Above the Fold: Top stories of the day
1. The Maharashtra government has triggered a fresh controversy by announcing that madrassas which do not teach mathematics, science and social studies will not be recognised as formal schools, potentially labeling up to one lakh students as "out of school children".
2. The government has used its "right to reply" at the United Nations Human Rights Council, responding to Pakistan questioning India over Kashmir, and saying in turn that Islamabad needs to be concerned about its own "occupation and discriminatory policies".
3. Actor and Member of Parliament Hema Malini has been injured in a road accident that also killed a two-and-a-half-year-old child.

The Big Story: Flight of Fancy
Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju has officially apologised for recent incidents in which Air India flights were delayed just to accommodate ministers, after the Prime Minister's Office asked the ministry for a report on the matter. North East Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju also made a statement saying that if he had been aware that three people had been offloaded from an Air India flight to accommodate him, he would have stopped it from happening. But Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is not toeing the line.

Though the aviation minister has already apologised, Fadnavis tweeted "enough is enough". He was accused of delaying a flight to the US by insisting that it wait for a principal secretary, who needed to rush back because he had brought the wrong passport issues. Not only did the flight take off nearly an hour late, Fadnavis promised to sue those who made the allegations against him for "criminal defamation."

The alacrity with which the Prime Minister's Office responded to the reports and the ensuing apology from the aviation minister suggests the government is concerned about acquiring a "VIP" image, such as the one that hurt the previous administration and was used by the Aam Aadmi Party to agitate against the entire political establishment. Many TV channels have attempted to turn the backlash against such feelings of entitlement into actionable campaigns. But it is also clear that not every player in the political circuit is on board with simply accepting the allegations thrown their way.

The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
This isn't the first time we've seen Fadnavis' ego. Jerry Seinfeld's comedy show in Mumbai earlier this year was cancelled allegedly because of an ego clash between Fadnavis and the Mumbai police chief.

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Politicking & Policying
1. The Congress leadership is scrambling to prevent major leaders in the Assam unit from splitting and forming a new outfit, because of unhappiness with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and state Congress chief Anjan Dutta.
2. In its biggest attachment of properties abroad, the Enforcement Directorate has attached land worth about Rs 1,000 crore in the United States, in connection with a case of allegedly money laundering by a real-estate developer.
3. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar continued his outreach to the public in the run-up to elections in the state later this year, by launching the Har Ghar Dastak (Knock on Every Door) campaign to get feedback directly from the people.
4. Five international non governmental organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on raising £20 million to help secure 100 elephant corridors across India over the next decade.
5. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy has lodged a plea in the Supreme Court questioning the validity of hate speech provisions in India's penal code, which he has been booked under.

Punditry
1. What does it say about the Modi government that Indian Premier League founder Lalit Modi sounds more credible than any of its spokespersons, asks Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express.
2. Swapan Dasgupta in the Telegraph questions the acquiescence of the public in tolerating the Emergency, saying had it not been for a few missteps by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her aides, the Indian voter might well have legitimised authoritarian governance.
3.  The government has its task cut out in building up a formal certification programme along with the regulation of yoga instruction if International Yoga Day is to enable India's yoga decade or century, writes Abheek Barua in the Business Standard.
4. A leader in the Hindu applauds the Supreme Court for effectively reprimanding the Madras High Court's decision to push for mediation in a rape case, but asks why the apex court has to so frequently intervene.
5. Also in the Hindu, Nissim Mannathukaren writes about the ugly stereotypes and racism of Kapil Sharma's comedy.

Don't Miss
Sandhya Ravishankar narrates the story of Sun TV, a network that has ruled the television space in Tamil Nadu for decades but is now on the brink of closure.
The empire’s problems began in 2007, when a Sun group-owned Tamil daily, Dinakaran, published an opinion poll showing Karunanidhi’s younger son MK Stalin as the preferred choice to succeed him. Dinakaran’s Madurai office was torched and three employees died in the blaze. A furious Karunanidhi, who was then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, announced the launch of a government-owned cable distribution network called Arasu Cable and set up a television mouthpiece for the DMK, christening it Kalaignar TV. A subsequent patch-up between the Marans and Karunanidhi’s family didn’t entirely mend the relations. Tensions remained.