The Allahabad High Court on Thursday questioned the use of the term “andolanjeevi” in the grounds for detaining journalist Satyam Verma under the National Security Act after the workers’ protests in Noida, Live Law reported.

“Where did this term ‘andolanjeevi’ come from?” the court was quoted as asking verbally. “How did it find its way into an official document?”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi first used the term in 2021 during protests against the now-repealed farm laws, describing protesters as a new category of people who “are like parasites who feed off protests”.

The bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev was hearing Verma’s petition challenging his detention under the National Security Act. The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial up to a year.

During the hearing, the bench perused the detention order dated May 12, issued by Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam, and the grounds of detention supplied to Verma.

The 60-year-old former journalist from Lucknow was among two persons detained under the Act on May 13. Verma and 25-year-old Aakriti Chaudhary are members of the Mazdoor Bigul Dasta, a workers’ organisation.

The police alleged that the two had played a “significant” role 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 document listing the grounds for detaining Verma described him as an “irrational and obstinate” “andolanjeevi”, Live Law reported.

It alleged that persons such as him acted out of a “vicious ideology” and were “the principal planners of such circumstances causing public disturbance and actively create industrial unrest in Manesar industrial area…”

It also mentioned that Verma was the founding member of the Revolutionary Workers Party of India and the publisher and writer of Mazdoor Bigul, a monthly newspaper on workers’ rights. Copies of Mazdoor Bigul, books containing writings inspired by Mao Zedong and other “objectionable anti-democratic-system documents” were recovered from his office, The Hindu quoted the detention grounds as stating.

The material made Verma’s contribution to inciting the violence “directly evident”, it alleged.

During Thursday’s hearing, the bench questioned why Roopam had cited Verma’s ideology, reading material and association with an organisation to justify his preventive detention. It also asked how holding particular political beliefs or possessing certain literature could, by itself, justify such detention.

In his petition, Verma has submitted that the detention grounds were a “direct, unverified and verbatim reproduction” of a social media thread, Live Law reported.

The petition added that the social media posts had sought to link the Noida demonstrations with other protests and political developments in the country.

It also stated that CCTV footage placed Verma in Lucknow at around 2.13 pm on the day of the protests that police took him into custody shortly afterwards. It cited his phone records to support his claim that he was not at the scene, alleging that the authorities ignored this evidence while considering the call records of another accused, Live Law reported.

The petition added that Verma was not named in any of the 11 first information reports cited in support of his detention.

On September 2, the Allahabad High Court quashed Chaudhary’s detention, citing a lack of material evidence. It had noted that the order, also issued by Roopam, had been passed “without application of mind”.

Despite her detention under the Act being quashed, she remains in jail because she has been named in several first information reports in connection with the protest.

On September 24, the Supreme Court stayed parts of the High Court’s judgement, including its critical remarks against Roopam and directions to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation. It clarified that the quashing of Chaudhary’s detention under the National Security Act remained in force.

Watch: How Uttar Pradesh police went after women who dared to protest for better wages in Noida

Noida workers’ protest

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 war in West Asia.

The demonstration had turned violent, with videos widely shared on social media showing some protesters throwing stones and vandalising property.

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.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

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

Ravi G, a construction labourer from the village of Heggadadevanakote in Mysuru, has lost several days of wages in the process of running around to try and get his documents verified for the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in Karnataka.

“They are asking for my father’s death certificate, I don’t know where to go for it,” he said. He was also asked to produce his Class 10 marks sheet. “I didn’t even go to school ,” the 38-year-old said. “How will I produce a marks sheet?”

Although the process had already cost him some income, Shiva chose to forgo one more day’s wages on Thursday to travel 150 km to register his anger with the SIR at the “People Tribunal” organised by civil society organisations and student groups in Bengaluru’s Freedom Park.

The event received significant attention because of the presence of the Cockroach Janata Party’s Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, as well as YouTuber Dhruv Rathee and actor Prakash Raj. Hundreds gathered to demand the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, and the scrapping of the Special Intensive Revision.

Several others from Heggadadevanakote were also at the protest. “There are 42 people from our village of 650 who have received notices, that is why we are here,” said 46-year-old Gopal, a shopkeeper and farmer. “They are being told their addresses don’t match or names are incorrect, even though they have been there all their lives.”

Shivanna, a 56-year-old farmer from the village said, “An orphan from our village is being harassed because he is unable to locate his parent’s details. But he has been voting since 2013.” Shivanna added, “Who gives these people the right to steal our votes?”

Shivanna and others are also making plans to travel to Delhi to join a protest that has been called by the Cockroach Janata Party on October 10. “I am equal to the prime minister or the chief minister or any other person in this country,” he said.

The SIR in Karnataka

In Karnataka, 1.07 crore names were excluded from the draft roll, and 43.81 lakh notices were sent to voters over supposed discrepancies. Reports have also emerged from various parts of the state of bulk submissions to the election commission of Form 7, which allows individuals to object to others being included on the rolls. Many of these submissions largely had names of people from the Muslim and other minority communities. The police have filed FIRs against some of those who made the bulk submissions.

“They want to lower the numbers of minorities in the country,” said a Christian nun who attended the protest with a group of others from her congregation. “They don’t want us here. They have made it quite clear that is what they want to do.”

Requesting anonymity, she added, “They’re making us run around for this document, that document even though we have produced everything we have.”

Another nun described said it was her civic “duty” to attend the protest. “Our colleagues’ and relatives’ names are missing from the lists,” she said. “It is our right and duty to be here.”

At noon, a Dipke and his team arrived at the venue chanting “Jai Bhim”, the crowd roared. Dipke told the protestors that the current government did not believe in the principles espoused by BR Ambedkar, but rather in those espoused by Nathuram Godse. He encouraged citizens to raise their voices because the “streets belong to us”.

In his address, actor Prakash Raj said that demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner was not sufficient. Instead, the “SIR needs to be scrapped entirely and a criminal case has to be filed against Gyanesh”, he said.

The audience cheered. “Thirteen crore names being crossed off the list is illegal and unconstitutional,” said a 24-year-old engineer, who asked not to be identified. He held a placard that read “Watch Dog and Not Lapdog”. He added that the “regime needs to change”.

Protestors of different ages

Twenty-six-year-old Maryam explained that she, too, had received a notice from the election commission. “I mapped myself to my grandmother because only her name was in the 2002 list, but I was told only five people could be mapped to one person,” she said. “They are making us more and more confused everyday.”

She said that she was attending the protest because she wanted to be “part of the change”.

Her friend, 22-year-old Yafiya, had decided to attend because her father’s name was missing from the draft electoral list. She also wanted to show her solidarity with the Cockroach Janata Party, which had also called a “chappal protest” from 4 pm onwards at the same venue to demand safety and equal rights for women, in light of recent crimes against women in the national capital.

“I have been following them from the beginning and appreciate what they are trying to do,” she said.

One 66-year-old entrepreneur who asked not to be identified lashed out against the misuse of Form 7. “What is with the Form 7? They want me to file a Form 7 against my own neighbours?” he said. “We have become a Nazi country.”

Sixty-five-year-old Basha said he had been forced to visit government offices and stand in enormous lines to complete the verification process as a result of the government’s own error. “My age in the 2002 list is printed wrongly. My 1993 voter’s ID has my correct age,” he said. “Now I have to stand in these long lines because of a discrepancy that isn’t even my fault.”

While many young protestors had attended the gathering because of their admiration for Dipke and the Cockroach Janata Party, some older protestors attended as a result of more longstanding fears. Many said they had attended to express their frustration over the “decline of democracy” under the current government.

“I feel very strongly for this cause,” 80-year-old Krishna Kumar said, tearing up as he spoke. “It makes me very sad. They have destroyed so many institutions in the country.”

When asked if they felt that the protests gave people hope, Kumar’s wife Radha said, “We have no choice but to be hopeful.”

Trillionaire Elon Musk on Thursday asked if “Ambani is the real boss” of India amid an online debate about his Starlink satellite internet network not having received clearance to operate in the country.

“Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every single law and requirement of the government of India, so why still no license?” he asked.

Musk did not specify which member of the Ambani family he was referring to. Scroll has requested comment from Reliance Industries Limited. This report will be updated if we receive a comment.

In a response to Musk’s remark, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: “Welcome to India, Elon. Wait till you discover the other guy.”

Musk was responding to a comment by another social media user who alleged that the Indian government was “more interested in protecting the interests of crony capitalists than of citizens”.

The businessman’s remark came a day after he accused “certain oligarchs” in India of blocking the launch of Starlink, saying that they are trying to protect their “monopolistic chokehold” over the industry.

Starlink provides internet access through a constellation of satellites placed in low-earth orbit by Musk’s spacecraft manufacturing company SpaceX.

If launched in India, Starlink will compete in the country’s satellite internet market with Jio Space Technology, a joint venture part of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, and Eutelsat OneWeb, backed by Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel Group.

“You can guess who they are,” Musk had said on social media platform X, which he owns. “This is a crime against the people of India!”

Musk was responding to a post calling for Starlink to be launched in India. He did not name the people or companies he was referring to.

He also said that Starlink would provide “high-speed, affordable” internet access to people who cannot afford existing services or do not have an internet connection.

Starlink is licensed in over 165 countries and has spent five years complying with every single law and requirement of the government of India, so why still no license?

Is Ambani the real boss of India? https://t.co/KUSgfJRynZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2026

Akash Ambani, a non-executive director of Reliance Industries, made no comments on the initial remarks by Musk on Wednesday when asked about them by Business Today on the sidelines of an event in Delhi.

On Thursday, the Union government defended India’s regulatory framework for satellite communication services, saying it was “fair and non-discriminatory”.

The Ministry of Communications did not specifically name Musk or Starlink in its statement but referred to a widely shared post on social media.

The ministry said the government had a common authorisation framework for all telecommunication services, including satellite communications and that licensees were required to comply with “security conditions”.

It said licences had been granted to three providers and that they were “at broadly the same regulatory stage”.

The companies will need to meet the security requirements before moving on to the next stage of obtaining spectrum, the government said.

Competition in India’s satellite internet market

Musk’s comments came hours after SpaceX executive Lauren Dreyer said that she hoped Starlink would be operational in India by 2027, The Hindu reported.

Dreyer had said on Wednesday that Starlink had built 20 gateway sites – hardware that connects satellites to the wired ground network – with hundreds of antennas across India. She said the company was ready to launch an internet service that would comply with India’s “security requirements and other regulations”, ANI reported.

Mittal said on Thursday that Eutelsat OneWeb was also waiting for approvals to begin operations, PTI reported.

Starlink has obtained authorisation for a global mobile personal communications by satellite from the Department of Telecommunications, but is yet to receive the security clearances required to begin operations, The Hindu reported.

The security rules, some of which were amended in May, require SpaceX to disable Starlink receivers purchased outside India and terminals sold within the country if they are taken abroad, the newspaper reported.

The rules also impose extensive surveillance on satellite internet and other telecom and broadband services.

Musk on Thursday also reiterated that Starlink was not being used by militants in Manipur. “Starlink beams are turned off over India, so the claim that they were used by anyone for any reason is absolutely false,” he said.

He had rejected similar claims in December 2024 after the Indian Army and Assam Rifles seized a device carrying the Starlink label along with arms and ammunition during operations in Manipur.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha.

Also read: Starlink: India’s new satellite internet rules are a fresh hurdle – what five experts think

Five persons were killed after a four-storey building collapsed in northeast Delhi’s Seemapuri on Wednesday, PTI reported.

Three bodies of a pregnant woman, a 12-year-old girl and a child aged around one-and-a-half years were recovered from the site on Thursday.

Later in the day, two more were recovered, PTI quoted an unidentified government official as saying.

The building collapsed at about 3.30 pm on Wednesday, burying portions of two to three adjoining houses under the debris.

Residents said that the building had developed cracks after tremors felt in the national capital because of an earthquake in Uttarakhand on Tuesday. Officials said that the exact cause of the collapse will be investigated.

Eight persons injured in the collapse have been taken to hospital for treatment. Rescue teams were clearing the site.

The incident came a month after a five-storey building in southwest Delhi’s Satya Niketan collapsed on September 6, leaving seven persons dead and 12 injured.

That building was reportedly 40 to 50 years old, and repair work was underway in the basement when it collapsed.

The Delhi High Court had said that “callous and criminal conduct” had led to the incident.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

In September, a kilogram of onion cost 93% more than last year, while sugar prices were up 28% and rice was up about 8%, on average, according to ISignal’s Food Price Watch dashboard, which uses Department of Consumer Affairs data. This is in a year with the fourth lowest rainfall since the turn of the century, as the country approaches the withdrawal of the monsoon with a 13% deficit.

Sustained low prices in past years pushed farmers away from onion, experts say, while the government lists factors such as increased demand and speculation for the increase in sugar prices.

“Extreme climate events are raising agricultural risk, disrupting the global food system, increasing the chance of multiple breadbasket failure and pushing up food prices around the world,” a September 2026 analysis by Zero Carbon Analytics noted, adding that “historically unprecedented heat, drought, rain and cold are causing food price spikes across all continents”.

It also noted that perishable foods such as fruits and vegetables can face larger price swings because of their limited shelf life and more vulnerable supply chains.

ISignal reached out to the Department of Consumer Affairs for comment. We will update this report when we receive a response.

Onion farmers cut back after low prices

The retail price of onion in September was Rs 52.8, the highest monthly average price since November 2024. Further, since 2014, average monthly prices were higher than this on only eight occasions, our analysis shows. Prices more than doubled since May this year.

Last September, retail prices of onion were Rs 27.4, the lowest for that month since 2022.

“Onion prices remained low for two to three years. At times, the farmer could not even recover the cost from harvesting the onion, transporting it and taking it to the market, resulting in a negative return,” said Sominath Gholwe, an agricultural researcher. “Because of this, some farmers turned away from onion cultivation.” He explained that it now costs at least Rs 12.5 to produce and bring 1 kg onion to the market, up from around Rs 10.

Onion crop is harvested in three seasons: rabi in March-May; kharif in September-November and late kharif in January-February.

“Along with Maharashtra, onions are stored in large quantities in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, and stocks have been lower there this year as well because many farmers did not store onions after last year's low prices,” Ritesh Poman, an onion trader at the Pune Agricultural Produce Market Committee, said.

Kharif onion is important for price stability “during the lean months between rabi and peak kharif arrivals”, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution explained in a June 2024 press release. Government estimates put onion production at 30.74 million tonnes in 2025-26, comparable to the 30.77 million tonnes the year before.

Poman also expects the new crop to arrive later than last year, and says “its quantity will be much lower”.

This year, the government procured 121,000 tonnes of rabi onion for its 2026-’27 buffer stock, against a target of 200,000 tonnes, and began releasing onions at Rs 35 per kg.

“The government buffer stock has not made much difference in our market,” Poman said. “The stock is being sent through rakes from Lasalgaon to markets such as Mumbai and Azadpur.”

Gholwe said that last year, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India bought and stored onions, then released them as farmers’ stocks ran down, which kept prices stable.

Sugar prices peaked in August

September sugar prices have risen every year since 2019. Last month, 1 kg sugar retailed at Rs 59.2, on average, 51% above Rs 39.1 in 2019. About two-thirds of this increase came in the last one year.

The government attributed higher prices to lower-than-expected production, increased demand, weather-related crop damage, tightening global supplies, and speculation and hoarding. This week, the government revised stock-holding norms, a move aimed at “curbing hoarding, discouraging speculative trading and preventing accumulation of sugar stocks by dealers”.

Addressing concerns that the price hike is due to the use of sugarcane in ethanol, the government said, “The share of sugar diverted for ethanol production has declined from around 12% in 2022-23 to around 9% in 2025-26. Moreover, nearly three-fourths of the ethanol produced in the country now comes from grains, particularly maize.”

