15022026-TTC-01.qxd 2/15/2026 12:28 AM Page 1 c m y b 123 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 10 NO. 45 | 24 PAGES | ~7.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2024-2026 ESTABLISHED IN 1881 BANGLADESH FIRST: TARIQUE ON FOREIGN POLICY WORLD /thetribunechd CRPF DG PAYS TRIBUTES TO FALLEN PULWAMA HEROES J&K WOMEN REDEFINING CDS DISMISSES PAK’S CONSERVATION OF SNOW ‘VICTORY’ CLAIMS IN OP LEOPARD SPECTRUM SINDOOR BACK PAGE sunday | 15 february 2026 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com Cabinet shows greenlight to expand Delhi-Ambala rail corridor at ~5,983 cr ~18,509 cr for laying third, fourth lines on 3 key links Tribune News Service Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the North-East’s first emergency landing facility on the Moran Bypass in Dibrugarh on Saturday. ANI PMunveils N-E’s 1st emergency airstrip Makes historic landing on Dibrugarh highway | Launches ~5,500-cr projects Tribune News Service BOUNTY FOR ASSAM New Delhi, February 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday made a historic touchdown at the first Emergency Landing Facility (ELF) of the North-East aboard the C-130J aircraft in Assam’s Dibrugarh district. This ELF is a portion of the road, constructed with a specific density of concrete to allow operations for all types of aircraft — fighters, transport and helicopters. The PM inaugurated the facility in the poll-bound state by making the first landing on the 4.2-km stretch of a highway. This stretch can be used by the armed forces in case of an exigency The PM launched projects worth ~5,500 cr in pollbound Assam. He unveiled ~3,030-cr Kumar Bhaskar Varma Bridge, connecting Guwahati and North Guwahati; ~555-cr temporary campus of IIM-Guwahati and ~348-cr AI-enabled hyperscale data centre. The PM also flagged off 225 e-buses, including 25 for Chandigarh. << PM walks on Kumar Bhaskar Varma Bridge after unveiling it at Lachit Ghat, Guwahati. ANI if airbases get damaged. PM Modi also launched projects worth over Rs 5,500 crore, including a bridge on the Brahmaputra, the Indian Institute of Management Guwahati and a data centre for the northeastern region. The six-lane bridge will cut travel time between Guwahati and north Guwahati to just seven minutes from 30 minutes. The four-lane ELF project, conceptualised in 2021, was completed in 2025 at a cost of Rs 100 crore. Such IAF landings on highways have been done in other parts of the country, including in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The National Highways Authority of India has planned 19 more landing strips, including two each in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, one each in Punjab and UP and three each in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Later, Modi drove to the venue nearby, from where he witnessed an aerial display of IAF fighter and transport aircraft along with helicopters. continued on page 6 Drama artiste:Goyal on Pb cops to seek first-ever Rahul ‘anti-farmer’ jibe ‘silver notices’ to freeze Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 14 Political slugfest around the recently announced India-US trade deal escalated further with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal calling Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi a “drama artiste perpetrating lies” after the Congress leader termed it “antifarmer” and “anti-textile sector”. Attacking the government, Rahul said Bangladesh had managed an advantage, with zero per cent tariff on garment exports to the US with the condition that they imported US cotton, as opposed to Indian garments, which faced 18 per cent US tariffs. “Eighteen per cent tariff vs 0 per cent - Let me explain how the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are spreading confusion on this issue. And how they are cheating India’s cotton farmers and textile Govt, Oppn spar over India-US trade deal exporters through the IndiaUS trade deal,” Rahul said. The Congress leader added that in an answer to his query about Bangladesh’s advantage, a minister said if India wanted the same concession, it would also need to import US cotton. “Why was this fact hidden from the country till now? And what kind of policy is this? Is this really any kind of choice — or is it a trap designed to push us into a ‘well in front, ditch behind’ situation?” Rahul said. Goyal hit back, saying Rahul was trying to sabotage India’s growth story with his politics of negativity. Rejecting Rahul’s remarks that the trade deal was anti-farmer, Goyal said: “Rahul continued on page 6 gangsters’ assets abroad Jupinderjit Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, February 14 In a first such move, the Punjab Police are in the process of getting silver notices issued from the Interpol to freeze moveable and immoveable assets of gangsters living abroad. The police had recently prepared a list of 61 “most active” gangsters behind extortion threats from abroad, attacks on rival gangsters or targeted killing of politicians/important individuals in the state. Extradition proceedings against 38 of them are already underway, DGP Gaurav Yadav had announced last week. The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) of the Punjab Police is handling this process. ADGP LK Yadav, DirectorBOI, told The Tribune that KEY INTERPOL TOOL Unlike Interpol red notice that seeks arrest of individuals, silver notice allows member countries to trace and seize overseas criminal assets linked to fraud, corruption, drug trafficking and organised crime Interpol started issuing silver notices — a color-coded alert designed to help member countries trace, identify, monitor, and recover criminal assets linked to serious offences such as fraud, corruption, drug