DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2024, KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 14 PAGES `6.00 (`12 IN NORTH EAST STATES & ANDAMAN) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 WHAT IS THE POINT NOW? THE FEAR THAT HE LIVED UNDER, OF BEING TAKEN AWAY, DIED WITH HIM: WIFE HAJERA BIBI Last week, SC declared Rahim Ali a citizen; what nobody knew: he died over two years ago branded ‘foreigner’ For years, family of Assam man ran from court to foreigners’ tribunal to fight for justice after police called him illegal SUKRITA BARUAH NALBARI, JULY 17 Hajera Bibi shows a photo of her husband Rahim Ali, who died on Dec 28, 2021. Sukrita Baruah DAY AFTER CABINET NOD After backlash, Karnataka Govt puts pvt sector quota Bill on hold AKRAM M BENGALURU, JULY 17 CONTINUEDONPAGE2 Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah EXPLAINED AFTER TOP CEOs and industry bodies warned the Karnataka government that the proposed lawonjobreservationintheprivate sector would drive away companiesandsettheclockback on progress, the state leadership on Wednesday said the Bill has been withheld and the Cabinet would discuss it comprehensively in the next meeting. The state Cabinet had on Tuesday approved ‘The Karnataka State Employment of Local Candidates in the Industries, Factories and Other EstablishmentsBill,2024’,which mandates 75 per cent reservation in non-management jobs and 50 per cent in management jobs for “local candidates”. While Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said the proposedlawshould“exempthighly skilledrecruitmentfromthispolicy”, Nasscom, an industry body that represents software and service companies, unequivocallysaidthattheBill’sprovisions would“stiflestartups”and“force companies to relocate as local skilled talent becomes scarce”. E Politics of ● job quota KARNATAKA HAS joined states such as Andhra Pradesh and Haryana in proposing job quotas in the private sector. In Haryana, the Supreme Court struck down the law calling it unconstitutional, whereas Andhra never implemented it on the ground. THE EDITORIAL PAGE DROP THIS BILL Karnataka’s proposed law on quota for locals in the private sector is bad law, economics and politics PAGE8 Police: 12 Maoists killed in Gadchiroli encounter EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE MUMBAI, JULY 17 AT LEAST 12 Maoists, including a senior Divisional Committee member, were killed in an encounter with a police team in Gadchiroli district of MaharashtraonWednesday,police said. Two police personnel were injured in the gunfight. The encounter took place at Wandoli village located close to the border with Chhattisgarh. According to Gadchiroli Police,theyreceivedinformation that12-15Maoistswerecamping near Wandoli village, following whichanoperationwaslaunched around 10 am on Wednesday. Seven teams, comprising commandosof theeliteC-60unitand other district police personnel, were sent to the location. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 IN A landmark judgment delivered last week, the Supreme Court declared Assam resident Rahim Ali an Indian citizen — bringing to a close a 12-year chapter which began with a Foreigners’ Tribunal in the state labelling him a foreigner. Only, The Indian Express has found that Ali died over twoand-a-half years before the verdict, carrying the heavy tag of a “foreigner” and “illegal immigrant from Bangladesh” to his grave. Ali, a resident of Kashimpur village in Assam’s Nalbari district, died in his village on December 28, 2021 at the age of 58, even as the apex court continued to hear his case. This was after the Tribunal had delivered an ex-parte order in2012declaringhimaforeigner sincehehadnotappearedbefore it, stating that he “had failed to discharge his burden” under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act. When he appealed against thisintheGauhatiHighCourton the ground that he was unable toappearbeforetheTribunalbecauseof amedical condition, the petition wasdismissed.Then,he had approached the Supreme Court,whichdirectedthecaseto a Foreigners’ Tribunal in 2017 to again decide whether he was a foreigner or not. This time too, the Tribunal declared him a foreigner, pointing to discrepancies in spellings and dates in some of the documents he had produced. Advocate Kaushik Choudhury,whorepresentedAli in the Supreme Court, said he had been doing so pro bono af- ter the case was handed to him by a lower court lawyer. Choudhury said he was not aware of his death. “It never came to our knowledge. The only way we could have known this was if it had been communicated by either the family or the state, but that was not the case. The people in these cases are not educated, so the information remained with them,” he said. Ali’s son Mojibur Rahman said that after his death, nobody in the family had spoken to any lawyer. At their village, Ali’s wife Hajera Bibi (51) said his biggest fear through his entire legal battle was that “he would be taken away by the police.” In fact, she recalled that after he was declared a foreigner by theTribunal,heavoidedsleeping CONTINUEDONPAGE2 AFTER SETBACK IN LS POLL As rumblings grow louder, UP BJP chief meets PM UP Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya arrives to meet BJP chief J P Nadda at the party headquarters in Delhi, Tuesday. PTI Doda attack: Jaish suspects infiltrated six months ago, ‘stayed off grid’ in Jammu Deputy CM Maurya reiterates: Party bigger than Govt, workers our pride Recruited from Pak’s Punjab, North-West VIKAS PATHAK & MAULSHREE SETH DEEPTIMAN TIWARY NEW DELHI, JULY 17 THE RECENT attacks that have rocked the Jammu region are suspected to have been perpetratedbya“freshbatchof terrorists” who infiltrated in the past six months and comprise fighters from Pakistan's Punjab as wellasKhyberPakhtunkhwaregions,saidsources.Mostof them are suspected to be Jaish-eMohammed (JeM) recruits. According to sources, while the ‘People’s Anti-Fascist Front’ claimed credit for the attacks in Poonch-Rajouri earlier, the ‘Kashmir Tigers’ took responsibility for the more recent attacks in Doda-Kathua. Both these groups are suspected to be JeM fronts, said sources. Thegroupsarehighlytrained, motivated and those from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region mayalsohavebattleexperience, including in Afghanistan, said CONTINUEDONPAGE2 NEW DELHI, LUCKNOW, JULY 17 A soldier near the encounter site in Doda on Wednesday. PTI AMID THE rumblings within the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, state party president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Capital on Wednesday. The meeting came a day after Chaudhary and the state’s Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya met BJP national president J P Nadda separately on Tuesday. INSIDE ALLY ANUPRIYA PATEL NOW FLAGS ‘ILLEGAL’ TOLL COLLECTION IN U.P. PAGE 5 There have been signs of dissent emerging in the BJP's state unit after the party's poor show in the Lok Sabha elections — the BJP's tally fell from 62 out of 80 seatsinUPin2019tojust33.The CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Rethink ‘Sabka Saath, Food stalls on Kanwar Sabka Vikas’: BJP’s Yatra route must show Adhikari in Bengal Excise case: CBI move was ‘insurance arrest’, Kejriwal tells Delhi HC owners’ names: UP SSP EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JULY 17 CHIEFMINISTERArvindKejriwal toldDelhiHighCourtWednesday that his arrest by the CBI in a corruption case linked to the excise policy was an “insurance arrest” to ensure that he remains in prison. The CBI did not have any material against him, he said. After hearing arguments of bothsides—KejriwalandtheCBI — a single judge bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna reserved itsverdictontheChief Minister's plea challenging his arrest on WEST BENGAL Kejriwal was arrested by the CBI on June 26 June 26 and his interim bail plea. The court listed his main bail application on July 29. Emphasising that the CBI arrestwas“unfortunatelyaninsurance arrest”, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared for Kejriwal, said: “Why I say this is because clearly CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, JULY 17 PAGE 3 NOIDA, JULY 17 POLICE IN Muzaffarnagar have asked eateries, including roadside carts, along the route of the KanwarYatratodisplaynamesof owners or proprietors to “avoid anyconfusion”amongtheyatris. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Senior Superintendent of Police, Muzaffarnagar, Abhishek Singh said, “Preparationshavebegunforthe Kanwar Yatra. In the area under our jurisdiction, which is around 240 km, all eateries — hotels, dhabas, thelas (roadside carts) — have been instructed to display names of their proprietors or those running the shop. This is being done to ensure there is no confusion among the kanwarias and no allegations are raised in thefuture,leadingtoalawandordersituation.Everyoneisfollowing this of their own free will.” Earlier this month, Muzaffarnagar MLA and UP Minister of State (independent charge) Kapil Dev Aggarwal had held a meeting on yatra preparations. He had said that while he had no objection to Muslims SANTANU CHOWDHURY SITTINGINaportacabinatTindli village in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur district, ASHA worker Reena Patel uses her smartphone to fill in details of a month-old baby on U-Win, the government’s new childhood vaccinationmanagementportal. Part of a quiet digital revolu- THE SUCCESSIVE poll drubbings in West Bengal have forced the fissures within the state BJP unit into the open, with senior leader SuvenduAdhikari,whohasbeen facing the brunt of the heat, on Wednesday questioning the party’s avowed motto of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. Speaking at the two-day BJP stateexecutivecommitteemeeting, the first after the Lok Sabha poll results, Adhikari also under- ■ A list of children, who are scheduled to receive their vaccine doses, is generated through U-Win. ■ The e-record helps children linedthathewastheLeaderofthe Opposition and had little role in thepartyorganisationinthestate. “Hindu bachabo, songbidhan bachabo. Amio bolechi rashtrabadi Muslim, apnara bolechen ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. Aar bolbo na. Bolbo ‘Joh humare CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 HOW DOES U-WIN WORK ■ Children between 0-5 years will be registered on U-Win. Vaccines given at birth are also recorded. Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari KOLKATA, JULY 17 A digital vaccine card for every child: Govt’s U-Win portal to redraw immunisation map ANONNA DUTT KANCHANJUNGA MISHAP: PROBE REPORT SUBMITTED GOVT FORMS PANEL TO REVIEW NEW CRIMINAL LAWS NEETIKA JHA get vaccinated in different places without carrying a booklet. The portal sends SMS alerts to parents. ■ The portal also records birth weight and details of physical deformities, if any. This can be used for other government programmes. BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY tion that is set to change the way maternal and child healthcare is delivered across the country, UWin is likely to be launched on August 15. It is expected to be a gamechanger for primary healthcare, marking a transition from the existing vaccination cards that ASHA and other healthcareworkersupdatemanuallytoacompletelydigitalplatform that will maintain records CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 In some years, Indians may be playing each other for world title: Anand PAGE 1 ANCHOR EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE CHENNAI, JULY 17 THE RAPID strides made by Indian prodigies on the battlefield of the 64 squares makes five-time world champion ViswanathanAnandbelievethat there may soon be a situation where two Indians are playing against each other for the world champion’s crown. “They could easily be each other’srivals(attheWorldChess Championship) in some years,” Anand predicted at the Express Adda in Chennai on Tuesday, where he was the guest of honour with wife, Aruna, and India’s top-ranked chess player, Arjun Erigaisi.Thetriowasinconversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express Group, and Amit Kamath, Assistant Editor, The Indian Express. “This current Indian generation of chess players is so close to the top that they’re sniffing most things.Obviously,playingwiththe higheststakes(attheworldchampionship) is an experience you have to encounter in a very raw fashion to figure (out what the pressure there is like),” he said. Anand, the country’s first grandmaster, spearheaded a chess revolution in the country that has seen three Indians — Arjun Erigaisi (World No 4), D Gukesh (World No 7) and R Praggnanandhaa (World No 8) — find a spot in the current top 10 ranks. Gukesh will challenge Ding Liren for the world champion’s crown later this year. If he manages to wrest the title from theChinesegrandmaster,hewill become the youngest world champion. India’simprintinchessisalso growing,withanIndia-powered Chess legend Viswanathan Anand, wife Aruna and top player Arjun Erigaisi at Express Adda in Chennai. Amit Chakravarty Global Chess League providing a team-based twist to what was an individualistic sport. “Indians are enjoying lots of sports now. But we like imposing our own business model on it. We want something new. That’s why we had the Global Chess League last year, which was this new Indian way of organising sport,” Anand said. “Overall, I would say that it’s mucheasiertobeasportsperson in India today than it was 20 years ago. Now you get so much support, for training, for equipment and from the audience.” Asked if he sees a reflection of himself and his “nice guy” image in the next generation of Indian players, Anand replied: “They have seen me growing up and maybe that played a part. But to be honest, they came preheated like that. The age difference is so much that they would call me 'sir' all the time. Sometimes, it’s seven times in the same sentence. It feels awkward. I tried to get them to stop once,andtheyasked,‘wouldyou like to be called uncle?’ They’re just very well brought up.” “I have not played them a lot recently. I played Pragg in a match six years ago. I played Gukesh last year. It’s occasional. Even at events, they’re very polite,butnotontheboard.They’re very competitive on the board. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kolkata