The Editorial Page: Uddhav & Raj bury hatchet but can they refresh Brand Thackeray for future? 8 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2025 JOURNALISm of COURAGE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES ₹6.00 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 Happening today lTHE CONgRESS WORKINg Committee (CWC) will meet in New Delhi to chalk out an agitational programme seeking withdrawal of the VB-G RAM G Act, which replaced the UPAera MGNREGA. The VB-G RAM G Bill got the Presidential assent on December 21. lUTTAR PRAdESH Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will chair a two-day conference in Lucknow of senior police officers, focusing on challenges ranging from cybercrime and human trafficking to emerging issues such as social media. lCHIEf ELECTION Commis- sioner Gyanesh Kumar arrives in Odisha on a three-day visit, during which he will preside over a meeting of booth-level officers. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrESS.cOm RUN-UP TO CWg 2030 IN AHMEdAbAd fIRST REMARKS AfTER bNP LEAdER ENdS EXILE ANd ARRIVES IN dHAKA Delhi on Rahman return: Polls must Gujarat be free, inclusive and participatory CM on his Unremitting hostilities against minorities in Bangladesh: MEA divya A New Delhi, December 26 IN FIRST remarks on Bangladesh a day after BNP leader Tarique Rahman returned to Dhaka ending 17 years of selfexile, India said Friday that the homecomingshouldbeseenin the context of ensuring “free, fair,inclusiveandparticipatory elections” scheduled for February in the neighbouring country. Rahman, son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia who is ailing, is the BNP’s acting chairman and is tipped to be the next Prime Minister. His party is expected to come to power after the February 12 elections. Ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League has been barred from the polls. RandhirJaiswal,spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters: “India stands for strengthening our ties with the people of Bangladesh. We favour peace and stability in Bangladesh and have consistentlycalledforfree,fair, inclusive and participatory elections in Bangladesh.” Underlining the “unremitting hostilities” against minorities in Bangladesh and flag- BJP workers hold a protest in Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru on Friday against the alleged killing of a Hindu youth in Bangladesh. PTI gingit“asamatterofgraveconcern,” Jaiswal said India condemns the killing of a Hindu youth in Bangladesh. In Mymensingh, Dipu Chandra Das was beaten to death by a mob over alleged blasphemy, and his body was later set on fire on December 18. “Theunremittinghostilities against the minorities in Bangladesh including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists is a matter of grave concern. We condemn the recent killing of a Hindu youth in Bangladesh and expect that the perpetratorsofthecrimewillbebrought to justice,” he said. TensionsbetweenIndiaand Bangladeshescalatedlastweek following the death of July 2024 uprising leader Sharif Osman Hadi. He died on December 18, six days after he was shot in Dhaka. As protests erupted on both sides of the border, Delhi and Dhaka summonedeachother’senvoysearlier this week to express »CONTINUEd ON PAgE 2 RELATED REPORT, P 17 S.I.R. Of Of ELECTORAL ROLLS Bihar playbook gets Bengal pushback: Officials flag notices to electors sent by EC Atri Mitra, Ravik bhattacharya & damini Nath Kolkata, New Delhi, December 26 AS ELECTORAL Registration Officers (EROs) in West Bengal prepare to hold hearings from Saturday to decide whether lakhs of electors will remain on the rolls, an association of state service officers has flagged a seriousconcernoverthepotential of large-scale “systemdriven” deletions the EROs could be blamed for, despite not being involved in generating the notices. In a letter to West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal, with a copy to E. ExPLAINED ERO: Sole authority for voter deletion AT the heart of the issues raised by the West Bengal officers’ association is the claim that names of persons may be deleted from voters’ list without the knowledge of the Electoral Registration Officer - the competent authority to decide if a person is a legitimate voter. Chief Election Commissioner »CONTINUEd ON PAgE 2 New Delhi, December 26 OPPOSING THE Delhi High Court’s intervention in a PIL seeking GST reduction on air purifiersfrom18%to5%byclassifyingthemasmedicaldevices, the Centre said Friday that