eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE Dressing Up the Next Gen NEWDELHI,LATECITY AUGUST25,2024 India’s fashion ramp is studded with mavericks and outliers 16+4PAGES,`7.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, ` 12 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM UNIFIED PENSION SCHEME APPROVED BY UNION CABINET Increasing its share, Centre rolls out new plan, guarantees 50% of basic salary as pension PM:Schemewill ensuredignity, financialsecurity of govtemployees AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 THE UNION Cabinet on Saturday approved a new Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) for Central government employees which assures them 50 per cent of their average basic After year in enclosures, Kuno cheetahs set to be freed into the wild ANAND MOHAN J BHOPAL, AUGUST 24 AFTER SPENDING a year inside enclosures, the African cheetahs brought to India as part of the world's first intercontinental translocation of the big cats are set to be released into the wild again at Kuno national park. The cheetahs were brought to the enclosures on August 13, 2023 after three adult cheetahs “died due to septicaemia after wounds beneath their dense wintercoatonthebackandneck regions became infested with maggots” in July. It was a major setbacktothetranslocationproject, which began in September 2022. Headof theCheetahSteering Committee, Dr Rajesh Gopal, told The Indian Express the cheetahs will be released in a phased CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 UPS: KEY FEATURES ASSURED PENSION 50 % of avg basic pay in 12 mths before superannuation FAMILY PENSION 60% of pension drawn by employee before death PM NarendraModiwithadelegationfromthestaff sideof the JointConsultativeMachineryforcentralemployeesinDelhi. ANI pay drawn over the last 12 months prior to retirement as pension. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 TWO KEY SCIENCE INITIATIVES GET CABINET NOD PAGE 6 `10,000/ mth if tenure less INFLATION INDEXATION Onassuredpension,family pension,minimumpension LUMP-SUM PAYMENT In addition to gratuity AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 WITH YOUNG government employees staring at the prospects of lower than 50% salary as pension, the Centre has now tweaked its existing scheme with a new Unified Pension SHUBHAJIT ROY NAGAON, AUGUST 24 THEMANarrestedinconnection with the gang rape of a teenage girl in Assam’s Nagaon district died on Saturday, with police claiming he had jumped into a pond in an escape bid when he wastakentothecrimescenelate at night. Tafazul Islam (24), who was arrested on Friday, was one of threeaccused inthe rapeof a14year-old, who was returning home from tuition classes on Thursday evening. Two others are absconding. Police claim that following his interrogation, Islam was taken to the crime scene around 3 am on Saturday, when he jumped into a pond while still handcuffed. "We cordoned the area and called the State Disaster Relief Force,whichrecoveredthebody. Aconstablewhowasholdinghis NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 Local residents protest the alleged rape of a girl in Assam’s Nagaon, Friday. PTI handcuffs suffered an injury to his hand," Superintendent of Police, Nagaon, Swapnaneel Deka said. When The Indian Express asked why the accused was taken to the crime scene at that hour,Dekasaidthiswasbecause the town had been “paralysed” by protests through all of Friday. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SAGAR RAJPUT MUMBAI, AUGUST 24 Laxmi Building at Cotton Green in Mumbai. Sankhadeep Banerjee Police,” the sign in yellow and white lettering, displayed prominently on the threestoreyed Laxmi Building, announces loudly. “It should be noted that legal action will be taken if anyone encroaches on the said flats.” Installed by the Mumbai Police this March, the signboard is an outcome of a legal wrangle between the department and the family of a 76-year-old CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 WHEN INDIAN High Commissioner Pranay Verma met Chief Advisor in the interim government Prof MuhammadYunusin Dhaka this Thursday, one of the key issues he flagged was the security of Indian diplomatic personnel and their premises. This included the violent attack and arson at the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre (IGCC), the hub of Indian cultural activity in the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Jet engines to munitions: India, US to speed up co-production US govt notifies Congress on sale of anti-submarine sonobuoys to India CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Indira Gandhi Centre was hub of Indian art, music, dance SUKRITA BARUAH RAJNATH HOLDS TALKS Scheme(UPS).A defined assured pension, family pension and a minimum pension for those with less than the mandatory serviceforfullpensionareitskey features. Assam rape accused MOB VANDALISED CENTRE, SET IT ABLAZE dies in custody, cops Delhi flags to Dhaka: Mob violence say jumped into pond at India culture centre on Aug 5-6 In Mumbai, police, family caught in wrangle over 82-year-old building JUST PAST the restaurants and shops of the busy Zakaria Bunder Road in Mumbai’s Cotton Green, a peculiar neonblue signboard catches the eye. “In this building, 46 flats such as room numbers 1-16 on the ground floor, 18-32 on the first floor, 34-48 on the second floor are in possession of the Mumbai MINIMUM PENSION In UPS, extra burden, but no pushing back of the reform needle FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT After the arson at the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre, run by the ICCR, in Dhaka. Shubhajit Roy Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with representatives of leading US defence companies in Washington. PTI AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 MOVING TO deepen their defence ties, India and the United States have agreed to advance priority co-production projects, includingjetengines,unmanned platforms, munitions and ground mobility systems, under the US-India Roadmap for Defence Industrial Cooperation. This announcement by the Pentagon came hours after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, whois visitingtheUS,heldbilateral talks with his counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J Austin, at the Pentagon Friday. The US government also approved Friday the proposed sale CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA The ties and the ● message THE PROGRESS made in defence co-production projects comes at a time when the US is headed to polls, reflecting the bipartisan consensus there on the ties with India, especially in Indo-Pacific. Incidentally, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was holding talks in the Pentagon the day PM Modi was in Kyiv, asking President Zelenskyy to sit at the table with President Putin and find a way out of the crisis over the war. Mehbooba says will Adani, Birla keen to tap Mongolian support NC-Cong if copper, but face logistics challenge it backs ‘PDP agenda’ Govt suggests THE COPPER ROUTES NAVEED IQBAL SRINAGAR, AUGUST 24 THE PEOPLE’S Democratic Party (PDP) president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, said Saturday that in the upcoming J&KAssemblypollsthePDP“will extend complete electoral support to the National Conference (NC)-Congress alliance if it accepts the PDP’s pro-people agenda”. Mufti said her party would welcome an alliance “based on an agenda seeking a resolution of theKashmir issue”,butnotfor elections and seat-sharing arrangements. She made these statements PDP chief and ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti while releasing the PDP’s poll manifestoatthepartyheadquarters in Srinagar. Significantly, the Congress and the NC announced their alliance for all 90 Assembly seats in J&K on Thursday, when Congress president Mallikarjun CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 JAMAAT SET TO FIELD EX- MEMBERS AS INDEPENDENTS P6 visit, trial order to understand trade dynamics RUSSIA Ulaanbaatar MONGOLIA AGGAM WALIA NEW DELHI, AUGUST 24 TWO LARGE companies Adani Enterprises Ltd and Aditya Birla group-ownedHindalcoIndustries Ltd are keen to source raw material from copper-rich Mongolia, butareconcernedaboutthelogistics of transporting copper concentrate from the landlocked Central Asian country to India. Copper concentrates is a key inputforrefinedcopper,andIndia relies on imports for nearly 90 per cent of its supply due to lim- CHINA Umnugovi Beijing Tianjin port Vladivostok Sea Of Japan Yellow Sea AT PRESENT, there are only two options for shipments out of Mongolia – by rail to China’s Tianjin port or a combined road and rail route to Vladivostok, Russia ited domestic mining of thiscritical mineral. India imports its requirementsalmostentirelyfrom Indonesia, Chile and Australia. Mongolia exported copper ore worth $2.7 billion in 2022 and was the world’s 10th largest exporter of the commodity. Much of its exports go exclusively to China. In a meeting in New Delhi CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A curious daughter unravels a Kerala murder disguised as a hit-and-run PAGE 1 ANCHOR SHAJU PHILIP THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, AUGUST 24 IT SHOULD have been an openand-shut case: an 82-year-old cyclist is hit by a car in Kerala in May, the driver goes into hiding, thecyclist dies a day after the accident, the driver surrenders before the police a few days later and is then released on bail. And that’s what it was — an open-and-shut case — till a stray remark by one of C Pappachan’s acquaintances on discrepancies in his local deposit account left the victim’s estranged daughter curious since her father was extremely well off but did not spend money on anything, not even on a vehicle to commute across Kollam city. Her curiosity not only blew the lid off the plot to disguise Pappachan’s murder as a hitand-run case, but also led to the arrest of a banking professional three months later in August. The accused, Saritha, 45, allegedly hired a gang to kill Pappachan, a retired assistant general manager with BSNL, to hide all traces of her embezzlementfromhisRs76-lakhdeposit at her financial institution. Estranged from his family, Pappachan lived all alone in Kollam.Hiswife, a retired school teacher, lived almost 100 km away in Kottayam, while his son is in the Middle East and daughter in Uttar Pradesh. Pappachan was riding his bicycle on a deserted stretch in Kollam on May 23, when he was Accused Saritha and victim C Pappachan hitbyacar.Hediedinthehospital the next day. A hit-and-run case was registered and the police managedtotrackdownthecarby examining footage from several CCTV cameras along the route. Days later, car driver Animon, 44, surrenderedbeforethepolicebut was released on bail. After the mourning period ended, Pappachan’s daughter visited the branch of Muthoottu Mini Nidhi Limited in Kollam where her fatherhadan account to enquire about the alleged discrepancies in his finances. However, she did not receive a satisfactory response from branch manager Saritha. “Abranchemployeehintedat misappropriationofPappachan’s funds.Realisingthatahugechunk of her father’s deposit was miss- ing,thedaughterfiledacomplaint over her concerns on his May 23 accident. We decided to reopen thecase,”KollamAssistantPolice Commissioner (ACP) S Shereef, wholedtheprobeinthecase,told The Indian Express. The police started by looking into the call detail records (CDR) of accused driver Animon, who was a history-sheeter. “Animon was in constant touch with one number since the second week of May. That number belonged to Saritha, the manager of the branch where Pappachan had a deposit. That got us wondering what business could a banking official possibly have with a history-sheeter,” says the officer. Evenasthepolicewereinvestigating the link between Saritha and Animon, Pappachan’s family filed a complaint with the financialfirmover“unexplained”transactions in his account. A probe by thecompanyrevealedSarithahad misappropriated Rs 25 lakh from Pappachan’s deposit account. Thoughshereturnedtheamount, she and branch executive K P Anoop,37,werefiredbythecompanyonJune25. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2