Good morning, The Big Story In a first such incident at Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu, at least 12 pilgrims died and 16 were injured following a stampede on Saturday, raising questions about what officials have often called a "foolproof system" to manage the pilgrim crush. Officials attributed the incident to a “scuffle” between two groups on a pathway leading to the shrine complex. A teenager fell unconscious and woke up to see “many dead bodies”. A couple clung to a pillar for life, struggling to breathe in the crush. And a family watched in dismay as parents in panic pushed aside other children to save their own. Survivors relive Vaishno Devi shrine horror. Only in the Express The probe into the helicopter crash that killed the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, and 13 others is close to being complete and the final report is expected to be submitted to the Air Force Chief in January, Defence sources told The Indian Express. Sources suggested that the likely cause is not human or technical error but what is known as Controlled Flight into Terrain (CIFT), when the pilot unintentionally hits a surface. Former Union minister P Chidambaram writes on how AFSPA encourages Armed Forces personnel to act with impunity: "The fact is that governments have become more authoritarian since 2014. As an inevitable consequence, the police — and the Armed Forces when deployed for internal security — have become more authoritarian. AFSPA, intended to be a shield, has become a weapon." From the Front Page For the first time since Kabul fell to the Taliban in mid-August, India has sent 5 lakh doses of Covaxin to Afghanistan as a “gift for the people of Afghanistan”, the government said. The vaccine consignment, coming after life-saving medicine supplies last month, is part of Delhi’s diplomatic strategy to remain engaged with Kabul while keeping an arm’s length from the Taliban for now. Must Read Ahead of the upcoming UP elections, Telangana’s ban on potatoes from the northern state has become a hot button issue. Potato cultivators are questioning AIMM chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s support of the ruling dispensation in Telangana. “How can he (Owaisi) campaign here, while backing a government (of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi) that has blocked entry of our potatoes there,” one cultivator says. The ban comes at a time when Telangana is seeking to promote extensive cultivation of potato, as part of its crop diversification plans. Four years after PM Modi adopted UP’s Kakrahiya village, some residents say little has changed apart from a couple additional water taps and free electricity connection. After a flurry of visits by government officials and politicians in the first year of its adoption, one resident, Ravindra Singh, says: “When the PM adopted another village, Domri, focus shifted there.” But Rehka Yadav, a teacher at the village’s government-run English Primary School, says the “biggest change” is in education. For the past several years now, the AAP has been making attempts to make inroads in Gujarat politics dominated by the BJP and the Opposition Congress party. This time around, it has been reaching out to the youth and connecting with people in urban areas, raising issues like employment, education and various scams, aiming to carve its position in the anti-BJP space in the state. Dotted with skyscrapers, malls, condominiums and bars, Gurgaon has quickly grown to become one of India’s poshest suburbs. But the recent crackdown on Muslims performing namaz on Friday has taken the sheen off. Beneath its up-market, manicured exterior, the Sunday Express finds a sense of fear, foreboding and alienation in the city’s corporate offices and condominiums, and a widening gap which few seem to be trying to bridge. And Finally In this week’s special fiction issue of the Sunday Express, UK-based writer Sandeep Raina narrates a tale of faith across communities — ties that ought to bind rather than isolate us. Until tomorrow, Leela Prasad G and Rahel Philipose
