Your Daily Wrap: NIA leads crackdown on PFI over terror links; Rahul’s message to Gehlot; and more

With the race for the post of Congress president gaining pace, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on the 15th day of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, sent a clear message to Ashok Gehlot: that he cannot hope to remain Rajasthan Chief Minister if he is elected as Congress president and insisted that one-person one-post rule remains the commitment of the Congress party. Interestingly, hours before Rahul’s statement, Gehlot told The Indian Express that the principle laid down in the Congress’s Udaipur Declaration was meant for nominated posts and not elections. However, he added that a leader who gets elected “will not be able to justify the Congress presidency” if he or she holds two posts. Excerpts here

The Supreme Court today reserved its order on various petitions challenging the Karnataka High Court order upholding the ban on hijab in educational institutes. Senior Advocate Dushayant Dave, representing Muslim appellants in the Supreme Court, said, “For those who are believers it (hijab) is essential. For those who are not believers it’s not essential.” On Monday, Muslim appellants who have challenged the hijab ban told the apex court that the “directive” against wearing the apparel in schools is “part of…pattern…to marginalise minority communities”.

Taking forward his outreach to the Muslim community, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today visited a mosque and a madrassa in Delhi and held discussions with the chief of the All India Imam Organisation who termed him ‘rashtra pita’. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ‘sarsangchalak’ went to a mosque in central Delhi’s Kasturba Gandhi Marg and followed it up with a visit to the Madarsa Tajweedul Quran in Azadpur in north Delhi. The RSS chief has been holding discussions with Muslim intellectuals for strengthening communal harmony over the last few weeks.

Political Pulse

Hours after Punjab Governor Banwari Lal Purohit withdrew his permission to the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government to convene Thursday a special session of the Punjab Assembly for a trust vote, a political slugfest erupted with the AAP leadership crying foul and calling it a “murder of democracy”, with Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal charging that Purohit changed his decision at the behest of the BJP-ruled Centre. At the centre of the row is “Operation Lotus”, which the AAP camp alleged the BJP has launched to poach its legislators in a bid to topple the six-month-old Mann government. Read more here

A faceoff between the government and the main opposition Congress is brewing over the reconstitution of the parliamentary standing committees. The government has conveyed to the Congress that it will not be given the chairmanship of the committee on Communication and Information Technology, prompting leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to approach Speaker Om Birla in protest on Wednesday. Read more here

Explained

Following a two-day meeting in Washington of a key rate-setting panel, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell signalled a further intensification of the American central bank’s fight against runaway inflation in the coming months. On Wednesday, the Fed hiked its key interest rate by a substantial three-quarters of a point for a third straight time. More significantly, it hinted that further hikes were coming and that rates would stay elevated until 2024. In this explainer, we explain the implications of the move and how it will impact markets in countries such as India.

In a bid to do away with British-era laws governing the telecom sector, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued the draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022. The proposed Bill aims to bring in sweeping changes to how the telecom sector is governed, primarily by giving the Centre more powers in several areas to do so. What are some of the key amendments to existing telecom laws? We explain