Good morning, Here are the latest developments from Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and other top stories from today's edition. The Big Story
A Sharif is likely to return to the chair of Pakistan Prime Minister after the last one was arrested and jailed for corruption. Pakistan’s Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, brother of former PM Nawaz Sharif, nominated himself to the top post with the backing of Ex-president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chair Asif Ali Zardari. Imran Khan's PTI threatened to withdraw its lawmakers from Parliament if the former Punjab chief minister was allowed to contest today's election. Only in the Express Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, people are hoping for "someone better" to take over Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's job. Until a few months ago, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find anyone with a bad opinion of the Rajapaksas in the ancestral home of Sri Lanka’s ruling family. Crippling shortages of essential items and an unaffordable rise in prices meant the mood has changed. In this edition of the Idea Exchange, former Union minister Arun Shourie talks about his days at The Indian Express, what’s changed since then, what’s new about the current establishment, the media’s challenges and the weakening of institutions. From the Front Page Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden today, ahead of the fourth India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue. The conversation at the highest political levels is significant in the wake of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and India’s carefully crafted diplomatic messaging to both the West led by the US on one side and Russia on the other. Violence broke out on JNU campus in Delhi on Sunday evening following a tense day between two groups of students – Left activists and ABVP members. Multiple students were injured in the violence. Left activists alleged that the row began after ABVP members tried to stop non-vegetarian food from being cooked and served in the Kaveri hostel mess, while the latter alleged that Left activists attempted to disrupt a Ram Navami puja in the same hostel. 
Members of the LGBT community celebrate Garvotsav 2022 in Chandigarh on Sunday. (📸 by Kamleshwar Singh) Must Read
The flattening of the Covid-19 curve has given rise to a new kind of problem in Maharashtra — government hospitals are flooded with non-Covid patients, the count of which had dropped by nearly 70 per cent in 2020. However, Maharashtra’s nodal official body for centralised purchase of medicines, failing to foresee the sudden surge, had delayed the annual procurement of over 2,500 types of non-Covid medicines, which has resulted in the 18 state government hospitals affiliated with the government medical colleges now running out of even basic, life-saving medicines. Himanshi, a Bhil tribal from Bhiloda taluka of Sabarkantha district, is transitioning from studying in Gujarati to English in Class 6. The transition that Himanshi is part of is on account of the Centre mandating all 375 tribal schools in the country — also known as the Eklavya Model Residential Schools — to switch from regional state school boards to the Central Board of Secondary Education. “I speak Bhil at home, but I learnt Gujarati after I came here. Now we are learning English. It’s scary,” she says. A peaking summer, coupled with an industrial revival, has led to a huge power shortage in the country. Even as the government claims it is pulling out all the stops to avoid a nation-wide power crisis, worsening of fuel stocks at thermal stations is likely to cripple electricity supplies in the weeks ahead. The states that have already started witnessing temporary power outages in the last few days are Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Subhash Singh, a vegetable seller in New Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar, is not a user of the Unified Payment Interface, yet a chunk of his daily earnings happens on the platform. As such, Rajendra Chaudhary, who owns a grocery store, offered to take UPI payments on his behalf. UPI recently crossed the $1-trillion mark in transaction values for the financial year 2021-22 after the payments system crossed 5 billion transactions in a month for the first time in March, marking a major landmark for the flagship payments architecture which has gained significant momentum in adaptation in the last few years. And Finally... The Pakistan Cricket Board’s proposal to have an annual four-nation tournament which features Pakistan, India, Australia and England did not find favour with a majority of the International Cricket Council members, it is learnt. PCB’s chief Ramiz Raja had proposed the idea during the ICC board meeting in Dubai on Sunday and gave a detailed plan. The Indian Express understands that a few boards did support the idea but majority were not in favour of it. Delhi confidential: The Union government is currently at loggerheads with IIM-Rohtak Director Dheeraj Sharma over his appointment to the post in 2017. Sharma is accused of concealing his academic credentials and being ineligible for the job. Even as he takes on the Centre in court, it was interesting to see Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar accept Sharma’s invite to attend the IIM-Rohtak convocation ceremony held on Saturday. In this edition of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, The Indian Express’s Shubhajit Roy joins host Shashank Bhargava to talk about Imran Khan being ousted as Pakistan’s Prime Minister, who is expected to replace him, and how this will affect India. Next, Ashique KhudaBukhsh, an assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, tells us how adult and inappropriate words are creeping into YouTube Kids’ videos. And in the end, we take a quick look at how several Northeast-based organizations are urging the Centre to revoke its decision regarding making Hindi compulsory in schools. Until tomorrow, Rounak Bagchi and Leela Prasad
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