Plugged-In: Karnataka results today & Smriti Irani loses I&B

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Karnataka results in today: The results for this closely watched election will be declared today. ThePrint will be bringing top-notch live coverage from Bengaluru and New Delhi with reporters and editors on the ground. Click here for the live blog.

Everyone wants to be friends with the JD(S): Business Standard reports that the Congress as well as the BJP have reached out to the JD(S) for a possible tie-up in the event of a hung assembly, with both offering the party the post of deputy CM.

Smriti Irani loses I&B ministry to deputy Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore: This is the second time Irani, at the centre of several controversies in the ministry, has been divested of an important portfolio. She was earlier replaced as HRD minister by Prakash Javadekar, reports The Hindu.

Tharoor charged with abetting wife’s suicide: Four years and four months after Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a Delhi hotel, MP Shashi Tharoor has been charged with cruelty and abetment to suicide, reports The Times of India. Tharoor subsequently declared a brief Twitter hiatus to escape users’ “epicaricacy“.

A file photo of Shashi Tharoor
A file photo of Shashi Tharoor | Commons

12 die in clashes during West Bengal panchayat polls: Widespread violence during the panchayat polls in West Bengal Monday left at least 12 people dead and 43 injured. The voter turnout was recorded at 73 per cent, reports The Times Of India.

After the Karnataka polls, Rahul plans ahead: The young leader plans to kick off campaigning in Chhattisgarh on 17 May, reports The Hindustan Times.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal sits on dharna outside LG’s office: The AAP government has alleged Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal refused to meet them over a CCTV camera project they have accused him of delaying, reports The Times Of India.

Karnataka Elections In ThePrint

Throughout the past two weeks, ThePrint has been extensively covering the Karnataka assembly elections. Here are a few pieces to get you up to speed with the nail-biting contest.

It is impossible to understand Karnataka’s complex politics without reading this breakdown: The state has six very distinctive regions, and poll analysis can seldom be done without breaking down the whole into these six parts, Shivam Vij explains.

D.K. Singh lists the five factors that will decide whether the Congress retains its biggest state or the BJP returns to office.

Rohini Swamy reports on the “resentment” among Karnataka’s Telugu speakers against Modi & the BJP for ‘back-stabbing’ Andhra. The Centre’s refusal to accord special status to Andhra Pradesh, which led to the TDP’s exit from the NDA, is a poll issue in ‘Hyderabad Karnataka’.

News it’s just kinda cool to know

The projected increase in temperature will lead to around 2,59,000 job losses in India by 2030, especially in carbon-and resource-intensive industries. However, the losses will “be offset by the creation of around three million jobs as the country moves towards adoption of sustainable practices”, The Indian Express reports on the International Labour Organization’s World Employment and Social Outlook Report.

Lost asteroid the size of the Statue of Liberty to buzz by Earth today: An asteroid the size of New York City’s Statue of Liberty is expected to buzz by Earth Tuesday, and scientists are waiting, reports Fox News.

Business Class

PNB executives sacked in crackdown over the Nirav Modi-Mehul Choksi scam: The Union government has ordered the removal of two incumbent PNB executives, Sanjiv Sharan and K.V. Brahmaji Rao, after the CBI named them in its chargesheet in the Nirav Modi-Mehul Choksi scam, reports Business Standard. Former PNB head Usha Ananthasubramanian, also named in the chargesheet, has been divested of her powers as managing director and CEO of Allahabad Bank.

The Indian income tax department has served a notice on a US-based multinational without any local subsidiary or office to file returns for 2011-12, reports The Economic Times.

The Manipal Hospitals-TPG combine has revised its earlier bid for the takeover of Fortis Healthcare, raising the offer by 12.5 per cent, reports Business Standard. The revised bid comes three days after the Fortis Healthcare board approved the Hero Enterprise-Burman family offer.

Point of View   

The government has announced a subsidy package of Rs 9,400 crore over a five-year period for encouraging punlic transport providers to switch to electric vehicles. In its editorial, The Times of India welcomes the move. It says, “Public transport systems can act as the launch pad for wider adoption of (Electric Vehicles)EVs.”

Former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif has admitted to the involvement of ‘non-state organisations’ from the country in 26/11. The Indian Express writes in its editorial, “Pakistan needs to admit to its complicity in 26/11 to repair ties with India. Nawaz Sharif recognises it, but not the Pakistani state.”

File photo of Nawaz Sharif
File photo of Nawaz Sharif | Commons

The January 2018 rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua took on communal overtones. Ananya Vajpeyi, a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, writes in her column in The Hindu, “The rape of a little girl inside a place of worship, violating everything sacrosanct to us, whether the innocence of a child or the precinct of a temple, is the logical culmination of majoritarian aggression.”

There were protests this month over Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait at Aligarh Muslim University. SabrangIndia co-editor Javed Anand, in his column in The Indian Express, writes, “The engineered controversy over the portrait of Pakistan’s founder-in-chief, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, on the Aligarh Muslim University Students Union’s wall of fame and the Haryana government-blessed targeting of namazis in Gurgaon are but the latest examples of the ominous intrusion of Hindu Rashtra in secular India.”

In the largest deal ever for an Indian e-commerce player, American retail giant Walmart acquired a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart for $16 billion. Dalmia Group director Gaurav Dalmia, in his column in The Times Of India, writes that this mega deal has many lessons for leaders in every field.