Daily Bulletin: Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi to both tour southern states today; SC to rule on electoral bonds; today's top stories

Modi, Rahul to both address rallies in south today Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address rallies at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra (11 am), Gangavati in Karnataka (3 pm) and Kozhikode in Kerala (6.30 pm). Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah will address a rally at Keonjhar in Odisha. Congress president Rahul Gandhi too will be in the south. He is expected to hold a public rally at 11 am in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri district. Rahul is then expected to address meetings at Salem district (around 1 pm), Theni district (3.45 pm), and Madurai district (5.30 pm). Sources, News18 had reported, had said that concerns have been raised to the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and the party’s central election committee about the lack of booth level co-ordination in Thiruvananthapuram constituency. Thiruvananthapuram is where Shashi Tharoor is contesting against BJP’s Kummanam Rajashekaran and C Divakaran of the Left. [caption id=“attachment_5705581” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi. PTI[/caption] Congress, meanwhile, is expected to come up with a statement on its alliance with Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi. Supreme Court to rule on electoral bonds today The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will pronounce its verdict on the plea to stay the operation of electoral bonds on Friday, rejecting the Centre’s appeal to let them continue till the end of the Lok Sabha elections. The central government and the Election Commission have taken contrary stands in the Supreme Court over political funding, with the government wanting to maintain anonymity of the donors of electoral bonds and the poll panel batting for revealing the names of donors for transparency. Phase 1 sees impressive voter turnout amidst violence Incidents of lethal violence between Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress Party, killing one and injuring several others, marred polling in Andhra Pradesh, which had simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections on Thursday.  An impressive turnout of over 73 percent was recorded in the state. In West Bengal too, strong voter turnout was registered even though sporadic incidents of violence took place. A clash early in the day was reported between Trinamool Congress (TMC) and mworkers in Cooch Behar. Bihar also reported violence as clashes broke out between BJP and RJD supporters over the latter allegedly forcing voters’ choice for elections in Nawada constituency. Tripura, too, saw a clash between Congress and BJP workers that left about 12 injured, of whom eight are currently critical. There were several reports of EVM malfunctioning in the country. Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu has called for repolling in some regions, claiming a failure of 30 percent of the EVMs. More such reports came from Manipur, West Bengal and Tripura. Remove un-certified political content from NaMo TV, says poll body The Election Commission Thursday directed Delhi’s chief electoral officer that all political publicity content  being displayed without pre-certification be removed immediately from NaMo TV. The poll panel said any political content has to be permitted by the local media certification committee “strictly in accordance with the EC’s instructions in this regard”. After the Congress filed a complaint with the poll panel about the channel disturbing the level playing field, the EC had asked the CEO Delhi to file a report on the issue. Earlier, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting told the poll panel that it was an advertising platform that did not require a license from the ministry. EC issues notices to Mayawati, Adityanath The Election Commission has issued a showcause notice to Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati for directly asking Muslims not to vote for a particular party, saying that such a statement violated the Model Code of Conduct. The Election Commission on Thursday also issued a show cause notice to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for his “Ali and Bajrangbali” remark while addressing a rally in Meerut. His comments were in response to Mayawati’s appeal to Muslims. Adityanath had compared the Lok Sabha elections to a contest between ‘Ali’, a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, the Hindu god Hanuman. TCS, Infosys to announce Q4 results today Infosys Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd will kick off the results season on Friday after market hours. Analysts expect the software services behemoths to post a year-on-year gain in net profit. Shares of both firms fell one percent each on Thursday, in addition to 1 percent and 2.5 percent decline in previous session respectively. However, both stocks rallied more than 35 percent in last one year amid rupee depreciation, strong US economy, digital business and healthy deal wins. Infosys, TCS results will impact stock market in the next few days, analysts said. IPL 2019: KKR aim to return to winning ways against Delhi Capitals After suffering a seven-wicket defeat against Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) aim to regain winning momentum against an inconsistent Delhi Capitals(DC) at Eden Gardens. The previous fixture between Shreyas Iyer’s DC and Dinesh Karthik-led KKR ended in a tie in Delhi with the home side winning the Super Over. Spotlight will also be on Delhi Capitals’ advisor and Cricket Association of Bengal chief Sourav Ganguly, who is facing conflict of interest allegations. Mozilla releases Firefox beta for Windows 10 ARM laptops Mozilla has released its own version of ARM64-native build of is Firefox browser for Snapdragon-powered Windows laptops. This new Firebox is available in beta and can be downloaded from Friday onwards. Mozilla is currently working on its Firefox Quantum technology which will optimize Firefox for all octa-core CPUs. Barry renewed for season three at HBO HBO has renewed its hit dark comedy series Barry for a third season. The show features actor Bill Hader as the titular character, a depressed hitman from the Midwest who finds himself drawn into a community of acting students while on a job in Los Angeles.