Morning Brief: Demonetisation Roll-Back Ruled Out; Ramgopal Yadav Returns; Subhash Chandra Files Case Against Kejriwal

Good Morning, Swarajya Readers! Here's What You Need To Know Today.

Demonetisation Roll-Back Ruled Out: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday ruled out roll-back of the demonetisation drive. He appealed to people to support the initiative, while slamming some politicians for creating unnecessary panic. The government said on Thursday that people can get cash at select petrol pumps with State Bank of India machines by swiping their debit cards.

Row Over Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Remark: The political blame game took an unpleasant turn in the Rajya Sabha yesterday with a controversial remark by leader of the opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad over the death of 40 people in long queues outside banks and ATMs, equating it with Uri terror attack. Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu termed Azad’s statement “atrocious, objectionable and anti-national”.

Ramgopal Yadav Back In SP Fold: The Samajwadi Party (SP) revoked on Thursday the expulsion of senior party leader Ramgopal Yadav, in a move to end a power struggle within Uttar Pradesh’s ruling family that threatens to undermine its chances in state elections next year.

Zakir Naik Propagated Bin Laden’s Views: Controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik has been extolling Osama bin Laden, proclaiming that every Muslim should be a terrorist, the government said, justifying the ban imposed on his Islamic Research Foundation.

Subhash Chandra Files Criminal Defamation Case Against Kejriwal: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s denouncement of demonetisation has gotten him into a trouble again. The latest person to target Kejriwal is Essel Group chairman and Rajya Sabha member Dr Subhash Chandra, who filed a criminal defamation suit against him.

Cyrus Mistry Skips Key Tata Group Meetings: The much-awaited board meetings at Tata Sons and Tata Consultancy Services on Thursday did not yield much, with ousted group chairman Cyrus Mistry giving them a miss.

Jayalalithaa’s Lung Infection Cured: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's lung infection has been cured and she is breathing without respiratory support and may be discharged from hospital any day, her party, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, said on Thursday. She has been undergoing treatment at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai since 22 September.

Air India reports operating loss of Rs 264 crore: Air India reported an operating loss of Rs 264.14 crore between April-June quarter. The airline, which turned operationally profitable last fiscal, made operational losses of close to Rs 3 crore a day during the first quarter, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, informed the Lok Sabha yesterday.

Stop Killing Stray Dogs, Top Court Tells Kerala Vigilante Groups: The Supreme Court on Thursday restrained vigilante groups in Kerala from imparting training to children and distributing air guns to the people at a subsidised rate to kill stray dogs and publicly propagate that there was a "war" against canines in the state.

Fed A Step Closer To Rate Cut: Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen signalled the US central bank is close to lifting interest rates as the US economy continues to create jobs at a healthy clip and inflation inches up.

MUST READ OP-EDS

Is Morality Intuitional? While Donald Trump’s triumph in the US presidential election made pessimism democratic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation drive left many of us Indians optimistic.

Cashless Versus Cash Less: So what have we gained from the demonetisation decision? I wonder if there was another way we could have done this without the consequent pain and losses to the poor.

What The Government And The Media Didn’t Say About Air Pollution In Your City: We all know that the air quality in Delhi is bad. While the black money apocalypse may have diverted attention from the air apocalypse, the latter hasn’t gone away.

Udan Air Connectivity Scheme: Not Just A Flight Of Fancy: Udan will jump start regional air connectivity and strengthen the overall aviation network at a modest market-discovered price.

SWARAJYA SPECIAL

200 Per Cent Tax On Unexplained Deposits Is Daft Economics; Best To Have A New IDS: The only logical way to deal with any abnormal surges in deposits is to bring the IDS back, in a modified form.

One Nation, One Election: Here’s How We Can Synchronise Centre And State Polls By 2021: A recent NITI Aayog paper discussed the idea of holding simultaneous elections. This is a close examination of the proposals outlined in that paper, and a possible way forward.

For Your Help: Demonetisation FAQs: The simple and the not-so-simple questions surrounding demonetisation are answered here.

The ‘Perfumed Dishonesty’ Around The Demonetisation Debate: Some of the weakest criticism of the demonetisation policy is being covered in a seemingly feigned concern for the poor.

We hope you enjoyed reading our morning brief. Have a great day ahead!

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