Refusing to entertain a petition alleging that its 2018 judgement was not being complied with, the Supreme Court on Monday said that the directions to the Centre and state governments to prevent mob lynchings were “general” in nature and “unmanageable”, reported Live Law.

The 2018 judgement pertains to the Supreme Court asking the Centre and state governments to lay down preventive, remedial and punitive measures to prevent instances of lynching.

The court had also asked the governments to set up special courts to conduct trials, form a compensatory scheme with provision for interim relief for victims and their relatives, and take disciplinary action beyond what is recommended in service rules for officers who do not deal with lynching incidents properly.

It had asked Parliament to consider creating a new penal provision to deal with incidents of vigilantism, saying that “mobocracy cannot be allowed in society”.

On Monday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a contempt petition filed by an organisation Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema.

“Firstly, the court should be very careful in issuing directions which are unmanageable directions,” Live Law quoted the bench as saying during the hearing. “In any case, if we issue directions, those are on general principles that we tell, we expect people to be aware of.”

It added that a contempt petition could have been moved based on specific facts if any individual’s rights were violated.

“How many contempt petitions will be there?” Deccan Herald quoted the bench as saying. “Sorry, we are not entertaining the plea.”

In 2018, the Supreme Court had asked the Union government to broadcast on radio, television and government websites that mob violence would be dealt with seriously under the law.

It had also sought a compliance report from the Union government and the states, and recommended strict action against those who spread volatile messages and videos.

The judgement had come in a batch of petitions, including one filed by Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson, Tarun Gandhi, and another by social activist Tehseen Poonawalla, seeking to curb violence by cow vigilante groups.

Also read: The assault of four Muslims and the two sides of India’s meat economy

WhatsApp on Monday told the Supreme Court that it will comply with the Competition Commission of India’s orders requiring the messaging platform to give its users more control over the sharing of their data with other entities of its parent company Meta, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi, was hearing appeals filed by WhatsApp challenging the commission’s directive against the messaging platform’s 2021 privacy policy and proceedings before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.

WhatsApp told the court that it wanted to withdraw its interim application against the tribunal’s November 2025 directive, which called for the enforcement of the November 2024 orders issued by the commission on the need for a user consent-based framework for data sharing, the legal news outlet reported.

Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing WhatsApp and Meta, informed the court that his clients had filed an affidavit explaining its data-sharing practices and that it will implement the tribunal’s directives by March 16, Bar and Bench reported.

The court also directed WhatsApp to file a compliance report on the user data-sharing directions before the Competition Commission of India as ordered by the tribunal, Bar and Bench reported.

The bench allowed the application to be withdrawn, but said that the main appeal filed by WhatsApp about the validity of its 2021 policy will remain pending.

WhatsApp has challenged the tribunal’s order, which also upheld a Rs 213 crore penalty imposed by the Competition Commission of India on the messaging platform for its 2021 privacy policy.

WhatsApp had informed users in January 2021 about changes to its terms of service and privacy policy, which were effective from February 2021. It said that users had to accept the new terms and conditions to continue using the messaging platform.

The previous privacy policy from 2016 had allowed users to opt out of sharing data with the parent company. The updated policy made sharing data mandatory.

After WhatsApp changed its terms of service and privacy policy in 2021, the Competition Commission of India launched an investigation. In November 2024, the regulatory body held that the messaging platform’s new policy amounted to abuse of dominance under the 2002 Competition Act. WhatsApp was directed not to share data collected on its platforms with Meta or its products for five years.

The platform and Meta had moved the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal challenging the order.

In November, the tribunal partly ruled in favour of WhatsApp by setting aside the Competition Commission of India’s finding that Meta had leveraged a dominant position in the over-the-top media messaging market to protect its position in online display advertising.

But it also upheld the Rs 213 crore penalty imposed by the regulatory body. WhatsApp and Meta moved the court against the penalty imposed on them.

The competition commission’s appeal is also pending before the court. The panel has sought that the five-year ban on sharing WhatsApp user data for advertising purposes, set aside by the tribunal, be reinstated, Bar and Bench reported.

On February 3, the bench had criticised WhatsApp and Meta for what it described as the messaging platform’s “take it or leave it” privacy policy, verbally observing that it appeared to enable data theft.

The court had also said that WhatsApp cannot expect to get away with violating the right to privacy of Indian users.

Hundreds of protesters held a demonstration outside the home of Goa minister Vishwajit Rane in Dona Paula on Monday to demand the scrapping of a provision about land-use change under the Town and Country Planning Act, The Indian Express reported.

In response to the agitation, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant claimed that protesting outside the minister’s home was not right, adding that a proper representation can be given to the collector, The Times of India reported.

The protests erupted on Saturday after villagers of Palem-Siridao in St Andre Assembly constituency organised a sit-in at the Town and Country Planning Department office, demanding the revocation of the land “correction” of several plots approved under Section 39A of the Town and Country Planning Act, The Indian Express reported.

Section 39A of the Act, which was notified in 2024, allows the chief town planner to modify development plans to change land zones. This allows for “spot zoning” changes based on individual applications, which are subject to public objections in the gazette till 30 days.

Spot zoning refers to the reclassification of a small, specific parcel of land for a use that differs from the surrounding area’s designated zoning.

The protesters have alleged that over 84,000 sq m of land in Palem-Siridao, including hill slopes, orchards and no development zones, was being converted into a “settlement” zone by the Town and Country Planning Department by misusing Section 39A of the Act, The Indian Express reported.

This conversion would permit construction in the area, they contended.

St Andre MLA and Revolutionary Goans Party leader Viresh Borkar told the newspaper that rampant land conversions were being allowed under the provision. This will destroy entire villages across Goa, he claimed, adding that the protesters were demanding that the provision be scrapped.

Borkar has been on an indefinite hunger strike at Panaji’s Azad Maidan since Saturday.

During the protest at the Town and Country Planning Department office on Saturday, Borkar also alleged that he had been “dragged” out by police officers. The protesters have demanded action against these police officers for “manhandling” the legislator.

On Monday, the protesters had decided to continue their demonstration and sit outside Rane’s home, The Times of India reported. The protesters marched to his home after gathering at Azad Maidan, even as police put up barricades along the route.

Several Opposition leaders, including Congress leaders Yuri Alemao and Sunil Kawthankar, and Aam Aadmi Party MLA Venzy Viegas had joined the protest outside Rane’s home, PTI reported. However, the protesters later returned to Azad Maidan.

Alemao said that the decision was taken as Borkar’s health had deteriorated. “We will decide the future course of action after consultations soon,” The Indian Express quoted the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly as saying.

Borkar was later shifted to a hospital, PTI reported.

On Monday night, the chief minister said that the protesters had the right to protest but added that this should be “within limits”, The Indian Express reported. Sawant added that it was not right to go to a minister’s home “because he has his personal privacy”.

Responding to the claims that Borkar had been “manhandled” at the protest outside the Town and Country Planning Department office on Saturday, Sawant said that a government office had several things to consider, including the safety of staffers and files, the newspaper reported.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has inspected about 90% of the manufacturers of cough syrup in the country and found compliance lapses, Reuters quoted Drugs Controller General of India Rajeev Raghuvanshi as saying on Monday.

Speaking at the Global Pharmaceutical Quality Summit in Mumbai, Raghuvanshi also said that companies’ sites were being audited by the state and the central regulators under revised norms for good manufacturing practices and requirements, PTI reported.

His statements came months after a cough syrup contaminated with diethylene glycol was linked to the deaths of 25 children. The product, named Coldrif, was manufactured by Sresan Pharmaceuticals, which is based in Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram district.

The deaths, recorded beginning September 2, had been reported in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Several children, who had been suffering from fever and cold, consumed the Coldrif syrup, resulting in vomiting and difficulty urinating.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation had come under pressure to tighten oversight of the $42 billion pharmaceutical industry after cough syrups made in India were linked to the deaths of more than 140 children in Africa ​and Central Asia since 2022, Reuters reported.

At the summit on Monday, Raghuvanshi said that there are more than 1,300 manufacturers of cough syrups, PTI reported.

“…Till now we have audited 1,250 of them physically going to their site, and as we do in risk-based inspection, we took serious actions on serious non-compliances,” the news agency quoted him as saying.

Raghuvanshi added: “Our belief is that the rot of cough syrup manufacturing will be removed from next season and we will be out of the issues of cough syrup manufacturing.”

The drugs controller general also said that about 850 Corrective and Preventive Action notices had been served to firms found manufacturing non-standard quality products, The Indian Express reported.

The notices are regulatory enforcement tools used by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation when products are found to be substandard during inspections, audits or after customer complaints.

“Not a single unsatisfactory CAPA has been accepted,” the newspaper quoted Raghuvanshi as saying.

The drugs controller general further noted that product recalls were compulsory in instances of quality failure. Enforcement actions range from the suspension of product licences to the cancellation and closure of facilities until deficiencies are corrected, he added.

Four persons have died of acute renal failure after consuming allegedly adulterated milk in Andhra Pradesh’s Rajamahendravaram city, The Hindu reported on Monday.

The deaths, including three senior citizens, took place between Saturday and Monday, the newspaper quoted the East Godavari district administration as saying.

At least eight other persons had fallen ill after consuming the milk, the administration was quoted as saying. They are suffering from anuria, or the failure of the kidneys to produce urine, and are undergoing treatment in Rajamahendravaram and Kakinada, The Hindu reported.

Three of them are children below the age of four and are critical, the newspaper quoted doctors as saying.

The symptoms of renal failure began a day after the festival of Maha Shivratri, which was on February 15, The Times of India quoted residents as saying.

District Collector Kirthi Chekuri told The Hindu that the persons had consumed milk supplied by the same vendor, who has been detained for questioning.

The milk had been procured from more than 40 dairy farmers and was being supplied to over 100 families. All persons who died and are ill are from the same area of the city.

Samples have been collected from 75 families, the chief minister’s office said.

The samples of the milk and the fodder given to the cattle have been sent for forensic tests.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the matter on Monday.

A group of 90 ex-bureaucrats on Monday urged the census commissioner to make sure that the upcoming Census in 2027 fully records the population of minority groups in the country.

The former civil servants, who are part of the Constitutional Conduct Group, said: “At a time when political leaders openly express their opposition to the inclusion of so-called ‘Bangladeshi Muslims’ in the electoral rolls, care must be taken to ensure that the Census fully records the population of various minority groups in the country, covering religion, caste and tribe.”

In a letter to Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, the former civil servants also questioned the “lack of transparency” about the reasons for the decennial Census being delayed by six years.

This lack of transparency, the ex-bureaucrats said, has led to “unnecessary apprehensions in the public mind” that the Census is being conducted now to enable the completion of the delimitation exercise in 2027-’28, in time for the 2029 Lok Sabha election.

“We would certainly hope that no such extraneous considerations have influenced the timing of the 2027 Census,” the letter read.

Delimitation is the process of redrawing the territorial boundaries of electoral constituencies. The Census 2027 will take place in two phases – house listing from April to September 2026, and population enumeration in February 2027.

The last decennial Census exercise was held in 2011. In 2020, India was set to begin the first phase of the exercise, but it had to be delayed as the coronavirus pandemic hit.

On Monday, the ex-bureaucrats said that while they could understand that the Census could not be completed in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, they failed to comprehend why the exercise could not be completed by 2023.

The signatories to the letter also noted that the Other Backward Classes had not been specifically classified in the Census. The ex-bureaucrats further added that the methodology for caste enumeration was yet to be announced.

In April 2025, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs had approved the enumeration of caste in the next census.

The Opposition had been demanding a nationwide caste census. The proponents of such an exercise argue that it will help identify the true population of the country’s Other Backward Classes and other castes, in turn paving the way for policies such as expanded quotas.

On the process for enumerating caste, the former civil servants said: “While one option could be to compile a list of castes for persons to select from… we feel the better option is to leave the field open in the Census form, as was done in the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census.”

The letter also said that the methodology for surveying and enumerating languages could be used for condensing the Census data. However, this would require the government to keep the data open for scrutiny by scholars and involve institutions like the Anthropological Survey of India, it added.

The ex-bureaucrats added that data on tribes had been collected in past Censuses only from the Scheduled Tribe population.

“If all tribes, other than those in the ST list, are classified and recorded, a long existing injustice to the Denotified Tribe communities, which account for more than 100 million people, would be rectified,” it added.

‘Census should be unexceptionable’: Ex-bureaucrats

The signatories to the letter further said they hoped that the Census exercise will be “unexceptionable and in conformity with the United Nations guidelines laid down in the Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses (Revision 4 March 2025), to which India is a signatory”.

Past experiences, especially those from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses, show that mere technological advances in computing facilities do not necessarily speed up the release of data, the former bureaucrats said. They stressed the need to “be open to the possibilities of errors” and to put in place effective measures to ensure data quality.

“Providing mobile phones to code everything at field level, where the enumerator is required to select the correct option from a dropdown menu, does not allow for correction of errors in the recorded code,” they noted.

The fiasco earlier in February involving a Chinese robot-dog, a private university that seeks “global” recognition and one of its employees with the ability to talk through drying cement is much more than just about the apparent decline in higher education.

It is also about the emergence of a new kind of Indian personality, one that has been in the making over the past two-three decades. While Galgotias University itself may or may not be aligned with certain ideological positions, the new Indianness is a much more general affair.

It is the result of an educational system beyond formal systems of schooling and university instruction: a vast ecosystem that is spread across large and small towns, air-conditioned and well-equipped campuses as well as hole-in-the-wall outfits. This is the ecosystem of “soft-skills” and “personality development” education that emerged, in its current form, around the mid-1990s.

The Galgotias University professor, who was her employer’s chief media representative through the episode, represents an aspect of the personality development refashioning of Indianness over the past three decades.

Clarification by Neha Singh of Galgotias University. pic.twitter.com/uGgkengah0 https://t.co/dGyOPA21O0

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) February 18, 2026

It is a decisive shift in how a “global” Indianness has come to be imagined. While many young people might undertake formal school and university education, they are simultaneously part of informal systems of soft-skills and personality development training that have come to be seen as supplementing formal degrees and crucial or economic and social mobility.

The personality development training ecosystem emerged in the context of a deeply asymmetrical formal educational framework, one where a very small section of the population had access to the best schools and universities. This produced a tiny population of social and cultural elites, who had access to the most lucrative occupations, whether in the government or the private sector.

This structural problem – not unusual in many ex-colonial societies – was, however, not thought of as a social issue. Rather, it became translated as a problem of “personality”. It came to be understood that those who lacked the benefits of family history, of caste and class, that might enable admission into educational institutions that consolidate and facilitate social mobility could overcome this handicap through learning new personalities.

There are several possible histories of personality development in India but perhaps the most significant lineage is the one that relates to the Rapidex English Speaking course, first published by Delhi’s Pustak Mahal in 1976. This was institutionalised in public memory in the 1980s when cricketing icon Kapil Dev became its public face.

The story of Rapidex and Kapil Dev is one that concerns the possibilities of rapid – if not sudden – transformations of the provincial, and educationally-disadvantaged, male self into a metropolitan being. In the intervening 20 years or so, the provincial female body has become a significant subject of a similar transformation.

Personality development training is not just about language training – though that is an important part. It, just as significantly, concerns the idea of bodily etiquette and the capacity to present oneself as “cosmopolitan”.

A vast network of personality development training institutes operate across India, each equipped with varying but shared “curricula”. Personality development curriculum is usually based on a random mixture of management jargon, dietary prescriptions, naturopathy, bodily techniques, self-help discourses, and frameworks drawn from “global psychology”. These institutes aim specifically to train young people to enhance their “existing” personalities in order to get a job of their choice. “Shortcomings” in personality are presented as preventing economic and social mobility.

There is, also, another kind of personality training institute that is not directly linked to securing a good job. It seeks to improve personalities for its own sake so that the new personality might achieve generalised happiness and fulfilment. These courses are usually run by American companies, charge hefty fees and offer training after work hours and on weekends.

The ideas propagated by personality development institutes have become an indispensable part of a general common sense about intelligence and getting ahead in life. The Galgotias University episode is linked to the rise of these new experiments in personality.

Making the ‘new’ Indian personality

First, a significant part of personality development is the idea that form is superior to content. So, how one presents oneself in public is, according to personality development and soft-skills training, equates to what one is. Form defines the content rather than the other way around. This is, of course, the kind of training that the service industry expects of those it is going to employ: a fast-food chain wants its employee to be constantly pleasant irrespective of how the employee might actually feel.

The Galgotias University professor who fronted up the media insisting that what she was saying at that particular time was important, rather than the facts of the matter or what she might have earlier said, are part of a new discourse of personality that has evolved from the personality development networks.

It is the present and how to grasp that present that marks the most significant aspect of the training and the making of the new Indian personality. Form is always changeable and hence presentable under multiple circumstances.

Second, the new Indian personality favours technology over science. Techno-sophistication is seen as an end itself. That is, cosmopolitanism consists in the capacity to use technology, for this too is about the presentation of the self. Form, like the ability to use a remote control, equals content – how that technology came about and what it means. Science involves a level of engagement with the world that is considered unnecessary.

The Galgotias University episode is much more than a reflection of decline in education standards. It is part of a broader trend in the imagination of Indianness itself. Its roots lie in the historically unequal nature of the educational system. The solution offered, however, was to reduce the problem of inequality to that of “personality”. It is this new personality type that is at the heart of the Galogotia University controversy.

Sanjay Srivastava is Distinguished Research Professor in the department of anthropology and sociology at SOAS University of London.

Seven persons on board an air ambulance were killed on Monday after the aircraft crashed near Simaria in Jharkhand’s Chatra district, ANI reported.

The crash occurred shortly after the aircraft that was en route to Delhi took off from Ranchi airport at 7.11 pm, PTI reported. The aircraft was operated by Redbird Airways Private Limited.

Confirming the toll, Chatra Deputy Commissioner Keerthishree G told PTI that the aircraft went missing at about 7.30 pm. It crashed near the Bariatu Panchayat area in Simaria, she added.

Superintendent of Police Sumit Kumar Agarwal told ANI that the authorities received information about the crash at about 10 pm. He added that getting to the site was difficult because of the terrain.

The crash was likely caused due to a thunderstorm, the deputy commissioner said. However, the exact reason would be determined after an investigation, she added.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer Shubham Khandelwal said that the bodies of all the seven persons, including two crew members, on board have been retrieved, PTI reported.

They were identified as Captain Vivek Vikas Bhagat, Captain Savrajdeep Singh, Sanjay Kumar, Vikas Kumar Gupta, Sachin Kumar Mishra, Archana Devi and Dhuru Kumar.

Anant Sinha, who is the CEO of Devkamal Hospital in Ranchi, said that the air ambulance was arranged by one of their patients, PTI reported.

He added that 41-year-old Sanjay Kumar, a resident of Chandwa in Latehar district, had been brought to the hospital after sustaining 65% burn injuries on February 16. Sanjay Kumar was being treated at the hospital when the family members decided to take him to Delhi for better treatment, Sinha said.

They arranged an air ambulance on Monday, he told the news agency, adding that the patient left the hospital for Delhi at around 4.30 pm.

In a statement, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said that “Redbird Airways Pvt Ltd Beechcraft C90 aircraft VT-AJV operating medical evacuation (Air Ambulance) flight on sector Ranchi-Delhi crashed in Kasaria Panchayat of Chatra district, in Jharkhand” on Monday, PTI reported.

The aircraft was airborne from Ranchi at 7.11 pm. “After establishing contact with Kolkata at 19:34 IST, aircraft lost communication and RADAR contact with Kolkata at approximately 100 NM South-East of Varanasi,” it added.

The statement said that a search and rescue team deployed by the district administration had already reached the location. It added that a team from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, a unit of the civil aviation ministry, was also being dispatched.

As per details received from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation website, the Delhi-based non-scheduled operator Redbird Airways had six aircraft in its fleet, including the one that crashed, PTI reported.

The incident on Monday comes nearly a month after former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar was also killed in a plane crash on January 28.

Pawar died when the small aircraft crashed near an airstrip in Baramati town during its second attempt to land after having initiated a go-around. Two pilots, a flight attendant and Ajit Pawar’s security officer were the others who died in the incident.

On Sunday, scores of Noida residents gathered in a park to protest against the Uttar Pradesh government’s move to allot a part of the park for the construction of a temple.

While the allotment process is still at a preliminary stage, residents worry that dozens of trees will be felled and daily life in the neighbourhood will be disrupted if a temple were to come up there. Sixty of them have even petitioned the Allahabad High Court, demanding that the Noida Authority notification about the allotment be quashed and the park be protected “in general public interest”.

The plot in question is a little over 300 square metres and is roughly valued at Rs 2.8 crores. It is part of the Vrindavan Park located in Sector 15A of Noida, Uttar Pradesh, a satellite town east of Delhi.

The posh locality is home to many retired bureaucrats, jurists and academics. On Sunday, some of them came out wearing t-shirts that bore a message: “Let the parks be.” They sang devotional songs, hugged trees, posed for pictures and picnicked with their neighbours – all under the watch of police officers standing at one of the entrances.

Nakul, a 38-year-old businessman who has lived in Sector 15A for over two decades, made it a point to mention that most of those protesting were “hardcore Hindus”. They had to come out of their homes on a Sunday morning, he explained, because “fanatics” were trying to build a temple without taking people like him into confidence.

“Most residents don’t want a temple,” Nakul claimed. “There are so many temples around. We have temples at home. All of us are hardcore Hindus, but we don’t wear our religion on our sleeves. We keep our religion private. But these guys have turned fanatics and want to build a temple here.”

He was referring to the former Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mahesh Sharma, who lives in Sector 15A and has represented Gautam Buddha Nagar in Parliament for three consecutive terms starting from 2014. The BJP has also held the Assembly seat of Noida, of which Sector 15A is a part, since 2012. It won the seat with more than 70% of the votes and a massive 1.8 lakh margin over the next candidate in the 2022 Assembly elections.

Not only Nakul, but several others blamed Sharma, the local MP, for pushing the temple project. Some even alleged that he is connected to a trust that is participating in the allotment process. Sharma did not respond to multiple interview requests from Scroll. This story will be updated if he responds.

‘Nothing to do with religion’

SP Singh, 79, curled his moustache when asked why the demand for a temple had caused friction in the neighbourhood. The gesture was meant to indicate that the MP had linked the issue to his personal prestige. If Sharma so wanted a temple in the area, Singh suggested that he build it on a plot of land he himself owns.

“The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has given him [MP Mahesh Sharma] a target to make 128 temples in Noida,” he alleged. “It is all about the RSS. It has nothing to do with religion. He just wants to be close to the RSS because it is running the show.”

The retired revenue service officer built his Sector 15A house in 1992. He is the lead petitioner in the court case for which he travelled to Prayagraj last week. The name of his wife, Kushal Singh, who served as the first woman chief secretary of Rajasthan, is on the list of petitioners as well.

SM Dewan, Singh’s golfing partner, feared that building a temple would set a precedent. Muslims and Sikhs residing in Sector 15A could also ask for mosques and gurudwaras to be constructed here, he reasoned.

The 82-year-old contended that the Noida Authority notification regarding the plot, which was put out on February 5, went against the Modi government’s promise of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”. Together with all, development for all.

“It still shocks us that on the one hand, our beloved leader Modiji talks of peace and development while on the other, a small entity like Noida Authority negates everything he says,” Dewan complained. “He is our favourite leader. We revere him because he is protecting the country. Despite him being in power, a small government authority is blatantly disobeying him.”

‘Reflection of what is happening in the country’

However, others were not surprised by majoritarian politics finding its way to elite settlements like Sector 15A.

“Frankly, this is a reflection of what is happening in the country,” said JK Jain, 69, who has lived in the area since 1993. “The polarisation is percolating to the ground level.”

In his view, addressing the concerns of all, even if they are in the minority, is essential for maintaining good relations among neighbours. He faulted the residents’ welfare association for acting in a “biased” manner instead of organising “a dialogue” with those opposing the temple.

But Swati Gaur, the association’s president, distanced herself from the controversy saying that the issue pertained to the Noida Authority alone. She insisted that “anxieties” about the temple had not fostered any “animosity” among people living in Sector 15A.

“The residents are always together,” Gaur added. “There are differences of opinion which arise and then they are all sorted out. We are all friends at the end of the day. Ours is a very close-knit community.”

Yet, the tension in the community was palpable when Scroll visited the neighbourhood on Sunday. The protest gathering coincided with an annual cricket match that was being played in the ground across the street from the park. Those who came to the park and expressed their opposition to the temple project had boycotted the match.

At the game of cricket, too, the feeling of unease was shared by attendees. Lawyer Prashant Joshi, who was the commentator for the match, also expressed the view that a temple was not needed in Sector 15A. In fact, he suggested that the majority of residents were against the idea even though they may not say so openly.

“Today, the environment is full of fear,” Joshi explained. “We have only ourselves to blame for this. The middle class always lives in fear and blames everybody else. If we come together, why will the temple be built? We are in the majority. Who are we afraid of? We should speak up.”

The authorities in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur on Sunday began covering 72 mosques and mazars along the routes of the traditional “Joota Maar Holi” procession with tarpaulin sheets, IANS quoted Municipal Commissioner Vipin Mishra as saying.

In recent years, religious processions in several states have led to instances of communal violence.

Holi in Shahjahanpur is marked by a “Laat Saheb” procession, during which participants throw footwear at a man impersonating a British officer seated on a bullock cart. The procession begins with prayers at the Phoolmati Devi temple and then moves through the city, PTI reported.

Holi will be celebrated on March 4 this year.

“Shahjahanpur’s small and large Laat Saheb processions are an integral part of the city’s historic tradition,” Mishra told IANS. “Covering religious sites is a purely precautionary step.”

Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh: Municipal Commissioner Vipin Mishra says, "...Shahjahanpur’s small and large Lath Sahib processions are an integral part of the city’s historic tradition. All necessary arrangements have been made to conduct them peacefully. Covering religious sites… pic.twitter.com/qMTTY2glxi

— IANS (@ians_india) February 22, 2026

On Monday, Superintendent of Police Rajesh Dwivedi told PTI that four additional superintendents of police, 13 circle officers, 310 sub-inspectors, 1,200 constables and 500 home guards will be deployed along the route. He said that this would be about one and a half times the number of security personnel deployed the previous year.

Personnel from the Provincial Armed Constabulary, the Rapid Action Force and the National Disaster Response Force will also be stationed in the area.

Additionally, 148 lanes opening onto the procession route will be barricaded to prevent sudden crowd surges, PTI reported.

Dwivedi urged residents to celebrate Holi peacefully and said that action will be taken against those who disrupt the festival, the news agency reported.

He added that peace committee meetings involving members of various religious communities have been held ahead of the festival.

The Indian Embassy in Tehran asked Indian nationals to leave Iran by plane and all other means of transport available. This came after fresh protests in the country, with Iranian students shouting anti-government slogans and clashing with counter-protesters.

All Indian students, pilgrims, business persons and tourists were advised to have their passports and identity documents ready. The embassy also reiterated its January 14 advisory, asking Indian nationals to avoid travelling to Iran.

The Union government has that there are approximately 9,000 to 10,000 Indians in Iran, but it does not consider them “stranded”. Read on.

More than 74 lakh persons have been removed from the final voter lists of Tamil Nadu as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The state has 5.6 crore voters, according to the Election Commission. It had 6.4 crore electors when the exercise began on October 27.

In December, when the draft rolls were published, the names of 97.3 lakh persons were removed.

The poll panel said that 27.5 lakh eligible voters were added to the lists during the claim and objection period, which concluded on January 30. A total of 4.2 lakh names were deleted. Read on.

The United States said that it will stop collecting global tariffs from Tuesday, four days after the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump had exceeded his authority in imposing the levies. The halt does not affect other levies imposed by Trump.

Soon after the ruling on Friday, Trump signed a proclamation imposing a temporary 10% levy on articles imported into the US, and a day later, said he was increasing global tariffs to 15% with immediate effect.

However, it was unclear as to when the increased tariff rate would take effect. Read on.

The Delhi Police called Indian Youth National President Uday Bhanu Chib for questioning in connection with a protest at the India AI Impact Summit. The Congress’ youth wing posted on social media later that he had been “unlawfully detained”.

The police also claimed to have arrested another member of the Indian Youth Congress from Gwalior. This was the fifth arrest in the case. Four other party workers were sent to five days of police custody on Saturday.

Congress MP KC Venugopal condemned the detention of Youth Congress members, including Chib, describing it as “completely illegal”. Read on.

Galgotias fiasco spotlights the aggressive AI blitz by India’s private universities, writes Ayush Tiwari

The Supreme Court directed the Lucknow district election officer to examine the grievances of 91 residents who said that they had been excluded during the special intensive revision of voter rolls in Uttar Pradesh after their homes were demolished in September 2023. The petitioners claimed they were removed because they lacked “identifiable addresses” following the demolition and rehabilitation process.

The bench allowed the petitioners to approach the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court if they did not get relief from the poll officer. Read on.

Days ahead of polls, displaced slum residents in Delhi found names deleted from electoral rolls, reports Sneha

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More than 74 lakh persons have been removed from the final voter list of Tamil Nadu as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, the Election Commission said on Monday.

The final list showed that the state has 5.6 crore voters.

Tamil Nadu had 6.4 crore electors when the exercise began on October 27. In December, when the draft rolls were published, the names of 97.3 lakh persons were removed.

According to the Election Commission, 27.5 lakh eligible voters were added to the list during the claims and objections period, which concluded on January 30. A total of 4.2 lakh names were deleted during this phase.

Assembly elections will be held in the state in April or May.

Tamil Nadu is among the 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission is conducting the special intensive revision of voter rolls.

Among these states and Union Territories, the final electoral rolls of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are yet to be published.

The states where final rolls have been released are Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Goa. Among Union Territories, the exercise has been completed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.

In these states and Union Territories, almost 8% or 1.7 crore names have been removed from the final voter lists.

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 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court against the voter roll revision.

The police in Delhi on Monday called Indian Youth National President Uday Bhanu Chib for questioning at Tilak Marg Police Station on Monday in connection with a protest at the India AI Impact Summit, The Indian Express reported.

While Chib told ANI that he had been summoned for questioning, the Congress’ youth wing posted on social media later that he was “unlawfully detained”.

The police in Delhi also claimed to have arrested another member of the Indian Youth Congress from Gwalior in connection with the protest, The Indian Express reported.

This was the fifth arrest in the case. Four other party workers were sent to five days of police custody on Saturday.

On Friday, at least 11 persons staged a protest during the summit.

Following this, the Delhi Police registered a first information report under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita pertaining to criminal conspiracy, causing hurt to a public servant, assault on a public servant, disobedience of an order and unlawful assembly, The Indian Express reported.

The group had shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held placards alleging that he was “compromised”.

If peaceful protest scares you,
you’re afraid of democracy itself.

Release IYC workers now. pic.twitter.com/AkA9B4BIl1

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) February 23, 2026

On Saturday, the Delhi Police told the court that the protest was part of a “larger conspiracy” and claimed it was inspired by Nepal’s recent Gen-Z led agitation. It had alleged that the demonstration was a pre-planned attempt to disrupt the high-profile event at Bharat Mandapam.

The five-day India AI Impact Summit began on February 16 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. It was promoted as a major gathering on artificial intelligence in the Global South, attended by 20 world leaders, technology executives and exhibitors from 30 countries.

On Monday, Congress MP KC Venugopal condemned the detention of Youth Congress members, including Chib.

“This detention is completely illegal,” Venugopal said. “We demand that they all be released immediately and all charges be dropped.”

He added that: “This government forgets that protests are the heart of democracy, and not a crime.”

On Friday, the Bharatiya Janata Party described the protest as a “national shame”.

On Sunday, Modi accused the Youth Congress of turning an international event into a platform for “gandi aur nangi [dirty and shameless]” politics.

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Lucknow district election officer to examine the grievances of 91 residents who said that they were excluded during the special intensive revision of voter rolls in Uttar Pradesh after their homes were demolished in September 2023, PTI reported.

The petitioners claimed that during the revision exercise, 91 residents of Lucknow’s Akbar Nagar were removed from the electoral rolls because they lacked “identifiable addresses” following the demolition and rehabilitation process.

The petitioners, led by a woman named Sana Parveen, said that they were long-term residents of Akbar Nagar, PTI reported. They told the court that many of their names appeared in voter lists from 2002, while those of younger residents appeared in subsequent lists.

Akbar Nagar is located on the banks of the Kukrail nulla in Lucknow. After the National Green Tribunal found the settlement to be “illegal”, the district administration carried out an eviction drive in the area in 2023.

On Monday, advocate MR Shamshad, appearing for the petitioners, told the Supreme Court that the residents should not be disenfranchised because they were displaced.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant directed the Lucknow district election officer to look into the grievances of the residents and take remedial measures, PTI reported. It allowed the petitioners to approach the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court if they did not get relief from the poll officer.

Uttar Pradesh is among the 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission is conducting the special intensive revision of the voter rolls.

The draft roll in the state was published on January 6. It showed that the names of 2.8 crore voters had been removed – the largest number of deletions among the 12 states and Union Territories.

The final electoral roll for Uttar Pradesh and two other states is yet to be released.

Meanwhile, in nine states and Union Territories where the first phase of the revision exercise has concluded, almost 8% or 1.7 crore names have been removed from the final voter list, The Hindu reported.

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 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court against the voter roll revision.

Also read: Days ahead of polls, displaced slum residents in Delhi found names deleted from electoral rolls

The Indian Embassy in Tehran on Monday asked Indian nationals to leave Iran by available means of transport, including commercial flights.

The advisory came against the backdrop of fresh protests in the country, with Iranian students shouting anti-government slogans and clashing with counter-protesters on Saturday, reported AP. The demonstrations continued on Sunday.

On Monday, the embassy told Indian students, pilgrims, business persons and tourists to have their travel and immigration documents, including passports and identity cards, readily available.

“They are requested to contact the Indian Embassy for any assistance in this regard,” it added.

The embassy also reiterated its January 14 advisory, asking Indian nationals to avoid travelling to Iran. It had, at the time, also asked Indian citizens in Iran to leave at the earliest.

pic.twitter.com/hVDwTTdhja

— India in Iran (@India_in_Iran) February 23, 2026

On February 5, the Union government told the Parliament that there are approximately 9,000 to 10,000 Indian nationals in Iran, but it does not consider them “stranded”.

Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh had said that there are no reports of any Indian national being missing or killed during the protests.

“With commercial flights operating, Indian nationals wishing to return to India have been advised to use regular commercial air services,” Singh had said at the time.

The statement had come in response to a question about the number of Indians stranded in Iran amid the recent anti-government protests.

The protests, which began on December 28, initially focused on discontent about rising inflation. However, they later expanded as protesters in more than 100 towns demanded an end to clerical rule.

According to the United States-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, the toll in the crackdown on the protests is at least 6,876.

Iran is also facing a military build-up deployed by the US, with President Donald Trump stating that he was considering a “limited strike”, reported BBC.

The US and its European allies have claimed that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has denied this.

Tehran and Washington are engaged in talks, reportedly to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

The authorities in Iran have accused the US and Israel of inciting the unrest.

On June 13, the Israeli military struck what it claimed were nuclear targets, and also other sites, in Iran with the aim of stalling Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran retaliated with missile attacks on Israel.

After 12 days of hostilities, Israel and Iran on June 24 agreed to a proposal by the United States for a ceasefire, which appears to have held so far. Washington is an ally of Israel and acts as a guarantor of the country’s security.

The police in Andhra Pradesh on Monday arrested Indian Police Service officer M Sunil Kumar Nayak in connection with the alleged custodial torture of former MP K Raghu Rama Krishna Raju in 2021, The Hindu reported.

Raju had been arrested that year for allegedly making derogatory remarks about then Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. He later alleged that he was tortured in police custody.

Nayak, a Bihar-cadre IPS officer, was serving as deputy inspector general in the Crime Investigation Department at the time of the alleged incident.

A case in connection with the alleged torture was filed by Guntur Police on July 11, 2024, after the Telugu Desam Party-led government was elected to power.

The first information report alleged that Raju was arrested on Nayak’s instructions and was assaulted while in custody, The New Indian Express reported.

Nayak has been booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to attempt to murder, causing grievous hurt using dangerous weapons and other offences, The Hindu reported.

He was arrested in the early hours of Monday from Bihar, and was being brought to Andhra Pradesh, Guntur district Superintendent of Police Vakul Jindal told the newspaper.

The police had earlier issued multiple summons to Nayak asking him to record his statement, but received no response, The New Indian Express reported.

The IPS officer had been posted to Andhra Pradesh on an inter-state deputation in 2019 and had served in the southern state for three years. He returned to Bihar after the TDP-led government came to power in 2024.

Nayak is posted as the inspector general of the Bihar Fire Services.

Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha said on Sunday that the state government will ban the roadside display and sale of meat in the open near educational institutions to prevent “violent tendencies” among children, ANI reported.

