DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2024, PUNE, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES `6.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 NEERAJ CHOPRA FIRST INDIAN TO WIN OLYMPIC GOLD AND SILVER Silver and bronze GREETS INTERIM GOVT CHIEF Ensuresafetyof Hindus,allother minorities:PMto Bangla’sYunus Harmanpreet Singh carries P R Sreejesh after India’s 2-1 win over Spain Thursday. AP Neeraj Chopra’s best attempt of 89.45-m clinched the silver in the men’s javelin throw final in Paris on Thursday. PTI EXPRESSAT OLYMPICS MIHIR VASAVDA PARIS, AUGUST 8 APAKISTANIandanIndianstood on the top two steps of the podium, arm on each other and the world watched in awe. Things like these don’t happen at the Olympics track and field. They shatter the stereotypes, spoil the narrative. Then again, Arshad Nadeem and NeerajChopraareborntodothat for their respective countries. They were not just spearthrowers. Chopra and Nadeem were launching India and Pakistan to places the countries had never been before. Nadeem, with an Olympic record throw of 92.97 m, won Pakistan’s first medal at the Olympics – of any colour, in any sport – since 1992. It was a dominant gold. Chopra’s best effort of 89.45 m fetched him a silver, making him the first Indian to wingoldandsilvermedalsatthe Olympics. The scenes that unfolded Thursday night here were in sharp contrast to the ones that followed the Tokyo Olympics. Back then, Nadeem was accused of “moving around” Chopra’s javelin during the final. As Nadeemgottrolledand targeted relentlessly, Chopra came to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Harmanpreet strikes twice, Sreejesh holds fort for podium finish Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem after his 92.97-m throw set an Olympic record. PTI See how far my son’s gone, says Nadeem father — Gold, 92.97m NITIN SHARMA CHANDIGARH, AUGUST 8 AS THE phone call connects, MuhammadAshraf isbusyoverseeing the installation of an LCD television in his three-room home in the Mian Chanu village CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 MIHIR VASAVDA PARIS, AUGUST 8 HARRY POTTER had his wand. Craig Fulton has Harmanpreet Singh. Beforepenaltycorners,India’s coachwouldwhispersomething in the ear of his captain, who wouldthensprinttothetopofthe Spanish ‘D’. From there, he’d wield his stick in a semi-circular motion to find a hole in the defence and slot the ball into the goal — twice in three minutes. Harmanpreet’s twin strikes, which made him the Paris Olympics’ highest scorer with 10 goals, helped India script a confidentcomebacktobeatSpain2-1 and record their second-straight podium finish at the Olympics. The bronze — won after be- With allies also wary, Govt decides to send Waqf Bill to House panel 09/08/2024 72 100 122 60 KEY REPO RATE LEFT UNCHANGED Can’t ignore food inflation pressures: Das differs from Survey idea HITESH VYAS MUMBAI, AUGUST 8 IN THE Economic Survey for 2023-24, its author Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran made a case for excluding food prices from headline inflation, since food prices were keeping the CPI-based (ConsumerPriceIndex)inflation high and delaying a cut in interest rates by the Reserve Bank of India. But RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das differed Thursday and said food inflation CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 LIZ MATHEW NEW DELHI, AUGUST 8 WITH THE Opposition opposing TheWaqf (Amendment)Billand its own allies wary about the widespread changes proposed by it, the government Thursday sent the legislation to a Joint Committee of Parliament. Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju’s introduction of the Bill was met with noisy protests, with Opposition MPs calling it “an attack on the IndianConstitution,thereligious freedom it guarantees and a vio- lation of the federal structure”. The joint committee will be constituted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and include members from both Houses, across parties. Rijiju said he was ready to hold consultations with the stakeholders within the panel once it was formed. The Opposition's main grouse against the Modi governmenthas been its refusalto send legislation to panels for consideration, and pushing them through instead. Presenting the Bill, Rijiju denied any intention to interfere with the freedom of any reli- gious body or violation of any provision of the Constitution. He argued that the existing law — the Waqf Act, 1995 — did not serve its purpose, and said the amendmentswould“correctthe mistakes” and “bring in discipline”. The amendments would reformthewaqf boardfunctioning,andgive“rightstothosewho have been denied”, he said. Sources,however,saidBJPallies TDP, JanaSena Party and Lok JanshaktiPartyof ChiragPaswan advised that the Bill not be pushed through without a detailed discussion, and that wider CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ing made to work very hard under a harsh Parisian sun by a resilient Spanish side that defended tight and kept coming at them — was celebrated with wild scenes on the pitch. Defender Sumit, who blocked everything that came down the left flank, leapt in the air and punched the air. As a young hockey player, the 27year-old dreamt of sitting on an airplane. But he supplemented his family's income by washing utensils at a dhaba in Murthal, Haryana. He never gave up and made a promise to himself: his first flight would be when he travels to play for India. Domestically, his teammates would fly to different cities; Sumitspentnightsonatrain.His maiden flight came in 2014. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SPORT Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin administers oath to Muhammad Yunus in Dhaka. Reuters MY COURAGEIS SHATTERED...I DON’THAVEANY MORESTRENGTH: VINESHRETIRES PAGE 20 YOUNGWOMEN WRESTLERS TRAININGATPUNE ACADEMY WISH VINESHPHOGAT: ‘DON’TLOSE HOPE’ SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, AUGUST 8 AS NOBEL laureate Professor MuhammadYunuswasswornin as the head of the interim government in Bangladesh Thursday, Prime Minister NarendraModiextendedhisbest wishes to Yunus and urged him toensure“thesafetyandprotection of Hindus and all other minority communities” who have comeunderattackfollowingthe ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5. This direct reference to the safety of Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh underlines Delhi’s expectations from CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PAGE 4 Decks clear for faster access to new drugs with global nod ANONNA DUTT NEW DELHI, AUGUST 8 NEW DRUGS for weight loss, Alzheimer’s, or cancer that have beenapprovedbytopregulatory authoritiesabroadbutareawaiting approval in India will no longer be required to undergo clinical trials in the country. Pharma companies can now obtain regulatory clearance to sell theirproductsinIndiaif theycan demonstrate that their new drugs offer a "significant therapeutic advance over the current standard of care," and have been CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D For Chopra, might not have been a gold — but it was history Jaishankar, UK’s Lammy holds talks as ousted Sheikh Hasina waits in Delhi ● Fast-track process AT PRESENT, a company must conduct a clinical trial in India even if the drug has been approved globally. The trial must be approved by a committee under the drug regulator. The new rules ease access and will benefit patients with rare diseases or cancers with specific genetic markers. Swapnil Kusale with his family members during a roadshow in Pune on Thursday. Arul Horizon Swapnil arrives in Pune to a rousing welcome SK SAFRIN BEGUM PUNE, AUGUST 8 SWAPNIL KUSALE (29), who wonbronzeinthemen’s50-metre rifle three-positions event at the Paris Olympics, received a rousing welcome at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Sports Complex as he arrived in Pune on Thursday. The shooter, who hails from CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 The reformer-politician who tried to change the face of Left RAVIK BHATTACHARYA KOLKATA, AUGUST 8 THE FACE of “reformist” Left, the Chief Minister who hoped to haul WestBengal intothe industrialisationagewith“theworld’s cheapest car”, the writer-politician who failed to take own party along, and the leader who ultimately fell to one almost completely unlike him, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee passed away on Thursday at his residence in Kolkata after a long illness. He was 80. It was an end that was as far away from the beginning as it gets. For, it was in a burst of glory that Bhattacharjee hit the national limelight in 2000, picked asthesuccessortothelegendary Jyoti Basu, who was at the time India’s longest-serving CM. The ruling CPI(M)-led Left Front won the 2001 Assembly seatsthatfollowed(winning199 out of 294 Assembly seats), and increased its tally further under Bhattacharjee in the 2006 elections (to 235). During his tenure, Bhattacharjee launched an in- BUDDHADEB BHATTACHARJEE 1944 - 2024 dustrialisation drive, including huge investments in IT and ITES (information technology enabled services) sectors, a plan to build the country’s largest integrated steel plant in Salboni, a chemical hub in Nayachar, an SEZ in Nandigram and the Nano plant in Singur. The latter two, however, wouldproveBhattacharjee’sundoing, as the acquisition of land in Singur, Hooghly district, for Tata Motors to build Nano in 2006, and for the SEZ in Nandigram in 2007, ran into huge protests from farmers. These eventually took the shape of an anti-government movement led primarily by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. The fiery, scrappypoliticianwhohadbeen fighting the CPI(M) singlehandedly in the state seized her momenttostrikeattheLeft,bythen in power for 34 years in Bengal and facing huge anti-incumbency. The death of 14 protesters in police firing on March 14, 2007, followed by the decision of the Tatas a year later to move the Nano plant to Gujarat, proved the death knells for the Bhattarcharjee government. In the circumstances, the SEZ in Nandigramalsofailedtotakeoff. In the 2011 Assembly elections, the TMC ended the Left reign, and Mamata became the CM. Bhattacharjee lost from his own seat, Jadavpur, to the TMC’s Manish Gupta. An easy scapegoat for the Left’s defeat — though the CPI(M) has struggled to make a comeback even 13 years later — Bhattacharjee spoke about why he pushed for industrialisation CONTINUEDONPAGE2