MCS/204/2020-22 RNI NO. MAHENG 2002/21899 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM Artist, Uninterrupted, Unbroken & Present MUMBAI, DECEMBER 7, 2025 US-based Marina Abramović, a pioneer in performance art, on using the body to confront vulnerability, and how art can be spiritual LATE CITY 14 + 4 PAGES ₹6.00 SCReeN Shefali Shah and Huma Qureshi on the latest instalment of popular Netflix series Delhi Crime D A I L Y F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , 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 FARe CAPS TO PROTeCT PASSeNGeRS FROM OPPORTUNISTIC PRICING: MINISTRY Govt imposes airfare caps, asks IndiGo CEO to explain in 24 hrs E. Operational failures indicate planning lapses: Show-cause notice to CEO Govt firefights Indigo-induced pain Sukalp Sharma New Delhi, December 6 WITHAIRFARESskyrocketing due to large-scale cancellation of flights by domestic aviation market leader IndiGo, the government on Saturday stepped in to regulate fares for all airlines by prescribing caps. As widespread disruptions in operationsenteredthefourthday, the government also issued a show-cause notice to IndiGo CEOPieterElbersaskinghimto respond within 24 hours why no action should be taken against him. Elbers has been the CEO of IndiGo since September 2022. The Ministry of Civil Aviation(MoCA)Saturdayinvoked its regulatory powers in an otherwise free market aviation sector “to ensure fair and rea- EXPlAINED At the IndiGo counter at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport in Mumbai on Saturday. SANKHADEEP BANERjEE sonablefaresacrossallaffected routes” and protect passengers from “any form of opportunistic pricing”. The airfare caps are: Rs 7,500 for a stage length of up to 500 km (Delhi-Jaipur/ Chandigarh), Rs 12,000 for 500-1,000 km(Delhi-Bhopal/Jammu),Rs 15,000 for 1,000-1,500 km (Delhi-Mumbai/ Kolkata), and Rs18,000forover1,500km(say Delhi-Chennai/ Bengaluru). These caps are exclusive of airportleviesandtaxes,andare l Maximumdomesticfare Rs 7,500 500km FOR ROUTES UP TO (E.G. DELHI TO CHANDIGARH) Rs 15,000 FOR 1,000-1,500km (E.G. DELHI TO MUMBAI) lLimits exclude airport levies and taxes; do not apply to business class or flights under the UDAN scheme Rs 12,000 FOR 500-1,000km (E.G. DELHI TO PATNA) Rs 18,000 1,500 km FOR ROUTES ABOVE (E.G. DELHI TO CHENNAI) lFare caps apply to all bookings, whether made directly with airlines or through online travel agents Poor planning by the country’s largest airline has resulted in an unprecedented crisis. Warning signals were visible through November, but before the government acted, it descended upon passengers with flight cancellations and skyrocketing fares. The government is firefighting now. not applicable for business class fares and on flights operated under the regional connectivity scheme, the MoCA order stated. The fare limits are applicablefortravel“untilfares stabilise or till further review”, it said. The show-cause notice to Elbers said that “such largescale operational failures indicate significant lapses in »CONTINUeD ON PAGe 2 RElATED REPORTS P 3, 7 07/12/2025 118 146 181 happening today l INAUGURAL CeReMONY of PROjECT MAhADEvA Out of Jail After 5 Years Former Delhi University associate professor Hany Babu, who was granted bail in the Elgaar Parishad case Thursday, with his wife, Prof Jenny Rowena, and their daughter Farzana after his release from Taloja Jail in Navi Mumbai on Saturday. NARENDRA VASKAR Pratip Acharya Mumbai, December 6 PAGE 6 l Shubhajit Roy New Delhi, December 6 AS RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin concluded his twoday visit to India December 5, New Delhi was preparing the next steps in a careful diplomatic balancing act: moves are afoot to schedule a possible visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to India in the coming months, The Indian Express has learnt. The visit could take place as early as January 2026. A Zelenskyy visit would reinforce Delhi’s effort to stay engaged with both sides of the Russia–Ukraine war, following the same calibrated approach adopted last year. In July 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Moscow and met Putin; a month later, in August, he had visited Ukraine. SourcessaiddiscussionsbetweenIndianandUkrainianofficials have been ongoing for several weeks, with New Delhi intouchwithZelenskyy’soffice even before Putin arrived in India. The timing and scope of the proposed visit will depend on multiplefactors,includinghow former US President Donald Trump’s peace plan unfolds and developments on the battlefield.Domesticpoliticsin Ukraine, where Zelenskyy’s government is currently under pressure embroiled in a sweeping corruption scandal, could PM’s ‘not-neutral’ remark Friday echoes what he told Zelenskyy last year PM Modi with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv in August 2024. AP FILE ThE wORlD PAGE 10 RUSSIA TARGETS INfRA, ENERGy SITES IN UkRAINE also influence the outcome. Notably, Ukraine has sent Presidents to India only three times: 1992, 2002 and 2012. US deputy trade representative, chief negotiator to meet Commerce Secy Draft electoral roll shows over 50% voter growth in four wards in Malad & Kurla 30 bOyS, 30 GIRlS & A COmmON DREAm TO mEET mESSI Diplomatic tightrope: Red carpet for Putin, Delhi works on dates for Zelenskyy visit US negotiators to be in Delhi next week, trade talks may get fresh impetus 92 a key UNESCO meeting — during which Diwali is set to be proposed for inclusion in its Intangible Cultural Heritage List — will be held at Red Fort. The main session will run from December 8 to December 13. WILL Be FIRST VISIT BY UKRAINIAN PReSIDeNT SINCe 2012 WHILE THE State Election Commission (SEC)’s first draft of the voter list for the upcoming Mumbai civic polls shows an overall increase of 12.67 per cent in the electorate since 2017 — the year the last civic elections were held — a closer look reveals that four of the 227 corporator wards have recorded a rise of more than 50 per cent in voter numbers. These wards — 48, 33, 163 and BMC polls 157 — fall under the Assembly constituencies of Malad and Kurla, which largely house working-class, lower-income groups hailing from minority communities. According to SEC data, Ward No. 48 in Malvani in the western suburbs has recorded the highest rise in voters at 67.6 per cent. In 2017, this ward had 29,697 voters; at present, the total stands at 49,775. The last sitting corporator from this ward was Salma Salim Amlelkar of the Congress. The data also shows that Ward No. 33 in Malad’s Madh, adjoiningtheMalvaniarea,has recorded the second-highest riseinvoternumbersat54.1per cent. Voter numbers have risen from 25,590 in 2017 to 39,424 in 2025.Thelastsittingcorporator from this ward was Virendra Choudhary of the Congress. Over the past three years, the Malad and Malvani areas have been witnessing a rise in communal tension over the issue of alleged infiltration of Rohingya and Bangladeshis. Cabinet minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the guardian minister of Mumbai, and Aslam Shaikh, the Malad MLA from Congress, have been fighting »CONTINUeD ON PAGe 2 Ravi Dutta Mishra New Delhi, December 6 A US trade team led by Deputy US Trade Representative Rick Switzer is set to visit India next week to iron out differences such that the long-pending bilateral trade agreement (BTA) issignedbeforeDecember-end, a source aware of the developments said. SwitzerandBrendanLynch, the US chief negotiator for the trade deal with India, are expected to meet Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal for the final talks ahead of the agreement.NegotiationswiththeUS had commenced after Prime MinisterNarendraModivisited the US in February this year. Themeetingcomescloseon the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two-day visit toIndiawhenthetwocountries decided to boost bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030 from $64 billion now, and increase domestic currency trade. Sourcesdidnotprefertodescribe the US officials’ visit as a formal round of negotiations. They said differences are expectedtoberesolvedatapolitical level. India had last month sent across its final proposal to the US for the agreement. A government official told The Indian Express that the Indianteamhasnothadtechnical negotiations with the US team during the last one month and that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) wingofthecommerceministry has begun working on the deal with Canada. In the recent months, India has increased oil imports from the US. This has helped the bilateral trade gap between US and India to reach $1.5 billion »CONTINUeD ON PAGe 2 Putin’s visit has drawn close scrutinyfromEurope,withseveral European envoys urging India to use its influence to push Moscow towards ending the war. Delhi, however, consistently maintained that dialogue and diplomacy remain the only viable path forward with Modi framing it as: “India is not neutral, India is on the side of peace.” India has stayed in touch with both Putin and Zelenskyy sincethewarbeganinFebruary 2022. Modi has spoken to Zelenskyy by phone at least eight times,andthetwoleadershave met on at least four occasions. Theirmostrecentconversation was on August 30, when »CONTINUeD ON PAGe 2 India’s freedomof choice,Putin’s visit won’taffectUS ties:Jaishankar Divya A New Delhi, December 6 UNDERLINING INDIA’S “freedom of choice” in its relationships, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said RussianPresidentVladimirPutin’s two-day visit won’t complicate India’s ties with the United States. Defining India's ties with Russia as “among the steadiest big relationships” in the world, he said Putin's visit was about “re-imagining” the ties with a focus on economic engagement. Emphasising “strategic autonomy”,Jaishankar,duringan interactive session at the HT Leadership Summit in New Delhi, said, “Everybody knows that India has relations with all the major countries of the world. And for any country to expecttohaveavetoonhowwe develop our relationships with others, is not fair.” He was responding to a question on Putin's visit amid trade tensions with the US, after the Donald Trump administration imposed an additional 25% penalty tariff on India for importing Russian oil. »CONTINUeD ON PAGe 2 21-YEAR-OLD GOALKEEPER POWERS INDIA'S WIN IN qUARTER-FINAL SHOOTOUT AGAINST BELGIUM AT FIH JUNIOR WORLD CUP No. 16 on his jersey, idol Sreejesh as his coach, Hockey India’s Prince in waiting Vinayakk Mohanarangan inthepenaltyshootoutasIndia defeated Belgium in the thrilling quarter-final of the FIH PRINCEDEEP SINGH grew up Junior World Cup in Chennai. wanting to be like P R Sreejesh. The number 16, made faSomuchsothattherookiegoal- mous by Sreejesh, has a special keeper even got the legendary place for Princedeep. “I started Indian custodian’s playing hockey PAGE 1 jersey number — 16 around2015atChee— on his back. And ma Academy in Banow, in the team tala and I actually coached by Sreejesh, Prince- played fullback for a year... I deephasemergedasastandout usedtoalsoplayfootballduring performer. the weekends, and I was good On Friday, the 21-year-old at goalkeeping because of my goalkeeper shot into the lime- height, which is how my interlight with a sensational display est developed. Then I took up Chennai, December 6 anchor hockey goalkeeping in 2016,” PrincedeeptellsTheIndianExpress. “At that time, I used to watch the Indian team at the 2016 Olympic Games and I wanted to be like P R Sreejesh.” “Right from when I took up goalkeeping after watching Sreejesh, I was obsessed about wearing the No. 16 jersey,” he says. “I used to watch his Hockey India League (HIL) matches, and once went for the K D Singh Babu tournament in Lucknow where I got a chance to watch Sreejesh bhai live. I didn’t meet him that day, just Princedeep Singh (left) thwarted Belgium twice in the shootout on Friday; working with coach P R Sreejesh (above) is a dream, the 21-year-old says. HOCKEY INDIA saw him from outside, where we were chanting his name. Now, I get to work directly with him. It’s a dream,” he says. The boots are obviously too big to fill, but Princedeep’s potential was evident in Chennai as he thwarted Belgium twice in the shootout. The standout moment of the night was when Nicolas Bogaerts dribbled forward into the circle and was first prevented from getting a shot away by Princedeep's stick. The Belgian player, however, still managed to get to the loose ball, and his shot was heading into goal when Princedeep sprang back up from the turf,tookacoupleofstepstohis leftandputinafull-lengthdive to block the ball with his stick for the second time. Earlier, after India’s 5-0 win against Switzerland, Sreejesh, the now-retired No 16, had spoken highly of Princedeep. “For me, he was the man of the match, because of how well he played in the third quarter and savedthatstroke,”Sreejeshhad said. “He(Sreejesh)ishelpingme correct my weaknesses in a short time. Things that seemed verydifficultearlierarebecoming easier,” says Princedeep. “The main thing he has helped me understand is how to go into a match with confidence. He insists on communicating as much as possible with the defenders and bringing match situations into practice sessions... imagine that I am playing a match when I train. He has also helped me understand how to handle the pressure. Earlier, I didn’t have much confidence while playing a »CONTINUeD ON PAGe 2