NEW DELHI 06 SEPTEMBER 2026 SUNDAY `12 PAGES 24  facebook/TheMorningStandard  X.com/TheMornStandard https://epaper.morningstandard.in PLUS: 12 PAGES A Head of His Time SQUEEZED IN THE MIDDLE MAGAZINE Love and Lies in Tokyo Devdutt Pattanaik Shashi Tharoor Ravi Shankar Gopalkrishna Gandhi Dinesh Singh Shankkar Aiyar Anand Neelakantan Behind the Call of Duty EXCLUSIVE VOICES Going With the Flow ‘I Feel Like the Luckiest Girl Ever’ SWAMI SUKHABODHANANDA SPEAKS The Art of Connection Down to Earth High in the Hills 10 found guilty in Maoist ambush that wiped out C’garh Cong leadership in ’13 Awaiting punishment E J A Z K A I S E R @ Raipur A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jagdalpur on Saturday convicted all 10 surviving Maoist insurgents, including three women, on trial for their alleged role in the ghastly 2013 Jhiram Ghati massacre in south Chhattisgarh, known as one of India’s most politically catastrophic terror strikes. The court of special judge Ajay Singh Rajput found all the accused guilty of terror and mass murder, and will announce the quantum of punishment on September 16. The accused are lodged in Jagdalpur Central Jail in Bastar. The prosecution examined as many as 101 witnesses in the AFTER ARREST Influencer sent to 1-day police custody N I T I N R A W AT @ New Delhi SOCIAL media influencer Swatantra Bhardwaj, who was nabbed from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh on Friday, was sent to one-day police custody on Saturday. He is accused of assaulting and severely injuring the father of a student during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar. A fresh FIR under the POCSO Act was registered on a complaint by the student, who has alleged online threats and harassment. The new case invokes provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act. On Friday the Delhi Police , had added the provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and criminal intimidation to the FIR against Bhardwaj over the alleged assault, while a CJP team marched to the Parliament Street police station seeking action against him. The situation changed on Saturday, when several people supporting Bhardwaj gathered outside the police station and raised slogans in his favour. A supporter questioned the legitimacy of invoking the SC/ST Act against Bhardwaj. “If the probe is not conducted in a fair manner and a case is not registered against the girl and her father, we can gather people and demonstrate crowd power,” he said. Bhardwaj was produced at the residence of additional sessions judge Saurabh Pratap Singh Laler at around 2 pm on Saturday Earlier, the . police had planned to produce him physically in the Patiala House courts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi (top) interacts with a boy in Delhi Metro en route to the Shri Ram College of Commerce; and college students during PM’s address | PTI/X Modi taps Gen Z idiom, calls SRCC alumni the OGs I F R A H M U F T I @ New Delhi only one dialogue: What is the need for this?” he said. PRIME Minister Narendra “When we were building the Modi struck a distinctly Gen Z world’s tallest statue, the ‘fufa’ note as he addressed students said, ‘What is the need for this?’ at Shri Ram College of Com- When we started working on merce (SRCC) on the occasion the high-speed train, the ‘fufa’ of Teachers’ Day on Saturday, said, ‘What is the need for this? using contemporary phrases When we introduced UPI, they like “OG (original gangster)” asked, ‘Why UPI.’ When we while returning to the built the new Parliacampus 13 years after ment building, they his 2013 visit. again said, ‘What is Setting the tone earthe need for this?’” When we were ly in his speech, Modi Reflecting on SRCC’s building the referred to SRCC’s le gacy, Modi drew world’s tallest alumni as trendsetters from his personal instatue, the ‘fufa’ in their own right. “If teractions with alumsaid, ‘What is the I say it in Gen Z lanni across sectors. “Our need for this?’ guage, they are OG,” When we started Arun Jaitley ji studied working on the he said, pointing to here. And I can say high-speed train, their contributions that there’s hardly a the ‘fufa’ said, across fields. He addmeeting where he ‘What is the need ed, “Dhurandhar na doesn’t recount an infor this?’ When we ho, lekin dhoom toh cident from SRCC. introduced UPI, machayi hai.” these same ‘fufas’ And sometimes I’d get Modi also took aim fed up with him reasked, ‘Why UPI.’ at critics of the gov- When we built the counting the same innew Parliament ernment’s initiatives, cident over and over calling them “naraz building, they said, again. Currently, my fufa (aggrieved un- ‘What is the need team includes brother for this?’ cle)” who oppose all Sanjeev Sanyal, who projects by asking also studied here. I’ve Narendra Modi, why they are needed. many other friends Prime Minister “Outside this campus, here as well,” he said. you will encounter a new world. Modi spoke about perspecYou will meet two kinds of peo- tive and optimism. “I don’t see ple. One kind consists of people the glass as half-filled, I don’t who positively transform the see it as incomplete; I see it as strength of society into the full. Half water, half air,” he strength of the nation. The sec- said, urging students to focus ond kind is made up of people on opportunities even in chalwho become the ‘naraz fufa’ lenging circumstances. whenever any work is started. Modi also highlighted India’s Their favourite thing is to op- economic, entrepreneurial pose everything. They have growth and global standing. The convicts were identified as Pramila Modiyam, Chaitu Lekam, Sumitra Punem Modiyam, Mukka Mandavi, Kosa Kavasi, Aayata Markam, Madkami Deva, Joga Madkami, Banjami Sanna and Mahadev Nag. Kosa Kavasi’s brother Guddu claimed that Kosa and Mukka Mandavi had been falsely implicated in the case case. Defence counsel Arvind Choudhary said his team will appeal against the verdict in higher courts. The 10 individuals convicted for orchestrating and executing the bloodshed hailed from the Bastar region. On May 25, 2013, ahead of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, a convoy of the Congress’ ‘Parivartan Yatra’ returning from a rally in Sukma was ambushed by heavily-armed Maoists in the dense forests of Jhiram valley between Darbha and Tongpal. The ambush wiped out virtually the entire top-tier leadership of the state Congress. Among the 31 killed were then- Woman, 60, trapped in flood slush at home, rescued after 10 days in Nepal S V K R I S H N A C H A I TA N YA @ Kathmandu RESCUE teams on Saturday pulled a Chinese national alive from a tunnel at the Upper T r i s h u l i - 1 H yd ro e l e c t r i c Project, nearly two weeks after the devastating flood that swept through Nepal’s northern districts, while rescuers separately saved a 60-year-old woman trapped inside a debris-buried house in Nuwakot. In the rescue operation in Betrawati, Nuwakot, an Armed Police Force team led by Inspector Suman B K rescued Chandika Shrestha from the top floor of a four-storey house owned by her husband, Anand Shrestha. The house had been buried under debris following the devastating floods. Shrestha was brought out alive from a window on the top floor. She had passed out when rescuers spotted her but gradually regained Death toll crosses 1,300, including 85 children The death toll from the flash floods in Nepal reached 1,344 on Saturday as more bodies were recovered. They included 85 children, while 501 were found with body parts missing, officials said. As many as 1,030 bodies have been temporarily buried after DNA collection The woman rescued from her house in Betrawati, Nuwakot | EXPRESS consciousness. Her family had performed symbolic last rites assuming she was dead, after they could not find her for several days following the flash floods. At the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydroelectric Project, the Chinese national, identified as Luhaitao, was rescued from about 225 metres inside the tunnel by a joint team involving the Nepali Army and foreign personnel. Further search and rescue operations at the hydropower project are continuing. The rescue comes a day after two Nepali workers, Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan, were pulled alive from a tunnel at the Trishuli-3A Hydroelectric Project after being trapped for nine days. The two rescues have raised hopes that more people could still be alive inside underground structures across the flood-hit hydropower projects. Congress on Saturday named Sachin Pilot as new general secretary in-charge of Punjab in place of Bhupesh Baghel, ahead of the Assembly elections in 2027. P7 Waterlogging, rain continue in capital INDIA SPIN A WEB Shafali Verma (L) celebrates the wicket of Muneeba Ali with Richa Ghosh (R) as Pakistan collapsed from 27/0 to 55 all out against India in the Women’s T20 Asia Cup on Saturday. India chased the total in 8.4 overs to win by seven wickets | BCCI | P11 Made-in-Belgium ‘India Gate’ melts during diplomatic travel THE Belgian chocolate India Gate that missed the diplomatic ceremony after melting in transit from Belgium to India was finally unveiled on Saturday Well, sort of. . Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever had planned to present PM Narendra Modi with the sweet replica on Friday during the bilateral meeting. But the sculpture proved much less durable than the monument it recreated. “I had actually planned to present to Prime Minister Modi a fitting gift, a sculpture of India Gate entirely made out of the best Belgian chocolates,” De Wever said. “But unlike the real India Gate, which has stood for almost a century, the chocolate version didn’t even survive the journey to India.” The Belgian embassy in New Delhi on Saturday shared a photograph of the broken creation on ‘X’, saying De Wever was still determined to get it to Modi “next time.” “We have a back-up in Belgium, and one way or another, I’ll get it to PM Modi in one piece,” he said. De Wever also offered a lighthearted diplomatic postscript that sounded delicious. “Chocolate is excellent for diplomacy , but not excellent for diplomatic travel, we noticed.” The choice of India Gate was deliberate. De Wever said the monument represented the shared history and future ties between India and Belgium. That history goes back to the World War-I, when Indian troops fought on the Western Front, including in Belgium’s F landers re gion. Around 1,38,000 soldiers from India ‘Real India Gate has stood for almost a century’ The choice of India Gate is due to shared history between two countries. | EXPRESS The CBI has registered an FIR against Subhash Chandra for allegedly inflating his net worth to avail loans from LICHFL and defaulting on repayment | P7 JLR to slash headcount by 4K in UK as US levy bites @ New Delhi Pilot in charge of poll-bound Punjab Heavy rain lashed several parts of the capital on Saturday, with the IMD forecasting more rain across Delhi-NCR through Sunday. Delhi recorded 26.4o Celsius. P3 ESSEL GROUP FOUNDER BOOKED BY CBI EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE EXPRESS READ SWEET GIFT UNVEILED J AYA N T H J A C O B @ New Delhi Chhattisgarh Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son Dinesh Patel, former Union Minister Vidya Charan Shukla, senior Congress leader and Salwa Judum architect Mahendra Karma, and former MLA Uday Mudliyar, alongside several party workers. The then Raman Singh-led BJP government handed over the probe to the NIA within two days of the attack. NIA filed a supplementary chargesheet on September 28, 2015, following arrest of two more suspects. In January 2019, the Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government constituted a Special Investigation Team to probe the attack, alleging NIA had not investigated the larger conspiracy behind the attack. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever had planned to present PM Narendra Modi with the chocolate replica of India Gate on Friday during the bilateral meeting. “... unlike the real India Gate, which has stood for almost a century, the chocolate version didn’t even survive the journey to India,” De Wever said. were sent to Europe during the war. India Gate was designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens and built as a memorial to soldiers of British India who died in wars between 1914 and 1919. De Wever said the chocolate replica deliberately enlarged the section of the inscription commemorating Indian soldiers who fought and died in Flanders Fields. So, while the real India Gate has stood for nearly a century, its chocolate replica had a rather shorter diplomatic career. Well, at least this time around. TATA Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is preparing to cut around 4,000 jobs in the United Kingdom (UK) over the next two years amid a drop in sales and rising costs. The luxury carmaker has taken a hit after the US slapped import duty on imports from the UK and a cyberattack in 2025 that led to a complete halt in operations. The planned job cut, reported by The Times, is part of JLR’s effort to deliver 1.7 billion British pounds (`21,700 crore) in savings and reduce its breakeven point to 300,000 vehicles. The carmaker has already told employees and trade union partners that it is opening a voluntary redundancy programme for salaried and management staff. JLR employs around 34,000 people directly in the UK across three sites in the West Midlands and another in Halewood, Merseyside. “Today we informed our col, leagues and trade union partners that JLR is opening a voluntary redundancy programme offering salaried and management team members the opportunity to leave the business. We will share further information with our colleagues first,” the company added. JLR’s profits fell by 10% in the quarter to June 2026, while pre-tax profit dropped by more than two-thirds to £109 million. US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 10% tariff on cars imported from UK hit its operations in its biggest market. North America accounts for 29% of JLR’s sales.