Firstpost Editor's Picks: Rahul Gandhi falls flat, Sabarimala protests, Kevin Anderson in Maharashtra Open; today's must-read stories

Rahul Gandhi’s Rafale attacks fall flat despite media’s peculiar reluctance to fact check Congress president For all the access that media enjoys vis-à-vis Rahul, it has shown a strange reluctance so far to fact-check the Congress president’s claims and hold him accountable for his words. This trend was visible even on Wednesday when Rahul appeared for a news conference in the evening and repeated the same set of claims that had been rebutted by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earlier that day in Parliament.

Sabarimala protests: Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga’s feat hailed by women activists even as Kerala sees widespread violence Even as women activists are showering praises on Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga, the two women who entered the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple on 2 January, for the courage they displayed in defying the right-wing outfits opposing the entry of menstruating women in the temple, they unable to respond to the adulation. Kerala Police is not revealing any details about their location since most women who attempted to enter the temple earlier faced the wrath of the protesters and the houses of many of them had come under attack even after they abandoned their move to visit the temple. Bindu’s house at Koyilandy in Kozhikode district and Kanakadurga’s house at Thattakam in Malappuram district too had witnessed similar protests when they made an aborted attempt to enter the temple on the eve of Christmas. The protesters had thronged their houses after news about their entry in the temple came out on Wednesday, and staged sit-in protests there.

Uri, Mental Hai Kya, Bharat, Brahmastra: Like 2018, will small films overpower the biggies in 2019?

Come 2019, and the audience will be treated to movies with an enviable star cast and hopefully gripping stories. If ‘small’ was big the previous year, ‘big’ may get bigger this year. If his fans were let down in 2018, Salman Khan will bring Bharat during Eid in 2019, helmed by one of his trusted directors, Ali Abbas Zafar. Akshay Kumar has masala entertainer Housefull 4 for Diwali this year. Then he is teaming up again with Kareena Kapoor Khan for Good News; a joint venture with Karan Johar in Kesari, based on the Battle of Saragarhi; and he has booked Independence Day 2019 for Mission Mangal, based on ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission. There is also Rohit Shetty’s action entertainer Sooryavanshi, which was announced in the closing moments of Simmba.

Kevin Anderson interview: World No 6 on not subscribing to labels, regaining belief in his game after injury-enforced hiatus and more The year 2019 will be a test of World No 6 Kevin Anderson’s steady progress over the last eighteen months. The tennis player, who reached his first Grand Slam final in 2017 at the US Open becoming the oldest first-time finalist since 1973, has just caught up with his peers. However, Anderson, who is participating in the 2019 Maharashtra Open, has stopped allowing himself to be weighed down by expectation. “We like to label people in categories, but from my side, it doesn’t really matter,” he says.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath will be completing two years in office in March. The unlikely administrator of India’s largest state, Adityanath, speaks to Firstpost about dharma, the importance of religion, democracy and the challenges he faced he changing Uttar Pradesh’s perception.