DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2025, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 14 PAGES `5.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 India’s unbeaten March WIN CHAMPIONS TROPHY FOR THIRD TIME: ‘A DREAM COME TRUE’ BUDGET SESSION RESUMES TODAY Opp set to raise US tariffs, voter rolls, delimitation; Govt focus on Waqf Bill Tamil Nadu CM and DMK chief M K Stalin with party MPs T R Baalu, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and others during a meeting which decided to raise in Parliament the delimitation issue and the row over Hindi, in Chennai on Sunday. ANI ASAD REHMAN NEW DELHI, MARCH 9 The Indian team with the ICC Champions Trophy after defeating New Zealand by 4 wickets at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday. PTI Brilliant show in dramatic final against New Zealand gives India their first 50-over ICC title in 12 years EXPRESSAT CHAMPIONS TROPHY VENKATA KRISHNA B DUBAI, MARCH 9 IT MAY not be as iconic a parting shotasMSDhoni’ssixovermidwicket on that famous night in Mumbai 14 years ago. But BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Ravindra Jadeja’s slap through square leg for the boundary that wrapped up the Champions TrophyinDubai—India’sfirst50over ICC title in 12 years — will still be remembered for long. Emotions surged as the Indians surpassed the target of 252 with four wickets and six balls to spare, ending a long and frustrating wait to win a global tournamentinthisformat.Then, as fireworks soared under the floodlight glare amid a shower of goldglitter,withARRahman’s “Vande Mataram” piping in the background, India’s ecstatic cricketers rushed to their square of glory. CaptainRohitSharma,whose 76 set up the chase against New Zealand in the Sunday final, sprintedstraighttothepitchand CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 RELATED REPORTS PAGES 13, 14 Rohit’s redemption: From sitting out in Sydney to standing tall in Dubai VENKATA KRISHNA B DUBAI, MARCH 9 AS THE Indians got busy posing with the ICC Champions Trophy, skipper Rohit Sharma would quietly emerge out of the smog, walk to the middle of the pitch, uproot one of the stumps and have a short dandiya jig with Virat Kohli. Unlike in Barbados I am not going to retire: Captain Rohit Sharma. AP SANAPURA (KOPPAL), MARCH 9 Objective lost, has triggered concerns, fears: Nasscom wrote to IT Ministry E AN XPRESS RTI APPLICATION SOUMYARENDRA BARIK NEW DELHI, MARCH 9 WALTER J LINDNER PAGE 9 ON MARCH 1, 2024, just months aheadof LokSabhaelections,the ITMinistryissuedanadvisoryrequiringartificialintelligence(AI) platforms to seek government permission before launching “under-testing,unreliable”services, only to go back on it a fortnight later. While the guidance had drawn public criticism from CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E EXPLAINED YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW EX-GERMAN ENVOY TO INDIA CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD SYRIA COMMUNAL CLASHES TOLL CROSSES 1,000 ARMED MAN SHOT AT NEAR WHITE HOUSE: OFFICIALS PAGE 11 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Behind Govt rollback 10 days before Hampi rape, accused 16 days after tunnel of advisory on seeking made chain snatching attempt: Police collapse in Telangana, one body recovered nod for AI services: Industry pushback KIRAN PARASHAR ‘India the only country with good relationship with Putin, Zelenskyy... If we need big weight, it is the first choice’ lastyearwhenIndiawontheT20 World Cup, where he struggled toholdbacktears,herehewould hughislongtimeteammatewith a huge grin. Inamatterof months,Rohit's fortunes have taken a dramatic turn. At the start of the year, when Rohit dropped himself for the Sydney Test after a string of lowscores,hisfutureintheteam THESECONDhalf of Parliament’s Budget session starting Monday is expected to be fiery, with the Opposition set to target the government by raising several issues, ranging from delimitation and three-language formula to the US trade tariffs and alleged manipulation of electoral rolls. A showdown between the Treasury and Opposition benches is also likely over the contentious Waqf Amendment Bill, which has been cleared by the Union Cabinet for introduction in Parliament. Union Parliamentary Affairs MinisterKirenRijijuhassaidthat the government is keen on early passage of the Waqf Bill, claiming that it would solve many issues of the Muslim community. The NDA allies like the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and N Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP have already indicated that they would support the legislation with the changes approved by the Joint Committee of Parliament in the face of the Opposition's protest. The Congress has asserted that the INDIA bloc leaders will hold “extensive consultations” to jointly oppose the Waqf Bill. The government's focus duringtheupcomingsessionwillbe Why Govt diluted ● advisory AFTER NASSCOM told the government its stated aim of users getting more information was “being lost” because of the “approach and drafting” of the advisory, the IT Ministry scrapped the provision to require permission before rolling out “under-testing, unreliable” AI services, limited the scope of the guidance to some intermediaries, and removed any mention of firms having to prepare a status report. THE THREE accused in the alleged gang rape of two women, including an Israeli tourist, near Hampi, the UNESCO World Heritage Site in northern Karnataka, were allegedly involved in a chain-snatching bid