The Ideas Page: US sanctions on Russia oil not about Ukraine, but its own shale industry P13 WEDNEsDAY, NOVEMBEr 5, 2025 JournalisM of Courage lUCKnOW, lATE CITY, 20 PAGES ₹6.00 l www.indianexpress.com DA I lY F R O M : A h M E DA B A D , C h A n D I GA R h , D E l h I , J A I P U R , KO l K ATA , lU C K n O W , M U M B A I , n AG P U R , PAT n A , P U n E , vA D O DA R A Happening today ‘precipitAtiNg it cOuLD cAuSe irrepArAbLe hArM’ Mehli Mistry quits, defuses Tatas feud lpriMe MiNiSter NAreNDrA MODi has invited the Indian women’s cricket team for a meeting following their historic victory in the World Cup. lNew YOrk citY iS VOtiNg E. for its new mayor, with all eyes on Democrat Zohran Mamdani who, if elected, will become the city’s first Muslim and Indian-origin mayor. he faces former governor Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Also watched will be the contests in virginia and new Jersey, whose outcomes could be bellwethers for next year’s congressional midterm polls. Move expected to ExplaiNED bring calm and ratan tata’s stability to the invisible hand diversified group The shadow of Ratan Tata george Mathew Mumbai, November 4 Mehli MisTry, who was involved in a tussle with Tata TrustsChairmanNoelTataand other trustees, has parted ways with the Tata group saying “precipitating matters would cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the Tata Trusts”. A close confidant of ratan Tata, Mistry was voted out of Tata Trusts by other trustees ltrOikA Of iNDiAN cheSS stars — Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi — return to the board for the second round of FIDE World Cup in Goa. A record 17 Indian players have made it to Round 2. Dear Reader, You have inspired this refresh, this redesign. It is your search for fairness, depth and nuance in an age of algorithm-driven noise that has guided us to refine The Indian Express to be cleaner and clearer, more poised and purposeful. This change is to better serve the curiosity and judgment you bring to the news every day. At the forefront remains what you expect from The Indian Express: original reporting from across the country, including places that lie just outside the camera frame, in social media’s shadow; investigative journalism that reveals, holds power to account; and explanatory journalism that translates headlines to the way we live and work. Our Editorial and Ideas pages have been rethought to bring you a wider range of perspectives: voices that rise above the echoes of many a chamber, compel us to listen, to learn and engage. The new design respects your time. It makes it easier to find and follow the journalism you value. The newspaper, its pages in your hand, or the e-paper on your screen, meets you where you are. We will walk with you. For almost a century, your trust in The Indian Express has been the bedrock upon which our journalism of courage stands. Today, that trust calls us to independence, accuracy, and humility, including the willingness to listen to those who question us and disagree with our assumptions. In the coming days and weeks, you will see more enhancements, in print and digital. Each will be guided by the same purpose: to deepen the value we offer, to justify the trust you place in us. And to give you one more reason to join the public conversation. Thank you. Chief Editor people wait to board trains to Bihar, where voting in the first phase of the assembly elections will be held Thursday, and to west Bengal, where the SiR of electoral rolls has begun, at New Delhi Railway Station on Tuesday. TAShI TOBGYAl Two decades, a few flip-flops later, why Nitish remains NDA’s best bet Voting for first phase tomorrow Liz Mathew Motihari, Bettiah, Patna, November 4 NOT lONG ago, the BJP was not keen on projecting JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar as the NDA’s chief ministerial face. Fromitsstateunittothecentral leadership, the message was calibrated: that Nitish would lead the coalition in the elec- tions, but that the choice of the new CM would be decided later. Butthesharpreactionbythe JD(U)—apartfromtheOpposition—toUnionhomeMinister Amitshah’sremarkslayingthis out are just one reason BJP leaders are supporting Nitish wholeheartedlynow.Theother istheoverwhelmingsupportfor theJD(U)leaderontheground, despite his 20 years in power and his allegedly fragile health. sources admit the