Your Morning Briefing for 30 July 2020

Good morning readers, 

Allow us to give you a leg-up to this morning's top stories. We are covering the New Education Policy, Unlock 3.0 and the challenge before IAF after Rafale induction.

Big Story

The current education policy has remained in place for 34 long years. The New Education Policy (NEP), one of BJP's poll promises in 2014, will allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India, exit options for Bachelor's programme, and a reduction in the syllabus.

From The Front Page

The guidelines for the third phase of unlocking the economy are here. There will be no night curfew and gyms and yoga centres will be allowed to reopen. However, curbs will remain on cinemas, bars, metro rail and more. And Maharashtra retained the night curfew but allowed malls to reopen.   

The Ashok Gehlot government finally found a way around Governor Kalraj Mishra's condition that they must state the reason for convening the Assembly at such a short notice. They took the 21-day notice route for calling the session as it exempts them from spelling the agenda.

By 2023, the strength of Indian Air Force squadrons will fall to 29, even after the inclusion of two Rafale squadrons. By then, Pakistan will have 27 fighter squadrons while China will have a capacity to bear at least 42. But it is likely to take another two decades before India makes up the shortfall.

The five Rafales are escorted by two SU30 MKIs as they enter Indian air space on Wednesday. The aircraft landed at the air base in Ambala a little past 3 pm. (Twitter/Defence Ministry)

The Pandemic

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has plans to roll out a national registry of Covid patients in an effort to understand how treatment can be improved. The registry will also serve as a crucial platform to conduct clinical trials.

Between July 1 and July 29, Covid-19 cases in Bihar climbed from 10,205 to 45,919. And of the total 273 Covid-19 deaths reported in the state so far, 195 have occurred in the past 27 days. As the cases spike, we look at the five key challenges facing one of the worst-affected states.

Amid coronavirus layoffs and job losses, it is not only banks that have received requests to provide relief on loans payments. Family court lawyers in Mumbai are seeking the court’s intervention for waiver or reduction in payment of maintenance to separated wives and children.

Beyond Covid-19

Exclusive: With questions raised over the delay in summoning the Rajasthan Assembly amid the political turmoil, Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra tells The Indian Express that he was worried about the “arrangements regarding safety of more than 1,000 people” amid the pandemic.

Activist Parwez Parvaz, 65, who had filed a petition against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the Supreme Court, challenging an Allahabad High Court order in a hate speech case, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in a 2018 gangrape case.

Paintings made by young Covid-19 patients hang on the wall of a care centre in New Delhi. (Express photo/Praveen Khanna)

ICYMI 

• The Supreme Court has disposed of a plea by the wife of J&K Congress leader Saifuddin Soz claiming that he had been illegally detained.
  
• The sale of a plot to build a state-of-art museum in Haryana has brought out startling facts.
  
• Filmmaker and Baahubali director SS Rajamouli and his family members have tested positive for Covid-19. 
  
• Hours before three men were lynched in Palghar on April 16, a group of 10 villagers had allegedly decided to “teach a lesson” to thieves disguised as ascetics and doctors.
• A Bihar Police team  met its counterparts in Mumbai’s Bandra over the probe into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

And Finally...

No fans inside the stadium at least in the beginning, commentators to sit six feet apart in studios, not more than 15 players in a dressing room and four Covid tests in two weeks for all players  — These are some of the key norms in the Standard Operating Procedure prepared by the Indian cricket board to be sent soon to IPL franchise owners for the T20 tournament that is expected to be held in the UAE from September to November.

Delhi confidential: The Vande Bharat flights, deployed to bring home Indians who are stranded abroad amid the pandemic, will also carry from London a 10th-century idol of Lord Shiv — ‘Natesh’ — which was stolen from Ghateshwar Temple in Rajasthan’s Baroli in 1998. 

  In today’s episode of Three Things Podcast, we discuss why milk prices are going down, how it is affecting dairy farmers, why the situation is set to become worse and what the government can do about it. 

Until tomorrow,

Leela Prasad G  and Liu Chuen Chen