President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday gave her assent to the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025, formally clearing the way for the new rural employment law to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The VB-G RAM G Bill, 2025 was passed by both Houses of Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties.

It was cleared by the Lok Sabha on Thursday, even as Opposition members objected to the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme. It was passed by the Rajya Sabha after midnight on Friday.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

Under the new law, the number of guaranteed workdays will increase to 125, while states’ share of costs will rise to 40%. The Centre will continue to bear the wage component, with states sharing material and administrative expenses.

The legislation has drawn criticism from economists and labour rights experts.

On Thursday, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and nine other academics wrote an open letter to the Union government warning that repealing MGNREGA would be a “historic error”.

Several experts have also cautioned that provisions in the new law could lead to inequitable access to work and incentivise distress migration, particularly as the Centre will identify the rural areas where employment will be provided.

Concerns have also been raised about a provision allowing a 60-day pause in guaranteed work during agricultural seasons, with labour rights groups warning that it could weaken workers’ bargaining power and leave farm labourers vulnerable to exploitation.

President gives assent to Viksit Bharat- Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB- G RAM G) Bill, 2025

The Act Enhances Statutory Employment Guarantee to 125 Days

Read here- https://t.co/nCLBrDLJoO

— PIB Rural Development (@PIB_MoRD) December 21, 2025

Also read:

• BJP chief ministers wanted MGNREGA to include farm work. Modi government’s bill goes another way

• ‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill

The Ministry of External Affairs on Sunday rejected reports in sections of the Bangladesh media that claimed Indian nationals had threatened Bangladesh’s diplomats in New Delhi, describing them as “misleading propaganda”.

Responding to queries about a reported demonstration outside the Bangladesh High Commission on Saturday, ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that a group of 20-25 youths had gathered outside the mission to protest the killing of Dipu Chandra Das, a member of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority, and to demand protection for minorities in the country.

“There was no attempt to breach the fence or create a security situation at any time,” Jaiswal said, adding that the police stationed at the spot dispersed the group within minutes. “Visual evidence of these events is available publicly for all to see,” he said.

Jaiswal reiterated that India was committed to ensuring the safety of foreign missions and diplomatic personnel in accordance with the Vienna Convention.

The statement came after Amar Desh, a Bangladesh daily edited by Mahmudur Rahman, published a report alleging that members of a Hindutva group had staged an “aggressive” protest at the Bangladesh High Commission in Chanakyapuri and threatened to kill the country’s High Commissioner to India, Riaz Hamidullah, The Hindu reported.

The report claimed that demonstrators had crossed security barricades and issued violent threats while the High Commissioner and his family were present at the residence.

Our response to media queries regarding the reported demonstration in front of the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi on 20 December 2025 ⬇️

🔗 https://t.co/tQ29y4EMbS pic.twitter.com/CgBqKqBYfp

— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) December 21, 2025

The ministry of external affairs rejected these claims, saying the gathering did not pose any security threat.

In its statement, the ministry also expressed concern over the killing of Das in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district, describing it as “horrendous” and “barbaric”.

“India continues to keep a close watch on the evolving situation in Bangladesh,” Jaiswal said. “Our officials remain in touch with Bangladesh authorities and have conveyed to them our strong concerns at the attacks on minorities. We have also urged that the perpetrators of the barbaric killing of Das be brought to justice.”

Das, 25, was lynched by a mob in Mymensingh on Thursday night after being accused of blasphemy. He was beaten to death, after which his body was allegedly tied to a tree and set on fire, according to police. Das was a factory worker living in the area.

The killing took place amid widespread unrest in Bangladesh following the death of student leader Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, who succumbed to gunshot injuries at a hospital in Singapore on Thursday. Hadi was a prominent figure in the 2024 student protests that led to the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government.

Following his death, protests erupted in Dhaka and several other cities, during which offices of newspapers and properties linked to the Awami League were attacked. Security was heightened outside the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi as the situation in Bangladesh remained tense.

#WATCH | Delhi | Security deployed outside the Bangladeshi embassy amid widespread violence erupting in Bangladesh over the death of Osman Hadi and the mob lynching of Dipu Chandra Das. pic.twitter.com/NtwZ8gHUvr

— ANI (@ANI) December 21, 2025

Also Read: Opinion: What India must do to help restore stability in Bangladesh

The West Bengal government on Friday officially renamed its rural job guarantee scheme, Karmashree, as “Mahatma Shree”, amid a dispute with the Union government over its decision to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act with a new legislation.

The Union government this week introduced the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee For Rozgar And Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, which seeks to replace MGNREGA.

The @narendramodi government may want to erase Mahatma Gandhi’s memory and the Sangh Parivar may prefer Nathuram Godse over Gandhiji. But the @MamataOfficial government in Bengal will ensure that Bapu and his legacy are never forgotten. The newly re-named ‘Mahatma Shree’ scheme… pic.twitter.com/XMcRm9lJbQ

— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) December 20, 2025

Introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, MGNREGA guarantees 100 days of unskilled work each year to rural households across the country to enhance livelihood security. While the Centre bears wage costs under the scheme, states share expenses related to materials and administration.

The new bill proposes increasing guaranteed workdays from 100 to 125 while raising states’ share of costs to 40%.

Despite protests by Opposition parties, the legislation, introduced in Parliament on Tuesday, was passed by both Houses on Thursday, a day before the Winter Session ended.

West Bengal launched the Karmashree scheme in 2024 to provide at least 50 days of employment per financial year to job card-holding households through works implemented by various state departments. The scheme, funded entirely by the state government, has generated 101.5 crore person-days of work for over 90 lakh job card holders, according to the state government.

The amended state scheme also promises to increase guaranteed workdays to 100 from 50.

On the day that the VB-G RAM G bill was passed in Parliament, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced the renaming of the state scheme saying the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from MGNREGA filled her with “deep shame”

“Are we now forgetting even the Father of the Nation?” the Trinamool Congress chief asked. “We seek nothing except respect. If some do not know how to honour Mahatma Gandhi, we will demonstrate what true respect means.”

.@BJP4India struck Mahatma Gandhi's name from MGNREGA; Bengal strikes back with leadership that refuses to kneel. Smt. @MamataOfficial doesn’t just defend icons, she celebrates them. Where they erase, she restores; where they insult, she honours.

Under her leadership, the legacy… pic.twitter.com/pKIeX1LYKb

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) December 19, 2025

On Saturday, Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose said the Banerjee-led government in the state “will ensure that Bapu and his legacy are never forgotten”.

Ghose alleged that the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre wanted to erase Gandhi’s memory and claimed that the Sangh Parivar preferred Nathuram Godse over Gandhi.

Banerjee said West Bengal had started the rural job guarantee scheme when the Centre blocked funds to the state under MGNREGA, India Today reported.

“Even if central funds are stopped, we will ensure people get work,” she said. “We are not beggars.”

In March 2022, the Union government suspended MGNREGA funding to West Bengal, citing widespread irregularities and alleged violations of the scheme’s implementation rules by the state government.

West Bengal received Rs 7,507 crore in the financial year 2021-’22 under MGNREGA but has received no funds in the following three financial years.

On December 5, the Union government told Parliament that it was in the “process of reworking and refining the necessary modalities and procedures” to resume the scheme under the Act in West Bengal.

Also read:

• BJP chief ministers wanted MGNREGA to include farm work. Modi government’s bill goes another way
• ‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill

A dispute over a Christian burial in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region triggered communal violence in Kanker district on Thursday, leaving several persons injured and a prayer hall vandalised, The Hindu reported.

At least 20 police personnel, including Additional Superintendent of Police Ashish Banchhor, were among those injured while trying to control the clashes, The Indian Express quoted officials as saying.

The tensions began on Tuesday in Bade Teoda village after the sarpanch Rajman Salam buried his 70-year-old father a day after his death. In a video released the same day, Salam said that he had converted to Christianity, while his father had not.

Salam claimed that he sought permission from village elders to bury his father according to tribal customs, but was told that the burial could not take place in his presence because he is a Christian.

He then went ahead with a Christian burial on his private land, after which the clashes were reported, according to The Wire.

“Everybody should be allowed to bury their dead,” Salam told the news outlet. “We are ready to compromise and bury him again as per local traditions, but they have to allow our presence.”

Salam also alleged that his political rival mobilised Hindutva workers from neighbouring villages and demanded that his father’s body be exhumed, The Indian Express reported.

“The police also asked me to give permission to exhume the body to prevent tensions from worsening, but I refused,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Clashes broke out on Tuesday and Wednesday, after which the police cordoned off the area. On Thursday, tensions escalated when a mob armed with sticks breached the police barricades and entered Bade Teoda village, triggering fresh violence.

Salam alleged that the police did not stop the mob and instead pressured his family to withdraw from the dispute, The Wire reported.

“They only intervened when their own were assaulted,” the news outlet quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, acting on complaints from residents, an executive magistrate later ordered the exhumation of the body under legal provisions, The Indian Express quoted the Kanker police as saying.

“The inquest and post-mortem examination will be conducted, and necessary legal action will be taken thereafter,” the newspaper quoted the police as saying. “This issue led to a tense situation in the village.”

Despite heavy police deployment, mobs attacked churches and homes of Christians in the area, a local journalist told The Wire.

“The body was taken away without our permission,” Salam told the news outlet. “Churches were torched and my home was set on fire.”

The Badetevda village in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district had been on edge for the past four days over a dispute between a Christian family, local villagers, and Hindutva groups. The dispute had to do with the burial of a Christian man’s father. pic.twitter.com/351piAlTYl

— Alishan Jafri (@alishan_jafri) December 21, 2025

Also read:

• Why a Christian pastor was denied a burial in his own village by India’s Supreme Court
• House churches in Chhattisgarh face an informal ban, say pastors

The Himachal Pradesh government has ordered pharmaceutical companies to recall 47 medicines from the market after samples manufactured in the state failed quality tests, PTI reported.

Notices have been issued to the concerned firms, seeking explanations and directing them to withdraw the affected stock, State Drug Controller Manish Kapoor said.

The failed samples were part of a larger batch of drugs tested nationwide during routine regulatory surveillance, of which 200 were found to be substandard.

Of these, 47 were manufactured in Himachal Pradesh, including medicines used to treat fever, heart conditions, diabetes, epilepsy and muscle spasms, the Hindustan Times reported.

The medicines that failed quality tests include paracetamol, clopidogrel, aspirin, metformin, ramipril, sodium valproate and mebeverine hydrochloride.

Twenty-eight of the substandard samples originated from Solan district, 18 from Sirmaur and one from Una, unidentified officials were quoted as saying by PTI.

State Health Minister Dhani Ram Shandil had earlier stated that companies with recurring failures would be blacklisted.

The Congress on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “bulldozing” through Parliament the new bill that opens up the nuclear sector to private players in order to restore peace with United States President Donald Trump.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh claimed that the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, acronymised as SHANTI, was passed “to restore SHANTI [peace] with his once good friend,” referring to US President Donald Trump.

Ramesh noted that Trump on Thursday signed the United States’ National Defence Authorization Act for 2026, which contains a reference to a joint assessment between the US and India on nuclear liability rules.

The Congress leader remarked that this was the reason why the SHANTI Bill, passed by Parliament on December 18, removed key provisions of the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act. “The SHANTI Act may well be called the TRUMP Act - The Reactor Use and Management Promise Act,” he quipped.

The bill proposes to grant licenses to private companies, joint ventures and government companies to construct, own, operate or decommission nuclear power plants or reactors.

Among the bill’s contentious provisions was one that removed a clause that was part of the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act which allowed the operator of a nuclear power plant to file legal proceedings against suppliers if their equipment was found to have been in an accident.

The provision was believed to be a reason for the lack of foreign participation in the country’s nuclear sector despite the Indo-US nuclear deal.

President Trump has just signed the National Defence Authorization Act for the US Fiscal Year 2026.

The Act is 3100 pages long. Page 1912 has a reference to the joint assessment between the United States and India on Nuclear Liability Rules.

Now we know for sure why the Prime… pic.twitter.com/bGdAOXh9pA

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) December 20, 2025

Bilateral ties between New Delhi and Washington deteriorated in August after Trump doubled the tariffs on goods imported from India to 50% for purchasing Russian oil amid the war in Ukraine.

The US president has repeatedly alleged that India’s imports were fuelling Russia’s war on Ukraine.

India, however, has maintained that its oil imports are based on market factors and are aimed at ensuring India’s energy security. The foreign ministry said in August that it was unfortunate that the US was imposing additional tariffs on India “for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest”.

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday arrested a lieutenant colonel working under the defence ministry and another individual on allegations of bribery.

Those arrested have been identified as Lieutenant Colonel Deepak Kumar Sharma, a Deputy Planning Officer (International Cooperation and Exports) with the Department of Defence Productions, and a private individual named Vinod Kumar.

The CBI filed a case in the matter on Friday based on “reliable source information” against Sharma, his wife Colonel Kajal Bali – who is the Commanding Officer of 16 Infantry Division Ordnance Unit in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar – and others, including representatives of a Dubai-based company.

The agency alleged that Kumar delivered a bribe of Rs 3 lakh at the behest of the company to Sharma on December 18.

The CBI said that two Bengaluru-based persons named Rajiv Yadav and Ravjit Singh were looking after the India operations of the company. It alleged that Yadav and Singh were in regular contact with Sharma, and were, in connivance with him, pursuing “various undue favours by illegal means for their company from various government departments and ministries”.

CBI ARRESTS LT. COL. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE PRODUCTIONS, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE IN A BRIBERY CASE pic.twitter.com/hZIqDnM2y3

— Central Bureau of Investigation (India) (@CBIHeadquarters) December 20, 2025

“It is alleged that Lt. Col. Sharma habitually indulges in corrupt and illegal activities in criminal conspiracy with representatives of various private companies dealing in defence products manufacturing, export, etc, by obtaining undue advantage/bribe from them in exchange of providing undue favours to them,” the CBI alleged in a press release.

Sharma and Kumar were produced before court on Saturday and were remanded to police custody till December 23.

A woman doctor whose niqab was pulled down by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at an event on December 15 did not join duty on Saturday, PTI reported.

Kumar had pulled down the niqab of the woman, Nusrat Parveen, at an event at the chief minister’s secretariat in Patna during which appointment letters were distributed to newly-recruited AYUSH, or Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy, practitioners.

After a video of the incident was shared on social media, Opposition leaders sharply criticised the Janata Dal (United) leader, and Peoples Democratic Party leader Iltija Mufti filed a police complaint against him in Srinagar.

Amid the row, Parveen did not join work till 7 pm on Saturday and the "possibility window for the day" was closed, PTI quoted Patna Civil Surgeon Avinash Kumar Singh as saying.

“I have been informed that the last date of joining has been extended beyond December 20,” he said. “It remains to be seen whether Parveen joins on Monday or not.”

Vijay Kumar, a surgeon at the Sabalpur public health centre in Patna Sadar – where Parveen was slated to join – also said that she had not joined duty, PTI reported.

“Around five-six people have joined today, and Parveen is not among them... Her name is in the list but we have not received her appointment letter from the civil surgeon office in Patna,” he said.

In neighbouring Jharkhand, state Health Minister Irfan Ansari offered Parveen “a government position in Jharkhand with a monthly salary of Rs 3 lakh, along with government accommodation and a preferred posting”, The Indian Express reported.

“I am a doctor first, and then a minister,” Ansari said. “What happened has hurt the entire medical fraternity and will send the wrong message to India.”

On December 16, human rights organisation Amnesty International had issued a statement against Kumar, describing his actions as an “assault on this woman’s dignity, autonomy, and identity”.

“When a public official forcibly pulls down a woman’s hijab, it sends a message to the public that this behaviour is acceptable,” the human rights organisation said.

Also read:

Pity, contempt and identity: The difference between the hijab and the ghoonghat

The killing of Bangladeshi student leader Osman Hadi has pushed Dhaka-New Delhi relations to their most dangerous moment in decades.

A relationship that was already strained after the fall of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August has now entered a phase of open hostility, driven not only by diplomatic missteps but by the reckless role played by Indian media and political discourse.

At a moment that demands restraint, clarity and responsibility, large sections of India’s public sphere are instead pouring fuel on a rapidly spreading fire of anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh.

Relations between Dhaka and New Delhi were fragile long before Hadi was shot on December 12. India was widely perceived in Bangladesh as having placed a political bet on Sheikh Hasina’s continued rule and as being slow, reluctant and awkward in adjusting to her fall.

That perception hardened further when New Delhi allowed Hasina to remain in India after she fled and as many of her political allies and supporters also found shelter across the border. For many Bangladeshis, this reinforced the belief that India was no longer acting as a neutral neighbor but as an interested political actor deeply entangled in Bangladesh’s internal power struggles.

Hadi’s killing has magnified those suspicions into something far more explosive. He was not simply another activist. He symbolised a generation that had mobilised during the July mass uprising, demanding accountability, dignity and political change. His death has become a focal point for anger not just against domestic actors but against what is widely perceived as external complicity.

The widespread belief that the accused fled to India, regardless of the ongoing legal process, has created a powerful narrative of impunity. The reciprocal summoning of high commissioners by Dhaka and New Delhi this week reflects more than diplomatic irritation. It signals a collapse of trust and decency at a moment when both are desperately needed.

Hadi wanted elections. He believed in the electoral process. He believed in democracy. He was running for election in Dhaka-8. He believed in the slow, painstaking process of building a new Bangladesh and knew there could be no short-cuts.

We Cannot Let Osman Hadi's Killers Win…

— Zafar Sobhan (@ZafarSobhan) December 19, 2025

Yet the most destabilising force at work is not diplomacy but discourse. That is reflected in the coverage of the lynching of a Hindu man in Bangladesh, which has further inflamed emotions on both sides of the border. The victim, 27-year-old Dipu Chandra Das from Mymensingh, was beaten to death by a mob on Thursday night over allegations of blasphemy, his body tied to a tree and set on fire.

Bangladeshi authorities intervened quickly and arrested seven suspects. The interim government strongly condemned the killing, pledging that those responsible would be held accountable.

However, the reporting in large sections of the Indian media choose not to highlight accountability or the swift arrests but to portray Bangladesh as descending into communal chaos. Graphic details were amplified. A criminal act was transformed into a sweeping civilisational indictment.

Such reporting neither protects minorities nor advances justice. Instead, it hardens communal identities, deepens fear and reinforces hostile narratives at a moment when restraint and accuracy are most urgently required.

Since Hasina’s fall, large sections of the Indian media have responded to Bangladesh’s turmoil not with analysis but with alarmism. Instead of recognising the July protests as a broad-based, youth-driven democratic movement, many Indian television channels and online platforms have uniformly branded Bangladeshi protesters as Islamists, radicals or extremists.

This framing is not only inaccurate. It is incendiary. It imports India’s own domestic political anxieties into a neighboring country undergoing political transition and delegitimises popular dissent by casting it as religious fanaticism.

This narrative erases the political and social roots of Bangladesh’s unrest and replaces them with a simplistic and threatening caricature. It tells Indian audiences that what is unfolding next door is not a struggle over justice and governance but a security menace. And it tells Bangladeshis that India does not see them as citizens with grievances but as a problem to be managed.

"I am right next to the Dhaka University..., where a protest is going on... There are rumours that the [Hadi] gunman apparently escaped to India through the border, although it has not been proven... There’s a strong anti-India sentiment in the crowd." https://t.co/J4W6v0Qfkp

— Christopher Clary (@clary_co) December 19, 2025

Equally dangerous is the tendency within pro-government Indian media and right-wing political commentary to project Bangladesh as a territorial and security threat to North East India. Commentators casually invoke fears of infiltration, instability and cross border disorder, often without evidence and without context.

This is not journalism. It is securitisation. Once Bangladesh is framed primarily as a threat, every political development there is read through a lens of fear. Cooperation becomes suspect. Restraint is portrayed as weakness. Escalation begins to look inevitable rather than avoidable.

The consequences are visible. Protests in Dhaka and Chattogram, and demonstrations even near India-Bangladesh border posts, show how quickly bilateral tensions are spilling onto the streets. Public anger is no longer confined to political elites or activist circles. It is becoming mass sentiment. When that happens, governments lose room for quiet diplomacy.In Bangladesh, any authority seen as soft on India risks losing legitimacy. In India, media-driven narratives push policymakers toward hardened positions that leave little space for nuance or compromise.

This is precisely why responsibility matters. India is the larger power in this relationship. Its media ecosystem is louder, more influential and more capable of shaping narratives across borders. With that influence comes obligation. To treat Bangladesh’s crisis primarily as a security problem is not only analytically flawed but strategically self-defeating. It guarantees deeper resentment, longer-term mistrust and a neighbour that increasingly defines itself in opposition to India.

History’s warning

History offers a clear warning. Anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh has ebbed and flowed over the decades, often rising during moments of perceived interference or arrogance and receding when engagement felt respectful and balanced.

What makes the current moment different is the speed and scale at which hostility is spreading. Social media amplification, sensationalist television debates and inflammatory headlines are turning episodic anger into something closer to structural alienation.

India can still choose a different path. That begins with cooperating transparently in the investigation surrounding Hadi’s killing. Even more importantly, it requires confronting the media narratives that are distorting reality. Indian political leaders and institutions cannot pretend that television studios and digital platforms operate in a vacuum. Silence in the face of reckless framing is itself a form of endorsement.

Responsible behavior does not mean shielding Bangladesh from criticism or ignoring genuine security concerns. It means recognising the difference between analysis and agitation. It means acknowledging that a neighbour’s political transition is not a threat by default. And it means understanding that regional stability is not preserved through suspicion but through credibility.

The tragedy of Osman Hadi’s death should have been a moment for empathy and restraint. Instead, it is becoming a catalyst for deeper division. If India continues to allow its media and political discourse to inflame rather than inform, it risks locking the relationship with Bangladesh into a cycle of hostility that will endure far beyond the current crisis.

What is at stake is not just bilateral goodwill but the basic architecture of trust in South Asia. Once that collapses, rebuilding it may take not months or years but generations.

Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden.

The Congress will fight the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections on its own, the party’s Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala was quoted as saying by The Hindu on Saturday.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is the governing civic body for Mumbai.

On Monday, the State Election Commission announced that the elections for 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including the BMC, will be held in a single phase on January 15. The results will be declared on January 16.

“We will fight against the BJP, we will fight against the Shiv Sena Uddhav group,” Chennithala was quoted as saying on Saturday. “We appeal to all the secular, democratic Mumbaikars to support us.”

The Congress is part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which also includes the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), on the state level.

The alliance had fought the Maharashtra Assembly elections held in November 2024 together. It was defeated by the Mahayuti coalition, which comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena group led by Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party faction of Ajit Pawar.

Chennithala’s announcement came two days after Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that the party would contest the civic polls in Mumbai on its own if the Uddhav Sena joins hands with Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

“If we go with MNS, who will vote for us?” Sawant was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. “Will the North Indians, the Muslims, vote for us? The ideology of MNS and Congress are different, we cannot have any alliance with them.”

In August, Uddhav Sena MP Sanjay Raut said that his party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will contest the municipal elections in the state, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls, in alliance.

In addition to Mumbai, talks were underway to contest the municipal polls together in Thane, Nashik, Kalyan Dombivali and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Raut had said, adding that “no one can break the unity of the Thackerays”.

On Saturday, Chennithala said that the Congress decided to go solo in the BMC elections as the party’s “local cadres want it”, reported The Hindu.

“We have given them the permission to do so,” he was quoted as saying. “We are preparing our manifesto. We will bring it to the people of Mumbai.”

In 2005, Raj Thackeray quit the undivided Shiv Sena and formed the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena a year later.

The Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena were political rivals for the past two decades.

However, on July 5, Uddhav Thackeray held a rally with his cousin Raj Thackeray, during which he said that they had “come together to stay together”.

“We have united to protect Marathi,” Uddhav Thackeray had told supporters of his Shiv Sena faction and those of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena at a joint rally in Mumbai. “I want to tell you all that us coming together is just a trailer. This is just the beginning.”

The Enforcement Directorate has moved the Delhi High Court, challenging a trial court order that dismissed a money-laundering complaint against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi in the National Herald case, reported Live Law on Friday.

The central agency filed the petition on Wednesday, describing the trial court order as “erroneous”, according to PTI.

On Tuesday, Special Judge Vishal Gogne of the Rouse Avenue Court said that the complaint filed by the central agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was not maintainable because the case is based on a private complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy before a magistrate.

It was not based on a first information report, the judge said, adding that cognisance of the complaint was “impermissible in law”.

The Enforcement Directorate can initiate a money-laundering case only based on an FIR pertaining to an alleged offence mentioned in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the court further added.

The judge also said that because the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing had recently registered an FIR in the case, it would be premature to decide on the merits of the allegations made by the Enforcement Directorate.

In its petition, the central agency told the High Court that the trial court judgement “amounts to judicial legislation” as it sought to “add words to the expression ‘scheduled offence’ to mean ‘scheduled offence only registered by a law enforcement agency’”, reported PTI.

It added that it was important to impose a stay on the order to “prevent irreparable loss” to the money laundering investigation against the Congress leader and to secure the attached proceeds of alleged crime worth Rs 752 crore.

The Congress described the action as a “political vendetta undertaken against the Gandhis at the behest of the BJP government”, reported PTI.

The allegations

In April 2008, the National Herald newspaper, which was founded and edited by Jawaharlal Nehru before he became India’s first prime minister, suspended operations as it had incurred a debt of over Rs 90 crore.

Swamy filed a complaint against the newspaper in 2012, alleging that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi set up an entity named Young Indian to buy the debt using the funds from the party.

The BJP leader alleged that Young Indian paid only Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.2 crore that the Associated Journals Limited owed to the Congress.

The Congress has claimed that there was no money exchange, and that only debt was converted into equity to pay off certain dues including employee salaries.

On October 3, Enforcement Directorate Assistant Director Shiv Kumar Gupta filed a complaint with the Delhi Police alleging government properties originally allotted to Associated Journals Limited at concessional rates for public welfare activities were allegedly “diverted for personal gain”.

The FIR invoked sections of the Indian Penal Code relating to cheating, criminal conspiracy, dishonest misappropriation of property and criminal breach of trust.

It named Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda, Young Indian, Dotex Merchandise Private Limited, its promoter Sunil Bhandari, Associated Journals Limited and other unidentified persons.

The Enforcement Directorate alleged that the case concerns a “serious form of criminal conspiracy and financial fraud”, asserting that Young Indian, which is owned by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, fraudulently took control of Associated Journals Limited properties worth more than Rs 2,000 crore for a “paltry sum” of only Rs 50 lakh.

“The accused persons have exploited these assets by engaging in fraudulent activities such as collecting bogus rents or generating fake revenue through sham advertisements, thereby laundering illicit money under the guise of legitimate transactions,” the complaint had alleged.

In November, the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing registered a fresh FIR based on the Enforcement Directorate’s request under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which allows the agency to share evidence to enable registration of predicate offences.

A passenger taking a flight from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday accused an Air India Express pilot of assaulting him during an altercation in the security check area.

On Saturday, Air India Express expressed regret for the incident and said that the pilot, identified as Virender Sejwal, had been removed from duty pending an internal investigation. The Ministry of Civil Aviation said that it had directed the airline to ground the pilot with immediate effect.

In a social media post, the passenger, Ankit Dewan, alleged that the incident had taken place at Terminal 1 of the airport while he was travelling with his family, which included a four-month-old baby in a stroller.

They were travelling for a holiday on a SpiceJet flight.

Dewan said that the airport staff had directed his family to use the security check area meant for staff and persons with reduced mobility because they were travelling with an infant.

“The staff was cutting the queue ahead of me,” he said on social media. “On calling them out, Captain Virender, who himself was doing the same thing, asked me if I was anpadh (uneducated), and couldn’t read the signs that said this entry was for staff.”

An argument broke out, he added.

“Not able to exercise restraint, the AIX [Air India Express] pilot proceeded to physically assault me, leaving me bloody,” Dewan said.

Sharing a video of the alleged incident in another post, Dewan claimed that his wife had heard Sejwal telling the Central Industrial Security Force personnel about hitting him. However, no action was taken, he added.

He also alleged a delay in receiving medical aid.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has taken serious cognizance of the incident and directed the airline to ground the pilot with immediate effect.
A formal enquiry has been ordered. Detailed reports have been sought from BCAS and CISF.

— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 20, 2025

“I have no clue how Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Air India Express can allow such pilots to fly,” Dewan said. “If they cannot keep their cool in a scuffle, can they be trusted with the lives of hundreds of people in the sky?”

He also asked how the Delhi airport could get away with such “mismanagement, combining staff entry with passengers carrying infants, creating chaos at a sensitive security area”.

On Saturday, Air India Express said that it regretted the “incident at Delhi Airport, involving one of our employees who was traveling as a passenger on another airline”.

“We extend our heartfelt empathy for the distress it has caused, and strongly condemn such behaviour,” the airline stated. “The concerned employee has been removed from official duties with immediate effect, and appropriate action will be taken pending thorough investigation.”

It added: “We remain fully committed to provide due cooperation to law enforcement authorities to ensure a fair and thorough process.”

Later in the day, the civil aviation ministry also said that it had taken “serious cognisance of the incident and directed the airline to ground the pilot with immediate effect”.

The ministry added that a formal enquiry had also been ordered and detailed reports sought from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and the Central Industrial Security Force.

More than 120 flights were cancelled at the Delhi airport on Saturday amid dense smog, The Times of India reported.

Of the total, 66 flights were scheduled to arrive at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and 63 were to depart.

Later in the day, the airport issued an advisory, saying that low visibility procedures were in progress. “All flight operations are presently normal,” it said. “Passengers are advised to contact their respective airlines for the latest flight updates.”

The Ministry of Civil Aviation also said that airport operations had been impacted due to prevailing fog conditions in parts of northern India.

“Passengers are advised to proactively check flight status, remain in touch with their airlines and plan travel accordingly,” it stated. “Passenger facilitation teams are available at airports to assist travellers.”

The India Meteorological Department issued an orange alert in Delhi for dense to very dense fog, warning that adverse weather conditions were likely to persist through the day, India Today reported.

Fog conditions would remain severe during early morning and late evening hours, increasing the risk of disruptions to road, rail and air travel, it added.

Passenger Advisory issued at 13:00 hours.

Please click on this link for real-time winter-ready travel updates: https://https://t.co/1grW9nhpAb#DelhiAirport #PassengerAdvisory #DELAdvisory pic.twitter.com/By8oBQqYYW

— Delhi Airport (@DelhiAirport) December 20, 2025

A day earlier, the civil aviation ministry directed airlines to strictly follow passenger facilitation norms during low-visibility conditions, India Today reported.

It directed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to ensure compliance, while airlines were asked to provide timely updates on delays, rescheduling, cancellations and diversions across all communication channels.

AQI in the national capital

The cancellations on Saturday came as Delhi’s air quality remained in the “very poor” category.

The national capital’s average Air Quality Index stood at 396 at 2.05 pm, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Twenty-two of the city’s 40 monitoring stations recorded AQI readings above 400.

This was a slight increase from a day earlier, when the average AQI stood at 374. The AQI was 373 on Thursday and 334 on Wednesday.

An index value between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air. Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” and “severe plus” categories signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

Stage 4 restrictions of the Graded Response Action Plan have been imposed in Delhi and the National Capital Region amid the pollution levels.

The region has been recording air quality in the “poor” or worse categories since mid-October.

Air quality deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular pollution, along with the lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

Seven elephants were killed and one injured after a herd was hit by a train in Assam’s Hojai district early on Saturday, a forest officer told Scroll.

No passengers were injured in the incident.

Rohini Ballave Saikia, who was on his way to site, said that the engine and five coaches of the Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express derailed in the collision.

The Northeast Frontier Railway said that the train collided with the herd at 2.17 am in the Jamunamukh-Kampur section under the Lumding Division, which is about 126 km away from Guwahati.

An accident relief train with officials from the divisional headquarters is at site, the railways said in a statement.

Passengers travelling in the coaches have been temporarily accommodated in vacant berths available in other coaches, it added.

The railways said that the incident occurred at a location that was not a designated elephant corridor.

“The locopilot on observing the herd of elephants applied emergency brakes,” it said. “However, elephants dashed with the train. Trains scheduled to pass through that section are being diverted through the UP line.”

The Northeast Frontier Railway said that restoration work was underway.

Suhas Kadam, divisional forest officer of the Nagaon forest division, told the Hindustan Times that three of the elephants who died were adults.

“One calf sustained injuries,” Kadam said. “We are conducting post-mortem of all the carcasses.”

Kadam also told PTI that the accident was suspected to have occurred because of dense fog.

Forty-one members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) surrendered before the Telangana Police on Friday, The Hindu reported.

This included six senior leaders and four state committee members, Director General of Police B Shivadhar Reddy said.

Reddy said that one of the prominent members who surrendered was 40-year-old Erragolla Ravi, alias Santhosh, from Arepally in Kamareddy, the Hindustan Times reported. Ravi was a state committee member and a divisional committee secretary who had been underground for 24 years, he added.

Kanikarapu Prabhanjan, 33, from Jannaram in Mancherial, who was a platoon committee member, was also among those who surrendered, the police chief said.

Several Maoist functionaries from Chhattisgarh also “chose to surrender before the Telangana police along with arms, following a call [in October] given by” the Telangana government, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The surrendered Maoists handed over 24 firearms, including one INSAS LMG, three AK-47 rifles, and five SLR rifles, along with 733 live rounds of ammunition of various calibres, to the police, PTI reported.

The surrender represents a “significant erosion of organisational strength, morale and leadership credibility” of the banned organisation, the director general of police said.

Shivadhar Reddy added that members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) were in a state of disarray as the party leadership had been arbitrarily deploying them to unfamiliar and distant areas without their consent, the Hindustan Times reported.

They were also often sent to regions where they lacked basic geographical knowledge and local support, he added.

This had resulted in serious mobility constraints and acute logistical difficulties, including shortages of essential day-to-day necessities, the director general of police said.

“Such conditions have caused growing frustration and hardship among the cadres, compelling many to disengage from the CPI (Maoist) organisation and choose to return to the mainstream of society,” he added.

Sustained pressure from security forces, along with non-cooperation and dilution of their logistic networks, had also resulted in restricted mobility and operational setbacks, Reddy said.

“Internal rifts, factionalism and leadership disputes within various formations of the CPI (Maoist) have also forced them to surrender,” the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying.

The surrendered Maoist functionaries carried a collective reward of Rs 1.4 crore, which would be disbursed to them as part of state and the central relief and rehabilitation policy, according to the newspaper.

The police chief said that an interim relief of Rs 25,000 each had also been given to them. Additional benefits would be extended as per the state rehabilitation and reintegration policy, he added.

Reddy said that 509 Communist Party of India (Maoist) cadres, including two central committee members and 11 state committee members, surrendered before the Telangana Police in 2025.

The Union government has vowed to end Maoism by March 31, 2026.

In October, the Union home ministry said that the number of districts across states affected by “Left-wing extremism” has come down to 11 from 18 in March.

In 2025, the number of “most affected” districts has also come down from six to three, it added. These are Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh.

On Tuesday, the Union government told Parliament that 335 “Left-wing extremists” had been killed, while 2,167 others had surrendered in 2025.

Additionally, 942 Left-wing extremists had been arrested this year, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha. Overall 1,841 such persons had been killed, more than 16,000 had been arrested, while 9,588 others had surrendered since 2014.

During the Centre’s anti-offensive this year, key Maoist leaders such as Madvi Hidma have been killed, while others such as Vikas Nagpure alias Anant and Mallojula Venugopal Rao, alias Bhupathi have surrendered.

A report by Malini Subramaniam for Scroll on Hidma’s killing noted that in the Andhra Pradesh village closest to where Hidma was killed, no one heard gunfire.

Subramaniam has also reported for Scroll that while many of those killed in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region in 2024 were declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists, several families dispute the claim. The families claim that the persons killed were civilians.

The engraving in my study is called Hindoo Students. Four young men sit and stand in a sparse interior, books piled casually around them, papers unfolded, conversation suspended mid-thought. They are in Indian attire of the mid-nineteenth century. Their posture is relaxed but intent. They look like students anywhere, at any time. And yet nothing about them was ordinary.

Their names are written beneath the image in careful script: Sooryo Coomar Chakerbarthy, Gopal Chandra Seal, Bholanath Bose, Dwarika Nath Basu. Early nineteenth century. Bengalees, the first a Brahmin, the others Kulin Kayasthas, also classified as high castes. Medical students. The first of their kind.

This engraving has been mine since 2000. I bought it from an antique print shop in Georgetown, Washington DC. It is hand coloured, delicately so, the pigments settled into the paper like they have wafted in with the mountain breeze outside my window. I was drawn to this picture and brought it home to India with me.

I knew instinctively that this was not a decorative colonial print. It was an image of rupture.

The four men depicted here were students of the Calcutta Medical College who travelled to London in 1845 to study Western medicine. They crossed the kala pani, the black waters that orthodox Hindu society insisted no caste Hindu could cross without forfeiting ritual purity. They dissected human bodies. They learned anatomy, chemistry, surgery, and pathology in British institutions that had never imagined accommodating Indian students. And they did not merely attend. They excelled and were top of their class.

One of them, Bholanath Bose, won a gold medal. Another, Sooryo Coomar Chakerbarthy, went on to become the first Indian professor at the Calcutta Medical College and the first Indian to pass the Indian Medical Service examination. Their academic results were so strong that British observers struggled to reconcile them with prevailing racial theories. Lord Brougham publicly praised them at University College London, remarking with some astonishment that Indian students had outperformed many of their English peers.

This engraving captures an important moment in history. It represents one of the first encounters of India with Western education, with what we carelessly call, “modernity”. Western education in India would soon turn from experiment into system.

Look closely at the image. It is composed like a quiet debate. One student reads aloud from a paper. Another listens, chin resting on hand. A third leans back, arms crossed, assessing. The fourth watches, attentive, slightly apart. This is not an exotic tableau. It is an intellectual one. To me, and to you, dear reader, I am sure this distinction matters.

Colonial imagery often depicted Indians as recipients of instruction, passive vessels into which European knowledge was poured. Here, the students are agents. They read. They discuss. They interpret. The books around them are not props. They are tools.

This image emerges from what later came to be called the Bengal Renaissance, though at the time it felt less like a renaissance and more like controlled detonation. English education, formalised in the 1830s, was intended to produce useful intermediaries for empire. Instead, it produced young men who read Locke and Mill alongside the Upanishads, who argued about Bacon and Shakespeare in Calcutta drawing rooms, and who discovered, to their own surprise, that inherited certainty did not survive examination.

Around institutions like Hindu College, a generation began to form that history would label Young Bengal. They were impatient, argumentative, and they received attention since their brilliance shone throughout. They questioned caste, ritual authority, and the moral legitimacy of custom itself. Many paid for this intellectually with social exile. Families disowned sons. Communities closed ranks. Reform was not a dinner party. It was a breach.

The four students in this engraving are not shown preaching reform, but they stand inside its blast radius. They represent the moment when Western education stopped being an ornament and became an instrument. The moment when knowledge stopped confirming hierarchy and began to interrogate it.

The title Hindoo Students is doing more work than it seems. It reassures the colonial audience that what they are seeing is still legible through familiar categories. These are Hindus. These are natives. The spelling itself betrays the moment. But the image undermines the label. Nothing in their posture, their activity or their surroundings conforms to the expected visual grammar of colonial difference.

They are not being taught. They are studying.

This subtle shift marks the beginning of a deeper anxiety.

Western education in India was never meant to produce equals. It was meant to produce clerks, assistants, interpreters. The moment Indians demonstrated mastery rather than mimicry, the project revealed its internal contradiction. An empire built on hierarchy cannot comfortably educate its subjects to parity.

Calcutta Medical College mattered because it crossed a line others hesitated to approach. Founded in 1835, it introduced modern hospital medicine to India, complete with anatomy, pathology, and dissection. When Madhusudan Gupta performed the first sanctioned human dissection, it triggered outrage precisely because it made abstraction impossible. This was not book learning. This was contact.

Alongside Hindu College and even the Sanskrit College, which cautiously blended Western science with classical learning, Calcutta became an educational laboratory. These institutions were not isolated experiments. They formed an ecosystem designed to produce a new kind of Indian: literate in English, fluent in science, and capable of functioning inside imperial systems without fully belonging to them.

The students in this image are products of that system, but also evidence of its instability. They learnt more than Gray’s Anatomy, they were grasping a universe of new learning. The study of medicine enabled them also to grasp the power of scientific modernity.

The engraving captures that moment.

The hand colouring enhances this effect. The tones are muted. Blues, reds, and ochres are applied sparingly. Skin tones are not exaggerated. Nothing shouts. The image asks to be studied, not consumed.

And there is more. Although often discussed alongside early colonial photography, this image is an engraving, not a photograph, and that matters. Engraving allowed control, correction, and idealization. What we see here is not just the captured moment but a composed argument about what Indian students could be allowed to look like.

That is why it survives so well as an object. Steel engravings were designed for endurance. They hold detail without fragility. But the colouring is vulnerable. Light can bleach it. Time can dull it. This is not accidental. The colour was always secondary to the line.

Ideas first. Ornament later.

Owning this print has changed the way I think about historical time. We often imagine modernity arriving with drama: proclamations, revolutions, flags raised and lowered. But most modernity arrives quietly, in rooms like the one depicted here, through habits of reading, arguing, testing, and revising.

These four students did not overthrow empire. They did something more unsettling. They demonstrated competence, the competence that is corrosive to hierarchy. Once demonstrated, it demands to be seen.

Within a generation, Indian professionals would fill hospitals, courtrooms, universities, and administrative offices. The question would no longer be whether Indians could master Western knowledge, but whether the empire could survive educating them.

Seen from that angle, Hindoo Students becomes less a celebration and more a call to action, though one the original publishers may not have fully understood.

I sometimes imagine these four men pausing mid-discussion, looking up, momentarily aware that they are being observed, that their presence in this room is already doing work beyond their intentions. Then they return to the page. There is an exam to pass. A lecture to attend. A future to negotiate.

History, after all, is not lived as history.

It is lived as study, as contemplation, as cross-fertilisation.

And this engraving, quietly hanging on my study wall, continues to do what it has always done best: insist that the beginning of something world-changing can look deceptively ordinary.

This article was first published on Notes from Beyond.

Large-scale violence erupted in Bangladesh after the death of a prominent leader in the 2024 student protest that led to the ouster of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led government. The activist, Sharif Osman Hadi had been shot on December 12 while he was leaving a mosque in Dhaka, and died on Thursday in a hospital in Singapore.

After news of his death broke on Thursday night, his supporters took to the streets of Dhaka, demanding action against his killers.

Groups of protesters vandalised the offices of two Bangladeshi newspapers, Prothom Alo and The Daily Star. Demonstrators also reportedly bulldozed the regional office of Hasina’s Awami League in the northern city of Rajshahi.

The head of Bangladesh’s interim government Muhammad Yunus described Hadi’s death as an “irreparable loss for the nation” and urged protestors to maintain calm. He announced special prayers at mosques on Friday and a day of mourning on Saturday. Read more.

A collective of workers’ unions called off a protest against the bill to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme after the Delhi Police denied permission for the demonstration. The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha was slated to hold the protest against the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Bill on Friday.

The protest was slated to be held at Jantar Mantar, the designated site for such gatherings in the national capital. However, the police warned the organisers against going ahead with the protest, saying that they had failed to give the authorities 10 days’ advance notice.

The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha said it condemns the police’s “high-handedness” and asserted that it intended to continue protesting against the repeal of MGNREGA at every opportunity.

Activists have criticised the VB – Ram G bill for effectively upending the rights-based framework that formed the bedrock of the MGNREGA, which the United Progressive Alliance government had introduced back in 2005. Read more.

The Singapore Police reiterated that its investigations so far do no indicate any foul play in the death of singer Zubeen Garg. The clarification came a week after a Special Investigation Team in India filed a chargesheet in Guwahati accusing four persons of murdering the singer.

Garg died on September 19 during a yacht trip in Singapore, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the North East India Festival. A death certificate issued by the authorities in the southeast Asian country on the next day said that he died of drowning.

However, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has repeatedly claimed that Garg’s death was not accidental but was a murder.

In this backdrop, the Singapore Police on Thursday requested the patience and understanding of those involved and urged the public “not to speculate and spread unverified information”. Read on.

The Delhi High Court set aside an order issued by the Lokpal permitting the Central Bureau of Investigation to file a chargesheet against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra in connection with a cash-for-queries case. The agency has alleged that Moitra shared her login credentials to the Parliament website with businessman Darshan Hiranandani and accepted gifts in exchange for asking questions in the Lok Sabha.

Moitra has admitted to sharing her Parliament login details with Hiranandani but denied receiving any cash or gifts.

The High Court, while setting aside the Lokpal’s order on Friday, said that the anti-corruption ombudsman made an error in understanding provisions of the Lokpal Act.

It directed the Lokpal to reconsider the sanction for prosecution in accordance with the law within a month. Read more.

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Names of 97.3 lakh persons were removed from the draft voter lists in Tamil Nadu as part of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls. In Gujarat, 73.7 lakh names were removed.

Of the 97 lakh entries that were deleted in Tamil Nadu, 66.4 lakh had changed their residences, 26.9 lakh had died and 3.9 lakh had been enrolled in multiple places, data released by the chief electoral officer showed.

The deletion from the draft roll is provisional and citizens can object to their names being removed from the list. Citizens in both states whose names have been dropped from the list will be able to file their claims and objections till January 18.

There are 2.6 crore men and 2.7 crore women in the state’s draft list, the Deccan Herald reported.

Chennai recorded the highest drop of about 35% as names of about 14.2 lakh voters in the city were removed from the draft roll, the newspaper reported.

In Gujarat, the number of voters in the draft list fell to 4.3 crore from 5 crore.

Of the 73.7 lakh entries that were deleted in the state, 51.8 lakh had changed their residences, 18 lakh had died and 3.8 lakh had been enrolled in multiple places, data released by the chief electoral officer showed.

The revised enumeration period in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat ended on December 14.

Tamil Nadu is expected to head for Assembly elections in the first half of 2026, and Gujarat at the end of 2027.

The Election Commission on Tuesday published the draft electoral rolls for West Bengal. The names of more than 58 lakh voters had been removed from voter lists.

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

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

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.

India knows how to count the poor. From ration cards to multi-decade surveys such as the National Sample Survey, there are sophisticated systems to track deprivation – who’s getting by, who’s falling behind, who needs support.

But when it comes to the rich – or even just the securely well-off – we’re oddly clueless.

This isn’t just a data oversight. It’s a conceptual blind spot in how we think about economic life. In a country where inequality is widening and wealth is concentrating, we still don’t have a clear picture of who’s doing well, how they live, and what that means for the rest of society.

What people own – and what that ownership says about their place in the social and economic hierarchy – is one of the most revealing indicators we have. Research by this author suggests a way to access and use that information.

The rich are hiding in plain sight

Affluence is everywhere – in the high-rise towers of Gurugram, the global luxury brands in Delhi’s malls, the soaring numbers of Indians flying business class, sending their kids abroad, or buying second homes. India has more than 1.4 million dollar-millionaires, according to theCredit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2023 – and yet, we don’t have reliable public data on what they earn or consume.

That’s because our national surveys were never designed to study affluence. The NSS, for example, tracks consumption patterns, but its focus is primarily on essential goods. Surveys like the India Human Development Survey, one of our most comprehensive, only recently started collecting income data, and even then, it’s plagued by underreporting.

In India, talking about money is still uncomfortable. People are hesitant to disclose income, especially if it’s informal, untaxed, or variable. Wealthier households – the ones we most need to understand – are also more likely to skip or fudge those questions.

So researchers often use consumption as a proxy. But consumption data can’t distinguish between spending on basic needs and luxury indulgences. It also fails to explain long-term economic stability. You can’t study wealth by looking at what someone spent last week.

This leaves us with a glaring gap: if income is unreliable and consumption incomplete, how do we measure affluence?

What you own tells a better story

This question has been driving this author’s recent research, Asset Index as an Indicator of Household Permanent Income in India: Comparison with Total Expenditure and Income, published in the Journal of Quantitative Methods (Spring 2025).

The core idea is simple: instead of asking how much people earn or spend, we look at what they own. Durable goods like air conditioners, cars, refrigerators, mobile phones – combined with housing quality and land ownership – tell us a lot about long-term financial stability.

Using data from two phases of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS: 2004-’05 and 2011-’12), this author constructed a Weighted Asset Index – a composite score based on household assets and amenities. Then, the study tracked how well that score held up over time, compared to reported income and total consumption.

The results were clear. The asset index was significantly more stable across the two survey waves, capturing the kind of permanent income economists care about – the kind that influences how people plan, invest, and live over time.

It also avoided the cultural awkwardness of asking about income. People might not say how much they make, but they’ll easily tell you if they have a washing machine or piped water.

This approach builds on earlier work by economists like Deon Filmer and Lant Pritchett, who used asset indices to study poverty in data-poor settings. But here, the focus flips: we use assets to understand the affluent, not just the deprived.

Asset-based measures also offer a more consistent view of household status across contexts. For instance, in rural areas where income is seasonal or informal, assets can reveal long-term economic standing more reliably than temporary income spikes or lulls.

This isn’t just about better data – it’s about power

Measuring affluence isn’t just a methodological refinement – it’s fundamental to understanding the politics of inequality.

If we don’t know who the rich are, we can’t tax them fairly. We can’t assess whether subsidies are regressive. We can’t design targeted social programs that distinguish between those struggling to survive and those comfortably coasting on generational wealth.

As economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel emphasized in their Indian Income Inequality (2017), India faces a stark data vacuum at the top of the income distribution. While poverty is meticulously documented, wealth remains understudied — fragmented across sources, inconsistently reported, and often hidden behind private databases or corporate structures.

Economist Shruti Rajagopalan has similarly argued that India’s tax system fails to reflect real wealth. High-income individuals often restructure or obscure their earnings, placing large portions of economic activity beyond the reach of formal taxation. Without systematic visibility into affluence, inequality debates become lopsided – overly focused on bottom-up deprivation while ignoring top-down concentration.

Public narratives around wealth don’t help much either. They tend to rely on spectacle – Ambani weddings, unicorn IPOs, private jets – rather than hard data. Even environmental discussions often overlook this asymmetry. A 2021 analysis published by Manu Moudgil highlighted how the top 20 percent of high-expenditure households in India are responsible for seven times the emissions of the poorest groups, yet this carbon inequality rarely features in mainstream climate policy debates.

As explored in journalist-author Snigdha Poonam’s 2018 book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World, rising consumerism is reshaping the aspirations of rural and small-town youth. Many young men invest in branded fashion, smartphones, motorcycles, and coaching classes – often borrowing heavily – to project an image of success aligned with urban ideals. Yet, our national data systems remain poorly equipped to capture these deeper cultural and financial shifts at scale.

Without better tools to study affluence, we’re left with an incomplete picture of inequality – and an even weaker foundation for building equitable, sustainable policy.

From poverty-centric to affluence-aware

This doesn’t mean we abandon the focus on poverty. But we have to recognize that inequality is a relationship, and to understand who’s at the bottom, we need to study who’s at the top.

A truly inclusive policy framework must account for both deprivation and privilege. That means: updating national surveys to track discretionary and luxury consumption; normalizing the use of asset indices as proxies for long-term wealth; integrating psychological and sociological insights into economic surveys, and using this data to inform tax, welfare, and climate policies that reflect actual economic realities.

