 "FirstUp: PM files nomination papers in Varanasi, SC hearing on Patanjali resumes... Today's big stories")
Today is set to be a massive day in India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will file his nomination papers from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.
The Supreme Court is set to continue its hearings on Patanjali.
A court in Uttar Pradesh will examine the 2018 defamation case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
And the famed Cannes Film Festival 2024 to open in the South of France.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s big-ticket headlines:
PM Modi to file nomination papers
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to file his nomination papers from Varanasi today.
Modi is seeking his third consecutive term from the Varanasi seat which is set to go to the polls on 1 June.
The prime minister won the seat in 2019 by a massive margin of 4.8 lakh votes and an impressive margin of 3.7 lakh seats in 2014.
The seat has been a BJP stronghold since 1991.
Modi, accompanied by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, held a six-kilometre roadshow in Varanasi on Monday.
He garlanded a statue of educationist and social reformer Madan Mohan Malviya at the Malviya Chauraha in the Lanka area here before beginning the roadshow.
SC hearings on Patanjali
Will the Supreme Court continue to crack the whip on Patanjali?
The apex court is hearing a plea of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) alleging a smear campaign by Baba Ramdev against the vaccination drive and modern medicines.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe court in March had ordered Patanjali’s co-founder Ramdev and the company managing director Balkrishna to personally attend the hearing.
It had also temporarily banned the company from advertising or branding certain products.
The apex court had also come down heavily on the company for prima facie violating the undertaking given by it in the court about its products and also for statements on their medicinal efficacy.
It issued a notice to Patanjali Ayurved and its managing director asking why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them.
The bench also warned the company from making any derogatory statements about any medicine in the media.
Defamation case against Rahul
A special MP-MLA court in Uttar Pradesh will take up a hearing on a defamation case against Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress leader is accused of allegedly making objectionable remarks about home minister Amit Shah.
The complaint was filed against Rahul Gandhi by BJP leader Vijay Mishra for remarks made during the Karnataka elections six years ago.
Mishra referred to Rahul’s comment that the BJP claimed to believe in honest and clean politics but has a party president who is an “accused” in a murder case.
Shah was BJP chief at the time when Rahul made the remark.
A special CBI court in Mumbai had in 2014 discharged Shah in a 2005 fake encounter case when he was a minister of state for home in Gujarat.
The court issued a warrant against Rahul on 16 December, 2023.
Hearings in the case were postponed in April and March as the judge was on leave and Rahul’s lawyer had sought more time saying he was busy with the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
Cannes Film Festival 2024
The glamorous Cannes Film Festival is set to kick off in the South of France.
This edition, the 77th, comes against a backdrop of war, protest, potential strikes and quickening #MeToo upheaval in France, which for years largely resisted the movement.
Arguably the most feverishly awaited entry is Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed opus “Megalopolis.”
Coppola, is himself no stranger to high-drama at Cannes.
An unfinished cut of “Apocalypse Now” won him (in a tie) his second Palme d’Or more than four decades ago.
There will also be new films from Kevin Costner, Paolo Sorrentino, Sean Baker, Yorgos Lanthimos and Andrea Arnold. And for a potentially powder keg Cannes there’s also the firebomb of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
On this day…
In 1948, the dream that many had dreamed came true – an independent, Jewish state of Israel was established.
This after the United Nations General Assembly approved a partition of British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states in 1947.
After Israel declared independence, many governments including the United States and the Soviet Union quickly recognised it.
But many of its neighbouring countries did not.
Within days, five Arab nations of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan had launched invasions of Israel in what would become known as the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
The dream of Israel seemed to be under threat until Israeli forces managed to gain the advantage.
Every 15 May, Palestinians hold rallies to commemorate the “nakba,” or “catastrophe” — the term they use to describe the displacement, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the fighting.
The dispute over the fate of those Palestinians and their descendants, now numbering several million people, remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
With inputs from agencies
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
 "Russian drones over Poland: Trump’s tepid reaction a wake-up call for Nato?")
 "As Russia pushes east, Ukraine faces mounting pressure to defend its heartland")
 "Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar")
 "Turkey: Erdogan's police arrest opposition mayor Hasan Mutlu, dozens officials in corruption probe")
