The Editorial Page: Busan offers India a moment to read both China and itself 12 MONdAY, NOvEMBER 10, 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 lfinance minister kickstarts pre-Budget meetings with economists and agricultural sector representatives. lsupreme court will hear pleas challenging the tribunals Reforms act, 2021. the case brings to fore parliament’s powers to alter the appointment process of tribunal members. l india, us, australia and Japan — the four Quad countries — begin the annual Malabar naval exercise in northern pacific. It comes amid strain in India-uS ties over trump tariffs. l olympics bronze winner Manu Bhaker will be in action at ISSf World championships in cairo, her first since paris 2024. Business as Usual By EP UNNY results of high-stakes battle on november 14 Bihar election campaign ends, 122 seats vote in last phase tomorrow In back-to-back rallies, Shah, Rahul, Tejashwi reiterate charges, counter-charges vikas pathak Patna, November 9 cAMpAiGninG EnDED for thesecondandlastphaseofthe Bihar Assembly elections on sunday, two days before 122 of the 243 seats in the state — covering parts of Mithila, Kosi belt, western Bihar, Magadh, Angika and seemanchal regions — go to the polls. The first phase of the Assembly elections on november 6, in which voting for 121 seats tookplace,sawarecordturnout of 64.66 per cent. As seemanchal has shown a trend of higher voting in the past, all eyes will be on whether the final phase also sees a record turnout. counting of votes will take place on november 14. The state's overall turnout Prohibition sharpens divides: From families to castes and parties Opp’s vote bank politics led them to attempt to build ghuspaithiya corridor... Narendra Modi is setting up an industrial corridor.” In Bihar... I can say with certainty (INDIA bloc) is going to form government... But you must prevent BJP from vote theft.” amit shah, rahul gandhi, unIon hoMe MInISteR leadeR of oppoSItIon In lS decision 2025 bihar ReP0Rts, Page 7 in the 2020 Assembly elections was 57.29 per cent; it was 57.28 per cent in the 2024 Lok sabha elections. As the nDA looks to continue to helm thestate,therJD and congress are hoping to break JD(U) leader nitish Kumar'salmost 20-year-runas Bihar's chief Minister. While the rJD in alliance with the JD(U) won the 2015 Bihar elections, the alliance broke soon after. now, rJD leader Tejashwi yadav, »continued on page 2 at Musahar tola in west champaran’s poor house. deeptIMan tIWaRy deeptiman tiwary Muzaffarpur, Siwan, Champaran, November 9 in rEWA village, on the banks of the Budhi Gandak river in Muzaffarpur, 35-year-old Lallan sahani and his friends sit outside his house, discussing how chief Minister nitish Kumar’s prohibition policy has “wreaked havoc” across Bihar. “nitish Kumar has done good work during his tenure. This (prohibition) is the only mistake he has made. Liquor is stillavailable,justmoreexpensive. And those who drink end up in jail. Only the poor suffer,” says sahani, as his friends nod in agreement. »continued on page 2 Jal Jeevan graft crackdown: Action against officials in 15 states & UTs, mainly from UP harikishan sharma l AcTiOn hAs been taken againstatleast596officials,822 contractorsand152Thirdparty inspection Agencies (TpiAs) across 15 states and Union Territories following complaints receivedaboutfinancialirregularitiesandpoorqualityofwork under the centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission for supplying drinking water through individual tap connections to rural households, The Indian Express has learnt. sourcestoldthisnewspaper that seven related cases were being examined by the cBi, Lokayukta and other anti-corruption agencies. Together,these15statesand UTsreceived16,634complaints and submitted inquiry reports in16,278cases,thesourcessaid. Uttar pradesh topped the listincomplaintsreceivedwith 14,264 — over 85 per cent of the total so far — while Assam came a distant second with 1,236 followed by Tripura (376). Up was also in the top bracket when it came to action taken against officials and contractors. The state took action against 171 officials followed by Govt officials 596 822 152 Capital’s Air of Protest rajasthan (170) and Madhya pradesh (151). in action taken against contractors, Tripura was at the top (376) followed by Up (143) and West Bengal (142). The 15 states and UTs that have submitted information in this regard also included chhattisgarh, Gujarat, haryana,Jharkhand,Ladakh,Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Uttarakhand. The response from states followed a directive in October from the Department of Drinking Water and sanitation (DDWs), which oversees the scheme under the Ministry of Jal shakti, months after the centre