The Ideas Page: Women’s reservation serves a political project that depends on early delimitation 11 TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2026 JOURNALISm of COURAGE KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES ₹6.00 (₹12 in North East states, ₹20 in Andaman) 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 lPRIME MINISTER NARENDRA Modi will inaugurate the Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor in Dehradun. The 213-km, six-lane corridor will reduce travel time between Delhi and Dehradun from over six hours at present to around two-and-a-half hours. lTHE BIANNUAL NAVAL commanders conference begins in New Delhi. Top commanders of Indian Navy will deliberate on the implications of the West Asia war during the three-day event. lPRESIDENT DROUPADI Murmu will attend the fifth convocation ceremony of Rashtriya Raksha University in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The university functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON WWW.INDIANExPRESS.COM TOP COURT HEARS PETITION ON EXCLUSIONS IN WEST BENGAL S.I.R. If win margin is 2%, deletions 15%, what will happen: Supreme Court We are getting blinded by dust and fury of an impending election: Bench Express News Service New Delhi, April 13 CALLING THE righttovotethe “biggest expression of nationality and patriotism...in a democratic government”, the Supreme Court Monday raised questions on the exclusion of voters in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal andflaggedconcernsoverdeletions in the context of winning margins. Hearing a petition on the adjudication of appeals against the exclusion of names in the SIRofelectoralrollsinthestate, the court indicated that it might consider allowing an additional supplementary list. “...Suppose margin is 2% and 15% of electorate who are mapped could not vote, then maybe we are not expressing anyopinion,butwewoulddefinitelyhavetoapplyourminds,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who was part of a two-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, said. The bench was considering a plea on the pendency of appeals against exclusion on the ground of logical discrepancy before the Appellate Tribunals set up to decide on them. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 At tribunals’ door, time running out: ‘No one understands our fear’ DECISION 2026 W E ST B E N GA L Sweety Kumari Kolkata, April 13 CLADINawhitekurta-pyjama, 87-year-old Manmatha Nath Bhowmik stands outside the Syama Prasad Mookerjee National Institute of Water and SanitationatJokanearKolkata, clutching a plastic folder, and carrying a bag slung sideways. Manmatha Nath Bhowmik outside the Tribunal office at joka near Kolkata. He has citizenship papers from 1959. PARTHA PAUL His eyes, clouded with age and distress, are scanning the Central force deployment at the gates of the institute, where the 19 tribunals to hear appeals of »CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 ExPRESSinvestigation OIL PRICES CLIMB BACK OVER $100 PER BARREL IN ASSOCIATION WITH ICIJ US begins blockade of Iran ports, Tehran threatens to hit Gulf; oil again tops $100 Access plan ties cancer patients in red tape and Rs 10-lakh upfront Anonna Dutt earlier. They were not sure I would survive,” he said. He has now been on Keytruda for over ■ Two years ago, Ekta* a year. The stories of Ekta and Ajit found herself sitting at the dining table of her Gurugram illustrate the challenges surhome one evening, on a call rounding access to Keytruda. with a representative from the AninvestigationbyTheIndian Kiran Patient Access Program Express, in association with at 6:45 pm. She spoke for over The International Consortium an hour, she says, because she of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), has found was afraid to hang that accessing up. She needed an KeytrudainIndia, OTP without even through the which her company's own mother-in-law patient assistance could not receive her next dose of THE CANCER scheme, is beset with financial, loKeytruda, the gistical and regublockbuster imlatory barriers munotherapy PART-II that put the drug cancerdrug,atthe out of reach for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), overwhelming majority of patients who need it. Delhi, the following morning. On Monday, The Indian Ex■ For 63-year-old Ajit*, first diagnosed with kidney cancer press reported on how the acin2017,thepathtoKeytrudawas cess squeeze has led to a burslightlylessdifficultbutonlybe- geoning multi-city black cause he had the means to pur- market in Keytruda. Keytrudaisthebrandname chaseacancerinsurancepolicy. “IrememberwhenIgotahernia of Pembrolizumab, which is at one of the stitches from my manufactured and sold by »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 kidney removal surgery. My