eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE Dressing Up the Next Gen AHMEDABAD,LATECITY AUGUST25,2024 India’s fashion ramp is studded with mavericks and outliers 14+4PAGES,`6.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM UNIFIED PENSION SCHEME APPROVED BY UNION CABINET Increasing its share, Centre rolls out new plan, guarantees 50% of basic salary as pension PM:Schemewill ensuredignity, financialsecurity of govtemployees AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 THE UNION Cabinet on Saturday approved a new Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) for Central government employees which assures them 50 per cent of their average basic THE WORLD RFK JR ENDS HIS CAMPAIGN, ENDORSES TRUMP; TEAM HARRIS SAYS NO IMPACT TALKS RESUME IN CAIRO AS GAZANS GRAPPLE WITH FOOD SHORTAGE PAGE 12 GUJARAT JANMASHTAMI FAIR BEGINS SANS AMUSEMENT RIDES IN RAJKOT PAGE 4 UPS: KEY FEATURES ASSURED PENSION 50 % of avg basic pay in 12 mths before superannuation FAMILY PENSION 60% of pension drawn by employee before death PM NarendraModiwithadelegationfromthestaff sideof the JointConsultativeMachineryforcentralemployeesinDelhi. ANI pay drawn over the last 12 months prior to retirement as pension. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 TWO KEY SCIENCE INITIATIVES GET CABINET NOD PAGE 8 `10,000/ mth if tenure less INFLATION INDEXATION Onassuredpension,family pension,minimumpension LUMP-SUM PAYMENT In addition to gratuity AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 WITH YOUNG government employees staring at the prospects of lower than 50% salary as pension, the Centre has now tweaked its existing scheme with a new Unified Pension SHUBHAJIT ROY NAGAON, AUGUST 24 THEMANarrestedinconnection with the gang rape of a teenage girl in Assam’s Nagaon district died on Saturday, with police claiming he had jumped into a pond in an escape bid when he wastakentothecrimescenelate at night. Tafazul Islam (24), who was arrested on Friday, was one of threeaccused inthe rapeof a14year-old, who was returning home from tuition classes on Thursday evening. Two others are absconding. Police claim that following his interrogation, Islam was taken to the crime scene around 3 am on Saturday, when he jumped into a pond while still handcuffed. "We cordoned the area and called the State Disaster Relief Force,whichrecoveredthebody. Aconstablewhowasholdinghis NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 Local residents protest the alleged rape of a girl in Assam’s Nagaon, Friday. PTI handcuffs suffered an injury to his hand," Superintendent of Police, Nagaon, Swapnaneel Deka said. When The Indian Express asked why the accused was taken to the crime scene at that hour,Dekasaidthiswasbecause the town had been “paralysed” by protests through all of Friday. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SAGAR RAJPUT MUMBAI, AUGUST 24 Laxmi Building at Cotton Green in Mumbai. Sankhadeep Banerjee Police,” the sign in yellow and white lettering, displayed prominently on the threestoreyed Laxmi Building, announces loudly. “It should be noted that legal action will be taken if anyone encroaches on the said flats.” Installed by the Mumbai Police this March, the signboard is an outcome of a legal wrangle between the department and the family of a 76-year-old CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 WHEN INDIAN High Commissioner Pranay Verma met Chief Advisor in the interim government Prof MuhammadYunusin Dhaka this Thursday, one of the key issues he flagged was the security of Indian diplomatic personnel and their premises. This included the violent attack and arson at the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre (IGCC), the hub of Indian cultural activity in the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Jet engines to munitions: India, US to speed up co-production US govt notifies Congress on sale of anti-submarine sonobuoys to India CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Indira Gandhi Centre was hub of Indian art, music, dance SUKRITA BARUAH RAJNATH HOLDS TALKS Scheme(UPS).A defined assured pension, family pension and a minimum pension for those with less than the mandatory serviceforfullpensionareitskey features. Assam rape accused MOB VANDALISED CENTRE, SET IT ABLAZE dies in custody, cops Delhi flags to Dhaka: Mob violence say jumped into pond at India culture centre on Aug 5-6 In Mumbai, police, family caught in wrangle over 82-year-old building JUST PAST the restaurants and shops of the busy Zakaria Bunder Road in Mumbai’s Cotton Green, a peculiar neonblue signboard catches the eye. “In this building, 46 flats such as room numbers 1-16 on the ground floor, 18-32 on the first floor, 34-48 on the second floor are in possession of the Mumbai MINIMUM PENSION In UPS, extra burden, but no pushing back of the reform needle FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT After the arson at the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre, run by the ICCR, in Dhaka. Shubhajit Roy Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with representatives of leading US defence companies in Washington. PTI AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 MOVING TO deepen their defence ties, India and the United States have agreed to advance priority co-production projects, includingjetengines,unmanned platforms, munitions and ground mobility systems, under the US-India Roadmap for Defence Industrial Cooperation. This announcement by the Pentagon came hours after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, whois visitingtheUS,heldbilateral talks with his counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J Austin, at