Your Daily Wrap: Centre slashes excise duty on fuel, arrested DU professor gets bail; and more

◾ Delhi University associate professor Ratan Lal, who was arrested over an allegedly objectionable social media post about the claims of a shivling being discovered inside the Gyanvapi mosque, was granted bail on Saturday evening. Lal’s lawyers told the court that he was “an authority on Ambedkar” and a person of his “stature and intellect” had “not created any enmity” or “called for violence.”

◾ Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s sudden trip to the national capital had sparked talk of an imminent Cabinet reshuffle. However, he has said that he held discussions with the BJP top brass on local body, Legislative Council and Rajya Sabha elections. “The issue of Cabinet expansion did not come up for discussion with the party top brass as the deliberations had to be focussed on elections to BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) and local bodies in the backdrop of Supreme Court order in this regard,” Bommai said.

◾ Three more bodies were recovered from the debris of an under-construction tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway that collapsed recently, raising the death toll to four. The operation to rescue nine labourers resumed early on Saturday after a fresh landslide on Friday evening had forced the authorities to suspend the process.

◾ Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had conceded defeat in a national election on Saturday, saying that while vote counting was incomplete the opposition Labor party looked likely to form a government. Morrison added that he would stand down as leader of the Liberal party.

◾ In our third story in the five-part series on the history and culture of Delhi’s urban villages, we take you through the lanes of Chirag Dilli — a densely-populated, vibrant urban village in South Delhi, where you will discover nuggets of history.

Political Pulse

◾ Shivpal Yadav wasn’t the only old familiar face from the Samajwadi Party around to welcome Azam Khan’s release from jail after two years, on Friday. One of the first halts of the senior SP MLA on way home was the house of a former legislator of the party in Sitapur. While there were a few raised eyebrows given the tension in ties between Azam and the SP leadership, particularly chief Akhilesh Yadav, old-timers said this gesture by the veteran – who has the state watching his every move – was purely personal.

◾ After his remark, that the Congress alone can fight the BJP as regional parties neither have an ideology nor a centralised approach, upset many parties in the opposition, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has now opted for a more nuanced position. He said his remarks in Udaipur were misconstrued and that he does not consider the Congress as “the big daddy.”  Gandhi also said that the Congress was not winning elections because of polarisation and the dominance of the media by the BJP.

Express Explained

◾ The Delhi High Court Thursday halted a proposed scheme for doorstep delivery of ration in the national capital. From the moment the proposal was given a go-ahead by the Arvind Kejriwal government in 2018, it faced stiff opposition from the Lieutenant Governor as well as the central government on technical grounds. What is the scheme, and what hurdles has it faced? What was the legal battle, and what has Delhi High Court ruled now? We explain.

◾ United States President Joe Biden, who embarked Friday on an East Asia trip that will see him touch down first in Seoul and in Tokyo on Sunday ahead of the May 24 Quad summit, is expected to launch his Administration’s much discussed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) in the Japanese capital. What is IPEF, what’s in it, and where does India stand? Read here.