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

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

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

The protest had been held on April 13.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The protests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IMD issues yellow alert for heatwave in Delhi

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

A yellow alert stands for “be updated”.

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

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

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

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Energy security in times of crisis

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

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

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

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

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

Practical challenges

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solar cookers, biopellet stoves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article was first published on Mongabay.

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

This question by Helle Lyng Svendsen has ignited a debate about the role of the press in a democracy – and refocused attention on the Indian prime minister’s refusal to address press conferences.

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

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

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

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

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

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) May 18, 2026

On social media, Bharatiya Janata Party supporters claimed that Svendsen had acted inappropriately. Some said that she had failed to understand that this was a “press briefing” and not a '“press conference” at which questions could be asked.

Others were more intemperate. Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s propaganda cell, characterised her question as a “delinquent journalist’s incoherent rant”. He suggested that she had asked it because she did “not want to see a strong and powerful India”.

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

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

Some accused her of being a spy.

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

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) May 19, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) May 18, 2026

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

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

The event turned out to be slightly farcical. Svendsen asked why Oslo should trust New Delhi. She also asked if it could be promised that “human rights violations that go on in your country” would be stopped and “will the prime minister start taking critical questions from the Indian press at some point in the future”.

In response, Sibi George, the Ministry of External Affairs’ secretary (West), spoke for 13 minutes, without specifically answering Lyng’s question.

Offering what he claimed was a background for why the world should trust India, he said that India is a “civilisational country that is 5,000 years old” and has “something unique that it has offered to the world and continues to”.

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

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

— Sanitary Panels (@sanitarypanels) May 19, 2026

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

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

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

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

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) May 18, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

New India is beyond parody.

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

— Gaurav Sabnis (@gauravsabnis) May 19, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Helle Lyng (@HelleLyngSvends) May 19, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Delhi violence

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

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indians in Taiwan worried by rising racism

A political candidate has promised to ban Indian workers from Taiwan

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

— Shashank Mattoo (@MattooShashank) May 19, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lack of transparency troubled him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The matter will be heard next on May 26.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The judge has since transferred the matter to another bench.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An empanelled counsel is a lawyer selected by a government body, public sector undertaking or organisation to represent their legal cases for a designated period.

The liquor policy case

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

The policy came into effect in November 2021. It was withdrawn in July 2022 with Vinai Kumar Saxena, the Delhi lieutenant governor at the time, recommending an investigation into the alleged irregularities of the policy.

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

On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia, Pathak and 20 others accused by the CBI in the case. There was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent in the excise policy, the court had ruled.

The court had also criticised the central agency for implicating Kejriwal without any cogent material. It said that the chargesheet had several gaps not supported by any witnesses or statements.

However, the High Court on March 9 stayed the adverse observations made by the trial court about the CBI. The matter was heard by Sharma, who prima facie observed that the trial court’s findings were erroneous.

Edited by Sneha.

India had been buying Russian oil even before the United States waived sanctions with respect to the purchases, and it continues to do so, a petroleum ministry official said on Monday.

“Regarding the American waiver on Russia, I would like to emphasise that we have been purchasing from Russia earlier… before waiver also, during waiver also, and now also,” Sujata Sharma, the joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, told reporters during a media briefing.

India’s decisions on sourcing crude oil are based primarily on commercial viability, added the official.

The joint secretary also said that there was no shortage of crude supplies.

“Waiver or no waiver, it will not affect our supplies, and all efforts have been taken to that effect,” Sharma told reporters.

On March 5, the US granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver allowing them to buy Russian oil stranded at sea amid the conflict in West Asia. A week later, Washington extended a similar 30-day licence to other countries for Russian crude loaded before March 11. Last month, the waiver was extended till May 16.

On Monday, United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the United States was again “issuing a temporary 30-day general license” to countries to temporarily access Russian oil currently stranded at sea.

“This general license will help stabilise the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy-vulnerable countries,” Bessent said in a social media post. “It will also help reroute existing supply to countries most in need by reducing China’s ability to stockpile discounted oil.”

.@USTreasury is issuing a temporary 30-day general license to provide the most vulnerable nations with the ability to temporarily access Russian oil currently stranded at sea.

This extension will provide additional flexibility, and we will work with these nations to provide…

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) May 18, 2026

India is a net importer of oil and gas, with around 80% to 85% of its energy requirements met through imports.

Global oil prices have spiked due to the conflict in West Asia, with Iran having blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz for most commercial shipping. The narrow waterbody connects the Gulf to the Arabian Sea. About 20% of the global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

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

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

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sneha.

The Allahabad High Court on Monday granted bail to the remaining six of the 14 Muslim men who were arrested after they organised an iftar party on a boat in the river Ganga and allegedly ate chicken biryani, PTI reported.

The 14 men had been arrested after a video of the iftar party was widely shared on social media on March 16.

Justice Rajiv Lochan Shukla on Monday said that eight of the 14 men had already been granted bail for the same offence. The judge added that the present six applicants are also entitled to bail on the same terms.

Shukla on May 15 had granted bail to five of the men after observing that they were apologetic for their actions and that their families also regret the pain that had been caused to the society at large, the news agency reported.

On the same day, Justice Jitendra Kumar Sinha granted bail to three other accused in the case.

The men had moved the High Court after a session court in Varanasi denied bail to them on April 1.

They had also been denied relief on March 23 by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Amit Kumar Yadav, who said that the offences allegedly committed by the men were of “a serious nature and non-bailable”.

On Monday, Shukla said that the investigation would not be “thwarted” if the six remaining men were granted bail, PTI reported.

All men accused in the matter face charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of a class, deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of a class by insulting its religious beliefs and promoting enmity between groups.

They were also booked under sections pertaining to public nuisance, fouling water of a public spring or water reservoir, disobeying a public servant’s order and sections of the Water Prevention and Control of Pollution Act.

The police later added charges of extortion under threat of death or grievous hurt to the case. This came after the owners of the boat alleged that the men forcibly took the boat.

Charges under the Information Technology Act section 67, which punishes publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form, have also been invoked.

The Donald Trump administration in the United States on Monday asked a court to dismiss fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani, Reuters reported.

This came days after reports said Gautam Adani’s lawyers had told the US Department of Justice that he would invest $10 billion in the country’s economy and help create 15,000 jobs if the charges against him were dropped.

Earlier on Monday, the US Department of Treasury ‌also said that Adani Enterprises had agreed to pay $275 million to settle its potential civil liability for alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran.

Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group, led by Gautam Adani.

On Monday, the Department of Justice told Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York that it had decided, “in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants”, reported the AP.

For the charges to be dropped, Garaufis must approve the request.

The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.

The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that the US Department of Justice is planning to drop the charges against Gautam Adani after he hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.

The newspaper reported that Giuffra met officials at the justice department’s headquarters in Washington in April. He presented about 100 slides arguing that the prosecutors lacked evidence and jurisdiction in the matter, The New York Times quoted unidentified persons familiar with the meeting as saying.

One slide also allegedly made an offer that Gautam Adani would make investments in the US, according to the newspaper.

Even if the criminal charges are dropped, Gautam Adani is still expected to pay financial penalties, the US newspaper quoted persons aware of the case as saying.

During the same meeting, the lawyer also sought to resolve a parallel civil case filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Gautam Adani, The New York Times had reported.

On Thursday, the US markets regulator reached a settlement with Gautam Adani in the matter, the Financial Times reported. As part of this settlement, Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million and Sagar Adani $12 million.

Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, had told stock exchanges on Friday that the “company is not a party to this proceeding, and no charges have been brought against it”.

However, it confirmed that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty”, while stating that the decision was made “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint”.

The final judgement of the US Eastern District Court of New York is awaited in the matter, the company said.

Alleged violation of Iran sanctions

Between November 2023 and June 2025, Adani Enterprises had allegedly purchased shipments ​of liquefied petroleum gas from a Dubai-based trader purporting to supply Omani and Iraqi gas, the Office of Foreign Assets Control ​said in a statement on Monday.

However, the gas had actually originated in Iran, the US department alleged.

The Adani Group has not yet commented on the announcement made by the US treasury department.

Edited by Sneha.

The Karnataka government’s decision last week to withdraw the 2022 order of the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government that effectively prohibited hijab in pre-university colleges has been viewed as a constitutional correction. Yet, the withdrawal also exposes a difficult truth: constitutional injuries do not disappear merely because the state retracts a notification.

For the Muslim women who lost years of education and were forced to abandon their academic aspirations because they refused to remove the hijab, the reversal comes after significant damage has already been done, especially in terms of lost educational and professional opportunities.

The testimonies of students such as Aliya Assadi, AH Almast, Resham Farook and Muskan Zainab, who challenged the ban in court, demonstrate that the hijab controversy was never a narrow dispute over uniforms. It was fundamentally about whether constitutional citizenship in India permits visible minority identity in public educational spaces.

The answer offered by the state four years ago was deeply troubling: inclusion would be conditional upon conformity.

Members of Sri Ram Sene staged a protest outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Kalaburagi recently against the State government’s recent circular allowing students to wear religious symbols, including the hijab, along with school uniforms.https://t.co/ja2SYWbZss

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) May 17, 2026

Constitutional misunderstanding

The Karnataka government order of February 2022 directed educational institutions to enforce prescribed uniforms and effectively prohibited the hijab wherever it was not officially recognised as part of institutional dress codes.

The order was later upheld by the Karnataka High Court in Resham v State of Karnataka (2022). The court concluded that hijab was not an “essential religious practice” under Islam. This reasoning represented a serious constitutional misdirection.

The issue before the court should not primarily have been whether hijab is theologically essential. The real constitutional question was whether the state could deny students access to classrooms because of a peaceful manifestation of identity that caused no demonstrable disruption to public order or educational functioning.

The Constitution protects individuals, not merely practices approved by judicial rulings. In Bijoe Emmanuel v State of Kerala (1986), the court protected Jehovah’s Witness students who refused to sing the national anthem on grounds of conscience. It maintained that constitutional tolerance requires accommodation of sincerely held beliefs even where majoritarian sentiment disagrees.

In NALSA v Union of India (2014), in which the Supreme Court recognised transgender persons as a “third gender”, the bench held that identity and self-expression were integral to dignity. In Justice KS Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017), which challenged the government’s decision to make Aadhaar mandatory, privacy was interpreted not merely as informational control, but also as decisional autonomy and the freedom to define one’s identity.

The hijab controversy sits squarely within this constitutional framework of dignity and personal autonomy.

The hijab controversy that dominated headlines in early 2022 has resurfaced after the Karnataka government issued a fresh order allowing students to wear hijab and other religious symbols along with prescribed uniforms in educational institutions.#HijabRow #KarnatakaGovernment…

— Deccan Chronicle (@DeccanChronicle) May 16, 2026

Forced sameness

One of the most erratic aspects of the Karnataka High Court judgment in 2022 was its understanding of uniformity as a constitutional virtue in itself. But Indian constitutionalism has never treated equality as homogenisation.

Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality before law, but constitutional jurisprudence has long recognised that substantive equality often requires accommodation of difference.

The Supreme Court in Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India (2018) warned against constitutional morality being replaced by social morality or majoritarian expectations when it decriminalised consensual same-sex relations between adults.

Likewise, in Indian Young Lawyers Association v State of Kerala (2018), the Supreme court held that practices rooted in stigma, stereotypes, or exclusion cannot override constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, and individual freedom. The case related to the prohibition on women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

The hijab ban effectively imposed a model of “neutrality” that disproportionately burdened Muslim women. It transformed the classroom into a space where minority identity had to become invisible in order to be acceptable.

However, Indian secularism has historically been accommodative rather than exclusionary. The Constitution does not demand erasure of identity in exchange for citizenship. Indian secularism has evolved around principled coexistence. Sikhs wear turbans in uniformed services. Hindu students display religious symbols.

Christian institutions retain visible religious practices. Supporters of hijab restrictions often invoke Europe to justify bans. But European constitutional experience is far more contested than popularly portrayed.

In 2004, France prohibited conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, invoking its doctrine of laïcité, which seeks strict exclusion of religion from public spaces. The European Court of Human Rights, in 2005 upheld restrictions on Islamic headscarves and other visible religious symbols in educational institutions by granting states a “margin of appreciation” in matters involving secularism.

However, scholars across Europe have argued that such restrictions disproportionately marginalise Muslim women and reduce their participation in public life. In several cases, bans have pushed women out of educational and professional spaces.

Importantly, India’s constitutional structure is fundamentally different from the French model. The Indian Constitution was designed for deep diversity, not enforced cultural neutrality. BR Ambedkar’s constitutional vision was not assimilationist republicanism but plural constitutional citizenship. India cannot selectively borrow European restrictions while ignoring its own constitutional philosophy.

The hijab litigation exposed the doctrinal problem of the “essential religious practices” test as developed in Shirur Mutt (1954), the doctrine that authorises courts to determine which religious practices are “essential” enough to deserve constitutional protection.

However, over the decades, this has transformed judges into theological arbiters rather than constitutional adjudicators. Constitutional rights become dependent upon judicial interpretation of scripture rather than individual liberty. A student’s access to education should not depend upon whether the courts consider her attire sufficiently “essential” to religion.

🚨BREAKING: Muskan Khan, the face of Karnataka's hijab protests, welcomes govt's decision to allow hijab in classrooms! "I will continue my studies again," she says after Karnataka govt lifts 2022 ban pic.twitter.com/zYjXvV00QU

— indiainlast24hr (@indiain24hr) May 16, 2026

Reasonable accommodation

The Karnataka government’s withdrawal of the order is welcome, but it cannot be the endpoint.

Students who were forced to drop out because of the policy deserve institutional rehabilitation through re-enrolment support, scholarship programmes, bridge courses and special examination opportunities.

More importantly, educational institutions across India require clear constitutional guidelines rooted in reasonable accommodation rather than coercive uniformity. Educational institutions are not factories of cultural homogeneity. Rather they are constitutional spaces where plurality must coexist.

The lesson from Karnataka is not merely about hijab. It is about the fragility of constitutional rights during moments of majoritarian mobilisation. When the state prioritises symbolic political assertion over inclusive governance, marginalised citizens pay the price first.

Shashank Shekhar is an assistant Professor of Law, Lloyd Law College in Greater Noida and a research scholar at the Faculty of Law at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.

The prices of petrol and diesel were increased on Tuesday with immediate effect amid rising global oil rates and supply concerns as the conflict in West Asia continues. This is the second time in less than a week that the price of the fuel has been hiked.

In Delhi, the price of petrol increased by 87 paise per litre, to reach Rs 98.6 per litre from Rs 97.7 per litre. Diesel will cost Rs 91.5 per litre instead of Rs 90.6.

Prices were increased by around Rs 3 per litre on May 15.

Mumbai saw petrol increase by 91 paise to Rs 107.5 per litre and diesel by 94 paise to Rs 94 per litre.

Kolkata registered the sharpest hike in petrol at 96 paise to Rs 109.7 per litre. Diesel also increased by 94 paise to Rs 96 per litre.

In Chennai, petrol prices rose by 82 paise to Rs 104.4 per litre. The price of diesel was hiked by 86 paise to Rs 96.1 per litre.

The increase comes as oil marketing companies face mounting pressure with global crude prices continuing to rise amid the war in West Asia. Benchmark Brent crude was trading below $110 per barrel early on Tuesday after gaining 2.6% in the previous session

The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

On May 11, the Union government ruled out any immediate bailout package for state-run oil companies despite losses linked to the crisis in West Asia.

The clarification had come as concerns grew about under-recoveries, the gap between the cost of producing fuels such as petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas and their retail selling prices.

Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on May 10 that oil companies were facing under-recoveries of about Rs 2 lakh crore, with losses of up to Rs 1 lakh crore projected in the current quarter.

Puri had said that oil companies were purchasing crude oil, gas and liquified petroleum gas at elevated international prices while continuing to sell fuels at unchanged retail rates to shield consumers, leading to losses of up to Rs 1,000 crore a day.

On May 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also urged citizens to revive some work-from-home practices adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce fuel consumption. It was among the measures he proposed to help the country withstand global economic uncertainties and supply chain disruptions amid the conflict.

Referring to the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz and rising energy prices, Modi said that imported petroleum products should be used “only as per need” to lessen the impact of the conflict on India’s economy.

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

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.

The ​United States Department of Treasury on Monday ‌said that Adani Enterprises has agreed to pay $275 million to settle its potential civil liability for alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran.

Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group, led by billionaire Gautam Adani.

Between November 2023 and June 2025, the company had allegedly purchased shipments ​of liquefied petroleum gas from a Dubai-based trader purporting to supply Omani and Iraqi gas, the Office of Foreign Assets Control ​said in a statement on Monday.

However, the gas had actually originated in Iran, the US department alleged.

The conglomerate has not yet commented on the announcement made by the US treasury department.

Other matters and settlements

The US Department of Justice is also planning to drop fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani in a separate case, The New York Times had reported on Thursday.

The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.

The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.

The justice department’s decision to drop the charges came after Gautam Adani hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, The New York Times had reported.

The newspaper reported that Giuffra met officials of the justice department in April. He presented several slides arguing that the prosecutors lacked evidence and jurisdiction in the matter, The New York Times had quoted unidentified persons familiar with the meeting as saying.

One slide also allegedly made an offer that Gautam Adani would invest $10 billion in the US economy and help create 15,000 jobs if the charges against him were dropped, according to the newspaper.

Even if the criminal charges are dropped, Gautam Adani is still expected to pay financial penalties, the US newspaper quoted persons aware of the case as saying.

During the same meeting, the lawyer also sought to resolve a parallel civil case filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Gautam Adani, The New York Times had reported.

On Thursday, the US markets regulator reached a settlement with Gautam Adani in the matter, the Financial Times reported. As part of this settlement, Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million and Sagar Adani $12 million.

Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, had told stock exchanges on Friday that the “company is not a party to this proceeding, and no charges have been brought against it”.

However, it confirmed that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty”, while stating that the decision was made “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint”.

The final judgement of the US Eastern District Court of New York is awaited in the matter, the company said.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• ‘Compromised PM struck Adani release bargain’: Opposition on report about US dropping fraud charges
• What does US law say about Adani’s indictment – and can he be charged in India?
• Modi leads, Adani follows: Is India’s diplomacy in lockstep with a private group’s global expansion?

The southwest monsoon is likely to reach Kerala around May 26, the India Meteorological Department forecast on Monday.

The agency added a caveat that the monsoon’s arrival could fluctuate by four days around the May 26 date.

The southwest monsoon season generally begins in June and starts to retreat by September. The India Meteorological Department declares the onset of the season when it hits Kerala.

In 2025, monsoon set in over the southern state on May 24, marking the earliest arrival since 2009.

The date of arrival of the southwest monsoon in Kerala has varied widely over the last 150 years.

In April, the weather agency predicted that the country would experience below-normal rainfall during the southwest monsoon season. This is the first time in 11 years that a shortfall in rainfall has been forecast.

The IMD has projected rainfall at 92% of the long period average of 87 cm for the June to September period. The long period average refers to the average rainfall recorded during the four-month monsoon season in the last 50 years.

The forecast follows two consecutive years of surplus monsoon rainfall in 2024 and 2025.

India receives more than 70% of its annual rainfall during the monsoon months, making the season critical for farming, drinking water supply, hydroelectric power generation and groundwater replenishment.

On Monday, the weather department said that heavy rainfall accompanied by lightning and strong winds are likely to take place in parts of Kerala and Mahé over the next two days.

It issued an orange alert for Kerala’s Kannur and Kasargod districts on Monday, warning of very heavy rainfall. A yellow alert, warning of heavy rainfall, was in place for the remaining districts in the state.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Supreme Court criticised its own January verdict that denied bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the Delhi riots conspiracy case. It observed that “bail is the rule and jail is an exception” even in cases under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

The observation was made by a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan while hearing a man’s petition against the Jammu and Kashmir High Court refusing him bail in a narco-terror case under the anti-terror law.

In January, the court ordered Khalid and Imam to file fresh bail applications after the witnesses in the case had been examined or after one year.

On Monday, the bench said that it had failed to correctly apply the binding principles laid down by a three-judge bench in a 2021 case recognising that prolonged incarceration and delay in trial can override the statutory restrictions on bail under the Act.

The January order asking Khalid and Imam to file fresh petitions later violates constitutional guarantees of the right to personal liberty, the bench said. Read on.

The Indian rupee weakened to a record low of 96.3 against the United States dollar amid elevated global oil prices and economic headwinds caused by the conflict in West Asia. Its value fell nearly 40 paise during the day.

The Indian rupee has been the worst-performing Asian currency in 2026, with a 5.5% fall in its value ⁠since the conflict began on February ​28. Read on.

The Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal Police not to take coercive action against Trinamool Congress leader Jahangir Khan, who is a candidate in the Falta Assembly constituency where repolling will be held on May 21. Khan had moved the court alleging that he was being targeted with criminal cases during the polls.

The court said that the TMC leader be permitted to fight the polls as long as he cooperates with the investigation in the cases. He needs to be allowed to contest “to keep the spirit of democracy alive”, the judge said.

While voting in Falta was held on April 29, the Election Commissioner on May 2 ordered repolling in the constituency citing “severe electoral offences” after it was reported that black tapes had been applied on ballot buttons of the Electronic Voting Machines in favour of or against particular candidates. Read on.

India said that a drone strike targeting the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah nuclear facility was a “dangerous escalation” of tensions in West Asia. The attack on Sunday had triggered a fire at the nuclear power plant, which is located about 200 km west of Abu Dhabi.

There had been no injuries or impact on radiation levels after the incident, the authorities had said. The Barakah plant is the United Arab Emirates’ largest source of electricity and meets about a quarter of the country’s energy needs.

Abu Dhabi said that the drone was among the three that “entered the country from the western border direction”. The other two drones had been intercepted. Investigation was underway to determine the source of the attack, it added. Read on.

Congress leader VD Satheesan took oath as the chief minister of Kerala, two weeks after the United Democratic Front defeated the Left alliance in the Assembly elections. Twenty ministers were also sworn-in.

The Congress had named him the next chief minister on Thursday after a reported deadlock during consultations between the party’s national leadership and its leaders in the state. Read on.

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The Indian rupee weakened to a record low of 96.3 against the United States dollar on Monday amid elevated global oil prices and economic headwinds caused by the conflict in West Asia.

The value of the Indian currency fell nearly 40 paise during the day. The previous low of 96.1 against the dollar was reached on Friday.

The Indian rupee has been the worst-performing Asian currency in 2026, with a 5.5% fall in its value ⁠since the conflict began on February ​28. Monday was the fifth consecutive trade session in ⁠which ​it reached a record low.

This came after the price of benchmark Brent crude increased 0.6% to $110 per barrel on Monday. The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

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

The India VIX index, which measures volatility in the market, spiked 4.4% on Monday.

The Indian stock market on Monday tanked more than 1.1% in the first hour as global bond yields surged to record highs, but recovered by the end of the trading session.

The benchmark Sensex had fallen more than 950 points, or 1.2%, as of 9.50 am. The Nifty had fallen 300 points, or 1.2%, amid mounting concerns about the economic impact of the war in West Asia.

However, the Sensex ended the session 0.1% higher than its closing on Friday and the Nifty 0.02%.

The stock market had recovered marginally in April after a steep fall in March.

Major Asian stock indices had a mixed session on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 1.1%, China’s Shanghai Composite 0.09% and Japan’s Nikkei 0.9%. However, South Korea’s Kospi had risen by 0.3%.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha and Sara Varghese.

The Enforcement Directorate on Monday arrested Aam Aadmi Party leader Deepak Singla after it conducted searches at premises linked to him and others in a money laundering case connected to an alleged bank loan fraud, PTI reported.

The searches were carried out at locations in Delhi and Goa, unidentified officials told the news agency. In Goa, the searches were conducted at a flat where members of AAP’s organisation team reside, unidentified officials told The Indian Express.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said that Singla “was not arrested because he did any wrong”, but only “because he was working against” the Bharatiya Janata Party and had refused to join the Hindutva party.

“Deepak is brave and fighting for the country,” Kejriwal said on social media.

