DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2025, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 REPO RATE CUT BY 25 BPS TO 6.25% 86 114 140 66 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY After tax relief in Budget, RBI cuts key rate, first in five years, to spur growth Key takeaways: A less restrictive policy, no clear exchange rate targeting RBI keeps stance neutral, expects growth to be 6.7% in FY27, estimates inflation at 4.2% GEORGE MATHEW MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 7 HITESH VYAS MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 7 CABINET CLEARS NEW I-T BILL PAGE 15 AS WIDELY expected, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) unanimously decided to reduce the repo rate — the interestrateatwhichitlendstobanks —by25basispoints(bps)to6.25 per cent amid easing inflation andworriesoverslowinggrowth LADKI BAHIN SCHEME IN MAHARASHTRA Govt declares 5 lakh beneficiaries ineligible but won’t take back money already paid Rs 450 cr deposited in their accounts ALOK DESHPANDE MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 7 THE MAHARASHTRA government on Friday declared five lakh beneficiaries of Chief Minister Ladki Bahin Yojana as ineligible as they receive benefits under other schemes or do not fulfill the eligibility criteria. However, the money which has already been deposited in the bank accounts of these women over the last six months will not be taken back from them, said Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare. Sources in the government said that an aggregate of over Rs 450 crore has been deposited in the accounts of these five lakh women between July 2024 and December 2024 — eligible women are provided a monthly stipend of Rs 1,500 under the scheme. “Those who have been declared ineligible will not get the benefits from January. However, taking forward the concept of a welfare state, it will not be proper to seize the money deposited in the accounts earlier. Therefore, money deposited from July 2024 to December 2024 will not be taken back,” Tatkare said. Among the five lakh women who have been declared ineligible, 2.30 lakh avail benefits under the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Scheme, 1.10 lakh are above the ageof 65and1.60lakhhavefourwheelers and are also beneficiaries of schemes such as Namo CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Govt ends cash awards for junior athletes to curb doping, age fraud MIHIR VASAVDA MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 7 JUNIOR ATHLETES winning international medals will no longer receive cash awards from the government. This major Sports Ministry policy shift, which came into effect on February 1, is aimed at tackling the twin menace of doping and age fraud as well as “keeping the hunger of youngsters alive”. According to the old system, a gold medal at the Junior World Championship would fetch an athleteapproximatelyRs13lakh while a top of the podium finish at Asian or Commonwealth had a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. ASportsMinistryofficialsaid oneof thekeyfactorsbehindthis decision was to promote junior competitions as developmental events rather than making it all about a podium finish. “We noticed that only India follows a model where junior championships are given overimportance. As a result, we have noticed that athletes work so hardatthislevelthatbythetime they reach the elite stage, they are either burnt out or have lost the hunger,” the official said. The award policy for senior athletes, too, has seen a rewrite. The Ministry has removed Commonwealth Championship andSouthAsianGamesfromthe events on the award list. Chess players winning International Master or Grandmaster norms, too,willnolongerbeincentivised. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra along with Deputy Governors M Rajeshwar Rao, Swaminathan Janakiraman and T Rabi Sankar in Mumbai on Friday. Amit Chakravarty due to global uncertainties. The six-member rate-setting panelhasprojectedtherealgross domesticproduct(GDP)at6.7per cent and the retail inflation at 4.2 per cent for the fiscal 2025-26. Thecutinthekeypolicyrate— the first in nearly five years — will providerelieftohome,vehicle,and CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 RBIGOVERNORSanjayMalhotra sent clear signals to the banking sector and other marketparticipantsonthe rupee, liquidity management and monetary policy changes on the cards. are reluctant to on-lend in the uncollateralised call money market. Instead, they are passively parking funds with the Reserve Bank. He asked banks to actively trade among themselves in the uncollateralised call money market to make it deeper ● andvibrantforbettersignal extraction from the weighted average call money rate (WACR). This could be aimed at facilitating the orderly E EXPLAINED 08/02/2025 Banks told to lend in call money market Malhotra said some banks CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘Normalise Indian hate’: DOGE staffer resigns over racial posts EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 7 A KEY staff member of US PresidentDonaldTrump'snewly created Department of GovernmentEfficiencyorDOGE, headed by Elon Musk, resigned Thursday owing to racial social media posts, including against India, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Marko Elez, 25, deployed by DOGE to scrutinise federal spending,resignedafterTheWall Street Journal asked the White House about his connection to the deleted social media account, said the report. “Justfortherecord,Iwasracist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, according to the WSJ's review of archived posts. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September, according to the report. “Normalise Indian hate,” the account wrote the same month, in reference to a post noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley. Later, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 7 IN A study published in the journalNature,ateamfromtheAbdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), including Nobel PrizewinningeconomistsEstherDuflo and Abhijit Banerjee, found that childrenworkinginmarketscan do complex transactions as part of their job, but struggle with textbookmathtaughtinschools, while children in schools work well with academic math problems,butdon’tdoaswellinpractical calculations. ‘487 presumed Indians to be deported from US, another 298 being verified’ SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 7 PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi will visit the US on February 12-13 and meet President Donald Trump. This will be their first meeting since Trump’sreturntotheOvalOffice last month. Announcingthevisit,Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Modi’s visit will give further impetus and direction to India-US bilateral relationship. Before visiting the US, Modi will be in France from February 10-12 to co-chair the AI Action Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron, Misri said. “This will be the first visit of Prime Minister Modi to the United States since the inauguration of the second presidential term of President Donald Trump,” he said. “The fact that the Prime Ministerhasbeeninvitedtovisit theUSwithinbarelythreeweeks of thenewadministrationtaking office shows the importance of the India-US partnership and is also reflective of the bipartisan support this partnership enjoys in the US,” he said. The Foreign Secretary outlined key areas of focus during the visit – trade, investment, technology,defencecooperation and people-to-people ties. Modi will head to US from France after the AI Summit Misri said there has been a very close rapport between Trump and Modi, dating back to the US leader’s first term. “There is a clear convergence of interests between the two countries in several areas, including trade, investment, technology, defence cooperation, counterterrorism, Indo-Pacific security, and people-to-people relations,” he said. “The 5.4 million-strong Indian community in the US and the more than 350,000 Indian studentspursuinghighereducation in American universities furtherstrengthenthisbond,”he said. “The Prime Minister’s visit to the United States will provide further direction and momentum to this important partnership. We expect a joint statement to be adopted at the end of the visit, which will be shared in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD YUNUS CALLS FOR PEACE AS HOMES OF AWAMI LEADERS ATTACKED Members of the Anti-Corruption Branch outside the residence of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in New Delhi on Friday. PTI PAGE 14 Delhi results today, ACB notice to MAHARASHTRA Kejriwal over horse-trading claim Govt picks Ajit Pawar DECISION over Eknath Shinde 2025 as member of disaster management authority bribes to AAP MLAs and others to jump ship. NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 7 The ACB issued notice to AAP convener and former Chief AS CANDIDATES, parties and the Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in adcity braced for the countdition to other senior ing of votes Saturday to partyleaders,tojoinanindecideanewgovernment quiry regarding allegaand Assembly in Delhi, tions that the BJP was the Anti-Corruption seeking to poach sitting Branch (ACB) showed up DECISION and potential AAP legisla2025 DELHI at the door of the ruling tors to form the next govAAP Friday to serve noernment in Delhi. tices to its leaders over claims On Thursday, Kejriwal and that the rival BJP had offered CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE DELHI ● Five factors that will be key to the results today ● Both AAP and BJP exude confidence ahead of counting PAGE 12 ‘Schools treat home & classroom knowledge of math as separate domains, need to bridge’ ABHINAYA HARIGOVIND PM Modi to visit US on Feb 12-13, will meet Trump: Foreign Secy Thestudyexaminedchildren in Delhi and Kolkata to understand how math skills transfer between real-world and classroom settings. In an interview with The Indian Express, Duflo discusses the findings and their implications for curriculum and teaching. Can you tell us about what prompted the study? We’ve worked on education in India for over 20 years. The recent ASER report by Pratham shows progress in basic learning — a significant achievement. However, for years it has re- PTI THE EXPRESS INTERVIEW ESTHER DUFLO ECONOMIST, NOBEL LAUREATE vealed low levels of basic math andlearningachievementinprimaryschoolsandamongadoles- cents. This