The Editorial Page: US deal raises questions. PM must take a leaf out of Manmohan Singh’s book 8 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAgE LUCkNOW, LATE CITY, 16 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 lMINISTRY OF STATISTICS and Programme Implementation will release the Consumer Price Index inflation data for January as per the new series at 4 pm. Secretary Saurabh Garg and Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran will later address the media. ROW IN PARLIAMENT AFTER REMARKS BY LEADER OF OPPOSITION Rahul slams Govt over US deal; Cong sold out at WTO, says FM lIN THE ICC T20 MEN’S World Cup, defending champions India face underdogs Namibia in their second Group A match in Delhi. UP CM Yogi Adityanath with Finance Minister Suresh Khanna outside the Assembly before Budget presentation, Wednesday. VISHAL SRIVASTAV TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm business as Usual By EP UNNY Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and (right) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman speak in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. PTI & ANI He is misleading House, will file privilege notice: Union Minister Rijiju AT LEAST 9 DEAD IN SHOOTING AT HIGH SCHOOL IN CANADA Afteroutrageover shootingvideo, AssamBJPfires socialmediaman Sukrita Baruah Guwahati, February 11 ONE OF the four co-conveners ofAssamBJP’ssocialmediadepartment has been removed from his position after a video posted from the unit’s official X handle last week showed an image of Assam Chief Minister HimantaBiswaSarmaaiminga rifleattwomeninskullcaps,including one who resembles CongressMPGauravGogoi.The video prompted outrage from acrosstheOppositionspectrum and was deleted the next day. Confirming this to The Indian Express, Assam BJP president Dilip Saikia called the post by the co-convener an “immature” and “unauthorised” action. In August 2025, Saikia appointed four party workers as co-conveners of the social media department, all of them men in their twenties and thirties. One of them has now beenremoved.Thesocialmedia team also comprises 20 members at the state level, a »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Sitharaman counters LoP on farmers, food security & data Asad Rehman ThE wOrlD PAGE 10 ‘BIGGEST-EVER BUDGET’ FOR U.P. New Delhi, February 11 New Delhi, February 11 MOUNTING A sharp attack on the government, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi WednesdaytargetedthePrimeMinister over the India-US trade dealsayingitwasgoingtocompromise the country’s energy security and farm interests. ParticipatinginaHousediscussion on the Union Budget, Gandhi used a martial arts “grip”and“chokehold”analogy to target the government. “You aretellingusthatenergyandfinance are being weaponised, andthenyouarehavingitdone toyou;youarehavingitdoneto our farmers; you are having it donetoouryoungsters.Youare handing over our data. How can you even make these statements? How can you even »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Deeptiman Tiwary HOURS AFTER Leader of OppositionRahulGandhitargeted thegovernmentovertheIndiaUS trade deal, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while defending provisions of the Union Budget, hit back at the Congress, saying it was the UPAthathad“surrendered”India’s interests at the WTO and putfarmersandthefoodsecur- PArlIAmENT P5 OPP PArTIES SAY bUDGET ONLY fOr PrIvILEGED ity system at risk. Replying to the discussion in Lok Sabha on the Budget, Sitharaman said, “They are talking about selling India and Indian farmers. That Modiji has surrendered.Modijiwillalways stand steadfast in the interest of the nation. I will tell you who sold the nation. In 2013, Congress signed a WTO agreement in Bali. There were two issues, trade facilitation and public »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Buffoonery, smear campaign: Puri US revises its India hits out at Rahul’s Epstein remark trade deal fact sheet, drops ‘certain pulses’ Jatin Anand New Delhi, February 11 HITTING BACK at Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for mentioning his name in connection with the Epstein Files, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri,whiledenyinganywrongdoing, dismissed the allegations as “baseless”, “buffoonery”, “innuendo” and a “smear campaign”. Addressing the press, Puri targeted Gandhi, “There are two kinds of leaders: Those Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri at the BJP office in New Delhi on Wednesday. PTI who assume responsibility in the political system and then dedicate their lives to samaj sewa, transforming the country… those in whose lifetime the country moves to being the third largest economy from the tenth largest… andthenthereareotherleaders who, occasionally, come to the country.” “This is the same yuva leader who, a few months ago, said one particular Brazilian model had… voted several »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Divya A New Delhi, February 11 A DAY after unilaterally releasing a fact sheet on the interim India-US trade agreement, mentioning “certain pulses” among American agricultural productsthatwillseetariffcuts by New Delhi, the White House has updated the document, removing those two words. Ithasalsomadeanotherkey In UP, man’s search for son ahead of wedding lays bare state of missing person cases HC criticises ‘cavalier’ police approach, orders man’s plea be registered as PIL Bhupendra Pandey & Vineet Bhalla Lucknow, New Delhi, Feb 11 ON THE evening of July 15, 2024, Ranjan Kumar (32) walked out of his home in Vikalp Khand, in Lucknow’s GomtiNagar,butdidn’treturn. Itwassupposedtobeaweek of celebrations; Ranjan’s wedding was just days later. “The wedding events were underway.Heleftaround6.30pm;we thought he had gone for a stroll,” his father, 68-year-old homoeopath Dr Vikrama Prasad, told The Indian Express. WhenRanjandidnotreturn after two hours, panic set in, and the wedding was eventually cancelled. What followed was a yearand-a-half-long struggle against a police system that eventually forced Prasad to knock on the doors of the Allahabad High Court after “seeing no ray of hope”. His petition has now snowballed, with the High Court inquiring into and criticising what it described as the Uttar Pradesh police’s “cavalier” approachtowardmissingpersons. In its order on January 29, a division bench stated that 1.08 lakh persons were reported