Sadbhavana Diwas Wednesday, August 20, 2025 | Vol. 68 No. 273 | 27 Pages Reg.No MCS/048/2021-23; RNI No. 1541/1957 M.p.c.s office Mumbai. PIN 400001 THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL INDIA EDITION | www.freepressjournal.in ● Leader in E-paper circulation GAMES NATION Oppn parties allege ‘vote theft’ through electoral roll revisions, while EC defends its integrity Cinema Kussh Sinha reveals why sister Sonakshi missed good films Gill, Bumrah are back in Indian T20I squad for the Asia Cup next month Edit PM’s Red Fort speech outlined India’s and his own future MUMBAI PARALYSED Bill to check online gaming platforms gets Cabinet’s nod Kurla PTI Wadala Mumbai Central NEW DELHI The Union Cabinet has approved a bill related to promotion and regulation of online gaming, and the government is likely to bar platforms offering any online money gaming service, a source said on Tuesday. The bill is likely to be tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, the source added. "The Cabinet has approved the bill to regulate online gaming platforms that involve real money." The bill has taken into account significant mental health issues among users of online games, particularly those involving monetary incentives. The decision came following observations from the government that online money gaming provides means to facilitate money laundering, fraudulent financial transactions, and cyber crime, among others. MUMBAI Mumbai city came to a grinding halt on Tuesday as Maharashtra continued to reel under the fury of torrential rains, with widespread flooding, crop destruction, and mounting human and animal casualties reported across the state. On Tuesday, the IMD is- sued a red alert for Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Satara, Gadchiroli and Palghar districts as incessant rainfall paralysed normal life and created a flood-like situation in several regions. In Mumbai, the Santacruz observatory recorded 501mm of rainfall in the last two days, which is 88% of the average August rainfall the city receives. The Colaba observatory recorded 212mm of rainfall, which is 44% of the average rainfall for the month. Even though schools, colleges, government and semigovernment offices were shut, many families and private workers found themselves stranded at local railway stations and terminuses. Train services from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) to Thane and Mankhurd re- mained suspended for most part of the day. The services to Thane resumed at 7.28pm. BMC personnel were seen assisting commuters with travel options and snacks, even as the police took to the roads to close manholes or assist stranded persons as even buses remained submerged in several low-lying areas. The rising levels of Mithi river forced the evacuation of 350 residents Marriage @ 15 OK for Muslim girls, says SC FPJ News Service NEW DELHI The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) challenging orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had held that Muslim girls can marry after attaining puberty, with 15 years being the presumed age. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan observed that the NCPCR was a stranger to the litigation and had no locus standi to challenge the High Court’s orders. “We fail to see how NCPCR can be aggrieved. If the High Court, in exercise of its power under Article 226, seeks to extend protection to two individuals, the NCPCR has no locus standi to challenge such an order. Dismissed,” the bench said, rejecting the plea. As reported by Bar & Bench and Live Law, the case arose from petitions before the High Court in which Muslim couples, including girls aged 15 and 16, sought protection of their life and liberty. The High Court, citing Muslim personal law, ruled that a Muslim girl who has attained puberty is competent to marry. Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar Ashwin Ahmad Ignoring PM Narendra Modi's plea for “consensus” around the candidature of NDA’s vicepresidential nominee CP Radhakrishnan, the opposition parties on Tuesday picked former Supreme Court judge B Sudershan Reddy as their contender for the post. It was announced by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. He read out the joint statement issued by the opposition parties, describing Reddy as “one of India’s most distinguished and progressive jurists” who had a “long and eminent legal career including as judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Chief Justice of Guwahati High Court and judge of the Supreme Court.” The decision to field their candidate was taken by the opposition parties at a meeting National Security Adviser Ajit Doval said a “new environment” had been created to help India-China relations move forward. The NSA said this in his opening remarks before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Wang, who is in India for a two-day visit, met with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Monday and then held the 24th round of Special Representative (SR) level talks on the boundary issue with the NSA on Tuesday. Doval said he was pleased to see an “upward trend” since the last round of SR talks held in China in December last year. The talks came after a meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan in October last year. “I had a wonderful meeting in the last round (of talks) in Opposition calls vice-presidential poll ‘ideological battle’, says Reddy reflects cherished values that are ‘under attack’ held at Kharge’s residence, although the NDA enjoys a comfortable majority in both Houses put together, having 422 of the 786 MPs who would be eligible to vote in the vicepresidential election. Several senior party leaders again met at the same venue on Monday afternoon but failed to zero on a name. On Tuesday, at 12.30 pm, they resumed discussions. 4Contd on | nation 4See also | nation Beijing, and I am very happy that there has been an upward trend. Border has been quiet, there has been peace and tranquillity, and our bilateral engagements have been more substantive. We have been most grateful to our leaders in Kazan who were able to set a new trend since October last,” said Doval to his Chinese counterpart. “Our prime minister will be leaving for the SCO summit shortly, and therefore these SRlevel talks assume a very special importance.” Responding to Doval, the Chinese foreign minister stated that the “setbacks we experienced over the past few years were not in the interests of our two countries.” He added that a “healthy and 80K FRAUD VOTERS FOUND Zelenskyy ready IN 3 BIHAR SEATS: REPORT to meet Putin Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar NEW DELHI Reflecting on the alleged shortcomings in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, an investigation carried out by The Reporters’ Collective has revealed that over 80,000 voters were bundled and registered on fake and wrong addresses in just three Assembly constituencies in the state. On the scale of influence such anomalies can cause, it said, “Between the Pipra, Motihari, and Bagaha Assembly constituencies in Champaran region, there are around ten lakh registered