The Union government has alleged before the Delhi High Court that the YouTube channel 4PM News had been blocked in March for “peddling anti-India sentiments” and alleging that Indian authorities were involved in the Pahalgam terror attack, reported Bar and Bench on Tuesday.

In an affidavit filed before the court, the Union government also alleged that the channel’s content was a classic case of “digital lobbying” to aid foreign actors who intend to influence India’s sovereign decision-making, according to Live Law.

The Union government had ordered the blocking of the channel on March 12, citing concerns about national security and public order.

4PM News and its editor Sanjay Sharma had moved the court challenging the decision. They said that neither Google, which owns YouTube, nor the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had provided them with a formal order or reasons for blocking the channel, reported Bar and Bench.

In response, the ministry has alleged before the court that the channel had a “sustained pattern” of hosting content that was speculative, one-sided, malicious and unsubstantiated, reported Live Law.

“It is submitted that the videos hosted on the blocked channel attributed grave acts to the Union of India, such as compromising India’s strategic autonomy, having prior awareness of military action in West Asia and endangering Indians abroad,” read the affidavit.

The content on the channel also includes “per-se false, inciting, destabilising information on subjects such as terrorism, internal security of the border state of Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur”, it added.

The Union government told the court that the channel had also questioned the genuineness of India’s military response to the Pahalgam terror attack and “presented defence-related debts and schemes through fabricated narratives that could erode confidence in the armed forces”.

The terror attack at Baisaran near the town of Pahalgam on April 22, 2025, had left 26 persons dead and 17 injured. The terrorists targeted tourists after asking their names to ascertain their religion, the police said. All but three of those killed were Hindu.

The ministry stated in the affidavit that the content on 4PM News was found to be detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity, defence and security of India, and friendly relations with foreign states, which fell within the ambit of the grounds referred to under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.

Under Section 69A of the Act, an authorised official in the Union government, not below the rank of a joint secretary, can send content removal orders to social media platforms if the content is deemed to threaten national security, sovereignty or public order.

“It is submitted that the manner in which petitioner’s channel operates, clearly reflects the hallmark of a ‘digital echo chamber’, where selected and repetitive content is circulated to promote a single narrative to influence public opinion,” the ministry alleged.

Speaking to The Wire after the channel was blocked, Sharma had claimed that the Union government had been repeatedly banning the portal because of its sharp criticism.

In April 2025 as well, the Union government had blocked the YouTube channel. At that time too, it had cited “national security or public order”.

Also read: Shifting viewership and Centre’s fresh attempt to control news online

In a supplementary list published on Wednesday, the Election Commission added 136 voters to the electoral rolls in West Bengal whose appeals were accepted by the appellate tribunals before the first phase of Assembly elections, ABP Ananda reported.

The approval rate for the appeals was 98.5% as only 138 cases had been decided on by the tribunals before the first phase of polling, as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The remaining two appeals were rejected, Aaj Tak Bangla reported.

About 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals. Of these, seven lakh were against names being included in the rolls and 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded, News9 reported.

On April 16, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to publish a supplementary electoral roll in West Bengal to include voters whose appeals against deletions have been accepted by the appellate tribunals.

Persons whose appeals have been cleared by the tribunals before April 21 should be included for voting in the first phase of Assembly elections, the court had said. Those who are cleared by April 27 should be included in the final electoral rolls for the second phase of the polls.

All decisions made by the tribunals on the addition and deletion of voters by those dates must be reflected in the final voter lists.

The first phase of polling will be held on April 23 and the second on April 29. The votes will be counted on May 4.

This came after the Election Commission froze the electoral rolls for the first phase of polling on April 9.

SIR appellate tribunals

The Election Commission on February 28 published the final electoral roll for West Bengal, showing that more than 61 lakh voters had been excluded. However, the process had continued with about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases remaining under adjudication based on their objections to their exclusions from the draft rolls published in December.

Several supplementary lists were released, in which the names of more voters have been included.

The process had concluded on April 6 after judicial officers adjudicated the 60 lakh claims and objections. However, voters who were removed during the adjudication process can appeal in 19 tribunals set up for the purpose.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ordered that judicial officers of the rank of district judge or additional district judge be appointed to help complete the revision exercise in the state.

On March 10, the top court ordered the formation of appellate tribunals composed of former High Court chief justices and judges to hear appeals against exclusions. A person whose claim for inclusion in the electoral rolls has been rejected by a judicial officer can approach the tribunal.

Nearly 91 lakh voters have been removed from West Bengal’s voter lists as part of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls. The deletions represent nearly 11.9% of the state’s electorate of 7.6 crore that existed before the revision process began.

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday quashed an order passed by a special court for framing of charges against four persons accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case, The Indian Express reported.

They were the last remaining persons accused in the matter.

The special court had in September ordered the charges to be framed against Manohar Narwaria, Rajendra Chaudhary, Dhan Singh and Lokesh Sharma for murder and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code, along with provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

The High Court on Wednesday allowed their appeals against the special court’s order, PTI reported.

On September 8, 2006, bomb blasts took place near a mosque and a cemetery in Maharashtra’s Malegaon. The blasts killed 31 persons and injured more than 300.

The state’s Anti-Terrorism Squad had arrested nine Muslim men in connection with the blasts, PTI reported.

The Central Bureau of Investigation, which took over the probe in 2017, had also named them as the accused in the matter, The Indian Express reported.

However, the National Investigation Agency, which began its probe in 2011, had said that the Muslim men were innocent and had suspected members of Hindutva organisations of having carried out the blasts, the newspaper reported.

The prosecution’s change of stance was based on a statement made in 2010 by Aseemanand, a person accused in other cases, The Indian Express reported. Aseemanand had alleged that members of Hindutva organisations had planted the bombs, Live Law reported.

The National Investigation Agency had then charged the four men, among others.

Aseemanand later retracted his statement and was acquitted in other blast cases in which he had been accused. The courts hearing the other matters had rejected Aseemanand’s confession as having been unreliable.

During the hearing in the High Court in the present case, the counsel representing the four men had argued that there were no eyewitnesses in the matter, The Indian Express reported. The lawyer also contended that a confession that no other court was willing to accept could not be used to frame the four men.

They had been arrested in 2013 and had been granted bail in 2019.

The nine Muslim men had been discharged in 2016. An appeal against the discharge has not been heard since 2019, The Indian Express reported.

The case is not linked to the 2008 Malegaon blast in which Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pragya Singh Thakur, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit and five others were acquitted in July.

With two days to go for the first phase of polling in West Bengal, the Election Commission on Monday announced several restrictions in the state.

Among the curbs is a ban on motorcycles on roads during the night and tourists not being allowed to visit Digha, a popular beach destination in the state.

Polling in the state will take place in two phases on Thursday and April 29. While curbs ahead of phase one began on Tuesday, phase two curbs will begin from April 27.

Ban on motorcycles

Motorcycles will not be allowed on the roads between 6 pm and 6 am starting two days before the polling for the Assembly elections in West Bengal, The Telegraph quoted Election Commission officials as saying on Monday.

In a directive, the poll panel further said that pillion riders will not be allowed during the relaxation window between 6 am and 6 pm, except in medical emergencies, for family functions or for dropping and picking up children from school.

“In order to ensure free, fair, peaceful and violence-free elections... in the state and to prevent any form of intimidation and source jamming… restrictions on use of motorcycles are hereby imposed with immediate effect from polling day minus two onward,” the newspaper quoted the poll panel as saying.

An unidentified Election Commission official told The Telegraph that motorcycles with multiple riders, or groups of bikes, were often used to intimidate voters.

The directive was to ensure that motorcycles did not become “a tool of intimidation or inducement”, added the official.

However, delivery services, riders working with transport apps and office-going commuters with proper identification will be exempted from the ban, the Election Commission clarified later on Tuesday.

96-hour liquor ban

Additionally, the sale of liquor was also banned on Monday in West Bengal for 96 hours ahead of polling on Thursday, The Telegraph reported.

The Election Commission usually mandates a 48-hour ban on the sale of liquor before polling across the country.

The poll panel stated that there was an “unusual spurt” in the sale of liquor in West Bengal.

“There has also been a sudden growth in lifting of packaged liquor by retailers from WBSBCL [West Bengal State Beverages Corporation Limited] Depots during April, 2026 in comparison to the corresponding period last year,” NDTV quoted the poll panel as saying.

Ban on tourists

The Election Commission has also instructed tourists to leave Digha, reported the Bengali daily Bartaman Patrika.

Hotels in the Purba Medinipur were reportedly directed not to allow anybody from outside the district.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice on a public interest litigation challenging the validity of the 2008 National Investigation Agency Act, Live Law reported.

The Act set up the National Investigation Agency in 2008 and contains a list of scheduled offences that it has the power to investigate. Under the legislation, state governments forward all cases relating to these scheduled offences to the Centre, which then determines whether the NIA should investigate them.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta sought responses from the Centre, the NIA and others on the petition that described the Act as arbitrary, lacking in legislative competence and an encroachment on state power.

The petition against the NIA Act was filed by an advocate based in Kerala who had been booked in connection with the activities of the banned organisation Popular Front of India. The NIA had filed the first information report in 2022 under sections of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Arms Act on the orders of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

The petitioner was arrested in relation to the case and had been in custody for a year before being granted bail by the Kerala High Court, Live Law reported.

The petition also referred to a another case filed by the Kerala Police in 2022 about the killing of a Bharatiya Janata Party member allegedly by PFI members. While proceedings were pending in the matter, the Centre passed an order under the NIA Act asking the central agency to take up the investigation.

The petitioner challenged the invocation of Section 6(5) read with Section 8 of the NIA Act by the central agency and the investigation of a case already being looked into the state police, Live Law reported.

Section 6(5) of the NIA Act empowers the Centre to direct the central agency to investigate a scheduled offence if it believes such an offence has been committed, overriding the requirement for a state recommendation. Section 8 allows it to investigate any non-scheduled offence if it is connected to a scheduled offence (terror-related or serious crime) under investigation.

Noting that the police is a state subject under Schedule 7 of the Constitution, the petitioner added that it also has the power to investigate offences under the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to the legal news portal.

Urging the Supreme Court to set aside the NIA Act as unconstitutional, the petitioner sought a direction for the Centre to frame appropriate rules and guidelines for the exercise of powers under the Act.

For most tourists heading to the picturesque meadows of Pahalgam in Kashmir, the first stop for many years has been a stone-paved pathway built along the banks of river Lidder.

Standing in its middle, a decorative frame of wooden beams with colorful letters saying “I love Pahalgam”, serves as a popular “selfie point” for travellers.

But now, just 200 metres away, a wall of black granite competes for attention. Two tricolours flutter on top of it. As you step closer, you see etched into stone the names of 26 people gunned down by militants on April 22 last year.

The memorial has come up about 6 km from the Baisaran meadow, the site of the terror attack.

As he stood looking up at the wall in mid-April, Manu Madhavan, a tourist from Kerala, described the experience as “a bit unsettling”.

“Until now, we had just heard about the Pahalgam massacre on television or read it in the newspaper,” said Madhavan, who was visiting Kashmir with his family. “Now, it feels real.”

But not many tourists are likely to share Madhavan’s experience – very few of them have been making their way to Pahalgam after last year’s terror attack.

The attack more than halved the number of tourists coming to Kashmir – from nearly 30 lakh in 2024, the number fell to less than 12 lakh in 2025, official data shows.

While tourist arrivals in the rest of Kashmir have largely recovered this year, Pahalgam, once a popular destination for travellers, continues to lag behind.

“Tourists prefer spots like Sonmarg and Gulmarg,” said Adil Ahmad, a cab operator in Srinagar. “There is a sense of fear about Pahalgam.”

Abdul Waheed Wani, president of the local ponywallah association, agreed. “Before April 22, 2025, there was one Pahalgam,” said Wani, who was among the first to reach Baisaran on the day of the attack. “Today’s Pahalgam is a different one.”

Security lapse

It was a sunny afternoon last year when a group of militants swooped down on the Baisaran meadow and shot 25 tourists in the head after identifying them by their religion. A local ponywalla was also killed in what was the deadliest attack on tourists in the history of Kashmir’s 37-year-old armed insurgency.

The attack came at a time when militancy-related violence in Kashmir had fallen to its lowest. Ever since the Modi government had scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, the region’s security apparatus had come under the direct control of the Centre through its representative, the lieutenant governor.

However, on the day of the attack, despite the presence of hundreds of tourists in the area, no security personnel were deployed in the Baisaran meadows or along the trekking route leading up to it, survivors said.

After the gunshots rang out in the meadow, the first persons to respond were local ponywallas who earn a living by offering horse rides to tourists.

Wani, the president of the ponywalla association, still has on his phone WhatsApp voice notes that he sent out that day, beseeching more and more ponywallas to reach Baisaran and join the rescue operation.

“The police came twenty minutes after we had reached the spot,” he said.

Another ponywalla, Rayees Ahmad, recalled reaching the Baisaran meadows through a shortcut to help rescue the tourists. When he saw many of them were injured and bleeding, he borrowed shawls and fabrics from local sellers “to cover their wounds and prevent their blood loss”.

Wani added: “That day, none of us cared for our life. We just went and started rescuing people.”

Act of bravery

A ponywalla, Syed Adil Hussain Shah, even lost his life while trying to protect the tourists. According to eyewitness accounts, he confronted one of the militants in an attempt to stop him from firing upon the visitors. In the process, Shah sustained several bullet injuries, including two on his chest, said his father.

Shah, 29, a daily-wage worker from Anantnag’s Hapatnar village, was the eldest among his parents’ six children. He used to earn Rs 300- Rs 500 per trip for taking tourists on horseback to Baisaran.

His father Syed Haider Shah said: “We miss him a lot but then there is this contentment that he died while trying to save people irrespective of their religion or identity. He set an example of humanity for all of us.”

Despite the bravery and courage shown by the ponywallas, in the weeks after the attack, there was a rise in the vilification of Kashmiri Muslims in sections of the media.

A security crackdown in the region saw nearly 3,000 youth being detained for questioning.

Although security agencies said two of the three militants responsible for the massacre were Pakistanis, they demolished nine houses belonging to the families of local militants. This was a first in the Valley.

In July, Union home minister Amit Shah announced in Parliament that the three suspected militants involved in the Pahalgam attack had been killed in a gunfight with security forces in Srinagar.

‘Take us to Baisaran’

In the last one year, the Shah family has, somehow, learnt to live with the loss.

His parents wanted to visit the spot where their son fell to the bullets – but were unable to.

“I have never been to Baisaran in my life,” remarked Syed Haider Shah. “My wife and I tried to go to Baisaran a couple of times, but we weren’t allowed by the security forces.”

A week after the terror attack, the administration had ordered the closure of 48 of the 87 official tourist destinations in Kashmir Valley. By October, the administration reopened at least 28 spots for visitors. But the Baisaran meadow has remained shut, along with several other sightseeing spots in Pahalgam, said local people working in the tourism industry.

As a result, tourism-related businesses in Pahalgam continued to suffer. “I came here to check if there is any flow of tourists,” said a Srinagar local, whose hotel in Pahalgam has almost zero business since April 22 last year. “Last year, I had taken a loan of Rs 20 lakh and renovated my hotel before the season. After the Baisaran episode, my investment sank,” the hotelier said, adding that his hotel will continue to remain shut due to lack of tourists. “I will close this by evening and head back to Srinagar.”

“Earlier, a tourist would spend at least two nights in Pahalgam,” said Wani, the president of the ponywalla association. “But ever since the main sightseeing spots have been closed down for tourists, they return to Srinagar by evening.”

An activist in Pahalgam said the government – both the administration led by the Lieutenant Governor as well as the elected government led by Omar Abdullah – need to do more to attract tourists to Pahalgam.

The closure of tourist spots “sends the wrong message,” said the activist, who requested anonymity. “Why can’t just the government deploy security at these spots so that tourists can visit these places and be safe?”

He also questioned the specific closure of the Baisaran meadow. “A tourist from the mainland doesn’t have an idea of the geography of the place. When he comes to know that Baisaran is closed, he feels as if that place is under the control of militants,” the activist said.

The activist also suggested that the memorial wall for the victims of last year’s terror attack be relocated to a more appropriate spot. “Tourists come to experience nature and its beauty,” he said. “If the first thing they see on their arrival is a memorial of a massacre of tourists, it disturbs them and creates fear in their mind.”

Videos of a commuter in Mumbai confronting Bharatiya Janata Party leader Girish Mahajan and police personnel for blocking a road during a protest march were widely shared on social media on Tuesday.

The protest by the ruling Mahayuti coalition led to traffic congestion in the Worli area on Tuesday. The protest was to be held at the Jambori Maidan. The woman reportedly stepped out of her vehicle, and was heard asking Mahajan and the police officers not to block the road and protest at a ground instead.

The woman, whose identity is unclear, said that she had been stuck in the traffic and had to pick up her child. She told a police officer that she had been waiting in traffic for more than an hour.

When Mahajan asked her to calm down, the woman asked him to “get out of here”.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked. “There are hundreds of people waiting. There's an empty ground there.”

She asked the police to clear the traffic.

Get out of here!

Mumbai woman explodes at Maharashtra Minister & BJP MLA Girish Mahajan during a BJP's "Mahila Jan Aakrosh" rally in Worli that blocked roads over the failed Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill. Stranded while rushing to pick up her child from school, she… pic.twitter.com/Fin9zXjU2o

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) April 22, 2026

Aam Aadmi Party’s Mumbai chief Preeti Sharma Menon said that while the police allow protests only at Azad Maidan, the BJP “was allowed to protest on the roads”.

In August, the Maharashtra government had designated Azad Maidan as the only venue for all protests in South Mumbai.

The woman was praised by social media users.

A user said that the BJP’s “event-mongering has now started directly testing the patience” of residents. “Is jamming the roads and harassing ordinary people just to spread a false narrative in the name of women's reservation really your politics?” the handle asked on social media platform X.

The BJP was protesting against the Opposition for defeating a constitutional amendment bill in Parliament on Friday. The ruling party claimed that the opposition was against women’s interests because it stood against what the BJP describes as the women’s reservation bill.

The 2026 Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, one of three draft legislations, was defeated in the Lok Sabha. As a constitutional amendment bill, it required a two-thirds majority of votes to pass. The ruling National Democratic Alliance does not have a two-thirds majority of MPs in any House and had required the support of the Opposition to pass the amendment.

