India’s peak power demand hit a record high for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday amid a heatwave in several regions of the country, the Ministry of Power said.

The ministry said that at 3.45 pm on Thursday, an energy demand of 270.8 gigawatts was recorded.

“The surge in demand appears to be linked to the greater usage of cooling appliances in view of the prevailing weather conditions across the country,” the ministry said.

Thursday’s peak electricity demand was met through diversified energy sources, it said. Thermal power constituted the largest share at 62.8%, followed by solar at 22.0%, hydro at 5.8% and wind at 5.0%, with the remainder energy supplied by other sources, the ministry said.

“The availability of coal at the thermal power plants is adequate and the supplies are being effectively monitored,” the ministry added.

India’s peak power demand hit successive all-time highs this week, surging from 257.3 gigawatts on Monday to 260.4 gigawatts on Tuesday and 265.4 gigawatts by Wednesday.

The government had projected that the peak power demand would reach 271 gigawatts this summer, The Times of India reported.

The record power demand comes amid Delhi recording its highest night temperature for May in nearly 14 years on Wednesday, at 31.9 degrees Celsius.

On Thursday, the weather department issued an orange alert for heatwave conditions in the national capital region for the next five days. An orange alert requires the authorities to “be prepared to take action”.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The coastal district of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh is set for a major transformation. On April 28, the foundation stone was laid in Tarluvada, a village in Vizag for a new data centre for Google – expected to be the technology company’s largest data centre outside the United States.

The data centre is part of an AI Hub announced by the company last October. The state government allotted 480 acres of land in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli districts for the hub.

Activists and lawyers have raised environmental concerns and questions about the lack of clarity on water and energy consumption for the operation of the approved data centres. They also assert that data centres should be classified as separate infrastructure projects with massive resource needs, for obtaining environment clearance.

Experts call for a clear, defined national data centre policy. After a draft policy was launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India in 2020, there have been no updates or a final policy yet.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries Ltd is also planning to build a 1.5 gigawatt data centre cluster, also in Vizag. AP aims to create 6.5 GW of compute capacity in the coming years.

Environmental concerns

Data centres use water, primarily for cooling the systems. Google alone consumed approximately 31 billion litres of water across all its data centres in 2024. While the company reports that a majority of its freshwater withdrawals came from sources at low risk of water depletion, further information on said sources was not provided.

It also states that it’s planning integrated watershed management to address existing hydrological stress. However, Visakhapatnam district has the lowest levels of groundwater available for domestic, agricultural or industrial use in the state (2.12 TMC), as on April 1, 2026.

The AP government, in its state data centre policy, also proposes to leverage seawater cooling systems as a cooling solution, but it is unclear what percentage of freshwater and seawater would be used in the Tarluvada project.

The environmental clearance issued to M/s Vizag Mega Data Centre Park Limited for the 1000 megawatt (1 GW) data centre park in Tarluvada, accessed by Mongabay-India, does not disclose information about the water usage during the operation phase. Emails to Google with questions about their water consumption plans in Andhra Pradesh were unanswered at the time of publishing this story.

“We don’t know the source of water for the operation of the data centre (in Tarluvada). It is not mentioned in the EC,” said Gutta Rohith, an advocate with Human Rights Forum, an organisation that has demanded the suspension of the environmental clearance for this data centre project. “We don’t know if they are going to use desalinised water or surface water or groundwater. Even the amount of water required for cooling in this hyperscale data centre is not mentioned in the EC,” he said. Hyperscale data centres, like the one being built in Tarluvada for Google, are large facilities meant for vast data processing and storage needs.

“In the case of seawater cooling, it’ll be important to ensure compliance with the coastal zone regulations as it’ll need infrastructure to transport the water and potential impacts on the biodiversity and coastal communities and livelihoods,” said Shalu Agarwal, Director of Programmes at the think-tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

For the AI Hub in Vizag, AdaniConnex and Airtel will support the infrastructure for clean energy and subsea cables. But Rohith questions what percentage of the operations would come from renewable energy and if the transmission infrastructure is prepared for the same.

“Hyperscale data centres also train their artificial intelligence models. They require high processing servers and consume more energy than regular data centres. Data centres have to run 24×7. The large language models created by the tech companies need to be trained all the time. We need to know how much energy will be consumed by this 1 GW data centre and how much of it is renewable energy and also how the companies will transmit the energy from, say, solar parks,” said Rohith.

He also adds that creating more solar parks locally to power gigawatt-scale data centres would need thousands of acres of land.

“Due to high uptime requirements, data centres can have huge outage costs; so they cannot really afford power outages,” said Shalu. “Even a 100 MW hyperscaler would consume electricity to the equivalent of a large village. Also, the energy demand pattern of these hyperscale facilities is dynamic and less predictable, because it is closely linked to the AI workloads that can go up and down. That then can have significant implications on the grid stability and the frequency,” she adds.

Rohith also points out that there is no separate category for data centres in the Environment Impact Assessment notification. “Data centres are being categorised as buildings or township development projects wherein there’s no need for a public hearing or draft EIA [Environment Impact Assessment] reports. This is the case for all states and they (the companies) get state level approval where the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority [SEIAA] provides the EC [environmental clearance].”

For the Tarluvada project, the company submitted the proposal on April 9 and about 10 days later, on April 18, the environmental clearance was approved by the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority. While the state government promotes ease of doing business, Human Rights Forum questions the lack of clarity on the resource use.

Resource use

The lack of information on resource use is not a challenge in Vizag alone. “We definitely need clarity from the company or the state about what resources will be used and how much groundwater will be consumed to operate the data centre,” said Indumugi C, a legal counsel at Internet Freedom Foundation and the author of a recent factsheet on India’s data centres. “We filed an RTI with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India asking for information about the environmental impacts of data centres. This was forwarded to The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which said that it has zero information about data centres, whereas it was MeitY that created the draft data centre policy for India in 2020.”

All around the globe, investigations have shown that the communities don’t receive much information about the data centres that come up in their neighbourhoods.

Brazil-based investigative journalist Lais Martins who has been reporting on technology for over eight years says, “In Brazil, the most striking pattern is the lack of information for the communities. Companies that are developing data centres don’t inform communities about the impacts. They treat this as any other industrial development like factories or renewable power plants. They fail to treat data centres as very specific infrastructure with very specific needs – energy and water use for example, compared to other types of infrastructure.”

“Many documents we try to access are not open to the public because of business confidentiality,” she adds.

Martins says that India needs to take into account if the data centres make the tech industry more independent. “Are these data centres making our countries more sovereign? This has to be a discussion on the table.”

India’s goals

With data generation increasing at an unprecedented rate, data centres are rapidly being built all around the world. India’s total data centre capacity has increased from about 375 MW in 2020 to around 1.5 GW by 2025. The country hosts nearly 20% of the world’s data, while its data centre capacity stands at around 3% of the global total.

“The AI world is about intelligence. Intelligence is based on knowledge and knowledge is based on data. Therefore, it is important to keep data within India and have our own LLMs. That requires us to have data centres within our boundaries. So, it is not just about digital sovereignty but also intellectual sovereignty,” said Sharad Agarwal, the CEO of the technology company Sify which has 14 operational data centres in India. The AI Impact Summit held earlier this year in New Delhi also spotlighted the country’s goal to place democratisation at the core of the artificial intelligence strategy.

The digital economy is expected to contribute 20% of the national income of India by 2030, which also underscores the significance of data centres. In the Union Budget 2026-’27, the government has also announced a tax holiday till 2047 for eligible foreign cloud service providers operating through India-based data centre infrastructure.

With Indian policies aimed at positioning itself as a global investment hub for artificial intelligence, the data centre industry must look at environment-friendly ways to operate.

Data centre tech

A data centre’s energy and water efficiency are measured via two main metrics – Power Usage Efficiency and Water Usage Efficiency. While the PUE generally ranges from 1 (efficient) to 2 (inefficient), WUE ranges from 0 litres per kWh to over 2.5 L/kWh.

With the growing AI use and demand, the energy density is also changing and one data centre could consume up to double the power it did for a non-AI workload. “So we’re working on technologies like direct-to-chip liquid cooling, wherein instead of just cooling the atmosphere around the systems, we reduce the heat within the critical components of CPUs by cooling them directly,” said Sharad.

“The PUE [Power Usage Efficiency] in Indian data centres is continuously being improved,” he adds. “It used to be closer to 2 and now with advanced technologies like direct-to-chip liquid cooling, the PUE is heading close to 1.3. The data centre industry is widely investing in renewable energy and in Sify about 60% of our energy consumption comes from solar and wind.”

For water usage, there are several new technologies that are being developed and tested. There are two major methods through which data centres cool their systems. One method is evaporative cooling which cools hot server air by using evaporating water to absorb and remove heat before the air is recirculated. This uses a lot of water. The second way is a closed loop system. “In India, for over a decade now, Indian data centres have been adapting to closed-loop water chiller systems where the water is filled only once and this water goes to the chiller and keeps getting reused,” said Sharad.

National data centre policy

Amid advancements in data centre technology and new investments, India does not still have a national policy framework specifically governing data centres. Experts note that this is an important step.

“We should have a very clear framework so that there’s no confusion across states and developers also don’t scout for states with better incentives. There should be uniform performance benchmarks, PUE and WUE,” said Shalu.

“Creating investment channels for a whole new sector means that we’re also allowing the sector to acquire land and resources. A national policy needs to consider how we’re allocating land and looking at land use. Displacement can occur like any other large scale projects in the country,” warns Indumugi.

The way forward

Currently 15 states have their own data centre policies. Most of these policies exhibit an absence of performance standards such as Power Usage Efficiency or Water Usage Efficiency, finds a CEEW report on scaling India’s data centres.

At present, the energy and water demand of data centres when you look at the national level is not a lot, shares Shalu. The CEEW report notes, in 2025, data centres account for ~0.5% of national electricity consumption. “The water use is also approximately 0.02%-0.03% of the national demand,” Shalu adds.

“However, because they are water and energy-intensive, depending upon their siting, the pressure they put on the local grid and water resources can become concerning,” she adds. A recent map by WRI India showed that more than half of India’s data centres are located in water-stressed regions.

Decisions taken today on siting, power sourcing, and cooling technologies will shape India’s long-term environmental and infrastructure footprint, the CEEW report notes.

Shalu also highlights the need for improved centre-state coordination for transmission lines and energy networks, and long-term standards for data centre companies. The bigger data centres need higher voltage substations, dedicated transmission lines, and intrastate networks. These take time which oftentimes are not available when data centres are mushrooming. “More coordination is needed between centre and state to plan ahead in time for those transmission facilities – at the interstate level or intrastate level,” she explains.

“We also need to set long-term standards for data companies wherein there’s a set trajectory to improve the standards every few years as the technology improves, nudging the developers to invest in environment-friendly technologies.”

Linking this to incentives, Shalu cites the example of the Singapore Green Data Center Roadmap that incentivises energy-efficiency and concludes, “We are also providing several incentives for data centres to invest in India. So, why not use that as a condition to also meet environmental standards?”

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The X account of satirical political campaign Cockroach Janta Party was blocked in India “in response to a legal demand”. The social media campaign, which began on Saturday in response to comments made by Chief Justice Surya Kant, describes itself as a “political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth”.

It was created by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist from Pune. Dipke was part of the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media team. The campaign had garnered 15.5 million followers on Instagram as of Thursday evening, ahead of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s 8.8 million.

On Thursday, Dipke asked if the page had been withheld because the campaign had sought the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical college admissions being cancelled following a paper leak. He described the blocking order as an “own goal” by the authorities. Read on.

The Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal Police not to take coercive action against Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee till July 31 for his allegedly provocative remarks about Union Home Minister Amit Shah at political rallies during the Assembly election campaign.

The bench said that Banerjee did not need to be interrogated in custody and that the police can send a notice requiring his presence during the investigation.

However, the bench verbally objected to Banerjee’s remark from a rally in which he had asked “which godfather” from Delhi would “come to their rescue” after the election results, in apparent references to Shah. “...These statements were uncalled for,” the judge said. Read on.

At 31.9 degrees Celsius, Delhi recorded its highest night temperature for May in nearly 14 years on Wednesday. The India Meteorological Department issued an orange alert for heatwave conditions in the national capital region for the next five days. The orange alert requires the authorities to “be prepared to take action”.

The maximum temperature is expected to reach 46 degrees Celsius during the week, it said. Read on.

The West Bengal government made singing Vande Mataram mandatory in all madrasas under the state’s Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Department. The directive will apply to “government model madrasas, recognised government-aided and unaided madrasas” with immediate effect.

The order came five days after the new Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal directed all state-run and state-aided schools to mandatorily sing Vande Mataram during morning assemblies. Read on.

Two Congress MLAs were among the 23 legislators sworn into the Tamil Nadu Cabinet. While the Congress had been part of the ruling alliances in Tamil Nadu, this is the first time in 59 years that it is part of the state government.

Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam leader and Chief Minister Vijay’s 10-member Cabinet had been sworn-in on May 10. Read on.

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The X account of satirical political campaign Cockroach Janta Party was on Thursday blocked in India.

The profile was withheld “in response to a legal demand”, the platform said.

The social media campaign, which began on Saturday, describes itself as a “political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth”.

It was created by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist from Pune. Dipke has a background in public relations and journalism, and was part of the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media team.

Since it was launched in response to reports of remarks by Chief Justice Surya Kant on Friday comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches”, the campaign had garnered 13.8 million followers on Instagram as of Thursday afternoon. It was ahead of 8.8 million followers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on the platform and 13.3 million of the Congress.

“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in profession,” PTI had quoted Kant as having said. “Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists and they start attacking everyone.”

After the X account was withheld on Thursday, Dipke asked in a post on Instagram “why are they so scared of us?”

He asked if the page had been blocked because the campaign had sought the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test being cancelled following a paper leak.

However, Dipke said that the blocking of the X account was on expected lines and described it as an “own goal” by the authorities.

Hours later, Dipke said that the campaign had opened a new X account.

The chief justice claimed on Saturday that he had been misquoted by sections of the media and that it was baseless to say that he criticised young people in general. Kant claimed he had specifically criticised “those who have entered professions like the Bar [legal profession] with the aid of fake and bogus degrees”.

Nevertheless, the remarks sparked a social media furore that contributed to the creation and swift rise in popularity of the Cockroach Janta Party.

Three trademark applications filed

Three trademark applications have been filed for the phrase “Cockroach Janta Party”, records from the Trade Marks Registry’s public portal showed on Thursday.

The applications have been filed under Class 45, which cover legal and security services, and certain personal and social services.

Two of the applications were filed by persons identified as Azim Adambhai Jam and Akhand Swaroop. The status for both showed that they had cleared basic administrative and documentary checks.

The third application was filed for a label mark, or to trademark an entire visual design, by an entity identifying itself as the “Cockroach Janta Party”.

The status of the third application reads “send to Vienna codification”, which means the request was to be forwarded to the Vienna Codification branch for further steps in assigning an internationally-recognised code in line with the rules of the Vienna Convention.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande and Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The operation began on Wednesday when the security forces received intelligence inputs about alleged attempts to sell stolen arms and ammunition in the area, India Today NE reported.

Security personnel initially apprehended two members of the UNLF(P), Heisnam Thomas Singh and Arambam Tomtom Singh, during the operation. The police recovered an InSAS light machine gun, three magazines and 14 live rounds from their possession.

Today 20.05.2026, Manipur Police arrested two cadres of UNLF (P) from Lamdeng, Imphal West, namely, 1. Arambam Tomtom (29) R/O Heibongpokpi Mayai Leikai, Lamsang, Imphal West, and 2. Heisnam Thomas R/O Mayang Imphal Kokchai.
From their possession, one InSAS LMG with three… pic.twitter.com/KiZuEW3fdk

— Manipur Police (@manipur_police) May 20, 2026

However, when the process to arrest them was underway, some of their alleged associates shot at the security forces, leading to a brief exchange of fire, ANI reported.

Two more alleged members of the UNLF(P) – Ningthoujam Rakesh Singh and Chingakham Mahesh Singh – were arrested in connection with the firing, the news agency reported.

The arrested persons allegedly disclosed during interrogation that they had arrived in the area to sell the weapons “on the instruction” of UNLF(P) leader Naorem Bijoy, ANI quoted the police as saying.

They also allegedly told the police that they had been involved in selling stolen arms and ammunition earlier as well.

Based on subsequent information, a team comprising the Manipur Police, Assam Rifles and the Central Reserve Police Force carried out a cordon-and-search operation at a camp of the armed insurgent group in Lamdeng. During the operation, the security forces seized 29 weapons, including AK-series rifles, M-series rifles, pistols and other firearms, India Today NE reported.

On Thursday, the security forces recovered an additional 38 weapons, including rifles, carbines, mortars, an RPG-7 launcher, an anti-drone jammer and a large number of explosives, ANI reported.

Ethnic clashes had broken out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in Manipur in May 2023, leaving at least 260 persons dead and more than 59,000 persons displaced. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

A summit between India and the African Union that was scheduled to be held next week in New Delhi has been postponed amid an Ebola outbreak in Africa, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.

The summit was to be held between May 28 and May 31 to strengthen political dialogue, economic cooperation, trade, investments, technology transfer and people-to-people relations.

The external affairs ministry said that the decision was taken because of the “evolving health situation in parts of Africa”.

The ministry added that it recognises “the importance of ensuring the full participation and engagement of African leaders and stakeholders”, which prompted discussions between the Union government, the chairperson of the African Union and the African Union Commission.

“Following these consultations, the two sides agreed that it would be advisable to convene the Fourth India-Africa Forum Summit at a later date,” the ministry said.

It added that new dates for the summit would be announced after “mutual consultations”.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said that there have been 600 suspected cases of Ebola and 139 suspected deaths, and that the numbers are expected to rise.

On Sunday, the United Nations body had declared the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.

The WHO said that the outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency. However, the trends of suspected cases and clusters of deaths being reported “point towards a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread”.

Ebola is a virus that causes sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat in the initial stages. However, it escalates to vomiting, diarrhoea, internal and external bleeding. Infection occurs after coming into direct contact with the blood, vomit, faeces or bodily fluids of someone suffering from Ebola. Patients reportedly die due to dehydration and multiple organ failure.

There is no proven cure for Ebola and the disease has an average fatality rate of about 50%, according to the World Health Organization.

About 15,000 persons have died from the virus in Africa in the past 50 years. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s deadliest outbreak occurred between 2018 and 2020, when nearly 2,300 persons died, while another outbreak in a remote region last year killed 45 people.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the West Bengal Police not to take any coercive action against Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee till July 31 over his allegedly provocative remarks about Union Home Minister Amit Shah at political rallies during the Assembly election campaign, Live Law reported.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharya said that Banerjee did not need to be interrogated in custody, and that his rights were protected under Section 35(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. The provision states that in cases where a person does not need to be arrested in connection with an investigation, the police needs to send a notice requiring their presence during the investigation.

The judge directed Banerjee to cooperate with the investigative agency and comply with notices issued to him, Live Law reported. The police should give at least 48 hours’ time to the TMC MP in the notices, the court added.

However, Bhattacharya objected to Banerjee’s remark from a rally in which he had asked “which godfather” from Delhi would “come to their rescue” after the election results, in apparent references to Shah and Bharatiya Janata Party workers.

“Being a Member of Parliament, how such statement could have been made,” Bar and Bench quoted the judge as asking. “I am repeating, these statements were uncalled for.”

In response, Banerjee’s lawyer Kalyan Bandopadhyay, questioned whether the statement had in fact led to any violence.

“Complainant has not cited any incident,” Bar and Bench quoted the lawyer as saying. “If nothing has happened, it cannot be taken into cognisance.”

The case will be heard further on July 20.

The first information report in the matter was filed based on a complaint alleging that Banerjee made inflammatory remarks in speeches during the West Bengal election campaign between April 27 and May 3.

The speeches made by the TMC’s national general secretary promoted enmity and disturbed public tranquillity, the complainant alleged, adding that it also included threats directed at the Union home minister.

