DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA 120 `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 VEHICLE TARGETED WITH IED IN BIJAPUR, CHHATTISGARH 92 REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2025, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES 07/01/2025 ● Maoists ambush securitymen on way back from operation, 9 killed 148 72 NSA SULLIVAN MEETS PM, JAISHANKAR, DOVAL US eases curbs to push N-deal, 3 India entities may be off blacklist US President to relax norms to allow tech transfer in space BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6 JANMEJAYA SINHA SPECIAL TO THE EXPRESS RUN UP TO BUDGET 2025-26 PAGE 13 8 security personnel, their driver killed; ambush after road-opening party left JAYPRAKASH S NAIDU RAIPUR, JANUARY 6 AT LEAST eight security personnel and a driver were killed Monday after Maoists attacked their vehicle in the jungle area of Kutru in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. “Maoistsblew upa police vehicle using an Improvised Explosive Device on the KutruBedre road,” Inspector General of Police for Bastar Range, Sundarraj P, said. According to sources, the security personnel were returning after conducting an anti-Maoist operation in the Abujhmad re- Raipur CHHATTISGARH KUTRU Dantewada ODISHA gion. The operation had started Friday, and on Saturday, an encounter broke out in Abujhmad, in which five Maoists and a District Reserve Guard (DRG) jawan were killed. Thesecurity personnel killed MondaywereidentifiedasHead Constable Budhram Korsa and Constables Duma Markam, Pandru Ram Poyam, and Baman Sodi from the DRG, as well as Constables Somdu Vetti, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PM Modi with Sullivan in New Delhi on Monday. PTI 2 key hurdles: US law that bars manufacturing here, Indian law on liability ANIL SASI NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6 WHILE US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not spelloutthedetailswithsources suggesting that three entities may be taken off the blacklist, there are currently two key legal barriers to furthering Indo-US nuclear collaboration. OntheAmericanside,asignificant impediment is the ‘10CFR810’authorisation(Part810 of Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations (Part 810) of the US His ratings down, Police say Salman Khan initial Trudeau announces target, Lawrence gang shot his resignation, opens a aide Siddique over proximity UGC eases hiring window to reset ties Focus shifted due to tight Salman security: Chargesheet contract teachers, Task easier said than done given Ottawa’s hard line against New Delhi opens V-C post to non-academics too MOHAMED THAVER MUMBAI, JANUARY 6 THE LAWRENCE Bishnoi gang hadSalmanKhaninitscrosshairs butinsteadtargeted his closeassociate, NCP leader Baba Siddique, owing to the heightened security around the actor following the shooting outside his Mumbai residence last year. The Mumbai Police Crime Branch outlined this shift in targetinan4,590-pagechargesheet filed before a special court on Monday. The gang, led by the younger brother of imprisoned gangster Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces his resignation in Ottawa on Monday. AP SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6 FACING LOSS of support within his party and low popularity in polls, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that he will resign as partyleaderandPM,butwillstay on as the PM until the Liberal Party chooses a new leader. On Trudeau's request, Governor General Mary Simon agreed to prorogue Parliament until March 24. This will give the Liberal Party time to hold a shortened leadership contest. From New Delhi’s perspective, Trudeau’s time was up and the assessment, going by opinionpolls,wasthathewouldhave possibly lost the elections after being in office for 10 years — he becametheLiberalParty’sleader in 2013 and PM in 2015. Trudeau is seen as someone whohastakena "scorchedearth policy" in terms of India-Canada ties, especially after his allegation in September 2023 that Indian government agents were involved in the killing of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Delhi has rejected Trudeau's allegations as “absurd” and “politically motivated”, and accused his government of sheltering CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NCP leader Baba Siddique was killed on Oct 12 Lawrence Bishnoi, Anmol, has targeted Salman over his involvement in the 1998 killing of a black buck, whichis revered by the Bishnoi community. Ruling out any property dispute, the chargesheet lists a number of reasons for the hit — the gang trying to establish its holdonthecity;Siddique'sproximity to Salman