DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2024, KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 14 PAGES SINCE 1932 `6.00 (`12 IN NORTH EAST STATES & ANDAMAN) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM CURTAINS ON CAMPAIGN, VOTE TOMORROW FOR 102 SEATS Modiciteshis‘guarantee’,Rahul invokes‘threat’asPhase1ends Came with hope in 2014, trust in 2019, says PM Security personnel carry bodies of Maoists killed in Tuesday’s encounter in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. PTI Intel, long night trek & a river crossing: How securitymen struck at Bastar Maoists, shot 29 Were alerted about presence of senior Maoists; 15 women among the dead JAYPRAKASH S NAIDU CHHOTEBETHIYA, KANKER (CHHATTISGARH), APRIL 17 AN ARDUOUS trek through the hilly terrain of Abujhmad in the dead of night led a team of roughly 200 security personnel to a hilltop, where a group of Maoists were believed to be gathered. What followed was a four-hourencounterinwhich29 Maoists,includingtwodivisional committee members of the CPI (Maoist),werekilledonTuesday. A day later, details have begun to emerge of what marks CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahead of Musk visit, rules notified for FDI up to 100% in space Bastar IG Sundarraj P and others check the weapons seized after the encounter in Kanker, on Wednesday. PTI BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY MORE REPORTS Musk is due to travel to India next week ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 THE FINANCE Ministry has notified amended rules under the Foreign Exchange Management Act to operationalise its earlier decision to allow up to 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) for the space sector through three categories of liberalised entry routes. The notification dated April 16 comes ahead of Tesla chief Elon Musk’s visit to India early nextweekduringwhichheisexpected to meet space startups, make a push for his space venture Starlink’s plans and announce his electric vehicle (EV) investment plans. StarlinkisaprojectbySpaceX, the firm founded by Musk, to provide high-speed Internet accesstoanywhereintheworldusing a constellation of thousands of low-earth-orbit satellites. In February, the Cabinet had approvedtheamendmenttothe CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, GUWAHATI, GHAZIABAD, APRIL 17 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PAGES 3, 6, 7 DIFFERENCES IN HOW HC INTERPRETS LAW Can interfaith live-in couples in UP get police protection? Yes, no, maybe AJOY SINHA KARPURAM & KHADIJA KHAN NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 CAN INTERFAITH couples in a consensual live-in relationship fearingabacklashgetpoliceprotectioninUttarPradesh?Yes,no, even maybe. This is because the answer depends on varying interpretations by the Allahabad High Court of a key provision in the state’s anti-conversion (also called ‘love jihad’) law, a scrutiny of court orders by The Indian Express shows. Records show that the High Court dismissed pleas for police protection from at least 12 interfaith couples in live-in relation- ships since August 2023, signallingineightof themthatUP’s Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, criminalises such relationships. In all 12cases,thecourtwasinformed by both partners that they were in a consensual relationship. Records also show that in at least three other cases — again, consensual, inter-faith — including one dating back to January last year, the court granted police protection to live-in couples under the same law but with conditions. In two of these cases, the key rider was that the couple had to register their marriage under the new anti-conversion law within a stipulated time period. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Heart diseases linked to maternal deaths? A study tries to join dots ANONNA DUTT MATERNAL MORTALITY RATIO (Per lakh live births) NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 2014-16 130 2015-17 122 IT WAS only when 23-year-old Dhaanusuccumbedtoheartfailure during childbirth in a Tamil Nadu village that her family realised that she had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Neither did they know that her death could have been prevented if Dhaanu had been screened in the early stages of 2016-18 113 2017-19 103 2018-20 97 SDG goal (by 2030) 70 her pregnancy. The primary health care centre in her village CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D PAGE 1 ANCHOR ● Why MMR matters MATERNAL MORTALITY ratio (MMR) is a key indicator of public health preparedness. Over the last two decades, India’s MMR has gone down by 70 per cent, according to a 2022 study. Government data pegs it at 97 deaths per lakh live births between 2018 and 2020. SWEETY KUMARI KOLKATA, APRIL 17 AT LEAST20 peoplewere injured andonewomansustainedserious injuriesallegedlyfromstone-peltingduringaRamNavamiprocession in the Rejinagar area of Murshidabad in West Bengal on Wednesday evening. Therewerereportsof acrude bombgoingoff astheprocession wasabouttoconclude.However, the police did not confirm. “Atleast20peoplehavebeen injuredintheincident.Awoman who had received serious injuries has been admitted to Murshidabad Medical College & Hospital. The rest have been admitted at the local hospital,” a MANOJ CG, SUKRITA BARUAH & LALMANI VERMA IN THE final hours of campaigning for the firstphaseof Lok Sabha elections DECISION in which 102 2024 constituencies across 21 states and Union Territories will vote Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday invoked Lord Ram on the occasion of Ram Navami,steppeduphisattackon the Opposition INDIA bloc and said while he went to the people with hope in 2014, trust in 2019, he was now approaching them with guarantee for a third straight term in office. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, targeted Modi and called this election an “ideological” battle, claiming that the BJP and RSS were “trying to end the Constitutionandthedemocratic system of the country”. He claimed the BJP would not cross the150markinthepollsandthat there was a strong undercurrent in favour of the INDIA bloc. The high-decibel campaign for the first phase — it has the maximum seats in the sevenphase election — drew to a close Wednesday. Tamil Nadu (39 seats) and Uttarakhand (5 seats) are two states where voting will be completed Friday. The first phase also includes 12 seats in Rajasthan, 8 in UP, 6 in Madhya Pradesh, 5 each in Assam and Maharashtra, 4 of Bihar, 3 of WestBengal,2eachinArunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya Violence during Ram Navami procession in Murshidabad, 20 injured police officer said. Sources said that miscreants threw stones at the procession from the roof of a house, leading to violence. Huge forces have been deployed in the area. Earlier in the week, the Election Commission had replaced the Deputy Inspector General of Murshidabad following an incident of violence in the Kamnagarareawhereprohibitory orders have been imposed. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had been expressing apprehension of possibleviolenceduringRamNavami andhadallegedthatBJPcouldbe “fomenting unrest to polarise” theLokSabhaelections,hadsaid the EC will have to take the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 An election meeting in Assam’s Nalbari where Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned for ally AGP’s candidate Phani Bhusan Choudhury on Wednesday. ANI In TMC 10-point manifesto, repeal of CAA and a slew of welfare schemes ATRI MITRA KOLKATA, APRIL 17 FROM REPEALING the contentiousCitizenshipAmendment Act (CAA) to giving 10 free LPG cylinders to BPL families, the TrinamoolCongress,ledbyWest Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,onWednesdayreleased its10-pointmanifestoinKolkata. Titled “Didir Shopoth” or "Mamata’s pledges", the TMC TMC chief Mamata Banerjee in Silchar Wednesday. Express manifesto promised to implementseveralwelfareschemesof the West Bengal government such as Lakshmir Bhandar, Kanyasree across the country, if it formed the government at the Centre as part of the INDIA bloc. “We are committing to form the government at the Centre as part of the INDIA alliance. TMC is committed to fulfil these promises as a part of the INDIA alliance,” TMCMPDerekO’Brien CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 State’s economics & identity: Twin challenges in BJP’s TN opportunity P VAIDYANATHAN IYER CHENNAI, NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 AT THE heart of the North-South politicsplayingoutmostintensely in Tamil Nadu — all 39 Lok Sabha constituencies there go to polls Friday—iswhatcanbedescribed astwintrustdeficitsissue:onerelates to ‘financial resources’ and otherto‘politicalrepresentation’. While the fight over resourceshastakenpoliticalwings during the campaign, that over representation manifests itself in ways unique to Dravidian political history — Tamil pride and culture and opposition to Hindi, a centralised governance model, and the politics of polarisation based on faith. The BJP did not ally with eitherof thetwoDravidianparties, DMKortheAIADMK,andispushinghardtoincreaseitsvoteshare inthestate.Ithopestobagatleast four Lok Sabha constituencies — Vellore, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari — in the state which it considers the last frontier in the south to get a foothold. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A Ram Navami procession in Rishra in Hooghly Wednesday. Rishra had witnessed violence in Ram Navami last year. Express Cooch Behar set to vote, EC cites poll code, stops Bengal Governor’s tour DAMINI NATH NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 THE ELECTION Commission on Wednesday put a halt to West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose’s proposed tour of Cooch Behar on Thursday and Friday, saying it would be a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as polling there is scheduledonFridayandthesilenceperiodbeginsWednesdayevening. After the EC came to know abouttheproposedtourtoCooch Behar,wherepollingisscheduled Governor C V Ananda Bose was to undertake a two-day visit in the first phase, it advised the Governor’s office against undertakingthetrip,anECsourcesaid. No local programme can be organised for the Governor as theMCCisinplaceandthepollis scheduled as well, the EC told Bose’s office. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2