DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2025, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 ‘PAK MUST ACT ON TERRORISTS ON ITS SOIL’ HopeIndia’sresponse doesnotleadtobroader conflict,saysV-PVance 03/05/2025 86 114 140 62 Meat, liquor shops on key Ayodhya road to shut, those hit say resettle Worried about hotspot breaking out between two nuclear powers, says US V-P SHUBHAJIT ROY MANISH SAHU NEW DELHI, MAY 2 AYODHYA, MAY 2 AT LEAST nine meat shops and 13 liquor outlets, situated along theRamPathleadingtoAyodhya and the Ram temple, are to close following a resolution of the Ayodhya municipal corporation which cited the road’s religious significance. This has prompted the city’s tradeassociationtodemandthat alternatesitesbeprovidedtothe affected shopkeepersbeforeimplementing the resolution. Developedoverayearago,the 13-km-longRamPathstartsfrom Sadatganj and leads to Lata Mangeshkar Chowk in Ayodhya. With shops on either side, it had a makeover when the road was widened. It also links to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Path, which leadstotheRamtemplesite,and the Bhakti Path that connects ShringarGhattoHanumanGarhi. On Thursday, the executive CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and others at the newly inaugurated Vizhinjam International Seaport in Thiruvananthapuram, Friday. PTI TRANSSHIPMENT PORT INAUGURATED IN KERALA; PM REFERS TO CM, THAROOR Opening Vizhinjam port, PM swipe at Opp: ‘This will give sleepless nights to many’ SHAJU PHILIP & SIDDHANT KONDUSKAR THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, VIZHINJAM, MAY 2 DEDICATING THE Vizhinjam port in Left-ruled Kerala to the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday took a dig attheCPI(M)foritslongstanding oppositiontoprivateinvestment. Praising the Adani group for completingtheconstructionina shortspan,Modisaidinthepresence of industrialist Gautam Adani,“Ihavereturnedfromvisiting the port. When the people of Gujarat come to know that Adani has built such a good port here in Kerala — he has been working on ports in Gujarat for 30years,buthehasnotbuiltsuch a port there yet — he will have to be ready to face their anger. I wouldalsoliketosaytoourChief Minister(PinarayiVijayan)—you are a strong pillar of the INDI Alliance. (Congress MP) Shashi Tharoor is also sitting here, and today’seventwillgivemanypeople sleepless nights.” TheRs8,800-croreVizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport is being developed by Adani Ports and SEZ Limited on a design, build, finance,operateandtransfer(DBFOT) model. In 2015, when the then Congress regime inked the deal with the Adani group, the CPI(M), then in the Opposition, had dubbed it a land scam of NEW DELHI, MAY 2 GEORGE MATHEW & HITESH VYAS MUMBAI, MAY 2 IN WHAT could significantly changehowthestockmarket responds to global cues, the share of domestic institutional investors (DIIs) has surpassed that of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) as on March 31, 2025. DIIs include insurers and mutual funds, which have seen a steady flow of funds from retail investors in recent years. The share of DIIs in the NSE universe of listed companies PAGE 1 ANCHOR THE HOME SURGE 24% 20% 16% 12% FII share 13.44 8% 11.39 30-Jun -2009 17.62 17.22 DII share 31-Mar -2025 reached an all-time high of 17.62 percentasonMarch31thisyear, and surpassed the FPI share of 17.22 per cent for the first time in at least 15 years, data compiled by PRIME Database shows. The DII shareholding rose from 16.89 per cent in December-end 2024 to 17.62 per cent in Marchend 2025 following a staggering net investment of Rs 1.89 lakh crore during the three months. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 MUMBAI, MAY 2 THE SECURITIES and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has alleged Pranav Adani, director of several Adani group companies and the nephew of the billionaire founder, shared price sensitive information and breached regulations aimed at preventing insidertrading,accordingtoadocument reviewed by Reuters. BY UNNY SC: Creditors’ panel made mistake in approving JSW Steel resolution plan Adani, the nephew of Gautam Adani, was sent a notice by the SEBI last year which alleged he shared information about Adani Green’s 2021 acquisition of SoftBank-backed SB Energy Holdingswithhisbrother-in-law before the deal was announced, according to a source and the document. The matter has not been previously reported. In an e-mailed response sent to Reuters, Pranav Adani said he Right now, China occupies Bagram air base: Trump YOSHITA SINGH NEW YORK, WASHINGTON, MAY 2 US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has claimed that China now occupies the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. The US vacated Bagram, its biggest airfield in the country, in July 2021. “But we were going to keep Bagram, the big Air Force base, which is one hour away from EXPLAINED GLOBAL THE STRATEGIC AFGHAN AIRFIELD PAGE 11 where China makes its nuclear weapons. That’s what they do. Theymaketheirnuclearmissiles andonehourawayfromBagram, and I said you can’t give up CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PAGE 15 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Country’s first campus for foreign universities: CIDCO to set up Edu City in Navi Mumbai MUMBAI, MAY 2 RELATED REPORT was seeking to settle the charges “to put an end to the matter, without admission or denial of the allegations” and that “he has not violated any securities law”. Settlementtermswerebeing discussed, said the source with direct knowledge of the matter, whodeclinedtobenamedasthe matter is confidential. ThescrutinyisthelatestchallengefortheAdanigroup.USauthorities last year indicted WAVES 2025 ALOK DESHPANDE CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Insider trading case: SEBI accuses Adani nephew, he seeks to settle JAYSHREE P UPADHYAY BUSINESS AS USUAL 2021 