The Editorial Page: A lesson from Beed in raising farmers’ incomes 10 MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAgE MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 18 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 REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 CHINA, RUSSIA, BRAZIl CONDEMN ICC DRAWING Up NEW SCHEDUlE Bangladesh to ICC: Won’t play our T20 WC games in India Delhi tightrope walk on Caracas: ‘Deep concern,’ need for dialogue Statement urges ‘all concerned’ to ensure peace and stability in region Shubhajit Roy Counter move after BCCI nudges KKR to oust Bangladesh seamer from IPL Business as Usual New Delhi, January 4 IN A carefully calibrated statement, the day after the US attacked Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro, India Sunday expressed “deep concern” at the developments and called upon “all concerned to address issues peacefully through dialogue, ensuring peace and stability of the region”. Neither did it condemn the US action, nor did it invoke the respect for international law or the UN charter. Without mentioning the US action in Venezuela, it described it as “recent developments in Venezuela:” a more neutral framing of the military intervention by the US. Broadly, there were four »CONTINUED ON pAGE 2 By EP UNNY Venkata Krishna B Chennai, January 4 EDITOrIAl PAGE TRUMP’S LAWLESS GRAB OPENS RISKY NEW CHAPTER P 10 Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro in custody at the US Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York after he was captured by US special forces and flown out of his country. REUTERS PAGES 11, 13 MAHARASHTRA CIVIC ElECTIONS 127 155 193 88 happening today lTHE SUpREME COURT will pronounce its verdict on the bail pleas of activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others accused in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case. lINDIAN COAST Guard’s first indigenously designed and built pollution control vessel ‘Samudra Pratap’ will be commissioned. The 114.5-m vessel will also serve as a key platform for maritime law enforcement and search and rescue ops. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm 8.6% decline in number of candidates in state; significant dip in MMR areas Zeeshan Shaikh Mumbai, January 4 AMID RECORD number of unopposed wins in the forthcomingMunicipalCorporationspoll inMaharashtra,whiletherehas been a 8.6 per cent decline in the number of candidates in fray, over the previous elections, a closer look at the data shows that drop is most significantinlargeurbancentres,particularly in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region where the decline is significant and stands between 25 (Mumbai) and 39 per cent (Panvel) in four of nine corporations of MMR. CRICKETER PAGE 12 the number of candidates has fallen from 2,275 in the previouselectionto1,700,adecline of over 25 per cent. Similar declines have been seen in Navi Mumbai (26.5 per cent), Kalyan–Dombivli (34.8 per cent), Thane (18.5 per cent) and Panvel (39 per cent). The number of municipal corporations in Maharashtra has grown from 22 in 2000 to 29 at present. Of the four elections held since the turn of the century in these corporations, the number of contestants stood at 14,930, rose to 17,451, and then 17,432, before showing a sharp dip to 15,931 in the present elections. Opposition parties have raised concerns over unopposed elections and alleged the use of force and money. Of the 69 unopposed winners, 44 belongtotheBJP,22totheEknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, two to theAjitPawar-ledNCP,andone to the Islam Party. Of the BJP’s 44 candidates elected unopposed, 15 won in Kalyan, six each in Bhiwandi, Panvel and Jalgaon, four in Dhule, three in Ahilyanagar, and two each in Pune and Pimpri–Chinchwad. Of the 22 Shiv Sena winners, seven secured »CONTINUED ON pAGE 2 POlITIcs Manish Kumar pathak & Mohamed Thaver WHATSAPP GROUPS of housing societies and parents’ groups are buzzing with messages of news reports relating to kidnappers being on the prowl, asking them to be careful. While some housing societies have put up posters in lifts askingparentstobevigilant,police saythattheytakeeverymissing child case seriously, while incomplete data and