A group of former bureaucrats on Saturday urged the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam-led Tamil Nadu government to restore the high-level committee on Union–state relations that was constituted under the previous Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam administration.

The three-member committee, which was disbanded on November 6, had been set up in April 2025 to review the constitutional and legal provisions relating to the relationship between the Union government and the states.

The decision had been announced by former Chief Minister MK Stalin amid strained ties between Tamil Nadu and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government at the Centre on several matters, including the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats, the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test and the National Education Policy.

The mandate of the committee, headed by former Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph, included the review of Constitutional provisions, laws and policies on Centre-state relations and recommending ways to restore subjects moved from the State List of the Constitution to the Concurrent List.

In February, the committee submitted its first report to Stalin, who was voted out of power in the Assembly election results declared on May 4.

TVK had emerged as the single largest party in the state and formed the government in alliance with the Congress, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, the Indian Union Muslim League, and outside support from Left parties.

In a government order on November 6, the TVK-led government disbanded it, saying that it was a “non-statutory body” and that the Tamil Nadu State Law Commission had been reconstituted on August 7 with the mandate of examining Union-state and interstate relations, reported The News Minute.

Decision to disband panel ‘incomprehensible’

On Saturday, in their letter to Chief Minister Joseph Vijay, the former bureaucrats said they find the discontinuation of the committee “incomprehensible”.

The Constitutional Conduct Group also pointed out that “there is no bar on a non-statutory body undertaking an inquiry into Centre-state relations and suggesting measures for a healthier and more responsive federal structure”.

Regarding the “overlap” between the high-level committee and the state law commission, it said “there is no evidence on record” that the commission has, in the over three decades of its existence, “examined issues relating to Union-state relations”.

The former bureaucrats also said that transferring the task of preparing part two of the report the panel had submitted in February to the law commission “is a retrograde step”.

“There is every likelihood of loss of institutional knowledge acquired in the HLC [high-level committee] research efforts and inconsistencies in constitutional interpretation and analytical approach,” they added. “An integrated, coherent analysis of the complex issues involved requires a single body applying its mind.”

They said that the TVK’s government decision to disband the committee and remove the February report from its websites could be because the current administration “may not fully subscribe to the ideal of a genuinely federal democracy, in which power is decentralised to the lowest levels of governance”.

Or, the action could have been taken because “your government may be reluctant to displease the Union government and the ruling party at the Centre, a government and party that are obsessed with the ideology of an overarching centralisation of Constitutional functions”.

“We trust that your government will affirm its commitment to a strong federal democracy, with devolution of powers to local government institutions,” said the former bureaucrats.

Edited by Sneha.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said that the “bulk of the issues” regarding a trade agreement between India and the United States have been “sorted out” and that the “last stretch of concerns remain at the American end”, not New Delhi.

Jaishankar was speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

“In many cases, the concerns are not so much on our side, because the changes have been more on the American side than ours,” said the minister.

After an interim trade deal was agreed upon on February 2, US tariffs on Indian goods would have been reduced to 18% from a combined rate of 50%. The earlier rate of 50% had included a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August 2025 over India’s purchase of Russian oil.

However, negotiations on the final deal were hampered after the US Supreme Court on February 20 struck down global tariffs imposed by Trump, ruling that he had exceeded his authority.

In response, Trump imposed a temporary 10% tariff on goods imported into the US, citing his authority under the 1974 Trade Act. This has left the status of US’ trade deals with countries, including India, unclear.

On Saturday, Jaishankar said that everyone becomes “impatient” during the final stages of any negotiation.

“People want to know what the specific issues are and how long it will take,” he said. “Negotiators do not usually disclose such details during a negotiation.”

During his India visit on October 20, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said that Washington and India are “very, very close” to signing a trade agreement.

“I would say we are about as close as you can be without having an executed agreement,” he had said.

This had come days after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on October 5 that the trade talks between India and the US had reached a “plateau” and further concessions might be difficult.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: Could two moves in Washington torpedo US trade deal with India?

More than 99% of the 1.2 crore voters who had been served notices during the special intensive revision in Maharashtra have been added back to the electoral rolls, the Hindustan Times reported on Saturday.

The remaining 72,601 voters who had been served notices are yet to submit documents to verify their identity, or the verification of their details is underway, according to the newspaper.

Of the total, 62.5 lakh voters had been issued notices for “logical discrepancies”, while 59.7 lakh for not being linked to the electoral roll of 2002, when the special intensive revision was last conducted in Maharashtra.

Logical discrepancies refer to what the panel considers inconsistencies such as a mismatch with the spellings of names of the voters’ parents, an unreasonably low gap between the ages of parents and children or if parents have more than six children.

In the draft voter list published on August 31, the names of more than two crore persons were removed from the electoral roll. The electors excluded from the draft account for 21.1% of the state’s voter base before the revision exercise began.

The final voter list will be published on November 30.

Those who had been issued notices were added to the voter rolls after the Election Commission expanded the list of accepted documents to include the Permanent Account Number card and Aadhaar card, which were earlier excluded, the Hindustan Times reported. The poll panel also scrapped mandatory personal hearings with booth-level officers and allowed voters to submit documents through WhatsApp.

Maharashtra is among the 19 states and Union Territories where the voter roll revision is being carried out in the third phase of SIR.

15 lakh Form 6 applications

Additionally, between August 31 and November 12, the Election Commission received 23.6 lakh applications for the addition and deletion of names from the electoral rolls and corrections to voter details, the newspaper reported.

Of the total, 15.1 lakh were Form 6 applications seeking to be added as voters, 1.2 lakh were Form 7 applications for deletion and 7.1 lakh were Form 8 applications for corrections or changes to voters’ details.

The period for filing claims and objections in Maharashtra ended on Friday. The window for disposing of the claims will close on November 25.

A contentious exercise

In 2025, the first phase of special intensive revision was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision. But it said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Follow Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls here.
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

A first information report was filed against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kangana Ranaut in Shimla on Friday for making allegedly objectionable insinuations on social media about the deaths of three members of the Gandhi family, PTI reported.

The case was filed under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation, the superintendent of police was quoted as saying.

The complainant alleged that Ranaut in her social media post on Tuesday had juxtaposed the deaths of former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi, with the subsequent political rise of Sonia Gandhi, The Times of India reported.

In a letter sent to the Himachal Pradesh Police chief seeking an FIR against Ranaut, the complainant alleged that the BJP MP’s comments could create misleading impressions.

The comment had come on the day Sonia Gandhi’s memoir Belonging was released.

Ranaut, a MP from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi, had not yet commented on the FIR being filed against her.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Tamil Nadu health department has stopped issuing its monthly bulletin on diseases and a medical journal, saying that the media misquoted the data and misrepresented facts, The Times of India reported.

Director of Public Health Dr A Somasundaram told the newspaper that the bulletin compiled data on the number of cases tested positive for a disease, and “have to be compared with the total number tested” and seasonal changes.

“Many times, stories published in the media don’t represent the actual situation,” Somasundaram was quoted as saying.

Public health experts have criticised the decision saying that the bulletins were a public source of information on state-level health data and was used by researchers and journalists to analyse emerging disease patterns.

The Tamil Nadu Journal of Public Health and Medical Research was published quarterly by the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. It contained information about the impact of state government schemes, epidemiological studies and disease patterns.

The journal’s 18th issue, covering July 2025 to September 2025, was published in May 2026, The Hindu reported.

The bulletins contained health data, including vital indicators such as maternal and infant mortality rates, The Times of India reported. However, the module for the bulletin has now been removed from the directorate’s website. The last bulletin, covering February 2026, was published in early April.

The bulletin would continue to be published after certain corrections and design changes, The Hindu quoted unidentified officials as saying.

On the journal’s publication, they were quoted as saying that the exercise had only been delayed.

The decision was also criticised by the Opposition in the state.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy on Friday said that the state government’s decision “is a serious failure of public accountability and a direct blow” to transparent public health governance.

When the media misquotes or reports lack context for raw case numbers, “the proper response is immediate correction – clarifying positivity rates, seasonal baselines, testing volumes and trends”, Thirupathy said on social media.

He said that the “correct administrative action is to improve how data is presented and to publicly correct errors, not to withdraw” it.

“By simply stopping the publications because of alleged misreporting, the government has chosen the easiest escape from scrutiny instead of fulfilling its duty to inform the public accurately,” he added.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Indian ambassador to the United States on Saturday said that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom should introspect on its “prejudices” and “stop lecturing others”, after the panel shared a profile of jailed activist Sharjeel Imam on social media.

The panel stated on Friday that Imam is “a Muslim man detained in India for his religious freedom advocacy”.

Imam has been in prison for more than six years in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, registered under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The trial in the case is yet to begin.

USCRIF has no locus standi to sit in judgment over the constitutional rights of Indian citizens.

Its habitual partisan, ill-informed, and jaundiced assessments cannot diminish India’s constitutional commitment to religious freedom and equal rights for all faiths.

India… https://t.co/ED2qqdkVuE

— Amb Vinay Mohan Kwatra (@AmbVMKwatra) November 14, 2026

“In January 2020, authorities arrested Imam, a Muslim student activist, for participating in peaceful protests opposing the religious discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019 and January 2020,” the panel said in its profile.

Responding to this, Indian Ambassador Vinay Mohan Kwatra said that the panel has no authority “to sit in judgement over the constitutional rights of Indian citizens”.

The panel’s “habitual partisan, ill-informed, and jaundiced assessments cannot diminish India’s constitutional commitment to religious freedom and equal rights for all faiths”, he added.

Imam, along with Umar Khalid and other activists, had been arrested between January 2020 and September 2020 in connection with the communal violence that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

The persons accused in the matter have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame the Narendra Modi government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act.

Khalid and Imam have moved the Supreme Court seeking bail in the matter.

In September, the US religious freedom panel accused India of “weaponising” the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to detain religious minorities, including Imam and Khalid, for “simply engaging in peaceful protests”.

In its 2026 annual report, the religious freedom panel had recommended that the state department designate India as a country of particular concern for engaging in “systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations”.

India has previously said that the commission has a “pattern of issuing biased and politically motivated assessments”.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

There are books that one reads only once, and there are books that one returns to at regular intervals. For me, among the books in the latter category are Rabindranath Tagore’s Nationalism, BR Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, CLR James’s Beyond a Boundary, and Walter Crocker’s Nehru: A Contemporary’s Estimate.

Of this quartet, the last is surely the least known, which is one reason for me to write about it here. A second, and perhaps more compelling, reason is that this column is being published on Jawaharlal Nehru’s 137th birth anniversary.

Walter Crocker first came to India in 1945, and spent a few weeks getting an early acquaintance with the country. He returned in the 1950s, to serve two separate spells of roughly three years apiece as Australia’s high commissioner in New Delhi. Crocker’s time in India coincided with the heyday of Jawaharlal Nehru’s prime ministership. His book is the product of years of close observation of Nehru – the man and the politician.

It begins with details of Nehru’s family, his education, and his intellectual influences. Crocker was, like many others before and since, deeply impressed by Nehru’s qualities as a writer. He provides summaries of Nehru’s three major books, writing of his Autobiography that “it paints a portrait, warts and all, of an unusual man and, in the main, often an unusually attractive man”.

The central chapter of Crocker’s book naturally deals with Jawaharlal Nehru’s years in office. He judges Nehru’s most significant achievement as prime minister to have been that he held the country together against all the odds stacked against it – namely, religious rivalries, poverty and illiteracy, pervasive inequalities, and difficult neighbours.

A second achievement was his encouragement of the growth of parliamentary democracy and of independent institutions. A third achievement was forging a secular state open to people of all faiths, while piloting a series of social reforms, particularly on behalf of women’s rights.

On Nehru’s economic policy, Crocker’s verdict is mixed. He praises the five-year plans for building the necessary technical and industrial infrastructure of a modern economy, yet (justly) criticises them for the proliferation of licences and controls and the lack of attention to agriculture. Crocker observes that in the prime minister’s mind, “the Marxist and the liberal strains remained muddled and were not worked out into a functioning synthesis.” This was particularly true, perhaps, of Nehru’s economic thought.

Crocker also criticises, and in less equivocal terms, Nehru’s decision to stay on in office too long. “It would have been of help to the cause of parliamentary democracy,” he writes, if Nehru “had stood down and let the confusion inevitable to his withdrawal from the scene taken place in his own lifetime, and while he was still in good health, so that he was at hand to steady the ship of state if the weather became too rough.”

Crocker also thought it a great pity that after Vallabhbhai Patel’s death, Nehru had no one of comparable stature to work with him in government. In his years in India, the diplomat got to know C Rajagopalachari well, and came to greatly admire the Tamil statesman for the power of his intellect and the clarity of his thought.

Had Nehru brought him back into the cabinet in the mid-1950s, he argues, perhaps “Rajaji could have been the bridge between south India and north India”. Besides, unlike other cabinet ministers, he would not have been deferential to the prime minister, and challenged those of Nehru’s ideas (perhaps on economics especially) he found unwise or unworkable.

In the event, a reconciliation proved unreachable. Sidelined by the Congress, Rajaji formed his own party, Swatantra, and mounted a series of searing critiques of Nehru’s policies. As Crocker ruefully writes, “both men were required by India in the two crucial decades following independence; and both men shared the blame, though perhaps not in equal measure, that there had been fission, not fusion, between them”.

Jawaharlal Nehru was asked why Rajaji left the Congress in 1959,( We know they were both commited to Secularism, but differed on Economy), Nehru replied, We belong to the Same Church, the difference is, he believes in Old Testament and I in New Testament. pic.twitter.com/QnVl2SjAHe

— ADITYA KRISHNA (@adityakrishnabg) July 16, 2020

Crocker is judicious in his assessment of Jawaharlal Nehru the prime minister, and deeply insightful about Jawaharlal Nehru the man. He draws our attention to Nehru’s keen interest in nature, then unusual among Indians, and his willingness to engage with ordinary citizens, as “in the daily stream of visitors… in his garden at 8.30 most mornings, when anyone with a grievance, or a suggestion, or just a wish to look at him, could come”.

We learn of his being a wonderful host. When visiting prime ministers or presidents came to Delhi, “no head of government could be more distinguished, more at ease, yet more welcoming, than he was on such occasions”.

Crocker also comments admiringly on Nehru’s appearance, elegant yet understated, indeed, “grace was as natural to him as it is to a leopard”. Further, “his manners were punctilious and his courtesy fine”, and, further still, “a mixture of distinction and charm was the keynote to Nehru’s presence, be it in parliamentary debate, or around his dining table, or on such banal occasions as presenting prizes or laying foundation stones.”

Older friends have told me of the aura around the Indian prime minister in the 1950s. Walter Crocker, who was a first-hand foreign witness, writes that Nehru’s “prestige with the Indian people had something of the magical”. He notes that this “owed nothing to the projection of his personality through the mass media, for few villagers had any acquaintance with the radio or the cinema and none with TV”.

Rather, Nehru’s “incomparable prestige” owed itself to other reasons: in part that “he had been chosen by Gandhi as his political heir; in part upon the charm and aliveness of his mere presence; in part upon his devotion to the national interest as he saw it, so self-evident and so marking him off from the run of Indian politicians; the rich man who renounced his wealth and who for years lived something of the hard life of the Indian people, even travelling third class; in part upon the fact that the Indian is traditionally a hero-worshipper...”

Crocker was an Oxford-trained scholar, widely read, and widely travelled too. In the course of his life and career, he had the opportunity to observe and study European and even American statesmen at work. From this broader knowledge of world history and current affairs, he drew the conclusion that “few if any leaders in any country have attained to such a prestige amongst their own people; or have held on to it for so long. The great bulk of the people of India sensed, and they never lost the sense, that Nehru wanted only to help them and wanted nothing for himself; and that he was a ruler who had pity and kindness”.

Nehru meeting Albert Einstein at #Princeton in 1949 #bnwphotography pic.twitter.com/J0LMvAoDyH

— The 1947 Partition Archive (@1947Partition) October 10, 2017

Crocker is also appreciative of Nehru’s skills as a public speaker. He writes: “The range of his speeches, most of which were unprepared, and without a note, must be without parallel – on political matters [of] a huge variety, and also on technology, science, art, morals, history, welfare, and a host of good causes… He had an astonishing facility for speaking for half an hour or so in English, and then, without a note, repeating it in Hindustani, the translation, according to my Indian friends, being word perfect.”

We live in an age of poisonous partisanship and the debasement of language. It is thus useful to be reminded, via Crocker, that “Nehru’s contests were always about ideas, never over any personal interests of his own”, and that “for Nehru the end rarely justified the means”. (Nehru got both these traits from his mentor, Gandhi; indeed, one of the few weaknesses of Crocker’s book is that he underappreciates the influence of the Mahatma on Nehru’s character and personality.)

“Like Abraham Lincoln,” writes this wise Australian observer, “the more Nehru gained in authority the greater his compassion came… He wanted power, but he wanted it for a cause, not for himself… Nehru might have been ignorant or misguided about some matters, and about some persons, but he was always disinterested, always concerned with what he thought would help Indians or mankind.”

Walter Crocker’s book brims with insightful remarks on almost every page. First published in 1966, it remains, six decades later, the best book about Jawaharlal Nehru and his age. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This article first appeared in The Telegraph.

Ramachandra Guha’s latest book, Arguments With Gandhi, is now in stores. His email address is ramachandraguha@yahoo.in.

Two Norwegian press associations on Friday asked the Indian embassy in Oslo if its decision to revoke the visa of journalist Helle Lyng Svendsen moments before she was scheduled to depart for Hyderabad was linked to her criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Svendsen had said on Thursday that she was not given an official reason for the cancellation of her visa. In an interview to Scroll, she said she was told that the decision had come “on orders from above”.

The Norwegian journalist was scheduled to attend the Bharat Summit in Telangana as a delegate. The event was organised by the Congress-led state government.

Svendsen had sparked a debate in May when she questioned Modi about his reluctance to take questions from journalists during his visit to Norway. She works for the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen.

In their letter on Friday, the Association of Norwegian Editors and the Norwegian Press Association said that it was “legitimate to ask whether the revocation of her journalist visa is connected to the critical questions she put to India’s prime minister”.

Today the Association of Norwegian Editors and the Norwegian Press Association have sent an open letter to the Embassy of India in Oslo, Norway.

"We are concerned about what this case means for the ability of Norwegian and other foreign journalists to cover India and to… pic.twitter.com/FCL3wCfOWD

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) November 13, 2026

“Journalists must be free to question those who govern,” the letter read. “This is part of their role in society and a basic democratic right. Denying a journalist entry for asking critical questions is a serious infringement of press freedom.”

The associations added that they were “concerned about what this case means for the ability of Norwegian and other foreign journalists to cover India and to question how the country is governed in the future”.

They also noted that India is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index 2026.

“Among other things, [Reporters Without Borders] notes that Prime Minister Modi has not held a single press conference since taking office in 2014,” the letter said.

