DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PATNA, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2025, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 DEBATE ON OP SINDOOR, PAHALGAM ATTACK IN LOK SABHA 100 128 158 65 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Govt says no pressure on ceasefire, targets met; Opp raises Trump claims New Lakshman Rekha: Rajnath; no link to US trade talks: Jaishankar; Cong trusts foreign narratives but not EAM: Shah VIKAS PATHAK, DEEPTIMAN TIWARY & DIVYA A NEW DELHI, JULY 28 Why did you wait for the inquiry to be over: SC to Justice Varma STRONGLYDENYINGanylinkbetweenthetradetalkswiththeUS and the ceasefire with Pakistan, the government told Lok Sabha on Monday that there was no pressure to pause Operation Sindoor, and that it was halted only because “we had fulfilled our objectives”. The operation willresumeif Pakistanagaintries “any misadventure”, it said. Initiating a 16-hour special debate in the House on Operation Sindoor and the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Lok Sabha during the debate, Monday. PTI underlined that Operation Sindoor has been paused and has not ended and that India would again give a befitting reply to Pakistan if it sponsors another terror attack, as a “new CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E EXPLAINED 29/07/2025 Along expected ● lines THE GOVERNMENT sought to debunk the Opposition’s charge that US President Donald Trump used the trade deal as a leverage for a ceasefire. The Opposition red-flagged security and intelligence failures, Trump’s role, IAF’s alleged losses. PAGE 10 SRINAGAR, NEW DELHI, JULY 28 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JULY 28 THESUPREMECourtonMonday asked Allahabad High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma why he decided to challenge the legality of the in-house inquiry against him after appearing before the committee and participating in the inquiry process. Thecommitteewassetupby the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna on March 22, a week after burnt currency notes werefoundatJusticeVarma'sofficial residence in New Delhi when a fire broke out on March 14. The panel found credence in the allegations against Justice Varma, who was then with the Delhi High Court. On Monday, the Supreme Court was hearing Justice Varma's plea seeking invalidation of the inquiry committee's report. The plea does not reveal JusticeVarma'sidentityandistitled, “XXX v. The Union of India”. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who appearedforJusticeVarma, told a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and A G Masih that whatever had happened till now was unconstitutional. “All that has happened is completely contrary to the Constitutional scheme. The release of tapes, putting it on website, and a public furore consequential thereto, publicdiscussion,mediainteraction, accusations against the judge... is all prohibited…The whole procedure has now become political. I (Justice Varma) havealreadybeenconvicted,”he said, referring to the video clip which purportedly showed the recoveryof burntcurrencynotes. Justice Datta said that impeachmentisalsoapoliticalprocedure. Sibal responded that it is so in Parliament, not outside. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Security personnel during a search operation after the encounter on the outskirts of Srinagar. Shuaib Masoodi AT LEAST three militants were killed in the Dachigam forest area on the outskirts of Srinagar, the Army said on Monday. While the identities of the dead are yet to be officially declared, officials from various security agencies said they are in the SHANI SHINGNAPUR Temple trust office bearer found dead at home, suicide suspected Divya Deshmukh, 19, after winning the FIDE Women’s World Cup, Monday. Anna Shtourman/FIDE Divya beats Humpy, takes WC route to GM title: ‘It was fate’ AMIT KAMATH & MAYANK MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, JULY 28 IN GEORGIA, a country that birthed some of the earliest pioneers of women’s chess, India has discovered its own worldbeater: Divya Deshmukh, aged just 19, became the FIDE Women’s World Cup champion bydefeatingtheveteran, Koneru Humpy, 38, in the final via the tiebreakers on Monday. Divya winning the Women's World Cup also makes her eligibletobeIndia’sfourthwomanto become a grandmaster, which is significant because before the eventstarted,shehadnoneofthe three norms required for it. But inonefellswoop,thankstoaregulation in the FIDE rules, Divya has now bypassed the criterion toearnthreenormsandisnowa grandmasteraswell.India’s88th. By reaching the final, along with Humpy, Divya ensured that at least two Indians will play the Candidates tournament next year, where eight players fight it outtoearntherighttoplayinthe women’s World Championship againstcurrentworldchampion Ju Wenjun. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE PUNE, MUMBAI, JULY 28 A 43-YEAR-OLD office bearer of the trust managing the Shaneshwar Devasthan of Shani ShingnapurinAhilyanagardistrict was found dead in his home in a suspected case of suicide on Mondaymorning.Theallegedsuicide comes at a time when the templetrustisunderscannerfollowingacriminalinvestigationorderedbyChiefMinisterDevendra Fadnavisintoallegationsoffinancial misappropriation through a fake phone based application. Ahilyanagar police identified the deceased as Nitin Shete (43), a former trustee of the Shri Shaneshwar Devasthan Trust who had held the position of deputy executive officer of the organisation. The incident came to light at Shete's home in Shani Shingnapur village on Monday morning. Superintendent of Police of Ahilyanagar District, Somnath Gharge said, "The incident came to light on Monday morning CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 From drone mapping to removing water hyacinth, how a river was revived in UP PAGE 1 ANCHOR MAULSHREE SETH KANPUR, LUCKNOW, JULY 28 TILL EARLY February, there was no visible sign of the Noon river that once meandered through Kanpur district’s Rampur Narua village. Locals say an infestation of the jal kumbhi (water hyacinth),whichaffectswaterflow and aquatic life, had rendered the thriving river indistinguishable from the fields it once The rejuvenated Noon flows through Kanpur district’s Rampur Narua village. Vishal Srivastav Consider Aadhaar and voter card, SC tells EC again; no Opp seeks answers on stay on draft roll Should be en masse inclusion, not security lapses, asks if India lost any jets ASAD REHMAN, DEEPTIMAN TIWARY & LALMANI VERMA NEW DELHI, JULY 28 THE SECURITY lapses that led to the Pahalgam attack, the failure to apprehend all the attackers, the claims by US President Donald Trump of having brokered peace between India and Pakistan, and the supposed losses of aircraft suffered by the armed forces — the Opposition raised all these issues during the debate on Operation Sindoor in the Lok Sabha Monday. Congress deputy leader Gaurav Gogoi in LS. ANI Starting the debate on the Opposition’s behalf, Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi said the Centre CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 en masse exclusion, says top court EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JULY 28 THE SUPREME Court Monday refused to stop the Election Commission (EC) from publishing the draft electoral roll for Bihar, drawn up following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), adding that the petitioners’ concerns had been taken care of by its July 10 order asking it to also consider Aadhaar and Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) for the exercise. A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said WHAT WILL NOT COUNTINBIHAR the EC can continue to consider Aadhaar and voter cards for the enumeration, and told the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ORDER WARNS OF DISCIPLINARY ACTION Do not criticise govt 3 militants killed in J&K, security policies on social media: agencies check for Pahalgam link Maharashtra to staffers EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE Justice Yashwant Varma BIHAR SPECIAL INTENSIVE REVISION snaked through. At Rampur Narua, its origin point, today, the river flows nearly six feet wide — the result of a state-wide river rejuvenationprogrammeaspartof which every district in the state has been tasked with reviving at least one river in their jurisdiction. In Kanpur, the district administration decided to revive the Noon, one of the district’s four forgotten rivers, since it had been blocked due to the jal kumbhi and construction debris, and had not dried up like the others. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 process of ascertaining whether one of them is Suleiman Shah, a Pakistani terrorist suspected of being behind the April 22 Pahalgam attack that left 26 civilians dead. In a post on X at 1:32 pm, the Army’s Chinar Corps wrote: “Op Mahadev update: Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight. Operation continues.” The Northern Command posted in response: “Lt Gen Pratik Sharma, #ArmyCdrNC compliments Chinar Corps for theirswiftactionandpreciseexecutioninneutralisingthreeterrorists in the ongoing Operation MahadevinLidwas.IndianArmy stands by its commitment to keep Jammu and Kashmir terror-free.” As speculation stirred over the identities of the three men, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 VALLABH OZARKAR MUMBAI, JULY 28 IN A move aimed at regulating thesocialmediaconductof public servants, the Maharashtra government on Monday issued a detailed government resolution (GR) prohibiting state government employees from making critical comments on any policies of the state or central government — current or previous—onsocialmediaplatforms. The directive, issued by the state government’s General Administration department, appliestoallstategovernmentemployees, including those on deputation, working on contract, and even those recruited through external sources. The guidelinesalsoextendtopersonnel of local self-government CONTINUED ON PAGE 2