The Editorial Page: After UAE’s exit from OPEC, India must spell out its energy alliances 10 THURSDAY, APRIl 30, 2026 JouRNAlISm of CouRAgE KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES ₹6.00 (₹12 in North East states, ₹20 in Andaman) 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 Track These and more on www.indianexpress.com lHowrupeeisbeingusedtosettleindiantrade 200,000 decision 2026 Business as usual By EP UNNY New data shows import amount settled by Indian traders in rupees in Feb is Rs 3,000 cr more than in Jan 100,000 Ravik bhattacharya, atri Mitra & jatin anand 0 nExports (Rs cr) FY24 FY25 nImports (Rs cr) Apr-Feb FY26 Kolkata, New Delhi, April 29 splitverdictby allahabadhcas judgesdifferover nhRc‘silence’on lynchingcases bhupendra Pandey Lucknow, April 29 HeAriNg A writ petition againstanorderoftheNational Human rights Commission (NHrC) on madrasas, a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court saw one judge disagreeing with the other over certain observations and passingseparateorders.WhileJustice Atul sreedharan expressed seriousconcernovertheNHrC not taking up matters like “atrocities by vigilantes and lynching of Muslims”, Justice Vivek saran disagreed and said adverse observations were not required when there was no one to represent the commission. the bench was hearing a writ petition filed by the teachers’ Association Madaris Arabia and others challenging the NHrC order. the judges, however,wereinagreementon »continUed on Page 2 world page 12 putin on phone with trump; iran & ukraine discussed king charles speech: Beneath jokes, a suBtle trump reButtal tHe HigH-stAKes battle between the ruling tMC and oppositionBJPforcontrolofWest Bengal ended Wednesday with the state witnessing a record voter turnout of 91.66% in the second and final phase of polling for 142 Assembly seats in the House of 294. According to the election Commission of india, the state recorded a combined provisional turnout of 92.47% over both phases — 93.19% in the first and 91.66% in the second. this surpassed the previous high of 84.72% recorded in the 2011 Assembly elections. Chief election Commissioner gyanesh Kumar said West Bengal had recorded the highesteverpollingpercentage in both phases since independence. the election results will be announced, along with those for polls in Assam, tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, on May 4. “Highest ever percentage of polling in West Bengal in both Phase i and ii since independence. Chunav ka Parv, Paschim Bengal ka Garv,” CeC Kumar said. According to eCi statistics, »continUed on Page 2 related reports, p 7 (clockwise from above) Voters queue up at a polling booth in kolkata’s Garden reach area during Phase-2 of West Bengal assembly elections, Wednesday; BJP’s Bhabanipur candidate suvendu adhikari and cm mamata Banerjee during polling. PARThA PAUL Kolkata, April 29 it WAs an unusual polling day morning for trinamool Congress chief and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is fighting to remain in power for the fourth consecutive term. Banerjee was on the streets since morning Wednesday. shortly after voting commenced, she left her Kalighat residence in Kolkata to reach Chetla to meet her close aide and Mayor Firhad Hakim, who is also contesting the Assembly elections. After meeting Hakim and visiting a booth in the Chetla New Delhi, April 29 Most exit polls give edge to BJP in Bengal, UDF in Kerala, project return of Himanta, Stalin govts express news service New Delhi, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, April 29 Most exit polls on Wednesday predicted a tight contest in West Bengal with the BJP having a clear edge over the ruling trinamool Congress (tMC), a decisive lead for the ruling BJP in Assam, and a change of Mamata vs Adhikari in Bhabanipur — on the ground, at booths sweety Kumari & Ravik bhattacharya siddharth Upasani area, she alleged that several police observers, who came from “outside Bengal”, were “acting at the BJP’s directions”. “Peoplearesupposedtocast their votes, can voting take place like this? they (police observers) are dancing to the tunes of the BJP… the election Commission is openly harassingandtormentingus.Wehave sentacontemptofcourtnotice, stillcountlessoutsideobservers have been brought here,” Banerjee told reporters who had been following her from the time she left home. From Chetla, she headed to ChakraberiainherBhabanipur