It added that the Indian authorities have previously revoked or declined to renew visas and permits held by foreign journalists.

“In 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on Indian authorities to stop using visa regulations to prevent foreign journalists from covering sensitive subjects, stressing that visa regulations should not be used to censor or intimidate the media,” it said.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• The journalist who asked Modi a question

• ‘Embarrassing’: Editors Guild on PM Modi, Indian delegation’s ‘face-off’ with journalists in Europe

The authorities in Assam’s Lakhimpur on Friday demolished the homes of 132 Bengali Muslim families who had been living on a plot of government land in Boginadi since being displaced in 1983 amid statewide riots.

The families alleged that the authorities had targeted “Muslim homes” as their Hindu neighbours were not evicted.

The riots in the state had erupted at the peak of the Assam Movement, which was launched in 1979 to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. The movement, which went on till 1985, had been led by the All Assam Students’ Union and was often directed against Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims, who were accused of being “Bangladeshis”.

Tensions had peaked around February 1983 when the Union government announced Assembly elections in Assam despite opposition from the leadership of the All Assam Students’ Union and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad.

In the aftermath, thousands had been displaced across the Brahmaputra valley.

Azizur Rahman, a leader of Raijor Dal, told Scroll that the homes that were demolished on Friday stood on nearly 9.9 acres of the 622.4 acres of the professional grazing land under Kadam revenue circle in Lakhimpur.

“The Assam government had settled the Bengali Muslim residents on this land after they were displaced in 1983,” said Rahman. “They built roads and schools in the area and gave electricity connection to their homes. So, the residents had gained confidence about their claim to the land.”

He alleged that the demolitions were “selective”, as the homes of members of the Hindu community who live on 595 acres of professional grazing land were not demolished.

“This is a clear-cut violation of Article 14 of the Constitution,” said Rahman.

Article 14 guarantees the fundamental right to equality.

Fifty-year-old Mohammad Tushan Ali also said that two homes belonging to his family were demolished on Friday but that those of his Hindu neighbours adjacent to theirs were not harmed.

Ali and his family had been living on the land since 1985 after being displaced from Barpeta.

He said: “Muslim houses were targeted…We are now on the bank of the river. The police are chasing us away from this area.”

Scroll has written to the Lakhimpur district commissioner with questions about the demolitions. This story will be updated if we receive a response.

In the last month, the Assam government has evicted more than 1,900 Muslim families from their homes.

On November 1, authorities in Dhubri district demolished the homes of over 640 Bengali Muslim families. The demolition had taken place on 650 bighas of government-owned land in Alamganj Part-IX village.

On October 18, more than 1,100 Muslim families were evicted across Nagaon, Hojai and Golaghat districts in a two-day operation.

In the last ten years of BJP rule in Assam, around 19,000 families, the majority of them Muslim, have been evicted from government land, according to data from the state revenue and disaster management department and the district authorities compiled by Scroll.

Edited by Sneha.

Four Tangkhul Nagas were killed in a suspected ambush by unidentified militants near New Haven village in Manipur’s Ukhrul district on Friday afternoon, a police officer told Scroll.

The village is located along the Imphal-Ukhrul highway and falls under the jurisdiction of Litan police station.

The four persons were identified as Kapanghkhui RS, Haolei RS, August Ngalung and Khanmila.

The deaths came a day after a Kuki woman was killed in a firing incident at Taphou Kuki village in Senapati district on Thursday, The Indian Express reported. It is close to Kangpopki district.

The deaths take the toll in clashes between Naga and Kuki groups in Manipur since February to 72.

This followed the ethnic clashes that broke out in Manipur in May 2023 between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities.

At least 306 persons have been killed and 49 are missing in Manipur since the beginning of the ethnic violence in the state in May 2023, the Assembly was informed in September. About 60,000 persons were displaced during the violence. Of them, 36,000 persons had been resettled and 24,000 remained in relief camps across Manipur.

Inputs from Rokibuz Zaman. Edited by Sneha.

Read more: Why newfound warmth between Meiteis and Nagas may not advance cause of Manipur peace

Unconditional Cash Transfer has become one of the most potent instruments of social protection in developing countries.

India is no exception: several government schemes such as Annapurna Bhandar (previously Lakshmir Bhandar in West Bengal), Ladli Behna Yojana in Madhya Pradesh and Subhadra Yojana in Orissa are being run to help the cause of empowering women in the country.

Direct cash transfer plays an instrumental role in decreasing poverty and inequality. The system has its roots in Latin America, but many developing countries, including India, have modified their welfare system to include direct cash transfers.

In India, state governments are increasingly transferring money directly to women, with the expectation that it will reduce poverty, improve household welfare and strengthen their economic position.

These initiatives also raise important questions about whether access to financial resources translates into greater autonomy and decision-making power within households. Ultimately, the effectiveness of such transfers must be assessed not merely by the amount disbursed but by their ability to create lasting economic and social empowerment for women.

As of 2025, 15 states and one union territory were covered under unconditional cash transfers, up from a single state in 2020, and covering one-fifth of the total female population. The estimated spend stands at Rs 1.7 lakh crore, reaching 12 crore women in 2025-’26.

While most of these schemes were designed for electoral gains, they ended up producing results beyond their scope. They have strengthened women’s bargaining power within the household and given them a greater say in spending decisions. They have also improved financial inclusion and contributed to overall family welfare.

Research suggests that income earned by women contributes to greater improvements in household welfare than an equivalent amount of income earned by men.

But an important question remains: does giving women cash empower them, and are the outcomes observed sustainable and gender transformative?

The answer depends on what we mean by “empowerment”. If empowerment means better consumption, short term financial security and a stronger voice within the household, evidence suggests that cash transfers can help.

Amartya Sen’s capability approach can be integrated with Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs) by viewing cash not merely as income support, but as a means of expanding women’s real freedoms and capabilities.

According to a 2026 study, cash transfers for women significantly increased their savings and consumption, even as they encouraged spending on education, healthcare, lifestyle needs, and digital payments.

The schemes also generated positive household spillovers, strengthening family finances and supporting women’s financial empowerment. Another study showed that unconditional cash transfers to new mothers improved household nutrition, dietary diversity, and nutrient consumption while reducing gender disparities in food allocation.

The transfers also enhanced children’s functional development, although improvements in physical growth were limited and appeared stronger in areas with better sanitation.

However, if empowerment means durable economic independence through employment, assets and control over productive resources, cash alone is unlikely to be sufficient.

India’s female labour-force participation has increased substantially, but a large gender gap remains. The overall female Labour Force Participation Rate for 15 years and above stood at 34.6 percent in September 2026. This is a fall from August, driven by a drop in rural female LFPR.

India reported 41.2% parity score in Economic Participation and Opportunity category in the Global Gender Gap Report 2026. This indicates that it has closed only 41.2 percent of the measured gender gap in this aspect. This is 3.5 percentage points lower than its best performance of 44.6 percent reported in 2013. India has reported a meagre 1.5 percentage point progress in the economic parity scores over the last 20 years. This is also reflected in the gender gap in male and female workforce participation – share of men participating in the workforce is 40.8 percentage points higher than that of women – as per latest estimates.

This creates a fundamental policy dilemma.

A woman may receive a monthly transfer while still remaining outside paid employment because of childcare responsibilities, social norms, inadequate employment opportunities, unsafe transport or the lack of suitable jobs.

In other words, income support can address the consequence of economic exclusion without necessarily removing its cause. Long-term empowerment requires building capabilities and creating opportunities for upward mobility.

Cash transfers could also be linked to outcome-based indicators, such as improvements in children’s nutritional outcomes like improved child growth, reduction in stunting and anaemia among others. The better objective would be to use cash transfers as a platform for capability expansion through better access to education, healthcare, nutrition, skills and economic opportunities.

Cash transfers can empower women by enhancing their control over resources and broadening their choices. This can happen when women have direct access to funds, greater say in household spending, better access to education and healthcare, and opportunities to invest in their own skills and livelihoods. But it can also reinforce dependency when it becomes a substitute for employment, assets, public services and institutional reform.

The true measure of success, therefore, lies not merely in the number of women receiving financial assistance, but in whether these transfers enable them to make independent choices about education, healthcare, employment and household spending; strengthen their bargaining power in decisions relating to family finances, children’s education and healthcare, and gain greater control over their economic futures.

Progress towards this is visible in the efforts at enabling growth among women-entrepreneurs – 70 central schemes and 400 state-level schemes are focussing on supporting female-entrepreneurships. Gender budgets have also shown a 429% jump in the decade spanning 2013-’14 to 2025-’26.

Nearly 50% of the registered startups have at least one-woman director, and women account for approximately 68 percent of all loan accounts sanctioned under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) Yojana. This highlights their growing participation in entrepreneurial activities through institutional credit. Women owned programmes such as Namo Drone Didi, LakhPathi Didi and PM SVANidhi are also enabling women’s self-reliance.

The impact of these programmes needs to be studied from various dimensions of empowerment and gendered development outcomes. Such an analysis would bring out the difference between treating women as beneficiaries of development and recognising them as agents of development.

Sangita Dutta Gupta is Professor, School of Management, and Assistant Dean, Research at BML Munjal University, Haryana. Her research spans several areas including development economics, financial economics, gender economics and entrepreneurship. She also serves on the editorial review board of the International Journal of Emerging Markets.

Manjula M is faculty at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, where she teaches courses in the broad domains of sustainability and livelihoods. She holds a doctorate in agricultural economics and works on ecological, social and economic concerns of rural livelihoods, intersections of agriculture with gender, climate change and sustainability.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

At least 23 persons were killed after a minibus collided with a container truck in Assam’s Golaghat district on Friday, PTI reported. Twenty others were injured.

The collision occurred near Kaziranga National Park.

The minibus was allegedly speeding in violation of the restrictions imposed near the national park, PTI quoted an official as saying.

The exact number of passengers travelling in the minibus was not immediately known, India Today quoted officials as saying.

A Golaghat district administration official told the news agency that an investigation would be conducted to determine whether the vehicles had violated traffic norms, including carrying passengers beyond its seating capacity or exceeding speed limits near the national park.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the government would provide the “best possible medical care” to those injured.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

On October 13, Parvinder Singh Jhota, an anti-drug activist from Mansa was shot dead while broadcasting live on Facebook his confrontation with a chemist.

Jhota’s activism often involved sting operations on chemists who were allegedly selling prescription-only drugs to addicts as over-the-counter medicines.

His family refused to cremate his body, accusing the state government of failing to support his activism and curb the sale of drugs in Mansa, one of Punjab’s poorest districts.

Then began an almost month-long sit-in protest on the main Mansa highway.

Watch our ground report to find out more.

Could your home be at risk from rising seas? Scroll is investigating coastal flooding in Mumbai and Kolkata, mapping vulnerable areas and examining whether developers and the authorities are accounting for the risks. Support this investigation and help us make this reporting possible. Fund the project here.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor claimed that 115 of 315 speakers scheduled to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad were refused entry into India or had their visas cancelled. He alleged that this was done “apparently on the instructions of the Ministry of Home Affairs”.

Tharoor said that the speakers had received clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs to attend the two-day summit, which is organised by the Congress-led Telangana government.

The remark came two days after Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svendsen alleged that the Indian embassy in Oslo stopped her from travelling to India for the conference and cancelled her visa. Read on.

Helle Lyng on visa revocation: ‘I was told it is on orders from above’

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “political career will be over” after a debate with him. In a social media post, Gandhi challenged Modi to bring a teleprompter and a judge of his choice to the debate.

Gandhi has repeatedly challenged Modi to an open debate and previously claimed that he could establish in just five minutes that the prime minister was a “traitor”.

He also alleged that Modi was tapping his phone. The Congress leader claimed that the device contained evidence to support his allegations against the government. Read on.

The Union government extended the ban imposed on Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s non-governmental organisation, Islamic Research Foundation, for five years. In November 2016, the Islamic Research Foundation had been declared an “unlawful association” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for five years.

The ban was extended in 2021 and was scheduled to expire on Saturday.

The government said that the Islamic Research Foundation had been engaging in activities “prejudicial to the security of the country” and had the potential to disturb peace and communal harmony and “disrupt the secular fabric of the country”. Read on.

Four Tangkhul Nagas were killed in a suspected ambush by unidentified militants near New Haven village in Manipur’s Ukhrul district. The village is located along the Imphal-Ukhrul highway and falls under the jurisdiction of Litan police station.

This came a day after a Kuki woman was killed in a firing incident at Taphou Kuki village in Senapati district. It is close to Kangpopki district.

The deaths take the toll in clashes between Naga and Kuki groups in Manipur since February to 72. Read on.

Why newfound warmth between Meiteis and Nagas may not advance cause of Manipur peace, explains Rokibuz Zaman

If you haven’t already, sign up for our Daily Brief newsletter.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “political career will be over” after a debate with him.

In a social media post, Gandhi challenged Modi to bring a teleprompter and a judge of his choice to the debate.

“The country wants to know who is the real anti-national,” he said.

Gandhi has repeatedly challenged Modi to an open debate and previously claimed that he could establish in just five minutes that the prime minister was a “traitor”.

मोदी जी, अपने ही गोदी मीडिया के दिवाली मिलन में भी टेलीप्रॉम्प्टर?

लोग आपके, मंच आपका, माहौल आपका - फिर भी स्क्रिप्ट चाहिए थी। लगता है दबाव में घबरा गए हैं।

ख़ैर, कोई बात नहीं। मुझसे बहस में भी टेलीप्रॉम्प्टर ले आइए, जज भी अपनी पसंद का बैठा लीजिए।

बस आइए तो सही। देश जानना… pic.twitter.com/z2AzakkS90

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) November 13, 2026

Responding to questions about why he was demanding a public debate when the Bharatiya Janata Party had said the exchange could take place in Parliament, Gandhi said that he was not allowed to speak in the House and that his microphone had been switched off several times in the past.

He said he had been prevented from speaking about the contentious farm laws, alleged vote theft, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, border tensions with China, former Army chief Manoj Mukund Naravane’s book and the Epstein files.

“I want a one-on-one debate,” Gandhi said. “I don’t want a debate entailing long speeches.”

He added that he would have no objection to Gautam Adani, chairperson of the Adani Group, or Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, being appointed as the judge. The RSS is the ideological parent of the BJP.

‘Modi taps my phone’

Gandhi also alleged that Modi was tapping his phone. He claimed that the device contained evidence to support his allegations against the government.

He was responding to a question about the evidence behind his claim that Modi was being “controlled by foreign powers”.

“The prime minister knows it because he taps my phone,” Gandhi said. “The one-on-one debate will prove who is working at the behest of foreign forces, who is an anti-national and since when he has been an anti-national.”

Gandhi has alleged in the past that Modi is “compromised” and listens to orders from the United States “like an obedient servant”.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday alleged that 115 of 315 speakers scheduled to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad were refused entry into India or had their visas cancelled “apparently on the instructions of the Ministry of Home Affairs”.

Tharoor said that the speakers had received clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs to attend the two-day summit, which began on Friday.

The summit has been organised by the Congress-led Telangana government for discussions on democracy, social and economic justice, climate change, gender equality and foreign policy, among other subjects.

“It is completely unclear under what provision of law the government has taken such a drastic step, but it is obviously impossible to reverse it since the conference concludes tomorrow,” he wrote on social media. “What a shame that a proud democracy has become so insecure that it must stifle any voices it fears will be critical!”

A disappointing footnote to the #BharatSummit proceedings: when I got to Hyderabad, I learned that 115 of the 315 speakers whom the External Affairs Ministry had cleared for the event ended up being refused entry to India or having their visas cancelled, apparently on the… https://t.co/ODPDFMdY6k

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 13, 2026

Tharoor’s remark came two days after Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svendsen alleged that the Indian embassy in Oslo stopped her from travelling to India for the conference and cancelled her visa.

Svendsen said that 10 minutes before she left for the airport, the embassy asked her not to travel.

The journalist said that she had received political clearance, a visa and was supposed to speak on the future of media and press freedom at the Bharat Summit. “But ‘orders from above’ in the Ministry of Home Affairs have cancelled my visa,” she alleged on social media.

In May, Svendsen sparked a debate about the role of the press in a democracy – and refocused attention on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s refusal to address press conferences.

As Modi was leaving the podium after he and his Norwegian counterpart addressed a joint press meet in Oslo on May 18, Svendsen had asked the Indian prime minister why he does not take “some questions from the freest press in the world”. She works at a newspaper called Dagsavisen.

The home ministry, the Ministry of External Affairs and the embassy have not yet commented on Svendsen’s allegations.

The organisers of the Bharat Summit said that about 200 international delegates were attending the event. “We are focused on making sure the summit goes ahead smoothly in keeping with Rahul Gandhi’s vision,” they told Scroll.

Political clearance had been obtained from the foreign ministry for 316 foreign delegates, said party functionaries familiar with the development.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Watch: Helle Lyng on visa revocation: ‘I was told it is on orders from above’

The Union government on Friday extended the ban imposed on Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s non-governmental organisation Islamic Research Foundation for five years.

In November 2016, the Islamic Research Foundation had been declared an “unlawful association” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for five years. The ban was extended in 2021 and was scheduled to expire on Saturday.

Naik, who lives in Malaysia, has been on the Union government’s radar ever since allegations surfaced that he had inspired one of the terrorists who carried out an attack at a restaurant in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka in July 2016. Naik has repeatedly denied the accusations.

He fled India after the attack and the National Investigation Agency is probing his activities.

On Friday, the Union government issued a notification saying that the Islamic Research Foundation had been engaging in activities “prejudicial to the security of the country” and had the potential to disturb peace and communal harmony and “disrupt the secular fabric of the country”.

Naik and members of the foundation had been promoting religious disharmony, enmity and hatred between different communities, said the Ministry of Home Affairs.

It added that statements and speeches made by Naik were “objectionable and subversive”, and “inspiring youths of a particular religion in India and abroad to commit terrorist acts”.

The ministry said that if the unlawful activities of Naik’s organisation are not controlled, it will “continue its subversive activities and re-organise its activists who are still absconding”.

The notification added: “It [Islamic Research Foundation] will take the opportunity to disrupt the secular fabric of the country by polluting the minds of the people by creating communal disharmony, propagate anti-national sentiments and escalate secessionism by supporting militancy.”

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

More than nine lakh Indians became citizens of countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development between 2020 and 2024, according to the International Migration Outlook report published by the intergovernmental forum.

The members of the 38-country intergovernmental forum are often considered to be the world’s most developed economies.

The number of Indians acquiring citizenship in these countries increased to 9.2 lakh in the 2020 to 2024 period from 6.5 lakh between 2015 and 2019, a jump of 41%.

The strong increase was attributed to the growth of Indians who had previously moved to these countries, often on temporary visas, and later acquired citizenship. Canada accounted for the largest share, with 2.6 lakh Indians becoming Canadian citizens between 2020 and 2024. This marked an increase of 150% compared to the 2015-2019 period.

