The Catch Up: 6 February

This is the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express and I'm Flora Swain.
It’s the 6th of February and here are the headlines.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami today tabled the Uniform Civil Code Bill in the state Assembly. The Bill seeks to bring uniformity in laws governing marriage, divorce, and inheritance, among other things, across religions. It proposes the banning of practices like polygamy and bringing in a uniform marriage age for citizens from all communities. The Opposition today said the draft should have been tabled before the Assembly at least a day earlier so that MLAs got the time to study it.

The Bill to prevent paper leaks, introduced in Lok Sabha on Monday, said it will serve as a "model draft for States to adopt at their discretion." The Indian Express investigated 41 documented instances of leaks over the last five years in recruitment exams across 15 states — their governments cutting across party lines. What emerged was startling: The leaks derailed schedules of as many as 1.4 crore applicants, applying for a little over 1.04 lakh posts.

Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Monday hit out at the BJP and said he would quit politics and leave the state if any proof regarding his alleged illegal acquisition of 8 acres of land was tabled in the Assembly. In custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Soren was allowed to vote in the trust motion that the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-led alliance won in the Assembly on Monday.

The Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is set to enter Odisha from Jharkhand today. Before resuming the Yatra from Jharkhand’s Khunti district this morning, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi paid floral tribute at the statue of tribal icon Birsa Munda. Gandhi is scheduled to address the press at Basia in Gumla and then a public rally in Simdega district today.

Upholding the conviction of a man for raping a seven-year-old girl in a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2018, the Supreme Court has sentenced him to 30 years in jail while noting that his action was barbaric. The victim girl’s grandmother lodged an FIR against the man who was 40 years old at the time of the crime, for kidnapping and raping the minor. The trial court awarded him the capital punishment, but the Madhya Pradesh High Court, commuted the same to life imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s natural life.

This was the Catch-Up on the 3 Things by The Indian Express.