A two-year-old child and a woman were killed, while six others were injured, after a fire broke out on the 11th floor of a 12-storey building in Mumbai’s Vile Parle West on Tuesday night, ANI reported.

Abir (2) and Ankita (23) were declared dead at a hospital. Of the six injured, two have been discharged and the remaining four are also in a stable condition, ANI quoted the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation as saying.

Fifteen persons who were trapped on the terrace due to the fire were also rescued, the news agency reported.

#WATCH | Maharashtra | Visuals from the spot after a fire broke out on the 11th floor of a ground + upper 12 floored building at Baptista Road, Shanta Bhavan Building, Church Road, Near St. Xavier School, Vileparle (W).

Six people were reported injured, of whom two were… pic.twitter.com/y1MM03fcWK

— ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2026

The fire was reported at around 10 pm and was brought under control by about 1 am. It was confined to electrical wiring and installations, an air conditioner, household articles, furniture, a false ceiling and kitchen utensils, covering an area of around 4,000 square feet.

The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained.

Two killed in landslide in Ghatkopar

At least two persons were killed and several others feared trapped after a large portion of a hill collapsed onto shanties in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar on Wednesday, India Today reported.

#WATCH | Maharashtra: Landslide occurred at Gaushiya Chawl, Chirag Nagar, near Rathod Medical in Kurla, at around 3:48 am. Three to four people are suspected to be trapped. Rescue operation underway. pic.twitter.com/uLeHolcD70

— ANI (@ANI) August 12, 2026

A landslide occurred at Gaushiya Chawl in Chirag Nagar, near Rathod Medical, around 3.48 am, ANI reported.

Rescue operations are underway, with around five persons feared trapped, the news agency quoted Deputy Commissioner of Police Ganesh Shinde as saying.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

This week, Delhi heard the Kanwar Yatra before seeing it.

Newspapers reported residents describing sleepless nights and rattling windows due to the ear-splitting noise. The Hindustan Times said its sound metrers clocked more than 100 decibels as trucks carrying large sound systems moved through residential areas near Kalindi Kunj and Kalkaji. Between passing convoys, readings were between 80 decibels and 88 decibels.

Police officers directed traffic and assisted pilgrims, some drivers were asked to lower the volume, but no FIRs had been registered when the measurements were reported. In fact, in Uttar Pradesh, the Kanwar Yatra pilgrims were welcomes included flower petals showered from helicopters.

Why is noise during religious events sometimes a public health violation, but other times a celebration that the administration must accommodate?

India’s noise rules make no religious distinction. They require written permission for loudspeakers, set residential limits of 55 decibels by day and 45 at night, and prohibit outdoor amplification between 10 pm and 6 am. Limited festival exemptions do not remove the applicable volume limits.

Noise is a public health concern. The World Health Organization and UN agencies say that excessive environmental noise can cause sleep disturbance, hearing impairment and cognitive impairment, and can increase the risk of hypertension and ischaemic heart disease. They recommend limits on nighttime noise exposure.

India’s judiciary is clear about protecting citizens from noise. The Supreme Court in 2005 had held the right to live in freedom from noise pollution as a fundamental right protected by Article 21. “We are not concerned with any religion or religious practices; we are concerned only with the fundamental right of the citizens…and the people to protect themselves against noise pollution and forced audiences,” said the court.

Yet, these rules have paper-thin enforcement and are selectively applied.

This is Kasana DJ. A major attraction on the Kanwar route. Moving towards Meerut from Muzaffarnagar. pic.twitter.com/KPRi5dFIt7

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) August 5, 2026

In Sambhal in March 2025, the police seized a mosque loudspeaker and registered a case against imam Hafiz Shakeel Shamsi over an allegedly over-amplified azaan. It followed cases against two other imams in January and the removal of speakers from the Shahi Jama Masjid in February.

Ahead of Holi that week, a Sambhal police officer observed that Holi was once a year while Friday prayers were held 52 times a year. Noise regulation became a judgement about whose religious presence was acceptable in public space. A police inquiry into a complaint against the officer’s remarks cleared him.

Journalist Kunal Purohit’s work on Hindutva pop shows why sound deserves closer attention. Purohit has documented music with anti-Muslim verses during religious processions, often played near mosques. Loudness is a way of projecting power and marking territory. Amplified sound is a means of asserting public presence.

There is little evidence that the Kanwar Yatra sound systems in Delhi were blaring hateful songs. Their relevance lies in the official tolerance of them.

A mosque loudspeaker can prompt seizure and criminal proceedings. Yatra sound systems crossing through the national capital’s residential neighbourhoods, with music well above legal limits, have at best prompted cautious requests to turn the volume down.

Mosques in India should, of course, follow the same noise rules as everyone else. Azaan does not deserve immunity from rules intended to protect health and peace. But the principle is legitimate only when applied with the same speed and seriousness to every source of religious sound.

A secular state can make room for all kinds of worship, celebration and silence. But its real test is whether it can hear all violations with the same urgency.

Rishiraj Bhagawati is a public health policy researcher based in Bengaluru.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to interfere with a Calcutta High Court order refusing interim permission to the Trinamool Congress to operate three bank accounts frozen by the Enforcement Directorate, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and PB Varale said that the High Court had passed a “balanced” order after taking note of the fact that the party had sufficient funds to run its day-to-day affairs. The court also said that since related proceedings, including a petition concerning a freeze ordered by the West Bengal Police, were pending before the High Court, it would not be appropriate to discuss the merits of the case.

On July 20, the High Court had on July 20 refused to allow the TMC to operate three bank accounts frozen by the ED. The party had approached the High Court challenging the probe agency’s action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The case pertains to alleged financial irregularities, unlawful collection of money and routing of suspected funds through certain bank accounts of the TMC.

On June 19, the Kolkata Police froze debit operations on the accounts, a day after rebel TMC MLA Biswanath Das filed a complaint alleging that funds had been misused.

On July 8, the ED said that it had frozen three bank accounts of the TMC, holding deposits worth Rs 440 crore.

The agency claimed that around Rs 160 crore was transferred from the party’s bank accounts to Carewell Aviation India Private Limited and a related company between April 2023 and June 2026.

Carewell Aviation then transferred around Rs 83 crore to another related entity, which was used to buy an Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft and an Agusta 109 Grand New helicopter, the ED claimed. It alleged that Rs 112 crore was spent on the purchases.

On July 9, another bench of the High Court had passed a separate order regarding the same bank accounts, permitting the TMC to use the funds for day-to-day operations under the supervision of a special officer till September 30. This order related to the freeze imposed by the West Bengal Police.

After the party sought relief from the Supreme Court, it asked the ED on August 3 a limited amount from the frozen accounts could be released to a court-appointed administrator to meet the TMC’s daily expenses.

To this, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju had responded that Rs 164 crore was not attached and was already available. The TMC had disputed Raju’s statement, with its lawyers Kapil Sibal and Menaka Guruswamy saying the party could not use the money because the accounts remained frozen.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

In the afternoon of July 20, a blast resounded through a tunnel being constructed in Sikkim’s Namchi district. Workers said that the force of the blast threw them around two metres, and that almost immediately, they could smell gas.

The explosion took place in the head-race tunnel of the 500-MW Teesta VI hydropower project being constructed by NHPC, a public enterprise. Such tunnels are the main channels that route water from a river, and lead it to turbines to generate power, before channeling the water back to the river.

The explosion occurred after a “sudden burst of suspected methane gas trapped inside the rocks which led to an explosion generating dense fumes and toxic gases”, the company said in a press release.

While some workers on site escaped the explosion, 25 others were trapped after it triggered a rockfall and blocked the tunnel’s opening. Rescue operations began immediately and concluded on the third day. There were no survivors.

The company’s press release stated that it was carrying out a “detailed investigation” to “ascertain the cause of the incident”.

But while findings of the investigation are yet to be released, company documents that Scroll has examined show that NHPC had been aware of the presence of methane on the site since at least January.

A document prepared by the company shows that in January, the site saw a “sudden leakage of flammable methane gas” during excavation work, as a result of which several workers “sustained burn injuries”.

Despite this, another document prepared by the company indicates that in July, the company did not have adequate infrastructure to manage the presence of methane in the tunnel. Just ten days before the accident, NHPC had floated a tender for firms and experts to provide a range of services, including management of methane through measures such as detecting and monitoring the gas, and providing ventilation.

Moreover, in June, it also issued a tender for two “methanometers-cum-toximeters” for the same tunnel. According to the company’s own safety manual, the devices are used to detect methane levels in the atmosphere, and thus allows personnel to ensure that there is no risk of explosion.

The same month they also invited bids for the service of calibrating this equipment “on a quarterly basis for 2 years at Teesta 6”. The total value of these two tenders was estimated at Rs 3 lakh.

Experts said that these documents indicated that the company was aware of the risks of methane leaks, and yet continued with work at the site. “If they are issuing tenders just ten days before the accident happened, it means that they knew that there were methane pockets,” said Soumya Dutta, a visiting senior fellow at Delhi’s Impact and Policy Research Institute, who works on energy, climate and hydropower projects. “But after issuing the tender, they carried on the work carelessly. It should have paused till they made the tunnel safe.”

He added that even if the company had procured methanometers, “these need to be procured and put in operation and workers need to be trained before the tunnelling work is done”.

Pravin Sharma, who stood as an independent candidate from the Yangthang assembly constituency in Gyalshing district in the 2024 state election, echoed these criticisms. “If this infrastructure was present, then the possibility of all those trapped surviving could have been high,” said Sharma, who is also a social worker. “Was there early gas detection facilities or not? Was there constant monitoring and ventilation and the staff trained for such incidents?”

A geological challenge for two decades

Construction for the Teesta VI hydropower project began in 2005, and was at first carried out by Lanco Teesta Hydro Power.

It was originally envisioned to be operational by 2012, but the eastern Himalayas threw up several challenges for the project, hampering the timeline. In 2009, for instance, a “flammable gas” was detected while the tunnel was being excavated, which then “burst into flame”, The Hindu reported. In 2011, an earthquake blocked ongoing work.

“The eastern Himalaya geography is conducive for methane pockets,” said Vikram Gupta, a professor of engineering geology in Sikkim University. He explained that the region was abundant with “the Gondwana sequence of rock”, which contain hale and coal seams – these seams naturally lead to the creation and trapping of methane. He added “We do not find many traces of them in western Himalayas.”. Dutta noted that the young Himalayas also have weak, sheared and highly fractured rocks, and that construction or excavation of rocks here can expose these methane pockets.

Due to constant delays in construction and mounting expenses, Lanco failed to repay debts to banks. By 2018, the company went bankrupt and became insolvent. Construction had also been stalled for four years at this point. In 2019, NHPC took over the partially constructed project.

In 2023, the project also suffered immense damage when the South Lohnak lake burst and caused a glacial lake outburst flood downstream.

Since then, geological challenges have persisted, delaying the construction further. It is now expected to be completed in 2028.

In the expression of interest that NHPC floated in July, the company said in the last few months, the progress of excavation had been “drastically hampered due to severe, adverse geological conditions”. It noted that apart from problems such as unstable rocks and soil, rock that easily fractured upon excavation, and the constant seepage of water, it also struggled because of “the presence of methane gas” at the site.

Because of these constraints, only about 44% of the head race tunnel work has been completed. Even the Central Electricity Authority, which oversees power projects in the country reiterated the company’s observations, noting that one of the reasons for this delay was “poor geology” in the head race tunnel.

Gupta recounted that he had visited the site around a month ago. “We could very easily smell that gas,” he said. “On the day of the accident, it is possible that a methane chamber suddenly leaked. If it had slowly oozed the way it was doing anyway, it would not have been an issue.”

Gupta said that at meetings he was present at, NHPC officials had spoken about the presence of methane at the site. “But, perhaps they did not expect that the gas would create a blast of this extent,” he said.

An inspection, and recommendations

After the January methane leak, work at the tunnel had temporarily stopped. In March, an inspection team from the CSIR-Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research in Dhanbad visited the site, to determine how construction could be resumed.

After four days of monitoring, they concluded that unpressurised methane that was released from pockets could be safely managed under strict safety guidelines. The team recommended keeping methane levels below 1%, ensuring that the points at the site with active gas pockets had ventilation ducts within 15 metres and exhaust fans within 25 metres, and using suction pumps to extract the gas from the rock cavities from which they were released. They also suggested that every fresh excavation should be followed by a one-hour “gas dilution observation period”, during which any work that generated heat or flames was prohibited.

“Ventilation fans are crucial,” said Dutta. He explained that the presence of methane alone did not necessarily suggest that a blast was likely to occur – rather, the concentration of the gas in the air needed to cross its “lower flammability limit”, the point at which it can catch fire when it comes into contact with a flame or spark.

The NHPC safety document notes that “The explosibility of methane gas is between 5 to 15 percent” and that the “percentage of Methane required for maximum explosive violence is 10 percent”. It recommends the use of methanometers to continuously monitor these levels.

“The ventilation must be placed and designed in a way to ensure that methane and other flammable gases do not reach concentrations beyond the flammability limit,” explained Dutta. He noted that in tunneling activities, apart from methane, it was also crucial to measure levels of oxygen, carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen sulphide.

He added, “The big question is also if there were enough ventilation fans, and were they working?”

Scroll emailed NHPC to ask whether the inspection team’s recommendations were implemented – we also sought responses to criticisms that the company did not have the necessary equipment and infrastructure and place to protect workers, despite knowing about the risks at the site. This story will be updated if the company responds.

Gupta, the geologist, explained that another hydropower project, Rammam Stage III, is being constructed by the National Thermal Power Corporation on the Sikkim-West Bengal border, just around 30 km from Teesta VI. He noted that the site had similar geological conditions, and that methane was present in it – but the company had stopped all welding and other fire-related activities to avoid such accidents. “They are not even using blasting to excavate the tunnel,” he said. “They are manually constructing it.”

Construction work during rainy season

A notification issued in May by the Namchi district collector’s office pointed to other safety risks that projects like Teesta VI faced. The notification stated that “all new earth excavation activities” including digging, levelling and quarrying were “prohibited with immediate effect” in the interest of “public safety and disaster risk reduction”. It stated that carrying out such work in the monsoons posed “serious risks including soil erosion, landslides, flooding, water logging, damage to public infrastructure, and threat to human life and property”.

The state has been issuing such notices during monsoons, which usually last up till September, for the past few years.

An official at the district office who asked not to be named told Scroll that this notice did not apply to construction for the hydropower project, since the notice stated that “only new construction cannot be taken up. Ongoing constructions can continue.”

The notice ordered that in case of ongoing public work, “adequate protective and safety measures” had to be ensured.

“There is no clarity what these protective and safety measures should be,” said the social worker and politician Sharma. “The possibility of disasters is not only in new excavations. Even ongoing projects include excavation, and the disaster risk is high.”

He added, “When the topography is the same, then having a ban on new construction while letting ongoing ones continue seems like discrimination.”

Dutta explained that tunneling does not necessarily need to stop its work during monsoons, but that constant monitoring was needed of moisture and water levels in the rocks and soil, and that measures needed to be put in place to drain out water quickly if needed. He added, “If their monitoring shows that cracks are forming, then they must halt the tunneling.”

The Congress on Tuesday said that Union Home Minister Amit Shah was a “coward” for not being present in the Lok Sabha as the Opposition continued to demand a discussion on police action against youth protesters in Delhi on July 20.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Shah was a “no-show” in the Lok Sabha despite business being listed against his name. He said that Shah’s absence from both Houses for 17 sitting days was “truly unprecedented”.

“Once again, he has proved that those who intimidate are themselves cowards,” Ramesh said.

The Monsoon Session, which began on July 20, is scheduled to conclude on Thursday.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju rejected the charge, saying that the government was ready for a “complete and detailed discussion” on the students’ protests and police action and that Shah was ready with his reply. He accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of having “run away” and shouting slogans outside Parliament instead of participating in the debate, ANI reported.

Delhi: Congress MPs, including Pawan Khera, and NDA MPs held protests against each other in Parliament pic.twitter.com/V63O6W86mv

— IANS (@ians_india) August 11, 2026

Opposition and National Democratic Alliance MPs held separate protests at the Parliament complex on Tuesday, IANS reported.

Opposition MPs demanded Shah’s presence in Parliament, while MPs from the ruling National Democratic Alliance staged a counter-protest against the lathi-charge on students in Jharkhand.

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders raised the subject of the police action in Jharkhand, where the Congress is part of the ruling Mahagathbandhan alliance led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.

Congress leaders said the comparison was misplaced, arguing that responsibility for police action lies with the government under whose jurisdiction it occurs.

Congress MP Manickam Tagore said that the Delhi Police comes under Shah, while Rahul Gandhi is neither the chief minister nor the home minister of Jharkhand, ANI reported.

On Monday, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that the deadlock in Parliament would continue until Shah makes a statement on police action against the youth protesters.

The police action in Delhi came during protests against the alleged mismanagement of several competitive examinations. The agitation, which culminated in the resignation of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union education minister, was led by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign.

A crackdown by security personnel on July 20 had left dozens injured, with protesters reporting injuries from lathis and pellet guns. The Delhi Police and Central Armed Police Forces report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

In Upper Assam’s Rahmaria area in Dibrugarh district, the Brahmaputra river is central to people’s lives and imaginations. But since a massive earthquake in the region in 1950, Rahmaria has witnessed widespread river erosion, claiming several forests, paddy fields, villages, and shifting lands in its wake.

There was also rampant militarisation in the early 1990s under the influence of the United Liberation Front of Assam, creating an atmosphere of unsettling silence in Rahmaria. This is the backdrop against which visual artist and photographer Pallov Saikia sets most of his work.

Pallov, 36, works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fine Arts and Music, Rajiv Gandhi University in Arunachal Pradesh. He is also co-founder of the Assam-based Anga Art Collective, which has emerged as an important voice from the region.

Excerpts from an interview with the artist.

When I see your work, it feels very rooted in where you grew up, and where you come from. Could you talk about your growing up years, and the factors that influenced your work?

I grew up in Garpara village in Rahmaria mouza, located in Assam’s Dibrugarh district. Our village was situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra river.

One of the main things I remember is the backdrop of constant river erosion. So much so, that the river has now consumed more than 30 villages along its course, including my village.

When I was growing up, the erosion in our area was at its peak. The farmlands, the houses, the infrastructure, everything was swept away. There was a huge migration of people out of the area. Most of the families, including mine, were eventually forced to migrate out of Garpara.

The people of Rahmaria were also protesting at the time. They were demanding that the government construct an embankment to prevent erosion in the region. They even stopped Oil India Ltd, from extracting crude oil from Rahmaria as leverage against the government to fulfill their demands. The protest led to the closure of the crude oil site for a long time.

What was the erosion like and when did it start?

There was an earthquake in 1950, in Assam. After that the whole topography of the region changed. My father recalls a lot of stories from his childhood. He was very young when the earthquake took place. After the earthquake, there was a flood, and eventually that led to erosion.

My father recalls that when he was growing up, the Brahmaputra river was far away. He had to first cross the Dibru river to reach it, and it would take him at least three to four hours to reach the river. But now, the Brahmaputra is close by, since it has merged with the Dibru river, and is right next to our home.

