Your Daily Wrap: Modi’s visit to Gujarat, row over slogans at PFI rally down South, Omicron variants in Maha; and more

◾ Modi, along with other BJP leaders, also paid tribute today to V D Savarkar on his birth anniversary, hailing him as “the hardworking son of Mother Bharti.” Among those who joined the party was the Shiv Sena and former Congress leader from Gujarat Hardik Patel.

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◾ Meanwhile, in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party government today nominated two Padma Shris — Sant Balbir Singh Seenchewal and Vikramjit Singh Sahni — as its candidates for Rajya Sabha seats in the state.

◾ Down south, the controversial slogans raised by a minor boy during a massive rally by the People’s Front of India (PFI) in Alappuzha last week has brought into the spotlight a campaign it has been running for the past six months called ‘Save the Republic’. Meant to ensure “Muslims the rights envisaged in the Constitution”, among other topics, the campaign has now evolved into a full-blown offensive against the RSS. After the police booked two PFI leaders in connection with the Alappuzha rally, the PFI held protests across many locations in Kerala. On Saturday, the police arrested the father of the boy who raised the contested slogans from their residence in Kochi.

◾ And in Mangalore, the principal of a university sent back the girls who attended the college wearing a hijab. A group of girls wearing hijabs turned up at the Mangalore University campus Saturday, a day after the varsity’s advisory.

◾ In Covid news: Four cases of B.A. 4 variant and three of B.A. 5 variant of the Omicron sub-lineage of coronavirus have been found in Maharashtra. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar urged people to take precautionary measures following the rise in infections and said if cases continue to increase rapidly, “the state government will have to reconsider imposing some restrictions.”

◾ In world news today: Russia successfully test-fired a hypersonic Zircon cruise missile over a distance of about 1,000 km, the defence ministry said on Saturday. President Vladimir Putin has described the Zircon as part of a new generation of unrivalled arms systems.

◾ Off to Cannes: Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s documentary All That Breathes, which previously won grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, has now won the top documentary award, the Golden Eye, at the ongoing 75th Cannes Film Festival. The 90-minute documentary follows siblings Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who have devoted their lives to rescuing and treating injured birds, especially the Black Kites.

Political Pulse

◾ Barely nine months before the Tripura Assembly elections, the battle lines have been drawn for its semi-final with the Election Commission declaring that the bypolls in Agartala, Town Bardowali, Surma and Jubarajnagar Assembly constituencies will be held on June 23. Debraj Deb reports on why these by-elections are going to be crucial for the ruling BJP, especially its newly-appointed chief minister Manik Saha, as well as the Opposition parties including the CPI(M), Congress and Trinamool Congress.

◾ Taking the cue from a statement that Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan made last year during a confrontation with the southern state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the West Bengal Cabinet has decided to introduce a Bill to appoint CM Mamata Banerjee as the Chancellor of all state-run universities. This has raised fears about the autonomy of state-run universities being compromised and sets the stage for another confrontation between the Trinamool Congress-led administration and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who has repeatedly clashed with the government since he assumed charge in 2019.

Express Explained

◾ IAS couple Sanjeev Khirwar and Rinku Dugga transferred from their posts in Delhi to two different places this week, hours after The Indian Express published a picture of the couple along with their dog walking on the tracks of Thyagraj Stadium at a time when young athletes should have been practising on it. Days previously, The Indian Express had reported that Rajiv Bansal, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, had bought Economy Class tickets on Air India to fly to the United States with his wife on a personal visit at a rate that was far cheaper than what was paid by other passengers who had booked their seats on those same dates. Amid reports of misuse of powers by bureaucrats, we explain what rules govern the behaviour of high officials of the government.

◾ As the Narcotics Control Bureau case against Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan collapsed, leaders of Maharashtra’s ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi rallied behind former NCP Minister Nawab Malik, who had in October last year waged a literally one-man battle against Sameer Wankhede, the chief investigator in the case. Among the allegations that Malik made against Wankhede was that the officer had illegally benefited from the government’s affirmative action policy for Dalits. Why did Malik make these claims? What rules apply to job reservations for different religions, converts? Read here.

Weekend Reads

ICYMI: Here’s a list of best news reports, Opinion, Explained, and features from The Indian Express this week.