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The Big Story
A Commanding Officer of the Assam Rifles, his wife and their five-year-old son and four personnel were killed in an ambush by insurgents in Manipur. Their convoy came under attack after an IED was set off. Sources said around 100 to 150 rounds were fired. Manipur government sources said over 15 insurgents were possibly involved in the attack.
The attack comes less than a week after the officer's parents had travelled from their hometown in Raigarh in east Chhattisgarh, to celebrate Diwali with them. His younger brother is also posted in Manipur with the Assam Rifles.
Only in the Express
Former Union Minister P Chidambaram writes on the hostile attitude of cricket fans when India plays Pakistan: "I suspect that the poison that is being spread in the polity of the country has seeped into cricket stadia and cricket-watching living rooms. Among India’s best writers, poets, musicians, painters, actors, scientists, professors and teachers, doctors, lawyers, architects, businesspersons and legislators are Muslims."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting on the way forward for managing the cryptocurrency sector where a consensus emerged on the government needing to take “progressive and forward-looking” steps while ensuring that an unregulated crypto market does not lead to “money laundering and terror financing”, sources said.
From the Front Page
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh to address a BJP meeting, accused the Samajwadi Party of minority appeasement and vote bank politics, saying it was all about “Jinnah, Azam Khan and Mukhtar (don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari)” for the party.
In the second biggest encounter in the history of Gadchiroli, at least 26 Maoists were killed during a security operation in a dense forest of the district. Sources told The Indian Express that over 500 C-60 commandos of the Gadchiroli police carried out the operation. The encounter was one of the longest in the history of Gadchiroli—it started at around 6 am and ended by 4 pm.
Must Read
In 2018, the Sanik School at Chhingchip in Mizoram became the first to admit girl students as part of a pilot project. In 2020, five more schools became coeducational by admitting 55 girls. This year, with all 33 Sainik Schools across the country shedding their only male status, 315 more girls secured admission at the six-decade-old institution set up with the “primary aim of preparing boys” for the National Defence Academy.
The UN’s COP26 climate conference has come to an end, a day later than predicted. But as expected, all was not smooth sailing. The Glasgow climate pact, which called for ending subsidies on fossil fuels, was adopted despite strong objections from India and many other developing countries. India was particularly critical of a section of the draft agreement that calls for parties to accelerate efforts towards “phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”, the first such explicit mention in any climate agreement in over 20 years.
On November 10, after her start-up FSN E-Commerce Ventures, the parent firm of beauty products retailer Nykaa, made a debut on the stock exchange, Falguni Nayyar became the second richest businesswoman in the country. But no one who knows the middle-class Gujarati girl who aced IIM, had a long successful banking career, and then took a giant leap into a new and unknown field at 50, is surprised.
And Finally...
A wooden stick that does a rescue act, friends in the afterlife, the snotty history of mucus and more — in this Children’s Day special issue, deep dive into stories, poems and essays that celebrate curiosity, mischief and all the things that make childhood a tough act to follow.
Until tomorrow,
Rounak Bagchi and Rahel Philipose
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