The Editorial Page: US mid-terms could be bellwether for next three years of Trump 2.0 8 TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAgE AHMEDABAD, 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 AL NAHYAN’S VISIT TO DELHI COMES IN BACKDROP OF gAzA BOARD OF PEACE AFTER SHANTI LEgISLATION PM meets UAE President: Defence, LNG, $200-bn trade target on table DAE’s nuclear pivot: Light water push to tap global markets, retain heavy water edge Selective targeting on E. tariffs, says Jaishankar, Deeply touched by MbZ gesture of visiting Delhi, says Modi Anil Sasi New Delhi, January 19 flags Poland minister’s outreach to Pakistan Shubhajit Roy New Delhi, January 19 AMID RENEWED churn in West Asia, with US President DonaldTrumpinvitingIndiato join the Board of Peace in Gaza and tensions brewing between Saudi Arabia and UAE over competing interests in Yemen, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met visiting UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at his residence Monday and agreed on a range of bilateral agreements and outcomes—fromdefencetospace and LNG. Aftertheirthree-and-a-halfhour meeting at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, Modi posted on X that he »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 Shubhajit Roy New Delhi, January 19 CONVEYING THE country’s disappointment at being singledoutbytheUSwith25per cent tariffs for buying Russian oil, External Affairs Minister S JaishankartoldthevisitingDeputy Prime Minister of Poland RadoslawSikorskithatIndiahas faced “selective targeting”. In unusually blunt remarks at their bilateral meeting in Delhi Monday, Jaishankar also flagged Sikorski’s visit last October to Pakistan and cautioned that Poland must maintain “zero tolerance for terrorism” and “not help fuel” Prime Minister Narendra Modi with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in New Delhi, Monday. PTI MORE REPORTS, P 13 happening today first Assembly session of 2026 begins. It remains to be seen whether Governor R N Ravi will deliver his address, having walked out of the House for the third consecutive year in 2025. New BJP chief today TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANEXPRESS.COm BJP leaders J P Nadda, Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Hardeep Singh Puri, Bhupender Yadav, Dharmendra Pradhan, Nitin Gadkari, L Murugan and others propose the name of Nitin Nabin as the new party chief in New Delhi, Monday. With no other candidate, Nabin will be formally announced as the party chief on Tuesday. PTI REPORT, PAGE 11 Bengal SIR: SC tells EC EC says poll officials to display names flagged facing violence, threats for ‘logical discrepancies’ in Bengal, blames CM Ananthakrishnan g l Discrepancies New Delhi, January 19 WHILE IT refused to stop the Election Commission from carrying out scrutiny of voters flagged for “logical discrepancies” during the Special IntensiveRevision(SIR)ofelectoral rolls in West Bengal, the Supreme Court on Monday underlined the need to ensure the exercise is transparent and doesn't cause inconvenience. To this end, it directed the EC to display the names of those flagged for "logical discrepancies" in their enumerationformsat"grampanchayat bhavans/ block offices in every »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 FOOTFALLS DROPPED IN PAST 3 YEARS At Ahmedabad Flower Show, installation cost more than ticket revenue Business as Usual By EP UNNY Ritu Sharma Ahmedabad, January 19 New Delhi, January 19 lTHE INDIA-KENYA Defence Ananthakrishnan g exclusive »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 Sohini ghosh lDEFENDINg MEN’S SINgLES Exhibition and Seminar will be underway in Nairobi. terror infrastructure in the neighbourhood. Jaishankar said, “In the recent past, both in New York last HCquashes2016 taxnoticesto NDTVfounders, imposesRs2lakh costonI-Tdept lPOLL-BOUND TAMIL NADU’S champion Jannik Sinner, who is aiming for a hat-trick of titles at the year's first Grand Slam, opens his Australian Open campaign against World No. 58 Hugo Gaston. EAM S Jaishankar with Poland’s Deputy PM and Foreign Affairs Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in New Delhi, Monday. PTI EXPLAINED AS INDIA opens up its nuclear power sector to private sector Why LWr push participation and eyes a stake in the export market, the need Light Water Reactors form toexpeditethefabricationofan a mainstay of the global Indian Light Water Reactor n-program; these use light (LWR)hasbeenflaggedasapri- water, enriched uranium, ority within the nuclear estab- and have simpler design, lishment, The Indian Express lower construction cost, economies of scale, and has learnt. To this effect, there is a con- high thermal efficiency. certedpushbytheDepartment of Atomic Energy to speed up work on the 900 MWe (mega- foreignvendorstosecurebetter watt electric) LWR project — terms in imports, officials said. designworkonthishadstarted Significantly, LWRs constiin 2015. tute the bulk of Having an inthe international EXPRESS digenous LWR, reactor market, alongsidetheexisand without inteting fleet of pressgrating Indian urised heavy water reactors companies into the global (PHWR),isexpectedtoboostIn- supply chain, making a breakdia’s leverage in dealing with through in the export segment is likely to be difficult. This is also the backdrop to the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, 2025, passed in the winter session of Parliament, which opens up the possibility of moreimportedLWR-basednuclear projects of the kind being set up by the Russians in Kudankulam. The legal changes are seen within the establishment as necessary to tap the dominant global LWR ecosystem, even as India retains its core strengths in other reactor types. India’s civil nuclear