Daily News Dose: Protests rage, but Kodiyeri says govt to go ahead with SilverLine | Mar 22, 2022

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

1) Protests rage, but Kodiyeri Balakrishnan says govt to go ahead with SilverLine project

2) Kerala HC nixes appointment of new Board of Studies at Kannur University

3) Keralites among 58 Indian fishermen released by Seychelles

4) Sonia Gandhi meets some G-23 leaders of at her residence

5) Indian eves boost semifinal chances with big win

Let’s get into the details.

1) Even as the protests against the K-Rail survey for the SilverLine project intensified, Kerala CPM Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan asserted that the Kerala Government had no intention of going back on its plan to build the rail corridor. The CPM leader reminded the people who are bound to be affected by the project that all those eligible will be compensated.

2) The Kerala High Court on Tuesday cancelled the notification issued by the registrar in-charge appointing a new Board of Studies of Kannur University. The court said the reconstitution of the Board of Studies at Kannur University was against the statute.

The court passed the order on an appeal filed by Senate member V Vijayakumar and member of the Academic Council for Management Studies Shino P Jose challenging a single judge's dismissal of a writ petition filed by them against the reconstitution of the Board of Studies.

3) The Seychelles authorities have set free 58 Indian fishermen who were detained on charges of violating its territorial waters.

Twenty five of them, including six from Kerala, were arrested on March 11 by the Seychelles maritime wing. The arrested fishermen had arrived on two boats. They had set out from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, and Poonthura in Thiruvananthapuram.

Earlier, 33 fishermen who set sail from Kochi on three boats, were imprisoned by the Seychelles authorities on February 22.

4) Days after meeting Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress president Sonia Gandhi held discussions with more leaders of the G-23 grouping at her residence on Tuesday.

G-23 is a group of dissenting Congress leaders who have demanded an organisational overhaul.

Gandhi met leaders including Deputy Leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma and Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari. She is likely to meet some other leaders of the G-23 as well in the coming days. Sources said the leadership is open to suggestions from the G-23 and have reached out to them in a bid to resolve the differences within and work out a resolution to strengthen the party.

5) Yastika Bhatia's gritty half-century and Sneh Rana's all-round performance powered India to a dominating 110-run win over Bangladesh and kept them in the hunt for a semifinal spot at the ICC Women's World Cup on Tuesday.

Opting to bat, India recovered from a mid-innings collapse to post a modest 229 for seven, riding a responsible 80-ball 50 by Bhatia and a late flourish from Rana and Pooja Vastrakar.

Defending the total, the spinners, led by Rana, controlled the proceedings as they struck at regular intervals.

India bowled out Bangladesh for 119 in 40.3 overs to register their third win of the tournament. The big victory helped India improve their net run-rate further to 0.768.

Now, let’s check out the covid update:

6) India reported a single-day rise of 1,581 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the infection tally to 4,30,10,971, while the active cases further declined to 23,913.

The death toll has climbed to 5,16,543, with 33 more fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated at 8am on Tuesday.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.28 per cent and the weekly positivity rate was at 0.39 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.