Good morning,

Ahead of the wheat harvest season, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to test a modified algorithm intended to monitor farm fire events better. This move comes amid concerns that existing satellite-based fire counts may not accurately reflect the number and extent of farm fires that are lit to get rid of crop residue after harvesting. The pilot testing will evaluate whether the tweaked algorithm produces a more accurate picture of the scale and timing of the stubble-burning, according to senior government officials. The harvesting of winter wheat begins in late March every year and continues into April and sometimes May.

With that, let’s move on to the top stories from today’s edition:

🚨 Big Story

India and the US are likely to sign the Pax Silica declaration on Friday, a month after US Ambassador Sergio Gor announced that India would be invited to join the US-led initiative. Pax Silica is aimed at bringing “friendly and trusted” countries together to ensure that key technologies are safe, reliable, and not controlled by hostile play. This strategic initiative was launched as a counter to China’s grip on the global manufacturing supply chain, on December 12 last year to “reduce coercive dependencies” and build a “secure, prosperous, and innovation-driven silicon supply chain,” including critical minerals and energy inputs, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics.

Fiasco: Galgotias University’s eviction from Bharat Mandapam’s Hall 6 because of its Chinese robot dog on display has put the spotlight on how space was allotted to exhibitors at the India AI Impact Summit. The exhibition space at the Expo was leased out on a first-come, first-served basis under the supervision of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY). It did not involve any formal vetting of what the participating institutions planned to showcase. The University was allotted a 155-square-metre booth on demand – more than 15% of the space allotted to four IITs and a research institution put together.

In our Opinion columns today, C Raja Mohan hails the India AI Impact Summit as a “decisive shift in the global conversation on artificial intelligence,” where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Donald Trump reflect a shared understanding that AI’s disruptive power must be harnessed rather than restrained. Raja Mohan writes: “For Trump, the goal is plain — American domination of the AI universe in a race he sees primarily against China. For Modi, the aspiration is to use AI to accelerate India’s economic transformation and secure a rightful place for the world’s largest democracy in the fast-evolving global hierarchy of technological power.”

Don’t Miss: It’s been less than four years since OpenAI, a young Silicon Valley company, unveiled ChatGPT, the general purpose conversational AI tool that stunned the world with its capabilities. On Friday, Sam Altman, the 40-year-old CEO of OpenAI, who is here for the AI Impact Summit, will be the guest at the Express Adda. He will be in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express Group.

⚡ Only in Express

Good old days: Asif alias Naeem’s journey through the legal systems of India and Bangladesh began in August 2004, when he and five others were accused of the murder of a man and conspiring to commit dacoity at a residence in Delhi’s Mansarovar Park. Although Asif had not pleaded guilty, the six accused were sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment in 2010. The Delhi High Court upheld the sentence in 2014 and the Supreme Court dismissed Asif’s appeal in 2019. It’s the story of a dacoity that went wrong, and took a turn towards a jail — in Dhaka. Years later, the story returned to the Delhi High Court. In a remarkable verdict facilitated by a bilateral agreement between India and Bangladesh, the HC gave the green signal for Asif to be set free for good behaviour — in Dhaka.

📰 From the Front Page

Gaza Peace Plan: India, on Thursday, joined the meeting of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, focusing on the reconstruction of Gaza and mobilising an international stabilisation force, as an observer. Represented by Namgya C. Khampa, Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington, DC, India was one of the dozen countries which opted to participate as observers without joining the board. Others include Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

‘Fortune, not fear’: PM Modi, in his speech at the opening ceremony of the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday, underlined that India does not “fear” AI but sees both “fortune” and “the future” in it. He called for developing AI as a “global common good”, one which “will benefit the world only when it is shared”. Addressing the gathering of global leaders and founders and CEOs of tech giants, Modi said “India thinks differently” from “some countries and companies” who “believe AI is a ‘strategic asset’ and must be developed confidentially”.

📌 Must Read

In our Opinion section today, Rajat Kathuria delves into the persistent weakness that governs India’s economic trajectory, that is, the gap between ambition and execution. Underlining similarities between the Union Budget 2026 and the AI Summit, Kathuria writes: “Designed to showcase India’s technological readiness and global leadership in digital infrastructure, the event simultaneously revealed familiar administrative weaknesses. Participants encountered long queues, overcrowding, and most strikingly, cash-only payment counters inside a summit celebrating digital transformation and UPI. The irony is hard to ignore.”

Gold over Equities: What has remained unchanged for Indian households over centuries is their love for gold as an investment, even though how the money gets channelled into the precious metal has differed from time to time. And one route to gold as an investment that illustrates the financialisation and formalisation of household savings and at the same time, has become an increasingly bigger driver of its import are exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In essence, ETFs are mutual funds that invest in gold. It is better to invest in gold ETFs than in physical gold. But what began as a trickle in March 2007 in India became a veritable wave in January. My colleague Siddharth Upasani explains.

⏳ And Finally…

At the ICC T20 World Cup this year, Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav and his power hitters have encountered hundreds of colourless spinners in the domestic circuit, writes Sandip G. What makes these spinners colourless, though? Borrowing from a novel tactic deployed by the visionary Martin Crowe in the 1992 ODI World Cup, all the rival captains have used seemingly ordinary off-spinners to handcuff India’s power-packed top-order batsmen. “It has worked tellingly, to such an extent that it has emerged as the unforeseen tragic flaw of this wondrously knit batting unit.” Now, how India would deal with the off-spin blemish, tactically, would define the Super Eights.

🎧 Lastly, don’t forget to tune in to today’s episode of our 3 Things podcast, where The Indian Express’ Rinku Ghosh and Shashank Bhargava speak with Dr Kamini Walia of the Indian Council of Medical Research about what is driving the antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, in India and what can be done to slow it.

That’s all for today. Have a wonderful day!

Until next time,
Ariba