Scroll.in - India https://scroll.in A digital daily of things that matter. http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification python-feedgen http://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/scroll-feeds/scroll_logo_small.png Scroll.in - India https://scroll.in en Tue, 21 Jul 2026 22:22:30 +0000 Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Updates: Protesters gather in central Delhi day after police crackdown on CJP march https://scroll.in/latest/1094420/updates-cjp-alleges-police-fired-pellet-guns-at-protesters-demonstrations-resume-at-jantar-mantar?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were detained from another protest outside the prime minister’s house.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Delhi’s Connaught Place and adjoining areas on Tuesday evening, a day after security personnel used force to disperse the Cockroach Janta Party’s march to Parliament.

A police vehicle carrying tear gas shells arrived near the protest site, while some protesters threw water bottles at it.

As demonstrators spilled into Connaught Place, the police announced that Cockroach Janta Party spokesperson Saurav Das had “called off the protest”.

Earlier in the day, Das had said that he and other Cockroach Janta Party leaders would stage a sit-in outside the Delhi Police headquarters, alleging that those detained were not being allowed to meet their lawyers. He also alleged that the Cockroach Janta Party had not been provided a complete list of detainees.

However, in the evening, Das said that all the detainees had been released, following which the planned protest outside the Delhi Police headquarters was called off.

Cockroach Janta Party Spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka clarified that the campaign’s protest at Jantar Mantar would continue.

The Delhi Police had cleared the Jantar Mantar protest site on Monday and dismantled the stage from which organisers had been addressing the crowd. Protesters resumed their sit-in there on Monday night.

Here’s more on this and other updates:

Congress protest

  • Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi as well as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav were detained by the Delhi Police during a protest outside the prime minister’s house on Tuesday evening. Leaders from the party had arrived at the prime minister’s residence in the afternoon. By evening, the Delhi Police moved in to disperse the protest. 
  • The Congress released a video of police personnel pinning down Rahul Gandhi during the protest. “Look at Modi’s dictatorship,” it said in a social media post. “This is the treatment being meted out to the leader of Opposition of the country.”
  • Vadra was mistreated and forced inside a police bus, Congress leader Pawan Khera claimed in a video.
  • The Congress said that Gandhi had been detained at Chhatrasal Stadium in north Delhi, while Vadra had been taken to the Mandir Marg Police Station. Party leader Sonia Gandhi was later seen entering the Mandir Marg Police Station where other MPs were also detained, according to visuals posted by ANI.
  • Earlier in the day, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh visited the protest site and spoke to the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, ANI reported. Singh later said that Gandhi had initially demanded a discussion in Parliament on issues related to the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test and the associated protests, and that the government had agreed to it “within a few moments”. However, he alleged that Gandhi later added the demand for Pradhan’s resignation.
  • “For a senior leader like Rahul Gandhi to go back on his word is unfortunate and contrary to every norm of democracy,” Singh said.  The Opposition had earlier demanded a discussion in Parliament on the police’s lathi-charge on protesters during the Cockroach Janta Party's demonstration in Delhi on Monday.
  • The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were being repeatedly adjourned on Tuesday amid ruckus as Opposition MPs raised the lathi-charge on the protesters.

Protesters, police personnel injured

  • Das, a spokesperson of the campaign, shared videos of two persons on social media who were injured allegedly in the police action against protesters on Monday. “Alarming goondaism by the Delhi Police!” wrote Das. “They have used pellet guns against peaceful protesters!”
  • The Delhi Police on Tuesday released a statement refuting the claims about the use of pellet guns. “The public is strongly advised not to share or circulate unverified content,” it said. “Appropriate legal action will be taken against individuals found spreading rumours or misinformation.”
  • On Tuesday, the Cockroach Janta Party alleged that the police had on Monday slapped a boy, who the campaign claimed was a 10-year-old.
  • The alleged action came during the campaign’s march to Parliament on Monday, coinciding with the start of the Monsoon Session. While police had stopped the protest leaders from proceeding, some demonstrators moved closer to Parliament and gathered at other locations in central Delhi. Security personnel fired tear gas shells at the protesters and lathi-charged them, Scroll reported.
  • The police stated that 60 protesters were injured during the day. One of the injured protesters is in a critical condition, said Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke. “Why did the government unleash such brutal force against the youth?” he asked on social media.
  • The police claimed that 118 security personnel had been injured after the “protesters displayed unruly, aggressive and violent behaviour”. It alleged that the protesters attacked them with stones and vandalised government vehicles.
  • Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, apologised to the political campaign’s supporters saying that the organisers of the protest “could have done better” to protect them from the “inhumane actions” of the police. He alleged that female protesters were “brutally beaten” by male police officers. “To protect one Dharmendra Pradhan, who is responsible for the deaths of more than 20 students, the government was willing to spill the blood of many more young students,” Dipke said on social media.

Protesters detained

  • About 70 protesters have been detained, the police had said earlier, adding that a first information report was registered under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to rioting, assault on public servants, damage to public property and “other offences committed during the protest”.
  • It did not clarify which other offences the protesters had allegedly committed.

Watch: Young protesters in Delhi face police lathi-charge and tear gas


Protest resumes at Jantar Mantar

  • The campaign resumed the protest at Jantar Mantar on Monday evening, stating that the demonstration would not end until Pradhan resigns from his post.

Opposition MP begins sit-in at Parliament

  • Azad Samaj Party-Kanshiram chief and MP Chandra Shekhar Azad began a sit-in protest inside the Parliament complex against the “brutal treatment meted out” to the protesters.
  • “In a democracy, every citizen has the constitutional right to express their views peacefully,” he said. “If that right is met with the use of force, it is not merely an assault on a few individuals, but on democratic values themselves.” He added that he was starting his demonstration with a “resolve to safeguard democratic values”.

Written by Sneha, Neerad Pandharipande and Sara Varghese. Inputs by Priyali Dhingra and Raghav Kakkar. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar and Tanya Shrivastava.


Also read:


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094420/updates-cjp-alleges-police-fired-pellet-guns-at-protesters-demonstrations-resume-at-jantar-mantar?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:15:28 +0000 Scroll Staff IIT Roorkee warns students against showing ‘political affinity’ to movements ‘like current one’ https://scroll.in/latest/1094434/iit-roorkee-warns-students-against-showing-political-affinity-to-movements-like-current-one?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The engineering institution later claimed it was a routine advisory that ‘should not be misinterpreted or viewed out of context’.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, on Monday warned students and employees against showing their “affinity with political movement like the one currently in public utterance and in public criticism”, The Indian Express reported.

In an advisory, the institute “politely reminded” students and employees that, under its notified conduct rules, they could not participate in political discussions or activities without permission.

It also said that they could not make statements or express opinions in the media or in public that were capable of “embarrassing the relations between the institute and the Union government or other organisations”.

Purported screenshots of the advisory were widely shared on social media, including by Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra.

The advisory came on the day the Cockroach Janta Party led a protest march to Parliament demanding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations. Security personnel fired tear gas shells and carried out a lathi-charge to disperse protesters after they attempted to march towards Parliament. While the police stopped protest leaders from proceeding, some demonstrators moved closer to Parliament and gathered at other locations in central Delhi.

After the advisory drew criticism online, IIT Roorkee said that it was an internal communication circulated among students, faculty and staff at the start of every academic session, ANI reported.

“The communication should not be misinterpreted or viewed out of context,” the institute told the news agency.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.



