28th March 2021
Shorts:
News at a glance
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A 200,000 Tonne Vessel against the World economy
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-Snigdha Dhameja
Sources: Pinimag, DigitalOceanSpaces
The Ever Given, a 400m long and 200,000 tonne vessel ran aground in the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest trade routes.
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The Suez Canal is an artificial geographical feature, that was dug to separate the continent of Africa and Asia. It was dug to reduce time taken by ships to reach Asia, as they had to go around the continent of Africa. Hence, the canal is an important trade route, and its blockage is predicted to affect the world economy, as ships and carriers that used this route will now have to take a longer one, and will delay shipments of goods by approximately two weeks.
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Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), Osama Rabie, says that several measures and methods such as removing 20,000 tonnes of sand from the Ever Given’s bow have been taken to try and dislodge the ship. It is unclear as to when the canal will be unblocked, and each passing second takes a toll on the world economy, as 12% of global trade passes through the canal, and the canal currently holds $9.6bn of goods that have not reached their destination.
Source: BBC, Wikipedia
The Mistry-Tata Tango
-Devansh Mishra
In the most public boardroom brawl on the Supreme Court’s battlefield, the SC sided with the Tata Group as they ousted Cyrus Mistry as the director and executive chairman of the multinational. Setting aside the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s (NCLAT) verdict in 2019 that reinstated Mistry as the chairman of the company, the SC decided that his removal was justified and they were in the right.
“Cyrus Mistry himself invited trouble”, said the three-board Bench in their 282-page verdict of the long, drawn-out case. Mr. Mistry had previously accused the Tata Group of being prejudicially taking advantage of minority shareholders in their Group, for example, the Shapoorji-Pallonji (SP) group who hold an 18.37% stake in the company. This accusation was thrown out by the SC after listening to both sides of the debate, saying that the Tata Group showed no signs of any such action.
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As a result of the ousting of Cyrus Mistry, the stocks of Tata Group has soared, with many of them reaching a growth of almost 5-6% in many markets.
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The issue of the Mistry family still owning 18.4% of the stake in the Tata Group was left untouched by the SC for the two duelling parties to come to a mutually acceptable agreement amongst themselves.
Sources: The Hindu, The Indian Express
Source: Hindustan Times
A drug bust straight out of a movie
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-Akshaj Balaji
Source: Deccan Herald
The Police in Bangalore carried what could only be described as straight from a movie last week. After receiving several reports of high drug activity in Whitefield, the Bangalore Police decided to take action as they looked to catch the dealers. They identified some peddlers in the Whitefield area and convinced them to introduce undercover cops to the drug suppliers. The suppliers asked the cops how much marijuana they wanted to buy to which the cops, wanting to bust the most amount of drugs they could, said 500 kilograms making them big customers for the suppliers. The Police couldn’t spend actual 1 crore Rupees for the drugs as it involved a high amount of risk so they decided to approach a movie studio instead. The Film studio provided 1 crore Rupees in cash with 2000 note denominations. This was a highly risky move as all the notes had the same serial number but thankfully, the drug bust was extremely successful. The police asked the suppliers to send the truck with the consignment to a warehouse where they also requested to meet the suppliers to give them the money. Here, the drug suppliers were ambushed by the cops and arrested. The police now are looking to find other aids to the drug suppliers and are arresting them too. This was one of the most innovative and successful ways to carry out a drug bust which removed 500 kilos of marijuana from the Bangalore streets along with several criminals.
Sources: Hindustan Times
The PM has finally won the vote of confidence. What's next for the former national cricket captain?
Source: NDTV
Sports news
The Final Showdown
-Devansh Mishra
One would think that scoring 336 runs in an ODI would be more than enough to secure a victory, even against the No.1 ODI side in the world. Well, reality check, England scored 337 runs against the highly-praised Indian bowling line-up, with 39 balls to spare.
After winning the toss, the stand-in English captain Jos Buttler put India into bat. Rohit and Dhawan came out to bat, but both fell in quick succession due to an accurate bowling display from the English side. The onus of steadying the ship came onto Kohli and Rahul, as the duo stitched a formidable partnership of 121 runs, with both of them getting to their fifties. The Indian skipper soon departed after a well-made 66, while the onslaught of the final 10-15 overs was yet to arrive. A brilliant display of power-hitting from the bats of Rahul, Pant and Hardik saw the home team achieve a formidable total of 336. KL Rahul got to his fifth ODI ton, returning back into form.
In the second innings, England came out all guns blazing and Bairstow and Roy started to fire from the get-go. Laying out a solid and quick-fire foundation, the only way they were stopped from running away with the match was a moment of brilliance by Sharma in the field as he ran-out Jason Roy. India were looking to repeat their fairy-tale comeback from the First ODI, but the elusive second wicket seemed to be always out of their reach. Bairstow deservedly got to his ton which he missed out on last time around, as his partner-in-crime, Ben Stokes, made a spectacular 99. He missed out on a ton by just one run, but he got his team to a commanding position before departing. After three quick wickets, a glimmer of hope seemed to open up for the Indian team, but Liam Livingstone and Dawid Malan shut down all hopes of a comeback while sealing the victory for the visitors by six wickets.
The series decider on Sunday promises to be a thrilling encounter, with everything up for grabs from both teams. Who will clinch the series win? Tune in at 1:30 PM to find out.
Source: Business Standard