Opposition parties have maintained that they supported the amendments to the Women’s Reservation Act, but were opposed to the proposed delimitation of electoral constituencies.

Commenting on the video of the confrontation on Tuesday, a social media user said that the woman had “taught a very good lesson to these two-bit leaders who keep harassing the public day and night”.

इस महिला ने बहुत हीं अच्छा सबक सिखाया है इन दो दो कौड़ी के नेताओं को जो दिन रात पब्लिक को बस परेशान करते हैं

मुंबई में BJP के नेता और कार्यकर्ता महिला आरक्षण बिल को लेकर सड़क जाम करने की नौटंकी कर रहे थे, तभी घंटों भर जाम में फंसी एक महिला ने इनलोगों को इनकी औकात दिखाई और सबको… pic.twitter.com/1YzwyeXmdy

— Gautam Thakur (@gautamthakurx) April 21, 2026

Another user said that “BJP’s ‘Nari Shakti’ [women power] drama in Mumbai got busted by one bold woman!”

“They blocked Worli roads for hours ‘for women’s reservation’ – while real women were stuck in traffic, late to pick up kids,” the account said.

The user added: “Protesting for women by torturing women? The hypocrisy is real. Even women aren't buying this anymore. Real Nari Shakti doesn’t block roads.”

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi praised the woman “who showed a mirror to minister Girish Mahajan and BJP protesters for blocking traffic to carry out their political protest”.

The woman’s anger “is not just of hers but every single Mumbaikar who face the commute woes”, she added.

Chaturvedi asked asked: “Why was BJP protesting on the streets instead of designated ground? Who gave them the permission to carry out the protest during peak traffic hours? Why should people suffer due to political showmanship of BJP?”

Hats off to the lady from Mumbai who showed a mirror to Minister Girish Mahajan and BJP protestors for blocking traffic to carry out their political protest.
In Mumbai daily commute includes hours of being stuck in traffic jams and instead of understanding the fast losing…

— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) April 22, 2026

The women’s wing of the Congress said that the woman was brave and had “raised her voice and gave a proper scolding to the shameless BJP minister who was shedding crocodile tears!”

At least 13 persons were killed and 40 injured in a series of explosions at a manufacturing unit preparing fireworks for the annual Thrissur Pooram festival in Kerala on Tuesday, The Hindu reported.

This comes two days after another explosion at a fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district left 23 persons dead on Sunday.

In Thrissur, workers had been inside a set of temporary sheds situated on a five-acre paddy field in Mundathikode and were assembling fireworks for the Thiruvambady Devaswom, one of the temple bodies that organise the Thrissur Pooram.

The fireworks were being assembled for a sample display scheduled for Friday, The Indian Express reported. This comes ahead of the annual temple festival that will be held on April 26 at the Vadakkunnathan temple.

On Tuesday, two massive explosions that were seconds apart tore through the sheds at about 3.30 pm and triggered a blaze. Five of the eight sheds on the site were gutted, The Hindu reported.

Unidentified officials from the Thrissur Government Medical College told The Hindu that five of the injured person are critical, with one victim having suffered over 90% burns. The other four had sustained around 70% burn injuries.

Several others were undergoing treatment across different hospitals in the region.

City Police Commissioner Nakul Rajendra Deshmukh told The News Minute that as per preliminary information, it was a sudden explosion that was followed by a chain reaction. “The remaining materials kept exploding for about 20 minutes,” he said.

Following the incident, District Collector Sikha Surendran ordered a magisterial inquiry. State Health Minister Veena George also directed that specialised medical care be ensured for the injured.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan directed the release of Rs 50 lakh to the district collector for immediate relief, The Indian Express reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences and announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the dead. He also announced Rs 50,000 for the injured.

The protests by workers across Indian cities through early April are an urgent signal that survival is impossible on wages that hover around the bare legal minimum.

Domestic, gig and delivery workers to industrial labourers in the Delhi-National Capital Region protested demanding an increase in wages and overtime pay. Most of them are often migrant workers to India’s urban centres.

The spark was the increase in basic expenses following the shortage of cooking gas and economic uncertainty after the US-Israel launched military strikes on Iran in February, setting off a conflict which is now closing in on two months.

In Noida, protesting workers told the Indian Express that their monthly salaries ranged from Rs 13,000 to Rs 20,000 but expenses had increased, with rent costing Rs 5,000 and food Rs 4,000, and nothing to save. One factory worker in Noida told a news publication that his employer hiked his monthly pay by Rs 39. Worse still, workers report deductions as punishment for protesting and their wage demands were met with batons.

Across urban India, the numbers tell the same story.

Domestic workers manage to earn anywhere between Rs 7,000 - Rs 12,000 a month by working in multiple homes, with no leave or social security in the National Capital Region, says a report in the Hindustan Times. Security guards working at Delhi’s leading hospitals earned between Rs 10,000- Rs 13,000 a month for 12-hour shifts, according to a report in Hans India.

In upscale malls and fast-fashion outlets, retail workers start out by earning Rs 9,000- Rs 13,000, with sales targets that stretch their workday without pay. Delivery and warehouse workers, who form the backbone of “quick commerce”, report earning between Rs 14,000-Rs 18,000 after 10-12 hours of work. Anecdotal evidence suggests that private drivers in NCR average around Rs 15,000-Rs 22,000.

These earnings fall short of the living-wage estimate of Rs 23,086 per month in Delhi-NCR in 2025 by the Anker Research Institute, a nonprofit that researches benchmarks for wages across countries.

At the same time, India’s national floor level minimum wage was last revised in 2017 to Rs 178 a day, which amounts to less than Rs 5,500 per month. The Centre sets the national floor wage as a benchmark to guide states in setting their own minimum wages. Without revisions to reflect increasing costs and inflation, the low minimum wage has practically legalised poor pay and enabled a race to the bottom.

Aajeevika’s study, carried out between July 2024 and February 2026 in Ahmedabad, shows how low wages are inadequate to sustain a dignified life. The current wage frameworks assume that workers and their dependents form a single household in one location. However, migrants’ realities are “bilocal”: their wages must sustain their life in the city while remittances are essential to support their native villages and homes.

Strained incomes have unsurprising consequences: debt, unhygienic and cramped living conditions and compromising on healthcare and education, which results in children being pulled into work.

The workers’ protests also erupted months after the Centre’s four labour codes came into effect in November 2025. The government has said the four new codes modernise and consolidate India’s labour and worker-related laws. But workers’ rights organisations have warned of a dilution in labour protection and rights.

The same month, amendments to the Uttar Pradesh Factories Act were enforced which allowed the government to extend the workday to 12 hours and raise quarterly overtime limits from 75 to 144 hours. The NCR’s Noida industrial hub comes under the jurisdiction of Uttar Pradesh.

In response to the protests, state governments have marginally revised wages. Uttar Pradesh raised wages for unskilled workers to Rs 13,690, Haryana to Rs 15,221. Both are far below conservative living-wage benchmarks and well short of the Rs 26,000 long demanded by unions. These wage revisions also come after years of inflation, and it is unlikely that they are enough to meet current expenses.

VIDEO | Faridabad, Haryana: After Noida, workers in Faridabad stage a protest demanding a wage hike; several detained. pic.twitter.com/FMTiQwkA4y

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

Why businesses must pay more

It might seem profitable to keep wages low, but it is a liability. It sparks frustration and unhappiness among workers, leads to their exit and drives up costs through recruitment and training expenses while lowering service quality.

Stable wages guarantee dignity and lower attrition, while fixed hours reduce errors and fatigue. Predictable hours will reduce defects and returns. Workers who can afford transport show up on time. Those who can eat and sleep well sell better, drive safer, and stay. Paying fair wages is far from a charitable act. Corporations must weigh the costs of increasing wages or grappling with the costs of lost output and other losses.

Setting minimum wages

Faced with labour unrest and the increasing cost of living in expenses in the midst of global economic turmoil, the government must reframe minimum wages to living wages. It must notify a time-bound roadmap to reach city-wise, Anker living-wage benchmarks with annual increases based on inflation. The national floor level minimum wage must also be revised urgently.

Enforcement often becomes the main failure. Here, governments must cap the workday at eight hours, ensure overtime is voluntary and paid at double rates, bring about digital muster rolls and wage slips. Non-payment of wages must become a cognisable offence, which means police can begin investigations and make arrests as the relevant laws.

Wages must also be accompanied by social security nets. Welfare benefits like insurance and provident fund should be portable across states and employers.

Grievance systems should work on the ground: district wage-facilitation cells with a 30-day disposal rule, protection against retaliation, dialogue before detention, and quarterly compliance disclosure. The state must also stop underwriting low wages through its own contracts, by demanding, for instance, Rs 20,000 but paying Rs 13,000 in its tenders.

The workers’ anger is grounded in the desperation of surviving from day to day. Their demands for a minimum of Rs 20,000 per month and overtime are modest given the cost of living in the capital of India.

From factory and industry workers to the labourers who deliver food and groceries and clean homes, it is their sweat and effort that is central to making Indian cities what they are today.

Rajiv Khandelwal is the co-founder and Director of Aajeevika Bureau, a workers’ rights and services organisation supporting migrant and informal workers everywhere.

A total of 345 or 23% of the candidates in the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections have declared criminal cases against themselves, the non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms said in a report on Tuesday.

The organisation analysed the affidavits of 1,475 out of the 1,478 candidates contesting the elections on Thursday.

Of these, 294 candidates or 20% have declared serious criminal cases. Ninety-eight candidates have cases related to crimes against women, while 19 have declared cases of murder, the report said.

Among major parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party has the highest proportion of candidates with declared criminal cases at 70%. Around 44% of candidates fielded by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have declared criminal cases.

In the ruling Trinamool Congress, 43% of candidates have declared criminal cases, while 26% of candidates fielded by the Congress face such charges.

The organisation defines serious criminal offences as those carrying a maximum punishment of five years or more, non-bailable offences, or cases involving loss to the public exchequer. This category includes offences such as assault, murder, kidnapping, rape and crimes against women or those mentioned in the Representation of the People Act. They also include offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Polling in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, with results scheduled to be declared on May 4.

21% candidates have assets over Rs 1 crore

A total of 309 candidates, or 21% of those analysed have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. The average assets of candidates contesting in the first phase of the West Bengal elections are Rs 1.34 crore.

Among the major parties, 106 out of 148 candidates analysed from the Trinamool Congress had assets above Rs 1 crore.

This is followed by 71 of 152 candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party, 50 of 151 from the Congress and 24 of 98 from the CPI (Marxist).

The Trinamool Congress’ Jangipur candidate Jakir Hossain is the richest with assets valued at more than Rs 133 crore, according to the study.

Read Scroll’s coverage of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections here.

The Income Tax Department on Tuesday filed a complaint with the commissioner of police in Chennai against Tamil Nadu Congress chief K Selvaperunthagai for his social media posts alleging that he had been “unlawfully confined” within the Sriperumbudur Assembly constituency under the “pretext of a search”, Live Law reported.

On Monday, Selvaperunthagai also alleged that the search, which coincided with party leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the Assembly elections, was a “calculated attempt to obstruct democratic functioning and weaken the activities of the Opposition”.

Voting for the Assembly polls in the state will be held in a single phase on April 23, with results scheduled to be declared on May 4.

On Tuesday, the Income Tax department said that the Congress leader’s claims were also repeated to the media and it was reported widely that a search was conducted at his home in Kilpauk, Chennai, Live Law reported.

The department claimed that it had not conducted any searches.

“The allegations are entirely baseless and factually incorrect,” the legal news outlet quoted the department as saying. “It is clarified that no search, survey or any form of enforcement action was carried out by the…department against…Selvaperunthagai on [April 20] or on any date in the recent past.”

The department added: “No action whatsoever was undertaken that could have restricted his movement. It is also clarified that no premises, including his residence at Kilpauk, Chennai, were covered under any Income Tax proceedings as claimed in the reports.”

The central agency also said that though it had carried out some verification exercises in the state, they were in connection with an intelligence report of the movement of unaccounted cash. The action was not connected to the Congress leader, added the department.

It further said that the matter has been reported to the Election Commission and a formal police complaint has been filed.

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The Congress submitted a privilege notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that his national address on April 18 “cast aspersions” on Opposition MPs. A prime minister criticising the Opposition for not being able to pass a bill in Parliament was “unprecedented and a blatant abuse of power”, stated the party.

Party MP KC Venugopal wrote that the Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, “in the guise of implementing women’s reservation” in Lok Sabha and Assemblies, “surreptitiously sought” to do away with guardrails against delimitation.

“This is what the Opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha were protesting,” the Congress leader reiterated. Read on.

With two days to go for the first phase of polling in West Bengal, the Election Commission has announced several restrictions in the state. Among the curbs is a ban on motorcycles on roads during the night and tourists not being allowed to visit Digha, a popular beach destination in the state.

The sale of liquor was also banned in West Bengal for 96 hours ahead of polling on Thursday. The Election Commission usually mandates only a 48-hour ban on the sale of liquor before polling across the country. Read on.

Five workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party and four Trinamool Congress members were arrested after a clash outside a Kolkata police station last night. The clash erupted during the campaign for the Assembly elections, the first phase of which will be held on Thursday.

The supporters of the BJP’s Kolkata Port candidate Rakesh Singh had gathered at a meeting on Hossain Shah Road and shouted slogans. Trinamool Congress workers also shouted slogans in response, leading to violence.

Clashes between workers of the two parties were also reported in the Nandigram constituency. Read on.

Watch: As lakhs of Bengali Muslims lose their votes to SIR, who gains? BJP or Trinamool?

Petitioners seeking action against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the Gauhati High Court on Tuesday that he had continued to make “religiously provocative, incendiary and needless comments” even after notices were issued to him. They also submitted to the court remarks made by Sarma in March and April, highlighting that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader continued to use the term “Miya”.

The petitioner urged the court to pass interim orders to restrict his speeches. The court did not accept the request and held that it must wait for Sarma’s response in the matter. It then granted four more weeks to the Assam government and the BJP leader to respond to the petitions seeking action against him for hate speech. Read on.

Has the Supreme Court gone soft on hate speech? writes Ratna Singh

Iranian state television reported that no delegation from the country has left for Pakistan to hold peace talks with the United States amid the conflict in West Asia. This came amid continuing uncertainty about whether fresh talks to end the war will take place between the two countries.

The two-week ceasefire in West Asia, which took effect on April 8, will end on Wednesday. Read on.

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India has withdrawn its bid to host the UN climate conference, COP33 scheduled for 2028, a move that reflects shifting priorities in global climate negotiations and geopolitics.

Rajat Agrawal, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, informed the Asia-Pacific group of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change about India’s decision on April 2.

A ministry spokesperson, Virat Majboor, confirmed to Mongabay-India that the decision had been communicated to the UNFCCC secretariat, but said no further information was available.

At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced India’s interest in hosting the climate conference scheduled in 2028. India had earlier hosted COP 8 in New Delhi in 2002.

The COP presidency and the responsibility for hosting the annual climate conference rotate among the five United Nations regional groups – the African Group, Asia-Pacific Group, Eastern European Group, Latin American and Caribbean Group, and Western European and Others Group.

After Brazil hosts COP30 in 2025, Australia and Türkiye will jointly host COP31, followed by Ethiopia hosting COP32 for the African Group. This would be followed by the Asia-Pacific Group’s turn to host COP33, for which India had put forward its bid.

The process of selecting a host remains “opaque” and takes place within regional groups, Joanna Depledge, a research fellow at the Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance at the University of Cambridge, said. India’s bid was still under consideration within the Asia-Pacific Group and had not been finalised.

“It is not a good sign,” Depledge said, referring to the withdrawal. She pointed to Brazil’s withdrawal from hosting COP25 after the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, widely interpreted as a signal of reduced interest in climate action, which did follow.

In India’s case, however, the move is likely to be seen differently, she said, linking it to the country’s dissatisfaction with developments at COP29 in Azerbaijan, particularly over the decision on a new climate finance goal.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, former chief negotiator for climate change (2013-2021) and distinguished fellow at CEEW, said Modi had earlier indicated India’s interest in hosting the climate negotiations, and added that several geopolitical changes have since emerged, including challenges around climate finance, energy security, and critical minerals. CEEW is a New Delhi-based think tank.

Evolving reality

The global climate landscape has undergone significant shifts in the two and a half years since India announced that it would host COP33. At the time of the announcement, in December 2023, the United States remained part of the Paris Agreement.

By November 2024, it had become clear that Donald Trump was likely to return to power in the United States. He has indicated plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the first global treaty to set specific climate goals, including limiting temperature rise to well below 2 degrees celsius and pursuing efforts to keep it to 1.5 degrees celsius.

In January 2025, he issued an executive order in this regard.

At the same time (November 2024), countries were negotiating a new climate finance goal at COP29 in Baku. After long and tough negotiations, developed countries agreed to mobilise $300 billion annually by 2035 under the New Collective Quantified Goal. The outcome was seen as inadequate by many developing countries, with India among those raising strong objections.

Earlier, the Prime Minister, while announcing India’s interest in hosting COP33, had also emphasised the need to scale up climate finance commitments from billions to several trillions, which shows India has realised the importance of climate finance in setting up ambitious climate goals.

RR Rashmi, India’s former principal negotiator under the UN climate process at several COPs and a distinguished fellow at TERI, said that global climate finance has remained inadequate, and countries have to factor this in and work within these constraints. TERI is a New Delhi- based think tank.

Regarding the changing reality, he said the focus has largely been on mitigation, but as climate impacts become more visible, attention is shifting towards resilience. He said public budgets are increasingly being directed towards supporting vulnerable communities, while mitigation is expected to be driven by private capital.

Another major development has been rising concerns over energy security. The Iran-Israel conflict is the latest geopolitical episode to strain global energy supply, highlighting vulnerabilities in supply chains. Earlier, the Russia-Ukraine war and restrictions on critical mineral exports by China had already exposed these risks, particularly for large energy consumers such as India.

These developments are also reflected in India’s domestic policy discourse. The latest Economic Survey, which was tabled in the Parliament in January, questioned the prevailing narrative by saying, “…deterministic or catastrophic policy narratives often compresses nuance and downplays uncertainty.” It argued that “development is, in itself, a form of adaptation,” adding that growth and resilience should be seen as complementary to climate action.

