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

• CBI in Bihar: The day the new Nitish Kumar government was set to take floor test, the central probe agency raided two MLAs of the RJD, the senior partner in Bihar’s ruling alliance. This drew sharp reactions from RJD leader and Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, who said the Modi government unleashes its three “jamais” (sons-in-law) — CBI, ED and Income Tax Department — on its rivals wherever it fails to tackle them politically.
• The case relates to an alleged “land-for-jobs” scam that happened during the UPA-1 government, when Tejashwi’s father Lalu Prasad was the railway minister. CBI searched the homes of RJD’s Rajya Sabha MPs Ahmad Ashfaque Karim, Faiyaz Ahmad, and Bihar MLC Sunil Singh.
• Sudden action? The CBI had arrested Lalu’s close aide Bhola Yadav in connection with this case in June, when Nitish was still in alliance with the BJP. It is being said CBI’s latest raids were based on information shared by Bhola Yadav.
• Resignation: The assembly session began with Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, of the BJP, stepping down from his post, only a day after saying that he wouldn’t resign as the no-confidence motion against him was based on “false charges”. His resignation avoided a clash in the assembly, with the floor test being presided over by Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari, a JDU MLA.
• Nitish completes formality: The new government easily won the trust vote with all 160 votes supporting the motion of confidence. The BJP walked out of the assembly while Nitish was still speaking on the motion. More here

• The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed an application of Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, seeking an open court hearing of his petition to review its last month’s verdict upholding the sweeping powers of Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) relating to arrest, investigation, and attachment of property.
• A CJI-led bench, which considered the review application of Chidambaram in chambers, said, “The application for an oral hearing is allowed. List the matter in the Court on August 25, 2022”.
• Chidambaram has also filed an application seeking a stay of the operation of the July 27, verdict.
• In his review petition, he has said that the verdict has an error apparent and is against the provisions of the Constitution.
• The apex court had on Tuesday in a verdict on the application of provisions of Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 observed that its judgement on the ED’s powers under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to take possession of a property before trial in exceptional cases leaves scope for arbitrary application. More details here

• Gehlot as Congress boss? A closed-door meeting between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has sparked off speculation about the latter taking charge of the 136-year-old party. Gehlot, however, denied that Sonia offered him the Congress president’s post: “I’m hearing this from the media. I don’t know about this. I’m fulfilling duties that have been assigned to me.”
• No Gandhis? Reports suggest that the senior Congress leaders have apparently failed to convince Rahul Gandhi to lead the party again in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Rahul had resigned as the Congress president after defeat in the 2019 parliamentary election. He is said to be insistent that no Gandhi family member should head the party.
• Who else then? A few names are doing the round for the top job in the Congress — Mallikarjun Kharge, Mukul Wasnik and Gehlot among others. Gehlot, incharge of the Gujarat polls, is said to be the front-runner.
• Sonia abroad: Speculation of Gehlot as Congress president gained currency as his conversation with Sonia happened just before she was to fly abroad for medical checkup. Her children Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were to accompany her. While Rahul will return to address the Congress’s public rally against the rising prices in Delhi on September 4, Sonia will visit her ailing mother in Italy before flying back to India.
• Election: The Congress has to elect its president by September 21. If Gandhi family stays away from the contest, the party’s rebel group, G-23, is likely to put up its own candidate.
• Fighting Modi: The new Congress president will have a mammoth task to stop the Modi juggernaut in the 2024 polls, after battering in the 2014 and 2019 polls when Rahul Gandhi was the lead campaigner for the Congress. More here

• Countering the plea that seeks restoration of Hindu and Jain temples at the Qutub Minar complex, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) submitted that the petitioner “claims rights for large and vast areas in several states” but “was sitting idle on it for the last 150 years without raising issue before any court.” It added that the petitioner woke “up some morning and came to this Court as an impleader without any basis.”
• The monuments management body further argued that “on account of his absence of filing his reply or taking a stand on this issue in the last 150 years, the issue itself is liable to be dismissed because it is beyond the period of limitation several times over.” It cited the example of one Sultana Begum who had claimed inheritance of the Red Fort on the basis that she was the wife of the great grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor — the court dismissed the case on grounds of delay without going into its merits.
• The court, which deferred the hearing of the case till September 13, had in June deferred the order on the plea after a Delhi resident filed an application claiming ownership of the property where the Qutub Minar is located — following which it had asked the ASI to file its reply. Last year in December, a civil court had dismissed a petition seeking restoration of 27 Hindu and Jain temples in the Qutub Minar complex, saying that past wrongs couldn’t be the basis of disturbing peace in the present day.