]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094434/iit-roorkee-warns-students-against-showing-political-affinity-to-movements-like-current-one?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:54:02 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Hooliganism’: Uttarakhand HC criticises state for detaining activist who wanted to join CJP protest https://scroll.in/latest/1094432/hooliganism-uttarakhand-hc-criticises-state-for-detaining-activist-who-wanted-to-join-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Uttarakhand Parivartan Party chief Prabhat Dhyani was detained on July 19 after he posted on Facebook that he intended to join the agitation.

The Uttarakhand High Court on Tuesday criticised the state police for detaining a political activist after he posted on social media that he would join the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest in Delhi, Live Law reported.

The state appeared to have engaged in “gundagardi”, or hooliganism, a bench comprising Justices Ravindra Maithani and Siddhartha Sah said.

On Sunday, Uttarakhand Parivartan Party chief Prabhat Dhyani was reportedly detained at Rishikesh railway station. A day earlier, he had uploaded a Facebook post expressing support for activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike as part of the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest and said he would participate in the march to Parliament.

The Cockroach Janta Party is demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations. On Monday, many protesters attempted to march to Parliament, where security personnel fired tear gas shells at and lathi-charged them.


Follow updates on the Cockroach Janta Party protest here


After Dhyani’s detention, his associate, Lal Mani, approached the High Court seeking his release.

Dhyani was traced to the Ramnagar police station in Nainital and was released within 24 hours. This was conveyed to the High Court on Monday, Bar and Bench reported.

On Tuesday, the counsel for the state government sought to justify the activist’s detention by citing Section 172 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which requires citizens to obey lawful police directions.

However, Maithani asked the counsel for the state which direction Dhyani was said to have disobeyed.

“What is the lawful direction [that Dhyani disobeyed], sir?” the judge was quoted as saying by Bar and Bench. “What is the lawful direction to your police officer? ‘You don’t go to Delhi, you don’t go to join the march’.”

Maithani questioned whether anyone planning to go to Delhi to take part in the protest could be said to be preparing to be committing a cognisable offence.

The counsel for the Uttarakhand government said that orders prohibiting public gatherings are in force in Delhi , and that defying such orders would be a cognisable offence anywhere in the country. The court said that this was a matter for the Delhi Police to look into, not the authorities in Uttarakhand, Bar and Bench reported.

The counsel for the state government also cited “national security” and said that such actions were needed to protect the government’s image.

The court, however, did not accept this contention. “Are you there to protect the image of the government or the constitutional rights of an individual?” Maithani was quoted as asking by Bar and Bench.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094432/hooliganism-uttarakhand-hc-criticises-state-for-detaining-activist-who-wanted-to-join-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:06:36 +0000 Scroll Staff Rush Hour: Rahul Gandhi detained outside PM house, Punjab farmers’ march halted and more https://scroll.in/latest/1094427/rush-hour-congress-says-its-leaders-detained-outside-pm-house-punjab-farmers-march-halted-more?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Become a Scroll member to get Rush Hour – a wrap of the day’s important stories delivered straight to your inbox every evening.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was detained by the Delhi Police during a protest outside the prime minister’s house, his party claimed. The Leader of Opposition was staging a sit-in at the site, demanding the resignations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a day after police action against the Cockroach Janta Party-led protest in Delhi.

The Congress claimed that the Delhi Police arrived outside the prime minister's residence to clear the sit-in and detained several party workers.

Earlier, the Opposition demanded a discussion in Parliament on the police’s lathi-charge on protesters during demonstration on Monday. The Cockroach Janta Party alleged that the Delhi Police had fired pellet guns at the protesters. However, the police refuted the claim and alleged that the protesters had “resorted to large-scale violence”.

Protesters at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar have been demanding Pradhan’s resignation for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations, including the undergraduate National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, which had to be cancelled and conducted afresh after allegations of paper leaks.

On Tuesday, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju told reporters that Modi had called for the “strictest punishment” for those involved in the paper leak during a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance.

Modi also stated that the Union government has taken steps to prevent paper leaks in the future, Rijiju said. Read on.

Why angry young protesters in Delhi have turned against Modi, explain Anant Gupta and Ayush Tiwari


The Mumbai Police registered three cases against more than 50 protesters after a Cockroach Janta Party solidarity demonstration at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar. The police said the protest was held without permission and that restrictions on public gatherings were in force.

The cases were registered at Mahim and Shivaji Park police stations. Several people, including students, were detained during the protest.

The Mumbai protest followed police action during the CJP’s Parliament march in Delhi. Read on.


Hundreds of farmers from Punjab were stopped at the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana while trying to enter Delhi for a Kisan Mahapanchayat against the proposed India-United States trade deal. The day-long gathering was scheduled to be held at Kisan Ghat in Delhi on Tuesday.

However, the authorities in Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana placed concrete barricades and cement blocks at the border, following which protesters staged a sit-in.

Farmer groups have opposed the trade deal saying cheaper agricultural imports could adversely affect farmers, labourers and small businesses. They have demanded that the deal be “completely scrapped”. Read on.


India on Tuesday summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires to convey its “grave concerns” about an attack on a cargo ship near Ukraine’s Odesa port that killed four Indians and left one critically injured. New Delhi emphasised that “such attacks undermine the safety, security and stability” of international maritime commerce.

The Guinea-Bissau-flagged vessel Golden Leo was attacked on Sunday while leaving the port. The five Indians were among the 17 crew members on board.

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


At least 10 workers were killed in the collapse of a tunnel being constructed in Sikkim’s Namchi district. Around 27 workers were trapped after a landslide blocked the tunnel entrance.

The tunnel is part of the Teesta Stage VI Hydroelectric Project.

Rescue operations were hampered by a suspected gas leak inside the tunnel, with some rescuers reportedly feeling dizzy and losing consciousness. The gas is believed to be leaking from underground strata or rock formations disturbed by the landslide. Read on.


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


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094427/rush-hour-congress-says-its-leaders-detained-outside-pm-house-punjab-farmers-march-halted-more?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:02:17 +0000 Scroll Staff India’s AI hackathon seeks to build local, open-source tech https://scroll.in/article/1094161/indias-ai-hackathon-seeks-to-build-local-open-source-tech?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt It reflects a broader vision of AI as public infrastructure beyond Silicon Valley.

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

As frontier artificial intelligence becomes increasingly centralised in the hands of a few Western companies, India is betting that innovation doesn’t have to come only from the biggest labs.

The country has launched a hackathon inviting startups, researchers, students, and academic institutions to build affordable, multilingual AI devices that work offline and run on open-source models.

The goal is to create AI tools for classrooms, farms, clinics, and villages where cloud connectivity is unreliable, data privacy is critical, or English-language models fall short.

Bhashini, the Indian government-backed AI language platform; French nonprofit Current AI; and Kalpa Impact, a Mumbai-based social impact consultancy, have partnered to create the initiative. It reflects a broader vision of AI as public infrastructure rather than a proprietary product.

“Cloud-based AI systems have enabled significant advances, but there are many situations where citizens operate in environments with limited connectivity, where privacy considerations are important, or where local language support remains critical,” Amitabh Nag, CEO of Bhashini, told Rest of World in an interview over email.

“By running models locally, we reduce dependence on continuous cloud connectivity, lower recurring compute and transmission costs, improve responsiveness, and provide greater control over data,” he said.

