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 ■ ■ visakhapatnam l saturday l april 18, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION Bills FAIL LS TEST Oppn parties did a great disservice to nation: Naidu ‘Wrath of women’ looms as LOSS BY 298:230 draws battle lines J aya n t h J a c o b @ New Delhi Shah directly named the Congress, DMK, TMC, and other Opposition parThe battle over the women’s reserva- ties, linking their resistance to the uption Bill in the Lok Sabha on Friday coming electoral battles. The subtext: went far beyond the arithmetic of 298 resistance would be framed as opposivotes in favour and 230 against. It un- tion to women’s empowerment, with folded as a tightly calibrated political the BJP seeking to consolidate women contest over narrative, constituency- as a cross-cutting constituency cutting building, and the future architecture across caste and region. of representation, with the The government’s argument gover nment invoking the rested on two assertions — “wrath of women” in the 2029 that women’s quota is insepaLok Sabha elections and berable from delimitation for its yond, and the Opposition early rollout, and that conwarning that the measure cerns about regional imbalmasked a larger attempt to reance, particularly fears of the draw India’s electoral map. South losing representation, For the BJP-led government, Conscience are misplaced. Shah sought to vote call the Constitution (131st Amendneutralise that anxiety insist, “Please reflect ing that representation would ment) Bill, 2026 was not mereupon your ly a legislative proposal but an not decline and that “no state conscience, electoral statement. Hours bewill face a loss of seats,” posiremembering fore the vote, Prime Minister tioning delimitation as a much Narendra Modi appealed di- the women in needed structural correction. your own rectly to MPs, urging them to The Opposition, however, families... Let us rejected the premise entirely rise above partisan divides. . Home minister Amit Shah ensure that the Leader of Opposition Rahul women, who amplified the political framGandhi described the bill as a ing, explicitly positioning are half of the structural redesign masked as nation’s women as a decisive electoral reform. The Opposition posipopulation, constituency that could shape tioned itself not against womreceive their outcomes across multiple elecen’s reservation, but against rightful due,” tion cycles. Warning of suswhat it described as its “setained political consequences, Modi appealed. quencing design”. By the time he said Opposition parties the bill failed to secure a twowould face the “wrath of women” not thirds majority, it had already taken only in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, on a dual life. For the government, it but “at every level, in every election, was a forward-looking attempt to build and at every place,” signalling an at- a long-term narrative centred on womtempt to convert women’s reservation en. For the Opposition, it became a into a durable political theme an- rare point of convergence, an issue chored in the BJP’s governance narra- framed not as rejection of women’s tive and Modi’s personal popularity reservation, but as resistance to the among women voters. design of delimitation itself. @ Vijayawada Hectic parleys and discreet messages RA J E S H K U M AR THA K U R @ New Delhi HECTIC parleys and discreet back channel negotiations preceded the crucial vote. With the odds stacked against it, the NDA tasked BJP leaders who enjoy personal rapport with Opposition leaders with mustering support for the bill. As for the Opposition, senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi worked the phones to ensure Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress aligns with the Opposition’s stand on the bill. Sources said Rahul spoke to TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, while Kharge called up Mamata. According to BJP sources, senior leaders were roped in to beat the numbers game in the Lok Sabha. Ministers and senior BJP leaders, along with leaders of other NDA allies, were in touch with Opposition parties, albeit in a discreet manner. Within NDA, several rounds of strategic meetings were held to see if the voting could yield the desired results. Sources said senior leaders J P Nadda and Rajnath Singh were also involved in talks with Opposition parties. Hours before the voting on Friday, it became evident that the NDA’s collective efforts to overcome the Opposition’s numerical strength would not succeed. However, NDA continued to work behind the scenes to win support through other means, including cross-voting. Soon after the voting, NDA leaders met to deliberate on the post-vote strategy The meeting, . also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decided to target the Opposition parties for their “anti-women” stance, sources said. Another NDA meeting is scheduled on Saturday followed by a , Cabinet meeting at 11.30 am, sources said. pic: pti An attempt to change electoral map: Rahul p r e e t h a n a i r @ New Delhi THE Constitution amendment bill has nothing to do with women’s reservation but is an attempt to change India’s electoral map so that the BJP can retain p o w e r f o r e v e r, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday said. Participating in the debate in Lok Sabha, he said the proposal does not address women’s empowerment and called it a “shameful act”. He said the opposition supports women’s reservation, but not in this manner. “We will help pass it for implementation from this very moment. What is being presented now as the women’s bill is something else, and the truth about it needs to be told.” He also took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi using an anecdote about a magic show he watched as a child, drawing strong protests from BJP MPs. Defence minister Rajnath Singh said Rahul must apologise.  