The number of Indians acquiring citizenship in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia was also high, the organisation’s report showed.

Canada, the US, Australia, the UK and New Zealand were the top countries for Indians looking to acquire citizenship, it noted. In 2024, nearly 2.3 lakh Indians received passports in these countries.

In December 2025, the Union government had also said that nearly nine lakh persons had relinquished their Indian citizenship between 2020 and 2024.

The Ministry of External Affairs had told Parliament that 85,256 persons gave up their citizenship in 2020, 1.6 lakh in 2021, 2.2 lakh in 2022, 2.1 lakh in 2023 and 2 lakh in 2024.

Migration patterns

India was the second-largest contributor of students to the bloc’s member states in 2024, with 8.2 lakh Indians enrolled in universities, following China’s 8.5 lakh.

The gap between the two countries narrowed considerably in the past decade as the number of Indian students in OECD states nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2024, the report said.

Overall migration to the 38 member states declined in 2024. The global average decline in permanent migration to the bloc was 4.7% in 2024 and 1.6% in 2025.

Migration flows from India declined even more sharply, by 19%, than the rest of the world. Less than five lakh Indians migrated to the bloc in 2024. Despite this, India remained the top country of origin.

The International Migration Outlook report cited the main reason for this decline to migration from India to the UK halving in 2024 from the previous year, to only 66,000 persons.

The migration of Indian citizens to the other countries of the bloc, including Australia, Canada and the US, “also dropped but only slightly”, the report said.

Written by Abeer Khan. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk on Thursday claimed that he had been placed under house arrest by the police ahead of planned protests against the upcoming council polls.

The authorities did not provide any explanation, Wangchuk said.

The activist alleged that his movement was being restricted “for asking uncomfortable questions” such as why the judicial enquiry commission’s report into the deaths during a protest in Leh in September 2025 had been delayed and why the “phoney” council polls were being “foisted on people with rocket speed in mid winter”.

The police said that Wangchuk had been “advised to stay” at home in line with the prohibitory orders issued by the chief electoral officer in the Union Territory and the Leh district magistrate ahead of the local elections.

Panchayat and municipal elections will be held in Ladakh on November 21. Elections for the eight Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils will be held on December 4.

I AM UNDER HOUSE ARREST
Dozens of armed guards surround my house while the government version says 'I have been advised to stay at home'. All for asking uncomfortable questions like... why is the Judicial Enquiry Commission Report (of last year's killings in Leh) is delayed &… pic.twitter.com/c48SMwXTrN

— Sonam Wangchuk (@Wangchuk66) November 12, 2026

In a letter to the police and the administrative authorities on Thursday, Wangchuk sought clarification on a Wednesday order passed against him under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Surakhsha Sanhita. The order will be in force for 60 days. The provision gives a magistrate the power to issue written orders to stop nuisance or to avoid an apprehended danger.

Wangchuk said that the order imposed restrictions on his movement and directed him to refrain from participating in unauthorised rallies, processions or public gatherings, which the order said was “likely to cause a breach of public peace, disturbance of public tranquility or obstruction to the peaceful conduct of the electoral process”.

The activist argued that he has the fundamental right to protest peacefully, and said he will challenge the order in court.

While the order did not use the words “house arrest”, “detention” or “confinement”, Wangchuk alleged that the security personnel who “picked” him up had given him verbal instructions to remain there.

The activist also alleged that his social media accounts had been “drastically suppressed”.

Wangchuk said that the authorities’ order was “clearly bad in law, arbitrary, vague and disproportionate”. The restrictions had been imposed to curtail his movement and rights before the election, he alleged.

He had been detained in September 2025 under the National Security Act, two days after protesters demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution clashed with security personnel, injuring several of them. Four persons were killed in police firing. He was released in March.

The Sixth Schedule guarantees certain protections for land and a nominal autonomy for citizens in designated tribal areas.

Civil society groups in the Union Territory, including the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance, have demanded that the polls be postponed to April or May, The Hindu reported.

On November 7, Ladakh Lok Sabha MP Mohmad Haneefa urged the lieutenant governor to defer the polls till the “harsh winter conditions” end.

Written by Abeer Khan. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Former Olympic track athlete PT Usha has kept her Indian Olympic Association chief re-election bid alive after being nominated on Thursday by the Ice Hockey Association of India as one of its two representatives to the general body, PTI reported.

She was elected as the president of the Indian Olympic Association in 2022, becoming the first woman to head the organisation. The next elections for the association’s executive council are scheduled to be held on December 5.

The same year, she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. The athlete had said she had agreed to take up the presidency of the Indian Olympic Association at the “insistence” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Tribune reported.

The Indian Olympic Association oversees the country’s participation in the Olympic Games and coordinates the administration of Olympic sports in India.

Usha’s nomination came days after she failed to secure one of the four available places for women in the sportspersons of outstanding merit elections. Former athletes Anju Bobby George, Saina Nehwal, Dola Banerjee and Rani Rampal were elected, The Times of India reported.

Her defeat weakened her chances of securing another term as the Indian Olympic Association president, as the sportspersons of merit representatives also form part of the electoral college for the executive council election.

However, Usha has now been nominated as the female representative of the Ice Hockey Association of India to the Indian Olympic Association’s general body, while its secretary general, Harjinder Singh, will be the male representative, PTI reported.

The nomination gives her a place in the general body and keeps her eligible to contest the Indian Olympic Association presidential election.

Usha’s nomination came amid differences within the Indian Olympic Association following the sportspersons of merit elections.

She had written to the International Olympic Committee, raising concerns about the conduct of the elections, Sportstar reported.

Following her defeat, she had also asked Modi to intervene, The Tribune reported.

“Winning and losing is normal but results have to be fair,” she told the newspaper. “I am certain that this [result] is fraudulent.”

She claimed that the result was “an insult to the PM’s initiative”.

Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra had also called for transparency and fairness in sports governance elections, pointing to an alleged inconsistency between the Indian Olympic Association’s Constitution and the rules followed during the sportspersons of merit polls, The Telegraph reported.

The Ice Hockey Association of India has also faced disputes over its recognition, with multiple factions claiming to represent the national federation.

The Indian Olympic Association recognises the Ice Hockey Association of India led by Gurpreet Singh Bakshi, while the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports does not recognise any national ice hockey body, PTI reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The number of voters increased by up to 3% in nine states and Union Territories in the first draft electoral rolls published after the special intensive revision, The Indian Express cited data released by the Election Commission on Thursday as having shown.

The data was released as part of the poll panel’s special summary revision of voter lists.

While the special summary revision involves updating the electoral rolls through additions and deletions, under the special intensive revision, voter lists are prepared afresh.

The annual special summary revision was paused after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections because of the special intensive revision, which began in 2025 and is underway in some states and Union Territories.

The increase ranged from 0.1% to 3% compared with the final electoral rolls published after the special intensive revision in nine states and Union Territories where SIR has completed, The Indian Express reported.

At 3%, Goa saw the highest rise followed by Rajasthan, which recorded a 2.2% increase.

Lakshadweep recorded a 0.1% increase in voters, followed by Puducherry 1.3%. Kerala and Madhya Pradesh each saw a rise of 1.5%, while Manipur recorded a 1.7% increase.

Bihar and Tamil Nadu reported increases of 1.8% each.

The special summary revision was held in 17 states and Union Territories in this phase. Comparable data for the eight other regions in this phase was either not available or the publication of their draft rolls had been postponed.

The states and Union Territories where data relating to the voter percentage increase was unavailable were Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Punjab, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Publication of the draft rolls in Uttar Pradesh was postponed to November 17.

In Kerala, the draft electoral roll recorded an increase of around 4 lakh voters after the special summary revision, taking the total to over 2.73 crore. However, the figure remains below the pre-special intensive revision count of 2.78 crore, the Hindustan Times reported.

Manipur added around 33,700 electors, taking its total to 19.9 lakh.

Goa recorded the addition of around 43,000 voters, while at least 11,000 names were deleted from the draft roll.

Rajasthan’s draft electoral roll lists around 5.2 crore voters, an increase of 2.2% over the final roll published after the special intensive revision.

Tamil Nadu’s voter count increased by around 10 lakh to 5.7 crore. However, it remains below the pre-special intensive revision count of 6.4 crore.

Bihar added around 13 lakh electors, taking its total to 7.5 crore.

Assam, where a special revision was conducted instead of the SIR, recorded a net addition of around 2.1 lakh electors, taking its total to around 2.5 crore. A special revision is similar to the usual updates to the electoral roll.

On September 24, The Economic Times reported that the poll panel had overshot its May-June announcement timeline for the annual revision because of a lack of consensus between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

The newspaper reported that Sandhu and Joshi had been advocating for resuming the exercise, while Kumar sought legal opinion on it.

This had followed a September 23 investigation by The Indian Express that showed that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

A contentious exercise

In 2025, the first phase of special intensive revision was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision. But it said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Edited by Sara Varghese and Nachiket Deuskar.

On the weekend, a debate ensued on social media after the emergence of a video showing Indian tourists having a community picnic in an airport terminal purportedly in Vietnam, plates of food spread out on the floor around them.

“When will we learn to travel with civic sense?” asked industrialist Harsh Goenka in response to the footage.

While many expressed dismay at this scene, some social media users offered justifications for the actions of the tourists: carrying home-cooked food on trips is part of Indian culture; eating on the floor is acceptable in South Asia; what was wrong if nobody was inconvenienced?

Therein lies the problem. Indians have become remarkably adept at defending behaviour that should actually invite introspection.

The issue, after all, is not about culturally specific behaviour patterns. It is the inability to distinguish personal convenience from public responsibility.

Vietnam has become a favourite new destination for Indian travellers. But if we turn their airports into picnic spots, spreading food and litter, we risk becoming very unpopular tourists. When will we learn to travel with civic sense? 😮 pic.twitter.com/pCSC63GHRH

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) November 7, 2026

The picnic on the floor of the Vietnam airport is symptomatic of the chasm between India’s civilisational self-image and contemporary public culture. Blame for the malaise cannot be laid at the door of individual citizens alone. It must also be examined in the mirror of India’s politics.

Civic culture is shaped by political leadership as much as by families and institutions. A country’s leaders establish the standards of public life. What they say, celebrate and tolerate eventually trickles down to the ordinary people who form a society.

The founding generation of independent India, notwithstanding its shortcomings, brought intellectual seriousness to public life. They regarded politics as a nation-building vocation.

Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azad, Rajendra Prasad, C Rajagopalachari and BR Ambedkar often had profound disagreements with each other yet operated within a framework of constitutional responsibility.

Nehru’s speech on the eve of Independence reflected a political imagination that transcended the mere acquisition of power. “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom,” he declared.

Ambedkar, in his final address to the Constituent Assembly in November 1949, observed that constitutional morality “is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated.” A democratic spirit, as he contended, requires restraint, argument and accommodation.

But where India’s leaders once possessed intellectual gravitas, they are now encouraging personality cults. Indian political culture is increasingly becoming enthralled by extravagant events and personalised imagery.

As a consequence, it risks losing sight of democratic accountability. The idea of service is giving way to a deep sense of entitlement.

Gandhi once offered decision-makers an ethical talisman. When in doubt, he said, they should consider whether the action they are contemplating would benefit the poorest and weakest person they may have seen. How often does this test inform today’s political imagination?

The deterioration of the quality of public discourse is visible all around us. In Parliament, political debate is giving way to polarised rhetoric. Disruptions have become more frequent.

Outside the chambers, discourse has become much more coarse. For instance, India Hate Lab recorded 1,165 hate-speech events targeting religious minorities in 2024, compared with 668 in 2023.

A viral video of Indian tourists breaking into garba on a VietJet tarmac has reignited debate, one group's celebratory moment, an entire nation's reputation on the line. It's a reminder that as India's outbound travel grows, so does the need for awareness of how actions abroad… pic.twitter.com/0VLwZQjjPn

— Mid Day (@mid_day) May 29, 2026

Indians often try to deflect criticism about our fraying public culture by harking back to ancient greatness. The problem of majoritarianism, for instance, is dismissed by invoking the edicts of Ashoka, which advocated restraint, tolerance and respect for those who hold different beliefs. Also cited frequently in this context is the Sanskrit phrase “vasudhaiva kutumbakam” (the world is one family).

When confronted with questions about urban chaos, Indians frequently recall the city of Mohenjo-daro, dating back over four millennia, with its planned streets, sophisticated drainage and well-organised public spaces.

But a civilisation’s greatness is not established by ancient scriptures or nationalist declarations. It is reflected in the dignity with which people treat one another, the restraint with which leaders exercise power and the consideration extended to strangers.

India’s achievements deserve acknowledgement. Its diversity, constitutional framework and electoral participation are substantial strengths. The political environment today is admittedly more complex than that the one that the founding generation dealt with. However, this complexity cannot be cited as an excuse for declining standards.

The enduring contribution of the founding generation was to establish a constitutional framework within which profound disagreements could coexist without weakening the focus on national goals. That is an inheritance worth reclaiming.

Instead of displaying less pride about the perceived greatness of its past, India must become more deserving of that pride. The tragedy would not be that the world ignores India’s claims to civilisational greatness. It would be that Indians themselves cease to practise the values that made that perceived greatness possible.

The debate about video from the Vietnam airport is not simply about tourists eating on a terminal floor. It is about what India communicates through the conduct of its citizens – a sad reflection of the entitlement that increasingly afflicts many of us.

For that to change, India needs leaders who inspires citizens through their personal example. Through their conduct, they must remind their fellow citizens that a civilisation cannot trade indefinitely on its past. Instead, it must reclaim the values that it believes the world should admire.

Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (Retd) is the former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry.

The average Air Quality Index in Delhi worsened to the “severe” category on Friday.

At 8.05 am, the average AQI in the national capital was 403, which is categorised as “severe”, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Twenty-eight of the 58 active monitoring stations in the national capital recorded AQI levels above 400.

The reading at the Indian Institute Of Technology, Delhi, was the worst in the city at 488.

Private air quality monitors, which calculate the data differently, recorded an average AQI of 594 in the national capital at 7.30 am, which is categorised as “hazardous”.

In some parts of the city, such as southern Delhi’s Railway Colony, and Rameshwar Nagar and Samaypur in north Delhi, the AQI was above 800, showed data from AQI.in.

The average AQI in adjoining Noida was also “severe” at 474, showed data from the Central Pollution Control Board at 8.05 am.

Other cities near the capital recorded “very poor” air quality. The AQI in Gurugram was 352, Ghaziabad 369 and Greater Noida 351.

On Friday, 86 of the 100 most polluted cities globally were in India, showed data from AQI.in.

#WATCH | Delhi | Air Quality Index (AQI) around AIIMS is 418, categorised as 'Severe', as per the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board).

(Visuals shot at 07:20 am) pic.twitter.com/iJp6sk2Kpm

— ANI (@ANI) November 13, 2026

According to the government standards, an index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while 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”.

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

This year, Diwali was celebrated on Sunday. Peak air pollution levels are historically observed during and immediately after Diwali.

On November 6, the Commission for Air Quality Management imposed Stage 3 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi and the National Capital Region as a precautionary measure after air quality deteriorated towards the “severe” 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 Delhi-NCR.

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.

Written by Abeer Khan. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Delhi pre-Diwali pollution levels were highest in three years, study shows
• Delhi pollution: CPCB says extreme PM 2.5 readings not part of AQI methodology amid Diwali data gaps

Legal scholar and author Gautam Bhatia was among the six academics who were awarded the Infosys Prize 2026 announced on Thursday.

Bhatia is an adjunct professor at Jindal Global Law School in Haryana’s Sonipat and a Green Fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. He has authored five books.

“Bhatia has made significant contributions to the study of Indian constitutional law,” the Infosys Prize stated. “His work draws on legal thought, political theory and moral philosophy, with a focus on equality, fairness and building a more humane society.”

The Infosys Prize in Engineering and Computer Science was awarded to Swarun Kumar, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. He was recognised for his work that “extends low-power wireless networks beyond information delivery to perception and action in the physical world”, said the Infosys Science Foundation.

Isha Jain, an associate investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco, received the prize in life sciences.

She was awarded for work in “oxygen biology, which showed that tissue damage in some mitochondrial diseases arises from excess oxygen rather than energy failure, and for turning fundamental biochemical insights into new therapeutic strategies, including designing a small-molecule to reduce oxygen levels and vitamin-based treatments for inherited metabolic disorders”.

Riddhipratim Basu, an associate professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bengaluru, won the prize in mathematical sciences. Basu was recognised for his work in probability theory and statistical physics.

The prize in economics was awarded to Karthik Sastry, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. He was recognised for his “contributions to the field of climate change, and technological innovation, and to the study of business cycle fluctuations”.

Manoj Kumar Joshi, an assistant professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, won the prize in physical sciences. He was recognised for his work with “trapped ions, creating programmable quantum machines that reveal how complex quantum systems behave”.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sneha.

Three developments occurred in India this October that I have been unable to think about separately.

On October 6, the Centre notified the draft Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Control and Supervision of Experiment, Breeding and Trading of Laboratory Animals) Rules, 2026 and gave the public 30 days to respond.

Through the same weeks, tens of thousands of people were on the streets against the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, an exercise through which, by the Election Commission’s own count, more than 13 crore names have been struck off the draft rolls – women, the poor and Muslims disproportionately among them.

Then, on October 26, a sessions court in Kalol, Gujarat, sentenced three Muslim men to life imprisonment for cow slaughter, citing the Manusmriti and the Rigveda and warning that if such men went unpunished, the cow would one day vanish from the Earth.

Many in the animal rights movement, like some of our friends working on child rights, education, health and the environment, have always drawn strength from staying focused on the work ahead. But how long can we keep telling ourselves, while the country burns, that we will hold on to our tunnel focus on animal protection, and keep engaging the ministry, the courts and the consultation process as if their independence had never been called into question?

At some point, a single-issue politics has to admit that there is no winning a fair contest in a game that has been tilted against it from the start.

What ties these events together is a redefinition of what animal protection means to the Indian state. The people protesting against SIR are defending the right to have a say in how they are governed. We rely on that same democratic promise when we ask the state to honour its commitments to animals.

Indian law has always had a secular commitment, written into the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and into Article 51A(g) of the Indian Constitution, which asks every one of us to have compassion for living creatures, all of them, without ranking them by their sacredness.

Under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government, the secular commitment to protect animals is being steadily hollowed out in favour of deregulation, facilitation and trade, while the protection of one animal is made more punitive by the year.

The Kalol judgment rests on the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, 2017, which raised the punishment for cow slaughter to a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life, and the sentence has already been rightly questioned on grounds of both proportionality and secularism.

Animal protection in India is being moved from a secular project to a Hindutva one.

A decade of retreat

There has been an almost unnoticed, institutional retreat from the secular commitment of animal protection and rights.

