SUBHADITYA NEWS CHANNEL PRESENT NEWS OF THIS WEEK: SCIENCE,POLITICAL,SPORTS ,MOVIE & BOOK THIS WEEK

 

1) ISRO successfully conducts TransLunar Injection of Chandrayaan-3:

The TLI was performed successfully from ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru.The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on August 1 performed the TransLunar Injection (TLI) to slingshot Chandrayaan-3 towards the moon.

The TLI was performed successfully from ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru.

On August 1, 2023, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved a significant milestone by successfully performing the Translunar Injection (TLI) manoeuvre for the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

The TLI was executed from the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru.

Translunar Injection (TLI) Process

During the TLI manoeuvre, Chandrayaan-3 completed its orbits around the Earth and was propelled towards the Moon.

A successful perigee-firing was performed at ISTRAC, which effectively injected the spacecraft into its translunar orbit. This step is critical for breaking free from Earth's gravity and setting the spacecraft on course towards the Moon.

Upcoming Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI)

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is expected to reach the lunar orbit on August 5.

To achieve this, the spacecraft's liquid engine will be fired again in a maneuver known as the Lunar-Orbit Insertion (LOI).

Once successfully completed, the spacecraft will be inserted into a lunar orbit.

Final Approach to the Moon

After the LOI, the spacecraft will undergo four more orbit maneuvers to position itself into its final orbit, at a distance of approximately 100 km from the Moon's surface. This orbit is the desired configuration for the mission's objectives.

Translunar Injection (TLI) is a crucial manoeuvre used in space missions to send spacecraft from Earth's orbit to the orbit of the Moon.

It is a critical step in lunar missions, allowing spacecraft to break free from Earth's gravity and begin their journey to the Moon.

Purpose of Translunar Injection

The primary purpose of Translunar Injection is to accelerate a spacecraft to a velocity that allows it to escape Earth's gravitational influence and enter a trajectory that will carry it towards the Moon.

Before TLI, the spacecraft is typically in a low Earth orbit (LEO), having been launched into space by a launch vehicle (e.g., a rocket).

Without TLI, the spacecraft would continue orbiting the Earth indefinitely, unable to reach its destination.

Execution of Translunar Injection

Executing Translunar Injection involves a precise and carefully calculated manoeuvre. The process generally involves the following steps:

Earth Orbit: After launch, the spacecraft is placed into an initial Earth orbit, typically a low or medium Earth orbit.

Alignment: The spacecraft must be correctly oriented and aligned with its engines pointing in the right direction for the TLI burn. This alignment is critical for ensuring the spacecraft's trajectory is accurate.

TLI Burn: The spacecraft's propulsion system, usually its main engines, is fired for a specific duration to provide the necessary velocity increase. This burn adds energy to the spacecraft, allowing it to achieve the required escape velocity to break free from Earth's gravity.

Translunar Trajectory: Once the TLI burn is completed, the spacecraft follows a trajectory that takes it towards the Moon. The trajectory is carefully planned to ensure that the spacecraft intercepts the Moon's orbit.

Challenges of Translunar Injection

Translunar Injection is a complex and critical manoeuvre that requires overcoming several challenges, including:

Precise Calculations: Accurate calculations are essential for the TLI burn, considering variables like spacecraft mass, engine performance, and orbital position. Small errors in these calculations can lead to significant deviations in the trajectory.

Timing: The timing of the TLI burn is crucial. It must be executed at the right moment to ensure the spacecraft reaches the Moon at the desired time and location.

Propulsion Efficiency: The spacecraft's propulsion system must provide sufficient thrust and efficiency to achieve the required escape velocity within a reasonable timeframe.

Navigation and Control: Navigational systems must be precise to monitor the spacecraft's position and make necessary course corrections during the journey.

Historical Significance

Translunar Injection has played a crucial role in numerous historic lunar missions. Some notable examples include:

Apollo Missions: The Apollo program, conducted by NASA in the 1960s and 1970s, used TLI to send astronauts to the Moon. The TLI burns were instrumental in placing the spacecraft on the correct trajectory for lunar orbit insertion and subsequent lunar landing.

Lunar Orbiters: Various lunar orbiters, both manned and unmanned, have utilized TLI to reach lunar orbit and conduct scientific observations of the Moon.

Chang'e Missions: China's Chang'e program, which includes both lunar orbiters and landers, also employed TLI to reach the Moon.

Artemis Missions: NASA's Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon, and TLI will be a critical component of these missions.

Translunar Injection is a fundamental maneuver that allows spacecraft to break free from Earth's gravity and begin their journey to the Moon. Its successful execution requires precise calculations, efficient propulsion systems, and precise navigation. As humanity continues to explore space, TLI will remain a key element in lunar missions and beyond.

2) Massive solar storm struck Earth, Moon and Mars together for first time in history:

Astronomers have detected a solar eruption that struck the Earth, the moon and Mars simultaneously for the first time, an advance that could help better understand the sun’s outbursts and protect astronauts in the future.

The solar storm, which erupted on 28 October 2021, was spread over such a wide area that Mars and Earth – while on the opposite sides of the sun and around 250 million km apart – received an influx of energetic particles from the sun.

This is the first time that a solar event was measured simultaneously on the surfaces of Earth, moon and Mars, according to a new study published on Wednesday in the journal Geographical Research Letters.

Researchers assessed readings of the solar event detected by an international fleet of spacecraft, including Nasa’s Curiosity Mars rover, China’s Chang’e-4 Moon lander and the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO).

Scientists said the solar event was a rare “ground level enhancement” during which energetic particles from the sun passed through the magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth and protects the planet from such solar outbursts. Since the moon and Mars do not have their own magnetic fields, the particles from the sun could easily reach their surfaces and interact with their soil to generate secondary radiation.

Understanding such solar events are important, according to scientists, as the moon and Mars are the focus of future human exploration.

Exposure to any radiation dose above 700 milligray – the unit for the absorption of radiation – can induce radiation sickness in astronauts.This leads to the destruction of the bone marrow in astronauts, resulting in symptoms such as infection and internal bleeding.

Astronauts exposed to over 10 gray are extremely unlikely to survive more than two weeks, scientists said.

In comparison, the radiation dose in lunar orbit from the October 2021 solar event, as measured by Nasa’s LRO, was only about 31 milligray.

“Our calculations of the past ground level enhancement events show that on average one event every 5.5 years may have exceeded the safe dose level on the Moon if no radiation protection had been provided. Understanding these events is crucial for future crewed missions to the surface of the Moon,” study co-author Jingnan Guo said.

The research also shed light on the protection offered from such solar outbursts by Mars’ thin atmosphere.

Measurements made by ExoMars TGO and by the Curiosity rover of the October 2021 event suggests a radiation dose of 9 milligray reached Mars’ orbit, which was 30 times more than the 0.3 milligray detected on the Red Planet’s surface.The new results may add to more knowledge for the better design of protective space suits for astronauts.

“Space radiation can create a real danger to our exploration throughout the Solar System. Measurements of high-level radiation events by robotic missions is critical to prepare for long-duration crewed missions. Thanks to data from missions like ExoMars TGO we can prepare for how best to protect our human explorers,” TGO project scientist Colin Wilson said.

3) Newly discovered whale that lived almost 40 million years ago could be "heaviest animal ever," experts say:

There could be a new contender for heaviest animal to ever live. While today's blue whale has long held the title, scientists have dug up fossils from an ancient giant that could tip the scales.

Researchers described the species — named Perucetus colossus, or "the colossal whale from Peru" — in the journal Nature on Wednesday. Each vertebra weighs over 220 pounds (100 kilograms) and its ribs measure nearly 5 feet (1.4 meters) long.

"It's just exciting to see such a giant animal that's so different from anything we know," said Hans Thewissen, a paleontologist at Northeast Ohio Medical University who had no role in the research. The bones were discovered more than a decade ago by Mario Urbina from the University of San Marcos' Natural History Museum in Lima. An international team spent years digging them out from the side of a steep, rocky slope in the Ica desert, a region in Peru that was once underwater and is known for its rich marine fossils. The results: 13 vertebrae from the whale's backbone, four ribs and a hip bone.

The massive fossils, which are 39 million years old, "are unlike anything I've ever seen," said study author Alberto Collareta, a paleontologist at Italy's University of Pisa.

After the excavations, the researchers used 3D scanners to study the surface of the bones and drilled into them to peek inside. They used the huge — but incomplete — skeleton to estimate the whale's size and weight, using modern marine mammals for comparison, said study author Eli Amson, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany. They calculated that the ancient giant weighed somewhere between 94 and 375 tons (85 and 340 metric tons). The biggest blue whales found have been within that range — at around 200 tons (180 metric tons).

Its body stretched to around 66 feet (20 meters) long. Blue whales can be longer — with some growing to more than 100 feet (30 meters) in length.

This means the newly discovered whale was "possibly the heaviest animal ever," Collareta said, but "it was most likely not the longest animal ever."

It weighs more in part because its bones are much denser and heavier than a blue whale's, Amson explained.Those super-dense bones suggest that the whale may have spent its time in shallow, coastal waters, the authors said. Other coastal dwellers, like manatees, have heavy bones to help them stay close to the seafloor.

Without the skull, it's hard to know what the whale was eating to sustain such a huge body, Amson said.

It's possible that P. colossus was scavenging for food along the seafloor, researchers said, or eating up tons of krill and other tiny sea creatures in the water.

But "I wouldn't be surprised if this thing actually fed in a totally different way that we would never imagine," Thewissen added.

4) Study offers glimpse of 500-million-year-old sea worm named after 'Dune' monster :by University of Kansas

Reconstruction of Shaihuludia shurikeni from the Spence Shale of Utah

Excavations by a University of Kansas paleontologist working in a treasure trove of fossils called the "Spence Shale Lagerstätte" have revealed an ancient sea worm unknown to science until now. The finding has now been published in the journal Historical Biology.

When she found the fossil, Rhiannon LaVine, a research associate with the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, was part of a team camping and carrying out fieldwork in the High Creek area of the Spence Shale, a geologic formation straddling northern Utah and southern Idaho. The area has been famed since the 1900s for its abundance in some 90 species of Cambrian trilobites and soft-bodied fossils.

SEM-EDS map that shows concentrations of Fe, Mn, and Si in the blade-like structures, supporting the hypothesis that the specimen is a fossil and not a collection of mineral growths

"One of the last times we were out there, I split open one of these pieces of rock and instantly knew it was something that wasn't typical," LaVine said. "The first thing we see are these radial blades that look like stars or flowers. Immediately, I showed it to (lead author) Julian Kimmig. He was perplexed. He's said, "I've never seen anything like that." We were out with Paul Jamison, a local who's been working the site for years—and if there's something in there that somebody's seen, he's seen it. But he hadn't seen it."

After transporting the fossil specimen back to the KU Biodiversity Institute—where today it's part of the permeant paleontological collection—LaVine consulted with colleagues about the mysterious fossil.

"I was showing it to everybody, asking, 'What do you think this is?,'" LaVine said. "Nobody had an idea. We thought maybe it's a wiwaxia, a very peculiar animal from about that time—but we don't have too many representatives of it from the Spence area. Or maybe it's a scale worm, but there's no real scale worms known from that time. Maybe it was a juvenile jellyfish, but it's so bladed and the lines are so straight on those things, it would be kind of odd. So, I couldn't get a solid answer."

Next, LaVine teamed with colleagues at the University of Missouri to conduct scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry on the fossil.

"We mainly wanted to make sure that this was a biological thing, because it's possible it could have just been some weird mineral growth with the way it looked," said the KU researcher. "So that was primarily why we brought it to them. It's about 7 or 8 centimeters long, maybe a little shorter than the length of a smartphone. It's sizable for a fossil of that sort. We did the scanning to rule out that it wasn't just a mineral growth, and we were able to do that."

Finally, LaVine and her co-authors were able to determine the fossil to be a previously unknown species of annelid, a diverse phylum of some 21,000 "segmented worm" species found in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments all over the world. As the discoverer of the new fossil worm and a co-author on the paper describing it, LaVine bestowed the species with its scientific name: Shaihuludia shurikeni. Shai-Hulud is the indigenous name for the worms on the planet Arrakis in the "Dune" novels by Frank Herbert, while "shuriken" is the Japanese word for throwing star, representing the shape of the blade-like chaetae (chaetae are the stiff bristles that characterize many annelids).

"I've been involved in describing species before, but this is the first one I've named," LaVine said. "Actually, I was able to name its genus—so I can put that feather in my cap. It was the first thing that came to mind, because I'm a big ol' nerd and at the time I was getting really excited for the 'Dune' movies."Like the worm's sci-fi namesake, Shaihuludia shurikeni is a big deal: Describing a new species of Cambrian annelid doesn't happen every day.

"Annelids are very rare in the Cambrian of North America, and so far we only knew of a single specimen from the Spence Shale," said lead author Julien Kimmig, a paleontologist with the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany."The new annelid Shaihuludia shurikeni is especially interesting, as it had some very impressive chaetae, which makes it unique among the Cambrian annelids. The way that the fossil is preserved is also of particular interest, because most of the soft tissue is preserved as an iron oxide 'blob,' suggesting the animal died and was decomposing for a while before it was fossilized. However, with the analytical methods used in the paper, we show that even with limited preservation you can identify fossils."

In the process, the team reexamined a fossilized annelid previously found in the Spence Shale and reclassified it as Burgessochaeta—a surprise because until then, Burgessochaeta have only been found in another famed fossil deposit in British Columbia, Canada."Burgessochaeta is really only known from the Burgess Shale," LaVine said. "A similar worm was collected in our Spence Shale decades ago, and it was named Canadia, which is kind of a wastebasket genus for a lot of the annelids that come out of these types of deposits.

"Nobody really looked into it for a long time, but when we got this one, we took a little closer look at the other annelid found there. Maybe this was another version of it, or it was related in some way," LaVine said. "We determined the other annelid from the Spence Shale is actually closer to Burgessochaeta—this is the first time it's been described outside of the Burgess Shale."Both worm species would have inhabited a marine ecosystem ruled by invertebrate organisms, like trilobites, brachiopods, mollusks and early forms of arthropods. The mid-Cambrian is noted for the intense biodiversity of its marine life.

"This discovery gets us to think about deep time," LaVine said. "When we look outside, we see all the animals that we know. Now we can walk past a duck, go to the beach and see a starfish and all the critters that exist in the ocean. We kind of know what to expect. But then we can let our imaginations go a little bit to imagine what happened a million years ago or, in this case, over 500 million years ago. What does the ocean look like then?

"You're going to see a lot of the similar players, but they're a little bit alien because evolution has taken place. It's very cool to think about our planet as a record of history and all of the different environments that have happened over billions of years, all on the same ground we stand on. We've had alien worlds beneath our feet."

5) Luzio, who lived in São Paulo 10,000 years ago, was Amerindian like Indigenous people now, DNA reveals : by FAPESP

The investigation that covered four different parts of Brazil carried out analysis of genomic data from 34 fossils, including larger skeletons and the famous mounds of shells and fishbones built on the coast

An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi.Based on the largest set of Brazilian archaeological genomic data, the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities, the residents of which built the icons of Brazilian archaeology known as "sambaquis," huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings, cemeteries and territorial boundaries. Archaeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens.

"After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the 'kings of the coast' for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago," said André Menezes Strauss, an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study.

The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil's coast. The fossils were at least 10,000 years old. They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).

This material included Luzio, São Paulo's oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti, a professor at MAE-USP. The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found to date in South America, dating from about 13,000 years ago. The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians, who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago, but it turns out they were mistaken.

"Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian, like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee. That doesn't mean they're all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn't leave descendants among these groups," Strauss said.

Luzio's DNA also answered another question. River middens are different from coastal ones, so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later. This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations—into the hinterland and along the coast.What happened to the sambaqui builders?

Analysis of the genetic material revealed heterogeneous communities with cultural similarities but significant biological differences, especially between coastal communities in the southeast and south.

"Studies of cranial morphology conducted in the 2000s had already pointed to a subtle difference between these communities, and our genetic analysis confirmed it," Strauss said. "We discovered that one of the reasons was that these coastal populations weren't isolated but 'swapped genes' with inland communities. Over thousands of years, this process must have contributed to the regional differences between sambaquis."

Regarding the mysterious disappearance of this coastal civilization, comprising the first hunter-gatherers of the Holocene, analysis of the DNA samples clearly showed that, in contrast with the European Neolithic substitution of entire populations, what happened in this part of the world was a change of practices, with a decline in construction of shell middens and the introduction of pottery by sambaqui builders. For example, the genetic material found at Galheta IV (Santa Catarina state), the most emblematic site for the period, has remains not of shells but of ceramics and is similar to the classic sambaquis in this respect.