Supreme Court ruling on registering all missing cases as kidnapping cases are leading to panic. News of child kidnappers resurface every few years, sometimes with fatal consequences like the one where two sadhuswerekilledinPalgharin 2020 on the suspicion of being child-lifters. In the past few weeks, there has been a revival »CONTINUED ON pAGE 2 Sukrita Baruah Guwahati, January 4 LATE ONE night, around a weekafterAdilurZamanlearnt that his mother Aheda Khatun had been ordered to leave India, he received a call on WhatsApp from an unknown number. It was his 46-year-old mother,callinghimfromaborrowed phone, he says. She told him she didn’t know exactly where she was, Jahura, wife of Hussain Ali, one of the 15 people deported “somewhere near Dhaka in Bangladesh”, Zaman says. The Bangladesh men’s team last played in India in Oct 2024. AP FILE E. ExPlAINED The Pak way Bangladesh’s move makes its cricket team the second after Pakistan to refuse to play in India — a spillover of fraught bilateral ties along India’s western and eastern borders. This also raises the prospect of the two sides meeting India henceforth only at neutral venues in global events. Italy (February 9) and England (February 14). Its last group match was to be held on February17againstNepalinMumbai. ExPrEss interview ‘Bangladesh is not Pak... it doesn’t send terrorists’ SHASHI THAROOR CONGRESS MP PAGE 16 The BCB’s move comes a day after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) »CONTINUED ON pAGE 2 PAGE 8 PMONSOMNATH SWABHIMANPARv: 1,000YEARSOF UNBROKENFAITH ThE wOrlD PAGE 14 BRITISH, FRENCH WARPLANES HIT ISIS WEAPONS FACILITY IN SYRIA 15 GET ‘ExpUlSION ORDERS’ AfTER ASSAM REVIVES 1950 ACT SC ruling on missing child cases, incomplete Midnight call only clue for a family, data create panic: Police kin of others deported grope in dark Mumbai, January 4 ‘We all grew up watching men’s cricket but when girls start playing now, there will be women idols’ SHAfAlI VERMA Datafrom29municipalcorporations shows that the numberoffinalcontestingcandidates has declined 8.6 per cent from 17,432 in the last elections to 15,931 this time. Traditionally known for intense ward-level competition and multi-cornered contests, several corporations have recordeddouble-digitdeclinesin number of candidates amid allegations by opposition parties of intimidation and large-scale misuse of power to prevent candidates from contesting elections. In Mumbai, the state’s largest civic body with 227 seats, IN THE latest cricketing flashpoint between India and Bangladeshamidtensebilateralties, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) officially requested the International Cricket Council (ICC) to shift its T20 World Cup matches next month from India to co-host Sri Lanka, citing “growing concerns regarding the safety and security” of its contingent. Following the request, The Indian Express has learnt that the ICC, led by chairman Jay Shah, has initiated the process of drawing up a fresh schedule. According to the original schedule, Bangladesh was slated to play three matches of Group C in Kolkata, including the opening game against West Indies(February7),andagainst Aheda Khatoon was one of 15peoplefromAssam’sNagaon district —all of whom had been declared foreigners by tribunals—whowereserved“expulsionorders”onDecember17,directing them to “remove” themselves from India within 24 hours. A fortnight later, the relatives of several others are yet to hear from them. The expulsion was as per an invocation of the 1950 »CONTINUED ON pAGE 2 Protesters near the CM’s residence in Dehradun, Sunday. EXPRESS ‘Will fight until Ankita gets justice’: Protests in Uttarakhand seek CBI probe into 2022 murder Aiswarya Raj Dehradun, January 4 A MASSIVE crowd of mostly young people and women marchedtowardsUttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’sresidenceinDehradun on Sunday afternoon. A kilometre from their destination, they were stopped by a police force—greaterinnumberthan theprotesters—andbarricades that had been propped up. For 26-year-oldschoolteacher,Shalini, the situation brought to mindstoriesoftheUttarakhand statehood agitation that her parents once told her. Over 25 years since statehood, the protest in Dehradun on Sunday, one of several