Digest year-ender for domestic stories for month of July, 2018

Digest year-ender for domestic stories for month of July, 2018

Press Trust of India

Jul 1: New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today ruled out a single tax rate under the GST, saying Mercedes car and milk cannot be taxed at the same rate and accepting Congress party' demand for a uniform 18 per cent rate would lead to a spike in food and essential items' taxation.

Jul 2: New Delhi: Eight of the 11 members of a family found dead in their home in north Delhi's Burari locality showed no signs of struggle and died as a result of hanging, officials said today after the post-mortem of all the victims was completed.

Jul 3: New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the proposed grand opposition alliance is merely a "grand race" by his rivals to be the prime minister and accused the Congress of working to discredit every institution due to its "culture of Emergency".

Jul 4: New Delhi: The Supreme Court today handed a major victory to Delhi's AAP government in its bitter power tussle with the Centre by ruling that the Lieutenant Governor (LG) has no independent power to take decisions and is bound by the elected government's advice.

Jul 5: New Delhi: A day after the Supreme Court clipped the powers of the Delhi L-G, the relationship between the AAP dispensation and bureaucrats further strained today with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warning officers of "serious consequences" if they did not obey the apex court's order.

Jul 6: New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bhutanese counterpart Tshering Tobgay today resolved to enhance Indo-Bhutan ties in all areas of mutual interest and take the "exemplary" bilateral partnership to "new heights". Jul 7: New Delhi: The engineering and medical entrance exams — JEE and NEET — would now be conduced online and twice a year by the newly formed National Testing Agency (NTA), HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said today.

Jul 8: New Delhi: India has conveyed to Russia its unwillingness to go ahead with the joint development of a fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) primarily due to high cost involved in the project, official sources said.

Jul 9: Noida: South Korean consumer electronics major Samsung today inaugurated the world's largest mobile phone factory here which will double its annual handset production capacity to 120 million units by 2020.

Jul 10: New Delhi: The power tussle between the Delhi government and LG Anil Baijal refused to die down with the latter transferring three IAS officers, days after the Supreme Court clipped his powers, prompting the AAP to accuse him of "bossing around".

Jul 11: Lucknow: BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar was today charged by the CBI with raping a minor girl at his residence at Makhi village in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh on June 4 last year, officials said.

Jul 12: Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor set off a political controversy with his remarks that the BJP, if voted to power again, will rewrite the Constitution and pave the way for creation of a "Hindu Pakistan", prompting the ruling party today to demand an apology from Rahul Gandhi.

Jul 13: Indore: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today filed a charge sheet in the Vyapam scam case of Madhya Pradesh against alleged mastermind Dr Jagdish Sagar, two officials of the exam board and others under the anti-money laundering law, officials said.

Jul 14: New Delhi: Former MP Ram Shakal, RSS ideologue Rakesh Sinha, classical dancer Sonal Mansingh and stone artist Raghunath Mohapatra were today nominated to the Rajya Sabha.

Jul 15: Bengaluru/New Delhi: Indicating a strain in ties with the Congress, H D Kumaraswamy has said he was "not happy" as Karnataka chief minister and was swallowing pain like Lord Shiva who drank poison, but his party JD(S) today said all is well and the coalition government will last full term.

Jul 16: Srinagar/New Delhi: The CBI today filed a charge sheet against former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah and three others for allegedly misappropriating over Rs 43 crore from grants given by the BCCI to the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association for promoting cricket in the state between 2002 to 2011.

Jul 17: New Delhi:  After his emotional speech at a JDS event fuelled speculation about strain in ties with ally Congress, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy today said he had shed tears not out of "helplessness" and asserted that he did not speak anything against the Congress.

Jul 18: Ranchi/New Delhi: A day after the mob attack on Swami Agnivesh in Jharkhand, police tonight said no arrests have been made yet even as the social activist alleged the incident was a "pre-planned conspiracy" of the BJP government in the state.

Jul 19: New Delhi: The government today said it has made no offer of talks to Pakistan and asserted that any meaningful dialogue with that country can be held only in a terror-free atmosphere.

Jul 20: New Delhi: The no confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government was tonight decisively defeated after an acrimonious debate in the Lok Sabha that witnessed political gamesmanship with Rahul Gandhi hugging the prime minister who hit back saying he was in a hurry to unseat him and grab his chair.

Jul 21: New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu today said his party will not join the NDA even if the BJP approaches it for the 2019 general elections.

Jul 22: Jaipur: A third arrest was made today in the case of lynching of a 28-year-old man in Rajasthan's Alwar district which was handed over to an additional SP-rank officer for investigation.

Jul 23: New Delhi: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram today secured interim protection from arrest from a trial court in the Aircel-Maxis case filed by the CBI but will have to wait till tomorrow to know the fate of his anticipatory bail plea before the Delhi High Court in the ED's money-laundering case related to INX Media.

Jul 24: New Delhi: The Congress today gave notices for bringing a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha for "misleading" the House on the Rafale deal.

Jul 25: New Delhi: Parliament today passed a legislation that provides for confiscation of assets of big economic offenders who flee the country to avoid prosecution, as the government looks to deter likes of Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi from absconding.

Jul 26: New Delhi: The general elections in Pakistan were "rigged" and Islamabad is unlikely to change its policy of hostility towards India if Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan becomes Prime Minister, Union minister RK Singh said, in first official reaction on the poll outcome in the neighbouring country.

Jul 27: New Delhi: Transporters today called off their eight-day long strike after the government agreed to consider their demands, bringing relief to the industry mainly FMCG, ecommerce and auto players who were hit by the disruption in supplies.

Jul 28: New Delhi: In its first reaction on general elections in Pakistan, India today hoped the new government in Islamabad will work constructively to build a safe, stable and secure South Asia "free of terror" and "violence".

Jul 29: New Delhi: A little over 1,000 'fast track special courts' need to be set up across India as part of a new scheme to try cases related to rape of children and women, the Law Ministry has estimated.

Jul 30: New Delhi: The row over the publication of the National Register of Citizens(NRC) in Assam today echoed in Parliament where Home Minister Rajnath Singh asserted the Centre has no role in the preparation of the draft list and it was done on the directives of the Supreme Court.

Jul 31: Mumbai: Deepak Parekh was re-appointed as a Non-Executive Director on the board of the country's largest mortgage lender HDFC but nearly 23 per cent of the shareholders voted against his continuation.

(Source PTI)