It also means asking harder cultural questions. Why do we consider it impolite to talk openly about income, yet feel comfortable displaying wealth so lavishly at weddings? What does it say about changing values when luxury car sales surge, even as fewer Indians buy their first affordable cars? And why has the rapid rise of a consumer class – so central to India’s growth story – gone largely unmeasured?

Affluence-aware research can help answer these questions. It can uncover the hidden assumptions that shape not just policy, but politics, aspirations, and class identity.

Because India’s economic future doesn’t hinge only on who is lifted above the poverty line – but also on how far others stay above it, often invisibly.

Soumyajit Bhar is Assistant Dean of Admissions and Outreach and a founding faculty member at the School of Liberal Studies, BML Munjal University. He holds a PhD in Sustainability Studies from ATREE and researches the socio-psychological drivers of conspicuous consumption and its environmental impacts in India.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

The Singapore Police reiterated on Thursday that it does not suspect any foul play in the death of singer Zubeen Garg based on its investigations so far.

Garg, a renowned Assamese singer, died on September 19 during a yacht trip in Singapore, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the North East India Festival there.

A death certificate issued by the authorities in the southeast Asian country on September 20 stated the cause of Garg’s death as drowning.

On October 17 too, the Singapore Police had said that it did not suspect foul play in the singer’s death following preliminary investigations into the matter.

The police said on Thursday that it is still investigating the case, and that once the process is complete, it will submit its findings to the State Coroner, a judicial officer. The officer will then hold a Coroner’s Inquiry, which is scheduled for January and February, the police added,

In Singapore, a Coroner’s Inquiry is a fact-finding process aimed at establishing the causes and circumstances of a person’s death.

The police statement acknowledged that on December 12, a Special Investigation Team in India filed a chargesheet in a Guwahati court, accusing four out of the seven arrested persons of murder.

The Singapore Police Force requested the patience and understanding of those involved and urged the public “not to speculate and spread unverified information”.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has repeatedly claimed that Garg’s death was not accidental but was a murder.

The event where the singer was scheduled to perform had been organised by the Indian government and the Indian High Commission in Singapore, with support from the Assam Association and the North East India Association in the country.

The four persons who have been charged for murder by the SIT are Shyamkanu Mahanta, who was the organiser of the North East India Festival, Garg’s manager Siddharatha Sharma and two musicians who were with the singer on the yacht – Shekharjyoti Goswami and Amritprava Mahanta.

Besides, Zubeen Garg’s cousin, Deputy Superintendent of Police Sandipan Garg, who had travelled with him to Singapore, has been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, while two of the singer’s personal security officers have been accused of criminal breach of trust.

Also read:

• Are Assam protests over Zubeen Garg’s death becoming a political challenge for Himanta?

• Why musician Zubeen Garg’s death has unleashed a storm of anger in Assam

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ruled that live-in relationships are not illegal and that the state is bound to protect every citizen from any threats or interference, regardless of their marital status, The Indian Express reported.

Justice Vivek Kumar Singh ruled that living together without marriage is not an offence, and that adults in live-in relationships are entitled to the protection of life and personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution, Bar and Bench reported.

“Mere fact that the petitioners have not solemnized marriage, would not deprive them of their fundamental right as envisaged in the Constitution of India being citizens of India,” the court said.

The ruling came in response to petitions filed by 12 women in live-in relationships who sought police protection after alleging threats to their lives, The Indian Express reported.

They claimed that they had approached local police for help but received no support.

In response to the petitions, the court held: “The concept of a live-in relationship may not be acceptable to all, but it cannot be said that such a relationship is an illegal one or that living together without the sanctity of the marriage constitutes an offence.”

Singh emphasised on an adult’s right to autonomy including in matters of choosing a partner and where to live, Bar and Bench reported.

“Once an individual, who is a major, has chosen his/her partner, it is not for any other person, be it a family member, to object and cause a hindrance to their peaceful existence,” the court said while holding that right to human life stands at a “much higher pedestal,” Live Law reported.

The court rejected arguments from the state counsel, who had contended that live-in relationships could not “be accepted at the cost of our country’s social fabric”, The Indian Express reported.

The counsel had also argued that live-in relationships could not be legally recognised and were akin to a contract that could be terminated at will, thus leading to complications in legal matters such as the status of children born out of such relationships.

However, Singh found these arguments unconvincing.

As part of its ruling, the court said the petitioners can approach the commissioner of police, senior superintendent of police, or superintendent of police, with a certified copy of the court order, if any disruption occurs in their peaceful living.

Police officers, upon confirming that the individuals are adults and living together voluntarily, are required to provide immediate protection and take no coercive action against them, The Indian Express quoted the court as saying.

“If they do not have any documentary proof regarding age and they come from a rural background and or are illiterate/semi-literate, the police officer can subject such a boy or girl to an ossification test to verify their correct age,” the court added.

Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz and nine other academics on Thursday wrote an open letter to the Indian government saying that repealing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act “would be a historic error”.

The letter came on a day when the Lok Sabha passed the 2025 Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace MGNREGA. The draft legislation was also cleared by the Rajya Sabha on Friday amid protests by Opposition parties. It awaits presidential assent.

MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

While the wage bill for the scheme is borne by the Union government, the states share the cost of materials and administrative expenses.

The new bill proposes increasing the number of guaranteed working days to 125 from 100 and raising the state’s share of the costs to 40%.

Describing MGNREGA as a “landmark legislation”, the academics on Thursday urged the Narendra Modi government to recommit to the Act. MGNREGA “stands as the world’s most significant policy operationalising a demand-driven, legal right to employment”, they said.

The Act being replaced “affirms economic dignity as a fundamental right” and empirical evidence “underscores its impact”, the academics said.

“The early years of the Act coincided with unprecedented rural wage growth, and studies confirmed the program’s positive effects on economic output and efficiency, dispelling myths of unproductivity,” the group added.

They said that chronic underfunding and delay in payments had for long hampered the employment guarantee scheme's implementation.

The signatories added: “The current shift to devolve the scheme to states and without commensurate fiscal support, now threatens its existence. States lack the central government’s financial capacity.”

“The new funding pattern creates a catastrophic Catch-22: states bear legal liability for providing employment, while central financing is withdrawn,” they added. “Previously contributing only 25% of material costs, states now face burdens of 40% to 100% of total costs, ensuring poorer states will curb project approvals, directly stifling work demand.”

The “structural sabotage is compounded by discretionary ‘switch-off’ powers”, the academics said, adding that this would allow the scheme to be suspended and render the guarantee meaningless.

“The unexplained defunding of West Bengal in the last three years exemplifies this political misuse,” they added. “The new framework institutionalises this risk, imposing unfunded mandates on states without consultation.”

In March 2022, the Union government suspended MGNREGA funding to West Bengal, citing widespread irregularities and alleged violations of the scheme’s implementation rules by the state government.

West Bengal received Rs 7,507 crore in the financial year 2021-’22 under MGNREGA but has received no funds in the following three financial years.

On December 5, the Union government told Parliament that it was in the “process of reworking and refining the necessary modalities and procedures” to resume the scheme under the Act in West Bengal.

The signatories said that MGNREGA not only provides wages but also helps build important rural infrastructure such as wells, roads and ponds, and stimulates the local economies. “By making projects financially untenable for states, these multiplier effects are extinguished,” they said.

The signatories also include Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Pavlina Tcherneva, the president and professor of economics at The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College in New York, and Thomas Piketty, the co-director of the World Inequality Lab.

The proposed legislation states that the Union government will determine the state-wise normative allocation for each financial year based on “objective parameters”. It also proposed that only the Union government can notify rural areas in a state where the scheme will be implemented.

As per the bill, the governments in the North East states, Himalayan states (Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) and the Union Territories with legislature (Jammu and Kashmir) will contribute to 10% of the scheme’s funding.

The Centre will bear all costs in Union Territories that do not have a legislature.

The proposed legislation retains the provision that a person is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days of applying under the scheme. The cost of the allowance will be borne by the state governments.

Significant rollback of workers’ rights: Right to Food campaign

On Friday, the Right to Food Campaign, a network of activists working on food and nutrition, said that the VB-G RAM G bill marked a “significant rollback of hard-won statutory guarantees” for workers’ rights.

Describing the passing of the bill in Parliament as a “dark day for workers’ rights”, the activists said that repealing MGNREGA “undermines the right to work of people and all principles of decentralisation, community participation and federalism”.

The bill does not reform employment guarantee but destroys it, they said in a statement, adding that by repealing MGNREGA, the Union government had “converted a demand-based legal right to work into a centralised, discretionary, budget-capped scheme, fully controlled by” it.

It claimed that employment was no longer guaranteed by law but was subject to annual allocations, political priorities and fiscal arbitrariness.

“This is a betrayal of rural workers, especially women, landless households, Dalits, Adivasis, and migrants who depend on MGNREGA for survival and dignity,” the activists said.

The statement also said that the Union government’s claim that the proposed legislation signified an improvement from the old Act as it provided 125 days of employment in place of 100 was “just an illusion”.

It added: “Under the MGNREGA, on average only about 50 days of work per household has been provided per household, with the entitlements being undermined through delayed payments, low wages, digital exclusions and so on.”

The activists said that the VB-G RAM G bill makes it worse by including state-wise “normative allocations” imposed by the Union government. Any expenditure above these allocations were to be borne entirely by the state government.

“With such restrictions, the amount of work provided will only decrease further,” they said.

Noting that the fiscal burden on state governments would also increase with the shift to a 60:40 cost-sharing ratio for wages, the activists added that “this changed cost-sharing norms increases the burden on the already fiscally starved state governments and would disproportionately harm poorer states where the capacity to spend is low”.

They also claimed that the bill “systematically erodes” all principles of decentralisation by shifting most decision making powers to the Union government.

Claiming that MGNREGA had also been systematically undermined over the last decade through several administrative interventions, the activists said that what was required was strengthening it by increasing the wage rate, withdrawing mandatory digital attendance and Aadhaar-linked payments, strengthening social audits and empowering local communities, among other such steps.

“Instead, what we have now is the VB-GRAM G which represents a rollback of hard-won workers’ rights, centralises authority, and leaves the most vulnerable behind,” they added.

The statement also claimed that the draft legislation was brought to Parliament in “total secrecy”.

“In flagrant violation of basic democratic norms & provisions of the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, the government did not make public the proposed legislation and did not hold any public consultations,” it said.

The activists claimed that the “tearing hurry with which the bill was railroaded through Parliament” prevented any meaningful deliberation and parliamentary scrutiny.

Also read:

• BJP chief ministers wanted MGNREGA to include farm work. Modi government’s bill goes another way
• ‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill

The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, an umbrella organisation of workers’ unions from across the country, on Friday called off its march against the Modi government’s Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Bill, after the Delhi Police denied permission for it.

The protest was slated to be held on Friday at Jantar Mantar, the designated site for such gatherings in the national capital. The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha had given the call for it on Thursday.

However, the police wrote to the organisers the same day, warning them against going ahead with the protest. They said that any violation of its directive could lead to legal action.

Scroll has seen a copy of this letter, which was signed by Anand Kumar Mishra, one of the additional deputy commissioners of police in the New Delhi district. The letter said that the organisers had failed to give the authorities 10 days’ advance notice about the protest.

But social scientist Rajendran Narayanan, a member of the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, took strong exception to this reasoning.

“It takes two days to repeal an Act that has been in force for 20 years, but we civilians need to give 10 days of notice to register our protest,” he remarked to Scroll. “The right to work has been repealed and the right to protest is being denied.”

Narayanan was referring to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which the Narendra Modi-led government has replaced with the VB-G RAM G Bill. Despite Opposition protests, the bill, which was introduced in Parliament only on Tuesday, was passed in both houses on Thursday, just a day before the end of the Winter Session.

The decision has stoked concern in India’s civil society, given the far-reaching impact the employment guarantee scheme has on rural livelihoods. Activists have criticised the bill for effectively upending the rights-based framework that formed the bedrock of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which the United Progressive Alliance government had introduced back in 2005.

MGNREGA guaranteed a minimum of 100 days’ work to every rural household in India annually, which was to be paid for by the Union government. Though the VB-G RAM G bill replacing MGNREGA ostensibly proposes to increase this guarantee to 125 days of work, experts worry about its fine print.

The new law partially shifts the financial burden of the policy to the states while also expanding the Centre’s discretionary power when it comes to its implementation. This, activists say, is a significant departure from the demand-based, decentralised nature of its predecessor.

“There are 26 crore registered workers under NREGA [shortened form of MGNREGA] in the country,” Narayanan added. “You are changing their destiny in three days. How can you decide something so significant like this?”

On Friday, despite the Delhi Police denying them permission, Narayanan and a few other NREGA Sangharsh Morcha members gathered to protest at Jantar Mantar, where they were joined by five Opposition MPs. The police eventually forced them to leave.

“NREGA Sangharsh Morcha condemns such high-handedness and asserts its intention to continue protesting against the repeal of MGNREGA at every opportunity,” the organisation said in a press statement issued later. “We appeal to all concerned organisations and citizens to join the country-wide wave of protests against this attack on the right to work and right to protest.”

Calls and messages to the deputy commissioner as well as the additional deputy commissioner of police in the New Delhi district went unanswered. This story will be updated if and when they respond.

The denial of permission for the protest came just five weeks after the Delhi Police allegedly pressured the organisers of a protest against the hazardous levels of air pollution in the city to call off their stir. At that time, Scroll had reported that police officials had called the organisers and threatened to file first information reports against them.

The Delhi High Court on Friday set aside an order issued by the Lokpal permitting the Central Bureau of Investigation to file a chargesheet against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra in connection with a cash-for-query row, Bar and Bench reported.

A division bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar ruled that the anti-corruption ombudsman had made an error in understanding provisions of the Lokpal Act, Live Law reported.

It directed the Lokpal to reconsider the sanction for prosecution in accordance with the law within a month.

The case against Moitra, the legislator from West Bengal’s Krishnanagar constituency, stems from allegations that she shared her login credentials to the Parliament website with businessman Darshan Hiranandani and accepted gifts in exchange for asking questions in the Lok Sabha.

Moitra has admitted to sharing her Parliament login details with Hiranandani but denied receiving any cash or gifts.

The allegations against the Trinamool Congress MP were made in October 2023 by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, her estranged partner. Dubey also filed a complaint with the Lokpal, accusing Moitra of taking cash for bribes.

The anti-corruption ombudsman had directed the CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the matter, following which the central agency submitted its report in February 2024. In March 2024, the Lokpal directed the CBI to investigate the allegations made against Moitra.

This report was submitted by the central agency to the Lokpal in June, The Indian Express reported.

In August, Moitra was directed by the Lokpal to provide her comments to the report.

It passed the sanction order on November 12 after also granting her an opportunity for a hearing.

Moitra challenged the order allowing the CBI to file a chargesheet, arguing that it grossly violated the principles of natural justice, Live Law reported.

In her petition, she contended that her submissions, both written and verbal, were ignored before the sanction was granted.

Her petition also said that the sanction order reduced the role of the Lokpal to merely “rubber-stamping of the investigation report”, The Hindu reported.

Her counsel pointed out that under Section 20(7) of the Lokpal Act, the anti-corruption ombudsman was required to consider the comments and submissions of the accused before granting sanction for prosecution.

However, the CBI, represented by Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, submitted that Moitra was not entitled to a oral hearing by the Lokpal but was still given one, Live Law reported. Raju added that the law only required the accused to submit comments.

Amid a row over Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar pulling down a Muslim woman’s hijab at an event where he was distributing appointment letters to doctors, Union minister Giriraj Singh on Thursday said that it was up to her to refuse the government job or “go to hell”, PTI reported.

The event, during which appointment letters were distributed to newly-recruited AYUSH, or Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy practitioners had taken place at the chief minister’s secretariat in Patna on Monday.

In a video of the incident circulated widely on social media, Kumar is seen pointing towards the woman’s hijab when she came up to collect her letter. The Janata Dal (United) chief is then seen suddenly pulling the garment down.

Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who was standing behind him, appears to intervene and restrain Kumar, while state Health Minister Mangal Pandey and Deepak Kumar, the chief minister’s principal secretary, are seen laughing.

Kumar’s actions led to a controversy, with Opposition parties demanding an apology from the chief minister.

यह क्या हो गया है नीतीश जी को?
मानसिक स्थिति बिल्कुल ही अब दयनीय स्थिति में पहुंच चुकी है या नीतीश बाबू अब 100% संघी हो चुके हैं?@yadavtejashwi #RJD #bihar #TejashwiYadav pic.twitter.com/vRyqUaKhwm

— Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) December 15, 2025

Singh, however, claimed on Thursday that Kumar had done nothing wrong, ANI reported.

“If someone goes to collect their appointment letter, will they not show their face?” the news agency quoted the Union textile minister as telling reporters. “Is this an Islamic nation? Nitish Kumar did this as a guardian.”

He added: “Do you not show your face when you go to the passport office? Do you not show your face when you go to the airport?...This is India and it will be governed by the rule of law.”

Responding to reports that the woman had refused to take up the job after the incident, he said, “Whether she refuses the job or goes to hell, that’s her choice”, PTI reported.

In response to the chief minister’s actions and Singh’s remarks, Congress MP Tariq Anwar said that these were “third-rate people, they have a cheap mindset”, the news agency reported.

“They don’t understand that our country is secular,” PTI quoted the MP from Bihar’s Katihar as saying. “Everyone is free to practice their religion. What Nitish Kumar has done is shameful and saddening.”

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MP Fauzia Khan also criticised Kumar and Singh, saying that it was “very saddening that responsible people do such acts”.

Khan added that this would send a wrong message to the world.

“It is a personal decision of a woman as to how much she covers up and removing the veil is akin to disrobing a woman,” PTI quoted her as saying. “He [Kumar] should have given a public apology but instead of that they are saying that what happened was right.”

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah claimed that Singh’s statements were exactly what we can expect from the Bharatiya Janata Party, ANI reported.

“If it had been a Hindu woman from Rajasthan or Haryana, wearing a veil, and I had removed it, would the BJP have said the same thing?” the National Conference leader asked. “Imagine the uproar if a Muslim leader had removed the veil of a Hindu woman.”

Abdullah added: “But now, because it was a Muslim woman doctor, the BJP’s reaction is different. What else can we expect from them?”

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said that first Kumar displayed “utterly indecent, condemnable behaviour” by pulling down a woman’s hijab.

“Now, BJP leader Giriraj Singh abuses the victim and all women,” it said on social media. “Deeply communal and misogynistic – shame on them. We strongly protest and condemn.”

Peoples Democratic Party leader Iltija Mufti also criticised Singh, saying that “only phenyl will work to clean this man’s filthy mouth”.

“You dare not touch the hijabs & naqabs of our Muslim mothers and sisters,” Mufti said on social media. “Otherwise we Muslim women will set you right by teaching you a lesson you and your ilk will remember for all times to come.”

On Friday, Mufti also filed a complaint at the Kothi Bagh Police Station in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar against the chief minister for “violating the dignity of a Muslim woman by forcibly removing her naqaab”.

“Hope the Jammu and Kashmir Police takes cognisance of this violation,” she said on social media while also sharing a copy of the complaint. “Hands off our hijabs & naqaabs.”

Earlier, Amnesty International had issued a statement against Kumar, describing his actions as an “assault on this woman’s dignity, autonomy, and identity”.

“When a public official forcibly pulls down a woman’s hijab, it sends a message to the public that this behaviour is acceptable,” the human rights organisation said.

“Such actions deepen fear, normalise discrimination and erode the very foundations of equality and freedom of religion. This violation demands unequivocal condemnation and accountability,” it said. “Urgent steps must be taken to ensure that no woman is subjected to such degrading treatment.”

Also read: Pity, contempt and identity: The difference between the hijab and the ghoonghat

The Sahitya Akademi on Thursday was forced to cancel a press conference it had organised to announce its annual literary awards after receiving a directive from the Union Ministry of Culture, The Hindu reported.

The autonomous literary body, which is the country’s national academy of letters, confers awards each year to books in 24 languages.

The press conference, which was scheduled for 3 pm in Delhi after a meeting of the Akademi’s executive board, was called off minutes before it was supposed to begin, and the awards process was put on hold.

In a note sent to the Akademi ahead of the press conference, the culture ministry cited an ongoing restructuring process of the awards, The Telegraph reported.

“This is to invite your attention to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Akademies and the ministry for the year 2025-’26, wherein it has been stipulated that the exercise of restructuring of awards is required to be undertaken in consultation with the ministry,” The Hindu quoted the note as saying.

Four autonomous bodies – the National School of Drama, the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sahitya Akademi – come under the culture ministry. The note was sent to all four bodies.

The note added: “In this regard, you are requested to inform this ministry of the measures taken so far.”

The ministry added that until it clears the restructuring process, “no process for declaration of awards shall be undertaken” without its approval, the newspaper reported.

An unidentified official in the culture ministry told The Hindu that the note was necessitated as the press conference had been called without the ministry’s knowledge, and without the process for the selection of the awardees being approved.

Unidentified officials told The Hindu that the MoUs for restructuring had been signed in line with the restructuring of awards across the board being undertaken under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

An unidentified member of the Akademi’s executive board told The Telegraph that a suggestion from a ministry representative on the board to review the names of the awardees had been rejected.

When presented with the names of the winners, the official said that the ministry “would review it and make the announcement”, the newspaper quoted the member as saying.

According to the individual, the other members said that the ministry had no business reviewing the names and that once the board had approved the names, the secretary would make the announcement. The official had accepted this, and the names of the winners had been cleared by the board, the individual said.

He added that there “were no suggestions from the ministry to include any names”.

KP Ramanunni, writer and a member of the Akademi’s executive board, said this was the first such cancellation in the history of the literary body and described the postponement of the awards process as “unfortunate”, Mathrubhumi reported.

MA Baby, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said that it was “extremely deplorable that the Sahitya Akademi has sent the recommendations for its awards to the Union government”.

In a social media post, Baby added: “This is the first time ever in its history that an autonomous body such as the Akademi is bowing down to the ruling powers and seeking their approval”.

He added that it was “a shame that the Akademi, which is now functioning without a secretary, is on its knees for the government’s permission, betraying the vision of its illustrious founders”.

An official of the level of director in the culture ministry has been officiating as the member secretary of the literary body since the superannuation of a previous member secretary in October, The Hindu reported.

“Strongly condemn the [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi- [Union Home Minister Amit] Shah-[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan] Bhagwat triumvirate’s efforts to make India’s cultural institutions dance to their tunes,” Baby said. “All those who love letters and literature should unite to resist this affront on our freedom of expression!”

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

Extremely deplorable that the Sahitya Akademi has sent the recommendations for its awards to the Union Government. This is the first time ever in its history that an autonomous body such as the Akademi is bowing down to the ruling powers and seeking their approval. It is a shame…

— M A Baby (@MABABYCPIM) December 18, 2025

The Lok Sabha passed the 2025 Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act amid protests from the Opposition. It needs to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha before it is sent for presidential assent.

Opposition members stormed the well of the House, shouted slogans against the Union government for removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme. They tore up copies of the bill, forcing the Lok Sabha to be adjourned for the day.

MNREGA, introduced by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in 2005, guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually to rural households. The new legislation proposes increasing this to 125 days while also increasing the state’s share of funding to 40% – up from the current system where costs are borne by the Centre. Read on.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India alleged that Pranav Adani, the nephew of billionaire businessman Gautam Adani, violated insider trading norms by sharing unpublished price sensitive information about the Adani Group’s open offer for NDTV with close relatives, the Economic Times reported.

The market regulator issued show cause notices on October 15 to Pranav Adani, his brothers-in-law Kunal and Nrupal Shah and his father-in-law Dhanpal Shah. SEBI alleged that call records indicated frequent communication among them during the unpublished price sensitive information period.

The Adani Group acquired majority stakes in NDTV on December 30, 2022, after it acquired a 27.26% equity stake in the media firm from co-founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy.

More than four months before that, on August 23, 2022, the stock exchange was informed, after market hours, that Adani-linked entities would acquire up to 26% of NDTV.

SEBI said the information remained unpublished and price sensitive until markets reopened, when NDTV shares rose sharply. It alleged that Kunal, Nrupal and Dhanpal Shah made unlawful profits through these shares. Read on.

The Lok Sabha passed the 2025 Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, which aims to open up the civil nuclear sector to private operators. The bill was passed despite Opposition demands that it be referred to a parliamentary committee and now awaits approval by the Rajya Sabha.

The legislation proposes to allow private companies, joint ventures and government firms to construct, own, operate and decommission nuclear power plants. It also seeks to remove a provision that permits plant operators to take legal action against suppliers if defective equipment causes an accident.

The changes are intended to attract investment and help India meet its target of 100 gigawatt of nuclear power capacity by 2047. Read on.

The Union government told Parliament that the number of schools covered under a scheme to give students mid-day meals declined from 11.1 lakh in 2020-’21 to 10.3 lakh in 2024-’25. This marks a reduction of 84,453 schools covered under the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme over five years.

The sharpest fall occurred between 2020-’21 and 2021-’22, when coverage declined by 35,574 schools, from 11.1 lakh to 10.8 lakh.

The number fell to 10.7 lakh in 2022-’23, down by 7,604 schools, and slipped further to 10.6 lakh in 2023-’24 – a dip of 9,509 schools.

It declined in 2024-’25 to 10.3 lakh, marking a reduction of 31,766 schools in a year, data provided by the Union Ministry of Education showed. Read more.

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The Karnataka Assembly on Thursday passed a bill aimed at preventing hate speech and hate crimes amid protests by the Opposition, The Hindu reported.

The Karnataka Hate Speech and Hate Crimes Prevention Bill was introduced in the Assembly by state Home Minister G Parameshwara. It covers hate speech in public view verbally, in print or online.

The bill proposes to make hate crime punishable with imprisonment of less than one year, which could be extended to seven years, along with a fine of Rs 50,000.

In case the offence is repeated, the punishment would not be less than two years, which may be extended to seven years, along with a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

Parameshwara said that the bill was necessitated in the wake of a direction by the Supreme Court in May, which stated that attempts to spread communal hatred and hate speech should be dealt with strongly, The New Indian Express reported.

The minister added that the proposed legislation could bring substantial changes and help in preventing the dissemination, publication or promotion of hate speech and hate crimes.

R Ashoka, the leader of the Opposition, said that the bill violated the freedom of speech and the press. But nothing more could be expected from the ruling Congress that imposed Emergency in the country, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said.

All proposals in the bill were already part of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Ashoka said, adding that the goal of the draft legislation was to target the Opposition parties and the media, The New Indian Express reported.

The BJP leader said that the proposed law could be used as a weapon to settle political scores and warned the Congress that it could boomerang.

Subsequently, the BJP members demanded that the bill be referred to a committee for scrutiny but this was turned down by the speaker, The Hindu reported. State Law Minister HK Patil said that the bill had been passed and there was no chance to discuss it again.

Following this, the BJP members walked out of the Assembly.

The Rajya Sabha after midnight on Friday passed the 2025 Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act amid protests by Opposition parties.

It was cleared by the Lok Sabha on Thursday, even as Opposition members stormed the well of the Lower House shouting slogans against the Union government for dropping the name of Mahatma Gandhi from the scheme.

The bill will now be sent to the president for assent.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

While the wage bill for the scheme is borne by the Union government, the states share the cost of materials and administrative expenses.

The new bill proposes increasing the number of guaranteed working days to 125 from 100 and raising the state’s share of the costs to 40%.

After the bill was passed by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha, Opposition leaders criticised the Union government for “bulldozing” the draft legislation through the Upper House and held an overnight protest inside the Parliament complex.

In a social media post, Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha deputy leader Sagarika Ghose said the Opposition MPs were protesting the manner in which the Narendra Modi government had introduced the “anti-poor, anti-people” bill.

“With just five hours’ notice, this bill was given to us,” she said. “We were not allowed a proper debate.”

The Trinamool Congress leader added: “Our demand was such an important bill should be sent to the select committee and let the Opposition parties examine it, let the Opposition parties discuss it, let all stakeholders discuss it, but no.”

Opening the Congress’ statement against the bill in the Rajya Sabha, party MP Mukul Wasnik said that the MGNREGA was passed unanimously in Parliament after undergoing scrutiny, reported The Hindu.

“Can the government say the same thing about this legislation?” he asked, adding that the bill was introduced just days before the Winter Session was to conclude.

The session, which began on December 1, will end on Friday.

“Did you speak to the state governments before increasing their financial liability?” Wasnik further asked. “Were they taken into confidence? And if it has been done, can the government table those consultations in the House?”

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP M Thambidurai criticised the Union government for increasing the state governments’ share of the cost of the employment guarantee scheme.

He said that if states are to bear 40% of the costs, then they should also get 100% of taxes and other cesses that the Centre collects.

The AIADMK is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu.

The proposed legislation states that the Union government will determine the state-wise normative allocation for each financial year based on “objective parameters”. It also proposed that only the Union government can notify rural areas in a state where the scheme will be implemented.

As per the bill, the governments in the North East states, Himalayan states (Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) and the Union Territories with legislature (Jammu and Kashmir) will contribute to 10% of the scheme’s funding.

The Centre will bear all costs in Union Territories that do not have a legislature.

The proposed legislation retains the provision that a person is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days of applying under the scheme. The cost of the allowance will be borne by the state governments.

Also read:

• BJP chief ministers wanted MGNREGA to include farm work. Modi government’s bill goes another way

• ‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday observed that shouting the slogan “gustakh-e-nabi ki ek saza, sar tan se juda, sar tan se juda” constitutes a challenge to the authority of the law, and the sovereignty and integrity of India.

The slogan translates to “the only punishment for disrespecting the prophet is beheading”.

A bench of Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal made the observation while denying bail to a person accused of being involved in the violence in Bareilly in September.

The court observed that the slogan incites people to an “armed rebellion” and is punishable under Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita section 152, which pertains to acts that endanger India’s sovereignty, unity and integrity.

The single-judge bench of the High Court also said that the slogan was against the basic tenets of Islam. It added that the slogan does not have any trace in the Quran or other Muslim religious texts.

The court further said that shouting religious slogans such as “‘nara-e-takbir’ followed by ‘Allahu Akbar’”, “Jo bole so nihaal, Sat Sri Akal”, “Jai Shree Ram” or “Har Har Mahadev” was “not an offence unless they are maliciously used to intimidate persons belonging to other religions”.

The prosecution argued that on September 26, two leaders of the Muslim community allegedly incited a crowd to gather at a college to demonstrate against “atrocities as well as lodging false cases against the Muslim youth”.

Despite prohibitory orders barring the assembly of more than five individuals having been in place, a crowd of more than 500 persons allegedly gathered and shouted slogans against the government and called for beheading, the prosecution alleged.

A clash broke out when the police tried to intervene, the prosecution argued.

Denying bail to one of the persons accused in the violence, the court said that while the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression, the right is subject to reasonable restrictions.

Shouting the slogan that calls for beheading is “not only against the constitutional object but also a challenge to the lawful authority of the Indian legal system”, the court added.

The bench said that there was sufficient material showing that the bail applicant “was part of an unlawful assembly which not only raised objectionable slogans challenging the authority of the Indian legal system but also caused injuries to police personnel and damaged public as well as private property, which is nothing but an offence against the state and he was arrested from the spot”.

The Special Investigation Team probing the death of Assamese singer Zubeen Garg has filed a first information report against Raijor Dal MLA Akhil Gogoi for allegedly circulating unverified details of the chargesheet in the case on social media, a police officer told Scroll.

Garg, a renowned Assamese singer, died on September 19 during a yacht trip in Singapore, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the North East India Festival there.

On December 12, the Special Investigation Team probing the matter filed a chargesheet in a Guwahati court, charging four out of the seven arrested persons with murder.

On Wednesday, Gogoi, who represents the Sivasagar Assembly constituency, shared on Facebook details of the charges against the seven persons accused in the matter.

He claimed this was part of the chargesheet submitted by the SIT.

“I have come to know that the government has filed a case against me for making the chargesheet related to Zubeen public,” Gogoi said on social media on Thursday. “I am severely ill. Even then, I will go to Guwahati tomorrow to face the case.”

The event where Garg was scheduled to perform had been organised by the Indian government and the Indian High Commission in Singapore, with support from the Assam Association and the North East India Association in the country.

A death certificate issued by the Singaporean authorities on September 20 stated the cause of Zubeen Garg’s death as drowning.

The Singapore Police Force had on October 17 said that it did not suspect foul play in the singer’s death following preliminary investigations into the matter.

It had added that the probe may take up to three more months to complete, following which the findings would be submitted to the State Coroner, a judicial officer, who would determine whether the matter required a Coroner’s Inquiry.

However, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has repeatedly claimed that Zubeen Garg’s death was not accidental but was a “plain and simple murder”.

The four persons who have been charged for murder are Shyamkanu Mahanta, who was the organiser of the North East India Festival, Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddharatha Sharma and two musicians who were with the singer on the yacht – Shekharjyoti Goswami and Amritprava Mahanta.

Besides, Zubeen Garg’s cousin, Deputy Superintendent of Police Sandipan Garg, who had travelled with him to Singapore, has been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, while two of the singer’s personal security officers have been accused of criminal breach of trust.

Munna Prasad Gupta, the chief of the SIT, had on December 12 said that the main chargesheet is about 2,500 pages. When combined with various additional documents, such as bank records, digital evidence and forensic reports, it adds up to approximately 12,000 pages, he added.

Also read:

• Are Assam protests over Zubeen Garg’s death becoming a political challenge for Himanta?

• ‘Police raj’: In aftermath of Zubeen Garg death, a spate of arrests, detentions of protesting fans

The administration in Assam’s Nagaon district ordered 15 declared foreigners to leave the state within 24 hours on Wednesday.

The orders were issued by the Nagaon District Commissioner Devasish Sharma under the 1950 Immigrants Expulsion from Assam Act.

The Act grants power to district commissioners and senior superintendents of police to expel “illegal migrants” from the state by bypassing the foreigners tribunals.

Those named in the orders were Jahura Khatun, Abdul Aziz, Aheda Khatun, Azufa Khatun, Hussain Ali, Fazila Khatun, Anura Begum, Asha Khatun, Nazrul Islam, Rahim Sheikh, Burek Ali, Idris Ali, Rustam Ali, Anwar Khan and Taher Ali.

The orders issued to the 15 individuals said that as declared foreign nationals, their presence was “detrimental to the interest of the general public” and “internal security of the state”.

