Top news of the day: Centre discharges Puja Khedkar from Indian Administrative Service; Manipur CM calls emergency meeting with ruling coalition MLAs, and more

Centre discharges Puja Khedkar from Indian Administrative Service; Manipur CM calls emergency meeting with ruling coalition MLAs, and more The Hindu’s top news for September 7, 2024.

The central government has discharged Puja Khedkar, a former probationary civil servant, from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) with immediate effect. Ms. Khedkar has been accused of cheating and wrongly availing Other Backward Classes (OBC) and disability quota benefits to ensure her selection in the service.

Official sources said Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh called an emergency meeting with MLAs from the ruling coalition, which comprises the BJP, Naga People’s Front, and National People’s Party, to discuss the prevailing law and order situation in the State.

Less than 24 hours after a 70-year-old Meitei died in a rocket attack in the central part of Manipur, six people were killed in a gunfight early Saturday (September 7, 2024) morning on the State’s border with Assam. Officials in the State’s Jiribam district said suspected Kuki extremists shot an elderly Meitei man dead in his sleep at Nungchappi village at about 5:30 a.m. Five members of armed groups – four from the Kuki-Zo community and one from the Meitei community – were killed in a retaliatory gunfight.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not address the annual debate at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in United Nations later this month. Mr. Modi is scheduled to travel to New York later this month and address a mega community event on September 22 at the 16,000-seater Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Long Island. This year, the General Debate of the 79th UNGA session will take place from September 24 to 30.

All new applicants for Aadhaar cards in Assam need to submit their NRC application receipt number (ARN), Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. ‘’Applications for Aadhaar cards are more than the population... It indicates that there are doubtful citizens and we have decided that new applicants will have to submit their NRC application receipt number (ARN),” the Chief Minister said at a press conference.

A day after wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia joined the Congress party, former Wrestling Federation of India president and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said this development proves that the entire wrestlers’ movement was a “conspiracy” against him and the Congress party was behind it. Congress leader Pawan Khera slammed the BJP saying that the saffron party takes a stand for those who do wrong and that the Congress raises its voice against the wrong. 

Amid uncertainty over an alliance with the Congress for the assembly polls in Haryana, AAP warned that those who “underestimate” the party would “regret” it. AAP national secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak said during a press conference that the party was ready to contest from all 90 seats in the Haryana elections with full force.