Above the Fold: Top stories of the day
1. A stampede at the Godavari Pushkaram, a major Hindu religious bathing festival in Andhra Pradesh, led to the death of 29 people.
2. The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday raided activist Teesta Setalvad's house over allegations of receiving illegal foreign funding. The raid is being called a "vendetta" against Setalvad who has always been vocal about the actions of the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
3. Iran and the world powers have managed to come to an agreement on a deal to limit Tehran's nuclear programme, ending years of isolation and sanctions for the country.
The Big Story: That's not cricket
A Supreme Court-appointed committee headed by Justice RM Lodha delivered its verdict on the quantum of punishment for two teams of the Indian Premier League, suspending the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals from the league for the next two years. This, along with betting-related lifetime suspensions for Royals' co-owner Raj Kundra and former Super Kings' team associate Gurunath Meiyappan, means the IPL and Indian cricket are facing the biggest crisis since the match-fixing scandals of the mid-1990s.
The league's difficulty will be carrying out the IPL over the next two years, with a bunch of unassigned players and two suspended franchises. The Board of Control for Cricket in India is considering allowing or even setting up two new franchises that could tide them over. Kundra and Meiyappan, meanwhile, could appeal the decision, but with the teams already attempting to put some distance between them and the two, that is unlikely to go anywhere.
But it's hard to ignore the fact that this can't possibly be the extent of problems in Indian cricket. Kundra was co-owner after all and was involved in betting. Worse, Meiyappan is the son-in-law of N Srinivasan, who not only owns the Chennai Super Kings, he also happens to be the chairman of the International Cricket Council and one of the biggest players in Indian cricket's administrative politics. Looking into Srinivasan would involve examining the entire apparatus, from Lalit Modi to Arun Jaitley. If anyone thinks the IPL verdict has stemmed the rot in Indian cricket, they might need to think again.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
Finalists the first year, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals suspended from next two IPLs. What implications will the Justice Lodha verdict have on cricket?
Politicking & Policying
1. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday, with Kumar saying that he too supported the call for full statehood in the capital.
2. The government has given the nod to a Chinese company to get involved with telecom manufacturing in India for the first time, despite security concerns, although it is likely to mandate that Huawei keep top posts for Indians.
3. Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has turned down an invite to the Pakistan embassy's Eid feast, saying that the joint statement with India earlier this month did not make mention of Kashmir.
4. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has been taunting the Majithia family, which is related to him by marriage as well as by presence in his cabinet, as they continue to be accused of corruption and for being behind Punjab's drug trade.
5. Yakub Memon, who was sentenced to death for being involved in the 1993 Bombay blast conspiracy, is set to be the first from that case to be hanged, with the execution set for July 30, DNA reports.
Punditry
1. Delhi belongs to the entire country, not just residents of the capital, so if there is to be a referendum on statehood, writes TSR Subramanian in the Indian Express, it should consider the feelings of the nation.
2. The Socio Economic and Caste Census is likely to end up as discredited as most other surveys in this nation, writes M Vijayunni in the Hindu.
3. "Saudi Arabia is a fitting diplomatic challenge that Modi can pick up if he wants to move away from his practice of mostly being with hosts who conform while going abroad," writes KP Nayar in the Telegraph.
Don't Miss
Janaki Lenin explains how leopards came to live peacefully with Mumbai’s residents.
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1. A stampede at the Godavari Pushkaram, a major Hindu religious bathing festival in Andhra Pradesh, led to the death of 29 people.
2. The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday raided activist Teesta Setalvad's house over allegations of receiving illegal foreign funding. The raid is being called a "vendetta" against Setalvad who has always been vocal about the actions of the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
3. Iran and the world powers have managed to come to an agreement on a deal to limit Tehran's nuclear programme, ending years of isolation and sanctions for the country.
The Big Story: That's not cricket
A Supreme Court-appointed committee headed by Justice RM Lodha delivered its verdict on the quantum of punishment for two teams of the Indian Premier League, suspending the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals from the league for the next two years. This, along with betting-related lifetime suspensions for Royals' co-owner Raj Kundra and former Super Kings' team associate Gurunath Meiyappan, means the IPL and Indian cricket are facing the biggest crisis since the match-fixing scandals of the mid-1990s.
The league's difficulty will be carrying out the IPL over the next two years, with a bunch of unassigned players and two suspended franchises. The Board of Control for Cricket in India is considering allowing or even setting up two new franchises that could tide them over. Kundra and Meiyappan, meanwhile, could appeal the decision, but with the teams already attempting to put some distance between them and the two, that is unlikely to go anywhere.
But it's hard to ignore the fact that this can't possibly be the extent of problems in Indian cricket. Kundra was co-owner after all and was involved in betting. Worse, Meiyappan is the son-in-law of N Srinivasan, who not only owns the Chennai Super Kings, he also happens to be the chairman of the International Cricket Council and one of the biggest players in Indian cricket's administrative politics. Looking into Srinivasan would involve examining the entire apparatus, from Lalit Modi to Arun Jaitley. If anyone thinks the IPL verdict has stemmed the rot in Indian cricket, they might need to think again.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
Finalists the first year, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals suspended from next two IPLs. What implications will the Justice Lodha verdict have on cricket?
Politicking & Policying
1. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday, with Kumar saying that he too supported the call for full statehood in the capital.
2. The government has given the nod to a Chinese company to get involved with telecom manufacturing in India for the first time, despite security concerns, although it is likely to mandate that Huawei keep top posts for Indians.
3. Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has turned down an invite to the Pakistan embassy's Eid feast, saying that the joint statement with India earlier this month did not make mention of Kashmir.
4. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has been taunting the Majithia family, which is related to him by marriage as well as by presence in his cabinet, as they continue to be accused of corruption and for being behind Punjab's drug trade.
5. Yakub Memon, who was sentenced to death for being involved in the 1993 Bombay blast conspiracy, is set to be the first from that case to be hanged, with the execution set for July 30, DNA reports.
Punditry
1. Delhi belongs to the entire country, not just residents of the capital, so if there is to be a referendum on statehood, writes TSR Subramanian in the Indian Express, it should consider the feelings of the nation.
2. The Socio Economic and Caste Census is likely to end up as discredited as most other surveys in this nation, writes M Vijayunni in the Hindu.
3. "Saudi Arabia is a fitting diplomatic challenge that Modi can pick up if he wants to move away from his practice of mostly being with hosts who conform while going abroad," writes KP Nayar in the Telegraph.
Don't Miss
Janaki Lenin explains how leopards came to live peacefully with Mumbai’s residents.
No wall was built to separate humans from leopards. People continue to live in their hamlets within the park. And there are just as many leopards in Mumbai now. Yet, since an attack on a seven-year-old boy in October 2013, no leopard has attacked a human in the past 20 months.