A Delhi court on Wednesday granted default bail to six Ukrainians who were arrested by the National Investigation Agency in March for allegedly having links to ethnic armed groups in Myanmar that are hostile to India, PTI reported.

Default bail is granted when an investigating agency fails to complete its probe and file a chargesheet within the statutory period while an accused is in custody.

On Friday, the court granted default bail to Matthew Aaron Van Dyke, a United States citizen who is also accused in the case.

The seven foreigners were allegedly involved in supplying weapons and military equipment to ethnic armed groups operating in Myanmar, as well as providing them with training.

On September 8, the NIA filed a chargesheet against them for illegally entering, staying and moving in India under the 2025 Immigration and Foreigners Act.

Although they had been arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the agency had only accused them of immigration violations in the chargesheet.

Special NIA Judge Prashant Sharma on Wednesday discharged the six Ukrainians under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, noting that the Foreigners Regional Registration Office had compounded the offences against them by imposing a fine of Rs 5.5 lakh on each, reported PTI.

Compounding of offences is a legal settlement mechanism where an accused person pays a specific sum of money to the authorities to avoid criminal prosecution.

The six persons were granted bail against a cash bond of Rs 1 lakh each.

Van Dyke had been arrested on March 13 at Kolkata airport. On the same day, Ukrainian citizens Petro Hurba, Taras Slyviak and Ivan Sukmanovskyi were arrested at Lucknow airport, while Marian Stefankiv, Maksim Honcharuk and Viktor Kaminskyi were held at Delhi airport.

Investigators had alleged that they had entered India on valid visas, but later travelled to Mizoram without the mandatory restricted area permit. They were also accused of entering Myanmar and meeting ethnic groups hostile to India.

Officials alleged that the individuals received drone deliveries from Europe while in Mizoram.

Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Allahabad High Court order that had quashed the National Security Act detention of a 25-year-old Delhi University graduate after the workers’ protest in Noida, reported Live Law.

A bench of Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and NK Singh also set aside the High Court’s direction to Gautam Buddha Nagar District Magistrate Medha Roopam to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation from her salary to Akriti Chaudhary.

The video recording of the proceedings was muted by the court, and media access was blocked, reported Live Law.

On September 2, the High Court said that the compensation should be deducted from the salary of Roopam, who had passed the order to detain Chaudhary, and other officials responsible for enforcing it.

The detention order against Chaudhary was devoid of material evidence and was passed “without application of mind”, the High Court bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev had said.

Chaudhary has been in jail for more than five months. She had been detained on April 11, two days before the protest in Noida turned violent, her family stated. In May, the Uttar Pradesh Police invoked the National Security Act against her while she was in custody.

The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial up to a year.

Despite her detention under the Act being quashed, she remained in jail because she has been named in several first information reports in connection with the protest.

The High Court order had been challenged by Roopam as well as the Uttar Pradesh government.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court stayed paragraphs 27 to 33 of the High Court order, which stated that Roopam’s conduct in detaining Chaudhary was “worthy of derision” and that she was “guilty of violating her oath of allegiance”.

The High Court had also warned that soon, the “errant in the bureaucracy [will] reduce the state of Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian Dystopia”.

Appearing for Roopam, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the High Court’s directions against the district magistrate were “unwarranted”. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, said the order was “totally uncalled for”, reported Live Law.

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

The demonstration had turned violent, with videos widely shared on social media showing some protesters throwing stones and vandalising property.

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

In its order, the High Court said that the district magistrate had detained Chaudhary only to “set an example out of the petitioner and deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in public spaces in support of the labourers”.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: ‘Srishti’s crime is empathy’: Who is the young artist jailed for supporting Noida workers’ protest?

The Jammu and Kashmir government told the Assembly on Tuesday that it had screened about 21.8 lakh books and withdrawn 4,812 of them from the libraries of state-run and private colleges in the Union Territory since July, The Hindu reported.

More than 12.4 lakh books had been screened in the Kashmir division and 9.3 lakh in Jammu to ensure that they do not contain “inappropriate or objectionable content”.

Of the books that were withdrawn, 518 had been banned, the newspaper quoted the government as saying.

More than 1,750 books were referred to the director of the government’s colleges department for further examination.

A government order in July had said that any material that may violate religious sentiments, was against the law or had the potential to harm national interest, should be identified, The Hindu reported.

The government stated that it had adopted “clear and objective criteria” to identify allegedly objectionable material available in colleges.

It told the Assembly that the books were screened as colleges are “expected to foster an environment that upholds constitutional values, academic freedom, critical thinking, scientific temper, responsible citizenship and respect for the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.

The government was responding to an Opposition MLA’s question about whether there was an objective criterion for identifying allegedly objectionable material available in higher education institutes.

The July directive came days after the Bharatiya Janata Party protested against the procurement of certain books by government schools, accusing the Union Territory’s National Conference government of promoting “academic jihad”.

The protests followed the withdrawal of two books from school libraries and the suspension of eight officials and termination of a contractual employee over the inclusion of what the government described as “pro-separatist content” in the books.

The withdrawn books, Personalities and Legends of J&K by Hilal Ahmed and Santosh Meena, and Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir by Dr Sushant Giri, were supplied to school libraries under the Samagra Shiksha programme for higher secondary classes.

Earlier in August 2025, the Jammu and Kashmir Home Department had banned 25 books, including works by author and activist Arundhati Roy and former Supreme Court lawyer and constitutional expert AG Noorani.

The department, headed by Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, claimed that the books were “forfeited” for allegedly promoting false narratives and inciting secessionism.

The action had been taken under the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita section that authorises the police to seize copies of the books.

Two days after the ban, the police in the Union Territory carried out searches in several districts to confiscate the prohibited titles.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Jammu University orders audit of books on campus for ‘separatist’ content

India on Wednesday categorically rejected what it described as “unwarranted and factually incorrect references” to the country in a joint statement issued by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir.

The OIC has 57 member states, most of them Muslim-majority countries and claims to represent the “collective voice of the Muslim world”. Pakistan, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Niger are part of the bloc.

The group held a meeting on Tuesday in New York on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. It stated that it was committed to supporting the “inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination”.

The organisation’s Secretary-General Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed expressed concern about the “humanitarian, human rights and security situation” in Jammu and Kashmir, read the statement.

It added that he had also called for “respect for its international status” and the “revocation of the unilateral and illegal measures” taken since 2019, in an apparent reference to the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.

The article gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, which was bifurcated into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

On Wednesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated that the OIC has no authority to make statements on matters that are “strictly internal to India”.

It added that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are “integral and inalienable” parts of India.

“...no amount of repetition of politically motivated propaganda can change this reality,” the ministry said, adding that the OIC’s “continued endorsement of such motivated narratives” was raising doubts on its credibility.

The ministry further said that the organisation should “counsel” Pakistan for “supporting and sponsoring” terrorism, instead of offering it a platform to peddle “fabricated and motivated propaganda”.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Recently, pictures and videos of five orangutan babies in a forest in Odisha, thousands of miles from their real home, were plastered across many screens. As authorities investigate the antecedents of the critically endangered animals and discuss their future, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: international wildlife trafficking is widening its reach, and India is emerging as a destination.

Keeping exotic animals and birds as pets, is not new in India. Non-native parrots have long dominated the scene. But keeping them legally involves navigating a complex set of legal procedures.

The repertoire of species illegally reaching Indian shores, however, has expanded significantly in recent years.

Primates are the new parrots. Gibbons, lemurs, marmosets and macaques, once difficult to find outside their native ranges, are increasingly turning up in seizures linked to the illegal pet trade.

Primates are a group of mammals that includes humans, apes, monkeys, lemurs and lorises, generally characterised by grasping hands and feet, forward-facing eyes and relatively large brains.

The seizure of an orangutan from an apartment bathroom in Mumbai in 2024, a Tamil actor’s pet Lar gibbon, and the controversy over two lemurs at Vantara highlight the emerging trade.

Gibbons, the most visible part of the trade

A 2026 global assessment of wild mammals kept as pets identified 702 mammal species worldwide, including 280 non-human primates. Primates were the largest order represented, accounting for almost 40% of the mammal species recorded as pets.

In 2022, nearly 4,000 exotic animals were seized in India across 56 incidents, according to a 2023 TRAFFIC analysis of media reports. More than 100 of these animals were primates, including orangutans, chimpanzees, siamangs, marmosets, tamarins and capuchins. Seizures occurred at airports, air-cargo stations, railway stations, international post offices and near international borders.

Gibbons, protected under CITES Appendix I alongside great apes, appear to be a prominent part of the trade. In 2025, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru airports reported multiple gibbon seizures, involving species such as agile, eastern grey, silvery, Bornean white-bearded and white-cheeked gibbons, as well as siamangs.

Conservationists are raising concern around the alarming influx of gibbons into the country, primarily by air from Thailand and Malaysia, as noted in a recent report on India’s exotic pet trade by Humane World for Animals.

“That does not necessarily mean they originate there. We do not know where they were sourced from before entering those countries,” shares Sumanth Bindhumadhav, the India director of HWA who co-authored the report, indicating that the two countries could also be transit countries in the trade route.

A 2025 TRAFFIC report identified India and Malaysia as key links in the illegal gibbon trade chain, with gibbons moving from Malaysia to India.

Several experts say primates in the trade are mostly wild-caught, which means they were taken from their natural habitat. There are no known legal, commercial orangutan or gibbon breeding facilities in the world so even if they are claimed to be captive-bred, it would not be under legal conditions.

The violent transport of an infant

There are 20 recognised species of gibbon and all are at extreme risk of disappearing from the wild. They are all are listed as threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List: five are critically endangered, 14 endangered and one vulnerable. All three recognised orangutan species, Sumatran, Bornean and Tapanuli, are critically endangered, with only a few thousand remaining in the wild.

The five orangutans that were recently found in an Odisha forest are believed to be younger than a year and are currently housed at Odisha’s Nandankanan Zoological Park. How they ended up in an Indian forest, miles away from their native habitats in Sumatra and Borneo, remains under investigation, with authorities probing a possible international smuggling network.

Irrespective of how these infants were obtained, their separation from their mothers raises serious welfare concerns. A 2009 TRAFFIC report on gibbon and orangutan trade in Sumatra notes that obtaining a young orangutan for the pet trade requires killing its mother.

“It is difficult to capture a baby gibbon or orangutan because mothers do not simply abandon their young and flee. So, in order to obtain a baby, mothers are killed. And sometimes, in the process, even the babies are injured,” says Uttara Mendiratta, a conservation researcher working on illegal wildlife hunting and trade. “Separation from the mother at such a young age is extremely stressful for an infant primate.”

The report notes that the pet trade targets infant and juvenile orangutans that remain highly dependent on their mothers. “When the mother is shot, the infant is often killed in the process as well, falling from the trees, still clinging onto its dying mother,” the report says.

The violence and ensuing trauma can continue during transport, with cramped and unsuitable conditions severely compromising the welfare of the animals. Many of them die in transit.

The cost of separation

Separation from the mother can be highly traumatic for young primates. “Research describes intense phases of agitation. The animals may run around, cry, scream and show other forms of distress following separation,” says ecology and animal behaviour expert Mewa Singh. Studies of pigtail and bonnet macaques and rhesus macaques have documented heightened stress following separation, marked by agitation and depression.

Singh also points to anaclitic depression in infants as a coping mechanism. “When they are stressed, two things can occur. One, they stop eating. They also expend a lot of energy crying, screaming, running around and agitation. That energy expenditure can even cost them their lives. So anaclitic depression can be understood as an adaptive response to severe stress,” he explains.

Transportation adds another layer of stress. In one 2025 case, nine young primates were intercepted at Mumbai airport after being smuggled from Malaysia in a suitcase. “Eight died from starvation, suffocation, dehydration and captivity stress; the surviving pigtail macaque was critical, dehydrated and had a pellet lodged in its head,” says advocate and wildlife conservationist Pawan Sharma of RAWW, a non-profit for wildlife rescue and conservation.

The loss of breeding adults and juveniles can have long-term consequences for slow-reproducing species. The 2009 TRAFFIC report notes that orangutans mature slowly: females have their first infant at 12-15 years, with an interbirth interval of about eight years, while males may breed at 15-20 years. An 18-year study found wild white-handed gibbons first reproduced at about 11 years, with an average interbirth interval of 3.5 years.

The money and the trade route

“There has always been a desire (among humans) to own something different from what other people have,” says Sharma. Social media can amplify this desire while making exotic animals easier to acquire. “Wildlife trafficking is one of the world’s major illegal trades and people involved in it may also be involved in other forms of illegal trade, such as narcotics, arms or hawala (illegal cash transfer). For someone looking for easy, fast or unaccounted money, the commodity does not necessarily matter,” he adds.

The increasing trade of orangutans and gibbons can have lasting consequences for their populations and habitats. Indonesia lost nearly 20% of its Sumatran orangutans over 15 years, according to one estimate.

Sinan Serhadli, a Kuala Lumpur-based conservation scientist and adviser to the Yayasan Orangutan Sumatera Lestari-Orangutan Information Centre, speculates that the five orangutans found in Odisha could have been smuggled from northern Sumatra via the Andaman Islands. Sharma agrees that sea routes are a major concern as checking may not be as efficient.

Serhadli also identifies the UAE as an ape-trafficking hub, where, he says, animals may be “laundered” and exported to India. He identifies Thailand as a potential transit route for orangutans from Sumatra.

Jose Louise, CEO of Wildlife Trust of India, who has tracked wildlife trade for decades, identifies the India-Myanmar border as an important trafficking route, along with the India-Bangladesh border. Animals also enter by air, he says, although increased checks by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Customs have made airports more difficult for smugglers.

While primates may be sought as exotic pets for their human-like qualities, their complex cognitive and social needs are difficult to meet in household settings, particularly for apes, says the Humane World for Animals report.

The report warns that trauma and early social deprivation can contribute to behavioural problems that intensify with sexual maturity, when aggression and territorial behaviour may increase. It documents cases of captive chimpanzees and macaques attacking owners in the U.S., sometimes causing serious injuries or death.

Such challenges also lead to pet owners abandoning the animals. A rare siamang gibbon found balancing on cables on the streets of Tiruvottiyur, Chennai, left authorities questioning how it got there, although abandonment was neither confirmed nor ruled out.

What happens after the seizure

“When exotic animals arrive at an airport such as Bengaluru and are detected, the preferred option, and what is generally considered best practice, is to repatriate them to the country they came from,” says Bindumadhav.

Indonesia has sought the repatriation of the five baby orangutans found in India, saying preliminary assessment suggests they may have originated in Sumatra, pending genetic identification. Indian authorities, however, are delaying DNA testing, citing the infants’ delicate health.

“There are a lot of discussions happening between the two governments. But even if they turn out to be Bornean rather than Sumatran orangutans, they should still go to Indonesia because all three orangutan subspecies are found in Indonesia,” says Serhadli.

Mongabay-India contacted India’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau officials for an update but received no response. Meanwhile, the Odisha government has requested permission from the Central Zoo Authority to permanently keep the five orangutans at Nandankanan Zoological Park.

Under CITES repatriation guidelines, countries have three options for disposing of live confiscated animals: returning them to the state of export, placing them in an appropriate captive facility, or returning them to the wild where appropriate.

Bindumadhav says CITES recommends consultation with the state of export before a decision is taken on confiscated animals. “We don’t yet know the state of export or the country of origin. Our view is that repatriation should be explored first in the interest of these animals. The broader concern is to ensure there is no precedent set for trafficking seizures becoming a route to acquisition for any facility.”

Mendiratta notes: “CITES repatriation guidelines are not binding so there is technically no ‘law’ that says India has to repatriate. However, it would be the correct conservation decision and the morally correct thing for India to do.”

Going home isn’t going wild immediately

Indonesia has a strong track record of orangutan rehabilitation, says Serhadli. “A wild orangutan mother is obviously better than a surrogate, but surrogate care followed by rehabilitation has been done successfully in the past. So there is a good chance that these animals could eventually be integrated into the wild,” he says.

Repatriation, however, does not mean putting the orangutans back into the wild in Sumatra or Borneo. It involves medical assessments, skill development at forest schools and, eventually, a carefully managed release.

Indonesia has an established network of rehabilitation facilities. The animals are also sent to forest schools, where they learn skills they would normally acquire from their mothers, including climbing, finding and processing food, building nests and navigating the forest.

“If they are unreleasable, for example because of a disease, there are long-term care centres and orangutan havens in Indonesia,” says Serhadli. Some facilities allow them to live in more natural environments, including on islands. He acknowledges that recovery from stress due to maternal separation and transportation can take time, but says young orangutans raised alongside others of a similar age tend to integrate and improve.

“An (exotic) animal is just another commodity for a trader. It is purchased for one price and sold for another. That is the business,” says Louise. The animal, he adds, may have been taken from the wild, subjected to violence and endured stressful transportation before eventually reaching someone’s home. “No amount of compassion from owners can erase the suffering involved,” he says.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday refused to grant interim relief to journalist Ravi Nair, who was seeking release from judicial custody in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Limited over a series of posts on X.

Nair was taken into custody on September 17 and sent to jail on the orders of a Gandhinagar court, which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him earlier this month for failing to appear in person for a hearing in the defamation case. The journalist had challenged the warrant and sought his release.

The case pertains to a series of social media posts published by Nair between October 2020 and July 2021 about the Adani Group relating to allegations by United States-based short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

On February 10, a magistrate court in Gandhinagar convicted Nair and sentenced him to one year in prison.

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

Nair challenged his conviction before an appellate court in Gandhinagar, which granted him bail on March 9 and directed him to remain present during the hearing of his appeal.

He was not present at a hearing on September 3, his lawyer had said. The court subsequently issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

On Wednesday, the High Court observed that Nair could not challenge the non-bailable warrant after it had already been executed. The court also criticised him for not informing it that he had separately approached the sessions court for regular bail, Bar and Bench reported.

Nair’s lawyer argued that the journalist had appeared at three of the eight hearings in his appeal and had been granted an exemption from appearing on another date. He said the sessions court’s finding that Nair had not appeared for six months was factually incorrect and objected to describing Nair as “absconding”, the legal news outlet reported.

The lawyer for Adani Enterprises argued that Nair’s conduct before the appellate court was relevant. He also submitted that the journalist had appeared before the Gandhinagar court in March only for the execution of his bail bonds.

Justice MK Thakker reserved her decision on Nair’s challenge to the non-bailable warrant and said the order would be dictated on September 30.

The case is 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.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International raised concerns about Nair’s arrest while his appeal against the conviction is pending. “It poses serious questions around people’s freedom of expression and fair trial rights in the country,” the organisation said in a social media post.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Opposition accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of ruling “like a dictator”. They were responding to a report by The Indian Express said that the two other election commissioners had objected to panel decisions about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls 14 times in 10 months.

Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on matters such as the registration of new voters, deletions and restoration of electors, filing of appeals against voter inclusion, and custody and security of the electoral rolls, the newspaper reported.

Reacting to this, the Congress said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kumar “together have caused great damage to the country’s democracy”. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter. Read on.

The Supreme Court referred the petitions challenging the constitutionality of a 2023 law that governs the appointment of members of the Election Commission to a larger bench. Although Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma initially disagreed on the Union government’s demand to refer the matter, they eventually ordered that it be placed before Chief Justice Surya Kant so that he could form a constitutional bench.

During the hearing, Datta said that the law “does not appear to ensure an independent selection process”. A “nominee of the prime minister in the selection committee cannot be expected to defy the prime minister”, he added.

Sharma disagreed with the observations and said that a “substantial question of law was involved in the matter”, which must be decided by a larger bench. Read on.

The Gujarat High Court refused to grant interim relief to journalist Ravi Nair, who was seeking release from judicial custody in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Limited. The bench observed that Nair could not challenge the non-bailable warrant after it had already been executed.

The case pertains to a series of social media posts published by Nair between October 2020 and July 2021 about the Adani Group, relating to allegations by United States-based short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

Nair was taken into custody on September 17 and sent to jail for failing to appear in person for a hearing in the defamation case. Read on.

The Supreme Court said that the three months taken so far by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to make a decision on the disqualification petitions against 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs was a “red flag”. However, the court refused to set a deadline for the speaker to dispose of the petitions.

It verbally observed that the speaker was expected to take an “expeditious decision”. Appearing for the speaker, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta claimed that there had not been any undue delay in the matter, noting that notices had been issued to the rebel MPs in August. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the three months taken so far by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to decide the disqualification petitions against 20 rebel Trinamool Congress MPs was a “red flag”, Bar and Bench reported.