Describing the ED as the BJP’s “loyal foot-soldier”, AAP leader Atishi had earlier said that the central agency had been sent to Goa because her party’s popularity was growing there.

“From early morning today, there is an ED raid at the residence of AAP Goa co-incharge, Deepak Singla, as well as the home of some volunteers in Goa,” she said on social media. “Not only is this an attempt to scare our volunteers, but also to acquire all our organisational data for the BJP!”

With Aam Aadmi Party’s popularity growing in Goa, BJP’s loyal foot-soldier, ED has been sent here as well!

From early morning today, there is an ED raid at the residence of AAP Goa co-incharge, Deepak Singla, as well as the home of some volunteers in Goa.

Not only is this an…

— Atishi (@AtishiAAP) May 18, 2026

The ED conducted searches at Singla’s house in 2024 also in connection with a money laundering probe linked to a bank fraud case. Singla had contested the Delhi Assembly elections from the Vishwas Nagar seat on an AAP ticket in 2020 and 2025.

Edited by Sneha and Sara Varghese.

India on Monday expressed concern about a drone strike targeting the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah nuclear facility, calling it a “dangerous escalation” of tensions in West Asia.

“Such actions are unacceptable and represent a dangerous escalation,” the Ministry of External Affairs said. “We urgently call for restraint and a return to dialogue and diplomacy.”

On Sunday, the attack triggered a fire at the nuclear power plant, which is located around 200 km west of Abu Dhabi, AFP reported.

The Barakah plant is the United Arab Emirates’ largest source of electricity and meets about a quarter of the country’s energy needs.

The authorities had reported no injuries or impact on radiation levels after the incident.

A projectile struck an “electrical generator outside the inner perimeter” of the power plant, the country’s defence ministry had said on Sunday.

The ministry said that the drone was one of three that “entered the country from the western border direction”. The other two had been “successfully intercepted”.

Investigations were underway to determine the source of the attack, the statement added.

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the strike as an “unacceptable act of aggression” and said that it had the right to respond to any hostilities.

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that he was deeply alarmed by the incident, saying “attacks to nuclear installations are totally unacceptable, a violation of international law and must be condemned”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said that it had been informed by the authorities in the United Arab Emirates that the radiation levels remain normal at the facility.

Rafael Mariao Grossi, the director-general of the global nuclear watchdog, said that “military activity that threatens nuclear safety is unacceptable”. He reiterated calls for “maximum military restraint” near nuclear facilities to avoid the danger of a nuclear accident.

The war

The drone attack came amid the broader conflict in West Asia.

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

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

The peace talks between Iran and the US that were held in Islamabad, Pakistan collapsed on April 12 but the ceasefire in the region had largely held so far. However, on Monday, US President Donald Trump told reporters that the truce was on “massive life support”.

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.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Supreme Court on Monday criticised its own January verdict that denied bail to activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, saying that “bail is the rule and jail is an exception” even in prosecutions under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Hindustan Times reported.

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

On Monday, another bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan was hearing a petition filed by a person Syed Iftikhar Andrabi against the Jammu and Kashmir High Court’s judgement in August that refused him bail in a narco-terror case under the anti-terror law, Live Law reported.

The Supreme Court granted Andrabi bail in the matter.

Referring to the January 5 verdict that denied bail to Khalid and Imam during the proceedings, the judges said that the Supreme Court had failed to correctly apply the binding principles laid down by a three-judge bench in the 2021 Union of India versus KA Najeeb case, the Hindustan Times reported.

This 2021 verdict recognised that prolonged incarceration and delay in trial can override the statutory restrictions on bail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

“Bail is not an empty statutory slogan,” the Hindustan Times quoted Bhuyan as saying on Monday. “It is a constitutional principle flowing from Article 21, and the presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of any civilised society governed by the rule of law.”

Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty.

“Even under UAPA, bail is the rule and jail an exception,” the bench said. “Bail can only be denied in a particular case depending on the facts of that particular case.”

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

The accused were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

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

In its order rejecting bail for Khalid and Imam, the Supreme Court on January 5 said that in cases under the anti-terror law, delay in trials cannot act as a “trump card” overriding statutory safeguards. It had also said that while bail in cases under the Act is not given as a matter of routine, the “law does not mandate denial of bail as default and does not exclude the court’s jurisdiction to allow bail”.

The bench had added that the two activists could file fresh petitions after all protected witnesses are examined or after one year.

On Monday, the Supreme Court said that the order directing Khalid and Imam to revive their bail petitions only after all witnesses have been examined or after one year violated the right of liberty, the Hindustan Times reported.

The Supreme Court noted that it had taken a divergent view from the clear and distinctive trajectory it had earlier followed, The Indian Express reported.

The court held that the verdict in the 2021 Najeeb case “is the binding law and entitled to the protection of stare decisis”. Stare decisis is a legal doctrine that means “to stand by things decided”.

“It cannot be diluted, circumvented or disregarded by the trial court, the High Court, or even by benches of lower strength of this court,” the newspaper quoted the bench as having said.

The bench added that “judicial discipline mandates that such a binding precedent must either be followed or, in case of doubt, be referred to a larger bench”, Live Law reported.

The Supreme Court said that the presumption of innocence is the cornerstone of a civilised society governed by the rule of law.

While statutes may calibrate the manner in which the principle is applied, particularly in cases involving national security, those cannot invert the constitutional relationship between liberty and detention, it added.

Andrabi’s case

The Supreme Court made the remarks while granting bail to Andrabi, who had been in custody since 2020 in a narco-terror case registered by the National Investigation Agency in Jammu and Kashmir, the Hindustan Times reported.

The High Court had denied him bail in August citing the seriousness of the allegations and alleged links with cross-border terror operatives.

However, the Supreme Court noted that no contraband had been directly recovered from Andrabi and that he had already undergone nearly five years of incarceration. It directed that Andrabi be released on bail, subject to conditions as the National Investigation Agency court may deem fit.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Madhya Pradesh Police has said that it was yet to find any links between the seven persons arrested for recently assaulting a Muslim man in a hotel in Bhopal, and any Hindutva organisations, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

On May 10, a group of persons accused 27-year-old Arif Khan of “love jihad” while he was with a Hindu woman and assaulted him.

Love jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men trick Hindu women into romantic relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam. The Union home ministry has told Parliament that Indian law has no provision defining such a term.

Govindpura Station House Officer Awadhesh Singh Tomar told The Indian Express that of the seven persons held for the assault, one is a juvenile. The others were identified as Brijendra Prajapati, Prateek Chouksey, Lalaram Meena, Ramesh, Ajay and Aman.

“Representatives of right-wing organisations have informed that they are a disciplined organisation and these individuals are not their members,” the newspaper quoted Tomar as saying.

He added that Khan had also been arrested in connection with old allegations pending for some years.

“He was recently released from jail and we found was involved in two cases of mobile phone thefts,” Tomar was quoted as saying. “After this came to light, we arrested him.”

After Khan was assaulted, a first information report had been registered at the Govindpura police station based on multiple complaints against unidentified persons.

Reports had earlier claimed that persons allegedly associated with the Bajrang Dal were among those who had assaulted Khan. They later paraded him on the street after smearing ink and cow dung on his face.

The Bajrang Dal is part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Videos shared on social media showed the persons shouting “Jai Shri Ram” during the assault. Some clips also showed them slapping Khan in front of police personnel as officers tried to intervene, The Hindu reported.

The woman later told the police that she had not faced coercion or forced conversion and had met Khan of her own free will. She also said that she had gone to the hotel voluntarily.

Complaint against seven accused for assault

One of the complaints that was the basis for the FIR and the arrest of the seven accused was filed by a social worker, Mohmmad Uwais Rahmani, who said that he was disturbed by the video circulating on social media, The Indian Express reported.

“I do not know the youth,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “My complaint was on the sentiments of the Muslim community being hurt.”

Rahmani also spoke to Khan, who told him that a complaint had initially been registered against him after the assault. However, Deputy Commissioners of Police (Bhopal) Vikas Kumar Sehwal told the newspaper that this had since been “rectified”.

The social worker quoted the 27-year-old as having said that he had been “falsely accused of love jihad” and subjected to “indecent behaviour”.

In his complaint, Rahmani quoted Khan as saying that “some persons, who identified themselves as associated with Bajrang Dal, stopped me because I am Muslim”.

“They behaved in an extremely inhuman manner with me by forcibly stripping me, smearing black paint on my face, applying cow dung and publicly humiliating me,” The Indian Express quoted the complaint as having said.

The complaint quoted Khan as alleging that the accused gathered a crowd and recorded videos while “raising objectionable slogans against my religion, seriously hurting the religious sentiments of both myself and the Muslim community”.

“When I opposed them, the accused paraded me in a public place, assaulted me and threatened to kill me,” Rahmani’s complaint said, quoting Khan.

The complaint also noted that Khan suffered “physical injuries and extreme mental trauma”, and the incident had created “an atmosphere of fear and insecurity” for him and his family.

Noting that the incident had caused “deep anger within the Muslim community” and could affect the city’s social atmosphere, Khan, in the complaint, also said that it was “a serious attack” on his fundamental rights and the spirit of the Constitution, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Sneha.

Congress leader VD Satheesan on Monday took oath as the chief minister of Kerala, taking helm of the state’s United Democratic Front government.

Satheesan was sworn in 14 days after the Assembly election results were announced on May 4.

The party named him as the next chief minister on Thursday. The decision came after a reported deadlock in consultations between the Congress leadership, including Rahul Gandhi and chief Mallikarjun Kharge, and the party’s Kerala-based leaders.

Congress leader VD Satheesan takes oath as Chief Minister of Keralam at the Central Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram pic.twitter.com/I7zrNz5hyK

— ANI (@ANI) May 18, 2026

The Congress-led United Democratic Front won 102 seats in the 140-member Assembly on May 4, defeating the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front after a decade in Opposition. The Congress won 63 seats. The majority mark is 70.

Satheesan, a six-time MLA, had defeated the Communist Party of India’s ET Taison in the Paravur constituency by a margin of 20,600 votes.

On Monday, the UDF Cabinet was also sworn in, along with Satheesan.

The Cabinet comprises 12 ministers from the Congress, including Ramesh Chennithala, Sunny Joseph, K Muraleedharan and Bindu Krishna. Five ministers are from the Indian Union Muslim League and one each from the Kerala Congress (Joseph), the Kerala Congress (Jacob), the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Communist Marxist Party.

Apart from Chennithala, Sunny Joseph, Muraleedharan and Krishna, those who took the oath are PK Kunhalikutty, Mons Joseph, Shibu Baby John, Anoop Jacob, CP John, AP Anil Kumar, N Shamsudeen, PC Vishnunadh, Roji M John, Bindu Krishna, M Liju, KM Shaji, PK Basheer, VE Abdul Gafoor, T Siddique, KA Thulasi and OJ Janeesh.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.

Members of the Hindutva group Bajrang Dal purportedly barged into a footwear showroom in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun recently and wrote “jihadi” on the name tags of two Muslim employees, alleging that Hindu workers at the outlet had been harassed, The Times of India reported on Sunday.

The purported incident reportedly took place on Thursday. A video of it started circulating on social media on Saturday.

In the video, Bajrang Dal members could be seen confronting Muslim employees at the showroom and snatching their name tags to write “jihadi” on them.

The Bajrang Dal is part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Hindutva mob entered Shoes showroom, wrote “jihadi” on name badges of 2 Muslim employees, alleging that they concealed their names to mislead Hindus in Dehradun, UK.The incident began after Hindu man approached Bajrang Dal, claiming that he had been forced to resign over theft. pic.twitter.com/VpAJXTHM5h

— Waquar Hasan (@WaqarHasan1231) May 16, 2026

Vikas Verma, convenor of the Hindutva group in Uttarakhand, had led the confrontation. He claimed that the group acted on a complaint alleging harassment of Hindu workers by the manager and co-manager of the showroom, PTI reported.

“The two Muslim managers were targeting Hindu employees by making them work overtime for four hours without paying any extra money,” the news agency quoted Verma as claiming. “They also falsely accused them of theft to cut their salaries.”

Verma claimed that the group did not report the matter to the police, as the authorities had not acted on similar problems raised by them in the past.

Superintendent of Police (City) Pramod Kumar told the news agency that no complaint has been received in the matter yet. “We will take action if anyone approaches the police,” he added.

Edited by Sneha.

Former Trinamool Congress minister Giasuddin Molla has filed a police complaint against the party’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, alleging threats and intimidation, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.

He has also named Mithun Kumar Dey, the former sub-divisional police officer in the 24 Parganas’ Diamond Harbour subdivision, in the complaint.

This came two days after the police filed a first information report against Abhishek Banerjee for allegedly provocative speeches he made during campaigning for the Assembly elections in the state, including purported threats directed at Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Speaking about his complaint, Giasuddin Molla claimed that Dey used to take “unwarranted punitive action” against a section of local TMC leaders and workers “unwilling to accept the autocratic manner in which Abhishek Banerjee ran the party”, The Indian Express reported.

“I was in a state of fear, and so I did not dare to open my mouth,” IANS quoted the former minister as saying. “I was afraid that I might be attacked and heckled by my own party workers.”

Giasuddin Molla added that he had decided to file a police complaint because “I have faith in the administration led by the new chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari”.

He also claimed that a TMC worker had been “severely beaten” by Dey.

“He tortured party workers physically and mentally inside the police station,” Giasuddin Molla was quoted as saying. “As the then legislator, I protested. But it did not work out. Instead, Dey scolded me and came running towards me with his baton.”

He added that he had informed both Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee about the incident, but no solution was reached.

Earlier, the Election Commission had barred Dey from poll duty, The Indian Express reported.

The complaint was filed at a police station in the Magrahat Paschim Assembly constituency in the South 24 Paragnas district.

Giasuddin Molla served as West Bengal’s minister of state for minority affairs and madrasah education in the Mamata Banerjee-led Cabinet. A three-time MLA from Magrahat Paschim between 2011 and 2026, he had been denied a TMC ticket to contest the recent Assembly elections.

The former minister was replaced by Shamim Ahamed Molla, who is one of the 80 TMC legislators in the current Assembly. The BJP defeated the TMC on May 4 in the Assembly elections, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

Previous FIR against Abhishek Banerjee

The FIR against Abhishek Banerjee was registered based on a complaint by a man identified as Rajib Sarkar on May 5, a day after the election results were announced, at the Baguiati Police Station.

He alleged that Abhishek Banerjee made inflammatory remarks during campaign events held between April 27 and May 3.

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

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sarkar said that Abhishek Banerjee “used strong language, challenging Amit Shah to face the public without central security after the election results, and claimed that the Trinamool Congress would finish the game that he alleged was started by the BJP”.

Edited by Sneha.

One Indian worker was killed and three others were injured after a drone attack in Moscow on Friday, said the Indian embassy in Russia.

According to Russian authorities, Ukraine launched nearly 600 drones overnight, killing at least four persons in the Moscow region, reported AFP.

The Indian embassy stated that its officials had visited the location and met the injured workers in the hospital.

“The Embassy condoles the loss of life and is working with the company management and local authorities to provide necessary assistance to the workers,” it added.

Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.

One Indian worker has lost his life and three others have been injured in a drone attack in Moscow region earlier today. Embassy officials have visited the location and met the injured workers in the hospital.

The Embassy condoles the loss of life and is working with the…

— India in Russia (@IndEmbMoscow) May 17, 2026

The attacks on Moscow on Sunday came two days after a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv killed 24 persons.

The Ukrainian Air Force had described the strike as Russia's biggest barrage of the country since it began its invasion, reported the AP.

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the overnight strikes launched by his country were “entirely justified” retribution for Moscow’s attacks, reported AFP.

“This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war,” added Zelensky.

Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov said that the Ukrainian strikes had targeted infrastructure facilities.

Within the region, air defence systems reportedly intercepted more than 80 drones overnight, injuring 12 persons.

Overall, Russia’s defence ministry said that the air defence systems shot down 556 drones overnight and 30 after dawn, reported AFP.

Protesters clashed with the police in West Bengal’s Kolkata on Sunday during demonstrations against the state government restricting the offering of namaz on streets and demolishing allegedly illegal structures in the Tiljala area, according to media reports.

The demonstration was held at Park Circus’s seven-point junction, reported The Indian Express.

Kolkata Police’s Additional Commissioner Ashesh Biswas described this as an “illegal gathering”, according to PTI. He said some of the protesters threw stones at the police as they attempted to disperse the crowd.

“Three of our colleagues were injured,” added Biswas. “We have already arrested a few people.”

He did not specify how many persons had been arrested.

VIDEO | Kolkata, West Bengal: Violence erupted during an anti-encroachment protest at Park Circus after a section of protesters allegedly began stone-pelting at police personnel opposing a bulldozer drive against alleged illegal encroachments. Several police personnel were… pic.twitter.com/PLVwAOTXeI

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 17, 2026

On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state directed the police to ensure roads are not blocked due to prayer congregations, except on special occasions, reported The Times of India.

Following the order, tensions had erupted in Kolkata’s Rajabazar area on Friday when a group tried to offer namaz on the road, according to The Indian Express. A large number of police and Central Reserve Police Force personnel were deployed in the area.

Meanwhile, the state government had also ordered bulldozer action against allegedly illegal structures in Tiljala after a fire in one of the factories killed two persons on Tuesday.

On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court restrained further demolition in the area, reported Live Law.

During the demonstration against the state government’s actions on Friday, protesters attempted to block roads, according to The Indian Express.

The police lathi-charged the crowd to disperse them, further triggering tensions. Several vehicles parked along the road, including those carrying central forces, were vandalised, PTI quoted the police as stating.

It added that a large number of personnel of the Kolkata Police and the central forces were deployed in the area following the clashes.

In Himachal Pradesh, the influence of traditional beliefs, religion and cultural practices continues to shape the conservation of forest land.

Dev Vans, or sacred groves, are forest patches revered as the domain of local deities (devtas). Village customs strictly prohibit tree-felling, leaf collection, and the entry of alcohol or meat within its boundaries. Known as the “Land of Unknown Gods”, Himachal Pradesh spans 55,673 sq km and contains 514 documented sacred groves, often found across valleys and slopes, near settlements, temples and water sources.

For generations, in Himachal Pradesh, it was faith, not legislation, that determined which forests would remain untouched. “Nobody wants to anger the god,” says Anurita Saxena, Principal at Rajkiya Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Shimla, who has spent decades researching the state’s cultural practices. “The customs allow certain forests to remain untouched, hence conserving nature.”

The sacred groves continue to remain at the centre of community life, where rituals and festivals reinforce connections between people and nature, particularly in Himachal’s remote and elevated zones.

Ceremonies unfold under their canopies, and community gatherings celebrate their presence tightening the bond between inhabitants and terrain. In numerous villages, sacred forests adjoin temples and fall under the watch of kardars or caretakers, governing access and rules.

These belief-based practices have also helped preserve forest patches across generations, outside of formal conservation efforts.

Sacred landscapes, not empty forests

Cultural researcher Rahul Bhushan, who studies Himalayan communities, says sacred groves reflect an earlier worldview where forests were looked at as living, inhabited spaces rather than unclaimed land.

“In areas such as Kullu, Upper Shimla and Kinnaur, every village maintains sacred forest zones that remain inviolate,” Bhushan says. Some are small clusters of trees marking the site of a local deity, while others historically functioned as village commons. “Before forestry departments arrived, each village managed its own woodland,” Bhushan says. “It provided resources, but it was closely tied to the village’s cultural and social practices.”

Forests, he adds, were never imagined as vacant land. Belief systems described forest guardians like Bansheera, female spirits called Jognis, and various local deities tied to specific sites. “Certain places house particular energies,” Bhushan says. “That conviction alone generated restraint [to disturb forests].”

This restraint, he contends, operated as an unwritten environmental governance system. “It was not conservation by modern definition, but it worked,” he says.

Tourism, migration and changing relations

Bhushan says these systems are weakening as tourism and migration enter mountain communities.

“Tourism has altered young people’s relationship to land,” he says. “Previously, forests existed within a moral framework. Now they are increasingly understood economically.”

As road networks expand and tourism enters previously isolated areas, land is more often viewed through the lens of economic opportunities. Hence, sacred groves that once inspired awe or fear sometimes appear as development barriers or potential spaces for parking areas, scenic overlooks or tourism-related construction.

Migration has also changed cultural continuity. Younger generations, studying and employed beyond their villages, may participate less actively in ritual traditions, weakening customary traditions that protect land.

From cultural erosion to climate vulnerability

The decline of sacred groves has implications beyond traditional practices. In mountain terrain like Himachal’s, forests play a critical role in absorbing monsoon rains, anchoring slopes and moderating water systems. Their fragmentation or removal can heighten exposure to climate change: flash floods, landslides, soil erosion.

“In the past, people might not have discussed climate change,” he says, “But their behaviours helped contain [environmental] damage.” Now, even as cloudbursts, flash floods and landslides grow more common, those containment systems are vanishing.

Villagers near preserved Dev Vans continue reporting differences during intense rainfall — gentler runoff, less soil loss and springs maintaining flow deeper into dry months. In contrast, locations where sacred groves have been carved for roadways or buildings frequently show accelerated runoff and heightened slope instability.

“Earlier the springs used to flow throughout the year because the forest above the village was dense,” said Lokesh, a resident of Kullu district. “Now after trees have been cleared in some areas, the water reduces quickly after the monsoon.” According to another resident Anil, “Where the dev ban forest is still intact, the land is more stable. But where forests have been cleared, rainwater flows down quickly.” The local residents claim that where the sacred forest still stands, the springs nearby don’t dry up quickly.

In parts of Seraj Valley and Lug Valley, sacred groves are often left untouched for generations, with villagers avoiding tree cutting or collecting forest produce from them. As a result, the groves frequently retain dense vegetation and older trees compared to surrounding forests.

By contrast, areas experiencing rapid development in Kullu Valley and the expanding peri-urban zones around Shimla have seen growing forest fragmentation due to road construction, tourism infrastructure and settlement expansion. In such areas, hillsides cut for roads or hotels often lose their natural vegetation.

Forests, faith and law

Despite their ecological function, most Dev Vans lack formal legal recognition. They are rarely classified as protected forests, biodiversity heritage sites or community forest resources. Since their protection derives from belief rather than statutory designation, they remain largely absent from formal government documents.

This legal invisibility leaves them vulnerable to land use and infrastructure developments, including processes that may not require the same scrutiny as designated forests.

Community resistance, uncertain futures

Some communities continue to resist these changes. In sections of Kullu Valley, local representatives have challenged tourism and infrastructure threatening sacred terrain, asserting that commercialising forested hillsides and territories risks both environmental harm and cultural breakdown.

Elsewhere, elders and caretakers persist in enforcing inherited rules, though many fear belief alone may no longer suffice.

As Himachal Pradesh confronts increasing climate variability and rapid development, Dev Vans pose difficult questions about what qualifies as conservation. Safeguarded across generations, these groves have operated as unplanned climate infrastructure managing water, securing land and absorbing hazard.

Their future may depend on whether conservation frameworks recognise the environmental role of landscapes outside formal law.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Central Board of Secondary Education has made studying three languages mandatory for students of Class 9, starting July 1.

Among the three, at least two are required to be Indian languages, the board stated in a circular on Friday.

“Students who wish to study a foreign language may do so as the third language only if the other two languages are native Indian languages, or as an additional fourth language,” read the circular.

The move is part of the CBSE aligning its curriculum with the National Education Policy 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023.

It stated on Friday that there would be no board examination for the third language in Class 10 to “keep the focus on learning and reduce any undue pressure on students”.

Assessment for the subject will be conducted internally by schools and reflected in the final certificate, added the board.

The CBSE also clarified that no student would be prevented from appearing in Class 10 board examinations because of the third language requirement.

As part of the transition, schools will temporarily use Class 6 textbooks for the third language until dedicated material is introduced.

CBSE said Class 6 textbooks in 19 scheduled languages – Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil and Telugu – would be made available to schools before July 1. For other Indian languages, schools may continue using state-level resources.

The board said children with special needs could receive exemptions under existing rules, while foreign students returning to India may also be considered for relaxations on a case-by-case basis.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Pune-based botany teacher in connection with the alleged paper leak in the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, said the Union government on Saturday.