The district commissioner directed them to leave the state through the Dhubri, Sribhumi or South Salmara-Mankachar routes.

The orders warned that failure to comply would lead to the government taking appropriate action to “remove you” from the state under the provisions of the Act.

The 15 persons are currently lodged at the Matia Transit Camp in Goalpara district and at an Assam Police battalion facility in Kokrajhar district, The New Indian Express reported.

Nagaon Superintendent of Police Swapnaneel Deka told the newspaper there were 19 such cases, but expulsion orders had been issued in only 15, as the remaining four had pending court cases.

He added that police personnel would escort the 15 persons to the India–Bangladesh border for deportation.

In November, similar orders were issued against five persons in the state’s Sonitpur district.

In September, the Assam Cabinet approved the framing of a standard operating procedure under the Act. Earlier, cases pertaining to undocumented migrants were handled by foreigners tribunals.

Sarma had said that the standard operating procedure to use the 1950 Act had been approved, which would, to a large extent, “nullify” the role of the foreigners tribunals.

Foreigners tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship. However, the tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and of declaring people foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory.

As per the standard operating procedure, if a district commissioner receives information from the police or other sources that a person is suspected to be an “illegal immigrant”, the official will direct the person to produce evidence of his citizenship within 10 days, Sarma had at the time.

If the district commissioner finds that the evidence submitted is not satisfactory, he can pass an expulsion order by invoking the 1950 Act, ordering the removal of the undocumented immigrant from Assam “by giving 24 hours’ time and by the route so specified”.

In June, Sarma informed the Assembly that the state government was planning to invoke the 1950 law to “push back” more suspected foreigners.

The chief minister had claimed that the expulsion of declared foreigners was justified in the legal framework provided by the Immigrants Expulsion from Assam Act.

Also read: Why experts contest Assam CM’s use of 1950 law to justify forcing out people into Bangladesh

The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday told Parliament that of the 202 Indian citizens believed to have been recruited into the Russian military, 26 had been killed and seven are missing.

One hundred and nineteen persons have been discharged from service, Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh said in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

Efforts are being made to secure the release of the remaining 50 persons, he added.

The external affairs ministry has repeatedly issued advisories warning Indian citizens against joining the Russian military. New Delhi contends that many are duped by unscrupulous agents and are often hired as support staff, such as cooks and helpers, amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.

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

The Russian defence ministry stopped recruiting Indians in April 2024, according to the country’s embassy in New Delhi. However, contracts for military service have delayed the release of several Indians.

The ministry and Indian diplomatic missions in Russia have been assisting citizens discharged from the Russian Army for their return to India by facilitating their travel documents and providing them with air tickets, Singh said.

“The Indian mission in Russia has also assisted with the task of evacuation of mortal remains,” Singh said. “Once the mortal remains are shifted to a safe zone, the identification process involves matching of DNA samples with the next of kin.”

The discharge of Indian citizens is discussed bilaterally at several levels, including during interactions between leaders, ministers and officials, he added.

The National Investigation Agency on Thursday said it has arrested another man accused in the blast near Delhi’s Red Fort on November 10 that killed 13 persons.

The central agency identified the ninth person arrested in the case as Yasir Ahmad Dar, who is a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian. He was arrested in Delhi.

Dar has been accused of being an “active participant in the conspiracy” behind the blast and taking an oath for “carrying out self-sacrificial operations”.

“Investigations by the anti-terror agency have further shown that Yasir was in close contact with the other accused persons in the case, including Umar Un Nabi,” stated the agency.

Nabi, a doctor, was believed to have been driving the car that exploded. Two days after the explosion, the Union government had described it as a “terrorist incident”.

The NIA further stated that earlier this month, it conducted searches at the premises of several persons it suspects were involved in the blast. The searches were conducted in Jammu and Kashmir, and several devices and “incriminating material” were seized, said the central agency.

On December 9, the agency arrested another person, Bilal Naseer Malla, from Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla, alleging that he harboured and provided logistical support to Nabi. He was also accused of destroying evidence related to the terror attack.

The central agency had on November 16 arrested an alleged aide to Nabi, who was identified as Amir Rashid Ali. The NIA alleged that the Hyundai i20 car used in the blast was registered in Ali’s name. This was the first arrest in the case.

A day later, the NIA arrested another alleged associate of the doctor, Jasir Bilal Wani alias Danish, from Srinagar. Wani is a resident of Qazigund in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag.

On November 20, four more persons were arrested. They were identified as Muzammil Shakeel Ganai from Pulwama, Adeel Ahmed Rather from Anantnag, Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay from Shopian and Shaheen Saeed from Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow.

Another man, identified as Soyab from Dhauj in Haryana’s Faridabad, was the seventh person arrested in the case on November 26. He was also accused of harbouring and providing logistical support to Nabi.

Hours before the blast, the police said that it had cracked an “inter-state and transnational terror module” in Faridabad and Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur.

The police said at the time that it had recovered 2,900 kg of improvised explosive device-making material in raids in several states.

The NIA has been conducting raids at locations in Jammu and Kashmir in the backdrop of the blast and the terror module case.

Today, we are flooded with information (and misinformation) about Vande Mataram, India’s national song, a song that has been valorised and weaponised, a song around which the government felt it was imperative to conduct a ten-hour discussion in Parliament last week. But there is utter silence regarding the core message of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Anandamath in which the song Vande Mataram is embedded.

Vande Mataram was written in 1875 and published in Bangadarshan, a Bengali literary magazine started by Chattopadhyay and later revived by Rabindranath Tagore. In 1882 it was inserted in Anandamath.

Anandamath is set in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It deals with the sufferings of the Bengali people during the famine of 1770. The Nawab of Bengal, a puppet ruler under the British East India Company, was obliged to extort heavy land taxes from the peasantry. The Nawab and his officials, rather than the British, became the visible face of oppression.

The novel also draws inspiration from the sanyasi rebellions of the time. The sannyasi and fakir rebellion between 1760s and 1800 was a widespread uprising in Bengal and Bihar against British East India Company rule. It was led by Hindu monks and Muslim fakirs protesting heavy taxes, the plight of famine victims and restrictions on religious practices.

They were joined by impoverished peasants, artisans, and disbanded soldiers.

But in the novel, the Santans, as the rebels were called in the novel, were not traditional monks but were recruited from the common people who were ready to take part in a violent struggle, even rob and loot the oppressor, to free the beloved motherland, described so evocatively in Vande Mataram.

Anandamath is often described as a rallying cry for freedom – but from whom? And by whose help would it be gained? Though there are at least two good English translations available on the net, one by Aurabindo Ghosh and his brother Barindra Kumar Ghosh and the other by Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta, very few people seem to have actually read the novel.

The concluding paragraphs of Anandamath reveal the author’s ambivalent attitude towards the British. They are a dialogue between Mahatma Satyananda, the leader of the rebels, and a mysterious saintly doctor, Chikitsak, who acts as a mouthpiece for Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s ideas on education and the role of the British in India’s ultimate rise to greatness.

Saint: “Unless the English rule this land, there is no chance of the renaissance of the eternal religion. Listen patiently. I shall explain to you as it has been seen and understood by the ancient sages. The worship of three hundred and thirty million deities is not the eternal religion; that is an inferior popular religion. Under its influence, the true religion, as the Mlechhas call it, is lost.

The true Hindu religion is based on knowledge, not on action. That knowledge is of two kinds; – secular or external and spiritual or internal. The inner spiritual knowledge is the chief part of true religion. But unless secular knowledge about the outside world comes, the other knowledge about the inner world cannot grow. Unless one knows what the gross is, one cannot arrive at the knowledge pertaining to the subtle. For a long time this esoteric knowledge has been lost in this country – so the true eternal religion is also lost.

In order to restore the eternal religion, at the outset knowledge of the material world must be preached. There is not much material knowledge in the country now; there is none capable of teaching it. We are not adepts in spreading popular education. So the necessary knowledge has got to be brought and introduced from other countries.

The English are past masters in the knowledge pertaining to the material world. They are adepts in the art of teaching. So we shall make the British our rulers. Through English education our people attaining knowledge of the material world will also be made capable of understanding inner knowledge.

There will then be no obstacle against preaching the true eternal religion. True religion will, under the circumstances, grow spontaneously. So long as that does not happen, so long as the Hindus do not become wise, worthy and strong, British rule will endure. The subjects will be happy under the British control. They will pursue their religious life without hindrance. So, О wise one! Desist from fighting the British and follow me.”

Satyananda said, “O noble-hearted one! If our purpose was to put the British in control over us as our rulers, if British rule was considered beneficent for our country, then why did you engage us in this heartless fighting?”

The Saint said, “The English are now merchants, they are busy earning money, they do not care to undertake the responsibility of government. Under the pressure of this Santan rebellion they will be compelled to undertake the responsibility of governing this country. Because without that the financial resources of the country cannot be explored. The Santan rebellion has come only to put the British on the throne. Come now with me, you will understand things yourself after attaining knowledge.”

Satyananda: “O Noble-hearted one! I don’t crave after knowledge, I have no use for it. I shall fulfil the vow that I have taken. Bless me so that my devotion to my Mother remains unshakable.”

The Sage: Your vow stands fulfilled – you have achieved the well-

being of your Mother – you have helped to establish British Rule. Give up fighting, let people engage in cultivation, let the earth become fruitful with crops, let the people of the country become prosperous.”

As if sparks flew from Satyananda’s eyes. He said, “I shall drench the mother earth with the enemy’s blood and thus make her fruitful.”

The Sage: “Who is your enemy? Here is hardly any enemy. The British are our ally and friendly power. Besides none has the requisite power to be victorious in the long run in a war against the British.”

Satyananda: “If we haven’t got the power, I shall give up my body before this image of my Motherland.”

The Sage: You will die in ignorance? Come, attain knowledge first. There is the Mother’s temple on the peak of the Himalayas, from there I shall reveal and show you her true form.

(Translated by Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta)

For a country that is in proud denial of its colonial past, the above revelation, the core message of the novel, is quite startling. The Motherland has to be colonised first under the British to become great again.

Almost two decades before Anandamath was published, Nandashankar Mehta’s historical novel, Karan Ghelo: Gujarat’s Last Rajput King, written in Gujarati, was published in 1866.

In an uncanny way, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s historical fiction seems to echo more forcefully and explicitly the sentiments expressed in the closing paragraphs of this Gujarati novel.

“Since Karan Vaghela’s death, 550 years have elapsed. Much has changed since those times. Those Rajputs, those Muslims, those Marathas – where are they now? What has become of them? Who would believe that the indolent, weak and decadent Rajputs of today are descended from the valiant race that once ruled the land? Who would believe that the weak, starving, illiterate Muslims of today have descended from the Muslims of those times? And as for the Marathas, no trace of their former glory survives. All have been subjugated by the white man.

The bhats and charans who once graced the courts of kings, now wander the hills and jungles. The whole of Gujarat is under British control. But by God’s grace, this province will once again flourish and achieve greatness in a different way, and learning, art and social reform will spread over this beautiful land. May it once again become a garden of paradise, the abode of Lakshmi, the storehouse of all virtue. Astu! Astu! So be it.”

Aban Mukherji is a translator and freelance writer.

The Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the 2025 Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, which aims to open up the civil nuclear sector to private operators.

The bill, acronymised as Shanti, had been cleared by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. It requires presidential assent to become a law.

The amendments to the bill and a proposal moved by the Opposition to send the draft legislation to a parliamentary committee for scrutiny were defeated in a voice vote, The Hindu reported.

The draft legislation proposes to grant licenses to private companies, joint ventures and government companies to construct, own, operate or decommission nuclear power plants or reactors.

Other proposed provisions included the removal of a clause in the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act that allows the operator of a nuclear power plant to file legal proceedings against suppliers if their equipment was found to have been in an accident.

In 2008, the Bharatiya Janata Party had moved a no-confidence motion against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the time citing, among other things, the absence of such a provision.

However, after the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act was passed in 2010, this provision was believed to be a reason for the lack of foreign participation in the country’s nuclear sector despite the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The new legislation will introduce a tiered system of payouts by operators in case of accidents, in which their liability will depend on the thermal power capacity of the nuclear plant.

The 2010 law established a flat maximum liability for operators at Rs 1,500 crore.

The bill aims to boost investments in the nuclear power sector to help India achieve its target of 100 gigawatt of nuclear power capacity by 2047.

During the debate in the Upper House on Thursday, Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose said that the bill was fundamentally dangerous. “This bill brings neither Shanti nor security...” she said.

She added: “We are not debating whether India should pursue nuclear energy, India has always pursued nuclear energy responsibly for decades...But as a country, are we now prepared to abdicate our sovereign responsibility, gamble with public safety and place one of the most sensitive sectors of the nation at the mercy of crony capitalism and government-friendly oligarchs as well as foreign pressure?”

The bill was not a reform, “it is recklessness”, the Opposition MP said.

“This bill is not for the public, it’s for profit,” she added, adding that it was the Modi government’s “surrender” to the Donald Trump administration in the United States.

Jitendra Singh, the minister of state for the Department of Atomic Energy, said that nuclear power is a reliable source of energy, adding that safety will not be compromised, The Hindu reported.

After the bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the new law marks a “transformational moment” for India’s technology landscape. The law will provide a “decisive boost to a clean-energy future”, Modi said on social media.

On Monday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar pulled down a Muslim doctor’s hijab leading to an uproar. Opposition leaders from the Congress criticised Kumar while some politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party have defended him. Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) is part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre and in the state.

A BJP politician immediately made a comparison with Ashok Gehlot of the Congress who had done the same with a Hindu woman’s ghoonghat a few years ago.

It is true that both the Islamic veil in all its forms and the Hindu ghoonghat are patriarchal tools with the sole function of creating submissive women. There is one difference though: unlike the Islamic veil, the ghoonghat is politically benign. The ghoonghat is deemed socially oppressive, and rightly so. But the hijab and the burqa are not only seen as socially oppressive but also part of some diabolical Islamic stratagy that will, one day, overthrow Hindu civilisation.

If there is pity for the Hindu woman in the ghoonghat, there is contempt for the Muslim woman in burqa or hijab.

It is this difference that makes the Gehlot example deceptive. In 2019, when Gehlot set out onhis anti-ghoonghat campaign, he had targeted the practice itself. The BJP, however, targets the very identity of the Muslim: what they wear, what they eat, where they live, whom they marry, everything begets suspicion.

When identity is targeted, the actual culprit – patriarchy – gets brushed under the carpet.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar pulled the veil of a woman while distributing appointment letters to Ayush practitioners. Even Deputy CM tried to stop him. He wouldn't have done this if he was in his sense. There are several such videos of him behaving awkwardly. pic.twitter.com/M3za0FkQFe

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 15, 2025

A couple of years ago during research for my book on purdah, I had met several Hindu women in cities in Rajasthan. Many had voiced their protest against the ghoonghat. In a beautiful Hindi poem, Mamta Jaitley, an activist from Jaipur, lamented how late she was to realise that “the purdah you hurled over my face obscured my mind too… made me see things as you wanted me to see, hear things as you wanted me to hear”.

For the Muslim woman, even voicing an opinion, let alone protest, is not as straightforward. In the shadow of Hindutva, she encounters a much deeper struggle than her ghoonghat-clad counterpart. She is not dealing merely with a social norm or religious practice within her community, but a political leviathan that seeks to codify prejudice against the entire community.

Yes, patriarchy must be resisted. But when women’s reforms are steeped in malicious intent, they cause more harm to the very women they seek to help. For example, the Indian government’s ban on triple talaq only added to the woes of Muslim women. Muslim men who could no longer divorce their wife quickly began to abandon them. These women could neither ask for maintenance nor remarry.

When dress codes are attacked, regardless of how patriarchal they are, often women willingly bypass their own subordination and adopt visible symbols that bind them to a collective identity. The hijab and the burqa are the perfect visual signals of Muslim solidarity and belonging. I met Muslim women in various cities who had taken up some or the other form of the Islamic veil to signal defiance against prejudice, although they acknowledged the patriarchal purpose of hijab.

A young abaya-clad forensic sciences student I met in Mangaluru last year had adeptly explained the catch-22: “If I abandon the veil, I please the government (which I would never do); if I adopt the veil, I abide by my religion but also lose a part of myself, my own identity.”

Besides, patriarchy as an institution is old. Very old. Its origins date back 300,000 years. The practice of veiling itself is 4,000 years old. One cannot simply will away deeply-embedded practices through sudden expurgations: change has to come from within society. Veiling is part of the system of purdah (seclusion), a system so normalised that even Mohandas Gandhi, as a young married man, would refuse to allow his wife, Kasturba, to go anywhere without his permission.

He had been made a jealous husband by the thought, “If I should be pledged to be faithful to my wife, she also should be pledged to be faithful to me” – a fallibility he later regretted. So, at a public address in Fatehpur in 1947, when he said, “True purdah should be of the heart. What is the value of the outer veil?”, it is likely that his words ordained a focus on the inequality of sexes rather than just a sanction against a dress code.

Whether a woman wears a veil out of coercion, which is very common, or willingly adopts it in political protest or piety, paternalistic bans and attacks are likely to fail. Just as paternalistic mandates that make hijab compulsory have failed – as in Iran. The problem is that the woman in whose name bans and abstruse verdicts are passed is universally ignored.

