BJP Sweeps Gujarat, Congress Takes Himachal; Govt Will Trace WhatsApp Messages

2,900 riots in 2017-2021, import curb on private planes, startup funding down 35%, heat threatens lives, ‘Three Idiots in a Graveyard’ as Mumbai burned, mouse takes the cake at Kashmir meet

A newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas | Contributors: MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, Sushant Singh and Tanweer Alam | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal

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Snapshot of the day

December 8, 2022

Pratik Kanjilal

Following a sweeping BJP victory in Gujarat, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel will be sworn in for his second term on Monday. AAP has muscled in on the Congress, which has been the principal Opposition party. Outside the laboratory, in Himachal Pradesh, the Congress is all set to wrest the state from the BJP. 

The cyberattack that crippled the servers of AIIMS in Delhi has sparked concern across India’s hospitals, which the government is pushing to graduate to online and paperless operations under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. The attack on the premier healthcare institute not only compromised its patient database, which includes the records of top politicians, but also blocked access to its e-hospital server. The server, used for the inter-departmental exchange of patient records, is still down. Following this incident, several hospitals across the country have been reviewing their cybersecurity systems.

With the trade deficit yawning wider, the government proposes to curb the import of private jets and helicopters, according to a document from the Aviation Ministry seen by Bloomberg. The import of “non-essential” turbojets and planes of unladen weight over 15,000 kg is discouraged. The import of helicopters of unladen weight over 2,000 kg rose 42% in five months through September from a year earlier, the letter shows, and turbojet imports increased 34%.

The appointment of new Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud seems to have sparked off a constitutional conflict, leading to a war of words waged by the Modi government against the Supreme Court. A surprising entrant for the government is the newly elected Vice President, who once again lit into the apex court during his maiden speech as chair of the Rajya Sabha.

In Nepal, a five-party alliance led by the Nepali Congress, which has been in power since July last year, has won 136 seats, just two short of the 138 required for a majority. The five-party alliance had sought the support of new legislators and parties to reach a majority. The alliance led by main rival KP Sharma Oli of the Nepal Communist Unified Marxist-Leninist Party (UML), won 92 seats.

More than 2,900 cases of communal or religious rioting were registered in India between 2017 and 2021, the Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told the Rajya Sabha yesterday. Reminder: The Pew Report found the state of India’s social cohesion concerning, and the Social Hostilities Index was alarming when compared to global levels, for the year 2020.

The All India Backward Classes Federation has filed a review petition against a majority judgment of the Supreme Court which upheld the 10% reservation in government jobs and institutions for economically weaker sections (EWS), including forward castes. Petitioner Prof G Mohan Gopal said EWS reservation was intended for a social and educational class, the forward class amongst them, with a creamy layer cut-off, not this.

In India this year, lightning caused 907 deaths, followed by floods and heavy rains (804 deaths), thunderstorms (371), snowfall (37), heatwave (30), dust storms (22), gales (10), and one death each due to cold wave and squalls. There were no deaths due to cyclonic storms this year.

The FCRA registrations of 6,677 NGOs were cancelled by the government in 2017-2021, the Rajya Sabha was informed. The government said they would not be eligible for registration or grant of prior permission for a period of three years from the date of cancellation of registration. The FCRA registration of 755 NGOs were cancelled in Tamil Nadu, followed by 734 in Maharashtra, 635 in Uttar Pradesh, 622 in Andhra Pradesh and 611 in West Bengal.

Funding in Indian start-ups dropped 35% to $24.7 billion in 2022 YTD from $37.2 billion in the same period last year, primarily brought about by a significant decline in late-stage funding, according to a report by market intelligence platform Tracxn. Late-stage funding fell by 45% from $29.3 billion in January-November 2021 to $16.1 billion for the same period in 2022.

The Department of Personnel and Training has disclosed in the Lok Sabha that 56 cases were registered by the CBI in 2017-2022 (until October 31, 2022) against MLAs and MPs. Chargesheets have been filed in just 22 cases. Sadly, the party-wise break up is not readily available.

The RBI has said that banks should not ask for KYC verifications/updates at branches if a customer has done e-KYC or done the whole process online. Customers can do their annual updates, too. Deputy Governor Rabi Sankar said the central bank has been routinely asking banks not to bother customers.

India has lost the second one-day cricket international to Bangladesh in a sensational finish. Bangladesh has won the series now, as they are up 2-0 in a three-match affair. Cold comfort, but skipper Rohit Sharma became the first Indian, and only the second batter in international cricket to hit 500 sixes, during the second game against Bangladesh in Dhaka yesterday.

Former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah didn’t smell a rat at a meeting, but his camera recorded a mouse taking the cake