www.IndIAnexPRess.coM Taking The line for a spin How regional commentary is becoming a game changer for IPL kolkaTa, maY 24, 2026 sCreen lATe cITy 14+4 PAGes ₹7.00 (₹12 In noRTheAsT sTATes,₹20 In AndAMAn) d A I l y Aamir Khan, guest at Screen Academy’s Masterclass, on the art of writing and why a film’s first-cut feedback is integral to his process F R o M : A h M e d A B A d , happening today lA dAy before the President presents the Padma Awards, All India Radio will start a special radio series that will shed light on the lives and work of the awardees. lrepresentAtives of more than 550 tribal communities are expected to gather at the Red Fort grounds to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary year of tribal icon Birsa Munda. Track These and more on www.indianexpress.com c h A n d I G A R h , d e l h I , J A I P u R , k o l k A T A , l u c k n o w , M u M B A I , n A G P u R , sohini Ghosh New Delhi, May 23 aFTer iT pulled up the Wrestling Federation of india (WFi) for describing wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s exit from the 2024 Paris olympics as a “national shame”, the Delhi high Court has allowed her to participate intheselectiontrialsscheduled May 30-31 for this year’s asian Games in Japan. in an order Friday which was made public Saturday, the high Court said the WFi’s observations against Phogat were “retrograde” and showed that the wrestling body was “being vindictive”. Phogat had been rendered ineligible for participation owing to the criteria set by the WFi this year, a departure from the past eligibility criteria. She had also been served a showcause notice (SCn) by the WFi on May 9 that barred her from participating in any WFi event until June 26. on May 3, Phogat said she was one of the six women wrestlers who had alleged sexual harassment by former WFi chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a former MP. The division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said, “it is necessary that (Phogat) is permitted to participate in the Selection Trials in the interest of sport and justice. in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, it is clear that except for (her) motherhood and the SCn issued by WFi, she would be entitled to participate in the Selection »ContinUed on pAGe 2 nation paGe 8 SC takeS up tWiSha CaSe on itS oWn, CJi-led benCh to hear P u n e , v A d o d A R A on trip MeAnt to repAir ties, He eXtends trUMp invite to Modi CoCkroACH JAntA pArty pLAtforM Trade, defence, critical tech discussed; India, US will work for global good: Modi Ally TDP refers to Vijay’s victory, says social media handle should be ‘left to exist’ if not ‘influenced by outsiders’ Rubio meets PM, says US can diversify India’s energy supply shubhajit roy vineshcan enterAsiad trials,Wfibeing vindictive,says HighCourt P A T n A , BJP calls it bid to ‘destabilise’, but voices within, allies say: Listen to young Liz Mathew New Delhi, May 23 New Delhi, May 23 SiGnallinG SoMe progress inrepairingtiesafterachallenging year in bilateral relations, US Secretary of State Marco rubio met Prime Minister narendraModiinnewDelhiSaturday and they discussed “defence, strategic technologies, trade and investment, energy security, connectivity, educationandpeople-to-peopleties”. rubio, who landed in Kolkata in the morning before travelling to new Delhi, also “shared US perspective on various regional and global issues, including the situation in West asia,” according to a statement fromthePrimeMinister’soffice. US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said, “The Secretary and Prime Ministerdiscussedthecurrentsituation in the Middle east. The Secretary emphasized that the United States will not let iran hold the global energy market hostage and affirmed that US energy products have the potential to diversify india’s energy supply”. ThePrimeMinister,according to the PMo, reaffirmed india’s consistent support for “peaceeffortsandreiteratedthe call for peaceful resolution of the conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy”, the PMo. rubio’s visit — he will be attending the May 26 meeting of QuadForeignMinisters–isimportant given that bilateral ties have been hit in the last The rUlinG BJP has moved swiftlytocriticisetheviralCockroach Janta Party (CJP) handle withseniorleadersallegingforeign backing behind the social media phenomenon in a bid to “destabilise” india. But even as the party’s official line holds firm, a section of voices within andamongtheparty’salliesare also urging the need to tread carefully, acknowledging that youth discontent — over economic distress and the neeT leak, for example — can’t be banned into silence. Senior BJP MP and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and information Technology nishikant Dubey alleged that the movement could be a threat to national security and former Union Min- »ContinUed on pAGe 2 Us secretary of state marco rubio with wife Jeanette and Us envoy sergio Gor at missionaries of charity in kolkata, saturday. x/ @usAMBIndIA the world paGe 10 divya A & Anagha Jayakumar New Delhi, May 23 proGreSS in talkS, Say u.S. and iran; trump to Speak to Gulf leaderS onCe trump’S Co-pilot, bibi iS noW a mere paSSenGer Ayushman Bharat set to make Bengal entry, enrolment from July Atri Mitra Kolkata, May 23 MoreThansixcrorebeneficiaries currently covered under the West Bengal Government’s Swasthya Sathi scheme will be brought under the Centre’s ayushmanBharathealthinsurance programme from July, Chief Minister Suvendu adhikari announced Saturday. The announcement followed an over-one-hour meetingwiththeUnionhealthMinistry, held virtually from nabanna, the state’s administrative headquarters. Union health Minister JP nadda and senior officials from the Centre and the state government attended the meeting. New friction point: Return-home rule for Green Card applicants in WhaT could emerge as a new point of contention betweennewDelhiandWashington DC, the Donald Trump-led US administration has announced that those in the US temporarily must return to their home countries to apply for a Green Card. a Green Card (officially known as a Permanent resident Card) allows a person to live and work perma- nently in the United States. The announcement by the US Citizenship and immigration Services is a sweeping reversal of a practice in place for over half a century. it could potentially impact thousands of indians presently in the US in different stages of residence and seeking a Green Card. The earlier policy allowed foreignworkerstochangefrom non-immigrant to immigrant by applying for “adjustment of status” from within the US. “From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” USCiS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement. While there are approximately1.5millionindianGreen Card holders in the US, an additional 1.2 million highly skilled indian nationals and theirdependentsareestimated to be presently stuck in the employment-based Green Card »ContinUed on pAGe 2 diGitAL detoX trend Old iPods, off-grid holidays, Lego bricks: Switching off the phone is new and growing market Anil sasi New Delhi, May 23 People queue up outside a post office to complete the verification process for the ‘annapurna Yojana’, in Balurghat on saturday. PTI adhikari also said that the Centre has approved rs 3,000 crore to strengthen West Bengal’s healthcare infrastructure, with the first instalment of rs 500 crore already released. »ContinUed on pAGe 2 aS SCreen time climbs and digital anxiety becomes an increasingly familiar complaint among parents, young professionals,andevenpolicymakers, aquietbutfast-growingmarket isemergingaroundtheproposition of helping people put their smartphones down. its offerings range from refurbished iPods flying off second-hand shelves to lego’s most complicated brick sets selling out among adults and curated wilderness retreats where checking Whatsapp is, by design, not an option. Together, they form an unlikely but booming market: a break from the dopamine-laced tyr- anny of smartphones. Much of this feeds into a rising demand for keeping off »ContinUed on pAGe 2 express interview ‘It’s a cross-border influence operation… of course, many youths dissatisfied’ rAJeevCHAndrAsekHAr FoRMeR unIon MInIsTeR paGe 7 isterandBJPKeralachiefrajeev Chandrasekharsawitasa“coordinated influence operation.” “This has many of the hallmarksofsomethingthatiscoordinatedandplannedratherthan something like spontaneous »ContinUed on pAGe 2 Falta fizzle to KMC notices: Abhishek faces heat in TMC as his role is questioned Atri Mitra Kolkata, May 23 TheinTernaldiscordwithin the Trinamool Congress (TMC) hasspilledintotheopenfollowing its crushing defeat in the recent West Bengal assembly elections,withitsseveralleaders openly questioning the role of partynationalgeneralsecretary abhishek Banerjee during a closed-doormeetingchairedby party chief Mamata Banerjee. The immediate trigger for this confrontation was the “sudden” withdrawal of TMC candidate Jahangir Khan from the Falta assembly constituency two days before its scheduledMay21repolling.The development has led to sharp criticismofabhishekwithinthe party ranks and intensified scrutiny of his leadership. abhishekrepresentstheDiamond harbour lok Sabha constituency under