Your Morning Briefing for 13 September 2020

Good morning,  We are covering the looming rural distress, the NREGA safety net and MF Husain's unconventional approach to art. The Big Story CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav, economist Jayati Ghosh, Delhi University professor and activist Apoorvanand and documentary filmmaker Rahul Roy have been named in a supplementary chargesheet filed in connection with the probe into the Northeast Delhi riots. From The Front Page The operation to reach the unoccupied heights along the Line of Actual Control took the Indian forces almost a month of careful planning — from the drawing board to implementation on the field.  Justice N V Ramana,  the second most senior judge in the Supreme Court, said that judges are being “construed as soft targets for criticism” because of their self-restraint and are “becoming victims of juicy gossip”. India's participation in the peace talks between Afghanistan and Taliban at Doha signals shift in its stance on engaging with Taliban. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar joined the ceremony via video link while South Block sent a senior official to Doha to attend the meeting.

The PLA handed over five youths who went missing from Arunachal Pradesh, on Saturday. (PTI)

The Pandemic

Rural demand has largely been a running theme in the months post lockdown in the uptick seen across segments such as cars, motorcycles, tractors and consumer non-durables. But now the Rural sector is headed towards a crisis. 

After days of uncertainty following a safety alert in the global trials for one of the frontrunners in the Covid-19 vaccine race, AstraZeneca on Saturday said it is resuming human testing in the UK of the vaccine candidate it developed jointly with Oxford University.

Beyond Covid-19

Speaking on the latest shake up and nominations by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to reshuffle the party organisation, senior leader Kapil Sibal tells The Indian Express: If nominations are the norm, and elections are anathema, then we might as well change the Constitution of the Congress party.

“There has been no debate on ideology in the party; there is only feudalism. Things cannot function in this way.” This is among the several reasons why former Union minister and senior leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh decided to quit the RJD ahead of the Bihar elections.

The Indian Express travels to Purba Bardhaman in Bengal, the district with the highest number of households that have availed work under NREGA, to find that in a year of pandemic and polls for Bengal, the job scheme has emerged as a clear safety net for lakhs of households.

Visitors pay their tributes to Swami Agnivesh at his Jantar Mantar residence in New Delhi on Saturday.

ICYMI

• Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot has written a letter to chief minister Ashok Gehlot over the 5 per cent reservation provided to Gujjars and four other castes.
  
• Five persons will be booked under the stringent National Security Act in connection with the alleged murder of a Dalit man on the outskirts of Lucknow.
  
• Delhi airport’s Covid testing lab, the first-of-its-kind in the country, is set to begin operations at 12 am on Sunday. 
  
• A Bengaluru youth who has been missing for around seven years and was suspected to have joined the Islamic State is now known to have been killed in Syria.
• Three NEET aspirants in Tamil Nadu allegedly committed suicide on Saturday, a day before they were to appear for the medical entrance exam.

And Finally...

On the occasion of his 105th birth anniversary this week, The Indian Express locates MF Husain, the modern Indian artist and his ingenious, unconventional approach to art in the narrative of artistic freedom.

There is a particular trend that has emerged in the phones that have been launched during the pandemic. These phones are neither premium nor are they budget. In our latest podcast episode, we discuss this new trend and whether more such phones will be launched in the future.

Until tomorrow,

Leela Prasad G and Liu Chuen Chen