The Ideas Page: Trump-Xi summit’s message to India — build your own leverage 11 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2025 JOuRNALISm of COuRAGE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 24 PAGES ₹5.00 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 , L U 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 UNION CABINET RESOLUTION UNDERLINES ZERO TOLERANCE FOR TERROR Heinous terror incident, will bring the perpetrators to justice: Govt Three more J&K doctors questioned; Umar, who drove i20 car to Red Fort, spoke of ‘spectacular’ attacks: probe Happening today FROM SHOPIAN AND FARIDABAD Before and after Red Fort blast, two clerics arrested, 800 km apart lTHE GUJARAT CONGRESS will on Thursday conclude the ‘Kisan Aakrosh Yatra’ that began on November 6, covering Saurashtra region, at Dwarka. The party is demanding complete waiver of farmers’ loans, along with free fodder for cattle. The Yatra began from Gir Somnath after the major crop losses to farmers due to the unseasonal rainfall post Diwali. Siddharth Upasani Returning from Bhutan Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met those injured in the Red Fort car explosion. He later chaired meetings of the Union Cabinet and Cabinet Committee on Security to review the probe progress. ANI RELATED REPORTS, PAGES 4, 19 Divya A & Bashaarat Masood BANGLADESH IS on alert as the country’s International Crimes Tribunal will announce its verdict in the case filed against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on charges of crimes against humanity. ● New Delhi, Srinagar, November 12 AS INVESTIGATORS widened theprobeintothecarexplosion near the Red Fort on May 10 whichtheymaintainedwasthe handiwork of a terror module busted days earlier, the Union Cabinet Wednesday called it “a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces” and directed that the investigation “be pursued with the utmost urgency and professionalism so that the perpetrators, ● FRANCE wILL take on Ukraine in a World Cup football qualifier in Paris Thursday, the 10th anniversary of the Paris terror attacks that traumatised the nation. France will qualify for next year’s World Cup if it wins. THAILAND’S KING Maha Vajiralongkorn arrives in Beijing, the first reigning Thai monarch to make a state visit to China. ● their collaborators, and their sponsors are identified and brought to justice without delay”. Meeting hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return from an official visit to Bhutan,theCabinet,whilepaying its respects to the victims of “this senseless act of violence” and conveying its condolences to the families, condemned “this dastardly and cowardly act” and reiterated “India’s unwaveringcommitmenttoapolicy of zero tolerance towards terrorism in all its forms and Wagay’s house in Nadigam in Shopian, J&K. He was taken away by police on October 18. (right) the mosque on the Al Falah campus in Faridabad where Ishtiyaq was a cleric. NAVEED IQBAL, ABHIMANYU HAZARIKA Wagay indoctrinated terror module members, say police; room where explosives were found belonged to Ishtiyaq Naveed Iqbal & Abhimanyu Hazarika Shopian, Faridabad, November 12 Two clerics, 800 kilometres apart – in Kashmir’s Shopian and Haryana’s Faridabad – are among those arrested by the J&K police in the alleged terror module that has now been linked to the Red Fort blast. ExPREss exclusive While one, police claim, indoctrinated some in the module, theotherrentedhispremisesto a doctor who allegedly stockpiled explosives there. In Shopian’s Nadigam area, the family and colleagues of cleric Irfan Ahmad Wagay never had an inkling he was on the police radar. “I have never seenhimdoanythingbutpray,” said his wife, Fatima, sitting at their home. Wagay, locally known as “mufti sahab”, is one of the seven men who were arrested beforetheRedFortblastaspart of the J&K police’s probe into »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Gujarat ATS searches Hyderabad doctor’s house, seizes chemicals & raw material Mahender Singh Manral & Sakshi Chand By EP UNNY Hyderabad,Ahmedabad, November 12 New Delhi, November 12 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE agencies have found that a red Ford EcoSport car believed to be owned by Dr Umar Nabi, the prime suspect in the blast near Red Fort on Monday evening, was registered using a wrong address in Northeast Delhi’s Genderturnoutgap 47.02 54.94 53.32 44.49 38.32 1977 62.8 2025 2015 2020 2010 2005-Oct SOURCE: ELECTION COMMISSION 2005-Feb 1995 2000 1985 1990 1980 1972 1967 32.47 1962 22 41.43 1969 30 60.48 55.8 45.63 38 (in %) 71.6 62.86 62 46 Female turnout Male turnout ■ 61.49 65.81 67.13 70 54 ■ New Seelampur on one of his ID documents, The Indian Express has learnt. Following the lead, sources said, investigators reached the area and found that two medical students from Al Falah Medical College in Faridabad’s Dhauj, who stayed in the same locality, had allegedly been in contact with