God as the 12th man… Jemimah Rodrigues played her life-changing inning in the World Cup semi-final. Post the match, she says, “I thank Jesus… he carried me through this.” Faith can move mountains but it can also score runs and take wickets, writes my colleague Sandeep Dwivedi. From Sachin’s gods tucked away in his kitbag to Suryakumar Yadav’s Hanuman Chalisa at the crease, cricket has always had room for the divine. Cheteshwar Pujara chanted through surgeries and centuries, AB de Villiers learned to “let the Almighty take charge,” and even Matthew Hayden crossed himself at the crease. Faith, it seems, finds its way into every dressing room.With that, let’s move on to the top stories from today’s edition: Big StoryLocked in: Even as Delhi and Washington wrangle over tariffs and Russian oil, the two have signed a 10-year Framework for the US-India Major Defence Partnership. Signed in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ meet, this new Framework sets the tone for the next decade of military cooperation. Rajnath Singh hailed it as “a signal of our growing strategic convergence,” and his US counterpart Pete Hegseth said defence ties had “never been stronger.”India’s plan: Defence interoperability, logistics, repair and maintenance will be key components of this Framework. India’s defence inventory includes US- origin ware such as Super Hercules, Globemaster, Poseidon aircraft; Chinooks, Seahawks and Apaches; Harpoons; and M777 howitzers.⚡ Only in ExpressMounjaro’s moment: Every morning, 38-year-old Shyamla Kashyap scrolls through Reddit with a protein shake in hand, part of a fast-growing online congregation bound by a new obsession: weight-loss drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy. Her story mirrors India’s Mounjaro moment. Approved this year, these GLP-1 drugs promise more than slimmer waistlines: better blood sugar control, heart and kidney protection, maybe even a new era in metabolic medicine. But as an endocrinologist cautions, “The real test will be if they reduce heart-related deaths or events.” Will India’s obesity and diabetes care landscape truly change in the next five years because of these drugs? Read.Packed with promises: The NDA’s Bihar manifesto packs in promises across sectors: 1 crore jobs through a skill census, Rs 2 lakh assistance under the Mukhya Mantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, 1 crore ‘Lakhpati Didis’, Mission Crorepati for women entrepreneurs, Rs 10 lakh for EBC business groups and Rs 2,000 monthly aid for Dalit students, just to name a few. The NDA’s Sankalp Patra casts Bihar as both a skilling capital and global workplace. But how does it stack up against the Mahagathbandhan’s promises? Here’s the full comparison.Story continues below this adStudying the shift: With the war in Ukraine stretching into its fourth year, Indian medical aspirants are charting a new course – to Georgia. RBI data shows Indians spent USD 50 million on education there in 2024-25, nearly five times what they did six years ago, even as remittances to Ukraine plunged. Russia, meanwhile, is seeing a revival of its own. What’s driving these shifts: cost, safety, or strategy? Find out. Express ExplainedTipping the scales: When Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in Berlin that India “doesn’t do deals in a hurry or with a gun on our head,” what stood out was his rationale — that India is negotiating “based on the future,” one where it is a $30 trillion economy in 20–25 years. The analysis shows that even small shifts in growth rates can alter long-term outcomes, underscoring why sustaining momentum matters if India wants its economic projections to hold. How far are we really from that USD 30 trillion mark and what could tip the scales? My colleague, Udit Misra, breaks it down in his weekly column. ✍️ Express OpinionAs Bihar readies for an election, a new study asks whether caste shapes not just politics but also what happens inside classrooms. Conducted by ADRI and IIM Bangalore, the research finds that “forward-caste teachers rate backward-caste students 0.22–0.43 ranks lower than their actual test-based performance warrants, a gap that stems from perception, not performance,” writes Ritwik Banerjee, Satarupa Mitra, Soham Sahoo and Ashmita Gupta in our Opinion section today. Bihar may have expanded access to education, but as they note, “reforms in infrastructure, curriculum, or testing cannot substitute for reforms in perception.” Movie ReviewRarely has the world seemed as disparate, between “the winners” and “the losers” — and that’s the tension driving Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest with Emma Stone, writes Shalini Langer, in her review. ‘Bugonia’ (a remake of a Korean film) stars Stone as Michelle, the beautiful, Louboutin-clad CEO of a biomedical giant, kidnapped by two broke cousins — Teddy, who believes she’s an alien from Andromeda, and Don, who follows along. “Stone is very, very good, as is Plemons. Neither of which is a surprise.” Story continues below this adOn trial: Paresh Rawal stars as Vishnu Das, a tourist guide who drags the Taj Mahal to court, demanding to know on what basis Shah Jahan’s story found its way into school textbooks. What begins as a courtroom drama soon becomes, as the review notes, “a collage of conspiracy theories,” with Das turning lawyer to argue that the Taj was “once a Hindu king’s palace” later converted by the Mughals. At 165 minutes, it “trudges on without offering any real answers” — merely stirring the pot.That’s it for today, have a great weekend!Malavika Jayadeep