SATURDAY 05 SEPTEMBER, 2026 SC ASKS 7 STATES TO HIKE AGE OF RETIREMENT FOR JUDICIAL OFFICERS epaper.morningstandard.in facebook.com/TheMorningStandard X.com/TheMornStandard UKRAINE FEE US WANTS EUROPE TO PAY FOR WAR US President Donald Trump has said he will ask Europeans to repay the American aid provided to Ukraine under the administration under Biden PAGE 9 ADDRESSING ATTRITION IN LOWER COURTS A CAPITAL VIEW OF NEWS  NEW DELHI  J8.00  PAGES 12 The Supreme Court directed the states to amend the service rules and enhance the age of superannuation in the judicial service to 62 years. A three-judge bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi passed the order in the All India Judges Association versus Union of India case. Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, MP, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have consented to the proposal | P7 Marijuana+ pilot 2 pulled alive from tunnel nine days after floods of Aug 4 Phuket AI flight sacked S V K R I S H N A C H A I TA N YA BIG DATA 275: Indian nationals missing 166: Indians rescued so far 1,907: Indians safely crossed into Nepal from China 95 tonnes: Relief material supplied to Nepal on 7 aircraft 54: Personnel sent to support relief and rescue efforts 30: Tunnel rescue experts deployed in Nepal 19: Forensic experts 5: Medical team members 21 tonnes: Relief material flown to Kathmandu on Thursday @ Kathmandu Preliminary AAIB report flags triple hydraulic systems failure in the Phuket-Delhi flight S L A L I T H A @ New Delhi AIR India on Friday terminated the services of the pilot-incommand of the Phuket-Delhi flight that experienced a series of technical failures on August 4, resulting in injuries to 24 people onboard. The airline’s action came hours after the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) released its preliminary probe report, expressing serious concern about the pilot’s drug use. Captain Sudeep Vashistha, 34, had tested positive for marijuana on August 12. “The Pilot-in-Command of the Phuket-Delhi flight tested positive for a psychoactive substance. In line with Air India’s zero-tolerance approach to violation of safety fitness or regu, latory requirements, the pilot’s employment has been terminated with immediate effect,” an Air India statement read. Sources said Captain Vashistha is planning to move court against the termination. According to the AAIB report, all three hydraulic systems of the flight failed within seconds of each other, triggering an autopilot disconnect, a brief ‘stall’ warning, and an altitude drop of 292 feet. TNIE broke the story on August 10 that the failure of all three hydraulic systems led to the accident. In its 10-page report, AAIB said its findings are after analysing the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. It said the flight took off from Phuket on August 4 at 6.11 am IST. As it entered the Kolkata Flight Information Region, the air traffic control instructed the pilots to climb from 34,000 feet to 36,000 feet. The accident occurred while the aircraft was Ripped door of the overhead luggage compartment of the Aug 4 AI flight | FILE PIC Damage to aircraft According to AAIB, the aircraft suffered some damages. The overhead ceiling panel was cracked at 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 18th, 19th and 20th row. The forward right hand emergency exit handle was broken. The passenger unit panels were found dislocated and bent cruising at 36,000 feet. Citing the post-flight report generated by aircraft maintenance personnel, the AAIB said loss of pressure in the green hydraulic system was detected at 09:32:43 am. Four seconds later, the blue and yellow hydraulic systems also failed. At 9:32:48 am, the autopilot got disconnected and a continuous chime alert was sounded. At 9:32:51 am, a ‘stall’ warning was triggered for two seconds. The co-pilot, who was flying the plane, tried to take control of the situation but could not. The captain then took over. At 9:32:52 am, the blue hydraulic system recovered, followed by the yellow and green systems. This resulted in recovery of the flight control systems and normal operating conditions were restored. TWO workers trapped inside a tunnel of the Trishuli-3A Hydroelectric Project in Rasuwa were rescued on Friday, nine days after a devastating flood tore through the Bhote Koshi river system, raising hopes that others missing inside underground hydropower structures could still be found alive. The rescued workers were identified as Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan. Sah briefly said he was chanting ‘Hare Krishna mahamanta’ for the past nine days. Both were pulled out from the tunnel by a joint search and rescue team and airlifted to a hospital. The breakthrough came as A worker rescued from a tunnel at Trishuli 3A hydropower project | EXPRESS | P5 H A R P R E E T B A J W A @ Chandigarh EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi DELHI Police detained self-proclaimed influencer Swatantra Bhardwaj in Uttar Pradesh on Friday, hours after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) staged