| Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day's biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying home and staying safe. Here are the big stories that you need to follow today:
India-Australia strategic pact
India and Australia on Thursday elevated their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and signed seven agreements, including a landmark deal for reciprocal access to military bases for logistics support. The agreements were signed during an online summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison. Of particular note is the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), which will allow the militaries of the two countries to use each other's bases for repair and replenishment of supplies. India has already signed similar agreements with the U.S., France and Singapore. The two sides also upgraded their two-plus-two dialogue, featuring their foreign and defence secretaries, to the ministerial level. They further vowed to boost collaboration in science, technology, and research to support their national Covid-19 responses and promote innovative solutions to fight the pandemic. Amazon in talks with Airtel According to a Reuters report, Amazon.com is reportedly in the early stages of talks to buy a stake worth at least $2 billion in Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel, "underscoring the growing attraction of India's digital economy for U.S. tech giants." This would mean Amazon acquiring a roughly 5% stake based on the current market value of Bharti Airtel, which is India's third-largest telecom company with more than 300 million subscribers. Dire as the lockdown period has been for much of the economy, there has been significant action in the telecom sector, which is shaping into a battleground for the world's biggest tech giants. Back in April, Facebook had acquired a 9.99 % stake in Reliance Jio, and there have been reports of Google eyeing a minority stake in Vodafone India's struggling business. Mallya not returning yet Fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallya will not be extradited to India as of now, as the UK needs to resolve a "confidential" legal issue, a spokesperson of the British High Commission said today.  Vijay Mallya leaves the Royal Courts of Justice in London. File The nature of the legal issue remains unclear. It is, however, being speculated that the tycoon could have sought political asylum in the UK or cited the threat to his health because of the possible spread of Covid-19 in Indian prisons. "Vijay Mallya last month lost his appeal against extradition and was refused leave to appeal further to the U.K. Supreme Court. However, there is a further legal issue that needs resolving before Mr. Mallya's extradition can be arranged," the spokesperson said today . Gujarat MLAs resign ahead of RS polls Two Congress legislators, Akshay Patel and Jitu Chaudhary, have tendered their resignations ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls for four seats, scheduled to be held on June 19 in the state. This is a repeat of an episode that had played out in March, when four Congress legislators had resigned from the party. With these resignations, the Congress's strength in the Gujarat assembly has come down to 66. Basu Chatterjee passes away Filmmaker and screenwriter Basu Chatterjee, the torch-bearer of middle-of-the-road Hindi cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, passed away in Mumbai on Thursday morning. He was 93 and died due to age-related health complications.  Basu Chatterjee in 2013. Our cinema editor Namrata Joshi writes that Chatterjee, along with Hrishikesh Mukherjee, was a master of the light-hearted, middle class, family drama that had emerged as a parallel narrative to the more mainstream Angry Young Man movies. Some of his popular films, such as Piya Ka Ghar (1972) and Baaton Baaton Mein (1979), were all about the skein of relationships within families, seemingly complicated but simple at heart. They often dealt with intelligent women negotiating personal or relationship conundrums, like in Rajnigandha (1974), Chhoti Si Baat (1975) and Priyatama (1977). Supreme Court orders a 'uniform pass' for NCR regions The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Centre to meet with Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana officials to devise a "common, uniform" pass system for inter-state movement in the National Capital Region (NCR) areas during the pandemic. Noting that the common man should not suffer, a Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan said the Centre and the three states should meet and decide in a week on a common pass system. "The petition says that in the NCR area there should be one policy, one pass recognised by all the three states to avoid confusion, difficulty to the common man... Convene a meeting of the states' officials and endeavour to find out a common programme with respect to inter-state movement in the NCR," the court ordered. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments  Relatives mourn a man who died due to COVID-19 at a crematorium in New Delhi on June 4, 2020. The number of coronavirus cases in India stood at 2,23,016 at the time of publishing this newsletter, and the death toll was 6,250.
Balancing act on wage payments The Supreme Court on Thursday extended, till June 12, the operation of its May 15 order asking the government not to take any coercive action against companies and employers found violating its March 29 circular mandating the payment of full wages to employees for the lockdown period. In the proceedings, conducted through video-conferencing, the Bench observed that while workmen should not be left unpaid, there may well be cases where the employer may not have the money to pay, and hence, a balancing act was needed. In Brief: Bloomberg reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff at a companywide meeting that he won't change his mind about a decision not to take down certain posts shared by U.S. President Donald Trump last week. Many Facebook employees had felt that Trump's posts violated the company's policies against violent rhetoric. The Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi on Thursday announced that it will remain closed till June 30. The announcement followed news of an employee's death from Covid-19. | 
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