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When contacted, DG (Prisons) Sandeep Goel told The Indian Express that a few days ago, it was noticed on CCTV cameras that a nursing orderly, who is a contractual staffer, was seen taking some papers from Sukesh. “Sukesh is lodged in Jail number 3, and after enquiry, we came to know that it was a letter. We have now written to the Delhi Police,” he said.

Sources in Tihar jail said Sukesh had gone on a hunger strike a few days ago, demanding that he be allowed to see his wife Leena Maria Paul, who is also lodged in Tihar jail, more often. “He had stopped eating food and was on intravenous fluid or glucose. He was in the medical inspection room of jail dispensary when he gave a letter to a nursing orderly,” jail sources said.

Earlier, the Delhi Police had asked the jail administration to allow it to probe 82 officials and staff of Rohini jail under the Prevention of Corruption Act after eight officials were arrested for allegedly helping Chandrashekhar extort Rs 200 crore from former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Singh’s wife Aditi Singh while being lodged in jail.

Police have found in their investigation that Sukesh paid around Rs 25-30 crore to jail staff to secure an entire barrack for himself. In a letter to DG (Tihar) Sandeep Goel on January 10 this year, then DCP (EOW) Mohammad Ali said a case, dated August 7, 2021, had been registered under sections of the IPC, IT Act and MCOCA at the Special Cell police station on the complaint of Aditi Singh.

“During investigation conducted so far, seven jail officials — two jail superintendents Sunil Kumar, Sunder Bora; deputy jail superintendents Prakash Chand, Mahender Prasad Sundriyal, Subhash Batra; and two assistant superintendents Dharam Singh Meena and Lakshmi Dutt — have been arrested in the case as they were found involved in facilitating the organised crime syndicate run by kingpin Sukesh, operating from barrack no 204, ward no 3, jail no 10 in Rohini,” DCP Ali wrote.

Ali said CCTV footage from 10 cameras installed in the Rohini jail for the period July 14 to August 14, 2021 was collected and these covered Ward No. 3 and Barrack No. 204 where Sukesh was lodged. “It was found that the vision of CCTV cameras installed in the barrack of Sukesh was completely blocked by using curtains and putting mineral water bottles in front of the camera. No action was taken to remove the object from the view of camera and for this facilitation, jail officials got a hefty amount out of the crime proceeds from Sukesh and his associates,” Ali wrote.

The committee had said the plot was encroached upon and was smaller in size as against the requirements of the car shed. Waikar, state housing minister in the BJP -Shiv Sena government, is also the MLA from Jogeshwari Assembly constituency that consists of Aarey Colony. On Saturday, Waikar told The Indian Express he had suggested to the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) to use the slum-encumbered plot to save the area that has a lot of trees.

In 2015, after opposition from local residents and activists, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had formed a committee to look for other options as sites for the car shed. The committee had studied nine sites, including two at Aarey Milk Colony. The existing plot that the MMRCL barricaded for the car shed was free of any encroachment but was a major biodiversity spot with 4,000 trees, many of which are heritage. The other site – suggested by Waikar – is a plot encroached upon by a slum known as Sariput Nagar in Andheri (East) near Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR).

The report of the technical committee, which was submitted in October 2015, had rejected the option of Sariput Nagar citing that it does not have enough space to build a car shed. Environmentalist Stalin D, who was part of the meeting with the MMRCL and Waikar, said, “Waikar had suggested to the MMRCL to use the other plot at Aarey but they refused, saying the government’s decision will be final.”

The MMRCL is facing criticism from local residents and environmentalists for felling trees at Aarey Colony. The authority started felling trees immediately after the Bombay High Court dismissed four petitions related to tree felling on Friday.

The MMRCL will remove 2,646 trees from the proposed car shed site. However, activists alleged that the authorities started illegally felling trees late on Friday, even though they had to wait for 15 days after the BMC’s permission to them for felling trees was uploaded on its website.

But the permission had been uploaded on Friday. However, the MMRCL said since the court had dismissed the petitions, they could go ahead with the exercise of felling trees for the car shed.

In today’s edition: A Supreme Court judge wants mandatory regulation of social media; Covid crisis brings estranged couples together in Gujarat; and why over 50% of Indigo flights were delayed.

The Big Story

With the BJP eyeing regions and vote banks where it has not been able to make any significant inroads or electoral gains, sources told The Indian Express that Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked leaders at the party’s national executive meeting, which concluded on Sunday, to reach out to “deprived and downtrodden sections” in communities other than Hindus.