The complaint was filed on May 5, a day after the BJP defeated the TMC in the Assembly elections, ending its 15-year tenure in the state.

HC stays coercive action against TMC MLA

In a separate case, the High Court stayed coercive action against TMC MLA Paresh Ram Das till June 30, Bar and Bench reported.

Das approached the High Court after six criminal cases were filed against him on May 16 at the Canning Police Station. His lawyer argued that the cases were the result of “political vengeance” after the election result and change in government in West Bengal, Bar and Bench reported.

Most of the complaints dated back to 2021, the lawyer further told the court.

The court on Thursday verbally expressed doubts about the genuineness of the sixth case.

“Prima facie it appears the petitioner’s name at the bottom of the complaint was written in a different manner,” Bar and Bench quoted the judge as saying. “Since investigation is at a nascent stage, more than that, court is not making any observation.”

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Delhi recorded its highest night temperature for the month of May in nearly 14 years on Wednesday, at 31.9 degrees Celsius, The Hindu quoted the India Meteorological Department as saying.

Weather stations in the city’s Safdarjung and Lodhi Road area recorded warm night conditions on Wednesday.

The weather station in Safdarjung recorded a night temperature 5.2 degrees Celsius above normal at 31.9 degrees Celsius, while Lodhi Road was 4.6 degrees Celsius above normal, settling at 29.6 degrees Celsius.

On Thursday, the weather department issued an orange alert for heatwave conditions in the national capital region for the next five days. An orange alert requires the authorities to “be prepared to take action”.

The IMD declares a heat wave in the plains when the day’s maximum temperature remains 40 degrees Celsius or more and the minimum temperature departure is between 4.5 degrees Celsius and 6.4 degrees Celsius above normal.

The weather agency’s forecast has warned of continued warm night conditions on Thursday and Friday across Delhi, Faridabad, Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad.

The maximum temperature in Delhi is expected to touch 46 degrees Celsius during the course of the week, The Hindu reported.

Other parts of the country are also reeling from the heat, with Maharashtra reporting at least two confirmed deaths and over 200 cases of heatstrokes since March 1, The Indian Express reported on Thursday, quoting state health department data.

The two deaths were reported from Akola and Latur, while six other deaths suspected to be caused by heatstroke are under investigation in Ahilyanagar, Akola, Latur and Solapur.

On Wednesday, Banda district in Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest maximum temperature in the country at 48.2 degrees Celsius, the IMD said.

Other parts of the country including parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh recorded temperatures 5.1 degrees Celsius higher than normal on Wednesday.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The West Bengal government has made singing Vande Mataram mandatory in all madrasas under the state’s Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Department, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.

The directive will apply to “government model madrasahs, recognised government-aided and unaided madrasas” in the state with immediate effect, according to a May 19 order by the director of madrasah education.

“In suppression of all previous orders and practices, singing of Vande Mataram during assembly prayers, prior to the commencement of classes, is hereby made mandatory,” The Telegraph quoted the order as saying.

Madrasas have been told to submit compliance reports on the implementation of the direction, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials from the department as saying.

The order came five days after the state’s newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party government directed all state-run and state-aided schools to mandatorily sing Vande Mataram during morning assemblies.

Schools in West Bengal had traditionally sung only the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, during assemblies. In recent years, the previous Trinamool Congress government had also introduced singing of Banglar Mati Banglar Jol, the state song.

On January 28, the Union home ministry directed that all six stanzas of the Vande Mataram be sung first when it is played together with the Jana Gana Mana.

Only the first two stanzas of the national song had been played at official functions earlier. The remaining stanzas, which invoke Hindu goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, had been omitted.

Edited by Sneha.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal has told its employees not to speak with the media without permission, citing conduct rules, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.

In a circular, Chief Secretary Manoj Agarwal reiterated the rules governing the conduct of the All India Services, the West Bengal Civil Service, the West Bengal Police Service and other state government employees.

Citing the 1968 All India Service Conduct Rules, the 1980 West Bengal Service Duties, Rights and Obligations of Government Employees Rules and the 1959 West Bengal Government Servants Conduct Rules, Agarwal said that these regulations define the “nature of and limitations on” interactions with the media.

The chief secretary said that there would be a “complete prohibition, except with prior sanction, on the participation or association of any member of the services in any sponsored or privately produced media programme or any media programme sponsored by the government of India but produced by an outside agency”, The Indian Express reported.

The circular also noted that there would be a “complete prohibition without any governmental order” on any direct or indirect communication of any document or information with the press by the members of the services.

It prohibited contributions “in editing or managing of any newspaper, periodical or any other publication and on any participation in any radio broadcast or writing of any article or letter for any newspaper or periodical by any member of the services”.

The circular further barred government employees from criticisng policies or decisions of the state or Union government through publications, media interactions, broadcasts, statements, or any other form of communication, The Indian Express reported.

It applies to employees of the state government, autonomous bodies, boards, corporations, undertakings, educational institutions substantially funded by the government and members of the All India Services that are part of state government affairs, according to the newspaper.

Edited by Sneha.

The Union government on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it is not in favour of permitting any new hydroelectric projects in the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi River basins in the upper reaches of the Ganga in Uttarakhand, The Indian Express reported.

In a common affidavit submitted in the court, the ministries of Environment, Jal Shakti and Power said that this is apart from seven projects that have either been commissioned or are in advanced stages of construction, The Hindu reported.

These seven projects will have a total capacity of over 2,150 MW. They are the Tehri Stage–II project (1,000 megawatts), Tapovan Vishnugad (520 megawatts), Vishnugad Pipalkoti (444 megawatts), Signoli Bhatwari (99 megawatts), Phata Byung (76 megawatts), Madhmaheshwar (15 megawatts) and Kaliganga–II (4.5 megawatts).

Since 2013, the court has been examining the question of allowing new hydroelectric projects in the upper reaches of the Ganga. This question arose in light of the floods in Kedarnath that year, which killed at least 5,000 persons.

The court, which took suo moto cognisance of the question, had directed the Union government to examine the role such projects played in amplifying the disaster. It also halted these projects in the state and asked the environment ministry to form a committee to study the impact.

The ministry has since formed three committees.

Apart from the Union government, the court has been hearing arguments from power companies that have opposed recommendations to halt certain projects.

In January, the court directed the Union government to take a final decision on the matter within three months.

In the affidavit submitted on Wednesday, the three ministries said that there is a considerable difference in the Ganga river system as compared to other river systems, adding that special treatment is therefore required for this region, The Indian Express reported.

It added that the geological and ecological integrity needs to be maintained for the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins, which harbour headstreams of the river Ganga.

“Headstreams are critical for supplying food/nutrients and critical biodiversity to the riverine ecosystem,” the newspaper quoted the ministries as adding.

The affidavit also added that of the seven hydroelectric projects that have been exempted, four were already commissioned and three have already “achieved substantial physical and financial progress”.

These projects may be permitted to proceed subject to strict compliance with all applicable statutory provisions and environmental safeguards, the affidavit said.

“Apart from these seven projects the Indian government is not in favour of permitting any other new hydro-electric project in the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi River in the upper reaches of the River Ganga in the state of Uttarakhand,” the newspaper quoted it as adding.

The three committees

The first 17-member committee formed to look into hydroelectric projects in the state was led by environmentalist Ravi Chopra, The Hindu reported. It concluded in 2014 that hydroelectric projects exacerbated the disaster and recommended not going ahead with 24 proposed projects.

However, the proponents of six hydroelectric projects moved the court seeking permission to resume their work. Subsequently, a second committee was formed in 2015 that found that the six projects had prior clearances but would pose serious ecological impacts, The Indian Express reported.

The Union government then set up a third committee under engineer BP Das, who studied 70 projects and recommended in March 2020 that only 28 be given approvals.

However, the Union government in 2021 recommended that only seven of these 28 be granted permission to go ahead, The Hindu reported.

In August 2024, the court asked the Union government why it had allowed only the seven projects. It also constituted another committee to revisit the BP Das report and take a decision on the 21 hydroelectric projects.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Two MLAs from the Congress were sworn into the Tamil Nadu Cabinet led by the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government on Thursday. This is the first time in 59 years that the party will be part of the state Cabinet.

Party leaders S Rajesh Kumar, representing Killiyoor, and P Viswanathan, who won from the Melur seat, took oath as ministers. Apart from them, 21 other legislators were also sworn in, expanding Chief Minister Vijay’s 10-member Cabinet.

Earlier on Wednesday, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that party chief Mallikarjun Kharge had approved the induction of Kumar and Viswanathan into the Council of Ministers.

“This is a historic occasion for us, as the Congress joins the Tamil Nadu cabinet after a long gap of 59 years!” Venugopal said on social media. “…we are confident that they will deliver on the hopes and aspirations of the people of Tamil Nadu, and will work to realise the bold vision of welfare and pro-people governance laid down by LOP [Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha] Rahul Gandhi.”

The TVK, on its electoral debut, had emerged as the single-largest party on May 4 in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. Vijay’s party won 108 seats in the 234-member Assembly, falling short of the majority mark of 118. Therefore, it required the support of smaller parties to form the government.

The Congress, which fought the elections in an alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, had won five seats. It was the first party to declare its support for the TVK on May 6.

Apart from the Congress, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), each having two seats, had announced their support for the TVK. The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi also confirmed its support for the Vijay-led party.

The TVK chief took oath as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu on May 10.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.

The chief of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference, Sajad Gani Lone, has been placed under house arrest on the 24th death anniversary of his father, Abdul Gani Lone, the party claimed on Thursday.

In a social media post, the People’s Conference also claimed that several senior party leaders and workers were barred from visiting the Shaheed Mazaar in Srinagar, where Abdul Gani Lone has been buried.

“Preventing us from paying homage to a leader remembered for his political vision and sacrifice is unfortunate, undemocratic and deeply insensitive,” said the party. “Such actions hurt public sentiments and weaken democratic values.”

The police have not yet responded to the party’s allegation.

We strongly condemn the house arrest of our President and MLA Handwara, @sajadlone , on the death anniversary of Shaheed Abdul Gani Lone.

We also condemn the restrictions imposed on senior leaders and workers of the party, many of whom were not allowed to visit Shaheed Mazaar… pic.twitter.com/o4rbfCIqkg

— J&K People’s Conference (@JKPCOfficial) May 21, 2026

Abdul Gani Lone was shot dead by militants on May 21, 2002, as he was leaving a Hurriyat Conference rally held to pay homage to Mirwaiz Moulvi Mohammad Farooq, who had also been killed by militants on the same day 12 years before.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sneha.

The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday said that it had shut down a call centre operating in India that allegedly defrauded hundreds of elderly persons “out of millions of dollars through tech support scams”.

The law enforcement agency also said that two senior executives – 42-year-old Adam Young from Miami, Florida, and 33-year-old Harrison Gevirtz from Las Vegas, Nevada – have admitted to “turning a blind eye” to the alleged malpractice that was allegedly being enabled by their business.

The FBI stated that Young and Gevirtz had pleaded guilty to operating a business that provided services related to telecommunications, including telephone numbers, call routing services, call tracking and call forwarding services, to customers they knew were engaged in tech-support fraud schemes.

These schemes targeted persons in the US and abroad, added the federal agency.

🚨#BREAKING: #YourFBI has shut down a call center operation in India that defrauded hundreds of elderly victims here in the U.S. & abroad out of millions of dollars through tech support scams, & two senior executives who operated a business that enabled it, have just admitted to… pic.twitter.com/zlSWOspKQ7

— FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) May 20, 2026

The FBI said that Young and Gevirtz are scheduled to be sentenced on June 16.

The investigation that concluded in the executives pleading guilty had begun in 2020 and led to the conviction of five India-based telemarketing fraudsters and a former employee of their call routing company, according to the FBI.

The agency said that Indian citizens Sahil Narang, Chirag Sachdeva, Abrar Anjum and Manish Kumar were convicted of charges related to telemarketing fraud schemes based in India that “targeted and defrauded Americans of millions of dollars, many of them vulnerable to fraud schemes due to age or infirmity”.

The fifth person to be convicted was Jagmeet Singh Virk. The FBI did not specify in its statement what Virk’s role was.

It said that the investigation showed that call centres based in India utilised Young and Gervitz’s business to route their “tech fraud” scheme calls and, in some instances, advised them on methods intended to reduce complaints and prevent account terminations.

It added that the schemes used “deceptive pop-up messages” to convince computer users that their computer had been infected with viruses or malware.

“Victims were directed to call a phone number on the pop-up message or advertisement, which connected the victims to call centres, where they were persuaded to pay hundreds of dollars for unnecessary or fictitious technical-support services,” the law enforcement agency said.

In some instances, call centre agents remotely accessed victims’ computers and obtained personal and financial information, it added.

According to the FBI, Young and Gevirtz failed to report the schemes to law enforcement officials after learning about their customers’ fraud schemes between 2017 and April 2022.

Ted E Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, said that what Young and Gevirtz did was “downright despicable”.

“By their own admission, they willfully profited from telemarketing and tech support scammers, here and abroad, who preyed on the elderly, exploited the vulnerable, and drained victims of their life savings and peace of mind,” Docks said.

The special agent also noted that tech support scams cost Americans $2.1 billion last year.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.

A close contest led by the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal’s Rajarhat New Town constituency flipped to the Bharatiya Janata Party as a Muslim-majority booth returned an overwhelming vote for the Hindutva party, shows a Scroll analysis of the Election Commission’s official booth-wise data.

The state voted in two phases for a new assembly, on April 23 and April 29. When the results were announced on May 5, they showed that the BJP had pulled off its first victory in West Bengal, winning 207 seats in the 294-member house.

In Rajarhat New Town, a ground report by Scroll had described how the Trinamool Congress had a lead of 316 votes on May 4. But after an additional round of counting the next day, the BJP won the seat with the same margin. The Election Commission did not respond to Scroll’s queries about the need for an extra round.

Candidates of both parties accused each other of manipulating the counting process.

At the heart of the controversial poll lies Musalman Para, a locality in North Kolkata with two booths – 164 and 165. Most of the registered voters in these booths are Muslim and they vote at the same polling centre, their electoral roll shows.

On May 4 and 5, when the votes were counted, booth 164 was not counted in its scheduled round, but in a separate round at the end of the counting process. The tally in Musalman Para showed a strange divergence: while the BJP could only manage a few dozen votes in booth 165, it got an overwhelming majority in booth 164.

This runs against the communal polarisation seen in West Bengal’s voting pattern in this election and is difficult to explain, given the near-identical demography of the two booths.

Questions sent to the Election Commission did not elicit a response.

The booth not counted

The Election Commission has guidelines on how votes are to be counted on results day. Most of it is done in counting halls with at least seven tables. In every round, counting officials at each table tabulate votes from one booth.

Table one gets the electronic voting machine of booth one, table two gets the electronic voting machine of booth two, and so on, explains the poll body’s handbook for counting agents. If there are seven tables in the counting hall, every round will likely include the votes of seven booths.

Rajarhat New Town constituency has 330 booths – 320 main booths and 10 auxiliary booths. Auxiliary booths are extra polling stations set up to accommodate booths with more than 1,200 electors.

We compared the Election Commission’s round-wise results published on its website with its booth-wise data from the constituency.

We found that the sum of votes of all candidates in round one matched with the sum of votes that the candidates got from booth one to booth 20. For example, BJP candidate Piyush Kanodia got 5,461 votes in the first round of counting. This is also the number of votes he got in the first 20 booths of the constituency.

Similarly, round two of counting is a sum of votes cast in booths 21 to 40, round three has votes from the next 20 booths, and so on.

This means that counting officials were counting votes from 20 electronic voting machines in every round. For a constituency with 330 booths, the counting needed only 17 rounds – 20 electronic voting machines would have been counted in the first 16 rounds and the remaining 10 in the 17th round.

But on May 4 and May 5, the counting took place in 18 rounds.

The Election Commission’s published voting figures for round nine show that it only counted 19 electronic voting machine in that round. If it had counted all 20 electronic voting machines scheduled in this round – booth 159 to booth 177 – the sum of counted votes would have been 16,870. But the official figure is 16,214, falling short by 656 votes.

In booth 164, according to the Election Comission’s booth-level data, 656 votes were cast. This meant that the counting officials did not count this booth in round nine.

Up to the 17th round on May 4, the Trinamool Congress’s Chatterjee maintained a lead over BJP’s Kanodia. But it was a thin lead of 316 votes – he was ahead by 440 electronic voting machine votes but behind by 124 postal ballot votes, which had been counted earlier that day.

The only booth to be counted on May 5 in the 18th round had 656 votes, Election Commission data shows – the exact number of votes polled in booth 164, which was skipped in the ninth round.

Here, the BJP got 637 votes and the Trinamool Congress only five, turning the result in the BJP’s favour with a margin of 316 votes.

Musalman Para

Recent elections in Bengal have seen significant communal polarisation. In the previous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in West Bengal, only 4%-7% of the state’s Muslims have voted for the BJP. Nearly 70%-75% of the community voted for the Trinamool Congress, according to post-poll data collected by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Even Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP’s most prominent leader in West Bengal said that his victory in Nandigram constituency was because of Hindu voters. “There, the entire Muslim vote went to Trinamool Congress,” he had said. “I will work for the Hindus of Nandigram.”

But Muslim voters at booth 164 in Rajarhat New Town turned this voting pattern on its head.

Voters allotted booth 164 and 165 in this constituency both vote at the Jagadishpur FP school polling centre.

Booth 164 has 670 electors, shows its electoral roll, of which more than 88% or 591 are Muslim. The Hindutva party won 97% of the 656 votes cast at this booth. Even if every Hindu voter here voted for the BJP, the party still received 558 votes from Muslim voters. This means that more than 94% of the Muslims in booth 164 voted for the BJP – an unprecedented figure given all past data on Bengal.

Similarly, booth 165 has 654 electors, of which more than 91% or 597 are Muslim. Oddly, despite being from the same locality, voters here had voted very differently: the BJP only received 32 of the 638 votes, while the Trinamool Congress got 290 votes and Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate and 299 votes.

It is difficult to explain how two booths in the same neighbourhood, with nearly identical religious profiles, produced such sharply different results. Nearly every voter in booth 164 backed the BJP, while voters at booth 165 did not.

The discrepancy is deepened by the counting process. Booth 164 was skipped in its scheduled round and counted separately at the end, erasing a narrow Trinamool lead. The Election Commission is yet to explain why the electronic voting machine of this booth was set aside.

In April, a video of Indian factory workers went viral. It showed the workers sewing garments while wearing white bands around their heads fitted with a camera.

The video garnered hundreds of thousands of views and was picked up by several news outlets that speculated about what use the footage of the hand movements of the workers could be put to. “Are factory workers training AI to replace themselves?” CNN asked.

The reports did not specify where the cameras had been deployed and by whom.

Scroll was able to identify the factory where workers were wearing the head-mounted devices. It is the Gurugram unit of Pearl Global Industries Limited, an apparel manufacturer with a presence across 10 countries.

“We were supposed to wear the device from 10 am to 4 pm,” one of the workers at the factory told us. “They [the executives] said that they wanted to find out what we were doing during our shifts and for how much time.”

Similar devices were used in the factories of Ken India, a textile manufacturer based in Ichalkaranji, Maharashtra, in March 2026, where they seem to have been used for a different purpose.

In a post on Linkedin, Ken India said that the hardware belonged to a start-up called Egolab.AI.

Founded in January 2026 by two teenagers in Maharashtra, Egolab.AI calls itself “India's largest first-person POV Data Aggregator”.

In its company documents, it states that it collects “high-quality, labour-sourced egocentric video footage” from factory workers using “lightweight cameras”.

Egocentric is the term used for data captured from a first-person perspective.

This data is then “aggregated, processed, and packaged into datasets” for “global AI companies building robotics, computer vision, and autonomous systems”. These companies include Tesla, Boston Dynamics and Figure AI, Egolab claims in a document.

In March, Egolab was acquired by Build Artificial Intelligence Inc., or Build AI, a firm registered in Delaware, United States. Its India arm is based in Bengaluru but its founders, most of them in their late teens or early 20s, live in San Francisco. It describes itself as the “largest egocentric data collection effort in history”.

