 Hello and welcome to NewsClick's daily roundup. I am Praveen Purkayashta and we are going to look at the headlines of the day. Unprecedented, disturbing says former chief election commissioner on the rift within the election commission. A quick overview of the eight states that are going to polls in the latest phase of the 2019 general elections. A look at our field report from Punjab and how this state has been reeling under the problem of severe drug abuse. In our international section today, we will discuss US Secretary of State's recent visit to Russia. Former chief election commissioner, Naveen Chawla, told NewsClick in an exclusive interview that we have never seen such a crisis in the election commission before. This is unprecedented that an election commissioner has recused himself from the meetings of the election commission because his views are not recorded. A look at his interview, which he did with Paranjaya Gautha Kutta of NewsClick today. I find this disturbing because from the time that I joined the commission, which was when Mr. Tandon, chief election commissioner, we had a norm of meeting every day and it wasn't just the three commissioners who made every day. It was all the officers, the deputy election commissioners as well as our two legal officers. So there were always at least eight or ten other senior officials who were always there in the room and we met Monday to Friday every day barring the odd day when somebody was traveling. So I can clearly see from this that everybody is not meeting every day and they're not meeting with the officers. This is not throughout the year but you're in the period of the elections. No, I would say that this was a very good practice throughout the year, all the time, irrespective of whether elections were on or not because we were constantly going into one election or the other but even otherwise. So I am disturbed by the fact that that very good practice and it is there cast in stone in my book because it's very important to say that all the officials of the election commission, the senior most officials were always there and participated in the decisions and any other, if there was a dissenting, let us say, position that I take, it was there before all to see. Chalaji, it's like this, according to media reports, Mr. Sunil Arora called Mr. Lavasa, they had a meeting and according to the chief election commissioner, only the minority views are recorded only when there are quasi-judicial proceedings and these need to be recorded and decisions pertaining to alleged violations of the model code of conduct, since they are not considered to be quasi-judicial proceedings, they need not be recorded. Let me just say that the election commission, the commissioners and the officials must all meet every day in my view. That was a healthy tradition started by Tandon, continued by Kupala Swami, continued by me in my time and I think continued by Mr. Sampath thereafter and possibly Mr. Koreshi thereafter. Now what legal recourse does somebody like Mr. Lavasa have under the circumstances? I do not know, this seems to be an unprecedented situation for me, I don't know. Tomorrow is the last phase of this time's general elections. Eight states are going into elections. Let's have a quick look at which are the seats which are going into the polls and what were the seats that were held by the respective parties. Just one more step, one last step. Yes, this is the last step of the 2019 elections. In this last step, eight states will vote on those six seats. The most important of these is Uttar Pradesh. Yes, Uttar Pradesh, from where Delhi leads. In the last step, 13 seats will be voted on. One of them is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi Omidwar from Varanasi. Last time, all these 13 seats were with BJP. Apart from this, 8 of Bihar, 3 of Charkhand, 4 of Himachal Pradesh, 8 of Madhya Pradesh, 9 of Pashimbongal and 13 of Punjab will be voted. Ravivar will also be a member of the Kedrashashit Pradesh Chandigarh's Iklavati seat. These seats are very important for NDA, especially for BJP. In the 2014 elections, NDA got 41 seats out of these 19 seats. Whereas, Kulpas were the seats in the UPA. And Anand won 13 seats. Stake with election coverage, Punjab is among the 8 states which is going to elections tomorrow. The drug problem that has been there in Punjab has claimed a number of lives including among the young people. This is a problem that has been looming in the state under both the ruling parties, Congress and the Akali Dal. To have a look at this problem, we have Ravi Kaushal, news click reporter who has gone to Jainpur village in Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar which lost 19 lives in a single year. Let's take a look at this story. During the election coverage of Punjab, we have reached the Jainpur village of Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar. Why have we brought you to this village? There is a special reason for this. The reason for this is that in the last one year, 19 children have lost their lives due to drugs. To discuss this issue with us, some people will tell us how the problem has been solved. And what do they think about it? There was a lot of intoxication in our village. This caused the death of 10-12 children in our village. Some of the children were like this. They were not wearing the clothes of their parents. Tell us, how much intoxication is there in this village? There is a lot of intoxication in this village. There is a lot of intoxication in this village. In every village. Wherever it is, it is also in our village. And all the other villages are like this. This is not the case today. This is the problem of our village for the past 7-8 years. That is why the government has been doing this for 5 years. The government has also changed this. That is why we are bringing children like this. Moving on to our international section of the roundup, I am going to hand this over to Abdul. In our international section today, we are discussing US Secretary of State's recent visit to Russia. American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Shokhi, Russia and met Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin on May 14. This is a significant meeting considering the publication of Robert Munner's report in April this year, which unleashed Russian interference in the American presidential election. This was Pompeo's first visit to Russia since he became Secretary of State. This was also the first meeting between the high officials of two states in more than a year. Pompeo also stopped at Brussels and met European leaders and discussed Iran. To discuss this, we have Pravir with us. Pravir, what do you think is the meaning of this particular visit at this particular juncture? See, there are two issues really, I think, which makes this visit important. Whether it has achieved anything or not is not clear. One is that with the Mueller report having more or less absolved Trump of any collusion with Russia and Russian government in his election, which was the charge with the Democrats have been levelling against him. I think the issue is that it is possible for Trump now to take some measures to normalize relations with Russia. As you know, the relations have been strained, sanctions have been imposed and though Trump did indicate that he wanted to normalize relations with Russia, a better relationship that has not transpired because he's been isolated with the pressure that he has been colluding with the Russians for his own elections. So, I think that has it really moved far enough for him to be able to have a quote-unquote reset of the relationship. It's an open question because the pressure of the Democrats and Trump is still great. They have said, Mueller report is not complete. There are sections which need to be reexamined. There are redactions. This sort of the drama of the so-called shall we say Russia hacking US elections still goes on. For all of us who have been studying all this, it seems rather dubious, given the fact that the US has hacked nearly every elections in the world and it's also on record having stated that they basically helped Yeltsin win. So, you know, if all of this is taken into account, the point is that how long can this sharan of Russia hacking US elections really go on to believe that the NSA and the CI with all the positive shall be surveillance capabilities and the disposal could not stop this. It seems to be, shall we say, make a mockery of what their capabilities themselves are. So, I think this recent can it happen? I don't think this has yet happened or this visit has accelerated that when Trump meets the sidelines of G20 Putin or if he does, then we will have to think whether a reset might be possible. Thank you for that. With this, we come to an end of our daily roundup today. Do keep watching news click and do visit our website.