Daily Briefing: Kolkata rape-murder case takes centerstage in SC today

🚨Big Story

Top of mind: A three-judge bench presided by the Supreme Court Chief Justice DY Chandrachud will hear the suo motu plea on the rape and murder the trainee doctor in Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital today. 

On Monday, the findings of the autopsy report of the junior doctor who was raped and murdered came to light. The post-mortem examination found 16 external and nine internal injury marks among other details, The Indian Express has learnt. (*TW*)

Meanwhile, the under-fire Bengal government has ordered the setting up of a Special Investigation Team to probe the alleged financial irregularities at the hospital. Parallely, the Kolkata Police have issued notices to about 280 individuals including students, doctors, YouTubers and both BJP and TMC leaders for allegedly spreading “misinformation” or “revealing pictures or the identity” of the victim.

“Even in death, she has become an instrument of political agendas, ideological world views, ulterior purposes and partisan bickering. The individual’s dignity has been once again extinguished.” 

In reference to the politicisation of Kolkata’s rape-murder case, columnist Prakash Bhanu Mehta tells us why he thinks there’s a danger of justice not being done and the three limitations of civil society getting mobilised in order to demand accountability.

The coming wedge?: In line with its narrative of “unity”, the opposition bloc (aka INDIA) initially managed to tread the fine line of backing Mamata Banerjee government over rape and murder incident, while seeking justice for the victim. But the opposition parties are said to be showing growing unease over TMC’s handling of the situation. Here’s why.

Meanwhile, in Delhi: Even as protesting doctors across the country push for a special law to protect healthcare workers, the Union Health Ministry is unlikely to support it. Further, senior officials of the ministry have indicated that it would not make a difference anyway.

No backing down: Right outside the ministry’s office in the national capital, around 1,000 doctors continued their protest in its eighth day. To send out a message that they would be staying put, the AIIMS’ Resident Doctors’ Association also announced plans to offer consultations and run OPDs from the street outside the office. Here’s what happened then.

🎧 Dive deeper to understand all the updates in the  gruesome rape and murder case, and the ongoing probe, in today’s episode of our flagship show,  ‘3 Things’ podcast.

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⚡Only in Express

“… the take-over of political thinking by the formal discipline of political science was an intellectual as well as a political disaster. Disconnected from involvement in the world of politics and any language other than English, the academic mode of thinking about politics is geared towards the demands and fads of global academia, indifferent to political consequences.”

In the opening edition of his newest column ‘Deshkaal’, psephologist and political activist Yogendra Yadav writes about the ‘sudden death of modern Indian political thought’ and its implications on the entirety of a political class, cutting across ideological boundaries.

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📰 From the Front Page

In towns and cities outside Bangladesh’s Dhaka, as many still try to process the chaotic ouster of the 16-year-old government led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, there is a sense of relief coupled with anxiety for the future.

The Indian Express‘s Shubhajit Roy travelled to Comilla, about 100 km from Dhaka, and Noakhali, 171 km from the capital, and found that conversations on “unnoti” (development) are almost always followed by how “odhikar” (rights) were in short supply during Hasina’s rule.

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👉Must Read

More girls in rural areas are cycling to school, with the largest increase in cycling levels over the previous decade being among females in villages — from 4.5% in 2007 to 11% in 2017. Researchers from IIT Delhi and the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies term this rise in cycling among girls in rural areas a “silent revolution”. We report.

In a largely tea-drinking nation, how would Starbucks’ sudden global leadership change potentially impact the world’s largest coffeehouse chain’s Indian partnership: Tata Starbucks? Would it affect the consumer experience of users in different markets, including India? The answer is not really. There are, however, indications of at least three areas where there could be likely changes from a customer experience point of view. We take a look at these.

Terming the rules that led to Vinesh Phogat’s elimination from the Paris Olympics as “draconian”, the sole arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport underlined that there was “no wrongdoing” on Phogat’s part. Even though Phogat’s appeal was dismissed, the arbitrator said a “fairer solution” would have been to “limit the consequences” to only the 50-kg gold-medal bout. Here is what the Australian arbitrator Annabelle Bennett noted in a 24-page detailed order on Monday.

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📌And Finally…

The Justice Hema Committee report, which looked into the problems faced by women working in the Malayalam film industry, has found that these include sexual harassment, lack of basic facilities like women’s toilets, gender bias and discrimination, disparity in remuneration, and the absence of a legally constituted authority to address their problems. The report begins with a strongly-worded note emphasising “not all beloved stars deserve to be loved”. We report.

Delhi Confidential: Continuing his pitch on the ‘threat to the Constitution’, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi is set to take part in an event — ‘Samvidhan Samman Sammelan’ — in Prayagraj on August 24. The conference will be held at a medical convention centre on Stanley Road, which is only a couple of kilometres from Anand Bhavan — the ancestral house of the Nehru family and now a museum.

That’s all for today.

Until tomorrow,

Vibha B Madhava and Ayesha Jain

Business As Usual by E P Unny – August 20