The editorial Page: eCI’s belated u-turn doesn’t undo injustice of mass exclusion 8 TUESDaY, NOvEMBER 10, 2026 JOuRnalIsM of COuRage mumbAI, lATe CITy, 16 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 MUMbAI METrOPOLITAN rEGION sTAys IN ‘MODErATE’ CATEGOry Day after Diwali, ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ air in Maharashtra’s 10 worst cities GOKUL DAIry rOw Chairman election today, milk farmers protest in Kolhapur Inland cities fare far worse than Mumbai, with Pimpri Chinchwad at 301 against Mumbai’s 172; all 10 are up on last year Pratip Acharya & Ankita Deshkar Mumbai, Nagpur, Nov 9 a day after diwali, Maharashtra’sworstairwasinland,notin Mumbai, with 13 cities recording an air Quality Index (aQI) in the ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ categories and all of the 10 worsthit faring worse than last year. according to the Central PollutionControlBoard(CPCB) dashboard at 4 pm on Monday, Pimpri Chinchwad was the worst in the state at 301, followed by nanded at 296, Pune at288,Malegaonat273,nagpur, thehomeconstituencyofChief Ministerdevendrafadnavis,at 268 and Jalna at 266. Parbhani followed at 246, Jalgaon at 243, nashik at 234, akola at 230, Belapurat218,Chhatrapatisambhajinagar at 211 and Chandrapur at 202 (see chart). The Mumbai Metropolitan Regionstayedinthe‘moderate’ category.Bhiwandiwashighest at195,followedbydombivaliat 176, Mumbai at 172, Kalyan at 170, navi Mumbai at 160, Virar at 150, Mira Bhayander at 148, Thane at 147 and Badlapur at 122. “The statewide aQI has worsened mainly because of l Top10polluted citiesinmaharashtra Post Post DiwaliAQI DiwaliAQI 2025 2026 City Pimpri Chinchwad 301 154 Nanded Pune malegaon Nagpur Jalna Parbhani Jalgaon Nashik Akola 296 288 273 268 266 246 243 234 230 216 115 123 167 167 172 137 158 109 Thousands of farmers joined the protest in Kolhapur on Monday. PTI Alok Deshpande, Omkar Gokhale, Kalyani Lad & Manoj More Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, November 9 Mumbai’s sky covered by haze and smog on Monday morning. AmIT ChAkrAvArTy explained RELATED REPORTS, P4 In a rare move, most of MMR grounds rockets after spike in Diwali fires cracker bursting. We have issueddirectionstoallmunicipal bodies, tehsils and district collector’s offices to put an immediate ban on cracker bursting. We have also instructed the state police department to take immediate action on anyone seen bursting crackers in public places,” satish Padval, joint director (air) at the MaharashtraPollutionControlBoard (MPCB), told The Indian Express on Monday. Weather, emissions Nvidia CEO admits affair, company opens probe into his relationship with ‘China spy’ 112 fourthinfour months: rape-murder accusedkilled inbengal ‘encounter’ 140 Kolkata, November 9 We are closed today. There will be no edition of the newspaper on Wednesday, November 11, 2026. Our coverage and news updates 24x7 will be available on indianexpress.com 174 92 business as usual By EP UNNY Hasina seeks fresH passport as DHaka insists on extraDition p7 Excerpts from Sonia Gandhi’s book, Belonging, on the days leading up to her momentous decision in 2004 to not become Prime Minister The book published by HarperCollins India is releasing in India today »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 sweety Kumari a Man accused in the rapemurder of a 12-year-old girl was shot dead in an encounter near the West Bengal-Bihar border in uttar dinajpur district on Monday morning, police said. This is the fourth such incident since the BJP government came to power in Bengal in which an accused in heinous crimessuchasrapeandmurder hasbeenkilledinanencounter. The 12-year-old girl went missing in uttar dinajpur district on november 3 after leaving home on her bicycle. Two days later, her body was recovered from a forest area near the Kulik river. Thegirl’sfamilyfiledacomplaint with police, alleging that she had been gang-raped and murdered. one of the accused was named as dilip Roy, who police tracked down after a four-day manhunt. senior police officers said teamsclosedinonRoyaround3 am Monday as he was trying to »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Why did inland Maharashtra record worse air than Mumbai after diwali? A mix of weather and local emissions, experts say. Mumbai’s