Khan; alleged links to Dawood Ibrahim; and the custodial death of Anuj Thapan, who was arrested over the firing outside Salman’s Bandra residence. These reasons were first mentioned in a Facebook post put up by a Pune-based man, Shubham Lonkar, who has been named as a wanted accused in the Siddique murder case. ApoliceofficertoldTheIndian Express:“Intheshootingthattook placeoutsidetheactor’sresidence on April 14, the gang wanted the shooterstoemptytheircartridges, firing over 50 rounds outside his residence, remove their helmets, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 DELHI POLL ANNOUNCEMENT IMMINENT Unprecedented rush to be in voter list, needs greater scrutiny: CEO AAP vs BJP over additions, deletions from electoral list EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6 AHEADOFtheannouncementof the Assembly election schedule for Delhi – it is expected any day now – its Chief Electoral Officer Monday flagged an “unprecedented” rush for new voter registration since December 16 and said this “needs greater scrutiny”. The office of the CEO, in a statement, said it received new voter registration applications from 5.1 lakh people after the cut-off date of November 28. It said this was over and above the 3.08 lakh new voters added to the roll during the special summary revision in October. “Thistrendof unprecedented increase... and that too after 20 days of the last date of receiving claims and objections as scheduled... is unexpected and needs greater scrutiny,” the CEO said. “Directions are issued to... scrutinise each and every form strictly as per ECI guidelines. 100% field verification shall be done...toidentifythegenuineeligiblepersons.EROsarealsoconducting personal hearings in doubtful cases as per ECI guidelines,”thestatementsaid,adding that eight FIRs had been filed against24peopleforsubmission of false or tampered documents for obtaining voter IDs. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ABHINAYA HARIGOVIND & RITIKA CHOPRA NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6 IN A MAJOR overhaul of the process of appointment of leaders in higher education, the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued new rules Monday whicheffectivelygiveGovernors in states broader powers in appointing Vice-Chancellors and opened the position to industry experts and public sector veterans, thus breaking from the traditionof selectingonlyacademicians. According to government sources, if approved as is, the new regulations will give Chancellors greater control over Vice-Chancellor selection. This will likely have significant ramifications for Opposition-ruled states such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Kerala, where the governmentandGovernor(who servesasChancellor of state universities) are currently locked in disputes over the top academic appointment process. The new draft regulations — titled ‘University Grants Commission (Minimum PAGE 1 ANCHOR VIDHEESHA KUNTAMALLA NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6 IN AN indication of the changing hiring trends from the Indian Institutes of Technology, at least four older IITs have seen a decline in their campus placement percentagesinrecentyears,even as surveys indicate the number of students getting jobs inde- pendently may be on the rise. Thetrends,basedondataobtained by The Indian Express, come against the backdrop of a shifting tech landscape, global economic uncertainties, and an increasing number of IIT graduates competing in a dynamic job market. Five of the seven first-generation IITs responded to The Indian Express’s request under the RTI Act for placement data spanning six years, from 201819to2023-24.IIT Madrasand IIT Guwahati did not share details and instead referred to their an- YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW E AN XPRESS RTI APPLICATION nual reports. Among the institutes that disclosed placement rates (the percentageof studentsreceiving joboffers)acrossundergraduate, postgraduate, and research programs,IITKanpur,IITKharagpur, and IIT Roorkee recorded declines ranging from 5 to 16 per- centage points (see chart). IIT Bombay provided data only for 2022-23 and 2023-24, showing a drop from 82% to 75%. While IIT Guwahati's placement percentage for 2023-24 (71%) is higher than the pre-pandemic level of 201819 (67%), it is seven percentage points lower than the previous year, 2022-23 (78%). IIT Delhi is the only institution that bucked the trend, maintaining a consistent placement percentage of 84% to 85 % since 2018-19, except for fluctuations during the pandemic years of 2020-21 (80%) and 2021-22 (75%). The factors — and some riders While the IITs refused to comment on the record, students