DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PATNA, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2025, KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES `6.00 (`12 IN NORTH EAST STATES, `20 IN ANDAMAN) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 SPECIAL INTENSIVE REVISION BEFORE POLLS Bihar rolls revision will disenfranchise 2 crore voters: INDIA bloc to EC ‘It is too short a notice, people will struggle to produce papers’ BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY ASAD REHMAN NEW DELHI, JULY 2 External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, in Washington DC. PTI INSIDE THERE WILL BE A SUCCESSOR, TRUST SOLE AUTHORITY, SAYS DALAI LAMA WHAT IS THE GADEN PHODRANG TRUST? PAGES 6, 7 WEST BENGAL 2021 POST-POLL VIOLENCE: CBI NAMES TMC MLA IN MURDER CHARGESHEET PAGE 3 Cooperate to bring Pahalgam terrorists, organisers to justice: Quad joint statement SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, JULY 2 IN THEIR first meeting post Operation Sindoor, Foreign Ministers of the Quad grouping have condemned “in the strongest terms” the Pahalgam terror attack and called for the “perpetrators, organisers and financiers of this reprehensible act to be brought to justice without any delay”. In a joint statement, they have urged all UN member countries to “cooperate actively withallrelevantauthorities” under international law. MeetinginWashingtonDCfor the second time this year, the Quad Foreign Ministers — External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Australian Foreign MinisterPennyWongandJapan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya – also launched the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, and announced plans to host the first Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network field training exercise this year. The Quad Ports of the Future Partnership will also be launchedinMumbaithisyear.The nextsummitofQuadleadersisto be hosted by India later this year. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 India and US to sign defence framework when Rajnath and Hegseth meet next SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, JULY 2 INDIA AND the United States have agreed to sign a new 10yeardefencepartnershipframework when Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, meet later this year, a Pentagon spokesperson has said. This was decided in a phone conversationbetweenSinghand Hegseth on Tuesday, senior US Defence spokesman Colonel Chris Devine said in a statement. Hegseth also met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at the Pentagon on Tuesday. “On July 1, Secretary of DefencePeteHegsethspokewith India's Minister of Defence RajnathSingh.SecretaryHegseth emphasised the priority the US placesonIndiaasitskeydefence partnerinSouthAsia...Secretary Hegseth and Minister Singh reviewed the considerable progress both countries have made toward achieving the defence goals set out in the February2025jointstatementby President (Donald) Trump and PrimeMinister(Narendra)Modi. The two discussed pending major US defence sales to India and 4 red lines in India-US trade talks: Detective Dept takes Corn, ethanol, soyabean & dairy over probe from SIT; The charges of voyeurism, challenge kidnapping added SWEETY KUMARI KOLKATA, JULY 2 THE DETECTIVE Department (DD) of Kolkata Police on Wednesday took over the probe from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the alleged rape of a 24-year-old student at a law college in Kolkata. The SIT, initially comprising five members and later expanded to nine, will now assist the Detective Department in their comprehensive inquiry, Kolkata Police said. This comes a day after Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma noted “swift probe”andsaidtheSIThasgathered “a lot of evidence that is being analysed”. Sofar,fourpersonshavebeen arrested in connection with the June 25 incident – prime accused Monojit Mishra (31), a contractual staffer who was a TMCstudents’wingfunctionary; two students – Zaib Ahmed (19) and Pramit Mukherjee (20) – and a security guard, Pinaki Banerjee. It is alleged that the two students allegedly forced the woman into the guard’s room and stopped her from escaping while Mishra raped her. Meanwhile,tostrengthenthe prosecution’s case, the Kolkata Police has roped in renowned Special Public Prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee, known for his high convictionrate,forthetrial. “The handover of the case diary was completedonWednesdayafternoon, marking a new phase in the probe,” said a senior Kolkata Police officer. Meanwhile, the police have addedadditionalchargesagainst the accused. These include BNS sections 77 (voyeurism), 118 (1) (causing grievous hurt), 351(3) (criminal intimidation), 140(3) (kidnapping), 140(4) (kidnapping in order to murder), among others. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 UNITEDSTATESPresidentDonald Trump has said his administration is going to sign “a very big” trade deal “to open up India”, “where we are able to go in and compete(with)muchlesstariffs”. India has maintained that agriculture and dairy are its “red lines”initsongoingnegotiations with the US. “There’s no way we could do anything that would weaken our agriculture, our E EXPLAINED NEW DELHI, JULY 2 ● OPENING UP imports of the four farm products is politically fraught: it involves farmers across several states, and calls for a relook at key policies regarding regulation around genetically modified crops. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 farmers’ positions,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in an interview with the Financial Express. What are these “red lines” that the US is testing and driving a hard bargain to circumvent, if not remove? It basically reduces to four farm products: corn (maize), ethanol, soyabean and dairy. On these, India imposes both tariff and non-tariff restrictions, and the US is pushing for greater market access. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INSIDE PM REACHES GHANA ON FIRST LEG OF 5-NATION TOUR FIRST BATCH OF AMARNATH YATRIS ARRIVES IN VALLEY PAGES 4, 6 Finance questioned Beatles ashram revamp by Bimal Patel firm, Uttarakhand govt cleared it AISWARYA RAJ DEHRADUN, JULY 2 THE UTTARAKHAND Finance department had flagged the selection of Bimal Patel-led and Ahmedabad-based HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt Ltd by the state Tourism department for the revamp of Chaurasi Kutiyaashram,popularlyknown as The Beatles ashram, without a tender, reveal documents obtained under the RTI Act. The documents, reviewed by The Indian Express, show that the Tourism department justified theselectionof HCPthroughsingle-source procurement by pointingtothecomplexityof the heritage cum eco-tourism project, and the expertise of the “world-class” company, which had executed major projects such as the Kashi Vishwanath INDIAblocleadersoutsidetheElectionCommission’sofficein NewDelhiWednesday. Amit Mehra BJP’s Bihar allies also uneasy, fear genuine voters will be left out DEEPTIMAN TIWARY NEW DELHI, JULY 2 THE BJP’S NDA allies in Bihar have publicly backed the Election Commission’s (EC) Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state in the face of Opposition criticism, but there is concern among some in the ruling coalition about the exercise. Several leaders of the BJP, JD(U), and the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) The Indian Express spoke to expressed doubts if the EC could complete the exercise in the short time it has on its hands without leaving out genuine voters. The revision drive began on June 25 and is set to conclude on July 25. Pointing to the levels of literacy and poverty, and a lack of access to administrative remedies in the state, the leaders said manypeople,especiallythepoor and those from marginalised groups, might not have any of the 11 documents the EC has soughtasproof of dateandplace of birth. The leaders also emphasised thatasinclusioninelectoralrolls wasnotdirectlylinkedwithgovernment benefits, voters would CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 KOLKATA LAW COLLEGE RAPE CASE HARISH DAMODARAN AMID OPPOSITION concerns over the ‘special intensive revision’ of the electoral roll in pollbound Bihar, 10 INDIA bloc parties told the Election Commission Wednesday that people will struggle to produce documents being sought for the exerciseatsuchshortnotice,and “it will disenfranchise 2-3 crore voters in the state”. The INDIA bloc delegation met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, ElectionCommissionersSukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi in New Delhi. Briefing the media after the meeting, Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Abhishek Manu Singhvi asked whether the elections held since the last revision of voter lists in 2003 were “faulty”. “Firstly, we said the last revision was in 2003. For 22 years, four or five Bihar elections have happened. Were all those elections faulty or imperfect or unreliable?” he said, pointing out thatthe2003SIRwasheldayear before the Lok Sabha elections and two years before the Assembly elections in Bihar. “Today, you are having it in July, a maximum period of one YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW E AN XPRESS RTI APPLICATION CorridorandtheCentralVistaredevelopment near Parliament. While the Finance department did come around to clearing the project, it recommended obtainingaprioritheapprovalof the Forest department, and asked the Tourism department toensuretheratereasonableness andthefeespaidtothecompany, the documents showed. Following rounds of discussion, the Uttarakhand Cabinet approved hiring HCP as the consultant on August 3, 2023. The Beatlesashramissituatedinside the Rajaji National Park in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 In a first, Govt directs offices of ministers: Clear all files pending for over two months In its letter, Cabinet Secretariat has mentioned the backlog numbers HARIKISHAN SHARMA NEW DELHI, JULY 2 PUSHING TO cut delays in decision-making at the top, the Cabinet Secretariat has for the first time sent letters directly to the offices of Central ministers where files have been pending for more than two months, asking them to clear the backlog at the earliest, The Indian Express has learnt. The letters were sent in the second half of June and mention the number of pending files. Until now, the pendency of files used to be reviewed at the level of joint secretary, additional secretary and secretary, and not by the offices of ministers. The Cabinet Secretariat is learnt to have been monitoring pendency at each level using the Government's E-Office digital workplace, which has around 7,000-8,000e-filesincirculation daily, of which about 2,000 go to the offices of ministers. A majority of these files pertain to interministerial subjects, such as national policies and schemes. It learnt that the Cabinet Secretariat has flagged files pending at ministers’ offices for 61-90 days, 91-120 days and over 180 days. At one minister's office, several dozen files were found pending, it is learnt. At another minister's office, files related to the release of funds for a state were found pending for more than six months. Themovetoflagpendencyat this level is the latest measure taken by the NDA Government to cut bureaucratic delays. The Government has earlier launched PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation)tomonitorimplementation of infrastructure CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Saturday classes, home lessons: Mizoram road to ‘first fully literate state’ PAGE 1 ANCHOR SUKRITA BARUAH AIZAWL, JULY 2 THE LOW benches in the little school atop a hill in Tinghmun — avillage“inacornerofMizoram”, as school teacher Robert Lalditsak calls it — is meant for children aged 10 and younger. ButonaTuesday,agroupof middle-aged villagers sat on them and clapped as 54-year-old Laltinkimi stepped up to the blackboard and wrote her name with chalk in big, spidery letters. What may seem like a modest achievement is one that she arrivedataftermonthsof classes — either before or after her long hours at the jhum (shifting cultivation farm). “I didn’t know how to read or write. Though it was difficulttolearnatmyage,Itried my best. I practised at home when I could,” she says. Laltinkimiand16othersfrom hervillageareamongMizoram’s 425“neo-literates”,mostlyadult learners from across the state who passed a Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Test (FNALT) over the past year. Thankstothem,thestatehas nowbecomeIndia’s“firstfullyliterate state” under the Centre’s ULLAS programme, officially called the Nav Bharat Saksharta Karyakram or the New India LiteracyProgramme.Theliteracy rate in Mizoram now stands at 98.2%, ahead of Goa and Tripura. According to the Ministry of Education’s 2024 definition, a statecanbecalled“fullyliterate” if it achieves 95% literacy. The ULLAS programme, which has a five-year timeline aimed at non-literate people aged 15 years and above, was first implemented across the country in 2022. ULLAS is one of the many (From left) Lalramsiami, Lalsiamtlingi, school principal Malsawmthanga, Laltinkimi and Laldawnsang. Sukrita Baruah datasets, including the National Literacy Mission (NLM) data and Census, that capture the state of adult literacy in the country. In 1991,with90percentadultliteracy,Keralahadachieved“totalliteracy” as per the NLM norms, which required 90% of a state’s populationagedbetween15and 35 years to be literate. According to the 2011 Census, literacy in Kerala stood at 93.91% while Mizoram’swas91.58%.According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey’s annual report from July 2023toJune2024,Mizoram’sliteracy rate for those aged 7 years and above was 98.2%, while Kerala’s stood at 95.3%. Calling Mizoram’s ULLAS milestone as the “last sprint”, Andrew Lalrintluanga, Deputy Project Director, Mizoram Samagra Shiksha, the nodal agency for the programme, says it was achieved “after decades of work on literacy”. Mizoram’s literacy journey has, in fact, been something of a race.WritingintheMizolanguage itselfhasahistoryoflessthantwo centuriessincelanguagesusedby these tribes did not historically have a script. It was only in 1894 that English Baptist missionaries J H Lorrain and F W Savidge codified the Mizo alphabet in the Roman script. Academic Laltluangliana Khiangtehaswrittenabouthow, alongwithlanguageprimers,the missionaries also prepared textbooks for elementary schools and Mizo translations of Christianliterature.Thesewould havebeenthefirststepstowards literacy among the Mizo people. On what helped Mizoram achieve its latest literacy milestone, Lalbiakdiki Hnamte, Professor, Education, Mizoram University,credits“volunteerism and community participation”. She says, “We have seen many literacy programmes — from ‘Operation Blackboard’ to CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kolkata