Times Top10: Today’s Top News Headlines and Latest News from India & across the World

• 16 years, 8 oaths: Nitish Kumar began his eighth term as the Bihar CM on Wednesday, with RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav as his deputy for the second time. His oath-taking evoked a sharp exchange of barbs with BJP.
• ‘Don’t worry’ telecon: BJP’s Sushil Modi, Nitish’s long-term ally, said, “Two days back, Amit Shah called Nitish Kumar. Nitish said there’s nothing to worry about. PM Modi also spoke to Nitish many times in the last one and a half years but he never complained.”
• Vice Presidential aspiration: Another attacking claim was that “some JDU leaders had come to propose that Nitish Kumar be made Vice President, and you [Sushil Modi] should rule Bihar”. Interestingly, in March-April, Nitish reportedly told journalists, “[I have] never served as a Rajya Sabha member. It is my wish that I would serve as a Rajya Sabha member one day.”
• A burden? Union Power Minister and an MP from Bihar, RK Singh, told a TV channel that “there were some voices within the party advising the leadership not to take him [as CM] but the leadership decided otherwise” in 2020, when the NDA won the Bihar polls.
• PM ambition? Singh claimed somebody had told him that Nitish could be PM in 2024. Nitish on his part, soon after taking oath, dared PM Modi saying, “The one who won 2014, will he survive 2024?”
• Maharashtra revenge: Congress taunted BJP comparing Bihar with Maharashtra with Jairam Ramesh tweeting, “In Maharashtra, BJP engineered defections. In Bihar, BJP was rejected and ejected.”
• And Prashant Kishor, too, took a swipe at Nitish: “In 2010, he had 117 MLAs, in 2015 he had 72 and now 43. Many political commentators say his image is teflon-coated. The numbers don’t show that.” More here

• No capping: Come August 31, airlines will be free to decide airfare as the government has revoked the price capping order issued in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began. Both upper and lower limits on airfare have been removed.
• Why: Airlines have reported huge losses for quite long. The aviation industry was severely hit due to the pandemic.
• Will airfare rise? Not necessarily. With no restrictions on fares, some airlines may offer discounts to ensure their airbuses fly with full capacity of passengers. But there are chances that the airlines may hike airfares to recover some of the losses.
• Jyotiraditya Scindia, the civil aviation minister, tweeted, “The decision to remove air fare caps has been taken after careful analysis of daily demand and prices of air turbine fuel. Stabilisation has set in, and we are certain that the sector is poised for growth in domestic traffic in the near future.”
• The pandemic move: The government had in 2020 taken an unusual decision to cap airfares, imposing a minimum and maximum fares. The price band was linked to the flight’s duration. The aim was to prevent a spike in ticket prices in response to pent-up demand when the restriction on air travel was eased.

A nationwide protest

• On August 5, the grand old party staged a nationwide protest against price rise, a hike in GST on essential items among other issues.
• While the male Congress MPs were seen sporting black kurtas, shirts, scarves, and headgears, the women leaders wore black sarees or salwar suits. Party chief Sonia Gandhi wore a printed crisp saree with a black border and a black blouse.

And what Modi said

• Without naming Congress, he said some people out of frustration resorted to black magic on August 5. “…we saw how some people tried to spread ‘black magic’. These people think that by wearing black clothes they can end their despondency. But they do not know that by engaging in witchcraft, black magic and superstition, they cannot earn the trust of people again.”
• After dedicating to the nation the Rs 900 crore-second generation ethanol plant at Panipat, the PM said that freebies are a spoke in India’s effort to become self-reliant and also a burden on taxpayers.
• Those who promise freebies will never will able to find resources for investment in new technologies, he said in an apparent reference to some opposition parties.

‘No coercive action’

• “Whatever view we have taken as a three-judge bench in the Mohammed Zubair case and some other cases, we will follow,” said a bench of Justices Surya Kant and J B Pardiwala.
• It also extended the interim protection from any coercive action to Sharma till the probe is concluded by the Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) of the Delhi Police.

Free to move HC

• The top court allowed Sharma to move Delhi High Court for quashing of FIRs lodged over her remark and said all future FIRs would also be transferred to Delhi Police for investigation.

