Daily Briefing: Trump convicted of felony crimes; PM Modi, Oppn lock horns as election campaigning ends; and more

🗳️ Decision 2024

Hours before the curtains came down on campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a frontal assault on the Opposition INDIA bloc and the ruling AAP in Punjab one final time this election. Here’s what the PM had to say. 

Meanwhile, expressing confidence that the INDIA bloc will form the government with absolute majority after June 4, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the BJP campaign all about himself while hurling abuses at the Congress and the INDIA bloc. 

On the last day of campaigning, even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had a word for the people of the country, accusing PM Narendra Modi of having delivered the “most vicious” form of “purely divisive” “hate speeches” during his electioneering, lowering the dignity of public discourse and gravity of his office.

In today’s Opinion section, Subrata Mitra writes about questions facing the nation after the Lok Sabha polls results on June 4. “Sense of uncertainty about the ultimate built into Indic religions, flexibility of asymmetric federalism offer necessary space to accommodate regional diversity and build an inclusive nation,” he writes.

⚡ Only in Express

In 2020, a few months after the initial lockdown, Anasuya Sengupta, who had been toying with the idea of doing less film work and more art and of moving to Goa, where there is a thriving artist community and where she felt welcome, finally took the plunge. In a chat with The Indian Express, Sengupta, fresh from Cannes where she won the award for the Best Actress in the Un Certain Regards category at the Cannes Film Festival, speaks about a host of topics.

📰 From the Front Page

The blood sample of the minor, who was allegedly driving the Porsche that crashed into and killed two people in Pune on May 19, was replaced at Sassoon General Hospital with a sample given by his mother, sources in the Maharashtra government said, citing an inquiry report. We take a deep dive into how this played out.

The war of words between the BJP and Naveen Patnaik continued as the former turned up the heat on the Odisha CM over the growing influence of his aide and former bureaucrat V K Pandian. Patnaik, however, rubbished it, saying that Pandian is not his “successor”, and speculation suggesting this is “an exaggeration”.

👉 Must Read

Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, who is facing sexual assault charges, was arrested by the Karnataka Police after he arrived at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport in the early hours of Friday. He was taken into custody by the Karnataka Police Special Investigation Team (SIT). The SIT had received information from Interpol that Prajwal boarded a Lufthansa flight from Munich, said official sources.

For former IAS officer Ali Asgar Pasha, who retired as secretary of the Kerala government’s Food and Civil Supplies department in 2023, the day begins at around 7 am at the busy wholesale vegetable market in Kochi’s Nettoor area. All of this is for his restaurant ‘Mee Mee’ which serves authentic Kerala-style lunch seven days a week. Unlike IAS and IPS officers, Pasha, a 2004-batch officer, has decided to pursue his culinary passion.

Scores of flights around the world experience varying degrees of turbulence on a daily basis, but it is rare for turbulence to result in serious injuries and evern rare for it to result in fatalities. That said, studies show that the incidence of severe turbulence has increased with the explosive growth in air traffic, and due to the impact of global warming. We explain.

🔴 And Finally…

After dealing with a “deep sadness” that was eating him from inside, the Australian left-arm spinner who made 98 on Test debut at No.11, has turned the corner, helped by his ‘wonderful release’ — cricket. Here’s the story of Ashton Agar.

Delhi Confidential: On a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his Lok Sabha election campaign, BJP national media in-charge Anil Baluni posted on X, “I consider myself lucky that I took part as a party worker in the 2014, 2019 and 2024 election campaigns under the leadership of respected Shri Narendra Modi ji.” Don’t miss today’s column for more!

In the latest episode of our ‘3 things’ podcast, we discuss the murder of Bangladesh MP Anwarul Azim Anar, Cyclone Remal and the destruction that it has caused, and the deadly Israeli air strike on an area that was designated for displaced Palestinians. Tune in!

Until tomorrow,

Rounak Bagchi and Ayesha Jain