Daily Briefing: IPL kicks off today; Justice Varma stays away from court in cash recovery case; Khakee The Bengal Chapter review

With that, let’s move on to top 5 stories from today’s edition:

🚨 Big Story

The Supreme Court Collegium has proposed the transfer of Delhi High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma to the Allahabad High Court, following a report about availability of cash at his New Delhi residence where a fire broke out on March 14. However, the SC said that the proposal for transfer of Varma, who is the second senior most Judge at the Delhi High Court, is “independent and separate from the in-house enquiry procedure” initiated by the Chief Justice of Delhi HC upon receiving information about the incident.

The incident created ripples in legal circles, with the matter even reaching the doors of the Rajya Sabha. When Congress MP Jairam Ramesh requested the Vice President and House Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar to “give necessary directions to the government to come up with a proposal for increasing judicial accountability,” Dhankhar said, “if the malaise had been dealt with, perhaps we would not have countenanced such kind of issues”. “What bothers me is that the incident happened and did not immediately surface,” he added.

While officers in the Delhi Fire Service and the Delhi Police remained tightlipped about the incident, Varma stayed away from the Delhi High Court hearing on Friday. The officials denied any foul play in the matter. Senior Advocate Arun Bhardwaj, appearing before the CJ’s bench, said, “Today’s incident has pained many of us… We are shaken and demoralized.”

⚡ Only in Express

“If India can stay on the path of the 2047 plan, that will be beneficial not just to India, it will be beneficial for the whole world.”

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, in a conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Group, at the latest edition of Express Adda, speaks at length about India’s prospects, the work that his philanthropic group, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was doing in India, the impact of Artificial Intelligence, the role of innovation, and the threat of climate change.

Under the radar: Aleksej Besciokov, a 46-year-old Lithuanian citizen and resident of Russia, was arrested by Kerala Police, from a house that Salim Shah owned near the Varkala beach, where he used to visit often with his wife Yulia, 46, and son Feliks, 10, every year since 2016.

The CBI has said that Besciokov is wanted by United States authorities on a number of charges, including for facilitating money laundering by transnational criminal organisations through Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange. Know how Besciokov’s trip was cut short this time by the International Police Coordination Unit of the Central Bureau of Investigation (IPCU-CBI).

💡 Express Explained

Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has challenged the government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) to moderate and order the removal of content on social media. It has argued that the government’s “misuse” of the provision bypasses safeguards available under other provisions of the IT Act — namely Section 69A — that are specifically meant for the purpose of content moderation. What is Section 69A? How is the government using Section 79? We explain.

✍️ Express Opinion

“The Arendt conundrum — thinking globally about totalitarianism but locally about what happens in America — lies at the heart of recent episodes of deportations of those accused of “anti-Semitic” and “pro-terrorist” sympathies under the second Trump presidency.”

In our Opinion section today, Sanjay Srivastava writes on the recent events in the US that have gained particular media prominence, and situates them within the three conundrums faced by German political philosopher Hannah Arendt when she considered that “of all the major world powers, only the United States had never been an imperialist one.”

🎞️ Movie Review

Wondering what to binge-watch this weekend? Well, we’ve got you covered! Neeraj Pandey’s new series, Khakee The Bengal Chapter comes off as an ensemble of Bengali actors, with the same old beats and character types. The story starts with a kidnapping gone wrong, and then begins “unpacking its wares in right earnest: sloppy goons, sharp cops, a posse of politicians with murky underground connections, nefarious activities involving dead bodies and organ harvesting,” as Shubhra Gupta writes in her review.

That’s all for today. Have a lovely weekend!

Until next time,
Ariba

Business As Usual by E P Unny