I’ve lost count of the number of years I have been attending the International Film Festival of Kerala held in Thiruvananthapuram. Has it been 15 years or 17? I first went there on the recommendation of fellow critic and friend Rashid Irani and stayed in the hotel he suggested. I consumed a delectable banquet of cinema an irresistible side dish: ven pongal.

Ever since then, my hotel of choice in Thiruvananthapuram has always been Ariya Nivaas. It’s across the street from one of the major festival venues and close to other cinemas too. But the lure of Ariya Nivaas isn’t just convenience. It’s the ven pongal – the pale yellow rice-and-lentil orb dipped in ghee and garnished with pepper that is a breakfast staple across South India.

Annoyingly, the tariff at Ariya Nivaas does not include breakfast. But thankfully, Ariya Nivaas has two restaurants (AC and non-AC) that serve round-the-clock meals – soft idlis, perfectly crisp dosas, wholesome thalis that come with payasam, a ghee roast that is probably hard on the arteries. And ven pongal – delicious, perfectly spiced ven pongal.

I always start a manic day at the festival (catching a minimum of four films and a maximum of five) with ven pongal. It doesn’t just layer the stomach until lunch. The dish reminds me of my mother’s cooking back home in Bombay, vacations to Chennai, wedding breakfasts. It’s both comfort food and Proustian experience.

The couple of times I didn’t stay at Ariya Nivaas, I skipped the offer of the free breakfast at my hotel to schlep across to the Ariya Nivaas restaurant. The warm, hard-working waiters there know me as “Bombay Amma” and they serve up the ven pongal seconds after I have placed my order.

The hotel has seen renovations, the introduction of a hydraulic parking system and higher prices. Through all of this, the quality of the food has never once diminished. The ven pongal tastes the same as it did when I first walked into Ariya Nivaas nearly two decades ago.

There is probably better ven pongal available elsewhere in Thiruvananthapuram. Other eateries possibly offer tastier variations of the dish.

Do I want to experiment? Not really. Just as I routinely plan my trip to IFFK months in advance without knowing anything about the festival programme, so do I plot my mornings around the ven pongal at Ariya Nivaas.

Tastefully curated cinema and mouth-watering ven pongal – can anything be more blissful? Year on year, neither of them disappoints.

The Punjab Assembly on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution against the 2025 VB-G RAM G Act, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government of “taking away the right to guaranteed employment” from Dalit labourers, PTI reported.

The House recommended that the state government ask the Union government to immediately restore the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to its original form.

The 2025 Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill replacing the MGNREGA was given assent by the president on December 21, two days after it was passed by Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

Under the new law, the number of guaranteed workdays will increase to 125, while states’ share of costs will rise to 40%. The Union government will continue to bear the wage component, with states sharing material and administrative expenses.

The legislation has drawn criticism from economists and labour rights experts.

On December 27, the Congress also said that it would launch a nationwide protest from January 5 to demand the repeal of the VB-G RAM G Act.

The Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab also called a one-day special session of the Assembly to oppose the VB-G RAM G Act.

On Tuesday, state Rural Development and Panchayat Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond tabled the resolution against the new Act in the House for discussion, PTI reported.

Sond said that the VB-G RAM G Act would severely impact families below the poverty line, Scheduled Caste communities and rural labourers who depend on MGNREGA to survive. Claiming that the Union government wanted to “finish” MGNREGA, he demanded its restoration.

Describing the replacing of the old Act as a “deliberate and dangerous conspiracy”, the House in the resolution said that the “BJP central government has not only destroyed a government scheme but it has also destroyed the right to survival of the Dalit labourers of the country”.

The resolution said that MGNREGA was the last means of survival for millions of Dalits, adding that the system allowed Dalit labourers to stay in their villages, earn their livelihood, send their children to school and live with dignity.

“Abolishing MGNREGA is not a decision to implement the scheme but a declaration of thought from an anti-Dalit perspective,” PTI quoted the resolution as saying. “…This House clearly states that the policies of the BJP central government are anti-Dalit.”

The implications of air pollution on health, education and work productivity dominate the headlines every winter, when air quality levels deteriorate to hazardous levels over north India. However, new research reveals that these pollutants are also slowly corroding the symbols of our past and putting our heritage at risk.

In a scientific study on the Red Fort, scientists have found that chemical interactions between pollutants and the monument’s stone surface are slowly destroying its distinctive red façade and turning it black.

It confirms what was already known about how pollution chips away at a monument’s integrity, when it was discovered decades ago that pollution was behind the Taj Mahal’s changing appearance. Despite protections, this “wonder of the world” continues to find itself in the news for foul smells and its marble turning green.

The Red Fort has been a lasting political symbol and has served as the backdrop of every Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech since 1947. But political will is failing to save the fort – and hundreds of other monuments in the region – from the ill-effects of air pollution. The Red Fort study is the first to attribute the formation of black crusts on its surface to emissions from cement factories, thermal power plants, and vehicles.

“Indian monuments are already losing their settings because of rampant encroachment and unauthorised construction. It’s sad to see policymakers believe there is a Planet B. Otherwise, there would have been some concrete measures to reduce air pollution,” says Abha Narain Lambah, a UNESCO award-winning conservation architect.

Not all is lost, however. Early interventions can prevent airborne damages to heritage buildings, the researchers of the Red Fort study say.

Cocktail of chemical reactions

Most of the world’s ancient monuments are made of limestone and marble, which studies say were favoured materials for their local availability, durability, and ease of extraction. The historic Mughal structures in Delhi, including the Red Fort, Qutub Minar, and Humayun’s Tomb, are made of Vindhyan sandstone and Makrana marble.

These materials are now facing a test of endurance amid rapid industrialisation. High levels of particulate matter and atmospheric nitrogen dioxide from traffic and factory emissions have initiated a sulfation process on the Red Fort’s sandstone surface. This causes a thin layer of gypsum (calcium sulphate) to form, which, over time develops into a black crust, trapping dust and other particles, the study revealed.

“Even at low levels, the presence of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere accelerates the sulfation phenomenon as it acts as an oxidising agent in the degradation process,” says the study. In addition to the visible damage, erosion diminishes the cultural and aesthetic value of heritage sites, the study adds.

However, early restoration interventions can go a long way in preventing degradation. “We always begin the conservation process using non-abrasive methods that don’t damage the fabric of the stone,” explained Lambah. “Gentle water misting under guided pressure, or techniques like multani mitti or paper poultices are also included. Chemical peeling is used only when we see a persistent accumulation of grime, and that too under supervision.”

Sanjay Kumar Manjul, Additional Director General at the Archaeological Survey of India and an author of the Red Fort study, says the ASI has already begun restoration work on the Fort. “Every product has a chemical compound. What we have to be careful about is the dosage, how much of the chemical we are using and how that quantity will react with the surface. Even a safe material like multani mitti has mineral compounds,” he says.

The ASI is now studying the impacts of air pollution on the Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, which is made of chlorite, laterite and the khondalite stones.

Protecting the Taj

For MC Mehta, the lawyer who fought to protect the Taj Mahal from pollution, restoration can only go so far if emission sources are not controlled. “Even after 40 years since my case highlighted the monument’s slow deterioration due to air pollution and several hearings later, nothing much has changed,” the lawyer, whose case was responsible for setting up the Taj Trapezium Zone, a defined area around the monument to protect it from pollution, in 1996, told Mongabay-India.

The Taj Trapezium Zone prohibits the operation of coal and coke-based industries within a 10,400 square kilometre area, covering the districts of Agra, Mathura, Etah, Hathras, and Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, and Bharatpur in Rajasthan. The idea was to reduce the Taj’s exposure to air pollution by pushing industries outside this boundary.

Helmed by Agra’s Commissioner, the Taj Trapezium Zone core body comprises members from multiple departments, including the District Magistrates of all TTZ cities, pollution control board authorities, ASI representatives, and officers from the state ministries of environment and petroleum and natural gas. The Taj Trapezium Zone Authority has the powers to enforce compliance of fuel quality standards, and take preventive measures such as stopping electricity and water supply to polluting industries to ensure environmental protection in this zone.

Every month, a meeting is supposed to be held at the district level to assess vehicular and industrial pollution, construction activities and other related issues. In addition, quarterly Taj Trapezium Zone meetings, led by the Commissioner, add another layer of decision-making and coordination. Despite this long-standing regulatory framework, pollution levels around the Taj have risen. A recent RTI revealed that the high levels of suspended particulate matter around the mausoleum have continued to yellow the marble for almost two decades.

“A major challenge we face is the rapid development around the Taj,” said Amit Mishra, Regional Officer, Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board, which is a member of the Taj Trapezium Zone. “Our monitoring systems show a sharp rise in PM2.5 levels, mainly due to vehicular emissions. The number of vehicles has increased in recent years. To reduce that load, construction for the Agra Metro is underway, but that also contributes to dust pollution.”

In May, The National Green Tribunal observed lapses in implementing measures to curb air pollution in Agra. The tribunal pointed out that initiatives like planting trees, launching electric buses and building peripheral highways remained on the paper in the zone.

“Two things are important for execution: Enforcement of the law and the commitment of officials towards safeguarding not just the Taj but the entire TTZ that is home to several heritage monuments,” said Mehta.

Vehicular emissions

Rising vehicular emissions are proving to be a challenge in Delhi too, where more than 7,00,000 new cars were registered in 2024. Across the country, more polluting SUVs have emerged as the preferred choice among customers. Exhaust fumes from combustion engines have contributed to the deposition of heavy metals on the black crusts forming on the Red Fort, including lead, titanium, and nickel.

An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment found vehicles contributed between 20 and 41 percent of annual PM2.5 levels in Delhi. Other year-round emission sources include industries, coal-based power generation, construction, and waste generation. The analysis is based on studies by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, The Energy Research Institute, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology among other data sources.

Pollution levels have remained stagnant in the National Capital Region despite an increase in consumption, population, and energy demands, says Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at Envirocatalysts. “That reflects that something has been done, but not aggressively enough to tackle the health emergency.”

Delhi’s high pollution load is partly due to its land-locked geography, which makes dispersal of pollutants difficult. “It is very evident that if pollution levels are to be reduced, we have to go for absolute emission load reduction. Till today, there hasn’t been any direction or policy that focuses on this aspect. The pollution monitoring bodies have access to all data and tools, but this hasn’t translated into effective implementation,” he adds.

Like the Taj Trapezium Zone, the air quality around the Red Fort is also governed by an inter-state body, the Commission for Air Quality Management. Despite having been in force for over four years, the Commission for Air Quality Management’s directives have not led to a decisive reduction in pollution loads. A media report found that emissions from vehicles garnered the least attention by the Commission for Air Quality Management, despite it being the biggest year-round source of pollution.

Sohail Hashmi, eminent historian who leads heritage walks to the Red Fort and other historic monuments, says public participation is key to reducing pollution loads and advocating for India’s shared history. “If we learn to value our heritage, then both the government and the people must act in an organised manner to contain pollution. An affordable, efficient public transport network is essential, and so is the willingness to embrace carpooling,” he says.

“Unless we know where we have come from, how do we plan, where do we want to go? If we have no idea of our architectural tradition, which has evolved over thousands of years, how will we connect our present life with our tradition?” asks Hashmi.

Food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy have offered a hike in the incentives given to their “delivery partners” to ensure minimal disruptions in services on New Year’s Eve, following a call for a strike by the gig workers’ union, PTI reported on Wednesday.

Such incentives are standard practice during festive periods, the platforms said.

Several unions, including the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers and the Gig and Platform Service Workers Union, had called on workers employed by quick e-commerce platforms in the country to log off from these applications on Wednesday to demand reforms in the gig economy.

The workers are demanding the regulation of platform companies under labour laws, a ban on unsafe “10-minute” delivery models, an end to arbitrary ID blocking and penalties, fair and transparent wages, social security and a protection of the right to organise and engage in collective bargaining.

The protest on Wednesday disrupted the operations of firms such as Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto in several cities ahead of New Year celebrations, The Hindu reported.

Amid the call for strike, Zomato offered delivery workers payouts between Rs 120 and Rs 150 per order during peak hours from 6 pm to 12 am on New Year’s Eve, PTI reported. The platform also promised earnings of up to Rs 3,000 during the day, subject to order volumes and availability of delivery worker, the news agency reported.

Additionally, Zomato temporarily waived penalties on order denials and cancellations, PTI quoted unidentified sources as saying.

However, a spokesperson for Eternal Limited, the technology company that owns Zomato and Blinkit, told PTI that such incentives were part of its “standard annual operating protocol during festive periods, which typically see higher earning opportunities due to increased demand”.

Swiggy also announced similar incentives during the year-end period, which included offering delivery workers earnings of up to Rs 10,000 across December 31 and January 1, the news agency reported.

The platform also advertised peak-hour earnings of up to Rs 2,000 for the six-hour period between 6 pm and 12 am on New Year’s Eve, PTI quoted unidentified sources as saying.

This was done in a bid to ensure adequate rider availability during one of the busiest ordering windows of the year, they said, adding that increased payouts were standard practice during such periods.

As of Tuesday night, “over 1.7 lakh delivery and app-based workers across India [had] confirmed participation” in the protest, PTI quoted the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union and the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers as saying in a joint statement.

The unions had earlier called a strike on December 25 as well.

In a statement, the unions had said that the December 25 action – which saw thousands of delivery workers log off platforms – had sent a “clear warning to platform companies about falling earnings, unsafe delivery pressure, and loss of dignity at work”, PTI reported.

“However, companies responded with silence…no rollback of reduced payouts, no dialogue with workers, and no concrete assurances on safety or working hours,” they said. “This continued indifference has made today’s [Wednesday] strike unavoidable.”

Food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy offered an increase in the incentives to their “delivery partners” to ensure minimal disruptions in services on New Year’s Eve, following a call for a strike by the gig workers’ unions. Such incentives are standard practice during festive periods, the platforms said.

While Zomato offered delivery workers payouts between Rs 120 and Rs 150 per order during peak hours from 6 pm to 12 am on New Year’s Eve, Swiggy announced earnings of up to Rs 10,000 during the year-end period.

Several unions, including the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers and the Gig and Platform Service Workers Union, had called on workers employed by quick e-commerce platforms in the country to log off from these applications on Wednesday to demand reforms in the gig economy. Read on.

The Congress described China’s claim that it mediated the May conflict between India and Pakistan as “concerning” and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue a clarification on the matter. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh linked the matter to India’s broader relationship with China highlighting that the talks between the two countries “are taking place on China’s terms”.

“China’s claims of mediating between India and Pakistan are concerning – not just because they contradict what has been told to the country’s people so far, but also because they appear to mock our national security,” he added.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the India-Pakistan conflict was among issues mediated by China in 2025 and claimed bilateral ties between the two countries had gained momentum. India’s External Affairs Ministry has not responded to the statement but has maintained that the ceasefire with Pakistan was not the result of any third-party mediation. Read on.

At least seven persons have died and more than 100 others were hospitalised in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore in the past week after consuming contaminated drinking water. Several residents in the affected Bhagirathpura area had reported symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration.

Officials said that the cases were first reported on December 24. Local councillor Kamal Baghela said that residents had complained that water supplied on December 25 had an unusual smell.

Water samples from the affected area were collected and sent for laboratory testing.

A zonal officer of the municipal corporation and an assistant engineer have been suspended, while the services of a sub-engineer have been terminated. Read on.

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At least seven persons have died and more than 100 others were hospitalised in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore in the past week after consuming contaminated drinking water, PTI quoted Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava as saying on Wednesday.

Several persons have fallen ill with symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration in the city’s Bhagirathpura area, Chief Medical and Health Officer Madhav Prasad Hasani told the news agency. The cases were first reported on December 24, The Hindu quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Local Councillor Kamal Baghela said that residents of the area had complained that the water supplied on December 25 had an unusual smell.

Hasani said that the state health department surveyed more than 2,700 households and examined about 12,000 persons in the affected area. More than 1,100 persons with mild symptoms were given primary treatment and more than 100 patients were admitted to hospitals.

Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Tuesday announced a financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased. He added that the state government would bear the full cost of treatment for all affected.

A zonal officer of the municipal corporation and an assistant engineer were also suspended, while the services of a sub-engineer were terminated.

Yadav also announced the formation of an inquiry committee and added that “any kind of negligence with people’s health will not be tolerated”.

Municipal Commissioner Dilip Kumar Yadav said that a leakage was found in the main water supply pipeline in the area above which a toilet had been constructed, and that the drinking water may have been contaminated as a result, PTI reported.

Water samples have been collected from the area and sent for laboratory testing, the news agency reported.

The conflict between India and Pakistan in May was among the contentious matters mediated by Beijing in 2025, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed on Tuesday.

“This year, local wars and cross-border conflicts flared up more often than at any time since the end of WWII [World War II],” Wang said at a conference on China’s foreign relations in Beijing. “Geopolitical turbulence continued to spread.”

To build lasting peace, “we have taken an objective and just stance, and focused on addressing both symptoms and root causes”, the Chinese foreign minister added.

“Following this Chinese approach to settling hotspot issues, we mediated in northern Myanmar, the Iranian nuclear issue, the tensions between Pakistan and India, the issues between Palestine and Israel, and the recent conflict between Cambodia and Thailand,” he claimed.

Wang also said that the relations between New Delhi and Beijing had picked up “good momentum”, citing China having invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Tianjin in August for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs has not reacted to the claim made by Wang. But it has maintained that the ceasefire with Islamabad was not the result of mediation. The decision to stop the firing was taken after the Pakistani director-general of military operations had called his Indian counterpart, New Delhi has said.

It has repeatedly rejected claims made by United States President Donald Trump that Washington had mediated the ceasefire.

The Congress on Wednesday called China’s claims concerning and called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue a clarification on the matter.

“China’s claims of mediating between India and Pakistan are concerning – not just because they contradict what has been told to the country’s people so far, but also because they appear to mock our national security,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a social media post.

Ramesh linked the matter to India’s broader relationship with China. “We have resumed talks with China – but unfortunately, these talks are taking place on China’s terms,” he said.

“Our trade deficit is at a record high, and a large portion of our exports depends on imports from China,” he added. “China’s provocative actions regarding Arunachal Pradesh continue unabated.”

“Amid such one-sided and hostile relations, India’s people deserve clarity on what role China played in suddenly stopping Operation Sindoor,” the Congress leader said.

राष्ट्रपति ट्रंप लंबे समय से यह दावा करते रहे हैं कि उन्होंने 10 मई 2025 को ऑपरेशन सिंदूर को रोकने के लिए व्यक्तिगत रूप से हस्तक्षेप किया था। वे यह दावा कम से कम सात अलग-अलग देशों में, विभिन्न मंचों पर, 65 बार कर चुके हैं। प्रधानमंत्री ने अपने तथाकथित अच्छे मित्र द्वारा किए गए इन… pic.twitter.com/sXhSNiaR8S

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) December 31, 2025

The tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad escalated in May when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.

The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

In July, the Indian Army said that Pakistan had been receiving real-time intelligence from China about India’s important military deployments during the four-day conflict in May.

Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh, the deputy Army chief (capability development and sustenance), had said that India was effectively up against three adversaries during the conflict with Pakistan leading the front, China offering extensive support and Turkey playing an important role by providing drones “along with trained individuals who were there”.

The Indian Army said that in the last five years, 81% of the military hardware that Pakistan received was Chinese. “[China] is able to test [its] weapons against various other weapon systems that are there, so it’s like a live lab available to them,” Singh had said.

Also read: Modi in China: New détente or a progressive trajectory?

At least 148 flights were cancelled and more than 150 delayed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Wednesday due to dense fog and low visibility, PTI reported.

Airport authorities said that 78 arriving flights and 70 departing flights were cancelled, while two flights were also diverted. Foggy conditions reduced visibility across the runway at the airport, which handles around 1,300 flight movements daily.

At 11 am, Delhi International Airport Limited, which operates the airport, said that visibility was gradually improving but warned that some flight disruptions could continue. In subsequent updates at noon and 1 pm, the airport authorities said that flight operations were continuing normally.

Prevailing fog conditions in parts of Northern India may impact flight operations at select airports. Passengers are encouraged to remain updated through official airline channels and allow extra time for airport procedures.

Airlines have been instructed to strictly adhere to…

— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 31, 2025

The average Air Quality Index in the national capital stood at 372, which is categorised as “very poor”, according to data from the Sameer application at 2.05 pm.

Thirteen of the 38 active monitoring stations in Delhi recorded “severe” AQI readings above 400, showed the application, which provides hourly updates from the Central Pollution Control Board.

Earlier in the day, IndiGo said that the impact was likely to extend into the noon hours but added that departures and arrivals were being sequenced to ensure safe and orderly movement.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation warned that fog conditions in parts of northern India were affecting operations at select airports.

It stated that airlines had been instructed to follow passenger service norms, including providing timely information, assistance during delays, rebooking or refunds where applicable and baggage facilitation.

A special National Investigation Agency court in Srinagar has directed three Jammu and Kashmir residents, who are based in the United States and Germany, to appear before it by the end of January in cases pertaining to them allegedly using social media platforms to promote anti-India sentiments, The New Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police’s intelligence wing had booked Mubeen Ahmad Shah and Azizul Hassan Ashai, alias Tony Ashai, from Srinagar, and Rifat Wani from Kupwara in 2020, according to PTI.

While Shah and Ashai are in the United States, Wani is based in Germany, The Indian Express reported.

In March 2021, Scroll reported that cases against Shah and Wani related to political speeches made on social media.

They were booked under Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to promoting enmity, hatred or disharmony between groups, and statements creating or promoting enmity. The police had also invoked the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, The Indian Express on Wednesday quoted the intelligence wing as having stated.

It added that the case was registered on the basis of “credible intelligence inputs” revealing a “well-orchestrated conspiracy by unscrupulous anti-social and anti-national elements operating at the behest of secessionist forces” within and outside the Kashmir valley.

The persons were “masquerading as news portals, journalists and freelancers” while “weaponising” Facebook, X and WhatsApp to create, upload and circulate “fake, motivated, exaggerated, secessionist and out-of-context content”, stated the Counter Intelligence Kashmir.

They had aimed to “incite street violence, disrupt normal life, damage public property, disturb public order and fuel mass unrest”, it further said.

The persons accused in the matter allegedly absconded after a notice for their arrest was issued, following which the NIA court issued a proclamation notice directing them to appear before it by January 31.

Despite being declared absconders, the persons are active on social media and spreading allegedly misleading content aimed at inciting violence in Jammu and Kashmir, the police were quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

Also read: In a first, J&K police goes after Kashmiris living outside India

Eleven persons have been arrested in Assam and Tripura for their alleged links with Bangladesh-based extremist groups, PTI quoted the police as saying on Tuesday.

A Special Task Force of the Assam Police carried out a coordinated operation on Monday night in Assam’s Baksa, Barpeta, Chirang and Darrang districts, and a district in Tripura.

While 10 persons were arrested in Assam, one was apprehended from Tripura, said Guwahati Police Commissioner Partha Sarathi Mahanta.

They face charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

Mahanta said that the arrested persons were members of an organisation named Imam Mahmuder Kafil, which was formed in 2018 by a former member of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, The Hindu reported.

In 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh and its Indian affiliate groups for allegedly promoting acts of terrorism.

Mahanta described the arrested persons as “jihadist elements” who were working under the orders of Bangladesh-based groups. He alleged that they aimed to “destabilise” India’s North East.

“They wanted to establish ‘Muslim supremacy’ in this part of the country,” PTI quoted him as saying.

Security officers have alleged that leaders of extremist organisations, including Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh and Al Qaeda, helped activate and expand Imam Mahmuder Kafil’s network in India after the change of government in Bangladesh in August 2024, according to The Hindu.

“The activities are coordinated through secure social media platforms,” the newspaper quoted a dossier about the group as saying. “One of these, Purva Akash, functions as the principal platform to radicalise, recruit, and finance people in Assam, Tripura and West Bengal.”

Some members of the group allegedly travelled to Bangladesh using valid travel documents for training, while meetings between India-based members and handlers were said to have taken place in Meghalaya, the Special Task Force claimed.

The police also claimed to have traced financial links involving digital payments and hawala transactions between members in India and Bangladesh.

Delhi this year recorded its most polluted December since 2018, reported The Indian Express on Wednesday.

The PM2.5 level averaged 211 micrograms per cubic metre of air during the month. In December 2018, it was 229.3 µg/m3.

PM2.5 refers to tiny airborne particulate matter that is about 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair and can easily be breathed into the lungs and the bloodstream.

India’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards prescribe a “safe” PM2.5 limit of 60 μg/m3 over a 24-hour period. The World Health Organization prescribes 15 μg/m3.

In the corresponding period in 2019, the level was 205.9 µg/m3 and 194.6 µg/m3 in 2020. In 2021, the PM2.5 level reached 200 µg/m3 in December. In December 2022, it dipped to 174.3 µg/m3, rose to 201.6 µg/m3 in 2023 and was 169.9 µg/m3 in 2024.

Citing data from the Central Pollution Control Board, The Indian Express reported that the average daily PM2.5 had crossed 250 µg/m3 for more than 31% of the days in December this year. It exceeded 150 µg/m3 for more than 82% of the month.

The highest daily average was observed on December 14 at 392.6 µg/m3. The previous highest PM2.5 pollution recorded above this level was 402.9 µg/m3 on December 23, 2018.

Manoj Kumar, pollution analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told the newspaper that the absence of stubble burning during peak pollution days in the national capital “makes it evident that Delhi’s air pollution is also being driven by persistent, year-round emissions”.

“This calls for enforceable, sector-specific emission reduction targets for industry, transport, power plants, and other major sources, instead of short-term or seasonal responses,” he added.

Air quality deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular pollution, along with the lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

Delhi’s ‘very poor’ AQI

On Wednesday, the Air Quality Index in Delhi stood at 377 at 12.05 pm, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates from the Central Pollution Control Board.

An index value between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air. Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” and “severe plus” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

In December, Delhi saw five days when the AQI reached above 400.

The air quality in the national capital had worsened to the “severe plus” category between December 13 and December 15.

Delhi and the National Capital Region are under Stage 3 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to curb pollution.

GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.

Stage 3 measures include a ban on non-essential construction work and the closure of stone crushers and mining activities, in addition to the measures already imposed under Stage 1 and Stage 2.

They also include the shifting of primary school up to Class 5 to hybrid mode. Parents and students have the option to choose between offline and online classes wherever available.

Also read: Why air quality numbers in Delhi vary widely

For a series of 11 short treatises by leading scholars on the ideas of free India’s Constitution, we thought it fitting to invite India’s highly regarded scholar Anand Teltumbde – also one who recently served time as a prisoner of conscience – to write the closing book in the series.

In this chain of books (that I am editing with Neera Chandoke for Speaking Tiger), we have looked at how the Constitution was imagined, debated and written; its understanding of secularism, socialism and democracy; and its foundational pledges of justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, federalism and the scientific temper.

We requested Teltumbde to reflect on what the Constitution has meant for India’s most dispossessed peoples, and how much it has contributed to helping access their rights to a life of dignity and hope.

His conclusions are sobering, scathing and unsparing.

Teltumbde sees an immense gap between the vision laid out in the Preamble and the realities of India’s present. “Liberty is under attack. Economic inequality is worse now than it was even under colonial rule. Fraternity has been shredded by rising communal hatred and growing caste consciousness under the revivalist Hindutva movement. Justice – social, economic, and political – remains elusive. The very foundation of our democracy feels dangerously fragile”.

Teltumbde argues that we should not be constrained from constructively critiquing the Constitution because at this moment its very survival is gravely threatened by the Hindutva project of dismantling and rewriting the constitution to establish a Hindu Rashtra. With BR Ambedkar, he is convinced that a Hindu Rashtra would be the greatest calamity for India.

Unlike the critique of the Constitution of the reactionary far-right, he affirms the emancipatory promise of the Preamble – liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice. Yet, he sees these as values the Constitution pledged but has failed to deliver. “Yes”, he says boldly, “the Constitution is flawed…but dismantling it without first building a genuinely democratic and pro-people alternative would be to destroy the last remaining legal and moral structure within which the struggle for justice can still be waged”.

The gravest betrayals of the Constitution are arguably of Dalits

His treatise focuses specifically on Dalits, who have for millennia been oppressed by structures of caste, and barred from education and dignified work. But they apply more generally to all oppressed and marginalised communities who constitute the Indian republic.

Teltumbde observes that on the one hand, perhaps Dalits feel the greatest emotional connection among all Indians to the Constitution. This is because its writing was led by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar who they venerate for leading the struggles for their liberation from the centuries-old bondages of caste.

Yet, he believes that the Constitution has failed resoundingly in fulfilling its emancipatory promise for Dalits, arguably more than for any other community. It has contributed to the rise of a small Dalit middle-class. But this small class shares with the large mass of Dalits only “a history but not a present”. The overwhelming majority of Dalits continue to endure the caste stigma and oppression that has been their fate for millennia, living in “a vast, submerged reality of suffering and despair”.

Dalits, he points out, form a quarter of India’s population, if we include Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims. Their population, exceeding 320 million, would make them the third-largest “nation” in the world, larger than the combined population of 150 of the least populous countries on the planet. However, their wide dispersal across the country has meant that – like Muslims – they rarely form a numerical majority.

Teltumbde rejects the premise of some Hindutva intellectuals that the British rule created caste. But, he avers that colonial rule fundamentally transformed caste. Before the British, caste was a dynamic, localised system. The British began counting and documenting caste. This, quoting Arjun Appadurai, didn’t just describe caste – it produced it as a rigid, bureaucratised, institutionalised hierarchy, solidifying boundaries that were previously contextual and fluid. This colonial approach, Teltumbde states, continues to reverberate in India’s social and political life.

He also observes that paradoxically, colonial rule also opened some emancipatory pathways for Dalits outside the rigid caste structures of Hindu kingdoms. They found non-caste employment for the first time in the military and railways, and were able to access education and stable employment. Babasaheb himself was the son of a British military soldier.

Teltumbde importantly reminds us that until Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian National Congress – dominated as it was by English-educated elites, landlords, and emerging capitalists – tended to steer clear of calling for reforms in caste, untouchability and the status of women. It later made space for moderate reforms such as widow remarriage, child marriage, and even the abolition of untouchability, but never the annihilation of caste. It was Gandhi who brought fighting untouchability into the core of the Congress agenda from 1916 onward. Particularly impactful was his movement for Dalit temple entry.

The limitation of Gandhi’s approach was that while he and the Congress looked at untouchability as a moral question and a social sin to be atoned for by caste Hindus, they did not frame it as a systemic injustice that required political solutions. This conflicted with Ambedkar’s demands for separate electorates. Gandhi went on a fast unto death against separate electorates because he feared this would break Hindu unity and also encourage the Muslim League to make a similar demand.

The compromise in the Poona Pact of 1932 was for reserved seats for Dalits within the general electorate rather than separate electorates. Ambedkar was dissatisfied with this because he was convinced that Dalits formed a separate community from caste Hindus like the Muslims, and therefore only separate electorates would protect their political and social interests. Gandhi followed this with a temple entry movement which incensed the conservative Hindu, but this still was not a movement for political empowerment of the Dalits.

The Constitution abolished untouchability but not caste

Teltumbde regards as the central flaw of the constitutional arrangements for Dalits to be that once again it stressed the abolition of untouchability rather than the annihilation of caste. The Constituent Assembly was dominated by upper-caste, Western-educated elites, landlords, and capitalists, with limited participation from workers, peasants, or marginalised groups especially Dalits and Adivasis.

Ambedkar, a Dalit, was appointed to chair the Drafting Committee. Under his leadership, many provisions for advancing Dalit equity found their way into the Constitution, including the bans on untouchability and forced labour, and reservations in public employment and education. However, contrary to what Ambedkar had so forcefully advocated for in the 1930s, it did not outlaw caste and provide for separate Dalit electorates.

In the debates in the Constituent Assembly, some members opposed caste-based reservations as incompatible with liberal democratic ideals and pointed to the risks of deepening social fragmentation. However, the alternate view prevailed, that legal equality without structural interventions like affirmative actions would be insufficient to dismantle entrenched caste hierarchies.

The Assembly unanimously voted for declaring untouchability unconstitutional and a punishable offense. Some members did question how untouchability could be eradicated without addressing the root problem – caste itself. This called to memory the fundamental disagreement between Babasaheb and Gandhi. Gandhi saw untouchability as a distortion of the caste system; Babasaheb insisted that untouchability was intrinsic to the caste system, and the caste system to the Hindu faith. Therefore untouchability could not be ended without ending caste.

In the assembly, Pramatha Ranjan Thakur, great-grandson of Harichand Thakur, the founder of the Matua sect (the first Dalit reform movement) for instance, argued: “I do not understand how you can abolish untouchability without abolishing the very caste system. Untouchability is nothing but the symptom of the disease, namely, the caste system . . . Unless we can do away with the caste system altogether there is no use tinkering with the problem of untouchability superficially.”

A couple of other members raised similar objections. But Teltumbde points to Ambedkar’s telling silence in the Constituent Assembly on the critique that untouchability could not be abolished without dismantling caste – a position that he had so passionately espoused for most of his adult life – and describes this as a strategic compromise.

Overruling the few dissenting voices, the Constituent Assembly unanimously passed the resolution to abolish untouchability and criminalise its practice. This resulted in Article 17 which states: “Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.” Hansa Mehta, one of the two women members of the drafting committee called this “the greatest thing that we have done,” a move that “posterity will be very, very proud of.”

Was India’s failure to abolish untouchability a “failure foretold”?

Pointing to extensive evidence of the persistence of untouchability and violent caste discrimination in contemporary India, Teltumbde wonders at what he describes as a “failure foretold”. “How could the persistence of caste in independent India not have been foreseen by the galaxy of 300-odd stalwarts in the Constituent Assembly?” he asks. Gandhi’s position that untouchability was a moral perversion, not intrinsic to Hinduism, and “his defence of the ideal of varna, albeit spiritualised and purged of birth-based inequality” is well-known. (Toward the end of his life, Gandhi had spoken more directly against caste discrimination).

But why did Jawaharlal Nehru, a self-avowed modernist, not challenge the caste system more vocally? He did recognise caste to be a social evil and called instead for scientific temper and rationalism. However, Teltumbde observes that he remained politically cautious indicating a deeper political calculus. Possibly his fear was that caste was so pivotal an organising principle of Hindu life that directly attacking it might destabilise the emerging republic. And Nehru was dealing with a significant section of the Congress leadership that was socially conservative and had internalised caste hierarchies.

Teltumbde also points to the irony of the anxiety of many Dalit leaders that the abolition of caste might jeopardise their constitutional safeguards of reservations. Caste embedded itself further in the new republic with its intersections with class. The lower castes transformed into a rural proletariat. The erstwhile Shudras became a class of rich farmers, which “not only accumulated economic power but also appropriated the ideological mantle of Brahmanism from the former upper-caste landlords, (whom they displaced) deploying it to dominate, discipline, and violently suppress Dalits”. This, he observes, erupted from time to time in brutal atrocities. The constitutional order that formally guaranteed rights was unequal to the challenge of dismantling the caste structure within which such violence and largescale discrimination continued unabated. He points, likewise, to the continuance of the most abysmal forms of caste discrimination like manual scavenging and bonded labour.

Teltumbde concludes that despite Article 17, untouchability remains entrenched in everyday life. The problem, he says, is that the Constitution banned untouchability but did not abolish caste itself. In this way it allowed the social and institutional structures that sustain caste-based inequities, discrimination, violence and exclusions to persist.

The problem is further escalated because the state institutions created to enforce the law – the police, judiciary, and bureaucracy – are themselves deeply stained by caste prejudice and even hatred. Their routine refusal to register cases, downgrading of offences, delays in trial, and sympathy for dominant caste perpetrators are not random failures; they become inevitable when caste endures and strengthens. “When the state machinery shares the worldview of those who uphold caste hierarchy, constitutional guarantees offer little relief to Dalits. Legal prohibitions, he explains, have inevitably failed because the underlying caste structure remains intact.

This is further inflamed in the current BJP Hindutva regime. “Revivalist Hindu nationalism glorifies traditional social order, providing ideological cover for caste hierarchy. Open display of caste markers, segregation in temples and villages, and caste-based mobilisation have become widespread. Social media has further amplified these assertions. The state, aligning with dominant caste interests, often protects perpetrators and grants them impunity”.

