Your Morning Briefing for 23 August 2020

Good morning Readers, 

We are covering the leadership crisis within the Congress party, a rare admission by Pakistan, and what's behind Kashmir mainstream parties meet.

Big Story

What a suspended Congress leader had claimed earlier this week and was subsequently  rubbished by the party, turned out to be true, at least in part. In an unprecedented pushback, senior party leaders have written to interim chief Sonia Gandhi calling for sweeping changes, including “full time and effective leadership” which is both “visible” and “active” in the field.  

Explained: Why the letter and the crisis it signifies is different from earlier crises. 

From The Front Page

Successive Pakistan governments have denied it. But backed into a corner by the Financial Action Task Force, the global terrorist financing watchdog, Pakistan has effectively ended up acknowledging the presence in the country of fugitive terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.

After a year of silence on the abrogation of J&K’s special status, mainstream political parties of Kashmir have come together to declare that all their other political activities would be subservient to restoring the status. We look at the reasons behind the coming together of the big names in Kashmir politics.

The Bombay High Court, while quashing the FIRs filed against 35 persons associated with the Tablighi Jamaat, had some strong words in its order granting relief. It said they had been made “scapegoats”, and that the action against them was an “indirect warning to Indian Muslims” after the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

MASKED: Ganesh idols on sale in Mumbai on Saturday, the first day of the 10-day long Ganesh Chaturthi festival. (Reuters)

The Pandemic

While the wait for the Covid vaccine continues, the Gujarat government believes that the distribution of Arsenicum Album-30, a homeopathic drug, to 3.4 crore people, and ‘ukala’ or kadha to its entire population are what prevented the rise in cases. 

Kerala Health Minister K K Shailaja is among the several people who haven’t met their families in a long time. “Since the pandemic struck, I have visited my family only once, that too after a gap of two-and-a-half months. Now, it has been over two months since I visited them,” she tells The Indian Express.

This week, Delhi announced reopening of hotels in a bid to kick off the economy. But with few travellers and no tourists, the industry’s climb out of the pandemic is expected to be the hardest and the longest. The Indian Express goes behind the doors of one five-star in Mumbai to capture a post-Covid world.

Beyond Covid-19

While his party plans mass protests against the Adani Group taking over operations of the Kerala airport, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, it has been learnt, had sought legal help of a corporate law firm in which a family member of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani is a partner.

Days after being asked about her nationality, DMK MP Kanimozhi  hit out at Union AYUSH Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha for allegedly asking participants who did not understand the language to leave an online training session organised by the ministry.

A firefighter rubs his head while watching the LNU Lightning Complex fires spread through the Berryessa Estates neighborhood of unincorporated Napa County, California, on Friday. (AP)

ICYMI 

• The Delhi Police on Saturday claimed to have foiled a terror attack in the national capital by arresting a 36-year-old alleged Islamic State operative.
  
• The Border Security Force Saturday gunned down five persons who intruded into Indian territory from the Pakistani side at the international border in Punjab.
  
• Uttarakhand BJP has summoned four party MLAs, including a rape accused, for acting against the party line to explain their actions on Monday.
  
• Publishing house Bloomsbury India has withdrawn a book on Delhi riots, after backlash over the announcement of a launch event with BJP leader Kapil Mishra among “guests of honour”.
• A CBI team visited actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s house in suburban Bandra on Saturday to reconstruct the sequence of events before he was found dead on June 14.

And Finally...

As the workplace collapses into home during the pandemic, urban working women are engaged in a struggle to find a fine balance. In addition to their professional duties, the burden of managing home and care work have grown.

In our latest podcast episode, we discuss what made former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni one of the greatest India has ever seen, what made him stand out from so many others, his influence on young cricketers, his calmness on the field and the legacy he leaves behind.

Until tomorrow,

Leela Prasad and Liu Chuen Chen