The editorial Page: Count caste by all means. But abandon belief that counting settles anything 12 THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2026 JournAlism of CourAge mumbAi, lAte City, 20 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 reg.no. Mcs/067/2018 - 20 rni regn. no. 1543/57 ON hIS FIRST VISIT TO VAllEY, ENVOY SAYS ‘INCREDIblE STEPS’ TAKEN TO MAKE UNION TERRITORY SAFE J&K important part of India, will relook at travel warnings: US envoy in Srinagar Post-Op Sindoor chill, congress leaders sonia gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and rahul gandhi at the cWc meeting in new delhi, Wednesday. message underlines Delhi Cong invokes Tagore, stand, signal to Pak too Conversation will be taken forward between Gor and Washington, and New Delhi and I, says Omar after meeting Naveed Iqbal Srinagar, August 19 in A strong endorsement of new delhi’s long-standing position on Jammu & Kashmir, US Ambassador Sergio Gor, who was in Srinagar Wednesday on his maiden visit to the Valley,describedJ&Kas“animportant part of india” and signalled that Washington would review the situation in the Union Territory to downgrade and ease travel warnings for US citizens. Gor met Chief Minister omar Abdullah at his Gupkar road residence, marking the first standalone visit to the ValleybyaservingUSAmbassador since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. in January 2020, Kenneth Juster, the then Ambassador, had visited the Valley as part of a governmentfacilitateddelegationofforeign envoys. Stating that he was “thrilled” to be in the Valley, Gor said, “This is an important part of india. i am here, visiting for the first time. it’s an incredibly beautiful place.” he is expected to travel to ladakh Thursday. he said he had “a very »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ANil ShArmA Shubhajit Roy New Delhi, August 19 E. us Ambassador sergio gor with Jammu and Kashmir chief Minister omar Abdullah in srinagar on Wednesday. ANi 88 116 142 73 Institutionalise NTA reforms, says SC, cites ‘vibrant’ UPSC Ananthakrishnan G New Delhi, August 19 UnderlininG The need to “institutionalise” the national Testing Agency (nTA) and its reforms, the Supreme Court on WednesdayaskedtheCentreto file an affidavit, within three weeks, on the action taken to implement the recommendations of the earlier expert committee headed by former iSro chairman K radhakrishnan and the recent task force under infosys co-founder nandan nilekani. Citing the example of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Justice P S narasimha, presiding over a twoJudgebench,saidthenTA,too, shouldbecome“avibrantinstitution like that”. “Take the UPSC for example. over a period of time, regularly, they are conducting exam after exam foolproof, whichmeanstheyhaveinstitutionalmemory,institutionalexpertise.Wewantthisinstitution »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 9-yr-old raped, strangled in Pune; neighbour held Express News Service Pune, August 19 A nine-yeAr-old girl was raped and strangled to death in a village in Pune district on Tuesday afternoon. Police arrested the victim’s 25-year-old neighbour,whoallegedlylured her by offering to give her guavas. A chargesheet will be filed in the case within 15 days, Pune rural police said. The case comes months after the rape and murder of a three-year-oldgirlinavillageof Punedistrict,inwhichaspecial fast track court sentenced the 65-year-old accused to death, holding that the case fell in the “rarest of the rare” category. The 25-year-old, who is a farm labourer, was remanded »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 eXpReSS investigation business as usual By EP UNNY USAMBASSAdorSergioGor’s declaration from Srinagar that Jammu and Kashmir is “an important part of india” is not just Washington’s public affirmation of new delhi’s long-standing position on J&K, but it is also being seen as a message to islamabad and Beijing, especially postthePahalgamterrorattack and operation Sindoor. A close confidant of President donald Trump, Gor is also his special envoy to South and Central Asia. his meeting with Chief Minister omar Abdullah signalsbothacknowledgement and engagement with J&K’s firstelectedgovernment post the 2019 constitutional changes. For new delhi, this has significance given that the india-US chill was precipitated by the india-Pak conflict amid Trump’s repeated claims of brokering the ceasefire followingoperationSindoorlastyear. From Srinagar, however, workers protesting for higher wages got over 50 days on average in jail — until courts stepped in April protests in Noida met with police