P7 Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu felt that the opposition parties have done a great disservice to the nation by defeating the Women’s Reservation Bill. “It is unfortunate that political agendas have prevailed over long term nat i o n a l i n t e re s t . T h o s e celebrating this outcome must introspect. We have lost an opportunity to secure a fair and a constitutional safeguard for rightful representation,” Naidu stated in a post on ‘X’. Deputy CM and Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan criticised the opposition parties for failing to support the Women’s Reservation Bill. He observed that the opposition parties missed a significant opportunity to enhance women’s representation in legislative bodies. In a post on ‘X’, YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said, “While the reality is that the numbers would come down for the south and women reservation bill has been postponed! Justice is rendered neither to the south nor the women!” This historic moment was an opportunity which you (Opposition) have lost. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, we will continue our campaign to give women their rights The Congress, which has lost the capacity to think independently, lost its ability to develop its own arguments is now being led by the DMK’s narrative. Rahul is still looking for some love from M K Stalin You have proposed delimitation with such haste that you showed on demonetisation. Unfortunately, we all know what damage that did to the country. Delimitation will turn out to be political demonetisation I am surprised people here, who are there to protect Hindutva, were reminded of Kali, the goddess, the dark goddess who wears black. The feminine power. The woman who drives away ego, arrogance, ignorance Kiren Rijiju, Parliamentary Affairs Minister quote hanger H D Kumaraswamy, Union minister Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP Kanimozhi, DMK MP Hormuz fully open, demining begins Received no complaints of harassment at Nashik: TCS A g e n c i e s @ Washington/Tehran PA D M INI D HR U VARA J @ Bengaluru TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) on Friday said that it received no complaints related to allegations of sexual harassment or religious conversion at its Nashik unit. “While detailed reviews are still underway, a preliminary review of the systems and records pertaining to the Nashik unit indicates that we have not received any complaints of the nature that are being alleged on either our ethics or POSH channels,” said K Krithivasan, chief executive officer and managing director. The company has engaged external experts from Deloitte and law firm Trilegal to act as independent counsel to its internal probe led by Aarthi Subramanian, president and chief operating officer of TCS. Alongside this, TCS has formed an oversight committee chaired by independent director Keki Mistry The company . said the findings of the investigation will be presented to this committee for review and implementation of any recommendations. Providing further clarification on the matter, Krithivasan addressed media reports regarding a female employee named in connection with the case. “She was employed as a process associate without any leadership responsibilities,” he said, adding that she was neither an HR manager nor involved in recruitment. The company also denied claims that its Nashik unit had been shut down, stating that operations are continuing as usual and that client services remain unaffected. E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e Mob fury in assam A vehicle set ablaze by a mob amid protests against detention of a few locals over alleged encroachment of reserved forest in Assam’s Chirang district on Friday | PTI In a major relief for the global energy markets, Iran on Friday declared that the Strait of Hormuz, closed since the start of the current conflict in West Asia, is “completely open” for all commercial vessels for the remainder of its ceasefire with the US. It comes a day after Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire deal. “In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire,” Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X. Minutes later, US President Donald Trump shared Iran’s announcement in a post on Truth Social.