Front Page
A plane crashed Thursday while landing in Mumbai. All four crew members and a labourer on the ground died as the aircraft crashed into an open space near a construction site in the crowded suburb of Ghatkopar. The Times of India reports that the 27-year-old aircraft, which was on its first flight after being grounded for nine years, is suspected to have crashed due to a mechanical failure.
Manasi Phadke of ThePrint adds that the plane belonged to UY Aviation, a firm barred by Maharashtra last year after a mishap involving one of its choppers and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
The Indian rupee fell to all-time low Thursday, down all the way to 69.09 against the US dollar intra-day, on the back of fears over rising crude oil prices and tariff wars in the foreign exchange market. The Indian Express reports that the rupee is now one of the worst performing currencies in the world, having lost close to eight per cent this year. Foreign investors have also started pulling out funds from India, while the dollar just keeps getting stronger across the globe.
The LeT killed Shujaat Bukhari, Jammu & Kashmir police said Thursday, adding that the conspiracy was executed by four militants, including a foreigner, The Hindu reports. Sheikh Sajjad Gul, the LeT recruiter who did his MBA from Bengaluru, was one of them.
Looks like Arvind Kejriwal will be treated like an aam aadmi. The Delhi Police are likely to charge the CM and his deputy, Manish Sisodia, with criminal conspiracy in the alleged assault of state chief secretary Anshu Prakash by AAP legislators in the duo’s presence, Hindustan Times reports.
Even Mehul Choksi’s diamonds are frauds. A Dubai-based subsidiary of the Gitanjali group alerted vice-president Vipul Chitalia as early as 2015 to the possibility of penal action for exporting “low quality” coloured gems at highly inflated values to Dubai. The Indian Express reports that the email said the consignment of coloured gems received by them was of such “low quality” that the “stones release colour and the bag inside which stones are kept turns red”.
Nikki Haley wants India to help the US pressure Iran into being an “an accountable neighbour”. Saying Iran was a “threat” to the world, US ambassador to the UN Haley said, “We are going to keep the pressure on [Iran] and we hope all other countries will join us… I did talk with Prime Minister Modi about this as well,” The Hindu reports.
The body of a seven-year-old Dalit child was found last week in a 13-foot dried-up underground tank at Unrod village in Rajasthan’s Barmer district. She had allegedly been abducted, raped, and then strangulated. Rajputs compared the rape and murder of this child, allegedly by a Muslim man, to ‘cow slaughter”. Read Priyamvada Grover’s story here.
Business Class
A new chairman for ICICI: The board will meet Friday to discuss the appointment of a new chairman from a shortlist of four former bureaucrats who have worked with the finance ministry, reports Business Standard.
News it’s just kinda cool to know
England’s smooth ride into the knock-out stage of the FIFA World Cup has hit a speed bump named Belgium on the way. Belgium beat England 1-0 to top Group G with nine points after Thursday’s match, with Adnan Januzaj scoring the winning goal in the 51st minute. The Times of India tells us that this is England’s first defeat since June 2017.
Meghan Markle is banned from eating garlic in public. Yup, you read that right. The Queen wants all members of the royal family to avoid having bad breath, The Deccan Chronicle brings us the news.
Point Of View
Former Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia, in his column for Livemint, stresses the need for the government to move from slogans to policymaking. “Slogans are the ‘front end’ of economic strategy. They are the catchy formulations designed to capture public attention without making it clear how exactly the objective will be achieved,” he says.
Prime Time
Referring to the debate on the newly released surgical strike videos, India Today TV’s Preeti Choudhary asked, “Is politics being played over national security?” Congress’ Aadil Singh Boparai asked the BJP to apologise for “denigrating the institution of the Army”. “You cannot raise questions on the valour of the Army,” countered the BJP’s R.P. Singh.
Lt Gen Dr D.B. Shekatkar (Retd) supported the release of the video clips. “The right message has gone across in both strategic and tactical terms,” remarked Shekatkar.
Finding a person to blame
Explaining the crash of a chartered plane that claimed five lives in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar Thursday, Shreya Dhoundial of CNN News 18 questioned the condition of the aircraft, which was only recently marked “deemed fit for flying”.
Captain Wadia, the founder of Federation of Indian Pilots, said that all accidents can be explained only after a thorough investigation. He, however, pulled up CM Devendra Fadnavis for his remarks — “we will find who is to be blamed” — pointing out that the fundamental aim of an investigation is to prevent its recurrence and not to find a person to blame.
Secularism, meet prime time
Times Now’s Navika Kumar began her show by saying, “What is secularism? Is it taking action to uplift all sections of society or is it indulging in tokenism?” She was referring to Yogi Adityanath’s refusal to wear a cap during his visit to the mazar of Kabir in Maghar, which the Prime Minister visited the following day.
Islamic scholar Illyas Sharafuddin pointed out that while the PM was being invited by the Sufis and Shias for conferences, Yogi was rejecting caps offered by Muslims.
“Will you tolerate if I put a tilak on your forehead,” BJP’s Sambit Patra replied.
With inputs from Prateek Gupta and Ratnadeep Choudhary