| 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. SC gives telecom companies 10 years to pay AGR dues The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed telecom companies (telcos) 10 years time to pay their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues to the government. The government had earlier suggested a 20-year-formula for telcos to make staggered payments of the dues. An October 2019 judgement of the court in the AGR issue had originally wanted the telcos to make the repayment in three months. But the Centre had intervened, saying it would create a huge financial crisis in the telecom sector. The court had said 15 or 20 years was not a reasonable time period. On Tuesday, a Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra said there would be no re-assessment of the dues. The first 10% dues should be paid by March 31, 2021. The chairmen and managing directors of the telcos should sign undertakings to follow the court judgment. The AGR dues should be paid as yearly instalments from April 1, 2021 till March 31, 2031. Any default would attract contempt proceedings. The Bench had categorically said it would not tolerate "even for a second" any attempt to re-assess the AGR dues, which is currently at ₹1.6 lakh crore. It had disagreed with the telcos' suggestion to at least provide 15 or 20 years to pay the dues. Allahabad HC orders release of Dr Kafeel Khan, revokes NSA charges  Kafeel Khan The Allahabad High Court has ordered the immediate release of Dr Kafeel Khan, who has been in jail since January 29 for a speech he delivered at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on December 12, 2019 during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests. The court said the prosecution had failed to produce corroborative evidence to show that Khan's speech promoted hatred or violence. Passing damning remarks against the Aligarh district magistrate for doing a "selective reading" of Khan's speech, the bench, comprising Chief Justice Govind Marhur and Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh, said, "In absence of any material indicating that the detainee continued to act in a manner prejudicial to public order from December 12, 2019 up to February 13, 2020, or that he committed any such other or further act as may have had that effect, the preventive detention order cannot be sustained." The order further declared that Khan's extended detention was illegal. "The order of detention dated 13th February, 2020 passed by District Magistrate, Aligarh and confirmed by the State of Uttar Pradesh is set aside. The extension of the period of detention of detenue Dr. Kafeel Khan is also declared illegal." Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi, who had in July written to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking justice for Khan, welcomed the court order. "The Allahabad High Court today ordered the removal of NSA and immediate release of Dr. Kafeel Khan. It is expected that the UP government will release Dr. Kafeel Khan without any malice," she said in a tweet in Hindi. Loan moratoriums 'capable of being extended for two years', Centre tells SC  Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the RBI, on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that the loan moratoriums introduced during the Covid-19 lockdown could be "extendable to two years". Appearing before a Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan, Mehta was asked whether the moratorium, which was to expire on August 31, had been extended. "It is extended... It is extendable to two years," Mehta submitted. He later clarified that his submission meant the moratorium is "capable of being extended" as per an RBI circular. During the hearing, Mehta said several sectors were under stress. "We are in the process of identifying the distressed sectors to vary benefits as per the impact of hit they have taken. We are trying our best to solve the problem," Mehta submitted. He urged the Supreme Court not to take an adversarial view of the issue. 'China won't be the first to escalate' says foreign minister Wang Yi  China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday that Beijing "will not be the first to complicate or escalate the situation" along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. Speaking after a speech in France where he is on an official visit, Wang said because "the boundary between China and India has not yet been demarcated, there will always be problems of this kind." On recent developments on the border, he said, "What I want to tell you is that China has always been committed to maintaining stability in the Sino-Indian border areas. We will not be the first to complicate or escalate the situation. Of course, we will firmly safeguard our sovereignty and territorial integrity." He said China was "ready to manage all issues through dialogue" and called on India to "place the issues in an appropriate position in the bilateral relationship." On the other hand, on the same day, China's Foreign Ministry accused India of "breaking earlier consensus" and called on India to "immediately withdraw its troops" in statements issued in Beijing and New Delhi that questioned India's account of the latest tensions. The Indian Army had on Monday said that on August 29 night, the PLA violated previous agreements and carried out "provocative" military movements to change the status quo, and that India had taken appropriate measures to pre-empt these moves. Congress steps up attack over GDP contraction  Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. File The collapse of the Indian economy started with the November 2016 demonetisation, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday. "GDP -23.9. The destruction of the country's economy started with the demonetisation. Since then, the government has been bringing in wrong policies one after another," he tweeted. Echoing him, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted the "chronology" of the slide. "1. Demonetisation & botched up GST killed growth. 2. Tax cuts put money in hands of corporates instead of people. Consumption collapsed. 3. Unplanned lockdown led to total meltdown of economy. When will Govt wake up instead of covering up?" he said. Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram lauded the stance taken by various states with regard to GST compensation and asserted that the Centre should bear the burden of additional borrowing. In a series of tweets, Chidambaram called the options "bogus". He said, "Congratulations to the finance ministers of Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, West Bengal, Telangana and Delhi for rejecting the bogus twin options given by the central government to bridge the GST Compensation gap. As far as I know, Rajasthan and Puducherry have also rejected the two options. Happy that Tamil Nadu has also rejected the two options." Delhi HC grants bail to Pinjra Tod member Devangana Kalita in riots case The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted bail to Pinjra Tod activist Devangana Kalita, arrested in connection with the northeast Delhi riots case, noting that the police have failed to produce any material showing her delivering a hate speech. She will, however, will continue to remain in jail, as she has managed to secure bail in only three of the four cases registered against her, and the Delhi police has invoked sections of the stringent anti-terror law — Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act — in a separate case against her. The bail given to Kalita is in connection with an FIR registered on February 26, 2020, which is being investigated by the Crime Branch. She is currently facing four different FIRs in connection with the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests in Jafrabad, the northeast Delhi riots, and violence in Daryaganj during a protest against the new citizenship law last year. Delivering his order, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait highlighted that persons similarly placed as Kalita had not been arrested by the investigating agency while she continued to be kept under custody. Kalita was first arrested on May 23, along with fellow JNU student Natasha Narwal, in relation to an FIR registered on February 24 over the sit-in protest at Jaffrabad Metro station against the CAA. Covid watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 37,59,989 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 66,451. In Brief: Former President Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away on Monday, was cremated with full military honours on Tuesday. The last rites were performed by his son Abhijit Mukherjee at the Lodhi crematorium on Tuesday. Earlier, Mukherjee's mortal remains were placed at his residence, 10 Rajaji Marg, to enable dignitaries and the general public to pay their last respects. French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015, on Tuesday said it was republishing the hugely controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, to mark the start of the trial this week of the alleged accomplices of the attackers. "We will never lie down. We will never give up," its director Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau wrote in an editorial that would go with the republished cartoons in its latest edition. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
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