However, the court refused to set a deadline for the speaker to decide the petitions.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing a plea by Abhishek Banerjee, a leader of Mamata Banerjee-led faction, seeking an early decision on the disqualification petitions.

The disqualification petitions were filed by Abhishek Banerjee on June 19 after 20 of TMC’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs announced a merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India. The group has been supporting the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lower House of Parliament.

Abhishek Banerjee had argued that the 10th Schedule of the Constitution was clear that if a member voluntarily gives up the party’s membership, they are to be disqualified as MPs.

On Wednesday, the court verbally observed that the speaker was expected to take an “expeditious decision”, Live Law reported.

“A few months may be a red flag and that is well taken,” Bar and Bench quoted Bagchi as saying. “Why have you not finished it, when it is a matter of moments and has repercussions in various collateral proceedings and also the democratic process of the country?”

Advocate Kalyan Banerjee, appearing for Abhishek Banerjee, told the court that the speaker had issued notices to the 20 MPs on August 5, asking them to respond within 14 days. The MPs later sought more time to reply, and the speaker extended the deadline to September 22. The rebel legislators had sought another extension.

Kalyan Banerjee referred to an earlier judgement by the court that disqualification petitions should be decided within a reasonable period and indicated three months as the time limit unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Appearing for the speaker, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the MPs had to be given an opportunity to respond and opposed the fixing of a time limit.

He also said there had been no undue delay in the matter, noting that the notices were issued in August, Live Law reported.

The court decided to keep the plea pending and said that it would seek an update on the proceedings. The matter will be heard further after six weeks.

The TMC has been beset by internal divisions and rebellions after it lost the Assembly elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party in May.

Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament in July, Birla accepted the request of the rebel MPs to sit separately in the Lok Sabha. However, the group is yet to be recognised as the Nationalist Citizens Party of India in the House.

The Nationalist Citizens Party of India did not have any MPs before the merger.

At the state level, nearly 60 out of the TMC’s 80 MLAs have rebelled against the party leadership to choose Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. The group has been recognised by the Assembly speaker as the party’s legislature party in the House, and Ritabrata Banerjee has been recognised as the leader of the Opposition.

In the Rajya Sabha, four TMC MPs have resigned since June. Three of them joined the BJP and were re-elected unopposed to the Upper House of Parliament on the Hindutva party’s tickets. With this, the TMC’s strength in the Rajya Sabha fell to nine from 13 in May.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Since it began in June 2025, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls has faced questions about the manner and pace of its implementation, amid concerns that the exercise could deny genuine electors their right to vote and shape election outcomes.

On Wednesday, The Indian Express reported that some of the concerns about the conduct of the exercise had also come from within the Election Commission.

Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected at least 14 times in the past 10 months to decisions related to the SIR, saying that some had been taken without their knowledge, the newspaper reported.

Unlike with the previous updates to the electoral rolls, to be included in the revised lists this time, voters need to show that they or their parents are present on the 2002 voter lists. That was when the last SIR was conducted.

At that time, the poll panel had taken double the time to revise the lists.

The Election Commission has been serving notices to crores of persons to explain “logical discrepancies” for them to be retained in the electoral rolls. Logical discrepancies refer to what the panel considers inconsistencies such as a mismatch with the spellings of names of the voters’ parents, an unreasonably low gap between the ages of parents and children or if parents have more than six children.

The exercise had also been challenged in the Supreme Court, which in May upheld the legality of the voter roll revision.

Even as the case was being heard, the Election Commission expanded the exercise to 12 states and Union Territories, including West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, in its second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026. The third phase is underway in 19 states and Union Territories, including Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi.

So far, 13.8 crore voters have been removed from the electoral rolls of 31 states and Union Territories, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said on Monday. This accounts for 14.6% of India’s 94.7 crore voters who were on the rolls before the exercise began in 2025.

Here is what has happened with the SIR so far:

What are the Election Commissioners’ objections?

Sandhu and Joshi’s objections were related to new registration of new voters and changes to Form 6, appeals against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal, handling of voter data in Goa, among others, The Indian Express reported. Form 6 is used to register new voters.

In one written objection, Sandhu was quoted as having stated that the poll panel had acted against the advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Each constituency’s electoral roll is maintained by its electoral registration officer, a statutory authority. But Joshi and Sandhu questioned whether these officers were being given access to the database, the newspaper reported.

After the newspaper report, the Election Commission said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

Read Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision exercise here.

What are the concerns about the new Form 6?

The Election Commission had introduced changes to Form 6. The new form asked applicants to state whether they or their parents or grandparents were part of the last special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Although the new declaration is not marked as mandatory, applicants cannot submit the online form without filling it.

The Indian Express reported that Joshi and Sandhu had objected to the change, saying that it could not be made without amending the rules. Section 28 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act says that only the Union government can amend the rules governing electoral forms, including Form 6.

After the change was reported in the media, Sandhu reportedly put on record that it was “unauthorised and illegal” and “must be removed immediately”.

What happened in Bengal SIR?

The SIR in West Bengal was carried out ahead of the Assembly elections in April. The final rolls published in February initially excluded more than 61 lakh voters, with the process continuing through supplementary lists and adjudication of about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases.

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

Appeals were allowed to be filed before tribunals against decisions taken during the exercise.

Of the 38.2 lakh appeals were filed, 22.2 lakh were filed by voters whose names had been deleted from the electoral rolls. These 22.2 lakh appeals make up around 82% of the 27 lakh voters whose names were deleted and placed under adjudication during the revision ahead of the Assembly polls.

Meanwhile, at least 16.1 lakh appeals challenged the inclusion of voters. The Election Commission did not specify who had filed the appeals.

However, in August, Sandhu wrote to officials asking who had authorised the filing of the appeals “on behalf of [the Election Commission] and by whom” and “who actually filed these appeals on behalf of [the poll panel]”, The Indian Express reported.

He recorded that neither the West Bengal chief electoral officer, Joshi nor himself had been informed about the basis or process of filing the appeals, the newspaper reported.

Data submitted by the Election Commission has also shown that 93% of the appeals decided by the tribunals resulted in the eventual inclusion of voters in the electoral rolls.

Scroll’s analysis of the Assembly election results in West Bengal found that in half the seats that the Bharatiya Janata Party won, the total deletions that took place during the voter list revision exercise outnumbered the victory margin. While the BJP won 207 seats in the 294-member Assembly, the Trinamool Congress won 80.

Watch: As lakhs of Muslim voters lose out to Bengal SIR, who stands to gain?

What is happening in the third phase of SIR?

More than six crore names have been excluded from draft electoral rolls during the third phase so far. The claims and objections against the exclusions from the draft voter list are being heard.

Final electoral rolls in these states will be published by November.

In August, the names of more than two crore persons were removed from Maharashtra’s draft voter list. The electors excluded from the draft account for 21.1% of the state’s previous voter base. In Delhi, 47.7 lakh names were deleted from the draft voter list. The names account for 33% of the Union Territory’s electorate.

In Karnataka, more than one crore names, or 19% of the electorate, were removed. In Haryana, 16% of the voters, or more than 24 lakh persons, were deleted. In Andhra Pradesh, 10.8% of the electorate, or more than 22 lakh names, were excluded.

In the national capital, more than 33 lakh persons have been issued notices for “logical discrepancies”.

The 33 lakh voters include Sandhu, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

Also read: Scroll’s SIR experience is a microcosm of what urban India is facing

What was the Supreme Court’s judgement on SIR?

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission’s authority to conduct the exercise and said that it “advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”.

However, the bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant said that the poll panel’s inquiries into an individual’s citizenship status for the purpose of including them in the voter list do not mean it can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, BJP-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: ‘CEC ruling like a dictator’: Opposition on report that poll commissioners objected to SIR decisions

Five companies of the Adani Group on Tuesday settled adjudication proceedings launched by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, arising from a report by American short-seller Hindenburg Research, by paying a combined amount of Rs 1.5 crore, Live Law reported.

The proceedings involved the conglomerate’s flagship company Adani Enterprises, and subsidiaries Adani Total Gas, Adani Green, Adani Energy Solutions, formerly known as Adani Transmission, and AWL Agri Business Limited, which was previously named Adani Wilmar.

The market regulator had examined allegations pertaining to non-disclosure of alleged related-party transactions and problems of corporate governance that Hindenburg had claimed. The regulator had also examined possible violations of the 2015 SEBI Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements Regulations and the equity listing agreement, Live Law reported.

In January 2023, Hindenburg Research published a report accusing the Adani Group of pulling off the “largest con in corporate history” through accounting fraud, money laundering and stock price manipulation.

The Adani Group rejected the allegations, but the report pummelled the stocks of its listed companies and wiped out more than $100 billion of investors’ money at the time. It also led to regulatory and legal investigations against the conglomerate.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India had begun adjudication proceedings based on the findings of the check it had carried out.

The Adani Group firms proposed to settle the proceedings under the 2018 settlement regulations, without admitting or denying the findings, the legal news outlet reported.

The recommendation about the settlement amounts made by the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s high-powered committee was accepted by the regulator’s panel of whole-time members on August 13.

While disposing of the proceedings, the regulator said on Tuesday that its order does not stop it from re-initiating enforcement action in case of violation of the settlement terms.

Edited by Sneha.

Journalist Sudhir Chaudhary on Tuesday told the Delhi High Court that he had removed all his social media posts that misidentified a volunteer of the Cockroach Janta Party as the person who had called for the destruction of Parliament during the youth protests in July, Bar and Bench reported.

Vikram Sherawat, a 28-year-old civil services aspirant, had filed a defamation case against Chaudhary and public broadcaster Doordarshan News.

Sherawat alleged that Chaudhary had described him as an “anti-national” during a July 27 broadcast. He had sought Rs 5 crore in damages from Chaudhary, his production company, Essprit Productions, and Doordarshan News.

On Tuesday, Chaudhary’s counsel told Justice Tushar Rao Gedela that he had written to social media platforms, “saying that if any of our posts are there by third parties with you, please take them down also”, reported Bar and Bench.

Sherawat had been part of the protests against alleged mismanagement of several competitive examinations, which began on June 6. The Cockroach Janta Party had held a demonstration on the day at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest. This came two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital.

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

In his petition, Sherawat said that the alleged statement was made by an unidentified person at a different event. However, Chaudhary wrongly claimed that he had made it during the demonstration on July 20, he said.

He added that Chaudhary had not verified any information before the broadcast. Further, Sherawat said that Chaudhary had broadcast a low-quality version of the footage so that the two men featured in it could not be distinguished.

Chaudhary’s counsel argued that with the posts being removed, the matter had effectively been resolved. Sherawat, however, said that he wished to pursue the case.

The court said it would hear the matter next in January.

Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday referred the petitions challenging the constitutionality of a 2023 law that governs the appointment of members of the Election Commission to a larger bench, reported Live Law.

Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma initially disagreed on whether the matter should be referred. They eventually ordered that it be placed before the Chief Justice Surya Kant so that he could form a constitutional bench to avoid further delay, reported Bar and Bench.

The 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office Act states that the head of the poll panel and the two other top members are to be appointed based on the recommendations of a selection committee comprising the prime minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

The composition of the panel means that the government enjoys a 2:1 majority over the leader of the Opposition, if there is a difference of opinion.

The bench was hearing six petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law.

On July 30, the court reserved its decision on the Union government’s request to refer the matter to a larger bench.

On Wednesday, Datta held that the law “does not appear to ensure an independent selection process”, reported Live Law. A “nominee of the prime minister in the selection committee cannot be expected to defy the prime minister”, he added.

“Inclusion of Cabinet ministers fails to provide an independent counterweight that a neutral selector would,” Live Law quoted him as saying. “It becomes largely ornamental.”

Datta also held that free and fair elections depend on a “truly independent” Election Commission. “It is not enough for the ECI to be independent; it must appear to be independent,” he added.

Sharma disagreed with the observations and said that a “substantial question of law was involved in the matter”, which must be decided by a larger bench, reported Bar and Bench.

The law was passed by Parliament in December 2023 replaced an arrangement created by a Supreme Court judgement in March 2023 that had formed a selection committee consisting of the prime minister, the leader of the Opposition and the chief justice of India.

During a hearing in May, the Supreme Court questioned the need for a Union Cabinet minister to be included in the selection panel.

Datta had verbally observed that the third member ought to be a “neutral person”. He also questioned whether the leader of the Opposition’s presence was reduced to an “ornamental” role when the prime minister and a Cabinet minister together had a 2:1 majority on the panel.

The judge had emphasised that the Election Commission must not only be independent but must also be perceived as independent.

The Union government had told the court at the time that the law should not be struck down on account of hypothetical bias.

The attorney general argued that Parliament had the absolute right to enact the law, and that it is not bound by the “stop-gap” arrangement suggested in the March 2023 Supreme Court judgement.

In February 2025, Gyanesh Kumar was appointed the chief election commissioner even as Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi submitted a dissent note at the selection meeting.

Gandhi had asked the government to defer the appointment until the Supreme Court decided the petitions challenging the new selection process. His dissent note was included in the proceedings of the meeting.

Edited by Sara Varghese, Sneha and Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Explainer: How Modi government’s new bill aims to wrest control of Election Commission appointments
• Two election commissioners objected 14 times to SIR decisions: ‘The Indian Express’ report

The Opposition on Wednesday said that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar was “ruling like a dictator”, after a report by The Indian Express said that the two other election commissioners had objected to the poll panel’s decision about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls 14 times in 10 months.

Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on matters such as the registration of new voters, deletions and restoration of electors, filing of appeals against voter inclusion, and custody and security of the electoral rolls, The Indian Express reported.

Their objections were addressed to the Election Commission and copied to Kumar, the newspaper reported. Some were also sent to deputy election commissioners.

In one written objection, Sandhu said that the poll panel had acted against the written advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”.

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

मोदी के चहेते ज्ञानेश कुमार चुनाव आयोग में अपनी मनमर्जी चला रहे हैं।

👉 इस बारे में खुद दो चुनाव आयुक्तों ने 10 महीने में 14 बार शिकायत की है।

▪️ शिकायत में साफ कहा गया कि दोनों चुनाव आयुक्त - सुखबीर सिंह संधू और विवेक जोशी को महत्वपूर्ण फैसलों की जानकारी नहीं दी जाती। उनसे… pic.twitter.com/uPeLz6NcZF

— Congress (@INCIndia) September 23, 2026

After the newspaper report, the Election Commission said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

‘Gyanesh Kumar is Modi’s puppet’, says Congress

The Congress said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “favourite Gyanesh Kumar is running the Election Commission as he pleases”. Complaints made by the two election commissioners “make it clear” that only Kumar’s writ works in the poll panel, it added.

“Gyanesh is ruling like a dictator just like his boss Modi and is engaged in ‘vote theft’ to please Modi,” the Congress said on social media, alleging that the prime minister had “captured” the Election Commission.

“Gyanesh Kumar is Modi’s puppet,” it said, adding that this had been “proven” by The Indian Express’ report on Wednesday.

Modi and Kumar “together have caused great damage to the country’s democracy”, the Opposition party said.

“But remember this – when the time comes, everyone will be held accountable, responsibility will be fixed,” it added. “Punishment for this crime will surely be meted out.”

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Bharatiya Janata Party, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Election Commission officials who organised the “theft” of votes had “committed an act of treason”.

Vote chori is a crime against the Indian people and a direct attack on our constitution.

The BJP, RSS and EC who organised it have committed an act of treason.

Justice will be served. pic.twitter.com/30kX06CBiH

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 23, 2026

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.

“This directly means that all Election Commissioners are not able to perform their rightful duties,” Yadav said. “If the members of an independent body do not have the freedom to carry out just actions or if there is no hearing of theirs, then these are extremely fatal and dangerous circumstances for democracy.”

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that “betraying democracy by becoming puppets of those in power” was a constitutional crime. “This is nothing less than a conspiracy to wipe out democracy,” he added.

ये एक बेहद गंभीर समाचार है कि पिछले 10 महीनों में 2 चुनाव आयुक्तों ने निर्वाचन आयोग के गलत निर्णयों पर 14 बार अपनी आपत्ति दर्ज़ कराई है।

इसका सीधा मतलब ये है कि सभी चुनाव आयुक्त अपना सही काम नहीं कर पा रहे हैं। एक स्वतंत्र निकाय के सदस्यों को अगर न्यायपूर्ण कार्य करने की… pic.twitter.com/UoQnYWsWd8

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) September 23, 2026

Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee called for Kumar to be removed and a court-monitored investigation into the allegations.

“Disenfranchising lakhs of voters to allegedly benefit one political party strikes at the very foundation of our democracy,” he said, adding that “those responsible must be held accountable”.

Banerjee said that the concerns raised by the Opposition INDIA bloc after the West Bengal Assembly elections in May about alleged electoral irregularities “were neither examined nor given the scrutiny they deserved”.

“When grave questions affecting the democratic process are repeatedly raised and yet remain unheard, it inevitably raises questions about institutional impartiality,” he added.

All Opposition parties should stick to this issue and fix it first.

Every other issue is futile if ECI is not put in order. https://t.co/1pzV1DaK32

— Saurabh Bharadwaj (@Saurabh_MLAgk) September 23, 2026

TMC MP Mahua Moitra said that “none of this information leaks to the press unless the powers want it to”. She said that it was “now clear that 2/3 Election Commissioners [are] worried about day of reckoning and want to cover their butts”.

There was “no clearer sign that BJP is on its way out”, she said on social media.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP John Brittas said that the Election Commission was now a “one-man autocracy”. The allegations pointed to “open subversion” of the poll panel and democracy, he said.

Brittas called on Parliament to begin the process for removing Kumar. “The Constitution provides this power for precisely such moments of institutional capture and subversion,” he added.

In March, Opposition parties had submitted notices in Parliament seeking the removal of Kumar, accusing him of “partisan and discriminatory conduct” alleging abuse of a constitutional authority. The notice was signed by 63 members of the Rajya Sabha and 130 Lok Sabha MPs, meeting the minimum requirement for such motions.

However, Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in April rejected the notices, without providing specific reasons for their decision.

On Wednesday, Brittas also called on the Supreme Court to annul the SIR. “When two of the three commissioners put on record that the exercise is illegal and destructive of the electoral roll’s integrity, judicial silence becomes complicity,” he said.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Sanjay Raut said that the Election Commission’s credibility was now under question within the panel itself.

Aam Aadmi Party leader Saurabh Bhardwaj said that all Opposition parties must “stick to this issue and fix it first”, adding that other matters were “futile if ECI is not put in order”.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• Delhi SIR: MP Kapil Sibal asks why he received ‘unmapped’ notice despite matching 1998 voter record
• At least 82% of voters deleted during Bengal SIR have appealed against removal, EC data shows
• Odisha SIR: Over 17 lakh names deleted from final voter list

Two of the three Election Commissioners formally objected at least 14 times in the last 10 months to decisions and orders, pertaining to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, which they said were made without their knowledge, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

The first phase of the exercise began in June 2025 in Bihar. The voter roll revision is currently in the third phase covering 19 states and Union Territories. More than 13 crore names have been removed from voter lists and draft rolls in the three phases so far. Since the nationwide exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

The exercise is being conducted under the supervision of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

On Wednesday, The Indian Express reported that Sandhu and Joshi raised objections on matters such as the registration of new voters, deletion and restoration of electors, filing of appeals against voter inclusion, and custody and security of the electoral rolls.

The objections raised by Sandhu and Joshi were addressed to the Election Commission and also copied to Kumar, the newspaper reported. Some were also sent to deputy election commissioners.

After the newspaper report, the Election Commission said that “operational queries or inputs raised by commission members during draft stages are part of standard administrative practice” to safeguard voter rights.

“Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” the poll panel stated. “They are a part of the decision-making process before a final decision is taken.”

The commission added that highlighting specific internal notes made over 10 months “while overlooking the much larger body of approvals, decisions, instructions and initiatives give only one part of the picture”.

In one written objection, Sandhu said that the poll panel had acted against the written advice of both commissioners and described the action as “unauthorised and illegal”, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

On April 16, Sandhu reportedly told the commission’s senior officers that “many communications go out in the name of the [Election Commission] but they do not have the approval of the commission”, and that from then on every communication must have it, “as per the provisions of 2023 Act”.

Sandhu was referring to the 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act. Under Section 18 of the Act, decisions of the Election Commission should be made unanimously as far as possible and disagreements are decided by majority. The section also states that the commission’s work and procedures can be divided only “by unanimous decision”.

