Good morning,
We are covering the spike in Covid cases in Kerala, the link between power cuts and farmers' protests in Punjab and a Silicon Valley star who moved to a village in Tamil Nadu.
The Big Story
Even as real GDP is projected to contract by 9.5 per cent for the full fiscal year, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said, economic activity could return to growth in the January-March quarter. The RBI kept key policy rates unchanged after a meeting of RBI’s monetary policy committee.
From The Front Page
Transfers and remittances worth $18.46 million of co-operative giant Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited with three companies based in Dubai, Switzerland and Singapore, were red-flagged by Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas to the US financial watchdog, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an investigation by The Indian Express has shown.
Nearly ten months after taking over the probe, the National Investigative Agency has filed its first chargesheet in the Elgar Parishad case. The supplementary chargesheet, which is over 10,000 pages, was filed against eight people including Jharkhand-based Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy, professor Anand Teltumbde, and activist Gautam Navlakha.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme, which won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, has been working closely with the government, carrying out reforms in the Public Distribution System, besides piloting innovative solutions such as the automatic grain dispensers—ATMs for rice—that are aimed at checking malpractices in the distribution system.
A rape case was filed nearly two months after an 18-year-old tribal girl's suicide in Chhattisgarh and police arrested six of the seven accused, two of them minors. The body, which was exhumed and a post-mortem procedure done, was buried again on Friday.
Visitors arrive to pay their last respects to Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday.
Must Read
Until Thursday, 12 Janpath in the heart of New Delhi was alive with excitement. The LJP had made an audacious move in Bihar, deciding to go it alone in the state elections. On Friday, from 10 am, a long queue snaked through the main gate to the hall where party founder Ram Vilas Paswan lay.
There was a time Kerala, where Covid first broke out in India, was feted globally for effectively containing the spread of the virus. Over the past few weeks, it has seen more cases every day than any other state barring Maharashtra and Karnataka. The worst, it seems, is yet to come.
Exclusive: Amid the political upheaval in the NDA ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, Sanjay Jaiswal, president of the BJP in Bihar, tells The Indian Express “only those who accept Nitish Kumar as CM can remain part of the NDA”.
Domestic consumers in Punjab have been facing power cuts during peak hours off late. Sources said this situation could worsen in the coming days due to the ongoing ‘rail roko’ agitation against farm laws which has severely hit incoming coal supplies.
For the rest of the world, Sridhar Vembu is the founder of Zoho Corporation, a Silicon Valley star valued by Forbes at nearly $2.5 billion who decided to take the unusual step of moving to a small village in southern Tamil Nadu last year. But the man himself says he is more of a teacher these days, wearing the traditional veshti and moving around on a bicycle in Mathalamparai.
Sridhar Vembu at Mathalamparai village near Tenkasi where he set up a new office and home in 2019. (Express photo)
ICYMI
- The Delhi Home Department is set to share with the Delhi Police a video clip purportedly showing a woman indulging in stone pelting with rioters in February this year.
- The Mumbai Police on Friday issued summons to the chief financial officer of Republic Media Network to appear before it on Saturday morning in connection with the “spiked TRP scam”.
- A Karnataka court Friday directed a local police station to book actor Kangana Ranaut for her tweet on farmers protesting the new agri-sector laws.
- Kolkata Police on Friday lodged FIRs against senior BJP leaders for unlawful assembly and damage to public properties during the party’s “March to Nabanna” the day before.
- An assistant supervisor of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has been arrested for allegedly sharing secret information on Indian fighter aircraft with a person affiliated with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
And Finally...
The trailer of Akshay Kumar starrer Laxmmi Bomb is out, and it is quite a throwback to Priyadarshan’s Bhool Bhulaiya, at least in terms of the treatment. The film premieres on Disney+ Hotstar on November 9.
Delhi Confidential: Following Ramvilas Paswan’s death, Ramdas Athawale is now the only non-BJP minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers.
Until tomorrow,
Leela Prasad and Liu Chuen Chen
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