The Ideas Page: India has demonstrated strategic autonomy, but its record is not perfect 11 TUESDAy, MAy 12, 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 New BJP GoVt iN west BeNGal Suvendu keeps Home, Finance as he fast-tracks border fencing in first act Officer who oversaw Bengal SIR appointed Chief Secy in BJP govt Govt committed to susashan and suraksha: CM ravik Bhattacharya Kolkata, May 11 neWly sWoRn-in West BengalChiefMinistersuvenduadhikariwillkeepamajorityofimportantdepartmentswithhim, including home and hill affairs,health,law,andFinance. two days after he was sworn in as the first BJP chief minister of West Bengal, along with five of his Cabinet colleagues,theportfoliosweredistributed on Monday at a meeting of 207 party Mlas at While senior leader and former MP Dilip ghosh has been given Panchayat and Rural Development, animal Resources and agriculturalMarketingDepartments, fashion designerturned-politician agnimitra Paul will take charge of Urban Development and Municipality affairs, Women and Child TMC, Congress criticise move: ‘Outrageous and brazen’ ravik Bhattacharya & atri mitra Kolkata, May 11 WestBengalchiefministersuvenduadhikariwithhiscabinetministersatthesecretariat,monday. PARTHAPAUL Welfare departments. Former Union Minister of state and Mathabhanga Mla nisith Pramanik has been allotted north Bengal Development Department and sports and youth affairs Department. tribal leader and first-time MlaKshudiramtuduhasbeen madeministerfortribalDevel- opment, and will also hold the charge of Backward Class Welfare Department and Minority and Madrasa education. Matua leader ashok Kirtania, who was re-elected from Bongaon Uttar assembly seat, has been made Minister for FoodandsuppliesDepartment and Cooperation Department. Happening ED arrests ex-minister today in municipality jobs case Days after the NDa swept after hours of questioning the Assam polls, Himanta Biswa sources in the party said that more Mlas are likely to be sworn in as ministers soon. earlier in the day, the Cabinet,initsfirstmeeting,decided to hand over all pending land required for border fencing to theBordersecurityForce(BsF) within 45 days. »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 business as usual By EP UNNy l Sarma will take oath as Chief Minister for a second consecutive term. PM Narendra Modi and other top NDA leaders are expected to attend the event. lChiNese ViCe-Premier he Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will begin the final round of negotiations in South Korea before US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing. la Delhi Court will continue to hear actor Jacqueline Fernandez’s plea seeking to turn approver in a Rs 200-crore money laundering case involving alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekar. Track These and more on www.indianexpress.com sweety Kumari manoj agarwal faced Tmc’s allegations of bias during the controversial sIr exercise the BJP government in West Bengal on Monday appointed the state’s Chief electoral officer (Ceo) Manoj agarwal as the next Chief secretary. agarwal succeeds Dushyant nariala, an ias officer of the 1993 batch, who has been moved to newDelhiasthePrincipalResident Commissioner. agarwal, who is set to retire in July, had faced criticism from the trinamool Congress (tMC)duringthespecialintensive Revision (siR) of electoral rolls. the move comes days after the government appointed the election Commission’s special observer for West Bengal, subrata gupta, as an advisor to Chief Minister suvendu adhikari. »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 Suvendu aide’s killing: UPI, toll plaza CCTV lead to 3 suspects in Bihar, UP sweety Kumari & manish sahu Kolkata, May 11 Kolkata, Lucknow, May 11 FoRMeR West Bengal minister and tMC leader sujit Bose was arrested by the enforcementDirectorate(eD)inKolkata on Monday after more than 10 hoursofquestioninginconnectionwithallegedirregularitiesin municipality recruitment. eD sources alleged sujit Bose had “illegally recommended 150 candidates for different posts in the south Dum Dum Municipality”. “eD has traced direct proceeds of crime in the form of flats acquired by him in lieu of providing municipality jobs to various persons. Further, eD hasalsotracedhugedepositsof sujitBosewasFire& emergency servicesministerintheTmcgovt cash in the bank accounts under his control. he will be produced tomorrow (tuesday) morning before the hon’ble specialCourt,”eDsourcessaid. Bose, who has been summoned multiple times in connection with the eD probe into thecase,hadreachedtheeDoffice at the Cgo Complex in salt »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 inside