Good morning,

After a technical audit showed that over 56% of all rooms in Rajasthan’s government schools were either dilapidated, unusable or required major repair work, the Kheiadi Ka Pura Government School at Manoharthana tehsil in Jhalawar district seems to have found a solution. The district’s Piplodi village, in July 2025, witnessed the death of seven students when the ceiling of a classroom collapsed. The construction of a new building for the school started on Wednesday, six months later. With the School’s building now demolished for being ‘unsafe’, the debris is yet to be cleared, leading two teachers to hold classes in two makeshift classrooms they helped fund.

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

🚨 Big Story

In one of his sharpest attacks on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday picked on the slogan ‘Modi teri kabr khudegi’ about 21 times, linking it to the Opposition party and their questioning of his government’s actions. Replying to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in Rajya Sabha, Modi said those who thought the post of the PM was reserved for their family were bitter that he had not only made it to the office but continued to remain there and were, therefore, running down all his efforts to serve the country.

‘Jo uchit samjha…’: As PM Modi lashed out at the Congress, saying “try as hard as you can, you won’t be able to dig Modi’s grave”, the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi targeted the PM with a reference to an unpublished memoirs of former Army chief M M Naravane, saying, “Jo uchit samjha woh kiya (did what he deemed fit)”. Following PM’s 97-minute address in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Gandhi also alleged he wasn’t allowed to speak in the House as LoP and raise issues regarding national security and India-China relations.

Express Interview: In an interview with The Indian Express, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asserted that the government did not have any issues with MM Naravane, whose unpublished book Four Stars of Destiny was held aloft by Gandhi to target the government over a military face-off with China in August 2020. Sitharaman said the book quotes the PM instructing the Armed Forces as “jo uchit samjho woh karo (Do whatever you deem is appropriate)”. “The Prime Minister gave a blank cheque to the Armed Forces. What more do you want to say?” she says.

‘Harm to PM?’: As the Lok Sabha passed the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address without PM’s reply to the discussion, Speaker Om Birla Thursday said that he had “credible information that several members from the Congress” would create “an unprecedented incident after reaching the Honourable Prime Minister’s seat”, and that it was he who had “requested the Prime Minister not to come to the House” where he was scheduled to speak a day earlier. However, the Congress rejected the charge that its members wanted to cause any harm to the PM. On Wednesday evening, the Lok Sabha was adjourned amid pandemonium after Congress MPs marched towards the treasury benches in protest.

⚡ Only in Express

“India needs solutions. You need tech, innovation to solve day-to-day problems faced by the citizens. And for giving solutions, do we have enough people who can deal with it and get it applied for such situations?”

In an exclusive interview to The Indian Express post-Budget 2026, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlights the strong points of the government, saying that PM Modi himself monitors the last mile of projects. From ‘realistic’ growth estimates, global capital flows, to challenges of implementing higher capex, from AI and youth, US imports, to her upcoming trip to Norway and Canada, FM answers it all. Read the full interview here.

Sitharaman also asserted that the government’s primary objective is to sustain growth, and even though the private sector is “moving out of the passive mode to invest”, the Finance Ministry has continued with the heavy lifting in capital spending in the Budget for 2026-27. The government has allocated Rs 12.22 lakh crore towards capex for next year, which is more than 11.5 per cent compared with 2025-26. Here’s FM defending the Budget.

📰 From the Front Page

Stating that India and the US will formally sign the first tranche of their new trade agreement by mid-March, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that a joint statement on the deal will be released in the next 4-5 days following which US tariffs will come down to 18 per cent through a White House executive order. India will also receive further concessions after the legal agreement. Moreover, on the $500 billion purchase commitment in the agreement, Goyal said the country would need large volumes of energy, data centre equipment, and ICT products.

The US Department of Agriculture has told The Indian Express that India has “significant potential” to step up agricultural imports from their country – earlier hampered by “high” and “unjust” tariffs. This comes after US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Leslie Rollins said the India-US trade deal would expand access for American farm products. The statement comes a day after Piyush Goyal told the Rajya Sabha that “India’s key sensitivities in the food and agriculture sector have been fully taken into account” in trade negotiations with the US.

📌 Must Read

United States President Donald Trump’s announcement that India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil has put New Delhi in a difficult position as it has to balance its longstanding ties with Russia while continuing to work with the Trump administration. Russia has been India’s friend and ally, but it is also friends with China, which adds a layer of complications to New Delhi’s dealings with Moscow. My colleague Shubhajit Roy takes a look at the history of India-Russia ties and the new realities that emerge.

✍️ In our Opinion section today, Surjit S Bhalla delves into a ‘googly’ that has come to light in the Union Budget 2026, in the form of retrospective tax – a new tax on capital gains made via the purchase of SGBs or sovereign gold bonds. Bhalla writes: “Besides being greedy and unfair — retrospective taxes should be illegal — the government is also being petty, and can one dare say it, stupid and counterproductive. Nothing is gained and much is lost in terms of investor confidence via this new tax.”

As the West Bengal government reels under a debt of over Rs 8 lakh crore, it has announced a 4% hike in the dearness allowance (DA) for its government employees. The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress Thursday tabled the interim Budget, even as the Supreme Court has directed it to pay 25 per cent, or an estimated Rs 10,400 crore of the total pending amount from 2008 to 2019 by March 31. The overall Budget outlay remained at Rs 4 lakh crore in 2026-27. Here’s what all the vote-on-account entails for Bengal, one of the most indebted states in the country.

⏳ And Finally…

‘A comeback story’: Tackling Suryakumar Yadav’s lack of runs, or poor form, in December, required open suggestions. Then came a WhatsApp group, ‘Team Hardwork’ comprising current club-level cricketers Ankush Jaiswal, Siddhant Adhatrao and Parikshit Valsangkar, who offered their views. A throwdown specialist was summoned too. ‘Team Hardwork’ however, knew what was running in Surya’s mind. Acting like an unofficial think-tank, it works constantly behind the scenes to make a player who he is. Now, the name of the WhatsApp group has changed to ‘Probables and Possibles’, active not only for Surya but for his team mates/pals too who are trying to find a way to reach their respective goals.

🎧 Lastly, don’t forget to tune in to today’s episode of our 3 Things podcast, where we discuss the Express Investigations into the BJP’s Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, the Manipur conflict and political developments in the state, and a tragic triple suicide case in Ghaziabad.

That’s it for today, have a wonderful day ahead!

Until next time,
Ariba