The Editorial Page: A political setback for government, a democratic opening for Opposition 8 SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2026 JOURNAlISM of COURAGE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITy, 18 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 , 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 POSTAL REGN. NO. JAIPUR CITY/001/2024-26 FIRST MAJOR LEGISLATIVE DEFEAT FOR MODI GOVT SINCE 2014; RELATED BILLS DROPPED MODI, SHAH WARN OPPOSITION IT WILL FACE WOMEN’S IRE IF RESERVATION DENIED GOVT’S REAL DESIGN WAS TO CHANGE ELECTORAL MAP OF COUNTRY, SAYS OPP Opposition stands, women’s Bill falls Opp:Hailthe Constitution, BJP’sdeceitful Will work with Tehran to recover chariotstopped enriched uranium: US President 298-230 voting score in House well short of required two-thirds majority Vikas Pathak & Deeptiman Tiwary ThE EDITOrIAl PAGE New Delhi, April 17 IN THE first major legislative loss for the Modi government since it came to power in 2014, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, seeking to advance reservation of seats for women in an expanded Lok Sabha and state Assemblies and facilitate delimitation of constituencies,wasdefeatedin Lok Sabha Friday evening. Ofthe528memberspresent in the House, 298 voted in favour of the Bill and 230 opposed it, the result well short of thetwo-thirdsmajorityneeded for a Constitutional amendment Bill to clear the House. The amended women’s quota Bill – the 2023 women’s IN PArLIAmENt PUShBAck, LESSoN for Govt PAGE 8 hIGh drAmA, qUIEt cErtAINty — ANd A fALL PAGE 12 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 happening today lPRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi will speak at a “grand gathering” in Coimbatore. lLEADER OF Opposition Rahul Gandhi will launch election campaign in Chennai. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm RahulGandhi’s citizenship: AllahabadHigh Courtallows pleaforprobe Express News Service New Delhi, April 17 THE ALLAHABAD High Court on Friday allowed a petition by a Karnataka-based BJP member,VigneshShishir,seekingaprobeintoallegationsthat Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also holds a British citizenship. Justice Subhash Vidyarthi set aside an order of a Lucknow trial court in January, which declined to entertain the petitioner’s plea. The complete order of the High Court is yet to be made public. The trial court had earlier said that under legislation and citizenship rules, it had “no jurisdiction to adjudicate the questionrelatingtothecitizenship or nationality of anyone" while ruling that "the present applicationisnotmaintainable and liable to be rejected”. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NATION UNcoNtEStEd wINNErS trIPLE to 733, mAjorIty from rULING BjP PAGE 4 Asad Rehman New Delhi, April 17 PArlIAmENT reservation law still stands – was put to vote after a marathon two-day debate during which Prime Minister NarendraModiandHomeMinister Amit Shah urged members to support the proposed legislation, and cautioned the As Iran opens Strait of Hormuz, Trump says blockade to stay until deal is reached Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other ministers during the special sitting of Parliament, Friday. ANI Close to vote, Govt realised Bill would fall, put the onus on Opp Deeptiman Tiwary & Liz Mathew New Delhi, April 17 HOURS BEFORE the Constitutional amendment Bill providing for women’s reservation and delimitation was put to vote in the Lok Sabha, it was pretty much clear to the government it did not have the support of enough MPs in the House for the required two-thirds majority of those present. But BJP leaders and sources in the government told The Indian Express they would not withdraw the Bill at this point; they would rather have it fall at the hands of the Opposition. Inalastditchattempttosalvage the Bill, the ruling party did make attempts to reach out to the Akhilesh Yadavled Samajwadi Party and some other Opposition parties during the day. They seemed to think sections within the Opposition would support the Bill when it is brought to vote, worried about facing questions during elections. Business as Usual By EP UNNY E. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AFTERTHEConstitution(One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026, failed to get the Lok Sabha’s approval Friday, the Opposition hailed it as “historic” and emphasised it was not against women’s reservation. In his first reaction after the Bill failed to make its way through the Lower House, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi posted on X, “The amendmentbillhasfallen.They usedanunconstitutionaltrickin thenameofwomentobreakthe Constitution. India has seen it. INDIA(bloc)hasstoppedit.Hail the Constitution.” Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said the state had “defeated Delhi”. “On April 23 (elections), we will defeat Delhi’s arrogance — andtheslaveswhosupportthat arrogance — together,” Stalin wrote on X alongside a portrait of him setting fire to a copy of the Delimitation Bill. In another post, he said, “The south stood united and made its voice heard. Democracy prevailed. We never opposed delimitation. We asked for fairness, for a process that is »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 People return home following a ceasefire, in Lebanon. REUTERS Humeyra Pamuk, Saad Sayeed & Aziz Taher Washington, Islamabad, Paris, April 17 IRANIAN FOREIGN Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifthoftheworld’soilandliquefiednaturalgasusuallytransits, was open for all commercial vessels following the agreement of a ceasefire in Lebanon, while US President Donald Trump said he believed a deal toendtheIranwarwouldcome “soon”, although the timing remains unclear. InapostonX,Araghchisaid theStrait,whichwaseffectively closed, was open for the re- wOrlD PAGE 15 mAcroN ANd StArmEr SEEk NAvIGAtIoN SEcUrIty mainderoftheUS-brokered10daytrucebetweenIsraeliforces and Iran-backed Hezbollah agreed Thursday between Israel and Lebanon. Trump told Reuters Friday that the US will work with Iran torecoveritsenricheduranium and bring it back to the US as partofanydeal.“We’regoingto »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PIL ON MISUSE OF AI SC/ST Act added to rape Of 94 takedown notices in 3 years, FIR that triggered arrests X responded to only 13, MHA to HC in TCS Nashik case ‘Double standard’: Govt says X removed unlawful content on West Asia conflict Help of Central agencies is also being sought, where necessary, to get to the root of the matter, says Fadnavis Zeeshan Shaikh & Mohamed Thaver Mumbai, April 17 The Nashik Police have added another charge to the first FIR thattriggeredarrestsintheTCS Nashikcase.FIR156,whichwas filed against Danish Sheikh on charges of rape, sexual harassment and hurting religious sentiments on March 26, was expanded on March 31 to includesectionsoftheScheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Police said this is because the complainant woman is a member of the SC community. On Friday, speaking to the media in Kolkata, Maharashtra ChiefMinisterDevendraFadnavis said, “The Nashik TCS incidentthatcametolightwasaserious matter. It is a module that is beingstrictlyprobedtoascertain itsdeep-rootedlinks.Helpisalso being sought from central agencies,wherenecessary,toget to the root of the case. TCS has taken serious cognisance and strongly condemned the incident. They are cooperating and taking necessary measures.” All the accused, except TCS employee Nida Khan, have beenarrested.Herlawyer,Baba Sayyad, told The Indian Expressthat he would soon file an anticipatorybailapplicationon her behalf, adding that she was “a victim of media trial”. He claimed Khan is pregnant and her family is concerned about the impact of the case on her health. On her alleged role, Nashik Police Commissioner Sandeep Karniksaid,"Sofar,herrolehas not emerged in any other FIR. She was an associate and not in HR at the company. In our probe,nolinkhasbeenfoundto the accused (Nida) in any case registered across the country.” Healsosaidpolicehavewritten to central agencies to check claimsthatsomeoftheaccused are linked to banned groups. AnanalysisofallnineFIRsin the case shows that eight carry charges of sexual harassment, five include charges of hurting religioussentiments,andatleast three document instances wherecomplainantsclaimthey raised concerns internally before approaching the police. Of the eight accused named across the nine FIRs, five — Danish Sheikh, Nida Khan, Shafi Shaikh, Shahrukh Qureshi and Asif Ansari — were associates at the TCS Nashik branch, while Raza Memon and Tausif Attar have been named as team leaders by the compainants. Ashwini Chainani, the only senior employee named, was the operations managerbasedinPuneandhas been booked on charges of abetment. It is alleged that Chainani failed to act despite receivingcomplaintsregarding the accused, which further emboldened them. Among the eight, Attar is named in six FIRs and Memoninfive.Thecomplaints were registered across two police stations, Deolali Camp and »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Aditi Raja Vadodara, April 17 THE MINISTRY of Home Affairs (MHA), in an affidavit before the Gujarat High Court, has observed "persistent pattern of non-responsiveness" and "lack of meaningful cooperation with lawfully issued directions" for taking down URLs by Elon Musk's X Corp (formerly Twitter). The affidavit, which was in response to a petition raising concerns over artificial intelligence (AI)-generated deepfake content on digital platforms, also cited "selective application of technical capabilities" as X Corp had allegedly removed unlawful and sensitive AI-generated content regarding the US-Israel and Iran conflict within the US jurisdiction. Accusing X of glaring double standards, the affidavit said “the same level of proactive detection and prevention mechanism” was not visibly deployed when it came to Indian users and Indian jurisdiction. The Centre's statement noted that in the three years since 2024, it had sent 94 take- The affidavit was in response to a petition raising concerns over AI-generated deepfake content on digital platforms. FILE down notices to X, of which the microblogging platform responded to only 13. In a comprehensive 35page affidavit by the Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centre (I4C), which comes under the MHA, that was signed by deputy general manager Rahulkant Sahu, the MHA submitted that while companies such as Meta and Google have fully integrated with the government’s centralised cybercrime network, other intermediaries, particularly X, have "not yet onboarded or fully integrated with the portal and often