PageS 4,5 SC to tmC: File FreSh Plea on deletionS, aSSembly PollS Suvendu govt raiSeS age limit in jobS by 5 yrS, nod to bring in Centre SChemeS the West Bengal CiD and Madhyamgram police have arrested three suspects in connection with the murder of Chandranath Rath, the personalassistantofnewlyelected Chief Minister suvendu adhikari, following a pursuit across statelinesthatledinvestigators to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. acting on specific intelligence, a specialised team detained Mayank Raj Mishra and Vicky Maurya from Buxar, Bihar, while a third suspect, Raj singh,wasapprehendedinBallia, Uttar Pradesh. after interrogationbyCiDofficialsonMay one of the suspects at a court in West Bengal’s north 24 Parganas district, monday PTi 10, all three were formally arrested by the Madhyamgram police.investigatorssuspectthe »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 WFI a dictatorship... they afraid I will AIADMK stares at split as bloc of win medals again: Vinesh in Gonda 30 pro-Vijay MLAs turnsonEPS Nihal Koshie arun Janardhanan Gonda (UP), May 11 Chennai, May 11 Vinesh Phogat credits her 10-month-old son Kridhav for bringing joy to her life after the 2024 Paris heartbreak, fuelling her with the energy to fight the systemandgivingherthecourage to dream of watching him cheer her at the next olympics. she said this hours after a meeting with Wrestling Federation of india (WFi) president sanjay singh, who blocked her »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 Wrestler Vinesh Phogat speaks to reporters after meeting WFI chief sanjay singh in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, monday. ViJAy KUMAR/ iE HiNDi Days aFteR the collapse of backchannel discussions around a possible DMKaiaDMK understanding — an idea that ended in political embarrassment for tamil nadu’s two Dravidian majors — the aiaDMK now appears headed toward a potentially historic split, with a large section of partyleadersandnewlyelected Mlas openly challenging the leadership of edappadi K Palaniswami or ePs and pushing for alignment with the tamilagaVettriKazhagam(tVK)led by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay. What “Delhi” had long hoped for after the death of J Jayalalithaa — a weakened and internally fractured aiaDMK — now appears closer thanever,withpowerfulleaders within the party questioning ePs’s political future after successive electoral setbacks and accusing him of isolating the party from emerging power equations. at the centre of the crisis is the question of whether aiaDMK should support Vijay’s newly formed tVK government, which crossed the majority mark saturday after intense post-poll negotiations and support from allies. according to reliable sources in aiaDMK, at least 30 Mlas and several senior »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 Prime minister narendra modi at the somnath temple in Gujarat, relaTed rePorT, PaGe 7 monday. PTi west asia CoNfliCt Second day, PM makes austerity push, invokes Covid-era habits aditi raja editorial page Vadodara, May 11 With no signs of an immediate end to the conflict in West asia, Prime Minister narendra ModiMondayagainurgedgovernment and private offices to revertto‘Covid-era’habitssuch aswork-from-homeandvirtual meetings, and asked citizens to opt for car pooling and reduce fuel consumption. “if the coronavirus pandemic was the biggest crisis of thiscentury,thentheconflictin West asia is among the biggest crisesofthisdecade,”Modisaid addressing a gathering to inauguratethePatidarcommunity’s sardardham in Vadodara. the sharp depletion of for- Pm FrameS Severity oF energy Challenge govt, oil ComPanieS Can’t abSorb energy ShoCk indeFinitely Page 10 eignexchangereservessincethe beginning of the conflict, and the prospects of a worsening current account deficit are becoming big worry points for policymakers now. in Q3 last year i.e.,october-December2025,the deficithadincreasedto$13.2billion or 1.3 per cent of gDP compared with $11.3 billion or »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 Behind PM’s call, dipping foreign exchange reserves, rising gold imports Gold import bill doubles in two years to $72 billion, foreign travel spend under LRS $15 billion in Apr-Feb 2026 George mathew & aanchal magazine Mumbai, New Delhi, May 11 Rising PRessURe on india’s external sector with forex reserves plummeting by $38 billion injusttwomonthssincethe onset of the West asia conflict, and crude oil prices continuing to hover over $100 a barrel, have started to worry policy makers. Behind Prime Minister narendra Modi's call for austerity measures by citizens are substantial foreign exchange outflows