Front Page
The lead story in Hindustan Times and The Indian Express is Pakistan’s decision to lift their airspace ban. Express calls it a “sigh of relief for India” in its headline, while HT reminds us that it was “imposed after Balakot”.
Airfares began to “drop as flights no longer have to take a longer route”, reports The Times of India, which gives the news lower billing on page 1. It highlights the gravity of the ban: Indian carriers “collectively lost almost Rs 550 crore, with Air India taking the biggest of about Rs 491 crore”, it writes.
Express says that in New Delhi, “government officials described it as a ‘strategic move’ and indicated the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough between the two countries.” It added that “this move comes days after Pakistan’s civil aviation authority” reportedly “intimated Indian officials that the curbs would stay in place until India withdrew its fighter jets from forward positions”.
The Hindu mentions that this move will benefit “Indian carriers as well as the airlines that enter or exist Pakistan from its eastern border with India”.
Even though the newspapers agree the ban was imposed after the Balakot strikes, they disagree on the number of months the ban was imposed for. HT reports that it was a “more than four month ban”, TOI very precisely states it was “138 days”, Express rounds it off to a “five month ban” and The Hindu claims it lasted “6 months”.
Mumbai building collapse
TOI’s lead is the collapse of a century old building in Mumbai. “Blame game between different govt depts begins as bldg crash in heart of city kills 10” reads its big and bold headline. A grisly photo of the damage accompanies it: “Soon after the building collapse, ministers, politicians and officials rushed to the spot and a blame game started over whether the building was illegal”, it writes.
To make matters worse, “Local residents and the police could not give an accurate estimation of how many people lived in the building, and several are still feared trapped in the rubble.” HT reckons “30 were feared trapped” under the building. Hindustan Times says that this puts the spotlight on the “the decaying infrastructure of India’s crumbling financial capital that is corroded by poor oversight and monsoon showers”.
Express captures the story through the rescue of a three year old, which it described as “nothing short of a miracle”, and “a rare glimmer of life amid the despair that hung over the debris”.
Hindu carries only a photograph with the title “Against all odds”, leaving the details for its inside pages.
Karnataka assembly
Also in the news, is the Supreme Court’s verdict on the petition filed by the 15 “rebel legislators” of the Congress-Janata Dal coalition in Karnataka. With matters up in the air, newspapers insert some of their own perspective: HT thinks that the “weighty issues” for the court to decide, “among others are whether it can direct the speaker to give his ruling on the resignations in a time bound manner”.
Express says that according to the Supreme Court “the position and powers of the Speaker after the enactment of the anti-defection law in 1985 may require a relook”. The Hindu quotes Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as saying: “…there is no rule on the extent of powers of this court. To try to trap the parameters of the SC within inflexible limits is totally abhorrent to the Constitution”.
Coastal road and others
In other news, “HC halts Coastal Rd project, says green clearances illegal” reads a headline in TOI’s front page flap. “It’s an ‘area development project’ not a ‘road project’, the HC held,” it reports. The court ruled “on a clutch of petitions”, says the Express.
HT, which is normally enthusiastic to report environment-related news, strangely gives it a small box: “The court said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation project was granted clearance without conducting a proper scientific study,” says the report.
Newspapers also announce that a verdict in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case is expected from the International Court of Justice in Hague Wednesday.
Opinion
In “Progress But”, TOI highlights that India is on the cusp of a demographic transition due to a decline in the total fertility rate. This reduction of TFR is going to stabilise the population “in the near future”.
While a decline in TFR implies greater agency of women in terms of contraception and pregnancies, the child sex ratio of birth of female babies is at an all-time low. “Preference for male children appears to be combining with the pressure to have small families due to rising household expenditure.” The government needs to properly implement its schemes like ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ if it wishes to “derive maximum advantage from its demographic transition”.
In “The Shrinking”, the Express talks about the continuing underperformance of Indian exports and its implications for the economy. A “lacklustre export growth, coupled with weak domestic demand and subdued investment activity, indicates a continuing weakness of the primary drivers of growth”, writes the daily.
Most of the decline is due to lower oil exports that reduced by 32.8 per cent. But non-oil exports also reduced by 5.7 per cent. Numbers also suggest “both private demand, in rural and urban areas, as well as investment activity, remain subdued”. Signals from the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank indicate that this trend will continue and growth will be at a much lower rate for India. Combined with trade wars, this is not going to help matters for India.
Thus, with exports being one of the primary drivers of growth, “the government must facilitate India’s integration in global supply chains by lowering tariffs and rationalising the tariff structure”.
Prime Time
Daytime coverage on news channels was devoted entirely to the collapse of a building in Dongri, Mumbai, killing at least 10 people while many more are feared trapped in the rubble.Evening debates tried to pin responsibility for the tragedy but also covered several other topics.
Aaj Tak: ‘Distribute copies of Quran’: this was the condition imposed by the Magistrate Court in Ranchi, Jharkhand for granting bail to a woman who was arrested for hurting religious sentiments on social media. Anchor Rohit Sardana discussed this absurd condition.
BJP’s Rajiv Jaitly said, “We are astonished at the kind of judgment that has come… if you’re making someone distribute the Quran, you’ll do the same with the Gita.”
Lawyer Mehmood Pracha said, “The court was wrong to carry out such a judgment — although, by law, they are allowed to do so, it is morally incorrect. The court should’ve asked to distribute the Constitution of India or B.R. Ambedkar’s biography instead.”
Times Now: On the same issue here, Tom Vadakkan, BJP spokesperson, said, “The issue….is whether a tweet on social media instigates a communal situation or would this kind of bail condition instigates further complications?”
“The court is a constitutional authority. No constitutional authority as per our Constitution can promote any religion knowingly or unknowingly,” asserted political commentator Shehzad Poonawalla.
India TV: As the surrogacy bill, which bans commercial surrogacy allowing only close relative to be a surrogate, was tabled in Lok Sabha Tuesday, anchor Sourav Sharma asked if the Opposition was correct in accusing the government of moving too fast and not paying heed to the intricacies of such bills.
BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia explained the government’s haste: “Under Congress regime the 2012 winter session had zero productivity. Now at least, here is a government that is focussing on passing of bills of importance.”
Trinamool Congress’s Sougat Roy objected: “We have a rule in Parliament — Rule 220 — which states that while the budgetary business is on, a bill can be introduced but it cannot be passed. We were not aware that the NIA bill was being tabled yesterday — we objected.”
CNN News 18 saw a heated debate on Mumbai’s building collapse with anchor Zakka Jacob losing his temper.
Bhalchandra Shirsat of BJP Mumbai angered Jacob by saying the Dongri area is controlled by mafia-raj, and that it was a “religiously sensitive area” — Muslims live there predominantly. He expressed reluctance to enter the area.
“Utter rubbish!” exclaimed Jacob, adding that between them the BJP-Shiv Sena controlled all the administrative authorities in the city.
With inputs from Rachel John.