Organisers of the hackathon will shortlist 20 teams, which will receive AI hardware kits, technical support, and mentorship to move beyond prototypes. Qualifying teams will get to pitch their ideas to senior government officials, and winners will deploy their tech inside government departments.

AI as digital public infrastructure

At a time when OpenAI tightly guards its trade secrets, Microsoft runs the world’s largest private corporate hackathon, and Anthropic restricts its ultra-advanced Claude Mythos model over cybersecurity concerns, Bhashini and Current AI are opening up their AI infrastructure to the public to fill a critical innovation gap.

The world’s biggest AI firms make products at lightning speed. But these companies often lack the incentive to create public infrastructure, Ayah Bdeir, CEO of Current AI, told Rest of World.

“With AI treated as a proprietary product, and the majority of these models informed by the English-speaking, internet-connected world, we see AI technology that is neither designed for nor accessible to the majority of the world,” Bdeir said.

High-income countries account for more than 80% of notable AI models, AI startups, venture funding, and data center capacity despite representing just 17% of the global population. As a result, many AI systems are optimised for English-speaking, always-online markets where companies can generate commercial returns.

The hackathon is a small attempt to tip the scales, the organisers said.

Current AI is a public-private partnership that has $400 million in pledges from government and philanthropic sources. It aims to raise a total of $2.5 billion over five years. Bhashini has partnered with 50 ministries, and powers more than 500 government websites. It collects language data across more than 500 districts.

“These kinds of investments matter because they fund the parts of the ecosystem that markets often underinvest in – things like public data sets, support for low-resource languages, safety and safeguards, and community-level training and digital literacy,” Priya Vora, CEO of Digital Impact Alliance, a nonprofit that advises African governments on digital development, told Rest of World.

Can this actually work?

The hackathon may generate ideas, but turning them into products is a much tougher challenge.

Experts question whether enough developers working in India’s many low-resource languages have the time and expertise to participate. Even if they do, promising prototypes would still need long-term funding, engineering talent, government support, and customers.

“Hackathons are an effective way to surface grassroots innovation and identify solutions tailored to local languages, affordability, and accessibility challenges. But breakthrough ideas alone are not enough,” Sagar Vishnoi, director and co-founder of think tank Future Shift Labs, told Rest of World. “The critical enablers are continued research, patient capital, and market access. Without these, promising ideas rarely translate into real-world impact.”

India is hardly alone in trying this approach, Astha Kapoor, co-founder of the Aapti Institute, a Bengaluru-based research and policy think tank, told Rest of World. Chinese companies have released open-weight models; the U.N.-backed Africa AI Hub supports local AI ecosystems; and Masakhane, a pan-African grassroots organisation, is building data sets for African languages. What remains unclear across all of these efforts, Kapoor said, is whether they can achieve meaningful scale.

“It’s impossible to say at this early stage, without clear demand, business models, or incentives, how any of this will scale,” Kapoor told Rest of World. “Use cases and linguistically diverse data sets are not the only considerations for scale. The realities of India’s land, water, talent, and governance must also be considered for replicability.”

Chrissy Martin Meier, director of products and practices at Digital Impact Alliance, emphasised the need to set up the “unglamorous infrastructure work” – consent frameworks, interoperability standards, continuous language data collection, government coordination – to make hackathons impactful. Without these systems, they remain “siloed, fragile, and ultimately dependent on whoever built them,” Meier said.

West versus the rest?

The organisers insist the hackathon is not an attempt to compete with OpenAI or replace Western frontier models. Instead, they see it as an effort to broaden who gets to build AI – and what problems it is designed to solve.

“Commercial actors do not have to be in opposition to DPI [digital public infrastructure]. They can also adopt its principles in lower-cost and more inclusive deployments,” Jonathan Dolan, senior director of strategic alignment and learning at Dial, told Rest of World.

That is already happening, Kentaro Toyama, a professor at the University of Michigan and the author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, told Rest of World. Models like Google’s Gemma and Microsoft’s Phi-4 offer “cheap, open, offline, and decentralised” systems for researchers and nonprofits. And their deep pockets help sustain these initiatives.

“Working products require not only sustained engineering, but ongoing maintenance – and all of that requires an organisation, usually a company, that is willing to keep investing in the technology,” said Toyama, who helped set up Microsoft Research India, leading interdisciplinary research on tech and socioeconomic development.

The ecosystem is deeply intertwined at the infrastructure level: The hackathon relies on Nvidia hardware.

Pilots from hackathons “rely on the underlying compute infrastructures, which are built, in the end, by a few US-based tech firms,” Abhineet Nayyar, senior associate for research and policy engagement at IT for Change, Bengaluru-based nonprofit, told Rest of World.

Ananya Bhattacharya is a reporter for Rest of World covering South Asia's tech scene. She is based in Mumbai, India.

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094161/indias-ai-hackathon-seeks-to-build-local-open-source-tech?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000 Ananya Bhattacharya, Rest of World Sikkim: 10 workers killed in collapse of tunnel being constructed https://scroll.in/latest/1094421/8-workers-killed-as-under-construction-tunnel-collapses-after-landslide-in-sikkim?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt A gas leak was also suspected at the site, hindering the rescue operations.

At least ten persons were killed and several more were trapped after a tunnel being constructed in Sikkim’s Namchi district collapsed on Monday, The Hindu reported.

The tunnel was part of the Teesta Stage VI Hydroelectric Project of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation in the Samardung area.

Around 27 workers were trapped after the landslide blocked the entrance of the tunnel, PTI quoted unidentified officials as saying.

A gas leak was also suspected at the site as several rescue workers experienced dizziness and lost consciousness while trying to reach the trapped persons, according to the news agency.

The gas is believed to be leaking from underground strata or rock formations disturbed by the landslide, officials were quoted as saying.

Several workers are still trapped in the tunnel, ANI quoted Namchi Information and Public Relations Department as saying.

The bodies of the eight workers who died have been shifted to Singtam District Hospital, Sir Thutob Namgyal Memorial Hospital and Namchi District Hospital.

The rescue operation is being carried out by teams of the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, Namchi Police and the Fire and Emergency Services.

Edited by Sneha.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094421/8-workers-killed-as-under-construction-tunnel-collapses-after-landslide-in-sikkim?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:46:21 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Don’t drag court into this’: Delhi HC on plea alleging excessive force by police during CJP protest https://scroll.in/latest/1094431/dont-drag-court-into-this-delhi-hc-on-plea-alleging-excessive-force-by-police-during-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The Cockroach Janta Party alleged that the Delhi Police had fired pellet guns at the demonstrators and slapped a minor on Monday.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday declined to urgently hear a petition alleging excessive use of force by security personnel during the Cockroach Janta Party’s march to Parliament a day earlier, Live Law reported.

“Don’t drag court into all this,” the bench verbally observed.

The petition was filed after security personnel fire tear gas shells and carried out a lathi-charge to disperse protesters during the march on Monday, which coincided with the start of the Monsoon Session. While police had stopped the protest leaders from proceeding, some demonstrators moved closer to Parliament and gathered at other locations in central Delhi.

The Cockroach Janta Party also claimed that the police had fired pellet guns at the protesters. The Union government classifies pellet guns as a “non-lethal” weapon for crowd control. Its cartridge contains pellets made of rubber or plastic, which can damage sensitive parts like eyes when fired from a short range.

The Delhi Police denied using pellet guns against the protesters. It also claimed that the protesters “resorted to large-scale violence” and vandalised public property.

