The Ideas Page: Trump’s rhetoric, Rajiv Gandhi’s restraint and lessons on leadership 9 MONDAY, APRIL 27, 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 lINDIA AND NEW ZEALAND will sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that will remove tariffs on 100% of India’s exports to New Zealand, and either sharply reduce or remove tariffs on 95% of current imports from New Zealand. lPRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi will begin a two-day visit to Sikkim during which he will hold a roadshow and participate in the closing ceremony of Sikkim's 50th statehood year celebrations. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON WWW.INDIANExPRESS.COm Business as Usual By EP UNNY ‘We view our seafarers as national soldiers. We will never let them feel lonely under any circumstances’ SARbANANDA SONOWAL UNION MINISTER FOR PORTS, SHIPPING AND WATERWAYS PAGE 11 TRUMP, MELANIA, VANCE EVACUATED fROM WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER Close call for Trump as gunman opens fire near his event venue President, admn officials likely targets: Acting AG; shooter held, said was ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ THE NUMBER of online content blocking orders passed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has doubled in the past oneyear,withauthoritiespointingtothesurgeofdeepfakeson social media as well as objectionablepostsandcontentgenerated by Artificial Intelligence on a variety of platforms. OfficialsintheMinistrysaid that currently, roughly 60% of orders for blocking URLs were for content on X (formerly Twitter); 25% for Facebook and Gujarat local body poll: Turnout stays under 50% in cities Washington, April 26 USPRESIDENTDonaldTrump and First Lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White HouseCorrespondents’Association dinner in Washington by Secret Service agents Saturday night after a man opened fire on security personnel nearby. The man fired a shotgun at a Secret Service agent at a checkpoint in the Washington Hilton hotel before being tackled and arrested. Trump told reporters at a hastily arranged briefing at the White House later that the officer was saved by his bulletproof vest and is in “good shape”. USActingAttorneyGeneral Todd Blanche said Sunday that President Trump and officials in his administration were the likely targets. “Itdoesappearthathedid,in fact, have set out to target folks thatworkintheadministration, likely including the President,” Blanche told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’, adding that the suspectlikelytravelledbytrainfrom LosAngelestoChicagoandthen to Washington. The suspect will be charged in federal court Monday with assault of a federal officer, discharging a firearm and »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘Interim measure’ of urgent blocking on the rise due to AI & deep fakes New Delhi, April 26 fIRST ELECTION AfTER SIR bo Erickson, Nandita bose, Jana Winter & Steve Holland Govt’s online content blocking orders double to 24,000 in a year, over half on X Ritu Sarin People at a poll booth in Rajkot on Sunday. EXPRESS REPORTS, P3 & 4 Instagram;and5%forYouTube. While Parliament had, in 2023, been informed that an average of 6,000 blocking orders were being passed by MeitY, senior officials told The Indian Express that this number increased to around 12,600 in 2024 and 24,300 in 2025, both till December. RequeststoMeitYforblocking online content and subsequent blocking orders peaked during Operation Sindoor in May 2025 and has remained “very high” ever since. Sources said more than half the requests and complaints came »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 84 nagarpalikas see 59.50% polling, 34 district panchayats 61.69% and 62.38% in 260 taluka panchayats Ritu Sharma US President Donald Trump being rushed out of the Washington Hilton hotel. REUTERS Ahmedabad, April 26 INSIDE PAGES 13, 2 The shooter: Caltech grad, game developer, award-winning tutor Reuters E. Los Angeles, April 26 THE BALLROOM TERROR: THUDS, EERIE SILENCE AND FEAR RELIEvED THAT TRUMP, MELANIA, vANCE ARE SAFE, SAYS PM MODI THE SUSPECT arrested in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting was identified byalawenforcementofficialas Cole Tomas Allen, a Los Angeles-area man who appears from social media sites to be a Caltech graduate working as a part-timeteacherandgamedeveloper. The official said Allen, approximately 31 years of age, is a resident of Torrance, Califor- President Trump shared a photo of the suspect, whom an official identified as Cole Tomas Allen SECOND PHASE Of VOTING ON APRIL 29 Anger at TMC, trust in Didi: As campaign ends today, women face a choice and a paradox DECISION 2026 W EST b ENGAL Neerja Chowdhury Kolkata, Canning, April 26 “NOW WE go to Didi when we have a problem. If the BJP comes to power, will we go to Delhi to seek help?” asks a youngwomansettovoteforthe first time on Wednesday in the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections. Theconversationtakesplace a stone's throw from Mamata Banerjee’s two-room house on HarishChatterjeeStreetinsouth West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee campaigns in Bhabanipur, Sunday. EXPRESS Kolkata’s Bhabanipur neighbourhood, where she has con- tinued to live even as the Chief Minister.Afteradrawn-outcampaignoverthepastmonthanda hecticlastcoupleofweeks,campaigning in West Bengal will conclude on Monday. Bhabanipurisasmallurban constituency in the heart of Kolkata that sent Banerjee to the Assembly in a 2011 bypoll after she ended the Left’s 34year run in power and then again five years later. In 2021, Bhabanipur again sent the TMC chief to the Assembly in a bypoll after she lost the main battle to her former associate and now Leader of Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram. Bhabanipur is more than just another constituency. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 nia, a coastal town that is part of the South Bay area adjacent to Los Angeles abutting Santa Monica Bay. The chief of the District of Columbia police department said investigators believe the suspectwasaguestatthe Washington Hilton hotel, where the annualdinnerwastakingplace. Facebook postings appearing to relate to Cole show that »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NATION PAGE 7 GULF OUTREACH: DOvAL MEETS UAE PRESIDENT CENTRE-LADAkH TALkS TO RESUME NEXT MONTH THE VOTER turnout on Sunday in the first general election conducted after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Gujarat at over 9,000 seats across local self-government bodies was low in urban areas as compared to rural areas. As per the provisional voter turnout data released by the State Election Commission (SEC) as of 7:30 pm on Sunday, likely to be updated later, the average voter turnout at 15 municipal corporations was 49.02 per cent (%). However, this was the highest voter turnout recorded in municipal corporations in the threepreviouselections.Onthe contrary,thedistrictandtaluka panchayat elections has reported a decline in voter turnout since 2015 – that is, the previous two local body elections. In Surendranagar’s Chuda seat for the district panchayat election, repoll has been announced at one booth. “No major issue was reported during the elections. At only one booth in Surendranagar for district panchayat election on Chuda taluka's Jepar village seat for the district panchayat and taluka panchayat, repoll – due to wrong connection of cables – will be conducted on April 27, Monday, from 7 am till 6 pm,” State Election Commissioner Dr S Murali Krishna told The Indian Express on Sunday evening. Theaveragevoterturnoutin 84 nagarpalikas was 59.50%, 34 district panchayats or zilla panchayats was 61.69% and 62.38% in 260 taluka panchayats. In urbanareas,amongthe15 municipalcorporationsinGujarat, Vapi recorded the highest voter turnout of 65.68%, »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 lHowGujaratvotedin3localbodypollssince2015 TYPE Of LOCAL bODY 2026 2021 2015 Municipal corporation 49.02% 46.08% 45.82% District panchayat 61.69% 66.68% 69.55% Taluka panchayat 62.38% 66.84% 69.18% 59.5% 59.05% 63.22% Nagarpalika Chadha could not have defected or split AAP – if his Bill had passed Jatin Anand New Delhi, April 26 IF THE first legislation he had proposed as Rajya Sabha’s youngest member four years ago become law, Raghav Chadha would not have been able to exit the AAP, along with six other party members of the House, and “merge with” the BJP, an announcement he madetwodaysagocitingatwothirds majority of AAP’s House strength of 10. Raghav Chadha entered RS as AAP member in May 2022. FILE Infact,hadhisproposedBill been enacted, Chadha would have needed the support of seven, not six, from his party to cross over. And the present team would have been barred from contesting elections for six years for splitting the party. Because the Constitution (Amendment) Bill that Chadha, then a trusted aide of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, brought to the House as a PrivateMember’sBillonAugust5, 2022 — this was three months after he entered Rajya Sabha – sought a stiffer anti-defection law, one that would require a »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l { RAGHU RAI • 1942-2026 } He caught a nation’s pulse, frame by frame , black & white — and all in between Vandana Kalra Rai not just prize money but more significantly also a career in photography that was to stay RAGHU RAI’S foray into pho- with him until he passed away tography was rather fortuitous. in Delhi on Sunday. He was 83 A civil engineer who was on and had been suffering from aprofessionalbreak,itwasdur- cancer. ing a visit to his elder brother, Tenacious, observant and photographer S Paul, in Delhi deeply curious, born in Jhang in the early 1960s (Pakistan), Rai inPAGE 1 that Rai was introstilled life into every duced to the photograph that he nuances of the took and captured medium. Accompanying a the pulse of the nation. “More friend to a village in Haryana, than a professional photograhe took what was among his pher, I became an explorer of first photographs: a donkey life,” he said in an interview to gazingstraightintothecamera. The Indian Express in 2024. Impressed by the image, Paul Though that life has now sent it to The Times in London, ended, the moments he rewhereitwaspublished,earning corded will remain forever in New Delhi, April 26 anchor Acamerarestedonhischest, theidealcompanioninhisfinal journey,RaghuRaiwascremated inNewDelhi,Sunday. ABHINAV SAHA MORE REPORTS, PAGE 7 theformofhis richarchive that spans from photojournalism to documentationandportraitsof some of the most recognised figures from across different fields, politics to culture. “Some artists transcend art categories and labels and are extraordinary in the way they gather and live through the breadth of their experiences. I don’t think India was explored any better or as expansively as by Raghu Rai, who was sharp and deeply incisive, and empa- thetic, always on the move and sleptwithaloadedcameranext to him. Not a mere witness, the intensity with which he would seek was absolutely infectious and inspiring,” says Roobina Karode, Artistic Director and Chief Curator at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), who curated his 2024 exhibition Raghu Rai: A Thousand Lives at KNMA with Devika Daulet Singh. OneofIndia’sforemostphotojournalists, the 1972 Padma Shri awardee also recorded a spectrum of the country’s history, including photographs of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in Amritsar’s Golden Temple complex shortly before Oper- Ahmedabad ationBlueStarin1984,theBhopal Gas Tragedy, the poignant plight of the refugees during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and the crackdown during the Emergency years. In 1977, Rai became the first Indian photographer to be invited to join Magnum Photos uponnominationbylegendary French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who had reportedly seen his photographs at an exhibition in Paris in 1971. Thelatter’shumanistapproach echoed in Rai’s own practice, including his frames of the rhythms of Old Delhi and the serene ghats of Ganga, landscapes across terrains and the Mahakumbh. Also testament to his inclination to introspect and archive are his several exhibitions and over 40 books, including A Day in the Life of India; Picturing Time: The GreatestPhotographsofRaghu Rai; India, My Land & Its People; The Album: Friends and Family; and Tibet in Exile. HisPeople:HisFinestPortraits brought together the little known and the well-recognised, including former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan, Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Satyajit Ray. Pramod Kapoor, founder and publisher of Roli Books »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2