These firms are positioning themselves to profit from the growing demand for data to train robots. According to one estimate, over the next two to three years, robotics labs will spend $1.5 billion to $50 billion (Rs 12,000 crore to Rs 4.2 lakh crore) to gather 100 million to 1 billion hours of egocentric data.

Much of the data is being collected without any safeguards, experts say.

However, Egolab claims in its company documents that it recruits between 100 and 1,000 “volunteers” in every factory it works with.

Workers who participated in the exercise at Pearl Global, however, said their consent was not obtained, either verbally or in writing.

We spoke to the head of business operations at Egolab, Arnav Kabra, and asked him specifically whether the company had obtained consent from workers at the Pearl Global factory. “We took consent to use the device and we did it in our own way,” he said.

Kabra did not elaborate on his “way” and did not respond to subsequent phone calls.

Questions emailed to Egolab and Pearl Global were unanswered at the time of publication.

The guinea pigs

Workers say that in the first week of April, two executives arrived at the Gurugram factory of Pearl Global Industries Limited. They brought white devices that had cameras and could be worn around the head.

“They distributed it to workers one by one,” said a factory worker who spoke to Scroll on the condition of anonymity. “They said that we had to wear it for one week.”

The executives were from another firm and the workers had not met them before. They told them that the device would monitor them during their working hours, when they would be sewing apparel. “We did not trust these reasons,” said a worker. “There are cameras in the factory. Why not use those?”

Most workers at Pearl Global that Scroll met came from the villages of Bihar or West Bengal. They were either Muslim, Dalit or from other backward classes. They work 12-hour shifts, from 9 am to 9 pm, between Monday and Saturday, earning between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000 every month.

At the end of their shifts every day, the executives collected the cameras, which were fitted with a memory card of 32 gigabytes. Every device had a unique serial number, which was jotted down next to the workers’ unique ID supplied by the factory.

Frooti was served to everyone, which made the workers wonder: why are we being fed mango juice?

On the third day, several workers grew wary of the device. “It had batteries near our temples and as they would heat up, we would feel uncomfortable,” said the first worker. “It felt like it was sucking our blood.”

A third worker was uncomfortable with how much the device could surveil. “We had to take it out before going to the toilet,” the worker said. “Moreover, we couldn’t speak to our spouse while wearing it. It could listen to our conversation. Nor could we wander around or enjoy gutkha. Sometimes I would switch off the device myself.”

The tech bros

“100 million factory workers. 100 million hours of egocentric footage.” This is what Egolab said it wanted to achieve in a company document available online, which featured a photo of the device.

It claims it will aggregate egocentric data from every major state and every sector in India by 2027, including textile, automobile, chemical, electronics, steel and fast moving consumer goods, or FMCG.

“This massive dataset becomes the backbone for AI/robotics training globally,” it added.

Egolab offered manufacturing firms a “labour efficiency report based on proprietary AI models” in return for allowing it to record their workers’ egocentric data.

Workers, it added, would feel valued for “contributing to AI advancement”, opting-in voluntarily for their data to be collected. It added that the exercise was compliant with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

A sample report seen by Scroll offered a “productivity analysis” of factory workers based on the footage captured by the camera devices. It claimed that this was generated using artificial intelligence.

The report mentioned the productivity of the “best worker” and the “worst worker” based on the amount of time they spent working in the eight hours that they wore the camera. It then rounded them up for an “average productivity” score.

“Your workers are not working for 2.2 hours per day on average,” said the analysis in a sample report. “This costs you approximately Rs 33,000 per day in lost output.”

Moreover, the report gave a quantified breakdown of what workers did while not working, such as 32% of their “% of Idle” was spent in talking with coworkers. It even singled out workers: “51% of idle time is socializing…we noticed workers from different stations gathering near the wearer of CAM 02 between 2:00-3:30 PM.”

The report then compared these scores to other factories that Egolab had worked with to give a percentile score to the productivity of workers.

How the science works

Spandan Roy, an associate professor at the Robotics Research Centre at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, told Scroll that for firms that are trying to make robots imitate human actions, egocentric data might be a cost-effective way to make it happen.

The traditional way to train robots was to recruit people and make robots replicate their actions in a computer-generated three-dimensional environment. “Another way is to record a video of humans doing a task and note down the actions – the movements of objects, the angles of joints in the human hand, the language being spoken – and use this data to train robots,” Roy explained.

In an enterprise like this, the more the data, the better the robots. “The more data you can feed, more versatility, more variety of processes, scenes, variations that you can embed into the system, the better the robot will function,” Roy added.

He said it was not surprising that firms were moving visual data from Indian factories to tech firms in the West – that is where the capital and capability for this research lies. “Earlier, industry used to rely on academia for research directions on a technology and then commercialise it,” he said. “Now the academic research papers, and most breakthroughs, are coming from Nvidia, Google, Microsoft.”

“That is because AI infrastructure – GPU, data centers – all those things are concentrated in the industry,” he added.

Enter Americans

Egolab was founded in January 2026 by Raghav Samani, 19, from Sangli and Varun Pareek, 18, from Ichalkaranji. According to their Linkedin profiles, Samani is studying business in the UK while Pareek dropped out from a US university where he studied engineering.

In March, the firm was acquired by Build Artificial Intelligence Inc., an American firm that operates the brand Build AI. It was registered in Delaware in September 2025 and is headed by Edward Xu, 19, and Jonathan Jia, 21, according to the business registry of the California secretary of state.

“This is a brutal game and we’re going to win,” Xu tweeted on the acquisition.

Samani pegged the takeover at “seven figures”, which could be between one million dollars and $9.9 million (Rs 9.5 crore to Rs 95 crore).

In a December 2025 filing, Build Artificial Intelligence described its purpose as collecting egocentric data “to accelerate the development of general purpose robots”. That month, it made one lakh hours of this data publicly accessible on Hugging Face, an open-source AI platform.

A month earlier, Xu, the chief executive officer, had tweeted that the firm “manufactures hardware” to collect egocentric data from around the world.

The CEO claims that the Build AI has $22 million (Rs 210 crore) in investments from three venture capital firms based in California, US – Abstract, Pear VC and HF0. HF0 tweeted to confirm its investment but Pear VC and Abstract are yet to list Build AI as an investee on their websites.

On April 4, 2026, Samani and Pareek registered Build AI Private Limited’s Indian arm in Bengaluru, each with a 50% stake.

Bigger picture

India’s textile industry is one of its largest employers, with nearly 4.5 crore people employed directly, many of them in rural India. At 3.9% global market share, it is the world’s sixth-largest exporter of textiles and apparel, according to the Ministry of Textiles.

It is not the only sector where efforts to collect egocentric data to build robots are underway. An Indian firm called Awign Enterprises Private Limited, a part of Japan’s Mynavi Corporation, is collecting similar data to automate household tasks, like cutting a cucumber or sorting toys. Another San Francisco-based startup, Humyn AI, is trying to build a similar business.

Astha Kapoor, a co-founder and director at Aapti Institute, a Bengaluru-based research firm that studies the intersection between technology and society, told Scroll that egocentric data is a new category that moves away from the traditional notions of personal data.

“It doesn’t matter whose hand is making a cloth because there is no immediate one-to-one mapping of whose data is [that is being used to train a model] and whom it harms,” Kapoor explained. “So it is outside the remit of personal data and quite ungoverned at the moment, even by India’s data protection law.”

Instead of thinking about the data collection through the prism of individual consent, Kapoor said, “It is necessary to think about this from the notion of collective data rights because it impacts workers as a collective”.

“There needs to be collective community muscle. Otherwise we are doing the work that is supposed to make us redundant,” she said.

The journey between collecting egocentric data and automating factory jobs is not straight nor simple. Tech firms need billions of hours of good quality data from multiple geographies. Firms like Build AI only claim to have collected a tiny portion of this.

For now, Kapoor is sceptical about a scenario where robots take over India’s textile manufacturing sector. “The scale of this business is unknown at this point,” she said. “We know that there is a bubble among AI investors in the US and we should be careful about the hype cycle.”

In Gurugram, workers at Pearl Global had sensed that there was more to the camera device than just surveillance. But it was only after the videos went viral and users left comments about automation and robotics that they realised that by participating in the exercise, they could be making themselves redundant.

Most of them, however, are sceptical about robots replacing them in the future because they believe in human skill. “It might be easy to stitch a shirt,” said one of them. “But working on a coat takes real skill. Will a robot ever be able to stitch a coat properly?”

Corrections and clarifications: In an earlier version, Spandan Roy was inaccurately described as an assistant professor with the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. The story has been updated to correct the error.

Religious scriptures and associated traditions have rarely been kind to women. If scriptures would have it, we would still be legally allowed to stone an “unchaste” woman to death or enslave a harem of women for sex or class one’s wife alongside cows, mares, ewes and female camels.

As evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says, while responding to an audience member’s question on atheism and morality, “people in the 21st century believe in the equality of women and in being kind to animals”. These are things that are entirely recent, says Dawkins.

“They have very little basis in (religious) scripture. These have developed over historical time through a consensus of reasoning, sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy,” said Dawkins. “These do not come from religion.”

What is unthinkable in modern society was perfectly acceptable before because religious scriptures and traditions permitted it. It is thanks to reasoned debate and deliberation that we eventually became sane enough to reinterpret problematic verses in sacred texts and reject misogynistic traditions.

Even if extreme patriarchal practices like female foeticide and dowry continue without qualm in India today, reasoned debates, leading to laws, ensured that in a civilised society these can never be considered as legitimate.

A hot topic in India occupying the minds of the legal, the rational, and the religious today is the entry of women into religious sites – temples and mosques. The rational argue that reason must be the proper test of belief, an argument that the Supreme Court agreed with in its 2018 judgement when it lifted a centuries-old ban prohibiting the entry of menstruating-age women into the Ayyappa shrine at Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. The Court held that the religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional.

Former Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, who was part of the five-judge bench, underlined the fact that menstruation does not make a woman impure. The religious were unconvinced. How can courts interfere with religion and tradition? Rights of an individual cannot supersede centuries-old traditions honoured by many, they lamented. An inevitable review by the Supreme Court followed whose judgement is awaited.

J Nagarathna: amongst hindu, when there is birth and death, they don't go because there are restraints. somebody tomorrow will file a petition and say I will go next day after death

Jaising: there is custom that woman who has given birth can't go. they go during the rice feeding…

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) April 29, 2026

It is a fact that menstrual taboos are central to banning women between ages 10 and 50 from religious sites, including at Sabarimala. Menstruation as “ritual pollution”, as defiling, unclean or unsuited for worship, is found in some shape or form in all major religions and traditions associated with them – Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. Scores of restrictions on menstruating women, making her a pariah for most of her life, belie the egalitarianism and morality professed in religion. It is easy to control a woman if much of her life is spent in worrying about bodily etiquette.

The larger issue, therefore, is this. Assuming that egalitarianism between the sexes is the hallmark of a civilised democracy, would blanket bans by the judiciary or legislature on misogynistic religion-based practices help women? Or should it be a process based on thought-out deliberations within civil society over time? Or both? Tough questions that have no simple answers.

It could be argued that so long as bans are motivated by the rights of the individual, they may produce the desirable outcome. The operable word is autonomy or the right to make decisions without external interference. Let us take two examples. One, already discussed, is the refusal of entry to women in religious sites. Two, is the observance of the veil, hijab or ghoonghat. Both are examples of the control of women and must be resisted. But the approach will need to be different for each.

In the case of the hijab, and the ghoonghat, there is no dispute that it is patriarchal, as I have argued before. Yet, despite the political stigma over a woman in hijab and societal coercion of a woman who wants to reject hijab, the ultimate decision is hers. She has control over what she wants or does not want to wear. Mandating or banning dress codes is an insult to her autonomy and dignity.

Muslim women in Iran and Muslim women in India seem to be fighting different battles – the former rejecting hijab mandates by the state, the latter rejecting hijab bans by courts and the state, but, in truth, they are both fighting the same battle. A battle for rightful autonomy.

“There must have been a reason why my mother gave birth to me, right? It couldn’t have been to just slog it out in the kitchen and scrub the bathrooms.”@Johanna_Deeksha on the anger and despair of young Muslim women, one year after Karnataka’s hijab ban https://t.co/k1IsBbFuLW

— Supriya Sharma (@sharmasupriya) January 11, 2023

This is why sartorial bans and mandates have often resulted in unintended consequences – women have dropped out of education, when forced to remove their hijab or, worse, given up their life fighting against hijab. Paternalistic bans and mandates are unlikely to reduce the practice. The recent withdrawal of the three-year-old hijab ban in Karnataka is likely a political stunt, but it could benefit Muslim women in education and attune them to decide for themselves.

On the other hand, barring menstruating-age women from entering temples and mosques is not the same as banning (or forcing) her from observing religious garb. As it stands, either women are completely prohibited from entering religious places, such as Hindu temples, or refused access from the main entrance and packed into smaller segregated spaces, as in mosques.

Menstrual taboos and segregation of sexes emerge from the scriptural logic that men and women may be equal in the realm of religion but are different by virtue of their biology. Because they are built different, their roles are different and, therefore, they cannot be treated as equals.

Experts disagree with this logic: patriarchy has nothing to do with anatomy. Fact is, humans show a more extreme pattern of male domination of females than is characteristic of most other primates despite the same biological dichotomy. As the legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon writes, “Women are constrained to be men’s social inferiors; they are not men’s biological inferiors… It is an ordinal hierarchy. This power division, not our bodies, is what makes women a political group.”

Barring women from entering religious sites because she is menstruating or anatomically different from a man, is discrimination over an aspect of life that is beyond the woman’s control. She is barred simply because she menstruates and has a vagina. She has little control over a natural process that scriptures and traditions have reduced to being impure and sinful. That is discrimination.

Dignity and freedom are innate to us. Without altering the foundational nature of religious scripture, centuries-old traditions have been reinterpreted through consensus and nuance without losing sight of individual autonomy. If the status of women over the world has improved and if men have become more egalitarian, it is because these deliberations have ensured that the basic principle of equality trumps dogma.

Raheel Dhattiwala is a sociologist.

Parveena Khatun, 45, runs a tea stall on Baba Gangnath Marg in Delhi’s Munirka. The shortage of cooking gas cylinders has affected Parveena’s income.

When supplies fell in March, she kept her stall closed for a week but without the income, survival became difficult. Then, she built a brick stove (chulha), bought coal and gathered firewood. In Delhi’s intense summer, working throughout the day on a chulha is dangerous.

Temperatures around the chulha remain high, leading to thermal discomfort and heat stress, and the set-up leaves Parveena gasping for breath at the end of the day. Her hands have burn marks – she’s never worked on a chulha before.

“Yesterday afternoon,” said Parveena, who moved to Delhi from Bihar’s Siwan in 2002, “the heat was so intense that between the smoke and the heat, I started feeling dizzy. I sat under a tree for a while and washed myself with cold water; my whole body was restless.” She was speaking of April 23, when Delhi saw a maximum temperature of 43 degrees celsius.

The Commission for Air Quality Management issued an order on March 13, 2026, giving temporary permission to burn diesel and biomass (wood, dung cakes, and coal) and waste-derived fuel in Delhi-NCR, which has been extended until May 13, 2026.

Solid fuel like firewood, cow dung and dry grass are highly damaging to health, as IndiaSpend reported in April 2019. Cooking on traditional chulhas leads to incomplete combustion, and emission of particles such as suspended particulate matter, carbon monoxide, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, polyorganic matter and formaldehyde. All these are harmful for respiratory health.

Women and younger children who spend the most time at home are the most vulnerable, we had reported. Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy leads to outcomes such as low birth weight and stillbirth.

In 2022, India saw 113 deaths per 100,000 people due to household air pollution, according to the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report 2025. For the estimated population of 1.46 billion that year, this works out to 1.65 million deaths from indoor pollution. Household air pollution also contributes to 22%-52% of ambient air quality, studies suggest.

And this is before the effects of heat are considered.

Each time a woman cooks over a chulha in this heat, her body is fighting two battles at once – trying to cool down while also breathing in harmful smoke, explains Vidhya Venugopal, professor of occupational and environmental health at the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai. “It is a killer combination. This is far more dangerous than either problem alone and can quickly lead to exhaustion, dizziness, and breathing difficulties. For women working long hours outdoors, this combination can become a serious health emergency.”

A May 2025 study in Geo Health shows that risk of premature mortality during hot and polluted days was higher than normal days. “The compound increase in PM2.5 and temperature intensity could elevate the risk of fatality,” the study said.

Another study published the same month in Environment International, which analysed 3.6 million deaths across 10 Indian cities between 2008 and 2019, found that air pollution becomes much more dangerous as temperatures rise.

Shortage, black market

The war in West Asia has led to stalled shipments, and India depends on imports for 60% of its liquefied petroleum gas consumption. Domestic production rose 25%, and is being directed to household consumers, after which hospitals and educational institutions are being prioritised.

Since the first week of April, reports of migrant workers returning home from Delhi-National Capital Region began surfacing, with a large number of labourers seen heading back from Delhi’s railway stations.

By May 8, the government said, commercial LPG availability stood at 70% of pre-crisis levels. But many roadside eateries depend on the black market for their cooking gas needs.

India’s LPG consumption fell 16% this April, compared to April 2025, government data released by the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell show.

“At retail shops, gas is being sold for Rs 350-400 per kg,” Parveena said. “If I buy Rs 100 worth of gas for Rs 400, I would have to raise the price of a cup of tea from Rs 10 to Rs 40. Who would buy it?"

Prices for commercial cylinders, which stood at Rs 1,768.5 for 19 kg on March 1, rose to Rs 3,071 earlier this month.

“I have a domestic connection, but the cylinder ran out 15 days ago. I am using the chulha at both my stall and home,” said Parveena, whose elder daughter is studying for a bachelor’s degree and the younger just finished school. “I have booked a refill, but it hasn’t arrived yet.”

Reena Kumari, 30, living in the Coolie Camp of Vasant Vihar, was cooking on a chulha in the bright afternoon sun. The family does not have a gas connection, and earlier got the 5-kg cylinder refilled, but now shops have stopped refilling them. “Even where gas is available, it’s costing Rs 400 for one kg. I cannot afford it.

“I have two small children who get very distressed by the smoke and start crying. But I have to cook; I won’t let the children starve.” Kumari’s husband is 34, and works as a cook in a hotel.

"Every time someone cooks over wood or coal in a closed kitchen, they breathe in smoke that is far more toxic than outdoor city pollution,” said Venugopal. “In the short term, this causes burning eyes, coughing, and headaches – but over the years, it quietly damages the lungs and heart, sometimes leading to serious diseases like COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] or even lung cancer. The tragedy is that for many families, there is simply no other option.”

The government has asked states to improve access to free-trade LPG cylinders, which hold 5 kg gas and have lower documentation needs. These are typically meant for consumers such as migrant workers and students. The government has doubled allocations to states and oil companies are organising awareness campaigns. Retail prices of refills have also increased.

The shift back to polluting cookstoves

Sanghamitra Patra, 28, who came to Delhi from Odisha in search of employment in 2022, runs Chandini dhaba in Munirka. Since the crisis began, she has been running it using two wood stoves. “While cooking on the chulha, the flames spread far. It feels like being thrown into a furnace,” she says.

Her family does not have an LPG connection. Earlier, she used to buy refills by paying delivery persons a little extra but now, a refill costs up to Rs 4,000 on the black market. “My two children go to school; I can’t even make lunch for them. After school, they come here to the dhaba to eat."

“I had never cooked on a chulha before. Now I only make dal, roti, and rice because it takes much longer to cook on the chulha,” she said. “The dhaba gets filled with smoke, so many customers turn back. My income has decreased by half. It has become difficult to pay the rent for the shop and the house.”

“Women, especially those in low socio-economic status, are the ones standing over the fire for hours every day, so they breathe in the most smoke and feel the most heat,” Venugopal said. “When you add poverty, poor nutrition, limited healthcare, and no real choice of fuel, the body simply has fewer resources to cope and recover. These women are not weak, but they are being exposed to hazards – an impossible situation with no support."

