eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE Looking Out at Landour AHMEDABAD,LATECITY APRIL27,2025 Ruskin Bond on his new book, what keeps him writing 14+4PAGES,`6.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA INDIA DISCUSSING NATURE OF STRIKE: TOP OFFICIALS After diplomatic steps, a range of retaliatory options on Govt table Since Pulwama in 2019, India has acquired capabilities to strike from within its borders A security personnel stands guard at the Dal Lake in Srinagar on Saturday. PTI RELATEDREPORTS,PAGE7 Crackdown gathers pace Pak trots out its familiar in Kashmir — from deep post-attack line: Open inside forests to Srinagar to any ‘neutral’ probe BASHAARAT MASOOD SRINAGAR, APRIL 26 THECRACKDOWNinthewakeof the Pahalgam terror attack gathered pace in Kashmir, with security forces conducting massive combingoperationsintheforests surrounding Pahalgam and the statepoliceintensifyingitscrackdown on suspected terror sympathisers across the Valley. After the homes of two local men suspected to be involved in the Pahalgam attack were demolished late Thursday night, theresidencesof fourmorehave been demolished in south Kashmir, also using explosives. Sources say the operations were intensified after Union HomeMinisterAmitShahasked security agencies to take tough measures to root out terrorists and their support structure. The National Investigation CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, APRIL 26 FACING DIPLOMATIC isolation andunderincreasingpressurein thewakeof thePahalgamattack, in the first response from Pakistan’s political establishment, its Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Saturday that Pakistan was “open to any neutral, transparent and credibleinvestigation”intotheattack. Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif This is the first “offer” from Islamabad and comes when India has underlined the “crossborder”linkstotheattackand,as The Indian Express reported, has CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 HISTORIC VICTORY, SHOWN RED EYE, SAYS MINISTER SANGHAVI In Pahalgam aftermath, Gujarat Police detains over thousand alleged Bangladeshis; 890 paraded through Ahmedabad roads BRENDAN DABHI AHMEDABAD, APRIL 26 During the parade in Ahmedabad. Bhupendra Rana GUJARAT AT LEAST 2,024 people, suspected to be illegal immigrants fromBangladesh,wereunderinvestigationinfourmajorcitiesof Gujarat on Saturday. In an operation that began at 3 am on Saturday, Gujarat police detained 1,024 people, allegedly Bangladesh nationals living illegally in two major cities of the state – Ahmedabad and Surat. While890peopleweredetained in Ahmedabad, 134 were held in Surat,thepolicesaid.Laterinthe day, 10 people were detained by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajkot City Police out of 800 people under investigation. Meanwhile, in Vadodara, the city police “rounded up” 200 people but claimed that they were only under investigation, not detention. In Ahmedabad, the detained persons were paraded through theroadsof thecity,coveringthe distance between Kankaria Football Ground, where they were first assembled, and Gaikwad Haveli HQ of the Crime Branch with drone videos of the march being circulated by the police. Those detained in Ahmedabad include 457 men, 219 women and 214 children, saidanofficerof theAhmedabad City Police. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Sholay-style protest, again: 2 Narmada displacees, sacked Statue of Unity staffer climb telecom tower ADITI RAJA VADODARA, APRIL 26 FOR EVERY INDIAN, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY IS HOME: JUSTICE GAVAI PRO BONO IS SOUL OF ADVOCACY: JUSTICE KUMAR PAGE 3 India, China move to normalise ties, Kailash Mansarovar Yatra to resume in June after 5 years 5 batches to travel through Uttarakhand, 10 through Sikkim NEW DELHI, APRIL 26 IN ANOTHER 'Sholay'-style protest in Narmada district, three tribal men kept the district police and the Statue of Unity (SoU)authoritiesontheirtoeson Saturday after they climbed a mobile transmission tower in Gora village near the structure. After 12 hours of efforts, au- The trio climbed the tower around 9am Saturday. Express thorities managed to convince two of them, who were demanding government employment as compensation for displacement, to climb down the tower. The third person, who was seeking to be reinstated in his job at the SoU, remained on the tower at the time of going to press at 9pm. The three men — identified asPraveenRanchhodTadvifrom CONTINUEDONPAGE2 IN A significant step towards normalising India-China ties since the border standoff began in 2020, New Delhi announced on Saturday that it will resume the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra from June this year. The resumption of the yatra after a gap of five years is an important measure towards rebuilding the trust deficit that emergedsincetheborderstandoff in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in Galwan. This is the first move taken afterthedisengagementprocess was completed in eastern Ladakh, where 50,000 to 60,000 troops are still stationed along the India-China border. TheKailashMansarovarYatra was on top of India’s wishlist since the talks to normalise the tiesbeganinNovemberthisyear. On Saturday, the Ministry of External Affairs said, “Kailash Mansarovar Yatra organised by Ministry of External Affairs is set to take place during June to August 2025.” “This year, 5 batches, each consisting of 50 Yatris, and 10 THE WORLD 8 KILLED, OVER 700 INJURED IN MASSIVE PORT BLAST IN IRAN VIRGINIA GIUFFRE, VOICE IN EPSTEIN SEX TRAFFICKING SCANDAL, DIES PAGE 11 EXPRESS NETWORK ICHR EX-CHAIRMAN M G S NARAYANAN DIES AT 92 PAGE 8 Negotiations for the yatra picked pace after Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s visit to China in January batches, each consisting of 50 Yatris, are scheduled to travel through Uttarakhand State crossing over at Lipulekh Pass, and through Sikkim State crossingoveratNathuLaPass,respectively,” the ministry said. “The website at kmy.gov.in has been opened for acceptance of applications.TheYatriswillbe selected from among applicants through a fair, computer-generated, random and gender-balanced selection process.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E EXPLAINED NEW DELHI, APRIL 26 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PILGRIMAGE WAS SUSPENDED OVER PANDEMIC, BORDER STANDOFF SHUBHAJIT ROY LIZ MATHEW AS INDIA initiates a series of aggressive diplomatic measures such as suspension of the Indus WaterTreatyandthatofvisaservices for Pakistani nationals, the government is considering a range of retaliatory military options, including capabilities that allow New Delhi to strike back fromwithinthecountry’sborders. In a deadly terrorist attack TuesdayinPahalgam,amarquee tourist spot in Jammu and Kashmir, 26 people were killed. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised retribution and said, “India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers” and would “pursue them to the ends of the earth”. A top source in the government told The Indian Express, “Therewillbemilitaryretaliation andweareprepared.Wearediscussingthenatureof thestrike… Since 2019, we have taken a series of measures to modernise our weapons. We have the option of targeting the terrorists from within our territory.” On February 14, 2019, a Jaishe-Muhammad terrorist rammed an explosives-laden car into a FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT Archives Thaw after Modi-Xi ● meet THE THAW in October after the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping is finally bearing fruit. The Kailash Mansarovar Yatra is first evidence of that. While other items in the wishlist are expected, Delhi would want the de-escalation and de-induction of troops to follow as well. Centre selects start-up Sarvam to build first homegrown AI model SOUMYARENDRA BARIK NEW DELHI, APRIL 26 THEGOVERNMENThasselected Bengaluru-based start-up Sarvamtobuildthecountry’sfirst indigenous artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) amidwavesmadebyChina’slow cost model DeepSeek. The startup,chosenfromamong67applicants, will receive support from thegovernmentintermsofcomputeresourcestobuildthemodel from scratch. Sarvam is the first start-up to get approved for sops under India’sambitiousRs10,370crore IndiaAIMissiontobuildamodel, with the government currently assessinghundredsof otherproposals. Sarvam said its model will be capable of reasoning, designed for voice, and fluent in Indian languages, and it will be ready for population-scale deployment. A senior official said in terms of governmentsupport,thecompany will receive access to 4,000 graphicsprocessingunits(GPUs) for six months for the company to build and train its model. The model is not expected to be open-sourced, but will be finetunedparticularlyforIndianlanguages. The GPUs will be provided to Sarvam by companies separately selected by the governmenttosetupAIdatacentres CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 U.S. REVERSES ABRUPT TERMINATION OF VISA REGISTRATION ‘I couldn’t believe it’: F-1 status of some Indian students restored Records purged over ‘minor’ violations now back but uncertainty remains for many who are stuck abroad VIDHEESHA KUNTAMALLA NEW DELHI, APRIL 26 ITWAS3aminAtlantaonFriday, the 20-year-old student from Bengaluru recalls, when the good news came. His status as an F-1 student had been in limbo since April 4 when his record on SEVIS — the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, a US gov- ernmentdatabasethattracksinternational students — was terminated following a drunk driving charge that had not led to a conviction. He was preparing to file a lawsuit when, on April 24, his status on the SEVIS portal showed “active” again. “Icouldn'tbelieveit.Iwasjust about to file (the lawsuit). And thenitgotreactivated.Noreason given,” said the third-year engineeringstudent.“Fornow,I’mrelieved…butI’mstillscared.If this hadn’thappened,Iwouldprobably have had to leave everything midway and go back home.” Across the US, several Indian students, whose SEVIS records wererecentlyterminated—over minor infractions like speeding tickets or dismissed misdemeanours — have seen their statuses re-instated in the last 48 hours. In some cases, this happened even without filing lawsuits. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Love for violin, Hawaiian shirts: Meet Goa teen making waves in chess world PAGE 1 ANCHOR AMIT KAMATH MUMBAI, APRIL 26 ATLASTweek’sGrenkeFreestyle Chess Open 2025 in Germany, another young Indian chess player made waves. Leon Luke Mendonca, 19, defeated topranked players Ian Nepomniachtchi and Richard Rapport and drew against other reputed Grandmasters like Alexey Sarana, Wesley So and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The tournament hosted in the German city of Karlsruhe saw Leon take the 10th spot in a field of 297 players. Of these, 31 players started the event with a better rating than the ever-smiling, violin-playing boy from Goa with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts and attacking play. ForLeon,whobecameIndia’s 67th Grandmaster in 2020, momentsunderthebrightarclights on the global stage have been limited. His rise, after all, coincided with India discovering its goldengenerationwithstarslike world champion D Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi. Unlike a Gukesh or a Pragg, who hail from chess-loving Chennai,Leontookhisfirststeps in the sport in the small town of Saligao in Goa. But his rise is also testament to the fact that the sport is spreading fast in India, at outposts away from the traditional centres. Before Leon, Goa had one more Grandmaster — Anurag Mhamal. “Therewasnocultureofchess in Goa compared to a city like Leon Luke Mendonca is being mentored by Vishnu Prasanna, who shaped the career of Gukesh. Jurriaan Hoefsmit/ Tata Steel Chess ChennaiwhenIstartedoutatthe age of six. My first breakthrough was when I won a bronze medal in the World Youth Championship back in 2014 when I was eight. That’s when my parents had to make some big decisions. My dad left his job to travel with mefortournaments.Thatwasnot a simple decision,” Leon told The Indian Express. The increasingly popular 'freestyle' format of chess is the modern-dayversionof thesport that encourages players to be intuitive and sharp. “This variant is the best thing, this is the future of chess.Thisforcesplayerstofocus on their own skills rather than memorising opening theory,” Leon would say after his win over Nepomniachtchi. Close look at the games he played at the tournament gives an idea about Leon's stunning show. Nepomniachtchi held an advantageof 114ratingpointson the Indian and was yet forced to resign in 36 moves. In the next round,RichardRapport,rated79 rating points ahead of Leon, was handed defeat in 35 moves. In his nine games, he lost just once. Leon’sfirstmotivationtoplay the sport was not too different from the greatest chess player ever — the Norwegian star Magnus Carlsen. They both wantedtobeattheireldersisters. “HissisterBeverlywasfirstgiven a chess set as a gift, that’s when wesenthertoaclasstogetcoaching. She would then teach Leon, who was just around four or five at that time, what she had learnt at the class that day. That’s how he started,” said father Lyndon. Evenashissistersoonmoved onto otherpursuits, Leon wasso enamoured by the sport that he CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad