Voting for 121 of the 243 Assembly seats in the first phase of the Bihar elections took place on Thursday. The provisional voter turnout was 64.6%, the Election Commission said.

The number was as of 8.15 pm, the poll panel said, adding that it was the highest ever voter turnout in Bihar.

At 9.15 pm, the Election Commission’s application data showed the highest turnout was recorded in Begusarai district (69.2%) and the lowest polling was in Patna district (57.9%).

Voting was held at 45,341 stations, most of them in rural areas. Of the 3.7 crore voters in these constituencies, 10.7 lakh are first-time voters, including 7.3 lakh between the age of 18 and 19.

The Opposition’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday urged the residents of Bihar to cast their votes in large numbers while keeping in mind their present and future, ANI reported.

“Vote for employment, education, good healthcare,” the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader said. “We are going to win, Bihar is going to win. A new government will be formed on 14th November...”

#WATCH | Patna: After casting his vote, RJD leader and Mahagathbandhan's CM face Tejashwi Yadav says, "I appeal to the people of Bihar to cast their votes in large numbers, keeping in mind their present and future. Vote for employment, education, good healthcare... We are going… pic.twitter.com/TiB6482PKN

— ANI (@ANI) November 6, 2025

As polling progressed, the RJD alleged that the local administration was deliberately slowing down voting at several booths in constituencies seen as strongholds of the party and its allies.

The Election Commission, in response, dismissed the allegation as “baseless and misleading”.

“Voting is taking place smoothly at all polling stations in Bihar,” the poll panel said on social media. “The Election Commission…is following all standard protocols to ensure that the voting process is fair, transparent and uninterrupted. There is no basis for such misleading propaganda.”

यह आरोप पूरी तरह निराधार और भ्रामक है। बिहार में सभी मतदान केन्द्रों पर सुचारू रूप से मतदान चल रहा है। भारत निर्वाचन आयोग मतदान प्रक्रिया को निष्पक्ष, पारदर्शी और निर्बाध बनाने के लिए सभी मानक प्रोटोकॉल का पालन कर रहा है। ऐसे भ्रामक प्रचार का कोई आधार नहीं है। https://t.co/4ZAErlSTt5

— Chief Electoral Officer, Bihar (@CEOBihar) November 6, 2025

The RJD also claimed that the district administration in Vaishali had “systematically” halted vehicles heading to Raghoopur through a bridge and boats from Kaccha Dargah.

This has deprived hundreds of voters in Raghoopur of their voting rights, the party claimed on social media. “Even upon showing voter cards, the police is not agreeing,” it added.

The Opposition party also claimed that the administration in the Danapur constituency had stopped the operation of boats, adding that voters were unable to reach their polling booths.

“Over 10,000 voters have been left reliant on a single steamer that makes only one round per day!” the party claimed on social media. “In such a situation, if any accident occurs, will the district administration take responsibility?”

The Election Commission has not yet commented on the allegations.

दानापुर विधानसभा में प्रशासन ने नावों का परिचालन बंद करवा दिया है, हजारों वोटर वोट डालने के लिए अपने बूथ नहीं जा पा रहे हैं!
एक स्टीमर, जो दिन में एक ही राउंड मारती है, के भरोसे 10 हजार से अधिक वोटरों को छोड़ दिया गया है!

ऐसे में कोई दुर्घटना हो गई तो जिला प्रशासन जिम्मेदारी… pic.twitter.com/HXmIxxkePa

— Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) November 6, 2025

The contests

The main contest in Bihar is between the ruling National Democratic Alliance and the Opposition Mahagathbandhan.

The NDA comprises Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), the Bharatiya Janata Party, Union minister Chirag Paswan’s faction of the Lok Janshakti Party, the Rashtriya Lok Morcha and the Hindustani Awam Morcha.

The Mahagathbandhan includes the RJD, the Congress, the Vikassheel Insaan Party and three Left parties – the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – along with the newly-formed Indian Inclusive Party.

Former political strategist Prashant Kishor’s new Jan Suraaj party, which is not part of the two main alliances, is making its electoral debut.

Tejashwi Yadav is among the prominent candidates in fray in the first phase. Several ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, including both Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, are also contesting in the phase.

Yadav is contesting from Raghopur, where he is aiming for a third consecutive win. His main opponent is Satish Kumar of the BJP. Kumar had defeated Yadav’s mother and former Chief Minister Rabri Devi in 2010, when he contested on a JD(U) ticket.

In nearby Mahua, Yadav’s brother Tej Pratap Yadav, who recently formed his own Janshakti Janata Dal party, is in a multi-cornered contest. He is seeking to clinch the seat from RJD’s Mukesh Raushan, the sitting MLA.

Follow Scroll’s coverage of the Bihar polls here.

Choudhary, who has been a member of the Legislative Council for two terms, is contesting a direct election after about 10 years from Tarapur.

Other ministers, most from the BJP, in the fray include Nitin Nabin (Bankipur), Sanjay Saraogi (Darbhanga), Jibesh Kumar (Jale) and Kedar Prasad Gupta (Kurhani), all defending their seats. From Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), ministers Shrawan Kumar (Nalanda) and Vijay Kumar Chaudhary (Sarairanjan) are contesting.

One of the most closely watched battles is in Mokama, where JD(U)’s Anant Singh, currently in jail for his alleged role in the killing of a Jan Suraaj worker, is contesting against RJD’s Veena Devi, the wife of former MP and Suraj Bhan.

The election is being held after a special intensive revision of voter rolls in the state. In the final electoral roll published on September 30, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded.

Several petitions against the voter roll revision in Bihar flagged concerns that the process could remove eligible voters from the list.

According to the Election Commission, Digha in Patna has the highest number of voters at about 4.5 lakh, while Barbigha in Sheikhpura district has the fewest, at 2.3 lakh. Kurhani and Muzaffarpur constituencies have the highest number of candidates – 20 each – while Bhorey, Alauli, and Parbatta have the fewest, with five each.

The second phase of voting will be held on Tuesday and the votes will be counted on November 14.

In the 2020 Assembly polls, the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan ended up with an identical vote share at 37.2%.

However, the NDA returned to power in Bihar with a slender majority, winning 125 seats in the 243-member state Assembly. The Opposition bagged 110 seats.

The RJD emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats but still lost the election.

Also read:

• How lingering ghost of ‘Yadav raj’ could help Nitish Kumar overcome anti-incumbency

• Barely 0.012% of Bihar voters are ‘foreigners’, most are Nepali women married to Indian men

The inquiry will be led by Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) Vikas Kharge, The Indian Express reported.

Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, Fadnavis said that he has sought details from the revenue and land records departments, and directed that an inquiry be conducted.

The matter that had come to light appeared to be serious, he said.

“Our coalition government believes in transparency, so this matter will be investigated to determine whether there are any irregularities, and if so, strict action will be taken,” Fadnavis added.

The controversy centres on the sale of about 40 acres of land in Pune’s Koregaon Park, allegedly purchased by Amadea Enterprises LLP, a firm co-owned by Parth Pawar, The Indian Express reported.

The land, classified as Mahar Watan land, was historically granted to the Mahar Scheduled Caste community. Such land cannot be sold without the state government’s permission.

The Opposition has alleged that the land, valued at about Rs 1,800 crore, was sold to the company for Rs 300 crore, with a stamp duty waiver reportedly granted within 48 hours of the deal.

The original valuation put the payable stamp duty at Rs 21 crore, The Print reported.

The state government has suspended a tehsildar and a sub-registrar over the allegations, PTI reported.

PTI quoted Ajit Pawar, who leads a faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, as saying that the chief minister “should definitely probe this” and that “it is his right”.

“I am not even remotely connected to this [land deal],” the deputy chief minister was quoted as saying. “When your children grow up, they do their own business.”

Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said that the government will verify whether the provisions governing Mahar Watan land and stamp duty exemptions had been followed, The Indian Express reported.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Ambadas Danve questioned how a company with a share capital of Rs 1 lakh could purchase such valuable land and secure a waiver so quickly, NDTV reported.

Congress leader Harshwardhan Sapkal demanded that Ajit Pawar resign over the incident.

Baramati MP Supriya Sule, from the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) faction, however, urged the government to clarify the facts. Sule said that there were conflicting claims about whether the transaction had even taken place and if stamp duty had actually been paid, The Indian Express reported.

“If people say I am backing Parth, I have no problem with that…I have spoken to him this morning,” she added. “He told me that he has done nothing wrong.”

Sule and Ajit Pawar are cousins.

The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance comprises the Uddhav Sena, Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction and the Congress.

The ruling Mahayuti alliance includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the NCP group led by Ajit Pawar.

In 2019, Parth Pawar had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Maval constituency on the ticket of the undivided NCP.

Assam Chief Information Commissioner Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta on Thursday resigned from his post, more than a month after the arrest of his brother, Shyamkanu Mahanta, in connection with the death of singer Zubeen Garg in Singapore, The New Indian Express reported.

His decision came after discussions with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the newspaper reported.

The move followed a Right to Information application filed seeking data related to government funds given to his younger sibling Shyamkanu Mahanta, PTI reported.

Zubeen Garg, a renowned Assamese singer, died on September 19 during a yacht trip in Singapore, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the North East India Festival there.

The event had been organised by the Indian government and the Indian high commission in Singapore, with support from the Assam Association and the North East India Association in the country.

A death certificate issued by the Singaporean authorities on September 20 stated the cause of Zubeen Garg’s death as drowning.

Seven persons have been arrested in the case, including Shyamkanu Mahanta, who was the organiser of the North East India Festival, Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddharatha Sharma and two musicians who were with the singer on the yacht – Shekharjyoti Goswami and Amritprava Mahanta.

Others who have been arrested include Zubeen Garg’s cousin Deputy Superintendent of Police Sandipan Garg, who had travelled with him to Singapore, and two of the singer’s personal security officers.

In his resignation letter, Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta, a former Indian Police Service officer and ex-director general of Assam Police, said that he felt it would be inappropriate for him to continue as the chief information commissioner once his brother’s name surfaced in the media in connection with the case, The New Indian Express reported.

“My conscience told me that if any RTI application were filed concerning my brother, it might give rise to doubts or misinterpretations,” he said.

Mahanta said he had already informed the chief minister’s office of his intention and had directed colleagues to alert him if any new RTI requests related to his brother were received.

“Those who know me have no doubt that even if I were in-charge, that person would have received completely accurate information,” PTI quoted him as saying. “However, in order to avoid the slightest doubt in people’s minds, I decided to resign from my responsibilities in this way.”

Also read:

• Are Assam protests over Zubeen Garg’s death becoming a political challenge for Himanta?

• ‘Police raj’: In aftermath of Zubeen Garg death, a spate of arrests, detentions of protesting fans

• Why musician Zubeen Garg’s death has unleashed a storm of anger in Assam

• What does Assam’s moment of unity around Zubeen Garg’s death mean in a time of divisive politics?

News broke in August 2025 that the Delhi High Court had ordered the banning of websites like Sci-Hub and Libgen. Many Indian academics were incensed, suggesting it would be the death of research in India and saw the ban as an assault on free and equal access to knowledge.

In India, it is common for both teachers and students to ask for e-copies of journals and books in online groups. They rely on someone with institutional access to provide them with copies. This person is usually either studying or teaching abroad, or in one of the very few institutions within India with access to scientific resources.

For many, their teaching and research depend on others’ benevolence in downloading and providing the required materials. For others, Sci-Hub and Libgen, which to an extent represent scaled-up (albeit illegal) forms of this practice, are lifelines.

Institutional access to scientific resources is a major issue in India, and even for premier public institutions, there are limitations. There have been significant funding cuts in higher education. The budget of the Higher Education Funding Agency was reduced from Rs 2,000 crore in 2020-2021 to Rs 1 crore in 2021-2022. The agency provides funds to Higher Education Institutions, and this budget cut is reflected in library budgets and institutional access to research material.

For instance, Jawaharlal Nehru University slashed its library budget from Rs 4.18 crore in 2016 to Rs 1.7 crore in 2017, marking a 60% drop. Thus, even with institutional access, not all journals are available. Frequently, the sites are down or unresponsive. Remote access, too, is a privilege that not everyone has. Hence, the dependence on those abroad for access to resources or the use of shadow sites.

The situation is slightly better in my own institution, the Indian Institute of Technology. In fact, after I joined IIT Guwahati, my friends told me that now I would be able to send them journal articles. However, these are elite institutions to which only a minuscule portion of the population is admitted. Data from both Indian Institutes of Technology and Management show sizable caste and gender gaps, both at the faculty and student levels.

According to Right to Information data, less than 20% faculty belong to marginalised caste in IITs and IIMs. As such, studying or working in a premier university remains a dream for the underprivileged. The majority of the population studies and works in state universities and affiliated colleges. Education and knowledge remain privileges available to a select few.

To facilitate better access to scientific resources, the central government had launched the One Nation, One Subscription scheme on 1 January 2025. This is in accordance with the 2020 National Education Policy’s focus on research as a core requisite for education and development in the country.

The One Nation, One Subscription scheme aims to provide access to high-impact journal publications to members of all Higher Education Institutions registered with the scheme. However, the reality is different. According to the All India Survey on Higher Education 2021-2022, there are 45,473 colleges registered under Survey. But the One Nation, One Subscription dashboard states that only 5,606 affiliated colleges have registered as members. On the contrary, almost all the IITs, IIMs, and Central Universities have registered as member institutions.

There is, therefore, a clear disparity in institutional access to scientific resources, which is determined by institutional privilege. As such, the banning of shadow sites like Sci-Hub and Libgen, even if these sites themselves have negative impacts on scholarship, will only increase the gap between the elites and others.

The National Education Policy 2020 is now being implemented across the country. Undergraduate students are expected to conduct high-level research and publish in reputed journals in the fourth year. However, without access to resources, either institutionally or through shadow sites, how this is to be achieved remains unclear.

In 2020-’22, India saw a 2.5 times increase in retractions largely due to misconduct. Predatory journals remain a major threat, with India contributing significantly to fake publications. Because of the precarious nature of the job market and the immense pressure of the publish-or-perish culture, there is a surge in research misconduct. This results in plagiarism, fake peer reviewing, data falsification and unethical practices.

In the journal that I work on as an associate editor, we receive the maximum number of submissions from India. Everyone wants to write and get published. However, most of those submissions are not eligible for publication. With the banning of the shadow sites, there will be a further decline in the quality of research. It will also encourage the use of AI tools as a means to circumvent access, but without the possibility of authors verifying these outputs.

Finally, the ban will impact aspiring researchers who are outside the institutional structure. Many are from marginalised communities, working in practice, or on breaks and trying to return to academia. For them, shadow sites are their only resource. Individual-level access to journals is not possible, as the subscription rates are impossibly high. The ban will therefore effectively block their access to higher education.

One Nation, One Subscription is the right initiative, but its implementation in a country with a significant higher education crisis is sketchy. The media reports budget cuts in premier universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University. However, the dismal state of affairs of state universities and colleges – the heart of India’s higher education system – doesn’t even make it to news stories. Institutional access to scientific materials is only a dream in those places.

This article was first published on the LSE Impact Blog.

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The voter turnout in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections was 60.1% till 5 pm, according to the Election Commission. The provisional turnout for the day was awaited.

Polling was taking place in 121 of the 243 constituencies. The final phase of polling will take place on Tuesday before the votes are counted on November 14.

Tejashwi Yadav, the Opposition’s chief ministerial candidate, alleged that the local administration was deliberately slowing down voting at several booths in constituencies considered strongholds of his Rashtriya Janata Dal and its allies.

The Election Commission said that the allegation was “baseless and misleading”.

The RJD claimed that the administration in Vaishali district had “systematically” halted vehicles heading to Raghopur through a bridge and boats from Kachchi Dargah. The Opposition party also claimed that the administration in the Danapur constituency had stopped boats from operating. This has deprived hundreds of voters of their voting rights, the party alleged.

The poll panel has not yet commented on the allegations. Read on.

Follow Scroll’s coverage of the Bihar Assembly elections here.

The Karnataka High Court refused to lift a stay on a state government order that barred the unauthorised assembly of more than 10 persons in public spaces such as roads, parks and playgrounds. The court told the state’s Congress government that if it wanted the stay to be withdrawn, it should approach the single-judge bench that had passed the order.

The October 18 government order was issued ahead of proposed marches by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to mark its centenary. The order was challenged by two organisations and two individuals who argued that it violated their right to peaceful assembly. Read on.

The Gujarat High Court suspended the life imprisonment sentence given to religious leader Asumal Harpalani, better known as Asaram Bapu, for six months in a 2013 rape case. The court verbally observed that it would suspend the sentence on similar lines as the Rajasthan High Court, which had in October done so on medical grounds and granted the 84-year-old interim bail.

The Rajasthan High Court had said that Asaram was in a “vegetative condition” and that the necessary medical facilities were not available in jail. Read on.

A group of women in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur district clashed with the police while trying to perform Hindu rituals at a mausoleum on Wednesday. The 500-year-old mausoleum in the Abu Nagar area is of Nawab Abdul Samad Khan, an official who worked for Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

Hindutva groups have claimed that the structure was constructed after razing a Hindu temple.

The police said that about 20 Hindu women, with earthen lamps and prayer material, approached the barricades around the mausoleum. Some of them allegedly tried to remove or climb over the barriers, after which the police tried to restrain them. They eventually performed Hindu prayers from a nearby lane in front of the structure. Read on.

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The Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed a petition filed by Shah Bano’s daughter against the release of Hindi language film Haq, observing that its disclaimer states that it is fictional and only inspired by the 1985 landmark Supreme Court judgement involving her mother, Live Law reported on Thursday.

The film, starring actors Emraan Hashmi and Yami Gautam, will release on Friday.

The 1985 judgement pertains to Bano’s petition for maintenance from her husband after their divorce. Under Muslim Personal Law, a man was only obliged to support his divorced wife for three months. After this period called iddat, the divorce was complete and the man was no longer liable.

However, following a 1973 amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code introduced by the Indira Gandhi government at the time, all divorced women, including Muslims, became entitled to maintenance.

In 1985, the Supreme Court, upholding the decision of the lower courts, directed Bano’s former husband to pay her a maintenance amount under the alimony provision of the law applicable to all communities.

In her petition against the release of Haq, Bano’s daughter, Siddiqua Begum Khan, argued that the film distorted personal aspects of her mother’s life, Bar and Bench reported.

Khan claimed that the filmmakers could not have depicted such events without the consent of Bano’s legal heirs. She alleged that the film exploited Bano’s privacy and personality for commercial gains, adding that she had inherited her mother’s reputational rights after her death.

However, Justice Pranay Verma on Tuesday rejected these arguments, observing that privacy and reputation earned by a person during their lifetime ends with their death and cannot be inherited, Live Law reported.

He added that the film did not claim to depict true events but was a fictional and dramatised adaptation of a book, Bano: Bharat Ki Beti, which was inspired by a public court judgement.

The court further held that the film was largely based on material already in the public domain, including court records, and therefore did not violate any right to privacy.

“Once a matter becomes a matter of public record, the right of privacy no longer subsists and it becomes a legitimate subject for comment by the press and media amongst others,” Live Law quoted the court as saying. “The same is precisely the fact situation in the present case.”

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday suspended the sentence of life imprisonment given to religious leader Asumal Harpalani, better known as Asaram Bapu, for six months in a rape case from 2013, Live Law reported.

Last month, the Rajasthan High Court had also suspended Asaram’s sentence for six months and granted him interim bail on medical grounds.

On Thursday, a Gujarat High Court bench comprising Justices Ilesh J Vora and RT Vachhani verbally remarked that they would also suspend the sentence on similar lines as the Rajasthan High Court.

The 84-year-old has been in custody since August 31, 2013, facing charges under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act.

In January 2023, a Gandhinagar Sessions Court sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment for raping a 16-year-old girl several times at his Motera ashram between 2001 and 2006. He was convicted under the Indian Penal Code sections about rape, unnatural offences, wrongful confinement, criminal intimidation, assault or criminal force to confine a person, and molestation.

