TUESDAY 31 MARCH, 2026 epaper.morningstandard.in facebook.com/TheMorningStandard X.com/TheMornStandard INDIA’S FIRST FULLY-DIGITAL CENSUS TO KICK OFF ON APRIL 1 N O H A LT A M I D U S H E AT RUSSIA ENERGY FLOW TO CUBA The process starts with self-enumeration in Delhi, Goa, Karnataka, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim and Andaman and Nicobar Islands from April 1 Russia will continue to supply energy resources to Havana, the Kremlin said, as a Russian tanker carrying the first consignment reached a Cuban port SECOND PHASE FROM FEBRUARY 2027 A CAPITAL VIEW OF NEWS PAGE 9 Lashkar operative held in city, Pak link under scanner  NEW DELHI  J8.00  PAGES 12 The Census 2027 will be done in two phases—house listing or house census and population enumeration. After a 15-day self-enumeration period, the 30-day houselisting phase will begin on April 16. Across the country, the first phase will be wrapped by October. The population enumeration phase will then be conducted in February 2027 | P7 Trump threatens obliteration Open Hormuz or face destruction of power plants, oil wells, desal plants, Don tells Iran; war crime, warn experts Rupee breaches 95/$ level, recovers Spain closes its airspace for US military Crude hits $117 per barrel The rupee breached the 95/USD-mark in intra-day trade on Monday before settling at 94.70. The BSE Sensex tumbled 1,635.67 points, or 2.22 per cent, to settle at 71,947.55. This month alone, the benchmark has crashed 11.48 per cent, ever since the West Asia conflict began Spain closed its airspace to US planes involved in the attacks on Iran in addition to denying its military bases for the war. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s March 3 stance to oppose the war had infuriated the US, with Trump threatening to cut trade ties Oil prices rose as the West Asia crisis escalated on Monday. Brent North Sea crude, the international benchmark, jumped to almost $117 per barrel in Asian trading. Crude oil prices in India rose by `159 to `9,554 per barrel in futures trade on Monday Indian from TN killed in strike on Kuwait plant N I T I N R A W AT @ New Delhi and Abdul Rehman. He was also in contact with DELHI Police’s Special Cell Tehreek-Ul-Mujahideen comhas arrested a 43-year-old al- mander Abu Talha and a UAleged Lashkar-e-Taiba han- PA-designated terrorist Asif dler, identified as Shabir Dar, Additional CommissionAhmed Lone, from east Del- er of Police (Special Cell) hi’s Ghazipur area. Pramod Kushwah said. Lone, a resident of Jammu Police recovered 2,300 Bangand Kashmir’s Ganderbal dis- ladeshi Taka, 5,000 Pakistani trict, had reportedly been op- rupees, `3,000 Indian rupees, erating from Bangladesh in 1,400 Nepalese rupees, one recent months. His role came Nepali SIM, and other items. to light during the investigaLone is the main handler of tion of a case registered at the the recently busted LeT modSupreme Court Metro police ule operating out of Banglastation, in which eight LeT op- desh. In 2004-2005, his locality eratives, one Indian and seven was frequently visited by LeT Bangladeshi nationterrorists Abu Hu5-day police als, were arrested. zaifa, Abu Bakar, custody It was revealed and Faisal, for food that after the arrest and logistical supA court sent LeT of eight LeT operaport. Huzaifa rehandler Shabir t ive s, L o n e w a s Ahmed Lone to five cruited him during tasked by his hanthat period. days of police dlers in Pakistan to Lone again came custody. Judicial radicalise and rein contact with HuMagistrate cruit more youths to Vijayshree Rathore zaifa in 2016 through the ranks of LeT in encrypted applicapassed the order India. To carry this tions and started reon a plea moved out, Lone had encruiting youths into by police seeking tered India through the LeT cadre. HuLone’s five-day the Nepal border zaifa introduced remand for and was making him to Sumama Bahis custodial clandestine efforts bar through an eninterrogation. P4 to recruit youth. crypted application. Lone was earlier arrested Babar is responsible for moby the Special Cell during the tivating, and recruiting youth, investigation of a 2007 case. A mainly in the Valley through , heavy cache of arms and am- social media applications. In munition, including AK-47 ri- 2025, Babar asked Lone to refles and grenades, was recov- cruit Bangladeshis and Indian ered, and he was convicted. youth from states other than He was also wanted in cases J&K to carry out terrorist opin Jammu and Kashmir. erations in India. Lone was arrested on SunLast March, Lone, along day around 10.30 pm from with his family, crossed the Ghazipur drain. According to India-Bangladesh border and police, he was working on the set up a launchpad in Saidpur, direction of his Pakistan- Bangladesh. He married a lobased handlers, code-named cal Bangladeshi woman to gel Abu Huzaifa, Sumama Babar, with the local populace. EXPRESS READ Trans Bill: HC flags state control Days after the transgender Bill was passed in Parliament, the Rajasthan HC observed on Monday that the proposed law risks reducing the right to self-identify gender into a state-mediated entitlement. 