DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2025, NEW DELHI, LATE CITY, 22 PAGES `7.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, `15 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 UNION HOME MINISTRY ORDERS MOCK DRILLS ON MAY 7 Activate air raid sirens, rehearse blackouts, safety drills: Govt instructs all states, UTs Defence Secretary meets PM, Rajnath holds talks with Japanese counterpart NEW DELHI, MAY 5 HOURS BEFORE the UN Security Council in New York was set to discuss the tense situation betweenIndiaandPakistanfollowing the Pahalgam terror attack, RussianPresidentVladimirPutin echoed Delhi’s position Monday when he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over phone and, according to the Indiangovernment,saidthatthe “perpetrators of the heinous attack and their supporters must be brought to justice”. Moscow’s readout of the call said Putin expressed his sincere condolences and “both sides emphasised the need for an uncompromising fight against terrorism in all its manifestations”. This phone conversation took place three days after BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY FIVE IEDs, TWO WIRELESSSETS SEIZED IN POONCH BSF ARRESTS PAKISTAN NATIONAL AT BORDER PAGE 9 tionalise air raid warning sirens, implementcrashblackoutmeasures in selected areas and train civilians, including students, on safety protocols to follow during an aerial or ground assault. Other key measures include conducting rehearsals of evacuationplansandearlycamouflaging of vital installations such as power plants and militarylinked infrastructure. Sources said these directions are aimed at enhancing the preparedness of the civilian population and the administrative machinery. The instructions were issued even as a series of high-level CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Trade deal stalled over UK carbon tax, Chenab runs dry near Pak Military solution is no India proposes plan as sluice gates of Salal, solution, says UN chief as for ‘rebalancing’ Baglihar dams are closed Security Council meets ARUN SHARMA Jhelum JAMMU, MAY 5 WATER IN the Chenab river in Jammu’s Akhnoor area fell below waist level for the first time in years, prompting many surprised locals to gather on the riverbed on Monday. Sourcessaidthisfollowedclosure of all sluice gates of the Salal and Baglihar hydel power dams inReasiandRambandistricts,respectively, Sunday morning. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, MAY 5 Kishanganga Salal dam J&K Baglihar dam Akhnoor Chenab RAVI DUTTA MISHRA SHUBHAJIT ROY INDIA AHEADOFaUNSecurityCouncil meetingconvenedattherequest of Pakistan,UNSecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres called for “maximum restraint” and said a “militarysolutionisnosolution”. Referring to the Pahalgam terror attack, he underlined that “targetingcivilians isunacceptable”. “Ideeplyrespectandamprofoundly grateful to the Government and people of both Court set bed quota for poor patients at Delhi Apollo, hospital uses only one-fifth Severe shortfall in commitment hospital made to get land lease for Re 1; hospital says will provide details in court, deliver quality care to eligible EWS patients EWS SHORTFALL GOVT & POLITICS Abhinav Saha SC has asked hospital to submit bed strength, OPD records PAGES 5,6 PAGE 1 ANCHOR NEW DELHI, MAY 5 ON MARCH 25, the Supreme Court warned Indraprastha Apollo in Delhi that it would direct the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to take over the premier private hospital’s management if it does not fulfill its land lease commitment given to the state government to provide free treatment to poor patients. Thatwarningwasn’twithout reason. The hospital assigned, on an average each year, just an estimated 17 per cent of the beds it was mandated to use for patients in the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) — across a period of 12 years. An investigation of data from company records reviewed by The Indian Express show that this ranged from barely 20.87 per cent in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 IPD services Free services for poor by Indraprastha Apollo (FY 2012-2023) BENCH LED BY NEXT CJI GAVAI TO HEAR WAQF PETITIONS ON MAY 15 JUSTICE VARMA PROBE: 3-JUDGE PANEL SUBMITS REPORT TO CJI CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 People crowd the Chenab river bed in the Akhnoor sector of Jammu Monday after a significant drop in the water level. PTI AN EXPRESS INVESTIGATION ANKITA UPADHYAY & KAUNAIN SHERIFF M External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and told him that the perpetrators, backers and planners of the Pahalgamterrorattackwouldbe brought to justice — a framing also used by Putin, according to Delhi’s readout. Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, in a post on X, said Putin called Modi and “strongly condemned the terror attack in Pahalgam”. “He conveyed deepest condolences on the loss of innocent (0.36 L) Financial Year 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 2018–19 2019–20 2020–21 2021–22 2022–23 2023–24 12.1% OPD services 87.9% (2.62 L) Avg EWS patients Avg length Occupancy admitted/ month of stay (days) rate* 159 4.78 12.68% 174 4.65 13.51% 159 4.54 12.01% 272 4.43 20.06% 274 4.17 19.07% 275 4.06 18.58% 314 3.99 20.87% 301 3.99 20.04% 179 3.86 11.49% 219 4.19 15.32% 310 3.96 20.44% 361 3.41 20.50% * Occupancy rate = Bed-days in a year ÷ 6,000 (200 beds × 30 days); Bed-days = Avg EWS admissions in a month × Avg length of stay UNSecretary General Antonio Guterres countries — and their significant contributions to the work of the United Nations, not least UN peacekeeping. And so it pains me to see relations reaching a boiling point,” he said. “Iunderstandtherawfeelings CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CBI chief may get extension as consensus eludes panel CBIDirector Praveen Sood MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL NEW DELHI, MAY 5 CBI DIRECTOR Praveen Sood is likelytogetaone-yearextension afterhistermexpiresthismonth with the three-member selection panel, comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, yet to reach a consensus on finalising a new chief for the agency, The Indian Express has learnt. Sources said the selection panel met Monday at the Prime Minister’sOfficeto deliberate on the names of a few senior IPS officers and the possibility of an extension for Sood. With no CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, MAY 5 WESTERNLABOURandenvironmental standards continue to pose challenges for Indian trade negotiators,withtheUK’scarbon tax — it is expected to disrupt India’s exports of iron, steel, aluminium,ceramicsandcement— emerging as a key sticking point in talks aimed to finalise a trade deal during the latest round of negotiations in London, The Indian Express has learnt. As the UK remains unwilling tograntanyconcessionunderits Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which seeks to impose duties on carbon-intensive imports, India has proposeda“rebalancingmechanism” which would require the UK to compensate Indian industry for losses incurred due to the regulation. “The ‘rebalancing mecha- E E X P L A I NE D WITHTHELineofControlhotting up and tensions soaring over a likelyIndianmilitaryresponseto the Pahalgam terror attack, the Centre Monday directed states and Union Territories across the country to test and strengthen civil defence mechanisms in the event of a hostile attack. The Ministry of HomeAffairs asked the states and UTs to conduct mock drills on May 7 across the244categorisedcivildefence districts of the country. The conduct of the exercise is planned up to the village level. “This exercise aims to assess and enhance the readiness of CivilDefencemechanismsacross all States and Union Territories,” stated a letter from the Directorate General Fire Service, CivilDefenceandHomeGuardto Chief Secretariesof allstatesand Administrators of all UTs. Sources said states and UTs have been asked to opera- EXPRESS NETWORK PAKISTAN NEW DELHI, MAY 5 AcceptsPM Modi’sinvite forannual summitin Indiathis year SHUBHAJIT ROY Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with the CDS and chiefs of the three services in New Delhi, Monday. PTI MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL & AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA Putin dials Modi, echoes Delhi: Bring Pahalgam terrorists, backers to justice The sticking ● point THE UK CBAM will come into effect in 2027 and it is expected to disrupt India’s exports of iron, steel, aluminium, ceramics and cement. This is coming in the way of reaching a trade deal. Delhi calls it an