The exam is conducted for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India. This year, more than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for the test.

The botany teacher has been identified as Manisha Gurunath Mandhare. She was appointed as an expert by the National Testing Agency and had access to Botany and Zoology question papers as part of the examination process, said the Union Ministry of Education in a press release.

She was arrested in Delhi. On Sunday, she was sent to 14 days of CBI custody, reported ANI.

This came a day after the Union government said that the CBI had arrested the main accused in the paper leak case from Pune.

The Centre identified the alleged “kingpin” as PV Kulkarni, a chemistry lecturer involved in the examination process on behalf of the National Testing Agency.

Mandhare’s role

According to the Ministry of Education, Mandhare allegedly mobilised prospective NEET candidates through another accused, Manisha Waghmare, who was arrested on Thursday.

Special coaching sessions were conducted at Mandhare’s home in Pune in April, “where several questions from Botany and Zoology were allegedly disclosed, discussed and dictated to students”, the ministry alleged.

Candidates were reportedly instructed to write down the questions and mark them in textbooks, and many of the questions matched those in the examination conducted on May 3, it added.

Mandhare holds a Master of Science degree in Botany and had been working at Pune’s Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce since 2002, according to The Indian Express. She was due to retire in seven months.

According to Nivedita Ekbote, the principal of the college, Mandhare had been associated with the National Testing Agency for the past five years.

Probe so far

So far, nine people have been arrested in the case from multiple cities, including Delhi, Jaipur, Gurugram, Nashik, Pune and Ahilyanagar. Out of these, five accused have been produced before court and remanded to police custody for interrogation, while two others were produced in Pune and later shifted to Delhi after transit remand.

The test on May 3 was cancelled after the Rajasthan Special Operations Group began investigating allegations that a “guess paper” circulated before the examination contained questions closely matching the actual paper.

The “guess paper” contained around 410 questions, of which about 120 matched the questions asked in the chemistry section, according to the Rajasthan Police.

The National Testing Agency has announced that the re-exam for the 2026 NEET-UG will be held on June 21.

At a press conference, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said there was a “breach” in the command chain for the May 3 test. “We accept it and take responsibility to improve it,” added Pradhan.

He also announced that NEET-UG will be computer-based from next year.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.

Also read: Why the National Testing Agency continues to fail students in India

Compressed natural gas prices were on Sunday increased by Re 1 per kg across Delhi and several other cities in northern India, marking the second hike in 48 hours, The Hindu reported.

With the latest revision, CNG in Delhi now costs Rs 80.09 per kg, up from Rs 79.09 per kg following a Rs 2 increase announced on Friday.

The latest rise takes CNG prices in the capital above Rs 80 per kg for the first time.

Indraprastha Gas Limited, the largest CNG distributor in north India, said the latest revision was intended to “marginally offset the impact of increase in input gas cost along with steep appreciation of [the United States Dollar]”.

The company added that, despite the increase, CNG continued to offer savings of up to 45% in running costs compared with vehicles using other fuels at current prices.

The revised rates in Noida and Ghaziabad were Rs 88.7 per kg, while CNG in Gurugram rose to Rs 84.12 per kg.

The latest increase follows broader fuel price revisions announced on Friday when petrol and diesel prices in the country were raised by around Rs 3 per litre each.

Petrol now costs Rs 97.77 per litre, while diesel is priced at Rs 90.67 per litre, in Delhi.

The rise in fuel price comes on the back of rising global oil prices and supply concerns amid the conflict in West Asia.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Friday that India had limited petrol and diesel price increases to 3.2% and 3.4%, while several other countries had seen much sharper rises, The Economic Times reported.

The hike comes as oil marketing companies face mounting pressure with global crude prices continuing to rise amid the war in West Asia. Benchmark Brent crude was trading at $109.2 per barrel on Sunday. The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

On May 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to revive some work-from-home practices adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce fuel consumption. It was among the measures he proposed to help the country withstand global economic uncertainties and supply chain disruptions amid the conflict.

Referring to the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz and rising energy prices, Modi said that imported petroleum products should be used “only as per need” to lessen the impact of the conflict on India’s economy.

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

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The National Investigation Agency on Friday filed a chargesheet against five persons in connection with a Cambodia-linked human trafficking and cyber slavery case that involved luring young persons from India with fake job offers.

In a statement on Tuesday, the agency said the chargesheet was filed before a special NIA court in Patna under sections of the Indian Penal Code.

According to the agency, the accused were part of an organised trafficking syndicate that targeted young persons “on the pretext of legitimate jobs and handsome salaries”.

The NIA said the persons were then trafficked to Cambodia, where their passports were seized and they were forced to work for scam companies involved in cyber fraud operations.

“Any resistance on their part [was] met with mental and physical torture, including electric shocks, forceful confinement, denial of food and water etc,” the agency alleged.

Investigators identified Anand Kumar Singh, also known as Munna Singh, as the alleged kingpin of the network, saying he worked with associates in Cambodia and recruited victims through sub-agents and travel agents in India.

The NIA alleged that he charged between $2,000 and $3,000 for each person sent to fraudulent companies in Cambodia. However, the agency said he remains absconding.

Three others, Abhay Nath Dubey and Rohit Yadav from Uttar Pradesh, and Abhiranjan Kumar from Bihar, were arrested in February after arriving in Delhi from Cambodia. Another suspect, Prahlad Kumar Singh, is currently out on bail.

The agency said investigations are underway to identify other members of the syndicate and uncover the full extent of the conspiracy.

On February 5, the Indian government told Parliament that nearly 7,000 Indian citizens had been rescued from cybercrime centres in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos between 2022 and 2025.

On February 20, a United Nations report detailed instances of torture, sexual abuse and exploitation, food deprivation, solitary confinement and other human rights abuses suffered by persons trafficked from several countries into cybercrime operations in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Terming it a “wicked problem”, the report sought urgent attention to the critical need for a human rights solution to the crisis.

In January 2025, Scroll published a series of extensive reports about Chinese crime syndicates that run cyber crime centres from Southeast Asia, mainly Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. These highly sophisticated “scam compounds” are staffed with thousands of persons, many of them from India, who are lured with fake job offers and then forced to work on scamming people back home.

However, those who make scam calls from such centres are victims themselves, having been lured into going abroad through fake job offers, Scroll found. When they tried to leave, they were “beaten mercilessly”.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Read Scroll’s reportage of the cyber-scam centres:

• India’s cyber-scam epidemic is part of a multibillion global industry. This series traces a full arc

• The scammers who got scammed: How jobless Indians were lured into cyber slavery

• I travelled to ground zero of the cyber scams targeting India. Here is what I found

Girdlers’ carpet, manufactured in the 17th century by artisans of the Mughal Empire, is no ordinary piece of furnishing. It was commissioned by Robert Bell, an influential merchant and one of the founding directors of the English East India Company, as a gift for the Worshipful Company of Girdlers during his final tenure as its Master in 1634.

Active since the medieval period, the Company of Girdlers specialised in the manufacture of girdles, belts, and associated metal works and received its patent from Edward III in 1327.

The thread of Girdler’s carpet bears the imprint of a chequered past: arduously procured from Lahore, it travelled many miles from Surat to reach London in 1634, where it served as a table covering in the courtroom hall of the Company of Girdlers.

Even though the hall was consumed by the Great Fire of 1666, the carpet was saved by the presence of mind of its caretaker. It would later endure the Blitz of 1940-’41, the sustained campaign of aerial bombing of London and other British cities during the Second World War.

Between these two brushes with destruction, the carpet was given a new lease of life in 1899.

On the advice of the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Mayor of London, Alfred J Newton – a prominent businessman known for his role in the public listing of the luxury retailer Harrods and Master of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers from 1898 to 1900 – together with the Father and Wardens of the Company, set in motion a careful programme to have it restored.

The process involved cleaning, repair and framing: ink stains were removed, tears were mended by the Decorative Needlework Society, and the carpet was returned to the Hall in 1900, set within a large oak frame bearing the inscription, “The Gift of Robert Bell, Master, A.D. 1634, in remembrance of his love”.

The carpet is on permanent display at the current premises of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers in East London.

On May 16, 1900, a luncheon banquet was held at Girdlers’ Hall in London to celebrate the restored splendour of this remarkable carpet. Attended by the Secretary of State and members of the Council of India, the occasion was presided over by Newton, and toasts were raised to the reigning monarch, Victoria, to Robert Bell, and to the Worshipful Company of Girdlers.

The speech accompanying the toast was delivered by George Birdwood, an idiosyncratic advocate of Indian handicrafts over industrial machinery. Born in 1832 in Belgaum, Bombay Presidency, into a family long associated with the East India Company, Birdwood later returned to England as an expert on Indian languages and material culture.

At the banquet for the Girdlers’ carpet, he reflected on practices of commemorating the dead across cultures, recalling the “eastern” sweets served at the Parsi festival of Muktad or Farvardin, which he had attended in Bombay, before inviting the audience to raise their glasses to the memory of Robert Bell in accordance with an old ritual:

“Ter bibe, vel totiens ternos, sic mystica lex est; vel tria potanti, vel ter tria multiplicanti.”
(Drink three times, or three times three; such is the mystic law: either three cups, or thrice three).

This couplet is drawn from the fourth-century playful arithmetic poem Griphus ternarii numeri (“Riddle of the Number Three”) by Decimus Magnus Ausonius. Written within the classical Greek and Roman tradition of symposium drinking games, the poem celebrates the symbolic power of the number three through a series of mythological, natural, and philosophical triads.

During his speech, Birdwood described rituals observed by artisan communities in cities such as Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat and Bombay upon completing a work, where craftsmen publicly displayed the object and celebrated its beauty with fellow artisans by sharing sugared sesame seeds as tokens of goodwill and remembrance.

Shortly before concluding, he reflected on the symbolism of carpets in West and South Asia, describing them as representations of the universe or of divine paradise, and observing that many of the names given to these rugs imported into Europe translated as “place of worship”.

Here, Birdwood appears to conflate prayer rugs, which often depict a mihrab, a niche or alcove indicating the direction of prayer, similar to those found in mosques, with the carpets used to cover floors, windows, furniture, and even walls.

Paintings from the period show that carpets, accompanied by sumptuous mats, mattresses, cushions, awnings, and curtains, animated both public and private spaces, indoors and outdoors alike, ranging from mosques and dargahs to the imperial court’s audience hall, harem chambers, dining halls, terraces, and gardens, and even the wilderness during picnics or on hunting excursions.

Such Mughal carpets prominently featured nature-inspired floral and animal motifs, drawing on the lush gardens cultivated within the empire.

Art historians, such as Walter B Denny and D Fairchild Ruggles, argue that notions of earthly and heavenly paradise, and the heavenly garden and earthly palace, commingled in the architectural and design language of the period. Creating gardens of perpetual bloom, filled with diverse birds and animals, required immense wealth and thus signalled cultural and economic status.

Yet such gardens also expressed a deeper aspiration: by resisting seasonal decay and withstanding drought or frost, these permanent gardens embodied human mastery over nature and the spectre of death. Through the transportation and transplantation of flora and fauna from distant regions, patrons reshaped their immediate surroundings, asserting control over natural cycles.

In this sense, like paradise, they may ultimately have promised the triumph of life eternal over death. As a corollary, the textiles and furnishings adorned with real and imagined floral and faunal motifs extended curated nature and associated meanings into built spaces.

Mughal-era craft

Floral motifs appear both on the dark blue border and across the main red field of the Girdlers’ carpet. Measuring 24 feet by 7 feet 6 inches, this carpet with a woollen-piled surface was woven with cotton warps and wefts.

It is made of at least seven colours: red, blue, green, brown, black, white, and yellow. Like other Mughal carpets, these shades were extracted from plants and insects. Blue dyes were derived from indigo, whereas reds came from lac insects (Kerria lacca) and madder roots such as chay (Oldenlandia umbellata) and manjishtha (Rubia cordifolia). Greens and yellows were produced from turmeric, safflower, yellow larkspur, Himalayan rhubarb, hemp, and indigo; blacks and browns from catechu, myrobalan, teak leaves, pomegranate peels, and walnut shells.