Eight days later, the same officers received similar correspondence from Joshi, who said that “several communications are disseminated in the name of the [Election Commission] without the requisite approval of ‘the commission’”, and that all future communications must have that approval “in accordance with the provisions of Article 324 of the Constitution” and the Act.

The Election Commission is a constitutional body under Article 324, comprising the chief election commissioner and two election commissioners, who are equal in rank. The chief election commissioner is the “first among equals” but does not have the power to decide matters alone.

Most recently, Joshi and Sandhu separately wrote to the cabinet secretary objecting to changes in the allocation of work that reduced supervision of the digital systems used for electoral rolls. They said the changes had been made without their knowledge and opposed them, The Indian Express reported.

After this, the three commissioners met on September 9, their first meeting in four months.

The Election Commission, Joshi and Sandhu are yet to respond to The Indian Express’ report.

Also read: SIR explained: Why the voter role revision has become so controversial

The election commissioners’ objections

One of the objections raised by the two election commissioners pertained to the changes to Form 6, which is used to register a new voter.

The new form asked applicants to state whether they or their parents or grandparents were part of the last special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Although the new declaration is not marked as mandatory, applicants cannot submit the online form without filling it.

Joshi and Sandhu had objected to the change, saying that it could not be made without amending the rules. Section 28 of the 1950 Representation of the People Act says that only the Union government can amend the rules governing electoral forms, including Form 6.

After the change was reported in the media, Sandhu put on record that it was “unauthorised and illegal” and “must be removed immediately”.

Sandhu had also raised concern about appeals filed against the inclusion of voters in West Bengal electoral rolls.

Last week, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that 16.1 lakh of the 38.2 lakh appeals filed before tribunals against decisions taken during SIR in the state had challenged the inclusion of voters.

In August, Sandhu wrote to commission officials asking “who was authorised to file these appeals on behalf of [Election Commission] and by whom” and “who actually filed these appeals on behalf of [Election Commission]”.

He recorded that neither the West Bengal chief electoral officer, Joshi nor himself had been informed about the basis or process of filing the appeals.

The two election commissioners had also raised concerns over access to the digital electoral roll database.

Each constituency’s electoral roll is maintained by its electoral registration officer, a statutory authority. But Joshi and Sandhu questioned whether these officers were being given access to the database.

In May, Joshi flagged that there was a “gradual centralisation of the electoral roll database” and proposed an audit to certify that “no one, except the concerned statutory authorities, has credentials to make any change in the database”.

In August, Sandhu reiterated this. He recorded that state-level election officials were reporting they “don’t have proper and complete access” to the digital system through which the poll body maintains the electoral roll.

He flagged that the Election Commission’s Director General of IT Seema Khanna “doesn’t have any legal authority to restrict proper and complete access and freedom to operate, as given by law, to the statutory authorities”.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• ‘CEC ruling like a dictator’: Opposition on report that poll commissioners objected to SIR decisions
• Delhi SIR: MP Kapil Sibal asks why he received ‘unmapped’ notice despite matching 1998 voter record
• At least 82% of voters deleted during Bengal SIR have appealed against removal, EC data shows

On July 23, noting that “rivers can’t be polluted in the name of religion”, the Madras High Court recognised the rights of the Tamirabarani River as a juristic person – a non-human legal entity that has the capacity to hold rights and duties just like a human being.

This is the sixth pronouncement in India to grant legal personhood to an element of nature, including to Ganga and Yamuna, Sukhna lake, and animals in general.

These developments are part of a growing international movement towards recognising the “rights of nature”. In 2019, the Dhaka High Court recognised all rivers in Bangladesh as holding legal rights of a living entity. There have also been legal and constitutional developments towards this in Bolivia and Ecuador, among other places.

But this raises a range of scientific, ethical and institutional questions: What rights might a river have? What would constitute a violation of a river’s rights? How can these rights be put into practice within existing governance structures? Are legal rights an adequate framework for protecting nature?

These questions are particularly important in South Asia. Long before Western legal systems began accepting arguments around the rights of nature, social movements and peoples’ worldviews across the region had articulated relationships of respect, reverence and responsibility towards nature.

The contemporary legal recognition of rivers needs to be situated within these longer histories rather than understood only as a new legal innovation.

Limits of legal personhood

The Madras High Court’s July judgment explains that the judges decided to recognise “the personhood of Tamirabarani not because it is a river but because she is a deity” that is worshipped by Hindus. Earlier judgements about the rights of the Ganga and Yamuna placed considerable emphasis on the religious significance of the rivers.

This risks making the recognition of their rights contingent upon particular religious beliefs. However, it is essential to place greater emphasis on the cultural and ecological importance of rivers to all communities, irrespective of religion – including people of other faiths and those who do not subscribe to any religion but whose lives, livelihoods and subsistence are deeply connected to rivers.

The rights of rivers need to be understood through a secular, plural and ecological framework. The Madras High Court itself seems to recognise this tension when it observes that the rituals practised by Hindus are also a contributory factor to the pollution of the Tamirabarani, even as some invoke Article 25 of the Constitution guaranteeing religious freedom to resist restrictions on practices such as dumping clothes in the river.

The court notes that reminding people of their own faith and beliefs can strengthen the task of adjudicating such disputes.

Yet the judgment ultimately does not fully address the larger systemic questions underpinning the crisis of rivers. Pollution is only one dimension of the crisis. More fundamentally, it is about modern humanity’s profound disconnect with rivers and nature in general. Can recognition of the rights of nature address this?

What is a river?

Any judgement about the rights of a river raises an even more fundamental question: what is a river?

A river cannot simply be understood as a channel through which water moves from one point to another. Communities, activists and researchers working with rivers and river-dependent communities have described a river as extending from the place where rain falls or snow melts to the sea, encompassing the entire basin and its ecological relationships.

It includes underground and surface flows, the clouds carrying what some have called “rivers of the sky”, the plants and animals and micro-organisms that live within and alongside it, and all other such elements that constitute what we call the river.

When it comes to its existence with or within the human world, a river is both prakriti (nature) and sanskriti (culture), embedded in symbiotic relationships with human and more-than-human beings. It is simultaneously a physical, ecological, cultural, spiritual and relational entity.

Legal limitation

This brings us back to the central limitation of the Madras High Court judgment. The court highlights an important element of reverence for rivers, but it does not clearly articulate what the rights of rivers entail and, consequently, what would constitute a violation of those rights – other than possibly the right not to be polluted?

This was also a serious limitation of the 2017 Uttarakhand High Court judgement, which recognised the Ganga and Yamuna rivers, their tributaries, glaciers and catchments in Uttarakhand as having rights as a “juristic/legal person/living entity”.

In 1997, an important South Asian articulation of river rights was offered by Imtiaz Ahmed, Ajaya Dixit and Ashis Nandy in Water, Power and People: A South Asian Manifesto on the Politics and Knowledge of Water.

Alongside arguments for “denationalising water” and decentralising water management, the manifesto argued, “Rivers also have their rights, including the right to be relatively pollution free, to be a safe habitat for riverine forms of life and, within limits, to flow freely.”

Fundamentally, recognising the rights of rivers should mean respecting and protecting the ecological conditions that constitute the river as a living habitat. A river therefore has the right to maintain its identity, integrity and ecological functions.

Such recognition must also account for the peoples and communities whose lives and subsistence are deeply connected to rivers. Fishing, farming and other activities dependent on the river cannot simply be understood as uses of the river. They can also constitute relationships of reciprocity and responsibility, in which human activities are (or ought to be) carried out with an understanding of and respect for the river’s ecological integrity.

This means respecting the river’s flow, its constituent plants and animals, its catchment, and the rocks, soils, wetlands and other elements of the landscape through which it moves. The rights of rivers call for a healthy relationship between human communities and rivers rather than a simple prohibition on human interaction with them.

Conversely, activities that fundamentally disrupt or damage these ecological relationships – including pollution, dams and diversions, industrial fishing and trawling, use of agricultural chemicals, and sand mining – could be understood and challenged as violations of the river’s rights.

Researchers such as Himanshu Thakkar have further argued that river rights need to include a right to space – including the areas occupied by 25- and 100-year flood events. Such a right could provide a basis for addressing encroachments, damming and interlinking of rivers. The catchment, flora and fauna, geological formations and other elements of the river ecosystem would need to be considered in relation to the health and integrity of the river as a whole.

This also raises difficult but important questions. If a river has rights, do all the components of its catchment and ecosystem also have rights? Should the plants and animals and micro-organisms that inhabit the river also be recognised as living entities or “persons”? Would such rights apply to individual beings, to species as a whole, and/or to ecosystems? Where do Indigenous or Adivasi and other local communities sit within this framework?

These are not merely technical legal questions. They force us to reconsider the boundaries between human and more-than-human worlds, and the ways in which law and governance recognise relationships between them.

There is a further crucial issue in the Madras judgement. At one point, the judges “recognise the personhood of Tamirabarani not because it is a river but because she is a deity.” This suggests that the river does not actually have rights as a river, but only because humans have considered her to be a deity.

Next, the judgement says, “She is hereby recognised for her own intrinsic value.” This is contradictory. If the river is considered to have intrinsic value, it would not matter whether it is considered holy by humans.

In a sense this is a problem with all judgements that give personhood to elements of nature, if they make some form of human attribution. This is what leads us to our final consideration.

Earthy governance

Towards the end of its judgment, the Madras High Court makes perhaps its most interesting observation: “Jurisprudence must increasingly align itself with spiritual ecology. Especially in a country like India.”

This recognition of spiritual ecology is important. But if the rights of rivers – and more broadly, the rights of nature – are to become transformative, they cannot remain confined to legal personhood or jurisprudence. They require either the sustenance of, or where necessary, transformations in, the consciousness, values and practices of the people who live with and depend upon rivers - and ultimately of all humanity.

Where communities have for millennia or centuries considered rivers as part of the larger web of life that they are only a part of rather than masters of, as part of a larger kinship, these beliefs need to be sustained. Where such relationality has been lost, it needs to be revived or created anew.

A transformative Rights of Nature framework must connect ecological protection with direct democracy, local and bioregional economies, cultural diversity, human wellbeing and ecological resilience. Without this intersectional and holistic imagination, Rights of Nature itself risks being appropriated by the very systems of centralised governance, extractivism, greenwashing and technocratic environmental management that have contributed to the ecological crisis.

This is where the idea of Earthy Governance becomes important. Earthy Governance asks us to imagine decision-making not as something restricted to humans, but as something rooted in deep relations of kinship and communication with the rest of nature.

It is grounded in struggles for self-determination, where people living in particular regions and territories have the autonomy to shape what happens to their lands, waters and communities. When Adivasi communities protested against the Bhopalpatnam-Ichampalli dams on the Indravati river in the 1980s, they asserted that the river is their mother. The movement was simultaneously material, cultural, and spiritual.

Such an approach also requires recognising the knowledge and relationships that have historically been rendered invisible or undervalued. It means centring interspecies habitats and relationships, and bridging the divide between governance, democracy and nature.

The challenge is not simply to give rivers legal personhood, but to transform the political and ethical relationships through which we govern ourselves and relate to the rest of nature. We need to ask not only whether a river can be recognised as a “person” in the law, but whether our systems of governance can recognise the river as a living relation – one with its own integrity, ecological needs, histories, relationships, and agency.

The future of rivers lies not only in the courtroom, but in the territories themselves: in the communities, movements and peoples who are already living or imagining ways of living and governing that recognise rivers as part of a living world to which we belong and towards whom we have responsibilities.

Shrishtee Bajpai and Ashish Kothari are researchers and writers based in Pune

Asarul Sheikh was returning from Kerala in the last week of August when he was stopped by the police from a railway station close to his home in Bengal’s Murshidabad district.

The police accused the migrant worker of being a Bangladeshi and took him to the Lalgola detention centre 15 km away, Sheikh’s niece Rojina Khatun said.

As Scroll reported, the West Bengal police have picked up at least nine Muslim men and two children since June in midnight raids and accused them of being Bangladeshis.

The police have not cited the basis on which they acted against the people, nor did they file any official complaint or a first information report. The alleged undocumented foreigners were not given any opportunity to contest the police allegations and prove their citizenship. “It has been over 20 days since Asarul was detained, but the police have not given us any documents or notice which spell out why they suspect he is a Bangladeshi,” Khatun told Scroll.

Sheikh’s niece said he was included as a legitimate voter in the recent special intensive revision of electoral rolls carried out in West Bengal – and voted in the recent Assembly elections. “But they refused to check our documents,” she said. Four other men detained since June had similarly cleared the SIR process in Bengal.

Detect, delete, deport

In May, soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, the Bengal government announced it was setting up holding centres – to house alleged undocumented migrants – as part of a “detect, delete, deport” policy.

The policy echoes neighbouring Assam’s citizenship determination mechanism, which has often been criticised for being arbitrary and biased against the marginalised. Alarmingly, scholars and legal experts pointed out the “foreigner detection mechanism” being used by the Bengal government is even more draconian, as it gives sweeping powers to the police and the executive, without any element of judicial review.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde said the process in Bengal “allows the police to be judge, jury and executioner of citizenship” all at once. “The process does not envisage a judicial or quasi-judicial authority reviewing the process of identification or deportation,” he said.

Unlike in Assam, where an accused is produced before a foreigners tribunal to determine their citizenship under the Foreigners Act, the Bengal government has been handing the people they pick up to the Border Security Force for forceful deportation or confining them to detention centres for months.

Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies unique to Assam that decide on citizenship cases.

Hegde added: “At least Assam sent people to tribunals, and there was a semblance of due process.”

But advocate Talha Abdul Rahman, who practices in the Supreme Court, pointed out: “This is not to say that foreigners tribunals make things vastly better, because in my view they themselves are kangaroo courts and don’t satisfy the legal requirements.”

Scroll emailed Bengal’s director general of police asking for a response to the criticism that they were flouting constitutional norms. The story will be updated if he responds.

The May 2025 order

In at least one of the nine cases that Scroll examined, the Bengal police invoked an order from the Union ministry of home affairs issued on May 2, 2025 to detain a person.

The order had directed all states and Union territories to detain suspected undocumented immigrants in a “holding centre”. It also laid out a standard operating procedure, under which authorities in the accused’s declared home state and district are asked to verify their claims of citizenship within 30 days. If they fail to do so within a month, the accused is liable to be deported.

The notification was issued last year after the Pahalgam terror attack, in which 25 tourists were killed in Kashmir.

In BJP-ruled states, the police invoked the order to forcibly deport Bengali Muslim migrant workers last year. As Scroll had reported, in many cases, the police did not wait for a verification report from the workers’ home districts before expelling them.

While Bengal under the Trinamool Congress government did not follow the Union home ministry’s order, the new BJP government began picking up and detaining people soon after coming to power.

One of the first persons against whom the Bengal government invoked the May 2025 order was Nasir Molla of Murshidabad district. On the afternoon of June 18, policemen from the Jalangi police station arrived at his home in Dayarampur village in Murshidabad district and forcefully took him away.

Molla’s name was excluded from the electoral roll in the recently concluded SIR, but his appeal against the decision is pending before a tribunal.

His cousin, Suman Mulla, moved the Calcutta High Court, but the court refused to release him from the Lalgola detention centre, arguing that Molla had failed to prove his citizenship under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.

Molla’s lawyer Mokaram Hossain told Scroll that they have challenged the HC order in the Supreme Court. “How could the police come to a conclusion that he is a foreigner,” he said. “Where is the proof? This is not the case that he was apprehended at the border while entering the Indian territory. He was arrested from his home.”

The family claims that Nasir Molla is an Indian by birth and that his family’s land records go back to the 1950s.

Hossain also referred to the 2024 Rahim Ali judgment in which the Supreme Court held that the “material forming the basis of an allegation that a person is a foreigner must be shared with that person as part of natural justice”.

“No such document was provided to Molla or his family,” advocate Hossain said.

In a case involving one such detention, the Calcutta High Court has asked similar questions of the police. On September 19, the court asked the police to file an affidavit explaining why they picked up 39-year-old Sahidul Sheikh from his home in Murshidabad.

The bench of Justice Saugata Bhattacharya also asked the superintendent of police to file a report disclosing the steps taken by the state since August 8, when Sheikh was detained. “Many thousands of people crossed the border in the 1970s and 1980s. Will you start proceedings against everybody? And in this fashion? By violating human rights?” the judge said.

Under challenge

Legal experts also pointed out that the May 2025 order itself violates several constitutional protections. The notification has been challenged in the Supreme Court by the son of a Bengali Muslim woman, who was detained by Mumbai police and pushed into Bangladesh earlier this year.

The order is silent on the accused being produced before the magistrate. It also cut short the earlier procedure which required the police to verify the nationality of suspected undocumented migrants with their respective high commission.

Advocate Dipesh Agarwala, who represents several citizenship cases in the Gauhati High Court, pointed out that even alleged foreigners have protection under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution and they have to be produced before the magistrate within 24 hours of being taken into custody.

Rahman, the Supreme Court advocate, said the standard operating procedure laid out in the notification is arbitrary and illegal.

“The SOP is akin to [allowing] enforced disappearances,” Rahman told Scroll. “People are picked up based on the whims of the police officer, and who he thinks could be a foreigner. There is no guidance at all on how ‘illegally staying Bangladeshi or Myanmar nationals’ are to be identified, opening the door for prejudices to substitute due process.”

Supreme Court advocate Prasanna S also pointed out a fundamental contradiction between the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, and the home ministry order which the police have been using to carry out summary detentions and pushbacks.

The latter was issued under a statutory framework that was replaced four months later by the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 and the Immigration and Foreigners Order, 2025.

“An executive SOP cannot override or dispense with safeguards contained in a statutory order and, to that extent, it is liable to be held ultra vires,” he said.

Prasanna S is representing Sahin Fakir, who has challenged the legality of the May 2025 standard operating procedure for “deporting illegal Bangladeshi nationals” after his mother was picked up and pushed into Bangladesh in June.

‘Against Constitution’

Rahman also questioned the procedure of seeking a report from the district collector of the area to which the accused belongs. In case such a report is not received within 30 days, the notification directs the foreigners’ regional registration office to deport the person. “This is completely arbitrary. The failure of the state to verify a claim authorises the illegal ‘send-back’ of an Indian citizen into a country they do not belong,” he said.

Agarwala, the Gauhati High Court advocate, pointed out that even if the police follow the May 2025 notification, the deportation has to take place under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.

“A person cannot be deported merely on the suspicion of being an illegal immigrant,” he said. “The law makes nationality verification mandatory before any such deportation. The police cannot be the judge and executioner at the same time. That’s fundamentally against our Constitutional scheme.”

A 17-year-old girl was gang raped allegedly by three men who posed as police personnel at a park near Kalkaji temple in southeast Delhi on Monday night, The Hindu reported.

Her 17-year-old male friend was also allegedly assaulted.

The suspects were identified as Asif (31) an onion wholesaler, Hemanth (31) who claims to be an advocate practising at Saket court, and his brother Mukesh (24), a Bachelor of Science student from Haryana. All three were arrested, the police said.

Asif was shot in the right leg on Tuesday morning after he allegedly fired at a police team that tried to intercept him The New Indian Express quoted the police as saying.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern Range) Vijay Kumar told The Hindu that that the accused persons had approached the minor girl and her male friend at the park and used “legal terminology to intimidate the two telling them that they…had done something wrong and could face a case”.

“The trio then separated the girl by taking her to a secluded spot while restraining the boy and sexually assaulted the girl,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

A first information case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to gang rape of a child, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt and aggravated criminal intimidation. It also invoked sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

DU college shifts classes online after gang rape

Following the incident, Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College for Women cancelled regular classes on Tuesday and shifted them online for Wednesday, the Hindustan Times quoted the principal as saying. The gang rape took place at a park near the college’s back gate.

The decision also came after the exchange of fire between the police and a suspect at a location which is about 50 metres from the back gate, The Hindu reported.

The college administration has also advised students, faculty and staff to avoid gathering near the back gate area. It also sought increased police patrolling around the campus.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Bihar minor harassment case: Main accused shot in leg ‘while fleeing’, arrested

The Gujarat High Court on Monday adjourned journalist Ravi Nair’s petition seeking release from judicial custody in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises Limited about a series of posts on social media platform X, reported Bar and Bench.

Justice MK Thakker granted Adani Enterprises more time to respond to Nair’s petition and posted the matter for Wednesday.

