SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER, 2025 epaper.morningstandard.in Mehul Choksi facebook.com/TheMorningStandard X.com/TheMornStandard B O LT O N I N D I C T E D FOR MISHANDLING CLASSIFIED DOCS Court orders Choksi’s extradition to India John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor, was indicted on Thursday—the third ‘foe’ of the POTUS to face criminal charges in recent weeks A CAPITAL VIEW OF NEWS PAGE 9 Govt orders social audit of schools in city EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi THE government is set to conduct a social audit of schools under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for the academic year 2025-26. The initiative, with an outlay of `3.73 crore, aims to cover nearly 60% of schools across the city and evaluate performance, infrastructure, and inclusivity through community participation. According to officials, the audit will focus on parameters such as infrastructure, student safety, especially for girls, enrolment, attendance, retention rates, and the inclusion of children with special needs. Unlike regular inspections, the process will involve parents, teachers, and local communities. Only institutions with a NAAC accreditation of B+ or above will be eligible to conduct the audit, with the Delhi’s State Administrative University may be given preference for implementation. Officials said the government hopes to identify areas that need improvement such as gaps in infra, safety, and learning outcomes. A senior education department official said, “This is not just about accountability but about participation. When parents and communities get involved, schools become more responsive and inclusive.” The social audit is part of the Samagra Shiksha scheme, a centrally sponsored plan aimed to ensure quality education. KEY DATES 2025   J8.00 Phase 1 FROM APRIL 1, 2026: Includes houselisting, compiling data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household Phase 2 Population Enumeration, demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded To check for system bugs, identify challenges, refine operations SETTING the testing process of Census-2027 in motion, the Centre on Friday said the first phase of the Population Census will be conducted in select areas across states and Union Territories from November 10 to 30. Parallelly, a digital self-enumeration window for citizens will be open from November 1 to 7, a gazette notification issued by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, said. The pre-test aims to assess the efficacy of the Census, which will be conducted between April 1, 2026 and February 28, 2027, in two phases. The test is meant to check for bugs in the systems, identify challenges and refine methods before the full-scale Census. Census-2027 will be the first such digital exercise in India. Caste enumeration too will be done for the first time after Independence. During the test phase, all aspects of the exercise — from questions, data collection, training, logistics and mobile application to software performance — will be assessed to rectify procedural/ technical issues. In Phase-1, the Houselisting Operation, data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. In Phase-2, the Population Enumeration (PE), demographic, socio-economic, SELF-ENUMERATION FROM NOVEMBER 1-7 A digital self-enumeration window for citizens will be open from November 1 to 7. It, too, will be part of the pre-test before the actual rollout of the exercise on April 1, 2026, officials said cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded. The PE is scheduled to begin on February 1, officials said. The reference date for the Census is March 1, 2027, for most parts of India, while for Ladakh and snow-bound regions of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it will be October 1, 2026. Over 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors, along with around 1.3 lakh Census functionaries, will be deployed for the massive data collection exercise. This will be India’s 16th Census since the exercise began and the eighth after Independence. The official Gazette notification of the government’s intent to conduct the Census was published on June 16. The last Census was conducted in 2011. The next one was to done in 2021, but had to be postp oned d ue to t h e C ov i d pandemic. Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel (left) during the swearing-in ceremony; and Rivaba Jadeja takes her oath of office as a minister in Gandhinagar on Friday | PTI Dy CM, 19 freshers in new Guj ministry D I L I P S I N G H K S H AT R I YA @ Ahmedabad GUJARAT on Friday witnessed a total reset of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel’s ministerial team ahead of the local body elections, with the elevation Harsh Sanghvi as Deputy Chief Minister in a 26-member ministry that includes 19 freshers. The reshuffle blends caste arithmetic, political muscle and strategic messaging, while dropping several old and Congress-origin ministers. Sanghvi took the oath first, marking his formal elevation as Deputy Chief Minister, a po- Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor sidelined Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor, once fiery faces of agitations that shook the BJP govt, find themselves sidelined within the party. With other Congress defectors also dropped, the BJP has sent a sharp message: the path to power runs through loyalty, not past glory sition held by only five others in Gujarat’s political history. His rise is more than ceremonial as it cements his place as a key power centre in the government and reflects the BJP’s calibrated grooming of its next rung of leadership. The new ministry has seven Patidars, eight OBCs, three members of the Scheduled Castes, four Scheduled Tribes, and three women, including Rivaba Jadeja, wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja. Rivaba’s entry is both symbolic and tactical it blends celebrity pull with electoral arithmetic in Jamnagar. Of the 16 ministers in the outgoing ministry, only six were retained while 10 others were axed. SSP REPORT WARNS OF DISTURBANCE F AYA Z W A N I @ Srinagar SCHEDULED TO BEGIN ON FEB 1, 2027: Census system test for first phase from Nov 10 M U K E S H R A N J A N @ New Delhi PAGES 12 Ex-SC judge to probe Leh riot 2027 APR 1, 2026 TO FEB 28, 2027 Actual Census-2027 exercise in 2 phases Option for citizens to do self-enumeration Pre-test of first phase in select locations in all states and Union territories. First phase includes Houselisting and Housing Census NEW DELHI 2026 NOVEMBER 1 TO 7 NOVEMBER 10 TO 30  A court in Antwerp on Friday cleared the extradition of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi, noting that his arrest by the Belgian authorities on India’s request was valid. Choksi (66) was arrested in Belgium on April 11 this year on an extradition request sent by the CBI, they said. He will be housed in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai | P7 Amid the smooth transition was a quiet purge, particularly of Congress turncoats. Out of five such ministers in the previous cabinet, only two survived — Kunwarji Bavaliya and Arjun Modhwadia. The rest were shown the door. Of the 25 members of the new council of ministers, nine are of cabinet rank, three MoS with independent charge and 13 MoS. Gujarat has seen only five Deputy Chief Ministers in the past: Chiman Patel and Kantilal Ghiya (1972), Keshubhai Patel (1990), Narhari Amin (1994), and Nitin Patel (2016-21). P8 THE Union Home Ministry on Friday moved to address a key demand of the protesting Ladakh groups by announcing a judicial inquiry headed by a retired Supreme Court judge into the violent clashes of September 24 in Leh, which claimed four lives, including a 1999 Kargil war veteran. The judicial probe, to be headed by Justice B S Chauhan, will investigate the ‘circumstances leading to the serious law and order situation, the police action and the resultant unfortunate deaths of four people’. Retired district and sessions judge Mohan Singh Parihar will function as judicial secretary, while IAS officer Tushar Anand will be the administrative secretary . File photo The September 24 clashes between security forces and protesters who were demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule status for the Union territory, left four civilians dead and 90 injured, escalating a monthslong agitation. The probe is an attempt to restore dialogue with representatives of the ongoing movement, the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which suspended talks with MHA’s high-powered com- District Magistrate of Leh Romil Singh Donk imposed new restrictions from Friday following a report by SSP Leh that there is an apprehension of disturbance to public peace and tranquility mittee (HPC) following the violence. On Friday, authorities reimposed restrictions in Leh district of Ladakh ahead of Saturday’s two-hour silent march and a blackout called jointly by Leh Apex Body and KDA to push for Sixth Schedule status and statehood for Ladakh. The administration has banned processions, any rally or a march in the district without prior written approval of the competent authority . SC flags rise in digital arrest scams, seeks Centre & CBI replies India’s largest digital arrest scam worth `58 cr cracked S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi @ Mumbai VOICING serious concern over digital arrests, the Supreme Court on Friday took suo motu cognisance of such incidents in which fraudsters allegedly impersonate law enforcement agencies and fabricate judicial orders to extort money from people, particularly senior citizens, and sought responses from Centre and the CBI. The SC took cognisance of a case of digital arrest of a senior citizen couple in Ambala on the basis of forged orders of the court and probe agencies by Delhiites lose fraudsters to extort over `1 crore. `1K cr to cyber “The fabrication of judicial orders frauds in 2025 bearing forged signatures of the judgCyber fraudsters es strikes at the very foundation of the have duped Delhi public trust in the judicial system beresidents of nearly sides the rule of law. Such action con`1,000 crore so far stituted direct assault on the dignity this year, with of the institution. Such grave criminal investment scams act cannot be treated as an ordinary or and digital arrests routine offence of cheating or cyber being the common crime,” observed a bench of Justices cases, cops said. P4 Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi. The