Today’s Big Stories
Indian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo; Michael Kremer awarded Nobel Prize for fighting poverty
Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty". An alum of University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University, Banerjee along with Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Proverty Action Lab (J-Pal). He also served on the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Following the announcement Banerjee in an interview commented on India’s economy saying that it “is on a shaky ground" and “the government should do pilots of policy initiatives more carefully".
More metro & bus services, ban on diesel gen-sets as Delhi implements action plan to deal with air pollution
The Graded Response Action Plan to curb air pollution in Delhi-NCR will come into force today, proactively rolling out stricter measures depending on the need to discourage private vehicles on roads, stop entry of trucks, use of diesel generators, and closing brick kilns and stone crushers. On Sunday, the air quality in Delhi turned "very poor" with the overall Air Quality Index going beyond the 300 mark. On Monday, it improved by around 50 points but the situation has continued to oscillate between poor and very poor for the last 24 hours. Biomass burning is likely to contribute 9 per cent to Delhi's PM2.5 concentration. Rounak Kumar Gunjan reports on how farmers have been 'allowed' to burn leftover stubble more freely this season, leading to the sinking of air quality in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab.
In Other News
At last: Postpaid mobile telephone services were restored in Jammu and Kashmir from Monday almost two months after the scrapping of Article 370 and snapped communication lines. Over 20 lakh prepaid mobile phones, besides the mobile and other internet services, however, still remain suspended.
Babur vs Ashoka: Muslims parties in the Ayodhya case urged the Supreme Court not to rewrite history. “It is not for Your Lordships to rewrite history, (it) will open a Pandora’s Box. If Babur gets involved, Ashoka's action will also be judged," said senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for the Muslim parties.
Warning bells: Pakistan is on the verge of strong action by the international terror financing watchdog FATF and may be put in the 'Dark Grey' list. It performed inadequately, managing to pass in only six of 27 items. The FATF will finalise its decision on Pakistan on October 18.
BCCI row: Amit Shah denied any involvement in the election of the BCCI chief and declined that a deal was made with the new president-elect, Sourav Ganguly. There have been rumours that Shah had met Ganguly on Saturday and offered the BCCI president’s post in return for him contesting the West Bengal assembly election in 2021.
Booker prize: Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo jointly won the 2019 Booker Prize on Monday after judges "flouted" the rules by declaring a tie. The judges insisted they "couldn't separate" Atwood's 'The Testament' and 'Girl, Woman, Other' by Evaristo, who is the first black woman to win the prestigious award.
On Our Specials
Exposed: A day after Kerala police arrested 12 persons for uploading and downloading videos and photographs related to child pornography, state additional police chief on Monday said there are about 7 to 8 social media groups with around 50,000 members on their radar. The state police is also using Interpol software to identify the culprits. Neethu Reghukumar speaks to Manoj Abraham, who’s also the nodal officer of Kerala Police Cyberdome which monitors cybercrimes.
Digging deep: Raids by Income Tax department officials at former deputy chief minister G Parameshwara's college could draw more probes by other central agencies, now that it has set off questions about the quality of admissions in all deemed universities. Deepa Balakrishnan writes about how Parameshwara’s nephew, Dr GS Anand, who is a member of the governing body of Sri Siddhartha Medical College, had managed to by-pass the admission process through merit-based NEET to make way for students with very low ranks.
On Reel
Pakistan was placed on the grey list by the Paris-based terror financing watchdog, FATF, in June last year. It was given a plan of action to complete it by October 2019, or face the risk of being placed on the blacklist with Iran and North Korea. The FATF Paris meet will decide Pakistan's fate. But how exactly do countries get blacklisted under the FATF? Watch to know more.
Curated and compiled by Chitwan Kaur
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