Daily Briefing: UP govt’s bulldozers bring down Prayagraj activist’s house; CEC proposes banning opinion, exit polls

🔴 Police claimed recovery of country-made pistols, several cartridges and objectionable posters during a search operation at Javed’s residence. 

🔴 Javed’s younger daughter Sumaiyya Fatima, 19, however, said all this was “fabricated and made up” and it was done to “frame us”. 

🔴 Javed’s family counsel said the house was in the name of Javed’s wife. As per Muslim law, he said, the wife’s property does not belong to the husband. 

Meanwhile, cases challenging the bulldozing of houses, under the pretext of alleged violations of the state’s municipal and urban planning laws, are in limbo. In many cases, notices are issued but the demolition is timed with a protest and a particular section is targeted giving the subject no time to appeal. Former Allahabad High Court Chief Justice Govind Mathur told The Indian Express: “This is totally illegal. Even if you assume for a moment that the construction was illegal… it is impermissible that you demolish a house on a Sunday when the residents are in custody…”

Bangladesh’s Information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud refused to be drawn into the controversy around the derogatory references to the Prophet, saying this is India’s internal matter and the government in Dhaka need not respond to it.

⚡ Only in the Express

The newly appointed Chief Election Commission has renewed the commission’s proposals for banning opinion polls and exit polls as well as limiting the seats from which a candidate can contest to just one, The Indian Express has learnt.

📰 From the Front Page

A senior Sri Lanka official claimed before a Lankan parliamentary panel that Prime Minister Narendra Modi allegedly pressured President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to award a power project to the Adani Group, but retracted the statement a day later as the controversy spiralled. Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa “vehemently” denied the allegation.

Amid mounting uncertainties over the civil nuclear partnership with Russia in the wake of the Ukraine war, there are indications of fresh progress on the much-delayed deal with French power utility EDF for the supply of six EPR (European Pressurised Water Reactors) nuclear reactors. If the deal takes off, it would be the largest nuclear power generating site in the country with a total capacity of 9,900 MWe and one of the biggest-ever export deals for the French side.

👩‍💻 Must Read

At stumps on Day 1, the scorecard looked healthy. The TV rights bid had reached Rs 57 crore per game and digital rights Rs 48 crore per game at the e-auction. Taken together, the IPL 2023-2027 cycle’s per-game media rights value stood at Rs 105 crore — and Rs 43,050 crore for the five-year period, an increase of Rs 10,160 crore from the BCCI’s base price of Rs 32,890 crore.

With Ahmedabad’s own rath yatra around the corner, and tensions simmering in the wake of protests over remarks against the Prophet made by BJP’s Nupur Sharma, the city’s police are moving to secure the procession’s route using a popular “glue”: cricket.

⌛ And Finally…

🤐 Ahead of the Presidential polls, activities in the Opposition camp to field a joint consensus candidate are gaining pace. On Sunday, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh flew down to Mumbai to meet NCP supremo Sharad Pawar. Sources said while the AAP was open to the possibility of supporting Pawar as the joint candidate, it was not averse to further deliberations on the issue.

🎧 Indian Express’s Sukrita Baruah spent 5 weeks in a fifth-grade maths classroom in Delhi to observe one teacher as she tried to bridge the learning gap that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is what we learned.

Until tomorrow,

Leela Prasad

Express Cartoon by EP Unny.