Narinder Tiwana was a teenager when his father first used a light motor to draw out groundwater for their fields in Punjab’s Patiala district.

In a few years, however, the 3 horsepower motor pump was struggling. “So, we purchased a 5 hp motor,” the 51-year-old farmer from Dittupur village said. “When that motor failed, we bought a more powerful one.”

But over the years, the water table kept dropping. Today, Tiwana said he uses 20-25 hp motor pumps. “And yet we are struggling to get water,” he said. “Every year, the water goes down by three feet.”

His assessment is borne out by data. According to a study, the annual water table in Patiala, where rice is one of the two main crops, fell by around 188 % between 1996 and 2018.

Tiwana was looking for a way out of this crisis when he met Kahan Singh Pannu, a 64-year-old farmer who once served as secretary of agriculture for the Punjab government.

Since his retirement in 2020, Pannu has actively worked on innovative farming techniques on his own land and encouraged farmers to adopt them.

His evangelism is driven by a sense of urgency. “At this stage, we have to assume that there is no water left for cultivation in Punjab,” he said. “Only then can we save the future.”

An experiment with paddy

When Pannu asked Tiwana to experiment with a new technique of farming paddy, he decided “it would not hurt” if he tried it out on two acres of his 20 acre-land.

Tiwana did not flood the two acres with water and transplanted paddy saplings that had been grown in his nursery, a method that demands a large amount of water.

Instead, in June last year, he shaped the land into a row of narrow elevated soil beds, separated by deep furrows. The rice seeds were planted on the soil beds and the furrows filled with water.

“Only 50% of water is needed to grow rice this way as compared to traditional paddy farming,” said Tiwana.

At the time of harvest in October, Tiwana was not disappointed. “I got a yield of around 24 quintals on one acre, which is about the same with traditional methods,” he said.

Bahadur Singh, a farmer from Amloh village of Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib district, also benefited from moving to the less water-intensive technique. “A farmer incurs a cost of Rs 5,000 per acre to transplant rice saplings in puddled water,” he explained. “But in this method, the seeds are planted by a machine which costs less than Rs 1,000 per acre.”

As Punjab stares at the grim prospect of running out of water, farmers in the agrarian state are beginning to experiment with a handful of solutions, with support from scientists. However, scaling up remains an uphill task.

The crisis

Punjab comprises only 1.5% of the country’s geographical area, but is essential to India’s food security. One of the three states where the country’s policymakers introduced the transformative agricultural practices under the ‘Green Revolution’ in the 1960s, Punjab produces nearly 24% of the total rice and 49% of the total wheat produced in the country.

Since groundwater irrigates 71% of Punjab’s total agricultural land, continuous cultivation of water-intensive crops like paddy has adversely impacted the state’s groundwater resources.

Punjab grows rice on over 32 lakh hectares of its total 36 lakh hectares of agricultural land in kharif season, from June to October. Most farmers then sow wheat in the second agricultural season that extends from October-November to March-April.

According to a 2020 report by the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s Central Ground Water Board, Punjab’s surface groundwater – available at a depth of 100 metres – might vanish by 2029.

If the exploitation of groundwater resources continues, the availability could plunge below 300 metres by 2039. At that level, the groundwater water will be as good as useless as the extraction of the groundwater would become unaffordable and the quality of water would not be suitable for irrigation.

The signs are not encouraging. In October 2021, a joint central-state government report revealed that around 78% of Punjab's groundwater resource base is over-exploited.

Saving costs

Pannu, the former civil servant, has been aware of Punjab’s agricultural crisis throughout his career.

In 2009, as a bureaucrat, he drafted a law that prohibits farmers from sowing paddy seeds in nurseries in April at the height of summer and transplanting the seedlings before the arrival of monsoon, around June 10. That was able to bring down the requirement of water drastically.

“When I was in the administration, I tried to carry out some interventions at the policy level,” he said. “Over the years, they proved to be beneficial for saving the water.”

Pannu cultivates paddy on around 17 acres of land in Jai Nagar village of Patiala, using the technique of seeding rice on elevated beds that he hopes other farmers will take up soon.

In the last three years, around 60 farmers have tried this paddy growing method, called seeding of rice on beds, Pannu told Scroll.

But only large and medium landholding farmers have shown interest. “Marginal or small farmers always adopt a new technique once they are sure about it. Their risk-taking capacity is very less,” explained Pannu.

Though the technique has been recommended by Punjab’s premier agriculture research institute Punjab Agricultural University, scientists say that claims that it can bring down the water usage for paddy cultivation by 50 or 75 % is premature.

“It’s a big claim and needs a lot more research. But the fact is that the water required for irrigation under this method is relatively low,” said a scientist at Punjab Agricultural University, wishing to remain anonymous as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

A search for solutions

Dr Ajmer Singh Dhatt, director of research at Punjab Agricultural University, told Scroll that the institution recommends a host of solutions to bring down the use of water.

One of them is the direct seeding of rice. As with Pannu’s technique, this does not involve transplanting paddy seedlings from a nursery into a puddled field. Instead, rice seeds are sown directly into moist soil.

According to data from the university, in the first year of Covid-19 pandemic the area of paddy plantations that used direct seeding jumped from 5.4 lakh hectares to 6 lakh hectares. One reason was that it needs less labour.

“There was a lack of labourers owing to the lockdown. Therefore, the farmers adopted this method,” said Pannu.

Among those farmers who tried this on a patch of 5-6 acres was farmer Bahadur Singh’s father, Balbir Singh. “It needed less water but we faced a perpetual weed problem,” the 71-year-old farmer said.

Scientists at Punjab Agricultural University assert that the direct seeding of rice saves 10-20 % of water in comparison to the traditional method, but admitted that it leads to “the presence of weeds of diverse flora”, thereby restricting its adoption on a large scale.

Open to innovation

Agricultural experts say the alarming water crisis has led a section of Punjab’s farmers to become responsive to innovation.

Dhatt, the director of research at Punjab Agricultural University, said, “Punjab's farmers are very innovative. Whatever new techniques we develop, they test it and if it's performing better, they adopt it.”

Two years ago, for example, Balbir Singh moved to seeding rice on elevated beds – like Tiwana. “Not only is the need of water less, there is no problem of weeds eating up the crop,” he explained.

He told Scroll that he has been trying to shift to sustainable agricultural practices for years now and is open to experimentation. “On 23 acres of my land, I cultivate only those rice varieties which take only 120 days to grow and consume less water,” he said. “The lack of water here is a serious concern.”

Need intervention

For decades, experts have warned Punjab farmers of breaking out of the monoculture of wheat-paddy cultivation owing to the depleting water resources and increasing input costs.

However, the cycle is hard to break as paddy and wheat are among the only few crops for which the central government offers a minimum support price or MSP. “It’s not only the MSP but the mechanization and ease of cultivation of wheat and paddy [that make the crops attractive],” said Dhatt of Punjab Agricultural University.

The farmers are also responding to the high demand from the central government, because “a large volume of rice is being exported,” Dhatt said. With a global market share of 30-40 %, India's the world's largest exporter of rice.

“Even if a farmer decides to quit cultivating water-guzzling paddy and cultivates a less water-intensive crop, it will take at least three years for farmland to adapt to the new crop and produce optimum yield,” said Balwinder Singh, a small farmer in Sirhind city. “Who will support the farmer and his family for those three years?”

At the state level, the Punjab government has tried to incentivise innovative cultivation techniques which ostensibly require less water and input cost.

In 2022, the Aam Aadmi Party-led government announced a bonus of Rs 1,500 per acre to farmers who take up direct sowing of rice instead of transplantation and flooding methods that consume a lot of water. According to Pannu, a similar kind of intervention is needed for the seeding of rice on beds method. “Someone in the government needs to wake up,” he said.

India’s crude oil and gas supplies remain secure despite disruptions caused by the conflict in West Asia, the Union government said on Wednesday.

Sujata Sharma, the joint secretary of the petroleum and natural gas ministry, said that domestic liquified petroleum gas consumers would receive their cylinders within about two and a half days of booking them and warned against panic buying.

Domestic LPG production has risen by 25%, prioritising household consumers, while non-domestic supplies are directed to essential sectors such as hospitals and educational institutes, she reiterated.

She said that domestic LPG prices have risen because of global supply pressures, adding that without the government’s intervention, they would have been significantly higher.

In Delhi, a 14.2 kg domestic cylinder now costs Rs 913, while a 19 kg commercial cylinder is priced at Rs 1,883.

India consumes about 55 lakh barrels of crude oil per day, the official said, adding that the quantity secured on Wednesday exceeded what would normally arrive through the Strait of Hormuz “during this period”.

Nearly 70% of crude imports now come through routes outside the Strait of Hormuz, compared with 55% earlier, reducing the risk of disruption, the official said.

“Our refineries are operating at the highest capacity utilisation,” Sharma said. “Some are operating at more than 100% of their capacity.”

Currently, two crude oil cargoes and two liquefied natural gas shipments are on their way to India, the official added.

The comments came as Japan and Germany on Wednesday announced that they will tap into their oil reserves amid fuel supply disruption and rising global oil prices triggered by the conflict.

Global oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel-mark on Monday. This was the highest level since July 2022.

By Wednesday, the price of benchmark Brent crude had fallen to about $90 per barrel. It was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Two Indians dead, one missing, says MEA

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on Wednesday that two Indians had died and one remains missing amid the conflict in West Asia.

Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the casualties occurred when Indian citizens aboard merchant vessels came under attack in the conflict-affected waters, with several others also getting injured, including one in Israel and another in Dubai.

Jaiswal said that the safety and welfare of India’s diaspora, numbering about 10 million in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, remains the government’s “utmost priority”.

The conflict in West Asia began when Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

The April 10 elections to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council have been postponed, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma announced. This came a day after two persons were killed in suspected police firing in the West Garo Hills district amid clashes between tribal and non-tribal groups.

Ethnic faultline widened after the council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the polls scheduled to take place on April 10. Protests erupted on Monday, when the nomination process began, against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls.

On Wednesday, the Meghalaya High Court set aside the notification that made a Scheduled Tribe certificate mandatory to contest the polls. Read on.

The Supreme Court directed the Centre and state governments to ensure that three experts who were involved in drafting a chapter about “corruption in the judiciary” in a now-withdrawn textbook are not associated with other curriculum projects.

An affidavit by the National Council of Educational Research and Training said that visiting Professor Michel Danino had supervised the drafting of the chapter, and educator Suparna Diwakar and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar were also involved in the process.

The court said that either the three did not have “reasonable knowledge about the Indian judiciary”, or they knowingly misrepresented facts. The bench directed the Union government, states and universities “to dissociate three of them forthwith and not to assign any responsibility which involves public funds”. Read on.

The Supreme Court allowed life support to be withdrawn for a 31-year-old man who has been in a permanent vegetative state since 2013. This was the first instance in which the court’s directions on passive euthanasia, laid down in a 2018 judgement, have been applied.

The bench passed the order on a plea filed by the family of Harish Rana, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in August 2013 after falling from the fourth floor of a building in Chandigarh. Rana’s family had approached the court seeking permission to withdraw life-sustaining treatment.

The court also recommended that the Union government bring in comprehensive legislation on passive euthanasia. Read on.

The Assam government will rename the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital as the Barpeta Medical College and Hospital, dropping the name of the fifth president. Ahmed is the only person from the state to have held the post.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the decision was taken because all other government medical colleges in the state “were named in relation to the geographical entities”. He said that because the college was named after Ahmed, people would mistakenly believe that the institute was a private institute.

Sarma added that the Cabinet has decided to name another institution “befitting the stature” of Ahmed. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre and state governments to ensure that the three persons who were involved in drafting a chapter about “corruption in the judiciary” in a now-withdrawn textbook are not associated with other curriculum projects, Live Law reported.

The chapter was part of a Class 8 social science textbook published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. The educational body on Tuesday apologised for the chapter, and said that the entire book has been withdrawn.

This came two weeks after the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the matter and banned the publication and re-printing of the textbook.

An affidavit by NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said that a visiting professor, Michel Danino, had supervised the drafting of the chapter, while educator Suparna Diwakar and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar were also involved in the process, Live Law reported.

Danino, an academic, has edited several textbooks, including those for the Central Board of Secondary Education. He has taught Indian civilization and culture at several institutions and was a guest professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar between 2011 and 2017. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2017.

Diwakar is a co-founder of the Indian School of Development Management. Kumar, a lawyer, is the co-founder of think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that either the three persons did not have “reasonable knowledge about the Indian judiciary”, or they knowingly misrepresented facts.

“There is no reason why such persons [should] be associated in any manner with the preparation of curriculum or finalisation of textbooks for the next generation,” Live Law quoted the court as saying.

The court directed the Union government, states, Union Territories and universities “to dissociate three of them forthwith and not to assign any responsibility which involves public funds”.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymala Bagchi also asked the Union government to revisit the composition of the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee, which had approved the chapter.

The court said that the affidavit of the NCERT director was “disturbing” as it said that the chapter in question had been rewritten, Bar and Bench reported.

“Neither the affidavit nor otherwise has apprised the court as to who are the alleged subject experts who has re-written the chapter again and who has approved its inclusion,” the bench was quoted as saying. “Suffice to say that more complexity shall be created.”

The court directed the Union government to create a panel of experts, preferably including a former judge, an academician and a renowned legal practitioner, to review the rewritten chapter. The revised chapter should not be published without the committee’s nod, the court was quoted as saying by Live Law.

The chapter had listed “corruption at various levels of the judiciary” among the challenges that the judicial system faces, according to The Indian Express. It was part of a textbook titled “Exploring Society: India and Beyond”.

During a Supreme Court hearing on February 26, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Union government, had apologised to the court. However, the bench had said that the press release issued by the NCERT at the time did not have a “single word of apology”.

The Indian stock market on Wednesday extended its losses amid concerns surrounding the conflict in West Asia.

The benchmark Sensex index ended the day down by more than 1,340 points, which was 1.7%, lower than the previous day’s closing. The Nifty fell by 1.6% to close the session below 23,900 points.

Stock markets had begun to slide on March 2 after the conflict began.

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked more than 11.3% on Wednesday.

Across Asia, major stock indices were mixed on Wednesday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 0.2% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.4%.

Rupee plunges

The Indian rupee also weakened on Wednesday by 19 paise to close at 92.04 against the US dollar, PTI reported. The currency had closed at 91.8 on Tuesday.

Global oil prices have surged due to the conflict in West Asia, with the benchmark Brent crude rising from about $72 per barrel on February 27, just before the conflict began, to just below $90 per barrel by Wednesday.

On Monday, global oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark, the highest since July 2022.

Global oil prices have risen by about 50% since Israel and the United States attacked Iran on February 28. The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption traverses the maritime chokepoint.

The conflict in West Asia began after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The Congress on Wednesday described remarks by the United States that Washington had “temporarily permitted” India to accept Russian oil as a “capitulation certificate” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described India as a “good actor” that had previously stopped buying sanctioned Russian oil amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine. She said that, as a short-term measure, the US had permitted India to accept Russian oil that was already on ships at sea.

“So as we work to appease this temporary gap of oil supply around the world because of the Iranians, we have temporarily permitted them to accept that Russian oil,” she said.

After the US Treasury Secretary, it is now the turn of President Trump's Press Secretary to give Mr. Modi a capitulation certificate.

According to her, the Modi Govt behaved well by agreeing to stop imports of oil from Russia, and as a reward it has now been allowed to do so… pic.twitter.com/njv5iSoJyf

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) March 11, 2026

The remarks by Leavitt prompted criticism from the Opposition.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the US statement suggested that the Modi government had “behaved well” by agreeing to stop imports of Russian oil and had been rewarded with permission to buy it for 30 days.

The Congress also criticised the US statement from its official social media account, questioning why the Indian government had not objected to what it described as a “blatant insult to our sovereignty and dignity”.

The party asked why India’s energy decisions appeared to be dictated externally and urged the government to respond.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says the United States has PERMITTED India to accept Russian oil and calls Indians GOOD ACTORS.

Read that again.

👉PERMITTED
👉GOOD ACTORS

Why is the Government of India not objecting to this blatant insult to our sovereignty and… pic.twitter.com/Ep3bqsWOYt

— Congress (@INCIndia) March 11, 2026

On March 5, the US had granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver to buy Russian oil stranded at sea amid the conflict in West Asia.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the decision was a short-term measure to keep oil supplies flowing globally amid disruptions because of the conflict.

He described India as an “essential partner” of the US and said Washington expected New Delhi to increase purchases of American oil. The temporary waiver, he said, would ease pressure on global markets caused by disruptions linked to Iran.

Global oil prices have spiked due to the conflict in West Asia, with escalating tensions raising fears of disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Amid the conflict, global oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022. By Wednesday, the benchmark Brent crude had fallen about $90 per barrel.

The recent waiver follows earlier tensions between the US and India over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude oil.

The Trump administration had in August imposed a punitive levy on India for buying oil from Russia amid the Ukraine war. This had taken the combined US tariff rate to 50%.

On February 7, Trump issued an executive order to remove the additional 25% punitive tariff on imports from India over New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. This brought the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports to 18% after the interim trade deal was agreed to.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday that the state government has decided to rename the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital as Barpeta Medical College and Hospital.

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was the fifth president of the country and the only person from Assam to have held the post.

Sarma claimed at a press conference that the decision was taken because all other government medical colleges in the state “were named in relation to the geographical entities”, such as the Gauhati Medical College and Dhubri Medical College.

“But somehow Barpeta Medical College was named as Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said. “That has led to some confusion.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College will be renamed as Barpeta Medical College & Hospital. pic.twitter.com/YPNlbbeQGk

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) March 10, 2026

Sarma claimed that because the college was named after Ahmed, many people would mistakenly believe that the institute was a private one.

The chief minister added that although the state Cabinet has decided to rename the college, it has “also taken a decision to name another institution befitting the stature of former President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed”. He said that the Cabinet has authorised him to do so immediately.

The medical college is affiliated with Srimanta Sankardeva University of Health Sciences. It has been offering undergraduate medical courses since 2012 and postgraduate courses since 2019, PTI reported.

Ahmed was the president from August 24, 1974, to February 11, 1977, and a Union minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday said that the April 10 elections to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council have been postponed, India Today NE reported.

The statement came a day after two persons were killed in suspected police firing in the West Garo Hills district amid tensions surrounding the nomination process.

The decision to postpone the election was taken “keeping sentiments of the people in mind”, the chief minister was quoted as saying by Highland Post. “We will sit and decide how to take the procedure ahead, but till then the decision has been made...” he added.

The firing on Tuesday took place in the Chibinang area after a clash broke out between tribal and non-tribal groups in connection with the polls, the police said.

