Kolkata warehouse collapse kills three; India-US trade talks conclude
At least three people died and 18 workers remain trapped after an under-construction warehouse collapsed in Kolkata's Taratala area on Wednesday afternoon. West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who visited the site, said 21 persons have been rescued, of which three succumbed to injuries. Rescue operations are ongoing, with contact established between trapped workers and personnel.
Meanwhile, India and the United States concluded a two-day ministerial meeting on an interim bilateral trade agreement. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal reviewed core elements including market access, digital trade, and non-tariff barriers. Both sides aim to finalise the pact before Washington's temporary 10% tariff expires on July 24.
In Parliament, Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs Anil Desai and Arvind Sawant will meet Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to discuss the merger of six of the party's nine MPs with the Eknath Shinde-led faction. The party has submitted a caveat and criticised the lack of transparency in the matter.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that qualifying cut-offs for NEET-SS seats for in-service government doctors must be lowered, citing their dual role of serving the public while studying. Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi emphasised that such doctors' skills benefit the larger public rather than personal profit.
In political news, the Congress party alleged that the BJP's push for a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha is aimed at amending the Constitution to end reservations. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh claimed the ruling party first intends to push delimitation under the guise of women's reservation. The BJP dismissed the allegations, with Madhya Pradesh BJP president Hemant Khandelwal calling them baseless and attributing them to Congress's attempts to weaken a backward class chief minister.
