DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2019, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES `4.00, WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 CITIZENSHIP (AMENDMENT) BILL N-E heat makes Centre warm up to state OK On MHA table: Incentives to those who want to settle outside North East RAHUL TRIPATHI NEW DELHI, JANUARY 22 WITH OPPOSITION to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill showing no signs of abating in the North East, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) sought to allay fears Tuesday and said foreigners would not be granted Indian citizenship without the consent of state governments concerned. The MHA also said that a proposal to “provide incentives to those people who want to settle anywhere in India, except the North East” is currently under consideration. Home Ministry spokesperson Ashok Prasad said, “The mistaken perception in the North East about the Bill is creating insecurities. The Bill doesn’t give automatic citizenship to anybody. It brings a certain category of people from particular specified areas into the considerations zone with certain eased conditions. No one will become citizen overnight.” The Bill was passed by Lok Sabha on January 8 and has been introduced in Rajya Sabha, In Bengal, Amit Shah says no NRC worry for Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE KOLKATA, JANUARY 22 Amit Shah at Nitayapur in Malda, Tuesday. PTI They (TMC) are very fond of infiltrators. To expel infiltrators, NRC was brought but they misled people of Bengal by saying Bengalis will be driven out — AMIT SHAH, AT A RALLY IN MALDA CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 KICKING OFF his party’s campaign in West Bengal for the Lok Sabha elections, BJP president Amit Shah Tuesday accused the ruling Trinamool Congress of “misleading” people on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh refugees in the state “need not be afraid” because the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill has been brought to grant them citizenship. Speaking at a rally in Malda, Shah targeted the TMC: “They are very fond of infiltrators. To expel the infiltrators, NRC was brought but they misled the people of Bengal by saying Bengalis will be driven out. I want to assure all refugees living in Bengal — Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh — that they need not be afraid . We CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PETITION CHALLENGING RS POLL RESULTS Ahmed Patel lists ADC to Karnataka Governor among witnesses, seeks call records of 9 numbers ADIL AKHZER & NAVEED IQBAL SRINAGAR, JANUARY 22 SATISH JHA AHMEDABAD, JANUARY 22 THE EDITORIAL PAGE HOW MUCH EQUITY SHOULD RBI HOLD? BY AMARTYA LAHIRI PAGE 10 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY SENIOR CONGRESS leader Ahmed Patel on Tuesday submitted a list of 43 witnesses, including aide-de-camp (ADC) to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, in his defence before the Gujarat High Court, which is hearing an election petition challenging his win in the 2017 Rajya Sabha elections from the state. The petition has been moved by BJP nominee Balwantsinh Rajput who had lost to Ahmed Patel in the election. Rajput had quit the Congress in the run-up to the polls to join the BJP. Patel has also listed conversant officer of Vodafone, a telecom company, among the witnesses and has sought mobile phone records ofnine numbers between July 10, 2017 to August 10, 2017. The list of numbers include those of former Congress leader Shankarsinh Vaghela, his son Mahendra, petitioner Rajput, state Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama among others. There are two other numbers that are uploaded on a website in the name of “Gokul Infracon Pvt Ltd”. Rajput is said to be one of the directors of the firm. Congress MP has listed 43 witnesses The Rajya Sabha polls for the three seats from the state were held on August 9 in 2017. The BJP, which on the strength of its MLAs could easily win two seats, had fielded three candidates — party president Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and Balwantsinh Rajput, leading to contest for the third seat for which the Congress had fielded Patel. In the run-up to the elections for the three seats from the state, the Congress had moved 44 of its MLA to a Bengaluru resort, citing poaching attempts by the ruling BJP. During their stay in Bengaluru, the Congress MLAs had met Governor Vala. The list of witnesses also include Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat, Chief Secretary J N Singh, Director General of Police Shivanand Jha, Ahmedabad Police Commissioner A K Singh, the then Anand District Superintendent of Police Saurabh Singh, the then Inspector of Anand police CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A Rohingya, her daughter in BSF custody at Raimura village near Agartala, Tuesday. Reuters In no-man’s land, Rohingya say fled Jammu for Bangla safe home DEBRAJ DEB & ABHISHEK SAHA AGARTALA, GUWAHATI, JANUARY 22 AFTER FOUR days out in the cold on no-man’s land, as both Bangladesh and India refused