1. Nitish Back As CM to Face Old Allies in Floor Test Today
Within 18 hours of resigning as Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar took oath again on Thursday as the head of the government for the sixth time with the BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi as his deputy.
He will seek a trust vote on Friday after re-forging a partnership with the BJP, four years after he walked out of the NDA.
His surprise resignation sank the three-party “grand alliance” of his Janata Dal (United), Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress that defeated the BJP in the 2015 state elections.
Source: The Hindustan Times
2. Case Slapped on Lalu as Nitish Retakes Reins
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday registered a money laundering case against Lalu Prasad and his family within minutes of Nitish Kumar returning as Bihar chief minister with the BJP's support.
The case was lodged in connection with the FIR lodged earlier by the CBI against the RJD chief and his family in the hotels-for-land case. The case dates back to 2005-2006 when Lalu Prasad was railway minister in the UPA-I government.
The CBI case pertains to rigging a tender process in 2005-2006 to award the sublease of railway hotels in Ranchi and Puri to hoteliers in exchange for three acres of prime land in Patna routed through a benami company. Acting on the CBI’s FIR, we have registered a money laundering case against Lalu Prasad and his family members.ED Official
Source: Telegraph
3. Congress Politicising Abducted Indians Issue: Sushma Swaraj
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday accused the Congress-led Opposition for politicising the issue of 39 missing Indians in Iraq, and rejected the charge, levelled by Congress’s Pratap Singh Bajwa, that she was misleading the country about the fate of the abducted men.
Agitated at the accusation in Rajya Sabha, Swaraj asked, “Why should I apologise? That I did not declare them dead?”
The Congress, however, tried to corner her by saying that the government has been moving the goal posts all through and demanded that the minister provide at least “one proof” for her belief that the missing men are alive.
Source: The Indian Express
4. Doval Discusses ‘Major Problems’ With Top Chinese Diplomat in Beijing
India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi discussed “major problems” in bilateral relations during a meeting in Beijing on Thursday, the first substantial contact since the two sides became engaged in a military standoff in Doklam (Donglang) area near the Sikkim border in mid-June.
Details of their discussions were not immediately available but a brief readout from the Chinese side said Yang brought up “bilateral issues” and “major problems” during the meeting.
Doval is in Beijing to attend a two-day BRICS security summit but the focus has been on his bilateral interactions with the Chinese leadership against the backdrop of the standoff and intense speculation on whether the two sides would begin a conversation to ease tensions, if not resolve the impasse.
Source: The Hindustan Times
5. Al-Qaeda Names Zakir Musa Its India Chief
The counter-insurgency cell of the J&K police is monitoring the write-ups and the propaganda material of the Al-Qaeda that mention Zakir Musa as the commander of its new Kashmir group.
A top police officer told The Hindu that the cell was keeping a watch on Musa, a Kashmir-born militant, whose name first appeared in an Arabic publication close to the Al-Qaeda in May.
“We are monitoring the Musa group’s activity and its connections across the borders,” the officer said.
The UK-based Guardian newspaper reported that Al-Qaeda “has formally announced the establishment of a new Kashmir-based terror group Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind headed by Musa.”
Source: The Hindu
6. No Immediate Arrests in Dowry Harassment Cases: SC
The Supreme Court today ruled that arrests under Section 498A that deals with domestic cruelty could be carried out only on the advice of civil society panels that must be set up in every district.
Arrests under the section should not be routine unless there is tangible injury, the court added.
A two-judge bench passed a slew of directives to pre-empt harassment of accused under the Indian Penal Code’s Section 498A that can send guilty husbands and their relatives to up to three years in jail. Conviction rates have been low in these cases, prompting some to suggest the section is often misused to settle scores.
The bench of Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit passed the following directives but clarified that they would not apply to offences involving tangible physical injuries or death.
Source: Telegraph
7. Three Cong MLAs Defect to BJP
The signs were ominous for Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel on Thursday, a day after he filed his nomination for a fifth term to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, as the Congress chief whip in the assembly, Balwantsinh Rajput, resigned as an MLA and was declared BJP's third candidate for the Upper House.
Later in the evening, Rajput joined BJP in the presence of party president Amit Shah, himself a first-time Rajya Sabha candidate from Gujarat.
Cabinet minister Smriti Irani is also seeking her second term in the Upper House.
Source: Times of India
8. BJP Approaches EC Against Naveen Patnaik
The BJP on Thursday accused Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of “lying under oath” and approached the Election Commission to seek his disqualification as an MLA. A BJP delegation, led by its spokesperson Sambit Patra, submitted a memorandum with the EC alleging that the Patnaik-led BJD may have used chit fund scam money to contest elections in 2014.
The memorandum referred to Patnaik’s election affidavit in 2014 when he contested from the Hinjli constituency.
“It is astonishing to find that the RTGS number claimed by Naveen Patnaik is also the RTGS number of Ramchandra Hansda, the BJD MP who is behind bars because of his involvement in a chit fund scam,” the party said in a statement.
Source: The Indian Express
9. Privacy Built Into Aadhaar Act, Says UIDAI
“Privacy is non-negotiable, confidentiality is non-negotiable under the Aadhaar Act,” the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the nodal agency implementing the Aadhaar scheme, has said in the Supreme Court.
Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the UIDAI, made this emphatic claim on Thursday when apprehensions were raised by a nine-judge Bench that personal data collected during Aadhaar enrolment might make its way into the hands of private players, for whom such details would transform into “vital commercial information”.
The court was, in turn, responding to a submission by Attorney-General KK Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, that citizens could not claim informational privacy when the state asks for data for a legitimate purpose such as Aadhaar.
Source: The Hindu
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