about 10 days before the incident, a police officer told The Indian Express. “The attempt failed but their Two of the accused, Sai Chetan and Mallesh TOURISTS PACK UP, HOMESTAYS BRACE FOR CRACKDOWN P8 targetdidnotcomplaintopolice. If police had been informed, maybe this incident (gang rape) couldhavebeenaverted,”theofficer said. From preliminary investigations in the alleged gang rape, the officer said, police suspect that “the accused, who are construction workers from the Gangavathi region nearby, were under the influence of illegal substances” at the time. According to a repesentative of local homestay owners, “the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kathua deaths: MoS blames ‘terrorists’, CM, L-G condemn; police say probe on ARUN SHARMA JAMMU, MARCH 9 A DAY after the bodies of three civilians,includingaminor,were recovered from a river flowing through the Inchhu forest in Malhar area of Jammu’s Kathua district, Union Minister of State (MoS) Jitendra Singh on Sunday Union MoS and Udhampur MP Jitendra Singh claimedtheywerekilledby“terrorists” as part of a conspiracy to “vitiate” peace in the area. J&K Lieutenant-Governor ManojSinhasaidhehadordered a “thorough” probe into the “brutal killings”. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah condemned the “barbaric murder”. Police have not released an official statement on the cause of the deaths so far. Deputy Inspector General of Police CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Rescue teams at the tunnel in Nagarkurnool, Sunday. Express NIKHILA HENRY & RAHUL V PISHARODY HYDERABAD, MARCH 9 ON THE 16th day of the search for the eight men trapped in a collapsed tunnel in Telangana, rescuers on Sunday recovered the body of one of them. He was identified as Gurpreet Singh from Tarn Taran in Punjab. Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy an- nounced ex gratia of Rs 25 lakh to his family. The eight men had been trapped since the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel in Nagarkurnoolpartiallycollapsed on February 22. On Sunday, Gurpreet’s body was found near the broken tunnel boring machine that was being used to excavate the tunnel. Two people were operating the machine and six were helping CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Waiting for a cycle in Gujarat: Scheme to check girl school dropouts hit by delay PAGE 1 ANCHOR ADITI RAJA VADODARA, MARCH 9 AROUND GUJARAT, more than 1 lakh Class 9 girl students are waiting to get bicycles promised to them. For most of them, the wait is unlikely to end soon. Last week, more than six months after the Opposition displayed in the Assembly photos of rusting bicycles from multiple districts, Gujarat Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi told the House that many of these cycles, to be distributed under a government scheme for girl students, are now in a bad state, having been kept in the open for lack of space in godowns. Sanghavi, who argued that the delay was partially due to the time taken by “rigorous technical and physical inspection”, promised the House that there would not be any such lapse this academic year. Under the Saraswati Sadhana Yojana, bicycles are distributed to girl students of Class 9, belonging to socially and educationally backward families or to families earning less than Rs 6 lakh annually. The scheme, launched in 2014, is meant to encourage girls to continue their education and to cut down the dropout rate, as most higher secondary schools are located at a distance from villages. Plus, with Class 8 the cutoff date when students faced their first passing exams, many dropped out if they failed to score. Gujarat Education Department figures show that while the dropout rate among school students of Classes 1-8 has significantly fallen from 37.22% in 2001-02 to 2.68% in UndistributedcyclesinChhotaUdepur’sNaswadi. BhupendraRana 2022-23, in Classes 9-10, this was as high as 23.28% in 2022. In November 2024, the department had issued a circular to District Education Officers (DEOs) to appoint nodal officers to survey children who dropped out until February 2022, to record the causes for the same. In the little over five years since the Saraswati Sadhana Yojana was launched, 7.93 lakhplus bicycles have been distributed, but between January 2023 and January 2024, not a single one was handed out. Between January 2024 and January 2025, only 8,494 bicycles were given, with 1.45 lakh beneficiaries still waiting since 2023, as per data shared by the Social Justice and Empowerment Department in reply to a question by Congress MLA Imran Khedawala. While the Social Justice and Empowerment Department monitors the distribution of bicycles to girl students belonging to SC and OBC families, the Tribal Development Department takes care of them for ST students. At Naswadi taluka in the largely tribal Chhota Udepur district, a decrepit gram panchayat’s empty community hall, covered in dust and discarded rubbish, houses some of these undistributed bicycles. A lone police constable on panchayat duty stands outside. The shelter provided by the halls means these bicycles, which landed here almost two years back, have fared better, with the red paint on their parts still shiny. District officials, speaking off the record, say they have already distributed the cycles received under the Saraswati Sadhana Yojana for the approximately 900 eligible beneficiaries in their area. An official said, “The ones at the hall are the surplus cycles belonging to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad