1. Kamal Blooms in MP, Talks For Raj Drag on Till Late Night
Congress veteran Kamal Nath will take over as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh after he was elected the legislature party leader in a late-night meeting of MLAs in Bhopal on Thursday, 13 December.
Ashok Gehlot may assume the top job in Rajasthan, but he is tied in a protracted tussle with Sachin Pilot. An announcement is likely only on Friday, 14 December, after a series of meetings on Thursday that stretched on beyond midnight.
Chhattisgarh frontrunners Bhupesh Baghel and TS Singh Deo, as well as Tamradhwaj Sahu and Charan Das Mahant have been called for a meeting with Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday.
(Source: The Times of India)
2. Supreme Court Verdict Today on Rafale Probe
The Supreme Court on Friday, 14 December, will deliver its verdict on a bunch of petitions seeking a court-monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the purchase of 36 French-made Rafale fighter jets by the government for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
According to the list of business for Friday, 14 December, released by the Supreme Court registry, the verdict will be delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph.
Petitions challenging the deal were filed in the top court earlier this year by lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan, former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, and advocates ML Sharma and Vineet Dhanda.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
3. Forty Years He Repaid Loans… Calling Mallya a Fraud Not Right: Nitin Gadkari
Days after a UK court ordered the extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday, 13 December, that it was “not right” to call someone a “fraud” who had repaid loans for 40 years but defaulted once he entered the aviation sector and ran into problems.
Speaking at the Times Network-organised India Economic Conclave in Mumbai, Gadkari said, “I have nothing to do with Vijay Mallya… Mallya’s was a prime account for 40 years when he repaid loans regularly. He entered the aviation sector, and ran into problems. So does that make him a thief? He defaulted once, and he turned to be a fraud? This mindset is not right.”
Gadkari’s remarks came after the UK court order was welcomed here.
(Source: The Indian Express)
4. Dissolution of House by Sirisena Illegal: SC
In a landmark case of the Sri Lankan judiciary ruling on the executive, the Supreme Court said on Thursday, 13 December, that President Maithripala Sirisena’s move last month, dissolving Parliament and calling for snap polls, was illegal.
The seven-member bench unanimously deemed Sirisena’s action unconstitutional. Chief Justice Nalin Perera told a packed courtroom that the President’s 9 November proclamation – sacking Parliament – was null and void and had no effect in law.
The judgment is a major blow to Sirisena, whose sudden decision on 26 October 26 – dismissing the incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointing the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place – sparked, arguably, the country’s biggest political crisis since the civil war ended nearly a decade ago.
(Source: The Hindu)
5. Teen Who Acted in ‘Haider’ Among 3 Ultras Killed in J&K
The 2013 blockbuster ‘Haider’, which captured the ironies of the violent conflict in Kashmir, had a shocking new drama added to it on Thursday, 13 December.
A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy who had played a small role in the Bollywood adaption of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was one of the three alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed in an encounter in Srinagar last Sunday, 8 December.
The teenager, Saqib Bilal, had appeared in the Vishal Bhardwaj-directed movie and earned Rs 1,400 for two shots taken at the Centaur Lake View hotel here five years ago, his maternal uncle, Ajaz Parray, told The Times of India.
Kashmiri coordinators for the movie in Srinagar found Saqib was just the “chocolate boy” Bhardwaj required for several scenes in ‘Haider’, Parray said.
(Source: The Times of India)
6. Man Sets Himself on Fire at Sabarimala Protest Site, Dies
A 49-year-old man died after setting himself on fire just outside BJP’s Sabarimala protest venue in front of the Kerala secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, 13 December.
The deceased has been identified as Venugopalan Nair, 49, resident of Muttada in the city. BJP has called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal on Friday, 14 December, in the state claiming that Nair was an ‘Ayyappa devotee’. However, his dying declaration recorded by a magistrate doesn’t mention any reason for taking the extreme step, according to police sources.
According to eye-witnesses and police, Venugopalan Nair had reached the protest venue around 1.30 am where BJP senior CK Padmanabhan has been on an indefinite hunger strike demanding revocation of the order allowing all women to Sabarimala.
(Source: The Times of India)
7. Diana, Vinod Rai Making a Spectacle of Themselves: Lodha
Disappointed by the latest power tussle between Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji, who form the BCCI’s Committee of Administrators (CoA) set up on the Supreme Court’s orders to implement the reforms his panel had suggested, Justice (retd) RM Lodha told The Indian Express that the two were “making a spectacle of themselves.”
Clarifying that no one was “superior or inferior, higher or lower”, he pointed out that the CoA wasn’t constituted to work on a “my way or the highway” principle.
Lodha was reacting to the recent email spat between the CoA members, with Edulji complaining about chairman Rai overruling her on the issue of picking the women’s team coach.
(Source: The Indian Express)
8. I&B to Drop Paid News Regulation in Draft Bill
After year-long deliberations, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has decided to drop regulation against paid news in newspapers and magazines from the proposed Press and Registration of Books and Periodicals (PRBP) Bill.
The decision follows opinion within the ministry that PRBP was not the right legislation for paid news as the former only related to title verification, registration and circulation verification of newspapers, books and periodicals.
Paid news, the ministry now says, pertains to “content”, an issue that should be dealt through an amendment in the Press Council Act which is concerned with standards of newspapers and news agencies in India.
(Source: The Indian Express)
9. Red-Corner Notice Against Mehul Choksi
Interpol has issued a red-corner notice against diamantaire Mehul Choksi, wanted in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB fraud case along with his nephew Nirav Modi, the CBI said on Thursday, 13 December.
A red-corner notice is a request to Interpol's 192 member countries "to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition", but it is not binding.
The global police watchdog issued the notice against Choksi on Wednesday, 12 December, on the request of the CBI after rejecting his claim that the case was political in nature and he was being persecuted by Indian agencies, sources said.
(Source: The Telegraph)
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