Daily Briefing | From Olympic dreams to officers’ clubs: How Sports Ministry’s special fund was spent

With that, let’s move on to the top stories from today’s edition:

• Express Investigation into special sports fund
• It’s Cannes time
• NEET prone to more leaks than JEE

🚨 Big Story

An investigation by The Indian Express found that the money used to build, or refurbish, the world-class facilities meant for some of the country’s top bureaucrats came from the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF). The NSDF entails funds created to train athletes and build sporting infrastructure, and allotted by a committee of bureaucrats. An analysis of five years of official records and data obtained under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, and interviews with current and former Government officials reveal that while a chunk of these funds was indeed allotted for sports facilities, a slice of the pie was also channelled into civil services institutions and the Delhi colony for bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, contributions to NSDF have more than halved in the past three years — from Rs 85.26 crore in 2023-24 to Rs 37.02 crore in 2025-26, according to records obtained under the RTI Act. This decline prompted a Parliamentary panel to raise the red flag in August 2025, linking it to waning corporate faith in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and a growing preference among donors for privately run sports organisations. While the private sector has kept its distance from the government-led initiative, even Public Sector Undertakings are now pulling back.

Who governs? The NSDF is governed by a Council headed by the Union Sports Minister — currently Mansukh Mandaviya. The Council has been constituted by top office-bearers from Public Sector Undertakings, which are the biggest donors to the NSDF, industry bodies like FICCI and CII, private-sector representatives and sports ministry officials. Day-to-day operations and grant approvals are handled by a six-member executive committee chaired by the Sports Secretary.

⚡ Only in Express

It’s Cannes time: The annual jamboree where cinema meets glamour, and the world’s biggest and brightest stars walk on the red carpet to be welcomed inside the Grand Theatre Luminaire is back! Behind the scenes of the glitz and glamour, the gowns and jewels, and the legendary after-parties, the serious grind of movie-making and deal-striking goes on till dawn and beyond. And that’s why “the bustling Marche du Cinema or the Market section is a beacon that invites all those involved in the business of cinema to be there, or perish,” my colleague Shubhra Gupta writes. India was represented at the Cannes by opening with Alia Bhatt and newly appointed IFFI director Ashutosh Gowariker. Aishwarya Rai, a Cannes regular, will join the festival later.

📰 From the Front Page

Whistleblower: Hours after the NEET(UG) 2026 examination had wrapped up on May 4, a teacher with a prominent coaching centre in Sikar reached the district’s Udyog Nagar police station with a bunch of papers. He had received the handwritten ‘guess paper’ a day earlier from his landlord in Sikar, asking if it was indeed genuine. The landlord, in turn, had received it from his son in Kerala. Upon cross-checking the paper, the teacher found that the ‘guess paper’ indeed had questions that appeared in the actual NEET examination, deciding to approach the police. Over the next few days, he contemplated the magnitude of what he had just come across and was apprehensive about how to proceed. Here’s what he wrote in his complaint.

Victory: Four years after the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government banned the wearing of headscarves including the hijab in government and government-aided education institutions in Karnataka, the state government on Wednesday withdrew the order, allowing students to wear limited religious or faith-based symbols along with the prescribed uniform. Karnataka School Education and Literacy Minister Madhu Bangarappa said while education is the prime focus, students will be allowed to practise their religious identity and there should be no discrimination.

Not an Indian citizen? Leading Punjabi singer and Bollywood actor Diljit Dosanjh turned down an appeal to enter politics in Punjab. That’s primarily because he is not an Indian citizen. Not for a while now. Dosanjh, whose signature, pride-filled declaration Main Hoon Punjab (I am Punjab) serves as a powerful affirmation of his cultural identity and roots, acquired US citizenship in 2022, The Indian Express has learnt. He has been travelling on a US passport since September 1, 2022.

📌 Must Read

Lakhs of students have been affected by the cancellation of the NEET-UG examination this year. Multiple people have been detained in Maharashtra and Rajasthan amid a widening probe into the paper leak. In contrast, the JEE, the engineering entrance exam, has seen relatively fewer controversies. While JEE is a computer-based exam, NEET offers the exam in pen-and-paper mode. An online test removes several vulnerabilities from the examination process, while the latter doesn’t. Here’s how the conduct of JEE is different from NEET, and why do they not follow the same pattern.

In our Opinion section today, Pratap Bhanu Mehta delves into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s patriotic appeal to Indian citizens to tighten their belts, particularly on fuel and gold consumption. Mehta writes: “One of the secondary effects of this war, and the inflation it creates, will be political and social churn across the world. Just like we were underestimating the vulnerability of our economy, we may also be underestimating the social churn about to follow. The age of cumulative uncertainty will require, not patriotic exhortation, but sophisticated statecraft. Right now, patriotism is a substitute for statecraft.”

⏳ And Finally…

✈️ As the surging international jet fuel prices amid the escalating Iran war put severe stress on Air India’s operations, the Tata Group airline is making substantial cuts to its international flight schedule for the June-August period. Flight frequencies on numerous routes have already been reduced, while a few routes have been suspended altogether. About 250 weekly international flights — outbound and inbound — have been cut so far. The routes that have been temporarily suspended include Delhi-Chicago, Delhi-Newark, Mumbai-New York, Delhi-Shanghai, Chennai-Singapore, Delhi-Male, and Mumbai-Dhaka.

🎧 Lastly, don’t forget to tune in to today’s episode of our 3 Things podcast, where we discuss PM Modi’s latest appeal to cut down fuel consumption amid the Iran war; rising number of cases of maternal deaths in Rajasthan’s Kota; as well as BJP governments’ latest move to disallow those deleted from electoral rolls through SIR from availing state schemes in Bihar and West Bengal.

That’s all for today. Have a wonderful day!

Until next time,
Ariba

Business As Usual by E P Unny