BJP was taken by surprise by this. »cONtiNueD ON pAge 6 QS ASiA rANkiNgS 2026 IITs slip on research, faculty resources, but India entries at record high; China surges Abhinaya harigovind New Delhi, November 4 l The NUMBer of indian institutions represented in the ‘Qs World University rankings: Asia’for2026increasedbyover 80 per cent, from 163 last year to 294 this time, but nine of the top10indianinstitutionsinthe listreleasedTuesday,including sevenindianinstitutesofTechnology (iiTs), saw a sharp fall in their rankings. institutions in China, Malaysia, south Korea and singapore outperformed them on research impact, faculty resources and international engagement. Five iiTs among the top 10 indian institutions — Delhi, Madras, Bombay, Kanpur and Kharagpur—recordedtheirlowest ranking in recent years. While their individual scores improved as compared to last year, their ranking — relative to other institutions in india’stop10 IIT Delhi IISc IIT Madras IIT Bombay IIT Kanpur IIT Kharagpur Delhi University Chandigarh University IIT Roorkee IIT Guwahati 2026 2025 59 44 64 62 70 56 71 48 77 67 77 60 95 81 109 120 114 115 108 104 QS World University Rankings: Asia 2026 Asia — dropped. iiT Delhi, which is the country’s top ranked institution for the second year in a row, fell from 44th position last year to 59 this time. From 2021 to 2025, the institute’s ranking ranged from 44 to 47. last week when his renomination proposal came up. he was appointed a trustee three years ago in October 2022. Building strategic ties with India: Israel FM Shubhajit roy New Delhi, November 4 As Delhi reaffirmed its support for the Gaza peace and underlined that “our two nationsfaceaparticularchallenge from terrorism”, visiting israeli Foreign Minister Gideon sa’ar, who held talks with external AffairsMinister sJaishankarin New Delhi Tuesday, said israel and india are “building a longterm strategic partnership”. Jaishankar,onhispart,said, “india and israel have a strategic partnership and, particularly in our case, that term has a real meaning. We have stood Bihar CM Nitish Kumar during a rally at Triveniganj, Supaul. PTI loomed large in Mistry’s letter to trustees, in which he said he was guided by Ratan Tata who always put public interest before his own. His decision to put matters to rest will bring peace back in the group. It also puts Noel Tata firmly in the saddle. together in testing times. And we have created a relationship with a high degree of trust and of reliability.” Besides counter-terrorism and security cooperation, the two ministers discussed enhancedcooperationincybersecurity and semiconductors, participation of indian companies in rail, road and port infrastructure in israel, renewable energy and health, israeli innovation in agriculture in india, and more indian skilled workers in israel. sa’ar, who recalled that Prime Minister NarendraModi »cONtiNueD ON pAge 2 in a letter addressed to Noel Tata, and copied to trustees of sirratanTataTrust,sirDorabji Tata Trust and Bai hirabai JN TataNavsariCharitableinstitution Trust, Mistry said, “My commitment to ratan N Tata's vision includes a responsibility to ensure that the Tata Trusts are not plunged into controversy… i part ways with a quote that ratan Tata used to say to me, ‘Nobody is bigger than the institution it serves’.” Mistry’s ceasefire has come days after he filed a caveat petition before the Maharashtra CharityCommissioner,requesting that he be given “a fair hearing” before any formal moveismadetoremovehimas a trustee of Tata Trusts. WithMistry’sexit,calm and »cONtiNueD ON pAge 2 iNSiDE the big picture Jamtara’s nEw play pagE 11 NatioN pagE 9 Eight killEd in Bilaspur train collision AN expreSS iNVeStigAtiON Jnu’s ferment moves from campus to court: university fights students and faculty Over 600 cases since 2011 — from challenges to speech on campus, fines; and a question from the bench to university: what about fair play? Vidheesha kuntamalla & Nirbhay thakur New Delhi, November 4 FOr DeCADes, theJawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has beenattheforefrontoftheGovernment’s national rankings, placedatNo.2overthepasttwo years alone. it has also been the crucibleofcampusactivism,its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political partiesofallhuesandthoughts. But today, JNU is an institution at the crossroads. One that sues its own, in