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Wednesday, 16 June 2021

TheFinePrint

By Manasi Phadke, Senior Associate Editor

It has been a year since the violent clash between the armies of India and China
at Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, and our defence correspondent brings us two crucial
reports on the subject. One, a year on, China is still dragging its feet on

disengagement at four friction points, and the second about how the Indian Air
Force continues to be operationally deployed in the valley.

Meanwhile, India seems closer to settling another dispute. This one is with

Pakistan over who gets to have a monopoly over Basmati rice. Read this report
by Samyak Pandey and Nayanima Basu.

In an important development, the Delhi High Court granted bail to Pinjra Tod

activists Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, as well as Jamia Millia Islamia
student Asif Iqbal Tanha, in connection with the northeast Delhi riots of 2020.
The three activists, arrested under the stringent UAPA, have spent over a year in
prison.

Our correspondents who fanned out across the country to report on the
pandemic have sent back many stories of grit and determination in the face of
death and despair. This is one of them, where a sub-divisional magistrate

remodelled a bus stop into a hospital in a town that had no health facilities and
the number of Covid cases were rising.

Turning to politics, there is much curiosity about the MP who dislodged a

dynast. Read this profile on Pashupati Kumar Paras, a “reluctant” politician who
ousted Chirag Paswan to claim the post of the Lok Janshakti Party’s
parliamentary party leader.