Daily Bulletin: Rahul calls for CWC today to give final shape to Congress manifesto; NCP likely to release manifesto; day's top stories

Rahul Gandhi calls CWC meeting to give final shape to Congress manifesto The top Congress leadership will on Monday discuss and give a final shape to the party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha election starting 11 April. Reportedly, the contents of the manifesto will be discussed at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) at its headquarters at Akbar Road. The CWC is the highest decision-making body of the party and is chaired by Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Top Congress leaders, including former prime minister Manmohan Singh, senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel, AK Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ambika Soni and Anand Sharma, will be present at the meeting. Former chief ministers Siddaramaiah, Oommen Chandy, Tarun Gogoi and Harish Rawat will attend the meeting. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who took charge last month as AICC general secretary Uttar Pradesh East and Uttar Pradesh West respectively, will also be present. The party manifesto for the Lok Sabha election is being framed by a committee headed by P Chidambaram, which has some other members too. [caption id=“attachment_6021271” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Twitter@INCIndia[/caption] NCP likely to release manifesto today The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is likely to release its manifesto for the Lok Sabha election on Monday, a day after the party sealed the seat-sharing deal with ally Congress in Maharashtra. NCP national general secretary DP Tripathi is scheduled to announce the manifesto at 3 pm on Monday, reports said. On Saturday, the Congress- NCP alliance announced their seat-sharing pact, with the two parties agreeing to contest 26 and 22 seats respectively. Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar said, in a press conference, that 56 parties and organisations have come together to support the alliance to take on the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. From its share of seats, the Congress will give Palghar seat to the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and another undeclared seat to Raju Shetti’s Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana. From its 22 seats, the NCP will leave Hatkanangle seat for Shetti, who is the sitting MP from there, and give another to Independent MLA Ravi Rana’s Yuva Swabhiman Party. Without naming any parties, Chavan and Pawar dubbed those who stayed away from the Congress-NCP alliance as the “B team of the BJP”. Virtual simcards were used in Pulwama terror attack, India to ask US for help A request is to be sent to the US to seek details from a service provider of “virtual SIMs”, which were used by the Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber behind the Pulwama attack and his Pakistan and Kashmir-based handlers. Piecing together elements revealed in the investigation into the site of the terror strike, searches carried out by the Jammu and Kashmir police and central security agencies at an encounter site in Tral as well as other locations, it was found that the bomber, Adil Dar, was in constant touch with the JeM across the border, PTI reported. It was a fairly new modus operandi where terrorists across the border were using a “virtual SIM”, generated by a service provider in the United States. In this technology, the computer generates a telephone number and the user downloads an application of the service provider on their smartphone. The number is linked to social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram or Twitter. The verification code generated by these networking sites is received on the smartphone and the user is ready. In case of Pulwama, Dar was in constant touch with the Jaish handler as well as Mudassir Khan using the same technology, the officials were quoted by PTI as saying. IPL 2019 gets ready for battle royale as Rajasthan Royals host Kings XI Punjab A royal battle is on the cards in IPL 2019 on Monday as Rajasthan Royals host Kings XI Punjab in Jaipur as both sides get their campaign underway. All eyes in the match will be on RR’s Steve Smith who returns to the league after missing the previous edition due to the ball-tampering scandal. Important thing to remember is that RR has never lost to KXIP at home. The match will start at 8 pm. Apple’s first major product event of 2019 to take place today Apple’s first big product event of 2019 is taking place on Monday at 10.30 pm and this time, hardware products aren’t what the Cupertino-based giant will be focusing on. Apple is expected to unveil as many three new premium subscription services — one each for News, Entertainment and Gaming.