coastal location gives it sea breezes that help disperse pollutants. inland cities such as Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Nagpur lack this ventilation. Besides, El Niño has slowed winds. Nayonika bose Mumbai, November 9 l fireincidenTsinmUmBaioverTheyears Inanunusualmoveadayafter diwali, the Thane district collector and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) onMondaybannedrocketsand similar aerial firecrackers after firecrackers led to 137 of the 142 firecallsinMumbaionsunday, »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 2024 2025 (Four days of Diwali) (Four days of Diwali) (Nov 6 to Nov 8) 262 289 282 Fires caused by firecrackers: 80 Fires caused by firecrackers: 113 Fires caused by firecrackers: 200 ToTal fires ToTal fires 2026 ToTal fires Trump defends Jensen Huang: ‘Honorable guy... think he probably has an excuse for it’ Tripp Mickle, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan swan, Julian E barnes & Ana swanson San Francisco, November 9 nVIdIa saId sunday that it was opening an investigation into Jensen huang, its chief executiveandco-founder,after he acknowledged to the company’s board that he had been intimatewithabusinessexecutive who us intelligence determined was a Chinese spy. huang’s relationship with the woman, who goes by alice huang, became a us government concern after surveillance revealed that she was feeding information directly to Beijing. The revelation raised troubling possibilities because »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with Alice Huang at a restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan on May 22 last year. reuTers rubio WarneD offiCials about Ceo’s ties WitH spy CHina Dismisses spy plot, Calls it smear Campaign page 14 India ready to help set up food corridors, says Zelenskyy after phone call with Modi New Delhi, November 9 ahead of the us-brokered two-day peace talks between Russia and ukraine in abu dhabi starting Tuesday, India on Monday reached out to the top political leadership in Kyiv and Moscow. Prime Minister narendra Modi spoke to ukrainian President Volody- myr Zelenskyy while external affairs Minister s Jaishankar spoke to Russian foreign Minister sergey Lavrov. InapostonXafterhisphone call with Modi, Zelenskyy said they discussed “Russia’s blocking of grain exports via the Blacksea”andaddedthatIndia was ready to “mediate in establishing food corridors”. This is the first time Zelen- »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 1.27 cr Hindu voters missing from UP rolls… have filed plea before EC: Yogi Number of minority voters has risen 1.65%, says UP CM Lalmani verma ON EvE Of rUssIA-UKrAINE PEACE TALKs shubhajit roy Thousands of milk farmers protested in Kolhapur on Monday,daysaftertheMaharashtra government gave voting rights tofourgovernment-nominated directors on the Gokul dairy board. The decision — upheld on Monday by the Bombay highCourt(hC),whichrefused to stay the government ordinance — could overturn the outcome of last month’s elections and hand control of the state’slargestmilkcooperative, Kolhapur Zilla sahakari dudh utpadak sangh Maryadit, to the ruling Mahayuti alliance. In last month’s elections, a panel led by Congress MLC satej Patil won 13 of the 25 electeddirectorseats,defeating the Mahayuti-backed panel, which secured 12. shortly after, the Mahayuti- led government decided to appointfourdirectorswithvoting rights, turning around the arithmetic and potentially shiftingthecontrolofthecooperative. If the four nominees vote with the Mahayuti-backed directors, the ruling alliance will have 16 votes against Patil’s 13. The chairman’s election is scheduled to be held in Kolhapur on Tuesday with all 29 directors, including the four government nominees, eligible to vote. The government has decided to apply the ordinance to the existing board despite opposition to its retrospective implementation. Patil led a march from dasara Chowk to the Kolhapur Collector’s office on Monday, drawing thousands of farmers andpoliticalleadersfromwestern Maharashtra. among those who joined the protest were farmer leader Raju shetti, Congress MLa skyy has spoken out on the Indianproposaltobrokeraceasefire in the Black sea, which has witnessedattacksonukrainian grain exports. In a post