Press bodies have criticised the Union government for blocking a parody animation featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted by news outlet The Wire on social media, describing the actions as a sign of “an alarming erosion of freedom of expression in India”.

Condemning the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s decision, the Editors Guild of India stated on Thursday that The Wire was not informed of the reason for the removal of what it described as a “harmless cartoon”.

The “ostensible reason”, conveyed orally to the publication’s founders, was that the cartoon would affect the security and reputation of the country, said the guild.

If that was indeed the case, the excuse was “laughable”, it added.

The guild described the incident as “yet another example of the rising intolerance to comment and scrutiny” on the part of the Union government and its representatives, arguing that such actions tarnish India’s credentials as an accommodative democracy that gives space to media, including satire and humour.

It also said that the government introduced the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026a day after this action. The new rules hasten the takedown of offensive and illegitimate content prepared synthetically, said the guild.

Citing the Internet Freedom Foundation, the guild said the relevant clause was “overbroad” and could affect creative interpretation by cartoonists, potentially placing “a prior restraint on synthetically generated content that is satirical, parodical, and part of political commentary and artistic expression”.

The guild called on the government to undertake a serious review of the new rules and ensure that measures introduced in the name of regulating artificial intelligence do not undermine media freedom and free speech.

Digipub News India Foundation, an association of independent digital news organisations and journalists of which Scroll is a member, said on Tuesday that the Union government had offered no reasoning for how the cartoon violated the law.

It said the measures did not “appear incidental” but reflected a growing pattern in which satire, critical journalism and dissenting voices are constrained through “opaque and unaccountable ‘legal demands’” that undermine due process and democratic norms.

The organisation called for the immediate restoration of all blocked accounts and posts, as well as full transparency from the authorities and social media platforms regarding the legal basis for the actions.

DIGIPUB News India Foundation expresses deep concern over a series of recent actions that signal an alarming erosion of freedom of expression in India. pic.twitter.com/TlZLckOh0U

— DIGIPUB News India Foundation (@DigipubIndia) February 10, 2026

Also read: Centre fixes three-hour deadline for social media platforms to take down flagged AI content

The Press Club of India also condemned the arbitrary nature of the action against The Wire and said that moves of this kind have become “shockingly common”.

It emphasised that satire and cartoons have long been an important part of Indian news publishing and argued that disregarding this tradition undermines the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution.

The Press Club demanded an immediate explanation for why the video was censored and why The Wire’s Instagram page was unavailable for two hours.

It urged the government to “refrain from acting in opaque ways that deeply undercut press freedom and create a censored media environment”.

The statement added that “these are not the actions one expects in a vibrant, thriving democracy”.

The Press Club of India condemns the temporary blocking of The Wire's Instagram page on Monday (February 9) and the takedown of a 52-second satirical clip from the website's Instagram, Facebook and X handles based on an undisclosed "legal request". pic.twitter.com/bhXuFLBaw3

— Press Club of India (@PCITweets) February 10, 2026

The Wire’s Instagram account was reportedly unavailable in India for nearly two hours on Monday evening. Visitors to the page saw a message stating that the page was “not available” in India because the platform was complying with “a legal request to restrict this content”.

The action followed the blocking of a parody animation by the news outlet across platforms.

The 52-second animated video, which was uploaded to Instagram, Facebook and X at about 6.30 pm on Saturday, was blocked on all three platforms. As of 3 pm on Tuesday, The Wire’s Instagram account had been restored, though the parody animation remained inaccessible on all three sites.

The animation satirised the prime minister for allegedly avoiding questions in Parliament about an unpublished memoir by former Indian Army chief MM Naravane.

On Monday, The Wire claimed that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting told the news outlet that it had not specifically ordered the blocking of its account.

The news outlet, however, claimed that it had “learned informally that the ministry asked Meta to block a 52-second satirical cartoon on Instagram” and that the platform’s parent company had blocked the entire account “in error”.

Under the Information Technology Act, the Union government is required to inform a publisher in advance before blocking specific content. The Wire has claimed that it had received no written communication on the matter.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday claimed that a 24-year-old migrant worker from the state was murdered in Maharashtra’s Pune, allegedly for speaking Bengali.

“This is nothing short of a hate crime,” Banerjee alleged. “A young man was hunted, tortured, and murdered for his language, his identity, his roots. This is the direct consequence of a climate where xenophobia is weaponised and innocents are turned into targets.”

However, the Pune Rural Police said their initial investigation showed that the man, identified as Sukhen Dhiren Mahato, was killed due to a dispute with the residents of the area, reported The Indian Express.

“We have registered a murder case,” Pune Rural Additional Superintendent of Police Ramesh Chopde told the newspaper. “Two suspects have been identified, and a search is underway for them.”

Mahato died due to a severe head injury on Monday night, said the police.

His body was found on Tuesday morning in an open plot in Koregaon Bhima in the Shirur taluka of Pune district.

Mahesh Dongare, the sub-inspector at the Shikrapur police station, told The Indian Express that it was not yet known whether it was a hate crime.

The Trinamool Congress has consistently accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of inciting hatred against Bengali-speaking migrant workers.

Since May, thousands of Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been rounded up in states ruled by the BJP and asked to prove that they were Indian citizens – and not undocumented immigrants.

In several cases, workers have been declared foreigners within days and forced into Bangladesh, despite being Indian citizens.

Also read: Why Bengali migrant workers in BJP-ruled states are being asked to prove they are Indians

As the morning mist clears over the Sahyadri mountains, the jagged silhouette of the Rajgad Fort becomes visible to the trekkers beginning their ascent from the base village of Gunjavne. For most visitors escaping the nearby concrete Pune in Maharashtra, the landscape appears to be a lush, emerald paradise. They buy bottles of mineral water from local stores, perhaps unaware of the irony beneath their feet: scarcity amid plenty.

Velhe (officially renamed as Rajgad), the smallest taluk in Maharashtra’s Pune district, records an average annual rainfall of over 2,500 mm, the highest in the district.

Yet, by February, many of its 129 villages have historically faced a dry reality, relying on water tankers for drinking and farming during the summer months. The problem is not a lack of water, but its refusal to stay in this hilly, undulating terrain. Rainwater slides off the slopes almost immediately, eroding soil, briefly filling wells and streams, then disappearing.

Slowing the flow

Near the base of the Rajgad trail, Laxman Rasal, Gunjavne’s sarpanch and a veteran of the gram panchayat for 32 years, walks over massive boulders that have tumbled down along the mountain stream. He points out a series of gabion structures, walls built of local stones, punctuating the stream. These are part of a deliberate “microwatershed” strategy to manage the Gunjavne river’s water.

“We should slow down running water, stop fast-flowing water, and allow stagnant water to seep into the ground,” says Raintree Foundation field officer Pravin Sanga Shetty, explaining the idea of watershed management. Because parts of Velhe’s local geology consist of dense hard basalt rock, letting water seep deep into the ground is difficult; the focus instead is on holding surface water and soil moisture.

This is a community-driven effort. The sarpanch, gram sevak (the secretary and chief executive officer of the gram panchayat), and the voluntary Village Development Committee play a crucial role in mobilising the community to participate in watershed activities.

While some labour is paid, much of the work relies on shram daan (voluntary labour). With this collective action and financial support from the non-profit organisations, the village residents also revived an old percolation tank that was once choked with silt.

In Gunjavne, a village of about 1,100 people, well water levels have risen, and the benefits extend downstream as well, says Rasal. According to Raintree Foundation, the water level in the wells around the tank is one foot higher during the wet season and about seven feet higher during the dry season. The desiltation activity was carried out in 2023, and the water levels were compared between 2022 and 2024.

Maintenance has brought another advantage: the nutrient-rich silt removed during desiltation. Instead of dumping it, the silt is distributed among farmers, returning washed-away topsoil to farms.

Planning for every drop

The breeze in October and November occasionally carries a hint of Indrayani rice, Maharashtra’s signature aromatic grain, which originated in the Pune district. While rice is the primary crop in Velhe, it is a rain-fed gamble. With the least irrigated area in the district, it was also difficult to grow a second or third crop to increase income.

“Rice alone is not profitable,” says Mohammad Shaikh from Sakhar village, close to Gunjavne, standing beside neatly arranged brown bundles of harvested rice. His capital would be “stuck” during the traditional May-to-November rice cycle. Now, powered by water-saving irrigation techniques, he has moved beyond just rice. On his three acres, he uses a sprinkler system to grow chickpeas and leafy greens like methi (fenugreek) and coriander in short 45-day cycles.

But where does Shaikh get the water from?

About four-five lakh litres of rainwater are stored in an artificial pond, slightly larger than a badminton court, dug on his land. Raintree Foundation provided the technical support and about Rs 75,000 for the installation, a plastic lining, and the maintenance of these farm ponds.

The non-profit has spent about Rs 45 lakh in watershed activities across nine villages in Velhe, says Swanand Damle, Vice President (Operations). Through the VDCs they mapped local water challenges and identified farmers who needed support. They dug ponds in 73 farms and implemented other interventions such as river desilting, percolation tank desilting, farm pond construction, water budgeting awareness.

Depending on the pond’s size, the farmers spend around Rs 30,000 on digging the ground and labour. The foundation also trains farmers to select crops suited to local conditions and to budget water for both domestic and agricultural use, explains Damle.

Mangoes and buffaloes

For farmers who can afford the investment, farm ponds allow them to pursue long-held dreams.

In Sakhar, farmer Sandeep Renuse stands on an acre of farmland overlooking the hills. For years, his father dreamed of growing hapus (Alphonso) and kesar mangoes. These trees require a high quantity of water during their first few years, a demand that was once impossible to meet in the dry season. After coordinating a team of labourers to dig a five-lakh-litre farm pond, Sandeep now successfully supports 70 mango trees with drip irrigation.

Horticulture – growing mangoes, jamun, jackfruit, leafy vegetables – has been a natural means of supplementing income in Velhe, but the inability to access water, limits its growth.

If you buy milk in Pune, it may have passed through a checkpoint near Lavhi, a village where livestock owners sell their yield every morning. For Anant Renuse, who owns 17 buffaloes, water is a matter of hygiene and health. When water is scarce, and tankers are the only option, a buffalo might get a bath only once every eight days, which affects its well-being. With the self-sufficiency provided by his wells and a farm pond, he can now bathe his buffaloes every two to three days during the dry season.

However, this level of security is not yet universal. Nazim Shaikh, a young farmer wrestling with his goats, looks at his field, which begins to lose moisture as early as December. For him, the initial investment and land required for a farm pond make the solution feel distant.

In Lavhi’s main meeting square, adjacent to an Indrayani rice field and a temple, a group of residents says that during peak summer, spending Rs 1,000 for a 5,000-litre private water tanker is the norm, particularly for households with higher needs.

Paradox in Velhe’s water story

In nearby Merawane and Phanshi villages, BAIF Development Research Foundation, which works on resilient rural livelihoods, has installed a solar-powered irrigation system that brings water from the river to farms almost 1.5 kilometres away. The usage is regulated by a local operator to ensure equitable distribution, explains Akash Salunke, an agriculture field officer with BAIF. The legacy non-profit is also piloting rainwater-harvesting devices at schools to recharge borewells in areas that fall within rechargeable zones.

While monitoring well water levels each season might reveal changes, Damle of the Raintree Foundation states that it would take a 15-year horizon to measure impacts on watershed ecology. The organisation, which started work in 2018, is planning a midline survey to track changes in the watershed. The ultimate goal, he says, is for the community to fully take over the discussions, monitoring, and desiltation of watershed structures.

Meanwhile, climate change also adds a layer of uncertainty. In 2025, unusually heavy September rains damaged the rice crop, while extreme summer heat rotted mangoes, highlighting the vulnerability of even diversified farmers. Field officers also point to the spread of eucalyptus, locally termed Nilgiri, on surrounding hillsides. These fast-growing, non-native trees consume large amounts of water, further stressing local systems.

Planning watershed conservation according to local geography and situation is critical, notes Himanshu Kulkarni, founder of the Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management. “But shifting to water-intensive crops like sugarcane would undo much of this effort,” he warns.

There is a systemic irony to Velhe’s story. Pune district has one of the highest dam densities in the country, explains Kulkarni, and Velhe lies within a typical dam catchment of the Western Ghats. Water from such catchments is diverted to irrigation command areas, cities, and industrial zones, while the villages themselves often remain underserved. Kulkarni argues that such regions deserve compensation for the ecosystem services they provide.

By 2025, the government’s Jal Jeevan scheme had brought taps to nearly 97% of families in villages such as Gunjavne and Lavhi. The Rural Water Supply Sub-Division in Velhe notes that tanker demand has dropped sharply. But the water in the taps installed, still depends on the health of the local watershed.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey said that he has submitted a notice in the Lok Sabha to initiate proceedings for cancelling Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s membership of the Lower House. He alleged that Gandhi was “fomenting public sentiments” in Parliament through foreign funding.

“He should be debarred from contesting the election for a lifetime,” said the BJP MP. Dubey also alleged that Gandhi’s conduct inside Parliament is unethical and added that the Congress leader is a key part of a “thuggery gang to destabilise India from within”.

In response, Congress leader KC Venugopal said that Dubey’s move was an attempt to divert attention from the matters Gandhi had raised. Read on.

A court in Assam’s Guwahati restrained Congress leaders Gaurav Gogoi, Jitendra Singh and Bhupesh Baghel from making “defamatory statements” about Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The judge held that not passing such an order would “defeat the justice” and may lead to multiple proceedings.

Sarma had accused the three leaders of making malicious allegations against him and sought Rs 500 crore in damages. However, he did not specify the allegations he was referring to. This had come the same day the Congress’ Assam unit filed a police complaint against the BJP for sharing a video depicting Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men at point-blank range. Read on.

Voting in Bangladesh’s first national election since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government was held on Thursday. A turnout of 47.9% was recorded till 2 pm.

The counting of votes began soon after, with early trends expected around midnight and final results likely by Friday morning.

During the day, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party alleged that its Khulna city leader Mohibuzzaman Kochi died after being attacked by members of the Jamaat. On the other hand, the Jamaat’s centre director said that its women activists were being forced out of polling stations by supporters of the BNP.

The director added that Kochi had fallen during the commotion and that he had not been pushed or assaulted. In Gopalganj, three persons were injured in a crude bomb explosion at a polling centre. Read on.

Read our coverage of the Bangladesh election here.

The Union government’s Defence Acquisition Council approved several proposals to buy military equipment, including more Rafale fighter jets. While the defence ministry did not state the number of Rafales being purchased, news reports widely said it would be 114.

The fresh order for the Rafales, manufactured by French firm Dassault Aviation, was cleared days ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Delhi on February 17.

The council cleared proposals worth Rs 3.6 lakh crore that also include buying combat missiles and an airship-based high-altitude pseudo-satellite for the Indian Air Force, additional P-8I Poseidon long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft for the Navy. It also includes the overhaul of the Army’s armoured recovery and infantry combat vehicles, and T-72 tanks. Read on.

The Supreme Court asked the makers of the film Ghooskhor Pandat to file an affidavit confirming that the movie’s title has been withdrawn. The affidavit must also mention the new name of the film, it directed.

This came after the counsel for the film’s producers told the court that the process was underway to change the title. The court was hearing a plea objecting to the film’s title for allegedly defaming the Brahmin community.

The court said that the right to freedom of speech is subject to restrictions. “Why should you denigrate a section of society by this kind of title?” the bench asked. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the makers of the film Ghooskhor Pandat to file an affidavit confirming that the movie’s title has been withdrawn, Live Law reported.

The court also directed that the affidavit must mention the new name of the film.

This came after the counsel for the film’s producers told the court that the process was underway to change the title.

Issuing a notice to the Union government, the Central Board of Film Certification and the film’s director Neeraj Pandey, a bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan said that it cannot allow the movie to be released unless the new name is placed on record.

It was hearing a public interest litigation objecting to the film’s title for allegedly defaming the Brahmin community.

The plea was filed amid a row that erupted after streaming platform Netflix on February 3 released its slate of films and series for 2026. A teaser for Ghooskhor Pandat, directed by Panday and Ritesh Shah, was also released.

The film, starring Manoj Bajpayee, Nushrratt Bharuccha and Shraddha Das, was criticised by some groups for its title that allegedly vilified the Brahmin community.

The use of the word “pandat”, associated with the Brahmin community and also meaning a priest, with “ghooskhor”, a term for someone who accepts bribes, sparked the uproar.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court said that the right to freedom of speech is subject to restrictions. “Why should you denigrate a section of society by this kind of title?” Live Law quoted the bench as having asked.

