THURSDAY 06 NOVEMBER, 2025 epaper.morningstandard.in facebook.com/TheMorningStandard X.com/TheMornStandard Rishabh Pant PANT CHECKS IN, SHAMI IGNORED FOR TESTS AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA GAZA 15 PALESTINIAN BODIES RETURNED Officials at Gaza’s largest functioning hospital said Wednesday that the bodies of 15 more Palestinians were returned from Israel PAGE 9 Rishabh Pant made comeback into India’s Test squad for two-match series against SA. However, Mohammed Shami has been ignored once again DELHI KEEPER-BATTER PASSES FITNESS TEST A CAPITAL VIEW OF NEWS  NEW DELHI  J8.00  India’s wicketkeeper batter Pant was an automatic choice after recovering from a foot fracture sustained during the fourth Test against England in Manchester in July. He missed the West Indies series but led India A team against South Africa A. Shami, who has had a creditable Ranji campaign as of now, has been overlooked again | P11 PAGES 12 Americans of Indian origin make major political gains BJP ‘stole’ Haryana poll with 25 lakh fake votes, Bihar next target: Rahul Mamdani first Indian-American and Muslim to be elected New York mayor ALL SET Ghazala Hashmi Security personnel carrying election materials ahead of the first phase of Bihar polls in Muzaffarpur on Wednesday | PTI STILLNESS OF THE DISCERNING IN BIHAR B IHAR has never been short of noise. Certainly not when it mattered. Its politics has marched through history with a daring swagger — JP’s call that shook New Delhi, Mandal’s churn that redrafted power, the long years of Lalu raj that jolted the old order. Even the subtler Nitish era made bold strokes on the canvas, turning India’s polity yet again with the caste census narrative and grand alliance politics. Yet this election arrives on soft feet. On November 5, the campaign for the first stretch of 121 constituencies is winding down, and the battle for the remaining 122 — those border districts where sentiment often travels across rivers and frontiers — will begin soon. And through it all, there hangs a curious quiet. Whether in Nitish Kumar’s native Bakhtiyarpur, or hamlets like Gauspur and Chitapur fringing Patna, whether in Dalit ‘tolas’ where caste is still geo-tagged or along the mobile 100-km sweep to Gaya on NH-22, out in villages like Barachati and Tekari near where a legend named Dashrath Manjhi once moved mountains, the stillness is audible. Even in places like Mokama where bullets flew the other day or Barh, , which saw fisticuffs after this writer left, the action is all on one slim band where politics does its business. The people SANTWANA seem unmoved. Almost cold. BHATTACHARYA This is not indifference. It is EDITOR an extended pause — a thinking state, perhaps it’s the hush of crores of people thinking harder. The old Bihar election grammar is still here: the woven caste alliances, the search for the right symbol atop the right community the deft stitch, ing of booth workers and social equations. But listen closely, and the dialogues are shifting pitch. It is no longer enough to promise representation; people want opportunity Bihar’s young . — impatient, painfully aware of the ticket-to-life stamped “migration” that’s been their lot for years, and now uniformly literate about the ways of the world beyond their panchayat WhatsApp group — are asking sharper questions. Identity of the other sort has not dissolved; only its fabric has thinned in the face of this new common identity, an identity of experience. Numbers are never incidental here. OBCs and EBCs together form roughly two-thirds of Bihar — a demographic truth that still underwrites strategy Yadavs remain the single biggest OBC . bloc, Kurmis and Kushwahas count in pockets where one village’s mood can bend a seat, Dalits and Mahadalits together hold a weight politicians can never ignore, and the elite castes — though numerically modest — continue to influence candidate choice and the political discourse, CONTINUED ON P8 particularly in the plains. Aftab Pureval INDIAN ROOTS Ghazala Hashmi, L-G-elect Virginia was born in Hyderabad. Aftab Pureval is the son of a Punjabi father and a Tibetan mother IN an extraordinary moment for diversity in American politics, three Indian-origin Americans carved history across key states signalling a possible new era in the United States. Zohran Mamdani became the first Indian-American and Muslim to be elected Mayor of New York City, Ghazala Hashmi was chosen as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, and Aftab Pureval secured a second term as Mayor of Cincinnati. Together, their victories mark a milestone in the growing political influence of South Asian Americans. At just 34, Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s stunning win has made him New York City’s youngest mayor in over a 100 years and the first of Indian heritage to hold the post. Running as a Democratic Socialist, Mamdani triumphed over two formidable opponents, former governor Andrew Cuomo, contesting as an independent with the backing of President Donald Trump, and Republican Curtis Sliwa. With 83% of votes counted, Mamdani secured EAM S Jaishankar will visit Canada next week, less than a month after Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s two-day trip to New Delhi. Jaishankar will attend the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Ontario’s Niagara Region on November 11 and 12. | P7 Gun battle between terrorists and security forces under way in Kishtwar An encounter broke out between terrorists and security forces on Wednesday in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district. The forces are battling against at least two to three terrorists, and there was a report of one jawan sustaining a minor injury. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (2nd from right) with wife Rama Duwaji (2nd from left), father Mahmood Mamdani, and mother Mira Nair in New York on Tuesday | AP 948,202 votes (50.6%), while Cuomo managed 776,547 (41.3%). The city saw a record turnout of nearly two million votes, the highest since 1969. Born in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York at the age of seven. His mother, acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, and father, Columbia University scholar Mahmood Mamdani, have long been symbols of cultural and intellectual achievement. In his victory speech, Mam- dani called his win a “mandate for change,” thanking his parents and wife, Syrian-American artist Rama Duwaji. His campaign, which resonated with young and workingclass voters, centered on reducing living costs, expanding housing, and improving public transport—a continuation of his progressive record as a Queens assemblyman, where he introduced a pilot programme for free city buses. CONTINUED ON P9 From Netflix to Noida: Fiction fuels digital heist Codenamed Prof The kingpin of the scam, Arpit Mishra, codenamed himself ‘Professor’ based on Money Heist’s main character who assembled the gang for the heist With a pinch of charity The scammers’ gang would often lock the depositor’s account, freeze the trading portal, and threaten to donate its deposits to a charity if they did not pay up further E X P R E SS N E WS S E R V I C E @ New Delhi SITTING in front of multiple computer screens in a dim Noida apartment, three men lived out their own version of Netflix’s Money Heist, running an investment scam syndicate. Codenamed after the show’s iconic characters, they robbed the digital vaults of unsuspecting investors across India. “Professor” wasn’t a fictional genius in a red jumpsuit—he was Arpit Mishra, a practicing advocate from Jaipur who allegedly masterminded the syndicate worth around `150 crore. Police say to date, they have , linked more than 12 fraud cases amounting to `30 crore. Alongside him were his associates: Prabhat Vajpayee, alias “Amanda”, the tech brain handling multiple devices and fake online trading platforms at once; and Mohammad Abas Khan from Manipur, the field operator who handled a web of 150–200 bank accounts opened under stolen identities. Mishra paid them `25,000 a month each for their services. They wove a con, sleek and sinister, impersonating finance professionals, luring victims through WhatsApp groups with promises of stock market riches, and then vanishing with evidence into thin digital air. After receiving the money, the scamsters would lock the victim’s trading account on the pretext that additional fees were required. They even threatened to donate the invested money to a charity if the victim failed to pay more. When one victim wired `21.77 lakh to what he thought was a “Direct Market Account”, his funds were frozen, trading portal locked, and pleas met with threats of “charitable donations” unless he paid more. His panicked call to cops helped expose the fraud. The investigation revealed a fascinating script: digital trails from Noida to Guwahati and, finally, to Siliguri. Inside the Noida flat, police found Vajpayee and Khan busy in an operation—phones lit with realtime transactions, computer screens running numbers cons t a n t ly. O f f i c e r s smartly threw the devices into airplane mode to stop remote wipes. By the time “Professor” Mishra was arrested in Siliguri on October 29, the plot had fully unravelled. NATIONAL PRIDE Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets the victorious ICC Women’s World Cup team in New Delhi on Wednesday | PTI DDA approves new areas under land use change, north Delhi benefits in 1st phase EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi THE Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has approved a series of planning and land development