The government will also prohibit the selling of meat in open near religious sites and in crowded public places, Sinha told reporters. He said this was necessary “from a health perspective” and for “social harmony”.

Sinha said that the sale of meat and fish in the open “pollutes pure thoughts”, ANI reported. He added: “We have no problem with food, but social harmony and the sentiments of purity should not be hurt. No one’s sentiments should be hurt, and the environment should not be polluted.”

#WATCH | Patna: On UDHD Principal Secretary's letter regarding the open sale of meat and fish, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha says, "This is a new initiative of the new government. The changing face of Bihar is clearly visible. We held a meeting under the Urban… pic.twitter.com/5Y6ciK5lNt

— ANI (@ANI) February 23, 2026

Last week, Sinha had announced in the Legislative Council that the government would ban open-air and unlicensed meat sales in urban areas, The Indian Express reported. He had claimed that during a recent visit to Darbhanga district, residents had complained to him about roadside meat sales leading to filth, foul odour and congestion.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader had then said that the decision was not aimed at any community or dietary preference.

The ban on the sale of meat in the open will be enforced through Section 345 of the Bihar Municipal Act, 2007, according to The Indian Express. The provision says that no one can work as a butcher, fish seller or poultry seller without a licence from the Chief Municipal Officer.

The announcement by the Bihar government is in line with restrictions on selling meat in states where the BJP is in power.

In 2017, the Uttar Pradesh government laid down guidelines prohibiting the sale of meat near religious sites and requiring shops to use curtains and tinted glass to ensure that meat is not visible to passers-by.

States such as Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra have implemented localised restrictions and curbs during Hindu festivals.

Also read: The illogic of meat bans

A former Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Rajasthan refused to give blankets allegedly to Muslim women during a distribution drive, saying that “those who abuse Modi” did not have the right to receive them.

A video that surfaced on social media on Sunday showed the former MP, Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria, taking back blankets purportedly from Muslim women in the Kareda Buzurg village in Tonk district. It is unclear when the video was recorded.

“Listen to me, those who abuse [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi have no right to take [blankets],” Jaunapuria was heard saying in a video shared by Congress MP Harish Chandra Meena. “If you feel bad, so be it.”

Jaunapuria had shared an edited version of the video showing him distributing blankets to women.

आज टोंक जिले की निवाई विधानसभा के ग्राम करेडा बुजुर्ग में भगवान के मंदिर पर पूर्व सांसद सुखबीर सिंह जौनापुरिया द्वारा मुस्लिम रोजेदार महिलाओं से किया गया व्यवहार न केवल निंदनीय है बल्कि इस देश के सामाजिक ताने बाने को नष्ट करने वाली विघटनकारी सोच का परिणाम है।
गरीब और असहाय… pic.twitter.com/Nhxrp12Wnf

— Harish Chandra Meena (@HC_meenaMP) February 22, 2026

निवाई विधानसभा के करेड़ा बुजुर्ग गांव में @narendramodi @NitinNabin @AmitShah @JPNadda @BhajanlalBjp @madanrrathore @chshekharbjp @BJP4India @BJP4Rajasthan @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/XWry05USJf

— Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria (@JaunapuriaSS) February 22, 2026

One of the women who was refused a blanket, Sukaran Khan, was quoted by the Hindustan Times as saying that the BJP leader “got offended” on hearing a Muslim name.

“He was giving blankets to everyone,” she was quoted as saying. “But suddenly, he asked his staff to ask for our names. We told him our names. He got offended as we are Muslims. He immediately took our blankets back.”

The video shows Jaunapuria asking his aides not to give blankets to the women and asking them to leave. It also shows some persons confronting him about his refusal to give Muslim women blankets, to which he said that there was no need for argument.

“It doesn’t matter if you feel bad,” the former Tonk-Sawai Madhopur MP was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. “They will take the blanket and will later boast that they made a fool of us.”

Meena, the incumbent MP from Sawai Madhopur-Tonk, said that Jaunapuria’s act was “shameful and inhuman”. He said that the BJP leader’s actions were “the result of a divisive mindset that destroys the social fabric of this country”.

Congress MLA from Tonk Sachin Pilot said that the worldview of the BJP and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, reflects “hatred rather than compassion”.

“Depriving a poor, needy woman of a blanket and insulting her is extremely reprehensible and unfortunate,” Pilot said in a social media post. “Discrimination based on religion and caste is not only morally wrong but also a violation of constitutional rights.”

The Trinamool Congress remarked that such incidents raise troubling questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”, or development for all, and with all. “Welfare cannot come with religious filters,” it said.

“Your [BJP’s] hearts are blacker and colder than the winter these women endured,” the party said. “Your rallies drip with fake unity; your party overflows with pure venom. This is your ‘New India’, cruel, communal, heartless.”

The Indian government on Sunday described the airstrikes conducted by Pakistan on Afghan territory as another attempt by Islamabad to “externalise its internal failures”.

Noting that the strikes had resulted in civilian casualties during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in a press release reiterated New Delhi’s support for Afghanistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.

Earlier on Sunday, Pakistan claimed to have killed 70 terrorists in strikes targeting at least seven militant hideouts in Afghanistan in retaliation for recent rebel attacks in the country, PTI reported.

The attacks in the country included one on a Shia mosque in Islamabad earlier in February, as well as others that occurred after Ramzan began this week in the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the BBC reported.

Pakistan State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry was quoted as saying by PTI on Sunday that Afghanistan had long been exporting terrorism. The minister told a Pakistani news channel that his country was “taking all actions to secure the life and property of its citizens”.

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defence condemned Sunday’s strikes, saying that Islamabad targeted several residential homes and a religious school in the border provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika, Al Jazeera reported.

The strikes resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries, including women and children, it added.

In October, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a ceasefire following clashes along the border between them. However, subsequent fighting has taken place in the region, the BBC reported.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 2,574 km mountainous border.

Clashes erupted at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi between students affiliated to the Left and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in the early hours of Monday after a protest was held seeking the resignation of Vice Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, PTI reported.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union had called for a march towards the East Gate of the campus, demanding that Pandit should resign for making allegedly casteist remarks during an interview to The Sunday Guardian on February 16. The vice chancellor had said that progress for Dalits was not possible “by being permanently a victim of playing the victim card”.

The clashes took place at around 1.30 am on Monday after a scuffle broke out among the students.

The protesters alleged that the JNU administration did not engage with the march, and instead allowed members of the ABVP to confront them, PTI reported.

The All India Students Association, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), also alleged that members of the ABVP threw stones at “unarmed students” and left many of them injured, PTI reported.

The ABVP alleged that a biotechnology student named Prateek Bharadwaj was critically injured after he was attacked by the Left-affiliated students.

The student group alleged that Bharadwaj “was first blinded with fire extinguisher powder and then mercilessly beaten”. It urged the Delhi Police to arrest those allegedly involved immediately.

Videos on social media showed students being chased and beaten inside the JNU campus.

In a statement on Monday, the university administration claimed that several academic buildings inside the campus were “reportedly locked by a group” of protesting students.

“The protesting students entered the central library and reportedly threatened the unwilling students, intimidated them to join the protest,” it said. “It is learnt that this led to a scuffle between two student groups on campus...”

The administration said that it had taken cognisance of the “disturbing” incidents.

“JNU administration condemns such unruly behaviour on campus aimed at repeated destruction of public property and its inclusive ethos,” the statement said.

It added that action under the university’s rules and under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was being taken to “ensure proper academic environment in the campus”.

Violence broke out at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) late Sunday night as clashes erupted between ABVP members and left-wing student organisations, leaving several students injured.

Left groups alleged stone-pelting at the JNUSU camp site during a gathering called to… pic.twitter.com/hD3rm0lYmw

— Vani Mehrotra (@vani_mehrotra) February 23, 2026

JNU VC’s remarks

During her interview to The Sunday Guardian, Pandit had described criticism of the University Grants Commission’s new equity regulations as being irrational and reflective of “wokeism”.

“You cannot progress by being permanently a victim or playing the victim card,” she was quoted as having said. “This was done for the Blacks; the same thing was brought for Dalits here.”

Pandit later denied that her remarks were casteist, and that they had been taken out of context. “I am a Bahujan myself, I come from an OBC [Other Backward Class] background,” she was quoted as saying by PTI.

The regulations, notified on January 13 by the University Grants Commission, led to protests by some upper-caste students in several parts of the country, who argued that the framework could result in discrimination against them. They contended that the rules did not include safeguards against “false complaints”.

On January 29, the Supreme Court stayed the operation of the regulations, observing that their provisions were “prima facie vague and capable of misuse”. It asked the Union government to redraft the regulations. Until then, their operation will remain in abeyance.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday announced that the Central Bureau of Investigation will investigate the plane crash that killed former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on January 28.

“I’ve spoken to Union Home Minister [Amit Shah] for a CBI inquiry,” Fadnavis said at a press conference. “That’ll be done.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader noted that there was a proposal from Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party requesting that the investigation into the crash be carried out by the central agency.

Ajit Pawar died when a small aircraft crashed near an airstrip in Baramati town during its second attempt to land after having initiated a go-around. Two pilots, a flight attendant and Ajit Pawar’s security officer were the others who died in the incident.

The cause of the crash was unclear. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, a unit of the civil aviation ministry, is investigating the incident.

On Sunday, Fadnavis described the crash as “unfortunate and shocking”, adding that everybody wanted to know what exactly led to the mishap.

The chief minister said that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the state Crime Investigation Department started an investigation immediately after the crash. “But now we have agreed to a CBI probe as demanded by the NCP,” Fadnavis.

Fadnavis said that the DGCA has initiated an audit of all the flights operated in recent years by VSR Ventures, which owned the aircraft that crashed. The chief minister said that he had also taken the same aircraft at least four to five times in the past.

Noting that these aircraft were foreign-made, the BJP leader added that help has been sought from overseas agencies to retrieve details.

Earlier, the Nationalist Congress Party had said that the crash “transcended” an ordinary accident, The Indian Express reported. It had said that a CBI inquiry would reinforce confidence in the investigation process.

Rohit Pawar, a legislator from the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Sharad Pawar, had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah, demanding the resignation of Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu until the inquiry concluded.

Former Union minister Mukul Roy died on Monday. He was 71.

Roy had been admitted to a hospital in Kolkata and was suffering from several ailments, The Indian Express quoted his son as saying.

He had not been in active politics in recent years because of his ailments.

The former Rajya Sabha MP was part of the Congress till 1998, after which he became a founding member of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. He was the general secretary of the party between 1998 and 2015.

He served as the Union railway minister in the United Progressive Alliance government between March 2012 and September 2012. He had been the Union minister of state for shipping between 2009 and 2011.

Roy joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017. However, soon after the Trinamool Congress retained power in West Bengal in May 2021, he aligned himself with the state’s ruling party.

This came months after he won the Krishnanagar Uttar Assembly constituency on a BJP ticket.

The BJP had been demanding Roy’s disqualification as a legislator after he was made the chairperson of the public accounts committee in July 2021.

In November, the Calcutta High Court disqualified Roy as an MLA. The High Court set aside an earlier order by Speaker Biman Banerjee, where he had refused to act on a disqualification petition filed by the BJP.

On January 16, the Supreme Court stayed the High Court’s verdict.

Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee said on Monday that the death of Roy marked the end of an era in West Bengal’s political history. “His contributions helped shape an important phase of the state’s public and political journey,” Abhishek Banerjee said on social media.

“As a founding pillar of the All India Trinamool Congress, he was instrumental in expanding and consolidating the organisation during its formative years,” Abhishek Banerjee said. “His dedication to public life will be recalled with admiration.”

The Delhi Police on Sunday said that a first information report has been filed against a couple for allegedly shouting racial slurs and intimidating three women from Arunachal Pradesh, The Indian Express reported.

The incident had taken place on Friday at a rented flat in the Malviya Nagar area where the women reside, India Today reported. The couple, identified as Harsh Singh and his wife Ruby Jain, live on a lower floor in the same building.

The women were getting an air conditioner installed at their home at about 3.30 pm when some debris allegedly fell into the couple’s house, The Indian Express quoted unidentified police officers as saying.

This led to an altercation between the couple and the three women, who alleged that derogatory and racial remarks were made even as they apologised, the newspaper reported. The women claimed that Jain said that they worked at “massage parlours” and that they should sell momos.

A purported video of the incident was widely shared on social media.

In the video, Jain can be heard allegedly saying that her husband was the “son of a politician”. She can also be heard allegedly saying that the three women were “Rs 500 mein massage parlour mein kaam karne wali dhandewali [sex workers who work at massage parlours for Rs 500]”.

Harsh Singh was also allegedly heard making derogatory remarks during the exchange.

In the video, a police officer can be seen attempting to intervene.

The police said that a case was registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to actions intended to insult a woman’s modesty, criminal intimidation, common intention and promoting enmity on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language against Singh and Jain, ANI reported.

While no injuries were reported, mental harassment and humiliation have been alleged, the news agency quoted the police as having said in a statement.

An investigation is underway, the police said, adding that legal action would be taken based on the findings.

Sadly with few exceptions, the record of the Indian state in securing justice and reparation for survivors of mass communal violence is badly tainted ever since the first major post-Independence riot in Jabalpur in 1961.

But even by the standards of this disgraceful record, the communal carnage in North East Delhi in 2020 stands apart. These communal clashes in the working-class neighbourhoods of north-east Delhi were followed by the comprehensive and wanton denial by state authorities of rescue, relief, compensation and justice to the victims of the hate violence unleashed in the national capital.

In many ways, in its neglect of its duties to protect its citizens from violence and to assist them to rebuild their lives and secure justice, the union and state government in Delhi hit a new low. This constitutes one of the most dishonourable chapters in the Modi years.

The communal fury that engulfed this enclave of the national capital rose in the wake of the nationwide non-violent protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019. In the winter of 2019-’20, ordinary citizens across India rallied spontaneously against this legislation because it was widely perceived to discriminate against Muslims by targeting their religious identity. This was seen as a frontal assault on India’s Constitution.

It burgeoned rapidly into the largest non-violent resistance movement that the Indian republic has seen, even bigger than the public uprising that I witnessed in my youth against the Emergency in the mid-1970s.

This unprecedented public resistance, with glimmerings of the idealism of the freedom struggle and iridescent displays of the unity and solidarity of people of all religions, castes and ethnicities, uniquely chose as its icon the Indian constitution. However, this singular movement of solidarity in a country of 1.4 billion people abruptly came undone.

The first blow was struck by this sudden conflagration of communal violence in the working- class district in north-east Delhi from February 23, 2020. This warring with the police and militants of the majority Hindu community on one side and their Muslim neighbours on the other smouldered for four days. It extinguished at least 53 lives, and yielded the extensive destruction of property, and the uprooting of thousands from religiously diverse neighbourhoods.

The second fatal blow on the people’s uprising against the new citizenship law was the punishing countrywide lockdown that the national government imposed a month after the communal violence, coercing the country’s 1.4 billion people indoors for many months.

As 30 million starving and desperate migrant workers hit the highways, undeterred by police batons and lockups, the surging collective public resistance against a citizenship law that discriminated against Indian Muslims quickly faded into a distant memory.

Failures to control the violence, and of rescue

To begin with, it bears repeating that it was the national capital which the violence lashed. This is the seat of both the national and Delhi governments. Delhi is also the national headquarters of the three armed forces and most paramilitary formations. If there was a will, what by any standards was a small skirmish in a working-class enclave of the capital city could have been controlled in literally a matter of hours. The fact that it continued unhindered for four days is a reflection not simply of dishonourable state incompetence. It is manifest evidence of criminal state complicity.

I have worked long enough as a civil servant handling and observing communal clashes to fathom that indisputably communal violence can continue beyond a few hours only if and when the state wishes for it to continue.

The communal violence in Delhi was ignited at least in part by a string of hate speeches by prominent leaders of the BJP, speeches that nakedly exhorted violence. Despite interventions in the Delhi High Court with which this writer was associated that sought that crimes be immediately registered against those guilty of inciting hate violence, and despite strong admonitions by the acting Chief Justice S Muralidhar, to which I will return later, the police refused to register crimes against any of them.

One of those who called for the shooting of “traitors to the nation”, dog-whistling Indian Muslims, was elevated to a union cabinet minister. Another is today the law and justice cabinet minister of the Delhi government. I shall circle back to the fate of this petition later in this essay.

The first duty of the state was to prevent and control the violence. In this it wantonly failed. It failed also in its next urgent duty, to rescue those whose lives, homes and properties were threatened by the riotous mobs. Instead, more than 13,000 desperate calls to the police seeking protection from the marauding mobs went unheeded.

When my own efforts to stir the government at its highest levels failed, I made a public call for volunteers to set up a citizens’ control room of the Karwan e Mohabbat. Within hours of my call, more than 40 young people gathered in my office, and did not leave for five days. I requested Shashikant Senthil, who had recently resigned from the Indian Administrative Service and is now a Lok Sabha MP, and Kannan Gopinath to head the citizen control room. They both flew into the city and steered the citizens’ control room.

Desperate calls thronged our control room as soon as it was operationalised. One particularly insistent call came from a clinic in the area of combat torn apart by the communal carnage. The doctor in the clinic described the dire plight of boys and men with bullet injuries in his care, who could be saved only if they were rushed to hospitals. But the mobs and the police would not allow even ambulances to move. Two people had died in his clinic and at least 20 were in imminent danger of death if they were not reached to hospitals without further delay. Even wartime ethics mandate the free movement of injured people to hospitals. But not in Delhi’s battleground.

It took our midnight intervention, by Karwan e Mohabbat volunteer lawyers Suroor Mander and Chariyu, once again with Justice Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court, for the police to be directed by the court to ensure the safe movement of ambulances. This order saved not just these 20 but hundreds of other lives of injured and threatened people, now that the police responded to our calls from the citizens’ control room to protect the movement of ambulances and rescue vans through the area inflamed by the violence. But it is shameful that it required the High Court to move the police to fulfil its most elementary duty to ensure that lives were saved in the midst of the fires of communal hatred.

Failures of relief

The state government initially took no steps to establish relief camps. In this it followed in the ignoble footsteps of the Gujarat government in 2002. I had in 2002 believed that no government could so shamefully abdicate its duties of relief and rehabilitation in the way that the Gujarat state government led by Narendra Modi did. The Delhi state government proved me wrong. It sank the bar even lower.

