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Madhya Pradesh cabinet expansion; Supreme Court to hear case on visa cancellation of foreigners who attended Tablighi Jamaat congregation; SC to hear plea against ICAI's opt-out scheme for CA exams; Goa to open for domestic tourists today; Premier League (Manchester City vs Liverpool)

• Covid cases in India crossed the 600,000 mark on Wednesday, just five days after the country had breached the half-million mark, even as the growth rate of fresh cases as well as fatalities in the last 100,000 cases dropped marginally compared to the corresponding figures in the preceding 100,000 cases. The growth rate of 3.6% for 100,000 cases on June 26 — when India breached the half-million mark — fell to 3.5% on Wednesday. Similarly, the growth rate of fatalities dropped from 2.9% to 2.6% in the same period.
• After a gap of two days, fresh cases breached the 19,000-mark once again with 19,684 patients testing positive, taking the country’s caseload to 605,068. However, daily fatalities on Wednesday dropped to 434 from the second-highest peak of 510 recorded the previous day. India’s cumulative death toll has risen to 17,837. On the positive side, 359,671 people have recovered from the virus.
• Maharashtra saw the second-highest surge in daily cases with 5,537 patients testing positive for the virus, taking the state’s caseload to 180,298. The state breached the 8,000-mark with 198 fresh deaths, pushing the cumulative toll to 8,053. Delhi recorded a marginal increase with 2,442 patients testing positive, compared to 2,199 on Tuesday, taking the state’s caseload to 89,802. With 61 more people succumbing to the virus, the state’s death toll rose to 2,803.
• Tamil Nadu recorded 3,882 fresh cases and 63 fatalities, taking the cumulative death toll to 1,264. While the state’s hotspot, Chennai, recorded 2,182 new cases, epidemiologists said the growth of the contagion in other districts is increasing even more rapidly. Of the total 94,049 cases in the state, only 39,856 people are still under treatment.
• Calling the testing capacity utilisation of private laboratories grossly sub-optimal, the Union health secretary and ICMR have written to states to take urgent steps to redress the situation so that testing and tracking efforts are enhanced. It also said that all qualified medical practitioners, not just government doctors, should be allowed to recommend Covid tests so that the state infrastructure was not overly burdened.
• Finally, for the first time since its inception 87 years ago, the Lalbaugcha Raja Ganeshotsav Mandal will not celebrate the festival this year due to the pandemic. Ganeshotsav begins on August 22 this year, and September 1 is the final day of immersions. On Wednesday morning, the organisers of Mumbai’s best-known Ganeshotsav mandal called a press conference to announce that they were cancelling the festival this year.

Six people, including two sub-inspectors, were booked by the Crime Branch-CID for the torture and subsequent death of a father-son duo, P Jayaraj along with his son J Beniks at the hands of the Tamil Nadu police last month. This, even as the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) directed the state's DGP to submit a detailed report along with relevant documents, within six weeks, on the custodial deaths. These deaths have also brought to notice the extremely low rate of conviction for cops in cases of custodial deaths.

• Where’s the monitor? As per law, prisons in India are to be monitored by a Board of Visitors comprising, among others, the District Magistrate or Sub Divisional Officer along with other officials, plus civil society members to not only look into their proper functioning but also address grievances of prisoners. However, according to a report by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in 2016, just 5 of the nearly 1,400 jails across the country were being monitored and only four states had appointed independent visitors to their jails.
• Who killed them? One of the reasons very few cops have been held guilty of custodial deaths is that the records attribute an extremely low proportion of such deaths to police torture. In 2018, for instance, the latest year for which data is available, less than 5% of custodial deaths were attributed to police assault.

• No one’s guilty: According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), between 2001 and 2018, there were 1,727 custodial deaths across the country, which led to 334 cops being chargesheeted and just 26 of them — or less than 8% — being convicted. In fact, in the four years from 2015 to 2018, of the nearly 180 cases of custodial deaths where a magisterial enquiry was ordered, not one policeman was convicted, though more than 80 were chargesheeted.