Addressing the national executive meeting of the BJP in Hyderabad, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that it will be the era of the BJP for the next 30 to 40 years and India will become Vishwa guru within the next few decades. Shah also claimed that BJP will end “family rule” in Telangana and West Bengal in the upcoming elections.

Only in The Express

In this edition of the Idea Exchange , AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe talks about why civil and mechanical engineering courses need to incorporate AI and a start-up/entrepreneurial spirit, and how industry involvement and curriculum upgrade are key to students’ employability.

From the front page

Two heavily armed militants from the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) were overpowered by villagers in J&K’s Reasi district and were tied up in ropes, prompting  Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to announce a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh. However, their capture led to a flutter in J&K political circles after it emerged that one of them had headed the IT and Social Media Cell of the BJP Minority Morcha in Jammu province.

The Calcutta High Court ordered the termination of services of 273 primary teachers in state-in schools due to alleged irregularities and corruption in the recruitment process. Among them, several were found to have links to the ruling-Trinamool Congress or CPI(M). We visited the homes of 12 of those 12 sacked in the districts of Hooghly, Howrah, and Purba Bardhaman.  Most of them were not available. Their family members spoke of fear and public shame.

Days after a Supreme Court vacation Bench lashed out at former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma for her remarks on the Prophet, one of the judges who was part of the Bench has expressed concern over the use of digital and social media for “expressing personalised opinions” against judges, and called for mandatory regulation of such media to “preserve the rule of law” in the country. His remarks come amid criticism on social media of the Bench’s observations in the case.

Must Read

A total of 303 cases — relating to divorce, maintenance, and guardianship of children — were resolved by the Lok Adalat on June 26; a record for a single day, family court judge R G Devdhara said. And in about 30 per cent of the cases that were resolved, the estranged couples decided to give themselves a second chance of being together. Advocate Preeti Joshi told The Indian Express that the curse of Covid turned out to be a blessing for several separated couples whom the crisis reunited.

A massive landslide which hit the Tupul railway construction site late on June 29 in Manipur’s Noney district has so far claimed 42 lives — 27 Territorial Army personnel and 15 civilians, including railway employees, construction workers and villagers. Still missing are 20 people. Now into its fourth day, a massive operation by a combined force of the National and State Disaster Response Forces, the Indian Army, Assam Rifles and police has run into hurdle after hurdle. Sporadic rain. Mud roads caused by inclement weather. The sheer volume of debris. And fear — loose soil and small boulders continue to tumble down from the hills.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in its 47th meeting held last week undertook a series of rate changes as part of correction of inverted duty structure, withdrawal of certain exemptions in what could be a precursor for an overall tweaking of tax slabs and rate rationalisation in future. The GST Council discussed recommendations of four ministerial panels — on rate rationalisation, on movement of gold and precious stones, system reforms, and casinos, horse racing and online gaming.

More than half of the flights operated by IndiGo, India’s largest airline, were delayed on Saturday as a large number of its cabin crew members called in sick . The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken note of this development, and has sought a report from the airline on the delays, officials said. According to information sourced from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, IndiGo’s on-time performance on Saturday was 45.2 per cent, meaning less than half of its flights departed within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure time. Notably, Saturday also marked the beginning of the second phase of Tata Group-owned Air India’s recruitment drive for cabin crew members.

And Finally

The raw digits convey that India’s bowlers let England fightback from 83 for 5 and then 149 for 6 to post 284 runs. A classic England stung-by-the-lower-order tour story. Just change the names and dates. A once-typical losing the steam at the end narrative. Except that it was not. Instead, it was one of India’s finest bowling recoveries in recent times . They did let England off the hook, but they regathered to pull the hook back. Bazball-indoctrinated Jonny Bairstow could have blown them away, but they clutched at the straws, hung onto the swaying pole and then whipped up a furious storm of their own post lunch, counterpunching the counterpunch.

Acting governor of the State of California Eleni Kounalakis met Chief Justice of India N V Ramana at the official residence of the Consul General of India in San Francisco on Saturday. The CJI, who is on a tour of the US, presented to her a copy of the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi.

In today’s episode of the ‘ 3 Things’ podcast , we talk about the murder in Maharashtra’s Amravati district of the 54-year-old chemist named Umesh Prahladrao Kolhe, who had allegedly posted Nupur Sharma’s video on social media. Silchar witnesses unprecedented flooding, and Neeraj Chopra breaks the national record twice in two weeks.

Until next time,

Leela Prasad and Srishti Kapoor

Poonam’s case is just a representation of the hardships that women in the urban slums of Nagpur undergo while cooking for their families in the absence of affordable clean fuel.

