eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE Tell me a story NEWDELHI,LATECITY JULY28,2024 Libraries have come up in under-resourced places to help people FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT 18+4PAGES,`7.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, ` 12 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM GOVT & POLITICS PERSONAL ATTACKS BY MPs CONCERNING, SAYS V-P DHANKHAR PRESIDENT NAMES NEW GOVERNORS FOR 9 STATES PAGE 6 EXPRESS NETWORK PANEL FINDS GAPS THAT HELP HACKERS TARGET INDIANS ARMY IDENTIFIES TECH CLUSTERS P 6, 8 FIRST NITI AAYOG GOVERNING COUNCIL MEET AFTER LOK SABHA ELECTIONS Mamata storms out of NITI meeting, says mic switched off during speech, FM rejects charge I was lone Opp voice there, Centre shouldn’t discriminate: CM Need to make policies conducive for foreign investments, says PM AGGAM WALIA & ATRI MITRA AGGAM WALIA NEW DELHI, KOLKATA, JULY 27 WEST BENGAL Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee walked out of a NITI Aayog governing council meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi Saturday,citingunfairtreatment and not being given adequate time to speak. She claimed her microphone was switched off though she was the sole NEW DELHI, JULY 27 WestBengalCM MamataBanerjeeafterleavingtheNITIAayog meetinginNewDelhion Saturday. PTI RELATEDREPORT,P6 Opposition voice at the meeting — a charge rejected as “misleading” by the government. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Chief Minister “spoke her full time” but “has chosen to spread falsehood… saying baseless thingsoutside…makinganeffort to keep I.N.D.I alliance happy”. Emerging from the meeting, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi, who chaired the NITI Aayog’sgoverningcouncilmeeting in New Delhi on Saturday, saidIndianeedsto makeits policies “conducive for international investments”. “This decade is of changes, technological and geo-political, and also of opportunities. India should grab these opportunities Soldier, Pak intruder RAJINDER NAGAR killed in LoC gunfight, 3 students dead as Delhi UPSC infiltration bid foiled coaching centre gets flooded Pak Border Action Team role suspected EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE BASHAARAT MASOOD THREE UPSC aspirants died after they were trapped in the basement of a coaching centre in Central Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar, which was flooded when a drain burst during heavy rain. Theincidentcomesdaysafter aUPSCaspirantwaselectrocuted on a waterlogged Delhi street. Around7pmonSaturday,the DelhiFireServicesreceivedacall about flooding in the basement of Rau's IAS Study Circle, and deployedfivefiretendersforrescue operations, officials said. Divers from the National Disaster Response Force were also deployed to save the trapped students, though a faculty member at the coaching centre said that should have been prioritised instead of the fire tenders. SRINAGAR, JULY 27 A SOLDIER was killed and another injured as the Army foiled an infiltration bid at the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Saturday, the latest in a string of attacks that have raised fears of revivalof militancyintheregion. A “Pakistani intruder” was also killed in the gunfight, the Srinagar-based Defence PRO said. Sources said the infiltration attempt — near Kumkari post in Machil sector — involved Pakistan’s Border Action Team (BAT), which generally comprises special forces of the Pakistan Army and highly trained militants. THE WORLD At the encounter site in Machil sector. Shuaib Masoodi The incident came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at an event in Drass to markthe25thanniversaryof the KargilWar,saidPakistanwastrying to “keep itself relevant through terrorism and proxy wars” and the “enemy will be given a forceful response”. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 30 KILLED IN ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES ON SCHOOL IN GAZA TRUMP ATTACKS HARRIS, CALLS HER A FAILED V-P PAGE 12 NEW DELHI, JULY 27 A HIGH-POWERED committee (HPC),appointedbytheNational GreenTribunal(NGT)andtasked with revisiting the green clearance for the Great Nicobar infrastructure project, has concluded that a proposed transshipment Authority had stated that parts of theport,airportandtownship planned under the project are spread over 7 sq km in the ICRZIA area. TheHPC’s conclusion that no part of the project falls in the ICRZ-IA area in violation of the ICRZ notification, 2019, was based on a ground-truthing CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Bay Of Bengal 149.87sqkm Township 8.45sqkm Airport 7.39sqkm Container transshipment terminal GREAT NICOBAR PROJECT Port Blair Andaman Sea Great Nicobar 0.4sqkm Powerplant RAVINA WARKAD & S K SAFRIN BEGUM MALIN, JULY 27 ATAschoolinNewMalin,atribal village in Maharashtra’s Ambegaon taluka, a dozen Class 5 students turn to chapter 12 on naturaldisastersintheirMarathi textbook. The two-page lesson startswithablackandwhitecollage of Marathi headlines on the 2014 Malin landslide: ‘5 lakh for families of the dead’, ‘At 7.30 in the morning, what existed, didn’t anymore’, ‘Sir, contact not possible..!’and‘Belowthedebris, eight people rescued alive!’. Extraordinarily enough, one of those eight survivors is all set to learn about natural disasters, their management, causes and mitigation efforts with his classmates. Now a 10-year-old with a shy, disarming smile, Rudra Lembhe was just three months old when his mother and he were rescued eight hours after they got buried alive in a landslide on July 30, 2014, barely one kilometre from his school. Rudra Lembhe, a Class 5 student at the zilla parishad school in Malin, reads the chapter on natural disasters. Pavan Khengre Christened ‘Miracle Baby’, Rudraisstillnotusedtostrangers asking him about his “experience”. All questions on July 30, 2014,aremetwithastandardanswer from the reserved boy: “I don’t remember anything”. On that rainy morning a decade ago, Malin village, located in the foothills of the Sahyadrimountainrange,disappeared in minutes as the hills came down in a massive landslide, killing 151 people. The Indian Express is running a special series titled ‘10 years of Malin tragedy', focussing on all CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 TopDelhivisitto Kyivintheworks, PMtripontable Also a possibility: Jaishankar or Doval could stand in for a high-level visit NEW DELHI, JULY 27 PAGE 17 Rescue ops at the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle in Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar on Saturday. ANI US Secy of State Antony Blinken with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Vientiane, Laos, on Saturday. AP REPORT,P6 SHUBHAJIT ROY ■ India defeat New Zealand 3-2 in opening Pool B match Trapped in Malin landslide as a 3-month-old, a lesson on natural calamities for Rudra, now 10 PAGE 1 ANCHOR OLYMPICS WATCH HOCKEY Nicobar port plan: Flagged in no-go zone earlier, now in permitted area NIKHIL GHANEKAR CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ■ Manu Bhaker enters women’s 10m air pistol finals NEW FINDINGS SUBMITTED IN AFFIDAVIT BEFORE KOLKATA BENCH OF NGT port does not fall in the Island Coastal Regulation Zone-IA (ICRZ-IA), where ports are prohibited, but is in ICRZ-IB where these are permitted. This conclusion is at variance with the information submitted by the Andaman & Nicobar (A&N) Coastal Management Authorityduringthegreenclearance process for the project. The andmakeourpoliciesconducive for international investments. This is the stepping stone for SHOOTING NEW DELHI, JULY 27 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PM Modi at the meet. PTI UKRAINE INVITE FOR AUG 24 LESS THAN three weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia sparked criticism from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and days after a US officialalso flagged it, New Delhi and Kyiv are discussing a possible “high-level visit” that may culminate in a visit by Prime Minister Modi to Ukraine next month, The Indian Express has learnt. The PM’s diplomatic calendar has to factor in a range of issues: the security situation in Kyiv, as the more than two-year- E E X P L A I NE D DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA ● Diplomatic balance INDIA HAS sought to maintain a diplomatic balancing act between Russia and Ukraine. While it has not explicitly condemned the Russian invasion, it called for an international probe into the Bucha massacre. old war between Russia and Ukraine draws on; Parliament’s ongoing budget session and, of CONTINUED ON PAGE 2