daughterwastogetmarriedina TOMORROw: ONE DOSE, few months but the doctors MANY qUESTIONS asked me to hold the wedding New Delhi, April 13 calculus THE WORLD Move won’t impede transit to or from non-Iran destinations: US military Trevor Hunnicutt & Parisa Hafezi Washington, Dubai, April 13 THEUSmilitarybeganablockade of ships leaving Iran’s ports on Monday, President Donald Trump said, and Tehran threatened to retaliate against ports of its Gulf neighbours after weekend talks on ending the war broke down. Oilpricesclimbedbackover $100 per barrel, with no sign of aswiftreopeningoftheStraitof Hormuztoeasethebiggestever disruption in supplies and broaderconcernsoverthedurability of a two-week ceasefire agreement reached last week. Trump said that Iran had been in touch on Monday and wanted to make a deal but that he will not sanction any agreement that allows Tehran to have a nuclear weapon. “Iranwillnothaveanuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We can’t letacountryblackmailorextort the world.” Since the war started on Business as Usual By EP UNNY Iran will not have a nuclear weapon... We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world.” DONALD J TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PAGE 8 February 28, Iran has effectivelyshuttheStraitofHormuz toallvesselsexceptitsown,sayingpassagewouldbepermitted only under Iranian control and subject to a fee. Trump said earlier that Washington would block Iranian vessels and any ships that paid such tolls and that any »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Shubhajit Roy INDIA AND Iran are in contact with each other on the passage of Indian ships through the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranianembassyissendingafresh consignment of about 20,000 kg of medicine from India on Monday night, an Iranian diplomattoldTheIndianExpress on Monday. So far 45,000 kg of medi- cineshavebeenshippedtoIran in two batches since the war broke out. The latest batch will be sent in a Mahaan air flight from Delhi to Mashhad, sources said, for nationwide distribution. These medicines are mainly for Iranians who have been injured in US and Israeli strikes in the war before the two-week ceasefirewasdeclaredonApril9. According to the Iranian Mahender Singh Manral & Ravik Bhattacharya New Delhi, Kolkata, April 13 WEEKS AHEAD of the West Bengal Assembly polls, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on MondayarrestedVineshChandel, a director and co-founder of political consultancy firm IPAC, in connection with a money laundering case linked toallegedcoalsmugglinginthe poll-bound state. I-PAC, founded by election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor, is managing the Trinamool Congress’s poll campaign. West Bengal will have a two-phase poll on April 23 and April 29. Chandel has been associated with I-PAC since its inception. He is a graduate from NLIU, Bhopal. He briefly worked as a journalist, too, and also practised law in the Supreme Court. He is considered closetoMamataandhasextensively worked with the TMC in Bengal and Meghalaya. INSIDE Vinesh Chandel, a director and co-founder of political consultancy firm I-PAC. I-PAC AnofficialsaidChandelwas taken into custody under the provisions of the PMLA in Delhi late evening. “He is expected to be produced before a special court on Monday night, where the ED will seek his custody for further questioning,” the official added. Earlier on April 2, Chandel’s premises in Delhi, apart from that of another I-PAC cofounder and director Rishi Raj Singh in Bengaluru and that of »CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 PAGE 3 JUDICIALOFFICERS’ SECURITYTOBEIN PLACE,SAYS SC;ASkS NIAIFTHOSEHELD HAD‘POLITICAL BACkGROUND’ »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONVERSION, SEXUAL ASSAULT FIRs Before TCS unit arrests, tip-off and undercover police Mohamed Thaver Nashik, April 13 IN FEBRUARY this year, when a local political party worker in Nashik,located180kmnorthof Mumbai, approached the Nas- Record voting for pro-EU course spearheaded by centre-right Peter Magyar Iran, India in touch on passage of ships: Envoy New Delhi, April 13 Investigation underway: Tata Sons chairman ORBAN OUSTED AFTER 16 YRS AS HUNGARY FLOCkS TO PRO-EU RIVAL Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Fathali at an exhibition in New Delhi on Monday that featured drawings salvaged from the rubble of a girls’ school in Minab after it was hit by US airstrikes. PTI ED arrests I-PAC director Vinesh Chandel in Bengal ‘coal scam’ case hik City police alleging that a Hindu woman in her early 20s working at a BPO unit of TCS there was observing fasts during Ramzan, it would set off a series of events that would end with nine FIRs ranging from allegations of sexual abuse and religiousconversion,sevenemployees being placed