Daily Briefing: Kejriwal walks out of Tihar; Port Blair renamed; ‘The Buckingham Murders’ review

Let’s move on to a quick round-up of stories as the week draws to a close:

🚨Big Story: 

“My courage has grown stronger 100 times after coming out of jail.”

Ending his nearly six-month stint in custody, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal walked out of Tihar Jail on Friday evening. He was released hours after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) case linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy “scam”. In his first remarks outside, Kejriwal thanked God and the people for throwing their weight behind him, and said that anti-national forces were trying to weaken the country.

Unpacking bail order: The Supreme Court Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan delivered separate, concurring judgments granting Kejriwal bail in the CBI case. The judges, however, delivered differing opinions on whether the CBI arrest was necessary in the first place. The Express’ Ajoy Sinha Karpuram provides a breakdown of the bail order including points where the judges agreed and disagreed.

⚡Big picture

Car vs Cow vigilantes: On the fateful night of August 24, 19-year-old Aryan Mishra and his friend’s family set out for a drive from their home in NIT Faridabad, a neighbourhood in Delhi’s satellite town. The group were headed out to a mall just five kilometers away. But by 3.10 am, Aryan was dead — shot by a group of cow vigilantes who, police said, had allegedly mistaken the occupants of the SUV for cattle smugglers. Five have been arrested in the case so far. Aiswarya Raj maps the 30-km high-speed chase as the vehicles sped past malls and showrooms, a police station and tore through a toll plaza.

✍🏼 Express Opinion

‘Different point of view’: Rahul Gandhi, in his first visit to the United States as the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, said his point of view is different from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s. Stating that he simply disagrees with the latter’s viewpoint, the senior Congress leader asserted that the party’s message is to spread love, not hatred. 

While Gandhi’s remarks during the trip generated a wave of reactions in India, we bring you two viewpoints: One from BJP’s national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia on how the LoP was “divisive as usual”. The other by Sanjay Jha, a former Congress spokesperson, who opines that “it’s not about where he (Rahul) is saying, but it’s what he’s saying”.

🌌 Express Explained

Renamed: Port Blair will now be called Sri Vijaya Puram. 

The city, also Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ capital, was named after Archibald Blair, a naval surveyor and lieutenant in the Bombay Marine in the 1770s. What’s the link to the new name then? Some historical records suggest that the Islands were used as a strategic naval base by the 11th century Chola emperor, Rajendra I to carry out an attack on Srivijaya, a Buddhist empire located in modern day Sumatra, Indonesia. l.

🍿 Movie Review

From this week’s releases, film critic Shubra Gupta reviews ‘The Buckingham Murders’, a plot based on a small town murder mystery which is witnessing something of a revival in Bollywood recently. Even though it is no ‘Mare of Easttown’, Gupta tells us why Kareena Kapoor Khan as the lead raises the bar and “is clearly reveling in her Kate Winslet era”.

Until next time

Vibha B Madhava

Business As Usual by E P Unny (September 14)