Morning Digest: Paris Olympics opens with glitzy ceremony; covering over mosques, mazar in Kanwar yatra route removed after flak, and more

The Hindu’s Morning Digest on July 27, 2024, gives a select list of stories to start the day

The magnificent City of Light, dotted with the spectacular Eiffel Tower and scores of majestic buildings featuring admirable architecture, welcomed the 33rd Olympic Games in a unique way, with the much-awaited Opening Ceremony on the Seine involving a stretch of Paris’ rich heritage, here on Friday. The riot of colours and lights turned the Seine and the pastel city into a surreal place, amalgamating history and contemporariness in a spellbinding show.

Facades of two mosques and a mazar along the kanwar yatra route in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar city were on Friday covered with large sheets of white cloth to “prevent trouble” but were removed by the evening after objections from various quarters. The sheets were hung on bamboo scaffoldings in front of the mosques and the mazar, all in the Jwalapur area.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday released re-revised results, the fourth iteration, of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate exam that pave way for medical and para-medical course admissions. The latest results were published after the Supreme Court asked the NTA to deduct marks for a Physics question that NTA had said had two ‘correct’ answers.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested one more accused, Pawan Kumar, from Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district on July 26 in connection with the NEET-UG paper leak case. This is the 37th arrest in the case in Jharkhand and Bihar.

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Friday provisionally attached movable and immovable properties, worth ₹14.21 crore, belonging to the family members and associates of Tamil Nadu Minister for Higher Education K. Ponmudy and his son and former Kallakurichi MP P. Gautham Sigamani in the illegal red earth quarrying case.The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has issued a safety advisory expressing concern over the recent increase in fire accidents at airport buildings. The safety advisory laid emphasis on following the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to prevent and respond to fires, which could cause chaos, loss of life and flight disruptions.

A day before the meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called for “scrapping” the body claiming that it had little use other than organising annual meetings. Six Opposition Chief Ministers are skipping the meeting protesting the alleged bias in the Union Budget which they claim, only catered for the NDA-ruled States. Ms. Banerjee and her Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren are the only Opposition Chief Ministers who are expected to attend the meeting.

India and the U.S. on July 26 signed a cultural property agreement aimed at enhancing cooperation to protect cultural heritage of the two countries. Cultural property agreements prevent the illegal trade of cultural property and simplify the process by which looted and stolen antiquities may be returned to their country of origin.