"This information is compatible with a 2014 study that analyzed pottery shards from sambaquis and found that the pots in question were used to cook not domesticated vegetables but fish. They appropriated technology from the hinterland to process food that was already traditional there," Strauss said.

6) Jurassic era fish fossil found to have died from eating an overly large ammonite : by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

Credit Geological Magazine 2023

A pair of paleontologists at Universität Hohenheim's Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart has found a fossilized Jurassic-era fish that appears to have died after swallowing an overly large ammonite. Samuel Cooper and Erin Maxwell report their study of the fossil in the journal Geological Magazine.The fossil, Pachycormus macropterus, was found in Germany at a site called the Posidonienschiefer Formation. It has been dated back to between 174 and 182 million years ago, putting it in the early Jurassic. The fish was a type of actinopterygian, which are a type of bony, ray-finned fish—a modern example is the lionfish.

The researchers found its belly full of a variety of prey. They found evidence of soft-bodied mollusks that looked somewhat like modern cuttlefish or squid and other smaller fish. They also found a large ammonite conch approximately 10 centimeters across, which did not show signs of digestion, a sign that the fish had died soon after swallowing the shelled creature.

The ammonite, the researchers note, was much too big for the fish to digest. They suggest that it was likely misidentified by the fish or it somehow became stuck in its mouth for an unknown reason. At that point, the fish would have been unable to eject it from its mouth, leaving no choice but to swallow it. Once it did that, the ammonite's shell blocked passage to the intestine, resulting in either congestion or internal bleeding. Either would have killed the fish within hours.

Following its death, the researchers theorize, the fish sank to the bottom of the sea, where it was buried in the mud. Over time, it became entombed, along with the contents of its stomach (the researchers describe the condition of the ammonite as having excellent preservation), leaving evidence for scientist to discover millions of years later.

The find marks that first documented case of a fatal last meal found in an extinct pachycormid fish. The researchers suggest it also indicates that ammonites may have been more commonly eaten by bony fish during the Jurassic than previously thought.

 

 

1) In major relief for Rahul Gandhi, SC stays his conviction in Modi surname defamation case:

In March, a Surat court convicted and sentenced Gandhi to two years in prison, finding him guilty of criminal defamation following a complaint by BJP’s Purnesh Modi, who objected to his remarks in 2019 about “thieves with the Modi surname” The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the conviction of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the defamation case against him for alleged remarks against the Modi community, which had led to his disqualification as Lok Sabha MP.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai, PS Narasimha and PV Sanjay Kumar, which heard Gandhi’s plea challenging the Gujarat High Court order refusing to stay the conviction, noted that the trial court had not given reasons for awarding the maximum punishment of two years to the Congress leader.The apex court said the offence punishable under sections 498 and 499 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) is a maximum of two years or fine or both. It added that only because the maximum sentence was awarded, provisions of the Representation of People Act came into play and he was disqualified. The bench said the provision would not have been attracted had the sentence been a day lesser. The Supreme Court said the ramifications of the order are wide and affect not only the petitioners’ right to continue in public life but also that of the electorate which has elected him. “Taking into consideration these factors and that no reason has been given by the trial judge for imposing maximum sentence, the order of conviction needs to be stayed pending final adjudication,” the apex court ordered.

The Supreme Court had on July 21 issued notice to the Gujarat government on Gandhi challenging the Gujarat High Court order refusing to stay his conviction in the case.

In March, a magisterial court in Surat had convicted and sentenced Gandhi to two years in prison, finding him guilty of criminal defamation following a complaint filed by the BJP’s Surat West MLA Purnesh Modi, who objected to the Congress leader’s remarks in Karnataka’s Kolar in April 2019 – in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections – about “thieves with the Modi surname”. (Here’s a primer on the origins of ‘Modi’ and its caste links)

Following his conviction, Gandhi was disqualified from Lok Sabha where he represented the Wayanad constituency in Kerala. On July 7, the Gujarat High Court declined to stay Gandhi’s conviction, making several observations including that “the offence committed by the accused falls in the category of moral turpitude” and that the “need of the hour” is to “have purity in politics”. Stating that Gandhi was seeking a stay on his conviction “on absolutely non-existent grounds”, the high court upheld the April order of the Surat sessions court that declined to stay his conviction.

In his order, Justice Hemant Prachchhak said representatives of the people should be men of “clear antecedent”. Rejecting Gandhi’s argument that defamation did not amount to a serious offence like murder, Justice Prachchhak said, “The present conviction is a serious matter, affecting a large segment of the society and needs to be viewed by this court with the gravity and significance it commands…

2) What the Ashoka University Professor's Paper on BJP 'Manipulation' in 2019 Election Actually Says

Ashoka University

Ashoka University has sought to distance itself from the paper, 'Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy', authored by Sabyasachi Das, assistant professor of economics, inviting charges of undermining academic freedom. A research paper by a faculty member of Ashoka University has triggered a political row by suggesting that there was a possible manipulation of results in some seats by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019. The paper says that this manipulation resulted in the party winning a disproportionate share of closely contested constituencies in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The paper titled Democratic Backsliding in the World’s Largest Democracy was authored by Sabyasachi Das, assistant professor of economics at Ashoka University.

Following the publication of the paper, the author received backlash on social media from pro-BJP handles. In an unusual move, the university publicly disassociated itself from the research paper.

“Social media activity or public activism by Ashoka faculty, students or staff in their individual capacity does not reflect the stand of the University,” said Ashoka University on Twitter on August 1. It also questioned the scholarly credentials of the paper: “To the best of our knowledge, the paper in question has not yet completed a critical review process and has not been published in an academic journal.”

The university has been widely criticised by scholars in India and abroad for throwing their faculty member under the bus and belittling his research paper, even as they applauded Das for his controversial yet ‘bold’ conclusions.

The findings

The 50-page research paper finds that the number of these “excess” BJP wins in close fights in 2019 varies from nine to 18 Lok Sabha seats. The back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the party won 11 of these seats in which its win margin was less than 5%.

While the figure is much less than the BJP’s required half-way mark of 272 to form a government on its own, the author alarmingly concludes through data analysis that electoral fraud even in a single constituency would imply that such manipulations by incumbent parties are possible. This raises broader questions about the future of electoral democracy in India.

The author makes it clear that he cannot comment on the “overall extent of manipulation” in the 2019 election and focuses on closely contested seats as an empirical strategy to detect the presence of potential manipulation.

The 2019 election gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi a second term, with a large majority as compared to 2014. The BJP secured 303 out of 543 seats nationwide.

In several recent elections, especially in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP has a large number of its MPs and MLAs, opposition parties have accused the incumbent BJP of misusing administrative machinery to influence the elections. They alleged that the saffron party deleted unfavourable names from the voter lists and rigged results.

These allegations run parallel to the claims, though technically unsubstantiated, made by opposition parties that electronic voting machines (EVMs) were being tampered to favour the BJP.

Interestingly, Das in his paper writes that he does not consider the possibility of manipulation of EVMs as a mechanism of electoral manipulation, as given their technology, it is hard to manipulate them at scale. Instead, he argues, electoral manipulation happens at the local level of polling booths and that it was unlikely that the Election Commission of India would engage in direct tampering of turnout data ex-post.

The paper by Das claims that the 2019 general election showed “significant irregularities in the election data”. In technical terms, he is saying that “the density of the BJP’s win margin variable exhibits a discontinuous jump at the threshold level of zero.” Simply put, this implies that the BJP went on to win many more of those ‘closely contested’ seats than it lost.

Das did not find similar “discontinuities” in the previous general elections for either the BJP or the Congress, its biggest national rival, as well as for state assembly elections held simultaneously with the 2019 Lok Sabha election and those held subsequently.

He put together several new datasets in addition to accessing the candidate-level general election results for 1977-2019 and state assembly election results for 2019-2021.

The paper finds that the BJP’s disproportionate win of closely contested constituencies was primarily concentrated in states ruled by the party at the time of election.

Das also indicates that manipulation appears to be concentrated in constituencies that have a high share of observers, who are state civil service (SCS) officers from BJP-ruled states. Unlike the IAS, who are centrally appointed, the SCS officers are more likely to be politically pliable, he argues.

He reaches a conclusion by testing with evidence two different hypotheses: Was there electoral fraud or manipulation? And did the BJP clinch these tight contests simply because it worked harder on them after accurately predicting the possible outcome?

Through a range of arguments, he concludes that he found evidence consistent with electoral manipulation. He put to test the theory of ‘precise control’, the other likely possibility, to investigate if the BJP had managed to win these close fights due to its superior campaigning abilities and resources.

Precise control refers to the possibility that the BJP accurately predicted these tough seats and secured them through better campaigning and mobilisation of party workers to shape voter attitudes at the local level.However, Das – who studied the National Election Survey of 2019, post-poll voter survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, that gives micro data on election campaigning by political parties – did not find any evidence to support that. He found that the BJP or any other party did not campaign significantly harder through door-to-door visits in constituencies that the saffron party won by a thin margin.On the other hand, he found evidence consistent with electoral manipulation at the stage of voter registration as well as at the time of voting and counting (turnout manipulation).

“In both cases, the results point to strategic and targeted electoral discrimination against Muslims, in the form of deletion of names from voter lists and suppression of their votes during election, in part facilitated by weak monitoring by election observers,” he writes.

Electoral discrimination

The paper says that electoral manipulation can take place at the state of voter registration (registration manipulation) or at the time of voting or counting (turnout manipulation). These could be done through strategic deletion of Muslim names from the list of registered voters or electoral rolls, or through strategic suppression of Muslim votes at the time of voting or counting.He concludes that there was registration manipulation by showing that the growth rate of the electorate (number of registered voters) for each parliamentary constituency between 2014 and 2019 falls discontinuously by five percentage points in constituencies barely won by the BJP. The fall is concentrated in constituencies with a higher share of Muslim electorate.

To test turnout manipulation, Das examined the absolute difference between the two official versions of EVM turnout data for discrepancies. He found that there was a concentration of large discontinuous increase in the magnitude of data revision in the BJP-ruled states. This, he interpreted, was indicative of manipulation done locally at the polling stations rather than resulting from aggregation fraud at the constituency level.

He computed vote share of the BJP at each polling station relative to its vote share in the parliamentary constituency. This is the relative BJP vote share. He found that the spike in the relative BJP vote share was higher in seats with larger discrepancy in turnout data. In those seats barely won by the BJP, the party’s relative vote share exhibits a large spike in polling stations with high turnout, according to him.

The Lok Sabha seats the BJP barely won have a 26% larger likelihood of having a “large” mismatch in the EVM turnout data than the seats that the BJP barely lost. This implies that the sample of closely contested constituencies that were disproportionately won by the BJP also has a disproportionately higher likelihood of “large” turnout revision.

Das also tests the question of manipulation in the form of targeted electoral discrimination against Muslim voters. If the high vote shares of the BJP, which is not viewed favourably by Muslims, in seats it barely won were concentrated in areas with higher presence of the minority group, this would indicate manipulation.

On the other hand, if this was due to better targeted campaigning by the BJP, we would expect the opposite, as the BJP’s increase in vote share from 2014 to 2019 came primarily from Hindus, especially lower caste groups, while its support among Muslims was low in both elections.

In this context, he finds that in parliamentary constituencies that the BJP barely lost, its vote share is less likely to exceed the 95th percentile in polling stations located in assembly constituencies with a high Muslim share, within the Lok Sabha area. This negative relation gets significantly reduced in parliamentary constituencies the BJP barely won.In those parliamentary constituencies, the likelihood of the event does not fall in assembly constituencies with higher Muslim share. “This again supports the manipulation hypothesis,” he writes.However, despite forcefully arguing in favour of possible manipulation, he cautions that the tests are not proof of fraud nor do they suggest that manipulation was widespread.“Proving electoral manipulation in a robust democracy is a significantly harder task that would require detailed investigation of electoral data in each constituency separately,” he says.Reacting to the controversy over the research paper, Ashoka University said it was “dismayed by the speculation and debate” around Das’s paper and the university’s position on its contents.While stressing that it values research that is critically peer-reviewed and published in reputed journals, Ashoka University said, “To the best of our knowledge, the paper in question has not yet completed a critical review process and has not been published in an academic journal.”The University added that it encourages its 160-plus faculty to carry out research, but does not direct or approve specific research projects by individual faculty members.

BJP MP from Jharkhand,Nishikant Dubey, in response to a tweet by Ashoka University, said it was “fine to differ with the BJP on matters of policy but this is taking it too far”.

“…how can someone in the name of half-baked research discredit India’s vibrant poll process? How can any university allow it? Answers needed – this is not good enough a response,” he said.

Congress MP from Kerala Shashi Tharoor, referring to the conclusions in the paper, said that if the Election Commission and the Union government have answers available to refute these arguments, they should provide them in detail.The paper “offers a hugely troubling analysis for all lovers of Indian democracy,” he said, specifically demanding that the “discrepancy in vote tallies need to be explained, since it can’t be wished away.”

The Congress leader also backed the scholar Das over “political attacks” faced by him over the research.

Who is Sabyasachi Das?

Sabyasachi Das

Sabyasachi Das is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Ashoka University, holding a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. Before joining Ashoka, he served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi. His areas of expertise lie in political economy, public economics, and applied microeconomics. His research primarily revolves around examining group inequalities arising from democratic processes.

Hailing from a tranquil town on the border of Bhutan in northern West Bengal, Professor Das reminisces about his carefree childhood, where life revolved around school and cricket. Shifting to Kolkata before college, he discovered his love for cinema, fostering an enduring interest in films of all genres and languages. Though he dabbled in filmmaking, he never pursued it professionally, considering his passion to be a gradual and evolving journey.

In his studies, Sabyasachi Das has focused on gender and caste issues in village elections and meetings in India, as well as the governance consequences of political alignments between state and local governments, particularly regarding the appointments of bureaucrats. Sabyasachi Das has imparted his knowledge through teaching courses on political economy for Masters and Ph.D. students at ISI, Delhi, and has mentored Masters students at ISI in their thesis writing. During his time at Yale, he served as a Teaching Assistant for various undergraduate courses, covering subjects such as Public Economics, Law and Economics, and Statistics and Econometrics. Economics became the constant thread in Professor Das’s life, even though he briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a doctor or a bureaucrat. His college days were different from the semester system at Ashoka, allowing ample time for in-depth learning and leisurely reading of fiction.

As a cricket enthusiast, Professor Das laments the waning sense of community that the game once fostered. Back in India, cricket was a means for people to bond and come together, but that spirit seemed to diminish during his time at Yale University in the United States.

Being a Bengali, his love for food is no surprise. He recently impressed his friends with his culinary skills, preparing a delightful Hyderabadi Chicken. While not a fan of the infamous mess food, he appreciates the breakfast served at Ashoka.

3) Mumbai train firing: Accused RPF constable Chetan Singh remanded to police custody till August 7:

Undated photo of Railway Protection Force (RPF) Constable Chetan Kumar Choudhary who fired from his automatic weapon, killing an RPF Assistant Sub-Inspector  and three other passengers of the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express

The incident took place on Jukly 31 on board the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express train near Palghar station on Mumbai's outskirts . A court here on Tuesday remanded Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable Chetan Singh to the custody of Government Railway Police till August 7 for allegedly shooting dead four persons on a moving train.

The incident took place on Monday morning on board the Jaipur-Mumbai Central Express train near Palghar station on Mumbai's outskirts. Accused constable Chetan Singh (34) allegedly shot dead his senior - RPF Assistant Sub-Inspector Tikaram Meena - and three passengers on board the train, officials said.

Singh was nabbed with his weapon later while trying to flee after passengers pulled the chain of the train which stopped near Mira Road station (on the Mumbai suburban network). Two of the deceased passengers have been identified by the railway police as Abdul Kadarbhai Mohammed Hussain Bhanpurwala (48), a resident of Nalasopara in Palghar, and Asgar Abbas Sheikh (48), a resident of Madhubani in Bihar, while the third victim was yet to be identified.

The Railway Board has set up a five-member committee to probe the incident, according to officials.

4) Has police inaction and administrative failure fuelled the communal clashes in Haryana’s Nuh?: by ISMAT ARA

Violence between Hindus and Muslims leaves a trail of destruction, with six deaths, widespread property damage, and 116 arrests. As the sun dawns over Haryana’s Nuh on August 1, the lanes seem deserted. An eerie silence has befallen the district’s once-bustling villages. The markets are shut, and the quiet is only punctured by the presence of the police personnel, who are swarmed everywhere in thousands.

