Daily Briefing: Rollback of Agnipath scheme ruled out; content on Islamic rulers cut in proposed NCERT changes

Aspirants speak out: A 21-year-old aspirant told The Indian Express, “I am working hard to get employed without any pension and medical benefits and no assurance of another job. How would a politician react if there is a law to allow him to become an MP or MLA just for one term?”

Only in the Express

Part 3 of an Express Investigation into the proposed changes in NCERT textbooks under its latest “rationalisation” exercise shows that content on Islamic rulers has suffered deep cuts. Here’s what we found:

🔴 Most of the changes related to Muslim rulers have been made in one textbook: several pages on the Delhi Sultanate, ruled by many dynasties including the Mamluks, Tughlaqs, Khaljis and Lodis, and the Mughal empire have been removed from the Class 7 history textbook ‘Our Pasts – II’.

🔴 In the Class 12 history textbook, the chapter ‘Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts’ (Themes in Indian History — Part II) has been deleted.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Congress leader and Independent Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal speaks on the Enforcement Directorate questioning Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders, the need for the Opposition to speak in one voice and the government’s Agnipath scheme.

The Hindus: An Alternative History, a book by Wendy Doniger, one of the world’s foremost scholars of Hinduism, Sanskrit and mythology, had to be withdrawn after a campaign against it in India in 2014. At an Idea Exchange, Doniger speaks about how she discovered Sanskrit and Hinduism, the backlash over her most successful book, and why, at its core, Hinduism has always been diverse.

From the Front Page

While steel and cement are witnessing an uptick in demand, automobile and consumer goods continue to lag. Analysts said 75-80 per cent capacity utilisation — ratio of actual output to the potential output that can be produced under normal condition — needs to be sustained over 3-4 quarters for it to translate into an expansionary drive by the industry. But experts are of the view that tighter monetary policy conditions and subdued demand may weigh on the investment sentiment.

In separate incidents, two SpiceJet aircraft returned to their airports of origin shortly after take-off on Sunday with one suffering a bird hit in Patna and the other from Delhi facing a technical glitch that led to a “cabin pressurisation issue”. In a third incident, an IndiGo aircraft turned back to Guwahati a few minutes after takeoff due to a bird hit. All the three incidents will be probed by the aviation safety regulator DGCA.

A 50-year-old Mumbai Police Inspector has emerged as the go-to person for the Maharashtra government to investigate major cases that are being seen as “politically sensitive”. The Indian Express has learnt that Mumbai Police’s Sanjay Mohite was picked by City Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey to handle these cases, including “an inquiry” against a senior IPS officer who has been accused by a retired officer of having links with a gangster.

Must Read

India will be taking over an ambitious hydropower project in Nepal — West Seti — nearly four years after China withdrew from it, ending a six-year engagement between 2012 and 2018. What can this mean for the future of India-Nepal ties and other hydropower projects in the region, when competition is bound to be tough.

And Finally…

Before his return to action for the first time since winning Olympic gold, javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra met Jan Železný, the supreme deity of the javelin faithful, while training in Turkey. There was a time when Železný’s YouTube videos would regularly eat most of Chopra’s mobile data. In fact, it would become an obsession for the teenager from Khandra. Because in the world of track and field, the Železný run-up is considered a work of art.

🎧 In today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast, we talk about the reaction of defence aspirants and veterans to the Agnipath scheme amidst escalating protests, Northeast India’s increasing number of big floods, and India’s poor rank on the Environment Performance Index.

Until tomorrow,
Leela Prasad and Sonal Gupta

Business As Usual by E P Unny