Daily News Dose: Draupadi Murmu becomes India's 15th President | July 21, 2022

Hello, 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. India Presidential Elections: NDA candidate Draupadi Murmu well ahead of UPA's Yashwant Sinha

2. Sri Lanka swears in new president amid worst economic crisis in decades

3. Money laundering case: Enforcement Directorate questions Sonia Gandhi for two hours, Cong uses occasion to stage show of strength

4. NEET row: Two more arrested for forcing girl students to remove innerwear

5. Gold smuggling case: Enforcement Directorate to handover Swapna Suresh's confidential statement to Supreme Court

Let's get into the details:

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1. India on Thursday will know who will succeed incumbent Ram Nath Kovind to become the country's 15th President, as counting of votes for the presidential election is under way at the Parliament House. The NDA's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu is leading with 540 of the 748 votes of the MPs, while Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha has received 208 votes after the first round of counting, Returning Officer P C Mody said on Thursday.

Votes of 15 MPs were declared invalid. With each MP having a vote value of 700 in this presidential election, Murmu received a total of 5,23,600 votes which is 72.19 per cent of the total valid MP votes, indicating some cross-voting in her favour, officials said.

On the other hand, Sinha's total vote value stood at 1,45,600, which is 27.81 per cent of the total valid votes.

At the time of reporting, the counting for the second round of votes of the MLAs has begun.

However, with the votes clearly stacked in favour of Murmu, it seems India's 15th President will be the first tribal woman to occupy the top constitutional post in the country.

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2. Veteran politician Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka's new president on Thursday, a day after winning the vote in parliament and urging the island nation to come together to find a way out of its worst economic crisis in decades.

The six-time prime minister succeeded Gotabaya Rajapaksa who fled Sri Lanka and resigned from his post last week after mass protests over his handling of the economy. The swearing in ceremony was conducted in parliament, and presided over by the country's chief justice.

The country of 22 million people has been crippled by a severe financial crisis, with a lack of foreign currency leading to shortages of essentials including fuel, food and medicines.

Wickremesinghe, who earlier served as prime minister and finance minister under Rajapaksa, has been involved in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a bail out package worth up to $3 billion.

Sri Lanka is also looking for assistance from neighbouring India, China and other international partners.

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3. The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday questioned Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in a money laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper. The day was a show of strength for the party with street protests and leaders courting arrest across the country.

The questioning of the 75-year-old, who is recovering from Covid, lasted for about two hours and the session ended on her request, officials said. She is likely to be called for another round of questioning in the next couple of days. 

Sonia Gandhi was questioned by the same assistant director-level investigation officer who interrogated her son Rahul Gandhi in the case related to alleged financial irregularities in the Congress-promoted Young Indian Private Limited, which owns National Herald. A woman officer was part of the questioning team.

The summons to the Congress president took political centrestage in Parliament, where opposition leaders raised the issue, and on the streets with party workers staging massive protests.

The Congress party slammed the agency's action against its top leadership and termed it "political vendetta". 

The Congress chief had been summoned twice earlier but sought an exemption on grounds of Covid. Her statement was recorded by the agency under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Rahul Gandhi was questioned by the agency in the case for over 50 hours in sessions spread across five days last month.

The move to question the Gandhis was initiated after the ED late last year registered a fresh case under criminal provisions of the PMLA. This was after a trial court here took cognisance of an Income Tax department probe against Young Indian on the basis of a private criminal complaint by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are among the promoters and majority shareholders of Young Indian. Like her son, the Congress president too has 38 per cent shareholding.

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Before we move on, here's a quick reminder to checkout Onmanorama's other podcasts, Wacky News and News Brake. Wacky News is a collection of the weirdest and strangest news from across the globe and News Brake is a clutter-free explainer of the major news story of the week. Both programmes are available on all podcast platforms. 

Now, back to Daily News Dose.

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4. Two more persons, who oversaw the NEET exam held in an educational institution in Kerala, were arrested by police on Thursday for allegedly asking girl students to remove their innerwear for appearing in the test on July 17. 

The arrest of a NEET observer and an exam coordinator was recorded on Thursday after their interrogation by police, an officer said.

With this, the count of those arrested in connection with the incident has gone up to seven.

Five women, who were on NEET exam duty, were arrested on Tuesday. While three of them work for an agency hired by the National Testing Agency, two work for the private educational institute at Ayur where the incident took place.

The incident took place at one of the centres of NEET UG 2022 at Ayur in Kollam district.

The National Testing Agency has formed a fact-finding committee to visit Kollam. The panel will submit its report in four weeks, according to officials.

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5. The Enforcement Directorate will hand over the secret statement given by gold smuggling accused Swapna Suresh against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to the Supreme Court.

The central agency had approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the case to the jurisdiction of a Bengaluru court. The Enforcement Directorate informed its decision to the top court during a hearing in this regard.

Swapna's statement, which is to be submitted to the court in a sealed envelope, will not be made public. The confidential statement given under IPC Section 164 by Swapna was recorded in the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court on June 6 and 7.

The plea seeking the permission of the apex court to transfer the case was filed by the Enforcement Directorate Kochi zone assistant director. Top Kerala bureaucrat M Sivasankar is among the accused in the case.

The Enforcement Directorate also informed the top court that M Sivasankar attempted to influence Sandeep Nair, the fourth accused in the case. 

The agency also wants a court outside Kerala to consider the money laundering case linked to the sensational diplomatic gold smuggling case as it fears there could be a bid to scuttle the case by influencing witnesses.

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