At the same time, there is something very magical about the riverine landscape. Even now, when I go back to Rahmaria, I can make out that “Oh, there was a village in this area.” Or, “Oh, there was a bamboo forest there.” Now nothing exists anymore.

When you went to art college in Guwahati, what was the syllabus inside the classroom like?

It was very academic and colonial. We would do things like still lifes, model studies etc. I submitted my internals, but I was not very interested in these activities. I found the classes to be very dislocated from my background.

For example, I was coming from a rural background and I brought with me my own history, material practices, sensitivities etc. But the syllabus was not showing me a way on how I could engage with my background.

It was very common for art teachers to ask if we would define a work as an “illustration” or a “painting”, whether it would be classified as “art” or “craft”. We often had these kinds of conversations. But when I look back at them now, they feel meaningless to me.

For me now, it’s all about where someone’s practice is coming from, and the urgencies around it. Not about whether something is a painting or an illustration, whether it’s art or craft. We were into such traps when we were in art school.

But I made a group of friends in art college. Which is why I feel very fortunate about studying there. On top of that, since I studied in Guwahati Art College, I feel I did not have the institutional baggage that several other schools in the country carry, and that I could start from anywhere.

What you have pointed out feels like a pain point for several young artists. I’m sure you must have felt quite confused and frustrated at the time, because you were not able to relate to what was being taught in the classroom. Did you have any guiding light to help you through this period?

Yes, actually. There was Naskar da. He used to sell art books in Guwahati. We bought books from him in installments, and started reading together. These books were about art history and contemporary art practices. I remember reading a book called Making of Contemporary Art by Linda Weintraub, another one called Concise History of Modern Art by Herbert Read and Ways of Seeing by John Berger, and so on.

Naskar da played a very important role for us during our art school years. He exposed us to the art world through books. And even though he is not in Guwahati anymore, and has moved to Kolkata, we still have a very strong connection with him.

At the same time, we also rented a four room house in Ganesh Nagar, near our college, and converted it into an art studio. This happened quite organically, when I was in my fourth year. Our college was not open 24 hours a day. We asked the college authorities to keep the studio open at night, because we wanted to work for longer, but they refused. That’s when we realised that we needed a separate space where we could work even at night. This was in 2010.

For us as a group, the foundation of working together was already there. At this point we also wanted a space where we could critically discuss art, but the college was not fulfilling our desire to learn more or cultivate our interests. So the studio helped with that. We used the space to organise talks with various artists and writers like Nilmani Phookan, Harekrishna Deka, to name a few from the city. We also developed a strong connection with the community around us. Today many of us continue to work together under the banner of Anga Art Collective.

Now you are a professor yourself. How do you approach teaching differently from your college years?

I always want to know what background and life my students are coming from. I want to understand their location, their urgencies, and the psyche of their place. And accordingly I want to have discussions with them.

The art they make needs to come from their urgencies. All I try to do is to understand their backgrounds, and nudge them to engage with it. In this process, I also learn a lot from them.

Can you talk a little about your current practice? How did you arrive at it? And what are some of the questions driving your work?

When I was doing my dissertation during my masters at SN School, University of Hyderabad, I was looking for photographs of Rahmaria. But I was unable to find anything. I was looking for photographs of theatre, but didn’t find much of that either. That is one of the reasons that I do a lot of documentation, and follow people from my village.

I was very clear that I wanted to go back home after getting my degree. I did not dream of going to Delhi or Baroda, like many other artists do. At that time, I bought a camera, and started going to Rahmaria again and again. And I started interviewing the people who still live there.

Who did you interview, and what kind of stories did you uncover?

I interviewed many people from different age groups.

Let me share a few anecdotes about it. One of the people I interviewed was my father’s friend. His name is Khagen Saikia. He told me that he had spent most of his life in the river, almost 60 years of his life, that is. He used to travel to a place called Ramsingh through the river with his small boat to bring vegetables and chicken, etc., to sell in the weekly market, and that he would carry essential things like kerosene to the families who stayed in Ramsingh, which was inhabited by a few families. He travelled alone, even in the monsoon when the water level was very high.

Since he spent most of his life in the river, he developed a soulful connection with it. And eventually became an expert of boating. He could tell just by looking at the river how deep the water was. Even during monsoons when the water level rises very high, he wasn’t worried about any unexpected calamities. His only concern was about the goods he was carrying, because he knew that if something were to happen to him, he was already well equipped to save his own life in such circumstances. I interviewed him on different occasions and used to stay at his place and had many wholesome conversations with him.

Then, there is an uncle whose name is Biswa Gogoi. He was telling me the story of a tiger. They had gone to the river island to collect firewood. One night the tiger came near their camp, and slept there. And they had to keep quiet, until the tiger left. Apparently, the tiger was snoring [laughs]. The way he was telling me the story was also very interesting. He was adding a lot of drama to it. The words he used, the way he expressed it. It was something very interesting, I thought.

So, I go to the village. I observe things. I observe the landscape, the seasonal changes. I have long conversations with people. And I take photographs. My process of practice is very slow. You can say, it is the opposite of today’s time, which is very fast.

And when I think about my practice, I feel like it goes beyond documentation. Because I am not merely documenting various activities or cultural practices.

That’s really interesting. And I agree with you. When I look at your work, it feels like it does more than just document a place and its people. What do you think you are trying to do?

Yes, my work goes beyond documentation. It is about observing various possibilities, through which the disappearing knowledge systems of my village can be retranslated, and reactivated. I am critically engaging with these systems. And I believe that this can give an alternative way of thinking, and practising art.

What are some of these disappearing knowledge systems?

So many things. For example, when I was growing up, there was a strong sense of community. Now, it still exists in parts, but it is slowly disappearing with time.

Then, there were people who sang Bihu songs. Now there are very few such people. These songs were very popular in the village. These songs are very much connected to the landscape. You can see a lot of elements of the river reflected in these songs. They are also very philosophical. They talk about the misery and the happiness of the people.

And the other interesting thing about these songs is that they talk not just about humans, but about non-human things as well. They talk about birds, different species, about the river situation, about the various changes taking place in the landscape.

That’s why I follow a Bihu singer from my village. His name is Sonel Gohain. We can call him a living archive of Bihu songs. I often take photographs of him, and have had long conversations with him.

How do you think these knowledge systems can be re-inculcated into our lives? Or even in your work?

In my photographic practice, for example, there is the element of imagination. It’s about how I imagine. And this imagination is not my imagination alone. It is the imagination of my people. For example, how do they imagine a folk character? Or a ghost?

I have been exploring various images of folk characters and ghosts in my village. And people in my village often believe in such characters…someone might see something mythical by the river, for example.

So, I explore these images in my work. This is also a kind of preservation. An attempt to reactivate such imagery. I want to bring that imagination; the collective imagination of the people of Rahmaria into my practice. Along with that, I explore the various changes of the river. I follow the people and the landscape and wait for certain moments and photograph them.

While you talk about disappearing knowledge systems, it is also clear that the narrative of development, comprising shiny bridges, world-class infrastructure, and large-scale industry, is here to stay. How do you see your work, and the knowledge systems of your community in this context?

There has always been a dominant narrative of development. Ironically, this narrative is often tied to resource extraction and environmental degradation. The place I come from has been treated as a site of extraction since the colonial period, and that logic continues today.

A recent example is the June 2025 Handbook on Geological Potential of Northeast India, which highlights the potential presence of rare earth materials in the North-Eastern region. While such discoveries are often celebrated as opportunities for development, they also raise important questions about who benefits, what is extracted, and what ecological and cultural costs these projects may bring.

In this context, I believe it is essential for a collective voice. As I mentioned earlier, the erosion of the sense of community has become one of the most pressing concerns of our time. Practising together as a collective allows us to carry forward the local knowledge systems, articulate the realities of the spaces we come from, and offer alternative ways of imagining development that are rooted in care for people, culture, and the environment, rather than extraction alone. It also creates the conditions for nurturing a grounded art ecosystem in this region.

There is a strong anti-Miya sentiment in Assam right now. How do you see such sentiments against perceived outsiders in relation to ideas of development and climate change in your state under the current political regime?

I don’t support any kind of communal politics. So far, we haven’t had the opportunity to work closely with the Miya community. However, I, as an art practitioner, as well as our collective, would love to collaborate with practitioners from the community. I think the practice of Miya poetry on social media a few years back has brought to the fore important young voices from the community.

Reflecting the multilingual channels of communication in the social world, the Miya poetry discourse was able to create a dialogic platform for a moment. Today, a project like Itamugur Community Media is continuing significant work in shedding light on the interconnected nature of exclusionary politics, developementalist paradigm and extractive policies. The social and cultural life of the community is also expressed in many of its presentations.

And finally, if I were to ask, why do you do this? Why do you practice art? What would happen if you stopped?

The thing about the practice is that I have to practice, otherwise I don’t feel good. I simply need to practice. I am very clear about that. Being a visual art practitioner, I feel I have a certain obligation to practice art.

Whenever I come home, I go to Rahmaria. I go to my friends’ houses, talk to them, spend time with them, and spend time in the landscape. For me spending time is more important than producing something quickly.

Purvi Rajpuria is a writer and illustrator from Kolkata. This conversation was first conducted as part of her podcast series, Documenting Culture.

Scientists at the Wildlife Institute of India have reported two roadkill incidents of the rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) at the National Chambal Sanctuary in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh. The two records are the first documented occurrence of the small carnivore in southern Uttar Pradesh, according to the research paper published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa in May.

Roadkill data for small carnivores is heavily underreported, and these records were “a matter of chance”, according to Vishnupriya Kolipakam, a Wildlife Institute of India scientist and one of the paper’s authors.

While they add a new locality to the small cat’s known range, the wildlife sanctuary falls within its distribution range, Kolipakam said. “The wild cat has been reported from areas all around Chambal, including Kuno, Rangarh-Vishdhar, Ranthambhore, and Dholpur,” she said.

However, this follows a pattern, as seen in recent papers that have curated sighting reports of the strictly nocturnal cat. There were nine records of roadkill from the Saurashtra Peninsula in Gujarat between 2016 and 2024, and four records from Rajasthan between 2000 and 2020. In Nepal, too, where the cat was discovered as recently as 2016, there has been a record of a roadkill.

For an elusive small cat that has been rarely observed in the wild, these roadkill records add up to a significant number. There are also not enough studies looking at the effects of roads on small carnivores, noted Shomita Mukherjee, a senior principal scientist at the Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON). “Whatever is known of roadkills is largely through opportunistic records,” Mukherjee said.

“The actual number will be much higher,” she added.

Death traps for small cats

Native to India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, the rusty-spotted cat is widely recognised as the world’s smallest wild cat species. It is roughly half the size of a domestic cat, measuring just 38-45 cm in body length and weighing between 1 and 2 kg.

One misconception about the rusty-spotted cat is that it is rare, said Aly Rashid, a tourism professional and naturalist. “It is not rare, but it is rarely observed, due to its strictly nocturnal habits and small size,” he said.

The recent expansion of camera trapping in India has shown that the rusty-spotted cat has a wider distribution than previously understood.

However, Rashid cannot recall encountering a rusty-spotted cat roadkill in the Satpura Tiger Reserve, where his family runs an eco-lodge. “In dry habitats like Chambal, Gujarat and Rajasthan, where they are quite common, perhaps the occurrence of roadkills is higher,” he said.

But why are roads such a significant threat to small carnivores like the rusty-spotted cat? Roads are a threat to all wildlife, especially felids and canids, Kolipakam said. “Small cats suffer due to their size and nocturnal habits, which makes detection by drivers difficult,” she said. “Their response to moving vehicles, freezing or changing course, also adds to the problem.”

Cats use roads for various reasons, according to Mukherjee. “Cats are primarily visual animals and for nocturnal species [like the rusty-spotted cat], roads often provide good opportunities to hunt,” she said.

Roads fragment natural habitats, creating edge environments with abundant resources that attract rodents and other small animals, Mukherjee said. “If the roads are lit, insects also get drawn to lights, which could attract small cats,” she added.

Roads also serve as good demarcation and territory-marking structures for cats, Mukherjee noted.

Building better mitigation measures

The International Union for Conservation of Nature recognises habitat loss and fragmentation as the primary threats to the rusty-spotted cat. While road networks are highlighted as a threat in other small cat assessments, they are not for the rusty-spotted cat. Mukherjee, a member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, believes road networks should similarly be recognised as a significant threat to the rusty-spotted cat.

Even though road networks are considered economically vital for the country, there are still measures that can be taken, Mukherjee said, such as creating awareness about speeding, particularly at night. “Large, visible signposts for drivers that indicate the presence of wildlife should be mandatory,” she added.

While it is impossible to make the nation’s vast road network completely accident-proof, WII scientist Kolipakam recommended focusing mitigation measures along forested and other wildlife-dense areas. Enabling wildlife crossing via flyovers and drainage culverts is crucial for mitigating habitat fragmentation and preventing wildlife-vehicle collisions, she said.

There should be more focused monitoring efforts, too, according to Mukherjee. “Roads that are especially risk-prone for small carnivores should be identified through studies and regularly monitored for roadkills,” she said. Similar to accident-prone sections on roads for humans, hotspots should be identified for wildlife, too, Mukherjee added.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

A video by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee in which he claimed that Hindu gods consumed meat was blocked in India following a Union government order, Live Law quoted Google as informing the Delhi High Court on Tuesday.

The video remains accessible outside India, while a request for its global removal is pending before a division bench of the High Court, Google’s counsel told Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma.

The plea seeking removal of the video was filed by lawyer Amita Sachdeva. Rathee had uploaded it on YouTube on March 21, In it, he discussed dietary habits in Hindu scriptures. He noted that texts have mentioned that deities like Ram and Krishna consumed meat and alcohol.

Sachdeva alleged that the video was derogatory, inflammatory and communally sensitive. She also filed a criminal complaint against Rathee before a magistrate, alleging that he had distorted Hindu scriptures and “mocked the sanctity of Sanatan Dharma”.

Sanatana Dharma is a term some people use as a synonym for Hinduism.

The Union government’s Grievance Appellate Committee had ordered the video to be blocked after the High Court on July 3 asked the Centre to decide on the plea, Bar and Bench reported.

The Grievance Appellate Committee hears appeals by users against social media intermediaries regarding complaints about online content.

On Tuesday, Sachdeva told the court that the video could still be accessed in India using a virtual private network and sought its global removal.

The court adjourned the matter until September.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

President Droupadi Murmu on Thursday gave assent to a bill criminalising insults to the national song, Vande Mataram.

With the president’s assent, the 2026 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Bill has become law.

The Lok Sabha passed the legislation on July 30 through a voice vote amid protests by Opposition MPs demanding a discussion on police action against youth protesters on July 20. The Rajya Sabha cleared it a day earlier.

The protests on July 20 were held against alleged mismanagement in the conduct of competitive examinations.

The law gives Vande Mataram the same statutory protection as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. It states that intentionally preventing the singing of the national song, or disrupting an assembly singing it can be punished with imprisonment of up to three years, a fine or both.

The 1971 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act already makes insulting the national anthem, national flag or Constitution punishable with up to three years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.

The legislation had faced opposition from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the Lok Sabha, with MP Kanimozhi accusing the government of advancing a “Hindutva agenda” under the cover of nationalism.

Responding to the debate, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the legislation was about “Indian pride” and was not directed against any state or ideology.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has accused the Congress of insulting Vande Mataram through “appeasement politics”.

The Union government is commemorating the 150th year of Vande Mataram.

A Press Information Bureau note issued on November 6 to mark the 150 years stated that the Constituent Assembly had adopted Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem and Vande Mataram as the national song.

The note quoted Rajendra Prasad, the first president, as having told the Assembly in January 1950 that Vande Mataram, because of its role in the freedom movement, “shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it”.

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

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

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Several Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad workers were detained after clashing with the police during a march towards the Jharkhand Assembly. They were protesting against the use of lathis and tear gas on students a day earlier during a demonstration over alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations for government jobs.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The detentions came as the BJP called for a statewide bandh from 8 am to midnight on Tuesday to protest against the police action.

In response to Monday’s march, Chief Minister Hemant Soren, whose Jharkhand Mukti Morcha heads the government, said that he respected the students’ right to raise their concerns. Their demands would be addressed with seriousness and sensitivity, he said. Read on.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously passed a resolution urging the Union government to abolish the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for medical admissions. The resolution also urged the Centre to allow the state to admit students to medical colleges based on their Class 12 marks. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s lone MLA opposed the resolution and walked out before the vote.

The resolution said irregularities in the 2026 exam had caused “untold mental agony” among students and undermined their trust, after the exam was cancelled and a re-examination held. NEET is a requisite for students to secure admission to undergraduate medical courses in India.

The state has sought an exemption from NEET several times, but previous bills have not received presidential assent. Read on.

The Supreme Court has said that it cannot set a timeline for appellate tribunals hearing challenges to deletions from electoral rolls in West Bengal during the special intensive revision. However, the court asked the Election Commission to provide details of cases disposed of and pending before the tribunals.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant was hearing a petition filed by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking speedy disposal of cases related to the voter roll revision exercise. Read on.

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

The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Union government to abolish the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduate medical admissions and allow the state to admit students based on their Class 12 marks, The Hindu reported.

NEET is currently mandatory for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India.

The lone Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, M Bhojarajan, opposed the resolution and walked out before the vote.

Moving the resolution, Health Minister KG Arunraj urged the Union government to amend the 2019 National Medical Commission Act, the 2020 National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act and the 2020 National Commission for Homoeopathy Act to enable admissions based on Class 12 results.

The resolution said that Tamil Nadu had consistently opposed NEET on grounds of social justice, equality and the rights of states in a federal system. It also said repeated question-paper leaks and other irregularities had further undermined confidence in the examination.

It also referred to the cancellation of the 2026 undergraduate medical admission exam and the subsequent re-examination, saying the developments had caused “untold mental agony” to lakhs of students and resulted in the loss of young lives.

“The examination has forfeited the trust of the students of this country,” The Hindu quoted the resolution as saying.

This came amid an ongoing anti-NEET hunger strike in Chennai, which entered its 11th day on Tuesday, Deccan Herald reported. Four persons are taking part in the indefinite fast, which is being organised by S Manirathnam, brother of S Anitha, a Tamil Nadu student who had sought admission to medical college based on her Class 12 marks and died by suicide in 2017 after failing to secure a medical seat through NEET.

The protesters are demanding that the Assembly pass a fresh resolution seeking the abolition of NEET, Deccan Herald reported.

Tamil Nadu has previously also sought exemption from NEET under the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government. Chief Minister Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam is in power in the state now.

In 2017, the state passed two bills seeking an exemption from the examination, but the president withheld assent to both in September that year. In 2021, the Assembly passed the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, proposing that medical admissions be based on Class 12 marks instead of NEET.

RN Ravi, the governor at the time, returned the bill for reconsideration in February 2022. The Assembly passed it again and sent it for presidential consideration.

