FP The publishers permit sharing of the e-paper's pdf on WhatsApp and other social media platforms FREE PRESS Vol. XLI No. 347 | INDORE | SUNDAY | MAY 25, 2025 | Pages 18 ` 4 | Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2024-2026 | RNI No. 38281/83 www.freepressjournal.in GILL TO LEAD INDIA’S TEST RENAISSANCE PTI light on experience. MUMBAI Pant named vice-captain Shubman Gill, the suave and stylish right-hander, was on Saturday handed the reins of the Indian Test team, marking the dawn of a bold new era in Indian cricket as it enters a "massive transition" following the retirement of giants Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Carrying the baton through It is a high-pressure job, but he is a terrific player. We’re hopeful he’s the guy to take the team forward.” Joining Gill in leadership is the mercurial Rishabh Pant, whose comeback from a life-threatening car accident to vice-captaincy is the stuff of cricket folklore. With 43 Tests and an average over 42, Pant’s game awareness and fearless strokeplay make him an ideal foil to Gill’s composed approach. iii QUALITY @ VALUE EDITIONS: INDORE UJJAIN WORLD Nation RaGa meets victims of Pak shelling in Poonch P.7 RISE OF PRINCE ESTD-1983 (as of May 2025) Tests Played: 32 Total Runs: 1,893 Batting Average: 35.05 Home Average: 42.03 Away Average: 27.53 Test Debut: December 2020 at the MCG vs Australia BHOPAL NASHIK MUMBAI E-paper Readers’ Corner Meeting Uncle Pai: A Dream.. P.6 Zelenskyy calls for new sanctions after attack Shubman’s Test Career PUNE Good Life Biohacking everyday P.12 NITI AAYOG MEET | Modi urges all states to increase speed of development to achieve goal of developed India by 2047 UNITY MANTRA FOR MODI’s TEAM INDIA Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar NEW DELHI ENGLAND EXPERIENCE Participated in 2 WTC Finals (2021, 2023) Played 1 Test in England (rescheduled 5th Test of 2021 series) 2025 Tour of England will be his first full five-Test series in the UK (Detail on Sports Page) Ajit Agarkar, chairman of X faces outage, users unable to access platform Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday stressed the need for the states to step up and increase the “speed of development” if the country was to achieve the goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047. Addressing the 10th Governing Council meeting of the Niti Aayog on the theme of `Viksit Rajya for Viksit Bharat 2047’ (Developed states for developed India 2047), the PM said, “Viksit Bharat (developed India) is the goal of every Indian” and that only when every state was developed will India become a developed nation. The Governing Council, If the Centre and all the states come together and work together like Team India, no goal is impossible. PM Narendra Modi headed by the PM, comprises all the chief ministers, lieutenant governors of states and some union ministers. The meeting was attended by most CMs and L-Gs while besides the PM, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attended the meeting. Insisting that “this is the aspiration of India’s 140 crore citizens,” Modi urged all the participants to increase the pace of development. He said, “If the Centre and all the states come together and work together like Team India, no goal is impossible.” The PM said the idea of having developed states for a de- Agencies NEW DELHI Elon Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) suffered a major outage with users across India and some other countries reporting difficulties in accessing the social media platform, according to Downdetector.com. Many users, attempting to use the microblogging platform, came across notification that read: "Cannot retrieve posts at this time. Please try again later." According to Downdetector.com, a website performance tracking tool, more than 2,000 users in India reported issues with the platform. The number of users complaining about the issues peaked at 06.18 pm with 2,151 users reporting issues. The outage later ended. Users in the United States and Canada also reported issues. veloped India required all the states to “craft bold, longterm, and inclusive vision documents aligned with national priorities that were grounded in local realities.” The PM also pitched the idea of each state developing at least one major tourist destination and coined the term for it – “one state, one global destination”. Elaborating on what his idea was, Modi said: “States should develop at least one tourist destination per state at par with global standards and by providing all facilities and infrastructure. It would also lead to the development of the neighbouring cities as tourist places.” 4Continued on | P8 selectors MONSOON HITS INDIA IN Canada fell short of EARLIEST ONSET SINCE 2009 values, rues Carney LIKELY ARRIVAL IN MP BY JUNE 15 Agencies NEW DELHI DID YOU KNOW? At 25 years and 258 days, Gill becomes the fifth-youngest cricketer to captain India in Tests, behind Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (21 years, 77 days), Sachin Tendulkar (23 years, 169 days), Kapil Dev (24 years, 48 days), and Ravi Shastri (25 years, 229 days). 