DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PATNA, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025, NEW DELHI, LATE CITY, 22 PAGES `7.00 (`8 RAIPUR, `15 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 EX-PM KHANAL’S WIFE DIES OF INJURIES HELICOPTERS FERRY LEADERS TO SAFETY Gen Z’s coup in Kathmandu: Leaders picked out, assaulted; Army moves in EX-PM DEUBA ASSAULTED FINANCE MINISTER CHASED, KICKED MP STRIPPED, DRAGGED ON STREET JAGDEEP DHANKHAR SENDS HIS WISHES Vice President-elect C P Radhakrishnan with Union Ministers J P Nadda, Pralhad Joshi and Ram Mohan Naidu. PTI Radhakrishnan is new V-P, Opp falls short of own tally amid invalid votes, cross-vote fears MANOJ C G & LIZ MATHEW NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 Former Nepal PM Sher Bahadur Deuba bleeds after being assaulted; Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel kicked and chased through streets; ruling MP Ek Nath Dhakal stripped. Video grabs YUBARAJ GHIMIRE NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 AMID A deepening political crisisinNepal,followingasharpescalation in the anti-government “Gen Z protests” a day after 20 youths were killed in police action, Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli resigned on Tuesday. Defying curfew orders, protesters hit the streets for the seconddayinKathmandu,blocking roads, storming government buildings — including Parliament, the President’s office,SupremeCourtandpolitical party offices — and setting them on fire, targeting the private residences of President Ram Chandra Poudel, Oli and some former Prime Ministers among others, and also, in some cases, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE EDITORIAL PAGE QUAKE IN NEPAL Pent-up discontent has pushed country’s youth to take to streets. Delhi should keep a close eye on the situation P10 EXPLAINED WHYKATHMANDU IS BURNING P19 CCS meets: Heart-rending, young lives lost, says Modi, calls for calm SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 WITHIN HOURS of the fall of the K P Sharma Oli government in Kathmandu whereleaders were singled out and assaulted Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Security to discuss the situation in Nepal and said the violence there was “heart-rending”. He also expressed “anguish” that “many young people have lost their lives” in the protests. Underlining that “stability, peace and prosperity” of Nepal areof utmostimportance,heappealed to the people of Nepal to “support peace”. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Mired in graft and abuse of power, Oli ignored warning YUBARAJ GHIMIRE NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 IN HIS FOURTH term as Prime Minister, K P Sharma Oli, who took charge of Nepal once more in July 2024, appeared to be enjoying absolute power. He was also moving to retain the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal(UnifiedMarxist-Leninist) FULL COVERAGE P15 A meeting of the CCS was held soon after Modireturnedto New Delhi from a tour of the flood-hit areas in the north. “On my return from Himachal Pradesh and Punjab today, a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security discussed the developments in Nepal. The violence in Nepal is for the third time, riding roughshod over any dissent. Buthisacerbictongueandiron fist had made him increasingly unpopular,somethingherefused to acknowledge. Lastweek,theOliCabinetdecided to ban 26 social media platforms including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger where details of alleged political CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 YUBARAJ GHIMIRE NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 WITH VIOLENT protests triggering the fall of the government in Kathmandu, President Ram ChandraPoudel,whoappearedto be in the safe protection of the Nepal Army, Tuesday acceptedtheresignation of Prime Minister K P ● Sharma Oli. But there is uncertainty on how the situation will unfold in the coming days. A press release by the President’s office said while Oli’s resignationhasbeenaccepted,he has been asked to continue until further arrangements are made. The President’s act of asking the PM, whose fate and whereabouts are not known, to E CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 After SC prod, EC to Bihar CEO: Use PM tours flood-hit areas: `1,600 crore Aadhaar as ID in addition to list of 11 for Punjab, `1,500 crore for Himachal EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 IMPLEMENTING THE Supreme Court’s order, the Election Commission Tuesday issued instructions to the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to treat Aadhaar as proof of identity, not citizenship, for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state. The EC had included an indicative list of 11 documents, which included caste certificate, birth certificate, passport and educational certificates, in its June24orderfortheSIR.Hearing a batch of petitions that challenged the SIR order, the SupremeCourtMondayordered the EC to accept Aadhaar as the 12th document. In a letter to the Bihar CEO, which was uploaded on the EC websiteonTuesday evening,the commission said: “The Aadhaar Card shall be treated as the 12th document, in addition to the 11 documents... The Aadhaar Card is to be accepted and utilised as CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 KAMALDEEP SINGH BRAR & SAURABH PARASHAR GURDASPUR, SHIMLA, SEPTEMBER 9 PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi Tuesday visited Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to take stock of the grim situation caused by the floods and rainfall PTI PM Modi conducts an aerial survey in Himachal Pradesh inseveraldistrictsacrossthetwo states. PM Modi conducted an aerial survey of the deluge-ravaged belts in Punjab, which has been battling one of its worst floods. He then landed in Gurdaspur, where he held a high-level meeting and met several flood victims. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 RESULT BETTER THAN EXPECTED: BJP; CONG SEES MORAL VICTORY PAGE 8 the YSRCP’s 11 MPs. Some MPs representingsmallerpartiesalso backed him. This made Radhakrishnan’s victory a foregone conclusion, way above the halfway mark of 377. But the final tally surpassed the expectations of the BJP, which hoped for around 440 votes for Radhakrishnan. The Congress’s confidence, on the other hand, evaporated CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD ISRAEL ATTACKS HAMAS LEADERS IN QATAR, DRAWS CONDEMNATION EXPLAINED Oli-garchy falls: PM quits, President offers to talk to protesters as Parliament set ablaze What next? Army says will protect, new govt up in air CHANDRAPURAMPONNUSAMI Radhakrishnan was elected India’s 15th Vice-President on Tuesday, defeating B Sudershan Reddy by a margin of 152 votes. The outcome came as a jolt to the Opposition bloc, whose hopes of securing at least 320plusvotesappearedtohavebeen dashed by cross-voting. NDA nominee Radhakrishnan, 67, an old-time RSS and BJP leader, secured 452 of the 752 valid votes polled — with 15 declared invalid — against Reddy’s 300. The BJP-led NDA had on paper 427 MPs, plus the support of FULL COVERAGE PAGE 14 GST 2.0: Amid concern of ‘profiteering’, FinMin to compile price data of common use items Shampoo to biscuits and medicines, prices of 54 items to be monitored AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 AMID CONCERNS the industry may notfully transmit the benefits of the GST rate cuts to endconsumers, the Revenue Department under the Union Ministry of Finance has asked its officers in the field to compile monthly data reports on price change of commodities pre-and post-GST rate rationalisation. The new rates will be effective September 22. In a letter to principal chief commissioners and chief commissioners of central GST zones on Tuesday, the department has sought commodity-wise price data on fast-moving consumer goods, food and educational items, and drugs and medicines, as well as cement and white goods, from the field offices and tradeassociationsundertheirjurisdiction for the next six months.Thefirstreporthastobe submitted by September 30. The field offices have been CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 What was the Harappan language? Culture Ministry to hold meet on script PAGE 1 ANCHOR VIKAS PATHAK NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 9 ADIVERSEgroup comprisingarchaeologists, a cancer specialist, an aerospace engineer, and a retired government official will gather in New Delhi on the Union Ministry of Culture’s invitation from September 11 to 13 to present their findings on attempts to decipher the Harappan script, which haspuzzled historians ever since the remains of the long-lost civilizationwerediscoveredinHarappa and Mohenjo Daro in the early 1920s.Todate,therehasbeenno crediblebreakthroughin decoding the script. According to theprogramme schedule of the international conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the conferenceonSeptember12and UnionHomeMinisterAmitShah willbepresentthefollowingday. Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) member secretary Sachchidanand Joshi confirmed the plans for the conference, and said details would be shared soon. The IGNCA is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Culture. The papers that are set to be presented have varied conclusions. While a few claim that the underlyinglanguageof thescript is Sanskrit, some claim it to be a Dravidian language, and some link itto specifictribal languages such as Santali and Gondi. Software engineer Bahata Mukhopadhyay,whohasworked on the Harappan script for years DECODING THE SCRIPT WHILE SOME papers claim Wikimedia IGNCA SET to host an international conference from September 11 to 13 on attempts to decipher the Harappan script the script’s underlying language is Sanskrit, some claim it to be a Dravidian language, and some link it to Adivasi languages such as Santali and Gondi DECIPHERING BECOMES easy when script is on a bilingual object, as with Brahmi. It hasn’t happened with Harappan script yet and also published peer-reviewed papers on the subject, was guarded about the conclusions she will present at the conference. “No serious scholar can claim to have completely deciphered the script, but I believe I have made progress on it. My findings are that it is not a spelling-based script. Rather, it encodesrulesandinformationregarding ancient taxation and commerce,” she told The Indian Express. One of the participants is archaeologist Karuna Shankar Shukla, the preface of whose 2024 book reads, “A study of the Indussealshasrevealedtomeby the grace of Lord Ganesh that very few of the total seals were meant for stamping the bales of merchandise … even the 70 sealingsfound in the warehouse of Lothal’s port were meant for religious purposes; for a Rig Vedic mantra was inscribed in their original seal … Again, for the first time, I have been able to read the names of the Puranas on the Indus seals.” The book is available on the website of IGNCA, where he was a senior research fellow. However, ac- cordingtohistoricalresearch,the PuranaswerecomposedwayaftertheHarappancivilisationdisappeared. Retired engineer Prakash N Salame,whoisfromNagpur,will present a paper titled “Decipherment of the Indus Script with the Help of Root Morphemes of the ProtoDravidianLanguageGondi”.“My late mentor Dr M C Kangali deciphered the Harappan script as early as 2002. I am carrying his work forward and have deciphered 90% of the symbols. It is CONTINUED ON PAGE 2