linked to highergoldimportsandspendingonoverseastravelunderthe liberalisedRemittancescheme (lRs).Whilethegoldimportbill has almost doubled to $72 billionin2025-26intwoyears,outflowunderlRsforforeigntravel accounted for $15 billion or 57 per cent of the total $26.34 billionlRsinthefirst11monthsof 2025-26. the fall in reserves to $691 billion has also been drivenbysustainedcapitaloutflowsfromforeign institutional investors (Fiis) amid heightened global uncertainty. Fii outflowsinJanuary-Mayperiod wereRs1.97lakhcroreasforeign investorscontinuedtheirsell-off in the stock markets. the rupee also dropped below the 95 level to 95.21 against the Us dollar. E. »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2 l BUIlT In 2001, ITs Poor condITIon Was raIsed aT leasT seVen TImes In InTernal corresPondence BeTWeen aUGUsT 2024 and aPrIl 2026 Before Bihar bridge collapsed, multiple inspections, several red flags — all ignored santosh singh ported. the collapse led to a major disruption of traffic between a in the two years leading up to large part of Jharkhand and the partial collapse of the Vik- south Bihar on one end, and ramshila bridge in Bihar last north and northeastern Bihar, week, multiple inspection as well as West Bengal, on the teams and officials raised red other. traffic from both sides flags that were not acted upon, has now been diverted to a The Indian Express has learnt. much longer route, making the according to officials, the distance between Munger and partial collapse hapKhagaria 161 km via page 1 pened in two stages, thegangabridge,up beginning with a from 14 km over the structural failure in Vikramshila setu. pillar 133 at around 11.55 pm on engineers and experts from May 3, followed by a total span the Border Road organisation collapse at 1.07 am on May 4, (BRo),theindianarmyandiit which split the 4.7-kilometre- Patna, as well as officers from longbridgeoverthegangainto the state Road Construction two. no casualties were re- Department (RCD) and the Patna, May 11 anchor Bihar Rajya Pul nirman nigam limited (BRPnnl), have been at the site to plan the repair efforts, expected to take up to three months. the BRPnn carries the onus of coordinating with the RCDtoensurethestructuralintegrity of any bridge in the state. Both the BRPnn and the RCD had been made aware of the “precarious condition” of the bridge on multiple occasionsoverthepasttwomonths, sources said. Following the collapse, RCD’s nh division executive engineer,saketKumarRoshan, was suspended for alleged dereliction of duty. his suspension letter, is- a portion of the Vikramshila bridge collapsed last week. ExPRESS sued on May 4, said, “the responsibility of maintenance of the bridge rested with RCD's nhdivision(Bhagalpur)execu- tive engineer saket Kumar Roshan. Prima facie, he has been found guilty of being lax and disinterested about his duty and is being suspended with immediate effect.” RCDsourcestoldTheIndian Express that between august 2024 and april 2026, there had been at least seven internal correspondences regarding the poor condition of the bridge, which was built in 2001. over the years, the passage of overloaded trucks and the resultant weakeningofthebearingsatthe joints have been the main reasons for its deteriorating condition, according to officials. an RCD source said: “in august 2024, an inspection of the bridge by RCD superintending engineershowedgapsinsixout of 60-odd expansion joints. in January 2025, RCD head- Kolkata quarters were reminded about the inspection. in March 2025, Bhagalpur District Magistrate nawal Kishore Choudhary reminded visiting state government officials about widening cracks in the bridge. however, later that month, a joint team from iit Patna and BRPnnl inspected the bridge and said the structure was safe.” “in april 2025, the national highways division, Bhagalpur, reported to RCD headquarters about four new cracks in the bridge. in april 2026, visiting RCD officials were told about the damage to the bearings in the bridge. that same month, a detailed report on the bridge’s poorconditionwassenttoRCD headquarters,” the source said. less than a month later, the partial collapse occurred. Before these red flags were raised,therehadbeentwomajor repairs of the bridge between 2020and2024,withofficialssayingthissuggestedthatitneeded overall better maintenance. an RCDofficialsaid,“Between2020 and 2022, several expansion joints had been repaired with partial closure of the bridge. in 2024, surface and structural reinforcementwasdonewithnew bituminous layers to cover the cracks appearing near the pillars.thiswascompletedwithlimited success.” an expert, who visited the »CoNtiNueD oN PaGe 2