On Tuesday, Netflix told the Delhi High Court that the film will be renamed and all its promotional material had been taken down. The counsel for the streaming platform had told the High Court that the producers had decided to change its title to something that would more accurately reflect its narrative and intent.

The petitioner in this matter had claimed that the title was communally offensive, and could cause harm to the dignity and reputation of the Brahmin community.

The High Court bench had disposed of the petition before it, noting that nothing more was required to be adjudicated.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had also filed a first information report against the makers of the film for allegedly hurting public sentiments and disturbing social harmony.

‘Used simply as a colloquial name’

In light of the controversy, Pandey said on February 6 that the film was a fictional police drama, adding that the term “pandat” had been “used simply as a colloquial name for a fictional character”.

The story focused on a character’s actions and choices, and did not comment on or represent any caste, religion or community, the director had said in a statement.

Pandey had also said that in light of the concerns raised about the film, his team had “decided to take down all promotional materials for the time being, as we believe the film should be experienced in its entirety and understood in the context of the story we intended to tell, rather than judged on partial glimpses”.

Bajpayee had said in a statement that he respected the emotions and concerns shared about the film, adding that he took them seriously. The actor also said that the film was not meant to be a comment about any community.

A court in Assam’s Guwahati on Wednesday restrained three Congress leaders, including the head of the party’s state unit Gaurav Gogoi, from making “defamatory statements” about Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, PTI reported.

Civil Judge Nayanjyoti Sarma ordered an interim injunction on Gogoi, Jitendra Singh and Bhupesh Baghel from “making, publishing, circulating or disseminating any further defamatory statements or materials” about the Bharatiya Janata Party leader until they appear before the court.

The judge held that not passing such an order would “defeat the justice” and may lead to multiple proceedings.

The court directed the Congress leaders to appear before it on March 9, PTI reported.

The chief minister’s counsel said that the defendants have been issued notices by the court to furnish proof of their allegations, The Assam Tribune reported.

On Tuesday, Himanta Biswa Sarma filed a defamation suit against the three leaders, claiming that they had made malicious allegations against him.

Sarma said on social media that he had sought Rs 500 crore in damages, but did not specify the allegations he was referring to.

The case came following a press conference on February 4 in which the Congress launched a campaign against the chief minister, alleging that around “12,000 bighas of land have been grabbed in the name of his family members in different parts of the state in violation of rules”.

Gogoi had said that the party was investigating and tracing the sources of the chief minister’s assets.

Hours after that press conference, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that he would initiate contempt proceedings against the three politicians and Congress’ Legislative Party leader Debabrata Saikia.

“The era of hit-and-run politics is over,” he had said on social media at the time. “If they have even an ounce of courage or evidence, let them prove every allegation before a court of law.”

The defamation complaint came the same day the Congress’ Assam unit filed a police complaint against the BJP for sharing a video depicting Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men at point-blank range.

The video, which was posted by the BJP’s Assam unit on Saturday, has been deleted following criticism.

The clip combined what appeared to be original footage of the BJP leader handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated images portraying Muslims as targets. On-screen text included slogans such as “Foreigner free Assam”, “No mercy”, “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis”.

The BJP’s Assam unit has claimed that the post was unauthorised. One of the four co-convenors of the party’s state social media cell has been removed from his position in connection with the video, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

Assembly elections are expected to be held in the state between March and May.

The Enforcement Directorate told the Delhi High Court on Thursday that it will challenge former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s acquittal in cases about him not appearing before the agency after its summons in the liquor policy case, Live Law reported.

Additional Solicitor General SV Raju said this after Kejriwal’s counsel sought to withdraw a plea challenging the summons issued to the Aam Aadmi Party chief in the matter.

Kejriwal’s counsel told the High Court that he did not want to pursue the matter further as he had already been acquitted in the criminal cases against him for failing to appear before the Enforcement Directorate, PTI reported.

The High Court allowed Kejriwal to withdraw the plea.

On January 22, a trial court acquitted the former chief minister in two separate cases filed against him for not appearing before the Enforcement Directorate, PTI reported.

The trial court held that as a serving chief minister, “he too enjoyed his fundamental right of movement” and that the Enforcement Directorate failed to prove that Kejriwal intentionally disobeyed the summons.

Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in March 2024. Till then, he had been summoned nine times by the law enforcement agency in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi government’s now-scrapped liquor excise policy.

The chief minister had skipped all nine summonses.

Kejriwal was granted bail in his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate by a trial court on June 20, 2024. The Delhi High Court, however, issued an interim stay on the order the next day as it allowed an urgent hearing of a petition by the central agency.

On June 25, 2024, the High Court stayed the bail in its final order and said that the trial court “did not properly appreciate the material on record and the averments of ED [Enforcement Directorate]”.

On July 12, 2024, the Supreme Court granted Kejriwal interim bail in the case. However, he remained in jail as he had been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the same case on June 25, 2024.

He was eventually released from jail in September 2024 after the Supreme Court granted him bail.

Liquor policy case

The Enforcement Directorate’s case is based on a first information report registered by the CBI alleging irregularities in the Delhi government’s liquor excise policy, which has been scrapped.

The policy came into effect in November 2021. It was withdrawn on July 30, 2022, with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena recommending an investigation into the alleged irregularities of the policy.

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

Also read: A ‘liquor scam’ has put AAP leaders in jail. But has it dented the party’s image in Delhi?

The Union government’s Defence Acquisition Council on Thursday approved proposals to buy several military equipment, including additional Rafale fighter jets for the Indian Air Force.

The council, which reports to the defence ministry and is headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, granted the acceptance of necessity for proposals worth Rs 3.6 lakh crore. The proposals included the purchase of combat missiles and an airship-based high-altitude pseudo-satellite.

The majority of the Rafale aircraft being ordered will be manufactured in India, the ministry said.

Procuring more Rafales will “enhance the capability of undertaking air dominance roles” and boost the Air Force’s deterrence capabilities, “with long-range offensive strikes”, it added.

While the defence ministry did not state the number of Rafales being purchased, news reports widely said it would be 114, with 90 being manufactured in India. Some of the remaining jets are likely to be acquired in fly-away condition to meet the Air Force’s immediate operational needs.

The withdrawal of the last two MiG-21 squadrons in September had dropped the Air Force’s combat squadron strength to 29, against the 42 sanctioned in 2012. A fighting squadron typically has 16 to 18 jets.

The fresh purchase of the Rafale aircraft was cleared days ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Delhi between February 17 and February 19. The Rafales are manufactured by the French firm Dassault Aviation.

The Air Force already operates the Rafales. The deal to procure 36 of them was signed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government in 2016 at a cost of Rs 58,000 crore.

The Congress had accused the Narendra Modi government of corruption. The Centre has denied the allegations.

The Opposition party had also alleged at the time that the Modi government had helped a defence firm owned by industrialist Anil Ambani land a major contract under the deal even though it had no experience in the sector. Ambani has denied the allegations.

Also read: MiG-21 retirement a reminder about slacking defence procurement

On Thursday, the defence ministry said that the combat missiles being procured are meant to enhance the Air Force’s stand-off ground attack capability “with deep strike power and very high accuracy”.

The air-ship based high-altitude pseudo satellite, the ministry said, will be used by the military for surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic intelligence, communications and remote sensing.

For the Indian Navy, the council cleared the acquisition of additional Boeing P-8I Poseidon aircraft, which are meant for long-range maritime reconnaissance. The acquisition will also boost the Navy’s long-range anti-submarine warfare and maritime strike capability, the ministry said.

The purchase of six P8I aircraft had been cleared, The Indian Express reported. The Indian Navy already operates 12 P-8Is.

For the Indian Army, the council approved the procurement of anti-tank mines named Vibhav, and overhaul of armoured recovery vehicles, T-72 tanks and infantry combat vehicles to increase their service life.

The proposals cleared by the council are required to get a final approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security, which is headed by the prime minister.

In April, India had signed a deal with France to buy 26 Rafale Marine fighter aircraft for the Indian Navy at a cost of about Rs 64,000 crore. The Rafale Marine is an aircraft carrier-borne fighter jet.

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain a petition filed by the management of a dargah in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi district seeking directions to restrain rituals related to the Hindu festival of Mahashivratri at the shrine’s premises, Bar and Bench reported.

This year, Mahashivratri will be celebrated on Sunday.

The Aland Ladle Mashaik Dargah is associated with 14th-century Sufi saint Hazrat Shaikh Alauddin Ansari, also known as Ladle Mashaik, and 15th-century Hindu saint Raghava Chaitanya, whose remains lie at the site. A structure referred to as the Raghava Chaitanya Shivling is also located within the premises, The Hindu reported.

Both Muslims and Hindus have historically offered prayers at the site. However, communal tensions erupted in 2022 regarding worship rights.

In February 2025, the Karnataka High Court permitted 15 members of the Hindu community to conduct Shivaratri prayers at the Raghava Chaitanya Shivling amid heavy security. A similar arrangement was reportedly made in 2024, when 15 Hindu persons were allowed to enter the premises and perform rituals without any untoward incident occurring, Bar and Bench reported.

In its plea, the dargah management has contended that although the property has been declared a Waqf property by the Waqf Tribunal, third parties have repeatedly filed petitions before the High Court seeking permission to conduct prayers on specific occasions, Live Law reported. It said that the High Court has been granting permission for temporary arrangements from time to time, including for the upcoming Mahashivratri festival.

The petitioners raised concern that there has been a strategic attempt by Hindu groups to change the religious character of the shrine by securing interim court orders for Shivratri prayers.

“The pattern is unmistakable and deeply troubling,” Bar and Bench quoted the petition as having said. “What cannot be proved through evidence and adjudication is sought to be manufactured through interim orders sought from the High Court.”

The petition added: “What is barred by the Places of Worship Special Provisions Act, 1991 is sought to be achieved through police-facilitated entry during festivals.”

The Act does not allow any changes to the religious character of a place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.

The management of the Aland Ladle Mashaik Dargah had approached the court under Article 32 of the Constitution, which allows persons to directly move the Supreme Court for the enforcement of fundamental rights.

On Thursday, advocate Vibha Datta Makhija, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the High Court had already decided related matters and that the petitioner was constrained to approach the Supreme Court, Live Law reported.

However, a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and SC Sharma noted that an Article 32 petition was not appropriate in the matter.

“Unless it’s a pan-India issue, [no]...You get the dismissal thereafter we will consider,” Live Law quoted Datta as saying. “This is no way of entertaining Article 32 [petition].”

The plea was then withdrawn.

In September, Karnataka made history by conducting India’s first state-wide baseline survey of gender minorities. The Department of Women and Child Development, in collaboration with the Karnataka State Women’s Development Corporation, launched what was heralded as a landmark initiative to document the lives of transgender persons across 31 districts.

By January, the results were in: 10,365 transgender individuals had been identified in a state with a population of approximately 6.87 crore.

The survey’s stated objective – to rehabilitate gender minorities and ensure their access to governmental welfare benefits – was admirable. Yet beneath this progressive veneer lies a troubling reality: the survey has grossly undercounted Karnataka’s trans population, turning a potentially transformative exercise in data collection into a missed opportunity for advancing gender justice.

The survey’s published figures reveal an unsettling statistical anomaly. According to official data from the 2011 Census of India, Karnataka recorded 20,266 transgender persons – nearly double the 2025 survey’s count.

This raises an immediate question: how has a state’s transgender population apparently halved over 14 years, during a period when social acceptance has grown, legal protections have expanded following the landmark 2014 National Legal Services Authority judgement that legally recognized transgender people as a third gender and global transgender visibility has increased?

The answer lies not in demographic reality but in the survey’s fundamentally flawed methodology.

The 2017 Karnataka State Policy for Transgenders emerged against a backdrop of systemic exclusion. Transgender persons in Karnataka – like their counterparts across India – face discrimination at every turn: family rejection, educational barriers, employment discrimination, and violence. Studies have consistently documented that many transgender individuals are forced to leave their homes, with only 2% living with their families. The suicide attempt rate among this population is approximately 50% before age 20.

Karnataka messed up Transgender Survey so bad that it recorded less trans persons in 2025
(10,000) than the 2011 census (21,000). In reality, for a state with total population over 6 crore, there would be at least 2-4 lakh trans persons. @laxmi_hebbalkar @INCKarnataka pic.twitter.com/jK3utcINC5

— Yes, We Exist 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 (@YesWeExistIndia) January 25, 2026

These grim statistics underscored the urgent need for accurate demographic data to inform evidence-based policy interventions.

The 2025 survey’s methodology, however, fundamentally undermined its objectives. Conducted over 45 days from mid-September 2025, the enumeration required transgender persons to report to designated locations – primarily district hospitals and taluk government hospitals – for registration.

This hospital-based approach created several barriers to participation. Transgender persons who live in rural areas, lack transportation, fear institutional settings due to prior discrimination or simply were unaware of the survey would have been systematically excluded.

For a community that experiences profound stigma within healthcare settings, mandating hospital visits was almost certain to suppress participation.

The numerical case for undercounting is overwhelming. Using the 2011 Census figure (itself likely an undercount given the stigma surrounding census self-identification), the 2025 survey captured only 51% of the transgender persons documented 14 years earlier.

The survey’s geographic distribution further exposes its inadequacy. Vijayapura district recorded the highest count with 1,428 transgender persons, followed by Chikkaballapur with 1,252, and Bengaluru Urban with 757. That Bengaluru – Karnataka’s cosmopolitan capital with a population exceeding 1.2 crore – recorded fewer transgender persons than Vijayapura (population approximately 25 lakh) defies demographic logic.

This pattern suggests that the survey’s reach and effectiveness varied dramatically across districts, likely reflecting differences in local implementation, awareness campaigns, and community engagement rather than actual population distributions.

The transgender community’s response to the survey results was swift and unequivocal. In October, even before the final results were published, the Karnataka Transgender Task Force publicly flagged the survey’s design flaws. The Task Force’s primary criticism centred on the mandatory requirement for transgender persons to report to assigned places for registration.

Activists demanded a door-to-door enumeration approach, arguing that only such an approach could capture the true scope of the transgender population, particularly those who are most marginalised and least likely to voluntarily visit government hospitals.

Broad implications

The broader implications of this undercounting extend far beyond statistical accuracy. The survey was explicitly designed to inform policy interventions: the final report recommends priority hostel admissions, scholarships, competitive exam coaching, healthcare access, employment and skill development training, housing, infrastructure development, and the establishment of a Gender Minority Welfare Development Board.

Each of these policy recommendations depends on accurate population data for resource allocation, programme design, and impact assessment. An undercount of this magnitude means that budgets will be inadequate, services will be undersupplied, and the very communities the survey aimed to help will remain underserved. Moreover, the official figure of 10,365 will likely be cited in future policy discussions, perpetuating the invisibility of the majority of Karnataka’s transgender population.

The survey’s failure represents a broader pattern in how marginalised communities are often counted. The 2011 Census recorded 4.88 lakh transgender persons across India – a figure widely acknowledged as a significant undercount, as many transgender persons chose to identify as male or female due to stigma or because there was no explicit question on gender identity, only on sex.

Despite these profound shortcomings, the survey was not without merit. The very fact that Karnataka undertook this enumeration demonstrated political will and recognised the necessity of evidence-based policymaking. The survey collected valuable data on educational attainment, employment status, caste composition and religious demographics among those who were counted.

The recommendations emerging from the survey – particularly the proposal for a Gender Minority Welfare Development Board and one percent reservation in private sector employment – represent progressive policy thinking. The fundamental problem was not the intent but the implementation.

The lessons for other states are clear. Any enumeration of transgender populations must adopt a door-to-door approach, ideally integrated with regular census operations to reduce stigma and maximise participation.

Extensive community engagement is essential: transgender-led organisations must be meaningfully involved in survey design, implementation, and verification.

Enumerators require comprehensive training in transgender-sensitive approaches, including understanding diverse gender identities and creating safe spaces for disclosure. Multiple registration channels – including online portals, community centres, and mobile units – should be available to accommodate diverse needs and circumstances.

Finally, the enumeration period must be sufficiently long, with extensive awareness campaigns in several languages and formats to reach isolated and marginalised community members.

Gender justice demands not merely the gesture of counting, but the commitment to count properly – to ensure that every transgender person is seen, acknowledged and included in the data that will shape their futures. Only then can surveys like this fulfil their transformative potential rather than becoming, as Karnataka’s has, a well-intentioned failure that perpetuates the very invisibility it sought to remedy.

Vishal R Choradiya is an assistant professor with the Department of Professional Studies, Christ University, Bengaluru

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey on Thursday said that he has submitted a notice in the Lok Sabha to initiate a substantive motion against Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for allegedly “fomenting public sentiments” in Parliament through foreign funding, reported The Indian Express.