Unless there is a political ideology targeting an entire group of people, leading to defiance, mainstream education can significantly help in breaking harmful practices. Most Muslim women I met in India who had rejected the veil were educated and financially independent. But forcing students to remove their veils stops this progress midway.

Many girls and women who went to school and college in Karnataka in their hijab dropped out when forced to remove it. The French hijab ban in 2004, too, led to increased perceptions of discrimination, which hindered Muslim girls from finishing school.

Attacks on the hijab will likely worsen the status of Muslim women because the only option that would leave for many is religious education. It is more accessible, less restrictive – and patriarchal. Is that the objective?

Raheel Dhattiwala is a sociologist.

The Supreme Court on Thursday urged the Election Commission to “sympathetically consider” requests to extend the deadline for submitting enumeration forms as part of the ongoing revision of voter rolls in Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, Live Law reported.

The bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was told by advocate Kapil Sibal that 25 lakh names have been deleted in the electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh alone, PTI reported.

“In some cases, the name of the husband is there and the wife is not there,” he added.

The counsel for the poll body opposed the petition, arguing that extensions had already been granted.

“The ECI is keeping a watch and wherever required, it is extending the time,” Live Law quoted the counsel as saying. “So it is not that if two weeks are given now, it cannot be extended further.”

The deadline for Kerala has already been extended twice, from December 4 to December 11 and then to December 18 and the draft voter list is now scheduled for publication on December 23.

In Uttar Pradesh, the revised enumeration period ends on December 26, with draft rolls due on December 31.

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed petitioners to submit representations to the Election Commission and directed the poll body to take an appropriate decision after considering “all the ground realities and all the relevant factors,” Live Law reported.

The Supreme Court has listed the hearing on the constitutionality of the voter roll revision for January 6.

On December 11, the poll body extended the timelines for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in six of the 12 states and Union Territories where the exercise is underway. This included Uttar Pradesh.

Kerala was among the other six states and Union Territories for which the poll panel did not extend the timelines.

The draft list in West Bengal was published on Tuesday and over 58 lakh voters have been removed from voter lists in the state as they either died, migrated outside the state or did not submit their enumeration forms, the poll body said.

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

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.

Thengapattanam’s coast bustles on weekday mornings, even when the rain is unrelenting. The largest fishing harbour in Kanniyakumari district on the southern tip of India, its air is thick with calls and conversations between merchants and boat owners.

The local fishers are on edge. An incident in August has highlighted the ongoing tensions surrounding wildlife protection in India, in particular the struggle to differentiate between species of shark. It could result in them being inadvertently fined or even dragged into court.

Thengapattanam is the nearest harbour to Thoothoor, a coastal village renowned for its shark fishing. Every day, this harbour hosts crores of rupees worth of business, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of US dollars. A good part of that revolves around shark meat.

On August 19, the daily catch was seized from multiple boats by authorities and a merchant was taken into custody. They were charged with being in possession of a legally protected shark species.

“For a couple of weeks after the incident in August, many of the boats, including mine, refrained from catching sharks. Not because we had been catching banned species and violating wildlife laws, but [because] getting into a legal tussle with the authorities wasn’t worth it,” says Julius Kasper, a fisher and boat owner from Thoothoor who has been fishing for over 36 years.

Kaspar and others whose day-to-day life revolves around Thengapattanam have since returned to their normal fishing activities. But they say India’s ambiguous wildlife laws, and the wildlife department’s aggressive stance on them, hang over their heads.

The Thengapattanam incident

After the August seizures, a fish merchant and three boat owners were fined for dealing with sharks from the Alopiidae family, known as thresher sharks. Although the international trade of these animals is controlled, there is no regulation against catching and trading them within India. Vincent Jain, president of the Federation of Indian Fisher Organizations, is one of the union representatives who has intervened on behalf of those charged. He says the group was fined Rs 30,000 in total.

Fishers believe the officials involved misidentified the sharks in question as being protected and wrongfully levied the penalties. Those from Thoothoor say they have been walking on eggshells since, paranoid about the heavy losses they might incur if the incident were repeated.

On 2 September, trade unions representing the fishers along this coast held a meeting in the nearby city of Thiruvananthapuram, demanding change. They want an independent committee formed to investigate the arrests. They also want a panel of government officials, scientists, police and fishers created, to produce a better way of identifying shark species and the legality of landing them.

Jain says this is a systemic problem that needs addressing: “It would be pointless to blatantly criticise only the officials who were involved in the incident on 19 August. We, the fishers’ collectives, are demanding a permanent resolution for this.”

Jain says a more practical and flexible approach is needed: authorities should improve their shark identification methods, and be more lenient when fishers accidentally catch protected species while trying to hook something else. “In the long run, having such a healthy relationship between the fisherfolk and the authorities will only help the cause of species conservation.”

What the rules say

Many shark populations are in decline due to fishing pressure. Countries around the world are stepping up efforts to protect them, including India.

India’s Wildlife Protection Act was created in 1972 to conserve terrestrial biodiversity. In 2001, a blanket ban was enforced on the fishing of “all shark and ray species”. After massive protests from fishing communities across the country, the order was reformed to a selection of 10 shark and ray species, including the Pondicherry shark, the Ganges shark, the porcupine ray and the knifetooth sawfish.

Things have largely been quiet between shark fishers and authorities since then. But amendments to the Wildlife Protection Act in 2022 have strained their relationship. Those amendments were designed to create a more robust legal framework to protect sharks and rays. Several marine species were added to the act’s s most protected categories, called schedule 1 and schedule 2.

Schedule 1 is the strictest, covering marine species whose capture and landing is strictly forbidden; this category includes whale sharks. Schedule 2 covers species whose capture is not permitted but if this occurs accidentally, landing is permissible, although the authorities must be notified to dispose of the bodies; great hammerhead sharks are included. Thresher sharks have never been a part of schedule 1 or 2.

Fishers from Thengapattanam say they rarely land species listed in schedules 1 and 2. An exception is the occasional stranding of whale sharks and the equally rare oceanic whitetip shark that gets mixed with other species. But the August arrests and overlapping rules of the Wildlife Protection Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have created confusion and concern.

Can technology help identify sharks?

Eldho Varghese, a senior scientist at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in Kochi, southern India, believes technology could be a solution to the problem of identifying India’s sharks.

He has developed a mobile app named MARLIN that allows fishers to share digital information related to fish landings. Now Varghese hopes to build on this with an artificial intelligence-based tool for identifying species.

“The main roadblock we face with respect to species identification is certainly developing a strong image-based database,” Varghese says. “While researchers, wildlife organisations and scientific experts can help us in building this, our main sources of that information inarguably will be the fishers, who go out into the ocean and encounter the wide varieties of species on a regular basis.”

Fisheries or forestry

One of the main shark identification challenges that fishers and wildlife officials face is how small the differences between certain species and subspecies are to the naked eye.

Dialogue Earth consulted Shoba Joe Kizhakudan, head of the CMFRI’s finfish fisheries division. She agrees that educating both officials and fishers in identifying marine species is imperative. The institute has held multiple training sessions to enhance knowledge among fishers.

Inspections such as that on 19 August are carried out by the state wildlife and forestry department, with much of the relevant law focused on terrestrial species. But much of the necessary expertise is found in the fisheries department, which is a separate entity.

Kizhakudan points out that the hunting or poaching of terrestrial wild animals is very different from what happens on the ocean, where protected species can easily be accidentally caught on lines or in nets as bycatch. “Our organisation has in the past formally appealed to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change that a separate wildlife framework be enacted for marine organisms,” she adds.

Following the August 19 arrests, a Thengapattanam fisheries inspector told Dialogue Earth that the wildlife and forestry department had not notified them of the raid in advance – the inspector acknowledged a lack of communication between these departments when it comes to inspections and penalties.

Satish Kumar is deputy director of the Tamil Nadu Forest and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, which gathers intelligence that it reports to the wildlife and forestry department. Kumar says observations recorded across several days before August 19 suggested there had been multiple landings of protected sharks and rays, and that the department’s inspection was carried out based on concrete evidence. He declined to say which species the bureau believed were being landed.

Fishers insist they are complying with the law, and say authorities are simply getting their sharks muddled up.

Where next for Thengapattanam?

Jerickson is a native of Thoothoor who runs a fishing boat and acts as a fish merchant. He was present at Thengapattanam on 19 August but was not one of those arrested or fined.

“The wildlife authorities had been hanging around the harbour for a few days before that, observing,” Jerickson says. “We didn’t think too much into it: Thengapattanam is a huge harbour; hundreds of boats come here every morning.” He says that on days when many boats that have been at sea for weeks arrive at the harbour, fish trading can generate up to Rs 300 million.

Jerickson fears more officials will arrive to inspect sharks – and potentially misidentify them – next year, once Tamil Nadu’s state legislature elections wrap up in April and May. He believes the present lull in such raids is down to the need to secure votes from the fishing communities.

Jerickson and other Thengapattanam fishers acknowledge that it would be beneficial for everyone if there was a better system for identifying protected species, especially sharks.

He points to a hammerhead shark waiting to be auctioned off: “You see … we can catch … the arrow-headed hammerhead, whereas the great hammerhead and smooth hammerhead are banned from [being caught]. The fishers are well aware of that, and we do not catch them intentionally as we can recognise them. But my question is, are the officials who are scrutinising us knowledgeable of such distinctions?”

That question continues to weigh heavily on India’s shark fishers, and those who police them.

Bharath Thampi is a journalist and documentarian based in Kerala, India, who works on social, cultural and environmental long-form features and documentaries.

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

The Kerala High Court on Thursday stayed for three months the show cause notices and proposed proceedings initiated by the Enforcement Directorate against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and two others in connection with alleged foreign exchange violations by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, Bar and Bench reported.

The court also stayed notices issued to former state finance minister TM Thomas Isaac and KM Abraham, the chief executive officer of the board.

Justice VG Arun passed the interim order on a joint petition filed by the Vijayan, Isaac and Abraham and issued a notice to the Enforcement Directorate on the contentions in the petition, PTI reported.

Earlier in the week, the court had granted a similar three-month stay on the show cause notice and adjudication proceedings against the investment board itself. The judge on Thursday said that the same relief would apply to the three petitioners.

The Enforcement Directorate informed the court on Thursday that it would file an intra-court appeal against the order, Bar and Bench reported.

The central agency is investigating whether about Rs 2,150 crore raised through masala bonds issued in 2019 and listed on the International Securities Market in London were used to purchase land in alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act norms.

In another complaint, the probe agency alleges this amounted to prohibited “real estate activity” under the Reserve Bank of India’s 2015 Master Directions, Bar and Bench reported.

Masala bonds are bonds that are issued outside India but are denominated in Indian rupees. They allow Indian companies to raise capital from foreign investors in Indian currency, and are usually used to fund infrastructure projects.

The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the 2025 Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act amid protests from the Opposition.

The bill will need to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha before it is sent for presidential assent.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

While the wage bill for the scheme is borne by the Union government, the states share the cost of materials and administrative expenses.

The new bill proposes to increase the number of guaranteed working days to 125 from 100 and raise the state’ share of the costs to 40%.

Responding to an eight-hour discussion on the bill, Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday claimed that there were several shortcomings in the MGNREGA, The Indian Express reported.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said that states had spent more on labour and less on material procurement. He also added that successive governments had launched employment guarantee schemes before MGNREGA.

Rejecting the Opposition’s claim that the Narendra Modi government was arbitrarily changing the names of schemes, he added: “Congress killed ideals of Mahatma Gandhi when it accepted Partition… when they gave special status to Kashmir…when Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency…”

Opposition members stormed the well of the Lower House shouting slogans against the Union government for dropping Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme. The MPs also tore copies of the VB-G RAM G bill and flung it towards the chair.

The bill was passed by voice vote amid the uproar. Subsequently, the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day.

During discussions in the Lower House on the proposed legislation a day earlier, the Telugu Desam Party flagged the increased burden on the state government, The Hindu reported.

Andhra Pradesh was a revenue-deficient state, Telugu Desam Party Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu said.

“When we have to cough up 40% from the state to fund this scheme, we request that the same amount of support that has been extended for the last one and a half years be continued so that the scheme can be implemented well,” the newspaper quoted Devarayalu as saying.

The Telugu Desam Party is part of the ruling NDA at the Centre.

Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP K Kanimozhi said that while the share of the state government in central taxes had been shrinking, the financial burden on them was increasing.

She also criticised to the Hindi nomenclature of the bill, The Hindu reported. “This is not a ‘Viksit Bharat’ bill but a ‘vexed’ bill,” the newspaper quoted Kanimozhi as saying.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra noted that the word “guarantee” appeared 92 times in the bill. However, if the fine print was read, it did not guarantee anything as the Union government gets to fix the budget and also notify the areas where the scheme would be implemented.

The proposed legislation states that the Union government will determine the state-wise normative allocation for each financial year based on “objective parameters”. It also proposed that only the Union government can notify rural areas in a state where the scheme will be implemented.

Congress MP Kodikunnil Suresh claimed the draft legislation was anti-women, The Hindu reported.

Women constitute 90% of the MGNREGA workforce in states like Kerala, he noted.

As per the bill, the governments in the North East states, Himalayan states (Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) and the Union Territories with Legislature (Jammu and Kashmir) will contribute to 10% of the scheme’s funding.

The Centre will bear all costs in Union Territories that do not have a legislature.

The proposed legislation retains the provision that a person is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days of applying under the scheme. The cost of the allowance will be borne by the state governments.

State employment scheme to be named after Gandhi: Mamata

Later on Thursday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from MGNREGA filled her with “deep shame” and added that she would rename a similar employment scheme in the state after him.

“Are we now forgetting even the Father of the Nation?” the Trinamool Congress chief asked. “We have therefore decided to rename our Karmashree scheme after Mahatma Gandhi.”

The scheme was launched in 2024 by the state government to provide at least 50 days of employment to job card holder households in a financial year through works implemented by different departments.

She added: “We seek nothing except respect. And if some do not know how to honour Mahatma Gandhi, we will demonstrate what true respect means.”

“The removal of Gandhiji’s name fills me with deep shame. A Bill has been introduced that removes the name of Mahatma Gandhi from MGNREGA. Are we now forgetting even the Father of the Nation? We have therefore decided to rename our Karmashree scheme after Mahatma Gandhi. We seek… pic.twitter.com/JjBqdSRrq3

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) December 18, 2025

Also read:

• BJP chief ministers wanted MGNREGA to include farm work. Modi government’s bill goes another way
• ‘A bill to destroy MGNREGA’: Why experts fear the worst from new job guarantee bill

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the 2025 Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, which aims to open up the civil nuclear sector to private operators.

The bill was passed despite demands by several Opposition parties to refer the proposed legislation to a parliamentary panel, The Hindu reported.

The bill will need to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha before it is sent for presidential assent.

The draft legislation proposes to grant licenses to private companies, joint ventures and government companies to construct, own, operate or decommission nuclear power plants or reactors, the Hindustan Times reported.

Other proposed provisions included the removal of a clause in the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act that allows the operator of a nuclear power plant to file legal proceedings against suppliers if their equipment was found to have been in an accident.

In 2008, the Bharatiya Janata Party had moved a no-confidence motion against the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance government citing, among other things, the absence of such a provision.

However, after the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act was passed in 2010, this provision was believed to be a reason for the lack of foreign participation in the country’s nuclear sector despite the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The bill passed by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday also introduces a tiered system of payouts by operators in case of accidents, in which the liability of an operator will depend on the thermal power capacity of the nuclear plant.

The 2010 law established a flat maximum liability for operators at Rs 1,500 crore.

The bill aims to boost investments in the nuclear power sector to help India achieve its target of 100 gigawatt of nuclear power capacity by 2047, the Hindustan Times reported.

During a debate on the bill, Congress MP Manish Tewari asked if it was a “coincidence” that a law enabling private sector participation in the nuclear sector coincided with interest expressed by the “conglomerate house…Adani” in November to enter the nuclear sector, The Hindu reported.

Samajwadi Party MP Aditya Yadav accused the Union government of introducing the bill by “sacrificing the old laws…that kept public interest first” as it was faced with a “dollar that has crossed Rs 90” and “unable to attract foreign investment”, the newspaper reported.

The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed a bill to raise foreign direct investment in the insurance sector to 100% from 74%.

The 2025 Sabka Bima Sabki Raksha Amendment of Insurance Laws Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. The bill seeks to amend the 1938 Insurance Act, the 1956 Life Insurance Corporation Act and the 1999 Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act.

It allows the merger of non-insurance companies with insurance firms, and provides for the establishment of a Policyholders’ Education and Protection Fund to protect the interests of policyholders.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during a debate on the bill, said that the amendments would allow foreign companies to bring in more capital in the insurance sector, PTI reported.

The opening of the sector has helped in increasing penetration of insurance in the country, Sitharaman said, adding that there was “scope for more”. It would also lead to the creation of more jobs, she added.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said that the increase in the foreign direct investment limit would pave the way for more foreign companies to enter the Indian market, the news agency reported. In many cases, foreign firms do not find local joint venture partners because of several reasons, she added.

With more companies, the competition will increase, leading to a drop in premiums, Sitharaman said.

Rejecting allegations by the Opposition that the Union government was in a haste to pass the bill, the minister said that consultations for it had taken place for nearly two years, PTI reported.

Opposing the bill in the Upper House, Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil said that the increase in foreign direct investment had earlier been opposed by senior BJP leaders such as late Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, The Indian Express reported.

