Daily briefing: Row over inauguration of new Parliament House; how UPSC has made history; latest on PM Modi’s Australia visit and more

Meet Ishita Kishore, whose goal to serve people, despite two failed attempts, helped her top the exams this year!

⚡ Only in the Express

On May 11, a batch of 198 Indian fishermen who had been languishing in a jail in Pakistan were handed over to Indian authorities at Wagah. However, many continue to be in jails in the neighbouring country despite completing their prison terms. Here’s what data obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act says.

📰 From the Front Page

🔴 While addressing delegates at the ongoing G20 tourism working group meeting in Srinagar, Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha said Jammu and Kashmir suffered Pakistan-sponsored terrorism for almost three decades but the terror ecosystem has now been isolated because of the Centre’s development schemes.

🔴 PM Narendra Modi, who is on a three-day visit to Australia, addressed the Indian diaspora in Sydney, where he underlined “mutual trust and respect” as the defining characteristic of India’s “deepening” ties with Australia. Catch the latest updates on the PM’s visit here.

👩🏽‍💻 Must Read

👉🏽 A week after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes, people across the country resorted to various avenues, such as e-commerce deals, fuel stations, gold purchases to use the notes. Though there were no chaotic scenes at banks across India, confusion marked day one of the exchange of notes, with customers complaining of different rules at banks.

👉🏽 In his weekly column, C Raja Mohan writes on how the political outcomes from the G7 raises questions about the Indian thinking on a multipolar word. “But the myth of multipolarity endures in Indian foreign policy discourse even as a bipolar world takes shape,” he writes.

👉🏽 In our explained section today, we take a look at how India’s population numbers would have been far more accurate had the 2021 Census exercise, which was pushed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, been carried out and what the consequences of this delay are.

👉🏽 From hitting five sixes in five balls to being Kolkata Knight Riders’ spine in the middle overs, Rinku Singh has had a great run in this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) season. In an interview with the Indian Express, Singh speaks about his early days in cricket, how Dhoni was impressed with his simplicity of thinking and how a surprise call from Rajnikanth made his day.

⏱️And Finally

This time around, the Global Chess League hopes to awaken the ‘sleeping giant’ sport by allowing fans to don virtual avatars of players like Viswanathan Anand and play games in the Metaverse. That’s not all! Fantasy gaming and live-streams on OTT are also on the cards.

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States in June, Principal Secretary to the PM, PK Mishra, is in Washington. Mishra has held meetings with senior US administration officials, and had an interaction with representatives from industry, think-thanks over lunch at India House. Read in today’s Delhi confidential!

🎧 In today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, we speak about how the latest tensions in Manipur halted peace talks between the Centre and Kuki insurgent groups. We also hear from Mahasweta Ghosh — the first Indian woman to complete the Marathon Des Sables (MDS).

Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta and Varsha Sriram