The editorial Page: From the iran conflict, four geopolitical shifts india cannot afford to miss 8 mONDaY, JUlY 6, 2026 JOurnalism of COurage mumbai, 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 ReG.No. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNi ReGN. No. 1543/57 10 rain-related deaths in mumbai in less than a week 160 7dieinaday: SixkilledinMankhurd chawlcollapse,treefallclaimsanother 200 Pratip acharya 132 Mumbai, July 5 92 PoliticS dr syama Prasad mooKerJee: a life devoted to india’s unity & Progress BY Pm NarENDra mODi Page 10 business as usual By EP UNNY Seven people died in rainrelated incidents across Mumbai on Sunday, taking the city’s monsoon death toll to 10 in less than a week. While six people werekilledafteraground-plusthree-storeychawlcollapsedin Mankhurd on Sunday night, a 63-year-old man died earlier in the day after a tree branch fell onhiminKurla.An18-year-old boy died after a tree branch fell onhiminAareySaturdaynight. According to officials, a portion of a ground-plus-threestoreychawlcollapsedinMankhurd around 8.30 pm at Chawl no.5inJantanagar,behindHanumanMandir,trappingseveral residents under the debris. one personwasdeclareddeadatthe spot, while five others — four the city tree-fall deaths raise questions over bmC’s road ConCretisation Colaba reCords wettest July day in a deCade Page 4 women and a man — were brought dead to Shatabdi Hospital. The deceased were yet to be identified, while one person who sustained injuries is undergoing treatment. Teams from the Mumbai Fire Brigade, Mumbai police, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and ambulance services rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation. »COntinued On PaGe 2 saves On water, labOur COst diljitdosanjh’s Satlujpulled fromZee5in indiatwodays afterrelease Direct-seeded rice gains traction among farmers amid El Nino shadow on monsoon anonna dutt New Delhi, July 5 The debris of the house in Janta Nagar, Mankhurd, that left six dead on Sunday night. Ganesh shirsekar Forces seek larger retention of agniveers after 4-yr tenure Navy likely to seek 75% retention, army and iaF up to 50%; current retention for each arm is 25% New Delhi, July 5 Amritsar, Mumbai, July 5 JUST TWo days after it premiered on streaming service Zee5, Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Satluj,afilmbasedonthelifeof human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, has been made unavailable in india. in a social media statement on Sunday, Zee5 said, “in light of the current developments, Satluj will be unavailable in india until further notice. We remaincommittedtoexploring every appropriate avenue through due process to bring the film back to our audiences at the earliest opportunity.” Directed by Honey Trehan and produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSvp alongside Macguffin pictures, Satluj was releasedonZee5onJuly3after certification troubles held up the film for around three years. While it has now been pulled from india, the film remains available to stream abroad through Zee5 global. DirectorTrehantoldTheIndian Express, “i got to know about the removal of Satluj from Zee5 in india at around 8.15pmonSunday.iamataloss right now. i don’t know how to react to this development.” in a statement on its official X account, Zee5 thanked viewers for what it described as an overwhelming response since the release of the movie, and said that it stood by “the »COntinued On PaGe 2 A farm worker transplants paddy seedlings at a field on the Delhi-Haryana border. harish DamoDaran harish damodaran New Delhi, July 5 FoR BASMATi paddy grower SatyavanSehrawat,thetwobiggest challenges are water and labour. The traditional method of cultivatingthecerealgraincrop — by puddling (flooding the field and tilling repeatedly to breakdownsoilclods,pluglarge poresandcreateasoftseedbed) and transplantation (of seedlingsinitiallyraisedinnurseries) — is highly water-intensive. “puddling itself consumes water equivalent to three irrigations. For the first three weeks aftertransplanting,thefieldhas to be irrigated every second day to maintain a standing water depth of 4-5 cm. You need to irrigate even thereafter once a week,” said the 56-year-old Sehrawat,whofarmsbasmation 50 out of his 54-acre holding in Delhi’s Daryapur Kalan village. Depending on the crop’s duration(115-120daysfromseed to grain for pusa Basmati-1509 and 140-145 days for pusa Basmati-1121), and also how much it rains, the total irrigations can beanywherebetween20and30. each irrigation uses over 200,000 litres of water per acre. »COntinued On PaGe 2 THe ARMeD Forces are seeking