A substantive motion is a formal proposal placed before the House for discussion and decision. If admitted by the speaker, it entails a debate followed by a compulsory vote.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Dubey said that he has sought the cancellation of Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership. “He should be debarred from contesting the election for a lifetime,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying.

Dubey also said that he had not moved a privilege motion against Gandhi.

A privilege motion is brought when a member believes that the privileges of the House or of its members have been breached. It is examined by the speaker. If admitted, it may be referred to the Committee of Privileges for inquiry.

In his notice, the BJP MP said that Gandhi has engaged with the Soros Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development, and travelled to countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the United States to take part in “anti-India activities”, The Indian Express reported.

Dubey alleged in the notice that Gandhi has “very cleverly…captured the most pious dais of Parliament to foment public sentiments, levelling unsubstantiated allegations…against the Election Commission…[and] Supreme Court…lowering the dignity of the government without any substantive evidence and putting various other institutions in bad light”, the newspaper reported.

He also said that Gandhi’s conduct is unethical and added that the Congress leader is a key part of a “thuggery gang to destabilise India from within”.

Dubey said that Gandhi’s “relentless and well-choreographed actions, within and outside Parliament, are inimical to our country”, The Indian Express reported.

In response, Congress leader KC Venugopal told the newspaper that Dubey’s move was an attempt to divert attention from the matters Gandhi had raised. “It’s self-defence for the BJP,” The Indian Express quoted Venugopal as saying.

On Wednesday, Gandhi participated in the debate on the Union Budget. He alleged that the BJP-led Union government had “sold Bharat Mata” through the trade deal between India and the United States.

He claimed the deal was a “wholesale surrender” with India’s energy security handed over to the US and farmers’ interests compromised.

The Congress leader also mentioned that Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s name featured in the Epstein files.

The “Epstein files” refer to millions of documents, emails, photos and videos released by the US Department of Justice detailing the activities of Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted child sex offender, and his social circle that included politicians, celebrities and several public figures.

The documents released on January 30 contained email exchanges between Puri and Epstein that began in June 2014.

Puri has said his conversations with Epstein had nothing to do with the crimes for which the American financier had been convicted.

On Wednesday, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that the BJP “will demand expunging of whatever lies Rahul Gandhi has spoken”.

The Lok Sabha has witnessed disruptions since February 2, with the Opposition protesting against Gandhi not being allowed to quote an excerpt from the unpublished memoir.

Naravane wrote that he had, in line with the protocol, sought “clear direction” from Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, General Bipin Rawat, who was the chief of defence staff at the time, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Naravane said that hours after first seeking orders, he had been told by Singh that he had spoken with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that the military was to do whatever it deems appropriate.

The former Army chief wrote in his memoir that this implied that the Indian response was to be “purely a military decision” and that “the onus was now totally on [him]”.

The excerpts from the book that Gandhi had been attempting to quote from in the Lok Sabha had been reported in December 2023 and were quoted by The Caravan magazine on February 1.

BJP MPs had been objecting to the Congress MP speaking on the matter, arguing that he cannot quote from a book that had not yet been released.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a writ petition filed by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh against the government’s decision to grant environmental clearances to development projects after they had already begun, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi questioned how a writ petition could be filed, considering the court had already approved the policy in November after it reversed a May ruling that had allowed such clearances.

In a 2:1 decision in November, the court recalled its May judgement that had declared such post-facto approvals illegal. The majority said that the earlier judgment would have required the demolition of many buildings and public projects that had been approved through ex post facto clearances over the years.

BR Gavai, the chief justice at the time, had said that several of these projects were worth more than Rs 20,000 crore and that destroying them now would cause more environmental harm than good.

On Thursday, the court questioned the purpose of the petition before it by saying it amounted to indirectly filing a review petition of its judgement, Live Law reported.

“If you are aggrieved by the judgement, then you know your remedy,” PTI quoted the bench as saying. “How can you seek a review of a judgement in a writ petition?”

“Have you filed this for media publicity,” the chief justice asked while warning that the court would impose high costs on such petitions.

Following this, Ramesh’s counsel chose to withdraw the writ petition with liberty to avail remedy in accordance with law, Live Law reported.

The May judgement had restrained the Union government from granting ex post facto clearances in any form to regularise illegal constructions.

The court had struck down a 2017 notification and a 2021 Office Memorandum that allowed the government to grant post-facto environmental clearances, calling these and related circulars and orders illegal and arbitrary.

However, the bench had clarified at the time that environmental clearances already granted under the 2017 notification and the 2021 Office Memorandum would continue to remain valid.

The Enforcement Directorate has summoned former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his son Raninder Singh for questioning in connection with a case linked to the alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, PTI quoted unidentified officials as saying on Wednesday.

The two men have been accused of being beneficiaries of foreign assets, including a Swiss bank account.

While the central agency summoned Amarinder Singh, who is a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, to its Jalandhar office on Thursday, his son was asked to depose the next day, the officials told the news agency.

However, Amarinder Singh is unlikely to depose on February 12 as he had undergone a knee replacement surgery in Mohali on Tuesday and was recovering, The Indian Express reported.

However, Raninder Singh said in a social media post on Wednesday: “As law-abiding citizens, we will cooperate fully with every investigation agency. We have absolute faith in the rule of law and are confident that truth and justice will prevail.”

The matter stems from “credible” information and “master sheets” received by the Indian government from the French government in 2011, which claimed that the two men were beneficiaries of foreign assets that were maintained and controlled through foreign business entities, PTI reported.

This included a Swiss bank account and an asset in Dubai held through a trust.

In November 2016, the Income Tax Department filed a prosecution complaint, or a chargesheet, against Amarinder Singh and Raninder Singh in the court of the chief judicial magistrate in Ludhiana under sections of the Indian Penal Code, including prosecution for making false statements or producing false accounts/documents.

At the time, Amarinder Singh was part of the Congress. He left the party in 2022 after being removed as chief minister and subsequently joined the BJP.

The complaint filed in November 2016 in the magistrate court had cited data that was received by the Indian government from 2011, first from France and then from Dubai, Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands, The Indian Express reported.

The final voter lists roll for Goa, prepared as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, will now be published on February 21 after the Election Commission extended its deadline by one week.

The draft rolls for the state were published on December 16. More than one lakh names were deleted after being marked dead, absent or having shifted.

The state also has more than 1.8 lakh “unmapped” voters. These are persons whose names appear on the draft voter list but were not found on the 2002 rolls, when the last special intensive revision was held. They will have to attend hearings with relevant documents to retain their name on the final voter list.

Besides Goa, the special intensive revision is underway in 11 states and Union Territories.

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

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll.

The Kerala High Court on Thursday granted anticipatory bail to Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil in the first of three rape cases against him, Bar and Bench reported.

While granting bail, Justice Kauser Edappagath ordered Mamkootathil not to leave the country. As part of the bail conditions, the MLA was told to surrender his passport before the jurisdictional magistrate and was warned against attempts to influence the witnesses in the case.

The matter pertains to a complaint submitted directly to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on November 27 by a woman and her family, accusing the Palakkad MLA of rape, pregnancy through sexual assault and forced abortion.

The woman claimed that Mamkootathil recorded their intimate videos without her consent, adding that he also threatened to circulate them if she did not comply with his demands.

The bench was hearing a plea by Mamkootathil challenging a Thiruvananthapuram court’s refusal to grant him anticipatory bail in the case. On December 6, the High Court granted him interim protection from arrest in the matter.

On Thursday, the High Court ordered the expelled Congress leader to produce his mobile phone and appear before the investigating officer every second Saturday during the fixed time.

In his petition for anticipatory bail, Mamkootathil admitted to having a physical relationship with the complainant but claimed that it was entirely consensual.

However, the woman claimed that the MLA repeatedly attempted to mislead the High Court by presenting distorted versions of the event.

During the bail hearings, the High Court observed that Mamkootathil and the complainant had been in a consensual relationship before the alleged incident took place in March 2025, Bar and Bench reported. The bench was quoted as having said that the woman had admitted to have stayed with Mamkootathil after the incident for two days and had consensual sex.

Based on this statement by the complainant, the court asked the prosecution to clarify whether the alleged act in question was consensual sex or rape, Bar and Bench reported.

The prosecution was quoted as having told the court that it was a case of rape and alleged that the MLA had threatened the complainant with the videos.

However, the court said that it will examine the aspect of the videos separately.

He had already been granted bail in the other cases. In the second case, a sessions court in Thiruvananthapuram had granted him anticipatory bail on December 10.

On January 28, a sessions court in Pathanamthitta had granted him bail in the third rape case.

Mamkootathil had been arrested on January 11 in Palakkad after the complaint was filed in the third case.

In August, the Congress suspended Mamkootathil from its primary membership following multiple allegations from women of misconduct. Following this, he resigned from his post as the Kerala Youth Congress chief.

He was later expelled from the party but continues to serve as the MLA from Palakkad.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Union government to place on record within three weeks a report on the “procedural protocol” followed to conduct an inquiry into the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, which killed 260 persons, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also urged all those involved in the case not to be swayed by media reports on technical glitches, and to exercise restraint in commenting on any particular brand of aircraft.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, which was en route to London’s Gatwick airport from Ahmedabad, crashed 33 seconds after taking off.

There were 242 persons aboard the aircraft. One passenger survived with “impact injuries”.

Nineteen persons were killed on the ground after the aircraft crashed into the hostel building of the BJ Medical College and Hospital in Ahmedabad.

On Wednesday, the bench was hearing a batch of petitions filed in the matter, including one filed by 91-year-old Pushkarraj Sabharwal, the father of late Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot-in-command.

Pushkarraj Sabharwal and the Federation of Indian Pilots have sought a court-monitored judicial inquiry into the crash.

“This very unfortunate accident,” Live Law quoted the chief justice as saying on Wednesday. “It’s not a small tragedy for any nation. For a parent losing a pilot son like this, we can understand...But let us also be very very conservative in making observations against any particular brand of aircraft.”

He added that there “was a time [when the] Dreamliner was treated as one of the best and safest aircraft”.

During the proceedings, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Union government and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, told the court that the inquiry by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau was in its final stages, and that some parts of it needed to be carried out in foreign countries, PTI reported.

Mehta asked that the petitions be listed after three weeks for a comprehensive hearing.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing non-governmental organisation Safety Matters Foundation, said that three other Boeing 787s had met with similar incidents, PTI reported.

The NGO had also sought an independent, court-monitored investigation into the crash.

“Don’t go by the media reports,” Live Law quoted the chief justice as saying in response.

Kant added that there were media reports of a Boeing 787 from London to Bengaluru suffering an issue related to a switch. However, the airline later came out with an official statement that the switch was in order, he added.

Bhushan further noted that the Union government had not filed any response to the petitions. He added that in the ongoing Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau inquiry, five members were from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, whose regulatory actions were also under the scanner.

The advocate also said that the Union government’s manual, or the 2017 Aircraft Investigation of Accidents and Incidents Rules, “requires that in such matters when there is a serious accident involving loss of lives, there has to be a court of inquiry, which is in addition to if not in substitution of this investigation”, The Indian Express reported.

The advocate further claimed that 8,000 pilots had written to the Union government saying that the Boeing 787s were unsafe and should be grounded.

However, the court said that it had not heard of this development.

The Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has claimed that a post on its X handle showing Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma symbolically firing at two Muslim men was “unauthorised”, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.

One of the four co-convenors of the Assam BJP’s social media cell has been removed from his position in connection with the video. State BJP chief Dilip Saikia told the newspaper that the post by the co-convener was “immature” and “unauthorised”.

A first information report has also been registered in connection with the video, PTI quoted Sarma as saying

The video, which was posted by the Assam unit of the BJP on Saturday, has since been deleted following criticism.

The clip combined what appeared to be original footage of the chief minister handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated images portraying Muslims as targets. On-screen text included slogans such as “Foreigner free Assam”, “No mercy”, “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis”.

The Opposition Congress and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen filed complaints with the police against Sarma and the BJP for the video. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India also moved the Supreme Court.

The co-convenor of the Assam BJP’s social media cell, who was removed after the video received criticism, was among four party workers appointed to the position by Saikia in August 2025, The Indian Express reported. The convener of the cell is 33-year-old Biswajit Khound.

Saikia told the newspaper that the party was concerned about “illegal immigrant Bangladeshis in Assam”, adding that there had to be a movement in the society against this.

“But the party does not support the idea of a mala fide intent of targeting Muslims with bullets,” the newspaper quoted him as saying, “It was mishandled by an immature and unauthorised person; the party took note, and we got the video deleted.”

Khound also noted that content was created and posted on social media by a team of party workers who worked as volunteers. There was no private agency involved, he added.

Saikia also said that co-conveners had the authority to upload posts themselves on routine matters such as party programmes and greetings.

“But he is not authorised to put up sensitive material, that too using the image of the chief minister out-of-context, without permission from the in-charge Ranjib Sarma or from the chief minister’s office,” the newspaper quoted the state BJP chief as saying.

Ranjib Sarma is in charge of social media in the state.

Sarma on Wednesday said the police have filed a case in connection with the video based on a complaint by the Congress, PTI reported. He said that a BJP worker had also filed a complaint on the same subject.

Sarma told reporters that he and the BJP do not support anything that goes against Assamese Muslims.

“We are not against Assamese Muslims but against Bangladeshi Muslims, Miya Muslims,” the news agency quoted the chief minister as saying. “That photograph [in the video] should have made the difference [clear] between Bangladeshi and Indian Muslims.”

In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party will seek to expunge Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in the Lok Sabha, claiming that they were “full of lies”.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi participated in the debate on the Union Budget. He alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government had “sold Bharat Mata” through the trade deal between India and the United States.

He claimed the deal was a “wholesale surrender” with India’s energy security handed over to the US and farmers’ interests compromised, reported PTI.

The Congress leader also mentioned that Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s name featured in the Epstein files, according to The Indian Express.

The “Epstein files” refer to millions of documents, emails, photos and videos released by the US Department of Justice detailing the activities of Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted child sex offender, and his social circle that included politicians, celebrities and several public figures.

The documents released on January 30 contained email exchanges between Puri and Epstein that began in June 2014, reported Al Jazeera.

On Wednesday, Rijiju said that the BJP “will demand expunging of whatever lies Rahul Gandhi has spoken”.

The minister claimed that although Gandhi had promised to authenticate the comments, “he [Gandhi] cannot authenticate them because he lied”.

The BJP leader also accused Gandhi of deliberately lying and then leaving Parliament before others could reply.

“Our party has taken a stand that we will counter Rahul Gandhi’s lies outside, but inside the House, a notice will be issued,” he said.

The Lok Sabha has witnessed disruptions since February 2, with the Opposition protesting against Gandhi not being allowed to quote an excerpt from the unpublished memoir.

Naravane wrote that he had, in line with the protocol, sought “clear direction” from Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, General Bipin Rawat, who was the chief of defence staff at the time, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Naravane said that hours after first seeking orders, he had been told by Singh that he had spoken with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that the military was to do whatever it deems appropriate.

The former Army chief wrote in his memoir that this implied that the Indian response was to be “purely a military decision” and that “the onus was now totally on [him]”.

The excerpts from the book that Gandhi had been attempting to quote from in the Lok Sabha had been reported in December 2023 and were quoted by The Caravan magazine on February 1.

BJP MPs had been objecting to the Congress MP speaking on the matter, arguing that he cannot quote from a book that had not yet been released.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Calcutta High Court to examine whether invoking the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was justifiable in an investigation into the violence in Murshidabad’s Beldanga area following the death of a migrant worker in January, Hindustan Times reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymala Bagchi was hearing the West Bengal government’s challenge to a January 20 order by the High Court that asked the National Investigation Agency to consider whether it should invoke its suo moto powers to probe the violence.

Violence was reported in Beldanga after the death of 36-year-old Alauddin Sheikh, a migrant worker in Jharkhand.

Sheikh’s family members had alleged that he was beaten to death and later hanged to make it appear as a suicide. Protests erupted after his body was brought back to the village. Those protesting claimed that migrant workers from Murshidabad face repeated attacks and unsafe conditions in other states because they are Bengali speakers.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court told the National Investigation Agency that it had invoked section 15 of the anti-terror Act “without looking into documents”.

“The case diary was not placed before you...this is a pre-decisional conclusion arrived at,” said the bench. “Every emotional outburst cannot be packaged as a threat to economic security!”

However, it declined to interfere at this stage and held that it would be best if the Calcutta High Court itself resolved the matter, Bar and Bench reported.