Maize was not used to make ethanol in 2021-’22 but by 2025-’26, it contributed to 37% of production. This has led to an increase in prices of bird feed for poultry farmers, who are struggling to choose between passing these costs on to consumers or absorbing losses, as ISignal explained in September.

Agriculture ministry data show that sugarcane production had risen from 454.6 million tonnes in 2024-25 to 500 million tonnes in 2025-26. Gholwe attributed the increase to higher rainfall last year. He expects El Niño to affect next year’s cane in drought-prone areas that depend on borewell and well water.

Shekhar Gaikwad, retired sugar commissioner of Maharashtra, said higher sugarcane production does not necessarily translate into higher sugar production. “The growth of sugarcane was affected because there was rain in June, when the crop was growing vigorously, but there was no rain in July, August and September. The stalks became smaller and their number also declined,” he said.

One tonne of sugar can be produced from 10 tonnes of sugarcane. This year, the government estimates that sugar production will reach 30.6 million tonnes, 11% below the initial estimate of 34.3 million tonnes, due to Red Rot and Top Borer disease, and waterlogging caused by excess rain.

Sugar prices rose from Rs 48.18 per kg on July 20 to Rs 55.70 on August 20, and peaked at Rs 65.05 on August 26, according to Food Price Watch data. By September 20, they fell 11.5% from the peak to Rs 57.54.

Gholwe said mills were not allowed to issue tenders for two months, “and sugar prices rose sharply”. He explained that the stock that the mills had stored was released all at once.

“The mills had sold their August sugar in the normal course, but the traders did not lift it,” Gaikwad said. “The government then required the sugar to be lifted within seven days. Once that sugar came into the market, the rates came down.”

To increase availability, the government has imposed a 400-tonne stock limit on sugar dealers, limited bulk consumers to 15 days of consumption, ordered physical verification of sugar stocks, allowed duty-free imports of 1 million tonnes of raw sugar, and advised sugar mills to begin crushing from October 15.

Gaikwad said the 1-million-tonne import is not much. “After January, when the mills stop, people will calculate that we need around 300 lakh tonnes but production was only around 275 lakh tonnes. So traders will speculate. Prices could rise again after the season ends,” Gaikwad explained. “There is a psychological benefit to starting the factories early: people feel that the factories have started and sugar will be produced every day. But the amount and quantity of sugar produced will still be lower. Next year, I think we may have to import more than 20 to 30 lakh tonnes. There is no other way.”

Staples stay costly

The retail price of rice has risen every September since 2015 except in 2025. The 2026 price of Rs 46.1 per kg is 7.7% above 2025.

This is even as rice production rose 2.6%, from 150.2 million tonnes in 2024-25 to 154 million tonnes in 2025-26, as agriculture ministry data show. Central rice stock also rose 3.1%, from 37.6 million tonnes in September 2025 to 38.8 million tonnes last month, according to Food Corporation of India data. With a weak monsoon this year, kharif rice sowing is down 16% from last year, estimates show.

All five edible oils cost more in September 2026 than a year earlier, and each was at its highest September price since 2019.

On September 24, the government said a sharp increase in international edible oil prices had raised the landed cost of imported oils and domestic retail prices. It cut the basic customs duty on crude sunflower oil to zero and on crude soybean and palm oil to 5% to lower domestic prices.

India meets only 44% of its domestic demand for edible oil and spends more than $20 billion a year on imports, as ISignal explained in June 2026.

Vijay Jadhav is a journalist at ISignal.

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

At least three first information reports were filed against Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi for allegedly assaulting police personnel and obstructing them during the INDIA bloc’s protest against the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi has also been named in the FIRs.

The two MPs have been booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita pertaining to assault on police personnel, obstruction of government work, pushing and manhandling, and misbehaviour with police personnel. Read on.

Opposition MPs held a brief protest at Delhi’s Raj Ghat, the memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi, demanding the resignation of Kumar. This was the third consecutive day of the INDIA bloc holding demonstrations in the national capital.

Protests are being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Read on.

The Congress alleged that the Election Commission’s online portal for voter registration and related services was designed to “centralise all deletions and additions from the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters”. The allegation came after a report said that a security researcher had in July flagged vulnerabilities in the poll panel’s voter services website and ECINET platform to the Election Commission and the country’s cyber-security agency, CERT-In.

The researcher, Nisarga Adhikary, had warned that the flaws could expose election officials’ contact details and allow attackers to access or forge data on the application. He emailed CERT-In on July 8, copying the Election Commission’s complaints web address.

CERT-In replied to Adhikary saying that one vulnerability had been fixed and work on the others was “under progress”. Read on.

The stock market fell by 1.4% to a 32-month low amid tighter monetary conditions, increasing global oil prices and continued outflow of foreign funds. The benchmark Sensex index fell by more than 1,040 points to 71,500. The index was at 75,000 during this time last month. The Nifty 50 fell by 371 points to 22,200, an 18-month low.

Investors lost more than Rs 10 lakh crore during the day. The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked 10%. Read on.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature”. The 76-year-old is the second writer from Canada to win the award after Alice Munro in 2013.

The prestigious award, bestowed by 18 judges who make up the Swedish Academy, honours a writer’s entire body of work and is worth 12 million Swedish kronor, or Rs 11.6 crore. Read on.

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

Opposition MPs on Thursday held a protest at Delhi’s Raj Ghat demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

The legislators of the INDIA bloc travelled to the memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi after a lunch hosted by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge. This was the second consecutive day of the alliance launching a surprise protest and the third day of holding demonstrations in the national capital.

On Wednesday, the Opposition MPs arrived near Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, to carry out a demonstration. The police detained several leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. They were released hours later.

On Tuesday, the Opposition MPs marched from Parliament towards the Election Commission headquarters. The police stopped the march on Parliament Street and briefly detained several leaders.

After their release, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders entered the Akashvani Bhawan premises, which is located near the Election Commission headquarters, and held a sit-in protest. They remained there for several hours before being detained again.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was detained three times in less than two days.

Demonstrations are being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

LIVE: Opposition MP's Protest March Against Vote Chori | New Delhi https://t.co/Fy7ZxRx0a7

— Congress (@INCIndia) October 8, 2026

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

At least three first information reports have been filed against Rahul Gandhi for allegedly assaulting police personnel and obstructing them during the protest on Wednesday. A day earlier, the police had registered another FIR against Gandhi, Vadra and other Opposition leaders for their alleged unauthorised entry into the Akashvani Bhawan.

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

Edited by Sneha and Nachiket Deuskar.

Follow Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls here.

Also read: Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court

The Andhra Pradesh government has declared a drought in 21 of its 28 districts as the rainfall deficit from June to August in the state stood at 53%, reported The Hindu on Thursday.

The deficit in rainfall was due to the effects of El Niño, which is a phenomenon that involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to reduced monsoon rainfall in India.

“An average rainfall of 197.6 mm has been received against the normal rainfall of 424.3 mm from June 1 to August 31,” The Indian Express quoted the government order as saying.

The government declared the drought for the Kharif season on October 1, reported The Hindu. Such declarations are typically made at the end of October.

The Kharif season in India is between June and October.

The 21 affected districts are Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli, Kakinada, East Godavari, Eluru, Krishna, NTR district, Guntur, Bapatla, Palnadu, Prakasam, Markapuram, Kurnool, Nandyal, Ananthapuramu, Sri Satya Sai, YSR Kadapa, Annamayya and Chittoor.

In September, the Maharashtra government declared drought conditions in 74% of the state’s subdistricts amid a deficit in rainfall during the southwest monsoon season.

The monsoon had set in on June 4, marking the beginning of the four-month rainy season in the country. This year, the monsoon arrived three days later than its usual onset date of June 1.

It covered the entire country on July 9, a day later than the normal date of July 8.

The season ended on September 30 with a 12.6% deficit in rainfall, said the India Meteorological Department. This makes it the driest monsoon in 11 years and the fourth driest in this century.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Has El Niño’s monsoon effect hit India’s kharif crops?

• Maharashtra to cut water supply by 10% amid drought, El Niño concerns

In 2011, Delhi became the epicentre of protests that three years later, culminated in the toppling of the Manmohan Singh government.

Fifteen years later, the national capital is once again aflame with protests. Will they similarly build up momentum for political change in 2029?

There are strong parallels between 2011 and 2026.

In 2011, after protests in Jantar Mantar in April, Ramlila Maidan saw two rounds of mass demonstrations – the first in June, the second in August.

This year, barely two months after young people took over Jantar Mantar in June, a second wave is building up, with the police this week blocking even Opposition leaders from reaching the protest square.

In 2011, it was about “corruption”. In 2026, it is about “rigging” – of exam papers, of the election system. This year’s summer protests at Jantar Mantar ended with the resignation of the education minister. Now, protestors are demanding that the chief election commissioner step down for a botched-up revision of electoral rolls that has led to mass voter disenfranchisement.

The specific causes aside, when protests begin attracting large numbers of people who are willing to risk police beatings and detentions, it is usually a sign of a deep disenchantment setting in – what in political parlance is often called anti-incumbency.

Manmohan Singh faced it in his second term. Narendra Modi managed to stave it off and win a third term, partly by taming independent institutions and the media, partly by unleashing divisive politics. But it is finally catching up with him.

This year, his government has faced steady public anger – over exam paper leaks, wage stagnation, ethanol blending, UPI charges, and now the SIR. Worse, drought in the countryside is already pushing up food prices.

The prime minister, given his enormous political experience, must surely feel it in his bones. He tried some damage control in July, shooting vertical videos to reinvent his image and reach out to young protestors on Instagram.

But, as a second round of protests builds up, he has turned into an ostrich. On Wednesday, he was drumming up celebrations for having been in public office for 25 years, promising to develop India by 2047, even as Opposition leaders were facing off with the police in Central Delhi.

However, the scenes from the Opposition protest were so dramatic that even television channels friendly to the regime felt compelled to broadcast them even though they had prepared special programming to extol Modi’s virtues.

The past decade has famously seen a media capture by the government. But more importantly, the Indian state itself has been reconfigured to serve the interests of one party. Not only has the Bharatiya Janata Party amassed a treasure chest bigger than all other parties combined, the Modi government’s unabashed use of investigative agencies and relentless projection of strength has made every institution designed to check executive power fall in line.

Case in point: in 2011, the Supreme Court had taken suo moto notice of the police using batons against protestors. In 2026, even a petition drawing its attention to the use of pellet guns near Jantar Mantar failed to make an impact.

But in an irony of sorts, the capture of institutions has ended up supercharging the street.

After all, it is the Election Commission’s imposition of an arbitrary voter roll revision, through an opaque and centralised software that gives officials in Delhi unprecedented power to meddle with voter lists across the country, and the Supreme Court’s failure to curb this exercise, that has drawn protestors out on the streets this time.

Will the street protests continue to snowball and draw more and more Indians into questioning the government? Will Opposition parties be able to channelise public anger into polling stations like the BJP did in 2014?

2011 began the downward spiral for the Congress-led coalition. While comparisons are difficult because India is no longer the same country, it is hard not to wonder: is 2026 the beginning of the end of the Modi era?

Activist Umar Khalid, who has been in prison for more than six years in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, won the 2026 Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk on Thursday.

The award is given out by the Ireland-based human rights organisation Front Line Defenders. It was presented at a ceremony in Dublin, which Khalid could not attend.

He was arrested on September 13, 2020, and has remained in jail since then without trial.

The other recipients of this year’s award are Ahmadreza Haeri, an anti-death penalty campaigner from Iran, Laurinda Manuel Gouveia, a feminist pro-participatory democracy defender from Angola, Adda Vyctoria Caetano, a Black trans woman leader from Brazil, and Ljiljana Nešić, a feminist peacebuilder from Serbia.

The police had arrested Khalid in connection with the communal violence that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

Khalid, activist Sharjeel Imam and the others accused in the matter have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

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

Front Line Defenders said that Khalid’s continued imprisonment was “evidence of a wider moment in India”, which is characterised by “the expanding use of anti-terror laws against dissent, the role of a compliant media in shaping public perception, and a pattern” of using restrictive bail provisions “as a form of punishment before, or entirely without, a conviction”.

“That pattern disproportionately affects human rights defenders, journalists and students who exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free expression,” added the organisation.

It also said that Khalid’s speech in Amravati in February 2020, which the prosecution holds as evidence of a “premeditated” conspiracy, does not amount to incitement.

In his speech, Khalid used the phrases “inquilabi salaam”, or revolutionary salute, and “krantikari istiqbal”, or revolutionary welcome, while praising the crowd for dissenting peacefully against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

He had also invoked Mahatma Gandhi and called for non-violent protests to coincide with the visit of the United States President Donald Trump in February that year.

On September 30, the Delhi High Court denied bail to Khalid and Imam for the third time.

The High Court said that it was “bound by judicial discipline” and could not modify conditions imposed by the Supreme Court in its January 5 order concerning the two men.

In January, the Supreme Court denied bail to Khalid and Imam, but granted relief to activists Gulfisha Fatima, Meera Haider, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Muhammad Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed.

It had said that Imam and Khalid could renew their bail pleas after the examination of protected witnesses was completed or after one year, whichever came earlier.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Umar Khalid’s five years of incarceration: ‘Do I even know the world any more?’
• US panel says India is misusing anti-terror law to jail minorities, seeks release of Khalid, Imam

The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought responses from the Delhi Police and Deputy Chief Minister Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma to a petition filed by an Aam Aadmi Party worker whom the Bharatiya Janata Party leader slapped in September, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Sachin Datta directed the police to file a status report in the case and listed the matter for hearing on November 17.

Verma had slapped Sahib Singh on September 27 during an altercation allegedly about the poor quality of a road in the national capital’s Tilak Nagar area.

Sahib Singh handles social media for Tilak Nagar MLA Jarnail Singh and had gone to the site after the Public Works Department reportedly called them to inspect the road. Saheb Singh said that he pointed out sections of the road where the surface was breaking apart, after which the BJP leader slapped him. Video shared by AAP showed police personnel were present and tried to break up the altercation.

Sahib Singh had moved the court seeking an independent investigation into the incident, and immediate protection for himself and his family. He alleged that he had received intimidating messages following the incident, reported Bar and Bench.

After a row had broken out about the incident, Verma claimed that the AAP worker had allegedly abused his family. He also alleged that Jarnail Singh arrived at the site with “history-sheeter goons” and used abusive and indecent language.

On September 28, the police registered a non-cognisable report against Verma for voluntarily causing hurt.

Separately, they filed a first information report against Jarnail Singh based on a complaint by a Public Works Department official for obstructing a public servant from discharging his duties and interfering with government work.

Edited by Sneha.

Four workers from West Bengal’s Murshidabad, who were detained in Chhattisgarh more than a month ago on suspicion of being undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, were released from a holding centre on Wednesday, The Hindu reported.

They were among the 23 migrant workers who were detained in Bilaspur on September 4. The workers, who were in Chhattisgarh looking for work and selling goods door-to-door, were picked up from their residences in Chunchiapara-Ganesh Nagar under the Sirgiti police station area.

Nineteen of them were released on September 19 after the authorities verified their names in voter lists, administrative records, family details and permanent residence documents of West Bengal.

The remaining four – Sabir Sheikh, Safikul Islam, Nasiruddin Sheikh and Laltu Sheikh – were released from a holding centre in Raipur around 9 pm on Wednesday, reported The Hindu.

The action came two days after the Calcutta High Court asked the authorities in Bilaspur how they could determine the citizenship of the four men while an appellate tribunal in West Bengal was still hearing their appeals against the deletion of their names from the electoral roll during the special intensive revision.

“If your authority is telling that he is not an Indian, so what will the appellate authority do?” Justice Krishna Rao asked. “You are playing with people.”

After being released, one of the four men told The Hindu that all of them were “so surprised”.

“It happened suddenly when we lost our hope,” he added.

He said that the police had recorded in the order that the four were “Indians, not Bangladeshis”.

The High Court was scheduled to hear their case on Thursday.

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states, most of them ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after the state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: In Bengal, Muslims picked up from homes in midnight raids, sent to detention centres

The Congress on Thursday alleged that the Election Commission’s online portal for voter registration and related services was designed to “centralise all deletions and additions from the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters”.

The allegation came after the Hindustan Times reported that a security researcher had in July flagged vulnerabilities in the poll panel’s voter-services website and ECINET application to the Election Commission and the country’s cyber-security agency, CERT-In.

He had warned that the flaws could expose election officials’ contact details and allow attackers to access or forge data on the application.

Nisarga Adhikary emailed CERT-In on July 8, copying the Election Commission’s complaints address. Nearly three months later, on Monday, Hindustan Times sent questions to both agencies about his findings and did not receive a response.

However, on the next day, CERT-In replied to Adhikary, saying one vulnerability had been fixed and work on the others was “under progress”. It was not clear when the reported fix had been made.

A critical vulnerability indentified by the researcher involved a server that could return the names and mobile numbers of election officials without requiring a login or CAPTCHA security test. He said the information could potentially be collected across states, districts, constituencies and different officer roles.

The latest allegations come amid protests about the Election Commission’s handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Demonstrations are being held in several parts of the country calling for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign over concerns about the exercise.

Poll commissioners flag gaps

On September 23, The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had also raised concerns about access to the digital electoral roll database.

Each constituency’s electoral roll is maintained by its electoral registration officer, a statutory authority. But Joshi and Sandhu questioned whether these officers were being given access to the database.

In May, Joshi flagged that there was a “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database” and proposed an audit to certify that “no one, except the concerned statutory authorities, has credentials to make any change in the database”, the newspaper had reported.

In effect, this could prevent local officials responsible for adding or removing names from making those changes themselves.

Three days later, on September 26, the Election Commission said that a committee headed by a senior deputy election commissioner and including an independent expert from an Indian Institute of Technology or International Institute of Information Technology “will review the ECINET”.

On Tuesday, The Indian Express also reported that judges heading tribunals in West Bengal hearing appeals against deletions during the SIR flagged several problems with ECINET that were delaying disposal of cases.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in May, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the state’s electorate before the revision began, had been removed from the electoral rolls.

More than “a dozen tribunal judges” said the portal lacked mechanisms to serve notices to appellants, hold virtual hearings, restore disposed appeals and provide certified copies of orders. They also raised concerns about appeals submitted physically to district officials not being properly digitised, warning that this could result in injustice to citizens.

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

Overall more than 13 crore names have been removed from voter lists and draft rolls since the first phase of the exercise began in June 2025 in Bihar. Since the nationwide exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

At least three first information reports have been filed against Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for allegedly assaulting police personnel and obstructing them during the INDIA bloc’s protest against the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Wednesday, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.

Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has also been named in the FIRs.

The two Congress leaders have been booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita related to assault on police personnel, obstruction of government work, pushing and manhandling, and misbehaviour with police personnel, ANI reported.

जुल्मी जब-जब जुल्म करेगा सत्ता के गलियारों से
चप्पा-चप्पा गूंज उठेगा इंकलाब के नारों से pic.twitter.com/xTTOyEnr8W

— Congress (@INCIndia) October 7, 2026

Earlier in the day, Gandhi had said the Congress would continue its fight despite the legal cases against him. “Every FIR is a medal on my chest,” he said. “Right now, there are 45, my goal is 100 – even then, we will keep fighting to defend the Constitution.”

The cases came following a tense standoff on Wednesday between the police and Opposition MPs after they travelled towards Jantar Mantar to stage a protest demanding Kumar’s resignation.

The group had gathered after a lunch hosted by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge. After that the police stopped their buses from proceeding towards the designated protest site.

Gandhi was removed from the spot and detained. He was taken to Barakhamba Road police station, while Vadra and other leaders were taken to Chhatrasal Stadium.

Both were released shortly after 8 pm, PTI reported.

On Tuesday, Delhi Police had registered another FIR against Gandhi, Vadra and other Opposition leaders over their alleged unauthorised entry into Akashvani Bhawan during a protest.

The Opposition MPs had marched from Parliament towards the Election Commission headquarters on Tuesday. Police stopped the march on Parliament Street, after which several leaders were briefly detained.

After their release, Gandhi and other Congress leaders entered the Akashvani Bhawan premises, which is located near the Election Commission headquarters, and staged a sit-in. They remained there for several hours before being detained again.

Demonstrations are being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court

The Delhi Election Commission on Wednesday said that it will organise special camps to ensure that voters whose homes have been demolished recently are not excluded from the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

This came amid concerns over deletions of names from the electoral rolls during the voter list revision exercise. The Election Commission has directed the 20 states and Union territories where the exercise has concluded to conduct a special drive to enroll voters who were “left out” of the electoral rolls, The Indian Express reported.

In Delhi, 47.7 lakh voters were removed from the draft electoral rolls prepared as part of the SIR. The draft list has 97.5 lakh voters. The names not included in the draft roll account for 33% of the Union Territory’s electorate.

Those removed from the voter list were marked as either permanently shifted, deceased, absent, duplicate entries or placed under the “other” category. It was unclear what the “other” category referred to.

Verification of such cases is to be completed by October 29, while the final electoral rolls are slated to be published on November 4.

The Delhi Election Commission said special camps would be held at schools and universities across the capital on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by camps at all polling stations on Friday and Saturday.

“[Booth level officers] will carry out house to house visit to identify such left-out electors to facilitate their enrolment through Form 6, wherever the person is found to be eligible,” the Delhi EC said.

Delhi SIR: Notices to 33 lakh voters

Thirty-three lakh electors in the national capital were served notices during the special intensive revision to prove their eligibility to vote.

Several prominent persons, including Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, were among those who received notices.

On September 22, the Supreme Court said the notices appeared to have been issued “almost mechanically”.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi verbally observed that they were, “in all probability…machine-generated notices”. The court also said that voters needed clarity on the reasons for being served notices for “logical discrepancies”.

Written by Abeer Khan. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Where did your father vote in 2003? Why demand for legacy documents under SIR has no legal basis

• Why a scholar of citizenship is taking on Bengal SIR exclusions

The Gauhati High Court on Monday rejected a woman’s plea challenging a 2017 tribunal order that declared her a foreigner, saying “sympathy cannot be misapplied” in cases involving undocumented migrants and foreigners, The Indian Express reported.

The interest of the country must be given “paramount consideration”, the bench said. It held that Mustt Hasena Bhanu had failed to provide sufficient documentary evidence to establish her Indian citizenship and her claimed family links, the newspaper reported.

The court was hearing Bhanu’s challenge to a May 19, 2017, order of a foreigners’ tribunal, which had declared her a foreigner who entered India after March 25, 1971.

The tribunal had found that she failed to establish her links to the people she identified as her father and grandfather.

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

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

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

On Monday, the High Court upheld the tribunal’s finding.

Bhanu has said that she was an Indian citizen by birth, The Indian Express reported.

To support her case, she relied on electoral rolls from 1966 and 1970 containing the name of the person she identified as her father. She also produced later electoral rolls bearing her own name, a link certificate issued by a village panchayat secretary and a PAN card application.

The tribunal, however, found that these documents did not establish her relationship with the persons she said were her father and grandfather. It also rejected the panchayat certificate because the official who issued it had not been examined, The Indian Express reported.

The High Court also noted that Bhanu’s statement did not mention the names of her grandparents, parents, her father’s siblings, her own siblings or her children. It also did not state when or where her parents were born, or when and where she was born and brought up, the court said.

The bench said that a person whose citizenship is questioned must provide the basic facts needed to establish their claim and prove them through “cogent, reliable and admissible evidence”.

The court also cancelled the interim bail she was granted in August 2017 and said the tribunal’s 2017 decision declaring her a foreigner would now take effect.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

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

Trillionaire Elon Musk on Wednesday accused “certain oligarchs” in India of blocking the launch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network, saying they are trying to protect their “monopolistic chokehold’ over the industry.

Starlink provides internet access through a constellation of satellites placed in low-earth orbit by Musk’s spacecraft manufacturing company SpaceX.

“Unfortunately, we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” he said on social media. “You can guess who they are. This is a crime against the people of India!”

Musk was responding to a post calling for Starlink to be launched in India. He did not name the people or companies he was referring to.

He also said that Starlink would provide “high-speed, affordable” internet access to people who cannot afford existing services or do not have an internet connection.

Unfortunately, we are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people. You can guess who they are …

This is a crime against the people of India! https://t.co/t3YONgpcm7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2026

The Union government on Thursday defended India’s regulatory framework for satellite communication services, saying it was “fair and non-discriminatory”.

The Ministry of Communications did not specifically name Musk or Starlink in its statement but referred to a widely shared post on social media.

The ministry said the government had a common authorisation framework for all telecommunication services, including satellite communications and that licensees were required to comply with “security conditions”.

It said licences had been granted to three providers and that they were “at broadly the same regulatory stage”.

The companies will need to meet the security requirements before moving on to the next stage of obtaining spectrum, the government said.

Musk’s comments came hours after SpaceX executive Lauren Dreyer said she hoped Starlink would be operational in India by 2027, The Hindu reported.

Dreyer said on Wednesday that Starlink had built 20 gateway sites – hardware that connect satellites to the wired ground network – with hundreds of antennas across India. She said the company was ready to launch an internet service that would comply with India’s “security requirements and other regulations”, ANI reported.

Starlink will compete in India’s satellite internet market with Reliance Jio Space Technology, owned by Mukesh Ambani, and Eutelsat OneWeb, backed by Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel Group.

Starlink has obtained a Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite authorisation from the Department of Telecommunications, but is yet to receive the security clearances required to begin operations, The Hindu reported.

The security rules, some of which were amended in May, require SpaceX to disable Starlink receivers purchased outside India and terminals sold within the country if they are taken abroad, the newspaper reported.

The rules also impose extensive surveillance on satellite internet and other telecom and broadband services.

Musk on Thursday also reiterated that Starlink was not being used by militants in Manipur. “Starlink beams are turned off over India, so the claim that they were used by anyone for any reason is absolutely false,” he said.

Musk had rejected similar claims in December 2024 after the Indian Army and Assam Rifles seized a device carrying the Starlink label along with arms and ammunition during operations in Manipur.

“This is false,” he had said at the time. “Starlink satellite beams are turned off over India.”

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Veteran actor Nana Patekar died at the age of 75 after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home in Goa on Thursday, PTI reported.

Patekar was found unconscious at his apartment early in the morning and was taken to hospital, the news agency quoted the doctor at the medical facility as saying.

Despite being administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation for 45 minutes, Patekar could not be revived and was declared dead at 5.20 am.

A medico-legal case has been registered and a postmortem will be conducted.

According to information provided by a friend of Patekar to doctors, the actor had messaged him around 3.30 am saying he was not feeling well. The friend saw the message around 4 am and went to Patekar’s apartment, where he was living with a caretaker, PTI reported.

Patekar’s body has been sent to Goa Medical College and Hospital in Bambolim for a postmortem to ascertain the exact cause of death.

Patekar was known for his roles in several Hindi and Marathi films. His notable Hindi films include Parinda, Prahaar: The Final Attack, Tirangaa, Krantiveer and Khamoshi: The Musical.

He was a recipient of three National Film Awards, several Filmfare Awards and the Maharashtra State Film Award. He was also awarded the Padma Shri, the country’s fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2013.

Patekar was also accused of sexual harassment by actor Tanushree Dutta in 2018. Dutta had alleged that Patekar had harassed her on the sets of the 2008 film Horn ‘Ok’ Pleassss. Patekar denied the allegations.

In 2019, Mumbai Police filed a closure report in the case, saying there was insufficient evidence to substantiate Dutta’s allegations. In March 2025, a Mumbai court closed the cases against Patekar and others, citing insufficient evidence.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

India, like other countries, is grappling with the effects of El Niño, which has exacerbated global warming, causing a major rainfall deficit in the country this year. Over the past decade, India has seen climate change take a deadly toll in the form of extreme weather and disasters such as landslides and glacial collapse.

How did these concerns resonate in the Indian Parliament?

In the last 10 years, Parliament maintained a steady focus on climate change, but its attention has centered largely on setting ambitious goals and announcing national targets.

My analysis of the environmental-related questions discussed in Parliament over the last 10 years found that the focus was on sectors such as energy and forests. The financial and institutional dimensions of climate action received considerably less attention.

The report titled “Climate on the Floor: India’s Parliamentary Discourse on Environment since the Paris Agreement” was released by the Centre for Financial Accountability on October 2. It analysed the questions raised in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha between December 2015 and December 2025, along with parliamentary debates. India was among the 200 countries that adopted the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on reducing carbon emissions.

Beyond these questions, debates and other parliamentary proceedings also examined climate change concerns. Together, they provide a picture of the issues that were given attention, what are comparatively marginal, and the nature of the government’s responses.

It is not necessarily the case that the issues that raised fewer questions were neglected across government policy or administration. But it does point to their relative visibility in parliamentary questioning and accountability. The report also reflects how Parliament examines financial arrangements, international commitments, and the institutional mechanisms that shape India’s climate response.

Questions in the House

In the first nine months of 2025, as many as 4,064 lives were lost to extreme weather events in India, a 48% rise in deaths over the past four years, according to a joint report by the Centre for Science and Environment and Down To Earth. These events also affected 9.47 million hectares of crops, destroyed nearly 100,000 houses, and killed approximately 58,982 animals.

The human and economic toll was not confined to a handful of isolated disasters: at least 18 states and Union Territories recorded their highest number of extreme-weather days since 2022.

Between December 2015 and December 2025, there were 8,702 parliamentary questions in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha that addressed climate and environmental themes. Of these, 2,938 questions focused on clean energy and decarbonisation, given their importance to India’s climate commitments and development priorities.

As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, India committed to reduce, by 2030, the emissions intensity of its gross domestic product by 45% from its 2005 levels, and to achieve about 50% of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by the same year. In March, these targets were revised slightly.

The parliamentary focus shows why the challenges of implementing these goals are just as important. The Centre reported that by June 2025, at least 50% of India’s installed electricity capacity – amounting to 242.78 giga-watts – was from non-fossil sources, five years ahead of the 2030 schedule.

However, there is a significant bottleneck in the renewable energy sector.

As of October 2025, 42,626 megawatts of renewable energy capacity remained stranded – which means capacity that is available but cannot be accessed. Letters of Award to operate an energy project had been issued, but state distribution companies had not signed Power Sale Agreements, citing financial and revenue concerns, showed a response to a question in Rajya Sabha.

Progress against national targets tells only one part of India’s energy transition picture. The Centre must account for both the progress reported by ministries and the institutional and financial obstacles that prevent projects from moving forward.

Data problems

A recurring pattern in the responses in Parliament is the assertion that data is not centrally maintained. Questions about displacement due to climate change, heatwave mortality among informal workers, and the loss of forests to wildfires have, in several instances, been met with answers stating that the required information is unavailable at the central level.

The government also blatantly states that there is no conclusive data available to establish a direct correlation between death/disease and air pollution: like the environment ministry, responding to a question in 2024 on air pollution deaths, says that “air pollution is one of the many factors affecting respiratory ailments and associated diseases”.

The absence of consolidated data has implications for accountability. Without systematic information, it becomes harder to establish the scale of an environmental problem, compare its effects across regions, or assess whether existing initiatives are working. It can also limit Parliament’s ability to move from identifying a concern to assessing the adequacy of the government’s response.

For instance, there were 279 incidents of cloudbursts reported in the Himalayan region between 2018 and 2023, but only seven questions were raised about it between 2015 and 2025. Government responses cited the localised and unpredictable nature of cloudbursts, alongside the absence of an established study quantifying the contribution of climate change to such events.

Parliamentary debates add another dimension to these findings.