Nair was taken into custody on September 17 and sent to jail on orders of a Gandhinagar court, which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him earlier this month for failing to appear in person for a hearing in the defamation case, PTI reported.

The case pertains 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.

On February 10, a magistrate court in Gandhinagar convicted Nair and sentenced him to imprisonment for one year.

The magistrate had 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.

Nair challenged his conviction in an appellate court in Gandhinagar, which granted him bail on March 9. The court had directed him to remain present during the hearing of his appeal.

Nair was not present for the hearing on September 3, his lawyer was quoted as saying by PTI. The court subsequently issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

On Monday, the advocate for Adani Enterprises, sought more time to put on record “certain facts that may go against Nair”, reported Bar and Bench.

Opposing this, the journalist’s lawyer asked why Nair should “spend even one day in jail”.

However, the court said that “when the complainant is represented on issuance of notice, a fair opportunity is required to be given”.

The case is 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.

Amnesty international is concerned by the arrest of Ravi Nair while his appeal is pending before the Gujarat High Court in a case of criminal defamation. It poses serious questions around people's freedom of expression and fair trial rights in the country. https://t.co/yRk8tndSDd

— Amnesty India (@AIIndia) September 22, 2026

On Tuesday, Amnesty International raised concerns about Nair’s arrest while his appeal against the conviction is pending. “It poses serious questions around people’s freedom of expression and fair trial rights in the country,” the organisation said in a social media post.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday allowed a 26-year-old Hindu woman to live with her Muslim husband, saying that the choice of an adult to live with her partner cannot be controlled by her parents or other family members.

Akbar Khan had approached the court with a habeas corpus petition in September 2025, after his wife, Sonika Chauhan, was taken to her parents following a complaint filed by her father in May that year. The complaint had alleged that Khan had abducted Sonika Chauhan and wrongfully confined her. The Ghaziabad Police had arrested Khan shortly after and returned Sonika Chauhan to her parents.

Khan was arrested again a few weeks later after Sonika Chauhan returned to their matrimonial home. The Ghaziabad Police later also invoked 1970 Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act against him and ordered him to leave the district for six months.

During the hearing of the habeas corpus petition, Sonika Chauhan had submitted before the court that her father, Lakshman Singh Chauhan, had subjected her to pressure and threats over her decision to marry Khan.

Sonika Chauhan had told the court that she had voluntarily married Khan in 2022 under the Special Marriage Act and wanted to live with him.

Laxman Singh Chauhan, however, told the court that Sonika Chauhan had been blackmailed and was acting under Khan’s influence. He also objected to their marriage on the grounds that Khan is Muslim and his daughter a Hindu.

On Tuesday, the court observed that there was nothing on record to indicate that Sonika Chauhan was acting under coercion, undue influence or intimidation.

The court said that she was exercising her fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution by choosing her life partner.

“Such a choice is personal to the individual concerned and cannot be dictated or controlled by the wishes of her parents or other family members,” the court said.

The court allowed Sonika Chauhan to live with Khan at a place of her choice. It also directed the state authorities to ensure their safety and security and provide police assistance, if required, for their safe transit.

It also directed Sonika Chauhan’s family not to interfere with their “peaceful matrimonial life” in any manner.

Scroll spoke to Sonika after Tuesday’s order. She said she was relieved to see her “one-year ordeal” coming to an end.

Her husband, however, alleged that the police officers who were supposed to accompany them from Prayagraj to Ghaziabad and ensure their safety were not following the court’s directions.

“They are asking us to go stay with our relatives because it is not safe to return,” he told Scroll over the phone. “We have already been through a lot. We just want to go home.”

The station house officer of Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram police station denied the allegation when contacted by Scroll. “We are complying with the order of the honourable High Court,” the officer said. “The couple are on their way back from Allahabad at the moment. We will ensure that they safely reach wherever they wish to go.”

Inputs from Anant Gupta. Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Anamika Pathak.

Also read: How the lives of a married couple from Ghaziabad were upended by BJP leader’s ‘love jihad’ claims

The main accused in the harassment and assault of a minor girl and her male friend in Bihar’s Jamui district was arrested after being shot in the leg during an alleged gunfight with the police, The Hindu quoted a police officer as saying on Tuesday.

Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) KS Anupam told the newspaper that the accused person, Nandan Yadav, opened fire at the police while trying to flee. He was injured in the leg when the police shot at him in retaliation, the officer said. Yadav was taken to hospital.

Yadav and his two accomplices were arrested on Tuesday while three minors were arrested on Monday, Anupam told ANI.

The arrests came after videos of the incident were widely shared on social media. One video shows the boy riding a two-wheeler with the girl seated behind him. A group of men can be seen surrounding them on a dimly lit road and asking whether they were classmates and whether their families knew about their relationship.

The boy says they were classmates, while the girl pleads with the men to let them go. One of the men slaps the boy and asks the two to call their families. “If they know, then call them,” the man can be heard saying.

In other videos, several men are seen chasing the two minors. One man appears to grab and lift the girl, while the boy tries to pull her away. Another man is seen pulling the boy by his collar.

The incident reportedly took place on Saturday.

A case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act on Monday. A special investigation team has been formed to probe the case.

On Tuesday, an additional case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act against those involved in sharing videos of the two minors, Anupam told ANI.

Tejashwi calls for CM’s resignation

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday called for Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary’s resignation, ANI reported.

“Samrat Choudhary had once said, ‘Go to Munger. If anything happens to anyone or someone is harmed, I am ready to resign,’” Tejashwi Yadav said. Munger is the chief minister’s constituency.

“...the video proves that women and girls are not safe in Bihar,” he added. “If Samrat Choudhary stands by his words, he should resign.”

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said that strict action would be taken against all those involved in the incident, The Hindu reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Jailed activist Sharjeel Imam was on Tuesday granted interim bail for seven days by a Delhi court in the 2020 riots conspiracy case, PTI reported.

Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai allowed Imam’s plea seeking interim bail to attend his cousin’s wedding. The bail period will begin on October 4.

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

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

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

On July 4, a Delhi court rejected Imam and Khalid’s bail petition. Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma Courts said that he was bound by the Supreme Court’s order from January that denied them bail.

The Supreme Court in its January order had said that both the activists can file fresh petitions after all protected witnesses are examined or after one year.

However, the bench had granted bail to Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Shadab Ahmed and Muhammad Saleem Khan.

Edited by Anamika Pathak.

The Bihar Police on Monday said that three persons have been arrested for allegedly harassing and assaulting a minor girl and her male friend in Jamui district.

The police claimed that the three persons were identified from videos that are being widely shared online. The videos shows the boy riding a two-wheeler while the girl was seated behind him.

A group of men could be seen surrounding them on a dimly lit road and asking them whether they were classmates and if their families were aware of their relationship. The boy said that they were classmates, while the girl pleaded with the group to let the two go.

One of the men slapped the boy and asked them to call their families. “If they know, then call them,” the man could be heard saying.

In other videos, several men are seen chasing the two minors. One of them could be seen grabbing and lifting the girl, while the boy tried to pull her away. The boy was then seen being pulled by his collar by another man.

Jamui Superintendent of Police Bishwajeet Dayal told reporters that the incident took place on September 19, reported PTI.

“Although the incident is two days old, no complaint was made before us by the boy or the girl till Sunday,” Dayal was quoted as saying by the news agency. “Today, when the video went viral, we traced the victims with the help of the registration number of a vehicle visible in the clip.”

In a press conference on Monday, Dayal said that the arrested persons were minors while the other suspects were being identified through the videos, ANI reported.

He added that they have been booked under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to assaulting a woman with intent to outrage her modesty and using criminal force with intent to disrobe her, as well as under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

A Special Investigation Team has been formed to probe the case, said the police.

Earlier in the day, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the video was “deeply disturbing” and asked why the suspects were “not behind bars yet” when the incident had taken place on Saturday.

“Two class 10 students were stopped on a road,” he wrote in a social media post. “Harassed. Humiliated. Molested. A young girl, hands folded, begged to be let go while goons groped her and dragged her away.”

Gandhi demanded that the Bihar government answer “why a girl is not safe on a public road at 7 pm”.

The National Democratic Alliance, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal (United), is in power in Bihar.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav said that “gunda raj”, or a state of lawlessness, had completely taken hold of Bihar, ANI reported.

“What can you expect when BJP’s Samrat Chaudhary is the chief minister of Bihar, who also has murder cases against him,” Yadav said.

He alleged that the government had “lost all sense of shame or decency” and was focused on “hushing up” cases instead of ensuring justice for victims.

Meanwhile, JD(U)’s Umesh Kushwaha described the case as an “isolated incident”, ANI reported.

“I want to ask what was the condition of Bihar before 2005?” the news agency quoted him as saying. “Today, no criminal is spared by the police and administration.”

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court verbally observed that the “logical discrepancy” notices issued during the special intensive revision of voter rolls in Delhi appeared to be “machine-generated”. It added that voters needed clarity when they were being served such notices.

The court made the remarks while issuing notice on a plea raising questions about the manner in which the voter roll revision exercise was being carried out in the national capital. The petitioners had submitted that more than 33 lakh voters in Delhi had been sent notices on “flimsy reasons”. Read on.

Delhi SIR: MP Kapil Sibal asks why he received ‘unmapped’ notice despite matching 1998 voter record

A person who does not sing all six stanzas of Vande Mataram for religious reasons should not face criminal prosecution, the Supreme Court said. The court made the observation while hearing a petition filed by Carnatic singer TM Krishna challenging the 2026 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Act.

The law criminalises insults to Vande Mataram, giving it the same statutory protection as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. Earlier, only the first two stanzas of the national song were played at official functions. The remaining stanzas, which invoke Hindu goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, had been omitted.

In his petition, Krishna argued that mandating the singing of all six stanzas under penal sanction “transforms what is unquestionably a contested historical symbol into a compelled orthodoxy”. The court gave the Union government two weeks to respond to the petition. Read on.

The main accused in the harassment and assault of a minor girl and her male friend in Bihar’s Jamui district was arrested after being shot in the leg during an alleged gunfight with the police. The accused person, Nandan Yadav, opened fire at the police while trying to flee, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) KS Anupam said. He was injured in the leg when the police shot at him in retaliation.

Yadav was arrested with his two accomplices, while three minors were detained a day earlier. The arrests came after videos of the the girl being sexually harassed and the boy being assaulted were widely shared on social media. Read on.

Amnesty International expressed concern about journalist Ravi Nair’s arrest, a day after the Gujarat High Court adjourned his petition seeking release from judicial custody in a criminal defamation case filed by Adani Enterprises. “It poses serious questions around people’s freedom of expression and fair trial rights in the country,” the organisation said in a social media post.

Nair was taken into custody on September 17 and sent to jail on the orders of a Gandhinagar court, which had issued a non-bailable warrant against him earlier this month for failing to appear in person at a hearing in the defamation case.

The case pertains to a series of posts on X by Nair between October 2020 and July 2021 about the Adani Group. The posts included allegations by United States short seller Hindenburg Research and a strike against the proposed privatisation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. Read on.

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

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice on a plea raising questions about the manner in which the special intensive revision of electoral rolls was being carried out in Delhi, Bar and Bench reported.

It observed that voters needed clarity when they were being served notices for “logical discrepancies”.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant took note of concerns that the notices issued to voters in the “doubtful” list did not provide sufficient reasons or details.

The petitioners said that more than 33 lakh voters in Delhi had been sent notices on “flimsy reasons”, Live Law reported.

Notice mechanically issued, says bench

During the hearing on Tuesday, Justice Joymalya Bagchi verbally observed that the notices appeared to have been issued “almost mechanically”, Bar and Bench reported.

“In all probability, they are machine-generated notices,” he was quoted as saying, asking the counsel representing the Election Commission to examine whether additional filters were necessary.

Kant said that there was room to clarify what information was being sought from the voters in cases of “logical discrepancies” marked against them in the notices, the legal news outlet reported.

Logical discrepancies refer to what the poll panel considers as inconsistencies, or a mismatch in the name of the voters’ parents, a low age gap with parents and the number of children of the parents being more than six.

The court said that there was a need for the booth-level officers to be sensitised so that they assist the voters who have been served notices, Bar and Bench reported. It also suggested that the poll panel publish in newspapers answers to frequently asked questions about the voter list revision exercise.

The bench also took note of Election Commission’s submission that there was time to correct any lapses in the process as no polls were scheduled in the national capital in the near future, the legal news outlet reported.

The bench will hear the matter after two weeks.

Delhi is among the 19 states and Union Territories where the voter roll revision is being carried out in the third phase of SIR.

Election Commissioner SS Sandhu, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal were among the 33 lakh voters for whom notices had been generated.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

During the third phase, more than six crore names have been deleted from draft lists.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision, but said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Delhi SIR: MP Kapil Sibal asks why he received ‘unmapped’ notice despite matching 1998 voter record
• At least 82% of voters deleted during Bengal SIR have appealed against removal, EC data shows
• Odisha SIR: Over 17 lakh names deleted from final voter list

The names of more than 17.6 lakh persons were deleted from Odisha’s final voter list published on Monday following the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Hindu quoted the state Election Commission as saying.

The voters in the state reduced to 3.16 crore from 3.33 crore before the exercise began, a decrease of about 5.2%.

Odisha is among the 19 states and Union Territories where the voter roll revision is being carried out in the third phase of SIR.

The enumeration phase of the SIR in Odisha began on May 30.

On Monday, Chief Electoral Officer RS Gopalan said that 3.1 crore enumeration forms were received from voters. This accounted for 93.9% of the total electorate.

More than 20 lakh voters whose forms were not received had been excluded from the draft list published in July. Among the excluded voters, 8.3 lakh had been marked as deceased, 2 lakh as absent, 8.1 lakh as having shifted and 1.6 lakh as duplicate entries.

Voters filed claims and objections against their exclusion between July 5 and August 19. About 2.5 lakh appeals were received and processed before the final roll was prepared, The Hindu cited data from the chief electoral officer as having shown.

After the hearings, more than 24,000 voters were found ineligible for inclusion in the final roll. More than 20,700 names were deleted based on applications objecting to the inclusions or seeking their deletions, the poll panel said.

This took the deletions to 44,770 after the disposing of the claims, objections and other applications, Gopalan was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, more than 2.9 lakh voters were added to the electoral roll following this stage of the exercise.

This meant a net addition of 2.4 lakh names to the draft roll.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision, but said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Kamla Devi never thought that a casual conversation with a colleague would save her life.

On the morning of September 2, Kamla, her sister Sugna Devi and five other women were cutting grass in a tiger’s enclosure at Jaipur’s Nahargarh Biological Park. The zoo is nestled in the Aravallis, and houses an animal rescue centre and several enclosures of mammals, such as bears, panthers and tigers. The sisters had been employed for cleaning and gardening work since the park’s inauguration in 2016.

As they worked that morning, Devi saw a flash of yellow and black from the corner of her eye – the tiger, named Shivaji, had made its way out from its isolation enclosure to the area where the women were working.

Kamla’s mind instantly returned to an incident from around a year ago, where a young staff member who was showing off tricks, demonstrated to Kamla and Sugna how to climb the wire mesh around the animals’ enclosure.

Kamla began to climb the mesh fence, as did the five other women. Midway, clinging on to the mesh, Kamla looked back to see where her sister was. What she saw still haunts her – the tiger had one paw on Sugna’s chest, and had attacked her neck. She did not survive.

“We never thought an accident like this could be a possibility,” Kamla said, holding back tears, when Scroll met her at her home across the highway from the park.

Grass cutting was a regular activity in the enclosure, Kamla explained, but the accident occurred because of a change in personnel. “The person who was responsible for the opening and closing of the gates was on leave,” she said. “She handed over the duty to another guard, but forgot to tell her that we do grass cutting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.” The forest department has suspended the guard who opened the gate.

Sugna’s death is not an isolated event. Bhuvan M, a conservationist from Mangalore has documented 17 such incidents from across the country that occurred between 2012 and 2026, where zoo staffers and vets were injured or killed while at work.

In 2021, for instance, a cleaner in Kerala who was cleaning a King Cobra’s enclosure died after the snake bit him. In July 2024, a caretaker succumbed to his injuries in Jharkhand’s Bhagwan Birsa Biological Park after being attacked by a hippopotamus. In May the same year, in Tamil Nadu’s Kurumbapatti Zoological Park, a sambar deer gored an animal caretaker to death.

This April, in Gujarat’s Vantara, a vet was found dead with suspected head injury near a pond meant for elephants to bathe. More recently, one week ago, a bonnet macaque monkey bit a caretaker in Delhi’s zoo, who later alleged that the enclosure’s gate had been faulty, allowing the animal to leave it.

“These incidents are not isolated, but indicative of a systemic and nationwide failure to institutionalise safety standards,” Bhuvan argued in a public-interest litigation that he filed in the Karnataka High Court in April. The petition argued that there was a need to protect the “interests, welfare, safety, and fundamental rights of zoo keepers, veterinarians, and other zoo personnel, and to prevent and mitigate incidents”. Just the previous month, a pregnant hippopotamus in Karnataka’s Tyavarekoppa Zoo had attacked a 27-year old vet, when she entered the enclosure to take the animal’s temperature.

But experts argue that the problem goes beyond negligence. “Animals brought into captivity are exposed to a complex environmental and behavioural challenges, affecting both the animals and people interacting with them,” said Avinash Krishnan, national director of A Rocha, a global organisation that works on animal-human interactions.

He explained that many species, particularly large mammals, require substantial spatial ranges to meet their ecological and behavioural needs. Zoos, constrained by space might be unable to replicate these conditions adequately, potentially resulting in chronic stress and altered behaviours. Captive environments can therefore create “conditions that can increase the likelihood of adverse animal-human interactions”, Krishnan added.

No central staff safety guidelines

Earlier this year, Bhuvan filed a right-to-information application, asking the Central Zoo Authority about safety procedures that were in place for zoo staff. In its response, the authority stated that “no safety protocol document, risk assessment and SOP [standard operating procedure] for staff, veterinary/zookeeper to enter the animal enclosure for treatment, feeding or any other necessary reason is issued by this public authority”.

In its response, the authority directed Bhuvan to its “Guidelines for Establishment and Scientific Management of Zoos in India”, which lays down guidelines for animal health care and welfare, releasing animals in the wild and conservation breeding, among other matters.

“These guidelines are for the zoo maintenance and scientific management of the zoo, it has nothing to do with the safety of staff,” Bhuvan told Scroll. “This shows that since 1972, when the Wildlife Protection Act was implemented, till now, they have not even thought of the staff.”

In June, during a hearing of Bhuvan’s petition, the central government counsel appearing for the zoo authority stated that the authority had “already initiated steps in this regard”.

An expert committee had been formed on May 5, the counsel said, to develop “SOPs relating to safety protocols, veterinary practices and addressing systemic gaps in zoo management” within 60 days.

The court took note of this submission. It observed that since these steps had already been taken, it did not think “it apposite to issue any further directions in this regard”, and disposed of the application.

But the committee did not meet its deadline, as Bhuvan learnt after he filed another right to information application seeking copies of the committee’s procedures and recommendations. In its response, dated July 15, the zoo authority said the planned measures were “presently under consideration” and that the document had “not yet been finalised or approved”.

Best practices

Bhuvan’s petition argued that a key problem was the absence of “standardised safety mechanisms that guarantee complete isolation of hazardous animals prior to human entry”.

He explained to Scroll that some of the best practices across the world to ensure such isolation included innovative locking mechanisms. In the Wildlands Adventure Zoo Emmen in the Netherlands, for instance, keys for the bear enclosure operate in a sequence, ensuring that one enclosure is fully secured before another can be accessed – this ensures that the animal and keeper cannot be in the space together.

Such mechanisms also need to be inspected and maintained regularly. “There has to be safety checks done once in a week at least,” Bhuvan said.

Other experts agreed with the need for such protocols. Nikhil Whitaker, director of research at the private zoo, Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Centre for Herpetology, one of the world’s largest reptile zoos, said that a primary feature of their safety protocol is that staff “never enter enclosures alone or without letting people know”. He explained that “there is always a chain of people” around, including the zoo manager, keepers and those involved in working within the enclosure.

Whitaker also explained that it was vital to develop protocols based on understanding the behaviour of different species. “Crocodiles guard their nests during nesting season,” he said. “During those times, we have casuarina poles to gently fend off the animals that will most definitely be protecting their eggs.”