A survey conducted by Warrior Moms, a countrywide mothers’ network, and the Centre for Sustainable Development (CFSD) has found that 4 out of 10 households in the slums of urban Nagpur use chulhas for cooking and heating even though most of them have LPG connections.

The survey was conducted across 12 slum colonies of urban Nagpur and involved 1,500 households. It found that 43 per cent of the respondents use both LPG and chulha while 57 per cent of respondents use only LPG. About 7 per cent of respondents said that they use only chulhas. Of this, 81 per cent of respondents, who use a chulha said that they experience coughing compared to 23 per cent of respondents, who use only LPG. Similarly, 65 per cent of respondents using chulhas suffer eye irritation compared to 18 per cent using only LPG as cooking fuel.

“The respondents using chulha gather firewood, which is mainly the job of the women in the households and reported spending anywhere between 4 and 5 hours every week for the activity. Most families reported increased use of chulha during winters to meet the additional requirement of heating water,” reads the report.

Those who buy firewood spend between Rs 100-Rs 400 every month, which is much cheaper than the current monthly rate of around Rs 1,000 for an LPF cylinder refill.

The study cited several reasons behind the households continuing with the usage of biomass for cooking and heating. Lack of awareness about schemes for clean fuel and the advantages of switching to LPG, unaffordability of LPG cylinders with the growing costs of refills, cultural norms concerning food taste such as the food on chulhas tastes better and to meet the additional fuel needs for heating water during the winters when it gets cold were some of the common reasons behind the use of biomass as cooking fuel.

There was poor awareness among people about schemes delivering access to clean cooking fuels including the much-touted Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). Less than 3 per cent of the respondents having an LPG connection reported having received it under the PMUY scheme while the remaining respondents, especially the ones who use chulhas were unaware of the scheme.

Leena Buddhe, founder-director, CFSD said, “This report should serve as a wakeup call to the government and we hope that the action plan to control air pollution in Nagpur prioritises shifting to clean fuel for cooking and allocates appropriate budgets to tackle the issue.”

Based on the study, the organisations have suggested to the government to provide subsidies for LPG and other alternatives that would work for the women and reduce the financial burden. “Some of the cleaner alternatives, including smokeless chulhas and electric chulhas running on solar panels can be tested and scaled up across the state,” reads the recommendations.

When The Indian Express spoke with medical experts, they claimed that indoor air pollution is dangerous compared to outdoor air pollution, which can not only cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs but also led to other diseases like tuberculosis, allergies, dry eye syndrome (DES), conjunctivitis, eye irritation, glaucoma, cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

“Remember that all particulate matter and other pollutants in indoor smoke can inflame the airways and lungs, impair the immune response and reduce the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. Cooking with solid fuels and kerosene can lead to a stroke, heart disease, eye problems, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers, and cataracts,” said Dr Bipin Jibhkate, consultant critical care medicine, and ICU director at Wockhardt Hospitals, Mira Road.

The reopening of schools also comes amid a spike in dengue cases, with over 150 cases being reported from various parts of Hyderabad, according to the Directorate of Public Health and Family Welfare, Telangana.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been conducting special drives of ‘Anti Larval Operations’ at schools. These consist of a single round of standard pyrethrum spray followed by targeted action by fogging machines the next day.

“We are in the process of conducting this operation for 325 government schools in the Charminar Zone and for 359 private schools based on their independent requirements,” said N Srinivas, Senior Entomologist, Charminar Zone.

Dengue awareness campaigns were conducted among the Town Level Federation (TLF), Slum Level Federation (SLF), and local women groups last month, as per official reports. The State Entomology Department has also identified and marked several low-lying areas which are prone to waterlogging and likely to become the origin of vector-borne diseases.

For the past two years, Hyderabad has been inundated following heavy rain ranging from 12-20 centimetres across the city. The Charminar Zone, which is circle 6 of the 30 circles of GHMC, was one of the most affected by heavy rain. Other affected areas included Saidabad, Musheerabad, Bahadurguda, Kapra, Marredpally, Nampally, and Asifnagar.

In light of the torrential rainfall witnessed in the past, the municipal body has its work cut out for the upcoming months. However, the current heat conditions have also made it difficult to carry out the fogging operations efficiently. “Fogging operations have been reduced by 50 per cent across all GHMC circles due to 40-42 degrees Celsius temperatures,” said Srinivas.

The GHMC and the Musi River Development Corporation (MRDCL) have also installed Mosquito Elimination Machines (MEMs) on a special trial basis at various locations in Hyderabad. Other innovative interventions include portable fogging machines that can spray at distances between 1-1.5 km. These machines are also connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices that help track operations efficiently on mobile phones.

Ashwita is an intern with The Indian Express .