DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PATNA, PUNE, VADODARA ● REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 AN INDIAN RETURNS TO SPACE AFTER 41 YEARS: ‘TIRANGA ON MY SHOULDER, ALL OF YOU WITH ME’ ‘WHAT A RIDE’ They looked and looked for answers. 42 yrs later, got a postmortem report Autopsy showed Chanderwati, of village Pipli in Haryana, was shot in head on Dec 2, 1976, when police cracked down on sterilisation protests. She does not figure in any records ABHIMANYU HAZARIKA PIPLI (SONIPAT), JUNE 25 Shubhanshu Shukla (second from left) with (from left) Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, US’s Peggy Whitson and Poland's Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft bound for the International Space Station, on Wednesday. @SpaceX via PTI Dragon carrying Shukla, 3 others to dock with ISS around 4.30 pm today AMITABH SINHA & ANONNA DUTT NEW DELHI, JUNE 25 GROUP CAPTAIN Shubhanshu Shukla embarked on the most consequential flight of his life Wednesday, taking off, along with three others, in the Axiom4 mission to the International Space Station. This makes him only the second Indian to travel to space. A fighter pilot and test pilot with the Indian Air Force, with more than 2,000 hours of flying experience, Shukla is the designated pilot for the Crew Dragon spacecraft that took off from NASA’sKennedySpaceCenterin Cape Canaveral, Florida exactly at noon India time. After a 28-hour journey throughspace,theDragonspacecraft will dock with the International Space Station around 4.30 pm India time Thursday,allowingthefourastronauts to transfer to the only permanent research laboratory in space where they will spend the nexttwoweeks,carryingoutscientificexperimentsandengaging in science outreach events. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘Papa, kar ke aata hoon, chinta na karo’: Shukla to parents before liftoff A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Axiom-4 crew lifts off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, on a mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Wednesday. Reuters THE EDITORIAL PAGE EXPLAINED SECOND VOYAGER INDIA’S SPACE PROGRAMME: A NEW PHASE BEGINS Shukla's experience will provide critical inputs to the country's space missions, especially Gaganyaan PAGE8 PAGE13 MANISH SAHU LUCKNOW, JUNE 25 HOURS BEFORE he became only the second Indian to go to space, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla had a brief conversation with his parents, who, like any parent on their child’s big day, were a mix of excitement and anxiousness. His father, Shambhu, and mother, Asha, woke up around CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Shubhanshu Shukla’s parents Shambhu Shukla and Asha Shukla in Lucknow on Wednesday. Vishal Srivastav Delhi CM Rekha Gupta is guest at Adda today 26/06/2025 86 114 140 78 U.S. STRIKES FAILED TO DESTROY IRAN’S N-SITES, SAYS REPORT PAGE 14 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, JUNE 25 FOUR MONTHS ago, Rekha Gupta was picked to lead the BJP government in Delhi, marking a return to power for the party after 27 years in the city. A threetime councillor and a first-time MLA, she is now the face of a government that has promised to make Delhi the capital that India can be proud of. On Thursday, the Chief Minister will be the guest at Express Adda in Delhi. No stranger to the city's pol- Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta itics, Gupta started out as a student leader with the ABVP in the early1990sandwentontoserve as president of the Delhi University Students’ Union in 1996-97. The Shalimar Bagh MLA entered the city’s electoral politics in2007,whenshewaselectedas a councillor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). She made it to MCD House twice again before being chosen as Chief Minister. In March, she announced several schemes as part of an ambitious budget estimate of Rs 1 lakh crore for the first time, big ticket announcements ranging fromacleanYamunatopotholefree roads, and more recently, regulationonprivateschoolfees. Gupta’s tenure so far has also seen an emphasis on improving road and health infrastructure, and on adopting Central schemes. With emphasis on AssociatePartners CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A swami, an American historian and the Ganga PAGE 1 ANCHOR SANTOSH SINGH PATNA, JUNE 25 FOR THE Hauser family, June 26, 2025, will forever be momentous. It’s the day their father, the late American historian Walter Hauser, will “join” his mentor — ascetic,peasantleaderandsocial reformer Swami Sahajanand Saraswati. Hauser devoted almost 60 years of his life to researching Saraswati’s life and ideology. Now,sixyearsafterhisdeath,the family has travelled over 13,000 kilometres from the United States to Patna to fulfil his one wish — to scatter his ashes in the river Ganga. “He(Hauser)wouldoftentell us that his last wish was to have hisashesimmersedintheGanges — the river that had been very closetotheSwami’ssocio-agrarian-culturalcauseof theascetic,” his son Michael Hauser, a professor at the Duke University, told The Indian Express as two urns — Front row (from left): Kailash Chandra Jha, Walter Hauser’s daughter Sheela, granddaughter Rosemary, and historian William R Pinch; Standing behind (from left): Hauser’s daughter-in-law Elizabeth, son Michael, Jha’s wife Abha, historian Wendy Singer, theatre artist Aaron Lynn. Rahul Sharma one containing Hauser's ashes and one containing his wife Rosemary's — stood on a table. While Hauser died in 2019, Rosemary died in 2001. The date of theimmersionissignificant— June 26 this year marks the 75th deathanniversaryof Saraswati,a Bihar leader credited with being instrumental in leading a movement that led to the abolition of the zamindari system in India. Patna, meanwhile, holds a special place in the heart of the Hauser family — it’s where they spent a significant portion of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE POSTMORTEM report describes a “well-built dead body”, dressed in a green shirt, yellow salwar and red dupatta, leather juttis on her feet, and a white metal kada (bracelet) each on her two wrists, with two additional glass bangles on the right. It also mentions a fracture in the skull, left by a metallic bullet. That is all that the family of Chanderwati has to go on as to what happened to the 30-yearold mother of four when police, trying to rein in protests against the Indira Gandhi government’s forced sterilisation drive, surrounded their village Pipli in Sonipat district of Haryana on December 2, 1976. For42years,thefamilydidn’t have even that, or any other record of Chanderwati’s death, only acquiring the autopsy report in 2018 after running pillar to post. Says Chanderwati’s nephew Surender Singh, 38: “We had to make several rounds of Chandigarh, put multiple complaints on the Chief Minister’s portal, and keep pushing.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 MORE REPORTS PAGE 7 Raghbir Singh with his family in Pipli village. Anil Sharma BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY The blank editorial in The Indian Express after the Proclamation THEEMERGENCY 50YEARSON Itsshadow—andlight AN EXPRESS SERIES INSIDE EMERGENCY WAS AN ASSAULT ON INDIAN CONSTITUTION, SAYS FADNAVIS PAGE 5 SHAKTIPEETH EXPRESSWAY Ajit’s dept red-flagged financial burden on state before approval of Rs 20,787 cr ALOK DESHPANDE MUMBAI, JULY 25 THE RS 20,787-CRORE loan guarantee extended by the Maharashtracabinetfortheland acquisition of the proposed Nagpur-Goa Shaktipeeth Expressway “will put a financial burden on the state and the offbudget loan will impact the state’s capability to seek loan”, said a note submitted by the FinancedepartmentonTuesday, aheadof thecabinetapprovalfor land acquisition for one of the largest road infrastructure proj- ects in the country. Raising questions over borrowing at a higher rate for the project, the note also pointed to the financial status of the state andalsoadvisedthegovernment torethinkthestategovernment’s BuildOperateandTransfer(BOT) CONTINUED ON PAGE 2