chennai l saturday l august 29, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 20 l late city EDITION Industrial PRODUCTION MODERATES TO 6.7% in July AS mining contracts National Statistics Office data released on Friday showed that mining & quarrying shrank 0.9% in July against 1% growth in June and 10.7% a year ago Index for June revised from 7.3% to 8.8% Manufacturing slows but holds firm The Index of Industrial Production for June was revised from the provisional estimate of 7.3% to 8.8%. According to NSO, the July headline number of 6.7% was “supported by 7.3% growth in manufacturing and strong growth of 8.7% in electricity & gas supply”. Growth in manufacturing, which carries the largest weight in the index, moderated to 7.3% in July from 9.5% in June | P14 ■ ■ In the manufacturing sector, 19 out of 23 industry groups have recorded a positive year-on-year growth in July 2026, data showed Top 3 contributors in July are: ‘Manufacture of electrical equipment’ (28.3%), ‘Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers & semi-trailers’ (22.2%), and ‘Manufacture of machinery and equipment’ (12.1%) 5.4% The Index of Industrial production recorded in july 2025 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 Work order nixed Sports City project may be scrapped E X P R E SS N E WS S E R V I C E @ Chennai Relatives look at photos (above) of flash flood victims displayed outside a morgue for identification, in Kathmandu on Friday; and Minister S Jaishankar with TN tourists who arrived in Delhi from Nepal | PTI 320 Indians missing, toll tops 580 Around 400 Indians stranded but safe in Tibet; tunnel specialists being sent for rescue ops E x pre s s N e w s Service @ New Delhi At least 320 Indian nationals remain uncontactable and around 400 others are stranded but safe on the Chinese side following devastating flash floods along the Nepal-Tibet border as India stepped up efforts to trace its citizens and offered Kathmandu a range of rescue and relief assistance. The floods have killed at least 584 people, 579 in Nepal and five in Tibet, while Nepalese authorities put the number of missing around 1,900. The scale of destruction has complicated rescue operations, with fears of further flooding disrupting efforts in several areas. “The damage is just incredible,” Lila Pieters Yahia, the UN resident coordinator for Nepal, said on Friday, adding that more than 40 bridges had been Valmiki scam Karnataka govt blinks, minister Nagendra quits D E V A R A J B H I R E H A L L I @ Bengaluru IN a major setback to the Congress government in Karnataka, Planning and Statistics Minister B Nagendra resigned on Thursday just 25 days after , being inducted as a minister. Chief Minister D K Shivakumar has been facing pressure to drop Nagendra ever since the latter was inducted as minister in the cabinet expansion on August 3. Nagendra said he is stepping down to avoid embarrassment to the party and the CM. He added that he will also resign from the Assembly and dared BJP leaders, who were calling for his ouster, to contest against him. He categorically denied all allegations made against him in the `187 crore Maharshi Valmiki ST Corporation scam. This is the second time that Nagendra is resigning as minister over the same issue. The first time was on June 6, 2024 when Siddaramaiah was chief minister. First person account: Teacher recalls ordeal Chennai: Sathiya Jayaraman, a 58-year-old teacher, who was part of a 57-member group on Kailash yatra, tells TNIE, “We saw dust rising at a distance initially but did not make anything of it.” As storm developed, local police asked everyone to evacuate the area soon. By then, they could see the flood tearing through. “We scrambled to get out and left all our belongings in the bus,” she says, recalling the ordeal | P2 destroyed or badly damaged and “over 40 km of road completely destroyed.” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said 400 Indians stranded on the Chinese side were in touch with their families. The Indian embassy in Beijing is coordinating with Chinese authorities on their evacuation, he added. By Friday evening, 153 Indian nationals had safely crossed from the Chinese side into Nepal by land, officials said. Jaiswal said 320 Indians remained uncontactable while around 100 additional people of Indian origin were also out of contact. Some of the latter may have been travelling for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra but hold other nationalities. Meanwhile, 21 from Tamil Nadu rescued from the flood-hit areas arrived in New Delhi on Friday. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar received them at the Delhi airport. The rescued group told Jaishankar about the sudden flooding and expressed gratitude to the Nepal Army for bringing them out. Deal done for US Javelin anti-tank missile system The state government has decided to restructure and redesign the project to develop an allencompassing sports city capable of hosting national and internationallevel events, including events of the scale of Asian Games CMDA in trouble Housing Minister B Rajkumar told the Assembly that the CMDA, which had remained largely selfsustaining for decades, made financial commitments totalling `6,945.8 crore in the last five years, forcing it to borrow funds  P4 @ New Delhi Chennai: Minister P Venkataraman on Friday told the Assembly that sugar, rice, onions and a few other vegetables and groceries would be supplied at subsidised rates through cooperative supermarkets