Daily Bulletin 4 August

Here’s what is expected to make the news on Saturday:

Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case: Even though Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Friday that no leniency will be shown to those involved in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav will launch a protest against the Nitish Kumar government at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Saturday evening. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal are expected to join the stir.

Congress Working Committee Meeting: The core committee of the main Opposition party will meet once again today to chalk out its plan for 2019 Lok Sabha Election. Sources in Congress have indicated that the party may announce Priyanka Gandhi’s candidacy from Rae Bareli in the 2019 polls.

File image of Tejashwi Yadav

Congress-JD(S) to fight separately in local body elections: Congress and JD(S) have decided to separately contest the local bodies elections in Karnataka, which will be held on 29 August. Even though they have put up a united front at the Vidhan Soudha and for the upcoming Lok Sabha election, both parties are likely to be seen contesting and criticising each other in the local bodies election. Polling will be held in 29 municipal corporations, 53 town municipalities and 23 town panchayats. Has the rift widened between the alliance partners? It may be a too early to say that, but Congress leaders have left it up to the local leaders to decide whether they want to tie-up or fight individually.

Article 35-A in Jammu and Kashmir: The ongoing debate over the validity of Article 35-A in Jammu and Kashmir is likely to heat up with National Conference holding a protest march today against tampering in Article 35A today at 11 am from Nawa-e-Subah complex in Srinagar. Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association has termed the provision an aberration and is planning to file petition challenging the validity of Article 35-A before the Supreme Court.

29th GST Council Meet: Finance Minister Piyush Goyal will chair the meeting today at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The council meeting is convened mainly to discuss issues, concerns and suggestions of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in the GST regime among others.

UIDAI Number: The morning of 3 August saw many Indians confused and angry, as the UIDAI toll-free number had mysteriously slithered into their phone-books. The issue came to light when the French hacker by the pseudonym Elliot Anderson took to Twitter about the UIDAI contact listed on his phone. UIDAI had denied responsibility for the same and there is no information about who made this happen. Who put the number? How do they have access to our contacts? Besides adding, does it also mean that they can collect information from it? These are some of the questions that will be answered hopefully in the days that follow.

XiaomI Qin AI: Chinese smartphone maker Xiomi just launched its first feature fone series, called the Qin AI. Two Android-powered phones, the Qin 1 and the Qin 1s have been launched at CNY 199 (about Rs 1,990) and CNY 299 (about Rs 2,990). They also feature real-time translation for 17 international languages. The only difference is that the Qin 1 is a 2G only phone, and the Qin 1s has 4G LTE and VOLTE support. If launched in India, the phones could be the most affordable feature phones with AI capabilities.

India vs England, 1st Test, 4th Day: The equation is fairly simple — India need 84 runs to clinch victory in the first Test, whereas England need five wickets. Virat Kohli, fresh from his heroic knock in the first innings, is still at the crease batting on 43 with Dinesh Karthik for company. With the match in the balance, these two will have to grind out a victory for the visitors.

World Badminton Championships: With some of India’s best shuttlers like Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth eliminated, there’s only PV Sindhu left standing as the semi-finals stage commences on Saturday. Sindhu will be in a buoyant mood, having beaten Nozomi Okuhara — who had so cruelly defeated the Indian in the World Final last year — in the quarters on Friday. Sindhu will face Akane Yamaguchi on Saturday.