The absence of such protocols in Jaipur was evident from Kamla Devi’s conversation with Scroll. She explained that till a few years ago, a staff member with long bamboo sticks would always accompany those entering the enclosures of animals. “This made us feel safe,” she said, but noted that this practice was discontinued with time.

Narayan Lal, Sugna’s brother-in-law, criticised the lack of proper safety protocols that could have saved Sugna. “There should have at least been a siren that informs staff if the tiger is being let out,” he said. “No such system was in place here.”

Questions emailed to the Rajasthan forest department, which oversees the zoo in Jaipur, did not elicit a response. This report will be updated if there is a response.

Training of staff

Whitaker also noted that it was crucial to train staff on how to handle situations in which they might encounter an animal. Kamla Devi said that since she had joined, she had received no such training.

The Madras zoo provides such training to staff who work with crocodiles, including vets and others who may need to transfer the animals from one space to another for check-ups and rehabilitation.

Whitaker explained that staff are trained to help them assess how close they can get to the animal, what specific dangers they should remain aware of, and how to place a rope around it. “Every six to eight months, we have something like a refresher course for the staff,” he said.

Krishnan agreed that such training was vital. “Animals also undergo significant physiological and behavioural changes,” he said. For instance, elephants can be in the state of musth, during which male elephants have higher testosterone levels, and are known to be aggressive. “During this period, subtle behavioural and physiological indicators can be difficult for keepers to recognise without any appropriate training,” he said.

He noted that he had found that zoos typically have some experienced keepers. But “this experience is not always distributed as consistently across different species available at the zoo”, he said. When staff do not have “basic knowledge of animal behaviour and zoology”, he explained, “it can become hard for them to interpret the subtle indicators of stress or distress”.

In fact, the Central Zoo Authority has also noted a lack of such understanding at facilities across the country. For instance, it noted in 2016-’17, that the officer in charge at the tiger-lion Safari at Shivmogga, as well as staff members, “had not been imparted training and exposure to the zoo management techniques and skills”. In its annual report, the zoo stated that “animal keepers shall be deputed for training…in batches within a period of six months”.

More recently, in 2024-’25 the authority noted that although the National Zoological Park in Delhi was a large zoo, it did not have a biologist, whose duties would include understanding animal behaviour. “A good biologist can take care of animal welfare, which is inadequate in the zoo at present,” it said. The zoo then went on to appoint such a biologist the following year.

Need for emergency responses

Bhuvan’s petition also pointed out that zoos lacked adequate emergency response mechanisms. Kamla Devi’s experience indicated that there was such a lack at the Jaipur zoo – she said that she did not remember seeing ambulances or doctors on site for staff members in case of emergencies. “These both are available for animals,” she said. “But not for humans.”

The Central Zoo Authority’s 2024-’25 annual report suggested a possible such response mechanism for the National Zoological Park in Delhi – while it was primarily for the benefit of visitors, the mechanism could also serve to protect staff members. Specifically, the authority asked the zoo to install two water cannons in front of carnivore enclosures “to prevent attack from the animal in case of an accidental fall of some person into the enclosure”. The zoo acquired a “water cannon fitted vehicle” a year later, according to that year’s annual report.

Sugna’s family rued the fact that not only were staff inadequately protected, their families did not receive much support – after her death, they said, their economic troubles could have been eased if the staff had been provided with insurance. “Sugna’s husband suffered severe injuries after an electrocution during his work last year,” said relative Narayan Lal. “She was the only earning member.”

Indeed, Bhuvan’s petition also demanded the government put in place “uniform and mandatory” provisions for life and health insurance coverage, and “hazard pay or risk-based allowances commensurate with the nature of duties performed”.

Sugna’s family explained that the Rajasthan forest department, which is responsible for the management of the biological parks in the state, had agreed to pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family.

But her relatives remain distressed by what they see as negligence from the zoo’s authorities, which led to the tragedy. Kamla Devi refuses to work there anymore. “The real tiger is the government,” Narayan Lal said. “They killed Sugna.”

Former High Court Justice RC Chavan has resigned from a committee set up by the Maharashtra government to prepare a draft for implementing the Uniform Civil Code, PTI reported on Tuesday.

Chavan resigned on Saturday citing disagreements over the functioning of the panel and the involvement of an official from outside the state.

The government had set up the seven-member panel in July. It is headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Desai.

In his resignation letter, Chavan alleged that the meetings of the committee were being concluded without substantive discussions, PTI reported.

He was quoted as having claimed that items on the agenda such as confirmation of minutes, website modifications and finalisation of questionnaires were disposed of quickly on the directions of the chairperson.

He also alleged that suggestions from members on framing a questionnaire to seek the public’s views on matters such as late marriages, infertility, unstable marriages and dispute resolution, had not been considered as an alternative set of questions finalised by the chairperson had already been shared for uploading, PTI reported.

Chavan also said in his resignation letter that an officer from outside the state was involved in the panel. “Maharashtra officers may feel they are not competent to do this duty that an officer from another State had to be called,” he was quoted as saying.

“It may also be that he did not know as to where to fit” the officer in the panel’s functioning, PTI quoted Chavan as saying. “To solve this problem, I am vacating my seat on the committee by resigning now, so that the government can fill in the blank promptly,” he added.

Desai also headed the panels that drafted Uniform Civil Codes for Uttarakhand and Gujarat.

The other members of the panel are former Bombay High Court judge SG Mehare, former state Chief Secretary DK Jain, former Advocate General Virendra Saraf, constitutional expert Ramesh Patange and educationist Suvarna Rawal.

In July, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said that the committee is expected to submit its report within six months as the government is planning to introduce the draft legislation in the Winter Session of the Assembly.

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

It has long been on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s agenda to implement a common personal law and several states ruled by the party have made progress towards achieving the goal.

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

The Assemblies in Gujarat, Assam and Madhya Pradesh have passed Uniform Civil Code bills. The Rajasthan Cabinet has approved a bill.

West Bengal and Chhattisgarh governments have also formed committees to draft Uniform Civil Codes.

On September 13, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that governments led by the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance partners in 21 states would introduce the code before 2029, when the next Lok Sabha elections are expected to take place.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it expects that a person who does not sing all six stanzas of Vande Mataram for religious reasons should not face criminal prosecution, reported Live Law.

The statement came while a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing a petition filed by Carnatic singer TM Krishna challenging the constitutional validity of the 2026 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Act, which criminalises insults to the national song.

The bench asked the Union government to respond to the petition within two weeks, reported Bar and Bench.

The law, which received presidential assent on August 6, gives Vande Mataram the same statutory protection as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. It states that intentionally preventing the singing of the national song, or disrupting a gathering singing it, can be punished with imprisonment of up to three years, a fine or both.

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

In addition to the 2026 amendments to the 1971 law, Krishna has challenged directions issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in February requiring that all six stanzas of the Vande Mataram be sung at government, ceremonial and cultural occasions.

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

Krishna contended in his petition that the Union government’s directions compel citizens to sing stanzas that “are expressly devotional, deity-invoking and non-secular”.

By mandating the singing of all six stanzas under penal sanction, the state “transforms what is unquestionably a contested historical symbol into a compelled orthodoxy”, he said.

The court said that it will examine whether the right of a person not to sing the four stanzas, as recognised in the 1986 Bijoe Emmanuel case, is protected, reported Live Law.

“We would expect that the law of the land, as declared by this court in Bijoe Emmanuel, will govern the act of the statute,” it said. “The declaration of law in Bijoe Emmanuel has till now not been questioned.”

In the Bijoe Emmanuel judgement, the Supreme Court had ruled that expelling students for refusing to sing the national anthem while standing in respectful silence violates their fundamental rights to freedom of speech and religion.

Krishna also said that while the national anthem was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950, Vande Mataram, on the other hand, was never formally categorised as the “national song”.

Hearing the petition, Bagchi pointed out that Vande Mataram has been customarily understood to be the national song. “With the two stanzas,” Live Law quoted him as saying.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Does ‘Vande Mataram’ need the threat of criminal law to be honoured?

Two babies died after a fire broke out at the Special Newborn Care Unit ward of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Telangana’s Adilabad district on Monday, reported The Hindu.

Two nurses and several hospital staff suffered injuries while rescuing 28 babies, reported The Indian Express.

The fire broke out at around 11.30 pm after an air-conditioning unit in the reception area exploded.

The sections inside the newborn care unit were enclosed and had glass windows. After the fire, smoke accumulated inside, The Hindu quoted the district Medical and Health Officer Dr Sadhana as saying.

As soon as they noticed this, “patient attendants broke the glass windows to allow the smoke to escape and helped evacuate the babies from the affected areas”, she added.

One of the babies who died was five days old while the other was four days old. The babies who were rescued were shifted to nearby private hospitals.

Chief Minister Revanth Reddy ordered an inquiry and directed officials to submit a report on the causes of the fire.

He also conveyed his condolences to the families of the two babies who died, describing the incident as extremely tragic.

State Health Minister C Damodar Raja Narasimha also expressed grief about the deaths and assured the families of the government’s support.

“The condition of the other children who were in the ward at the time of the incident was stable and none have developed any complications,” The Hindu quoted a note from the minister’s office as saying.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Special Investigation Team probing the alleged theft of donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya told the Supreme Court that it has identified 105 instances of unauthorised removal of currency recorded on security cameras, The Hindu reported Monday.

This marks an increase from the 70 alleged instances of theft recorded in the interim report of the first Special Investigation Team, the Hindustan Times reported.

The finding was part of a status report submitted by the new Special Investigation Team to a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant on September 16.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, said that the investigation had been “substantially concluded”. A chargesheet would be filed before Friday, The Hindu quoted Mehta as having added.

The court said that some of the persons accused in the matter had been identified along with details about the number of times they allegedly engaged in the misappropriation. “The status report details the analysis of CCTV footage and other materials to identify the eight accused persons,” it said.

The bench noted that the status report also presents a summary of the “unexplained deposits” in the bank accounts of the persons accused in the case, as well as information about the immovable and movable assets in which the allegedly stolen money was invested.

The embezzlement case

The new special investigation team has since July probed the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple. It was formed on the directions of the Supreme Court.

The earlier three-member probe team was formed by the state government in June at the request of the temple trust after Opposition leaders and a whistleblower raised questions about about the handling of donations at the temple.

In its preliminary report, submitted to the Uttar Pradesh government on June 23, the first SIT found 70 instances of counting staff hiding bundles of notes and loose cash in their clothes, pockets and shoes. Scroll has seen a copy of the report.

The report had alleged that offerings were stolen during the counting process, with staff routinely hiding cash on their bodies and walking out with it, as systems meant to stop this were not enforced. It had also flagged serious lapses by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust and the State Bank of India, the banker to the trust.

Also read:

• What the SIT report on Ram temple donation theft does and does not say
• An SBI manager questioned in Ayodhya ‘theft’ case was a tenant of Ram temple trustee

The report held trustee Anil Mishra, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader, responsible for the dilution of security protocols in the counting room but did not recommend any action against him.

While it did not name Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust General Secretary Champat Rai, one of his aides was among the eight staffers it recommended for police investigation. The eight persons were also named in a first information report registered on June 25.

Mishra and Rai have resigned from their positions in the trust.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• In Ayodhya, it’s Sangh Parivar vs Sangh Parivar as Ram temple fund ‘theft’ charges blow up
• The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya
• Ayodhya land deals yield rich dividends for relatives of politicians

“There is my friend, my sister,” said Pinky Kumari, her face lighting up with a smile. She was pointing to a photograph on display at an art exhibition in Shahbad Dairy, a low-income neighbourhood in North Delhi, on September 6.

The photograph showed Srishti Gupta, a 28-year-old artist, addressing a group of women, who were listening attentively. Gupta used to run basic literacy classes for the women of Shahbad Dairy, Kumari recalled.

A few steps away from this exhibit, scraps carrying children’s messages for Gupta adorned a sheet of sky-blue chart paper that hung from a string. “Miss you Srishti didi,” many of the messages read, using the Hindi word for elder sister as a mark of respect. Some of the children told Scroll that Gupta besides teaching them art also helped them revise their school lessons.

The residents of the neighbourhood have not met with Gupta since April 11, when she was detained by Uttar Pradesh Police for allegedly inciting violence during a workers’ protest in Noida, an industrial city in the National Capital Region. Her friends, who describe her as an “illegally imprisoned artist”, had organised the exhibition in Shahbad Dairy to raise awareness about her incarceration.

In April, thousands of industrial workers hit the streets in Noida to demand an increase in their wages, which had not been revised for many of them since 2014. In solidarity with them, Gupta had joined the protests alongside fellow activists associated with the Left-leaning Progressive Artists’ League. She was among the first few protesters to be arrested and has now spent more than five months in prison.

On September 1, the Allahabad High Court came down heavily on the authorities investigating cases related to the protests. The court pulled up the district magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar, of which Noida is a part, and the Uttar Pradesh Police for “concocting” stories about Akriti Chaudhary, another young artist who was picked up with Gupta.

However, Gupta and the other activists remain behind bars because the Uttar Pradesh Police has filed several cases against them in connection with the workers’ protest. Gupta has as many as 11 against her. She has yet to secure bail in two of them.

Caring and creating

Gupta was born and raised in Amethi, a small town in Uttar Pradesh’s Awadh region. In 2016, the year she finished school, she moved to Delhi to study fine art at Delhi University’s College of Art.

Her course was primarily focused on printmaking and offered few opportunities to explore spaces beyond the college campus, said Vinod Karki, her batchmate and a fellow member of the Progressive Artists’ League. He described the process of creating art by printing as a physically intense and engaging process which requires artists to stay with their machines for long durations of time.

“Often, we did not even find the time to eat properly,” Karki explained. “Srishti would insist that all of us have lunch together. If somebody was unable to join, she brought them food and made sure they ate.”

In their four years at college, he was repeatedly struck by how much Gupta cared about other people. She was not very interested in politics at the time, Karki recalled. That, however, changed after she went to Visva-Bharati, the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1921, for a master’s degree in fine arts.

Gupta reached Kala Bhavana, the university’s fine arts department, in 2020 and spent about four years in the world that Tagore had built in Bengal’s Santiniketan. Karki, who stayed in touch with her during those years, said that their phone conversations at the time reflected her newfound Leftist outlook.

“She talked a lot about Palestine,” he remembered. “How does capitalism work? Why are politicians the way they are? These were the questions that we discussed at length.”

As Gupta’s worldview expanded in Santiniketan, so did her relationship with art. Alongside her studies, she wrote poetry and picked up local handicrafts.

The exhibition in Shahbad Dairy, too, was strewn with objects from Santiniketan. There were reams of handmade paper as well as rope, both of which Gupta learned how to make from the Santhals, an Adivasi community, who live in and around Santiniketan.

Visva-Bharati alumnus Maksud Ali Mondal, 33, met Gupta during her time at the university. He had already graduated by then and was working out of a studio in Boner Pukur Danga, a Santhal village near Santiniketan.

Gupta used to visit the village frequently and formed a lasting relationship with its Adivasi residents. Mondal made it a point to tell Scroll that her relationship with the community was not an extractive one.

“She did not romanticise their landscape,” he said over the phone from Amsterdam. “Her approach was very sensitive. To this day, I get calls from those villagers asking me if Srishti is doing alright and when she will be released from prison.”

Gupta was so invested in the village that upon completing her master’s in 2022, she decided to follow in Mondal’s footsteps and stay there for a couple of years more. He even saw her learn how to sow paddy from the farmers in the village. That was her way of becoming one with the community, he contended. “She saw art as a way of connecting with people,” he added.

Mondal was, therefore, not surprised by Gupta’s turn to activism after she returned to Delhi in 2023. He saw her presence at the workers’ protest in Noida as not very different from her efforts to learn paddy farming from the Santhals of Boner Pukur Danga.

A crime of empathy?

In Delhi, Gupta was drawn to an alternative strand of Left politics that is not restricted to contesting elections but focuses on grassroots activism in the working-class settlements that dot the city’s industrial suburbs.

An initiative that resonated deeply with Gupta was running community libraries for women and children in neighbourhoods such as Karawal Nagar and Shahbad Dairy. That is how she began volunteering in Shahbad Dairy and eventually moved there.

Besides community work, Gupta regularly went to protests in and around the city, such as the pickets her fellow activists organised outside brand outlets that they saw as complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Her participation in the Noida workers’ protest, her friends say, must be seen in this context.

But Uttar Pradesh Police’s chargesheets in the cases against Gupta paint a different picture. “Her main responsibility was to make posters and paintings for protests and incite workers,” reads one of these chargesheets, which describes her as a “key conspirator”.

The police have linked Gupta to a host of Leftist organisations such as the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India, Mazdoor Bigul and Naujawan Bharat Sabha. They have also concluded that her “ideology” is “Maoism” because she possessed “books related to revolution”. One of these books is supposedly linked to the Communist Party of India (Maoist), a banned, far-Left organisation.

However, the police investigation against Gupta has itself become a subject of controversy. Her fellow activists have put out videos on social media which suggest that the police tried to plant evidence in her house after she had been arrested. The police have denied this accusation and claim that they went to her house in compliance with a court order.

“Her [Srishti’s] crime is empathy,” said Shuddhabrata Sengupta, a Delhi-based artist who has known Gupta for years and visited her in jail recently. “She was concerned about the lives of working-class people and their children. That is what has been criminalised.”

Mondal, the artist who first met Gupta in Santiniketan, concurred. Politics for her, he asserted, was not about political parties and their agendas, but primarily about being an ethical artist. As someone who came from a small-town, middle-class family that had nothing to do with art, she wanted to make a living as an artist without compromising on her beliefs.

“She used to ask me how I survive without a job because she had never seen someone do that while making art,” Mondal recalled. “I would tell her about funding and grants. She had questions about taking money from capitalists who fund ecological artists and, at the same time, deforest acres and acres of land.”

Art and activism

Before Gupta was arrested, her family did not know that such questions shaped her practice as an artist or about her engagement with Left activism. One of her relatives, who spoke to Scroll on the condition of anonymity fearing retribution from the police, said that they only supported her in pursuing art professionally because they appreciated her talent.

Gupta’s teachers from Visva-Bharati, too, declined interview requests citing university rules about talking to the press. Delhi’s artist community has also not spoken up in her support, as Sengupta, the artist quoted earlier in this piece, has repeatedly pointed out.

For friends and fellow activists, though, Gupta was more than an artist. “She did not confine herself to art,” stated Karki, her batchmate from college, adding that she was deeply involved in the day-to-day life of the communities she worked with.

In the initial months after returning to Delhi, Gupta used to spend most of her time in the Progressive Artists’ League studio located in the south-eastern part of the city. But once she immersed herself in the community library project in Shahbad Dairy, she decided to move into a room there.

“Before I met her, I used to think that art meant drawing,” said Naureen Sabba, a 26-year-old student-activist who Gupta lived with in Shahbad Dairy for eight months. “She broke my notions about artists. She told me about artists who stayed with marginalised people and voiced their concerns through their art.”

Gupta touched the lives of the neighbourhood’s other residents as well. In addition to teaching women and children, she helped with clearing garbage and organising health camps. Gupta’s friend, Pinky Kumari, remembered how she had accompanied her to the hospital after her son’s foot got burnt in an accident.

“She even found us a blood donor,” Kumari recollected. “I miss her a lot.”

Mumbai-based veterinarian Dr Rina Dev was hospitalised for four days recently with a lung infection. “I hope it’s not something from the parrots I was treating,” she told Mongabay-India after being discharged from the hospital. Dr Dev is an avian and exotic animal veterinarian who works closely with the forest department to treat imported and seized exotic animals involved in the wildlife trade.

Her concerns are valid. Avian chlamydiosis, or psittacosis, is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia psittaci and is a common infection among people who handle birds, earning it the nickname “bird handler’s disease”.

A 2024 case from India describes a man contracting the infection after exposure to his pet parrot. In 1994, customs officers in Belgium contracted chlamydiosis after being exposed to infected parakeets. Multiple such documented cases link wildlife trade to human infection.

A comprehensive review of psittacosis by the ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute in 2021 describes avian chlamydiosis as a “neglected disease” with “critical zoonotic potential”.

Pet trade link to zoonosis

Zoonoses, or zoonotic diseases, entered the ordinary Indian’s wellness lexicon when the Covid-19 pandemic exposed how pathogens can jump from animals to humans, causing serious medical consequences and, in some cases, a pandemic that can literally bring the world to a standstill.