In June 2024, the Assembly unanimously passed another resolution urging the Centre to scrap NEET nationally and approve Tamil Nadu’s exemption bill. However, in April 2025, President Droupadi Murmu withheld assent to the bill.

In November, the Tamil Nadu government approached the Supreme Court, challenging the president’s decision.

The resolution adopted on Tuesday does not itself exempt students in Tamil Nadu from NEET. Any change to the existing admission system would require the necessary legal and constitutional process at the national level.

The Tamil Nadu government has repeatedly contended that the medical entrance examination violates federalism by taking away the states’ power to admit students to medical colleges.

The state has also argued that the NEET question paper is based on the Central Board of Secondary Education syllabus, which differs from the Tamil Nadu state board’s academic curriculum.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: Why Tamil Nadu’s attempt to repeal NEET might be an uphill task

“Radd karo, radd karo! JPSC pariksha radd karo!” (Cancel, cancel! Cancel the JPSC exam results!)

The cries of young protestors rang out at the Jaipal Singh Munda stadium in Ranchi on the evening of July 31. They had been at the site since July 29, protesting irregularities that had been found in the results of the fourteenth Combined Civil Services Examination, held by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission. The exam was to determine recruitment for several group A and B gazetted government service roles in the state, such as police superintendent and deputy collector.

The preliminary exam was held in April and the commission published its results on July 2. It shortlisted 2,204 candidates for the main examinations, which were to be held in July – they have now been postponed in light of the protests and an investigation ordered by the state government.

This was not the first protest against the exam – in early July, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the All Jharkhand Students Union Party, opposition parties in the state, had held multiple protests against the irregularities. But it was only towards the end of the month that a wider agitation gathered force, drawing aspirants from across the state without any specific ideological affiliation.

This protest began on July 25, at the Bapu Vatika garden, even as the protest against the NEET paper leak in Delhi was reaching the climactic point of the education minister’s resignation. From July 29, the Ranchi agitators began a sit-in protest at the stadium.

Gauri Kumari, a 25-year-old aspirant, stood at the protest ground with two friends, sloganeering to demand justice for the exam aspirants. “The system has gotten too corrupt,” she said. “I’ve been approached by book shopkeepers and paan shopkeepers, asking if I want their help to strike a deal and pay money to get a seat.”

In fact, Kumari had qualified for the main exam, but still wanted the paper to be cancelled. “The results have clearly been manipulated. I qualified but my friend did not,” she said. “I’m protesting because I think all the aspirants deserve a fair chance.”

On August 2, Devendra Nath Mahato, a student leader from the Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Manch, announced an indefinite hunger strike to pressure the government to fulfill their demands. Several students also decided to joined Mahato on the hunger strike – as of August 9, the strike is still underway.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren told reporters in Ramgarh on August 5 that his government stood with the students, and would ensure that they get justice. The Jharkhand government also set up a four-member committee of cabinet ministers to speak to the protesting students and address their issues.

The committee held talks with student groups on August 9, in which it agreed to several of their demands, including the cancellation of the preliminary exam held in April. Three members of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission have also resigned.

But these moves have not cooled the protests down, which now include within their ambit the Jharkhand State Services Commission exams, which have also seen irregularities in the past.

The JPSC JSSC Reform Manch plans to march to the Vidhan Sabha on August 10. It is one of the two forums spearheading the protests. The other is the JSSC Abhyarthi Nyay Manch.

The irregularities

The young protestors in Jharkhand had pointed out several problems with the JPSC exam after the results were announced.

For one, they noted that the commission had not disclosed cut-off marks for passing the exam for different categories of candidates, such as those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. They argued that this undermined the transparency of the selection process, because candidates had no way of assessing where they had ranked in the exam compared to their fellow aspirants.

Further, a picture of a filled-in optical mark recognition answer sheet, purportedly of a successful candidate, went viral – only 48 out of 100 questions in the paper had been attempted. Aspirants pointed out that the combined qualifying score for the two preliminary papers was around 145, which would be nearly impossible to obtain with less than 50 attempted answers in one.

Aspirants also pointed out that there appeared to be an anomaly in the published list of successful candidates. The list, which contains roll numbers of candidates in sequential order, showed names of candidates up to a certain number, but then jumped more than 800 roll numbers before listing the next successful candidate.

Another key concern pertained to the fact that the agency that had been selected to conduct the exam, TSR Data Processing, had been blacklisted in May 2025 for non-compliance with the agreement with JPSC.

In response to these concerns and the protests, the state government directed the Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the matter. Police conducted raids at the JPSC office and the chairman L Khiangte’s residence. On July 22, Khiangte resigned from his post. So far, 19 people have been arrested in connection with the case.

The protestors and their demands

Kumari had also sat for the exams in 2024, but did not clear them then. She said that government jobs remained one of the very few viable career options in the state. “There are no other decent employment options in Jharkhand,” she said. “If I don’t make it through the exams, my next option is to start practising goat husbandry.”

Indeed, Jharkhand remains one of the poorest states in India. Despite its abundant mineral wealth, its people face high levels of multidimensional poverty, distress-driven migration and a dire lack of formal employment.

“The large majority of people sitting for these exams are from working class families,” said Arun Agrawal, who runs a popular coaching academy for government exam aspirants in Ranchi. “Their parents earn money through agriculture or daily wage labour. They sacrifice a lot so that their children can study and make something of themselves.”

Rajesh Mundro, an aspirant from Hazaribagh, was one such individual. “My entire family is dependent on agriculture for our livelihood,” he said. “They have invested a lot in my education. I study very hard for these exams, thinking I’ll uplift my family economically. But every time, something or the other goes wrong in how they are conducted.”

He noted that at least 70% of his peers who had written the exam also came from similar backgrounds. “We don’t have enough to eat and live well,” he said. “These exams are our only ray of hope, which the government keeps breaking. We are losing our morale.”

At the stadium in Ranchi, protestors’ current demands are listed on a banner. There are five in all. They include that all controversial exams of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and the Jharkhand State Service Commission that have been conducted by the blacklisted agency be cancelled, and that independent investigations into them be conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate. They also demand that all members of the current commission be removed from their posts, and that it be reconstituted.

Not an isolated incident

Protestors’ anger is particularly acute because inordinate delays and controversies have dogged the exam for years.

“Ever since the state of Jharkhand was formed in 2000, there is perhaps not a single JPSC exam which hasn’t been mired in some controversy or the other,” said Shambu Nath Choudhary, president of the Ranchi Press Club, who has been keenly observing the JPSC exams for decades. “From exam cancellations, result revisions, additional merit lists being added, errors in answer keys, controversy over implementation of reservations, to the very selection process being challenged in court.”

He added, “Irregularities with the exam has become the norm rather than an exception.”

Indeed, the first exam, held in 2003 and the second one, held in 2005, became mired in allegations of malpractice, including that relatives of commission members and political leaders were being favoured. Both exams were investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation – the cases that were filed in connection with them remain pending before the courts even today.

The delays that these and other years’ exams have seen have meant that some people spend several years of their lives trying to clear them.

Fifty-year-old Seteng Barla, who is from Jamshedpur, appeared for the 2003 exam. Though she was trained as a lawyer, Barla was eager to qualify as a civil servant and serve her state. “The very first time, I gave the exam without preparation,” Barla said. “But I prepared really hard after that, and even took coaching classes.”

She went on to write the exam “four to five times”, she recounted, adding, “I would clear the preliminary exams, but never pass the mains.”

Barla is uncertain whether she genuinely failed the exams, or was eliminated because they were rigged. She will never know, and today, also regrets not having been able to focus on her legal career. “I could not become a civil servant, nor could I become a good lawyer,” she said. “My attention was always focused on the exams – there were so many cancellations and date changes. Who can focus on a job in such conditions?”

Others gave up even more steady careers in the private sector to write the exam. In the late 2000s, 39-year-old Radhika Toppo, who is from Ranchi, enrolled for an MBA outside Jharkhand, and afterwards, landed a well-paid job in an investment bank in Bengaluru. “I was happy at my workplace and saw a promising future ahead of me,” said Toppo, whose real name has been withheld on request. “But my mother reminded me it was my duty to return to Jharkhand and give back to my state. I also believed that I would be contributing my bit by working here, amidst our own people, and see Jharkhand develop.”

So, Toppo returned and began preparing for the JPSC exams.

The fifth exam, in 2013, was the first that she appeared for. She recounted that after the final exams were held, the commission announced that aspirants’ scores in the preliminary exams would count towards their final rankings. This was in violation of the commission’s own rules, she pointed out.

The results were also delayed. “It took three whole years for the results to be declared,” she said. “I remember giving the prelims in December 2013, and the final results were declared in early 2016.”

She added, “There is a common saying here in Jharkhand about the JPSC, that it’s a panch varshiya yojana”, a five-year plan.

Toppo did not clear the fifth exam. The sixth preliminary JPSC exams were held in October 2016. “I remember close to 35,000 students had qualified for the mains, even though the vacancies were only a little over 300,” she said. “They held protests back then too.” She did not clear that exam either.

After this, for several years, the exams were not held at all. In 2021, a combined exam was held for the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth exams – candidates were competing for only 252 vacancies.

That exam, too, was marked by problems. Toppo recalled that aspirants who had opted for the Nagpuri language paper alleged that they had been marked very stringently, and thus struggled to qualify, while candidates who had opted for other regional languages, like Khortha, had qualified in larger numbers. Protestors had also raised concerns about errors in answer keys, and about all candidates from particular exam centres qualifying en masse.

In 2024, the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth JPSC exams were held together. The answer sheets were marked digitally, and students were not given the option of checking their marked answer sheets. “We aspirants usually file RTIs to see their marked answer sheets and understand where we went wrong, but they are unavailable for those exams,” Toppo said. “This raises concerns about transparency.”

That year, aspirants also raised concerns about the qualifications of those who marked the papers. According to JPSC rules, evaluations must be conducted by teachers with at least ten years of experience at the undergraduate level, or five years of postgraduate teaching experience – but aspirants noted that the markers included contractual teachers who did not fulfil these criteria.

They saw this was a sign of official apathy towards their anxieties. “Many of us have been studying these subjects for more than a decade,” Toppo said. “We have more experience than those teachers with a few years of teaching experience.”

The Mumbai Police told a court that it has emailed notices to two professors at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences for sending allegedly suspicious messages to a former student who was arrested on Friday, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

Abhirup Paul was arrested for allegedly shouting slogans in support of jailed activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam.

Khalid and Imam have been in jail for more than five years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for their alleged role in a conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots. The trial in the case has not yet begun, and their petitions for regular bail have been repeatedly rejected.

Paul and another fellow student of the institute were also booked for possessing downloaded books and other material that the prosecution alleged reflected Maoist ideology.

Paul had been arrested hours after a Mumbai court denied them anticipatory bail on Friday. Seven other students who had been booked after taking part in an event in October commemorating the death anniversary of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba were granted anticipatory bail.

Saibaba, who had more than 90% disability and used a wheelchair, spent over seven years in jail on accusations of having links with Maoists. In March 2024, he was acquitted by the Bombay High Court and released. Seven months later, in October 2024, he died of post-operative complications in Hyderabad.

On Monday, the police sought a three-day extension of Paul’s custody, saying that they wanted to investigate whether any of the professors had advised him, The Indian Express reported. The court granted police custody for one day.

In its remand application, the police said notices had been served on the personal and TISS email IDs of the two professors, who had allegedly sent “suspicious WhatsApp messages” to Paul. The police said they wanted to confront Paul with the professors and investigate him in their presence.

The police also said that professors at the institute had sent Paul on fieldwork to Palghar, Nerul and Trombay to study the political, social and economic conditions of the residents. Paul had submitted detailed reports on the visits to the institute by email, which the police said they wanted to verify with him.

The police were also examining a Signal group chat that was deleted after the first information report was registered last year, The Indian Express quoted the special public prosecutor as saying. The prosecutor said the police wanted to determine why the chat was deleted.

The investigation would also examine whether there had been any attempt to “undermine India’s economic power, its establishments”, the prosecutor was quoted as saying.

Lawyers appearing for Paul said the field visits cited in the remand application were a compulsory part of the institute’s curriculum, The Indian Express reported. They said reports from each visit were uploaded to the institute’s website.

They also argued that although the FIR was registered in October, the police had made little progress in establishing the allegations even after 10 months.

On the deleted Signal chats, the lawyers said the messaging app was not banned in India and that the police had not approached the company to seek recovery of the deleted chats since October.

In October, some students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences gathered on campus to light candles and display posters of Saibaba to commemorate his death anniversary.

The police filed a case against the students who attended the event based on a complaint by the institute’s administration. The first information report invoked charges including causing prejudice to the nation, promoting enmity between groups and participating in an unlawful assembly.

While granting anticipatory bail to seven students but denying it to Paul and another student, the court said that paying homage to Saibaba was not unlawful. However, it said allegations that the students had shouted slogans in support of Khalid and Imam, along with material recovered from their electronic devices, weighed against granting them anticipatory bail.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Several Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad workers were detained on Tuesday after clashing with police during a march towards the Jharkhand Assembly, PTI reported. The workers were demonstrating against the use of lathis and tear gas on students a day earlier during a protest over alleged irregularities in a civil services examination.

The detention came as the Bharatiya Janata Party called for a statewide bandh from 8 am to midnight on Tuesday in protest against the police action, PTI reported.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the BJP.

The Mahagathbandhan alliance, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and comprising the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, is in power in Jharkhand.

The protests in Jharkhand began on July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against alleged mismanagement of national competitive examinations. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six demonstrators on fast.

On Monday, thousands of students marched towards the Assembly as part of their protest. Several protesters were injured after police lathi-charged them and fired tear gas. Despite the police action, protesters breached several barricades and reached the Assembly premises. The House had already been adjourned for the day.

In response to the march, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that the government respected the students’ right to raise their concerns and that their demands would be addressed with seriousness and sensitivity.

“In a democracy, it is your right to express your views, and it is the government’s responsibility to respect your voice,” he said in a social media post.

Soren assured the students that the government sought to “make the examination system more transparent, technology-enabled, secure, and accountable”.

Youth protests

The protesters have demanded the cancellation of the 14th Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Preliminary Test held on April 19.

They have also sought probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate into alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission.

On Sunday, the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations, including the Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services.

However, students have continued their protest, demanding that the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination is also cancelled and a probe by the CBI into all state public commission tests.

The government has refused to cancel the graduate-level examination, saying that it was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It has instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: In Jharkhand, youth lose years of their lives trying to clear the JPSC exams

While acquitting former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on August 3, a Delhi court stated that the sexual harassment allegations against him by six women wrestlers were “false and fabricated” and seemed to be “politically motivated”, reported Bar and Bench.

Noting that the complaint against Singh was filed a long time after the alleged sexual harassment, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Ashwini Panwar of Rouse Avenue Courts also said that the wrestlers’ accusations against Singh appeared to be rehearsed, well-practised and planted.

In January 2023, several Indian wrestlers, including medallists Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat, launched a protest against Singh, accusing him of intimidation and sexual harassment.

Seven complainants, including a minor, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party leader of demanding sexual favours for professional help on at least two occasions, and also reported 15 incidents of alleged molestation and other forms of sexual harassment.

The former MP was later cleared with respect to allegations made by one of the women.

On August 3, he and his co-accused, Vinod Tomar, were acquitted of all charges by Panwar.

He noted in his order that two of the complainants had “categorically admitted” that they were not sexually harassed by Singh, reported Bar and Bench.

He also said that the complainants had maintained “cordial relations” with Singh for years, reported The Indian Express.

“Many photographs on record verify the same,” the judge was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “He was invited to family functions and wedding ceremonies by the victims.”

He added that while it was understandable that Singh, being the president of the Wrestlers’ Federation of India, “could have spoiled their careers, it is not at all understandable as to why cordial relations were [maintained] with him for years”.

Panwar said that “since nobody made any formal complaint or retaliated” to Singh’s alleged acts, “it is highly improbable” that the allegations are true.

He further said that even when the complaints were made, some of the wrestlers gave “wrong” details about the country and year in which the alleged incident took place, reported The Indian Express.

“The shift in the first/initial version of the witness with respect to the place/country and the year where the incident allegedly occurred is fatal to the prosecution story,” said the judge.

After the August 3 verdict, Vinesh Phogat said that the complainants were disappointed with the court’s decision and that they would appeal against the order.

“From the very beginning, the entire system, the government, and this establishment were all trying to protect Brij Bhushan,” Phogat alleged. “...We have not lost hope, and the wrestlers will continue their fight.”

Singh had been charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to outraging a woman’s modesty, making sexually coloured remarks, stalking and criminal intimidation.

Tomar, a former assistant secretary of the wrestling federation, was charged with criminal intimidation for threatening one of the complainants.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it cannot set a timeline for appellate tribunals hearing challenges to deletions from electoral rolls in West Bengal during the special intensive revision, Live Law reported.

However, the court asked the Election Commission to provide details of cases disposed of and pending before the tribunals.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant was hearing a petition filed by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury seeking speedy disposal of cases related to the voter roll revision exercise.

On July 8, the Calcutta High Court verbally observed that pending appeals against voter deletions under the special intensive revision process would take “21 years…if appellate tribunals function at the current pace”.

The special intensive revision of voter rolls in West Bengal was carried out before the Assembly elections in April.

Final rolls published in February initially excluded more than 61 lakh voters, with the process continuing through supplementary lists and adjudication of about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases.

By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of West Bengal’s electorate before the revision process began, had been removed from the electoral rolls.

Ahead of the Assembly elections, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before appellate tribunals. Of these, 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded from the voter list. The tribunals, set up as part of the special intensive revision process, had allowed 1,607 names to be added back to the electoral rolls.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Millions of Bengalis may lose their vote. Not over citizenship but due to clerical errors

The Union government on Monday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to restrict states from imposing additional tax on mineral rights, PTI reported.

The bill also seeks to empower the Union government to regulate mineral-bearing lands in accordance with the parameters prescribed under the 1957 Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act, the news agency reported.

Union Minister of Coal and Mines G Kishan Reddy introduced the 2026 Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Amendment Bill amid protests by Opposition members.

According to the bill, “no tax, cess or such other levy (by whatever name called) shall be imposed by the state government on mineral rights”.

The proposed provisions would cover mineral-bearing lands, with their applicability determined by factors such as the quantity or value of minerals, royalty payments or other prescribed criteria. Such lands would be subject to conditions and restrictions specified by the Union government, PTI reported.

The bill, however, clarifies that any tax, cess or other levy on mineral rights or mineral-bearing lands that was paid to or collected by a state government before the provisions take effect “shall not be liable to be refunded”.

Reddy said that the amendments seek to “provide certainty, stability and predictability in the fiscal regime in the mineral sector,” the news agency reported.

However, Revolutionary Socialist Party MP NK Premachandran contended that the bill was against the principles of federalism.

On July 25, 2024, the Supreme Court had ruled that states have the power to levy tax on mines and minerals. The court held that the royalty collected by state governments under Section 9 of the 1957 Mines and Minerals Development & Regulation Act, is not a tax.

At present, the Union government’s jurisdiction primarily extends to the development and operation of mines, including mineral exploration, extraction and licensing, The Telegraph reported.

