Firstpost Editor's Picks: Dal Lake in distress, Gully Boy and cannabis, unrest in Kashmir, Carabao Cup final; today's must-read stories

Dal Lake in distress: Kashmir’s iconic attraction is facing a slow death by sewage as politicians look the other way

In 2016, research by Dr Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, head of the Earth Sciences Department at University of Kashmir, found that 32 percent of the Dal Lake faced severe degradation, 48 percent medium degradation and 20 percent of the lake’s water was relatively clean. Various studies have pointed out that the lake faces multiple pressures from unplanned urbanisation, high population growth and nutrient load due to intensive agriculture that act as fertilisers for weed to grow in abundance.

Gully Boy’s pot smoking protagonist marks a change in Bollywood’s portrayal of cannabis

Turn back the clock to 1971, when the world was dropping acid and our biggest contribution to the pop culture of those times was Dev Anand’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Our Indian portrayal of the psychedelic scene was a ‘wayward’ sister smoking a chillum and cavorting ‘shamelessly’ in the company of Westerners, while her disapproving brother looked on. For most Indians in the 1970s and ’80s, that one scene defined everything that was wrong with drugs, and gently nudged cannabis into the same class of substances as heroin and coke.

Tension grips Kashmir amid separatist call for shutdown; govt caps sale of petrol, asks health staff to stock meds

The health department has asked Chief Medical Officers to collect “available supplies of drugs, medicines, surgical items and other allied items” for hospitals from the drug warehouse of the Jammu and Kashmir Medical Supplies Corporation on Sunday. The order, issued by the director of health services of Kashmir, read that this was to be done “in view of the prevailing situation” in the Valley.

Urvashi Bahuguna on her poetry collection Terrarium, growing up in Goa, finding her way back to writing

‘Several of the poems that made it to the final version of the manuscript were written after the first set of edits. These were poems that tied diverse themes in the book together– for example, The Years Come A-Tumbling (prior relationship and mother), Song (the natural world, mother, and romantic love), Spare Me This Love For Family(mental health, solitude and family). The poems in Terrarium were more in conversation with one another as a result.’

Carabao Cup final: Dazzling Manchester City look to kickstart trophy hunt as desperate Chelsea bank on revival of old spirit

Manchester City and Chelsea’s needs at Wembley are slightly different in nature. A win would be business as usual for City, while a loss would be nothing more than a minor blip. However, for Chelsea, each game now has the potential to determine the future of the club and its manager.