On Tuesday, the Cockroach Janta Party also alleged that the police had on Monday slapped a boy, who the campaign claimed was a 10-year-old.

A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia will now hear the matter on Wednesday, Live Law reported.

The protesters are demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.



]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094431/dont-drag-court-into-this-delhi-hc-on-plea-alleging-excessive-force-by-police-during-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:48:59 +0000 Scroll Staff Punjab-Haryana border sealed as farmers march towards Delhi to protest India-US trade deal https://scroll.in/latest/1094430/punjab-haryana-border-sealed-as-farmers-march-towards-delhi-to-protest-india-us-trade-deal?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Protesters staged sit-in at Shambhu border after being stopped from attending a farmers’ congregation in the national capital.

Hundreds of farmers from Punjab were stopped at the state’s border with Haryana on Tuesday while trying to enter Delhi for a Kisan Mahapanchayat, or farmers’ congregation, to protest against the proposed trade deal between India and the United States, NDTV reported.

The day-long gathering was scheduled to be held at Kisan Ghat in Delhi on Tuesday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Haryana government erected concrete barricades and placed cement blocks at the Shambhu border, PTI reported.

The protesters then staged a sit-in at the border, accusing the Haryana and Punjab governments of preventing them from travelling to Delhi. Punjab is ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party.

The Shambhu border was similarly barricaded in February 2024 when farmers’ groups from Punjab had begun to march to Delhi to push for a law guaranteeing a minimum support price for agricultural commodities.

On February 7, India and the US issued a joint statement outlining the framework for an interim trade deal between the two countries.

The framework stated that New Delhi would “eliminate or reduce tariffs” on all industrial goods and a range of agricultural products imported from the US.

These include dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits.

Farmer groups have opposed the deal, claiming that allowing cheaper agricultural imports would adversely affect India's farming sector.

They said that the deal would also affect agricultural labourers, livestock rearers, small traders and micro industries.

The farmers want the India-US trade deal to be “completely scrapped”, PTI quoted Punjab farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher as saying.

The farmers’ march came a day after the Cockroach Janta Party’s demonstration in Delhi demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The CJP had planned a march to Parliament to coincide with the start of the Monsoon Session.

The CJP had planned a march to Parliament, coinciding with the start of the Monsoon Session.

While police stopped the protest leaders from proceeding, some demonstrators moved closer to Parliament and gathered at other locations in central Delhi. Security personnel later fired tear gas shells at and lathi-charged protesters during the demonstration, Scroll reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094430/punjab-haryana-border-sealed-as-farmers-march-towards-delhi-to-protest-india-us-trade-deal?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:46:07 +0000 Scroll Staff Mumbai Police file FIRs against over 50 persons for CJP solidarity protest https://scroll.in/latest/1094429/mumbai-police-file-firs-against-over-50-persons-for-cjp-solidarity-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The police said the protest was held without the required permission and that orders prohibiting public gatherings were in force at the time.

The Mumbai Police have registered three separate cases against more than 50 protesters in connection with a solidarity demonstration held at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar after the police in Delhi stopped the Cockroach Janta Party’s march to Parliament with tear gas and a lathi-charge, ANI reported.

The cases in Mumbai have been registered at the Mahim and Shivaji Park police stations against the organisers and more than 50 protesters under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Maharashtra Police Act, IANS reported.

The police said the protest was held without permission and that orders prohibiting gatherings were in force at the time.

Notably, the Mumbai Police has also issued orders prohibiting public gatherings of five or more persons without permission across the city starting from Thursday till August 6.

Some students who had earlier been detained have since been issued notices to join the investigation, IANS quoted the Mumbai Police as saying.

The Delhi protest in Monday coincided with the start of the Monsoon Session. It was organised to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

While the police stopped the protest leaders from proceeding, some demonstrators moved closer to Parliament and gathered at other locations in central Delhi. Security personnel later fired tear gas shells at and lathi-charged protesters during the demonstration, Scroll reported.

Following the police action, supporters gathered at various locations across the country, including at Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai.

The Mumbai Police detained several persons, including students, from Chaityabhoomi, Dadar railway station, Shivaji Park and Mahim to prevent large gatherings.

Participants alleged that police detained peaceful protesters.

Sameer Wagle, a member of the civil society initiative Mumbai for Peace, told Scroll that he had only been filming the protest, and was not taking part in it, when he was detained and taken to Mahim police station with other detainees.

Theatre artist Dhammrakshit Randive said he was briefly detained before later joining the protest for about an hour and was detained again before being released.

“We were not assaulted but others were,” he told Scroll, adding that he and his friends had shot videos of police assault on their phones.

On Tuesday, heavy police deployment remained in place at various locations in Mumbai including Azad Maidan, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters after further protests were announced in support of the demonstration in Delhi, Mid day reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.



]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094429/mumbai-police-file-firs-against-over-50-persons-for-cjp-solidarity-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:10:34 +0000 Scroll Staff Allahabad HC delivers split verdict on two-year freeze on bulldozing homes of accused persons https://scroll.in/latest/1094425/allahabad-hc-delivers-split-verdict-on-two-year-freeze-on-bulldozing-homes-of-accused-persons?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Both judges, however, agreed that the arbitrary demolition of properties violates the rule of law and said that such action must comply with due process.

A division bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday delivered a split verdict on whether additional measures are needed to stop punitive demolitions of properties belonging to persons accused of crimes.

Justice Atul Sreedharan favoured a two-year bar on such demolitions after a first information report is filed. However, Justice Siddharth Nandan disagreed with the suggestion, due to which the matter was referred to the chief justice for a decision by a third judge.

There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for the demolition of property as a punitive measure. However, the practice has become commonplace in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court held as illegal the practice of demolishing properties of persons accused of crimes as a punitive measure. It said that processes must be followed before removing allegedly illegal encroachments.

However, the Allahabad High Court had in February remarked that demolitions continued to be used as punishment despite the Supreme Court order.

On Monday, Sreedharan and Nandan agreed that the arbitrary bulldozing of homes violates the rule of law and said that demolitions must comply with due process.

Sreedharan held that “rushing to demolish the dwelling place of a person accused of an offence” under the garb of municipal violations is impermissible and amounts to “a retributive exercise of executive discretion”.

“The Constitution also stands by the rights of the ‘little man’ of this country who may have no prominence in society on account of his minimal financial status and not being a person of means,” the judge remarked.

He added that the collective absence of integrity “affects every institution, including the municipal authorities”, which allow unauthorised construction to come up.

On the other hand, Nandan said in his judgement that there is a presumption that the government will act in accordance with law and adhere to the principles of natural justice. He said that in cases of alleged punitive demolitions, it would be open for aggrieved persons to approach the High Court.

“…In my humble opinion no fixed time period can be put, for as a matter of fact, it would result in keeping the operation of an enactment in abeyance, for the said period,” Nandan said. He added that a two-year freeze could lead to cases where “frivolous prosecution” may be deliberately launched so that those accused of violating municipal laws get protection for that period.

In February, a bench comprising Sreedharan and Nandan had observed that demolitions carried out soon after the registration of an offence may constitute a distorted exercise of executive discretion. It noted that it had seen several instances where demolition notices had been issued in such circumstances.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sneha.


Also read: Why does ‘bulldozer justice’ continue in spite of the Supreme Court ruling it illegal in November?


