Plugged-In: TN protesters killed ‘sniper-style’, and the new ‘BFFs’ of Indian politics

Front Page

Police killed protesters ‘sniper-style’ in Tamil Nadu. Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) in Tamil Nadu has descended into chaos. A video purportedly showing a plainclothes police officer picking and choosing his targets from among those protesting against the Sterlite copper plant expansion has gone viral. The Hindu reports the headcount in Tuesday’s police firing has gone up to 12 and internet has been suspended “to prevent the spread of rumours on WhatsApp”.

— ANI (@ANI) May 22, 2018

Significantly, the Madras High Court has stayed the expansion of the Vedanta group’s plant in Tamil Nadu. Siding with the protesters, the judges argued that despite clear and present economic benefits, “the toll extracted on available resources, water and soil regimes by such industries cannot also be lost sight of”. Read the story here in The Indian Express.

Pakistan’s best friend China wants Hafiz Saeed relocated. The China-Pakistan friendship, it is well-known, is “higher than the mountains and deeper than the seas”, so when Chinese President Xi Jinping tells Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi something, it’s likely he’s listening closely. The Hindu breaks the story about Xi suggesting to Abbasi that the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed be moved to a West Asian country to keep him away from the “limelight”. Is this another sign of Sino-Indian rapprochement post-Wuhan? Would PM Modi have told President Xi that he could drop a hint or two into the ears of his good friends, the Pakistanis, in this regard? Watch this space.

What happens when two women, poles apart but with much in common politically, at least these days, give the world a new definition of coming together? At Janata Dal (S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy’s swearing-in as Karnataka CM, it seemed as if the groom at his own wedding party was having to compete for some serious attention from his star-studded guest list. There were the Gandhis, of course; BSP leader Mayawati; Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav; Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee; Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal; Telugu Desam leader Chandrababu Naidu, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury; RJD leader and son of Lalu Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav; and RLD chief Ajit Singh. But as the Hindustan Times reports, national attention was glued to the two women, Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati, who could hold the key to creating a pre-poll alliance for the 2019 elections.

Army major Leetul Gogoi, who tied a man in J&K to the front of his jeep as a human shield, has been detained after an altercation with a woman and another man at Hotel Grand Mamta in Srinagar. Apparently, the hotel, where Gogoi was staying, doesn’t allow outsiders to enter the rooms of guests. How and why a clash ensued is unclear, reports Rahiba Parveen for ThePrint.

Choose between cheap petrol or welfare schemes, says Nitin Gadkari, and he may have a point. The transport, highways and shipping minister, who is highly regarded in the RSS, has said in The Indian Express that citizens must choose because subsidising petrol and diesel — spending money on high international energy prices to keep them low — will mean taking away monies from pro-poor welfare schemes, as the finance ministry “is reluctant to take a hit” .

The killer Nipah virus has been contained in Kerala, the health ministry said Wednesday. Of the 13 people infected, 11 have died, while 16 suspected cases continue to be treated in isolation at medical colleges in Kozhikode and Malappuram, Hindustan Times reports. 

In ThePrint

Spitting will be prohibited, so clean up your act, the UGC has told all state and central universities, asking them to launch an anti-spitting campaign in line with the Modi government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Kritika Sharma reports.

RSS protests against Walmart: As part of its ongoing protests against American retail giant Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of Flipkart, the RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch claims it has such explosive “income tax documents of alleged wrongdoing” against the e-commerce firm that if it makes them public, the deal may well be terminated. Himani Chandna gives us the story.

All that glitters is sometimes copper: With 12 people dead in the Tuticorin protests demanding that the Sterlite copper smelter in Tamil Nadu not be expanded, Manisha Mondal and Sankalita Dey ask a different but important question — what does India use copper for?

News it’s just kinda cool to know

It’s hot, and it’s just going to get hotter. Northwest and central India have been put on a heatwave alert for the next four to five days, with the mercury expected to soar as high as 45°C, Hindustan Times tells us, according to a report by the India Meteorological Department.

It was World Turtle Day Wednesday! An initiative of the American Tortoise Rescue, the World Turtle Day on 23 May is dedicated to raising awareness and consolidating efforts to protect disappearing species of turtles.

In case you want a job with the Indian Railways, you can apply soon. The online registration process for constables (4,403 male and 4,216 female), and 1,120 sub-inspectors (819 male and 301 female) for the Railway Protection Force/Railway Protection Special Force will begin 1 June, NDTV informs us.

Business Class

Once again, China has come to the rescue of Pakistan. In an interview to The Financial Times, State Bank of Pakistan governor Tariq Bajwa has confirmed that China gave them a loan of $1 billion, reports PTI.

After SBI, India’s largest bank, recently reported a massive loss, financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar has sought to assure people that the government will “provide capital support to public sector banks (PSBs) and not allow any one of them to default”, reports The Economic Times.

Point of View

Why were 12 people protesting against industrial pollution shot dead by police? The tragedy in Tuticorin has spurred all major English dailies to ask the government to fix responsibility for Tuesday’s ghastly police firing. The Indian Express, in its editorial, writes, “Killing of 12 people protesting industrial pollution points to appalling state failures. There must be accountability.”

Patanjali’s 2017-18 revenue figures are way below target, around Rs 105 billion. Business Standard, in its editorial, says that although demonetisation and GST have affected the revenue growth of the company, there are other reasons too. Among them, the company has spread too thin and must focus on the basics.

Does the country need governors? Karnataka’s Vajubhai Vala has been roundly criticized in recent days for inviting the BJP to form the government despite the party lacking the numbers. Supreme Court lawyer Gautam Bhatia, in his column in The Hindu, wants to know if the country still needs governors or should the post be abolished. Pointing out that the founding fathers who framed the Constitution only saw it as a “constitutional post”, meaning a titular head, Bhatia says the highly contested Karnataka verdict is only the most recent example of the governor’s discretion “to skew the political process in the direction that the central government desires”.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia, political commentator Sanjaya Baru writes in The Economic Times that such trips are attempts to understand the changing global order. “What is interesting about much of the commentary on Modi’s foreign policy and travels is how they continue to remain one step behind the government in anticipating change,” says Baru.

Digital India remains a top priority for the government. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in his column in The Times Of India, talks about the success of the programme and how it is changing the delivery of services. “Four years down the line, empirical evidence suggests that Digital India is not only creating empowerment but also generating employment opportunities and promoting entrepreneurship,” he says.

ThePrint broke the story about the Union government contemplating changes in the way services and cadres are allocated after candidates clear the UPSC examination. Former cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, in his column in The Indian Express, criticises the proposed changes, pointing out that, “There are… many confusing elements in the present proposal.”