DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2021, NEW DELHI, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES GRETA THUNBERG FARM PROTEST TOOLKIT Week later, five bodies recovered from tunnel, toll now 50 Delhi Police arrests 22-yr-old, calls her key to foreign hand LALMANI VERMA DEHRADUN, FEBRUARY 14 AWEEKAFTERaflashfloodstruck Chamoli district of Uttarakhand andchokedtheintakeadittunnel of NTPC’s hydro power project in Tapovan after washing away another power project establishment upstream, rescue teams Sunday recovered five bodies from the tunnel. A total of 12 bodies were recovered on Sunday — five from the tunnel, six from the power project site 5 km upstream in Raini village, and one from the Alaknanda river, downstream in Rudraprayag. Withthis,thetotalconfirmed casualties in the flash flood climbed to 50. Over 150 people continue to be missing. Garhwal Divisional Commissioner Ravinath Raman told The Indian Express that the first body was recovered 130 metres inside the tunnel at 5.30 am Sunday, and the other four bodies were recovered 10 metres farther. Rescue teams are heading in the same direction, he said. According to a release from DIG (Law and Order) Neelesh Anand Bharney, out of 50 bodies recovered so far, 24 have been identified. Also, one of the 23 recovered body parts has been CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Opposition slams arrest of activist from Bengaluru; police get custody for five days CRPF personnel pay tributes to jawans killed in the Pulwama attack, at Lethpora in Pulwama on Sunday. PTI PM marks 2 years of Pulwama: ‘No Indian can forget this day’ ARUN JANARDHANAN CHENNAI, FEBRUARY 14 MARKING TWO years after the terror attack in Pulwama, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday paid homage to the 40 CRPF jawans who were killed in the car bombing that targeted their convoy and said that their bravery will inspire generations. “No Indian can forget this day.Twoyearsago,thePulwama attack happened. We pay homage to all the martyrs we lost in that attack. We are proud of our securityforces.Theirbraverywill continuetoinspiregenerations,” Modi said. Speaking in Chennai, the PrimeMinisteralsohailedthedefence forces as he dedicated the indigenouslydesignedandmanufactured “Main Battle Tank ArjunMark1A”tothenation,and praisedthefarmersofTamilNadu for "record" grain production. He promised to protect the CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 PM handed over Arjun Main Battle Tank to Army. ANI Jammu terror plot foiled, say police; student held ARUN SHARMA JAMMU, FEBRUARY 14 A NURSING student in a Chandigarhcollege,thechief of a recentlyfloatedterroroutfit,and a law student and wife of a militant commander from Shopian areamongkeyarrestsmadeover the last five days after a “major” terror plot to target Jammu on the second anniversary of the Pulwama attack was foiled, J&K Police said. Thelatestaction,whichalsoincludestheseizureof a"powerful" CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BJP ex-MLA among 17 Challenge for FCI: held for V-Day attacks Rising stocks, cost in name of ‘love jihad’ & push to procure BHOPAL, FEBRUARY 14 HARISH DAMODARAN SEVENTEEN PEOPLE, including a former BJP MLA, have been arrestedoveratleasttwoincidents of vandalism in Bhopal on Valentine’s Day, after groups of peopleattackedahookahbarand a restaurant while accusing the ownersof promoting‘lovejihad’. “Based on the complaint and all those who were identified, we have arrested 17 people, including ex-MLA Surendra Nath Singh,” Bhopal DIG Irshad Wali told The Indian Express. The men, identifying themselves as workers of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and Shiv Sena, went on the rampage on Sunday while holding saffron flags and chanting slo- THEFOODCorporationof India’s (FCI) “economic cost” of wheat soldthroughthepublicdistribution system (PDS) is budgeted to go up to Rs 29.94 per kg and that of ricetoRs42.94perkgin202122, from their corresponding current levels of Rs 27.40 and Rs 39.99 per kg. These numbers are significant, given that under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) of 2013, 81.35 crore persons, accounting for over 67% of thecountry’spopulation,areentitled to receive 5 kg of PDS wheat or rice per month at Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg, respectively. Also, the political pressure NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 14 The attackers at one of the restaurants. Express gans of Jai Shri Ram. Inthe firstcase, agroupidentifying themselves as workers of the ruling BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), barged into Junkyard Cafe in Bhopal’s Shyamla Hills and went on the rampage. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE Distress plus ● protest AT RS 42.94 for rice and Rs 29.94 for wheat, FCI faces higher cost for PDS and Covid distress schemes. Add to it the political pressure to procure given the protests over the farm laws. The subsidy bill is set to balloon. from the farmer protests may force stepped-up procurement by the government. At the projected economic costof Rs29.94/kgforwheatand CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Noah’s arc: From Kerala fields to dunes of Dakar, with a pit stop in Germany PAGE 1 ANCHOR NIHAL KOSHIE NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 14 EXCITEDONgettingabikeforhis 16th birthday, Harith Noah, on a lark,enteredanamateurracefor beginners in the paddy fields near his home in Shoranur, a town in Kerala’s Palakkad district. He finished last. Twelveyearson,Noahisback with his bike on the same patch of land on the banks of the river Bharathappuzha, planning to negotiatethe slipperysandy terrain. A lot has changed in the last 12 years. The worst among the `6.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, `12 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 Noahwith hisparents;(right) atDakar rally. TVS Racing beginners is among the best in the world now. Last month, the 28-year-old completed the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia, a feat so arduous that bikers compare it to scaling Mt Everest. He rode more than 7,500 kilometres in less than a fortnight over sand dunes, rocky roads and valleys for nearly 55 hours for a 20th-place finish,the best by an Indian. Happy happenstances have defined the life of this accidental biker. Years back, his German mother, Susanne KV, had landed at Kalamandalam in Cheruthuruthi to learn Carnatic music. One day, she stepped out to buy bread. In a coincidence mostly seen in rom-coms, she met her soulmate, baker MohammadRafiKV.Thetwogot married and then settled in Germany. “My father owns a bakery in Shoranur town. My parents met for the first time when my mother visited the bakery opposite the bus stand for a loaf of bread. They moved to Germany for a while but we returned to Kerala when I was about two CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘Should govt be in the business of business? It should be a catalyst, enabler... Budget indicative of this strategy’ AJAY BHUSHAN PANDEY FINANCE SECRETARY PAGE 10 JIGNASA SINHA & ANAND MOHAN J NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 14 THE DELHI Police's first arrest in the high-profile case of sedition and criminal conspiracy registered 10 days ago over a toolkit tweeted by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on the farmers’ protest is a 22-year-old woman from Bengaluru — a move thathas been slammedby Oppositionleadersas“shocking” and “atrocious”. Police said they took Disha Ravi, who is an environmental activist, into custody in Bengaluru Saturday afternoon and “formally arrested” her in Delhi Sunday. They produced her in a Delhi court, which remandedherinpolicecustodyfor five days — two less than what the prosecution had wanted. During the hearing at the Patiala House Court before Metropolitan Magistrate Dev Saroha, Ravi broke down and told the court that she was not part of any conspiracy or group. “I was just supporting CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Disha Ravi at a court in New Delhi on Sunday. Express Aarey to EIA, Goa to Dehra Dun, Ravi part of many climate causes EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE BENGALURU, PUNE, FEBRUARY 14 IN AN interview last year to US author Gayle Kimball, who was then working on a book on ‘Climate Girls’, Disha A Ravi, 22, weighed in on a question on whether protests and activism are a part of Indian culture. “In India, protests are a part of life since the Indian freedom struggle was rooted in peaceful protests. There are a lot of protests on humanitarian issues and religious issues and protests are very ingrained in Indian society. Social media has helped in recent days,” said the business administration graduate who was arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell Saturday for her alleged role in the dissemination of a “toolkit” on the farmers’ protests shared on Twitter by teenage global climate activist Greta Thunberg. Disha had been vocal about environment issues long before CONTINUED ON PAGE 2