Daily News Dose: SC grants bail to Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict A G Perarivalan | Mar 9, 2022

Hello listener, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. I'm your host, Vishnu, and these are the major news stories of the day:

1. All Indian students moved out of Ukraine's Sumy, states MEA
2) Supreme Court grants bail to Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict A G Perarivalan
3. Actor Dileep paid Rs 75,000 for each phone to delete data, Mumbai lab owner tells Crime Branch
4. Congress shifts candidates to luxury resort in Goa fearing repeat of the 2017
5. 'Mankading' no more unfair play, MCC amends code to designate it as run out


Let’s get into the details.

1) The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday said that all Indian students stranded in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Sumy have been moved out. Flights under Operation Ganga will bring them back home. MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the students moved out of Sumy were being taken to Poltava, from where they will board trains to western Ukraine. He, however, did not specify from which border point and when will they be evacuated. Meanwhile, Russia has said that it is willing to establish humanitarian corridors for all those fleeing Kyiv and four other Ukrainian cities, as the number of refugees created by the war surpassed 2 million. Russia's head of National Defence Control Centre said Russian forces were going to observe a regime of silence to ensure the safe passage of all civilians.

2) The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to A G Perarivalan, serving life sentence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai took note of the submission that the convict has been in jail for over 30 years and his conduct inside the prison and during the period of parole has been satisfactory. The top court was hearing the plea of 47-year-old Perarivalan seeking suspension of his life sentence in the case till the MDMA probe is completed.

3) The Crime Branch on Wednesday procured incriminating evidence to prove that actor Dileep indeed deleted important call records. It was the private lab owner Yogendra Yadav's deposition that proved crucial for the Crime Branch. He testified that the accused paid the lab Rs 75,000 per phone to extract and delete data from it. The Crime Branch is now attempting to retrieve all lost data from the phones. Meanwhile, the actor's ex-employee testified against him, stating that he witnessed Dileep's brother Anoop threatening Pulsar Suni, who is the prime accused in the 2017 actress assault case, that he would deal with him once Suni got out of jail. He also said that Dileep's lawyer asked him to testify against director Balachandrakumar.

4) With the chances of a hung Assembly looming in Goa, the Congress on Tuesday shifted all its candidates to a luxury resort at Bambolim village, around 5 km from Panaji. All the candidates checked in to the resort on Tuesday evening with their luggage, indicating that the government formation may be a long haul. However, Congress leaders said they were  celebrating the birthday of Opposition leader Digambar Kamat and the party had nothing to fear as all the candidates are together.

5) Custodian of cricket laws, the Marylebone Cricket Club, has decided to move the law relating to run-outs at the non-striker's end from its “unfair play” section. Called mankading, the rule has been the centre of controversy in recent times. The MCC also banned the use of saliva to shine the ball in amendments to its 2022 code that will come into play in October.



Now, let’s check out the covid update

6) India logged 4,575 new coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,29,75,883, while the active cases dipped to 46,962.
The death toll climbed to 5,15,355 with 145 fresh fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated at 8 am.
The daily positivity rate was recorded as 0.51 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was 0.62 per cent.

That brings us to the end of this episode! Be sure to come back tomorrow. As always, thanks for listening to Daily News Dose.