Morning Digest: Polling will be held for 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra and for 38 seats in 2nd phase in Jharkhand today; PM Modi concludes Brazil visit, leaves for Guyana, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on November 20, 2024

The Assembly elections in 288 constituencies across Maharashtra and for 38 seats in the final phase in Jharkhand will be held on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (November 20, 2024) left for Guyana on the last leg of his three-nation tour after attending the G20 Summit in Brazil, where he met global leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister’s visit to Guyana till November 21 comes at the invitation of President Mohamed Irfaan Ali

SpaceX launched another Starship rocket but passed up catching the booster with giant mechanical arms. Unlike last month’s success, the booster was directed to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off just four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later. Not all of the criteria for a booster catch was met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specify what went wrong.

The three-member Commission of Inquiry (CoI) notified last year by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to probe ethnic violence in Manipur is in the middle of collecting evidence, and “relevant people” would be called to appear before the panel soon, a senior government official said on Tuesday (November 19, 2024). The Commission was expected to conduct public hearings to comprehensively investigate the ethnic violence, but a decision is yet to be taken on the subject. “The safety and security of individuals who attend the hearing is to be considered. What if someone is harmed after the hearing? We are weighing in the options,” the official said.

The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), the official representative body for around 14 million members of the country’s Protestant and Orthodox churches, issued a statement on Tuesday (November 19, 2024) expressing anguish and concern over the recent escalation of violence in Manipur’s ongoing ethnic conflict. It said the failure to restore peace in Manipur was a “national tragedy” that reflected a “systematic breakdown of governance and the rule of law in the State”.

Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and provide relief from the “medical emergency” by clearing hurdles in inducing artificial rain in the city, even as he slammed the BJP-led Centre for its “carelessness” in responding to the toxic air crisis in north India. However, the BJP’s Delhi unit said the air quality could have improved significantly had Mr. Rai, instead of writing letters about artificial rain, asked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-ruled Punjab to check stubble burning.

“Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman and wife Saira Banu are separating after 29 years of marriage,” their lawyer said on Tuesday (November 19, 2024). In a statement on behalf of the couple, prominent divorce lawyer Vandana Shah said they took the decision to separate after “significant emotional strain in their relationship”. “After many years of marriage, Saira and her husband, A.R. Rahman, have made the difficult decision to separate from each other. This decision comes after significant emotional strain in their relationship,” their lawyer added.