The result, as Teltumbde documents, is caste having become more visible, aggressive, and socially sanctioned than before. He sticks his head out to suggest that “India today is arguably more casteised than ever”(my italics). In these ways, constitutional ideals are routinely subverted by social reality and state complicity.

Political representation has done little to deliver substantive empowerment

Teltumbde is underwhelmed in his assessment of the contributions of political reservations for Dalits. This is not different from the global experience that while political reservations increase descriptive representation, they rarely deliver substantive empowerment. In the way political representation is designed in India’s electoral syatem, with Dalits rarely in a majority even in constituencies reserved for Dalits, they are forced by electoral compulsions into multi-caste alliances.

The rotation of reserved seats incentivises short-term patronage. Party affiliations further dilute accountability, shifting loyalty from community to party. The dependence of Dalit candidates on intermediaries – brokers, fixers, party workers – to access state power through those with money or influence, renders representation hollow for many Dalits. Overall, Teltumbde tells us, research shows that reservations do not systematically translate into pro-Dalit policy outcomes.

Even more gravely, he avers that political reservation has resulted in what he calls the “domestication” of Dalit leadership: instead of confronting caste power, it has been absorbed by it. His dire conclusion is that political reservations have enabled the emergence of Dalit elites without enabling Dalit emancipation. Also, in the first-past-the-post electoral system, reservations are less instruments of empowerment of the community and more as seeking their buy-in to those who enjoy political, social and economic power.

He believes that instead, a system of proportional representation based on vote shares alone would prevent the marginalisation of smaller or dispersed communities. It would help convert caste and community identities into political interest groups, and with less need for identity-based reservations, it could gradually support the project of caste annihilation. Unlike reservations which require statutory backing, proportional representation could organically enable minority inclusion.

Caste quotas in educational institutions and public employment

Teltumbde also examines closely the impacts of caste quotas in educational institutions and public employment. In the Constituent Assembly debates, it was Ambedkar who most forcefully argued for these as reparative justice to redress centuries of caste-based oppression and exclusion, for a people who historically “were not only not allowed to enter the public services but were also prohibited from pursuing ordinary education”. He also argued that reservations were essential to allow SCs entry into administration and political life, so they could protect their rights and assert their voice in governance.

Other members supported him. In a tenor similar to Ambedkar’s, K Santhanam said that reservation for SCs was “not a privilege but an act of compensation for centuries of oppression and humiliation.” KM Munshi warned the members that if constitutional safeguards are not put in place, dominant castes would continue to monopolise opportunities, thereby reproducing structural inequality. Jaipal Singh, speaking for tribal communities, predicted discerningly: “Unless they get reservations, they will never catch up with the rest of India.” RK Sidhva added that education was key to social mobility, and reservations were a matter of justice, not charity.

But we also heard in the Constituent Assembly opposition to affirmative action on grounds that we continue to hear repeated decades later, of merit and efficiency being trumped by quotas. HV Kamath, for instance, said, “We should not sacrifice efficiency at the altar of social justice.” RV Dhulekar said that merit and equality before law should be paramount. But the Assembly in the end supported reservations, providing for these in Articles 15(4), 16(4), and 335 of the Constitution.

Evaluating the impact of these, Teltumbde observes that reservation policies in educational institutions and public employment have the merit that these at least touch directly upon the material conditions of Dalit life unlike most other provisions in the Indian Constitution. Educational and job quotas have done more to foster a more egalitarian society than political reservations.

For Dalits, pathways for upward economic mobility were barred for centuries. These pathways, Teltumbde observes, were opened potentially by affirmative action in education and public employment. These have, despite limitations, expanded Dalit presence in professions that were traditionally barred to them. They have enhanced economic security but broken through social hierarchies.

Yet, formulated as remedies for “backwardness” of these castes, Teltumbde believes that this framing constructs Dalits as though they were intrinsically deficient. This has reinforced casteist prejudices that Dalits are an inferior people deserving possibly of sympathy but not rights, and that they are being unfairly elevated by a state driven by vote-bank politics. Second, Dalits are themselves often made to feel that they are undeserving or second-rate. “What was originally conceived as a measure of social justice thus becomes a marker of social deficit”.

Answering the critics of education and job quotas, Teltumbde articulates a profound social truth that reservations were not necessitated by any intrinsic deficiency among Dalits. These were impelled by the failings of Indian society, which continues to be hostile to the ideal of equality. Reservations are not a recompense for Dalit backwardness, but a corrective measure for societal deficiencies and entrenched caste prejudices. “It is not Dalit individuals who must ‘catch up’ with society, but the social order itself that must expunge its caste biases and catch up with the ideals of a modern, egalitarian polity”. The state, through reservations, is not extending undue favours to a minority but is “disciplining a historically unjust majority”.

The educational and occupational advancement of Dalits has often led to backlashes of resentment, anger and envy, and has been the trigger often for violence by dominant communities against “upstart” Dalits. Teltumbde also indicates sensitively the predicament of those who benefit from these quotas. They are excluded from middle-class networks because of the continuing prejudices of caste. But at the same time, they are separated from their own caste communities, which continue to live in penury and want. This entails “profound psychological costs, including chronic anxiety, identity dissonance, and a persistent sense of inadequacy despite visible markers of success… reflecting a deep-drawn inferiority complex, inhibiting their ability to fully realise their potential”.

Also, reservations rather than annihilating caste have, Teltumbde says, in some ways reinforced it within a framework of redress. This has led to a competitive hierarchy of entitlements, reproducing and embedding caste identities and caste tensions.

The massive gap in the educational opportunities for the elite and middle classes and the poor that existed at independence has only greatly widened. India failed to establish a Common School System, which ensured that, in Teltumbdetumbde’s words, “educational access continued to follow social rank rather than democratic ideals”. Public spending on education has stagnated at around 3% of GDP, far below the recommended 6% .

This has systematically pushed Dalits to the bottom of the educational hierarchy. Even in rural areas, the neo-rich dominant castes, including the now landed Shudras, opt for private private schools, while poorly resourced and understaffed government schools remain the preserve of Dalit children. Therefore “Dalit children are trapped in a deteriorating government system that offers little mobility. The result is a harsh sorting mechanism: elites buy opportunity, while Dalits inherit deprivation, reinforcing caste hierarchy under the veneer of merit and market efficiency”.

Private schools and colleges, especially those offering English-medium education, overwhelmingly serve relatively better-off upper-caste elites. Private colleges increasingly dominate higher education, and these have no quotas. Although public universities have reservations, the domination of private education – entirely unaffordable for most Dalits – effectively nullifies the constitutional safeguards. This traps Dalit students in substandard institutions, rendering their academic foundations weak and severely limiting their future employment prospects.

Reservations in government employment have, in Teltumbde’s assessment, delivered “meagre returns while imposing a disproportionate stigma”. After all, the public sector where reservations apply covers barely about 4% of India’s workforce, compared to 32% in China and 15%-25% in countries of the Global North. He calculates that quotas translate into benefits for only about 0.6% of SCs and an even smaller proportion of STs. For this meagre support, Dalits are stigmatised and humiliated as “pampered” and dependent on state charity. And this tiny fraction of Dalits that access reservations face a hostile and discriminatory environment at work, confining them to low-impact roles and away from management and decision-making assignments. This, he says, turns the public sector into “a graveyard of Dalit aspirations”.

He speaks for instance of academic spaces – traditionally the preserve of advantaged castes – being extremely reluctant to recruit Dalits as faculty, “treating them as intellectual interlopers rather than equals”. In 2019, only 3.47% of professors and 0.7% of associate professors in forty central universities were Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes. In 2021, only 1.68% of IIT faculty and just 0.23% of IIMs were Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes.

How Indian secularism “constitutionalised” caste

A particularly important and challenging section of the book is one that describes how the core foundation of “secularism” in the Indian Constitution has been interpreted and implemented in ways that have only reinforced caste hierarchies and discrimination. Its core failure, according to Teltumbde, is that Indian secularism never confronted the religious foundations of caste. Instead it “constitutionalised” it through caste-based personal laws, failures to reform temple access and to outlaw practices linked to ritual purity. This meant that “the so-called secular state continued to outsource social authority to religion”.

If a Dalit chooses to try to escape caste discrimination by converting to religions that in principle are more egalitarian like Christianity or Islam, they are barred by the Constitution from accessing reservations. The Constitution has effectively trapped Dalits within the Hindu fold, with “no constitutional mechanism to escape the religious identity that legitimises their oppression”.

He concludes that in effect, secularism without caste annihilation only reinforced the very hierarchies it claimed to transcend.

The fatal flaw of impunity for state officials who violate rights

He also points to a deep, almost fatal flaw of the Constitution that while enumerating fundamental rights to secure social justice, it also institutionalises impunity for state functionaries.

Elected public officials, the police, security forces, judges are all protected from disciplinary and criminal action not just when they fail to protect or defend the rights of citizens but even when they violate them. This legal shield protects the state when it fails to uphold rights but also when it directly violates these, while acting with caste, communal and class bias and prejudice.

This impunity renders the marginalised – Dalits, Adivasis, religious minorities, and dissenters – effectively unprotected by India’s constitutional order. This means that even custodial torture, rape and killings have no effective redress. For Dalits, Adivasis, and Muslims, he says that this impunity translates into routine terror, incarceration, and erasure. The worst aberration is the power to detain persons without trial or bail, in the way that Teltumbde himself was held.

“The ideals of liberty, equality, and dignity remain distant dreams,” he concludes, and these are “betrayed not by enemies of the state but by the state itself”.

A democratic republic, Teltumbde affirms luminously, cannot endure on the back of the doctrine of sovereign impunity. It must instead find its strength in the uncompromising pursuit of accountability, especially from those who wield power in its name.

The way ahead is collective political assertion

He reflects that perhaps the Constitution could not have been very different from what it is. It was after all a codification of the dominant class’s interests into law. “A Constitution cannot stand above society”, he observes, “it embodies the political will of those who hold power”.

For it to genuinely serve the interests of Dalits, it is incumbent upon them to shape their politics in a way that compels the ruling classes to respond. “There can be no messianic solution – only the hard work of collective political assertion”.

Harsh Mander is a peace and justice worker, writer, teacher who leads the Karwan e Mohabbat, a people’s campaign to fight hate with radical love and solidarity. He teaches part-time at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, and has authored many books, including Partitions of the Heart, Fatal Accidents of Birth and Looking Away.

A pastor and his son have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur on allegations that they were carrying out forced religious conversions inside a church, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

Tensions had escalated in the area on Sunday after members of the Bajrang Dal protested outside the church, alleging that forced conversions were taking place, according to PTI.

The police registered a first information report on the complaint filed by a person Devprakash Paswan, who claimed to have been inside the church during the alleged conversions.

The FIR named the pastor, David Gladwin, his son, Abhishek Gladwin, and another person identified as Johan Vishwas alias KK Bangali.

All three have been arrested, Vinod Kumar Maurya, the station house officer of Radha Nagar police station, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

Seven unidentified persons were also booked.

Maurya denied that any person accused in the matter had been assaulted, according to the newspaper.

Virendra Pandey, the state vice president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, also denied that any person had been assaulted on the church premises.

He claimed that members of the Bajrang Dal had gone to the spot after receiving information that forced conversions were taking place. After confirming this, they informed the police, Pandey was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

He added that the police had recorded the names and addresses of those present at the church.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal are part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

In his complaint, Paswan said that he and two others, Neeraj Paswan and Sushil Raidas, had been called to the church at 10 am on Sunday.

He alleged that the persons accused in the matter had promised money, household items, jobs and free education for children to those present in the church if they converted to Christianity, reported The Indian Express.

Paswan claimed that when they protested, they were offered Rs 1,100 to keep quiet. He alleged that they were also threatened with consequences when they tried to intervene in the alleged conversions.

He also claimed that the persons accused in the matter had previously visited his village, Achgawa, and promised Rs 1,100 for every person brought to the church, according to the newspaper.

The police said the case has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs and criminal intimidation.

The police also invoked the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

It was late May and I was in Darjeeling district of West Bengal interviewing tea estate managers and workers about the struggles their world famous industry was facing due to climate change and competition.

On my first day there I had joined protesting activists and workers at Longview tea estate at 7 am for interviews. I thought that would take up most of the day but by 10 am the protest had wrapped up and the workers returned to work.

The day was still young and I was eager to visit more tea estates, so I asked activists from the Hill Plantation Employees Union to recommend a place. They suggested that I visit Ringtong tea estate and meet Sudha Tamang, a member of their executive committee, who was also a tea estate worker.

Google Maps showed that the tea estate was close to Darjeeling city, a 30-kilometre uphill drive from Longview that would take about an hour and a half. I was staying in Silliguri and the driver who had accompanied me from there appeared a little displeased about our new destination, but after bragging about his driving skills on the steep hills we set forth.

About two hours later, passing through misty roads with breathtaking scenery and dangerously steep roads, we arrived close to Ringtong where another activist, Sumit, was supposed to meet us.

“The tea estate is quite deep in the interiors. Come to my house and then we’ll set off from there on foot,” Sumit said and sent me a location on WhatsApp. The location led us down a small road whose condition worsened as we progressed.

After five minutes of driving through a string of hairpin bends, I gasped when I saw that the road ahead was even more steep. By then the driver had begun grumbling about “locals in the hills” who would call you to places “where no cars can reach”. As we went down the road and turned, we stopped abruptly as there was a small queue of vehicles waiting mid-slope. On asking what was wrong, someone nonchalantly said, “road bana rahe hai” – the road is being made.

After about half an hour of waiting, during which the car slightly slipped a few times, a mini road-roller went by. The road was finally freed up!

We drove down into more hairpin bends while I held on to the grab handles as we were flung from one side to another. Finally, we reached the bottom of the sloping road but the map audio location indicated that we had to go further ahead. Before us lay a stretch riddled with potholes. “I doubt any cars go there,” said the driver out aloud as two locals walked by and smiled. “No, no cars do go there,” they said.

As we continued further, the wheels screeched and I could suddenly smell smoke. “The engine has gotten too hot, we shouldn’t go any further, it's not safe,” said the driver. While we discussed what to do, it began drizzling and I finally gave up. We drove back up the steep road at breakneck speed to avoid being pulled down by gravity.

“We’re lucky we didn’t meet a car coming from the other way or it would have been disastrous,” said the driver. Tired and hungry, we stopped at a momo stall for lunch.

I called Sumit and asked him to come meet me on foot or a two-wheeler. Thirty minutes later he arrived. “The road is not that bad, there are worse roads in these hills,” he said with a smile as the driver rolled his eyes.

Yet, somehow Sumit convinced the driver to drop us “thoda aagey” – a little further – down the same sloping road. Down we went again and Sumit kept repeating “bas thoda aagey” until we reached the bottom of the sloping road. He was not done.

“If you keep your car here, it won’t be safe. Drive down a little further and you can keep it in my friend’s backyard,” he told the driver. We went down the terrible road, which was awful to drive on but not as steep. As soon as we parked at Sumit’s friend’s backyard, the driver extended his seat and settled in for a nap.

“You should have gotten a driver from the hills,” Sumit told me.

Sumit and I walked for about an hour in the rain, first downhill and then uphill. At one point, as we were walking through a hill covered in tea plants, I slipped and fell, not too ungracefully, on my butt. I was not hurt, but I sat down for a bit, taking the moment to pause and take in the view. Sumit took out some churrpi – traditional cheese made from yak milk in the region – and we both munched on some. These roads are difficult for outsiders to traverse but we use them everyday so we don’t realise they’re tough, he said.

With all the back and forth it took me almost six hours to reach Tamang’s house, but it led to an excellent interview and was worth the perilous journey.

The process of conducting a special intensive revision of the voter rolls in Uttar Pradesh has been extended again, the state chief electoral officer said on Tuesday.

The draft voter list will now be published on January 6, while the final list will be published on March 6.

The draft voter list was initially scheduled to be published on December 26. After the Election Commission extended the timeline once, the date was revised to December 31.

Under the new timeline, claims and objections will be invited from January 6 to February 6. The process of issuing notices, hearing claims and objections and deciding on enumeration forms will be conducted from January 6 to February 27.

भारत निर्वाचन आयोग द्वारा अर्हता तिथि 01 जनवरी, 2026 के आधार पर प्रदेश में चल रहे विशेष गहन पुनरीक्षण (SIR) की घोषित तिथियों में संशोधन करते हुए नई तिथियां जारी कर दी गई है।

संशोधित तिथियों के अनुसार अब मतदाता सूची का आलेख्य प्रकाशन 06 जनवरी, 2026 को किया जाएगा। दावे और…

— CEO Uttar Pradesh (@ceoup) December 30, 2025

The enumeration phase of the special intensive revision in 12 states and Union Territories, including Uttar Pradesh, began on November 4.

On December 11, the Election Commission had extended the timeline for the special intensive revision in five other states as well – Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In these five states and Union Territories, the names of about 95 lakh persons were removed from the draft voter lists, either because they were dead, had shifted from their registered addresses or were registered in more than one place.

Overall, around 3.6 crore electors in the 11 states and Union Territories have been deleted so far in the revision of electoral rolls.

In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll.

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners had moved the Supreme Court against it.

Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first woman prime minister, died after a prolonged illness, said her Bangladesh Nationalist Party. She was 80. She had been suffering from advanced cirrhosis of the liver, arthritis, diabetes, chest and heart problems.

The former prime minister had been undergoing treatment at a hospital in Dhaka since November 23. As her condition deteriorated, she was placed on ventilator support on December 11.

Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus announced three days of state mourning and a one-day general holiday following Zia’s death

She served as Bangladesh’s prime minister for three terms – from 1991 to 1996, briefly in 1996 and from 2001 to 2006.

Khaleda Zia was married to former Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman, who was killed during an attempted coup in 1981. Read on.

A Bengaluru court discharged Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Revanna in a 2020 sexual assault case. The former Karnataka minister had been accused of sexually assaulting a domestic worker in his home in Hassan that year.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate KN Shivakumar noted that there had been a four-year delay on the part of the woman in filing the complaint.

Neither the complainant nor the prosecution had provided a reasonable explanation for why the court should take cognisance of the case and condone the delay, the magistrate said.

A case of sexual assault and criminal intimidation was filed against HD Revanna and his son, former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, on April 28, 2024. HD Revanna was also accused of abducting the complainant a day after the first information report in the sexual assault case was filed.

HD Revanna was granted bail in both the sexual assault and abduction cases on May 13, 2024. Read on.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah alleged that the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal was abetting undocumented migration from Bangladesh for electoral benefits. He added that the Bharatiya Janata Party will drive out all “infiltrators” from the country.

The Union home minister also claimed that undocumented immigration from Bangladesh had stopped in BJP-ruled states such as Assam and Tripura. “Why does infiltration take place only in West Bengal?” he asked.

However, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee questioned claim that undocumented immigration from Bangladesh was only taking place in West Bengal. “If that’s the case, then did you carry out the attack in Pahalgam?” she asked the BJP. “Who was behind the incident in Delhi?” Read on.

The administration in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir barred unregistered online news outlets for two months. The administration prohibited unregistered online news outlets and social media news handles from publishing or circulating news and current affairs content following a clash between two groups in the district on Sunday.

The police said that the clash occurred in the Padyarna area when members of one religious community were carrying wooden logs from a forest and one log slipped and fell near a madrassa. This led to an altercation between two groups, which later escalated into people throwing stones.

However, an unidentified resident said that the incident occurred when a young man attempted to place wooden logs near a mosque, leading to an argument after the imam objected.

A man was detained for allegedly uploading a misleading video that police said was attempting to give the incident a communal angle. Read on.

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Five persons were arrested on Monday for allegedly being part of a mob that barged into a cafe in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly on December 27 and assaulted a group of students who were taking part in a birthday celebration, The Indian Express reported.

The mob accused two Muslim men, who were part of the gathering, of “love jihad” and attacked them. Videos of the assault sparked outrage on social media on Sunday.

Love jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men trick Hindu women into romantic relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam. The Union home ministry has told Parliament that Indian law has no provision defining such a term.

A nursing student in Bareilly, UP, hosted a birthday party for her classmates at a café. The group included six girls and four boys, two of whom were Muslim. Shortly after the celebration began, members of the Bajrang Dal barged in, assaulted the Muslim boy and the girl and… pic.twitter.com/T8b1d7lQvw

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 28, 2025

The police in Bareilly filed a case against two men named Rishabh Thakur and Deepak Pathak, and 25 unidentified persons. However, Thakur and Pathak, believed to be the key accused persons, were not among the five arrested on Monday, The Indian Express quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Those arrested were identified as Prince Singh, Aakash, Ashish Kumar, Mridul Dubey and Deepak, The Times of India reported. They were produced before court, which remanded them to judicial custody, Circle Officer Ashutosh Shivam said.

Reports had earlier said that Thakur and Pathak were linked to the Bajrang Dal. However, the Bareilly coordinator of the Hindutva group, Aryan Chaudhary, claimed that they had no association with the outfit.

Initially, the police had filed a case against the Muslim students and the cafe owner for “breach of peace” under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. They were briefly detained and were released later in the day.

This led many on social media to question why the police detained the victims of the assault, rather than taking action against the attackers.

The student whose birthday celebration was disrupted on December 27 said that her reputation was ruined after videos of the incident went viral online, The Times of India reported.

“Everyone on social media is saying to me that I was part of love jihad,” the 20-year-old was quoted as saying. “I can’t even step out of my house. I would kill myself if no strict action is taken against them [accused].”

The police in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly on Sunday booked two persons a day after members of the Bajrang Dal disrupted a birthday celebration and accused two Muslim boys of “love jihad”.

The celebration was organised by a nursing student for her classmates, which included six girls and four boys, The Times of India reported. Members of the Bajrang Dal reportedly barged in during the gathering, accusing the Muslim guests of “love jihad”, and assaulted one of the male guests and a girl who tried to intervene.

Those booked have been identified as Rishabh Thakur and Deepak Pathak, The Wire reported. Thakur was expelled from the Bajrang Dal over a fortnight ago.

Love jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men trick Hindu women into romantic relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam. The Union home ministry has told Parliament that Indian law has no provision defining such a term.

The police on Sunday filed a case against two named and other unidentified accused persons under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to voluntarily causing hurt, house-trespass after preparation for hurt, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, criminal intimidation and mischief.

Earlier on Sunday, the police said they found that no objectionable or illegal activity was taking place at the cafe. It added that “preventive action” was taken against the persons involved under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita.

Videos of the incident showed a group of men barging into the cafe and assaulting some of the men who were at the celebration, while shouting slogans of “Jai Shri Ram”. A video also showed the police restraining a girl as she was objecting to those who barged into the cafe.

The videos had led to several social media users asking why the police took action against the Muslim boys instead of the attackers.

A nursing student in Bareilly, UP, hosted a birthday party for her classmates at a café. The group included six girls and four boys, two of whom were Muslim. Shortly after the celebration began, members of the Bajrang Dal barged in, assaulted the Muslim boy and the girl and… pic.twitter.com/T8b1d7lQvw

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 28, 2025

In UP's Bareilly, a mob of Bajrang Dal stormed a cafe and, accusing of "Love-Jihad", began assualting two Muslim boys who happened to be at the party. Bareilly police took exemplary action and challaned the Muslim boys for breach of peace. pic.twitter.com/q3aFwdC107

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) December 28, 2025

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday alleged that the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal was abetting undocumented migration from Bangladesh for electoral benefits, and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party will drive out all “infiltrators” from the country.

“Can there be a state government that turns the region into a haven for infiltrators?” Shah asked at a press conference held in Kolkata as part of his three-day visit to West Bengal. “This is a grave danger to national security. The West Bengal chief minister [Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee] must give answers on this during the election.”

Assembly elections in West Bengal are expected to be held in early 2026.

Shah claimed that undocumented immigration from Bangladesh had stopped in BJP-ruled states such as Assam and Tripura. “Why does infiltration take place only in West Bengal?” he asked. “This is because under your [TMC’s] watch, infiltration is encouraged so as to bring about demographic change.”

The home minister said that the problem of undocumented migration was not limited to West Bengal but was a matter of national security.

Shah added that while the Trinamool Congress had been alleging that the Border Security Force was not able to prevent infiltration into the country, it was the West Bengal government that had failed to allocate land for border fencing.

पश्चिम बंगाल की जनसंखिकी को बदलकर अपना वोट बैंक मजबूत करने के लिए TMC की निगरानी में बंगाल में घुसपैठ हो रही है।

পশ্চিমবঙ্গের জনসংখ্যাগত কাঠামো পরিবর্তন করে নিজেদের ভোটব্যাঙ্ক শক্তিশালী করার উদ্দেশ্যে তৃণমূলের নজরদারিতেই বাংলায় অনুপ্রবেশ করানো হচ্ছে। pic.twitter.com/Gh81FfB05K

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 30, 2025

Banerjee, however, denied the BJP leader’s accusations, asserting that the West Bengal government allotted land for fencing in the border towns of Petrapole and Andal, ANI reported.

“Today they are saying that Mamata Banerjee didn’t give land,” ANI quoted the TMC as saying. “If I hadn’t given the land, what would have happened? Who gave the land in Petrapole? Who gave the land in Andal?”

Banerjee also questioned Shah’s claim that undocumented immigration from Bangladesh was only taking place in West Bengal. “They say that immigrants only come from Bengal,” she said, according to ANI. “If that’s the case, then did you carry out the attack in Pahalgam? Who was behind the incident in Delhi?”

In the 2021 Assembly election, the Trinamool Congress won 215 of the state’s 292 seats. The BJP won 77 seats, while the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) could not win any seat.

A court in Bengaluru on Monday discharged HD Revanna, a Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former Karnataka minister, from a case in which he was accused of sexually assaulting a domestic worker at his home in Hassan in 2020, Bar and Bench reported.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate KN Shivakumar noted that there had been a four-year delay on the part of the woman in filing the complaint. Neither the complainant nor the prosecution had provided a reasonable explanation for why the court should take cognisance of the case and condone the delay in lodging the complaint, the magistrate said, according to The Hindu.

A case of sexual assault and criminal intimidation was filed against HD Revanna and his son, former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, on April 28, 2024. HD Revanna was also accused of abducting the complainant a day after the first information report in the sexual assault case was filed.

HD Revanna was granted bail in both the sexual assault and abduction cases on May 13, 2024.

On November 19, the Karnataka High Court directed the magistrate court to decide whether the four-year delay by the woman in lodging the sexual harassment complaint could be disregarded and cognisance could be taken of the case.

On Monday, the additional chief judicial magistrate said that this was “not a fit case to condone the delay in lodging the complaint or initiation of prosecution”, Bar and Bench reported.

The magistrate refused to accept the prosecution’s contention that the delay occurred as the woman feared HD Revanna’s political power, The Hindu reported.

The court noted that the woman had stated in her complaint that after she quit her job at the former Karnataka minister’s home, a house that had been granted to her under a government scheme was demolished. The woman had filed a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner and the Hassan Police against Revanna in connection with the demolition , the magistrate noted.

“When she had no fear in approaching the Deputy Commissioner and the district police against…Revanna when her house was allegedly demolished at the instance of him, how come she had such a fear to lodge complaint…of alleged sexual harassment?” The Hindu quoted Shivakumar as asking.

The magistrate said that even if the woman could not complain from 2020 to 2022, when she was working at Revanna’s home, she could have done so after leaving the job in 2022. “But, for the reasons best known to her, she had not done so till April 2024,” The Hindu quoted the order as saying.

Prajwal Revanna was suspended from the Janata Dal (Secular) on April 30, 2024 after videos of alleged sexual assaults against several women surfaced just before the Lok Sabha election that year. He has since been booked in four different cases.

In August, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping the 48-year-old worker and recording the assault.

On Monday, the additional chief judicial magistrate referred to the case against Prajwal Revanna, and said that the serious allegation of rape against the Hassan MP may have led the woman to complain about HD Revanna as an afterthought, The Hindu reported.

Originally introduced as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 2005 and later renamed, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was aimed at enhancing livelihood security. It provided a legal right to wage employment of at least 100 days per rural household per year, aimed at enhancing livelihood security.

In this episode of the discussion series on the state of the nation, author and activist Harsh Mander speak to activists Aruna Roy, Ashish Ranjan, and James Herenj about the significant transition from the long-standing MGNREGA to the newly enacted Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), commonly referred to as VB-GRAMG.

They discuss what major changes have been introduced under VB-GRAMG, what MGNREGA achieved over its two decades of implementation and why the government chose to replace this landmark rights-based law.

They delve into how these changes are likely to affect rural workers and communities, including debates over funding patterns.

The episode also explores the growing responses and protests from various groups opposed to the new law, who argue that repealing MGNREGA undermines the legal right to work and could increase rural distress and migration.

The administration in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar on Monday barred unregistered online news outlets and social media news handles from publishing or circulating news and current affairs content for two months, following a clash between two groups in the district on Sunday, The Indian Express reported.

A man was also detained for allegedly uploading a misleading video that police alleged was “trying to give it [the incident] a communal angle”, The Hindu reported.

The police said that the clash occurred on Sunday in the Padyarna area when members of one religious community were carrying wooden logs from a forest and one log slipped and fell near a madrassa.

This led to an altercation between two groups, which later escalated into people throwing stones, The Hindu quoted the police as saying.

“A few people sustained minor injuries,” the police added.

However, an unidentified resident told The Wire that the incident occurred when a young man attempted to place wooden logs near a mosque, leading to an argument after the imam objected.

“The youngster later returned to his area following which some members of the Hindu community arrived in the area and the two sides clashed,” the news outlet quoted the resident as saying.

A first information report was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to endangering the life and safety of others and rioting, The Hindu reported.

Another FIR was also registered under Section 353 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita that penalises publishing false information with intent to cause public mischief against the man who uploaded a video of the incident on social media, claiming it was an attack on a religious place, The Wire reported.

On Monday, Kishtwar District Magistrate Pankaj Kumar Sharma issued an ex parte order directing compliance with the 2021 Information Technology Rules, The Indian Express reported.

The order barred unregistered online news portals and social media platforms from publishing news or current affairs content without following the statutory framework and came into effect immediately for a period of two months. Cyber cafe operators were also instructed to enforce identity verification norms and maintain proper user records, the newspaper reported.

To ensure implementation, the district information officer was directed to submit a verified list of registered and unregistered online news outlets and social media news handles operating in Kishtwar within a week, while the senior superintendent of police was tasked with enforcing the order.

The police asked the public “to exercise utmost caution and responsibility while using social media and other digital platforms”, The Hindu reported.

Meanwhile, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah said the Union government should intervene when he was asked a question about the reported “targeting of a mosque and a madrassa by stone pelters”.

“Evil exists and will do its work,” he said. “But India is a secular country, where the Constitution gives every religion the freedom to run its institutions. It is up to the Centre to guide the states to stop this.”

Ten members of a Hindutva outfit, Hindu Raksha Dal, have been arrested for distributing swords in Shalimar Garden colony of Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, the police said on Monday.

Shalimar Garden Assistant Police Commissioner Atul Kumar Singh said that a first information report has been registered against 16 identified persons and 25-30 unidentified persons.

Bhupendra Chaudhary, alias Pinki, the national president of the Hindu Raksha Dal, is among those named in the FIR, Hindustan Times quoted Singh as saying. He is absconding.

The arrests were made after videos started circulating on social media showing members of the Hindutva group displaying and handing out swords.

“The way our Hindu brothers have been killed in Bangladesh…Hindus should keep swords to defend themselves,” Chaudhary was heard saying in one of the videos.

“The Hindu Raksha Dal will respond to every single jihadist in his own language,” he added.

Chaudhary was referring to the killing of Dipu Chandra Das, a factory worker, who was beaten to death by a mob in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district on December 18 after being accused of blasphemy.

According to the FIR, members of the Hindu Raksha Dal also shouted communal slogans while rallying through the area with weapons, PTI reported.

The case has been filed under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to rioting, rioting with deadly weapons and wrongful confinement, along with provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, Hindustan Times quoted the police as saying.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Nimish Patil said more charges could be added based on evidence and that efforts were underway to trace the remaining accused, PTI reported.

“Police will not permit any outfit to disturb harmony and law and order,” he added.

All schools in Uttar Pradesh will remain closed till Thursday due to the cold wave, Chief Minister Adityanath was quoted as saying by PTI.

The India Meteorological Department has warned of dense fog and continued cold conditions in the state till at least Wednesday, The Indian Express reported.

The directive, issued on Sunday, applies to all schools affiliated with the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, Central Board of Secondary Education and the state education board.

“The safety of children is paramount during the cold wave, and any negligence in this regard will not be tolerated,” Adityanath was quoted as saying.

He has reportedly directed government and administrative officials to remain active and assess the situation in their districts.

The chief minister has also ordered the district authorities to ensure adequate arrangements for blankets and bonfires at public places and issued special instructions for the proper functioning of night shelters. He said no person in the state should be forced to sleep in the open during the cold weather.

“All necessary facilities, including bedding, blankets, and cleanliness, must be ensured at all night shelters,” the news agency quoted him as saying.

The Tamil Nadu Police has taken into custody four teenagers for assaulting a 20-year-old migrant worker from Odisha in Tiruvallur district, reported Deccan Herald on Monday.

The assault took place on Saturday evening when the worker, K Suraj, was travelling on a Chennai-Tiruttani suburban train. The four 17-year-olds, who were allegedly intoxicated, boarded the train at Tiruvalangadu.

They were carrying sickles in their bag and intended to make Instagram reels, The News Minute quoted unidentified police officials as saying.

“One of the juveniles initiated a conversation with Suraj and asked whether they could place a sickle on his neck for the reel,” Deccan Herald quoted the police as saying. “He objected and this led to an argument between the two. The argument continued till all the five arrived at Tiruttani railway station.”

At the station, they allegedly forced Suraj into an abandoned railway quarter, where three of them attacked him with sickles while the fourth minor filmed the assault before fleeing.

They later uploaded the video on social media, where one of the perpetrators is seen posing beside the injured man and flashing a victory sign, The Indian Express reported.

The four persons were traced and detained within hours before being presented at the Juvenile Justice Board in Tiruvallur, the newspaper quoted the police as saying.

Three of them were sent to the Chengalpattu Juvenile Reformation School, while the fourth, who is a student, was released on bail.

They face charges of attempted murder and criminal intimidation, according to Deccan Herald.

Suraj suffered severe cut injuries to his head, hands and cheeks. He was first treated at the Tiruttani Government Hospital and then referred to the Tiruvallur Government Medical College Hospital, The New Indian Express reported.

He is in stable condition, the police added.

Ever since Hemil Mangukiya was killed on the Russia-Ukraine border on February 21, 2024, the media has reported sporadically on Indians recruited to fight Russia’s war in Ukraine. Mangukiya, a 23-year-old from Surat, died in a Ukrainian air strike in the Donetsk region.

Since then, at least 26 other Indians have died on the frontlines of the conflict, Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh said in the Rajya Sabha on December 18 in response to a question. He added that at least 202 Indians had been fighting the war for Russia. Seven of them are missing,

These Indians could be categorised as mercenaries – third-party fighters paid to fight in a conflict – if it is established that they had joined the Russian army for pecuniary reasons and were recruited through predatory means.

News reports say the recruiters gave the Indians false information that they would join as “helpers” in the Russian army or “security workers”. Instead, the Russian military deployed them to fight on the frontlines. Such recruits are usually poorly trained, resulting in high casualty rates.

Unless the Indian government takes robust action now, poor and marginalised Indians will remain victims of predatory agents and private military security companies that thrive on conflicts in the world.

It is a problem I have been studying intensely since 2020, when I joined the United Nations’ working group on the use of mercenaries “as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination”.

44 Indians in Russian Army, confirms India's foreign ministry Spox Randhir Jaiswal; Says matters taken up with Russian authorities. Advises Indian nationals not to take up such offers due to the 'dangers' pic.twitter.com/9Qz9mdBAoc

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) November 7, 2025

According to the United Nations, a mercenary is a fighter who is not a member of the armed forces of a state party to a conflict and fights primarily for financial gain. Mercenaries are usually recruited from among retired military personnel, drawing on their combat training and expertise.