The Rajasthan High Court, while granting Asaram interim bail in October, said that he was in a “vegetative condition” and that the necessary medical facilities were not available in jail.

The religious leader’s counsel on Thursday placed last month’s order before the Gujarat High Court, and urged it to consider his medical condition and age, Live Law reported. “Whenever the appeal is listed we will argue it...We are not trying to delay,” the counsel said.

The Gujarat government’s counsel, however, suggested that if adequate medical facilities were unavailable in Rajasthan, Asaram could be shifted to a jail in Gujarat.

The lawyer for the victim, BB Naik, argued against temporary bail, contending that the certificates produced by Asaram did not say that he was critical, according to Live Law.

Before his conviction, Asaram was a prominent religious leader who established his first ashram in the 1970s along the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad and built a multi-crore business empire comprising various products and spiritual literature.

A group of women in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur district on Wednesday clashed with the police while trying to perform Hindu prayers at a mausoleum site, sparking tensions in the area, PTI reported.

The nearly 500-year-old mausoleum, located in Fatehpur’s Abu Nagar area, is of Nawab Abdul Samad Khan, an official who worked for Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Hindutva groups have claimed that the structure was constructed after razing a Hindu temple.

Around 6 pm on Wednesday, about 20 Hindu women, carrying earthen lamps and prayer material, approached the barricades around the mausoleum, PTI quoted Additional Superintendent of Police Mahendra Pal Singh as saying.

The site has been barricaded by the police because of ongoing litigation pertaining to it.

Some women on Wednesday allegedly tried to remove or climb over the barriers, after which the police tried to restrain them, the news agency quoted unidentified officials as saying.

The women engaged in an argument with Station House Officer Tarkeshwar Rai, and accused the police of misconduct. They eventually performed Hindu prayers from a nearby lane in front of the structure.

Videos on social media showed them praying amid heavy security presence.

यूपी– जिला फतेहपुर में विवादित मकबरा स्थल पर महिलाओं ने पहुंचकर दीए जलाए और देव दीपावली मनाई !!

हिंदू संगठन इस मकबरे को मंदिर बताते हैं। यहां पहले भी पूजा करने पर बवाल हुआ था। BJP और RSS के कई लोगों पर FIR हुई थी।@bnetshukla pic.twitter.com/jnEGLDLBOF

— Sachin Gupta (@SachinGuptaUP) November 5, 2025

A first information report has been filed against 20 unidentified women under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to obstructing or assaulting a public servant, criminal intimidation and use of criminal force, PTI quoted the additional superintendent of police as saying.

No arrests have been made till now.

On August 11, members of Hindutva groups, including the Bajrang Dal, allegedly vandalised parts of the mausoleum and tried to pray inside the structure. The Opposition had alleged that Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in the area had incited the Hindutva groups to take over the mausoleum.

The site has been placed under tight security since then.

The Left Democratic Front government in Kerala on Wednesday said that it will move the Supreme Court against the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state, Onmanorama reported.

The decision came after an all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram, the Hindustan Times reported. All parties, except the Bharatiya Janata Party, that attended the meeting backed the state government’s decision to legally challenge the exercise.

On Tuesday, the Election Commission began the enumeration phase of the revision of the electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories, including Kerala. The exercise had been announced by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 27.

Besides Kerala, the states and Union Territories include Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry, where Assembly elections are expected to take place in 2026.

The draft rolls will be published on December 9, and the final list on February 7, 2026.

On Monday, Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam moved the Supreme Court against the revision of the electoral rolls in the state, describing it as a “constitutional overreach”. The petition contended that the exercise could lead to the large-scale disenfranchisement of voters.

At the meeting on Wednesday, Vijayan said that the Kerala government and the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) would seek legal advice on challenging the exercise, especially taking into account the upcoming local body elections in the state, Onmanorama reported.

These polls are scheduled to take place in November or December.

“While a revised voter list is in place following the Lok Sabha elections last year, the move to implement a radical voter list revision based on the 2002 list is both unscientific and ill-intentioned, the CM told the meeting,” the Hindustan Times quoted Vijayan’s office as having said in a statement.

VD Satheesan, Congress leader and leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, agreed with the concerns shared by the chief minister during the meeting. Satheesan said that he was ready to become a party to the case if the state government moved the court, the statement added.

CPI(M) state Secretary MV Govindan also described the move to revise the electoral rolls as “unconstitutional” and “anti-democratic”, the Hindustan Times reported.

In September, the Kerala Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution against the Election Commission’s decision to conduct the revision, saying that the “hasty” move could harm the rights of citizens.

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

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

On September 8, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to accept Aadhaar as a valid identity proof for the exercise in Bihar.

Aadhaar had not been among the 11 documents the poll panel had allowed as proof of citizenship. Petitioners had called its exclusion “absurd”, noting that it was the most widely held form of identification.

The Election Commission has repeatedly defended the revision as a clean-up effort to remove names of the deceased, duplicate entries and undocumented migrants.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed YouTuber Ajeet Bharti to submit details or links to his own videos to the Punjab Police if he wants to know whether any first information report has been registered against him for his allegedly objectionable remarks about Chief Justice BR Gavai.

Bharti, a YouTuber from Begusarai in Bihar who espouses Hindutva views, had moved the High Court in October seeking protection from any coercive action taken by the Punjab Police after media reports claimed that an FIR had been filed against him.

He limited his petition to seeking directions for the Punjab government to inform him whether any such FIR existed, Bar and Bench reported.

The case came following a controversy that began when Delhi-based lawyer Rakesh Kishore attempted to throw a shoe at Gavai on October 7 and accused him of having insulted Hinduism.

Kishore had said that he was angered by the chief justice’s remarks on the restoration of a beheaded idol of Hindu deity Vishnu and on the Supreme Court judgement holding punitive demolitions as unconstitutional.

Later, videos circulating online showed Bharti and two guests on his podcast using abusive language against Gavai and allegedly inciting violence.

On October 27, the High Court had asked the Punjab government to clarify whether an FIR had been registered against Bharti, Bar and Bench reported.

In its response on Monday, the Punjab government told the High Court that the police had taken cognisance of several social media videos containing “abusive and derogatory language” against the chief justice.

However, the state government also said that it was not feasible at this stage to identify who had been named as an accused in those FIRs as the investigation was ongoing.

The state government further submitted that Bharti could email details of his videos to the Mohali Police to ascertain whether he was among those named in any of the cases.

Taking note of this, Justice Subhas Mehla disposed of the petition with a similar direction, stating that Bharti was “at liberty to furnish details of the video uploaded by him on social media to the senior superintendent of police, SAS Nagar [in Mohali], and get details regarding the FIR against him”.

In his petition, Bharti maintained that his remarks had no criminal intent and that his statements were journalistic opinions on matters of public importance, not violations of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989, as some reports suggested, Live Law reported.

He also said that he held “the highest reverence for the judiciary” and added that his comments were intended to “improve the functioning of the system”.

Also read:

Attack on CJI Gavai: How casteist assertion throws a shoe at fragile constitutional ideals

The Karnataka High Court on Thursday refused to lift a stay on a state government order that barred any unauthorised assembly of more than 10 people in public spaces such as roads, parks and playgrounds, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices SG Pandit and Geetha KB declined to interfere with the interim stay granted earlier by a single-judge bench. It asked the Congress-led state government to approach the single-judge bench if it wished to seek the stay’s withdrawal.

The October 18 government order was issued ahead of proposed Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh marches to mark its centenary.

The RSS is the parent body of the Bharatiya Janata Party which is in power at the Centre.

The order was challenged by two organisations and two individuals who argued that it violated their right to peaceful assembly.

On October 28, Justice M Nagaprasanna had stayed the order.

He had observed that though the government order was aimed at curbing unauthorised use of public property, it prima facie infringed upon the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India, particularly the freedom of speech and expression and the freedom to assemble peacefully.

The single judge had added that fundamental rights cannot be taken away through a government directive in the absence of proper legislative backing. He proceeded to stay the order until a petition challenging the same is heard next.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mumbai chief Ameet Satam on Wednesday asserted that residents of the city “will not tolerate a Khan being imposed on them”, and alluded to Zohran Mamdani being elected as the New York City mayor.

“Considering the way the colours of some global cities are changing, and after seeing the surnames of some mayors and witnessing the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s vote jihad, it seems necessary to stay cautious in the context of Mumbai,” Satam said in a social media post.

He asserted: “If anyone tries to impose a ‘Khan’ on Mumbai, it will not be tolerated”.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mamdani became the first Muslim and South Asian to be elected as mayor of New York City.

Responding to Satam’s statement, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) spokesperson Anand Dubey said that the BJP leader’s “mental state has deteriorated”.

“From the day he became president, he realised he was about to be wiped out,” Dubey told ANI. “That’s why he’s been making bizarre statements about the mayor of Mumbai from day one.”

However, Dubey added that “only a Marathi Hindu will become the mayor of Mumbai”.

The Maharashtra State Election Commission on Tuesday announced elections for nagar panchayats and nagar parishads on December 2. Polling will be conducted using electronic voting machines and results will be declared on December 3.

The announcement came after the Supreme Court directed the state government to conduct local body elections by January 31, 2026, for all civic bodies whose terms have ended.

The Haryana chief electoral officer on Wednesday again asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to submit under oath the allegations he made about the state’s voter rolls having been manipulated.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi had alleged at a press conference that there was large-scale rigging in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, claiming that about 25 lakh fake voters were added to the electoral rolls ahead of the polls held in October 2024.

Following his remarks, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office posted on social media that a “detailed response” to Gandhi’s statements would be issued soon.

A few hours later, it reposted a letter dated August 9, which had been addressed to the Congress leader after he made similar claims of voter roll manipulation earlier this year.

Gandhi had previously alleged irregularities in voter lists in the Aland and Mahadevapura Assembly constituencies in Karnataka, which the Election Commission dismissed as “incorrect” and “misleading”.

He and the Congress have also repeatedly alleged the Election Commission of large-scale rigging in other states, including the Maharashtra Assembly polls held in November, alleging what they called “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of national institutions.” The Election Commission has rejected those allegations as well.

The letter reposted on Wednesday said: “It is understood that during a press conference…you had mentioned about the inclusion of ineligible electors and exclusion of eligible electors in the electoral rolls.”

“You are kindly requested to sign and return the enclosed declaration/oath under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, along with the names of such electors so that necessary proceedings can be initiated,” it added.

Under this rule, a registration officer has the power to require anyone making or supporting a claim or objection regarding the voter list to submit their evidence on oath.

The Election Commission’s letter also said that electoral rolls are prepared in a transparent manner and that the conduct or outcome of elections can be challenged only by filing an election petition before the High Court.

Gandhi’s allegations

At a press conference in Delhi on Wednesday, Gandhi claimed that a Brazilian woman had voted 22 times in 10 polling booths during the Haryana Assembly elections.

The Congress leader displayed a photograph of a woman, whom he claimed was a Brazilian model, alleging that her image was used in voter rolls of several constituencies.

Gandhi claimed this was part of a wider conspiracy to “turn a Congress landslide victory into a loss”.

He said that of the 25.4 lakh fake entries the Congress had identified in Haryana’s voter list, 5.2 lakh were duplicate voters, 93,174 had invalid addresses and 19.2 lakh were bulk voters.

Gandhi said that details of the misuse of Form 6 (additions) and Form 7 (deletions) were not available with the Congress because the Election Commission had restricted access to the data after the party alleged voter manipulation in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Karnataka.

He also said that one voter’s name and photograph appeared 223 times in two polling booths in Haryana, alleging that there were “thousands and thousands of such examples” in the state.

Also read: 5 key takeaways from Rahul Gandhi’s Haryana polls rigging allegations

Gandhi also accused the Election Commission of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party by not removing the duplicate voters and covering up evidence by “destroying CCTV footage”.

The Congress leader claimed that several BJP members were registered as voters in more than one state.

Gandhi also alleged that the system of “vote theft” had been “industrialised”, alleging that similar manipulation would take place in the Bihar Assembly elections. The first phase of polling in Bihar is being held on Thursday, and the second phase is slated for November 11. The results will be announced on November 14.

Allegations a ‘well-planned conspiracy’, says BJP

BJP leader Kiren Rijiju said that Gandhi’s allegations about Haryana when the elections are taking place in Bihar showed that the “issue is being fabricated to divert attention” as the Opposition has “no issue left in Bihar”.

The BJP leader said that Gandhi was targeting the country’s system and the credibility of institutions.

“Questioning the Election Commission, our democratic system, and the credibility of the institutions means you’re targeting the country, our system,” he said. “This is a well-planned conspiracy.”

Rijiju said that Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini’s comment that the BJP will win the state polls because it has a “vyavastha”, or arrangement, in place, meant that the party has the organisational structure and discipline to win elections.

The Union minister was referring to a video played by Gandhi during the press conference showing Saini making the assertion before the Assembly election result.

When Sridhar Vembu, the founder of Zoho, took to social media on October 28 to endorse a controversial report linking vaccines to autism, he lent his public credibility to claims that are not just blatantly unscientific, but also politically dangerous.

The McCullough Foundation Report, written in collaboration with discredited figures such as British anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield, presents itself as a comprehensive scientific review of the causes of autism. It is, however, a carefully curated long-form opinion piece that blends the stylistics of evidence-based medicine with the logic of conspiratorial grievance.

Vembu’s decision to elevate a document that asserts, against overwhelming evidence, that routine childhood vaccination is the “most significant modifiable risk factor” for autism, is emblematic of a broader moment in which technocratic elites and a fragmented media ecosystem converge to recast fringe scientifically dubious assertions as “brave dissent”.

This appeal in his tweets to “parental voices”, “censored doctors” and “gut-brain connections” draws directly from a repertoire that has long cast the scientific mainstream as dogmatic and the questioning outsider as heroic. It is, then, worth examining the social and political undertones of his arguments.

Performative uncertainty

The McCullough Foundation Report claims to be a comprehensive review on the determinants of autism. It features a long reference list, domain-specific language, and an evidentiary architecture that mimics systematic medical reviews.

But it is a carefully orchestrated performance of scientificity. It wishes to convey legitimacy by selectively curating studies, omitting robust counter-evidence and discrediting neutral or negative findings on specious grounds.

The crux of the report claims that childhood vaccination is a dominant modifiable risk factor for autism. The report arrives at this conclusion by reverse-engineering correlation into causation.

It relies heavily on anecdotal parental accounts and underpowered observational studies. At the same time, it dismisses large-scale epidemiological work that shows no causal association between vaccines and autism on the grounds that such studies lack “truly unvaccinated” controls. This ensures that only confirmatory data, cloaked in the garb of comprehensiveness, survives the review.

The report reanimates Andrew Wakefield, who was removed from the British medical register because of his involvement in a fraudulent study in 1998 claiming a link between vaccines and autism. By doing so, the report casts science as a battlefield between cowards and truth-tellers, between silencing institutions and those brave enough to challenge them.

Rise of counter-expertise

Vembu’s statements come in a long line of actions that have become increasingly prominent in both global and Indian vaccine discourse. Credibility no longer seems to hinge on peer review, disciplinary expertise, or institutional vetting. Instead, it pivots to a constellation of “parental voices”, “doctors silenced by the system” and laypersons armed with anecdote and intuition.

Vaccination schedules are the outcome of historically situated negotiations between scientific evidence, institutional constraints and public risk perception. To say that we are giving “too many vaccines” is to suggest there is an ideal number somewhere.

Vembu mocks “credentialism”, claiming that one need not be a doctor to “do their own research”. He valourises those who defy professional risk to speak “the truth”. In doing so, Vembu collapses critical engagement into contrarianism, turning every challenge to institutional science into an act of liberation. His actions also conceal the asymmetry of influence. Vembu is not just a parent speaking from the margins but a powerful entrepreneur whose words carry weight in public and policy spaces.

Political work of misinformation

It is tempting to treat Vembu’s statements as unfortunate lapses in judgement. But his claims are an emergent form of scientific counter-politics in which disinformation is strategically deployed in the fight over who gets to define the truth.

India is home to a plethora of communities with their own belief systems, experiences, struggles and ways of engaging with their social and political worlds. Their unique positions sometimes put them at odds with public health endeavours.

For instance, some communities have chequered histories of engagement with vaccination drives that result in them viewing the political and scientific system with a degree of mistrust. The anti-vaccine ecosystem exploits this fragmentation. It cultivates suspicion by amplifying the ambiguities, selectively citing outliers and weaponising the language of caution and inquiry.

This is part of a broader ideological project that aligns itself with growing suspicion toward institutions perceived as captured and complicit in globalist agendas. In this light, vaccines become proxies in a battle over autonomy, technocracy and sovereignty.

When Vembu echoes rhetoric that attacks the US Center for Disease Control, he does not simply challenge US or western institutions – he implicitly undermines the entire transnational architecture of health regulation, much of which is embedded in India through World Health Organization guidance, global partnerships that spring from the Gavi vaccine alliance, and national immunisation programmes.

This rhetoric has material consequences. Misinformation exacerbates the very inequalities it claims to expose. Vembu is unlikely to bear the brunt of an erosion of trust in vaccines. It is marginalised children whose communities lack access to paediatric care and pregnant women who now hesitate to receive a tetanus booster.

Reclaiming public reason

Vembu’s amplification of the McCullough Report and his framing of scientific consensus as “dogma” are part of the shift from science as a public good to science as a battleground of competing claims, where it is freed from the obligation of mutual accountability.

The way forward is not to double down on technocratic defensiveness, or dismiss sceptics as anti-science simpletons. Instead, there is a need to reimagine public reason as a shared terrain where uncertainty, disagreement and evidence can coexist as co-constructors of democratic science.

Vembu may believe that he is asking the right questions. But science progresses by questioning the world through shared methods, evidence and accountability. What counts as “truth” is built through collective scrutiny, not individual conviction.

Science’s openness to revision and its insistence on rigour makes it resilient. When people like Vembu mistake contrarianism for inquiry, they ignore that science advances through disciplined collaboration and the hard work of proof.

Vaccine confidence, like any social contract, is built slowly and undone swiftly. When elite voices lend weight to fringe ideas, the consequences get measured in lives, trust and the future coherence of science as a shared civic resource.

Rishabh Kachroo is an independent researcher working on the public understanding of science and the larger knowledge politics questions that surround it.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged large-scale rigging in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, claiming that about 25 lakh fake voters had been added to the state’s electoral rolls. He displayed a photograph of a woman, whom he claimed is a Brazilian model, alleging that her image was used in voter rolls of several constituencies.

Gandhi accused the Election Commission of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party by not removing the duplicate voters and covering up evidence by “destroying CCTV footage”.

He also alleged that several BJP members were registered as voters in more than one state.

The system of “vote theft” had been “industrialised” and a similar manipulation would take place in the Bihar Assembly elections that begin on Thursday, he added. Read on.

Also read: 5 key takeaways from Gandhi’s Haryana polls rigging allegations

A day before the first phase of polling in the Bihar Assembly elections, the Jan Suraaj party candidate from the Munger constituency joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. Sanjay Singh’s defection turned the contest into a direct fight between the National Democratic Alliance and the Opposition Mahagathbandhan. Singh said he will support the BJP candidate.

In October, party chief Prashant Kishor had alleged that the BJP had forced three other Jan Suraaj candidates to withdraw from the elections. Read on.

Union minister Lalan Singh claimed that the video, based on which a police complaint was filed against him for violating the model code of conduct ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls, was doctored. Singh said that his remarks were misinterpreted and that his intention was to protect vulnerable voters allegedly being threatened by Rashtriya Janata Dal workers.

The Patna district administration had registered a first information report against the Janata Dal (United) leader on Tuesday after a video showed him urging supporters to prevent “a few leaders” from leaving their homes on the polling day.

It was unclear when the comment was made. The “few leaders” Singh was referring to were Opposition leaders, according to reports. Read on.

Indian-origin Democratic Party candidate Zohran Mamdani quoted former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech after winning the New York mayoral elections. Mamdani, 34, defeated ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo to become the first Muslim and South Asian to be elected as the city’s mayor.

“Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru,” Mamdani said. “A moment comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

This was part of Nehru’s historic speech “Tryst with Destiny”, delivered on the eve of India’s independence in 1947.

Mamdani’s speech ended with the song Dhoom Machale from the 2004 Hindi language film Dhoom. Read on.

Also read: Zohran Mamdani elected New York mayor: What this means for Democrats in the age of Trump

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The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the arrest of former Indian Police Service officer Kuldip Sharma in a 41-year-old wrongful confinement case and granted him exemption from surrendering before the trial court.

The order was passed by a bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan while hearing Sharma’s plea challenging a Gujarat High Court order.

Sharma’s lawyer IH Syed told Scroll that the Supreme Court has overturned the High Court order and granted the former officer relief in the matter.

The case dates back to 1984 when Sharma was posted as the deputy superintendent of police in Kutch. He was accused of assaulting and unlawfully detaining an alleged smuggler Haji Abdul, who is also known as Ibhalaseth Haji Ibrahim Mandhra, inside a police station.

The complaint, however, was filed not by Abdul, now deceased, but by a political worker Shankarlal Govindji Joshi.

Joshi alleged that he and Abdul had gone to meet Sharma on May 6, 1984, in connection with alleged police harassment in another matter and that the police officer assaulted and detained Abdul for about an hour.

The complaint was filed two days later on May 8, 1984.

In 2012, the Gujarat government granted sanction to prosecute Sharma, which revived the case.

After 12 years, in February, a Bhuj-Kutch trial court convicted Sharma and his co-accused GH Vasavada, sentencing them to three months’ imprisonment. They were also fined Rs 1,000 each with an additional 15 days in jail if they failed to pay.

In September, a sessions court confirmed the conviction order.

Sharma and Vasavada had appealed against the order in the High Court and sought an exemption from surrender. Their request was rejected.

Following this, Sharma filed the revision petition in the Supreme Court.

Also read: How a Gujarat policeman connected to Sohrabuddin probe was convicted for a 41-year-old minor crime

Sharma’s contention

Sharma has contended before courts that the case against him was flawed and driven by political motives.

In the trial courts, he argued that before the Gujarat government granted sanction to prosecute him in 2012, it had appointed a public prosecutor to defend him and Vasavada.

Sharma stated that this showed a contradiction as the government had first supported them as innocent and later approved prosecution.

When Sharma and Vasavada challenged their conviction in the sessions court and approached the High Court, the state government opposed them.

In his 2015 special leave petition before the Supreme Court, Sharma had alleged that he was being targeted because of “malafide” intentions of Narendra Modi, who was the Gujarat chief minister in 2012, and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah.

Sharma said that in 2010, Shah, the state’s home minister at the time, was arrested and jailed in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. Shah was accused of directing the killing of Sohrabuddin, his wife Kausarbi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati. Shah was later acquitted.

It was the Gujarat Police that had first raised doubts about the alleged involvement of senior officers in the killings. This internal report was filed in the Supreme Court on the instructions of Sharma, who was the additional director general of police.

Shah was granted bail a few months after his arrest.

Two years later, the long-pending case against Sharma had resurfaced.

Militancy in this South Asian region is deeply rooted and worsening, driven by deteriorating relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as the enduring tensions between India and Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have strong and historic ties with militants, which are challenging to dismantle.

Recent peace negotiations aimed at resolving the current conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan have yielded limited progress. A sustainable peace is unlikely to be achieved until the underlying complexities of the region and the dynamics among the neighbors are acknowledged, understood and confronted.

First to understand is that neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan trusts or likes the other, though both have exploited each other. Pakistan has used Afghanistan as some kind of extension of its territory, a strategic depth against hostile neighbor India, often undermining Afghanistan’s sovereignty in the process.

While acknowledging strategic depth may have been a strategy in the past, Pakistan will say today that it is no longer true, but it is. One need only look at Pakistan’s reaction to last month’s visit to India by Afghanistan’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and India’s decision to upgrade the Afghan mission in Delhi. Pakistan was not happy, expressed its dissatisfaction, seeing it as a threat.

Taliban nationalism

Another important consideration to understand is the strong sense of nationalism held by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers who returned to power in 2021. Think what you will of their government and their interpretation of Islam and mindboggling restrictions on women and girls – rejected as wrong by all Islamic nations – the Taliban are nationalists, which Afghanistan’s minority ethnic and religious groups would likely interpret as a form of Pashtun nationalism.

While the current Afghan government denies discriminating against Afghanistan’s other ethnic nationalities, its actions say otherwise. The government, known as the Islamic Emirate, is not inclusive, does not give equal or even fair treatment to its other ethnic and religious groups in the country. Its makeup reflects the Taliban movement, which is Pashtun dominated, with the inclusion of perhaps one or two from other ethnic groups, but their influence is negligible.

The Taliban, like previous Afghan governments before them, refuse to recognize the border, known as the Durand Line, drawn by the departing British in 1893 after losing a second Afghan war. Afghanistan rejects the line, instead claiming as its own a huge chunk of Pakistan’s northwest where ethnic Pashtuns dominate.

This border region has been the focal point of conflict between the Afghan Emirate government and Pakistan, with periodic airstrikes conducted by Pakistan deep inside Afghanistan. Pakistan asserts that these operations are carried out under its right to pursue anti-Pakistan militants regardless of their location.

International lawlessness

While international law should and does protect sovereignty, those laws have become irrelevant as both Israel and the United States routinely attack wherever and whenever they like, arguing their right to go after their enemies wherever they may be. They also have shunned any suggestion of providing proof that those they are killing are terrorists and have treated sovereign borders as meaningless.

Pakistan’s actions can be attributed to this newly established international lawlessness.

History also shows that the Taliban do not respond to demands, as seen during their first rule when the Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, repeatedly refused Pakistan’s requests to surrender Pakistani militants hiding in Afghanistan.

Omar also denied Saudi Arabia’s 1998 request to hand over bin Laden, even as Riyadh threatened to remove its support. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were two of only three countries to recognize the Taliban’s first government. The United Arab Emirates was the third.

Still Pakistan does not treat Afghanistan as an equal; instead, it views itself as the dominant force dictating the terms of a troubled relationship. These opposing mindsets remain fundamentally incompatible and continue to stand as a major obstacle to any lasting peace agreement.

While Pakistan has been criticised for its disregard for Afghanistan’s sovereignty, Afghanistan also bears scrutiny, having used Pakistan as a safe haven for more than 5 million of its citizens fleeing the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. More than 2 million still live in Pakistan, many of whom have remained in Pakistan for more than 40 years.

For decades Pakistan has been host to one of the world’s largest refugee populations, receiving little, to no international support. Pakistan is relentlessly criticized by the international community when it seeks to reduce their numbers, even as countries such as the United States have snatched children from the arms of migrants seeking refuge in America as a means to stop the influx of refugees to the United States.

The double standard is not lost on Pakistan.

Today in Pakistan most Pakistanis feel their hospitality has been betrayed by Afghans, who almost to a person, feel animosity toward Pakistan, while in turn Pakistan blames most of its militant problems on Afghanistan.

Pakistan has used allegations of widespread infiltration of militants as reason to order hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees to leave Pakistan and return to their homeland, many of whom were born in Pakistan and have never been to Afghanistan.

Still the “militant problem” is real, and it is a burden both countries share and both have contributed toward.

During the 1980s Afghan war against the former Soviet Union, Afghan fighters and pretty much any other young man in the Islamic world, willing to pick up a gun to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets, were cheered, trained and financed by Pakistan and the United States.

Laying the foundations

It was then that Pakistan and the United States together laid the foundations of the Islamic militancy that burdens the world today by using religious fervor as the inspiration to propel Afghans fight against the “godless communists” as U.S. President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union at the time.

Since then Pakistan’s security agencies have nurtured some of those same militants, while also creating new ones. The same is true of successive post-Soviet Afghan governments, all of which comprised former mujahedeen or holy warriors as they were known then. To Ronald Reagan they were freedom fighters.

When the first mujahedeen government took power in 1992 dominated by the famed anti-Taliban hero, Ahmed Shah Masood, also a leading anti-Soviet fighter, his closest ally, Abdur Rasool Sayyaf, had deep links to the Arab speaking militants, including Osama bin Laden and he protected and nurtured those ties throughout Masood’s rule. Terrorist training camps flourished throughout eastern Afghanistan, some protected by Sayyaf, some by other members and allies of Masood’s government, which was headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani.

It was during Masood and Sayyaf’s time in power and before the Taliban’s first rule that bin Laden returned to Afghanistan to eventually plot the 9/11 attacks against the United States.

The 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan might seem a long time ago, but many of the players are still around, have deep links to the many militant groups and have the potential to still be troublesome.

Sayyaf is still a player and was even embraced by the United States in 2001 when the U.S.-led invasion threw out the Taliban. The Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, which fell to the returning Taliban in 2021, embraced warlord and former mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, signing a peace deal with him in 2019. Like Sayyaf, Hekmatyar too had close ties to militants and was a particularly brutal mujahedeen leader. Today he is in Kabul and still has close ties to some in Pakistan’s security agency.

Several of today’s Taliban leaders including its supreme leader, Mullah Hibaitullah Akhunzada also fought in that 1980s anti-Soviet war.

That war and the militants it spawned remains a deadly legacy today.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have yet to exhibit both the capacity and willingness to fully eliminate their associations with militant groups. Additionally, there are instances where such groups have reportedly been leveraged by neighboring India in actions directed against Pakistan.

The anti-Pakistan militants, now in Afghanistan, and known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, fought alongside the Taliban in their 20-year battle against the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Not all of today’s Afghan leaders have ties with the TTP, but some do, as do many of the foot soldiers.

It must be understood that Afghans don’t easily give up their former allies, Bin Laden being a prime example.

Add to the complexity of the problem is the fact that Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, known by the acronym, ISI, also had past affiliation with some within the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan using those they saw as “good” Taliban as proxies and fighting those they saw as “bad” Taliban. Although certain ties have been definitively severed, others remain uncertain or unresolved.

But the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is only one of many militant groups operating in the region.

Today in Pakistan and Afghanistan there is a cacophony of militant groups and each country in the region uses one or more against the other – Pakistan uses militants against India, India against Pakistan and Afghanistan against Pakistan. None of the three neighbors is without blame and each of the three countries uses militants as proxies against the other.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, Pakistan has borne the brunt of escalating militant violence, suffering thousands of casualties among both military personnel and civilians.

The broader region has also felt the impact of the militant havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Afghanistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement primarily targets China, while the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan presents a security concern for Russia and the Central Asian republics.

The Islamic State in Khorasan Province, based in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a recognised affiliate of the Islamic State and represents a significant international threat. Investigations have linked several unsuccessful attacks in Europe to ISKP, and the group also continues to pose risks within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The use of militant proxies has been a persistent feature in this region. Accurately identifying shifting alliances, underlying interests and the nations supporting these militants is increasingly critical. This necessity is heightened by the risk that intensified military operations could exacerbate instability in an area already challenged by nuclear armament.

This is a Sapan News syndicated feature published in collaboration with Kathy Gannon’s Substack,

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged large-scale rigging in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, also claiming that a Brazilian woman voted 22 times in 10 polling booths.

At a press conference in Delhi, Gandhi claimed that the names of about 25 lakh fake voters were added to the electoral rolls in Haryana ahead of the polls in October 2024.

The state has about two crore voters, which means one in every eight voters is fake, he added.

The Congress leader displayed a photograph of a woman, whom he claimed was a Brazilian model, alleging that her image was used in voter rolls of several constituencies.

“This is a centralised operation,” he claimed. “What is a Brazilian person doing on a voters’ list in Haryana?”

Gandhi claimed this was part of a wider conspiracy to “turn a Congress landslide victory into a loss”.

He said that of the 25.4 lakh fake entries the Congress had identified in Haryana’s voter list, 5.2 lakh were duplicate voters, 93,174 had invalid addresses and 19.2 lakh were bulk voters.

Gandhi said that details of the misuse of Form 6 (additions) and Form 7 (deletions) were not available with the Congress because the Election Commission had restricted access to the data after the party alleged voter manipulation in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Karnataka.

The Election Commission has not commented on Gandhi’s allegations yet.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐚'𝐬 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭?

❓ Who is this lady?
❓ How old is she?
❓ Where is she from?

She voted 22 times in Haryana, across 10 different booths in the state, using multiple names: Seema,… pic.twitter.com/3VHdBDLc14

— Congress (@INCIndia) November 5, 2025

He also said that one voter’s name and photograph appeared 223 times in two polling booths in Haryana, alleging that there were “thousands and thousands of such examples” in the state.

Gandhi accused the Election Commission of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party by not removing the duplicate voters and covering up evidence by “destroying CCTV footage”.

“The Election Commission can remove duplicates within seconds,” he said. “All they need to do is run one query, identify the same photo, name or address. It is not being done. Why? Because they are helping the BJP.”

The Congress leader also claimed that several BJP members were registered as voters in more than one state.

“Thousands of BJP leaders are voting in both Uttar Pradesh and Haryana,” he alleged. “There are people who are BJP leaders in one state and voters in another.”

At the press conference, Gandhi showed a video of BJP’s Kerala Vice President B Gopalakrishnan, in which the BJP leader said that his party will relocate persons from other states to constituencies it intends to win.

In August, Gopalkrishnan had said: “In constituencies where we intend to win, we will bring people even from Jammu and Kashmir. We will settle them for a year and ensure they participate in the voting process. There is no doubt about it. We will do it again in the future.”

On Wednesday, Gandhi also claimed that the system of “vote theft” had been “industrialised”, alleging that similar manipulation would take place in the Bihar Assembly elections.

The first phase of the Bihar polls will take place on Thursday and the second phase on November 11. The counting of votes is scheduled for November 14.

He invited residents of Bihar’s Jamui district to the stage, who said that their names had been deleted from the electoral rolls.

The Congress leader alleged that, like them, several genuine voters were removed during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.

The exercise in Bihar was completed ahead of the Assembly polls. In the final electoral roll published on September 30, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded in the state.

Several petitions were filed against the voter roll revision in Bihar, raising concerns that the process could remove eligible voters from the list.

“You can ask why we did not detect [the errors] in the voter list, that’s because the voter list comes at the last minute,” Gandhi said.

Gandhi also questioned Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s claim that the use of “House Number 0” in voter records is meant for homeless persons.

The leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha alleged that the real reason the number is assigned is to make voters untraceable, accusing Kumar of “lying to the people of India”.

He said that this method makes voter verification impossible, adding that one such address listed 501 voters, but when checked, no one was actually living there.

On September 1, Gandhi had said that his party would release a “hydrogen bomb” of evidence about vote theft, adding that after the disclosure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will “not be able to show his face to the country”.

Allegations a ‘well-planned conspiracy’, says BJP

BJP leader Kiren Rijiju said that Gandhi’s allegations about Haryana when the elections are taking place in Bihar showed that the “issue is being fabricated to divert attention” as the Opposition has “no issue left in Bihar”.

The BJP leader said that Gandhi was targeting the country’s system and the credibility of institutions.

“Questioning the Election Commission, our democratic system, and the credibility of the institutions means you’re targeting the country, our system,” he said. “This is a well-planned conspiracy.”

Rijiju said that Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini’s comment that the BJP will win the state polls because it as a “vyavastha”, or arrangement, in place, meant that the Hindutva party has the organisational structure and discipline to win elections.

The Union minister was referring to a video played by Gandhi during the press conference showing Saini making the assertion before the Assembly election result.

Also read: 5 key takeaways from Rahul Gandhi’s Haryana polls rigging allegations

Aland, Mahadevapura voter manipulation allegations

On September 18, Gandhi claimed that a centralised software programme was being used to systematically delete names from voter lists in Karnataka, and alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Kumar was protecting those committing “vote theft”.

The deletion process specifically targeted polling booths where the Congress was dominant, Gandhi alleged.

The Opposition leader said that the Congress’ analysis of the Aland Assembly constituency in Karnataka showed that an unknown entity had used software to delete voters in a centralised manner.

He alleged that these voter IDs were deleted with the help of fake login IDs and phone numbers from outside Karnataka.

While it was unclear how many voters were removed from the electoral rolls through the process in Aland, 6,018 applications had been filed impersonating other voters, the Opposition leader claimed.

The persons had never filed the applications, he added.

In response, the Election Commission said that the allegations made by Gandhi were “incorrect and baseless”.

The commission said that “no deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by [Gandhi]”.

In 2023, “certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors” in Aland and a first information report was filed by the Election Commission itself to investigate the matter, the poll panel said.

The Aland constituency was won by a BJP candidate in 2018 and by a Congress nominee in 2023, the poll panel added.

On August 7, Gandhi said that his party had spent six months examining the electoral rolls in Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency and found discrepancies in more than one lakh names.

The Congress leader claimed that the electoral rolls included 11,965 duplicate entries, 40,009 voters with fake or invalid addresses, 10,454 “bulk voters” registered in a single address, 4,132 voters with invalid photographs and 33,692 voters in whose cases there had allegedly been misuse of Form 6.

The Election Commission’s Form 6 is an application document for registering new voters.

He alleged that this was evidence of the poll panel having colluded with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Election Commission had dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “false and misleading”.

Election rigging claims

Gandhi and the Congress have also repeatedly alleged that there was “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of our national institutions” in the Maharashtra polls held in November.

The BJP-led alliance had defeated the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition, which includes the Congress, in the polls.

The Election Commission, however, has rejected these allegations. On August 14, it described Gandhi’s claims regarding Mahadevapura as “false and misleading”. Earlier, in February, it had called attempts to malign the Commission by parties disappointed with poll results “completely absurd”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged large-scale rigging in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, claiming it was part of a wider conspiracy to “turn a Congress landslide victory into a loss”.

At a press conference in Delhi, Gandhi said that the names of about 25 lakh fake voters had been added to the electoral rolls in Haryana ahead of the polls in October 2024.

The state has about two crore voters, which means one in every eight voters is fake, he added.

Gandhi also accused the Election Commission of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party by failing to clean up the voter rolls.

The Congress leader’s press conference came a day before the first phase of Assembly polls in Bihar.

Here are the five key takeaways from Gandhi’s allegations:

1. The Congress leader displayed a photograph of a woman, whom he claimed was a Brazilian model, alleging that her image was used in voter rolls of several constituencies of Haryana. “This is a centralised operation,” he alleged. “What is a Brazilian person doing on a voters’ list in Haryana?” Gandhi also said that one voter’s name and photograph appeared 223 times in two polling booths, alleging that there were “thousands and thousands of such examples” in the state.
2. Gandhi said that of the 25.4 lakh fake entries the Congress had identified in Haryana’s voter list, 5.2 lakh were duplicate voters, 93,174 had invalid addresses and 19.2 lakh were bulk voters. He added that details of the misuse of Form 6 (additions) and Form 7 (deletions) were not available with the Congress because the Election Commission had restricted access to the data after the party in August alleged voter manipulation in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Karnataka.
3. Alleging that the BJP was involved in voter list manipulation, Gandhi also played a video of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini asserting at a press conference before the election result that the Hindutva party would form the government with a full majority. “There is full vyavastha [arrangement] of it, do not worry,” Saini said in the video. Gandhi pointed to the chief minister’s remarks and said: “Please notice the smile on his face and the word vyavastha. What exactly is he talking about? When all exit polls and indicators showed that the Congress was sweeping the election, this gentleman was very sure and smiling that the BJP had some vyavastha that would reveal itself.”
4. Gandhi also claimed that the system of “vote theft” had been “industrialised”, alleging that similar manipulation would take place in Bihar too. He invited residents of Bihar’s Jamui district to the stage, who said that their names had been deleted from the electoral rolls. The Congress leader alleged that, like them, several genuine voters were removed during the recent special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.
5. The Congress leader claimed that several BJP members were registered as voters in more than one state. “Thousands of BJP leaders are voting in both Uttar Pradesh and Haryana,” he alleged. “There are people who are BJP leaders in one state and voters in another.”

