BENGALURU  WEDNESDAY  OCTOBER 23, 2024  `9.00  PAGES 20  LATE CITY EDITION FOREIGN INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS WITHDRAW `82,000 CR FROM INDIA This is the highest outflow of funds in a single month. The FIIs offloaded equities worth `2,261 crore on Monday alone, provisional data showed LARGE INVESTORS SHIFTING FOCUS TO CHINA INDIAN MARKETS TANK AMID SELL-OFF According to market watchers, Indian stocks may be falling out of favour with FIIs, which are reportedly re-routing their funds to Chinese stocks. The foreign investors’ focus seems to have turned to Beijing after President Xi Jinping announced his plan to create a ‘high-quality market’ that gives the best bang for investors’ buck, followed up by a stimulus package unveiled this month | P13 ■ ■ Amid the massive sell-off, the Indian stockmarkets tanked on Tuesday, with the Sensex falling 930.55 points, or 1.15%, to settle at 80,220.72 Data showed the market cap of BSE-listed firms shrank B9,19,374 crore to B4,44,45,649 crore ($5.29 trillion) on Tuesday. This is interpreted as erosion of `9.19 lakh crore in investors’ notional wealth in a single day `61,973 cr THE PREVIOUS HIGHEST MONTHLY FII OUTFLOW, RECORDED IN MARCH 2020 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 NORTH B’LURU CRUMBLES UNDER CLOUDBURST EXPOSES STATE CAPITAL’S INADEQUACIES AS LIFE GETS SEVERELY AFFECTED EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Bengaluru TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee injured his hand when he smashed a glass bottle | PTI Meet on Waqf turns ugly as TMC member smashes bottle P R E E T H A N A I R @ New Delhi THE meeting of the Joint Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill witnessed high-voltage drama on Tuesday as Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee smashed a glass bottle during a heated exchange of words with BJP member and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, injuring himself in the process. Banerjee was suspended for one day from the committee after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey moved a motion to suspend him for his unruly behaviour. The motion was backed by nine members while eight voted against it, following which chairperson and BJP Lok Sabha MP Jagdambika Pal issued the suspension order. The meeting was adjourned briefly following the incident and Banerjee, who hurt his thumb and index finger was taken away for medical aid. The incident took place when the panel was listening to the views of two Odisha-based organisations that included retired judges and lawyers. The opposition MPs including Banerjee questioned the organisation’s stake in the bill. According to a member, though Banerjee was given an opportunity to speak during the proceeding, he sought another turn to speak. However, Gangopadhyay objected to the repeated disturbances and a heated exchange erupted between the two. Sources claimed both MPs used abusive language and Banerjee grabbed a glass water bottle and smashed it on the table. A source told this paper that Banerjee lost his cool when Gangopadhyay allegedly made some remarks about his mother. “Both of them were talking in Bengali... Later, Banerjee said Gangopadhyay used derogatory language against his mother. H o w e v e r, G a n g o p a d hy ay claimed Banerjee started it,” said the source. ASSAM POLICE ENCOUNTERS ‘VERY SERIOUS’, SAYS SC AN overnight cloudburst pulverised North Bengaluru, especially Yelahanka zone and other key city areas, exposing IT City’s fragile infrastructure and inadequacies in enduring heavy rain. The cloudburst that brought 157mm rain in six hours over Yelahanka zone alone, from Monday midnight to early Tuesday morning, completely flooded at least 10 residential layouts, leaving thousands of residents stranded in the wee hours of the day. The inundation, which subjected residents to waist-deep misery forced the , National Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Response Force to rush boats to evacuate stranded and panicking people. Besides Yelahanka, IT and industrial corridors of Mahadevapura and Dasarahalli zones — which include manufacturing hubs like Sarjapur, Marathahalli, Whitefield, Bellandur and Peenya Industrial Area — too were hit hard on Tuesday . As per data shared by the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre and India Meteorological Department (IMD), from October 1 to 22, the city recorded 241mm rainfall, which is the highest in the past 19 years. In 2005, during the same time period, the city had received 291mm of rainfall. In 2024, the city recorded the fourth highest rainfall, Rescuers move residents to safety on a dinghy, after the Kendriya Vihar apartment complex got flooded due to heavy rain in Yelahanka, Bengaluru, on Tuesday (left). Police, Fire, NDRF and SDRF personnel carry out a rescue operation to save labourers trapped under the debris of a building which collapsed in Hennur, Bengaluru, on Tuesday | ALLEN EGENUSE J, NAGARAJA GADEKAL against the normal of 118mm. IMD Director (Bengaluru) Puviyarasan said till 8.30am, the city received 264.5mm rainfall. Till 8.30pm October 22, the city received 23.6mm rainfall. An orange alert has been issued for Bengaluru and surrounding areas for the next 48 hours (till Thursday evening). Chaos on the roads Flooded roads, chaotic