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Rajasthan HC to hear plea against merger of six BSP MLAs to Congress; India, Mauritius PMs to inaugurate new SC building in Port Louis; NASA's Mars rover Perseverance launches; ICC ODI Super League starts: England vs Ireland, Southampton; RIL Q1 results

• The Centre has done away with the night curfew that restricted non-essential movement during specified post-daylight hours under Unlock 1 and Unlock 2 and allowed gymnasiums and yoga institutes to open in non-containment areas from August 5 as part of Unlock 3 guidelines applicable through August. However, the lockdown restrictions will continue to apply in all containment zones across the country till August 31.
• Announcing new guidelines two days ahead of expiry of Unlock 2, the home ministry said schools, colleges and coaching institutes would continue to remain closed until August 31. International air travel, except as permitted by the home ministry, will also remain on hold. Vande Bharat flights, however, will continue. Metro rail services will not resume for now either. Cinema halls, swimming pools, theatres, bars and assembly halls will also need to wait re-opening.
• Social, political, sports, entertainment, academic and cultural functions as well as large congregations will remain barred as per Unlock 3 guidelines. This, even as the Bhoomi Pujan for the Ram temple at Ayodhya is scheduled for August 5, with PM Narendra Modi in attendance. Per reports, some 200 people are expected at the mega event.
• On Wednesday, India recorded the biggest surge in fresh Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, breaching the 52,000-mark for the first time as the disease reached alarming proportions in Andhra Pradesh, which became the only state after Maharashtra where more than 10,000 patients tested positive in a single day. Witnessing a huge surge in the last few days, Andhra reported 10,093 fresh cases. (Maharashtra had seen a record 10,576 new cases on July 22).
• With 52,898 new cases on Wednesday, India’s caseload stood at 1,583,483 — nearly 1 million of these were recorded in the 29 days of this month alone. With 771 deaths on Wednesday, the overall fatality toll stood at 34,950.
• On the positive side, India crossed the 1 million mark in recoveries, with 32,371 patients recovering from the disease, taking the total number of cured people to 1,019,083. The fatality rate has also dropped further to 2.23%, the lowest since April 1, the health ministry pointed out.
• Finally, the Asian Development Bank on Wednesday approved a $3 million (about Rs 22 crore) grant to India from its Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund to further support the government's emergency response to the pandemic. Financed by the Japanese government, the grant will be used to procure thermal scanners and essential commodities to strengthen India's Covid response.

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot finally agreed to state governor Kalraj Mishra’s demand for a 21-day notice period to convene the assembly, from August 14, after a 15-minute meeting with him “to know what he wants” — this after the governor had earlier returned the state cabinet’s proposal for convening the assembly session, for the third time. So why is there such confusion about who can convene the assembly and when?

• Two articles: The Constitution, under Article 174, grants the governor the power to convene the legislature. However, Article 163 says that the governor will be aided and advised by the council of ministers headed by the chief minister “in the exercise of his functions”.
• The ambiguity: Article 163 also says that the governor may act at “his discretion” in the discharge of his constitutional duties. Additionally, it also grants immunity to the governor for any such actions where he’s "required to act in his discretion”.
• The clarity: In a seminal judgement that is often touted to support the view that the governor is duty bound to heed the advice of the council of ministers, the Supreme Court in 2016, in the Nabam Rebia case, held that the Arunachal Pradesh governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa had committed constitutional impropriety by rescheduling the convening of the assembly a month ahead of the date scheduled — from January 14, 2016 to December 16, 2015. Rajkhowa had done so after a meeting with 20 rebel Congress MLAs, who had banded together with the BJP, to protest against the assembly speaker Nebia — the apex court observing that the governor had acted without the aid and advice of the council of ministers.
• The caveat: However, the very same judgement also said that should the governor have reason to believe that “the government in power — on holding of such floor test — is seen to have lost the confidence of the majority, would it be open to the Governor to exercise the powers vested with him under Article 174 at his own, and without any aid and advice”. Mishra has repeatedly asked Gehlot to state the purpose of convening the assembly session at a short notice — the Congress earlier wanted the session convened from tomorrow while the governor had maintained that if it’s a regular assembly session, then a 21-day notice is needed.

Meanwhile, the assembly speaker C P Joshi has again moved the SC, challenging the Rajasthan high court’s order staying the disqualification proceedings against Sachin Pilot and 18 other rebel Congress MLAs, terming the stay order as judicial indiscipline.