Dilution of welfare institutions. In 2019, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act was moved out of the environment ministry and handed to the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, whose very business is the productive use of animals. The Animal Welfare Board of India, a statutory body, was shifted out of Chennai and now answers to that department.

Abandoning the promise to bar animals in circuses. The government drafted amendments to the Performing Animals (Registration) Rules in 2018 that would have barred all animals from circuses, on the repeated advice of the Animal Welfare Board, and then let them lapse. When animal rights organisation went to the Delhi High Court seeking the ban, the environment ministry asked to be dropped from the case on the grounds that it had “no role to play”.

Shelving the reform of the cruelty law. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Amendment) Bill circulated for comment in 2022, which would finally have raised fines that remain embarrassingly low for most offences, has never reached Parliament.

Reopening captive elephant trade. The 2022 amendment to the Wildlife (Protection) Act allowed captive elephants to be transferred for “religious or any other purpose”, undoing protections that we had fought for over decades.

The draft experimentation rules are the latest, and perhaps the most consequential, step in the same direction.

All the while, the punishment for harming the cow has only grown. Compassion is negotiable whenever it stands in the way of commerce or convenience, and non-negotiable only where it serves a particular politics.

Animal experimentation in India

It has become common to treat opposition to animal experimentation as an obstacle put in the way of science by people who do not understand it. Our own history tells a different story.

When the laboratories first came to India, with the Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory at Poona in 1890 and the Pasteur Institute at Kasauli in 1900, they came hungry for animals. The historian Pratik Chakrabarti, in his study Beasts of Burden, records that producing a single rabies vaccine at one Pasteur institute needed 6,000 rabbits a year.

They were resisted, by a most unlikely alliance. On one side were British anti-vivisectionists, many of them women, like Frances Power Cobbe, who wrote to the Allahabad Pioneer in 1892 begging Indians not to countenance a Pasteur Institute “in our Queen’s dominions”, and Isabel Burton, who admired the pinjrapoles for giving animals “a refuge where, at least, no one can hurt them”.

On the other were Jain and Marwari merchants. Gulal Chand, Secretary of the Antivivisection Society of Calcutta, petitioned the government against “the most horrible cruelty” of the painful experiments, which he said was “so much shocking to the hearts specially of the Jains”.

As late as 1911, Khusru Tarachand wrote to the secretary of state that the deeds done in the Pasteur Institutes would be “infinitely more revolting to the Indian mind than mere greasing of cartridges with the fat of the cow and the swine”. He was told that “His Lordship sees no advantage to the public service in prolonging this correspondence.”

Mohandas Gandhi had come to the same question from the other side, through the vegetarian circles of London, where Henry Salt, the League’s founder, and the London Vegetarian Society shared their platforms with the campaign against vivisection. He carried that conviction home, calling vivisection “the blackest of all the black crimes that man is at present committing against God and his fair creation”, and insisting that “we should be able to refuse to live if the price of living be the torture of sentient beings”.

The colonial state, for its part, made its choice. In 1892, faced with the possibility of extending Britain’s vivisection law to India, it refused. Lord Elgin, who supported the establishment of the Pasteur Institute, called such a law “unnecessary and undesirable”, on the advice of scientists like EH Hankin, who assured the government that cruelty “might safely be left to their [Indians, natives] good taste and good feeling”. No animal experiment law was ever passed in British India.

Rukmini Devi Arundale took that critique into the Parliament of the new republic. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha on March 5, 1954, as she moved her Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Bill, she asked that “there should be no exports of animals for vivisection and also that vivisection should be abolished in India”.

Her arguments did not rest on sentimentality alone. She said, “the opinions of eminent doctors, not only of doctors who are anti-vivisectionists, but also of doctors who are vivisectionists”, and “they themselves have said that it is cruel”. She described today’s hypocrisy: “Because we are not always able to kill them owing, as we say, to the religious sentiments of our people, we catch them and send them to the laboratories where they have a fate even worse than death.”

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded her to withdraw the bill by promising a committee, and the Committee for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with Arundale as vice-chair, reported in 1957.

It was a committee of inquiry appointed by the government of India, through a resolution of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture dated August 16, 1954. It was a remarkable undertaking, in which a republic barely four years old set out to understand what a secular, progressive and modern animal protection law for India might look like.

Its 14 signatories brought together parliamentarians, doctors, scientists, a practitioner of Indian medicine and the government’s chief legislative draftsman, Gandhians like Kaka Kalelkar and NR Malkani alongside the Bombay physician MDD Gilder, and among them two women, Arundale and Lakshmi Menon, and the parliamentarian Ahmed Mohiuddin. It sent its questionnaire, in English and in Hindi, to more than 1,500 organisations and individuals, toured 13 cities and towns from Madras and Calcutta to Amritsar and Jaipur, examined 310 witnesses, and after nearly two and a half years of work produced a report of almost 400 pages on which the 1960 Act would be built.

The committee did not agree with everything the animal protection movement asked of it, but it is remarkable that the young republic should have held so careful and so consultative an enquiry about animals, nearly two decades before Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, a foundational text that has served as a major intellectual catalyst for the animal rights movement, was published in 1975. Singer had nothing to say about Arundale or about this committee, and while long before animals were turned into weapons in our own politics, the forgotten role of the committee in itself, is worth remembering.

Reading its chapter on experimentation today is an eerie experience, because the arguments have barely changed. Scientists opposed “the imposition of any restrictions, legislative or otherwise”, warning that a law would “impede the progress of the little research work that is being done in the country”.

The committee accepted that experiments “cannot be eliminated at the present state of development in our society”. It had found animals properly cared for “only in the case of the first-rate institutions”; it predicted that experiments were “bound to increase to a large extent in the near future”; and it admitted, with an honesty our present regulators would do well to borrow, that “there is no method of knowing whether all the experiments that are being carried on in the country are really necessary, and whether there is no duplication in them”.

The committee sought a law under which experiments would “get reduced by progressive stages”, and for “special emphasis” on alternatives “in order to reduce progressively and ultimately eliminate the use of animals for purposes of experimentation”.

Arundale, in her separate note, went further: this was “not primarily a scientific question, except as regards utility; it is an ethical and social matter to be decided by the society as a whole”, and one which “cannot be left to experts”. That settlement, imperfect and negotiated, became Chapter IV on the experimentation of animals under the 1960 act.

The settlement held in some instances. The 1957 committee had found India exporting rhesus monkeys at “over a lakh” a year, mostly to the United States, and the numbers were “steadily increasing”. In 1978, when US President Jimmy Carter raised the matter of monkey exports with Prime Minister Morarji Desai, India refused to resume them.

In 2014, India banned the testing of cosmetics on animals and then the import of cosmetics tested on them. In 2023 the drug rules were amended to allow non-animal methods in place of animal tests. Whatever its failings, this is the record of a state that understood that preventing cruelty is the whole point of the law under which experiments are licensed, and that it was always free to say no.

Tipping the balance

Animal experimentation is a difficult question. In India, it has been shaped by a fragile balance between public opinion, the claims of scientific necessity, the growing possibility of substitution, and the prohibition of cruelty that is the reason the parent law exists at all.

The only honest test of any new framework is whether it tips that balance towards compassion or away from it.

Objections have already been raised, for instance, by animal rights organisation PETA India, Assam Congress leader Debabrata Saikia, students protesting in Pune, and in a close reading of the notification in MedBound Times.

I want to dwell on three.

The first is that under Draft Rule 11, experiments classified as mild or moderate, including those on dogs, cats, monkeys, horses, sheep and pigs, would no longer need the approval of the central committee at all. They would be cleared by the ethics committee of the very institution that wants to conduct them, a committee on which, as critics have pointed out, the institution’s own employees are in the majority.

It depends on who decides that a dog’s suffering is merely “moderate”. We have, in other words, come back to scientist EH Hankin’s faith in the good taste and good feeling of those who hold the scalpel, and at a time when that faith is hard to justify.

Animal welfare activist Gauri Maulekhi has recalled how a 2011 inspection of a medical institute in Uttarakhand found filthy cages, untreated injuries and missing records. As recently as July 2025, the Delhi High Court had to stop a private contract research laboratory from bringing in new animals after the central committee’s own inspection had backed the allegations of cruelty.

The second pertains to street animals. Draft Rule 5 has a general bar on using stray dogs and cats, and then allows exceptions on the say-so of “competent authorities” that the rules do not define. The Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023 say that the street dog will be sterilised, vaccinated and returned to the lane where it lives and is known and fed.

Under the draft, street dogs picked up for sterilisation or rounded up into a municipal shelter in the name of public safety could lawfully end up on a laboratory table instead. A rule framed under a law meant to prevent cruelty would make the most vulnerable of our companion animals available as experimental material, through an exception that does not even say who can grant it.

The third is the monkey. Draft Rule 6 permits specified experiments on primates, at exactly the moment when global demand for research monkeys, and the breeders and contract research organisations who profit from it, are hunting for new sources.

Arundale’s complaint about monkeys caught here and shipped to foreign laboratories has an uncomfortable ring to it once more. The draft does speak of replacement, reduction and refinement, but such words are only as strong as the burden they place on applicants to prove necessity, the scrutiny they give to alternatives and the conditions that can actually be enforced.

Where the 1957 committee asked the state to work its way out of dependence on animals, these rules make that dependence easier.

What the state should do

If the government is serious about reform, it should withdraw these rules and begin again, the way the young republic did. It should set up a representative parliamentary inquiry, and hear scientists, parliamentarians, ethicists, animal protection groups, industry and ordinary citizens at length, as the 1957 committee did.

It should hold a real public consultation, in the languages people speak and over a period that matches the seriousness of the question, not 30 days on a technical notification. It should go back to the people and discuss what Arundale rightly called “an ethical and social matter to be decided by the society as a whole”.

It should remind the state, the scientists, the industry and every one of us of our constitutional duty of compassion, and of a commitment that has guided our law since 1957: that we may only move forward, towards fewer animals in laboratories and eventually none, and never back.

The contrast with Kalol could not be starker. A state that will send men to prison for life in the name of one animal, while making it easier to confine, cut and kill dogs, monkeys and countless others in the name of research and trade, is not confused about animal protection. It has decided which animals matter to its politics – and why.

Compassion for animals cannot be built on a politics that chooses its animals by their religious significance and its offenders by their faith. It needs independent institutions that can scrutinise laboratories and governments alike, and a secular politics in which the duty we owe to living creatures is owed to all of them, and human and non-human.

There is an irony here that I cannot set aside. As this consultation closes, animal protection groups across the country are filing objections in good faith, in a process that assumes a listening state and a public with the right to be heard, even as the most basic instrument of that public’s voice, the vote, is being taken from crores of our fellow citizens.

A movement that depends so completely on the freedom to question official decisions cannot defend compassion for animals and stay silent about the democratic freedoms without which no such claim can ever be heard.

Alok Hisarwala Gupta is the founder of the Centre for Research on Animal Rights.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Thursday said that bulldozers had become a “brand” associated with the state, ANI reported.

He suggested that a company setting up a tractor manufacturing plant in the state should also manufacture bulldozers, saying there would be “high demand for them, both domestically and internationally, as they have already become a brand of this region”.

#WATCH | Lucknow | Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath addresses CNH groundbreaking ceremony, via virtual mode

The CM says, "Today, Uttar Pradesh has carved out a new identity for itself as a premier investment destination in the country. The establishment of law and order in Uttar… pic.twitter.com/v0OhH6HvOl

— ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2026

Adityanath was speaking at the foundation-laying ceremony for the company’s plant in the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority area.

In Uttar Pradesh, demolitions targeting Muslims and other marginalised groups have become commonplace. The Bharatiya Janata Party supporters have lionised Adityanath as “ bulldozer baba”.

There are no provisions in Indian law that allow authorities to demolish the property of persons accused of crimes as punishment. However, the practice has become commonplace in states ruled by the BJP.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court held that demolishing the properties of persons accused of crimes as a punitive measure was illegal. It said that due process must be followed before authorities remove allegedly illegal encroachments.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: How Supreme Court finally checked ‘bulldozer justice’ – and why it may not be enough

In what is being considered a milestone for Project Great Indian Bustard, four captive-bred great Indian bustards (GIBs) were released into the wild in early October at the Desert National Park in Rajasthan. On October 17, one of the four birds was found dead, apparently predated upon by a desert fox the day before.

The authorities, however, do not consider the loss a setback. Sutirtha Dutta, a lead scientist with the Wildlife Institute of India, informs Mongabay-India that mortality due to predation and starvation, as well as threats posed by existing infrastructure, is expected during rewilding.

Earlier this year, a GIB chick hatched in the wild in Kutch, Gujarat, in March after a fertilised egg was transported from the conservation breeding centre at Sam in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer. It then went missing in April and could not be traced despite searches by forest officials.

The egg had been transported as part of the Jumpstart Approach, an attempt to restore a breeding population of GIBs in Gujarat, another former range state of the bird. The approach uses eggs from Rajasthan’s captive-breeding programme and gets wild female bustards in Gujarat to incubate and rear the chicks.

Forest department officials suspected that the chick had been predated upon, although no remains were recovered. Its disappearance prompted the state government to strengthen habitat protection, fencing and predator-management measures.

Success rate is variable in rewilding

“Typically in bustard breeding and release programmes, the survival rates of captive bred and released bustards is 30% at best,” Dutta says, adding: “Even if we are able to release 30 birds in a year, and 10 of them survive and get recruited in the (wild) population, that is a big addition to the current population of about 40 individuals in Desert National Park.” Dutta shares that in the wild, mortality can happen at the egg or young chick stage. “A bustard egg in the wild has only an 18% chance of surviving.”

Captive breeding was intended to address some of these early-life survival challenges. The project began with the establishment of a founder population of 40 birds at two conservation breeding centres – Sam and Ramdevra in Jaisalmer. The founder population was established by collecting eggs from the wild and rearing the chicks in captivity.

With close to 100 birds in the captive-breeding programme, the project was ready to move to the next phase, rewilding, in about seven to eight years, much earlier than the original 15-year target, says Dutta.

“International bustard conservation-breeding programmes generally report survival rates of around 48%, whereas ours has recorded a survival rate of 80%. This enabled us to bring forward the rewilding timeline to eight years,” he shares.

Critics question lack of transparency

Despite these milestones, the project has faced criticism over its preparedness and lack of transparency.

“It’s the world’s first experiment breeding the great Indian bustard species. Both successes and failures need to be discussed as part of the learning process,” says wildlife biologist Sumit Dookia, an associate professor at the University School of Environment Management, GGS Indraprastha University, New Delhi. The authorities have shared very little information with the public about the programme, he says. “This is a Government of India project, a programme of national importance involving several stakeholders. Yet there is very little transparency about what is happening on the ground.”

Dookia also questions the circumstances surrounding the predation incident and the safeguards in place for the released birds. “One account says that the predation took place inside Desert National Park. If it happened inside one of the predator-proof enclosures in the Park, then how did a desert fox enter it? There are a wide range of birds of prey, resident as well as migratory; if predation risk from natural predators is not being learnt by these released birds, then it will be a consistent problem of risk. So, what safeguards are in place for rewilding birds in this landscape? How are they ensuring the safety of the released birds while also managing the programme without disturbing the wider ecosystem?”

He also raises concerns about the management of predators in the Desert National Park’s enclosed landscape, following reports of a proposal to destroy fox dens and relocate desert foxes after the chick’s death. He suggested that such actions shouldn’t be taken outside the enclosed areas of the Park as desert foxes are an integral part of the desert ecosystem. The desert fox is listed under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Dutta, however, says that large-scale removal of foxes was never considered in response to the predation incident. He says the strategic translocation of foxes from two GIB breeding enclosures, covering a combined area of 20 sq. km. within the approximately 3,100 sq km park landscape, is an ongoing conservation practice intended to improve the hatching success of wild GIB eggs.

“Almost 50% of wild GIB eggs get predated, mostly by foxes whose numbers are very high inside these breeding enclosures. This is a scientifically-informed practice that has also been directed by the Supreme Court and is inconsequential to the predator populations as it targets only less than 1% of the Park area,” he says.

On the release of the remaining captive-bred birds, Dutta says they are expected to be released in November and December, as not all have reached the age of five to six months, considered suitable for release. Although six more birds are expected to be released, he says the final number will depend “on their conditions (behavioural, health and fitness) at that time”.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svendsen on Wednesday alleged that the Indian embassy in Oslo stopped her from travelling to India for a conference and cancelled her visa.

Svendsen said that 10 minutes before she left for the airport, the embassy asked her not to travel.

The journalist said that she had received political clearance, a visa and was supposed to speak on the future of media and press freedom at the Bharat Summit organised in Hyderabad by the Congress-led Telangana government. “But ‘orders from above’ in the Ministry of Home Affairs have cancelled my visa,” she alleged on social media.

In May, Svendsen sparked a debate about the role of the press in a democracy – and refocused attention on the Indian prime minister’s refusal to address press conferences.

As Modi was leaving the podium after he and his Norwegian counterpart addressed a joint press meet in Oslo on May 18, Svendsen had asked the Indian prime minister why he does not take “some questions from the freest press in the world”. She works at a newspaper called Dagsavisen.

The Bharat Summit is being organised by the Congress.

Svendsen said on Tuesday that she had not been given a reason.

She alleged that “apparently” it was the home ministry that decided that she cannot enter India. “And I don’t understand why, but it does feel politically motivated,” she alleged.

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I used my freedom of press back in May 2026 to question the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, here in Oslo, Norway,” she said in a video addressed to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Svendsen added: “I’m thinking it might also be because I’ve used my freedom of expression to criticise Narendra Modi and his governance both in public opinion pieces from my Norwegian newspaper, but also online for the Indian people to see.”

The Norwegian journalist said that she was also wondering whether her “criticism of [businesspersons] Adani and Ambani, two of Narendra Modi’s alleged close friends, both very rich, the powerful billionaires of India and Asia...may also have something to do with this”.

I got a visa to India and was supposed to leave this morning to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad. I had been invited as a panelist and speaker on the future of media and press freedom.

But «orders from above» in the Ministry of Home Affairs have cancelled my visa.

Here… pic.twitter.com/ihAuZdUCmc

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) November 11, 2026

Svendsen said that she was also wondering if her “positive opinion pieces” about the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign and her interview of the movement’s founder Abhijeet Dipke “might be the reason why I’m not allowed” to enter India.

The journalist said it was at least two days until her panel discussion at the event in Hyderabad and that she is hoping the Indian government would reconsider its decision. “…The ball is now in your court,” she said.

She added: “What will the world’s largest democracy do? Will I be able to enter the country, or will I not when I have political clearance, a visa and my passport, a place to be and most importantly people from international environment and India waiting and expecting for me to be there.”

The home ministry, the Ministry of External Affairs and the embassy have not yet commented on Svendsen’s allegations.

The organisers of the Bharat Summit said that about 200 international delegates were attending the event. “We are focused on making sure the summit goes ahead smoothly in keeping with Rahul Gandhi’s vision,” they told Scroll.