deployed over 100 teams of nodal officers for “ground inspection” of JJM schemes across the country. On May 21, The Indian Express published the findings of its investigation of data uploadedbystatesandUTsonthe JJM dashboard, which showed how changes in the Mission’s guidelinesthreeyearsagolifted a crucial check on expenditure and led to cost escalations. The investigation found that this »continued on page 2 FULL REPORT On WWW.InDIAnEXPRESS.COM ThE 30Th edition of the conference of parties to the Un Frameworkconventionon climate change (cOp30), the annualtwo-weekclimatetalksbeginning in Belem, Brazil, on Monday, is as much about restoring the credibility of this Un-mandatednegotiatingprocess as it is about saving global climate. it’s now been more than 30 years that countries have been gettingtogethertodeliberateon a coordinated global response to climate change. While thousands of climate-positive actionshavebeeninitiated as a result, these have so far had minimal impact on arresting the steady rise of global temperatures. Emissions of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of global warming, are still on the rise. And, at the current pace of climate action, the world cannot even pretend to get anywhere close to a 2030 targetofreducingemissionsby 43 per cent on 2019 levels. developing nations are unhappy over insufficient climate finance from developed countries. ap Developing countries have been extremely unhappy at their concerns not getting adequatelyaddressed,particularly those relating to finance and technology that the developed countries are obligated toprovidethem.Andthe United states, the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, has walked out of the paris Agreement again, without facing any consequences. “There is a disappointment with the process no doubt. And it is mainly because of the fact that the developed nations, particularly the Us, have not E. manoj more Third-party agencies the May 21 Express report on how changes in JJM guidelines 3 years ago lifted a crucial check on expenditure and led to cost escalations New Delhi, November 9 Pune, November 9 FAcinGAcTion Pvt contractors amitabh sinha »continued on page 2 Pune land deal: Ajit Pawar defends son, blames sub-registrar rural household Water scheme New Delhi, November 9 COP30 begins today in Brazil: Limited outcomes so far, focus on implementation at a protest against the deteriorating air quality in the delhi-ncR region, near india gate on Sunday. the capital’s daily average aQi stood at 370, placing it in the ‘very poor’ category. ap RePoRt, Page 6 MAhArAshTrA DEpUTy chief Minister Ajit pawar sunday stepped out once again to defend his son parth pawar, whosefirmisfacingallegations ofirregularitiesinthepurchase of 44 acres of land in pune, and sought to blame the sub-registrarforregisteringthesaledeed. “how did the individual in thesub-registrar'sofficeregister the deed? What prompted him todotheregistrationanddothe wrong thing? We will come to know through the probe (ordered by chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis),” he said. insisting that no sale had takenplace,hesaid,“Withouta rupee (exchanged)... only by givingfiguresandpapers,ihave notunderstoodtilldatehowthe transaction can take place.” The revenue department hassuspendedthesub-registrar involved, ravindra Taru, for alleged irregularities in the registration of the 44-acre “Mahar watan” land on behalf of Amadea Enterprises LLp in which parth pawar is a partner along with his relative Digvijay patil. The Opposition has alleged thatthelandvaluedataboutrs 1,800crorewassoldillegallyfor just rs 300 crore, and that stamp duty worth rs 21 crore was waived. »continued on page 2 ‘How can we rush back like this’: Mumbai to Kochi, workers from Bengal worry over SIR express news service Kochi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, November 9 EvEr sincE the special intensiverevisionbeganinWestBengal this month, Jairul Mandal has had only one thing on his mind: getting home in time to get his name on the voter list. A construction worker in Angamaly in Kerala’s Ernakulam district,the28-year-oldhasbeen gettinganxiouscallsfromfamily asking when he plans to return. But Mandal doesn’t have the money to travel. “The (enumeration) forms have already comeandwe’reafraidthatifwe don’t take part in the process, we’ll miss the vote,” he said. it’s a fear shared among West Bengal migrants across india.Astheelectoralrollsrevision gets underway in the state ahead of next year’s Assembly polls, migrant workers from West Bengal are scrambling to find documents and head back home in time for the enumer- ation. Whilethereisnowanoption to fill the form online, many are unsure how to go about it or say that they