bhutan glacial lake outburst triggers flood alert in india The glacial lake outburst at Sintaphu in Bhutan early on Friday triggered downstream alerts in lowlying areas of West Bengal and Assam. The outburst occurred at Sintaphu Lake near Wakila Mountain in Lungo, Laya Gewog, in Gasa 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 | P11 bengaluru l saturday l october 31, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 24 l late city EDITION 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 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 | P12 ‘Impeachment’ today at Kharge’s residence 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 | P11 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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at an event in Banaskantha, Gujarat | pti the Opposition parties of rejoicing whenever the country faces a crisis. He alleged they tried to spread panic over the 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. Chopper crash kills pilot, 5 from B’luru na r end r a sethi @ Dehradun SIX people, including the 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 SP Surjeet Singh Panwar informed. VT-HCX, an AS350 B3 helicopter, operated by Trans Bharat Aviation, took off from express read Kagodu, Bidapa to get Rajyotsava Awards BENGALURU: Former Speaker and minister Kagodu Thimmappa, fashion designer Prasad Bidapa, Karnataka’s first woman chief secretary Teresa Bhattacharya and former advocate general BV Acharya are among the 71 distinguished personalities selected for the Kannada Rajyotsava Awards 2026 | P6 HC terms Arun Ferreira’s 2011 arrest ‘illegal’ Mumbai: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has held the September 2011 arrest of activist Arun Ferreira “illegal” and ordered the Maharashtra government to pay him a compensation of `2 lakh within eight weeks. The division bench in an October 27 order came down heavily on the police for branding Ferreira as absconding, though he was in jail since 2007 | P12 Wreckage of the helicopter near Chai village in Chamoli on Friday | PTI 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. India’s poverty drop among world’s fastest 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-a-day 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. The police and the district administration immediately began search operations. Those on board apart from were Captain Himanshu were Prathap Gowda, Ar un Salunke, Shankare Gowda VB, Sudheer K and HS Nataraju. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Civil Aviation will conduct a probe into the crash. Meanwhile, sources said IMD had issued a yellow alert for entire Uttarakhand on Friday It is unclear how the chop. per was allowed to take off.  P7 isro launches 3rd next-gen navigation sat E x p r ess N e w s S e r v i c e @ Bengaluru The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launched its third next-generation navigation satellite, NVS03, late Friday night from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. The three-stage GSLV-F18 rocket lifted off with the NVS-03 satellite at 11.51pm. The 2,250-kg NVS-03 satellite will strengthen India’s Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC), raising the number of active NavIC satellites to four. This mission has been launched in the wake of the failed NVS-02 launch in January 2025. NVS-03 has been placed in an elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit with a 170km perigee and 37,023km apogee. P7