Both of those killed were non-tribal residents, West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Vibhor Aggarwal told Scroll.

Tensions had been simmering in the West Garo Hills between tribal and non-tribal communities after a Garo man died after being attacked by unidentified assailants in January. The man was a member of ACHIK, a non-governmental organisation that had visited an allegedly illegal stone quarry in the Rajabala area to “inspect” activities there.

Ethnic faultlines widened after the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the election to the council.

The notification made it mandatory for all candidates to possess a Scheduled Tribe certificate. Leaders of non-tribal communities have described the mandate as an unconstitutional decision to deprive them of their rights.

On Tuesday, the Meghalaya High Court set aside the notification, which required candidates to submit a Scheduled Tribe certificate with their nomination papers.

The nomination process began on Monday, after which protests had erupted in the region against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls.

On Monday, a mob of about 50 persons assaulted former Phulbari MLA Esmatur Mominin when he was going to the district commissioner’s office to file his nomination for the election. This led to a night curfew being imposed in 37 sensitive villages of the district.

High Court quashes tribal certificate rule

The High Court on Tuesday set aside the notification that made submitting a Scheduled Tribe certificate compulsory for candidates filing nomination papers for elections to the council.

The court held that the notification could not pass legal scrutiny under the 1951 Assam and Meghalaya Autonomous Districts Constitution of District Councils Rules, which govern district council elections and the framework for autonomous district councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

A voter had challenged the notification in the High Court, arguing that it violated the provisions of the 1951 rules that govern the qualifications of electors and candidates in district council polls.

The court observed that ever since the district council was formed, the two rules have remained unchanged, preserving “the right of every enrolled voter either tribal or non-tribal to be qualified to be a member or voter”.

The two rules are Rule 8 that say that a person entitled to vote in the district council election is also qualified to be a member. Rule 128 lays down qualifications to be a voter.

“…since its inception in the list of elected members from 1952 onwards, non-tribals have featured and are present,” the court noted. “It is a well-established fact, that non-tribals residing in the concerned constituencies have been participating in, and have also been elected to the council as members.”

The court observed that the notification had sought to change the situation because of a “change in demographics” and limit participation only to members of the Scheduled Tribe community.

The High Court noted that the notification had been issued based on a resolution of the Executive Committee and under powers purported to be derived under Paragraph 2 of the Sixth Schedule.

However, the court said that the Executive Committee is only allowed to refer proposals to the District Council for approval and does not have the authority to frame rules on its own.

It observed that the notification had been issued only at the level of the Executive Committee and had not been placed before the District Council for approval.

The notification “to have effect in law would also have to pass the rigours of Rule 72”, which states that rules are to be made by the District Council and compulsorily need the governor’s assent.

In view of this, the court held that the notification could not pass legal scrutiny and set it aside.

The Garo Hills Autonomous District Council has 30 constituencies, out of which elections are held for 29 seats. The Meghalaya governor nominates the remaining member.

In at least five of these constituencies located along the plains, Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims influence the election results. Muslims comprise more than 70% of the population in this region, The Hindu reported.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed life support to be withdrawn for a 31-year-old man who has been in a permanent vegetative state since 2013, Bar and Bench reported.

This was the first instance in which the court’s directions on passive euthanasia, laid down in a 2018 judgement, have been applied.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan passed the order while hearing a plea filed by the family of Harish Rana, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in August 2013 after falling from the fourth floor of a building in Chandigarh. He has been in a vegetative state since then.

In 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had recognised and given sanction for passive euthanasia, and allowed living wills or advance directives.

In that judgement, the court had ruled that the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to live with dignity. The Supreme Court had held that the constitutional right includes the smoothening of the process of dying in case of a terminally ill patient or a person in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

Rana’s family had approached the court seeking permission to withdraw life-sustaining treatment in the form of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration administered through a PEG tube.

A Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastronomy tube is a device inserted through the abdominal wall directly into the stomach to deliver nutrition, fluids and medication.

On Wednesday, the court noted that continuing the treatment was only prolonging Rana’s biological existence without any therapeutic improvement, Live Law reported.

It also observed that both the primary and secondary medical boards, along with Rana’s parents, had reached the opinion that the clinically assisted nutrition and hydration should be discontinued as it was not in the best interest of the patient.

The court stated that when primary and secondary boards have certified withdrawal of life support, there is no need for the court’s intervention, Live Law reported. However, it added that since this was the first case to reach the court, it was appropriate to examine the matter.

The bench then directed that the withdrawal of life support must be carried out in a dignified manner.

It also recommended that the Union government bring in comprehensive legislation on passive euthanasia.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to Bhojpuri singer and satirist Neha Singh Rathore in a case pertaining to a social media post about the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, Bar and Bench reported.

The court had granted her interim protection from arrest on January 7. On Tuesday, a bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and AS Chandurkar made the interim protection absolute, according to Bar and Bench.

The case against Rathore was filed based on a complaint in Lucknow. The singer and activist was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to endangering national unity and sovereignty, and promoting enmity between groups, as well as under the Information Technology Act.

In the social media post in question, Rathore had said that the April 22 Pahalgam attack was an intelligence and security failure on the part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government. She had also claimed in the video that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would seek votes in Bihar in the name of the attack just as he allegedly did after the 2019 Pulwama terror attack.

After the case was filed, Rathore had moved the Allahabad High Court seeking that the first information report be quashed, but the court rejected her plea. She then approached the Supreme Court, which also declined to set aside the case.

Rathore then approached the High Court again, seeking anticipatory bail. On December 6, the High Court refused to grant her relief, saying that she had made “disrespectful” comments about the prime minister and had posted the video at a crucial time after the terror attack.

The singer eventually moved the Supreme Court.

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that a new oil refinery will be set up in Texas, with investment from the country’s “partners in India” and the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate Reliance Industries.

The company, America First Refining, would set up the “first new US oil refinery in 50 years” in Texas’ Brownsville, the US president added.

The announcement came as global oil prices have spiked amid the conflict in West Asia, with escalating tensions raising fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

“This is a historic $300 billion deal,” Trump said in a social media post. “The biggest in US history, a massive win for American workers, energy and the great people of South Texas.”

He added: “Thank you to our partners in India, and their largest privately held energy company, Reliance, for this tremendous investment.”

It remains unclear what role Reliance Industries will play in the project or how much it has invested.

President Donald J. Trump announces that America First Refining is opening the FIRST new U.S. Oil Refinery in 50 YEARS in Brownsville, Texas. 🇺🇸

This is what AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE looks like. 💪 pic.twitter.com/UTOW7wECCI

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 10, 2026

America First Refining said in a press release that the company had received a nine-figure investment earlier this year from a global “supermajor” energy company, valuing the project at a ten-figure level. The company did not publicly identify the investment partner in the release.

The tensions in West Asia began on February 28 after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

Amid the conflict, global oil prices had briefly crossed the $100-per-barrel mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022. By Wednesday, the benchmark Brent crude had fallen below $90 per barrel.

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

On February 4, the $300 billion Indian IT sector faced a moment of reckoning.

The country’s benchmark IT stocks index slumped nearly 6%, reacting to Anthropic’s release of its Claude Cowork agentic plugin.

The new plugins are designed to automate precisely the high-volume, repetitive knowledge work that has been the bread and butter of Indian IT: contract reviews, regulatory compliance tracking, and sales forecasting, among other things. The stock sell-off was triggered by fears that clients could now use AI for such tasks instead of outsourcing them to companies in India.

This was the first concrete sign of AI’s long-feared threat to the industry, which makes for 10% of India’s GDP and directly employs 5 million people.

Indian IT firms have been preparing for this eventuality. Still, experts who have observed the industry closely believe many of these companies and their services will soon become obsolete. AI won’t kill the entire sector, they said, but only the companies that innovate and adapt to AI quickly will thrive in the future.

“The math is simple: If a U. company can automate legal contract reviews internally using Claude Cowork or OpenAI Codex, why would they pay for a 50-person team in Bengaluru to do it?” Ishan Talathi, co-founder of Pune-based cloud infrastructure firm CloudPe, told Rest of World. “The Indian IT model is built on man-day billing; we charge for bodies on projects. That model is now facing existential pressure.”

Over the past four decades, India has become the “back office of the world”, recruiting affordable labour in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune to execute low-end tech-related tasks for clients in North America and Europe. The cost of labour in India can be 60%–80% cheaper than in the West.

Talathi believes up to half of traditional outsourcing work is directly exposed to extinction by AI, with areas like contract reviews, compliance documentation, data processing, routine coding, and testing being the most vulnerable.

The business model shift “forces an overdue evolution from cost arbitrage to genuine innovation, which is healthy, [but] a mismanaged transition could devastate urban economies, real estate, and ancillary services,” Talathi warned.

Typically, IT services companies rely on billable hours – charging clients for the amount of time spent on projects. With a smaller workforce and more AI, “the timelines of engagements will massively shrink further, impacting billing”, Yugal Joshi, partner at global research firm Everest Group, told Rest of World.

In recent years, companies have been trying to insulate their business models. Market leaders Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys have been integrating generative AI and machine learning into their core business processes and offerings.

By mid-2025, India’s top five IT companies had trained more than 250,000 employees on AI.

TCS – the biggest Indian IT firm and the first and only one to publicly disclose this information so far – pegs its annualised AI services revenue at $1.8 billion. That’s around 5% of the company’s quarterly consolidated revenue.

“Large enterprises don’t engage Indian IT firms to run isolated tasks; they outsource complex, interdependent systems with accountability attached,” Nirmit Biswas, senior research analyst at Market Research Future, told Rest of World. “AI tools may shorten delivery cycles, but they don’t replace vendor responsibility for uptime, integration, compliance, or transformation outcomes.”

Biswas estimates only “roughly a fifth of the effort embedded in traditional IT delivery” to be affected by AI. “That does not translate into a similar proportion of revenue at risk,” he said.

As of now, experts said, junior roles that execute repetitive, standardised tasks are most vulnerable. Mid-level jobs with low specialisation could also become redundant in the next decade. Workers who upskill will likely continue to earn good salaries.

“AI should not be viewed as an existential risk to Indian IT, but as a filter,” Biswas said.

Some believe that AI’s threats may push the Indian IT industry into a better direction.

“The scaremongering has some merit, and not every tech services firm will survive,” Joshi said. “The impact will not depend on an industrywide AI impact, but the strategic initiatives each service provider undertakes. Speed to partner with AI vendors, scaling solutions, and internal operating model transformation will be crucial.”

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

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

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the formation of an appellate tribunal composed of former High Court chief justices and judges to hear appeals against exclusions from voter lists in West Bengal following a special intensive revision exercise in the state, Live Law reported.

A person whose claim for inclusion in the electoral rolls has been rejected by a judicial officer can approach the appellate tribunal, Bar and Bench quoted court as saying.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi passed the order after concerns were raised about the lack of an independent appellate mechanism to deal with appeals against the rejection of their claims by judicial officers.

The court recalled its February 24 order that said that orders passed by judicial officers would not be subjected to appeal before an executive or administrative forum, Live Law reported.

The bench directed that the Election Commission will bear the expenses for the functioning of the appellate body and for honorariums to the judicial officers involved in the exercise, Bar and Bench reported.

The bench was hearing a batch of petitions against the revision of electoral rolls in the state.

During the hearing, the court criticised the petitioners for raising questions about the competence of judicial officers who are adjudicating the claims, Live Law reported.

The chief justice was quoted as saying: “Your application is premature and it shows as if you don’t have trust. How did you dare such applications are filed? No one should dare question the judicial officers.”

However, the bench allowed the setting up of the appellate body.

West Bengal is among the 12 states and Union Territories where the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway.

On February 28, the Election Commission published the final electoral roll for West Bengal, indicating the exclusion of more than 61 lakh voters.

However, the process continues with about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases remaining “under adjudication” based on their objections to their exclusions from the draft rolls published in December.

The names of those approved by judicial officers will be added to the rolls through a supplementary list.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ordered that judicial officers of the rank of district judge or additional district judge be appointed to help complete the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state amid a tussle between the Trinamool Congress government and the Election Commission.

Four days later, the court allowed judges from Odisha and Jharkhand to also be deployed to decide on the claims and objections raised during the process.

Also read: As polls knock, why is Bengal’s SIR in a state of chaos with no end in sight?

The Union government invoked the Essential Commodities Act, directing refineries to regulate the production, supply and distribution of natural gas following disruptions due to the West Asia conflict. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that the conflict has constrained shipments of liquefied natural gas through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

In view of this, the ministry stated that the supply of natural gas to several sectors will be treated as a priority allocation. The sectors include piped natural gas for domestic use, compressed natural gas for transport, liquefied petroleum gas production and pipeline compressor fuel. Read on.

Vaishnavi Rathore explains why the US-Iran conflict will hurt India more than China.

The Congress moved a motion seeking to remove Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from office. The Opposition has accused Birla of being partisan and contended that his actions “constitute a serious danger to the proper functioning” of the House.

The Congress alleged that Birla had prevented Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi from speaking in the House, made “unwarranted allegations” against women MPs and suspended Opposition legislators for an entire session for raising matters of public concern.

Birla “openly espouses the version of the ruling party on all controversial matters”, the Opposition alleged. Birla has recused himself from the proceedings of the House until the motion is considered. Read on.

Two persons were killed in suspected police firing in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district amid tensions surrounding the nomination process of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council election. The incident took place after a clash broke out between tribal and non-tribal groups.

Both of those killed were non-tribal residents, the deputy commissioner told Scroll. A curfew has been imposed in the district, mobile internet suspended and the Army deployed.

Ethnic faultline widened after the council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the polls scheduled to take place on April 10. Leaders of non-tribal groups have described the order as an unconstitutional decision to deprive them of their rights.

Protests erupted on Monday, when the nomination process began, against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls. Read on.

The Supreme Court reiterated its support for the Uniform Civil Code while hearing a petition challenging provisions of the Muslim personal law that allegedly discriminate against women. The bench verbally observed that declaring personal laws void would create a legislative vacuum and that “it is best to defer it to legislative wisdom so that the legislature brings about a law on Uniform Civil Code”.

“This court has already recommended Uniform Civil Code,” it added.

The plea challenges the 1937 Muslim Personal Law Shariat Application Act, alleging that its provisions discriminate against women on matters such as succession. Read on.

United States President Donald Trump said that the US will hit Iran “twenty times harder” if Tehran stops the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said that the action he was promising was a “gift” from the US to China “and all of those nations that heavily use” the strategic waterway. “Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated,” he said.

This came after several Asian countries introduced measures such as rationing fuel, shutting educational institutes and reducing the number of work days per week to save fuel and energy amid supply disruption and rising global oil prices. Read on.

Nachiket Deuskar explains how the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz directly hurts India’s energy security.

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Two persons were killed in suspected police firing in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district on Tuesday amid tensions surrounding the nomination process of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council election.

The firing took place in the Chibinang area after a clash broke out between tribal and non-tribal groups in connection with the election, West Garo Hills Superintendent of Police Abraham T Sangma was quoted as saying by PTI.

Both of those killed were non-tribal residents, West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Vibhor Aggarwal told Scroll.

Following the violence, a curfew has been imposed in the entire district, Aggarwal said. The Army has also been deployed.

The killing came hours after the administration on Tuesday suspended mobile internet services in the district for 48 hours.

Tensions had been simmering in the West Garo Hills between tribal and non-tribal communities after a Garo man died in January after being attacked by unidentified assailants. The man was a member of ACHIK, a non-governmental organisation that had visited an allegedly illegal stone quarry in the Rajabala area to “inspect” activities there.

Ethnic faultline also widened after the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council issued a notification barring non-tribal persons from contesting the election to the council scheduled on April 10.

The notification makes it mandatory for all candidates to possess a Scheduled Tribe certificate. Leaders of non-tribal communities have described the mandate as an unconstitutional decision to deprive them of their rights, The Hindu reported.

The nomination process of candidates for the election began on Monday. Protests have erupted in the region against non-tribal persons being allowed to contest the polls.

On Monday, a mob of about 50 persons assaulted former Phulbari MLA Esmatur Mominin when he was going to the district commissioner’s office to file his nomination for the election. This led to a night curfew being imposed in 37 sensitive villages of the district.

The Garo Hills Autonomous District Council has 30 constituencies, out of which elections are held for 29 seats. The Meghalaya governor nominates the remaining member.

In at least five of these constituencies located along the plains, Bengali-speaking or Bengali-origin Muslims influence the election results. Muslims comprise more than 70% of the population in this region.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Union government to frame a policy to ensure that those who suffered adverse side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine are fairly compensated, Bar and Bench reported.

The court said that the policy must be on a no-fault basis, which refers to a provision in law or insurance where the compensation for injuries, losses or damage is provided irrespective of who caused it.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta passed the directive on a writ petition filed by a couple who have claimed that their daughters died to adverse effects of the vaccine, Live Law reported.

The plea sought an investigation by an independent committee into the deaths of their daughters, along with directions to release autopsy and probe reports expeditiously, Bar and Bench reported.

The petition also urged that the parents be monetarily compensated, and sought directions to the government to frame guidelines for early detection and treatment of persons suffering from adverse side effects of vaccines.

On Tuesday, the court also held that existing mechanisms for monitoring adverse events following immunisation be continued and directed data to be placed in the public domain periodically, Bar and Bench reported.

The court clarified that the introduction of a compensation scheme should not be viewed as an “admission of liability” on the Union government’s part.

Further, the bench held that there was no requirement of setting up a new expert panel to examine the side effects of Covid-19 vaccinations.

“It is clarified that the judgement shall not preclude any person from pursuing remedy available in law,” the court added.

In September 2022, the Kerala High Court directed the National Disaster Management Authority to prepare guidelines for identifying deaths triggered by Covid-19 vaccination after-effects and for compensating the dependents of such persons.

The union government had then approached the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court order, by arguing that only Covid-19 was declared a disaster and not deaths linked to the vaccines administered against the disease.

The government had contended that this would mean there is no policy under the Disaster Management Act that grants compensation for such deaths, Bar and Bench reported. .

This plea by the Union government was heard together with the plea filed by the parents of two girls who died to due to side effects of the vaccine.

Also read: How India failed those who were harmed by the Covid-19 vaccine

The Central Board of Secondary Education said on Tuesday that the Class 12 mathematics Board examination question paper was “genuine” after concerns were raised about a quick response code printed on one set of papers that led to a YouTube link of singer Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

“Rickrolling” is a popular internet prank that involves posting a disguised link or QR code that redirects the viewer to Astley’s music video.

“While the concern about the veracity of the question papers is put to rest, the matter has been viewed seriously and necessary steps are being taken by the Board to ensure that such issues are not repeated in the future,” the CBSE statement added.

The mathematics board examination was held on Monday, after which students shared videos and images that showed a QR code on the question paper that led to the music video.

In its statement on Tuesday, the CBSE said that QR codes are otherwise included for authentication and security verification.

The QR code on CBSE Maths question paper takes you to a YouTube video. pic.twitter.com/VFw3HxBtxM

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) March 10, 2026

The Kerala unit of the Congress also shared a viral video posted by a student on its social media handles and alleged “all institutions are under the control of Modi slaves, who are not qualified to run these institutions”.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed its support for the Uniform Civil Code in the country while hearing a petition challenging provisions of Muslim personal law that allegedly discriminate against women, Live Law reported.

The petition challenges the 1937 Muslim Personal Law Shariat Application Act, alleging that its provisions discriminate against women on matters such as succession.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymala Bagchi and R Mahadevan said that declaring personal laws void would create a legislative vacuum, Bar and Bench reported.

“…It is best to defer it to legislative wisdom so that the legislature brings about a law on Uniform Civil Code,” Bagchi said. “This court has already recommended Uniform Civil Code.”

Kant concurred with Bagchi’s view and said: “The answer, as correctly said, is the Uniform Civil Code.”

The Uniform Civil Code refers to a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce, succession and adoption for all citizens. Currently, such personal affairs of different religious and tribal groups are based on community-specific laws, largely derived from religious scripture.

During the hearing on Tuesday, lawyer Prashant Bhushan argued that if provisions of the Muslim Personal Law Shariat Application Act are struck down, the Indian Succession Act would apply in the vacuum, Live Law reported.

Bagchi questioned Bhushan’s contention. “If the 1937 Act is not there, will Muslim succession not be governed by personal law as under Article 372?” he asked, according to Bar and Bench.

Article 372 of the Constitution allows laws that existed before January 26, 1950, to remain in force until they are altered or repealed by a legislature.

Bhushan said that the court could issue a declaration saying that Muslim women were entitled to equal inheritance rights as men.

“We cannot have a situation in the country now after the Shayara Bano judgement [which declared triple talaq unconstitutional] that Muslim women will not have same rights as Muslim men,” Live Law quoted him as having told the court.

The lawyer contended that personal laws on inheritance would not be protected under Article 25 of the Constitution, which pertains to the freedom of religion, Bar and Bench reported. “Inheritance is a civil right and it is not an essential religious practice,” he argued.

The court said that judicial intervention would be advisable in a plea filed by Muslim women themselves.

To this, Bhushan pointed out that some of the petitioners are Muslim women, Live Law reported.

The bench then asked Bhushan to amend the petition to include suggestions on which laws should prevail if Shariat inheritance provisions are struck down.

Article 44 of the Constitution says that the state should “endeavour to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India”. However, the provision is part of Directive Principles of State Policy and is thus not legally binding.

Introducing a common personal law has long been on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s agenda and several states governed by the Hindutva party have been taking steps towards implementing it.

In January 2025, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to implement the Uniform Civil Code after independence. A common civil code has been in place in Goa since the Portuguese Civil Code was adopted in 1867.

In its campaign for the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand, the BJP had mainly targeted Muslim personal law, arguing that it discriminated against women as it allows Muslim men to practice polygamy, inherit a greater share of property, initiate divorce and deny alimony.

Legal experts have said that Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code is drawn primarily from Hindu personal law and could lead to the erasure of the personal law practices of minority communities.

The Union government on Monday invoked the Essential Commodities Act, directing refineries to regulate the production, supply and distribution of natural gas in the country following disruptions due to the West Asia conflict.

In its order, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that the conflict has affected liquefied natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

In view of this, the ministry stated that the supply of natural gas to several sectors will be treated as a priority allocation. The sectors include piped natural gas for domestic use, compressed natural gas for transport, liquefied petroleum gas production and pipeline compressor fuel.

It also directed that fertiliser plants should be supplied with natural gas to the extent of 70% of their average gas consumption of the past six months, subject to operational availability.

The ministry has directed city gas distribution entities to ensure that gas is supplied to industrial and commercial consumers to the extent of 80% of their average consumption of the past six months.

Gas marketing agencies also have to ensure 80% supply to tea industries, manufacturing and other industrial consumers who receive supplies from the national gas grid.

The ministry said that the Gas Authority of India Limited, in coordination with the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, will manage natural gas supplies so as to implement the Centre’s directives.

To meet the requirements of priority sectors, the ministry ordered that gas supplies can be diverted partially or fully from petrochemical facilities, GAIL’s Pata petrochemical complex and Reliance Industries Limited’s oil-to-chemicals operations.

Additionally, oil refining companies have been directed to absorb the impact of LNG supply disruptions by reducing their gas consumption to approximately 65% of their past six-month average, subject to operational feasibility.

State-owned Hindustan Petroleum company said that “steps have been taken to enhance LPG production” and prioritise its availability for domestic consumers and essential non-domestic sectors such as hospitals and educational institutions.

Requests from other non-domestic sectors will be reviewed by a committee of executive directors from oil marketing companies “and prioritised based on merit, necessity and product availability”, Hindustan Petroleum said in a statement.

After the conflict in West Asia broke out, Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large share of shipments of liquefied petroleum gas to India from the Gulf region pass.

India imports about 80%-85% of the LPG that it consumes and is the world’s second-largest LPG importer after China, according to the BBC.

The conflict in West Asia began on February 28 after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government.

Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

The US has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear programme, threatening that Tehran must meet its terms or face consequences.

Also read: Why the US-Iran war will hurt India more than China

The National Council of Educational Research and Training on Tuesday issued a public apology for a section in a now-withdrawn textbook that spoke about “corruption in the judiciary” after the Supreme Court said that it had defamed the institution.

The NCERT issued the apology more than two weeks after the Supreme Court banned the publication and re-printing of the textbook on February 26 after taking suo motu cognisance of the matter.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi had told the Union government and state education departments to ensure that all copies of the book, printed or digital, were removed from public access.

The section was a part of a chapter in the NCERT’s Class 8 social science textbook, titled “Exploring Society: India and Beyond”.

“The Director and Members of NCERT hereby tender an unconditional and unqualified apology for the said Chapter IV,” the educational body said in a press release. “The entire book has been withdrawn and is not available.”

The educational body further said: “We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and appreciate the understanding of all stakeholders.”

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞: 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲

The National Council of Educational Research and Training [NCERT] has recently published a social science textbook, “Exploring Society: India and Beyond," Grade 8 (Part II), which contained Chapter IV titled “The Role of… pic.twitter.com/mZY15aJTDo

— NCERT (@ncert) March 10, 2026

The court had asserted that it would “not allow anyone on earth to taint the integrity of the institution and defame the institution”.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Union government at the February 26 hearing, had also apologised to the Supreme Court. However, the bench had said that the press release then issued by the NCERT did not have a “single word of apology”.

The chapter in question had listed “corruption at various levels of the judiciary” among the challenges that the judicial system faces, according to The Indian Express.

The Congress on Tuesday moved a motion seeking to remove Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla from office, accusing him of being partisan and contending that his actions “constitute a serious danger to the proper functioning” of the House.

Moving the motion, MP Mohammad Jawed alleged that Birla prevented Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi from speaking in the House, made “unwarranted allegations” against women MPs and suspended Opposition legislators for an entire session for raising matters of public concern.

Jawed, the MP from Bihar’s Kishanganj, alleged that Birla “openly espouses the version of the ruling party on all controversial matters”.

The resolution has been signed by 118 Opposition members, The Indian Express reported.

Birla has recused himself from the proceedings of the House until the motion is considered.

During a discussion on the resolution, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MP Asaduddin Owaisi contended that Bharatiya Janata Party MP Jagadambika Pal, who was chairing the proceedings on Tuesday, did not have the authority to do so.

Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal asked why the Union government had not appointed a deputy speaker in the Lok Sabha for around seven years, asserting that this had “created a constitutional vacuum”.

In a similar vein, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi questioned how it was decided that Pal would chair the proceedings related to the no-confidence motion. He said that, as per the rules, the speaker has to appoint a panel of chairpersons, who will decide the person who will sit on the Chair during the discussion on the resolution.

“The House has no record from the panel of chairpersons on this matter,” he said.

However, Pal said that he had already given his ruling on the matter. He said that the post of the speaker is not vacant and that appointments made by Birla are valid.

BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad also said that Pal had “complete authority” to preside over the proceedings, citing the rules of procedure of the Lok Sabha.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Opposition was misinterpreting the term “preside” from the rules of procedure and added that the powers of the speaker are valid even during an election.

Opposition MPs had on February 10 submitted a notice indicating its intention to move a no-confidence motion against Birla. At that time, they had noted that on Febrruary 2, Gandhi was not allowed to complete his speech on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address.

The notice also said that on the next day, eight Opposition MPs were “arbitrarily suspended” for the remainder of the Budget Session and were “being penalised merely for exercising their democratic rights”.

The MPs had been suspended after they allegedly tore up papers and threw them at the speaker’s chair.

Birla became the speaker in 2019. He retained the post in 2024, when the Opposition forced an election for the speaker’s position for the first time in several decades.

The Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said on Monday that the Centre was prioritising the supply of liquified petroleum gas, or LPG cylinders, for domestic use amid disruptions to fuel imports due to the war in West Asia.

“Non-domestic supplies from imported LPG is being prioritised to essential non-domestic sectors such as hospitals and educational institutions,” stated the ministry.

It added that a committee of three directors of oil marketing companies had been constituted to review the representations for LPG supply to restaurants, hotels and other industries.

The Indian Oil Corporation, the Bharat Petroleum Corporation and the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation are three major oil marketing companies in India.

For domestic supplies, the Union government had also raised the minimum waiting period for booking an LPG cylinder to 25 days from 21 days to “avoid hoarding/black marketing”, stated the ministry.

The Centre’s move to prioritise domestic use has led to the oil marketing companies tightening the supply of LPG for restaurants, hotels, bakeries and small industries that rely on 19-kg and 47.5-kg cylinders, CNBC reported.

Stating that the supply of commercial gas cylinders to hotels had been stopped, the Bangalore Hotels Association warned on Monday that restaurants in Bengaluru may have to shut down temporarily, The Hindu reported.

The association urged the Union government to intervene and restore commercial LPG supply at the earliest.

In Pune, the municipal corporation temporarily closed gas crematoriums following restrictions on the use of LPG components such as propane and butane, PTI reported.

The supply of commercial cylinders has also been halted in Punjab, reported The Indian Express.

This came as the war in West Asia entered its eleventh day. Escalating tensions have raised concerns about possible disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterbody connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption passes through the maritime chokepoint.

On Monday, global oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel-mark, the highest since July 2022. The oil prices have risen by about 20% since the conflict broke out.

Despite crude oil prices skyrocketing, The Indian Express quoted unidentified officials as saying that there were no immediate plans to raise retail prices of petrol and diesel.

The government has also invoked emergency powers derived from the Essential Commodities Act to direct refiners to maximise LPG production and ensure all supplies to domestic LPG consumers, according to the newspaper.

Soon after the conflict broke out, the price of commercial LPG was increased by Rs 114.5 per 19 kg cylinder. It costs Rs 1,883 in Delhi.

The price of domestic LPG cylinders was hiked by Rs 60 last week.

The conflict in West Asia began after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

Also read:

• Why the US-Iran war will hurt India more than China

• How the Israel-Iran conflict could impact India

Six days into the war on Iran, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly spoken. Standing with the visiting president of Finland, he said on Thursday, March 5, that both countries believed in the “rule of law, dialogue and diplomacy”, that no issue could be resolved “solely through military conflict”, and that they would support efforts for peace “in Ukraine or in West Asia”.

Previously, at the outbreak of war, the Ministry of External Affairs had posted an official statement urging all sides to “exercise restraint, avoid escalation and prioritize safety of civilians” and advising “dialogue and diplomacy” to address underlying issues. The statement also averred that “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states must be respected”.

Although this statement refrained from noting – let alone criticising – the naked aggression on Iran by the United States and Israel as well as the targeted assassination of the Iranian head of state, several Indian commentators helpfully parsed it as an astute diplomatic message that at once criticised the violation of international law and Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Gulf countries.

The government was evidently a tad more aware of the infirmities of this stance. Hence, the invocation of “rule of law” by the prime minister, albeit as an abstract universal principle. This slots smoothly with the position of the Europeans, though few have been as frank as the German chancellor in saying that it would be “inconsequential” to view the war within the framework of international law.

In any event, New Delhi’s latest stance remains mealy-mouthed. It could well redound on India’s interests in West Asia in both the short and the long run.

Abandoning Indian interests

These interests, as the Ministry of External Affairs has reminded us, include the safety of some 10 million Indian citizens living and working in the region, India’s dependence on energy imports from West Asia and shipping routes running through it.

Indeed, India is a “proximate neighbour with critical stakes in the security and stability of the region”. Further, Indians in the region account for almost 40% of our foreign exchange remittances. Owing to the efforts of the Modi government, Gulf countries’ investments in India and imports from India have also significantly risen in recent years. As has India’s access to Israeli military technology and intelligence network.

Yet the preservation of our “critical stakes” was always reliant on something more than hectic diplomacy or frantic crisis management. In a chronically unstable region, marked by multiple and intersecting lines of political and military rivalry among states and non-state actors as well as external powers, India’s ability to manage its diverse interests with a range of West Asian countries turned on two crucial axes: its overall credibility as a partner, and its willingness to stand by the “rules of the game” of international politics.

This is not a question of international law, but of the norms and rules, understandings and standards of conduct about what is and is not permissible in international relations. These form the baselines within which the game of international politics is played. No game, however competitive or brutal, can be played without such rules. For a country with serious interests at stake but limited economic or military capabilities these rules of the game are fundamental. Unfortunately, New Delhi has, by its acts of commission and omission, struck a blow at these foundational elements of its regional policy.

Ill-advised Israel visit

Start with the most heedless act of commission: Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel just two days before the attack on Iran. The deepening of India’s strategic, defence and technological ties with Israel – especially in the wake of recent military conflicts with Pakistan – is well known. As is the ideological affinity between the regnant powers in both countries.

It was against this backdrop that New Delhi had shamefully equivocated on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Even so, the timing of the prime ministerial visit to Israel, which included the signing of a “Special Strategic Partnership for Peace”, was extraordinary.

It is inconceivable that the Indian government was unaware of the impending attack. If that was indeed the case, then we had better take a sharp look at our intelligence and foreign policy establishments. The Israeli ambassador to India has sought to assure us that the “operational opportunity came up only after Prime Minister Modi left”. This is at best a half-truth, for the political and strategic – as different from operational – decision to strike Iran was by all accounts taken by Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump earlier. Trump himself made no bones about what was in the offing and in what timeframe.

The timing of the visit can only be explained by the prime minister’s penchant for a highly personalised approach to diplomacy. Although this has come a cropper in the past, notably with Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, New Delhi continues to treat national interests as price-tags attached to our relations with this or that world leader. Netanyahu, the most corrupt Israeli leader in recent memory, knows that his political survival depends on two things: the continuation of war in the Middle East and the stamp of legitimacy from foreign leaders. In this instance, Trump gave the former, while Modi obliged with the latter.

Indeed, it was Netanyahu who craved this visit and there was no substantive reason to go to Israel on the eve of war. It is hardly surprising that having launched the war on Iran, Netanyahu publicly and effusively thanked his “great friend” and India for standing resolutely with Israel. The prime minister, for his part, merely posted that he had conveyed India’s concerns about civilians and the need for an early cessation of hostilities.

Silence on Iran

This sharp tilt towards Israel and the US was also apparent in our acts of omission. Far from condemning the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, New Delhi avoided even condoling his passing. The Ministry of External Affairs expressly instructed all Indian envoys in world capitals not to sign any condolence books opened by their Iranian counterparts without New Delhi’s prior permission. Eventually five days later, in the face of mounting domestic criticism, the Indian foreign secretary went to the Iranian embassy to pay respects.

The same approach was in play when the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, returning the Indian fleet review and exercises, was torpedoed off the coast of Sri Lanka. The statement by the Indian Navy did not even mention the attack that sank the vessel or express regret at the death of the sailors. To be sure, the ship was out of Indian waters, and we had no legal or political responsibility. Yet such a formalist view of the serious incident overlooks the fact established conventions and practices were shredded when the Iranian frigate was attacked in this fashion.

Cumulatively, these acts of commission and omission suggest that India is objectively on the side of the aggressors in this war: never mind what we claim about the nuances of our position or our strategic silences. Self-styled realists should remember that in the cynical currency of international politics, talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. Then again, the Indian government may well have calculated that we should range ourselves against Iran.

After all, India’s relations with Iran have been substantially eroded over the past few years owing to the pressure of US sanctions. We have considerably reduced oil imports and nearly liquidated our interest in the port of Chabahar (once described as a strategic gateway to Central Asia). By positioning ourselves on the side of US and Israel as well as the Gulf countries aren’t we on the dominant – hence, right – side in this war?

Disregarding rules of the game

The problem with this facile calculus is that the Gulf countries can hardly rest easy at the prospect of an Israeli victory in this war. It will leave them entirely at the mercy of a regime that recognises no restraints in the pursuit of an ideologically driven agenda of total security, which can only mean total insecurity for others. This is precisely why the Gulf states sought to avert this war, but to no avail.

The Trump administration too has made history by going to war alongside Israel – something previous US administrations had consciously avoided. The US will hardly seem a dependable ally to the Gulf states in the aftermath of this war. It is no coincidence that Saudi Arabia signed a defence agreement with Pakistan soon after the Israeli American bombing of Iran last year.

What’s worse, the US military bases that were designed to protect them are the reason they are now under attack. In short, the strategic geometry and security architecture of West Asia will undergo important changes after this war as countries look for new partners. By our unseemly embrace of Israel and post-haste dumping of Iran, we have dented our future credibility as a partner.

Credibility apart, New Delhi has demonstrated a surprising disregard for the “rules of the game”. To reiterate, this is not about international law or abstract moralising, but rather the basis for sober realism and effective action.

The use of international diplomacy – including intermediaries – as a charade to buy time and lull the Iranians into complacency; the targeted assassination of a head of state who was not hiding; the bogus claims about “pre-emptive attack”; the torpedoing of a ship that was on its way back from a fleet review; the Israeli occupation of Lebanese and Syrian territory – none of this elicited a comment, never mind criticism, from New Delhi. If we truly believe that none of this is consequential, then the more fools we.

What is the pay-off of this abject posture? Apparently, it is more abasement. The US has formally “allowed” India to buy Russian oil with a 30-day waiver. The Trump administration had earlier slapped 25% additional tariffs on India for buying Russian oil and then revoked it claiming India had agreed to stop these purchases. Having maintained a studied silence on this topic, we must now turn to the Russians to avoid an oil shock. The latter will of course sell us what we want, but they have also noted our conduct.

Meanwhile, a senior American official openly avers in New Delhi that “we are not gonna make the same mistake with India that we made with China 20 years ago”: that is, to enable India’s economic development to the point it becomes a commercial competitor. It is significant that he clubbed India with China and did not mention similar US policies towards Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc. After all, these are subordinate allies entirely dependent on the US for security. India, by contrast, wants – at least in principle – strategic autonomy in a multipolar world. Those who imagine that India can become a great power by clinging to the coattails of the superpower are out to lunch.

It is anyone’s guess when this war will end. Meanwhile, the economic costs for countries like India have started to mount in tandem with crude oil prices. If hundreds of thousands of Indians are evacuated back home, then it will have a sharp economic impact on several states, including some that are going to polls in the next 12 months – not least Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Unsurprisingly, the MEA had stated that the prospect of continued conflict “evoke[s] great anxiety”.

Damaged credibility

Internationally, we are now ill-positioned to help end the war and are left with little more than pious expressions of hope for peace. Beyond West Asia, our handling of the current crisis impacts on our standing in the global South. As it happens, India is hosting the BRICS summit this year and our stance is until now an outlier among the founding members. In these circumstances, our standard avowals of leadership and multipolarity may seem little more than hot air.

It may not be too late for course correction, but we need to return to basics. Foreign policy cannot be a series of expediencies; nor can it pivot on personal relations among leaders. As Robert Musil put it, “Imagine a squirrel that doesn’t know whether it is a squirrel or a chipmunk, a creature with no concept of itself, and you will understand that in some circumstances it could be thrown into fits of terror by catching sight of its own tail.” Musil was, of course, underlining the solipsism and utter lack of self-consciousness in the ruling elite of Austria-Hungary that proved disastrous in the run up to 1914.

A spot of Indian history might also help. Independent India’s adoption of non-alignment as its fundamental global orientation did not stem merely from the circumstances of the Cold War. Rather, it was a conscious response of that generation to India’s strategic position under British colonialism.

British India was a sub-imperial power that served Britain’s wider interests in Asia, especially in West Asia and the Persian Gulf. Postcolonial India sought decisively to break with that sub-imperial outlook and chart a course, however arduous and halting, towards strategic autonomy. “Decolonisation of the mind” is the reigning slogan of our times. But it can hardly be undertaken when our minds are mortgaged to the imperial interests and our solidarity reserved for its shock troops.

Srinath Raghavan is the author of Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India (Penguin Random House, Yale University Press, 2025). The views are personal.

This article was first published on The India Forum.

In October, a video posted on the filmmaker Farah Khan’s YouTube page received more than 150,000 likes.

In it, Khan and her cook Dilip are frustrated on finding out that Khan’s domestic worker Pushpa has not cleaned a filthy kitchen, and is instead on her way out to catch a flight to visit her family. Dilip suggests that Khan try Snabbit, a phone application that offers domestic services within ten minutes.

Soon, a “Snabbit expert”, a worker dressed in a hot pink t-shirt and black joggers, walks into the kitchen, sets to work and leaves it gleaming. Elated by the efficient service, Khan calls up Pushpa and tells her not to return home, because she now has Snabbit.

As Dilip listens along and laughs, Khan cautions him: “Don’t laugh too much, Snabbit will soon introduce cooks.”

As the sun rises in Mumbai, its public parks start filling up with early morning walkers and joggers. Over the past year, however, it has also become common in these spaces to see groups of women wearing pink or leaf green t-shirts, with black pants. Unlike those out to exercise, these women mostly sit on park benches, looking expectantly at their phones .

These are workers with the kind of company that Khan’s video was advertising, offering domestic services in the gig economy.

The leading companies in this sector are Snabbit and Pronto. Urban Company has also launched a domestic services vertical called Insta Help. These services began to be launched around late 2024, and the companies have thus far primarily focused their efforts in India’s metro cities.

While previous attempts at providing similar services by other companies about a decade ago had failed, Snabbit and Pronto appear to have found some initial success.

Snabbit was founded in 2024 by Aayush Agarwal, and is currently valued at $180 million. So far, the company has raised more than $55 million in funds from investors. While it is focused for now on domestic workers, Agarwal said in an interview to Forbes India that the company aims to expand to “drivers, cooks and doctors – anything that is high frequency”.

Pronto was also started in 2024, by 23-year-old Anjali Sardana. As of December 2025, it was valued at $100 million, and had raised more than $13 million in investments. Insta Help’s parent company, Urban Company, meanwhile, has been valued at $3 billion.

While the success stories of these companies make headlines, activists and researchers have raised concerns about this burgeoning sector.

In one essay, researchers Amruta SN and Shalaka noted that domestic work in general in India was inherently informal, and lacked legal frameworks that ensured workers “minimum wages, safe working conditions, or access to social security”.

Indeed, activists and domestic workers have struggled for decades to obtain legal safeguards for workers. The journalist Shreya Raman noted in BehanBox that the first phase of this struggle began as early as 1959, but that it has been largely unsuccessful due to the “lack of political will and conflict of interests”.

Many fear that the new platforms will only duplicate the deep-rooted problems in the employment and treatment of domestic workers.

As Amruta and Shalaka argued in their essay, “If domestic work increasingly shifts to platforms, the existing vulnerabilities of the workers will only be amplified. The promise of flexible work masks the reality of precarious and exploitative conditions.”

To understand workers’ perspectives on the new platforms, Scroll interviewed around 35 women who work with Snabbit, Insta Help and Pronto in Mumbai’s suburbs, including Andheri, Chembur, Goregaon, Malad and Kandivali.

Most workers said they were happy with their pay, but some complained of having to work long hours, without adequate breaks. Some also noted that they were often forced to overwork and unable to take time off to recover from illnesses. Many said they faced mistreatment by customers and did not find adequate redressal systems in the companies. (All the workers who spoke to Scroll for this story have been anonymised to protect their privacy.)

Chitra Gosavi, a lawyer and member of the National Domestic Workers Movement, spelled out some of the workers’ key concerns. “These are profit-making apps,” she said. “They might pay workers well now, but what will the long terms effects be on the sector? What rules and regulations do these companies follow? Are their workers defined as domestic workers or gig workers?”

She added, “These apps have a lot of power and there is no monitoring mechanism for them yet. They can do whatever they want with workers – underpay them, undermine their safety, and even kick them out arbitrarily.”

All three apps claim to empower the women workers, and refer to them as “experts” or “partners”, rather than “maids” or even “domestic workers”. They also claim that they seek to “modernise” or “revolutionise” the domestic work industry.

But the researcher Ambika Tandon, who studies gig work and the digital economy, noted that these apps are “intermediaries who are coming into the industry to commodify domestic work”.

She added, “Beyond that, they are not bringing any duty of care to their workers.”

Scroll emailed all three companies, seeking responses to criticisms from workers, activists and experts about their functioning. As of the time of publishing, none had responded.

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

Workers to whom Scroll spoke had held a variety of jobs before signing up with the new platforms. Among them were former office assistants, shopping assistants and security guards.

The workers said they had joined the platforms because they received better pay on them. With “chutta kaam”, the term for the informal domestic work system, the rates are often fixed by residents of housing societies in consultation with each other “and they remain the same for years”, said Beena, a Snabbit worker whom I met along with around a dozen other workers, in a park in Kandivali.

The platforms give workers some choice in terms of the number of daily hours they want to sign up for, and pay them a monthly sum according to the number of jobs they complete.

While Snabbit workers said they earn up to Rs 22,000 for eight hours of work and up to Rs 40,000 for 12 hours of work, Insta Help workers said they earn around Rs 21,000 for eight hours of work and around Rs 25,000 for 11 hours of work. Meanwhile, those signed with Pronto said they earn up to Rs 24,000 for eight hours of work and up to Rs 32,000 for 12 hours of work. They also earn bonuses for following certain practices, such as logging in to work early, arriving at customers’ houses before time and working overtime.

But Tandon noted that quick commerce companies usually offer high pay to workers and low prices to customers when they start services, only to reduce them later.

“These platforms run on network effects, which means that they become more and more profitable as they gain users on both sides of the marketplace,” Tandon said. “And these companies run on a model that burns cash at the start.”

She outlined the pattern that many companies, such as the delivery platforms Blinkit and Zepto, follow. At first, she said, they “will give you massive discounts that your kirana store can’t offer, and using that they will build customers”. Once they established a “solid customer base”, she noted, “they will increase prices”.

For gig workers, meanwhile, “as soon as the market stabilises their income will drop, and at that time you could be in debt”. Such a decline in earnings was widely reported, for instance, among drivers registered with cab-hailing apps after an initial period in which they received higher incomes.

Indeed, some workers on the domestic work apps, particularly those who had been registered with them for a relatively longer period, said they had begun noticing that changes were being made to payment models.

Four Pronto workers, for instance, noted that till November, workers who joined the company were paid Rs 28,000 monthly for eight hours of work a day, but that after that month, the amount was changed to Rs 24,000 for new workers.

Some workers also said that the companies had begun imposing stringent penalties on them, which ate into their earnings. For instance, they said, if they do not complete all the bookings they receive during their stipulated work hours, or cancel any, the money they earn reduces.

Further, workers said that in some neighbourhoods, Insta Help has begun penalising them if they arrived late for a booking. If they were late more than three times in one month, they added, then their rating on the app would drop and money would be deducted from their monthly pay.

Researchers have also raised concerns about the fact that gig-work platforms in general do not provide transparent information to their workers. One paper argued that they practice “systemic and deliberate information asymmetry”, which leaves workers uncertain about their working terms, and payment conditions. This, it noted, gives rise to a regime of opacity, randomness, and unfairness, leading to chronic anxiety and insecurity among workers”.

Tandon echoed this argument. She noted that the platform’s algorithms were designed to ensure that workers would be available to meet a fluctuating demand from users.

She explained that the basic pay that workers were assured is typically “quite low” and that “beyond that everything is unpredictable”, and depended on whether they responded to this demand. “The basic structure is designed so that this workforce is kept flexible for the companies,” she said.

She added, “For the workers, what that means is there is very little predictability or ability to anticipate what the pay might be. Or post facto, to even understand how they are being paid.”

Workers also struggled with a lack of clarity about the time off they were entitled to. In an interview, Agarwal explained that among the problems that Snabbit sought to address pertained to employers’ complaints that domestic workers took frequent, abrupt days off. “Absenteeism and unreliability of domestic workers was a universal pain point” in households across the country, he said.

By providing workers on-demand, he added, Snabbit had “unlocked a new category of urban convenience”.

For workers, however, the system is far from convenient. Many seemed confused about how many days of leave they were entitled to and if these days were paid or unpaid. Some spoke of being constantly exhausted by the effort it took to ensure that the algorithm did not penalise them.

Workers with more experience of the platform rules explained that they did not receive paid leave at all. “See, we are allowed to take four leaves in a month, but on those days, we don’t earn any money through bookings and incentives,” said Beena. “So, it is actually unpaid leave.”

As a result, many take as few days off as they can. “For most workers, every rupee counts, so we try to earn as much as possible and don’t take leaves if we can help it,” Beena said.

Even though their days off are unpaid leave, workers explained, the platforms imposed limits on how many such days they could log. Snabbit workers said they were allowed to take four days of leave in a month. Similarly, Pronto and Insta Help noted that they could take two days of leave in a month. If they took any more days off, apart from losing earnings, all three platforms sometimes imposed penalties on them, workers said.

These were not the only restrictions that the platforms imposed on leave: workers with all three platforms said they were also barred from taking leave on weekends. They said if they did take any weekend days off, not only did they not earn money that day, the companies also imposed steep fines on them. Snabbit workers claimed the company cuts around Rs 1,000 per day if they take a weekend day off, while Insta Help workers said the company fines them two days of pay – around Rs 2,000 – for every weekend day they take off.

“Saturdays and Sundays are our two busiest days, we receive the maximum number of bookings on those days,” said Smita, a Snabbit worker in Andheri, who has been with the company for a year. “So, it is compulsory to work on those days and we cannot take leave then.”

She added, “It gets difficult to spend time with our families this way. On weekdays, I leave home early in the mornings and arrive only in the evenings, and on weekends I’m even busier.”

Workers at all three companies also said they were not allowed to take leaves at the last minute for emergencies. “If we want to take leave the next day, we have to inform our team leaders before 12 am that night, otherwise we get penalised,” said Beena. Insta Help workers claimed that they were penalised a full day’s pay even if they worked half their shift and then logged out because of an emergency.

The companies did not respond to Scroll’s queries pertaining to their leave policies.

Within each workday, too, workers struggled to take regular breaks, because the platforms dictate their work hours. As a result, many noted, for instance, they could not keep to regular mealtimes. “The app usually tells us to take a lunch break between 1 pm-3 pm. But it can also be arbitrary, sometimes it’ll tell us to go on break at 11 am, and then keep us working all afternoon,” said Rita, who works for Snabbit in Kandivali. “On many days, I only get to eat around 4 or 5 in the evening. How can one keep working after being hungry for so long?”

In mid-January, I booked the services of a Pronto worker in a northern Mumbai suburb, to gain a better understanding of how the system worked. After the worker’s service period was completed, I offered her a cup of tea. As she sat sipping her tea, she received a call – the ensuing conversation left her visibly frustrated. “That was my supervisor asking why I haven’t left your place yet,” she said. “Once our booking ends, we have to cross a distance of 50 metres away from the customer’s place within five minutes. If we don’t, we get calls like this. They won’t let us drink tea in peace.”

Kamla, a worker with one platform, recounted a particularly harsh instance of how the platforms can push workers to work unreasonable, stressful hours. The incident occurred just after she had to take a few days’ break from work to care for her husband, who had suffered a heart attack and been hospitalised.

On the day she returned, Kamla received a booking for four hours. “There was a wedding-related function going on and they had a lot of work for me,” she said. “Once I finished four hours, they booked me for another four.”

The app did not allocate Kamla a break at this point, so she pushed through the second set of hours also. “I was on my toes the entire day and didn’t get to sit down even once,” she said. “I was not offered a glass of water or food.”

Kamla had started work at 12 in the afternoon and finally got a break around 8 pm in the evening. “We are entitled to half an hour for a lunch break, which I only got in the evening, so I went to the park and bought some food to eat,” she recounted. “I still had one hour of duty left, in which I could receive a booking, but I was so tired I forgot to check my phone.”

After around 45 minutes, Kamla received an angry call from her team leader, who she said yelled at her for extending her break and not attending to another booking she had received. “He was very rude to me, and I felt very upset, so I decided to leave the company,” she said.

Workers explained that enrolling with the platforms also leaves them struggling to find time to fulfil other responsibilities, such as caring for their families.

Their experience is echoed in research on the sector. In 2023, the organisation Fairwork published a report titled “Gender and Platform Work”, comprising research on platform work across 38 countries. It noted that women on these platforms typically bore a “double burden” – a term used by feminist scholars to denote the fact that working women also typically perform household work, such as cleaning, laundry and cooking.

The report noted that in setting up their working terms, platforms typically “operate on the assumption that the worker is an independent, efficient, mobile, digitally engaged man without family responsibilities and other considerations”. Thus, it noted, “Such a worker is assumed to be solely working to maximise their short-term gains and can easily be incentivised to act in a predictable manner.”

As a result, “those women who work in the platform economy often have to make trade-offs between earning a living and their caregiving responsibilities”, it observed.

In some instances, workers are left unable to look after ailing family members. Anupama, a young mother who currently works for Snabbit in Goregaon, worked for Insta Help from August to October last year. When her child fell seriously ill in mid-October, she had to stay home to nurse him. While she informed Insta Help about her situation, she said, the company did not respond.

Around two weeks later, when she was ready to return to work, she discovered that her account had been blocked. Her attempts to reason with her supervisors proved futile. “I told them that as a mother, I had no choice but to nurse my child back to health,” she said. “But they weren’t sympathetic to me, they told me that the company was as important to them as my child was to me.”

The platform did not respond to a query from Scroll about this incident.

Workers also struggle with their own health troubles. Aditi, a platform worker in her early-twenties in Kandivali, said she was hospitalised for a fortnight in November for weakness.

“We run around the whole day, and often have to work with water for chores like washing dishes and swabbing floors,” she said. “If I have a cold and I receive five bookings to wash dishes that day, then I have to complete those jobs, I have no choice.”

Zeena, a worker I met at a park in Andheri, who had joined the company in late December, said she was happy with the work, but that her weight had dropped by 7 kg in the three weeks since she had started working for the company. “We do a lot of running around for this job, so it was bound to happen,” she said.

While all gig-workers face some risk of dealing with rude, hostile and unreasonable customers, domestic workers find this risk amplified because they have to enter into the private spaces of those who hire them.

Indeed, research notes that domestic workers are “prone to mistreatment and harassment” because they work in “private, invisible spaces”.

Workers Scroll spoke to said often customers would grow irate because they had unfair and inconsistent expectations of the amount of work that workers had to perform.

Beena noted, “Even if the houses are of the same size, a house which has bachelors who clean only once in a week and a house where a domestic worker visits daily require different types of attention. But we have to do all the work in the same time.”

While apps give customers the option of extending bookings, workers said they were often prodded by customers to work faster or longer without additional pay. “During our training, we are told to stop our work if the booking time gets over,” said Kamla. “But customers get unhappy if we don’t finish their work. So, we have to try and do as much as we can to please them.”

Workers cannot afford to displease customers because they need customers to rate them well on the apps. Across all three platforms, they noted that only ratings of 4.5 stars and above, out of five, were considered to be good – anything below was considered poor.

The Fairwork report noted, “Across sectors, platforms rely on rating systems to make decisions around deactivations and pay calculations. Such rating systems are not neutral. They are known to reflect and amplify social biases.”

Workers at Insta Help claimed that if they received more than three such “bad” ratings, they would receive calls from the company asking why their work was falling short, and they would be sent for retraining.

“Many customers think no work is perfect, so even if they’re happy with our work, they give us four stars instead of five stars, but this impacts us negatively in the long run,” said Kamla. She added that she had also been threatened with deactivation for receiving “bad” ratings.

In rarer but more serious situations, workers faced harassment and verbal abuse. “Customers can call us all sorts of names, and misbehave with us, but we are trained to always respond to them calmly,” said Beena.

In Kandivali, workers with one platform said that one of their team members had been attacked by a customer with a knife and received cuts on her hand. The worker did not receive much support from Snabbit, they recounted, and eventually stopped coming to work.

Workers are also sometimes made to do demeaning and unsafe tasks. “The kind of work we do is neecha [or lowly’ kaam,” said Priya, a Snabbit worker from Andheri. “So, people feel they can get away by saying anything.”

She recounted one particularly distressing instance. “I was asked to clean a filthy toilet which had feces spread everywhere,” she said. “I politely told the customer that I would not clean the toilet but I could do any other work in the house. The customer got really angry and started swearing at me.”

The customer eventually cancelled her booking, she said. Priya complained to her supervisor about the experience, and said she was assured that she would not be sent to work at the same house again.

Other Snabbit workers confirmed that the platform allowed them the option of avoiding attending to certain customers – specifically, they said they can block up to five customers if they do not want to work at their house again after one visit.

However, Insta Help workers said they did not have the choice to opt out of a specific customer’s bookings. “One time, I had to call and remind a customer that she has not liked my work, but that I had been booked to her house again,” said Kamla.

The platforms did not respond to Scroll’s queries about these specific incidents or about their policies to protect workers from mistreatment, harassment and abuse.

Workers also spoke of facing casteist discrimination from customers – some noted, for instance, that they were often not allowed to use washrooms in the houses they visited. Some also said that they were not offered water, or that when they were, it was in distinctly different utensils from those used by members of the household.

One Muslim worker said she faced discrimination because of her religion. After struggling to sign up on the platforms at first, she recounted, she registered as a worker with Pronto. But customers frequently discriminate against her, she noted. “Almost every second day, I get a customer who asks me if I am Muslim, and tells me that they won’t allow a Muslim worker in their house,” she said. “I then have to call my supervisor who gets them a Hindu girl instead.”

Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Monday said that there had been 54 communal riots and seven cases of mob lynching in the state between June 2024 and February, The Indian Express reported.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government led by Majhi assumed office on June 12, 2024.

The chief minister said that the most number of communal riots had been reported in the Balasore district, which recorded 24 such incidents. It was followed by 16 cases in Khurda district, which includes the state capital Bhubaneswar.

The police have arrested 298 persons for their alleged involvement in the riots. However, a chargesheet has been filed in less than half the cases, Majhi said.

The seven cases of mob lynchings were reported in the four districts of Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Balasore and Rayagada, The New Indian Express quoted him as saying. Sixty-one persons have been arrested in the cases.

The data was provided by Majhi while replying in the Assembly to a question asked by Biju Janata Dal leader Goutam Buddha Das.

In his response, Majhi also said that steps had been taken to prevent the recurrence of such incidents, including forming peace committees in several police station jurisdictions.

He added that the collection of intelligence inputs have been strengthened, and strict action is being taken against those trying to disturb peace and order in society.

In the past 20 months, six towns in Odisha have seen the imposition of curfew and internet suspension because of communal incidents, The Indian Express reported. In most cases, the perpetrators have been members of Hindutva outfits, the newspaper reported.

The Opposition has criticised the BJP government for an increase in communal tensions in the state, the newspaper reported.

Also read:

• Odisha’s history of anti-Christian violence resurfaces
• In the shattered glass of Cuttack’s calm, a glimpse of Odisha’s swift collapse

Several countries in Asia have introduced rationing or other measures to reduce energy consumption amid fuel supply disruption and rising global oil prices triggered by the conflict in West Asia.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh closed all universities starting Monday and brought forward the Eid al-Fitr holidays as part of emergency measures to conserve ​fuel and electricity, Reuters reported. The decision will also help ease traffic congestion, which causes wastage of fuel, the agency quoted the authorities as saying. The country imports 95% of its energy needs.

Dhaka had on Friday imposed a daily cap on the sale of fuel after incidents of panic buying and hoarding, Reuters reported.

A shortage of gas had already led the country to halt ​operations at some state‑run fertiliser ​plants, the news agency reported. The available gas had been redirected to power plants.

Southeast Asia

On Wednesday, Myanmar’s military government introduced an “odd-even” rationing system for private vehicles, Reuters reported. Cars with even-numbered plates can be used on even dates and ​odd-numbered on odd dates. Electric vehicles and electric motorcycles were ​exempted.

In the Philippines, civil servants were directed to work four days in an attempt to cut fuel consumption, Nikkei Asia reported on Monday.

In Vietnam, the government on Sunday proposed to remove tariffs on imported fuels till the end of April. The measure, which will lead to a loss of revenue, has been considered necessary to “support businesses in proactively securing their supply sources, contributing to stabilising the domestic petroleum market and ensuring energy security”, the government said.

Towns in parts of Western Australia had also begun rationing fuel, ABC News reported on Monday. The fuel stations were selling it only for emergency purposes and essential services. Vehicles in at least two towns were being barred from purchasing fuel.

The South Korean government did not announce curbs, but said that it will cap local fuel prices to “prevent abnormal pricing of petroleum products and improve price predictability”, Yonhap reported on Monday. It would be the first time since 1997 that the system is introduced.

Similarly, Taiwan on Monday set a weekly cap on oil price increases to protect its economy from the impact of the conflict, Bloomberg quoted a Taipei-based newspaper as saying.

A day prior, the country’s Ministry of Economic Affairs announced that domestic fuel prices would only increase by 5% this week, instead of 19.7%, under the floating oil price adjustment mechanism.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul urged the public not to stockpile fuel and announced plans to cap diesel prices for about two weeks, BBC reported.

In India, the price of liquified petroleum gas was on Saturday hiked by Rs 60 per domestic cylinder.

Global oil prices soar

Global oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel-mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022.

The price of benchmark Brent crude jumped to $116 per barrel during the day, before falling to about $104. The price was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

The prices have risen by about 50% since the conflict started.

The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption traverses the maritime chokepoint.

On Monday, Bahrain’s state-owned energy company Bapco declared force majeure, Bahrain News Agency reported. Force majeure is a contract provision that exempts companies from fulfilling their obligations because of unforeseen and uncontrollable events such as wars and disasters.

The company said that its operations had been hampered by the conflict and a recent attack on its refinery complex. However, the supply in the local market would not be impacted, it was quoted as saying.

This came less than a week after Qatar’s state-owned petroleum company QatarEnergy, which operates all oil and gas activities in the country, had declared force majeure on Wednesday.

Also read:

• Why the US-Iran war will hurt India more than China
• How the Israel-Iran conflict could impact India

The conflict in West Asia began after Israel and the United States launched an attack to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

The US had on Thursday granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver to buy Russian oil stranded at sea. The country’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the decision was a short-term measure to keep oil supplies flowing globally.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not have the courage to discuss the damage caused by the conflict in West Asia to the Indian economy, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on Monday.

The conflict was “causing serious damage to our economy, but our compromised prime minister lacks the courage to discuss it”, Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament.

“The stock market is crashing, LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] prices are rising and global crude oil prices are reaching historic levels – its direct impact is being felt by the common man, household budgets, and small and medium businesses,” the Congress leader said.

“Prime Minister Modi is being blackmailed,” Gandhi alleged. “He has no option but to sell out the interests of the Indian people. Remember my words, he won’t come to Parliament.”

The Congress MP said: “In a way, there is a fight going on to bring about a paradigm shift. It will result in huge losses for our economy. You have seen what happened in the stock market. The United States deal has been signed by Modi ji.”

“The country is going to suffer a big hit,” The Indian Express quoted Gandhi as saying. “What is the problem in discussing that? That is what we are asking.”

The Opposition on Monday staged a walkout in Parliament, saying that the government had not allowed MPs to ask questions after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar briefed the Houses about the conflict. The Congress demanded a discussion on the war.

Gandhi has been claiming since February 3 that Modi has been “compromised”, adding that he has “sold out” the “sweat and blood” of the country’s farmers by buckling under pressure from the United States to finalise the trade deal.

On Friday, Gandhi said that the Modi government’s foreign policy “is the result of the exploitation of a compromised individual”.

On Saturday, the price of liquified petroleum gas was hiked by Rs 60 per domestic cylinder amid global energy cost fluctuations triggered by the conflict in West Asia.

On Monday, the Indian stock market continued its slide with the benchmark Sensex index ending the day about 1,400 points, or 1.8%, lower. The Nifty fell by 1.7% to close the session just above the 24,000-mark.

The market in India and several Asian economies had begun to slide on March 2 after the conflict began.

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked more than 17.5% on Monday.

Global oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel-mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022. The price of benchmark Brent crude jumped to $116 per barrel during the day, before falling to about $104. The price was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

The prices have risen by about 50% since the conflict started.

The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption traverses the maritime chokepoint.

The conflict in West Asia began after Israel and the US launched an attack to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

India’s patent filings have almost doubled in four years, rising from 58,503 in 2020-’21 to 110,375 in 2024-’25 – an annualised increase of 17.2%. Much of this growth is concentrated in a small group of institutions.

Between 2020-’23, Lovely Professional University filed 7,096 patent applications. Galgotias University, lately in the news for displaying a Made-in ChinaAI robot dog at the India AI Summit, filed 1,752 applications in 2020-’22. They outpaced the combined filings of all the Indian Institutes of Technology, which submitted 2,333 applications in 2020-’25.

The surge in filings has not been matched by grants. In 2024-’25, only 33,504 patents were granted, about one-third of new applications. The year before, 103,057 patents were granted, largely because the patent office cleared older backlogs. Once that catch-up phase ended, grants fell back even as filings continued to rise.

At the same time, the number of applications examined dropped from 18,438 in 2023-’24 to 15,726 in 2024-’25. Rising demand alongside slower examination suggests strain within the system.

Who receives the grants matters as much as how many are issued. Of the 33,504 patents granted in 2024-’25, only 10,682 went to Indian applicants. Foreign filers secured the majority, many entering through the Patent Cooperation Treaty route.

A lower domestic share does not automatically signal weak research. It may reflect differences in drafting quality, experience or commercial focus. But when foreign firms dominate granted patents in high-technology sectors, it highlights capability gaps.

These trends sit against the backdrop of limited research spending. India invests 0.64% of its gross domestic product in research and development, according to the Economic Survey 2025-’26. The global average according to World Bank estimates was roughly 2.67% of GDP in 2022, the latest year for which figures are available. Major technology economies spend far more: the United States invests about 3.59%, China around 2.56% and South Korea 5.21%.

India’s comparatively modest investment limits the pipeline of advanced research and increases reliance on imported intellectual property in sectors such as semiconductors, biotechnology and advanced materials. In an era of tighter supply chains and strategic competition, such dependence carries economic and strategic implications.

Growth in intellectual property extends beyond patents. Between 2020-’21 and 2024-’25, design filings rose by 31.8%, trademarks by 6.4 %, geographical indications by 47.6% and copyright registrations by 15.9%. The pattern suggests broader awareness of intellectual property protection. Patent filings are also concentrated geographically. Tamil Nadu led in 2024-’25 with 15,440 applications, followed by Karnataka with 8,371 and Maharashtra with 7,893. The distribution mirrors industrial strength and established innovation clusters.

A numbers game

Universities now account for a large share of domestic patent applications. Policy frameworks and ranking systems reward measurable research outputs, including patent counts. Private universities have responded by expanding their filings rapidly, seeking to position themselves as research-intensive institutions.

The success rate of patent applications in the case of prolific filers such as LPU and Galgotias are in the range of 0-3%.

Even successful patent applications do not automatically translate into commercial impact. Many university patents emerge from projects designed to meet performance metrics rather than to produce market-ready technologies.

As of April 1, 2025, 230,480 patents were in force in India. Only 1.59% of these had been commercialised. This excludes working of patents received through the “Statement of Working of Patented Invention on a Commercial Scale in India” which is known as Form 27. If one includes 11,056 reported via Form 27, this ratio goes up to 6.39%.

A patent that is not manufactured, licensed or integrated into a product contributes little to growth. The gap between registration and commercial use suggests that the system encourages filing more than deployment.

The dominance of foreign applicants among granted patents reflects structural differences. Large multinational firms often have dedicated legal teams and experience navigating patent systems across jurisdictions.

Domestic applicants, especially universities, may lack comparable expertise in drafting claims or aligning research with market demand. Stronger technology transfer offices, clearer licensing pathways and deeper industry partnerships would help bridge that gap.

A system in transition

As filing volumes grow, maintaining examination quality becomes more important. Without adequate examiner capacity and technical rigour, a rapid increase in applications can lead to weaker patents.

The rise in filings, however, still matters because it shows that more researchers and institutions are engaging with the formal innovation system. The question is whether institutions, funding structures and administrative systems are keeping pace. Examination bottlenecks, modest R&D spending and limited commercial uptake suggest that growth in numbers has moved faster than growth in capability.

Private-sector investment is central to that capability. In countries where research spending exceeds 2% of GDP, industry typically accounts for most of the total. In India, public funding remains insignificant and private investment varies by sector.

Closer industry-academia collaboration would help align research agendas with production needs. Structured partnerships can support prototyping, testing and faster entry into markets. Without them, patents may accumulate in academic portfolios with limited industrial spillover.

Maintaining standards within the patent office is equally important. A rising volume of applications increases the risk of overlapping or low-value claims. Expanding examiner recruitment, improving digital processing and benchmarking against global practices would strengthen credibility. A rigorous examination process protects innovators and ensures that granted patents represent genuine advances.

India’s innovation system is expanding in scale. The picture is neither purely positive nor negative. It shows a system in transition.

Whether the current surge becomes the basis for sustained technological strength depends on what follows. Higher and more consistent research investment, especially from industry, would strengthen the pipeline of inventions.

Stronger commercialisation pathways would ensure that patents move beyond paper. Improved examination capacity would maintain trust in the system. Filing growth alone does not guarantee innovation-led development. The measure of progress will be how effectively those filings translate into productive technologies and economic value.

Aneesh MR is Assistant Professor of Economics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru.

Neethu PS is Associate Professor, Department of AI and Data Science Engineering, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

The Delhi High Court stayed the adverse observations made by a trial court about the Central Bureau of Investigation in the liquor policy case while discharging all 23 accused, including Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia. The bench directed the trial court to postpone hearings in the connected money-laundering case until the High Court decides the CBI’s revision petition challenging the discharge order.

On February 27, a special court had discharged all the persons accused in the corruption case related to the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy. The court had criticised the CBI for implicating Kejriwal and Sisodia without any cogent material and said the chargesheet had several gaps not supported by witnesses or statements.

The court had also said that it would recommend a departmental inquiry against CBI officials who made a public servant the accused number one in the case. Read on.

The Indian stock market continued its slide amid concerns related to the West Asia conflict. The Sensex crashed 1.8% and the Nifty 1.7%.

The rupee sank to 92.3 against the US dollar from 91.7 on Friday, driven by rising global oil prices that crossed the $100 per barrel-mark.

The price of benchmark Brent crude jumped to $116 per barrel during the day, before ending at $104. The price was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, the day before the conflict started.

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked more than 17.5%. Read on.

Over 1,250 people have been killed in Iran and 12,000 injured since the conflict in West Asia started, Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian told Al Jazeera. The conflict began on February 28 after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government.

Tehran has been retaliating by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and oil tankers.

In Bahrain, an Iranian drone attack, which targeted the Gulf nation’s Sitra island, wounded 32 civilians, the country’s health ministry said. The kingdom’s state-owned energy company Bapco served a force majeure notice, saying that its operations had been hampered by an attack on its refinery complex. Force majeure is a contractual provision that exempts companies from fulfilling their obligations because of unforeseen and uncontrollable events. Read on.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told Parliament on Monday that Iran had asked India to allow three of its ships to dock at Indian ports and New Delhi had granted permission for it on March 1. The IRIS Lavan docked at Kochi on March 4 and remains there, he said.

Jaishankar said that “this was the right thing to do” and that the Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had thanked India for the gesture.

He did not say whether the Iranian warship IRIS Dena, which was sunk by the United States Navy on March 4 off the Sri Lankan coast, was one among the ships that had been permitted to dock in India. Jaishankar made the comments while briefing Parliament about the situation in West Asia.

The Opposition staged a walkout, saying that the government had not allowed MPs to ask questions. The Congress demanded a discussion on the conflict in West Asia. Read on.

Activist Sharjeel Imam has been granted a 10-day interim bail in the 2020 Delhi riots larger conspiracy case. A Delhi court granted him bail from March 20 to March 30 to attend his brother’s wedding.

The court directed that during the bail period, Imam cannot contact witnesses or persons related to the case. He will only be allowed to meet his family and remain at his home or at the places where the marriage ceremonies will take place, the court said.

Imam was also directed not to speak with the media or use social media. Read on.

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A Delhi court on Monday granted a 10-day interim bail to activist Sharjeel Imam, who is accused of being part of a larger conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots, Live Law reported.

Imam was granted bail from March 20 to March 30 to attend his brother’s wedding, which is scheduled for March 25, ANI reported.

Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma Courts imposed a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and two sureties of a similar amount, the news agency reported.

Imam’s counsel had told the court that his client had been in prison for five years without being released on bail even temporarily.

The court directed that during the interim bail period, Imam cannot contact witnesses or persons related to the case. He will only be allowed to meet his family and remain at his home or at the places where the marriage ceremonies will take place, the court said.

Imam was also directed not to speak with the media or use social media, ANI reported.

He was arrested in January 2020 in connection with speeches made in Delhi, Aligarh, Asansol and Chakband during protests against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens.

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

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

According to the police chargesheet, Imam’s speeches had incited members of the Muslim community, which had, in turn, triggered riots.

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

On January 8, the Supreme Court had granted bail to five accused in the conspiracy case but denied the same to Imam and Umar Khalid, holding that all those named in the case did not stand on the same footing.

The bench observed that the two were “masterminds” and the material on record made out a “prima facie case” against them under the anti-terror law.

Also read: Why SC denied bail to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam but awarded it to five other anti-CAA activists

The Indian stock market on Monday continued its slide amid concerns relating to the conflict in West Asia.

The benchmark Sensex index ended the day about 1,400 points, or 1.8%, lower. The Nifty fell by 1.7% to close the session just above the 24,000-mark.

The market had begun to slide on March 2 after the conflict began.

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked more than 17.5% on Monday.

Major Asian stock indices also fell on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 1.3% lower. While Japan’s Nikkei tanked 5.2%, South Korea’s Kospi fell 5.9%.

Rupee plunges

The Indian rupee also weakened on Monday to 92.3 against the US dollar. The currency had closed at 91.7 on Friday.

This came as the global oil prices crossed the $100 per barrel-mark on Monday, the highest since July 2022.

The price of benchmark Brent crude jumped to $116 per barrel during the day, before falling to about $104. The price was about $72.8 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

Global oil prices have risen by about 50% since Israel and the United States attacked Iran on February 28. The escalating tensions have raised fears of disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption traverses the maritime chokepoint.

The conflict in West Asia began after Israel and the United States launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

The joint attacks by Israel and the US on Iran came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Monday called for stringent action against those who attacked a woman from Manipur and her transgender friend from Assam near the Saket District Court complex in Delhi.