Similar views are emerging globally. Writing ahead of COP30, US-based billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates noted that excessive focus on near-term emissions targets could divert attention from practical solutions to improve resilience in a warming world.

Against this backdrop, Karthik Nachiappan, a Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, linked India’s withdrawal from hosting the COP to a broader shift.

He said India’s climate diplomacy is moving from symbolic leadership, such as hosting summits, towards a more instrumental leadership focused on finance, technology, and industrial policy. This includes prioritising forums such as the G20, multilateral development bank reforms, and partnerships across the Global South, making COP hosting less central.

Increasing expectations on ambition

The year 2028, when COP33 will take place, is significant because it coincides with the second Global Stocktake, a process under Article 14 of the Paris Agreement that assesses collective progress towards its long-term goals. The first Global Stocktake was concluded in 2023 at COP28 in Dubai.

The Global Stocktake assesses emissions trends, policies, finance, and adaptation efforts, and evaluates whether current actions are sufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals of limiting warming to below 2 degrees celsius and pursuing efforts to keep it to 1.5 degrees celsius. Current assessments, including the latest emissions gap report by the United Nations Environment Programme, show that global efforts remain insufficient.

The outcome of the 2028 Global Stocktake is expected to trigger calls for more ambitious climate action, placing greater expectations on the COP presidency to push mitigation efforts. This comes even as India has emphasised adaptation and resilience in its domestic policy discourse, including in the Economic Survey.

The call for increasing ambition is getting visible even now at other forums. It is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as its seventh assessment report is expected towards the end of this decade. However, there is a push by developed countries, the Alliance of Small Island States, and several Least Developed Countries, to advance these reports to embed their findings in Global Stocktake. Countries, including India, have expressed their concerns about compressing timelines and early release of these reports.

Amid this, the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, given its share of around 12% in global emissions, creates a gap difficult for others to fill, increasing pressure on the host country to address the widening emissions gap.

Experts say these dynamics make it difficult for developing countries to bridge the emissions gap. RR Rashmi said developed countries were expected to lead mitigation efforts, but are not acting in line with their capacities, shifting the burden onto developing countries.

He added that while global efforts to address climate change have been inadequate, the impacts cannot be ignored. The resulting pressure on developing countries, already dealing with climate impacts, underscores the importance of climate justice.

Prasad said, “Developed countries were expected to play a leading role in mitigation, but they are not acting in line with their responsibilities and capacities. This points to a harsh reality: the world is likely to overshoot its warming targets. The challenge now is how to respond to that, and developing countries are already grappling with this question.”

Increasing scrutiny of the COP host/presidency

In recent COPs, host countries’ domestic energy policies, especially those related to fossil fuels, have come under scrutiny. From the United Arab Emirates’ oil expansion during COP28 to Azerbaijan’s gas strategy ahead of COP29 and the United Kingdom’s North Sea projects during COP26, questions have been raised about the alignment between climate leadership and fossil fuel policies.

India faces a similar dilemma. Coal remains important to its energy needs, even as global climate efforts increasingly focus on phasing down fossil fuels. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India’s interest in hosting the COP, he also emphasised the need for technology transfer and strengthening clean energy supply chains.

However, it remains uncertain how much traction such demands from developing countries will receive, even as coal continues to come under scrutiny in climate negotiations.

While India’s per capita emissions remain low, its overall share of around 7%-8% makes it one of the world’s largest emitters, placing its climate and energy policies under increasing global scrutiny.

Nachiappan said hosting a COP brings visibility but also pressure to raise climate ambition and defend domestic choices. He said withdrawing from the bid allows India to avoid that exposure and preserve flexibility. He added that the move reflects a broader shift in climate politics, away from large multilateral moments towards negotiations and discussion on finance, technology, and sectoral cooperation.

Joanna Depledge said the prospect of intense scrutiny could deter potential hosts. However, she added that COPs will remain highly relevant, even as climate action becomes more dispersed across smaller initiatives and groupings.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Congress on Tuesday submitted a privilege notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that his national address on April 18 “cast aspersions” on Opposition MPs.

In a letter to Birla, Congress MP KC Venugopal said that a prime minister criticising the Opposition for not being able to pass a bill in Parliament was “unprecedented and a blatant abuse of power”.

Modi, in his address, criticised Opposition parties for defeating in the Lok Sabha the Union government’s bill to amend the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act and redraw the boundaries of electoral constituencies.

On April 17, the 2026 Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, one of three draft legislations introduced by the Centre during a special session, was defeated in the Lower House of Parliament.

As a Constitution amendment bill, it required a two-thirds majority of votes to pass. The ruling National Democratic Alliance does not have a two-thirds majority of MPs in any House and had required the support of the Opposition to pass the amendment.

In his address, Modi claimed that Opposition parties stood against the draft legislation, which he described as the women’s reservation bill, for their “selfish political interests”.

Opposition parties, including the Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Trinamool Congress, have maintained that they supported the amendments to the Women’s Reservation Act, but were opposed to the proposed delimitation of electoral constituencies.

On Tuesday, Venugopal wrote that the Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, “in the guise of implementing women’s reservation” in Lok Sabha and Assemblies, “surreptitiously sought” to do away with guardrails against delimitation.

“This is what the Opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha were protesting,” the Congress leader reiterated.

My senior colleague in the Lok Sabha, KC Venugopal, has issued a notice of question of privilege against the Prime Minister for his so-called address to the nation following the defeat of his nefarious designs in the Lok Sabha by something he did not expect—absolute Opposition… pic.twitter.com/ZbGDaphZiQ

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 21, 2026

He added: “It is well established that casting reflections, aspersions, imputing motives to Members of Parliament in regard to speeches made by them in Parliament tantamount to gross breach of privilege and contempt of House.”

Parliamentary privilege refers to the rights and immunities enjoyed by members of the two Houses. If proven, the House can issue a warning against an MP, impose fines, or even sentence them to prison.

Venugopal said it was “appalling” that the prime minister was “so annoyed that he chose to address the nation casting aspersions on Members of Parliament who were honestly performing their duties”.

In his letter, he told Birla that this matter “deserves to be treated with utmost seriousness, as questioning an elected representative performing his duty is not merely a personal assault but a direct affront to the authority of Parliament”.

Soon after Modi’s address, the Congress had said that Modi had turned an official address to the nation into a political speech “full of mudslinging and outright lies”.

The party also said that the Model Code of Conduct is in force in several states because of Assembly elections and “it was very clear how PM Modi misused official machinery to attack his opponents”. “This is a travesty of democracy and the Constitution of India,” said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

Over two billion years old, the Aravalli mountain range in north-western India feels like an oasis running through Rajasthan’s hot, arid landscape.

Its rolling hills, biodiverse forests and water bodies form a massive green wall protecting the rest of the country from the heat and dust that rises from the Thar Desert on the western edge of the state.

Yet despite its ecological significance, commercial mining has been degrading the Aravallis. At least 29,209 instances of illegal mining were reported between 2018 and 2023 in Aravalli districts.

Mining pressure linked to urban expansion continues to reshape the landscape. At least 65 minerals are mined across the Aravalli range, including lead, zinc and copper, as are industrial minerals used in urban infrastructure, like marble, quartz, limestone and granite.

Environmental activist Kailash Meena has felt the impact of this mining in his hometown of Neem Ka Thana, a village in northern Rajasthan. His father was a shepherd, whose livelihood was his livestock and subsistence agriculture. But marble mining in his village has made it hard to sustain these.

Mining and blasting are causing groundwater levels to fall in the area, and risk fracturing the ancient rock formations that allow rainwater to percolate underground. Dust generated by mining crushers and heavy transport vehicles settles on crops, degrading soil quality and contaminating water and air, Meena tells Dialogue Earth. Grazing lands and forest produce on which many rural households depend have gradually disappeared.

“Villages in the Aravalli belt where mining has been rampant have seen a major fall in livestock numbers, thereby negatively impacting people’s traditional livelihoods,” Meena says. Those who continue to farm have seen their earnings take a hit.

“Villages like ours are aggrieved by the mining mafia,” he says. “A lot of construction that takes place in regions like Delhi … get their materials through mining in our small eco-sensitive villages.”

Further alarming native communities and environmentalists is the central government’s proposed redefinition of what comprises the Aravalli Hills and range. “Any landform located in the Aravalli districts, having an elevation of 100 metres or more from the local relief, shall be termed as Aravalli Hills,” stated a government press release. The Aravalli range, meanwhile, has been defined as all landforms existing within 500 metres of two adjoining hills of over 100 metres in height.

Environmentalists and experts say these definitions are narrow and endanger a substantial chunk of the Aravalli landscape, especially vast stretches of low-lying scrub hills, grasslands and ridges. Locals worry they might open up the Aravallis for more mining, this time legally.

“People sitting in air-conditioned rooms cannot understand the complexities of the ground realities of the Aravallis. Our voices should become a part of decision-making,” says Kusum Rawat, a 30-year-old researcher from Banswara district in southern Rajasthan that lies within the Aravallis. Further worrying her is a new gold mine discovered in the district, which is expected to result in more mining on the hills.

The new definitions had been accepted by the Supreme Court in November, but sustained criticism and protest led the court to suspend that decision just weeks later, shortly after the central government halted new mining leases in the region.

A Supreme Court petition filed in January by two villagers from Neem Ka Thana, for instance, resulted in action from the Rajasthan state government.

Authorities recognised that land designated to a private company for mining was within the Aravalli range, and ordered a stop to all activity. Mining operations had begun despite an earlier Supreme Court ruling that no mining can be allowed without the court’s approval, leading to the villagers’ petition.

Communities come together

Rawat was among activists, researchers and community leaders who recently completed a 700-km, 38-day Aravalli sanrakshan yatra (protection procession). It passed through all the states and territories the mountain range stretches across – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Delhi.

Along the route, members of the procession met at least 1,000 people who shared the challenges they face living along the Aravallis. While mining-induced air pollution came up often, many also reported suffering from silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling large amounts of crystalline silica dust, which gets released into the air during mining. To date, more than 25,000 cases of silicosis have been identified by the state of Rajasthan, with over 1,100 deaths recorded.

The Rajasthan state government was approached for comment on these figures but did not respond.

Kanchi Kohli, an independent forest analyst, says one of the biggest mining pressures typically comes from urban expansion, with the Aravallis being a source of raw materials for real estate and road expansions around the ecoregion. She urged governments to keep in mind the social and ecological impacts of urbanisation on important ecoregions like the Aravallis in their planning.

Across the Aravalli range, individuals and collectives are fighting the threat of even more mining arising from the government’s definitions of the ancient mountain system.

In May 2025, the citizen-led collective People for Aravallis, who played a key role in the yatra, submitted a citizens report to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Haryana government. The report claimed that licensed mining operations had wiped out most of the Aravalli range in two districts, Charkhi Dadri and Bhiwani.

“Aravalli hills in Gurugram, Nuh and Faridabad districts were ravaged during the time when licensed mining took place before the Supreme Court banned mining [there],” says founder of the collective, Neelam Ahluwalia. “However, illegal mining still continues brazenly. In Mahendergarh district where ground water levels in many areas have reached a depth of 1,500-2,000 feet, licensed and illegal mining have caused immense devastation.”

“The whole range is bleeding,” she says.

Referring to communities like Meena’s village, Ahluwalia adds: “These are communities with almost no carbon footprint. Yet they are the ones facing the impacts of environmental destruction.”

This long-suffering part of India hardly gets any attention, Meena notes. “In the last few years, pollution and heatwaves in north India have made headlines. But our areas have been facing these issues for 30 years now,” he says, adding that without the Aravallis, the northern areas will, like Neem Ka Thana, “have a difficult time surviving”.

With the Aravalli yatra, Ahluwalia notes, activists set out to bring local voices into the conversation through meetings and public consultations across the region. “People who depend on the Aravallis for their sustenance and live in its lap need to be consulted as to what they want before taking any decision which will directly impact their lives, health and livelihoods,” she says.

The interventions of communities and environmentalists are bearing fruit.

In March, the Supreme Court reportedly assembled a committee of experts from fields including forestry and geology to come up with a new uniform definition for the Aravallis.

Impact on the environment

The ecological importance of the Aravalli range is undisputed, experts say.

The 100-metre definition for the range risks excluding from protection ecologically connected areas such as forests, wildlife corridors and groundwater recharge zones, Ahluwalia notes. “The idea is to open up everything for mining and make it legal.”

A report from the Forest Survey of India submitted to the Supreme Court in September 2025 observed that smaller hills in the Aravallis, located at the edge of the Thar Desert, serve as natural barriers against desertification by stopping heavier sand particles. They act as windbreaks, protecting Delhi and neighbouring plains from sandstorms.

This report was suppressed by the Ministry of Environment, K Parameshwar, the amicus curiae (who provides specialised expertise in cases) said in his report to the Supreme Court. Parameshwar noted that the 100-metre definition was not supported by several key parties involved, including the Forest Survey of India. The proposed definition was also never put up for public consultation.

The reduction of the Aravalli Hills would also jeopardise the role they play in rainwater harvesting. “There could be clear impacts on the groundwater recharge in the area which is likely to affect agriculture and access to water,” disrupting cropping patterns, says Kohli.

Government figures have found these concerns alarmist. In December 2025, environment minister Bhupender Yadav said that nearly 90% of the Aravalli landscape will be protected and that only 0.19% of the range could ever be eligible for mining under existing rules. An analysis by Down To Earth, however, notes that nearly 49% of the Aravallis would be exposed once the definition is applied.

After being approached by Dialogue Earth, a representative of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change responded that the matter was subjudice, or under judicial consideration, and did not comment. However, its press release noted that because its definition of the Aravalli range protects the 500 metres of land between two adjoining hills, “it is, therefore… wrong to conclude that mining is permitted in all landforms below 100 metre height”.

In his report, Parameshwar noted that land would not be protected if it lies between hills above 100 metres but farther than 500 metres from each other.

The fight goes on

The need to define the Aravalli range is being questioned by some citizen-led conservation groups. Jyoti Raghavan, from the conservationist group Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement, notes that the landscape is already widely understood and recognised. “When it is already accepted that this is what Aravallis are, why do we need to narrow down its definition?”

Despite the ban on the new mining leases, the lack of resolution remains a cause for worry to those directly impacted by it.

“Clean air and pure water are the necessities of life. What will happen to our future generations if we do not conserve our ecology?” says Rawat. “It is our duty.”

Raghavan, who lives near the Aravallis in Gurugram, near Delhi, notes the biodiversity loss she has observed over her years of working in the region. “The birds, the jackals and the neelgai that I used to see are vanishing right in front of my eyes,” she says.

“I am in this fight for the ones who cannot speak for themselves… the animals, the wildlife that do not have a voice.”

For communities like Meena’s, their whole lives are at stake. “We are trying to protect our livelihoods. We are trying to protect our existence. Our farms, livestock, and water have been threatened. At what cost are we mining the hills?”

This article was updated on April 21 after Dialogue Earth updated its story to include a response from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and re-edited parts of it based on requests made by a source.

Shalinee Kumari is Dialogue Earth’s South Asia editorial assistant, based in New Delhi.

This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence.

Petitioners seeking action against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the Gauhati High Court on Tuesday that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader had continued to make “religiously provocative, incendiary and needless comments” even after notices were issued to him, reported Live Law.

Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the petitioners, said that Sarma’s “entire thought process is reserved for a minority only”.

The High Court granted four more weeks to the Assam government and the BJP leader to respond to the petitions seeking action against him for hate speech.

On his part, Singhvi said that “a constitutional functionary is supposed to maintain peace and balance”, reported Live Law.

“In his eyes, there is no regulatory, judicial, adjudicatory framework at all,” added Singhvi.

The advocate also filed a note before the bench referring to fresh remarks made by Sarma in March and April, highlighting that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader continued to use the term “Miya”.

The petitioner urged the court to pass interim orders to restrict his speeches. The court did not accept the request and held that it must wait for Sarma’s response in the matter.

However, the court verbally told the state’s counsel that a response in the matter cannot be evaded.

The matter will now be heard on May 28.

Since January, Sarma has made a series of remarks targeting Bengali-origin Muslims in Assam, calling them “Miyas”. The BJP leader had said that it was his job to “make them suffer”.

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

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

Petitions against Sarma have been filed by the Congress, Assamese scholar Hiren Gohain, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and others.

On February 26, the court had sought Sarma’s response on the petitions.

Earlier in February, the Supreme Court had declined to entertain the petitions seeking that a first information report be filed against Sarma for hate speech against Muslims.

The bench had told the petitioners to approach the Gauhati High Court. It had also asked the High Court to hear the matter on priority.

Also read: Has the Supreme Court gone soft on hate speech?

The Allahabad High Court has upheld the detention of a man under the National Security Act for allegedly slaughtering a cow and two calves in March 2025, reported Live Law on Monday.

Cow slaughter triggers spontaneous “strong emotions and violent reactions for obvious injury to religious beliefs of a large section of the society”, held a bench of Justices JJ Munir and Sanjiv Kumar in an order delivered on Thursday.

Such acts have an “inherent potentiality” of triggering “widespread ripples in society that would affect the even tempo of life”, the bench added.

On March 15, 2025, the police allegedly discovered the remains of a calf in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district, reported Live Law. The discovery coincided with the Hindu festival of Holi. It had triggered unrest among the Hindu community.

According to the police, a group of residents and members of Hindutva organisations had gathered at the site, shouted slogans and blocked a road while demanding the arrest of those involved.

The petitioner and his associates were arrested after an investigation, said the police. They also claimed that the accused persons had confessed to slaughtering a cow and two calves in a jungle.

The police further alleged that the petitioner, who was trying to secure his bail, had sent messages from jail that he would again slaughter a cow upon being released, reported Live Law.

Following this, a detention order was passed against him under the National Security Act.

The Act allows the Union or state government to order the detention of a person “with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the defence of India, the relations with foreign powers, or the security of India”.

On Thursday, the court held that the detaining authority was “absolutely justified” in assuming that the petitioner could “indulge in activity prejudicial to the maintenance of public order” after being released from prison.

The Chhattisgarh High Court has refused to quash a case against a professor accused of coercing non-Muslim students to offer namaz during a National Service Scheme camp, Bar and Bench reported on Monday.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal noted on April 15 that on a preliminary reading, the chargesheet showed that there was evidence against the accused man, Dilip Jha, Live Law reported.

However, it also noted that there was no conclusive proof at this stage that the proceedings were instituted with ulterior motives.