The Election Commission has not yet commented on Gandhi’s allegations.

Reacting to Gandhi’s remarks, BJP leader Kiren Rijiju said that raising allegations about Haryana while Bihar was voting showed that the “issue is being fabricated to divert attention”, as the Opposition “has no issue left in Bihar.”

The Kerala High Court has held that a Muslim man’s second marriage cannot be registered under the 2008 Kerala Registration of Marriages Common Rules, unless his first wife is first notified and given an opportunity to be heard, Bar and Bench reported on Wednesday.

Justice PV Kunhikrishnan observed that while Muslim personal law allows a man to have multiple wives, this right cannot override constitutional principles of equality and fair hearing.

The judge said that since marriage registration is a legal process, basic fairness under the 2008 Rules requires that the first wife, whose marriage is still valid, must be informed before her husband’s second marriage is registered.

Kunhikrishnan added that if the first wife objects to the registration on the grounds that the second marriage is invalid, the registrar must refrain from proceeding and refer the parties to a competent civil court to decide its validity under personal law.

“If the husband is neglecting the first wife or not maintaining the first wife, or inflicting cruelty on the first wife and thereafter contracting a second marriage, making use of his personal law, an opportunity of hearing to the first wife will be beneficial to her at least…,” Bar and Bench quoted the judge as saying.

The court further observed that it could not disregard the feelings of first wives when their husbands seek to register their second marriages, Live Law reported.

Observing that constitutional rights cannot be ignored in the name of religious freedom, Kunhikrishnan said: “Equality in gender is a constitutional right of every citizen. Men are not superior to women. Gender equality is not a women’s issue but a human issue.”

“The principles derived from the Holy Quran…enjoin principles of justice, fairness, and transparency in all marital dealings,” Bar and Bench quoted him as saying.

However, if the second marriage took place after pronouncing talaq (divorce) to the first wife, there is no question of giving notice to the first wife, the judge held.

The observations were made while hearing a petition filed by a Muslim man and his second wife, challenging the registrar’s refusal to register their marriage under the 2008 Rules, Live Law reported.

Union minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Lalan Singh on Wednesday claimed that the video, based on which a police complaint was filed against him for violating the Model Code of Conduct before the Bihar Assembly elections, was “doctored”, PTI reported.

On Tuesday, the Patna district administration registered a first information report against Singh after a video widely shared online showed him urging supporters to prevent “a few leaders” from leaving their homes on the polling day in Bihar.

The purported video showed Singh addressing a campaign meeting in Mokama, where he is heard telling the crowd: “There are a few persons. Don’t let them step out of their homes on polling day. Keep them packed inside.” Mokama is a town in Patna district.

It was unclear when the comments were made.

“If they make too much fuss, take them along and let them cast their vote,” Singh said in the video. “Tell them, ‘Come with us, vote, and then go home and rest’. So, from today, everyone take charge.”

The “few leaders” Singh was referring to were Opposition leaders, according to reports.

On Wednesday, Singh said that a full investigation into the incident would clear his name. He added that the Election Commission, which is overseeing the inquiry, would review “the full video footage” and the truth will come out, PTI reported.

#WATCH | #BiharElection2025 | Patna: On his viral video and FIR against him over the same, Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan (Lalan) Singh says, "...If someone sees the complete video, they would find RJD's tweet misleading. An RJD leader lives in the village from where this video has… pic.twitter.com/3xsXsidPgt

— ANI (@ANI) November 5, 2025

“I respect the action initiated by the Election Commission, which is a constitutional, non-partisan body,” PTI quoted Singh as saying. “But the video in question, which is also being shared by our rival RJD, is doctored.”

Singh claimed that his remarks had been misinterpreted and that his intention was only to protect vulnerable voters allegedly being threatened by Rashtriya Janata Dal workers not to support the JD(U), ANI reported.

“As a political party, it was our responsibility to stand by such voters and give them courage,” PTI quoted him as saying. “That was what I tried to do and it will be clear to anyone who watches the complete video.”

The Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal had widely shared the clip on social media, accusing Singh of attempting to suppress votes and of “running a bulldozer over the chest of the Election Commission.”

Following the criticism, the Election Commission on Tuesday issued a notice to Singh, asking him to respond within 24 hours.

The polling in the Bihar Assembly elections will be held in two phases on Thursday and Tuesday. The counting of votes will take place on November 14. The Model Code of Conduct is in force in the state.

The code is a set of guidelines issued by the polls panel for political parties, candidates and governments to follow during an election. It sets guardrails for speeches, meetings, processions, election manifestos and other aspects of the polls.

Six women were killed on Wednesday after being run over by a train while crossing tracks at the Chunar Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district, The Indian Express reported.

The women were hit by the Netaji Express after they got down from the Chopan Express on the side opposite to the main platform, The New Indian Express quoted unidentified Railway officials as saying.

The incident took place at about 9.30 am.

“The Chopan Express had stopped at platform number four,” Amit Singh, the public relations officer at the NCR Prayagraj Division, told PTI. “Instead of using the foot overbridge, some passengers tried to alight directly onto the tracks and were run over by the approaching train.”

Additional Director General (Railways) Prakash D told The Indian Express that the identities of all six women had been established. The police said that all of them were residents of Mirzapur.

Chief Minister Adityanath expressed his condolences to the families of those who died in the incident and directed officials to ensure immediate relief for the injured, ANI reported.

The chief minister also instructed personnel from the State Disaster Response Force and National Disaster Response Force to reach the spot and expedite relief work.

The Allahabad High Court has imposed a fine of Rs 75,000 on the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state for continuing the investigation into an abduction case despite the alleged victim stating that she had left home of her own free will, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

A division bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani passed the order on October 30, while hearing a petition filed by Umed alias Ubaid Khan and others, who were arrested under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act in the case.

The petitioners had sought to quash a first information report lodged at the Matera police station in Bahraich district, accusing them of abducting a woman and attempting to convert her religion.

The bench ordered Khan’s release, noting that even after the woman had given a statement before a magistrate that she had gone to Delhi voluntarily to meet her daughter, police continued the probe and kept the accused in custody for one and a half months, the Hindustan Times reported.

“This petition is a glaring example of the state authorities failing and scrambling over each other in order to score brownie points,” the court was quoted as saying.

Describing the police action as “vexatious”, the bench ordered the state to pay Rs 50,000 to Khan and deposit the remaining Rs 25,000 with the court’s Legal Aid Services, the newspaper reported.

The case pertains to a first information report filed on September 13 by Bahraich resident Pankaj Kumar, who alleged that his wife had gone missing from home with jewellery and cash, and that five men, including Khan, had lured her away, the Hindustan Times reported.

Police booked the accused under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita sections pertaining to kidnapping and under the state’s anti-conversion law.

The woman returned home and gave a statement, following which police added charges of criminal breach of trust, stolen property and a provision of the 2021 Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

Khan was arrested on September 18, The Indian Express reported.

However, the next day, on September 19, the woman recorded another statement before the magistrate, saying she had left home voluntarily due to “regular domestic abuse” by her husband. She denied any attempt at religious conversion and handed over her jewellery to the police.

Her lawyer also told the court that her earlier statement had been made under threat and coercion from her husband and in-laws, the newspaper reported.

Taking note of her second statement, the bench observed that there was “no justification” for the police to continue the investigation when the woman herself had not supported the prosecution’s case.

Quashing the FIR, the bench directed the immediate release of Khan if he was not wanted in any other case.

It also permitted the state to proceed against the officials involved in the investigation and against the complainant for filing a false case, the Hindustan Times reported.

Indian-origin Democrat Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday invoked India’s former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech after defeating ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo in the New York mayoral elections in the United States.

“Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru,” Mamdani said in his victory speech. “A moment comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

This was part of Nehru’s historic speech “Tryst with Destiny”, delivered on the eve of India’s independence in 1947.

VIDEO | USA: Addressing his supporters after winning New York city mayoral elections, Indian-origin democratic socialist lawmaker, Zohran Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani), quotes former Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru in his victory speech.

He says, “Standing before you, I’m… pic.twitter.com/gydR3zPsql

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 5, 2025

“Tonight, we have stepped out from the old into the new,” Mamdani said. “So let us speak now in clarity and conviction that cannot be misunderstood about what this new age will deliver and for whom. This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.”

He added: “…Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis..”

Mamdani’s speech ended with the song “Dhoom Machale” from the 2004 Hindi film Dhoom.

Zohran Mamdani's victory speech just ended with the closing song "Dhoom Machale" 😱 pic.twitter.com/DJfFLFXcOz

— Saib Bilaval (@SaibBilaval) November 5, 2025

Thirty four-year-old Mamdani, the first Muslim and South Asian to be elected as the city’s mayor, won 50.6% of the vote to Cuomo’s 41.2%. The Republican candidate also in the running was Curtis Silwa.

The election became as much a referendum on the Democratic party’s future as it was about governing the US’ largest city.

Mamdani, born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda, is the son of Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani and acclaimed Indian filmmaker Mira Nair.

The Madhya Pradesh Police has arrested the wife of a doctor who is in jail for prescribing a cough syrup that purportedly led to the death of 25 children in the state, The Hindu reported on Tuesday.

The deaths that took place over the past two months in the state came after the children allegedly consumed a substandard cough syrup named Coldrif.

The doctor, Praveen Soni, had been arrested on October 5 for allegedly prescribing Coldrif to the children. He was a paediatrician at the Civil Hospital in Chhindwara’s Parasia town and also had a private practice, the police had alleged.

Jyoti Soni, the wife of the paediatrician and the proprietor of a pharmacy at his private practice in Parasia, where most of the children were prescribed the syrup, was arrested on Monday, The Hindu reported.

Parasia Sub-Divisional Officer of Police Jitendra Jaat told The Hindu that most of the Coldrif syrup bottles had been purchased from Jyoti Soni’s pharmacy.

The officer added that Jyoti Soni had been presented before a court on Tuesday, which remanded her to police custody for three days. “We will now question her for further details,” The Hindu quoted Jaat as saying.

Apart from Madhya Pradesh, deaths had also been reported from Rajasthan. Several children, who had been suffering from fever and cold, consumed the Coldrif syrup, resulting in vomiting and difficulty urinating.

The first death was recorded on September 2.

The Coldrif syrup was manufactured by Sresan Pharmaceutical Manufacture, which is situated in Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram district.

On October 2, the Tamil Nadu director of drugs control found that Coldrif samples were not of standard quality. Three days later, Madhya Pradesh also reported that one sample of Coldrif had 48.6% of diethylene glycol in it.

The permissible limit of diethylene glycol as an impurity is 0.1%. However, drug officials Scroll spoke to said that the chemical is unsafe even in trace amounts and should ideally be completely absent from an ingestible syrup. Its presence is a serious quality compliance issue, the officials said.

On October 9, the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested the owner of Sresan Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, G Ranganathan, in Chennai. Six other persons linked to the supply chain of the syrup were also arrested, The Hindu reported.

Two drug inspectors from Tamil Nadu had been suspended for failing to conduct quality checks on the drugs manufactured by Sresan Pharmaceutical Manufacturer in the past two years.

The Tamil Nadu government also revoked the manufacturing licence of Sresan Pharmaceutical Manufacturer and shut down the company

Following the deaths, the formulation was banned in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Puducherry, West Bengal and Delhi.

The deaths of the children led to the World Health Organization issuing a medical alert on October 13 against the use of three cough syrups found to contain diethylene glycol beyond permissible limits, a substance that can cause acute kidney and liver failure.

The alert named specific batches of Coldrif syrup, and Respifresh TR and ReLife, produced by manufacturing companies in Gujarat.

Also read:

• How justice was denied to Jammu children killed five years ago by deadly cough syrup

• How adulterated cough syrup killed Madhya Pradesh’s children

• India’s cough syrup testing regime has a deadly blind spot

The Maharashtra government on Tuesday issued a gazette notification renaming Islampur in Sangli district as Ishwarpur.

The notification issued by the state General Administration Department came after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs approved a proposal sent by the state government to rename the town in Walwa taluka, The Indian Express reported.

Ishwarpur will replace Islampur in all official records, the notification stated, adding that all departments had been directed to make the necessary changes.

Several cities and towns have been renamed in recent years after similar proposals from state governments, citing historical or cultural reasons.

State Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said that the decision to rename the town was a “historic” one that “honours the sentiments” of the public.

“This had been a demand of the local people for many years,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said on social media. “Local representatives consistently raised this issue in the Assembly. Accordingly, Chief Minister Honorable Devendra Fadnavisji pursued this demand of the people with the Union government.”

Sharing Tuesday’s notification on social media, Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

मौजे इस्लामपूर आता 'ईश्वरपूर' आणि 'इस्लामपूर नगर परिषद' आता 'उरुण-ईश्वरपूर'

मा. पंतप्रधान नरेंद्र मोदीजी आणि केंद्रीय गृह व सहकार मंत्री अमितभाई शाह यांचे या निर्णयाबद्दल आभार! @narendramodi @AmitShah #Ishwarpur #UrunIshwarpur #Sangli #Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/TQVNRGpFgF

— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) November 4, 2025

The BJP is part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance in the state, which also comprises the Shiv Sena group led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party group led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

The demand to rename the town was first raised by Shiv Pratishthan, a Hindutva organisation led by Sambhaji Bhide, according to The Indian Express. The group had also submitted a memorandum to the Sangli Collectorate seeking the change.

In Maharashtra in 2022, the then Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government approved the renaming of the cities of Aurangabad and Osmanabad to Sambhaji Nagar and Dharashiv. The Union government then cleared both moves.

In May 2024, the Bombay High Court dismissed petitions challenging the renaming of the two cities, an order which the Supreme Court later upheld.

Along with the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, now in the Opposition, includes the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party group led by Sharad Pawar.

In March 2024, the state Cabinet approved the renaming of Ahmednagar city to Ahilyanagar, after the 18th-century queen Ahilyabai Holkar. The proposal remains pending with the Union government.

Also read: How Hindutva’s politics of renaming burdens Indian Muslims with imaginary historical guilt

The toll in the collision of a passenger train with a goods train near the Bilaspur railway station in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday rose to 11, ANI reported on Wednesday, quoting the South East Central Railway. Twenty persons were also injured in the accident.

Two to three persons remain stuck in the wreckage and authorities were cutting open the train coach to rescue them, The Indian Express reported.

The accident had occurred at about 4 pm while the Mainline Electric Multiple Unit passenger train, typically used for short distances, was travelling to Bilaspur from Gevra Road in the neighbouring Korba district.

Bilaspur Collector Sanjay Agrawal told The Indian Express that the last coach of the goods train dashed into the first coach of the passenger.

Bilaspur Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Suskar Vipul Vilasrao said that one train running behind another on the same track was part of normal operations, The Hindu reported.

However, the exact reason for the collision could be established only after an inquiry by the commissioner of railway safety, he added.

Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the families of those who died, ANI reported. “The injured will be given free treatment, and Rs 50,000 will also be given to them,” he added.

#WATCH | Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh | Operations resume at the site where an MEMU train collided with a stationary goods train yesterday, killing 8 and injuring several others. pic.twitter.com/VwiraZTIFj

— ANI (@ANI) November 5, 2025

The South East Central Railway said that an investigation will be conducted at the level of the commissioner of railway safety and corrective steps will be taken.

It announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the families of those who died. Seriously injured passengers will receive Rs 5 lakh and those with minor injuries will receive Rs 1 lakh.

Chhattisgarh’s former Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel described the accident as “very tragic”, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state was more focused on transporting coal than ensuring public safety, ANI reported.

“Today, the value of human life has become even less than coal,” the news agency quoted him as saying.

Congress leader and former Deputy Chief Minister TS Singh Deo demanded the resignation of Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, saying that the incident was due to “extreme negligence”, ANI reported.

“Continuous reports come from different regions in the country about accidents in the railway department, and people keep dying in these accidents,” the news agency quoted Deo as saying.

“We offer condolences to those who lost their lives in the Bilaspur accident and offer solace to their families,” the Congress leader added. “The railway minister should now resign on moral grounds. This laxity is the reason that such an accident could happen.”

Krishna Murty Bandhi, a BJP leader and a former state minister, also questioned how the goods train and the passenger train were on the same line, The Hindu reported.

If you take cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, you may have noticed a flurry of news coverage since late October 2025 about an extensive recall of thousands of bottles of atorvastatin, the generic version of Lipitor.

Both generic atorvastatin and brand-name Lipitor contain the same active ingredient, atorvastatin calcium, and are considered bioequivalent by the US Food and Drug Administration. This medication is the number one-selling drug in the US, with over 115 million prescriptions going to more than 29 million Americans.

I am a clinical pharmacologist and pharmacist who has assessed the manufacturing quality of prescription, over-the-counter and illicit drugs, as well as dietary supplements.

This atorvastatin recall is large, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of patients. But it’s only the latest in a series of concerning manufacturing issues that have come to light since 2019.

What pills are being recalled, and why?

Ascend Laboratories, based in New Jersey, originally issued the recall for about 142,000 bottles of its generic atorvastatin on September 19. Each bottle contained 90, 500 or 1,000 tablets, enough to fill prescriptions for three, 17 or 33 patients, respectively, for one month.

About three weeks later, on October 10, the FDA quantified the risk of using these poor-quality tablets and gave the recall a Class II status, which means that the medication could cause “temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences”.

Manufacturers must conduct quality tests on random samples of tablets from every batch they make. These tests make sure the pills contain the correct dosage of the active ingredient, are made to the proper physical specifications and are not contaminated with heavy metals or microbes. If the samples test “out of specification” for any feature, the company must conduct further testing and destroy defective batches, losing the cost of manufacturing them.

In this case, sample pills failed to dissolve properly when they were tested. Batches manufactured from November 2024 through September 2025 all had this defect.

As with other drugs, when you swallow atorvastatin, it must dissolve before the active ingredient can be absorbed by the body. It then goes to the liver, where it reduces the blood concentrations of low-density lipoproteins – also called LDL, or “bad cholesterol”.

If the drug doesn’t dissolve properly, the amount absorbed by the body is substantially reduced.

Lowering LDL with atorvastatin has been shown to reduce cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes after a few years by 22%. When almost 30,000 people in a 2021 study stopped taking their atorvastatin or other statin for six months, the risk of cardiovascular events, deaths and emergency room visits increased between 12% to 15%.

So, while patients wouldn’t immediately feel a difference if their atorvastatin tablets didn’t dissolve properly, their risk of cardiovascular events would significantly rise.

Generic medicines

First, don’t stop taking the medication without talking with your pharmacist or prescriber. Even if you have the recalled pills, taking them is still better than not taking the medicine at all.

You can determine whether your medication came from Ascend Laboratories by looking at your prescription label.

Search for the abbreviations MFG or MFR, which stand for “manufacturing” or “manufacturer.” If it says “MFG Ascend” or “MFR Ascend,” that means that Ascend Laboratories supplied the medication.

The first five letters of a National Drug Code, abbreviated as NDC on the prescription label, also reveal the manufacturer or distributor. Ascend products have the number 67877.

If Ascend Laboratories is the distributor, a pharmacist can cross-reference your prescription number to obtain the lot number and compare it with the posted lot numbers on the FDA website for recalled atorvastatin. If your product has been recalled, your pharmacy may have other generic versions of atorvastatin in stock that are not part of this recall.

Alternatively, the pharmacist can get a new prescription from your health care provider for another generic statin drug, such as rosuvastatin, which works similarly.

Pattern of lapses

While the defective atorvastatin is distributed by a US company, it is actually manufactured by Alkem Laboratories in India.

In fact, many aspects of pharmaceutical drug manufacturing are now occurring overseas, primarily in China and India. This has limited the FDA’s ability to provide the oversight required for drugs sold in the U.S.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the FDA performed routine surveillance inspections of US manufacturing plants every three years, but seldom conducted them overseas. In the wake of several high-profile manufacturing quality lapses, including at the Indian generic drug giant Ranbaxy Laboratories, Congress established a funding mechanism and the FDA established a universal standard for inspecting both U.S. and overseas manufacturers every five years.

