E-commerce companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong and Junglee.com are among eight online retail companies that are being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by flouting foreign direct investment (FDI) rules, reports the Hindustan Times. In India, FDI is only permitted to e-commerce firms that sell products they manufacture themselves. The eight firms being investigated by the ED sell multiple brands in an online marketplace. The ED is investigating charges that some of these sites have purchased goods from local manufacturers outright and are selling them at deep discounts.

Abdul Rauf, aka Daud Merchant, known to be an associate of gangster Dawood Ibrahim who is wanted in the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts case, will be sent back to India from Bangladesh where he is currently serving a prison sentence for illegal entry, reports the Hindustan Times. Merchant was convicted of the murder of Indian music baron Gulshan Kumar. Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said his government would send back all foreign criminals to their respective countries, Merchant among them. Merchant was convicted by a court in Mumbai in 2002 for the 1997 murder of Gulshan Kumar.

Mumbai is on high alert after six men using paragliders 1.5 to 2 nautical miles away from the Juhu coast were spotted by a Pawan Hans helicopter pilot on 13 January, reports the Hindustan Times. In 2010, the Intelligence Bureau had alerted state police agencies across the country after it learned that the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had purchased 50 paragliders from Europe for an aerial attack. The six paragliding men seen by Captain RS Nandal at 9.10 am on 13 January, were flying 1,000 to 1,600 feet above ground level. Police launched a hunt for the men, but came up with nothing.

Tension rose again in communally-sensitive Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh after a video of an alleged gangrape of a woman in 2013 was circulated on social media, reports The Indian Express. The woman has filed an FIR naming six accused, two of whom were arrested and jailed on Monday. BJP leader Virendra Singh, who had been jailed in 2013 for calling a mahapanchayat before the Muzaffarnagar riots, is threatening another mahapanchayat if the police do not act in this case. The police are investigating the case.

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court allowing the construction of hydel projects on the upper Ganga in spite of objections from water resources minister Uma Bharti, reports The Indian Express. Bharti had emailed Javadekar on 5 January, saying that she was "unable to understand how the policy decision of the government as stated in the draft affidavit was arrived (at)" because an inter-ministerial committee, under Secretary, Water Resources, was still to file its report. However, the environment ministry went ahead and filed its affidavit on 7 January, without responding to Bharti's email.

Dynasty politics seemed indicated on Sunday when Mehbooba Mufti, chief of the PDP and daughter of chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed who died recently, introduced her cinematographer brother Tassaduq Hussain Mufti, best known for the film Omkara, to the party's core group, reports The Indian Express. Sources told the newspaper that Mehbooba told the core group that her brother wanted "to do something for Kashmir, especially on environmental issues". The PDP is now wondering if, when Mehbooba, who is currently an MP from Anantnag, vacates her Lok Sabha seat to become J&K's chief minister, Tassaduq will replace her as PDP's candidate for the constituency.

The Delhi government's odd-even road-rationing scheme which ended its trial period on 15 January will return in May and June during school holidays, reports the Hindustan Times. Delhi transport minister Gopal Rai said the second phase of the odd-even scheme will see the removal of the exemption for women, though two-wheelers will be able to ply freely despite the date till public transport systems are improved. The government, after reviewing the findings of the trial period of the road-rationing scheme, said it had received "positive feedback" from the public.

Union minister of labour and employment Bandaru Dattatreya, University of Hyderabad vice chancellor Appa Rao and two Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad leaders, Sushil Kumar and Vishnu were charged by the Hyderabad police on Monday with abetting the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad, reports the Hindustan Times. The complaint was filed by a student. The labour minister was also booked under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act following allegations that he was behind the suspension of Rohith and four other Dalit students from the university hostel after they protested the hanging of 1993 Bombay bomb blasts case convict Yakub Memon.

Rohith Vemula, the Dalit student from Hyderabad Central University who committed suicide on 17 January, has reportedly been secretly cremated by the police.

The police has earlier informed the student community that Vemula's body would be laid to rest at a certain crematorium but had later taken the body to another crematorium at Amberpet without prior notice.

The suicide has sparked a massive student protest. Poet Ashok Vajpeyi has reportedly returned the D.Lit given to him by Hyderabad University in protest of the suicide.