Morning Digest | Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari dies; pre-poll spending spike lifts fiscal deficit to 86.5% by February, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on March 29, 2024.

Pre-poll spending spike lifts fiscal deficit to 86.5% by February

Signalling a sharp rise in spending ahead of the fiscal year-end, the Centre’s fiscal deficit soared from 64% of the revised estimates in January to 86.5% by the end of February, with capital expenditure recording a sequential bounce to ₹84,400 crore last month. In absolute value terms, the deficit hit ₹15 lakh crore in the first eleven months of 2023-24, from just ₹11 lakh crore at the end of January, and was almost 3.5% over the ₹14.5 lakh crore over the same period in the last financial year.

Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari dies

Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari ied of cardiac arrest on Thursday within hours after he was rushed to the Rani Durgawati Medical College in Banda district. “Around 8:25 p.m. convicted/undertail prisoner Mukhtar Ansari, son of Subhanullah, aged 63, was brought by jail staff to the Emergency department at the Rani Durgawati Medical College in an unconscious state. The patient was treated by a team of nine doctors and given all possible medical facilities, but despite all the attempts for recovery, the patient died due to cardiac arrest,” reads the medical bulletin. Earlier also on March 26, the late Ansari was admitted to a hospital after he complained of abdominal pain and later discharged with his family alleging of him being ‘poisoned’.

Following outrage, Manipur revokes order declaring Easter Sunday as a working day

A Manipur government order declaring the coming Easter Sunday on March 31 as a working day for all public offices in the conflict-ridden State ignited public outrage on March 28, after which the State government was forced to modify the order and clarify that both Good Friday and Easter Sunday would remain holidays. 

Three killed in ceiling collapse at Sekhmet Club in Chennai