The editorial Page: To ease energy transition, ramp up storage, strengthen transmission 10 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2026 JournAlism of CourAge MuMBAi, LATE CiTy, 20 PAGeS ₹5.00 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 reG.no. MCS/067/2018 - 20 rnI reGn. no. 1543/57 s.I.r. oF eleCtoral rolls leGal, Its ProCess justIFIeD: Poll Panel 104 132 163 82 EC papers over objections within, presents united front in SC affidavit Says no change in Form 6; observations and questions by ECs not decisions of Commission, ECINet team obligated to ensure EROs function smoothly The Indian Express report published on September 23 ananthakrishnan G CalcuttahC ordersremoval ofPm-adani videoacross socialmedia Press trust of India Kolkata, October 26 The CalCuTTa high Court on Monday barred the publication, uploading and sharing of a documentary on Prime MinisterNarendraModiandindustrialist Gautam adani until January 31 next year. The injunction followed a plea by adani enterprises limited before the high Court's vacation bench against tech entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia, whoisallegedtohavemadethe video,andothers,seekingaban on its circulation and damages for defamation. JusticearyakDuttrestrained the respondents, including the ownersandoperatorsofX,YouTube and Instagram, their agentsandallactingundertheir authority, from publishing, republishing,uploadingandsharingthevideooranyclip,excerpt, ormateriallyidenticalreproduction of it, through any medium or platform. The court directed that the interim injunction will remain inforceuntilJanuary31,2027,or until further orders, whichever is earlier. It said the matter will come up for hearing before the regular bench in the monthly list of January next year. Justice Dutt directed the respondentsto"forthwithremove orcausetheremovaloftheconcerned video, and any clip, excerpt or reproduction thereof containing any such defamatory statements, from every account,channelandpageowned or controlled by them”. The court directed social media platforms to remove or disable access to the video at each uRl listed in the petition and to also disable the engagements — reposts, quote posts, shares and the like — through which the said video is accessible at those uRls. »ContInueD on PaGe 2 New Delhi, October 26 IN aN affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the election Commission of India (eCI) sought to clarify that observations, suggestions and questions by individual commissioners were just that, and not the eCI’s decisions. It said the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls is legal, its process justified, and that the petitioners’allegationsrelating to changes in voter registration procedures and decision-making process are misconceived. TheeC’saffidavit,filedinresponsetoapetitionbysocialactivistRakeshKumarSingh,said it“hasbeenapprovedforfiling… inside PAGEs 15, 16 by a unanimous decision of the three members of the election Commission, i.e., two election Commissioners and the Chief election Commissioner.” Singh’s petition and the eCI affidavitcomeinthewakeofthe September 23 report in The IndianExpresswhichpointedto several file noting by election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh SandhuandVivekJoshiraising questions on the eCI’s Special Intensive Revision process, observations that access to the electoral roll was getting restricted for officers statutorily responsibleforthevoterlist,and thatchangestoForm6(formfor registration of first-time voters) were “unauthorised/ illegal”. »ContInueD on PaGe 2 ritika Chopra Mumbai, October 26 TheeleCTIONCommissionof India’s affidavit in the Supreme Court is, in one sense, a defence of unanimity. approved for filing by a unanimous decision of allthreemembers,itinsiststhat the Commission’s major decisions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls weretakencollectively.Notesrecording suggestions, observations or queries by individual Commissioners,itargues,donot themselvesconstitutedecisions of the Commission and are part of the consultative process. That distinction would answer an objection raised before a decision. Most of the 14 notes recorded over10monthsbyelection Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu andVivekJoshi,objectingtodecisionstakenin the Commission’s name without their knowledge, were written after the fact — about decisions already taken, systems already built, orders already issued and cases already New Delhi, October 26 MICROSOFT ON Monday announced a voluntary exit programme for eligible employees inIndia,theuS,theuKandCanada, offering financial support and career planning resources to those opting to leave the company, according to a blog post by the tech giant. Microsoft has about 23,000 lIsraelIs wIll vote to elect the Knesset. The first poll since the Hamas attack in Oct 2023, and the subsequent Gaza war, it will decide whether Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving PM, stays in power. lunIon mInIster shIvraj Singh Chouhan will deliver this year's annual Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture, which will be broadcast by Akashvani on October 31 to mark the birth anniversary of the country's first deputy PM. manish sahu Lucknow, October 26 aCOuRTinuttarPradesh’sSultanpur on Monday acquitted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case filed in connection with his remarks about union home Minister amit Shah in 2018, ruling that the BJP leader who filed the complaintwasnotanaggrieved person and that the comments were not defamatory. Gandhiappearedbeforethe court amid tight security, accompanied by party workers »ContInueD on PaGe 2 Judges of Bengal tribunals ask EC to fix portal, drop Aadhaar authentication Damini nath New Delhi, October 26 JuDGeS OF Tribunals appointed by the orders of the Supreme Court to decide appeals of those affected by the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal have flagged at least twice in the last four weeks that the election Commission requirement for aadhaar authentication in its portal is holding them back from issuing final orders. Official records accessed by The Indian Express show that the judges had taken exception to the introduction of the aadhaar authentication required for them to issue orders on the appeals in September, and again less than two weeks ago. Just three days after the aadhaar-authenticationscreenwas introduced on September 21, employees in India, although thereisnoimmediateclarityon how many of them would be eligible for the voluntary exit programme. Globally, around 60,000 employees are eligible. It is learnt that eligible employees in India will have until December 1 to decide on the voluntary exit offer. The package is understood to be similar to a standard severance arrangement, in- and supporters. “The court has acquitted Rahul Gandhi in the case,” his lawyer, Kashi Prasad Shukla, confirmed. after the court pronounced the judgment, the leader of the Opposition in lok Sabha left the premises. The complainant, Vijay Mishra, is a former vice-president of the BJP’s Sultanpur unit. “Thecourtconsideredthree questions:first,whethertheCD containing the voice recording filed by the complainant was genuine; second, whether the complainant was an aggrieved the judges sought its removal, inwriting,onSeptember24.as recently as October 13, the incharge of the tribunals once again asked the eC to “fix the issue” to ensure proper functioning of the tribunals such that final orders can be uploaded, the records show. The judges also separately raised concerns with the election Commission and the »ContInueD on PaGe 2 Business as usual By EP UNNY cluding one month's base salary for every completed year of service, along with health insurance and career transition services. Microsoft's executive Vice President and Chief People Officer amy Coleman informed in her blog post that the voluntaryexitoffer(VeO),whichwill be available to employees at level 70 and below (internal job person; and third, whether the impugned statement was defamatory,” Mishra’s lawyer, Santosh Pandey, said. “The MP/Mla court which was hearing the case found the CD to be genuine, but did not findthecomplainanttobeanaggrieved person, nor the statementmadeagainstamitShahto bedefamatory.Ihaveyettostudy thefulljudgment,”Pandeysaid. he added that the court examined three witnesses for thecomplainant,andnowitness appearedfromtheoppositeside. »ContInueD on PaGe 2 Censorship, gag on investigations: Publishers move SC against privacy law Digital News Publishers Association includes The Indian Express, Network18, NDTV aditya Kalra New Delhi, October 26 aGROuPof21newspublishers has challenged India’s privacy law in court, arguing it would trampleinvestigativeworkand let New Delhi identify journalists’ sources, documents show. The government last year announced implementation of a privacy law to protect digital personal data of users, raising compliance requirements for platforms like Meta and Google. The publishers have said that since media outlets were not exempt, the law was an invasion of press freedom. Media companies received assurances in an august meeting with the government that thelawwouldprotectpressfreedom, but not having a written carve-out for journalists like in the european union, Singapore and Britain was alarming, India's Digital News Publishers association (DNPa) said in a confidential filing at the Supreme Court, reviewed by Reuters. The October 6 lawsuit, beingreportedforthefirsttime and due to be heard on Tuesday, is the most high-profile challenge to the privacy law. until now, only free speech activists and a group of smaller news outlets had challenged it. DNPaandthemediagroups did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters, and neither did India's information technology ministry. Thepublishersaredemanding that most of the law’s contentiousprovisions,whichkick in from May 2027, should be quashed. They are arguing the law could force a journalist to get prior consent from a person they want to investigate and forcepublisherstoerasestories. They also say powers granted by the law to demand information could expose reporters’ sources. »ContInueD on PaGe 2 eXPRess special in maharashtra textbook, newton shares gravity chapter with Bhaskaracharya Pallavi smart Mumbai, October 26 »ContInueD on PaGe 2 Court acquits Rahul in defamation happening case linked to 2018 remarks on Shah today filed, and what they recorded was that the two had not been told.Theissuetheinvestigation by The Indian Express raised was not whether the Commission eventually approved the decisions. It was whether two of its members were being consulted and informed about actions carried out in the Commission’s name. a petition filed on the strength of that report asked the court to examine how the For uPloaDInG orDers on s.I.r aPPeals Microsoft offers buyouts to 60,000 workers in India, US, UK, Canada Press trust of India lulA dA silvA wins rEcord fourth tErm As BrAzil PrEsidEnt EC says decisions unanimous, silent on why 2 members were not informed hearInG toDay inside PAGEs 9, 13 nAtionwidE ProtEsts By BjP ovEr khArGE rEmArk on Pm kErAlAm PAssEs Bill on sEnior citizEns’ riGhts the city PAGE 3 snAGs hit locAl sErvicEs; mAn crossinG trAcks killEd in trAin-hit ISaaC