an increase in the percentage of Agniveers who can be retained in the services after completing their four-year tenure, even as the overall percentage agreed upon remains 25 per cent for each of the three services at present. Agniveers recruited under the Agnipath scheme began theirtraininginearly2023.The initialbatchesofAgniveerswill completetheirfour-yeartenure with the services later this year. All of them would initially be released from the services, and the selected number of Agniveers who volunteer to serve in the defence forces would be enrolled back as regular soldiers based on merit. it has been learnt that the navywilllikelyseekahigherretention percentage of sailors whojoinedundertheschemeat around 75 per cent, while the ArmyandtheiAFmightseekan increase to around 50 per cent from the current 25 per cent. The defence forces have maintained so far that the retention percentage remains at 25 per cent at present. The indian express sent queries to the Army, navy and iAF on July 1 on whether they are seeking to retain a greater percentage of Agniveers in the three services and the reasons forthat,butisyettoreceiveany response. Theneedformoreretention has been felt keeping in view »COntinued On PaGe 2 Behind the move: Experienced manpower and training on new platforms THe KeY reason why the Armed Forces are seeking an increase in the percentage of Agniveers who can be retained after completion oftheirfour-year tenure is the need for a bigger pool of experienced troops in the services, particularly in the event of a conflict. This, people familiar with the matter told The Indian Express,wasamongthelessons E. »COntinued On PaGe 2 eXPReSS at World Cup sandip G Lamine Yamal, 18, is the youngest goal-scorer in a World Cup since Pele; Ronaldo, 41, is the oldest ever in the knockouts. aP Messi’s blessed inheritor, the wunderkind beyond his years. every record he broke in the leaguewasoncetheArgentine’s. But in the wee hours of Tuesday in india, when Spain takes on portugal in a World Cup knockout game, the silhouette behind Yamal will not be that of Messi. it will be of Messi’s grand rival, another »COntinued On PaGe 2 At New Medical College Hospital in Kota, one of the hospitals which saw maternal deaths. Parul kulshrestha non-compliance of a 2023 order to stop production. Sources said the current inspections found widespread irregularities, including the absence of evidence of key tests regarding drug purity, and proof of data fudging. The Union Health Ministry had sought a detailed report on women developing complicationsfollowingcaesareanoperations across several government hospitals in Rajasthan, »COntinued On PaGe 2 nation New Delhi, July 5 in Spain vs Portugal, a star racing future vs a superstar chasing past All HiS life, lionel Messi’s shadow has loomed over lamine Yamal. He was just an infant when a photographer arranged a shoot wherein Messi was bathing Yamal. Years later, when he stepped into Barcelona’slaMasiaAcademy,hewas An eigHT-member expert committee, set up by the Rajasthan government to probe the recent maternal deaths, has flagged several procedural lapses,includingpoormonitoringofhigh-riskpregnancies,insufficient medical treatment records and gaps in infection control mechanisms, The Indian Express has learnt. earlier, the World Health organisation (WHo) had sought information on the possible link to ineffective oxytocin — an injection used to induce labour and to contract the uterusforpreventingbloodloss after delivery. The Rajasthan Drug Testing laboratory had found a batch ineffective, sayingtestsrevealedthattheinjectionscontainednotraceofoxytocin, its active ingredient. Additionally, the licences of the units of Jackson laboratories,themanufacturerofoxytocin, in punjab and Himachal pradesh were cancelled for amrita nayak dutta lamine Yamal faCes CristianO rOnaldO Philadelphia, July 5 ‘As long as you do not overpower us, we are equal. That message is very strong within Assam’ himanta biswa sarma, assam cm Page 13 Panel probing Kota maternal deaths flags lapses in monitoring, infection control Oxytocin was under scanner earlier; now experts say that may not be reason behind deaths amrita nayak dutta kamaldeep singh brar & alaka sahani eXPReSS special Page 7 legendary Pandavani singer teeJan bai dies at 69 ram temPle dOnatiOn ‘theft’ rOw Trust meeting today, treasurer distances himself: ‘Catch guilty, give strict punishment’ maulshree seth Ayodhya, July 5 SignAllingDeepeningdiscontent within the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trustovertheallegedembezzlement of donations at the Ram TempleinAyodhya,itstreasurer Swami