DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2024, KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES SINCE 1932 `6.00 (`12 IN NORTH EAST STATES, `17 IN ANDAMAN) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM FOURTH ATTACK IN A WEEK Two soldiers, 2 porters killed in attack on Army convoy in J&K BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY JNU cancels seminars by Palestine, Lebanon and Iran envoys 3 soldiers injured; L-G for ‘befitting reply’, Omar says matter of concern Fishermen try to bring their boat back to shore before Cyclone Dana makes landfall in Odisha’s Bhadrak on Thursday. Reuters INSIDE SUJIT BISOYI VIDHEESHA KUNTAMALLA NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 24 THREE SEMINARS at Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for West Asian Studies on the ongoing conflict in West Asia, which were to be addressed separately by the Iranian, Palestinian and Lebanese Ambassadors to India, have been cancelled due to “unavoidable circumstances”. On Thursday, hours before the Iranian Ambassador, Dr Iraj Elahi, was scheduled to address a seminar titled “How Iran sees the recent developments in West Asia” at 11 am, Sima Baidya, the seminar coordinator, sent an email to students at 8:09 aminforming that the event had been cancelled. In the same email, Baidya also announced the cancellation of the November 7 seminar on the violence in Palestine, which was to be addressed by Palestinian Ambassador Adnan Abu Al-Haija, and the November 14 seminar on the situation in Lebanon, scheduled to be addressed by the Lebanese Ambassador, Dr Rabie Narsh. Sources at the Iranian and Lebanese Embassies told The Indian Express that the decision CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 DHAMRA, OCTOBER 24 WITH AROUND six lakh people evacuated from vulnerable areas, more than 4,400 pregnant womenmovedtohospitals,over 200 trains cancelled, and flight operation at Bhubaneswar Airport suspended for over 12 hours, Odisha on Thursday hunkered down ahead of cyclone Dana’s arrival. The cyclone is expected to make landfall between Bhitarkanika and Dhamara in Odisha in the early hours of Friday, with wind speeds of 100-120 kmph. The cyclone is predicted to trigger heavy to very heavy rain in northern and coastal parts of the state, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issuing a red alert for Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Cuttack, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Balasore, and Mayurbhanj districts.TheIMDhasalsopredicted high tides during the landfall, which may cause largescale inundation. Damage to electric and telecommunication lines, and the disruption of road transport are expected. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Thursday reviewedthestate’spreparedness. HesaidPrimeMinisterNarendra Justice Sanjiv Khanna appointed next CJI, will enter office Nov 11 IN RACE AGAINST TIME AND CYCLONE, 3.5 LAKH EVACUATED IN BENGAL PAGE 3 Modi was keeping a close watch onthesituationandassuredthat theCentrewouldextendallsupport to the state government to deal with the situation. At a late-night press conference, the CM said: “Nearly six lakh people have so far been evacuatedbytheadministration and accommodated in nearly 8,000 shelters.” He added: “Emphasising on proper care of pregnant women, the state government has moved as many as 4,431 pregnant women to hospitals. It is a happy matterthat1,600ofthesewomen havedeliveredtheirbabies.Allthe mothers and babies are safe.” Majhi also said that he spoke to PM Modi and Union Home MinisterAmitShahandupdated them about the preparedness of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PRESIDENT DROUPADI Murmu on Thursday appointed Justice Sanjiv Khanna as the 51st Chief Justice of India. Justice Khanna, who is likely to take oath on November 11, will succeed CJI D Y Chandrachud who is due to retire on November 10. “In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the President is pleased to appoint Shri Justice Sanjiv Justice Sanjiv Khanna will be 51st CJI Khanna, Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the Chief Justice of India with effect from 11 November 2024,” the government notification said. Justice Khanna will have a relatively short tenure of just six months — he is due to retire on March 13, 2025. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 TWO SOLDIERS and two civilian porters working with the Army werekilledinaterrorattacknear the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir’s Gulmarg sector on Thursday. The attack — the fourth in a week — also left three CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Agreements once reached must be respected: Jaishankar DIGHA (PURBA MEDINIPUR), OCTOBER 24 SHUBHAJIT ROY & DAMINI NATH NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 24 Food being served to people at shelter home at Ramnagar Block, Purba Medinipur district, Thursday. Partha Paul state’s coastal belt overlooking the Bay of Bengal. Manasi Panda, who lives in a mud house at Mondala village, saidthatshegetsgrippedbyfear whenever she comes to know about an approaching cyclone. “Whenever a cyclone is predicted, I get panic attacks... It's noteasytorebuildyourhomeafter such a disaster,” she said. The Mondala multipurpose cyclone shelter, where around 650 evacuees can stay, was built in 2019. The same year, the region was battered by two cyclones – Fani and Bulbul. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AS DELHI took note of the absenceof anyreferenceinBeijing’s statements to their agreement on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Thursdaythat“agreements,once reached, must be scrupulously respected”and“disputesanddifferences must be settled by dialogue and diplomacy”. Hewasspeakingonbehalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS outreach summit in Russia’s Kazan where Chinese PresidentXiJinpingwaspresent. Modi left for home after his meeting Wednesday with Xi where the two leaders underlinedthe“importanceofproperly handling differences and disputes”. Xi also called for “more communicationandcooperation” andsaid“peopleinourtwocountries and the international communityarepayinggreatattention to our meeting”. In New Delhi, Defence MinisterRajnathSinghsaidbroad consensushadbeenachievedfollowing talks between the two countries to “restore the ground CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Officer competency model draws At last minute, SEBI from PM’s Mann Ki Baat, speeches chief informs House Karmayogi model mapped to Govt online training portal panel can’t attend meet AGGAM WALIA NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 24 LIZ MATHEW SEVEN-WICKET HAUL BY WASHINGTON SUNDAR: ‘IT WAS MAGICAL FOR SURE’ PAGE 15 DECISION SRINAGAR, OCTOBER 24 soldiers injured. The terror strike came hours after Lt Governor Manoj Sinha chaired a Unified Headquarters (UHQ) meeting in Srinagar to reviewthesecuritysituationinlight ofback-to-backattacksinthepast week.Followingtheattack,Sinha called for “swift and befitting reply to neutralise terrorists”. CHINA SILENT ON PATROLLING PACT SWEETY KUMARI AMID THE relentless roar of the sea and crashing waves, people moved to a shelter camp at Ramnagar Block of Purba Medinipur district in West Bengal have only one question on their minds and lips — “Will our homes be still standing when we return?” “We lost everything in the last cyclone... It took us a year to rebuild our mud house... Every time we come here, we wonder whether our home will be there when we return,” said 80-yearold Gouri Jana, who was at the shelter home for the third time in nearly as many years. The coastal region of West Bengal is witnessing an uptick in the number of cyclones in the past one decade. Cyclone Amphan of May 2020 was the mostdevastingone.Withawind speedof 260km/h,thesupercyclone flattened large parts of the BASHAARAT MASOOD BJP SLAMS CHAIRMAN VENUGOPAL SPORT APURVA VISHWANATH NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 24 At a Bengal shelter, the refrain: ‘Every time we come here, we wonder if our home will be there’ Security personnel stand guard after the attack in Gulmarg. PTI 2024 IN CONG-UDDHAV SENA SEAT TUSSLE, WINNER IS PAWAR PAGE 5 SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 24 THEPUBLICAccountsCommittee (PAC),theparliamentaryfinancial watchdogwhichhadsummoned SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch,hadtopostponeitsmeeting Thursday because hours before shewastoappear,sheciteda“personalexigency”andconveyedshe would be unable to attend. The PAC was to question her on US-based Hindenburg Research’s allegation that Buch and her husband, Dhaval Buch, had“stakeinobscureoffshoreentities used in Adani money siphoningscandal”.TheOpposition has been demanding a parliamentaryprobeintotheallegation. The Buch couple, in a joint statement, had said “the investment in the fund referred to in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE CAPACITY Building Commission (CBC), constituted by the government three years ago, has developed the Karmayogi Competency Model for civil servants, which is a framework of behavioural and functional competencies designed to aid their transition fromakarmachari(employee)to a karmayogi (dedicated worker). Inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat programme and his public speeches and statements, the EXPLAINED Clockwise from top left: Elahi, Narsh, Al-Haija As cyclone Dana roars in, over 6 lakh evacuated, trains and flights halted E Karmachari ● to karmayogi ACCORDING TO the CBC, it is responding to the Prime Minister’s call to build a bureaucracy in which the mindset transitions from feeling and acting like a karmachari or a public servant to behaving like a karmayogi where service is done without any expectation in return. model aims to optimise deployment of officials to roles based on their competencies, which are also mapped to courses on the Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) portal. “We looked at what the PM said. We go by the decisions of the government of the day and what the chief executive talks about. We didn’t want to just go by mapping out something. We did a large language model (LLM) analysis of all his Mann Ki Baat episodes, speeches, tweets, etc.,” R Balasubramaniam, Member (Human Resource), CBC, said. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 1968, a John Lennon love story: Beatles Ashram set for a makeover PAGE 1 ANCHOR LEENA MISRA AHMEDABAD, OCTOBER 24 IN THE February of 1968, a lovestruck John Lennon would goonearlymorningwalkstothe post office on the premises of Chaurasi Kutiya, a retreat in Rishikesh on the banks of the Ganga where he and the other members of the Beatles band practised yoga guru Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation.Hispostofficewalks, as his wife Cynthia who accompanied him on that India visit would later realise, was to check if singer Yoko Ono, with whom hewasinarelationship,hadsent him a telegram. Inside one of the meditation huts of the now abandoned Chaurasi Kutiya ashram is a pop art that immortalises this love story — a line from Yoko’s telegram to Lennon that reads, “Look up at the sky and when you see a cloud, think of me.” Lennon’s fledgling love story, one of the many priceless nuggets from the Beatles’ India stay in 1968, will now come to life as the Uttarakhand govern- ment plans to renovate the ashram. It hopes to turn the 17acrespace—withastringof concrete, double-storey hobbit houses, pathways overrun by weeds and deserted buildings — into an ‘International Heritage Tourism destination’. Standing on the banks of the Ganga, the ashram is now a space frozen in time. Under tall trees and amid patches of wild canna plants are the buildings and meditation centres of Mahesh Yogi’s Chaurasi Kutiya, which after the Beatles’ 1968 stay became popular as the Beatles Ashram. The iconic British band spent nearly a Ved Bhavan at Chaurasi Kutiya in Rishikesh. HCP month here, meditating and writing at least 30 songs, including those from The Beatles (White Album) released later that year. For the Ahmedabad-based HCP Design, Planning & Management Pvt Ltd, which is executing the renovation project, this is the second ashram project after the Gandhi Ashram Redevelopment Project in Gujarat. Helmed by architect BimalPatel,thefirmhashandled several high-profile projects, including Central Vista and the new Parliament building in Delhi,andtheKashiVishwanath corridorprojectinUttarPradesh. According to Anand Patel, project head at HCPDPM, “The projectisexpectedtocommence by the end of 2024. It will take about 18 months to be completed at an estimated cost of Rs 90 crore.” Part of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, on the eastern banks of the Ganga, the ashram was set up by Mahesh Yogi in 1963, with his Transcendental Meditation Teacher Training Course attractingparticipantsfromaroundthe world. He is known to have built it with a US$ 100,000 grant from American heiress Doris Duke. Among the most famous visitors to the ashram were the Beatles, who were then famously embarking on a journey from psychedelia to transcendence. In February 1968, John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr arrivedattheRishikeshashramaccompanied by their wives and their manager. Here, they wrote some of their most popular songs, including ‘Back in the USSR’,‘DearPrudence’,‘Julia’and ‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’. ChaurasiKutiyagetsitsname fromthe84meditationrooms— 42 each on either side of a yoga centre. The complex has nearly CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kolkata