However, the US fell behind with international inspections after Covid-19 shut down international travel, and it has yet to catch up. Additionally, overseas manufacturers generally get warning of an upcoming inspection, making the process potentially less rigorous than in the U.S.

A lack of inspections for eye drop manufacturers, especially in India, led to massive recalls in 2023 after a wave of rare eye infections caused some people to lose their eyesight. The problem was traced to widespread unsanitary manufacturing conditions and improper testing for sterility at overseas facilities.

In 2024, eight deaths and multiple hospitalisations led an Indian manufacturer, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, to recall 47 million potassium chloride extended-release capsules that did not dissolve properly. In February 2025, inspectors found that the company had falsified quality results.

The FDA recently started laboratory spot testing of prescription and over-the-counter drugs arriving in the US to compensate for these limitations. Outside laboratories such as Valisure also do independent testing. Independent testing has caught several dangerous products, but due to limited resources, only a few products can be tested each year.

In 2023, Alkem Laboratories, which manufactured the currently recalled atorvastatin, had to recall 58,000 bottles of the blood pressure drug metoprolol XL because the pills also did not properly dissolve. Spot testing also led to widespread recalls after FDA and Valisure laboratories found cancer-causing chemicals called nitrosamines in some blood pressure, diabetes and indigestion drugs tested between 2019 and 2020, as well as benzene in numerous sunscreen and antibacterial gel products tested between 2020 and early 2025.

Consumer vigilance

With these growing gaps in oversight, it’s reasonable to be mindful of changes in how a particular medication affects you. If your prescription drug suddenly stops working, it might be because that particular batch of the medication was not manufactured properly. Alerting the FDA about sudden loss of drug effectiveness could help the agency more quickly identify manufacturing issues.

In 2024, the FDA started sharing the inspection burden with other regulatory agencies like the European Medicines Agency for the European Union. Such coordinated efforts could lead to less duplication and a bump in inspections of overseas manufacturers.

In the meantime, however, consumers are largely at the mercy of spotty inspections and testing, and rarely hear about problems unless poorly manufactured drugs cause widespread adverse events.

C Michael White is Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut.

This article was first published on The Conversation.

When Lobzang Yangchen first joined a wildlife monitoring team in her village two years ago, she had never touched a computer. Today, the 31-year-old mother of two daughters leads an 11-member women’s team from Kibber that has become central to Himachal Pradesh’s efforts to conserve the snow leopard.

Born in Losar, a village about 50km from Kibber, Lobzang remembers hearing stories as a child about snow leopards attacking goats and sheep. “I never saw one,” she recalled. “We only heard that they came at night, silently, and that herders had to guard their livestock.”

After she married and moved to Kibber, those stories became real. “Here, losing four or five goats in one night was common,” she said. “People saw snow leopards as a problem, not something to protect.”

When the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and the Nature Conservation Foundation began involving local people in snow leopard surveys, Lobzang decided to volunteer. “People asked why we should protect them if they cause harm,” she said. “Now they understand that our goats are food for them, and they are also living beings who need food.”

The Kibber women’s team worked on every stage of the state’s snow leopard assessment – from setting up camera traps to processing data. Their precision and patience were recognised in the official report, which described their work as having “a significant impact on the quality of data and speed of analysis”.

“I had seen a computer before but never worked on one,” Lobzang said. “Our training began with basic English and then computer lessons. Now we can tag images, process them and maintain the cameras ourselves.”

Her younger sister, Choyyi, a graduate, is also part of the group. “The others in the team have studied till Class 4 or 5,” she said, adding that their training from the Nature Conservation Foundation and the forest department opened opportunities none of them imagined earlier.

“When we started, I had to take permission from my in-laws to go for the training and to help with fieldwork. I am thankful they allowed me,” Lobzang said. “Now, when I see the progress of my team and the work we are doing, it feels like we are doing something important for our village.”

Counting the cats

The women’s work formed a vital part of the second state-wide snow leopard survey, conducted by the Wildlife Wing of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department in collaboration with the Nature Conservation Foundation. The survey estimated 83 snow leopards in the state, with the true number likely between 67 and 103, up from 51 individuals in 2021.

Camera traps placed across 26,000 square kilometres of snow leopard habitat recorded 44 individual cats. The survey also produced the first photographic evidence of Pallas’s cat in Kinnaur and confirmed the presence of the woolly flying squirrel in Lahaul.

In his foreword to the report, Amitabh Gautam, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), described the findings as “a milestone for high-altitude conservation”.

“This remarkable achievement reflects Himachal Pradesh’s commitment to preserving its high-altitude ecosystems,” Gautam wrote. “The effort was only possible because of the participation of local teams and communities who know the terrain best.”

While talking to Mongabay India, Preeti Bhandari, Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), said, “This survey was completed in just one year, compared to three years for the previous one. It shows how our capacity for large-scale monitoring has improved and how much trust has grown between the department and local communities.”

Trust on fragile ground

For officials on the ground, that trust of the communities has been hard-won. Mandar Jeware, who served as Deputy Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) in Spiti from August 2023 to June 2025, said the region’s unique cold desert ecosystem supports both wildlife and traditional agro-pastoral communities that have long coexisted with scarce resources and harsh weather.

“Spiti has a unique cold desert ecosystem with wildlife striving for scarce resources and the community trying to coexist with harsh weather, along with frequent wildlife interactions,” he said. “The landscape is fragile, being a Trans-Himalayan area susceptible to climate change. Increasing tourism, development aspirations and presence of armed forces in rangelands are creating pressures that reduce space and increase competition for resources between people and wildlife.”

He said the department’s priorities have been to minimise these pressures through community-led tourism management, awareness programmes, and mitigation measures in new development projects.

“Landscape-based and community-led management has been a key pillar of our work,” Jeware said. “Spiti was the first snow leopard landscape to have a landscape-based conservation plan under Project Snow Leopard’s inception in 2009.”

Since then, the Forest Department has worked closely with communities through Eco-Development Committees in Kibber and Chicham, and Biodiversity Management Committees under the JICA project. These committees help manage winter tourism, promote plantations of poplar, willow, and seabuckthorn, install predator-proof corrals, and run feral dog sterilisation drives in collaboration with nonprofits.

“Any effective conservation initiative has to be community-led,” Jeware said. “During winters, people get livelihood from snow leopard sighting tourism and now actively cooperate to ensure wildlife and its habitat are not harmed. Communities, particularly women, also play an active role in monitoring wildlife through camera traps and analysis of images.” He said these small initiatives have strengthened trust and created a sense of shared responsibility.

“Eventually, the communities who have been looking after this landscape for hundreds of years should be in charge of sustaining it with facilitation from the Forest Department.”

His colleague, Chief Conservator of Forests Bhandari, said this approach of close collaboration with communities has become central to the state’s conservation work.

“We processed more than eight lakh photographs for this survey, many with the participation of local women,” Bhandari said. “We make people aware that the snow leopard is a flagship species and that tourism is their main source of income. People visit these areas to see this majestic creature, so conservation and livelihood have become closely linked.”

Bhandari said collaboration is not limited to surveys or awareness meetings but extends to everyday life in these remote villages.

“Our officers help in daily matters, road repair, small issues, and people in return help protect wildlife,” she said. “We also run livelihood, soil conservation, and plantation projects that create a sense of shared responsibility.”

Unique landscape

Spiti Valley, known for its fragile Trans-Himalayan ecosystem and deep cultural connection with nature, has now been included in the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO-recognised network that promotes the balance between conservation and community livelihoods.

Jeware said the recognition reflects the valley’s long-standing harmony between people and nature.

“Spiti has long been a testament to the unique relationship between man and biosphere with its culture and Buddhist ethos of peaceful coexistence and non-violence towards all living beings,” He said. “Inclusion of Spiti’s CDBR not only provides international recognition but also brings Spiti on the world map. It will help in better monitoring of this fragile landscape in the future, build awareness among tourists and locals, and strengthen community livelihoods through sustainable tourism and conservation-based income.”

He added that the biosphere designation opens new avenues for funding and collaboration.

“It will help in capacity building of communities and attract funding for community-led wildlife conservation due to its international visibility,” he said. “This will ultimately strengthen local resilience and make the landscape more sustainable.”

Beyond the snow leopard

As communities and scientists worked together to study snow leopards, their cameras also captured something unexpected, another elusive mountain species rarely seen in India. The state-wide snow leopard survey did more than count big cats.

Camera traps in Kinnaur’s Hangrang Valley captured the first photographic evidence of the Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) in the state. The record came from three sites between 3,900 and 4,100 metres, where researchers obtained 19 images of the small wild cat moving through rocky slopes.

Charu Sharma, the study’s lead author from the Nature Conservation Foundation, said the finding shows how research on flagship species like the snow leopard can benefit others that share the same habitat.

“This record came through large-scale camera trapping for snow leopards. It expands our understanding of the Pallas’s cat’s range in India and shows why smaller, lesser-known species must be part of conservation planning,” she said.

The Pallas’s cat is listed in Schedule I of India’s Wildlife Protection Act and Appendix II of CITES. Although globally classified as least concern, it faces threats from habitat loss, free-ranging dogs, and tourism disturbance. The discovery highlights that protecting the snow leopard also safeguards many lesser-known species of the Trans-Himalaya.

Changing mountains

The latest report also points to environmental shifts that could affect the species’ future. “Some snow leopards have moved slightly to lower elevations, while common leopards have been seen higher up,” Bhandari said. “Snowfall has reduced, glaciers are melting, and maintaining habitat integrity is becoming a major challenge.”

The Future Directions section of the report calls for continued camera trapping every three to five years, integration of climate adaptation measures, and the inclusion of local knowledge in all plans. “Blending scientific monitoring with traditional understanding,” the report says, “is key to long-term sustainability in the high Himalaya.”

For Amitabh Gautam, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), the snow leopard work shows how science and community collaboration can be scaled up. “By conducting two full-scale snow leopard assessments, Himachal has set a model for other Himalayan states,” he wrote. “Promoting traditional practices that have long preserved these habitats and fostering synergy between science and community will create a sustainable model for the future.”

Following the completion of the survey, the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and the Nature Conservation Foundation are preparing a draft plan for the conservation and management of snow leopard habitats across the Trans-Himalayan landscape. The plan focuses on integrating scientific research, community participation, and climate resilience into one framework.

The proposed landscape plan aims to protect threatened species, reduce human-wildlife conflict, and promote sustainable livelihoods in regions such as Hangrang Valley, Spiti, and Lahaul. It also includes measures for regular population monitoring, improving waste management, and addressing the impacts of tourism and climate change.

Deepshikha Sharma from Nature Conservation Foundation’s High Altitude Programme said the plan reflects the collaboration between researchers and forest officials. “The plan is developed based on the inputs of Forest officials and NCF and is a holistic approach towards research and conservation of the snow leopard habitats. NCF is committed to working with the department and stakeholders to ensure the communities and the habitats benefit from conservation action.”

Once finalised, the plan will serve as a long-term roadmap for conserving Himachal’s high-altitude biodiversity while ensuring that communities remain central to decision-making.

Amid these plans and policies, the people of Spiti continue their quiet work on the ground. In Kibber, Lobzang now divides her time between home and her work with the camera traps. Her elder daughter, who is eleven, often looks at the snow leopard photographs with her.

“When I was a child in Losar, we only heard stories about snow leopards,” Lobzang said. “Now, because of our efforts, our children can actually see their photographs. This is change.”

This article was first published on Mongabay.

At least four persons were killed and several injured after a passenger train and a goods train collided near the Bilaspur railway station in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, The Hindu reported.

The rescue operations were still on. The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.

The casualties were confirmed to the newspaper by Bilaspur Collector Sanjay Agrawal.

The official said that the number of injured had not been compiled because some persons believed to be trapped under the wreckage were being rescued.

VIDEO | Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh): MEMU local train No. 68733 (Gevra Road–Bilaspur) collides with a goods train on the up line between Gatora and Bilaspur at about 4 pm ; rescue operations are underway. pic.twitter.com/6l8TDLiskZ

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 4, 2025

The accident took place at about 4 pm, ANI quoted the South East Central Railway as saying. The Mainline Electric Multiple Unit passenger train, typically used for short-distances, was travelling to Bilaspur from Gevra Road in the neighbouring Korba district.

The railways issued helpline numbers for affected passengers and their families.

The South East Central Railway said that an investigation will be conducted at the level of the commissioner of railway safety and corrective steps will be taken.

The railways announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the families of those who died. Seriously injured passengers will receive Rs 5 lakh and those with minor injuries will receive Rs 1 lakh.

Cloudbursts. Flash floods. Landslides. Could the Char Dham highway project be making the Uttarakhand Himalayas more vulnerable? Help us investigate the true cost of this infrastructure push. Click here.

A first information report was registered against Union minister Lalan Singh after a video showed him urging supporters to prevent “a few leaders” from leaving their homes on the polling day in Bihar. The video widely shared online showed the Janata Dal (United) leader telling the crowd: “There are a few persons. Don’t let them step out of their homes on polling day. Keep them packed inside.”

It was unclear when the comment was made. The “few leaders” Singh was referring to were Opposition leaders, according to reports.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal said that Singh was attempting to suppress voters and run a “bulldozer over the chest of the Election Commission”. Read on.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav announced that financial aid of Rs 30,000 will be provided to women in Bihar if the Opposition Mahagathbandhan wins the Assembly elections. The cash will be transferred under the alliance’s proposed Mai Bahin Maan Yojana on the Hindu festival of Makar Sankranti in January, Yadav said.

The scheme aimed to provide Rs 2,500 per month to women from financially vulnerable and backward communities. On Tuesday, Yadav said that Rs 30,000 for 12 months will be transferred on January 14 based on the “demands of the mothers and sisters” of Bihar.

The poll promise came on the last day of campaigning for the first phase of the election that will take place on November 6. The second phase is scheduled for November 11 and the votes will be counted on November 14. Read on.

Also read: The cash handout burden and its underlying politics

Two United States courts ordered the immigration authorities not to deport a man of Indian origin, who was found innocent in a murder case in October after spending 43 years in jail in Pennsylvania. Subramanyam Vedam, 64, was released from prison on October 3 after a county court of common pleas vacated his conviction.

However, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Vedam into custody immediately after he was released from jail, citing his drug conviction at the age of 19. The order was dormant while he was serving a life sentence.

The authority is seeking to deport Vedam over the decades-old no-contest plea to charges of delivering a hallucinogenic drug, filed when he was about 20. Read on.

Four suspected members of the United Kuki National Army were killed in a gunfight with security personnel in Manipur’s Churachandpur district. The Kuki armed group that is not a signatory to the Suspension of Operations agreement between the Centre, the state government and two Kuki armed conglomerates.

During an intelligence-based operation, the militants carried out unprovoked firing at the Indian Army in Khanpi village, which led to the gunfight. Read on.

Canada rejected about 74% of study permit applications from India in August, Reuters reported citing data from the immigration department. In August 2023, Canada’s rejection rate for Indian student visa applications was 32%.

The increase in refusals came as the authorities tightened checks on fraudulent applications. In 2023, officials found more than 1,550 fake study permit applications, mostly involving forged acceptance letters issued by Indian education agents.

The Canadian government is also seeking powers from Parliament, through a bill, to cancel groups of visas from countries considered high-risk for fraud, including India, CBC News reported. Read on.

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

Four suspected members of the United Kuki National Army were killed on Tuesday morning in a gunfight with security personnel at Khanpi village in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, a senior police officer and an Indian Army officer told Scroll.

The United Kuki National Army is a Kuki armed group that is not a signatory to the Suspension of Operations agreement.

The agreement is a tripartite pact between the Union government, the Manipur government and two conglomerates of armed groups, the Kuki National Organisation and the United Peoples’ Front. The agreement had lapsed in February 2024 and was renewed on September 3.

Manipur has been embroiled in ethnic clashes between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities that have killed at least 260 persons and displaced more than 59,000 persons since May 2023. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024.

President’s Rule was imposed in February after Chief Minister N Biren Singh resigned.

During an intelligence-based operation on Tuesday, the militants resorted to unprovoked firing at an Army column in Khanpi, which led to a gunfight, the Army said in a statement.

The operation is still on and a search in the adjoining areas was underway.

“This operation follows recent atrocities by UKNA cadres including killing of a village chief, intimidation of locals and attempts to disrupt peace and stability in the region,” the Army said.

The United Kuki National Army claimed on Tuesday that its members, who were killed, had been sleeping at the time of the operation.

The armed group said in a statement it was neither a threat to society, nor the Army, and reiterated its demand for a separate administration from Manipur. The group said that it will surrender once its demand is met.

Kuki Inpi Manipur, the apex body of the Kuki tribes, said in a statement on Tuesday that the incident had caused “profound pain and outrage” in the Kuki community.

The organisation added that “continued targeted actions against our community severely undermine trust and jeopardize peace efforts”, and urged the authorities to “exercise utmost sensitivity and impartiality”.

Members of the United Kuki National Army have been previously linked to sporadic incidents of violence in Churachandpur district, the newspaper reported.

In late October, a village chief in the district died after being assaulted by armed men allegedly linked to the group.

In June, at least four persons, including a Kuki National Organisation leader and an elderly woman, were killed in an ambush allegedly carried out by the United Kuki National Army.

Also Read:

‘No side is happy’: Why Centre’s new pact with Kuki-Zo armed groups has left Manipur unenthused

The spectre of foreign voters has loomed large over Bihar’s upcoming polls.

In June 2025, the Election Commission of India launched the Special Intensive Revision to verify nearly 80 million voters in the state, citing concerns over “illegal immigrants” on electoral rolls. A month later, officials claimed that they had identified a “large number of people” from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar during the door-to-door verification process for the revision.

The Bharatiya Janata Party amplified this rhetoric in its election campaign. At a rally on November 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the audience: “Mujhe bataaiye, kya Bihar ka bhavishya aap tay karenge, ki ghuspetiya tay karega – tell me, will you decide the future of Bihar, or will ‘foreign infiltrators’.”

During a recent speech, Home Minister Amit Shah referred to so-called foreign infiltrators too: he claimed that the SIR had successfully removed them from Bihar’s electoral rolls. Other BJP leaders have alluded to who they think these infiltrators are: Muslim voters that they have sought to cast as undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh.

So far, the election commission had withheld any formal tally of the foreign nationals it identified through the intensive revision. But our reporting suggests that they make up a tiny sliver of Bihar’s vast electorate.

We analysed the final electoral rolls the election commission published on 30 September. Using Optical Character Recognition software to extract data from the rolls, we identified voters who had been marked as “ayogya” – or ineligible – through the stamps next to their names that declared their statuses. (The software reflected a margin of error of about 0.006% in the extraction.)

The draft electoral rolls, released in early-August, had included 7.24 crore people, and excluded 65 lakh voters. But those exclusions did not declare any voters deemed ineligible – they were related to voters who were dead, absent, shifted, or registered more than once.

The final rolls, which incorporated voters’ claims and objections to the draft electoral rolls, included 7.42 crore voters. An additional 3.66 lakh people had been removed for one of the four reasons for exclusion listed above, as well as a fifth, new reason: ineligibility.

We extracted the dataset to find that the commission had declared about 9,500 people ineligible – or 0.012% of 7.42 crore voters – as a result of the SIR. Our estimates for the voters declared ineligible include an adjustment of about 5% to account for automation-led variances.

By law, a voter can be disqualified if they are a foreign national, have been declared of “unsound mind” by a competent court, or if they have engaged in corruption or other election-related offences.

Our data analysis found that over 85% of the voters declared ineligible in Bihar were clustered in four districts along the state’s border with Nepal: Supaul, Kishanganj, West Champaran, and East Champaran.

We visited five constituencies from Supaul, Kishanganj, and East Champaran districts and verified the details of about 100 voters declared ineligible with the help of election officials and through direct interviews. In only two of the five constituencies were the voters deemed ineligible from another country – around 30 Nepali women who had moved to Bihar after marrying local residents.