When criticised widely for its refusal to set up relief camps, the Delhi government then designated nine homeless shelters as relief camps. This was nothing more than a cruel insult to the thousands who had been rendered homeless by the violence. Homeless shelters are bare tin sheds in which homeless people are packed body to body, especially in winter months, in unsanitary and undignified conditions. How could these conceivably double up as places of safety and healing for the thousands displaced by the communal violence?

In the Indian Administrative Service in which I served, officers are trained to establish relief camps in the immediate aftermath of natural and human-made disasters even in remote and deprived areas amidst widespread devastation.

Delhi, the national capital, was abundant in plentiful resources like stadiums, college buildings, civil volunteer formations, the National Cadet Corps, the National Service Scheme and myriad professional groups. The government could have easily deployed these to establish exemplary relief camps. Instead, the state government chose to offer no effective relief to those battered in the communal storms.

Denial of compensation

The story of compensation – described in detail in the report of the Karwan e Mohabbat titled The Absent State: Denial of Reparation & Recompense to the Survivors of the 2020 Delhi Pogrom – is even more dismal. The union government did not announce a compensation scheme and in the six years that have passed since then has not extended a single rupee to the survivors of the violence.

The state government started off better, but this lasted only the first weeks of the distribution of ex gratia relief and death compensations. It at least announced a compensation scheme, although at levels much lower than for the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 that had also unfolded in the national capital. Officials of the Delhi state government in 2020 did effectively distribute ex gratia relief and death and injury compensation in the immediate days after the carnage. But then it beat a baffling and ignoble retreat.

In March itself, barely a month after the carnage, at a time when the victim survivors were battling the catastrophic consequences of both the riots and the Covid-19 lockdown, the Delhi government suddenly – and without any public explanation – rescinded from its responsibility of helping the victim survivors of the carnage to rebuild their lives. It instead approached the Delhi High Court to set up a separate agency to assess and distribute compensation.

This was inexplicable and inexcusable, not just when viewed from the yardstick of the elementary ethics of humane governance; but also because it was bad in law. Rescue, relief, compensation and rehabilitation of those hit by communal and caste violence is after all a fundamental duty of the state. This duty derives directly from the constitutional fundamental right to life of those felled by violence.

That there was no rationale for seeking the delegation of this duty to an external body was problematic enough. The exit of the state government from its constitutional duties was compounded by the agency that the High Court designated for this task. This was a commission that in fact had been established for a very different, even contrary purpose to that of aiding the victims of communal violence.

This was to assess losses to public properties in the violence, the costs of which were to be recovered from the rioters. This goal has little in common with the one of compensating the victim survivors for their losses in the communal violence.

Entrusted now with this onerous and entirely distinct responsibility of extending fair compensation to the survivors of the communal violence, the commission first took as long as seven months even to begin its work, seemingly unmindful of the plight of the survivors who battled the grief, loss and damage to their livelihoods by the riots and the lockdown unaided by the state.

The commission then appointed private evaluators to assess the damage and loss suffered by survivors. This was manifestly a public duty. The process and norms deployed by these private evaluators was not made public.

Neither the evaluators nor the commission heard those who had suffered the losses. They typically gave no reasons for their assessments. And the commission made no provision for even a single appeal against the assessments. The assault on the fundamental rights of the victims of the violence did not end here.

The commission, in the small number of petitions for which it did pass orders, decided levels of compensation that were a tiny fraction of the actual damage. All of this flies against all principles of natural justice.

But the denials did not end here. Even these meagre amounts did not actually reach the hands of the victim survivors. The commission announced that the state government had allotted to it no funds to actually disburse even the small sums of compensation it has fixed. A scrutiny of the budgets of the state government, even for 2020 and for all the years since, reveals that there was not even a budget line and absolutely no budgetary funds set aside for payment of compensation.

If the state government did not set aside public resources for compensating the victim survivors, how did it expect that the commission to which it has shifted its responsibility would actually succeed in any way in giving victims the amounts that it fixed to rebuild their lives?

In a total budget of the Delhi government of around Rs 75,000 crore, even generous provisions of compensation would not have exceeded 1%-2% of this total. Obviously then, the denial of compensation to the victim survivors of the 2020 Delhi communal violence is not a small oversight necessitated by a shortage of funds. Its motives lie elsewhere.

I am left with no option except to conclude that – like its refusal to try to prevent the violence, to rescue those whose lives and properties were threatened by marauding mobs, and to extend relief to those who were rendered homeless – the denial of compensation to the survivors even six years after the violence is a deliberate denial that is unconscionable for a democratic government pledged to uphold its duties under the constitution.

Comprehensive failures of justice

The comprehensive subversion of justice by the Delhi Police is no less spectacular. Subversion is not enough to describe what has transpired. It is actually the intentional destruction by the state of any possibility of justice to the survivors of the violence.

Numerous independent media and citizen reports and even court judgments indicate how the effort of the Delhi police seems to have been consistently perverse, to protect and punish the perpetrators of the violence and to criminalise innocent victims. After the Delhi communal violence of 2020, the police registered 758 FIRs, including one claiming that protestors against the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 and those active in relief work were actually conspirators who planned the communal carnage.

In what came to be known as the “Delhi riots conspiracy case”, the Delhi Police claimed that the protestors against the citizenship amendment had actually hatched the riots as an act of terror to secure a regime change. Eighteen student leaders, activists and a politician spent years in prison for this charge, without even a trial commencing six years after the communal carnage. Five of them continue to languish behind bars.

Scroll's legal coresspondent Vineet Bhalla read >30,000 pages of chargesheets. It took him three months.

Five years since Delhi riots, read the most comprehensive piece of reporting on Delhi Police's case against the leaders of the anti-CAA movement.https://t.co/mrTtzuY8sZ

— shoaib daniyal (@ShoaibDaniyal) February 24, 2025

A significant investigation by BBC Hindi reported in 2025 that five years after the deadly communal riots, no legal closure was in sight for the people involved. It examined the status of all the 758 cases filed and analysed the 126 cases in which the Karkardooma court in Delhi had given decisions. It shockingly found that of the 126 cases, more than 80% had resulted in acquittals or discharges as witnesses turned hostile, or did not support the prosecution’s case. Only 20 of these cases saw convictions.

In many cases, the courts raised serious doubts about the integrity of the investigation of the police, suggesting that they framed innocent persons and absolved the guilty of their crimes. The police officers who deliberately sabotaged justice also, were rarely punished.

Its detailed analysis of these 126 orders also showed that in several of these cases, the court heavily criticised the Delhi police for lapses in investigations. In some, the police had filed “predetermined chargesheets” for “falsely implicating” the accused. In most of the 126 cases, police officials were presented as witnesses, but the court did not find their testimonies credible.

There were inconsistencies in the police statements, delays in identification of the accused by the police and, in some instances, doubts over whether policemen were even present when the violence broke out.

The conviction rate in cases that went to trial was most dismal in cases related to murder. There were 62 such cases among the 758 cases that were filed. Among these, there was only one conviction and four acquittals.

In a similar analysis by The Indian Express, reporters looked carefully at the 116 riot cases in which verdicts had been delivered. A very high number of 97 of these decisions ended in acquittals. In nearly one of every five cases, judges seriously censured the Delhi Police for grave misconduct, such as “fabricated” evidence, “fictitious” witnesses, and “foisted” cases.

In 12 judgements, the court observed that the police had brought in “artificial” witnesses and in many ways “fabricated” evidence. In two cases, witnesses themselves testified that police officials had dictated their statements. In one acquittal, the judge observed, “There has been an egregious padding of evidence by the IO,” the judge stated. “Such instances lead to serious erosion of the faith of the people in the investigating process and the rule of law.”

The Indian Express found that many court orders poked holes in the case built up by the prosecution. One judge noted that a key witness’s existence “comes under a shadow of doubt, and the possibility of him being a fictitious person cannot be denied.” In two near-identical orders, a court went so far as to believe that the police knew their case was “fabricated” because they failed to conduct a Test Identification Parade.

Other judicial observations that render the police highly culpable of deliberately countermining justice include the “probable manipulation in the case diary” and an “artificial claim” by a police constable.

These recurring indictments by the courts of the ignominious role of the police point to a profound systemic rot in the criminal justice system. There can be little doubt of its complete surrender to the unconstitutional and unlawful political project of the ruling establishment, of its discreditable purpose of protecting persons from the majority Hindu community who were guilty of hate murders, injuries, loot and arson.

The five-year struggle to register an FIR against Kapil Mishra.

As a Delhi court orders the police to probe his role in the Delhi riots, read the story we published a month ago.

Initially exclusive to @scroll_in members, the story is now free to readhttps://t.co/99xUl22Opr

— Supriya Sharma (@sharmasupriya) April 2, 2025

The failures of justice is illustrated also by the case of a hate speech by BJP leader Kapil Mishra, which I have spoken of earlier. Many believe this speech was the immediate spark that ignited the communal violence. In February 2023, in the presence of a senior police officer, this MLA gave an ultimatum to the Delhi police to remove the anti-CAA protestors from the streets, threatening that he and his men would otherwise take matters into their own hands.

Even as the violence was still smouldering, a division bench of justices S Muralidhar and Talwant Singh heard my urgent petition seeking the registration of an FIR against Mishra and other senior leaders whose hate speeches openly incited violence. Justice S Muralidhar ordered the playing of the videos of the speeches in the court of Mishra’s and other hate speeches by senior BJP leaders.

The two-judge bench found their statements amounted to “hate speech” and strongly urged the Delhi Police to lodge FIRs against them. The Solicitor General told the court that the police would identify an “appropriate time” to file the FIR. Justice Muralidhar directed the Delhi Police to take a decision in 24 hours on filing an FIR against Mishra for his remarks. But that same midnight, Justice Muralidhar was directed to hand over his charge immediately.

Which is that appropriate stage? After the city as burnt down? : Justice Muralidhar

It is not constitutional duty to preserve the life and liberty of all. We cannot be blind: Justice Muralidhar#DelhiBurns #DelhiHighCourt pic.twitter.com/Qbu7xSzvwQ

— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) February 26, 2020

Senior advocate Indira Jaising said the police not registering a crime in Mishra’s case amounted to “selective amnesty”. The Supreme Court, she said, has clearly ruled that the police must register an FIR when they receive information about a cognisable offence. “It is like giving amnesty to someone before you have even commenced an investigation,” said Jaising. “You can call it selective amnesty or impunity.”

One Mohammad Ilyas, a resident of North East Delhi, also approached a magistrate seeking investigation into the role of Kapil Mishra in the riots. The Delhi Police stoutly defended Mishra in the court, stating that he had already been “investigated” in connection with the larger conspiracy case and had been found to bear no role in triggering the riots.

The police did not stop here. They further alleged that efforts to name Mishra were part of a “false propaganda” campaign orchestrated to discredit him.

In a rare and salutary example of judicial independence, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia, rejected both these claims. He noted the communal overtones in Mishra’s language during his interrogation. Mishra would refer to Muslims as “them” and “that side”, revealing a communal mindset. Also Mishra himself admitted to the court that he was accompanied by a group of 50-60 supporters at the protest site when he made his contested speech, and this was a cognisable offence.

He admitted he made a public call in his speech to “get the place vacated”. The judge also noted that DCP Ved Prakash Surya was present at the spot when Mishra made his speech, but he was not investigated.

He (Kapil Mishra) is speaking when a DCP is standing next to him: Justice Muralidhar points out. #DelhiRiots #delhivoilence #DelhiIsBurning #DelhiFightHate #DelhiBurns #DelhiCAAClashes @DelhiPolice @harsh_mander pic.twitter.com/HctVVi23Cx

— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) February 26, 2020

However, despite the sterling judgment by this judge of conscience, the ends of law were still unfulfilled. The Delhi Police challenged the order in the court of the Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja, who stayed any further investigation. Legal experts told Frontline that this order by judge Baweja was very unusual, possibly unlawful, because courts rarely stay investigations while these are still under way.

Six years later, no FIR is still registered against Mishra. The “appropriate time” to register the FIR – that the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had spoken when the Delhi High Court was hearing my petition seeking an FIR against Mishra – had clearly still not come.

The Delhi police instead filed a case under the anti-terror law UAPA charging 18 activists and student leaders, mostly of Muslim identity, of the conspiracy that I spoke of, to engineer the violence as an act of terror for regime change. The speeches were protesting a law which many across the country regarded as violative of the pledges of the condition. They were not hate speeches. Mishra meanwhile was elected on a BJP ticket to the Delhi assembly in the spring of 2025, and was inducted into the cabinet.

That too as the minister of law and justice.

A highly regarded retired judge of the Supreme Court Madan Lokur told BBC Hindi, “If the prosecution throws (innocent) people into jail just because they have the power to do this, they should not be allowed to get away with this. If the incarceration is found to be unjust or unnecessary – people stay in prison for many years before they get bail – the people who falsely framed them should be punished.”

With so many acquittals, he said the prosecution and police “should sit down to introspect what they have achieved in five years”. He said that “accountability needs to be fixed on the prosecution as well if the arrest is found to be illegal or unnecessary”.

The judge felt called upon to declare that “when history looks at the Delhi riots, one thing that will pierce (the public conscience) is that the Delhi police did not investigate the crimes of the riots correctly. This failure will certainly trouble the defenders of democracy”.

Six years after the communal conflagration that destroyed the lives, livelihoods, dwellings, social relations and trust of thousands of working-class families in the national capital, the state continues to be conspicuously, brazenly, even defiantly missing in action.

I am grateful for research support from Sumaiya Fatima

Harsh Mander is a peace and justice worker and author. He leads the people’s campaign for solidarity, support and justice for survivors of lynching and hate violence. He is a visiting faculty in the South Asia Institute in the University of Heidelberg. His newest book, Under Grey Smoggy Skies: Living Homeless on the Streets of India’s Cities, is in bookstores.

Three suspected militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar on Sunday, stated the Army.

The Army’s White Knight Corps said in a social media post that it had launched a joint operation, codenamed TRASHI-I, with the Jammu and Kashmir Police after receiving inputs about the presence of suspected militants in the area.

The gunfight began at around 11 am, it added.

The Army said at 2.45 pm that two suspected militants were killed and “war-like stores”, including two Ak47 rifles, were recovered from them.

At 6.14 pm, it stated that the operation was continuing and another suspected militant had been killed.

The identities of those killed were yet to be ascertained, according to The Indian Express.

In January, a havildar in the Indian Army died after being injured in a gunfight with suspected militants in Kishtwar.

Havildar Gajendra Singh “made the supreme sacrifice while gallantly executing a Counter Terrorism operation in the Singpura area during the ongoing Operation TRASHI-I on the intervening night of 18-19 Jan 2026”, the White Knight Corps had said.

Singh was among eight soldiers injured in the gunfight that broke out between security forces and suspected militants on Sunday during an operation launched by security forces in the Chhatru area.

It might have been just another coffee session between two researchers catching up on their work, but when Ashish Nerlekar noticed the mention of savannah specialist trees in Digvijay Patil’s historical references, the duo realised they were onto something new.

“Digvijay’s research focuses on people’s perceptions of natural environments, and he was showing me some of his references from the western Maharashtra region, when I noticed savannah-specialist or indicator trees in them. That led us to systematically study traditional literature to understand the ecological history of savannahs,” says Nerlekar, Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, Michigan State University, United States. Patil is a PhD student in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Indian Institute of Science Education Research, Pune.

Over the next two years, they scoured through narrative poems, religious texts, myths, field notes, biographical and hagiographical accounts in the Marathi language, published between the 13th and 20th centuries CE. They found several savannah-specific landscape descriptions and mentions of flora and fauna in oral and literary references. These findings refute the popular claim that tropical savannahs are a result of anthropogenic deforestation.

The study, published in People and Nature has garnered wide attention and raised significant interest in unearthing the history of India’s savannahs.

“While previous scientific research establishes the antiquity of Asian savannahs, and researchers have long been telling the general public and policymakers that these ecosystems are ancient, the misconception continues to prevail,” Nerlekar explains. Apart from providing an appropriate window into an ecosystem’s past, traditional literature also enables spreading the message to a larger audience, the researcher shares.

Time travel

The researchers focussed on seven districts for the study, namely Nashik, Ahmednagar, Pune, Solapur, Satara, Sangli, and Kolhapur, georeferencing savannah-related landscape and floral data to reconstruct the ecosystem’s evolution over time. The plants were identified and then classified as savannah indicators, forest indicators, generalists (which are found in both savannahs and forests), and cultivated species.

Based on data gathered from 28 excerpts of traditional Marathi literature, 44 wild plant species were identified, of which 27 were savannah indicators, and 14 were generalists. Trees like hivara or white bark acacia (Vachellia leucophloea), bābhūḷa or gum arabic tree (Vachellia nilotica), khaira or black catechu (Senegalia catechu), palasa or palash (Butea monosperma), and śisava or Indian rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia), which are often found in fine-leaf and broadleaf savannahs, were commonly mentioned in these excerpts. Hivara, an endemic species found in Asian savannas, was mentioned in eight excerpts, the researchers noted.

Savannah indicator birds, such as species of partridges and bustards, and grey francolins, were also mentioned in ancient texts along with other faunal species that frequent the ecosystem.

The literature review also revealed how people interacted with these landscapes. For example, in the 16th-century narrative poem Ādiparva, an abundance of grass and thorny trees near the Baramati region (Pune district) are described.

Apart from the white bark acacia, the poem mentions trees like the khaira and babhul, indicating a savannah landscape. Although the “thorny forest” was frightening to the people, their cattle thrived by grazing on the grass and produced abundant milk, the poem elaborates.

Patil shares that acquiring these references and establishing chronology was a significant challenge that the duo faced.

“The 13th-century biography Līḷācaritra was one of the oldest texts that we included in our study. It is available in multiple critical editions, and identifying the edition suitable for our study needed some thought. As we also included oral histories, we looked for specific elements to establish chronology. In one folk song, for example, a woman talks about her māher (parental home) in Satara and mentions the rich pomegranate shrubs there. We know that pomegranate cultivation was encouraged by the Government of India in the region around three decades ago, so we can place the song in that timeline,” explains Patil. The researchers also sought the help of historians and ethnographers to untangle some of these references.

Despite the challenges, Nerlekar and Patil emphasise that the wealth of information garnered using a biocultural approach is crucial for understanding the evolution of savannah ecosystems in the country. While sacred groves have gained significant attention in this regard, a similar approach would act as a much-needed catalyst to encourage the conservation of savannahs, they add.

“Moving forward, we plan to document stories and poems from other parts of the state as well, because these are quickly fading away from existence. There is a lot of data out there,” says Nerlekar. Patil adds that the study also highlights the importance of localised environmental histories in devising appropriate conservation initiatives.

