Daily Briefing: Curtains go up on Paris Olympics, Madhya Pradesh HC on Centre’s RSS order, SC’s order on royalties, and more

Paris Olympics

Games are here!

A ‘wall of Positivity’, a gaming zone where FIFA and Minecraft are the two big draws, three sleeping pods, an ice bath machine or a masseur on call — The Indian Express takes a look at Team India’s building inside the Olympics Athletes’ Village, which the 117 athletes will call home for the next fortnight. 

Paris 2024 is set to be the greenest Games in history with the organising committee pledging to halve carbon emissions — from roughly 3.5 million tonnes each in Tokyo 2020, Rio 2016, and London 2012 to 1.75 tonnes this time around. We explain how they plan to do so. 

The football match between Israel and Mali at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday may have ended in a draw, but it drew worldwide attention to everything but football. Here’s why.

Only in Express

In today’s Opinion section, C Raja Mohan writes on the rapid acclamation of US Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. “Her rise may say something about the Indian diaspora in America. But Kamala Harris’s current position at the top of the US political heap is a quintessential American story — of migrants rising to the pinnacle within a generation.” 

From the Front Page

In an 8-1 majority ruling on Thursday, a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the power of states to levy royalty on extraction of minerals from their land and said they can also tax the lands which comprise mines and quarries. The top court also noted that royalty, as envisaged under Section 9 of the 1957 Act, “is not in the nature of tax”.

How did this long-pending matter reach a nine-judge Constitution Bench and what effect does the ruling have? We explain

The Madhya Pradesh High Court, on Thursday, stated that it took five decades for the central government to realise its “mistake” of wrongly placing “an internationally renowned organisation like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh” in the list of organisations government officials cannot be associated with. Hearing a petition filed by a retired central government officer, here is what the court said.

The government plans to talk to the top 500 companies and mutually agree on a “voluntary quota system” for taking on board interns under the employment package announced in the Budget 2024-25. Finance Secretary TV Somanathan tells us about how the system may be implemented.

Must Read

Last week, 14-year-old Afanan Jasim from Kerala’s Kozhikode district became one of only 11 people in the world — and the first Indian — to have survived the Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM), a brain-eating amoeba disease with a fatality rate of 97 per cent. Here is the story of the boy who lived.

The Kargil War officially ended 25 years ago, on July 26, 1999. The Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on this day, commemorates India’s victory against Pakistan, and the sacrifices of the soldiers who braved not only Pakistani infiltrators but the hostile terrain and climate of Kargil. We look back at the journey of our soldiers.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) pulled out nearly $ 1.27 billion (around Rs 10,710 crore) from the stock market in the three days since the government raised taxes on derivatives trades and on capital gains from equity investments in the Union Budget. We report.

And Finally…

Movie review: “Deadpool and Wolverine has a problem. It doesn’t want to be taken seriously, but it puts all its money, muscle and, because it’s Deadpool, into ensuring that you damn well do… For the most part, despite its obsession with SEX by any other name but that, Deadpool & Wolverine is fun,” writes Shalini Langer in her review. Check it out!

Delhi Confidential: The scenic Pauri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand presented an unexpected photo opportunity in the Capital on Thursday when some political leaders from the region came across each other on the Parliament complex. Don’t miss today’s column to know which faces were in the photograph.

In the latest episode of the 3 things podcast, we talk about about President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the US Presidential race,  U-Win, a digital vaccination registry initiated by the government of India to maintain records of newborns, and an incident that happened in Madhya Pradesh where a school principal allegedly stopped some students from reciting a Sanskrit verse. Tune in!

Until tomorrow,

Rounak Bagchi and Ayesha Jain

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