The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. The Bombay High Court has ordered all Indian Premier League cricket matches out of Maharashtra after April 30 to reduce wastage of water in a drought-hit state.
2. The Maharashtra Assembly on Wednesday passed a prohibition of social boycott Bill, which outlaws caste and community panchayats.
3. The Ministry of External Affairs will reportedly go slower in attempts to reach alleged Indian spy Khulbhushan Yadav, after Iran informed New Delhi that it too was investigating him.
4. The death toll in the Jammu and Kashmir firing has gone up to four, prompting the Army to order an investigating into how so many protestors were killed.

The Big Story: Bharat Mata ki Jai Bhim?

What does Dr BR Ambedkar mean to modern India? It's unclear except that it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he means more to us today than almost ever before. The sight of political groupings that were bitterly opposed to the man and others that were threatened by him today struggling to appropriate Ambedkar's legacy is a testament to this.

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But appropriating his legacy is a complex thing, because it includes an attempt to whitewash much of what the other parties wouldn't consider acceptable, from Ambedkar's passionate hatred for the Bharatiya Janata Party's Brahminical Hinduism to his belief that the Congress did not believe in true revolution for India's oppressed classes.

The re-appropriation project that began with the Congress – which bitterly fought to reduce Ambedkar's influence – has now fully engulfed even the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The latter has even shockingly sought to portray in Ambedkar in terms most comfortable to it: as a Hindu supporter who disliked Islam. Even the Left is working hard to keep the Ambedkarite movement within its ranks.

The rise of Ambedkarite groupings and the treatment of Dalit scholars like Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide earlier this year after claiming he had been discriminated against, survives as the counter to these efforts.

They are a reminder that while today's political classes are ready to put Ambedkar away in the cabinet that contains the rest of our no-longer-relevant political pantheon – which also today includes Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru – Dalit discrimination is still very real, India remains extremely casteist and Ambedkar's annihilation project is far from complete.

The Big Scroll
Why BR Ambedkar's three warnings in his last speech to the Constituent Assembly resonate even today. Why everybody wants to appropriate Ambedkar. After decades spent vilifying Ambedkar, why are the BJP and Congress so keen to claim his legacy? If Modi really wants to make Ambedkar the BJP's mascot, here's what he must tell the RSS.

Politicking & Policying
1. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will be heading to China next week, where he is expected to bring up Beijing's ties with Pakistan.
2. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to launch the National Agriculture Market, an online trading portal aimed at making selling of farm produce more efficient.
3. Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah called the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam the "most corrupt" party in India, a scathing attack on a party that was ostensibly an informal ally.
4. Organisers of the massive Thrissur festival have chosen not to have a fireworks display or elephant parade at this year's celebrations, after the Kollam tragedy.

Punditry
1. D Raja writes in the Hindu about the prescience of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, whose 125th anniversary is being celebrated. Christophe Jaffrelot and Anand Teltumbde in the Indian Express also chime in on Ambedkar Jayanti.
2. The former special public prosecutor of the Malegaon blasts has spoken up in the Indian Express after the National Investigation Agency did a u-turn on the discharge of nine Muslim men facing terror charges in the case.
3. Facebook has seized the media, and that's bad news for everyone but Facebook, writers Julia Greenberg in Wired.