With a density of 224 hand-tied knots per square inch – sixteen knots per warp inch and fourteen per weft inch – this exquisitely crafted carpet bears witness to the skill of Mughal-period craft communities.

Art historian Sylvia Houghteling observes that although carpets in the Mughal period were woven on fixed upright looms, their defining quality lay less in the loom itself than in the painstaking process of knotting. Unlike flat-woven textiles, where pattern emerges through the interlacing of warp and weft, knotted-pile carpets were made by tying innumerable small wool knots, creating the dense, raised surface characteristic of their texture.

This method demanded sustained manual skill: the weaver worked knot by knot, guided by a predetermined design – often set out in a taʿlim or symbols and code – and translated it into form through careful execution and memory.

Yet, as the 17th-century account of Francis Pelsaert, an agent of the Dutch East India Company in Agra, suggests, this extraordinary labour yielded only modest returns. A carpet maker earned only five to six tankas (a copper coin valued at one-twentieth of a rupee) a day, even when working from dawn to dusk.

The Girdlers’ carpet reveals additional dimensions of the exacting craft of carpet making in early modern South Asia: the adaptability and creative range of the weavers, evident in the incorporation of custom design elements, some of which were not intrinsic to conventional Mughal carpets.

Exemplifying early modern bespoke luxury, the Girdlers’ carpet is personalised with two eagle-crested emblems representing Eagle House in Wimbledon, the country residence Robert Bell built in 1613. Bell’s initials appear on either side. At the centre, the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers, rendered in reverse.

This inversion likely resulted from an error during the design transfer process, when a traced or stencilled drawing was accidentally reversed before being pounced – an oversight the weavers, unfamiliar with the design, did not detect during execution. The coat of arms consists of a shield with three gridirons, or girdle-irons, symbolising the Company’s historic craft of making girdles and associated metalwork.

Above the shield appears the Company’s patron saint, St Lawrence, who, according to legend, was burned to death on a gridiron; he is depicted holding the Book of the Gospels in his right hand and a gridiron in his left.

Below this image is a scroll bearing the Company’s motto, “Give thanks to God,” which appears correctly oriented, suggesting that it was not traced at the same time as the coat of arms and was likely added later.

How did these customised details reach the weavers? Although Robert Bell never set foot in South Asia, his position as a director of the East India Company gave him privileged access to objects crafted by Mughal artisans and transported to England aboard Company ships operating in the Indian Ocean.

In 1614, William Edwards, stationed in India, wrote to Thomas Smythe that he was sending to London a consignment of quilts and carpets commissioned by Bell for personal use, with his initials woven along their margins in a specified pattern.

Unfortunately, the fate of these furnishings is unknown, but 16 years later, during the reign of Shah Jahan (1628-1658), Bell instructed Thomas Rastell, who had been appointed president of the English East India Company’s council at Surat in 1630, to procure a wool-pile Mughal carpet intended as a gift for the Girdlers’ Company.

As in the earlier instance, Bell likely supplied drawings of the custom designs he wished to incorporate into the carpet. The East India Company initially covered the cost, which Bell promised to reimburse.

Within a year of reaching Surat, Rastell died of illness, though not before ensuring that weaving had begun in Lahore. Nearly two and a half years elapsed before news finally reached London that the carpet was ready for shipment. Writing on January 25, 1633, Rastell’s successor, Joseph Hopkinson, reported that he was dispatching a carpet for Bell from Surat.

Akbar’s patronage

Although references to knotted-pile carpets in South Asia predate the 16th century, it was under Akbar that sustained imperial patronage enabled the industry to expand and flourish.

Notably, Abu’l Fazl, Akbar’s court historian, uses the term kilim as a catch-all for carpets, even though in Iran and Central Asia it more specifically denoted flat-woven textiles. Other terms for carpets in South Asian sources include bisat and qalin.

While the needs of the earlier Mughal emperors were met through Persian imports, Abul Fazl observes that under Akbar, the carpets of Iran and Central Asia lost some of their preeminence as weavers from diverse regions settled in the Mughal realm and fostered a flourishing trade. He also highlighted the remarkable scale of carpets produced in imperial workshops, some reaching up to 55 feet in length.

Akbar’s carpets, especially those woven with brocade, along with awnings, tents, and screens made of cloth of gold, European velvet, wool, and damask silk and satin, were destroyed in 1579 when the farrashkhana, or storeroom for such portable encampment structures and furnishings, caught fire. Nevertheless, carpet production, both under direct courtly patronage and through mercantile private enterprise, continued to thrive across the Mughal Empire, particularly in cities that served as imperial capitals and commercial centres.

Key sites of production included Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Surat, Ahmedabad, Amber, Jaunpur, Kashmir, and Multan; however, Lahore consistently emerges as the principal centre of production and the primary marketplace for carpets in the Mughal Empire.

Mughal wool-piled carpet production primarily relied on sheep’s wool, but artisans also used pashmina – from the Persian pashm, meaning wool – to produce knotted-pile carpets of exceptional refinement. This delicate fibre, twice as fine as sheep’s wool, came from the soft undercoat of mountain goats grazing across the high-altitude plateaus of southeastern Ladakh and western Tibet. From there, it entered established trade circuits: sent to Kashmir for shawl weaving or carried onward to Lahore for textile and carpet manufacture.

Pashmina’s fineness enabled extraordinarily dense knotting, resulting in some of the most finely wrought carpets of the Mughal world. Writing in 1634, Abd al-Hamid Lahori, court historian to Shah Jahan, praised the output of Lahore’s workshops, observing that their carpets were so soft and refined that those produced in the royal ateliers of Safavid Persia paled in comparison.

A sizeable collection of 17th and 18th-century Mughal carpets acquired by the rulers of Amber from dealers in Lahore is now part of the City Palace Museum in Jaipur. The Dutch East India Company obtained a Lahore carpet for the Emperor of Japan in 1650, which is now housed in Kyoto.

In fact, the first shipment of carpets to England in 1615, sent via Surat, consisted entirely of pieces from Lahore and included Bell’s initial consignment of quilts and carpets embellished with his initials. Probably inspired by this, Thomas Roe, the English ambassador to Jahangir’s court, set out in search of such wares, scouring the lanes of Ajmer, only to realise that the kind he desired could be found only in Lahore.

In 1618, he commissioned one bearing his coat of arms. There is no record of its survival beyond the fact that it was bequeathed in his will to his cousin, Sir Henry Roe. Robert Bell’s customised carpets, especially the Girdlers’ carpet, continued to inspire the East India Company officers’ collection of Mughal art.

William Fremlin, President of the Company’s Council at Surat from 1637 to 1644, commissioned South Asian weavers to produce a carpet bearing his coat of arms in the central field. Both its field and borders depict scenes of animal hunts. Known as the Fremlin carpet, it is now held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

These carpets, carried across oceans, bear witness to the circuits of connoisseurship that ran through the Mughal and British empires.

Knot by knot, these carpets retain the imprint of the hands and labour of largely anonymous artisans working in South Asia. Fragile and in constant need of care, they continue to speak across centuries, revealing not only remarkable craftsmanship but also the entangled histories of exchange, connoisseurship and survival woven into their threads.

Neha Vermani is an Honorary Fellow in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at Durham University. She is a historian of early modern South Asia, and her research focuses on the intersections of food practices, material culture, and scientific and ethical discourses on the body, the senses, and the natural world.

Bandi Bhageerath, son of Union minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar, surrendered before the police in Telangana on Saturday evening, hours after the High Court declined to give interim protection from arrest in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act case, the Hindustan Times reported.

Bhageerath was arrested from Narsingi near Hyderabad and was taken to Pet Basheerabad police station, Cyberabad Police Commissioner Ramesh Reddy said.

Bhageerath was later produced before a magistrate, who sent him to judicial custody till May 29, his lawyer Karunasagar was quoted as saying by ANI.

The parents of a girl, reported to be a 17-year-old, have alleged that Bhageerath befriended their daughter on the pretext of marriage and sexually assaulted her at a farmhouse in Moinabad on December 31.

Based on the girl’s statement, the police added charges of rape under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act to the first information report.

Bhageerath has also registered a complaint, accusing the girl and her family of blackmailing and extorting him of Rs 5 crore. Based on his complaint, the police registered a case of extortion and criminal intimidation against the girl and her parents.

A High Court vacation bench of Justice T Madhavi Devi had heard the matter till midnight on Friday, the Hindustan Times reported. She reserved orders on the anticipatory bail petition by Bhageerath and said that the verdict would be delivered on May 21.

While Bhageerath’s lawyer urged the court to grant interim protection from arrest until the anticipatory bail plea was decided, the judge said that she was not inclined to issue any interim directions, according to the newspaper.

The Cyberabad Police claimed that during investigations, Bhageerath “admitted to have committed the said offence”, after which he was arrested.

‘No wrongdoing from our side’, claims Union minister

Kumar on Saturday said he wanted to reassure well-wishers, supporters and Bharatiya Janata Party workers that “there has been no wrongdoing from our side”.

“We have complete faith in the legal process and truth will ultimately prevail,” he said in a social media post.

The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs said that in the past week, his family had gone through an emotionally difficult phase.

“The situation affected my entire family deeply,” Kumar said. “My mother suffered a heart stroke during this difficult phase, which was very traumatic. But in these testing times, the immense love & support extended by lakhs of people across the country gave me strength to stand firm.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

India’s external affairs ministry on Saturday rejected an award reportedly issued by a court of arbitration about maximum pondage at Indian hydroelectric projects on the Indus river system, calling it null and void.

Pondage refers to water that accumulates behind the dam of a run-of-the-river hydroelectric plant. It is mainly used to regulate the supply of water and to account for fluctuations in the flow of a river.

“India categorically rejects the present so-called award, just as it has firmly rejected all prior pronouncements of the illegally constituted CoA [Court of Arbitration],” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. “India has never recognised the establishment of this so-called CoA. Any proceeding, award, or decision issued by it is null and void.”

The external affairs ministry said that India’s decision to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance remains in force. The decision was taken in the wake of the April 22, 2025 Pahalgam terror attack.

Our response to media queries on matters pertaining to the illegally constituted so-called Court of Arbitration ⬇️

🔗 https://t.co/rTnEGIO10K pic.twitter.com/EfGKmj1kA3

— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2026

As of Sunday morning, no official statement about the award was available on the website of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. However, a press release from May 11 states that a three-day hearing on Pakistan’s request for “interim measures and on Treaty Status” ended on April 28.

India did not participate in the hearing, the press release noted.

The Court of Arbitration is a five-member arbitration panel headed by Sean D Murphy. It was set up in January 2023 at Pakistan’s request after the country questioned the design of India’s Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects, according to The Hindu.

India has declined to take part in the proceedings, arguing that the questions before it fall within the ambit of a neutral expert appointed by the World Bank.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande.

On May 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s motorcade drove through Gujarat’s Jamnagar, a town known for housing the world’s largest oil refinery. Videos showed hundreds of Bharatiya Janata Party supporters lining the route, waving party flags and cheering.

This political roadshow came just hours after Modi had called on Indians to adopt austerity measures to help weather the economic choppiness set off by the war in West Asia.

At a rally in Hyderabad earlier that day, shortly after the conclusion of elections in several states, Modi had urged citizens to revive work-from-home practices adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce fuel consumption. He also called on his fellow citizens to use public transport and to carpool.

The prime minister also urged Indians to avoid non-essential foreign travel for a year.

India imports about 90% of its crude oil requirements. Most of this is shipped in through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked since the war between United States-Israel and Iran began on February 28. The constrained supply has driven up global oil prices by ‌more than 50% since the conflict began.

Conserving foreign exchange reserves, Modi said, was “an act of patriotism”.

Hours before making the appeal, Modi had held another roadshow in Hyderabad.

Modi’s long convoys prompted social media users to point to the gulf between the restrictions the prime minister was urging his fellow citizens to adopt and his own actions.

To many Indians, the events in Telangana and Gujarat seemed quite superfluous.

On May 11, the day after the Jamnagar motorcade, Modi travelled to Gujarat’s Somnath for a religious ceremony to mark 75 years of the inauguration of the restored Hindu temple there. The event included an airshow by fuel-guzzling aircraft of the Indian Air Force’s aerobatics team. In Somnath, Modi was the star of yet another roadshow.

