Above the Fold: Top stories of the day
1. Former President APJ Abdul Kalam was laid to rest with full state honours in the temple town of Rameswaram.
2. Following a Supreme Court directive, a medical panel has given approval for a 14-year-old rape survivor to have an abortion even after 25 weeks of pregnancy.
3. The attackers of Gurdaspur came in from Pakistan, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the Rajya Sabha.
The Big Story: After the funeral
The cameras were blacked out and the police issued a gag on the media as Yakub Memon's remains were taken through the streets of Mumbai to the Bada Kabrastan. About 8,000 people gathered in silent mourning and a heavy blanket of security engulfed the procession. Police did not allow mourners to see his face.
Memon was executed on Thursday, just two hours after the Supreme Court dismissed a final plea for staying the death sentence. Unmoved by the backlash to the hanging, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Memon had been given a chance to air his views on all forums, and that the nation should unite against terror. But in days to come, the government will have to contend with the memory of an execution that many considered unjust.
Memon's last hours and last rites are a contrast to the secrecy that surrounded the hanging of Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the Parliament attack of 2001. The authorities had executed Guru without informing his family in time and then refused to hand over his remains, despite widespread demands for this. Over the last two years, Kashmiri grievances against the government have gathered around the absent grave of Afzal Guru.
Secrecy in one case and a very public demonstration of going through the paces of justice in another, but the effect is still likely to be the same. As with Guru, Memon's death has contributed to the insecurities of a minority community who feel that there is one kind of justice for them and another for people who belong to the majority. While 100 people have been convicted for the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts for which Memon was hanged, only three have received sentences for the turbulent riots that preceded the act of terror. The government will have to work very hard to refute this conviction.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
Girish Sahane writes how the execution signals that the BJP will act against terrorists only if they are Muslim. Jyoti Punwani on how compassion failed in the last hour, though some of the best minds in the country stood up against the execution. Shoaib Daniyal points to a chart that shows how partisan India's justice system can be.
Politicking & Policying
1.The Taliban has finally confirmed the death of its elusive leader, Mullah Omar, and named his successor.
2. Jittery about Opposition voices holding sway, the government might extend the term of the joint parliamentary panel on the land bill.
3. DMK leader Kanimozhi said she would move a private member's bill in the Rajya Sabha to abolish the death penalty.
4. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will be calling on the Film and Television Institute of India to support students there, on strike for 50 days now to protest against the appointment to the FTII society of people they deem unsuitable.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes of how Yakub Memon's hanging has eroded the idea that our institutions act in good faith, of how they are judged according to political biases and how damaging this will be to investigations in other cases of communal violence or terror.
2. The attorney general's remarks on privacy endangers a basic right, argues Chinmayi Arun in the Hindu.
3. Also in the Indian Express, Khaled Ahmed asks if the "Punjabi hero" in Pakistan can redeem the country from its fixation with "honour through war".
Don't Miss
Sumegha Gulati on how many leukemia patients' last hope is a stem cell donor who could help them go ahead with a bone marrow transplant, and how India has few to offer.
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1. Former President APJ Abdul Kalam was laid to rest with full state honours in the temple town of Rameswaram.
2. Following a Supreme Court directive, a medical panel has given approval for a 14-year-old rape survivor to have an abortion even after 25 weeks of pregnancy.
3. The attackers of Gurdaspur came in from Pakistan, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the Rajya Sabha.
The Big Story: After the funeral
The cameras were blacked out and the police issued a gag on the media as Yakub Memon's remains were taken through the streets of Mumbai to the Bada Kabrastan. About 8,000 people gathered in silent mourning and a heavy blanket of security engulfed the procession. Police did not allow mourners to see his face.
Memon was executed on Thursday, just two hours after the Supreme Court dismissed a final plea for staying the death sentence. Unmoved by the backlash to the hanging, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Memon had been given a chance to air his views on all forums, and that the nation should unite against terror. But in days to come, the government will have to contend with the memory of an execution that many considered unjust.
Memon's last hours and last rites are a contrast to the secrecy that surrounded the hanging of Afzal Guru, convicted for his role in the Parliament attack of 2001. The authorities had executed Guru without informing his family in time and then refused to hand over his remains, despite widespread demands for this. Over the last two years, Kashmiri grievances against the government have gathered around the absent grave of Afzal Guru.
Secrecy in one case and a very public demonstration of going through the paces of justice in another, but the effect is still likely to be the same. As with Guru, Memon's death has contributed to the insecurities of a minority community who feel that there is one kind of justice for them and another for people who belong to the majority. While 100 people have been convicted for the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts for which Memon was hanged, only three have received sentences for the turbulent riots that preceded the act of terror. The government will have to work very hard to refute this conviction.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
Girish Sahane writes how the execution signals that the BJP will act against terrorists only if they are Muslim. Jyoti Punwani on how compassion failed in the last hour, though some of the best minds in the country stood up against the execution. Shoaib Daniyal points to a chart that shows how partisan India's justice system can be.
Politicking & Policying
1.The Taliban has finally confirmed the death of its elusive leader, Mullah Omar, and named his successor.
2. Jittery about Opposition voices holding sway, the government might extend the term of the joint parliamentary panel on the land bill.
3. DMK leader Kanimozhi said she would move a private member's bill in the Rajya Sabha to abolish the death penalty.
4. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will be calling on the Film and Television Institute of India to support students there, on strike for 50 days now to protest against the appointment to the FTII society of people they deem unsuitable.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes of how Yakub Memon's hanging has eroded the idea that our institutions act in good faith, of how they are judged according to political biases and how damaging this will be to investigations in other cases of communal violence or terror.
2. The attorney general's remarks on privacy endangers a basic right, argues Chinmayi Arun in the Hindu.
3. Also in the Indian Express, Khaled Ahmed asks if the "Punjabi hero" in Pakistan can redeem the country from its fixation with "honour through war".
Don't Miss
Sumegha Gulati on how many leukemia patients' last hope is a stem cell donor who could help them go ahead with a bone marrow transplant, and how India has few to offer.
"India was estimated to have more than one lakh cases of leukemia in 2010, a number projected to rise to 1.17 lakh in 2015, according to the Indian Council for Medical Research. About 35-40% of the patients reportedly require allogenic bone marrow transplants. But only a third of the cases are able to find a match in the family. The remaining two-thirds must look for an unrelated donor. “Only 5-10% of them are actually able to find one,” said Dr Lalit Kumar, head of Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
India currently has just three active bone marrow registries: DATRI, a non-profit initiative headquartered in Chennai, Marrow Donor Registry of India, an NGO run by the Tata trust with close association with the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, and Bharat Stem Cell Registry, a non-profit based out of Delhi. Two more registries in Bangalore and Delhi exist only on paper."