Here’s your roundup of today’s top stories in politics, world affairs, sports, and entertainment — everything you need to start your day informed. Good morning, readers.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday sought to put up a united front in the face of mounting criticism of its functioning, underlined that all decisions on the special intensive revision were unanimous, and clarified on key questions raised by the government and the Opposition. Read more here . Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov backed India’s candidature for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council during his address to the UN General Assembly. “We are in favour of broadening the representation of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Saturday told the UN General Assembly that the world was witnessing “a weaponisation of everything”. He said finance, market access, supply chains and technology were being used as leverage, and that developing nations were caught in a crisis of food, fuel, fertiliser and finance – with a looming El Nino expected to exacerbate this crisis. Addressing the general debate of the Assembly’s 81st session in New York, Jaishankar said: “All it takes is one more step to push us over. In the first public meeting of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi since the controversy began earlier this week, ECI sought to push back on criticism of its backend software, set up a review and said any future decisions on new digital initiatives will involve further discussions and checks. . We support Brazil’s and India’s candidatures for a permanent seat,” Lavrov said.
