Good morning, As this week draws to a close, here is a list of stories that might pique your interest before you tune out for the weekend. In today’s edition: Elections in J&k; questions in cosmic history; Stree 2 movie review; Jasprit Bumrah at Express Adda; and more 🗳️ Big Story Ten years since the last Assembly elections and the first for the Union Territory that was created in 2019, Jammu and Kashmir is headed for a three-phased election in September and October, as the Election Commission announced on Friday. The EC also announced the schedule for the Haryana Assembly elections. When are the polls? Elections will be held in J&K on September 18, September 25 and October 1, and votes will be counted on October 4. In Haryana, polling will be held on October 1 and counting on October 4. Why this is significant: This is the first time J&K will witness elections following the abolition of Article 370 in 2019, its reorganisation as a Union Territory, and bifurcation. We take a look at how J&K’s political landscape has changed over the last decade. Rumblings in J&K: Hours before the EC announcement, the Union Territory ordered a major reshuffle in police and civil administration, with DGP R R Swain removed as J&K’s intelligence chief and replaced by ADGP Nitish Kumar. The move was heavily criticised by the National Conference, which alleged that it was “intended to undermine the integrity of the electoral process”. We report. ⚡Only in Express “Back in Dhaka, the path ahead appears tricky.” Bangladesh is a country in the throes of a transition — student-led protests, a clampdown followed by over 500 deaths, and a prime minister deposed. In our Big Picture today, Diplomatic Editor Shubhajit Roy reports on the new set of stakeholders, the challenges of the regime change and the road ahead, the most fraught since the 1971 Liberation War. 🏏 Express Adda At a recent Express Adda held in Ahmedabad, cricketer and bowling extraordinaire Jasprit Bumrah spoke on what aggression means to him, why bowlers make better captains, and how he deals with fickleness of fans and fame. Catch the yorker king in conversation with the Indian Express here. ✍🏼 Express Opinion “The policy prescriptions from almost a century ago are relevant even today. It behoves us to reflect about the slow progress towards equity. The common thread between then and now is the opposition rooted in an archaic mindset.” In our Opinion section today, Angellica Aribam and Akash Satyawali write on women’s activism and freedom, and why almost eight decades since independence, the needle of progress has not moved much. 🌌 Express Explained Images from the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful telescope in space, have dazzled everyone, but they have left astronomers rather nonplussed. The jigsaw puzzle of the history of the Universe is getting more difficult to solve, as the early phases of the Universe appear to be full of adult-sized galaxies. And if that is not enough of a puzzle, the rate at which the Universe is expanding, as measured by the telescope, appears to be at odds with other pieces of data. Could a more comprehensive rethink of cosmic history be in order now? Astrophysicist Biman Nath explains. 🍿 Movie Review In her latest piece, Shubhra Gupta pens her thoughts on one of the most awaited films of the year, the Shraddha Kapoor-Rajkummar Rao starrer ‘Stree 2’: “The memo seem to be to not go deep at any point: keep it silly, stupid… And despite all the frantic criss-crossing, I could feel the pace of the movie, never the best thing for a movie of this kind which wants you to suspend all disbelief for its duration.” That’s all for today. Until next time, Ayesha Jain