On May 11, there was another roadshow in Vadodara a day before Modi travelled to Assam for the swearing-in ceremony of the state Cabinet. The event in Guwahati would not seem to have required Modi’s presence: after all, the BJP was forming its third consecutive government in the state.

On May 7, just three days before Modi called for austerity, he had been in Patna for another swearing-in ceremony. This time, it was merely an expansion of the state’s Cabinet. Of course, it involved a roadshow for Modi.

This led to questions about whether it was essential for Modi and other leaders of the ruling National Democratic Alliance to participate in these events.

After three days of intense criticism about the contradictions, the media carried claims – attributed only to “sources” – that the size of Modi’s convoy had been reduced “immediately after his speech in Hyderabad”. Social media was suddenly filled with videos of NDA leaders suddenly using electric vehicles or taking public transport.

On May 15, as Modi began a five-nation tour, social media users wondered if the visit was necessary amid the economic troubles. While a head of government’s tours are planned several weeks or months in advance, the energy shock caused by the conflict had been predicted more than two months ago.

Within days of the conflict breaking out, several countries had introduced measures to conserve fuel. India had also partly increased the price of commercial liquefied petroleum gas cylinders on April 1.

Why did Modi delay his call for austerity till May 10 even though this course of action seemed inevitable all along?

Why was saving fuel evidently not a consideration for several weeks of election campaigning?

These perceived excesses in the time of austerity would seem to signal to Modi’s fellow citizens that austerity is not essential if their prime minister isn’t walking the talk himself. As one cartoonist begged Modi, “No foreign trips, please work from home.”

Also read: Modi’s austerity appeals are a misplaced solution for India’s economic woes

Here is a summary of last week’s top stories.

Paper leaks. The re-exam for the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test will be held on June 21. The National Testing Agency made the announcement as the test conducted on May 3, in which more than 22 lakh students appeared, had been cancelled following allegations of a paper leak.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested at least seven persons and conducted searches at several locations in the country in connection with the case.

Johanna Deeksha reports about why the National Testing Agency continues to fail students in India.

A place of worship dispute. The Madhya Pradesh High Court held that the disputed Bhojshala-Kamal Maula mosque complex in Dhar district is a temple of the Hindu deity Saraswati. The bench quashed a 2003 order of the Archaeological Survey of India, which allowed Hindus to perform prayers on the premises on Tuesdays and Muslims to offer namaz in the complex on Fridays.

It also allowed the Muslim side to seek alternative land in the district to build a mosque. The court said it arrived at its decision on the basis of the precedent laid down by the Supreme Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case.

From Babri to Gyanvapi, how India’s courts have helped escalate Hindutva claims on mosques, explains Umang Poddar.

Contempt proceedings. Delhi High Court judge Swarana Kanta Sharma initiated contempt of court proceedings against Aam Aadmi Party leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, and several others, for allegedly defaming and vilifying her on social media in connection with the liquor policy case. However, Sharma recused herself from hearing the Central Bureau of Investigation’s revision petition against their discharge in the case.

This came after Kejriwal and others said in April that they would boycott the proceedings before Sharma after the judge rejected their petition demanding that she recuse herself from hearing the case.

Also on Scroll last week

• How slow counting of votes in Bengal helped BJP win a lost seat from Trinamool
• Why five new districts in Ladakh have led to fears of exclusion, gerrymandering
• Indian hospitals are pushing robotic surgery, but do you really need it?
• Gujarat fisherfolk in crisis after two summers of war
• Why US has accused some Indian students of misusing visa provision that allows practical training
• India’s massive judicial backlog can be tackled by a simple legal provision that already exists
• Why India must abandon the post-1991 economic ideology and forge its own path – like China
• Who is responsible when underage drivers cause fatal crashes? Indian law needs a reform
• ‘Baapya’ review: A gender bender about a man who loved a woman who was always a man
• Review: In ‘Exam’, tough questions and wishy-washy answers

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On August 6, 2019, I was having coffee with a group of colleagues at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. We were discussing the abrogation, the previous day, of Article 370 in Kashmir. One of the younger members at the table, a computer scientist, remarked: “What we have now is not Modi 2.0, but Shah 1.0.” It was, of course, the new home minister who had planned and piloted the downgrading of India’s only Muslim-majority state.

Perhaps to see this as “Shah 1.0” was an exaggeration, but now there was little question that Amit Shah was not just the second-most powerful man in government but the only minister with any real authority and independence of action apart from the prime minister himself.

The Modi-Shah jugalbandi has had its precedents. Consider the partnership, in government, between Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel in the early years of independent India. While the poisonous polemics of contemporary politics represents them as rivals and adversaries, in truth they were friends, colleagues, and co-workers. Amidst the ruins of Partition, faced with the challenges of scarcity and privation, conflict and division, a united and democratic India might never have come into being had Nehru and Patel not worked together.

Patel played the leading role in uniting India territorially, by bringing the princely states on board, modernising the administrative system, taming the violent extremists of the Hindu Right and a communist Left, and getting a recalcitrant Congress to support the process of Constitution-making being directed by BR Ambedkar.

At the same time, Nehru played the leading role in uniting India emotionally, by assuring equal rights to religious and linguistic minorities and to women, and by energetically advocating universal adult franchise in the face of bitter elite opposition to it.

A mixed blessing

To be sure, Nehru and Patel had their differences, yet they worked heroically to submerge them in the larger national interest. It is also true that they had the support of remarkably able ministers like Ambedkar and of competent civil servants. Nonetheless, historical scholarship has authoritatively demonstrated the central, indeed defining, role their partnership played in forging a nation from its fragments. (Apart from my own India after Gandhi, readers might wish to consult Rajmohan Gandhi’s scrupulously researched biography of Vallabhbhai Patel.)

After Patel died in December 1950, and Ambedkar resigned the following year, Nehru towered over all other figures in the cabinet, which may have been a mixed blessing. The next duopoly to define Indian politics emerged only in the late 1960s, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appointed the former diplomat, PN Haksar, as her principal secretary. Haksar quickly became more powerful than any of Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet ministers.

Between 1970 and 1975, he was her right-hand man and most influential adviser. He played a role in planning the prime minister’s finest hour – the liberation of Bangladesh – and in promoting high-quality science in such vitally important spheres as agriculture and space. On the negative side, it was also Haksar who was instrumental in designing Mrs Gandhi’s damaging economic policies of centralisation and control.

In 1975, Haksar was cast aside in favour of the prime minister’s second son. The partnership between Indira and Sanjay Gandhi was responsible for the country’s descent into authoritarianism through the suppression of civil liberties, the censorship of the media, the taming of the judiciary, making the bureaucracy and police subservient to mother and son, and the jailing of all political opponents. And unlike the partnership between Indira Gandhi and Haksar, it had no redeeming features at all.

The next significant partnership to emerge in government was between PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, prime minister and finance minister in the years 1991-1996. Rao and Singh together helped liberate the country from the license-permit-quota raj, setting in motion three decades of steady economic growth that has since made a major dent in poverty, created a large middle class, and enhanced India’s stature in the world.

Majoritarian tendencies reined in

Next came the partnership between Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Through the 1980s and 1990s, they worked together to make the Bharatiya Janata Party the major national challenger to the Congress Party. When the BJP was in office between 1998 and 2004, Vajpayee served as prime minister and Advani as home minister. They continued the path of economic liberalisation set in motion by Rao and Singh, helped along by well-qualified cabinet colleagues such as Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh.

Meanwhile, the fact that they could rule only as part of a multi-party coalition meant that the majoritarian tendencies of the sangh parivar were not given absolutely free play. (The Vajpayee-Advani jugalbandi has been analysed in recent works by Vinay Sitapati and Abhishek Choudhary.)

In 2004, the BJP unexpectedly lost power. For the following decade, the country was ruled by a multi-party coalition with the Congress as the dominant partner. Once more, two individuals exercised more authority than all the others: the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.

Directed by Singh, the country’s economic progress continued to be impressive; guided by Sonia Gandhi and her National Advisory Council, valuable attempts were made to erect a social security net for the poor. These gains of the partnership were unfortunately offset by a lack of clarity as to with whom the real locus of authority lay.

It should have of course been the prime minister; yet by nature Singh was timid and risk-averse, and allowed Sonia Gandhi far too much say in matters properly under his domain alone (such as education policy).

And now, in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, we have the most recent of what by my count is the seventh case of a duopoly in our politics, whereby two individuals and their partnership have come to play a vital role in the affairs of India and Indians. In terms of time, this is the most enduring of all the jugalbandis discussed here.

Modi and Shah worked closely together in Gujarat politics between 2002 and 2014, and in national politics since 2014. In this period, they have never lost political power; indeed, they have expanded their power, first by making Gujarat a one-party state and then by expanding the BJP’s footprint all over India.

When considered in terms of political longevity and political success, then the Modi-Shah partnership looks impressive. Yet if one looks at how they have achieved power, and what they have done once in power, their record is much darker. To achieve power, they have broken rival parties by a mixture of coercion and bribery, intimidated the press and made it a vehicle of personal and party propaganda, tamed the judiciary, used draconian measures to put dissenters (including non-violent dissenters) in prison, weakened Indian federalism, and compromised the integrity of previously independent public institutions (and of the Election Commission of India above all).

After coming to power, they have favoured a few select capitalists (including two from their home state), driven away foreign investors, failed to generate employment in manufacturing, politicised scientific research, and devastated our forests, water, air and soil, these measures collectively undermining the future economic prospects of the country.

The damage done to our democratic fabric and the stalling of our economic rise by the Modi-Shah jugalbandi are worrisome enough. And we have in addition the continuing attacks on our traditions of social and cultural pluralism overseen and even orchestrated by them. Wherever the BJP is in power, Muslims are marginalised and humiliated. They are effectively made second-class citizens, without a voice, living on the sufferance of the majority community.

As noted in an earlier column, under Modi and Shah India is closer to being a Hindu Pakistan than at any previous time in its history.

I have been a university teacher, where I had to assign grades – A+, A, A- down to F – to students taking the courses I taught. I am also a cricket nut, accustomed to making lists of, for example, the greatest bowlers of all time, ranked 1, 2, 3 down to 10.

I will here resist assigning numbered grades to the seven jugalbandis featured in this column, or ranking them in order of positive achievement. Yet so far as one can judge, the verdict of history will be that the first of these partnerships was unquestionably the finest and most constructive, and the third and the seventh probably the most damaging and destructive.

This article first appeared in The Telegraph.

Ramachandra Guha’s latest book, Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism, is now in stores. His email address is ramachandraguha@yahoo.in.

Motorola India sues tech platforms for ‘defamatory’ reviews as Centre tightens online regulations

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

Motorola wants social media platforms to take down “defamatory” reviews of its devices in India. But the way it’s doing this has digital rights activists alarmed.

In March, Motorola’s India arm sued major companies and their platforms – Google, Meta, X, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads – over more than 360 posts by users that allegedly portray its devices as unsafe. The American phonemaker has asked courts to order the removal of this content and also prevent similar posts from appearing in the future.

Such claims have circulated widely online for years. What sets this case apart is Motorola’s decision to name platforms as co-defendants rather than pursuing standard requests to take down specific posts.

The Indian government has been tightening online content regulations in recent years. Against this backdrop, the Motorola case could make platforms more likely to remove content quickly to avoid legal risk, digital rights experts told Rest of World.

“Motorola could have filed takedown requests with the social media platforms. … Instead, it bypassed that and chose to name them as co-defendants,” said Jayshree Bajoria, Asia associate director at watchdog Human Rights Watch. “Social media platforms are already likely to over-censor legitimate expression to comply with the proposed IT rules and recent changes, to retain their safe harbor protection. A civil defamation case like this has a similar chilling effect on freedom of speech and expression.”

On April 17, an Indian court issued a temporary injunction ordering the removal of all existing defamatory content about Motorola – including negative campaigns, abusive remarks, and boycott campaigns – until the next hearing in June.

Meta, Google, and YouTube did not respond to Rest of World’s detailed request for comment at the time of publishing. X does not have a public-facing email for media enquiries.

A Motorola-like defamation case could never happen in the US as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields platforms from being liable for user-generated content.

