The Editorial Page: Nehru’s arc, from Allahabad Municipality to New York City Hall P8 FRIDAY, NOvEMBER 7, 2025 JournAlism of CourAGe KOLKATA, LATE CITy, 18 PAGES ₹6.00 (`12 in North East states, `20 in Andaman) l www.indianexpress.com DA I Ly F r O M : A H M E DA B A D , C H A N D I GA r H , D E L H I , J A I P u r , KO L K ATA , Lu C K N O w , M u M B A I , N AG P u r , PAT N A , P u N E , VA D O DA r A Happening today lThe CenTre will launCh a year-long nationwide commemoration of Vande Mataram on Friday, marking 150 years of the national song composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. The event at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi release a commemorative stamp and coin. S.i.r. wiTh zero appeal, higheST TurnouT SinCe 1951, pureST roll: CeC At 65%, highest turnout in 75 yrs: Half of Bihar votes l The Supreme CourT on Friday will hear the case related to the management of stray dog population. A bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath is likely to pass some directions after states filed status reports detailing their efforts in the last three months. New Delhi, November 6 Women wait to cast their votes in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections, outside a polling booth in Patna on Thursday. ANI By EP UNNY 64.66% oF 3.75 Crore electors cast their votes in the 121 constituencies which went to polls in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections on Thursday. How these seats voted in 2020 BJP: 32 (17.24%) JD(u): 23 LJP(rV): 1 (17.15%) (6.67%) P 5, 6 rJD: 42 Left: 11 INC: 8 VIP: 4 (23.81%) (6.57%) (7.69%) (2.04%) Cycles in 2006 to das-hazari this time: Nitish banks on the mahila Santosh Singh & deeptiman Tiwary ExplainEd Has BiHar’s growtH caugHt up witH tHe rest of india? Bihar’s overall base of economic activity is small, and its growth rates can thus flatter to deceive p 12 Red flags in Govt: Can GenAI models track prompts of officials, leverage citizens’ data? Soumyarendra Barik & anil Sasi l pm narendra modi begins a two-day visit to his constituency of Varanasi on Friday. He is scheduled to flag off four new Vande Bharat Express trains on Saturday, which will operate on the Varanasi-Khajuraho, Lucknow-Saharanpur, Firozpur-Delhi and Ernakulam-Bengaluru routes. Business as usual ConCernS grow aS marKeT eXpandS scheme they have dubbed “das-hazari (for the Rs 10,000 it entails)”. Bettiah, Munger, The scheme is one of several Darbhanga, Gopalganj, that nitish Kumar has introNovember 6 duced in his two decades in power for the beneThe SPeeD with fit of women. In 2006, which the Mukhyamonths after taking mantri Mahila Rojgar over as CM, he started Yojana (MMRY), anthe popular bicycle nounced by Chief scheme that was a Minister nitish runaway success and Kumar just before the deCiSion helped him build a announcement of the loyal base of women Bihar polls, has acsupporters. The focus quired a moniker is on women voters is just one sign of its important, given that popularity. The other is the voices on the ground, they tend to turn out to exercise with women beneficiaries lin- their franchise more than men. ing up behind the MMRY In 2020, 59.69% of women 2025 Bihar voters cast their vote, while only 54.45% of men did. The gap was higher in 2015, with women voters recording a 60.48% turnout while 53.32% of men did. While Phase 1 on Thursday saw a record 64.66% turnout as of 8.30 pm, the gender-wise break-up was not available immediately. Working in Patna, Vibha Devi took a two-day leave to go to her village in nalanda to fill a form for the Rojgar Yojana, with Rs 10,000 deposited into her account soon after. Of course, she would vote for the JD(U), she says. “Jekar khaybay, okre na gaybay? Na debay vote te kodhi fut jaytay (Won’t I Bihar’s Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana l one woman from each family, between ages of 18 and 60 years and a permanent resident of Bihar, eligible iniTial `10,000 to be transferred into beneficiary’s bank account, to start a self-employment venture. By early October, this had been done for over 1.21 cr women, next disbursal scheduled for Nov 7. BaSed on performance, the beneficiary to get additional assistance up to ` 2 lakh, 6 months later. »ConTinued on page 2 E. ExplainEd WhaT haPPenS when a gov- the concern: ernment officer uploads an ininference, data ternal note to an aI chatbot for a quick summary? When