The Editorial Page: Energy transition will need more than chasing the sun or the wind 8 SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAGE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 18 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 lUNION HOME MINISTER Amit Shah will be in the Andamans to chair a meeting of the Ministry’s parliamentary consultative committee. During the visit, he is also scheduled to attend an event on the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. lTHIS YEAR’S FIRST FULL Moon will be seen in the sky. It will also be the Supermoon, meaning the Moon would be at its closest to the Earth around its path. It will be visible from India after sunset. lANOTHER EDITION OF the men’s Hockey India League begins, with the tournament shifting into three venues this year. Tamil Nadu Dragons will be in action in Chennai, taking on last year’s finalists, Hyderabad Toofans. Match starts at 7.30 pm. lPAKISTAN’S DEPUTY PRIME Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar begins his 3-day visit to China, during which he will co-chair the Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue. 10 DEAD FROM CONTAMINATED DRINKING WATER BOARD OF TRADE MEETING Behind Indore deaths, civic collapse, health Exports hurt: system struggling with deluge of patients States flag HC directs supply of water through tankers Over 66,000 screened; many first rushed to small clinics barely equipped to deal with crisis Anand Mohan J New Delhi, January 2 Anand Mohan J New Delhi, January 2 THE SURGE began as a trickle assixpatientswereadmittedat Bhagirathpura’sUrbanPrimary HealthCentreonDecember28. Within48hours,thattricklebecame a deluge as outpatient clinicssawnumbersjumpfrom 129 to over 300 in a single day. Within a week, a hurriedly Residents affected by the contaminated water at Bhagirathpura in Indore on Friday. PTI BJP UNDER FIRE, CM STEPS IN, PAGE 10 mobilised army of health workers had screened 66,107 people across nearly 13,000 households. These were the scenes playing out in a densely populated neighbourhood in Indore, which has time and again topped the rankings of Indian cities for its cleanliness and management.Exceptthistime, the contamination of drinking waterbywastefromatoilethad »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 HEARINGApublicinterestlitigation in connection with the deaths linked to contaminated drinking water in Indore’s Bhagirathpura, the Madhya PradeshHighCourthasordered the municipal corporation to supplyadditionalwatertankers and urged authorities to “uphold the beauty of Indore”. ADivisionBenchofJustices Dwarkadhish Bansal and RajendraKumarVanidirectedthe municipal corporation and the By EP UNNY Exporters say raw materials 15-20% more expensive than global prices Ravi Dutta Mishra EDarrests GujaratIAS officerin PMLAcase P 15 Express News Service Rajkot, January 2 THE HEADQUARTERS Investigation Unit (HIU) of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Delhi,onFridayarrestedIASofficer Rajendra Mahendra Patel, a former District Collector of Surendranagar, from his residence in the district in connection with a case registered recently under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. Later in the day, the 2015batch officer was produced in a Special PMLA court in Ahmedabad (Rural) that remanded him in the ED's custody for five days. SAUDI jETS HIT UAE-BACKED gROUPS IN SOUTH YEMEN TRUMP WARNS IRAN OVER CRACKDOWN AS PROTESTS gROW NATION PAgE 11 BAgHEL’S SON gETS BAIL IN LIqUOR SCAM Magh Mela Begins Today Boats anchored at the Sangam in Prayagraj on Friday, a day before the start of the annual Magh Mela. PTI REPORT, PAGE 4 Podium to playground: How big medals fuelled excellence in javelin, shooting, badminton Pal. A former 400m runner, Pal spotted Misti during the pandemic lockdown and convinced Sanjay to let him coach his daughter free of cost. “And I madehimapromise—tomake Misti an ‘India’ athlete,” Pal says. “Like Neeraj Chopra.” Big jumps in disciplines where Indians emerged as world beaters; in javelin, 125% spike in women’s participation Mihir Vasavda Mumbai, January 2 AT JUST 12, Misti Karmakar’s days began before dawn. By 3.30 am, she was on her bike, pedalling 4 km through the silent streets of West Bengal’s Malda, a javelin in tow, to write her story in the morning sky. Raising an athlete daughter l was a struggle for Sanjay Karmakar, a hawker at the Malda railway station. On a good day, he would earn Rs 500; just enough to feed the family and keep hope flickering. But when it came to Misti’s future, there would be no compromise. “She comes from a very modest background but is rich intalent,”saysMisti’scoachAsit »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE BIG PICTURE Participation in National Javelin Day, to celebrate Neeraj Chopra’s Olympics gold, has grown from 700 in 2022 to 4,974 in 2025. AP FILE As champions rise, a wave follows P 13 E. New Delhi, January 2 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm ThE wOrlD Business as Usual facility and testing gaps Rajendra Patel was transferred without posting last week. Anirudh Kamboj, Special PublicProsecutorappearingfor the ED, told The Indian Express, “We sought 10-day remandbutthecourtgrantedfive days’ custody... till 5 pm on January 7.” This comes a week after a deputymamlatdar(revenueofficial) was arrested and remained in ED remand for seven days which ended on January1,followingwhichhewas sent to judicial custody. On December 23, 2025, a zero FIR was filed under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act at the ACB police station in Ahmedabad, on the basis of which an FIR was registeredattheACBpolicestation in Surendranagar. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ExPlAINED IT’SNOTjusthighUStariffsthat arehurtingexports.Costlierraw Feedback from materials,shortageoftestingfastates, exporters cilities to ensure products meet global quality standards, and IN THE Board of Trade meetlack of adequate shipping con- ing, representatives from tainers are all leading to loss of states and the industry, as competitiveness of goods ex- well as key Central minisports,UnionCommerceandIn- tries, provide the Commerce dustryMinistrysaidinresponse Ministry with specific inputs toanRighttoInformation(RTI) to boost exports and trade. In application. November, more than 120 These challenges were representatives provided flagged by exporters in a meet- suggestions on the hurdles ingoftheBoardofTradechaired they faced. byUnionCommerceandIndustryMinisterPiyush Goyal on Novemof 50 per cent, and YOur rIGhT ber 25. The BoT is both countries failan advisory body ing to conclude a and suggests meatrade deal till the AN EXPRESS RTI suresrelatedtoforfall of 2025. India APPLICATION eign trade policy was one of the first and procedural countriestoinitiate simplifications to boost trade. trade talks with the US when The Indian Express had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi thedetailsoftheBoTmeetingin visitedWashingtoninFebruary its RTI application. last year. TheBoTmeetinghappened The steep US tariffs, which in the backdrop of slowing ex- came into effect on August 27, ports due to the steep US tariffs »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 to know Grok’s use against women: Govt seeks X response in 3 days Considering law to regulate AI content on social media: Vaishnaw Soumyarendra Barik New Delhi, January 2 TAKING NOTE of artificial intelligence service Grok being abused to generate objectionable pictures and videos of women, without their consent, the government has sent a missive to social media platform X, saying it was not adhering to the country’s laws. Raising red flags over “serious failure” in enforcement of safeguards, it has sought information within 72hoursabouttechnicaldetails related to Grok’s actions. “Grok AI developed by you and integrated and made available on the X platform, is being misused by users to create fake accounts to host, generate, publish or share obscene images or videos of women in a derogatoryorvulgarmannerin order to indecently denigrate them,” the IT Ministry said in the notice sent Friday to X’s chief compliance officer. The government said the service was being used by people to target women, who host or publish their images or videos, through prompts, image manipulation and synthetic outputs, and said “such conduct reflects a serious failure of platform-level safeguardsandenforcementmechanisms, and amounts to gross misuse of artificial intelligence technologies in violation of applicable laws”. This, the IT Ministry said, is being viewed with “grave concern” asitcouldviolatethedignity, privacy and safety of women and children, “normalising sexual harassment and exploitation in digital spaces, andunderminingthestatutory duediligenceframeworkapplicable to intermediaries operating in India”. It has directed X to submit a detailed action taken report »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 GALAXY FROGS LIVE EXCLUSIVELY UNDER ROTTEN LOGS IN KERALA’S WESTERN GHATS 7 of world’s rarest frogs presumed dead, study blames rise in photo tourism Alind Chauhan disappearing. According to the study, a group of seven galaxy frogs IT MAY be no bigger than a fin- vanished, all likely to be dead, gertip, but it appears to carry after multiple photographers thecosmosonitsback.Itsshiny descended on their habitat, black skin is dotted with pale causing disturbances and beblue speckles, resembling a havioural changes that could clear night sky studded with have disrupted their feeding stars. There are also dashes of and breeding success. Thereport,titled‘Unethical orangepatterns,reminiscentof wildlife photograluminoussupernova PAGE 1 phy imperils the explosions. Western Ghats enGalaxy frogs demic galaxy frog, (Melanobatrachus indicus) are one of the rarest Melanobatrachus indicus Bedand most dazzling amphibians dome, 1878’, was published in in the world that live exclus- the journal Herpetology Notes ively under rotten logs in Ke- on December 17, 2025. The rala’s Western Ghats. However, study was authored by K P the elusive species is now Rajkumar, Benjamin Tapley, New Delhi, January 2 anchor Jyoti Das and Sandeep Das — all of them fellows at the Zoological Society of London — andPSEasa,thechairpersonof Thrissur-basedAranyakamNatureFoundation,anon-government organisation working for biodiversity conservation. Although galaxy frogs were first discovered in 1878, not much is known about them since they are difficult to find. Measuring between 2 cm and 3.5 cm, these frogs do not produce sounds. Scientists believe they use their spots to communicate,makingexistingdata about their population and breeding behaviour deficient. The frogs are already listed as vulnerable to extinction by Shola National Park in 2021. The case of missing galaxy frogs A galaxy frog (Melanobatrachus indicus). WIKIMEDIA COMMONS the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Among major threats to these creatures are the conversionofforestareastofarmland, firewood collection and land- slides. However, in recent years, photo tourism has emergedasanewdangertogalaxy frogs, especially after they were designated as the flagship species of Kerala’s Mathikettan In March 2020, Rajkumar, the lead author of the latest report, and his team discovered seven galaxy frogs in a forest patch in the Western Ghats. The researchers had been visiting the area as part of a programme to monitor these amphibians since 2019, with approval from the Kerala forests department. The Covid-19 pandemic broke out soon after their discovery. Even as the researchers couldnotreturntotheareadue to the pandemic, hordes of photographers landed at the site between June 2020 and April2021.“Thephotographers were familiar with the microhabitatofthespeciesfrompublicationsandlocaltrackers,and overturned many logs whilst searching for the species,” the study said. When Rajkumar and his team finally revisited the spot in August 2021, the logs under which the frogs had been discovered earlier had been displaced and the vegetation trampled. The galaxy frogs had vanished. A local informant told the researchersthatphotographers often captured the frogs with their bare hands and moved them to moss or other logs for “morepicturesquebackdrops”. The amphibians were exposed to high-powered camera flashesfornearlyfourhoursper session, according to the study. The informant told the group that two of these frogs had died during these marathon photography sessions, a claim that Rajkumar and his team could not verify. The researchers returned to the site in November 2021 and May 2022, but never saw the galaxy frogs again. All of them are presumed dead. Perils of wildlife photography According to the paper, »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad