BHUBANESWAR l monday l april 06, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late CITY EDITION Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai hotspots for abdominal obesity: Study The three metros have emerged as hotspots for abdominal obesity among both men and women, the study in the Nature Scientific journal reports Sedentary jobs, processed foods blamed The study by researchers from the Health Systems Transformation Platform found over half of women aged 15-49 (56.6%) and nearly half of men aged 15-54 (48.9%) in India have abdominal obesity. The researchers attributed this trend to long hours in sedentary jobs, increased reliance on motorised transport, and the widespread consumption of processed foods ■ NFHS-5 Higher prevalence among urban residents ■ Higher levels of abdominal obesity were seen among older adults, wealthier groups, and urban residents, the researchers noted “Metropolitan districts surrounding Delhi NCR, Kolkata, and Chennai demonstrated elevated prevalence among both sexes,” the study said. Abdominal obesity was measured using the waist-to-hip ratio | P7 data of over 7 lakh people from 707 districts were examined CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Aviator scales 7,000-ft ridge to avoid capture by Iran; Trump says Tehran will be hit on Tuesday if Strait remains closed day 37 A G E N CI E S @Washington, Tehran A wounded US Air Force colonel survived 36 gruelling hours in the rugged mountains of southern Iran, evading capture by Iranian forces before Navy SEAL commandos extracted him in a dramatic night-time operation, which President Donald Trump termed nothing short of “miraculous.” Armed with only a pistol and moving on injured legs, the colonel — a weapons systems officer who had ejected from an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet shot down over southern Iran on Friday — navigated treacherous terrain to stay ahead of enemy patrols. At one point, he scaled a 7,000-foot ridgeline while American aircraft bombed an approaching Iranian convoy to buy him time, The Mail reported Sunday . US aviators undergo SERE training in the event they have to eject over hostile territory -survival, evasion, resistance and escape. They wear a combat vest with a radio/GPS-coded beacon to transmit their po- Whole region will burn: Iran Iran FM calls up Jaishankar Iran’s powerful parliament speaker warned US President Donald Trump on Sunday that his “reckless moves” would mean “our whole region is going to burn”. The “only real solution is respecting rights of Iranian people and ending this dangerous game,” Mohammad Ghalibaf said. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar Sunday, amid an escalating rhetoric from Washington. “Received a call from Foreign Minister Araghchi. Discussed present situation,” EAM said, marking the sixth conversation since the war began | P7 The wreckage of a downed American jet and two helicopters involved in a rescue of a US Colonel, in Isfahan province | AP sition, while they also carry water, food, first-aid material and a pistol in order to survive. The airman was wounded after his ejection but could still walk, according to news outlet Axios, which cited a US official. Iran had placed a bounty on the officer’s head, setting off a race between Tehran and Washington to locate the missing aviator. “Everything is being Bengal tribunal asks EC to add candidate’s name in voters list S U B H E N D U M A I T I @ Kolkata in its first verdict, an appellate tribunal in West Bengal on Sunday directed the Election Commission to include the name of Congress candidate in Farakka, Mahtab Sheikh, in the supplementary voter list by the end of the day . The order of the tribunal headed by the former Calcutta High Court Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam came a day before the April 6 deadline for submitting nomination for the firstphase polls in the state. Mohtab’s trouble started as his name was flagged under the ‘logical discrepancy’ status in the post-SIR voter list. His name also did not figure in the supplementary list of voters marked as ‘under adjudication’ by the ECI. Mahtab Sheikh | Express ‘Logical discrepancy’ Mohtab was in the ‘logical discrepancy’ group because of a discrepancy in his as well as his father’s names. The tribunal noted that there is no discrepancy in Mohtab’s name though his father’s name has some inconsistencies The Supreme Court had allowed voters excluded voters to move any one of the 19 appellate tribunals being set up in West Bengal to contest the exclusion. However, the Congress nominee could not move any tribunal because of the delay in setting up of these units and the last date of filing nomination was approaching. He sought the intervention of the SC, which in turn asked him approach a tribunal. Mohtab then moved the tribunal of Justice Sivagnanam, among the first to be set up, at Bijan Bhaban at Salt Lake. “My name figures as Mahtab Sheikh in Aadhaar card, passport, driving licence, and son’s birth certificate. Despite these proofs, I lost my eligibility as a voter in the supplementary list. Now it is solved,” he said. express read Palasa-Ichchapuram merger with SCoR won’t cause revenue loss: ECoR Nitish in Rajya Sabha on April 10, BJP all set to lead Bihar government Bhubaneswar: Amid protests over merger of the Palasa-Ichchapuram section of East Coast Railway (ECoR) with newly-created South Coast Railway (SCoR), railway officials on Sunday clarified that the move will not affect the revenue of ECoR zone. The ECoR stated that the Palasa-Ichchapuram section stretching about 50 km, consists of seven stations, all located in Srikakulam district. None of them is a major freight earner | P2 Patna: Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar will take oath as a Rajya Sabha member on April 10, paving the way for formation of a new government in the state, Bihar BJP president Sanjay Saraogi said on Sunday. Talking to mediapersons, Saraogi said that Nitish Kumar, who was elected as a Rajya Sabha member on March 16, will take oath as a member of Upper House of Parliament on April 10 | P8 thrown at finding the missing airman,” a source close to the President told The Mail on Sunday “The fear is he will be cap. tured and used as a pawn.” The pilot of the stricken jet had been recovered within 45 minutes of the crash. The extraction encountered serious complications. Two American transport aircraft became stranded at a remote staging location inside Iran and had to be destroyed by US forces to keep them out of Iranian hands, according to The New York Times and CBS News. Three additional planes were then deployed to ferry the rescued airman and his escort out of the country . A regional intelligence official, speaking anonymously, told Associated Press that “a technical malfunction — not enemy fire — had rendered the two planes unusable.” Iran’s version differed sharply Irani. an military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari declared that the US operation, staged from an abandoned airstrip in southern Isfahan province, had been “completely foiled.” He claimed two C-130 transport planes and two Black Hawk helicopters had been destroyed. The CIA reportedly ran a parallel deception operation to help keep the aviator safe. Trump declared victory on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, saying: “WE P9 GOT HIM!”  Odisha to auction 1L tonne surplus rice in open market E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Sitting over a surplus rice of two lakh tonne even after enhanced procurement of 58 lakh tonne by the central government, the state cabinet on Saturday approved the proposal for auction of the stock in open market to minimise potential financial losses. In 2024-25, the state government had procured 73.45 lakh tonne of paddy during kharif season and 19.18 lakh tonne during rabi, recording its highest-ever purchase. The total rice output from this procurement was estimated at 63.37 lakh tonne. The Union Food ministry which had approved a procurement target of 50 lakh tonne for 2024-25 kharif marketing season had to revise the target to 58 lakh tonne following request from the state government. Of the total rice produced, around 30 lakh tonne was utilised within the state under welfare schemes such as the National Food Security Act (NFSA), state’s own food programmes and other social safety initiatives. The remaining 28 lakh tonne is being evacuated by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for the central pool. This has resulted in a surplus of 5.37 lakh tonne of rice. The state has already absorbed 2.26 lakh tonne through internal consumption and distributed 1.09 lakh tonne across 121 Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) blocks, leaving a balance surplus of 2.02 lakh tonne. To address the excess stock, the state cabinet has approved the auction of one lakh tonne of rice Continued on P5 in the open market.  Ministry’s nod awaited Army pushes `250 cr fund to cut risk for defence startups J a v a r i a Rana @ New Delhi With defence startups often unable to move beyond the trial stage, the Army has proposed a `250 crore annual Field Exploitation and Capability Acceleration (FECA) fund per Service Headquarters. The proposal is under consideration by the defence ministry . The proposal, first outlined in February by Army Design Bureau Additional Director General Maj Gen C S Mann, has now been fleshed out. It aims to create a structured system to test and evaluate new technologies in real conditions, backed by small initial orders to assess performance. “The idea is to plug gaps by allowing improvements to systems over time, adapting civilian technologies for military use and covering costs during trials and field use, including damage and other expenses that startups currently have to bear on their own,” an Army official told this newspa- per. A key element of the proposal is risk support, which addresses a major gap in the current system. At present, startups bear the full cost of equipment damaged or expended during trials, including transportation, repairs and modifications. “There have been many cases where graduates from top institutions invest all their savings to build systems, only to see them fail in high-altitude conditions. Equip- ment gets damaged, sometimes destroyed, effectively ending a startup’s journey,” the official said, adding, “Even a single failed trial can set a startup back significantly .” Under the proposed framework, startups and MSMEs will be given a three to four month window to demonstrate their systems. “If a system performs well, it can be taken up for limited field exploitation orders, with the possibility of scaling up to bulk procurement...,” the official said. Plugging the gap Despite initiatives such as iDEX and the Make procedure under DAP 2020, converting prototypes to actual procurement remains a challenge Assembly elections ‘No one safe in Bengal’: PM blames Didi for attack on judicial officers I P8 Cong unites like Zubeen, says Rahul, calls Himanta ‘India’s most corrupt CM’ I P8 Proportional delimitation is a demographic coup: Pinarayi p R E E T H A n A IR @ New Delhi S TRESSING that the upcoming delimitation process requires scrutiny rather than blind acceptance, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday demanded a constitutional guarantee for states that have successfully stabilised their population. Speaking exclusively to this newspaper, Vijayan said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance that southern states will not lose their current press number of seats is a clever play clusive on words that masks injustice. “The core issue facing the Indian Republic is not merely the absolute number of seats a state holds, but its proportional representation and relative political weight within the Union,” Vijayan said, responding to Modi’s remarks. During an election rally in Kerala on Saturday, Modi had said that Lok Sabha seats would not be reduced in those Indian states that have successfully controlled population. The PM also said the total number of seats would increase to benefit states across the country . A decision of this Calling for consensus, Vijaymagnitude, which an said the inter-state seat ratio affects the very must be maintained at the 1971 foundation of our census level until all states Republic, cannot be achieve population stability . “Any increase in the total dictated by Union govt number of seats must be strucPinarayi Vijayan, Kerala CM tured so that it does not reduce the relative strength of states that have excelled in human development indicators. A decision of this magnitude cannot be dictated by the Union government. It requires a consensus reached through the InterState Council and Parliament, respecting the diversity and the sovereign rights of all constituent states. If the Union government proceeds with a delimitation exercise based solely on current population figures, it effectively punishes states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and others that have rigorously implemented national policies on population control CONTINUED ON P5 and social development,” he said.  PIC: Vincent pulikkal US rescues airman in daring mission 200-year-old Hindu scripture steps out of Oxford’s archives to meet devotees across UK The University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries has launched a historic UK-wide tour of ‘Shikshapatri’, one of the world’s most significant and rare Hindu scriptures, to mark its 200th anniversary | P9