www.IndIAnExPREss.coM TakInG The lIne for a spIn How regional commentary is becoming a game changer for IPL ahmedabad, may 24, 2026 sCreen Aamir Khan, guest at Screen Academy’s Masterclass, on the art of writing and why a film’s first-cut feedback is integral to his process lAtE cIty 14+4 PAgEs ₹6.00 d A I l y F R o M : A h M E d A B A d , happening today c h A n d I g A R h , d E l h I , j A I P u R , k o l k A t A , l u c k n o w , M u M B A I , n A g P u R , P A t n A , P u n E , v A d o d A R A presents the Padma Awards, All India Radio will start a special radio series that will shed light on the lives and work of the awardees. lrepresentAtives of more than 550 tribal communities are expected to gather at the Red Fort grounds to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary year of tribal icon Birsa Munda. Track These and more on www.indianexpress.com vineshcan enterAsiad trials,Wfibeing vindictive,says HighCourt sohini Ghosh New Delhi, May 23 AFteR It pulled up the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for describing wrestler vinesh Phogat’s exit from the 2024 Paris Olympics as a “national shame”, the Delhi high Court has allowed her to participate intheselectiontrialsscheduled May 30-31 for this year’s Asian Games in Japan. In an order Friday which was made public Saturday, the high Court said the WFI’s observations against Phogat were “retrograde” and showed that the wrestling body was “being vindictive”. Phogat had been rendered ineligible for participation owing to the criteria set by the WFI this year, a departure from the past eligibility criteria. She had also been served a showcause notice (SCn) by the WFI on May 9 that barred her from participating in any WFI event until June 26. On May 3, Phogat said she was one of the six women wrestlers who had alleged sexual harassment by former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a former MP. the division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice tejas Karia said, “It is necessary that (Phogat) is permitted to participate in the Selection trials in the interest of sport and justice. In view of the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, it is clear that except for (her) motherhood and the SCn issued by WFI, she would be entitled to participate in the Selection »ContinUed on pAGe 2 nation PAge 8 AyushmAn BhArAt set to mAke entry into BengAl CoCKroACH JAntA pArty pLAtforM Trade, defence, critical tech discussed; India, US will work for global good: Modi Ally TDP refers to Vijay’s victory, says social media handle should be ‘left to exist’ if not ‘influenced by outsiders’ shubhajit roy lA dAy before the President on trip MeAnt to repAir ties, He eXtends trUMp invite to Modi Liz Mathew Rubio meets PM, says US can diversify India’s energy supply New Delhi, May 23 SIGnALLInG SOMe progress inrepairingtiesafterachallenging year in bilateral relations, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Prime Minister narendraModiinnewDelhiSaturday and they discussed “defence, strategic technologies, trade and investment, energy security, connectivity, educationandpeople-to-peopleties”. Rubio, who landed in Kolkata in the morning before travelling to new Delhi, also “shared US perspective on various regional and global issues, including the situation in West Asia,” according to a statement fromthePrimeMinister’sOffice. US State Department spokesperson tommy Pigott said, “the Secretary and Prime Ministerdiscussedthecurrentsituation in the Middle east. the Secretary emphasized that the United States will not let Iran hold the global energy market hostage and affirmed that US energy products have the potential to diversify India’s energy supply”. thePrimeMinister,according to the PMO, reaffirmed India’s consistent support for “peaceeffortsandreiteratedthe call for peaceful resolution of the conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy”, the PMO. Rubio’s visit — he will be attending the May 26 meeting of QuadForeignMinisters–isimportant given that bilateral ties have been hit in the last »ContinUed on pAGe 2 New Delhi, May 23 Us secretary of state marco rubio with wife Jeanette and Us envoy sergio gor at missionaries of charity in kolkata, saturday. x/ @usAMBIndIA the world PAge 11 New friction point: Return-home rule for Green Card applicants divya A & Anagha Jayakumar New Delhi, May 23 Progress in tAlks, sAy u.s. And irAn; trumP to sPeAk to gulf leAders once trumP’s co-Pilot, BiBi is now A mere PAssenger Punjab sprinter shatters national 100m record, first to go below 10.10 seconds pritish raj Ranchi, May 23 GURInDeRvIR SInGh, 25, from Punjab, broke the men’s 100m national athletics