which Falta falls. according to TMC sources, severalnewlyelectedMlas,includingKunalGhosh,ritabrata Bandyopadhyay and Sandipan Saha, questioned why no disciplinary action had been initiatedagainstKhandespitewhat they described was a “serious embarrassment” for the party. They also sought answers on number 2 in Tmc, abhishek Banerjee was leading the assembly poll campaign. FIle E. explained Why senior leaders are up in arms A section of senior tMc leaders privately admit that the party’s centralised decision-making under Abhishek Banerjee and his political strategists alienated several veteran party leaders over the past five years. how a candidate considered politically influential and closely associated with the partyleadershipcouldabruptly withdraw from the contest at such a crucial juncture. »ContinUed on pAGe 2 l GUrindervir sinGh clocks 10.09 seconds aT FederaTion cUP in ranchi punjab sprinter shatters national 100m record, first to go below 10.10 seconds pritish raj The performances of india’s fastest two men have raised the country’s hopes for an athletics GUrinDerVir SinGh, 25, medal in the Commonwealth from Punjab, broke the men’s Games (in Scotland from July 100m national athletics record 23) as well as the asian Games at the Federation Cup final in (in Japan from September 19), ranchiSaturday,clocking10.09 where they could go even faster seconds to become the first in- as they are expected to be in peak form. To be dian to run a subpage 1 sure, Gurindervir’s 10.10-second time. 10.09s in ranchi in fact, Gurinderwould have been vir broke the record twice in two days. in the first good enough to win him a semifinal on Friday, he ran silver in the last Common10.17s to better animesh wealth Games in Birmingham Kujur’s previous mark of 10.18s, in 2022. on Saturday, when Gurinthough in the second semifinal, Kujur sprinted back with a dervir snapped off his bib after crossing the finish line at the faster 10.15s. Ranchi, May 23 anchor Birsa Munda Stadium, coach James hillier had his eyes fixed on the screen. as it displayed ‘10.09s’, gasps and roars echoed around. Gurindervir then showed the cameras the back of his bib and a message scribbled on it — “Task is not finished yet. 10.10. Wait. i am still standing.” it was perhaps directed at social media trolls who had taken potshots at him recently. “People say a lot of things on social media. This message was to remind myself that i am here to perform and improve,” the sprinter said after the race. “Since i started 100m at the age of six or seven, people used to l fastestontrack 10:09 GuRIndeRvIR sInGh's new nATIonAl RecoRd 9:83 AsIAn RecoRd seT In 2021 By chInA’s su BInGTIAn 9:58 JAMAIcAn usAIn BolT's woRld RecoRd seT In 2009 Gurindervir singh after breaking the national 100-metre record at the Birsa munda stadium in ranchi, Jharkhand. exPRess say that there is no future in 100m, take up 400m or some- thing else. indians don’t have the genes for 100m, they said. i wanted to prove all of them wrong... that indians can do well in the 100m.” Coach hillier said Gurindervir had run a perfectly executed race. “i had told him if he executes what we have done in training, he would break the national record given the magnitude of the moment,” hillier, the athletics director at the reliance Foundation, said. according to hillier, when animesh had snatched back the national record from Gurindervir on Friday, he had told him to shun social media for a day. “The goal was to keep Guri calm for the next 24 hours. i Kolkata asked him to stay away from social media and his phone. i didn't want to hype anything and wanted to protect him for those 24 hours,” hillier told the reporters. Speaking to The Indian Express, Gurindervir’s father, Kamaljeet Singh, a retired Punjab Police constable, recalled his son’s early sacrifices. “Guri never shied away from training, whether it was in summer, winter or rain,” Singh said from Patial village, about 30 km from Jalandhar. “he is now reaping the rewards of his hard work.” This is not the first time Gurindervir has lowered the national record. he did it last year in March at the indian Grand Prix with 10.20s. But after his national record, he didn’t run faster than 10.30s for the rest of the season. according to coach hillier, Gurindervir won’t stall this time. “The last time he clocked the national record, his mind wasn't conditioned to handle it as it came out of nowhere. he couldn't deal with it. This time, i can guarantee you that he will manage it well.” on Saturday, the clock may have stopped at 10.09 — still short of sub-10 seconds — but for men’s sprinting in india, the time is here.