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When cows matter more than lynching victims: It took local police more than three hours to travel 6 km while taking a critically injured victim of lynching, Rakbar Khan, to the nearest hospital. Rakbar was beaten up by a mob on the suspicion of cow smuggling Friday night, and police first got information of the crime at 12.40 am Saturday, minutes later. But the two cows recovered from Rakbar were first taken to a gaushala 10 km away, a good one hour before he was brought to the Community Health Centre dead at 4.00 am, The Times of India reports.
Rakbar’s wife Asmeena says her husband was killed because he’s a Muslim, and that “Modi is getting Muslims killed”. ThePrint’s Sanya Dhingra, who visited the scene of the lynching Saturday, reports that the villagers have not forgotten 55-year-old Pehlu Khan, who too was beaten to death by suspected cow vigilantes while transporting cattle last year. Rakbar’s death comes days after the Supreme Court asked the legislature to enact a law to deal with mob violence.
Meanwhile, the viral WhatsApp rumour about ‘child-lifters’ has led to one more death, a woman’s. The victim, attacked by a mob at Sangrauli in Madhya Pradesh and yet to be identified, is believed to have been 25 years old.
In the first extended Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting chaired by Rahul Gandhi after he took over as president eight months ago, the party said he was “setting up a group” to look into the alliance question for the general election next year, The Indian Express reports.
Three Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants were killed in a firefight with security forces Sunday. According to a Hindustan Times report, they were responsible for a police constable’s torture and murder in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district a day earlier. The statement said the firefight came as the Army, Jammu & Kashmir police, and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) laid siege to the area where the militants were hiding.
The GST Council has cut tax rates on 191 goods over the last one year, leaving just 35 items, including ACs, digital cameras, video recorders, dishwashers and automobiles, in the highest tax bracket (28 per cent), Business Standard reports. The white goods industry is anticipating a bumper festive season as a result. The council has also decided to fully exempt sanitary napkins from the 12 per cent GST imposed on it.
Amarpuri, a 60-year-old preacher from Haryana accused of allegedly raping 60 women, was also blackmailing his victims for money, said sources in the Haryana police Saturday, Chitleen K. Sethi reports for ThePrint.
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam, to be published on 30 July, is only a “draft” list, according to home minister Rajnath Singh’s statement Sunday. According to a report in The Hindu, he said that even after the NRC was finalised, “there was no question of putting anyone in detention centres as people could appeal before the Foreigner’s Tribunal”.
Business Class
India Post witnesses rebound in traditional services revenue. According to the ministry of communications, India Post’s revenue has gone up by 11.4 per cent, from Rs 11,511 crore to Rs 12,823 crore in the last year, reports The Indian Express.
India, nine other Asian economies to pull ahead of US in terms of GDP by 2030. According to a DBS report accessed by The Economic Times, 10 major economies of Asia are expected to see robust growth and amount to $28 trillion in real GDP terms on aggregate in 12 years.
News it’s just kinda cool to know
Cheetahs get by with a little help from their other furry friends. Zookeepers have been assigning cheetahs their very own emotional support dogs in a bid to help them through social anxiety. Apparently, cheetahs get so nervous and stressed that they fail to breed, causing their numbers to dwindle.
Have you ever wanted to buy real estate on the moon? Well, a space lawyer (yes that’s a real job) attempts to answer the logical preceding question — Who really owns the moon? The Conversation carries the story.
Point of View
Abdul Khaliq, the secretary general of the Lok Janshakti Party, writes in his column for The Indian Express that indifference to facts has become a cultural phenomenon and the media and politicians must take the blame. He says, “Today’s Frankenstein monster with its lethal arsenal of entertainment, manipulated news, propaganda and plain rubbish has supplanted the traditional social and cultural institutions as the primary mineral resource for our politics, our prejudices, in fact our world view.”
Rahul Gandhi spoke, hugged, winked and took the world of Indian politics by storm. An editorial in The Tribune, while praising the hug, observed that the wink was a bad decision. It says, “Even as the grinning Congressmen were settling down into a comfort zone, Rahul undid all that in the wink of an eye: He winked at Congressmen. And, that gesture sucked out any warmth that the hug may have generated and eclipsed the gains from the points he raised in the address to the government; the wink signalled conceit.”
A column in Greater Kashmir talks about how education has become a victim of official apathy in the Valley. “While every aspect of our society is reminiscent of the horrible consequences of the decades-long conflict, the education sector as a victim has received less attention,” four researchers at the Aligarh Muslim University, Javid Ahanger, Suhail-ul-Rehman, Amir Sultan and Showket Mandloo, write.
An editorial in The Hindu sheds light on the need for the government to roll back amendments that will weaken the RTI Act. “Attempts were made by the UPA government also to weaken the law, including to remove political parties from its purview. Any move to enfeeble the RTI Act will deal a blow to transparency,” it says.
Prime Time
Lynch mobs and BJP
On Newshour, Times Now’s Athar Khan raised the issue of lynchings in the country. While BJP spokesperson Raman Malik tried to defend his party, other panelists, including SP spokesperson Abdul Hafeez Gandhi and senior journalist Rasheed Kidwai, slammed the government.
“BJP, as a party, does not support any form of lynching,” said Malik. However, Kidwai added, “In such cases, if you see the details then you will see a certain kind of pattern.”
#EndlessProvocation
Republic TV’s Sunday prime-time slot featured a lengthy debate on religious provocations with the hashtag #EndlessProvocation. Anchor Arnab Goswami hosted a panel that included the BJP’s Nalin Kohli, the AIMIM’s Waris Pathan, the BJD’s Kalkesh Deo and author Suhel Seth, among others. The discussion, unsurprisingly, was noisy, provocative and didn’t seem to move towards any direction.
(With inputs from Prateek Gupta)