3K aircraft by 2036: Minister India’s aviation sector is poised for massive expansion, with the country expected to have 3,000 aircraft in operation by 2036, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said on Monday. | P4 ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS WILL THERE BE A WAQF WHAM? I P5 4 EC OFFICIALS IN WEST BENGAL SHUNTED I P8 BJP CANDIDATE FACES TEST IN BASTION I P8 Port city hit Site of a Oil building and refinery a fuel tanker afire at Haifa HAIFA oil refinery after missile debris impact EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Ramanathapuram/ New Delhi Gaza Strip Jordan The LeT suspect being produced at the Patiala House Court on Monday | EXPRESS US President Donald Trump on Monday warned that Iran faces mass destruction of its energy resources unless a deal to end the war is reached “shortly”. Trump ranted on social media that “great progress is being made” in talks with Iran, adding if a deal is not reached and if the strategic Hormuz Strait is not immediately reopened, the US would broaden its offensive by “completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).” Destroying civilian infrastructure such as power and water facilities would be illegal under international humanitarian law and could constitute a war crime, experts say. A scrubby island in the Gulf that is roughly one third the size of Manhattan, Kharg Island is the nerve centre of the Iranian oil industry Later, Trump revealed . he was negotiating with Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as per The Times of Israel. In a significant development, the Israeli military indicated it has been ordered by the political leadership to shift to hitting economic targets in Iran, The Times of Israel revealed. Israel’s defence establishment added that it had entered the “completion phase” of the war. It Syria A G E N C I E S @ Washington, Tel Aviv A blaze at the site of a missile strike at the Haifa oil refinery in Israel after it was hit by debris from the interception of a projectile on Monday | X Egypt DAY 31 meant that it has largely achieved the objectives of degrading Iran’s military capabilities and creating conditions for the regime to fall. Iran has previously threatened to retaliate by targeting energy infrastructure and desalination plants in its Arab neighbours in the Gulf who host US military bases. Market experts warned that any US ground operation or wider Iranian retaliation could send oil prices to levels not seen since the July 2008 commodity boom, when the cost of world benchmark crude Brent hit close to $150 per barrel. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appealed directly to Trump on Monday to find an off-ramp. “Please, help us to stop the war, you are capable of it,” Sisi said in Cairo. On the ground on Monday, Draft rules empower I&B ministry to censor user-generated news content R A K E S H K U M A R @ New Delhi THE Ministry of Electronics and IT has proposed to make sweeping changes to the digital media oversight framework to monitor and regulate user-generated news and current affairs content on social media. The proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 give the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting statutory powers to order removal of news-related content from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, and other influential social media platforms. Currently, the digital media oversight framework applies to publishers of news content and curated content platforms. The amendments would extend it to individual users, professional content creators, and social Key change Amendments to Part III (Rule 8) of the 2021 IT Rules will bring individuals under the ambit of digital media oversight. Earlier, Part III applied to recognised digital news publishers. Under the proposed rules, news-related posts by ordinary users could come under govt radar media influencers with millions of followers. According to the government, the move is to strengthen social media platforms’ accountability and stop malicious content from going viral. Under the proposed rules, all social media platforms must comply with government advisories and directions, including orders to remove content deemed harmful or misleading. Non-compliance may cost safe harbour protection (legal provisions that shield platforms from liability for content posted by users). The contentious move comes amid allegations of arbitrary ban and restriction of Facebook pages, YouTube videos, and Insta reels of influencers who are critical of the government. Digitial rights activists say the proposed amendments would heighten censorship risks, particularly around political speech, including satire and parody . The proposals effectively bring user-generated commentary on political developments within the ambit of regulation, allowing the government to take down opinion and explanatory content it doesn’t like. The government will accept feedback to the draft rules till April 14. Rtd brigadier hit by stray bullet during Dehradun road rage dies N A R E N D R A S E T H I @ Dehradun A retired Army Brigadier on a morning walk died after being caught in the crossfire of a violent road rage incident in Dehradun on Monday morning. The road rage incident began around 6.50 am on Mussoorie Road, when a Delhi-registered Toyota For tuner overtook a Mahindra Scorpio N. Angered by the manoeuvre, the driver of the Scorpio N began chasing the Fortuner. In an attempt to force it to stop, the occupants of Scorpio N opened fire, targeting the Toyota SUV’s wheels. Those in the Fortuner were also armed and retaliated. Brigadier (Retd) Mukesh Joshi, 74, was on his routine morning walk in the area at the time, and was hit by a stray bullet. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died during treatment. During the incident, the driver of the Fortuner lost control of the vehicle and crashed it into a tree. The occupants of the Scorpio N then assaulted the two passengers inside the Fortuner and vandalised the vehicle before fleeing. “We have launched a massive manhunt to trace the as- Officials at the spot where a retired Army brigadier was killed amid a road rage incident in Dehradun; inset Brigadier (Retd) Mukesh Joshi | PTI sailants. Police teams are scouring CCTV footage and have set up barricades across the district to catch the suspects. We will ensure they are arrested soon,” Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Parmendra Dobhal said. The officer’s death sparked public outrage with demands being made for swift justice and stricter enforcement of traffic laws. “He was a distinguished officer who served the nation, only to lose his life to the lawlessness of armed thugs on our streets,” Anita Shastri, a resident of nearby Johdi village, said. there was no let-up in hostilities. Israel said its air defence batteries responded to “missiles launched from Iran” after earlier announcing it was striking “terror regime military infrastructure across Tehran”. Israel’s fire and rescue services also reported a blaze at an oil refinery in the northern port city of Haifa. Israel’s military said it had struck the Imam Hossein University in Tehran run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran confir med Revolutionary Guards commander Alireza P9 Tangsiri had been killed. A DAY after Santhana Selvam, a Tamil working in a Kuwait firm, was killed in Iranian attack on a power and water desalination facility in the Gulf country his family on Monday , sought the state government’s help to bring the body back to India. With the death of the 36-year-old from Ramanathapuram, the total number of Indian fatalities in the West Asia conflict has gone up to eight since the hostilities began on February 28. A cco rd i n g to a petition submitted by Selvam’s family members to Ramanathapuram Collector, Santhana Selvam had been working in Kuwait for more than a decade at Al Dhow Engineering General Trading & Contracting Company. The man from Anikurunthan village at Mudukulathur block was the sole breadwinner of his family and is survived by his wife and two children. APEX BODY DISMANTLED Shah says India is now Naxal-free P R E E T H A N A I R @ New Delhi UNION home minister Amit Shah on Monday announced that the country has become free from Naxalites with their top body and central structure almost completely dismantled. Replying to the debate in the Lok Sabha on ‘Efforts to free the country from Left-wing extremism (LWE)’, Shah accused the Congress of not taking any action to end the long spell of violence by the Naxals. The assertion came a day before the deadline he set for the elimination of Naxal violence. Last year, Shah had announced that the LWE would end in the country by March 31, 2026, and a major operation had been organised against the Naxals. In his 90-minute speech, Shah targeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying he was seen multiple times in public with sympathisers of Naxals and even posted videos “sympathetic” to the Maoists from his social media handle. “When top Naxal commander Hidma was killed, slogans were raised at India Gate that if one Hidma is killed, Hidma will arise from every house. A video of this was tweeted by Rahul Gandhi,” said Shah. The home minister alleged that former prime minister Indira Gandhi had accepted Home minister Amit Shah replying to the debate on Naxalite violence the support of the Naxals in an election in the 1970s in then undivided Andhra Pradesh and remained “influenced” by the Maoist ideology “Experts say without . the support of those in power, the Red Corridor could not have been created,” he said, referring to the region affected by Naxalism across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Kerala, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Issuing a stern warning, Shah said the Modi government will not tolerate violence and won’t spare anyone who picks up arms. “The biggest achievement of the Modi government is a Naxalfree India,” he said. P7 Outstanding speech by the Home Minister, Shri Amit Shah Ji, filled with important facts, historical context and the efforts of our Government in the last decade — Narendra Modi, PM