On April 24, the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas stated in a press conference that the supply of domestic LPG remains smooth. Meanwhile, at an Indane gas agency in Masoodpur, near the Jai Hind Camp slum, long queues were seen on April 23 at 4 p.m. Ramveer, a gas mechanic at the agency, explained that the crowds were there to resolve persistent technical issues with their bookings. When asked about the 5 kg cylinders, he said they are not seeing many new applications.

We reached out to the ministry for comment on the challenges faced by migrant workers and concerns over the affordability of the 5 kg cylinders. We will update this story when we receive a response.

Double burden of pollution

Urban slums suffer from a double burden of pollution. They are exposed to the high ambient particulate matter of cities and the household air pollution from unclean cooking fuels. According to a survey report by CEEW, 45% of urban slum households in India use traditional fuel like dung cakes and firewood for cooking.

"Migrant workers were never adequately covered by clean fuel access even under conditions of good LPG supply,” said Kalpana Balakrishnan, professor and dean (research) at SRIHER. “The crisis has heightened the need for expanding clean energy access to all vulnerable populations, including the urban poor, who often face risks greater than the rural poor.

“In lower socio-economic status households, cooking expenses account for more than 30% of their limited income. Any financial shock forces them to look for alternatives,” Balakrishnan added. “However, India has made significant progress in clean cooking, especially through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. Despite this, it has been challenging to bear the costs of increasing usage and to reach the bottom 10% of the poorest population. Now, the rising number of people reverting to solid fuels has made the situation even more serious."

"Those who can afford to switch to solar should be encouraged, freeing up LPG for the most vulnerable,” she added. “Cities like Delhi can rebalance energy use through redesigned, smarter subsidy structures and lead the transition to renewable cooking nationwide."

Shivam Bhardwaj is an independent journalist based in Bareilly.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

The Indian rupee slumped to a record low of 96.9 against the United States dollar amid elevated global oil prices and economic headwinds caused by the conflict in West Asia. Its value improved marginally to 96.8 by the end of the trade session. However, it had fallen 30 paise from the previous low of 96.5 recorded on Tuesday.

Wednesday was the eighth consecutive trade session in ⁠which the rupee had lost its value. The Indian rupee has been the worst-performing Asian currency in 2026, with a 6% loss in its value ⁠since the conflict began on February ​28. Read on.

The Delhi High Court set aside a sessions court order that had stayed ab first information report being filed against commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra for his social media posts in which he made sexually abusive remarks about the women employees of news outlet Newslaundry.

Noting that the sessions court order did not provide any reasons for its decision, the High Court bench remanded the matter back to the judge and asked him to pass a fresh and reasoned order within four weeks. Read on.

Kerala’s new United Democratic Front government said that it was scrapping the Silver Line semi-high-speed railway project planned by the previous Left administration. The proposed 530-km route was to connect Thiruvananthapuram in the south and Kasaragod in the north, reducing travel time to less than four hours from about 12 hours.

Chief Minister VD Satheesan said that the Congress-led government is not against high-speed railway projects, but was scrapping the “K-Rail” because it was “an environmental disaster and not economically viable”. He also said that the cases against the persons who protested the project would be withdrawn. Read on.

The Supreme Court dismissed a public interest litigation demanding that caste enumeration be excluded from the 2027 Census. The bench said that the matter lies within the government’s domain and that the courts cannot intervene.

The government must know how many people are backward and how many need welfare, the bench said, adding that it is a “matter of policy”.

The petitioner had contended that there was no justification for the government to collect such a large amount of data on caste. “There are endless possibilities of politicians and corporate entities misusing the caste data,” the petitioner had argued. Read on.

The Delhi High Court dismissed a public interest litigation demanding that Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak be disqualified from contesting elections after a judge initiated criminal contempt proceedings against them. The petitioner alleged that the contempt proceedings showed that the AAP leaders did not hold allegiance to the Constitution.

The bench said that the contentions were “absolutely baseless and bereft of any consideration”. The court also rejected the petitioner’s plea to direct the Election Commission to de-register the AAP. The poll panel does not have the power to do so barring in exceptional circumstances, the bench said. Read on.

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The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation demanding that Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak be disqualified from contesting elections in view of a judge having initiated criminal contempt proceedings against them, Live Law reported.

The petitioner contended that a May 14 order by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma initiating contempt action showed that the AAP leaders did not hold allegiance to the Constitution.

A division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and Justice Tejas Karia said that the petition was “highly misconceived”, adding that the contention was “absolutely baseless and bereft of any consideration,” Live Law reported.

The petitioner also demanded that the Election Commission be directed to de-register the AAP. The High Court rejected this prayer as well, holding that the poll panel does not have the power to review its order granting registration to a political party, the legal news outlet reported.

The court noted that the Election Commission can only de-register a party in three exceptional circumstances: if the registration was found to have been obtained through fraud, if the party changes its nomenclature in a manner that does not conform with the Representation of the People Act or if the party states before the Election Commission that it does not have faith in the Constitution.

The petition alleged that Sharma’s order showed that the AAP leaders had acted against the Constitution. However, the court said that this contention was “too far-fetched” and that there was nothing on record to show that the AAP had stated that it does not have faith in the Constitution, Live Law reported.

Sharma had initiated contempt proceedings against Kejriwal, Sisodia and others for allegedly defaming and vilifying her on social media in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case.

The development came after the AAP leaders decided in April to boycott the proceedings before Sharma in the petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation against a trial court order discharging them and several others in the case.

On April 20, Sharma rejected a petition filed by the leaders demanding that she recuse herself from hearing the case. Their petition raised concerns about “perceived ideological proximity”, referring to her attending an event of an organisation linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The RSS is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Taiwan’s de facto diplomatic mission in India on Wednesday condemned the recent “publications/comments made by certain individuals”, referring to an election billboard put up by a Taiwanese ward chief that had alleged anti-India messaging.

The billboard featured a “no” symbol over an inverted Indian flag and a brown-skinned man wearing a turban, triggering a social media furore with several users alleging that the poster reflected racist attitudes.

It had been put up by Lee Hung-yi, the ward chief of Gangming borough in Kaohsiung’s Siaogang, who is contesting as an independent candidate in the city council election scheduled to be held in November.

Taiwan’s de facto diplomatic mission in New Delhi clarified that the “biased remarks do not represent our stance” adding that they “deeply regret and strongly condemn any form of prejudice, racism and discrimination”.

“Taiwan cherishes the values of democracy, inclusivity, and diversity, and support people to people exchanges between Taiwan and India,” the statement said.

After backlash, Lee had told CNA on May 13 that he was not opposed to migrant workers as a whole, but was specifically against migrant workers from India. He contended that a policy to open up Taiwan to Indian migrant workers lacked the necessary supporting measures and management regulations.

On April 9, Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han said that Taiwan could initially bring in 1,000 Indian workers to work in the fields of manufacturing, agriculture and caregiving. Taipei and New Delhi were discussing matters related to administrative procedures, document verification and health check.

In April 2025, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that there were 5,804 Indians in Taiwan, of whom 5,303 were Non-Resident Indians and 501 were Persons of Indian Origin.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation demanding that caste enumeration be kept out of the Census 2027 exercise, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymala Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi said that the matter lies within the government’s domain and that the courts cannot intervene.

“Any government of the day must know how many people are backward and how many need welfare,” The Hindu quoted Kant as saying. “This is a matter of policy.”

The petitioner contended that there was no justification for collecting such a large amount of data on caste. “There are endless possibilities of politicians and corporate entities misusing the caste data,” he argued, according to The Hindu.

However, the court said that there was no reason for it to intervene, and went on to dismiss the petition.

The Census 2027 will take place in two phases – house listing from April 2026 to September 2026, and population enumeration in February 2027.

The last decennial census exercise was held in 2011. In 2020, India was set to begin the first phase of the exercise – in which housing data is collected – but it had to be delayed as the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

India had last conducted an exercise to count the population of all caste groups in 1931. In independent India, census reports have published data noting the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but not other caste groups.

In April 2025, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs approved the enumeration of caste in the next census.

The Opposition had been demanding a nationwide caste census. The proponents of such an exercise argue that it will help identify the true population of the country’s Other Backward Classes and other castes, in turn paving the way for policies such as expanded quotas in jobs and education.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: ‘The Caste Con Census’: Anand Teltumbde argues that a nationwide caste census cannot annihilate it

Kerala Chief Minister VD Satheesan on Wednesday said that the United Democratic Front government in the state was scrapping the SilverLine semi-high-speed railway project, which had been announced by the previous Left Democratic Front government

The proposed project was envisaged to cover a 530-km stretch between Thiruvananthapuram in the south and Kasaragod in the north, reducing travel time from around 12 to 14 hours at present to under four hours, The News Minute reported.

It was to be developed by K-Rail, a joint venture of the Kerala government and the Ministry of Railways.

On Wednesday, Satheeshan also announced the withdrawal of cases registered against those who protested the project, adding that the government would approach the judiciary to facilitate the process.

The chief minister highlighted that the land acquired for the project was never de-notified, which had meant that people were unable to sell or pledge their own property, The Hindu reported.

“We are not against high-speed rail projects,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “We opposed K-Rail because it was an environmental disaster and not economically viable.”

He said the government was “not against a rail project which will not affect the State environmentally or financially”.

The project has been halted since 2022 following pending approvals from the Union government and protests by the Opposition in the state.

Critics warned that the project could displace thousands of families, degrade the fragile local environment, worsen extreme climate events and plunge the already heavily indebted state economy into a severe financial crisis.

The LDF-government had in January 2022 estimated the cost of the project at Rs 63,941 crore, The News Minute reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande

Also read: In Kerala, development projects cleared amid lockdown threaten the state’s ecological balance

Gerrymandering is the act of redrawing the boundaries of political constituencies in a way that gives the ruling party a clear advantage over its rivals. The term, which originated in the United States, entered mainstream political discourse in India last week when the Modi government convened a special session of Parliament to push for early delimitation in the name of implementing women’s reservation.

The bills were defeated. But the threat of gerrymandering is real, as we know from the case of Assam.

The state saw a delimitation exercise in 2023 which altered political boundaries in a way that led to absurd outcomes: one panchayat, for instance, is now represented by two MPs and three MLAs.

The larger impact was that Muslim representation in the state shrunk with the Bharatiya Janata Party acquiring a permanent edge over its rivals.

In this episode of True Story, Scroll’s Executive Editor Supriya Sharma and reporter Rokibuz Zaman pore over constituency maps in Assam to explain what changed and how.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation on Tuesday said it has moved the Calcutta High Court against the decision of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal to invoke the state’s 1950 Animal Slaughter Control Act to “impose severe punitive restrictions on ritual sacrifice of livestock”.

The Suvendu Adhikari-led government, in one of its first steps after coming to power in the state on May 4, said that the provisions of the Animal Slaughter Control Act will be strictly enforced.

The order came two weeks before Bakrid on May 27. Bakrid, also known as Eid-al-Adha, is a Muslim festival that commemorates the spirit of sacrifice. The festival is traditionally marked by the slaughtering of goats.

The provisions make it mandatory for persons to obtain a certificate before slaughtering animals such as buffaloes, cows and bulls. It also barred public slaughter of the animals and said officials carrying out inspections to enforce the order should not be obstructed.

The certificate, which can be issued by the chairperson of a municipal body or a sarpanch, along with a government veterinary doctor, must confirm that the animals are suitable for slaughter. This document must also confirm that the animal is over 14 years old and no longer useful for work or breeding, or is permanently incapacitated because of age, injury, deformity or an incurable disease.

The order did not provide exemptions for slaughter for religious, medicinal or research purposes, unlike earlier notices.

On Tuesday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation described the tightening of the Animal Slaughter Control Act as “an assault” on the religious freedom of the Muslim community and “on the livelihood of farmers engaged in cattle trade [who are mostly from the Hindu community]”.

The party also contended that this was an assault on the “freedom of citizens to eat according to their choice and on the culinary diversity of West Bengal”.

The petition filed by the party in court is set to come up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen, Live Law reported.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday set aside a sessions court order that had stayed the filing of a first information report against commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra for his social media posts in which he made sexually abusive remarks about the women employees of news outlet Newslaundry, reported Bar and Bench.

Noting that the sessions court order stayed the filing of the FIR without giving any reasons, Justice Girish Kathpalia remanded the matter back to the judge there while asking him to pass a fresh and reasoned order.

“This kind of stay does not convince,” the legal news portal quoted Kathpalia as saying. “…I want to understand what went in his [sessions judge’s] mind to stay the order. I will send it back to pass a reasoned order.”

The High Court asked the Newslaundry journalists and Iyer-Mitra to appear before the sessions court on May 22. Kathpalia further directed the sessions court to decide the case within four weeks.

Newslaundry’s Managing Editor Manisha Pande and other women journalists working for the news outlet had approached a magistrate court, stating that Iyer-Mitra had repeatedly used derogatory language and slurs to target them.

On April 23, the magistrate court said that Iyer-Mitra could be charged under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to sexual harassment and insulting the modesty of a woman for the contents of the tweets.

The judge also observed that the “police investigation is necessary as the offence has been committed in cyber space”. He ordered the registration of an FIR against Iyer-Mitra for offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to sexual harassment and word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman.

The journalists have separately also approached the Delhi High Court with a defamation suit against Iyer-Mitra, seeking a public apology and Rs 2 crore in damages.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday quashed two cases against Maharashtra’s former Director General of Police Sanjay Pandey and a lawyer named Shekhar Jagtap pertaining to an alleged conspiracy during the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s tenure to “file false cases” against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Devendra Fadnavis and the Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde, Live Law reported.

A division bench of Justices Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam pronounced the verdict. The detailed order is yet to be made public.

A businessman named Sanjay Punamiya has alleged that Pandey had reopened a criminal case against him that had been closed in 2016. He claimed that Jagtap forged documents and appeared as a special public prosecutor in the case, although he did not have an official appointment letter, according to Live Law.

The criminal case had also reportedly named former Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh. The businessman and the former Mumbai Police chief had been accused of extortion.

In August 2024, a first information report was registered against Pandey, Assistant Commissioner of Police Sardar Patil and Inspector Manohar Patil, accusing them of pressuring Punamiya to make allegations against Fadnavis and Shinde, based on which a case could be filed against the two leaders.

Several judges of the Bombay High Court had recused themselves from hearing Pandey’s petition seeking to quash the cases, Live Law reported. After the Supreme Court’s intervention, a special bench comprising Chandrashekhar and Shyam was set up.

Edited by Sneha.

During a routine anticipatory bail hearing late in April, the Madras High Court referred to transgender persons as “children of god”.

The phrase appears compassionate, an attempt to restore dignity to a marginalised community. But this language is neither neutral nor benign. It belongs to a longer history of paternalistic recognition in India, most notably captured in the term “Harijan”, popularised by Mohandas Gandhi to describe those oppressed by caste-based untouchability.

Like “children of god”, the word “Harijan” sought to confer moral worth through spiritual elevation. And like it, the term was ultimately rejected by anti-caste thinkers for replacing structural critique with sentimental moralism.

Indian courts have, when confronted with marginalised identities, reached for emotional language on more than one occasion. The Supreme Court’s 2014 landmark ruling in NALSA v Union of India, which affirmed the fundamental rights of transgender persons, opened by observing that they are often “treated as untouchables”.

This analogy to caste, while rhetorically powerful, was not carried through into the reasoning of the judgment. Caste was reduced to a metaphor and the judgment’s analysis proceeded on an isolated understanding of gender, leaving the intersection of caste and gender unexamined.

The Madras High Court’s invocation of “children of God” is a shift in register – from social analogy to theological metaphor – but not a shift in method. In both instances, emotion substitutes for analysis. Even the judgment’s language – at points referring to “transgenders” rather than transgender persons – reflects this tendency to reduce individuals to categories.

The court acknowledged social exclusion and directed the state to pursue rehabilitation. But the term remained undefined, leaving the intervention broad, paternalistic and untethered to the case at hand.

Theology in a secular courtroom

The order invokes the “Creator”, only to insist that “it is no part of the judicial function to sit in theological judgment”. But the disclaimer is too late. Once dignity is grounded in divine authorship, the basis of rights subtly shifts from constitutional guarantee to moral theology.

A constitutional court derives its authority from the Constitution of India. Its task is not to affirm that all are equal before god, but to ensure equality before the law. When courts invoke theology without translating it into constitutional reasoning, they replace analytical clarity with platitudes.

To describe a marginalised group as “children of god” is to mark them out as requiring reassurance – as if their inclusion in the category of the human must be specially affirmed. If everyone is, in some sense, a child of god, the phrase merely signals that this group, unlike others, needs to be reminded of it.

Bail to sermon

The court was hearing an application for anticipatory bail by a YouTuber accused of spreading misinformation about the self-immolation of a transgender person.

By the court’s own reasoning, the matter was effectively resolved early on. The petitioner had merely retransmitted content already in circulation. On that basis, the court indicated its inclination to grant bail.

Ordinarily, that would have been the end of the matter. Instead, the judgment shifts from adjudication to exposition – moving away from the facts of the case and into a wide-ranging reflection on transgender lives and state responsibility.

It became a leap from a specific criminal proceeding to population-level governance. The court went on to direct the state to formulate a comprehensive rehabilitation scheme at the taluk level – an intervention framed in terms of integration and inclusion.

The immediate context of the case concerned a particular and highly visible segment of the transgender community – those who survive through street-based livelihoods, including begging and sex work.

Yet this specific figure is universalised into “the transgender,” and the call for rehabilitation is built around that imagined subject.

This is a familiar move. A stigmatised and hyper-visible group comes to stand in for the whole, and “rehabilitation” becomes the preferred vocabulary of response. What appears as benevolent intervention thus risks reproducing a narrow and paternalistic understanding of the community it seeks to address.

Beyond the courtroom

Taken together, the judgment reveals a broader pattern. Faced with marginalisation, courts reach for the language of empathy – analogy in NALSA v Union of India, theology in the present order, and generalisation in both. But empathy, in these instances, does not translate into a sustained engagement with caste, labour, gender identity or the limits of judicial power.

Instead, the phrase “children of god” is amplified as the essence of the judgment. The discipline of constitutional reasoning recedes and is replaced by the ease of sentiment.

Terms like Harijan once promised dignity through spiritual recognition. The rejection of these terms was a refusal to accept sentiment in place of justice. The reappearance of similar language in a different context should give us pause.

The temptation for courts to enter the domain of moral or theological reflection is not new. It is visible in the long and troubled history of the “essential practices” doctrine, where judges have repeatedly assumed the role of interpreters of religion rather than adjudicators of rights.

The result is doctrinal confusion – an accumulation of inconsistencies that courts themselves later struggle to untangle.

A constitutional court need not be uncompassionate. But compassion cannot substitute for reasoning. Nor can it displace the language of rights through which the Constitution recognises individuals as equal participants in public life.

For when rights are recast as compassion, recognition slips too easily into control.

Sumit Baudh is the author of the forthcoming Routledge monograph Law at the Intersection of Caste, Class and Sex.

At dawn in Gujarat’s Banni grasslands, the earth smells faintly of salt and wet dung. Buffaloes shuffle through silver grass under a pale orange sky while tiny black bees hover over flowering shrubs that survived the harsh summer. Herders of the Maldhari community move slowly with their animals, reading the land like memory: where water remained after winter, where grasses flowered early, where acacia trees are likely to bloom.

Hundreds of kilometres away in Rajasthan’s Thar desert, Raika camel herders walk across sandy commons dotted with khejri and ber shrubs. Their camels browse lightly, never staying too long in one place. After the first monsoon showers, wild flowers erupt briefly across the desert floor, drawing bees in clouds of gold and brown.

These scenes rarely enter conversations about conservation. Yet across India, pastoralist communities are the country’s quietest custodians of wild pollinators.

On World Bee Day, observed on May 20 every year, discussions usually focus on honey production, commercial beekeeping or pesticide-driven bee decline. But scientists and grassroots organisations are increasingly recognising another reality: in addition to forest and farms, wild bees also depends on living pastoral landscapes; grasslands, grazing commons, scrub forests and migratory routes maintained by herding communities for centuries.

Landscape management

India hosts more than 700 species of wild bees, including the giant rock bee, Indian honey bee, stingless bees, carpenter bee and bumblebee. Unlike managed honey bees, these pollinators survive in uncultivated habitats: hedgerows, forest edges, native grasses, flowering shrubs and open commons. Many pastoral landscapes provide exactly these conditions.

Traditional grazing systems create landscapes where grazing, trampling and seasonal movement prevent ecological stagnation and encourage plant diversity. Diverse plants mean diverse flowering cycles. And diverse flowers sustain wild pollinators across seasons. Pastoralism, in this sense, is beyond livestock rearing. It is landscape management.

In western Rajasthan, commons known as orans and gochars historically supported both livestock and biodiversity. Studies on Rajasthan’s grazing commons show that community-managed grazing systems once allowed landscapes to regenerate through seasonal resting periods and rotational access. These landscapes are often dismissed as wastelands, but they are ecologically productive spaces. For pollinators, grasslands can be as important as forests.

Ecological web

The relationship between livestock and bees may appear unlikely at first. But healthy grazing systems support pollinators in several ways.

Animal dung enriches soil microbes and improves nutrient cycling, allowing native grasses and flowering herbs to regenerate. Moderate grazing prevents aggressive shrubs from overtaking open habitats, helping sunlight reach flowering plants. Seasonal mobility prevents overgrazing and gives landscapes time to recover.

Most importantly, pastoralism often protects uncultivated spaces that industrial agriculture eliminates.

Wild bees do not survive on crops alone. They need nesting grounds, native vegetation, flowering weeds and forest edges. In monoculture landscapes saturated with chemicals, these habitats disappear rapidly.

Pastoral landscapes retain them.

In Gujarat’s Banni grasslands, among Asia’s largest tropical grassland ecosystems, Maldhari pastoralists have evolved mobile grazing systems adapted to droughts and erratic rainfall. In Uttarakhand, Van Gujjar pastoralists moving through forest corridors depend on flowering trees such as sal, jamun and semal, the same species that sustain bees and birds.

In Maharashtra, Dhangar shepherds traditionally graze across semi-arid grasslands rich in seasonal wildflowers. In Karnataka, Kuruba pastoralists maintain mixed-use forest landscapes that support both livestock and pollinator diversity.

Commons under threat

Yet these ecosystems are vanishing.

Over the past few decades, India’s grazing commons have shrunk due to industrial projects, fencing, mining, monoculture plantations, highways and urban expansion. Pastoralists increasingly describe losing their “right to roam”.

This fragmentation affects not just livelihoods, but ecological continuity itself.

When commons disappear, landscapes become simplified. Diverse flowering plants are replaced by monocultures. Seasonal grazing cycles collapse. Pollinator habitats shrink.

The consequences are already visible.

Globally, pollinators are declining due to habitat loss, pesticides, climate change and intensive agriculture. India has no comprehensive national assessment of wild bee populations yet, but researchers increasingly warn about declining pollinator diversity in heavily industrialised agricultural zones. Ironically, policies continue to treat grasslands as “degraded” lands.

Across many states, commons are diverted for solar parks, plantations or infrastructure projects because they are officially classified as “wastelands”. Conservation policies too sometimes exclude pastoralists in the name of protecting forests and wildlife, despite evidence that mobile grazing systems can coexist with biodiversity conservation.

This policy ignorance has deep colonial roots. British forest governance often viewed pastoralists as encroachers rather than ecological stewards. That mindset still persists in parts of India’s conservation bureaucracy.

Rethinking conservation policy

There are signs of change, though progress remains uneven.

The Forest Rights Act, 2006, opened pathways for recognising community rights over grazing landscapes. Pastoralist groups across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana are also demanding legal recognition of migratory routes, seasonal grazing access and commons governance.

Rajasthan has experimented with decentralised commons governance, while several civil society organisations are documenting how pastoral systems contribute to biodiversity conservation and climate resilience.

Environmentalists argue that pollinator conservation policies must move beyond bee boxes and commercial apiculture. Protecting pollinators requires protecting landscapes, especially grasslands and commons that fall outside traditional forest conservation frameworks.

This is particularly important in the era of climate change. Pastoral systems evolved precisely to cope with uncertainty shifting rainfall, droughts and seasonal variability. Mobility allows both livestock and landscapes to adapt. In contrast, industrial systems dependent on uniformity often collapse under ecological stress.

As evening falls over Banni, bees retreat into cracks of bark and dry earth while buffaloes gather near temporary settlements. The Maldharis prepare tea. Somewhere in the dark, bells from grazing animals echo across the grassland.

These sounds belong to an older ecological rhythm, one in which humans, animals, grasses and pollinators move together across shared landscapes.

Saving bees, then, may require looking beyond apiaries and honey bottles. It may require protecting the pastoral communities whose movements still keep India’s living landscapes open, and flowering.

For centuries, pastoralists have moved livestock across India’s landscapes, carrying with them the ecological knowledge that keeps these ecosystems alive. If India hopes to protect its wild pollinators in an age of climate breakdown and ecological collapse, it may first need to recognise pastoralism as a living model of coexistence.

World Bee Day is observed every year on May 20 to raise global awareness about the critical role bees and other pollinators play in sustaining ecosystems, ensuring food security and supporting biodiversity.

Abhijit Mohanty is a Bhubaneswar-based independent journalist who reports on sustainable food, livelihood, women’s leadership and climate change with a special focus on Adivasi and marginalised Indian communities.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has sent notices to 17 addresses allegedly linked to Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for purported unauthorised construction, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

However, the TMC claimed that the notices and media reports about them were “false, fabricated and devoid of any credibility”.

The notices came days after a first information report and a police complaint were filed against Banerjee. They also come against the backdrop of the Bharatiya Janata Party defeating the TMC in the Assembly elections on May 4.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is administered by the TMC.

On Monday, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that he had sought details of properties linked to TMC leaders, including Banerjee, from the Municipal Affairs Department and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation commissioner, The Hindu reported.

In the notices, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has reportedly sought documents related to building plan approvals and clarification on whether permissions were taken for additional construction, along with details about installations such as lifts and escalators, according to The Indian Express.

It further directed the demolition of unauthorised construction within seven days if the owners do not show cause for why such action should not be taken.

The civic body added that it would carry out demolitions and recover the cost from the owners if no satisfactory response is received, reported The Indian Express.

The notices were sent to several residential and organisational properties, including those allegedly linked to Banerjee’s parents and his company, Leaps and Bounds Private Limited, according to the newspaper.

Adhikari on Monday said that the first person he had sought details of from the municipal corporation was the TMC’s Raju Naskar, who he claimed had 18 properties.

“Second is Kasba’s Sona Pappu, who has 24 properties,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “Third is bhatija [nephew], Abhishek Banerjee. There are 14 properties registered in the name of the Leaps and Bounds company, four in his own name, and six in the name of his father.”

The chief minister added that the fourth person he had asked for details about was the son of TMC MLA Javed Ahmed Khan. He had 90 properties, Adhikari alleged.

‘Notice completely false’: TMC

The TMC stated that it had seen media reports and posts related to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation notices to Banerjee and other party leaders, adding that it had been leaked “unofficially” by the BJP.

“The notice and the media coverage over the last few days are completely false, fabricated and devoid of any credibility,” the party stated.

It added: “We urge the media fraternity to exercise sensitivity & responsibility instead of promoting such fabricated posts and stories. Any false reporting or misleading posts will be dealt with appropriately in accordance with the provisions of law before the competent court.”

On social media, TMC leader Saket Gokhale retweeted a list shared by Rahul Shivshankar, editorial affairs director at CNN-News18, about the properties allegedly linked to Banerjee that had been served notices.

Gokhale said that the document was a “complete hoax and inaccurate” and that it had nothing to do with Banerjee.

“Which begs the question – what’s the ‘source’?” the TMC leader said, adding that Shivshankar had “got it from the BJP and posted it as ordered”.

Let’s counter the claims of this chimpanzee step-by-step:

👉 The “document” he’s shared is a complete hoax and inaccurate. Has nothing to do with Abhishek Banerjee

👉 Which begs the question - what’s the “source”? Clearly, this chomu got it from the BJP & posted it as ordered.… https://t.co/TlX75teVB2

— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) May 20, 2026

Previous action against Banerjee

The alleged notices were served days after the police on May 15 filed an FIR against Banerjee for allegedly provocative speeches he made during campaigning for the Assembly elections, including alleged threats directed at Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The FIR was based on a complaint filed by a man identified as Rajib Sarkar on May 5, a day after the election results were announced, at the Baguiati Police Station. His complaint alleged that Banerjee made inflammatory remarks during campaign events held between April 27 and May 3.

Two days later, former TMC minister Giasuddin Molla filed a police complaint against Banerjee, alleging threats and intimidation. He also named Mithun Kumar Dey, the former sub-divisional police officer in the 24 Parganas’ Diamond Harbour subdivision, in the complaint.

On Monday, Banerjee moved the Calcutta High Court seeking quashing of the FIR filed against him for allegedly making inflammatory remarks during campaigning, The Hindu reported.

Edited by Sneha.

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested one more person accused of the murder of an aide to West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, PTI quoted officials as saying.

The officials said that Vinay Rai, a resident of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested in Varanasi. Rai, who is the fifth person arrested for the killing, will be produced before a court in Kolkata.

The aide, Chandranath Rath, had been shot dead near Kolkata on May 6. The CBI had taken over the investigation into his murder after a request from the state government.

Rai’s arrest on Tuesday came a day after the CBI arrested another key accused, Raj Kumar Singh alias Raj Singh, from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier this month, three others were arrested in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in connection with Rath’s killing.

These men were identified as Vishal Srivastava, a resident of Bihar’s Buxar district, Mayank Mishra and Vicky Maurya. Mishra and Maurya are from Uttar Pradesh, officials said.

Rath was killed amid widespread political violence in West Bengal after the Bharatiya Janata Party defeated the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly elections.

He was travelling in a car to his home in Barasat when assailants on motorbikes intercepted the vehicle in the Madhyamgram area at about 10.20 pm. One of the suspects reportedly approached the car and fired three bullets at close range, it had been reported at the time.

Rath, who was seated next to the driver, sustained several bullet injuries and was declared dead after being taken to hospital. His driver, Buddhadeb, was seriously injured.

The motive for the murder was unclear.

Rath had worked with Adhikari for several years and handled political coordination and organisational work. He had reportedly been associated with the BJP leader since 2018 and later became his executive assistant after Adhikari became Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal.

Adhikari, who became the chief minister on May 9, was not with Rath at the time of the attack. The BJP leader alleged that it was a “pre-planned murder”.

The Trinamool Congress had condemned Rath’s killing and expressed grief over the deaths of party workers in separate incidents of violence across the state. The party alleged that “BJP-backed miscreants” had been involved in post-poll unrest and called for a court-monitored CBI probe into the killing of Rath.

Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine a plea challenging the preventive detention of former journalist Satyam Verma under the National Security Act in connection with the Noida workers’ protest violence case, but refused to grant him interim relief, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and the Union government on a petition filed by Verma’s wife challenging the detention order, Bar and Bench reported.

“For now, we can’t grant you any interim relief because the validity of the detention order has to be seen,” Live Law quoted Nagarathna as having told the petitioner.

The protest had been held on April 13.

The 60-year-old former journalist from Lucknow was among two persons detained under the National Security Act on May 13. The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial up to a year.

Verma and 25-year-old Aakriti Chaudhary are members of the Mazdoor Bigul Dasta, a workers’ organisation.

The police alleged that the role played by the two was “significant in instigating violence, arson and creating chaos” during the protest. Verma and Chaudhary “provoked” persons in different areas to “disturb public order”, the police alleged.

The police have also alleged that Verma received money from foreign accounts to incite the violence, Bar and Bench reported.

The detention order further accused him of using “leftist” writings and literature to encourage younger people to join rebel organisations, according to Live Law.

The order also claimed that books containing quotes by Mao Zedong and other material described as “objectionable” and “anti-democratic” were recovered from Verma’s office.

His wife’s petition argued that Verma was not present during the protests and had been targeted for being the publisher and writer of the Mazdoor Bigul newspaper, administering its Facebook page and for being associated with the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India.

She also argued that the case was not only about Verma’s allegedly illegal arrest, but also about a “concerted deployment of arbitrary, dragnet and fabricated criminal proceedings to silence the labour class and its democratic allies”, The Hindu reported.

The petition before the Supreme Court also questioned the clubbing of three first information reports against him.

Verma had been picked up from a publisher’s office in Lucknow and was allegedly asked to delete an article about workers because it could “stir disturbance”, Bar and Bench reported.

He reportedly agreed to take it down while maintaining that it was only about workers’ rights.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj told the bench that a habeas corpus petition concerning Verma’s detention was already pending before the Allahabad High Court.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the matter again in July.

The protests

On April 13, about 40,000 to 45,000 workers from several industrial units had gathered in parts of the city to press long-standing demands that their salaries be increased. The protests came amid increasing gas prices because of the supply disruption caused by the conflict in West Asia.

The protests had turned violent. Videos widely shared on social media showed some protesters throwing stones and vandalising property, as security personnel tried to bring the situation under control.

On April 14, more than 350 persons had been arrested in connection with the violence.

Witnesses had alleged that the police personnel deployed to contain the violence on April 13 had beaten up the protesters.

On April 16, a video surfaced online showing police personnel assaulting women. The video was shared on social media platforms by several users, including the Uttar Pradesh Congress, who alleged that it showed police personnel in Noida lathi-charging and manhandling women workers on the day of wage hike protests.

The police commissionerate in Gautam Buddha Nagar district denied this. It said that “prima facie, the video appears to be morphed or AI-generated and does not seem to be from Noida, but rather from some other location.”

However, eyewitnesses, who did not want to be identified because of the fear of facing backlash from the authorities, told Scroll that the video accurately captured the scene they had witnessed.

Scroll also used geolocation analysis and matched the video against a press photo to establish that the location was indeed Block A and Block B of Noida’s Sector 6. Scroll visited the spot and spoke to several people who had seen the police assault. Questions sent to Commissioner of Police Laxmi Singh at the time did not elicit a response.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Noida and beyond: India’s workers are being shortchanged. They deserve a fair deal

• Fact check: Despite official denial, viral video showing police beating women workers is from Noida

• Watch: Called ‘Naxal’, thrashed by Noida police for asking for wage hikes

The Commission for Air Quality Management on Tuesday imposed Stage 1 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi and the adjoining National Capital Region after the air quality slipped into the “poor” category.

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

The first stage involves measures such as mechanical sweeping of roads and sprinkling water on them to keep dust from rising. It also bans some kinds of construction and demolition activities.

The Commission for Air Quality Management said that in its meeting on Tuesday it reviewed the air quality scenario in the region and observed that Delhi’s Air Quality Index had shown an increasing trend and was recorded at 208, which is in the “poor” category.

The statutory body noted that the AQI is likely to remain in the “poor” category in the coming days.

As of 6.05 pm on Tuesday, Delhi recorded an average AQI of 206, showed the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

In Uttar Pradesh, while Noida recorded a “poor” AQI of 238 and Ghaziabad of 248, Greater Noida was in the “very poor” category at 304, the application showed.

In Haryana, Gurugram recorded an AQI of 188 and Faridabad 196, both in the “moderate” category.

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”.

Stage 1 of GRAP is activated when the AQI is in the “poor” category. The second, third and fourth stages are activated when the AQI crosses the “very poor”, “severe” and “severe plus” categories.

IMD issues yellow alert for heatwave in Delhi

The India Meteorological Department on Tuesday issued a “yellow” alert for heatwave conditions in isolated parts of Delhi until May 25, with the maximum temperature expected to hover about 44 degrees Celsius.

A yellow alert stands for “be updated”.

The weather agency said that isolated areas are likely to experience heatwave-like conditions during the day.

The IMD said that temperatures indicate that the level of heat is generally tolerable for the public but may pose a moderate health risk for vulnerable groups such as infants and elderly people with chronic illnesses.

It advised people to avoid heat exposure, wear light-coloured, loose-fitting cotton clothing and cover their heads with a cloth, hat or umbrella. It also recommended drinking sufficient water frequently and keeping fire extinguishers at home and in vehicles.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

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

• India’s car-first cities should prioritise walking to help tackle smog

• Air pollution can increase risk of motor neurone diseases, worsen outcomes

The Trinamool Congress’ candidate in West Bengal’s Falta announced that he has withdrawn from repolling there, two days ahead of voting. Jahangir Khan said he was doing so for the constituency’s “development and the public good”, citing a special package announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party government.

The TMC said that the withdrawal of the candidature was Khan’s personal decision and not that of the party.

On May 4, the Bharatiya Janata Party defeated the TMC in the state polls, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led party. While voting in Falta was held on April 29, the Election Commission on May 2 ordered repolling in the constituency, alleging that the democratic process had been subverted there. Repolling will be held on May 21 and the votes will be counted on May 24. Read on.

Activist Umar Khalid was denied interim bail in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case. A Delhi court held that the grounds cited in his plea were unreasonable. Khalid had sought 15 days’ interim bail to attend a Chehlum ritual marking 40 days since his uncle’s death and to assist his mother, who is scheduled to undergo surgery on June 2.

The court said that merely the fact that Khalid and others accused in the matter had earlier been granted interim bail without breaching conditions did not mean such relief could be granted each time it was sought. The bench also said his father and sister could take care of his mother, noting the prosecution’s submission that it was a minor surgery.

He was denied bail by the Supreme Court in January. However, on Monday another bench of the Supreme Court criticised the January verdict, saying that it ignored legal precedent. Read on.

The Supreme Court refused to recall its directions issued in November that stray dogs picked up by the municipal authorities from public places must not be released into the same area after they are vaccinated or sterilised. The directions had said that the dogs must be placed in shelters.

Dismissing a batch of petitions seeking modifications to the directives, the bench said that the state cannot remain a “passive spectator” while citizens face the threat of dog attacks in public areas. If officials fail to implement the orders, they will be liable for contempt action, the court said. Read on.

The Indian rupee weakened to a record low of 96.5 against the United States dollar amid elevated global oil prices and economic headwinds caused by the conflict in West Asia. Its value fell 18 paise during the day, from the previous all-time low of 96.3 reached on Monday.

Tuesday was the seventh consecutive trade session in ⁠which the rupee had lost its value.

The Indian rupee has been the worst-performing Asian currency in 2026, with a 6% loss in its value ⁠since the conflict began on February ​28. Read on.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s refusal to answer a question from a Norwegian journalist during a joint press meet with his Norwegian counterpart sparked a debate online about the media’s role in democracy. Helle Lyng Svendsen, a reporter in Oslo, faced a barrage of criticism online after she asked why Modi had declined to take questions from the media.

On social media, Bharatiya Janata Party supporters claimed that Svendsen had acted inappropriately and some others were more intemperate in their criticism. Some accused her of being a spy.

But Modi’s opponents saw this as just another instance of the prime minister’s evasions. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Modi “running from a few questions” had undermined the country’s image. Read on.

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“My phone has not stopped ringing since the LPG crisis began,” said Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe of Pune, founder of Vaayu Mitra, a decentralised, waste-to-energy biogas model. The set-up promotes the use of home-generated biogas from wet-waste, over the typical LPG supply that homes use for cooking.

The recent West Asia conflict led to an energy crisis in India when the Strait of Hormuz – where most of India’s imported LPG comes through – was closed. Hospitality industry, food processing companies and households in the country rushed to switch to alternatives, many switching back to traditional wood and cow-dung cake-fuelled open stoves, and induction stoves.

Soon after, long queues of people waiting in line for an LPG cylinder became a common sight in almost all cities of India with many paying as high as Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 for a Rs 950 LPG cylinder, many being sold in the black market.

Sahasrabuddhe has been LPG-free for the past seven years and his company has helped restaurants, cafeterias, canteens and families in Pune and nearby cities reduce their dependence on LPG. He has installed the biogas system for around 440 customers since 2015.