measures, including the change of land use for land pooling areas and the continuation of the Enhanced Floor Area Ratio (FAR) Policy for commercial centres. In a meeting chaired by L-G V K Saxena on Wednesday the , DDA approved the change of land use for 40.23 hectares under the land pooling policy, paving the way for the first phase of its implementation. The policy notified in October , 2018 as part of the Master Plan for Delhi, 2021, covers 105 urban villages across six planning zones. The area is divided into 138 sectors, covering 20,422 hectares. Sector 8B of Planning Zone P-II, near Bhalaswa Lake, has become the first sector to achieve 70% contiguous pooled land, making it eligible for development. The DDA said that land distribution for the sector will follow a 60:40 ratio between landowners’ consortiums and the authori- ty The move will open up the . area for massive commercial development. The DDA also extended its enhanced FAR policy for commercial centres by one year. Introduced in 2018, the scheme allows higher construction potential, while the DDA benefitted by raising additional revenue. This extension is applicable across the city The DDA said it would . allow stakeholders another chance to use unclaimed FAR and support the growth of commercial infra. P3 BOOST FOR BLUE ECONOMY EXPRESS READ Jaishankar to visit Canada next week amid steady thaw in bilateral ties “We have crystal-clear proof that 25 lakh voters in Haryana LEADER of Opposition Rahul are fake, that they either don’t Gandhi on Wednesday accused exist, are duplicates, or were the Election Commission of designed in a way that allows India of colluding with the anybody to vote. One in eight BJP to ‘steal’ the 2024 Haryana voters in Haryana is fake, elections in the saffron party’s that’s 12.5%,” he said. favour and claimed To substantiate the same sinister his claim, he cited plan will be used in the example of a Bihar to ensure the woman who apBJP’s victory . peared 223 times on Addressing a the voter list. He press conference at also showed the the AICC headphoto of another quarters here on woman, which he We d n e s d ay, t h e SIR: Integrity of claimed was a BraCongress leader alzilian, saying it appoll main issue leged that 25 lakh peared 22 times unOn INDIA bloc’s votes were ‘stolen’ der different names strategy to protest in Haryana through in 10 booths. 5.21 lakh duplicate against SIR, Rahul said “This is proof of the “integrity of the votes, 93,174 invalid a centralised operaelection” is the addresses, and 19.26 tion. What is a Brafundamental issue lakh bulk voters. zilian person doing Haryana has a total on the voters’ list of two crore voters. in Haryana?” he asked. Responding to the allega“I am confident that after the Bihar poll, we will make a pres- tions, Election Commission ofentation that the same thing ficials said the vote manipulahappened in Bihar,” he said, tion charge is unfounded as no adding political parties are un- appeals were filed against Harable to check the ‘vote theft’ as yana electoral rolls, nor was they are provided with the vot- any multiple voting flagged when it allegedly happened. P7 er list at the last moment. P R E E T H A N A I R @ New Delhi H A R P R E E T B A J W A @ Chandigarh Net cast to catch unsustainable fishing practices 200 Nautical miles from a country’s coast is the extent of EEZ. It grants countries the right to exploit resources J I T E N D R A C H O U B E Y @ New Delhi THE Centre has issued a notification to promote the sustainable exploitation of fisheries within India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The newly introduced rules, titled ‘Sustainable Harnessing of Fisheries in the Exclusive Economic Zone Rules, 2025’, focus on licensing, registration, and scientific monitoring of fishing activities in the EEZ. They seek to encourage sustainable mariculture, including seaweed cultivation, reduce fishing pressure, create new livelihood opportunities, and enhance overall marine production. The rules recognise Fisheries Cooperatives and Fish Farmer Producer Organisations (FFPOs) as key stakeholders in managing the EEZ. In addition, the government will provide training and capacity-building for traditional and small-scale fishers, including fisheries cooperatives and SelfHelp Groups. Trained and registered fisherfolk entities, such as SHGs and FFPOs, will be eligible to obtain licences through the government’s ReALCRaft portal, ensuring greater participation of organised fishing communities in offshore resource management. Finally, the rules lay down guidelines for issuing health certificates for catches in line with relevant national and international regulations. TYPHOON KALMAEGI KILLS 85 IN THE PHILIPPINES The calamity also left at least 75 missing in the central part amidst widespread floods | P9