SC also sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkataramani on the issue. It stressed that there must be coordinated efforts between the central forces and state police and other authorities to unearth the full extent of the enterprise involving forging of judicial documents, extortion, robbery of innocent people, most importantly the senior citizens. The 73-year-old woman from Ambala alleged that scammers illegally forged SC orders to confine her in a digital arrest and extort `1 crore between September 3 and 16. She claimed that the fraudsters produced a fake judicial order purportedly issued by the SC judge to succumb to their extortion demands. After going through the complaint, the SC issued notice to the Centre through the MHA secretary and the CBI through its Director, Principal Secretary Department of Home. , S U D H I R S U R YA W A N S H I MAHARASHTRA Cyber has exposed India’s largest digital arrest scam worth `58.13 crore, arresting seven accused. A 72-year-old Maharashtra resident lost his life savings after a gang tricked him out of the money over 40 days. The victim received a call from an international number, with a person impersonating a TRAI officer claiming his mobile number was misused. The call was transferred to another fraudster posing as a Mumbai Crime Branch officer, saying his bank accounts were involved in money laundering. “To avoid a digital arrest, you must transfer funds to a designated account, which will be refunded after verification,” they told him. The accused staged fake police and court proceedings via video calls, with others posing as officers and judges. Maharashtra Cyber tracked the technical and financial trails and eventually uncovered 6,500 money mule accounts, finally locating the end beneficiaries and arrested the accused. Of the total, `3.5 crore has been frozen. HISTORIC UKRAINE ZELENSKYY MEETS TANVI 1ST INDIAN WOMAN TO CONFIRM MEDAL IN 17 YEARS The 16-year-old Tanvi Sharma advances to semifinals of BWF World Junior Championships | P11 TRUMP AT WH A day after Trump’s call with Putin, Zelenskyy met US Prez at White House on Friday for long-range missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. | P9 EXPRESS READ AWARDS COMPENSATION AIIMS faculty goes on strike over doc removal SC sets up equal opportunity panel to protect transgenders A confrontation has erupted at AIIMS, Delhi, with more than 100 faculty members launching a strike to protest the removal of a cardiac surgeon from his post as HoD following a sexual harassment complaint. The protesting doctors gathered at the Ramalingaswami Board Room, one of the main conference halls of the institute, in protest. P4 Rajnath hails HAL support to IAF Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday hailed Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) for providing support to the Indian Air Force’s fighter fleet at various frontline bases during Operation Sindoor as he described the aerospace major as the backbone of India’s defence sector. P7 210 Naxals lay down arms in Bastar dist In the largest single-day surrender, 210 Maoists, including 110 women cadres, on Friday laid down arms before police and paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh’s Jagdalpur in Bastar district, about 300 km south of Raipur. The surrendered Naxalites also handed over 153 weapons, including AK-47s. P8 S U C H I T R A K A LYA N M O H A N T Y @ New Delhi IN a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Friday awarded compensation to a transwoman whose appointment as a teacher was terminated by two private schools in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, respectively, based on her gender identity . A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan directed the Centre, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat governments and the school in Gujarat to pay `50,000 each to the petitioner for the discrimination she faced. The court delivered the verdict on a writ petition filed by Jane Kaushik, who was dismissed from service on account of her gender identity . The court expressed concern over the discrimination faced by transgenders despite the enactment of a law in 2019, and directed the Centre to come out with an “equal opportunity policy” within three months of a report submitted by an advisory panel. The panel will be headed by Justice Asha Menon, former judge of Delhi High Court. The bench said the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019 and its corresponding rules have been “brutishly reduced to dead letters”, and the Centre and the states have exhibited a ‘grossly apathetic’ attitude towards them. “The community continues to face discrimination and marginalisation, with a scarcity of healthcare, economic opportunities and non-inclusive educational policies add- ing to their struggles,” the bench said in its order. It made various suggestions, including asking the Centre to consider formulating and issuing specific directions to ensure that no transwoman is arrested without the presence of a female officer. It suggested that all establishments, including workplaces, may cultivate an environment that is genderinclusive and conducive to the free expression of identity by transgender persons, without fear or stigma.