Discussions on disaster relief and funding frequently lead to disputes over the division of responsibility between the Centre and the states. Members from Opposition-ruled states have raised concerns about delayed or withheld disaster funds and incomplete flood-management projects. Central government representatives, in turn, have defended their positions or attributed responsibility to state governments.

During the debate on the 2024 Wayanad landslides in Kerala after heavy rainfall, opposition members had demanded immediate relief and national disaster status. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, however, accused the state government of failing to evacuate the area despite timely early warnings. Such exchanges demonstrate how environmental disasters become occasions for contestation over preparedness, funding and accountability.

Opposition, government blindspots

Questions raised in the House by ruling party members and the opposition differ.

Members of the ruling party predominantly ask facilitative, status-oriented questions that allow ministries to present progress on flagship programmes, targets and schemes. Opposition members mostly raise questions on implementation gaps, ecological impacts, funding shortfalls, and regulatory concerns. Some regional ecological issues, such as the protection of the Himalayan ecosystem and the Western Ghats, saw shared concern from both sides.

There is also a shared blind spot across the ruling and opposition benches regarding emerging global frameworks. Neither side raised questions about the planetary boundaries framework for limits on human activities in nine spheres, the Global Stocktake mechanism to review progress towards the Paris Accord, the Just Energy Transition Partnership on financial or technical support to developing economies, or most of the Conference of the Parties UN climate conferences. The discussion, thus, remains confined to India’s established diplomatic rhetoric rather than exploring the scientific and financial structures that define the future of global climate governance.

A decade of debates and discussions in the Parliament shows there is certainly engagement on climate change issues but with no uniform pattern of accountability. There is a concentration of attention on certain sectors, alongside comparatively limited questioning on others.

As climate risks grow, parliamentary scrutiny needs to look beyond announcements and targets to examine implementation, funding, and the impact of climate policies on people’s lives.

To protect citizens from growing environmental risks, Parliament can build on its progress by shifting focus toward tracking real-world implementation, improving data coordination between central and state bodies, and evaluating how climate spending directly improves everyday lives.

Hajira Puthige is a lawyer and researcher. She is the author of the reports Climate on the Floor: India’s Parliamentary Discourse on Environment since the Paris Agreement and & Profit & Genocide: Indian Investments in Israel.

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were among Opposition MPs detained by the police on Wednesday during the INDIA bloc’s protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

This was the third time in less than two days that Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was detained. He was released after more than two hours, PTI reported.

Several Opposition MPs had travelled to the protest site after a lunch hosted by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

Moments before the MPs were detained, the police lathi-charged workers of the Indian Youth Congress and members of the National Students’ Union of India, which are affiliated to the Congress.

The police also tried to remove other protesting MPs, many of whom were lying down on the road, showed visuals of the demonstration posted online.

It was unclear if other MPs had been released.

Some of the detained leaders had been taken to Chhatrasal stadium.

“This is how they treat members of Parliament who are asking simply to meet the election commissioner,” Vadra told reporters before she was detained. “Women police personnel have scratched me all over and thrown us to the ground.”

Gandhi said that the Opposition will not stop protesting till Kumar resigns. “This is a fight to protect the most sacred thing in this country,” he said.

There is nothing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah can do that will stop the Opposition, the Congress leader said.

Gandhi added that Kumar, Modi, Shah and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat “will be brought to justice”.

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

The fresh protest came amid demonstrations being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The MPs’ attempt to protest at Jantar Mantar came a day after Opposition leaders, including Gandhi, were detained by the police following a seven-hour sit-in demonstration at a site near the Election Commission headquarters. Around 250 persons, including 50 MPs, had been detained and later released.

This is what Amit Shah’s Delhi Police does to women MPs

Modi, You are so done, bro! pic.twitter.com/YH30ny6klJ

— Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) October 7, 2026

Buses carrying INDIA Bloc MPs were stopped as they were on their way to stage a demonstration at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Police lathichargeed on IYC and NSUI workers present at the protest.@sighyush reports pic.twitter.com/xXEeP5SsrG

— Scroll.in (@scroll_in) October 7, 2026

सब याद रखा जाएगा.. pic.twitter.com/Gl9F7mvqgj

— Congress (@INCIndia) October 7, 2026

The protests on Tuesday

The Opposition MPs had begun the sit-in protest at the Akashvani Bhawan on Tuesday afternoon after they were released following another brief detention during an INDIA bloc march to demand Kumar’s resignation.

The Akashvani Bhawan is the office of the All India Radio and is located next to the Election Commission headquarters.

The march on Tuesday started from Parliament complex and was stopped by the police about half a kilometre away on Parliament Street before the demonstrators could reach the poll panel’s office. Several MPs had been briefly detained at the time.

After being released, Gandhi and other Congress leaders entered the premises of the Akashvani Bhawan in an attempt to reach the poll panel’s headquarters.

Gandhi and Vadra were booked for entering the Akashvani Bhawan without permission. It was not clear what charges have been invoked against them.

Responding to the case, Gandhi said on Wednesday that he has 45 first information reports against him and is aiming for 100. “I want 100 FIRs against me,” he told the reporters. “Every FIR is a medal for me.”

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

On Tuesday night, the Election Commission stated that the request for a meeting by about 240 MPs was “unusual”. The commission added that it could not accept it as such meetings are held only on the poll panel’s premises according to its protocol.

The commission said that it proposed to send its senior-most officer on duty to receive a memorandum from the Opposition parties, but the offer was declined by the MPs.

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court

Seven persons were injured after a four-storey building collapsed in northeast Delhi’s Seemapuri on Wednesday, reported The Indian Express.

The building collapsed at about 3.30 pm. Five persons are trapped under the debris, District Magistrate Ajay Kumar was quoted as saying by PTI.

Portions of two to three adjoining houses were buried under debris, the news agency quoted unidentified officials as saying.

#WATCH | Delhi: A residential building collapsed near Idgah Machhli Mandi, New Seemapuri, this afternoon. Visuals from the spot. Machines have been brought to the spot as rescue operation has been launched. More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/kjOI7zyD6d

— ANI (@ANI) October 7, 2026

Residents told PTI that the building had developed cracks after tremors felt in the national capital because of an earthquake in Uttarakhand on Tuesday. Officials said that the exact cause of the collapse will be investigated.

The Delhi Traffic Police issued an advisory asking commuters to avoid the Seemapuri area.

🚨 TRAFFIC ALERT | SEEMAPURI

A multi story building has collapsed in Seemapuri and rescue teams are working at the site. Traffic is affected around Seemapuri Gol Chakkar, DLF Bhopura and adjoining roads.
Every clear lane gives an ambulance and rescue vehicle a faster way…

— Delhi Traffic Police (@dtptraffic) October 7, 2026

The incident came a month after a five-storey building in southwest Delhi’s Satya Niketan collapsed on September 6, leaving seven persons dead and 12 injured.

That building was reportedly 40 to 50 years old, and repair work was underway in the basement when it collapsed.

The Delhi High Court had said that “callous and criminal conduct” had led to the incident.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were detained by the Delhi Police during the Opposition’s protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to demand Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. This is the third time in less than two days that the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha was detained.

Moments before the police removed Gandhi from the protest site, they lathi-charged workers of the Indian Youth Congress and members of the National Students’ Union of India, which are affiliated to the Congress.

The police were also trying to remove the other protesting MPs, many of whom were lying down on the road, visuals of the demonstration posted online showed. Read on.

The Reserve Bank of India increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.5%. This was the first hike in the lending rate in nearly four years.

The Monetary Policy Committee of the central bank also changed its monetary policy stance to “calibrated tightening” from “neutral”. The shift signals that the central bank is now more focused on containing inflation.

The RBI also raised its growth forecast despite global risks. The real gross domestic product growth for the year is now projected at 7.1%, up from 6.7% in August. Read on.

The Delhi High Court refused to direct the police and Rapid Action Force personnel deployed during protests to mandatorily wear body cameras. The bench directed the Union government to treat the public interest litigation as a representation and decide on it within six months.

The petition was filed in the aftermath of the July protests against alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations. Several protesters marching to Parliament on July 20 were injured after the security personnel used lathis, fired tear gas and pellet guns to disperse the crowd. Read on.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two chemists for their research into the mirror images of molecules. Their discoveries have been “decisive for chemists who design reactions” for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Henri Kagan, 95, is a professor at the Université Paris-Sud in France. He is a French citizen. Kenso Soai, a 76-year-old Japanese citizen, is a professor at the Tokyo University of Science. Read on.

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

Chief Justice Surya Kant on Wednesday said he would “take a call” on recalling a split verdict pronounced in September for referring to a larger bench the pleas challenging a 2023 law that governs appointments to the Election Commission, reported Live Law.

The application, mentioned before Kant by advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, asked why Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, who was part of the bench that heard the case, had not disclosed during the proceedings that his son was a standing counsel for the Election Commission in Madhya Pradesh.

The 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office Act states that the head of the poll panel and the two other top members are to be appointed based on the recommendations of a selection committee comprising the prime minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The composition of the panel means that the government enjoys a 2:1 majority over the leader of the Opposition, if there is a difference of opinion.

On September 23, the Supreme Court referred the petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Act to a larger bench.

Sharma had heard the petitions along with Justice Dipankar Datta, who held that the law “does not appear to ensure an independent selection process”.

Sharma disagreed with the observations and said that a “substantial question of law was involved in the matter”, which must be decided by a larger bench.

The law was passed by Parliament in December 2023 replaced an arrangement created by a Supreme Court judgement in March 2023 that had formed a selection committee consisting of the prime minister, the leader of the Opposition and the chief justice of India.

During a hearing in May, the Supreme Court questioned the need for a Union Cabinet minister to be included in the selection panel.

Edited by Sneha.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to direct the police and Rapid Action Force personnel deployed during protests to mandatorily wear body cameras, Bar and Bench reported.

The court directed the Union government to treat the public interest litigation as a representation and decide on it within six months, reported Live Law. The petitioner can approach the court again if the government does not act on the direction, said a bench of Acting Chief Justice Nitin Wasudeo Sambre and Justice Arun Bhardwaj.

The petition was filed in the aftermath of the July protests against alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations. Several protesters marching to Parliament on July 20 were injured after the security personnel used lathis, fired tear gas and pellet guns to disperse the crowd

The petitioner, who had attended the protest, said that the evidence of security personnel allegedly using excessive force against petitioners was based largely on unauthenticated mobile phone videos recorded by bystanders, Bar and Bench reported.

She argued that the absence of a mandatory framework for security personnel to wear cameras could lead to the violation of citizens’ fundamental rights to life and personal liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly, Live Law reported.

Allegations of police excesses

The protests against alleged mismanagement of several competitive examinations had begun on June 6, when the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign staged a demonstration at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time. Pradhan resigned as the education minister on July 25.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest. This came two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital.

The police action during the Parliament march turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

In Bihar, three persons were injured when the police opened fire during a demonstration on July 25 in Siwan district after protesters allegedly threw stones at them.

The police had also opened fire during violent protests in Jehanabad on July 23.

The court’s decision on Wednesday came against the backdrop of fresh protests in the national capital and other parts of the country against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Three women journalists have alleged that they were sexually harassed by police officers while covering the protests at Jantar Mantar on Saturday.

Edited by Sneha.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday allowed PepsiCo and Monster Beverage to sell their existing stock labelled as “energy drink” while asking them not to manufacture more products bearing the descriptor, Bar and Bench reported.

The companies had approached the court against orders passed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India around June 30, directing them to stop using the label “energy drink” for certain high-caffeine beverages. In subsequent orders, the regulator had also asked food safety officials across the country to seize the products.

The companies can sell stock manufactured up to Tuesday with the “energy drink” description, Live Law quoted the court as saying on Tuesday.

Justice Amit Mahajan said that he was staying the order to the extent that no coercive action will be taken against the companies till November 5, when the matter will be heard next, Bar and Bench reported.

While PepsiCo manufactures Sting Energy and Adrenaline Rush, Monster sells Monster Energy with the energy drink label.

Earlier in the day, the court stayed a similar order by the food safety regulator directing Reliance Consumer Products to remove the “energy drink” label from its Campa Energy Drink – Gold Boost, The Times of India reported. The firm is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries.

The court noted that the company was not given an opportunity to present its case as the regulator’s directions were issued without serving a show-cause notice first.

On September 29, the court had also set aside the regulator’s order to Red Bull, noting that it had not been given an opportunity to respond.

The judge also told the regulator that since orders in the Reliance and Red Bull matters had already been passed, the authority could file applications in those cases seeking corrections, the legal news outlet reported.

The food regulator’s order had come amid a crackdown by the food regulators on food adulteration and misleading advertisements of products in recent months.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Food regulator took credit for a ‘crackdown’ on Bournvita. But it gave the drink a clean chit
• India’s food regulator flagged over 160 misleading claims. Years later, 120 are still around
• How India’s ambitious plan to curb unhealthy food failed

A group of former bureaucrats on Wednesday raised concerns about dissent and differences of opinion with the government increasingly being described as “anti-national” and called on civil servants to uphold the Constitution and follow due process of law.

The Constitutional Conduct Group said it felt compelled to write the open letter “at a juncture in our country’s history when constitutional values are being openly breached, and when democratic dialogue and discussion are virtually absent, with any expression of dissent or difference of opinion being termed ‘anti-national’”.

The group urged serving bureaucrats to uphold their “primary allegiance” to the Constitution and follow the law even when doing so causes “personal inconvenience”.

They described the Election Commission’s handling of the special intensive revision of voter rolls as the “most glaring example of wilful disregard of constitutional ethics”.

The group said the voter roll revision had “no precedent, no clear basis in law and no verified necessity”. The exercise had shifted the burden onto citizens to prove their eligibility with documents that many may not possess, it added.

It also criticised the use of lineage to establish voting rights, saying that the “purification” of electoral rolls had created “panic and fear”.

More than 13 crore names have been removed from voter lists and draft rolls since the first phase of the exercise began in June 2025. Since the nationwide exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The former civil servants said that officers from the civil services had contributed to undermining the Election Commission’s independence.

“This has been a particularly egregious example of political partisanship perhaps unparalleled in the history of independent India,” the group said.

They also cited a September 23 investigation by The Indian Express that showed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

The retired bureaucrats said that the report exposed the “unilateral manner of functioning” of the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar “and a group of his lieutenants”.

Delhi Police ‘mishandling’ youth protest, says group

The group also criticised the police’s “mishandling” of youth protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on July 20. The Delhi Police, which reports to the Union home ministry, had “seemed to have both underestimated and overreacted to the crowd”, they added.

The former bureaucrats also alleged that crowd-control measures were disproportionate and said visual records appeared to show some police personnel using excessive force, including “lathi charges, tear gas, pellet gun firing and other brutalities”.

During the protests in July, several demonstrators were injured after the security personnel used lathis, fired tear gas and pellet guns to disperse the crowd.

The episode highlighted the importance of senior bureaucrats and police officers maintaining their independence and adhering to constitutional principles, the former civil servants said.

“Over the past decade, the Union government has rarely adopted a process of dialogue and discussion to frame policies or resolve issues,” the letter said.

It cited the handling of demonetisation, the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, the Citizenship Amendment Act, the now-repealed farm laws, the new criminal laws and proposed delimitation as examples of this decline.

Article 370 gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The group also raised concerns about the conduct of officials in central agencies including the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Narcotics Control Bureau.

It alleged that some civil servants had been involved in the “unnecessary harassment” of individuals and institutions that are considered opposed to the Union government.

The letter referred to the use of “draconian laws” including the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, and said that prolonged investigations could result in “the process of justice itself becoming the punishment”.

The group also raised concerns about the treatment of minorities and referred to the selective demolition of homes and properties belonging to members of minorities communities in violation of Supreme Court orders.

“Clearly, the time has come for stronger personal accountability and penalties for administrative and police excesses that violate the fundamental rights of citizens and the core values of the Constitution,” the group said.

It added that it was not claiming a “moral high ground” and acknowledged that the erosion of constitutional principles had begun before the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government came to power in 2014.