The alleged incident took place at a seven-day National Service Scheme camp organised by Guru Ghasidas Central University in Bilaspur in March 2025. During the camp, Muslim students were asked to offer namaz on stage on the occasion of the Muslim festival Eid-ul-Fitr.

Other students were also allegedly compelled to participate in the prayers without their consent. As per a police complaint filed by them, it was alleged that those who objected were threatened with adverse consequences, including cancellation of certificates, Live Law reported.

After the complaint was filed, the police conducted a preliminary inquiry and then registered a first information report. Following this, a chargesheet was filed naming Jha, who served as a project coordinator, along with several others.

A trial court had taken cognisance of the chargesheet in October.

In his petition seeking the quashing of the FIR, Jha argued that he had no operational role at the camp. He added that he was implicated on “baseless” grounds, Bar and Bench reported.

Opposing the petition, the state government said that the matter involved disputed questions of fact that must be tested during trial.

On April 15, the High Court rejected Jha’s contention that he had no operational role at the camp and was not present during the alleged incident, Bar and Bench reported. It added that the investigation had already been completed and sufficient material had been collected to proceed against him.

The bench also held that such factual disputes cannot be adjudicated in a petition for quashing the petition.

“The petitioner’s contention regarding absence from the scene or administrative role is a matter that can be fully addressed during the trial through cross-examination and presentation of evidence,” the legal news portal quoted the bench as saying.

The High Court added that interference at this stage would amount to “pre-judging issues of fact and evidence” that it is not empowered to do.

A special court in Assam on Monday convicted 20 persons and acquitted 25 others in the 2018 mob lynching of two men, PTI reported.

They were killed by a mob that had accused them of being child abductors.

The sentence will be pronounced on Friday.

The incident had taken place in June 2018 when the two men from Guwahati, 29-year-old Nilotpal Das and 30-year-old Abhijeet Nath, went to Kangthilangso waterfall in Karbi Anglong.

While they were returning, a group of villagers stopped their vehicle at Panjuri, dragged them out and beat them to death. In a video widely shared on social media at the time, Das and Nath could be heard telling the mob that they were not child abductors but were visiting Karbi Anglong, PTI reported.

The incident had taken place amid rumours of incidents of children being abducted spreading on social media.

On Monday, Nagaon District Sessions Judge DJ Mahanta convicted 20 of the 45 persons accused in the case under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including murder committed by one or more members of an unlawful assembly, rioting and voluntarily causing hurt, PTI reported.

The judge said that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against the 25 others who had also been arrested in the case and were in jail. Mahanta ordered them to be released.

At the time of the incident, 48 persons had been arrested in the case. However, three were minors and had been at a juvenile home, the news agency reported.

Five workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party and four Trinamool Congress members were arrested after a clash outside a Kolkata police station on Monday, reported ANI.

The clash erupted during the campaign for the Assembly elections. Polling in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29. The votes will be counted on May 4.

The campaign for the first phase concludes on Tuesday.

On Monday, the supporters of BJP’s Kolkata Port candidate Rakesh Singh gathered at a meeting on Hossain Shah Road and shouted slogans, ANI quoted police officers as saying.

Trinamool Congress workers also shouted slogans in response, leading to violence, the news agency reported.

A few persons were injured in the clashes, IANS quoted Deputy Commissioner of Police Harikrishna Pai as saying.

Three first information reports have been registered in connection with the incident, the police said.

Clashes between workers of the two parties were also reported in the Nandigram constituency, reported The Hindu on Monday. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari is contesting the polls there.

TMC moves High Court

Amid this, advocate and Trinamool Congress’ Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee moved the High Court on Monday, raising concerns that several party workers could face arrest ahead of polling, reported The Telegraph.

The Election Commission is said to have prepared a list of nearly 1,000 individuals described as “troublemakers”, he told the court.

Banerjee said that “there is a strong fear of arrest of those Trinamool workers, so the court needs to intervene in this matter immediately”, reported The Telegraph.

Restrictions of use of motorcycles

Meanwhile, the poll panel said that motorcycles will not be allowed on roads between 6 pm and 6 am starting two days before the polling, according to the newspaper.

In a directive, the Election Commission further said that pillion riders will not be allowed between 6 am and 6 pm, except in medical emergencies, for family functions or for dropping and picking up children from school.

The restrictions were being imposed to ensure “free, fair, peaceful and violence-free elections” and to prevent “any form of intimidation and source jamming”, the newspaper quoted the directive as saying.

Also read:

• From jhalmuri to fish, how BJP is trying to shed its outsider image in Bengal

• ‘Live or die, we have to vote TMC’: How SIR has left Bengali Muslims with no political choices

• Watch: As lakhs of Bengali Muslims lose their votes to SIR, who gains? BJP or Trinamool?

Over 700 citizens have written a letter to the Election Commission, alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national address on April 18 violated the Model Code of Conduct for elections.

The signatories, which included former civil servants, academics, activists and journalists, said that the use of official government machinery and mass media by Modi, for what amounted to “electioneering and partisan propaganda”, constituted a serious violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

They noted that the address was broadcast live by Doordarshan, Sansad TV and All India Radio, which are funded by the public exchequer.

Modi, in his address, had criticised Opposition parties for defeating in the Lok Sabha the Union government’s bill to amend the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act and redraw the boundaries of electoral constituencies.

The prime minister alleged that the Opposition parties stood against the women’s reservation bill for their “selfish political interests”, and that they insulted the framers of the Constitution by doing so.

Modi made the statement amid Assembly elections taking place in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Elections in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry took place on April 9. Voting in Tamil Nadu will take place on April 23, while polling in West Bengal will take place in two phases on April 23 and April 29.

700+ citizens have filed a complaint to the ECI regarding the gross violation of the Model Code of Conduct by the PM in his address to the nation on 18th of April. The use of official government mass media platforms by the PM, for what amounted to electioneering & partisan… pic.twitter.com/fbUqvcxk9M

— Anjali Bhardwaj (@AnjaliB_) April 20, 2026

The signatories to the letter to the Election Commission said that the prime minister gave the address in his official capacity, and that it was broadcast using official mass media at public expense.

“It thereby violated the explicit prohibition contained in clauses 1(a), 1(b) and 4 of Section VII of the MCC [which pertains to the party in power not misusing its official position],” they contended.

The citizens who wrote the letter urged the Election Commission to initiate an inquiry into the contents of Modi’s address. They also said that if the address was delivered with the permission of the poll panel, then “equal time on the national media should be provided to other political parties to present their points of view”.

Among those who signed the letter were transparency activist Anjali Bharadwaj, former Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, political economist Parakala Prabhakar, activist Yogendra Yadav and former civil servants Ashish Joshi, Amitabha Pande and Avay Shukla.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma on Monday rejected the plea filed by Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and others seeking that she recuse herself from hearing the Central Bureau of Investigation’s challenge to their discharge in the Delhi liquor policy case, Live Law reported.

Sharma had reserved her verdict in the case on April 13.

In her judgement on Monday, she said that she would decide the main case “without being affected by the recusal application”, Bar and Bench reported.

“Recusal would not be prudence but abdication of duty,” Sharma was quoted as saying. “It would be an act of surrender.”

She also said that the petition seeking her recusal amounted to putting “the institution of judiciary on trial”, adding that the “strength of judiciary lies in its strong resolve to decide the accusations”.

The main CBI case has been listed for further hearing on April 29, after Sharma said that some respondents had not filed their replies yet.

On April 14, Kejriwal had filed a fresh affidavit before the court seeking the judge’s recusal from the case. The former Delhi chief minister’s affidavit had stated that the judge’s son and daughter have been empanelled as counsels by the Centre.

Kejriwal had highlighted that they are both allocated cases by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who is appearing before the court representing the CBI.

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

Kejriwal had argued that the apprehensions of bias are “direct, grave and impossible to ignore”.

Responding to the allegations pertaining to her children, Sharma said that the alleged conflict of interest must be clearly demonstrated in the particular case to mandate recusal, Bar and Bench reported.

She highlighted that her children have not been associated with this case in any capacity.

“A recusal would lead the public to believe that judges are aligned with a particular political party,” the legal news outlet quoted the judge as saying.

The case

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

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

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

On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal and 22 others accused by the CBI in the case. There was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent in the excise policy, the Rouse Avenue Courts had ruled.

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

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

Kejriwal had written to the chief justice of the High Court seeking the transfer of the case from Sharma to another judge, but the request was declined. The former Delhi chief minister had contended that no specific reasons had been recorded for commenting against the trial court’s order.

He also noted that the judge had earlier denied bail to several persons accused in the case who had been subsequently granted relief by the Supreme Court.

The Aam Aadmi Party chief sought the transfer on the ground of a “grave, bona fide, and reasonable apprehension that the matter may not receive a hearing marked by impartiality and neutrality”.

Odisha Chief Electoral Officer RS Gopalan on Monday directed electoral registration officers to verify the voter details “properly” before deleting names from the electoral rolls, PTI reported.

This came amid allegations of “wrongful deletion” of around 9.8 lakh names during an electoral mapping exercise conducted ahead of the special intensive revision of voter lists in the state, The Indian Express reported.

During the door-to-door mapping exercise, carried out between January and March, booth level officers had identified around 9.8 lakh names for deletion. These voters were flagged for reasons such as death, migration, duplicate entries or doubtful matches, PTI reported. Booth level officers are not authorised to delete names from the rolls.

Unidentified poll officials told The Indian Express that a large number of complaints had been received regarding wrongful deletion of names, including cases where electors were found to be present. These complaints also included instances where booth level officers had neither conducted field visits nor carried out proper verification.

Gopalan said that “usually 7-9 lakh names are deleted from the lists every year in Odisha on account of deaths and shifting of residences”, PTI reported.

He added that the number is “slightly high because of door-to-door mapping by the [booth level officers] ahead of the SIR exercise”, The Indian Express reported.

The voter roll revision process in Odisha was scheduled to start from April 1 but has been deferred due to the ongoing elections in five states. The process is likely to start in May.

In March, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi informed the Assembly that approximately 7.6 lakh names were deleted between June and March 22, PTI reported.

West Bengal is holding elections even as more than 27 lakh voters have been deprived of their right to vote. Many of them are people who voted in the last election, but have been removed from the electoral roll despite attending hearings and producing their documents during the special intensive revision.

Analysts who studied the deletions found that Muslim voters have been hit the worst. How are those excluded from the voter list responding to this? And what does it mean for politics in the state?

To find out, Scroll travelled through the districts of Malda and Murshidabad, speaking to disenfranchised voters and politicians on the ground.

After weeks of protests and hunger strikes by activists and concerned local residents, the Maharashtra government temporarily halted further action on the Lohardongri iron ore mining project in the Bramhapuri forest division of Chandrapur district, which had ecologists and environmentalists in a bind for months.

Nagpur-based Sunflag Iron and Steel Company Ltd was allotted almost 36 hectares of forested land under the Mineral (Auction) Rules, 2015. News reports suggest that an estimated 18,000 trees would be felled to make way for the project.

While Mongabay-India couldn’t access the documents to verify the number of trees to be felled, a 2022 tree enumeration survey report available publicly points to over 11,773 trees to be cut and experts suggest that more trees have likely been added to this number in the last few years.

What truly concerns residents is the environmental cost of the project, including a potential rise in negative interactions with tigers.

Rising tiger interactions

Chandrapur district of Maharashtra is the epicentre of rising human–tiger interactions, often resulting in fatalities. Mongabay-India visited the conflict areas in late 2024 to report on this, and found that a staggering 111 human deaths from tiger attacks were reported in 2022-2023, with 59 deaths already recorded in 2023-2024. The latest official numbers are awaited.

Strict conservation measures at one of the country’s most popular tiger reserves – the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve – have contributed to an impressive rise in tiger numbers in the state.

According to a nationwide tiger estimation released in April 2022, Maharashtra is home to 444 tigers out of a national population of 3,682. The Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve reportedly has around 97 tigers, though unofficial estimates suggest the number may be closer to 150.

“Tadoba has become a cradle of tigers in central India. It has connectivity with several important tiger reserves and landscapes. This connectivity is critical from a long-term conservation perspective,” said Kedar Gore, Director of The Corbett Foundation, a conservation non-profit.

If the proposed mining project comes into effect, it is likely to disrupt natural tiger dispersal and movement, as it is located on a highly sensitive wildlife corridor connecting the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve with the Bramhapuri-Gadchiroli forest division. Other than tigers, the landscape also supports a range of wildlife, including wild pig, gaur, sambar deer, leopard, and more.

The site allotted for mining, a forested area, connects the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, which lies to the west of the proposed site, with other forests on all sides – Gadchiroli district, with its dense forests, to the east; the Nawegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve to the north; and Chhattisgarh, with tiger reserves such as Indravati Tiger Reserve, to the south.

Explaining the ecological importance of the proposed mining site within a landscape significant for wildlife movement, Gore says that these forest patches form natural ecological connectivity.

“When corridors are officially mapped, however, they are often shown as narrow strips, just three to four kilometres wide. This is a very limited way of representing connectivity. In reality, for ecologists, the entire forested landscape functions as a corridor and a dispersal area for tigers moving out of tiger reserves, because tigers do not recognise these narrow, mapped areas,” he says, adding: “Because of this, anything that falls outside the officially designated corridors is often treated as if it is not important, even though it may be ecologically critical.”

“As tigers move out of Tadoba and into Bramhapuri and beyond, they rely on these forest patches for connectivity. The proposed mining project would take up a substantial patch of forest land, further fragmenting an already stressed system,” shares Mandar Pingle, assistant director of the Satpuda Foundation, a non-profit focused on wildlife and landscape conservation in central India.

These wildlife corridors are already under severe anthropogenic stress, with roads, canals and railway lines cutting across the region. “These infrastructures are unavoidable in a developing country, but mines can be reconsidered, considering the importance of the area for wildlife,” Gore adds.

Increased human pressure

Another concern raised by environmentalists is the potential spike in infrastructure such as access roads and other associated facilities, along with increased heavy vehicle movement to facilitate open-cast mining. This could result in disturbances in the forest, increase the risk of roadkills, and open up critical forest areas to further pressure.

From an economic perspective, Pingle shares that the project makes little sense. Human-wildlife conflict already imposes a significant burden on the state, with compensation of about Rs 25 lakh paid per human death. Any increase in conflict due to habitat disruption would further escalate these costs.

On the other hand, the mining project is expected to generate only around 32 permanent jobs, with about 40 additional temporary positions. Pingle says that this limited economic benefit does not justify the ecological and social costs.

The proposal includes compensatory afforestation in Yavatmal, which Pingle says does not offset the loss of old-growth forest at the mining site. The mining project raises critical concerns of net ecological and economic loss, exacerbating conflict, fragmenting a critical tiger landscape, and undermining long-term conservation in the region.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

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The Supreme Court has dismissed a review petition filed by activist Umar Khalid challenging its January 5 order denying him bail in the Delhi riots conspiracy case. The court held that it did not find “any good ground and reason to review the judgement”.

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

Khalid had challenged this order last week. Although his petition was dismissed on Thursday, the order was made public on Monday. Read on.

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

Amid allegations that the appellate tribunals set up to hear appeals against the deletion of voters in West Bengal were not functioning, the Supreme Court said that it will ask the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court to submit a report. Chief Justice Surya Kant also expressed displeasure that matters related to the special intensive revision of voter rolls were being mentioned before the court almost every day.

Earlier in the day, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra alleged on social media that “all 19 appellate tribunals for SIR hearings housed in the same building in Joka is closed for entry, guarded by CAPF” or the Central Armed Police Forces. Read on.

‘Live or die, we have to vote TMC’: How SIR has left Bengali Muslims with no political choices, reports Anant Gupta

The Congress’ Tamil Nadu unit chief K Selvaperunthagai alleged that officials from the Income Tax department had “unlawfully confined” him under the “pretext of a search”. The action coincided with party leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the Assembly elections.

The case in connection with which the searches were conducted was not immediately clear.

The Congress alleged that the department’s action was “not routine”, but was a “blatant misuse of central agencies by the Bharatiya Janata Party to intimidate and obstruct Opposition leaders at a crucial moment”. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin also alleged that the searches were a “conspiracy to silence” Selvaperunthagai. Read on.

Congress leader Pawan Khera moved the Gauhati High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case registered against him by the Assam Police. This came two days after the Supreme Court declined to vacate a stay on a Telangana High Court order granting him transit anticipatory bail.

Khera has been accused of defamation, forgery and criminal conspiracy by Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, for claiming that she holds passports of multiple countries. Read on.

Iran stated that it has no plans to participate in the second round of negotiations with the United States in Pakistan. This came after United States President Donald Trump said that a US delegation will arrive in Pakistani capital Islamabad on Monday for talks with Iran.

Meanwhile, the Congress said that Pakistan playing a role in facilitating the talks between the US and Iran was a “monumental setback” for the Narendra Modi government’s foreign policy. Read on.

‘Calling Pakistan a dalal made India look churlish and jealous’: Christine Fair

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The Supreme Court has dismissed a review petition filed by activist Umar Khalid challenging its January 5 order denying him bail in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, reported Bar and Bench on Monday.

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

Khalid had challenged this order last week. Although his petition was dismissed on Thursday, the order was made public only on Monday, reported Live Law.

“Having gone through the review petition and also the documents enclosed, we do not find any good ground and reason to review the judgement,” the Supreme Court was quoted as saying.

The 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.

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

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

In its order rejecting bail for Khalid and Imam, the bench had said they could file fresh petitions after all protected witnesses are examined or after one year.

The court had been hearing their petitions jointly challenging the Delhi High Court’s September 2 judgement dismissing their bail applications.

Opposing their bail pleas in the Supreme Court in October, the Delhi Police said in an affidavit that their alleged actions were part of a coordinated “regime change operation” under the guise of civil dissent. The police also alleged that the petitioners were “playing the victim card” due to long incarceration and were responsible for delaying the trial for “mala fide and mischievous reasons”.

The accused had said that they were exercising their right to peaceful protest and argued that the case criminalises dissent. They had also contended that their prolonged incarceration amounts to punishment before conviction.

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

Also read:

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

• Why has the JNU sedition case gone nowhere in a decade?

The Madras High Court on Monday sought responses from Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam chief Vijay, the Income Tax Department and the Election Commission on a petition alleging discrepancy of more than Rs 100 crore in the election affidavits filed by the actor-turned-politician, Bar and Bench reported.

The notices were also issued to the returning officers in Perumbur in Chennai district and Tiruchirapalli East in Tiruchirapalli district, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice SA Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan was hearing a petition by a Chennai resident who alleged that the affidavit filed by Vijay in Tiruchirapalli East was inconsistent with the one filed in Perambur.

In Perambur, the actor-turned-politican had disclosed assets over Rs 105 crore while he disclosed assets worth more Rs 224 crore in Tiruchirapalli East, Bar and Bench quoted the petitioner as submitting.

“This is an irregularity,” the bench was quoted as observing verbally. “More than Rs 100 crores has not been disclosed in one constituency.”

However, the court did not express any final view on the merits of the allegations.

The bench has posted the case for further hearing next week, Live Law reported.

Voting for the Assembly polls in the state will be held in a single phase on April 23, with results scheduled to be declared on May 4.

Also read: Can Vijay’s electoral debut shake up Tamil Nadu’s politics?

Congress leader Pawan Khera on Monday moved the Gauhati High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case registered against him by the Assam Police, Live Law reported.

Khera has been accused of defamation, forgery and criminal conspiracy by Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Riniki Bhuyan Sarma had filed a first information report against the Congress leader after he claimed on April 5 that he had documentary evidence showing she holds passports of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Antigua and Barbuda. Both the chief minister and his wife denied the allegations. They also alleged that Khera’s claims were based on forged documents.

On April 10, the Telangana High Court granted Khera transit anticipatory bail for a week.

Transit anticipatory bail is a temporary protection from arrest granted in one state to enable persons to approach the courts where the case has been filed.

However, the Supreme Court stayed the High Court order on April 15.

Khera then filed an application seeking that the stay order be vacated. On Friday, the Supreme Court refused to do so.

The top court also declined to extend the transit bail until Tuesday and directed the Congress leader to approach the Gauhati High Court instead.

The Supreme Court had said that neither the Telangana High Court’s observations nor its own stay order should influence the Assam court that decides on the Congress leader’s petition for anticipatory bail.

Himanta Biswa Sarma alleged on April 6 that the documents cited by the Congress had been supplied by a Pakistani social media group.

The chief minister had also claimed that the Congress had used details from a passport that had been allegedly lost. This document, he claimed, had been uploaded to the Pakistani social media group.

Pakistan playing a role in facilitating the second round of talks between the United States and Iran was a “monumental setback” for the Narendra Modi government’s foreign policy, said the Congress on Monday.

In a social media post, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that India needed an “overhaul of its diplomatic engagement strategy and tactics which…Modi is simply incapable of doing”.

This came a day after United States President Donald Trump said that a US delegation would arrive in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Monday for the second round of negotiations with Iran.

On Monday, however, Iran stated that Tehran has no plans to participate in the talks.

On April 8, Washington and Tehran agreed to a two-week ceasefire to allow further negotiations to end the conflict. However, the peace talks, which were also held in Islamabad, collapsed on April 12.

On Monday, Ramesh stated that Pakistan was playing a “pivotal diplomatic role” amid the conflict in West Asia despite the country’s economy being in “dire straits” and depending on “largesse given to it by friendly countries”.

“It is abundantly clear that the substance and style of Prime Minister Modi’s regional and global engagement and narrative management have failed to isolate Pakistan, which has received a whole new branding,” the Congress leader wrote on social media.

He added that Pakistani military chief Asim Munir becoming “such a huge favourite of President Trump” is a “particularly severe setback for India”.

The ‘dalal’ country, as the erudite and always nattily dressed External Affairs Minister described it, is reportedly hosting the second round of US-Iran peace talks today.

After the completion of the first round of these talks on April 12th, Pakistan borrowed $6 billion from…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 20, 2026

The Congress had criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government on April 8 as well, when Trump had announced the two-week ceasefire.

Ramesh had said then that Modi’s “self-styled vishwaguru [world leader]” image had been “thoroughly exposed”, with his “self-declared 56-inch chest shrunk and shrivelled”.

In a resolution adopted at a Congress Working Committee meeting on April 10, the party said that the Centre must “stop subordinating the national interest to electoral and ideological considerations” and take the Opposition into confidence on its strategy with respect to the conflict in West Asia.

The party had also alleged that the BJP-led government’s “myopic, xenophobic and unprincipled internationalism” has alienated India from its neighbours, and has also undermined efforts by successive governments to diplomatically isolate Pakistan.

The war

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

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

On April 8, Washington and Tehran agreed to a two-week ceasefire to allow further negotiations to end the conflict. While Israel, which was not involved in the talks, has not struck Iran since the ceasefire took effect, it had continued to attack Lebanon until the deal reached on Thursday.

The peace talks between Iran and the US that were held in Islamabad collapsed on April 12.

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

The Supreme Court on Monday said that it will ask the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court to submit a report on the same day amid allegations that the appellate tribunals set up to hear appeals in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal were not functioning, PTI reported.

Advocate Devadatt Kamat cited reports to submit before the bench that the appellate tribunals “are not functioning”, The Indian Express reported.

The lawyer is representing a group of persons whose names had been removed from the voter list during the exercise and who had challenged the decision before the tribunals.

“Lawyers are not being allowed,” PTI quoted Kamat as having told the court. “They are only taking internet and computer-based applications.”

Chief Justice Surya Kant expressed displeasure that matters related to the revision exercise in Bengal were being mentioned before the court almost every day, the news agency reported.

Kamat then said that the orders passed by the court were not being followed.

He filed an application seeking that the hearings be expedited so that the names of the petitioners could appear on the supplementary list if their appeals are upheld.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to publish a supplementary electoral roll in West Bengal to include voters whose appeals against deletions have been accepted by the appellate tribunals.

Persons whose appeals have been cleared by the tribunals before April 21 should be included for voting in the first phase of Assembly elections, the court had said. Those who are cleared by April 27 should be included in the final electoral rolls for the second phase of the polls.

All decisions made by the tribunals on the addition and deletion of voters by those dates must be reflected in the final voter lists.

The first phase of polling will be held on April 23 and the second on April 29. The votes will be counted on May 4.

On Monday, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra alleged on social media that “all 19 appellate tribunals for SIR hearings housed in the same building in Joka is closed for entry, guarded by CAPF [Central Armed Police Forces]”.

“Nobody [has] been called, no hearings have happened,” Moitra alleged, adding that 27 lakh persons were waiting. Joka is an area located south of Kolkata in South 24 Parganas district.

This came after the Election Commission froze the electoral rolls for the first phase of polling on April 9.

SIR appellate tribunals

The Election Commission on February 28 published the final electoral roll for West Bengal, showing that more than 61 lakh voters had been excluded. However, the process had continued with about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases remaining under adjudication based on their objections to their exclusions from the draft rolls published in December.

Several supplementary lists were released, in which the names of more voters have been included.

The process had concluded on April 6 after judicial officers adjudicated the 60 lakh claims and objections. However, voters who were removed during the adjudication process can appeal in 19 tribunals set up for the purpose.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ordered that judicial officers of the rank of district judge or additional district judge be appointed to help complete the revision exercise in the state.

On March 10, the top court ordered the formation of appellate tribunals composed of former High Court chief justices and judges to hear appeals against exclusions. A person whose claim for inclusion in the electoral rolls has been rejected by a judicial officer can approach the tribunal.

Nearly 91 lakh voters have been removed from West Bengal’s voter lists as part of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls. The deletions represent nearly 11.9% of the state’s electorate of 7.6 crore that existed before the revision process began.

Also read: Millions of Bengalis may lose their vote. Not over citizenship but due to clerical errors

The Congress’ Tamil Nadu unit chief K Selvaperunthagai alleged on Monday that officials from the Income Tax department had “unlawfully confined” him within the Sriperumbudur Assembly constituency under the “pretext of a search”.

Selvaperunthagai further alleged that the search, which coincided with party leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the Assembly elections, was a “calculated attempt to obstruct democratic functioning and weaken the activities of the opposition”.

The case in connection with which the searches were conducted was not immediately clear. The Income Tax department searched Selvaperunthagai’s home in Sriperumbudur, the constituency he represents in the Assembly, according to PTI.

Voting for the Assembly polls in the state will be held in a single phase on April 23, with results scheduled to be declared on May 4.

The Congress alleged that the department’s action was “not routine”, but was a “blatant misuse of central agencies by the Bharatiya Janata Party to intimidate and obstruct Opposition leaders at a crucial moment”.

The search had prevented the MLA from carrying out his political duties ahead of the polls, the party further alleged.

“Such actions strike at the very heart of democracy,” stated the Congress. “Silencing dissent and targeting political opponents through state machinery is unacceptable.”

As LoP Shri Rahul Gandhi arrives in Tamil Nadu to campaign, a shocking incident has unfolded.@SPK_TNCC ji, President of the Tamil Nadu PCC, was unlawfully confined in Sriperumbudur by the Income Tax Department under the pretext of a “search,” preventing him from carrying out…

— Congress (@INCIndia) April 20, 2026

On his part, Selvaperunthagai said 10 to 15 Hindi-speaking officials had gathered outside his home on Sunday night, reported ANI. They remained there on Monday morning as well, he added.

The timing of the “intervention exposes its true intent – not enforcement, but intimidation”, said the MLA in a social media post.

“It reflects a disturbing pattern of using central agencies as instruments of political pressure to silence dissent, restrict political participation and create an atmosphere of fear among opposition leaders and workers,” he added.

Describing the action as a “blatant misuse of authority”, he said it is “an attack on the foundational principles of democracy, where free movement, free speech and fair political engagement must be protected”.

“When institutions meant to uphold the law are used to serve political ends, it undermines public trust and erodes the integrity of our democratic system,” added Selvaperunthagai. “I strongly condemn this politically motivated action and reaffirm my commitment to stand firm against such attempts to suppress democratic voices.”

As Shri. @RahulGandhi Ji arrives in Tamil Nadu today to undertake a crucial election campaign, the Income Tax Department with the hindi speaking officials as, under the pretext of a ‘search’, unlawfully confined me within the Sriperumbudur Assembly Constituency, effectively…

— Selvaperunthagai K (@SPK_TNCC) April 20, 2026

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin also alleged that the searches were a “conspiracy to silence” Selvaperunthagai.

“Forgetting that India is a democratic nation, with just 48 hours left for the election campaign to conclude, the BJP government, united in the fear of defeat, is resorting to atrocities to suppress the opposition,” Stalin wrote on social media. “The people of Tamil Nadu will give a fitting response to this.”

Stalin’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is contesting the Assembly polls in an alliance with the Congress.

Several persons were feared dead and many injured when a passenger bus fell off a hill in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur district on Monday, PTI reported.

At least 15 persons were killed, PTI quoted unidentified officials as saying. NDTV reported that seven had been killed.

A rescue operation is underway and several persons had been taken to a hospital. Their condition is critical, the news agency reported.

The accident occurred at about 10 am when the bus was “negotiating a blind curve” near Kagort village in Ramnagar area, PTI quoted officials as saying. The bus was travelling to Udhampur from Ramnagar.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s office confirmed the accident, saying that the administration was extending assistance.

#WATCH | Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir: A bus met with an accident in the village Kanote, Udhampur.

10 people have died, and a rescue operation is underway. The injured have been shifted to the government hospital in Udhampur: J&K Police pic.twitter.com/iqEcoxg2F6

— ANI (@ANI) April 20, 2026

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that an ex-gratia amount of Rs 2 lakh each will be given from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund to the kin of those who died. Those who were injured will be given Rs 50,000 each, the prime minister’s office said.

The Election Commission on Sunday said that it has so far taken action against more than 11,000 social media posts since the dates for the Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were announced on March 15.

The actions taken by the poll panel included ordering content to be removed, issuing clarifications and filing first information reports.

The poll panel said that it was monitoring social media for posts that violate the Model Code of Conduct, create false narratives against the electoral process or have the potential to disrupt law and order. The action was being taken by state nodal officers under the Information Technology Act.

The Mode Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the poll panel that political parties, candidates and governments must follow during an election. It sets guardrails for speeches, campaigning, meetings, processions, election manifestos and other aspects of the polls.

Polling in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry was held on April 9. Voting will take place in Tamil Nadu on April 23 and in West Bengal on April 23 and April 29. The votes will be counted on May 4.

The Election Commission said that social media platforms need to act within three hours on posts that the poll panel deems as misleading, and unlawful artificial intelligence-generated or manipulated content.

“Political parties, candidates and campaign representatives are required to ensure that any synthetically generated or AI-altered content used for campaigning is clearly labelled as ‘AI-generated’, ‘digitally enhanced’ or ‘synthetic content’,” the poll panel said, adding that the “originating entity” must also be disclosed to maintain transparency and voter trust.

Till a few months ago, he was patrolling Meitei villages near Manipur’s Moirang town.

The 43-year-old had taken up arms and joined a cadre of 250 “village volunteers” – armed civilians who “defended” their community’s territory as the conflict that erupted in Manipur in May 2023 ethnically partitioned the state, with no community allowed to travel into the other’s area.

The clashes between the majority Meiteis, who lived in the plains, and the minority tribal group of Kuki-Zo-Hmars from the hill districts plunged Manipur into a civil war, from which it is yet to recover. Over 260 people were killed and more than 60,000 displaced in the conflict.

“I have been guarding villages here since 2023,” the Meitei volunteer said.

But six months ago, after a spell of President’s rule and the recovery of arms from civilians, the violence ebbed.

The 43-year-old and other village volunteers surrendered arms and disbanded. “The government said the central security forces will give full protection to us,” he told Scroll.

“We thought that peace was coming,” agreed Ibotombi, a 60-year-old college teacher from Tronglaobi village in Manipur’s Bishnupur district, one of many villages the Meitei volunteers had guarded. “Even the village volunteers have stopped guarding the village.”

But in the early hours of April 7, the fragile calm was shattered.

Five-year-old Tomthin Oinam and five-month-old Oinam Leisana were sleeping with their mother when a bomb exploded inside their home in Tronglaobi village.

The mother, Oinam Binita, was severely injured. Her children did not survive.

The fatal attack on the children as they slept in their home in the Meitei-inhabited village triggered a wave of shock, grief and anger across Imphal Valley.

Within hours, a mob of about 500 people stormed a nearby camp of the Central Reserve Paramilitary Force, accusing the soldiers of helping Kuki-Zo-Hmar militants attack the village.

When the angry protestors set security vehicles on fire and tried to snatch arms, the security forces opened fire. Three protestors were shot dead and three others injured by bullets.

About a week after the incident, on April 15, Manipur Home Minister Konthoujam said that five suspected militants of the United Kuki National Army were arrested from Churachandpur.

The United Kuki National Army is a banned insurgent group that is not a signatory to the Suspension of Operations agreement with the Union government. The outfit, in statements issued and circulated online, has denied its involvement in the attack.

It is the first major incident of violence since a new government was formed under Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand in February. The attack came hours after Khemchand had travelled by road to the Assam-Manipur border to Jirabam town, crossing Kuki-inhabited areas in an effort to bridge the gap between the communities.

“It has been almost three years of the conflict but the government has been unable to contain the violence,” Oinam Babuton, the 70-year-old grieving grandfather of the children, told Scroll. “We thought some peace had arrived as there was no recent incident of violence. But, now it has reached our door.”

The blast

Binita, a nurse based in Guwahati, had returned to Manipur on maternity leave only a few months ago in January. Her husband, Oinam Mangalsana, is a soldier in the Border Security Force, currently posted in Bihar.

Recalling the night of the incident, Babuton said he and his wife and younger son were sleeping in a room at the other end of their house when the projectile struck the room Binita and the children were sleeping in.

“Binita screamed as soon as the blast took place,” Babuton told Scroll. “As we came out of our room, we could see smog and dust coming out.” Babuton said the five-month-old baby was bleeding. The family took the two children to the hospital but both of them died.

For two days, Binita lay in hospital, unaware of the fate of her children. “We thought that we will tell her once she is better,” said Babuton.

“Two days later, while she was recovering from a surgery, Binita got to know about their deaths from a newspaper delivered to the hospital ward,” Babuton said. “She broke down. Doctors were unable to control her. She was given an injection to make her sleep.”

The buffer zones

The killings highlight the precariousness of peace in the “buffer zones” created by security forces to minimise interaction between the Meitei-dominated Valley and the hill districts, where the Kuki-Zomis reside.

Tronglaobi is about 1 km from one such buffer zone, which is heavily guarded by the Army and other central paramilitary forces, apart from the state police.

Residents of Tronglaobi said they had seen and heard crossfire before, but not this level of violence. “No civilians were injured in the past,” said Babuton. “How could this happen despite the presence of security forces?”

“We never knew that this could happen to our family,” said Babuton. “We only pray for peace to return to Manipur .”

For the next three days, protestors blocked roads in Imphal and other districts as they clashed with security forces. Since the outbreak of the ethnic violence, Meiteis have accused the security forces of siding with Kuki groups.

“People thought that the attackers had come down from the hills and taken a route near the CRPF camp,” Ibotombi, a 60-year-old college teacher and resident of the village, told Scroll. “We have always suspected that Kuki groups are with the security forces. Otherwise, how can they come and fire bombs in an area guarded by CRPF, Army and other security forces?”

According to the Indian Express, preliminary investigations found that the rocket-like projectile which struck the home was allegedly “fired from just about 100 metres”.

Ibotombi alleged that despite the widespread presence of military personnel, there was little security. “There is utter lawlessness,” he said.

On April 14, protesters tried to intercept the vehicles of the security forces in Bishnupur suspecting the Kuki militants were travelling in them. Twenty people were injured and two of the vehicles were torched.

Manipur home minister K Govindas Konthoujam said it was a “misunderstanding”. He said it was a team comprising members of the Central Industrial Security Force, the Assam Rifles and Manipur Police headed for Kwakta to recover drugs and arms based on inputs from a drug peddler who had been arrested at Imphal Airport.

Meitei women have also blocked the Imphal-Churachandpur highway, disrupting the supply of essential supplies between the state capital and the second biggest urban centre. As of April 16, the blockade was still in force.

Grateful for the warm welcome at Thowai Kuki Village en route to Ukhrul. Assured early redressal of concerns on roads, water & health. Our commitment remains towards inclusive growth and peaceful coexistence. pic.twitter.com/pkhUqcSj01

— Khemchand Yumnam (@YKhemchandSingh) April 17, 2026

Fear rises in buffer zones

Past incidents of violence followed by the killing of the children has sent residents of buffer zones into a spiral of anxiety.

People are losing hope in the security forces, said KK Chanu, a 24-year-old displaced woman from Churachandpur. Since 2023, Chanu has been living in a relief camp in Moirang, a foothill town close to the buffer zone. “How could the Kukis come so near and bomb us?” she asked. “Since April 7, there is no peace in Moirang. Everyone is afraid.”

A resident of Kwakta, an area inhabited by Meitei Muslim Pangals, who are seen as neutral to the dispute between the communities, said the killing may encourage a return of armed guards. Some of them are “already visible”, he said. “Extortion and loot will also increase if the violence continues.” Kwakta is also one of the areas affected by the blockade of the Imphal-Churachandpur highway.

Shayam Kumar, a resident of Moirang, said that the village volunteers had been disbanded and their weapons had been collected. “Meiteis had been persuaded to discontinue any bunkers and village guards as they were assured that the government and central forces would take care of everything,” said Kumar.

But now, some want the volunteers to be brought back. “The security forces failed to protect us,” said Kumar. The Kukis are coming to the centre of the village and attacking, he alleged. “Had our village volunteers guarding the periphery of the villages, this would not be possible.”

At least 23 workers were killed and six others injured in an explosion at a fireworks factory in Virudhunagar on Sunday, reported The Hindu.

Searches were being held at the spot amid concerns that additional workers could be trapped as parts of the building collapsed due to the blast, reported The Indian Express.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. It was also not clear if the fireworks unit had obtained permission to work on Sunday, which is usually a holiday, according to The Hindu.

In a social media post, Chief Minister MK Stalin extended condolences to the families of those who died.

“I have requested the esteemed Ministers KKSSR Ramachandran and Thangam Thennarasu to rush to the scene immediately to expedite and monitor the rescue operations and to offer solace to the affected families,” wrote Stalin.

With one more worker dying during treatment on Sunday, the toll in the blast at a power plant owned by Vedanta Limited in Chhattisgarh’s Sakti district rose to 24, PTI reported, quoting officials.

Eleven other persons are undergoing treatment. Two of them are in critical condition, according to the officials.

The blast took place on Tuesday at Singhitarai village in the Sakti district, when a steel tube carrying superheated steam from a boiler to a turbine at the power plant burst. The superheated steam engulfed workers who were eating their lunch.

Citing a preliminary technical report submitted by the chief inspector of boilers at the site, the Sakti police had earlier stated that an excessive accumulation of fuel inside the boiler furnace caused extreme pressure, leading to the explosion.

The police said that during the investigation, it had come to light that the Vedanta Group and its contractor NTPC GE Power Services Limited “did not properly adhere to the standards regarding the maintenance and operation of machinery and equipment”.

“Negligence in equipment upkeep and lapses in operation caused sudden fluctuations in the boiler’s pressure, leading to the accident,” it said. “Based on available evidence and technical reports, clear negligence has been observed in the incident.”

While four of the workers had died on the spot after the explosion, nine others succumbed to injuries soon after, reported PTI. Seven more injured workers died in hospitals on April 15, while another worker died on April 16 at a hospital in Raipur. Two more workers died in hospitals on Saturday, according to the news agency.

Seven of the workers who died were from West Bengal, five from Chhattisgarh, four from Jharkhand, four from Uttar Pradesh, and two each from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

On Thursday, the Chhattisgarh Police filed a first information report against Vedanta Group chairperson Anil Agarwal and several others.

The case had been registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to causing death by negligence, negligent conduct with respect to machinery and common intention.

“Eight to ten individuals, including Vedanta Group chairman Anil Agarwal, have been named in the FIR,” said Sakti Superintendent of Police Prafull Thakur. “If more persons are found responsible during the investigation, their names will be added.”

In Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district, Narayan Rabari, 42, walks with his sheep and camels, looking for fields with fodder. He has travelled on foot for over two days, covering 17 kilometres, but his journey is far from over.

Since leaving his village in Rajasthan’s Pali district, Narayan has already covered nearly 300 kilometres, moving across highways, fenced farms and settlements where open grazing once existed. He belongs to the Raika community, a nomadic agropastoralist community from Rajasthan, which followed seasonal routes across western India.

Today, shrinking grazing lands, disappearing migration routes and declining access to commons are pushing the Raika pastoralists to the brink.

As younger generations leave herding for waged labour, older Raikas continue to migrate on foot, trying to sustain their traditional agropastoral system, now struggling to survive amid rapid land-use change.

Walking farther, resting less

“When I was young, I remember there was grazing land around, not enough for all the cattle in the village, but still there. But over the years, the grazing open lands were converted into private farmlands; some were diverted for road construction,” Narayan said. “What remained hardly had any grass. It was all deserted,” he added. “There is no grazing land near our home.”

He began herding livestock at 10-years-old, joining his father on seasonal migrations. “Earlier, we had more camels, sheep and goats. But over the years, as their food became limited in areas around us and we walked longer distances looking for pasture land, it increasingly became difficult to manage a big herd. Diseases also became common in them. To sustain the cattle better, we had to sell of a few,” he said.

The traditional barter system that has long sustained pastoral communities still exists, but it is increasingly under strain. Along their migration routes, herders stay on farmers’ fields for a few days, exchanging manure from their livestock for grains, but access to such farms is now limited.

“Earlier, farms were close to each other, and we didn’t have to walk long distances to reach the next one,” a pastoralist explains. “Now, these routes are becoming restricted. Farmers are turning to chemical fertilisers and need us less. Our access is shrinking, and instead of moving through fields, we sometimes have to walk along highways. Today I do not have as many. We also walk longer distances to look for land to graze.”

The nomadic agropastoralist community from Rajasthan migrate annually from their native village to districts in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh in search of grazing land. They live temporarily on farms, grazing livestock on crop residue. In exchange, the farm owners provide them with wheat for consumption, while the herd dung acts as natural manure for the fields. The community returns home only during the monsoon.

For generations, their herds of sheep, goats, and camels formed the basis of an agropastoral system that once depended on a wide mosaic of grazing commons, forest edges, fallows, and open migration routes, that are accessible to anyone. Today, these landscapes and pathways are rapidly shrinking, threatening their way of life.

While there is no official data on the pastoral population in India, a report by non-governmental organisations League for Pastoral Peoples and LIFE Network, suggests that India is home to 46 pastoral communities. In Rajasthan, these include the Raikas, Raths, Gujjars, and Sindhi Muslims.

Traditional migration routes

“Our long-distance migration began around 100 years ago,” says Hanwant Singh Rathore, founder of Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS), an organisation working with pastoral communities in western Rajasthan. “The traditional routes of the Raikas have completely disappeared,” he says, reflecting a common experience the Raikas narrate about how infrastructure development such as highways, roads, schools and more coming up on their traditional walking routes and conversion of common pasture lands into private farm lands with restricted access have changed their nomadic journeys.

Rathore adds that the earlier routes from Udaipur to Sadri are now highways where accidents are rampant. “At times, 50-60 sheep die in truck accidents,” Rathore says. “On those routes, there are now schools and government buildings. In other parts of the world, there are systems with dedicated corridors for pastoral communities. But here, there aren’t any. Because these routes have disappeared, many people have stopped migrating.”

The Raikas traditionally migrate in dholris, groups of 40 to 50 families travelling together. A dholri, meaning “bed”, represents a family unit, each led by a Patel (leader) who negotiates routes, camp sites and grazing arrangements.

“In the past, 50 dholris would move together,” says Rathore. “The Patel inspected and finalised the route, which changed every year.” Global studies also suggest that these leadership systems allow pastoralists to adapt routes annually, responding to rainfall patterns, fodder availability and informal agreements with farmers.

“At times, they walked extremely long distances. Now, because routes cutting through farms are blocked, they have started travelling by trucks,” he says about the patterns of their journey changing.

Bholaram Rabari, Narayan’s troupe leader, says, “Every time there is development, a few farms are given up and we have to travel to extreme interiors in search of farms.”

“When the farms were close by and we could walk from one farm to another, the time we spent on foot was lesser. A decade and a half ago we would walk 5 to 6 kms a day and camp at the next destination. Today we walk not less than 15 kms a day to get to the next farm, because all the farms are not accessible for us,” he said.

These longer distances have become especially difficult during peak summers and with the changing climate. “There are unseasonal rains now and summers are warmer than before,” Narayan says. “Walking on the roads is very difficult during peak summers. The heat makes us feel nauseous and weak, but we have to keep walking.”

Fragmented landscape, grazing access

The landscape changes impacting the Raikas extend beyond routes. Rajasthan’s grazing ecosystems, gochar lands, orans (sacred groves), revenue wastelands and forest-edge pastures, are themselves under unprecedented pressure.

Commons in western Rajasthan account for around 34.75% of the geographical area. About half of this comprises cultivable waste lands, 21% fallow lands (other than current fallow), 14% uncultivable waste lands, 11% permanent pastures and 7% is village forests.

While there is no official data documenting the declining pasture lands, the 2019 livestock census recorded a 1.61% decrease in Rajasthan’s total livestock population.

“Availability of grazing land is directly linked to livestock,” says Rathore. “If there is not enough pasture land or there is not sufficient fodder to feed the livestock, how can the community sustain them?”

Mularam Rabari, 48, from Rajasthan’s Rani village says that the land they used to graze on close to their villages did not belong to any individual. “They belonged to all of us,” he says. “But now, the villages have expanded too and these lands have reduced. Some of these lands also fall under the purview of the forest department. So there is not enough access.”

The decline of on-farm hosting arrangements has further intensified pressures. Vikram Rabari, 34 from Dadai village says they stay on farms during their journey, grazing on crop residue and offering manure in return, a mutually dependent system. “But today, farmers increasingly rely on chemical fertilisers instead of livestock manure, and mechanised harvesting leaves less stubble for grazing,” he adds. “Many farmers have also started fencing their farms.”

Forest access has also tightened over time. After the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was implemented in 2006, many pastoral routes skirting forest patches became difficult to use as forest boundaries and rules were more strictly enforced. FRA recognizes vital traditional rights for pastoralists, including seasonal grazing, access to water bodies, and biodiversity in forest areas, but access to pastoral communities remains a challenge.

“The FRA recognises rights for forest-dwelling communities, but pastoralists who do not permanently reside inside forests often find themselves excluded,” says Vagtaram Dewasi, Founder, Adivasi Vikas Sangatha.

Researchers studying mobile pastoralism under the FRA framework, note that nomadic and semi-nomadic groups face greater restrictions because their traditional use patterns do not align neatly with the Act’s documentation requirements.

“There are several hurdles. One of the main challenges in their absence from gram sabha meetings as they are a nomadic community. Secondly, as they keep moving across multiple jurisdictions as these routes are also dynamic now, mapping these traditional routes becomes difficult to apply for claims. In such access their grazing rights are restricted,” Dewasi added. A Raika himself, Dewasi has been working for the grazing rights of the community.

For the Raikas, this has meant losing access to forest-edge shading points, water sources and resting sites that once formed essential components of their migration cycles.

Younger generations step away

As landscapes close in, the younger generation of Raikas is increasingly choosing to step away from herding. Many now take up wage labour in Gujarat’s industrial belts or seasonal construction work near cities.

“Almost 10 years ago, I decided to not migrate with my family, as there was hardly any return or income to sustain ourselves,” says Vikram. “I went to Gujarat, worked at construction sites and later returned to join my cousin in setting up a medicine shop.”

He adds that their families have a deep emotional connection with their herd. “It’s not easy to give up on pastoralism altogether,” he says. “This year, I have joined my uncles again on their migration.”

Parents are also prioritising education for their children. “We were very young when we started herding, but now we want our children to go to school,” he says. “They join us during holidays so they do not lose connection with the animals. But we are unsure of what the future holds for us and for our traditional livelihood system.”

Ecological value under threat

Pastoralism remains ecologically significant, especially in semi-arid regions. Several studies, both global and local, show that migratory herds play a key role in maintaining biodiversity by dispersing seeds across long distances, and enhancing soil fertility through manure. Pastoral mobility also allows landscapes to recover after grazing.

For the Raikas, the stakes are both environmental and cultural. Their seasonal migration routes have been shaped over generations, tied to rainfall cycles, fodder availability and relationships with farmers across states.

“The decline of pastoral mobility in Rajasthan has implications far beyond the community itself,” he says. “As India pushes for climate mitigation, biodiversity restoration and sustainable land management on global platforms, the erasure of pastoral systems contradicts several of these goals. Without sustained attention to land rights, access to commons and the protection of migration corridors, the Raikas’ centuries-old agropastoral system may become increasingly unviable, taking with it a landscape-level ecological function that cannot be easily replaced.”

The United Nations has declared 2026 as the year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, “reflecting the important role healthy rangelands play in creating a sustainable environment, economic growth and resilient livelihoods for communities across the world.”

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Enforcement Directorate on Sunday conducted searches at premises linked to Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner Shantanu Sinha Biswas and a businessman in connection with a money laundering investigation in West Bengal, PTI quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Searches were carried out at two premises of Biswas, including his home in Ballygunge, South Kolkata, and at one location linked to businessman Joy Kamdar, managing director of Sun Enterprise, in the Behala area.

The action comes at a time when the state is scheduled to hold Assembly polls in two phases on April 23 and April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 4.

The raids were part of an investigation into a case involving an alleged criminal syndicate linked to Biswajit Podder, also known as Sona Pappu.

Podder, an alleged criminal, is accused in multiple cases, including attempted murder, extortion, rioting, criminal conspiracy and violations of the Arms Act, PTI reported.

He is also wanted in connection with a violent clash near the city’s Golpark area in February. Despite being issued summons by the agency, he has yet to join the investigation, The Indian Express reported.

At least two persons were injured during the clashes in February. Ten persons have been arrested in connection with the case so far.

Residents have alleged that Podder led more than 100 young persons in an attack to establish control over the area.

Investigators are examining a possible money trail between Podder and Biswas, with unidentified officials claiming that scrutiny of bank accounts revealed “suspicious financial transactions”, the newspaper reported.

The agency had also conducted searches in the case on April 1, during which it seized cash amounting to about Rs 1.47 crore, along with gold and silver valued at over Rs 67 lakh, and a firearm from various premises, PTI reported.

The self-enumeration portal for the ongoing Census had been showing Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh as a Chinese town named Medog, a retired Indian Air Force officer pointed out on Saturday. Hours later, census officials said the error had been resolved.

In a social media post, Mohonto Panging Pao, who is a resident of Pasighat, had shared coordinates showing the label “Medog, Pasighat” and said the matter required “urgent intervention”.

Pasighat is the oldest town in Arunachal Pradesh. Medog is a county across the Line of Actual Control in China.

#Census2027 During Self-Enumeration attempt on https://t.co/ermD21skK0 maps showing Pasighat, East Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh as 'Medog'! Medog is a town in China! CEO of Google @sundarpichai is Indian! Even official Govt portals are virtually ceding our territory! Needs… pic.twitter.com/EuqdnpqcLp

— Mohonto Panging Pao (@MontyPanging) April 18, 2026

Later on Saturday, the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner said the matter had been “raised with the map services provider, and it has been resolved”.

Pao told The Hindu that he noticed the discrepancy during an attempt to complete the self-enumeration process. He was unable to proceed after seeing the incorrect name, he added.

The Census 2027 is taking place in two phases, with house-listing having begun on April 1 and set to continue until September, followed by population enumeration in February 2027.

Residents opting for self-enumeration are required to mark the location of their household on a digital map provided on the portal.

China has long sought to rename places in Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing lays territorial claims over a large portion of Arunachal Pradesh, claiming that it is “South Tibet”. China refers to Arunachal Pradesh as Zangnan. India has rejected China’s claims.

On April 12, the Ministry of External Affairs rejected “mischievous attempts” by China to assign “fictitious names” to places that form part of Indian territory.

Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated that attempts by Beijing to introduce “false claims and manufacturing baseless narratives cannot alter the undeniable reality” that the places and territories, including Arunachal Pradesh, “were, are and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India”.

The reaction came in response to Beijing announcing Chinese names for several places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Two men from the Tangkhul Naga community were killed and others were injured after suspected militants opened fire on civilian vehicles in Manipur’s Ukhrul district on Saturday, Deccan Herald reported.

The attack took place in the afternoon along NH202 near the Litan area when unidentified gunmen fired at a convoy travelling from Imphal towards Ukhrul, The Hindu reported.

The police said that six vehicles were hit and the two men died at the spot. The persons were identified as Chinaoshang Shokwungnao, a retired soldier of the Naga Regiment from Tashar village, and Yaruingam Vashum from Kharasom.

Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh condemned the killings and said that the state government would hand over the probe to the National Investigation Agency.

“Security forces have launched an operation to apprehend those responsible for the attack,” he said on social media on Saturday.

The incident occurred a day after the chief minister visited Ukhrul as part of a peace outreach. During the visit, he had asked officials to strengthen security along the highway amid tensions between communities in the district.

Tensions in the Litan area date back to February 7, when an alleged assault involving members of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki-Zo communities escalated into clashes.

The incident, in which a Tangkhul Naga man was injured following an altercation, triggered days of arson and firing in Litan and nearby villages. More than 50 houses were reportedly burnt, prompting the imposition of prohibitory orders and an internet shutdown at the time.

Subsequent efforts by civil society groups from both communities to resolve the dispute failed and intermittent violence continued.

On March 11, two Kuki men who had gone to repair a water pipeline were allegedly abducted, leading to further escalation.

Manipur’s Home Minister Govindas Konthoujam had said that the abduction triggered exchanges of gunfire in Thawai and the brief abduction of about 20 Tangkhul civilians along the Imphal-Ukhrul road.

While the Tangkhul civilians were later released, the two abducted Kuki men were subsequently found dead in a village in neighbouring Kamjong district.

Following the ambush on Saturday, the Tangkhul Naga Long, an apex body of the community, alleged that Kuki armed groups were responsible for the attack and called for a crackdown in the area, The Hindu reported.

“Ever since the conflict between Tangkhul Nagas and Kukis started in early February, Kuki militants have been openly attacking civilians in Litan, Laho, Sinakeithei, Sikibung and Thawai,” the newspaper quoted the organisation as having said in a statement.

Sword Vashum, the chief of the Tangkhul Naga Long, said that the organisation would take “necessary action” in the days to come.

