DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY `5.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 Gujarat Govt plans Op Sindoor memorial park near Pakistan border in Kutch ‘OTHERS SHOWN INTEREST’ Will also have area dedicated to Pahalgam terror attack victims RITU SHARMA US probing Adani link to Iran LPG trade: report; firm says ‘baseless’ Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani GEORGE MATHEW & HITESH VYAS MUMBAI, JUNE 2 PROSECUTORS IN the US are investigatingwhetherIndianbusinessman Gautam Adani’s companiesimportedIranianliquefied petroleum gas (LPG) into India through the Adani Group's Mundra port, despite US sanctions on Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. This comes at a time when the Trump administration is rolling back on the enforcement of certain white-collar crimes, includingcasesrelatedtoforeign bribery and sanctions evasion. Tankers travelling between Mundra in Gujarat and the Persian Gulf exhibited traits common to ships evading sanctions,theWSJreportsaid.TheUS Justice Department is reviewing the activities of several LPG tankers used to ship cargoes to Adani Enterprises, it said. In a statement, the Adani Groupsaidthereportwas“baseless and mischievous”. “Adani categorically denies any deliberate engagement in sanctions evasion or trade involving Iranian-origin LPG. Further, we are not aware of any investigation by US authorities on this subject,” it said. “The WSJ’s story appears to bebasedentirelyonincorrectassumptions and speculation. Any suggestionthatAdaniGroupentities are knowingly in contravention of US sanctions on Iran is strongly denied. Any assertion to the contrary would not only be slanderous but also deemed to be an intentional act to injure the reputation and interests of the Adani Group,” the statement said. “The rights of Adani Group entities and personnel in this regard are expressly reserved.” Earlier, US President Donald Trump had warned that any country or person buying oil or petrochemicals from Iran would face immediate secondary sanctions, effectively barring them fromdoingbusinesswiththeUS. Trump made this statement in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, emphasising BHUJ, JUNE 2 THE GUJARAT government is working on a memorial park dedicated to Operation Sindoor — India's military response to terror emanating from Pakistan —asamarkof respectforthedefence forces as well as the unity the nation displayed, officials told The Indian Express. The memorial, which will be called 'Sindoor Van' (forest), will come up in Kutch district on the India-Pakistan border, which bore the brunt of the attacks in Gujarat from the other side. The memorialisexpectedtobecompleted in about a year and a half, officials said, adding that initial work has begun on the ground. “In memory of the unity exhibited by society, Army, Air Force, BSF and other forces during Operation Sindoor, the Sindoor Van — a memorial park A videograb of Magnus Carlsen banging the table after his defeat; D Gukesh at the Norway Chess 2025 tournament, in Stavanger, Norway. PTI Fist bang, apologies and a pat: Carlsen goes down to Gukesh Forest department officials survey the area for the Sindoor Van in Kutch. Express — is being planned by the forest department,” Kutch Collector Anand Patel told The Indian Express. The high density forest or a 'van kavach' will come up over CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Foreign Embassy staffer put up ‘Wanted’ posters of Netanyahu: Delhi Police report to MHA MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL NEW DELHI, JUNE 2 THE DELHI Police have approached the Union Home Ministry after they found that a foreign citizen working with an embassy of a Western European country had allegedly put up posterscarryingaphotoof Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside the word “wanted”inthenationalcapital’s Chanakyapuri area, The Indian Express has learnt. A senior police officer at the Delhi Police headquarters said the matter came to light around 7.30amonMay29whenpersonnel from the Chanakyapuri police station spotted two such postersonelectricitypoles–one near the Carmel Convent School inMalchaMargandanothernear the American Embassy School. “They informed their seniors and were asked to remove the posters,” the officer said. Police personnel were also instructed to scan all CCTV cameras in the area to identify who was responsible. “After scanning footage from around 50 CCTV cameras, police personnel found that a man wearing a blue shirt and black trousers came on a bicycle at around 5.30 am and put up one of the posters on an electricity pole. After scanning multiple CCTV cameras, it has been revealed that he left from one of the flats in Sardar Patel Marg,” the officer said. A team from the Chanakyapuri police station reached his residence and found that the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PAGE 1 ANCHOR STAVANGER, JUNE 2 JUST A week ago, right after Magnus Carlsen had forced the youngest world champion in chesshistory,DGukesh,toresign in the opening round of Norway Chess, the Norwegian had posted a tweet using a reference from the HBO show The Wire: “You come at the king, you best not miss.” In the second time of asking, in the early hours of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Paraguay President Santiago Peña Palacios, who is on a