to accept them, 31 Rohingya were on Tuesday arrested by the BSF and handed over to the Tripura Police. Produced before a local court and charged under the Passport Act, the refugees said they had been staying in Jammu for the past six years but were on the run again due to “threats” there. They said they were headed to “safe” Bangladesh. They had only one plea, though: not to be sent back to Myanmar. The 31 were intercepted on January 18 while trying to enter Bangladesh. The Border Guards Bangladesh (BRB), however, refused to let them in, saying they had crossed over from the Indian side. The BSF denied this, saying there were no breaches in its border fence. This left the 31 in the middle of a barren paddy field at Zero Point between the two countries, near the Rairmura Border Kartarpur corridor talks: Long distances, lack of test labs India proposes two dates behind swine flu spike in Rajasthan for Pak delegation visit DEEP MUKHERJEE SHUBHAJIT ROY VARANASI, JANUARY 22 A DAY after Pakistan shared a draft agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor and invited India to “urgently” send a delegation to “negotiate and finalise” the proposal, New Delhi has proposed two sets of dates for a team from Islamabad to visit and firm up the “modalities”. The Government has proposed “26 February and 7 March 2019”, for the Pakistan delegation to discuss and “finalise the modalities so that the Indian pilgrims can visit Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib using the corridor at the earliest”, a Ministry of External Affairs statement said. “Pursuant to the decision PAGE 1 ANCHOR taken by the Government of India on 22 November 2018 to expeditiously realise the long pending proposal to establish Kartarpur Corridor, India has today shared the coordinates of the zero point (crossing point) of the corridor along the International Border with Pakistan,” the MEA statement said. The meeting will be held to facilitate the travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Darbar Sahib Kartarpur Gurudwara in Narowal, nearly 4 km from the Gurdaspur border. Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Faisal had earlier said that the draft agreement between the two governments was shared through the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. Outpost, even as the BSF and BGB held a series of flag meetings. On humanitarian grounds, the BSF provided the 31, including 16 children under the age of eight, food, water and blankets. Eventually, with talks failing, the BSF decided to arrest them. Speaking to The Indian Express in police custody, Abdul Sukkur said they had fled their homes in Rakhine state of Myanmar in 2012 in the wake of a Myanmarese military offensive, along with many others. He said they managed to sneak into India through West Bengal and CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 WORLD JAIPUR, JANUARY 22 IT WAS only after the death of 50-year-old Dariya Kanwar, her family members came to know she was suffering from swine flu. A resident of Solankiyatala village in Shergarh tehsil of Jodhpur district, Kanwar, who died ten days ago on January 12, is among 54 people in Rajasthan who succumbed to the disease till Monday. “Nobody told us my wife had swine flu. We came to know about it only after her death. She had fever earlier this month and her condition worsened over the next 7-8 days before she was admitted to a hospital in Jodhpur. She breathed her last the second day in the hospital. There are no facilities for swine flu testing IPS officer’s brother among three militants killed in J&K firefight Health Minister Raghu Sharma (centre) at a review meeting with officials in Jaipur. Express near our village and health officials told us to go to Jodhpur for treatment,” says her husband Chandan Singh. Singh, whose village is around 100 kilometres from the Jodhpur district headquarters, is among those who have to travel long distances before they can be tested for swine flu. Data collated by the state health department shows that a total of 6,117 tests were conducted this year (in the first 22 days of January), of which 1,414 samples were found positive for the virus. This amounts to 23 per cent of the total samples. Given the contagious nature of the disease, and such a large numbers, the state is staring at a major CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 14 DIE AS 2 SHIPS WITH CREW FROM INDIA, TURKEY CATCH FIRE OFF RUSSIA OSCAR NOMINATIONS: ROMA AND THE FAVOURITE LEAD THE BROTHER of an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer was among three militants killed in a gunbattle with security forces at Heff Shirmal in Shopian district of south Kashmir Tuesday. Four photojournalists, covering protests by local residents while the gunbattle was on, sustained injuries when securitymen fired pellets to break up the protest. Six securitymen and a civilian were also injured in the clashes. Among the three militants killed was Shams-ul-Haq Mengnoo, a Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery student, who went missing last May and later joined the militant ranks. Shams is the younger brother of an IPS officer posted in the North-East. Police said that the three militants killed were affiliated to the Hizbul Mujahideen. One of the photographers injured in Shopian. Express Former DGP Shesh Paul Vaid, in a tweet, said: “Shamsul Haq, brother of IPS officer who had joined militant ranks was among the 3 terrorists killed today in Shopian. I remember the efforts that were made by his brother/other family members and J&K Police to bring him back to mainstream but he met a sad end today.” This was the second such gunbattle in the Valley in the last 24 hours and a total of six militants have been killed. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Top court upholds faculty quota order: SC, ST, OBC teacher count to go down ANANTHAKRISHNAN G & RITIKA CHOPRA NEW DELHI, JANUARY 22 THE SUPREME Court Tuesday upheld the order of the Allahabad High Court which ruled that reservation in faculty positions in universities should be calculated department-wise and not by taking the total seats in a university as basis. A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Indira Banerjee rejected the Centre’s special leave petition which challenged the April 7, 2017 order of the Allahabad High Court. In April 2018, the HRD Ministry filed an SLP following a political furore over the University Grants Commission’s March 5 order of the same year, announcing that the number of reserved faculty posts across universities and colleges would be calculated department-wise and not based on the aggregate vacant posts. The change, first reported by The Indian Express on October 23, 2017, was based on the Allahabad High Court verdict. The Centre argued that calculating the vacancies departmentwise would reduce the number of seats for the reserved category and defeat the object of implementing the reservation policy. Although the government did not withdraw the UGC order, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 For the Centre, legislative route remains an option The immediate effect of the verdict will be a drastic drop in the number of SC, ST and OBC teachers in universities. For instance, if BHU were to implement UGC’s new formula, its total teaching posts for SC candidates would be reduced by half, those for STs by almost 80 per cent and for OBC teachers by 30 per cent. This can be overturned only through a Bill, which is pending with the Cabinet for almost a month. PAGE14 Not bothered about endorsements, like appreciation more: Pujara EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE MUMBAI, JANUARY 22 WHY ISN’T Cheteshwar Pujara seen in advertisements? How does he handle it? It’s a question that has bemused cricket fans. And it came up again at the Express Adda Monday, where Pujara, the key force behind India claiming a Test series in Australia after 71 years, responded as he does on the field — with a straight bat. “Being a (specialist) Test cricketer, I accept that there haven’t been many endorsements. I am someone who doesn’t go after endorsements. For me, the true thing is the love of this game. My father has taught me that I don’t just play for myself but for the entire country... Endorsements are a byproduct of playing this game,” he said. “In my life, I am a simple man... if it (endorsements) comes I will take it; if it doesn’t, I am not bothered about it. If I keep playing well and performing for the Indian cricket team, what I like is the appreciation from this country and from (the) cricketing fraternity, which is more than any endorsement I might get in my life,” Pujara said. On the Australia tour, Pujara faced 1,258 balls, more than any other Indian in a Test series, and scored three hundreds. But what also stood out was how he nullified Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon. It now turns out, there’s a story to go with it. Referring to his wife Puja, Pujara said: “She told me once, ‘Who gets out to an off-spinner?’ That’s why I made sure I did well against Lyon!” Given his low-key de- Pujara at the Express Adda in Mumbai, Monday. Amit Chakravarty meanour, Pujara was asked whether he ever celebrated wildly, at least in private. “There was immense joy but I am someone who is modest about things. Victories are something you should enjoy but there is still lots to play for. It is important not to get carried away — respect opponents, respect the game. It’s important for me to not do something stupid,” he said. Pujara revealed that the Indian team was nervous before the start of the Australia series. “Whenever you play overseas, it’s not easy because the conditions are different. But we were confident in a way, that we played well in South Africa, played well in England (last year). We didn’t win (those) series but there were performances where we felt that we can win overseas. And that confidence was there... it was a great feeling to be part of history,” he said. Asked about the sledging he faced and how the Australian attitude changed once he started to pile up runs, Pujara said: “Specially against Australia, I have realised, the start of series, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2