A screenshot of the Indian Express page of May 23, 1978.
UP Janata vote
The crucial meeting of the Janata legislature party at which the Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav will seek a vote of confidence will be held in Lucknow on June 4. George Fernandes will be the central observer. Both the ministerialists and dissidents have planned separate meetings in various districts to contact the party legislators and win them over. CM Yadav, talking to newsmen, accused capitalists of conspiring to remove him as his government had “refused to act as their puppet”.
Heat wave toll
The death toll in the current heatwave sweeping Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh rose to 84. With 46 deaths, Bihar has the highest toll, followed by AP with 20 and Uttar Pradesh 18. In Dhanbad, Bihar, the temperature shot up to 47 degrees centigrade.
Bhutto trial
Yahya Bakhtiar, counsel for former prime minister Z A Bhutto, submitted before the Pakistan Supreme Court that there should be a retrial of the case in which the Lahore High Court sentenced Bhutto and four others to death.
Left out in Egypt
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s measures to exclude left and right-wing opponents from politics won sweeping 98.29 per cent approval in a national referendum. The measures that would bar communists from executive posts in the government, press and trade unions. Other provisions will bar politicians who held high office under the monarchy 25 years ago from political life, and would curb anyone accused of propagating false and malicious rumours affecting the national interest or spreading the spirit of defeatism. The measures are aimed at Marxists in the left-wing and right-wing politicians and Egyptian journalists and writers who have been writing anti-Sadat articles in foreign papers.