and ration shops across TN soon to keep prices under check | P4 After trailing 9-3 in the summit clash of the four-man Grand Finals, the 21-year-old showed his gumption and class by taking the lead in the Rapid section of the final before sealing the win in the Blitz format. Infrared guidance The big draw of the Javelin is its guidance. Its imaging infrared seeker locks on to the target before launch, allowing the gunner to fire and immediately withdraw simulation rounds and spares. Lt Gen Ajay Kumar, former Director General of Infantry, said in October 2025 that the Army was pursuing 12 launchers and 104 missiles. A Congressional notification records approval for a possible sale and not the quantity . The Javelin can be set to attack from above, where the armour of a tank is thinnest and carries a tandem warhead intended to defeat explosive reactive armour. One month on tour The Grand Chess Tour is a series of elite events between the world’s best players before the top four players of the preliminary stages advance to the final. It’s held across all three established time controls (Classical, Rapid and Blitz) What’s more remarkable is that he has spent the majority of the last month on tour in the US playing two GCT events before advancing to the final. In all, he has played over 50 games and 70 hours Hundreds of small investors, including daily-wage labourers, housewives, and auto drivers, took to the streets in Madurai and Dindigul districts on Friday after falling victim to a multi-crore cryptocurrency Ponzi scam. The protests turned violent in Dindigul’s Kasampatti village, where angry victims ransacked the houses of middlemen, demanding the immediate arrest of the fraudsters and the recovery of their money. The victims lodged petitions at different police stations and special camps in southern districts on Friday . A case has been registered in Madurai district cyber crime police, and 12 people have been a r re st e d , Ma d u r a i S P N Devanathan said. Steps are also under way to freeze their passports and recover the duped money he added. , The kingpin of the scam has been identified as Ranjith, and his family members and neighbours from Melur. Ranjith allegedly claimed he is a US returnee who learnt how to invest abroad and still has connections in the US. According to police, it was a link-and-app-based scam where an investor got a link from an agent or APK file. The links, which differed for each investor, displayed the individual’s account status. Some victims said they received links as recently as last week.  P7 Onions to be supplied through PDS shops in TN On Thursday, R Praggnanandhaa became the first Indian to win the Grand Chess Tour 2026. A look at how he won it... Explaining the GCT V i g ne s h V @ Madurai E x p r e s s Re a d Pathbreaker Pragg Keeping nerve against Fabiano in the final JAVA R I A RA N A indian Army has signed a formal contract with the US to procure the FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank guided missile system, a weapon it has been seeking since 2009. “BIG news! India plans to buy the battle-tested Javelin anti-tank system,” US envoy to India Sergio Gor wrote on X. He said the purchase could open the way to co-production of the missile in India. Gor linked the development to remarks made by the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth at the Shangri-La Dialogue earlier this year, where Hegseth said India would acquire the system. The purchase is being processed under the Army’s emergency procurement powers, which allow Service Headquarters to conclude urgent acquisitions within a delegated financial ceiling of `300 crore. The quantities are limited. In November last year, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible sale to India of 100 Javelin rounds, one fly-to-buy missile and 25 launch units at an estimated cost of $45.7 million, together with trainers, “We are still very much focused on contacting all the Indians there,” Jaishankar said. India has also intensified humanitarian assistance. A third military flight carrying 10 tonnes of relief supplies departed for Kathmandu on Friday, taking India’s emergency assistance since Wednesday night to 47.5 tonnes. The latest consignment includes portable generators, dignity kits, food packets and water-purification tablets. An 11-member team of doctors, paramedics and tunnel-rescue specialists was also sent. Jaishankar said tunnel specialists were being sent because people could potentially be trapped at a hydropower project. He also reviewed the crisis with senior officials, with India’s ambassadors in Kathmandu and Beijing joining virtually . Tamil Nadu’s ambitious Global Sports City project at Semmencheri on the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) may go the Parandur way as the Sports Development Author, ity of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) has terminated the `205.89 crore work order awarded to RPP Infra Projects Limited for its construction. A letter dated August 12, 2026, written by Member Secretary of SDAT J Meghanatha Reddy to the company said the government has decided to restructure and redesign the project, considering the total extent of land available, to develop a bigger, comprehensive, and all-encompassing sports city capable of hosting future national and international-level sporting events, including events of the scale of the Asian Games. This comes following a meeting held under the chairmanship of the Minister for Public Works and Sports