'Ahead of a press conference on October 4, the Indian Air Force released a promotional video about the Balakot airstrike that was carried out in February on a target in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack. However, several media outlets reported the representational video as real footage that offered evidence of the airstrike in Pakistan. At the time of the attack, there had been some scepticism about what targets India had actually struck. While India said its bombs had destroyed a terror training camp, Pakistan claimed that only some trees had been hit.
'...Privatisation is being introduced in diverse ways. Some public sector enterprises are earmarked for outright sale, not just loss-making ones, but even those which make handsome profits. In others, the government intends to reduce its own share of equity below 51% through disinvestment. In still others, the idea is to break up the total activity into several different individual activities and to privatise some individual activities by divesting the public sector of those; this last route is what is being followed with regard to the Railways.
'An FIR was lodged here on Thursday against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching, police said... He said nearly 50 signatories of the letter were named as accused in his petition in which they allegedly “tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the Prime Minister” besides “supporting secessionist tendencies”...
'The Uttar Pradesh government has announced that a fresh enquiry would be ordered into the charges against Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College paediatrician Kafeel Khan, who was given a ‘clean chit’ by a previous probe committee. The doctor was accused of corruption and medical negligence after the deaths of more than 60 children in August 2017 because of a lack of oxygen supply. However, a probe committee headed by an IAS officer found that the doctor was not culpable for the deaths.
'The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has given in-principle approval for relaxing air pollution standards for coal-fired thermal power plants. The decision was taken on May 17, 2019 in a meeting chaired by the ministry’s joint secretary, Ritesh Kumar Singh... It is noteworthy that before the meeting, the CPCB had sent a monitoring report on seven units of four thermal power plants to the Ministry of Environment on May 2, 2019. The pollution body found that emissions at just two units out of the seven exceeded the 300 mg/Nm³ emission limit.
'Business and commerce is suffering one of the worst phases in Kashmir’s history, say trade leaders, as the ongoing crisis following the clampdown and communication blockade continues to cripple business leading to economic losses across sectors. The losses, as per the estimates of Kashmir Chamber of Commerce & Industries (KCCI), have crossed over Rs 5,000 crore in the past two months after the Centre imposed restrictions on August 5, in the wake of abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories...'
'Rural India is now ‘open-defecation free’. With this declaration on Wednesday, prime minister Narendra Modi has ‘fulfilled’ at least one of the many promises he made when he first came to power in 2014. Except that lakhs of Indians will still continue to defecate in the open. By laying claim to the ODF status, the prime minister has allowed the government machinery to stop bothering about the problem from now on. And that is only one aspect of the entire issue...'
'India’s public broadcasting agency, Prasar Bharati has initiated disciplinary proceedings against an assistant director of programme in Chennai, R. Vasumathi for allegedly failing to telecast a speech by PM Modi live on DD Podhigai...'
'Last week, two Dalit children, aged 10 and 12, were beaten to death when they were defecating next to a road in Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh. Their village has been declared and verified ‘open defecation free’ (ODF) as far as the Swachh Bharat Mission’s database is concerned, but their family had no access to a toilet... According to the SBM database, as of September 26, all villages had declared themselves ODF and 90% of villages had undergone first-level verification. The authenticity of the information contained in this database is questionable.
'Just weeks before the state assembly election, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will have to face a criminal trial for allegedly failing to furnish details of two pending criminal cases in his election affidavit in 2014...'