trafficking and organised crime — in January 2025. Unlike a red notice, which seeks the arrest of individuals, a silver notice focuses on locating laundered proceeds, including properties, vehicles, bank accounts, and businesses. continued on page 6 Op Sundayoor: Upbeat India look to tame Pak SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE NON-COMMITTAL ON T20 TIE HANDSHAKE SHISHIR HATTANGADI India and Pakistan captains Suryakumar Yadav and Salman Ali Agha remained non-committal on whether their teams will shake hands before or after their high-octane T20 World Cup clash in Colombo on Sunday. “Wait for 24 hours,” said Suryakumar. “Wait till tomorrow,” echoed Salman. W ITH the surround sound of politics and revenue-sharing finally settled, Sri Lanka is set to host the mother of all games in Colombo on Sunday, a contest that carries far more than just the promise of cricket. India versus Pakistan is never merely the marquee act of a tournament; it is the emotional and commercial ignition point around which the competition finds its rhythm. India had launched Operation Sindoor to demolish Pakistan’s terror infrastructure in May 2025. As such, memory, grievance, pride and expectation travel with the teams onto the field, turning a cricket match into a moment of national theatre. << Suryakumar Yadav, Gautam Gambhir and others during a practice session in Colombo. PTI Every T20 World Cup writes its own grammar. Some teams speak in raw power, others in control, and the best sides are fluent in both. As the tournament unfolds, India and Pakistan—cricket’s most scruti- nised heavyweights, for both revenue and geopolitics—are revealing two distinct but equally potent templates for success in this volatile format. But their influence stretches beyond tactics and team balance. When these two meet, the tournament itself bends around the commercial gravity of the fixture. India’s strength lies in layers of disruption. Varun Chakravarthy remains the mystery card, a bowler who continued on page 6 Today’s issue is of 24 pages, including six-page Spectrum and four page Jalandhar Tribune. c m y b New Delhi, February 14 The Union Cabinet has approved three railway capacity-enhancement projects worth Rs 18,509 crore involving the construction of the third and fourth lines on the Delhi-Ambala, Kasara–Manmad (Maharashtra) and the Ballari-Hosapete (Karnataka) corridors. The 194-km Delhi–Ambala corridor expansion would be completed within four years at a cost of Rs 5,983 crore, the government said in a statement. “The project will provide better linkages to key religious destinations, including Vaishno Devi at Katra in Jammu, and tourist hotspot Srinagar. Once complete, the lines will enhance the freight capacity by 24.6 million tonnes per year. The lines will consist of 28 major and 178 minor bridges, two road overbridges, 79 underbridges and 415 km of tracks,” it said. The 131-km Kasara-Manmad line will have a track length of 316 km and cost Rs 10,154 crore. It will remove UK, allies say Russia poisoned Navalny LONDON: Five European nations say Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin, and have blamed Russia for it. The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples from Navalny, who died two years ago, “have conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine”. INSIDE Indian student goes missing in California NEW YORK: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw briefs the media on Cabinet decisions in New Delhi on Saturday. MUKESH AGGARWAL COUNTRY’S FIRST UNDERWATER TUNNEL IN ASSAM ■ Cabinet approves India’s first 34-km-long twin-tube underwater road-cum-rail tunnel in Assam at ~18,662 cr ■ Clearance to road projects worth over ~11,000 crore in Maharashtra, Gujarat & Telangana the need for banking engines on Kasara–Igatpuri gradients, and add 46.1 million tonnes of freight capacity annually. The initiative would likely save 54 crore kg of CO2 a year (equivalent to planting 2.2 crore trees), cut logistics ■ 11.56 km metro extension from NoidaSec142toBotanicalGarden ■ ~1 lakh crore Urban Challenge Fund to drive market-led urban transformation ■ Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 with ~10,000 cr corpus costs by about Rs 1,207 crore per year and create roughly 89 lakh human days of work. The Ballari–Hosapete route length is 65 km while the track length is 149 km. The project will cost Rs 2,372 crore continued on page 6 A 22-year-old Indian postgraduate student has gone missing in the state of California in the United States, prompting efforts by authorities to locate him. Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a UC Berkeley student hailing from Karnataka, disappeared on Tuesday, local media reported, quoting the police. INSIDE 1dead,3hurtaspart ofMetrobridgefalls MUMBAI: One person died and three others were injured after a slab of the girder bridge of an under-construction Metro rail line collapsed on a few vehicles on Saturday, the police said. A fire brigade official identified the deceased as Ramdhan Yadav and the injured as Rajkumar Indrajeet Yadav (45), Mahendra Pratap Yadav (52) and Deepa Ruhiya (40). INSIDE
The Tribune, now published from Chandigarh, started publication on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan). It was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising four eminent persons as trustees.
The Tribune, the largest selling daily in North India, publishes news and views without any bias or prejudice of any kind. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language and partisanship, are the hallmarks of the paper. It is an independent newspaper in the real sense of the term.
The English edition apart, the 133-year-old Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).