News Dabba for 21 March 2025: Five stories for a balanced news diet

Indie Journal brings you the daily updates that the internet is talking about through various news websites. Here's a glance through some of the National and International news updates, from tiger poaching mafia, Muslim quota bill in Karnataka, to Sudan army recapturing presidential palace.

Indian Express investigative report on new-age poaching mafia

A poaching network marked by an unusual coalition of groups from tribal communities in central India, using digital payments with “hawala funds” and separate supply lines to Nepal and Myanmar, has taken out “100 to any number” of tigers since 2022 from various parts of India, an investigation by The Indian Express has found. The report  tracks arrest records and court documents, and interviews forest officials, investigators and former poachers who became informers, to find that this network is leaner and more mobile. More than a dozen arrests over the past seven weeks in ongoing probes by forest officials of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, and the Centre’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) have partly uncovered one of multiple “verticals” of this module operating mainly through the Myanmar border. Read the full report here.

India Today on Muslim quota bill passed in Karnataka

The Karnataka Assembly on Friday passed a contentious bill that proposes providing reservation to the Muslim community in contracts awarded by the state government. India Today reports that the Siddaramaiah government’s bill proposes a 4 per cent quota for people from the Muslim community in public contracts. The opposition BJP called the proposal “unconstitutional” and vowed to challenge it legally. The bill was passed amid chaos in the Assembly over the honey trap scandal, the report adds. Read the full report here.

The Straits Times: London’s Heathrow Airport closed after nearby fire cuts power

Britain’s Heathrow Airport said it will be closed until midnight after a huge fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out power, The Straits Times reports, disrupting flight schedules around the world. The London Fire Brigade said around 70 firefighters were tackling the blaze in the west of London, which caused a mass power outage at Heathrow, Europe’s busiest and the world’s fifth busiest airport. The report says huge orange flames and plumes of smoke could be seen shooting into the sky. Around 150 people were evacuated from nearby buildings and thousands of properties were without power. Read the full report here.

Cash Found In Delhi High Court Judge's Home, NDTV reports

The Supreme Court Collegium has decided that Justice Yashwant Verma will be transferred from the Delhi High Court back to Allahabad, NDTV reports. The report said the decision was made after a large amount of unaccounted cash was found in his official bungalow in Delhi last week, during Holi vacations. The money was discovered after a fire broke out in the building and family members of the judge - who was not in the city at the time - called emergency services, who then called the police. Read the full report here.

Sudan army recaptures presidential palace after two years of war, BBC

BBC reports that the Sudanese army has recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum from the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Video and photographs posted on social media and verified by the BBC show jubilant soldiers waving their guns, cheering and kneeling to pray. The army appears poised to regain control of the capital two years after it was kicked out by its paramilitary rivals, known as the RSF, the report adds. Khartoum is where the country's brutal civil war began nearly two years ago, and where some of its biggest battles were fought. Read the full report here.