voters. This could mean that approximately 8% of total FPJ News Service During the hearing of the Presidential Reference on the questions relating to granting assent to Bills, the Supreme Court on Tuesday (August 19) orally remarked that the judgment by the two-judge bench in the Tamil Nadu Governor case might have been given to "handle an egregious situation" created by the Governor keeping the Bills passed by the State Legislative Assembly pending for a long time. crops. In Nanded, five villages were marooned, forcing the evacuation of 300 residents to safer shelters. The IMD extended the red alert until Wednesday for Raigad and Pune Ghat, while Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Ratnagiri, Kolhapur Ghat, Satara Ghat, Nashik Ghat and Nandurbar have been placed under orange alert. The Indian National Centre NEW DELHI voters are registered at dubious addresses.” The investigation looked at how the EC was conducting the “unprecedented exercise to revise the entire country’s voter database from scratch, starting with Bihar” and noted that in a single house in Galimpur village in Pipra, as many as 509 voters were registered from different families, castes and communities as living together – and that too when the house did not exist. It added that this was not the only case of its kind but there were “3,590 cases where EC has registered 20 or more people at a single address” and again, “in many cases, the houses did not exist”. 4Contd on | nation ‘Supreme Court can’t take Governor’s role’ NEW DELHI from Kurla’s Krantinagar area. The disaster relief forces temporarily relocated 610 people in Thane and 497 in Palghar. Elsewhere in the state, two people lost their lives in Raigad and nine in Nanded, which has been the worst hit in the last two days. Nearly 12-15 lakh acres of farmland across the Konkan, Marathwada, and Vidarbha regions has been submerged, destroying standing for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) also issued a high-wave warning, forecasting waves up to 4.3m along the Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Palghar and Ratnagiri coasts until Thursday. Fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea as rough conditions and winds up to 60kmph are expected. 4See also | city Oppn picks SC ex-judge New environment spurs Reddy as VP candidate ties with China: Doval NEW DELHI 4Contd on | nation 4Contd on | nation Kalpesh Mhamunkar and Devashri Bhujbal Attorney General says the court should send pending decisions back to Governor even when Bills remain pending for years The Court asked the Attorney General for India what would be the "Constitutionally permissible recourse" when the Court is confronted with a situation where the Governor was keeping Bills pending for several years. If the Court is wrong in declaring deemed assent for the Bills, what should be the next option, the bench asked. Attorney General for India R Venkataramani said that even in such an undesirable fact situation, the Court cannot take over the functions of the Governor and declare as- sent for the Bills. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, Justice Surya Kant, Justice Vikram Nath, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice AS Chandurkar was hearing the matter. During the hearing, Justice Surya Kant asked Attorney General Venkataramani whether the statement in the TN Governor case judgment that bills from 2020 are pending was correct. Bar & Bench and Live Law report that at the hearing, the Court first took up preliminary objections on maintain- ability. Senior Advocate P Wilson for Tamil Nadu and Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that Article 143 cannot be used as a substitute for review or curative petitions, and that the reference undermines institutional integrity by indirectly appealing against a judgment. Senior Advocate KK Venugopal said the matter was covered by earlier rulings interpreting “as soon as possible” in Article 200, but noted that those were decided by smaller benches. 4Contd on | nation Agencies WASHINGTON Following an extraordinary meeting between European leaders and US President Donald Trump at the White House, the stage has been set for the next steps on the future of Ukraine. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who attended the talks at the White House, credited Trump with persuading Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to meet with Zelenskiy. During a break in the meeting, "the American president spoke with the Russian president on the phone and agreed that there would be a meeting between the Russian president and the Ukrainian president within the next two weeks," he told reporters. Merz explained that Trump had also offered to extend another invitation for a threeway meeting afterward, so negotiations could “truly begin.” Speaking outside the White House, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed he was “ready” for a bilateral meeting with Putin, calling the Russian leader a stable” India-China relationship was not just in the longterm interests of both countries but was something that all “developing nations wanted to see.” “The bilateral relationship has an important opportunity for growth. The Chinese side attaches great importance to the Prime Minister’s visit to China for the SCO summit. We believe India can make a significant contribution to the summit…History and reality prove once again that a healthy and stable China-India relationship serves the long-term interests of both countries. It is also what the developing countries want to see.” After his meeting with Doval, the Chinese foreign minister also called upon Prime Minister Modi later in the day. 4Contd on | nation 4See also | money, nation Bhagwat softpedals RSS women numbers PTI NEW DELHI ‘He wants to make a deal’ During the meeting, a hot mic inadvertently caught Trump telling French President Macron that he thinks the Russian President "wants to make a deal.” “I think he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] wants to make a deal...I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand that? As crazy as it sounds,” he said in a conversation between the two leaders ahead of the multilateral meeting. “bitter foe” whose invasion of Ukraine has led to tens of thousands of deaths. 4Contd on | nation 4See also | world RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Monday softpedalled a question on women representation in the organisation, saying that it was adoptive and evolving. Explaining his stance, he said, “In many regions, women are part of decision-making, invited into core meetings, and their proposals are included. Fifty per cent of the society cannot be kept outside,” he said. Bhagwat added that processes differ across states but described this as a sign of the Sangh’s adaptive and evolving nature. He underlined the importance of balance, saying, “Rashtra seva should never come at the cost of family duties. The two are complementary, not contradictory.” He was discussing on stronger representation of women in RSS’s leadership structures during the launch of a biography of Swayamsevak Ramesh Prakash. 4Contd on | nation