The 405 currently active systems of the total installed manage 1,119 tonnes of waste annually, and the biogas produced in the process has saved around 3,000 LPG cylinders of 14 kg, worth more than Rs 20 lakh in a decade. Sahasrabuddhe himself has saved around Rs 70,000 in the last seven years doing all his cooking on biogas.

The recent situation has brought in new challenges for him. “Due to the acute shortage of cooking fuel, an ice-cream manufacturer asked me to install Vaayu overnight as his production had come to a halt. Overnight installation is not possible as we do a complete waste-audit to gauge the needs of the clients before installing the set-up. I am trying to meet the growing demand but it is difficult to do it on such short notice,” he said.

India imports 60% of its LPG consumption, most of which, about 90%, comes through the Strait of Hormuz. It relies on the imported LPG gas for industrial use in the hospitality industry as well as for domestic use.

In 2025 (April to December) India imported 18,796 thousand metric tonnes of LPG for domestic use.

There is a sharp rise in LPG import due to government schemes to promote clean (smokeless) fuel as opposed to traditional wood and charcoal burning stoves, and other factors like growing hospitality industry and a growing population. The imports rose from 18,514 in 2023-’24 (April to March) to 20,667 in 2024-’25 (April to March), according to the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, an attached office under India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, established in April 2002.

Energy security in times of crisis

A residential township in Pune’s Hinjawadi has installed the Vaayu Mitra in 26 buildings across two phases in 2025 and 2024. About 98 flats in this township have taken the biogas connection through a metred pipeline to a dedicated stove in their kitchens.

Suneel Kulkarni, representative of the developer group of the township, Megapolis, said that when the idea was brought to him, he and his partners were a little sceptical about it as they had seen organic waste composters attracting rodents, flies and other insects, emitting foul smell and making the whole ambience unhygienic. Before installing it in the buildings, they had a small trial setup.

“After seeing the results of the trial we realised that it added value for the residents. Many residents opted for the biogas pipeline from the 30 kg digester that is installed on the terrace of every building. Now, they are definitely feeling more secure in this time of crisis,” he said.

Another user, Angad Patwardhan, a Pune-based actor and voice artist who has been using the digester since March 2022 has been LPG-free since the past four years and says his family saved an average of 12 cylinders per year. They just keep a spare for emergencies.

“We are a family of five and our house help staff of two have another independent kitchen. Both the kitchens have been exclusively running on biogas, for the last five years. The 10 kg digester we have, runs on wet-waste that we purchase from our SWaCH (a waste management workers’ cooperative) staff, at Rs 300 a month. This way we are able to manage 3.5 tonnes of wet waste per year from a single household, and have managed to reduce our dependence on imported fuel,” he said.

Practical challenges

Patwardhan pointed out that while the set-up was practically free of cost and in the long run proved profitable monetarily, the installation cost of Rs 100,000 was needed to get things going and they had to ensure proper servicing of the digester twice a year, amounting to a recurring cost of Rs 3,000 per year.

“When I thought of installing Vaayu, the idea was to do my bit for the environment and money was not an issue. But for many people it is,” he said.

The upfront cost, Kulkarni also said, was a challenge that prevented real estate developers from installing the Vaayu Mitra.

“Developers need to install wet-waste management systems by law, and in the case of Organic Waste Composters, the hefty electricity bill was something the residents had to collectively bear. But Vaayu’s set up is zero-energy and does not have additional costs, saving almost Rs 2,000 per flat every month on electricity bills. Though the system pays for itself in the long-run the installation cost of Rs 10,000 per flat is something that builders do not want to pay out of their pockets,” he said.

He told Mongabay-India that the expense for installing Vaayu set up in each phase of the township reached around Rs 80-85 lakhs (₹8-8.5 million), something that deters many developers from using this system instead of traditional organic waste composters.

Patwardhan added that like the government pays subsidies for installation of solar panels and the Pune Municipal Corporate provides a 5% rebate on property tax for composting and installing biogas systems, installation of these biogas set ups should be made more lucrative with government subsidies to make them financially viable for large-scale adoption.

Patwardhan also shared the social stigma around waste, saying that some neighbours falsely complained about the smell when he had a waste-digester in his house. “After this I moved it onto the terrace to keep it out of sight. But we need to change our attitude towards waste to adopt these solutions,” he added. He further said that in the initial months there was also some technical issue that led to the digester “vomiting” but the Vaayu team fixed it when he raised the issue.

However, many argue that due to its low calorific value (4,500 to 5,000 kcal/m3), biogas leads to slow cooking and the task of managing the community digesters often deters citizens from switching to biogas.

Vitthal Kauthale, Chief Thematic Programme Executive at Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF), Urali Kanchan in Pune told Mongabay-India told that their 300 cubic metre biogas plant supplies gas to around 85 staff households in the campus, and the families save up to four LPG cylinders per year.

But highlighting the challenges of the fuel he said, “While biogas holds promise, factors like proper feeding, temperature, sunlight, distance and moisture content are a few challenges that need to be ironed out before expecting large-scale adoption. In our campus we have kept three storage tanks to ensure that all the homes receive the supply evenly because the plant is more than a kilometre away and a pipeline from there would have reduced the efficiency by large.”

Solar cookers, biopellet stoves

The recent gas crisis has underscored the need for more decentralised, green-energy solutions for cooking like solar cookers and smokeless biopellets.

Vishakha Chandhere, founder of Orjabox, an organisation working to promote solar cookers and other green-energy solutions for cooking, told Mongabay-India that the company has demonstrated renewable energy cooking techniques to over three thousand people in the last five years motivating them to use clean energy in parallel with LPG and cook at least one meal with renewable energy.

Organisations like The Gram Gaurav Prathisthan, a charitable trust working with rural communities in Saswad, Pune, are using solar cookers and biochar together to cook food.

She added that the recent LPG shortage has led to an overwhelming demand for solar cookers and training demos in both rural and urban areas from individuals, caterers and community kitchens.

“Unlike two months ago when I would have to convince people to use solar cookers and list out its benefits like it being cost-effective in the long run, health aspects etc, they are now approaching me!” she said. “The argument that I used to get was that LPG is easily accessible and they can control the flame and it cooks the food faster. These are all true but once people start seeing the practicality of the solution – that it saves a recurring expense, no constant monitoring needed, and tastier food, they do not want to go back to LPG.”

Ketaki Kokil, Director, Ecosense Appliances Pvt Ltd, working to promote the use of bio-pellets (made of agricultural waste) for cooking instead of traditional charcoal of fuelwood told Mongabay-India that till February of 2026, they were able to sell around three to five commercial stoves a month but since March 2026, soon after the Strait of Hormuz closed, they have sold over 300 stoves for commercial purposes to various cafes, major hotel chains, caterers and canteens.

“We have supplied our commercial stoves in many parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Kerala, and cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coonoor, Kolkata, and Delhi. As these improved cookstoves need pellets to operate, we were able to connect with local pellet manufacturers from these regions to supply to our customer,” she said.

In March itself, the team sold more than 1,000 domestic stoves to individual customers from across India. They are also getting inquiries from small and medium enterprises for domestic stoves for their workforce as a way to continue operations, which are being affected as migrant workers return home from cities due to the gas crisis.

Chandhere added that inventions in the solar cooking models like tube-solar cookers which can cook even when its partially cloudy, parabolic cookers can now cook as fast as LPG are few factors that are lucrative to buyers but lack of government support like subsidies and that of research and innovation has prevented the expansion of solar cookers.

Kauthale of BAIF says green energy setups for cooking, such as solar cookers, biogas or bio-pellets, should be integrated into our lifestyle instead of treating them as back-up solutions to be used in times of crisis.

“We cannot stop using LPG altogether. But we need to create an ecosystem that favours this shift to green cooking solutions through awareness, behavioural change and government support,” he said.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

“Prime Minister Modi, why don’t you take some questions from the freest press in the world?” a journalist with the Oslo-based newspaper Dagsavisen asked as the Indian leader was leaving the podium after he and his Norwegian counterpart had addressed a joint press meet on Monday.

This question by Helle Lyng Svendsen has ignited 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.

After Modi, who was on a five-nation tour of the United Arab Emirates and Europe, departed without acknowledging Svendsen’s query, Svendsen said on social media that she had not actually expected the Indian leader to take her question.

“Norway has the number one spot on the World Press Freedom Index, India is at 157th, competing with Palestine, Emirates and Cuba,” she said. “It is our job to question the powers we cooperate with.”

Primeminister of India, Narendra Modi, would not take my question, I was not expecting him to.

Norway has the number one spot on the World Press Freedom Index, India is at 157th, competing with Palestine, Emirates & Cuba.

It is our job to question the powers we cooperate… pic.twitter.com/vZHYZnAvev

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) May 18, 2026

On social media, Bharatiya Janata Party supporters 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.

Others were more intemperate. Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s propaganda cell, 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”.

Businessman Mohandas Pai, a loud BJP supporter on social media, claimed that Svendsen was “a racist white supremchist masquerading as a journalist, boorish, loud, dumb”.

India, Pai said, “has more than 2,000 newspapers, 460+ TV channels who are everyday criticising the govt. we may have more ‘journalists’ than your whole population. A stooge of George Soros, paid poorly too points fingers.”

Some accused her of being a spy.

As expected, Indian right wing trolls are now doxxing Norwegian journalist @HelleLyngSvends. Sharing her mobile number and even her home address online.

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) May 19, 2026

Modi’s opponents saw this as just another instance of the prime minister’s evasions. Since he came to power in 2014, Modi has avoided press conferences, both at home and abroad. He had taken unscripted questions from reporters at media meets only twice: in the UK in 2015 and in the US in 2023.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Modi’s reaction to Svendsen had undermined the country’s image. “When there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear,” he said on X. “What happens to India’s image when the world sees a compromised PM panic and run from a few questions?”

Svendsen, on her part, refused to give up. She followed Modi out of the room to try to get a response.

“Tried to ask PM Modi a question on the way to the elevator [too], but the closing doors stopped me,” she wrote on X. “What I was wondering was whether he thinks he deserves the trust of the Nordic countries given his human rights violations and his restrictions on press freedom.”

Tried to ask PM Modi a question on the way to the elevator to, but the closing doors stopped me.

What I was wondering was whether he thinks he deserves the trust of the Nordic countries given his human rights violations and his restrictions on press freedom. pic.twitter.com/W2HFFNcCKh

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) May 18, 2026

Svendsen explained on X later: “In Norway, when foreign leaders visit. The press usually will get to ask questions. Not many, but a few. That was not the case today with Modi, and will not be tomorrow either.”

Shortly after, the Indian embassy in Norway told Svendsen that it was organising a press conference later on Monday night. “You are most welcome to come and ask your questions there,” it said on X, ignoring her question about whether she would be able to interview Modi there.

The event turned out to be slightly farcical. 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, Sibi George, the Ministry of External Affairs’ secretary (West), spoke for 13 minutes, without specifically answering Lyng’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”.

The numeral zero had originated in India, he said, as also yoga and chess.

Why do Indian government officials turn into white hippies visiting Goa when asked a hard question by international press? “The culture, the colours, the yoga, the food, the people namasté 😍😩🙏🏼” pic.twitter.com/ruGhD4jFPv

— Sanitary Panels (@sanitarypanels) May 19, 2026

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

Full blown clash at MEA presser as reporter asks "why should India be trusted".

MEA's Secy West @AmbSibiGeorge responds by India's role in providing global help during Covid, India's constitution, fundamental rights.

The reporter leaves the presser, then later comes back. pic.twitter.com/K3OyZZ6Z2h

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) May 18, 2026

This is not the first time during the prime minister’s tour that questions about press freedom in India have been raised.

As Modi arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday, his Dutch counterpart, Rob Jetten, told reporters that there were concerns within his country and other European Union member states about “developments in India”.

“It is not only about press freedom, but also about the rights of minorities, who are under severe pressure,” Jetten was quoted as saying. “That applies in the first place to the Muslim community, but also to many other smaller communities.”

A journalist with the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, Ashwant Nandram, had later that day asked the Indian delegation for a response to Jetten’s statement.

Nandram also asked: “In the Netherlands, there is a tradition that after such a visit, both prime ministers are available for questions. I wonder what the reason is that that is not the case today.”

She asked why should we trust India. And then thousands of hindutva trolls flooded her Twitter basically showing why she was right to ask that question.

New India is beyond parody.

Petulance is its primary characteristic. https://t.co/P6yn450i7E

— Gaurav Sabnis (@gauravsabnis) May 19, 2026

In response, George had said that New Delhi faces such questions “basically because of the lack of understanding of the person who asked the question”. He claimed that some people abroad formed mistaken impressions about India because they read reports published by “ignorant NGOs”.

George described India as a “noisy democracy” and said that the population of minority groups had risen from 11% at the time of independence to more than 20%. At that time, he invoked India’s “5,000-year-old pluralistic heritage”, stating that Christianity, Islam and Judaism found historical refuge in India.

Amb. Sibi George responds to Dutch PM's statement of concern on Indian minorities

"These questions show a lack of understanding about India. Jews never faced persecution here. We have 30 million Christians. Islam flourished. Attacked minorities have always come here."… https://t.co/8hzgujqbSC pic.twitter.com/Uju6WASIMb

— India Strikes YT 🇮🇳 (@IndiaStrikes_) May 17, 2026

On Tuesday in Oslo, long after George’s press conference, Svendsen was still explaining to Indian critics on X what role journalists are expected to play in a democracy.

“Journalism is sometimes confrontational,” she wrote. “We seek answers. If any interview subject, especially with power, do not answer what I asked, I will try to interrupt and get a more focused response. That is my job and duty. I want answers and not just talking points.”

Journalism is sometimes confrontational. We seek answers. If any interview subject, especially with power, do not answer what I asked, I will try to interrupt and get a more focused response. That is my job & duty. I want answers and not just talking points.

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) May 19, 2026

A court on Tuesday denied interim bail to activist Umar Khalid in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, Live Law reported.

The Delhi court said it found the grounds for seeking interim bail to be unreasonable.

Khalid had sought interim bail for 15 days to attend the Chehlum ritual marking 40 days since his uncle’s death, and to take care of his mother, who is scheduled to undergo surgery on June 2.

Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of the Karkardooma Courts said that merely because Khalid and other persons accused in the matter had been granted interim bail earlier and had not violated bail conditions did not mean that bail should be granted every time that it was sought, Live Law reported.

The judge questioned why the activist had not sought bail immediately after his uncle’s death, and only applied later for the Chehlum ritual.

On Khalid’s mother, the court held that his father and sister could take care of her before and after the surgery, Live Law reported.

“Further, as said by the prosecution, the surgery is very simple…and there seems to be no actual requirement or help from the side of the applicant,” the judge said.

On January 5, the Supreme Court denied bail to Khalid and former Jawaharlal Nehru University student Sharjeel Imam in the case. A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria had, however, granted bail to Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Shadab Ahmed and Muhammad Saleem Khan.

However, on Monday, a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan criticised the denial of bail to them, saying that “bail is the rule and jail is an exception” even in prosecutions under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

Delhi violence

Communal violence broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The riots had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

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 is facing charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code. He was arrested on September 13, 2020, and has spent over five years in jail.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Umar Khalid’s five years of incarceration: ‘Do I even know the world any more?’

A Taiwanese ward chief contesting city council elections in the Kaohsiung municipality recently sparked a social media furore after putting up a billboard featuring an Indian flag and an illustration of a turbaned man, with several users alleging that the poster reflected racist attitudes, the Taipei Times reported.

The billboard had been put up by Lee Hung-yi, the ward chief of Gangming borough in Kaohsiung’s Siaogang district, the newspaper reported. Lee is contesting as an independent candidate in the city council election slated for November, although he is a member of the Taiwan People’s Party.

The billboard featured a “no” symbol over an inverted Indian flag and a brown-skinned man wearing a turban.

The Taiwanese are not particularly fond of Indians. One political candidate in Kaohsiung vows to ban Indians from immigrating. pic.twitter.com/bKrvIoXi0W

— Ian Miles Cheong (@ianmiles) May 18, 2026

An individual who described themselves as an Indian living in Taiwan for many years told the Taipei Times on May 12 that the poster amounted to “blatant and direct racial discrimination”.

“I can respect that everyone has different views on migrant worker policy,” the social media user was quoted as saying. “You don’t want Taiwan to open up to migrant workers – that is your political stance. But expressing it in this way really doesn’t seem right.”

Lee told CNA that he was not opposed to migrant workers as a whole, but was specifically against migrant workers from India. He contended that a policy to open up Taiwan to Indian migrant workers lacked the necessary supporting measures and management regulations, the Focus Taiwan website reported.

On April 9, Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han said that Taiwan could bring in an initial 1,000 Indian workers to work in the fields of manufacturing, agriculture and caregiving. Taipei and New Delhi were discussing matters related to administrative procedures, document verification and health check, the Taipei Times quoted him as telling lawmakers.

The chief of the New Power Party’s Kaohsiung chapter, Wang-Yi heng said it was “utterly ignorant” to place “no symbols” over the Indian flag and the turban, which he described as a symbol of faith and dignity.

Some social media users questioned whether the billboard reflected rising racism against Indians in Taiwan.

Indians in Taiwan worried by rising racism

A political candidate has promised to ban Indian workers from Taiwan

His campaign poster depicts a man with a turban and the flag of India with a large cross over both pic.twitter.com/ieEwm1L8F4

— Shashank Mattoo (@MattooShashank) May 19, 2026

However, Sana Hashmi, a fellow with the Taiwan Asia Exchange Foundation and a columnist, said that the poster “did not reflect the majority’s views in Taiwan”, and that Indians in the country generally do not face racism.

I am aware of the anger and confusion this incident has caused among many Indians on this platform.

However, this does not reflect the majority's views in Taiwan. As Indians living here, we are not usually exposed to racist behaviour, and the actions of one individual should not… https://t.co/JNCiPMBeE1

— Sana Hashmi | 胡莎娜 (@sanahashmi1) May 19, 2026

In April 2025, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that there were 5,804 Indians in Taiwan, of whom 5,303 were Non-Resident Indians and 501 were Persons of Indian Origin.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Indian rupee weakened to a record low of 96.5 against the United States dollar on Tuesday amid elevated global oil prices and economic headwinds caused by the conflict in West Asia.

The value of the Indian currency fell 18 paise during the day, from the previous all-time low of 96.3 reached on Monday.

Tuesday was the seventh consecutive trade session in ⁠which the rupee had lost its value. The Indian rupee has been the worst-performing Asian currency in 2026, with a 6% loss in its value ⁠since the conflict began on February ​28.

The rupee’s value has also fallen because of capital outflows. Foreign institutional investors have withdrawn more than Rs 2 lakh crore from the Indian market in 2026.

The fall in the rupee’s value also came in the backdrop of the benchmark Brent crude trading at $110 per barrel on Tuesday. The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

India imports 88% of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas requirement. This mostly comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked due to the conflict in West Asia.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Sometime last year, Dattu Valvi took up temporary work offered by the state forest department in his village Mogarbara in Gujarat, about 120 km away from Surat. The job required him to drive a tractor carrying a filled water tanker to irrigate young saplings that the department had planted.

Soon after, Valvi drove through a dry forest with trees of teak; timru, the leaves of which are plucked to make bidis; mahua, whose seeds are used to make oil, and several other medicinal herbs. About three kilometres in, he trailed the tractor up a small hill. White cemented pillars and barbed wire enclosed a stretch of forest land here, within which were the new saplings that needed watering. A metal gate announced that this area belonged to the forest department; Valvi entered to begin his work.

Valvi knew this area well. After all, for decades, he had cultivated a piece of land nearby, at the bottom of this slope, on the banks of the Tapi river. A few kilometres downstream, the waters pooled in the reservoir of the Ukai dam, which was built in 1972.

As Valvi drove through the fenced land, watering the saplings, he came to a startling realisation – some way down the slope, a part of his own land now fell within the barbed wire.

Valvi, who spoke to Scroll in his home in the village, did not know why the forest department took over his land. When we visited the site about an hour later, the reason was made clear – a metal board announced that 10 hectares of land here were part of the “green credit programme”.