But in recent years, more systematic forms of recruitment have emerged, especially online. News reports say that Russia as well as Ukraine have been recruiting foreign fighters as the armed forces of both countries are facing a manpower shortage.

In 2023, we issued a report noting that predatory recruitment of mercenaries takes advantage of the socioeconomic status or other vulnerabilities of the individuals targeted. In some instances, it may involve coercion or fraud.

Poverty, limited job opportunities and discrimination based on religion or ethnicity often provide the conditions for individuals falling prey to predatory recruitment. Increasingly, recruiters, including states, target refugees as potential mercenaries on the promise of money and or even citizenship.

In predatory recruitment, recruiters do not give clear information to potential recruits about the type of job or activities they will be engaged in their destination country. Once the recruits arrive, local forces exploit their vulnerability to enlist them in hostilities.

In some instances, upon arrival in the destination country, recruits are paid considerably less than the promised amount. They also do not receive compensation promised to them or their family in the event of death or injury.

Breaking:

Top Russian diplomat Roman Babushkin on Indians in Russian Army

'Problem of great mutual concern'

'Russian army doesn't need Indians to fight. We have never recruited intentionally'

Points to Indian embassy in Moscow, Def ministry mechanism to resolve issues pic.twitter.com/CBJ6rBTBKp

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) September 29, 2025

History of mercenaries

Mercenarism has a long history. In the post-colonial period, particularly in Africa, former colonial powers extensively used mercenaries to reassert control over territories with natural resources. Many newly independent countries framed mercenarism as a threat to the people’s right to self-determination.

The growth of private military and security companies has helped sustain mercenarism. In the post-Cold War period after the collapse of the Soviet Union military and security skills have become a commodity and the demand for them has increased in the private sector.

Globally, particularly in the West, specialised private military and security companies have emerged, offering services to governments and corporations, including the recruitment of mercenaries for combat roles.

In 1987, the Human Rights Commission (now the Council), appointed a rapporteur to study mercenarism. This process resulted in the United Nations’ International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, which came into force in 2001, which criminalises mercenarism.

It imposes penalties on those who recruit, use, finance, or train mercenaries. The convention covers both internal and international armed conflicts. Seventeen countries are signatory to the convention but India is not among them.

At the same time, the Indian government’s position is that Indians participating in the conflict of a foreign country amounts to terrorism.

Promised jobs, education

According to Indian news reports, recruits sent to Russia are primarily from low-income families. They have been lured by the promise of money and jobs – many said that they were going to become helpers to the Russian Army, not fighters.

Recruiters made false promises and only struck up verbal agreements with the recruits. One Indian recruit told the BBC that he did not understand the contract he had been handed since it was in Russian, but signed it in the hope of getting a job. He mentioned that the process was swift, with just a few photos and signatures.

Several Indian recruits have said that they paid recruiters to get jobs in Russia.

Once they reached Russia, they realised they had only one option: to join the Russian army. Others said that they had spent a considerable amount of money to reach Russia in the hope of getting a job or studying there, and that they could not think of returning to India.

In November and again in December, the families of Indians recruited into the Russian army protested at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar seeking the Central government’s help in bringing their relatives back. The protestors were from 10 Indian states, indicating that the recruiters have national reach. Some reports mentioned agents based in Russia and Dubai, suggesting the involvement of an international network.

India has had several instances of unscrupulous agencies and agents preying on vulnerable men and women by sending them to non-existent jobs or colleges abroad. It is a lucrative business.

But these are the first known instances when agents have resorted to large-scale recruitment under false promises to enlist Indians to fight in a war in another country.

In March 2024, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report against 19 suspects for human trafficking in connection with sending Indians to Russia. Four suspects were arrested soon after in May.

It is still unclear if the suspects had any arrangements with official entities in Russia to recruit. Similarly, it is not clear whether Indian agents and agencies in Dubai and Russia are part of an organised trafficking network.

The BBC, in its report on Indians lured to Russia, identified one as a former Indian soldier. It is not known if other Indian soldiers have gone to the front too,

In September, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, urged Indians to “stay away from any offers to join the Russian Army, as this is a course fraught with danger”. He only warned about the physical danger, but not about the potential of Ukraine considering them as mercenaries. This means they could not be classified as combatants protected by the Geneva convention status. Instead, they could be prosecuted as mercenaries, had the Indian government signed the UN convention and if it is established that Indians had joined for financial reasons. Ukraine is a signatory to the UN convention on mercenaries.

Under the International Convention on Mercenaries, it is an offence to recruit, use, finance or train mercenaries.

The Indian government should enact a specific law prohibiting Indian nationals from taking part in foreign wars as mercenaries or in any other capacity. The law should include a prohibition of recruitment, including the predatory recruitment of Indian nationals as mercenaries. Finally, India should consider acceding to the international convention against mercenarism.

DJ Ravindran was the Director of Human Rights in Peace Keeping Operations in Libya, Sudan and Timor Leste ( East Timor) and has worked in post-conflict situations including Cambodia and Uganda. He is presently a member of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. Views expressed are made in personal capacity.

On a humid June day, my colleague and I were in the middle of an interview in Assam’s Barpeta district when my phone rang.

It was Mostafuzur Tara, a journalist from Bangladesh’s Kurigram district, who I had contacted a week ago.

Mostafuzur had helped me report on the story of 14 people from Assam, who had been picked up on May 27 from the Matia detention centre in the dead of the night.

There were rumours that they were being taken to the Bangladesh border and left there, but no confirmation was forthcoming.

The next morning, however, Mostafuzur’s video report brought proof that the 14 men and women, who had spent all their life in India, had been forced out of the country and into a swamp in the no man’s land between India and Bangladesh.

I answered the phone. Almost immediately, Mostafuzur handed over the phone to an elderly woman. She was in tears, her voice exhausted.

“Please take me back to Assam,” she said. “I don't have anyone here.”

The woman, in her 60s, said she had been pushed into Bangladesh by the Border Security Force along with the other declared foreigners.

Declared foreigners are Assam residents who have been pronounced non-citizens by foreigners’ tribunals because of inadequacies in their identity documents.

But the elderly woman could not run too far. She injured her leg and was left behind. Some villagers in Bangladesh provided her food and shelter.

The Bangladeshi journalist said she had to be admitted to a hospital for her injury. “She is too old to walk. Please try to find her family.”

Hearing the voice of a helpless woman, stranded in a foreign country, I felt deeply unsettled.

As reporters, it is not uncommon for people we meet and report on to approach us for information or to rely on us to tell their stories.

But we don’t cross some lines.

As a reporter, one of the rules I follow is not to get personally involved.

My story must not only be shaped by the emotions of those I report on, but also a larger legal and political context.

I fear that assisting others might breach ethical norms. What if my offer to help them influences the story I write? Will my readers sniff a conflict of interest? And what does it mean to help someone the state, with all its power and might, has expelled from its territory?

But reporting on Assam’s citizenship trials that threaten to disenfranchise large numbers of Bengal-origin Muslims and violent demolition drives that target the community, I have come face to face with people in desperate circumstances.

I think of the old frail man, who was forced out of India, along with the others. He found his way back to Assam but he had no legal representative to fight his case in the Supreme Court.

The family, too poor to bear the cost of a lawyer, looked to me with hope. I could not do much, except put them in touch with a lawyer in Guwahati who agreed to help them pro bono.

In July, I met 54-year-old Abdul Barek during a demolition in Goalpara district. He had lived there for over four decades. But his home and those of 1,080 other families were demolished.

Long after my story was filed, Barek kept calling me, seeking help and guidance on how to get his land back. One day, he broke down. “In this heavy rainfall, we are being forced to live on the road.”

The desperation of people like Barek stems from the fact that no help is coming for them – neither from the state’s political leadership nor Assamese civil society.

The lives of Miya Muslims, who migrated to Assam from Bengal in the late 1800s and early 1900s, have always been hard. They are looked at with suspicion, and vilified as “illegal immigrants” for their ethnic and religious identity and their migration history.

But this year, the community – one I belong to – has faced unprecedented state assault with regular demolition of homes and expulsion of people to Bangladesh.

The helplessness of the displaced plays out almost every day on television channels, often with little sympathy for those left homeless.

And so, I found my resolve wavering when I spoke to the elderly woman abandoned in Bangladesh.

That evening, I approached the members of the All Assam Minority Students’ Union to see if they knew about the woman’s family.

By midnight, they shared the number of the son.

I called him up right away. The son knew that his mother had been pushed into Bangladesh but he had no way of reaching her.

I gave him Mostafuzur’s number and hoped for the best.

After a month, he called me. His mother had made it back to her native village in Assam.

Ricky Gill, a special assistant to the United States president, has been awarded the National Security Council’s Distinguished Action Award for the role that the US administration says he played in the “India-Pakistan ceasefire negotiations”, The Print reported.

Gill received the award from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week.

The official, who has Indian roots, is a senior director for South and Central Asia in the US National Security Council. In the first Trump administration, he served as Director for Russia and European Energy Security at the council.

Congratulations to ⁦@RickyGillCA⁩ for recognition by ⁦⁦SecState@marcorubio⁩ with the NSC Distinguished Action Award for his role in the India-Pakistan ceasefire negotiations. Ricky is a talented diplomat who served with me in ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩’s 1st Admin. pic.twitter.com/6C9cd1I03F

— Robert C. O'Brien (@robertcobrien) December 25, 2025

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for brokering the ceasefire between India and Pakistan following the four-day conflict in May. He claimed that he mediated an end to the conflict by threatening to impose high tariffs on both countries.

New Delhi has rejected the claims and maintained that the ceasefire was not the result of mediation, and that the US was not involved in the talks. It maintained that trade was not discussed with the US during the period of the conflict in May.

The tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad had escalated on May 7 when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.

The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 22 Indian civilians and eight defence personnel were killed.

Pakistan claims 11 of its military personnel and 40 civilians were killed.

A court in Raipur on Monday denied bail to seven Bajrang Dal workers arrested for allegedly vandalising Christmas decorations at a shopping mall in Chhattisgarh’s capital city on December 24, The Indian Express reported.

The seven men belonging to the Hindutva group had been arrested on Saturday.

Videos of the vandalisation on December 24 posted on social media show the mob, armed with sticks, barging into the city’s Magneto Mall and destroying decorations a day ahead of Christmas.

A case was filed at the Telibandha Police Station under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to trespassing, intentionally causing damage to property, causing hurt, rioting and unlawful assembly.

After their arrest on Saturday, the seven men were produced before a magistrate’s court and sent to judicial custody, The Indian Express reported. They were produced again before the court on Monday, and were denied bail.

The vandalisation on December 24 occurred on the day a Hindutva group called for a state-wide strike to protest the allegedly illegal religious conversions in Chhattisgarh. The call for the bandh followed communal clashes on December 16 and 17 over the Christian burial of a person in the Bade Teoda village in the Kanker district.

Fresh violence was reported from the village on December 18 when a mob armed with sticks breached the police barricades and entered the village.

Several other incidents of attacks on Christians or disruptions to Christmas celebrations were also reported in the past week across the country.

Over 300 scientists, academics, civil society organisations and field functionaries on Monday urged the Union government to undertake ground research and consultations to fix shortcomings in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, rather than repealing the law.

In an open letter, the 355 signatories said that the 2025 Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, which replaced the MGNREGA, was premised on a “misreading” of several problems.

The new law also resorts to solutions that will undo two decades of “radical empowerment” that the MGNREGA had brought about, the letter said.

The 2025 VB-G RAM G Bill was given assent by the president on December 21, two days after it was passed by Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

Under the new law, the number of guaranteed workdays will increase to 125, while states’ share of costs will rise to 40%. The Union government will continue to bear the wage component, with states sharing material and administrative expenses.

The legislation has drawn criticism from economists and labour rights experts. On Saturday, the Congress also said that will launch a nationwide protest from January 5 to demand the repeal of the VB-G RAM G Act.

In the letter on Monday, the signatories said that the discovery of problems with the MGNREGA that may have prompted the new bill was “incomplete”, adding that a more grounded problem analysis of the old legislation would lead to solutions that continue to empower communities in a rights-based and inclusive manner.

Demand-driven operation

One of the problems stated about the MGNREGA was that its open-ended demand-driven design no longer aligned with contemporary rural realities as livelihoods had become more diverse and digitally integrated, the letter said.

The signatories said that the solutions given in the VB-G RAM G Act aimed to use a normative approach where geospatial technology and Artificial Intelligence-based mechanisms would be used to determine where, how much and for what to allocate funds.

However, the letter said that “geospatial technologies and AI-based mechanisms of today cannot, and perhaps never will, capture the full complexity of social-ecological systems”.

It added: “These systems are shaped not only by physical landscapes, but by seasonal labour practices, customary and informal rights, local histories of degradation and repair, community priorities, and negotiated trade-offs that are often invisible to remote sensing and algorithmic inference.”

While data-driven digital systems can provide decision support, they remain informationally incomplete and must be augmented by local knowledge and community volition, the signatories said.

The demand-driven nature of MGNREGA was a revolutionary construct that arose from its rights-based employment guarantee mandate, the letter said, adding that it provided a crucial space for local democracy to operate.

“A normative design erodes such spaces from where democracy is born ground-up and places the burden of proof on the poor to come up with an alternative allocation rather than start by listening to them from the outset,” the signatories said.

The correct approach would be to preserve the “open-ended demand-driven nature” of the MGNREGA, the letter said.

Misappropriation of resources

The signatories also said that another problem stated for repealing the MGNREGA was that there was misappropriation of resources such as work not being found on the ground, expenditure not matching physical progress, use of machines in labour-intensive works and frequent bypassing of digital attendance systems.

The VB-G RAM G Act aims to add on to existing mechanisms like the National Mobile Monitoring Software application, which takes real-time attendance of workers, and geotagging of structures with biometric-based authentication of workers, field functionaries and transactions, it added.

Other mechanisms include a weekly public disclosure of key metrics, muster rolls, payments, sanctions, inspections, and grievances.

However, while leakages and misuse must be addressed, treating misappropriation primarily as a monitoring or authentication failure misreads the underlying causes, the signatories said.

“The fact is that misappropriation arises in scenarios where the communities in need of meaningful work and assets are unable to engage effectively with MGNREGA,” it added.

The signatories said that the correct approach would be to make sure that mechanisms are built to facilitate and improve participation from especially marginalised groups and expand access to the radical transparency.

“This is already a key feature of MGNREGA to counter local power elite and lower bureaucratic corruption, leading to MGNREGA being used to create durable and meaningful rural assets rather than leading to ghost works or wasted resources,” they said.

Labour availability

Another problem that was cited for repealing the MGNREGA was that it led to a lack of labour availability during peak seasons of sowing and harvesting, the letter said. The VB-G RAM G Act allows setting aside 60 days in a year when employment will not be provided, it noted.

However, the assumption that the MGNREGA competed with agriculture for labour did not hold under current rural labour market conditions, the signatories said.

“MGNREGA wage rates are significantly lower than prevailing agricultural wages, often by as much as 40-50 percent,” they said. “Rational workers do not substitute higher-paying farm work for lower-paid MGNREGA employment during peak seasons.”

In practice, the old legislation functioned as a fallback, not a primary employment option, the letter said, adding that it was used when farm work was unavailable, uncertain, or exploitative.

It added that the MGNREGA could be a fulcrum to create “rural livelihoods by going beyond just unskilled labour work to skilled labour like community-based monitoring of natural resources such as water bodies and forests, data collection about water quality, efficient and equitable water distribution from irrigation systems, and so on”.

Other concerns

The letter also noted that under the MGNREGA, the Union government contributed 90% of the funds and 10% came from the states. Under the new Act, the “Centre to State ratio of funds has been altered to 60:40”.

The new Act also states that “expenditure by a state in excess of its normative allocation shall be borne by the state government”. The signatories said that these clauses could lead to “political favouritism” towards some states.

They added that research and consultations with civil society organisations and groups who have been working with the old Act should be undertaken at the earliest to build a “ground-up understanding of where, when, why MGNREGA works, and to find ways to create such environments everywhere”.

The Supreme Court put on hold its order from November 20 that had accepted a new definition of the Aravalli Hills, citing the need for further clarification. A vacation bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant ordered a new committee to be set up to survey and study the hills.

The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter amid concerns that the revised definition could enable unregulated mining and environmental damage.

Under the definition accepted in November, an Aravalli hill was described as a landform rising at least 100 metres above the surrounding area, while an Aravalli range was formed by two or more such hills located within 500 metres of each other, including the land between them.

Environmentalists warned that this could leave many ecologically important but lower hills vulnerable to mining and construction. Read on.

The slow destruction of Delhi’s forgotten spine

The Supreme Court stayed a Delhi High Court order that had suspended the life sentence of former Uttar Pradesh MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case involving a minor. The court was hearing a petition by the Central Bureau of Investigation challenging the High Court’s December 23 order, which had also granted bail to Sengar.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant asked Sengar’s counsel to file a response within four weeks and directed that the complainant be provided legal aid. Despite the High Court’s order, Sengar was to remain in jail as he is also serving a separate 10-year sentence in the custodial death case of the complainant’s father.

The High Court had held that Sengar, as an elected MLA, could not be treated as a “public servant” under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, a finding contested by the CBI. Read on.

The factions of the Nationalist Congress Party headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his uncle Sharad Pawar will contest the municipal elections in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad in an alliance. The tie-up in Pune was announced on Monday, while that in the neighbouring city of Pimpri-Chinchwad was made public on Sunday.

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MLA Rohit Pawar said the decision was taken after considering the sentiments of party workers who favoured contesting the elections together.

The principal rival for the NCP alliance in the area is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is an ally of Ajit Pawar’s faction at the state level.

The municipal polls in 29 cities, including Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune, will take place on January 15 and the votes will be counted a day later. Read more.

The Border Security Force rejected claims by the Bangladesh Police that two suspects in the killing of activist Sharif Osman Hadi had fled to India across the Meghalaya border. The Meghalaya head of the paramilitary force said that there had been no such cross-border movement in the area and even the Bangladesh Border Guard has not reported any such incident.

The Bangladesh Police alleged that the two suspects, Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Sheikh, had crossed into Meghalaya through the Haluaghat border area with the help of Indian residents. It further claimed that two Indian residents who assisted the suspects were in the custody of the Indian authorities.

However, the Border Security Force said that the claims were “completely false, fabricated, and misleading”.

