Twelve Killed in First Rail Accident of 2025; Officials Seek Early Modi-Trump Meeting; Lessons on Pluralism from Netaji, Nitaji's Million Dollar Look

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

January 22, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

As many as 12 passengers aboard the Pushpak Express running between Lucknow and Mumbai were killed when rumours of a fire inside the train drove some of them to step down and get hit by a different train moving in the track adjacent to theirs, PTI reports. The Pushpak Express had halted after someone pulled the emergency chain. A senior railway official said that as per initial information, sparks inside one of Pushpak’s coaches had caused panic.

The Modi government has been under fire for not paying enough attention to rail safety even as the prime minister has launched new luxury and superfast trains to create the impression of an improved train netowrk. A total of 313 passengers were killed in 40 train accidents in the 2023-24 financial year.