on X, Modi said he “reiterated India’s firm commitment to contributing in every possible way towards a peaceful resolution”. “Glad to have had a productive »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PM Narendra Modi last met President Zelenskyy at the G7 summit in France in June. FIle Lucknow, November 9 aMId The opposition’s campaignagainstthespecialIntensive Revision (sIR), uttar Pradesh Chief Minister yogi adityanath has claimed that 1.27crorehindushavebeenexcluded from the electoral rolls in uttar Pradesh, while the number of Muslim voters has increased by 1.65%. TheCMsaidtheBJPhadappealed to the poll body to include those who had been left out despite there being evidence of them being voters, and asked how the names of these hindu voters had gone missingandwhowasbehindit. False propaganda on SIR by Opposition: CM Yogi speakingattheaajTakPanchayat news programme sunday, the uP CM hit out at the opposition over “false propaganda” on sIR and dared samajwadi Party (sP) president akhilesh yadav to demand the rollback of sIR. “uP ki sacchai kya hai? akhilesh yadav ko bolo na ki maang kare ki sIR wapas liya jaye.Womaangnahikarega.Isliye nahi maang karega kyuki »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘One part of me rejected being PM outright… another spoke about duty… I longed for Rajiv’s presence’ soMe MonThs before the election, my children and I had discussed the issue of my possible prime ministership. one of them asked me straight out whether I would accept the post… “absolutely not!” I’d said… “are you sure?” they pressed me. “I’m very clear,” I said emphatically. neither Rahul nor Priyanka felt that I shouldbecomeprimeminister. They’d lived through the trauma of their grandmother’s assassination and the brutal murder of their father… They looked relieved and I, too, felt lighter, having said my views outloudonthequestionforthe first time. and there the matter rested.Ineverspokeofittoanyone else. Throughout the election, I’d give a noncommittal answer whenever I was asked this question… We were in a battle for our survival and I had to keep my party together… It wasn’t an option to allow a leadership struggle to arise… I just knew instinctively that the persontocarryforwardthelegacy of past Congress governments would have to be someone with long experience in government and an impeccable record of integrity… years ago, when I took the firststepofthejourneythathad broughtmetothispoint,Iknew who’dgivenustheirvote…one in my heart what my husband minute I was clear, the next, I and my mother-in-law would was torn. have expected of me. I had felt a meeting had been fixed an inner call of duty towards with the leaders of the althem and all that they had liance… “We’ll convince her,” fought for they’dassuredmy throughout their colleagues… Like express lives. But now I a movie in slow was at sea; I had to motion, the search within my scenesIwitnessed troubled self for move through my an answer. one part of me re- mind’s eye. a meeting is going jected the idea completely, the on with some of the leaders of other part was calling on my the alliance in Rajiv’s confersense of obligation — towards ence room at the far end of my thepartyworkerswho’dbehurt house. They’ve been talking in and disappointed by my re- turns for over an hour, urging fusal, but also to the people me to agree to their proposal, special whileIlistensilently.asthediscussion comes to an end, they looktowardsmeforaresponse. Imusterupasmuchcourageas I can and I say my piece. There is an uproar amongst them, they stand up and move towards me. I, too, stand up. They physically surround me. “Wewillnotacceptthis,”oneof them says. “you cannot take this decision, Madam,” says another. Their tone is forceful, almost aggressive. “We will not take no for an answer.” I am shaken. I feel overpowered. “Theek hai,” (“all right,”), I mumble… The assembled leaders don’t even wait for me Sonia Gandhi announcing that she will not take the Prime Minister’s post and recommending Manmohan Singh’s name in 2004. ArChIve to finish my sentence, they begin to congratulate me, one byone.“shehasagreed,shehas agreed,” someone says. I just stand there, numb… I hadn’t noticed that the windows of the conference »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Mumbai