The Kuki Zo Council denied involvement of the community, adding that the incident appeared linked to factional tensions among the Naga groups rather than the actions of Kuki-Zo organisations, The Hindu reported.

“It is deeply regrettable that, without proper verification or credible evidence, blame is hastily attributed to the Kuki-Zo community,” the Kuki organisation was quoted as having said in a statement.

In a letter to Malka Jan in 1886, the poet Dagh Dehlvi had many things to say about Na’ala e Malka (Malka’s Lament), her composition in the masnavi form.

“The attribute of your community is ink, and your principle, freedom,” Dehlvi wrote. “You have amazing talent and your writing is as magnificent as your fate. Your masnavi is unique in aspect – brimming with flirtation, conceived in English and worded in Hindustani…”

Dehlvi’s words are evidence of Malka Jan’s renown as a woman of letters of the time. But this composition is now lost.

It isn’t the only one. The 19th century saw the emergence of several women Urdu poets, most of them tawaifs, but the works of these highly skilled courtesans were not preserved the way the verses of their male peers were. Writing spaces in North India were dominated by male poets like Ghalib, Zauq and Dagh while women’s voices went silent over time.

Moreover, women poets were often accused of having their lines ghostwritten by male admirers.

All that survives of their brilliant braiding of words is in tazkiras, or short biographies, which chronicled these women poets and published some of their lines.

Malka Jan’s first volume of poetry, Makhazana e Ulfat e Malka (Treasures of Malka’s Love), published in 1886 with notes of acclaim from prominent poets and tawaifs of the time – Hilal, Muhammad Jan tawaif, Abdul Ghafur Nassakh, among others – is preserved at the British Library and the Khuda Baksh Library, Patna.

Recently, the volume containing ghazals, thumris, holis and nazam compositions was republished by Shahid Saaz.

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The early years of Adeline

Malka was born to Eliza and Hardy Hemmings in 1857 and christened as Adeline Victoria Hemmings. No records of Hardy Hemmings, a British gentleman who lived and worked in India, have been found. Eliza was a Hindu woman, Rukmini, who converted to Christianity and became Hardy’s mistress or bibi. Hardy’s untimely death left Eliza and Adeline destitute. Eliza took up work in the dry ice factory in Azamgarh.

At the age of 16, Adeline met Robert William Yeoward, an engineer at the factory. They were married at the Holy Trinity Church in Allahabad. The marriage certificate mentions only Adeline’s mother, which confirms that she was born out of wedlock.

In 1873 a daughter, Eileen Angelina Yeoward, was born to the couple. She would later become Gauhar Jan, India’s first gramophone star.

Though most accounts state that Robert William Yeoward was Armenian, Liz Chater, an Armenian family researcher, asserts that he was actually of British descent. She traces his lineage to a British man, William Henry Yeoward, who came to India in 1809.

Chater writes that the Armenian descent theory comes from Malka Jan’s puzzling deposition in a case in 1890 where she said in English, “I was a Christian first and now I’m Armenian and when I was Christian, my name was Adeline Victoria Hemmings.”

As Armenians are generally Christians, one can speculate that she wanted to say that she lived in the Armenian quarters. The Armenian context also came up in another case involving Gauhar Jan.

Malka Jan Tawaif

Adeline’s marriage to Robert ended in 1879. Though there are no records of divorce proceedings, Vikram Sampath writes in his book, My Name is Gauhar Jan, that Robert suspected that Adeline was in a relationship with a neighbor with whom she shared a love of music and poetry. Adeline was possibly suffering from depression after the death of her second daughter, Lily.

According to burial records, the 20-day-old infant was buried at Azamgarh in 1876. Music and poetry were Adeline’s only solace in those days of grief.

Once again Adeline was cast adrift with the added responsibility of a young daughter and her mother. At this point in her life Khursheed, a cloth trader, came into her life and supported them. Adeline and her family relocated to Benaras. She converted to Islam and became Malka. Little Angelina was named Gauhar.

Recognising her talent and sensing the opportunity, Khursheed had Malka trained in music and dance under Ali Baksh, Zeenat Bibi and Kallu Ustad. He set her up on a kotha as Malka Jan tawaif. She came to be known as Badi Malka Jan to distinguish her from another, possibly younger, Malka Jan in Benaras.

Malka’s voice and poetry found recognition in the bustling town of Benaras. She started writing Urdu poetry and became a pupil of a famous poet, Hazrat Hakeem Sheikh “Hilal”. Malka’s almost seamless entry and acceptance into the staunchly guarded world of the tawaif lends credence to the assertion of researchers like Sampath that her mother was a courtesan or tawaif who gave up her profession to become a white man’s bibi.

It is also said that the young Adeline was educated at home, known for her singing, and showed an inclination towards the arts and literature. Tawaifs were the only women equipped to educate a child in dance, singing and literature.

The Calcutta Years

In 1883, Nawab Mir Mehboob Ali Khan Asaf Jah Wali Dakkan invited Malka Jan to Calcutta. This was her chance to make a name for herself in the Fakhr e Hindustan, the shining capital of British India with its glittering salons and literary spaces. Initially, the family took up residence in a small house Colootola – the hub of kothas of tawaifs from Awadh, Benaras and Allahabad. But within three years, Malka Jan was able to buy a house next to the Nakhuda mosque for the exorbitant Rs 40,000.

The address, 49, Chitpur Road, became the measure of her success – it was the haunt of music aficionados, elites, princes and zamindars. She performed at Metiaburj, the palace of exiled Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, at mehfils hosted by the elite of Calcutta and the bhadralok – the newly emerging educated middle class – as well as at the courts of princely states.

The publication of Makhazan Ulfat e Malka was a literary event and the pinnacle of Malka’s poetic success. She lived a luxurious life. She bought a phaeton and went on long drives with little Gauhar, who was training to step into a glamorous world and take the legacy forward. Khursheed’s murder was a setback for Malka and young Gauhar who believed him to be her loving father.

Fame and money gave Malka comfort and security but very often she would slip into a depressive state and seek solace in alcohol. Her ghazals plumbed the depth of her despair and loneliness. Her writing was appreciated by her contemporaries as well as modern scholars like Ram Babu Saxena for its intricacy of meter and “poetic power and skill”.

Malka’s great joy was Gauhar who was trained under the most illustrious ustads of Calcutta and often sang with her mother. Gauhar’s coming-of-age nath-utrai ceremony, when she would enter the world of tawaifs, ended in the disaster of her rape by an old raja. She became pregnant but the child was still-born – traumatic experiences that shattered the teenager.

Malka stood steadfast with Gauhar. She supported her through her recovery and inevitable rise to fame. But this took a toll on Malka. She sank deeper into depression and alcoholism. Gauhar was a devoted daughter and became Malka’s strength.

Once, while singing at mehfil, Malka started vomiting blood. Gauhar, who was performing in another city, rushed back and nursed Malka back to health. Recognising the precarious state of her health, Gauhar never left Malka’s side, taking her along on all performances outside of Calcutta.

Gauhar was a diva, a star who recorded 600 songs in several languages for the Gramophone Company from 1902 to 1920. Malka’s songs were also recorded. Malka delighted in Gauhar’s fame, laughing at her daugther’s audacity when she drove her phaeton on the British-only side of the road and at her cheeky salute to the “Laat sahab”, the Governor General, who mistook her for a queen and bowed.

Malka died in 1906 at the age of 50. Her legacy was her poetry, her songs and Gauhar Jan.

In Makhazana e Ulfat e Malka, she muses on the transience of existence and uncertainty of life

Ek haal mein insan ki barsar ho nahi sakti,
Ab rang tabiyat ka badal jaye to accha.

To exist in an unchanging state is an impossibility
It is prudent now to change the colours of self.

Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and culinary revivalist based in Rampur. Her latest novel, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I, was longlisted for the AutHer Awards.

When workers in Noida took to the streets earlier this week, they did more than just focus attention on the unsustainably low wages that many Indian workers are paid. The spontaneous demonstrations across the Uttar Pradesh city also provided the opportunity for the country’s elite to blare out, yet again, their callous – and counterproductive – opinions about working-class Indians.

The fact that 40,000 workers had blockaded roads and torched vehicles to press their demand for a living wage should not have come as a surprise. Experts had been warning about the frustration building in India’s factories for months.

In December, commentator Anand Teltumbde wrote in Scroll about how the four new labour codes passed by the Bharatiya Janata Party government the previous month “legalised the exploitation of workers, formalised their precarity and celebrated their subordination as liberation”.

On April 1, only two weeks before the protests in Noida, trade unions had called a national strike to demand that these new labour codes be repealed. This action, as Nandita Haksar noted, was being organised when “workers are bearing the brunt of the economic fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran”. As a consequence of the conflict, cooking gas has become scarce and prices of essential commodities have started to creep up.

The immediate trigger for the Noida workers to spill out of their factories was the decision of the government of neighbouring Haryana to increase monthly minimum wage by 35%.

The Noida protest forced the Uttar Pradesh government to raise the minimum wage for skilled workers in Noida to Rs 16,868 from Rs 13,940 and for unskilled workers to Rs 13,690 from Rs 11,313. But many workers maintained that this was inadequate to feed, clothe, house and educate their families. They say Rs 20,000 per month is fair.

This entirely reasonable demand so offended the authorities, they set out to teach the protestors a lesson. More than 350 workers were arrested and seven FIRs were registered. The day after the protests, the police carried out flag marches to reiterate why workers should avoid the temptation of aspiring for dignity.

Politicians and the corporate media soon began to provide justifications for why the workers should not be taken seriously. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath speculated that the industrial action was an attempt to revive the Naxalite movement. Representatives of the corporate media parroted the police claim that “handlers operating from Pakistan” had used social media to instigate the protests. One television channel reported that protestors had been communicating through WhatsApp groups, painting their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of association as a seditious conspiracy.

As Nandita Haksar pointed out, the government is enjoined by Article 39 of the Constitution to ensure adequate means of livelihood for all citizens. It may be too much to expect India’s elite to appreciate this directive. After all, they seem to believe that constitutional morality is quaint anachronism. But, if nothing else, self-interest should drive them to support the campaign for fair wages.

Not only are adequately paid workers more productive, their increased spending on goods and services keeps the economy healthy – benefitting their employers. As the German business magnate Robert Bosch is claimed to have said, “I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.”

India’s elite seem to believe that the rising tide of the economy (projected to grow at 6.5% in 2027) will lift all boats. It is essential for them to recognise that millions of Indians do not possess even a rudimentary raft. That is the message emerging from the shopfloors of Noida and beyond.

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

Centre’s delimitation attempt defeated. The Union government’s bill to amend the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act and redraw the boundaries of electoral constituencies was defeated in the Lok Sabha. The 2026 Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, one of three draft legislations, required a two-thirds majority of votes in Parliament to pass.

The consideration of the bill was rejected on Friday after only 298 MPs voted in its favour and 230 against it. The bill required the approval of a two-thirds majority. With 528 MPs present, that would have meant 352 votes. The government withdrew the two other bills, saying that they were linked to the proposed amendment that had been defeated and so could not be taken up for consideration separately.

Safwat Zargar and Rokibuz Zaman writes explain why delimitation in Assam and Kashmir had led to charges of gerrymandering.

Voting rights. The Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to publish a supplementary electoral roll in West Bengal to include voters whose appeals against deletions have been accepted by the appellate tribunals. The first phase of polling will be held on April 23 and the second on April 29, with the votes to be counted on May 4.

The bench said that persons whose appeals have been cleared by the tribunals before April 21 should be included for voting in the first phase of the Assembly elections. Those who are cleared by April 27 should be included in the final electoral rolls for the second phase of the polls, it added.

The court also clarified that filing an appeal against exclusion from the voter list in itself would not entitle a person to vote.

Millions of Bengalis may lose their vote. Not over citizenship but due to clerical errors, writes Shoaib Daniyal.

No exemptions for New Delhi. The United States said that it will not renew waivers that had allowed countries, including India, to purchase Iranian and Russian oil without triggering sanctions. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the waivers pertained to oil “on water prior” to March 11.

The US had on March 5 granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver allowing them to buy Russian oil stranded at sea amid the war in West Asia. The relaxation allowed India to secure additional Russian oil supplies amid global disruptions, with refiners reportedly ordering about 30 million barrels during the period.

Congress leader in trouble? The Supreme Court stayed the transit anticipatory bail granted to Congress leader Pawan Khera by the Telangana High Court in a case registered by the Assam Police. The bench said it was “surprised” by the High Court’s April 10 order.

Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, had filed a first information report against Khera after he claimed on April 5 that she holds passports in several countries.

Appearing for the Assam Police in the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that Khera filing his plea in Telangana was a “complete abuse of process”.

A change of guard. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Samrat Choudhary became the chief minister of Bihar, a day after Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar resigned from the post. He is the first BJP chief minister of the state.

JD(U) leaders Bijendra Prasad Yadav and Vijay Kumar Choudhary were sworn-in as the deputy chief ministers. Nitish Kumar has become a Rajya Sabha member.

Also on Scroll last week

• ‘Live or die, we have to vote TMC’: How SIR has left Bengali Muslims with no political choices
• More children from Bihar, headed to a madrasa, ‘rescued’ in Odisha despite parents’ consent
• Can Vijay’s electoral debut shake up Tamil Nadu’s politics?
• Watch: ‘Calling Pakistan a dalal made India look churlish and jealous’: Christine Fair
• Watch: Called ‘Naxal’, thrashed by Noida Police for asking for wage hikes
• In 2000, Kashmir family lost son to militants. 26 years later, another son to Army ‘encounter’
• Western disturbances are causing rain damage even in eastern India
• How a father from Jammu fought to bring back deported son from Pakistan
• ‘Toaster’ review: Saga of a chronic miser is generous with the laughs
• Asha Bhosle changed what a woman’s feelings were allowed to sound like

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On the afternoon of April 13, as factory workers staged protests across Noida, Uttar Pradesh, to demand better wages, two young professionals saw a striking sight on the street opposite the firm where they work.

“It was lunch time and I was on the balcony of my firm’s office,” one of them said. “The police officials arrived here and started beating up people.”

Most of those being beaten up were women workers, said the second eyewitness. “When the officials charged them, one of them shouted at them that assaulting them was a violation of their rights,” the eyewitness said, referring to one of the women who was assaulted. “She demanded to deal with women police officials. But those officials did not relent.”

As the police continued to hit her with lathis, the woman shouted, “Keep beating me. Let’s see how much you can manage”, the eyewitness recalled. The police left soon after – they did not detain the women workers. Since then, it has arrested 396 persons citing rioting and criminal use of force.

Two days later, a video surfaced online showing police officials assaulting women. The video was shared on social media platforms like Instagram and X by several users, including the Uttar Pradesh Congress, who alleged that it showed police officials in Noida lathi-charging and manhandling women workers on the day of wage hike protests.

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

But the eyewitnesses, who requested anonymity fearing backlash from the authorities, told Scroll that the video accurately captured the scene they had witnessed.

However, it isn’t just eyewitness accounts that punch holes in the police’s claim. Scroll used geolocation analysis and matched the video against a press photo to establish that the location was indeed Noida – block A and B of Sector 6. We also visited the spot and spoke to several people who had seen the police assault.

Questions sent to Laxmi Singh, Noida commissioner of police, did not elicit a response.

Geolocating the video

We watched the video closely to look for clues pointing to its location. We spotted four things.

First, a signboard that says “Simplex” while the camera is panning at the 25 seconds mark.

Second, across the road from this sign, there is a building with a saffron shed. The angle suggests the video was likely shot from this building.

Third, as the video opens, a building with a bluish-green exterior comes into sight. It has two air conditioners jutting out of what looks like a glass facade.

Fourth, as it zooms in, there is a pole with a white cutout on which hangs a garland.

A Google search throws up more than a few firms called Simplex in Noida. But a satellite image on Google Maps shows that only one of them has a building with a saffron shed across the road. This is Simplex Packaging Limited in Sector 6, Noida.

The building across the road is the office of Kohinoor International Private Limited.

Since this image cannot confirm the presence of a building with a bluish-green facade and the pole, we visited the spot for further corroboration.

On the ground

In Noida’s Sector 6, we found there is indeed a bluish-green building opposite Kohinoor International office. Twenty metres down the road is the office of Simplex Packaging Limited.

The pole with the garlanded white cutout stands right in front of Kohinoor International.

Thus, we were able to confirm that the place seen in the video is Sector 6, Noida.

PTI photograph

Days before the video surfaced, the Press Trust of India had released a photograph that showed police officials approaching a group of women and raising their lathis in the air.

The PTI photograph was carried by Vartha Bharati on April 13, and by The Week and National Herald on April 14 with the following caption: “Police personnel resort to a lathi charge on protesters demanding a salary hike in Noida.”

Given their attire, the women in the PTI photo seem to be the same women seen in the video.

Through our spot reporting, we were able to confirm that the photograph was taken in Sector 6, Noida – just steps away from the location seen in the video.

The photo was taken in front of the factory of Samvardhana Motherson International Limited, an automobile manufacturing firm whose workers were part of the wage hike protests. This factory is right beside Kohinoor International.

According to the two eyewitnesses who saw the women being beaten, the women work at the Samvardhana Motherson factory. We were not able to independently verify this.

The police officials

Other people who live and work in this area told Scroll that some of the police officials lathi-charging and manhandling the women came from a police chowki located about a kilometre away.

At the police chowki, Shailendra Kumar, the official heading the post, said he had not seen the video. He claimed there was a lot of violence by factory workers on April 13. “Some women threw rocks at the police. One of the officials was injured and a police bike was burnt,” he said.

Asked if the women seen in the video were responsible for the violence – in the video, they can be seen peacefully standing on the side of the road – Kumar declined comment.

Local residents could only identify one of the police officials in the video – the official seen lathi-charging and pushing a woman as the video opens. They alleged that he is sub-inspector Prabhat Kumar, who patrols Sector 6.

Scroll met the sub-inspector at the chowki and sought his comment on the allegation. He declined to comment.

His colleague Shailendra Kumar said, “Prabhat [Kumar] does not have a personal enmity with anyone.”

An Indian crude oil tanker carrying about two million barrels of oil from Iraq was fired upon by Iranian forces on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz, the Hindustan Times reported.

The development came after reports that two Indian vessels were forced to turn back from the Strait of Hormuz. The two Indian ships involved were Jag Arnav and Sanmar Herald, according to the Hindustan Times.

Jag Arnav was reportedly fired upon by the Iranian Navy while Sanmar Herald, which was in the vicinity, was not harmed.

The Indian government on Saturday lodged a protest against the firing with the Iranian Ambassador to India Mohammad Fathali, ANI reported.

During the meeting with the Iranian ambassador, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri “conveyed India’s deep concern at the shooting incident”, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

“He [Misri] noted the importance that India attached to the safety of merchant shipping and mariners and recalled that Iran had earlier facilitated the safe passage of several ships bound for India,” the ministry stated.

The foreign secretary urged Iran to “resume at the earliest the process of facilitating India-bound ships across the Strait”, the government said.

India lodged a protest with the Ambassador of Iran to India, Dr. Mohammad Fathali over the incident of firing on an Indian vessel at Strait of Hormuz. https://t.co/berBzGAtk4

— ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2026

Earlier in the day, Iran had said it was reimposing strict military controls on the Strait of Hormuz, alleging “repeated breaches of trust” by the United States.

On Friday, Tehran had fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels after a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Since the conflict in West Asia broke out on February 28, Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterbody connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea, for most international commercial vessels, triggering a global energy crisis. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Washington and Tehran had on April 8 agreed to a two-week ceasefire to allow further negotiations to end the conflict. While Israel, which was not involved in the talks, has not struck Iran since the ceasefire took effect, it had continued to attack Lebanon until Friday’s deal.

Peace talks between Iran and the US that were held in Islamabad collapsed on April 12. A fresh round of negotiations is reportedly expected to take place in the Pakistani capital on April 20.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday alleged that Opposition parties stood against the women’s reservation bill for their “selfish political interests”, and that they insulted the framers of the Constitution by doing so.

Modi made the statement a day after the Union government’s bill to amend the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act and redraw the boundaries of electoral constituencies was defeated in the Lok Sabha. Opposition parties, including the Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Trinamool Congress, had maintained that they supported the amendments to the Women’s Reservation Act, but were opposed to the proposed delimitation of electoral constituencies.

The prime minister said on Saturday that he had hoped that the Congress would “rectify its decades-old mistake” of obstructing women’s reservation when it was in power. “But the Congress lost the opportunity to script history and stand in support of women,” he remarked.

Modi claimed that those who opposed the Centre’s legislations on Friday were “taking women’s power for granted”.

My address to the nation. https://t.co/2Vyx15A4rx

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 18, 2026

“But they are forgetting that the women of the 21st century are monitoring every event in the country,” the prime minister asserted. “They sense their intentions and are fully aware of the truth. Therefore, the opposition will surely be punished for the sin they have committed by opposing women's reservation.”

Modi made the statement amid Assembly elections taking place in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Elections in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry took place on April 9. Voting in Tamil Nadu will take place on April 23, while polling in West Bengal will take place in two phases on April 23 and April 29.

‘Misinformation was spread on delimitation’: Modi

Modi accused the Congress of “spreading misinformation” that the delimitation exercise, which involves redrawing the boundaries of electoral constituencies, would lead to some states losing influence.

“But the government has made it clear from the first day itself that neither the proportion of a state's representation will change nor will anyone's representation be lower,” the prime minister asserted. “Seats of all states will be increased in an equal proportion. Still, Congress, DMK, TMC, SP and other parties are not ready to accept this.”

The current composition of the Lok Sabha is based on the 1971 Census. According to the 84th Amendment Act of 2001, constituency boundaries were frozen until the first census after 2026.

The census, which began on April 1, is expected to conclude in 2027.

The bill that was introduced in Parliament earlier this week proposed to amend Article 82 of the Constitution to remove the entire proviso. This would have paved the way for delimitation to take place based on the latest census, which was held in 2011.

Opposition parties had argued that population-based delimitation would give an undue advantage to northern and central states in the Lok Sabha, as the southern states had been more successful in controlling population growth. They also noted that the ruling BJP has greater support in northern states than in the South.

However, on Saturday, Modi said that if the bill had been passed in the Lok Sabha, seats in all states, including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, would have increased.

“But due to their selfish politics, these parties betrayed the people of their own states,” the prime minister claimed.

“The DMK had the opportunity to make even more Tamils MPs and MLAs,” Modi said. “It could have further strengthened the voice of Tamil Nadu. But it lost that opportunity. The Trinamool Congress too had the opportunity to push forward the people of Bengal. But TMC too lost the opportunity.”

The Allahabad High Court has withheld its order directing a case to be filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in response to a petition alleging that he is a British citizen.

Justice Subhash Vidyarthi said that the court will need to hear Gandhi first before passing such a direction.

On Friday, the judge had dictated an order in open court directing that a first information report should be registered against the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha in response to a petition by S Vignesh Shishir, who claims to be a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Karnataka unit.

The judge said in the written order that during the hearing, the court had asked the petitioner and the lawyer appearing for other parties whether a notice was required to be issued to Gandhi. The lawyers contended “that there is no requirement of issuance of a notice to the proposed accused”, the court said.

The judge, however, said that before the judgment ordering an FIR could be typed and signed, the court came across a judgment by a full bench of the Allahabad High Court from 2014.

The full bench verdict had held that a magistrate’s order rejecting an application under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the registration of a case is not an interlocutory order, or a temporary directive that only addresses a specific aspect of a litigation.

“Such an order is amenable to the remedy of a criminal revision under Section 397,” Vidyarthi said on Friday. Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows a High Court or sessions court to exercise powers of revision.

“In proceedings in revision under Section 397, the prospective accused or, as the case may be, the person who is suspected of having committed the crime, is entitled to an opportunity of being heard before a decision is taken in the criminal revision,” the judge said.

The court noted that the application could not be decided without issuing a notice to Gandhi, and posted the matter for hearing on April 20.

The petition

Shishir, in his petition, had submitted the details of Backops Limited, a company incorporated in 2003 in the United Kingdom, where Gandhi had purportedly declared his nationality as British.

The petition claimed that Shishir had filed a complaint with the Raebareli Police in July 2024 seeking registration of an FIR against Gandhi under several provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and under the Passports Act.

Shishir said he moved a trial court after the police failed to act on his complaint. After the trial court also rejected his petition seeking an FIR, he approached the High Court.

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday accused the Union government of conspiring to weaken democracy and alter the federal structure of the country by attempting to bring in a bill to amend the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act and redraw the boundaries of electoral constituencies.

Speaking to reporters, the Wayanad MP added that the defeat of the 2026 Constitution 131st Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha on Friday was a victory for the Constitution as well as the unity of the Opposition.

Vadra demanded that the Union government implement the women’s quota using the current strength of the Lok Sabha.

“The women’s reservation bill, which was passed unanimously in 2023, should be implemented by the [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi government now, and women should be given their rights,” she said. “The entire Opposition is ready for women’s reservation.”

The Congress MP added that the draft legislations were not about women’s reservation in Parliament and state Assemblies.

“This was related to the delimitation,” she said. “The Modi government had to carry out the delimitation on this basis, in which it would not need to look at the data of the caste census and would have complete freedom to act arbitrarily.”

The Constitution 131st Amendment Bill, one of three draft legislations, required a two-thirds majority of votes in Parliament to pass. The ruling National Democratic Alliance does not have a two-thirds majority of MPs in any House.

The consideration of the bill was rejected by the Lok Sabha with 298 MPs voting in its favour and 230 against. With 528 MPs present in the Lower House, the bill would have required the support of 352 of them.

The Union government then decided to withdraw the two other bills, saying that they were linked to the Constitution 131st Amendment Bill and could not be taken up for consideration separately.

The bills had been introduced by the Union government on Thursday, when a special three-day session of Parliament began. The draft legislations sought to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 815 from 543 and to operationalise the 33% quota for women in the Lower House and Assemblies under the Women’s Reservation Act.

Vadra said on Saturday that the “entire country has seen how the Modi government is defeated when the Opposition unites”.

Referring to speeches made by Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the discussion of the bills, the Congress MP said that both of them had claimed that if the Opposition did not agree on the matter, it would never be able to win elections or come to power.

“These statements alone make it clear what the government’s intention was,” Vadra said. “I believe that the conspiracy hatched by the government had the objective of gaining power. For this, the government used women.”

She added: “The Modi government believed that if the bill passes, it would be their victory, and if the bill does not pass, they would label the Opposition as anti-women. BJP wanted to do this to prove itself as the messiah of women.”

Vadra also said that the Union government had lost the trust of the public. “It’s a Black Day for them because they’ve felt a shock for the first time, which they deserved,” she said.

The draft legislations

The Opposition INDIA bloc had earlier said that while it supported women’s reservation, it would oppose the bill for delimitation of Lok Sabha seats.

Opposition parties had said that population-based delimitation would give an undue advantage to northern and central states in the Lok Sabha, as the proportion of seats in the North would be higher. They had also noted that the ruling BJP had greater support in northern states than in the South.

Although speculation about the amendment to the law had been rife in political circles for the past two weeks, copies of the draft legislation were shared with MPs for the first time on Tuesday.

Article 82 of the Constitution states that after every census is completed, the allocation of Lok Sabha seats to each state must be adjusted based on changes in its population.

The current composition of the Lok Sabha is based on the 1971 Census. According to the 84th Amendment Act of 2001, constituency boundaries were frozen until the first census after 2026.

The census, which began on April 1, is expected to conclude in 2027.

The bill that was introduced in Parliament proposed to amend Article 82 of the Constitution to remove the entire proviso. This would have paved the way for delimitation to take place based on the latest census, which was held in 2011.

The 2023 Women’s Reservation Act was brought into force on Thursday through a notification issued by the Union government. This came while Parliament was debating the amendments related to the same law, including proposals to modify its implementation timeline.

The Rajasthan government on Friday rolled back a campaign to give school students “more meaningful” names after it faced opposition from parents and social activists, The Hindu reported.

The campaign, titled “Sarthak Naam Abhiyan”, was launched by the state education department on April 13 with the objective of suggesting meaningful names for students whose names had “embarrassing” or derogatory connotations.

Such names could lead to low self-esteem among students, the education department said.

It released a list of of 2,950 alternative names for boys and girls to be shared with parents, The Times of India reported.

However, several names on the list were repetitive and incorrect. It also contained entries such as Bhiksha (alms), Bhayankar (terrifying), Kalyugi (age of darkness), Lajja (shame) and Makkhi (fly).

The move led to a controversy, with parents, teachers and experts describing it as an “interference” with personal matters, The Hindu reported. Critics also noted that that the campaign could demean certain identities instead of empowering the students.

Noting inconsistencies, gender mix-ups, incorrect classifications and the duplication of names with minor variations, experts criticised the order as an attempt to “impose a cultural framework” on Dalit, trial and other backward communities, according to the newspaper.

Sanyukt Abhibhavak Sangh, an association for parents, also said that the campaign was a way of diverting attention from pressing issues, The Times of India reported.

“The state is grappling with increasing dropouts, shortage of teachers in schools and arbitrary behaviour of private schools, but the department is focused on suggesting names,” the newspaper quoted Abhishek Jain, a spokesperson for the association, as saying.

In light of the controversy, unidentified officials from the education department earlier clarified that the list of names was only a draft, adding that a revised list would be issued shortly, The Hindu reported.

It added that the names of students from Class 1 to 9 were to be updated in the school records on a voluntary basis and with the consent of their parents.

However, state Education Minister Madan Dilawar on Friday announced that the campaign would be withdrawn for “unavoidable reasons”, The Hindu reported. “No action will be taken pursuant to the directive,” he said.

Earlier, the Opposition Congress also criticised the April 13 order and asked the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state to focus on the dilapidated condition of government school buildings that need repair.

Ignoring the doves and passerines sharing the habitat, the duck, amused to see a potential mate, bobs his head and lets out a series of shrill cries – resembling the honk of an ice-cream truck.

The female moves away just enough to signal indifference, but not rejection. That hint of interest is enough for him to continue the courtship ritual. Soon, she responds with head-bobbing and calls of her own.

These are not ordinary ducks. The elusive white-winged duck (Asarcornis scutulata) is the state bird of Assam. Originating from the forested swamps of South and South East Asia, with a historic range as far as Bhutan and parts of Indonesia, they only reveal their large wingspan – up to 153 cm (5 feet) – and white underwings when in flight.

Typically calm during the day, their calls echo through forests at dusk, earning them the name “deo hans” – Assamese for “spirit ducks”.

“We don’t know their feeding and mating patterns and the ducklings’ survival rates [in the wild],” said Aftab Ahmed, a biologist at the Wildlife Trust of India, a non-profit wildlife conservation organisation. “We don’t know much about their basic ecology, and most information is anecdotal. It is challenging to do systematic studies as they are very difficult to locate and track.”

What little we do know about white-winged ducks reveals that they are intensely territorial. “But as a pair, they are often tight and very strong,” said Harriet Whitford, the curator of birds at Jersey Zoo in the Channel Islands. “It’s not that easy to break them up. They take time to grieve and move on if one of them dies.”

This particular pair of lovers we see, honking, nodding, and dancing between streams and ponds, however, are in fact residents of the Branféré Animal and Botanical Park in western France. What began as a courtship in November bore fruit in March, when she laid two eggs.

Such intimate and almost theatrical sights are rare to savour in the wild because white-winged ducks are now on the critically endangered list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Their numbers have plummeted this century, with only 150-450 mature individuals remaining.

“[White-winged ducks] are habitat-specific species that flourish in water pools inside forested areas,” explained Ahmed. “They nest only in old trees with hollows.” As old trees are the first ones to meet the axe, these nonmigratory ducks have lost their nesting grounds. They are further threatened by human disturbances – fishing, draining of bodies of water, and pesticide pollution, to name a few.

White-winged ducks risk disappearing before their story is ever fully told. Conservation experts warn that their extinction will have a profound impact on biodiversity.

“Resident ducks have more value in ecology than migratory species [as] they feed on molluscs and control vector-borne diseases,” said Rathin Barman, director f the WTI. “By conserving the duck species, you are also saving their habitats, the lowland tropical forests.”

Conservation breeding

At Branféré, once the eggs hatch, the chicks will be raised within the same park. Efforts to conserve these ducks span over five decades. In the 1970s, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge sourced ducks from eastern Assam for captive breeding, and their progeny were later distributed to zoos worldwide.

A conservation breeding programme raises a viable population in a safe environment, to be released later into the species’ natural habitat to reinforce the declining wild population. It proved successful for many species, including the crested ibis of eastern Asia. Presumed extinct in the 1960s, the bird was rediscovered in 1981 when the world population stood at just seven.

The successful breeding programme resulted in the reintroduction of this rare bird to its historical range, per the results of a study. As of 2014, there were more than 1,000 captive-bred individuals across 12 conservation breeding centres or zoos in China, Japan, and Korea.

“Release of captive-bred birds should only be done in areas where there are no existing individuals,” said Glyn Young, who chairs the IUCN Threatened Waterfowl Specialist Group. “It is hoped that at some point, released and native birds will meet, but this should happen naturally after the released birds have acclimatised and established.”

Much of this work today is sustained by institutions that operate far from the species’ natural range. “In modern zoos, it is quite easy to support in situ projects because it's one of our goals,” saidAlexandre Petry, the zoological & scientific director at Branféré. “In Europe, in zoos, with the money that we gain from the visitors, we give some of it to protect the animals in the wild.” He is also the European Endangered Species Programme coordinator who oversees the conservation breeding of white-winged ducks across participating zoos in Europe.

Despite such cross-border efforts, the ducks are not released back into their range for ecological and economic reasons. Moving birds back to their country of origin is costly, time-consuming and often involves extensive legal paperwork. The ducks in Europe have limited genetic diversity, have spent many years acclimatising to captivity, and would need to be screened very carefully for diseases or illnesses.

"When you move birds back in range, you have to be incredibly careful that you are not bringing back something potentially dangerous to the in-range birds,” noted Harriet Whitford.

However, the captive population can be useful in other ways. “One idea [that we are mulling over] would be to collect the eggs from the wild in the range countries and let the female duck [from Branféré ] raise them in captivity so that the ducklings are close to their natural species,” Petry said.

The ducks’ adaptability in captivity can be taken to advantage. Whitford notes that captive females can still perform natural behaviours such as incubating eggs, without the stress that a wild-caught female might experience in a captive setting.

“European birds could be moved to captive facilities to rear offspring that could be released into the wild, either from eggs taken from the wild or from captive European birds paired with partners carrying wild genes,” she said. “These partners could either be wild-caught adults or birds captively reared from eggs taken from the wild. The resulting offspring would be better suited for release into the wild.”

The money problem

With the highest number of white-winged ducks in their natural habitat, India holds a vital chance to secure the species’ future. Yet, there are no conservation breeding programmes.

Through awareness programmes, surveys, and collaborations with the Assam government, WTI has been working since 2019 on reviving the ducks. “Sometimes, some donors want to see the species in the wild to get convinced about funding the project,” said Aftab Ahmed. “But that is difficult because they are extremely rare and cryptic in nature,”

When they started in 2019, WTI received funds from corporate donors and global conservation organisations, but over the years, many backed out. “Conservation breeding takes at least 10-15 years to show the results.” said Ahmed. “It requires big recurring funds and more time. A few batches could turn out unsuccessful in the beginning. Finding donors who are willing to take that risk and support for a long time is always difficult.”

While their European counterparts have no funding difficulties, it is an uphill battle for Indian conservationists to secure funds, especially for lesser-known species such as white-winged ducks. “Maybe it's more difficult to collect money for duck species than for monkey species or big cats, or a more popular bird species,” said Petry. “But because this species is very threatened, we succeed to have some money.”

“Targeted fundraising will work. It is true that rhinos and tigers will receive a higher profile, but projects for less spectacular animals are not hard to establish if correctly managed,” said Gyln Young, adding that Durrell’s ongoing programme for another world’s rarest duck, the Madagascar pochard has resulted in their increased numbers.

In India, Assam’s conservation plans include four goals: habitat protection, population strengthening, awareness, and research. Indian organisations are currently conducting campaigns and surveys, which they hope will lead to media exposure and funding.

“We need to increase the population in India to save this species,” said Petry. “If not, we will be able to see them only in zoos or in museums.”

If these ducks are not conserved, their dance of love will be a sight confined to the aviaries.

This story was produced by The Xylom, a nonprofit news outlet covering global health and environmental disparities, and co-published by Scroll.in,