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🚨 Big Story

The Army’s internal inquiries into the killing of three civilians, allegedly during interrogation by its personnel following a terror attack in J&K’s Poonch in December 2023 that left four soldiers dead, and into the operational gaps have found serious lapses in the conduct of 7-8 personnel. We delve into the findings of the inquiries.

More than three months after they were picked up and tortured, nine of the 10 villagers who survived are yet to return to work, many still nursing their wounds. Here are their accounts.

⚡ Only in Express

While demands for “commission” owed to the bank constituted a bulk of the correspondence between SBI and the Ministry of Finance on the electoral bonds scheme, the bank also sent alerts on “erroneous printing” of bonds and expected increase in sales ahead of elections. Here’s what the hundreds of pages of correspondence and emails — obtained by The Indian Express via a RTI application — show.

📰 From the Front Page

Primacy to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, factor in the 2019 Supreme Court verdict allowing the temple and deleting from at least three places references to the December 6, 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid — this is what NCERT’s revised Class XII political science textbook is said to look like. We break down other details from this revision.

The Enforcement Directorate is “driven by legal mandates and evidence, not by the shifting sands of political will” and the CBI “stands as the bedrock upon which credible investigations are built”, a senior Government official has said, responding to a report published in The Indian Express on Wednesday.

After making the Old Pension Scheme a strong poll pitch ahead of Assembly polls and actually reverting to it in states where it came to power, the Congress party is learnt to have junked the promise of an OPS for government employees in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections. We take a look at what the manifesto may look like.

👩‍💻 Must Read

In the ‘Best of Both Sides’ pieces from today’s Opinion section, a debate emerges on the BJP’s ‘400 Paar’ slogan. While Vandita Mishra sees the ambition seems less a statement of the party’s aspiration and more the assertion of a government’s power, Dr Rakesh Sinha argues that the target isn’t about hegemony, but is to show that old faultlines have been transcended.

The Katchatheevu controversy is being viewed as a political brownie-point-scoring exercise by the BJP against the DMK and Congress in Tamil Nadu. But it has sparked disquiet in the strategic community both in New Delhi and Colombo. We explain why.

⌛ And Finally…

🏏 IPL 2024: Gursharan Singh and Parvinder Awana — two Delhi former coaches, who have seen Mayank Yadav from close quarters are delighted with the youngster’s comeback from injury and his performance in the IPL so far. But at the same time, they also have some advice for the speedster.

Delhi Confidential: Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar this week moved into the new official residence, becoming the first functionary to get a home as a part of the Central Vista redevelopment. This, even as construction of the new PM’s residence is ongoing.
In today’s edition of the ‘3 things’ podcast, we talk about the Katchatheevu island controversy, the case against Patanjali, and BJP’s response to remarks made by Congress leaders against PM Modi and Hema Malini.

Until tomorrow,

Rounak Bagchi

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