Top Kerala new developments today.

Swapna Suresh's statement stirs controversy

 The arguably damning revelations by Ms. Suresh threaten to resurrect the politically moribund UAE consulate linked gold smuggling case.

Ms. Suresh, a prime accused in the politically stormy episode, has threatened to write a "tell-all", albeit from her perspective as the prime accused in the smuggling case.

 Ms. Suresh seemed provoked by some controversial observations about her in a book by senior bureaucrat M. Sivasankar. In the autobiographical work, Mr. Sivasankar had dwelled in some detail about his trials and tribulations as an accused in the sensational case.

 Mr. Sivasankar was an principal secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and was widely perceived as the face of the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) when the Customs implicated him in the gold smuggling case.

 His long association with Ms. Suresh had brought the controversy to the doorstep of Mr. Vijayan and prompted the Congress and Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) to launch a recriminatory campaign against the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.

 The flurry triggered by Ms. Suresh lengthy television interviews is likely to dominate the political discourse in Kerala in the coming days.

Seasonal migration begins

 With the onset of summer, the seasonal migration of wild animals has begun from the contiguous wildlife sanctuaries in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala.

 Media One plea against broadcast ban in High Court

 The Kerala High Court will hear a plea challenging the Center's contentious decision to revoke the broadcasting license of Media One news channel. The High Court's suspension of the broadcasting ban ends on Tuesday. The Madhyamam Broadcasting Corporation, which owns the Malayalam news channel, had earlier challenged the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's decision and gained an interim stay from the court.

 Media One has claimed that the Center had not specified the reason for denying the channel security clearance for using the airwaves. The Center had also drawn flak from opposition parties for invalidating the channel's broadcast license. The Congress and CPI(M) had alleged that the move was the Center's latest attempt to gag the independent media.

 Cabinet meeting

 Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will chair a cabinet meeting remotely from the UAE. The conclave will review pandemic regulations and possibly draw up a schedule for the budget session.

 Movie exhibitors plea.

 Kerala High Court will hear a plea from film exhibitors seeking the opening of cinema halls with 50 per cent of the seating capacity in COVID-19 high spread [C-category (Threshold-3)] districts. The pandemic had driven movies to online OTT platforms, financially disadvantaging theater owners and depriving the audience of watching new releases on the big screen.

 Lok Ayutka ordinance

 Kerala Governor Arif Muhammad Khan is likely to consider the government's justification of the contentious proposal to promulgate an ordinance to purportedly relegate the Kerala Lok Ayukta to a minor advisory role in cases relating to charges of corruption and maladministration against public officials.

 The Congress and BJP had opposed the move. The opposition has also sought to exploit perceived rumblings of dissent in the LDF, notably from the CPI, against the "rush" to issue an executive order to amend the Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, 1999, in the run-up to the upcoming budget session.

The UDF has alleged an under-hand bid to shield Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and Higher Education Minister R. Bindu from possible prosecution in separate corruption and nepotism cases pending in front of the Lok Ayukta explained the undue haste to promulgate the executive order diluting the powers of the ombudsman. The issue is also shaping up to be the next battleground between the LDF and UDF ahead of the forthcoming budget session of the Assembly.

 Mammooty's intervention for tribal youth

 He has intervened to provide legal aid to the next of kin of Madhu, a tribal youth who was allegedly lynched for taking provisions without permission from a wayside store in Attapady in Palakkad in 2018, to satiate his hunger. The family had complained of shoddy prosecution in the case. The murder suspects include locally influential political activists.