crackdown; courts granted relief in 84% bail pleas on FIRs with substantive allegations: ‘mere presence not enough to deny bail, specific evidence needed, can’t equate workers with instigators’ Drishti Jain & Kaunain Sheriff M New Delhi, August 19 iT’SAtaleoftwoprotests—and two very different outcomes. lastmonth,theJantarMantar protest demanding a leakproof exam system ended with theUnioneducationMinister’s resignationandanassuranceby the Centre and states that the police will not pursue any case against the protesters. in sharp contrast, the weeklongproteststartingApril10by factoryworkersinprivatefirms in neighbouring noida, demanding higher wages, got no suchassurance.indeed,apolice crackdown saw up to 200 people taken into custody, including two booked under the stringent national Security Act (nSA), which allows detention withouttrialforuptoayear.on April 14, the UP government raisedthewages(seepage11)but it took the courts to grant relief to most of the jailed protesters. The Indian Express investigated 106 arrests with substantive allegations, ranging from rioting and arson to attempt to murder — the average period a protester spent in custody was 53 days. These arrests led to 222 bailorderslinkedtosevenFirs. Theinvestigationrevealedthat reliefwasgrantedinasmanyas 188, or 84 per cent. Significantly,theordershadaconsist- ON bAIl: 19-year-old says stepped out for food, was arrested; (right) 20-year-old says picked up from lane outside home. PrAveeN khANNA l 106arrests,daysinjail FIR No Max Min 151 74 8 32 149 81 25 36 164 118 49 89 165 105 34 71 169 120 25 54 172 81 27 35 Avg DAtA for fir No. 163/2026 Not AvAilAble ent pattern. Judges repeatedly found that the police case rests on treating a crowd as the accused, rather than establishing what any one worker actually did. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 New Delhi, August 19 in The noida labour protests, where nearly eight of every 10 people arrested have got bail, those denied relief face a commonaccusation:anallegedrole in the conspiracy. Books read, WhatsApp texts,andparticipationinGaza and nrC protests have all been cited as evidence, with police even using the term “andolan- Party firms up strategy to corner Govt over paper leaks, ‘theft’ at Ram temple Asad Rehman New Delhi, August 19 dAySAFTertheCongresswas embroiledinacontroversyover the rendition of the national song, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Wednesday decided that the party will onlysingthefirsttwostanzasof Vande Mataram at its programmes. TheCongress’shighestdecision-making body cited a 1937 CWC resolution to back its stand, arguing that the leading lights of the freedom movement, including Mahatma Gandhi and rabindranath Tagore, had backed limiting the public rendition of Vande Mataram to its first two stanzas. Following a CWC meeting convened by the All india Congress Committee (AiCC) chief, MallikarjunKharge,attheparty INSIDe Page 8 bjP hits back: ‘cong new muslim league’ headquarters indira Bhavan in delhi,AiCCgeneralsecretaryin charge of organisation K C Venugopaltoldapressconference that there was “no confusion” overtherenditionofVandeMataram within the Congress. “The Congress president (Kharge) categorically said it yesterday. it was clarified. But againtoday,itwasdiscussedby theCongressWorkingCommittee. our stand is very clear. The CWC resolution of 1937... Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal nehru, rabindranath Tagore, Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel. We will abide by the decision taken by them. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 She captained Team India, now son in Hockey World Cup — via her academy Parents now ring up six times a day, worrying the police would pick me up again” reporTs pAge 11 Where bail denied: Govt slapped NSA, cited book, library, articles and Gaza Drishti Jain & Kaunain Sheriff M Mahatma: Will sing only first 2 stanzas of Vande Mataram jeevi” in one case. Those denied bail include activists, a former journalist and a delhi University graduate — the latter two held under the draconian national Security Act (nSA), which permits detention of up to a year without trial. on May 13, nearly a month after the protests turned violent, UP invoked the nSA against Satyam Verma, a 60year-oldformerjournalistfrom »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 yashdeep siwach with mother pritam, a former india captain, and father Kuldeep, a hockey coach. Mihir Vasavda Mumbai, August 19 The1998hockeyWorldCupin the netherlands gave former india captain Pritam rani Siwach one of the fondest chapters of her career. Twentyeight years later, the same tournament and the same country havegivenheranothermemory to cherish: watching her son, yashdeep, make his World Cup debut, making them the first mother-son duo to play in the marquee event. Pritam has another reason to cheer. Besides yashdeep, a defender, there are four players in india’s women's squad at the ongoing hockey World Cup — defender Jyoti, midfielders neha Goyal and Shilpi dabas, and teenage forward Sakshi rana — from the academy that she and her husband, Kuldeep, set up in haryana’s Sonipat. FiveWorldCupplayers.one academy. one hockey family. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 l MAHArAsHTrA douBles reHABiliTATion grAnT To rs 50,000, exTends scHeMe To THose AcquiTTed AfTer spending AT leAsT A yeAr in cusTody After jail, a laptop, 40 hens: For released prisoners, a chance to start again Sadaf Modak not want to be identified. From August 18, the grant that helped him take that first When The 44-year-old step is worth twice as much. walkedoutofKolhapurCentral A Government resolution Jail in 2022 after nearly two issued by the Maharashtra decades in prison, he had a BA Women and Child developinhistory,amaster'sinhistory ment (WCd) department on and Sociology and a August 18 has raised plan to study law. he the grant-in-aid for page 1 did not have a lapreleased prisoners top. from rs 25,000 to rs A Maharashtra 50,000. The scheme governmentgrantmeantforre- willalso,forthefirsttime,cover leased prisoners gave him rs people acquitted after spend25,000. he borrowed another ing at least a year in custody, in rs 5,000 and bought a second- additiontoconvictsandprobahand one. Today he works as a tioners under the Maharashtra legal assistant at a private firm Probation of offenders Act, in Mumbai. The man, who was 1958. The increased grant convicted in a murder case, did applies to those released on or Mumbai, August 19 anchor after August 18. The state Cabinethadclearedtheproposalon July 14, and the Gr states that the scheme will be reviewed every three years at the level of theCommissioner,WCd,Pune. What the money buys is small and specific. A sewing machine, carpentry tools, the set-up for a poultry farm, a secondhand laptop. A 45-year-old farmer from Palghar, released in 2025 after nearly a decade in prison, received rs 25,000 in June and put it into hens. he too did not want to be identified. “i purchasedcoopsandsomefeedfor the hen and a small flock of about 40 hens. i am currently farmingbutwiththesetupnow The 44-year-old from Mumbai had been planning for the grant since well before his release. He was in the second year of his BA when he was arrested in 2005 in a murder case. Amit ChAkrAvArty complete, i will seek a loan from elsewhere and buy a larger flock,” he said. A woman who spent more than five years in prison used the money to start a clothes business. Another beneficiary set up a paan shop. The 44-year-old from Mumbaihadbeenplanningfor the grant since well before his release. he was in the second year of his BA when he was arrestedin2005inamurdercase, convicted a year later and sentenced to life imprisonment. “i did not want to spend the rest of my life defined by one mistake,” he said. in2007,heenrolledforadegree through yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra open University and topped the course with a distinction. A master’s followed, then law. inside prison he worked first in the hospital and later in the superintendent’s office, where officials noticed his handwriting and began asking him to fill in forms for other prisoners. That was where he heard about thegovernment’sgrant.“Many spoke of seeking the aid for setting up a small grocery shop, or start work as a carpenter, or tailor. i had decided then that i will apply for it on my release,” he said. After his release, the Mumbaisuburbandistrictprobation officer and Chandrakant Shinde, a social worker with Prayas, a field action project of the Tata institute of Social Sciences, helped him apply. ThenGoalsohelpedhimenrol in a law course at a city college. 480 grants in a year Applicants submit a proposal through a probation officer, detailing the business, enterprise or other initiative they wanttopursue,alongwithquotations for the items they intend to purchase. The probation officer conducts a home visit and submits a report. A report is also sought from the prison.oncetheproposalisapproved and the applicant submits documents including the releasecertificate,themoneyis disbursed. Theschemeisopentothose aged 18 to 65, with priority for prisonerswhotrainedinatrade inside and want funds for a »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Mumbai