The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. The Nainital High Court on Tuesday permitted the Congress government in Uttarakhand to take a floor test on March 31, after President's Rule had been imposed in the state.
2. Pakistan released a video that it claimed featured a confession by a man it has accused of being an Indian spy, though New Delhi has rejected all allegations of subversive activity.
3. All passengers and crew members emerged safely from the EgyptAir plane that was hijacked by a reportedly "unstable" man who wanted to meet his ex-wife and get asylum.

The Big Story: Floor test

The Uttarakhand mess just got a little murkier. What should have been a straightforward toppling of an Opposition government with a very slight majority – the sort of thing the Congress has always excelled at – has turned into a complicated court battle that will not be resolved any time soon. On Tuesday, the Nainital High Court ordered a floor test to be carried out on March 31, giving the Congress a chance to retain hold of the state, or lose ignominiously to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

But this hasn't made things clear. First, leaders in the state don't seem to know whether the High Court's order means that President's Rule has been lifted. The BJP, meanwhile, seems to think it's a problem that the court could even question President's Rule in the first place. And the Congress wants to challenge the High Court's order that would allow nine suspended Members of Legislative Assembly, whose rebellion from the Congress created the crisis, to vote during the floor test.

As things stand, the Congress would most likely lose the confidence vote – if the nine rebels go with the BJP and have not been horse-traded back. If the Congress is successful in getting the courts to prevent the suspended MLAs from voting, then it might end up retaining the state, having already paraded 34 MLAs (in a house where the halfway mark is 36, at least while the suspended MLAs are also counted) before the governor.

The landmark SR Bommai case clarified how President's Rule could be used and how much the courts could question it. With the court now sitting right on top of the matter, the Centre may not simply be able to have its way citing just a breakdown in law and order. Meanwhile, while all of this politicking continues, a reminder is in order: Uttarakhand doesn't have any means of expenditure beyond April 1.

The Big Scroll Scroll.in on the day's big story
Arun Jaitley explains why President's Rule was imposed in Uttarakhand. Why toppling the Congress government in Uttarakhand could backfire on the BJP. Under Rahul Gandhi's nose: Arunachal gone, Uttarakhand going, Manipur brewing...

Politicking & Policying
1. The Pakistani investigative team on Tuesday visited portions of the Pathankot air base that had been attacked in January, while the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party protested outside.
2. A professor at Jharkhand University has been suspended by the Vice Chancellor for inviting a Jawaharlal Nehru University professor whom the order claimed was the "mentor" of anti-national students.
3. Three madrasa students have alleged that they were beaten up by a group of men in Outer Delhi for refusing to say "Bharat Mata ki jai".
4. Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam chief Vijaykanth is now trying to put together a Mahagatbandhan to take on the big Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu.
5. The Haryana Assembly unanimously passed a Jat quota Bill approving reservation for Jats and five other castes, while breaching the Supreme Court limit.
6. An ABP Ananda-Nielsen poll suggests that the Left-Congress combine is only 1% behind the Trinamool Congress in vote share in West Bengal.

Punditry
1. Anuradha Raman in the Hindu speaks to Bela Bhatia, an activist whom authorities have attempted to hound out of Chhattisgarh.
2. The evidence is now unmistakable that India’s economic transformation is not the primary project of the BJP regime, writes Ashutosh Varshney in the Indian Express.
3. The present government is clearly wedded to the control raj created by the Congress, writes Sl Rao in the Telegraph.

Don't Miss
Avani Kapur and Vikram Srinivas explain why the Centre needs to give states more control over schemes it co-finances.

 Allocations to centrally sponsored schemes are very volatile too. The Union Budget allocates funds to schemes, but not to states. Thus, state governments often don’t know in advance either how much money it will get, or even when the money will be released. This causes uncertainty in state finance departments, and at the grassroots. For instance, district officials of the National Health Mission interviewed by Accountability Initiative in Uttar Pradesh said they received irregular reimbursements of their official travel expenses. As a consequence, officials responsible for the implementation of programmes that receive lakhs of rupees in funding were forced to purchase petrol on credit from petrol pump owners.