However, the mineral-bearing land itself does not explicitly fall within the Union government’s regulatory ambit.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Allahabad High Court has ordered the Uttar Pradesh government and the father of two women, who voluntarily converted to Islam, to pay them Rs 25 lakh in compensation for unlawfully confining them.

In a judgement delivered on August 6, Justice Sandeep Jain also ordered that the sisters be released. ,

Jain held that they were liable to get compensation for the “unlawful deprivation” of their fundamental rights. Their confinement amounted to “an exceptionally grave and egregious violation of constitutional rights”, he added.

The two sisters, aged 20 and 35, had told the court that they had voluntarily converted from Hinduism to Islam and decided to marry as per their own wishes, which was their fundamental right. They denied having changed their faith because of force, fraud or “undue influence”.

The sisters alleged that their father had confined them inside their paternal home after they converted.

In his judgement, Jain said that he interacted independently with both women and found that their responses were “spontaneous, coherent and unequivocal”. The judge held that the sisters, as adults, had the legal capacity to take decisions about their lives.

“Once an individual attains majority, the Constitution recognises her autonomy to take decisions relating to faith, belief, residence, association and every other facet of personal liberty, subject only to restrictions sanctioned by law,” the High Court noted.

The court said that an individual’s freedom of conscience under Article 25 of the Constitution includes the right to adopt, renounce or change her faith. “Such a choice is an essential facet of individual autonomy, dignity and personal liberty protected not only under Article 25 but also under Article 21 of the Constitution [right to life and personal liberty],” it observed.

The Uttar Pradesh government opposed the habeas corpus petition, noting that the father of the women had lodged a first information report alleging forcible and fraudulent conversion. A habeas corpus is a petition through which a court can order the authorities to bring a person before it to verify if they have been unlawfully detained.

The government claimed that the conversion formed part of a larger conspiracy which has ramifications on the “sovereignty, integrity and unity of the nation”.

The High Court, however, said that the question of whether the conversion complied with the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act would not authorise the continued confinement of the two women.

“The legality of the conversion and the legality of their detention constitute two distinct and independent issues,” Jain said.

The court ordered the father not to interfere with the women’s personal liberty and religious choices. It also told him to hand over their passports, educational certificates, conversion-related documents and other belongings to them within seven days.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sneha.

Amid talk of fractures in world trade, India continues to pursue globalisation as an economic development strategy. After a decade without any trade deals, India signed agreements with the European Union, United Kingdom, and New Zealand over 2025 and 2026, and is continuing negotiations with the US and other regions, signaling a renewed commitment to global economic integration. Most analyses of these agreements emphasise their geopolitical implications, especially for India’s emerging-power status and strategic relationship with the US, China, and Russia.

But these new deals will also contribute to the transformation of India’s domestic political economy. From India’s initial liberalisation in 1991, to its (re)emergence as a major exporter of textiles and apparel, to its dominant position in information technology services, globalisation has reshaped economic opportunity, social conflict, and political outcomes.

This transformation has touched areas intensely integrated with the global economy, but also localities that are little exposed to world markets. These new agreements, which grant extensive access to lucrative export markets, will likely catalyse deeper connections between India and the global economy.

My research on India’s 30-year experience with globalisation reveals how future economic change might influence domestic politics. Economic integration creates opportunity, but its benefits often concentrate in a handful of places, deepening regional inequality and leaving many behind.

This drives migration to centers of global production and fuels nativist backlash. Left-behind areas suffer doubly; excluded from globalisation’s gains, they also see local public goods erode as advantaged residents leave. As new trade deals deepen India’s global ties, policymakers should reckon with these uneven geographic impacts.

Globalisation’s uneven promise

While globalisation has many impacts on emerging economies like India, my work focuses on one key consequence: the introduction of new, higher-paying employment opportunities in exporting firms and multinational corporations. This proposition is rooted in economic theories that suggest trade liberalisation redistributes labour-intensive economic activity from labor-scarce economies like the US and Europe to labour-abundant economies like India. Indeed, politicians often tout these employment gains to promote liberalisation.

Yet these opportunities are inaccessible to many Indians, who live far from globalisation’s direct impacts. Within India, a handful of places have captured an outsized share of trade and investment’s benefits. These “winner-take-all” areas attract the vast majority of global production, owing to their superior infrastructure and industrial agglomeration.

For example, the lion’s share of India’s foreign direct investment concentrates in just six of India’s 28 states. A handful of districts, out of 800 in total, account for nearly all IT services exports. Meanwhile, large swaths of India have been “left behind”, as they lack the requisite conditions to compete in world markets. In other words, while India has gained from globalisation, the gains are highly unevenly distributed across space.

How have Indians responded to inequality in access to the benefits of globalisation?

People migrate toward centres of global production to take advantage of the new labour demand that liberalisation brings. Major shocks to India’s engagement with the world economy, like the end of global textile and apparel quotas in the 2000s and the IT boom, generated internal migration from left-behind localities and into the handful of areas experiencing a labour market boom. This mobility effect is not limited to India; other emerging economies like China, Brazil, and Mexico similarly experienced rising internal migration as they integrated with the world economy.

This migration has had political consequences, both for areas that migrants go to and for the areas they leave. In centers of global production that see new migrant inflows, nativist backlash has reshaped local politics. Areas left behind by globalisation – and by migrants seeking new opportunities – have experienced declining public goods provision. As India gains deeper access to valuable export markets, its global connections to labour-intensive and high-skilled industries will likely accelerate migration, with political impacts that should draw policymakers’ attention.

Labour-intensive exports, native-migrant conflict

India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry has touted the elimination of trade barriers on labour-intensive sectors as a key benefit of new trade deals.

In an article published in the American Journal of Political Science, I explored an earlier external shock to India’s most prominent labour-intensive export sector: textiles and apparel. The Multi-Fiber Arrangement previously governed global trade in textiles and apparel and erected protectionist quotas that shielded the US and Europe from competition with emerging economies like India. Advanced economies delayed the elimination of key quotas until the last minute on January 1, 2005, such that overnight, India suddenly gained access to valuable new markets.

An export boom followed. Investment and export growth in India’s textile and apparel sector doubled in just a few years. But this boom was heavily concentrated in areas that already had well-established textile production. Using a difference-in-differences research design, I found that this geographically uneven shock stimulated internal migration to centers of textile production, as people pursued new, highly concentrated global employment opportunities.

What were the political consequences of this globalisation-induced wave of migration? The result was heightened social conflict between natives and internal migrants. Locals, concerned by migration’s perceived impacts on labour market competition, public services, and cultural threat, engaged in nativist backlash.

Rioting – a form of public violence closely related to nativist concerns – increased substantially in areas most exposed to the boom. In Maharashtra, which has both a leading textile sector and history of “sons of the soil” politics, nativist parties electorally benefitted in state elections. In short, the internal migration created by globalisation can interact with existing social cleavages to generate nativist reaction; this happens regardless of whether or not natives identify globalisation as the primary cause.

If new agreements with Europe and other trading partners similarly boost labour-intensive sectors like textiles and apparel, leather, and jewelry, India might face new native-migrant social conflict in export hubs. Government efforts to alleviate local concerns and protect migrants from targeting and discrimination may be necessary to limit costly social conflict that could result from deepening global economic integration.

Higher-skilled exports and inequality in public goods Provision

Of course, India’s exports are not limited to labour-intensive goods. It has also developed a comparative advantage in higher-skilled sectors like IT and business services, which represent 7.5 percent of the total GDP. The India-EU Free Trade Agreement also provides India broader access to the European services market, which could boost India’s IT sector.

In another article recently published in the American Journal of Political Science, my coauthor, Junghyun Lim, and I analysed India’s original, turn-of-the-century IT boom. The labour market benefits created by the IT boom were even more geographically concentrated than textiles and apparel.

We found that the IT boom similarly fueled internal migration to prominent IT hubs, like Bangalore. However, members of socioeconomically advantaged groups were best positioned to seize these high-skilled employment opportunities, creating selective out-migration from areas left behind by the IT boom. This selective out-migration meant that left-behind localities were increasingly composed of lower-caste, less educated, and poorer Indians.

The political impacts on areas left behind by the IT boom were striking. They experienced substantially weaker per capita provision of vital public goods like education, healthcare, and electricity, as compared to booming localities.

We attribute this decline in provision to the disproportionate out-migration of advantaged groups, as their exit severed local links to powerful officials and social networks that are critical to attracting public goods in India. The worst impacts were in areas most geographically distant from IT export hubs, where migration can be cost-prohibitive for members of disadvantaged groups.

Our results suggest that areas left behind by globalisation experience a “double whammy.” They not only experience few benefits of globalisation, but they also experience deepening inequality in access to public goods, further reducing economic mobility. As the economic impacts of new trade deals for higher-skilled services become clearer, policymakers should pay attention to barriers to opportunity that marginalised groups face and perhaps target public goods provision at left-behind areas.

Disruptive consequence

The conclusion of multiple free trade agreements suggests that India’s integration with the world economy will only deepen in the coming years.

My research suggests that if deepening integration continues to transform internal migration, even its positive economic impacts are likely to have disruptive political consequences. This is the case for both lower- and higher-skilled forms of globalisation, and for exposed and unexposed areas alike.

Observers should pay attention to how globalisation continues to reshape internal migration patterns and the distribution of new economic opportunities, especially for marginalised groups. Better understanding the linkages between globalisation and human mobility might also help us predict its likely economic impacts and the extent to which ordinary Indians support pursuing further liberalisation in trade and investment.

Benjamin Helms is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the ​​​Bush School of Government and Public Service.

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

Ten persons were injured by pellets during a youth protest march to Parliament on July 20 in Delhi, showed a Right to Information response received by Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale.

In a social media post on Monday, Gokhale shared a response received from the Lady Hardinge Medical College, which said that nine persons with “pellet/projectile” injuries were brought to the facility after the march.

The Safdarjung Hospital stated that it received one case of pellet injury on July 20.

A day after the march, the Delhi Police had denied firing pellet guns at those protesting against the alleged mismanagement of competitive exams.

However, citing a general diary entry made by the Rapid Action Force, a unit of the Central Reserve Police Force, The Hindu reported on July 28 that pellet guns were fired at protesters on the orders of a Delhi Police officer.

This was the first time that pellet guns had been used in Delhi against unarmed protesters.

Two persons who were injured by pellets – Prashant Kumar Singh and Sheikh Irshad Mansoor – have since moved the Supreme Court seeking a ban on the use of pellet guns to disperse crowds during protests.

On Monday, Gokhale said that he had yet to receive a response from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi.

“What sort of a joke of a democracy is it where the police use pellet guns, lie about it, and then refuse to disclose the number of victims when confronted,” the TMC leader wrote on social media.

Very important

Until now, there were reports of 5 people with pellet gun injuries during the Jantar Mantar protests on 20th July.

However, records procured from hospitals show that the confirmed number is AT LEAST DOUBLE i.e. 10 persons.

The break-up is:

👉 Lady Hardinge… pic.twitter.com/qo8MjDKKjj

— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) August 10, 2026

He asked why the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government had not released a confirmed number of persons who were injured by pellet guns on July 20.

“[Union Home Minister] Amit Shah has been using the police and central agencies as his personal mafia,” added Gokhale. “And now he is hiding from Parliament.”

The police in the national capital and the central armed police forces report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Opposition parties have been demanding that Shah make a statement in Parliament about the police using excessive force against youth protesters.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Monday that Shah was ready to speak about the protests against the alleged mismanagement of competitive exams and the police action, if the Opposition does not disrupt proceedings in the House.

Protest against exam irregularities

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.

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 protesters’ march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators. The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country. Pradhan resigned as the education minister on July 25.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Delhi hospital reports show pellet wounds on journalist covering students’ protests

The Uttar Pradesh Police has detained four persons from two shops for allegedly selling non-vegetarian food along routes designated for the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage in the Bareilly district, PTI reported.

Authorities later demolished parts of one of the shops, the police were quoted as saying on Sunday.

The administration has directed traders along designated Kanwar Yatra routes not to sell non-vegetarian food during the Hindu month of Sawan, which began on July 30 and ends on August 28, the Hindustan Times reported.

On Saturday evening, the authorities received information that chicken biryani was being sold at a shop in the Bahedi area, the newspaper quoted the police as saying.

Officers raided the establishment and detained two shopkeepers, identified as Salman and Raees.

The shop’s tin shed and counter were later bulldozed, PTI quoted Bahedi Circle Officer Arun Kumar Singh as saying.

Another shop near a bakery area was also raided and two more persons were detained.

The circle officer said that traders have already been told about the restrictions on selling non-vegetarian food along Kanwar Yatra routes during the month of Sawan. Any further violations would lead to legal action, he added.

During the Kanwar Yatra, devotees, known as kanwariyas, walk hundreds of kilometres to collect water from the Ganga near Haridwar and carry it back to their home states to offer at temples. The yatra began on July 30 and will end on August 11.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: How the BJP stole the month of Sawan

On the evening of July 19, Sahida Fakir headed to a market near her home in Navi Mumbai to buy food for dinner, leaving her 10-year-old son at home. She has not returned home since.

A few hours later, her husband Jumman Fakir got a call from the Mumbai police’s Chembur crime branch. Sahida had been detained on “suspicion of being an illegal immigrant”.

Fakir rushed to the police station.

Sahida told him that the police personnel had forcibly dragged her to a building where persons suspected to be “illegal immigrants” were reportedly being detained. “They took away the food she bought, her phone and Aadhaar card,” Fakir said. “She was detained because she was a Bengali.”

For four days, Fakir visited the police station with his wife’s identity documents, including her birth certificate. “The police said that was not enough. They asked for the birth certificates of Sahida’s parents,” Fakir said. “But in their time, no one got birth certificates.”

On the fifth day, July 23, he was told that Sahida was “not there”. “They told me she had been sent to Bangladesh,” he told Scroll. “I told them you have made a great mistake. She is an Indian. Where will she go? How will she fend for herself?”

A few days later, Sahida called him from Bangladesh. A family in Satkhira district has given her shelter, he said.

Scroll emailed the Mumbai police commissioner and the Navi Mumbai police commissioner, asking about the grounds on which Sahida was detained. Fakir said he was not given any documents relating to his wife’s arrest and detention.

They did not respond to our queries. They forwarded the mail to the joint police commissioner (law and order), Manoj Kumar Sharma, who later forwarded the mail to the additional police commissioner (east region). The story will be updated if they respond.

On July 23, before Fakir was informed about Sahida’s forcible deportation, a human rights organisation wrote to the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, flagging the “illegal arrest, arbitrary detention, denial of constitutional safeguards, and unlawful” branding of Sahida as a “Bangladeshi”.

“Executive authorities have no jurisdiction to declare an individual as a foreign national merely on suspicion or profiling,” said Kirity Roy, secretary of Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha. “Sahida’s illegal detention, without giving her reasons for her arrest, without producing her before a magistrate, and despite overwhelming documentary evidence establishing her Indian citizenship, demonstrates a disturbing pattern of arbitrary action against vulnerable citizens.”

“She has all the documents,” said Jumman, who is still in Mumbai. “She is an Indian. But she was branded as Bangladeshi and sent to Bangladesh. I am unable to accept that. Why did they do it? I will fight it legally.”

Since last year, the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party have accused Indian citizens of being Bangladeshis and thrown them across the border, without giving them time or opportunity to prove their citizenship – in violation of the Centre’s own rules.

Another woman from Bengal, Sunali Khatun, and her eight-year-old son Sabir, and her husband had been picked up from Delhi and “pushed” into Bangladesh, despite the fact that the family had land records in Bengal, going back five generations. Sunali, who was pregnant at the time of her deportation, and her son Sabir were brought back by Indian authorities following the direction of the Supreme Court.

‘She grew up before our eyes’

On August 5, residents of Gobindapur in North 24 Parganas, the ancestral village of Sahida’s father and grandfather, wrote a letter to the district magistrate, urging him to immediately bring Sahida back from Bangladesh. “Sahida Fakir is a permanent resident of our very own village…,” they wrote. “Not only her, but we have known her entire family for generations.”

According to the memorandum from the residents of Gobindapur village, Sahida’s grandfather Badshah Gazi was a “permanent resident” of the village.

His son, Aminuddin Gazi, married a woman from the neighbouring village, Swarupdaha, and moved there. In 1988, Sahida was born in that village, which is separated from Bangladesh by a river.

A few years later, she was married into a family from Gobindapur. “In front of all our eyes, she has grown up, gotten married, and taken up domestic life,” the letter to the district magistrate said.

Around 20 years ago, Sahida moved from a village in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district to Mumbai with her husband in search of a livelihood.

Both found work – Sahida as a domestic worker and Fakir as a car cleaner. They have two sons, the eldest is 22 years old.

Fakir said he submitted several documents to the police attesting to her identity, which Scroll has seen.

This includes her voter identity card issued in 2008, a birth certificate issued by the competent statutory authority which declares that she was born in Swarupdaha village in 1988, a school certificate, and documents that declare her as an owner of a plot of land in Gobindapur village. “I had given her land and she now has land titles,” her husband said.

Fakir also submitted his father-in-law’s death certificate.

“But they ignored all the documents and branded her as a Bangladeshi without any notice, investigation or a court order,” Jumman said.

Sahida’s parents were included in the 2002 voter list, a copy of which Scroll has seen. However, in the recent special intensive revision of electoral rolls, Sahida was marked as “under adjudication”. An appeal against her exclusion is pending before the tribunal hearing similar challenges.

‘The police have to be held accountable’

On July 27, Jumman Fakir got a call from Bangladesh and was able to speak to Sahida.

“A Bangladeshi family at Sonabaria area in Satkhira district gave her refuge,” he said.

But, as the Bangladeshi authorities became aware of her presence, from reports in the local media, the pressure on the family has grown.

“For the last 10 days, the Bangladeshi police and officials of the Border Guard Bangladesh have been guarding their home,” Fakir said. “They are in touch with me and kept calling me to take her back. They said there is pressure from the top.”

The village in which Sahida found shelter is across the border from Swarupdaha, where she was born.

Fakir said he could have brought her back from Bangladesh with the help of residents on either side of the border. “She is just across the river. But we will bring her legally. The police have to be held accountable for why they sent my wife to Bangladesh illegally.”

Journalist Aman Chopra on Monday said that the Jharkhand Police had filed a first information report against him after he filmed a student at a hospital who had been on a hunger strike against the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations for government jobs.

Chopra is a journalist with News18 India and also runs a YouTube channel named The Aman Podcast. The FIR appears to relate to footage he published on his YouTube show.

A purported copy of the FIR shared on social media showed that Chopra was booked for entering the High Dependency Unit of Sadar Hospital in Ranchi on Saturday and recording videos.

He allegedly entered the sensitive medical area without authorisation and was not following infection-control and patient-safety protocols. The complaint sought an investigation into whether any patient or private medical information was recorded or published without consent.

दरबारी पालतुओं सुनो….

