DH Evening Brief: July 19, 2021

Here are the top headlines this evening.

Rahul Gandhi, Ashwini Vaishnaw among Pegasus's potential targets: Report

Pegasus snooping scandal snowballed into a political potboiler on Monday with latest revelations showed that Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Patel, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, top Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, election strategist Prashant Kishor and former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa were either spied or were potential targets. Read more

Karnataka CM candidates shortlisted? Kateel drops hint in purported audio clip

A purported audio clip of Karnataka BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel talking of a new Karnataka chief minister and big changes in Cabinet has stirred the state's political cauldron. Read more

RSS victory mantra for BJP in UP include 'Rashtravad, hindutva, conversion', cautions party on population policy

BJP would be making 'Rashtravad, hindutva and conversion' its major planks, besides the Ram Temple and cow protection, in the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, which are scheduled to be held early next year. Read more

Pegasus spyware issue: Opposition slams govt over alleged phone-tapping, seeks probe

Opposition parties Monday hit out at the government over the alleged phone-tapping of prominent personalities in the country using Israeli Pegasus spyware and demanded an independent judicial or parliamentary committee probe. Read more

Rowdy sheeter hacked to death inside a bank in Bengaluru's Koramangala

A murder in broad daylight inside a bank in Koramangala on Monday afternoon created fear among the residents and bank customers. Read more

Heavy rain pummels Konkan belt, death toll mounts to 40

Several urban centres and villages were inundated as the financial capital of Mumbai and the coastal Konkan belt of Maharashtra continued to be pounded by heavy rains on Monday even as rain-related deaths mounted to 40. Read more

Azithromycin may increase Covid patient's chance of hospitalisation: Study

The commonly prescribed antibiotic for Covid-19, azithromycin, is no more effective than a placebo in preventing the viral disease among non-hospitalised patients, and may in fact increase their chance of hospitalisation, a study has found. Read more

Hospitals have become money-minting machines that fleece patients: SC

The Supreme Court on Monday expressed its annoyance over hospitals having inadequate safety equipment, saying those have become a money minting business, thriving on human distress, and it is better that those were closed. Read more

In Pics | Heavy rains wreak havoc in Mumbai

It literally came like a bolt from the blue as India’s business hub of Mumbai and its suburbs received 200-plus mm rainfall accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning in barely three hours past midnight as most people slept. See Pictures

Illegal surveillance not possible: IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Pegasus report

Amidst a massive row over the Pegasus issue, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that media reports on snooping ahead of Parliament session as "an attempt to malign Indian democracy." He further said that with checks and balances in place, illegal surveillance is not possible. Read more

The long chase to catch NSO Group's Pegasus snooping

Late Sunday night, the Washington Post in collaboration with 16 other media organisations across 10 countries published an investigative article claiming that the Israeli Group's NSO leased their Pegasus spyware to various governments who tapped into the phones of social activists, journalists, business executives and politicians. This was titled the Pegasus Project. Read more

Watch | Loco-pilots save senior citizens from jaws of death

A senior citizen narrowly escaped death after a locomotive train pilot in Mumbai's Kalyan area applied emergency brakes to save the man as he was crossing the tracks. Watch the video below:

Big bang: How we are trying to ‘listen’ to it - and the new physics it could unveil

Exactly what happened at the beginning of the universe, 14 billion years ago, is one of the greatest mysteries in physics – there’s no simple way to probe it. That’s because, in its early stages, the universe was filled with a dense plasma – a gas made out of charged particles including electrons and protons (particles that comprise the atomic nucleus alongside neutrons). Read more