| 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. Prashant Bhushan hearing: Is it a sin to apologise, asks SC In an emotionally charged, sentence hearing today, the Supreme Court wondered at the consistent resolve shown by civil right lawyer Prashant Bhushan to not offer an apology in the face of contempt, saying, "You have hurt someone, you must remove the hurt." "What is wrong in an apology? Is it a sin to apologise?" Justice Arun Mishra asked. The court had earlier given Bhushan a chance to apologise after convicting him for contempt of court. Bhushan had responded yesterday by saying he could not, in good conscience, offer such an apology. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, the country's top law officer, urged the court not to punish Bhushan. He said this was an opportunity for the court to enhance its greatness through its compassion. He suggested the court should "warn Bhushan and let him go." "Many sitting and retired judges have spoken about the institution in the past... It was to tell the court to look within and reform, to seek improvement for advancement of justice. No, it is not necessary to punish him," Venugopal submitted, when the court asked him for guidance. Bhushan's lawyer Rajeev Dhavan said, "This institution must take criticism, and not just criticism but extreme criticism. Your shoulders are broad enough." Dhavan also argued that an apology cannot be coerced, and differed with the attorney general in arguing that even a reprimand was not needed. "Although the attorney general says a reprimand is in order, I'll say a general statement from you is enough. There is no need for a reprimand," Dhavan submitted. "Criticise, but do not attribute motives to us," said Justice Mishra, wrapping up he proceedings. He is due to retire on September 2. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred a 2009 contempt case against Prashant Bhushan. The Bench, led by Justice Mishra, asked that the case be posted before another appropriate Bench on September 10. This particular contempt case was initiated over remarks about judicial corruption that Bhushan had made in an interview to Tehelka magazine in 2009. The case was suddenly listed before Justice Mishra's Bench recently after an eight-year hiatus. Monsoon session of Parliament likely from September 14-October 1 The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs has recommended that the monsoon session of Parliament be held from September 14 to October 1, sources said. There will be a total 18 sittings.  Hectic preparations are underway for the monsoon session of Parliament. File Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Parliament is likely to see several first-time measures, such as a staggered sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and the use of both chambers and galleries to accommodate members, besides strict physical distancing norms, officials said. According to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, members of the Upper House will be seated in both chambers and galleries during the session. Seven lakh users affected by Rail Yatri security breach, report says A data breach at the online travel marketplace RailYatri has affected about 7 lakh users, according to a security report by Safety Detectives research lab. Safety Detectives said it reported the breach to RailYatri, and Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). RailYatri in an official statement said that the server in question was a test server, and was plugged immediately from the network after the security issue was brought into its notice by CERT-In. "We would like to clarify that report suggesting 7,00,000 email addresses were leaked in three days is factually incorrect as it would be impossible for that to happen since the server contains at most a days-worth of data," RailYatri said. Greta Thunberg speaks up for students protesting exams amid pandemic Climate activist Greta Thunberg today spoke up in support of the nationwide "postpone JEE NEET" student movement, saying conducting exams during a pandemic was "deeply unfair" to students. "It is deeply unfair that students of India are asked to sit national exams during the Covid-19 pandemic and while millions have also been impacted by the extreme floods. I stand with their call to #PostponeJEE_NEETinCOVID", tweeted the global icon, who has 4.1 million followers in twitter.  Representational image. Parents and students from across the country have been calling for a postponement of the engineering and medical entrance exams in view of the pandemic and floods in different states. But the government has so far remained firm that the exams will take place as scheduled. The entrance exams for undergraduate engineering courses (JEE) will begin from September 1, while the entrance exam for medical courses (NEET) will be conducted on September 13. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 32,20,879 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 59,449. The Health Ministry today said that India is in conversation with Russia about its Sputnik-5 Covid-19 vaccine, which was recently launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Image used for representation purpose. "As far as Sputnik-5 vaccine is concerned, India and Russia are in communication. Some initial information has been shared," said Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Union Health Ministry. In Brief The Interpol has issued a Red Notice against Ami Modi, wife of the prime accused in the Punjab National Bank fraud case, Nirav Modi. The notice was issued in connection with the money-laundering probe being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate. Modi had left India along with his wife and other family members in the first week of January 2018, shortly before the CBI registered FIRs against them. The ED probe has revealed the alleged role of Ami Modi, a U.S. citizen, in the laundering of funds generated through diversion of loans extended by the bank. At least ten people died and several others were injured after a five-storeyed building collapsed in Maharashtra's Raigad district on Monday evening. About 25 people are still feared trapped in the rubble. Three teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) reached the crash site at 1.10 a.m. on Tuesday. The NDRF personnel managed to rescue a four-year-old boy from the debris. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
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