A caustic comment

• On July 1, the same bench of the top court severely criticised Sharma for her controversial comments against the Prophet, saying her “loose tongue” has “set the entire country on fire” and that she is “single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country”.
• On July 19, the bench granted interim protection from arrest till August 10 to Sharma in connection with the FIRs filed against her.

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• Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said that he will propose to the UN for setting up a commission, comprising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pope Francis and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, aimed at stopping war and ensuring world peace.
• At a press conference on Monday, Obrador said he feels that the governments of three great powers, Russia, China and the United States, will hopefully listen to it and accept an intermediation like the one he is proposing.
• According to information on his official website, the Mexican President said the aim of this commission will be to stop war everywhere and reach an agreement to seek a truce of at least five years so that the governments of the whole world dedicate themselves to supporting their people, especially those who are suffering the most from the war and from the effects of the war.
• He said he agrees with what the UN Secretary General has raised that countries must stop military confrontation, must opt for dialogue and not the use of force.

• Octogenarian poet and activist P Varavara Rao, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, was on Wednesday granted bail by the Supreme Court on medical grounds.
• The case: It relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.
• The arrest: The 82-year-old was arrested on August 28, 2018, from his Hyderabad residence. He was booked by the Pune Police on January 8, 2018, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
• Police & NIA: The Pune Police had claimed that the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links. The anti-terror probe agency, NIA, later took over the probe in the matter. It vehemently opposed Rao’s plea in the apex court claiming that he is involved in “serious anti-national activities”.
• Health status: The apex court while granting him bail, noted that the medical condition of Rao, who is currently out on interim bail on medical grounds, has not improved to such an extent over a period that the facility of bail granted earlier to him be withdrawn.
• HC curbs: SC also deleted the condition which was imposed in the February 22, 2021 order of the Bombay High Court limiting the period of bail granted to Rao on the medical condition to six months.

• Novel virus: A new viral outbreak in China has sounded alarm bells across the globe. China has reported 35 new cases of this viral infection. The virus is called Langya Henipavirus (LayV).
• Confirmation: The Langya Henipavirus (LayV) was first reported in 2018 in Shandong and Henan provinces in the northeastern part of China. The virus was officially recognised last week. And now, China has reported an outbreak with dozens of new cases.
• Where has it come from? The virus is believed to have jumped from shrews or some other animal to humans. Scientists found LayV’s genetic materials in over 200 shrews they tested. The virus has also been detected in about 2% domestic goats and 5% dogs.
• A study, published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, said the “new henipavirus is associated with a febrile [fever causing] human illness”.
• How it infects: This virus has been found in the throat swab samples from infected persons in China. The early patients are mostly farmers.
• Common symptoms are fatigue, cough, loss of appetite, and aches. Some patients have shown signs of blood-cell abnormalities, and damage to liver and kidneys.
• Is it fatal? As of now, no deaths have been reported due to the novel Langya virus. However, virologists categorise it as a biosafety level-4 virus, with a potential 40-75% fatality rate.
• Any vaccines? Since it is a new human virus, there is no vaccine for protection against the novel Langya virus as of now.

• Sacked for swimsuit: Posting a photograph showing her in a swimsuit on Instagram got her fired from St Xavier’s University in Kolkata. Reports say the university has asked her to pay Rs 99 crore for damaging the reputation of the institution.
• A complaint: The university took punitive action against her after the father of an undergraduate student complained to the varsity management alleging that the professor “has posed in a sexually explicit way causing deliberate public exposure…I have tried to shield my son from this kind of gross indecency and objectification of the female body…It is obscene, vulgar and improper for an 18-year-old student to see his professor dressed in scanty clothes exhibiting her body on a public platform”.
• The matter: “There were two pictures of me in a blue swimsuit taken in my room, which I had posted as an Instagram story last year, several months before joining the university. There was no way those photos could be still accessible since an Instagram story, by default, is live for only 24 hours. Moreover, my Instagram profile is private and not public,” she was quoted as saying in reports.
• The professor is moving a petition to the Calcutta High Court challenging her sacking by the university, describing it as “kangaroo court” and alleging that she was “intimidated, bullied and taunted with sexually coloured remarks”.
• Privacy breached? “It is a mystery to me how the university accessed those pictures. I felt so distressed and humiliated at that moment that I couldn’t bear to examine the rest of the pictures. I was in a meeting where my private pictures were being circulated among people unknown to me, without my consent,” she said in the complaint.