अनशन करने वाला छात्र ICU पहुंच गया है। उसका वज़न 5kg कम हुआ और उसे साँस लेने में तकलीफ़ हो रही है लेकिन तुम्हारी यहां आने की हिम्मत नहीं है।

फिर पूछते हैं, जंतर मंतर और झारखंड में क्या फ़र्क़ है।

7PM TAP के YT channel पर LIVE pic.twitter.com/YBUkcs1JMJ

— Aman Chopra (@AmanChopra_) August 8, 2026

In a video posted on social media on Monday, Chopra said he was detained by the police while he was having breakfast. He added that he was questioned for nearly two hours before the police provided him with a copy of the FIR.

He claimed that other journalists covering the protests and the march towards the Jharkhand Assembly were also detained and questioned.

“The Jharkhand government is worried that the truth will be exposed,” he said. “That is why it is stopping journalists from doing their work. The FIR is the price we have to pay for doing our job.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was monitoring the police investigation against Chopra.

It called “for a transparent and proportionate investigation that does not obstruct legitimate journalism”.

March to Assembly

As the protest against exam irregularities entered its 17th day, thousands of students marched towards the Assembly on Monday. Several of them were injured after the police lathi-charged them and fired tear gas.

Despite the action, protesters breached several barricades and reached the Assembly premises. The House had already been adjourned for the day.

The protests in Jharkhand began on July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against the alleged mismanagement of national competitive exams. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six demonstrators on fast.

The protesters have demanded the cancellation of the 14th Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Preliminary Test held on April 19.

They have also sought inquiries by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate into alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission.

On Sunday, the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations, including the Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services.

However, students have continued their protest, demanding that the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination is also cancelled and a probe by the CBI into all state public commission tests.

The government has refused to cancel the graduate-level examination, saying that it was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It has instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.

Employment generated under the government’s new rural job guarantee scheme fell by nearly half in July, the first month since it replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

Only 7.6 crore person-days were generated under the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin Act, or VB-G RAM G, in July, as compared to 15.3 crore in the same month last year under MGNREGA, the newspaper cited official data.

A person-day refers to the amount of work done by one person in one working day. This means that a 20 person-day project can be completed by 20 people in one day, or one person in 20 days

The number of households that availed the rural employment guarantee scheme also fell by 51.4% to 68.9 lakh in July, compared with 1.4 crore under the old scheme in the same month last year.

The July figures for both households and person-days were the lowest in the last five years, reported The Indian Express.

The new scheme came into effect on July 1, replacing the two-decade-old MGNREGA.

It guarantees 125 days of wage employment to rural households in a financial year, compared with 100 days under the old scheme. It also allows states to pause the employment guarantee for up to 60 days during peak sowing and harvesting periods.

The Ministry of Rural Development told The Indian Express that the transition from the old scheme to the new one had been “smooth, seamless and technology-enabled”, with the administrative and digital systems operational from the start of the programme.

The VB-G Ram G Act received presidential assent on December 21, two days after it was passed by Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties.

The legislation has drawn criticism from economists and labour rights experts, who have said that it consolidates decision-making with the Union government, while transferring a greater financial burden onto the states.

Five Opposition-ruled states – Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Telangana and Jharkhand – have passed resolutions opposing the VB-G Ram G Act, and seeking that the MGNREGA scheme be restored.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill

Several protesters were injured in Jharkhand’s Ranchi after the police lathi-charged them and fired tear gas during a march to the Assembly. The protesters organised the march on the 17th day of their demonstration against the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations for government jobs.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi condemned the police action against the protesters and urged the Jharkhand government to listen to them and resolve their grievances. The Congress is a member of the ruling Mahagathbandhan alliance in the state, headed by Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand Public Service Commission’s former chairperson L Khiangte was arrested by the state Criminal Investigation Department in connection with alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations. Read on.

In Jharkhand, youth lose years of their lives trying to clear the JPSC exams, reports Nolina Minj

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi and several Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were detained while protesting outside Soren’s home. This came a day after the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations after talks with two delegations of protesting students.

The government also agreed to involve the Enforcement Directorate in an inquiry into alleged financial irregularities linked to the 14th civil services examination.

However, the talks failed to resolve the students’ key demands for cancellation of the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination results. Read on.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that the deadlock in Parliament will continue until Union Home Minister Amit Shah addresses allegations of the police using excessive force against youth protesters in Delhi on July 20. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said Shah was ready for a detailed discussion if the Opposition allows Parliament to function without disruptions.

The Monsoon Session ends on August 13. Amid repeated adjournments, several bills are yet to be listed, according to reports.

The Congress has issued a whip to its MPs, directing them to be present in both Houses on August 10, August 11 and August 12, when “very important” matters are expected to be discussed. Read on.

The Lok Sabha has passed a bill to set up a central oversight body for appointing the chairpersons and members of the 16 tribunals in the country. The body, named the National Tribunals Commission, will also review the performance of chairpersons and members of tribunals, as well as address complaints against them, according to the Tribunals Reforms Bill, 2026.

The Union government will appoint the chairperson and members of the commission in consultation with the chief justice of India. Read on.

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

When Rajpal Saini retired from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, he didn’t really plan to spend his golden years battling his former employer. But a waste incineration plant commissioned near his village, by the corporation, has made his life arduous.

“We have the entire waste processing mall of Delhi here – a khatta [dumping ground], a hazardous waste disposal site, a composting plant, and a 28 megawatt (MW) waste-to-energy plant. And as if all this were not enough, now they have imposed another one [WTE plant] on us,” said Saini, a resident of Sannoth, a village near Bawana at the northwestern edge of Delhi.

“The world recognises the value of yoga and breathing in fresh air. But forget about the outdoors; we even have to seal the holes in our doors to avoid the stench. My uncle, who regularly did pranayam [breathing exercises], has been paralysed and bedridden for six years now,” Saini said, whose car is full of posters advocating for the “right to breathe”.

The construction of the new 3,000 tonnes-per-day (TPD), 30-megawatt WTE plant began in May despite a case before the National Green Tribunal and residents’ protests since December 2024. Situated right next to Munak canal, a significant source of drinking water for Delhi, this new plant will be the capital’s fifth WTE, a city that produces close to 12,000 TPD of waste.

The first WTE plant – a technology to convert trash to heat or electricity – was set up in India in 1987 by a European company. The plan was shut down within 20 days because the garbage here lacked the “calorific value” required to generate power.

Today, India has 30 plants, half of them dysfunctional due to the same issue – waste profile and economic viability. WTEs have tackled less than 6% of the country’s waste and contributed 0.1% to the energy mix, finds a 2025 policy response. Still, 16 more plants are under construction, and 33 are proposed.

In 2025, India exempted WTEs from prior environmental clearance and shifted them from red category (high pollution potential) under the Central Pollution Control Board’s industry pollution index, to blue. The category was created in 2025 for “facilities essential to control, abate, and mitigate pollution generated from domestic and industrial activities”.

In Europe, where WTE gained impetus due to the phasing out of landfills, people are now waking up to its greenhouse gas potential. The European Union has reduced funding for WTEs, while Germany, which has the largest installed capacity of WTEs in the continent, has imposed a carbon dioxide tax on them.

Meanwhile, with their own markets saturated, European and Japanese WTE companies are expanding in the Global South. Funding from international finance institutions, free land, policy changes and incentives in the form of carbon credits are supporting this expansion despite the harm to surrounding communities.

A ‘burning’ solution

Unlike the segregated waste in Europe, waste in India is predominantly mixed and has a high moisture content. The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 and its earlier iterations mandated that only non-recyclable waste with a calorific value of 1,500 Kcal/kg (pg 90) can be used to generate energy. This waste must first be converted into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) pellets and fluff through drying and shredding of combustible waste – before being fed into the boiler.

“On ground, RDF is just mixed waste left to dry in a pit for 14 days,” said Chythenyan Devika Kulasekaran from Centre for Financial Accountability, a Delhi-based non-profit.

WTE has two byproducts – leachate from the RDF pit and bottom ash. The upcoming WTE in Bawana promises to recycle the more than 3.5 lakh litres leachate generated every day back into plant operations. “It’s doubtful that they will use up so much water on a daily basis even as new leachate pours in every day,” asks Kulasekran.

Bottom ash – 27%-40% of the waste input – contains hazardous residue and needs to be disposed of in sanitary landfills, said Kulasekaran. EU regulations require plants to mix this ash with cement before disposal. “Every year, up to 16 million tonnes of toxic ash and residue from European incinerators are buried in the ground, often near communities with no say in the matter,” says a brief by Zero Waste Europe, a collective of non-profits in Europe working on the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste.

In Okhla, at a currently operational WTE plant, a brick manufacturing unit was supposed to handle this ash. “Not a single brick has been produced to date. Bricks require fine ash – a product of complete combustion, which doesn’t happen with low calorific value waste. However, at Tajpur Pahari, a slum cluster on the Delhi border, a 15-foot hill of ash can be found,” said Ranjit Devraj, a resident of Sukhdev Vihar, a locality in the vicinity of the Okhla WTE plant.

Health impact

Across the city from Bawana, in southeast Delhi, residents of VP Singh Camp, a slum cluster tucked between the Okhla waste dumping site and the Tehkhand WTE, wake up to a layer of soot on their roofs every morning. Having lived near a landfill for years, the pollution has become normalised.

“Stench, soot, smoke, contaminated water – nothing matters anymore. The government is not going to do anything about it,” said Kamlesh, who has been residing there since 2006. The Tehkhand WTE came up in 2023 with a loan from the Power Finance Corporation of India Ltd, a public sector company that has provided Rs 20,000 million in loans to 13 WTEs in India.

Burning mixed waste releases more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels, says a UNEP report. Besides, it also releases particulate matter, heavy metals, hydrogen chloride, dioxins and furans – carcinogens linked with cancer, reproductive harm and endocrine disruption.

Even though emission norms for WTEs in India are far more relaxed than in the EU (10 times higher for PM and 1.7 times higher for dioxins), three of the four WTE plants in Delhi have flouted them.

Dioxins concentrate in the body and in food items over time. Studies conducted in the vicinity of WTEs in the Netherlands, Spain and Slovakia found high concentrations of dioxin in chicken eggs and grass even as the plants met the emission limits.

Phasing out

“WTEs are an integral part of Germany’s waste management infrastructure. But large quantities of waste that end up there could actually be avoided, reused or recycled,” said Michael Jedelhauser, a senior officer for Circular Economy at the German non-profit Nature Protection Association (NABU).

The German CO2 tax ranges from €55-65 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, charged only on the fossil component of waste (plastics). “A carbon price can act as an incentive to divert more waste towards material recovery,” he added.

In contrast, the Okhla WTE in Delhi continues to earn from carbon credits. In 2021, the United Nations purchased 4,000 certified emission reductions from the company to fulfill its carbon neutrality goal.

Europe has 60 million tonnes more waste incineration capacity than it needs, forcing countries to import waste to keep their plants running. In 2024, Germany imported more than a million tonnes of waste for incineration. “Excess capacity undermines waste reduction and recycling,” said Janek Vahk, Zero Pollution Policy Manager at Zero Waste Europe.

Long-term “deliver or pay” contracts legally force EU municipalities to supply guaranteed waste to WTEs. Lasting for 35-45 years, these contracts “lock in” the civic bodies, preventing them from any attempt at waste minimisation. “In Italy, six municipalities ended up paying €5 million to the WTE. Many local bodies in Europe are trapped in this cycle,” said Vahk.

Consistent advocacy for a moratorium on new plants led to the phasing out of funding for WTEs in the EU, informed Vahk. “The EU Cohesion fund- which transfers funds from rich EU states to the poorer ones, the Modernisation Fund that helps countries meet energy targets and even the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, which supports green and circular technologies, dropped WTE from their list. The last one was a big victory because this Taxonomy guides government and private bank investments in the EU,” he said.

The finance trail

A saturated domestic market has led WTE companies to explore new markets. Japan consistently incinerates around 80% of its waste, and has little scope for expansion. Hitachi Zosen, a Japanese WTE company, has supplied technology to four WTE plants to India in Jabalpur, Pune and Bangalore.

In 2023, the Pune company received a loan of 2.6 billion Japanese Yen (JPY) (Rs 1.5 billion, 1JPY= Rs 0.59 on July 2) from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, while the Bangalore WTE received 1.85 billion JPY (Rs 1.09 billion). “The bank is giving loans to support the business expansion of its own company,” said Kulasekaran.

Since 2016, Martin GmbH, a German WTE company, has received equipment contracts for approximately 30 facilities in the Global North, compared with more than 200 in the Global South. In India, the company is erecting the 300 TPD Deonar WTE in Mumbai, in addition to supplying combustion, flue gas treatment and heat recovery equipment to others.

“We studied the calorific value of waste across the region (India and South Asia) and developed a robust combustion technology for a wide range of waste at a cost three times less than that of European technology. It is not as efficient, the monitoring is not as sophisticated, more rock bottom, like it was 15-20 years ago in Europe, but it delivers,” said Denis Bauer, CEO of CNIM MARTIN Private Ltd, the India arm of Martin GmbH, based in Chennai, while talking to Mongabay-India.

“The technology that we use in India for flue gas treatment (emission control) meets European standards. But it is up to the operators to implement it. If activated carbon that needs to be injected to control dioxins are not injected, the technology cannot be blamed,” said Bauer.

WTEs have high capital costs and usually receive financial support from international financial institutions such as the World Bank, JBIC and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), with Japan as one of the largest shareholders and Germany as the largest European shareholder.

However, in February 2025, the World Bank decided not to invest in four WTEs operated by a single company in Gujarat, after activists raised concerns about the pollution and health impacts of one of its plants.

“Despite a slew of benefits from the government, hiked electricity prices, revenue from carbon and plastic credits and processing fee from municipal bodies, WTEs in India are financially unviable but continue to operate because of government subsidies,” said Kulasekaran.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

With inputs from Lena Toepler, a freelance Journalist in Berlin. This story was reported as part of the India-Germany Climate and Energy Journalism Programme organised by Clean Energy Wire, supported by Heinrich Boll Stiftung.

Several protesters were injured in Jharkhand’s Ranchi on Monday after the police lathi-charged them and fired tear gas during a march to the Assembly as part of a demonstration against the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations for government jobs, reported The Indian Express.

As the protest entered its 17th day, students began marching from the old Assembly complex in Dhurwa and were stopped by police nearly three km from the Assembly. Soon after, the protesters climbed over barricades and began moving forward despite the police using water cannons to stop them.

Student leader Devendra Nath Mahto, who has been on a hunger strike for nine days, joined the march in an ambulance, ANI reported.

The protesters broke through a second and third layer of barricades near the Assembly in the afternoon. As they neared the Vidhan Sabha, the House was adjourned for the day, reported The Indian Express.

The protesters entered the Assembly premises in the evening, the newspaper reported.

One protester was injured on his head during the lathicharge.

VIDEO | Ranchi: Police baton-charged job aspirants protesting against exam irregularities after they attempted to breach barricades near the Jharkhand Assembly.

(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvrpG7)#Ranchi #Jharkhand #Protest pic.twitter.com/KqnYeGMbFO

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 10, 2026

Rahul Gandhi condemns police action

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday condemned the police action against the protesters, saying that “students have a right to peaceful protest, and only dialogue can yield solutions”. He urged the Jharkhand government to listen to the protesters and resolve their grievances.

The Congress is a member of the ruling Mahagathbandhan alliance in Jharkhand, led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. The alliance also comprises the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation.

The protests in Jharkhand began on July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against the alleged mismanagement of national competitive exams. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six demonstrators on fast.

The protesters have demanded the cancellation of the 14th Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Preliminary Test held on April 19.

They have also sought inquiries by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate into alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission.

On Sunday, the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations, including the Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services.

However, students have continued their protest, demanding that the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination is also cancelled and a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into all state public commission tests.

The government has refused to cancel the graduate-level examination, saying that it was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It has instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

Former JPSC chairperson arrested

Meanwhile, Jharkhand Public Service Commission’s former chairperson L Khiangte was arrested by the state Criminal Investigation Department on Monday in connection with alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations, ANI reported.

Khiangte was appointed the chairperson of the commission in February 2025 after retiring as the state’s chief secretary. He resigned from the position on July 22, PTI reported.

The Indian Administrative Service officer had stepped down a day before the CID searched several locations, including his official residence.

Khiangte had said then that he had “voluntarily chosen to resign” to ensure an impartial investigation in alleged irregularities in government exams. He has been questioned four times since July 28.

His arrest came a day after all three JPSC members resigned. With this, the Criminal Investigation Department has arrested 20 persons in the case.

Edited by Sneha.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Monday that the deadlock in Parliament will continue until Union Home Minister Amit Shah makes a statement on police allegedly using excessive force against youth protesters in Delhi on July 20.

On the other hand, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that Shah was ready to speak about the protests against the alleged mismanagement of competitive exams and the police action, if the Opposition does not disrupt proceedings in the House, reported PTI.

The police in the national capital and the central armed police forces report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

जब तक गृह मंत्री अमित शाह संसद में बयान नहीं देंगे, तब तक Deadlock जारी ही रहेगा।

: कांग्रेस महासचिव एवं सांसद श्रीमती @priyankagandhi जी pic.twitter.com/54PPlwPIUi

— Congress (@INCIndia) August 10, 2026

The Monsoon session of Parliament, which began on July 20, is set to conclude on August 13. As the Parliament continues to see repeated adjournments, several bills have not been listed so far, according to media reports.

The Congress has issued a whip to its MPs, directing them to be present in both Houses on August 10, August 11 and August 12, when “very important” matters are expected to be discussed, reported PTI. The party has also urged its INDIA bloc allies to ensure that their MPs attend Parliament on all three days.

Meanwhile, the Opposition parties have been demanding that Shah make a statement in Parliament about the alleged police excesses.

On July 29, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged in the Lok Sabha that the home minister had “authorised the shooting of our students” during the youth protests.

“He put the pellets into the blood of our students,” the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

Gandhi also claimed that the students had raised “uncomfortable questions” that the home ministry was “too scared to answer”.

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.

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 protesters’ march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators. The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country. Pradhan resigned as the education minister on July 25.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

The Lok Sabha on Monday passed a bill to set up a central oversight body for appointing the chairpersons and members of the 16 tribunals in the country.

The body, named the National Tribunals Commission, will also review the performance of chairpersons and members of tribunals, as well as address complaints against them, according to the Tribunals Reforms Bill, 2026.

The Union government will appoint the chairperson and members of the commission in consultation with the chief justice of India.

Introducing the bill in the Lower House, Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said that the legislation has been proposed to “ensure independence, transparency and uniformity in the qualifications, appointment, terms and conditions of service of chairpersons and members of various tribunals”.

If passed, it will repeal the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021.

This would be in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling on November 19, which said that certain provisions of the Act violated the principles of separation of powers and judicial independence. The court had also directed that a National Tribunals Commission be set up.

Among the tribunals covered under the legislation are the Central Administrative Tribunal, National Green Tribunal, Armed Forces Tribunal, Securities Appellate Tribunal, Debts Recovery Tribunals, National Company Law Appellate Tribunal and Income-tax Appellate Tribunal.