Hadi was a prominent leader in the 2024 student protest that led to the ouster of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led government. He died on December 18, six days after being shot in Dhaka. Read more.

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A 35-year-old man from Tezpur was beaten to death on Sunday in the Kamrup (Metropolitan) district allegedly by a group of resort employees who accused him of theft, the police said. Seven persons have been taken into custody in the matter.

The assault took place at a private resort in Hatimura in the Sonapur area near Guwahati.

The police said that it had received information about a “suspected theft incident” at Mairas Resort, in which a man identified as Farjul Alom was “detained and assaulted by members of the public”.

The employees of the resort were suspicious about the presence of Alom, who had gone there to seek shelter, The Times of India quoted unidentified police officers as saying.

Manuj Boruah, the officer in charge of the Sonapur Police Station, said that the employees confronted Alom and began assaulting him. As the situation escalated, others also joined the group and assaulted him.

Subsequently, the police were informed about the matter, Boruah said.

A police team reached the site and took Alom into custody, the police said in its statement. “He was admitted to Sonapur District Hospital and later referred to GMCH [Gauhati Medical College and Hospital], Bhangagarh, where he was declared brought dead,” it added.

“Preliminary inquiry revealed that the victim was allegedly assaulted by employees of Mairas Resort,” the statement said, adding that further investigation was underway.

A case was registered at the Sonapur Police Station under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to mob lynching and voluntarily causing grievous hurt.

The seven apprehended persons were 18-year-old Mustafizur Hoque, 28-year-old Chitra Das, 32-year-old Ram Sunar, 28-year-old Sushil Nath, 26-year-old Satyajit Haloi, 35-year-old Ranjit Brahma and 25-year-old Manab Roy.

Scroll’s Vaishnavi Rathore won the International Press Institute India Award for Excellence in Journalism on Monday for her reportage on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project.

Rathore, the first journalist to report from the ground about the contentious project’s environmental and social implications, was awarded for her reports that exposed “in detail how the Great Nicobar port project would destroy a unique eco-system and also could result in genocide of several endangered tribes”.

Scroll readers crowdfunded the reporting project.

The award, instituted in 2003, includes a trophy, citation and cash prize of Rs two lakh. The jury was headed by former Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur.

The International Press Institute, based in Vienna, is a global organisation dedicated to promoting and protecting press freedom and improving journalism practices. Its India chapter comprises editors, publishers and senior executives of newspapers, magazines and news agencies.

Also read:

• On the Great Nicobar island, why the future is fearful
• Why the Great Nicobar project could spell doom for the island’s unique fauna
• Interview: Releasing Nicobar report would be like ‘opening can of worms’, says anthropologist

The Border Security Force rejected claims by the Bangladesh Police that two suspects in the killing of activist Sharif Osman Hadi had fled to India through the Meghalaya border, ANI reported on Monday.

On Sunday, Dhaka police Additional Commissioner SN Nazrul Islam claimed that the two suspects, Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Sheikh, had crossed into Meghalaya through the Haluaghat border area with the help of Indian residents, The Daily Star reported.

He claimed the men were received by a person identified as Purti and later taken by a taxi driver, Sami, to Tura in Meghalaya.

Islam also said that the two Indian residents who assisted the suspects were in the custody of the Indian authorities and that Bangladesh was in touch with India.

However, the Border Security Force’s chief in Meghalaya, Inspector General OP Upadhyay, on Monday said that “the claims are completely false, fabricated, and misleading, and there is no evidence to support them”.

Upadhyay said the Meghalaya Police had not apprehended the individuals and that reports in the Bangladeshi media were incorrect.

“There has been no such cross-border movement from the Meghalaya sector, and even the Bangladesh Border Guard has not reported any such incident,” Upadhyay told ANI.

“The BGB is a highly professional force,” Upadhyay added. “The claim that the individuals entered India from a location nearly 300 km from Dhaka, despite extensive CCTV surveillance and checkpoints in Bangladesh, is highly implausible.”

Hadi was shot on December 12 while he was leaving a mosque in Dhaka. He died on December 18 at a hospital in Singapore, where he had been flown for treatment.

Hadi was a prominent leader in the 2024 student protest that led to the ouster of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led government. His death led to unrest in parts of Bangladesh, including incidents of violence against minority communities.

A day after Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said that the Nationalist Congress Party will contest the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation elections in alliance with the Sharad Pawar-led faction of the NCP, the two factions on Monday announced their tie-up for the Pune civic polls.

Speaking to reporters, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MLA Rohit Pawar said that the decision about the alliance in Pune was taken after considering the sentiments of party workers who favoured contesting the elections together.

“After NCP(SP) city chief Prashant Jagtap left the party, several workers met Supriya Sule and conveyed that, come what may, NCP(SP) should go with the ‘clock’ [NCP],” the Hindustan Times quoted Rohit Pawar as saying.

Jagtap had left the party earlier this month and joined the Congress on Friday.

“Since these are elections of party workers, the decision has been taken keeping their sentiments in mind,” Rohit Pawar added.

The NCP(SP) MLA said that the decision about the alliance had been taken considering the sentiments of local party workers.

“The alliance has been forged to ensure that the election battle becomes easier for both factions,” he said.

Rohit Pawar also said that Sharad Pawar was not involved in this decision, PTI reported. “However, he believes that party workers are important and their views matter for the civic polls,” he added.

The MLA also said that there was no talk about merging the two parties, adding that an alliance had been forged only for Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune.

On Sunday, Ajit Pawar made the announcement about Pimpri-Chinchwad while launching his party’s election campaign at Talewade, The Indian Express reported.

The Pimpri-Chinchwad area near Pune is considered a stronghold of the NCP.

The principal rival for the NCP alliance in the area is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is an ally of Ajit Pawar’s faction at the state level.

The state’s ruling Mahayuti coalition comprises the BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the Nationalist Congress Party group led by Ajit Pawar.

The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi comprises the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Sharad Pawar.

Ajit Pawar’s announcement came days after the Uddhav Sena and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena announced an alliance for the municipal elections in the state.

“In Pimpri Chinchwad, NCP, the party with the clock symbol and NCP, the party with the trumpet symbol, will contest the civic election in an alliance,” Ajit Pawar said on Sunday. “A parivar [family] is coming together as many people wanted this to happen.”

He added that seat-sharing talks would be finalised within the next two days, The Times of India reported.

VIDEO | Pune, Maharashtra: Ahead of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) elections, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar says he and his uncle Sharad Pawar will contest the polls together. "For the sake of the upcoming PCMC polls, the clock and the trumpet have come together," he… pic.twitter.com/UeKSUVg3VL

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 28, 2025

The municipal polls in 29 cities, including Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune, will take place on January 15 and the votes will be counted a day later. The process of filing nominations began on December 23 and will conclude on Tuesday.

Ajit Pawar said that the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation “was considered one of the richest municipal corporations in Asia”, The Times of India reported.

“Today, it is burdened with debt and allegations of corruption, which were never part of its earlier history,” he was quoted as saying.

Leaders of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi said the development had not unsettled them and that they already had a Plan B ready, The Indian Express reported.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leaders in Pune told the newspaper that they had anticipated the Sharad Pawar faction’s move and that the alliance had prepared an alternative plan.

They said the Congress and Uddhav Sena would continue to contest together and explore arrangements with smaller parties such as the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi.

A Congress spokesperson also said the party would fight the civic elections alongside the Uddhav Sena, while accommodating other partners.

The Supreme Court on Monday put on hold its own November order that accepted a new definition of the Aravalli Hills, The Hindu reported.

A vacation bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices JK Maheshwari and AG Masih ordered that a new committee be set up to conduct a survey and study the hills. It said that clarifications relating to the definition it had approved were necessary, Bar and Bench reported.

The matter will be heard next on January 21.

The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter amid concerns that the changed definition of the Aravallis could lead to unregulated mining and severe environmental degradation.

The 700-km Aravalli mountain range stretches diagonally from southwest Gujarat, through Rajasthan, to Delhi and Haryana. Its highest point is Guru Shikhar in Mount Abu, which rises to an elevation of 1,722 metres.

Under the government’s new definition that had been accepted by the Supreme Court in November, an Aravalli hill is any landform that rises at least 100 metres above the surrounding terrain. An Aravalli range is formed by two or more such hills located within 500 metres of each other, including the land between them.

However, environmentalists have warned that defining the Aravallis solely by their height could leave many lower, scrub-covered but ecologically important hills vulnerable to mining and construction. Experts say these smaller hills are crucial for preventing desertification, recharging groundwater and supporting local livelihoods.

On Wednesday, amid the criticism, the Union environment ministry directed states not to grant new mining leases in the Aravalli Hills. The ban on new mining leases is to preserve the integrity of the landscape and applies to the entire Aravalli range, the ministry had said.

The Congress described the government’s directives as a “bogus attempt at damage control that will not fool anybody”. The “dangerous 100m+ redefinition” had remained unchanged, party leader Jairam Ramesh said on social media.

On December 22, the Union government denied that the redefinition weakens environmental safeguards, stating that over 90% of the Aravalli region remains protected.

On Wednesday, the Congress asked the Union government why it was “pushing through a fatally flawed” redefinition of the Aravallis, despite opposition from key expert bodies and advisers to the Supreme Court.

Ramesh shared on social media a report by The Indian Express that said the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the government’s new definition of the Aravalli hills contradicted the recommendations of its own Central Empowered Committee.

Also read: The slow destruction of Delhi’s forgotten spine

The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of concerns arising from a change in the definition of the Aravalli Hills, following apprehensions that the move could lead to unregulated mining and severe environmental degradation, Live Law reported.

A vacation bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices JK Maheshwari and AG Masih will hear the matter on Monday.

The 700-km Aravalli mountain range stretches diagonally from southwest Gujarat, through Rajasthan to Delhi and Haryana. Its highest point is Guru Shikhar in Mount Abu, which rises to an elevation of 1,722 metres.

Under the government’s new definition that has been accepted by the Supreme Court, an Aravalli hill is any landform that rises at least 100 metres above the surrounding terrain. An Aravalli range is formed by two or more such hills located within 500 metres of each other, including the land between them.

However, environmentalists have warned that defining the Aravallis solely by their height could leave many lower, scrub-covered but ecologically important hills vulnerable to mining and construction. Experts say these smaller hills are crucial for preventing desertification, recharging groundwater and supporting local livelihoods.

On Wednesday, amid the criticism, the Union environment ministry directed states not to grant new mining leases in the Aravalli Hills. The ban on new mining leases is to preserve the integrity of the landscape and applies to the entire Aravalli range, the ministry had said.

The Congress described the government’s directives to state governments on Wednesday as a “bogus attempt at damage control that will not fool anybody”. The “dangerous 100m+ redefinition” had remained unchanged, party leader Jairam Ramesh said on social media.

On Monday, the Union government denied that the redefinition weakens environmental safeguards, stating that over 90% of the Aravalli region remains protected.

On Wednesday, the Congress asked the Union government why it was “pushing through a fatally flawed” redefinition of the Aravallis, despite opposition from key expert bodies and advisers to the Supreme Court.

Ramesh shared on social media a report by The Indian Express saying that the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the government’s new definition of the Aravalli hills contradicts the recommendations of its own Central Empowered Committee.

Also read: The slow destruction of Delhi’s forgotten spine

The Congress on Wednesday asked the Union government why it was “pushing through a fatally flawed” redefinition of the Aravalli hills, despite opposition from key expert bodies and advisers to the Supreme Court.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh shared on social media a report by The Indian Express stating that the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the government’s new definition of the Aravalli hills contradicts the recommendations of its own Central Empowered Committee.

The report noted that the Forest Survey of India’s definition, which says the Aravallis include areas with a minimum elevation of three degrees, would better protect the ecology of the range.

The 700-km Aravalli mountain range stretches diagonally from southwest Gujarat, through Rajasthan to Delhi and Haryana. Its highest point is Guru Shikhar in Mount Abu, which rises to an elevation of 1,722 metres.

Under the new definition that has been accepted by the Supreme Court, an Aravalli hill is any landform that rises at least 100 metres above the surrounding terrain. An Aravalli range is formed by two or more such hills located within 500 metres of each other, including the land between them.

However, environmentalists have warned that defining the Aravallis solely by their height could leave many lower, scrub-covered but ecologically important hills vulnerable to mining and construction. Experts say these smaller hills are crucial for preventing desertification, recharging groundwater and supporting local livelihoods.

It is by now abundantly clear that the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Climate is being economical with the truth on the Aravallis issue and is misleading the public.

The redefinition of the Aravallis that the Modi Govt is adopting has been clearly and… pic.twitter.com/lzUpKTmrEZ

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) December 24, 2025

The Centre has denied that the redefinition weakens environmental safeguards, stating that over 90% of the Aravalli region remains protected.

On Wednesday, Ramesh accused the environment ministry of “being economical with the truth” and “misleading the public” by persisting with a redefinition that had been “clearly and compellingly opposed” by expert institutions.

The party had earlier said the Aravallis are a national natural heritage and warned that the new definition could undermine their ecological protection, PTI reported.

Also read: The slow destruction of Delhi’s forgotten spine

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Delhi High Court order suspending the life sentence of former Uttar Pradesh MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case involving a minor, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices JK Maheshwari and Augustine George Masih was hearing a petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation challenging the December 23 High Court order.

The bench asked Sengar’s counsel to file a response in four weeks.

The court also directed that the woman be given legal aid, The Hindu reported.

The High Court had suspended the sentence and granted bail to Sengar while the former Bharatiya Janata Party MLA’s appeal against conviction is being heard. However, Sengar was directed not to travel within a five-km radius of the complainant’s home.

Despite the High Court order, Sengar was to remain in jail as he is also serving a 10-year sentence in connection with the custodial death of the complainant’s father and has not been granted bail in that case.

The High Court had observed that, on the face of it, the facts of the case did not fulfil the conditions required to apply the stricter offence of “aggravated penetrative sexual assault” under Section 5 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. This was because Sengar did not fall within the definition of a “public servant”, it said.

Section 5 of the Pocso Act sets out conditions in which a “penetrative sexual assault” against a child is treated as a more “aggravated” offence. An aggravated offence is treated as serious because it is committed under special or severe circumstances that make the crime graver than usual.

Under the Act, an offence becomes “aggravated penetrative sexual assault” when it is committed by persons holding positions of authority, such as a public servant or a police officer within their jurisdiction, members of security forces, or staff of hospitals or prisons.

An aggravated offence carries a minimum sentence of 20 years, which can be extended up to life imprisonment, under the Pocso Act.

In 2019, the trial court convicted Sengar, noting that since he was an MLA at the time of the incident, he qualified as a “public servant” under Pocso. This made the offence a serious one and attracted a harsher punishment.

Thereafter, Sengar was sentenced to life imprisonment. His appeal against conviction and sentence had been pending before the High Court since 2020.

On December 23, the High Court rejected the trial court’s reasoning. It held that Sengar, as an elected MLA at the time of the incident, could not be treated as a “public servant” under the Pocso Act.

Security personnel had on December 23 and December 24 forcefully stopped the complainant in the rape case and her family members from protesting in Delhi against the High Court order. They were detained at the Kartavya Path police station for around an hour.

On Saturday, the Delhi Police detained Congress leader Mumtaz Patel and other protesters who had been holding a sit-in near the Parliament complex to oppose the High Court order.

The Election Commission has directed to stop personal hearings for those voters in West Bengal who were marked as “unmapped” during the ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls, but whose names or ancestral connections were present in the 2002 voter list, reported The Hindu on Sunday.

The direction was issued on Saturday as the state authorities found upon verification with the 2002 rolls that several voters or their children who were shown as “unmapped” on the poll panel’s central software were present in the area, The Indian Express quoted state officials as saying.

The state’s draft electoral rolls were published on December 16. It showed that more than 58 lakh voters were removed after being marked dead, shifted or absent. In addition, 31 lakh voters were “unmapped”, or not found on the 2002 rolls, when the last special intensive revision was held.

In a letter to district election officers, the West Bengal additional chief electoral officer said that several voters were marked “unmapped” as the 2002 electoral roll data had not been fully converted to plain text format, reported Hindustan Times.

Due to this, “linkage could not be fetched in BLO [booth-level officer] app in respect of many electors”, said the additional chief electoral officer.

The letter added that the state chief electoral officer had requested the poll panel to allow booth-level officers, electoral registration officers and additional electoral registration officers to upload the relevant portions of the 2002 voter roll’s hard copy directly for mapping the voters.

After the draft rolls were published, the poll panel generated notices for the unmapped electors to prove their eligibility through personal hearings.

The state additional chief electoral officer wrote in the letter that despite the notices, “these electors may not be called for hearing”.

Instead, the notices can be kept with the electoral registration officer or assistant electoral registration officer, reported The Hindu.

“BLOs may be sent to the field [to] take a photo with such elector and the same may be uploaded,” the newspaper quoted the letter as saying.

It added: “In cases where discrepancies are detected later on with the hard copy of 2002 Electoral Roll by ERO/AERO or on complaints, the concerned electors may be called for hearing after servicing notices.”

This came on the same day that the West Bengal Civil Service Executive Officers’ Association expressed objections to what it described as “suo motu system-driven deletion” of voters from the draft electoral rolls.

The association argued that such deletion of a large number of electors at one time appeared to infringe on the rights of voters who might otherwise be eligible but were unable to participate in the enumeration process.

West Bengal is expected to head for Assembly elections in the first half of 2026.

Besides West Bengal, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway in 11 other states and Union Territories.

In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.

Also read: I struggled to fill SIR forms. BLOs have it much worse

It had been 20 minutes since Vaishnavi Rathore and I had begun our little trek in a dense forest in Dzongu in North Sikkim. We were lucky the rain had stopped just before we began, but the wet mud was a challenge we city folks were not ready for. I was worried about slipping, not just because of the risk of injury, but also of damaging the expensive camera in my bag.

We were being led by Mayalmit Lepcha, an environmental activist and local resident, whom we had met earlier in the day. We had been reporting on the impact of a glacial lake outburst flood that devastated parts of Sikkim in 2023 and on the broader consequences of hydropower projects in the ecologically sensitive region. As we spoke about what the construction of dams in the Himalayas meant for indigenous communities, Mayalmit said she wanted to show us a Lepcha ritual.

