Morning Digest: Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal passes away at 90; Jaishankar to meet Trump and Biden administration officials in U.S., and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on December 24, 2024

Filmmaker Shyam Benegal, a giant of Indian cinema and one of the guiding lights of the Parallel Cinema movement, passed away due to kidney-related ailments in Mumbai. He was 90. Benegal, celebrated for poignant and hard-hitting films like Ankur, Nishant, Mandi, Manthan and Zubeidaa, examined the many fault lines of Indian society, tackling issues of feudalism, caste, and women’s emancipation, while ceaselessly experimenting with the cinematic form.

Weeks ahead of the swearing-in of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is travelling to the U.S. to meet with officials in the outgoing Biden administration, as well as the Trump administration team. Mr. Jaishankar, who will be in the U.S. from December 24-29, will join Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who is already in Washington for Foreign Office Consultations.

Cutting across party lines, several mainstream leaders, including ruling National Conference (NC) Member of Parliament Aga Syed Ruhullah and Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Iltija Mufti joined hundreds of general category students to protest outside the residence of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in Srinagar to seek rationalisation of reservation in the Union Territory (UT).

Delhi High Court refused to grant anticipatory bail to former IAS probationer Puja Khedkar in the criminal case lodged against her for alleged cheating and wrongly availing of OBC and disability quota benefits in the civil services examination. It was a classic case of fraud committed on a constitutional body as well as society, the judge said. Ms. Khedkar is accused of misrepresenting information in her application for the UPSC Civil Services Examination, 2022, to get reservation benefits.

Twenty-one cybercriminals were arrested for allegedly duping scores of people across the country. They are accused of defrauding people of ₹125 crore, Gurugram cyber police said. All the accused were arrested in November and December after reviewing data from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C), said Priyanshu Dewan, ACP (cyber).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi distributed more than 71,000 appointment letters to newly appointed recruits through video conferencing. Addressing recruits at a Rozgar Mela through a virtual event, Mr. Modi said his government has provided nearly 10 lakh permanent government jobs to youths in the last one or one and a half years which, he asserted, is a record.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge urged the Modi government to not do further “injustice” to farmers by pursuing “anti-farmer policies”. On the occasion of former Prime Minister Charan Singh’s birth anniversary, which is celebrated as Kisan Divas, Mr. Kharge hailed farmers as the people who make India, describing them as “the pride of India”.