fail to respond to the statutory no- tices issued". The affidavit was submitted in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Vikas Vijay Nair, seeking legal reforms and regulatory directions to authorities concerned. The PIL prays for the regulations against the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation and circulation of fake and manipulated videos and photographs, especially those targeting "constitutional and statutory authorities" on digital platforms. The MHA affidavit filed in response to a notice issued by thedivisionbenchofChiefJusticeSunitaAgarwalandJustice D N Ray, stated that while the statutory architecture to tackle digital misuse was fully operational, the primary challenge remainedtheblatantnon-compliance of certain social media giants—most notably, X Corp. The I4C disclosed that X had not onboarded nor fully integrated with the SAHYOG portal, the platform to expedite the removal of unlawful content, till date and repeatedly ignored statutory directives issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Citing figures in the affidavit, the MHA stated, "This consistent non-responsiveness is amply substantiated by the official data of the I4C, MHA, for the years 2024, 2025 and 2026. During the said period, a total of 94 intimations were sent to X Corp., comprising 60 intimations in 2024 (relating to 1,029 URLs), 33 intimations in 2025 (relating to 121 URLs) and one intimation in 2026 (relating to 10 URLs), aggregating 1,160 URLs containing unlawful content, including synthetically generated information (SGI). X Corp provided formal responses to merely 13 of these intimations—a response rate of less than 14%, clearly establishes a persistent pattern of non-responsiveness and lack of meaningful cooperation with lawfully issued directions..." The MHA also accused X of glaring double standards. The affidavitcontendedthatduring the recent US-Israel conflict with Iran, X proactively deployed advanced automated »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l HIS DEPENDANT VISA ExPIRED IN JANUARY; UK ADMINISTRATION GRANTS HIM 'IMMIGRATION BAIL' UNTIL APRIL 22 TO ExIT COUNTRY ‘I must repay those kind neighbours’: AI crash victim’s husband faces deportation from UK Aditi Raja Vadodara, April 17 ON APRIL 9, nearly nine months after the crash of the Air India AI-171 Boeing DreamlinerflightfromAhmedabadto London’s Gatwick killed his wifeandonlychild,28-year-old Mohammadmiya Sethwala receivedanemailfromtheHome Office in the United Kingdom- rejecting his application for visa to stay on in the UK. Theauthoritiesgrantedhim 'immigrationbail'untilApril22 to allow him to exit the country and return to India. Yet to cope with the grief of losing his wife Sadiqa and his toddler Fatima, Sethwala, a nativeofVadodara,ishopingto get relief from a local court in the UK, where his solicitor is preparing to move an application to vacate the bail order. Sethwalasaysthattherelief, if granted, will allow him to apply afresh for a new visa. Sethwala says he had moved to the UK in 2022 on a dependent visa with his wife Sadiqa, who had arrived in the UK to pursue a course in International Business Management. In April 2025, barely two months before his fate turned upsidedownonJune12,Sadiqa and Sethwala had moved to Rugby town in England, where Sadiqa had landed a job and was looking forward to receiving her work permit within three months of probation. Speaking to The Indian ExpressoverphonefromLondon, Sethwala says, "Sadiqa and I hail from financially weak backgrounds... Our families had no money to sponsor our shift to the UK but our neighbours had pooled in money for our UK dreams... When she completed her course and Mohammadmiya Sethwala lost his wife Sadiqa and their toddler Fatima in the Ahmedabad plane crash on June 12, 2025. EXPRESS landed a job in Rugby, she was put on a three-month probation to receive the work permit. Meanwhile, she had also managed to get a job for me as well and we had begun imagining our life ahead, where we would repayourneighboursandsettle down in the UK... I did not know that fate had other plans..." Within a month of joining her new workplace, Sadiqa appliedforleavetovisitVadodara with her daughter to attend the weddingofSethwala'syounger brother. "We wanted to travel together but since I was also Ahmedabad working in the same place, the manager refused to grant simultaneous leave to both of us... Sadiqa went ahead with Fatima. The tickets on the illfated flight had been prebooked," he says. When the news of the air crash reached Sethwala, he rushed to India -- resigning from his workplace as part of the condition put forth by the employer.Afterdaysofwaiting, Sadiqa and Fatima's mortal remains were handed over to Sethwala and the family from Vadodara. "I returned to the UK at the end of June... I could not stay back(inVadodara)muchasthe family reminded me of Sadiqa and Fatima. But when I returned to our house here, I had a breakdown. Just months ago, the apartment had been loud... filled with the scent of my wife and daughter, the sound of nursery rhymes... their clothes and belongings were all over. I could not sleep at night due to depression," he says, adding that he consulted a private psychiatrist at the insistence of his friends and shifted to London, where Sadiqa and his cousins »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2