Front Page
There’s definitely something fishy about the death of 11 family members in Burari, Delhi, Sunday, with 10 of them found hanging and one lying on the floor of their home. The dead spanned ages 15 to 77. Police said the crime scene bore no sign of robbery being a motive, adding that handwritten notes found in the house “pointed towards observance of some definite spiritual/mystical practices by the whole family”, Deeksha Bhardwaj reported for ThePrint.
48 people died and 12 were injured in one of the worst road accidents in Uttarakhand in recent history. The Times of India reports that the overloaded bus they were travelling in fell into a 100m-deep gorge in Pauri district when the driver swerved to avoid a pothole. The 28-seater bus was carrying 60 people.
5 people lynched in Maharashtra as social media continues to spread rumours of child lifting. The mob of over 35 people attacked the group of five victims in the tribal hamlet of Rainpada, about 325 km from Mumbai. The victims were getting down from a state transport bus and the locals apparently saw one of them trying to speak to a girl child. “The accused hail from a tribal village where WhatsApp posts pertaining to child kidnappers had gone viral,” M. Ramkumar, Dhule superintendent of police, told The Indian Express.
This comes days after an announcer hired by authorities in south Tripura to dispel these very rumours was also lynched by a mob.
Congress eyes J&K alliance: The Congress is holding a series of meetings to discuss the political situation in the troubled state and considering whether to attempt an alliance, possibly with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hindustan Times reports. This comes amid speculation that the BJP is also scrambling to form a new alliance in the state, a claim the party has denied.
It was GST’s first anniversary Sunday, and finance minister Piyush Goyal said the revenue from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will exceed ₹1.1 lakh crore monthly, The Hindu reports. He added that he expects about ₹13 lakh crore of revenue from the new tax regime over this financial year. Finance minister Arun Jaitley, in whose absence Goyal assumed charge of the ministry, also used the occasion to make his public appearance since his kidney transplant.
Hit by drugs epidemic, Punjab will go black this week to protest against the ‘white menace’, that is, narcotics like heroin and cocaine. Nikhil Rampal of ThePrint tells us that the movement has been triggered by the recent viral videos showing the toll drug abuse is taking on the state’s youth.
Business Class
CBI seizes files on easing of 5/20 aviation rule: The NDA government’s decision to scrap the 5/20 rule, which made it easier for domestic airlines to fly abroad, is under the scanner of the CBI, reports Business Standard. The agency is likely to call senior officials of the civil aviation ministry for questioning.
Vijay Mallya’s private jet sold for a paltry ₹35 crore: After four failed attempts since March 2016, the service tax authorities have finally sold Vijay Mallya’s luxury jet in a bid to recover ₹800 crore in dues, reports Livemint.
News it’s just kinda cool to know
It looks like we really didn’t know all that much about our rivers: According to a new study published by a team of researchers from the University of North Carolina, US, and based on data from a NASA satellite, Earth is covered by almost 773,000 sq km of rivers and streams, which is roughly 44 per cent higher than what was previously estimated! Inquisitr brings us the news.
People in space have found a friend: A ball-shaped artificial intelligence robot nicknamed the “flying brain” blasted off Friday towards the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon cargo ship. It is trained to follow and interact with a German astronaut and is called CIMON, or Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, The Hindu reports.
Point of View
Indian women football fans are putting the ‘World Cup widower’ in his place, says an editorial in Hindustan Times. According to the Broadcast Audience Research Council, the first 26 matches garnered 90.7 million impressions in India and half the viewers were women. “Top quality international football has both sexes in its embrace. The battle for the remote need not be fought at all,” it observes.
Prime Time
A mixed bag
On the first anniversary of the tax regime, Athar Khan of Times Now asked: “How successful is GST?” Professor Bejon Misra, an expert on quality management systems, and Sudesh Verma of the BJP focused on the positive side of GST. “Today, the consumers are happy, it is transparent that my tax is reaching the exchequer,” said Misra.
“GST has failed. Unorganised sector is in a shambles. Where are the jobs being created by Mudra loans?” countered Juhie Singh of the Samajwadi Party.
Tax talk
GST was also the subject of discussion on the Mirror Now show hosted by Afrida Rahman Ali.
Ghanshyam Tiwari of the Samajwadi Party was of the opinion that GST was a great idea, and that traders would have celebrated if it were implemented nicely. “Big businesses are doing good whereas 80 per cent of the small business are doing terribly bad,” Tiwari added.
The BJP’s Vinit Goenka said the opposition also voted for GST and “now it is criticising it because it has been a big success”.