5 min readNew DelhiAug 22, 2022 08:45 AM IST
First published on: Aug 22, 2022 at 08:45 AM IST
Good morning,
The Big Story
Bouncing back from the shock of Covid-19 pandemic, economies of 19 states and Union Territories exceeded their pre-Covid levels, with seven recording double-digit growth rates during 2021-22, official data for 21 States and Union Territories shows. However, the growth rates of 11 states including Gujarat and Maharashtra were not available for 2021-22.
Only in The Express
House-warming ceremony, son’s wedding, and mother’s knee-replacement surgery — these were among the reasons cited by some of the 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case who approached courts seeking parole or temporary bail even as prosecution witnesses wrote to government authorities citing threats from the convicts who took “frequent parole”. One such letter written on behalf of the witnesses alleged that one of the convicts, while out on parole, “had attended an event of the Bharatiya Janata Party and shared the dais with elected representatives of the BJP from Dahod”.
From the country’s Green Revolution Bowl of Punjab and Haryana, farmers have reported a mystery “dwarfing” disease of paddy that agricultural scientists are still to identify. The disease leads to stunting of paddy plants; the infected fields have these alongside plants with normal height and regular growth.
In this edition of the Idea Exchange, JNU VC Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit spoke on why she is agonised by its anti-national image, the problems of standardising the admission process and what makes JNU India’s premier academic institution.
From the front page
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, whose house was raided by the CBI on Friday in connection with a case it has registered against him and several excise officers over alleged corruption in the rollout of a liquor policy, spoke to The Indian Express on Sunday and said the intent of the CBI’s action was not to fight corruption but to target Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s ministers. Excerpts from the interview.
The appointment earlier this month of Dr N Kalaiselvi as the first woman director general of India’s largest research and development organisation, the 80-year-old Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), underlined a significant trend — official data show the participation of women in science research has been generally increasing over the past two decades in the country.
Must Read
The Congress is to undertake its biggest ever mass contact programme since Independence — a four-month march traversing 12 states by Rahul Gandhi. But the organisation is in the throes of uncertainty over the next Congress president, the one month window for the election of which kicked in today. With Rahul Gandhi not keen to contest and return to the helm, there is a delay in the announcement of the date-wise schedule and little clarity among leaders on how things will pan out.
As the Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar draws fire from the BJP over the induction of RJD MLC Kartik Kumar as the law minister, who has been facing an arrest warrant in a 2014 kidnapping case, we take a look at the slew of such ministers facing serious criminal charges, including Tejashwi, Tej Pratap Yadav, Surendra Prasad Yadav and Ramanand Yadav.
Two months after the Samajwadi Party lost its strongholds of Azamgarh and Rampur to the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha bypolls, the party president, Akhilesh Yadav, is all set to visit Azamgarh on August 23 to meet the jailed “bahubali” and local party MLA, Ramakant Yadav. SP sources said that Akhilesh is concerned about a possible dent in the party’s Yadav vote base in the Azamgarh region.
And Finally
As part of a pilot project, the Ashramshalas, residential schools covered under the Tribal Development Project Office, in Nandurbar taluka in Maharashtra, have been experimenting with a unique way to learn. Here, teachers are facilitators, who, instead of following the fixed pattern of facing the class and conducting lessons, set challenges for students and encourage them to learn their curricula by developing innovative methods on their own, in the form of group activities.
Delhi Confidential: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is in Halifax, Canada for the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, has an extensive itinerary. Birla is going to speak on ‘A People’s Parliament, Accessibility Through Innovation’ at the conference. From Canada, he will be flown to Mexico, where he will unveil statues of Swami Vivekananda and Pandurang Khankhoje, a Maharashtra-born scientist who led a Green Revolution in wheat and maize crops in Mexico. He will also visit Suriname.
In today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, we talk about Indian medical students of Ukrainian varsities,, Antim Panghal becoming the first Indian woman to win Under 20 world wrestling championship, and the impact of heavy rainfall in Himachal.
Until next time,
Leela Prasad G and Srishti Kapoor
Top news on August 22, 2022 
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