case after case challenging the campus's promise of free speech, betraying fraying relationships in the community, between the administration on one side and the faculty and students on the other. Nothing illustrates this better than JNU’s growing mountain of cases. An investigation by The Indian Express has found that since 2011, JNU featured in the Delhi high Court in over 600 cases filed by various stakeholders, including the administration, staff, faculty, students, cleaning personnel, etc., During the JNU student elections on Tuesday. ABhInAv SAhA iNSiDE pagE 7 across the tenures of three Vice-Chancellors. Of these, this newspaper investigated 205 cases that were decided or disposed of by July this year involving students (158) and faculty (47) — including 118 under the tenure of one V-C alone — which reveal how campus disagreements are increasingly playing out under judicial scrutiny rather than across the table. Consider this: l During V-C s K sopory’s tenure (2011-2016), just 37 of such cases reached the Delhi hC — most linked to appointments,PhDsubmissions,hostel allotmentsorharassmentcomplaints. Only five challenged wider institutional policy. l The litigation peaked under V-C M Jagadesh Kumar (2016-2022), when court cases more than tripled compared to his predecessor: 118. These included92bystudentsand26by faculty members — many tied to protests, disciplinary action and questions of free speech. l Under current V-C santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, new cases have fallen, but legal spending by JNU reached rs 28.4 lakh in 2024-25 alone — the highest annual legal bill in 14 years — largely due to cases inherited from Kumar’s term. »cONtiNueD ON pAge 7 FULL REPORT ON WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM »cONtiNueD ON pAge 2 l oRgaNiSERS flEE, playERS NoT paiD, allowED To lEavE hoTEl oNly afTER poliCE iNTERvENE Business as usual By EP UNNY Match unmade in heaven: How a cricket league unravelled in Kashmir Devendra pandey, bashaarat Masood & Nihal koshie hotel staff didn’t allow them to checkout,citingunclearedbills worth rs 51 lakh. News had spreadamongtheplayersthata Mumbai, Srinagar, New couple of retired overseas stars Delhi, November 4 who featured in the league — ON NOVeMBer 2, the tenth Chris Gayle and New Zealand’s Jesse ryder – had alday of ‘The indian readyleftthecountry heaven’s Premier pagE 1 that morning. league’cricketevent The ihPl was a in srinagar, more private cricket than 50 players, including big names like former league organised by a group india pacer Praveen Kumar, called yuva society Mohali in were in for a rude shock. Not srinagar’sBakshistadium,and paid by the organisers, the its organisers allegedly left the players wanted to leave, but the city without making payments anchor Retired overseas stars such as Chris gayle and Jesse Ryder featured in ‘The indian heaven’s premier league’. ShUAIB MASOODI toplayers,matchofficials,commentators and the hotel. Praveen Kumar narrated the sequence of events to The Indian Express: “everything was normal, until suddenly there was panic that the organisers of the league were not responding to calls, and there were doubts about the evening match. Then someone said Gayle and ryder have flown back. Many players weren't paid, so some decided to check out of the hotel.” Anotherplayer,ishwarPandey,whohasfeaturedforChen- naisuperKingsintheiPl,said, “some players were screaming at hotel staff. Between 11:30 am and5:30pm,noplayersorteam officials were allowed to leave.” Onitswebsite,theihPlwas described as “india’s new cricketing movement uniting sports, youth and tourism in the heart of Jammu and Kashmir”. As it’s a private league, it doesn'tcomeunderthebanner of the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association or the indian cricket board. Players are approached and signed throughagents,andtheteamis boughtbythefranchise,ifthere is one. Apart from Gayle and ryder, the league featured other overseas players like southAfrica’srichardleviand sri lanka’s Thisara Perera. it is learnt that the unravelling began after a lack of crowd in the stadium. sources said that the organisers had contracted international players for the first few matches, hoping it would draw audiences. "But as people didn't turn up in large numbers, the organisers felt that the league was not »cONtiNueD ON pAge 2 Lucknow