Kejriwal’s salvo

• Earlier in the day, AAP national convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said the BJP’s attempt to “topple” his government was a “serious issue”. The matter was discussed in the AAP’s political Affairs Committee on Wednesday evening.
• The AAP also alleged the BJP offered four of its MLAs Rs 20 crore each asking them to switch sides and join the saffron party or else, face “false cases, the CBI and the ED”.

The ED case

• The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a money laundering case against Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and others to probe the alleged irregularities in the Delhi Excise policy after taking cognisance of a CBI FIR that has named Sisodia and 14 others.

BJP hits back

• BJP alleged the Delhi government ignored recommendations of a three-member expert panel set up to reform the liquor trade in the city and gave licences to companies that paid “hefty commissions” to the ruling AAP.

Irrelevant arguments

• In response to the Kerala state government’s plea challenging the bail order, the HC observed that “irrelevant materials of substantial nature are seen relied on to grant bail” and added that the Sessions Court’s reason for granting bail, that the charge of sexual harassment will not be “attracted if the victim was wearing sexually provocative dress cannot be justified.”
• However, even the HC bought into the Sessions Court’s reasoning of Chandran’s age, saying that “considering the age of the accused, he shall not be arrested” till the case was disposed off.” The Sessions Court, in its bail order, had noted that a 74-year-old physically challenged man cannot forcefully put the defacto complainant on his lap and press her breast — which the state government argued suffered from “illegality, lack of sensitivity, sobriety and perversity.”

Court’s definition

• The Sessions Court had also observed that for a charge of sexual harassment to stick, “there must be a physical contact and advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures” or “there must be a demand or request for sexual favours” or “sexually coloured remarks.”

The fall out

• The judge who stirred up the controversy, S Krishnakumar, was transferred out of Kozhikode and shifted as Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Kollam. The transfer order, which was published on the HC’s website late in the night, was described as a routine administrative affair and comes within a week of his controversial bail ruling.

Heat-seeking radar

• According to South China Morning Post, the new infrared search-and-track system can pick up the heat signature from a distance of 285km, a significant breakthrough given most infrared cameras cannot see beyond a range of 20km.
• The heat-seeking radar can also emit a powerful laser beam to illuminate the target aircraft to gather more information, such as the number of windows on the plane, the report said quoting a paper published in the peer-reviewed Chinese journal ‘Infrared and Laser Engineering’.

Anti-stealth tech

• Although a stealth aircraft can evade traditional radar, its body and engines emit heat, which can be picked up by a long-range infrared radar.
• Because of its smaller size, the new radar can be mounted on a car, aircraft or even satellite for a wide range of applications, such as surveillance and missile early warning, the researchers were quoted as saying.

• Remember him? Pappan Singh of Delhi’s Tigipur village had sent his workers home from Delhi to Bihar, booking flight tickets during the Covid second wave-triggered migrant crisis in May 2020. Later, he booked flight tickets to bring back his employees from Bihar to work on his mushroom farm. He was found hanging from a ceiling fan in a Shiv temple on Wednesday.
• The 55-year-old farmer was hailed by netizens and aam aadmi for ensuring that his farm workers reached home in the times of extreme health crisis and immense mental agony during the Covid-19 lockdown. Some of the workers said it was their first air travel. Overall, Singh spent Rs 1,68,000 ferrying his farm workers when the Covid-19 pandemic had restricted interstate travel.
• A routine: Police said Singh used to visit the Shiv temple, located in front of his house every day. The temple priest saw his body hanging on the ceiling fan in the temple building.
• A suicide note has been recovered, which refers to some “illness” as the reason for taking the extreme step. The police said while the post-mortem had been conducted and further probe was still on, the family did suspect any foul play.