FP The publishers permit sharing of the e-paper's pdf on WhatsApp and other social media platforms Vol. XLII No. 197 | INDORE | TUESDAY | DECEMBER 23, 2025 | Pages 16 ` 3 | Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2024-2026 | RNI No. 38281/83 FREE www.freepressjournal.in Sports National Farmers Day Vaishnavi stuns on debut as ‘focus’ mantra fuels India’s crushing win P.14 ESTD-1983 iii QUALITY @ VALUE EDITIONS: INDORE MONEY Gold jumps to record high of `1.38 lakh per 10g UJJAIN PRESS PUNE BHOPAL NASHIK MUMBAI E-paper Edit Numbers and nuances P.6 Cinema India's unstoppable 2025 entertainment wave P.12 GOVT TO LAUNCH STUDY ON COWS Rs 2,508 crore for 4-lane 22-storied building of education department will be built in Bhopal: Rao Uday Pragap Singh Barwaha-Dhamnod road Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL The School Education Department has planned to open such schools as will teach the Vedas, Sanskrit, and yoga. Research on cows will be conducted in these schools, and Adi Shankaracharya Gurukuls will be set up on the pattern of the Central Government’s Sandipani schools. The work will start with fp Briefs NEW DELHI India-US talks in advance stage India is at an advanced stage of negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement with the US, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday. US Deputy Trade Representative Rick Switzer was recently here with his team to take stock of these talks. The two-day talks concluded on December 11. "We are already at an advanced stage in our discussions with the US," Goyal said here while talking to the media about the conclusion of negotiations for the India-New Zealand free trade agreement. BEIJING Online China visa applications The Chinese Embassy in Delhi has launched the 'China Online Visa Application System' for Indian passport holders to apply for visas online, a social media report here said on Monday. The process is easier than the previous one, where applicants were required to present many paper documents in person, Shenzhenbased Chinese online portal Greater Bay Area reported. pilot projects in Rajgarh and Narsinghpur. The School Education and Transport Minister Rao Uday Pratap Singh gave the information at a press conference in Bhopal on Monday. Book fairs will be organised in blocks in the current academic session so that the students of private schools may also get books at cheaper rates, the minister said. The school principals have Jaishankar in Colombo External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar arrived in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, on Monday. Sri Lankan Deputy Tourism Minister Ruwan Ranasinghe received him at the airport. "Landed in Colombo this evening. Thank Deputy Tourism Minister Ruwan Ranasinghe for the warm reception. Look forward to my meetings with Sri Lankan leadership tomorrow," EAM Jaishankar posted on X. 4Continued on | P8 ACTION AT CHECK POINTS TO CONTINUE, BUSES TO RUN The School Education Minister Rao Uday Pratap Singh said after the closure of checkpoints, forty are still functioning. Officials act against the guilty after getting complaints, he said, adding that a probe will be ordered into a case of a man who was found hanging from a truck over extortion. A video of the incident went viral. Action against the guilty through the checkposts will continue, and the work is underway to run bus services, he said. The work on a traffic survey is on the verge of completion, and several rules are being prepared to run buses, he said. FIRMED UP | The agreement is expected to be signed and implemented in about 7 months. Will double bilateral trade in goods and services to $5 bn in 5 years India, NZ conclude FTA talks Agencies ‘DEAL NEITHER FREE, NOR FAIR’ NEW DELHI India and New Zealand on Monday announced the conclusion of talks for a free trade agreement (FTA) that will provide duty-free access to a wide range of goods and include a foreign direct investment (FDI) commitment of USD 20 billion over 15 years. The agreement is expected to help double bilateral trade in goods and services to USD 5 billion in the next five years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon announced the firming up of the pact after holding a phone conversation. Under the agreement, India will get duty-free access for several domestic goods, particularly from labour-intensive sectors. New Zealand, on the other hand, will get duty-free access to products such as sheep meat, wool, coal and over 95 per cent of forestry and wood articles. Wellington will also get duty concessions on items including kiwi fruit, wine, some seafood, cherries, Air India B777 plane suffers engine trouble Dhairya Gajara COLOMBO been given the responsibility for admission of students to reduce the number of dropouts. The plans are also afoot to set up a 22-storey building to house all offices of the School Education Department in Bhopal, Singh said. According to the minister, only 80% of teachers mark their presence through e-attendance. MUMBAI The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has ordered a highlevel probe into a serious technical incident involving a Mumbai-bound Air India flight that was forced to return and make an emergency landing at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Monday morning. The flight, AI-887, was operated using a long-haul category Boeing 777-300ER and was carrying around 335 passengers and crew. It departed from Delhi at 6:31 am for Mumbai. However, less than an hour after take-off, the flight crew detected a critical technical failure in one of the engines. Flight tracking data showed that the aircraft, registered as VT-ALS, had been in the air for about 45 minutes when the cockpit crew noticed a low engine oil pressure warning in engine number two, the rightwing engine, during the flap retraction phase. 4Continued on | P8 Vidhi Santosh Mehta MUMBAI aluminium and articles. In the services sector, New Zealand will provide a temporary employment entry visa pathway for Indian professionals in skilled occupations, with a quota of 5,000 visas annually and a stay of up to three years. This pathway will cover Indian professions such as AYUSH practitioners, yoga instructors, Indian chefs and music teachers, along with high-demand sectors including IT, engineering, healthcare, education and construction. New Zealand First leader and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters on Monday said his party was “regrettably opposed” to the India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement announced earlier in the day, calling it a “bad deal” that gives too much away and fails to deliver enough in return for New Zealanders. In a detailed statement on X, Peters said, “We consider the India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement to be neither free nor fair.” He added that the agreement was particularly harmful for New Zealand farmers and rural communities, while also making major concessions on immigration. 4Continued on | P8 4Continued on | P8 India will not give any duty concessions in the politically sensitive dairy sector, including milk, yogurt and cheese avocados, persimmons, bulk infant formula, Manuka honey and milk albumins. To protect the interests of domestic farmers and MSMEs, India will not give any duty concessions in the politically sensitive dairy sector, including milk, cream, whey, yoghurt and cheese. Other products not covered under the pact include vegetable products such as onions, chana, peas, corn and almonds, sugar, artificial honey, animal, vegetable or microbial fats and oils, arms and ammunition, gems and jewellery, copper and its products, and NATIONAL HERALD CASE HC seeks Gandhis’ reply on ED plea PTI NEW DELHI The Delhi High Court on Monday asked Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others to respond to a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) challenging the order of the trial court that refused to take cognisance of its chargesheet against them in the National Herald case. Justice Ravinder Dudeja issued notice to the Gandhis and others on the main petition as well as on the ED's application seeking a stay on the December 16 trial court order, which held that cognisance of the agency's complaint in the case was "impermissible in law" as it was not founded on an FIR. The high court listed the matter for further hearing on March 12, 2026. Besides Gandhis, the high court issued notices to Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda, Young Indian, Dotex Merchandise Pvt Bondi shooting planned for months, video shows training Agencies Ltd and Sunil Bhandari on the ED's plea. While Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented the ED in the case, senior advocates Abhishek Singhvi and R S Cheema represented the Gandhis. In its order, the trial court had said that an investigation and the consequent prosecution complaint (equivalent to a chargesheet) pertaining to the offence of money laundering is "not maintainable" in the absence of an FIR for the offence mentioned in the schedule to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It said the agency's probe stemmed from a private complaint and not an FIR. 4Continued on | P8 According to a police “fact sheet” released following an application by media organisations, investigators allege that three pipe bombs and a tennis Sajid Akram ball bomb were thrown towards the crowd before the shooting began. 4Continued on | P8 More than 500 flights were delayed, and at least 14 flights were cancelled at the Delhi airport due to bad weather and low visibility conditions. An official said that 14 flights, including 6 arrivals and 8 departures, were cancelled. These also include international flights. DIAL operates the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), the country's largest airport, which generally handles around 1,300 flights daily. More than 500 flights were delayed at the airport, and the average delay time was a little over 30 minutes, according to information available on the flight tracking website Flightradar24.com. Dense fog has been disrupting operations at various airports for the past several days. Dense fog is likely to prevail across north in next few days. BHOPAL Cabinet gave administrative approval of Rs 2508.21 crore to turn the two-lane BarwahaDhamnod road into a fourlane highway with paved shoulders. The road length is 62.795 km. The sanctioned cost will cover land acquisition, upgradation and construction. Under the project, 10 bypasses, 5 big bridges, 23 middle bridges and 56 medium junctions will be constructed. Under the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM), 40% of the construction cost will be borne by Madhya Pradesh Road Development Corporation through the state highway fund. The remaining 60% will come from the state budget as half-yearly annuity payments over 15 years dur- D uring interaction with ministers before the cabinet meeting, CM Mohan Yadav informed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah will visit Gwalior and Rewa on December 25. In Gwalior, he will attend Abhyodaya Growth Programme, and in Rewa, Agriculture Convention. Vrindavan Villages will be constructed in villages with 500 cattle and a population of 2000. So far, such villages have been selected in 193 assembly areas. ing the operation period. Meanwhile, approval was given for continuation of programmes under Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 from 2026-27 till 2030-31. The Cabinet also okayedRs 197.13 crore for the second phase construction of Madhya Pradesh Dharamshala National Law University, Jabalpur. WINDS programme Cabinet approved implementation of Weather Information Network and Data Bangladesh crisis deepens Agencies DHAKA & NEW DELHI Bangladesh plunged deeper into political and social turmoil on Monday after unidentified gunmen shot senior student and labour leader Motaleb Shikder in the head in Khulna, marking the second high-profile assassination attempt in less than ten days and intensifying fears of a widening spiral of violence ahead of the February elections. Shikder, 42, the Khulna divisional head of the National Citizen Party (NCP) and a central organiser of its workers’ front, Sramik Shakti, was attacked in public in the Sonadanga area of the southwestern city. He was rushed to Khulna Medical College Hospital in critical condition. The NCP said Shikder had been actively preparing for a divisional labour rally scheduled in the coming days. l Another student leader shot at. l Consular services and visa issuance at the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi have been suspended. l Sheikh Hasina blames Dhaka. “He was shot a few minutes ago,” NCP joint principal coordinator Mahmuda Mitu said in a Facebook post, confirming the attack. The shooting came days after the killing of Sharif Osman Hadi, the 32-year-old spokesperson of Inqilab Mancha and a prominent face of last year’s student-led uprising that led to the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government. 4Continued on | P8 System (WINDS) under PM Crop Insurance Scheme. Automatic weather stations will be installed at tehsil level and automatic rain gauges at gram panchayat level. Rs 434.58 crore have been sanctioned for this project. The WINDS programme will provide weather data to speed up crop insurance implementation. High-end weather data will be made available on a single digital platform of the Centre. The scheme is expected to run for five years, with total expenditure of Rs 434.58 crore. SIR: Publication of first draft of voter list today Our Staff Reporter INDORE The first draft of the voter list prepared under the first phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will be published on Tuesday. Collector and District Election Officer Shivam Verma informed this during a meeting held at the Collectorate on Monday. He said the draft voter list prepared under the SIR will be displayed at every polling booth, allowing voters to verify their names by visiting their respective booths. The Assistant Election Registration Officer and Additional Election Registration Officers have completed preparations for issuing notices to voters who were not mapped during the first phase of the SIR. The process of receiving claims and objections from such voters will also begin on Tuesday, and notices will be served accordingly. After one week of serving the notices, claims and objections of 50 voters will be heard daily, Verma said. H-1B visa holders who returned to renew work permits stranded Agencies NEW DELHI Indian H-1B visa holders who travelled back this month to renew their American work permits are stranded amid their appointments being abruptly rescheduled by US consular offices, the Washington Post reported, citing three immigration lawyers. The Indian high-skilled workers had appointments cancelled between December 15 and 26, the lawyers said, a period coinciding with the US holiday season. In emails viewed by The Washington Post, the State Department told visa holders their interviews were being delayed after the implementation of the Trump administration's new social media vetting policy, "to ensure that no applicants... pose a threat to U.S. national security or public safety." The United States has expanded its review of social media and online presence to cover all H-1B speciality occupation workers and their H-4 dependents, the US Embassy in India said on December 10. In a statement, a US Embassy spokesperson explained that the Department of State already conducts online presence checks for student and exchange visitor visa categories such as F, M, and J. Starting December 15, this review also included H-1B and H-4 applicants. Emily Neumann, a partner at the Houston-based immigration firm Reddy Neumann Brown PC, said she had at least 100 clients stranded in India. 4Continued on | P8 Navy gets anti-submarine warfare SWC ‘Anjadip’ Agencies CHENNAI Naved Akram Agencies NEW DELHI Our Staff Reporter SHAH’S VISIT offgrid SYDNEY New court documents released on Monday have revealed fresh details of the police case against the alleged perpetrators of the deadly Bondi shooting, including claims that improvised explosive devices, among them a “tennis ball bomb”, were used and that the attack was preceded by an “ISIS inspired” video manifesto. 500 flights delayed due to fog Cabinet gives administrative approval The Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) Ltd delivered its fifth warship of the year to the Navy on Monday. The Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft (ASW SWC) Anjadip is the third of eight such platforms being built at the shipyard. The ship was delivered to the Navy at the Chennai Port Trust. Anjadip is the 115th warship built by GRSE and the 77th warship delivered to the Navy. The ASW SWC was accepted by Rear Admiral Gautam Marwaha, VSM, CSO (Tech), Eastern Naval Command. GRSE delivered four warships in 2025 ahead of Anjadip. These include the Advanced Guided Missile Frigate Himgiri, the first two ASW SWCs of the series Ar- nala and Androth, and the Survey Vessel (Large) Ikshak. All four have since been commissioned into the Navy, marking a rare achievement by any shipyard in India, ac- cording to an official statement from GRSE. "Anjadip's delivery also comes less than four months after that of the Androth on September 13, 2025, highlighting GRSE's capability to churn out warships," the statement read. Anjadip is also an example of how the shipyard has focused on Atmanirbharta in defence shipbuilding. 4Continued on | P8