India is home to the largest user base for YouTube and Instagram, and is among the top five countries for X.

Saurabh Gupta, a content creator who has made videos on Motorola’s durability and service, called out the company in a post on X, saying its legal action was a “direct killing” of freedom of speech. Gupta, who runs a Hindi-language YouTube channel called Gupta Information Systems with more than 1.8 million followers, is one of 24 plaintiffs named in Motorola’s lawsuit.

The smartphone industry is split on the matter.

Sunil Raina, managing director of Indian smartphone maker Lava, said companies can choose to respond by intimidating or improving when faced with criticism. “One silences the feedback. The other silences the need for it,” he wrote on X.

Madhav Sheth, the former Realme CEO who tried to reintroduce Chinese brand Honor’s phones in India, sided with immediate legal action for “any platform or individual found spreading fake news or unverified ‘exposés.’”

Legal experts are particularly concerned about the inclusion of a “John Doe” provision in the complaint, which allows action against unidentified future creators.

This order allows creators like musicians and filmmakers to protect their intellectual property in cases where the wrongdoers are anonymous or unknown. It’s also used to discover perpetrators of crypto theft and data breaches. Celebrities have used it to stop miscreants from using their likeness. But Motorola’s ask broadens its scope to murkier territory.

“John Doe orders were designed for piracy cases involving genuinely unidentifiable infringers, and their migration into defamation litigation is a significant expansion of judicial remedy,” Apar Gupta, tech lawyer and founding director of digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation, told Rest of World. “The chilling effect operates before any creator is even named, because the order’s existence signals to the entire ecosystem that critical content carries legal exposure. Worse, platforms faced with subsequent takedown requests citing the John Doe order will typically comply rather than litigate.”

Gupta is also skeptical about Motorola’s removal request, including URLs that date back to 2019.

“Content that has been online for five or more years without prior legal action raises questions about delay, acquiescence, and the genuineness of the alleged injury,” he said.

Since 2021, amendments to the Indian IT rules have been building pressure on social media platforms. Companies have had to set up local offices, appoint grievance officers, and add AI labeling to comply with new rules. The window to take down any unlawful content was recently shortened from three days to less than three hours.

The government’s recent and proposed amendments “are geared towards signalling to platforms that they need to comply, while also making it harder for them to contest or push back,” Prateek Waghre, a technologist-turned-public policy researcher and a fellow with the Tech Policy Press nonprofit, told Rest of World.

In general, governments and companies “will use whatever means they have at their disposal to suppress speech they do not like,” Waghre said.

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.

Chief Justice Surya Kant on Saturday claimed that his reported remarks comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches” had been misquoted by sections of the media, Live Law reported.

Kant said it was baseless to claim that he criticised young people in general.

Earlier in the day, the chief justice had been quoted as saying by PTI that some unemployed youngsters were like “cockroaches”, and that they go on to become social media or Right to Information Act activists and start attacking the “system”, PTI reported.

The remarks were made when a bench of Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi pulled up a lawyer for filing a petition seeking directions to the Delhi High Court to designate him as a senior advocate, The Indian Express reported.

There were already enough “parasites” in society attacking the judiciary, he said, adding that lawyers should not join hands with them.

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

After the remarks were criticised on social media, Kant claimed he had specifically criticised “those who have entered professions like the Bar [legal profession] with the aid of fake and bogus degrees,” according to Live Law.

“Similar persons have sneaked into the media, social media, and other noble professions as well, and hence, they are like parasites,” he said.

The chief justice was further quoted as saying: “Not only am I proud of our present and future human resource, but every youth of India inspires me,” the chief justice was quoted as saying by Live Law. “It is not an exaggeration to say that Indian youth have great regard and respect for me, and I too see them as the pillars of a developed India.”

The case

The petitioner told the bench that it was the third time that he was moving the Supreme Court, The Indian Express reported. He argued that the High Court had failed to comply with an earlier direction of the top court to reconsider the matter expeditiously, and had deferred or rejected applications.

The counsel for the High Court told the bench that interviews for the position of a senior advocate were underway.

Kant told the petitioner that the “whole world might be eligible for senior designation, but at least you are not”, The Indian Express reported.

The chief justice added that if the High Court makes the petitioner a senior advocate, the Supreme Court will “set it aside” on account of his “professional conduct”.

Bagchi also asked if the petitioner had no other matter to pursue, the newspaper reported. “This is the standing of a person who expects to be conferred a senior gown?” the judge was quoted as having asked.

The chief justice claimed that a large number of law degrees in Delhi could be fake, adding that the Supreme Court would want the Central Bureau of Investigation to verify this because the Bar Council of India was not taking any action, The Indian Express reported.

While dismissing the petition, the Supreme Court said that the petitioner “indulges in filing frivolous petitions”, according to the newspaper.

The petitioner apologised and sought permission to withdraw the petition. The bench agreed to let him withdraw his application.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar and Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government on Saturday imposed restrictions on silver imports, moving several categories of the metal from the “free” to the “restricted” category.

This means that the imports will now require authorisation from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

As per the notification issued by the authority, governmental approval will be needed to import silver bars containing 99.9% or more silver, as also other silver bars under specific Harmonised System codes, or HS codes.

Certain categories of silver imports will also now be subject to Reserve Bank of India regulations.

The Government of India has tightened the policy regarding the import of silver bars, changing their status from 'Free' to 'Restricted' with immediate effect. pic.twitter.com/k4Zyq4W2rO

— ANI (@ANI) May 16, 2026

This comes in the context of the government seeking to tighten oversight on imports of precious metals, so as to ease pressure on foreign exchange reserves. This may also help reduce the country’s trade deficit and support the weakening rupee.

Earlier this week, the government raised import tariffs on gold and silver to 15% from 6%.

Demand for gold, particularly as an investment, has risen in India following a recent rally in prices and weak equity returns over the past year.

India has been trying to discourage gold imports and in recent weeks had imposed a 3% integrated goods and services tax on gold and silver imports, prompting banks to halt purchases for more than a month. As a result, gold imports in April fell to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged citizens to avoid buying gold and adopt “nationally responsible” lifestyle choices to help the country withstand global economic uncertainty caused by the war in West Asia.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday announced that the government will offer incentives of Rs 30,000 to families for the birth of a third child and Rs 40,000 for a fourth one, PTI reported.

Naidu said at a public meeting in Narsannapeta in the Srikakulam district that the government will announce further details in a month. The chief minister said that the time has come for society to work together to increase birth rates, according to PTI.

The Telugu Desam Party chief had in March unveiled a policy aimed at raising the state’s Total Fertility Rate by paying a financial incentive of Rs 25,000 for couples who have a third child.

Speaking in the Legislative Assembly at the time, Naidu had highlighted that Andhra Pradesh faces a declining birth rate and an ageing population. He warned that if fertility rates are not stabilised, nearly 23% of residents could be elderly by 2047.

“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,” he had said. “Around three lakh families have only one child instead of two, while another three lakh families have more than two children.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government has told the Delhi High Court that non-governmental organisation Oxfam India was found to be involved in “a negative and malicious campaign against the Assam tea industry” and was a “probable instrument of foreign policy”, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

In its submissions to the court, the Union home ministry alleged that inquiries by central agencies and the Central Board of Direct Taxes found that the NGO was violating provisions of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.

FCRA registration is mandatory for any non-profit organisation in India to receive funds from abroad.

Oxfam was purportedly indulging in “activities detrimental to the national economic interest” by entering into an “agreement with another association and funded it to mobilise communities against the coal industry with help of local unions”.

Oxfam India was among 5,932 non-governmental organisations whose registrations under the FCRA had ceased on January 1, 2022, either because they did not apply for renewal or the home ministry refused to sanction their applications for renewal. Oxfam India is in the latter category.

Oxfam India moved the High Court against the Centre not deciding on its renewal application. The Union government was instructed in November 2022 to decide on its petition within six weeks.

In December 2022, the home ministry rejected the application and denied the renewal of Oxfam India’s FCRA registration.

In February, the ministry told the High Court that it was willing to consider Oxfam India’s application for a fresh FCRA registration without prejudice, The Indian Express reported.

On Friday, the High Court was told by the Union government’s counsel that this application was under consideration by the ministry.

Allegations against the NGO

However, in its submissions to the court on Thursday, the ministry alleged that Oxfam India “was found to be corresponding with foreign governments and multilateral organisations in order to put pressure on the Government of India”.

Oxfam India denied the charge in its submissions on May 12 and said that foreign contribution donors had paid government money for specific purposes.

“…when they sought for the update regarding the status of contribution made by them, [Oxfam India] merely informed their diplomatic mission in India on their request, which was a necessary exercise,” the newspaper quoted the NGO as saying.

The home ministry also said that Oxfam India was allegedly found to be involved in a “negative and malicious campaign” against the tea industry in Assam.

Oxfam India had run a campaign in 2019 to increase the wages of tea garden workers based on a report published by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai from October that year, The Indian Express reported.

The ministry added that the NGO projected “opinionated statements in the media” against the industry.

This caused “harm to the interests of the Indian tea industry generally”, the ministry said, adding that this was done “likely to unwarrantedly stir up agitation against the state government”.

Replying to the allegation, the NGO noted that this campaign had led to the wages of the tea garden workers being increased in 2022.

In its submissions, the ministry also told the High Court that Oxfam India entered into an agreement with another association and funded it to mobilise communities against the coal industry with the help of local unions.

This was despite the NGO being registered only for social programmes, it added, according to The Indian Express.

“Such activities are not compatible with its stated FCRA objectives and are detrimental to the nation’s economic interest,” the ministry said.

However, the NGO said that although the organisation, Environics Trust, had requested funding, “no such fund was provided”, according to the newspaper.

Oxfam India further noted that the Union government in its December 2022 order had introduced “for the first time allegations relating to UNICEF [United Nations Children’s Fund] funding, the Assam tea campaign, receipt of funds in utilisation accounts, transfer of funds to other entities, administrative expenditure beyond 20%, and speculative use of FC [foreign contribution]”.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: FCRA licence crackdown has plunged India’s non-profit sector into a crisis

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal has decided to conduct a re-verification of all caste certificates issued in the state since 2011 on account of allegations of large-scale irregularities during the tenure of the previous Trinamool Congress regime, PTI quoted an official as saying on Friday.

The official added that the State Backward Classes Welfare Department on Friday issued letters to district magistrates across the state directing them to begin the re-verification process. The order will cover about 1.6 crore certificates issued over the past 15 years, The Times of India reported.

Of these, about 1 crore are Scheduled Caste certificates, 21 lakh Scheduled Tribe certificates and 48 lakh Other Backward Classes, according to the newspaper.

The order on Friday said that the “authenticity and genuineness” of several certificates had been challenged by various quarters. The re-verification of the caste certificates will be carried out by the respective issuing authorities as per the prevailing norms, the newspaper quoted the order as saying.

Any certificate found to have been issued improperly will invite legal repercussions and strict action, it added.

State Tribal Development and Backward Classes Welfare Minister Kshudiram Tudu told PTI that several fake and irregular SC, ST and OBC certificates had been issued during the previous TMC government.

Earlier, the minister had also said that strict action would be taken against officials under whose supervision such certificates were issued.

The order on Friday comes after the BJP defeated the TMC in the Assembly elections on May 4, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The West Bengal Police on Friday filed a first information report against Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee for allegedly provocative speeches he made during campaigning for the Assembly elections, including alleged threats directed at Union Home Minister Amit Shah, India Today reported.

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

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

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sarkar said that Banerjee “used strong language, challenging Amit Shah to face the public without central security after the election results, and claimed that the Trinamool Congress would finish the game that he alleged was started by the BJP”.

The case on Friday was filed at the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime Police Station under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to provocation with an intent to incite a riot, promoting enmity and hatred, criminal intimidation and circulation of false information, rumors to incite hatred.

The provision pertaining to promoting enmity and hatred is a non-bailable offence with imprisonment of three years and a fine.

Banerjee was also booked under the Representation of the People Act for allegedly attempting to unduly influence voters.

The FIR alleged that the speeches contained provocative, threatening and inflammatory content capable of creating public disorder and disturbing communal harmony, India Today reported.

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

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.