a protest outside the Parliament Street police station in Delhi demanding his arrest for assaulting a student’s father, a crime he bragged about in an interview. The detention came after CJP representatives including co-convenors Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, along with supporters, marched to the Parliament Street police station demanding Bhardwaj’s arrest. They were accompanied by Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) chief and Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad and MP Pappu Yadav, who met police officials and were assured that action would be taken against Bhardwaj within 72 hours. The protest followed a viral podcast clip in which Bhardwaj openly said he had orchestrated a violent assault on Sanjay Kumar, the father of minor student activist Nishu Azad dur- JITENDRA CHOUBEY & S L A L I T H A @ New Delhi Swatantra Bhardwaj CJP’s Saurav Das and Nagina MP Chandrasekhar Azad with the daughter of Sanjay Kumar on Friday | PTI Appeared on TV, yet police didn’t act, says Azad “We have all seen how the accused has publicly appeared on TV channels and admitted to the allegations against him. Yet, the police did not arrest them,” said Azad Samaj Party chief and Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad, adding he had met senior police officials ing the Jantar Mantar protests. “I cracked the skull... Do you know which section this crime attracts? Section 307. He needed 60 stitches,” Bhardwaj had said in the interview. The CJP-led dele g ation sought addition of attempt-tomurder, criminal intimidation and SC/ST Act provisions to the case and demanded a separate FIR over rape threats targeting Kumar’s daughter. Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Singhavi said that following Rahul Gandhi’s unequivocal support to the victim, the AICC law department ensured the deployment of six counsels, led by Rishav Ranjan, to secure justice for Nishu Azad. Later in the night, Delhi Police added provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and criminal intimidation to the FIR against Bhardwaj. “Attempt to murder provisions would also be added shortly CJP’s Das said. ,” A sudden squall and heavy rain hit Delhi-NCR on Friday afternoon, bringing traffic to a standstill, flooding parts of the Indira Gandhi International Airport and disrupting flight operations. Rain intensified between 3.30 pm and 4.30 pm, leading to diversions and delays, while roads and flyovers were waterlogged. The IMD had issued an Orange alert, which was later escalated to Red. The IMD recorded a peak gusty wind speed of 76 km/h at Waterlogging at airport At IGI Airport, two of the three terminals faced waterlogging in the forecourt and subway areas, forcing passengers and staff to move through flooded sections. Palam Airport for a brief period. About 7mm of rain fell within minutes, contributing to flooding. Visibility fell to 600 metres and temperatures dropped by 2o Celsius. At IGIA, two of the three terminals faced waterlogging in the forecourt and subway areas, forcing passengers and staff to move through the flooded sections. Videos showed people rolling up their trousers to wade through the water. It took over 45 minutes to clear the terminals. Airport sources, however, said waterlogging at Terminal 3 lasted 15-30 minutes. In advisories, IGIA said, “The airport witnessed heavy rainfall. As a result, the approach road and forecourt areas experienced water accumulation. The accumulated water was cleared within some time. The inclement weather also affected flight operators.” CONTINUED ON P4 SONIA MEMOIR HarperCollins gets to be the publishing biggie of the year PA R A M I TA G H O S H @ New Delhi IN 1980, Delhi publisher Vision Books published My Truth, the closest to an Indira Gandhi official autobiography Printed as . a series of interviews with a French journalist, it includes her childhood, Jawaharlal Nehru advising her to be physically active, touches upon her marriage and contextualises “her truths” of her momentous years— the Bangladesh Liberation War and Emergency — for all readers. It was also not a time known for high-voltage book launches and announcements. In comparison, the notice of her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi’s memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, has gone out with a bang, a bump, and again a second blow of the trumpet. While it has generated excitement about its contents, the bigger excitement has been about a story of ‘refusal’. CONTINUED ON P9 Influencer bragging he assaulted 65-year-old on FBI’s most minor’s dad detained after CJP stir wanted list held in Punjab Sudden spell of heavy rain batters city Days ahead of the BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandpam, a heavy spell of rain caused heavy waterlogging on Friday, causing traffic to move slowly | PARVEEN NEGI rescue teams continued a race against time across several hydropower projects damaged by the August 26 disaster. One body was also recovered during the Trishuli-3A operation, while the search for others trapped inside the tunnel remains underway . Around 900 workers have been reported missing from hydropower sites. The scale of the underground rescue operation has been immense. Teams have had to clear collapsed sections, remove huge quantities of mud and debris, drain flooded passages and create access routes into tunnels that were cut off by the disaster. At Trishuli-3A, the rescue operation involved 75 Nepali Army personnel and 18 personnel from the Armed Police Force and Nepal Police, along with technical experts. First came the announcement of Alfred A Knopf (an imprint of Penguin Random House) publishing it, then a clarification that Penguin India is not its India publisher, and finally the HarperCol- lins announcement. The publishing biggie of the year no doubt belongs to HarperCollins, which on Friday morning confirmed it was publishing Sonia’s memoir, one of the most anticipated political ‘autobiographies’ of our times. The book hits the stands in ‘A unique lens on India’ HarperCollins described the book as a “dramatic account, at once epic and intimate, [it] gives readers a unique lens on India ... offering an insider’s perspective on political, economic and social changes over 50 years. India on November 10, 2026. Sonia, the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party , has had both a ringside and an insider’s view of Indian politics, as a member of the NehruGandhi family which has been , at the helm of affairs for over 50 years at the Centre. In My Truth, Indira Gandhi’s interviews with a foreign journalist were aimed at shoring up her international reputation as well. Sonia has spoken directly to her home in her own words and without any mediation. PUNJAB Police have arrested 65-year-old Manjit Singh Bedi, a grocery store owner who is on the FBI list of Most Wanted Fraudsters. Bedi fled to India after running a scam linked to a food benefits programme that defrauded the US government of at least $600,000 between March 2024 and June 2025. Bedi was arrested from Jalandhar, police said on Friday. “A case has been lodged against Bedi o n M ay 1 6 t h i s ye a r under sections 316(2) (criminal breach of trust) and 318(4) (cheating) of BNS, and section 13 of Punjab Travel Professionals Regulation,” Jalandhar Police Commissioner Satinder Singh said. Sources said Bedi told the police that he had been running transport operations in Jalandhar before moving to the US in 2019. His two sons are settled in the US and are American passport holders. Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav said Bedi carries a reward of $150,000. “Bedi was placed on the US ‘Most Wanted Fraudsters’ list in connection with a case related to a nutrition programme in the US. He fled to India via Canada in April 2026 to evade the law,” he said. The Jalandhar police will investigate Bedi’s activities and the circumstances surrounding his involvement in the US case. Bedi’s arrest marks an important development in efforts to track fugitives accused of financial crimes across international jurisdictions, Yadav said. ISRO LAUNCHES ‘EYE IN THE SKY’ IMAGING SAT B O S K Y K H A N N A @ Bengaluru THE Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday scripted history by successfully launching the advanced Earth Observation Satellite (EOS-05) into a geo-orbit, placing an imaging satellite in a high-altitude of 36,000 km above earth. This comes as a relief for the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) programme following the unsuccessful EOS-03 (GSLV-F10) mission in 2021, and two failed missions of PSLV-C61/ EOS-09 in January 2026 and PSLVC62/EOS-N1 in May 2025. The EOS-05 satellite has been placed in a geosynchronous orbit above the South Asian landmass, which means it will remain stationary in relation to the location above which it has been parked in space, synchronising its revolution around Earth in tandem with the rotation of the planet. The 2,367-kg satellite—the heaviest that GSLV Mark II has put in space so far—was launched on board the GSLV Mk II-F17 mission (GSLV-F17) at 2.55 am from the second launchpad of Satish What does it do? Dhawan Space Centre at SrihaEOS-05 will provide realrikota amid light rainfall. time data for weather After the orbit-raising operamonitoring, cyclones, tions are completed, the satellite floods and cloudbursts. It is to be placed above the South carries multi-spectral and Asian land mass at an inclination hyper-spectral bands to of 19.28 degrees to the equator. capture field images Once operational, EOS-05 will every 5 minutes & entire become India’s first dedicated imcountry every 30 minutes. aging satellite from the geo-orbit, It will relay info to ground providing “strategic data” for the stations every 30 minutes country ISRO Chairman V Naray, anan said after the launch, while describing EOS-05 as a “strategic satellite”. He, however, dismissed speculations that it was a “spy satellite”. Narayanan said the satellite’s assured mission life is seven years. “But this will work effectively for more than nine years, with the type of performance that it has already given.”