under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy code. JSW Group Chairman and Managing Director Sajjan Jindal had then said that the acquisition had helped the group make an entry into Odisha and east India. Abenchof JusticeBelaTrivedi ANANTHAKRISHNAN G DIIs shareholding at 17.62% in NSE listed companies surpasses that of FPIs at 17.22% CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 US Vice-President J D Vance speaks during a tour at Nucor Steel Berkeley in Huger, South Carolina, Thursday. AP CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 After 15 yrs, domestic Rejecting JSW Steel’s plan, SC orders institutions upstage Bhushan Power and Steel liquidation FPIs in ownership of listed stocks on NSE THE SUPREME COURT Friday rejectedsteelmajorJSWSteelLtd’s Rs 19,000 crore bid to acquire Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd (BPSL) through the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP)route,andorderedtheliquidation of the company. JSW acquired BPSL in March FOR THE second day in succession, the US conveyed its understanding of India’s response to the Pahalgam terror attack with Vice-President J D Vance saying hiscountryhopesitwillnotlead to a “broader regional conflict” — and that the US expects Islamabad to “cooperate” with New Delhi to “hunt down” terrorists “sometimes operating from their soil”. Vanceisthelatestseniorrepresentative of the US administration, after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, to spell out the US line on the terror attack that killed 26 people. Vance and his family were in India on a fourday visit when the attack — the worst since Pulwama in 2019 — took place in J&K on April 22. AskedontheFoxNewsshow, BIG PICTURE PAGE 13 Amaravati THE MAKING OF A CAPITAL In villages by the Krishna river, a ‘grand city’ takes shape, amid hopes and anxieties CHIEF MINISTER Devendra Fadnavis on Friday announced that the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) will set up an Edu City in Navi Mumbai, which will be the country’s first educational campus for foreign universities. TwoMoUs—Rs1,500croreeach — were signed with foreign universities at the WAVES summit. “CIDCOsignedanagreement worth Rs 1,500 crore with University of York from the UK and another MoU worth Rs 1,500 crore with Western Australia University. These universities will set up their offshore campuses in Navi Mumbai,” said Fadnavis. He added that discussions with three other prominent universities was complete and UGC clearance was awaited. CM Devendra Fadnavis speaks at WAVES 2025, in Mumbai on Friday. PTI “In addition five more universitieshaveheldprimarytalks. We are setting up the country’s first educational campus with foreign universities in Navi Mumbai and two MoUs were signed today,” he said. Fadnavis added that another CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 FULL COVERAGE PAGE 4 To Attari and back, J&K constable: I would rather die than go to Pak ARUN SHARMA JAMMU, MAY 2 ON APRIL 26, when a senior officer called him to say that he and his eight siblings had to leave India because they were considered Pakistan citizens, Iftkhar Ali felt as if someone had cut the ground from beneath his feet. Having served 27 years in theJ&KPoliceserviceandknowing no other home, he told his shocked superior officer he would “kill himself” rather than cross the border. “Like you, I too had only heard of Pakistan,” Iftkhar, a 45year-old constable from Salwah village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, tells The Indian Express now. “I have everything — my wife and children, relatives, friends, and colleagues — here. There’s nothing in Pakistan.” On April 29 — three days afterheandhiseightsiblingswere issueda‘LeaveIndia’noticeinthe aftermathof thePahalgamterror attack—theJammuandKashmir HighCourtstayedit,orderingthe central government and the J&K administration against forcing them to leave India. The order came on the back of a petition that he filed in the High Court against the notice. As a result, Ali and his eight siblings — older brothers Zulfqar Ali, 49, Mohammad Shafiq, 60, and Mohammad Shakoor, 52; and his sisters Shazia Tabsam, 42, Kouser Parveen, 47, Naseem Akhter, 50, Akseer Akhtar, 54, and Nashroon Akhter, 56 — have now returned to the village. Althoughhegotanotice,neither his wife nor his three minor sons got one “because they were At the Integrated Check Post near Attari-Wagah border in Amritsar district on Friday. PTI all born in India, they didn’t get the notice”, he says. The eighth of nine children, Ali was two years old when his parents,FaqurDinandFatimaBi, brought him to the erstwhile state of J&K. In their petition, Iftikhar and his siblings said that their father Faqur Din was a ‘hereditarystate subject’ and Indian citizen according to the 1955 Citizenship Act. They also said he owned about 17 acres of land and a house at Salwah village, addingthattheirfatherwasconsidered a permanent resident of J&K “even at the time of enactment of the J&K Constitution in 1957”. Apermanentresidentcertificate was a document previously issued under the Jammu and Kashmir Permanent Resident Certificate(Procedure)Act,1963, to prove one’s permanent residence in the former state of Jammu and Kashmir. A feature under the special status offered to the state, the certification ceased to exist after the Article 370 in 2019. According to the petition, whatcastshadowsovertheircit- izenship is that during the 1965 war, Pakistan took over areas alongtheLineof Control,including the place where Faqur Din and his wife Fatima Bi lived with children, then three. As a result, the family spent years at a camp inTralkhalinPakistan-occupiedKashmir, during which time the couple had six more children. LocalsintheareaclaimFaqur Din and his family returned to Salwah in 1983. Posted in Katra since earlier this year, Iftkhar joined the state police in the late 90s — when CONTINUED ON PAGE 2