The Editorial Page: On building public AI, governments must be tactical but remain flexible 8 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAgE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES ₹5.00 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 , L U 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 lAS THE AI IMPACT SUMMIT begins in New Delhi, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, in collaboration with Intel India, will launch a nationwide campaign to mobilise people to commit to ethical, inclusive and responsible use of AI. lMICROSOfT fOUNDER BIll Gates is scheduled to visit Andhra Pradesh and meet CM N Chandrababu Naidu, IT Minister Nara Lokesh and Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan to explore deeper collaboration in education, health and agriculture. Ishan blitz sinks Pakistan AI summit begins today, real-world solutions on table MODI TO INAUgURATE EXPO AT BHARAT MANDAPAM Convincing win in Colombo takes India to T20 World Cup Super Eights Tech majors, leaders from across world head to India for deliberations lTHE BUDgET SESSION of the Gujarat Assembly will begin on Monday. This will be the eighth session of the 15th Assembly and is likely to go on till March 25. It will begin with the customary Governor’s address to the House. Soumyarendra Barik New Delhi, February 15 TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm business as Usual By EP UNNY Ishan Kishan on his way to a quickfire 77 during the T20 World Cup match against Pakistan in Colombo, Sunday. ANI REPORTS, PAGE 15 ExPrEss IN SRI LANKA Venkata Krishna B Colombo, February 15 IT DID not rain in Colombo as was feared. But it rained sixes and fours from the mighty wil- low of Ishan Kishan, it rained wickets for the excellent seampair of Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, and later the guileful spin pack, ending in a comfortable 61-run victory for India over Pakistan. Not even rain, it seems, can rain on India’s parade. Themarginofvictoryissuggestive enough of the supremacy India wields over Pakistan — a rivalry that India truly ownsandrequiresthetheatrics and shenanigans to sustain its lost charm — but does not fully capture the various layers of their domination and deception.Intalentandskillandstature and structure, India is light years ahead of Pakistan. Hence, India’s celebrations were seldom feverish. Raw joy was masked in a stone-cold exterior. Routine group stage wins don’t excite them. Only biggerfeatscaninspirewildcelebrations. India’s domination has begun to resemble a bloodless coup, devoid of resistance and drama, exuding a calm ruthlessness reminiscent of Ricky Ponting’s Australia. Put into bat, Pakistan captain Salman Agha, flashing a grin, said the surface looked tacky. He had stocked his side with spinners of all hues and took the new ball himself to shock Indians. CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 STARTING MONDAY, New Delhiwillbecometheepicentre of global discourse around artificial intelligence (AI) as India hosts the AI Impact Summit 2026, with the country looking toputforthitsprowessinbuilding real-world AI solutions, become the leading voice on AI in the Global South, and secure a seat at the high table of technological leadership. Coming to the Global South for the first time, the summit, scheduled from February 1620, will be officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 19. At 5 pm Monday, Modi will inauguratetheco-locatedIndia AI Impact Expo 2026 at Bharat Mandapam. The Expo, the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday,willserveas“anational demonstration of AI in action, wherepolicymeetspractice,innovationmeetsscale,andtechnology meets the everyday »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 fINAl lIST TO BE OUT ON fEBRUARY 17 SIR: Of 14L Form 7 applications in Gujarat, only 1.8 lakh turn out ‘valid’ Of 90L notices issued to ‘unmapped’ voters, those with ‘logical discrepancies’, only 30% appeared for hearing Ritu Sharma Ahmedabad, February 15 AS GUJARAT completes its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, the final electoral roll, to be published on February 17, is expected to see a marginal increase in the number of voters from the draft list published on December 19whichhadover4.34 crore voters, sources told The Indian Express. The draft electoral roll had 4,34,70,109 voters, a decrease of 73.73 lakh from the last electoral roll which had 5,08,43,436 voters. Of the over 73.73 lakh names deleted, over 54 per cent are in the ‘permanently migrated’ category. The CEO’s office received nearly 14 lakh Form 7 applications from across the state, of which barely 1.8 lakh were termed ‘valid’ after scrutiny, sources said. During the exercise, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has issued around 90 lakh notices to voters with “logical discrepancies” and those who were “unmapped” and only around 30% of them During an SIR exercise in Gujarat. EXPRESS turned up for the hearing, the sources said. The hearing for the ‘unmapped’ voters and those with logical discrepancies was held on February 10. “Not even 30 per cent of these 90 lakh people turned up for the last hearing,” a senior government official said. The Gujarat CEO's office had to rope in more than three times more election officers to handle the hearing of the 90 lakh who had been issued notices seeking verification from the Election Commission. From 800 Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), the number was increased to 3,000. »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 Outside Bharat Mandapam, the venue of the India AI Impact Summit, in New Delhi on Sunday. ABHINAV SAHA We invite world’s data to reside in India: PM Express News Service New Delhi, February 15 AHEADOFthehigh-profilefiveday AI Impact Summit, which kicksoffonMonday,PrimeMinister Narendra Modi said that Indiaislayingthefoundationfor a thriving artificial intelligence ecosystem by expanding computing power and data centre infracapacity.Inawritteninterview to PTI, the Prime Minister emphasised that data centres will be a massive job-creator for LS Speaker Om Birla to attend AI shakes statecraft: Rahman swearing-in tomorrow Prediction markets Modi unable to travel to Dhaka owing to talks with Macron test diplomats, spies ExPrEss IN DHAKA Shubhajit Roy February 15 THE GOVERNMENT Sunday decided to send Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to Dhaka as India’s representative at the swearing-inceremonyofBangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Tarique Rahman as the country’s Prime Minister on Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla Tuesday. The BNP, through the interim government in Bangladesh, had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the ceremony, but he has sched- uled meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron in Mumbai. Macron and Modi are to meet Tuesday afternoon for bilateral meetings, before the French President travels to New Delhi for the Artificial Intelligence summit. IntheearlyhoursofSunday, the BNP said Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of the interim government, had invited the heads of government of 13 countries.Invitationshavebeen extendedtoChina,SaudiArabia, India, Pakistan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 PM Narendra Modi the Indian youth — “we invite the whole world’s data to reside in India,” he remarked. »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 EDITOrIAl PAGE GLobAL SoUth mUSt SEIzE ItS AI momENt PAGE 8 C Raja Mohan New Delhi, February 15 AS WORLD leaders gather in New Delhi this week for the AI Summit to debate how governments should deploy artificial intelligence for public good, a less-noticed but more unsettling transformation is under way. While governments discuss how to regulate the transformative technological revolution,AI-drivenpredictionmar- E. INDIA AI Impact Summit AN EXPRESS SERIES kets are beginning to constrain state behaviour — including on decisions about war and peace. »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 ‘Whether it’s Nvidia, Anthropic, OpenAI or Google, companies are looking at India to hire AI engineers’ ABHISHEK SINgH CEO of IndiaAI Mission PAGE 11 l RS 3-CRORE BAIL BOND YET TO BE PAID WiferunspillartoposttofreeIndianheldinMalioverfirmdispute Divya A Ltd (AEEPL), where Gulhane is employedasaprojectmanager, and the local Malian entity for ALMOST EXACTLY a year ago, whom the firm is executing Nitin Gulhane flew back to hydropowerandelectricitydisMali’s capital Bamako to join tribution projects. work, after a couple of months Five months ago, Gulhane off for his wife’s definally secured bail. livery and an anHowever, he remains PAGE 1 gioplasty proceincarcerated, as per dure. The plan was Priyanka, because the that his wife bailbondofaroundRs Priyankaandtheirtwochildren 3croreinIndiancurrencyisyet would follow soon. to be paid by his employer deHowever, on February 25, spite assurances, including to four days after Gulhane landed Union Ministry of External AfinBamako,the42-year-oldwas fairs (MEA) officials. arrested. The family says the Priyanka says she has been arrest was the fallout of a finan- knocking on all doors — from cial dispute between the New the office of Gulhane’s emDelhi-based Aar Ess Exim Pvt ployer in Noida, to MEA offices New Delhi, February 15 anchor Nitin and Priyanka Gulhane with their children and Nitin’s mother in South Block and the Indian Mission in Mali. She has also approached Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, tapping into their common Nagpur links. As project manager, Gulhane was overseeing the electrification of 22 villages in Djenne, on behalf of AEEPL. The dispute arose after its partner Energy du Mali filed a complaint over the validity of certain bank guarantees provided by AEEPL. Talking to The Indian Expressover the phone from Nagpur, where she lives with her parents,PriyankasaysGulhane started working with AEEPL in June 2022, and was posted to Mali in November that year, Ahmedabad and that tendering for the said project was already done by then. Gulhane was taken into custody along with AEEPL vice-president Rajesh RamachandraninFebruary2025,following a meeting called by Energie du Mali, which cited the disputed guarantees. On August 15, Gulhane got bail on a bond of FCFA 200,000,000 (approximately Rs 3.25 crore), with no such relief for Ramachandran. It was the responsibility of the AEEPL management to arrange the bank guaranteesEnergyduMaliwas asking for, Priyanka says. “My husband was neither involved, nor had the decision-making authority in this matter. His role was strictly limited to execution of the project in line with the specifications, timelines and budgets.” Priyanka talks of a happy two years or so she and Gulhane spent in Mali, along with their first child, when he initially got posted there. Around the same time as the tie-up between the Indian and Mali firmsdevelopedsomestress,in mid-2024, Priyanka reached thefinaltrimesterofhersecond pregnancy. Wanting to deliver the child at home, she flew to Nagpur, and Gulhane followed to be by her side. Priyanka says: “I have made repeatedrequeststotheAEEPL »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2