Nuh, an hour’s drive from New Delhi, witnessed violent clashes between the Muslim and Hindu communities on July 31. The aftermath of the turmoil is visible everywhere. Scattered across the roads lay the haunting remnants of shattered vehicles and burnt shops, a stark testament to the chaos that had gripped the area. The financial toll of the destruction is staggering, with properties worth crores of rupees lying badly damaged.

At least six people, including two home guards and four civilians, were killed in the clashes that first erupted in Nuh and then spread to Gurugram and areas such as Palwal and Sohna the next day. Section 144 was imposed in several districts of Haryana as tensions soared. The district administration announced that all schools, colleges, and educational institutions would remain shut.

Till August 2, Haryana police had arrested 116 people and registered 44 FIRs in relation to the violence. Back in Nuh, sources in Haryana police said that the forces are currently conducting raids in the villages. Local Muslims in Nuh alleged that Haryana police have launched a massive crackdown on Muslim youth, arresting minors in large numbers. Frontline reached out to Nuh’s Superintendent of Police Varun Singla about the allegations of “one-sided” arrests but is yet to receive an official response. Top police officers in the other affected districts also refused to comment, citing that their priorities right now were to maintain law and order and restore peace in the region.

Where it all began

According to the Haryana police, the violence started when a rally organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the “Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra”, was met with stone pelting by a group of young men near Khedla Mod, roughly a few kilometres from the Shiva temple from where the yatra had started. There were rumours that controversial cow vigilante Monu Manesar, who was charged for the murder of two Muslim men, would be participating in the procession. Some police vehicles were also damaged in the violence.

According to locals, what had started as a heated verbal exchange soon turned into heavy stone pelting. Both sides were allegedly armed with swords, rods, sticks, and guns. Bajrangi, who was leading the procession, was also thrashed. Hundreds of people who were part of the yatra took refuge in the Shiva temple and were later rescued by the police. Soon after, members of a few Hindutva organisations claimed on social media that Hindus were unsafe in Muslim-majority areas such as Nuh, and the news of the stone pelting by the men in Nuh—who have not yet been identified—unwittingly strengthened this perception.

Soon, the reverberations of this were felt in other districts of Haryana. In retaliatory violence, several Muslim shops and their owners were targeted, assaulted, and vandalised. A mosque was burned down in Gurugram, Haryana’s financial and technology hub and home to luxurious residential complexes and fancy skyscrapers.

Hafiz Saad, the deputy imam at the Anjuman Jama Masjid in Sector 57, Gurugram, was shot dead by a mob even as policemen patrolled the area. He was a native of Sitamarhi in Bihar and had come to Gurugram less than a year ago.

Sources near the mosque said that the place was attacked around midnight on July 31 by an armed mob that set it on fire. The Anjuman mosque has been facing dispute for decades as one section of locals had challenged it in court. It is the only mosque constructed on government-allocated land in Gurugram across several sectors. Now, 60 policemen, in shifts, man the burnt-down remainder of the mosque.According to Saad’s brother Shadab, he was killed at around 2 am. “He had called our sister around 11:30 pm. When she asked him to return to Bihar because of the communal clashes in Gurugram, he told her that the police were manning the mosque and there was nothing to worry about. Later, he was stabbed multiple times in the chest and then shot,” he told Frontline. At W Pratiksha Hospital, where the victim was taken, he was declared dead. Another person present on the premises was also badly beaten up and shot in the knee. He is currently admitted to the ICU. Shadab added that Saad had booked a ticket to return to Bihar on August 1. On August 2, his burial was done in his village during the daytime.

Gurugram police, in a statement, said, “Today morning, at around 12:10 AM, some people attacked Anjuman Masjid, Sector 57 in Gurugram, killing one person and injuring another. They started arson, and fire tenders brought the fire under control.” An FIR has been registered in the case, and the police said they were in the process of identifying the perpetrators.

How it spread

Even though the violence in Nuh seemed to have erupted suddenly, the groundwork for it was allegedly laid down much in advance. It all started with a video that went viral. Posted by infamous cow vigilante and Faridabad Bajrang Force in-charge Bittu Bajrangi, also one of Monu Manesar’s mentors, the Facebook Live announced their intention to be part of a Shobha Yatra being taken out from Nuh, challenging the locals to be ready with garlands for them. The video, posted around 11 am on July 31, quickly went viral.

In the video, which spread among Nuh’s Muslim residents, he could be heard saying, “We are telling you (Muslims) in advance that your jijaji (brother-in-law, referring here to Monu Manesar) ) is coming to visit. Don’t say that we did not inform you. Be ready with flowers and garlands for him.” Earlier this month, an FIR was registered against Bajrangi at Saran police station in relation to another video made by him.

According to Muslim residents of Nuh, a few young men responded aggressively to Bittu’s open challenge, as there was already outrage over Monu Manesar’s declaration to visit Nuh. The locals said it was part of “counter-mobilisation” against Monu Manesar.Monu Manesar is the prime accused in the lynchings and burnings of two Muslim men, Nasir and Junaid, who were allegedly kidnapped by Bajrang Dal members in February this year on suspicion of cow smuggling, brutally beaten, then put in a car and burnt alive. In May, Rajasthan police named him in their charge sheet for the murder of Nasir and Junaid.

Around the same time, Monu Manesar had posted a video on his WhatsApp announcing his intent to attend the VHP yatra. The video spread all over Nuh, angering its Muslim residents over his involvement in the Nasir-Junaid incident, which still remains a sensitive issue across the Mewat region, which includes Nuh.

When the violence broke out, the administration, according to locals, did not respond adequately. Ramzan Chaudhary, a senior lawyer in Nuh, said that the administration failed to control the violence. A lady judicial magistrate, who was surrounded by a murderous mob, had to be rescued by Chaudhary, an influential lawyer, after the police allegedly refused to escort her out of the bar. Chaudhary further claimed that his requests to Nuh’s Additional Superintendent of Police, Usha Kundu, to take notice of the circulating videos and open threats, and urging her to take action before it was too late, were not taken seriously. As anticipated by Chaudhary as well as other concerned residents of Nuh, violence could not be stopped as no action was taken on the videos.

There were always telltale signs of a communal divide in Nuh, a Muslim-dominated district in Haryana which suffers the worst of the State’s poverty and unemployment. According to locals, this was not the first time that such a yatra was being taken out in Nuh. Such yatras have been around for at least three years now but they have been mostly peaceful. An elderly local from Nuh recalled, “Two years ago, when this yatra had taken place, a mazaar (mausoleum) had been burnt down. The administration quickly came forward and promised to rebuild it, and the Muslim community also showed restraint. The administration proactively got the mazaar rebuilt.”

Police inaction and administrative meltdown

But now the situation in Nuh reeks of a complete administrative meltdown. Despite the provocative videos doing the rounds on social media and clear warning signs, Haryana police did not take precautionary measures to stop the violence. The administration allegedly chose to turn a blind eye to the potential violence and allowed the yatra to be hijacked by Hindutva forces, according to locals. There were multiple rounds of extreme provocations by members of right-wing organisations such as the VHP and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal, which have been established by a number of videos that are still doing the rounds on social media. The threatening posts were not taken down from the internet, neither were potential troublemakers placed into preventative custody.

Even during the Jat agitation in 2016 in Haryana, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government’s administration in the State was caught napping. The Khattar government was accused of not being able to control the violence during the protests that had quickly turned violent.

“Why should Monu Manesar be invited here unless they want to anger young Muslim boys and push them to react?” asked Mohammad Ayyub who runs a small tea shop in Nuh, an elderly Muslim resident of Gandhi Gram village. According to another local, Mauj Khan, a young man, the VHP intended to create strife in Nuh for electoral gains of the BJP. “The ‘Hindu Khatre mein hai’(Hindus are in danger) narrative is peddled using such clashes in Muslim-dominated areas such as Nuh to further the BJP’s Hindutva agenda,” he said.

The violence in Haryana, which shares its borders with major States such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab, has already spilt over to several other areas where poor Muslim workers faced the brunt of the retaliation. On social media, a perception was already built showing Muslims as aggressors.

