Good morning, In today’s edition: International referee speaks on allegations against Brij Bhushan; Express investigation on Jharkhand irrigation scheme; and more 🔎 Express Investigation 🔴 Misuse of Aadhar cards, no use of new equipment, farmers clueless that money has been collected by private companies in their name: this marks the implementation of “Per Drop More Crop” by the JMM-Congress-RJD government in Jharkhand, an investigation by The Indian Express has revealed. 🔴 The scheme is a key element of an ambitious Central micro-irrigation scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana. On paper, a robust four-step verification process exists, to ensure that it is implemented properly in the state. But in practice, the process has fallen flat under the watch of the state agriculture department– find out how. 🚨 Big story “‘I saw Brij Bhushan standing next to her, she freed herself… Something wrong happened to her”: An international wrestling referee has corroborated the allegations made by a female wrestler in her complaint against WFI president and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. 📰 From the front page In the latest Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Thursday, the RBI decided to leave the repo rate unchanged at 6.50 per cent for the second consecutive time. Find out here what the Bank said, and who gets relief through this policy step. Diplomatic temperatures rose after a video showed a tableau in a Canadian parade purportedly celebrating the assassination of former Indian PM Indira Gandhi. This led to India warning Canada, saying that giving “space… to separatists, extremists” was “not good” for bilateral ties. The Bihar government’s response to the Odisha triple train accident last week is being questioned by families and relatives of the victims from Bihar, who say they have received little assistance from their state in locating and identifying their loved ones. Read our ground report for more ⚡ Must read ✍️ In our opinion section today, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes on the Manipur crisis, and how it reveals limits of BJP’s politics in the Northeast: “What the BJP had touted as the moment of its greatest ideological triumph, winning in the North-east, is turning out to also expose the limitations of its politics.” Under Kamal Nath, the Congress in Madhya Pradesh has been making a rightward shift. With the Bajrang Sena merging with the grand old party, the soft Hindutva, is going further than most such Congress experiments, started off to shake off the BJP accusations of the party being anti-Hindu, and is now potent enough to make the latter sit up and take notice. Public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) are no longer incurring under-recoveries on petrol and diesel sales, but resumption of regular fuel price revisions is likely only after they fully recoup their accumulated losses of last year when they sold the fuels at heavy losses, top sources in the government said. ⌛ And finally Is India becoming a sicker nation? One of the biggest and representative studies on lifestyle markers has pointed out prevalence of metabolic disorders such as diabetes, hypertension, central obesity or abdominal fat and high cholesterol among Indians and that the country’s diabetes burden is likely to shoot up over the next five years. 🤫Delhi Confidential: Newly appointed Union Minister for Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju is focusing on making earth sciences more accessible, and comprehensible to people. In a meeting with the heads of departments of the Earth Sciences Ministry, Rijiju instructed the officials to be far more active on social media, and urged them to place scientific developments on media platforms. 🔊In today’s 3 Things episode, we discuss the meeting between the protesting wrestlers and Sport Minister Anurag Thakur, the rising CO2 levels being a cause for concern and Indian universities mulling to introduce a new range of college degree names. Until tomorrow, Arushi Bhaskar and Anamni Gupta
