🔍Explained: What is the vertical launch surface to air missile that India has successfully test-fired?

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🔍Quixplained: What’s happening between Russia and Ukraine?

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🔍Explained: Why October IIP came in at a 8-month low despite festive demand, strong GST numbers

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🔍Explained: How Abu Dhabi GP is perfect finale for title race between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen

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🔍Explained: Why Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan says he wants to quit as Chancellor

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🔍Afghanistan: To keep foot in diplomatic door, Delhi opens window

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🚨 *Big Story*

For the first time since Kabul fell to the Taliban last August, India has sent humanitarian aid to Afghanistan: a 1.6-tonne consignment of emergency life-saving medicines for a children’s hospital. These supplies were sent on a return flight that had brought 10 Indians and 94 Afghans to Delhi from Kabul. The Indian government, by sending the first consignment of medicines to Afghanistan, has made its intent clear: it wishes to open a window to the new Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and put its foot in the diplomatic door. 

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⚡ *Only in the Express*

With the government confident that the economy has turned around, P Chidambaram explains what the numbers cited by the Centre actually means: “The numbers that have brought a smile on the face of the government are what are called ‘high frequency indicators’ such as tax collection, UPI volume, e-way bills (volume), railway freight traffic, electricity consumption, etc. They are numbers, not people, and certainly not people dependent upon the informal sector of which we have no data or people lower down in the economic pyramid.” 

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Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, while speaking at the Indian Express e-Adda, said the state did not face any security threat and such a narrative was “a creation” of his predecessor Amarinder Singh, who was “in cahoots with the Bharatiya Janata Party”. The CM added that it was also BJP’s way to start “raising national security (issues) whenever it wanted to divide people to gain in elections”.  

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📰 *From the Front Page*

It’s been over a year that the farmers at Singhu border left their homes in a rage to protest against the Centre’s now-repealed farm laws. However, they returned home on Saturday with a feeling of victory. Govinder Singh, a former ASI posted in the BSF, stands awestruck. “I think they will remember this parade for years to come,” he says. In this parade, the farmers are marching to giant drums, adding to the sense of carnival on the journey home to Punjab.     

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👩‍💻 *Must Read*

In August, the Mizoram government — which has welcomed the refugees fleeing a military coup in Myanmar, defying a directive by the Centre — announced that schools across the state would enrol refugee children on “humanitarian grounds”. For many young refugees from Myanmar, for whom normalcy has been rare of late, these schools offer just that. “It is nice to wear the uniform and attend class,” one such student says. 

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Meanwhile, around a 100 primary school students gathered in Jharkhand’s Latehar district to demand that their schools be reopened. As part of the ‘school kholo’ protests, students and parents walked from Manika block headquarters, covering about a kilometre, and ending the march at Manika High School in protest against the government’s alleged delay in opening schools, which they said is ‘hampering their growth’. For many of these children, online education has not only been inaccessible, but has also drastically impacted retention. 

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Private sector power distribution companies (discoms) improved efficiency levels faster than state-owned counterparts under the Centre’s Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme between FY16 and FY20, despite already being more efficient at the beginning of the period, according to government data. The Centre had launched UDAY in FY16 to improve the financial stability and operational performance of discoms, which have traditionally been the weak link in India’s power sector.

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A 37-year-old resident of Assam’s Sivasagar was arrested after police recovered a stolen watch from here early on Saturday.

But this was no ordinary watch. It was a limited edition heritage Hublot belonging to legendary footballer Diego Maradona. The watch was allegedly stolen in Dubai, where the accused worked as a security guard at a premise Maradona used to visit when was alive. 

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⌛ *And Finally…*

Fifty years ago, in the aftermath of a difficult war in which India played a crucial role, a new nation — Bangladesh — was born on December 16, 1971. In this special issue, we look back at the country’s precarious beginning and celebrate its resurgent present. First, poet Daud Haider remembers the day when freedom came to his people. Then we look at how the country managed to outperform neighbours India and Pakistan in the economic arena. We also speak to Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas (retd) about the role played by the Indian Navy in the 1971 war. 

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Until tomorrow,

Rounak Bagchi and Rahel Philipose

🔍Explained: Was tornado outbreak related to climate change?

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🔍Omicron could cause 75,000 deaths in UK by end of April, warns study

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🔍Explained: How will the world decide when the pandemic is over?

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🔍Explained: Bank deposit insurance programme and norms to access funds

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🔍Explained: Why the US will no longer issue astronaut wings for commercial space travellers

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🔍Explained: Differences between Webb and Hubble telescopes

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🔍Explained: What Indian women voters want

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🔍Explained | Kerala row and beyond: Governor’s role in state, central universities

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🔍Increase in prey base and forest cover: How Buxa tiger reserve turned a corner

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🔍Explained: What is changing at the ancient Kashi Vishwanath temple complex?

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Good morning,

🚨 *The Big Story*

Even as the final decision on recommending a booster Covid vaccine shot is yet to be taken, there is consensus in the country’s top technical advisory body on Covid-19 vaccination that the third dose when administered, should be of a vaccine based on a platform different from that of the first two doses, The Indian Express has learnt. But that doesn't mean that the third dose for an individual who has been double vaccinated with Covishield will be Covaxin, and vice versa.

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⚡ *Only in the Express*

Delhi is working on plans to get leaders of five Central Asian countries, three of which share a border with Afghanistan, as chief guests for the Republic Day parade and celebrations on January 26, sources told The Indian Express. An informal outreach has already been made through diplomatic channels, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is likely to hold a dialogue with the foreign ministers of these five countries over the next weekend — December 18-19.

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In this edition of the Idea Exchange, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia talks about the learning loss in the pandemic, AAP’s poll prospects and whether the BJP has forced parties to shift to the right.

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📰 *From the Front Page*

Cyber security officials will reach out to Twitter and Google as part of the probe into the hacking of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account for a brief while early Sunday when a tweet on Bitcoin was posted, The Indian Express has learnt. Sources said Twitter will be asked about how the account was not flagged for breach by its automated systems when someone else tried to log in. Google will be asked to furnish details of the blogspot account linked to the Bitcoin tweet, they said.

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In a year marked by the devastating second wave of Covid-19, Kerala’s all-cause mortality numbers, including official Covid deaths, are likely to touch a record high, with 2021 already recording the highest number of January-June deaths in recent years. In the first six months of the year, Kerala registered 1,55,520 all-cause deaths — a 35 percentage jump from the corresponding period in 2020 (1,15,081 deaths), a year of Covid-imposed lockdown, and a 21 percentage jump from the toll in the first six months of the pre-pandemic year of 2019 (1,28,667 deaths).

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👩‍💻 *Must Read*

Raising potential questions of propriety and conflict of interest, Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi has asked a question in the Rajya Sabha on a subject that he has been involved in as a lawyer: government policy on betting and online gaming. Although he denies any conflict, records show that Singhvi, who is also a senior advocate, appeared before the Karnataka High Court for a petitioner company which has challenged the Constitutional validity of the Act that bans all online gambling and betting.

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The closing paragraph of a comprehension passage that several students got in their Class 10 Term 1 CBSE board exam English paper has drawn criticism for being “retrograde” and offensive to women. It reads: “What people were slow to observe was that the emancipation of the wife destroyed the parent’s authority over the children.” Several politicians, including Congress leader Piyanka Gandhi Vadra, took to Twitter to call out the Board, saying that the “government endorses such views on women”.

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As the last of the makeshift homes at the Singhu border were dismantled or packed up, barricades put up by the Delhi Police were being taken apart. Heavy machinery was deployed to clear the concrete blocks while some shipping containers and concertina wires are yet to be removed.