Political clearance had been obtained from the external affairs ministry for 316 foreign delegates, said party functionaries familiar with the development.

Press body demands reversal of action

Expressing concern at the cancellation of Svendsen’s visa, the Editors Guild of India demanded that the government disclose the reason behind the action and reverse its decision. The press body said that Svendsen asking Modi a question in Oslo appeared to be her only “crime”.

It added that freedom of speech was a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution.

“Such actions smack of bureaucratic overreach and do immense harm to India’s image as the world’s largest democracy,” stated the press body. “Freedom of speech is one of the first principles that any functioning democracy abides by.”

Svendsen’s run-ins with New Delhi

On May 18, after Modi left the hall without acknowledging Svendsen’s query, Svendsen said on social media that she had not actually expected the Indian leader to take her question.

On social media, supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party had claimed that Svendsen had acted inappropriately. Some said that she had failed to understand that this was a “press briefing” and not a “press conference” at which questions could be asked.

Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s publicity cell at the time, characterised her question as a “delinquent journalist’s incoherent rant”. He suggested that she had asked it because she did “not want to see a strong and powerful India”.

Modi’s opponents saw the incident as another instance of the prime minister not answering journalists’ questions.

Since he came to power in 2014, Modi has avoided press conferences, both at home and abroad. He took unscripted questions from reporters at media meets only twice: in the United Kingdom in 2015 and in the United States in 2023.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Modi’s reaction to Svendsen had undermined the country’s image.

Shortly after, the Indian embassy had told Svendsen that it was organising a press conference later in the day, ignoring her question about whether she would be able to interview Modi there.

At the event, Svendsen asked why Oslo should trust New Delhi. She also asked if it could be promised that “human rights violations that go on in your country” would be stopped and “will the prime minister start taking critical questions from the Indian press at some point in the future”.

In response, an external affairs ministry official spoke for 13 minutes, without specifically answering Svendsen’s question.

Offering what he claimed was a background for why the world should trust India, he said that India is a “civilisational country that is 5,000 years old” and has “something unique that it has offered to the world and continues to”.

When Svendsen said he was not answering the question, the official said that it was his press conference and asked her not to interrupt.

Inputs from Anant Gupta. Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Abeer Khan.

Also read:

• The journalist who asked Modi a question
• ‘Embarrassing’: Editors Guild on PM Modi, Indian delegation’s ‘face-off’ with journalists in Europe

Could your home be at risk from rising seas? Scroll is investigating coastal flooding in Mumbai and Kolkata, mapping vulnerable areas and examining whether developers and the authorities are accounting for the risks. Support this investigation and help us make this reporting possible. Fund the project here.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) President Chandra Shekhar Aazad announced that they would contest the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections together. Aazad was named the Samajik Parivartan Morcha’s chief ministerial candidate.

Elections in Uttar Pradesh are scheduled to be held early next year. The Nagina MP said that the alliance was not just a “third front” but a coalition for social change.

“As more people from the marginalised, deprived, oppressed, exploited, and downtrodden sections join, this front will become an even more formidable force,” he said. Read on.

India’s retail inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose to 6.09% in October from 5.5% in September. This is the first in two years that inflation has risen above 6%, which is the upper tolerance limit set by the Reserve Bank of India.

Retail inflation has been surging for 12 consecutive months since bottoming out at 0.04% in October 2025. This was due to rising food prices and an unfavourable base effect.

According to data from the Union government, food inflation has increased to 8.9% from 7.7% in September. Read on.

Onions, sugar, rice: Why India’s food staples have gotten costly, explains Vijay Jadhav

The Central Consumer Protection Authority imposed a penalty of Rs 10 lakh on cab aggregator Ola for misleading customers into paying extra to improve their chances of securing a ride. It directed the company to remove prompts that encouraged customers to make additional payments before a driver accepted their booking.

The feature amounted to misleading advertising, an unfair trade practice and an unfair contract under the 2019 Consumer Protection Act, said the consumer rights watchdog. Read on.

The bodies of two police officers who had gone missing a day ago were recovered from Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar. The two special police officers were part of an anti-terror operation and went missing from a forest area in the upper reaches of the Chenab Valley.

Their bodies were found with bullet wounds, while their service weapons were missing. Read on.

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India’s retail inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose to 6.09% in October from 5.5% in September, showed data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Thursday.

This is the first in two years that inflation has risen above 6%. Based on back-series data, the October inflation rate was the highest since October 2024, when it stood at 6.21%.

Retail inflation has been surging for 12 consecutive months since bottoming out at 0.04% in October 2025. This was due to rising food prices and an unfavourable base effect, The Indian Express reported.

According to data by the Union government, food inflation has increased to 8.9% from 7.7% in September.

Among the food items that recorded the highest price increases were onions at an 116% inflation rate, garlic at 61%, ginger at 48% and lemons at 47%.

Among states with a population of more than 50 lakh, Tamil Nadu recorded the highest retail inflation at 7.29%, followed by Telangana at 7.26%, Andhra Pradesh at 7.25%, Madhya Pradesh at 7.19% and Odisha at 7.17%.

The Reserve Bank of India is tasked with keeping inflation at 4%, with a tolerance band of 2% to 6%.

When inflation goes above the upper limit, central banks usually increase key lending rates to control inflation. Higher key lending rates translate to higher interest on loans disbursed by commercial banks. This, in turn, keeps a check on discretionary spending by consumers, which is expected to help curb price rises due to high inflation.

On October 7, the Reserve Bank of India increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.5%.

The repo rate is the interest rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks. The Monetary Policy Committee reviews the rate every two months.

This was the first hike in the lending rate in nearly four years. The last hike was in February 2023, when the Reserve Bank of India raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.5%.

A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. Basis points are used to describe changes in interest rates and other financial instruments.

Edited by Sneha.

The bodies of two police officers who had gone missing a day ago were recovered from Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar on Thursday, reported The Hindu.

The Ramban Police confirmed this, reported ANI.

The two special police officers were part of an anti-terror operation and went missing on Wednesday from a forest area in the upper reaches of the Chenab Valley. Their bodies were found with bullet wounds, while their service weapons were missing, PTI reported.

They were identified as 45-year-old Rashpal Kumar and 57-year-old Bobby Chand. The officers were residents of Kiyar Dachhan in Kishtwar, The Hindu reported.

Both of them were part of the temporary operating bases established by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in response to increased terrorist activity in the upper reaches of the Union Territory since 2020.

On Wednesday, they had accompanied a team from the Army’s 17 Rashtriya Rifles to the Basnan area. A search operation was launched after the officers did not report back to their camps in the Marwah sector.

The incident came a day after three Central Reserve Police Force personnel were injured after suspected militants opened fire at a security checkpoint in Kulgam district.

Edited by Sneha.

Delhi’s air pollution levels ahead of Diwali were the worst in three years, showed an analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment released on Wednesday.

The average concentration of PM2.5, fine airborne particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs, was 97% higher in the week before Diwali this year than during the same period in 2025, according to the study.

The concentration of the tiny particulate matter stood at 236 micrograms per cubic metre in 2026, compared with 120 micrograms per cubic metre in 2025 and 179 micrograms per cubic metre in 2024.

Air quality deteriorates sharply in Delhi during the winter months. The city is often ranked among the world’s most polluted capitals.

The lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, along with stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular pollution, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

Pollution levels typically peak during and immediately after Diwali, when firecracker emissions add to the existing pollution load.

This year, Diwali was celebrated on Sunday, amid worsening air quality in the capital over the past few weeks.

Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment, said that Diwali is an annual tipping point for pollution, but “elevated particulate levels before the festival this year show that the baseline pollution is higher than in previous years”.

Year-round measures to control emissions from key sources remained inadequate, she added.

“Had air quality been cleaner leading into winter, and episodic spikes from farm fires and firecrackers kept in check, seasonal weather shifts would not have triggered such severe pollution,” said Roychowdhury.

Vehicular emissions key cause

Delhi’s air quality has been deteriorating sharply from late October, with the air quality index entering the “very poor” category on November 2.

According to data from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s Decision Support System, pollution transported from neighbouring National Capital Region districts accounted for more than half of Delhi’s PM2.5 pollution between November 1 and November 8 – which is the day Diwali was celebrated.

Local sources contributed 33%, while stubble burning accounted for 14.2%, said the Centre for Science and Environment in the study.

“Among Delhi’s local pollution sources, vehicular transport was the dominant polluter at 52%,” it added.

Also read: Delhi’s failure to act against the biggest source of its air pollution – vehicles

The contribution of stubble burning to Delhi’s pollution remained relatively low during much of this period.

“...severe pollution episodes persist independently of declining farm fires, driven instead by intense local emissions,” said the study.

Punjab: Over 1,200 FIRs against stubble burning

Meanwhile, the number of farm fires in Punjab rose to 5,517 by Wednesday, PTI quoted data provided by the state government as saying.

The data also showed that 1,259 first information reports had been registered in connection with farm fires under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which pertains to disobedience of an order issued by a public servant.

What happens when clean air is something you have to buy?

We have been looking at air pollution beyond the smog.

At Scroll, we stay with a story and dig deeper and ask uncomfortable questions.

But we need your help to keep doing this.

Support us: https://t.co/QEgDxR0z1I pic.twitter.com/cIn4ViAV0Z

— Scroll.in (@scroll_in) November 9, 2026

Fines amounting to more than Rs 85 lakh have been imposed as environmental compensation in 1,695 cases. So far, of the total fine, over Rs 37 lakh has been recovered, the PTI reported.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sneha.

Also read: How an El Niño winter could worsen pollution in Delhi

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has said that an Aadhaar card is not “conclusive proof” of a person’s age.

Justice Amit Seth made the observation in an order dated November 3 while hearing an appeal filed by the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died in a road accident in December 2019.

A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had earlier relied on the boy’s Aadhaar card to record his age as 14. The insurance company challenged this citing the postmortem report which recorded his age as 13.

The High Court agreed with the insurance company’s argument, holding that a postmortem report was a more reliable indicator of the boy’s age.

“An Aadhaar card is primarily an identity document and cannot, by itself, be treated as conclusive proof of the age of its holder,” the court noted. “On the other hand, the age recorded in the postmortem report is based upon medical assessment conducted in the course of postmortem examination.”

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) President Chandra Shekhar Aazad on Thursday announced an alliance for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Aazad was named the Samajik Parivartan Morcha’s chief ministerial candidate.

Elections in Uttar Pradesh are scheduled to be held early next year.

The Nagina MP said that the alliance was not just a “third front” but a coalition for social change.

“As more people from the marginalised, deprived, oppressed, exploited, and downtrodden sections join, this front will become an even more formidable force,” he said at a joint press conference in Lucknow.

Owaisi said that the alliance will serve as a “strong alternative” to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from returning to power for a third term.

“Many promised to oust the BJP,” Aazad said. “We waited, through 2014, 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2024. Yet, the BJP has not been removed, instead, it has only grown more powerful.”

The Nagina MP added that the alliance was open to joining hands with the Samajwadi Party, Congress and others to prevent the BJP from returning to power.

In the 2022 Assembly elections, the BJP-led alliance won 273 seats in the 403-member Assembly. The Samajwadi Party won 111 seats. Its allies Rashtriya Lok Dal and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party won eight and six seats.

The AIMIM contested 95 seats but failed to win any, while the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) contested 110 seats and also drew a blank.

The vote share of AIMIM was 0.49% while the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) polled 0.13% of the total votes.

Aazad had contested the election against Chief Minister Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban Assembly constituency. He finished fourth, polling over 7,600 votes.

He went on to become an MP after winning the Nagina Parliamentary seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority on Tuesday imposed a penalty of Rs 10 lakh on cab aggregator Ola for misleading customers into paying extra to improve their chances of securing a ride.

It directed the company to discontinue the advance tipping feature and remove prompts that encouraged customers to make additional payments before a driver accepted their booking.

The consumer rights watchdog said the feature amounted to misleading advertising, an unfair trade practice and an unfair contract under the 2019 Consumer Protection Act.

The action followed a complaint filed in May 2025 against the feature, which suggested that paying extra could help customers secure a ride faster.

The app displayed the message: “Adding a tip might help increase the chances of getting a ride faster.”

Customers were initially offered pre-set amounts ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 40, which later increased.

The consumer right authority found that the ride-hailing application allowed additional payments of up to Rs 499.

Ola defended the feature saying that the payments were voluntary and transferred directly to drivers without any deduction by the platform. It argued that the option helped drivers accept rides that might otherwise be commercially unviable, particularly when they had to travel a longer distance to reach a passenger.

The company maintained that paying extra did not guarantee faster booking confirmation, but said that “the chances do increase”.

However, the consumer rights watchdog found that Ola’s own data did not support its claims. In Delhi, around 38% of ride requests with an additional payment were accepted, compared with 62% of requests without one. In Bengaluru, the acceptance rates were 40% for rides with an add-on and 68% for those without.

The authority also pointed to a contradiction in Ola’s arguments.

“‘Adding a tip might help increase the chances of getting a ride faster’ contradicts its submission that the add-on does not result in a priority ride,” the order said.

It held that the feature was misleading either way. If the additional payment did not influence driver acceptance, the claim that it improved the chances of securing a ride was false. If it did influence acceptance, customers who did not pay extra were placed at a disadvantage.

The authority also rejected Ola’s argument that the payment was simply a voluntary tip, noting that tips were given in appreciation of services already provided, whereas the platform sought the additional payment before a driver had accepted the booking.

“A dark pattern does not cease to be one because it does not succeed with every consumer and a feature used by over one lakh ride requests in a single city cannot be described as insignificant,” the order said.

The authority directed Ola to stop using prompts, messages and interface designs that could “solicit, nudge, coerce or psychologically pressure consumers into paying any amount”.

Ola has been directed to submit a compliance report within 15 days.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Union government on Wednesday reduced the number of Indian visa categories to 9 from 13 and sub-categories to 23 from 49. The number of fields in visa application forms was also reduced by 65% to 70%.

The Ministry of Home Affairs said the revised framework was aimed at making the process easier to navigate for foreign citizens visiting India for tourism, medical treatment, education, research and business.

The latest changes follow an earlier revision in October 2025, when the government reduced the number of visa categories to 13 from 22 and sub-categories to 49 from 63.

The nine main visa categories are: business, diplomatic, work, journalist, medical, official, student, visitor and miscellaneous.

The tourist visa was renamed as the visitor visa to cover a wider range of activities beyond tourism. This includes business meetings, medical consultations, wellness retreats and short-term courses in Indian languages, music, art and craft.

The visitor visa has been divided into two sub-categories, V-1 and V-2.

The V-1 visa will be valid for 30 days with multiple entries. The V-2 visa will be available for one year, five years or 10 years, depending on eligibility. While V-1 will cover short-term activities, V-2 will cater to a variety of purposes, including mountaineering.

Medical visas have been divided into M-1 for treatment outside traditional Indian medicine systems and M-3 for ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homeopathy treatments. Both will generally be valid for one year with multiple entries. Accompanying attendants will need separate visas.

Student visas have been grouped into S-1 for school and higher education, and S-2 for research, PhD programmes, internships, faculty visits and student exchanges. Eligible students may receive multiple-entry visas for up to five years or the duration of their course, whichever is shorter.

Business visas have been divided into B-1 for long-term activities, such as setting up a venture, and B-2 for short-term activities, including conferences, sports, cultural events and production-related work.

The revised framework also provides foreign specialists, engineers and technical personnel engaged by Indian companies an option to obtain a production investment business visa under the B-2 category. This covers assignments involving installation, commissioning, maintenance, quality checks, training, production support and technology transfer.

The home ministry said the revised forms would require less information from applicants while retaining the details needed to process visa requests.

Visas under the new system are expected to be issued by the end of 2026.

Nearly 25,000 foreign citizens are currently living in India on employment visas.

Over 18 lakh medical and related visas were issued between 2023 and 2025, while nearly 5,000 traditional medical treatment and attendant visas have been granted since the scheme was launched earlier this year.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Abeer Khan.

The Gauhati High Court has held that Permanent Account Number cards and voter ID cards alone cannot establish citizenship unless supported by the records used to issue them.

A division bench of Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Susmita Phukan Khaund made the observation on November 5, while dismissing a petition filed by a woman challenging a tribunal order that had declared her a foreigner who entered India in March 1971.

The court rejected at least 13 documents Kulchan Begum had submitted as proof, including linkage documents from the 1966 voter rolls and certificate of the Guwahati Municipal Board.

The bench found that Begum had failed to establish her links to her claimed father and grandparents through reliable evidence.

Begum had also failed to prove that they had continuously lived in Assam, as required under the 1955 Citizenship Act, the judgement noted.

The woman had claimed that she was born in Assam on April 25, 1977. To establish her citizenship, she submitted electoral rolls from 1966 and 1970 listing her claimed grandparents, along with her father’s permanent account card and voter ID, her own voter ID, a ration card and an acknowledgement receipt for her National Register of Citizens application.

She also contended that her father was an Indian citizen whose name appeared in electoral records. She claimed that he had contested the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections and served as a councillor of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation.

However, the Foreigners Tribunal had rejected her claim, finding that she had failed to establish her relationship with her claimed father.

The foreigners tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship based on lineage and a 1971 cut-off date. They rely primarily on documents submitted by persons to establish their family’s residency in Assam or India before 1971.

Those declared foreigners by the tribunals have the option to appeal the decision before the High Court or the Supreme Court.

Foreigners’ tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and declaring persons foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory.

The woman had argued before the High Court that the tribunal had not properly considered her documents. She also said that her previous lawyer had advised her incorrectly that the evidence submitted was sufficient to establish her citizenship. She sought to have the case sent back to the tribunal so she could present additional witnesses, including her parents and other family members.

The High Court rejected the argument, noting that she had been given several opportunities to submit further evidence before the tribunal but had failed to do so. It said that the claim of incorrect legal advice appeared to be an “after thought”.

On the documents submitted, the High Court said that permanent account cards and Electoral Photo Identity Cards were issued on the basis of self-declarations without formal verification by the Income Tax Department or the Election Commission.

“Therefore, unless the records supplementing the PAN Card and EPIC are proved, the said exhibited documents cannot be accepted as a proof of citizenship of India,” the bench said.

It also held that her claimed father’s alleged participation in parliamentary and state polls, and his tenure as a municipal councillor, did not by themselves establish that she was his daughter.

The High Court therefore dismissed her petition and upheld the foreigners tribunal’s decision.

The court also revoked the interim bail granted to her in 2022.

The Supreme Court and different High Courts have, over the years, held that documents such as Aadhaar card, voter identity card, PAN card and a certificate issued by the Gram Panchayat Secretary, as well as ownership of a bank account or property, are not evidence of citizenship.