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094425/allahabad-hc-delivers-split-verdict-on-two-year-freeze-on-bulldozing-homes-of-accused-persons?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:43:33 +0000 Scroll Staff PM Modi says steps taken to prevent paper leaks as CJP demands Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation https://scroll.in/latest/1094426/pm-modi-says-steps-taken-to-prevent-paper-leaks-as-cjp-demands-dharmendra-pradhans-resignation?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Quoting the prime minister, Kiren Rijiju said that Modi had called for the strictest punishment for those involved in the NEET-UG paper leak.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that the Union government has taken steps to prevent paper leaks in the future, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju told reporters.

Rijiju said that during the parliamentary affairs meeting of the National Democratic Alliance, Modi stated that the Union government acted swiftly after reports emerged that the exam paper of the undergraduate National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for medical admissions had been leaked, reported ANI.

The statement came a day after a large-scale protest by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party in Delhi.

On Monday, as thousands of protesters sought to march to Parliament to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations, the police fired tear gas shells and lathi-charged them.

Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, alleged on Tuesday that female protesters were “brutally beaten” by male police officers. He apologised to the supporters of the political campaign, saying that the organisers of the protest “could have done better” to protect them from police action.

“To protect one Dharmendra Pradhan, who is responsible for the deaths of more than 20 students, the government was willing to spill the blood of many more young students,” Dipke said on social media.

‘PM has sought strictest punishment for paper leak’

Speaking to reporters, Rijiju said that Modi mentioned during the NDA meeting that 13 persons have been arrested in connection with the NEET-UG paper leak.

“At the same time, to ensure that students’ future was not affected, the NEET re-examination was given priority, conducted successfully, and the results were declared without delay,” Rijiju quoted the prime minister as saying.

He said that Modi had appealed that those involved in the paper leak should be given the strictest punishment, “with the support of the country’s top lawyers, so that those involved in such a grave offence face exemplary action and such incidents do not recur”.

The May 3 NEET examination was cancelled after the Rajasthan Special Operations Group began investigating allegations that a “guess paper” circulated before the examination contained questions closely matching the actual paper.

The “guess paper” contained around 410 questions, of which about 120 matched the questions asked in the chemistry section, according to the Rajasthan Police. The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report in the matter based on a complaint by the Union education ministry.

The re-examination for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India was held on June 21 at 5,440 centres in the country and 14 centres abroad.

The results were declared on July 16, with 11.21 lakh candidates qualifying.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning, Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, met House Speaker Om Birla to demand that Parliament must have a discussion on the “brutality unleashed on students” and “the government’s complete lack of accountability for the examination crisis”.

Students were beaten for asking legitimate questions about their own future, Gandhi said on social media. “If Parliament cannot discuss the future of India’s youth, what is it for?” he asked.

CJP continues to demand Pradhan’s resignation

The Cockroach Janta Party resumed their protest at Jantar Mantar on Monday evening, stating that the demonstration would not end until Pradhan resigns from his post. The police had cleared the area during the day and dismantled the stage from where organisers had been addressing the crowd.

Earlier in the day, the campaign’s spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka met Bharatiya Janata Party leader JP Nadda at his residence in Delhi and submitted a memorandum.

Apart from Pradhan’s resignation, they demanded activist Sonam Wangchuk’s release from the Safdarjung Hospital and a Rs 1 crore compensation for the families of undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test aspirants who died by suicide.

Ranka later told the Hindustan Times that “the meeting turned out to be useless”. “No response has come from them,” he was quoted as saying. “Next time, we will not talk to them till they come to the protest site. If they do not value our time, we also do not value theirs.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


Also read: Why angry young protesters in Delhi have turned against Modi


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094426/pm-modi-says-steps-taken-to-prevent-paper-leaks-as-cjp-demands-dharmendra-pradhans-resignation?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:33:12 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Smiling Modi tried to project an image of calm’: How foreign press reported on CJP protest https://scroll.in/latest/1094423/smiling-modi-tried-to-project-an-image-of-calm-how-foreign-press-reported-on-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The international media framed the demonstration as one of the largest and most visible signs of dissent against the BJP government in recent times.

The Cockroach Janta Party’s march on Parliament in Delhi on Monday made headlines in the international English media, with many highlighting the police crackdown on protesters and the internet blackout in the heart of the national capital.

They framed the protest as one of the largest and most visible signs of dissent against the Narendra Modi government in recent years. Some drew comparisons with the “Gen Z protests” that have toppled governments in neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal.

The New York Times reported how “chaotic scenes played out on the streets of Delhi” while “a smiling Mr Modi” tried to project an image of calm in Parliament and did not address the demands of the protesters.

It said that this was consistent with Modi’s position that his ministers are not answerable to public pressure but that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party may have underestimated “the raw anger among young people in India”, drawing parallels with the “Gen Z” protests in the neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal that have toppled governments.

“His image as a strongman may also be showing cracks,” said The New York Times report.

The New York Times also pointed out how government-friendly television channels that “had largely ignored the buildup to Monday’s protest”, broadcast scenes of panic around Parliament.

A BBC report noted the striking contrast between the gathering crowds of protesters draped in the tricolour and holding placards around Jantar Mantar while the police sealed “every road to Parliament”.

It said that as the police pushed back, “some protesters returned to Jantar Mantar bleeding from the head or limping, while others were carried back by fellow demonstrators.”

“The movement has broadened into one of the most visible expressions of public dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recent years,” said the report.

The Financial Times reported that the Delhi Police “repeatedly fired tear gas and beat protesters with sticks and plastic batons”.

It said that the scale of the protest – “the biggest seen in the capital in years” – threatened to spill over into a broader challenge to the Modi government despite the recent victories in state elections. In the state election results declared in May, the BJP swept West Bengal while retaining power in Assam.

The report highlighted that as the police began using force to disperse the crowd around central Delhi, the protesters responded by shouting back: “Whenever Modi is scared, he puts forward the cops.”

The business publication Bloomberg reported that a day after the crackdown, “protesters vowed to press on...adding pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government”. It said that Monday’s demonstrations were largest in the national capital since the farmer protests in 2021.

The report highlighted the significance of the huge demonstrations ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh.

It pointed out that despite the BJP’s recent state election victories, the “Cockroach protests signal brewing discontent that will test Modi’s BJP at the polls – including in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which is due to hold a vote by next May.”

The Wall Street Journal said that Monday’s protests were “one of biggest demonstrations to have faced Prime Minister Narendra Modi in years”.

The Guardian, in a report headlined “Tens of thousands of Cockroach movement protesters defy police with Delhi march”, said that it was the “largest anti-government demonstrations in years”.

Like other publications, the report pointed out that it was a protest dominated by young Indians, noting that the huge crowd was “largely made up of students and gen Z-ers”.

It said that attempts by the protesters to move towards Parliament were met with “police brutality including the use of batons and teargas”.

Protesters were “vocal in their anger at Narendra Modi’s government and his ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), accusing them of failing the country’s young people”, said The Guardian report.

Noting that “rage was palpable on Delhi’s streets”, the report pointed out that while youth-led movements had toppled governments in neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, “such large-scale expressions of dissent have become unusual in India in recent years”.

Written by Divya Aslesha. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.


Also read:


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094423/smiling-modi-tried-to-project-an-image-of-calm-how-foreign-press-reported-on-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:19:57 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Biggest demonstration in 14 years’: How newspapers covered police crackdown on Delhi protesters https://scroll.in/latest/1094422/chaos-on-streets-how-newspapers-covered-police-crackdown-on-delhi-protesters?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Reporting on the series of events, several leading dailies did not cover the voices of those who were injured during the Cockroach Janta Party demonstration.

A day after the police lathi-charged protesters of the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party and fired tear gas shells at them, the front pages of several major newspapers on Tuesday did not prominently highlight the voices of those who were injured.

Most major English and Hindi dailies, on their front pages, focused on the police crackdown on the protesters as they attempted to march to Parliament on Monday. They reported the series of events that led to the demonstration spilling onto major parts of central Delhi.

However, The Indian Express carried a story on the front page containing statements from injured protesters.

For several days, thousands of protesters had been demonstrating at the national capital’s Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The campaign had planned a march to Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session began. However, while the leaders of the protests were blocked by the police from undertaking the march, some managed to march closer to Parliament and gather in other parts of central Delhi.

Scroll spoke with several protesters who said that they had been confined by the heavy security deployment. One of them also said that the police asked the demonstrators “to sit down and then started the lathi-charge”. A protester who had travelled from Uttar Pradesh told Scroll that the demonstration was peaceful until the security forces intervened.


Watch: Young protesters in Delhi face police lathi-charge and tear gas


On Tuesday, The Indian Express headlined its front page with: “Protesters storm heart of Delhi, police use lathi charge and tear gas to stop the march.”

The newspaper mentioned prominently that representatives of the Cockroach Janta Party met with Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader JP Nadda on Monday with their list of demands. Citing unidentified persons aware of the developments, The Indian Express reported that the government had not given any assurances to the representatives.

Ashutosh Ranka, a spokesperson for the campaign who had met Nadda, later told the Hindustan Times that “the meeting turned out to be useless”.

“No response has come from them,” he was quoted as saying. “Next time, we will not talk to them till they come to the protest site. If they do not value our time, we also do not value theirs.”

The newspaper on Tuesday said that the “chaos on street” had echoed in the House, referring to the repeated adjournments of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Ranka’s statement did not find a mention on the front page of the newspaper on Tuesday.

Covering the protest in the top-half of the page, the Hindustan Times focused on police’s “clash” with the demonstrators, activist Sonam Wangchuk stating that he would continue his hunger strike and Nadda’s meeting with the campaign representatives.

The Hindu, on its front page, said that “several” persons had been injured in the crackdown on the protest. It mentioned that 38 of the injured persons were admitted to Lady Hardinge Medical College and 65 to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

The police have claimed that 60 protesters and 118 security personnel were injured during the day.

The Times of India did not provide as much space to the protests on its front page as other leading English dailies. The newspaper’s headline said that police had “blocked” the march to Parliament and that Nadda had met representatives of the Cockroach Janta Party.

The fourth page of the newspaper was dedicated to the coverage of the protest.

Dainik Bhaskar described the Cockroach Janta Party demonstration as the “biggest protest at Parliament in past 14 years”.

The newspaper compared the protest to the demonstrations that had erupted in the national capital after the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old student in 2012, widely known as the Nirbhaya case.

Prominent Hindi daily Dainik Jagran said that Delhi had come to a standstill because of the protest. It also mentioned the police’s claim that the protesters threw stones at them before the information about the lathi-charge by security personnel.

The newspaper also claimed that protesters threw stones at the police from inside a building and vandalised a government office.

Amar Ujala’s headline said that the protesters marching towards Parliament clashed with the police. It also said that the police had cleared the protest area at Jantar Mantar.

On Monday evening, the campaign resumed the protest at Jantar Mantar, stating that the demonstration would not end until Pradhan resigns from his post.

NBT Navbharat Times mentioned this in their front-page coverage of the protests. It also said that the Union government initiated dialogue with the Cockroach Janta Party as crowds started swelling at the protest site.

Written by Sneha and Anamika Pathak. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.


Also read:


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094422/chaos-on-streets-how-newspapers-covered-police-crackdown-on-delhi-protesters?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:57:36 +0000 Scroll Staff Uddhav Sena moves SC against LS speaker approving merger of six rebel MPs with Eknath Shinde group https://scroll.in/latest/1094424/uddhav-sena-moves-sc-against-ls-speaker-approving-merger-of-six-rebel-mps-with-eknath-shinde-group?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The Uddhav Thackeray-led faction’s functioning in Parliament had come to an ‘absolute standstill’, its lawyer told the bench.

The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s decision to approve the merger of six of its MPs with the Shiv Sena faction led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Live Law reported.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led faction’s lawyer mentioned the matter before a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and sought an urgent listing of the plea. The faction’s functioning in Parliament had come to an “absolute standstill”, Live Law quoted the lawyer as having submitted.

The Monsoon Session of Parliament began on Monday.

The court said that it could neither promise to list the matter on Wednesday, nor Friday. “We will see”, Live Law quoted the bench as saying.

On Saturday, Birla had approved the merger of the rebel MPs with Shinde’s group.

The six of the Uddhav Sena’s nine MPs in the Lower House of Parliament had joined the Shinde-led faction on June 22. The Shinde Sena, which now has 13 Lok Sabha MPs, is part of the ruling National Democratic Alliance.

The Uddhav Sena had initiated disciplinary action against the rebel legislators.

On June 24, the Uddhav Sena contended before Birla that the rebel MPs, even if they constituted two-thirds of the party’s legislature wing in the Lok Sabha, cannot merge with another party on its own without the approval from the original party.

The Uddhav Sena representatives had urged the speaker to ensure that the provisions of the Constitution’s 10th Schedule, which details the anti-defection law, are followed before any decision is taken. They also contended that only a political party can decide to merge with another and that such a decision is to be approved by the required number of legislators.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094424/uddhav-sena-moves-sc-against-ls-speaker-approving-merger-of-six-rebel-mps-with-eknath-shinde-group?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:58:00 +0000 Scroll Staff Tamil Nadu CM Vijay’s ‘Jana Nayagan’ film cleared with ‘A’ certificate after seven-month delay https://scroll.in/latest/1094171/tamil-nadu-cm-vijays-jana-nayagan-film-cleared-with-a-certificate-after-seven-month-delay?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Originally scheduled for release on January 9 ahead of the harvest festival Pongal, it will now be out in cinemas on July 23.

Tamil Nadu chief minister and actor Vijay’s Jana Nayagan film has been cleared for release after the Central Board of Film Certification awarded the film an “A” (suitable for adults only) certificate, ending a months-long certification process that delayed its theatrical release, Scroll has learnt.

Jana Nayagan was originally scheduled for release on January 9, ahead of Tamil Nadu’s harvest festival, Pongal

It was submitted to the Central Board of Film Certification on December 19, which requested several changes. According to reports, after the makers implemented the modifications suggested by the examining committee, Jana Nayagan was initially considered suitable for a “U/A” certificate.

A U/A certificate allows children below the age of 12 to watch a film under parental guidance.

However, the certification process reportedly stalled when a committee member raised an internal objection, claiming certain scenes could hurt public sentiments, leaving the film without the censor certificate required for its release in India, PTI reported.

The film is now due to be released worldwide on July 23, the producers told The Indian Express.

Directed by H Vinoth and produced by KVN Productions, Jana Nayagan stars Vijay as a former police officer who becomes a vigilante and takes on a criminal played by actor Bobby Deol.

The cast also includes actors Pooja Hegde, Mamitha Baiju, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Prakash Raj, Narain and Priyamani.

