Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
The SC transferred the bail plea of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar to the Delhi HC and asked it to expeditiously deal with the matter.
The meeting was convened by the Congress. Six major parties -- the DMK, the SP, the BSP, the TMC, the AAP and the Shiv Sena -- choose to stay away. The BJP took a swipe at the absence of major opposition parties at the meet and also said that their anti-CAA resolution must've made Pak happy.
This will be the first visit of Mukherjee to China as President though he has visited the country a number of times in different capacities. The last Presidential visit to China was by Pratibha Patil in 2010.
"The provisions of the said bill are nothing short of draconian and promote gross incompetence and mockery of professionals currently working day and night and sacrificing their youth for this broken system," said the protesting doctors.
The party is finding increasing acceptability in the 18-35 years age group with Rahul Gandhi adding a million followers in the past 2 months and Facebook and Twitter also seeing similar spikes.
'New Delhi and Washington are now on the same page, on dealing with growing Chinese assertiveness, across the entire Indo-Pacific region,' notes Ambassador G Parthasarathy, Chancellor, Central University of Jammu.
Kejriwal, who had joined International Yoga Day participants last year along with Lt Governor Anil Baijal and the then Union minister and now Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, was found having high blood sugar following his nine-day, arduous sit-in at the Lieutenant Governor's office.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
''We had three positive cases, but our success was the three not going up to 30 or 100.' 'Also, all the three survived the virus,' says Kerala's Health Minister K K Shailaja.
'The people of India have not only challenged the ruling dispensation with the constitution, they have also opened the eyes of the leadership that sits in the Opposition.'
Rescue and relief operations continued in full swing in Chennai with over a hundred people taken to safety by teams of Army, IAF and NDRF, including a seven-month pregnant woman who was airlifted on Thursday from one of the worst-affected areas in the flooded city.
Magsaysay Award winner Sonam Wangchuk speaks to Claude Arpi about his journey, his fights, his hopes and how he became an inspiration for the Bollywood blockbuster.
Reema Kaur is one of the students on strike for nearly three months at the FTII. The Delhi resident feels the campus that had been a cocoon for her in the last three years has turned into a revolution ground demanding change -- and she is happy to be a part of it.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu had begun seeing Governor Ravi's decisions and actions as a part of the state BJP's non-stop criticism of its government and directed from Delhi, a view strengthened by the governor's decision to return the NEET exemption bill, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rahul Gandhi has not erred by not engaging with Muslim conservatives. After all, they had misled his father in 1986 to legislate a misogynistic law after the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case, which helped the BJP rise at the cost of the Congress, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Think about how he would have handled Hyderabad, and JNU. He would have been very cross if he found two of his Cabinet ministers weighing in on the side of the ABVP.' 'And if Rohith Vemula still killed himself, he would have been the first to speak out in anguish and empathy rather than deny he was a Dalit.' 'And JNU, he would have simply said something like, 'let the boys speak, then they will grow up and join the IAS).' 'A good idea, when in crisis, is to apply the 'Vajpayee test' to your actions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
For far too long, people in J&K have felt the government doesn't exist for them.' 'My first priority is to make them feel that not only does it exist, it is there to work for them.
'The emphasis is on nationalism, which the party apparently feels will have greater resonance than one on religious identity which may have lost some of its appeal in recent years.'
Coming down heavily on Delhi Police, an NHRC probe team on Friday said that the physical assault on JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar in the court premises appeared to have been "organised and pre-planned".
Parallel to this, the ruling Telugu Desam has been organising rallies across the state in solidarity with its MPs.
India's COVID-19 curve has been steadily rising throughout the lockdown period with a massive spike in cases in the fourth phase of the lockdown that ended on May 31 and afterwards.
'Shaheen Bagh is no longer a mere ghetto of lower middle class Muslims.' 'Now, it is a metaphor for resistance, secularism and struggle,' notes Md. Zeeshan Ahmad.
Buffalo meat was on Wednesday back on the menu of the Kerala House in New Delhi and was lapped up by the lunch-time crowd as the items that were briefly discontinued following a row that saw police carry out a raid at the canteen were sold out within "45 minutes".
The Union Health ministry put the number of positive cases at 82, eight more since Thursday night, which includes the woman and a 76-year-old man from Karnataka who became the country's first coronavirus fatality besides 17 foreign nationals, Health Ministry officials said.
'Over the last two decades, the India-French relationship has grown steadily, no major political difference having darkened the sky between Paris and Delhi,' says Claude Arpi.
'...because the party is based on the Constitution.'
With his swearing-in, the five-decade-long practice of retired bureaucrats being appointed to the post has ended.
'For a Dalit boy to reach the PhD stage, it requires a lot of pain and hard work. He was a scholar, an intelligent student.' 'This is not about the loss of just an individual, but the loss of this nation.'
CBD oil, found in marijuana, is gaining popularity for its pain-relieving properties. It's now legally available in India
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Malik, who was appointed as the Bihar governor in September last year, will take charge of Jammu and Kashmir at a time when it is under governor's rule.
What does Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee thinks about India's education sector?
'No country or society ever prospered or remained secure by marginalising more than one-sixth of its own,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
All international passengers will henceforth be screened at airports, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said at a press conference. Earlier, travellers from only 12 countries were screened at airports for the disease that has claimed over 3,000 lives and infected more than 90,000 worldwide.
She also challenged him to a public debate 'without a handwritten script' over his criticism of the Modi government.
It is going to be a rough and brutal 2020 for India as its government pushes on with its ideological agenda, and the citizens do whatever they can to protect themselves, notes Aakar Patel.
In a video-conference with the Governors, Lieutenant Governors and Administrators of states/union territories, the president emphasized the need to ensure that no one remains hungry during the nationwide lockdown.
How Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung handles the fight with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over the issue of appointment of a chief secretary will be an interesting insight into his personality, says Aditi Phadnis
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