Umar. Both of »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Sreenivas Janyala & Brendan Dabhi ASPARTofitsprobeintothealleged Ricin terror plot, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) conducted searches at the residence of the arrested Hyderabad doctor on Tuesday and Wednesday, said officers. Sources said Cyberabad police personnel observed from a dis- tance as the ATS team seized unidentified chemicals and rawmaterialincartonsfromDr Ahmed Mohiuddin Saiyed’s flat in Rajendranagar. A team from the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) searched the home – that was also a 'workshop' – of 35-yearold Saiyed, main accused in an allegedbio-terrorplotusingthe deadly chemical agent, Ricin. The team found “substances and material” that will be sent totheForensicScienceLaboratory for tests. Sources told The Indian Express that primarily it appeared, on the basis of interrogationoftheaccused,thathe had not yet successfully isolated the toxin from Castor beans (Ricinus communis) before his arrest in Gujarat and neither had he decided what delivery mechanism to use in the purported bio-terror attack »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Bihar women shatter records, turnout 8.8 percentage points more than men Anjishnu Das New Delhi, November 12 AT THE close of polling on Tuesday in the Bihar Assembly elections, the state not only notched its highest-ever voter turnout, but also saw women set a new record in voting. Against the overall turnout of a record 66.91%, the voting percentage among women voters was 71.6%, as much as 8.8 per- centage points more than the 62.8%turnoutamongmenand the largest ever gap. In terms of absolute numberstoo,womenappearto have out-voted men in Bihar, which would be a first for the state. After the Election Commission’s (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, which incidentally saw more deletions among women voters than men, Bihar had3.93croremenelectorsand 3.51 women voters – a gap of 42.34 lakh. While the EC has not released data on the absolute number of men and women who voted across the two phases in Bihar, the turnout percentages shared by it indicate that 2.52 crore women voted compared to 2.47 crore men – a difference of 5 lakh. Womenhavenowout-voted CONSUMER PRICES rose a mere 0.25 per cent in October compared with the same month last year as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate cuts and a favourable base effect helped drive down the retail inflation rate to an all-time low, according to government data released Tuesday. Rural inflation was in the negative territory for the first time ever, with overall consumer prices 0.25 per cent lower in October compared to last year. In urban areas, retail prices were up 0.88 per cent. The fall in inflation to unprecedented levels could increase pressure on the Reserve Bank of India to lower interest E. ExPlAINED Will RBI lean more towards growth? A combined impact of a favourable base effect, sharp fall in food prices, and GST rate cuts, resulted in the lowest-ever inflation rate. For the full year, experts expect it to average around 2 per cent. With this data in hand, the RBI’s monetary policy committee will meet two weeks from now, with a key question in hand — can interest rates be cut further to support growth. rates next month. The central bank’s six-member Monetary PolicyCommittee(MPC)leftthe policyreporateunchangedat5.5 per cent for the second meeting inarowonOctober1afterhaving slashed it by 50 basis points in June. The committee is scheduledtonextmeetDecember3-5. The previous all-time low forheadlineretailinflationwas »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ExPREss interview SHEIKH HASINA FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF BANGLADESH P16 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Prime suspect Umar gave wrong address in Delhi to register own car Business as Usual 78 Food 5% cheaper compared with last October, pressure on RBI to cut rates New Delhi, November 12 ● JAN SUNwAIS (public hearings) will be held at over 56,000 Adi Sewa Kendras in the country. It aims to provide a platform for grievance redressal and multi-department service delivery. ● GST effect: Retail prices rose just 0.25% in October, the lowest ever men in all the last five AssemblyelectionsinBihar,withtheir turnout rising at a much faster clip than men’s. The phenomenon started in the 2005 polls, when JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar was voted as Chief Minister for the first time. The 2015 elections, by which time Nitish had earned a loyal base among women due to his government’s schemes, »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Amid US tariff hit, Cabinet clears 6-yr Rs 25,000 crore export mission Rs 20,000 crore also approved as collateral-free credit access to exporters Ravi Dutta Mishra New Delhi, November 12 AMID pressure on goods exports to the US due to high 50 percenttariffs,theUnionCabinet