Sangma called the incident sickening and said that “racial bullying should not be accepted as the new normal”.

Angered by the repeated attacks on North East people in Mainland India. The physical attack on two of our people from Manipur and Assam near Saket Court, Delhi is sickening. Racial bullying should not be accepted as the new normal and we must act against it. Urge the authorities…

— Conrad K Sangma (@SangmaConrad) March 9, 2026

Former Manipur CM N Biren Singh also condemned the incident on Monday and said that people from the North East must “feel safe, respected, and treated with dignity in every part of our country”.

Deeply disturbed by the incident of racial harassment and assault involving a two individuals from Manipur and Assam near Saket Court in Delhi.

Such acts of racism and violence are completely unacceptable and have no place in our society. People from the North East must feel…

— N. Biren Singh (@NBirenSingh) March 9, 2026

He said he was “deeply disturbed by the incident of racial harassment and assault” and said such acts of racism and violence were completely unacceptable.

Both Sangma and Singh urged the authorities to take strict action against the perpetrators.

The incident

On Sunday, a woman from Manipur and her transgender friend belonging to Assam were assaulted by a group of men in Delhi after the woman confronted the men over racially derogatory remarks, The Hindu reported.

The injured woman was later taken to Safdarjung Hospital and is in a stable condition, India Today North East reported.

On Monday, the Delhi Police said one minor has been apprehended in connection with the assault, and that continuous efforts were underway to nab the remaining accused persons.

This was the second reported incident in Delhi in recent days of citizens from the North East being targeted.

On February 20, three women from Arunachal Pradesh also faced racial abuse in Delhi.

The Delhi Police had said that a couple was booked for allegedly shouting racial slurs and intimidating three women who lived in the same building as them.

The altercation erupted when debris allegedly fell into the home of the accused persons when the women were getting an air conditioner installed. The women claimed that they were told they worked at “massage parlours” and that they should sell momos.

The Delhi Police said on Monday that seven more persons, including three women, were arrested and a minor was taken into custody in connection with the killing of a man during Holi celebrations in the city’s Uttam Nagar area, The Hindu reported.

Those arrested on Sunday night were identified as Sayra (40), Sareefan (50), Salma (36), Suhail (21), Sameer (20), Firoj (22) and Ismile (50). All of them are residents of JJ Colony in Uttam Nagar, The Hindu reported.

A 14-year-old minor has also been taken into custody.

With this, a total of 14 persons have been arrested in the case, while two minors have been apprehended, according to the newspaper.

The victim, Tarun Kumar Butolia, had sustained severe injuries in a clash on Wednesday that began after a water balloon accidentally thrown by an 11-year-old girl from the third floor of a building fell on a Muslim woman standing below. The incident had led to an argument between the two neighbouring families from different religious communities.

Kumar succumbed to his injuries the next day.

The police had initially filed a case under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to attempt to commit culpable homicide and common intention. After Kumar’s death, a murder charge was added to the case.

Officials also invoked provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in the first information report.

Kumar’s killing had sparked tensions in the area. Several vehicles were damaged and some were set on fire during protests by residents, following which police and paramilitary personnel were deployed.

On Sunday, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi demolished a property linked to one of the accused in the case.

There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for the demolition of property as a punitive measure. However, the practice has become commonplace in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court held as illegal the practice of demolishing properties of persons accused of crimes as a punitive measure.

Six persons were arrested and a minor detained in connection with the death of a 26-year-old man after a clash that broke out during a Holi celebration in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar area, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.

The man who died was identified as Tarun Kumar Butolia. He sustained severe injuries in the clash and died while undergoing treatment on Thursday.

The incident occurred on Wednesday in the JJ Colony area of Hasthsal village. A water balloon accidentally thrown by an 11-year-old girl from the third floor of a building fell on a Muslim woman standing below, triggering an argument between two neighbouring families from different religious communities, the newspaper reported.

The dispute soon escalated into a physical clash, The New Indian Express quoted the police as saying.

Dwarka Deputy Commissioner of Police Kushal Pal Singh said family members from “both sides gathered on the street and exchanged blows”, the newspaper reported.

“Three people from one side and five from the other sustained injuries,” The New Indian Express quoted Singh as saying. “Except one, all the injured were discharged the same day.”

The six persons arrested in the case were identified as: Umardeen, Jummadeen, Kamruddin, Mustaque, Muzzafar and Tahir.

On Sunday, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi demolished a property linked to one of the accused in the case, ANI reported.

There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for the demolition of property as a punitive measure. However, the practice has become commonplace in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.

In November, 2024, the Supreme Court held as illegal the practice of demolishing properties of persons accused of crimes as a punitive measure.

#WATCH | Uttam Nagar murder case: Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) carries out bulldozer action against the property of an accused. According to officials, action is being taken against the property linked to the accused Nizamuddin.

Police have so far apprehended seven… pic.twitter.com/bCl211h6Nf

— ANI (@ANI) March 8, 2026

In the Uttam Nagar incident, the police had initially registered a case under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to attempt to commit culpable homicide and common intention, The Hindu reported.

After Butolia’s death, a murder charge was added to the case. Officials also invoked provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in the first information report, The Indian Express reported.

“Reportedly, the two families knew each other for the last five decades and fought on trivial issues like parking and garbage disposal, among others,” The New Indian Express quoted Singh as saying.

Tensions rose in the area after the incident. Several vehicles were damaged and some were set on fire during protests by residents, leading to deployment of police and paramilitary personnel, The Hindu reported.

The authorities conducted a flag march on Saturday and placed barricades in the locality to maintain law and order, The Indian Express reported. The police have appealed to residents not to spread rumours or give the incident a communal colour.

Meanwhile, Butolia’s family has demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, The Times of India reported.

On Saturday, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta described the killing as “extremely heartbreaking and reprehensible” and said that the authorities had been instructed to immediately arrest all those involved and ensure strict action under the law.

“Delhi has a zero-tolerance policy for such heinous criminal and violent incidents,” Gupta said. “Such brutality will not be tolerated at any cost.”

होली के पावन पर्व पर दिल्ली के उत्तम नगर में एक मासूम युवा की जघन्य हत्या की यह घटना अत्यंत दर्दनाक, निंदनीय और पूरे समाज को झकझोर देने वाली है।

दिल्ली में इस प्रकार की जघन्य आपराधिक और हिंसक घटनाओं के लिए शून्य सहनशीलता की नीति है। इस तरह की दरिंदगी किसी भी कीमत पर बर्दाश्त…

— Rekha Gupta (@gupta_rekha) March 7, 2026

Iranian ship IRIS Lavan remains docked in Kerala’s Kochi and its crew is at Indian naval facilities, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Jaishankar made the remarks while briefing Parliament about the situation in West Asia amid the conflict there.

He said that Iran had requested India to allow three of its ships to dock at Indian ports and New Delhi granted permission for it on March 1. The IRIS Lavan docked at Kochi on March 4, the foreign minister told Parliament.

“We believe that this was the right thing to do, and the Iranian Foreign Minister [Seyed Abbas Araghchi] has expressed his country’s thanks for this human gesture,” Jaishankar said.

The minister did not say whether the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, which was sunk by a United States submarine on March 4 off the Sri Lankan coast, was one of the ships that had been allowed to dock at Indian ports.

A report in The Indian Express on March 7 had claimed that India had offered shelter to IRIS Dena.

My statement in Rajya Sabha today on ‘The Situation in West Asia’ https://t.co/LhetCLKmP8

— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) March 9, 2026

The IRIS Dena had left Visakhapatnam after taking part in the International Fleet Review and the MILAN 2026 naval exercise, which concluded on February 25. It was struck by a US torpedo in international waters near Sri Lanka in the early hours of March 4.

At least 87 persons were killed in the attack and 61 were reported missing. The Sri Lankan Navy had rescued 32.

Iran had requested India to allow its ships to dock amid the conflict in West Asia, which began on February 28. The United States and Israel launched a joint operation against the Iranian govenrment.

Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

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

Jaishankar made the remarks in Rajya amid protests by Opposition members, who later staged a walkout demanding a discussion on the conflict.

After the minister’s remarks, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh criticised the government for making a suo moto statement that did not allow questions or clarifications from MPs.

“The entire Opposition wanted an immediate discussion on the West Asian situation,” Ramesh said. “This was denied and hence the Opposition walkout after protests.”

As expected the External Affairs Minister made a suo moto statement on the situation in the Rajya Sabha on which no questions can be asked or clarifications sought. The entire Opposition wanted an immediate discussion on the West Asian situation. This was denied and hence the…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) March 9, 2026

Also read: India being a ‘net security provider’ does not override realities of Indian Ocean: S Jaishankar

India’s evacuation efforts

Amid sloganeering by Opposition MPs, Jaishankar on Monday also told Parliament that efforts were being made to bring back Indians stranded in West Asian countries.

The foreign minister said that the Indian embassy in Iran had facilitated the relocation of several Indian students in Tehran to places elsewhere.

“Indian nationals in Iran on business were facilitated to cross over to Armenia to return to India,” he added. “Our embassy in Tehran remains fully operational and on high alert.”

Jaishankar said that the conflict is of particular concern to India, and New Delhi has obvious stakes in the stability of the Gulf region.

“There are one crore Indians who live and work in the Gulf nations,” he noted. “In Iran, too, there are a few thousand Indians for study or employment.”

Jaishankar said that the conflict “has continued to intensify, and the security situation in the region has deteriorated significantly”.

He added that India’s national interest, including energy security and trade flows, “will always be paramount” for New Delhi.

India believes that dialogue and diplomacy should be pursued to de-escalate tensions, the minister told the Rajya Sabha.

He made a similar statement in the Lok Sabha.

Also read:

• ‘Embarrassment for Delhi’: Retired admirals and diplomats on US sinking Iran warship in Indian Ocean
• Can US, Gulf air defences outlast Iran’s drones and missiles?

The Delhi High Court on Monday stayed the adverse observations made by a trial court about the Central Bureau of Investigation while discharging all 23 accused, including Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, in the liquor policy case, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma also directed the trial court to postpone hearings in the connected money-laundering case until the High Court decides the CBI’s revision petition challenging the discharge order.

The High Court also issued notice to the accused persons and asked them to file their replies to the CBI’s revision plea, Bar and Bench reported.

On February 27, a special court at the Rouse Avenue Courts discharged all the accused in the corruption case related to the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy. The court had criticised the CBI for implicating Kejriwal and Sisodia without any cogent material and said the chargesheet contained several gaps not supported by witnesses or statements.

The trial court had also said it would recommend a departmental inquiry against CBI officials who made a public servant the accused number one in the case. It had said that there was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent behind the excise policy.

During Monday’s hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, said the agency was not seeking a stay on the discharge of the accused for now, but only a direction that the trial court’s order should not affect the separate money laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate.

Mehta also argued that the excise policy had been “manipulated” to facilitate certain traders and that the CBI had traced the money trail. However, he said the trial court discharged the accused without considering the corroborative material on record, Live Law reported.

“This is one of the biggest scams in the history of the capital of this nation and in my opinion a national shame,” Bar and Bench quoted Mehta as saying. “Scientific investigation was carried out. Each and every aspect of conspiracy was established.”

The High Court will hear the matter next on March 16.

Liquor policy case

The CBI had alleged irregularities in the Delhi government’s liquor excise policy, which has since been scrapped. Based on the CBI case, the Enforcement Directorate also launched an investigation into allegations of money-laundering.

The two central agencies alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party government at the time modified the liquor policy by increasing the commission for wholesalers from 5% to 12%. This allegedly facilitated the receipt of bribes from wholesalers who had a substantial market share and turnover.

The party had denied the allegations.

Sisodia, who was the Delhi deputy chief minister at the time, was arrested in February 2023 by the CBI on charges of corruption in connection with the case. A month later, he was arrested by the ED in the same case.

Kejriwal, the Delhi chief minister at the time, had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in March 2024.

The AAP chief spent around five months in jail in two separate periods. He was finally released in September 2024 after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the CBI case, having already received interim bail in the ED case. Sisodia was in jail for around 17 months before securing bail.

Also Read:

• Lapses in probe, no proof: What court said while acquitting Kejriwal, Sisodia in excise policy case

• Why a court held CBI’s corruption case against Kejriwal was so flimsy it could not even go to trial

After a row broke out between the Centre and the West Bengal government regarding an event attended by President Droupadi Murmu in the state, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday reiterated that there was no breach of protocol, the Hindustan Times reported.

“The responsibility of mismanagement at the president’s programme in Bengal lies with private organisers and the Airports Authority of India,” the newspaper quoted Banerjee as saying. “We have full respect for the chair of the president and the Constitution of India, which we consider our mother. Do not blame us.”

Banerjee’s remarks came a day after Murmu criticised the Trinamool Congress government for allocating a smaller venue for an event she addressed in Darjeeling district on Saturday. The president also expressed displeasure that Banerjee and state ministers did not follow the conventions associated with a presidential visit.

Murmu was in West Bengal to participate in the ninth International Santal Conference, the venue of which was changed. The organisers of the event had preferred a field in Bidhannagar in the district, but the administration allegedly denied permission and the event was held at Gosainpur near Bagdogra in Siliguri.

After the event, Murmu travelled to Bidhannagar and spoke with residents without using a dais. She said the venue there would have been better suited for the conference.

Murmu also said that when the president visits a state, the chief minister and other ministers should attend the event. Banerjee was not present, she noted.

On Saturday, Banerjee was reportedly holding a protest in Kolkata against the Election Commission’s special intensive revision of the state’s electoral rolls.

Responding to Murmu’s remarks on Saturday, Banerjee said the conference had been organised by the International Santal Council, which had invited the president.

She added that after an advanced security liaison meeting, the district administration had informed the President’s Secretariat that the organisers appeared inadequately prepared for the event. The concern was also conveyed over the phone, she said.

According to Banerjee, the President’s Secretariat’s advance team visited the venue on March 5 and was informed about the lack of arrangements, but the programme continued as scheduled.

She also said that the president had been received and seen off by the mayor of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation, the district magistrate of Darjeeling district and the police commissioner of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate in accordance with the protocol shared by the President’s Secretariat.

Banerjee added that she was not part of the approved lineup or dais plan for the event and asserted that there had been no protocol lapse on the part of the district administration.

“BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] is disrespecting and misusing the highest chair in the country for its own party agenda,” she alleged. “Most unfortunate.”

The political row escalated further on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Trinamool Congress government of disrespecting the president and the Constitution.

“This is not only an insult to the president but also an insult to the Constitution of the country and the great traditions of democracy,” the Hindustan Times quoted Modi as saying in Delhi. “Everyone who believes in democracy and the empowerment of [Adivasi] communities is disheartened.”

On Sunday, Modi had described the incident as “shameful and unprecedented”.

“Everyone who believes in democracy and the empowerment of [Adivasi] communities is disheartened,” Modi had said. “The pain and anguish expressed by Rashtrapati Ji, who herself hails from a [Adivasi] community, has caused immense sadness in the minds of the people of India.”

Meanwhile, the Union home ministry sought a report from the West Bengal government regarding the alleged protocol breach, the newspaper reported.

In a letter to West Bengal Chief Secretary Nandini Chakravorty, Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan sought a response by 5 pm on Sunday regarding alleged violations of the “Blue Book” rules during the president’s visit to the tribal event in north Bengal.

The Blue Book is a confidential document that outlines security and protocol rules for the president, vice-president, prime minister and their families.

A government official told the Hindustan Times that the Centre had sought clarification on the absence of the chief minister, chief secretary and director general of police to receive the president, which is a “serious violation of the Blue Book rules”.

It was not immediately clear if the state government had submitted its response.

A man who had filed a complaint against religious leader Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act was attacked by an unidentified person with a razor on a train in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj on Sunday, PTI quoted the police as saying.

Saraswati, the head of the Jyotirmath monastery, is accused of having sexually abused two minor boys at a camp in Prayagraj over the past year. A first information report was filed against him and his disciple Mukundanand on February 21, following a court order.

The complainant, Ashutosh Brahmachari, had approached a special POCSO court claiming that the police failed to act on written complaints in the matter. The court had then ordered the registration of the case.

Brahmachari claimed on Sunday that he was attacked when he was travelling to Prayagraj on the Rewa Express, PTI quoted an unidentified Government Railway Police officer as saying.

The officer said that when the train was approaching Sirathu station, Brahmachari went to the toilet, where an unidentified person allegedly attacked him with a razor.

He sustained minor injuries and was taken to a hospital in Prayagraj for a medical examination. Closed-circuit television camera footage from the spot is being examined to identify the attacker.

Saraswati, however, questioned the claim about Brahmachari being attacked and said that it appeared to be fabricated, PTI reported. He called on the railway authorities to carry out an inquiry, so that the truth would come out.

Controversies around the religious leader

On February 28, the Allahabad High Court granted interim protection from arrest to Saraswati in the POCSO case against him.

The religious leader maintained that the allegations against him were false and politically motivated.

The case against Saraswati had come amid recent tensions between the religious leader and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh.

In January, Saraswati held an 11-day sit-in protest in Prayagraj after the local administration allegedly prevented him from taking a dip in the Triveni Sangam on the holy day of Mauni Amavasya on January 18.

The religious leader had also given a 40-day “ultimatum” to Chief Minister Adityanath to “declare gau mata [mother cow]” as “rajya mata” and take steps to prevent the export of cow meat.

Saraswati was also among the three other shankaracharyas, or pontiffs of major Hindu shrines, who said that they would not attend the inauguration ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in January 2024.

The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said on Monday that no Indian citizen was killed when a military projectile struck a residential locality in the city of Al-Kharj a day before.

The embassy stated that its counsellor had visited Al-Kharj and met an injured Indian national at a government hospital.

News reports had earlier claimed that an Indian and a Bangladeshi national were killed in the strike. Twelve persons were injured in the attack, Reuters had quoted the Saudi Civil Defence as saying.

However, the Saudi Civil Defence later clarified that the two persons killed in the incident were Bangladeshi nationals. It added that 11 Bangladeshi nationals and one Indian national were injured in the attack.

It is a matter of relief that there has been no Indian fatality in the unfortunate incident at Al Kharj yesterday evening.

The Embassy has been in touch with the concerned Saudi authorities regarding this issue.

Counsellor (CW) Shri Y. Sabir visited Al Kharj last night and met… https://t.co/R9syP1qW1G

— India in Saudi Arabia (@IndianEmbRiyadh) March 8, 2026

On Sunday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted radar systems in several locations, including Al-Kharj.

Iran has been striking targets in Israel as well as the United States’ assets in Gulf countries since the conflict broke out in West Asia on February 28.

The conflict began after Israel and the US had launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Tehran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on March 3 that some Indian nationals have been killed in the conflict, while others remain missing.