under arrest, and a pause in the unit's operations. On Monday, N Chandrasekaran,theTataSons chairman, said a thorough in- vestigation is underway to ascertain what transpired. According to the police, the local political party worker told themthatthewomanhadbeen influenced to follow the teachings of Islam at her workplace, where “something amiss” was goingon.Policedidnotdisclose which party the worker is affiliated with. When the police contacted her family, the girl’s parents said they had stopped her from going to work after she started observing fasts and living “in an Islamic manner”, an officer, who was part of the team assignedtoprobethematter,said on condition of anonymity. It was then that they decided to investigate what was happening at the 147-employee BPO. “We got some of our constables hired there as housekeeping staff to keep an eye on what was happening,” the officer said. “After two weeks of our people — both men and women — working there, we felt their probe had revealed enough to take action,” the officer said. “We registered the first FIR on charges of rape in the case ofthe woman who had observed fasts. She was in a relationship with a now-arrested accused, Danish Shaikh, who allegedly hid the fact that he was already married. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l PROjECT AIMS TO CREATE DATABASE OF TALENTED ATHLETES TO HELP DEVELOP PERSONALISED TRAINING PROGRAMMES The athletic gene: Rising sport hub Gujarat launches project to unlock clues Ritu Sharma develop personalised training programmesinthestate,where crickethasbeenthemostpopuAS GUJARAT counts down to lar sport. 2030, when it will be hosting The ‘Sports Genomics Prothe Commonwealth Games for gramme’ is being undertaken the first time, the state govern- by the Gujarat Biotechnology ment is planning to Research Centre conduct whole ge(GBRC), under the PAGE 1 nome sequencing of Department of talented athletes in Science and Techthe state to identify nology of the state, and record genetic markers as- in coordination with the Sports sociated with endurance and Authority of Gujarat. power sports. Noting that genetic factors In a first, the project aims to contribute as much as 66% to identify talent early, create an athleticperformance,GBRCDiathlete genome database, and rector Dr Snehal Bagatharia Ahmedabad, April 13 anchor says: “In a key study published in 2023, 128 genetic markers (DNApolymorphisms)showed a positive association with athletestatus.Atotalof41markers were related to endurance, 45 to power, and 42 to strength.” Led by Dr Ildus Ahmetov of LiverpoolJohnMooresUniversityintheUnitedKingdom,the study 'Genes and Athletic Performance: The 2023 Update' was published in the journal Genes. It identified 251 genetic markers linked to sports-relatedtraits,across34countries, including India. Under the programme, for l GENESIDENTIFIEDWITHSPORTS 9 10 genes for endurance: Sports such as marathon, cycling, triathlon genes for power, speed, muscle development: Weightlifting, boxing, wrestling, football genes for muscle building, recovery: Sprinting, weightlifting, wrestling, boxing 9 which Rs 26.05 crore has been allocated for five years, the GBRC will collect at least 2,000 2 3 2 genes for injury risk: Sports with quick direction changes such as gymnastics genes for stress response, focus under pressure: Shooting, tennis, cricket, combat genes for motor coordination etc: Sports that require such coordination, or are reaction-based genes for hydration, thermoregulation: sports such as endurance running, cycling, rowing, aerobic training genetic samples per year over five years, with the 10,000 samples covering 10 sports – five endurance and power sportseach.Thesesportswillbe identifiedincollaborationwith 2 Kolkata theSportsAuthorityofGujarat, fromallthedistrictsofthestate. The sampling strategy would be decided in collaboration with the Sports Authority, Bagatharia said. “A meeting is scheduled this month.” The goal is to create a Gujarat Athlete Genome Database, integrating genotype, physiological and performance data which, apart from identifying genes influencing athletic performance,wouldalso help zero in on genetic risk factors for injuries,andhelpdesignrehabilitation protocols. Officials said the project would also help understand sex- and age-related genomic differences influencing athletic adaptation. Gujarat has seen a rise in sports stars from remote parts, like 21-year-old Rohit Majgul belonging to the Siddi community who recently qualified as a judoka for the Commonwealth and Asian Games. Majgul belongs to Jambur village in the Gir region that is often referred to as 'Mini Africa' as the Siddi community that is based here draws its origins from Africa. In 2018, Sarita Gayakwad fromGujarat’soverwhelmingly »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2