Signing you in

The friendship and the brotherhood between Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi turned bitter on the fields of Buenos Aires years ago. They had been comrades in 489 games. However, that day, playing for Argentina, Messi showed little mercy to Iniesta, the goalscorer in the final against the Netherlands, or his other Barcelona friends. “It was the last time Messi confronted Spain – the country where he spent most of his years from 13 to 34, the La Masia Academy of Barcelona that moulded and nurtured his ideas and ideals of football, the club that gave him an identity, where he made friends and bonds of a lifetime,” describes Sandip G. So, how did Argentina manage to retain Messi? A VHS tape, a mistranslated fax reading “LEONEL MECCI,” and a coach cold-calling every Messi in the phone book: here’s the story of how Argentina found him first.

With that, let’s move on to the top five stories from today’s edition:

Activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi for the past 20 days, was taken to Safdarjung Hospital in South Delhi on Saturday morning amid a heavy police deployment at the protest site. Wangchuk’s fast comes as part of the protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak. The development comes a day after Anurag Kumar assumed charge as the Delhi Police Commissioner. Delhi Police said the move was carried out in compliance with the directions of the Delhi High Court and on expert medical advice, citing the activist’s deteriorating health condition.

Meanwhile, Cockroach Janta Party leader Abhijeet Dipke has alleged he was “beaten up and put under detention by the Delhi Police”. Another CJP leader, Saurav Das, confirmed the developments, and said Dipke was detained from the place he was staying at. This development comes two days ahead of a planned march to Parliament on July 20 by Wangchuk and his supporters. Follow live updates here.

Two years after the Kargil War, with the main instigator, General Pervez Musharraf, in power in Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided to invite the Pakistani official to India. This would result in what is referred to as the Agra Summit that lasted from July 14 to 16, 2001. The Summit marked a fleeting moment when it looked like the two countries would finally solve some of their problems by talking across a table. However, the talks ended spectacularly, with Musharraf cutting short his visit, followed by one of the lowest points for India-Pakistan relations. 25 years later, the Summit holds valuable lessons — on both the possibilities and futility of dialogue when the mistrust runs as deep as it does between the two nations.

Official economic data on India’s Q1 growth is set to be released at the end of August. In his weekly column, Udit Misra highlights that according to the latest official data series released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, India’s economy grew at over 7 per cent in each of the past three years — 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25. This figure is crucial because it is the bare minimum that India needs to achieve its long-term goal of becoming a developed country by 2047. However, given the severe economic turbulence, thanks to the US and Israel’s war against Iran, concerns about whether India will be able to retain its growth momentum, are growing.

In our Opinion section today, journalist Madhu Trehan recalls the horrific brutality unleashed on ordinary people by terrorists fighting for Khalistan in 1988, claiming this part of the story in Punjab stands missing from the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer film, Satluj. Highlighting that Rajiv Gandhi had appointed K P S Gill at the time to quell the violence in Punjab, Trehan writes: “The police and government have to face accountability. That’s what Satluj demands. But why is the same criterion not applied to the terrorists who committed unspeakable acts? Does this justify Gill’s crackdown? The norm at that time and habit of bumping off any person who was a nuisance, does become just that. A habit. Khalra is portrayed as a human rights activist seeking answers through all the proper channels. Yes, that is partially correct. The massive omission is that Khalra was a propagandist for the terrorists whose violent methods he supported.”

Wondering what to watch this weekend? Well, we’ve got you covered! The Odyssey is now available on India’s IMAX screens, bringing you Christopher Nolan’s craft and commitment merged with Emily Wilson’s adaptation of the epic – the first by a woman, and often contested – as his inspiration. Shalini Langer, in her review, writes: “In the film, the gods are largely inconsequential (barring a scowling, floating in-and-out Athena), real heroes are decided by free will, women are firmly – and sometimes fiercely – feminist, and the shifty, cunning Odysseus of the epic is a man defined almost entirely by guilt that befits a quintessential Nolan lead.”