“Iran has just announced that the Strait of Iran is fully open and ready for full passage. Thank you!” Trump said, referring to the Strait of Hor- day muz. Trump said Iran, with help from the US, is working to remove all sea mines from the strait. The US naval blockade against Iran, however, will remain in “full force” until Tehran reaches an agreement 49 with the US to end the war, Trump said. It comes a day after Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces Asim Munir held talks with the Iranian leadership in Tehran. Araghchi’s declaration bolstered hopes for further peace talks and a renewal of the current ceasefire set to expire next week. In response to the announcement, oil prices fell by more than 10%. Both the benchmark US weighs $20 billion cash-for-uranium deal: Report As per two US officials quoted by Axios, Washington is considering release of $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds in return for Tehran giving up its 2,000 kg of enriched uranium buried in its underground nuclear facilities, in particular the 450 kg enriched to 60% purity international contract Brent and its US equivalent WTI fell below $90 per barrel. However, many shipping companies are preferring to wait and watch. “We don’t feel like we need to be taking unnecessary risks, and our company approach is that we won’t be the first to go through the strait,” a major tanker operator told the BBC. The 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into effect on Friday UN peacekeep. ers said airstrikes have halted, and displaced families began moving back to southern Lebanon and Beirut. Trump said he has “prohibited” Israel from further strikes on Lebanon, saying “enough is enough” in the Israel-Hezbollah war. Visakhapatnam district tops in Swachh Andhra NPSPL to set up `2,550 cr E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e @ Vijayawada Visakhapatnam district has secured top rank in the Swachh Andhra programme followed by Vizianagaram and Guntur in second and third places. Sri Sathya Sai, Parvathipuram Manyam and Alluri Sitarama Raju (ASR) districts have figured at the bottom three of the list. The Swachh Andhra ranks are based on parameters such as door-to-door waste collection, segregation of wet and dry waste at source, individual household toilets, and ODF Plus standards. Holding a review meeting on the progress of ‘Swarna Andhra - Swachh Andhra’ on Friday, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu directed officials to implement a timebound action plan to achieve the set targets under Swachh Andhra. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu holds a review meet on the ‘Swarna Andhra Swachh Andhra’ programme at his camp office in Undavalli on Friday | Express He proposed that ranks be awarded by third-party agencies in the future for greater transparency Emphasising ac. countability he said the failure , to meet set targets would invite s c r u t i n y a n d c o r r e c t ive action. The Chief Minister instructed the officials to construct public toilets wherever required in municipalities and establish waste-to-energ y plants within defined zones. Dumping yards once filled should be transformed into green spaces. Priority should be given to converting dumping yards near villages and towns into parks, he said. The officials informed him that out of 153 lakh tonnes of waste generated in urban areas since June 2024, 114 lakh tonnes have already been cleared. Naidu said 100 per cent waste clearance should be achieved by June. He also ordered the removal of 10 lakh metric tonnes of accumulated waste in rural areas. He stressed that door-to-door waste collection and processing must reach 100 per cent efficiency. Coordination with MARKFED was suggested for marketing compost. Introducing community soak pits linked to magic drains would help resolve waste water issues and enhance groundwater recharge, he said. Guidelines were also issued for social welfare hostels and residential schools to adopt proper waste segregation, instal rooftop solar systems, achieve net-zero goals, increase greenery, and maintain clean and hygienic kitchens. Naidu also stressed the need for expansion of air quality monitoring from the current 83 locations by adding 53 manual P4 monitoring stations.  cathode facility in Chittoor E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e @ Vijayawada In a strategic move to strengthen India’s electronics and advanced materials ecosystem, the Government of Andhra Pradesh has approved a `2,550 crore investment by NPSPL Speciality Chemicals Private Limited to establish a cathode material manufacturing facility in Chittoor district. The project, spread across 105 acres in Gudupalle mandal of Chittoor district, is a significant step towards localising one of the most critical components in the electronics and battery value chain. Cathode materials are the core functional component of lithium-ion batteries, determining battery performance, energy density, lifecycle, and safety. They are used across a wide spectrum of high-growth sectors. They include electric vehicles, consumer electronics, energy storage systems and electronics hardware. In essence, no modern battery-and therefore no modern electronics ecosystem-exists without cathode materials. The project places AP at the heart of two converging mega trends of electronics manufacturing scale-up and global energy transition towards electrification. Cathode materials account for a significant share of battery cost. By building domestic capacity, India reduces dependence on imports, particularly from concentrated global supply chains, and strengthens its position in EVs, renewables and electronics P4 manufacturing.