Rao Inderjit Singh, Gurugram MP and Union Minister of State (Independent charge), while speaking on the violence in Nuh, said that it was not right for the yatris to be carrying swords and sticks. “Who gave them weapons for the procession? Who goes to a procession carrying swords or sticks? This is wrong. A provocation took place from this side too. I am not saying there was no provocation from the other side,” Singh said.

Deputy Commissioner of Nuh, Prashant Panwar, told the media that while giving permission for the yatra, the administration had asked them to strictly avoid any weapons. Chief Minister Khattar has vowed to uncover the plot behind the violence in Nuh and punish the culprits. He also announced that the government will provide 80 per cent coverage to those who have lost property estimated at Rs.5 lakh and 70 per cent if the loss is over Rs.5 lakh. For losses between Rs.10 and 20 lakh, 60 per cent would be covered. The Chief Minister also told the media that the hunt to nab Monu Manesar was on.

On August 1, a meeting was organised between Nuh police, district officials, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, and Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind representatives, but it seems to have been largely futile as tensions continued to rise in several other areas of the district.

“The mood in the area changed when those videos were posted. It is a sensitive case,” Mufti Salim, a Jamiat member said after the peace meeting. Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav, who was a part of the peace meeting, said that the communalisation of the Mewat region, which comprises Nuh, has been a long-time project of the BJP, as it would help the party in gaining Hindu support before the next general elections and the Assembly polls in Haryana in 2024. While speaking to Frontline, Yadav said that action should be taken against the Bajrang Dal members who instigated violence through threatening videos.

Amidst the mounting tensions, the people of Nuh and its neighbouring regions anxiously yearn for a glimmer of hope, praying for calm and reconciliation to dispel the dark shadow of recent turmoil that has gripped their lives.

5) Muslims in fear in India’s Gurugram after attacks on mosque, businesses

Streets are deserted and tensions high after mobs torch Muslim-owned shops, a mosque and kill its imam in northern Haryana state.

Gurugram, India – The Anjuman Jama mosque in Gurugram’s Sector 57 is deserted. About 10 police officers stand in front of the concrete structure, which used to host up to 450 worshippers but is now a mound of debris and ashes.

The mosque – one of the few places for Muslim worship in Gurugram, a predominantly Hindu city next to India’s capital, New Delhi – came under attack on the night of July 31, allegedly by a Hindu far-right mob. The assailants set the mosque ablaze and killed Mohammad Saad, a 22-year-old naib (deputy) imam who was inside at the time. The attack took place hours after deadly communal violence erupted in the neighbouring Nuh district in Haryana state.

Mohammad Faheem Kazmi, an interior designer who regularly prays at the torched mosque, said he was horrified.

“This attack was revenge for Nuh,” the 32-year-old, who has lived in the area since 2011, told Al Jazeera.

At least four people were killed, including two policemen, when a Hindu religious procession in Nuh that was organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, two Hindu far-right organisations aligned with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), turned violent According to media reports and Nuh residents, clashes ensued after some Muslim men stopped the religious procession and stones were thrown at the march.

Authorities in Haryana have deployed additional troops, imposed a curfew and suspended the internet in the wake of the unrest. But the measures did not stop Hindu mobs from attacking Muslim-owned shops, roadside eateries, properties and places of worship in Gurugram as well as in nearby towns such as Sohna, residents said.

Shops in Gurugram’s Sector 70A and Sector 66 were torched on Tuesday evening, while Bajrang Dal members held a rally in Haryana’s Bahadurgarh city, shouting hateful slogans such as “Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko” (“Shoot the traitors of our country”) – a chant that was widely used by BJP politicians against Muslims during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests in 2019 and 2020. Speaking about the violence on Tuesday, Gurugram Police Commissioner Kala Ramachandran told Al Jazeera that “some kiosks were damaged in arson”.

“Prima facie [On the first impression] the men we rounded up were not linked to any particular group. However, an investigation is still under way,” she said.

The offices of companies such as Google and Deloitte are located just a few kilometres from the sites of violence in Gurugram, which has been given the moniker “millennium city” for attracting multinational corporations and hosting upmarket shopping centres.

The unrest in Haryana comes a month before global leaders are due to arrive in New Delhi for a Group of 20 (G20) summit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not commented on the violence that came a day after a railway security officer killed one of his colleagues and three Muslim passengers, in what is seen by many as a hate crime. In recent weeks, Modi has also been criticised for staying silent on the weeks-long ethnic violence that has erupted in the northeastern state of Manipur, killing more than 130 people and forcing thousands to live in relief camps.

Haryana state Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday said a total of 116 people had been arrested in connection to the violence there.

“The conspirators [behind the clashes in Nuh] are being continuously identified,” he told reporters.Khattar, who is from Modi’s BJP, did not comment on the imam’s killing. “Those found guilty will not be spared. We are committed to the safety of the public,”he said.

‘Happened in presence of police’

But Shadab Anwar, the elder brother of the slain imam, Mohammad Saad, said he had little faith in the authorities, who have been accused of playing a partisan role in recent violence targeting the Muslims. Anwar said he had spoken to his brother half an hour before his killing. “He called me at 11:30pm saying the police were at the mosque and that there is nothing to be worried about,” he told Al Jazeera.

At about 2:30am, Anwar said he learned of the killing. “This happened in the presence of police,” he alleged, as he waited outside the mortuary to collect the body.Police have arrested four Hindu men from the nearby village of Tigra over the attack on the mosque.

“The attackers tried to sever his head,” Anwar said. “There are some marks. He was shot, and there are also knife marks on his chest.”

His statements could not be independently verified.

Imran Qureshi, 43, who lives 100 metres (328 feet) away from the mosque, said he heard six gunshots at about 12:10am. “There was a mob of about 70 people outside the mosque, shouting slogans. I got scared,” he said, adding that he planned to relocate to a Muslim-majority area for safety. Gurugram Police Commissioner Ramachandran told Al Jazeera the attack was carried out by an “armed mob”.

“Security has been strengthened around mosques,” she said. “We have met members of both communities and asked for restraint and cooperation.”

In recent years, members of Hindu far-right organisations have been protesting against Muslims offering Friday prayers in public spaces in Gurugram. Authorities have cancelled permits for most of the prayer sites, with the Anjuman Jama mosque being one of the few remaining places of worship left in the city.

About a month before he was killed, Saad had posted on social media: “Oh Allah, please make Hindustan [India] a place where Hindus and Muslims eat from the same plate.”

6) Fresh violence in Manipur as Meitei women, armed forces clash; 17 injured:By Ashutosh Mishra:

Clashes between armed forces and Meitei community protesters were reported in Manipur's Bishnupur district on Thursday, thus injuring 17 people. Tensions escalated as Meitei women tried to cross a barricaded zone, leading to stone-pelting and clashes.

As many as 17 people were injured after clashes erupted between armed forces and the Meitei community protesters in Manipur's Bishnupur district on Thursday.

The incident prompted the authorities of Imphal East and Imphal West to withdraw curfew relaxations announced earlier. The authorities imposed the restrictions during the day as a precautionary measure.

Armed forces and the Manipur Police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters in the Kangvai and Phougakchao areas of the district. Meanwhile, a large police force was deployed in the area to prevent any further incidents of violence.

Tension has been brewing since morning in Bishnupur district as thousands of locals came out on the streets to block the movement of security forces.

After the unrest in Bishnupur, protests also erupted in the capital Imphal and police resorted to firing tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.

Hours before the clashes, a planned mass burial of Kuki-Zomi people killed in Manipur's ethnic violence was stalled after the state's High Court on Thursday morning ordered status quo to be maintained at the proposed burial site in Churachandpur district.

7)‘Are you saying protect all daughters or none?’ Supreme Court at Manipur hearing

The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions in connection with the ethnic violence in Manipur, including the plea of the two tribal women who were paraded naked in May.

In the Manipur case hearing on Monday, the Supreme Court disapproved of an attempt made by an intervenor to draw equivalence with crimes against women happening in other parts of the country. The Court highlighted that the violence in Manipur are of an "unprecedented magnitude", happening in the mid"communal and sectarian strife". A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra was dealing.

The Supreme Court on Monday came down heavily on advocate Bansuri Swaraj for bringing up incidents of crime against women in West Bengal during the hearing of the Manipur violence and viral video case.