need to head back home to get their documents in order. On October 27, the Election commission announced the scheduleforsirin12statesand Union Territories, including West Bengal. it said the process of submitting enumeration forms would take place between november 4 and »continued on page 2 INSIDE ‘S.I.R. panIc’ SIngeS SonagachI, Sex WoRkeRS feaR loSIng votIng RIghtS tMc leadeRS StaRt MeetIng faMIlIeS of thoSe Who dIed of ‘S.I.R. panIc’: ‘We WIll help theM’ WoMan, chIld cRItIcal afteR ‘SuIcIde BId’, kIn Say dIdn’t get S.I.R. foRM ‘English-speaking people bought the narrative that if it is one party in govt from top to bottom, work will be done’ saurabh bharadWaj page 5 Page 11 delhI aap pReSIdent l SoftwaRe hackS focuS of cRackdown by Railway pRotection foRce How gangs use ‘Brahmos’, ‘Tesla’ & ‘Avengers’ to scoop up train tickets mohamed thaver tion Force (rpF) on inter-state gangs comprising developers, online admins, “super sellers” iT is all over in a matter of and touts, The Indian Express seconds. has learnt. When the online window to Explaining how the system book tickets on long-distance works,anofficialsaidthataday trains opens at 8 am, all it takes before the booking is open onfor unauthorised software pro- line, details like name and age grammes, such as of a person wanting PAGe 1 ‘Brahmos’, ‘Tesla’, to reserve a ticket is ‘Avengers’ and ‘Dr taken by the tout Doom’, to fill in the who has a “memberrequireddetailsis15seconds— ship” in these high-end sysleaving thousands of other tems from “super sellers” who ticket-seekers stranded. oversee entire divisions. Thesesoftwarehacks,given “At 8 am, these systems are “trendy names” by developers set in motion. The software is so that they can “easily be re- coded in such a manner that called”, are the focus of a crack- they manage parallel activities down by the railway protec- simultaneously as against the Mumbai, November 9 anchor linear and longer progress that is followed by a normal person booking tickets online,” the official said. “A person will fill in details, then get an OTp, then fill in the captchacode.Thesoftwarewill have pre-filled information of a personuploaded.AnOTpisgenerated and fed into the system evenasthecaptchacodeisfilled — all at the same time. Within 10-15 seconds, the ticket is booked while manually it will takemoretime,”theofficialsaid. When contacted, senior Divisional security commissioner, Mumbai, rishi shukla told The Indian Express: “The rpF is constantly on the alert forsuchticketingscamsandwe TickeTsbooked in15seconds l day before booking, touts feed passengers’ details — such as name, age —into the software at 8 am next day, when the online booking window opens, these softwares upload the prefilled details on the IRctc website in parallel, an otp is generated and fed into the system, along with a captcha code Within 10-15 seconds, a train ticket is booked Railway officials say they have started taking various steps to tackle the menace. fIle have made several arrests in connection with such cases.” According to national payments corporation of india (npci) rules, OTps should not be automatically read by any system and captcha codes are meanttoensurebotsdon’tsubvert the process. “But unauthorised systems have managed to bypass these security measures...they keep advancing with various systems like Avengers, spaceX, Dr Doom.WhileTeslahasbeenactive since the past six months, Brahmos has come in a month back. While super sellers sell these software systems for rs 1,500-rs2,500permonthwithout any limit on tickets, Brahmos, which is advanced, charges rs 99 per pnr. One pnr can have six passengers and four in tatkal,” another official said. Outlining the profit margins, the official said one sleeper pnr costing rs 800 is given by these touts for rs 2,000 and the prices go up by many times during festive seasons for trains going to states in north india like Up and Bihar. “Forexample,inthirdAc,what would cost rs 2,300 would go uptors4,000,”theofficialsaid. railway officials say they have started taking various steps to tackle the menace — fromlettingpaymentsbemade only 35 seconds after 8 am to allowingonlyAadhaar-verified iDs to book tickets. “Ever since Aadhaar verification has been made compulsory for booking iDs, the demand for such iDs has gone up intheblackmarket.Earlier,you had to pay rs 30 to get an iD (to bemisusedforbookings).itnow costs rs 500,” the official said. Besides, the rpF’s iT cell registered10casesthisyearand 25-30 last year related to illegal booking of tickets. in all, nearly 50peoplehavebeenarrestedso far, including “super sellers”, touts and developers. in two key cases, for which thetrialareonincourts,the developers were traced to villages »continued on page 2 Kolkata