The larger picture

The research comes at a crucial time when tropical savannahs are threatened bymisguided afforestation initiatives, agricultural activities, and biological invasions. Nerlekar’searlier research reveals that these land-use changes drastically impact the biodiversity of savannahs, pushing some of the endemic floral species towards extinction.

The wrongful interpretation of Asian savannahs as woodlands or degraded forests and regions suitable for afforestation would lead to a 35%-40% loss of the ecosystem, according to a 2020 modelling study by the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Germany.

Simon Scheiter, Senior Scientist at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, and a co-author of the 2020 study, shares that remote sensing or site-scale data from field surveys and experiments enable the ecosystem’s evaluation, but only over the span of a few decades. “Such biocultural work and reconstruction of past vegetation states could help us go further back into time and get information on vegetation and land use history,” he adds.

Adding to the conversation, Trisha Gopalakrishna, climate change ecologist and Royal Commission 1851 research fellow, University of Bristol, shares that natural historical context for any ecosystem aids in establishing baselines, which is key for conservation.

She adds that the push towards renewable energy has led to India’s savannahs being considered for solar energy projects. Beyond the loss of biodiversity, these land-use changes also impact the pastoralist communities that depend on the ecosystems, she explains.

As climate change and anthropogenic factors further compound the threats to Asian savannahs, the researchers call for urgent measures to protect and conserve the ecosystem.

“Savannahs are driven by a complex network of interactions between vegetation types, climate disturbance, and humans. There is grass-tree competition; two vegetation types that typically exclude each other in grasslands and forests,” explains Scheiter. He adds that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, changing rainfall patterns, and drought-induced tree mortalities can influence the two vegetations, and the ecosystem at large, making it challenging to predict how savannahs would respond to climate influences.

In their study, for example, Nerlekar and Patil reveal that an increasing aridity in the region over the centuries led to a change in livestock rearing patterns from cattle and buffaloes to goats and sheep. Additionally, the elimination of lowland savannahs due to agriculture and urbanisation is also observed through the study period.

In light of these changes, mapping the extent of natural savannahs in India is important, shares Gopalakrishna.

“Having a map to show policymakers and practitioners of where savannahs are present is essential to designing any sort of protection schemes. Secondly, this might be a surprise, but we still do not clearly understand the underlying science of how natural fires and herbivory, key disturbances crucial for savannahs to function, interact with a changing climate. For example, with this knowledge, we can develop schemes to reintroduce fire and schemes detailing prescribed fire actions, mirroring those of countries like Australia and Brazil. In the same vein, developing schemes for the movement of livestock such that it supports savannah functioning is also key,” adds Gopalakrishna.

As ecologists and conservationists continue to unravel the mysteries of savannahs, Nerlekar shares that the oft-quoted adage by grassland ecologists “a grassland is not a grassland is not a grassland” holds true now more than ever.

“We must acknowledge the fact that these ecosystems are different, and while some are ancient, others are a result of deforestation and anthropogenic interference. Humans are responsible for the subsequent modification of tropical savannahs, but they are not responsible for creating them. The origins are certainly ancient and natural,” he explains.

The study has been widely reported across media post its publication, and Nerlekar hopes that this paves the way for more interdisciplinary research and spotlights the urgent need to digitise historical documents.

“While documentation is a significant constraint in India, our study shows that we still have enough to conduct interdisciplinary analysis and gain something from it. This also sets precedence to digitise documents and other forms of traditional literature. We have to take advantage of all this knowledge and drive it towards conservation,” he adds.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Commission for Air Quality Management on Saturday tightened the particulate matter emission norms for 17 categories of industries in Delhi and the National Capital Region, directing them to comply with a revised standard of 50 mg/Nm³ by October.

The commission is a statutory body formed in 2020 to address pollution in the NCR and adjoining areas.

Under the new direction, large and medium industries must meet the 50 milligram per cubic metre or mg/Nm3 limit by August 1, while the remaining identified industries have until October 1 to comply.

The revised norm replaces the March 2022 standards, which set a maximum permissible particulate matter emission limit of 80 mg/Nm³ and an advisory target of 50 mg/Nm³.

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.

The new norms will apply to highly polluting industries identified by the Central Pollution Control Board, including red category medium and large air-polluting units, food and food processing industries operating boilers or thermic fluid heaters, textile units with similar equipment and metal industries operating furnaces.

“Industrial stack emissions are a significant source of aggravating PM levels in Delhi-NCR and also contribute to secondary particulate formation, thereby impacting air quality of the region,” read a notice by the commission.

It added that the revised standard was based on recommendations of the Central Pollution Control Board, backed by a technical study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, which assessed emission control technologies, feasibility and costs for the targeted sectors.

The 50 mg/Nm³ benchmark was found to be “technically achievable and environmentally necessary”, the panel said.

It also noted that the revised norm will not apply to industrial units that are already subject to stricter PM emission standards of less than 50 mg/Nm³, such as thermal power plants or waste-to-energy plants.

State governments of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, along with their respective pollution control boards and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, have been directed to publicise the order, undertake stakeholder sensitisation and ensure strict implementation.

Former Assam Congress chief Bhupen Borah, who resigned from the party on February 16, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday.

“After reflection, I join the BJP unit in Assam with renewed purpose,” Borah wrote in a social media post. “Assam’s legacy deserves development with dignity and inclusion. I step forward with humility and resolve to serve the state and the people.”

Assam is expected to head for the Assembly elections in April or May.

Borah had submitted his resignation to the Congress leadership on Monday. Following this, senior leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, had tried to convince him to change his decision. The former Assam Congress chief had sought time till Tuesday to reconsider his exit, but eventually maintained his decision.

Borah claimed on Tuesday that decision-making in the Assam Congress had been concentrated in the hands of Dhubri MP Rakibul Hussain.

On the same day, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Borah will join the BJP on February 22. He added that the Hindutva party will field Borah in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

After being inducted into the BJP on Sunday, Borah said that any “self-respecting Assamese” would not stay with the Congress, reported The Hindu.

“The Congress has 700 ticket aspirants and 100 of them will be able to contest the Assembly elections,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “The remaining 600 may not come to the BJP, but the self-respecting Assamese of Rajiv Bhawan will come to Vajpayee Bhawan.”

While Rajiv Bhawan is the state Congress’ headquarters, Vajpayee Bhawan is the BJP office in Guwahati.

On the other hand, Debabrata Saikia, the leader of Opposition in Assam, said that Borah’s switch to the BJP “will not cause any harm” to the Congress, reported ANI.

“Because the leaders and workers of his constituency, from where he had been preparing to contest for the last three years, did not decide to go with him,” the Congress leader said. “They said that even if he leaves, we will remain in Congress.”

In his resignation letter, Borah had claimed that he had been ignored by the party leadership, and that he was concerned about the party’s future.

Borah was the president of the Congress’ Assam unit between 2021 and 2025. He was replaced by Gaurav Gogoi in June.

Borah had been tasked, just days earlier, with taking forward talks for a proposed alliance against the BJP, involving parties such as the Raijor Dol, the Asom Jatiyo Parishad, the All Party Hill Leaders Conference, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

On a winter morning in Pune’s Erandwane-Karve Nagar, I was startled awake by the piercing call of a cuckoo. It was my first morning at a friend’s place and the cuckoo’s calling rang out clearly in the silent neighbourhood. I was shocked.

In the Pune in which I grew up, one could hear the mornings well before the sun rose: women bustling to the public water taps to fill their steel and brass pots; the clattering of women washing utensils; women and men rushing to line up at the public toilets.

Over the years, there have been competing sounds: vehicles honking, vendors calling, water tankers rumbling in narrow lanes, the growl of idle engines, men revving their motorcycles and scooters to warm up the engines, school buses honking to alert parents and children, stray dogs barking.

But when I stepped into the balcony of my friend’s home, a cup of tea in hand, the street and adjoining park were silent. Coconut palms and mango trees rose above compound walls. Sunlight fell gently across tiled roofs and roof tops, shining into the kitchen through wall-size, eastern mesh-covered windows. It felt heavenly.

Then there was a shrieking in the skies with a flash of green: parrots, bright green, flying in the morning light. One swung from a vine, its claws gripping thin twigs while another cackled and darted away as an eagle swooped by. They belonged. I had not known parrots lived like this in Pune. At least, they did not in the Pune I lived in.

Two cities in one

I grew up in Yerawada, a locality once on the eastern fringes of the city which has now expanded far beyond it. My childhood memories are thick with loud arguments, stray dogs and pigs, garbage fermenting near the public toilet and everyone rushing to get to work – cooking, cleaning, sweeping the streets, daily-wage labour, offices and hospitals, laundry, and managing small stores that were an extension of the home, a curtain dividing the two.

Greenery was sparse, like the sole banyan tree on a parapet where men hung out, played cards, or chatted and there were no parks within walking distance. The skyline was cut by electric wires and wooden poles.

I was familiar with crows and sparrows. Parrots lived only in cages, trained to repeat phrases adults taught them. Elders would chant, laughing, “Mitthu pappi de, pappi de.” Why did they want the parrot to kiss them? It never occurred to me that parrots needed tall trees or quiet streets and stretches of air to survive. There was none in Yerawada.

The Erandwane neighborhood where I spent three days felt like a different city. Even the name, Erandwane, is important: it means a forest of castor plants. Streets and houses are laid out in a grid. Bungalows lie behind gates. Some of these bungalows have been replaced by five-storey apartments but the trees stand tall – coconut, mango, neem – older than the redevelopment that surrounds them. Bougainvillea and other flowery vines and ornamental trees spill over the compound walls.

Outside housing societies are the surnames of residents: Sane, Oak, Deshpande, Joshi, Bapat, Sahasrabuddhe, Pendharkar, Talpade, Tambe. These names appear across Pune’s older, established localities, educational institutions and professional networks, signalling how land, property and power are inherited.

Residents also advertise their small businesses and accomplishments as lawyers, doctors, architects. Well-fed dogs – pedigree breeds like dobermans – pace the compounds. At the entrance of each society, a security guard keeps watch, questioning and noting details of visitors in a register.

The orderliness of the neighborhood is intentional, inherited, acquired, and much more durable than the new architecture.

Each housing society has a park. Some bear signs: “for residents only”, even restricting entry to fixed hours. They are thoughtfully equipped with trimmed lawns, walking paths, benches facing inwards, a pond with fish and wooden bridge, an open gym, a play area for children and toilets. The toilets stink, an overpowering smell that was out of place for the otherwise orderly, flowery garden. Big parks, like the Sambhaji Garden in the city’s central Deccan Gymkhana area, had such facilities, but it is rare for a neighborhood park.

Urban geographies

Urban geography tells a story that predates IT hubs and gated communities. The greenery, parks and wider roads are a result of how land was historically allocated and who continues to have access and legal claims to it. It reflects how powerfully the high-caste, high class habitus operates, reinforcing social inequality and caste hierarchy in urban Pune.

Pune’s neighborhoods such as Karve Nagar were developed when land was available in large parcels and high-caste, high-class families, with social capital and institutional power, owned the land. Redevelopment has replaced many bungalows with spacious apartment blocks, but the underlying layout – space, canopy, infrastructure – is intact.

Areas like Yerawada’s slum settlements, on the margins of the city, emerged through the necessity to serve the sprawling army and government facilities. The Khidki cantonment and ammunition factory and the centre of the Bombay Sappers regiment occupy a large portion of the area. Close to it are the Yerawada jail premises, and colleges and schools.

Open spaces were never a part of planning because the residents of Yerawada were excluded from the formal vision of urban development and life. Residents lived in the city without ever belonging to it. Open land was claimed for storage, construction, and survival. The landscape was marked by public toilets and open defecation.

Living in the ‘next IT hub’

Recently, my family shifted to a new apartment in Charholi, beyond the airport to the city’s northern part, an area developers described as Pune’s “next IT hub”. Here, I encountered yet another version of the city.

Taxi drivers recall visiting the area as children when it was largely farmland. Today, farmland has thinned into rows of concrete blocks. Apartments, clinics, hospitals, supermarkets, laundry shops and gyms appear almost overnight. They gleam of development, with hoardings promising a plush lifestyle as rural Charholi is consumed by the expanse of urbanisation.

But this shine is dulled by garbage heaps along the streets and fallow land of dwindling farms.

In Charholi, buildings are packed tightly, leaving narrow strips of concrete between parked vehicles and compound walls. My family’s building is surrounded by parked vehicles. There is a tiny, blue-tiled swimming pool strewn with plastic and other detritus. In the corner is a recreation hall, locked because of some “incident” in the past, which nobody explained.

Residents of Pimpri Chinchwad's Charholi have taken to the streets in protest against the proposed Development Plan (DP) and Town Planning (TP) schemes. In a dramatic turn of events, locals gathered and set fire to the official plans, voicing their opposition to the plans which… pic.twitter.com/I5zOuwqNbN

— Pune Mirror (@ThePuneMirror) May 17, 2025

Aspirational low-class and low-middle-class residents have occupied the new apartments but there is no regular water supply. Though the builder has installed water filters in every apartment, residents do not trust this filter. As a result, they buy water at grocery stores and kiosks. This is the first time I have bought drinking water in fifty-two years, that is since 1974, when I began to live in Pune and then regularly visit the city. I continue to be stunned.

Water tankers arrive every day, grinding through narrow lanes and apartment gates. Their engines announce scarcity long before dawn. Fine dust from the nearby mall and building construction sites floats in the air, coating all surfaces in our home: the floor, utensils and even clothes. Sunlight shines into the west-facing balcony briefly, as if by accident. In winter, the flat is cold and dim.

Walking in Charholi means dodging vehicles, dogs, puddles of water left behind by leaking tankers, water dripping from balconies, sewer stench and overflow and leftover food thrown from balconies to feed the stray dogs and cats. Some residents wake up at 5am to walk before the traffic thickens. Others walk beside fields that will soon be converted into more towers.

Caste, class, capital in urban India

From the balcony in Erandwane, I wondered how many versions of one city coexist without knowing one another. Municipal policies certainly play a role but cities are equally shaped by the long shadows of caste, class and capital.

In Karve Nagar, redevelopment aligns with administrative power to make the locality a preserve of the privileged high-caste, high-class. An inherited advantage is converted into the environmental and infrastructural comfort of wide streets and tree cover, while other localities are relegated to noise, dust and scarcity.

Charholi’s contrast with Erandwane shows how land is valued depending on who historically possessed it. Land is carved up, put to full use and walled up. Unlike Erandwane, there are no old compounds nor tree canopies to preserve. New Charholi reinforces the older logic of development where speed and profit eclipse urban ecology and environmental planning.

I was struck by the total absence of parrots in Yerawada and Charholi.

Silence feels normal in Erandwane but improbable in Charholi. Like Yerawada, the noise in Charholi is constant. I hear everything: the drilling and hammering of construction work, heavy traffic, phone conversations, arguments, laughter, abhang/kirtan songs, movie songs, and unbearable, blasting loud music during events.

But more than the silence of Erandwane, it is perhaps the calling of birds that I wish for more.

Shailaja Paik is the Founding Executive Director of the Institute for Just Futures and Charles Phelps Taft Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

Eight persons have been arrested from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu for allegedly conspiring to commit terrorist activities in India, ANI quoted Pramod Kumar Kushwaha, the additional commissioner of police in the Special Cell, as saying on Sunday.

Seven of those arrested are Bangladeshi nationals, said Kushwaha, adding that with this, “a major untoward incident has been prevented”.

The arrests were made after “anti-national posters” were found pasted in Delhi’s Kashmere Gate metro station, he said.

“The Central Industrial Security Force noticed this and brought it to the attention of the Metro unit of the Delhi Police,” he added.

Following this, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police, in coordination with the West Bengal Police, arrested two persons, identified as Umar Farooq Robil Ul Islam, from Kolkata.

Islam is a Bangladeshi national, Kushwaha was quoted as saying by ANI.

He claimed that the two men had told the police that they were responsible for putting up “anti-India posters” at several places in Delhi.

“Later, it was found out through interrogation and investigation that the direction to them was being given by Shabbir Ahmed Lone, from Bangladesh,” said the police officer.

He added that Lone, who is a resident of Kashmir’s Ganderbal, had been arrested in 2007 with an Avtomat Kalashnikova-47 rifle and grenades while he was allegedly conspiring to carry out a fidayeen, or a suicide attack, on a political leader.

“He remained in jail for many years and was released in 2019,” said Kushwaha. “After his release, he again fled to Bangladesh.”

The police officer claimed: “Initial investigations have revealed that he reconnected with the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership and re-established his organisation to carry out terrorist activities.”

He further said that anti-India posters were also put up in Kolkata at Lone’s behest on February 10.

“The investigation revealed that some individuals who are Bangladeshi nationals were in Tamil Nadu,” said Kushwaha. “They were going to take them back to Kolkata and plant them in a terrorist activity before they could do anything.”

He added that they were arrested in coordination with the Tamil Nadu Police.

They were identified as Mizanur Rahman, Mohammad Shabat, Umar, Mohammad Litan, Mohammad Shahid and Mohammed Ujjal, reported NDTV. All of them were arrested from garment manufacturing units in Tiruppur district.

The police also recovered dozens of mobile phones and 16 SIM cards from the suspects, which are being analysed for digital evidence and possible foreign links, NDTV reported.

This comes more than three months after a blast near Delhi’s Red Fort that left 13 persons dead. Umar Un Nabi, a doctor, was believed to have been driving the car that exploded.

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 Maharashtra government’s decision to scrap the 5% reservations in education and government jobs for Muslims has been challenged in the Bombay High Court, Bar and Bench reported on Saturday.

The petition filed by a lawyer seeks to quash the government resolution issued on Tuesday that formally cancelled a July 2014 order that had allowed 50 identified Muslim communities to obtain caste verification and validity certificates under the Special Backward Category-A framework.

The plea alleges that the government’s decision was deliberate, arbitrary and amounts to discrimination against minorities, the legal news outlet reported.

The plea alleged that the state was “practicing racial discrimination” with Muslim students and the same violated fundamental rights of the petitioner, a Muslim, and the community, The Indian Express reported.

The petitioner has sought an interim stay on Tuesday’s decision and urged the court to direct the authorities to produce quantified data relied upon to justify cancelling the policy.

No complaints had been made to the State Backward Class Commission regarding the Muslim quota and no party had been hurt by the policy, Bar and Bench quoted the petition as having contended.

The plea further argued that withdrawing reservations was a populist decision that was legally unsustainable, particularly in light of earlier judicial findings recognising the backwardness of the specified Muslim sub-communities.

Further, the petitioner contended that the state’s allocation of more than Rs 350 crore annually for madrasa education effectively withholds Muslims from mainstream and modern education, and “limits Muslims young minds in the dark Talibani ages”, The Indian Express reported.

“The respondent authorities are violating the rights of minorities to get modern education,” the plea added.

In July 2014, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government in the state at the time had announced 16% reservations for Marathas and 5% for Muslims in government jobs and government-run educational institutions by placing them under a Socially and Educationally Backward Classes category.

The announcement was made ahead of the 2014 Assembly elections.

The Muslim quota did not apply to the entire community. Instead, it covered about 50 identified socially and educationally backward Muslim communities, largely comprising occupational and artisan groups. The persons belonging to the communities were required to obtain caste and validity certificates similar to other backward class procedures.

The 2014 ordinance was challenged before the High Court. The court had struck down the implementation of the 5% quota in jobs, but allowed reservations for Muslims in education.

However, the ordinance was not converted into a permanent law within the stipulated time frame and lapsed on December 23, 2014, after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition came to power in the state. While the government pursued legal remedies to restore Maratha reservations, no legislative effort was made to preserve the Muslim quota framework.

Once the ordinance lapsed, the 5% reservation in education also ceased to exist and the government resolutions issued under the ordinance gradually lost effect, the newspaper reported.

The government resolution on Tuesday had formally revoked all directions and administrative processes linked to the earlier policy.

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Chandru Lamani was on Saturday arrested by the Karnataka Lokayukta, the anti-corruption ombudsman, after he was allegedly caught red-handed while accepting a Rs 5 lakh bribe, India Today reported.

The amount was part of an alleged total demand of Rs 11 lakh, Deccan Herald reported.

Two aides of the Shirahatti MLA, Manjunath Valmiki and Gurunaik, were also arrested during the Lokayukta operation at a hospital run by Lamani in Laxmeshwar town.

The persons accused in the matter had allegedly demanded the bribe from the complainant, who is a class-1 contractor from Gadag district, to approve construction work pertaining to the Minor Irrigation Department, retaining wall on either side of the road, The New Indian Express quoted a Lokayukta statement as saying.

The work included the construction of a retaining wall along a road, which had been assigned to a contractor.

Karnataka Lokayuktha says - Karnataka Lokayuktha raided a hospital belonging to BJP MLA Chandru Lamani and caught him receiving Rs 5 lakhs cash along with his two PAs and PS by a class one contractor. They have been secured and an investigation is in progress.

(Pics: Karnataka… pic.twitter.com/6THFYaZCH2

— ANI (@ANI) February 21, 2026

A complaint had been filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, after which the Lokayukta laid a trap and arrested Lamani and his two aides while allegedly accepting part of the demanded bribe amount.

They were produced before a people’s representatives’ special court in Bengaluru, Deccan Herald reported.

The three are being questioned and more evidence is being gathered, India Today reported.

Lamani’s supporters on Saturday held a protest in Laxmeshwar alleging that leaders of the state’s ruling Congress were behind what they claimed was a conspiracy, The Hindu reported.

Galgotias University’s sloppy plagiarism of a Chinese robot dog has overshadowed the Modi government’s ambitious AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. The government asked the university to leave the summit because “misinformation can’t be encouraged”.

It could be tempting to treat the episode as just another faux pas by an errant university that has often been in the news for the wrong reasons. But the fiasco is the natural outcome of a growing trend in India’s private higher education.

For India’s private universities, “AI” is the new buzzword, alongside “world-class”. It can be printed on a hoarding, added to a course title or attached to a campus launch to make a university look like the great cradle of future Sam Altmans, Dario Amodeis and Aravind Srinivases.

The marketing of these institutions often includes a word salad of grand claims. Last year, Chandigarh University’s new campus in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, was described as “India’s first Artificial Intelligence enabled multidisciplinary university”. Last week, Chitkara University unveiled a “LinkedIn Experience Zone” that would set a benchmark in “AI-powered career readiness” – whatever that means. Maharashtra has a Universal AI University, marketed as “India’s 1st AI University”.

This aggressive push is aimed at reassuring anxious parents that their child’s degree will not become obsolete before the ink dries. As The New York Times noted on Thursday, “across India, there is widespread anxiety about whether India’s students are able to compete for good jobs in an age of AI”.

There is a legitimate argument that every skilled person today needs basic AI literacy. But AI is also becoming a shortcut: a way to sell new age education without doing the hard yards of institution-building – good faculty, functional labs, research culture and a curriculum that is more than a pile of buzzwords.

We have seen this before with another obsession of private universities before AI came to the scene: global rankings.

The most sought-after ranking system in India today is the QS world university rankings. This index weighs indicators such as academic reputation, citations per faculty member, employer reputation, international research network, employment outcomes and sustainability.

In March last year, British magazine Chemistry World reported that a research analysis had flagged 14 universities for unusual publishing patterns. The universities’ paper counts rose fast from 2019 to 2023, but the share of papers where their researchers were the first author fell sharply. At the same time, their international co-authorship rates rose far faster than the global average. Since the first author is usually the main contributor, this trend raised questions about how the output was being produced.

Which brings us back to Galgotias and its dog (which, I’m told, is called “Sheru” by university insiders). After global rankings, marketing AI is a new rage in private universities. Every second institution will open a “school of AI” and a “centre for advanced AI research”.

But will these institutions actually deliver on things that matter, such as employment outcomes? How many 17-year-olds and their parents can inspect lab capacity, faculty publication records or curriculum depth to judge quality education? Or will they be swept away by a robot dog, a LinkedIn logo, and a QS badge?

Also read:

• With Galgotias robot dog row, ‘AI-washing’ comes full circle for India
• Beyond the glitter of the AI summit: Jobs, livelihoods will become even more precarious

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

An extraordinary intervention. The Supreme Court ordered the appointment of judicial officers to help complete the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in West Bengal. This came amid a tussle between the state government and the Election Commission.

Hearing petitions challenging the conduct of the exercise in the state, the bench said there was an “unfortunate blame game of allegations and counter-allegations” between the state government and the poll panel. It added that this “shows trust deficit between two constitutional functionaries”.

The court observed that the voter roll revision process was “stuck” and that most persons issued notices had submitted documents to support their claims for inclusion in the voter list. It requested the Calcutta High Court to allow serving and retired judicial officers to assist with the revision exercise.

Controversial project cleared. The National Green Tribunal disposed of challenges to the Great Nicobar Project. A six-member special bench said that it found no grounds to interfere as there are “adequate safeguards” in the environmental clearance.

The panel had been tasked by the tribunal to revisit the environmental clearance granted to the project. It noted that the project was of “strategic importance”.

Concerns have been raised about the impact of the Great Nicobar Project on the Shompen, a vulnerable tribal group, and the Nicobarese community. The project has also faced criticism for its potential impact on the island’s biodiversity, rainforests and endemic species.

The Great Nicobar project could wipe out species newly discovered on the island, experts told Vaishnavi Rathore

Arresting a royalty. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the brother of the United Kingdom’s King Charles III, was briefly arrested on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The police have been assessing allegations that he shared sensitive information with Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier and convicted child sex offender, while serving as the UK’s trade envoy.

The police had earlier said that they were reviewing allegations in the “Epstein files”, including a claim that a woman was trafficked to the UK by Epstein to have a sexual encounter with Mountbatten-Windsor.

“Freebies”. The Supreme Court said that state governments announcing welfare schemes ahead of elections could hurt the country’s long-term economic development. The bench was hearing a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Company, which has proposed to provide free electricity to all consumers irrespective of their financial status.

The elections in Tamil Nadu are expected to be held in April or May. The bench asked whether it was in the public interest for the state to bear the costs without distinguishing between those who can afford to pay and those who are marginalised.

Tabassum Barnagarwala explainsthe cash handout burden and its underlying politics

Also on Scroll last week

• Umar Khalid’s five years of incarceration: ‘Do I even know the world anymore?’
• Anger and disbelief in Indore over attempt to delete thousands of Muslim voters
• Has the Supreme Court gone soft on hate speech?
• Kanhaiya Kumar interview: ‘Nothing changes by talking. Things will change through our actions’
• Why has the JNU sedition case gone nowhere in a decade?
• A spate of attacks in Tamil Nadu leaves migrant workers wary
• Harsh Mander: The communal, criminal injustice of the stories of Bilkis Bano and Maya Kodnani
• A bittersweet archive: The history of sohan halwa
• Review: ‘Assi’ reaches for shock treatment to talk about rape culture
• ‘Shatak’ review: The RSS gives itself a centenary gift

Follow the Scroll channel on WhatsApp for a curated selection of the news that matters throughout the day, and a round-up of major developments in India and around the world every evening. What you won’t get: spam.

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Those seeking religious or spiritual instruction may need a guru, who teaches and even orders them toward what he considers the correct path. The shishya is asked to follow the guru implicitly and even blindly. However, those who wish to become scholars would be ill-advised to look for a guru. Critical enquiry and original research require one to have a certain independence of mind, to adopt or discard theories and methods according to one’s own intellectual interests, not at the bidding of someone else, even if he be more powerful or (especially) more famous.

Tragically, this important difference between the spiritual search and the scholarly quest is largely lost sight of in India. The academic culture of our country is irredeemably feudal, with those who are older and of higher status almost feeling obliged to act as gurus, demanding obedience and getting reverence in return. This intellectual feudalism exists among the sciences and the humanities, and within the latter, amongst all ideological shades. Marxism is in theory opposed to social hierarchies, but in practice Marxist professors in Calcutta have been no less hierarchical towards their junior colleagues than professors of a conservative Hindu orientation in Varanasi.

While young scholars must not be in search of a single guru, when starting out they may yet benefit from interacting with scholars who are older than themselves. These more experienced hands can provide, to the beginning researcher, clues, orientations, and, above all, critical feedback. They can be guides, advisers, even (temporarily) mentors, but gurus, never. While listening attentively to what their elders have to say, ultimately it is for the individual scholar to decide which specific research problem to engage with, and in what particular ways.

These reflections on intellectual practice are prompted by the deaths, in quick succession, of the two older scholars who most influenced me when I was myself young. These are the ecologist, Madhav Gadgil, who died in Pune on January 7, aged 83, and the sociologist, André Béteille (picture, right), who died in Delhi on February 3, aged 91.

I first met Gadgil in 1982, when I was 24 and he 40. I first met Béteille in 1988, when I had just turned 30 and he was in his mid-50s. Despite the difference in our ages (large in one case, very substantial in the other), I struck up a friendship with each almost immediately, this continuing almost until their deaths. While we occasionally talked about our respective families, for the most part my conversations with Professors Gadgil and Béteille were about society, politics, culture, history, ecology, India, and the world.

At first sight, there is much that, biographically speaking, separates Madhav Gadgil and André Béteille. Gadgil was a scientist, whereas Béteille was not. Gadgil was raised in Pune speaking Marathi long before he came to learn English. Although Béteille’s father was French, he identified more with his mother’s side of the family, which was Bengali. He grew up in Chandannagar and was educated largely in Calcutta, speaking English at school and college and Bengali in the street with his friends.

Béteille took his doctoral degree in India, whereas Gadgil did so in the United States of America. Gadgil spent the bulk of his professional career in Bengaluru, while Béteille did so in Delhi. Finally, Gadgil and Béteille never met, and largely knew of one another through their mutual friend, this writer.

And yet, looking at their careers in the round, I think I can see striking similarities. In what follows, I shall identify ten features that, in terms of their intellectual orientation and scholarly practice, brought Madhav Gadgil and André Béteille together.

Indian sociologist, and long-time contributor to EPW, André Béteille passed away today. Through this thread of articles, we reflect upon his legacy and some of his important works published in EPW. pic.twitter.com/VTB0lISBtP

— Economic & Political Weekly (@epw_in) February 4, 2026

First, both were genuinely interdisciplinary in their approach to scholarship. Béteille was a sociologist who interacted with historians, economists, and legal scholars, Gadgil an ecologist who reached out across the science/humanities divide to conduct collaborative research with anthropologists and historians;

Second, in their work, both brought together theory as well as empirical research. Interestingly, though, Béteille was trained as an ethnographer but later turned to comparative sociology, whereas Gadgil began with a more theoretical approach to ecology before conducting field studies on the diversity of human interactions with nature;

Third, both had a deep commitment to teaching, and to institution-building. Each spent more than thirty years in a single institution, Béteille identifying closely with Delhi University (and its Department of Sociology in particular), Gadgil having a visible attachment to the Indian Institute of Science (and its Centre for Ecological Sciences in particular);

Fourth, each actively engaged with a wider public beyond the academy. Both published academic books and research papers that set intellectual trends, yet both also wrote often for newspapers, making accessible to their fellow citizens the fruits of their scholarship. Notably, though, neither saw himself as an activist or even as an activist-intellectual. They restricted their public interventions to domains in which they had done research themselves;

Fifth, both had their intellectual worlds enlarged by moving outside their native province quite early in their career. Because Béteille worked in Delhi and not Calcutta, and Gadgil in Bengaluru and not Pune, they had a wider field of vision than that of Indian intellectuals who spend their lives largely in their home states.

Béteille’s most intensive fieldwork was in Tamil Nadu, and Gadgil’s in Karnataka and Kerala – that is to say, in states other than their own. Nonetheless, neither lost touch with their native heath. Gadgil wrote for the Marathi press and spent his last years in his hometown, while Béteille translated into English a classic Bengali text by his teacher, Nirmal Kumar Bose, while also writing quite a few articles for this newspaper;

Sixth, both were curious about the world outside India, keen to engage with scholars of all nationalities and to read their work closely. They were thus conspicuously pan-Indian as well as capaciously internationalist in their intellectual interests;

Seventh, despite the complete absence of parochialism in their mental make-up, both chose to live and work in India and contribute to its intellectual life. Gadgil left a job at Harvard University to come back to his homeland, whereas Béteille declined offers of professorships at Cambridge University and the University of California, choosing to stay on in Delhi;

My tribute to an ecological colossus - Madhav Gadgil: Nature’s spokesperson, a scientist of the people https://t.co/JdMp56e8fZ

— Ashish Kothari (@chikikothari) January 8, 2026

Eighth, while both were patriots, neither ever sought to exhibit his love for India in demonstrative ways. It was expressed in how they lived and how they acted, by treating all students and colleagues alike, regardless of their caste, class, gender, or religion, while continuing themselves to contribute steadily to Indian intellectual life;

Ninth, their patriotism did not involve a blind, unthinking devotion to all that their country did or stood for. Both would have agreed with the statement of the Irish scholar, Benedict Anderson, that “no one can be a true nationalist who is incapable of feeling ashamed if her [or his] state or government commits crimes, including crimes against their fellow citizens”. Both Béteille and Gadgil felt a sense of shame at the pervasive inequalities in Indian society, and sought, in their academic as well as popular writing, to draw attention to them;

Finally, unlike so many of their fellow professors, neither Béteille nor Gadgil wanted to be gurus, with a circle of adoring chelas around them. Both understood that while older scholars can provide the benefit of their accumulated wisdom and experience, they can in turn get something from the zest and intellectual risk-taking that are more usually present in younger scholars. This was of a piece with their liberalism, with the fact that in both political and intellectual terms they were not rigid or doctrinaire, not wedded to any particular ideology while pursuing an open-minded approach to understanding India and the world.

In a gurukul, shakha, or party school, the novice or fresh recruit is instructed, ordered, talked down to, in a word, indoctrinated. Scholarly research, on the other hand, proceeds through reciprocal learning, through exchange and dialogue among people of different disciplines, theoretical orientations, research styles, social backgrounds, national affiliations, and – not least – generations. I learnt these lessons first from Madhav Gadgil and André Béteille, and have had them repeatedly underlined for me in recent years, when I have myself benefited so much from younger scholars and writers who come looking for guidance and end up teaching me a good many things too.

This article first appeared in The Telegraph.

Ramachandra Guha’s latest book, Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism, is now in stores. His email address is ramachandraguha@yahoo.in.

The special intensive revision of electoral rolls has concluded in nine states and Union Territories, with final voter lists published, NDTV quoted the Election Commission as saying on Saturday.

The states where final rolls have been released are Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Goa. Among Union Territories, the exercise has been completed in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry and Lakshadweep.

Gujarat recorded the highest net deletion, with 68.1 lakh electors removed, NDTV quoted the Election Commission as saying.

The number of voters in the Western state has declined to 4.4 crore from 5.08 crore before the revision, a drop of 13.4%, the highest percentage decline among the states where final voter lists have been released.

In second place, with highest net deletions, is Madhya Pradesh with 34.2 lakh names removed from the voter list. The electorate in the state has reduced to 5.3 crore from 5.7 crore.

In Rajasthan, the number of voters has come down to 5.1 crore from 5.4 crore, a reduction of 31.3 lakh names

Chhattisgarh’s electorate declined by 24.9 lakh voters, Kerala’s by 8.9 lakh, and Goa’s by 1.2 lakh.

The voters in Andaman and Nicobar Islands dropped by 52,364, Puducherry by 77,367 and Lakshadweep by 206.

Unidentified officials were quoted as saying that the reasons for deletion included death, permanent relocation, multiple registrations or other eligibility-related concerns.

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 had moved the Supreme Court against it.

On Thursday, the Election Commission directed the chief electoral officers of 17 states and five Union Territories to complete preparatory work for the next phase of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, which it said was “expected” to begin in April.

The phase will cover Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Ladakh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Telangana and Uttarakhand, the poll body had said.

The commission had asked that all preparatory activities be completed in these 22 states and Union Territories at the earliest to ensure that the process can be rolled out smoothly.

The Allahabad High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against two students who were booked for offering namaz at a place temporarily restricted by the local administration in Uttar Pradesh’s Sant Kabir Nagar district, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

Justice Saurabh Srivastava on February 17 allowed the petition filed by the two students, who had been booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to unlawful assembly and disobedience to orders lawfully promulgated by a public servant.

The judge also set aside the chargesheet and the May 2019 summoning order pending before the judicial magistrate in Sant Kabir Nagar.

He observed that the implication of the two students “who had no criminal history” was not justified, PTI reported.

The two students were also directed by the High Court to adhere to any future instructions or restrictions issued by the local authorities in the interest of maintaining law and order and communal harmony.

The judicial magistrate in Sant Kabir Nagar had examined the chargesheet filed by the investigating officer and took cognisance of the alleged offence by summoning the two students.

The two students had subsequently moved the High Court. Their counsel submitted that the applicants had no criminal history and that they were students, The Indian Express reported.