The draft legislation states that the National Tribunals Commission will have five members. Apart from a chairperson, there will be two judicial and two technical members.

The chairperson will have a tenure of five years, or until they reach the age of 70, whichever is earlier, stated the bill. It added that the chairperson must be a former Supreme Court judge or a former chief justice of a High Court.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi and several Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were detained on Monday while protesting outside Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s home against alleged irregularities in the conduct of civil services examinations, ANI reported.

The BJP leaders had gathered outside the chief minister’s residence as thousands of job aspirants began marching towards the Jharkhand Assembly on Monday morning.

The Mahagathbandhan alliance, led by Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and comprising the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation, is in power in Jharkhand.

Several protesters were seen crossing police barricades heading towards the Vidhan Sabha on Monday. A video from PTI showed the police using water cannons to control the demonstration.

VIDEO | Ranchi, Jharkhand: Police use water cannons to disperse the protesting students.

(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/R4db3zsGKO

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 10, 2026

The students have been protesting in Ranchi since July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against the alleged mismanagement of national competitive exams. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six demonstrators on a fast.

The detentions came a day after the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations, including the preliminary examination of the 14th Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services, after talks with two delegations of protesting students.

The government also agreed to involve the Enforcement Directorate in an inquiry into alleged financial irregularities linked to the 14th civil services examination.

However, the talks failed to resolve the students’ key demands for cancellation of the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination results and a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into all state public commission examinations.

The government has refused to cancel the graduate-level examination results, saying the exam was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It has instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

The government said that it has accepted 98% of the protesters' demands. Student leaders, however, said they would continue their agitation until their remaining demands were met.

On Monday, Marandi backed the students’ demand for a CBI investigation.

“Students are continuing their protest, but the government is distracting people… [all exams] should be investigated by the CBI,” ANI quoted the BJP leader as saying.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: In Jharkhand, youth lose years of their lives trying to clear the JPSC exams

Students from the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research in Hyderabad have asked the university to reconsider its invitation to Chief Justice Surya Kant to be the chief guest for their convocation, citing his response to a petition alleging police excesses against protesters in Delhi on July 20, Bar and Bench reported.

On July 22, a bench headed by Kant refused to urgently hear the petition. “Don’t waste our time and don’t waste your time,” Kant had reportedly told the petitioners.

When the lawyer for the petitioners said that he could present video evidence of the police excesses, the chief justice had said the bench was “not interested” in watching them. “We don’t have time to watch,” Kant had then said.

While NALSAR has yet to announce the chief guest for the event, the incumbent chief justice has been delivering the convocation address at the university for the several years.

On July 23, 70 students from the outgoing batch of NALSAR sent a representation to the university authorities, The Indian Express reported. Over the next two days, about 380 more students from batches that will graduate over the next five years supported the demand to reconsider inviting Kant.

Referring to Kant’s remarks from a day earlier, they said it did not sit right to receive their degrees from a dignitary whose recent public conduct appeared dismissive of serious allegations of police brutality against protesting citizens.

The students added that the convocation should reflect the university’s values, including “a commitment to constitutional rights, access to justice, and reasoned engagement with grievances”, Bar and Bench reported.

The police action came during protests against the alleged mismanagement of several competitive examinations. The agitation, which culminated in the resignation of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union education minister, was led by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign.

The Cockroach Janta Party was launched in response to reports of remarks by Kant comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches”. The chief justice had claimed that he had been misquoted by sections of the media and that it was baseless to say that he criticised young people in general.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Mumbai Police have arrested a former student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences for allegedly shouting slogans in support of jailed activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, The Indian Express reported.

Abhirup Paul was arrested hours after he and another student of the institute were denied anticipatory bail by a Mumbai court. They were also booked for possessing downloaded books and other material that the prosecution alleged reflected Maoist ideology.

Paul was produced before a magistrate’s court on Saturday. The police sought 10 days’ custody, but the court remanded him to custody until Monday.

Khalid and Imam have been in jail for more than five years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for their alleged role in a conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots. The trial in the case has not yet begun, and their petitions for regular bail have been repeatedly rejected.

On Friday, seven students, who had been booked after taking part in an event in October commemorating the death anniversary of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, were granted anticipatory bail.

Saibaba, who had more than 90% disability and used a wheelchair, spent over seven years in jail on accusations of having links with Maoists. In March 2024, he was acquitted by the Bombay High Court and released. Seven months later, in October 2024, he died of post-operative complications in Hyderabad.

The court had said that while paying homage to Saibaba was not unlawful, the allegations that the students had shouted slogans in support of Khalid and Imam, along with the material recovered from their electronic devices, weighed against granting them anticipatory bail.

In October, some students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences gathered on campus to light candles and display posters of Saibaba to commemorate his death anniversary.

The police had filed the case against the students who attended the event based on a complaint by the institute’s administration. The first information report invoked charges of causing prejudice to the nation, causing enmity between groups and participating in unlawful assembly, among others.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The toll from floods in Assam has risen to 100, with two deaths reported in the past 24 hours, the state disaster management authority said on Sunday.

Almost 1.4 lakh persons have been affected by the floods in 10 districts: Golaghat, Sivasagar, Hojai, Darrang, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Karbi Anglong, Charaideo, Nagaon and Biswanath.

Golaghat is the worst hit, with around 70,000 people affected, followed by Sivasagar with nearly 40,000 and Jorhat with more than 16,000.

The Dhansiri river at Golaghat and Numaligarh, and the Kushiyara river at Sribhumi, are flowing above the danger mark.

“Due to a steady rise in the water level of Dhansiri in Golaghat district, people have been advised to stay away from the river,” PTI quoted an unidentified official of the disaster management authority as saying.

Nearly 49,100 people are staying in 125 relief camps and relief distribution centres in six districts, the news agency reported.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Why it cannot be business as usual for Assam as it rebuilds from floods

A crowd blocked former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s convoy in North 24 Parganas and threw mud and shoes at her vehicle on Sunday afternoon while she was on her way to meet the family of a Trinamool Congress worker who died in police custody, The Indian Express reported.

The crowd shouted “thief” and repeatedly thumped on the bonnet and windscreen of Banerjee’s car, forcing the convoy to slow down and stop several times before the police managed to clear a passage through the crowd.

#WATCH | Barrackpore: Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's vehicle was attacked while she was on her way to meet a TMC worker in North 24 Parganas.

As per former CM Mamata Banerjee, "Large stones were hurled at my car by anti-social elements,right in front of the… pic.twitter.com/JrTd2uFNlK

— ANI (@ANI) August 9, 2026

Banerjee was seated in the front of the car. Trinamool Congress MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Dola Sen and party youth wing leader Upasana Chowdhury were also in the vehicle. Her security personnel and police were part of the convoy.

Banerjee alleged that “large stones” were also thrown at her vehicles despite the presence of police, ANI reported.

“If the windows had been open, my head would have been split open,” the Trinamool Congress chief said. “We could have all been killed…the police are providing protection to the Bharatiya Janata Party.”

She alleged that the attack was a “well-planned conspiracy” by the BJP to confine her to her home because the party feared her, The Telegraph reported. She blamed Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who holds the home department, for the attack.

#WATCH | Barrackpore: Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee says, "Large stones were hurled at my car by anti-social elements,right in front of the police. The attack on the vehicle was so severe that if the windows had been open, my head would have been split open.… pic.twitter.com/PIdFM1Oxcr

— ANI (@ANI) August 9, 2026

The incident was the latest in a series of attacks on TMC leaders since the BJP came to power in West Bengal on May 4.

TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee was attacked by a mob with eggs and stones during a visit to Sonarpur on May 30. Party MP Kalyan Banerjee alleged the next day that he was also attacked in the Hooghly district. On July 1, vegetables and eggs were hurled at a TMC office in West Bengal’s Krishnanagar while Moitra was inside.

On Sunday, while the BJP condemned the attack on Banerjee, saying that it did not endorse violence, Adhikari defended the police and accused the former chief minister of playing politics. He said the police had done their job.

State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said throwing stones and physical assault did not represent the party’s culture.

“Anyone can raise slogans against the former CM or the current CM too,” The Indian Express quoted Bhattacharya as saying. “Black flags can be waved in protest, these are all part of democracy. The TMC has done so many atrocities and yet the BJP doesn’t support throwing shoes at a woman and former CM. No BJP supporter can be part of this.”

Custodial death

Banerjee was travelling to Halisahar to meet the family of TMC worker Jenny Sharma Keot, who died in police custody on Saturday.

Halisahar police had arrested Keot on Friday on charges of extortion, financial fraud and under the Arms Act. He was produced before the Barrackpore court, which remanded him to police custody for five days.

He fell ill in the lockup early on Saturday and was declared dead after being taken to the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital in Kalyani. His family has alleged that he was physically tortured and assaulted in custody, alleging that there were visible injury marks and bleeding from his ears.

The police have ordered an investigation into the allegations. Barrackpore police chief Amit Kumar Singh said the exact cause of death was being investigated. Senior police officials said CCTV footage from the police station was being reviewed and that the autopsy had been videographed to establish the sequence of events.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Jharkhand government on Sunday agreed to cancel three examinations, including the preliminary examination of the 14th state Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services, after talks with two delegations of protesting student groups in Ranchi, The Indian Express reported.

The government also agreed to involve the Enforcement Directorate in an inquiry into alleged financial irregularities linked to the 14th Jharkhand Public Service Commission examination.

The decisions came as the students’ protest in Ranchi entered its 16th day. The protests began on July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against the alleged mismanagement of national competitive exams. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six demonstrators on a fast.

On Sunday, after the talks, the government announced that it would cancel the Jharkhand Public Service Commission backlog 2023 examination, the backlog 2025 examination and the preliminary examination. Three members of the commission also resigned on Sunday.

A backlog examination is a retest for candidates who failed a subject or missed the exam on their first attempt.

The talks, however, failed to resolve the students’ key demand for cancellation of the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination results and a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into all state public commission tests.

The government has refused to cancel the graduate-level examination results, saying that the exam was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It has instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

Technical and Higher Education Minister Sudivya Kumar Sonu, who was part of the government panel that held talks with the students, said the government had accepted 98% of their demands.

Student leaders, however, said they would continue their agitation until the remaining demands were met. Student leader Ravindra Paswan said that while most of the protesters’ demands had been accepted, they would not “compromise” till their demand for a CBI probe was fulfilled, The Indian Express reported.

#WATCH | Ranchi, Jharkhand: JPSC-JSCC aspirants' protest | Student leader Ravindra Paswan says, "A march to the Vidhan Sabha and a gherao will be conducted in a peaceful and constitutional manner. Students will start gathering there at 9:00 AM. The march will commence between… https://t.co/zdsGd3bu6X pic.twitter.com/XnYYOHeCwU

— ANI (@ANI) August 10, 2026

“We will continue our proposed march to the Jharkhand Assembly on [Monday],” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren reiterated his promise that the protesting students would get justice.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: In Jharkhand, youth lose years of their lives trying to clear the JPSC exams

“Why should I have to pay for something my ancestors did?” That is a refrain frequently heard from members of the upper castes during discussions about casteist violence and prejudice or reservations in India.

This belief has found renewed expression in the “Reservation Hatao Movement”, a social media campaign that gained visibility in late July. It calls for the abolition of caste-based reservation so that “merit” and equal competition can prevail.

Many Indians believe that caste is a relic of a bygone time and that the government’s social justice policies have addressed these problems.

This ignores the inherited control over land, wealth, education, social networks and institutions through which caste privilege reproduces itself, presenting outcomes produced by historical inequality as though they emerged from neutral competition among equals.

The Indian state, similarly, speaks the language of social justice without unsettling the structures of social power that shape Indian society.

It is against the backdrop of this refusal of historical accountability that Nepal’s decision to offer a formal state apology to Dalits for centuries of caste-based oppression acquired significance in India. In April, referring to Nepal’s decision, MP Chandrashekhar Azad asked in Parliament when India would apologise to Dalits for centuries of injustice.

Azad’s intervention, along with those of others who have raised this issue, reflects one dimension of the demand for a national reckoning with caste injustice: a formal apology that acknowledges caste oppression as a historical system sustained by social, religious and state institutions.

Such an apology could establish the public truth that caste oppression was wrong. Yet it also risks becoming a “soft substitute” for justice if such an acknowledgement is not accompanied by an obligation to repair the material and institutional consequences of that oppression.

Instead, reparation is a more accurate term. It recognises historical injustice and the obligation to repair it through measures that restore dignity and address accumulated disadvantages.

Apology vs reparation

Suppose India were to follow Nepal’s lead, how would an apology for caste injustice work?

To avoid being merely symbolic, it would, at a minimum, have to take the form of a resolution adopted by Parliament and a formal statement by the Union government acknowledging the role of state and social institutions in sustaining untouchability and caste oppression.

It would also require acknowledgement by dominant castes and by the religious and social institutions that legitimised and benefited from the caste order.

An apology formulated in consultation with Dalit communities, it would have to identify the injustices being acknowledged and the responsibilities arising from them. Yet even an apology that meets these conditions will be inadequate unless it results in concrete reparative measures.

Legal scholar Martha Minow argues in Between Vengeance and Forgiveness that societies which pursue reconciliation without acknowledgement risk reproducing injustice, masking harm under the language of neutrality and reform.

In his essay The Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates argues that reparations for slavery go beyond monetary compensation. They require a national reckoning with how slavery and subsequent practices, including segregation and discriminatory housing policies, produced inequalities that continue to structure the lives of Black Americans.

In the Indian context, reparation would recognise caste as a historical system of organised humiliation, the effects of which are central to the functioning of modern India.

Caste in modern India

India’s social justice framework of affirmative action, anti-atrocity laws and reform is simply inadequate to address the magnitude of what anti-caste thinker Jotirao Phule theorised in Gulamgiri: a system of caste slavery through which religious and social hegemony legitimised the extraction of labour, exclusion from knowledge and the hereditary exclusion of oppressed castes from resources and power.

Any serious public act of acknowledgement by the Indian state must disrupt the status quo and the moral ease of a caste society by compelling recognition that caste has historically constituted and continues to shape the foundations of social power in India.

For instance, untouchability continues: parents boycotted an anganwadi in Odisha’s Kendrapada district for about three months since November 2025 after a Dalit cook was hired.

Transgressing caste norms can result in violence: earlier this year, four men pulled a Dalit groom in Madhya Pradesh off a horse and assaulted him. The same caste resentment is also reflected in recurring opposition to the reservation policy.

Historically, caste and untouchability determined access to resources like water, land, wealth and even knowledge, thus denying personhood to entire communities. Today, landlessness, educational and health disparities, segregated habitation, wealth inequality and caste violence are consequences of this historical injustice.

Ambiguity will allow savarna groups to frame caste as resentment, or an identity conflict rather than injustice.

How reparation for caste

Reparation begins from the moral premise that there is an obligation of repair where a society has historically degraded a people, denied them resources, extracted their labour, blocked their mobility, and normalised their humiliation across generations

First, among its many forms, reparation must also be epistemic, addressing how knowledge about caste is produced.

India suffers from poor public knowledge about the structure of caste, which is sanitised in textbooks, flattened in public discourse and reduced to a question of cultural identity. Reparation must therefore repair public knowledge through truthful curricula, archival recovery and constitutional education.

It must also include memorialisation through museums, public memorials and commemorative practices that document caste oppression and preserve the testimonies of oppressed communities and histories of anti-caste resistance. Such measures will ensure that caste injustice is recognised as part of the nation’s history. These are central to justice: a society cannot repair what it refuses to know.

Second, a serious framework of reparative justice must begin with a historical accounting of what caste has systematically taken from Dalit communities: land, wages, literacy, dignity, access to public life, and equal personhood. This requires moving beyond abstract notions of “backwardness” to accounting for structured deprivation.

This reckoning must also compel dominant-caste communities to recognise their inherited advantages. It must require them to acknowledge that their present social and economic starting point was built upon resources and opportunities accumulated through the denial of the dignity, labour and natural rights of oppressed communities.

Third, existing welfare and affirmative measures must be reframed as obligations that are grounded in an acknowledgement of historical wrongs. Repair must engage with material realities of redistribution, access and long-term structural transformation.

This is sure to be discomforting. Many condemn caste in theory but resist what that condemnation demands. Equality is invoked as a value, yet its implications after histories of degradation are avoided. That is why reparation is the right language which demands much more from a nation than just verbal ethics.

National unity and fraternity

For BR Ambedkar, fraternity meant “a sense of common brotherhood of all Indians – of Indians being one people”, as he explained in his final address to the Constituent Assembly. For Ambedkar, fraternity did not mean simply living together peacefully but dismantling social hierarchies so that citizens could relate to one another as equals.

Here, the burden lies with those who benefited from caste, those who were complicit in it, and those who continue to inherit its advantages without acknowledging its violence.

Fraternity must be rebuilt through truth, responsibility and repair. Otherwise, appeals for national unity seem hollow, asking for harmony without justice and reconciliation without reckoning.

That is why an apology is inadequate. If the public conversation is confined to sorrow and acknowledgement, then harder questions go unanswered.

What was taken from Dalit communities over centuries? How did the postcolonial state ruled by caste-varna privileged establishment inherit and reproduce structures of inequality. What obligations flow from the fact that the constitutional abolition of untouchability did not repair its accumulated injuries?

A democracy that is blind to these questions has only succeeded in managing the consequences of caste. Instead of ceremonial remorse, Indian democracy needs a moral and democratic reckoning equal to the scale of caste. Reparation, in this sense, must be a foundational project of nation-building aimed at realising the constitutional promise of equality and dignity.

Bodhi Ramteke is a lawyer, activist-scholar and grassroots advocate. A former Erasmus Mundus scholar, his research focuses on reparative justice, particularly in the context of Dalit communities. His email ID is bodhi.ramteke@opendeusto.es.

New Delhi has repatriated 4,048 Indian seafarers from West Asia since a conflict broke out in the region on February 28, PTI quoted Union Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal as saying on Saturday.

“We have extended help to their families as well,” Sonowal said at an event in Mumbai.

His statement came in the wake of a series of attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz amid renewed tensions between the United States and Iran.

On July 30, the Union government informed Parliament that 16 Indians have been killed during the conflict. Ten of them were seafarers.

Eight of the deaths were reported in Oman, four in the United Arab Emirates, two in Kuwait, and one each in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, said the Ministry of External Affairs.

The US and Israel had launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, targeting major cities in Gulf countries and ships.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance. Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

So far, two peace talks held between Washington and Tehran have collapsed.

The first round of talks that were held in Pakistan’s Islamabad collapsed on April 12, but the ceasefire in the region had largely held for nearly two months.

On June 15, the US and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the strait for commercial vessels. They also held talks in Switzerland aimed at reaching a final peace deal within two months.

However, on July 8, Trump said that the ceasefire was “over”.

As a consequence, the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterbody connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea, remains effectively blocked for most international commercial vessels, triggering a global energy crisis. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

On July 15, New Delhi directed shipping companies not to deploy Indian seafarers on vessels travelling through the waterway.

US President Donald Trump said on August 2 that his country’s military and Israeli forces will halt attacks on Iran as “the perimeters of a deal” had been agreed upon.

