Good morning, PM Modi’s Euro tour, curfew in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur and the power crisis in India – Here are the top reads from today’s edition: The Big Story On the second leg of his Europe trip, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Denmark. He met his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen, who “hoped” that “India will influence Russia” to end the war in Ukraine. “We share many values… And in times as these, we need to build an even stronger bridge between us as close partners,” she said post their talks. PM Modi, who did not mention Russia in his statement, appealed for an immediate ceasefire, calling for diplomacy and dialogue. Only in the Express In an explained.Live session, C Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor, National University of Singapore, talks about the diplomatic challenges India faces after the Russia-Ukraine war and how it will have to redraw existing equations. From the Front Page As the Congress prepares for its three-day “chintan shivir” beginning May 13, a 12-second video shared by the BJP, purportedly from the wedding of Rahul Gandhi’s “friend” in Kathmandu, has the party scrambling for damage control. Many of his party colleagues have long been worried about the image of Rahul as the “reluctant and absentee” leader. The cherry topping, for his critics: his foreign trips are usually cloaked in secrecy. Curfew was imposed in 10 police station areas of Jodhpur in Rajasthan and mobile internet services were suspended as communal tension mounted in the city. Two communities clashed late Monday night over the “hoisting of an Eid flag over the statue of a freedom fighter”, the police said. Tuesday morning, fresh clashes erupted between police and members of the Muslim community, the officials said. Asian Games’ organisers in the Chinese city of Hangzhou have put plans in place for a strict “closed-loop” system, similar to the one that was enforced during the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, officials from two continental sports federations told The Indian Express. While it was reported last month that the Games may be delayed in view of the Covid-19 surge, the Olympic Council of Asia recently informed that there will be no postponement. Must Read Ten matches have been excised from the much-contested numbers of cricket’s first superstar, W G Grace, as they have been deemed not to be of first-class nature. Grace, who played from 1865 to 1908, was a great cricketer surrounded with controversial tales off the field of kidnapping opponents and bullying umpires. “The law has finally caught up with W G Grace after 150 years,” Lawrence Booth, the editor of Wisden Almanack, says in jest about his decision to amend Grace’s statistics this year. The US Supreme Court has decided by an internal majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, the court’s landmark 1973 judgment that made abortion a constitutional right, Politico reported on May 3. We explain the judgement, its significance, and who may have leaked the draft decision. Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes on the catastrophic heatwave gripping much of South Asia: The future is already here. We may well be past the point where limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is virtually impossible. But what makes this moment so fraught is the sense of unreality about climate change. We used to worry about climate deniers and peddlers of fake news. But it turns out our challenge is far worse. Several states across the country have been grappling with widespread power outages. The Indian Railways has cancelled 753 train trips till May 25 to prioritise the delivery of coal for power generation. What is behind the ongoing power crisis in the country? It appears large outstanding dues of power generation companies (gencos) to coal companies may play a role. Sources said Coal India reduces the supply of coal to power houses from states with high dues when there is inadequate production or there are not enough railway rakes to meet demand. And Finally. It took a red motorcycle, 200 CCTC cameras and a Metro card for the Delhi police to link the murder of a businessman inside his Civil Lines residence to the culprit, a 16-year-old boy. The boy was caught when he used the same Metro card that he had a day before allegedly killing 77-year-old Ram Kishore Agrawal. Another suspect, who also claimed to be a minor, was nabbed later in the evening. Delhi Confidential: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will deliver the 37th annual lecture, named after Air Chief Marshal P C Lal (Retd), the Air Force Chief during the 1971 war who also served as chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Indian Airlines, and Air India. The lecture was last held in 2019; Singh will deliver the next one on Thursday. In today’s episode of the '3 Things' podcast, we look at what the RBI’s latest report says about the Indian economy, how people got critically injured on a SpiceJet aircraft, and a new controversy over the sanskrit ‘Charak Oath’. Until tomorrow, Rahel Philipose and Sonal Gupta
