Firstpost Editor's picks: BJP releases first list of Lok Sabha candidates on Holi; mystery fever hits UP's Bareilly; today's must-read stories

**Narendra Modi to contest Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi: BJP names 184 candidates in first list** With just weeks to go for the Lok Sabha election, the BJP on Thursday released the first list of candidates featuring political bigwigs including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah, and Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari. While Modi will again contest from his Varanasi seat, Shah will fight from Gandhinagar. Singh will contest from Lucknow, while Gadkari will fight from Nagpur. The party has fielded Irani from Amethi — from where sitting MP and Congress president Rahul Gandhi is set to contest — and Minister of State for External Affairs General VK Singh from Ghaziabad. After Christchurch shootings, New Zealand's biggest challenge is to pin down what a high threat level means New Zealand’s long-held assumption that terrorism was something that never could happen here, has been shattered. It has to face up to the possibility of further attacks, inspired by the Christchurch offender. But the potently graphic streaming of the incident, and its global reach, means it is not just in New Zealand that his followers may emerge. He was Australian, they could emerge there, or anywhere that extreme right-wing individuals or groups hibernate. There is another chilling consequence — until now, the Islamic State never really knew, or cared to know, where New Zealand was. Now it does. Beyond Holi ke rang: How the idea of colour has come to define Indian culture While the idea of colours or rang is usually clubbed with the festival of Holi, to be fair, nothing could be further from the truth. Rang as a theme has been a mainstay of the culture of the subcontinent, shaping the region’s collective consciousness. Holi only accentuates our association with colours. However, this association with colour is in no way religious, and actually transcends religious boundaries. Kesari movie review: Akshay Kumar does a Sunny Deol in a Gadar-style drama with gusto and zero nuance Deaths due to 'mystery fever' in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly give Opposition ammunition ahead of Lok Sabha election Health department authorities in Uttar Pradesh are struggling to contain the outbreak of a fever and are still groping in the dark to find the exact cause of the disease. Opposition leaders, however, resorted to government-bashing while the cases emerged. There is no realistic assessment of the toll even now, but media reports peg the figure anywhere between 100 and 700. Gurpreet Singh Sandhu interview: 'We knew Bengaluru FC had to win ISL title' “We knew that we wanted to win it because losing two finals in a row would have been absolutely devastating. We felt a lot more ready this time around, we really wanted to go for it. We just focussed on the fact that we were there for a reason, because we had to win it,” says Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, the imposing goalkeeper of Bengaluru FC