unfair measure, a violation of the CBDR principle of multilateral climate negotiations. nism’ article has been inserted into the ‘general exceptions’ chapter of the negotiating text between the two countries. This wouldenableIndiatoclaimcompensation for its losses and CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 FDs to PPF, houses to stocks: SC makes its judges’ assets public ANANTHAKRISHNAN G NEW DELHI, MAY 5 CHIEF JUSTICE of India Sanjiv Khanna has Rs 55.75 lakh in fixed deposits and bank accountsandRs1.06croreinPublic Provident Fund (PPF) while Justice B R Gavai, who will take over as CJI on May 14, has Rs 19.63 lakh in bank accounts and Rs 6.59 lakh in his PPF account. These are among their list of assetsuploadedon theSupreme Court’s official website Monday night. Among their landed properties, CJI Khanna has a two-bedroomDDAflatinSouthDelhibesides a four-bedroom flat in the Commonwealth Games Village. He also has 56 per cent share in CJI Sanjiv Khannahas Rs55lakh in accounts andFDs afour-bedroomflatinGurugram withhisdaughterholdingtheremaining 44 per cent, apart from a share in an ancestral house, dating from before Partition, in Himachal Pradesh. Justice Gavai has inherited a houseinAmravati,Maharashtra, besides residential apartments inMumbaiandDelhi.Hehasalso inherited agricultural land in Amravati and Nagpur, according tothelist.HehasalsodeclaredliabilitiestothetuneofRs1.3crore. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Facing Internet lag, speed chess gets a break with Mumbai server MAYANK NEW DELHI, MAY 5 NIHAL SARIN has played tens of thousands of speedchessgames online, won multiple speed chess tournaments, pocketed prize money worth lakhs and has shown he can match any player in the world, move for move. Yet, one persistent obstacle holds back the 20-year-old Grandmaster from Kerala: the Internet network lag in India. “If youthink aboutit, let’ssay in a second, you can make like nine or 10 moves, which is essentially 0.1 seconds per move,” Sarin, a multiple-time Junior Speed ChessChampion,tells The Indian Express. “But the moment it takes even just 0.2 seconds, you can only make half of the movesallof asudden.Itdoesnot sound like anything when you say1millisecondatfirstbutitactually makes a huge difference effectively.” Sarin has played more than 51,000 speed and bullet games on chess.com, one of the most popularonlinegamingwebsites, alone. Two years ago, when he wasbarely18,hesecuredsecond place in the chess.com Global Championship to take home $100,000, or nearly Rs 82 lakh. But being Nihal Sarin comes with its own challenges — especially when competing globally from India for reasons beyond his control. India generates over 2.1 million daily games on chess.com (10.5% of total traffic). However, players constantly grapplewithnetworkdelaysand lag issues. Grandmaster Nihal Sarin says even a millisecond makes a huge difference in speed chess games online In live chess games, every millisecond counts for competitive players battling for big prize money or sharpening their skills inpractice.ForaplayerlikeSarin, thefrustrationlevelssometimes reach a pointthathe even thinks of movingoutof Indiatemporarily. When asked if the thought ever occurred to him, Sarin says, “Ohyes,verymuch...asatemporary solution, definitely.” But now, there could be a permanent solution around the corner: an expanding Realtime Chess Network (RCN) being de- veloped by chess.com with one its servers located right here — in Mumbai. It was during the Covid-inducedOnlineOlympiadthatseveral high-profile Indian chess players realised how poor internetconnectionswerehampering their games. The situation reachedapointwhereIndialosta match to lowly placed Mongolia. Later, a global outage where Cloudflare servers went down during the final, forced FIDE to awardgoldmedalstobothRussia and India — a decision criticised by many at the time. The incident led to a longstanding partnership between elite Indian players and Manu Gurtu, co-founder of MGD1, a Pune-based chess management firm representing top players. Gurtu was instrumental in assisting several players facing internet issues. “The problem is down to all the chess platforms players use to play online chess. Mainly, chess.com. All their servers are in the US, so anyone out in Asia, and away from US CONTINUED ON PAGE 2