As we continued our trek, the sun had begun to set, and by the time we saw a small house emerging amidst the wild ferns, the sky had turned a purple-blue. It was the house of a shaman, a spiritual leader of the Lepcha community.

The ritual was to take place inside a small hut near the main house. The family was preparing for the upcoming ritual, and the house was bustling. As soon as we said “Khamree” to the family, a Lepcha greeting, I took out my camera and began shooting – I did not want to miss a single moment of the evening.

Almost immediately, there was a power cut and the lights went out – this, we learnt, was a regular occurrence.

The Lepchas are an indigenous community of North Sikkim, whose culture is deeply rooted in nature worship. Those we met told us that for them, mountains, forests and rivers are divine entities. The ritual we were invited to witness is performed every year to welcome the spring season. During it, the shaman interacts with the “spirit world” to bring prosperity to the community. The ritual this year was particularly special because it was being performed by a young shaman.

As preparations for the ritual were underway, a wisp of smoke rose from a nearby outdoor kitchen. Men and women were cutting vegetables and preparing for a special dinner. We also helped with the cooking. Families had come from around the village, and some from as far as Gangtok, to participate in the ceremony. Their shy smiles and curious eyes followed me around as I photographed them.

The hut where the ritual was to take place was made from natural material, such as mud and bamboo. Mayalmit explained that this was a requirement for the ritual. Inside, I saw the young shaman helping his family with the arrangements. He was around my age and seemed very calm – yet I sensed a hint of nervousness as the time for the ritual drew closer.

As we waited, we met a diverse group of people, including a senior shaman, an environmental activist, a Buddhist monk and a farmer. They were united by a strong resistance to dams. The Lepcha shaman told us that the community believes that the Teesta river is sacred, and that it is the path towards salvation for departed souls in the afterlife. Building dams, he said, would block this passage. So far, ten large hydropower projects have been built on the river.

When it was time for the ritual, everyone headed towards the hut. It had started raining again, and the smell of wet earth filled the air. The hut was dark inside, lit only by oil lamps. There was an altar in the middle, in front of which the older shaman and the young shaman sat. The younger shaman was playing a traditional instrument while the older shaman was chanting and praying.

I sat on the left side of the altar in the front row, wanting to capture the ritual. I had also placed my zoom recorder in front of me. After about 10 minutes, the young shaman suddenly stood up. Mayalmit told us that an older ancestor had entered him.

The young shaman's demeanor changed completely. He crouched and walked with the support of a stick. I raised my camera to film this, but it was not recording. The display showed it had overheated, which surprised me, since this usually happens when I record long takes or shoot in high temperatures.

Neither was the case here.

The young shaman slowly walked around the altar, swinging his stick in the air to ward off evil spirits. As he approached us, he looked up and stared at Vaishnavi and me for a few seconds. I met his gaze and felt he knew we were outsiders.

Mayalmit gestured for us to lower our eyes.

The shaman lifted his stick. For a moment, we thought he would strike us. Instead, he brought it down on my Zoom recorder. I immediately switched it off. My heart raced. He then turned away and continued circling the altar.

Vaishnavi and I looked at each other, shaken, but awed by what we had witnessed. Through the hut’s single window, a flash of lightning lit up the sky.

I realised how deeply the community's identity was intertwined with nature, an identity now under threat from the growing number of hydropower projects built in the name of development.

For them development is not what is added, but what must not be lost.

For the two days we stayed in Dzongu, the electricity did not return. When night fell, the village would return to darkness, lit only by night lamps.

Flights were disrupted in the National Capital Region and northern India on Monday because of dense smog.

The air quality in Delhi was in the “severe” category with 22 of the city’s 37 active monitoring stations recording Air Quality Index readings above 400, according to data from the Sameer application at 8.05 am.

The national capital’s average AQI stood at 402, showed the application, which provides hourly updates from the Central Pollution Control Board.

Low visibility disrupts flights

At 9 am, the Delhi airport said that “dense fog” may cause delays and cancellations and urged passengers to check their flight status with their airline.

On Monday, an Air India Express flight from Goa to Delhi was diverted to Ahmedabad, ANI reported.

IndiGo said that foggy conditions were hampering operations in Delhi and several airports in northern India. “If reduced visibility conditions persist, flight departures and arrivals may be impacted as the day progresses,” it said.

The airline said that the dense fog in Jammu had also impacted flights operating to and from the city. “As conditions evolve, some services may experience delays, and a few may need to be cancelled depending on clearance and operational feasibility,” IndiGo said.

‘Severe’ AQI in NCR

On Monday, the cities adjoining the capital also reported hazardous air quality levels. While Noida recorded an AQI of 416 and Greater Noida 406, Ghaziabad was in the “very poor” category at 398 and Gurugram 326.

An index value between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air. Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution.

An AQI in the “severe” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

VIDEO | Delhi wakes up to a dense blanket of smog choking the National Capital.

Visuals from the AIIMS Flyover show traffic crawling through the haze, as air quality plunges into the 'very poor' and 'severe categories', shrouding the city in a murky winter grip.#DelhiSmog… pic.twitter.com/Z4HXmCWbvL

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 29, 2025

On Wednesday, the Commission for Air Quality Management revoked Stage 4 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan in the National Capital Region after the air quality improved.

Stage 4 restrictions had come into force on December 13 after the air quality slipped into the “severe plus” category.

GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR.

Air quality deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular pollution, along with the lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

A booth-level officer died allegedly by suicide in West Bengal’s Bankura district on Sunday, reported The Indian Express.

In a note found near his body, 53-year-old Haradhan Mandal said that mounting stress related to the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state had led him to take the step, the newspaper quoted unidentified police officials as saying.

Mandal’s body was found by his family inside a classroom of a school, where he was the headmaster.

He was the booth-level officer for booth number 206 in Rajakata village of the Ranibandh block.

His family members alleged that he had been suffering from depression because of being unable to cope with the “immense workload” of the voter roll revision exercise.

“My father was suffering from various physical ailments,” Mandal’s son, Soham Mandal, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. “Despite that, he used to work on the SIR until 3 am or 4 am. On top of that, there were various other forms causing mental pressure.”

Soham Mandal said that his father “could no longer bear this mental strain”.

Haradhan Mandal’s wife, Mala Mandal, claimed that he had not received help for the work related to the voter roll revision and “was forced to take this step”.

His body has been sent for post-mortem, reported The Hindu.

With this, at least 10 suicides of booth-level officers and two deaths due to stroke have been reported because of alleged work pressure in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan amid the revision of electoral rolls.

The Election Commission is conducting the revision of the electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories. Booth-level officers began distributing enumeration forms on November 4.

Overall, around 3.6 crore electors in the 11 states and Union Territories have been deleted so far in the exercise. The draft electoral roll for Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be published on December 31.

The final electoral rolls for all states and Union Territories where the exercise is underway are to be published on February 14.

The task of preparing voter lists before elections is typically assigned to primary school teachers and anganwadi or health care workers, who are employed by state governments. They are required to go door-to-door and check the identities of new voters and verify the details of those who have died or permanently moved out of an area.

In the Election Commission’s parlance, they are called booth-level officers. Each booth-level officer is responsible for maintaining the voter list for one polling booth, which can sometimes have as many as 1,500 registered voters.

Reacting to Mandal’s death, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee said that the special intensive revision of electoral rolls should have been a “methodical process”, but has instead been “bulldozed through by a pliant, complicit Election Commission”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal observer Mangal Pandey blamed the TMC, saying that the leadership of the state’s ruling party was “constantly pressuring the BLOs to do their work incorrectly”, reported The Indian Express.

“This pressure has led to several tragic incidents,” said Mandal. “The state government and the Trinamool party must take full responsibility for this.”

As the world’s most populous nation, changes in the way India is growing deeply affect the world. Yet these key shifts are not adequately documented or discussed, both within India and globally.

At Data For India, we track these changes closely, using high-quality Indian and global data sources. Through this three-part series, we attempt to pull together vital Indian data on demographic shifts, place them within the context of other socio-economic changes taking place in India, and set them against a global backdrop. With this, we identify new areas of research as well as directions for policy and discussion.

In Part I, we brought together the data to describe the current moment, and the key recent data points that we argue have gone relatively unnoticed. In Part II, we examined data around falling birth rates, and shared research that suggests India is both an outlier and a part of a global trend. In Part III, we look at the data on demographic differences between Indian states and how it feeds into current socio-economic and political tensions.

India’s demographic dilemmas are, in many ways, shared challenges for the country – the end of the demographic dividend, the progress of an epidemiological transition, the steady fall in birth rates, and the specter of aging. Based on an accurate reading of high-quality data, policy and politics will need to come together to take on these challenges.

However, deep schisms divide the country’s demographics on several key issues, putting India at risk of splintered political responses. In this piece, we look at these schisms and their implications.

The determinants of change

Three broad processes drive demographic changes: births, deaths, and migrations. We first look at these three determinants to understand their impact on the populations of Indian states.

We use the United Nations World Population Prospects, 2024 Revision, for global data for past years and projections up to the year 2100. We use India’s Sample Registration System and the National Family Health Survey for data on Indian states up to the year 2023, the most recent year for which there is data.

For data beyond 2023, as well as projections up to 2036 for Indian states, we use population projections made by India’s Registrar General of India based on the 2011 Census. One important caveat is that India has not had a decennial Census since 2011.

i) the fertility differential

Even as the broad story of fertility – the number of children an average woman in a region has – is one of steady decline, as we saw in Part II of this series, the differential rates of this change between India’s richer and poorer states lie at the heart of this schism.

Historically, India’s southern and western states have been richer and have achieved better development outcomes, including on women’s education and women’s health. As a result, these states have significantly lower fertility rates than the eastern and northern states, which are poorer and less developed, and hit the key milestone of “replacement fertility” much earlier.

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the average number of children that a woman is likely to have in her lifetime. As countries get richer and women get better access to healthcare and education, fertility rates begin to fall – a phenomenon seen across the world.

When a country’s TFR drops to 2.1, meaning that women will have an average of 2.1 children over their lifetimes, demographers say that the country has reached “replacement fertility.” What this means is that if two adults have a notional 2.1 children between them, then, accounting for some likelihood of death during childhood or adolescence, that couple will produce two adults, and the size of the population will remain the same. This is a key milestone in a country’s demographic journey. If fertility falls below that level, the population will begin to decline in absolute numbers.

Despite the fact that fertility has fallen in all Indian states, their trajectories differ by decades. Of the four Indian states that are yet to reach replacement fertility, all of them lie in India’s impoverished center and north. Uttar Pradesh is projected to reach this milestone in 2025 and Madhya Pradesh by 2028.

Bihar is the sole remainder, expected to be the last state to achieve replacement fertility only in 2039. (By 2023, the most recent year for which there is data, Chhattisgarh had not yet achieved replacement fertility despite the projections for the state estimating that it would reach this milestone in 2022).

The immediate impact of this fertility differential is the extra years of high birth rates in the northern and eastern states. One in every three Indian children (under the age of 14) lives in two states alone – Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Bihar’s child population is not expected to decline in absolute terms up until 2036, the furthest year for which we have projections, while all of the southern states are seeing their child populations decline.

This difference in fertility and the impact that it will have on population growth in these states is a growing cause of conflict between India’s richer and poorer states.

ii) Changes in mortality

Despite doing better on health indicators than poorer states, India’s richer states face not only lower birth rates, but also higher mortality rates as a result of their age structures.

Communicable diseases and conditions around childbirth and infancy are responsible for far fewer deaths in India’s richer states than in its poorer states. In Kerala, for instance, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has now fallen to 5 (five infant deaths for every 1,000 live births in a year), which is comparable to northern European countries, while the relatively poorer states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh have an IMR of 37, similar to that of Sudan.

Yet, the relatively low share of the elderly in the populations of these poorer states keep their overall mortality rates down. The Crude Death Rate – the number of deaths for every 1,000 people – in Kerala, for instance, has surpassed that of Madhya Pradesh’s. What’s driving it up is the relatively large share of the elderly in its population.

These relatively high mortality rates contribute, alongside lower birth rates, in driving down the population of India’s better developed states.

iii) Low inter-state migration

Alongside fertility and mortality, the movement of people is another factor that affects the size of the population. In the developed world, as birth rates fall, the immigration of working-age adults into the country is seen as an important factor that helps counterbalance the impact on the economy (including on the care economy) of an aging population.

The level of international migration into and out of India is too small in relative terms to affect the population. Fewer than one in every 1,000 people had migrated out of the country as of 2023, according to the World Bank, compared to neighboring Sri Lanka where more than three in every 1,000 have migrated out.

Internal migration within India is, on the other hand, an order of magnitude higher. Three in ten Indians report that they now live somewhere different from their last residence for at least six months at a stretch. This data is from India’s National Sample Survey’s 78th round “Multi Indicator Survey” (2020-’21).

Yet these high rates of movement do not have the impact of significantly altering the population or demographic structure of India’s more prosperous states that are labour magnets.

The vast majority of India’s internal migrants have not moved very far from where they were earlier – migrants are most likely to move within their own district (nearly 60% of all migrants), followed by those who move to another district in the same state (nearly 30% of migrants), and last of all, to another state. Only a little over 10% of Indian migrants currently live in a different state from the one they last lived in for a six-month stretch.

Driving the majority of these intra-district movements are women. Female migrants make up the majority of Indian migrants as a result of social norms around caste and marriage that lead to the marriages of Indian women being arranged outside the villages they were born, and the convention that married women move to live with their husband and his family.

While just over 10% of Indian men report being migrants, that figure is nearly 50% for Indian women. Marriage is the most common reason for migration for women, while for men, it is the search for jobs.

Migration of this variety in India appears to have grown very little in the last 15 years for which there is data – in 2007-’08, 28.5% of Indians were migrants, a share which rose only slightly to 29.1% in 2020-’21.

Impact of these processes

As a result of these three demographic trajectories, India’s states are moving in somewhat divergent directions, driving conflict over resource allocation and political representation. This impacts two areas in particular: the relative sizes of Indian states by population and the age structure of the populations of these states.

i) State populations

Until the 1970s, population growth rates across Indian states were quite similar. However, since the 1980s, India’s southern states have been growing far slower than the central, northern, and eastern states.

As a result, over one-third of the total increase in India’s population between 2011 and 2036 will have come from two states alone – Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – while all of the southern Indian states will have seen their share in the population declining.

Rajasthan is estimated to have grown bigger than Tamil Nadu in 2017, and Bihar is estimated to have surpassed Maharashtra to become India’s second most populous state after Uttar Pradesh by 2023. People from the four most populous southern Indian states will account for fewer people than from Uttar Pradesh alone over the next five years.

The southern and western states are not just growing more slowly than the northern and eastern states. Some states will stop growing entirely. Even while India’s population is expected to continue to grow until 2060, Tamil Nadu’s population is projected to start to decline in absolute terms over the next decade.

ii) A generation gap within India

Not only will the southern and western states grow more slowly, they will also age more rapidly.

When fewer children are born every year and life gets safer, a country starts to age. The median Indian is just over 28 years old, while the median age of the world is over 30. By 2050, however, the median Indian will be over 38 years old.

Within India, a decade separates some of the northern and southern states, with Kerala and Tamil Nadu being India’s oldest states and Bihar its youngest. Kerala, for instance, has twice the share of elderly people (age 60+) in its population that Bihar or Uttar Pradesh have.

By the mid-2030s, Tamil Nadu is projected to be India’s oldest state. Given the differences in birth rates and mortality rates in the two regions, this gap will grow. At 40, the median Tamil man will be over 12 years older than the median Bihari man.

These figures are based on a Technical Group on Population Projections that was set up in the office of the Registrar General of India to provide the country with population estimates for the period of 2011-2036, using data on fertility, mortality, migration, and urbanisation.

When countries or states have either a very large child population or elderly population – meaning they are either very young or very old – it affects the way their economies are structured. In economic terms, the working age population is seen as productive, while dependents – whether they are children or the elderly – need household and state support in the form of welfare.

By 2031, over a quarter of the population in Tamil Nadu and a third in Kerala will be dependent elderly persons, and even the absolute number of people of working-age in these two states will have started to decline.

In the northern and eastern states, on the other hand, the working-age populations (aged 15-59) are still growing. In the decade ahead, the southern states will see their working-age populations begin to shrink, even as the north-central states will see their working-age populations grow.

One key indicator tracked by demographers and economists is the dependency ratio: the ratio of dependents (those who cannot work as they are either children or the elderly) to the working-age population. In states or countries with a higher dependency ratio, there is a greater financial burden on the working-age population and the state to provide welfare.

Since the northern and eastern states are seeing a gradual aging with birth rates now declining, their dependency ratios are poised to fall, as the working-age population grows and is more able to support dependents. However, the southern and western states will see their dependency ratios rise steadily as their populations age, and their workforces shrink.

Implications for the Indian Union

This growing schism between two broad halves of the country has spilled over into two key areas of policy and politics in India – redistribution and representation.

The relatively small populations of the southern states alongside their relative economic progress has resulted in sustained friction over how revenues generated from the southern states should be put to use by the Indian union government for redistributive policies that would result in larger shares to the more populous and poorer northern and eastern states.

Southern states argue that the devolution formula – which determines how centrally collected taxes are distributed to the states – of India’s Finance Commission, particularly under the 15th Finance Commission (2020–26), penalises them despite being major revenue contributors.

A core complaint is that the heavy reliance on population and income-distance parameters – states with higher population and lower per-capita income get a larger share – results in the southern states receiving proportionally less. The combined share of the five southern states in devolution declined from 18.6% under the 14th Commission to 15.8% under the 15th Finance Commission.

Another flashpoint is the growing weight of cesses and surcharges in central tax revenue. The Union Government in New Delhi does not share these levies (which can be over 10%-15% of gross tax collections) with the states. Southern leaders claim this disadvantages them, since despite their large contribution to the Goods and Services Tax and direct taxes, they do not receive commensurate redistributed funds.

There is also the question of political representation. According to Article 81 of India’s Constitution, each state must receive seats in proportion to its population and allocate those seats to constituencies of roughly equal size. The Constitution also regulates the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament, currently at 545.

