Anmol Bishnoi: Brother In Crime

The notorious gangster who has been deported to India thrived on publicity

SOON AFTER THE shooting at Salman Khan’s house, Anmol Bishnoi put up a Facebook post claiming responsibility on behalf of the gang that his brother Lawrence Bishnoi led. In filmy style, he directly addressed Khan, “Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel are your gods, but we have two dogs by their names.” It brought the contrast in how the equations of the underworld were changing. Dawood has maintained a low profile for decades, but the Bishnoi gang thrived on publicity, and Anmol’s name featured in their prominent hits. There was the Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala murder in 2022, the firing at Khan’s house in 2024, and, soon after, the roadside murder of Khan’s friend, the politician Baba Siddique. His brother was already in jail, but like Dawood, Anmol had left India to operate from abroad, eventually ending up in the US. He was caught in 2024 for being in the country with fake papers and FBI later found out about his criminal antecedents. Meanwhile, the country’s newly elected president, Donald Trump, had upped the ante on curbing illegal migration. Anmol has just been shuttled over to India and is under the custody of the National Investigation Agency. He was not extradited but deported along with other illegal migrants, a far quicker process.

How much his arrest will curb the gang’s activities remains to be seen. Lawrence has been incarcerated since 2015, but the scope of their criminal operations or the internationalisation of it has actually increased. Like him, jail might not be the last one hears of Anmol. (By Madhavankutty Pillai)

Noisemaker

KC Venugopal: Bad Loser

Congress leader and Rahul Gandhi confidant KC Venugopal has the unenviable task of articulating the decisions of the Congress Working Committee that are often enough dictated by the party high command. Days after the I.N.D.I.A. bloc and Congress in particular were wiped out in the Bihar elections, Venugopal told the media that the party was ready to hit the streets against allegations of voter manipulation. The brazenness of the claim after a stinging rejection at the hustings did not deter Venugopal. After all, Congress darbaris have no other choice.

Ideas

Intimacy

The accepted view in human evolutionary history for a long time has been that our species—modern humans or Homo sapiens—thrived on the planet at the expense of other human species. That when early modern humans migrated out of Africa and encountered others like Neanderthals, they were ruthless and aggressive enough to lead to the extinction of all others. There’s a good reason to hold such a view. All that’s left of species like Neanderthal today, after all, are what we dig up at fossil sites. But in recent times, we have also come to learn that our species didn’t just fight and compete. DNA studies have found that humans of non-African ancestry also carry bits of Neanderthal DNA, revealing there was interbreeding at play too. Now, a new study suggests that Neanderthals and early modern humans were probably intimately acquainted in other ways too. They kissed each other. An earlier study had found that both our species and Neanderthals carried the same oral microbe for hundreds of thousands of years suggesting some swapping of saliva. This new study, carried out by evolutionary biologists from the University of Oxford, suggests that the two species were probably kissing each other. The researchers found that kissing is actually a very ancient trait, and that it evolved in an ancestor of large apes somewhere between 21.5 million and 16.9 million years ago. Neanderthals and our ancestors sharing smooches might seem incongruous to our ideas about our evolutionary past. But perhaps that’s in need of an update.

Money Mantra

Funding A Fortune

Time-tested methods to choose mutual funds

FOR MOST INDIAN investors, mutual funds are the bridge between the safety of bank deposits and the excitement of the stock market. But with thousands of schemes jostling for attention, picking the right one can be overwhelming. A little method, however, goes a long way.

Start with your goal, not with the fund. Are you saving for a downpayment in 3-5 years, your child’s education in 10-12 years, or retirement 25 years away? Short-term goals usually suit debt or hybrid funds, while long-term goals can afford the ups and downs of equity funds. Matching fund type to time horizon is the first filter.

Next, understand your risk appetite. If a 20-25 per cent temporary fall in value will keep you awake at night, a mid-cap or small-cap fund is not for you. Conservative investors might prefer large-cap or balanced advantage funds, while aggressive investors can explore flexi-cap, midcap, and sector funds. Use basic risk-profiling tools offered by platforms and advisors; they are not perfect, but they clarify your comfort zone. Performance matters, but context matters more. Do not chase last year’s stars. Instead, evaluate 3-5 year returns across market cycles and compare the fund with its benchmark index and category average. Check consistency: has the fund beaten its benchmark most of the time, or just in 1-2 lucky years?

Cost is another quiet but powerful factor. For most investors, regular plans through distributors are convenient, but direct plans offer lower expense ratios—and higher net return over time. Also compare portfolio turnover—excessively high churn can add hidden costs.

Look closely at the fund house and fund manager. Established AMCs with strong research process and experienced fund managers inspire more confidence.

Finally, keep it simple. Two or four well-chosen, diversified funds are enough for most portfolios. Invest via SIPs, review annually, and resist the urge to tinker with every market move. In mutual fund investing, discipline usually matters more than discovery. (By Moinak Mitra)

Viral

Con Artist Poses As Professor

A Korean content creator named Walter K is walking around Rajeev Chowk in Delhi when an elderly man with a pleasant disposition approaches him. The man, it turns out, is a professor who offers to show the tourist around. In the viral video that Walter uploaded on Instagram, the two strike up a friendship, as the professor guides him through the city and a number of its locations. But as becomes evident, something is off. The genial senior citizen isn’t quite pleasant. He is probably not even a professor. A horrid time ensues as the tourist realises that the person showing him around is actually a scammer trying to con unsuspecting tourists. He struggles to get away and to fend off the individual’s attempt to extort money, until he finally screams for help and the scammer flees. “It was a big lesson for me,” the tourist would write on Instagram. “I was reminded once again that everywhere, there are both good and bad people.”