any judicialdirectionwillamountto thecourtsteppingintothelegislative domain and violating the Constitution’sbasicstructureof separation of powers. Statingthatentertainingthe petition will “open a Pandora’s box” and the government is “scaredfromtheconstitutional perspective”, Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman, appearing for the Centre, said thereisalreadyalegislativepro- Nation’s Pride President Droupadi Murmu with the winners of this year’s ‘Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar’, which recognises exceptional achievements of children between the age of 5 and 18, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday. PTI THE NATIONAL AWARdS were conferred on the occasion of Veer Bal Diwas, which commemorates the martyrdom of two sons of Guru Gobind Singh. 20 CHILdREN got the awards this year across categories: Bravery, Social Service, Environment, Sports, Art & Culture and Science & Technology. Business as Usual By EP UNNY Centre questions motive of PIL, says it will open a Pandora’s box cess involved in dealing with recommendationsmadeinParliamentary standing committee reports as well as how GST Councilmeetingsdeliberateon proposals. “How can this processbescuttledthroughacourt process?” he said. Advocate Kapil Madan, appearing as party-in-person in the PIL, has submitted in the petition that an air purifier can beclassifiedasamedicaldevice asperaFebruary11,2020notificationoftheMinistryofHealth and Family Welfare. Opposing the PIL and ques- Ritu Sharma & Leena Misra Gandhinagar, December 26 FIXING THE air quality index and public transport systems will be the Gujarat government’s top priority, along with setting up “international standard sports facilities”, as it prepares to host the Commonwealth Games 2030, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has told The Indian Express. In an exclusive interview, Patel detailed how his government was streamlining processes to meet deadlines and ensure delivery. “We are working closely with the United NationsEnvironmentProgramme to align our air quality index (AQI) with global public health benchmarks… The experience of successfully managing large crowds during major concerts, festivalsandculturaleventshas given us confidence in handlingthescaleandcomplexityof an international sporting event”, he said. “We aim at not justhostingeventssuccessfully, but to leave behind infrastruc- ExPrESS interview bHUPENdRA PATEL GUjARAT CHIEF MINISTER PAgE 4 ture that continues to improve everyday urban life long after the Games are over.” Patel’s government has also been aggressively hiring and fixing its governance and administration, largely based on recommendations of the Gujarat Administrative Reforms Commission (GARC) appointed early this year. His Cabinet saw an overhaul in October, with new ministers being sworn in along withaDeputyChiefMinisterin Harsh Sanghavi, who also »CONTINUEd ON PAgE 2 dELHI-MUMbAI EXPRESSWAY Any HC step on air purifier GST will violate basic structure: Govt Sohini ghosh priority: Fix AQI, build infra tioning the motive, the ASG said, “This is not a PIL at all… GST is only a ruse. This will openaPandora’sbox…Thereis a process. We will go through the process… filing a petition and getting a mandamus (a court order) issued asking the GSTCounciltosaythisorthat… , we are scared from the constitutional perspective, it is the doctrine of separation of powers… We can’t give a committed date (on the GST Council meeting) (but) we certainly see an agenda (by the »CONTINUEd ON PAgE 2 PM NARENdRA MOdI, speaking at a Veer Bal Diwas event, said the country should resolve to rid itself of 'slave mentality' in the next 10 years. PAgE 12 Sengar order perverse: CBI challenges HC finding, moves SC His release will jeopardise victim, family: Agency Ananthakrishnan g New Delhi, December 26 THe BIG PICTURe In Kerala, a mob and its many faces PAgE 14 DESCRIBING THE Delhi High Court order suspending the life sentence of Unnao rape case convict Kuldeep Singh Sengar as “contrary to law” and “perverse”, the CBI Friday moved the Supreme Court, challenging the HC finding that he was not a public servant when he Unnao rape case convict Kuldeep Singh Sengar committed the offence. In its appeal against the December 23 order which led to public outrage and protests including by the victim and her family, the CBI said the HC »CONTINUEd ON PAgE 2 ‘Negligible progress’: NHAI notice to firm on ending contract for expressway work ‘Intent-to-terminate’ notice to Pune contractor