programme has deep expertise in manufacturingheavywaterreactors from 220 MWe PHWRs to the new 700 MWe units. Based on heavy water (deuterium) and natural uranium, PHWRs are a technology that flaggedbyEC NAME MISMATCH between current roll and that of the last intensive revision LESS THAN 15 years, or more than 50 years, difference in age of elector and parent LESS THAN 40 years gap in age of elector and grandparents SIX OR MORE electors mapped as progeny of one person 2.06 L ELEctorS LINkEd to ovEr 6 cHILdrEN: Ec the Supreme Court on Sunday, said that Banerjee, on January 14, “conducted a press conference in which she is reported to have engaged in fear-mongering, disseminated misleading and erroneous information regarding the SIR process, overtly threatenedandtargetedelection officials, and sought to incite alarm amongst the electorate.” “During her reported speech, (Banerjee) explicitly identified and targeted a micro observer…therebypubliclyisolating an election official performing statutory duties and subjectinghimtounwarranted pressureandintimidation,”the EC said. “Such conduct not New Delhi, January 19 P 11 ALLEGING A “systematic pattern of violence and threats” against election officials engaged in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, the Election CommissionhassaidthatChief Minister Mamata Banerjee, “in stark contrast to the professed commitment to cooperation…, has persistently delivered a series of public addresses that are inherently provocative, therebyengenderinganatmosphere of intimidation" among officials. Respondingtoapetition,the pollpanel,inanaffidavitfiledin »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 THE DELHI High Court on Monday quashed the tax notices issued to NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy in 2016 in connection with interest-free loans extended by RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd, the media firm’s promoter entity. A division bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Vinod Kumar asked the Income Tax (IT)departmenttopayRs1lakh each to the former NDTV promoters and directors as token cost, observing that the department’s action was “arbitrary and without jurisdiction” and “no amount of cost can be treatedenoughforthesecases”. The IT department had issuedseparatereassessmentnotices to the Roys in March 2016 overtheirincomein2009-10on account of certain interest-free loans received by them from RRPR. They were then RRPR’s shareholders and directors. This was the second time they had received reassessment notices over the same issue.Theearlierroundofreassessment proceedings was initiated in 2011 and ended in 2013 after the assessing officer expressed satisfaction with their response to the notices. The HC bench said, “...merely because the new incumbents in the chair feel themselvestobewiserandthey hold another opinion which their predecessor did not or could not take, an already settled assessment cannot be unsettled and the petitioner AS IT entered the 14th year, the annual International Flower Show spread over the SabarmatiRiverfronthasbeenseeing a lowering of footfalls over the years,evenasthecostofsetting it up has been rising. The earnings through ticket sales in the past three years have not even been able to cover the cost of its installation. OnSunday,theAhmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) An installation at the venue on the Sabarmati riverfront. EXPRESS extended the show by a week and it will now end on January 29, in a purported attempt to »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 ThE wORLD PAgE 15 BANgLAdESH, NEPAL AmoNg 38 to fAcE U.S. vISA BoNd UP to $15,000 »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 l PARTY’S CASH AND CASH EqUIVALENT RS 10,000 CRORE AS OF MARCH 2025 1,754 1,092 1,352 645 792 567 606 n Pre-LS poll and LS poll years 421 anchor l Expenditureonelection Figures in Rs Crore 359 andsevenAssemblieswereheld. The Election Commission had announced the 2024 polls THE BJP’S spending on elec- on March 16 that year, so camtion and general propaganda paigning had begun in the fistood at Rs 3,335.36 crore in nancial year 2023-2024 itself. 2024-25 when elecThe polling took PAGE 1 tions to the 18th Lok place between April Sabha and eight As19 to June 1, 2024, semblies were held, spanning44days.In as per the party’s annual audit the pre-election year, i.e., 2023report submitted to the Elec- 24, spending on election and tion Commission. generalpropagandastoodatRs This is almost two-and-a- 1,754.06 crore. half times Rs 1,352.92 crore, the Thus, the total expenditure amount spent in 2019-20 when in the two years (election year elections to the 17th Lok Sabha andthepre-electionyear)leadNew Delhi, January 19 923 Damini Nath 3,335 BJP’s election expenditure Rs 3,335 crore in last fiscal, 2.5 times more than its spend in 2019-20 2014- 2015- 2016- 2017- 2018- 2019- 2020 2021- 2022- 2023- 20242015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 -2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Source: BJP’s annual audited accounts reports submitted to ECI ing up to the 18th Lok Sabha and the eight Assemblies added up to Rs 5,089.42 crore, more than double the total amount of Rs 2,145.31 crore spent in the two years (election year and the pre-election year) leading up to the 17th Lok Sabha and seven Assemblies. TheAssemblyelectionsduring the years 2019-20 and 202425 were for the states of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Odisha,Sikkim,ArunachalPradesh and Andhra Pradesh. In 2024-25,J&Kwenttopollsinaddition to the seven states. According to the annual report, which was submitted by the BJP to the EC on December 27, 2025, and published by the ECthisweek,electionexpenses »CONTINUED ON PAgE 2 Ahmedabad