Introduced by the union ministry of environment, forest, and climate change in 2023, the programme allows private players to earn “green credits” by paying the government to afforest “degraded” forest land.

These credits are tokens that they can use to fulfill their own compensatory afforestation requirements for future development projects.

Public sector undertakings like Indian Oil Corporation, Coal India, and NTPC have signed up for the programme, and together have paid the government for work undertaken on around 9,000 hectares of land across the country. Gujarat has the highest number of such “eco-restoration blocks” – a total of around 960 hectares in the state are registered under this programme. As of March 2025, companies had paid almost Rs 36 crore to the government, which the forest department can request to cover the costs of planting and rearing the saplings.

The programme is administered by the Dehradun-based Indian Council for Forest Research and Education, which is responsible for monitoring plantation sites and developing methodologies for issuing credits based on the work done on the ground. For instance, when it comes to afforestation, it is only after five years have passed, and the council confirms that new saplings in a particular parcel of land have attained a canopy density of 40%, that companies are issued green credits.

But even as the scheme is implemented across the country, many have raised concerns that the programme’s focus on taking over “degraded forests” will deny villagers access to crucial lands that they use.

Gautam Aredath, a policy analyst working on forest governance at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, in Bengaluru, explained that often, forests that are seen as degraded or wastelands and targeted under the green credits programme, are lands that communities use and have rights over. These rights, known as “community forest rights”, or CFR, are recognised by the Forest Rights Act, 2006, or the FRA.

“Imposing plantations on these lands would curtail not only communities’ rights to access the forest and forest resources, but also their right to regenerate and manage forests as they collectively envision – all of which the FRA recognises,” he said.

Experts have also warned that there was a fundamental misconception at the heart of the programme about so-called degraded forests, which could, in fact, lead to ecological harm.

“Western and Central Indian landscapes consist of significantly non-woody critical forest types, such as desert, thorn, palash forests and bamboo brakes,” said Debadityo Sinha, climate and ecosystems lead at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. “They may all look barren and termed degraded or wasteland. Money and targets under this programme might alter local biodiversity and ecosystems services if it is not done scientifically.”

Scroll visited five green credit plantation sites in Gujarat’s Vyara forest division, in Tapi district. The sites were spread out in four villages, all of which had been rehabilitated decades ago, after the Ukai reservoir drowned the original settlements. Work on all five sites were financed by NHPC, a public-sector undertaking involved in dam projects across the country.

Scroll’s observations at these sites, and conversations with locals, suggested that experts were justified in fearing that authorities were overlooking the ecological importance of “degraded” forests, or that they were mischaracterising them. The two parcels of land in Sarjamli, for instance, had dense forests, with canopies of tall, mature trees that covered the evening sky. Amidst these were a few short, new saplings.

On one of the five sites, a forest officer was inspecting irrigation work. When asked why the forest department was planting saplings in existing dense forests, he said, “We are just told to plant as many trees wherever possible.” He requested anonymity since he was not authorised to speak with the media. Since the launch of the green credits programme, he said, “our work has increased manifold.”

Conversations with the residents of these villages also bore out experts’ concerns. Panchayat pradhans and members of forest rights committees told Scroll that they were not informed about the programme and the objectives of the afforestation work. Some said that when the forest department enclosed forest land with the barbed wire, they lost access to economically important forest produce and grazing areas.

Some, like Valvi, lost land they used for agriculture. On the day that Scroll visited the Mogarbara site, the gate to the plantation site was locked. Inside stood young saplings of bamboo and shisham, amidst otherwise sparse vegetation.

Valvi explained that the land he cultivated near the river had been given to him by the government after he lost his lands following the construction of the Ukai dam. He had cultivated the new land for years, but for the last few, had found that its productivity had fallen. As a result, he temporarily ceased farming it.

Now, he estimated, of the three gunthas that he used to cultivate, one guntha fell inside the fenced area. (Forty gunthas make one acre.) “They do not let us go inside this forest,” Valvi said, standing outside the locked plantation site.

The fact that the land had not been productive in recent years did not dull Valvi’s consternation at losing a chunk of it – particularly since he had already lost lands to the government before. “My land that has gone into this may not be very productive, so it’s not a big loss to me,” he said, looking below at the dammed river that sank his home. “But the bigger problem I have is: how many times do we keep losing our land?”

This story is part of Common Ground, our in-depth and investigative reporting project. Sign up here to get the stories in your inbox soon after they are published.

The website of the green credits programme lists all the plantation sites that fall under it, along with the name of the company that is financing the afforestation in each. A satellite image accompanies each listing, which demarcates a polygon on a map of the area, showing the parcel of land under the scheme.

Apart from the site in Mogarbara, Scroll also visited two sites near the densely forested village of Sarjamli, one near farming lands in Ful-Umraan, and another in Amoda.

In places other than Mogarbara, too, locals were apprehensive that farming land was being taken over for the green credit programme. In these places, the situation was further complicated by a lack of clarity about the exact locations of these sites.

At Amoda, for instance, we drove through a sandy, unpaved road flanked by agricultural fields. We then walked across one field towards the location indicated on the map on the green credits website – there was a patch of land beyond it, with a few large trees scattered over it. But we saw no fencing or board that confirmed that it was a site under the green credits programme.

In the satellite image from the website, the marked polygon included what looked like cleared agricultural land. Farmers on ground confirmed that the land marked out on the website included some patches that locals farmed. “There are about 50 farmers that cultivate land inside the forest here,” said Ravi Das Vasava, who had harvested tur and was preparing his fields for the upcoming monsoon.

Ful-Umraan is located around 5 km from Amoda. Here, too, the site corresponding to the polygon marked on the map did not appear to be marked for the green credits programme. Neither did we find new saplings that might have suggested that afforestation work was underway. Like in Amoda, the polygon in the satellite image here, too, appeared to include cleared agricultural land.

Babubhai Vasava, a member of the forest rights committee of the village, noted after we arrived at the site that locals had sought recognition of their rights to farm parts of the land. “If this is the site, then it could possibly include lands of those people whose rights are pending under the Forest Rights Act since 2009,” Babubhai said.

But Babubhai also noted that less than a kilometre away, another site, which did not include land that locals had sought to farm, had been recently fenced by the forest department. When we arrived there, we found a gate and fence similar to those installed at other sites – but did not see a board identifying the parcel as being part of the green credits programme. Inside, the soil was damp from recent irrigation, and a few saplings grew amidst middle-aged trees.

Vyara’s villagers’ apprehensions of losing land to the green credits programme are not unfounded. Inspection reports that the land researcher Sukriti Vats procured through right to information requests stated that in March 2025, the Indian Council for Forest Research and Education recommended the removal of “agricultural encroachments” onto land earmarked for the green credits programme in Rohtas and Nawada districts in Bihar. Vats wrote in IndiaSpend that another report from Assam in the same month, noted that “five sites spanning 214 hectares were cleared of homes, farmlands, tea plantations and even two schools”.

Locals’ fear of losing land to the programme is exacerbated by the lack of information given to them about it. Even the sarpanch of Ful-Umraan and Amoda, Naval Singh Saroop, said he was unsure about the programme, its objective and the location of sites near the village. Babubhai recounted that a team from Dehradun had visited them to survey forest land – but the sarpanch said that they did not explain the objectives of the survey to them.

The lack of transparency troubled him.

“We should be told exactly which are the sites for this afforestation,” Saroop said. “And if we are not gaining any benefits of the trees, or if FRA land is coming in these areas, we will ask them to take those areas out.”

A young boy who joined the discussion wondered aloud why land was being allocated to corporations. “After all, the forest department has been doing afforestation anyway for years,” he said. “So what is the added advantage that the companies are getting?”

In Sarjamli, villagers were dismayed by the loss of forest land they once used to graze cattle, now taken over for the green credits programme.

Till two years ago, they recounted, they would walk the animals ten minutes from the villages, along a sandy path that led to a patch of dense forest, with tall, old trees and grass for their cattle and goats. But two years ago, this patch of land was fenced, and their entry into it was barred. A board installed just within the fence now declares that the site falls under the green credits programme.

“Now, we have to take the cattle further inside the forest,” said Damjibhai Vasava, a resident of Sarjamli. He explained that they are forced to navigate far more uneven terrain to reach grazing lands. “It takes us between one and two hours just to get to the spot for grazing,” Damjibhai said. “We have to climb a small hill.”

Locals noted that they were also now cut off from accessing forest produce from the older piece of land, including teak wood, amla and khair.

Further, that patch of forest was important to residents of Sarjamli because they sourced dry wood and mud from it to make houses, Damjibhai explained. He pointed to the floor and walls of the home we were sitting in – a layer of cow dung and mud paste was applied over them, which helped keep the house significantly cooler than the outdoors, where a blazing April afternoon sun beat down.

In Mogarbara too, Dattu Valvi noted that no residents were allowed to enter the forest land that the forest department had fenced off for the green credits programme. “They do not even let us go in to clear the dry wood, leaves or grass,” he said. This was of concern because, he noted, this work “naturally reduces the chances of forest fires in summer”. But, he said, “since last year, they have completely disallowed anyone from entering here”.

It is not only in Gujarat that villages have lost access to forests and their produce because of the green credits programme. ATREE has produced a publicly-accessible map that identifies “CFR potential areas” in villages across five central Indian states – forest lands over which communities could legitimately claim community forest rights. An analysis by Aredath showed that up to September 2025, more than 90% of the green credits plantation sites in those five states overlapped with these “CFR potential areas”.

Aredath argued that in its current form, the green credits programme was inconsistent with the Forest Rights Act. “The government has the obligation to ensure that forest rights, especially CFR rights, are formally recognised.”

He added, “Once that happens, plantation activities can only be undertaken in CFR areas with the gram sabha’s consent.”

In fact, several states have also raised similar concerns with the Centre, and suggested incorporating greater community participation in the programme.

Through a right to information application, Scroll obtained minutes of a January 2026 meeting between various state forest departments, the central forest ministry and the Indian Council for Forest Research and Education.

In the meeting, officials from Meghalaya pointed out that most of the forest land in the state was community-owned and that “communities are interested in offering land for eco-restoration under the Green Credit Programme”. They then requested a “suitable mechanism for community participation”. Officials from Uttarakhand, meanwhile, asked that, in addition to land managed by the forest department, forest land managed by community bodies known as van panchayats also be included in the programme.

In the same meeting, some states expressed concerns about the involvement of private companies in the programme.

Referring to “past experience”, officials from Assam said that “such involvement did not yield encouraging results”. Haryana’s officials noted that “private entities should not be allowed to undertake forest restoration activities unless a proper regulatory framework is in place”. Telangana’s representatives, meanwhile, sought clarification on whether instead of private companies, the state’s forest corporation, a government body that raises industrial plantations, could carry out plantation work “considering their technical expertise”.

These demands echoed some arguments from the ground. “As Adivasis, we know how to conserve and manage the lands,” said Hirajibhai Vasava, a member of Sarjamli’s forest rights committee. “Instead of the companies, they should have let us manage these forests. It would have let us continue our livelihoods too.”

Experts also raised concerns about the efficacy of the green credits programme. They suggested, for instance, that the government may be overestimating the potential environmental gains of afforesting land that is already categorised as forest land.

The programme’s 2025 “modalities” noted that the lands eligible under the programme were “degraded land parcels under the control of the forest department” that are “suitable for restoration”.

Experts point out that because there is no formal definition of “degraded” lands, the programme might be undervaluing the existing ecological wealth of these lands. “Grasslands do not have a high tree density, will they call that degraded even though it is a naturally rich ecosystem?” said Prakriti Srivastava, a former principal chief conservator of forest of Kerala.

Referring to the mandated canopy density target under the programme, Debadityo Sinha of Vidhi argued that if these geographies did not naturally support canopies with 40% density, seeking to achieve that density could harm the ecosystem.

Several states have also raised concerns about this condition. The minutes of the January 2026 meeting with the environment ministry note that Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and Tamil Nadu argued that meeting it would be a challenge “due to arid and semi-arid climatic conditions, difficult terrain, slow growth of temperate species”.

Additionally, Srivastava noted that since these lands to be afforested are under the control of the forest department, they are already “legally forests”. Thus, she cautioned that allowing companies to use green credits to satisfy compensatory afforestation obligations would be questionable.

She explained that the compensatory afforestation policy clearly stipulates a “tree for tree and land for land” approach whenever a project proponent obtains land for a development project and cuts down trees. That is, when it takes over forest land, it has to afforest an equal area of non-forest land.

If companies are allowed to use green credits sites to meet these obligations, the total area in the country under forests will go down, she noted. “Forest land will be reduced if it is not compensated with equal non-forest land in lieu of forests diverted for any projects,” she said.

The forest department has also been struggling to irrigate Vyara’s green credits sites. In Mogarbara, Dattu Bhai said that since the Tapi river flowed near the site, the department first tried to pump water to the site – but they found that the motor they installed was not strong enough for the task. Thus, authorities resorted to bringing in water tanks to irrigate the land.

The department had also dug what appeared to be staggered contour trenches – shallow pits dug out on the soil, separated by short distances. These pits, which are particularly effective in hilly and sloping terrains, help capture run-off surface water from rains and prevent soil erosion.

In Amoda, too, locals told us that the forest department was using a water tanker to supply water to the sites. In Sarjamli, the department had dug a borewell. An inspection report carried out by the Indian Council for Forest Research and Education with forest officials in Gujarat’s green credits sites, also mentions a few other sources of irrigation, such as percolation tanks and check-dams. “Arranging for a continuous supply of water is our biggest challenge,” the forest official said.

Meanwhile, locals in Vyara said they had noticed that authorities were tending to green credits sites with a greater degree of care compared to the forests that locals had been relying on for years. “They irrigate these saplings and take good care of these trees,” said Hirajibhai, referring to the green credits sites. “But in the other forest areas they do not take such care. Those are also trees after all.”

He added, “It seems as if the government is only caring about the needs of companies.”

Reporting for this story was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

The Trinamool Congress’ Falta candidate Jahangir Khan on Tuesday announced that he has withdrawn from the repolling in the Assembly constituency, two days ahead of voting.

“This decision is for Falta’s development and the public good, following the chief minister’s special package,” he said on social media. “I remain committed to Falta’s progress.”

While voting in Falta was held on April 29, the Election Commission on May 2 ordered repolling in the constituency citing “severe electoral offences” and alleged “subversion of the democratic process”. There had been allegations of electoral malpractices in the seat.

The repolling will be held on May 21 and the votes will be counted on May 24. Khan’s withdrawal came just as the 48-hour silence period came into effect in the constituency.

The poll panel said that it had received complaints from political parties and candidates, and there were reports “alleging application of black adhesive tape/perfume on ballot unit buttons of EVMs [Electronic Voting Machines] in favour of or against particular political parties”.

A probe report by the poll panel found that voting machines in at least 60 of the 285 polling stations in the constituency had been tampered with.

On May 4, the Bharatiya Janata Party defeated the TMC in the state polls, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

On Tuesday, Trinamool Congress said that the withdrawal of the candidature was Khan’s “personal decision and not that of the party”.

The TMC alleged that since the election result, more than 100 of its workers had been arrested in Falta. “Several party offices have been vandalised, shut down and forcibly captured in broad daylight through intimidation, while the EC continues to turn a blind eye despite repeated complaints,” the Banerjee-led party alleged.

“Even in the face of such pressure, our workers remain rock-solid and continue to resist the BJP’s intimidation unleashed through agencies and the administration,” it added. “However, some eventually succumbed to the pressure and chose to step away from the field.”

VIDEO | South 24 Parganas: Addressing a press conference, TMC leader Jahangir Khan said,

"I am the son of Falta and I want Falta to be at peace and grow. Our CM Suvendu Adhikari is giving a special package for the development of Falta, which is why I am separating myself from… pic.twitter.com/R95Lw7DpHo

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 19, 2026

Khan’s announcement came a day after the Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal Police not to take coercive action against him until the repoll process concluded, provided he cooperated with the investigation into criminal cases filed against him.

Khan had approached the court alleging that multiple criminal cases had been registered against him during the election period and sought protection from coercive action.

The High Court said that Khan should be allowed to contest the repoll “to keep the spirit of democracy alive”, while making clear that investigations against him would continue.

The court also directed the authorities to provide him with copies of pending first information reports within seven days and listed the matter for further hearing on May 26.

The judge verbally said that the change in government had meant a change in political scenario that had led to several cases being registered between May 4 and May 10.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Calcutta High Court on Monday directed the West Bengal Police not to take coercive action against Trinamool Congress leader Jahangir Khan, who is a candidate in the Falta Assembly constituency where repolling will take place, Live Law reported.

The repolling will be held on May 21 and the votes will be counted on May 24.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharya was hearing a plea by Khan, who alleged that he was being targeted with several criminal cases during the election and sought protection from coercive actions.

Khan also asked that he be informed about all pending first information reports against him.

Deputy Solicitor General Dhiraj Trivedi, representing the newly-formed Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state, said that the cases against Khan pertain to allegations of booth capturing and voter intimidation.

On May 4, the BJP defeated the TMC in the state polls, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

While voting in Falta was held on April 29, the Election Commission on May 2 ordered repolling in the constituency citing “severe electoral offences”. There had been allegations of electoral malpractices in the seat.

The poll panel said that it had received complaints from political parties and candidates, and there were reports “alleging application of black adhesive tape/perfume on ballot unit buttons of EVMs [Electronic Voting Machines] in favour of or against particular political parties”.

A probe report by the poll panel found that voting machines in at least 60 of the 285 polling stations in the constituency had been tampered with.

On Monday, the court said that considering that repolling had been ordered in the constituency where Khan is a candidate, he must be allowed to contest again as long as he was directed to cooperate with the investigation.

“That doesn’t mean all proceedings will be halted,” Live Law quoted the court as saying. “Subject to cooperation [by Khan], no steps to be taken till election is concluded.”

The judge also directed that the copies of FIRs in pending proceedings be shared with Khan within seven days.

The court said that its observations do not mean that Khan had been absolved of the allegations, adding that the cases are subject to investigation.

The judge verbally said that the change in government had meant a change in political scenario that had led to several cases being registered between May 4 and May 10.

“In order to keep the spirit of democracy alive, the petitioner needs to be allowed to contest the repoll,” Live Law quoted the bench as having said. “At the same time, this has to be balanced with continuance of investigation in connection with criminal cases against him.”

The judge added that if Khan does not cooperate with the probe, the state can approach the court.

The matter will be heard next on May 26.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to recall its directions issued last year that stray dogs picked by municipal authorities from public places must not be released back into the same area after they are vaccinated or sterilised, Live Law reported.

As per the directions issued in November, the dogs picked up from public places must be placed in shelters.

Dismissing a set of petitions seeking modifications to the directives, a bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria said that the state cannot remain a “passive spectator” while citizens face the threat of dog attacks in public areas, The Indian Express reported.

If officials fail to implement these directions, they will be liable for contempt action, the court said.

The court said that the constitutional right to life includes the right to move freely in public without the fear of being attacked. “The Constitution does not envisage a society where children and elderly citizens are left to survive on the mercy of physical strength or chance,” the judges said, according to the newspaper.

The court on Tuesday directed states and Union Territories to implement the Animal Welfare Board of India Rules and to set up at least one Animal Birth Control centre in each district, Live Law reported. States must ensure that anti-rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins are adequately available, the judges said.

Further, the court also allowed the authorities to “take such measures as may be legally permissible, including euthanasia” in cases of rabid dogs or those who are demonstrably dangerous, according to the legal news website.

The judges said that officials of local bodies are entitled to legal protection with respect to the performance of their duties, and that no first information reports should ordinarily be registered against them in such cases.

The court remarked that the implementation of the Animal Birth Control rules with respect to stray dogs had been sporadic, underfunded and uneven.

“Had the states and union territories acted with due diligence and foresight in implementing the mandate of the ABC Framework from its inception, including the timely and phased documentation of sterilisation capacity, sustained vaccination and the development of an adequate institutional infrastructure, the present situation would not have assumed such alarming proportions,” the court said, according to Live Law.