The top court ordered the probe agency to submit a report on the status of its investigation before the High Court in a sealed cover.

The High Court’s January 20 order came on two public interest litigations before it that sought the deployment of central forces in Beldanga after the violence, The Indian Express reported.

One of the petitions was moved by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state and the second by a Beldanga resident.

Following the High Court’s order, the Union government on January 28 ordered a National Investigation Agency probe in the case, PTI reported.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for the National Investigation Agency, maintained that there was a strong basis for a probe, Bar and Bench reported.

“This is a porous border near Bangladesh,” Raju said. “There was violence and deadly weapons were used...We are doing an independent investigation.”

The Supreme Court allowed a mechanism proposed by the Assam government to clear alleged encroachments in forests. The bench said that the course of action to be adopted “contains sufficient procedural safeguards”.

Residents of villages in the state’s reserved forests had moved the court after receiving eviction notices that alleged that they had illegally occupied the land. They argued that their families had lived in the villages for more than 70 years and that they had been issued identity documents by the state.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma described the Supreme Court’s ruling as a “historic victory” of the Assam government, saying that it streamlined the process to evict alleged encroachers. Read on.

‘The police watched as my home was burnt’: Why Assam’s Karbi Anglong went up in flames

The Union government told the Supreme Court that activist Sonam Wangchuk cannot be released from detention on medical grounds, saying that he is “fit, hale and hearty”. During a hearing earlier this month, the court had asked the government to rethink Wangchuk’s detention, considering that his “health is not that good”.

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj told the court that Wangchuk was a chief provocateur in the violent protests, alleging that he instigated young persons by giving examples of Nepal and Arab Spring. He also claimed that Wangchuk had used “hybrid expressions”.

To this, the court said that the government was reading “too much” into the words. Read on.

Nine false claims about Sonam Wangchuk – and why they fall flat

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that lakhs of “doubtful voters” had been removed in the state based on complaints filed by workers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party during the special revision of electoral rolls. “This is only the beginning,” the chief minister said.

He added that more names of “such people” will be removed when the special intensive revision takes place.

On Tuesday, the Election Commission said that an additional 2.4 lakh names were deleted in the final list after 10 lakh voters were removed from the draft released in December. Read on.

Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing vandalised a Bangladeshi food stall at an international food event at a college in Pune. An unidentified student told The Indian Express that The men were also trying to attack Bangladeshi students.

A video posted on social media by the Pune city head of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha showed members of the organisation arguing with students and the security guards, shouting slogans, vandalising the kiosk and burning the Bangladeshi flag.

College authorities said that they were in the process of filing a complaint. Read on.

The Union home minister directed that all six stanzas of the national song Vande Mataram be sung first when it is played together with the national anthem Jana Gana Mana.

Only the first two stanzas of the song have been played at official functions so far. The remaining stanzas, which invoke Hindu goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, had been omitted. Read on.

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The Union home minister has directed that all six stanzas of the national song Vande Mataram be sung first when it is played together with the national anthem Jana Gana Mana, the Hindustan Times reported.

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

In October 1937, the Congress Working Committee had passed a resolution adopting the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram as the national song. The Bharatiya Janata Party has long alleged that the Congress had agreed to drop the four stanzas to “appease Muslims”.

In December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticised the Congress in Parliament, alleging that Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, had supported Muhammad Ali Jinnah in opposing Vande Mataram when the resolution was adopted because it could “irritate Muslims”.

In its January 28 order, the home ministry laid down protocols for singing the national song during official functions such as the arrival of the president at formal events, unfurling of the national flag and speeches of governors. The details about the order became public on Wednesday.

At such events, all six stanzas of Vande Mataram are to be sung, the duration of the song to be 3 minutes and 10 seconds.

In schools, morning assemblies have been directed to include group singing of the national song, The Times of India reported.

The persons gathered where the national song is sung will need to stand in attention, according to the directive.

However, the audience is not expected to stand in attention with the national song is played as part of a newsreel or documentary as doing so “is bound to interrupt the exhibition of the film and would create disorder and confusion rather than add to the dignity of the national song”, PTI quoted the order has having said.

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

The ministry said that it encourages mass singing of the official version of Vande Mataram on occasions such as the unfurling of the national flag, on cultural occasions or ceremonies other than parades, and on the arrival of the president at any government or public function.

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

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

However, the Constitution mentions only the national anthem, not Vande Mataram.

Also read: Vande Mataram debate: The novel in which the poem appears is a cry for freedom – but from whom?

The Union government on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that activist Sonam Wangchuk cannot be released from detention on medical grounds, saying that he is “fit, hale and hearty”, Live Law reported.

“He had some digestive issue and he is being treated for that,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court. “There is nothing to worry. Nothing alarming.”

A bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and PB Varale was hearing a petition filed by Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo challenging the activist’s detention under the National Security Act.

Wangchuk was detained on September 26 and taken to a jail in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur after protests in Leh demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. During the protests, demonstrators clashed with and threw stones at security personnel, injuring several of them. Four persons were killed in police firing.

During the hearing on February 4, the court had verbally asked the Union government to rethink Wangchuk’s detention considering that his “health is not that good”.

On Wednesday, the Union government said that it cannot make exceptions based on health grounds, Bar and Bench reported.

“The grounds on which the detention order was passed, continues,” Mehta told the court. “It will not be possible to release him on health grounds. It may not be desirable also. We have given utmost consideration.”

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj also told the court that Wangchuk was a chief provocateur in the violent protests, alleging that he instigated young persons by giving examples of Nepal and Arab Spring, PTI reported.

However, the court said that Wangchuk had instead expressed concerns about a violent protest, Bar and Bench reported.

“He is worried,” the legal news outlet quoted the bench as saying. “We will have to take the entire sentence…read it…‘some people are abandoning Gandhian peaceful ways. This is worrying’...the focus is departure from non-violent way, departure is something worrying.”

In response, Nataraj claimed that Wangchuk had used “hybrid expressions”, to which the court said that the Union government was reading “too much” into the words.

The court will continue hearing the matter on Thursday.

Including Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution would allow for the creation of autonomous development councils to govern land, public health and agriculture.

In August 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the state into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

The lack of a legislature in Ladakh has led to increasing insecurities among the residents of the Union Territory about their land, nature, resources and livelihoods, and stoked fears that the region’s cultural identity and fragile ecosystem may be in jeopardy.

Following Wangchuk’s detention, key regional groups Apex Body Leh and Kargil Democratic Alliance withdrew from the talks with the government, stating that “talks cannot be held at gunpoint”.

Also read: Nine false claims about Sonam Wangchuk – and why they fall flat

A Muslim man was booked under Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion law in Meerut after his fiancée’s uncle filed a police complaint objecting to their interfaith wedding, The Times of India reported on Wednesday.

The wedding ceremony of Akanksha Gautam, who is a Buddhist, and Shahvez Rana was to be held on Friday.

Akanksha Gautam’s uncle, Premchand Gautam, filed a complaint at the city’s Ganga Nagar police station, saying that Rana’s name was mentioned as “Sahil” in the wedding card distributed by the woman’s family.

Some members of Hindutva organisations had accompanied him to the police station. They alleged that it was a case of “love jihad”, Dainik Bhaskar reported.

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.

In his complaint to the police, Premchand Gautam said that Akanksha Gautam was “misled by Sahil”.

“He deceived her with the intention of grabbing property and conspired to marry her after manipulating and brainwashing her,” The Times of India quoted Premchand Gautam as having said in his complaint. “I fear for my niece’s safety.”

Meerut Superintendent of Police (Rural) Abhijeet Kumar told The Times of India that a first information report has been registered in the matter.

Rana has been booked under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita sections pertaining to criminal intimidation, along with provisions of the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

The controversy began after copies of the wedding card were shared on social media. The card from the bride’s side mentioned that the groom was named Sahil, while the card printed by the groom’s family said his name was Shahwaz Rana, according to Dainik Bhaskar.

The woman’s mother, Lata Rani, explained that this was because she had given Rana the nickname “Sahil”, which was printed on the card.

“We know the boy’s entire family,” the mother told Dainik Bhaskar. “There is no case of love jihad. My brother-in-law’s allegations are baseless.”

Akanksha Gautam accused her uncle of interfering in the matter because he wants to usurp her family’s property.

“Ever since my father’s death three years ago, he has been eyeing our property,” The Times of India quoted her as saying. “He knew that I was in a relationship with Sahil for the past six years. His concerns for me are fake and full of vested interest.”

She also clarified that she is a Buddhist and that she was marrying Shahvaz Rana of her own free will.

A Hindutva organisation, called the Hindu Suraksha Sangathan, has pressured the owner of the resort where the wedding was due to take place to cancel the event, UP Tak reported.

Sachin Sirohi, the president of the organisation, threatened that he would oppose the wedding irrespective of where it would be held, Bharat Samachar reported.

In response, the bride told the news outlet that Sirohi had no right to interfere in her wedding.

#मेरठ| हिंदूवादी संगठन के नेता सचिन सिरोही की गुंडागर्दी देखिये!

थाने के गेट पर खड़े होकर कह रहे है मेरठ में शादी नही होने देगें. दूसरे राज्य में शादी करेगें तो वहीं जाकर रोकेगें. उनका पीछा भी करेगें. यह लव-जेहाद है. वेन्यू वालों की हैसियत नही कि कार्यक्रम करवा दें, कैंसिल होगा https://t.co/nezrk3gXeS pic.twitter.com/wp5reowePC

— Narendra Pratap (@hindipatrakar) February 10, 2026

She also refuted the allegations of “love jihad” by saying: “Love-jihad will only happen as long as it’s a Hindu-Muslim matter. I’m not even a Hindu, I’m a Buddhist. I follow Buddhism. I don’t even believe in goddess worship.”

Her mother said that Rana and Akanksha Gautam’s wedding is “within the framework of the Indian Constitution”, The Times of India reported.

“I fully stand by my daughter and Shavez,” the newspaper quoted Rani as saying. “They will get married come what may. And if need be, we will approach the high court.”

"लव-जेहाद तक होगा जब हिंदू-मुस्लिम मैटर होगा. मैं हिंदू हूँ ही नही, मैं बौद्धिस्ट हूं. मैं बौद्ध धर्म को मानने वाली हूं. मैं देवी पूजा भी नही मानती.

-आकांक्षा, हिंदूवादी नेताओं से परेशान दुल्हन pic.twitter.com/fMlNN6KIyM

— Narendra Pratap (@hindipatrakar) February 10, 2026

On February 2, the Supreme Court sought responses from the Centre, and the governments of Uttar Pradesh and 11 other states on a petition contending that anti-conversion laws in these states criminalise voluntary and conscience-based change of faith.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant issued had notice to the Union law ministry, and to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing vandalised a Bangladeshi food stall at an international food event at the Maharashtra Institute of Technology World Peace University in Pune.

It was unclear when the incident took place.

On Wednesday, a video posted on social media by Dushyant Mohol, the Pune city head of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, showed members of the organisation arguing with students at the stall and the security guards, shouting slogans, vandalising the kiosk and burning the Bangladeshi flag.

The event had stalls from several countries.

An unidentified international student attending the event told The Indian Express that a group of 20 to 30 men had vandalised the stall. “We had already asked all Bangladeshi students to go inside, but one girl was out, and they were trying to attack them as well,” the student was quoted as saying.

Ganesh Pokale, the registrar of the university, told the newspaper that the vandals were outsiders and not from the institute.

The newspaper quoted the college authorities as saying that they were in the process of filing a complaint.

Senior Police Inspector Sandeep Deshmane told The Indian Express that the police were aware of the incident and had sought more details from the university.

BJP youth wing threatens to disrupt events

In the caption of the post, Mohol said that the glorification of “anti-Hindu forces will not be tolerated” in Pune.

Since the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government came to power in Bangladesh, Hindu temples in that country “are being demolished every day, Hindu mothers and sisters are facing atrocities and Hindus are being burned alive”, Mohol said.

Yunus, a Nobel laureate, had become the head of Bangladesh’s interim government in August 2024 after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India after several weeks of widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government.

“As soon as the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha heard about this anti-national act, we immediately rushed to the spot,” Mohol said. “We destroyed the platform of those who dared to spread ‘anti-India’ ideology on the soil of Pune and registered our strong protest by burning the Bangladeshi flag!”

Posing a question to the university, Mohol asked: “Whose interest are you really working for? India or anti-India forces? First Pakistan and now Bangladesh...Stop such businesses immediately!”

“If this does not stop, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha will give an even more aggressive and befitting reply,” he said. “All colleges including MIT should take serious note of the fact that such events will be disrupted in Pune from now on.”

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed a mechanism proposed by the Assam government to clear alleged encroachments in forests, saying that the course of action to be adopted “contains sufficient procedural safeguards”.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe was hearing petitions and appeals filed by residents of villages located in the Doyang, South Nambar, Jamuna Madunga, Gola Ghat and other reserved forests.

Assam’s forest department had issued eviction notices to the petitioners, alleging that they had illegally occupied land in the reserved forests.

The petitioners and appellants had argued that they and their families had resided in the villages for more than 70 years and that they had been issued Aadhaar cards, ration cards and other identity documents by the state.

During the hearing, the state government had filed an affidavit saying that it would set up a joint committee comprising officials from the forest department and the revenue department. The panel will give the residents an opportunity to submit evidence showing that they have the right to occupy the land.

The action to remove the residents can only be taken after it is proven that they have been encroaching on the land. A 15-day notice is to be provided through speaking orders to vacate the land.

The bench on Tuesday directed that the status quo be maintained “in respect of land in occupation” of the appellants and petitioners till speaking orders are passed, and till the 15-day period expires.

The court said that the mechanism sought to be adopted by the Assam government for removing the alleged encroachment “conforms to the principles of fairness, reasonableness and due process”.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assured the court that the state’s mechanism shall be complied with objectively and with fairness, it added.

The bench observed that encroachments on forest land had emerged as “one of the gravest challenges confronting environmental governance in the country”, adding that Article 51A(g) of the Constitution imposes a fundamental duty on citizens to protect nature.

The court added that constitutional governance demands that environmental protection be pursued through lawful means.

“The mandate to clear the encroachments from the forest land does not authorise an arbitrary action,” it said, adding that the Constitution insists that environmental protection and the rule of law must co-exist and reinforce each other.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma described the Supreme Court’s ruling as a “historic victory” of the Assam government, saying that it streamlined the process to evict alleged encroachers, ANI reported.

“...If encroachment happens in the forest area, then the state government has the right to evict,” the news agency quoted Sarma as saying. “The committee can decide it.”

In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court has empowered Assam to effectively fight encroachments in forests.

A committee will be constituted to determine whether an area is forest or revenue land- once that determination is done, evictions can begin in just 15 days. pic.twitter.com/ETkiqGoT5j

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) February 11, 2026

The Supreme Court on Tuesday described as “too Harvard-oriented” a handbook published in 2023 under former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud to avoid gender stereotypes during court proceedings, The Times of India reported.

The 30-page Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes, released in August 2023, is a glossary of “gender-unjust terms” that the Supreme Court wanted the legal community to avoid when preparing petitions, orders, and judgements. The handbook also suggests alternatives.

On Tuesday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and NV Anjaria directed the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal to frame new guidelines and submit a report.

Among the recommendations in the handbook is the use of the word “woman” to replace terms such as “career woman”, “fallen woman”, “harlot”, “seductress” and “whore”.

The framing of the handbook was led by Chandrachud, who obtained a Master of Laws degree in 1983 and a Doctorate in Juridical Sciences in 1986 from Harvard Law School in Massachusetts, United States.

The Supreme Court was hearing a suo moto case on an Allahabad High Court order from March that held that acts such as grabbing a minor’s breasts and breaking open the drawstring of her pyjama did not constitute an offence of attempt to rape or rape.

The order was stayed later that month by the Supreme Court, which had described the High Court’s observations as shocking.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court order and directed the trial court to proceed against the two persons accused in the case.

During the hearing, the bench also took into account the handbook on gender stereotypes that had been prepared in 2023, observing that it assigned forensic meanings to different aspects of sexual assault.

This may not be understood by victims, their families or common citizens, the bench said.

Kant said that the handbook was too technical and “Harvard-oriented” to be of any real help, The Times of India reported.

The bench directed the National Judicial Academy to form a committee of domain experts, academicians and lawyers to revisit the matter and frame new guidelines, the newspaper reported.

The chief justice added that once these guidelines were finalised, they should be made part of the study material at the National Judicial Academy. High Court judges must also be trained in batches on the sensitivities required to deal with sexual assault cases, he added.

“It serves no purpose to sermonise the HC judges sitting in the Supreme Court,” the newspaper quoted Kant as having said. “They must get practical training at NJA.”

In his foreword on the handbook, Chandrachud had said that the document aimed to help judges and the legal community to identify, understand and combat stereotypes about women.

“Relying on predetermined stereotypes in judicial decision-making contravenes the duty of judges to decide each case on its merits, independently and impartially,” the former chief justice had said. “In particular, reliance on stereotypes about women is liable to distort the law’s application to women in harmful ways.”

The handbook also suggests the use of phrases such as “street sexual harassment” instead of “eve-teasing”. It adds that the term “mother” to replace “unwed mother”, and “sexually harassed, assaulted or raped” instead of “violated”.

The handbook also notes that terms such as “survivor” and “victim” were both applicable to describe those affected by sexual violence. This was unless the persons concerned expressed a preference, which should then be respected, it added.

“Judges must be vigilant against all forms of gender biases and ensure that every person, regardless of their gender identity, is treated equally and with dignity,” the handbook stated.

The White House on Tuesday dropped a reference to pulses from a fact sheet about the trade deal between the United States and India. This means that the item is not among the commodities on which tariffs for the US are known to have been reduced or eliminated.

A joint statement announcing the agreement on February 6 did not contain any reference to pulses, and the White House’s addition of the term later sparked criticism from the Opposition in India.

The fact sheet had earlier said that New Delhi will eliminate or reduce tariffs on “all US industrial goods” and a wide range of American food and agricultural products, “including dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits and additional products”.

After the framework for the interim trade deal was announced, farmer unions under the banner of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha called for nationwide protests.

They described the agreement as a direct threat to Indian agriculture, dairy and rural livelihoods, The Indian Express reported.

According to the Unified Portal for Agricultural Statistics, India’s total pulses production in 2024-’25 was 252.3 lakh tonnes.

In the same year, India exported 793,291.5 metric tonnes of pulses.

Separately, the earlier fact sheet by the White House had also said that India had “committed” to buying more American products, and purchasing $500 billion worth of US energy, information and communication technology, agriculture, coal and other products.

The document has now been modified to read that India “intends” to buy more American products.

The updated fact sheet on Tuesday also removes an earlier statement that said that India “will remove its digital services taxes”. The current version reads: “India committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade.”

Just in: White House drops pulses, changes 'committed' to 'intends' for $500 bn purchase in updated White House Fact Sheet on India Trade Deal

Updated Fact Sheethttps://t.co/jPJ2qpY0Ko https://t.co/X9TwHBBu0Z

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) February 11, 2026

On Tuesday, the Congress had questioned whether the additions in the US fact sheet meant that the list that Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal presented at a press conference was not a “final or exhaustive” one.

“It now looks like a rolling, expandable inventory, gradually widened to serve American export interests at the cost of Indian farmers,” the Congress’ publicity chief Pawan Khera had said.

Indian goods had been facing a combined US tariff rate of 50%, including a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August for purchasing Russian oil. Trump had on Saturday removed the additional 25% punitive levy, bringing the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports down to 18%.

This was after India and the US agreed on a framework for the interim trade deal on February 2. The agreement had reduced US tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 25%.

Following the announcement, Opposition parties also expressed concern that farmers’ interests were being jeopardised.

On February 4, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in Parliament that the interests of sensitive sectors such as agriculture and dairy will be protected under the trade deal between India and the US.

However, farmer unions have alleged that the framework contradicts repeated assurances by Goyal that agriculture and dairy would be kept outside of the agreement.

An executive order issued by the White House on Friday had also stated that the 25% punitive tariff was being withdrawn as New Delhi had committed to stop “directly or indirectly” importing Russian oil.

On Monday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri refrained from making a direct reference to the US’ claim, but reiterated New Delhi’s position that decisions on importing oil will continue to be guided by “national interests”.

After the joint statement was released on Saturday, the Opposition alleged that the trade agreement would be “heavily tilted in favour of the US” and that the deal amounted to a surrender by the Narendra Modi government.

A magistrate court in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar on Tuesday convicted journalist Ravi Nair in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Limited about a series of posts on social media platform X, and sentenced him to imprisonment for one year, PTI reported on Tuesday.

The case pertained to a series of tweets posted by Nair from October 2020 to July 2021 about the Adani Group, including allegations by US short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on Nair, ANI reported.

Commenting on the verdict, the journalist made a reference to a poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz and said: “Hum Dekhenge [We will see]”.

Hum dekhenge 🦾

— Ravi Nair (@t_d_h_nair) February 10, 2026

The case was based on a complaint filed by Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Group, alleging that Nair published and disseminated a series of posts on the social media platform X containing false and defamatory statements intended to damage its reputation.

The company alleged that Nair’s posts did not amount to fair comment or legitimate criticism but were designed to undermine the credibility of the firm in the eyes of the public and investors.

The court held that the offence of defamation had been proved, ANI reported. It also noted that the matter was triable as a summons case and therefore did not require a separate hearing on punishment.

The magistrate said that Nair, as a journalist and public commentator, was expected to be conscious of the reach and impact of the statements made on digital platforms, especially when making categorical allegations that could affect reputations.

The court also refused to extend the benefit of probation, adding that the journalist was a mature individual aware of the consequences of his actions, ANI reported. The judge added that granting probation in such cases would dilute the deterrent effect of the law and send a wrong message in cases involving reputational harm.

A simple imprisonment along with a financial penalty would adequately reflect the seriousness of the offence without being excessively harsh, the court held.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that he has filed a Rs 500-crore defamation suit against three Congress leaders, including the head of the party’s state unit Gaurav Gogoi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said on social media that he had filed a case against Gogoi, Jitendra Singh, Bhupesh Baghel “for making false, malicious and defamatory allegations” against him during a press conference.

Sarma did not specify the allegations he was referring to.

However, the case came following a press conference on February 4 in which the Congress launched a campaign against Sarma, alleging that around “12,000 bighas of land have been grabbed in the name of his family members in different parts of the state in violation of rules”, The Indian Express reported.

Gogoi had said that the party was investigating and tracing the sources of the chief minister’s asset , The Assam Tribune reported.

Hours after that press conference, Sarma said he would initiate contempt proceedings against the three politicians and Congress’ Legislative Party leader Debabrata Saikia.

“The era of hit-and-run politics is over,” he had said on social media at the time. “If they have even an ounce of courage or evidence, let them prove every allegation before a court of law.”

The defamation complaint by Sarma came the same day the Congress’ Assam unit filed a police complaint against the BJP for sharing a video depicting Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men at point-blank range.

The video, which was posted by the BJP’s Assam unit on Saturday, has been deleted following criticism.

The clip combined what appeared to be original footage of the BJP leader handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated images portraying Muslims as targets. On-screen text included slogans such as “Foreigner free Assam”, “No mercy”, “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis”.

On Tuesday, Congress MLAs Sibamoni Bora and Diganta Barman filed a complaint against the BJP in Guwahati.

The MLAs stated that the content “targeting a particular community is highly provocative and communal, which will definitely lead [to] social disharmony amongst the people”.

On Sunday, Sarma told reporters that he had not seen the video.

“Has anything been posted from my account?” Times Now quoted the chief minister as saying. “I am the chief minister of Assam...I have to speak with responsibility.”

Assembly elections are expected to be held in March or April.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Tuesday told The Indian Express that Moscow hopes that the recent trade deal between India and the United States will not harm ties between New Delhi and Russia.

“Trade volumes [between India and Russia] have been reasonably high, but potential is even higher,” Ryabkov said in an interview to the newspaper. “So I’m sure that for India, there should be place for everyone and capabilities to interact with everyone.”

His remarks come after the United States rolled back an additional 25% punitive tariff it had imposed on Indian goods in August for purchasing Russian oil. The levy had taken the combined US tariff rate on Indian imports to 50%.

On February 7, US President Donald Trump withdrew the additional 25% levy, bringing the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports down to 18%, after the two countries agreed on a framework for an interim trade deal.

An executive order issued by the White House had said that the punitive tariff was being removed as New Delhi had committed to stop “directly or indirectly” importing Russian oil.

The US had been alleging that India’s purchases of Russian oil helped fuel the war in Ukraine, while New Delhi had maintained that its oil purchases were aimed at ensuring its own energy security.

In his interview to The Indian Express on Tuesday, the Russian deputy foreign minister said that he hoped that “the result of this [US-India trade] deal would not mean that we [India-Russia ties] suffer or experience difficulties and troubles in our bilateral interactions”.

Ryabkov added that the current US policy was problematic because the North American country wanted everything for themselves and nothing for others.

“This is a unilateral approach at its worst,” he said.

Ryabkov told The Indian Express that the US linking trade with the conflict in Ukraine and telling others to stop trade with Russia was “completely unacceptable”.

While India continues to import crude from dozens of countries, nearly 25% of its oil imports are still sourced from Russia, according to The Hindu. However, imports from Russia fell to a 38-month low in December and major refiners including Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Reliance Industries have avoided placing advance orders for April

The Election Commission on Tuesday extended the deadline for hearings of notices sent to voters as part of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in West Bengal to February 14, The Hindu reported.

The date for publishing the final voter list has been moved to February 28 from February 14.

The extension came after the state’s chief electoral officer on February 7 sent a formal request to the poll panel for an extension, citing pending work, the newspaper reported.

It also came after the Supreme Court on Monday directed that the deadline for scrutinising documents and objections under the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in West Bengal be extended at least for a week after February 14.

It also ordered the state director general of police to respond to the Election Commission’s allegations that the exercise to revise electoral rolls in the state was marred by violence and intimidation.

The court passed the order on a batch of petitions challenging the exercise in West Bengal. A petition by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, contending that the revision of the poll rolls was being conducted in a partisan and hurried manner ahead of the Assembly elections, had also been listed.

Assembly elections in the state are expected to be held by April.

In a notification to the chief electoral officer on Tuesday, the Election Commission said that the schedule for the state had been revised in compliance with the directions issued by the court, The Hindu reported.

While the dates for completing the hearings have been revised to February 14 from February 7, the deadline for the scrutiny of documents has been extended to February 21.

The exercise is in its final phase, with only about 3% to 5% hearings remaining, the newspaper quoted the state chief electoral officer as saying. However, around 25% of document uploading and digitisation was pending, he added.

The draft electoral rolls for West Bengal under the special intensive revision exercise were published on December 16. The names of over 58 lakh voters were removed from voter lists in the state as they had either died, migrated outside the state or did not submit their enumeration forms.

The deletion from the draft roll is provisional and citizens can object to their names being removed from the list. Citizens whose names have been dropped from the list can file their claims and objections.

The revision exercise is currently in the claims and objections stage in the state, during which voters identified for verification are being called for personal hearings.

Over 94.4 lakh persons were also summoned for hearings under the “logical discrepancies” category, The Hindu reported. More than 31.6 lakh voters who were classified as “unmapped” were also asked to appear for hearings.

Voters with “logical discrepancies” in their forms are separate from those whose names were removed, and from the “unmapped voters”, who could not establish a familial link with the voters’ list of 2002.

Logical discrepancies include a mismatch in parents’ names, low age gap with parents and the number of children of the parents being above six.

Besides West Bengal, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway in 11 other states and Union Territories.

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

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll.

In Assam, something unexpected is happening. Journalists who once ruled TV studios and newspaper columns are now speaking straight to audiences from YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

These are not just short clips. They are long-form interviews and deep discussions covering everything from land rights and migration to the environment, updates on the investigation of the death of pop star Zubeen Garg and the state’s relationship with the central government.

It looks like a simple move from the TV studio to the smart phone but is actually a total makeover of Assam’s political world ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

For decades, audiences trusted the news because it came from big institutions with editors who followed rules of professionalism. While these systems were not perfect, they provided a sense of stability. Today, that stability is crumbling.

Intimate conversations

Unlike the radio podcasts popular in the West, Assam’s digital revolution is visual. These video podcasts feel like a conversation in a living room. This intimate style is a sharp contrast to the aggressive, often angry tone of TV news.

In a state shaped by complex questions of land, citizenship, borders, migration and ethnic identity, nuance matters. Yet traditional news often flattens these debates into easy “us versus them” frames. Podcasts work differently. With long-form conversations featuring experts, activists and community voices, this slower journalism helps citizens grasp not just what is happening, but why it is happening.

As the state heads toward the 2026 elections, these shows are becoming a vital classroom for the public. Instead of just hearing a political slogan, voters can watch an interview where a candidate’s manifesto is compared to the state’s actual development history.

There are three main reasons why many of Assam’s most respected journalists are leaving mainstream newsrooms.

Journalists in many mainstream outlets now lack job security and professional freedom. Salaries are falling, workloads are rising and newsrooms are often more focused on “clicks” than on the public interest.

In addition, censorship by proprietors and by fears of the mob has increased. It has become increasingly difficult to report critically on sensitive issues such as citizenship or ethnic conflict within traditional media houses.

Finally, many television journalists have “shouting match” fatigue. Television news has become a series of short, loud segments that leave no room for actual analysis, they say

By starting their own podcasts, these journalists are aiming to take back control. They no longer have to answer to corporate bosses or political pressure groups. Instead, they answer directly to their viewers.

Their credibility now comes from their personal reputation and years of local knowledge rather than the logo on their microphone.

The challenges

However, this new media ecosystem is not without its pitfalls. Freed from traditional editors and newsrooms, journalists now find themselves accountable to algorithms instead, no longer shaped by bosses, but by opaque technological systems that determine what is seen and heard online.

To make money and stay visible on YouTube or Facebook, creators often need high engagement. This means their content must attract frequent “likes”, comments, shares, longer watch time and active audience interaction. This can sometimes tempt even the best journalists to focus on personality-driven drama or controversial topics that go viral, rather than dry but important policy issues.

There is also the danger of living in an echo chamber. On social media, audiences usually follow voices that match their own views. When they listen only to podcasts that confirm what they already believe, politics becomes more divided instead of more open and understanding.

Furthermore, politicians have realised the power of this format. Many now prefer appearing on shows by friendly podcasters where they can chat casually, rather than facing a tough, adversarial interview in a traditional news studio. This can make it harder for the public to hold leaders accountable.

A new chapter

Despite these risks, the rise of podcasting is a positive sign for Assam. It has created a space where local voices can discuss local problems in regional languages, without waiting for national media in Delhi to take notice.

It allows for a “regional memory” to take centre stage. Discussions on current events are now frequently linked back to the state’s history such as colonial land laws or post-Independence migration giving the audience a much richer understanding of their own home.

Podcasting has enabled the emergence of parallel political public spaces where regional histories, governance debates, identity struggles and developmental dilemmas are interpreted outside metropolitan frames and newsroom constraints.

As the 2026 election approaches, the podcast has become more than just an app on a phone: it is the new town square. It is where political reputations will be made and where the most important debates about Assam’s future will take place.

This shift reflects both the crisis of institutional journalism and the search for alternative communicative infrastructures capable of sustaining depth, complexity and contextual reasoning.

Podcasting in Assam gives more people a voice, shifts power, encourages deeper conversations and challenges traditional authority.

The success of this new media won’t just depend on the technology, but on the ethics of the journalists and the curiosity of the viewers. If audiences use these platforms to seek out depth and honesty, the digital revolution could lead to a much better informed, more engaged voting public.

Alankar Kaushik teaches media studies at EFL University, Shillong.

The Union government on Tuesday directed social media platforms to remove artificial intelligence-generated and altered content, including deepfake videos, within three hours of it being flagged by a competent authority or the courts.

Deepfakes are techniques to manipulate audio and video content with the help of artificial intelligence software to show people saying or doing things that they never said or did. The content is made to appear as realistic as possible and is often used with malicious intent.

On Tuesday, the Union government notified amendments to the 2021 Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, which formally define AI-generated and synthetic content.

Issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the notice said that new rules will come into effect from February 20.

The amendments include definitions of “audio, visual or audio-visual information” and “synthetically-generated information”, while covering AI-created or altered content that appears authentic.

However, routine editing, accessibility improvements, and good-faith educational and design work have been excluded from the definitions.

Significant changes include treating synthetic content as “information”, while AI-generated content will be treated on par with other information for determining unlawful acts under IT rules, PTI reported.

Other changes include the mandatory labelling of AI content.

The notification also said that social media platforms enabling the creation or sharing of synthetic content should ensure that such content was clearly and prominently labelled and embedded with permanent metadata or identifiers, where technically feasible, The Indian Express reported.

Social media platforms cannot allow removal or suppression of AI labels or metadata once applied, it added.

