The Ideas Page: Trump-Xi summit’s message to India — build your own leverage 11 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2025 JOuRNALISm of COuRAGE JAIPUR, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES ₹6.00 l www.indianexpress.com DA I LY F R O M : A H M E DA B A D , C H A N D I GA R H , D E L H I , J A I P U R , KO L K ATA , L U C K N O W , M U M B A I , N AG P U R , PAT N A , P U N E , VA D O DA R A POSTAL REGN. NO. JAIPUR CITY/001/2024-26 UNION cABINET RESOLUTION UNDERLINES ZERO TOLERANcE FOR TERROR Heinous terror incident, will bring the perpetrators to justice: Govt Three more J&K doctors questioned; Umar, who drove i20 car to Red Fort, spoke of ‘spectacular’ attacks: probe Happening today FROM SHOPIAN AND FARIDABAD Before and after Red Fort blast, two clerics arrested, 800 km apart ● AAP LEADER and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and his former deputy Manish Sisodia have been summoned to appear in person Thursday before the Committee of Privileges of the Delhi Assembly to explain the “authenticity of the phansi ghar” inaugurated by Kejriwal in August 2022. New Delhi, November 12 JAN SUNwAIS (public hearings) will be held Thursday at over 56,000 Adi Sewa Kendras in the country. It aims to provide a platform for grievance redressal and multi-department service delivery. Returning from Bhutan Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met those injured in the Red Fort car explosion. He later chaired meetings of the Union Cabinet and Cabinet Committee on Security to review the progress in investigations. ANI BANGLADESH IS on alert as the country’s International Crimes Tribunal will announce Thursday its verdict in the case filed against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on charges of crimes against humanity. ● Divya A & Bashaarat Masood New Delhi, Srinagar, November 12 AS INVESTIGATORS widened theprobeintothecarexplosion neartheRedFortonNovember 10 which they maintained was the handiwork of a terror module busted days earlier, the Union Cabinet Wednesday called it “a heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces” and directed that the investigation “be pursued with the utmost urgency and professionalismsothattheper- FRANcE wILL take on Ukraine in a World Cup football qualifier in Paris Thursday, the 10th anniversary of the Paris terror attacks that traumatised the nation. France will qualify for next year’s World Cup if it wins. ● THAILAND’S KING Maha Vajiralongkorn arrives in Beijing Thursday, the first reigning Thai monarch to make a state visit to China. It signals Beijing’s growing influence on his kingdom. ● By EP UNNY Mahender Singh Manral & Sakshi chand New Delhi, November 12 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE agencies have found that a red Ford EcoSport car believed to be owned by Dr Umar Nabi, the prime suspect in the blast near Red Fort on Monday evening, was registered using a wrong address in Northeast Delhi’s New Seelampur on one of his Genderturnoutgap 47.02 54.94 38.32 2025 2015 2020 2010 2005-Feb SOURCE: ELECTION COMMISSION 2005-Oct 1995 2000 1985 1990 1977 1980 1972 1962 22 41.43 44.49 32.47 1967 30 62.8 53.32 45.63 38 60.48 55.8 1969 46 (in %) 71.6 62.86 62 54 Female turnout ■ Male turnout ■ 61.49 65.81 67.13 70 petrators, their collaborators, and their sponsors are identified and brought to justice without delay”. Meeting hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return from an official visit to Bhutan,theCabinet,whilepaying its respect to the victims of “this senseless act of violence” and conveying its condolences to the families, condemned “this dastardly and cowardly act” and reiterated “India’s unwaveringcommitmenttoapolicy of zero tolerance towards terrorism in all its forms and Wagay’s house in Nadigam in Shopian, J&K. He was taken away by police on October 18. (right) the mosque on the Al Falah campus in Faridabad where Ishtiyaq was a cleric. NAVEED IQBAL, ABHIMANYU HAZARIKA Wagay indoctrinated terror module members, say police; room where explosives were found belonged to Ishtiyaq Naveed Iqbal & Abhimanyu Hazarika Shopian, Faridabad, November 12 Two clerics, 800 kilometres apart – in Kashmir’s Shopian and Haryana’s Faridabad – are among those arrested by the J&K police in the alleged terror module that has now been linked to the Red Fort blast. ExPREss exclusive While one, police claim, indoctrinated some in the module, theotherrentedhispremisesto a doctor who allegedly stockpiled explosives there. In Shopian’s Nadigam area, the family and colleagues of cleric Irfan Ahmad Wagay never had an inkling he was on the police radar. “I have never seenhimdoanythingbutpray,” said his wife, Fatima, sitting at their home. Wagay, locally known as “mufti sahab”, is one of the seven men who were arrested beforetheRedFortblastaspart of the J&K police’s probe into ID documents, The Indian Express has learnt. Following the lead, sources said, investigators reached the area and found that two medical students from Al Falah Medical College in Faridabad’s Dhauj, who stayed in the same locality, had allegedly been in contact with Umar. Both of themwerepickedupfromtheir hostels in Faridabad Wednesday morning for questioning, INsIDE PREMISES Of bANNED jAMAAT SEARcHED IN VALLEy SWEEP, DOcUMENTS & DEVIcES SEIzED the sources said. The police subsequently found that the students knew Umar. The EcoSport car was the focus of an alert across all police stations,postsandbordercheckpoints Wednesday, two days after the blast, before it was found parked in Faridabad. “TheFaridabadPolicerecovered the vehicle and informed Delhi Police. The vehicle was found »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 New Delhi, November 12 AT THE close of polling on Tuesday in the Bihar Assembly elections, the state not only notched its highest-ever voter turnout, but also saw women set a new record in voting. Against the overall turnout of a record 66.91%, the voting percentage among women voters was 71.6%, as much as 8.8 per- centage points more than the 62.8%turnoutamongmenand the largest ever gap. In terms of absolute numberstoo,womenappearto have out-voted men in Bihar, which would be a first for the state. After the Election Commission’s (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, which incidentally saw more deletions among women voters than men, Bihar had3.93croremenelectorsand 3.51 women voters – a gap of 42.34 lakh. While the EC has not released data on the absolute number of men and women who voted across the two phases in Bihar, the turnout percentages shared by it indicate that 2.52 crore women voted compared to 2.47 crore men – a difference of 5 lakh. Womenhavenowout-voted ExPlAINED Will RbI lean more towards growth? A combined impact of a favourable base effect, sharp fall in food prices, and GST rate cuts, resulted in the lowest-ever inflation rate. For the full year, experts expect it to average around 2 per cent. With this data in hand, the RBI's monetary policy committee will meet two weeks from now, with a key question in hand — can interest rates be cut further to support growth. rates next month. The central bank’s six-member Monetary PolicyCommittee(MPC)leftthe policyreporateunchangedat5.5 per cent for the second meeting inarowonOctober1afterhaving slashed it by 50 basis points in June. The committee is scheduledtonextmeetDecember3-5. The previous all-time low forheadlineretailinflationwas »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ExPREss interview SHEIKH HASINA FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF BANGLADESH P6 Amid US tariff hit, Cabinet clears 6-yr Rs 25,000 crore export mission Rs 20,000 crore TWO AccUSED STUDIED AT SAME also approved as MUzAffARNAGAR collateral-free MADRASA credit access to PAGES 3, 9 exporters Bihar women shatter records, turnout 8.8 percentage points more than men Anjishnu Das CONSUMER PRICES rose a mere 0.25 per cent in October compared with the same month last year as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate cuts and a favourable base effect helped drive down the retail inflation rate to an all-time low, according to government data released Tuesday. Rural inflation was in the negative territory for the first time ever, with overall consumer prices 0.25 per cent lower in October compared to last year. In urban areas, retail prices were up 0.88 per cent. The fall in inflation to unprecedented levels could increase pressure on the Reserve Bank of India to lower interest E. »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Prime suspect Umar gave wrong Delhi address to register own car business as Usual 78 Food 5% cheaper compared with last October, pressure on RBI to cut rates Siddharth Upasani ● ● GST effect: Retail prices rose just 0.25% in October, the lowest ever men in all the last five AssemblyelectionsinBihar,withtheir turnout rising at a much faster clip than men’s. The phenomenon started in the 2005 polls, when JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar was voted as Chief Minister for the first time. The 2015 elections, by which time Nitish had earned a loyal base among women due to his government’s schemes, »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ravi Dutta Mishra New Delhi, November 12 AMID pressure on goods exports to the US due to high 50 percenttariffs,theUnionCabinet on Wednesday extended additional credit facilities up to Rs 20,000 crore to exporters, and also approved a six-year ExportPromotionMissionwith an outlay of Rs 25,060 crore announced in the Budget this year. The decision comes at a time when the impact of tariffs has begun to show with shipments to the US in September decliningby12percent.Engineering goods exports, which make up nearly a quarter of India’s total goods outbound shipments, dropped 9.4 per cent to the US, official data showed. Steep 50 per cent US tariffs came into effect on August 27. After the China-US trade deal, tariffs on India are the highest globally. Under EPM, priority support will be extended to sectors impactedbyrecentglobaltariff escalations, such as textiles, leather, gems & jewellery, engineering goods, and marine products. The interventions will help sustain export orders, protectjobs,andsupportdiversification into new geographies, a statement released by the Cabinet said. “The scheme is focused on the availability of credit and reducing the cost of credit, and focuses on MMSE exporters so that they can expand to newer export markets,” Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l LOP-SIDED PAIRINGS IN EXPANDED TOURNAMENT POOL Triple ton in 3 hrs, eight 6s in a row: Bizarre records, calls rise for Ranji rethink Lalith Kalidas buried and beleaguered by defeats and more defeats. Last Sunday, Akash vaulted over all EIGHT CONSECUTIVE sixes, of first-class cricket history an 11-ball half-century, a triple spanning 250 years, etching a hundred in just over three feat no man has ever achieved hours,a1,008-runinningslead, beforeinthegame.Alegendary and a winning margin of 725 band of Garry Sobers, Mike runs.Overthepastsevenyears, Procter, and Ravi Shastri were hordes of First-Class world rec- pulled down by Akash's hour ordshavecometumblingdown under the Surat skies. by lop-sided pairGoing 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, PAGE 1 ingsintheexpanded 6, 6, 6 against ArunRanji Trophy pool achal Pradesh's involving fledgling Limar Dabi and teams from the Northeast. Hyderabad-born T N R Mohit, For six years and 30 first- Meghalaya's No. 8 bat became class matches, Akash Kumar the first player to smash eight Choudhary'sdreamswerecon- consecutive sixes in first-class fined to the little-known cricket and break the record for cricketing world of Meghalaya, the fastest-ever fifty in the New Delhi, November 12 anchor format in 11 deliveries. Sobers recorded the first instance of six 6s in a first-class over in England’s premier CountyChampionshipin1968, 17yearsbeforeShastrimatched the feat by belting Baroda’s Tilak Raj in a 1984-85 Ranji outing for what was then Bombay. Akash’s ascent may be off-putting for the connoisseurs -- it transpired at the open C K Pithawala Ground against a firstclasssidethathastastedvictory only once in 40 matches, suffering 35 outright losses. It's not just Arunachal. One among the nine teams that have taken flight under the BCCI since the 2018-19 season, following the Lodha Commit- Meghalaya players celebrate during a Ranji Trophy Plate group fixture against Sikkim last month. MEGHALAYA CRICKET tee reforms, Meghalaya too has yettorealiseahigh-profilewin. As the newly inducted Northeastteamscontinuetobe a springboard for feats bordering on the bizarre, 25-year-old Akash isn't the first to gun down lofty records in such Ranji contests and, former playerssay,certainlywillnotbe the last. Former BCCI GM of cricket and operations, Saba Karim, said the integration of secondtierRanjigamesundertheFirst Class umbrella warrants a rethink. “With so many teams (38) in contention in the Ranji Trophy,thequalityofthestructure is diluted. It may not be a bad idea to have these Plate division games in Tier 2... they can attain First Class status once they are promoted to the Elite division,” Karim told The Indian Express. The promotion-relegation of the lower-ranked sides remains“tricky”,nevertheless,as the former India wicket-keeper puts it. In the current Ranji Trophy system, the two bottom-ranked teams are relegated from the Elite division every season, while the Plate finalists replace them in the top tier the following year. Consequently, the promotion of Northeast teams and the slide ofestablishedEliteteamsdown the order contribute to similar otherworldly feats. In the Mumbai-Uttarakhand quarter-final in the 202223 season, the record Ranji champions hammered the opposition by a staggering 725 runs -- the highest win margin in the history of First Class cricket across the world. In the pre-quarter fixture of the same season, Jharkhand crushed a fledgling Nagaland by setting a never-before target, 1009. After their stunning stumble from the Elite group, Hyderabadbutcheredthecompetition in the Plate group in 2023-24,withtheiropenerTanmay Agarwal breaking a multitude of first-class records in a singleday.FacingArunachalin »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2