Several among these Nepali women had voted in previous elections. They had obtained various documents that established their residences and lives within Bihar. They had simply never needed to formally apply for Indian citizenship before. When their status changed overnight because of the SIR, it caused an upheaval. In the absence of any official instructions, most of them were unclear on the process to follow.

Ineligible voters

At least 70 of the 100 voters who had been deemed ineligible, and whose cases we verified, were not foreign nationals. About half of them appeared to have been declared ineligible incorrectly – they should have been removed under one of the four criteria for exclusions instead.

The other half were those who had been unable to submit the requisite documents for the revision’s verification process.

Indian citizens can file objections to the exclusion or inclusion of any voters with the election commission. In August, the commission received 2.53 lakh such objections after it published the draft electoral rolls, according to the website of Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer.

An examination of these objections indicated that about 1,087 voters had been flagged as being foreigners. The final rolls declared about 689 of them ineligible. This didn’t include those the commission had taken suo motu notice of after its verification process for the revision – such as the Nepali women we met in Supaul district.

The intensive revision drew widespread criticism for its hasty implementation, which put marginalised voters at a disadvantage. Even judged by its intended objective, the exercise’s efficacy is comparable to “using a hammer to kill a fly sitting on your nose,” said political activist Yogendra Yadav, a petitioner in the ongoing Supreme Court case challenging the SIR.

“Is there a point in troubling eight crore people to find a few thousand,” he asked. The election commission had earlier stated that finding foreigners was a key objective of the intensive revision. But it has since been “quiet” about this claim, Yadav said.

Voters removed from the rolls, including those who have been declared ineligible, can file counter-claims to advocate for their inclusion.

Those whose claims are received and processed until the last day of candidate nominations – October 20 for constituencies polling in the first phase, and October 23 for those in the second – will be able to vote in this election if they are reinstated. This means that the number of voters declared ineligible could decrease further.

Nepali women had voted previously

A phrase oft-repeated in Bihar’s northern districts illustrates its proximity to its neighbour across the border. “Bihar aur Nepal ke beech mein roti-beti ka sambadh hai” – the bond between Bihar and Nepal has been forged over their food and daughters.

Unlike Bangladeshi citizens, those from Nepal can freely travel to and from India, without a passport or a visa. This open-border policy, rooted in the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the countries, has enabled fluid social, cultural, and economic exchanges.

Ranjan Devi, a 27-year-old Nepali national, immigrated to Bihar close to a decade ago, when she got married to Shashi Kumar Yadav from Kamalpur. The village is less than five kilometres away from the border.

Ranjan hasn’t cast any votes during elections back home after her marriage, she said. She has been voting in Bihar’s elections since 2019, with an Indian voter identity card.

She possesses a host of other documents – an Aadhaar card, residence certificate, Permanent Account Number card, ration card, and a government-issued life insurance card. Of these, the first two are considered proof of citizenship under the verification process for the SIR. (Voters born between 1987 and 2003 also have to submit proof of citizenship for one of their parents.) In 2021, Ranjan was even elected ward councillor from the gram panchayat of Kamalpur.

Now, she has been deemed ineligible to vote. On the final electoral rolls, her name was struck through with a stamp – “deleted” – and the serial number corresponding to her name was marked by the letter “Q”. This letter signifies that she has been declared ineligible to vote during this state election.

Ranjan is among 92 voters deemed ineligible for being a foreign national from the booth to which she was earlier registered, Ajay Kumar Yadav, its Booth Level Officer told us. All 92 are Nepali women who moved to India after marrying local residents.

According to the final electoral rolls, Supaul accounts for over 40% of voters declared ineligible in Bihar, the highest across the state. In the two constituencies we visited – Nirmali and Chhatapur – all the voters declared ineligible were Nepali women, their respective BLOs and panchayat officials told us. We were able to detect 75% of the total names using an automated script – of which about 90% appeared to be Hindu.

Indian citizenship

For many of these voters, getting an Indian citizenship was not inaccessible – just a process they never had to consider before.

A foreign national can become a naturalised citizen of India if they have been residing in the country for 12 years – including one uninterrupted year just before their application. Any foreign national who is married to an Indian citizen, and has lived in India for seven years, can also apply for naturalisation after one uninterrupted year of residence in India.

As long as they have no criminal charges against them, they can apply to their district magistrate by declaring their intention to relinquish their foreign citizenship and swearing an oath of allegiance to the Indian Constitution. The process takes at least 90 days.

We asked the voters declared ineligible and their family members about whether they knew the procedure to obtain Indian citizenship. None did.

Forget applying in time, Ranjan didn’t even know that she had been declared ineligible until we met her. Several residents from Kamalpur surrounded us during our visit to the village, anxious to know whether the Nepali immigrants in their families faced the same fate.

At least 25 men learnt from us – for the first time – that their wives had been deemed ineligible. They were incensed. The Booth Level Officer Ajay Kumar Yadav told us that he did not have “any orders” to disseminate information to such voters.

“What would happen to my kids,” asked Jashoda Devi, a 37-year-old woman from Nepal, who moved to Shivnagar village in Supaul after her marriage. “Apart from voting, what else will be taken away from me,” she wondered.

Jashoda’s husband, Naresh Singh, and his elder brother, Suresh, have both been ward councilors. She had herself held the post from 2015 to 2020. In 2021, she was set to stand for election again when the block office informed her family members that those born in Nepal were ineligible to compete. Her mother-in-law was elected to the position instead.

Like Jashoda, Rita Kumari Mandal, the 31-year-old daughter-in-law of Shivnagar’s village head, is among the voters declared ineligible. She moved to India more than a decade ago – and has a government-issued Aadhaar card, PAN Card, driving license, caste certificate, and residence certificate.

Devnandan Singh – the Booth Level Officer for the booth to which Rita was earlier assigned – said that block-level election officials from the region had asked booth-level officers to identify voters who were foreign nationals. Those identified were then called for a hearing at the block office and asked to submit their forms. The voters realised they had been deemed ineligible only after the final electoral rolls were released.

Jitendra Suman, the Booth Level Officer for the booth from which Jashoda was earlier registered, confirmed this account. When Booth Level Officers in the area sought clarity from their superiors about the processes to follow for Nepali citizens who had voted in previous elections, there was no clear response, Jitendra recalled.

He even warned the men married to Nepali women from the village that he was overseeing, so that they could organise themselves and resolve the issue with district authorities. “But it didn’t materialise,” he said.

“This is wrong,” Jitendra added. “There is no awareness among the people about how Nepalis can get Indian citizenship. They have never needed to [do this before].” Devnandan concurred. “We had registered these women over the years, there was no policy to declare them ineligible.”

Jitendra added that the Nepali women had become deeply rooted in the communities they were now a part of. “Our Bihari daughters are similarly placed in Nepal,” he pointed out. “How can we treat them [the Nepali women] like this?”

Amarendra Yadav – a 30-year-old resident from Kamalpur village in Supaul district – was shocked when he realised that his wife was among those declared ineligible. He recalled presenting her documents to the block office in August, after the draft electoral rolls were published. He had gone with several other residents from the village, who were submitting documents on behalf of the Nepali citizens they had married

“We did what we were told. Why have the women been deleted now? Why did no one tell us,” Amarendra had many unanswered questions. “They have been living here for years, and even voted many times. How can they be deleted suddenly? 95% of the women in our village were born in Nepal. They have come here legitimately. How can you call them ghuspaithiye – infiltrators?”

Indian citizens from West Bengal

Bokanekala village from Chiraiya constituency in East Champaran district accounted for about 80% of the voters deemed ineligible in that constituency – 78 people. None of the 53 voters whose cases we verified in Bokanekala were foreign nationals.

Sachin Kumar, the Booth Level Officer for the booth corresponding to Bokanekala village, affirmed that he had not identified any foreign nationals in this constituency – in fact, he had not even listed any of its voters as ineligible. “In my list, I submitted these voters as shifted, dead, or absent, as was applicable. I don’t know how they turned into voters declared ineligible,” he said. “I didn’t declare anyone ineligible.” The Electoral Registration Officer for Chiraiya did not respond to our calls or text messages for comment.

In Kishanganj district, about 1,400 voters have been declared ineligible from Kishanganj constituency and about 900 from Bahadurganj constituency. The district, which accounts for about 35% of the voters declared ineligible in Bihar, shares its border with Nepal and West Bengal. At its closest point, Kishanganj district is less than 30 kilometres away from Bangladesh.

None of the 25 voters declared ineligible, whose details we verified from the two constituencies in this district, were foreign nationals. Neither the Booth Level Officers for the booths we visited nor the panchayat officials from those villages said that any of the voters declared ineligible were foreign nationals. The Electoral Registration Officer of Kishanganj constituency made no such claim either. In a Hindustan Times story published on November 4, the district magistrate of Kishangarh district said that no voters of suspected foreign origin were found there.

Among the voters declared ineligible is Saishta Parveen, a 28-year-old resident of Thipi Jhari village. This village is less than a kilometer from West Bengal, where Saishta grew up. She moved to Thipi Jhari over a decade ago, when she got married to Mohammad Bakhtiyar. He currently works in Sikkim as a mason, returning home twice or thrice a year.

Saishta couldn’t fathom the reason she had been deemed ineligible. Her best guess was that it had something to do with her place of birth. “I had submitted my enumeration form thrice,” she said. “I also attached the documents I was asked to submit.” Saishta’s birth certificate and school-leaving certificate listed her natal family’s address in West Bengal. So did her father’s passport.

Saishta is an active member of a local self-help group that extends credit to women starting small enterprises, she told us. Her Aadhaar and ration card are registered to her marital home.

In October this year, she had also received Rs 10,000 through the Bihar government’s Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, or Chief Minister's Women Employment Scheme, which is intended for women from the state. “How is my vote suddenly taken away from me,” Parveen asked. “I have only voted in Bihar after getting married.”

“Those whose documents were found to be improper were declared ineligible,” Shahnawaz Ahmad Niyazi, the Electoral Registration Officer for Kishanganj constituency, told us. He said that he would need to assess the rolls “case-by-case” to clarify why individual voters had been declared ineligible.

Marriages across the borders of Bihar and West Bengal are extremely common, said Arshad Alam, a local ward member of Thipi Jhari. Yet, he noted, several women like Saishta – originally from Bengal, now settled in Bihar – had been deemed ineligible. “Many Bengali women are residents of Bihar, and vice versa. But they deserve to have the right to vote,” Arshad added.

Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer and spokespersons from the election commission did not respond to requests for comment. The Press Information Bureau’s spokesperson for the election commission acknowledged our queries. This article will be updated when we receive a response.

This story was produced by a collective of reporters. Read their other reports on the Bihar 2025 election here and here.

The police in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district arrested three men on Tuesday for allegedly abducting and gangraping a 20-year-old college student from Vellakinar near Thudiyalur, The Hindu reported.

The arrests were made after a 36-hour search operation.

The men, identified as Guna alias Thavasi, Karupasamy alias Satheesh and Kaleeswaran alias Karthik, were intercepted on the outskirts of Mettupalayam on Monday night and shot in the legs after they allegedly tried to escape, Coimbatore City Police Commissioner A Saravana Sundar told The Indian Express.

A head constable was also reportedly injured.

The accused persons were taken to Coimbatore Medical College Hospital for treatment.

The assault took place on Sunday night, when the student and her male friend were in a parked car near the Coimbatore airport around 11 pm.

The three men allegedly broke the car window, attacked the man and abducted the student.

She was taken to an isolated shed nearby and raped. The student was found around 4.30 am on Monday and is undergoing treatment, the police said.

An unidentified police officer told The Indian Express that the three men were arrested after the surveillance linked to a week-old motorcycle theft and a citywide alert about a stolen iPhone.

CCTV footage from the area near the airport showed three men who appeared to be the same as those seen in visuals from an earlier case of a theft of a TVS 50 motorbike, the officer told the newspaper.

The police alerted all second-hand mobile shops in Coimbatore and Mettupalayam about possible attempts to sell a stolen iPhone.

On Monday evening, one of the three men went to a shop to sell the device, but the shop owner alerted the police, the officer told The Indian Express.

“Two others were also waiting by the road in the town’s outskirts and were picked up later,” the newspaper quoted the officer as saying.

While being questioned, the three men allegedly claimed to have hidden a knife in a forested area and led the police there.

“The accused were trying to escape from the spot when the police had to shoot them in the leg in Vellakinaru,” The Indian Express quoted the Coimbatore city police commissioner as saying.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday reiterated that local body elections in Maharashtra should be conducted only after the electoral rolls are cleaned up, The Hindu reported.

He also refuted the allegations by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, that the Opposition was doing “appeasement politics” by alleging irregularities in the voter list.

Earlier in the day, BJP leader Ashish Shelar had accused Uddhav Thackeray and his cousin, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, of “sowing the seeds of Hindu-Muslim division” by flagging multiple entries of Hindu voters while refraining from naming voters from other communities, The Times of India reported.

The local body elections in the state must be conducted by January 31, 2026, as directed by the Supreme Court.

Uddhav Thackeray’s remarks came two days after Raj Thackeray raised the issue of bogus voters at a joint rally of the Maha Vikas Aghadi and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

On Saturday, Raj Thackeray had said that local body polls in the state should not be held while there are “bogus voters” on the electoral rolls. Uddhav Thackeray had echoed his cousin’s statement.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi comprises Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.

During a press conference in Mumbai on Monday, Uddhav Thackeray said that the Election Commission must first rectify errors such as duplicate and bogus entries in the voters’ list.

“Neither Shiv Sena nor any Opposition party has referred to any bogus voter by religion,” the newspaper quoted Uddhav Thackeray as saying. “We are not opposing elections, but want them to be held only after the rolls are cleaned.”

He also accused the Election Commission and the Union government of being “scared of Gen Z”, claiming that those turning 18 after July 1 would be deprived of their right to vote since the poll panel had fixed the date as the cut-off date for eligibility in the upcoming local body polls.

Uddhav Thackeray also asked voters to visit Uddhav Sena branch offices to verify whether their names are correctly listed and if any errors or omissions have occurred.

“We are opening centres for voters’ convenience,” The Times of India quoted Uddhav Thackeray as saying. “People must check whether they can vote in their polling stations so that we know how many youngsters are being deprived of voting rights.”

On Saturday, Raj Thackeray alleged that 4,500 voters who were registered in Thane’s Kalyan rural, Dombivali, Bhiwandi and Murbad constituencies cast their votes in Mumbai’s Malabar Hill in elections last year.

He did not specify if he was speaking about the Lok Sabha elections or the Assembly polls.

“So it is clear that they voted twice,” Thackeray was quoted as saying. “It is clear that there are lakhs of such voters in Maharashtra who have done double voting.”

Raj Thackeray added that scrutiny by his party workers showed discrepancies in voter lists in Mumbai.

He claimed that in the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat, total voters registered till July 1 are 17,29,456, of which 62,370 were “suspicious” voters.

In Mumbai North West, the total number of voters was 16,74,861, and party workers found that 7,231 of them were “suspicious”, added Raj Thackeray.

The total voters in Mumbai North East were 15,90,710, of which 92,983 were “suspicious” and in Mumbai North Central, 63,740 were “suspicious” voters of the total 1,68,148, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief claimed.

In July, the Election Commission stated that there is no category of “suspicious voters” under the 1951 Representation of the People Act.

Last week, Uddhav Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray alleged discrepancies in the voter list of his Worli Assembly constituency.

He had claimed that after the Lok Sabha elections and before the Assembly elections, 16,043 voters were added and 5,661 names were deleted in Worli.

The major anomalies included 502 voters with the same names as their fathers, 720 voters with a father’s name from a different community, 133 duplicate names with the same voter ID number, 643 voters with gender mismatch, 113 voters more than 100 years of age, 4,177 voters with an improper or non-existent address, and 3,335 voters living in 214 homes.

In the Lok Sabha elections held in 2024, the Maha Vikas Aghadi won 30 of the 48 seats in the state. The remaining 18 seats were won by the ruling Mahayuti alliance comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena group led by former Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the NCP faction led by Ajit Pawar.

In the Assembly polls held months later in November, the Mahayuti alliance won 230 seats. The Maha Vikas Aghadi won 46 seats.

The Congress and party leader Rahul Gandhi have repeatedly alleged that there was “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of our national institutions” in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.

In February, the Congress had urged the Election Commission to explain how the number of registered voters (9.7 crore) for the Maharashtra polls was more than the adult population of the state (9.5 crore).

The Election Commission had said at the time that attempts to defame it by parties that got an unfavourable verdict from voters were “completely absurd”.

Also read: Voter rolls, not just EVMs: How Opposition is coming to a new understanding on BJP’s alleged rigging

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday announced that financial aid of Rs 30,000 will be transferred to the bank accounts of women in Bihar under the Mai Bahin Maan Yojana on the Hindu festival of Makar Sankranti in January 2026, if the Opposition Mahagathbandhan comes to power in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Yadav made the announcement on the last day of campaigning for the first phase of the polls. The Assembly elections will take place in two phases on November 6 and November 11. The votes will be counted on November 14.

The Mahagathbandhan alliance comprises the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress, three Left parties, the Vikassheel Insaan Party and the Indian Inclusive Party. Yadav is the chief ministerial face of the alliance.

The Mai Bahin Maan Yojana scheme, announced by the Mahagathbandhan in its manifesto released on October 28, aims to provide Rs 2,500 per month to women from financially vulnerable and backward communities.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Yadav said that the alliance would transfer Rs 30,000 for 12 months as part of the scheme on January 14, when Makarsankranti would be celebrated, on the “demands of the mothers and sisters” of Bihar.

#WATCH | #BiharElection2025 | Patna, Bihar: RJD leader and Mahagathbandhan's CM face Tejashwi Yadav says, "...After we form the Government, on Makar Sankranti - 14th January, we will deposit Rs 30,000 for an entire year into the accounts of women under 'Mai Bahin Maan Yojana'..." pic.twitter.com/6lpMJxYOWe

— ANI (@ANI) November 4, 2025

Read Scroll’s ground reports from Bihar here.

Yadav also announced free electricity for irrigation and higher prices for key crops.

“If our government comes to power, we will provide a bonus of Rs 300 per quintal on paddy crops, in addition to the MSP [Minimum Support Price],” Yadav said. “We will provide a bonus of Rs 400 per quintal on wheat, in addition to the MSP.”

The leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly said that the public was “in a mood for change” and would “throw out” the National Democratic Alliance government in the state.

VIDEO | Bihar Elections 2025: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav says, "Whether it is paddy or wheat, even today under the current government, farmers are not getting the MSP (Minimum Support Price) properly for these two crops. The middlemen are the ones who benefit. When our government… pic.twitter.com/4I0ktewmhI

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 4, 2025

This came a day after the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led state government credited Rs 10,000 each to the bank accounts of 25 lakh women under its entrepreneurship and self-employment initiative.

The Janata Dal (United) chief is part of the National Democratic Alliance in the state, which also comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party and Union minister Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party.

It also includes former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha.

Also read:

• Unfriendly fights: Will RJD-Congress infighting give BJP-JD(U) the edge in Bihar?

• Is Nitish Kumar’s mental health an election issue for Biharis?

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Commission for Air Quality Management to submit an affidavit with the action plan to prevent the air pollution from worsening in Delhi, reported Live Law.

A bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran issued the direction after it was told that most air quality monitoring stations in the national capital remained closed during Diwali, according to Bar and Bench.

Advocate Aparajita Singh, amicus curiae in a case pertaining to air pollution in the National Capital Region, requested a report from the Commission for Air Quality Management on the current air pollution status.

The commission is a statutory body established in 2020 to address the air pollution in the National Capital Region and the adjoining areas.

“Out of 37 in Delhi, only nine monitoring systems were functioning during Diwali,” Bar and Bench quoted Sinha as telling the court.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told the bench that a report would be filed, The Hindu reported.

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

On October 15, the Supreme Court permitted the sale and use of green firecrackers in the Delhi-National Capital Region, subject to conditions.

The bench allowed the sale between October 18 and October 21 in designated locations, and limited the use of firecrackers from 6 am to 7 am and between 8 pm and 10 pm.