In November, the Supreme Court directed that stray dogs picked up from public places such as hospitals, schools and railway stations must not be released in the same areas from which they were taken away. “Permitting the same would frustrate the very purpose of liberating such institutions from the presence of stray dogs,” the court had said.

In July, a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had taken suo motu cognisance of concerns about stray dogs in public places based on a media report. On August 11, it had directed authorities in the National Capital Territory of Delhi to immediately begin relocating street dogs and build shelters for 5,000 to 6,000 animals within six weeks.

However, the case was shifted to a three-judge bench headed by Nath two days later. On August 22, the court stayed the directions given by the two-judge bench and said that stray dogs that are picked up should be released back into the same area after being sterilised, dewormed and immunised.

The court, however, had said that dogs displaying aggressive behaviour, or those infected with rabies, should not be released.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• What the outrage over stray dogs says about the moral compass of middle-class Indians
• Sheltering stray dogs is impractical when evidence shows India’s animal birth control rules work

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought responses from Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and several others in criminal contempt proceedings against them for allegedly vilifying Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma on social media in connection with the liquor policy case, reported Bar and Bench.

A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja asked the alleged contemnors to file their responses within four weeks, according to Live Law. It also directed the registry to preserve copies of the “derogatory” material that led to the proceedings.

On May 14, Sharma initiated the contempt of court proceedings against Kejriwal, Sisodia and another AAP leader, Durgesh Pathak, for allegedly defaming and vilifying her.

The judge had also recused herself from hearing the Central Bureau of Investigation’s revision petition against their discharge in the liquor policy case.

“It could be that if I keep hearing this case, Arvind Kejriwal and other people might think that I have a grudge against him,” Sharma had said. “That’s why I have thought that this particular case will be heard by some other bench.”

The judge has since transferred the matter to another bench.

The developments came after Kejriwal, Sisodia and Pathak in April boycotted the proceedings before Sharma in the petition filed by the CBI against the trial court order discharging them and several others in the case.

On April 20, Sharma rejected a petition filed by the AAP leaders demanding that she recuse herself from hearing the case. Their petition raised concerns about “perceived ideological proximity”, referring to her attending an event of an organisation linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The RSS is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Kejriwal also argued before Sharma that she had repeatedly passed orders in favour of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate in the liquor policy case.

While initiating the contempt proceedings on May 14, Sharma had said that her recusing herself from the case should not be understood as a transfer of the matter merely because such demands were made by Kejriwal and the others.

Noting that she had already rejected their demand for recusal, Sharma said that subsequent events, such as the initiation of contempt proceedings, had given rise to different problems. “Therefore, let it be a reminder that you pay a personal price for constitutional courage,” she was quoted as having said.

On April 27, Kejriwal said that he would not appear before Sharma. Subsequently, Sisodia and Pathak also told Sharma that they would not appear before her in the liquor policy case.

In separate letters, Kejriwal and Sisodia had reiterated their concern about Sharma’s “public association” with the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, which is a lawyers’ group linked to the RSS.

The two party leaders also noted that Sharma’s son and daughter have been empanelled as counsels by the Union government. Kejriwal highlighted that they are both allocated cases by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who is appearing before the High Court representing the CBI.

An empanelled counsel is a lawyer selected by a government body, public sector undertaking or organisation to represent their legal cases for a designated period.

The liquor policy case

The CBI had alleged irregularities in the Delhi government’s liquor excise policy, which has since been scrapped. Based on the CBI case, the ED also launched an investigation into allegations of money-laundering.

The policy came into effect in November 2021. It was withdrawn in July 2022 with Vinai Kumar Saxena, the Delhi lieutenant governor at the time, recommending an investigation into the alleged irregularities of the policy.

The two central agencies alleged that the AAP government at the time modified the liquor policy by increasing the commission for wholesalers from 5% to 12%. This allegedly facilitated the receipt of bribes from wholesalers who had a substantial market share and turnover.

On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia, Pathak and 20 others accused by the CBI in the case. There was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent in the excise policy, the court had ruled.

The court had also criticised the central agency for implicating Kejriwal without any cogent material. It said that the chargesheet had several gaps not supported by any witnesses or statements.

However, the High Court on March 9 stayed the adverse observations made by the trial court about the CBI. The matter was heard by Sharma, who prima facie observed that the trial court’s findings were erroneous.

Edited by Sneha.

India had been buying Russian oil even before the United States waived sanctions with respect to the purchases, and it continues to do so, a petroleum ministry official said on Monday.

“Regarding the American waiver on Russia, I would like to emphasise that we have been purchasing from Russia earlier… before waiver also, during waiver also, and now also,” Sujata Sharma, the joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, told reporters during a media briefing.

India’s decisions on sourcing crude oil are based primarily on commercial viability, added the official.

The joint secretary also said that there was no shortage of crude supplies.

“Waiver or no waiver, it will not affect our supplies, and all efforts have been taken to that effect,” Sharma told reporters.

On March 5, the US granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver allowing them to buy Russian oil stranded at sea amid the conflict in West Asia. A week later, Washington extended a similar 30-day licence to other countries for Russian crude loaded before March 11. Last month, the waiver was extended till May 16.

On Monday, United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the United States was again “issuing a temporary 30-day general license” to countries to temporarily access Russian oil currently stranded at sea.

“This general license will help stabilise the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy-vulnerable countries,” Bessent said in a social media post. “It will also help reroute existing supply to countries most in need by reducing China’s ability to stockpile discounted oil.”

.@USTreasury is issuing a temporary 30-day general license to provide the most vulnerable nations with the ability to temporarily access Russian oil currently stranded at sea.

This extension will provide additional flexibility, and we will work with these nations to provide…

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) May 18, 2026

India is a net importer of oil and gas, with around 80% to 85% of its energy requirements met through imports.

Global oil prices have spiked due to the conflict in West Asia, with Iran having blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz for most commercial shipping. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

The Donald Trump administration in the US had, in August, imposed a punitive levy on India for buying oil from Russia amid the Ukraine war. This had taken the combined US tariff rate to 50%.

On February 7, Trump issued an executive order to remove the additional 25% punitive tariff on imports from India over New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. This brought the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports to 18% after a framework for an interim trade deal was agreed to.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sneha.

The Allahabad High Court on Monday granted bail to the remaining six of the 14 Muslim men who were arrested after they organised an iftar party on a boat in the river Ganga and allegedly ate chicken biryani, PTI reported.

The 14 men had been arrested after a video of the iftar party was widely shared on social media on March 16.

Justice Rajiv Lochan Shukla on Monday said that eight of the 14 men had already been granted bail for the same offence. The judge added that the present six applicants are also entitled to bail on the same terms.

Shukla on May 15 had granted bail to five of the men after observing that they were apologetic for their actions and that their families also regret the pain that had been caused to the society at large, the news agency reported.

On the same day, Justice Jitendra Kumar Sinha granted bail to three other accused in the case.

The men had moved the High Court after a session court in Varanasi denied bail to them on April 1.

They had also been denied relief on March 23 by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Amit Kumar Yadav, who said that the offences allegedly committed by the men were of “a serious nature and non-bailable”.

On Monday, Shukla said that the investigation would not be “thwarted” if the six remaining men were granted bail, PTI reported.

All men accused in the matter face charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of a class, deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of a class by insulting its religious beliefs and promoting enmity between groups.

They were also booked under sections pertaining to public nuisance, fouling water of a public spring or water reservoir, disobeying a public servant’s order and sections of the Water Prevention and Control of Pollution Act.

The police later added charges of extortion under threat of death or grievous hurt to the case. This came after the owners of the boat alleged that the men forcibly took the boat.

Charges under the Information Technology Act section 67, which punishes publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form, have also been invoked.

The Donald Trump administration in the United States on Monday asked a court to dismiss fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani, Reuters reported.

This came days after reports said Gautam Adani’s lawyers had told the US Department of Justice that he would invest $10 billion in the country’s economy and help create 15,000 jobs if the charges against him were dropped.

Earlier on Monday, the US Department of Treasury ‌also said that Adani Enterprises had agreed to pay $275 million to settle its potential civil liability for alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran.

Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group, led by Gautam Adani.

On Monday, the Department of Justice told Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York that it had decided, “in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants”, reported the AP.

For the charges to be dropped, Garaufis must approve the request.

The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.

The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that the US Department of Justice is planning to drop the charges against Gautam Adani after he hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.

The newspaper reported that Giuffra met officials at the justice department’s headquarters in Washington in April. He presented about 100 slides arguing that the prosecutors lacked evidence and jurisdiction in the matter, The New York Times quoted unidentified persons familiar with the meeting as saying.

One slide also allegedly made an offer that Gautam Adani would make investments in the US, according to the newspaper.

Even if the criminal charges are dropped, Gautam Adani is still expected to pay financial penalties, the US newspaper quoted persons aware of the case as saying.

During the same meeting, the lawyer also sought to resolve a parallel civil case filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Gautam Adani, The New York Times had reported.

On Thursday, the US markets regulator reached a settlement with Gautam Adani in the matter, the Financial Times reported. As part of this settlement, Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million and Sagar Adani $12 million.

Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, had told stock exchanges on Friday that the “company is not a party to this proceeding, and no charges have been brought against it”.

However, it confirmed that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty”, while stating that the decision was made “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint”.

The final judgement of the US Eastern District Court of New York is awaited in the matter, the company said.

Alleged violation of Iran sanctions

Between November 2023 and June 2025, Adani Enterprises had allegedly purchased shipments ​of liquefied petroleum gas from a Dubai-based trader purporting to supply Omani and Iraqi gas, the Office of Foreign Assets Control ​said in a statement on Monday.

However, the gas had actually originated in Iran, the US department alleged.

The Adani Group has not yet commented on the announcement made by the US treasury department.

Edited by Sneha.

The Karnataka government’s decision last week to withdraw the 2022 order of the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government that effectively prohibited hijab in pre-university colleges has been viewed as a constitutional correction. Yet, the withdrawal also exposes a difficult truth: constitutional injuries do not disappear merely because the state retracts a notification.

For the Muslim women who lost years of education and were forced to abandon their academic aspirations because they refused to remove the hijab, the reversal comes after significant damage has already been done, especially in terms of lost educational and professional opportunities.

The testimonies of students such as Aliya Assadi, AH Almast, Resham Farook and Muskan Zainab, who challenged the ban in court, demonstrate that the hijab controversy was never a narrow dispute over uniforms. It was fundamentally about whether constitutional citizenship in India permits visible minority identity in public educational spaces.

The answer offered by the state four years ago was deeply troubling: inclusion would be conditional upon conformity.

Members of Sri Ram Sene staged a protest outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Kalaburagi recently against the State government’s recent circular allowing students to wear religious symbols, including the hijab, along with school uniforms.https://t.co/ja2SYWbZss

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) May 17, 2026

Constitutional misunderstanding

The Karnataka government order of February 2022 directed educational institutions to enforce prescribed uniforms and effectively prohibited the hijab wherever it was not officially recognised as part of institutional dress codes.

The order was later upheld by the Karnataka High Court in Resham v State of Karnataka (2022). The court concluded that hijab was not an “essential religious practice” under Islam. This reasoning represented a serious constitutional misdirection.

The issue before the court should not primarily have been whether hijab is theologically essential. The real constitutional question was whether the state could deny students access to classrooms because of a peaceful manifestation of identity that caused no demonstrable disruption to public order or educational functioning.

The Constitution protects individuals, not merely practices approved by judicial rulings. In Bijoe Emmanuel v State of Kerala (1986), the court protected Jehovah’s Witness students who refused to sing the national anthem on grounds of conscience. It maintained that constitutional tolerance requires accommodation of sincerely held beliefs even where majoritarian sentiment disagrees.

In NALSA v Union of India (2014), in which the Supreme Court recognised transgender persons as a “third gender”, the bench held that identity and self-expression were integral to dignity. In Justice KS Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017), which challenged the government’s decision to make Aadhaar mandatory, privacy was interpreted not merely as informational control, but also as decisional autonomy and the freedom to define one’s identity.

The hijab controversy sits squarely within this constitutional framework of dignity and personal autonomy.

The hijab controversy that dominated headlines in early 2022 has resurfaced after the Karnataka government issued a fresh order allowing students to wear hijab and other religious symbols along with prescribed uniforms in educational institutions.#HijabRow #KarnatakaGovernment…

— Deccan Chronicle (@DeccanChronicle) May 16, 2026

Forced sameness

One of the most erratic aspects of the Karnataka High Court judgment in 2022 was its understanding of uniformity as a constitutional virtue in itself. But Indian constitutionalism has never treated equality as homogenisation.

Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality before law, but constitutional jurisprudence has long recognised that substantive equality often requires accommodation of difference.

The Supreme Court in Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India (2018) warned against constitutional morality being replaced by social morality or majoritarian expectations when it decriminalised consensual same-sex relations between adults.

Likewise, in Indian Young Lawyers Association v State of Kerala (2018), the Supreme court held that practices rooted in stigma, stereotypes, or exclusion cannot override constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, and individual freedom. The case related to the prohibition on women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

The hijab ban effectively imposed a model of “neutrality” that disproportionately burdened Muslim women. It transformed the classroom into a space where minority identity had to become invisible in order to be acceptable.

However, Indian secularism has historically been accommodative rather than exclusionary. The Constitution does not demand erasure of identity in exchange for citizenship. Indian secularism has evolved around principled coexistence. Sikhs wear turbans in uniformed services. Hindu students display religious symbols.

Christian institutions retain visible religious practices. Supporters of hijab restrictions often invoke Europe to justify bans. But European constitutional experience is far more contested than popularly portrayed.

In 2004, France prohibited conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, invoking its doctrine of laïcité, which seeks strict exclusion of religion from public spaces. The European Court of Human Rights, in 2005 upheld restrictions on Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols in educational institutions by granting states a “margin of appreciation” in matters involving secularism.

However, scholars across Europe have argued that such restrictions disproportionately marginalise Muslim women and reduce their participation in public life. In several cases, bans have pushed women out of educational and professional spaces.

Importantly, India’s constitutional structure is fundamentally different from the French model. The Indian Constitution was designed for deep diversity, not enforced cultural neutrality. BR Ambedkar’s constitutional vision was not assimilationist republicanism but plural constitutional citizenship. India cannot selectively borrow European restrictions while ignoring its own constitutional philosophy.

The hijab litigation exposed the doctrinal problem of the “essential religious practices” test as developed in Shirur Mutt (1954), the doctrine that authorises courts to determine which religious practices are “essential” enough to deserve constitutional protection.

However, over the decades, this has transformed judges into theological arbiters rather than constitutional adjudicators. Constitutional rights become dependent upon judicial interpretation of scripture rather than individual liberty. A student’s access to education should not depend upon whether the courts consider her attire sufficiently “essential” to religion.

🚨BREAKING: Muskan Khan, the face of Karnataka's hijab protests, welcomes govt's decision to allow hijab in classrooms! "I will continue my studies again," she says after Karnataka govt lifts 2022 ban pic.twitter.com/zYjXvV00QU

— indiainlast24hr (@indiain24hr) May 16, 2026

Reasonable accommodation

The Karnataka government’s withdrawal of the order is welcome, but it cannot be the endpoint.

Students who were forced to drop out because of the policy deserve institutional rehabilitation through re-enrolment support, scholarship programmes, bridge courses and special examination opportunities.

More importantly, educational institutions across India require clear constitutional guidelines rooted in reasonable accommodation rather than coercive uniformity. Educational institutions are not factories of cultural homogeneity. Rather they are constitutional spaces where plurality must coexist.

The lesson from Karnataka is not merely about hijab. It is about the fragility of constitutional rights during moments of majoritarian mobilisation. When the state prioritises symbolic political assertion over inclusive governance, marginalised citizens pay the price first.

Shashank Shekhar is an assistant Professor of Law, Lloyd Law College in Greater Noida and a research scholar at the Faculty of Law at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.

The prices of petrol and diesel were increased on Tuesday with immediate effect amid rising global oil rates and supply concerns as the conflict in West Asia continues. This is the second time in less than a week that the price of the fuel has been hiked.

In Delhi, the price of petrol increased by 87 paise per litre, to reach Rs 98.6 per litre from Rs 97.7 per litre. Diesel will cost Rs 91.5 per litre instead of Rs 90.6.

Prices were increased by around Rs 3 per litre on May 15.

Mumbai saw petrol increase by 91 paise to Rs 107.5 per litre and diesel by 94 paise to Rs 94 per litre.

Kolkata registered the sharpest hike in petrol at 96 paise to Rs 109.7 per litre. Diesel also increased by 94 paise to Rs 96 per litre.

In Chennai, petrol prices rose by 82 paise to Rs 104.4 per litre. The price of diesel was hiked by 86 paise to Rs 96.1 per litre.

The increase comes as oil marketing companies face mounting pressure with global crude prices continuing to rise amid the war in West Asia. Benchmark Brent crude was trading below $110 per barrel early on Tuesday after gaining 2.6% in the previous session

The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

On May 11, the Union government ruled out any immediate bailout package for state-run oil companies despite losses linked to the crisis in West Asia.

The clarification had come as concerns grew about under-recoveries, the gap between the cost of producing fuels such as petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas and their retail selling prices.

Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on May 10 that oil companies were facing under-recoveries of about Rs 2 lakh crore, with losses of up to Rs 1 lakh crore projected in the current quarter.

Puri had said that oil companies were purchasing crude oil, gas and liquified petroleum gas at elevated international prices while continuing to sell fuels at unchanged retail rates to shield consumers, leading to losses of up to Rs 1,000 crore a day.

On May 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also urged citizens to revive some work-from-home practices adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce fuel consumption. It was among the measures he proposed to help the country withstand global economic uncertainties and supply chain disruptions amid the conflict.

Referring to the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz and rising energy prices, Modi said that imported petroleum products should be used “only as per need” to lessen the impact of the conflict on India’s economy.

India imports 88% of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas requirement. This mostly comes through the strait, which has been effectively blocked due to the conflict in West Asia.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.

The ​United States Department of Treasury on Monday ‌said that Adani Enterprises has agreed to pay $275 million to settle its potential civil liability for alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran.

Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group, led by billionaire Gautam Adani.

Between November 2023 and June 2025, the company had allegedly purchased shipments ​of liquefied petroleum gas from a Dubai-based trader purporting to supply Omani and Iraqi gas, the Office of Foreign Assets Control ​said in a statement on Monday.

However, the gas had actually originated in Iran, the US department alleged.

The conglomerate has not yet commented on the announcement made by the US treasury department.

Other matters and settlements

The US Department of Justice is also planning to drop fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani in a separate case, The New York Times had reported on Thursday.

The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.

The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.

The justice department’s decision to drop the charges came after Gautam Adani hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, The New York Times had reported.

The newspaper reported that Giuffra met officials of the justice department in April. He presented several slides arguing that the prosecutors lacked evidence and jurisdiction in the matter, The New York Times had quoted unidentified persons familiar with the meeting as saying.

One slide also allegedly made an offer that Gautam Adani would invest $10 billion in the US economy and help create 15,000 jobs if the charges against him were dropped, according to the newspaper.

Even if the criminal charges are dropped, Gautam Adani is still expected to pay financial penalties, the US newspaper quoted persons aware of the case as saying.

During the same meeting, the lawyer also sought to resolve a parallel civil case filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Gautam Adani, The New York Times had reported.

On Thursday, the US markets regulator reached a settlement with Gautam Adani in the matter, the Financial Times reported. As part of this settlement, Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million and Sagar Adani $12 million.

Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, had told stock exchanges on Friday that the “company is not a party to this proceeding, and no charges have been brought against it”.

However, it confirmed that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty”, while stating that the decision was made “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint”.

The final judgement of the US Eastern District Court of New York is awaited in the matter, the company said.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• ‘Compromised PM struck Adani release bargain’: Opposition on report about US dropping fraud charges
• What does US law say about Adani’s indictment – and can he be charged in India?
• Modi leads, Adani follows: Is India’s diplomacy in lockstep with a private group’s global expansion?