Expresso Top National and International Headlines of the Week on 9 March 2024 Transcript
In top national news: On his first visit to Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said only a few political families had benefited from the provision that had given special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and that people of J&K were now free from its “shackles”. At a public rally at the Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar, he highlighted the Centre’s development efforts in J&K over the last five years, and also said that the Congress and its allies “misled the people of Jammu and Kashmir in the name of (Article) 370”. Speaking about Article 370, the PM said it was a shackle that the people are now free from.
In political news: The first meeting of the Congress CEC Thursday cleared the name of senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for the Wayanad LS seat in Kerala but leaders said the panel has left it to him to take the final decision. Sources said the CEC meeting, chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, and attended by Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi decided to field former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel from Rajnandgaon seat and former minister Tamardwaj Sahu from Mahasamund, while Jyotsna Mahant will contest from Korba, Chhattisgarh. Sources said names would be officially announced in a day or two.
The Union Cabinet is expected to approve the artificial intelligence Mission under which the government will allocate funds towards subsidising private companies looking to set up AI compute capacity in the country and also allocate seed funding for AI start-ups, The Indian Express has learnt. Total allocation towards the AI Mission could be around Rs 10,300 crore, it is learnt. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the Mission and said its aim was to establish the computing powers of AI within the country. This, he had said, will provide better services to startups and entrepreneurs and also promote AI applications in the sectors of agriculture, healthcare and education.
Moving on: People have a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water and live a life free from disease and sickness, the Supreme Court has said while upholding the principle of sustainable development and coming down hard on polluting industries. In a reasoned order on the closure of the Vedanta group firm Sterlite Copper in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi, a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said the closure of industry is not a matter of first choice but the nature of violations by the unit and repeated and severe breaches of environmental norms would have left neither the statutory authorities nor the Madras High Court with the option to take any other view.
In top world news: The British government is scrapping its non-domiciled tax status, which triggered the Akshata Murthy tax avoidance controversy, from April 2025, the Rishi Sunak cabinet said in a Spring Budget policy paper issued on Wednesday. The UK-specific tax policy had been in the news after it emerged in 2022 that PM Sunak’s wife Akshata Murthy, who owns shares in Infosys, had a non-dom status, which meant that she was not legally bound to pay tax in the UK on income earned overseas. The government justified the decision to do away with the current system in a statement issued on the official website on March 6.
Nearly two months ago, the UK’s royal family announced that the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, is postponing her public engagements till the end of March due to a planned surgery. In the weeks that followed, Kate’s absence became a source of controversy with onlookers flagging the secrecy surrounding her health as suspicious. As we step into the month of March, her “disappearance” continues to evoke speculations — so much so that a paparazzi photo, allegedly of the Princess taken on Monday, is being dismissed as a “fake”. Speculations about Kate’s health and the exact nature of the surgery have been swirling around on social media for the past few weeks.
The Egyptian pound slipped sharply against the dollar after Egypt’s central bank raised its main interest rate and said it would allow the currency’s exchange rate to be set by market forces. The measures by the Central Bank of Egypt were meant to combat inflationary waves and attract foreign investment as the country experiences a staggering shortage of foreign currency. Following the central bank announcement, commercial banks were trading the US currency at more than 47 pounds by midday Wednesday, up from about 31 pounds per dollar. The Egyptian economy has been hit hard by years of government austerity, the coronavirus pandemic, the fallout from the war in Ukraine, and most recently, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Lastly: In a landmark decision, a top Pakistan legal body on Thursday ruled to sack a former Supreme Court judge after finding him guilty of “misconduct”. Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi opted to resign in January this year following a probe into the complaints of corruption against him by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a constitutional body powered to take action against judges of the top judiciary. The SJC headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa continued proceedings against Naqvi and finally found him guilty. The Supreme Judicial Council examined nine complaints against Justice Naqvi and the Council has declared that Justice Naqvi should have been removed from his post.