To divide these seats proportionally, seats are to be reallocated after every census based on updated population figures, according to Article 82 of the constitution. In 1976, when civil liberties were suspended during India’s Emergency, the Forty-Second Amendment was enacted, pausing the revision of seats until after the 2001 Census. In 2002, parliament delayed reallocation even further, passing the Eighty-Fourth Amendment and extending this freeze until the next decennial census after 2026. The next Census is scheduled to be conducted in February 2027.

When the next delimitation takes place, the southern states are likely to see a significant reduction in their political representation to accommodate the growth in population in the northern states, and have begun to voice strong objections to such a realignment, calling it once again a penalisation of their relative success in developmental and demographic terms.

Apart from these challenges to the Indian union, the southern states will also have to confront the prospect of their growing dependency ratios and the pressure this will put on state finances and the care economy. In particular, the southern states may need to rethink some of their more strident rhetoric on inter-state migrants, given that the working-age population of the future is more likely to come from the north than the south. Simultaneously, the need to better equip the workers and potential workers of India’s northern states with the skills they will need for the workplaces of the future has never been more important.

India’s demographic dilemmas come at a grave time. They could present an opportunity for foundational thinking around reproductive freedoms, women’s rights, and labour markets of the future – shared challenges that ought to animate citizens across the country. But the massive divergences can also be manipulated to create ethnic divisions in pursuit of political fortune. The possibility that these schisms will be pried further open to cause lasting harm is also dangerously apparent.

How India – and Indians – treat these demographic dilemmas will also determine the trajectory of its democracy.

Rukmini S is the founder of Data For India (where she leads research and writing) and a CASI Non-Resident Fellow. Her areas of focus include demography, health, and household economics. She has previously led data journalism in Indian newsrooms and is the author of Whole Numbers & Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India (Westland, 2021).

The article was first published in India in Transition, a publication of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.

Two days after India flagged the “unremitting hostility” against minorities in Bangladesh, Dhaka on Sunday rejected the remarks and described them as “inaccurate, exaggerated or motivated”, reported The Daily Star.

SM Mahbubul Alam, the spokesperson for the Bangladeshi foreign ministry, added that the statements “misrepresent the country’s longstanding tradition of communal harmony”.

On Friday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal condemned the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu man, in Bangladesh, saying that continued hostilities against minorities in the country, including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, at the hands of extremists was a matter of great concern.

Das was accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by a mob in Mymensingh district on December 18, after which his body was allegedly tied to a tree and set on fire. Eighteen persons have been taken into custody for the lynching.

“We condemn the recent gruesome killing of a Hindu youth in Mymensingh and expect the perpetrators of the crime to be brought to justice,” Jaiswal said.

The spokesperson also claimed that independent sources had documented more than 2,900 incidents of violence against minorities in Bangladesh during the tenure of the interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus.

Alam claimed on Sunday that Jaiswal’s remarks do not reflect facts, reported The Daily Star.

“With much regret, we note systematic attempts to portray isolated criminal acts as persecution of Hindus and to maliciously use them to propagate anti-Bangladesh sentiments in different parts of India,” he added.

The Bangladeshi spokesperson also said that there was a “selective and unfair bias in certain quarters” and claimed that isolated incidents were amplified to incite Indians against Bangladesh, its diplomatic missions and other establishments in the country.

Referring to the death of another Hindu man, Amrit Mondal, alias Samrat, Alam said that he was a listed criminal and was killed “when he was committing extortion with his Muslim accomplice”, reported The Indian Express.

He said that the accomplice had been arrested.

“To portray this criminal act through the lens of minority treatment is not factual but misleading,” added Alam.

Mondal was beaten to death by a mob in Rajbari’s Pangsha Upazila on Wednesday. The police said that they rescued Mondal and took him to hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

The man was accused in several criminal cases, including matters relating to murder and extortion filed in 2023, ANI quoted the Bangladeshi government as having said.

On Thursday, the interim government in Bangladesh condemned Mondal’s killing but said the incident was not communally motivated.

Dhaka said that it had “noted with great concern” that a “certain segment has made the unholy attempt to highlight the religious identity of the slain person and describe it as a communal attack”. It had urged “all concerned sections” to behave responsibly.

Cooped up at the back of Anil Mishra’s SUV, driving through the narrow lanes of Gwalior, my colleague Kritika and I had become a captive audience for the garrulous lawyer.

He would occasionally turn around to look at us while speaking, but he never really bothered to wait for our response. And, truth be told, I am glad that he didn’t because I remember feeling very conflicted about what was happening.

We were in the city to cover the controversy over the proposed installation of an Ambedkar statue in the premises of the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s Gwalior bench.

Anil Mishra was part of a group of mostly Brahmin lawyers who had blocked the statue on the pretext that due process had been flouted to rush through its installation in May.

In an interview he had given us in his chambers, Mishra had spoken at length about the technical grounds on which he was opposed to the statue.

But in the car, with Kritika’s camera locked away, the real reason for his opposition tumbled out. “This statue will never be erected anywhere in or around Gwalior,” Mishra declared. “Not even in a toilet.”

The casteist import of what he said was not lost on us. But we sat quietly at the back of the car, grateful for his help in navigating the city.

That day, the Ambedkarite group Bhim Army had called for a public meeting in Gwalior to protest against the stonewalling done by upper-caste lawyers and to demand that the statue be installed.

The police had turned the city into a fortress and journalists like us were struggling to get anywhere close to the court. When Kritika tried to click a picture of the court’s facade, the police officials on duty chased her away.

So when Mishra offered to take us to the court and show us around, we jumped at the opportunity – unaware of what we were signing up for. All through the drive, Mishra held forth on how Gwalior’s upper castes had fought back Ambedkarite assertion.

He harked back to 2018, when caste clashes had claimed over half a dozen lives, mostly of Dalits, in Gwalior and its neighbouring districts. The fear of a repeat of 2018-like violence, Mishra argued, would stop Ambedkarites from escalating matters over the statue beyond a point.

He seemed to be acutely aware that the dispute over the statue was bigger than a lawyers’ squabble over legal minutiae. “We have shown the country that these Ambedkarites can be stopped in their tracks,” he boasted.

Mishra’s choice of metaphor was telling. He likened the spread of social justice politics in the Hindi belt over the past four decades to the Ashwamedha yajna – a Vedic ritual performed by kings to expand their territories.

The ritual involved a horse traversing foreign lands with the king’s army in tow to battle any opponents who came in their way. All the area that the horse covered thereafter became the king’s own.

“Nobody thought that it could be done but we have captured the horse from their yajna and tied it up,” he said.

Then, out of the blue, came his confession.

“Jhanda toh humne zabardasti laga diya,” Mishra chuckled sheepishly. We put the flag there for no good reason.

He was talking about the tricolour that some upper-caste lawyers had forcibly hoisted on the podium meant for the Ambedkar statue. When we visited the court, the flag was still flying high while the statue was gathering dust far away from the city, in the factory where it had been sculpted.

To this day, I have not been able to figure out why Mishra opened up to us the way that he did.

It is, of course, possible that we had nothing to do with it and that we merely happened to be there when he was doing and saying what he usually does and says. Perhaps he was bragging in a markedly casteist manner because that is his wont.

But there is another potential explanation that haunts me. Soon after we met, he had asked us about our castes and appeared to be at ease knowing that we, too, came from upper-caste backgrounds.

What if he felt comfortable enough to let his guard down and express himself freely because he had assumed that we shared the same views as him? While we had not said anything to him that would feed such an assumption, we did not say anything that could have countered it either.

These are the thoughts that I was grappling with as Mishra took us around the court that evening. Only some police officials were present in the complex at that hour. When we reached the podium, a policeman came forward and requested us not to use our phone cameras.

Mishra, however, took us to the first floor of the building and gently nudged my colleague to record a video of the flag. We were grateful for all that he did to help us that day and thanked him profusely.

But on the way back to Delhi, I thought about the unease I experienced listening to some of the things he said. I wondered what I could have done differently. It is a question that has bothered me ever since.

Three orders passed by the Supreme Court in November on environmental matters harm citizens’ interests and impede nature conservation in the country, a group of 79 retired civil servants and diplomats said on Sunday in an open letter.

The former bureaucrats, who are part of the Constitutional Conduct Group, urged the Supreme Court to “prioritise the health of…citizens over the waste of money of…corporates”.

The signatories to the letter expressed “deep anguish” about the Supreme Court reversing an earlier ruling that had barred retrospective clearances for developmental projects, another order accepting a new definition for the Aravalli Hills and a third verdict barring the government from disbanding the present Central Empowered Committee without the Supreme Court’s permission.

The ex-bureaucrats said that the orders have led them to fear that “the last bastion meant to uphold the constitutional provisions to protect and conserve our natural world and the right to life of the people of India is crumbling before the onslaught of rich and powerful vested interests”.

Retrospective clearances

In May, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court had restrained the Union government from granting ex post facto clearances in any form to regularise illegal constructions. However, on November 18, a three-judge bench through a 2:1 decision reversed the verdict, allowing the Centre to once again consider granting environment clearances to projects retrospectively.

The retired civil servants and bureaucrats said on Sunday that while they do not know when a larger bench of the court will hear the case, they hope that the larger bench upholds the verdict passed in May “sooner rather than later”.

“The extreme climate events that are sweeping across the country and the worst ever air pollution levels in Delhi-NCR and north India should surely cause sufficient concern in the Supreme Court to warrant an early hearing,” the former bureaucrats said.

Definition of Aravallis

The Supreme Court on November 20 accepted a new definition of the Aravallis which classified the hills as landforms rising 100 metres above local relief. Environmentalists have warned that defining the Aravallis solely by their height could leave many lower, scrub-covered but ecologically important hills vulnerable to mining and construction.

The signatories to the letter on Sunday noted that the Aravalli range acts as a natural barrier slowing the spread of the Thar desert, stabilising micro-climates and recharging aquifers.

“The new definition will potentially exclude from environmental protection over 90% of the Aravalli range, opening it up to mining and construction and practically removing its ability to be a dust barrier for the Delhi-NCR region,” the former bureaucrats said. “It will also actively allow the advance of desertification into Delhi-NCR.”

They further contended that the new definition would lead to habitat loss and would fragment wildlife corridors, thus harming leopards, hyenas and other animals.

The Supreme Court has, however, taken suo motu cognisance of concerns arising from the change in the definition. A vacation bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices J K Maheshwari and A G Masih is slated to hear the matter on Monday.

Also read: The slow destruction of Delhi’s forgotten spine

Composition of Central Empowered Committee

The third Supreme Court order flagged by the former civil servants is one in which the bench told the Union government not to disband the Central Empowered Committee – set up to flag non-compliance with environmental conservation orders – without the court’s approval.

The retired civil servants and bureaucrats said on Sunday that the current membership of the committee, set up by the Supreme Court in 2002, has resulted in the court “being advised to approve a number of anti-environmental actions and orders passed by the government”.

The committee has now come under the influence of the Union environment ministry, and entirely supports all government action, irrespective of how harmful it is to the environment.

“It is also to be noted that a CEC member was a member of the Expert Committee which defined the Aravallis as landforms higher than 100 meters above base level,” the letter noted.

An association of West Bengal government officers has expressed objections to what it described as “suo motu system-driven deletion” of voters from the draft electoral rolls under the ongoing revision of voter rolls in the state, PTI reported.

In a letter to the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal, the West Bengal Civil Service Executive Officers’ Association alleged that the exercise bypassed the statutory role of electoral registration officers.

The association flagged that a large number of electors whose enumeration forms had not been returned – on account of reasons such as death, migration, absence or duplication – were deleted from the draft rolls on the day of their publication.

The Election Commission published the state’s draft electoral rolls, in which more than 58 lakh voters were removed, on December 16.

Referring to existing legal provisions, the association said the law allows for a voter’s name to be deleted only on specific grounds, such as when “the person concerned has ceased to be ordinarily resident in the constituency or that he is otherwise not entitled to be registered in the electoral roll of that constituency”.

It added that in all such cases, the concerned electoral registration officers must provide the voter a reasonable opportunity of being heard, as required under Section 22 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act.

The association argued that “system-driven deletion” of such a large number of electors at one time appeared to infringe on the rights of voters who might otherwise be eligible but were unable to participate in the enumeration process.

It also cautioned that names of electors might be deleted from the voter roll “without the knowledge of the ERO, who is the competent authority as per the statute”.

While acknowledging that the Election Commission, as a constitutional authority, has the power to issue directions for electoral revision, the association said affected voters were likely to blame electoral registration officers without realising that they too had been excluded from the entire deletion process.

Seeking remedial measures, the officers’ body requested the West Bengal chief electoral officer to issue directions to ensure electoral registration officers can perform their duties with greater clarity and authority, PTI reported.

West Bengal is expected to head for Assembly elections in the first half of 2026.

Besides West Bengal, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway in 11 other states and Union Territories.

In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.

Also read: In Bengal, BJP faces growing anger of Hindu migrants over SIR

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Saturday said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had an “impressive” organisational structure, while that of the Congress had room for improvement.

The remarks drew sharp reactions from several Congress leaders, who said that it was the BJP and the RSS that should learn from the Congress.

Singh had posted an old photograph of Prime Minister Modi with veteran BJP leader LK Advani and remarked: “See how a grassroots swayamsevak of the RSS and the worker of Jan Sangh and BJP sits on the floor at the feet of leaders and goes on to become a chief minister and then the prime minister.”

The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said: “This is the power of organisation. Jai Siya Ram.”

Singh later clarified that his comments were only about the organisation and not an endorsement of the BJP or the RSS, ANI reported.

“I've been saying this from the beginning: I am opposed to the ideology of the RSS,” he said. “They neither respect the Constitution nor the country’s laws, and it’s an unregistered organisation. But I admire their organisational capacity.”

On the Congress party’s organisational capacity, Singh said there was “room for improvement”. He added that Congress is “fundamentally a party of a movement” and should remain so, but noted that it falls short in converting that movement into votes, ANI reported.

#WATCH | Delhi | On his tweet sharing an old photo of veteran BJP leader LK Advani and PM Modi, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh says, "I've been saying this from the beginning: I am opposed to the ideology of the RSS. They neither respect the Constitution nor the country's laws,… pic.twitter.com/sDfyS3Ldwr

— ANI (@ANI) December 28, 2025

The BJP said Singh’s comments marked an “open dissent” against Rahul Gandhi’s leadership in the Opposition party, PTI reported.

The party’s spokesperson, Pradeep Bhandari added that Singh’s remarks made “it clear that under Rahul Gandhi, the Congress organisation has collapsed”.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said Singh was free to speak for himself but added that he also wanted the party to strengthen its organisation, ANI reported.

“There should be discipline in our organisation,” he said.

#WATCH | Delhi | On Congress leader Digvijaya Singh praising the organisational strength of the RSS, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, "Even I want our organisation to strengthen. There should be discipline in our organisation. Digvijaya Singh can speak for himself..." pic.twitter.com/VuawKAwRim

— ANI (@ANI) December 28, 2025

On the other hand, party colleague Pawan Khera claimed that there was nothing to learn from the RSS, ANI reported.

“What can an organisation known for Godse teach an organisation founded by Gandhi?” Khera asked.

#WATCH | Delhi | On Congress leader Digvijaya Singh praising the organisational strength of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Congress leader Pawan Khera says, "...There's nothing to learn from the RSS. What can an organisation known for Godse teach an organisation founded by… pic.twitter.com/aD4PWgz3fM

— ANI (@ANI) December 28, 2025

Congress leader Supriya Shrinate echoed the sentiment and said “we do not need to learn anything from anyone, people should learn from us”.

She also accused the BJP of presenting “statements by twisting and distorting them”, PTI reported.

VIDEO | Delhi: On Congress leader Digvijaya Singh's praise for the organisational strength of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Congress leader Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) says, "BJP presents statements by twisting and distorting them. We have no need to learn anything from an… pic.twitter.com/sV3LMuhTVA

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 28, 2025

A group led by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti staged a protest outside Lok Bhavan in Jammu on Saturday, demanding that the MBBS admission list of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence be revoked, The Indian Express reported.

The protesters objected to the selection of a large number of Muslim students from Kashmir, the newspaper reported.

The protesters clashed with police personnel, shouted slogans and burnt an effigy of Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha. The lieutenant governor serves as the chairman of the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, which runs the institution.

Some demonstrators attempted to climb the walls of Lok Bhavan, the official winter residence of the lieutenant governor, before being stopped by security personnel, the Hindustan Times reported.

Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and other Hindutva organisations also joined the protest.

The agitation was triggered by the release in November of the first admission list to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence by the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examinations. Of the 50 candidates selected for the institute’s first MBBS batch, 44 were Muslims from Kashmir and six were Hindus from Jammu, The Indian Express reported. Of the six Hindu candidates selected, only three reportedly joined the course.

In November, unidentified officials had told The Indian Express that admissions to the medical course were done according to the National Medical Commission rules. Of the 50 seats, 85% are reserved for Jammu and Kashmir domiciles and 15% are open nationally.

On Saturday, the protesters demanded that the shrine board cancel the first admission list issued for the institute.

Retired Colonel Sukhvir Singh Mankotia, convener of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti said that the protesters want that the MBBS seats in the college should be reserved for Hindu students.

“We are not against students of any particular religion,” The Indian Express quoted Mankotia as saying. “ [We] want the MBBS seats in [Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence] reserved for Hindu students as the medical college has been set up on the basis of donations made by pilgrims visiting the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine.”

The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University is not a minority institution. Therefore, religion cannot be a factor for admissions to the university.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, however, called the protests baseless, the newspaper reported.

He said that when the J&K Assembly passed the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University Act and allotted land for the campus, it was clearly stated that admissions would be based on merit alone.

“Where was it written that boys and girls from a particular religion will be kept out?” The Indian Express quoted Abdullah as saying. “It was said that admissions will be based on merit and not religion… If you want to admit without merit, then take permission from the Supreme Court.”

In November, a political row had erupted in Jammu and Kashmir after Sinha accepted a memorandum submitted by the BJP seeking cancellation of the admission list. While the ruling National Conference had described the memorandum as “divisive and communal”, the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party had said that the BJP’s move was “shameful”.

On November 22, the BJP, along with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, asked the lieutenant governor to amend admission rules and reserve all seats at the university for Hindu students. The BJP’s memorandum submitted to Sinha had not sought minority status for the university but objected to the admission of “the majority of students from a particular community”.