Their counsel submitted that the two students had been implicated solely for intending to perform namaz in accordance with their faith, PTI reported. One of them was preparing for a competitive examination and the continuation of the trial in such a “petty offence” could adversely affect their future, the counsel added.

The additional government advocate, representing the state government, noted the absence of a criminal history but added that certain places had been notified as not permitted for the performance of namaz to maintain law and order, Live Law reported.

The two students deliberately insisted on performing namaz at the restricted place, the state government alleged, adding that this violated instructions issued by the local administration to maintain the peace and harmony of society.

In its order, the High Court noted that citizens had been guaranteed the right to follow their faith and beliefs in the democratic and secular set-up of the country, the legal news outlet reported. x

However, taking into account the mixed culture of the society, a “certain yardstick and the suggestions in the shape of direction issued by the local administration have to be followed by citizens of the country”, it added.

Such compliance was in the larger interest of the society to maintain law and order as well as peace and harmony among citizens, the judge said.

The Union Commerce Ministry on Saturday said that the government is studying developments in the United States on tariffs and their implications for India.

“We have noted the US Supreme Court judgement on tariffs,” the ministry said in a statement. “Some steps have been announced by the US administration. We are studying all these developments for their implications.”

The statement came a day after the US Supreme Court struck down global tariffs imposed by Trump, ruling in a 6:3 verdict that he had exceeded his authority. The judges said that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump had invoked, “does not authorise the president to impose tariffs”.

Soon after the Supreme Court ruling, Trump signed a proclamation imposing a temporary 10% levy on articles imported into the United States.

The new tariffs will take effect for a maximum of 150 days, unless the US Congress approves an extension. This, however, leaves the status of recently-signed trade deals with other countries unclear.

With respect to India, Trump said on Friday that “nothing changes” and that the levies on New Delhi will continue. “They’ll be paying tariffs and we will not be paying tariffs,” he told reporters at the White House.

According to the framework for the deal with India, US tariffs on Indian goods were to be reduced to 18% from a combined rate of 50%. The earlier rate of 50% had included a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August over India’s purchase of Russian oil.

In April, Trump imposed “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries, including India, claiming high tariffs the countries imposed on US goods. The levies were eventually reduced once bilateral trade deals had been agreed to, including in the case of India.

Meanwhile, in view of the US Supreme Court striking down Trump’s global tariffs, the Congress has demanded that Modi put the trade agreement on hold and renegotiate its terms.

Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said that Trump had stated that the Supreme Court’s judgement had no bearing on the deal between India and the US, and asked whether the Modi government agreed with the US president’s remarks.

On Friday, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the interim trade agreement between India and the US is likely to be signed in March and operationalised in April.

A three-day meeting between officials from New Delhi and Washington to finalise the legal text of the agreement is expected to begin in the United States on February 23.

A Delhi court on Saturday sent four Indian Youth Congress workers to five days of police custody in connection with a protest at the venue of the India AI Impact Summit, ANI reported. The court also rejected the bail applications of all four accused.

The Delhi Police had told the court that the protest was part of a “larger conspiracy” and claimed it was inspired by Nepal’s recent Gen Z-led agitation, Times Now reported. It alleged that the demonstration was a pre-planned attempt to disrupt the high-profile event at Bharat Mandapam.

The four persons accused in the case, Krishna Hari, Kundan Yadav, Ajay Kumar and Narasimha Yadav, were produced before Judicial Magistrate Ravi, PTI reported. Kumar is from Uttar Pradesh and Narasimha Yadav is from Telangana, while Hari and Kundan Yadav are from Bihar.

The police had sought five days of custody for the four workers, who were arrested on Friday after they held a protest during the summit. The group shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held placards alleging that he was “compromised”.

AI Summit में Compromised PM के चर्चे 🔥

भारतीय युवा कांग्रेस के जाबांज कार्यकर्ताओं ने देश की अस्मिता का सौदा करने वाले Compromised प्रधानमंत्री के खिलाफ उठाई आवाज।

इंकलाब जिंदाबाद 🇮🇳#PMisCompromised pic.twitter.com/JavHUUENj2

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) February 20, 2026

During the hearing on Saturday, the court asked the Delhi Police why five days of custody was required.

The police submitted that “anti-national” slogans were raised in the presence of “international leaders and prominent figures”, ANI reported.

It also told the court that three officers were injured in the incident. The police said the mobile phones of the accused needed to be recovered to verify whether they had “received funding”.

“Their custody is necessary to arrest other accused who fled,” the police added.

Opposing the plea, counsel for the accused argued that there was no evidence to show that the protest was not peaceful. He submitted that there was no footage proving that the accused had attacked police officers or made any “anti-national” speech, ANI reported.

The defence also argued that the accused were being targeted because they belonged to an Opposition party. “They are young, they have careers, and political dissent shouldn’t be crushed like this,” ANI quoted the lawyer as saying. “It was a peaceful protest.”

#WATCH | Delhi: Four Indian Youth Congress leaders, arrested in connection with their protest at the AI ​​Summit at Bharat Mandapam, brought to Patiala House Court

Those arrested have been identified as Krishna Hari, Kundan Yadav, Ajay Kumar and Narasimha Yadav https://t.co/RqtIKyMnCR pic.twitter.com/oj3TreHunW

— ANI (@ANI) February 21, 2026

On Friday, the Bharatiya Janata Party had described the protest by the Indian Youth Congress as a “national shame”.

“At a time when India is hosting a prestigious global AI summit, showcasing its innovation and leadership in technology, the Congress party chose disruption over dignity,” the Hindutva party said.

Commenting on the legal action being taken against the Indian Youth Congress workers, the unit’s chief Uday Bhanu Chib had told ANI that his colleagues will not be intimidated.

“The BJP can go to any lengths, but we are soldiers of the Constitution, soldiers of Rahul Gandhi,” he had said. “We won’t back down. We will raise our voice for the youth of the country.”

The five-day summit at the Bharat Mandapam, which began on February 16, has been promoted as the first major gathering on artificial intelligence in the Global South. Twenty world leaders, executives from major technology companies and exhibitors from 30 countries attended the event.

A day after the United States Supreme Court struck down global tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been “compromised”. The remarks were an apparent reference to the interim trade agreement between New Delhi and Washington.

“[Modi’s] betrayal now stands exposed,” the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said in a social media post. “He cannot renegotiate. He will surrender again.”

In April 2025, US President Donald Trump imposed “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries, including India, claiming that the countries imposed high tariffs on US goods. The levies were eventually reduced once bilateral trade deals were agreed upon, including in the case of India.

As per the framework for a deal with India that was agreed to on February 2, US tariffs on Indian goods would be reduced to 18% from a combined rate of 50%. The earlier rate of 50% had included a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August over India’s purchase of Russian oil.

At the time as well Gandhi had claimed that Modi had been “compromised”, alleging that the prime minister had “sold out” the “sweat and blood” of the country’s farmers by buckling under pressure from the US to finalise a trade deal.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court, in a 6:3 verdict, struck down the global tariffs imposed by Trump, ruling that he exceeded his authority in imposing the levies. The judges said that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump had invoked, “does not authorise the president to impose tariffs”.

On Saturday, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh told reporters that Trump had said the US Supreme Court’s judgement had no bearing on the deal between India and the US, and asked whether the Modi government agreed with the US president’s statements.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, he also called upon the Union government to put the India-US trade deal on hold in view of the US top court’s decision.

The Rajya Sabha MP said that the Indian government also knew since December 2025 that the US Supreme Court “could have delivered its judgement any moment”.

He questioned the rush to come to an agreement, adding that India should have waited.

Hours after his tariffs were struck down on Friday, Trump signed a proclamation imposing a temporary 10% levy on articles imported into the US. The import duty will take effect on February 24 and remain in force for a maximum of 150 days unless the US Congress approves an extension.

This, however, leaves the status of recently signed trade deals with other countries unclear.

With respect to India, Trump said that “nothing changes” and that the levies on New Delhi will continue. “They’ll be paying tariffs and we will not be paying tariffs,” he told reporters at the White House.

On Saturday, the Congress leader claimed that there was a clause in the framework between the two countries stating that in the event of any changes to the agreed-upon tariffs, if one country changes the rate, the other country can change it as well.

He noted that Trump has now modified the tariffs to 10% from 18%, adding that India should also modify the trade deal to “protect our farmers”. We cannot have zero tariffs on agricultural imports, Ramesh said.

On social media, the Rajya Sabha MP added that if Modi had “not been so desperate to protect his fragile image and waited just 18 days more [after February 2], Indian farmers would have been saved their agony and distress and Indian sovereignty would have been protected”.

The West Bengal Police has arrested a social media influencer from Hooghly district on charges of endangering national sovereignty for allegedly mocking a traffic awareness message online, PTI reported on Friday.

Amit Nandi, who had written the post on the social media platform Facebook on January 27, was arrested on February 14 after a case was registered at the Kanthi police station in Purba Medinipur district by Sub Inspector Dilip Gupta, The Wire reported.

The first information report claimed that Nandi’s post, which has since been deleted, parodied the slogan “don’t drive after drinking alcohol” used by the police. The FIR described the post as a “distortion” of a public awareness message that the police had been uploading on its official page.

The FIR said that the post contained “wrong, unverified and baseless allegations”, adding that it intended to “lower the dignity and prestige of the police department, harm the reputation and public image of the police, [and] create mistrust and negative perception among the general public against the police administration”, The Wire reported.

Gupta further alleged that the post was a part of a “planned smear campaign” against the police.

“He distorted an official public-awareness post,” the online news portal quoted the sub inspector as saying. “Because he has many followers, the post was shared widely. Since this incident is defamatory to the police, a complaint has been filed against him.”

Nandi was booked under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which pertains to acts endangering India’s sovereignty, unity and integrity, PTI reported. The FIR against him also invokes sections pertaining to the dissemination of false information, criminal intimidation and defamation.

Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita criminalises a wide spectrum of expressive conduct, including those who “purposely or knowingly” use words to “excite or attempt to excite” secession, rebellion or subversive activities.

Critics have said that the provision effectively reintroduces the colonial-era sedition law.

Nandi’s arrest has drawn criticism from human rights groups, who argue that stringent legal provisions were being invoked to curb online dissent, PTI reported.

The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights said that his arrest fit into a broader pattern of policing that treated criticism as a law and order issue, The Wire reported.

“In all BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]-ruled states, there is regular surveillance of social media to identify those opposing the government or leaders and to ensure they are punished,” the online news portal quoted Rajit Sur, a member of the non-profit organisation, as saying. “Strangely, the Trinamool [Congress] government has taken the same path.”

Nandi will be produced in court on Monday.

United States Ambassador to India Sergio Gor on Friday said that Washington is in “active negotiation” over the sale of Venezuelan oil to New Delhi, Reuters reported. He said that the import of Venezuelan oil will help India diversify its sources of crude oil.

“The Department of Energy is speaking to the Ministry of Energy here, and so we’re hoping to have some news of that very soon,” the news agency quoted Gor as saying on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi where India joined Pax Silica, a US-led group to coordinate supply chains for semiconductors, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.

The US has been urging India to diversify its oil imports away from Russia as a condition for cutting tariffs.

On February 2, India and the US had agreed on a framework for an interim trade agreement. Under the agreement, US tariffs on Indian goods would be reduced to 18% from the combined rate of 50%.

At the time, US President Trump had said that India would buy more oil from the US and potentially Venezuela, Reuters reported.

Earlier, Indian goods had been facing a combined US tariff rate of 50%, including a punitive levy of 25% imposed in August.

The punitive tariffs were introduced as part of Trump’s pressure campaign against countries buying discounted oil from Russia amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine. The US had claimed that India stopped purchasing Russian oil after the tariffs were imposed.

However, India has maintained that the tariffs were unjustified and said its oil purchases were guided by energy security considerations.

On Friday, Gor said that a final trade agreement with India would be signed “sooner than later” as a “few tweaking points” are required, Reuters reported. He added that Trump has also been invited to India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

Gor added: “On the oil, there’s an agreement... We have seen India diversify on their oil. There is a commitment. This is not about India. The United States doesn’t want anyone buying Russian oil.”

Earlier in the day, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal also said that the interim agreement between India and the US was likely to be signed in March and operationalised in April.

A three-day meeting between officials from New Delhi and Washington to finalise the legal text of the agreement would begin in the US on February 23.

In January, Reuters had reported that the US had pitched the sale of Venezuelan oil to India to help replace Russian oil imports.

This came after the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in an overnight operation on January 3.

The US had accused Maduro of narco terrorism and drug trafficking, among other crimes – allegations that he has rejected.

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but is not among the top 10 producers.

Since 2019, the South American country’s oil production and export have been sharply restricted after Trump, in his first term as US president, imposed sanctions. The curbs intensified in December, after Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil vessels heading to and leaving Venezuela.

On January 7, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that Washington would control the sales of sanctioned Venezuelan oil “indefinitely”.

The Union home ministry on Friday notified an empowered committee in West Bengal to fast-track applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act in the backdrop of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the state.

The committee will be headed by the deputy registrar general in the directorate of Census operations in West Bengal. The panel will also comprise an official from the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau, officials nominated by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer and the National Informatics Centre in West Bengal, and the Postmaster General of the state.

Amid the special intensive revision of voter rolls in West Bengal, several persons from the Matua community in West Bengal, who are Hindu Namasudras with roots in Bangladesh, have applied for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, The Hindu reported. This is because their names are not in the electoral list from 2002, which would make them eligible to be included in the updated voter list.

Due to the high number of applications under the CAA in West Bengal, the empowered committee in the state has been created as an additional panel to fast-track requests for citizenship, The Hindu quoted a government source as saying.

An empowered committee headed by the director of census operations already exists in all states to process applications under the CAA, the newspaper quoted the government source as saying.

The Citizenship Amendment Act seeks to provide a fast track to citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and have entered the country by December 31, 2014.

It was passed by Parliament in December 2019. The Union government notified the rules under the Act in March 2024.

The notification of the rules under the Citizenship Amendment Act had come despite it being widely criticised for discriminating against Muslims. The law had sparked massive protests across the country in 2019 and 2020.

Earlier, many members of the Matua community in West Bengal had been hesitant about applying under the CAA, as they had come to India from Bangladesh without documents. However, requests under the CAA from the community increased significantly after the special intensive revision process began in West Bengal, The Hindu reported.

In the contemporary landscape of Indian historiography, a fierce ideological battle is being waged over the subcontinent’s past. A powerful right-wing ecosystem is increasingly leveraging its institutional infrastructure to discredit established scholarship, often labeling credible histories as “left-liberal” or “Marxist” abstractions. In its place, a new, unitary narrative is being constructed which imagines a singular, Hindu subject driven through the ages by a “Dharmic calling” in perpetual opposition to Muslim and Christian “invaders”.

This teleological project seeks to write out the staggering complexity of social interactions that defined the subcontinent for centuries, thriving instead on a binary of Hindu victimhood and a foreign oppressor. Yet, when one looks beneath these polarised narratives, history reveals itself not as a clash of religions, but as a messy product of class, commerce, and pragmatic caste solidarities.

The modern deployment of polygamy as a political dog whistle against Muslims in India is a strategic distortion that weaponises demographic anxiety to further a unitary ideological agenda. Frequently used by the Hindu Right as a central pillar of conspiracy theories like “Love jihad”, the popular narrative suggests that while Hindus have always been inherently monogamous, it is the religious “other” who threatens the social fabric.

However, deep in the colonial archives of the Estado da Índia, there exists a history that complicates this convenient binary. While the Portuguese Empire is often remembered as a monolith of religious zealotry defined by the Inquisition and forced conversions, the reality of colonial administration tells a story of mutual collaboration between the colonial state and the Hindu elite to preserve patriarchal customs.

A document from Goan archives, dated August 1782, titled Informação sobre a bigamia dos Gentios (“Information on the bigamy of Gentiles”), offers a rare window into this historical nuance. Published in the Collecção de Bandos compiled by Filipe Nery Xavier in 1840, the document, written by a Portuguese official José Joaquim de Sequeira Magalhães e Lançoes, serves as a legal defence for a practice that was anathema to Catholic doctrine: a Hindu man’s right to marry a second wife while his first was still alive.

The case involved a man whose marriage to a woman named Santai had collapsed; desperate for an heir and a caretaker for his old age, he petitioned the State for a licence to marry again. Magalhães e Lancoes performed extraordinary theological gymnastics to justify the request, turning to the Bible itself. He reminded the Viceroy that the great Patriarchs – Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David – all possessed multiple wives without incurring God’s wrath. If the God of the Old Testament permitted Abraham to have both Sarah and Hagar, the official argued, the Portuguese Crown could surely permit a merchant in Ponda to do the same.

This was not an isolated incident but part of a broader genealogy of legal privilege enjoyed by the Hindu elite. The document cites precedents set by Saraswat Brahmin men such as Lacximonà Sinai (1765) and later examples such as the Panjim-based brothers Venctexá and Madeva Sinay Agny, who continued the practice of bigamy well into the 1820s.

Perhaps the most striking revelation is the involvement of the Inquisition. The request of wealthy businessman Sadassivà Sinai in 1763 was reviewed and approved by Manoel Marques de Azevedo, the Inquisitor of the First Chair. Azevedo saw “no repugnance” in granting the request to a man of Sadassivà’s high social standing, an euphemism for caste capital. This collaboration highlights a strategic reality where the Portuguese had realised that enforcing strict Christian monogamy on the Hindu Saraswat merchant class risked a “revolution” that would economically ruin the State.

Consequently, the Saraswat merchants also leveraged their position to accrue significant legal and social concessions that allowed them to preserve their patriarchal hierarchies while navigating the colonial apparatus. By securing these exceptions, they transformed what was once a traditional practice into a formalised legal privilege, effectively creating a sanctuary for caste-specific customs within the framework of European law. Such historical negotiations challenge the “unitary Hindu subject” currently championed by right-wing narratives, revealing instead a subcontinent where elite interests often superseded religious binaries to ensure the survival of local power structures.

To rationalise this legal double standard, the colonial administration relied on racialised and Orientalist constructions of gender. Magalhães e Lancoes argued that while a “lady of haughty spirit” from Europe would never tolerate sharing a husband, Asian women were conditioned by “education and nature” to a state of "invisible slavery" and absolute obedience where jealousy was unknown.

This allowed the state to maintain order by asserting that local women were naturally suited to polygamous arrangements. The eventual codification of these customs into the Código de Usos e Costumes in 1880 ensured that these specific patriarchal privileges survived long after the Inquisition faded and were eventually integrated into the overarching Portuguese Civil Code.

