The Ideas Page: India needs a new compact — political, economic and cultural 13 TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2026 JOuRNALISM of COuRAGE KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 76 PAGES ₹6.00 (₹12 in North East states, ₹20 in Andaman) 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 THE PORTS & PIPELINES PUSH ExPRESSinvestigation The IndIan express TRACKS DOWN BENgAL VOTERS MAPPED TO 2002 ROLLS, BUT CAN’T VOTE To delete voters, EC cites ‘logical discrepancy’. Why this defies logic Former commissioners say new criterion unprecedented, without basis, seeks to exclude voters In bid to bypass Hormuz chokepoint, Gulf countries scramble to ramp up infra NAME MISMATCH FOR ALL THREE Told Tribunals are ‘not functioning’, SC seeks report from Chief Justice Damini Nath, Ravik Bhattacharya & Atri Mitra Kolkata, Howrah, April 20 l SUKLA HAZRA, 55, has her name in the electoral roll of 2002, when an Intensive Revision was held by the Election Commission in West Bengal, and holds a passport valid till December 2028. l Amiran Begum Ali, 56, and daughters-in-law Arifa BegumSheikh,35,andShahida Khatun,29,allestablishedlinks to the 2002 roll, including through her grandfather in the case of Shahida. l Subarna Mondal, 39, submitted the 2002 electoral roll thathadnamesofbothherparents as well as grandparents, and later her birth certificate, and her Class 10 admit card. Yet, Sukla, Amiran, Arifa, Shahida and Subarna have HIDAYTULLA SK, 39 LOGICAL DISCREPANCY CITED: PARENT ‘MAPPED’ TO 6 OTHERS Express News Service New Delhi, April 20 SK fARIDUL, 48; HIS BROTHERS SK ALIf, 41, SK SARIfUL, 34; AND fARIDUL’S SON AND WIfE SK ALAM, 24, ALMARA BEgUM, 40 LOGICAL DISCREPANCY CITED: UNKNOWN been deleted from West Bengal's electoral roll because the Election Commission of India (ECI) has categorised them as entries that have a “logical discrepancy” — a criterion never used at this scale in the past. This despite the fact that all five of them can be mapped to the 2002 roll, a key pre-condition set by the ECI itself. As the clock ticks down to the polling days of April 23 and April 29, thesethreeareillustrativecases among the lakhs who have been excluded from the state voter list. InitslatestorderonBengal’s »CONTINUED ON PAgE 4 WITH THE first phase of elections in West Bengal scheduled to be held on April 23, the Supreme Court said on Monday that it will seek a report from the Calcutta High Court Chief Justice on the Appellate Tribunals set up to hear appeals of thoseexcludedfromtheelectoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The directive came from a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi after Senior Advo- cate Devdutta Kamat contended in court that the Tribunals were “not functioning”, and that they were only “acceptinginternetandcomputerbased applications” while not permitting lawyers of applicants at the hearings. “There is a practical difficulty. The matter is now listed onApril24.AppellateTribunals are not functioning. Citizens from thousands of kilometres arenotallowedrepresentation. This court's order is not being followed,” Kamat said. Initially,CJIKantexpressed »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 SAUDI ARABIA 1. Iraq-Syria (Kirkuk-Baniyas) Pipeline 2. Iraq Strategic Pipeline Olympics bid near, athletics watchdog flags ‘extremely high’ risk of doping in India By EP UNNY Amit Kamath & Nihal Koshie Mumbai, New Delhi, April 20 President Droupadi Murmu and PM Narendra Modi with South Korea President Lee Jae Myung and First Lady Kim Hea Kyung. ANIL SHARMA ‘Chips to ships’: India Happening and South Korea target today $50 bn trade by 2030 lDEfENCE MINISTER Rajnath Singh will visit Germany to boost the strategic defence partnership between the two countries. He is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, and other leaders. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPRESS.cOM Shubhajit Roy New Delhi, April 20 AS PRIME Minister Narendra ModimetvisitingSouthKorean President Lee Jae Myung on Monday, the two sides decided to restart negotiations on upgrading their Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(CEPA).Modisaidthetar- get was to increase bilateral trade from the current $27 billion to $50 billion by 2030. The two sides signed pacts to strengthen cooperation acrossvariousareas—Artificial Intelligence, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), sports and culture. They also agreed on a joint strategic »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 IN A move that could impact India’s bid to host the 2036 Summer Olympics, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) Board, an autonomous body set up by World Athletics, has downgraded the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), flagging concerns over the “extremely high” doping risk among athletes in the country. Thedowngrade,intheform of a re-classification of AFI, means India’s track and field athletes will now have to comply with more stringent anti-doping stipulations, with allnationalteammembershaving to undergo tests before major championships. The setback comes in a year when India is preparing to E. Strait of Hormuz Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline OmAN (ADCOP) UAE 3. Trans-Arabian Pipeline 4. Iraqi Pipeline through Saudi Arabia (IPSA) *OPERATING AT MARGINAL CAPACITY THE wORLD PAGE 14 UNcERtAINty LOOMS OvER FAtE OF U.S.