Toxic politics over Tuticorin; Kamal Haasan exclusive; more

It's been decried as "state-sponsored terrorism" and deplored as the "mass murder" of innocent civilians, but Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami's views on police firing which killed 13 people in Tuticorin can be summed up in a single compound noun: Self-defence.

"When someone hits you, you naturally tend to defend yourselves. So [in] such situations, no one acts in a pre-planned manner," Palaniswami said Thursday, in the first of a series of tweets in English.