Green firecrackers are considered less polluting than regular ones as they are made with modified formulations and do not contain harmful elements such as lithium, arsenic, barium and lead.

Despite the restrictions, several residents lit crackers outside this period.

Delhi air quality remains ‘very poor’

On Tuesday, Delhi continued to be shrouded in toxic haze as the air quality in the national capital remained in the “very poor” category.

The average Air Quality Index at 10.05 am was 313, categorised as “very poor”, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Four monitoring stations – Alipur, Anand Vihar, Bawana and Wazirpur – recorded “severe” air quality, with readings above 400.

The Union government’s Air Quality Early Warning System had on Sunday forecast that pollution levels would remain “very poor” until at least Tuesday.

An index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air.

Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

Restrictions already in place

On October 19, the Commission for Air Quality Management had imposed Stage 2 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to control pollution in Delhi and the adjoining areas in the National Capital Region.

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

The second stage of the plan involves a ban on the use of coal and firewood, including tandoors in hotels, restaurants and open eateries. It also includes a ban on the use of diesel generator sets, except for emergency and essential services.

It further comprises measures such as the mechanical sweeping of roads and sprinkling water on them to keep the dust from rising, and intensified inspections for strict dust control measures at construction and demolition sites.

The restrictions under Stage 2 include the curbs under the first stage, which was imposed on October 14.

On Saturday, as pollution worsened, Delhi began enforcing a ban on the entry of commercial goods vehicles, except those running on CNG, LNG or electricity and compliant with BS-VI norms.

The restriction, issued on October 17 by the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas, came into effect on November 1.

BS norms, or Bharat Stage Emission Standards, are regulations set by the Indian government to control air pollutants from motor vehicles. The higher the Bharat Stage norm, the stricter the standard and the lower the permissible emissions.

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

Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam moved the Supreme Court on Monday against the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state, describing it as a “constitutional overreach”, Live Law reported.

The petition claimed that the exercise could lead to the large-scale disenfranchisement of voters.

This came a day before the Election Commission is scheduled to begin the enumeration phase of the revision of the electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories. The exercise had been announced by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 27.

The states and Union Territories include Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Puducherry, which are due for Assembly elections in 2026.

The draft rolls will be published on December 9, and the final list on February 7, 2026.

On Sunday, 44 political parties in Tamil Nadu urged the poll panel to reconsider the revision of the electoral rolls in the state, saying that the exercise was “unacceptable” and could disenfranchise voters ahead of the Assembly elections.

In a resolution adopted at an all-party meeting chaired by Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief MK Stalin, the parties also said that they would move the Supreme Court against the exercise.

In its petition before the Supreme Court on Monday, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam noted that a Special Summary Revision had already been conducted in Tamil Nadu between October 2024 and January 6, 2025, Live Law reported.

During this exercise, the electoral roll was updated to reflect migration, deaths and deletion of ineligible voters, the petition said, adding that the revised list was published on January 6 and had been continuously updated since then.

However, the Election Commission on October 27 purportedly invoked its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act to direct a fresh special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu and several other states, it added.

Article 324 establishes the Election Commission and vests in it the power of superintendence, direction, and control over the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of all elections. Section 21 of the Act deals with the preparation and revision of electoral rolls.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam said that the poll panel has also introduced new guidelines that impose citizenship verification requirements, especially for those whose names were not on the 2003 electoral rolls.

The decision amounts to a “constitutional overreach” as Article 324 operates only in areas unoccupied by legislation, and cannot supplant the existing statutory framework under the Representation of the People Act and the Registration of Electors Rules, the petition said.

The party added that the procedure directed by the Election Commission is not mentioned in the parent Act and rules, which makes the revision exercise ultra vires, or acting beyond one’s legal power or authority, Live Law reported.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam alleged that exercise “appears to be acting beyond its statutory purpose, effectively functioning as a de facto National Register of Citizens” by imposing “citizenship-like” burdens of proof on electors, The Hindu reported.

The National Register of Citizens is a proposed exercise to create a list of Indian citizens and to identify undocumented immigrants. Concerns have been raised by Opposition leaders that the special revision of voter rolls was an attempt to implement the National Register of Citizens “through the backdoor”.

The register was updated in Assam in 2019, after a mammoth scrutiny of ancestral family documents to weed out “illegal immigrants”, and ended up excluding 19 lakh residents of the state. The updated list, however, has not been notified six years on.

In its petition, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam said that if the order on the revision exercise was not set aside, it could “arbitrarily and without due process, disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, thereby disrupting free and fair elections and democracy in the country, which are part of the basic structure of the Constitution”, The Hindu reported.

It also noted that commonly available documents such as ration cards, PAN Cards and Election Photo Identity Cards have been excluded as proof of identity in the special intensive revision.

Such “rigid and arbitrary” document requirements fail to accommodate the realities of disadvantaged communities that face chronic under-documentation, the petition said.

“They disproportionately burden the youth, migrants, women, economically weaker sections and marginalised communities, who are least likely to be able to furnish such records within the unreasonably truncated timeline prescribed,” The Hindu quoted it as saying.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam also noted that the exercise was “bound to cause confusion, uncertainty, and disenfranchisement”, similar to what has already been witnessed in Bihar, Live Law reported.

The petition said that similar challenges against the revision exercise in Bihar were already pending in the Supreme Court.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam urged the Supreme Court to quash the order on the revision and declare it as “unconstitutional, arbitrary, and without statutory authority”, according to Live Law.

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

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

On September 8, the court directed the Election Commission to accept Aadhaar as a valid identity proof for the exercise in Bihar.

Aadhaar had not been among the 11 documents the poll panel had allowed as proof of citizenship. Petitioners had called its exclusion “absurd”, noting that it was the most widely held form of identification.

The Election Commission has repeatedly defended the revision as a clean-up effort to remove names of the deceased, duplicate entries and undocumented migrants.

‘Will take SIR fight to Delhi if eligible voters removed’: TMC

In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee said that his party will take the “special intensive revision fight” to Delhi if even a single eligible voter is removed from the electoral rolls in the state, ANI reported on Tuesday.

The Diamond Harbour MP accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre and the Election Commission of working in tandem to deprive the state of its identity.

“…those who act as puppets of the Central government to deprive Bengal of its identity and label us Bangladeshis for speaking Bangla will be challenged all the way to the capital,” said Banerjee.

When Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan declared on November 1 that the state had eradicated extreme poverty, it was not merely an announcement – it was a milestone in India’s development story. In a country where discussions on poverty often circle around statistical debates, Kerala’s declaration invites a deeper reflection on what it means to ensure that no one is left behind.

Much of the national conversation in the days following the announcement has focused on whether such a claim can be empirically verified. Those are valid questions, but as with any large-scale social intervention, the answers cannot be found off the cuff. They require systematic academic inquiry using scientific methods, granular data, and careful evaluation.

That said, even as these studies unfold, Kerala’s effort deserves attention for its participatory design, long-term vision, and the sense of dignity it restores to those at society’s margins.

Participatory path

The State’s Extreme Poverty Eradication Project, launched in 2021, was not conceived as a top-down welfare scheme but as a participatory mission. The process of identifying extremely poor families began at the local level, involving panchayat representatives, workers for the Kudumbashree poverty eradication programme started in 1998, volunteers and officials.

Families were assessed across four key dimensions – food, health, housing, and income. Micro plans were prepared for each.

Through this exercise, over 64,000 families and more than one lakh individuals were identified as extremely poor. The state provided basic documents such as ration cards and Aadhaar to those who lacked them, ensured regular food supply through Kudumbashree networks, extended healthcare access and delivered housing under the LIFE (Livelihood Inclusion and Financial Empowerment) Mission.

Livelihood assistance was provided through self-help groups and employment schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Children from these households received educational support, scholarships, and safe housing where needed.

This convergence of welfare, livelihood, and human development represents Kerala’s distinct approach – integrating social support with empowerment.

Happy Kerala Piravi! On the 69th anniversary of our State’s formation, we celebrate a historic milestone: Kerala has officially been declared an ‘Extreme Poverty-Free State’. This marks the fulfilment of a collective dream, a promise that no one in Kerala will go without food,… pic.twitter.com/yQEFJTtd5t

— Pinarayi Vijayan (@pinarayivijayan) November 1, 2025

Long legacy

Kerala’s success today is not accidental. It is the outcome of decades of steady social investment and reform. As early as 1957, it became the first state to implement land reform laws, redistributing ownership and dismantling feudal inequalities.

Later, it became India’s first fully literate state, creating a citizenry capable of engaging with and demanding accountability from public institutions.

Every government since has built upon this foundation. Recent measures fit within a broader social-democratic ethos as welfare pensions were increased, the pay of workers in the Accredited Social Health Activist programme was enhanced and allowances for public employees were improved. These are not populist giveaways but steps that uphold dignity and social security.

The contrasts with the rest of India are striking. As per the latest National Family Health Survey, Kerala’s infant mortality rate stands at 4.4 per 1,000 live births, about one-fifth of the national average. The doctor vacancy rate in public health centres is virtually zero and the share of private healthcare providers is the lowest in the country, at 47.4%.

Kerala spends more on health than most states, yet achieves some of the lowest costs per patient with high-quality outcomes.

There is also a tangible sense of well-being one experiences when living in Kerala – especially in areas such as social support, healthcare, and education. True, the state faces challenges in generating enough jobs domestically. However, the high mobility, employability, and adaptability of Kerala’s workforce, particularly its youth, are themselves outcomes of a strong educational and social ecosystem.

The state’s development story thus extends beyond its borders – its people are among the most globally mobile in India, contributing remittances, skills, and cross-cultural capital that, in turn, fuel its economy. This dynamic underscores that Kerala’s model of development is not one-dimensional; it has combined welfare with capability, and equity with mobility.

Safety trampolines

Kerala’s welfare architecture has evolved beyond traditional safety nets. It now aspires to build what Singapore’s former deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam once called safety trampolines – mechanisms that help individuals and families bounce back from adversity, not remain trapped within systems of dependency.

The Extreme Poverty Eradication Project exemplifies this approach. It is not about indefinite handouts, but about equipping the poorest with access to health, documents, skills, and employment – the tools to climb out of poverty with agency and dignity.

This mirrors Amartya Sen’s capability approach to development, which shifts the focus from income to freedom – the freedom to be healthy, educated, and productive. Kerala’s policies have long reflected this perspective, expanding people’s real choices and opportunities.

#Kerala is set to declare itself India’s first extreme poverty-free state.

But what does extreme poverty really mean , and how did Kerala overcome it?#extremepoverty #extremepovertyeradication #keralamodel pic.twitter.com/nmWoPSGWX3

— Kerala Government | കേരള സർക്കാർ (@iprdkerala) November 1, 2025

In mainstream economics, there is often an assumed trade-off between equity and efficiency. The argument goes that redistribution can slow growth. Kerala’s experience challenges this assumption.

In developing contexts, poverty is not merely a lack of income but a trap of multiple deprivations – illness, malnutrition, and lack of education reinforcing each other. By breaking these cycles through targeted welfare, the state has made people more productive, employable, and resilient. Redistribution here has been a driver of growth, not a constraint.

Well-designed welfare, then, is a productive investment. It builds human capital, enlarges the labour force’s capabilities, and strengthens the foundations of a modern economy.

Lessons for the nation

Kerala’s achievement offers valuable lessons for India. The Right to Food Act recognised the moral and legal imperative of ensuring basic needs for all citizens. Kerala shows what it takes to translate such rights into reality: decentralised governance, data-driven planning and community participation.

Replication elsewhere will not be easy. It requires administrative depth, political will and social trust. But the larger lesson stands: inclusive growth is possible when governments treat citizens as participants, not passive beneficiaries.

Declaring the eradication of extreme poverty is not an endpoint but a milestone. The task ahead is to ensure that those lifted out of deprivation do not relapse into it, by sustaining opportunities for work, education, and dignity. There may always be differences over terminology – between “destitution” and “extreme poverty”. But the policy challenge remains the same: to ensure that no one falls through the cracks.

Kerala’s model has shown that progress is not merely about income but about expanding human dignity. It is a reminder that even within the constraints of a federal structure, a state can lead the way in redefining what development means.

Freddy Thomas teaches economic analysis of law at the School of Law, Christ University, Bengaluru, and writes on the intersection of law, economics, and public policy.

At the end of October, researchers from IIT Kanpur made three attempts to use “cloud seeding” to produce artificial rain over New Delhi in an effort to wash down the city’s dangerously high rates of airborne pollution. The expensive initiative – for which the Delhi government had allocated Rs 3.21 crore – failed to produce any rain.

That isn’t surprising. Cloud seeding experiments around the world have barely produced any rain-on-demand. But it gives politicians get mileage.

Genesis of cloud seeding

Cloud seeding was pioneered in US in early 1940s to produce snow and rain for recreation and farming. A researcher at General Electric Ltd named Vincent Shaefer had realised that water vapor super cooled at -400C, if seeded by suitable agents like dry ice, could produce ice crystals that fall as rain. Cloud seeding requires a good mass of clouds with enough moisture.

On November 13, 1946, Shaefer did the first experiment of cloud seeding in northern part of New York State when he flew a small plane into a thick cloud cover and sprayed dry ice in it to “seed” the clouds.

After a couple of hours, rainfall was reported. However, later experiments were inconclusive and subsequently General Electric stopped these experiments.

Later on, research showed that better cloud seeding could be done by silver iodide crystals sprayed by small aircraft. The crystals act as nucleation agents and start the process of rain formation.

I had the good fortune of having a correspondence with Shaefer, who was a research associate of Irving Langmuir in General Electric when I was working for my PhD at the University of Florida in 1970s on desalination of sea water.

I became interested in finding out how evaporating water gets electrically charged.

One of the things that Shaefer told me is that cloud seeding is very uncertain. Even today, 80 years later, data has shown that the rainfall produced from cloud seeding is statistically insignificant.

IIT-Kanpur did Delhi cloud-seeding trial despite Met dept warning of ‘no clouds’, now says they wanted to collect data for experiment using "indigenous" formula. @neutranino reportshttps://t.co/1oQY3jsz6a

— Suhasini Haidar (@suhasinih) November 2, 2025

Cloud seeding has always been done for producing rain for farming. Use of rain to ease air pollution is a recent phenomenon. It is assumed that fine polluting particles in the range of PM 2.5 to PM 10 could be washed away.

However, the particulate matter in the rainwater could become airborne again as it rises as dust. Besides, the rain would reduce air pollution only temporarily.

However, there are many unknowns in the cloud physics and rain formation process:

1. What gives the clouds an electric charge ? How does the evaporating water from sea get electrically charged?

2. How does the charge in the cloud produce thunder and lightning? How does this discharging help in the rain making?

3. How does the seeding material interfere with the lightning and rain production?

4. How much cloud cover is enough to facilitate the cloud seeding process – how much moisture must the cloud contain for cloud seeding to succeed?

6. How does industrial and vehicular pollution affect cloud formation and the seeding process?

All this makes cloud seeding unpredictable and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

A better solution to reduce air pollution is to reduce it at the source. Polluting sources should be identified and shut off or at least their potential to pollute should be reduced. For example, diesel vehicles in the city should be replaced by electric powered mass transport systems.

But the most important thing to do in cities like Delhi is to plant more trees. There should be a major campaign to plant trees. A green and healthy city normally has an average of more than 35% of its area covered by trees and forest. Unfortunately, Indian cities have tree cover of less than 10%-15%. Planting more trees in cities will reduce air pollution substantially.

Anil K Rajvanshi is the director and honorary secretary of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Phaltan. Maharashtra. He is a recipient of the Padma Shri.

The Sri Lankan Navy on Monday arrested 35 Indian fisherfolk from Tamil Nadu and seized four trawlers for alleged illegal fishing within the island nation’s territorial waters, PTI reported.

The arrests took place during an overnight operation near the Kankesanthurai area off the northern Jaffna district, Sri Lankan Navy Spokesperson Commander Buddika Sampath said.

According to the Navy, the fisherfolk were apprehended while trespassing into Sri Lankan waters. The arrested persons and their equipment have been handed over to the fisheries inspectorate for investigation and legal action.

This was the second such incident in the past month.

On October 9, the authorities had detained 47 Indian fisherfolk and seized five trawlers near Talaimannar, also in northern Sri Lanka, for similar violations, The Indian Express reported.

On Monday, Chief Minister MK Stalin urged External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to secure the release of the fisherfolk who were detained by Sri Lanka, along with their boats, The Hindu reported.

“These recurrent incidents have caused profound distress among the fishing communities of Tamil Nadu, whose lives and livelihoods are inextricably linked to the sea,” The Hindu quoted Stalin as saying. “Each apprehension not only deprives families of their primary means of sustenance but also instils a deep sense of fear and insecurity.”

The chief minister said that as of Monday, 114 fisherfolk and 247 boats were in Sri Lankan custody.

Fisherfolk from both countries have been arrested in the past for crossing territorial waters.

In November 2016, representatives of the two countries discussed a proposal to set up a coast guard hotline to avoid further disputes.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that fisherfolk who violate territorial water borders may be warned, or fined, but not arrested or shot at.

Cloudbursts. Flash floods. Landslides. Could the Char Dham highway project be making the Uttarakhand Himalayas more vulnerable? Help us investigate the true cost of this infrastructure push. Click here.

The National Forensic Science University laboratory informed the Supreme Court that the audio clips allegedly linking former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh to the ethnic violence in the state were tampered with and are not scientifically fit to compare the voice. Therefore, it cannot provide an opinion on whether the voice in the clips is that of Singh, the laboratory told the court.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by a Kuki group demanding an independent probe into the audio clips.

In the recordings believed to be from 2023, a voice purported to be that of Singh takes credit for “how and why the conflict started” bragging that he had defied Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s order against the use of “bombs” in the conflict and shielding individuals who snatched thousands of weapons from the state police armouries from arrest. Read on.

The Enforcement Directorate attached 40 properties worth about Rs 3,000 crore linked to businessperson Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group companies as part of a money-laundering investigation. The properties include a house owned by Ambani in Mumbai, the Reliance Centre in Delhi and other assets in the national capital region, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kancheepuram and Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district.

The probe is based on two first information reports filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in September 2022. The FIRs pertained to two separate loans given by Yes Bank to two firms of the conglomerate.

It has been alleged that loans of about Rs 3,000 crore received by the companies from the bank between 2017 and 2019 were illegally diverted to shell companies and wholly owned subsidiaries of the conglomerate with an intention to siphon the money. Read on.

United States President Donald Trump told CBS News that Pakistan was among the countries actively testing nuclear weapons. He made the comment while justifying his decision to resume the US’ nuclear trials for the first time since 1992, stating that China, Russia, North Korea and Pakistan were conducting the tests.

When the anchor said that it was unclear if Pakistan had tested nuclear weapons, Trump said: “Of course they have”. “They [countries] test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening,” he added.

Trump did not provide details to back his assertion that Pakistan was testing nuclear weapons or when the claimed tests had been carried out. Read on.

At least 20 persons were killed and several injured after a truck collided with a state transport bus in Telangana’s Rangareddy district. This came hours after 15 persons were killed when a mini bus collided with a parked truck in Rajasthan’s Phalodi district on Sunday evening.

There has been a spate of bus accidents across several states in the past month.

On October 14, 26 persons died after a bus travelling from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur in Rajasthan caught fire because of a short circuit. On October 28, two passengers died and ten were injured after their bus came into contact with a high-tension power line in Manoharpur near Jaipur.

Twenty persons had died after a bus caught fire following a collision in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district on October 24. Read on.

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India is the world’s third-largest producer of electronic waste like computer chips and batteries, known as “e-waste”, according to UN figures released last year.

Now the country wants to use its growing scrap heap as a source of critical minerals for its clean energy transition, from lithium to rare earth metals that power solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.

But the recycling system in the country is deeply fragmented, relying largely on millions of informal workers.

More than 90% of e-waste collection and initial dismantling takes place in informal workshops, often by workers without protective gear, for a typical daily wage of Rs 300, before the material is sold to licensed recyclers, according to estimates by Delhi-based non-profit Toxics Link.