traffic, uprooted trees and branches were a common sight as rain continued unabated until Tuesday morning, as a drizzle or m o d e r a t e l y h e av y f o r m throughout Tuesday. Normal life was thrown out of gear as many were stranded due to non-availability of autos and cabs across the city. Students Polluted water kills 4 in Tumakuru, Vijayanagara EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Tumakuru/Vijayanagara FOUR people died after drinking water suspected to be cont a m i n at e d i n T u m a k u r u and Vijayanagara districts in the past five days. The deceased have been identified as Gundamma, 60, and Bhuvaneshwari, 10, of Soralamavu village in Chikkanayakanahalli taluk of Tumakuru district, and Bhovi Suresh, 34 and Bhovi Mahantesh, 45, of Tunbigeri near Telagi at Harapanahalli in Vijayanagara district. Suresh and Mahantesh died in hospitals in Davanagere and Bengaluru. Ten people are being treated in different hospitals in Tumakuru district. Of them, Rat- namma was shifted to the district hospital in Hassan after her condition deteriorated. Drinking water supplied from a tank in the village is said to be the reason for this. The villagers said that they fell ill after drinking water from the tank. Fifteen people were admitted to various hospitals in Vijayanagara district in the past two weeks after drinking water suspected to be contaminated. The villagers claimed that dirty water entered the pipeline which got damaged at Harapanahalli. “There are traces of water contamination at Harapanahalli. We are waiting for a report. A medical team has been sent to Harapanahalli,”said a local health official. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan made the remark while hearing a plea challenging Gauhati HC’s dismissal of a PIL on 171 encounters. “Petitions like these can’t be brushed aside as premature,” it said | P9 40 more flights get bomb threats SHEKHAR SINGH & U J W A L J A L A L I @ New Delhi HOAX bomb threats continued to keep security agencies on their toes and inconvenience passengers on Tuesday as about 40 more flights received threat emails. Three CRPF schools, including the one in Rohini where an explosion happened two days ago, also received threats on Tuesday. A CRPF school in Dwarka and another one in Hyderabad also received hoax bomb threats. The emails, reportedly sent late in the night on M o n day indicated a , potential bomb explosion in class- rooms at 11 am on Tuesday Of. ficials said a detailed probe is underway with senior officers , of the CRPF, Intelligence Bureau, and Delhi Police reviewing the situation. Between Monday and Tuesday at least 70 flights belonging , to Air India, Vistara, IndiGo, and Akasa Air faced fresh 3 SCHOOLS TARGETED A CRPF school in Delhi’s Dwarka, another one in Rohini where an explosion happened two days ago, and a third CRPF school in Hyderabad also received hoax bomb threats through emails bomb threats through social media, bringing the total number of such threats in the past eight days to 160. Sources put the security threats for Air India at 13, Vistara 11, and Akasa Air 12 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, IndiGo said 23 of its flights—both domestic and international— were targeted on Monday and Tuesday. It said three Jeddahbound flights were diverted to Riyadh, Medina, and Doha. A Vistara spokesperson said that a few of their flights received security threats through social media. An Akasa spokesperson also confirmed receiving security alerts on Tuesday . and office-goers were the worstaffected due to the continuous rain. Traffic jams were reported across the city including on , Airport Road and Nelamangala-Bengaluru National Highway Due to heavy rain in Heb. b a l - N a g a w a r a v a l l e y, downstream Horamavu was also flooded. In Devanahalli in Bengaluru Rural, Vijayapura Layout was flooded in just one hour between 2pm and 3pm. Areas like Vijayanagar, Magadi Road, Rajajinagar, Manjunathnagar, Raj Bhavan, Hebbal, Mehkri Circle were waterlogged. Roads turned into rivers in Sarjapur, Bellandur, Devarabeesanahalli, HSR Layout, and Karthik Nagar near Marathahalli, Mahadevapura and surrounding areas, trigP2 gering traffic jams. B’LURU SCHOOLS TO REMAIN SHUT TODAY Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner Jagadeesha G has issued orders to shut schools in the state capital on October 24 (Wednesday), in the wake of the orange alert issued by the IMD for the next 24 hours in the city. 241 MM: HIGHEST RAIN IN 19 YEARS As per data shared by the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre and the IMD, between October 1 and 22, Bengaluru City recorded 241 mm rainfall, which is the highest in 19 years. 