The notification also said that social media platforms must act on government or court orders within three hours. The platforms were earlier given 36 hours to take action.

It further called for a ban on illegal AI content.

The notification said that social media platforms should deploy automated tools to prevent AI content that was illegal, deceptive, sexually exploitative, non-consensual, or related to false documents, child abuse material, explosives or impersonation.

Amendments introduce rights violations: Advocacy group

The advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation said that the new notification introduces “severe digital rights violations that fundamentally undermine constitutional protections”.

Drastically compressing content removal timelines turns intermediaries into “rapid fire censors”, said the group.

It added that the “impossibly short timelines” eliminate any meaningful human review, forcing social media platforms toward automated over-removal and creating a “prior restraint regime incompatible” with Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution on freedom of speech and expression.

The advocacy group said that the rules also introduce sweeping new prohibitions absent from the draft that was put to consultation. It added that the rules continue to impose proactive monitoring obligations that transform intermediaries from neutral conduits into “active censors of speech”.

In November, the government consolidated 44 labour laws into four labour codes – the Code on Wages, the Industrial Relations Code, the Code on Social Security and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code.

In this episode of our discussion series, veteran lawyer and activist Indira Jaising, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress Amarjeet Kaur and general secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative Gautam Mody explain to Harsh Mander how this move has effectively dismantled even the weakened labour protections of earlier labour laws.

They have legitimised a regime of contract and casual work, even in the formal public sector, and of hire and fire. They have excluded the majority of workers from the weak labour protections that remain. The right to form unions, to collectively bargain and to strike have been substantially decimated.

The participants question why trade unions were not involved in the consultation process of the codes.

They also argue that the new labour codes reinforce social hierarchies by forcing those who are already considered lower in society to remain exactly where they are. The conversation also leads to a troubling recognition that the labour codes are not merely economic reforms, but also perpetuate the caste-based oppression within the labour system.

Buckwheat, once grown mostly in marginal soil in the Indian Himalayas, is now regaining attention for its nutritional properties and its ability to grow in harsh mountain conditions where other crops fail.

Apart from being a dependable food source, the crop’s abundant flowers support beekeeping, leading to the production of high-value buckwheat honey.

Scientists at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-Kashmir) are now encouraging farmers to combine buckwheat cultivation with apiculture as a way to improve incomes and strengthen mountain agriculture.

Resilient properties

Buckwheat is one of the pseudo-cereals (not belonging to the true grass family) that contains protein of high nutritional value, dietary fibre, resistant starch, vitamins and minerals.

Buckwheat – both the common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) and tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tartaricum) – is a high-altitude, cool-climate annual plant. It is native to Central Asia, cultivated in China and other Eastern countries as a bread-corn.

In India, the crop is widely grown in the high mountains of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. In South India, it is sporadically grown in the Nilgiris and Palani hills.

What makes buckwheat particularly suited to these regions is its ability to thrive where other crops struggle.

“Buckwheat adapts well to poor soils, high altitudes, and short growing seasons,” says Sajad Zargar, an associate professor in the Division of Plant Biotechnology at SKUAST-Kashmir. Zargar’s research focuses on conserving and improving diverse plant material to develop climate-resilient, nutritionally rich buckwheat varieties suited to sustainable agriculture in temperate and high-altitude regions. He adds, “It (buckwheat) can grow from about 1,000 metres to over 4,000 metres above sea level and performs its best in cool conditions, typical of the Himalayan region.”

Unlike wheat or rice, buckwheat does not demand fertile soil or heavy fertiliser inputs. It grows well in light, well-drained soils and completes its life cycle within 70-90 days. “This short growing window allows the crop to escape early frosts and late-season climate stress, which is an important advantage in places such as Gurez, Kargil and Leh, where low temperatures, limited rainfall and delicate soils define agriculture,” Zargar explained.

Saika Bashir, a researcher on Zargar’s team, notes that while prolonged heat especially during flowering can affect yields, buckwheat’s overall resilience makes it a promising option in a changing climate. “It requires less water and fewer nutrients than crops like rice and wheat and can tolerate poor soils. Though it is not immune to heat stress, its flexible sowing window and low input needs give farmers more room to adapt,” she says.

As climate change begins to disrupt traditional cropping calendars across the Himalayas, buckwheat is increasingly being viewed as a resilient alternative.

Slow revival

Despite its high agricultural and nutritional significance, buckwheat cultivation has decreased over the years in the Western Himalayas of India. The easy availability of wheat and rice in the government stores, unavailability of market, and the tastes for cereals have played a major role in the decline in cultivation of buckwheat, according to Bashir.

However, while buckwheat remains underutilised at the national level, the interest in the crop is slowly returning. Growing awareness of its health benefits, particularly its gluten-free and diabetic-friendly properties, has created new demand in urban markets. “We are seeing a revival, especially in niche and organic farming systems,” Zargar says. “In some Himalayan areas, farmers are beginning to see buckwheat as a potential income crop, rather than just a fallback option.”

He continued, “This shift is reflected in the emergence of value-added products such as buckwheat flour, noodles and traditional specialty foods. However, the transition is uneven. Limited access to quality seed, unavailability of standard cultivation practices, lack of processing facilities, and weak market linkages continue to constrain expansion.” Targeted support, both institutional and policy-driven, is essential if buckwheat is to reclaim its place in alpine agriculture, Zargar added.

To make the crop more attractive to farmers, researchers have also begun exploring ways to integrate buckwheat with other livelihood activities. One such approach combines buckwheat cultivation with beekeeping and it has shown promising results in Ladakh.

Buckwheat honey in Ladakh

In Ladakh’s farming system, buckwheat occupies a unique niche. Kargil district spans nearly 14,000 sq km and includes some of the coldest inhabited regions in the country. In high-altitude areas such as Drass, Zanskar and Panikhar located at about 3,200 metres above sea level, the growing season lasts barely four months.

Farmers here grow only one crop, barley, their staple food, leaving no room for diversification. But in relatively warmer pockets near Kargil town and the Aryan Valley located about 65 kms away, at around 2,400 metres, the growing season extends from March to mid-October.

“After harvesting barley, farmers in these areas have a narrow window to grow a second crop and buckwheat fits neatly into that slot,” says Faizan Ahmed, Chief Scientist and Dean, School of Agriculture Science and Technology, Kargil, University of Ladakh.

In 2025, for the first time, buckwheat honey was successfully extracted in Kargil. The initiative was led by the School of Agriculture Science and Technology (SAST), Kargil, in collaboration with SKUAST-Kashmir. Following a carefully planned floral calendar, buckwheat was sown on July 22, and bee colonies were introduced in August, and the honey was harvested in October.

Beekeeping in the Himalayas, however, is not without challenges. Harsh winters make it impossible to maintain bee-colonies year-round. “Below four degrees Celsius, bee activity drops sharply, and prolonged cold can wipe out colonies,” Ahmed points out. “As a result, beekeeping in the region is migratory”.

During winter, colonies are moved to warmer areas such as Jammu or Rajasthan, where mustard crops provide nectar as they are in flowering at that time. During spring, they return to Kashmir to coincide with the flowering of apple and apricot orchards. By early summer, Kashmir faces a floral gap that is an absence of flowering plants. It was this gap that sparked the idea of buckwheat honey.

The experiment was built on earlier success with alfalfa, a perennial fodder crop widely grown in Ladakh. Beginning in 2019, School of Agriculture Science and Technology, Kargil and SKUAST-Kashmir extracted honey from alfalfa. “But alfalfa flowering ends by mid-July. By synchronising buckwheat sowing so that its flowering followed alfalfa, researchers were able to retain bee colonies in Kargil longer and harvest honey again. Also, we trained around 150 farmers during the alfalfa project,” he says.

Buckwheat honey is light and translucent. “While the quality analysis is still underway, the honey is expected to be of high quality, as buckwheat cultivation in the region is entirely organic,” he says.

Financial barriers

Buckwheat honey production still remains at an early stage. Farmers are interested, but only a few can afford the initial investment required for migratory beekeeping.

Ghulam Mohammad Akhoon, a farmer from the outskirts of Kargil town, was among those trained during the alfalfa honey programme. “Earlier, I thought beekeeping was only for people in Kashmir or Jammu,” he says. “Seeing honey extracted here (in Kargil) changed our thinking.”

Akhoon already grows buckwheat and views beekeeping as a natural extension. “The crop is already there. Bees will improve pollination, seed quality, and give us honey as extra income,” he says. But starting the venture is expensive. A single bee colony Rs 18,000-Rs 20,000, and at least 30 to 40 colonies are needed to make the operation viable. Including safety gear, transport and training, the investment can Rs 7-Rs 8 lakh.

Similar concerns are echoed in Aryan Valley, where another local farmer Tsering Gangzom says that beekeeping is a way to make farming viable for the next generation. “We saw with our own eyes that honey can be produced here,” he says. “But the risk is high. If colonies die or transport fails, the loss is too big for small farmers.”

Both the farmers also note that government support is essential. “The assistance during the initial cycle including colonies, transport subsidies, and structured schemes is what we need. Once that support comes, many farmers will join,” he says.

Ahmed too argues that economically, the model has potential. “From 30 colonies, about 1.5 quintals of honey at a price Rs 1,500 per kilogram can be harvested per crop. With multiple harvests across Jammu, Kashmir and Kargil, the annual production can reach eight quintals. At current prices, the returns are substantial. But without institutional backing, the risks remain high.”

The scientists at SKUAST- Kashmir stressed that for buckwheat farming to continue, farmers need basic support like good-quality seeds, practical guidance, and reliable markets. “Without assured buyers and fair prices, many shift to other crops. Local processing facilities can reduce losses and improve returns, while training in value addition and certification can help farmers access health-food markets. Most importantly, they need government support through schemes, cooperatives and nutrition programmes that would further strengthen confidence,” Zargar says.

He notes, reviving buckwheat in Himalayan agriculture will depend on combining science, markets and tradition. “Promoting it as a healthy, heritage crop, encouraging value-added products like flour and buckwheat honey, and supporting small local enterprises can help turn buckwheat into a viable and sustainable livelihood option.”

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday cited a December 2023 social media post by former Indian Army chief MM Naravane announcing that his memoir was “available now”, PTI reported.

This came after the publisher of the book, Penguin Random House India, said on Monday that the memoir had not yet been published.

On Tuesday, Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament that he believes the word of the former Army chief over the publisher.

Gandhi read a December 15, 2023, post by Naravane on social media platform X, which said: “Hello friends. My book is available now. Just follow the link. Happy reading. Jai Hind.”

A screenshot shared by Naravane in the tweet showed a post by Penguin India, which had announced that readers could “pre-order” the book.

“Penguin is saying the book is not published,” PTI quoted Gandhi as saying. “The book is available on Amazon. General Naravane has tweeted, as I just read to you, that please buy my book. He tweeted this in 2023. Do you believe Penguin over Mr Naravane? I believe Mr Naravane.”

The Opposition leader said that some statements made by Naravane in the book were inconvenient to the Union government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

#WATCH | On Delhi Police files FIR to investigate alleged circulation of former Army chief General MM Naravane's (Retd) unpublished book, LoP Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi says," Here is a tweet from Mr Naravane which says -"Just follow the link to my book". The point I am making is -… pic.twitter.com/zeHbtzJpjJ

— ANI (@ANI) February 10, 2026

Responding to Gandhi’s comments on Tuesday, Penguin Random House India said that “an announced book, a book available for pre-order and a published book are not the same thing”.

In a note about its process, the publisher, which holds the rights for Naravane’s Four Stars of Destiny, said that a book being made available for pre-ordering “is a standard publishing practice” that allows readers and retailers to place advance orders. “The book is not yet published or available,” it said.

It said that a “scheduled publication date does not mean the book is planned for release” and “does not mean the book has been published”.

“A book is published only when it is available at retail channels for purchase,” it added.

Gandhi’s comments came after Penguin Random House India on Monday clarified that the book has not gone into publication, and maintained that it did not make any copies of the book public.

“Any copies of the book currently in circulation, in whole or in part, whether in print, digital, PDF, or any other format, online or offline, on any platform, constitutes an infringement of PRHI’s copyright and must immediately be ceased,” the publisher said, adding that it would take legal action against the unauthorised dissemination of the book.

In his first comments since the row erupted, Naravane quoted this statement on social media on Tuesday to say “this is the status of the book”.

The statement by the publisher on Monday came after the Delhi Police said it had filed a first information report in connection with the alleged circulation of the unpublished memoir.

The FIR followed disruptions in Parliament since February 3, with the Opposition protesting against Gandhi not being allowed to quote an excerpt from the memoir about the political decision-making during the 2020 border tensions between India and China.

The excerpts from the book that Gandhi had been attempting to quote from in the Lok Sabha had been reported in December 2023 and were quoted by The Caravan magazine on February 1.

BJP MPs had been objecting to the Congress MP speaking on the matter, arguing that he cannot quote from a book that had not yet been released.

The Opposition submitted a motion indicating its intention to move a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Signed by about 120 MPs, the notice cited Birla’s “blatantly partisan manner” of conducting proceedings in the House and said that “leaders of Opposition parties have just not been allowed to speak” on several occasions.

Members of the Trinamool Congress were not among the signatories. Party leader Abhishek Banerjee said that the TMC wants to pursue a “constructive and calibrated” approach. Read on.

The Congress’ Assam unit filed a police complaint against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for sharing a video depicting Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men. Additionally, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja moved the Supreme Court seeking action against Sarma for remarks targeting the Muslim community.

Responding to the plea, Chief Justice Surya Kant observed that ahead of elections, political battles find their way into the Supreme Court. Elections in the state are expected to be held in March or April.

In their complaint, Congress MLAs Sibamoni Bora and Diganta Barman stated that the content of the video “targeting a particular community is highly provocative and communal, which will definitely lead [to] social disharmony”. Read on.

Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ make a mockery of the Constitution

An additional 2.4 lakh names were deleted in the final voter list in Assam as compared to the draft list in the special revision of the electoral rolls in the state. In the draft voter list released on December 27, the names of more than 10 lakh voters had been deleted.

There were 2.52 crore voters in the state, according to the draft list. The final list showed that Assam had 2.49 crore voters, which was a 0.97% decrease compared to the draft roll. Read on.

BJP workers in Assam say their names used to seek mass voter deletion – without their knowledge

The Allahabad High Court stayed a Sambhal court order directing the filing of a first information report against Additional Superintendent of Police Anuj Chaudhary in connection with allegations that a man had been shot and injured during an unrest in the town in November 2024.

The bench noted that the complainant, who is the father of the man who was allegedly shot, had earlier been granted 14 days to file a counter to the appeal filed by the police. The judge added that the stay would remain in effect until then. Read on.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi cited a December 2023 social media post by former Indian Army chief MM Naravane announcing that his memoir was “available now”. This came after the publisher of the book, Penguin Random House India, said that the memoir had not yet been published.

In his first comments since the row erupted, Naravane quoted this statement on social media to say “this is the status of the book”. On the other hand, Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament that he believes the 2023 statement of the former Army chief over the publisher. Read on.

After the White House released a fact sheet about the India-United States trade deal, the Congress said that the “Modi government is working to Make America Great Again”. The fact sheet said that New Delhi will eliminate or reduce tariffs on “all US industrial goods” and a wide range of American food and agricultural products.

This included “dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits and additional products”. The Congress reacted to this by saying that in three days, “pulses have quietly entered the deal”. “It now looks like a rolling, expandable inventory, gradually widened to serve American export interests at the cost of Indian farmers,” said the party. Read on.

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Streaming platform Netflix on Tuesday told the Delhi High Court that the film Ghooskhor Pandat will be renamed, Live Law reported.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav was also told that all the promotional material for the film had been taken down. The court was hearing a petition seeking directions to stay the release of the film on Netflix.

The petition was filed amid a row that erupted after Netflix on February 3 released its slate of films and series for 2026. A teaser for Ghooskhor Pandat, directed by Neeraj Panday and Ritesh Shah, was also released.

The film, starring Manoj Bajpayee, Nushrratt Bharuccha and Shraddha Das, was criticised by some groups for its title that allegedly vilified the Brahmin community.

The use of the word “pandat”, associated with the Brahmin community and also meaning a priest, with “ghooskhor”, a term for someone who accepts bribes, sparked the uproar.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had also filed a first information report against the makers of the film for allegedly hurting public sentiments and disturbing social harmony.

During the hearing in the High Court on Tuesday, the petitioner claimed that the title of the film was communally offensive, and could cause harm to the dignity and reputation of the Brahmin community, Bar and Bench reported.

The counsel for Netflix told the court that the producers of the film had decided to change its title to something that would more accurately reflect its narrative and intent.

