Daily Briefing: SC grants interim relief to Shiv Sena rebels; Delhi Police arrests Mohammed Zubair

At a time when Sanjay Raut has been trying to rally the Shiv Sena MLAs and cadre behind Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, the Enforcement Directorate has issued summons to the Sena MP in a case related to irregularities in a chawl redevelopment project at Mumbai’s Goregaon.

Facing rebellion within his party, Thackeray took away the portfolios of rebel ministers camping in Assam’s Guwahati and allocated them to other cabinet colleagues.

Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena’s rebel group led by Eknath Shinde is learnt to be strategising to approach the Governor, informing him of their decision to withdraw support from the MVA, and thereby, prompting a floor test.

Only in The Express

The Supreme Court, while dismissing appeals against the clean chit to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in the Gujarat riots case, said the matter is being pursued to keep the pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design” and said “all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law”. Yet it was the Supreme Court which, through hearings and orders over the years, called for “fair and impartial investigation” into the riots cases. Two cases — of the Best Bakery and Bilkis Bano — were moved out of Gujarat to Maharashtra. Here’s what Supreme Court once said and did.

Is lack of clarity on policy and progressive clamping down on cryptocurrencies forcing Indian entrepreneurs and developers in the Web 3.0 to leave the country in search of greener pastures? With the UAE and Singapore actively promoting the ecosystem, co-founders of India’s cryptocurrency exchanges have been relocating with families to these destinations in the last couple of years.

From the Front Page

A cyber unit of Delhi Police arrested Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews, on charges of allegedly hurting religious sentiments following a complaint by a social media user who referred to a tweet from 2018. Police sources said the complainant in the case goes by the Twitter name Hanuman Bhakt.

India, along with G7 countries and four invited countries, signed the ‘2022 Resilient Democracies Statement’ in which they committed to “guarding the freedom, independence and diversity of civil society actors” and “protecting the freedom of expression and opinion online and offline”.

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In an attempt to increase participation of women in the gig economy, the NITI Aayog has proposed fiscal incentives like tax breaks or startup grants for companies with about one-third of their workforce as women and people with disabilities (PwDs). Key points in its report include:

🔴A survey conducted across urban centres of India revealed that women are more likely to take up platform jobs after their education and marriage.

🔴 Female labour force participation in India has remained low, oscillating between 16 per cent to 23 per cent in the last few years.

🔴 Platform companies offer flexibility and choice of labour to all workers in general, and women in particular, empowering them to monetise their idle assets when and where they want.

🔴 It also recommended that businesses have a higher share of women managers and supervisors in the organisation to ensure that communication to workers does not perpetuate gender stereotypes.

Another report, released by the Ministry of Education, states that as India entered the pandemic year, students in around 61 per cent districts of the country had very little exposure to digital learning due to limited availability of computers, Internet facilities and teachers trained to handle technological tools in schools.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan questioned the Congress’ “silence” over the arrest of retired DGP R B Sreekumar and activist Teesta Setalvad by the Gujarat Police a day after the Supreme Court upheld the clean chit by the SIT to the state government, then led by Narendra Modi, in the 2002 Gujarat riots case. “The Congress could have organised at least a nominal protest,” he said.

And Finally…

Aditi Mutatkar, a former international shuttler, remembers getting awkward when boys at her academy didn’t know why she came for badminton training, wearing dark shorts a few days of the month. Now, with a myriad voices raising questions about Wimbledon’s pedantic white-only clothing rule, unrelenting even for women players on their periods, sport is in for a serious sartorial reckoning of its age-old traditions.

Delhi confidential: With the digital push targeting the youth ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections finding success, a new mission — New India For Young India — is already launched in poll-bound Gujarat, with Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar visiting universities to tell students about the government’s programmes and schemes. The programme is to create a buzz about new opportunities such as space and start-ups.

In today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, we discuss how the sanctions against Russia have fared and why AAP lost the recent bypolls in Punjab. We also delve into the companies looking to invest in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, and what it says about our economy.

Until tomorrow,

Leela Prasad and Sonal Gupta

Business As Usual by EP Unny