradhara helipad in Dehradun. It was manoeuvring a patch of airspace amid snowfall when contact was lost near Hathi Parvat, close to Joshimath. The police and the district administration immediately began search and rescue efforts. Authorities have not yet released further details about the cause of the crash. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Civil Aviation will conduct a probe into the crash.