Social activist Teesta Setalvad walked out of Sabarmati central jail in Ahmedabad on Saturday, a day after the Supreme Court granted her interim bail in a case of allegedly fabricating evidence related to the 2002 Gujarat riots. The Court has held that her regular bail plea will be decided by the Gujarat High Court. She was also asked to surrender her passport till the matter was considered by the High Court.
She had been lodged in the Sabarmati Central Jail since her arrest on June 26.
As per the Supreme Court order, she was produced before sessions judge V.A. Rana for bail formalities.
"The sessions court imposed two conditions over and above the conditions imposed by the apex court. The court asked the accused to furnish a personal bond of ₹25,000, and not to leave India without its prior permission," special public prosecutor Amit Patel said.
Nitish Kumar to visit Delhi in a bid to forge Opposition unity
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will leave for Delhi on September 5 to meet political leaders from various affiliations in a bid to forge Opposition unity, senior leaders of his JD(U) said on Saturday. They said Kumar will return two days later and is expected to meet senior leaders of the Congress, which is now his ally in the State.
Notably, Kumar had been in touch with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi when he dumped the BJP last month.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar waves to supporters after Janata Dal (United) national executive meeting in Patna on September 3, 2022. | Photo Credit: PTI
The JD(U) leader, whose party wants him to play a "national role" after having been the longest serving Chief Minister of Bihar, is also likely to interact with his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal.
Another prominent leader Kumar is likely to meet is former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, whom he has known since they were both in the Lok Dal.
ED conducts searches in online micro-loan scam case
The Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at six Bengaluru locations linked to Razorpay Private Limited, Cashfree Payments, Paytm Payment Services Limited and entities controlled or operated by suspects based in China, in connection with the micro-loan app case. The agency has also seized ₹17 crore kept in the merchant IDs and bank accounts of the entities that ran the apps.
The investigation is based on 18 FIRs registered by the cyber crime police in Bengaluru against a large number of entities and individuals for their alleged involvement in the extortion and harassment of those who had taken small loans through the mobile apps run by them.
The agency alleges that these entities were controlled or operated by suspects based in China. They used forged documents of Indian nationals and made them dummy directors.
During the searches, the ED found that the entities were allegedly generating proceeds of crime through the merchant IDs/accounts and that they were also not operating from the addresses given on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website. The accused had supplied fake addresses to the authorities concerned, according to the agency.
Fuel leak ruins NASA’s second shot at launching moon rocket
NASA’s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak on Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies.
The first attempt earlier in the week was also marred by escaping hydrogen, but those leaks were elsewhere on the 322-foot (98-metre) rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA.
Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and her team tried to plug Saturday’s leak the way they did the last time: stopping and restarting the flow of super-cold liquid hydrogen in hopes of removing the gap around a seal in the supply line. They tried that twice, in fact, and also flushed helium through the line. But the leak persisted.
Blackwell-Thompson finally halted the countdown after three to four hours of futile effort.
In Brief
India overtakes U.K. to become fifth largest economy
India has overtaken the U.K. to become the world's fifth-largest economy and is now behind only the U.S., China, Japan and Germany, according to IMF projections. A decade back, India was ranked 11th among the large economies while the U.K. was at the fifth position. With record beating expansion in the April-June quarter, the Indian economy has now overtaken the U.K., which has slipped to the sixth spot. With India being the world's fastest growing major economy, its lead over the U.K. will widen in the next few years.
Ravindra Jadeja set to miss T20 World Cup; will undergo knee surgery
Ravindra Jadeja is all set to miss the T20 World Cup in Australia as he will undergo a major knee surgery which is expected to keep him out of action for an indefinite period of time. It couldn't be immediately confirmed if it's a case of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL), recovery from which can take a good six months. But it can be said with some certainty that Jadeja will be out of action for at least three months.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow
