Daily bulletin: Muzaffarpur rape case hearing in SC today, Bombay HC to hear PIL on Maratha quota stir; top stories of the day

Muzaffarpur case hearing in Supreme Court: Days after the Supreme Court issued notices to the Bihar government and Centre over the horrors unearthed at the Muzaffarpur shelter home, it will hear the case on Tuesday. The apex court had taken suo motu cognisance of the case last week after calling it “extremely disturbing”, and asked the state and central governments if “this is the way we are treating our girls”. [caption id=“attachment_4693841” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Karunanidhi’s health: Former Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi’s health has worsened, Chennai’s Kauvery Hospital said. The next 24 hours will be critical, and doctors have said he is on “continuous monitoring” and is being treated with “active medical support”. “His response to the medical interventions over the next 24 hours will determine the prognosis,” director of the hospital Dr Aravindan Selvaraj said. Bombay HC to hear PIL on Maharashtra reservation protests: The Bombay High Court will hear a PIL on Tuesday filed by a Maratha rights group regarding reservation quotas for the community. The hearing was brought forward by a week amid continuing violence in the state, and a spate of suicides over the Marathas’ demand. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, and the two are believed to have discussed this issue for over an hour. Debate over Article 35A: On Monday, the Supreme Court adjourned a hearing into the constitutional validity of Article 35A, and said a bench will determine if the matter needs to be referred to a larger five-judge bench. Petitions challenging the Article’s validity will be heard before the apex court on 27 August. However, with Parliament being in session, the issue is likely to come up for debate on Tuesday. Ben Stokes trial: England all-rounder Ben Stokes’ trial will continue on Tuesday after the court heard on the first day of the trial how the cricketer had mocked a gay couple’s behaviour before losing his self-control and knocking two other men unconscious in a street fight last September. Stokes is on trial at Bristol Crown Court in southwest England for alleged affray. PNB fraud: The Indian government is mounting pressure on Antigua, and has requested the Caribbean nation to extradite Gitanjali Gems boss Mehul Choksi, wanted in India for allegedly defrauding Punjab National Bank (PNB). And it turns out that under Commonwealth law, Antigua can extradite Choksi to India. PNB results: Troubled Punjab National Bank (PNB) will push out its quarterly earnings update on Tuesday. The Mumbai-traded lender’s earnings were earlier wiped out on news that two jewelers, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, and some bank officials allegedly colluded to defraud it of roughly Rs 14,000 crore. Apple in India: As Apple struggles to find its sweet spot with both the government and the smartphone users in India, it’s latest attempt will finally see the tech brand opening its own stores in the country. This a move that will hopefully make the brand more popular than its rivals Samsung and Xiaomi, that are eating up its market share thanks to local manufacturing; an area that Apple has yet to figure out thanks to strict government regulations. Honor Play: Huawei’s sub-brand Honor just announced its all-new Honor Play smartphone on 6 August. The device is targeted at gamers and the device packs in the latest hardware from Huawei with the company’s most powerful chipset. But is it an all-rounder or just a smartphone that’s built with gaming in mind? We find out in our full review of the Honor Play.

Robert Redford retires: Robert Redford says he is retiring, at least as an actor. The 81-year-old Oscar winner has said the upcoming movie Old Man & His Gun will be his last acting gig. “Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and (I’ll) move towards retirement after this ‘cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21,” he told Entertainment Weekly.