The Editorial Page: Taking sides in conflict — Delhi’s past record tells a complicated story 16 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAgE PUNE, lAtE CIty, 22 PAgES ₹7.00 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 GOVT TAKES URGENT MEASURES AMID CRISIS IN WEST ASIA LNG imports hit, essential commodities Act invoked, gas allocation prioritised Business as Usual Household piped gas, CNG, LPG production will get precedence By EP UNNY Govt eases curbs to allow limited FDI from China, others sharing land border 60-day deadline for proposal clearance Soumyarendra barik, Ravi Dutta Mishra & Aanchal Magazine Sukalp Sharma New Delhi, March 10 nation PAgE 10 New Delhi, March 10 WITH LIQUEFIED natural gas (LNG) supplies to India hit by the halt of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in West Asia, the government has invoked the Essential Commodities Act to divert natural gas to “priority sectors” that are dependent on the fuel. According to the order issued by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), segments that directly impact millions of common consumers — piped natural gas (PNG) for households, compressed natural gas (CNG) for vehicles, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) production — will have precedence over other natural gas-consuming sectors. Government sources said the order has been issued for supply management given the shortage in LNG supplies from West Asia; the shortage needs to be transferred to some nonpriority sectors while diverting gas supplies to high-priority sectors. Apart from domestic gas and imported LNG, the natural gas required to meet the demand of these priority sectorswillbemet“throughfull or partial curtailment” of gas supplied to some petrochemical manufacturing units, gasbased power plants, and consumers of domestic gas producedfromdifficultblocks. Natural gas supplies to refineries have been cut to 65 per cent of their average consumption of the past six months. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 LATEST l JAIShANkAR: hAD DEtAIlED CONvERSAtION WIth IRAN’S ARAghChI l U.S. AND ISRAEl POUND IRAN WIth ‘MOSt INtENSE AIRStRIkES’ Of thE WAR l 700,000 DISPlACED, 84 ChIlDREN kIllED IN lEbANON, U.N. AgENCIES SAy MORE REPORTS, PAGE 18 A worker carries cooking gas cylinders in Mumbai on Tuesday. AkASh PAtIl War impacting three areas: Supply of raw material, fuel & feedstock, market Soumyarendra barik & Pratyush Deep New Delhi, March 10 AS THE conflict in West Asia pushes up energy and commodity prices, its ripple effects are beginning to spread far beyondoilandgas,withsectors such as textiles, mining and steelmakinginIndiastartingto feel the pressure. The impact is Express News Service 162 New Delhi, March 10 202 61 page 3 MH370: AS MALAySIA CLOSESFRESHSEARCH, PUNE MAN STILL WAITS FOR ANSWERS INAmovethatwillallowlimited investment flows from China intokeymanufacturingsectors, the Union Cabinet Tuesday approved easing curbs for countries sharing a land border with India for capital goods, electronic capital goods, electronic components, polysilicon and ingot-wafer for solar cells. Investment restrictions for land border-sharing countries, which were brought into force through Press Note 3 or PN3 of 2020, have been retained for strategic sectors such as semiconductors,officialsourcessaid. The government also decided a threshold level of 10% for automatic approval of the investment into these sectors. Under the revised investment norms,themajoritysharehold- ARMy Dy CHIEF FLAgS CHINA vILLAgES ALONg N-E FRONTIER ing and control of the investee entity will be with resident Indian citizen(s) and/or resident Indian entity(ies) owned and controlled by resident Indian citizen(s), at all times, according to an official release on the Cabinet decision. The government has set a »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ripple effects across sectors: From War very complete, may 1937 SHARIAT ACT PROVISIONS textiles to mining and steelmaking end soon: Trump; we SC says UCC effective will decide, says Iran emerging through a chain of second- and third-order effects linkedtofuelcosts,petrochemicals,feedstock,anddisruptions in global shipping routes along the Strait of Hormuz. “The West Asia conflict has set off a structural repricing acrossglobalchemicalmarkets. Seventy-three commodities spikedinasingleweek:someby over 60% as Hormuz dis- economy page 19 AIR INDIA TO LEvy FUEL SURCHARgE ruptions choked the naphtha feedstock flows that Asian steam crackers depend on for 60–80% of their supply,” Ajay Joshi, a chemical sector expert and founder of an eponymous advisoryfirmforchemicalcompanies,toldTheIndianExpress. