Front Page
Imran Khan is poised to win this match. The cricketer-turned-politician was leading in 105 seats as of late Wednesday evening, while Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) only had a lead in 71. Hours after polling began, a suspected Islamic State suicide bomber killed 31 people outside a polling station in Bhosa Mandi, Quetta, while four others died in separate clashes outside polling booths, The Hindu reports. Several allegations were made by members of various contesting parties, who claimed that counting was being carried out behind closed doors as the military was trying to manipulate the outcome.
The BJP has found its war room for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections — 11 Ashoka Road, its former headquarters in Lutyens’ Delhi, Hindustan Times reports. “The war room will plan and execute the campaign for the next parliamentary election,” a BJP leader told the daily. A different source also said the swanky new office at Dayal Upadhyay Marg has been “unlucky for the BJP”.
Three siblings died of starvation in east Delhi’s Mandawali. All aged under 10 years, Mansi (8), Paro (5) and Sukho (2) “were found in a pool of their own vomit” in their one-room shack in the slum, The Times of India reports. Their father drove a rickshaw to earn money until two weeks ago, when his rickshaw was stolen. Autopsy established malnutrition and starvation as the cause of the children’s death.
Maratha groups demanding quota in jobs and education called off their bandh mid-Wednesday after protesters indulged in vandalism and arson, The Indian Express reports. In retaliation, police used plastic bullets and tear gas, also cane-charging the protesters, according to an official’s statement. The Times of India also reports that two MLAs — one from the Shiv Sena and the other from the NCP — have resigned to show solidarity with the protesters.
Hardik Patel has been sentenced to two years in prison for ‘rioting’ as well as vandalising the office of a BJP MLA during the Patidar quota rally led by him in Gujarat’s Visnagar in 2015, The Times of India reports. Patel said, “This conviction is an attempt by the ruling BJP to stop me from contesting the 2019 LS polls. It is an attempt to ruin my political career and social life.” He and two others convicted of the same charges have been given a month’s bail on the condition that they won’t enter Mehsana district, where Visnagar is located.
A senior editor at Dainik Bhaskar, 55-year-old Kalpesh Yagnik, killed himself fearing a ‘sex scandal’ and blackmail by a former colleague, Ananya Bhardwaj reports for ThePrint. In a letter Yagnik wrote to a police officer, he said an employee fired in September last year, Saloni Arora, was threatening to file a sexual abuse case against him using “some of their conversations and video clips”.
Business Class
Bill to help bring back fugitive economic offenders gets house nod. Parliament Wednesday approved the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018, to help the government seize the assets of the likes of Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, reports Livemint.
‘Chinese investment in India’s financial technology space a threat,’ said Rajya Sabha MP Narendra Jadhav, pointing at Alibaba’s (which has a majority stake in Paytm) request for a non-banking finance company (NBFC) licence. According to a report in The Indian Express, he said, “Through the NBFC route, the Chinese MNC could possibly capture a large chunk of our domestic lending market.”
News it’s just kinda cool to know
An underground lake has been detected for the first time on Mars, raising hopes that life may be possible on the Red Planet after all. The lake is located under a layer of Martian ice and is about 20 kilometres wide, making it the largest body of liquid water ever to be found on Mars, The Conversation reports.
The White House recently banned CNN’s Kaitlan Collins from entering the premises to attend the Rose Garden event, with the justification that it expects “everyone to be respectful of the presidency”. Collins was barred because she shouted a question at US President Donald Trump during an Oval Office media meet. The White House Correspondents Association has called the move a “misguided and inappropriate decision”, PTI reports.
Point of View
The Congress needs to stop thinking of coalitions as a ‘tactical necessity’ and frame a cogent stand on the issue, writes Suhas Palshikar, co-director, Lokniti programme, in a column for The Indian Express. “The BJP’s prevarication in forging pre-poll alliances can, therefore, work in favour of the Congress as an opportunity to weave an anti-BJP coalition in advance,” he says.
An editorial in The Hindu speaks about amendments to the Right to Education (RTE) Act that aim to give states the power to detain students. “Although many states want such a change, the amendment passed by the Lok Sabha goes against the view of many educationists, who argue that it would weaken one of the progressive features of the RTE Act, which is to guarantee the continued presence of the child in school during the formative learning phase,” it says.
Former union minister Kapil Sibal, in his column for The Times of India, writes about the recent spate of mob violence triggered by WhatsApp forwards and calls for better governance. “Target those who use the medium for inciting violence and those who take the law into their own hands. The government will be ill advised to target the medium. Instead, rumour mongering and hate speech must be targeted to protect free speech,” he writes.
An editorial in Business Standard highlights that weeks after the “historic” hike in the MSP for kharif crops, the decision remains only on paper. It says, “The market seems to have cold-shouldered the government’s avowedly pro-farmer move with hardly any noticeable movement in prices… The inflationary tendency that normally used to ensue from MSP spikes in the past has largely been missing this time.”
Prime Time
What’s the reason behind the Maratha protests?
On CNN News 18, Zakka Jacob’s panelists included the BJP’s Sanju Verma and Congress member Charan Singh Sapra, as well as Maratha representatives.
Maratha Maha Morcha leader Shrimant Kokate said, “CM Devendra Fadnavis insulted the Maratha youngsters.” Lok Sabha MP Raju Shetti of the Swabhimani Paksha said “all this is happening because on ‘on one hand, farmers are suffering heavy losses, and on the other, there’s huge unemployment’.”
However, when Jacob tried to question his panelists on who would pay for the damage, no party answered.
On Republic TV, Arnab Goswami hosted 10 panelists, including Nalin Kohli, AIMIM’s Syed Imtiaz Jaleel, JNU professor Ganga Sahay Meena, Sunder Chopra of CPI(M), and the NCP’s Clyde Crasto.
To start the debate, Goswami claimed there is a pattern to the mob violence — “burn the country down ahead of 2019 elections”.
Activist Professor P.L. Vishweshwar Rao questioned the government’s move to promise quota to the Marathas.