The wildlife pet trade, especially the trade in exotic animals imported or smuggled from foreign countries, creates repeated opportunities for pathogens to cross species barriers. Poor traceability, inadequate surveillance and close human-animal contact can make such spillovers difficult to detect.

A 2021 study identifies illegal wildlife trade as a major facilitator of emerging infectious disease events. An estimated 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic in nature, and approximately 1.7 million unknown viruses are thought to exist among mammals and birds, with up to 0.85 million potentially capable of infecting humans, according to a 2026 report on India’s exotic pet trade by Humane World for Animals.

When 2079 traded species and 40 years of global wildlife-trade data were analysed, traded mammals were found to be 1.5 times more likely to share pathogens with humans than non-traded mammals.

Notably, the analysis found that the longer a wild mammal species remained in trade, the more pathogens it tended to share with humans. On average, a wild mammal species shares one additional pathogen with humans for every 10 years it is present in the global wildlife trade, the study reported.

Yet wildlife trafficking continues to be the fourth-largest illicit transnational activity in the world, alongside drug, human and illegal arms trafficking.

Pathways for pathogens

Dr Rina Dev flags multiple infections that have zoonotic potential. Similar to Psittacosis is Aspergelosis, a fungal infection caused by a mold called Aspergillus. Then there is salmonellosis caused by Salmonella bacteria from reptiles, tuberculosis from primates, leptospirosis from the rodent family, avian influenza from birds and more. “Tuberculosis is increasingly being detected among primates which is a big zoonotic concern,” she says. India currently has the highest burden of TB in the world and is a notifiable disease in the country.

“One of the biggest concerns regarding primates is that they are closely related to humans. That makes disease transmission between humans and primates easy,” informs Uttara Mendiratta, a conservation researcher working on illegal wildlife hunting and trade.

“Parasites such as ticks and gastrointestinal parasites in these animals too can cause diseases,” says Dr Dev, adding that she has detected cases of Lyme disease during screening in traded wildlife. Lyme disease is a vector-borne disease in animals that can affect humans. “Many diseases are still unknown. Animals can contract a host of pathogens during transportation and sale,” she points out.

A 2021 review of 82 studies on illegal wildlife trade identified 240 pathogen cases, more than 60% of which involved pathogens with known zoonotic potential. The pathogens included 44 types associated with birds, 47 with mammals, 16 with reptiles, two with amphibians, two with fish and one with invertebrates. A broad range of bacterial pathogens and antimicrobial resistance were identified in a 2026 systematic review of exotic pets.

A 2021 study of India’s exotic reptile trade found 84 species being traded and reported major gaps in CITES reporting.

In July 2025, a consignment of red-eared sliders headed towards India was seized in Singapore. All 2,500 turtles, detected with Salmonella, were euthanised.

The 2026 Humane World for Animals report highlights another important concern: the import of venomous snakes and the non-availability of species-specific antivenom in the country.

Are we ready for another pandemic?

From capture in the wild and long-distance transportation to trading, time in markets and eventual transfer to the purchaser, wildlife trade creates a chain of opportunities for pathogens to spill over across species. Stressful conditions can weaken immune function and increase viral shedding, amplifying pathogen loads and heightening the risk of potential spillover to humans, states the 2026 report.

While direct contact with these animals is an obvious route of transmission, other forms of exposure, such as bites and scratches, contact with saliva and excreta, contaminated cages, food and water, and respiratory droplets or aerosols, can also facilitate transmission.

This brings us to a pertinent question: Are first responders such as customs officials equipped to handle the zoonotic risks when these animals are seized? Mendiratta says they are often not. “At a border point, officers may open a consignment and find live animals that need immediate care. They have to handle the animals while simultaneously trying to find experts and veterinary support,” she explains. In the race against time to keep the animals alive, zoonotic disease prevention may not be adequately addressed. “If animals were imported legally, they would go through quarantine and disease testing. But illegally trafficked animals that are not screened can reach communities without that process,” Mendiratta states.

Primates carry an additional risk because they look so human-like. The babies are cute and people want to hold them close, says Mendiratta, which can make disease transmission even easier.

It is in this context that the June 2026 arrest of a practising medical doctor and six others in Bengaluru for illegally possessing exotic wildlife, presumably for sale, gains significance. The case particularly highlighted the possibility of smuggled wildlife reaching schoolchildren, given the racket’s alleged links to the Instagram handle @Zoo2youu, which promoted wildlife education programmes in schools, colleges, apartment complexes and public events. Social media content linked to the account shows exotic animals being displayed to members of the public, including children.

Human, wildlife contact

Pet cafes, petting zoos and events that display exotic wildlife all increase the interface between humans and wildlife, creating opportunities for pathogen spillover that can be difficult to trace. “It is very risky, particularly from a public health perspective,” says Sumanth Bindumadhav, director of Humane World for Animals India and co-author of the 2026 report.

“There is also a moral question about the message being sent out. People who run these facilities often argue that children need to touch and see animals to develop compassion towards them. If you need an animal as an aid to sensitise people about a topic, you need to reconsider how the message is being conveyed and not rely on using it as a prop,” he adds.

Mendiratta finds the trend problematic as it normalises close interaction with wildlife. The disease risk is manifold here, as most of these facilities are unregulated and medical protocols or veterinary supervision are suspect. “If you have a properly regulated facility with strict medical protocols where animals are constantly under veterinary supervision, perhaps the immediate disease risk is relatively low. But now these facilities are appearing everywhere and many are unregulated. We don’t know how often medical checks are performed or where the animals came from,” she says.

There is another, less obvious spillover pathway that is not widely talked about. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the possibility of humans infecting animals, a phenomenon known as reverse zoonosis or anthroponosis.

In other words, humans can transmit pathogens to captive wildlife, particularly animals closely related to us, such as primates. A review found 97 documented human-to-wildlife transmission events, although relatively few subsequently became established in wildlife populations.

Despite increasing evidence of the zoonotic risks associated with wildlife trade, it is unclear how systematically India’s One Health surveillance architecture accounts for the exotic pet trade. “Before leaving their country of origin, animals undergo disease screening and receive a veterinarian’s health certificate. On arrival in India, they undergo air-quarantine, with the quarantine period varying by species. Clearance is issued by the Livestock Development Officer once the animal is deemed fit. India has designated quarantine facilities and ports of entry, including Mumbai and Chennai,” informs Neha Panchamiya, founder of ResQ charitable trust, a non-profit that provides animal aid.

However, for animals to be repatriated, many airports lack adequate quarantine facilities where they can be kept without coming into contact with people or other animals, says Bindumadhav. “Ideally, they should be kept in a completely sealed room to prevent pathogens from the animals spreading to people or other animals,” he adds.

Mendiratta says meaningful work is lacking in this area. She believes this spillover pathway needs more research, as very little is known about the disease burden associated with exotic wildlife. “Beyond research, there is also an urgent need to address the possibility of zoonotic pathogens entering through this trade,” she adds.

As new infectious diseases continue to emerge, the role of governments and policymakers in developing strategies to prevent and control zoonotic disease spillover becomes increasingly important. Experts believe an integrated, multi-sectoral One Health approach, bringing together managers and policymakers from different fields, is needed. This should include measures to restore landscapes, curb wildlife trade and regulate the commercial pathways through which exotic animals enter the pet trade.

“We have tried to raise this issue with people working on One Health because we believe exotic pets represent an important potential disease pathway. So far, we have not seen the level of response or investment we had hoped for,” Mendiratta says.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

A Namibian cheetah died in Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park on Monday while undergoing treatment, PTI quoted the Cheetah Project field director as saying.

Ten-year-old Gaurav was among the first batch of eight cheetahs brought to India from Namibia in September 2022. He was released into the free-ranging area of Kuno on March 22, 2023.

Of the eight cheetahs in the first batch, six have since died, while two – Asha and Jwala – remain at Kuno.

On September 12, Gaurav was rescued from the wild after he was observed to be weak and dull, reported PTI.

“Immediate systemic and supportive treatment was provided, following which he was shifted to Palpur and kept in a quarantine boma for close observation and further management,” the field director was quoted as saying.

He added that based on preliminary examination, it was suspected that Gaurav had an underlying chronic condition.

The cheetah died around 4 pm on Monday, said the field director, adding that the exact cause of death will be ascertained after post-mortem examination.

This was the 24th death of a cheetah in India since the animals were reintroduced in the country.

There are now a total of 55 cheetahs in India, of whom 51 are in the Kuno National Park and four are in the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary.

Of the cheetahs in the Kuno National Park, 36 are Indian-born. Sixteen of the total cheetahs are currently ranging freely in the wild.

In September 2022, cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa were reintroduced to India seven decades after the species was declared extinct in the country.

The cheetah had been officially declared extinct by the Indian government in 1952. Before their reintroduction, the wild cats were last recorded in the country in 1948, when three cheetahs were shot in the sal forests in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya District.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: A new irrigation project threatens to displace both cheetahs and humans in Kuno

India gives elephants its highest level of wildlife protection and reveres them culturally and religiously. Why, then, do we continue to allow them to be owned and to spend their entire lives in captivity?

Earlier this month, Durga, a five-year-old elephant, was transported from Assam to the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, nearly 3,000 km away.

Her transfer has brought into sharp focus an old contradiction in Indian wildlife law – and raised a new and particularly troubling set of questions about how this young animal came into private custody.

The owned elephant

The elephant is a Schedule I animal under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, receiving the highest level of statutory protection, and is India’s National Heritage Animal. Yet a sub-category of elephants – those already in private ownership before 1972, and their documented, captive-born descendants – can be owned, transferred and kept in captivity for the whole of their lives, six decades on.

The elaborate regulatory framework that has developed around this category seeks to govern captivity without ever questioning it. This produces an obvious contradiction: the same species that the law protects in the wild can become the legal property of a human being outside it.

Durga is only five. If she lives into her sixties, the decision being made about her today could determine the conditions of almost her entire life – well into the climate hell of the 2080s.

VIDEO | TN: Five-year-old elephant ‘Durga’ arrives at Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple from Assam.

(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/d8jp61yd2p) pic.twitter.com/dzbJ3cOvZQ

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 14, 2026

Troubling transfer

On the night of September 7, Durga was loaded onto a vehicle at Manas National Park without prior public disclosure. The entire sequence – from the initial request for a health-soundness certificate to the issuance of a transport permit and her departure from Manas – was completed in three days. By the time her movement became public knowledge, she was already en route to Madurai.

An earlier attempt to move Durga had reportedly been declined by the director of Manas National Park. No explanation for why those objections were subsequently set aside appears to be on public record.

The Captive Elephant (Transfer or Transport) Rules, 2024 – notified by the Central government to bring transparency and rigour to elephant transfers – require that the provenance, ownership and the welfare of any elephant proposed for transfer be fully verified before movement.

The Supreme Court, just 20 days before this transfer commenced, had reiterated in Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre & Ors. vs Union of India that “any change in ownership or transfer and transportation of captive elephants shall not be permitted, except in accordance with the applicable statutory scheme and rules”.

It said that the complete particulars of both transferee and transferor, along with the purpose of transfer, must accompany every such movement. The court had also called for a comprehensive status report on DNA profiling of all captive elephants – a process it found to be still incomplete.

The High-Powered Committee constituted by the Supreme Court with pan-India jurisdiction over captive elephant transfers does not appear to have cleared this transfer. Several representations have since been made to it, including an urgent submission by Assam-based conservationist Rohit Choudhury and a detailed representation by Chennai animal welfare activist Mridula Gopalakrishnan.

Among the questions both raise: why was a transfer of nearly 3,000 km necessary at all, given that the Forest Department’s own letter of September 4 stated that Durga was already “under veterinary care and upkeepment in Manas National Park”? If she was being properly cared for in a government-administered tiger reserve, what was the compelling necessity for this journey?

Who is Durga’s mother?

One of the most fundamental – and as yet entirely unanswered – questions about Durga concerns her provenance. She is recorded as approximately five years old, born in February 2021. Her ownership certificate was issued in October 2025, just months before the transfer application was filed.

She was being kept at Manas National Park, more than 560 km from her owner’s recorded address in Tinsukia district. How and since when she came to be at Manas is not on public record.

Under Indian law, hunting elephants (which includes capture) is a non-compoundable offence under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. The only legal routes by which a young elephant can enter private captivity are birth in captivity. For either to apply to Durga, there must be a verifiable chain of custody going back to her birth, including the identity and documented captive status of her mother.

The question of who Durga’s mother is, and whether that mother’s own captivity was lawfully established is a legal one. If Durga’s maternal lineage cannot be verified – through DNA profiling and the Gajah Suchana records – then her status as a lawfully held captive elephant cannot be confirmed and the transfer cannot stand.

This concern about illegality is well founded. Mridula Gopalakrishnan’s representation to the High Powered Committee documents that Rupsing, another young elephant in the same batch of transfers, bears a microchip number matching a June 2019 media stories about an animal to which the Assam Forest Department had “accorded out-of-turn captive status” – after it was reported to have been caught from the wild.

If that identification is correct, Rupsing’s ownership certificate provides no lawful foundation for it to be transferred. For Durga and Bijuli – both approximately five years old – the 2024 Rules require these questions to be answered before, not after, they are moved. Despite this, the People for Cattle in India X advocacy group says that Rupsing, Durga, Bijuli and Shiva are also now enroute to Tamil Nadu temples.

🚨 4 MORE BABY ELEPHANTS on their way from Assam to Tamil Nadu

Their ears appear to have been pierced with holes—raising serious questions about whether these young elephants may have been wild-caught and subsequently tamed

After Durga, how many more?

WHO WILL STOP THESE ? pic.twitter.com/qEPIVBmypA

— People For Cattle In India (PFCI) (@PFCII) September 18, 2026

Life in captivity

The welfare problems associated with elephant captivity are by now well documented, and they go far beyond the dimensions of an enclosure or the frequency of veterinary visits. Elephants are wide-ranging, intensely social animals whose lives involve movement over substantial distances, complex relationships with other elephants, communication, learning and choice.

Captivity compresses that world. A temple elephant’s food, movement, social contact and daily routine entirely determined by human beings. Captive elephants spend hours tethered. Restricted movement and prolonged periods on hard surfaces produce serious foot and joint problems.

But there is something more specific to the temple elephant’s situation. Once she arrives, she does not simply live under restricted conditions: she must first be made to submit to them. This is the context in which a practice called kettiazhikkal acquires its full and disturbing significance. The term describes a process of violent re-subjugation applied to captive elephants.

Several mahouts, sometimes joined by hired men, have been reported to get drunk and torture the chained animal with rods, sticks and ankushes to reimpose submission. Elephants have died from this practice. Others survive it to live out decades of compliance. A temple elephant that appears docile before a crowd of devotees may carry the history of this kind of breaking.

The distinction between welfare and liberty matters here. Cruelty is not the only harm an animal can experience. Deprivation can exist without visible wounds. A life can be restricted even when basic physical needs are met, and that is especially significant with an animal as social, mobile, and cognitively complex as an elephant.

Article 51A(g) of the Indian Constitution places a fundamental duty upon citizens “to have compassion for living creatures”. Constitutional compassion, if it is to mean anything beyond improved chains, should require us to take these harms seriously.

Seeing Abhayambigai

I have been thinking about Durga because of another elephant, Abhayambigai, whom I first met at the Mayurnathaswamy Temple in Mayiladuthurai in December 2021. I have since approached the Madras High Court seeking her retirement and rehabilitation to an appropriate lifetime care facility.

The case has involved inspections, welfare reports, marginal improvements to her conditions, and three years of litigation. The court has declined to order her retirement. She remains at the temple.

One of my co-visitors on that December 2021 trip filed a complaint with the Chief Wildlife Warden describing what we witnessed. I have not been able to improve upon that account:

“The shed was unbearably tiny, claustrophobic, made of hard flooring, with no window, ventilation (other than the main gate) and absolutely no water anywhere in sight. All of this stands in breach of every Project Elephant and Tamil Nadu government guideline. It appeared unclear why her face and body were tied to the concrete post facing the wall so she had no view of the gate and the main street.

“She was rubbing her forehead and trunk, resting and leaning against the wall, but every now and then she would move and try and turn her body to face the light. She was constantly banging her double neck chain hard against the wall and the concrete post with her trunk. I watched her for a good 60 minutes and in this time she would go into moments of quiet depression resting her head against the wall, interspersed by agitated waves of anger to free herself from the chain.”

This is what a lifetime of captivity looks like. Not cruelty in the conventional sense but a life so constricted that it has been reduced to a cycle of depression and suppressed rage within the walls of a small shed. The expert committee appointed by the Tamil Nadu government in 2022 described her situation as “a life sentence in solitary confinement”.

My background is in civil liberties law. I worked at a human rights legal office in Mumbai and have spent years thinking about criminal law, state power, and the deprivation of liberty. I do not equate human incarceration with elephant captivity: they raise different moral, political, and constitutional questions, and such comparisons can easily become careless.

But I am probably not wrong to say that what I saw at Mayiladuthurai was confinement. Where Abhayambigai lived, when she moved, whom she encountered – all of it was determined by others. The animal welfare question became, for me, inseparable from a question of liberty.

The Assam paradox

There is one further dimension to Durga’s transfer that deserves attention, and it is the sheer, unexamined absurdity of the position in which the state of Assam now finds itself. Assam is fighting a legal battle to recover its old elephants from Tamil Nadu while simultaneously dispatching new ones.

Even as its Forest Department was processing the papers to send five young elephants south, the Gauhati High Court in a judgement dated August 18 directed the High-Powered Committee that governs elephant welfare and transfers to inspect and consider appropriate removal and retirement of nine earlier Assam elephants languishing in Tamil Nadu temples, including the elephant Joymala.

These nine elephants had been sent to Tamil Nadu years earlier on permits that expired long ago. Several have been reported to have been mistreated. Their welfare is now a matter of active litigation across multiple courts.

The story of Joymala and her eight companions should be the object lesson that protected Durga and the remaining four young elephants from following the same arc.

Durga still has a future

For elephants who have already spent decades in captivity, there are no simple answers. Age, health, existing social bonds and temperament all matter. Rehabilitation must be careful and individualised. Whatever happens now, nobody can return to Abhayambigai the decades she has already spent within the walls of the Mayiladuthurai temple.

We know far more about elephants today than we did when Abhayambigai entered a temple five decades ago. We have had 50 years of wildlife law, decades of litigation, multiple expert committees, DNA profiling directives from the Supreme Court, Transfer Rules of 2024 designed to ensure that young elephants are not casually moved thousands of kilometres to a new institution. The state, the forest departments, and the judiciary cannot plead ignorance.

Knowing everything we now know, should we still be placing young elephants like five-year-old Durga in institutions where they may spend the next 50 or 60 years of their lives?

The purpose of animal law cannot simply be to make those decades more comfortable. A Constitution that asks citizens to have compassion for living creatures should, at the very least, require us to ensure that an elephant can move, socialise, and live with dignity – not merely survive in chains.

Alok Hisarwala is a lawyer who also researches and writes on animal rights.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay suspended a professor from his position as dean after he was accused of subjecting a student to caste-based discrimination. The student, 20-year-old Sahil Wakode, died by suicide on Friday.

Wakode’s family has alleged that the professor, Suryanarayan Doolla, subjected him to caste-based discrimination for three months, allegedly on the instructions of IIT-Bombay Director Shireesh B Kedare.

Doolla will continue as a member of the teaching faculty and has only been removed from his administrative position. IIT-Bombay also denied reports that Kedare had resigned after accepting the students’ demands. Read on.

A Delhi court set aside a magisterial court order that had dismissed a petition seeking a first information report against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi for allegedly using forged documents to get her name included in the voter rolls of 1980, three years before she obtained Indian citizenship. The order, dated September 11, 2025, did not provide a reason for why the complaint was dismissed entirely, said the court.

He directed the magistrate to hear the petition afresh and pass a “reasoned order”. The petition was filed by Rouse Avenue Court Bar Association Vice President Vikas Tripathi. Read on.

The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting refuted the Keralam government’s allegations that the Centre had denied it permission to screen 31 movies at the 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival. Keralam Culture Minister PC Vishnunadh alleged that the Union government had not given any reasons for denying permission to screen the movies.

Among the films allegedly denied permission for screening are Sanitised Republic: Cast(e) and Contracts. It is about the lives of sanitation workers employed at hospitals in Delhi during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk, a 2005 Arabic-language documentary on the list, explores life in Gaza through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna. Read on.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that the special intensive revision of electoral rolls was a “flawed process” that was hurting even Bharatiya Janata Party leaders. He said that several BJP leaders, including former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, had been served notices by the Election Commission to prove their eligibility to vote.

