Morning Digest: Senior ICAR scientists hired laterally without reservation; Brazilian judge orders suspension of X platform in Brazil amid feud with Musk, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on August 31, 2024.

More than 2,700 scientists at India’s top farm research body — accounting for an overwhelming majority of senior-level hires at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – have been recruited through lateral entry since 2007, undermining the goals of the reservation policy, documents accessed by The Hindu reveal.

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has ordered the suspension of Elon Musk’s social media giant X in Brazil after the tech billionaire refused to name a legal representative in the country, according to a copy of the decision seen by The Associated Press. The move on Friday (August 30, 2024) further escalates the monthslong feud between the two men over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.

Signalling a moderation in the economy’s growth momentum, India’s real GDP rose 6.7% in the April to June 2024 quarter, the slowest in five quarters, and well below the Reserve Bank of India’s expectation of a 7.1% uptick as well as the 7.8% uptick registered in the preceding quarter.

Cyclone Asna has formed over the Kutch coast in Gujarat and adjoining areas of Pakistan, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday. The cyclonic storm – a rare land-originating one in August and headed to the Arabian Sea – is expected to move further away from the western coast in the next 48 hours.

The government confirmed on Friday (August 30, 2024) that it has received an invitation from Pakistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government (HoG) meeting in Islamabad on October 15-16. However, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said it did not have a decision yet on whether India would participate and at what level that would be, even as it outlined other travel scheduled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September and October this year.

Echoing President Droupadi Murmu’s remarks on the rape and murder at the R.G. Kar hospital Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday said a society where “women and girls do not feel safe is not a civilised society”. He also backed a Uniform Civil Code, calling it a “small measure of justice” for women. 

More than 20 days after the rape and murder of a doctor at the R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, protests continued to rock the city on Friday (August 30, 2024) with leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s women’s wing putting a giant-sized model of a lock on the gate of the West Bengal State Women’s Commission.