It’s Thalapathy day! Vijay will be back in action in Venkat Prabhu’s The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT), hyped for a blockbuster release. In a bittersweet note, this also marks Vijay’s penultimate film before he hangs up his acting boots to switch careers to active politics. If you aren’t the one for the first day, first show mania, you can catch it over the weekend!
- Ex-Mumbai top cop recounts the IC814 hijacking case
- Rahul Gandhi kicks off Jammu and Kashmir campaign
- What’s behind the record haul at Paralympics
🚨Big Story
‘We are not in the feudal era ki raja jaise bole waisa chale’
The Supreme Court has taken strong exception to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s decision to appoint IFS officer Rahul as field director of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve.
Cross-examine: Rahul was removed as the head of the Corbett Tiger Reserve in 2022 after the Uttarakhand High Court took note of illegal tree felling and construction there.
Two years later, Dhami appointed Rahul as the Rajaji reserve head, overruling objections from the principal secretary and the forest minister.
While the CM’s counsel said he was only trying not to sacrifice a “good officer”, the Bench remarked that Dhami should at least have recorded the reasons for his disagreement with the objections raised by his own officials.
Express Impact: A week after The Indian Express reported on the row, and ahead of the court hearing, the state government removed Rahul from the post.
⚡Only in Express
A tip-off from celebrated cop Hemant Karkare, phone calls to Pakistan and a shady money exchange in a hotel — the investigation into the 1999 hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC814 is nothing short of an action-packed page turner. Former top officer D Sivanandhan, who steered the operation, shares a riveting account of what followed in the days after the hijack, and how the Mumbai police cracked the case.
📰 From the Front Page
Turning the tide? Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir are round the corner. Kicking off the Congress’s campaign, Rahul Gandhi has promised a return to statehood to the people of J&K. “Either they (the Narendra Modi government) restore statehood or the INDIA alliance will.”
Slanging match: The BJP, too, has launched a no-holds-barred campaign in the Union Territory. Its state election in-charge Ram Madhav has accused National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party of taking the support of former militants in their poll campaigning.
Speaking up: The South Asian University (SAU) had initiated an inquiry into a PhD proposal citing linguist Noam Chomsky’s criticism of the NDA government. Scholar Sasanka Perera, who was roped into the controversy, later quit. Perera told The Indian Express of a “choreographed timidity” on the campus and that SAU “will never again stand for academic freedom.”
🧑💻Must Read
What the law says: Nearly a month after the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital spurred massive public outcry, the West Bengal Assembly has passed the ‘Aparajita’ Bill introducing death penalty in cases of rape where the victim dies. Before Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra Assemblies had passed similar laws on death penalty for rape. Here is how the three Bills compare.
‘Statue falls, controversies rise’: On August 25, a 35-foot-tall Chhatrapati Shivaji statue collapsed in Rajkot Fort, plunging Maharashtra politics into chaos. The Opposition attacked the government both over the quality of construction and the decision to commission an “inexperienced” artist for the project. But now, another controversy is brewing in Maharashtra: a scar on the statue, on the left side of the warrior king’s forehead, has become the lightning rod for politicians and historians in the state.
“The Constitution’s history, evolution, important provisions, and interpretation by the courts and the amendments need to be part of a larger understanding of the people of India”
In our Opinion pages today, C Raj Kumar envisages a ‘Constitution Museum’ as an ever-lasting legacy that celebrates the vision and farsightedness of its founders. To this end, Kumar underlines the five primary objectives of such a space.
A historic haul: In a late-night podium assault on Tuesday, India’s para-athletes won four medals in 30 minutes to take the overall tally at the Paris Paralympics to 20 – making it India’s best-ever performance at the Paralympics since they came into existence in 1960. But behind these record-breaking figures, is the story of the rise of India’s women para-athletes, who overcame prejudice and accessibility issues, to propel the country to this position.
⌛And Finally….
“I have still kept that shawl as a symbol of our second birth..”
As the row surrounding Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack takes wings, a 47-year-old Chandigarh woman recalls an odd tale from her harrowing days during the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight in 1999. Pooja Kataria was returning from her honeymoon when a hijacker handed her a shawl, as a birthday gift, which she keeps to this day.
Delhi Confidential: The political squabbles in BJP’s Jammu unit have kept Union Minister Jitendra Singh occupied in the Union Territory for over a week now. Singh, who holds multiple portfolios in the government, represents the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat and is learnt to have been sent to Jammu to sort issues out.
🎧 In the latest episode of our 3 Things podcast, Indian Express’ Deeptiman Tiwary discusses the RSS’s support for the caste census. Next, Jay Mazoomdar explains the increase in undocumented Indians illegally entering the US, and Sohini Ghosh talks about the Delhi High Court’s ruling on the Centre’s decision to terminate its lease with Express Newspapers nearly 40 years ago. Tune in!
That’s all for today,
Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta and Ayesha Jain
