The Editorial Page: India’s next manufacturing leap will be about what it produces 10 SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAGE LUCKNOW, LATE CITY, 18 PAGES ₹6.00 l www.indianexpress.com DA I LY F R O M : A H M E DA B A D , C H A N D I GA R H , D E L H I , J A I P U R , KO L K ATA , L U C K N O W , M U M B A I , N AG P U R , PAT N A , P U N E , VA D O DA R A happening today GOYAL FLAGS 5-YEAR EU DEFENCE BUDGET OF EURO 800 BN AS AN OPPORTUNITY FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT EXPECTED TODAY lTHE SECOND INDIA-ARAB EU deal goes beyond trade... Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra can lift manufacturing: Goyal set to be Maharashtra lWORLD BANK PRESIDENT Says technical know-how, investment to spur industry to build capacities Foreign Ministers’ Meeting will be held in New Delhi after a gap of 10 years. Aimed at boosting two-way engagement in the areas of economy, energy, education and culture, the meeting comes ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in February. Ajay Banga will begin a five-day visit to Pakistan, during which he is scheduled to hold high-level meetings on the country's economy. The Indus Waters Treaty is also likely to be discussed. lIN AUSTRALIAN OPEN women's singles final, top seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will take on fifth-seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm Anil Sasi & P Vaidyanathan Iyer New Delhi, January 30 INDIA IS looking at ramping up itsmanufacturingwithtechnologyknow-howandinvestments fromEuropeancountriesthatgo well beyond just trade, said Union Commerce and Industry E. Why India, EU see deal as win-win PM Narendra Modi and EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa witness the exchange of MoU between Union Minister Piyush Goyal and EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic on Tuesday. ANI FULL TRANSCRIPT OF GOYAL’S INTERVIEW TOMORROW MinisterPiyushGoyal,afterhavingwrappedupthenegotiations foraFreeTradeAgreementwith SC: Menstrual health is a part of fundamental right to life Orders free sanitary pads, separate toilets in all govt and private schools Ananthakrishnan G New Delhi, January 30 STATING THAT the right to menstrualhealthisapartofthe right to life, a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court on Friday directed all States and Union Territories to putinplaceMenstrualHygiene Management (MHM) measures, including gendersegregatedtoiletsandfreesanitarynapkins,inallgovernment as well as private schools. Issuing a slew of directions, the bench of Justices J B Pardi- ExPlAINED wala and R Mahadevan asked the Centre, States and UTs to ensurecompliancewithinthree months.Citingprovisionsofthe Right to Education Act, the court also warned of stringent consequences for non-compliance,includingthede-recognition of private schools and holding state governments directly accountable for failures in public institutions. “In our considered view, the European Union. InaninterviewwithTheIndian Express, Goyal said, “The fact is that this (the deal) is much more than just trade. It is »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ThE BIG PICTURE A L L t H At ’ S L E f t B E H I N D Process begins to return AI-171 crash victims’ personal effects to their next of kin pAgE 15 »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘Doorwaslocked MAHOBA, UTTAR PRADESH fromoutside’: BJP vs BJP: MLA stops AfterBengal blaze,25families minister’s convoy, faces lookforanswers off over pending works The EU trade deal offers an opportunity for Indian manufacturing to scale up and emerge as an alternative to China as a supplier for the 27-member European bloc . It is being seen as a win-win for both. Deputy Chief Minister Decision comes hours after NCP delegation met CM Fadnavis Alok Deshpande & Shubhangi Khapre Mumbai, January 30 AJIT PAWAR’S wife and Rajya Sabha MP Sunetra Pawar is set to succeed her late husband as Maharashtra Deputy Chief MinisteronSaturday,becoming thefirstwomantoholdthepost. Sunetra will be appointed the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Legislature Party leader at 2 pm and will be sworn in as DeputyCMlaterintheevening, sources in the party said. The decision came hours afterNCPbeganformalconsultations with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on filling the Deputy CM’s post, even as theBJPindicateditwouldleave the decision to its alliance partner while maintaining the existing balance within the ruling government. A delegation comprising Rajya Sabha MP and NCP working president Praful Patel, state party chief and Lok Sabha MP Sunil »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar (right) with NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule at his funeral in Baramati, Thursday. PTI RELATED REPORT, PAGE 6 ‘What can we do?’: INDIA signals limited options amid NCP merger buzz Asad Rehman New Delhi, January 30 AMID A push for the reunificationoftheNationalistCongress Party (NCP) and speculation that the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) faction may “join the government”followingthemerger, the other parties in the Opposition INDIA bloc have adopted a wait-and-watch approach. “What can we do?” asked a senior All India Congress Com- mittee (AICC) leader in Delhi. “The two factions and the (Pawar)familyhavetotakeacall. A senior member of the family hasdiedandwedon’twanttointerfere and make any overtures right now. We are watching the situationandwilldosomething as the situation develops.” The two NCP factions were set to announce their merger on February 8, before the untimely demise of Maharashtra »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Business as Usual By EP UNNY Maulshree Seth Sweety Kumari & Tanusree Bose Lucknow, January 30 Kolkata, January 30 TWENTY-FIVE charred body partsandbonesareundergoing DNA tests to match samples collected from 27 people who say their relatives have been missing since a fire gutted two warehouses, including one belongingtoWowMomo,inNazirabad on the outskirts of Kolkata. As the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) undertakes the painstaking task, the site of the Republic Day blaze remains a scene of grim recovery. Fire services and disaster management teams have deployedcranesandgascuttersto sift through the debris, while distraught families continue to scourtheperimeterforanysign of life. With crowds swelling as desperation mounts, police have imposed BNS Section 163 to prevent large gatherings. The fire broke out in the earlyhoursofJanuary26atone of the two warehouses and quickly spread, killing at least 25. Three arrests have been made so far, including two employees of Wow Momo. On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 HIGH-VOLTAGE drama unfolded in Uttar Pradesh's Mahoba on Friday when BJP's Charkhari MLA Brijbhushan Rajput and his supporters stopped the cavalcade of state Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh over “dug-up roads andpendingdevelopmentprojects” in the district. The situation escalated uTTAr PrADEsh A video grab of the incident. whenthetwo-timeMLAandhis »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 DEcLArEcoW ‘rAjYAmAtA’,provE YoU’rEHINDU: SEEr to YogI pAgE 3 ‘Becoming routine’: HC on accused being shot in leg before arrest in UP Courtgrantsbailto threearrested accused,laysdown SOPinsuch cases Express News Service Lucknow, January 30 TAKINGCOGNISANCEofincidents in which suspects were shot by police in the leg, the Allahabad High Court has said such encounters had “become a routine feature” in Uttar Pradesh and were being executed to “please senior officers or to teach a lesson to the accused”. Hearing separate bail petitions filed by three persons who were arrested after being shot in the leg in different districts of Uttar Pradesh, the bench of Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal stated, “This Court is frequently confronted with cases where, even in matters involving petty of- fences such as theft, the police indiscriminately resort to firing by projecting the incident as a police encounter.” “Such conductiswholly impermissible, as the power to punish lies exclusively within the domain of the Courts and not with the police. India being a democratic State governed by the rule of law, the functions of the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary are distinct and well defined, and any encroachment by the police into »CONTINUEDONPAGE2 l AT MALAPPURAM GHATS, FESTIVAL ‘RE-ENACTING ALL RITUALS’ OBSERVED AT KUMBH MELA IN NORTH Blessed at Prayagraj, riding ‘Hindu revival’ push, ‘Kumbh Mela’ comes to Kerala Shaju Philip oftheMelafromtheNorth.The riverthatrunsnexttotheghats, Bharathapuzha, incidentally is known as ‘Dakshin Ganga’. Tensofthousandshavebeen BEFORE THE curtain rises on the Assembly elections in Ke- throngingtotheghatsforthe18rala, it is witnessing a debut: its dayMela,whichendsonFebruary 3. Vedic chants echo round very first “Kumbh Mela”. the clock as devotees On the bathing PAGE 1 take the holy dip. By ghats of the Nava evening, the place is Mukunda Temple at crawling with safThirunavaya in Malappuram district, where gener- fron-clad sadhus, including ations have offered prayers to priests from Kashi Vishwanath the souls of the dead, a festival Temple who conduct the »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 isseeingarevivalasasurrogate Thirunavaya (Malappuram), January 30 anchor Priests from Kashi Vishwanath Temple perform Nila Aarti on the banks of Bharathapuzha in Kerala’s Malappuram district. SHAJU PHILIP Lucknow