There is no single document that proves Indian citizenship. Only foreign citizens who take up Indian citizenship are granted actual citizenship certificates. Persons born in India do not have any such document.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Why experts contest Assam CM’s use of 1950 law to justify forcing out people into Bangladesh

The Union government issued directions to block 129 illegal betting websites this year based on two High Court orders that were found to be fake, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The Department of Telecommunications issued the directions on July 21 and September 2, based on purported orders from the Rajasthan High Court and the Allahabad High Court.

The directives were available on the department’s website, with copies of the purported court orders attached, Reuters reported.

Scroll could independently find only the September 2 directive on the website. The purported Allahabad High Court order attached to it carried the court’s logo, seal and a QR code. Reuters reported that the code led to a webpage displaying only a case number. However, when Scroll attempted to access the QR code, it was untraceable.

Both the takedown orders do not appear in the High Courts’ online registration records, Reuters reported.

In response to queries from the news agency, the Rajasthan High Court’s registrar said that the order “appears to be fraudulent” and did not exist on its server.

The Allahabad High Court said that the order bearing its name was fake. The High Court also filed a police complaint in the case on November 6, the news agency reported. An investigation has been initiated in the case for alleged forgery and cheating.

The purported Allahabad High Court order was dated August 14 and bore the name of Justice Garima Prashad. Police documents cited by Reuters said that the judge’s office confirmed that no such order had been passed.

A person identifying himself as advocate Kartikey Pandey sent the purported Allahabad High Court order to the department on August 22, Reuters reported.

The purported Rajasthan High Court order was sent to the telecommunications department by email on July 19 and was signed by Aryan Chaudhary, described as an advocate-on-record, Reuters reported. However, an email sent to Chaudhary bounced back with a “recipient not found” notification.

The Department of Telecommunications did not respond to Reuters’ queries on the matter.

This came against the backdrop of the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch registering a first information report on Saturday about fraudulent notices sent in the department’s name to social media platform X. The notices sought to block the accounts of digital rights groups Internet Freedom Foundation and Software Freedom Law Centre.

The FIR was registered against unidentified persons under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to forgery and impersonation of a public servant, as well as computer-related offences under the Information Technology Act.

On Friday, the social media platform told the Delhi High Court that an internal investigation had established that the notices were not genuine police communications and had been sent by an “imposter”.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Delhi Police file FIR about fake notices seeking blocking of IFF, SFLC’s X accounts
• Double hoax: Takedown notices from RSS, Delhi Police to digital rights groups turn out to be fake

Three Central Reserve Police Force personnel were injured on Wednesday when suspected militants opened fire at a security checkpoint in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district.

Head Constable Sonbir Singh sustained serious injuries and was undergoing treatment, said Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. Constables Rakesh Das and Santanu Chandra were in stable conditions.

Sinha condemned the “cowardly act of terror” and promised that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. “Security forces have been given a free hand to crack down on terrorists,” he said on social media.

Visited Base Hospital, Srinagar, to enquire about the health of CRPF Head Constable Sonbir Singh, who sustained serious injuries in the heinous terror attack in Kulgam and is currently undergoing treatment. Praying for his swift and complete recovery.

Two other injured CRPF… pic.twitter.com/fkit6SzEbC

— Manoj Sinha (@manojsinha_) November 11, 2026

At about 2.15 pm, the suspected militants opened fire at the Central Reserve Police Force personnel on duty at the checkpoint.

Security agencies were working to establish which vehicle was used by the perpetrators to reach the place of attack, reported The Hindu.

The attack occurred nearly a km from the Jammu-Srinagar national highway.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to track down the perpetrators, The Indian Express reported.

The attack occurred on a day when Sinha attended an event in the district, The Hindu reported. He inaugurated the Veshow Festival at the Government Degree College, which was about 16 km from the site of the attack.

Written by Abeer Khan. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Last month, the Manipur capital saw a rare rally.

Two organisations representing the Meiteis, the majority community in the state, and Nagas, a minority tribal group, marched together on October 31 to demand that the Narendra Modi government scrap a contentious ceasefire agreement with Kuki militant groups.

Since 2023, both communities have been involved in separate ethnic conflicts with Kukis, the other tribal group in Manipur.

The United Naga Council said it was joining the rally called by the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity or Cocomi because of the “terror and the existential threat to the indigenous people” of Manipur. The council also held smaller solidarity rallies in all Naga districts in the state.

Historically, both Meiteis and Nagas have had sharp differences over each other’s political demands and over the Naga demand for a separate ethnic homeland.

“With this endorsement, it doesn't mean that all other issues between us have been resolved,” said Ng Lorho, who heads the United Naga Council. “But this time we [came together] because we share interests and an agenda.”

Seilen Haokip, spokesperson of the Kuki National Organisation, called the situation a “nightmare scenario” for the Kukis and said the two groups were “ganging up” against them. The KNO is one of the signatories to the ceasefire pact that the Meiteis and Nagas want scrapped.

Experts and community leaders Scroll spoke to said this realignment could only sharpen the divisions in the state, while allowing the Bharatiya Janata Party governments at the Centre and the state to allow the situation to drift. “It is not good for the overall communal harmony in Manipur,” former Union home secretary G K Pillai said. “It will only escalate the violence.”

A contentious ceasefire

Deadly ethnic clashes between Meiteis and Kukis broke out in May 2023, setting off a spiral of violence from which Manipur is yet to recover. At least 300 people died in the conflict and thousands had to leave their homes.

It resulted in an ethnic partition of the state, with Kukis barred from entering the Imphal Valley, and Meiteis unable to access the hill districts.

While the conflict between the two groups has simmered down, thousands still remain in relief camps.

Nagas, who account for about 20% of Manipur’s total population, remained neutral through the conflict. The Kukis are the third-largest demographic group in Manipur.

But in February this year, another conflict erupted in the state – between the Nagas and the Kukis.

The two tribes live close to each other in the hills and have a history of conflict. The clashes between Nagas and Kukis that began in 1993 dragged on for five years. Hundreds were killed and several villages burned down.

Since February, at least 66 people have been killed in the Naga-Kuki conflict, with civilians turning into easy targets as armed groups from both communities fight for control.

Underlying the dispute is Naga opposition to the Kuki demand for a “separate administration” that would span most of the hill districts, and delink them from the Imphal Valley.

This is also fiercely opposed by the Meiteis, who say that the “territorial integrity” of the state cannot be compromised. Both Nagas and Meiteis dispute Kuki claims to territory, accusing them of being “outsiders” and “illegal immigrants”.

The October rally signals their coming together on a crucial demand – the abrogation of the suspension of operations agreement.

The SoO pact is a ceasefire agreement of sorts that the Centre and the state of Manipur signed in 2008 with two collectives of tribal armed groups in the hills, the United Peoples’ Front and the Kuki National Organisation. It has been periodically extended since then. However, it is yet to be renewed since it lapsed in September.

“The SoO is basically part of efforts to reduce the level of violence in the state,” former Union home secretary Pillai told Scroll. “People surrendered and agreed to keep their arms in the armory. That was helpful for peace.”

The pact has been contentious yet kept hostilities at bay to a large extent in the multicultural hills of Manipur. But Naga and Meitei groups allege that the Kuki armed groups have violated the pact by repeatedly taking part in violence against other communities since 2023.

The trigger for the renewed demand for the abrogation of the pact was the killing of three Meitei men on October 19 by suspected Kuki militants in Imphal East district. Nagas, too, have accused SoO groups of carrying out attacks on their villages.

Jeetendra Ningomba, former coordinator of Cocomi, said Meiteis and Nagas – who he called the only “indigenous” people of the state – have long been united in their demand for abrogating the SoO pact and carrying out a citizenship determination exercise in the state to weed out illegal immigrants from the Kuki community.

He also claimed that the Nagas have “changed their minds” on the demand for a greater Nagalim, spanning several states in the North East, which was at the heart of the insurgent movement led by the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) or NSCN-IM for several decades.

“Some 10 years back, we had some different ideas because some Nagas under the NSCN-IM wanted to join Nagaland,” Ningomba said. “Now actually, they have changed their minds because they identify as Manipur people.”

Lorho, the UNC president, however, denied such a claim. The demand for a greater Naga homeland that would include areas of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Myanmar across the border, he said, remains the major sticking point for any alliance between the groups.

The differences do not end there. In a recent memorandum sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Tangkhul Naga community, the largest Naga group in Manipur, cited the “disparity” between the tribal hills – inhabited by the Nagas and Kukis – and the largely non-tribal Imphal Valley, the state’s power centre, and home to Meiteis, as the primary reason for the violence and crisis in Manipur.

“Without a doubt, the sole root cause for Manipur remaining in perpetual turmoil and communal conflict is the highly skewed structure of political power sharing in absolute favour of the valley,” the memorandum, seen by Scroll, read.

Ningomba, however, said it was possible for the two groups to negotiate the terms of their cooperation. “We don’t oppose them,” he said. “If Nagas want something, we will sit at the table and negotiate. But Meitei people want to live together. We want the integrity and the unity of Manipur to remain.”

Political demands

Several Kuki leaders see the new warmth between Meiteis and Nagas with concern, and said it was a way to stop the Centre from conceding the Kuki demand for a separate administration.

“They are ganging up on us now as they see the viability of our political demand, and the possibility that it will most likely be addressed sooner rather than later,” Haokip of the KNO said.

The Kuki groups have been negotiating a separate administrative unit for themselves with the Narendra Modi government since the 2023 violence.

Haokip contrasted the Kukis’ “constitutional demand” with the Naga demand for independence and sovereignty, which the Indian state is yet to concede. “They see the potential of our issues being resolved politically, while theirs asking for independence is a big question mark,” he said.

In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government signed a landmark “framework agreement” with the NSCN (IM), raising hopes of a resolution to India’s oldest insurgency. But since then, the talks have hit a deadlock, especially over questions of a separate flag and constitution for Nagas.

Naga leaders admit that the peace talks cast a shadow over their conflict with the Kukis. “As long as the Naga peace talk is pending, the problem will be there,” Lorho said.

Moreover, the new Naga position is not without its detractors from within the community.

A prominent Naga leader, who is also the former chairman of United Naga Council, warned against ignoring the historical grievances that unite both tribal groups of Manipur.

“The tribals of Manipur, Nagas and Kukis, are less protected constitutionally as compared to other tribes of Northeast,” he said. “But the Meiteis oppose the Sixth Schedule, which gives tribal areas rights over land and jobs. They oppose the Naga ceasefire. They oppose the designated camps of [armed cadres]. They refuse to give more autonomy to the existing district councils. They want everything in the valley.”

The 10 tribal hill districts of Manipur enjoy special protections under Article 371C of the Constitution. However, both Nagas and Kukis have been demanding more autonomy and powers to the councils citing an imbalance in “development” between the areas of the hills and valley of Manipur over the years.

The Naga leader criticised the UNC for surrendering its political agenda and falling prey to “divisive politics”. “This will only help the Meiteis against the tribals,” he said.

Other leaders called the decision to support the Meiteis a “temporary” alignment, confined to a single demand to scrap the SoO pact.

“In the past, Meiteis used the Kukis to fight against the Nagas,” Chuba Ozukum, convenor of Global Naga Forum, said. “After the 2023 conflict, Meiteis also changed their strategies. Now Nagas and Meiteis, having the same agenda, are working together on that. In future again, this might change, when the issue of the integration of the Naga homeland is resolved.”

Imphal, Manipur: Thousands of people from different communities participate in a mass rally organised by COCOMI and various civil society organisations, demanding an end to the alleged “proxy war”, abrogation of the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with Kuki militant… pic.twitter.com/UbdyB6Jx3H

— IANS (@ians_india) October 31, 2026

An intractable conflict

The political battle over the ceasefire, experts say, does not address the root of the violence.

G K Pillai, the former Union home secretary, told Scroll that the abrogation of the SoO will not bring down violence in the state, until the civilian population gives up arms.

“If you want peace in a society, you can't have civilians having arms,” he told Scroll.

Seilen Haokip was emphatic that the scrapping of the pact will not lead to Kukis giving up arms. “Absolutely not, because our lives are at stake.”

Pillai criticised the BJP governments at the Centre and the state for failing to stop the flow of arms to the state. “The state police and armed forces have to go from house to house and make sure that there are no arms with the civilian population, because that’s the first criterion to restore law and order,” he said.

In failing to do so, he said the BJP governments had failed “the primary role of the state”. “If you can't maintain law and order as a state, then you must resign,” the former home secretary added.

The BJP governments, he said, have neither enforced the law nor reached a political resolution.

“Neither are they looking at a political solution nor are they trying to curb the violence,” Pillai said.

“They have just allowed all the illegal armies and militia of all sides to control the situation right now. The central government is showing that it is not really bothered if Kukis and Nagas and Meiteis kill each other.”

A few minutes into his first Netflix special Buy the Dip, comedian Nimesh Patel gets the room chanting: “H-1Bs! H-1Bs!” while making a joke about immigrants in the US. He then asks whether any visa holders are in the audience. When a few people cheer, Patel cuts them off humorously. “Stay quiet man,” he says. “It’s too hot right now, the fuck’s wrong with you?”.

In a year when Indians have become a prime target for America’s anti-immigrant right wing, Indian American comedian Nimesh Patel is having a moment. The comedian, known for delivering his punchlines with a laid-back, stoner vibe, has long taken a serious, introspective look at Indian American identity, politics and culture.

He has stood out as someone who has shown the other side of the Indian American diaspora through jokes about his father, who immigrated to the US in the 1970s and ran a liquor store in New Jersey.

After the release of his Netflix special, Nimesh Patel spoke to Scroll to discuss his ideological disagreements with the diaspora and why he believes it could use a little more self-awareness about its politics and its religion.

Nimesh Patel, 40, hails from Parsippany in New Jersey, a town with a large Indian diaspora population. He was a pre-med finance graduate from New York University and considered a career in healthcare before working a series of jobs in finance while doing stand-up comedy at night.

For years, he was a regular at Comedy Cellar, one of New York’s best known stand-up comedy clubs before he was discovered by Chris Rock in 2015. Rock asked Patel to join the writing team for the Oscars. Patel became the first Indian American writer on the popular Saturday Night Live television show, where he spent one season and earned an Emmy nomination.

A decade later, his latest special titled Buy the Dip, his most Indian show yet, is making waves on Netflix after it was released in September. The name Buy the Dip is stock market terminology from his former finance career about buying a failing asset in the hope it goes up in value.

It is in part a dig at US President Donald Trump, who in April 2025 urged his followers to buy stocks hours before announcing a pause on his tariffs that sent the market soaring.

Patel discusses the Indian American diaspora intensely in the special. He occasionally brings up the side of the diaspora that is not wealthy and is working long hours to work off debt. It is a picture of the diaspora that is not often showcased in popular media, Patel said.

“I don’t think that story’s really been told, at least articulated in that sense, because we’re all really known as these planners and these type A people,” said Patel. “I’m aware that we are the richest, quote-unquote, ‘minority,’ but we’re also the group with the largest gap in our incomes.”

He added: “You have your South Asians that run Microsoft and Google and Adobe and all, and you also have the South Asians that deliver Uber and DoorDash.”

This year, many Indians on H-1B visas are facing an uncertain future in the US, a climate not helped by Republicans complaining that foreigners are displacing Americans. In the interview, Patel referred to the Vice President JD Vance calling H-1B holders “foreign indentured servants”.

“I do think, from my bird’s-eye view of it all, that [the H-1B debate] is a scapegoat for America’s problems,” Patel said. “We, as a country, tend to put Band-Aids on gunshot wounds, and then charge $2,000 for that Band-Aid.”

He said that anti-immigrant views are aired by people pushing partisan politics with very little self awareness. “The H-1B programme coming into existence is no doubt in part corporate America wanting cheaper labour,” Patel said. “It’s a problem that is easily scapegoated by the most visible minority taking ‘advantage’ of the H-1B programme and that is Indian people.”

Throughout the interview, Patel also felt compelled to respond to the rise in anti-South Asian sentiment, particularly in videos and online commentary coming from the US. A recent report found that anti-South Asian hate rose by 240% on X (formerly Twitter) from January 2024.

Last month, the situation reared its head when a 19-year-old working at a Taco Bell was arrested for allegedly planning a mass shooting at a Hindu temple outside Chicago. The surge in racism is likely to push some Indian Americans away from the Republican party after the community’s swing toward Donald Trump in 2024.

“It is crazy to see the rise,” said Patel. “I mean, it’s not crazy, I fully understand it, but it is disheartening to see the rise of the right-wing Indian, especially in America, given our relatively short history in this country, and how privy we’ve been to witnessing how America operates, and yet we still play victim to it or play into the system.”

In Buy the Dip, one of the prime targets is Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel, a Gujarati immigrant and a Trump loyalist who has become one of the representatives of the right wing Indian American. In some ways, Democrats like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who also has Gujarati roots, are trying to win back the less wealthy Indian Americans who have been drifting from the party, with a politics that speaks to how unaffordable America has become.

Asked whether it was possible to draw Indian Americans into a left-wing coalition, Nimesh said he couldn’t speak to Mamdani’s intentions but voiced his support for the New York mayor’s policies. “I do feel [Zohran] is a fantastic representative of a voice of reasonable South Asian Americans who align a lot more with his view of the world than the capitalist shills that we have representing us otherwise, like Vivek Ramaswamy,” Patel said.

He added: “If Zohran makes it cool and appreciable to not care about money and care about other people, then maybe over a generation or two, we will start to feel that way. I think a lot of Indian people forget that we come from Nehru and Gandhi, and they’re both flawed figures, obviously, but their dream wasn’t, you know, a fully capitalist, oligarchic society where, you know, people are enslaved in practice, if not in name, you know?”

While Kash Patel and Vivek Ramaswamy are frequent targets of Patel’s comedy, he holds off on making jokes about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Buy the Dip. In the special, he tells the audience that making fun of Hindus (or any religion for that matter) is against the law in India, punishable by up to three years in jail.

“I purposely left out super-specific religious jokes. I was asked to,” Patel told Scroll. “Netflix is a global business… It’s [Netflix’s] platform. You have to play by their rules.”

That restraint is unusual for Patel, who has never been shy about drawing the ire of Hindu nationalists, in India and the US. Some of his most viral sketches are breezy retellings of the origin stories of Hindu gods like Ganesh and Hanuman.

He has also famously taken on BAPS, the Hindu sect behind a big Hindu temple in New Jersey that came under scrutiny after Dalit labourers alleged that they had been trafficked and paid less than the minimum wage.

“Those jokes are reflections of my views of society,” Patel said. “They’re not just jokes about those things. When I make fun of Hinduism, it’s in the context of: Hindus are, like, so powerful in this world and so angry, let me cut them down a peg.”

He elaborated: “My favorite comedians have always had a political position, but their political position wasn’t always obvious. You know, whether it be Chris Rock – I mean, Chris Rock is fairly obvious, but – Patrice O’Neal, you know, those guys always had a societal stance, and you always knew what they felt about what the fuck was going on. And that was it. What the fuck is going on in America, you know?”