the Pentagon Friday. The US government also approved Friday the proposed sale CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA The ties and the ● message THE PROGRESS made in defence co-production projects comes at a time when the US is headed to polls, reflecting the bipartisan consensus there on the ties with India, especially in Indo-Pacific. Incidentally, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was holding talks in the Pentagon the day PM Modi was in Kyiv, asking President Zelenskyy to sit at the table with President Putin and find a way out of the crisis over the war. Mehbooba says will Adani, Birla keen to tap Mongolian support NC-Cong if copper, but face logistics challenge it backs ‘PDP agenda’ Govt suggests THE COPPER ROUTES NAVEED IQBAL SRINAGAR, AUGUST 24 THE PEOPLE’S Democratic Party (PDP) president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, said Saturday that in the upcoming J&KAssemblypollsthePDP“will extend complete electoral support to the National Conference (NC)-Congress alliance if it accepts the PDP’s pro-people agenda”. Mufti said her party would welcome an alliance “based on an agenda seeking a resolution of the Kashmir issue”,butnotfor elections and seat-sharing arrangements. She made these statements PDP chief and ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti while releasing the PDP’s poll manifestoatthepartyheadquarters in Srinagar. Significantly, the Congress and the NC announced their alliance for all 90 Assembly seats in J&K on Thursday, when Congress president Mallikarjun CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 JAMAAT SET TO FIELD EX- MEMBERS AS INDEPENDENTS P8 visit, trial order to understand trade dynamics RUSSIA Ulaanbaatar MONGOLIA AGGAM WALIA NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 TWO LARGE companies Adani Enterprises Ltd and Aditya Birla group-ownedHindalcoIndustries Ltd are keen to source raw material from copper-rich Mongolia, butareconcernedaboutthelogistics of transporting copper concentrate from the landlocked Central Asian country to India. Copper concentrates is a key inputforrefinedcopper,andIndia relies on imports for nearly 90 per cent of its supply due to lim- CHINA Umnugovi Beijing Tianjin port Vladivostok Sea Of Japan Yellow Sea AT PRESENT, there are only two options for shipments out of Mongolia – by rail to China’s Tianjin port or a combined road and rail route to Vladivostok, Russia ited domestic mining of thiscritical mineral. India imports its requirementsalmostentirelyfrom Indonesia, Chile and Australia. Mongolia exported copper ore worth $2.7 billion in 2022 and was the world’s 10th largest exporter of the commodity. Much of its exports go exclusively to China. In a meeting in New Delhi CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Highway passing via Gir forest gets speed monitoring system to save lions PAGE 1 ANCHOR GOPAL KATESHIYA RAJKOT, AUGUST 24 TO PREVENT death of wild animals and ensure safety of humans taking the roads crisscrossing Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary (GNPWLS), the habitat of Asiatic lions, the Gujarat forest department has installed high-tech speed monitoring system as well as thermal and optical cameras along a 1km stretch of state highway 26. As part of a pilot project, the departmenthasinstalled54cameras and 20 LED display units alongthe1-kmstretch,extending towardstheforestfromVavaniya Ness forest check-post on the western periphery of GNPWLS. Thecameras include 16thermal and optical cameras, eight pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras and four automatic-numberplate-recognition (ANPR) cameras. Called Gir Speed Monitoring System (GSMS), the system also includes four speed Devices installed under Gir Speed Monitoring System. Photo courtesy: Gujarat forest dept guns, four strobe lights. The system is controlled by a control unit integrated with the Gir Hi-Tech Monitoring Unit at Sasan – the headquarters of GNPWLS around 10 km away – through a dedicated network of cables, the forest department said in a statement on Saturday. Asub-adultlionwasrunover by a truck near Goradka village in Amreli district's Savarkundla on Savarkundla-Mahuva highway in Gir (East) Wildlife Division in November 2021. In March 2021, a lioness was run overbyatruckintheparkingbay of Pipavav port near Rajula in Amreli when the port fell in the jurisdiction of Amreli Social Forestry Division. In January this year, a lioness had died after being hit by a car near Amreli’s Bagasara town in Amreli Social Forestry Division. Forest officers said that thermal and optical cameras are capable of detecting thermal signatures of any animal, bird or vehicle. If the cameras detect presence of any wild animals or birds on or along the highway, with the help of the system, the department will be able to alert vehicle drivers about the same and instruct them to slow down. The speed guns will display on LED units the speed of moving vehicles passing on the stretch whileANPRcameraswillbeable to capture details of vehicle registration plates. Forest officers said that the objective is to address the menacespeedingvehiclesposetothe safety of wildlife and humans. The department has been testing the pilot project, which has cost around Rs 1 crore, for the last two months. GNPWLS, which falls in the Junagadh Wildlife Circle, as well as other protected areas spread across Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Amreli and Bhavnagar districts aretheworld’sonlynaturalhabitat of Asiatic lions. However, GNPWLS — spread over 1,153 sq km — is crisscrossedbystatehighways26,33, 98 and 104. The total length of highways inside the Gir is CONTINUEDONPAGE2 Ahmedabad