1 killed, 5 hurt as six-storey building collapses in B’luru R A K S H I T H G O W D A @ Bengaluru A construction worker was killed and five others were injured when a six-storey underconstruction residential building collapsed in the city on Tuesday afternoon. Twenty-one workers were trapped under the debris. However, 14 of them, including the five injured, were rescued. Operations were on to trace the seven remaining workers. T he building collapsed around 3.40pm at Anjanadri Layout in Babusapalya near Hennur. It is alleged that the building was being constructed without proper approvals from the civic agencies and substandard materials were used. The deceased has been identified as Arman, 26, of Bihar. The workers are from Bihar, Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, and Yadgir in Karnataka. The condition of a worker, who is in hospital, is said to be critical. A few workers managed to come out just before the building collapsed. “ Around 21 people were trapped under the debris. Of them, 14 were rescued. Arman was inside the building,” D Devaraja, DCP (East), said. P2 MODI, XI JINPING TALKS TODAY Bilateral dialogue before BRICS Summit opens at Russia’s Kazan, says government Y E S H I S E L I A N D M AYA N K S I N G H @ New Delhi We are trying to restore the trust. That will happen once we are able to see each other and reassure each other that we are not creeping into buffer zones that have been created Gen Upendra Dwivedi BILLION+ COUNTRIES India and China have a population of over a billion. “Anybody who is predicting developments of this century cannot leave India and China out of that equation,’’ External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said ECONOMIC TIES UP Economic ties are improving. China is India’s largest trade partner with $118.4 billion twoway trade in 2023-24. This was slightly higher than the bilateral trade between India and the US at $118.28 billion in the same year SETTING all speculation to rest on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping holding a bilateral meeting in Russia’s Kazan, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said it will be held on Wednesday ahead of the BRICS Summit. “I can confirm that there will be a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Jinping tomorrow,” Misri said. This will be their first meeting after bilateral relations went south following a bloody clash of soldiers at Galwan in eastern Ladakh in 2020. Their meeting will not only signal to the world that the BRICS grouping is more powerful than perceived but also show India in a much stronger collaborative position with the China, Russia, and Iran. Back home, Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi pointed to trust issues with China, saying, “We want to go back to the status quo of April 2020. Thereafter we will be looking at disengagement, de-escalation and normal management of LAC... This has been our stand since April 2020.” Gen Dwivedi was delivering the Colonel Pyara Lal Memorial Lecture on Indian Army’s Decade of Transformation in Delhi. He felt that both sides need to reassure and convince each other to move forward with the subsequent phases of disengagement. This newspaper had on Monday brought out the trust concerns with China as several sources said there was nothing on the ground to suggest China was willing to blink. The new agreement addresses two key friction points, Depsang and Demchok. The military has remained consistent in its interpretation of the disengagement processes from areas such as Galwan, Gogra, Hot Springs, and the north and south banks of Pangong Tso, while also asserting that this does not affect India’s claim over the LAC alignment. According to sources, previous disengagements were carried out on the principle of mutual and equal security with no prejudice , to either side’s claims over the LAC. However, the standoff at Depsang remains significant, as Chinese troops have blocked access to Patrol Points (PPs) 10, 11, 11A, 12, and 13, which cover an area of approximately 952 sq km. These PPs, located east of the strategic SubSector North road, are not directly on the LAC but lie within Indian territory Sub-Sec. tor North is crucial due to its terrain, which allows large-scale armoured operations. Russian President Vladimir Putin embraces Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their meeting on the sidelines of BRICS Summit at Kazan on Tuesday | AP/PTI Iran Prez seeks support to end conflict in bilateral talks tional North South Corridor. Discussions were also held on Afghanistan and humanitarian PRIME Minister Narendra assistance provided to the peoModi on Tuesday held bilateral ple there. “Had a very good meetings with Iran’s new Presi- meeting with the President of dent Masoud Pezeshkian and Iran, Mr Masoud Pezeshkian. Russian President We reviewed the full Vladimir Putin upon range of relations behis arrival in Kazan, tween our countries. ahead of the 16th We also discussed All our efforts BRICS Summit. ways to deepen ties in give priority to “Prime Minister futuristic sectors,” Modi had his first-ever humanity; India is Modi later said. ready to provide meeting with PresiAs for the first bilatall possible dent Pezeshekian after eral, Putin joked that cooperation to he won the elections in Russia-India ties are end Ukraine war Iran. The two leaders so strong that he felt Narendra Modi, spoke about the need Modi would underprime minister to de-escalate tensions stand his comments in West Asia. Iran without a translator. sought India’s help in the resoOn the war in Ukraine, Modi lution of the conflict as it was said, “I have been in touch with acquainted with leaders across Putin. I would want a peaceful the world,” Foreign Secretary resolution keeping in mind the Vikram Misri said. humanitarian crisis. India will Modi also spoke about the extend all possible support for Chabahar port and the Interna- the peace process.” EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi