FP The publishers permit sharing of the e-paper's pdf on WhatsApp and other social media platforms Vol. XLII No. 235 | INDORE | SUNDAY | FEBRUARY 1, 2026 | Pages 16 ` 4 | Regd. No. Indore MP/ICD 216/2024-2026 | RNI No. 38281/83 FREE I N D I A N C OA ST G U A R D DAY www.freepressjournal.in By invitation Prof Himanshu Rai Director, IIM-Indore O ver the past year, India’s economic story has moved further towards our dream of achieving a Viksit Bharat. Despite global uncertainty, slowing trade, and persistent geopolitical risks, India has continued to remain the world’s fastest-growing major economy.Inflation has moderated from post-pandemic highs, while public capital expenditure has continued to anchor investment sentiment. In addition, employment indicators have improved gradually, infrastructure creation has accelerated, and India’s digital public architecture has deepened its reach. Against this backdrop, this year, the expectations from the Union Budget 2026 are not about a dramatic course correction, but about consolidation with purpose – a budget for the nation as a whole to grow and evolve further. The central government’s fiscal deficit stood at 4.9% of GDP in 2024–25, with a stated medium-term glide path towards sub4.5%. For 2026–27, expectations are focused on a deficit of about 4.4–4.5% of GDP, andachieving this without cutting productive expenditure will be critical. It is essential to maintain this momentum while also allowing private investment. Further, education and youth policy need to be a focus, as India is home to one of the world’s youngest populations. With 65% of the population below the age of 35, it becomes challenging to provide them FREE PRESS 4Continued on | P8 EDITIONS: INDORE Accused arrested, accomplice uncle at large BHOPAL NASHIK MUMBAI E-paper Readers’ Corner India-EU Trade Pact... P.6 Cinema Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia... P.14 BRUTAL MURDER Our Staff Reporter INDORE In a gruesome incident that has sent shockwaves through Shrinagar area, a 13-year-old boy was brutally murdered for resisting sexual assault by a youth who lives in the neighbourhood. The accused’s uncle helped him to hide the body inside a bed box in his flat. The victim, an eighthgrade student, went missing on Friday evening while returning home from tuition. His family subsequently filed a missing persons report. MIG Police station in-charge CB Singh said that the murder Hitanand back to RSS as Sah Bauddhik Pramukh Accused Rehan uring investigation on Saturday morning, main accused, Rehan (21), joined the search party, pretending to assist the police and the distraught family. "The suspect accompanied the police while we D A major change took place in the BJP on Saturday. The party’s state organisational general secretary, Hitanand Sharma, returned to the RSS. He has been appointed Sah Bauddhik Pramukh (co-chief of the intellectual cell) of the central region. The information about his return to the RSS came to light after a meeting of the RSS in Indore on Saturday. Hitanand was appointed BJP’s co-organisational general secretary in September 2020. In March 2022, 4Continued on | P8 Or WhatsApp on 7415940861 Wednesday at the Rubaya mines in North Kivu province, which have been under the control of the AFC/M23 rebel group since May 2024. The precise death toll remains unclear, but officials said the number of victims is high and may still rise as bodies remain buried. “More than 200 people were were searching for the boy," said TI CB Singh. "Injury marks on his hands and his nervous body language raised our suspicions. After we found the boy's blood-stained jacket on the roof and his school bag in a trash heap behind ED attaches `9.79-cr assets of ex-health official, wife Our Staff Reporter Our Staff Reporter BHOPAL occurred on the roof of a sixstory building located 50 meters from the boy’s house. The killers first strangled the victim with a nylon rope and then bludgeoned him with a brick. To conceal the crime, he and his uncle Abdul Rafiq Raza moved the body to their fourth-floor flat, hiding it inside a storage bed and making their ailing grandmother sleep on it avoid suspicion. (More on PG-3) Accused joined search party; injury marks led to arrest BHOPAL Countdown begins More than 200 people were killed this week after a landslide collapsed several tunnels at the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to rebel authorities and local officials. The collapse happened on PUNE 13-yr-old boy killed for resisting sexual assault Share your thoughts on Budget 2026 with FP. Mail it to: writetofreepress96@gmail.com Agencies PRESS TRUST BETRAYED| Missing Class 8 boy found murdered; accused feigned help while body lay hidden at home The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has provisionally attached immovable and movable properties worth approximately Rs 9.79 crore belonging to then director, health services, Dr Amarnath Mittal and his wife Alka Mittal. The action was taken under provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002. The attached properties include long term capital gain bonds and residential and agricultural land located in Bhopal and Raisen districts. The ED initiated investigation based on an FIR registered by Bhopal Lokayukta under sections 13 (1) (B) and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 for ac- More than 200 dead in Congo’s Rubaya Coltan mine collapse CONGO UJJAIN Kids among 30 Gazans killed in Israeli strike Anahat’s Inferno P.16 with a quality of life, education, and employability. The Ministry of Education was allocated Rs 1.29 lakh crore in the 2025–26 Budget, marking a year-onyear increase of roughly 13%. This provides a solid base, but the effectiveness of spending will matter more than headline growth. It is expected that this year's budget will focus more on empowering youth, whether at the school and college levels or in employment. Also, rather than investing solely in the physical expansion of educational services, digital infrastructure needs to be strengthened. In higher education, India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio stands at around 28%, well below the long-term national target of 50%. Budget 2026 should therefore support capacity expansion in universities and identify ways to fund initiatives linked to research output, student progression, and graduate employability. While industry demand is shifting quickly toward digital, green, and advanced manufacturing skills, targeted expansion of industry-linked skilling programmes, particularly in artificial intelligence, electronics, logistics, and renewable energy, also becomes crucial. Among other sectors, infrastructure and logistics expenditure should remain a priority, as we move forward towards achieving our dream of Viksit Bharat and a Self-Reliant India. Easy access to credit for MSMEs, regulatory simplification, strengthening primary care, and other measures should be considered. On taxation, modest simplification and base broadening would be fiscally wiser than significant rate cuts that risk narrowing the revenue base. iii QUALITY @ VALUE WORLD Sports From Momentum to Meaning: Expecting a Purposeful Budget ESTD-1983 victims of this landslide, including miners, children and market women. Some people were rescued just in time and have serious injuries,” said Lumumba Kambere Muyisa, spokesperson for the rebel-appointed governor of the province. He said about 20 injured people were receiving treatment at health facilities. “We are in the rainy season. The ground is fragile. It was the ground that gave way while the victims were in the hole,” Muyisa added. An adviser to the governor said at least 227 deaths had been confirmed. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to brief the media. Attached properties include long term capital gain bonds and residential and agricultural land in Bhopal and Raisen cumulating assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. During the investigation, it was found that Dr Amarnath Mittal had acquired moveable and immovable assets which significantly exceed his lawful income. Investigation established that during the check period, Dr Mittal had a lawful income of around Rs 60 lakh while assets acquired and expenditure incurred amounted to approximately Rs 2.98 crore. 4Continued on | P8 the building, we interrogated Rehan." Under pressure, Rehan allegedly confessed to the crime and revealed the location of the body. Rehan has been taken into custody, while his uncle is absconding. India preparing ground to get on Board of Peace? Ashwin Ahmad NEW DELHI Diplomats say the timing of the India-Arab Foreign Ministers Meeting (IAFMM) is significant given that it comes just after President Donald Trump’s announcement of the Board of Peace (BOP), which will govern affairs in Gaza, and in the shadow of a possible attack by the US president on Iran. Senior diplomats say New Delhi’s meeting of foreign ministers representing 22 Arab nations is meaningless in practical terms because of India’s excellent bilateral relations with them all. However, the meeting conveys several points that New Delhi would like to make to the world, the foremost pertaining to the Board of Peace (BoP). Senior diplomats believe that while New Delhi would like to join the BoP to remain a credible player in the region, it does not wish to be seen as doing so at the behest of the US. It was here that the Arab nations could present a facesaving alternative. By formally inviting India to join the body, New Delhi would be seen as a credible alternative voice respected by the Global South. This endeavor seems to have succeeded. 4Continued on | P8 Sunetra Pawar takes oath as Maha Dy CM Ajit Pawar’s wife gets excise, sports & minority affairs portfolios, Fadnavis keeps finance Ravikiran Deshmukh MUMBAI Barely three days after her husband died in a plane crash, Sunetra Pawar, wife of late Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, was on Saturday sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister, becoming the first woman to hold the post in Maharashtra’s political history. A simple swearing-in ceremony was held at Lok Bhavan at 5 pm, shortly after her unanimous election as leader From left, CM Fadnavis, Guv. Devvrat, Dy CM Shinde and RS MP Sunetra Pawar, during swearing-in ceremony of the Nationalist Congress Party legislature party. With her induction, Sunetra Pawar scripted a historic first for the state, breaking a long-standing political glass ceiling. Governor Acharya Devvrat administered the oath of office and secrecy in the presence of CM Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy CM Eknath Shinde, ministers and legislators. Soon after the swearing-in, the government announced the portfolio distribution. Sunetra Pawar has been allotted the Excise, Sports and Youth Welfare, Minority Development and Wakf departments. 4Continued on | P8 PAK PM RECALLS HUMILIATION FP News Service MUMBAI Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has made an unusually blunt and public admission of the country’s economic distress, acknowledging that he and the Army Chief have had to travel the world seeking financial assistance, an exercise he described as deeply humiliating and corrosive to national self-respect. Addressing leading exporters in Islamabad on Friday night, Sharif said the experience of approaching foreign governments and lenders for loans had left him and Army Chief Asim Munir feeling ashamed. “We feel ashamed when Field Marshal Asim Munir and I go around the world begging for money. Taking loans is a huge burden on our self-respect. Our heads bow down in shame,” the PM said, offering a rare glimpse into the desperation driving Islamabad’s economic diplomacy. Sharif ’s remarks came as he sought to underline the difficult choices his government has been forced to make amid Pakistan’s prolonged financial crisis. 4Continued on | P8 Balochistan ops turn deadly At least 70 terrorists, including operatives of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), were killed after a wave of coordinated attacks on security forces, law enforcement agencies and civilians at 12 locations across Pakistan’s Balochistan province, officials said on Saturday. Sources claimed the death toll among terrorists could be as high as 108. However, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said in a post that 70 terrorists had been killed so far. He added that the counter-operations, which began late Friday night, were still continuing on Saturday evening. A federal minister said terrorists belonging to the BLA also targeted civilians in Gwadar during the attacks, prompting intensified security operations across the coastal district. Officials confirmed that 10 security personnel were killed in the violence, underscoring the scale and intensity of the ongoing operations in the restive province of Pakistan. See World Melania the movie: Much ado about nothing FP News Service MUMBAI There are bad documentaries, there are vanity projects, and then there is Melania — a film so profoundly empty that critics across continents appear to have reached a rare spiritual consensus: this is what nothingness looks like when it costs $40 million. The savaging began early and enthusiastically. The Guardian’s Catherine Shoard dismissed the film as “exhaustingly boring and chillingly vain,” a phrase so precise it deserves engraving on the Blu-ray that should never be made. She reports learning that Melania Trump “has no friends” and appears to inhabit “an entirely airless existence.” This is First cuts are the deepest: Critics savage trumped up celluloid paean to Melania not character assassination; it is character autopsy. Cause of death: self-importance. Her colleague Xan Brooks at The Guardian went further, calling the experience “pure, endless hell,” describing Melania as a “rare unicorn film that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality.” Dispiriting, deadly, unrevealing — three words that feel less like criticism and more like a coroner’s report. What passes for intimacy is an excruciating singalong with director Brett Ratner, where Melania announces her love for Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and “Thriller.” Shoard likened it to “Carpool Karaoke on the highway to hell,” which may be unfair to hell, at least conceptually livelier. 4Continued on | P8 Sitasharan may be made chief whip, VS to do appointments on LS pattern Our Staff Reporter 4Continued on | P8 Elderly man loses Rs 1.49 cr in digital investment scam There will be a deputy whip, too; appointments likely before House session BHOPAL Cyber crooks duped a 77-yearold man of over Rs 1.49 crore by luring him to invest in online share trading through a Telegram group and fake trading website. The victim approached the cybercrime branch and lodged a complaint after realising he had been conned. A case had been registered and investigations were underway, cybercrime officials said. The complainant Dinesh Kumar Shukla of Aishbag said he received a call from some unknown people who promised him high returns for investment 4Continued on | P8 Nitendra Sharma BHOPAL The ruling party is going to conduct an experiment in the Vidhan Sabha on the pattern of the Lok Sabha. The party is mulling over appointing the chief whip and deputy whip for the first time in the House. Until now, only the opposition party appointed whips in the Vidhan Sabha. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister of the ruling party does the floor management on behalf of the ruling party. The BJP is now planning to appoint the chief whip, who will manage the floor in coordination with the Parliamentary Affairs Minister. The plans are afoot to appoint the former Speaker of the House Sitasharan Sharma as chief whip, and the party is considering other names for the post of deputy whip. 4Continued on | P8 Decision on pol appointments The BJP has almost finalised names for political appointments in corporations, boards, authorities, and commissions. The names of 12 leaders have been almost finalised. A decision on the disputable names may be considered later. While the party was considering names for political appointments, it examined the caste and regional equations. 4Continued on | P8