Late on Saturday night, police detained two more Nihang Sikhs from the Singhu-Kundli protest site, and are questioning them.
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Big Story
The latest Congress Working Committee meeting, the first in five months, ended on a familiar note — clamour for Rahul Gandhi’s return as party chief. But what is different this time around is that we finally have a date for electing the president. And Rahul doesn’t want to take over because “some CWC members” want him to, he is open to a challenge, according to a leader close to him.
Pandora Papers
A Kolkata-based businessman, who has been slapped with the biggest ever Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) notice of Rs 7,220 crore, opened offshore firms through Trident Trust Company, records in the Pandora Papers investigated by The Indian Express reveal.
From the Front Page
A second person “surrendered” in connection with the lynching of a 35-year-old at the farmer protest site in Singhu on the Delhi-Haryana border. As the Haryana administration, wary of repercussions, proceeded with caution, sources said the Nihangs had been persuaded to hand the accused over, as police did not want to provoke a reaction by making a search and arrest.
In yet another instance of targeted attacks on civilians, especially non-Muslims, two non-locals were killed by militants in Kashmir. While Arvind Kumar Sah, a street vendor from Bihar, was shot in the head from point-blank range in Srinagar, reports came minutes later of Sageer Ahmad, a carpenter belonging to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, being fired at in Litter village of south Kashmir’s Pulwama.
There is a strong likelihood of Indiranagar ka goonda returning to international cricket to terrorise opposition teams, albeit as a coach. The Board of Control for Cricket in India has managed to convince Rahul Dravid to apply for the national team coach’s post, which will fall vacant after the T20 World Cup. The board wants Dravid to take up the responsibility till 2023.
Must Read
A pandemic-induced boom in the education-linked ed-tech sector has spurred a scramble for deals among the top players, amid record fund flows. During the first nine months of 2021, the ed-tech sector saw mergers and acquisitions worth more than $3.35 billion, more than three times the consolidated amounts raised in the last two years — $416 million in 2020 and $783 million in 2019.
P Chidambaram on the growing disregard for human rights in the country: “In the last three years, the Prime Minister has not uttered a word on the human rights of the prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon case nor on the prolonged delay in even framing the charges, in a case prosecuted by the agency under his charge, the NIA. Needless to say, the trial has not started.”
Amit Khare, who has helmed at least two of the most high-profile government policies in recent times, the NEP and IT Rules, has now been appointed advisor to the Prime Minister. Widely known as a “doer”, the retired bureaucrat had a reputation of being able to “read the mind of his bosses”, as a result of which he spent his career straddling key ministries and roles.
For most residents of the Kashmiri Pandit settlements across Jammu, the recent targeted killings of civilians in the valley has left them feeling uneasy. The constant feeling of fear and foreboding, which was slowly starting to fade away, is now wriggling its way back into these settlements. “When Article 370 was abrogated, the Pandits felt they could return. However, the killings have destroyed all that was achieved,” one resident said.
And Finally
In his new book ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis’, Amitav Ghosh offers an intriguing examination of the mounting climate crisis, through a prism of history, politics, economy and philosophy. In an interview with The Indian Express, he talks about the clear and present danger that is climate change and connecting the dots between colonialism, capitalism and ecological imbalance in his new work of non-fiction.
Until tomorrow,
Leela Prasad G and Rahel Philipose
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