The film was a reformative fictional police drama, the counsel said, adding that the earlier title Ghooskhor Pandat had led to unintended interruptions that did not align with its content.

The counsel also said that the film was at the editing stage.

The court noted that the producer had taken a “conscious decision” in light of the concerns raised against the title of the film, Live Law reported. The judge disposed of the petition, noting that nothing more was required to be adjudicated.

In light of the controversy, Pandey said on Friday that the film was a fictional police drama, adding that the term “pandat” had been “used simply as a colloquial name for a fictional character”.

The story focused on a character’s actions and choices, and did not comment on or represent any caste, religion or community, the director had said in a statement.

Pandey had also said that in light of the concerns raised about the film, his team had “decided to take down all promotional materials for the time being, as we believe the film should be experienced in its entirety and understood in the context of the story we intended to tell, rather than judged on partial glimpses”.

Bajpayee had said in a statement that he respected the emotions and concerns shared about the film, adding that he took them seriously. The actor also said that the film was not meant to be a comment about any community.

Curfew was imposed and internet services suspended in Manipur’s Ukhrul district on Tuesday after unidentified armed persons set homes on fire, forcing residents to flee their homes overnight, India Today reported.

The armed groups allegedly torched houses in Litan Sareikhong village late on Monday and fired several rounds in the air. They set about 10 homes on fire, The Hindu quoted unidentified locals as saying.

Videos shared on social media showed several homes on fire.

Amid the unrest, several villagers fled to safer areas in the neighbouring Kangpokpi district, India Today reported. Tangkhul Naga villagers were also reported to have moved out.

The tensions in the district had been building since Saturday night after a Tangkhul Naga man was allegedly assaulted at Litan village. An attempt to resolve the matter through customary practices failed after a scheduled meeting between the complainant’s family and the chief of Litan Sareikhong village did not take place.

On Sunday, members of the two communities clashed at Litan, with persons from both sides throwing stones, officials said. This prompted the security forces to fire tear gas shells to disperse the groups.

Ukhrul District Magistrate Asish Das imposed restrictions under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita on Sunday, citing apprehension of a breach of peace.

The orders that came into force from 7 pm on Sunday prohibited the movement of persons outside their homes and activities that may disturb law and order in the notified area until further notice.

On Monday, Manipur Deputy Chief Minister Losii Dikho inspected the areas affected by the clashes. He said that he interacted with the village heads of the Kuki-Zo and Tangkhul Naga communities and added that “everyone wants to have peace”, ANI reported.

“Maybe 20-plus houses have been burnt,” he told ANI on Monday. “We are doing our best [to restore normalcy]...both communities are very positive. It has happened just because of a few individuals.”

Following the fresh violence that erupted late on Monday, the state government ordered a temporary suspension of internet services in Ukhrul district with immediate effect.

An order issued by the commissioner-cum-secretary (home) said that there was apprehension that “some anti-social” elements may use social media extensively to incite tensions in the state.

The order added that recent developments in Ukhrul had caused serious disturbance, posing a threat to public safety and peace. It said that internet services would be suspended in the district for five days as a preventive and precautionary measure from 11.30 am on Tuesday.

A curfew was also imposed in parts of the district.

On Tuesday, the police also flagged a “minor fire incident” in a village near Litan Sareikhong village.

“A minor fire incident occurred at around 12.10 am in K Lungwiram village, causing partial damage to a residential house,” the police said on social media. “Security forces from the nearby area promptly reached the spot and brought the fire under control.”

The police added that the fire was under investigation and the situation was under control.

The statement said that the Konsaram Village Authority had condemned the incident and appealed to the Centre and state government for immediate security deployment, relief measures and firm action to restore law and order.

The police said that officials had reached out to the villagers and assured them of peace and tranquillity in the area.

“Rumours circulating on social media claiming that Konshakhul residents fled to Kanto Sabal after the Litan incident have been found to be false,” the police added. “No villagers have moved out, except for a few students and families who have sought temporary rental accommodation due to the start of the new school session.”

The police urged the public not to “believe or spread false rumours”.

An additional 2.4 lakh names were deleted in the final voter list in Assam as compared to the draft list in the special revision of the electoral rolls in the state, the Election Commission said on Tuesday.

The Election Commission had been conducting a special revision of the voter list in Assam, which is similar to the usual updates to the electoral roll. Assam is not among the 12 states and Union Territories where the poll panel is conducting the special intensive revision of the voter lists.

The state is expected to head for Assembly elections in April or May.

In the draft voter list released on December 27, the names of more than 10 lakh voters had been deleted after a house-to-house verification process. Of these, 4.7 lakh names had been removed because of deaths and more than 5.2 lakh voters were identified to have shifted from their registered locations.

There were 2.52 crore voters in the state, according to the draft list.

After the draft rolls were published, the citizens whose names had been dropped from the draft could file their claims and objections till January 22.

The final list released on Tuesday showed that Assam had 2.49 crore voters, which was a 0.97% decrease compared to the draft roll.

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday stayed an order by a Sambhal court directing the filing of a first information report against Additional Superintendent of Police Anuj Chaudhary in connection with allegations that a man had been shot and injured during an unrest in the town in November 2024, Live Law reported.

Justice Samit Gopal of the High Court was hearing a petition filed by Chaudhary, who was the circle officer of Sambhal at the time of the violence. The judge listed the matter for hearing on February 24.

On November 24, 2024, violence broke out in Sambhal after a group of Muslims objected to a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Chandausi town.

A trial court had ordered the survey in a suit claiming that the mosque had been built in 1526 by Mughal ruler Babar on the site of the “centuries-old Shri Hari Har Temple dedicated to Lord Kalki”.

Five persons were killed in the violence.

Yameen, the father of one of the men who was allegedly shot, had moved the court in Sambhal. He claimed that his son, Alam, had left home that day to sell rusks and was allegedly shot by the police near the mosque.

The petition, which named Chaudhary, Inspector Anuj Tomar and other police personnel, had been filed before the court in February 2025.

On January 9, the court in Sambhal ordered the FIR against Chaudhary, Tomar and several unidentified police personnel.

Vibhanshu Sudheer, who was the chief judicial magistrate at the time, observed that the police cannot invoke the “official duty” shield for criminal acts, PTI reported. Citing Supreme Court rulings in his order, Sudheer had noted that firing upon a person cannot be considered a discharge of official duties.

The Sambhal Police had said at the time that it would challenge the order.

Sudheer was among the 14 judicial officers transferred on January 20 by the High Court, days after he directed the FIR against the police officers. He was transferred to Sultanpur as a civil judge (senior division).

Aditya Singh, who was the civil judge (senior division) at Sambhal’s Chandausi town, had replaced him. Singh was the judge who passed the order directing a survey of the mosque in Chandausi town.

On Tuesday, the High Court noted that the complainant had earlier been granted 14 days to file a counter to the appeal filed by the police, Live Law reported. The judge added that the stay would remain in effect until then.

However, Justice Gopal left the question of maintainability open to be considered after the filing of the counter-affidavit.

During the proceedings, the counsel for the government argued that the chief judicial magistrate at the time had exceeded the boundaries of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the new code of criminal procedure, by ignoring mandatory safeguards under the law, Live Law reported.

It added that the police officers were not given an opportunity to respond to the allegations against them before Sudheer.

On the other hand, the counsel for the complainant questioned the maintainability of the petition, arguing that the state government was supporting the police officers working under the principal secretary (home).

The home secretary, who had approached the High Court, was supposed to act in the capacity of parens patriae, the counsel added.

Parens patriae is a legal doctrine empowering the state to act as guardian for persons unable to care for themselves, such as minors, the incapacitated or those with disabilities.

“The protector of the citizen,” Live Law quoted the counsel for the complainant as saying. “A person has been shot, he is to protect the citizens...At this stage, the state is jumping to protect its own officers, which cannot be allowed otherwise the justice will derail.”

The Opposition on Tuesday submitted a notice indicating its intention to move a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, citing the “blatantly partisan manner” of conducting proceedings in the House.

“On several occasions, leaders of Opposition parties have just not been allowed to speak, which is their democratic right in Parliament,” the notice said.

According to Article 94 of the Constitution, a Lok Sabha speaker can be removed if the House passes a no-confidence resolution. However, a 14-day notice needs to be given indicating the intention to move the resolution.

Birla on Tuesday asked the secretariat to “examine the notice and expedite the process”, PTI reported.

About 120 Opposition MPs had signed the notice, according to the news agency. Members of the Trinamool Congress were not among them.

The Opposition MPs cited several grievances with Birla.

They noted that on February 2, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was not allowed to complete his speech on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address. Gandhi is “almost invariably not allowed to speak”, they added.

The notice said that on February 3, eight Opposition MPs were “arbitrarily suspended” for the remainder of the Budget Session and “are being penalised merely for exercising their democratic rights”.

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

The Opposition was protesting against Gandhi not being allowed to quote an excerpt of an unpublished memoir of former Indian Army chief MM Naravane about the political decision-making during the 2020 border tensions between India and China.

On February 4, a Bharatiya Janata Party MP was “permitted to make wholly objectionable and personalised attacks” about two former prime ministers “without being reprimanded even once despite disregarding established conventions and norms of propriety”, the Opposition said.

“In spite of our request, no action has been taken against this particular Member of Parliament, who is a habitual offender,” the notice said.

The Opposition also quoted Birla as having claimed on February 5 that he had received information that Congress MPs were approaching the prime minister’s chair in the Lok Sabha and could cause an unexpected mishap. Birla was quoted as saying that to ensure such a situation does not arise, he had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the House.

The prime minister was expected to respond in the Lower House to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address. However, the proceedings had been adjourned for the day because of protests by the Opposition.

The motion was passed by the House the next day without Modi’s reply.

Birla’s remarks “cast blatantly false allegations” against Congress MPs and are derogatory in nature, the Opposition said. The speaker making the comments on the floor of the House was “indicative of an abuse” of his constitutional office, read the notice.

In an apparent error, the notice submitted by the Opposition mentioned the events as having taken place on dates in February 2025, not February 2026.

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

Trinamool Congress not a signatory

The Trinamool Congress did not sign the notice for the no-confidence motion, saying that it wants to pursue a “constructive and calibrated” approach, The Hindu reported.

Party leader Abhishek Banerjee was quoted as saying that the speaker should first act on the Opposition's grievances. “And if he doesn’t act, then we can unitedly move a no-confidence motion,” he said.

On Monday, West Bengal’s ruling party said it would appeal to Birla to consider revoking the suspension of the eight Opposition MPs, saying that Parliament must function smoothly and that the Opposition should be allowed to speak.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja have moved the Supreme Court seeking action against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for remarks targeting the Muslim community, Live Law reported on Tuesday.

Later in the day, the Congress’ Assam unit filed a police complaint against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for sharing a video depicting Sarma symbolically firing at images of two Muslim men at point-blank range, PTI reported.

The video, which was posted by the Assam unit of the BJP on Saturday, has since been deleted following criticism.

The clip combined what appeared to be original footage of the BJP leader handling rifles with artificial intelligence-generated images portraying Muslims as targets. On-screen text included slogans such as “Foreigner free Assam”, “No mercy”, “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” and “There is no forgiveness to Bangladeshis”.

On Tuesday, Advocate Nizam Pasha mentioned the Left parties’ petitions before Chief Justice Surya Kant seeking urgent listing.

“We seek urgent intervention of this court with respect to disturbing speeches made by the sitting CM of Assam, including a recent video posted where he is shown as shooting at members of a particular community,” Live Law quoted Pasha as submitting before the court. “Complaints are filed, but no FIRs are registered.”

Responding to the plea, Kant observed that ahead of elections, political battles find their way into the Supreme Court, Live Law reported.

Elections in the state are expected to be held in March or April.

Kant added that the court would examine the matter and provide a date for hearing.

In Assam, Congress MLAs Sibamoni Bora and Diganta Barman lodged a complaint against the BJP at Dispur Police Station in Guwahati.

The MLAs stated that the content “targeting a particular community is highly provocative and communal, which will definitely lead [to] social disharmony amongst the people”, PTI reported.

On Monday, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi filed a complaint with the Telangana Police against Sarma for the video.

Sarma said later that day that he is “against Bangladeshi infiltrators and will continue to be against them”, ANI reported.

On Sunday, Sarma told reporters that he had not seen the video. “Has anything been posted from my account?” Times Now quoted the chief minister as saying. “I am the chief minister of Assam...I have to speak with responsibility.”

The Assam BJP post on Saturday came against the backdrop of a series of remarks that Sarma made targeting Miyas, or Bengali-origin Muslims, in the state. The chief minister had said that it was his job to “make them suffer”.

In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.

Plea in Supreme Court

The CPI (Marxist) and Raja have filed separate writ petitions seeking the registration of first information reports against the chief minister for offences related to hate speech and communal polarisation.

They have also sought the setting up of a Special Investigation Team by the Supreme Court, arguing that state and central agencies cannot be expected to conduct an independent and impartial inquiry, Live Law reported.

They have placed on record statements made by the chief minister between 2021 and February 2026 that allegedly call for the social, economic and civic exclusion of Bengali-origin Muslims, including calls to restrict access to livelihoods, transport, land and voting rights.

The petitions claim that these remarks have had real-world consequences, with reports of discrimination and harassment allegedly being justified by perpetrators as acting on the chief minister’s directions, Live Law reported.

It also added that the remarks violate the oath taken by the chief minister to uphold the Constitution, sovereignty, integrity, fraternity and equality.

The speeches are alleged to attract offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and electoral offences under the 1951 Representation of the People Act, Live Law reported.

On Monday, another writ petition was filed by 12 persons highlighting Sarma’s remarks, including references to “Miya” Muslims and “flood jihad”, and seeking directions to restrain holders of constitutional posts from making divisive statements, Live Law reported.

The Islamic clerics’ group Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind has also raised concerns about the chief minister’s speeches and urged the Supreme Court to issue similar directions, Live Law reported.

Also read: Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ make a mockery of the Constitution

Social media platforms Instagram, Facebook and X have blocked a parody animation posted by news outlet The Wire.

Its Instagram account was also reportedly unavailable in India for nearly two hours on Monday evening.

Visitors to the page saw a message stating that the page was “not available” in India because the platform was complying with “a legal request to restrict this content”.

The account was accessible only to users outside India or those using virtual private networks, The Wire reported.

The 52-second animated video, which was uploaded to Instagram, Facebook and X at about 6.30 pm on Saturday was blocked on all three platforms. As of 3 pm on Tuesday, The Wire’s Instagram account had been restored, though the parody animation remained inaccessible on all three sites.

The animation satirised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly avoiding questions in Parliament about an unpublished memoir by former Indian Army chief MM Naravane.

Since February 2, the proceedings in the Lok Sabha have disrupted several times with the Opposition protesting against Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi not being allowed to quote an excerpt from Naravane’s memoir about the political decision-making during the 2020 border tensions between India and China.

On February 5, the Lok Sabha passed the Motion of Thanks on the president’s address without Modi giving his customary reply, as Opposition MPs continued their protest. This was the first time since 2004 that the prime minister has not replied to the Motion of Thanks in the Lower House.

Birla had said that he had urged the prime minister not to come to the Lok Sabha to avoid a “mishap”.

I call upon all readers to widely share this cartoon. “I want this government to be criticised. Criticism makes democracy stronger”, @narendramodi once claimed. But this cartoon in The Wire by ‘56 Productions’ has obviously unnerved the Dear Leader because he got @AshwiniVaishnaw… https://t.co/Vfl2IQHg53

— Siddharth (@svaradarajan) February 9, 2026

On Monday, The Wire claimed that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting told the news outlet that it had not specifically ordered the blocking of its account.

The news outlet however claimed that it had “learned informally that the ministry asked Meta to block a 52-second satirical cartoon on Instagram” and that the platform’s parent company had blocked the entire account “in error”.

Under the Information Technology Act, the Union government is required to inform a publisher in advance before blocking specific content. The Wire has claimed that it had received no written communication on the matter.

The Bombay High Court on Monday granted bail to a man from Punjab who is accused in the murder of former Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Siddique.

On October 12, 2024, Siddique was shot dead allegedly by three men in Mumbai’s Bandra East area.

On Monday, a single-judge bench of Justice Neela Gokhale found no prima facie evidence linking 22-year-old Akashdeep Karaj Singh to the murder of the alleged crime syndicate, led by Anmol Bishnoi, that is named in the chargesheet.

Singh, who hails from a village in Punjab’s Fazilka district, was arrested in November 2024 and is the first suspect to secure bail in the case, the Hindustan Times reported.

Gokhale noted that while the acts allegedly committed by the crime syndicate led by Anmol Bishnoi were serious offences and the provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act were invoked correctly, there was insufficient material to show Singh’s involvement at this stage, Bar and Bench reported.

“I am unable to form an opinion that there are reasonable grounds, at this stage, for believing that the accusations against [Singh]...under the [organised crime act] are prima facie true,” the court held.

The prosecution had argued that Singh was an active member of the syndicate, citing alleged calls to co-accused Sujit Singh, unspecified international calls, a photograph of him holding a gun and an alleged cash deposit in Punjab that was later received in a Mumbai bank account.

The court found these claims inadequate to meet the stringent requirements for denying bail under Section 21(4) of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.

“Merely putting through a call to the mobile phone of [Sujit Singh] prima facie does not connect [Singh] with the organised crime syndicate, unless it is demonstrated that [Singh] had knowledge of [Sujit Singh] being engaged in assisting in any manner, an organised crime syndicate,” the court held. '“This fact can be established only during the trial.”

The bail was granted subject to several conditions, including a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh with local sureties, reporting to investigating officers every alternate Monday and a restriction on leaving Maharashtra or India without the court’s permission.

The court clarified that the order applied only to Akashdeep Karaj Singh, keeping all other contentions in the case open, and allowed the prosecution to move for cancellation of bail if any condition was violated, The Indian Express reported.

Singh had approached the High Court after a sessions court rejected his bail plea in July. He had contended that the allegations against him were “vague and baseless”.

After Siddique’s death in 2024, Shubham Lonkar, an alleged member of Lawrence Bishnoi’s group, had in a social media post claimed responsibility for the killing.

Lonkar had said then that Siddique was killed because of his close relationship with Khan and alleged connections to members of the underworld, including Dawood Ibrahim.

The chargesheet also names Anmol Bishnoi, the younger brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, accusing him of carrying out the killing to create an atmosphere of fear and establish the Bishnoi gang’s dominance in Mumbai.

Anmol Bishnoi was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in November after he was brought to India following his deportation from the United States.

Besides Anmol Bishnoi, the police have arrested 26 persons in the case.

The Opposition on Tuesday questioned the Union government after the White House released a fact sheet about the India-United States trade deal, mentioning Indian tariff cuts for US pulses.

The fact sheet released by the Donald Trump administration said that New Delhi will eliminate or reduce tariffs on “all US industrial goods” and a wide range of American food and agricultural products, “including dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, certain pulses, soybean oil, wine and spirits and additional products”.

The Congress said that the joint statement released by India and the US on Saturday had not mentioned “certain pulses”.

Moreover, the party’s publicity chief Pawan Khera said that the joint statement had stated that red sorghum imports would be “for animal feed” and that this “qualification [had] now vanished” from the US fact sheet.

“So in just three days – US time – pulses have quietly entered the deal, and usage conditions on red sorghum have disappeared,” Khera said.

“What [Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal] presented at his press conference was not a final or exhaustive list,” the Congress leader said. “It now looks like a rolling, expandable inventory, gradually widened to serve American export interests at the cost of Indian farmers.”

Khera added, “Modi government is working to Make America Great Again.”

As per the latest White House fact sheet on the Indo-US trade deal, dated 9 February 2026, India has agreed to:

“eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and a wide range of U.S. food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red… pic.twitter.com/lsjnIKBaWy

— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 (@Pawankhera) February 10, 2026

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said that the US through its fact sheet had “hammered again on its points regarding Russian oil and agricultural products”.

“There is no escape for India to mask it as an agreement rather than being coerced and forced order from US,” the Rajya Sabha member added.

In screenshots of the fact sheet in her social media post, Chaturvedi highlighted a sentence saying that Trump had agreed to scrap the additional 25% levy on imports from India “in recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil”.

Indian goods had been facing a combined US tariff rate of 50%, including a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August for purchasing Russian oil. Trump had on Saturday removed the additional 25% punitive levy, bringing the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports down to 18%.

This was after India and the US agreed on a framework for the interim trade deal on February 2. The agreement had reduced US tariffs on Indian goods to 18% from 25%.

An executive order issued by the White House on Friday had also stated that the 25% punitive tariff was being withdrawn as New Delhi had committed to stop “directly or indirectly” importing Russian oil.

On Monday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri reiterated New Delhi’s position that decisions on importing oil will continue to be guided by “national interests”. The foreign secretary, however, did not make a direct reference to Washington’s claim that New Delhi has committed to ending purchases of Russian oil.

After the joint statement was released on Saturday, the Opposition alleged that the trade agreement would be “heavily tilted in favour of the US” and that the deal amounted to a surrender by the Narendra Modi government.

Farmers’ interests protected, claims Centre

Goyal had on February 4 claimed in Parliament that the interests of sensitive sectors such as agriculture and dairy would be protected under the trade deal.

On Sunday, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that “no product that could harm [Indian] farmers has been included in the agreement”.

He said that there had been no Indian tariff concessions on products such as soybean, corn, rice, wheat, sugar, coarse grains, poultry, dairy, banana, citrus fruits, green peas, chickpeas, mung beans, oilseeds, among others.

“Hulled grains, flour, wheat, corn, rice, millet, potato, onion, peas, beans, cucumber, mushrooms, pulses, frozen vegetables...will not come to India,” the minister had said.

The Trinamool Congress on Monday said it would appeal to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to consider revoking the suspension of eight Opposition MPs, saying that the Parliament must function smoothly and that the Opposition should be allowed to speak, PTI reported.

The party’s national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee said that the Trinamool Congress would formally write to the Speaker seeking a review of the suspensions.

“We want the House to run, and it is the responsibility of the government to run the House,” he was quoted as saying. “The Opposition should also get time to speak.”

He added: “We have placed an appeal in front of the competent authority, we hope that the House will run.”

However, Banerjee declined to respond to a question about whether the party would support a no-confidence motion against Birla, which is being considered by some Opposition parties, the news agency reported.

The party reiterated its position later on social media stating that a Parliament which functions by silencing the Opposition cannot be said to be functioning at all.

It said that while orderly conduct of the House was essential, elected Opposition MPs represented millions of citizens and must be given the opportunity to speak.

“Their voices cannot be erased by arbitrary suspensions,” the party said.

A Parliament that runs by silencing the Opposition is not running at all.

Shri @abhishekaitc, Our Parliamentary Party Leader in the Lok Sabha, firmly stated that while orderly conduct of the House is essential, elected Opposition MPs must be given the time and opportunity to… pic.twitter.com/1969ARqBej

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) February 9, 2026

The Lok Sabha has witnessed disruptions since February 2, with the Opposition protesting against Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi not being allowed to quote an excerpt from an unpublished memoir of former Indian Army chief MM Naravane about the political decision-making during the 2020 border tensions between India and China.

On February 3, eight Congress MPs were suspended for the remainder of the Budget Session for throwing papers at the chair as they protested against Krishna Prasad Tenneti for calling on other members to speak before Gandhi had completed his speech.

Two days later, the Lok Sabha passed the Motion of Thanks on the president’s address without Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving his customary reply, as Opposition MPs continued their protest.

This was the first time since 2004 that the prime minister has not replied to the Motion of Thanks in the Lok Sabha

The same day Birla had said that he had urged the prime minister not to come to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday to avoid a “mishap”.

Three more workers succumbed to their injuries sustained in the February 5 blast at an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district, raising the overall toll to 30, The Times of India reported on Monday.

The explosion occurred at a mine in the Thangsko area of Mynsngat village on Thursday morning. The site of the explosion is located about 40 km from the district headquarters.

Two of the workers, Ramcharan Baisnab and Niman Uddin, both from Assam’s Cachar district, died while undergoing treatment in the Barak Valley. Another worker, Raju Tamang, was declared dead in Shillong.

On Monday, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said that the Meghalaya government would constitute a judicial inquiry commission to investigate the incident.

Two persons have been arrested in the matter so far. They were identified as 36-year-old Forme Chyrmang and 42-year-old Shamehi War.

A suo motu first information report has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, read with the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act and the Explosive Substances Act.

The deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of East Jaintia Hills appeared before the Meghalaya High Court in connection with the explosion on Monday. A division bench comprising Justices Hamarsan Sing Thangkhiew and Wanlura Diengdoh, which took suo moto cognisance of the matter, had sought details of the action taken so far.

The incident has once again drawn attention to the persistence of rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya, despite a ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal in 2014.

The rathole technique entails digging small vertical pits to reach the mineral, often making it dangerous for miners.

While the tribunal permitted the transportation of coal mined before the ban until 2017, the Supreme Court later granted periodic extensions to the deadline.

However, critics believe that the concessions left the mining ban incomplete, allowing miners to illegally extract and ferry freshly mined coal under the guise of transporting old coal.

A 2022 report prepared by a court-appointed panel confirmed these concerns after it found that the state had overstated the quantity of coal extracted before the ban by 13 lakh metric tonnes.

India’s decisions on importing oil will continue to be guided by “national interests”, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday.

The official neither confirmed nor denied United States President Donald Trump’s claim that New Delhi has committed to ending purchases of Russian oil.

Addressing reporters at a briefing on the visit of Seychelles President Patrick Herminie, Misri said that whether decisions were taken by the government or by businesses, national interest would remain the guiding factor.

The foreign secretary said India’s energy policy was driven by “adequate availability, fair pricing and reliability of supply”, describing energy sourcing as a “rather complex matrix of issues”.

Misri added that India’s approach was to maintain multiple sources of supply and diversify them to ensure stability. “I would say that the more diversified we are in this area, the more secure we are,” he said.

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

Notably, Misri did not respond directly to Trump’s executive order issued on Friday that removed the additional 25% punitive tariff on Indian goods imposed for New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil, bringing the effective US tariff rate on Indian imports down to 18%.

The order warned that the tariffs could be reimposed if India resumed or increased such purchases.

Indian goods had been facing a combined US tariff rate of 50%, including a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August for buying Russian oil.

The US has repeatedly alleged that India’s purchases of Russian oil helped fuel the war in Ukraine, while New Delhi has maintained that its oil purchases were aimed at ensuring its own energy security.

While India continues to import crude from dozens of countries, nearly 25% of its oil imports are still sourced from Russia. However, imports from Russia fell to a 38-month low in December and major refiners including Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Reliance Industries have avoided placing advance orders for April, The Hindu reported.

Misri’s remarks came amid mounting scrutiny of the framework for an interim trade agreement between New Delhi and Washington and ahead of a briefing to a parliamentary committee on external affairs scheduled for Tuesday.

The committee, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, is expected to be briefed on trade agreements with the European Union and the US, as well as on India’s strained commercial ties with Bangladesh.

The Congress has alleged that the trade agreement amounts to a “surrender” by the Narendra Modi-led government, and has argued that the interests of farmers and small and medium industries will be hurt by the deal.

The New Year’s Eve strike on December 31 by app-based transport and delivery workers across India briefly sparked a widespread discussion on poor working conditions and the disproportionate power that platforms wield.

The strike resulted in some gains, such as the government urging quick-commerce platforms to end 10-minute delivery guarantees, but little else.

It points to a deeper limitation in India’s labour movement: an extraordinary capacity for protest, but a chronic inability to convert disruption into sustained, transferable worker power.

This is the result of India’s labour movements being held back by political alignments and the absence of shared organising methods. Similarly, platform worker unions frequently align with existing political formations, like the CPI(M)-aligned All India Gig Workers Union and the INC-linked All India Gig and Platform Workers Union, or depend on NGOs and external advocacy groups, limiting their ability to build autonomous worker power.

Gig workers, who do not have legal employee status nor the political leverage available to workers in more traditional sectors, can win better conditions only through disciplined, worker-led organising – the very capacity India’s labour movement never systematically developed.

Inherited limitations

From the first unions emerging in textile mills and railways in the late 1800s, organising was shaped by nationalist movements, social reformers and philanthropic elites rather than worker-led experiments in power-building.

Trade union leaders like NM Joshi and VV Giri, who came from elite backgrounds, saw unions as vehicles of social reform and nationalist mobilisation, embedding unions within broader political projects.

Post-independence, this pattern deepened. The Congress, the Communist parties as well as regional outfits developed various affiliated central trade unions – like the Indian National Trade Union Congress, the left-aligned All India Trade Union Congress and Centre of Indian Trade Unions, and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh aligned with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Organising capacity grew alongside party affiliation, not independently of it. Legal recognition through the Trade Unions Act and formal dispute resolution processes gave unions official status, but didn’t require or encourage them to develop methods for building worker power. The ways and means of organising itself remained within the parties and unions.

Labour power was presumed to flow from legal recognition and political connections, rather than being won through disciplined organising methods and bargaining for rights and better conditions through demonstrated workplace strength.

As party-affiliated unions proliferated – often competing within the same workplaces – fragmentation was institutionalised. Rival unions were incentivised to differentiate ideologically rather than collaborate on the methods and means of organising labour. In such conditions, sharing techniques would have undermined organisational control.

This continues to shape Indian labour organising today, including among platform workers formally denied employee status altogether.

The knowledge of organising

Jane McAlevey, the late American union organiser, built her life’s work around precisely this problem. McAlevey insisted that organising be treated as a discipline – something that could be learned, practised, evaluated and improved.

She developed “whole-worker organising”: to map workplace power dynamics, identify natural leaders among workers and build what she called “supermajority” support – getting an overwhelming majority of workers, and just a vocal minority, actively on board.

For McAlevey, worker power has to be constructed through structure, numbers and confrontation, rejecting the turn toward staff-driven campaigns and symbolic protests that substituted for building durable worker majorities. She also recognised that effective organising requires engaging with workers’ lives – their families, communities, and social ties – a principle especially relevant in India, where caste, kinship and neighbourhood networks shape workplace solidarity.

From 2004 to 2006 as executive director of the Service Employees International Union, Nevada, McAlevey led hospital organising campaigns that achieved more wins than any other local wing of the union. The campaigns won unprecedented gains, including 10% raises, fully employer-paid family healthcare, and staffing standards through supermajority strikes and mass open bargaining sessions.

Graduates of McAlevey’s Organising for Power training programme, launched in 2019, have scored major organising victories in countries like Tanzania, Peru, Indonesia and Scotland, showing how systematic methods can be taught and replicated across vastly different contexts.

In India, Subhashini Ali, who organised textile and electricity workers in Kanpur during the 1970s, shares similarities with McAlevey: both understood that organising workers meant mobilising their households and neighbourhoods, addressing issues from housing to children’s education. But Ali’s work remained embedded within the broader workings of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), focused on building party power alongside worker power.

Another example is the Self-Employed Women’s Association, India’s closest approximation to a systematic labour organising school. SEWA, was founded in 1972 to organise informal sector women workers –like street vendors, manual labourers, agricultural workers, home-based producers ignored by traditional unions. SEWA disproves the belief that it is difficult to organise informal workers by achieving employment and self-reliance for 3.7 million members across 20 states.

Yet SEWA differs fundamentally from McAlevey’s model. It combines organising with running a bank, cooperatives and health schemes – training people in SEWA’s ideology to build SEWA’s organisation, rather than producing organisers with portable methodology.

Potential of gig work organising

In India, where a bulk of the workforce is informally employed and the gig economy is rapidly expanding – from 7.7 million workers now to a projected 24 million by 2030, according to the NITI Aayog – the demand for stronger labour organising is unmistakable.

The International Labour Organization’s Recommendation No. 204 recognises that informal workers – who make up over 60% of the global workforce – need collective bargaining rights, which is the ability to come together to negotiate wages and working conditions with employers as a group rather than as individuals.

In India, only about 15% of workers are covered by any agreement negotiated by unions, which means that nearly five out of six workers have no collective say in how they are paid or treated at work. The UN’s Decent Work for Platform Workers framework calls for “innovative approaches to worker organisation”. But innovation cannot rely on improvisation alone: it requires clear methods.

The scale and heterogeneity of informal and gig work – spread across regions, languages and caste hierarchies – can also make developing systematic, teachable methods which can be shared challenging.

But the possibility exists.

The raw material exists in India’s organising history. What is missing is the institutional space and resources to systematise it independently of partisan structures. A small group, which is willing to do the meta-work, can codify India’s organising experience, develop curriculum teachable across movements and educate trainers rather than workers directly.

Until then, India’s labour movement will continue to fight heroically, disrupt episodically and sacrifice disproportionately. It will lack what Jane McAlevey gave others: a science of building worker power that travels beyond any single organisation, ideology, or moment.

Sahasranshu Dash is a research associate at the International Centre for Applied Ethics and Public Affairs (ICAEPA), an independent research organisation based in Sheffield, the United Kingdom.