• Gory past: India’s failure to pass The Prevention of Torture Bill to ratify the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which India is a signatory has meant that custodial deaths have continued unabated with little punitive action against the guilty. Perhaps the most gruesome were the nearly 2,100 custodial deaths during the militancy years in Punjab between 1984-1994, which were confirmed by the CBI through a record check of illegal cremations, with just 5% of the victims’ families receiving any compensation.

• Clue 1: It comprises 105 member countries — 12 Full members and 93 Associate members.
• Clue 2: In 2005, it shifted its headquarters to Dubai, UAE.
• Clue 3: India's Manu Sawhney was appointed its fifth CEO in January last year.

Scroll below for answer

• Extraterritorial: The national security law China has introduced for Hong Kong, primarily aimed at democracy activists in the semi-autonomous city, also gives Beijing the power to penalise those in other countries. Article 38 of the law states, “This Law shall apply to offences under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region.” Donald C. Clarke, a law professor specialising in Chinese law at The George Washington University Law School, said he sees no reason but to conclude that China “is asserting extraterritorial jurisdiction over every person on the planet”. His analysis of the new law here
• How? Analysts say the article is intended at the vocal Hong Kong diaspora in the West. With this, China is effectively telling them they face penalty and jail-term if they were to step foot in Hong Kong. “If you’ve ever said anything that might offend the [Chinese] or Hong Kong authorities, stay out of Hong Kong,” Clarke told Quartz. Canada has already issued an advisory saying travellers to Hong Kong face an “increased risk of arbitrary detention on national security grounds and possible extradition to mainland China”.
• And... Jessica Drun, non-resident fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank focussed on China and the Indo-Pacific, said the provision is also a threat to Taiwanese nationals who support Hong Kong’s democracy activists. “I can see it being used to put pressure on Taiwan for supporting Hong Kong activists or as grounds for detaining Taiwanese nationals on Hong Kong or Chinese soil,” she said.
• First arrest: Hong Kong on Wednesday police made the first arrest under the new law on Wednesday: a protester carrying a flag calling for Hong Kong’s independence. In all, 10 people were arrested as thousands defied pepper pellets and tear gas to protest against the law and mark the anniversary of Britain’s handover of the city to China.

Also read: The New York Times explains the law’s vague definition of terrorism and sedition, and the harsh penalties it mandates.

Having sat on 699 senior career goals for club and country since he converted a penalty in FC Barcelona's win over CD Leganés on June 16, Messi brought up the latest career milestone, converting a 50th-minute penalty against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday night. Make that 630 goals for Barca and 70 for Argentina.

And the six-time Ballon D’Or winner reached the mark 112 games faster than Cristiano Ronaldo did (862 games to 974). Both, though, reached the landmark with penalty kicks! However, the 35-year-old Ronaldo still boasts the status of the highest active goal scorer, by some margin. Here are the top five:

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Juventus): 728 goals (1,005 games)
2. Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona): 700 (862)
3. Zlatan Ibrahimović (Sweden, AC Milan): 540 (907)
4. Luis Suárez (Uruguay, Barcelona): 472 (637)
5. Robert Lewandowski (Poland, Bayern Munich): 466 (697)

Messi also became the seventh member of a select club of players to score 700 or more goals in the recorded history of the game. It includes some of the greatest stars to play the game. They are: Pelé, Josef Bican, Romário, Ferenc Puskás, Gerd Müller and Cristiano Ronaldo.

And here’s when, and against whom, Messi has achieved each century.

• 1: Albacete in 2005
• 100: Dynamo Kiev in 2009
• 200: Real Madrid in 2011
• 300: Rayo Vallecano in 2012
• 400: Granada in 2014
• 500: Valencia in 2016
• 600: Atlético Madrid in 2018
• 700: Atlético Madrid in 2020

And if you wanted a body part-wise breakdown of Messi’s goals, here goes: Left foot: 582, Right foot: 92, Head: 24, Other: 2.

International Cricket Council (ICC). Imran Khwaja will be the interim chairman of the world governing body of cricket until the elections are held for the post. The decision was taken by the ICC Board on Wednesday after incumbent Shashank Manohar stepped down following two terms in the role. Khwaja, who is a former president of the Singapore Cricket Association, was elected as ICC's deputy chairman in 2017, a year after Manohar became the global cricket body's inaugural independent chairman.