Growing e-waste mountain

India generated nearly 1.75 million tonnes of e-waste in the financial year 2023-’24, up 73% in five years, according to the Central Pollution Control Board, a statutory body within India’s environment ministry.

At the same time, with a 240% increase between 2019 and 2024, its formal recycling rate in the country stands above 40%, nearly matching the rates in Europe and the United States.

But sustainability experts warn that these figures mask a deeper truth that the backbone of the system remains informal, unrecognised and underpaid.

Mineral mission

Traditional mining is carbon-intensive and often harmful to forests and ecosystems. Recycling offers a way to recover the same minerals at a far lower environmental cost.

In 2023, the Indian government launched its $4 billion National Critical Minerals Mission, designed to secure supplies through overseas deals, new domestic mines and by scaling up formal recycling.

In September, India approved an incentive scheme to promote the recycling of critical minerals, including lithium-ion batteries. The scheme will provide eligible recyclers with grants for initial investments.

Informal workers

As India builds new formal recycling plants, sustainability researchers say the real test will be whether this transition improves conditions for the millions of informal workers who have long powered the e-waste economy.

By 2030, global e-waste will rise to 82 million tonnes, with India contributing a growing share, according to UN data.

The country’s aim to extract critical minerals from its rising tide of scrap raises a question: can India secure critical minerals through cleaner recycling without leaving informal workforce behind?

This article first appeared on Context, powered by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Also read: Can India clean up its e-waste recycling sector?

A group of retired civil servants and diplomats on Monday urged the 16th Finance Commission to compensate Himalayan states Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim and Uttarakhand to preserve the ecology of the region.

They urged the commission to follow up and amplify the 12th Finance Commission’s concept of a “Green Bonus” that allocated funds proportional to the steps taken by the states for ecology and sustainability.

The commission, set up in December 2023, will recommend distribution of tax revenue between the Union government and the states for a five-year period between the financial years 2026-’27 and 2030-’31.

In a letter, the Constitutional Conduct Group said that the Himalayan states face a double whammy of financial compulsions. They have limited sources of income as they do not have an industrial or manufacturing base, services sector or surplus agriculture other than some fruit crops, thereby making potential employment bleak, the group said.

“On the other hand, the cost of providing basic development to the people is much higher than that of the plains because of topographical, connectivity and climatic reasons,” the statement added.

The former bureaucrats said that despite this, the states make a non-monetary, yet vital, contribution to the “country’s wellbeing, quality of life and in sectors like agriculture, climate control, hydel power, carbon capture and tourism”.

The letter claimed that northern India and its Gangetic plain “would not survive” without the forests, the glaciers and rivers that originate from Himachal, Kashmir and Uttarakhand.

“These rivers sustain a population of almost 400 million people and are a lifeline for many cities,” the group said.

The signatories added that the states are facing the brunt of cloudbursts, flash floods, land subsidence and collapsing infrastructure.

Between 2002 and 2025, Himachal Pradesh lost 1,200 lives and suffered a loss of Rs 18,000 crores in these disasters, according to the former bureaucrats.

“The position of Uttarakhand is even more dire: in just the last ten years (as of 2022) it has recorded 18,464 ‘natural disasters’ in which 3.554 lives were lost,” they added.

The signatories to the statement include Punjab’s former Director General of Police Julio Ribeiro, Delhi’s former Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and former Indian Administrative Service officer Harsh Mander.

The National Forensic Science University laboratory has informed the Supreme Court that the audio clips allegedly linking former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh to the ethnic violence in the state were tampered with and are not scientifically fit to compare the voice, Live Law reported on Monday.

Therefore, it cannot provide an opinion on whether the voice in the clips is that of Singh, the laboratory told the court.

The bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe was hearing a petition filed by the Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust, which has demanded an independent investigation into the audio clips purportedly featuring Singh’s voice.

In the recordings believed to be from 2023, a voice purported to be that of Singh is heard taking credit for “how and why the conflict started” bragging that he had defied Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s order against the use of “bombs” in the conflict and shielding individuals who snatched thousands of weapons from the state police armouries from arrest.

At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024.

President’s Rule was imposed in February after Singh resigned as the chief minister.

The laboratory told the court that four exhibits had shown signs of modification and tampering.

“Therefore, they conclude that the clips are altered and do not constitute the original source recording and are not scientifically fit for forensic voice comparison,” Live Law quoted Justice Kumar as having read from the report.

He read: “Consequently, no opinion on similarity and dissimilarity of the speakers in question and the control clips can be offered.”

In August, the court directed that the audio clips be sent for a fresh forensic examination to the National Forensic Science University laboratory in Gandhinagar to verify their authenticity.

The court had said at the time that a fresh examination would help clarify two aspects: whether the audio clips were modified, edited or tampered with in any manner and whether the voice in the disputed clips matched the admitted audio sample with a clear finding on whether the same person is speaking in all the recordings.

The laboratory was asked to submit its report directly to the court in a sealed cover.

On Monday, the bench directed the report be provided to the parties in the case and listed the matter for hearing next on December 8.

The court said that the petitioner could file a response to the report, Live Law reported.

During the hearing on Monday, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner, had said that a separate forensic report prepared by Truth Labs had found that the 50-minute recording was unedited and had indicated a 93% probability that the voice was matching in the control sample.

The Enforcement Directorate has attached 40 properties worth about Rs 3,084 crore linked to businessperson Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group companies as part of a money-laundering investigation, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

The properties include a house owned by Ambani in Mumbai, the Reliance Centre in Delhi and other properties in the national capital, Noida, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kancheepuram and Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district, the newspaper reported.

The investigation is based on two first information reports filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in September 2022. The FIRs pertained to two separate loans given by Yes Bank to Reliance Home Finance Limited and Reliance Commercial Finance Limited.

It has been alleged that loans of about Rs 3,000 crore received by the companies from the bank between 2017 and 2019 were illegally diverted to shell companies and wholly owned subsidiaries of the conglomerate with an intention to siphon the money, The Times of India quoted unidentified persons as saying.

In its attachment order issued on Friday, the agency alleged that it found several intentional control failures such as blank documents that were “overwritten and undated”, The Indian Express reported.

“Several borrowers had weak financials or negligible operations,” the newspaper quoted a spokesperson of the agency as saying. “Security creation was inadequate or unregistered, and security schedules were left blank, the end use did not match the sanction conditions.”

The Securities and Exchange Board of India, the National Housing Bank, the National Financial Reporting Authority and the Bank of Baroda had also shared information with the central agency about the companies earlier in the year.

In July, the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at more than 35 premises and searched 50 companies and 25 persons as part of its investigation.

The raids came days after the Union government told Parliament that the State Bank of India had classified Reliance Communications and Ambani, its promoter-director, as “fraud”.

Besides, Ambani was summoned and questioned at the central agency’s headquarters in Delhi on August 5, The Times of India reported.

The annual Pushkar Fair in Rajasthan’s Thar desert is considered the largest camel market in the world. Camels are at the central feature of the fair at which livestock, including horses, cattle, goat and sheep, is traded during the week-long event, which began on October 30.

But the camel herds that once dotted the horizon of the desert state are becoming rare. In villages near Jaisalmer and Bikaner, herders say they now struggle to find grazing land and buyers. “Each of us used to have hundreds,” a herder from the Raika pastoral community in Bikaner told us in 2022. “Only a few have such numbers now.”

From an estimated 11 lakh in the 1970s, India’s camel population plunged by 75% to just 2.5 lakh in four decades, according to the 20th Livestock Census data released in October 2019. Between 2012 and 2019 alone, the camel population fell by 37%.

For centuries, the camel has been an ally for India’s desert communities – hauling water, carrying salt, tilling land, providing milk and sustaining human life in a landscape where little else survived or grew. The sharp decline in the camel population reflects the trajectory of a policy environment that has marginalised pastoralists, their economies and the landscapes that sustained their livelihoods.

The Draft Camel Policy Paper, released by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying in September, calls this decline “a crisis of survival”. The policy proposes steps such as breed conservation and securing grazing rights. But will that be enough to save the ship of the desert?

Steady decline

For much of the 20th century, camels were essential for transport, as work animals pulling carts and luggage and for milk. Mechanisation later replaced camels in agriculture and transport, while canal irrigation and land conversion have shrunk grazing commons for herds.

The decline in camels has been the sharpest in Rajasthan and Gujarat, which together hold nearly 90% of India’s camels. Rajasthan’s population has fallen to 2.12 lakh, while in Gujarat, where Kharai and Kachchhi breeds once thrived, numbers have dropped to just 27,620 as per the 2019 Livestock Census of India.

Measures aimed at increasing the camel population and safeguarding its cultural significance have had the opposite effect.

In 2014, the Rajasthan government declared the camel the state’s “heritage animal”. The following year, the Rajasthan Camel (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 2015 was passed to curb the inter-state transport and the sale of camels to slaughterhouses, with the aim of increasing its population.

But livestock keepers say the law disincentivised the keeping of camels, particularly male camels, which would be used as pack animals by Raika and Rabari shepherds to carry cots, household items and food rations during migrations.

In any livestock herd, there is a 50% chance that newborns will be male. Since only a few males are needed for annual breeding, most are sold – either for meat or, in the case of camels, to other pastoralists who use them as pack animals.

The ban on inter-state migration and sale for slaughter severely disrupted this trade. Animal welfare organisations say that camels are still indirectly being transported across states, eventually to be slaughtered for meat in states like Telangana. Though the ban was recently withdrawn, no notification has been officially issued yet.

Camels may no longer be as useful as they once were, but their importance endures.

Their ability to survive on minimal water and feed makes them vital for livelihood adaptation to the rising heat and changing climatic conditions across north-western India. They are low-impact browsers that feed on hardy shrubs, require little fodder or water and enrich the soil with their manure while their padded hooves prevent erosion.

The camel also reflects the trajectory of India’s pastoralism: from mobility and adaptation to a life on the margins. Pastoralist communities like the Raika in Rajasthan and the Maldhari of Kachchh have developed deep ecological knowledge of grazing cycles, drought management and breeding that has sustained biodiversity in some of India’s harshest terrains.

In Gujarat, herders of the Rabari, Fakirnai Jat and Sama Maldhari communities manage unique breeds such as the Kharai, which swim through coastal creeks to graze on mangroves. The camel is also tied to India’s cultural heritage, like in the case of Rajasthan’s Raika community for whom herding is a hereditary vocation as well as spiritual belief: they say Shiva created their community to care for camels.

Losing camels would mean the loss of a species and the living knowledge and cultural systems that co-evolved with the desert-dwelling animal.

Camel policies, economy

India had established the National Research Centre on Camel in 1984, but policy support has remained thin. Recognising the crisis, the Centre and state governments have begun designing responses.

Rajasthan, as part of its Camel Conservation and Development Mission, offers Rs 20,000 per camel calf born, insurance coverage and mobile veterinary camps. Gujarat runs a breeding centre at Dhori in Kachchh and annual disease-control programmes.

Similarly, the Draft Camel Policy Paper, released in September, proposes a National Camel Sustainability Initiative, the first coordinated national effort to address the camel population crisis.

Its proposal to promote the emerging camel milk economy is significant given that the camel population in Gujarat’s Kachchh district has been sustained by a growing market for camel milk.

Once limited to household consumption and whose sale was taboo, camel milk has emerged as a niche product with medicinal and nutritional properties. Yet, India produces close to 7,000 tonnes annually, less than 0.2% of the global output. Rajasthan and Gujarat have begun supporting this sector, through the Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation and Sarhad Dairy, while brands like Amul are experimenting with camel milk-based products like ice creams and chocolates.

Though small, the camel milk industry holds potential for organic and free-range production and could expand exports to West Asia. Recognising camel milk as part of the formal livestock economy could also revalue pastoralism itself, acknowledging its ecological role and contribution to desert livelihoods.

The Draft Camel Policy Paper also outlines actions to:

● secure grazing rights and restore village commons (gochars);

● revive camel-based tourism and cultural fairs;

● promote breed conservation and youth training; and

● reform restrictive trade laws.

If implemented effectively, these steps can yield co-benefits for desert biodiversity and rural livelihoods beyond camel conservation.

Policy drawbacks

The draft policy’s major flaw is that it risks repeating a species-centric design by overlooking the interconnected nature of arid landscapes. Camels and the pastoralist communities who rear them, move across administrative boundaries for grazing and access to markets, therefore requiring conservation strategies that emphasise landscape-level coordination not just between departments, but also states.

The draft policy notes the need to ensure access to forage and grazing lands but fails to connect this to instruments like the Forest Rights Act, 2006, which could formalise grazing rights. In areas such as the Jamnagar Marine National Park and Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, grazing restrictions have hurt herders, based on assumptions that camels damage vegetation. Restoration of gochars and the demarcation of existing grazing zones should therefore be a priority.

The draft policy acknowledges the importance of grasslands and open natural ecosystems, or ONEs, but must also address their accelerated conversion for large-scale renewable energy and infrastructure projects, as well as afforestation and plantation programmes which inadvertently restrict access for pastoralists and disrupt their migratory routes.

Across Rajasthan and Gujarat, grazing commons are being diverted for solar and wind parks, often without considering the ecological or social costs – a major concern for the Oran Bachao Andolan in Rajasthan, to save sacred groves.

For the camel to survive, its habitats must remain open, connected and accessible, aligning with ongoing community-led conservation movements in western Rajasthan, further grounding the initiative in the realities of land and community governance.

Finally, and crucially, pastoralists and livestock rearers must be adequately represented in the National Camel Sustainability Initiative. Without such inclusion, India risks repeating the mistakes of the Rajasthan Camel Act, which alienated the communities it aimed to protect.

Camels, climate future

India’s arid and semi-arid regions cover nearly one-fifth of its land area. As India looks to build a climate-resilient rural future, the camel is a symbol of endurance and adaptation.

With policy support, camel herding could anchor a climate-adaptive rural economy which values mobility, low-input production and ecological stewardship.

The National Camel Sustainability Initiative could reposition the camel economy within India’s broader climate-resilient development agenda linking traditional knowledge systems with modern markets. The recognition that conserving camels requires more than an animal husbandry approach is significant. Yet, the challenge lies in whether the policy can address the ecological and economic realities of India’s arid regions.

Aniruddh Sheth is the Research Coordinator at the Centre for Pastoralism, New Delhi. Sanjana Nair is a Policy Analyst at the Centre for Policy Design, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment.

The police in Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district have filed a first information report against an imam, or religious leader, for allegedly playing a loudspeaker at a mosque beyond the permissible decibel limit, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

Maulana Rafique Khan, the imam of Ghumthal village, had been repeatedly warned against breaching the decibel limit following complaints from residents, the newspaper quoted the police as saying.

However, the decibel level at which the loudspeaker was playing was not specified.

Khan was booked on a complaint by Sub-Inspector Sonu Chaudhary, who claimed that he found the mosque’s loudspeaker volume exceeding permissible levels during a routine patrol.

Manoj Verma, the station house officer of Baniyather Police Station, said that Chaudhary had previously warned the imam against playing the loudspeaker at a high volume, The Indian Express reported.

“When his [Chaudhary’s] instructions were ignored, the officer lodged a formal complaint that led to the registration of the FIR,” the newspaper quoted Verma as saying.

The FIR against Khan was filed under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant and continuance of nuisance after injunction to discontinue.

Verma also claimed that some residents had earlier complained about the loudspeaker’s high volume.

A police team had visited the mosque and advised the imam to keep the sound within permissible limits, he was quoted as saying.

“Since no corrective action was taken and the violation was repeated, the police have now initiated legal proceedings in the matter,” The Indian Express quoted Verma as saying.

Ghumthal is a Hindu-majority village, unidentified police officers told The Indian Express.

Security personnel have been deployed at the village as a precautionary measure to prevent any untoward incident, Verma added.

A toxic haze shrouded Delhi on Monday as the air quality in the national capital remained in the “very poor” category.

The average Air Quality Index at 1.05 pm was 304, categorised as “very poor”, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board. More than 25 monitoring stations recorded “very poor” air quality, with readings above 300.

A day earlier, the Air Quality Index had reached 373 in the afternoon, with 15 monitoring stations recording “severe” levels above 400.

The Union government’s Air Quality Early Warning System had also forecast that pollution levels would remain “very poor” until at least Tuesday.

An index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air.

Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

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

VIDEO | Delhi: A layer of haze covers the city this morning, with visuals from ITO showing low visibility. The overall air quality in the national capital remains in the Poor category, as per CPCB data.#DelhiWeather #DelhiPollution #AirQuality

(Full video available on PTI… pic.twitter.com/XfPQq7B26P

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 3, 2025

On Saturday, as pollution worsened, Delhi began enforcing a ban on the entry of commercial goods vehicles, except those running on CNG, LNG or electricity and compliant with BS-VI norms, The Hindu reported.

The restriction, issued on October 17 by the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas, came into effect on November 1.

BS norms, or Bharat Stage Emission Standards, are regulations set by the Indian government to control air pollutants from motor vehicles. The higher the Bharat Stage norm, the stricter the standard and the lower the permissible emissions.

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

At least 20 persons were killed and several others injured on Monday after a truck carrying gravel collided with a Road Transport Corporation bus at Mirjaguda village near Chevella in Telangana’s Rangareddy district, The Hindu reported.

Chevella Assistant Commissioner of Police B Kishan said the bus had started from Tandur and was headed to Chevella with around 40 passengers on board, The Times of India reported.

Dr Rajendra Prasad, Superintendent of the Chevella Community Health Centre (CHC), told The Hindu that 20 persons have died in this accident.

Rajendranagar Deputy Commissioner of Police Yogesh Goutam said that the truck was in the right lane when it collided with the bus.

He added that the authorities were trying to ascertain whether the collision occurred while the truck driver was attempting to overtake or driving in the wrong direction.

“The accident occurred on the Bijapur Highway,” The Times of India quoted Goutam as saying. “We are removing the bodies from the bus and shifting them to hospitals. Traffic has been diverted on both sides.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from PM National Relief Fund each for the families of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy visited the accident site and directed the Road Transport Corporation managing director, the transport commissioner and the director general of fire services to oversee relief measures at the spot, The Chief Minister’s Official said in a social media post.

VIDEO | Rangareddy: Several injured after a tipper collided with a Tandur RTC bus near Mirjaguda on the Hyderabad-Bijapur highway.

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

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 3, 2025

“He directed the chief secretary and [director general of police] to make arrangements to immediately transport the injured to Hyderabad and provide them with better medical treatment,” it added. “The chief minister instructed officials to make special arrangements in Gandhi and Osmania Hospitals to provide emergency medical services to those injured in the accident.”

A control room has been set up at the state secretariat, the Chief Minister’s Office added.

15 killed in another bus accident in Rajasthan

At least 15 persons were killed and two others injured when a mini bus collided with a parked truck in Rajasthan’s Phalodi district on Sunday evening, The Indian Express reported.

The accident occurred around 6.30 pm in the Matoda area on the Bharat Mala Highway, when the mini bus was returning from the Kolayat Temple in Bikaner.

“Fifteen passengers died, while two others sustained serious injuries,” Jodhpur Police Commissioner Om Prakash told PTI. “The injured were first taken to a hospital in Osian for primary treatment and later referred to Jodhpur.”

Eyewitnesses told The Indian Express that the truck was parked in front of an eatery and the mini bus was attempting to overtake another vehicle when it collided with the trailer.

The Prime Minister’s Office announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured in the Rajasthan accident.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma said district officials had been directed to ensure proper treatment for the injured.

On October 14, at least 26 persons were killed and several injured after an air-conditioned sleeper bus travelling from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur in Rajasthan caught fire near Thaiyat village due to a short circuit.

On October 28, two persons died and ten others were injured after a bus carrying them came into contact with a high-tension power line in Manoharpur, which is about 50 km north of the Jaipur district headquarters, The Indian Express reported.

In Andhra Pradesh, at least 20 persons were killed after a bus caught fire following a collision in Kurnool district on October 24.