| | | The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday pulled off a pair of thrilling early-morning victories in Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. The BJP won three of the six seats in Maharashtra as its third candidate (after Piyush Goyal and Anil Bonde) Dhananjay Mahadik beat the Shiv Sena's Sanjay Pawar in a cliffhanger. In Haryana, the BJP won one seat (Krishan Lal Panwar) and media executive Kartikeya Sharma, who was backed by the party, defeated Congress's Ajay Maken by a razor-thin margin. | THE DAILY QUIZ Kshama Bindu looked radiant. In a 40-minute-long, unusual but traditional ceremony, in the presence of her friends, she tied the knot at her home in Gotri. She created a social media buzz with the announcement. Whom did she marry? a. A cousin
b. Herself
c. A neighbour
d. A tree TAKE THE FULL QUIZ: | | THE BIG STORY BJP clinches pre-dawn thrillers in Maharashtra, Haryana The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled off a pair of thrilling early-morning victories in Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra and Haryana on Saturday, striking a blow to the Opposition that was unable to keep its flock of legislators together and prevent cross-voting. The BJP won three of the six seats in Maharashtra as its third candidate (after Piyush Goyal and Anil Bonde) Dhananjay Mahadik beat the Shiv Sena's Sanjay Pawar in a cliffhanger. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won three seats – Nationalist Congress Party's Praful Patel, Congress's Imran Pratapgarhi and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut – but it will be little consolation after the embarrassing loss of Pawar, who fell short after independent lawmakers switched to the BJP, cancellation of a vote due to alleged violation of rules, and inability of two jailed ministers to vote. In Haryana, the BJP won one seat (Krishan Lal Panwar) and media executive Kartikeya Sharma, who was backed by the party, defeated Congress's Ajay Maken by a razor-thin margin. The results are a blow for senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who was unable to resolve differences with his rival Kuldeep Bishnoi, who cross-voted. Another Congress vote was disqualified, handing Sharma a narrow victory. Read more. |  | | THE BIG QUESTION Why has Mamata Banerjee called for an Opposition meet? West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has called a meeting of 22 opposition parties, including the Congress, in New Delhi on June 15 to decide on a united opposition candidate and strategize for next month's presidential election. Banerjee on Saturday sent letters to 22 non-BJP leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi and chief ministers of eight non-BJP ruled states. "The Presidential elections are around the corner, presenting the perfect opportunity for all progressive opposition parties to reconvene and deliberate on the future course of Indian politics," she wrote. Read more. | | A LITTLE LIGHT READING Bird's-eye view The word "happy" doesn't begin to describe what he's feeling, says Shaunak Sen. "The emotion of crossing the finish line is far more complex and complicated. While I am grateful and overwhelmed, it is also a constant reminder of the intensity of the roller-coaster months that led to this day." It took Sen, 34, three years to make the 93-minute documentary that recently won the L'Oeil d'Or (or Golden Eye) at Cannes, and before that, the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. All That Breathes is the story of two brothers, Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who work out of a dingy basement in Delhi, rescuing and treating black kites and other birds struggling to breathe in the city's polluted air. Read more. | | THE WEEKEND FIX Pride & joy: New tales of transness in Indian cinema They inhabit a liminal space on Indian screens, there but not really there. The trans person is typically portrayed as a hijra in the mainstream, strong but kind, often a friend or ally of troubled women, sometimes cunning, sometimes evil, always on the margins. Today, as streaming platforms alter the worlds of storytelling, catalysing a change in audiences too, new views of transness are emerging. There was the beautiful and tragic Kukoo in Season 1 of Sacred Games (2018-19). The powerful and menacing Razia Bai in Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022). The transwoman in a relationship with Ayushmann Khurrana's Manu in Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui (2021). The story follows their lives as she comes out to him, and his tumultuous journey towards acceptance. Read more. | | THE SPORTING LIFE A game of throws A couple of days more, and we will witness the return of the king. The king? When you are the first and only person to win an athletics gold for India at the Olympics, there's little that qualifies as hyperbole. The return? Neeraj Chopra had to shoulder the burden of being history-maker when he returned triumphant from Tokyo last year, spending months in a whirlwind of felicitations that left no time for training, even as track and field stars from other countries went back into competition. Chopra had to escape his own fame. With coach Klaus Bartonietz, he cloistered himself first at the Chula Vista Olympic training centre in California earlier this year, then in Turkey, then at the Kuortane Olympic Training Center in Finland. Read more. | | HT THIS DAY: June 12 1948 India to get tough with Nizam Thousands cheered the Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru, when he declared at a public meeting here this evening that "it is not at all difficult to defeat Hyderabad." "If it is necessary, we will do it," he said. 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