held indifferentpartsofthestate,including Tehri Garhwal and Almora,wasoneseekinganswers and accountability — in the case of 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari’s murder. Sittingontheroadaftertheir march was blocked, Shalini chantedwiththerestoftheprotesters: “Mukhyamantri maun hai,VIPkaunhai(thechiefminister is silent, who is the VIP)?” Thecurrentwaveofprotests over the 2022 murder follows a fresh set of allegations that cameafterformerBJPMLASuresh Rathore’s wife, Urmila Sanawar, claimed a VIP who sought sexual favours from »CONTINUED ON pAGE 2 l TRIPURA STUDENT ANJEL CHAKMA’S MURDER IN DEHRADUN LAST MONTH REVIVES ARUNACHAL YOUTH’S MEMORIES OF BEING ATTACKED IN PUNE IN 2016 He survived Pune attack, now Arunachal ‘Spiderman’ wants justice for Anjel Chandan Haygunde using racial slurs. For Todo, the incident revivedmemoriesofthatnightof HE IS a popular parkour artist August 14, 2016, at the governwho has “done some movie ment polytechnic college in stunts”, too. He is also the “Spi- Pune, where he was studying. dermanofArunachalPradesh” “I was attacked... maybe bewith one of his YouTube videos cause of my looks and because postedin2019,showthe assailants conPAGE 1 ing him jumping, sidered me an outswinging, climbing sider with no local and running over support. Even the walls, terraces and streets, police initially ignored me... drawing over 25 million views. Havinggonethroughthat,IdeAnd yet, that’s not what 26- mand justice for Anjel Chakma year-old Takam Todo wants to and I support the ongoing protalk about — it’s the death of tests against hate crimes and Tripura student Anjel Chakma discrimination against Northin Dehradun days ago follow- east Indians,” says Todo. ing a scuffle with six youths “It is unfortunate that who allegedly also abused him people of the Northeast conPune, January 4 anchor Takam Todo was 17 when he was attacked while studying in Pune; he is now a well known parkour athlete tinue to face discrimination in other parts of the country because they look different. We areIndians,notChineseoroutsiders,” he says. Todorecallsthatitwasabout 9 pm when he — then a 17-yearold second-year student pursuing a diploma in civil engineering — was talking to friends within the college premises. “A little distance away, a groupofmiscreantsweredrinking alcohol. Accidentally, the light from my torch fell on them.Inaflash,theywereupon me. They slapped and hit me... things got out of control and they finally hit me on my head with a big stone while shouting that I was an outsider,” he recalls.“Someofmyfriendsleftto call the security guards while theothersfledfearingthey’dget beaten up too. I was left bleeding and scared,” Todo says. Clearly, nothing much has changed, says Todo, speaking to The Indian Express over phone from Itanagar where he is now based. “I managed to get up and in the dark, dragged myself to the Chaturshringipolicestation.But thecopsdidnotfileacomplaint becauseIwasunabletoidentify the assailants,” he says. The police filed an FIR six dayslater,onAugust20,against unidentified assailants. By then, members of North East Community of Pune had also come out in Todo’s support. The police launched a probe to identify and arrest the accused buttherewasnobreakthrough. The incident had also promptedthenPunepolicechief RashmiShuklatoadmitthatshe felt “very bad” while assuring that she would look into issues relatedtothesafetyandsecurity of people from the Northeast settled in the city. “I contacted the police a few times later. But there was no development, nothing.IshiftedtoArunachalPradesh in March 2020, and completedmyB.Tech,”saysTodo. According to him, he sur- vived that attack “only because of the strength I got from free running parkour”. “I developed aninterestinparkouringaround 2013,afterwatchingmovieslike Vidyut Jamwal’s Commando, TigerShroff’sHeropantiandvideos of Tony Jaa (the Thai martial artist and actor),” he says. “I learntthesportmyselfbywatching videos and CDs. Then I cosplayed Spiderman doing parkour and freerunning in Pune, and later in Arunachal Pradesh and other places, too.” Now, Todo is also preparing for competitive exams to get a government job. The video that got him all those views in 2019? “Spiderman Jumping in Pune (India)”. Mumbai