and teachers associated with the campus hiring process attributed the drop to a combination of factors:theaftereffects of post–Covid mass hiring in 2022, a slowdown in key sectors like tech and software, and increasing batch sizes. “In 2022, there was a spike in placement percentages as the market recovered after Covid, with rates exceeding 85%. This spike followed a two-yearhiring freeze. Hiring in 2023 was more conservative, with fewer top MNCs cominginandadeclinein software and tech recruitment. Placements this year might improve over last year, but are unlikely to match 2022 levels. The numbers may normalise by 2025,” said a source from IIT Kanpur. Another person associated withplacementsatIITKharagpur pointedtogrowingbatchsizesas CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SUKRITA BARUAH GUWAHATI, JANUARY 6 A new ● flashpoint THE UGC’S draft norms have safely provided that Chancellors would get to control the entire process of appointing V-Cs in state universities. Some state governments led by non-BJP parties have already proposed that the CM — and not the Governor, who is appointed by the Union government — should be the Chancellor. The new norms could become a new flashpoint. Qualifications for Appointment and Promotion of Teachers and Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulations, 2025’ — have also removed the caponcontractteacherappointments. The 2018 regulations had CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 IIT: As placements dip, students look beyond campus CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 9 men trapped in flooded coal mine in Assam, rescuers race against time E E X P L A I NE D CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AtomicEnergyActof1954),which givesUSnuclearvendorstheability to export equipment to countries such as India under some strictsafeguards,butdoesnotpermitthemtomanufactureanynuclear equipment or perform any nuclear design work here. This authorisation is a clear impediment from New Delhi’s perspective, ● whichwantstoparticipate inthemanufacturingvaluechain andco-producethenuclearcomponents for atomic power projects being jointly planned to be set up in India, sources said. E EXPLAINED Security personnel at the site of the IED blast in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Monday. PTI IN AN incremental step towards operationalisingtheIndo-USnuclear deal, US National Security AdvisorJakeSullivanannounced Monday that Washington is finalizing steps to remove longstanding regulations that have preventedcivilnuclearcooperation between India's leading nuclear entities and US companies. This includes removing Indiangovernmententitiesfrom the US entity list, The Indian Express has learnt. Sources said these could include: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC); Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre (IGCAR) and Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) — all government-run institutions. The US Entity List is a list of foreign individuals, businesses, and organizations that are subject to export restrictions and licensingrequirementsforcertain goods and technologies. The list — compiled by the Bureau of IndustryandSecurity(BIS)of the U.S.Departmentof Commerce— is ostensibly used to prevent unauthorizedtradeinitemsthat ATLEASTnineworkershadbeen trapped for over 12 hours in a coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district as of 10 pm on Monday, reportedly after it was flooded in the morning. On Monday night, the state government released a list of the workers,agedbetween26and57. Oneof themisfromNepal,oneis fromWestBengal’sJalpaiguridistrict, one is a local from Dima Hasao,whiletherestarefromdifferent parts of Assam such as Darrang,KokrajharandSonitpur. The site of the incident is in the Kalamati area in Umrangso, in the hilly district of Dima Hasao. The area is remote – around 150 kilometres from the district headquarters Haflong – and the Superintendent of Police, District Collector and other senior government functionaries were yet to reach the site as of 8:30 pm. “The incident took place in the morning, and rescue teams were rushed there as soon as we were informed. The rescue operations have been ongoing for about seven hours now,” the SP CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 REGISTRATIONS vs PLACEMENTS ■ 2022-23 ■ 2023-24 1,845* 1,979 (1,516) (1,475) 82% 75% 1,513 1,531 (1,270) (1,287) 84% 84% 1,382 1,430 (1,210) (1,111) 88% 78% IIT Bombay IIT Delhi IIT Kanpur 1,410 1,628 (1,126) (1,108) 1,425 1,584 (1,112) (1,124) 2,490 2,668 (1,675) (1,662) 80% 68% IIT Roorkee 78% 71% IIT Guwahati *Registered (vs Placed), Placement in % 67% 62% IIT Kharagpur