The Ideas Page: US and Israel don’t get Iran. Their prospects of a military victory are weak 9 TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2026 JOuRNALISM of COuRAgE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 22 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 lA NINE-JUDGE SC bench will commence the final hearing on petitions relating to discrimination against women at religious places, including Sabarimala. STRIKES ON ENERGY INFRA ACROSS WEST ASIA CONTINUE ON EVE OF HORMUz ULTIMATUM BOOST FOR NUCLEAR PROGRAMME Can take out Iran, may be tomorrow, says Trump; Tehran rejects ceasefire Kalpakkam fast breeder reactor attains criticality; Shoe soles to apparels, input costs defining step: PM lIN 8TH ROUND of Chess Can- didates, R Vaishali will try to get to top of the table by taking on Bibisara Assaubayeva. surge, labour shortage hurting now TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm INsIDE India to be second country after Russia to have a commercial operating FBR WAR IN GULF DAY 38 toll AT HOme AN ExPRESS SERIES Emergency personnel outside a residential building hit by a barrage of Iranian missiles in central Israel on Monday. REUTERS pAGES 16-17 Checkgovt contractssince 2015forlinksto ArunachalCM’s kin,SCtellsCBI Ananthakrishnan G & Vineet Bhalla New Delhi, April 6 THE SUPREME CourtonMondaydirectedtheCBItoconduct apreliminaryenquiryintoallegations that government contracts in Arunachal Pradesh were arbitrarily awarded to companies linked to the family members of Chief Minister Pema Khandu. A three-judge bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N V Anjaria gave the probe agency 16 weeks to submit a status report after looking into the contracts and two weeks to register a preliminary enquiry. The court specified that the enquiryandanyconsequential investigation must cover the »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Business as Usual By EP UNNY Iran seeks full end to war, lifting of sanctions; Trump firm on deadline EDITOrIAl PAGE Nandita Bose & Steve Holland scribed in detail the operation to recover a downed American airman over the weekend from Iranian territory. Upping the ante at the briefing, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the largest volume of strikes, since day one of the operation, against Iran would take place on Monday and Tuesday. Iran on Monday rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the war, even as Israel attacked a major gas field. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Washington, April 6 USPRESIDENTDonaldTrump on Monday told reporters that Iran could be taken out in one night, and that could be “tomorrow night” — warning Tehran it had to make a deal by Tuesday or face the consequences. “The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” he said at a White House press conference on Monday. Trump, joined by senior national security officials, de- WhEN TrUmp mAkES AmErICA GrATE AGAIN p 8 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Pratyush Deep & Ravi Dutta Mishra New Delhi, April 6 AN EERIE silence reverberates on the factory floor where nearly a dozen workers are Workers at a footwear manufacturing facility in Noida. EXPRESS huddled around an octopusshaped machine slowly rotating on its iron clamps. This sole moulding machine, the size of a mid-size shuttle, is the nerve centre of a footwear manufac- Shubhajit Roy New Delhi, April 6 INTHEfirsthigh-levelpolitical outreach to Delhi by the new government in Dhaka, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman will travel to India Tuesday on a two-day visit. The BNP led by Tarique Rahman, now Prime Minister, wasswepttopowerinFebruary this year, 18 months after the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government. Khalilur Rahman, who was NSAintheinterimgovernment led by Muhammad Yunus, will reach Delhi Tuesday afternoon and meet NSA Ajit Doval in the evening — the two had met last November when Rahman visited Delhi as NSA. Heisscheduledtoholdtalks Wednesday with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and isalsolikelytomeetCommerce »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Downside risk limited, impact of war transient: Top fund manager Sandeep Singh New Delhi, April 6 ASTHEWestAsiawarcontinues torattleequitymarketsandsectors across the economy, PrashantJain,FounderandCIO,3P Investment Managers, said India’s vulnerability to oil has moderated and hence the impact of US/Israel-Iran conflict wouldbemarginalandtransient for India. While sectors such as autos, airlines, real estate, and cement would be among the ExPrEss mostdirectlyaffected,thesharp decline in the Nifty in March, combined with an 18-month time correction, has led to a meaningfulmoderationinvaluations.Thereisclearvalueinthe market for long-term investors. Even in a challenging environment,hesaid,thedownsiderisk is limited. Edited Excerpts: PRASHANT JAIN How do you see the war and its impact on the markets? The first three months of interview FOUNDER AND CIO OF 3P INVESTMENT MANAGERS Dhaka reaches out to Rajya Sabha Chair, Lok Delhi, Foreign Minister Sabha Speaker reject arrives today for talks Opp bid to impeach CEC Fuel supplies to Bangladesh, staring at energy crisis due to war, on agenda turing unit in Noida, one of 11,000 plants in the city, capable of producing nearly 3,000-4,000 footwear soles a day. No reason given; Opposition says BJP ‘mocking’ Parliament Express News Service NATION pAGE 13 NINE TN COpS hANDED DEATh pENALTY fOr CUSTODY kILLINGS Kalpakkam houses India’s first fully indigenous fast-breeder reactor Anil Sasi New Delhi, April 6 THE VITAL second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear programme got a boost Monday withthecountry’sfirstindigenous Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu attaining criticality — the initiation of a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction that will eventually lead to the generation of power by the 500megawatt electric (MWe) FBR. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a post on X, called it a “defining step” in advancing the country’s civil nuclear programme and said the indigenously designed and built reactor reflects “the depth of our scientific capability and the strength of our engineering enterprise”which,hesaid,isakey steptowardsharnessingIndia’s thorium reserves under the third stage of the programme. Attaining criticality is a key milestone before full power E. ExPlAINED key second stage The FBR is the vital second stage in the DAE’s threestage power programme which envisages a pathway to utilising India’s abundant thorium reserves – found in coastal and inland placer sands on the beaches of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, and in the inland riverine sands of Jharkhand and West Bengal — to generate electricity. generation, indicating that the reactor core is functioning as designed and that each fission event in the core now releases a sufficient number of neutrons to sustain an ongoing series of reactions. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Recusal plea: Kejriwal appears in HC, SG says court no forum for ‘theatrics’ Sohini Ghosh New Delhi, April 6 CEC Gyanesh Kumar New Delhi, April 6 THE RAJYA Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker on Monday rejected the impeachment motions submitted in both Houses by the Opposition over three weeks ago to remove Chief Election Commissioner »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AP FILE Gyanesh Kumar from office. Both the presiding officers did not assign any reason for their decisions. The move triggered a sharp response from the Opposition, with TMC Rajya Sabha MP »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 FORMER DELHI Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took centre stage among a battery of lawyersintheDelhiHighCourt on Monday and said he will be arguing in person his application seeking recusal of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma from hearing the CBI’s revision plea in the excise policy case. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Arvind Kejriwal, wife Sunita arrive at the Delhi HC, Monday. AMIT MEHRA l APRIL 26 LOCAL BODY POLLS IN GUJARAT: FLOOD OF ASPIRANTS SCRAMBLING TO CREATE DIGITAL PROFILES TO SUBMIT TO BJP’S POLL OBSERVERS Want ticket, prove social media presence: BJP screens candidates for local polls Kamal Saiyed & Aditi Raja pointed by the party in order to stake claim for a ticket for the April 26 civic polls in Gujarat. HOW POPULAR are you on soThe party is using AI to sift cial media? How many reels through the sea of applications made by you for the party have that it has received from across gone viral? How capable are thestate,includingfilteringout youofstartingandcarryingfor- dynastic aspirations and prefward digital narerences to relatives PAGE 1 ratives of the party, of leaders. The rush especially tocounter of aspirants is esopposition voices? pecially heavy in the Theseareamongtheindica- cities of Surat and Vadodara, tors of performance – along where several families are with artificial intelligence (AI)- learnt to have submitted appligenerated overviews – that as- cations from multiple piringBJPleadersmustsubmit members. before election observers apThe reliance on social Surat, Vadodara, April 6 anchor media activity as an indicator of popularity has upset some party old-timers. A two-decade veteran of the party and a former municipal corporator of Surat Municipal Corporation said, “I am not very accustomed to social media contacts and performance. I have been a groundlevel worker, and I have given my sweat and blood to ensure growth for the party. Everyone in my ward knows me by name because I have addressed all their issues and put civic officials to work on them. I have not uploaded pictures of such At BJP office in Surat. EXPRESS activities on social media, but people on the ground know my work. If AI is used to select candidates, I may suffer.” The BJP’s poll observers have started their visits across the state to get a sense of the popularity and strengths of ticket aspirants. TheStateElectionCommission(SEC)announcedthedates for the elections on April 1. Counting will be held on April28,twodaysafterthevote, and results are expected to be announced the same day. All municipal corporations, except Junagadh and Gandhi- Ahmedabad nagar will go to polls, the State Election Commission said. Surat and Vadodara The Vadodara Municipal Corporation has 19 administrative wards, which are aligned with an equal number of election wards. A total of 76 corporators are elected from these19electionwards.Ineach of them, close to 100 aspirants are seeking BJP tickets to contest. The Surat corporation has 30 wards, each of which also has four councillors, adding up to a total 120 councillors in the corporation house. Like Vadodara, around 100 aspirants are in the race in each of the 30 wards. In the last election in 2021, the BJP won 93 of the 129 seats in the Surat corporation, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 27. Fourteen AAP corporators moved to the BJP later, and one AAP corporator was suspended. In Vadodara, the BJP won 69 of the 76 seats in the municipal corporation,and the Congress won seven. At the end of theterminMarch2026,theBJP »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2