🇱🇰 WHAT: Sri Lanka has been going through its worst economic crisis for weeks now, with dwindling foreign reserves leading to a shortage of all essentials on the import-dependent island nation.
✊🏾 Protests against the government’s inability to solve for the crisis have started turning violent, prompting the government to declare an emergency and impose curfew.
❗️WHAT NOW: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned.
📌 WHY: President Gotbaya Rajapaksa (also his younger brother) asked him to, a few days ago, to pave the way for a completely new, interim, all-party Cabinet.
🔥 THIS MORNING: Pro-Rajapaksa protestors clashed with anti-government protestors near the official residence of the PM. At least 100 people sustained injuries.
🎥 ICYMI: We have done a deep-dive into this story explaining the why, how, why now and what next of Sri Lanka's economic crisis. Have you watched it yet?
📣 WHAT: The Allahabad HC said that the Lakhimpur Kheri violence could have been averted if Union Minister Ajay Mishra had not threatened local farmers.
📺 CONTEXT: On September 25, a video of Ajay Mishra in which he could be heard telling farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri that he would “discipline them” went viral on social media. On Oct 3, a vehicle belonging to Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra, ran over eight persons, including four farmers.
📌 ON THE RECORD: The Allahabad HC said political leaders should make public statements using decent language.
“Several innocent lives would not have got lost in a most cruel, diabolic, barbaric, gruesome and inhuman manner allegedly by his very promising son and other accused.”
🗓 PS: The court also took note that a wrestling competition was organised by Ashish Mishra on the day of the Lakhimpur violence despite a curfew being imposed in the area.
📌 CONTEXT: The Supreme Court is listening to a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the sedition law.
📑 NOW: In an affidavit, the Central government has informed the Supreme Court that it will re-examine and reconsider the provisions of Section 124A which criminalises the offence of sedition.
🇮🇳 WHY: “In the spirit of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav (75 years of Independence) and the vision of PM Narendra Modi…”
🚩 IMPORTANT: The Centre has requested the court not to “invest time” in this case till the government examines the matter first.
🙃 POINT TO NOTE: As recently as two days ago, the government defended the law before the SC, saying it has withstood "the test of time" for about six decades and that isolated instances of its abuse would "never" justify a reconsideration.
SPEAKING OF THE SUPREME COURT....
❌ It refused to entertain a plea filed by the CPI(M) against a demolition drive carried out in Shaheen Bagh by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, asking the party to approach the high court.
“We have never given licence to everybody to come here and say, ‘my house is being demolished’, even if it is unauthorised… Merely because we are showing indulgence, don’t take shelter under the court’s orders. We can interfere as and when…”
❗️WHAT: Taliban has issued yet another order dictating what Afghan women can and cannot do.
📌 THIS TIME, the Taliban has ordered all Afghan women to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. As in, only their eyes can be visible.
⛓ THERE’S MORE: The latest decree also says women should leave the home only when necessary, and that male relatives would face punishment (including jail time) for women’s dress code violations.
📜 TILL NOW, the Taliban has banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade, women are barred from boarding planes if they travel unaccompanied by a male relative, men and women can only visit public parks on separate days and the use of mobile telephones in universities is prohibited.
❗️AND MORE: International media broadcasts — including the Pashto and Persian BBC services — are off the air as of the weekend. So are all foreign drama series.
🌍 FALLOUT: Besides millions of women and girls being violently oppressed, these orders by the Taliban are decreasing the chances of the international community sending humanitarian aid to the country, which it desperately needs.
🚨 SOS: 9.7 million people, almost half of Afghanistan’s population, are facing acute hunger.
⛈ WHAT: Severe cyclonic storm Asani is headed towards India’s east coast and is likely to cause heavy to very heavy isolated rainfall from May 10 to May 11 over coastal districts in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
📍 RIGHT NOW, the cyclonic storm is located around 450 and 500 km south of Visakhapatnam and Puri, with gusting 120 km per hour wind speed.
📣 SILVER LINING: Contrary to what was predicted earlier, Asani is likely to recurve over the sea away from the coast, and would not cross Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, or West Bengal.
❗️MEANWHILE, another cyclone named Karim, is brewing over southern parts of the Indian Ocean as currently a category two hurricane with a wind speed of 112 kmph.
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