The Congress chief also asked on what basis were voting rights being “stripped away” as 93% of the appeals decided in West Bengal had led to inclusions to the electoral rolls. Read on.

The Delhi High Court rejected a petition seeking the registration of a first information report and a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the recovery of unaccounted cash from former Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma’s residence. Justice Amit Bansal described the plea as a “wild witch hunt” and asked whether the petitioner had “nothing better to do”.

The petitioner, an advocate, had moved the court seeking an investigation into the source, ownership, custody and disappearance of the cash. The fact that the cash was neither secured nor preserved should also be investigated, he had said.

A similar petition filed by the advocate in the Supreme Court had been dismissed on August 7. The court had said that it had been filed for “cheap publicity”. Read on.

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A Delhi court on Monday set aside a magisterial court order that had dismissed a petition seeking a first information report against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi for allegedly using forged documents to get her name included in the voter rolls of 1980, three years before she obtained Indian citizenship, Live Law reported.

The magistrate’s order, dated September 11, 2025, did not provide a reason for why the complaint was dismissed entirely, said Special Judge Vishal Gogne of Dwarka courts.

He directed the magistrate to hear the petition afresh and pass a “reasoned order”.

The petition was filed by Rouse Avenue Court Bar Association Vice President Vikas Tripathi.

Tripathi alleged that Gandhi’s name was added as a voter of the New Delhi constituency in January 1980, when she was not an Indian citizen. The name was deleted from the electoral rolls in 1982 after the Election Commission found irregularities.

He alleged that the deletion was due to “false documents”.

Her name was re-entered in 1983, the year she obtained citizenship, Tripathi said in his complaint.

On Monday, the sessions court said that the trial court had violated provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita by not seeking a status report from the police, reported Bar and Bench.

It said that the magistrate further did not discuss the significance of the sequence in which Gandhi’s name was included, deleted and again included in the electoral rolls in 1980, 1982 and 1983.

The matter will be listed before the additional chief judicial magistrate on September 29.

Tripathi had filed a revision petition before the sessions court challenging the magistrate’s order, following which the court had issued a notice to Gandhi on December 9.

On February 6, Gandhi told the court that the complaint was “wholly misconceived, frivolous, politically motivated, and an abuse of the process of law”.

She argued that the complaint was based on speculative assumptions, media reports and “imaginary applications”, without any foundational documents being produced.

Edited by Sneha.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday said that the special intensive revision of electoral rolls was a “flawed process” that was hurting even Bharatiya Janata Party leaders.

“SIR is not just a tool used by the BJP for vote theft and dismantling democracy – it’s a flawed process that has turned into a Frankenstein Monster, now trapping its own people!” he said.

“…perhaps now the powers-that-be are realising” why the Congress has been describing the process as flawed, added the MP.

Kharge said that several BJP leaders, including former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, besides Rajya Sabha MPs, a former Union minister and an ex-chief minister, had been served notices by the Election Commission to prove their eligibility to vote.

“The situation is such that even a Bharat Ratna-awardee scientist and former Navy chief had already been issued notices earlier,” the Congress leader said, referring to CNR Rao and Admiral Arun Prakash (Retired).

On Sunday, it was reported that Election Commissioner SS Sandhu, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal were among the 33 lakh electors in the national capital for whom notices had been generated.

Former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and ex-Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur were also reportedly served the notice.

Kharge said on Monday that in Bengal, “among those whose names were deleted to prevent them from voting”, 93% of the appeals decided by the tribunals resulted in the inclusion of voters in the electoral rolls.

“On what basis was their voting right stripped away?” he asked.

Has VIP vote become more valuable, asks Kharge

Kharge said that the Election Commission had issued a press release using the phrase “VIP/marked” electors. “Is there now some special category of voters in India’s universal adult franchise – VIP voters and ordinary voters?” he asked.

“Isn’t this a violation of the constitutional principle of one person, one vote, one value?” the Congress leader further asked. “Has the VIP vote become more valuable now?”

The Opposition leader said that 13.8 crore voters had been removed from the voter lists of 31 states and Union Territories so far. This accounts for 14.6% of India’s 94.7 crore voters before the exercise began in 2025.

The claims and objections against exclusions from the draft voter list as part of the third SIR phase in 19 states and Union Territories are underway. Final electoral rolls in these states will be published in October and November.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

During the third phase, more than six crore names have been deleted from draft lists.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision, but said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Delhi SIR: Election Commissioner SS Sandhu, CM Rekha Gupta among 33 lakh issued notices
• Delhi SIR: MP Kapil Sibal asks why he received ‘unmapped’ notice despite matching 1998 voter record
• At least 82% of voters deleted during Bengal SIR have appealed against removal, EC data shows

The Delhi High Court on Monday rejected a petition seeking the registration of a first information report and a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation or a Special Investigation Team into the recovery of unaccounted cash from former Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma’s residence, Live Law reported.

“This is a wild witch hunt,” said Justice Amit Bansal. He was quoted as having asked the petitioner, an advocate, if he had “nothing better to do”.

Unaccounted cash was allegedly recovered at Varma’s official residence in Delhi when emergency services responded to a fire there in March 2025. He was a judge at the Delhi High Court at that time.

The judge said that he was in Bhopal when the cash was discovered and claimed that it did not belong to him or his family.

The controversy prompted his transfer to the Allahabad High Court.

In April, he resigned from his post, more than two months after Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the process to impeach the judge was underway.

Three months later, an inquiry committee formed by the Lok Sabha said in August that all the charges framed against Varma were proved. It noted that “unexplained bundles of Rs 500” were recovered from his Delhi home and that he had given misleading explanations about it.

The petitioner, Ghanshyam Dayalu Upadhyay, had moved the High Court seeking an investigation into the source, ownership, custody and disappearance of the cash, reported Bar and Bench. He said the fact that the cash was neither secured nor preserved should also be investigated.

A similar petition filed by him in the Supreme Court had been dismissed on August 7. The court had said that it was filed for “cheap publicity”.

Inquiry committee report

In its report tabled in Parliament, the three-member committee said that Varma had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation about the “presence, source or ownership” of the cash.

The cash was neither secured nor preserved and later disappeared, the panel said, adding that this disappearance remains unexplained.

The committee further noted that the explanations given by Varma were “evasive and unsatisfactory when tested against the evidence of independent official witnesses”.

The panel had been formed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in August 2025. It was headed by Supreme Court judge Justice Aravind Kumar, and comprised former Bombay High Court Chief Justice Shree Chandrasekhar and advocate BV Acharya.

While Birla had stated in the House that the panel would submit its report at the earliest, the investigation was delayed since Varma challenged the legality of the inquiry committee in the Supreme Court.

In January, the Supreme Court rejected his petition.

Edited by Sneha.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay on Monday suspended a professor from his position as dean after he was accused of subjecting a student who died by suicide to caste-based discrimination, The Indian Express reported.

The professor, Suryanarayan Doolla, has been accused by the family of 20-year-old Sahil Wakode of subjecting him to caste-based discrimination for three months, allegedly on the instructions of IIT-Bombay Director Shireesh B Kedare. Wakode died by suicide on Friday.

Doolla will continue as a member of the teaching faculty and has only been removed from his administrative position.

Kedare communicated the decision to students in an email, The Indian Express reported.

On Saturday, the Mumbai Police filed a case against Doolla and unidentified persons on charges of abetment to suicide and under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act. The crime branch will investigate the case.

The suspension came amid protests at the institute following Wakode’s death.

On Sunday, Kedare accepted a charter of more than 18 demands submitted by the protesting students and assured them that the institute would look into them, the Hindustan Times reported. One of the demands was Doolla’s suspension as a professor. The students had also demanded Kedare’s resignation.

On Monday, IIT-Bombay denied reports that Kedare had resigned after accepting the students’ demands.

The institute also apologised for statements in an “earlier communication concerning the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate demise of Sahil”.

On Saturday, IIT-Bombay claimed that during an examination a day earlier, Wakode was found using a mobile phone and uploading the question paper on artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT to seek answers. Doolla was reportedly the invigilator at the time.

The institute had claimed that no disciplinary action was taken against Wakode. “The matter was also discussed with the student by the instructor, the faculty advisor and the head of the department, who counselled him and assured him that the incident would not adversely affect his academic career,” it had said on Saturday.

However, Wakode’s parents alleged that their son had been threatened with suspension.

We apologise for the statements contained in our earlier communication concerning the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate demise of Sahil.

The details and circumstances leading up to the incident remain subject to investigation by the appropriate authorities. In view of…

— IIT Bombay (@iitbombay) September 21, 2026

In a statement on Monday, the institute said: “The details and circumstances leading up to the incident remain subject to investigation by the appropriate authorities.”

“In view of the ongoing investigation, it was inappropriate to have set out or characterised details relating to the events preceding his demise before they had been duly established through the appropriate investigative process,” it added.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Monday rejected the Keralam government’s allegations that the Centre had denied permission to screen 31 movies at an international documentary and short film festival in the state.

On Saturday, Keralam Culture Minister PC Vishnunadh alleged that the Union government had not given any reasons for denying the permission to screen the movies at the 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival.

The information and broadcast ministry had “only sent us the list of films that have been granted permission”, the Hindustan Times quoted Vishnunadh as saying. It had asked for synopses for several films, “which we sent the next day”, the minister had added.

The film festival will be held between September 25 and September 30 at Thiruvananthapuram.

While movies being screened at film festivals do not require a censor board certificate, the information and broadcasting ministry must grant them an exemption from censorship.

Among the films allegedly denied permission for screening are Sanitised Republic: Cast(e) and Contracts. It is about the lives of sanitation workers employed at hospitals in Delhi during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The list also includes Parliament Street, a film that explores public and personal memories associated with the Delhi road of national importance.

Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk, a 2005 Arabic-language documentary on the list, explores life in Gaza through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna.

On Monday, the Union government said that permission had not been denied to any film for screening.

“Six films have been requested to provide more detailed synopsis,” it said. “Depending on the subject of the films, some have been sent to various sectoral authorities for their review.”

The Union government’s statement came after Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said that he was shocked to learn that the films had been allegedly denied permission to be screened.

“This is not only a betrayal of India’s proud tradition of offering a home to the best of world cinema, but an assault on the freedom of expression that is amongst the greatest assets of our democracy,” the Congress leader said.

Tharoor added that the Union government “risks shredding our country’s already frayed image globally amongst creative artists, filmmakers, writers and those who want to admire their work”.

In December 2025, the Kerala government directed the organisers of the 2025 International Film Festival of Kerala to go ahead with its full screening schedule despite the Union government having not granted permission for 14 films.

The state government, led by the Left Front at the time, had accused the Union government of adopting “an anti-democratic approach towards Kerala's progressive art and cultural tradition”.

The information and broadcasting ministry had at the time denied permission to screen 19 films, including four about Palestine. But it later allowed five films, including two about Palestine, to be shown.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha.

Also read: The Palestine-sized hole in the Kerala film festival programme

Three shows of comedian Pulkit Mani in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh have been cancelled after he mimicked Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s event in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday.

Mani said on social media that his show in Noida had been cancelled because of “unforeseen circumstances”. Hours later, he said that his events in Kanpur and Lucknow had also been cancelled because of “repeated threats from goon activists”.

It was unclear whether Mani had called off the shows or if the venues had cancelled them.

Mani performed at Gandhi’s student event in Indore on Saturday, where the comedian appeared to mimic Modi’s interactions with foreign leaders and his use of the phrase “my friend”.

Mani did not name the prime minister during the skit, but Gandhi, while hugging the comedian, asked, “How are you, Modi ji?”

The video of Mani’s performance widely shared online triggered a row, with several BJP leaders criticising Gandhi for platforming the comedian.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal described it as “cheap” political theatre.

“The irony writes itself,” Goyal said on social media. “The need to come on stage every now and then just to drag Prime Minister Modi ji’s name into cheap political theatre never fails to amaze me.”

On March 18, a parody video by Mani satirising Modi’s interactions with foreign leaders was blocked on Instagram following what the platform said was a legal demand from the government.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The names of more than 1.5 lakh persons were removed from the draft voter list of Nagaland published on Sunday as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, PTI reported.

The state had 11.9 lakh voters in the draft roll as compared to the 13.5 lakh before the exercise began in August, the news agency reported. The names not included in the draft roll account for 11.7% of the state’s electorate.

While 1.2 lakh voters have been marked as permanently shifted or absent, more than 29,940 had died. Over 5,000 names were duplicate entries, the Election Commission said.

The claims and objections by voters against their removal from the draft list can be filed between September 20 and October 20. The appeals will be heard by November 18, before the final electoral roll is published on November 22.

Nagaland is among the 19 states and Union Territories where the voter roll revision is being carried out in the third phase of SIR.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

During the third phase, more than six crore names have been deleted from draft lists.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision, but said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• Delhi SIR: Election Commissioner SS Sandhu, CM Rekha Gupta among 33 lakh issued notices
• Delhi SIR: MP Kapil Sibal asks why he received ‘unmapped’ notice despite matching 1998 voter record
• At least 82% of voters deleted in Bengal SIR appealed against removal, EC data shows

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday asked why he was issued a notice during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Delhi, saying that the details in his enumeration form matched those in his 1998 voter record, which had also been verified by a booth-level officer.

“How is it that my notice has been sent to me in the unmapped category?” Sibal asked at a press conference, addressing the Election Commission.

My Press Conference on the ‘absence of mapping & discrepancy’ of my name in the draft rolls.
Full PC Link 👇https://t.co/wAxdmbFhSR pic.twitter.com/UDktYnraUt

— Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) September 20, 2026

Sibal is among the 33 lakh electors in the national capital who have been issued notices during the voter roll revision to prove their eligibility to vote. The list of such persons was released on Saturday on the website of the Delhi chief electoral officer.

The 33 lakh voters who have been sent notices account for about one-third of the 97.5 lakh voters included in the draft voter rolls. Verification of such cases is to be completed by October 29, while the final electoral rolls are slated to be published on November 4.

On Sunday, the Rajya Sabha MP said that despite the details in his enumeration form matching his previous voter record, his notice cited a mismatch between his and his father’s names in the current electoral roll and their names in the electoral rolls prepared during the previous SIR.

“I want to ask [chief election commissioner] Gyanesh Kumar, why was I sent a notice?” he said. “Am I not a citizen of this country?”

He also said that he had not received a physical copy of the notice issued to him.

Sibal highlighted that if he had not been told about it, several notices could have been issued in a similar manner and his name eventually deleted from the voter list.

“What’s going on in this country?” he asked.

Sibal said that if a sitting Rajya Sabha MP could receive such a notice despite having matching records, it raised questions about how many other persons’ “vote was being cut” during the exercise.

Other prominent names that have appeared on the list of electors served notices include External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, Comptroller and Auditor General K Sanjay Murthy, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Kailash Gahlot, Hindustan Times reported.

Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal, former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister Ajay Kumar Sood, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairperson Arvind Panagariya, Central Bureau of Investigation Director Praveen Sood have also been issued notices.

The list also includes Election Commissioner Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, and several serving and retired bureaucrats.

The notices have been issued for various reasons, with failure to be mapped to the previous special intensive revision accounting for 42% and name mismatches accounting for 41%, according to an analysis by Hindustan Times.

A further 16% relate to age discrepancies, while 59,791 notices have no reason listed, the newspaper reported.

Also read: Delhi SIR: Election Commissioner SS Sandhu, CM Rekha Gupta among 33 lakh issued notices

EC response

The Election Commission on Sunday clarified that receiving a notice does not mean that a voter’s name will be deleted from the electoral roll, flagging reports about “issuance of notices to VIP/marked electors”.

“System generated notices” are being sent to voters who could not be linked to the electoral roll from the previous special intensive revision or whose linking contained “logical discrepancies”, the poll body said.

Delhi is among the 19 states and Union Territories where the voter roll revision is being carried out in the third phase of SIR.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Delhi SIR deletions more than 2025 winning margins in 68 of 70 seats, study shows

In March, Scroll reported that sea turtles had nested in record numbers on the beaches of Great Nicobar Island’s Galathea Bay during the 2025-’26 nesting season.

Only the previous month, the National Green Tribunal dismissed challenges to the construction of a mega-infrastructure project on the island, asserting that no part of the project site is a CRZ-1A area – a category of coastal land that has maximum protection under law on account of its ecological importance.

Now, official records from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Forest Department accessed via a Right to Information application have confirmed the Scroll report.

The March report, based on photographs accessed from Galathea Bay and from conversations with locals, had suggested about 1,000 turtle nests in the area over the November to March nesting period.

The data obtained via the RTI application puts the number of nests in Galathea Bay beach at 997, with 889 being of the leatherback turtle. The other 108 are of the Olive Ridley turtle.

These are numbers for the nests that have been re-located from the beach to the protected hatcheries that are managed by forest staff. The actual number of nests created on the beach is likely to be higher because not all nests are always located and moved.

This is the highest number of leatherback nests recorded in Galathea Bay since turtle monitoring began about four decades ago. The highest earlier was for the 2022 nesting season, which documented 649 nests of the leatherback and 31 of the Olive Ridley.

The leatherback is the largest and deepest diving of the seven species of marine turtles that inhabit the oceans of the planet. Leatherbacks are divided into seven sub-populations. The ones that nest in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands constitute the Northeast Indian Ocean population.

This sub-population, according to a recent paper in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, is also one of least studied of the seven sub-populations of this species.

The lead author of the paper, Maslim As-singkily, a researcher in marine turtle ecology and population genetics, told Scroll that this latest data confirms Galathea as the beach with highest-recorded leatherback nests in the region for a single season.

“Galathea is an exceptionally productive reproductive habitat today,” said As-singkily, who is also a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission’s Indonesia Species Specialist Group. “The 889 nests are particularly striking compared with the other leatherback nesting populations I have assessed across the Northeast Indian Ocean [Sumatra, Malaysia and Thailand].”

He said that the information puts Galathea Bay “in a comparable range to some of the other important leatherback nesting beaches in the Western Pacific, for example, Wermon Beach [Jeen Syuaib] in Papua, Indonesia”.

Wermon and Jamursba Medi in the same province in Indonesia have been recognised as major leatherback nesting beaches in the western Pacific but have experienced “substantial long-term declines”, As-singkily said.

Site of the transshipment port

Significantly, Galathea Bay is the site of the approximately Rs 50,000-crore transshipment port proposed as part of the mega infrastructure push by the Indian government.

The port is the centre-piece of the larger Rs 92,000-crore project that includes an airport, a power plant and a greenfield township and tourism facilities over 130 sq km of primarily pristine evergreen forests.

The port project entails constructing breakwaters that will reduce the opening of Galathea Bay by 90% – from 3,000 metres wide currently to a mere 300 meters. This is likely to have a very significant impact on this nesting site of global importance.

“Constructing a port directly within Galathea Bay will involve extensive dredging, construction of breakwaters, coastal reclamation, light pollution, and vessel traffic,” said another sea turtle biologist, requesting anonymity. “This will directly destroy or render inaccessible one of the region’s important leatherback nesting beaches.”

However, he noted that leatherbacks can shift nesting beaches within a geographic region and “that individuals displaced from Galathea, will likely attempt to nest on other adjacent beaches in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands or the western coast of Sumatra as was seen after the tsunami of 2004”.

But Hiltrud Cordes of the Turtle Foundation, which also works extensively in the region, is worried about this argument. “A sudden loss of a key nesting beach through a massive construction poses a big threat to a vulnerable nesting population,” she said. “Nesting beaches in Sumatra are themselves not a safe place for sea turtles. Even though all species of sea turtles are protected by law in Indonesia, there is a high level of poaching of eggs and turtles for their meat."

Legal violations

The nesting numbers in Galathea Bay underscore the legal violations that have been allowed in support of the project. Turtle nesting sites qualify for the highest levels of protection as a coastal regulation zone-1A site. Large development projects such as a port cannot even be considered here, a fact that the National Green Tribunal ignored completely when passing its final order in February dismissing all concerns on ecological and legal grounds related to the project.

The 2026 nesting records of the Leatherback “make it imperative that the Galathea nesting ground is safeguarded under any circumstances” said BC Choudhury, a former head of Endangered Species Management Department of Wildlife Institute of India and an IUCN SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group Member. “It shows why the development sector should not go blind to the truth.”

Choudhury added, “There is always the possibility of compromise and alternatives that permits both development and conservation to go hand in hand but only if the development proponents respect the historical and current scientific opinions just a little bit more.”

Scroll emailed Dinesh Kannan, principal conservator of forests, wildlife, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, requesting a response to this information.

A similar query was sent to Deepak Apte, former Director Bombay Natural History Society and chair of the environment ministry’s environment appraisal committee that oversaw the environment clearance to the project in November 2022. Apte currently serves as the biodiversity expert on the monitoring committee formed to oversee biodiversity related matters as per the environment clearance granted to the project. This article will be updated if they respond.

Pankaj Sekhsaria is the recipient of the Prem Bhatia Environment Journalism Award 2026 for his research and writing on the Great Nicobar mega infrastructure project. He is the author/editor of seven books on the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the latest being The Great Nicobar Betrayal (Frontline, 2024) and Island on Edge - The Great Nicobar Crisis (Westland, 2025).

A student committee at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru has cancelled the screening of a documentary about jailed activist Umar Khalid on its campus, The Hindu reported on Sunday.

Khalid has been in judicial custody for six years in connection with the conspiracy case related to the 2020 Delhi riots. The trial in the case is yet to begin.

The Law and Society Committee told The Hindu that it cancelled the event as the Central Board of Film Certification has said that the documentary, Prisoner No: 626710 is Present, has not been certified.

This came two days after the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, cancelled a screening of the same documentary following an objection from the censor board.

The film certification body had said on social media that public screening of a documentary that had not been certified by it “is a violation” of the 1952 Cinematograph Act “unless a specific exemption has been sought under the act”.

At the Bengaluru law school, the screening was initially scheduled for September 14. However, the organisers postponed it after the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad objected to the event.

The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The ABVP’s Bengaluru unit had also written to Union ministers seeking a permanent cancellation of the screening and a high-level inquiry into the university’s administration, The Hindu reported.

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

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Mumbai Police pressured 2 venues into cancelling Umar Khalid film screening, allege organisers

Election Commissioner SS Sandhu, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal are among 33 lakh electors in the national capital for whom notices have been generated in the special intensive revision process for them to prove their eligibility to vote, The Indian Express reported.

The list of persons to whom notices have been issued was released on Saturday on the website of the Delhi chief electoral officer.

Gupta, a voter from the Shalimar Bagh constituency, was sent a notice as the difference between her age and her parents’ age appeared to be below 15 years. Her details were later validated when she provided the necessary documents, the electoral registration officer from the constituency said.

Kejriwal and his family had not provided details about their inclusion in the last special intensive revision exercise, The Indian Express quoted the Electoral Registration Officer of the New Delhi Assembly seat as saying.

Commenting on Kejriwal being given a notice, AAP national executive member Anurag Dhanda remarked in a social media post: “We have been saying from the very first day that this isn’t just the SIR, but is the BJP’s game at play. If they had their way, they’d reserve voting rights just for [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi and [Union Home Minister] Amit Shah, and delete the votes of all their opponents.”

हम तो पहले दिन से कह रहे हैं कि ये SIR नहीं बीजेपी का खेल चल रहा है। इनका बस चले तो ये मोदी और अमित शाह का ही वोट का अधिकार रखें और सब विरोधियों के वोट काट दें।

तीन बार के दिल्ली के मुख्यमंत्री @ArvindKejriwal जी और उनके परिवार के वोट दिल्ली की वोटर लिस्ट से ग़ायब करना कौन सी… https://t.co/ayjeEfikoJ

— Anurag Dhanda (@anuragdhanda) September 19, 2026

Other prominent persons who received notices as part of the special intensive revision process include former Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and his wife Sudesh Dhankhar, ex-Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur, former Union Minister Kapil Sibal and his wife Promila Sibal, The Hindu reported.

Lokur has been sent a notice as the age gap between him and his grandfather was not more than 40 years, the newspaper reported.

Bharatiya Janata Party veteran leader LK Advani, former Delhi deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, BJP MLA Kailash Gahlot, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj and former Union Minister Subramanian Swamy have also received notices, Hindustan Times reported.

The 33 lakh voters who have been sent notice account for about one-third of the 97.5 lakh voters included in the draft voter rolls, The Hindu reported. Verification of such cases is to be completed by October 29, while the final electoral rolls are slated to be published on November 4.

On Sunday, the Delhi chief electoral officer’s clarified that receiving a notice does not mean that a voter’s name will be deleted from the electoral roll.

“System generated notices” are being sent to voters who could not be linked to the electoral roll from the previous special intensive revision or whose linking contained “logical discrepancies”, the poll body said.

Delhi is among the 19 states and Union Territories where the voter roll revision is being carried out in the third phase of SIR.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande and Sara Varghese.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday laid the foundation for a thermal power project to be built by Adani Power Limited in the state’s Dhubri district on land where the homes of 1,400 Bengali-origin Muslim families were demolished in July 2025.

The project is located in Charuabakhra, Chirakuta I and II and Santoshpur villages under the Chapar revenue circle.

In July 2025, the Assam government had demolished the homes of more than 1,400 Bengali-origin Muslim families living on nearly 1,157 acres of government land in these villages to make way for a power project. The land was allotted to the state-run Assam Power Distribution Company Limited, which subsequently allotted it to Adani Power Limited for the project.

Nearly 10,000 Bengali-origin Muslims who had lived in the area for at least three decades to four decades were displaced following the demolitions, Scroll had reported.

A resident had said then that many were “erosion-hit people who lost their ancestral homes due to the Brahmaputra”.

On Sunday, the chief minister said that the 3,200 MW thermal power project was Assam’s “biggest-ever power project” and would generate enough electricity to meet the state’s entire power needs.

“The project is expected to generate up to 20,000 jobs during construction and around 5,000 jobs once operational,” the Adani Group said in a statement.

Assam has just launched its biggest-ever power project.

The 3,200MW Thermal Power project in western Assam will generate enough electricity to meet the State's entire power needs.

This ₹48,000 crore project is a direct outcome of #AdvantageAssam2.0,held just 18 months ago. pic.twitter.com/CbF1AQWTc5

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) September 20, 2026

Sarma had said earlier that the Adani Group had committed to investments worth Rs 50,000 crore that it had proposed during a business summit in the state in February.

On July 14, an Expert Appraisal Committee under the Union environment ministry had recommended granting environmental clearance to Adani Power Limited’s proposed coal-based thermal power plant.

In its submission for environmental clearance, the company told the ministry that there were no habitations at the site and therefore involved no rehabilitation or resettlement claims.

However, residents affected by the evictions have disputed this.

Abdur Rashid Sheikh, a resident, told Scroll that the Assam government had already cleared the project site through the “forceful eviction drives”, leaving 1,400 families without homes or rehabilitation and resettlement.

“Apart from the 3,500 bighas of government land that was taken forcibly, there were 1,700 bighas of land where people with land titles lived that were also taken,” Sheikh said. “About 50% of the landowners with land titles have not received compensation yet though their paperwork is done.”

The district authorities had allocated 300 bighas in Baizar Alga village to rehabilitate the affected perons and earmarked Rs 50,000 in a one-time relief to help them transport their belongings.

However, some residents said they were unwilling to move to the site because it is a low-lying riverine area in the middle of the Brahmaputra river.

On March 30, 2025, the district administration submitted a proposal to convert the village grazing land, a category of government land designated for cattle grazing, for the power project, according to minutes of a district-level land advisory meeting held on April 2.

The district administration subsequently issued eviction notices and demolished the homes.

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Assam in 2016, multiple demolition drives have been conducted across districts, mostly targeting areas populated by Bengali-speaking Muslims. At least eight Muslims have been shot dead during evictions carried out since 2016.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The proposed three-lane, bidirectional tunnel road in north Bengaluru, intended to ease congestion at Hebbal Junction – a major interchange connecting the airport with the rest of the city – has run into rough weather.

At an estimated Rs 1,385 crore, the tunnel will cost about Rs 622 crore per kilometre. The tunnel’s long-term benefits in terms of easing traffic congestion are, however, unclear.

A recent analysis by the Sustainable Transportation Lab of the Indian Institute of Science points out that the tunnel is a “highly localised improvement” that “merely shifts the congestion point”, leaving bottlenecks at its entry and exit. The detailed project report or DPR shows that by 2047, the tunnel will operate at or beyond capacity in all scenarios modelled.

According to urban mobility expert Satya Arikutharam, apart from creating more chaos at these bottlenecks, the tunnel “will also worsen the local traffic, the very problem it intends to solve. Faster arrival rate at these local road intersections due to the new short tunnel capacity means quicker accumulation of traffic, queuing pile-ups and traffic jams,” he says.

Groundwater and flooding concerns

A bigger concern the citizens and environmental experts are raising is about the risks it could pose to groundwater and flooding.

The little over two-kilometre tunnel will run from the Hebbal flyover junction in north Bengaluru – about 30 km by road from Kempegowda International Airport – through the Gandhi Krishi Vigyana Kendra (GKVK) campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences and end at the Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University. Part of its proposed alignment will lie within metres of Hebbal Lake, a 141-acre water body that, experts say, is critical for groundwater recharge and flood mitigation in the region.

A public interest litigation filed in the Karnataka High Court argues that the project is being implemented without a hydrological or groundwater impact assessment, or lake study. The PIL seeks a stay on the project.

Acting on this petition, the court, on August 6, directed the state to file an affidavit clarifying if any studies have been conducted to understand the impact of the project on the Hebbal Lake. The court specifically sought information on whether the tunnel would cause any obstruction to the inflow and outflow of the water or disrupt any natural aqueduct or underground flow of water.

Subsequently, at a September 3 hearing, the court, that noted that a geotechnical report before it states that the lake’s inflow and outflow would not be affected, directed the state to arrange a presentation by an engineer explaining the measures taken to ensure that the lake’s inflow and outflow are not obstructed.

Yashwantha Kumar M, executive engineer at the Bangalore Development Authority, which is executing the project, informs Mongabay-India that the Bangalore Development Authority has undertaken hydrological studies as part of the project. He, however, did not provide details of what these studies assessed. “The BDA [Bangalore Development Authority] has filed a detailed response before the court to the hydrological questions raised in the petition,” he adds. This filing, however, is not publicly available.

The DPR has earmarked Rs 75 lakh for an environmental impact assessment. But no such assessment has been made available to the public, even as groundwork for the project, according to Kumar, began in the Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University campus in early August.

Kumar describes the Rs 75 lakh as “just a budgetary provision” that “can be done at any time”. As a standalone 2.2-km tunnel, the project does not fall under the category of projects for which environmental impact assessment is mandatory to obtain central government permission, he adds.

Earlier, the Union environment ministry clarified that a standalone tunnel does not automatically require prior environmental clearance under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, as tunnel projects are not listed in its Schedule. If a tunnel forms an integral part of a highway project covered by the notification, the highway project, including the tunnel, would require environmental appraisal.

The DPR admits that Hebbal junction and its surrounding areas are prone to urban flooding due to inadequate stormwater capacity and backflow from the lake, and that existing stormwater drains are insufficient to carry peak monsoon discharge.

Strained lake system

Bengaluru’s lakes are a part of a centuries-old engineered system built by damming the city’s undulating valleys to harvest rainwater in a region with no perennial river. This evolved into a network of interconnected lakes linked by stormwater drains or rajakaluve, allowing water to flow from one lake to the next across the city’s three principal valleys.

A 2022 study by the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment found that urbanisation and poor governance have left many lakes encroached upon, degraded or disconnected from this cascading system. In the Hebbal-Nagavara valley, only 32 of 72 lakes had functioning inlets, outlets and stormwater drains, while the rest had damaged or encroached water channels.

Rashmi Kulranjan, an ATREE PhD candidate whose doctoral research includes the study, says Hebbal Lake sits midway in this cascade. Water flows into it from upstream lakes including Doddabommasandra and JP Park Kere before continuing downstream to Nagavara and Kalkere. She points to the Manyata area, once a low-lying wetland between Nagavara and Kalkere and now occupied largely by a technology park, where flood-prone roads continue to fill with water. “The elevation of the area continues to be low,” she says. “So you continue to have water.”

Independent of the tunnel, Hebbal’s catchment is getting increasingly concretised, says Shashank Palur, senior hydrologist at WELL Labs, a research organisation. Built-up neighbourhoods west of the lake now generate higher runoff, while two upstream lakes on the southern side have been lost to encroachment, sending even more water into Hebbal.

The result, he says, is that the lake has become the area’s last major flood buffer before water reaches Nagavara, which is under pressure. “Now Hebbal has to deal with more water coming in with less space to accommodate it,” Palur says.

What the tunnel could do underground

The DPR acknowledges the hydrological sensitivity of Hebbal Lake. The proposed tunnel will be built using the “cut-and-cover method”, involving excavation to 18.5 metres (60 feet), construction of the tunnel and covering it over, rather than boring through rock.

During construction, stormwater drains in the tunnel’s path may need to be temporarily diverted to prevent flooding of the excavation pit. Temporary barriers, or cofferdams, will keep water out, particularly during the monsoon, while groundwater may need to be continuously pumped out through dewatering, the DPR notes. Once complete, the tunnel will be a permanent “watertight (tanked system)” designed to prevent groundwater from entering it.

The concerns extend beyond construction. Groundwater supplies 50% of Bengaluru’s water needs, and the permanent structure could affect aquifer recharge. “Surface water is the only source to recharge the groundwater,” says TJ Renuka Prasad, retired professor of geology at Bangalore University. Drainage systems, including many rajakaluve and smaller streams, help supply water for recharge. “If you cut the supply of water through these drainage systems, then there will be less groundwater recharge,” he says.

Bengaluru’s underlying geology is predominantly hard rock: fractures, joints and larger “master joints” act as pathways for groundwater. Construction could disrupt these pathways, Prasad says. But the impact begins higher up, in the soil and weathered rock layers that feed water into the fractures. “The recharge of groundwater first happens in the soil zone, then in the weathered zone. These layers hold water and facilitate recharge to the fracture zones”. Excavating to 60 feet would remove these layers, he says, adding that that could alter our idea of raising the water table.

Dewatering during construction would also temporarily lower groundwater tables around the excavation, says Palur. The long-term impact of the watertight structure is harder to predict because Bengaluru lacks a detailed groundwater map. It could affect borewells or alter the amount of water reaching lakes. “What if there is an east to west movement of groundwater there and because of the tunnel – a solid concrete structure – coming in between, that stops?” he asks. “So there will be a lasting consequence, but we don’t know what that might look like.”

A 2025 groundwater assessment by the Central Ground Water Board identifies the Yelahanka taluk, where Hebbal falls, as overexploited. WELL Labs found average borewell depths in the region of 700-800 feet, with its deepest surveyed well reaching about 1,200 feet. Palur cautions that the data covers only 300 wells. During the 2024 summer water crisis, he says, “borewells were running dry in that area.”

The tunnel’s vulnerability

The tunnel also faces a specific vulnerability: its entrance sits in a flood-prone location. The IISc assessment found that the entrance is at “the point of lowest elevation on the Hebbal Lake side” and is “very likely to be flooded during rainfall events”. It also said evacuation plans for flooding conditions are not clearly addressed in the DPR.

Palur says established engineering solutions, including pumps, can keep water out of underground structures. “I don’t think overland flooding will have that much of an impact on the subsurface structures.”

The DPR proposes a watertight tunnel with continuous drainage to collect groundwater seepage, rainwater and other water entering the structure and pump it into municipal drains. The tunnel portals will also have flood barriers and sump pumping systems, while the ramps will have canopies, side drains and sumps to manage rainwater.

But the effectiveness of these measures will depend partly on surrounding stormwater systems, says GV Hegde, a hydrogeologist who has studied Bengaluru’s water systems. Maintaining the lake’s minimal environmental storage and improving stormwater flows will be important to prevent flooding in the area.

A shrinking buffer

What may aggravate flooding risks is that part of the proposed tunnel, as shown in the DPR, extends into Hebbal Lake’s buffer zone. The ongoing High Court petition, based on DPR drawings, puts the tunnel 8-12 metres from the lake boundary, within the 30-metre buffer prescribed for Hebbal Lake under the recently amended Karnataka Tank Conservation and Development Authority Act, 2025.

Four days before the hearing in the Karnataka High Court, the Karnataka Tank Conservation and Development Authority, the statutory body responsible for protecting, reclaiming and restoring the city’s lakes, transferred around three acres of land within the Hebbal Lake premises for the project, saying that the lake’s physical structure and natural inflow and outflow remain undisturbed.

How much of these three acres is buffer, and how much is lake, is disputed. Based on satellite imagery of the alignment, Palur says the tunnel does not cut through open water directly, but does touch the lake’s water-spread area at points, partly because the 30-metre buffer has not been maintained along this stretch in the first place. “The tunnel is on the downstream or the outlet side of the lake. So there will be reduction in the lake’s water-holding capacity because all of this land (3.3 acres) will now be filled up or converted so that it can support the tunnel below,” he says.

Buffer zones of lakes function as floodplains, says TV Ramachandra, Coordinator of the Energy and Wetlands Research Group at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at IISc. During the monsoon, the buffer zone lets excess water spread out and percolate rather than immediately backing up onto adjoining roads and buildings.

“The water stored in the underlying layer in the buffer zone is the water that, during the post-monsoon period, comes to the lake. That’s how the lake becomes perennial,” Ramachandra says. Paving over that layer, he argues, removes both functions at once: the immediate cushion against flooding and the slow recharge that sustains the lake later in the year.

The project also sits next to another initiative in the same lake: a Rs 20-crore rejuvenation of Hebbal Lake, started by the Greater Bengaluru Authority, to increase the lake’s water-holding capacity and reduce flooding in the surrounding areas.

Ramachandra calls this a case of fragmented governance: one arm of government talking about restoring storage capacity, while another “disrupts the whole system by reducing the storage capacity”. Palur agrees: the rejuvenation is being handled by one authority, the tunnel by another, and “they don’t necessarily talk to each other,” even though both ultimately report to the same government.

The question, then, is not just whether the tunnel would be effective, but whether the city can afford to gamble on an infrastructure project whose long-term impacts remain uncertain. The Hebbal project also exposes the consequences of planning roads and waterbodies as separate systems.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Nineteen of the 23 migrant workers from West Bengal’s Murshidabad who had been detained in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh earlier this month on suspicion of being undocumented Bangladeshi citizens were released on Friday, reported The Hindu.

The men, who hail from Murshidabad’s Samserganj and Sahabad were detained on September 4 from their residences in Chunchiapara-Ganesh Nagar under Sirgiti police station.

The police had alleged that they were summoned multiple times with their documents, but failed to appear, reported The Hindu.

However, their families claimed that the police detained the men late at night despite them possessing voter cards, Aadhaar cards and PAN cards.

Bilaspur Senior Superintendent of Police Rajnesh Singh said that 19 of them were released following verification of their names in the voter lists, local administration records, family details and permanent residence documents, reported The New Indian Express.

“Further steps regarding the remaining four will depend on the reports we receive,” Singh was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The police claimed that their names had been struck off voter lists during the special intensive revision exercise in West Bengal.

After the 23 men were detained, the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties alleged that the action was taken without them getting any show-cause notices.

The organisation claimed that the men were also not given time to substantiate their document credentials

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states, most of them ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after the state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: In Bengal, Muslims picked up from homes in midnight raids, sent to detention centres

Protests broke out in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district on Saturday after six Kuki men were allegedly detained by security forces, reported PTI.

The protesters burned tyres on the roads and threw stones at government vehicles, the news agency quoted unidentified officials as saying on Sunday. They alleged that security personnel had detained the Kuki men without providing any reason.

They also dug portions of National Highway-2, which goes from Imphal to Dimapur, at Motbung to prevent security forces’ vehicles from moving, the officials alleged. Security personnel fired tear gas to force the protesters to disperse.

The protests had started around 10 pm on Saturday. Some of the demonstrators suffered injuries and were hospitalised.

The six Kuki men were subsequently released, after which the protest ended, reported PTI.

The men were natives of Kholen village, located close to the Naga-dominated Chawangkining village.

Unidentified persons had on Tuesday opened fire in the village at around 10.30 pm, reported India Today NE.

The Committee on Tribal Unity had alleged that cadres of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah and Zeliangrong United Front-Kamson were involved in the firing.

Tensions between the Kukis and the Nagas escalated in Manipur in February after an alleged assault involving members of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki-Zo communities in the Ukhrul district.

This followed the ethnic clashes that broke out in Manipur in May 2023 between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities. More than 300 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since then in the conflict.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.