However, it said that there had previously been a stronger culture of “esprit de corps”, or a shared feeling of pride and loyalty that members feel toward a group, among civil servants, with greater respect for officers who stood by their principles.

The former bureaucrats said in the letter that serving officers now operate in a less accommodating environment, where political pressure and the fear of adverse consequences can make it harder to dissent.

The group urged serving officials to follow the Constitution and due process of law.

“When there is a conflict between the orders given to you and the statutory provisions, your duty is to go strictly by the provisions of law in letter and spirit,” it said.

The 98 signatories to the letter include former civil servants, including former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, former Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and former Punjab Director General of Police Julio Ribeiro.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Follow Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls here.

An Assembly bye-poll in West Bengal on Tuesday saw the administration making widespread attempts at rigging it in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Opposition workers alleged.

In Rejinagar, where the bye-election was held, Scroll found that the police were turning away Muslim voters from some polling stations, intimidating Opposition workers and stifling independent journalists.

When asked about this, Harshal Pancholi, an Indian Administrative Service officer serving as the Election Commission’s general observer in Rejinagar, asserted that the bye-poll was “free and fair”. He said that after political parties alleged that some booths had been captured, he had examined “video evidence” and was satisfied with the manner in which voting was conducted.

In response to Scroll’s questions about specific polling stations from where voters were turned away, Pancholi promised to respond later. “I will go into the details and cross-check what you have shared,” he said. “We are here to ensure that elections are without any fear.”

Voters turned away

At first glance, everything seemed to be proceeding normally at the polling station set up in the Teghari Primary School of Nazirpur village on Tuesday morning. Several Muslim women had queued up to cast their votes and the queue was moving fast when we visited it at around 9 am.

However, it took us a few minutes to realise that barely any new voters were joining the queue.

Then, a commotion ensued down the road from the school. Some people appeared to be forcefully turning away Muslim men who were headed to the polling station. Police and paramilitary personnel stationed at the spot simply watched this unfold.

We were unable to speak to any of these men about what had happened. A police vehicle got to them before us and a policeman screamed at them to disperse. “If we talk to you on camera, they will detain us as soon as you leave,” said the one villager that we did manage to get to.

About 12 km away in Maradighi village, which had four polling booths set up for its over 2,500 voters, more than a dozen people complained that they were not allowed to vote because their booths had been captured. They requested not to be identified, fearing retribution from the police.

“Some four or five people from the village were driven away when they went to vote in the morning,” said one elderly Muslim woman. “The police swore at them.”

Another woman added: “They were not letting anyone vote. It all happened in front of the police.”

A younger resident of the village, also a Muslim, alleged that when he showed up at his polling booth on Tuesday morning, the police told him his vote had already been cast.

“Voting began last night itself,” he claimed. “There were no polling agents from Opposition parties. All agents were from the BJP. West Bengal Police is acting like the BJP’s agent here.”

While some alleged that they had been physically barred by the police from voting, many others decided it was better to skip the vote altogether, given the risk of violence. “Why take the trouble?” asked one Maradighi resident.

Hari Lal Chouhan, the Indian Police Service officer whom the Election Commission had appointed as the police observer for Rejinagar, did not answer Scroll’s phone calls through the day.

Browbeating BJP’s opponents

Muslims make up between 60%-70% of Rejinagar’s population, according to the 2011 census and estimates offered by local politicians. Given that very few Muslims in Bengal have voted for the Hindutva party in the past, Opposition candidates claim that the BJP cannot win this constituency unless the state machinery under its control is misused.

In the 2026 Assembly elections, the seat had been won by Humayun Kabir, whose initiative to build a replica of Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid here has made him popular in the Muslim-majority district of Murshidabad. Kabir had also won the Nowda Assembly seat. He retained Nowda, making the Rejinagar bye-election necessary.

His political outfit, the Aam Janata Unnayan Party, had fielded his son, Golam Nabi Azad, in the Rejinagar bye-election.

For months, it has been alleged that Kabir was working with the BJP to undercut the Trinamool Congress. However, both father and son have accused the Hindutva party of using the police to make it impossible for them to campaign.

On the eve of voting in Rejinagar, Kabir even told reporters that as many as 64 of his party workers were locked up in the run-up to the bye-poll. The next morning, he himself got detained by the police.

JUST IN | Aam Janata Unnayan Party chief Humayun Kabir detained, taken away from their party office in Rejinagar in Murshidabad in police vehicle. He had a verbal altercation with the police before being detained.

During the verbal altercation police had told him he cannot be… pic.twitter.com/rggUbNe9jS

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) October 6, 2026

“It’s like all of them became criminals overnight,” complained Azad. “For the last two weeks, police officers have been breaking into the homes of our workers every night and picking them up in old cases.”

Candidates from other Opposition parties levelled similar allegations.

“One of my polling agents named Tafazul Sheikh was detained today,” protested Mohammed Sayeed, the nominee from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Monday night, a few hours before the vote. “When I went to the police, they said they would release him tomorrow evening. How am I supposed to go about the election in that booth now?”

Sayeed contended that the detention was part of a police campaign that had allegedly gone on for weeks in Rejinagar. “People who agreed to switch over to the BJP were released by the police,” he claimed.

Badal Molla, 48, is in charge of the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress in the Andulberia II gram panchayat, which falls under the Rejinagar Assembly constituency.

For the bye-election, he was asked to pick polling agents for 13 booths in his area. Till 8.30 am, he was in touch with all of them. After that, though, their phones were switched off.

“The last I heard from them, their [identification] papers had been snatched away and they were asked to go home,” Molla alleged. “Those who work for the BJP here cannot do this on their own. The police are with them.”

Molla was candid enough to admit that such booth rigging took place during the 15 years that his party was in power, too. But, he added, it was not at this scale. “It used to happen in one or two booths of a gram panchayat,” he confessed. “But not like this. I’m hearing the same story from every booth today.”

As in Nandigram, the other bye-election that took place in Bengal on Tuesday, it was Trinamool Congress turncoats who had swelled the ranks of the BJP in Rejinagar ever since the Hindutva party came to power in the state, according to Molla. He alleged that they were now working in tandem with the police to intimidate Opposition workers.

Shankharavh Sarkar, the BJP candidate, could not be reached for comment. However, when Scroll met his party workers at his election office last week, they were confident about winning Rejinagar.

“Earlier, we would not try to get Muslim votes here, but now workers from other parties are eager to associate with us,” one of them had said. “We are hopeful that with their support we will do well even in Muslim areas this time.”

Muzzling the press

In addition to turning away Muslim voters and intimidating Opposition workers, the third tactic the police used in Rejinagar was to block the social media pages of a number of prominent local journalists for the week leading up to the bye-poll. Many of them were unblocked only after voting concluded on Tuesday evening.

Alt News reported that at least a dozen accounts had been censored this way. But on the ground, journalists estimated the number to be much higher than that.

Those affected by this sweeping censorship drive alleged that this was a way to suppress the truth about the police rigging the election in favour of the BJP.

“Since the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest at Jantar Mantar, the police have realised that only independent reporters can show the truth,” said Swapan Karikar, whose page Murshidabad Today was blocked on September 29. It has close to 7.5 lakh followers on Facebook. “If my account stayed up, Humayun Kabir’s son would have won this bye-election comfortably,” he said.

Before his page was blocked, the 53-year-old journalist had got takedown notifications for videos he made about the police detaining workers of the Aam Janata Unnayan Party in late-night drives.

The same thing happened to Baktar Sheikh, who runs Murshidabad News Time, a Facebook page with more than 3.7 lakh followers. The reporter in his mid-30s complained that he had suffered a loss of about Rs 80,000 in advertising revenue because of the blocking order.

“I went to the cyber crime department, but they blamed it on Meta,” Sheikh said.

He was particularly baffled by the development because politics is hardly the mainstay of his page. Most of his work is focused on local news.

“But if someone’s family is accusing the police of barging into their home and torturing them, is that not news?” Sheikh asked. “I would cover it the same way if the family had ties to the BJP. If I don’t cover these incidents, my viewers will question me. Did I become a journalist only to cover religious events?”

The other Bengal bye-election held on Tuesday for the Nandigram Assembly seat was also shrouded in controversy. On October 18, the day before the deadline for withdrawing nominations, the candidate from the Mamata Banerjee-led faction of the Trinamool Congress met with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and decided to withdraw.

Banerjee quickly announced that she would back the Congress nominee, Milan Pradhan. But soon after that, Pradhan was arrested by the police in cases that were filed decades ago. Though he was released on bail to be allowed to campaign, Opposition leaders said that the police and the local administration were doing little to ensure a level playing field.

The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.5%.

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

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

Central banks usually increase key lending rates to control inflation. Higher key lending rates translate to higher interest on loans disbursed by commercial banks. This, in turn, keeps a check on discretionary spending by consumers which is expected to help curb price rise due to high inflation.

The committee had cut the repo rate by 25 basis points from 5.5% to 5.25% in December and kept it unchanged in February, April, June and August.

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

The committee also changed its monetary policy stance to “calibrated tightening” from “neutral”. The shift signals that the central bank is now more focused on containing inflation.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra said that inflation and its outlook were no longer as benign as they had been last year.

Headline consumer price index inflation is expected to average nearly 5.8% over the next three quarters, while core inflation is projected at 4.4% for the current financial year, Malhotra said.

The Reserve Bank of India also raised its growth forecast despite global risks.

The real gross domestic product growth for the year is now projected at 7.1%, up from 6.7% in August.

Malhotra said that “geopolitical tensions, elevated international commodity prices, additional frictions in global trade and tighter global financial conditions” could weigh on India’s growth.

India has joined major central banks in raising interest rates as higher oil prices driven by the West Asia war fuel inflation, squeeze household purchasing power and put pressure on currencies, Reuters reported.

Weak monsoon rains linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon have also added to price pressures in the country.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and other senior Election Commission officials postponed their two-day visit to Chhattisgarh amid protests over the functioning of the poll panel and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Indian Express reported.

The visit was postponed “due to unavoidable reasons”, the newspaper quoted a letter issued by the office of the chief electoral officer in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday as saying.

The new dates of his visit are yet to be made public.

Kumar was reportedly designated a state guest during his visit to Chhattisgarh, but his official itinerary was not clear.

However, he was scheduled to visit the Danteshwari Mata temple in Dantewada, Chitrakoot waterfall in Bastar and Bhoramdev temple in Kawardha during the trip planned for Wednesday and Thursday, The Indian Express reported.

This came amid protests held in the country demanding Kumar’s resignation. On Tuesday, several Opposition leaders marched towards the Election Commission headquarters in New Delhi, demanding a meeting with Kumar and the other election commissioners. Police detained the leaders after stopping the march, and they later staged a sit-in at Akashvani Bhawan.

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

One of the objections raised by the two election commissioners pertained to the changes to Form 6, which is used to register a new voter.

The new form asked applicants to state whether they or their parents or grandparents were part of the last special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Although the new declaration is not marked as mandatory, applicants cannot submit the online form without filling it.

Joshi and Sandhu had objected to the change, saying that it could not be made without amending the rules. Section 28 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act says that only the Union government can amend the rules governing electoral forms, including Form 6.

Kumar has not yet commented on the investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission had said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

More than 13 crore names have been removed from voter lists and draft rolls since the first phase of the exercise began in June 2025 in Bihar. Since the nationwide exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

• Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court

• Process of deleting citizens as voters ‘intrinsically arbitrary’, says SC judge amid SIR concerns

The Calcutta High Court on Monday questioned how the authorities in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, could determine the citizenship of four Muslim men from West Bengal while an appellate tribunal in the state was still hearing their appeals against the deletion of their names from the electoral roll during the special intensive revision, Live Law reported.

The four men – Nasiruddin Sheikh, Laltu Sheikh, Safikul Islam and Sabir Sheikh – have been in detention in Bilaspur for over a month after the foreign registration officer alleged that they were undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

The Bilaspur superintendent of police is the foreign registration officer.

The four men were among the 23 persons detained in Bilaspur on September 4 after they were accused of being undocumented Bangladeshi citizens. Nineteen were released on September 19 after the authorities verified their names in voter lists, local administrative records, family details and permanent residence documents.

The remaining four continued to be detained after police claimed that their names had been struck off voter lists during the SIR in West Bengal.

The four men had challenged the deletion of their names before the SIR appellate tribunal in West Bengal.

A petition was filed in the High Court by Mostakim Sheikh, a resident of Murshidabad’s Samserganj and a neighbour of the four men, seeking an expeditious hearing of their appeals before the tribunal.

On Monday, the High Court described it as “contradictory” that the authorities in Bilaspur were determining the men’s citizenship while their appeals were pending before the tribunal in West Bengal, Live Law reported.

If your authority is telling that he is not an Indian, so what will the appellate authority do?” Justice Krishna Rao asked. “You are playing with people.”

The court was told that the four men had been detained by the foreign registration officer, who was not a party to the case.

Rao asked the petitioner’s lawyer to add the officer as a respondent and sought a report from him on the detentions. The case will be heard again on Thursday.

After the 23 men were detained, the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties alleged that the action was taken without issuing them show-cause notices.

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states, most of them ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after the state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: In Bengal, Muslims picked up from homes in midnight raids, sent to detention centres

A Bharatiya Janata Party booth-level agent has been booked for allegedly misusing Form 7 to seek the deletion of 30 Muslim voters from the electoral roll of the Musheerabad Assembly constituency in Hyderabad during the special intensive revision, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

Form 7 is used to object to the inclusion of a name or seek the deletion of an existing name from the electoral roll.

A first information report has been registered against the booth-level agent, S Balachander, on a complaint by the Musheerabad electoral registration officer, alleging that the application forms submitted by him were printed with the names of the voters concerned, The Hindu reported. This raised concerns that the forms had been prepared in advance and distributed to BJP booth-level agents for submission. However, BJP leaders have refuted the allegations, the newspaper reported.

Political parties appoint booth-level agents for specific polling station areas to complement the Election Commission’s booth-level officers during the preparation and revision of electoral rolls.

The 30 persons against whom Balachander is said to have submitted Form 7s for deletion from the electoral roll include a Congress booth-level agent.

“Personal field verification” by electoral officials on October 1 showed that the 30 persons whose names were flagged for deletions were residents of Hyderabad’s Musheerabad, The Indian Express quoted the FIR as saying.

“Therefore, the form-7s in question cannot be accepted and (are) liable for rejection,” the FIR added.

Balachander has been booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita pertaining to giving false information to a government officer and cheating. Charges under the 1950 Representation of the People Act have also been invoked.

Similar forms with voter information already filled in have also been reported in the Bahadurpura and Goshamahal constituencies in Hyderabad, The Indian Express reported.

The FIR came after the Telangana chief electoral officer on Monday directed officials to take action against persons misusing Form 7 to seek the deletion of eligible voters from electoral rolls during the special intensive revision in the Congress-ruled state.

In neighbouring Karnataka, six FIRs have been registered in connection with the alleged misuse of Form 7. In four of the cases, BJP members have been named as the accused.

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

The Opposition and civil society groups have been demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over revelations in a September 23 report by The Indian Express.

The newspaper reported that two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to the poll panel’s decisions about the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission had said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Congress MPs Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have been booked for entering Akashvani Bhawan without permission during protests against the Chief Election Commission Gyanesh Kumar on Tuesday, PTI quoted Delhi Police as saying on Wednesday.

It was not clear what charges have been invoked against them.

The two leaders, along with other Opposition leaders, had entered the Akashvani Bhawan premises, next to the Election Commission headquarters, and staged a sit-in demanding a meeting with Kumar and the other election commissioners. Gandhi said around 300 Opposition MPs wanted to meet the poll panel.

The police cleared the protest around 8 pm, and the leaders were detained and released later.

After being released, Gandhi said that the authorities were trying to protect the “traitors” of democracy.

“There will be a reckoning – not a single traitor will be spared,” the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said in a social media post.

