The Evening Wrap: First signs of a pullback of Chinese troops

The Hindu Newsletter - The Evening Wrap: First signs of a pullback of Chinese troops Monday 06, July 2020 [alt_text]( The Evening Wrap [Here are the big news stories of the day]( [alt_text]( Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying safe. Here are the big stories that you need to follow today: First signs of a pullback of Chinese troops In what appear to be the [the first signs of a pullback along the contested LAC](, Chinese troops have “shifted” two km from the site of the violent clashes on June 15 at Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, a senior government official has told The Hindu. A second official said some tents have been removed by the PLA at the Finger 4 area of Pangong Tso. “Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was seen removing tents and structures at Patrolling Point (PP) 14. Some rearward movement of vehicles of PLA seen in the general area of Galwan, Hotsprings and Gogra,” a second government source said. Without giving the specific distances moved, the source said the pullback at each location would be confirmed after verification. “Some tents have been removed at Finger 4 area in Pangong Tso,” the second government official cited above said. They had moved back some distance, the official said without elaborating. Pangong Tso is one of the most contentious areas of the current stand-off, with the PLA moving about 8 km inside up to Finger 4. India’s claim is till Finger 8 as per the alignment of the LAC. Before pullback, NSA Ajit Doval’s phone call These moves on disengagement came after a [long and detailed conversation between National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi]( on Sunday evening. They reportedly decided to de-escalate the two-month long stand-off in Ladakh, even as China continued to claim that its troops were “defending territorial sovereignty” during the Galwan clash on June 15. “The two Special Representatives agreed that both sides should take guidance from the consensus of the leaders that maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the India-China border areas was essential for the further development of our bilateral relations and that the two sides should not allow differences to become disputes,” said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a release on Monday afternoon. Fate of over 8 lakh Indians uncertain as Kuwait passes expat quota bill [ A doctor checks temperature of a labourer, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the site clinic in Ahmadi, Kuwait. ] A doctor checks temperature of a labourer, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the site clinic in Ahmadi, Kuwait. A total of eight lakh Indians could be forced to leave Kuwait as its National Assembly committee has approved a draft expat quota bill seeking to reduce the number of foreign workers in the Gulf country. The National Assembly’s legal and legislative committee has determined that the expat quota bill is constitutional. According to the bill, Indians should not exceed 15% of the population. This could result in 8,00,000 Indians leaving Kuwait, as the Indian community constitutes the largest expat community in the country, totalling 1.45 million, the Gulf News reported, citing a Kuwaiti newspaper. Kuwait is also one of the top sources of remittances for India, with media reports estimating that in 2018 India received nearly $4.8 billion. Amid a slump in oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a spike in anti-expat rhetoric as lawmakers and government officials call for reducing the number of foreigners in Kuwait. The current population of Kuwait is 4.3 million, with Kuwaitis making up 1.3 million of the population, and expats accounting for 3 million. The new bill seeks to gradually reverse the ratio of Kuwaitis and expats in the country’s population, so that the natives are no longer outnumbered by expats. Top vaccine expert resigns [ Gagandeep Kang ] Gagandeep Kang Gagandeep Kang, Executive Director of the government-run Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad, has resigned from her position at the institute. Dr Kang is the [first Indian woman to be elected as Fellow, Royal Society, London](, and was instrumental in the development of [Rotavac](, the first vaccine to be made from scratch in India. She is also vice-chairperson, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, a global consortium involved in facilitating promising vaccine candidates for Covid-19. She was the head of a group constituted by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Covid-19 taskforce to look at prospective indigenous vaccine candidates. This group was, however, [disbanded]( in a little over a month, as previously reported by The Hindu. SC sets aside Delhi High Court order on Navlakha [Gautam Navlakha surrendering before the National Investigation Agency in New Delhi in April.] Gautam Navlakha surrendering before the National Investigation Agency in New Delhi in April. The Supreme Court on Monday set aside a [Delhi High Court order questioning the “frantic hurry”]( with which civil rights campaigner Gautam Navlakha was shifted out of the national capital to Mumbai in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. A three-judge Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra expunged expressions such as “inexplicable and frantic hurry” and “unseemly haste” used by High Court judge Justice Anup Bhambhani in his May 27 order to describe the manner in which Navlakha was taken to Mumbai. Justice Bhambhani had found it puzzling how the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took Navlakha out of Delhi a day before his bail hearing was scheduled before the High Court. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of coronavirus cases reported from India stood at 7,14,685 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 20,125. India is now the third worst-affected country in the world, surpassing Russia. Close to 25,000 new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours, as per Health Ministry statistics. India’s coronavirus tally again rose sharply today, with 24,248 new cases in 24 hours. In Brief: Ennio Morricone, whose scores for movies such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Mission, and Cinema Paradiso made him one of the world’s most famous screen composers, died today at the age of 91. Morricone won two Oscars and dozens of others awards, including Golden Globes, Grammys and BAFTAs. As India reached third place in terms of countries having the highest number of Covid-19 cases, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday targeted the government, saying in a tweet that India’s fight against the coronavirus would be one of three case studies of failures in the Harvard Business School (HBS). The other two case studies of “failure” mentioned in his tweet were demonetisation and GST implementation. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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