5th fp Briefs RANCHI NBW issued against Rahul The MP-MLA Special Court in Chaibasa, Jharkhand, has issued a non-bailable warrant against senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in connection with a 2018 defamation case. The court has directed Rahul Gandhi to appear in person on June 26. The case stems from alleged derogatory remarks made by Gandhi in 2018, in which he is accused of making disparaging comments about Amit Shah. See Nation EPF interest rate at 8.25% PTI NEW DELHI The government has ratified the rate of interest on employees' provident fund at 8.25 per cent for FY25, enabling retirement fund body EPFO to deposit the annual interest accumulation in the post-retirement funds of over 7 crore subscribers. EPFO, on February 28, had decided to retain the interest rate of 8.25 per cent on em- Wanted for fraud, Indian national deported from US Agencies NEW DELHI ployees' provident fund (EPF) deposits for the financial year 2024-25, equal to the rate provided in the preceding fiscal. The approved rate of interest for 2024-25 was sent for concurrence of the Ministry of Finance. "Ministry of Finance has given concurrence to 8.25 per cent rate of interest on the EPF for 2024-25 fiscal year and labour ministry sent a communication regarding this to the EPFO on Thursday," a labour ministry official told PTI. The southwest monsoon hit Kerala on Saturday, marking its earliest arrival over the Indian mainland since 2009 when it reached the southern state on May 23, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Normally, the southwest monsoon makes its onset over Kerala by June 1 and covers the entire country by July 8. It starts retreating from northwest India around September 17 and withdraws completely by October 15. The monsoon had set in over the southern state on May 30 last year; June 8 in 2023; May 29 in 2022; June 3 in 2021; June 1 in 2020; June 8 in 2019; and May 29 in 2018, IMD data showed. 4Continued on | P8 Two Maoists, including JJMP supremo Pappu Lohra were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Jharkhand's Latehar district on Saturday morning, police said.Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad chief Lohra, who was carrying a bounty of Rs 10 lakh, and Prabhat Ganjhu, the sub-zonal commander, who carried a reward of Rs 5 lakh, were killed. See Nation NEW DELHI IMF may review Pak funding The IMF is expected to conduct the next funding review for Pakistan in the second half of 2025. According to an official IMF statement, it would maintain ongoing discussions with Pakistani authorities to reach an agreement on the 2026 fiscal budget terms. Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL The Southwest monsoon, which arrived early in Kerala on Saturday, is expected to reach Madhya Pradesh by June 15—two days ahead of its normal date of June 17, according to the meteorological department. The early onset over Kerala and advancement into parts of the Northeast is already triggering pre-monsoon showers across Madhya Pradesh. Cloudy skies and rainfall ranging from light to moderate have been observed in several regions of the state. A cyclonic circulation over West Rajasthan and a trough extending to West Vidarbha is contributing to rain and thundershowers in MP. 4Continued on | P8 Prime Minister Mark Carney said the 1914 Komagata Maru incident in which 376 Indian immigrants were refused entry by Canada is a "stark reminder" of how the country fell short of its values and asked the countrymen to ensure that such injustices are never repeated and build a future where inclusion is not a slogan, but a reality. In 1914, the Komagata Maru, a Japanese steamship, anchored in Vancouver's harbour after a long journey across the Pacific. The 376 people aboard, of Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu faiths, arrived seeking refuge and dignity, Carney said. "Canadian authorities, however, using exclusionary and discriminatory laws, refused them entry," he said in a statement commemorating the Komagata Maru incident Ship capsizes off Kerala Pak violated IWT spirit by coast; hazardous cargo waging 3 wars: India tells UN spillover suspected PTI LATEHAR Rs 10L bounty Maoist killed People enjoy boating in Upper Lake as weather turns pleasant in Bhopal on Saturday Agencies UNITED NATIONS Angad Singh Chandhok, who was wanted for alleged fraud in India, was brought here after his deportation from the US in an operation c o o r dinated by the CBI, officials said on Saturday. A US court convicted Chandhok in 2022 for being part of an international tech support scam that defrauded Americans, many of them elderly, of their life savings, the US Department of Justice had said in a statement after his conviction in 2022. 4Continued on | P8 IANS THIRUVANANTHAPURAM The Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) on Saturday has sent out a warning that the Indian Coast Guard authorities have informed about a spillover of hazardous materials from a ship in the deep sea off the Kerala coast, an official said on Saturday. Notably, a container ship capsized while sailing towards Kochi. The incident took place on Saturday about 38 nautical miles (around 70 km) off Kochi Coast when the ship with a Liberian flag was on its way from Vizhinjam to Kochi. The ship was expected to reach Kochi by Saturday evening. The ship was carrying marine gas oil and very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) capsized and due to it about 10 containers containing these oil got thrown into the sea. 4Continued on | P8 India ripped through Pakistan's "disinformation" at the UN on the Indus Waters Treaty, asserting that Islamabad violated its spirit by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India that seek to hold hostage lives of civilians, religious harmony and economic prosperity. "We are constrained to respond to the disinformation being carried out by the delegation of Pakistan with regard to the Indus Waters Treaty. India has always acted in a responsible manner as an upper riparian state," India's Permanent Representative to UN Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish said on Friday. Harish was addressing the UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting organised by the Per- It is the message delivered that matters. While Operation Sindoor showcased India's military prowess and firm stand against terrorism, the armed forces put out sleek social media posts and videos, one with rock renditions of lines from Dinkar's ballad 'Rashmirathi', to drive home the point. India decimated nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir under Operation Sindoor with precision strikes early on May 7 in response to the dastardly April 22 Pahalgam massacre. At 1:44 am that day, the government, in a statement, underlined that India has demonstrated "considerable restraint" in the selection of targets and method of execution and that "no Pakistani military facilities have been targeted". Shortly after, the Indian Army's social media handles carried a poignant message with a poster that has now become a defining image of Operation Sindoor. Along with the message "#PahalgamTerrorAttack Justice is Served. Jai Hind!" the Indian Army's 1:51 am X post carried a poster that was concise in words but heavy on symbolism. The poster had 'OPER- 4Continued on | P8 FLUX IN BANGLADESH ‘Yunus not quitting as interim head’ Agencies All these videos were made in-house, by the Social Media Section of the Indian Army's Additional Directorate General of Strategic Communication, sources in the military establishment said. The songs were carefully chosen, each based on the content and theme, they added. Muhammad Yunus will remain as the head of Bangladesh's interim government, an adviser in his cabinet said on Saturday, two days after a key ally said he mulled resignation. "He (Yunus) didn't say he will leave. He said that while we face many obstacles in carrying out the work and responsibilities assigned to us, we are overcoming them," Planning Adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud clarified to reporters after an unscheduled meeting of the advisory council. Mahmud added: "He (Yunus) is definitely staying." He added that none of the advisers were going anywhere as "the responsibility entrusted to us is a significant one; we cannot abandon this duty". The chief adviser's decision to stay in office came two days after he told student-led National Citizen Party (NCP) leaders that he was mulling resignation as he felt "the situation is such that he cannot work", citing difficulties in working amid the failure of political parties to find common ground for change. 4Continued on | P8 4Continued on | P8 India too a terror victim: Tharoor at 9/11 Memorial ongress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading a multi-party Indian parliamentary delegation on a diplomatic tour, emphasised the symbolic significance of beginning their journey with a visit to the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Tharoor remarked, "As you know, we're all heading out on this trip. Our first stop is Georgetown, Guyana, but since there's no direct flight, we'll be transiting through New York. This gives us an opportunity to visit the 9/11 Memorial and remind the world that we, like those being remembered there, have been victims of terrorist attacks, not just one, but a repeated series over the past four decades.” C manent Mission of Slovenia on 'Protecting Water in Armed Conflict - Protecting Civilian Lives.' Harish highlighted four aspects to expose the "disinformation" by Pakistan, 4Continued on | P8 Poetry & music power Army’s Op Sindoor message PTI on Friday. Recalling their ordeal, Carney said for two months, passengers were detained on the ship and denied access to food, water, and medical care. "When they were forced to return to India, many were imprisoned or killed there," he said. "The Komagata Maru tragedy is a stark reminder of how, in moments of our history, Canada fell short of the values we hold dear," the Canadian Prime Minister said. DHAKA offgrid NEW DELHI KOMAGATA MARU INCIDENT OTTAWA Wikipedia a period of uncertainty and high expectations. His first challenge? A gruelling fiveTest series in England starting June 20 — a trial by fire for a squad heavy on promise but ATION SINDOOR' written on it with a small bowl carrying vermilion (worn by married Hindu women) forming the first 'O' of the second word while the second 'O' had a dash of the powder around it. Since then, the Indian Army has come up with several thematic short videos on social media platforms that have been widely shared and appreciated.