The BJP’s election manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls had also said that it would not allow foreign direct investment in the insurance sector, Gohil added.

Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale said that no private insurer would be interested in a low premium, high risk rural market where protections were provided through government insurance schemes, the newspaper reported.

Noting that such schemes would be hampered if foreign players enter, Gokhale added the current profits of the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation came from its large market share but private companies were likely to enter with predatory pricing.

Opposition members also criticised the use of Hindi words in the title of the bill.

A demand by the Opposition to send the bill to a parliamentary panel was rejected.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has alleged that Pranav Adani, the nephew of billionaire businessman Gautam Adani, violated insider trading norms by sharing with his brothers-in-law price-sensitive information about the Adani Group’s open offer to acquire shares of NDTV, the Economic Times reported on Wednesday.

The market regulator sent a show cause notice on October 15 to Pranav Adani, his brothers-in-law Kunal and Nrupal Shah, and father-in-law Dhanpal Shah in the matter. Kunal and Nrupal Shah are the sons-in-law of Pranav Adani’s uncles, Vasant and Vinod Adani.

Pranav Adani is the director of Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the conglomerate headed by Gautam Adani.

SEBI alleged in the notice that calls exchanged among Pranav Adani and Kunal, Nrupal and Dhanpal Shah showed that they had communicated frequently during the unpublished price sensitive information, or UPSI, period, according to the Economic Times.

SEBI regulations prohibit company insiders from sharing unpublished price sensitive information with any outside entities. Using sensitive information that is not available to the public at large to deal in shares is insider trading, which is a criminal offence.

The Adani Group acquired majority stakes in NDTV on December 30, 2022, after it acquired a 27.26% equity stake in the media firm from co-founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy.

Over four months earlier – on August 23, 2022 – the manager of the Adani Group’s open offer, JM Financial, had informed stock exchanges after the close of the day’s trading about a public announcement pertaining to NDTV.

The announcement said that Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited, along with AMG Media Networks Limited and Adani Enterprises, would acquire up to 26% of the share of capital of NDTV from public shareholders.

SEBI said in its notice that as the announcement was made after close of trading on a market day, it remained unpublished price sensitive information until the development was disseminated through stock exchanges, the Economic Times reported.

When markets reopened on August 24, 2022, the shares of NDTV rose sharply in value, opening about 2.5% higher than the previous day’s close and ending nearly 5% on the National Stock Exchange.

SEBI said that the announcement on August 23, 2022 “materially affected the price of the scrip of NDTV upon coming into the public domain”, the newspaper quoted the notice as saying.

According to SEBI, Kunal Shah bought shares of NDTV several times during the UPSI period, some of these instances being in the weeks and days leading up to JM Financial’s announcement.

On August 8, 2022 his purchases accounted for close to 9% of the total trading volume in the stock on the National Stock Exchange, which the market regulator described as significant, the Economic Times reported.

SEBI alleged that the trades by Kunal Shah led to profits of Rs 52.89 lakh, and that Nrupal and Dhanpal Shah also earned unlawful profits of Rs 52.7 lakh and Rs 32.6 lakh.

The regulatory body has initiated proceedings to determine if penalties should be imposed on Pranav Adani, Kunal, Nrupal and Dhanpal Shah for violating insider trading regulations.

The Economic Times sent email queries to SEBI, the Adani Group and Kunal, Nrupal and Dhanpal Shah seeking their stands, but did not receive responses.

Adani Group’s acquisition of NDTV stake

On August 23, AMG Media Networks Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, bought 100% of the equity stakes in Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited for Rs 113.74 crore.

Later in the month, the Adani Group announced that it will acquire a 29.18% stake in NDTV through Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited. NDTV had then said that the takeover was done without the consent or any sort of notice served to Radhika Roy and Prannoy Roy.

The acquisition was possible as Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited had given a loan of Rs 403.85 crore to NDTV in 2009.

According to the terms of the loan, the company held the right to exercise its warrants and convert the loan amount into equity shares – which it did after being bought by the Adani Group.

Also read:

NDTV: How Adani acquired a firm controlled by an Ambani aide to launch a hostile take-over bid

The Bombay High Court and several other courts in Mumbai were evacuated on Thursday after bomb threats were received via email, The Hindu reported.

Bomb disposal squads and security agencies inspected the premises.

Later in the day, the authorities confirmed that no explosives had been found and declared all the locations safe.

The city’s commissioner of police told The Indian Express that the threat had been issued over email to several courts and banks.

There was “no need to panic”, he added.

The threats targeted the High Court as well as the magistrate courts in Bandra, Andheri and Esplanade, according to The Hindu.

#WATCH | Bombay High Court Evacuated After Receiving #BombThreat

🎥@vssalman007 #MumbaiNews #Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/n0CxJDnAu0

— Free Press Journal (@fpjindia) December 18, 2025

An internal message circulated by the Bombay Bar Association and the Advocates’ Association of Western India said that hearings in the High Court would resume at 3 pm once the police had completed their safety checks, Bar and Bench reported.

It is unclear whether proceedings have resumed.

In an internal communication issued at the chief justice’s instructions, judges were asked to vacate their benches while security measures were carried out.

A first information report will be filed against unidentified persons responsible for the threats, a police officer told The Indian Express.

In September, similar threats were sent to the High Court, but were later confirmed to be hoaxes.

The number of schools covered under the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme to give students mid-day meals declined from 11.1 lakh in 2020-’21 to 10.3 lakh in 2024-’25, the Union government told Parliament on Wednesday.

This marks a reduction of 84,453 schools over five years.

The centrally-sponsored scheme is aimed at providing nutritious meals to students enrolled in government and aided schools.

The sharpest fall occurred between 2020-’21 and 2021-’22, when coverage declined by 35,574 schools, from 11.1 lakh to 10.8 lakh, said Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary in response to a query from Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh.

The number fell to 10.7 lakh in 2022-’23, down by 7,604 schools, and slipped further to 10.6 lakh in 2023-’24 – a dip of 9,509 schools.

It declined in 2024-’25 to 10.3 lakh, marking a reduction of 31,766 schools in a year, showed the data provided by the Union Ministry of Education.

Uttar Pradesh saw the steepest decline, with the number of schools covered under the scheme falling from 1.6 lakh in 2020-’21 to 1.4 lakh in 2024-’25. This meant that 25,361 schools lost coverage over five years.

Following this was Madhya Pradesh, where the number of schools covered under the scheme fell from 1.1 lakh to over 88,000 schools in the same period. Assam saw a drop from 53,427 to 44,106 schools in five years, which was a reduction of 9,321.

In his reply, Chaudhary noted that the “overall responsibility” to provide meals to children under the scheme lay with state governments and Union Territories.

“Under the scheme, meals are served to children for an average of 220 days per year,” the minister said. “Under the scheme, against the enrolment of 11 crore students on an average 8.5 crore students are availing hot cooked meals on daily basis in more than 10.35 lakh schools in all states/UTs.”

Chaudhary also said that three cases of food contamination, food poisoning and substandard meal quality were reported during 2025-’26. “All the children reported ill during these incidents were treated and discharged from hospital and no casualty was reported,” he said.

In April, the Union government raised the material cost for midday meals under the scheme from Rs 6.1 to Rs 6.7 per student per day for kindergarten and Class 1 to Class 5, the Hindustan Times reported.

It also increased the cost from Rs 9.2 to Rs 10.1 for Class 6 to Class 8.

In 2024-’25, the Union government had allocated Rs 12,467.3 crore to the scheme, the newspaper reported. This amount was later revised to Rs 10,000 crore. However, only Rs 5,421.9 crore had been spent by February 2025.

For 2025-’26, Rs 12,500 crore has been allocated in the Union Budget for the scheme, according to the newspaper.

Decline in government schools

Earlier this month, data presented in Parliament also showed that there was steady decline in the number of government schools in country in the last six years, The Wire reported. The number of schools with zero or less than 10 student enrolments have also increased.

The number of government schools fell from 10.3 lakh in 2019-’20 to 10.1 lakh in 2024-’25, the news portal quoted Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as saying on December 1.

The sharpest decline in this period was seen in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir, The Wire reported.

In 2024-’25, the states with the highest number of school closures were Bihar at 1,890, Himachal Pradesh at 492 and Karnataka at 462. In the same period, the states with the highest number of low-enrolment schools were West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, according to the news portal.

A cricket match between India and South Africa on Wednesday was called off because of dense fog in Lucknow.

The fourth Twenty20 International match at the Ekana Stadium was abandoned without a ball being bowled.

The toss was scheduled for 6.30 pm but never took place despite several pitch inspections by match officials. At 9.30 pm, the umpires called off the match.

It was the penultimate match of the five-match series that India leads 2-1. The final match will take place in Ahmedabad on Friday.

The Board for Control of Cricket in India said that the match had been abandoned “due to excessive fog” that made playing conditions unsafe.

‘Smog, not fog’, say Opposition leaders

However, fans and politicians said on social media that the poor visibility was because of air pollution.

Uttar Pradesh’s former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that Delhi’s pollution "has now reached Lucknow”.

“That is why the international cricket match scheduled to be held in Lucknow is not taking place,” he said. “Actually, the reason for this is not fog, but smog.”

Yadav added: “The parks that we had built for Lucknow’s pure air, the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government wants to ruin them too by organising investment events there. BJP members are neither kin to humans nor to the environment.”

“Cover your face because you are in Lucknow,” the Opposition leader said.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that “thanks to dense smog pervasive in most north Indian cities”, the visibility was too poor to permit a game of cricket. “They should have scheduled the game in Thiruvananthapuram, where AQI [Air Quality Index] is about 68 right now!” he said on social media.

Tharoor is the MP from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram.

Indian player Hardik Pandya was seen wearing a face mask at the stadium. Players went through their pre-match practice at the venue before moving indoors, AFP reported.

The Air Quality Index in Lucknow at 7 pm, when the match would have been underway, was 410, according to AQI.in.

According to data from the Sameer application, which provides updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board, the average AQI in Lucknow on Wednesday stood at 171.

An index value between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution. An AQI in the “severe” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals. The AQI value between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality.

When asked about the high air pollution, BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla told The New Indian Express the board will address the problem before finalising the itinerary in future. But “fog is a major issue” in northern India during winters, he was quoted as having added.

This is not the first time that poor air quality has hampered a cricket match in India.

In December 2017, a Test match between India and Sri Lanka in December was interrupted because of poor air quality in the national capital. Sri Lankan players had complained of vomiting.

ESPN Cricinfo had quoted Nic Pothas, the Sri Lankan coach at the time, as saying that high levels of pollution in Delhi “is well documented”.

“They had got extremely high at one point, we had players coming off the field and vomiting,” he said. “There were oxygen things in the dressing room. It is not normal for players to suffer in that way while playing the game. From our point of view, it has to be stated that it is a very very unique case.”

The Union government on Thursday introduced in Parliament the 2025 Securities Markets Code Bill to replace three laws related to the regulation of securities markets.

The proposed law will replace the 1992 Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, the 1956 Securities Contracts Regulation Act and the 1996 Depositories Act.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed referring the bill to the standing committee for scrutiny.

The proposal came after Congress MP Manish Tiwari and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Arun Nehru opposed the bill at the introduction stage, describing it as a “case of excessive delegation of power”.

Sitharaman said that the objections could be discussed later as the government was referring the bill to the standing committee.

Krishna Prasad Tenneti, chairing the proceedings, said that the Lok Sabha speaker will decide on the matter.

According to the Union government, the new legislation “rationalises and consolidates the existing provisions and provides a modern regulatory framework for investor protection and capital mobilisation at a scale commensurate with the emerging needs of the fast-growing Indian economy”.

It would also require members of the Securities and Exchange Board of India to disclose all “direct and indirect” interests while participating in decision-making processes of the markets regulator.

This came against the backdrop of allegations raised in August 2024 against Madhabi Puri Buch, the SEBI chairperson at the time, that she and her husband, Dhaval Buch, had “hidden stakes” in offshore entities tied to stock price manipulation and money laundering by the Adani Group. Madhabi Buch and Dhaval Buch denied the allegations.

The proposed law will also prohibit the chairperson and members of the board from accepting any employment under the Centre or state governments for one year after leaving office, except with the prior approval from the Union government.

It will also prohibits them from accepting an appointment with a securities markets service provider or a market participant, or any person associated with securities markets, for a year.

The law would also prohibit an investigation or inspection “for default or contravention” of any provisions of the code, or its rules and regulations, after eight years have passed from the date of the default or contravention.

However, the board may order a probe even if the eight-year period has elapsed in cases where a matter is referred to it by an investigating agency, or if the panel is of the view that the default or contravention may have a “systemic impact” on the securities markets.

The proposed legislation has a provision to prohibit board members from directly or indirectly committing acts of market abuse, such as insider trading and using devices, schemes or artifices to defraud investors in the securities markets.

It also has provisions to bar persons from dealing in securities while in possession of material or non-public information, or communicating such material or non-public information to others in a manner that contravenes the provisions of the code.

It bars persons from publishing false or misleading information relating to securities with the intent of artificially inflating, depressing or causing fluctuation in their prices.

The proposed legislation prescribes a maximum sentence of 10 years for market abuse.

The bill proposed to bring the offence of “market abuse” under the Schedule of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. This means that the Enforcement Directorate can initiate investigations under the anti-money laundering law against persons who are accused in such cases.

Bill risks diluting SEBI’s autonomy, says Opposition

Congress has raised concerns over the proposed bill.

“The proposed bill risks diluting SEBI’s regulatory autonomy, weakening its ability to protect investors against fraud and market manipulation through fragmented oversight,” said Syed Naseer Hussain, Rajya Sabha MP from the party.

He added: “It also reduces compliance burdens which may favour large corporates and institutional investors, disadvantaging small and retail participants who lack resources to navigate the new framework.”

The Supreme Court Bar Association and the Union government on Tuesday told the top court that they will submit joint suggestions on preventing incidents such as the attack on former Chief Justice BR Gavai, reported Live Law.

The guidelines would also include suggestions on media reporting of such incidents, advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the association, told a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.

On October 6, advocate Rakesh Kishore allegedly tried to throw a shoe at Gavai, the chief justice at the time, and accused him of having insulted Hinduism. Kishore said he was angered by Gavai’s remarks about the restoration of a beheaded idol of the Hindu deity Vishnu, and on the Supreme Court judgement holding punitive demolitions as unconstitutional.

Despite the interruption, Gavai remained calm, instructed the court to proceed, and later described the event as a “forgotten chapter”.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court Bar Association filed a petition seeking criminal contempt proceedings against Kishore.

During a hearing on October 16, the court said that it was better to let the attack “die a natural death” rather than fuel its “monetisation” on social media.

On October 27, Kant and Bagchi said the court was not inclined to initiate contempt action against Kishore, noting that Gavai himself had earlier refused to pursue the matter against the advocate.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Singh told the bench that while the association had drafted a set of guidelines, it will add the Union government as a party in the case.

“So that either it can be incorporated in the IT Rules or the Supreme Court rules,” Live Law quoted Singh as saying. “We are thinking of your lordships incorporating it somewhere, so that there is some responsibility on media houses and social media platforms to ensure that these kinds of materials are not propagated.”

Appearing for the Union government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta agreed with the proposal.

Singh had told the court on October 27 that while Gavai had initially decided not to press charges against Kishore, the advocate later gave interviews to the media, boasting about his act and vowing to repeat it.

“This whole thing is being glorified,” said Singh. “The court has sufficient powers to ensure it does not happen again.”

Singh argued that the pardon given by Gavai was in his individual capacity, adding that this could not bind the institution.

“People are making jokes about this,” he was quoted as saying. “If he does not express remorse, send him to jail from here only.”

Singh also claimed that Kishore had become “emboldened” because the chief justice had let him go.

Telangana Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar on Wednesday dismissed the disqualification petitions against five of the 10 MLAs who defected from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi to the ruling Congress after the 2023 state elections, reported The Hindu.

The speaker passed the order citing a lack of evidence, according to The Indian Express. He held that the MLAs remain affiliated to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.

Those who were granted relief are Alhambra MLA Tellam Venkat Rao, Gadwal MLA Bandla Krishnamohan Reddy, Rajendranagar MLA T Prakash Goud, Patancheru MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy and Serilingampally MLA Arekapudi Gandhi.

The petitions against Kale Yadaiah, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Sanjay Kumar, Danam Nagender and Kadiyam Srihari are yet to be decided.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi had appealed to the speaker to disqualify the 10 MLAs in March 2024 and April 2024.

After the order on Wednesday, Bharat Rashtra Samithi Working President KT Rama Rao alleged that the speaker was “obeying the directions” of Chief Minister Revanth Reddy.

“It is a cruel joke in democracy,” Rao was quoted as saying. “He [speaker] seems to be acting because, as the chief minister himself, on the floor of the Assembly said, nothing will happen to the MLAs who have defected. The speaker is also obeying his directions and dictums.”

Rao said that his party will challenge the decision in the court.

On July 31, the Supreme Court directed the speaker to decide within three months on the disqualification of the 10 MLAs.

If political defections are not curbed, it has the potential to disrupt democracy, the court had said.

The bench had also set aside a Telangana High Court ruling that courts cannot impose a time limit on the speaker to decide on disqualification pleas.

On November 17, the court issued a contempt notice against the speaker for not taking a call on the pleas.