DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2024, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 CURTAINS ON CAMPAIGN, VOTE TOMORROW FOR 102 SEATS DIFFERENCES IN HOW HC INTERPRETS LAW Came with hope in 2014, trust in 2019, says PM Yes, no, maybe Can UP interfaith Modiciteshis‘guarantee’,Rahul live-in couples get invokes‘threat’asPhase1ends police protection? Security personnel carry bodies of Maoists killed in Tuesday’s encounter in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. PTI Intel, long night trek & a river crossing: How securitymen struck at Bastar Maoists, shot 29 Were alerted about presence of senior Maoists; 15 women among the dead JAYPRAKASH S NAIDU CHHOTEBETHIYA, KANKER (CHHATTISGARH), APRIL 17 AN ARDUOUS trek through the hilly terrain of Abujhmad in the dead of night led a team of roughly 200 security personnel to a hilltop, where a group of Maoists were believed to be gathered. What followed was a four-hourencounterinwhich29 Maoists,includingtwodivisional committee members of the CPI (Maoist),werekilledonTuesday. A day later, details have begun to emerge of what marks CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Migrant from Bihar killed in Anantnag terror attack Bastar IG Sundarraj P and others check the weapons seized after the encounter in Kanker, on Wednesday. PTI BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY NAVEED IQBAL MANOJ CG, SUKRITA BARUAH & LALMANI VERMA NEW DELHI, GUWAHATI, GHAZIABAD, APRIL 17 IN THE final hours of campaigning for the firstphaseof Lok Sabha elections DECISION in which 102 2024 constituencies across 21 states and Union Territories will vote Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday invoked Lord Ram on the occasion of Ram Navami,steppeduphisattackon the Opposition INDIA bloc and said while he went to the people with hope in 2014, trust in 2019, he was now approaching them with guarantee for a third straight term in office. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, targeted Modi and called this election an “ideological” battle, claiming that the BJP and RSS were “trying to end the Constitutionandthedemocratic system of the country”. He claimed the BJP would not cross the150markinthepollsandthat there was a strong undercurrent in favour of the INDIA bloc. The high-decibel campaign for the first phase — it has the maximum seats in the sevenphase election — drew to a close Wednesday. Tamil Nadu (39 seats) and Uttarakhand (5 seats) are two states where voting will be completed Friday. The first phase also includes 12 seats in Rajasthan, 8 in UP, 6 in Madhya Pradesh, 5 each in Assam and Maharashtra, 4 of Bihar, 3 of WestBengal,2eachinArunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SRINAGAR, APRIL 17 A MIGRANT worker, identified as Raju Shah from Bihar, was killed in what police called a terror attack in Bijbehara town of Anantnag, in South Kashmir, on Wednesday night. Theattackcameontheeveof filing of nominations for the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha constituency. PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and NC candidate Mian Altaf are scheduled to file their nomination papers on Thursday. NC vice-president OmarAbdullahisalsoscheduled to hold a rally in Anantnag. The constituency will go to pollsinthethirdphaseonMay7. According to police, the migrant worker was shot at about 9 pm on Wednesday. He was rushedtohospitalwherehesuccumbed to injuries. “Terrorists fired upon & critically injured one person identified as Raju Shah, resident of Bihar... He has been evacuated to hospital for treatment. Area cordoned off,” J&K Police said in a post on X. “Theinjuredperson,whowas shot at by terrorists, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. Search operation underway in the area,” police said later. AllValleypartiescondemned theattack,whichisthethirdsuch incident this year. In 15 orders by six benches of the Allahabad High Court over past year, 12 couples were denied cover on definition of ‘live-in’, three got relief MORE REPORTS PAGES 4, 10, 11 AJOY SINHA KARPURAM & KHADIJA KHAN NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 An election meeting in Assam’s Nalbari where Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned for ally AGP’s candidate Phani Bhusan Choudhury on Wednesday. ANI State’s economics & identity: Twin challenges in BJP’s TN opportunity P VAIDYANATHAN IYER CHENNAI, NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 AT THE heart of the North-South politicsplayingoutmostintensely in Tamil Nadu — all 39 Lok Sabha constituencies there go to polls Friday—iswhatcanbedescribed astwintrustdeficitsissue:onerelates to ‘financial resources’ and otherto‘politicalrepresentation’. While the fight over resourceshastakenpoliticalwings during the campaign, that over representation manifests itself in ways unique to Dravidian political history — Tamil pride and culture and opposition to Hindi, a centralised governance model, and the politics of polarisation based on faith. The BJP did not ally with eitherof thetwoDravidianparties, DMKortheAIADMK,andispushinghardtoincreaseitsvoteshare inthestate.Ithopestobagatleast four Lok Sabha constituencies — Vellore, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari — in the state which it considers the last frontier in the south to get a foothold. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Jat rumblings to anti-incumbency: Cong hopes Rajasthan halts a run P11 HAMZA KHAN JAIPUR, APRIL 17 IN BOTH 2014 and 2019, the BJPled NDA made a clean sweep of all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. As 12 seats go to polls in the first phase on Friday, the Congress hopes to break that trend this time. The Congress is relying on anger among Jats, anti-incum- THE EXPRESS INTERVIEW ANIL BALUNI BJP LOK SABHA CANDIDATE, GARHWAL bency and coalitions, while the BJP is banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hold over voters, Ram Temple, abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, and a perception about India’s“powerful”imageabroad, apart from consolidating its power through inductions of leaders from other parties. Of the 12 seats, at least three —Churu,NagaurandDausa—are CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CAN INTERFAITH couples in a consensual live-in relationship fearingabacklashgetpoliceprotectioninUttarPradesh?Yes,no, even maybe. This is because the answer depends on varying interpretations by the Allahabad High Court of a key provision in the state’s anti-conversion (also called ‘love jihad’) law, a scrutiny of court orders by The Indian Express shows. Records show that the High Court dismissed pleas for police protection from at least 12 interfaith couples in live-in relationships since August 2023, signallingineightof themthatUP’s Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, criminalises such relationships. In all 12cases,thecourtwasinformed by both partners that they were in a consensual relationship. Records also show that in at least three other cases — again, consensual,inter-faith—including one dating back to January lastyear,thecourtgrantedpolice protection to live-in couples under the same law but with conditions.Intwoof thesecases,the keyriderwasthatthecouplehad to register their marriage under the new anti-conversion law within a stipulated time period. These15caseswereheardby six different benches of the High Court, and their contrasting positionsassumesignificancesince the law has been challenged in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AHMEDABAD-VADODARA EXPRESSWAY Child among 10 killed as car rams into parked oil tanker EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE VADODARA, APRIL 17 TEN PEOPLE, including a fiveyear-old girl, were killed after a speeding light utility vehicle rear-ended a stationary oil tanker on the AhmedabadVadodara expressway near Nadiad in Kheda district on Wednesday afternoon. The vehicle was headed towards Ahmedabad with at least 10 passengers when it crashed into the oil tanker, according to highway emergency teams and 108 ambulances that rushed to the accident spot. Wreckage of the car on Wednesday. PTI Kheda Superintendent of Police Rajesh Ghadiya said the crash took place after the vehicle attempted to overtake traffic fromtheleftsideof thehighway. CONTINUEDONPAGE2 Ahead of Musk visit, rules notified for FDI up to 100% in space ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 THE FINANCE Ministry has notified amended rules under the Foreign Exchange Management Act to operationalise its earlier decision to allow up to 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) for the space sector through three categories of liberalised entry routes. The notification dated April 16 comes ahead of Tesla chief Elon Musk’s visit to India early nextweekduringwhichheisexpected to meet space startups, make a push for his space venture Starlink’s plans and announce his electric vehicle (EV) investment plans. Musk is due to travel to India next week StarlinkisaprojectbySpaceX, the firm founded by Musk, to provide high-speed Internet accesstoanywhereintheworldusing a constellation of thousands of low-earth-orbit satellites. In February, the Cabinet had approvedtheamendmenttothe FDIpolicyforthespacesector,allowingupto100percentinvestment in certain categories. According to the latest Finance Ministry notification, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Heart diseases linked to maternal deaths? A study tries to join dots ANONNA DUTT MATERNAL MORTALITY RATIO (Per lakh live births) NEW DELHI, APRIL 17 2014-16 130 2015-17 122 IT WAS only when 23-year-old Dhaanusuccumbedtoheartfailure during childbirth in a Tamil Nadu village that her family realised that she had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Neither did they know that her death could have been prevented if Dhaanu had been screened in the early stages of 2016-18 113 2017-19 103 2018-20 97 SDG goal (by 2030) 70 her pregnancy. The primary health care centre in her village CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E EXPLAINED PAGE 1 ANCHOR ● Why MMR matters MATERNAL MORTALITY ratio (MMR) is a key indicator of public health preparedness. Over the last two decades, India’s MMR has gone down by 70 per cent, according to a 2022 study. Government data pegs it at 97 deaths per lakh live births between 2018 and 2020. Ahmedabad