constituency, where she met »continUed on Page 2 guard in Kerala with the Congress-led UDF projected to make a comeback. intamilNadu,whilemostof the exit polls predicted that the ruling DMK was likely to retain its hold, there were some divergent outcomes, underlining a fluidcontestbetweentheDMKledalliance,theAiADMKandits allies, and actor Vijay’s tVK. »continUed on Page 2 l exitpollprojections pollster Axis My India Peoples Pulse P-Marq Matrize Times Now JVC taMil nadU (234) west bengal (294) left dMK+ adMK+ tVK bjP tMc 92-110 22-32 98-120 — — — 177-187 95-110 0-1 125-145 65-80 18-24 118-138 150-175 2-6 125-145 65-85 16-26 125-140 146-161 6-10 122-132 87-100 10-12 75-95 128-147 8-15 131-152 138-159 0-1 Current composition of west Bengal assembly: TMC: 220, BJP: 71, Cong: 1, Others: 2; tamil nadu: DMK+: 158, AIADMK+: 69, Vacant: 7 pollster Axis My India Peoples Pulse P-Marq Matrize Times Now JVC assaM (126) bjP+ inc+ oth 88-100 24-36 0-3 — 68-72 22-26 — — — — 85-95 25-32 — 88-101 23-33 KeRala (140) Udf bjP+ ldf 49-62 78-90 0-3 55-65 75-85 0-3 1-4 62-69 71-79 60-65 70-75 3-5 up to 61 72-84 3-7 Current composition of assam assembly: BJP+: 81, Cong+: 27, AIUDF: 15, Others: 1, Vacant: 2; Kerala: LDF: 92, UDF: 40, Independents: 6, Vacant: 2 Polls over, shadow lengthens on those deleted: unclear if Bengal tribunals can accept fresh records Tribunals allowed it in cases where Supreme Court, High Court stepped in but for most, long road ahead damini nath Kolkata, April 29 oVer 27 lakh West Bengal voters, whose names were struck off electoral rolls due to “logical discrepancies” in the special intensive revision, watched polling day pass them by Wednesday unable to vote, uncertain about their appeals, and with no clear answer on whetheradditionaldocuments proving their identity can even be submitted. As booths across the state closed, fewer than 2,000 of the 34 lakh-odd pending appeals had been cleared by the 19 Appellate tribunals appointed on supreme Court orders in March. the appeals are against exclusions and inclusions carried out by around 700 Judicial officers appointed by the court in February. the procedure followed so far has raised two key questions: whether appellants can submit fresh documents; and whether the tribunals can accept documents beyond and including the 13 identified by the eC in its sir instructions. the eC’s centralised portal forfilingappeals,eCiNet,does not give users the option of uploading any document. »continUed on Page 2 tHe WAr in West Asia has exacerbated a key pain point for the country's economy: the rupee’s value. Afterclosingaround91-perdollaronFebruary27,therupee fell by as much as 4.5% to 95.24 in March before action by the rBi to curb speculative bets helped it gain some ground. But new rBi data shows that the situation could have been worse if not for a long-term bet placed in mid-2022 by authorities that has begun paying some dividends. the data shows that indian traders settled more than rs 14,000 crore of imports in rupeesinFebruarythisyear—up from around rs 11,000 crore in January. this amounts to 1,39,074 lseaRching foR some much needed consistency, Gujarat Titans face a stern test against a red-hot RCB in their IPL match in Ahmedabad. CEC: Chunav ka Parv, Paschim Bengal ka Garv... highest polling in both phases since Independence 1,45,898 has convened a day-long special session, focusing on women’s reservation. 1,12,854 lUttaR PRadesh Assembly The votes are in: West Bengal’s overall turnout a record 92.5% 1,66,339 Vaishnaw is set to flag off a 20-coach Vande Bharat Express train between Jammu and Srinagar, while operations will commence on May 2. How long-term bet on rupee saved Rs 14,000 crore of forex in February 99,596 lRailways MinisteRAshwini 91.7% tURnoUt in final RoUnd of high-staKes battle between RUling tMc & challengeR bjP 1,74,340 Happening today SOURCE: RBI E. explained more leeway Paying for imports in rupees, and increasing global acceptance and demand for it, can help stabilise the exchange rate and reduce India’s dependence on freely convertible currencies such as the US dollar. roughly $1.5 billion (rs 14,057 crore) of foreign exchange being saved by india in February alone. this is not an insignificantsumatatimewhenthe rupee has been under extreme pressure due to foreign investorsdumpingbillionsofdollars »continUed on Page 2 After exit of seven MPs, AAP show of strength in Punjab, Mann to meet President for