Today, this history casts a long shadow over the debate on the Uniform Civil Code in India. While the Hindu Right frequently cites Goa as the shining example of a secular, uniform legal system, the irony remains stark. The “uniform” code in Goa still technically allows a Hindu man to contract a second marriage if his first wife fails to deliver a child by age 25, or a male heir by age 30 – an exception not granted to other communities.

The Civil Code of Goa was never a simple instrument of secular equality; it was a document of caste consensus. It was deliberated upon and ratified by upper-caste men, both Catholic and Hindu, to protect their status, proving that history is far more complicated than the modern myth of a singular, victimised Hindu subject would suggest.

Kaustubh Naik is a doctoral candidate at University of Pennsylvania.

For the last seven months, Bodiat Jamal’s family has been living under a tarpaulin sheet in Assam’s Dhubri district – on the spot where their home once stood.

In July, the homes of 1,400 Muslim families of Bengali origin were razed by the Assam government to make way for a power project.

While several moved out of Chirakutha village, the 42-year-old mason and his family stayed on.

Last week, Jamal found that his name and that of nine members of his family had been struck off the final voter list prepared by the Election Commission after a special revision.

“We have been voting here for the last 24 years,” Jamal said. “This year I will not be able to vote.”

He is also worried about travelling to Upper Assam to work without a voter identity card.

“I work in Dibrugarh district. But I returned last month as soon as I got a message that an objection had been filed against my name in the voter list,” Jamal told Scroll. “Without a valid voter identity card, it is risky to work outside, especially in the current time.”

For months now, Assamese ethnonationalist groups in Upper Assam have been intimidating Bengali-origin Muslim workers, and asking them to leave. “I can't go to work again if my voter card is not restored,” Jamal said.

He added: “Our homes were broken, land was taken away, and now even the voter card is gone.”

A spate of deletions

Jamal was not alone. In all, 221 Bengali-origin Muslim voters from Chirakutha Part I village were deleted from the final voter list.

Scroll’s enquiries in Dhubri and Uriamghat, another site at which thousands of Bengali-origin Muslim homes were demolished, reveal that 5,700-odd evicted persons might have lost their place on the electoral roll.

In Dhubri, around 756 voter names have struck off the roll in four polling stations, where people were evicted in July. Two booth level officers of the Bilasipara constituency told Scroll that 700-odd voters have been deleted as their permanent residence has changed because of the evictions. In Uriamghat, 4,945 voters from five polling stations in 19 villages where evictions took place have been deleted.

“In my ward, over 200 voters have been deleted because of the eviction,” the first booth level officer, who is a government official in Bilasipara constituency, told Scroll.

The displaced voters said their attempts to get back on the electoral roll were being frustrated by election officials.

Jamal said he had questioned the booth level officer about why a Form 7 application – an objection by another voter of the constituency – had been filed against him and his family members, when they had not left the village.

“The BLO had no answer,” Jamal said. “He instead asked me to apply for inclusion as a voter in the nearby Birsingh Jarua constituency.”

Jamal did so, but those applications too were not accepted yet.

On January 25, five Opposition parties wrote a memorandum to Assam’s Chief Electoral Officer, pointing out the fact that genuine voters who have been displaced by evictions were not being included in the electoral roll. “Such voters are neither allowed to submit online nor allowed to submit offline applications only with a view to oust them from the final electoral rolls,” it said.

In the last five years, around 50,000 people, mostly Muslims of Bengali origin, have been evicted from government land by the Himanta Biswa Sarma government. In August, Sarma had declared that those evicted from government land would be deleted from the voter lists of the place.

A self-complaint

When Habej Ali’s home in Chirakutha village was demolished last July, he packed up his belongings and moved to another village 2 km away.

But anticipating that his name on the voter roll might be affected, the 27-year-old fish trader filed an application to the local booth level officer in Chirakutha, through Form 8, informing about his move to Charuabakhra Jangal Block village. Both villages fall in the Bilasipara Assembly constituency.

On January 21, Ali got a notice, informing him that a Form 7 application had been filed against him and his family members, seeking that their names be deleted from the electoral roll.

Any person in a constituency can use the form to file an objection against a voter.

“I got a notice that my name will be deleted and I was summoned for a hearing,” he said.

When he appeared at the Chapar circle office, Ali said that he “got to know” that the Form 7 application against him bore his signature. “But I did not file any objection,” he said. “I don’t know who filed it.”

When he pointed out that he had filed a Form 8, informing them about his relocation, election officials said that it had been “rejected”.

They asked him to enrol as a new voter at the nearby Birsingh Jarua constituency. “ “But my voter ID card will change if I apply through Form 6,”Ali said. “I am already a voter. Why should I fill in Form 6? I don’t have land there. I have land and have been staying at Bilasipara constituency.”

One booth level officer, who declined to be identified, told Scroll that there were “oral orders” that the evicted should only be enrolled at the Birsingh Jarua constituency.

"Many evicted people who applied for inclusion in Bilasipara constituency have been rejected,” said the second booth level officer. “Though they have valid documents for inclusion in Bilasipara, their forms have been rejected.”

Ali alleged a conspiracy to reduce Muslim votes in Bilasipara constituency, where Hindu and Muslim populations are nearly the same.

Mustafa Zaman Samim, a Congress leader from Dhubri, agreed. “The Muslim vote in Bilasipara is about 5,000 more than the Hindu votes, but with the summary revision and evictions, they want to make Bilasipara a Hindu majority seat so that Muslims can’t win,” he said.

EC clarification

In a press conference, Assam’s chief electoral officer Anurag Goel however, promised that there was no “suo motu” deletion of voters from the electoral rolls.

A separate procedure has been drawn up for evicted people, who have not been able to enrol themselves in their new addresses, he said.

“Because of evictions, some of the electors were removed from the rolls as ‘permanently shifted’ and their names from their previous polling stations or constituencies were deleted,” Goel said. “These people can submit a Form-6 before the Electoral Registration Officer for inclusion of his/her name in the electoral roll any time during summary revision or continuous updation of electoral roll, that is till the last date of nomination.”

But in Dhubri and Uriamghat, several displaced people complained that their names are not being included in the electoral roll.

For months now, Hobibur Rahman, a 35-year-old, has been going from one office in Golaghat district to another office in Nagaon district to get his name on the voter lists.

Rahman lived in Uriamghat till August last year, when the Assam government cleared more than 4,300 structures that had allegedly been built on forest land, leaving around 2,200 families homeless at Uriamghat in Golaghat district.

But after the summary revision, 1,445 voters at the Lakhijyoti LP School polling station of Uriamghat were struck off the roll. Most of them were Muslims, like Rahman.

Rahman moved to Nagaon district after the eviction.

“We tried to shift or transfer the vote from Uriamghat to Nagaon district to enroll our names in the voter list,” he said. “However, we got to know that someone had filed objections against my name in Uriamghat. This was not just against me. Such objections were filed against all the Muslim residents who lost their homes in the evictions.”

In Nagaon, too, he said booth level officers refused to accept his Form 6 application, asking to be enrolled as a new voter.

The result: Rahman found that his name and his family member names were marked deleted in the electoral roll published after the special revision.

Four student-activists of the Jawaharlal Nehru University became the face of dissent in India when Delhi Police swooped down on the campus in February 2016 to arrest three of them – Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya – on charges of sedition. The fourth among them, Shehla Rashid, led protests against their arrests.

A decade later, where are the four student-dissidents?

What choices did they make?

And what choices were made for them?

In this episode of True Story, Scroll’s Executive Editor Supriya Sharma speaks to reporter Anant Gupta who spent weeks trying to find answers to these questions.

Manipur’s Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Vungzagin Valte, who was attacked by a mob in Imphal during the ethnic violence in the state in May 2023, died on Friday in Gurugram after nearly three years of medical treatment following the assault, his son David Valte told Scroll. He was 63.

Valte, who represented the Thanlon constituency in Churachandpur district, was a leader of the Zomi community, which is part of the larger Zo group comprising the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar communities.

On May 4, 2023, the MLA was brutally assaulted by a mob, allegedly comprising members of the dominant Meitei community, at Nagamapal in Imphal when he was returning from a meeting with former Chief Minister N Biren Singh.

The attack took place a day after ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in the state. Since then, at least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 displaced. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.

Following the assault, Valte underwent treatment in New Delhi for two years, the Nagaland Post reported. He later returned to Lamka in Churachandpur district to recuperate, but continued to face health problems because of his injuries, NDTV reported. He used a wheelchair and had difficulty speaking since the attack, the news outlet reported.

On February 7, a state government spokesperson said that his condition had deteriorated. He was taken to the Churachandpur Medical College Hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit, The Hindu reported.

A day later, he was airlifted to New Delhi and taken to a private hospital in Gurugram for advanced treatment, the newspaper reported.

India and the European Union signed a trade agreement on January 27 that’s been projected as a major breakthrough “in a tumultuous time for global trade and supply-chain realignment,” as Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal described it.

The free trade agreement aims to boost trade and investment between India and the European Union by reducing tariffs and trade barriers. The two major economies together account for about 25% of global GDP and nearly one-third of global trade.

Both sides have presented the agreement as a win.

India said in a press statement that almost all Indian exports will gain preferential entry into the EU Sectors such as textiles, leather, marine products, engineering goods, and agri-processed foods will benefit from the lower tariffs.

It added that tea, coffee, spices, fruits, vegetables, and processed foods will strengthen their position in global markets, while sensitive sectors that are linked to several domestic livelihoods, such as dairy, cereals, poultry, and soymeal will be protected from foreign competition.

India said that the trade agreement will open new opportunities for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), create jobs for women, artisans, youth, and professionals, and boost exports worth Rs 6.41 lakh crore ($75 billion).

The EU, meanwhile, has said the deal will remove or reduce tariffs on its exports of agri-food products, opening up a large market to European farmers. It also said that sensitive sectors linked to jobs in the EU, such as beef, chicken, rice, and sugar will be excluded from liberalisation. At the same time, it has stressed that Indian imports, coming into the EU, must comply with strict health and food safety standards.

Experts say the agreement offers significant opportunities for the Indian industry but warn that regulatory barriers could limit its benefits. Some of these regulations are too recent to be considered in the trade projections.

When asked whether the government’s export projections had taken into account EU regulations such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and EU Deforestation Regulation, Abhijit Das, former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, said many earlier assessments of the FTA did not account for these, more recent policy changes.

“Most estimates were done before CBAM [Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism] was implemented or EUDR planned. The deforestation law will come into force from December this year, so earlier studies are unlikely to have accounted for it,” he said.

Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative, a research institute, said, “The EU is a big market, so it is an opportunity. But smaller firms may struggle to meet regulatory requirements.”

He cited the EU’s REACH regulation (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) which addresses the production and use of chemical substances and their potential impact on humans and the environment.

“When REACH came in 2007, many small exporters could not afford the high registration costs. Their exports to the EU almost stopped. Only medium and large companies survived. A similar situation may emerge in fisheries and other sectors (with the new agreement),” he said.

Srivastava added that the EU’s higher income levels shape its regulatory framework. “Regulations such as the CBAM and EUDR are emerging as trade barriers in the name of standards, and they could limit market access,” he said.

Intellectual property

Even as India and the European Union present their free trade agreement as a major economic breakthrough, differences are already apparent in how each side is framing its intellectual property provisions.

The Indian government has said, in the press release on the agreement, that the FTA reinforces intellectual property protections provided under TRIPS (the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) which relates to copyright, trademarks, designs, trade secrets, plant varieties, enforcement of intellectual property rights.

It also affirms the Doha Declaration, which states that intellectual property rules should not prevent member states from protecting public health. The EU government, meanwhile, has stated that the agreement provides a high level of protection and enforcement of IP rights, in line with Indian and EU intellectual property laws.

Trade experts note that the phrase “high level of protection” is often diplomatic language for stronger enforcement and tighter intellectual property rules, and, at times, longer or broader rights. In some cases, this can lead to TRIPS-Plus obligations which mean that the requirements go beyond the minimum standards set under the WTO’s agreement on trade aspects of IP.

Srivastava said the final impact would depend on the legal text. “The Indian government says it conforms to TRIPS, which would mean no major new obligations. But the EU’s statement suggests a TRIPS-Plus approach, bringing India closer to European intellectual property laws,” he said.

Similar concerns about what the language indicates have also been raised by civil society groups. KM Gopakumar, a co-convener of the working group and senior researcher at Third World Network, said, “The EU statement refers to a ‘high level’ of protection and enforcement of IP rights, including plant varieties. Once you talk about ‘higher protection’, it usually means going beyond TRIPS.”

“This raises concerns about whether Indian seed companies will be able to supply affordable seeds. Similar concerns apply to the pharmaceutical sector,” he added.

The Working Group on Access to Medicines and Treatment, in a statement on January 27, said the EU’s language “clearly demonstrates that India has agreed to IP protection and enforcement standards that go beyond the minimum obligations under TRIPS.”

Both experts stressed the need to examine the final text before concluding, as both sides have used different wordings.

Meanwhile, on January 29, the Indian government released an FAQ clarifying that the IP chapter does not require India to amend its intellectual property laws and does not impose TRIPS-Plus data exclusivity obligations.

However, Gopakumar said that though they say there is no need to change the law, rules can still be modified, as seen in past agreements. “The EU’s emphasis on trade secrets and plant variety protection suggests stronger safeguards, which could affect both the seed and pharma sectors. That is why the government should make the text public for informed debate,” he said.

Das echoed similar concerns and called it a potential risk. He raised concerns about policy space. “Even if the government says there is no need to change India’s IP laws, the problem is that once parts of our domestic laws and regulations are locked into an FTA, we lose the flexibility to change them in the future. Once they become commitments, our hands are tied,” he said.

Negotiations between India and the EU, which began in 2007 and were suspended in 2013, stalled in part due to disagreements over intellectual property. The talks were relaunched in 2022.

Green promises

The India-EU trade agreement includes a chapter on trade and sustainable development, under which both sides commit to implementing multilateral environmental agreements they have ratified, including the Paris Agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

According to the EU, the free trade agreement contains dedicated provisions on the protection and management of natural resources. These include commitments on forest conservation, biodiversity protection, combating illegal wildlife trade and illegal logging, and addressing illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

The agreement also seeks to promote trade and investment in low-carbon goods, services, and technologies by reducing tariffs on green products and liberalising services relevant to the green transition. The two sides are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding to establish an EU–India platform for cooperation on climate action, to be launched in the first half of 2026.

However, the trade deal doesn’t offer any special relief to India regarding the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which imposes carbon-related charges on selected imports.

India has said that it has obtained a “forward-looking most-favoured nation” assurance under Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which would extend to it any flexibilities granted to third countries under the regulation.

Introduced by the EU in 2021, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its transition phase in 2023 and became fully operational in January 2026. It applies to sectors covered under the EU Emissions Trading System, including cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, hydrogen, and electricity.

Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism remains a major concern for Indian exporters, as it will require them to buy certificates for the carbon emissions embedded in their products, increasing costs and squeezing profit margins.

India has raised the issue at several international forums, including climate negotiations and during FTA talks. Similar concerns have been expressed over the EU Deforestation Regulation, but no concrete concessions appear to have been secured so far.

Das said the impact of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism would depend on whether the EU offers concessions to other countries and in which sectors. “It will depend on whether the EU gives any concessions and whether those apply to sectors where India can benefit. To my mind, the possibility of the EU offering major concessions on CBAM is quite low,” he said.

Ajay Srivastava pointed out that regulatory pressures are likely to increase and act as a trade barrier.

The EU statement said it will provide India with €500 million over the next two years to support its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate sustainable industrial transformation. However, it remains subject to its budgetary and financial procedures.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

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

Terming it a “wicked problem”, the report released by the UN Human Rights Office sought urgent attention to the critical need for a human rights solution to the crisis, adding that it must be centred on the increased protection of survivors and include a robust focus on prevention.

The UN Human Rights Office said that the details recorded in its report had been gathered primarily from 19 victims of such violations, including four women, between July and September.

The victims originated from India, Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Syria, Thailand, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, it said, adding that they had been trafficked into scam operations in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates between 2021 and 2025.

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

In its report, the UN Human Rights Office said that estimates of the scam workforce point to the involvement of at least 3 lakh persons from 66 countries. It added that acquiring data on the workforce was a challenge.

“Scam operations originated in the Mekong region [comprising China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam] and this sub-region continues to be the epicentre, with satellite imagery and on ground reports showing that 74% of all scam compounds are still present there,” it added.

A majority of the victims had entered the centres from 2023, the report said. It added that the victims described being lured into the scamming jobs under false pretences and being coerced into perpetrating online fraud.

The online frauds are undertaken using a range of platforms including fake gambling websites and cryptocurrency investment platforms, impersonation scams, online extortion, financial fraud, and romantic and financial scams, it added.

Some of the victims shared experiences of being held in compounds resembling self-contained towns, some more than 500 acres in size, made up of fortified multi-storey buildings with barbed wire-topped high walls, guarded by armed and uniformed security personnel, the report said.

“An overarching issue identified in the monitoring undertaken by UN Human Rights is the shockingly high level of physical and psychological violence experienced by individuals in these compounds, where brutality is seemingly the norm,” it added.

Report details arbitrary detentions, torture

The report detailed instances of arbitrary detention and deprivation of liberties, torture and other degrading treatment or punishment, inadequate living conditions, wage theft, extortion, debt bondage and sexual violence.

“A victim from Sri Lanka related how those who failed to meet monthly scamming targets were subject to immersion in water containers (known as ‘water prisons’) for hours,” said the report.

It added that in the context of the regional scam operations, there had “been noteworthy warnings by human rights experts about widespread corruption and impunity, where criminal syndicates are benefiting from collusion with government officials, politicians, local law enforcement, and influential business figures”.

In a press release on Friday, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said that the “litany of abuse is staggering and at the same time heart-breaking”.

Türk added: “Yet, rather than receiving protection, care and rehabilitation as well as the pathways to justice and redress to which they are entitled, victims too often face disbelief, stigmatisation and even further punishment.”

He added that effective responses needed to be centred in human rights law and standards.

The UN human rights chief noted that there must be “increased availability and accessibility of safe labour migration pathways and meaningful oversight of recruitment such as verification of online job postings and flagging suspicious recruitment patterns”.

He urged countries and stakeholders to engage trusted and community-based actors such as survivor-led groups, in outreach to persons considered at risk of being trafficked into scam operations.

The UN human rights chief also urged countries and regional bodies to act against corruption, which he said was deeply entrenched in such lucrative scamming operations, and to prosecute the criminal syndicates behind them.

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

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

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

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

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

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