Daily Bulletin: JP Nadda appointed BJP working president; toll in encephalitis cases rises to 103 in Bihar; day's top stories

JP Nadda appointed BJP's working president, Amit Shah to remain party chief

Former Union minister JP Nadda was appointed BJP's working president during the party's parliamentary board meeting on Monday. The decision of BJP's highest decision-making body was announced by former party president and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh after the meeting, which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chaired by BJP chief Amit Shah. Shah will remain party's national president.

Congratulating Nadda, Modi tweeted that he "is a diligent 'karyakarta' (worker) of the party, who has risen through the ranks due to his hardwork and organisational skills. Humble and affable, he is widely respected across the BJP family".

Amit Shah gives a bouquet to JP Nadda on his appointment as the BJP working president. PTI

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Wishing him on being unanimously elected as party's working president, Shah said he had full faith that under Nadda's leadership the BJP would be strengthened further and "we would be able to spread the party's ideology in all corners of the country."

This is for the first time that the party has appointed a working president even when there is a full-time party president.  Nadda said he will work to strengthen the party as its worker and thanked the prime minister and Shah for reposing faith in him.

Encephalitis claims more than 100 lives in Bihar, NHRC issues notice to Bihar govt

Six more children died in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district on Monday, taking the toll due to suspected Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) to 103 and prompting the state government to announce a slew of measures to tackle the situation.

While doctors have maintained that the deaths occurred due to AES, state officials claimed that most of the victims, below the age of 10, have died due to hypoglycemia — a condition caused by low level of blood sugar, electrolyte imbalance due to high temperature and extreme humidity.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) sent notices to the Union Health Ministry and the Bihar government over the deaths. It observed that despite reported measures taken by the government agencies, deaths of children in such large number indicated a possible flaw in the implementation of vaccination and awareness programmes. Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar said no clear cause of deaths could be ascertained so far and indicated that one of the reasons could be that no rainfall, even pre-monsoon rain, occurred in the district this year.

The chief secretary said the government had also decided to send a team to each household, where children died due to suspected AES cases, in order to find out their social and economic background, The purpose, he said, was to find out whether the deaths had any link with the background of the deceased families.

Delhi street brawl between cops, tempo driver spurs massive protests; MHA seeks report

The incident in which policemen thrashed a tempo driver after he allegedly attacked a cop with a sword snowballed into a major political row on Monday, prompting the Union Home Ministry to seek response from the Delhi Police. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal demanded that Home Minister Amit Shah and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal take strict action against the police personnel who allegedly assaulted the driver. His Punjab counterpart Amarinder Singh termed the incident "shameful". The Congress and the BJP demanded a fair probe into the incident and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) sought dismissal of the officers.

On Sunday evening, a brawl between Sarabjeet Singh, the tempo driver, and policemen at northwest Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar went viral on social media.  In one of the purported videos, the tempo driver was seen chasing the policemen with a sword. In another video, they were seen thrashing the driver and his son with batons. The police said the altercation between took place after the tempo driver's vehicle collided with a police van. Eight police personnel were injured in the scuffle, the police said.

A large number of people, particularly from the Sikh community, gathered outside the Mukherjee Nagar police station on Monday night, demanding sacking of all policemen who thrashed a tempo driver, police said. The issue had taken a political turn with Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the BJP MLA from Rajouri Garden, claiming that the policemen had insulted the man by attacking his turban.

Nine injured in IED attack on army patrol party in Pulwama

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Iran speeds up uranium enrichment as tensions mounts in West Asia

Iran will surpass the uranium-stockpile limit set by its nuclear deal in the next 10 days, an official said Monday, raising pressure on Europeans trying to save the accord a year after the US withdrawal lit the fuse for the heightened tensions now between Tehran and Washington.

The announcement by Iran's nuclear agency marked yet another deadline set by Tehran. President Hassan Rouhani already has warned Europe that a new deal needs to be in place by July 7 or the Islamic Republic would increase its enrichment of uranium.

Atomic energy spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi suggested that Iran's enrichment could reach up to 20 per cent, just a step away from weapons-grade levels. It appears as if Iran has begun its own maximum pressure campaign on the world after facing one from President Donald Trump's administration that deeply cut into its sale of crude oil abroad and sent its economy into freefall. Europe has so far been unable to offer Iran a way around the US sanctions.

The development follows apparent attacks last week in the Strait of Hormuz on oil tankers, assaults that Washington has blamed on Iran. While Iran has denied being involved, it laid mines in the 1980s targeting oil tankers around the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world's crude oil passes.

Bengal's week-long health services logjam over as doctors end strike

The week-long junior doctors' strike across state-run hospitals in West Bengal was withdrawn on Monday shortly after a meeting between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and representatives of the agitating medics from various medical colleges.

Earlier in the day, a 31-member team of junior doctors from all the state-run medical colleges in West Bengal participated in the meeting with Banerjee and senior state government officials at the state secretariat Nabanna where a 12-point charter of demands related to doctors' security, hospital infrastructure and patient-doctor relationship was discussed at length.

The doctors demanded exemplary action against the attackers in the NRS incident and urged the Chief Minister to issue a "strong written or verbal message against such offenders".

The chief minister promised to ensure on-ground implementation of the proposals discussed during the deliberations. Accepting the proposals from the medics, she announced a dedicated mobile number and email address for doctors to lodge complaints of assault, appointment of nodal officers in medical college to monitor security and asked police to take immediate action in cases of attack on medical practitioners. She told the state Health Department officials to increase the visibility of patients' grievance cells in all hospitals and hold campaigns to make the patient parties aware of their existence.

Afghanistan hope for first World Cup 2019 win against injury-hit England

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Instagram is testing simpler, more powerful account recovery tools

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Claims against RCom swell to Rs 57,382 cr; Reliance ADAG companies among claimants

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Doctor Sleep a sequel to both novel and Kubrick's film: Mike Flanagan

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With inputs from agencies