The new deal “would include the immediate, complete and total” opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to “Iran’s nuclear threat”, Trump said in a social media post.

However, Tehran said on Sunday that it would not open the strait until the US met all the conditions it has set out, including compensation for war damages, reported AFP.

On Saturday, Iran’s security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr said that Tehran would only open the waterway if the US agreed to end the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq”.

The US military should also lift its counterblockade of Iranian ports, demanded Zolghadr.

Edited by Sneha.

An office-bearer of a Christian organisation in Chhattisgarh was arrested for allegedly hurting the sentiments of the Hindu community through a comment he wrote on a social media post, The Hindu quoted the Raipur Police as saying on Saturday.

A first information report was registered against Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, on the basis of a complaint filed by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader.

BJP Spokesperson Amit Chimnani alleged that Pannalal had written a “highly objectionable” comment on a Facebook post about a Hindu deity.

Pannalal was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity between different groups, deliberately outraging religious feelings and intentionally insulting a person with the intent to provoke a breach of peace.

He was arrested on Friday night and sent to judicial custody on Saturday, Yaman Dewangan, inspector in charge of Raipur Civil Lines police station told The Indian Express.

Pannalal has previously raised concerns about the attacks and discrimination against the Christian community in Chhattisgarh.

Activists, academics express concern

On Sunday, a group of minority rights activists, writers and academics condemned Pannalal’s arrest, saying that the only real offence committed by him was that he refused to stay silent as state governments “tighten the noose around minority faith practice and dissent”.

They said that Pannalal is one of the most “consistent and outspoken voices against the wave of anti-conversion legislation and communal targeting sweeping the state”.

The group alleged that the sections under which he has been charged have, in recent years, become the BJP’s “preferred instrument for criminalising minority speech”.

“This arrest cannot be read in isolation,” they added. “It comes as Chhattisgarh operationalises its amended anti-conversion law with growing severity and as Odisha memorialises those associated with anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal.”

The group demanded that Pannalal be released immediately.

“The Constitution guarantees every citizen, Christian or otherwise, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of conscience under Articles 19 and 25,” they said. “Chhattisgarh’s government would do well to remember that governing a state is not the same as running a vendetta.”

Among the signatories of the statement are John Dayal, a former member of the National Integration Council, Goldy George, who is associated with the organisation Rights of Indigenous People and Ashok Sharma, a retired diplomat and constitutional conduct activist.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava and Sneha.

In the early light at Thoppumpady fishing harbour in the city of Kochi, coils of blue and green nylon nets lay heaped on the concrete docks, stiff with salt after a long night at sea. Many had been patched and repatched so often that they were barely holding together. Nets too damaged to mend are often cut loose offshore. Once they sink, few are ever recovered.

Across India’s west coast, lost fishing gear known as “ghost gear” has become a significant source of marine pollution. Nets vanish whole or in fragments, slipping into the waters of the Arabian Sea where they continue trapping fish, turtles and other marine life long after fishers abandon them.

India operates one of the world’s largest marine fishing sectors, supporting an estimated 14.5 million livelihoods along more than 7,500 kilometres of coastline.

While national estimates are scarce, a 2022 study in the southwestern state of Kerala, where Kochi is located, found that fishers lost, abandoned or discarded about 21% of their fishing gear annually. That’s more than 10 times the global average of 1.82% estimated by another study, which highlights the scale of material entering India’s marine environment.

Despite growing concern among researchers and conservationists, India lacks a systematic way to track, retrieve or recycle lost fishing gear, as well as accessible mechanisms to collect and safely dispose of end-of-life nets and other equipment before they are discarded at sea.

The government regulates fisheries tightly in many respects – from mesh sizes and seasonal bans to licensing requirements – but what happens after gear is lost, discarded or reaches the end of its usable life remains largely outside the system.

Routine losses

Kerala, one of India’s most important fishing states, provides a clear snapshot of the challenges.

The Kerala study, a survey of 390 fishers, found that vessels lost, abandoned or discarded an average of 167.5 kg of gear per vessel each year. Scaling this across the state’s roughly 28,000-34,000 marine fishing vessels suggests thousands of metric tons of ghost gear enter the Arabian Sea annually from Kerala alone. The findings show that ghost gear is not solely the result of accidents at sea: fishers reported losing 11.6% of their gear each year, abandoning 7.5% and deliberately discarding 2.3%.

While ghost gear is often associated with storms and cyclones, researchers working along India’s west coast say much of it is lost during routine fishing operations. Rocky seabeds, poorly mapped fishing grounds and conflicts between mechanised and traditional fleets all contribute to gear loss. The problems are particularly acute in crowded near-shore waters such as those off Kerala, where trawlers, gillnet fishers and smaller vessels compete for space.

“Seabed snags are the most common cause,” Abhijieet Thakare, an independent fisheries expert and coastal management practitioner, told Mongabay. “We routinely see nets and lines caught on rocky outcrops.”

With retrieval competing against fishing time and few recycling options available, fishers often leave damaged gear behind, creating a steady flow of plastic waste into the Arabian Sea. “Carrying back a torn net costs fuel and time,” Thakare said. “If it has no value at that point, it is often abandoned.”

That calculation is not unique to Kerala. Fishers and researchers report similar patterns elsewhere along India’s Arabian Sea coast, from the Konkan region of Maharashtra state and Goa to the island territory of Lakshadweep.

Once lost, fishing gear continues to function, whether it drifts through the water column or settles on the seabed. Nets ensnare fish. Lines wrap around coral structures. Over time, the gear becomes embedded in marine habitats.

As synthetic materials degrade, they fragment into smaller particles. Marine animals ingest these fragments, sometimes fatally. Studies have identified microplastics, often originating from degraded fishing gear, inside marine animals, including important fish and shrimp species consumed by humans.

There is also a regional dimension to the problem. Ocean currents carry debris across national boundaries, making it difficult to trace the origin of any single net and complicating both accountability and response.

Jurisdiction at sea

A fragmented governance structure leaves critical gaps where abandoned or damaged fishing gear slips out of oversight, experts say. “Part of the problem lies in how responsibility is divided,” Karan Deshpande, a coral reef researcher with the NGO Wildlife Conservation Society-India, told Mongabay.

In India, state fisheries departments primarily oversee fishing activities and gear regulations; state pollution control boards handle marine litter, plastic waste and environmental compliance; while state forest departments (or wildlife wings) often hold responsibility for protected marine species such as turtles, dolphins and other megafauna under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Lost or discarded fishing gear frequently falls between these jurisdictions, weakening accountability and coordinated enforcement.

Despite growing evidence of environmental damage from ghost gear, India has no unified system to track or manage it, Deshpande said. Other Asian countries facing similar challenges have begun experimenting with gear-marking schemes that enable lost gear to be traced to its owner, retrieval programs and national action plans. These efforts reflect a broader regional effort to improve accountability for lost fishing gear.

Attempts to plug the gaps have largely relied on incentives, both in India and globally. Some state governments and nonprofits compensate fishers between Rs 15,000 and Rs 70,000 for safely releasing entangled megafauna or returning damaged nets. Elsewhere, non-governmental groups and dive teams carry out retrieval operations, bringing ghost gear ashore for recycling. But these interventions tend to remain piecemeal.

“Most government-led initiatives start well but struggle to sustain,” Deshpande said. Once funding ebbs, he said, so does the effort.

Moreover, incentive schemes have in some cases been manipulated, with fishers staging or exaggerating retrievals to claim compensation, Deshpande said. The result is mounting administrative strain, including verification burdens and payment backlogs that slow already stretched systems.

More fundamentally, he said, many of these efforts target the symptoms rather than the source. “There is a continuous input,” Deshpande said. “Retrieval alone cannot solve it.”

What’s needed are mechanisms to prevent gear loss in the first place, or to track it when it occurs, he added.

Private model of financing

Along the southern coast of Karnataka state, north of Kerala, Adhavan Dev, a marine biologist with the Centre for Climate Change Research at the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, promotes just such a preventative approach within fishing communities.

The effort combines outreach with financial incentives. It encourages fishers to retrieve drifting or damaged gear and bring end-of-life nets ashore, where buyback payments provide an alternative to disposal at sea.

According to Dev, participation is “often slow at first but tends to increase as fishers become more aware of the environmental and economic impacts of ghost gear.” Younger fishers, in particular, appear more receptive to the message, especially as “declining catches become harder to ignore,” he said.

The approach, however, faces obstacles beyond the fishing sector itself. Many nets are made from a mix of materials – including nylon, polyethylene, and other plastics – that are difficult to process together. Recycling facilities capable of handling mixed fishing gear remain scarce in India, leaving many collected nets stored in warehouses or yards while organisations search for viable recycling or upcycling options.

These challenges also highlight a broader funding gap. With recycling infrastructure underdeveloped and government support often limited, some ghost-gear initiatives rely on corporate social responsibility funding, which can be unreliable over the long-term.

Beyond cleanup

Many experts say the key lies in moving from ad hoc initiatives to institutionalised systems that intervene across the gear’s lifecycle, from design and use to end-of-life disposal. Dev and other researchers point to specific measures such as gear-marking systems, standardised reporting of lost gear, and dedicated facilities for collection and recycling. Similar approaches have been adopted in countries including Norway, Iceland, Australia and Indonesia, offering models that India could adapt.

According to Dev, the larger challenge is implementation. Building an effective system would require coordination between fisheries, waste-management and regulatory agencies, alongside investment in collection and recycling infrastructure and greater private-sector participation in developing markets for recovered materials. Deshpande echoed those points, arguing that to truly address ghost gear, India must treat it as a systemic fisheries management issue.

Until then, nets that disappear from Kochi’s harbour will continue their unseen work beneath the surface, leaving behind a legacy that remains largely unaccounted.

This story was reported by Mongabay’s Global team and first published here on our Mongabay Global site on June 26, 2026.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday stated that it had cancelled an event scheduled for August 10 to discuss jailed activist Umar Khalid’s book Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power.

The university’s School of Social Sciences had granted permission for the event, which was to be held on the occasion of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Khalid’s book is based on his doctoral thesis on the history of adivasis in the Singhbhum region of Jharkhand. The thesis was submitted at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Historical Studies in July 2018. The book was published in June.

Professors Prabhu Mahapatra and Uma Chakravarti, artist Shuddhabrata Sengupta, author and activist Harsh Mander, and researcher and Khalid’s partner Banojyotsana Lahiri were to speak at the now-cancelled event.

On Sunday, the university said it had taken the decision due to “non-disclosure of the full facts about the program”.

JNU is a democratic and decentralised institution. The permission was given by Dean, SSS who has taken action as well in cancelling the event.

The booking of the auditorium SSS-1 stands cancelled because of non-disclosure of the full facts about the program which is going to… pic.twitter.com/SsEsMO3muT

— Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) (@JNU_official_50) August 9, 2026

“JNU is a democratic and decentralised institution,” the university said in a social media post. “The permission was given by the dean, SSS [School of Social Sciences], who has taken action as well in cancelling the event.”

Khalid has been in jail since September 2020 for his alleged involvement in the communal violence that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

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

Khalid is facing charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

He has spent nearly six years in jail, without trial. His petitions for regular bail have been rejected repeatedly.

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

On May 18, another bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan criticised the January order, observing that “bail is the rule and jail is an exception” even in prosecutions under the anti-terror law.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• ‘Fractured Communities’ by Umar Khalid: Scholarship meets commitment to marginalised lives
• Umar Khalid book excerpt: Exploring the history of Singhbhum’s tribal societies in British India

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

Indian manufacturers are beating Tesla and BYDi at building energy-efficient electric cars.

Tata Motors topped a global ranking of the most efficient battery EVs for 2025, released by the International Council on Clean Transportation. The vehicles in the company’s fleet on average consumed 106 watt-hours per kilometer. Another Indian automaker, Mahindra, followed at 113 Wh/km.

Elon Musk’s Tesla and the world’s largest EV maker, the Shenzhen-based BYD, ranked third and fourth in the ranking, which evaluated 22 of the largest EV companies globally.

The average energy consumption across the leading EVs remained nearly unchanged year on year at 131 Wh/km in 2025, ICCT’s ranking showed.

Only eight manufacturers improved their adjusted energy consumption, and 12 recorded a decline “due to changes in fleet composition, although most increases were minor (within 10 Wh/km),” the report noted.

Currently, EVs account for less than 5% of new passenger vehicle sales in India, compared to 25% globally. The Indian government remains ambitious about electrifying 30% of all passenger vehicles by 2030. The goal would not only cut down emissions but also lower oil imports, strengthen energy security, and expand domestic manufacturing.

The Indian government’s mandated fuel and emission caps for automobile manufacturers are “progressive and ambitious,” Amit Bhatt, the India managing director of ICCT, told Rest of World. He said they could “play a crucial role in accelerating this momentum and help India move closer to its vision of achieving 30% EV sales by 2030.”

India is the fourth-largest consumer of petroleum after China, the US, and Russia. Officials are currently shaping the third phase of its rules for carmakers, tightening the standards further between 2027 and 2032.

To increase the adoption of EVs, though, energy efficiency alone isn’t enough. Charging speed and driving range also play a critical role – areas where Indian auto companies still lag. India’s largest automaker, Tata Motors, ranked last for charging speed and sixth from the bottom for driving range in ICCT’s ranking.

Ananya Bhattacharya is a reporter for Rest of World covering South Asia's tech scene. She is based in Mumbai, India.

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

Consumers making UPI payments will not face any transaction charges, said the Union government on Saturday.

“All person-to-person transactions will continue to be free of charge,” stated the Union Ministry of Finance.

The clarification came two days after the Lok Sabha passed the Taxation and Other Laws Amendment Bill 2026, which would allow banks and other service providers to levy charges on payments through UPI and RuPay debit cards.

The new bill would amend the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007 and has led to fears that merchants, who would face a Merchant Discount Rate, would pass off the cost to consumers in the future.

Merchant Discount Rate is a fee charged to businesses by banks to cover the costs of processing transactions. The rate typically ranges from 1% to 3% of the transaction value for credit card payments and can be up to 0.9% for debit card transactions.

The United Payment Interface, or UPI, is a real-time payment system. In July, users made 2,366 crore UPI transactions worth Rs 29.9 lakh crore.

On Wednesday, the finance ministry stated that only a limited set of merchant transactions will attract the Merchant Discount Rate. The charges will apply “above a certain threshold and at a nominal rate”, it added.

The ministry also said that the levy will be much lower than the rates charged on debit and credit card transactions.

After the amendment bill is passed by Parliament, the “UPI and Services Steering Committee headed by the National Payments Corporation of India will decide on the Merchant Discount Rate, if any”, the ministry said.

The government said that the amendment has been introduced to ensure the long-term sustainability of UPI by supporting upgrades in cybersecurity, fraud prevention and digital infrastructure. It is also said that the new bill was aimed at increasing competition by encouraging more companies to expand their operations in the UPI ecosystem.

“Reliance on subsidies alone is not viable for the next wave of growth,” the government said.

The ministry also stated that media reports have been suggesting that external influences may be driving policy changes in India. This was “completely false and misleading”, it added.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

The first pot of rice newly harvested during October-November is never eaten straight away in Koraput. Before families gather around the meal, a portion is offered to the village deity. Around five to six months later, the next farming season begins with prayers for rain, while wooden ploughs, cattle and seeds are honoured in their own ceremonies.

In Koraput, in the Eastern Ghats of southern Odisha, every stage of cultivation has its own festival. The region is home to the Paroja, Gadaba, Kondh, Bhumia, Bhottada, Durua and Saura Adivasi communities. Here, agriculture is intrinsically linked with culinary heritage and faith.

Koraput is among India’s richest centres of crop diversity. It harbours hundreds of locally adapted crop varieties, including indigenous paddy, finger millet, little millet, pigeon pea, black gram, horse gram, niger, sesame, traditional vegetables, tubers and wild edible plants.

Unlike monoculture farming, fields here are planted with a diverse mix of crops that support one another, reduce farming risks and provide food throughout the year. Farmers cultivate varieties of rice that mature at different times, ensuring that all crops do not ripen at once. This helps spread the risk when rainfall is delayed or uneven.

Many indigenous varieties are valued not only for their taste and cultural importance but also for traits such as drought tolerance, flood resilience, pest resistance and adaptability to local conditions. Families save, exchange and replant seeds, ensuring that these locally adapted varieties remain part of everyday cultivation.

This diversity has also become increasingly important as the climate changes. While no farming system is immune to these changes, cultivating a wide range of crops and varieties has long helped communities reduce risk and strengthen household food security.

Many of these crops survive because they are woven into festivals, rituals and family traditions – everyday cultural practices help preserve biodiversity. The agricultural calendar closely follows the life cycle of rice – from selecting seeds and preparing fields to welcoming the harvest and storing grain for the next season.

On International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Koraput offers an important reminder that conserving agricultural biodiversity means protecting the communities that nurture traditional crops and carry forward the knowledge embedded in every harvest.

A year begins with seeds

With the arrival of the month of Chaita (usually in March), villages celebrate Chaithi Parab, marking the beginning of a new farming season. Fresh mangoes arrive with the changing weather, while stored paddy, black gram and pigeon pea are cooked into festive meals and traditional pithas or dumplings.

The food is first offered to village deities and ancestors as a prayer for timely rains and a good harvest. The festival expresses gratitude for the previous season while looking ahead to the next.

As dark monsoon clouds gather over the Eastern Ghats in July, there is the Asadha Jatra ceremony. Farmers prepare rice cakes from locally grown paddy, while leaves collected from nearby forests are burnt as a purification ritual before cultivation begins.

The ceremony reflects an enduring belief that forests, water and farms are deeply interconnected, and that healthy ecosystems are essential for healthy harvests.

Soon afterwards is Puni Parab, when wooden ploughs, farming implements and agricultural fields are cleaned, decorated and worshipped. Puni Parab honours the labour behind every harvest, but it also serves another purpose.

Farmers identify healthy rice plants that will provide seed for the following season, carefully selecting varieties that have performed well under local conditions. In this way, Puni Parab keeps indigenous seeds in cultivation.

Harvest celebrations

By September, the fields begin to turn golden and the first signs of harvest appear. In Dussehra, freshly harvested rice, often the heritage Bodikaburi variety, is cooked for the first time and offered to the cow. The festival celebrates the close relationship of people with their livestock and land.

Rice garlands are hung at the entrances of homes, while cattle are washed, decorated and worshipped for their role in cultivation.

During Diali Parab in November, villages use harvested for festive dishes prepared from cherished varieties such as umriachudi, machhakanta and tiki chudi. Before families gather to eat, the food is offered to village deities in gratitude for a successful harvest.

Panicles are woven into decorative garlands, while rice flour is used to create ceremonial motifs, reflecting the ways agriculture is part of everyday life. During Pandu Parab, communities also honour niger, a traditional oilseed crop that has long contributed to household nutrition.

Weddings and life

In winter months, during Pusha and Magha Parab, households prepare nourishing pancakes using finger millet, sesame, niger and jaggery, accompanied by curries made from pigeon pea, broad beans and locally grown vegetables.