लोकतंत्र के गद्दारो को बचाने के लिए बचे-खुचे लोकतंत्र को घसीटा गया है।

हिसाब होगा - एक भी देशद्रोही बख्शा नहीं जाएगा। pic.twitter.com/QbngN1p9y6

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 6, 2026

The Opposition’s sit-in came as protests are being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐨𝐟? pic.twitter.com/ipNyNgQgGQ

— Congress (@INCIndia) October 6, 2026

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that protesting peacefully was a constitutional right. He said the detention of the leader of Opposition by the Delhi Police raised serious questions about constitutional and democratic rights.

“Considerable nervousness is evident in the behaviour of the prime minister and the home minister,” Kharge said.

श्री @RahulGandhi शांतिपूर्ण तरीके से धरने पर बैठकर निर्वाचन आयोग से मिलने की माँग कर रहे थे। शांतिपूर्ण विरोध दर्ज कराना उनका संवैधानिक अधिकार है।

इसके बावजूद नेता प्रतिपक्ष को अमित शाह द्वारा नियंत्रित दिल्ली पुलिस द्वारा जबरन हिरासत में लेना संविधान और लोकतांत्रिक अधिकारों पर… pic.twitter.com/0Y8IhliJaA

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) October 6, 2026

While being detained, Vadra condemned the action, saying, “the nation has never seen a coward government like this,” PTI reported.

VIDEO | Delhi: Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) climbs over and opens the gate of Kingsway Camp, where Rahul Gandhi and other detained Opposition leaders were being held. Congress workers and other protesters then storm into the premises.

(Full video available… pic.twitter.com/OSU1NKQkUe

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) October 6, 2026

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi questioned why the Election Commission was unwilling to meet Opposition leaders, ANI reported.

“It is blatantly obvious that the government is playing a role in this,” she said. “That is why they [the Election Commission] enjoy protection and possess the kind of authority where neither accountability nor responsibility is fixed for them.”

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

On Tuesday night, the Election Commission stated that the request for a meeting by around 240 MPs was “unusual”. The commission added that it could not accept it as such meetings are held only on the poll panel’s premises according to its protocol.

The commission said that it proposed to send its senior-most officer on duty to receive a memorandum from the Opposition parties, but the offer was declined by the MPs.

Election Commission of India Press Note

Date 🗓️ — 6 October 2026

Read more 👉 https://t.co/q6CXhdZCdz#ECI pic.twitter.com/QI0l1wOFlr

— Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) October 6, 2026

Trinamool Congress (Mamata Banerjee faction) MP Mahua Moitra, who was also detained, said that it was “also unusual for the CEC to preside over illegal unilateral mass disenfranchisement of valid voters”.

The Akashvani Bhawan protests had come after an INDIA bloc march from Parliament towards the Election Commission earlier in the day.

The police had briefly stopped the march near Parliament Street, saying the protesters had not obtained permission and were violating prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita that were enforced in the area.

Around 260 people, including 10 MPs, were detained during the march, according to the Delhi Police.

After their release, Gandhi and other Opposition leaders went to Akashvani Bhawan, where they began the sit-in.

After Gandhi’s detention, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke said, “the dictator really loves Gyanu more than anything”.

Student leader Neha Bora said: “Some people’s representative are doing their job and defending democracy while others are bus counting down their days…”

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court

• Process of deleting citizens as voters ‘intrinsically arbitrary’, says SC judge amid SIR concerns

The Delhi Police on Tuesday detained Opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi after they held a sit-in protest for more than seven hours at a site near the Election Commission headquarters.

Around 250 persons, including 50 MPs, had been detained, PTI quoted the police as saying. This was the second time during the day that the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha was detained.

The Opposition MPs had begun the sit-in protest at the Akashvani Bhawan in the afternoon after they were released following a brief detention during an INDIA bloc march to demand Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.

The Akashvani Bhawan is the office of the All India Radio and is located next to the Election Commission headquarters.

The Opposition’s march came as protests are being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The march on Tuesday started from Parliament complex and was stopped by the Delhi Police about half a kilometre away on Parliament Street before the demonstrators could reach the poll panel’s office.

Gandhi was among several Opposition MPs who were briefly detained.

After being released, he and other Congress leaders entered the premises of the Akashvani Bhawan in an attempt to reach the poll panel’s headquarters.

The Election Commission said that no political party had sought an appointment for a meeting till 4 pm on Tuesday. The police informed it after 4 pm that a delegation of Opposition MPs, led by Rahul Gandhi, wanted a meeting with the commission, it said.

The poll panel said that it was informed by the police after 4 pm that around 240 MPs were seeking a meeting at Parliament House Annexe. The Election Commission said it “considered this request as unusual” and could not accept it as such meetings are held only on the poll panel’s premises according to its protocol, it added.

The commission said that it proposed to send its senior-most officer on duty to receive a memorandum from the Opposition parties, but the offer was declined by the MPs.

Other Opposition leaders including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress (Mamata Banerjee faction) leader Abhishek Banerjee and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Sanjay Raut participated in the march.

ये मत समझना भूल जाएंगे
वक्त बदलेगा-हिसाब होगा pic.twitter.com/Xh53kO7xlE

— Congress (@INCIndia) October 6, 2026

As the march began, Gandhi held a placard that said: “Gyanesh, it’s done bro!”

Gyanesh, it’s done, bro.

Time to resign.#IndiaAllianceMarch pic.twitter.com/9ZB6aJfakl

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 6, 2026

During the sit-in protest, Gandhi said that about 300 Opposition MPs wanted to meet Kumar and the election commissioners, but they were stopped.

“We represent the people of the country, we are their voice,” he told reporters. “We are not being allowed to go to the Election Commission’s office...300 MPs want to meet Gyanesh Kumar, but they are scared.”

If the Election Commission does not meet the MPs who represent the people, “then what is the meaning of democracy?” he asked.

He further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat and Kumar had “destroyed” the country’s democracy.

Rahul Gandhi said that the country has been “hijacked” by Modi, Shah and Bhagwat with Kumar’s help, and action will be taken against all of them. “What has been done to our country is called treason and nobody is going to escape,” he added.

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

Biju Janata Dal, which is not part of the Opposition alliance, said that it will join the INDIA bloc’s march, PTI reported.

The Aam Aadmi Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam did not participate in the march.

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese, Nachiket Deuskar and Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court
• Process of deleting citizens as voters ‘intrinsically arbitrary’, says SC judge amid SIR concerns

A Mumbai court has discharged a 25-year-old man who was arrested in 2022 in the case related to the “online auction” of Muslim women, The Indian Express reported. The court noted that there was no evidence that he was involved in creating the app or sharing photographs of the women.

The case is related to the app “Bulli Bai”, which was used to display photographs of more than 100 Muslim women with derogatory comments for an alleged online auction in January 2022. It was the second such incident in less than a year at the time. In July 2021, photographs of nearly 80 Muslim women had been put up for sale on the “Sulli Deals” app.

Vishal Jha, an engineering student at an institute in Bengaluru at the time, was among persons arrested for allegedly being involved in creating the Bulli Bai app, the newspaper reported.

The cyber cell unit in Mumbai had filed a complaint under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, deliberate acts intended to outrage religious feelings, stalking, defamation and insulting the modesty of a woman. The Information Technology Act had also been invoked.

While seeking his discharge, Jha’s lawyer had submitted that the only allegation against him in the chargesheet was that he had followed and shared the app.

The court noted that merely following the app did not constitute an offence. It also noted that while there was evidence that Jha was in contact with some of the co-accused, this did not in itself establish his involvement in the case.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Eleven Indians were injured in an attack on a commercial ship while passing through the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Oman, on Tuesday, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The projectile hit the Panama-flagged MT On Peace, which had 19 crew members on board, including 17 Indians. Twelve people were injured in the attack.

The injured were evacuated with the help of Omani authorities and are undergoing treatment.

The incident came days after an Indian seafarer was killed in an attack on a commercial ship off the coast of Oman on September 23. The vessel was sailing towards India when two torpedoes struck the ship.

Eleven Indian seafarers have been killed in the Strait of Hormuz since the war in West Asia began, in attacks involving four Indian ships and 60 foreign-flagged vessels.

The ministry condemned Tuesday’s attack and said that such incidents remained a cause of “deep concern” for India.

“We reiterate our call for an immediate cessation of such attacks in the interests of peace and stability in the region,” it said.

The ministry added: “The targeting of commercial shipping, seafarers and civilian infrastructure in the region must end, and navigation and commerce through international waterways must be restored at the earliest.”

West Asia war

The war in West Asia began when the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, targeting major cities in Gulf countries and ships.

On June 15, the US and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels. However, diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled since then.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Opposition MPs including Rahul Gandhi held a sit-in protest at the All India Radio office, next to the Election Commission headquarters in Delhi. Before this, they had been briefly detained during an INDIA bloc march to demand Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.

The sit-in protest at the Akashvani Bhawan was continuing as of 7 pm.

The Opposition was calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The march started from Parliament complex and was stopped by the police about half a kilometre away on Parliament Street before the demonstrators were able to reach the poll panel’s headquarters.

Gandhi was among several Opposition MPs who were briefly detained there. After being released, he and other Congress leaders entered the Akashvani Bhawan compound in an attempt to reach the poll panel’s headquarters. Read on.

The Maharashtra Police was sending its volunteers notices stating that those joining Cockroach Janta Party’s protest against Chief Election Commission Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi on Saturday would face legal action, alleged the political campaign’s founder Abhijeet Dipke. Dipke shared a picture of the purported notice issued by Chandrapur Police to a supporter of the campaign.

The notice said the police had learnt that the person had planned to travel to Delhi to support Dipke at the planned march and asked why he wanted to join the agitation, who was funding his travel and what his objective was.

It directed the person not to take part in the protest or any other agitation without permission, not to associate with “violent protesters”, post “violent” content on social media or make provocative speeches. Read on.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Belgian physicist Francis Halzen for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin and his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Halzen, 82, is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

“His vision and scientific leadership have been fundamental for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory – a cubic kilometre of ice that is equipped with light sensors,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

The observatory is near the South Pole in Antarctica. Using the observatory, researchers “can capture neutrinos from extremely energy-rich processes in the distant universe”, the academy added. Read on.

Aam Janata Unnayan Party chief and MLA Humayun Kabir was arrested after a scuffle with police personnel in West Bengal’s Rejinagar. Voting was underway in the constituency for a bye-election that became necessary after he vacated the seat.

He had been reportedly arguing with the police since polling began, alleging that a large number of personnel had been deployed near his home and polling booths to intimidate voters and his party workers. After casting his vote, Kabir went to his party office, from where the police asked him to leave. The police said that he could not remain there during polling as he was neither a candidate nor an authorised polling agent.

Meanwhile, in Nandigram, the other seats where bye-poll was underway, the Congress alleged that the voters were being intimidated and polling agents prevented from entering booths. Read on.

One-party election: BJP looks to sweep Nandigram with help from police and Trinamool turncoats, reports Anant Gupta.

A Delhi court granted bail to a Hindutva influencer who allegedly assaulted the father of a student activist during youth protests in July. Swatantra Bharadwaj had been granted interim bail for three weeks on September 15.

While hearing his petition, the court had observed that there were gaps in the Delhi Police’s probe and directed the investigating officer to file a status report. Read on.

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

Trade deal talks between India and the United States have reached a “plateau” and further concessions might be difficult, Reuters quoted Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as saying on Monday.

Sitharaman blamed the increasing use of tariffs by the US for the stalled trade talks. She said that Washington was “weaponising” tariffs.

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

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

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

On Monday, Sitharaman said that the negotiations have reached a point beyond which additional give and take would be “very, very difficult” for both sides.

“[It has] been ⁠a hard and very vigorously negotiated agreement,” she said at an event in Delhi, adding that the talks will continue.

Sitharaman said that the balance of trade was in India’s favour and the deficit was that of Washington. “They would want to reduce that imbalance,” she added.

On September 18, US President Donald Trump gave his assent to a legislation that allows him to impose tariffs of up to 100% on India and other countries that purchase Russian oil and gas.

On Friday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that a trade agreement was not imminent, after meeting Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in the US.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

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

Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Tuesday alleged that the Maharashtra Police were sending its volunteers notices stating that those joining the campaign’s protest against Chief Election Commission Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi on Saturday will face legal action.

In a social media post, Dipke attached a picture of the purported notice issued by Chandrapur Police to a CJP supporter on Monday.

The notice said that the police had learnt that the person had planned to travel to Delhi to support Dipke in the proposed march and asked why he wanted to join the agitation, who was funding his participation and what was his objective.

It directed the person not to take part in the protest or any other agitation without permission, associate with “violent protesters”, post “violent” content on social media or make provocative speeches.

The letter warned the volunteer that preventive or criminal action could be taken against him if his actions lead to, or were likely to lead to, a cognisable offence.

The notice further stated that Section 37(1)(3) of the Maharashtra Police Act, which empowers the authorities to prohibit public gatherings and processions to maintain public order, is in force in Chandrapur. It warned that legal action could be taken if he violated the order.

Dipke asked whether the police now needed an account of a train ticket. “Does the police have nothing else to do?” IANS quoted Dipke as having told reporters.

He also questioned how the police could claim that the protest would turn violent.

“Is something already being planned to disrupt our peaceful protest?” he asked on social media. “Is protecting Gyanu [Gyanesh Kumar] more important than the safety and security of citizens?”

Maharashtra Police is sending notices to CJP volunteers asking for their Delhi travel expenses and threatening that the protest could turn violent.

How can they make such a claim? Is something already being planned to disrupt our peaceful protest?

Is protecting Gyanu more… pic.twitter.com/KC07vXpdqR

— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) October 6, 2026

Chandrapur Superintendent of Police Ayush Nopany told The Indian Express that issuing such notices before a protest was a routine activity.

“This is a prohibitory provision, and the police noticed that some persons from Chandrapur were likely to travel to Delhi for the protest,” he told the newspaper.

He said that the police wanted to “caution” the volunteers against violence and provocative speeches, and remind them that they needed permission from the concerned police station, which in this case was the Delhi police station, not the one in Chandrapur.

The Cockroach Janta Party on Friday said it will launch a march to Delhi and hold a protest at Jantar Mantar on October 10 if Kumar does not resign.

The announcement came after protests by several groups in Delhi and Mumbai on Friday. The campaign also held a protest in Mumbai.

The demonstrators were demanding action against Kumar, and raised concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

Demands for Kumar’s resignation

The protesters have raised concerns after The Indian Express’ September 23 investigation revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

According to The Indian Express investigation, Sandhu and Joshi had reportedly objected to changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The Opposition has also demanded the removal of Kumar.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission had said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Judges heading tribunals that are hearing appeals against decisions taken during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal have flagged that several problems in the Election Commission’s online portal were delaying the disposal of cases, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in May, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the state’s electorate before the revision began, had been removed from the electoral rolls.

On September 16, the poll panel told the Supreme Court that of the 38.2 lakh appeals filed in the tribunals, about 1.2 lakh had been decided. This translates to 3.1% of the appeals filed.

The 19 tribunals in the state were set up after the Supreme Court on March 10 ordered that panels composed of former High Court chief justices and judges should hear appeals against exclusions and inclusions in the voter roll revision.

The minutes of a meeting held on August 11 showed that more than a “dozen tribunal judges” had flagged the gaps in the ECINET portal, and conveyed them to the Election Commission and the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court, reported The Indian Express.

The judges had said that the portal does not have any mechanism to serve notices to those who have filed the appeals. This gap existed “in spite of several requests and reminders to develop a common and proper mechanism on the portal to serve notice to the parties directly”, the newspaper quoted them as saying.

“Sometime in the month of May 2026 some of us even approved a format of notice to be issued to the parties but it has not seen the light of the day till date,” The Indian Express quoted the minutes of the meeting as having said.