• The first five of the 36 Rafale jets India had ordered from France’s Dassault Aviation touched down at the Ambala air base of the Indian Air Force on Wednesday. The jets, however, will not be deployed any time soon in the ongoing military confrontation with China, the Times of India reports. It will take at least a couple of months, if not more, for the 4.5-generation Rafales to settle down in the 17 ‘Golden Arrows’ Squadron in Ambala and then be integrated into the IAF’s war machinery after tactics and operational procedures are developed for them in Indian conditions, IAF officers said.
• Defence minister Rajnath Singh marked the occasion with a veiled tweet, saying the new capability of the IAF should worry “those who want to threaten our territorial integrity”. He also took a swipe at the controversy that surrounded New Delhi’s decision to purchase 36 jets in flyaway condition in the Rs 59,000 crore deal signed in 2016, saying “baseless allegations against this procurement have already been answered and settled”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the arrival of the jets with a Sanskrit shloka. Home minister Amit Shah called it a “game-changer”.

• The Supreme Court on Wednesday closed the habeas corpus petition filed by the wife of former Union Minister Saifuddin Soz after the Jammu and Kashmir administration told the court he was “neither in detention nor under house arrest”. Soz was among the prominent Kashmiri politicians and activists placed under house arrest or detained on August 4, 2019, as the Centre moved to revoke Article 370. Soz, a former State congress president, was the Union environment and forests minister from 1997 to 1999, and Union water resources minister from 2006 to 2009.
• Days later, his son, Congress leader Salman Anees Soz, who was also under house arrest for 10 days, in an interview to The Hindu — given over WhatsApp as he had by then moved to the US — said the guards at the house “were now our jailors”. “When my father, Prof. Saifuddin Soz, was informed by our security guards that he was not to move out of our home, it became clear that these arrests were widespread. I was informed about my house arrest a day later. The head of the guards at our home, from the J&K Police, said this [order] is direct from [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi,” he said.
• In May this year, Saifuddin Soz’s wife, Mumtazunnisa Soz filed a petition alleging the authorities were yet to provide a reason for the detention. “Ten months have passed since his first detention, and he is yet to be informed of his grounds of detention. All efforts by him to obtain a copy of the detention order(s) have been of no avail due to the illegal, arbitrary exercise of powers by the Government of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir,” the petition said.
• On Wednesday, in an affidavit, the Special Secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir administration said: “There is no restriction on the movement of Professor Saifuddin Soz to any place, subject to security clearance which is contingent upon law and order and security situation of that area. Professor Soz has never been placed under any detention, as alleged.” SC then closed the petition.

Also, the J&K administration informed the SC it will release High Court bar association leader Mian Abdul Qayoom, detained under the J&K Public Safety Act, under the conditions that he would not visit Kashmir till August 7 and would not issue any statements.

• A drastically trimmed down Hajj began on Tuesday with pilgrims observing the Day of Tarwiyah (fetching water). This year less than 10,000 people from within Saudi Arabia are expected to make the pilgrimage after the country barred Muslims from entering the kingdom from abroad in view of the pandemic. Saudi-based Arab News reports around 1,000 pilgrims arrived at the Mina Valley, which in normal times houses over 2 million pilgrims, turning into the world’s largest tent city.

Hajj last year:

• Pilgrims were tested for the coronavirus, given smart wristbands to monitor their movement, and were required to quarantine at home and in their hotel rooms in Mecca. They will also be required to quarantine for a week after the hajj concludes on Sunday. Also different this time: Pilgrims will not be drinking holy water from the well, instead the water will be provided in a bottle; and stones for casting away the evil will be sterilised and bagged ahead of time. Also, the Kaaba is cordoned off this time, and pilgrims will not be allowed to touch it.

Japanese girls wearing their masks as they walk through the devastated streets of Hiroshima, Japan, on Oct. 6, 1945. (AP Photo)

A court in Hiroshima, Japan, issued a rare ruling to expand the definition of atomic bomb survivors to include the victims of the so-called “black rain” — rains infused with ash and radioactive substances that followed immediately after the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945. If the ruling is implemented all 84 plaintiffs, aged from their 70s through 90s, would be granted medical benefits given to the victims of the attack, including full medical checkups for free. Around 140,000 people were killed in the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath, and 74,000 perished in the Nagasaki attack. The black rain and its radioactive fallout affected areas beyond the recognised affected area but how far it reached and what impact it had are still debated. Japan is to hold ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the bombings next week.

Get closer: Explore the geo-tagged digital archive of the victims of Hiroshima here

Rhea Chakraborty. The actress, who has been accused by Sushant Singh Rajput's father of abetting the actor’s suicide, has requested the Supreme Court to transfer the case filed in Patna to Mumbai. The case is already being investigated by the Mumbai Police and she along with others have given their statements there. And there can't be two investigations in the same incident, she said, adding that she was willing to cooperate with the Mumbai Police in the probe. Further, Advocate Satish Maneshinde, representing Chakraborty, said the actress had also requested that investigation by Bihar Police on the FIR lodged against her be put on hold till her plea is heard by the apex court.