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 answer, we leave it to wisdom of legislature Parisa Hafezi & Alexander Cornwell Dubai, Tel Aviv, March 10 IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY Guards said on Tuesday they would not let any oil out of the Middle East until US and Israeli attacks cease, prompting US President Donald Trump to threatentohitIran“twentytimes harder”ifitblockedexports. Despite the defiant rhetoric from both sides, investors placed strong bets on Tuesday US President Donald Trump that Trump would call off his war soon, before the unprecedented disruption it has caused »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Supreme Court grants KEY TO YERAWADA INMATES WINNING GOLD bail to father of accused Murder convict to FIDE ranking: This 31-yr-old in Pune Porsche crash Sushant Kulkarni finds a way forward in chess 134 the city UNION CAbINET DECISION THESUPREMECourtonTuesday granted bail to the father of the minor (now an adult) allegedly involved in the May 19, 2024 Pune Porsche accident case that resulted in the death of two young software engineers. A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan directed that the accused be granted bail subject to terms andconditionstobedecidedby the trial court. The court noted that the father had been in jail for 22 months and that the other accused in the case had already been granted the relief. The bench asked the father nottomakeanyattempttocon- tact the witnesses either directly or indirectly, and added that “any violation of the conditions shall entitle the state to seek cancellation of the bail”. The court also asked the trial courttoconcludethetrialatthe earliest. Thefatherhasbeenaccused of entering into a criminal conspiracy with the other accused to swap the blood samples of the occupants of the car to allegedly save his minor son. He allegedly arranged Rs 5 lakh through his wife to bribe officials to tamper with the blood samples. The Maharashtra government opposed his plea for paritywiththeotheraccusedinthe case. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Pune, March 10 A SMALL dusty pouch dangles fromthecarrierofSatishPawar’s motorcycle. Inside is a roll-up chessboard and plastic pieces. Pawar, 31, who has a FIDE (as the international chess federation is called) rating of 1587 in rapid chess, has been key to Pune’s Yerawada prison winning a gold and a bronze in intercontinental chess championship for prisoners. He is also a murder convict serving a life sentence, currently out on bail as the BombayHighCourthearshisappeal against his conviction. But for chess, says Pawar, hislifewouldhavespiralledout of control. “Prison is not a happy place. People arrive Chess gave me a purpose, says Satish Pawar. EXPRESS there after the darkest chapters of their lives, and within those walls the mind often drifts toward negative thoughts. If not for chess, I might have slipped further down the wrong path. The game gave me purpose – and a positive direction.” Pawar, whose family hails from Vairag village in Barshi, had just turned 18 and was pursuing a civil engineering diploma in May 2014 when he was arrested along with 17 others for the murder of a distantrelativeamidalong-standing family rivalry. In 2019, they were all sentenced to life by a court in Barshi. The 31-year-old rarely speaks about the case, besides saying: “That was a dark period of my life.” Chess was not something that he actively pursued at the time. “I had played chess in school, and taken part in some competitions,butlookingback, CJI bench flags ‘unnecessary void’ if it strikes down provisions that are discriminatory to Muslim women Ananthakrishnan G New Delhi, March 10 BACKING THE case for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country, the Supreme Court said Tuesday it is the “most effective answer” to address provisions in the Shariat law of 1937thatallegedlydiscriminate againstMuslimwomen,including in matters of inheritance. ThebenchofChiefJusticeof India Surya Kant and Justices JoymalyaBagchiandRMahadevan said securing a UCC shouldbeleftto“thewisdomof the legislature” rather than the court stepping in to declare the provisions unlawful and creating an “unnecessary void”. “Themosteffectiveanswer… is the Uniform Civil Code,” the CJI said as the bench heard a plea challenging provisions of E. explained SC’s calls for UCC Ever since the mid-1980s, the SC has backed the UCC idea, urging Parliament to act under Article 44. Notables include its observations in the Shah Bano (1985), Sarla Mudgal (1995), John Vallamattom (2003) rulings. Directive Principles of State Policy, including Article 44 (UCC), are not directly enforceable by any court. the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat)ApplicationAct,1937,which the petitioners said discriminatedagainstMuslimwomenin matters of succession, etc. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE BIG PICTuRE What’s on the mind: Inside IIT Madras Brain Centre PAgE 15 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l DESPITE RISK OF GETTING MOBBED, HE TOOK A TRAIN TO BE WITH HIS CHILDREN IN MUMBAI Dube’s World T20 journey: From top of the world to upper berth of 3AC train Devendra Pandey dian innings to take the team past 250 and New Zealand's reach. In the early hours of HOURS AFTER the lakh-plus- Monday, with all flights to capacity Narendra Modi Sta- Mumbai fully booked, the dium had echoed with deafen- “man always in a hurry”, along ing chants of “Dube, Dube” with wife Anjum and a friend, when Shivam Dube lifted the decidedtoboardatrain.India’s T20 World Cup, InT20 World Cup hero dia's “last action knew he risked getpage 1 hero” was on the top ting mobbed but he berth of an AC 3-Tier wantedtobewithhis coach of the Ahmefour-year-old son dabad-Mumbai Sayaji Express, Ayaan and two-year-old hiding under a thick brown daughter Mehwish, who were Railway blanket. at home in Mumbai. Late on Sunday, the tall left“There was no flight availhander with a golfer’s swing able, so I decided to take a train had hit three fours and two from Ahmedabad early in the sixes in the 20th over of the In- morning to Mumbai. We could Mumbai, March 10 anchor have gone by road but the train was faster,” Dube told The Indian Express. He then revealed how they put in place a plan to keep his identity under wraps. “Me, my wifeandafrienddecidedtotake atrain.3rdACticketswereavailablesowedecidedtobookthem. Everyone we spoke to was worried, family and friends. What if someone recognised me at the station or inside the train?” Dube also needed the right attire for the undercover journey. “I wore a cap, a mask and a full-sleeved T-shirt. It was a 5.10-amtrainsowehopedthere would not be many people on the platform,” he said. Shivam Dube, wife Anjum with the World T20 Cup at Ahmedabad But that was not to be — thereweremanyfans,somestill inIndiacolours,withthefrenzy ofwitnessingIndiawinningthe Cup still fresh. So the plan was slightlytweaked.“Itoldmywife Iwillwaitinthecartillfiveminutes before the train's departure. After that, I will rush to board the train,” Dube said. Once inside the allotted coach, he quickly climbed to the top berth. Then the ticket checker came. “Shivam Dube? Woh kaun hai, cricketer?” Anjum didn’t miss a beat: “No, no. Woh kahan se aayega (where will he come from)?” The TC moved on. After that close call, and tiredfromthelongtournament and celebrations, Dube tried to sleep through those eight hours, hoping that fellow passengers wouldn’t realise that they had amidst them a freshly crownedworldchampionfrom Suryakumar Yadav’s team. “Atnight,Igotdownfromthe berth but no one recognised me onthewaytothewashroomand back. The train trip was smooth but I was worried about getting down at Borivali in broad daylight.Icouldn'thaveescapedattention there,” he said. Dube eventually called the police for help. “They thought I was landing at the airport but weresurprisedwhenItoldthem that I was travelling by train. I was provided a police escort so thingswereeasyandtheexitwas smooth,” he said with a laugh. It was an unexpected end to a tournament that had gone by the book for Dube. Coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Surya had defined his role clearly and the late-order batsmanfollowedittotheT—scoring235atanimpressiveaverage of 39 and strike rate of 169. Battingmostlyinthefinalovers,including that crucial 26 off eight balls in the final, he hit 17 sixes and15foursinthetournament. “They asked me to ensure that the run rate never dropped when I batted and to keep runs down when bowling,” he said. By afternoon, he was home. AyaanandMehwishwerewaiting. The World Cup champion was home. The brown Railway blanket stayed on the train.