Your Morning Briefing for 05 October 2020 | The Indian Express

FSL report (saying no rape) used samples 11 days old, has no value: Aligarh CMO | India News,The Indian Express

Good morning, 

We are covering LJP's exit from the ruling alliance, the final forensic report on the DHFL scam and what Liberhan report said about Uma Bharti's role in Babri Masjid demolition.

The Big Story

Disputing the Uttar Pradesh Police version that the Hathras woman wasn't gangraped, the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital she was initially admitted for two weeks said the FSL report relied on by the police "holds no value". According to guidelines, forensic evidence can only be found up to 96 hours after the incident, but in the Hathras case, samples were collected 11 days later.

Meanwhile, over 500 people attended a meeting held in support of the four accused in the Hathras case. It was convened by former BJP Hathras MLA Rajveer Singh Pehelwan who claimed they were being framed.

Uttar Pradesh Police personnel lathicharge Samajwadi Party workers as they try to enter Hathras village on Sunday. (Express photo/Praveen Khanna)

From The Front Page

The LJP is going it alone in the Bihar elections, but it is not going to contest in any of the seats where BJP candidates are on the ballot. This balancing act is being seen as the party's ambition to cut into JD(U) votes and prop up a BJP-led government in the future.

On October 12, senior military commanders of India and China will meet for the seventh time in a fresh bid to find a resolution to the five-month standoff in eastern Ladakh. Though winter is coming, both armies have been preparing to hold their current positions in the difficult terrain. 

Hundreds of fictitious loan accounts, deposits routed through an imaginary entity in Bandra and a demand for recoveries totaling Rs 14, 046 crore – these are among the key findings in the final forensic report submitted by auditor Grant Thornton in the DHFL scam.

Must Read

Several large nonprofits which work to mobilise funds and design strategies of social intervention, and have given some of India’s most vulnerable groups a hand, is under a threat from a new amendment to The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act that Parliament passed in its Monsoon session.

Even as the new 2020-21 sugar year has started, mills in Uttar Pradesh owe a staggering Rs 8,400 crore-plus of payments to farmers against cane supplies made during 2019-20.

Exclusive: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, R S Sharma, calls for a converged regulator for both digital, non-digital platforms, and says that steps have been taken to ensure the Internet does not turn into a “walled garden”.

"Uma Bharti categorically claimed responsibility”: Despite the final verdict, Justice M S Liberhan remains determined to stand by his report on the Babri demolition. Although in 2017, Bharti had told journalists that she had “never apologised, or expressed remorse” for her involvement in the Ayodhya movement. 

Rahul Gandhi, Amarinder Singh and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar (driving the tractor) during a rally against the farm laws in Moga on Sunday. (Express photo/Gurmeet Singh)

ICYMI

• Noida Police has started a probe into the manhandling of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi when she was briefly stopped while she was on her way to Hathras on Saturday.
  
• After a BJP leader was shot dead by unidentified assailants in West Bengal, the Opposition party called a 12-hour bandh in Barrackpore on Monday. 
  
• The top Afghan negotiator in peace talks with the Taliban, Abdullah Abdullah, will visit New Delhi in the coming week for an intensive two-day engagement with the Indian leadership.
  
• Video: President Donald Trump briefly left the hospital Sunday in his car to wave to supporters gathered outside.
• Schools in Delhi will continue to remain closed for all students till the end of the month, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced on Sunday.

And Finally...

Aiman Siddiqui had never imagined that the joy of being a first-time mother would turn into a long fight for life. The 26-year-old Gujarat resident, who delivered a baby girl in February — days before the virus outbreak in India — was at a hospital from August until October 1. She battled Covid and a ruptured artery of the heart due to a rare pre-existing condition, Marfan syndrome.

Delhi Confidential: Union Cabinet Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who recently recovered from Covid-19, became the first Union minister to donate plasma.

In today’s episode of Three Things Podcast, we talk about how the village of the Dalit woman who was raped and murdered was sealed off and why it’s controversial.

Until tomorrow, 

Leela Prasad and Liu Chuen Chen