The Catch Up: 2 August

This is the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express and I'm Ichha Sharma.
It’s the 2nd of August and here are this week’s headlines.

Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi along with sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited landslides-hit areas of Wayanad and said he was “deeply pained” to see people who have lost family members and homes in the tragedy, calling it a “national disaster” and demanded an urgent comprehensive action plan. The death toll has risen to 277, with over 200 injured, Kerala Chief Minister Pinaraya  Vijayan has confirmed that 240 people remain missing, while more than 1500 have been rescued from the affected areas.

UPSC on Wednesday cancelled trainee IAS officer Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar’s candidature in the 2022 Civil Services Examination and barred her from appearing for any future examinations of the commission, after finding she had violated rules by appearing for the exam more times than what was allowed. UPSC had examined the data of the over 15,000 recommended candidates from 2009 to 2023, and found that apart from her, no other candidate had availed of more attempts than what is permitted under the CSE Rules.

Building collapsing in Kullu, roads being washed away, pilgrims being airlifted — these were the scenes in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh on Thursday as multiple cloudbursts led to rain wreaking havoc claiming 5 lives in Himachal and 2 in Uttarakhand. Chardham Yatra registrations were put on hold and a safety advisory was issued urging the devotees to delay their travel due to the weather conditions.

Meanwhile, Manu Bhaker made history by becoming the first Indian athlete to win two medals in the same Olympic Games after combining with Sarabjot Singh on Wednesday to win a bronze medal in the 10m air pistol mixed team event. On Monday, she won India’s first medal of the Paris Olympics, in the process becoming the first ever female shooter from India to win an Olympic medal.

On the global front, Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based public face of Hamas, was assassinated in Iran on Wednesday in what might mark a defining moment in the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. A day later, on Thursday the Israeli military confirmed that the Hamas’ military wing chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an airstrike in Gaza in July. Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, where he had gone to attend the inauguration of the newly-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

This was the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express.