Daily Bulletin: Campaigns done, Narendra Modi to visit Kedarnath today; Opposition parties slam PM's press meet; day's top stories

Campaigns done, Modi to offer prayers at Kedarnath, Badrinath A day after appearing in a press conference to signify the end of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake a two-day visit to Uttarakhand’s pilgrimage sites of Kedarnath and Badrinath. Modi is scheduled to arrive at Joligrant airport in Dehradun on Saturday morning. He is expected to arrive at Kedarnath and perform pujas in the afternoon. The prime minister is also expected to hold discussions with local authorities on development issues. [caption id=“attachment_6629821” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A file image of Narendra Modi at a campaign rally in Buxar. Twitter/@BJP4India[/caption] Modi flew 1.5 lakh kilometres and addressed 142 public rallies during the most extensive campaign for a Lok Sabha election since Independence, BJP president Amit Shah said Friday . Militant killed at encounter in Awantipora A militant was killed on Saturday morning in an encounter between terrorists and a joint team of security forces in Panzgam village of Awantipora in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The encounter broke out between terrorists and troops of 130 Battalion CRPF, 55 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and Special Operations Group (SOG) in Panzgam at around 2.10 am. Opposition slams Modi’s ‘press conference’ Opposition parties lost no time in taking swipes at Narendra Modi’s maiden press conference on Friday, where he did not entertain even a single impromptu question. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the presser seemed “like last episode of Mann ki Baat aired on TV instead of radio”. Loktantrik Janata Dal party chief Sharad Yadav called it the ‘farewell press conference’ of the BJP.  “It is unfortunate that even after five years of rule of, the BJP PM could not face media,” he tweeted. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said, “Amit Shah doesn’t forget to thank the embedded BJP workers disguised as journalists”. Congress leaders Ahmed Patel, Ashok Gehlot and party chief Rahul Gandhi too made fun of the fact that Modi was not asked any questions in the meet. Rahul, who held a parallel press conference at the time Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were meeting reporters, has repeatedly urged the Prime Minister to debate him on several issues. Chandrababu Naidu to meet Rahul, Mayawati, Akhilesh today In what is rumoured to be some heavy duty post-campaign strategising, Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu will meet Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Saturday morning. He is also scheduled to meet Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, and Uttar Pradesh alliance partners Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday. Yesterday, Naidu had met Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. Mamata govt to build statue of Vidyasagar, says Bengal education minister West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee has announced that the Mamata Banerjee government in the state will build a statue of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar at Kolkata’s Vidyasagar College, where the bust of the 19th century reformist was destroyed during BJP chief Amit Shah’s roadshow on 14 May. “We will also set up a museum of Vidyasagar at the same place .The state government had devised various plans to popularise Vidyasagar before the present generation as part of his bicentenary birth celebrations. We will distribute his primer, Barna Parichay, for free among students,” Chatterjee said. At a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Mau, on 16 May , Narendra Modi had said that his government will build a “grander statue” of Vidyasagar at the same site, to which Mamata had replied at her own rally in Mathurapur by saying that Bengal did not need the BJP government’s “alms.” Yes Bank to claw back Rs 1.44 cr performance bonus from ex-MD Rana Kapoor In a rare move, Yes Bank will claw back Rs 1.44 crore bonus paid to its founder and former chief Rana Kapoor following RBI’s directions. Yes Bank, which is grappling with bad loan issues, has come under the scanner of the Reserve Bank for weak corporate governance. Kapoor is one of the founders and promoters of Yes Bank, which started operations in 2004. He still owns 4.32 percent stake in the bank (as of March 2019). The RBI had denied extension to Kapoor in October last year following regulatory issues. Asus Zenfone 6 launched ASUS’ counter to the OnePlus 7 finally made its global debut. The phone packs in a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC and pairs it with up to 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. The cameras include a 48 MP f/1.79 wide and 13 MP ultra-wide units. Specs aside, the most interesting feature of this phone is that it has no selfie camera. Instead, the rear camera flips up and pulls double duty as a selfie cam.