Development, Aadhav Arjuna. Top officials in the SDAT could not be contacted on whether the government is looking at alternative sites in Chennai. The Global Sports City was planned over more than 80 acres in the first phase. The project was to include an internationalstandard football stadium, shooting ranges (10m, 25m and 50m), archery facilities, rowing and kayaking infrastructure, BMX cycling and skating arenas, multi-discipline indoor stadiums and residential hostels for athletes. Semmmancheri was among the three sites finalised for setting up the Global Sports City The other two considered were . Kuthambakkam and Vandalur. The Semmmancheri site was prone to flooding and then Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena had asked Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) to prepare a stormwater drainage plan to avoid flooding. P7 Project to be revised Stirs over TN Ponzi fraud, 12 arrested $404,354 The money Pragg earned by winning the GCT this year Driver avoids mishap moments before death Coimbatore: A 69-year-old school van driver who suffered a cardiac arrest managed to halt his vehicle safely before collapsing on the steering wheel in Coimbatore on Thursday. Two students and two staff were on board and the van was passing through a flyover | P7 Stay on bypolls to 5 seats will affect voters: CM to HC R S I V A KU M A R @ Chennai Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay has told the Madras High Court that stopping the bye-elections in five Assembly constituencies deprives lakhs of people the opportunity to air their interest, cause and grievance with their elected representatives for an indefinite period of time. Vijay made the submission in a counter-affidavit filed before the first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan, recently, in response to the writ petition filed by advocate K Venkatachalapathy, based on which the court has temporarily stayed the bypolls. The court restrained the Election Commision of India from holding byeelections to Tiruchy-East, which has fallen vacant after Vijay resigned, and Viralimalai, Karur, Are you King of England, court asks finance min Chennai: The HC on Friday condemned Finance Minister N Marie Wilson for failing to appear before a Puducherry court in an assault case. Does the minister considers himself “King of England,” asked Justice V Lakshminarayanan | P4 Perundurai and Ambasamudram constituencies, whose four AIADMK MLAs re- signed after cross-voting and later joined TVK. The TVK leader said the petitioner is only seeking to protect the interest of the election petitioners. In the event of the election of the winners being declared void, the runners-up (petitioners) would be declared elected under Section 84 of the Representation of the People Act. Such a relief would only protect the interest of one individual who did not get elected, the counter-affidavit said.  P7 Why Penguin pressured Sonia to purge loaded political portions of her memoir E x pre s s N e w s Service @ New Delhi The central point of contention between Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Penguin Random House India (PRHI) was the publisher’s demand to retract passages containing her “frank” assessment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and references to mishandling of “Chinese incursion” during his tenure, a senior party function- ary said. According to the functionary, the passages were not based on ‘hearsay’ but on Sonia’s ‘relevant interactions’ and assessment. The functionary described the remarks as “candid” saying Sonia had written about what she had observed and experienced in her dealings with the prime minister as “both as the leader of a political party and a person in public life”. The functionary said the is- sue was not about routine factchecking but with “substantive changes to the political content of the memoir”. The concern, according to the functionary, was that substantially “altering” or “removing” those passages would change the “character” of Sonia’s account and “assessment” of contemporary political events. PRHI, however, denied that it decided against publishing the memoir because Sonia refused Nov 10 release Alfred A Knopf, an imprint of Penguin, had recently announced that Belonging will be released worldwide on Nov 10 editorial changes, and said it is “not the publisher of the book in India”. “Any suggestion that Penguin Random House India decided not to publish Belonging because the author declined editorial changes does not accurately reflect the circumstances,” PRHI said on Friday It main. tained that fact-checking and making editorial recommendations are a normal part of its role. “It is both our prerog- ative and our responsibility to fact check and provide authors with recommendations that are in the best interests of their books,” it said. Senior Cong ress leader Ashok Gehlot alleged that Penguin India wanted changes to portions concerning “Modi, the RSS and China’s ‘occupation of Indian territory.’ Penguin Worldwide is ready to publish the book worldwide in its original form, but Penguin Random House India wants changes in India, he said. “The real issue is that pressure was put on Penguin India to remove the portions related to Modi, the RSS, and the occupation of Indian territory by China during Modi’s rule. This is the murder of democracy,” Gehlot alleged. Following the controversy, HarperCollins is reportedly close to finalising an agreement to publish and distribute the book in India.