Daily briefing: Women’s quota bill and the delimitation hurdle; ISRO to wake up Chandrayaan-3 lander, rover; and more

📑 Clearing the decks for a landmark legislation on 33% reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, the Lower House has passed the women’s reservation Bill – the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023 – with near unanimity: 454 votes in favour and two from the AIMIM against it.

Backing the Bill, 2023, Opposition parties demanded Wednesday that the government implement the proposed legislation “immediately”, and conduct a caste census to extend the benefits of this law to women belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

The Bill is set to enter and sail through Rajya Sabha today given how different the Upper House is now – 13 years since it passed a similar Bill.

Only in the Express

A freelance interior designer, Mayank Prajapati spends most of his daytime looking after his two-year-old. It is only after wife Shweta, a business analyst at the American Express, is done with her shift that Prajapati becomes a Street Fighter, who kicks, punches and beats others to a pulp. All within the confines of his PC room. Read more about him here

From the Front Page 

🚨  In an indication of the deepening ties between the two countries, US Ambassador Eric Garcetti has said that President Joe Biden has been invited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi on January 26 next year.

The Delhi High Court in an interim order has restrained 16 entities from infringing the personality rights of actor Anil Kapoor while hearing his lawsuit against misuse of his image, name, voice, likeness or other elements of his persona for monetary gains without his consent.

🌓 With a new dawn breaking on Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up to try and nudge the lander and rover modules of Chandrayaan-3 mission to awaken from their sleep. The chances of revival are not very high, but it is not a hopeless situation either.

Must Read 

India’s sugar supply situation “is not comfortable, but there’s no need to panic,” says Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd (NFCSF). The driest ever August, with all-India rainfall 36.2% below the normal average for the month, raised concerns over the sugarcane crop. However, the revival of the southwest monsoon in September have been a “lifesaver”.

✍️ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement to Canadian lawmakers alleging that Indian agents killed Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar this June has caused India-Canada relations to plunge to a fresh low. Diplomats have been expelled and there is little hope of reconciliation. Yet, the real culprit is a toxic form of diaspora politics, Karthik Nachiappan writes.

⚡ The Bill providing for 33% reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, will likely be cleared in Parliament’s ongoing Special Session. However, implementation remains far in the future as it has been made contingent on the delimitation exercise. But what is a delimitation exercise, how is it carried out and what makes it a political hot potato? Express explains

And Finally…

🎧 As the Lok Sabha cleared the 128th Constitutional Amendment Bill 2023 which aims at bringing 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and all state legislative assemblies, the focus remained on the link of its implementation to the contentious delimitation exercise. Listen to our 3 Things podcast

When many party colleagues were struggling to figure out the entry and seating arrangements, among others, on the first day in the new Parliament building, Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram had something else in his mind: he was looking for the new canteen. Check out today’s Delhi Confidential.

Until tomorrow,

Anamni Gupta and Srishti Kapoor