Further, the judges pointed out that the portal does not have a mechanism to hold virtual hearings. There is also no mechanism for restoring an appeal once it is disposed of, or for the appellants to get a certified copy of the tribunal’s order to know the reasons why their name has been deleted or included, they said.

“This is significant because the Supreme Court, in its order on April 1, had asked the tribunals to communicate the reasons and to revisit the records before they decide on the appeals,” said the judges, according to the newspaper.

They also flagged that “there is no proper mechanism” for maintaining appeals filed physically with the district magistrate or the district election officer, since they are not digitised. “If their appeals are not brought to the proper channel, injustice will be done to such citizens,” they said.

Poll commissioners flag gaps

On September 23, The Indian Express reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised concerns about access to the digital electoral roll database.

Each constituency’s electoral roll is maintained by its electoral registration officer, a statutory authority. But Joshi and Sandhu questioned whether these officers were being given access to the database.

In May, Joshi flagged that there was a “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database” and proposed an audit to certify that “no one, except the concerned statutory authorities, has credentials to make any change in the database”, the newspaper had reported.

After the report, the Election Commission said that a committee headed by a senior deputy election commissioner and including an independent expert from an Indian Institute of Technology or International Institute of Information Technology “will review the ECINET”.

The Election Commission has said that 22.2 lakh appeals in the tribunals were filed by voters whose names had been deleted.

At least 16.1 lakh appeals were filed against the inclusion of voters. The poll panel did not specify who had filed these appeals.

The Election Commission had said on September 20 that it may increase the number of appellate tribunals in West Bengal to 42, corresponding to the number of parliamentary constituencies in the state.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Before election commissioners flagged ‘centralisation’ of voter rolls, it was done in Bengal SIR

A Delhi court on Monday granted bail to 17 students and freelance journalists arrested during a protest demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Bar and Bench reported.

The protesters were arrested for allegedly taking part in an unlawful assembly that blocked a public space while prohibitory orders banning gatherings of five or more persons under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita were in force, the legal news outlet reported.

The police alleged that the protesters manhandled and assaulted personnel during their detention, injuring a woman constable, and broke the windows and rear glass of a bus.

However, Newlaundry reported that the 17 persons were protesting against the police for not registering a first information report against Assistant Commissioner of Police Vivek Bhagat, who has been accused of sexual harassment by a woman journalist.

The journalist has alleged that Bhagat groped her while she was filming the detention of student leader Neha Bora during a protest at Jantar Mantar on Saturday demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner.

On Monday, the Delhi government said that an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against him is pending.

The protesters had been booked under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to mischief causing damage to public property, assault or use of criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their official duty, among others.

The court said the allegation that the protesters had assaulted a police officer was serious, but noted that the accused persons were young and did not appear to be habitual offenders, Bar and Bench reported.

“They have their entire career lying ahead,” the court was quoted as saying.

The court also said that while peaceful protest is an individual’s right, assaulting police officials on duty is a “serious concern” that cannot be permitted “under the garb of peaceful protest”.

The court granted bail to the 17 accused persons on furnishing a Rs 15,000 bond and a surety of the same amount in each case.

Protests against Gyanesh Kumar

Protests are being held in several parts of the country seeking Kumar’s resignation over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision of voter rolls.

The demonstrations come against the backdrop of The Indian Express’ September 23 investigation which showed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

According to The Indian Express investigation, Sandhu and Joshi had reportedly objected to changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The Opposition has also demanded the removal of Kumar.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission had said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Aam Janata Unnayan Party chief and MLA Humayun Kabir was arrested on Tuesday after a scuffle with police personnel in West Bengal’s Rejinagar, where voting was underway for a bye-election necessitated after he vacated the seat, The Hindu reported.

Kabir had won both Rejinagar and Nowda in the May Assembly elections. He retained Nowda.

Kabir had been having arguments with the police since polling began, alleging that a large number of personnel had been deployed near his home and at polling booths to intimidate voters and his party workers, The Hindu reported.

He cast his vote with his family in the morning and went to the Aam Janata Unnayan Party office in the constituency.

The police arrived at the party office and asked Kabir to leave, saying that he could not remain there during polling as he was neither a candidate nor an authorised polling agent.

An argument broke out between Kabir and the police personnel, and the MLA refused to go home.

“Do not work as their middleman,” The Hindu quoted him as saying. “Do not do vote chori. You are doing work for the thieves.”

The argument escalated into a scuffle, after which police personnel detained Kabir in a police vehicle.

Kabir was later arrested on allegations of attempting to influence voters and incite them, PTI quoted unidentified police officers as saying. It was not clear what charges the leader was booked under.

Also read: As a Bengal seat goes to bye-polls, SIR deleted voters are stuck in limbo

Allegations of poll irregularities in Nandigram

In Nandigram, Congress candidate Milan Pradhan alleged that his polling agents were being prevented from entering booths and accused the police of ignoring complaints of intimidation and other irregularities, PTI reported.

He also claimed that police had lathi-charged voters in Chakraberia.

Meanwhile, the police detained the Congress chief of Nandigram-I block over alleged attempts to create disturbances during polling, based on a complaint by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, the news agency reported.

The bye-poll in Nandigram became necessary after Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari vacated his seat. Adhikari had won both Nandigram and Bhabanipur in the Assembly elections but retained the latter, where he defeated Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP has fielded Hasirani Rath, the mother of an aide to Adhikari who was shot dead two days after the Assembly election results were announced.

The Banerjee-led TMC faction has not fielded a candidate and is instead supporting Pradhan. He was arrested on September 18 in connection with a 2007 murder case and was subsequently shown as arrested in five other cases.

His arrest came hours after Banerjee announced that her faction of the TMC would support him in the bye-poll. The faction’s candidate had withdrawn her nomination shortly before the announcement, after photographs of her meeting Adhikari were shared online.

On September 28, the Calcutta High Court granted Pradhan interim bail in six criminal cases dating back to 2007, allowing him to campaign for the bye-poll.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: One-party election: BJP looks to sweep Nandigram with help from police and Trinamool turncoats

The Delhi government on Monday said that it had withheld the decision to give Assistant Commissioner of Police Vivek Bhagat the duty charge of additional deputy commissioner while an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against him is pending.

A woman journalist had alleged that Bhagat groped her while she was making a video of student leader Neha Bora being detained during protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at Jantar Mantar.

She said that she had gone to the Parliament Street police station to file a complaint, but no action was taken.

An unidentified police official was quoted as saying by The Hindu that registering cases against police personnel for actions taken while performing law and order duties could “deter them from working”.

Another unidentified police official told the newspaper on Sunday that there was no evidence to substantiate the journalist’s allegation.

On Monday, Bhagat, along with 11 others, was assigned the current duty charge of additional deputy commissioner of police.

A current duty charge is a temporary administrative arrangement where a government employee performs the routine daily tasks of a higher vacant post without getting a formal promotion or extra pay.

The Delhi government said that the decision to give Bhagat additional responsibilities was initiated on August 25, “much before the present set of events”.

“The orders were issued after due approval on October 5,” stated the government.

It also claimed that Bhagat had requested not to take up the additional duty “of his own volition, till a full enquiry has been conducted in the matter of alleged harassment of women journalists and such enquiry has been satisfactorily concluded”.

Government of NCT of Delhi order dated October 5, 2026, wherein current duty charge of the post of Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police has been assigned to 12 officers of DANIPS is being modified in respect of Shri Vivek Bhagat, ACP.
The proposal to confer additional duty…

— Delhi Government (@DelhiGovDigital) October 5, 2026

The journalist who accused Bhagat of sexual harassment was among the three women journalists who alleged that they were sexually harassed by police officers while covering the protests at Jantar Mantar.

On Sunday, the Delhi Police said that the allegations of sexual harassment had been received “in context of the emergent law and order situation” a day earlier.

The New Delhi district police has received the complaints and transferred them to the Crime Branch at Kamla Market for a “fair and impartial enquiry” against the police officers, it said.

It was unclear whether the Delhi Police was referring to the allegations against Bhagat or to separate complaints of sexual assault.

The police also arrested a person for allegedly creating and circulating an artificial intelligence-generated poster depicting Bhagat sexually assaulting a woman, ANI reported on Monday.

Separately, the police claimed on Monday that allegations of women protesters being physically assaulted are “baseless and misleading”.

“Female protesters are handled by female staff and are treated with dignity and due regard,” it said. “Detentions and releases are carried out in accordance with the applicable law and prescribed procedures.”

It added: “Any claim suggesting otherwise is factually incorrect and does not reflect the actual sequence of events.”

OFFICIAL CLARIFICATION

Some social media handles are claiming that female protesters were subjected to physical assault.

These allegations are baseless and misleading. Female protesters are handled by female staff and are treated with dignity and due regard.

Detentions and…

— DCP New Delhi (@DCPNewDelhi) October 5, 2026

Written by Sneha. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Maharashtra government on Monday announced a minimum 10% water cut in all urban areas from October 16, citing a “significant decrease in rainfall” caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

The El Niño weather phenomenon involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to reduced monsoon rainfall in India.

In September, the Maharashtra government had declared drought conditions in 74% of the state’s subdistricts amid a deficit in rainfall during the southwest monsoon season.

On Monday, state Minister of Water Resources Girish Mahajan said that the department has issued directives to use water with “extreme frugality and implement stringent measures”. He added that top priority has been given to ensure preventing any shortage of drinking water.

The new water strategy will be in force until August 31, said Mahajan, adding that effects of the El Niño are likely to last into the coming year.

The state government’s plan also outlines the need to curb water leakage and ensure that sewage treatment plants are operated at full capacity.

Water for irrigation will be allocated only after meeting the requirements for drinking water, livestock and fodder, according to the plan.

The measures come against the backdrop of a deficient southwest monsoon across the country. The four-month rainy season ended in India on Wednesday with a 12.6% deficit, said the India Meteorological Department.

This makes the season the driest in 11 years and the fourth driest in this century.

Written by Abeer Khan. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Mumbai is worried about water, but its control over mainland dams is depriving others

A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to a Hindutva influencer who allegedly assaulted the father of a student activist during youth protests in July, Live Law reported.

On September 15, Swatantra Bharadwaj was granted interim bail for three weeks. While hearing his petition, the court had observed that there were gaps in the Delhi Police’s probe and directed the investigating officer to file a status report.

On July 23, Sanjay Kumar, the father of student activist Nishu Aazad, was assaulted at Jantar Mantar during demonstrations against the alleged irregularities in competitive examinations.

Swatantra Bharadwaj had been detained on September 4 after a purported video featured him claiming that a phone call from Delhi minister Kapil Mishra helped him avoid arrest over the assault.

The purported video showed him claiming that he had not been jailed despite having “cracked the skull” of Kumar. After it was widely shared, Bharadwaj was booked for causing simple hurt and wrongful restraint.

Members of the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign protested on September 4 outside the Parliament Street police station in Delhi, demanding that charges under provisions relating to attempt to murder be added to the first information report.

Following this, the police invoked sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act and criminal intimidation against Bharadwaj.

Bharadwaj has claimed that he acted in self-defence and had he not done so, he could have been “lynched by the mob or killed”.

Edited by Sneha.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said that he had not anticipated the “financial burden” that his government’s cash transfer scheme for women, the Ladli Behna Yojana, would cause the state, reported NDTV on Monday.

“The Ladli Behna scheme turned out to be a very costly affair,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said at an event in Bhopal.

His party had announced the scheme six months ahead of the Assembly elections in 2023. Launched by former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the scheme entailed monthly transfer of Rs 1,000 to women between 21 and 60 years of age, whose annual family income does not exceed Rs 2.5 lakh.

In October 2023, the monthly amount was increased to Rs 1,250, a month before the Assembly polls. The BJP had also promised, in its poll manifesto, to increase the amount to Rs 3,000 per month.

The scheme is said to have contributed to the BJP’s victory in the Assembly elections.

Since then, it has seen one hike, with Yadav increasing the monthly payments to Rs 1,500 in November. The budgetary allocation for the scheme for financial year 2026-’27 was Rs 23,882 crore, reported The Hindu.

On September 16, the Madhya Pradesh High Court sought responses from the state authorities on a petition seeking to close the cash transfer scheme.

The petition said that “a very large amount of public money is being distributed every month, without sufficient material showing that such recurring cash assistance is actually creating lasting economic empowerment, self-reliance, employment, skills or permanent income opportunities for women”, reported The Hindu.

It also sought that the state government share details of its borrowings, outstanding debt and interest liability, as well as the likely financial effect of continuing the scheme in future years.

Burden on Maharashtra

A similar scheme in Maharashtra has sparked a controversy due to the strain it has placed on the state’s finances.

The Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, launched in June 2024, provides a monthly transfer of Rs 1,500 to women aged 21 to 65 whose families earn less than Rs 2.5 lakh per year in Maharashtra.

The scheme is said to have played an important role in the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance winning 230 seats in the 288-member Assembly in November 2024.

However, in October 2025, Nationalist Congress Party leader and state minister Chhagan Bhujbal claimed that all government departments were facing a fund crunch because of the Ladki Bahin scheme.

In February, state minister Ganesh Naik acknowledged that the scheme had put financial strain on government departments but said it would not be discontinued.

RTI data showed that over two years, the state government spent Rs 76,261 crore on the scheme, recording 46.1 crore payments instead of the 39.7 crore that should have been made.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

On Monday, the Supreme Court brought fresh clarity to the controversy over Form 6, the application used by new voters to get their names added to the electoral roll. Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said that the court had not approved any modified version of the form.

Kant was hearing petitions seeking that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar be suspeneded for allegedly taking unilateral decisions about procedures related to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls across the country.

The Election Commission had claimed in a statement on September 26 that a declaration attached to Form 6 for the special intensive revision had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

In June 2025, when the SIR began in Bihar , the Election Commission prescribed a separate Annexure D to accompany Form 6. That declaration dealt with the applicant’s age, residence, citizenship and supporting documents.

When the Bihar SIR was challenged before the Supreme Court, this declaration formed was included as documentation in the petitions contending that the Election Commission had exceeded its powers in the manner in which it had conducted the exercise.

In its judgment on May 27, the court upheld the commission’s right to conduct the SIR and recognised its authority to devise a documentation framework suited to such an exercise, subject to limits under the law.

But in July, a modified declaration introduced after that judgment, asked new applicants whether they themselves, a parent or a grandparent appeared on an earlier SIR roll. It sought details of that old electoral entry.

This declaration appeared when new voters filled out Form 6 on ECINet, the Election Commission’s online platform for voter registration and related services. Though this declaration was not part of the prescribed Form 6, applicants could not complete the online form without responding to it.

That is why its legal basis, and the authority under which it was added to the filing process, became important.

Why Form 6 matters

Form 6 is prescribed by Rule 13 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. It is part of the legal framework governing the enrolment of new voters.

Section 28 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, gives the Central government, after consulting the Election Commission, the power to make rules on preparing and revising electoral rolls. This includes the forms used for enrolment, which must be notified the official gazette. Those rules are then laid before Parliament.

The Election Commission’s position is that Form 6 itself remained unchanged and that the additional declaration on ECINet operated as an SIR-specific requirement.

This framework was the subject of the disagreements expressed by two of the three election commissioners, as reported by The Indian Express.

According to the paper, Election Commissioner Vivek Joshi on May 16 recorded his objections to this declaration. He said that that forms devised specifically for an SIR could stand on a different footing. But Forms 6 and 8 were prescribed statutorily and could not be altered without making amendments to the 1960 Rules.

He is reported to have said that the best and legally sustainable course was to send the proposal to the government. On May 19, Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu concurred with him, The Indian Express reported.

What SIR permits

However, an SIR gives the Election Commission latitude in how electoral rolls are revised.

Section 21(3) of the 1950 Act gives the Election Commission considerable flexibility to order a special revision of an electoral roll “in such a manner as it may think fit”. This provision formed the basis of the Bihar SIR and was examined by the Supreme Court in May.