-IRAN tALkS son enough for the Gulf states to collaborate and coordinate for revitalising old pipelines and building new ones. According to reports from the region, early efforts may already be underway to do just that. “Ihavespentthepastmonth indiscussionswithhundredsof business leaders and senior Gulf government officials on the crisis and what comes after it.Theconversationhasalready shifted—from managing the »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 Excise policy case: Delhi HC Judge rejects Kejriwal plea, won’t recuse Says litigant can’t dictate how children of a judge are to live Sohini ghosh New Delhi, April 20 Business as Usual IRAN yEmEN cLOSED OR DEFUNcT PIPELINES a AMIRAN BEgAM ALI, 56, HER DAUgHTERS-IN-LAW ARIfA BEgUM SHEIKH, 35, SHAHIDA KHATUN, 29; LOGICAL DISCREPANCY CITED: Basra 4 Se SUKLA HAzRA, 55 LOGICAL DISCREPANCY CITED: AGE GAP WITH PARENT OVER 50 YEARS l Closed/Defunct 2 IRAQ-JORDAN jORDAN (Basra-Aqaba) yanbu Proposed Pipeline d Re SUBARNA MONDAL, 39; LOGICAL DISCREPANCY CITED: UNKNOWN WITH TEHRAN weaponising the Strait of Hormuz and jeopardising global oil and gas flows, countries in the Gulf region led by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are scrambling to reduce their dependence and vulnerability on this chokepoint. From ports to pipelines, countries are hoping torampupinfrastructureinthe coming years. The Iran-Israel/ US conflict has seen an unprecedented haltinmaritimetrafficthrough the Strait—a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman— through which about one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows. TheWestAsiawargivesrea- 3 Saudi East-West Pipeline l Operational IRAq ulf New Delhi, April 20 1 nG Sukalp Sharma MajorwestAsiaoilpipelines thatbypassHormuz TURkEy Iraq-Turkey (KirkukCeyhan) Pipeline* a rsi Pe West Asian states with strained ties find common cause to de-risk economies, global supply chains REJECTINGTHEpleasfiledby formerDelhiChiefMinisterand AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwalandfiveothers,Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the Delhi High Court on Monday refused to recuse herself from Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma hearing the excise policy case. On February 27, a trial court had discharged Kejriwal and 22 others in the case. The CBI had thenfiledarevisionplea,which was listed before Justice Sharma, whose roster deals with criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs. »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 ExPLAINED New normal Re-classification means that all national team members in World Athletics Series, Olympics or other top events have to undergo stringent testing: in-competition, nonotice out-of-competition and pre-competition blood tests. All test samples will be analysed by WADA-accredited laboratories. compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the Asian Games in Japan. “The doping situation in India has been high-risk for a long time and, unfortunately, »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 l RESIDENTS IN THIRUPARANKUNDRAM MORE CONCERNED ABOUT BREAD-AND-BUTTER ISSUES In town at centre of lamp row, ‘mama-machan’ bond weathers temple-dargah controversy DECISION 2026 TA M I L N A D U Manoj C g Thiruparankundram (Madurai), April 20 THE RELATIONSHIP between Hindus and Muslims in Tamil Nadu’s Thiruparankundram, locals say, can be described by the colloquial phrase “mamamachan (a reference to close bonding)”. And it will stay that way,saymostpeoplewithshops overlooking the famous Murugantempleinthissleepytemple town near Madurai that hit national headlines a few months ago over a religious dispute. On December 1, 2025, Justice G R Swaminathan of the Madras High Court’s Madurai Benchalloweddevoteestolight aceremoniallamp,orKarthigai Deepam, at the Thiruparankundram Hill, where the SubramanyaSwamyTemple— according to believers, it is one of thesixabodesofLordMurugan — and the Sikandar Badusha Dargah coexist. The judge held that the stone pillar, or Deep- The Subramanya Swamy Temple on the Thiruparankundram foothills. The Sikandar Badusha Dargah is on the hilltop. MANOJ C G athoon,atthecentreofthecentury-old row lay outside the dargah’sjurisdiction.Whilethe temple is at the foothill, halfway up the hill lies the Uchipillayar temple where the lamp has been lit for a century, and on top of the hill are the dargah and the Deepathoon. This was the latest chapter in a century-old property disagreementbetweenthetemple and the dargah, and, as it flared up following the court order, the DMK government accused the BJP and Sangh-aligned organisations of attempting to manufacture a communal flashpoint in Tamil Nadu months before the elections. As the dispute plays out in court— theMaduraibench,earlier this month, stayed several orders of Justice Swaminathan SCAN TO BUY »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 Kolkata