Agriculture is also part of weddings, during which heritage rice varieties such as Pathanguda, Karkoli, Kandulakathi and Machhakanta are served. These grains are valued for prosperity, fertility and blessings for the newly married couple. Some of these varieties are cultivated because they are indispensable for such ceremonies.

Women are at the centre of many of these traditions, preparing ritual foods, organising offerings, preserving recipes and passing on knowledge to younger generations. Along with seed-saving practices within households, their role ensures that Indigenous food traditions continue across generations.

A living heritage under pressure

Together, these festivals have created a living system of conservation. But there are challenges.

Farmers across Koraput are grappling with erratic rainfall and extreme temperature that make sowing and harvesting less predictable than before. Hybrid and high-yielding crop varieties are gradually replacing traditional seeds as farmers respond to changing food and grain markets, government programmes and the pressures of higher yield.

Indigenous rice varieties that were once widely cultivated are now grown by only a small number of households. Younger generations are also now widely exposed to changing food habits and commercial agriculture.

Some indigenous varieties have survived largely because they are essential to festivals, weddings and other community ceremonies. Without these cultural traditions, locally adapted varieties could disappear much faster from farmers’ fields.

Susanta Sekhar Choudhury. Pritesh Sundar Roy, Abhijit Mohanty and Pulak Ranjan Nayak work for the Watershed Support Services and Activities Network, Bhubaneswar.

World Indigenous Peoples Day is observed on August 9.

Floods hit Assam every year. But the current cycle has been especially devastating, killing 97 people and displacing more than 12 lakh persons. The waters have wreaked havoc in Upper Assam, particularly in Sivasagar and Charaideo, districts that have rarely seen such intense floods in the past.

Scroll spoke to Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, a researcher on the Brahmaputra river basin and climate issues in northeastern India, to understand the reasons behind this year’s flooding and what could have been done to prevent it.

Edited excerpts:

Floods happen every year in Assam. But why are the floods in Upper Assam being called unprecedented?

Unprecedented is a convenient term to describe every subsequent flood event, glossing over the core lessons from the past floods in the Assam floodplains. The intensity of the Kaziranga floods in 2020 was similar, but it affected mostly animals and a few human habitations. This time, the floods took place in a highly populated area of Sibsagar, Chairaideo, Jorhat and Golaghat districts, and a lot of people have suffered losses.

The usual refrain is that this is unprecedented, but with the kind of interventions on the river system and the past pattern of floods in Assam, these should no longer be termed as surprising. We need to be better prepared.

Was it a cloudburst that led to this extreme event? If not, what were the reasons?

Whether it was a cloudburst or not is not so important as is what are the conditions that amplified this flood within Assam. Just blaming it on a cloudburst in Nagaland is convenient and broadbrushing the issue.

The main reasons why the flooding was so intense are wetland degradation, weak river embankments inside Assam, indiscriminate mining in riverbed and wetland areas downstream, and high obstructions to the natural drainage patterns of rivers. For example, we saw this devastation because of certain obstructions in the natural drainage pattern of the Dikhow river. [Dozens of roads in the path of the river were washed away or breached in many areas of Sivasagar, Jorhat and Chairadeo districts.]

There are several other tributaries of the Brahmaputra, which have similar conditions, and future devastation can also happen there.

Over the decades, we have created a barrier to the natural drainage of the rivers and that’s why the flooding is becoming more and more intense.

Disaster management authorities in Assam were not capable of handling this, because they have limited capacity, as structural interventions like dams and raising embankments have been their favoured responses.

How should the government respond to this challenge?

The government will promise that they will do everything to restore normalcy, but the ground conditions existing before the floods are why we see such flooding in the first place. They are saying they will build the embankments back and restore the landscape as it was.

But the point is not to build back the hazards in the landscape again. Bringing it back to square one is basically not learning anything from this disaster. The task is to learn and scientifically map out the larger floodplain and build back better and in alternate ways.

What do you mean? Can you explain?

We need to give more space to the river to flow in a way that will not create more damage and water can pass without much obstruction. We are not thinking of that. We are thinking that the road will be fixed, we will raise the road and the embankment even higher, and you people will be more protected.

But the embankments and highways were all built without proper scientific planning or understanding how the natural drainage of the region is being obstructed.

We do not want a mass of concrete back into that landscape again. We want to actually scientifically map out the floodplain and then say, “Okay, see, this is going to recur. So where do we then relocate the people? How do we ensure that the future generations will not have to go through the same kind of flood?”

Floods are inevitable in the Assam floodplains. This control mindset has to give way to a mitigation and management mindset through rigorous cutting edge research. We must allocate resources to build the capacity of institutions and of the community in general to face such floods in the future.

Why do you think the local administration failed to respond to this disaster? Was it because of a lack of warning?

Communities can only use an early warning effectively if they are aware of where to seek safety. These are simply non-existent in the public discourse across districts in Assam. Are there specific drills done to prepare people to use any sort of early warning. If it is not existing, then what is the use of early warning?

Has increased construction in the region contributed to the floods?

The height of the highway in Upper Assam has been increased over the years as a response to floods. The logic is to make it safer for road traffic, for economic connectivity to keep on happening between Lower Assam and Upper Assam. But the homes on both sides are at a lower level, and at increased risk of high flooding. This kind of infrastructure accentuates and amplifies the disaster manifold.

In the mountains too, they have started building more roads. Because of that, more debris is coming down, raising the riverbed even higher. The embankments are not enough now to carry that sediment load and ultimately give way.

Earlier, if we did riverbed mining, it was a small scale. We didn’t have the audacity to take a JCB right into the riverbed and extract materials, which is illegal under environmental guidelines. But they are doing it across several tributaries of the Brahmaputra. The activities that have led to environmental destruction on both sides of the border of Nagaland and Assam is also unfortunately connected to livelihood in these areas. We have to change the narrative and understand what environmental damage in the larger transboundary landscape in the non-flood seasons can affect us severely in the flood season.

Can the Assam government shrug off its accountability and responsibility by blaming the high intensity rainfall upstream in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya?

We need to have a public discourse on seeking accountability, which is simply not there anymore. Disasters are being normalised in doling out compensation, and the future holds no accountability, save for the fact that there will be timely compensation.

We collectively need to learn from this disaster not in narrow fragmented contexts, but in a larger bioregional and biocultural context. These artificial administrative constructs and boundaries limit our thinking on floods and disasters, and prevent us from finding solutions. We need a bioregional governance model which looks at the problem from an overall watershed point of view, and not these district, state and regional boundaries.

A shorter version of this interview was published in the newsletter sent out to Scroll’s members on Saturday afternoon.

Here is a summary of last week’s top stories.

Crimes against women. Journalist Tarun Tejpal was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for raping and sexually harassing a junior colleague in 2013. The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court directed him to surrender within two weeks. It set aside a 2021 verdict of a sessions court that had acquitted Tejpal.

He was held guilty of rape by a person holding trust or authority, rape by a person who is in a position of control or dominance over a woman, sexual harassment and criminal force against a woman with an intent to disrobe her.

Tamil Nadu politics. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Udhayanidhi Stalin was briefly arrested on Tuesday for purportedly derogatory remarks about Chief Minister Vijay and actor Trisha Krishnan. He was released on the directions of the Madras High Court.

The leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly had made the alleged remarks at a protest rally in Thanjavur on Monday. The first information report against him was filed by a worker of actor-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam party. The complaint alleged that Stalin’s remarks were an indecent double entendre.

BJP leader acquitted in sexual harassment case. A Delhi court acquitted former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in a sexual harassment case filed against him by six women wrestlers. Vinesh Phogat, one of the wrestlers who had taken part in protests demanding Singh’s resignation, said that the complainants were disappointed with the court’s decision and would appeal against the order.

In January 2023, several Indian wrestlers, including medallists Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia launched a protest against the former Bharatiya Janata Party MP, accusing him of intimidation and sexual harassment.

Seven complainants, including a minor, accused the BJP leader of demanding sexual favours for professional help on at least two occasions, and also reported 15 incidents of alleged molestation and other forms of sexual harassment. He was later cleared with respect to allegations made by one of the women.

Surprising outcomes. Jan Suraaj party chief Prashant Kishor won Bihar’s Bankipur bye-election on his electoral debut. The polls became necessary after the MLA, BJP National President Nitin Nabin, resigned after becoming a Rajya Sabha MP.

The constituency near Patna is considered a stronghold of the Hindutva party. Nabin had held it since 2010, after representing the Patna West seat before its boundaries were redrawn.

In Madhya Pradesh’s Datia, Congress candidate Ghanshyam Singh won the bye-election defeating the BJP’s Ashutosh Tiwari. Despite the setback in the two states, in Gujarat the Hindutva party retained the Manjalpur seat.

Anant Gupta explores whether the youth protests drove Prashant Kishor’s bye-poll win.

Also on Scroll last week

• The dark side of the booming Indian market for weight-loss drugs
• In Kashmir, most pellet gun victims wait for compensation even a decade later
• ‘What future do children have if teachers can’t take classes?’: An SIR crisis has hit Mumbai schools
• Modi government boasted about the NEET re-exam. But students say it was full of glitches
• How the BJP stole the month of Sawan
• Delhi unrest: Police conduct can never be equated with that of a protesting crowd
• Undone by a meme: Mockery may have dealt a shock to the Modi-led regime – history shows why
• Two years after the July Uprising, Bangladesh’s only political consensus may be distrust of India
• ‘Ohh My Dog’ review: A smart kid and a fabulous canine deliver a parable about goodness and justice
• ‘Vadhandhi Season Two’ review: A juicy fleshing-out of the secrets hidden in skeletons

Follow the Scroll channel on WhatsApp for a curated selection of the news that matters throughout the day, and a round-up of major developments in India and around the world every evening. What you won’t get: spam.

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

The police in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district have filed a case against a Muslim cleric for allegedly making derogatory remarks about kanwariyas, PTI reported.

The case has been filed against Sajid Rashidi, the president of the All India Imam Association.

In an interview with IANS, the cleric had questioned whether those who “sit on roads consuming alcohol and intoxicants” could be called devotees of the Hindu deity Shiva.

“Can those who assault police personnel in uniform be called Shiva devotees?” Rashidi had said, referring to a video of a group of kanwariyas assaulting police personnel in Meerut. “Can those who smash the windows of a school van and injure children be called Shiva devotees?”

The cleric, however, clarified that he was not speaking about all those who take part in the annual Kanwar Yatra.

During the Kanwar Yatra, devotees, known as kanwariyas, walk hundreds of kilometres to collect water from the Ganga near Haridwar and carry it back to their home states to offer at temples. The yatra began on July 30 and will end on August 11.

A complaint against Rashidi’s remarks was filed by Narendra Panwar, the chief of a Hindutva organisation named Hindu Sangharsh Samiti.

The police have filed a first information report against the cleric under a provision of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which pertains to acts intended to outrage religious feelings, PTI reported.

Hindutva activists led by Panwar had held a protest on Friday, and demanded action against Rashidi.

On August 3, a group of kanwariyas who were travelling on motorcycles had allegedly attacked a school van in Lucknow after a minor accident.

The accident had taken place when the van was on its way to drop students to school. One of the motorcycles hit the rear of the vehicle after the van driver applied the brakes, which led to an argument.

The dispute prompted some of the kanwariyas to allegedly damage the van’s rear windshield and side mirror, before they fled.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Shiv Sena corporator Ramesh Mhatre, arrested last month for allegedly assaulting doctors and staff at a civic hospital in Maharashtra’s Dombivli, was released from jail on Saturday, NDTV reported.

Mhatre, who belongs to the Shiv Sena faction led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, was released from the Adharwadi jail in Kalyan.

The case relates to the corporator and his associates allegedly assaulting doctors at the hospital on July 6 after the family of a pregnant woman was asked to transfer her to another medical centre because there were no beds available in the neonatal intensive care unit, which the newborn was expected to require.

The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to Mhatre, but directed him to stay outside Maharashtra till the chargesheet is filed in the case, PTI reported. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad said that the corporator could be granted bail as the investigation is being carried out at a fast pace, and he had spent a considerable amount of time behind bars.

Mhatre spent over three weeks in jail in two separate stints. He was first arrested on July 8, and was granted bail by a sessions court on July 14.

However, the High Court had cancelled the bail four days later. Mhatre had surrendered before the police on July 19.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Bhagwat is scheduled to travel to Canada from August 31 to September 1 as part of a global outreach tour.

The RSS is the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling party in India.

Heather Mcpherson and Jenny Kwan – both MPs from Canada’s New Democratic Party – wrote to the country’s ministers for public safety, immigration and foreign affairs seeking that Bhagwat be barred from entering Canada.

“We ask you to declare Mr Bhagwat inadmissible to Canada on account of his history of hate speech, advocacy of violence against religious minorities, targeted intimidation of critics in India and in Canada, and his association with criminal organisations and listed terrorist organisations,” the two MPs wrote.

Serious concerns: extremist networks linked to intimidation, hatred, violence, foreign interference targeting minority communities/critics. Govt must put public safety and rights of Canadians ahead of political interests. Anti-Sikh/Islamophobic hate speech have no place in Canada pic.twitter.com/sPLSDf1DgS

— Jenny Kwan (@JennyKwanBC) August 7, 2026

Mcpherson and Kwan said that there is “considerable evidence” of the RSS’ sphere of influence in Canada. “Muslim, Sikh, Dalit and other minorities in India have been targeted with intimidation and violent threats,” they wrote.

The MPs also noted that United Nations human rights experts have called on Canada to ensure that members of the Sikh community are “protected from violent threats” by Hindutva extremist groups, including the RSS.

“Let us be clear: Mr Bhagwat’s presence in Canada would be a danger to Canadians,” the letter read. “He is not welcome here.”

Civil society groups oppose Bhagwat’s visit

Separately, more than 40 Canadian civil society and faith-based organisations also called on the country’s Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree not to allow Bhagwat to enter Canada, Maktoob Media reported.

The organisations said that the RSS chief’s visit would raise public safety concerns and urged the minister to “protect our communities from far-right extremism, hate speech, and foreign intimidation”.

Among the organisations that made the demand were Canadian Forum for Human Rights and Democracy in India, Canadian Council of Indian Muslims, Canadians for Indian Democracy, South Asian Dalit Adivasi Network, World Sikh Organization and Canadian Council of Muslim Women, Maktoob Media reported.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sara Varghese.

A Mumbai court on Friday denied anticipatory bail to two students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences who were booked for allegedly shouting slogans in support of jailed activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, The Indian Express reported.

The students have also been booked for possessing downloaded books and other material that the prosecution alleges reflects Maoist ideology.

Seven others, who were also booked after taking part in an event in October commemorating the death anniversary of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, were granted anticipatory bail, the newspaper reported.

Saibaba, who had more than 90% disability and used a wheelchair, spent over seven years in jail on accusations of having links with Maoists. In March 2024, he was acquitted by the Bombay High Court and released. Seven months later, in October 2024, he died of post-operative complications in Hyderabad.

On Friday, the court said that while paying homage to Saibaba was not unlawful, the allegations that the students had shouted slogans in support of Khalid and Imam, along with the material recovered from their electronic devices, weighed against granting them anticipatory bail, The Indian Express reported.

“Being students, it was expected from accused persons to respect the law of land,” the newspaper quoted the judge as saying.

Khalid and Imam have been in jail for more than five years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for their alleged role in a conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots.

The trial in the case has not yet begun, and their petitions for regular bail have been repeatedly rejected.

In October 2025, some students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences gathered on campus to light candles and display posters of Saibaba to commemorate his death anniversary.

The police had filed the case against the students who attended the event based on a complaint by the institute’s administration. The first information report invoked charges of causing prejudice to the nation, causing enmity between groups and participating in unlawful assembly, among others.

In their anticipatory bail applications, the two students denied shouting any slogans. They contended that they had been booked based on “false narratives” spread on social media.

They also stated that while the institute’s administration had claimed that other students had reported the slogans, there was no evidence on record to support the allegation, The Indian Express reported.

Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hirey opposed the students’ pleas, arguing that “objectionable material” had been recovered from the electronic devices, the newspaper reported. The material relates to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and publications of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The students’ lawyer argued that the material did not establish any links to Maoist ideology and that the literature was freely available for purchase.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: ‘Your careers are ruined’: Judge tells TISS students booked for GN Saibaba death anniversary event

Ink was thrown at student leader Neha Bora on Friday during a protest in Ranchi against alleged irregularities in recruitment exams in Jharkhand. The police have detained the alleged attacker, PTI reported.

The man, who was detained by the police, said that he had targeted Bora because of her support for jailed activist Umar Khalid, PTI reported.

“I do not like Neha Bora because she supports Umar Khalid,” PTI quoted him as saying. “…They are all anti-nationals.”

Khalid has been in jail since September 2020 for his alleged involvement in 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.

Bora is the president of the All India Students’ Association, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

इसी स्याही से लिखेंगे आने वाले देश का भविष्य! रोकने की हर कोशिश को करेंगे ध्वस्त!

( Video credits: @RanchiUpdates @The_FollowUp ) pic.twitter.com/EGyy8A5aJB

— Neha (@neha_aisa) August 7, 2026

Bora alleged that the man shouted “Jai Shri Ram” after throwing ink at her, PTI reported.

“To justify this criminal act, he did the same thing that persons affiliated with the [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] do,” she said. “…He invoked religion.”

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

She also alleged that “RSS-BJP goons” had thrown ink on 20 women, including herself.

RSS-BJP goons throw ink at me and around 20 other women in Ranchi, Jharkhand!

For them ink is a tool to try to shame others, we will write the future with ink! pic.twitter.com/52XvCZiwK5

— Neha (@neha_aisa) August 7, 2026

The All India Students’ Association also condemned the incident, calling it a “shameful act”. It alleged that BJP- and RSS-linked persons had been running a “hate campaign” against Bora’s participation in the protest.

Bora has emerged as one of the prominent faces of the nationwide youth protests against alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations.

Last month, she took part a 23-day hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar as part of the protests that led to the resignation of BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union education minister on July 25.

Protests in Jharkhand

The protests in Jharkhand began on July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against the alleged mismanagement of national competitive exams. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six demonstrators on fast.

The protesters have demanded the cancellation of the 14th Jharkhand Public Service Commission Combined Preliminary Test held on April 19.

They have also sought independent inquiries by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate into alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered a detailed inquiry into alleged donation irregularities at Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak temple, PTI quoted an unidentified official as saying on Saturday.

The chief minister has directed officials to examine the temple’s records for the last five years, the official said.

The development came after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray alleged on August 2 that donations worth Rs 18 crore were being embezzled from the temple every year.

Thackeray claimed that the temple’s weekly donations were below Rs 50 lakh before the alleged theft came to light, but increased to about Rs 1.5 crore after those allegedly involved were caught.

Nine temple employees were arrested in connection with the alleged theft in March, Sada Sarvankar, chairperson of the Siddhivinayak Temple Trust and a leader of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, said, according to The Indian Express.

The allegations came amid similar controversies over alleged thefts of donations at other prominent temples, including Badrinath in Uttarakhand and the Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya.

Edited by Sara Varghese.