Front Page
Key conspirator behind Shujaat Bukhari’s assassination identified. J&K police have identified Sajjad Gul, a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) recruiter and Kashmir native, as the man behind the senior journalist’s murder. Gul, 48, did his MBA in Bengaluru and crossed over to Pakistan five years ago, settling in Rawalpindi, The Times of India reports. Based on intelligence reports, the “kill” order is believed to have come from LeT chief Hafiz Saeed. Bukhari’s support for the Ramzan ceasefire was reportedly the motive.
No time for talks: The US Wednesday postponed its inaugural 2+2 dialogue with India, a week before the nations’ defence and foreign ministers were set to meet in Washington on 6 July, citing “unavoidable reasons,” Hindustan Times reports. Meanwhile, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has arrived in New Delhi, where she also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There’s more trouble brewing in the Bihar alliance. Days after reports that chief minister Nitish Kumar’s emissaries had reached out to Lalu Prasad, the Congress and Sharad Yadav, his aide Sanjay Singh made a tough statement on seat-sharing for 2019, The Hindu reports “If the BJP does not want an ally in Bihar it can field its candidates in all 40 Lok Sabha seats,” he said. However, other close aides of Nitish tried to dispel reports of discord between the JD(U) and the BJP.
Videos of the 2016 surgical strikes against terror launch pads in Pakistan were broadcast on several TV channels Wednesday night. The Indian Express reports that these “clips showed some terrorists being killed, besides the destruction of bunkers and other military constructions”. Former Northern Army Commander Lt General D.S. Hooda (Retd) confirmed that the videos were real.
Delhi has a habit of cutting trees. Over the past five years, the Delhi government’s forest department has not rejected any proposals for tree felling for major development projects, Hindustan Times reports, based on statements from department officials.
The government has rejected an opinion poll-based ‘study’ by the Thomson Reuters Foundation that claims India is the most dangerous country in the world for women, stating that it uses “flawed methodology” to present an incorrect picture, The Times of India reports. However, ThePrint’s Yashasvini Mathur tells us that BJP supporters had, in fact, used the last edition of the same poll to corner the Congress on poor women’s safety in India.
FIFA World Cup defending champions, Germany, have crashed out of the tournament in the first round, for the first time since 1938. They are now the fourth defending champion in the last five tournaments to be eliminated in the group stage, Hindustan Times reports. They lost to South Korea 2-0.
News it’s just kinda cool to know
A southern shift: Just-released data from the 2011 census on mother tongues seems to indicate a new migration trend. Tamil- and Malayalam-speaking populations are falling across states in north India, while Tamil Nadu and Kerala are seeing a jump in the number of Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Odia speakers. It looks like South India is now the place to be, The Times of India reports.
Business class
Rupee nears record low on rising oil prices, trade war: The rupee closed near an all-time low Wednesday over concerns that higher crude oil prices will worsen India’s current account deficit and accelerate inflation, reports Livemint.
Government plans to sell Air India’s iconic Mumbai building to JNPT: As part of efforts to raise funds for India’s cash-strapped flag carrier, the government has started discussions for the sale of Air India’s iconic Mumbai building to the country’s biggest container port, reports The Economic Times.
Point of view
Why Brexit may be bad news for fugitives: In its editorial, The Tribune says post-Brexit Britain may no longer be a magnet for economic fugitives. “Britain would not like to earn the reputation of being a haven for economic interlopers, especially when post-Brexit, PM Theresa May is on a weak political wicket and needs the comfort of large economies like India to improve her ratings,” it writes.
Being Air India: Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies, writes in his column for The Economic Times that the trouble Air India has come into can all be put down to sheer inconsistency. “You never know if your flight will take off on time, if your seat will recline, if the power socket will work,” he says.
Redrawing maps: The Indian Express, in an editorial, says the updation of the NRC in Assam could lead to the redrawing of south Asia’s demographic map. “The NRC will now officially bestow on them (people not named in the NRC) the status of stateless citizens or of non-citizens with no rights. It is remarkable that the Supreme Court, which has mandated and monitored the updating of the NRC, has not been more proactive on this aspect of the question,” it writes.
An ‘ujjwal’ future: Nidhi Prabha Tewari, a senior social sector specialist with the PM Ujjwala Yojana, writes about the scheme, which has completed two years, in her column for The Hindu. Attributing the success of the programme to early adopters, she says, “By sharing the vision of early adopters and ironing out service issues, the LPG panchayats being held at village levels across India are helping more and more people appreciate the advantages of clean fuel.”
Prime Time
Surgical Strikes diaries
Exhibit A
As AajTak played a watermarked video of the 2016 surgical strikes, Lt Gen Sanjay Kulkarni (Retd) said nobody should doubt what the Army did. “All this footage is real and was shown to the right people the very next day,” he claimed.
Exhibit B
Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami brought together a panel consisting of people from both sides of the border. Goswami said, “You lying false Pakistanis, we hit you with grenades and missiles and this time we recorded it.”
While Major Gen G.D. Bakshi (Retd) mentioned the operation carried out by American SEALs against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan’s Air Vice Marshal Dr M. Abid Rao (Retd) said, “Don’t compare yourself to America.”
“Don’t shout at G.D. Bakshi,” shouted Goswami.
“I’m shouting at you,” said Rao.
“We demolish you like rats, we burnt your camps like cinders…” Goswami.
Exhibit C
After 10 o’clock, Zee News played the same video that other channels had already run but with the watermark: ‘First on Zee News’.
A defamation case against Reuters?
On India Today TV, Rahul Kanwal debated the credibility of the Thomson Reuters Foundation survey that claimed India was the most dangerous country for women. The survey was based on an opinion poll carried out among over 500 experts.
“Reuters won’t tell who these 550 people who were surveyed are,” Kanwal said.
Author and activist Rana Ayyub pointed out that it was a perception report that has nothing to do with the ground situation. Referring to the handling of the Kathua rape case and women facing online abuse, Ayyub said, “We although are not the worst but we give the message that we are not very serious about women’s issues.”
Writer Madhu Kishwar equated the report with toilet paper and recommended that the government “file a defamation suit against Reuters”.