This is the Catchup on 3 Things by The Indian Express and I'm Ichha Sharma.
Today is the 30th of December and here are the headlines.
In view of the statewide bandh called by two Punjab farmer unions, security has been amped up with several groups of farmers gathering at key locations on highways and railway stations at 6.30 am onwards. The bandh call was given in support of farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal who has been holding a hunger strike for more than a month seeking the implementation of 13 farm demands. Over 150 trains, including Vande Bharat, were cancelled today and all educational institutes are to remain closed. However, emergency services will remain active across the state.
The war of words over former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s funeral intensified today, with the Congress saying that senior party leaders did not accompany his family “out of our deference to the privacy of the family”. This comes a day after Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri of the BJP said on Sunday that Congress leaders did not accompany Dr Singh’s family when the ashes were immersed in the Yamuna river while BJP leaders were present. Dr Manmohan Singh passed away on Thursday at the age of 92.
Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal announced his fifth promise today ahead of the Assembly polls in Delhi, the Pujari Granthi Samman Rashi Scheme, with an eye on Pandit and Sikh voters. Under this scheme, the AAP has promised that if the party returns to power, it will give Rs 18,000 per month to all pandits and pujaris working in temples and to granthis in gurdwaras across the city. The AAP has so far announced four welfare schemes targeting specific categories of voters, including women, Dalits and senior citizens.
ISRO will demonstrate for the first time its ability to bring together and join two satellites in space today. The SpaDeX mission, which is the Space Docking Experiment, will launch at 10 pm today, as ISRO’s workhorse PSLV rocket lifts off from the first launch pad of the Sriharikota spaceport. For the first time, an ISRO mission will carry a biological experiment. The CROPS experiment (Compact Research Module for Orbital Plant Studies) will see the germination of seed and sustenance of a plant up to a two-leaf stage. The fourth stage of the launch vehicle will be used later as a platform to carry out 24 experiments, including several by startups.
The investigation into the Jeju Air plane crash that killed 179 at Muan International Airport in South Korea is underway. Initial findings show a malfunction in the landing gear, which a bird strike may have caused, could have led to the plane’s belly landing. Experts have said that multiple factors could have resulted in the plane crash, among which are design flaws at the airport. Questions have been raised over the length of the runway at the airport. According to the official website, the runway is 2,800 m long. This is considerably shorter than runways at international air hubs.
This was the Catch Up on 3 Things by The Indian Express.
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