Daily Briefing: The Gill factor
India roared back to life after the heartbreak at Headingley, levelling the England vs India series 1-1 in the second Test. In a performance for the ages, the young Indian side scripted history with a 336-run win, marking their first-ever Test victory at Edgbaston and the largest margin of triumph on foreign soil. With no Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, R Ashwin, and in this match, Jasprit Bumrah, this fledgling unit has a lot to prove. And leading the charge is Shubman Gill, whose record-breaking 430 runs aggregate in the Test helped seal the deal. While it's too early to judge his captaincy, Gill proved that he has steel for the role. As national sports editor Sandeep Dwivedi writes, 'He has a reassuring presence on the field. The 25-year-old doesn't show anxiety that most new leaders experience or press the panic button too early. There is a quiet confidence about him.'
We have more on the Edgbaston Test, but first, let's cover the rest of the day's headlines.
The Election Commission's herculean task to revise the electoral rolls in time for the Bihar elections has come under scrutiny, sparking concern among Opposition parties as well as voters. On Sunday, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar defended the exercise, stating that the revision was being done after all recognised political parties expressed dissatisfaction with the current status of electoral rolls for 'one reason or the other'.
With numerous voters facing difficulties in furnishing documents required to prove their citizenship, an advertisement published by the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) clarified that electors can submit enumeration forms for now and provide the documents later, anytime before July 25, 2025. Kumar clarified that this was always the case as per the June 24 order. Here are the guidelines.
Paper trail: Last week, The Indian Express fanned out in different districts of Bihar to observe the challenges on the ground to the revision exercise. Continuing the series today, my colleague Santosh Singh reports on the upper castes, largely viewed as an NDA vote bank, who echo the unease of the poor and marginalised. Among the many villages Singh visited, one refrain was common — the lack of domicile certificates, leaving authorities to deal with thousands of domicile applications daily.
Legal hurdle: The exercise now faces legal challenges in court. RJD MP Manoj Jha has moved the Supreme Court, questioning the timing of the revision, which could 'disenfranchise Bihar's mobile workforce'. TMC MP Mahua Moitra and civil society organisations, the Association for Democratic Reforms and the People's Union for Civil Liberties, have moved similar petitions in the SC. The pleas are crucial, given that the EC plans to eventually implement the exercise all over India.
🎧 For more on the Bihar electoral rolls revision, tune in to today's '3 Things' podcast episode.
In the latest Idea Exchange session, Union Minister of Jal Shakti C R Patil elaborated on the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), which recently came under the scanner for alleged corruption and the action taken by his ministry to rein it in. He also spoke about the controversial Namami Gange project and Gujarat politics. Read.
The climb: 'Some arrived as modern adventurers, sporting jackets, proper hiking boots, and carefully planned provisions. Others embodied raw faith, undertaking the trek barefoot in simple knickers and shirts, cigarettes dangling from their lips,' writes Anand Mohan J from Sheshnag in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. He has joined the scores of pilgrims undertaking the Amarnath Yatra, the first since the April 22 terror attack. Read his richly detailed account.
Cabbie killer: After 25 long years, the Delhi Police have finally apprehended the elusive serial killer responsible for a string of brutal crimes between 1999 and 2001. Ajay Lamba, also known as Bansi, is accused of robbing and murdering four taxi drivers across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. He would allegedly dispose of the stolen vehicles by selling them in Nepal. A breakthrough came when the arrest of one of his associates provided crucial leads, ultimately leading to his capture.
Re-do: A Wildlife Institute of India (WII) report has left the Ministry of Environment unimpressed. The ministry sent back the annual progress report on the Captive Elephant Database Project to WII, flagging serious issues like plagiarism, data gaps and even the wrong species (an African elephant instead of an Asian one) on the cover. Wild, right?
Agent AI: From China's 'intelligentised warfare', which has also benefitted Pakistan, to Ukraine's AI-powered drones and India's defence tech ambitions, there's no doubt deep tech is transforming modern warfare. But here's the twist: all that cutting-edge AI runs on massive amounts of energy, and India may not be ready. In the future battlefield, electricity may be the ultimate weapon.
Red lines: Jane Street, an American proprietary trading firm, appeared to be a seasoned global investor in the Indian markets. Until the watchdog, Sebi, took a closer look. It found that Jane Street, trading with its capital instead of client funds, made strategic and malicious attempts to sway the market and drive up its profits. How did Jane Street manipulate the market? We explain.
ENG vs IND: Is Bazball, marked by non-conformist, left-field thinking, truly a 'game-changer' or the 'messiah' saving Test cricket from death? If England's Edgbaston defeat and earlier losses against cricketing heavyweights are any indication, the answer might be a resounding no. In this sharp analysis, Sandeep Dwivedi explains why Bazball's rigid commitment to non-conformism could keep England from achieving world dominance.
Also read: Nip-backers, 'anushaasan' and wiles: How Akash Deep did the star turn at Edgbaston
Birkenstocks, with their distinctive cork footbeds and minimalist designs, have taken the world by storm. They are iconic, comfortable, and a style statement. But their relatively steep price has kept many from buying the orthopaedic sandals. Enter 'Birkanstocks' or 'Brknstock' and so on. Fake Birkenstocks have since flooded the market, selling for cheaper across India, and the world. The German brand has now launched an infringement lawsuit against small-scaled factories in India, which produce counterfeit footwear. As part of the lawsuit, the court has appointed a panel to visit these factories and seize and seal the infringing products, per a Reuters report.
That's all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta
Sonal Gupta is a senior sub-editor on the news desk. She writes feature stories and explainers on a wide range of topics from art and culture to international affairs. She also curates the Morning Expresso, a daily briefing of top stories of the day, which won gold in the 'best newsletter' category at the WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Awards 2023. She also edits our newly-launched pop culture section, Fresh Take.
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Also part of the educated class was Sarojini Naidu, better known as the Nightingale of India, who studied at King's College between 1895 to 1898. Around the same time, Cornelia Sorabji enrolled to study law at the University of Oxford. Through debating societies such as the Oxbridge Majlis circles, these English-educated Indians came in contact with nationalists such as Aurobindo Ghosh, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, M K Gandhi, and others. The meetings fostered discussion and political participation in the nationalist movement among the diaspora. Chatterjee explains that since the 1890s, 'the Cambridge Majlis and the Oxford Majlis had been the greenhouses for preparing university graduates for political debates on issues of electoral equality, democracy and fighting British imperialism'. Swami Vivekananda, after attending the World Parliament of Religions in the United States in 1895, visited London for three months. During his stay, he delivered multiple lectures across the city and in universities such as Oxford, preaching the cause of Indian independence. 'Indian nationalists resolved to 'flood Great Britain with pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers and magazine articles.' In 1888, 10,000 copies of the report of the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress were disseminated across Britain. The next year, the journal called India was founded in London, which continued to be published until 1921,' finds Chatterjee. Among the many institutions that showcased the role of the Indian diaspora in the cause of freedom was India House. It was founded by Shyamji Krishnavarma, an assistant to a Sanskrit professor in Oxford, at Highgate in London. Through the India House, Tiné argues, '…Krishnavarma specifically targeted the ever-growing South Asian student community in the Uk…[reflecting] his conviction that Indian independence could only be achieved under the leadership of a small intelligentsia educated abroad.' 'In its early months, India House was widely considered to be a thrifty residential home and Hindustani restaurant catering to Indian students in the city. Secretly, however, it operated as a hub of Indian revolutionaries, and often as a stopover for rebel recruits from India for their journeys to or from Paris or America,' notes Chatterjee. Among its activities was the publication of an anti-colonial magazine under the title, The Indian Sociologist. Its purpose, according to Chatterjee, was to warn its English readership that they could ''never succeed in being a nation of freemen…so long as they continue to send members of the dominant classes to exercise despotism in Britain's name upon the conquered races'.' Activist Bhikaji Rustomji Cama was also closely associated with India House. The next was the London Muslim League. Established by Syed Ameer Ali in collaboration with S H Bilgrami in 1908, the League was created to advocate for the rights of Muslims in England and elsewhere, independent of its parent wing, the All India Muslim League (1906). Meanwhile, influenced by Shapurji Saklatvala, a member of the Independent Labour Party, V K Krishna Menon arrived in England in 1924 and graduated with an MSc from the London School of Economics a decade later. In his youth, spent in Madras, Menon had joined Annie Besant's Home Rule for India League to fight for Indian independence, inspired by the Irish Home Rule movement. The organisation was later renamed the Commonwealth of India League. At this point, Besant resigned and left the League under Menon's leadership. Chatterjee notes that in 1929, the word 'Commonwealth' was dropped, making it the India League. 'Over that decade, the India League would set up offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Coventry and Wales, as well as a branch office in America, attended by Indian students, trade unionists, members of cooperative societies and many university and political elites,' finds Chatterjee. The branches aimed to advocate for gender equality, civil liberty, and freedom from colonial rule. In 1941, the India League also launched a campaign against the imprisonment of Jawaharlal Nehru and other Congressmen. Also deserving mention is Mulk Raj Anand, an Indian writer in London. He quietly followed the activities of the India League and eventually formed the All India Progressive Writers Association. 'The surreptitious ceremony was lined up in the backroom of the Nanking Restaurant on Denmark Street, where Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer and Jyotirmaya drafted the manifesto of the Association,' Chatterjee told They hoped to address, through the written word, issues of poverty, illiteracy, and caste that plagued India. With the 'Quit India' call in 1942, several other Indian organisations sprang up in London. Among them was the Committee of Indian Congressmen, founded by Amiya Bose, a nephew of Subhas Chandra Bose. 'Restaurateuring in the city,' said Chatterjee, 'was conceived as a close cousin of the incendiary spirits of nationalism. Most of these restaurants were run by lascars from the Sylhet district of Bengal, who, after 1971 would be known as Bangladeshis.' Among the ones mentioned in his book are Shah Jolal Restaurant, at 76 Commercial Street in the East End owned by lascar Master Ayub Ali. The space, opened in 1920, was a meeting place for members of the India League. Another was an Indian restaurant and lodging house for Indians: The Hindustan Community House, managed by Kundan Lal Jalie since 1937. 'Inter alia, it also provided free medical services by Indian doctors, and functioned as a cultural centre stocked with English and Indian newspapers, besides the services of a radio and a gramophone,' explains Chatterjee. Another meeting spot of the League was Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi's India Centre, built on Charlotte Street in 1944. Despite the many efforts, the Indian diaspora struggled to yield results. They failed at forging meaningful solidarity with Indians back home. Chatterjee remarked in his interview, 'Indians did not perceive Indians in London in a very positive light, apart from, let's say, Madam Bhikaji Cama.' 'V K Krishna Menon can be said to be a mouthpiece of Indian interests in London at the time, but the India League and the Indian diaspora fell short of resonance, barring these influential individuals and organisations. I have no evidence of Indians being particularly involved in collaboration with Indians in London,' he explained. Readings: Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India by Arup K. Chatterjee Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism by Harald Fischer-Tiné Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: The Story of Indians in Britain 1700-1947 by Rozina Visram