contrasts sharply with what we observe in markets, where children easily handle transactions and calculate change. Based on your findings, what changes are needed in teaching and assessment to bridge the gap between market maths and academic maths? The key is recognising existing knowledge. Children have math skills from various sources — markets, video games, farm work — but schools treat home CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ALOK DESHPANDE MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 7 INANOTHERmovethatmayupset the Shiv Sena and its leader Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde further, the state government has kept him out of the newly formed State Disaster ManagementAuthority(SDMA), which was revived on February 6. The nine-member SDMA has mandate for the chief minister as chairman. As other members, the government has chosen DeputyChief MinisterAjitPawar instead of Shinde. Pawar will be part of the authority of which Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is the ex-officio chairman. The Maharashtra government on Thursday announced a restructured nine-member SDMA of which the chief secretaryistheChief ExecutiveOfficer (CEO). The other government members include Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Disaster Management Minister Girish Eknath Shinde; Ajit Pawar Mahajan, Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Makarand Jadhav-Patil (NCP) and Public Health Minister Prakash Abitkar, the only representativefromtheShivSena.The non-government members include Prof Ravi Sinha and Prof Dipankar Chaudhari from IITMumbai. Even as the government chose Ajit Pawar over Shinde to be part of the authority, Shinde’s Shiv Sena is the bigger ally in the Mahayuti government with 57 MLAs as compared to 41 MLAs of the NCP. Also Shinde was the former CM and many feel he should have been chosen over CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 How J&K slayed the cliches, turned giant killers on its Ranji journey SHIVANI NAIK PUNE, FEBRUARY 7 THE JAMMU & Kashmir Ranji Trophy team playing Kerala in the quarterfinals at Pune’s MCA stadium — beginning Saturday — is slaying clichés, lumped on them unimaginatively all these years. “Fast bowlers from Kashmir Valley”, and “batsmen from Jammu” was an unspoken selection quorum. But when beatingstar-studdedMumbaiin their backyard earlier on way to topping the group ahead of knockouts, J&K coach Ajay Sharma turned such geo-labels on their head. Elegant batters would be found in Kashmir and speed demons unearthed in Jammu. In came, U-23 find Yawer Hassan Khan, a delightful batsman,instructedtoopeninaSam Konstas-like impact promotion. Mumbai fielders stood rooted to their spots, as he timed the ball sofluentlyoff thebackfoot,driving through covers and flicking off his pads. He comes from Bijbehara in south Kashmir, mined out in a talent hunt, by widening the scouting lens that doesn't equate his region with just workhorse pacers. But it was Yudhvir Singh, the pacer from Jammu-proper, who rocked Mumbai’s core of khadoos batting, claiming Shreyas Iyer, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal in an 11-wicket match haul. Later in a must-win against Baroda,rightarmoff-breakSahil Lotra, who hails from Domail in Udhampur, again Jammu, stubbed out their batting defiance, after, “Lotre ko bola gayaa aapkohi wicket lena hai”, recalls manager Hilal Ahmed. He took seven that inning to go with four from the first. Brigadier Anil Gupta, who helms the three-member BCCI committee running the show, The J&K team in Pune for the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal match against Kerala. Shivani Naik credits coach Sharma with reading pitches pinpoint and shuffling his team combinations and staying resolute through two years of vicious criticism. “Emphasis was on transparency and merit-based selection because we had long suffered from quotas of ‘Jammu player’ and ‘Kashmir player’ and ‘this & that player'. Now all districts are covered — Doda, Kishtwar, Poonch, Rajouri, Baramulla, Kupwara, Kulgam, Anantnag,” he reels off. Theprocesswassetinmotion in2021,andwhenfailuresstruck, selections got roasted on social media. “We stuck to our stand, carriedouttalenthunts,persisted with players we knew would come good. Earlier, people wouldn'tallowgirlstobatoncentre wickets. We said, nothing doing,ourgirlswillgeteverymatching facility,” Brig Gupta says. Players emerged from unconventional areas — coal town Kalakote (Abdul Samad), Baramulla (Auqib Nabi), Bhaderwah (Abid Mushtaq), even as top run-getter Shubham Khajuria and newest ‘Mr Wall’ Kanhaiya Wadhwan (71 & 84 vs Baroda)continuetheJammutradition. Auqib was so audacious on his debut that when told he was a night watchman against Punjab,heslammedacenturyto prove a point. J&KhavebeatenMumbaibefore, besides making knockouts twice — 2001-02 and 2013-14. But self-assurance gleams through when Umar Nazir Mir, their Pulwama pacer, doesn’t celebrateRohitSharma'swicket. Still, when a youngster asked what sort of team the other heavyweight Baroda was, “Mumbaijaisiteamhaikoi”came the quip. Past masters, new age Foundational work was put inbytwooldwarhorses,steeped in game-craft, attempting to get CONTINUED ON PAGE 2