The top court, hearing a plea on the Manipur viral video case, noted that it was dealing with an "unprecedented magnitude" of violence against women in communal and sectarian strife. Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said one cannot justify what happened in Manipur "by saying that this and this happened elsewhere". During the hearing, advocate Bansuri Swaraj requested the Supreme Court bench to take cognisance of crimes against women in West Bengal. "Along with the case, there have been horrific cases of rape in Bengal and other states. Daughters of pan India need to be protected," Swaraj said.

To this, the CJI said the matter can be heard later as the court is currently hearing pleas related to Manipur violence. However, Bansuri Swaraj once again intervened and said, "In Bengal, a mob of 40 had paraded a female poll-candidate nude and this happened in Chhattisgarh also".

Irked by the repeated intervention, the CJI said, "We are dealing with an unprecedented magnitude of violence against women in communal and sectarian strife. We cannot justify what happened in Manipur by saying that this and this happened elsewhere. Are you saying protect all women or don't protect anyone?" SUPREME COURT ON MANIPUR VIDEO CASE

In an assertive move, the top court criticised the police's handling of the matter, stating that it no longer wishes to have the state police investigate further, as they seemingly handed over the women to the rioting mob.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud proposed the possible establishment of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or a committee comprising former judges to monitor the situation in the strife-torn state.

The bench, which is scheduled to hear a series of pleas on Manipur violence on Tuesday, said that though the incident of stripping and parading these women came to light on May 4 why the Manipur Police took 14 days to register an FIR on May 18.

8) Opposition MPs’ Manipur visit Highlights: Oppn INDIA alliance MPs return after 2-day visit, flag ‘pathetic condition’ of relief camps

Opposition Manipur Visit Highlights: After returning to the national capital, most MPs who were part of the delegation had a similar complaint — “the pathetic condition of the relief camps” where those hit by the violence across the states have been housed. Opposition MPs’ Manipur Visit Highlights (July 30): The 21-member multi-party delegation of MPs of the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) that was in Manipur over the weekend to assess the situation in the strife-torn state has returned to New Delhi, vowing to take the stories of the people to the Parliament. After returning to the national capital, most MPs who were part of the delegation had a similar complaint — “the pathetic condition of the relief camps” where those hit by the violence across the states have been housed.

What did the delegation do today? The delegation of the Opposition MPs hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a memorandum submitted to the Manipur Governor, saying that his “silence” over the continuing violence in the state showed his “brazen indifference”. They also submitted a memorandum, asking her to restore peace and normalcy in the state, and apprise the Centre of “complete breakdown of law and order in Manipur for the last 89 days”.

Why were they in Manipur? The delegation was in the state for two days to take stock of the ground reality in the state which has been rocked by ethnic violence since early May. The visit aimed at mounting pressure on the government seeking a statement from PM Modi in Parliament ahead of the much-awaited discussion in the Lok Sabha on a no-confidence motion against the Centre. PM and his ministers should visit Manipur to see ground reality, says Gaurav Gogoi

"We are disheartened by what happened to the people there. In the meeting with the Governor, we suggested that under the leadership of the Prime Minister, an all-India all-party delegation come here. This is what we have been suggesting since the first day. But the PM is missing. His ministers are giving statements while sitting in Delhi. They should visit Manipur to see the ground reality there..." said Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi after returning from Manipur.

Vandita Mishra writes: Manipur and a tale of two Indias

It is often said that there are many Indias. Going by events in the news last week, you could see at least two countries, very different, and far away, from one another.

One in which Manipur continues to be a place of grim violence and pain, heartwrenching displacement and suffering, urgent in its tug on the nation’s attention and appeal to its empathies.

The 21-member multi-party delegation of MPs of the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) alliance, in Manipur for a two-day visit, brought sobering stories of “sharp and stark divisions” on the ground, in the plains that have been emptied of Kukis and in the hills the Meiteis can no longer go to, and of festering despondency and anger in the relief camps. Women and children are the worst affected by a crisis that has gone on now for three months, and there is waning confidence in the fairness and firmness of the Biren Singh government in dealing with it. This is one India, Manipur has become its centre.

 

 

1) India vs West Indies Highlights, 2nd ODI: Shai Hope and Keacy Carty guide WI to a six wicket win, level series 1-1:

India vs West Indies 2nd ODI Highlights: Indian batting fumbles as the Windies pull off a first ODI win against the men in blue since December 2019. Skipper Shai Hope and Keacy Carter added 91 runs for the fourth wicket as the West Indies managed to beat India by six wickets in the second ODI to level the series 1-1 and win their first game in the format against India since December 2019.

Romario Shepherd registered a career-best ODI bowling figures while Gudakesh Motie also nabbed three wickets as the West Indies reduced India for 181 in the second ODI in Barbados on Saturday.

Earlier, West Indies captain Shai Hope won the toss and opted to bowl first. Stand-in captain Hardik Pandya will be leading the team in this match while Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are rested. Sanju Samson and Axar Patek will be replacing Rohit and Kohli in the playing XI. Two changes for the hosts as well with Alzarri Joseph and Keacy Carty coming in.

2) India vs West Indies 3rd ODI Highlights: Shardul Thakur nabs four wickets as IND beat WI by 200 runs, claim series 2-1

3rd ODI: Kishan, Gill, Samson and Pandya star with the bat in the Trinidad thumping.Shardul Thakur registered a four-wicket haul as India wrapped up a 2-1 ODI series win against the West Indies following a 200-run win in the series decider on Tuesday. Fifties from openers Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill, captain Hardik Pandya and another attacking one from Sanju Samson helped India push to 351/5 in the third ODI against West Indies in Trinidad.

West Indies captain Shai Hope won the toss and elected to bowl in the 3rd ODI at the Brian Lara Stadium on Tuesday. Hardik Pandya will be leading India again as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli sitting this one out as well. Two changes to the lineup for the Men In Blue with Ruturaj Gaikwad and Jaydev Unadkat coming in for Axar Patel and Umran Malik.

West Indies

151 (35.3)vs

India

351/5 (50.0)

3) 1st T20: Tilak Varma stars on debut but WI beat IND by four runs

Chahal and Arshdeep were pick of the bowlers for India as WI finished at 149/6.

Inspired by Jason Holder (2/19), the West Indies managed to pip India in the first T20I by four runs. Despite Tilak Varma’s brilliant debut cameo (39 off 22), India were unable to close the game in a thriller that went right down the wire.

Powered by Nicholas Pooran (41) and Rovman Powell (48), the West Indies posted 149/6 against India in the first T20I. Arshdeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal were the pick of the bowlers for India.

Earlier, Powell had won the toss and opted to bat first in Trinidad. India handed two debut caps for the game, Tilak Varma and Mukesh Kumar, who became only the second Indian player to make his debut across all three formats in the same tour after T Natarajan.

West Indies

149/6 (20.0)vs

India

145/9 (20.0)

4) India vs China Asian Champions Trophy 2023 Hockey Highlights: Harmanpreet, Varun grab braces to gift IND 7-2 win vs CHN

 India sealed a one-sided 7-2 win against China in their Asian Champions Trophy 2023 opener, at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium in Chennai on Thursday. India took a early 2-0 lead in the first quarter after a quick brace from captain Harmanpreet Singh, who converted back-to-back penalty corners. Meanwhile, Sukhjeet made it 3-0 to end the first quarter. Akashdeep scored early in the second quarter to make it 4-0, but Wenhui took advantage of a defensive lapse as China staged a comeback to make it 1-4. But Varun had other plans and converted a penalty corner to make it 5-1 for India. China found another goal through Jiesheng Gao to make it 5-2 in the second quarter. Varun scored once again in the end of the second quarter to make it 6-2 for the home side. In the third quarter, Mandeep deflected a dragflick and India took a 7-2 lead. India had few more chances in the final quarter but some good saves by China's goalkeeper saw the match end with a 7-2 scoreline.

5) Gukesh D becomes India’s #1 chess player, overtaking Viswanathan Anand

The 17-year-old phenom and Grandmaster has beat Anand, his mentor, by virtue of live rankings. Chess prodigy and Grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh has now become India’s top chess player, beating a live ratings record held by Viswanathan Anand for 36 years. This comes after the 17-year-old Gukesh qualified for the third round of the FIDE Chess World Cup, a major single-elimination tournament being held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Gukesh beat Misratdin Iskandaro to secure a live ranking of 2755.9, narrowly beating Anand’s 2754.0.

