eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE WISH UPON A REPUBLIC NEWDELHI,LATECITY What could be more emblematic of a capital constantly on the build than the harmony of a familiar monument? PAGES 20, 21, 22 24JANUARY,2021 24PAGES,`6.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, ` 12SRINAGAR) DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA SUNDAY STORY PAGE 8 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM MEETING IN MOLDO NEAR CHUSHUL Indian, Chinese military commanders are back at the LAC talks table today Meeting scheduled after word from Beijing amidst extended winter deployment on both sides KRISHN KAUSHIK The Story Behind this Photograph India’s wininAustralia didn’t happen overnight.Allthat wentintothe making of this Winning XI NEW DELHI, JANUARY 23 MORE THAN two-and-a-half months after they last met, Indian and Chinese military commanders will sit across the table Sunday to try and make headway in talks over the situation along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh where thousands of troops have been in a faceoff since May 2020. XIV Corps commander Lt General PGK Menon and South Xinjiang Military Region commanderMajorGeneralLiuLinare to meet Sunday morning at the BorderPersonnelMeeting(BPM) point in Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC near Chushul. Sources said the meeting has been scheduled following word fromChinaonamemothatIndia sent. With 50,000 troops of each army deployed in the region for an indefinite period and no dia- logue at the senior level, the two sideshavebeenworkingthehotlines and other mechanisms to prevent any untoward incident on the ground. India has returned two PLA soldiers who strayed across the LAC. A representative of the Ministry of External Affairs will also be at the talks Sunday. MEA Joint Secretary (East Asia) Naveen Srivastava, leading the Indian side in meetings of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC), has also been attending the military discussions. While the military commanders last met on November 6, the last round of diplomatic talks via the WMCC took place on December 18. For weeks after the standoff beganlastMay,whentheChinese came in 8 km west of the point that India says marks the LAC on the north bank of Pangong Tso, troops dug in at several places in eastern Ladakh. The Chinese refusedtocompletethedisengagement process and both armies broughtinadditionalforcesinthe depth areas, deploying tanks, artillery and air power. Last August, Indian troops surprised the Chinese by occupyingdominatingheightsonthe south bank of Pangong Tso, and in the larger Chushul sub-sector. Indian troops positioned CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 In the pipeline: flagship scheme to take tap water to all cities, towns Prime Minister Narendra Modi with West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata on Saturday. Partha Paul At Netaji event, Mamata refuses to speak after slogans in PM’s presence Jal Jeevan Mission-Urban: Cabinet to consider Rs 2,79,500-cr, 5-year plan KARISHMA MEHROTRA NEW DELHI, JANUARY 23 IN THE Budget, the Centre is likely to announce a new flagship programme — Jal Jeevan Mission-Urban(JJM-Urban)—to provide tap water connections to all statutory towns, and, separately, sewer connections to all cities with a population of over 1 lakh, by 2026. Governmentsourcessaidthe ExpenditureFinanceCommittee approved the Rs 2,79,500-crore five-year programme on December 17, and the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has submitted the proposal to the Cabinet Secretariat. “There was a demand from states that cities not covered under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) should also be provided support for water and sewage,” a source told The Sunday Express. “More than 3,500 cities are not supported by any structured scheme… so the government has decided to launch another schemetocoverall4,000forwater supply,” the source said. The proposal to the EFC estimates CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 WORLD BUDGET ’21 A convoy of tractors heading towards Delhi, on NH-10 in Rohtak, Haryana, on Saturday. Express COUNTDOWN IN & OUT OF COVID SHADOW Nal se jal, both rural and urban MODELLED AFTER the rural Jal Jeevan Mission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has proposed a parallel programme to provide tap water connection in every urban household by 2026. It will also focus on sewage connections in 500 cities with a population of over 1 lakh. MUMBAI, JANUARY 23 PAGE 11 MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL NEW DELHI, JANUARY 23 HAVING FAILED to convince farmers to stay outside the bordersof Delhidespitetalksforthe past week, the Delhi Police Saturday granted them permission to carry out a tractor parade on Republic Day inside the Capital, but with modifications intheirplannedrouteandonthe condition that they will start only after the completion of the official parade on Rajpath. As per the agreement, the farmers will enter Delhi from all the three borders where thousands of them have been protesting for the past two months, but stay in the adjoining areas and not venture towards Central Delhi. Thousands of tractors are headed for Delhi from Punjab andHaryanatoparticipateinthe parade. Kulwant Singh Sandhu, general secretary of the Punjab Jamhoori Kisan Sabha, said, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 In Biden team, a cousin of man held in J&K under PSA post-August 5 NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN TALK SHOW HOST LARRY KING DIES IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF TRUMP TO BEGIN EARLY-FEBRUARY Farmers can enter Delhi Unease in Punjab BJP: for R-day tractor rally, ‘PM could solve row to stay near borders in a day if he wants’ SAMEERA FAZILI, one of the 20 Indian-Americans who will be part of the Joe Biden Administration, has a unique India connect: her cousin Mubeen Shah was among those held under the Public Safety Act (PSA) in the Valley clampdown Sameera Fazili, from her Twitter account coinciding with the scrapping of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Shah's mother and Fazili's father are siblings, and the family had tapped into their Washington and Delhi connections to help secure his release. Fazili was picked by the new US President as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council(NEC), apolicybodythat is part of the White House. She had been a senior advisor in the NEC during the Obama Administration. Shah was released in December 2019, and his is a rare CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 RAAKHI JAGGA LUDHIANA, JANUARY 23 WITH NO quick end in sight to the farmer agitation and talks with the government stalled, there is growing disquiet within the ranks of the Punjab BJP. Veteran leader and former BJP national vice-president Laxmi Kanta Chawla said Saturday that the agitation should not have been allowed to fester for so long,andthatthePrimeMinister could solve the situation "in a EXPRESS NETWORK day" if he wanted. Many other party leaders expressed apprehension that the protests could take a violent turn,even asthey dreadthecivic polls scheduled next month. A former minister, Chawla, 78, told The Sunday Express, “Speaking as a citizen of India and not as a BJP leader, I feel no protest should run so long. A solution to it should have been found at the earliest. In midDecember, after the number of farmers dying due to cold or CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 India of Netaji’s dream is before world today, from LAC to LoC, says Modi SANTANU CHOWDHURY & ATRI MITRA KOLKATA, JANUARY 23 WITH WEST Bengal headed to assembly elections, rivals TMC and BJP sparred Saturday during celebrations in Kolkata to mark the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Her speech interrupted by BJP supporters who raised ‘Jai ShriRam’slogans,Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,sharinga dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Victoria Memorial, refused to speak, saying they had no right to “humiliate a person after extending an invitation”. Upsetbytheslogans,Banerjee toldthegathering:“Ifeelagovernment programme should have some dignity. This is a govern- NEW DELHI, JANUARY 23 PAGE 17 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 IIT grads, ex-Google execs ready to roll out ad-free search engine NANDAGOPAL RAJAN AILING LALU SHIFTED TO AIIMS-DELHI WEEK 1: 1.5 MILLION VACCINATED ment programme, not the programmeofapoliticalparty…This isapublicprogramme.Ithankthe Prime Minister and the Culture Ministry for organising the programmeinKolkata.Butitdoesn’t behoveyoutohumiliateaperson after extending an invitation.” Earlier in the day, the Chief MinisterhadtargetedtheCentre for declaring Netaji’s birth anniversary as Parakram Divas. Netaji, she said, was a deshbhakt and,therefore,thestatepaystributetohimbycelebratinghisbirth anniversaryasDeshnayakDivas. After leading a 6-km march through the city, Banerjee said: “We observed Deshnayak Divas today. Rabindranath Tagore calledNetajiDeshnayak.Whatis this Parakram? You are building a new Parliament, buying new “AT SCALE, an ad-supported productservesthecompanythat shows you ads, it does not serve you.” With this thought, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, IIT alumni and former Google executives, are ready to roll out Neeva, an adfree, private search product, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Vivek Raghunathan which,bythemiddleof thisyear, hopes to offer a customer-paid andcustomer-firstalternative,at a time of growing concerns over the control wielded by tech megaliths. “Theadmodelhasbeengreat for bringing search to everyone on the planet, but over time there is more and more pressure to show more ads and not really what the user wants. Our thesis isthatwecancreate amuch better search product, focusing CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A bridge in Bastar — why a district, securitymen are counting on it PAGE 1 ANCHOR GARGI VERMA PAMED (BIJAPUR), JAN 23 CHINTAVAAGU,ORthestreamof worry, is an important line for the security forces in Chhattisgarh. One of several streams lying on a 44-odd-km axis between Pamed and Basaguda in Bijapur district, on thestate'ssouthernmost edge — across a rugged terrain secured by around 2,000 security personnel,includingtheeliteCoBRA unit — Chintavaagu controls access to the Maoist heartland of Bastar, particularly the home of dreaded Naxal commander Hidma. Three years after the security forces managed to reach Pamed, gradually laying an 11-km road between 2017 and 2019, they hope to finally finish the last 5-odd km to Chintavaagu, and build a bridge over it. The foundation was laid by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel earlier this month. Standing near the stream armed with an automatic rifle, SDOP (Sub-Divisional Officer of Police) Abhishek Singh says, "A coupleof weeksago,wewereon anoperationwhentherewasindiscriminate firing from the other side... We are trying to get closer and they don't like it." Access over Chintavaagu won't be just a security landmarkforthe64villagesbetween Pamed and Basaguda, as Shrinu, 19, a farmer from Dharmaram village points out. To reach the district headquarters for something as basic as getting himself registered as a farmer with the Pamed society, to be able to sell his produce to the government, Shrinu first takes his run-down motorcycle to the stream; pushesadongi(athinboatmade outof ahollowed-outtreetrunk) CHHATTISGARH RAIPUR ODISHA Bijapur Basaguda Pamed TELANGANA Villagers crossing the Chintavaagu stream. The last 5 km to it, and a bridge, are now awaited. Gargi Verma loaded with the motorcycle acrosstoPamed;andthendrives another 200 km, crossing in and out of Telangana twice. Shrinu, who got married last year, says that withouttheregistration — and with bigger marketsinaccessible—heisforcedto sell his paddy for Rs 1,050 per quintal to local vendors, against the MSP of Rs 2,500 per quintal. Most of his family has already moved to Telangana for work, leaving him to till their 18 acres. Priya, listening to the Telugu songs Shrinu got downloaded on her phone the last time he went tothecity,worrieseverytimeher husband leaves home. "We are stuck between two warring forces.Villagersarebeatenuprandomly by security forces and de- tained.Andarwaale(theMaoists) do the same if they suspect us," saysthefrail19-year-old,whobelongs to Cherla in Telangana. Recently, the seven villages falling under the Dharmaram panchayat wrote to the Superintendent of Police against "police brutality". Says Kama Gundi of Dharmaram, "When we go in or out of the village, security personnel stop and interrogateus.If someonegetsscared and can't respond, they are beaten up for being Naxal supporters." With several protests on the matter held recently across Bijapur, senior officials CONTINUED ON PAGE 2