Daily Briefing: Apple debuts iPhone 16; latest on J&K, Haryana polls; Understanding MPox breakout; & more

🔎 Express Investigation

A showpiece job scheme once promised gainful employment to Indians in Israel’s construction sector based on their skillset. The move came about after over 100,000 Palestinian workers were banned in the wake of the Hamas attack of October 7 last year.

The Indian Express‘ Ritu Sarin, however, has found a faulty selection process and a contentious decision to redeploy workers, which threaten to unravel the bilateral scheme.

🚨 Big Story

Elections are round the corner! Jammu and Kashmir is heading to the polls after a decade. And much has changed. Article 370, that once conferred it a special status, has been stripped, and J&K is no longer a state. Old wounds, however, have found their way back into poll talks.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said that the Centre has reached out for peace talks with separatist Hurriyat Conference leaders in 2016. Leader of the moderate faction of the conglomerate, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, dismissed it as “a fragmented effort.”

In Haryana, which is also due to elect its Legislative Assembly later this month, the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress have failed to reach an agreement despite days of hard bargaining. The BJP, meanwhile, is looking to ward off dissent over tickets.

📰 From the Front Page

Red flags: As the alleged rape and murder of a trainee doctor continues to roil West Bengal, the Supreme Court has pulled up the state police for a 14-hour delay in filing of the First Information Report (FIR) and the absence of a key document that is sent with the body for post-mortem.

The purse strings: Are health and life insurance premiums set to get cheaper? Well, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) council met Monday and agreed that the GST on the premiums needs to be reduced. But, a decision is yet to be taken. The proposal has been taken up for further discussions.

A tete-a-tete: With several ideological issues of the Sangh Parivar currently pending in the courts, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad recently organized a meeting with retired Supreme Court and High Court judges to exchange ideas on “nationalism and Hindutva.” The discussion reportedly covered a range of topics, including the Kashi-Mathura dispute, the Waqf Bill, and religious conversions, among other issues.

📌 Must Read

Bait, switch and run: Assam has been hit by a string of trading scams, the latest involving 29-year-old Deepankar Barman. He claimed to be the director of DB Stock Broking and promised high investment returns. A few weeks ago, Barman deserted his Guwahati office and vanished, leaving many investors in a lurch. The modus operandi of these scamsters typically involves promising substantial returns and flaunting luxury lifestyles on social media.

The Para rockstars: She held the bow aloft with her right leg while releasing the arrow with subtle movements of her upper body: Watching 17-year-old archer Sheetal Devi compete at Paris 2024 left the internet in awe. With the Games showcasing a series of breathtaking performances, we revisit some of the most impressive athletes and their jaw dropping performances from the Paris Paralympics.

The MPox muddle: With confirmed cases in 121 countries, including India, MPox was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) last month. The Democratic Republic of Congo, which has become the epicenter of the outbreak, has recently received its first batch of vaccines. We explain the type of vaccines being used to tackle MPox and why Africa, despite having 20 affected countries, did not receive the vaccines sooner.

⚡ And Finally…

Agree to disagree: In today’s Opinion section, our columnist Sumana Roy argues that a noisy classroom should not be silenced. She contends that the idea of consensus emerging from our classrooms is gradually diminishing our ability to engage in meaningful conversations with those who do not share our intellectual and emotional backgrounds.

Delhi Confidential: Aakash, Prakriti, Shikhar: No, these are not students studying in a college, but names of lecture halls at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. The college has embraced the trend of assigning culturally rooted names to its new spaces. These new areas have been created within the past three months by decluttering existing spaces, in alignment with the Swachh Bharat initiative.

🎧In today’s 3 Things Podcast, we discuss the tragic deaths of 12 individuals during the Jharkhand excise constable recruitment physical examination. We also explore the controversy surrounding the appearance of warning signboards targeting ‘non-Hindus’ in Rudraprayag.

Until next time,

Sonal Gupta and Aradhana Kalia

Business As Usual by Unny