govind Dev giri sought to distance himself from the controversy and called for strict actionagainstthoseresponsible, irrespective of their position. inthefirstdetailedpublicresponse by a senior functionary of the Trust on the controversy, giri also sought to separate his statutory responsibilities as treasurer from the day-to-day handling of donations and financial administration. in a two-page statement, he asserted that his responsibility Ram temple Trust treasurer Swami Govind Dev Giri. File PoliticS Page 10 as trust meets, rss KeePs watCh was limited to maintaining audited accounts and records. “The police and investigating agencies should catch the guilty. no matter how big the »COntinued On PaGe 2 l PRoTeST CRoSSeS foRTNiGHT MARK, WiTH LeADiNG PoLiTiCAL AND CuLTuRAL fiGuReS HAviNG viSiTeD JANTAR MANTAR To exTeND SuPPoRT One night at CJP protest: Crash course in politics & an ex-mall worker’s dream drishti Jain party (CJp) protest demanding the resignation of Union education Minister Dharmendra ARoUnD3amSaturday,atJan- pradhan over the neeT exam tar Mantar in the heart of Delhi, paperleak.now,heispreparing vikas Kumar opens his small to start his own political party. bagandpullsoutacrumpledA4 Kumarisoneamongseveral sheet announcing his political volunteers — from artists to party.The20-year-old,wearing workers — for whom the proa white kurta with a blue scarf test site has also become a around his shoulder, stands “political classroom” of sorts. with folded hands. on the stage, acPage 1 The sheet carries his tivist Sonam Wangpicture which, he chuk, who is on a says, is enhanced hunger strike, and withAi.Herunshisfingerdown CJp founder Abhijeet Dipke, it:“ApnaBharatSenaparty-ABS sleep with a table fan for relief. party”, it reads. others lie on thick black sheets For the past 15 days, Kumar, on the floor. A few fan their fromHajipurinBihar,hasbeen neighbours with plastic fans, part of the Cockroach Janta while many sit in circles, ex- New Delhi, July 5 anchor changing ideas with strangers about everything under the moon. Kumar, for his part, is busy learning. “Just like people pay moneytotakecoursesindigital marketing and computers, i’m doing a course in politics here. i get food and a place to sleep. it’s been 15 days since i started the ‘course’. once it’s over, i’ll become a politician. Already 17 people have joined my party here,” he says. After completing a polytechnic course at Ambala in Haryana, Kumar says he moved to noida for a job at a hardware firm and has since switched jobs across DelhinCR. on June 19, he left his The protesters at Jantar Mantar on Saturday night. abhinav saha “supervisor job” at a mall in gurgaon to join the protest. “My family’s financial condition is not good, so i had to start earning. i know the value of education and how important it is to reach higher. Rich fathers can hand over estab- lished businesses to their children, while middle and lower-class parents struggle to even give an education. When i become a politician, i won't become rich, but i’ll have the powertoraisethevoiceofthese people,” he says. “Here, i’m meeting people who have studied arts. They have ideologies and different views, and they are patient in their approach. They think deeply.i’mwatchingandlearning. i take decisions impulsively,” he says, before playing a 3-minute-20-second Ai-generated video of his “party’s roadshow” in Bihar, adding thathisfriendsinhisvillageare more excited than he is. The protest, which started after Dipke arrived in Delhi from the US, has crossed the fortnight mark. So far, prominent figures who have visited thevenuetoextendsupportinclude author Arundhati Roy, CpM leaders Brinda Karat and John Brittas, Swaraj india founder Yogendra Yadav and AAp leader Sanjay Singh. The fight will continue, say volunteers, even as the silence ofthenightisbrokenbychatter, chalk scraping on canvases, songs and slogans demanding the Minister’s resignation. At the first stall near the stage, Zahid, who says he travelled two days from Baramulla in Kashmir to reach the site, is joined by two friends from Sopore and Srinagar. The 32-year-old wears a white Tshirt printed with the image of a cockroach and has a card hanging from his left wrist that reads “volunteer Marshal”. pastmidnight,heisstillserving foodandwatertosupporterson site, along with others. Zahid says he could not make it to Delhi for the June 6 CJp protest but managed to reach the site after the extended agitation started at Jantar Mantar on June 20. “i came across the party’s social media page on May 15 and felt it was right, after reading the demands,” he says. »COntinued On PaGe 2