three-day state visit to India, in New Delhi on Monday. The two leaders deliberated on ways to combat terrorism against the backdrop of the Pahalgam terror attack. Praveen Khanna P10 NEW DELHI, JUNE 2 Ax-4 crew members Shubhanshu Shukla and Slawosz Uznanski from Poland review a procedure checklist card during training within the ISS Harmony mockup. Axiom Space CarlsenapologisedtoGukesh —twice—fortheemotionaloutburst, which was uncharacteristic for a chess game, and then, as he power-walked his way out of the playing hall after signing his score sheet and banging the black king erect in the middle of the board, he patted the Indian teenager on his back. Carlsen’s anger was understandable.Hewaslookinglikehe was going to win for most of the game. Then, like the Stavanger weather, in the blink of an eye, everything changed. Carlsen blunderedduringaknightmove. A day after that defeat, PARAGUAY PRESIDENT ON 3-DAY VISIT AMITABH SINHA & ANJALI MARAR GUJARAT PAGE 4 AMIT KAMATH Monday at the same event in Stavanger, Gukesh did exactly that. The 19-year-old Indian notched up his first victory over theworldno.1inaclassicalchess contest after 62 moves. “Oh my God!” bellowed a livid Carlsen as he looked away from the chess board and his opponent. Just seconds before that moment, Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players in history, had slammed a balled fist on the chess board with such brute force that a seismic tremor had gonethroughtheboardtoppling over pieces. Some of the pieces had remained standing. One of them was Gukesh’s king. Countdown to space mission: Why seat for Shukla on Axiom-4 is a big moment for India CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ED OPPOSES BAIL PLEA OF BAHUBALI SHAH EXPRESS INNORWAY FOUR DECADES after Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to travel to space, Shubhanshu Shukla, a 39-year-old Indian Air Force officer who is in the final leg of his pre-launch quarantine at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, will on June 8 pilot a Dragon spacecraft that will take him, and three others, to the InternationalSpaceStation(ISS), about 400 km from the Earth. Shukla, who is set to be the first Indian to step on to the ISS, will spend two weeks carrying out various experiments and studies in space. Though India or the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)hashadlittleroletoplayin theplanningandexecutionofthe mission — apart from securing a seat for an Indian on the spacecraft — Shukla’s journey couldn't havecomeatabettertimeforthe country's space programme as it prepares for Gaganyaan, India’s own human spaceflight. The Dragon spacecraft, as well as the Falcon 9 rocket that willlaunchitintospace,arebuilt by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, one of the biggest private space companiesintheworld.Themission is being operated and managed by Axiom Space, a nineyear-oldprivateentityfocusedon commercialspaceflightservices. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Tesla not keen to manufacture in India, says Union Minister Govt issues EV scheme guidelines: Defined domestic value addition targets, Customs duty cuts for 5 years AGGAM WALIA & SOUMYARENDRA BARIK NEW DELHI, JUNE 2 ELECTRIC VEHICLE (EV) major Tesla is not interested in manufacturing in India but is looking at opening two stores, Union Heavy Industries Minister H D Kumaraswamy said on Monday. He, however, said that global EV makers like Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen-Škoda, Hyundai and Kia have shown interest in applying under the ministry’s flagship Scheme to Promote Manufacturing of Electric Passenger Cars in India, notified in March last year. “Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen-Škoda, Hyundai and Kia -- all these companies have already shown interest. Tesla,weareactuallynotexpecting from them. They (Tesla) are going to start two showrooms, they are not interested in manufacturing in India,” Kumaraswamy said at a media briefing. In February, US President Donald Trump had criticised Tesla’s plan to expand in India, calling it “unfair” to the US. “Now, if (Tesla CEO Elon Musk) built the factory in India, that’s okay, but that’s unfair to us. It’s very unfair,” he had said. Trump has since made similar objections to Apple’s expansion plans in India. The heavy industries ministry also issued detailed guide- RUSSIA, UKRAINE HOLD TALKS DAY AFTER KYIV’S DRONE ATTACK SEEN NO CHANGE IN U.S. POSITION ON SANCTIONS: IRAN P13 EXPRESS NETWORK ANNA VARSITY RAPE CONVICT HANDED LIFE SENTENCE PAGE 4 Union Heavy Industries Minister H D Kumaraswamy Only showrooms ● in India THE TEXAS-BASED EV maker, with plants across the world, including in China and Germany, is set to launch retail operations in India soon, and has signed a leasing deal for a showroom in Mumbai, with plans for another showroom in New Delhi in the works. lines on Monday under the EV manufacturingscheme, andwill soon issue a notice inviting online applications. Under the scheme, approved applicants will be required to make a minimum investment of Rs 4,150 crore to produce EVs domestically, with defined domestic value addition (DVA) goals. In turn, they will be eligible to import a maximum of 8,000 completely built-in units (CBU) of electric four-wheelers per year, with a minimum import value of $35,000 at a reduced CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BMC cancels water rescue vehicle tender over Turkey firm link PRATIP ACHARYA THE WORLD E EXPLAINED TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2025, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES MUMBAI, JUNE 2 THE BRIHANMUMBAI Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to scrap a tender for acquiring six remote-controlled life buoys or robotic water rescue vehicles after it discovered that the vendor that won the bid to supply it was ultimately sourcing it from a Turkey-based firm. The civic body’s move comes amid the recent conflict between India and Pakistan where the latter used drones supplied by Turkey to target India. Confirming the development, a senior BMC official said, “The tender was floated last year and the shortlisting of bidders took place between January and February. All the bidders had submitted details of their vendors in their quotation. Since India had good ties with Turkey back then, we went ahead to shortlist the vendor. However, owing to the recent tensions, we decided to take a relook at the tender and refloat it.” The official said that while the supplier of the boat-like floating devices was shortlisted, the BMC had not issued any Letter of Approval (LoA) and therefore it had the legal right to roll the tender back. “We shall be floating a new tender for acquiring the boats and we will also be exploring whetheritispossibletohavethe products manufactured by India-based firms to propagate the Make-in-India campaign. It will also be cost-effective,” said the official. In September last year, the BMC had floated the tender to acquire six rescue boats which were to be used by the Mumbai FireBrigadeforoperationsinthe sea. The cost of each boat was pegged at Rs 9.62 lakh while the total size of the tender was peggedatRs64lakh,inclusiveof taxes. Civic officials said that after the bidders submitted their CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 When women of Bhuj fixed a runway: During ‘71 war, 72 hrs of courage RITU SHARMA MADHAPAR (BHUJ), JUNE 2 A GRAINY black and white photograph published over 50 years ago in Kutchmitra, a vernacular newspaper in Gujarat, shows a groupof womeninchaniya-cholis waiting next to a concrete mixer. The photograph, proof of a singularactof courage,wasfrom 1971, when nearly 300 women from a nearby village worked 12 hours each for three days to repairthe4-kmairstripattheBhuj air base, rendered unusable after heavy bombing by the Pakistan Air Force on the intervening night of December 8-9, 1971. Though the base had been bombed on December 4, 1971, too, the attack on the intervening night of December 8-9 had sent the labourers hired for repairsrunningfortheirlives.Later on December 9, women from Madhapar village, around 5 km from Bhuj, turned up at the base to “save the country”. During his visit to Bhuj on May 26 this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had greeted the virangnaas (brave women) from Madhapar village for their bravery during the third India- Pakistan War, which lasted around 15 days and culminated in the creation of Bangladesh. Madhapar’s Kanbai Shivji Hirani, 80,wasamongthesevolunteers. Inside her two-room house in the village, a showcase is overflowing with memento trophies acknowledging her act of bravery 54 years ago. “There were three holes — as big as my house—ontheairstrip(in1971), alongwithseveralsmallerones,” she tells The Indian Express. In her early 20s in 1971, Kanbai recalls brushing aside protests from her husband and mother-in-law after she informed them about her resolve The women volunteers at work at the Bhuj air base in December 1971. Courtesy: Wing Commander Vijay Karnik (retired) . tohelprebuildtheairstrip.Atthe time of these bombings, the air basewasunderthecommandof then 30-year-old Commander VijayKarnik.Oneof theyoungest officers to command an air base in India, he had joined the Air Force in March 1962 and retired in1993asWingCommander.He says repairing the runway after theDecember4attackprovedto be more challenging than anticipated. He says work on the tarmac had started, but the December9bombingsmadethe workers flee. “I approached the local administrationforhelpbutwastold thatthelabourershadrefusedto return to the base. Having seen women of all ages work as construction labourers, then Kutch Collector (N Gopalaswami), the sarpanchandIturnedtothelocal leaders for help,” Wg Cdr Karnik (retd), 86, says. N Gopalaswami, the former Chief Election Commissioner who now lives in Chennai, told The Indian Express, “I informed the sarpanch that gettingmenfromfarawaywould bedifficult.Withintwohours,he managed to gather women for these repairs.” As dawn broke on December 9, 1971, a vehicle deposited around 50 Madhapar women at thebase.Thoughmen,including Kanbai’s husband, were also present at the tarmac while the women worked from 7 am to 7 pm for three days, she says they were there “only to shadow us and not to help”. SambaiKarsanKhokhani,83, says an Air Force officer told them about the damaged ranba (runway). “It took us one whole day just to see the full ranba. We were scared at first but realised that if we don’t repair it, no one else will.” Bhavesh Bhudia, 33, a resident of Madhapar and a senior clerk with the Bhuj panchayat, says his maternal grandmother, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad