DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2024, PUNE, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES `6.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 BECOMES MAHARASHTRA CM FOR THIRD TIME 72 100 122 86 India, China ‘reflect on lessons learnt’, Doval-Wang talks soon SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 5 DAYS AFTER completing the process of troop disengagement at two friction points along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh,IndiaandChinaheldthe first official-level talks in New DelhiThursday,“reflectedonthe lessons” learnt from the military standoff and agreed on the need for “effective border management” and “maintenance of peace and tranquillity” as part of bilateral pacts. At the meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China Border Affairs, the two sides also preparedforthenextmeetingof the Special Representatives on the boundary question – National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are the two SRs. “The two sides positively affirmedtheimplementationofthe most recent disengagement agreement which completed the resolution of the issues that emergedin2020,”theMinistryof External Affairs (MEA) said. This wasthefirstmeetingbetweentop E E X P L A I NE D CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 T20 over, now Test: CM Fadnavis; Shinde, Ajit Pawar are Deputy CMs Barring top 3, no other sworn-in; CM says portfolios are on track, fine-tuning is on EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE MUMBAI, DECEMBER 5 ENDING TWO weeks of speculationonthenewrolesfortheleaders of the Mahayuti partners followingtheirspectacularreturnto powerinMaharashtra,Devendra Fadnavisof theBJPwassworn-in asChief MinisterThursdaywhile former Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar of the NCP took oathof office as Deputy Chief Ministers. TheceremonyatAzadMaidan in Mumbai, where Governor C P Radhakrishnanadministeredthe oath of office and secrecy to the three leaders, was a star-studded event,attendedamong othersby Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, AmitShah,NitinGadkari,Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath, Chandrababu Naidu, Nitish Kumar, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Bhupendra Patel. Also present were actors Shah Rukh Khan, SalmanKhan,SanjayDuttandindustrialists Mukesh Ambani and Kumar Mangalam Birla. Barring the top three of the Mahayuti, which secured 230 of the288seatsintheMaharashtra Assembly, no other leader was administered the oath of office – this suggested that the partners were still in talks to finalise portfolios for the incoming team. Under the rules, the state CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Treading ● cautiously THE DISENGAGEMENT of troops in the Depsang Plains and Demchok and statements from Beijing and New Delhi suggest there’s willingness to repair bilateral ties. India will tread cautiously given the bitter experience of 2020 when the Chinese violated the LAC. PAGE8 Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as (from left) Governor C P Radhakrishnan, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar look on, in Mumbai on Thursday. Narendra Vaskar BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY How Shinde was won over: The days leading up to the last hours VALLABH OZARKAR & SHUBHANGI KHAPRE MUMBAI, DECEMBER 5 BOTH the string of BJP leaders calling on him to placate him over the past three days, as well as pressure from his own MLAs, seem to have finally convinced Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde to E EXPLAINED 06/12/2024 agree to take oath as DeputyChief Minister,just two hours to go for the Maharashtra government swearing-in. The announcement was made by Sena leaderand former minister Uday Samant, who said: “Shinde ji will take oath as the Deputy CM of Maharashtra.” Incidentally, Samant himself hadsaidhoursearlierthat ifShindedidnotacceptthe Deputy CM post, no one ● from the Sena would be part of the government. Sources said Shinde dragged out the matter due to reservations over certain key portfolios. On the Sena’s main demand — the Home portfolio, apart from CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Thousands throng star-studded Azad Maidan ALOK DESHPANDE & SIDDHANT KONDUSKAR MUMBAI, DECEMBER 5 POLITICAL LEADERS, business honchos and leading Bollywood actors were among thousands who reached Mumbai’s Azad Maidan on Thursday as BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn-in as the 21st Chief Ministerof Maharashtra,inwhat turned out to be one of the biggest swearing-in ceremonies in the state in the recent years. In the middle of three huge stages at the Azad Maidan was a large banner announcing: “Maharashtra Aata Thambnar Nahi”(Maharashtrawillnotstop Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar with actor Shah Rukh Khan at the swearing-in of the new Maharashtra government. Deepak Joshi now) — a positive and developmentorientedthemeof thenew government led by Devendra Fadnavis. As the cultural programmes were held on one of the stages, the third one was oc- cupied by specially invited religious leaders. In a glittering ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the ruling alliance’s top national and state leadership, former chief minister Eknath Shinde of Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar were also sworn-in as deputy Chief Ministers. As Shinde rose up for swearing-in, he remembered Shiv Sena founder late Bal Thackeray and his political guru late Anand Dighe, and went on thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UnionHomeMinisterAmitShah and the 13-crore population of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AN EXPRESS INVESTIGATION Amid key victories in fight against TB, states face shortage of drugs NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 5 LAST MONTH, the World Health Organisation highlighted two significant milestones in India's fight against TB: an 18% dip in casesoverthepast10years,more than double the global rate; and a 24% reduction in deaths in the same period, higher than the global average of 23%. ThisframestheGovernment’s 100-day intensive campaign beginning December 7 to enhance detection in select high-burden districts but these bright spots in the mission to eliminate TB by 2025haveashadow:shortagein supply of key TB drugs since 2023,accordingtorecordsinvestigated by The Indian Express. India’s TB treatment schedule has two stages: a two-three month Intensive Phase (IP) marked by a combination tablet of four antibiotics, and Continuation Phase (CP), where a patient gets another combination medicine with three antibiotics for four to seven months. These are called fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs. Data for 2022, 2023 and 2024 shows a progressive dip in the supply of FDC drugs from the Centre. For 2023, data shows a 56.5 per cent decline in the supply of drugs for the first phase (IP) compared to 2022; and a 23 per cent drop for the second (CP) across the same period. Supplies have improved in fits and starts but this year, data available until June shows, there was a 23.04 per cent dip in supply for the first phase, compared to the first six months of 2023, and a 28.8 per cent dip in supply CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE NUMBERS 26% are in India ■ 2022 ■ 2023 ■ 2024 of global TB cases ■ States with most cases: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan ■ Without treatment, nearly 50% patients face risk of death ■ Buffer stocks key; missing doses trigger resistance to drugs Drugs for 1st phase of TB (Intensive) 2.04 cr 1.57 cr 0.50 cr ANONNA DUTT DIPPING SUPPLY OF TB DRUGS 0.76 cr 0.33 cr 0.25 cr Campaign in high-burden districts begins tomorrow as states scramble to stockpile after tenders cancelled, firms blacklisted Drugs for 2nd phase of TB (Continuous) Blister packs of 28 tablets each *upto June WHY SHORTAGE OF DRUGS MATTERS ■ Stocks of TB medicines are maintained at district, state and national levels ■ Stocks for two months at block level and three months at district, state and national levels are maintained Adani Green solar project: Govt waived transmission cost, sweetened deal NIKHILA HENRY NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 5 WITHIN 24 HOURS of the Union power ministry waiving transmission charges for states buying electricity from Adani Green and Azure Power, the YSRCP-led Andhra Pradesh government signed a deal with Central utility Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), which had awarded a total of 12 giga watt (GW) projects to these two companies. Thiswaiverof ISTS(interstate transmission system) charges is estimatedtohaveresultedinsavingsof 80paiseperunit(Rs1,360 croreayear),inawayincentivising the state to buy power from thetwoprojects.ISTSchargesare levied when power is wheeled from one state to another using the national grid. The Power Ministry’s order on November 30, 2021, essentially eased two conditions stipulated in an earlier order issued justaweekagoonNovember23. These two conditions were: (i) that the project be commissioned before June 30, 2025, and (ii) that thepowerfrom the project be within the renewable power obligation (RPO) of the state. RPO requires states to buy a certain percentage of its total power from renewable sources. The first 1,000 MW of Adani Green power is expected to be commissioned only in April 2025, with the balance beyond CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 OCCRP DENIES ROLE OF FUNDING BJP says Rahul, news site trying to ‘derail’ India story; agents of Adani at work: Cong LIZ MATHEW & NIKHIL GHANEKAR NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 5 AFTER A hiatus of two days, the Winter Session of Parliament plunged into chaos again Thursday, this time due to the rulingBJPtargetingLeaderof the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, accusing them of being part of a plan to “derail” India’seconomyand“disrupt”its democracy. Senior BJP MP Nishikant Dubey raised the matter in Lok Sabha, alleging that a “dangerous triangle”, comprising US billionaire investor George Soros, news portal OCCRP (Organized CrimeandCorruption Reporting Project), and the Congress with its leader Rahul Gandhi, were BJP’s Nishikant Dubey in Lok Sabha on Thursday. PTI trying “to derail India's success story” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Rajya Sabha, MP Sudhanshu Trivedi brought up the issue, with the BJP leaders saying that the Congress had stalled Parliament on the basis of various reports published by CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD S KOREA’S YOON FACES TREASON PROBE AS HOUSE MOVES TO VOTE ON IMPEACHMENT PAGE 11 ■ Buffer stocks ensure that patients never go without medicines ■ Missing dosages can result in resistant, difficult to treat infection New markets for Pushpa 2: Muzaffarnagar lines up first day, first show PAGE 1 ANCHOR VIDHATRI RAO MUZAFFARNAGAR, DEC 5 FROM THREE 18-year-old polytechnic students who have waited for “two months” to a group of three wedding car decorators and a 52-year-old cloth salesman seekingmanoranjan— at 11 am on Thursday, Chandra Talkies, a single-screen theatre in Muzaffarnagar town, is teeming with people who have come to watch Pushpa 2 (The Rule), the Hindi dubbed version of the Telugu “pan-Indian film” starring Allu Arjun. Minutes later, the film rolls and as Arjun makes an entry — in slow motion, of course — the 360-seater hall is filled with whoops of delight, shrill whistles and screams of “o teri”. With the success of S S Rajamouli’s Bahubali (Part 1 and 2), Telugu films that grossed an estimated Rs 250 crore in the Hindi-speaking markets, and KGF(Part1and2),Kannadafilms whose Hindi dubs made over Rs 500 crore, high-octane, masala tentpole films from the South have found a market in the North, particularly in the heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. It’s a geographythatBollywood,whichhas overtheyearsmovedawayfrom films catering to the masses and which has been unable to create a new crop of superstars, has long vacated. Pushpa 2, which has been dubbedintoHindiandfive other languages, is eyeing just this space. Last month, the filmmakers even launched the trailer in Patna — an unusual market for a Telugu film — where an estimated two lakh people cheered as Arjun addressed them and askedthemtoforgivehimforhis EXPRESS NETWORK ACTOR BOOKED FOR WOMAN’S DEATH IN STAMPEDE PAGE 10 The audience at a single-screen theatre in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, on Thursday. Chitral Khambhati “thoda galat” Hindi. Producer and film business expert Girish Johar says, “With 12,000 screens acrossthe world, Pushpa 2 is the widest theatrical release for any Indian film.” Of these, an estimated 1,000 screens are in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. Pushpa2’sstrategytofocuson its North Indian market comes after the success it had with Pushpa 1 (The Rise). When it was released in December 2021, the film was expected to run into a bigrelease— theRanveerSinghstarrer 83, a film on the 1983 Indian World Cup winning cricketteam—outsideof itscore Telugu market in Telangana and AndhraPradesh.Butsurprisingly, the film more than held its own. According to figures by Bollywood film trade analyst TaranAdarsh,themoviemadeRs 26.89 crore from its first week of theatrical run in North India. Sowhenitcametothesequel, it was expected to be a sure-shot bet, especially for single screens like Muzaffarnagar’s Chandra Talkies, where tickets are priced between Rs 100 and Rs 150. Ahead of the release on Thursday,thetheatresawonline bookings for 123 of its 360 seats — a “rare, good sign”, says theatre manager Mirza Asif Hussain, 34. Chandra Talkies theatre owner Sanjay Ghai, who owns five screens in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, says he is hoping to earn Rs 50 lakh during the theatrical run of the movie over the next three weeks. In the darkness of the movie CONTINUED ON PAGE 2