record at the Federation Cup final in RanchiSaturday,clocking10.09 seconds to become the first Indian to run a sub-10.10-second time. In fact, Gurindervir broke the record twice in two days. In the first semifinal on Friday, he ran 10.17s to better Animesh Kujur’s previous mark of 10.18s, though in the second semifinal, Kujur sprinted back with a faster 10.15s. the performances of India’s fastest two men have raised the country’s hopes for an athletics medal in the Com- BJP calls it bid to ‘destabilise’, but voices within, allies say: Listen to young In WhAt could emerge as a new point of contention betweennewDelhiandWashington DC, the Donald trump-led US administration has announced that those in the US temporarily must return to their home countries to apply for a Green Card. A Green Card (officially known as a Permanent Resident Card) allows a person to live and work perma- nently in the United States. the announcement by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is a sweeping reversal of a practice in place for over half a century. It could potentially impact thousands of Indians presently in the US in different stages of residence and seeking a Green Card. the earlier policy allowed foreignworkerstochangefrom non-immigrant to immigrant by applying for “adjustment of status” from within the US. “From now on, an alien who is in the US temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances,” USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement. While there are approximately1.5millionIndianGreen Card holders in the US, an additional 1.2 million highly skilled Indian nationals and theirdependentsareestimated to be presently stuck in the employment-based Green Card »ContinUed on pAGe 2 diGitAL detoX trend Old iPods, off-grid holidays, Lego bricks: Switching off the phone is new and growing market Anil sasi New Delhi, May 23 gurindervir singh after breaking the national 100-metre record at the birsa munda stadium in ranchi, Jharkhand. ExPREss monwealth Games (in Scotland from July 23) as well as the Asian Games (in Japan from September 19), where they »ContinUed on pAGe 2 AS SCReen time climbs and digital anxiety becomes an increasingly familiar complaint among parents, young professionals,andevenpolicymakers, aquietbutfast-growingmarket isemergingaroundtheproposition of helping people put their smartphones down. Its offerings range from refurbished iPods flying off second-hand shelves to Lego’s most complicated brick sets selling out among adults and curated wilderness retreats where checking WhatsApp is, by design, not an option. together, they form an unlikely but booming market: a break from the dopamine-laced tyr- anny of smartphones. Much of this feeds into a rising demand for keeping off »ContinUed on pAGe 2 the RULInG BJP has moved swiftlytocriticisetheviralCockroach Janta Party (CJP) handle withseniorleadersallegingforeign backing behind the social media phenomenon in a bid to “destabilise” India. But even as the party’s official line holds firm, a section of voices within andamongtheparty’salliesare also urging the need to tread carefully, acknowledging that youth discontent — over economic distress and the neet leak, for example — can’t be banned into silence. Senior BJP MP and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information technology nishikant Dubey alleged that the movement could be a threat to national security and former Union Min- express interview ‘It’s a cross-border influence operation… of course, many youths dissatisfied’ rAJeevCHAndrAseKHAr FoRMER unIon MInIstER PAge 7 isterandBJPKeralachiefRajeev Chandrasekharsawitasa“coordinated influence operation.” “this has many of the hallmarksofsomethingthatiscoordinatedandplannedratherthan something like spontaneous »ContinUed on pAGe 2 SC takes up Twisha case on its own, CJI-led bench to hear tomorrow express news service New Delhi, May 23 tAKInGSUOmotucognizance of the “unnatural death” of model and actor twisha Sharma, the Supreme Court Saturday decided to examine allegationsof“institutionalbias and procedural discrepancies” in connection with the case. her husband Samarth Singh, a lawyer whose licence to practise has been suspended bytheBarCouncilofIndia,and mother-in-law Giribala Singh, a retired judge, are accused in an alleged dowry death case. the Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognizance of thecaseandregistereditunder the title ‘In Re: Alleged Institutional Bias and Procedural Discrepancies In the Unnatural Death Of A Young Girl At her Matrimonial home’ also posted it for hearing before a three-judge bench. the bench, comprising Chief Justice of India