Good morning,
The Big Story
Easing the rules for academic collaborations between Indian and foreign universities, the University Grants Commission approved key amendments, including a provision for “dual degree programmes” — both the Indian and foreign institutions will give separate and simultaneous degrees for a course of the same discipline, and at the same level. Indian universities that meet a minimum academic standard will not need UGC’s permission to offer such programmes.
Only in the Express In an interview with The Indian Express, former Assam Congress chief and Rajya Sabha ex-MP Ripun Bora, who switched to the Trinamool Congress recently, has said that he repeatedly alerted the Congress high command about the “corrosive effects of infighting, but no action was taken”.
From the Front Page Two men arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell on terror charges have allegedly identified a Pakistani army officer as one of the persons they met while undergoing training in Pakistan — from a photograph shown to them of that officer with IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman who was in Pakistani custody for a brief spell three years ago, according to a chargesheet filed in a Delhi court. Both were allegedly trained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), according to the chargesheet. Two Meerut-based brothers accused of running an "international cattle smuggling syndicate" were killed in a gunfight between policemen and suspected militants close to the India-Bhutan border, where the duo were being taken for “further investigation”. The two were arrested in UP last week and handed over to Assam Police. Four policemen were also injured in the shooting but are currently "out of danger". Amid concerns in certain quarters regarding a possible shortage of fertilisers in the country in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fertiliser Secretary Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi said Russian companies have been honouring a supply agreement they signed with India last December and the total availability of fertilisers is “anticipated” to be higher for the upcoming kharif season. On the disruption in fertiliser supply, Chaturvedi said the supply of DAP from Morocco is affected since Morocco procures ammonia from Russia for DAP manufacturing. Must Read
From Honda to Maruti Suzuki — the need for charging infrastructure as a prerequisite for battery electric vehicles to find more space in the market is driving four-wheeler vehicle makers to introduce hybrid electric options. These are cars that feature an internal combustion engine alongside an electric motor — in the mid-size vehicle segment.
Harvard Medical School professor Vikram Patel writes on the discrepancy between official data on Covid deaths and estimates by scientists: “The search for this truth has involved many different actors and includes journalistic accounts of funeral pyres and bodies floating down rivers; civil society accounts of the numbers of dead bodies brought to crematoria and morgues; the government’s own data on the numbers of families claiming compensation for a Covid death; and a series of studies involving hundreds of scientists and institutions, and published in the world’s leading journals. All of these diverse sources tell a similar story.” Accused of running a pyramid fraud in the guise of a direct selling multi-level marketing network, Amway India Enterprises saw its assets worth Rs 757.77 crore — including a factory building, land, vehicles and machinery — being frozen by the Enforcement Directorate this week. The ED said Amway collected Rs 27,562 crore from its business operations from 2002-03 to 2021-22, out of which it paid commission of Rs 7,588 crore to its distributors and members in India and the US. What is the ED case about? What is the magnitude of the alleged fraud? We explain. The poorest population were hit the hardest by the Covid pandemic — the Lokniti-CSDS study on urban slums, which looks at the livelihood concerns of slum residents of Delhi, confirmed. Unemployment emerged as the biggest difficulty for about a quarter (24%) of respondents followed by other concerns related to basic amenities. The pandemic only intensified the already existing employment concerns among the urban poor. But despite the employment crisis, more than half the respondents said they would continue to live in Delhi if given the choice to settle down in their village for the same work and money. And Finally... The ‘morning practice group’ won’t be the same again. The cream of the crop of youngsters from table tennis clubs in Chennai practised under one roof three times a week under the tutelage of senior pro Achanta Sharath Kamal, an Olympian and medallist at the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. On Sunday noon, the group lost a member. Vishwa Deenadayalan, 18, a cadet and sub-junior national champion, died in a road accident when travelling from Guwahati to Shillong for the Senior Nationals and Inter-state championships. 🤫 Delhi Confidential: The Supreme Court’s Guided Tour programme, which started in November 2018 as an ambitious project to engage the common citizen with courts and the Constitution, has achieved a milestone – completing 100 guided tours on April 16. The weekend tour was a hit till it had to be suspended temporarily in March 2020 following the Covid-19 spike. But with the pandemic easing, it was restarted last weekend.
🎧 In today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, we discuss what the government can do about the high food inflation, concerns over nepotism in BCCI, and the plan to solve the stray cattle problem in UP.
Until tomorrow,
Leela Prasad and Rahel Philipose  | 