on Wednesday extended additional credit facilities up to Rs 20,000 crore to exporters, and also approved a six-year ExportPromotionMissionwith an outlay of Rs 25,060 crore announced in the Budget this year. The decision comes at a time when the impact of tariffs has begun to show with shipments to the US in September decliningby12percent.Engineering goods exports, which make up nearly a quarter of India’s total goods outbound shipments, dropped 9.4 per cent to the US, official data showed. Steep 50 per cent US tariffs came into effect on August 27. After the China-US trade deal, tariffs on India are the highest globally. Under EPM, priority support will be extended to sectors impactedbyrecentglobaltariff escalations, such as textiles, leather, gems & jewellery, engineering goods, and marine products. The interventions will help sustain export orders, protectjobs,andsupportdiversification into new geographies, a statement released by the Cabinet said. “The scheme is focused on the availability of credit and reducing the cost of credit, and focuses on MMSE exporters so that they can expand to newer export markets,” Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l LOPSIDED PAIRINGS IN EXPANDED TOURNAMENT POOL Triple ton in 3 hrs, eight 6s in a row: Bizarre records, calls rise for Ranji rethink Lalith Kalidas buried and beleaguered by defeats and more defeats. Last Sunday, Akash vaulted over all EIGHT CONSECUTIVE sixes, of first-class cricket history an 11-ball half-century, a triple spanning 250 years, etching a hundred in just over three feat no man has ever achieved hours,a1,008-runinningslead, beforeinthegame.Alegendary and a winning margin of 725 band of Garry Sobers, Mike runs.Overthepastsevenyears, Procter, and Ravi Shastri were hordes of First-Class world rec- pulled down by Akash's hour ordshavecometumblingdown under the Surat skies. by lopsided pairings Going 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, PAGE 1 in the expanded 6, 6, 6 against ArunRanji Trophy pool achal Pradesh's involving fledgling Limar Dabi and teams from the Northeast. Hyderabad-born T N R Mohit, For six years and 30 first- Meghalaya's No. 8 bat became class matches, Akash Kumar the first player to smash eight Choudhary'sdreamswerecon- consecutive sixes in first-class fined to the little-known cricket and break the record for cricketing world of Meghalaya, the fastest-ever fifty in the New Delhi, November 12 anchor format in 11 deliveries. Sobers recorded the first instance of six 6s in a first-class over in England’s premier CountyChampionshipin1968, 17yearsbeforeShastrimatched the feat by belting Baroda’s Tilak Raj in a 1984-85 Ranji outing for what was then Bombay. Akash’s ascent may be off-putting for the connoisseurs -- it transpired at the open C K Pithawala Ground against a firstclasssidethathastastedvictory only once in 40 matches, suffering 35 outright losses. It's not just Arunachal. One among the nine teams that have taken flight under the BCCI since the 2018-19 season, following the Lodha Commit- Meghalaya players celebrate during a Ranji Trophy Plate group fixture against Sikkim last month. MEGHALAYA CRICKET tee reforms, Meghalaya too has yettorealisea high-profilewin. As the newly inducted Northeastteamscontinuetobe a springboard for feats bordering on the bizarre, 25-year-old Akash isn’t the first to gun down lofty records in such Ranji contests and, former playerssay,certainlywillnotbe the last. Former BCCI GM of cricket and operations, Saba Karim, said the integration of secondtierRanjigamesundertheFirst Class umbrella warrants a rethink. “With so many teams (38) in contention in the Ranji Trophy,thequalityofthestructure is diluted. It may not be a bad idea to have these Plate division games in Tier 2... they can attain First Class status once they are promoted to the Elite division,” Karim told The Indian Express. The promotion-relegation of the lower-ranked sides remains“tricky”,nevertheless,as the former India wicket-keeper puts it. In the current Ranji Trophy system, the two bottom-ranked teams are relegated from the Elite division every season, while the Plate finalists replace them in the top tier the following year. Consequently, the promotion of Northeast teams and the slide ofestablishedEliteteamsdown the order contribute to similar otherworldly feats. In the Mumbai-Uttarakhand quarter-final in the 202223 season, the record Ranji champions hammered the opposition by a staggering 725 runs -- the highest win margin in the history of First Class cricket across the world. In the pre-quarter fixture of the same season, Jharkhand crushed a fledgling Nagaland by setting a never-before target, 1009. After their stunning stumble from the Elite group, Hyderabadbutcheredthecompetition in the Plate group in 2023-24,withtheiropenerTanmay Agarwal breaking a multitude of first-class records in a singleday.FacingArunachalin »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad