Daily Briefing: The Congress’s messaging on Operation Sindoor

Big Story

The Congress party once again found itself in the deep end, with its leaders questioning specific aspects of Operation Sindoor. The row centres around External Affairs S Jaishankar’s remarks last week that India had informed Pakistan that it was targeting terrorists’ infrastructure “at the start of the operation”.

Red lines: Latching on to his words, Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called the move a “crime”, insinuating that prior information could have hurt India’s defences. “How many aircraft did our air force lose as a result?” he questioned in an earlier post. The Ministry of External Affairs has rebutted Gandhi’s statement as a “misrepresentation” of facts.

Divided: Not many are comfortable within the party with this chosen line of attack. The apprehension settled in after Congress spokesman Pawan Khera doubled down in a press briefing, asserting that this can only be called “mukhbiri” (acting as an informant). Party leaders feel the leadership may be “stretching” the issue.

Upset: Congress also found itself on the backfoot after the Government announced the names of leaders to head all-party delegations to reinforce Delhi’s global diplomatic outreach. Among those named was senior party leader Shashi Tharoor, a former diplomat and now the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. The Congress party was miffed that the government did not consider the names suggested by it, and made no efforts to hide its disappointment.

Only in Express

The National Museum spent nearly Rs 35 crore fixing up CMP-A3, a barrack at the iconic Red Fort, between 2019 and 2023. It brought in new showcases and fixtures to display its ‘Arms and Armour Gallery’ and ‘Anthropology Collections’. In July 2023, however, an inspection deemed CMP-A3 “unsafe” for the “high-value objects”. The first-floor ceiling was leaking, and the lighting was inadequate. An application filed under the Right to Information Act by The Indian Express shows that just a month later, the Culture Ministry decided to house a different archival collection at the same barracks. Read all about it here.

From the Front Page

In deep water: The Jal Jeevan Mission ran into funding woes a couple of months earlier. The Water Resources Ministry’s proposal demanding a whopping Rs 2.79 lakh crore for completing the mission raised questions of cost escalations. Now, the government has decided to send 100 teams of Central Nodal Officers for “ground inspection” of the schemes across the country.

Baby steps: At least 13 civilians were killed in last week’s shelling by Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch. Among those were three students of the Christ School in the district. As the school reopened on Monday, many students chose to stay away. Those who came were still struggling with the aftermath. Read my colleague Aiswarya Raj’s report, capturing the anxiety and emotions on the ground.

Must Read

Trump-ets: A transactional Trump was on display during the US President’s recent sojourn in West Asia. Unlike his 2017 visit, this time, Donald Trump chose to keep geopolitics and the Israel-Gaza issue aside. His multibillion-dollar contracts stole the spotlight instead. Former diplomat Talmiz Ahmad opines that these deals will bring little strategic change to the region.

In interest: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept interest rates unchanged between February 2023 and 2025. Critics at the time had called upon the central bank to consider the ‘core’ inflation (which was lower) instead of the ‘headline’ general inflation while deciding its monetary policy. The ‘core’ inflation excludes food and fuel items—relatively volatile components. Now, food inflation is trailing both headline and core inflation. What would that mean for the RBI’s monetary policy? We explain.

And Finally…

An annual report by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) points to a skewed distribution of mutual fund investments in India. A staggering 52.52% of the country’s total mutual fund assets under management are heavily concentrated in just five cities.

The AMFI data also points to a shift in investment preferences among individuals across different age brackets. (I will take this opportunity to plug my recent deep dive on young investors, who are betting more and bigger than their parents ever did.)

🎧 Before you go, tune in to today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast, where we discuss the arrest of an Ashoka University professor, a new high-speed highway from Shillong to Silchar, and Pakistan’s attempted strike at the Golden Temple.

That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta

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