NeWTON now shares the chapter on gravity with Bhaskaracharya II. Meteorologist anna Mani, the “Weather Woman of India”, makes her first appearance. and foreign invasion no longer figures among the reasons the harappan civilisation declined. These are among the changes in Maharashtra’s new Class 6 history, geography and science textbooks, introduced by Balbharati, the state’s textbookbureau,thisacademicyear under the National education Policy(NeP)2020.Over1.4crore students in Classes 1 to 8 — about 65 per cent of Maharashtra’s total school enrolment — studyfromBalbharatitextbooks in State Board schools that follow the SCeRT curriculum. acomparisonoftheoldand new textbooks by The Indian express shows the changes run along three lines. ancient Indian science, scripture and scholarshavebeenwritteninto all three subjects, often placed alongside, or ahead of, modern science or standardised concepts. Contemporary Indian achievements and role models have been added. and in his- Anna Mani, the ‘Weather Woman of India’, makes her first appearance in Science textbook. tory alone, content on caste, priestly privilege and foreign invasion has been cut. The direction closely tracks NCeRT’sownNeP-alignedtextbooks, which have drawn criticism since 2024. Sample these: Ancient India influence Indian geography in scripture(geography):anew section on the history of Indian geographycitestheVedas,Puranas,upanishadsandtheSuryasiddhant. It describes the earth as “Saptadweep”, with seven dweeps, or islands, mapped on »ContInueD on PaGe 8 l In 10-oDD SeCtorS AnD MAny PArty roLeS, there Are fAMILIAr nAMeS froM DeLhI From backrooms to seats at the table: The Delhi imprint in AAP’s Punjab govt Kanchan vasdev Chandigarh, October 26 aS The aam aadmi Party (aaP) government nears the completion of its first term in Punjab, it bears a striking resemblance to a past government run by it: that in Delhi. a fresh reminder came when the enforcement Directorate(eD)raidedabungalowin Sector39,Chandigarh,occupied by senior aaP leader and former Delhi minister Satyendar Jain. The eD carried out a 50-hour search, from September 22 to 24, of the premises as part of its investigation into allegedirregularitiesintheaffairs of the Greater Mohali area Developmentauthority(GMaDa). Jain was not present at the bungalow,whichisofficiallyallotted to aaP leader Sunny Singh ahluwalia, Chairman of the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board. apart from Jain, the eD has named in the case Jain’s OSD amarender Jha and Manish Sisodia. The aaP Punjab incharge, Sisodia, was the party’s Deputy Chief Minister, Delhi. The aaP has rejected the allegations against Sisodia and Jain as “completely false, baseless and politically motivated”, adding that they had no role in the GMaDa, and that their role in Punjab was purely political. Besides handling aaP affairs in Punjab as the state incharge, Sisodia also fronts the BhagwantManngovernment’s education push (just as he did in the Delhi government). Jain,co-in-chargeofPunjab withSisodiaandalinkbetween the aaP leadership and Punjabbureaucracy,iscredited with having been the brain behind the state land pooling policy that was scrapped after protests by farmers. he has also been associated with the Mann government’s flagship women welfare scheme, Mawan Dhiyan Satkar Yojana. Sisodia and Jain could not be reached despite multiple attempts by The Indian Express. apart from the political faces, including adil ahmad Khan,theaaP’sDelhibattalion includes advisers and profes- Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann with Delhi’s former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and party leader Aman Arora in Ludhiana on September 18. GurMeeT SiNGH sionals in Punjab’s administrativestructure.JasmineShah and Bibhav Kumar, prominent aides of ex-Delhi CM and aaP convenor arvind Kejriwal, head this list, with others spreadacrossatleast10sectors, fromagricultureandeducation to power and finance, as advisers and research officers. Several others are in statutory bodies, government boards and committees. The General administration Department refused to share information about how many of these posts are salaried, or the pay given to them. The aaP’s argument is that “expertise is not confined by geography”. While Finance Minister harpal Cheema and Governance Reforms Minister aman arora were not available for comment, aaP spokesperson and anandpur Sahib MP Malvinder Singh Kang said: “a government needs experts. all previous governments too had such experts. There should be no issue.” The Capital connections When Satyendar Jain was arrested a month ago over allegedirregularitiesintendering for sewage treatment plants in Delhi—27monthsaftertheregistration of an FIR — Jasmine Shah stepped in to coordinate with senior bureaucrats. a part of the Kejriwal government’s policy-making structure, Jasmine has been a key figure in Punjab since September 2025. Government circles underline Jasmine’s role specifically in the Punjab Development Commission (PDC), set up on the lines of Delhi’s Dialogue and Development Commission, of which Jasmine was the vice-chairperson. Bibhav Kumar, who was Kejriwal’s personal secretary when he was CM, is seen as an influential figure in matters relating to administration and media coordination. Questions were raised by akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia and aaP-turned-BJP leader Swati Maliwal about Kumar accompanyingMannduringhistripto theNetherlandsearlierthisyear. PDC vice-chairperson Seema Bansal is a former Boston Consulting Group professional who worked on Delhi’s education reforms and joined »ContInueD on PaGe 2 Mumbai