Express 5: 3081 cases registered in 1984 riots, only 49 were handed life term; CM Fadnavis’s maiden move is anti-graft

It was October 31, 1984. Walking to his house in Trilokpuri Block 32, Mansa Singh noticed the local butcher, Kishori Lal, skinning a lamb that hung from his shop’s ceiling. He thought nothing of it then. A day later, he watched the butcher using the same knife to chop off his son Darshan’s arms. Singh hid helplessly, paralysed behind a clothes line. He saw his sons dragged out of the house by Kishori Lal, who was leading a mob, saw them attacked with knives and iron rods. “I lost three sons in front of my eyes. They were cut to pieces and beaten to death with iron rods. I could not save my children. I don’t know why God has kept me alive. I don’t wish this on my worst enemies,” says 74-year-old Singh, sitting in a two-room flat in Tilak Vihar. Photographs of his three sons, his brother Kripal Singh and eldest daughter-in-law Amarti Kaur adorn the otherwise barren walls of the house.

Read More: 49 were handed life terms, most got away with murder

2. CM’s MAIDEN MOVE

In a significant anti-graft move soon after taking over as the Chief Minister on Friday evening, Devendra Fadnavis directed the authorities to submit a proposal that can do away with the norm mandating prior sanction of the government for probes against elected representatives, senior bureaucrats and police officers in corruption cases. Currently, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) requires the government’s nod to prosecute or conduct an “open inquiry” into graft charges against senior officials and functionaries.

Read More: CM Devendra Fadnavis’s maiden move is anti-graft

3. NEW ICCR CHIEF

He is fluent in 16 languages, has over 596 publications to his name, and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2006 for “his contributions to academic life and public discourse”, but when Lokesh Chandra was appointed as India’s cultural czar Thursday, quite a few eyebrows were raised. Why would the BJP government choose an 87-year-old Indira Gandhi loyalist, with links to leaders of the erstwhile Soviet Union, for its first big-ticket appointment in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) — as president of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), the country’s cultural interface with the world?

Read More: Meet the new ICCR chief: Modi avatar of god, bigger than Gandhi

4. OPINION

There are several reasons why the case for retaining the NREGA employment system, as argued by 28 of India’s leading economists, should be dismissed. First, India’s leading economists are likely to be just plain wrong, and naïvely so, in their assessment of the worth of the NREGA. While this job provision programme has been christened the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, I feel it is important to not besmirch the Mahatma’s memory with such a corrupt programme.

Read More: No proof required: PDS or NREGA, corruption must go on

5. SPORTS

Former India captain Mohd Azharuddin’s son Asaduddin will be another star-son to rise this forthcoming domestic season. Asad, who merely attended one week’s trials in Kanpur, was selected in Uttar Pradesh’s 15-member squad on Friday for the zonal Vijay Hazare Trophy to be played in Nagpur. Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) secretary Rajeev Shukla said that Azhar was keen on his son — a middle-order batsman — representing UP where he was a MP from Moradabad in the last Lok Sabha.

Read More: After 3 trial games, Mohd Azharuddin’s son in UP one-day team