for 35-km stretch in Gujarat dheeraj Mishra New Delhi, December 26 THE NATIONAL Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued an “intent to terminate notice” to Pune-based contractor Roadway Solutions India Infra Ltd (RSIIL), citing “negligible financial progress” in the 35-km Jujuwa-Gandeva section (Package 8) of the DelhiMumbai Expressway in Gujarat, derailing the entire 1,386-km project. On December 18, The IndianExpressreportedthata87kmstretchinGujarat,whichincluded the Jujuwa-Gandeva section, had derailed the Rs 1.04 lakh crore project. It was one of the two packages re-awarded to the company after scrapping the contract over delay in works. The Indian Express report dated Dec 18 on the delay in the project On December 23, a 23-page letter was sent to the RSIIL, giving it 15 days to respond. In its letter, the NHAI said the contractor could achieve only 4.5 per cent financial progress despite the lapse of 16 months fromthedateofappointmentor thecontractor’sstartdatewhich wasAugust31,2024.“Asperthe 18monthscontract,theprogress shouldhavebeen70percenttill date… but there has been negligible progress,” it stated. »CONTINUEd ON PAgE 2 lTHE PROJECT WILL BE DEVELOPED BY NHPC LIMITED AT AN ESTIMATED COST OF RS 3277.45 CRORE Indus Treaty on hold, green nod for another hydel project on Chenab Nikhil ghanekar utes of the panel’s December 19 meeting. The project will be develAMID THE Centre’s push to oped by the NHPC Limited at expedite pending infrastruc- an estimated cost of Rs 3277.45 ture projects in the Indus crore. basin, the Environment MinThe 390-MW Dulhasti-I is istry’s sectoral exa run-of-the river PAGE 1 pert appraisal comscheme, and was mittee (EAC) on commissioned in hydel projects has 2007 by NHPC Ltd. recommended Dulhasti-II will utilise the clearance for the 260-MW existing dam, reservoir, power Dulhasti Stage-II project on intake of the Stage-I project, the Chenab river in the Kish- and draw water from the Matwar district of Jammu and rusudar river, a tributary of Kashmir, according to min- the Chenab, via the Pakal New Delhi, December 26 anchor l DulhastiHEP-II dulhasti-I Chenab river dulhasti-II KishtwarManali road Kishtwar Dul project. While giving its nod, the panel noted that the water of the Chenab basin is shared between India and Pakistan, in accordance with provisions of the Indus Water Treaty, 1960, and parameters of the project were planned in accordance with the treaty. “However, the Indus Water Treaty stands suspended effective from 23rd April, 2025,” the panel noted in the minutes. India put the IWT in abeyance after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack earlier this year. Under the treaty, Pakistan controlled the waters of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab while India controlled Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. ‘ After the IWT was put in abeyance, the Centre has moved to expedite several hydroelectric projects in the Indus basin such as Sawalkote, Ratle, Bursar, Pakal Dul, Kwar, Kiru, Kirthai-I and II. The clearance will be subject to general and some specific conditions, including development of a river conservation strategy to mitigate the impacts of hydrologi- cal alterations due to the operations of Dulhasti-II and Pakal Dul dam. “It was noted that the Dulhasti Stage-II HEP is planned to utilise surplus water to be diverted from the Marusudar river through the Pakal-Dul powerhouse into the Dulhasti reservoir. Downstream of diversion of Pakal Dul HEP, about 25 km stretch of Marusudar river will undergo significant hydrological alteration upon commissioning of the Pakal Dul Hydroelectric Project,” the committee noted. In light of this, it directed a structured river conservation strategy, covering aspects related to robust environmental flow regimes, restoration and maintenance of channel morphology, protection and conservation of aquatic and riparian biodiversity. The Chenab basin already has three operational projects: the 390-MW Dulhasti-I at Kishtwar, the 890-MW Baglihar at Ramban, and the 690MW Salal at Reasi. Other projects under con- struction on Chenab include the Ratle (850 MW), Kiru (624 MW), Kwar (540 MW). The Dulhasti Stage-II project will require an area of 60.3 hectares, according to information submitted to the EAC. A public hearing was conducted on August 22 in Banzwar village, where the powerhouse is proposed. Private land spread over 8.26 hectares will be acquired from 62 families in Banzwar and Palmar villages of Kishtwar. Ahmedabad