Patel is hopeful there is also a large part of the Indian American diaspora that is fine with jokes about his religion, even if it is not as vocal as his right-wing critics online. “Everywhere I go, if I make religious jokes, people will tell me after that they had a problem with it,” Patel said. “In Hinduism, it says, ‘Don’t be mad at anybody.’ You know? And then you go ahead and get really mad. I don’t understand that. I don’t know if people have that self-awareness. The younger people are often like, “Say whatever you want” and that gives me hope.”

Could your home be at risk from rising seas? Scroll is investigating coastal flooding in Mumbai and Kolkata, mapping vulnerable areas and examining whether developers and the authorities are accounting for the risks. Support this investigation and help us make this reporting possible. Fund the project here.

The Gauhati High Court has held that Permanent Account Number cards and voter ID cards alone cannot establish citizenship unless supported by the records used to issue them. The court made the observation on November 5, while dismissing a petition filed by a woman challenging a tribunal order that had declared her a foreigner.

A bench noted that PAN cards and Electoral Photo Identity Cards are issued on the basis of self-declarations, without formal verification by the Income Tax Department or the Election Commission. “Therefore, unless the records supplementing the PAN Card and EPIC are proved, the said exhibited documents cannot be accepted as a proof of citizenship of India,” the bench said. Read on.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath said that pollution caused by firecrackers during Diwali was “not a problem” as it would eventually “subside”. Adityanath’s statement came as Noida and Ghaziabad in the national capital region have recorded worsening pollution levels over the past few weeks.

In an apparent reference to the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, Adityanath said that nobody speaks out against those who have “polluted the entire system with corruption”. “If the public lights firecrackers and celebrates with fireworks for one day, suddenly pollution becomes an issue”, he added.

The Uttar Pradesh government had imposed no restrictions on the celebrations. Read on.

The Central Pollution Control Board clarified that its air quality monitoring system does not include particulate matter concentrations above 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre in hourly air-quality calculations. The monitoring equipment was originally calibrated to measure concentrations only up to that level, the pollution regulator said.

The statement came amid reports that more than 20 of Delhi’s 59 air quality monitoring stations had not reported readings on Diwali night. Air quality deteriorates sharply in Delhi in the winter months. Peak air pollution levels are historically observed during and immediately after Diwali. Read on.

The Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India alleged that several of its activists in Delhi were put under house arrest to prevent them from protesting against rising pollution levels. The party alleged that the Delhi Police tried to “forcibly enter” its office in Karawal Nagar, “without showing any official documents or authorisation”.

It alleged that the police, “acting at the behest of” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, were intimidating and threatening people by attempting to enter their homes. Read on.

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Wednesday said that pollution caused by lighting firecrackers on Diwali was “not a problem” as it will eventually “subside”.

“A lot of people are saying that pollution has increased because of Diwali,” he said at a government programme in Lucknow. “Why are you worried?”

In an apparent reference to the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, he said that nobody speaks out against those who have “polluted the entire system with corruption”.

He added: “If the public lights firecrackers and celebrates with fireworks for one day, suddenly pollution becomes an issue”.

The Uttar Pradesh government had imposed no restrictions on the celebrations, Adityanath said.

“I also took part in fireworks in Ayodhya,” he said. “When something wrong is happening, nobody says anything, but when people celebrate a festival, others suddenly start talking about pollution.”

Adityanath’s remarks came as pollution levels in Delhi and nearby cities remained in “poor” and “very poor” categories days after Diwali festivities on Sunday.

At 5.05 pm on Wednesday, the average Air Quality Index in the national capital was 313, which is categorised as “very poor”, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Ghaziabad and Noida recorded AQI readings of 297 and 290, which falls under the “poor” category.

According to government standards, an index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while 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”.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Central Pollution Control Board on Tuesday clarified that its air quality monitoring system does not include particulate matter concentrations above 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre in hourly air quality calculations. The monitoring equipment was originally calibrated to measure concentrations only up to that level, the pollution regulator said.

The statement came amid reports that more than 20 of Delhi’s 59 air quality monitoring stations had not reported readings on Diwali night.

Air quality deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital. Peak air pollution levels are historically observed during and immediately after Diwali.

This year, the festival was celebrated on Sunday, amid worsening air quality in the capital over the past week.

CPCB Comments on reporting of National Air Quality Index (NAQI) during the post-Diwali period.@byadavbjp @KVSinghMPGonda @moefcc @PIB_India @mygovindia pic.twitter.com/5PvGg9jeIM

— Central Pollution Control Board (@CPCB_OFFICIAL) November 10, 2026

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air analysed the pollution control board data on Sunday night which showed that the number of stations not reporting readings rose between midnight and 2 am, when pollution levels typically peak.

At 7 pm on Sunday, only one station was not reporting data. The number rose to seven by 10 pm and 23 by 11 pm. By midnight, 29 stations had stopped reporting readings. At 1 am on Monday, 36 stations were not reporting data. At 2 am, 35 stations were still blank.

However, data later released by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee showed that particulate matter concentrations had far exceeded the 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre threshold at several locations.

Pollution levels ‘outside range’

The Central Pollution Control Board said that when the National Air Quality Index was introduced, particulate matter analysers were calibrated to measure concentrations ranging from zero to 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre.

“The designed system of automated data validation treats hourly readings beyond the calibrated range as outside range, and such readings are not used in the computation,” it said.

The pollution regulator said that sudden increases in pollutant concentrations, such as those caused by firecrackers during Diwali, were usually short-lived.

It added that the National Air Quality Index was designed to account for prolonged exposure to air pollution rather than momentary spikes in pollutant concentrations, which it claimed were less relevant indicators of adverse health effects.

“During extreme episodes, which are occasional like Diwali firecracker bursting, this may appear as a data gap at the particular station concerned, and those hours do not contribute to the 24-hour average of relevant pollutant for concerned station,” the Central Pollution Control Board said.

The pollution regulator said that it was reviewing the methodology in light of advances in monitoring technology and evolving international practices.

How is AQI calculated

Launched in 2015, the National Air Quality Index calculates hourly AQI readings based on measurements of eight pollutants: particulate matter 2.5, particulate matter 10, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ammonia, ozone and lead.

The sub-index for each pollutant is calculated using its average concentration over the preceding 24 hours, except for carbon monoxide and ozone, for which an eight-hour average is used. The highest of the eight sub-indices determines the AQI for that hour.

According to government standards, an index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while 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”.

The pollution control board also explained why the official AQI is capped at 500. It described this as a “design feature” of the index, saying that 500 represents the highest level of health concern. The board said this level poses “almost the same health risk” as the severe category and can cause respiratory problems even in healthy people, as well as serious health impacts in those with lung diseases.

The board said differences between AQI readings on government and private applications were “attributable to differences in measurement of pollutant concentration and in methodology, and not to under-reporting”.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India on Wednesday alleged that several of its activists in Delhi were put under house arrest to prevent them from protesting against rising pollution levels.

The party alleged that the Delhi Police tried to “forcibly enter” its office in Karawal Nagar, “without showing any official documents or authorisation”.

It alleged that the police, “acting at the behest of” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, were intimidating and threatening people by attempting to enter their homes.

The party had called for a peaceful protest in Delhi against pollution on Wednesday,

Air pollution in Delhi

The air quality in Delhi remained in the “very poor” category on Wednesday, days after Diwali festivities, with two areas recording “severe” pollution levels.

At 2.05 pm, the average Air Quality Index in the national capital was 312, which is categorised as “very poor”, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Thirty of the 58 active monitoring stations recorded “very poor” AQI while Delhi Technological University and Chhawla recorded “severe” pollution levels with 410 and 411 AQI readings. This was followed by an AQI of 398 at Chandni Chowk.

According to government standards, an index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while 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”.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: Delhi air pollution: Several monitoring stations did not report AQI readings on Diwali night

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the death of an Adivasi activist.

The 39-year-old activist, Nisha Bhagat, died allegedly by suicide on Friday after going live on Facebook to accuse the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led state government and land brokers of harassing her for highlighting problems, The Hindu reported.

Her parents alleged a conspiracy in her death and demanded an investigation.

The chief minister’s announcement came hours after the officer in charge of the Pithoria police station near Ranchi was suspended on administrative grounds amid allegations of a conspiracy in the case, The Times of India and the Hindustan Times reported.

The incident took place in the Pithoria police station area and Bhagat had allegedly called the station house officer during the live video, The Hindu reported.

The chief minister’s announcement came on the same day as the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes directed police officials to probe the death and submit a report within a week, the newspaper quoted a notice as having stated, the Hindustan Times reported.

The commission was reported to have taken suo moto cognisance of the case. It served notices to the state’s chief secretary, the director general of police and the senior superintendent of Ranchi Police, the newspaper reported.

On Saturday, the police registered a first information report against two persons based on a complaint by the woman’s father, the Hindustan Times quoted an officer as saying.

Bhagat protested the religious conversion of Adivasis and supported the demand for the delisting of communities in the Scheduled Tribes list who have converted to Christianity or Islam, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

In her live video on Facebook, Bhagat said she was not associated with any group. However, she expressed disappointment with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, saying that despite expecting their support, the two organisations did not stand by her, the newspaper reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Delhi High Court on Friday halted the eviction of a century-old Waqf-notified graveyard in Civil Lines and directed the government to maintain status quo on the premises, The Indian Express reported.

The graveyard management contested an October 22 eviction notice, which claimed that the 17-acre plot is the property of the Union government and is administered by the Land and Development Office.

The premises, located between Ludlow Castle Road and Under Hill Road, houses shrines, a mosque and a madrasa. The Qabristan Bagh Sher Jung is managed by a charitable society called Anjuman Wakil-i-Quam Punjabian, which has existed since before 1910, the newspaper reported.

The court ordered the Union government to maintain status quo until the next hearing on March 11, 2027.

On October 22, the Land and Development Office issued the eviction notice to four alleged encroachers on the graveyard premises, giving them 15 days to vacate. It also warned that it would take forcible possession if they failed to comply.

The four had been declared encroachers on a portion of the graveyard land in a civil suit filed by its management in 2018. However, the graveyard management has disputed the October notice’s claim that the entire 17-acre plot belongs to the government.

The Land and Development Office functions under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and is responsible for managing government-owned and leasehold properties, particularly in Delhi.

The dispute over ownership dates back several decades.

The graveyard was notified as Waqf property in 1970. A year later, the Union government filed a civil suit claiming ownership of the land, arguing that it had acquired several properties in Delhi between 1911 and 1915, when the city was being developed, including the graveyard.

A waqf is an endowment under Islamic law dedicated to a religious, educational or charitable cause. Each state has a waqf board led by a legal entity vested with the power to acquire, hold and transfer property.

However, in 1985, a district court ruled that the Union government had failed to establish ownership because it had not completed the required acquisition procedure. According to the graveyard management, the ruling was never challenged.

The notice to the graveyard came amid a wider demolition or eviction drive in Lutyens’ Delhi, the administrative and diplomatic district of the national capital. The Race Course mosque, a heritage structure near Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official residence and nearby slum dwellers have faced threat of demolition. The government has also taken possession of the Delhi Race Club and Jaipur Polo Ground, The Indian Express reported.

On October 29, the demolition of the heritage mosque near Modi’s official residence was put on hold for four weeks after the authorities told the Delhi High Court that they would not take any coercive action against the structure during the period.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s much-awaited memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, hit the stands on Tuesday, instantly setting off political debates on social media and on television channels. However, contrary to the buzz, the book has few big revelations.

Most of it, in fact, is about her life before she became a politician. The period after 2004, the year she led the grand old party to victory in the Lok Sabha elections, is covered only in passing.

Political geeks will have to strain themselves to find passages that satiate their curiosity. But there is a lot in the memoir for discerning readers willing to read between the lines. The omissions by the author speak volumes too.

For example, the name of actor Amitabh Bachchan, once a close friend of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, appears just three times in the book. His wife, Jaya Bachchan, is not mentioned at all. The Bachchans are said to have fallen out with the Gandhis after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

The other Bachchans

Notably, though, Sonia Gandhi makes several references to Amitabh Bachchan’s parents, the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Teji Bachchan, in whose home she stayed when she first came to India from Italy in 1968.

The couple were friends of her mother-in-law, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and have been described as generous hosts.

Teji Bachchan took care of Sonia Gandhi when she fell sick and gave her several gifts over the years, including a puppy after she lost her firstborn son within hours of his birth. Harivansh Rai Bachchan offered her occasional Hindi lessons as well as sage advice during her early days in Delhi.

“You must know, Sonia beti, child, that in this country it is not what you are that counts, it is what people think you to be,” he is supposed to have told her at the time.

“This warning invariably left me wondering – does he mean that I can never be myself? I was I, and that’s the way I was; how could I possibly show myself differently? So it was that on many occasions, after being dropped back by Rajiv, I’d shed some quiet tears and long for my home and my family. Rajiv tried to reassure me. But in later years I remembered Uncle Bachchan’s words. How right he’d been – a poet and a sensitive man, having himself experienced the fickleness of the public.”

Political opponents

Even those who Sonia Gandhi has opposed bitterly in the political arena for years are either not mentioned at all or discussed only briefly. For example, the book contains no references to her interactions with the veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Lal Krishna Advani. Home Minister Amit Shah does not feature either.

However, there is a marked difference in how Sonia Gandhi describes her interactions with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She writes that she felt concern for Vajpayee when there was a terror attack on Parliament in 2001.

“My immediate thought was for the prime minister’s safety and I rang him at once. I felt relieved when he assured me that he had left the Lok Sabha more or less at the same time as I had; he was at home and secure… I heard afterwards that the prime minister had told many of his colleagues appreciatively that I had been the first to call him.”

Recollecting a heated exchange with Vajpayee during a special session of Parliament from 2002, she expresses regret for having criticised him too harshly.

“I observed in Parliament a few months later that Prime Minister Vajpayee had aged visibly and was looking far from well; his party was whispering about it, too, and soon an article appeared in Time magazine with details of his ailments. I replayed to myself the joint session scene in Central Hall… I thought I’d gone a bit too far; he was a veteran leader, and though we belonged to opposing ideologies, he was the prime minister, and I should have been more moderate in criticising him.”

In contrast, she is cold about her relationship with Modi.

“To this day, I’ve had practically no real contact with him. We meet at semi-official gatherings – for instance, at the end of every Parliament session, when leaders of the major parties customarily gather at the Speaker’s chamber. It’s a very small room, and usually many people are present, but when he comes face-to-face with me, we greet each other with a formal namaste… He tends to look away, avoiding eye contact…

When speaking in Parliament, he at times uses the same coarse language he employs in addressing a public rally. Much of the time he derides the opposition in what can only be termed a tirade.”

Imposing Emergency

Sonia Gandhi’s memoirs acknowledge the excesses committed during the Emergency, when Indira Gandhi suspended fundamental rights from 1975 to 1977. But she also offers readers a glimpse of what her mother-in-law was worried about in those days.

“Mujibur Rahman [prime minister of Bangladesh at the time] and his whole family, including a small boy of nine, had been brutally killed in his own home…

The choice of the date for the massacre was also curious – our Independence Day. While mourning Mujib and his family, Mrs. Gandhi could not overlook the possibility of a similar fate for herself and her family.”

She goes on to allege that Indira Gandhi suspected that trade union leader George Fernandes, among the many opposition politicians imprisoned during the Emergency, was conspiring to assassinate her. Fernandes would later go on to serve as defence minister in Vajpayee’s government.

The other takeaway from this section of the book is that in Sonia Gandhi’s view, part of the blame for the Emergency’s excesses lay with her brother-in-law, Sanjay Gandhi, and his wife, Maneka Gandhi.

“What is undeniable, however, is that he [Sanjay Gandhi] had a significant role in decision-making during the Emergency period, despite lacking a constitutional locus standi for some of his political interventions…

The role of Maneka, too, was worrying my mother-in-law, who felt that, rather than being a sobering influence on Sanjay, she was egging him on in his activities, even interfering in them. She had said to Cabinet Secretary PN Dhar about her young daughter-in-law: “Uske abhi se par nikalne lage hain.” (“She has started growing wings already.”)”

Her husband Rajiv Gandhi, on the other hand, is presented as someone who cautioned his mother about imposing Emergency and later tried to convey to her that Indians were growing resentful of it.

Babri Masjid demolition

It is a pattern that stretches to her description of Rajiv Gandhi’s handling of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, which eventually led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the sixteenth-century mosque in Ayodhya.

The Hindutva campaign to have a temple to the deity Ram constructed at the site of the mosque had picked up steam during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as prime minister. He has long been criticised for failing to thwart it. In fact, it was under his government that the locks to the mosque were opened and Hindu worshippers were allowed access to the mosque.

But Sonia Gandhi’s narration, predictably, does not apportion to him any responsibility for the events followed.

“Rajiv’s aim had been to find a negotiated solution that would be legal and acceptable to all parties involved in the dispute: to let the temple be built without disturbing the mosque… Rajiv’s attempt to revive Mahatma Gandhi’s alternative conception of a ‘Ram Rajya,’ with its core ideals of virtue, morality, and justice, fell on deaf ears.”

Rajiv Gandhi lost his prime ministership in 1989. Two years later, he was assassinated by a terrorist from the Sri Lankan group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Babri Masjid was demolished by a Hindutva mob a little over a year after his death.

Taking over Congress

For years, Sonia Gandhi’s opponents have accused her of being unfair to veteran Congress leader Sitaram Kesri, whom she abruptly replaced as party president in 1998. Kesri came from Bihar and belonged to an Other Backward Class community, which adds greater political significance to the charge.

Still, she addresses the issue only perfunctorily in the book.

“The Congress Working Committee decided unanimously that a change of leadership was necessary. Congress President Sitaram Kesri was made to step down and on March 14, 1998, I was elected president in his place. Kesri-ji, as I addressed him, had been an active Congressman for more than six decades; on an impulse I drove directly from the meeting to his house, greeted him, and bent down to touch his feet, as one does as a mark of respect to elders. He was taken aback by my unexpected appearance but gave me his blessing, placing his hand on my head with tears in his eyes.”

No, Yes, No and Manmohan Singh

Several of the excerpts published in the media show how Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister after the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. But, for a brief moment, she had agreed to take up the job before passing it on to the economist-turned-politician Manmohan Singh.

“A meeting is going on with some of the leaders of the alliance in Rajiv’s conference room at the far end of my house. They’ve been talking in turns for over an hour, urging me to agree to their proposal, while I listen silently. As the discussion comes to an end, they look towards me for a response. I muster up as much courage as I can and I say my piece.

There is an uproar amongst them, they stand up and move towards me. I, too, stand up. They physically surround me. “We will not accept this,” one of them says. “You cannot take this decision, Madam,” says another. Their tone is forceful, almost aggressive. “We will not take no for an answer.” I am shaken. I feel overpowered. “Theek hai,” (“All right,”) I mumble almost inaudibly. The assembled leaders don’t even wait for me to finish my sentence, they begin to congratulate me, one by one. “She has agreed, she has agreed,” someone says. I just stand there, numb, unable to say anything further. The leaders depart, satisfied.”