a po- Generative AI platforms can lice department asks an aI as- draw deeper inferences sistant to optimise CCTVs about users from their across a city? Or when a policy- prompts because every maker uses a conversational input reveals intent, tone, model to draft an inter-minis- preferences, and context in terial brief? Can the aI system real time. Besides, some AI analyse such prompts at scale, companies have signed disidentify the user, infer their tribution deals with telerole, draw patterns across com operators and their queries and predict strategic in- free subscription is usually tent? linked to phone numbers. These questions are being debated in sections of the Union vices with teleExpRESS government, The com subscripIndian Express has tions. learnt, amid growSenior offiing concern about the rapid cials say the core issue is not proliferation of generative aI only data privacy but inference (GenaI) platforms in India, es- risk: whether these systems can pecially those run by foreign derive sensitive insights indifirms, often bundled as free ser- rectly from users’ behaviour, re- exclusive lationships, and search patterns. Two broad areas are under discussion. First, whether queries made by top functionaries — senior bureaucrats, policy advisers, scientists, corporate leaders and influential academics — could be mapped to identify priorities, timelines, or weaknesses. Second, whether anonymised mass usage data from millions of Indian users could help global firms. One issue being discussed, sources said, is whether to “protect” official systems from foreign aI services. “We don’t know what the level of tracking is on these services, and whether they are able to identify the significance of a user’s prompts to make inferences from it. For now, the foreign LLMs are most popular, and there can be more safety in running them directly on a computer rather than on a »ConTinued on page 2 FULL REPORT On WWW.InDIAnEXPRESS.COM Not just PMLA, UAPA, give reason for arrest in all offences, says SC ‘At least two hours before production in court for remand; flows from constitutional safeguard for personal liberty’ ananthakrishnan g New Delhi, November 6 In an important judgment with a bearing on personal liberty, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the requirement of furnishing grounds of arrest to a person placed under arrest will apply even to offences under the Indian Penal Code and Bharatiya nyaya Sanhita (BnS) and not just offences under special statutes like the Prevention of Money Laundering act, 2002 and Unlawful activities (Prevention) act, 1967. The bench of Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice a G Masih said, “The constitutional mandate of informing the arrestee the grounds of ar- rest is mandatory in all offences under all statutes including offences under IPC 1860 (now BnS 2023).” “The requirement of informing the arrested person the grounds of arrest, in the light of and under article 22 (1) (Protection against arrest and detention in certain cases) of the »ConTinued on page 2 ‘You need not worry’: At SIR help How many times did she vote, asked Rahul about camps of TMC, voice of assurance voter with over 200 photos on rolls; once, she says On ground, the ruling party in Bengal sets up a network of camps, command An SIR help centre of the TMC in Hoara, North 24 Parganas. PArTHA PAuL ravik Bhattacharya Haroa (North 24 Parganas), Kolkata, November 5 aT The crossing of Golabari Bazar in haroa in north 24 Parganas district, a huge blue and white makeshift camp cannot be missed. Decorated with frills hanging from the ceiling, three tables are laid out inside the camp with a huge banner of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and her nephew and no.2 in the party, abhishek Banerjee, forming the backdrop. Rows of »ConTinued on page 2 The Indian Express tracked down 17 in Ambala village, at least 12 with valid ID say they voted in 2024 Haryana polls Sukhbir Siwach & abhimanyu hazarika Dhakola (Ambala), Sonipat, November 6 Not my fault that my photo appears several times... told them it should be fixed, hasn’t been done yet: Charanjeet Kaur. JASBIr MALHI CLaIMInG ThaT the 2024 assembly elections in haryana had been “stolen”, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi showed Wednesday a photograph of a woman which featured 223 times on the voter list in two booths during the polls. “The eC needs to tell us how many times she voted,” he said. The eC may not have responded to Gandhi, but sitting at her residence in Dhakola village in ambala district, 75-yearold Charanjeet Kaur has an answer: Voted just once. The Indian Express visited the village that suddenly finds itself in the spotlight after Gan- dhi’s press conference, and found that Charanjeet’s photograph does appear alongside the names of at least 255 voters in booth numbers 63 and 65 in Dhakola village, which has a total of 2,117 registered voters. But for many of the 255, this isn’t breaking news. The Indian Express tracked 17 such individuals and found »ConTinued on page 2 l PLAyERS END uP DISCoVERING NEW CITIES, DISCuSSING ToPICS FRoM SoCIoLoGy To PHILoSoPHy, MuSIC To CHESS At Chess World Cup, beyond the board, Grandmasters’ favourite move: A walk amit Kamath hours of being seated at one place, walking has spawned its own folklore in chess. Some aS The sun sets on the Goan Grandmasters talk about fivevillage of arpora and another time world champion Viswanaday at the FIDe World Cup than anand once ending up in ends, the road to Resort Rio, the another village while he went venue where most of the for a walk. It’s a fable that players are also staying, gets makes even anand chuckle busy. not with vehicles, but while dismissing it. he did add Grandmasters. They set off in though that whenever he little groups, many played the Tata pagE 1 wearing shorts and Steel Chess event in tracksuits that are a the Dutch town of far cry from their Wijk aan Zee, he alusual attire of custom-fitted ways walked on the rest days to suits. the neighbouring town of BeWhere are they headed? verwijk. Well, wherever their feet take “Beverwijk is about 6 km them. from Wijk. an hour to get there, For a sport that demands an hour back. Then, you also Arpora (Goa), November 6 anchor walk inside the town itself. There are many towns where I walk a lot, extremely long walks. Usually, I walk to relax,” anand tells The Indian Express. “In any city that has a riverbank, I’d go for a walk along that, like in Paris. In many German cities and towns, I would take extremely long walks and just let my mind wander. hopefully, you don’t get lost.” among the other top names here and the only player to win the World Cup twice, Levon aronian, too, is known to take long walks. “Three to four hours is normal for me. especially after games. at tournaments, I usually walk with close friends Grandmasters Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier Lagrave take their customary walk at the FIDE World Cup venue in Goa. AMIT KAMATH like (Russian Grandmasters) Boris Gelfand and Vladimir Kramnik. We’d discuss everything: sociology, philosophy, music, arts. Or just chess. Just talking, understanding things and changing opinions. Some of my best memories are about discovering cities with my friends while walking. They don't have any purpose, these walks. Just to see how the people in that city live. When you're a chess player, you're so focused on your work that you don't get to observe things, observe humans in their natural lives,” says the 43-year-old armenian Grandmaster. One such long walk in Goa in 2002 during the World Jun- Kolkata ior Championship, aronian says, changed his life. he spotted a temple and walked in. There, he met a stranger and, after a short conversation, decided to turn vegetarian, a decision he’s stood by since then. however, when world champion D Gukesh plays in India these days, walks are rarer because he’s constantly approached for selfies and autographs. But his father Rajinikanth says he walks “plenty” when abroad for tournaments. “I haven’t met a chess player who doesn’t like going for a walk,” says Tania Sachdev, the Grandmaster who has transitioned into commentary. “It’s a healing way to get your mind off things. I loved to walk before games when I used to play. If I am going out for lunch, I would pick a place that would require at least 20 minutes of walking. If there was a longer route to the playing venue from my hotel, I would take that. Walks have served every chess player in different ways.” Sometimes walks are also about having a brainwave. Koneru humpy says she reached the Women’s World Championship in 2011 because of an idea that popped up during one such walk. “During the 2011 Doha Women’s Grand Prix, the day before the final round match »ConTinued on page 2