| Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day's biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying safe. Gehlot and Pilot agree to forgive and forget, and move forward After a month-long political turmoil, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Congress leader Sachin Pilot met today at the former's residence in Jaipur. They will be attending the Congress Legislature Party meeting a day before the State Assembly begins. "Whatever misunderstanding occurred in the party in the last one month, we need to forgive and forget in the interest of the country, the State, the people and democracy," Gehlot said, adding, "We have to put all our energies in this fight to save democracy with the spirit of forgive and forget and move forward." The Congress has also revoked the suspension of MLAs Bhanwarlal Sharma and Vishvendra Singh who were supporting Pilot during the month-long crisis. But the Rajasthan government's battle for survival might be far from over. BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao today told party MLAs in Rajasthan that the Congress government's survival is temporary and they should prepare for its fall before the five-year tenure is up. Ram temple trust head who shared stage with PM tests positive for Covid-19 Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust chief Mahant Nritya Gopal Das (82) tested positive for Covid-19 in Mathura on Wednesday. Confirming this, Sarvagya Ram Mishra, District Magistrate, Mathura, said the Mahant complained of fever and breathlessness following which doctors were called and a rapid antigen test was conducted. The test came out positive.  Ram temple trust head Nritya Gopal Das (without face mask), who tested positive for COVID-19, is seen with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (left) and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat (right) during the bhoomi pujan ceremony for the temple in Ayodhya on Augus 5, 2020. "Doctors who have checked on him have said he was stable. The fever has come down. However, on the directions of the CM, Mahantji is being shifted to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram," Mishra told reporters. Das was among the five people on the stage at the ground-breaking ceremony in Ayodhya on August 5. The others on the stage with him were Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Governor Anandiben Patel, and Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Varanasi doctors tender mass resignations alleging harassment Over two dozen doctors in-charge of Covid-19 treatment in Varanasi submitted mass resignations, accusing the administration of harassment after an Additional Chief Medical Officer (ACMO) died due to the disease and the wrong body was handed over to his family for last rites. In an application to the district Chief Medical Officer, the doctors claimed the District Magistrate had threatened to lodge an FIR against them if they failed to fulfil their targets. They claimed the administration was blaming them for Covid-19 deaths in the district. The doctors also asked under what circumstances ACMO Jung Bahadur Singh died and if the administration would be responsible for it, as even Dr. Singh had been threatened with dismissal. They speculated if the death was due to "shock." CMO V.B. Singh on Thursday, however, said all the doctors who had resigned were working as they withdrew their application. S.K Mathur, Medical Superintendent of BHU Hospital, said a committee was formed to probe the facts and circumstances leading to the mix-up of bodies. Mathur said Dr. Singh died in the early hours of Wednesday, while being treated for Covid-19. The same day, the body of another patient from Ghazipur was brought to the mortuary, where they were kept in "similar type of body bags," Mathur said. The matter came to light after the family of the second patient reached the cremation ghat and claimed that the body on the pyre was not their relative's. SC allows withdrawal of petition challenging constitutional validity of contempt provision The Supreme Court on Thursday has allowed veteran journalists N. Ram, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan to withdraw their writ petition challenging "scandalising of court" as a ground for contempt, with liberty to approach a High Court. A three-judge Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra, however, insisted that the writ petitioners could not withdraw the case with an intention to straightaway move the Supreme Court later on. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, for the petitioners, agreed, saying they would approach the appropriate forum, that is, the High Court concerned.  Economist and journalist Arun Shourie and The Hindu Group Chairman N. Ram (R). File Dhavan said though the issue represented in the writ petition was important, "this is not the propitious stage". They would like to file it "maybe after two months," Dhavan submitted. The petition was earlier dropped from the list of cases scheduled for hearing before a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on August 10 because it was accompanied by an application to stay contempt cases pending against Bhushan before another Bench (Justice Mishra's). This might have rendered the matter virtually infructuous as Justice Mishra's Bench has already decided to hear on merits the 2009 contempt case against Bhushan in which 'scandalising the court' is very much the subject. This case is based on remarks about "judicial corruption" made by Bhushan in an interview to Tehelka magazine. The court has listed the case for hearing on August 17. Meanwhile, a three-judge Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra is scheduled to pronounce tomorrow its judgment in the suo motu contempt case against Bhushan for his tweet on a photograph of Chief Justice Sharad A. Bobde astride a bike and another on role of the apex court in the past six years. Bhushan has maintained that the tweets amounted to "criticism" and not contempt. Congress spokesperson Rajiv Tyagi's death triggers debate on TV shouting matches Prime time TV debates these days are mostly high decibel affairs featuring multiple panellists speaking over each other and the moderator. The heat of those battles is widely seen as having caused a high profile casualty after Congress spokesperson Rajiv Tyagi died yesterday, shortly after participating in a Hindi news channel's debate show on the Bengaluru riots. Among other things, Tyagi was apparently called a traitor and a 'fake Hindu' by another panellist.  An undated photo of Congress leader Rajiv Tyagi. The whole matter has stirred up some party leaders to comment on the need for sobriety in such debates. Former Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Manish Tewari blamed the government for failing to maintain a 'modicum of civility', and Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill wrote to I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar saying most TV debates "coerce spokespersons to surrender to a slanderous, defamatory and vicious atmosphere to feed the monster of sensationalism". Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel took to Twitter to ask TV channel owners and editors to reflect on the nature of these debates. Speaking to The Hindu, Tewari said, "Rajiv Tyagi's death should be a trigger for the Ministry to revisit their stand on these theatrics that pass off as prime time debates." Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of coronavirus cases reported from India stood at 24,51,394 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 48,071. India on Thursday recorded reported nearly 67,000 new cases in 24 hours, a new record. Pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila announced the launch of what it said was the cheapest generic version of anti-viral drug remdesivir for Covid-19 treatment in India. One 100 gram vial of the medicine will cost ₹2,800. The condition of former President Pranab Mukherjee remains unchanged, said the Army Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi. "He is deeply comatose with stable vital parameters and continues to be on ventilator support," the hospital added. In Brief: Beginning Thursday, U.S. Facebook users who post about voting may start seeing an add-on to their messages -- labels directing readers to authoritative information about the upcoming presidential election. In yet another step to counter election-related misinformation on its platform, Facebook began adding similar links to posts about in-person and mail-in balloting by federal politicians, including U.S. President Donald Trump, in July. Kim Jong-un said his relationship with Donald Trump was like a "fantasy film", according to the publishers of a new book on the U.S. President that will unveil 25 private letters exchanged between the two leaders. The relationship between the pair has been a key driver of recent diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang, veering from mutual insults and threats of war to a declaration of love from Trump. According to the publisher Simon & Schuster, investigative journalist Bob Woodward managed to obtain, for his book, messages between the two leaders "that have not been public before". The NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) for undergraduate medical courses cannot be held online for candidates abroad, the National Testing Agency (NTA) has told the Supreme Court. The specialised body, which conducts examinations for higher educational courses, said the Medical Council of India (MCI) had made it very clear that NEET was only held in the paper-book format for all candidates. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
Post a Comment