Her children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, intervened at that point and got her to reverse her decision before word could spread. Sonia Gandhi writes that Manmohan Singh was “persuaded to agree” to become prime minister soon after.

Though she lists Singh’s personal qualities and his professional accomplishments, the blunt political rationale behind his selection is stated in the following two sentences.

“Over a period of time, the Congress had been painted as being left of centre, and our government would now be supported by the Communist parties as well. I thought Dr. Manmohan Singh would assuage the doubts of many about our ability to manage and continue the policies that had been begun years ago.”

Identifying with Indira Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi took charge of the Congress three decades after her arrival in India. Before that, she had always maintained that she did not wish to become a politician. Her trajectory in public life makes for a stark contrast to that of Indira Gandhi, who made a series of ambitious moves and even split the original Congress party in order to establish her total control over it.

Yet, in her memoirs, Sonia Gandhi suggests that they had much in common.

“She [Indira Gandhi] confided to us how terrified she had been during her first years as prime minister when called upon to face Parliament, how unnerved when she had to speak or take part in debates. Yet she would strive to put up a calm and composed front – feeling tongue-tied, words refusing to come out, her high-pitched voice compounding her embarrassment. Many of these terrors I was to experience myself years later when I stepped into the political arena.”

Women in politics (and political families)

Not only her mother-in-law, Sonia Gandhi claims to feel strongly for other women in politics too – even those opposed to her party.

“In spite of their being political opponents I admired them and maintained a personal rapport with them, especially with Mamata Banerjee and Kumari Mayawati. All of them were in themselves impressive, hardworking, and politically astute politicians who made their name in what was very much a man’s world.”

This sympathy, she suggests, extends to women who may not have been politicians themselves but married into political families like hers. Two such women, former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita Kejriwal, and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s wife, Kalpana Soren, find mention towards the end of the book, when she recalls meeting them during the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign.

“I went to the rally in Delhi to meet the wives of the two jailed chief ministers. They had suddenly found themselves compelled to manage their parties; in the Indian political tradition, going back to the Quit India movement when all the leaders of the independence struggle were imprisoned, wives step in at times when their spouses are in jail or beleaguered. I could understand how difficult it must have been for them. As I walked up to the stage, on the spur of the moment, I embraced each of them and spoke a few words of sympathy and encouragement.”

In April, two surrendered Maoist leaders, Dinesh Modiam and Papa Rao, visited Pedda Korma village in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. They were accompanied by police and revenue department officials as part of a government programme called Niyad Nellanar.

Niyad Nellanar literally means “your good village” in Gondi. Chhattisgarh government launched the programme in 2024 with the aim to provide basic facilities and welfare benefits to villages in Bastar region which lie within a 5-km radius of newly built security camps.

Until recently, Bastar was the stronghold of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), which waged an insurgency in the forests of central and eastern India for over four decades. In March this year, the government declared victory over the Maoists after most insurgent leaders either surrendered or were killed in a two-year-long security offensive.

Dinesh Modiam, a native of Pedda Korma village, used to be the secretary of the CPI (Maoist)’s Gangaloor area committee before he surrendered to the police in March 2025. Area committees are part of Maoist divisional committees, which are further subsumed within zonal committees.

Papa Rao, a senior Maoist leader, was a member of the Dandakaranya special zonal committee – its jurisdiction stretched across Bastar region and several adjoining areas in neighbouring states. Listed with the police as a wanted Maoist whose capture carried a Rs 25 lakh-reward, he surrendered to Chhattisgarh police in March this year.

At the Niyad Nellanar event, according to residents of Pedda Korma, Rao spoke right at the end, after police and revenue officials delivered speeches outlining government schemes for the village. He told the villagers that they could accept the schemes if they stood to benefit from them.

This remark, several villagers told me, angered them. An elderly man confronted Rao, physically pushing him away. He told both the former Maoists to leave the village and never return.

Sonu, a young resident of Pedda Korma, explained: “Gussa to rahega na, bahut kuch hua hai gaon main.” It is natural to feel anger given all that has happened in our village.

Travelling across Bastar, this reporter heard similar sentiments across several villages that were once part of the Maoist area of influence. The surrenders of Maoist leaders have left many local residents feeling betrayed.

“For 40 years, the villagers supported them, fed them and hid them,” said an elderly man from a village in Bijapur’s Usur block, whom this reporter met in February 2026. “People went to jail rather than disclose their whereabouts.”

“Innocent villagers were jailed on suspicion, charged with offences they had nothing to do with,” he continued, listing the many sacrifices that people made for a movement that they believe the leaders called off without consulting them.

On their part, former Maoist leaders have maintained that they had no choice but to surrender. The Maoist organisation had grown weak on account of dwindling weapons and eroding support in the villages, a senior Maoist leader Mallojula Venugopal, known in the region as Sonu Dada, said in a public video message in November 2025, a month after he surrendered.

“Of course, they were losing our support,” said a villager from Usur block when I visited in April, “because they were randomly killing people, accusing them of being mukhbir [police informers].”

In Chhote Farasgaon village of Narayanpur district, a man whose father was killed by the Maoists on the suspicion that he was a mukhbir or police informer, said: “A people’s court would be convened over every small incident. Why, then, did they [Maoist leaders] not hold a jan adalat before surrendering?”

Overhearing this comment, another villager added: “Now they have simply abandoned the region, leaving us to deal with the powerful state.”

The man whose father was killed by the Maoists said: “When these surrendered Naxals return to their villages, they will have to face us and answer some of our questions.”

Several of these questions emerged sharply in Pedda Korma village, where even Dinesh Modiam’s family is opposed to his return.

As conflict abates in Bastar after four decades of Maoist insurgency, a painful search for truth and reconciliation has begun. Our series documents this process. This is the second part.

A fairly large village with 178 households, Pedda Korma is part of a gram panchayat that goes by the same name. The other villages part of it are Bodla Pusnar, Munga and Kake Korma.

When I visited Pedda Korma in early May, it was time for “vetti” – the community hunt, in which villagers set out in small groups, spending nights in the forest in search of wild game. The animal caught is brought back to the village and cooked for a community feast.

Men and young boys had gathered beneath the shade of a large Kosum tree, with bows and arrows in hand, waiting for others to join them. As their numbers gradually swelled, they set off in the heat and dust, moving quietly, with dogs trailing behind. Before they left, I managed to speak briefly with a few of them.

The history they recounted was a familiar one: in the 1980s, having crossed over from what was then Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists gradually expanded their presence in the forests and villages of Bijapur.

The district came to be known as the West Bastar division of the CPI (Maoist). The division had four area committees, including the Gangaloor area committee, which was established sometime in 2004.

Bhima (name changed), who served as a member of the Pedda Korma village committee, recalled why villagers started supporting the insurgents – fear of the Maoists kept forest department officials away.

“We began to feel safe in their presence,” he said, of the Maoists. “Hum jungle me jaisa chahe ghoomte the, koi darr nahi, zarurat ke cheeze lekar aate the” – we could roam about the forest freely, without any fear, and collect whatever we needed.

After spending two decades as a village committee member – a role that did not involve picking up arms – Bhima surrendered to the police in 2025. He now lives in his village, tending to his small patch of land along with his family.

In the early 2000s, he recounted, several young men from Pedda Korma, including Dinesh Modiam, joined the Maoists as armed cadres. But recruitment shot up only after Salwa Judum took shape in 2005, he said. The Judum was an anti-Maoist vigilante movement supported by the state. As Judum vigilantes went around burning homes in villages that did not support them, many fled to the forest to seek refuge.

In Pedda Korma, nearly 50-60 homes were set on fire and two elderly civilians were killed, Bhima said. The entire village had to hide in the forests for two years, he added.

With the state hiring Judum vigilantes as Special Police Officers, some people from Pedda Korma switched sides and joined the police. Others felt compelled to leave their land and move to the small towns where the government had built “relief camps for Maoist victims”.

Among those who left Pedda Korma was the then village sarpanch Pandu Modiam who moved to Bijapur. Bhima alleged Pandu pressured other villagers to support the government and the police. One of the local police recruits, Manu Modiam, was later killed by Maoist cadres in 2013, Bhima added.

I contacted Pandu Modiam, who continues to live in Bijapur, but he declined to speak with me. His son, Anil Modiam, said his father had not been keeping good health ever since Maoist cadres beat him up in 2024.

Anil, now 23, was a child when the family left Pedda Korma in 2007. He said his parents told him that their house had been burnt down by Judum activists. After spending some time hiding in the forest, they moved to Bijapur since it was not possible to move back to the village.

Anil said villagers unfairly suspected his father of collaborating with the police. Although the police had offered jobs to the family, he said they had refused to take them as that would only endanger their larger family left behind in the village.

Anil said his father largely stayed away from Pedda Korma – on the rare occasion that he visited the village, he would come back home to Bijapur well before nightfall. However, in November 2024, Pandu stayed back. Incidentally, that day, security forces had passed through the village. Maoist cadres summoned several villagers, including Pandu, to the forest, where they were beaten up, Anil alleged.

He added that his father was questioned about his failure as sarpanch, even though it was evident that the restrictions imposed by the Maoists had made it impossible for him to function.

In his father’s defence, Anil added that he used to go to police stations to help villagers who had been arrested or to identify those who had been killed by the security forces – a role that sarpanches are expected to play both by the police and the villagers.

“Those very people who beat up my father and others for leaking information to the police have now surrendered and joined the police,” Anil said, referring to Dinesh Modiam, the surrendered Maoist leader.

Internal rivalries

Dinesh Modiam’s name surfaced repeatedly in several villages I visited in the Gangaloor area. One of the party’s earliest recruits, he had followed in the footsteps of Vella Modiam, also from Pedda Korma.

Both men rose through the Maoist ranks – Dinesh Modiam became the secretary of the Gangaloor area committee, while Vella Modiam became a member of the divisional committee. Their trajectories eventually diverged, with each falling victim to the very forces they had helped set in motion.

While Dinesh Modiam surrendered to the police in March 2025 and became part of the District Reserve Guard, an anti-Maoist police unit made up of local recruits, Vella Modiam was killed in December 2025 in an ambush. This ambush, villagers said, was led by Dinesh Modiam.

In conversations with villagers, I gathered that the former secretary of the Gangaloor area committee was feared but not respected.

In fact, after Dinesh Modiam surrendered in March 2025, villagers from across the Gangaloor area had organised a protest march, accusing him of sanctioning the killings of several civilians after unfairly branding them as police informers. The villagers appealed to the police to arrest him, rather than extending him protection.

“But the police conveniently took him into their fold, despite Dinesh’s involvement in the killings of several police personnel,” said a villager from the neighbouring Mankeli village who had participated in the march.

Dinesh’s surrender and subsequent police recruitment helped the security forces establish a camp in Pedda Korma in September 2025. Once that was done, the police arrived in the village with a list of 93 names from Pedda Korma gram panchayat – 48 from Pedda Korma, 39 from Bodla Pusnar, and six from Kake Korma – claiming they were Maoist cadres and supporters, and asking them to surrender.

“Only a third of them were armed cadres,” said Bhima. “The rest were village level supporters whose identities would be known only to people like Dinesh Modiam.”

However, since resisting the police could put them in trouble, all of them, including him, lined up to surrender, he added.

But this did not bring an end to the conflict.

More murders

Two months after Dinesh Modiam’s surrender, three men from Pedda Korma were killed by the Maoists. Two of them were his brothers – Jungu Modiam and Soma Modiam. The third was a 13-year-old boy Anil Madvi, whose brother works with the police’s District Reserve Guard. The killings were attributed to Vella Modiam, the other senior leader from Pedda Korma.

Six months later, security forces ambushed and killed Vella. Within a week of his killing, the police arrested 11 people, eight from Pedda Korma and nine from Mankeli, including Vella’s wife and sister.

Most villagers saw Dinesh Modiam’s hand in this – they said this was his way of avenging the death of his brothers. But they claimed that his own extended family did not support him.

As proof, they cited the fact that when Dinesh visited the village in April this year, his relatives asked him to leave. Some of them even openly declared to the accompanying police officials that if Dinesh ever came to the village alone, they would murder him.

Hearing this, the police swiftly took away the former Maoist on a bike, a villager recalled.

Hurt sentiments

In Pedda Korma, when I visited the homes of Dinesh Modiam’s deceased brothers, his 19-year-old sister, Chhindri, was helping her widowed sisters-in-law cut unripe mangoes to dry them in the sun.

When I asked her why the family was opposed to Dinesh’s visits to the village, she said, without lifting her head: “Kyun aane denge, sian log bahut gusse me hai.” Why would we let him return, the elders in the village are angry with him.

Chhindri pointed towards her sisters-in-law, the two wives of Jugnu Modiam, and asked who was going to look after them and their 10 children.

Others in the village told me that Dinesh, while in the Maoist party, had asked his father’s elder brother, Sika Modiam, to leave the village after two of his sons had joined the police in 2017-’18. Since Dinesh had forced his own uncle into exile, the larger family resented him and was unwilling to accept his return, said another villager.

Sika had returned to the village recently. Sanki Modiam, the wife of Sika’s son, Manish Modiam, a District Reserve Guard, was now the sarpanch of the village, although both she and her husband lived in Bijapur. When I called her, Manish came on call, introducing himself as the “sarpanch pati” who handles Sanki’s official work. He brushed aside my queries about the return of surrendered Maoists, adding that everything was well in the village.

The resentment towards Dinesh ran deep in the village. Village residents listed out the names of 19 people from Pedda Korma, including four women, who were in prison. Barring two, all of them had been arrested after Dinesh had surrendered, which made villagers suspect that he had revealed their identities to the police. This was in addition to the 93 people who were made to surrender to the police. As part of the surrender protocol, they have to report to the nearest security camp on a weekly basis.

“Nineteen people are still in jail as he [Dinesh Modiam] sits with the police,” said Somu Modiam, whose younger brother is in jail. Another villager sitting next to him added: “Several cadres lost their lives safeguarding the lives of these senior leaders.”

I contacted Dinesh Modiam to seek his responses to these allegations. But he said he could speak to me only if the district superintendent of police allows him to.

Bijapur district superintendent of police, Umesh Gupta, declined permission, stating that higher officials would need to be consulted for it.

A heavy toll

Like many villages in Bastar, Pedda Korma has suffered a heavy toll on account of the conflict between the Maoists and the state.

A total of 17 people from the village have been killed in the conflict since 2001, Bhima said, listing their names and the years of their death. A few were killed in genuine encounters between the two sides, but many were pulled out of their homes and killed in cold blood, he alleged.

Of the nearly 25 men and women from Pedda Korma who joined the Maoists, about 13 have died, while the rest have surrendered. Most have returned to the village after completing a skill training course organised by the police, Bhima added.

Others in the village put the number of those employed with the police and paramilitary forces at 11. Four of them, including Dinesh, belong to one family, villagers said.

While many in the village were pleased with the fact that Dinesh’s family had ostracised him, they have largely stayed away from their internal politics, a family member of Vella Modiam clarified. With the withdrawal of the Maoist party, those with the police and paramilitary forces now exercise more clout in the village, he added, by way of explanation.

When asked about the social equation in the village, Bhima said that those who are with the police have sent a loud and clear message that anyone raising a voice against them would be packed off to the prison.

As an example, he cited a recent episode in which a young boy got into a heated argument with the relatives of a man employed with the police’s District Reserve Guard. Soon after, the DRG personnel came to the village, picked up the boy and took him to the Pedda Korma security camp. The village elders had to rush to the camp and apologise on his behalf. Only then was he released, Bhima said.

In this situation, keeping their heads low and tending to their work was the only option most villagers had, Bhima said. “Our forest, our land, our river, stream and hills are now our only support.”

The Delhi Police’s Crime Branch on Saturday registered a first information report about fraudulent notices sent in the department’s name to social media platform X, seeking the blocking of accounts of digital rights groups Internet Freedom Foundation and Software Freedom Law Centre, The Print reported.

The FIR was registered against unidentified persons under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to forgery and impersonation of a public servant, as well as computer-related offences under the Information Technology Act, The Hindu reported.

The police have traced a 17-year-old in Srinagar as the alleged “imposter”, The Print reported.

On Friday, the social media platform told the Delhi High Court that an internal investigation had established that the notices were not genuine police communications and had been sent by an “imposter”.

The platform also assured the court that the accounts will not be taken down.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the two digital rights groups challenging the notices.

Following the platform’s submission, the court disposed of the pleas.

Double hoax

On October 30, the digital rights groups had gone public with purported legal notices they had received in the name of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, asking them to stop documenting and opposing the government’s content restriction orders.

The RSS has not officially commented on the notices but its member Ratan Sharda and Kanchan Gupta, an advisor to the information and broadcasting ministry, denied on social media that the organisation had sent any such notices.

The digital rights groups had later received communication from X, informing them that the Delhi Police had sent an “illegal content report” asking for their posts and accounts to be taken down since they were allegedly defamatory about the RSS.

Scroll reported that the purported notices appeared to be part of an elaborate hoax that seemed to have swept in not just the digital rights groups and the RSS, but even the Delhi Police.

Read more on this: Takedown notices from RSS, Delhi Police to digital rights groups turn out to be fake

Not only was the notice sent in the name of the RSS fake, a police officer familiar with the case told Scroll that even the purported police communication to X was fabricated. The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity since he is not authorised to speak to the press.

Questions sent to Delhi Police’s spokesperson were unanswered when Scroll reported about the matter.

Besides the accounts of the Internet Freedom foundation and Software Freedom Law Centre, the notices had also been sent to X account Geo Blocked in India, which compiles blocking orders in the country.

The purported takedown order sent to X listed 40 links of 37 posts and the entire accounts of the Internet Freedom Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center and Geo Blocked in India.

It also asked X to take down posts by 16 others, including Sharda, technology journalist Abhishek Baxi, The Wire’s Editor Seema Chishti and Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Naseer Hussain, for commenting on the notice received by the digital rights groups.

The Internet Freedom Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center had questioned the legality of the purported notices, adding that defamation is not a police matter and that no court can take cognisance of it except on a complaint by the person who is aggrieved.

The police cannot investigate a non-cognisable offence without an order of a magistrate, the Internet Freedom Foundation said.

The police officer had told Scroll that the report sent to X had come from a fake email address purporting to be an official Delhi Police account.

The report, seen by Scroll, states that the email address through which it was sent to X: “ splcp-crime-dl@delhipolice.gov.in” – the address for Special Commissioner (Crime) Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal. The Software Freedom Law Centre claimed that this address was present on the Delhi Police’s directory till November 4, but an email sent to it that day bounced back with an error saying that it did not exist.

On November 5, the digital rights group said that the police directory had changed Dhaliwal’s email address to “splcp[dot]crime[at]delhipolice[dot]gov[dot]in” – replacing hyphens with dots.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.