their ‘recall’ CM says his meeting at Rashtrapati Bhavan has been scheduled for May 5 Kanchan Vasdev & anju agnihotri chaba Chandigarh, Shahpur, April 29 stUNNeD By the exit of seven of its rajya sabha members — sixofthemfromPunjab—who joined the BJP, the ruling AAP in the state staged a show of strength Wednesday at shahpur in Jalandhar district even as Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced that he would be meeting President Droupadi Murmu on May 5 to seek the “recall” of the MPs. stating that his meeting with the President had been scheduled for noon May 5 by her office, Mann said he would seek the recall of the MPs since they had been elected by AAP MLAs who, in turn, had been electedbythepeopleofPunjab. ‘rajya sabha mPs have been elected by aaP mLas who have been elected by the people’ of AAP’s 10 rajya sabha members, seven resigned from the party. given they formed a two-thirds majority of the AAP strength in the Upper House, theMPs“merged”withtheBJP. the seven who left are raghav Chadha,AshokMittal,sandeep Pathak, rajinder gupta, Vikramjeet singh sahney, swati »continUed on Page 2 l GLoBaL inVesTor, fund manaGer and BesT-seLLinG auThor says currenT ai WaVe LikeLy a BuBBLe No AI play in India... foreign investors indifferent: Ruchir Sharma at Express Adda akash Mandal executive Director, TheIndian Express. Drawing parallels to the dot tHe CUrreNt Ai wave is com bubble in the late 1990s, likely a bubble and cannot sharma said while indian it possibly sustain in the longer companies had benefited then run, according to ruchir due to arbitrage-like business sharma, chairman of rock- models, this time india looks efeller international, and devoid of any Ai “play”, which founder and chief investment has made foreign investors “inofficer of Breakout Capital, an different” towards the indian markets.” investment firm fopage 1 “...as far as india cused on emerging is concerned, in my markets. 30-year investing “...what's happened is that the entire world history, what i can tell you cattoday has a monomaniacal egorically is i’ve never seen focus,whichisAi,”sharmasaid such indifference towards attheexpressAddainMumbai india,right?sowhichisthefact on tuesday. He was in conver- that, as that old line goes, the sation with Anant goenka, opposite of love is not hate, it is Mumbai, April 29 anchor indifference. indifference, being ignored...,” sharma said. “...this was always said, by the way, for a long period of time,thatouritisjustdoingan arbitrage business; it’s not actually, you know, doing inno- ruchir sharma at the express adda in mumbai. AMIT ChAKRAVARTY vative stuff, and we lived with that. But today, that is coming back to haunt us a bit, because we don’t have any of that. so, that is the reflection today, that the main reason foreign investment is not coming into india today, because the entire focus is on Ai,” he said. He said, “...in fact, among the financial world, we are being called the anti-Ai play… the moment this Ai bubble ends, then we are hoping we will get some attention again.” According to sharma, foreign capital has become concentrated in the current world, withonlyafewcountriesonthe front foot in the Ai race: the Us and Japan among developed Kolkata economies, and south Korea and taiwan among the emerging markets. “...i never thought i’d live to see this day, where onecompanyoftaiwan,which is tsMC, their weight in the most popular index that everyone uses, the MsCi index, their weight is greater than all of india put together,” he said. However, he said, this hyperfixation on Ai is bound to fade away at some point. “i believe that this too shall pass, right? As we said, at some point in time, this mania can’t continue, you can’t have the entire global economy being run on one factor,” sharma said. While the indian market has faced multiple headwinds such astheUstariffs, WestAsia war, and the focus on Ai, it is bound to provide decent returns in the long run, considering the pace at which our economy is projected to grow, he said. the ace global investor also flagged the need for structural issues to be fixed to make india more attractive to foreign capital. sharma said india is “still a difficultplacetodobusinesson the ground, whether it’s the regulatory framework that we have, or the investigative agencies, or the daily toll that you deal with. there also needs to be more focus on research and development”. »continUed on Page 2