SuryaKant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and vipul M Pancholi, will hear the matter Monday, May 25. this development came on the day a Judicial Magistrate FirstClass(JMFC)courtinBhopal sent Samarth Singh to police custody for seven days to allow investigators to question him over the circumstances Twisha sharma, 33, was found dead at her matrimonial home in bhopal on may 12 surroundingher death,alleged tampering of evidence and regarding the duration he had been absconding. Singh, who had been evading police ever since twisha’s deathonMay12,wastakeninto custody from Jabalpur Friday. Producing him before the JMFC court, Bhopal police sought his custody to question him. the police said there was a need to investigate the crime scene, electronic evidence, physical evidence as well as his movements after the incident and whether he had any outside help while absconding. twisha, 33, was found dead at her matrimonial home in Bhopal on May 12, less than six months after her marriage. While the postmortem conducted at AIIMS Bhopal concluded that the cause of death was “asphyxia due to antemortem hanging by ligature,” her »ContinUed on pAGe 2 l Family FirsT, wedding whenever: The Tribal way oF liFe in hill-sTaTion disTricT along The maharashTra border In Gujarat’s Dang, a wedding is a multi-generational financial goal shubham Kurale And it is here that a quietly extraordinary wedding tradition has endured for generIn the Dangs, weddings are ations: couples formally marry not just a celebration. they are onlywhenthefamilyhassaved a financial milestone that en- enough, which can take dectire families work toward, ades. Until then, they live tosometimes across multiple gether,raisechildren,andwait. generations. When the money is nestled in the finally ready, grandpage 1 northernmost tip of parents, parents, the Sahyadri range and their adult along the Mahachildren may all rashtra border, Dang is Guja- walk to the wedding hall torat’s only hill-station district, gether. popular for its dense forests, Over 70 to 80 per cent of tribal culture, and the hill sta- Dang’s population is tribal, and tion of Saputara. It is also the the economy runs on seasonal state’s least populated and one migration. each winter, from of the economically most-dis- november to March, families tressed districts. travel to other districts for Pune, May 23 anchor Prakash suryavanshi and his partner in bijurpada, subir tehsil, dang on Friday; (left) their wedding invitation – the names running across the card reflect the scale of a community celebration in dang. ExPREss sugarcane cutting – one of the few reliable sources of income available to them. “they are very good at cut- ting sugarcanes,” says Chirag Munjani, owner of Rural Pleasure Journeys, a travel company that works extensively in the region. “After cutting all expenses, they are left with savings of about Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 from this occupation each season.” Against this, a wedding in Dang costs around Rs 5 lakh. the expenses are huge – gold ornaments, return gifts of clothesandutensils,andmeals for the entire village. Wedding cards in some families run into hundreds of names, with guests from the bride’s and groom’svillagestogethercrossing 1,200. “Dangisculturallyveryrich but economically very poor. Andhere,povertyisthebiggest problem.Butgiventhepoverty, people here live a very sustainablelife,whichisaninteresting aspect of the tribes of this region,” Munjani says. Ahmedabad Whenthesugarcaneworkers returntoDanginMarch,thereis another significant drain on their savings. the district holds a unique festival called ‘Dang Darbar’, where the traditional kings of the region receive annual political pensions, locally known as Saliyana. “It is believed to be the only placeinIndiawheresuchapracticecontinuesaftertheabolition of princely titles and privy purses. tribes from nearby districts also join the fair, and participantsspendalotoftheirsavings in it,” Munjani said, reducing what families can set aside for weddings. the arithmetic of saving for a wedding costing over Rs 5 lakhonanincomeofRs25,00030,000 a season is daunting for a single couple. It becomes possible only when an entire family pools its labour. “Suppose all five adult kids start migrating for work – even then Rs 25,000 multiplied by fiveisonlyRs1.25lakh,whichis stillinsufficientformarriageexpenses,” Munjani explains. “So these next-gen young couples also get engaged and bring up theirfamily.Asthey,alongwith their spouses and adult children, a third generation, start working, suppose 16-17 familymembersworktogether, the savings cross the Rs 5 lakh mark. now they have enough.” »ContinUed on pAGe 2