Gukesh is Anand’s protégé, and saw an electric rise in rankings after breaking into the top 100 in 2023. His current world ranking, based on FIDE’s monthly list, is 11. This differs from the live ratings, which are calculated on a daily basis immediately after matches.

Earlier this July, Gukesh also became the youngest chess player to cross the 2750 mark, edging past a record held by five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who has been World No. 1 since July 2011. Carlsen’s current live rating is 2838.4, trailed by the US’ Fabiano Caruana at 2786.4. Running till August 25, the FIDE World Cup also serves as a qualifier for the 2024 Chess World Championship. A total of 17 Indians have participated in the World Cup. Our contingent includes D Gukesh, Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, S L Narayanan, Abhimanyu Puranik, Adhiban B, Karthik Venkataraman, Harsha Bharathakoti, Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli, Vaishali R, Divya Deshmukh, Nandhidhaa P V, Mary Ann Gomesh and Priyanka Nutakki, as per ChessBase India.

6) Priyanshu Rajawat captivates with net play to sink Wang, enters quarters of Australian Open Super 500

Explosive feet, deceptive pauses, and backhand net game propel the Indian to a 21-8, 13-21, 21-19 win over Wang Tzu Wei Deception with stops and pushes from the net by Priyanshu Rajawat boggled Wang Tzu Wei enough for the Indian to secure a 21-8, 13-21, 21-19 victory over the Taiwanese and make the quarterfinals of the Australian Open Super 500 tournament at Sydney. Rajawat’s backhand at the net was in such fine form that it helped him open up the court and close out the match even though Wang threatened with some power net play of his own.

Twice in the last fortnight, Rajawat had struggled to finish against Kodai Naraoka and Lakshya Sen in three. On Thursday in Sydney, playing someone marginally higher ranked than him at No 28, the World No 31 Indian used his backhand net pushes to good effect as he won in the decider in 59 minutes.

His intention was quite clear from the first point, when he took the characteristic side stride forward. Left leg plonked heel to toe, his right leg would stride forward and across from midcourt to the net, as his backhand worked at the reach to get on top of the shuttle. From there the variations and deception of the backhand flowed. Rajawat has a handy cross smash from the back when he opened the court, but the net pushes into Wang’s body were completely confounding the Taiwanese. At least a third of the Indian 21-year-old’s points throughout the match came from the backhand on the forecourt. He would lead 11-4 and lurking at the forecourt, use front and back deception to keep Wang muddled.Rajawat led 16-5 and floated another backhand at an awkward length towards Wang to stay up 19-7. Wang was often left taking evasive action and hitting wide, as the Indian’s wristy backhand came flat at him at times and parabolaed at others. Wang would smash wide at 21-8 to go a set down.

Rajawat would go into a defensive shell in the second, as Wang took over the net dominance and ran away with the second 21-13 to level sets.

The battle was still at the net at the start of the third. But at 3-3 came a wonderful rally where Rajawat unfurled the whole range of his strokes and then some more. Moving in an 180 arc were backhand variations, including a reflex defensive return followed by a proper pirouette, and he recovered from the spin to play a few more attacking shots to end with a deep cross smash winner.The net dominance continued with fast exchanges at 11-11 and a push to Wang’s body to start breaking away at 14-12. Rajawat would go upto 18-13 on the back of push at net-cross smash and followup combo, and reach match point at 20-16 with a cross smash. Wang would attack from the net the next three points to come to within a point at 20-19. Rajawat would push Wang’s serve to the back in a final throw of dice, as the Taiwanese sent the shuttle wide to give the Indian an entry into the quarters.

1) GUARDIANS OF GALAXY VOL 3:

Prepare to be entertained with a diverse selection of content, including the highly anticipated 'Guardians of Galaxy Vol 3,' scheduled to stream on Disney+ Hotstar on August 2, 2023.

In this installment, Peter Quill and his team must unite once again to protect the universe and confront personal challenges that could alter the fate of the Guardians forever.

2) THE HUNT FOR VEERAPPAN

August 4, Netflix

The gripping true story of India's longest manhunt unfolds in 'The Hunt For Veerappan,' streaming on Netflix from August 4, 2023.

This cinematic series delves into the unseen and unheard accounts of those close to Veerappan and the relentless efforts to capture him.

3) DHOOMAM

August 4, Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video's 'Dhoomam,' releasing on August 4, 2023, follows Avinash's decision to quit his marketing job, leading to unforeseen consequences that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

4) POR THOZHIL

August 4, SonyLiv

SonyLiv is bringing the gripping crime thriller 'Por Thozhil' on August 4, 2023, where a rookie cop teams up with an experienced lawman to track down a serial killer, promising an intense and captivating storyline.

5) "Choona"

 (Netflix - Aug 3, 2023)

In this gripping web series, six ordinary individuals embark on a daring plan to seek revenge against a powerful politician played by the talented Jimmy Shergill. Their radical heist will take you on a roller-coaster ride of suspense, drama, and unexpected twists that will keep you guessing until the very end.

6) Meg 2 The Trench

The film is set a few years after the events of the first film, with Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) still haunted by the events of his encounter with the Megalodon. He is now working as a deep-sea rescue diver when he is called to investigate a distress signal from a research vessel that has been attacked by a mysterious creature. Taylor and his team soon discover that the creature is a new species of Megalodon, even larger and more powerful than the one he encountered before. The team must race against time to stop the Megalodon before it can destroy the research vessel and kill everyone on board. In addition to Jason Statham, the film also stars Wu Jing, Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Skyler Samuels, and Cliff Curtis. It is directed by Ben Wheatley (Kill List, High-Rise) and written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris.

BOOK OF THIS WEEK:

Victory City By Salman Rushdie

The Epic Tale Of A Woman Who Breathes A Fantastical Empire Into Existence, Only To Be Consumed By It Over The Centuries – From The Transcendent Imagination Of Booker Prize-winning, Internationally Bestselling Author Salman Rushdie.

In The Wake Of An Insignificant Battle Between Two Long-forgotten Kingdoms In Fourteenth-century Southern India, A Nine-year-old Girl Has A Divine Encounter That Will Change The Course Of History. After Witnessing The Death Of Her Mother, The Grief-stricken Pampa Kampana Becomes A Vessel For The Goddess, Who Begins To Speak Out Of The Girl’s Mouth. Granting Her Powers Beyond Pampa Kampana’s Comprehension, The Goddess Tells Her That She Will Be Instrumental In The Rise Of A Great City Called Bisnaga – Literally ‘victory City’ -the Wonder Of The World.

Over The Next Two Hundred And Fifty Years, Pampa Kampana’s Life Becomes Deeply Interwoven With Bisnaga’s, From Its Literal Sowing Out Of A Bag Of Magic Seeds To Its Tragic Ruination In The Most Human Of Ways: The Hubris Of Those In Power. Whispering Bisnaga And Its Citizens Into Existence, Pampa Kampana Attempts To Make Good On The Task That The Goddess Set For Her: To Give Women Equal Agency In A Patriarchal World. But All Stories Have A Way Of Getting Away From Their Creator, And Bisnaga Is No Exception. As Years Pass, Rulers Come And Go, Battles Are Won And Lost, And Allegiances Shift, The Very Fabric Of Bisnaga Becomes An Ever More Complex Tapestry – With Pampa Kampana At Its Centre.

Brilliantly Styled As A Translation Of An Ancient Epic, This Is A Saga Of Love, Adventure And Myth That Is In Itself A Testament To The Power Of Storytelling.

 

Salman Rushdie

Bornin Bombay, Bombay presidency, British IndiaJune 19, 1947

Websitehttps://www.salmanrushdie.com/

TwitterSalmanRushdie

GenreFiction, Children's, Memoir

Influences :Vladimir Nabokov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Chekov, Joseph Conrad, Scheherazade, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, James Joyce, Kafka, Italo Calvino, Saul Bellow, Miguel de Cervantes

The Satanic Verses (1988), novel of Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie led Ruholla Khomeini, the ayatollah of Iran, to demand his execution and then forced him into hiding; his other works include Midnight's Children (1981), which won the Booker prize, and The Moor's Last Sigh (1995).

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, a novelist and essayist, set much of his early fiction at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world.

His fourth novel led to some violent protests from Muslims in several countries. Faced with death threats and a fatwa (religious edict) issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, which called for him to be killed, he spent nearly a decade largely underground, appearing in public only sporadically. In June 2007, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for "services to literature", which "thrilled and humbled" him. In 2007, he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University.