A day earlier, the Directorate General of Shipping had confirmed that three Indian seafarers were killed and one injured amid the conflict while serving on board foreign-flagged vessels.

The Modi government’s decision last week to appoint Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi as the next governor of West Bengal has fanned speculation about the Centre’s plans for the state. The development comes at a time when uncertainty is looming over the upcoming Assembly elections, making some worry that President’s rule might be imposed in Bengal.

Ravi’s tenure in Tamil Nadu, which began in September 2021 and saw a series of controversies, has only added to these fears. His critics see him as a governor who has scant regard for federalism, frequently stepping on the toes of the state government. Last year, in a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court even reversed his decision to not sign bills approved by the state Assembly.

Politicians and civil society figures from Kolkata told Scroll that Ravi’s entry in Bengal will intensify clashes between the state and the Centre as polls draw closer.

What the concerns are

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was first to set the cat among the pigeons by speculating why CV Ananda Bose, her state’s governor since November 2022, had resigned all of a sudden. Her party leaders go one step further.

“They [the Bharatiya Janata Party] have always wanted to impose President’s rule in the state,” claimed Mohammad Tauseef Rahman, a national spokesperson of Trinamool Congress. “Now that Mamata Banerjee is protesting for those voters who have been put under adjudication, they want to delay the election. He is being brought in to harass us.”

Rahman was referring to the more than 60 lakh voters whose fate has yet to be decided despite the special intensive revision of the state’s voter lists dragging on for over four months.

The Election Commission has not announced the polling schedule for West Bengal so far. The term of the current Assembly ends on May 7. This has triggered speculation that the state may have to be placed under President’s rule for the first time in nearly half a century. If it comes to that, the office of the governor will assume immense political significance.

“If there is President’s rule, they [the Centre] will need a tougher person than CV Ananda Bose,” explained Maidul Islam, a Kolkata-based political scientist. “Ravi has been sent because he was in the Indian Police Service and he is a tough person. When the Election Commission will be deploying forces, maybe he will intervene.”

Ravi is seen to be close to Ajit Doval, India’s national security advisor since 2014. He served as Doval’s deputy for a little over nine months in 2018-’19 before he was made the governor of Nagaland, the first in a series of governorships that would come his way in subsequent years.

Jawhar Sircar, a retired bureaucrat and a former member of the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal, also brought up Ravi’s years as an intelligence official in the police. He argued that Ravi is the sort of person that the BJP looks to “plonk” in the governor’s chair, describing him as a “ruthless, no-holds-barred, surgical operator” of the saffron party.

“There are people who are genetically and intrinsically malafide – Ravi belongs to that tribe,” Sircar added. “He has a proven track record of disrupting a legitimately elected government. And since he has been in intelligence, he uses Machiavellian crafts. This guy is bad news.”

Frying pan to fire

It is not as if Ananda Bose’s tenure in West Bengal was free of discord. He, too, has been in the news because of his regular run-ins with Mamata Banerjee’s government, most famously in the aftermath of the RG Kar rape and murder case. But, in Sircar’s view, Bose lacked the “killer instinct” that Ravi apparently possesses.

Mohammed Salim, state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which ruled West Bengal for 34 years before Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011, articulated a similar view. In fact, he alleged that Trinamool, in cahoots with the political consultancy firm I-PAC, had “trapped” Bose using sexual harassment allegations against him as leverage.

“Something is being cooked in Delhi,” Salim said. “It is not easy to impose President's rule. Whatever they want to do, Ananda Bose will not be able to deliver. So, they want Ravi to deliver it.”

I am shocked and deeply concerned by the sudden news of the resignation of Shri C. V. Ananda Bose, the Governor of West Bengal.

The reasons behind his resignation are not known to me at this moment. However, given the prevailing circumstances, I would not be surprised if the…

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) March 5, 2026

Analysts, too, agree that in Ravi, the Centre has found a “steadier hand” than Bose. Journalist Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, who wrote a book about the BJP’s politics in the state titled Mission Bengal: A Saffron Experiment, suggested that having Ravi as governor puts the party in a better position to navigate the “unpredictable” future.

“They wanted a steadier hand because the situation has become unpredictable,” he added. “The special intensive revision may not give BJP the result that they desired. Many Matuas [a Bangladesh-origin community seen as BJP supporters] have got stuck.”

Does that mean that the Centre might impose President’s rule in Bengal? Bhattacharya was not sure.

“Maybe they think they can win the election with the administration in their hands,” he said, referring to the fact that under President’s rule the administration is controlled by the governor. “It is a big risk, but you never know with these people. They can do what others can’t imagine. Nobody imagined the bifurcation of Kashmir or the revocation of Kashmir’s statehood. That is why you can’t rule that possibility out.”

How it could backfire

The choice of Ravi as governor could also be interpreted as the party’s message to supporters as well as its rank and file. Bengal BJP leaders have long complained that the Modi government shies away from taking stern action against Mamata Banerjee’s administration. But Debjit Sarkar, a state spokesperson for the BJP, did not sound enthused by the announcement.

“It is not for us to be happy or unhappy with who has been appointed,” he said. “He [Ravi] has just been assigned the responsibility. The question of our happiness will arise once we have seen his work. He has not even joined yet, how can we assess his performance?”

Sarkar dodged the question of whether his party was in favour of imposing President’s rule in West Bengal by saying it wanted “people’s rule” in the state. Pressed further on the issue, he simply stated: “Whatever the Constitution says should be followed.”

BJP may be stopping short of demanding President’s rule because it worries that the move could backfire and benefit Trinamool instead. Mita Chakraborty, media chairperson of the Congress party’s West Bengal committee, argued that such a move would be “silly” and play into the hands of Mamata Banerjee.

“They [BJP] need to get floating voters on their side,” she said. “The floaters who supported them before will also turn against them if this perception of BJP being anti-Bengali gets further validation from very silly decisions. Mamata would walk away with a lot of sympathy.”

The Karnataka government’s proposal to ban social media access for children under the age 16 seems like a decisive and a long overdue step towards protecting young people from online harms.

But policies built on prohibition often collapse the moment they meet reality.

A blanket ban on social media for under-16s is deeply problematic, practically unenforceable, and risks undermining children’s rights in the digital age. It also reflects a growing policy reflex: when faced with digital risks, governments reach for bans instead of building systems that help children navigate the internet safely.

They shift responsibility away from platforms, reduce incentives to build safer systems and ignore the evolving capacities of young people themselves.

Karnataka appears to have taken a leaf out of Australia’s playbook, where the government banned teenagers and children under the age of 16 from having social media accounts. Three months on, it is unclear how effective Australia’s experience has been.

Social media bans make headlines, but harder questions remain unresolved: how will age be verified across platforms and how will children’s rights be protected? It is also unclear if it is even legal or technically feasible for a state government to ban social media access for teenagers.

Update: As per the text of the budget speech there is only one paragraph (118) which is concerning the social media ban. As per the screenshot the details of : how it will be implemented and what will be its legal basis remains absent. pic.twitter.com/zbrnjRVgvV

— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) March 6, 2026

The full contours of Karnataka’s proposal are still unclear, but regulating access to digital platforms, enforcing age verification, and compelling compliance from global technology companies typically falls within domains governed by central law and platform-level regulation. Without clarity on these questions, the proposal risks becoming symbolic.

Similarly, what happens when teenagers simply bypass restrictions? Because they almost always do.

Just as alcohol prohibition, instead of eliminating drinking, simply pushed it underground, digital bans are likely to have the same effect.

When access is blocked, teenagers will find workarounds, like borrowing devices, using a sibling’s account, misstating their age or migrating to smaller, less moderated platforms. Their digital activities continue, but will be less visible to their parents, educators and regulators.

That is why enforcement is such a weak foundation for digital policy. Social media platforms already struggle to verify the age of billions of users worldwide. Expecting perfect compliance on age verification demands ignores the technical and behavioural realities of how young people use the internet.

Karnataka Government BANS SOCIAL MEDIA for children below the age of 16 years

CM Siddaramaiah made this announcement in his Budget Speech@CMofKarnataka @siddaramaiah #KarnatakaBudget2026 pic.twitter.com/sWxi2a2EPK

— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) March 6, 2026

Blanket bans also collide with children’s rights. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises that children have the right to access information, express themselves and participate in society. In 2021, General Comment number 25 clarified that these rights extend to the digital environment. States are obligated to protect children from harm online and also to ensure they can meaningfully access digital spaces that support learning, expression and participation.

A ban disrupts the balance between protection and participation. It assumes the safest child is the disconnected child. But for many young people, the internet is where they learn, communicate, discover opportunities and participate in culture. Removing access entirely does away with the opportunity to build resilience and digital literacy under guidance.

Research carried out by the PIIIR Foundation, which this author is associated with, offers a useful reality check. The study of 200 school students between the ages of 13-16 in Rajasthan examined how teenagers actually encounter “consent” and privacy decisions while using apps. The results complicate several assumptions that underpin prohibition-style policies. First, teenagers are not as confused about digital consent as often assumed: 91% of the students demonstrated a clear understanding of what consent means, defining it as being asked for permission and having the option to agree or refuse.

Second, the common assumption that parents are better equipped to manage digital privacy settings does not always hold up. As many as 89.5% of the students said their parents do not understand app settings better than they do, while only 10.5% believed their parents were more capable of navigating these controls. Another key data insight from the research is how easily age-based restrictions are bypassed: 80.5% of the 200 students surveyed admitted they had entered a fake age at least once to create an online account, while only 19.5% said they had not.

Many regulatory proposals rely heavily on parental gatekeeping as the central mechanism for protecting children online. But if parents themselves are not consistently comfortable navigating platform settings, permissions, and privacy controls, then policies built entirely around parental oversight risk becoming symbolic rather than practical.

The issue becomes even clearer when we look at how digital consent functions in practice. Permission prompts for camera access, location sharing, or contacts rarely appear as moments of thoughtful decision-making. They appear as quick interruptions in an app’s flow. Teenagers, like adults, often click through them quickly in order to continue using the service.

The problem here is the design of digital systems.

If policymakers truly want to protect children online, the conversation must shift from who clicks “allow” to how platforms design choices.

That is the direction that global child-rights thinking has been moving. Scholars such as Professor Sonia Livingstone, a leading voice on children’s digital rights, have repeatedly cautioned against simplistic restrictions on internet access. Bans, she argues, reflect adult anxieties rather than evidence about how children spend time online.

A more effective approach focuses on age-appropriate design, safer defaults, and stronger platform accountability, rather than exclusion. Instead of trying to keep children away from the internet, governments should ensure the internet is built with children in mind.

Countries such as the United Kingdom have already moved in that direction through frameworks like the Age Appropriate Design Code, which requires platforms likely to be accessed by children to implement high privacy defaults, limit profiling and avoid manipulative design practices. That kind of regulatory approach recognises the truth that children are already online.

The real policy question is how digital spaces, which teenagers access, should be designed and governed so that children’s safety, dignity, and development are protected.

Policies should treat children as developing citizens learning to navigate the world around them.

Salik Khan is the founder of PIIR Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting children’s rights in the digital world.

The West Bengal Police’s Special Task Force on Sunday said that it arrested two citizens of Bangladesh who are allegedly connected with the killing of Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, ANI reported.

The two arrested men are Rahul alias Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Hossain. They were arrested near the Bongaon border area on charges of illegally entering and staying in India.

Masud is believed to be the prime accused person in Hadi’s killing, while Hossain is alleged to be his associate, The Daily Star reported.

The Special Task Force alleged that Masud and Hossain illegally entered India through the Meghalaya border, and then travelled to different parts of the country, ANI reported. They subsequently travelled to Bongaon with the intention of crossing back to Bangladesh, the authority said in a press release.

Masud and Hossain were on Sunday produced before a court, which sent them to police custody, ANI reported.

West Bengal police STF arrested two Bangladeshi nationals - Rahul alias Faisal Karum Masud and Alamgir Hossain near Bongaon border area for illegal entry and stay in India. These two people are connected with the murder of political activist Sharif Osman Hadi in Bangladesh. pic.twitter.com/8ZWrwZzhhl

— ANI (@ANI) March 8, 2026

Hadi was a prominent leader in the 2024 student protest that led to the ouster of the earlier Bangladesh government headed by Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina.

He was shot on December 12 while he was leaving a mosque in Dhaka. He died on December 18 at a hospital in Singapore, where he had been flown for treatment.

Hadi’s death had led to unrest in parts of Bangladesh, during which the offices of newspapers The Daily Star and Prothom Alo were attacked.

The Bangladesh Police had alleged that Masud and Hossain had crossed into Meghalaya with the help of Indian residents and had taken refuge there. The Border Security Force had, however, denied the claims.

The paramilitary force’s chief in Meghalaya, Inspector General OP Upadhyay, had said that “the claims were completely false, fabricated, and misleading, and there is no evidence to support them”.

The Bangladesh Police have claimed that Hadi was killed on the instructions of leaders linked to the Awami League and its student wing, the Chhatra League. It has alleged that the killing was the result of “political vendetta”.

Nishant Kumar, the son of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, formally joined the Janata Dal (United) at the party headquarters in Patna on Sunday, marking his official entry into state politics.

The induction ceremony was attended by senior party leaders including party working president Sanjay Kumar Jha, Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh and Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary. However, Nitish Kumar, who is also the party chief, was not present at the event.

Addressing party workers, Nishant Kumar said he would try to continue the developmental work undertaken by his father for the people of Bihar and would work under his guidance.

He added that he accepted and respected his father’s decision to move to the Rajya Sabha and intended to “continue working under his guidance”.

On Thursday, Nitish Kumar said that he will contest the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections and is expected to step down as the chief minister if he wins the March 16 polls.

“I thank everyone,” Nishant Kumar said on Sunday. “I will try to live up to the trust you all have placed in me. I, the entire Bihar and the entire country are proud of what my father has done in the last 20 years.”

A large gathering of party supporters welcomed Nishant Kumar with slogans such as “Nishant hain to nischint hain (when Nishant Kumar is around, we’re all assured), Jai Nitish, Jai Nishant (hail Nitish Kumar, hail Nishant Kumar)”, The Hindu reported.

The 50-year-old, an engineer who studied at Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra in Ranchi, had largely stayed away from public life until his induction into the party.

Also read:

• As Nitish Kumar quits as Bihar chief minister, what will happen to his politics of social justice?
• ‘BJP’s use and throw’: Opposition leader on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s move to Rajya Sabha

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday unveiled a draft population management policy aimed at raising the state’s Total Fertility Rate by giving a financial incentive of Rs 25,000 for couples who have a third child.

“With fertility declining sharply, we must act now to secure our demographic future,” Naidu said.

The policy also promises free education for the third child up to 18 years of age in public or residential schools.

Naidu said the policy aims to improve the state’s fertility rate from the current 1.5 to 2.1, which is ideal to maintain demographic balance.

Speaking in the Legislative Assembly, Naidu highlighted that the state faces a declining birth rate and an ageing population and warned that by 2047 nearly 23% of residents could be elderly if fertility rates are not stabilised.

“Currently, about 58% of families have only one child, around 2.17 lakh families have two children, and nearly 62 lakh families have three or more children,” The Indian Express quoted Naidu as telling the Assembly. “Around three lakh families have only one child instead of two, while another three lakh families have more than two children.”

The policy document will be placed in the public domain for one month for consultations, after which it will be finalised and implemented from April 1, the chief minister said.

The policy also considers extending maternal leave to 12 months and paternal leave to two months. Besides, it recommends launching the “Poshana – Shiksha – Suraksha” package to ensure nutrition, education and protection for every child, Naidu said.

“We will support those who are childless and suffering from fertility problems,” he added while saying the government will set up in-vitro fertilisation centres in government hospitals.

President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday criticised the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal for allocating a smaller venue for an event she addressed in Darjeeling district.

She also expressed displeasure about Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and state ministers not following the conventions of a presidential visit.

Murmu was in the state to participate in the ninth International Santal Conference, the venue of which was changed, The Telegraph reported.

The organisers of the event had preferred a field in Bidhannagar in the district, the newspaper reported. However, the administration allegedly denied permission and the event was held at Gosainpur near Bagdogra in Siliguri.

Addressing the conference, Murmu said: “I was watching many Santals are outside. I feel somebody is stopping them from entering. While on the way I couldn’t help wondering, is this an international conference? Some do not want the Santal to stand united, stand strong.”

After the event, Murmu travelled to Bidhannagar and spoke with residents without using a dais. She said that the venue in Bidhannagar would have been better suited for the conference.

“I don’t know what happened to the administration,” Murmu said. “We came here quite easily. They had told us this place is congested. I feel five lakh people could have gathered here. I don’t know why they took us there. Not many of our brothers and sisters from here could attend.”

“I don’t know what went through the administration’s mind that they chose a place [for the conference] where the Santal people couldn’t go...” Murmu said in Bidhannagar.

“Perhaps they [the administration] had hoped that no one would be able to attend, and the president would simply turn around and leave...” ANI quoted her as having alleged.

She said that when the president visits a place, the chief minister and the state ministers should attend the event. Banerjee was not there, Murmu said.

“Mamata didi is my sister, my younger sister,” Murmu said. “Maybe she is angry with me. So the programme was made to happen there…But it’s okay, I wish her well.”

Banerjee was on Saturday reportedly holding a protest in Kolkata against the Election Commission’s special intensive revision of the state’s electoral rolls.

Responding to Murmu’s comments, Banerjee asked if the president was aware how many names had been removed from the voter list in Bengal, ANI reported.

Banerjee added that the Bharatiya Janata Party had never thought about minorities.

“You didn’t say anything about the Scheduled Castes, Buddhists, Punjabis, Parsis, Jains or even Hindus,” ANI quoted Banerjee as saying. “You know how to do politics. We don't know how to do politics.”

The chief minister said that he will ask her party leaders to seek an appointment from the president to submit a list of the work carried out by the Trinamool Congress government for the Adivasis.

Later, Banerjee said that the ninth International Adivasi Santal Conference in Siliguri had been organised by the International Santal Council, which had invited the president.

She said that after an Advanced Security Liaison meeting, the district administration had informed the President’s Secretariat in writing that the organisers appeared inadequately prepared for the event. The concern was also conveyed over the phone, she added.

According to Banerjee, the President’s Secretariat’s advance team visited the venue on March 5 and was informed about the lack of arrangements, but the programme continued as scheduled.

She also said that the president had been received and seen off by the mayor of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation, the district magistrate of Darjeeling district and the police commissioner of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate in accordance with the protocol shared by the President’s Secretariat.

Banerjee added that she was not part of the approved lineup or the dais plan for the event and asserted that there had been no protocol lapse on the part of the district administration.

“BJP is disrespecting and misusing the highest chair in the country for its own party agenda,” she said. “Most unfortunate.”

