DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2025, NEW DELHI, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES `7.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, `15 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 ‘SECONDARY TARIFF’ WARNING Fresh US tariff threat looms over purchase of Russian oil BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY EXPLAINED Hopes of concession on reciprocal tariffs fade as April 2 deadline nears SUKALP SHARMA & RAVI DUTTA MISHRA NEW DELHI, MARCH 31 MECHANISATION BEYONDTRACTORS PAGE 11 Amid BJP talks with AIADMK, Annamalai may step down as state party chief WAREHOUSE BLAZE IN GREATER NOIDA A fire broke out in a warehouse storing cardboard boxes for coolers in Greater Noida, Monday. The fire, suspected to have been caused by short-circuit, spread to nearby warehouses and took six hours to control. No loss of life was reported. Amit Mehra P5 Mamata: Don’t give in to incitement... Left, BJP have become one, but I alone am enough BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai Kerala BJP chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar ARUN JANARDHANAN LIZ MATHEW CHENNAI, MARCH 31 CONSIDERED one of the main reasonsbehindtheAIADMKand BJP falling apart in 2023, K Annamalai may step down as BJP Tamil Nadu president as alliance talks between the parties gather pace. But, say BJP sources, it won’t be as “punishment” — rather due to caste equations. Should the parties fight the 2026stateelectionstogether,the BJP does not want the face of both it and the AIADMK to be a Gounder. Like Annamalai, AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami belongs to the powerful backward community as well as the same western Kongu region (Gounders are dominant here). BJP sources said that Annamalai had been conveyed the same at a meeting he held withUnionHomeMinisterAmit Shah in Delhi, soon after Shah met Palaniswami — in the first formal steps by the BJP and AIADMK towards a reunion. The young Annamalai, whose aggressive stance on issues has given the BJP a visibility in Tamil Nadu — if not political success so far — was told that “Delhi sees a bright future for him”.Inturn,theleadershipsaid, it expected Annamalai to trust and follow the party strategy. Annamalaiisbelievedtohave expressedcompleteloyaltytothe party.“Heconveyedthathedoesn’t have any second thoughts regarding his commitment to the party, and is even ready to work as a mere cadre,” a senior BJP leader said. Another leader said: “Whether Annamalai exits from the state president’s post or not, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Empuraan row manufactured, says Kerala BJP chief, blames Pinarayi too NEW DELHI, MARCH 31 Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee at an Eid event in Kolkata on Monday. Partha Paul ATRI MITRA KOLKATA, MARCH 31 DAYS AFTER communal tension in West Bengal’s Malda district, Chief MinisterMamataBanerjee on Monday urged people not to fall for provocations that could lead to communal violence and emphasised her government's commitmenttoprotectingsocial harmony. Addressing an Eid event in Kolkata, Banerjee hit out at the BJP’s “divisive politics”, saying the Opposition party’s “ganda dharam” was against the tenets of Hinduism. The remark drew criticism from the BJP, which accused her of “weaponising religion”. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief also alleged that the Left and the BJP had united against her but said it would not matter asshewas “akela hieksho (equal to a hundred people)”. Banerjee advised the Muslim communitynottoengagewithattempts to incite violence. “If they tell you something, remember CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE CONTROVERSY over Mohanlal-starrerEmpuraanmay have been “manufactured” by the movie’s producers to get publicity for the film, but the credit for turning it into a political row should go to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, newly elected state BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said. Chandrasekhar said he wanted to watch the movie because it was a sequel to the hit filmLucifer,butdroppedtheplan on Sunday after the makers of Empuraan said they were incorporating 17 cuts, and Mohanlal also expressed regret. “I decided not to see it now because Mohanlal himself said that he felt upset. When Mohanlal himself has problems with his movie, why should I CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 IMD: Above-normal temperatures, more heatwave days this summer ANJALI MARAR BENGALURU, MARCH 31 THE INDIA Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast above-normal temperatures in most parts of the country this summer (April-June), including extended heatwave episodes that may last 10-11 days in central and eastern India, affecting Odisha,JharkhandandeastUttar Pradesh in particular. “DuringApril-June,abovenormal temperatures are likely over EXTENDED HEATWAVE 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Anomalyof heatwave duration(days) Source: IMD most parts of the country, except westpeninsularIndia,someparts ofeast-centralandeastIndia,”the IMD said in its all-India summer forecast released on Monday. IMD Director General Mryutyunjay Mohapatra said above-normal heatwave days are likely in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and northern parts of Karnataka. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Haryana folk singers vs the CM’s OSD: Lyrics hit a rough pitch PAGE 1 ANCHOR SUKHBIR SIWACH CHANDIGARH, MARCH 31 BETWEEN ‘TADKE pavei laas nahar mein (At dawn, the body will be found in the canal)’ and ‘Aankh aag te laal teri, aur asla hardam sath rhve (Your eyes are burning with fire, you are never withoutagun)’,theremaybelittle to choose. But choose the Haryana Police is doing, as its cyber wing cracks down on folk songs “pro- Singer Masoom Sharma (left) and Gajender Phogat, singer and OSD to CM Nayab Singh Saini. Facebook/Express moting violence” — which has ended up pitting the singers against one of their own, Gajender Phogat, who is now an Officer on Special Duty (OSD), Special Publicity, to Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini. Masoom Sharma, six of whose songs have been banned —themostamongallthesingers — has questioned the criteria used. A few days back, Sharma was stopped from singing one of the banned songs during a public performance in Gurgaon. Speaking to the local media, the singer, with more than 18 lakh followers on social media, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD FRANCE’S LE PEN BARRED FROM RUNNING FOR OFFICE AFTER CONVICTION ISRAEL PROPOSES NEW HOSTAGE DEAL, ORDERS EVACUATION IN RAFAH PAGE 12 E E X P L A I NE D ECONOMICS INDIA COULD attract additional 25 per cent to 50 per cent US tariffs over the purchase of Russian oil, with US President Donald TrumpindicatingSundayhewas upset at the progress of peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and warning of imposition of secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil if he felt Moscow wasblocking his efforts to end the war in Ukraine. India may also not receive a concession on the sweeping US reciprocal tariffs set to be imposed on April 2, as Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that “all countries” would face the new tariffs. This comes even as the US and India concluded their four-day talks on Saturday to determine the contours of a trade agreement. RussiahasbeenIndia’stopoil import source during AprilDecember 2024, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. SourcesinIndia’srefiningsector indicated that more clarity was needed on what exactly the Trump has linked new tariff to peace talks on Ukraine Global prices ● may rise IF RUSSIAN OIL were to be priced out from the market, it could lead to higher global oil prices. While securing sufficient oil supplies over the medium term should not be an issue for India, higher oil prices and the loss of discounted Russian barrels, would be a setback for the country. ‘NOT JOKING’: TRUMP ON A THIRD TERM PAGE 12 US would do and whether there would be any scope for exemptions if Trump were to follow CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BEIJING VISIT Yunus pitch to China: India’s N-E landlocked, Bangladesh is your gateway Bangladesh Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, China’s President Xi Jinping. PTI SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, MARCH 31 PITCHING FOR “extension of the Chinese economy”, Bangladesh interim government’s chief advisor Professor Muhammad Yunus has said that with Northeast India “landlocked”, Dhaka is the “only guardian of the ocean for all this region”. While Yunus made these remarksduringhisfour-dayvisitto Chinalastweek(March26to29), video clips of his speech were shared by the interim governmentonitssocialmediahandles. India has not reacted to his comments so far. “Seven states of India, easternpartof India,calledsevensisters... they are landlocked country, landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean,” Yunus said. “We are the only guardian of the ocean for all this region. So this opens up a huge possibility. So this could be an extension of the Chinese economy. Build things, produce things, market things, bring things to China, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2