March 20: Must-read stories

Pawar hints at tie-up with Congress before Gujarat polls

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Sunday hinted at an alliance with the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls in Gujarat and stressed that Opposition unity was a must to ensure the BJP’s defeat regionally and nationally, reports The Hindu.

139-day-old NH blockade finally ends in Manipur

Ahead of its floor test in the assembly on Monday, the BJP-led coalition government achieved a significant breakthrough when it managed to convince the United Naga Council (UNC) to lift its four-month-long economic blockade on the Imphal-Dimapur and Imphal-Silchar highways. In The Times of India.

BARC scientists probing how 2 nuclear reactors contracted ‘small pox’

Scientists are burning the midnight oil to discover the reason behind the mysterious nuclear leak at the Kakrapar Nuclear Power Plant in Gujarat. Toughened radiation-resistant pipes show ‘small pox-like’ nodular corrosion. A PTI report in The Hindu.

‘Ab Ki Baar, Yogi Sarkar’: Is Adityanath a Challenger for PM Modi?

Yogi Adityanath’s appointment has provided indirect political supremacy to the RSS in one of the most electorally significant states in India, like never before in nearly three years of PM Modi’s rule. A report by The Quint.

I-T zeroes in on Mumbai trader in first crackdown after demonetisation

The Income Tax Department has concluded its first investigation under Operation Clean Money and launched criminal prosecution against a Mumbai-based high-end electronic goods trader for allegedly depositing over Rs 3.29 crore post demonetisation in his bank account, which was opened using an illegal permanent account number (PAN). An Indian Express report.