#WATCH | Darjeeling, West Bengal | President Droupadi Murmu says, "Today was the International Santal Conference. When I came here after attending it, I realised it would have been better if it had been held here, because the area is so vast... I don't know what went through the… pic.twitter.com/zMYyvDo0Y2

— ANI (@ANI) March 7, 2026

PM, Opposition criticises Trinamool

Describing the incident as “shameful and unprecedented” Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleged that the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal was responsible for the “insult” to the president.

“Everyone who believes in democracy and the empowerment of [Adivasi] communities is disheartened,” Modi said. “The pain and anguish expressed by Rashtrapati Ji, who herself hails from a [Adivasi] community, has caused immense sadness in the minds of the people of India.”

This is shameful and unprecedented. Everyone who believes in democracy and the empowerment of tribal communities is disheartened.

The pain and anguish expressed by Rashtrapati Ji, who herself hails from a tribal community, has caused immense sadness in the minds of the people… https://t.co/XGzwMCMFrT

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 7, 2026

BJP leader Amit Malviya said that the incident points to “a complete collapse of the constitutional framework under the Mamata Banerjee government”.

Malviya, who is in charge of the Hindutva party in the state, said that it was shocking that the state government had allegedly denied permission for the conference in which the president was the chief guest.

“When a state government begins to disregard the dignity of the office of the president of India, it reflects not just administrative failure but a breakdown of constitutional propriety and governance,” he said on social media.

Malviya said that the incident was “not merely discourtesy” but an “institutional disrespect and another reminder of how governance in Bengal has descended into chaos”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the incident was “shameful and unprecedented”.

“The TMC government of West Bengal has truly crossed all limits,” he said on social media. “Their administration is responsible for this insult to the president.”

The anguish expressed by the president “has caused immense sadness” among the people, Modi said.

He alleged that Santal culture had been “treated so casually” by the state government.

The office of the president is above politics and the sanctity of this office should always be respected, Modi added.

The events in West Bengal today point to a complete collapse of the constitutional framework under the Mamata Banerjee government.

In a rare and unprecedented development, the Hon’ble President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu, openly expressed displeasure over the lack of… pic.twitter.com/ZMiRwZkVbJ

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 7, 2026

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Arup Chakraborty told The Indian Express that the “situation was created” because of the Election Commission.

“Our chief minister is now fighting for the people’s rights,” he said. “We know our president is a very good human and she would understand the compulsion of Mamata Banerjee.”

West Bengal is expected to hold Assembly elections in April or May.

When Israel and the United States attacked Iran on February 28, another skirmish was underway between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That morning, Afghan spokespersons claimed that a Pakistani fighter jet had been shot down in Jalalabad and the pilot captured.

The claim was quickly picked up by Afghan and global media, and social media engagement accounts. Videos online showed what appeared to be a red parachute and a crowd gathered on the roadside. There was no real wreckage, no pilot in a flight suit.

When the claim was disproved, news organisations removed their posts or added Pakistan’s denial. The viral videos had been unrelated to the fighting along the Durand Line.

This was not the first false claim shared on social media about the Afghan Taliban shooting down Pakistani fighter jets.

Such assertions about downed jets are now an unmistakable global pattern. While the number of jets a country loses may not be a measure of who comes out of the conflict with the upper hand, the claims, even if they are disproved later, have become an important weapon in a country’s online narrative battle.

That is why such claims are often grossly exaggerated or outright false.

This pattern of claims and counter-claims keeps on being repeated.

The most prominent recent example of this pattern is the four-day conflict in May between India and Pakistan.

When India struck sites it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Islamabad quickly claimed that it had shot down Indian fighter jets during air-to-air combat.

The number of claimed hits increased, without much explanation, to seven jets in December from the five mentioned in the early hours of the fighting.

India acknowledged losing aircraft in the conflict’s initial phase, but has not disclosed the number of planes lost.

New Delhi made its own claims. Shortly after the ceasefire, the Indian Air Force claimed that Pakistan had lost “a few” aircraft during the fighting. Months later, India claimed that five Pakistani jets of the US-built F-16 and Chinese-made JF-17 classes, and a large military aircraft had been shot down during the conflict.

Islamabad has rejected the claims.

Adding to the confusion, US President Donald Trump has not missed an opportunity to repeatedly say that jets were being downed during the India-Pakistan conflict. While he has never said who the jets belonged to, his number increased in February to 11 from five he mentioned in July.

The optics of losing jets

Sometimes the claims are made by governments. But often these are made by proxy, by keyboard warriors or a pliant media. This gives the government deniability.

The first mover has an advantage, and the truth and the details get drowned out in the fog of war.

The imagery of jets being shot down is emotive and it is capable of planting doubts in an adversary’s population.

This reminds me of what Jaswant Singh, India’s external affairs minister during the Kargil War and a former Army officer, wrote in his 2006 memoir.

“It was my view that the use of the Air Force at this point [during the Kargil War] was not good policy,” he wrote. “My reservations were born of two or three principal considerations. Should the adversary be determined to escalate the conflict, as all his early actions demonstrated, then we ought to be prepared for air casualties.”

The Wire quotes his memoir as adding that: “The difficulty with air casualties, as against casualties on land, is principally of imagery. The sheer optical value of the Air Force is so much greater, particularly in a limited and contained conflict. That is why the loss of an aircraft becomes so instantly an issue that catches the public eye, as compared to the loss of even a platoon of infantry.”

A platoon can consist of up to 50 soldiers.

Today, this tactic of psychological warfare is aggravated by social media.

The economics of the claims

There is also an economic angle to claims about jets being shot down and their type.

Countries around the world spent around $2.6 trillion on weapons in 2025.

In November, the US government took note of reports that China had launched a disinformation campaign after Operation Sindoor to undermine the reliability of the French-built Rafale, hoping to sway opinion in favour of its own fifth-generation J-35 fighter jets.

The US report noted that the Chinese campaign used fake social media accounts to spread artificial intelligence-generated photos of supposed debris from Indian fighter jets that Chinese weapons allegedly destroyed.

The annual report by an independent committee, which provides recommendations to the US government on matters pertaining to China such as trade and national security, was submitted to the US Congress.

It said that Pakistan’s use of Chinese weapons “to down French Rafale fighter jets used by India also became a particular selling point for Chinese embassy defence sales efforts”.

Of course, losses are to be expected in combat, as Air Marshal AK Bharti told a press conference in May.

What we see on social media is not a constructive discussion about the gaps in tactics or concerns for human life. It is more about dominating the narrative, planting doubts and inflicting psychological wounds on the opponent.

That is why we will continue seeing such claims.

Here is a summary of last week’s top stories.

Conflict at India’s doorstep. The United States said its submarines had sunk an Iranian warship off the Sri Lankan coast on Wednesday. The frigate, the IRIS Dena, was attacked using a torpedo, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

While more than 80 personnel were killed, 61 were missing and 32 had been rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy. The incident occurred on the fifth day of Israel-US’ attacks on Iran.

From February 16 to February 25, the warship had attended an International Fleet Review in Vishakhapatnam, along with ships from several other countries.

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi declared that the US would “bitterly regret” the action. He added that the ship was “a guest of India’s Navy” and had been struck without warning.

Retired Indian admirals, former diplomats and geopolitical analysts described the incident as a “strategic embarrassment” to the Indian government and a “blow to its regional credibility”.

Political churn. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that he will contest the March 16 Rajya Sabha polls and, if elected, is expected to step down from his position in the state. This has led to speculation that his son, Nishant Kumar, could be made the deputy chief minister and that a Bharatiya Janata Party leader could take over as the chief minister.

The Opposition criticised the move as a betrayal of the people’s mandate. The Kumar-led alliance had won the Assembly polls in November.

Bihar has five vacant Rajya Sabha seats, with National Democratic Alliance candidates likely to secure four unopposed.

Also on Scroll last week

• ‘A part of our belief system’: Why Muslims in Kashmir and across India are mourning Khamenei
• The fight to make HIV ‘wonder drug’ affordable for Indians
• Why the US-Iran war will hurt India more than China
• As polls knock, why is Bengal’s SIR in a state of chaos with no end in sight?
• ‘Nobody could sleep last night’: Indian workers on edge as Iran attacks Dubai, Doha
• As Mumbai’s Iranis mourn Khamenei, the city’s only Persian sweet shop looks at a bleak Nowruz
• Why Chhattisgarh’s midday meal workers have not given up their fight for better pay
• Why Bangladesh’s new government has no elbow room for any economic errors
• ‘It Was Just An Accident’ review: A raw, powerful debate on justice and revenge in Iran
• ‘Subedaar’ review: One random provocation after another

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A reporter and a cameraperson from the news channel Republic TV, and a boat driver were arrested on Saturday for allegedly entering a restricted high-security zone near the port in Kochi to film an Iranian naval vessel, Onmanorama reported.

The arrests came days after the Iranian ship IRIS Lavan docked in Kochi on Wednesday. The vessel had arrived at the port a day after the United States sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka, amid the escalating conflict in West Asia.

Police said that the three persons had used a rented boat to trespass into the Southern Coal Berth where they took photos and videos of the Iran-owned ship and attempted to share them in a manner that could threaten national security, Onmanorama reported.

Security personnel from the Central Industrial Security Force noticed the boat in the restricted zone and detained the three, Mathrubhumi reported.

The three persons identified as Republic TV reporter Shankar, cameraperson Mani and the boat driver, Radhakrishnan, were later handed over to the Harbour Police in Kochi, the news outlet reported.

The cameras used by the journalists were also seized.

The first information report uploaded by the Harbour Police on Pol-App, the official Kerala Police application, said that the three persons were booked under provisions of the Official Secrets Act related to spying in prohibited places and the wrongful communication of information, Onmanorama reported.

They were also charged under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to criminal trespass and acts committed with common intention, the news outlet reported.

The police later removed the FIR from the application, Onmanorama reported.

Kochi City Deputy Commissioner of Police Aswathy Jiji told the news outlet that the document had been accidentally published and was taken down due to the sensitive nature of the case.

Iranian ship IRIS Lavan in India

IRIS Lavan docked in Kochi on Wednesday after Iran requested approval from the Indian government on February 28 due to technical problems with the vessel. Approval for the docking had been granted on March 1.

The ship’s 183 crew members have been accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi.

Like the warship attacked by the US, IRIS Lavan had also taken part in the International Fleet Review held from February 15 to February 25 in Vishakhapatnam, where it had been docked alongside ships from several other countries.

Israel and the United States had launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government on February 28.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, while Tehran has maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, and targeting major cities in other Gulf countries and some ships.

On Tuesday, warship IRIS Dena, with a capacity of 180 crew members, was torpedoed by a US submarine in international waters. At least 87 persons died in the incident and 61 were missing. The Sri Lankan Navy had rescued 32.

The US Department of War confirmed the attack on Wednesday. Hours later, the department released footage showing the torpedo hitting the Iranian frigate, resulting in an explosion.

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said that the warship that was struck was “a guest of India’s Navy” and had been attacked without warning. He said that the US would “come to bitterly regret [the] precedent it has set”.

New Delhi has not yet commented on the incident.

Also Read: ‘Unwarranted sensationalism’: Centre suspends TRP ratings for news channels amid West Asia conflict

With the bust of statesman C Rajagopalachari replacing that of English architect Edwin Lutyens in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, an old icon is being recast in a new political form. Rajagopalachari, one of Mohandas Gandhi’s closest confidantes, was independent India’s first governor-general and chief minister of the Madras State. In his twilight years, he challenged the Congress by forming the Swatantra Party – at one point it was the single-largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha.

By appropriating Rajagopalachari, a prominent leader in the Independence struggle and early years of the Republic, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is once again attempting to force-fit a historical figure into its own ideological mould.

President Draupudi Murmi, in her speech at the installation of the bust, said that the event was a sign of “mental decolonisation”. But BJP’s vision of decolonisation has long been clear: it aims to delegitimise the freedom struggle led by the Congress while positioning Hindutva politics as “true decolonisation”.

Freedom fighter, thinker, intellectual, statesman…these are some descriptions that come to the mind when one recalls Shri C. Rajagopalachari. Tributes to him on his birth anniversary. He remains one of the sharpest minds of the 20th century, who believed in creating value and… pic.twitter.com/VcE4jt5MD9

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 10, 2025

Over the years, this has meant erasing colonial influences, such as dropping the Christian hymn Abide with Me from the Beating Retreat ceremony at the end of the Republic Day celebration, removing the bust of Lutyens – the architect of the colonial city of New Delhi and the mansion in which the President now lives – and renaming the Prime Minister’s Office “Seva Teerth”. It has also erased “Islamic” influences, as seen in the rechristening of roads and cities with Muslim names.

This variant of decolonisation is based on Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar’s claim that Hindus alone have a civilisational and racial claim to India, a Hindu nation, in which Christians and Muslims are outsiders. In Hindutva: Who is a Hindu, Savarkar claims that Indian civilisation is exclusively a Hindu civilisation, defined by Hindu history, heroes, epics, festivals, and literature.

On the surface, Rajagopalachari would appear like a figure who fits this framework. Unlike the more agnostic Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajagopalachari publicly identified himself as a Hindu. He was also deeply invested in the propagation of Hindu culture, patronising the work of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan educational trust, which was rooted in Hindu philosophical and cultural traditions.

Rajagopalachari also considered his life’s greatest work to be his retellings of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. His religious outlook influenced his politics. When addressing the Bangalore Municipal Council on August 20, 1948, as India’s Governor General, he invoked Mohandas Gandhi’s vision of “ram rajya”, but went a step further saying that rulers like Rama, who is alive in the hearts of the people of India because of his cultural appeal, was the real Governor-General of India.

The manifesto of the Swatantra Party, which Rajagopalachari founded and led, also refers to dharma, or “God-oriented inner law”. It says that beyond the rule of law, there exists a rule of dharma and that a government led by the Swatantra Party is committed to realising this inner law.

In light of all this, Rajagopalachari may come across as a Hindu nationalist. But there is a distinction between his religiosity and the politicised religiosity advanced by Hindutva advocates. This distinction is most evident in their conception of history.

For Hindutva advocates, the Ramayana is more than a revered religious text: it has historical value as an archival document.

Referring to Rama’s victory in Lanka in his Essentials of Hindutva, Savarkar extols the Ramayana as a narration of revolutionary war and violence: “At last the great mission which the Sindhus had undertaken of founding a nation and a country, found and reached its geographical limit when the valorous Prince of Ayodhya made a triumphant entry in Ceylon and actually brought the whole land from the Himalayas to the Seas under one sovereign sway.”

In the Hindutva reading of the text, the Ramayana’s lesson is not that the path of dharma is thorny and rife with uncertainty but that violence is the divinely sanctioned right of Hindus against “aggressors” identified by Hindutva.

Rajagopalachari reads the same text in a different light. He makes it abundantly clear that the epics like the Ramayana are not history. The epic was moral instruction, providing lessons in courage and will that was to save mankind – and not one single community – from “error and extinction”, he says in his introduction to the retelling.

This distinction between religion and history allowed Rajagopalachari to see history as a continuum formed by shared living. His statements about the Partition of India reflect this line of thinking. Commenting on Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s proposal to create an independent state from Muslim-majority regions, Rajagopalachari on March 29, 1940, stated that “Mr Jinnah’s proposition is based on the fundamental conviction that it is impossible to harmonise the inconsistent elements in India.”

He further points out that “not even Tippu Sultan, Hyder Ali, Aurangzeb or Akbar, all of whom lived during the days when differences should have seemed more deep-rooted than now, imagined that India was anything but one and indivisible…”

Urdu is Indian too, said Rajagopalachari. “The very language for which Mr Jinnah stands, that is, Urdu, is born of Hindus and Muslims combining. The poetry, music, and architecture of India are the results of combination and not division,” he states.

In this, Rajagopalachari views Muslim icons as national icons, creators of an inheritance common to all Indians, unlike Hindutva ideologues who reject a pluralist reading of Indian history. For them, history holds no space for a relationship between different communities outside of political animosity. Religion is instead constantly weaponised as a test of Indian identity, citizenship and belonging.

For Rajagopalachari, religion was an institution of public good that had been formed and reformed through centuries of coexistence. In his acceptance of the Islamic elements of Indian history and culture, Rajaji recognised that Muslims too have a right to contribute and belong to India’s national imagination, something that is vehemently denied by Hindutva politics.

Like Rajagopalachari, other founding leaders and thinkers such as Vallabhbhai Patel, Subash Chandra Bose, Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda have been conscripted into making Hindutva ideology more palatable, despite the politics of these figures being distinct from and even opposed to Hindutva politics.

But the case of Rajagopalachari shows how his religiosity is what allowed him to articulate and hold political visions antithetical to Hindutva politics. The renewed interest in Rajaji should not be used to mistake the scholar-statesman as a “decolonised” Hindutva icon but as an invitation to understand the productive ways in which religion and cultural language can shape secular, democratic politics.

Niveditha K Prasad is a final year law student at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. Views are personal.

Also listen to: Podcast: What does the rise and fall of the Swatantra Party mean in the era of Narendra Modi?

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said that the state government is planning to introduce measures to restrict the use of social media for children under the age of 13 to protect them from its potential negative impact, The Hindu reported.

This came after Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced earlier in the day that the Congress government in the state will ban the use of social media for children under the age of 16.

Speaking in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, Naidu said that the proposal made by state Information Technology and Education Minister Nara Lokesh is being considered.

The measure is likely to be rolled out within the next 90 days, Naidu added.

The Telugu Desam Party government is also examining possible regulations for children in the 13-16 age group, the chief minister said, adding that a final decision will be taken after wider consultations.

The state government is committed to safeguarding children from the harmful effects of excessive social media usage and ensuring their overall well-being, he said.

In Karnataka, Siddaramaiah announced the ban on the use of social media for children under the age of 16 while presenting the state Budget for the financial year 2026-’27. The Congress leader said the decision had been taken “to protect children from the harmful effects of excessive mobile and social media use”.

He did not mention when the ban would take effect.

Once implemented, Karnataka will become the first state in the country to impose such a ban.

In 2025, the Andhra Pradesh government had said that it was considering a ban on social media for children under the age of 16.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Lokesh said after Siddaramaiah’s proposal on Friday. “Sometimes good ideas travel fast. Wishing them success in taking it forward.”

After the Karnataka government’s announcement, the advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation said that child safety online “demands serious, evidence-based policy not headline-driven prohibitions”.

It added that the announcement raises questions about whether its implementation will require state legislation, or if it will mandate age-verification systems that “create fresh privacy risks for all users, including adults”.

Also read:

• Social media bans won’t keep teenagers safe – Finland shows a better approach

• Australia’s social media ban for underage teens, children kicks in. Will other countries follow?