The Ideas Page: Taking heart from the GDP story, behind the headline number 9 SatURdaY, SEPtEMBER 5, 2026 JournAlIsm of CourAGe jAiPuR, lAte City, 18 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 PosTal regn. no. JaiPur ciTy/001/2024-26 ediToriaL paGe PRESidENt dROUPadi MURMU let’s hold oUR teacheRs iN the highest esteem. they helP iNdia leaRN aNd lead Page 8 daYs after doVal-wanG talKs in BeiJinG Happening today Corps Commander set to meet Chinese counterpart in N-E lPrime minister Narendra Modi will attend the centenary celebrations of Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi. He will also address the gathering. lindia will face archrivals Pakistan in a Group A clash at the Women’s Asia Cup in Dubai. Track These and more on www.indianexpress.com New hotlines likely at army commands in Kolkata, Lucknow; border meeting point at Joshimath air india fires pilot who failed dope test after it is flagged by accidents bureau amrita nayak dutta New Delhi, September 4 in initial report, aaiB also takes note of hydraulics failure on flight from Phuket to delhi sukalp sharma New Delhi, September 4 HOUrsaFTertheaircraftaccident Investigation Bureau (aaIB) flagged the positive drug test of the pilot-in-command of the air India aircraft that suddenly lost altitude while flying from Phuket to delhi on august 4, the airline Fridayannouncedthetermination of the pilot’s employment with immediate effect. an air India spokesperson said,“safetyremainsairIndia’s highest priority. The Pilot-inCommand of the Phuket-delhi flight tested positive for a psychoactive substance. In line with air India’s zero-tolerance approach to violation of safety, fitness or regulatory requirements, the pilot’s employment The august 4 incident had left 20 passengers and four crew members injured. ANi has been terminated with immediate effect.” sources said the pilot-incommand had tested positive for marijuana. On Friday morning, the aaIB released its preliminary report on the investigation into theaugust4incidentinvolving air India’s airbus a320 aircraft vT-eXO. While the investigation remains underway and the preliminary report hasn’t identifiedanydefinitivelikelycause, it focussed on a sudden and brief triple hydraulic failure »continUed on PaGe 2 Rubio visit likely in Oct, Quad summit on G20 margins in US being explored GSLV sheds ‘naughty boy’ tag with india’s first geo-imaging satellite amitabh sinha & anonna dutt New Delhi, September 4 In ITs first launch since January, the Indian space research Organisation sent an earth observation satellite, eOs-05, to space early Friday morning, using a Gslv rocket. The eOs-05 is India’s first dedicated imaging satellite to be placed in the geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 km from earth, from where it can keep constant watch over the country and provide real-time imaging service. With a 10-year mission life, the satellite is designed to image large areas of interest at frequent intervals for purposes suchasmonitoringnaturaldisasters or keeping track of agriculture or forestry. It will also have defence uses. India has several other activeearthobservationsatellites in the lower-earth orbits which circle earth and periodically capture imagery over India. »continUed on PaGe 2 E. expLained isRo success after string of setbacks For ISRO, the successful launch comes after one of its most difficult phases in the last two years. Three of its six missions launched in 2025 and 2026 were unsuccessful, with the satellites unable to reach their intended orbits. Kolkata, September 4 us secy of state marco rubio day. It was attended by sergio Gor, special envoy to south andCentralasiaandambassador of Us to India; elly lawson, deputy secretary, strategic Planning and Coordination Group, department of Foreign affairs and Trade, australia; and, Hiroyuki namazu, senior »continUed on PaGe 2 In several districts of West Bengal, Christian groups have suspended house prayers and visits following a series of attacks on prayer meetings, including one in Uluberia in Howrahoveraweekago,where police had to rescue the pastor and the congregation. There have also been reportsofdisruptionofaburialin PurbaBardhaman,andvandal- Police rescue pastor, congregation from mob in Howrah; burial disrupted, body removed in Purba Bardhaman ization of an under-construction church in subhasgram in south 24 Parganas on July 5. In a video that went viral, a mob entered a house in Uluberia on august 23 while sunday prayers were on, and claiming “forced conversions”, beat up the gathering and ransacked the premises. Pastor Mithun Hazra told The Indian Express that like every sunday, they had“rentedahouseforaprayer meeting, where around 60 people, men and women, were gathered”. “Prayers started around 11 am. at around 3 pm, a mob chanting slogans barged beenheldbetweenthetwosides inrecentweekstoresolveissues. earlier this week, army chief General dhiraj seth also visited the spear Corps to “review the operational readiness of all formations and ongoing border development initiatives,”thearmysaidinaposton X, adding that he was briefed on all aspects of capability development and initiatives taken to further strengthen combat capability. On august 25, national security advisor ajit doval and ChineseForeignMinisterWang Yi, who are the special repre- sentatives for the boundary talks, met in Beijing. a day later, it was announced that India and China had decided to advance discussions on “an early and substantial harvest” of boundary delimitation and border management, and agreed on two newbordermilitaryhotlinesin theeasternandmiddlesectors, two new meeting points for military commander-level meetings, and on holding the trans-border river meeting in september. Thetwomilitaryhotlinesin »continUed on PaGe 2 Pages 14-15 ted sarandos Netflix Co-Ceo the Big PictURe chocolate with caPsicUm? data is chaNgiNg the food we eat Page 10 express special ravik Bhattacharya & sweety Kumari national security advisor ajit doval and china Foreign minister Wang yi held boundary talks in Beijing on august 25. @eoiBeijiNG ‘Netflix is Both classy aNd massy’ Bengal: christian groups stop house prayers after attacks, govt points to ‘forced conversions’ shubhajit roy New Delhi, September 4 Us seCreTarY of state Marco rubioislikelytovisitIndiainOctober,andofficialsarepreparing for a possible summit of Quad leaders in december in the Us, TheIndianExpresshas learnt. The Quad summit — the grouping comprises the Us, India, Japan and australia — is likely to take place on the sidelines of the summit of G20 leaders which, under the Us presidency, will take place at the Trump national doral Miami in doral, Florida, on december 14-15. Foreign secretary vikram MisrihostedameetingofQuad sherpas in new delhi Thurs- isro’s gslV-F17 rocket carrying the eos-05 satellite lifts off from sriharikota, andhra Pradesh, Friday. Pti IndIa and China are likely to hold Corps Commander-level talks in the coming days amid reports of tension in the Taksing area of the Upper subansiri district in arunachal Pradesh. The Indian Express has learnt that lt General Girish Kalia, commander of the army’sIIICorps,alsocalledthe spear Corps with its headquarters at rangapahar near dimapur in nagaland, will be holding talks shortly with his Chinese counterpart and other officers. The spear Corps is responsible for operations in nagaland, Manipur and arunachal Pradesh’s central and eastern sectors along the line of actual Control. Multiple rounds of talks between local commanders have in. They assaulted me and others… ransacked the house, destroyed the sound system, podium, tables, chairs, and fans. They beat up men and women.” The pastor said police rescued them and took them to hospital. “after treatment, we went to the police station and filed a complaint. since that day, we have not held house prayers in the area.” superintendent of Police, Howrah rural, amit verma »continUed on PaGe 2 cJP’s saurav das and ashutosh ranka with azad samaj Party (kanshi ram) mP chandra shekhar in new delhi, Friday. PRAveeN KHANNA Jantar mantar Protests after CJP dharna, man who ‘attacked’ father of protester detained Pragynesh New Delhi, September 4 sWaTanTraBHardWaJ,the self-styled “influencer” who purportedlyadmittedtohaving attacked the father of a young JantarMantarprotesterinJuly, was detained by police on Friday evening, about six hours aftertheCockroachJantaParty (CJP), Indian Youth Congress, and lok sabha MPs Chandra shekhar and rajesh ranjan protested at Parliament street police station in new delhi. PoliceofficerssaidBhardwaj was picked up in Bulandshahr Business as Usual By EP UNNY »continUed on PaGe 2 l 503 indian aThleTes along WiTh 256 suPPorT sTaFF and oFFicials To TraVel To aichi-nagoya This monTh Container rooms to sushi: Indian athletes prepare for Asian Games — and Japan nitin sharma & Pritish raj many varieties of it. They are being familiarised with the conditions in nagoya, where the organisers have denOT all surprises are pleas- cided not to build an ‘athletes ant. and Indian athletes are village’, a residential complex doing all they can to avoid one usually set up during major whentheylandinJapanforthe events, including the previous aichi-nagoya asian Games versionsoftheasianGames.To keep costs low, organisers have starting september 19. since last week, the athletes instead offered the 17,000-odd athletes three acatthesportsauthorpaGe 1 commodation opity of India training tions: a cruise ship, centres in Patiala hotel rooms, and (Punjab) and Bengaluru have been spending time containers. Of these, 503 athletes and in 40-by-8-foot shipping containers, refurbished to include 256 support staff and officials beds,airconditioners,apantry, will be from India. aiming to and a washroom. Food served better India’s record of 107 at the canteen includes sushi, medals, including 28 gold, in Patiala, Bengaluru, September 4 anchor Hangzhou, China, in 2023, no effort is being spared to eliminate a curveball, particularly when it comes to stay and food. The national Institute of sports(nIs)inPatialahasmodified two containers, which it had procured during the Covid pandemic to store equipment, into two-room spaces for the athletes. so has the saI Bengaluru centre, which bought two containers last year. “nineplayershavestayedin thesecontainerssofar.according to the roster, more players will spend time in containers. during Covid, the two containers were used for storing athletics and weightlifting equipment in Patiala. We took (left) shot-putter Tajinder Pal singh Toor outside a container at nis, Patiala. HARMeet SoDHi; (above) sushi on the menu at sai centre in Bengaluru the decision to convert these twocontainerstoaccommodation facilities, similar to what athletes will get in Japan,” said vineet Kumar, senior executivedirectoranddeputydirector General of nIs. among those who got first- hand experience of living in a containerisGlasgowCommonwealth Games bronze medalist seema Kaliraman. discus Jaipur throwers like her, she said, “need more space to sleep, but the container has constraints.” “I could not sleep well on thefirstnight.ThenIgotaccustomed to it. I thought the asian Games were such a big event and there would be an athletes’ village. But we have to adjust. Our main focus is to win medals,” seema said. Two-time asian Games champion and defending championshot-putterTajinder Pal singh Toor, who is six feet and four inches tall and just about fits on a standard-sized bed, said the container reminded him of his hostel days. “as a young athlete, I would staywithfourorfiveothershot- putters in one room, sleeping on mattresses in Punjabi University, Patiala. We did this to save money. The space in the containers reminded me of those days. For a tall and wellbuilt athlete like me, space can beaproblem.Wehavethetraining gear too. But preparing the mindaheadforsuchchallenges helps any sportsperson, and that’s what we are doing by getting accustomed to sleeping in containershereatnIs,”hesaid. at the saI centre in Bengaluru, sushi varieties such as chicken tempura uramaki, salmon nigiri avocado and cucumber uramaki are now a staple on the canteen menu »continUed on PaGe 2