missingacrossthestateovertwo years, between 2024 and 2026, “but action for tracing only 9,700 persons had been taken”. “Whatcouldbethejustification forthisinsufficiencyineffortsto traceouttheremainingmissing »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E. How US toned down PAGE 12 change in a reference to the purchase of $500-billion worth of US products overall, changing “India commits” in this context to “India intends”. The original fact sheet had led to protests by Opposition leaderswhopostedscreenshots »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INsIDE Yogi Budget No. 10: Push to jobs for youth, infra Finance Minister says committed to financial prudence, points to fiscal deficit WHY CM CALLED fOr MAKING U.P. A ‘jOb GENErATOr’ INTHElastfull-fledgedBudget of the Yogi Adityanath-led government before Uttar Pradesh goes to elections next year, the focus has largely been on infrastructure expansion and employment generation, to not only boost the economy but also woo the youth population of the state. Presenting 'Budget No. 10' of the Yogi Adityanath government under the theme of “Nav Nirman Ke 9 Varsh” (9 years of rebuilding), state Finance Minister Suresh Khanna described it as the "biggest Budget ever" with the total out- lay being increased to Rs 9.12 lakh crore – 12.9% higher than that of last year’s Budget – and added that the focus is on increasingcapitalexpenditurefor infrastructure development, strengtheningsocialsector,and improving fiscal discipline. “Budget2026–27reflectsthe government’s vision in which development, financial discipline and future preparedness have been given equal importance,”KhannatoldtheHouse, while presenting the budget. Lucknow, February 11 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Great opportunities to work with India, says Tarique aide on poll eve ExPrEss IN DHAKA KrISHI bHAWAN MOSqUE NOT IN bUILDING PLAN PAGES 3, 4 Maulshree Seth PAGES 3,6 LAMbOrGHINI CrASH IN U.P.: SUrrENDEr PLEA Of MAN jUNKED INsIDE Shubhajit Roy February 11 AS BANGLADESH goes to polls Thursday under a heavy securityblanket,BNPhasemergedas the frontrunner to lead the country under Tarique Rahman, the son of party founder andformerPrimeMinisterKhaleda Zia. The Jamaat-e-Islami, »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E. ExPlAINED Why Delhi is looking at Dhaka This will be Bangladesh’s first election after Sheikh Hasina was ousted as PM in August 2024. For a country that has since been governed by an unelected administration led by Muhammad Yunus, the polls will be a key test of its return to democracy. Given the strain in ties, Delhi will watch closely what happens in Dhaka. l DEATHS OF OvER 20 CHILDREN RESULT OF AN INTERCONNECTED CHAIN OF EvENTS — FROM SOURCING OF RAW MATERIALS TO MEDICAL USE: POLICE Behind MP syrup deaths: Bad batch, compromised system, a phone call Anand Mohan J kar invoked a grim precedent — the 1998 Gurgaon tragedy, where diethylene glycol (DEG) A 281-SECOND telephone con- contamination killed 33 versation connected two doc- children. According to the police tors across state lines on Sepchargesheet, Dr Khapekar tember 11, 2025. As children in Madhya Pra- “clearly instructed that the desh’s tribal-dominated medicine being used should be Chhindwaradistrictbeganfall- tested”, TheIndianExpress has ing ill after consuming con- learnt. The reference to the 1998 incident was taminated cough PAGE 1 “not merely to syrup, Dr Praveen provide informaSoni, their consulttion, but to issue a ing doctor, spoke to Dr Praveen Khapekar in Nag- warning”. By then, 15 children had alpur about the condition of Vedansh, a two-year-old child ready died in Chhindwara. Thechargesheetfiledbythe who would eventually die of Madhya Pradesh police reveals kidney failure. During the call, Dr Khape- that the deaths of over 20 Bhopal, February 11 anchor children were not the result of a single catastrophic error, but “the outcome of a continuous and interconnected chain of events, extending from sourcing of raw material to medical use”. A total of 11 persons have been named as accused, and a district and sessions court has takencognisanceofthechargesheet. The case is currently beingheardatthestageofarguments on charges. At the centre of the police case is how the contaminated batch, SR-13, reached Chhindwara through a network of suppliers allegedly dealing in inferior-qualitypharmaceuticals, and how monthly gifts and in- The children died after allegedly consuming contaminated Coldrif cough syrup. FILE centives were used to lure doctorsinChhindwaratoprescribe the cough syrup. The manufacturer At the centre of this chain was batch SR-13 of Coldrif syrup,manufacturedbySresan Pharmaceuticals in Tamil Nadu and distributed through anetworkthatoperatedalmost exclusivelyinasingledistrictof Madhya Pradesh. Sresan Pharma had been in operation since 1984, giving it, asthechargesheetnotes,“longstanding experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing processes”. The unit produced various liquid oral pharmaceutical formulations under the supervision of G Ranganathan, who served as both the manufacturing chemist and the proprietor. Now the main accused in the case and currently under judicial custody, Ranganathan was previously booked on five occasions in 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023 under various provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, investigators said. “In some of these matters, monetary penalty/fine was imposedbythecourt,”thechargesheet states. During the investigation, police discovered that the firm had allegedly received propylene glycol, a key ingredient in the syrup, “without a Certificate of Analysis”. “Proper bills/invoices relating to the purchase of raw material were not found to be consistently and uniformly maintained, and in some cases, payments for raw material were arranged through third-party accounts,” it states. “During investigation, it wasfoundthatinthemanufacturing process, both industrialgrade propylene glycol as well as food-grade propylene glycol were used, whereas in pharmaceutical manufacturing, only pharmaceutical-grade propylene glycol should be used,” the chargesheet states. When the Tamil Nadu Drug Department inspected the facility,itdocumented“39critical deficienciesand325majordeficiencies”. Chemical analyst-cumquality control officer K Maheshwari, who has also been »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Lucknow