The court upheld the commission’s power to conduct the SIR and recognised that the commission could adapt the documentation framework during such an exercise. However, the court also set a clear limit on the commission’s powers. Departures from the statutory framework must bear a rational nexus to the purpose of maintaining an accurate electoral roll, it said.

That framework provides the legal test for the later declaration appended to Form 6.

This later declaration asks new applicants whether they appeared in the previous SIR roll, whether a parent or grandparent did, or whether neither did. If one of the first two options was selected, further details such as the Assembly constituency, booth number and serial number could be sought.

For an 18-year-old, these records may be difficult to obtain.

Family electoral history may still have evidentiary value during verification, especially in an intensive revision. But once the online process makes such a declaration unavoidable, the commission must be able to show how it relates to the eligibility of an individual to be included in the rolls and the legal authority under which these details are required.

What happened inside commission

The Election Commission’s own position has been that Form 6 itself was not formally amended and that the SIR requirement operated as a separate declaration. That position draws support from recognition by the Bihar judgment that the commission can prescribe supplementary documentation during an SIR. The specific issue is whether the later declaration and its implementation as an unavoidable part of the ECINet filing process were formally authorised.

The internal records reported by The Indian Express show that the concerns of the two election commissioners continued after the declaration appeared online. Following the ECINet change, Sandhu on August 13 reportedly described the portal modifications as “unauthorised/illegal”. He sought that the original Form 6 be restored so that eligible young and first-time voters could register without any harassment. These were the commissioners’ reported legal views and remain distinct from any judicial finding.

The chronology after the internal objections adds context. On September 26, the commission said that the declaration attached to Form 6 for SIR had been upheld by the Supreme Court. However, the declaration before the court in the Bihar litigation related to the earlier Annexure D. The later declaration linking an applicant or relatives to an earlier SIR roll was introduced after the Bihar SIR judgment. This later declaration was not the document examined by the court in the Bihar case.

Four days later, the Election Commission removed the disputed declaration from ECINet in states where SIR had concluded, while retaining it where SIR remained underway. This step is consistent with the commission’s stated position that the additional declaration is applicable only during SIR periods.

It is relevant to note that the declaration stayed online despite internal objections and that the commission invoked the Bihar judgment to support this. However, on Monday, Chief Justice Surya Kant clarified that the Supreme Court did not approve any modifications to Form 6.

What the court examined

The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the legality of the later declaration or fixed responsibility for it on any official. It has called for records of the discussion that led to the changes. These records should clarify what exactly was approved, whether the later declaration was actually intended as a separate SIR document, how it became part of the ECINet workflow and how the internal objections were dealt with before this was implemented.

The question is whether the later declaration, particularly when made unavoidable online, stayed within the Election Commission’s powers to prescribe supplementary documentation during an SIR.

For many citizens, ECINet is where electoral law is experienced in practice. When the statutory form and the online process require different things, the commission must be able to explain what legal authority supports the difference, why the requirement is necessary and who authorised it.

Shubham Kumar is a lawyer and public policy consultant, and an alumnus of the University of Delhi and NALSAR University of Law. His email address is shubhamkumar2021@nalsar.ac.in.

Jeffrey Archer, the British novelist and former ​politician, died at the age of ‌86 on Monday, AFP quoted his publisher HarperCollins as saying.

Archer died “suddenly and peacefully at his home between writing sessions”, said the publisher.

Author of 31 novels, he had sold more than 30 crore copies of his books worldwide. His final book, Adam and Eve, was scheduled to be published on Tuesday.

He had also been a member of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, often referred to as the Tories. Archer joined the party while he was a student at Oxford University, reported AFP. In 1969, he won a bye-election to become an MP at the age of 29.

Archer was brought to the brink of bankruptcy in 1974 after a Canadian industrial cleaning company in which he had invested collapsed. He published his first book, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, a year after that.

Under then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he was appointed the Tory deputy chairman in 1985.

However, he was forced to resign in October 1986, after the News of the World published a photo of Archer’s friend, Michael Stackpole, paying £2,000 to a sex worker.

The tabloid did not make claims about what the payments were for. However, the Daily Star alleged that the author had paid the woman for sex, after which he sued the publication and won £500,000 in damages.

After he was selected ​as the Conservative candidate to become London’s first elected mayor in 1999, a former friend of his accused ​him of lying in the case. Archer was charged with perjury, convicted and sentenced to ‌four ⁠years’ imprisonment.

He served two years, during which time he wrote A Prison Diary.

Archer remained a member of Britain’s Upper House of Parliament until he retired in 2024.

Kate Elton, HarperCollins UK’s chief executive and Archer’s editor, said that it had been “one of the great privileges” of her publishing career to have been Archer’s editor, reported The Guardian.

“He was the master storyteller and an editor’s dream – phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible, and a true champion of the team nature of great publishing,” Elton added.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• The Jeffrey Archer story that Jeffrey Archer doesn’t know about
• Why Jeffrey Archer’s magic in India never fades

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s much-discussed special address at Davos in January called for a world of “values-based realism.” First proposed by Finland’s President, Alexander Stubb, values-based realism describes not a strategy, but an “instrument – temporary, adaptive, and situational…that espouses values while engaging respectfully with those who do not share them.”

Put more colloquially, this macro-geopolitical landscape operates exactly like a Gen Z “situationship” – relationships that are not beholden to labels, exclusivity, and can be non-committal.

India, with its cautious diplomatic language and history of moral rhetoric on the global stage, may not seem like a player suited to this new world of “situationships.” Yet New Delhi’s record navigating problematic regimes in its own neighborhoods suggests that India may actually enter this new order with more experience than most.

Situationships and values-based realism

Where once the rules-based international order was the organising principle for global affairs, the broader strategic framework increasingly gaining traction is values-based realism, which underscores the rising salience of variable, issue-by-issue geometries that form when states choose immediate interests over long-term normative alignment.

This approach does not mean a complete rubbishing of values, but their discerning application, while also challenging the idea that a principle must be applied universally to count. Instead, it recognises that, in a fractured world, what holds true as a core belief for one state may not be shared by another and that enforcing moral universalism is neither feasible nor harmless.

As a strategic framework, values-based realism recognises that cooperation and compromise work in tandem, such that to cooperate, states must make difficult compromises from time to time. A pragmatic reaction to a fracturing world, values-based realism seeks to approach the emerging geopolitical configurations not without values, but besides them, such that national interests – like border security, maritime lanes, and counter-terrorism – can be separated from normative metrics (eg freedom, rights, etc) during issue-specific engagements.

In other words, values-based realism suggests that to be realistic is to value that all states are not alike and may not even want to be. Accordingly, to limit cooperation because of lack of convergence around identified norms – which is what a liberal, rules-based international order promoted –actually risks further fragmentation, especially when states in general can no longer feasibly or viably enforce norms.

India’s historical footprint might suggest it will not be well-positioned to navigate such a world. For decades, New Delhi leaned heavily on the moral rhetoric of Non-Alignment and Third World solidarity, later embracing the rules-based international order through normative frameworks like vishwaguru (teacher to the world) and vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world is one family).

Yet, this global posturing has always coexisted with a parallel, pragmatic reality. When observed through its immediate neighborhood practice rather than its global rhetoric, India has acted less as an idealistic bystander and more as a seasoned practitioner of what may be understood as issue-centric realism.

Neighbourhood dilemmas

One of the most enduring challenges for Indian foreign policy has been how to approach its relations with “problematic” regimes. These are regimes that are not merely ideologically opposed to India in terms of their governance structures (eg military dictatorships or ultra-conservative movements that see New Delhi as an adversary), but also because they are seen as posing systemic challenges to the traditional global norms. To add to these, they tend to create even more dilemmas when they happen to exist next door.

Whether it has been the military takeover of Myanmar in 1962, or the dominance of an ideologically dissimilar government in Bangladesh through the 1980s, or having a fundamentalist Taliban in charge of Afghanistan in the 1990s, India has frequently found itself having to choose between its idealist mottos and realist interests.

The consensus view of such historical struggles suggests a tactic of total disengagement is not necessarily effective for New Delhi, since it allows regional rivals to fill the strategic vacuum. For India, this lesson was painfully underscored in Kabul, where diplomatic absence ceded vital ground to regional competitors from the 1990s up until the departure of the US in 2021.

In the past, India’s moral compunctions frequently dominated its rhetorical output, especially in a world seen as being governed by rules and ideals. Yet outside of its total isolation of the Taliban in the 1990s, India’s actual practice has long leaned toward pragmatism, comfortably engaging with the Myanmar junta or increasingly autocratic regimes in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka when national security dictated it.

In a similar spirit, the current technical engagement with Afghanistan signals a shift from moral insularity to strategic presence. The most visible manifestation of this approach has been India’s decision to prioritise counter-terrorism and regional influence, taking a more nuanced approach that balances Indian national interests with sustainable benefits for the people of Afghanistan. This is not an endorsement of the Taliban’s internal policies, but a pragmatic recognition that a diplomatic vacuum only cedes ground to regional rivals like Pakistan and China.

By maintaining a technical footprint, New Delhi, hence, seeks to ensure that it remains a stakeholder in the Afghan narrative, choosing a seat at the table instead of being a principled but passive observer in the wings. What is genuinely new here is not the transactional impulse itself, but its open endorsement by Indian thinkers and policymakers as a legitimate, open tool for securing national interests over ideological norms.

A similar recalibration can be seen unfolding in Dhaka. For over a decade, India’s Bangladesh policy was tethered almost exclusively to the Awami League, creating a binary outreach that was severely tested in a momentous people-led political upheaval in 2024. This single-party tether was not exclusively moral – as India’s support for Hasina, despite her tight-fisted control over Bangladesh, showed – but a hyper-securitised, interest-based association.

The overthrow of the long-allied Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government has forced a rethink of this “Awami-versus-the-rest” strategy. By untethering its approach from the Awami League, India is making efforts to protect its hard-earned connectivity and security goals from the volatility of internal political shifts, acknowledging that neighborhood first must mean engaging with the neighborhood as it is, not as India wishes it to be.

This nuanced approach is not a new intervention but a refinement of India’s long-standing practice of what may be described as an engagement-at-a-distance template, one most consistently applied vis-à-vis Myanmar. Underscoring a specific strategic posture where a state maintains functional, high-level diplomatic and security ties with a regime without offering it moral or ideological endorsement, this template has allowed India to maintain a robust, if uneasy, relationship with the Myanmar junta, driven by the imperatives of a neighborhood-first policy and the need to secure its restive northeast borders.

Whether through the strategic bind of being tolerant of the successive military-scripted polls or ignoring Western sanctions to maintain a diplomatic tightrope, New Delhi has long demonstrated that strategic necessity can coexist with moral distance. This Myanmar model of the past (and the present) may well be serving as the silent blueprint for India’s current maneuvers in Kabul and Dhaka.

‘It’s complicated’

The core novelty of this moment is not that India has suddenly discovered realism, but that the global spread of this practice has accelerated international acceptance. Values-based realism represents the systematisation of an assertive, layered doctrine.

The emphasis on such sectioning and parsing neither signals fragmentation in the Indian foreign policy nor does it come with a complete abandoning of overarching moral norms and ideals. Instead, it indicates a sophisticated conduct that transcends values-versus-interests dualisms to interact with other geopolitical actors in a multipolar, plural world where cooperation is increasingly becoming transactional and timed, without committing to exclusivity.

This logic extends well beyond South Asia: India’s simultaneous engagement with Washington and Moscow – which has long been criticised as opportunistic fence-sitting – operates on this exact template. As the wider world adopts values-based realism, New Delhi’s refusal to choose between vital defense and energy ties and Western strategic partnerships now has an acceptable name, precisely because such issue-based balancing is becoming the global norm.

The international order itself has become a collection of structural “it’s complicated” dynamics. As the global rules-based order fragments and ideologies are no longer the primary glue of alliances, India enjoys a distinct experiential advantage. Having spent decades managing non-normative neighbors, New Delhi’s legacy experience with situationships is finally being acknowledged as a standard playbook for a multipolar world.

Yet, following a transaction-centric approach can have its own strategic costs. While issue-centric engagement shields India from regional vacuums and preserves tactical flexibility, operating without an overarching umbrella of normative guardrails can affect accountability and transparency in nation-to-nation relations in the long run.

Also, as situationships do not require institutional permanence, they can end up demanding constant diplomatic upkeep, which can pressure India to expend significant energy continuously renegotiating bilateral terms on an issue-by-issue basis to prevent ties from slipping.

That said, following the template of values-based realism remains an essential bargain in today’s time. The diplomatic friction of managing fluid ties is far less damaging than the structural cost of absence, which historically ceded vital regional ground to India’s rivals. In a fragmented order where multilateral guarantees are increasingly unreliable, this approach ensures India retains the strategic agility to secure its core security and connectivity priorities on its own terms.

Chayanika Saxena is an independent researcher, working on the intersection of geopolitics and risk management. Her email ID is chayanika.saxena11@gmail.com.

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

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to pass an interim order on petitions seeking the suspension of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for allegedly taking unilateral decisions regarding the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, reported Live Law.

The court said it would first seek responses from the Election Commission and other respondents.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notices to Kumar, the poll panel, the Union government, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi and Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg.

Kant also verbally observed that the Supreme Court had not approved any changes to the Election Commission’s Form 6, which is used to register new voters.

The Election Commission had claimed in a statement on September 26 that a declaration attached to Form 6 for the voter roll revision had been upheld by the Supreme Court. It had also announced that the old version of Form 6 would be used in periods when SIR is not underway.

Petitions were filed before the court after The Indian Express reported on September 23 that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were reportedly related to the changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll body had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

The Election Commission has rejected reports of a rift, saying differences in views and observations are a normal part of its deliberations.

One of the petitions in the Supreme Court sought that all decisions taken by the poll panel not in concurrence with the election commissioners should be declared illegal, reported Bar and Bench.

It also sought that there should be an investigation into the deletion of 13.8 crore voters from the electoral rolls of 31 states and Union Territories during the special intensive revision.

“We are dealing with a grave situation which can undermine the very basis of our democracy,” the petitioner told the court.

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

The petitions were heard as protests are being held in several parts of the country calling for Kumar to resign over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the special intensive revision.

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese, Nachiket Deuskar and Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Conflict of interest concerns follow CEC Gyanesh Kumar from Sambhal to the Supreme Court
• Process of deleting citizens as voters ‘intrinsically arbitrary’, says SC judge amid SIR concerns

The Telangana chief electoral officer on Monday directed officials to take action against persons misusing Form 7 to seek the deletion of eligible voters from electoral rolls during the special intensive revision in the Congress-ruled state, The Indian Express reported.

Form 7 is used to object to the inclusion of a name or seek the deletion of an existing name from the electoral roll.

The order came after the Telangana Congress’ electoral office registered a complaint with the Hyderabad Police alleging that certain booth-level agents were filing bulk Form 7 applications to seek the deletion of eligible voters.

Similar allegations have been made in other states where the voter roll revision is underway.

In his order on Monday, Chief Electoral Officer C Sudharshan Reddy said that it had come to his notice that “there have been instances of filing bulk applications in Form 7 before the [electoral registration officers] and it is also alleged that such forms are not genuine”.

He also asked officials to take action against applicants who knowingly make false statements or declarations in Forms 6, 6A, 7 and 8.

Form 6 is used by new voters to apply for inclusion in the electoral roll, while Form 6A is used by overseas Indian voters for the same. Form 8 is used to request corrections, change of residence or replacement of an elector’s photo identity card.

A contentious exercise

Since the exercise began in June 2025, the SIR has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that it could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

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

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

The Opposition and civil society groups have been demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over revelations in a September 23 report by The Indian Express.

The newspaper reported that two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to the poll panel’s decisions about the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge.

Their objections were related to the registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal and the handling of voter data in Goa, among other matters.

Kumar has not yet commented on The Indian Express’ investigation. However, after the report was published, the Election Commission had said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.