Former Punjab CM Channi Questioned By ED In Illegal Sand Mining Case

HT Daily News Wrap

A normal monsoon is expected this year: Meteorological Department Of India, former Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi questioned by ED in the illegal sand mining case in Jalandhar, several top Congress leaders were detained in Karnataka amid protests over the death of a contractor, and other top news in this bulletin.
A normal monsoon is expected this year, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday in its forecast about the June to September rain-bearing system often called the lifeblood of India’s economy. Half of Indians depend on farm-derived income and nearly 40% of India’s net-sown area does not have access to irrigation. Similarly, half of India’s farm output comes from summer crops dependent on the monsoon. For good farm output, the rains have to be not just robust but also evenly spread across states. Several top Congress leaders, including DK Shivakumar and former chief minister Siddarmaiah, were detained on Thursday in Karnataka amid protests over the death of a contractor linked to state minister KS Eshwarappa. Visuals shared by news agency ANI captured the chaos as the Congress demonstrated in Bengaluru, continuing its demand for the resignation of the state minister, who has been accused of pushing the contractor to suicide. Former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the illegal sand mining case in Jalandhar on Wednesday. Though the ED is tight-lipped, it is learnt that Channi was questioned for several hours at its zonal office in Jalandhar on Wednesday afternoon. He was summoned by the ED a few weeks ago, too, but Channi didn’t appear before the agency at that time. The Congress’ Hardik Patel hit out at the Gujarat unit of his own party Wednesday, accusing senior leaders of sidelining him and not fully utilising his skills in the run-up to the assembly election due later this year. Patel, who spearheaded the Patidar community’s campaign for OBC reservation, declared the party benefited from the Patidar agitation to win a few local body elections in 2015 and the 2017 assembly election but then failed to recognise his worth. Shahid Kapoor’s sports drama Jersey was all set to hit the screens on April 14. But days before the release, the producers announced that the film’s release was being postponed by a week. There was a lot of speculation behind the reason for the delay with some suggesting that the producers wanted to avoid a clash with the Kannada film KGF: Chapter 2, which has registered strong advance bookings. Now, a producer of Jersey has revealed that it was in fact a court case that forced their hand and delayed the film. The debate as to who the best batter is among the ‘Fab Five’ of international cricket may never end, but one Australia legend has rated former India captain Virat Kohli ahead of everyone else in his ranking of the five phenomenal batters in world cricket today. The ‘Fab 5’ features Kohli, former Australia captain Steve Smith, England Test skipper Joe Root, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and Pakistan skipper Babar Azam. For the longest time, this was merely a list of ‘Fab 4’ but Babar’s rise as a world-class leading batter in the last couple of years had made him an unmissable part of it. That’s all from us for now. We will be back with the morning news bulletin.