The film had been widely described as Vijay’s final film before entering full-time politics. However, it will now be released after he has already taken office as Tamil Nadu’s chief minister.

On January 6, KVN Productions approached the Madras High Court, seeking directions to expedite the certification process.

After nearly a month of legal proceedings, including a hearing before the Supreme Court, the producers withdrew their petition and instead chose to present the film to the censor board’s revising committee.

While the certification dispute continued, an unfinished high-definition version of the film was leaked online in April, The Indian Express reported.

During subsequent proceedings before the Madras High Court, prosecutors said the pirated copy had been viewed nearly 1.2 crore times before access was blocked, The Indian Express reported.

The Tamil Nadu Police later arrested several persons in connection with the leak, including a freelance film editor who allegedly obtained the footage from an editing website.

On July 2, the Madras High Court refused bail to two of the accused, citing the seriousness of the allegations and the continuing investigation, The Indian Express reported.

The prosecution also told the court that two suspects were still absconding and that their arrest was important to trace the financial transactions linked to the alleged piracy network.

Inputs from Nandini Ramnath. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094171/tamil-nadu-cm-vijays-jana-nayagan-film-cleared-with-a-certificate-after-seven-month-delay?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:31:41 +0000 Scroll Staff Updates: Sonam Wangchuk says he will continue fast, condemns police ‘brutality’ during CJP protest https://scroll.in/latest/1094396/updates-ahead-of-parliament-march-cjp-says-demand-for-dharmendra-pradhans-resignation-stands?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke ended his fast at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, as did three members of the All India Students’ Association.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk on Monday evening said he would continue his hunger strike after seeing the “brutality” that protesters faced during the Cockroach Janta Party’s march from Delhi’s Jantar Mantar towards Parliament earlier in the day.

He said his fast would continue until youth leaders are allowed to meet parliamentarians, or till he is permitted to meet them at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital.

“I am touched and moved by how the youth have held on to peace despite provocation,” the activist said in a note from the hospital.

Earlier in the day, the Cockroach Janta Party accused security personnel of firing tear gas shells at protesters marching to Parliament. It alleged that the police resorted to a “brutal lathi-charge” and described its actions as a “black day” for democracy.

The campaign has been demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

Here’s more on this and other top updates:

Tear gas shells fired, security beefed up at Parliament

  • The Cockroach Janta Party asked why the police had resorted to “tear gas assault on peaceful protesters”. “Sir Narendra Modi, have you decided we are no longer a democracy?” asked the campaign. “First your government ignored this protest for a month and now when we are peacefully marching your government is attacking us.”
  • Members of the Cockroach Janta Party on Monday met Union minister JP Nadda at his residence in Delhi, amid the protest. Spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka submitted a memorandum to Nadda. Apart from Pradhan’s resignation, Wangchuk’s release from Safdarjung Hospital and a Rs 1 crore compensation for the families of undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test aspirants who died by suicide.
  • “The Minister assured us he will discuss this at the appropriate level,” Das said on social media. “However, no commitments have been made so far.” He added that despite Nadda’s assurance that no further crackdown on protesters would take place at Jantar Mantar, there were “no reports yet of police stopping”.
  • Late on Monday evening, Ranka announced that the protest will continue till Pradhan resigns. Ranka and Dipke returned to the protest stage, even as the electricity there was cut off.

Nadda, meanwhile, said that talks with protesters were underway. He said that the talks with the representatives of the Cockroach Janta Party were “cordial”, and urged demonstrators to end their protest.

  • Security forces put in place a multi-tiered security lockdown at Parliament to prevent the protesters from breaching the premises, reported PTI. Fire tenders and emergency water response vehicles were stationed inside the gates.
  • In the morning, as the crowd started swelling at Jantar Mantar, the Rapid Action Police Force lathi-charged several demonstrators who had gathered near the designated protest site on Monday, showed videos posted by ANI.
  • However, the Delhi Police claimed that media reports about “sporadic use of violence” at Jantar Mantar were not accurate. “It is informed that no such incident has taken place and protest is being handled professionally,” the police added.
  • Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party leaders Atishi, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, Azad Samaj Party-Kanshiram chief Chandrashekhar Azad and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra arrived at the protest site.

Nearby metro stations closed

  • The Delhi Metro stations at Janpath, Rajiv Chowk, Patel Chowk, Central Secretariat and Seva Teerth were closed for several hours because of security reasons, the operator said on Monday. The Janpath and Central Secretariat stations were opened later in the evening.
  • Heavy security had been deployed outside the protest site on Monday morning, PTI reported.
  • The Cockroach Janta Party claimed that several protesters at Jantar Mantar had received messages on their phones about the internet being shut down in the area. “This is wrong,” said the campaign.
  • On Sunday, the police had said no permission has been sought or granted for the Cockroach Janta Party march. It added that orders prohibiting public gatherings are in force in the New Delhi district.

Wangchuk’s conditions to end fast

  • Earlier on Sunday, Angmo had told reporters that Wangchuk would end his fast on Monday “if political leaders meet him at hospital and assure him that they will raise the issue of education accountability” during Parliament session.
  • Clarifying his stance, Wangchuk stated on social media on Monday that he will end his hunger strike if the Union government “takes accountability for the recent failures in the education system”.
  • The activist’s second condition to break his fast was that leaders from political parties assure the Cockroach Janta Party, once they reach the Parliament as part of their march, that the grievances will be raised in the House.
  • Wangchuk wrote that if his health “or other factors do not permit this”, then representatives of the parties should meet him at the Safdarjung Hospital, where he said his freedom of speech, movement and communication were “being restricted”.
  • On Monday, the Cockroach Janta Party stated that it has demanded that Wangchuk be released from the hospital, “where he’s being forcefully held against his will by the government”, so he can also join the march to Parliament. Wangchuk’s wife Angmo will join the march if Wangchuk is not permitted to leave the hospital, said the campaign.
  • Sharing updates about Wangchuk’s health at 10 am on Monday, the Safdarjung Hospital said that the activist was receiving comprehensive medical care and his vital parameters remain stable, reported ANI. “Blood parameters continue to warrant close clinical observation,” read the statement. “He remains under continuous medical management and the close supervision of a multidisciplinary team of experts.”
  • On Monday, Wangchuk wrote a letter to the hospital authorities asking them to allow him to leave the medical facility and join the protest march. In the handwritten letter, addressed to the director of Safdarjung Hospital, Wangchuk said: “This is to state that I am feeling very fine today and my health parameters are also showing as quite normal. Hence, I request you to kindly allow me to leave the hospital, even if temporarily, so that I can join the march” to Parliament.

Others end hunger strikes

  • Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike as part of the protest since June 28. On Saturday, he was forcibly removed from Jantar Mantar and taken to hospital by the police.
  • Three members of the All India Students’ Association – Neha Bora, Manish Kumar and Aameen Amitosh – who had continued their hunger strike at Jantar Mantar even after Wangchuk was forcibly taken to hospital, ended their fast on Monday after 23 days. They ended their hunger strike following appeals from social activists and political leaders.
  • After Wangchuk was removed from the protest site, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke began an indefinite hunger strike. He also ended the fast on Monday.

The authorities are ‘planning something heinous’, alleges Dipke

  • Earlier on Monday, Dipke alleged that the authorities were “planning something heinous where they will allow goons to disrupt the protest and then blame it on the peaceful CJP protesters”.
  • He shared a video, claiming that it was from Jantar Mantar, which showed trucks loaded with stones. “What are the police authorities up to?” he asked on social media. “Are they orchestrating stone-pelting on the peaceful CJP protesters?”

Written by Sneha and Anamika Pathak. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar and Neerad Pandharipande.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094396/updates-ahead-of-parliament-march-cjp-says-demand-for-dharmendra-pradhans-resignation-stands?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:51:53 +0000 Scroll Staff CJP protest: From Shillong to Mumbai, solidarity demonstrations held across India https://scroll.in/latest/1094407/cjp-protest-from-shillong-to-mumbai-solidarity-demonstrations-held-across-india?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The demonstrations were reported in several parts of the country, including Shillong, Dimapur, Guwahati, Mumbai, Goa and parts of Uttar Pradesh.

Several demonstrations in support of the Cockroach Janta Party-led campaign and activist Sonam Wangchuk took place in cities and towns across India on Monday, even as protesters in central Delhi faced police action during their planned walk to Parliament.

For several days, thousands of protesters had been demonstrating at the national capital’s Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The campaign had planned a march to Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session began. However, while the leaders of the protests were blocked by the police from undertaking the march, some managed to march closer to Parliament and gather in other parts of central Delhi.

Hours after the lathi-charge, the Cockroach Janta Party said that the Union government had agreed to hold talks with the protesters.

Meanwhile, solidarity demonstrations were reported in several parts of the country, including Shillong, Dimapur, Guwahati, Mumbai, Goa and parts of Uttar Pradesh.

Maharashtra

In Mumbai, protesters also gathered at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar in support of the Cockroach Janta Party protest.

The police detained several students at Dadar railway station, Shivaji Park, Mahim and nearby areas to prevent mass gatherings.

Among those detained was Sameer Wagle, who works in venture capital fund and is a part of civil society initiative Mumbai for Peace. He told Scroll that he arrived at Chaityabhoomi after learning that a friend had been detained.

“I didn’t even join the protest,” Wagle told Scroll. “I was just filming the protest and the police detained me with others. There were 40 students in my van. We were taken to Mahim police station. There were about 125 people detained there.”

The Mumbai Police has issued orders prohibiting public gatherings of five or more persons without permission across the city from July 23 to August 6, PTI reported.

Theatre artist Dhammrakshit Randive, who was headed towards Chaityabhoomi, said he was first intercepted at Dadar railway station, and was briefly detained in a police van.

Subsequently, he managed to join the protest at Dadar for about an hour.

“We were a group of 80,” Randive told Scroll. “The police eventually detained us near Plaza cinema. I was detained for an hour then let go.”

“We were not assaulted but others were," he alleged, adding that he and his friends had shot video of police assault on their phones.

Goa

Leaders from the Goa unit of the Aam Aadmi Party joined a one-day hunger strike at Azad Maidan in Panaji in solidarity with Wangchuk.

AAP Goa president Valmiki Naik and other party leaders extended support to students and protesters demanding the education minister’s resignation.

Meghalaya

In Shillong, students, senior citizens and others gathered at Don Bosco Square, carrying placards and banners in support of the campaign.

Nagaland

Hundreds of persons also gathered at Super Market in Dimapur in support of the CJP-led campaign.

West Bengal

In Kolkata, students of the Jadavpur University led a march in solidarity with the protesters at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.

Uttar Pradesh

Protests were also reported in parts of Uttar Pradesh, including Pilibhit and Bhadohi, where demonstrations were held by the Aam Aadmi Party.

Assam

In Assam, supporters gathered in four different locations in Guwahati to rally behind Wangchuk and the demands for education reforms, The Assam Tribune reported.

Earlier on Friday, two artists were detained for painting a mural expressing support for Wangchuk.

The action came a day after a mural of Wangchuk appeared on a flyover pillar in the city with the text “Save Sonam Wangchuk”.

It was reportedly painted by students of the Government College of Art & Craft on Thursday night.

Around the world

Solidarity demonstrations were also reported outside India, with members of the Indian diaspora gathering outside the Consulate General of India in Toronto, Canada to express support for Wangchuk and the campaign’s demands.

Similiar protests are also scheduled to be held in parts of the United Kingdom later on Monday including in London, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow.

Inputs by Tabassum Barnagarwala. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.



]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094407/cjp-protest-from-shillong-to-mumbai-solidarity-demonstrations-held-across-india?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:45:46 +0000 Scroll Staff Watch: Young protesters in Delhi face police lathi-charge and tear gas https://scroll.in/latest/1094403/watch-what-scroll-saw-on-the-ground-as-police-fired-tear-gas-shells-lathi-charged-cjp-protesters?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Scroll was on the ground speaking with demonstrators injured while trying to march to Parliament, and many who had travelled from afar.

Security personnel on Monday fired tear gas shells at and lathi-charged protesters of the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party in Delhi.

For several days, thousands of protesters had been demonstrating at the national capital’s Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The campaign had planned a march to Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session began. However, while the leaders of the protests were blocked by the police from undertaking the march, some managed to march closer to Parliament and gather in other parts of central Delhi.

Hours after the lathi-charge, the Cockroach Janta Party said that the Union government had agreed to hold talks with the protesters. Two representatives of the campaign met Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader JP Nadda.

The spokespersons said that they submitted a letter listing their demands and the minister had “assured us that he will meanwhile speak internally”.

Scroll’s reporters were on the ground as the dramatic events unfolded in Delhi.

Here’s what they saw:

Anant Gupta documented what he saw in central Delhi as some protesters got past barricades.

Ayush Tiwari spoke with several young protesters who were injured during their march to Parliament. Among them was a 16-year-old student who was beaten by a lathi. He wondered if it was his mistake to be wishing well for the country.

Kritika Pant and Raghav Kakkar spoke with protesters who said that they had been confined by the heavy security deployment in central Delhi.

Among them was a man who said he had travelled from Indore, Madhya Pradesh only for the protest. “I’ve one demand: Dharmendra Pradhan must resign,” he said.

One protester told Raghav Kakkar that the police asked the demonstrators “to sit down and then started the lathi-charge”.

A protester who had travelled from Uttar Pradesh demanded accountability from the government. He told Scroll that the demonstration was peaceful until the security forces intervened.


Follow the latest updates of the CJP protest here

Watch: Meet the ‘cockroaches’ who crawl out every night at Jantar Mantar

Also read: How the ‘cockroaches’ at the Jantar Mantar sit-in are keeping themselves busy


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094403/watch-what-scroll-saw-on-the-ground-as-police-fired-tear-gas-shells-lathi-charged-cjp-protesters?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:20:13 +0000 Scroll Staff NEET-UG 2026: NTA claims viral answer sheets were fabricated, warns of criminal action https://scroll.in/latest/1094401/neet-ug-2026-nta-claims-viral-omr-sheets-were-fabricated-warns-of-criminal-action?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The agency issued case-by-case responses with respect to five candidates whose allegations of discrepancies had been widely shared on social media.

The National Testing Agency on Monday claimed that images of answer sheets from the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test that were widely shared on social media were “digitally fabricated”.

The NEET-UG exam for seats in medical colleges was conducted for a second time on June 21 after the NTA cancelled the original exam held on May 3 following allegations of a question paper leak.

The re-examination results were declared on July 16. Subsequently, some candidates alleged that the optical mark recognition answer sheets uploaded against their roll numbers did not belong to them, had been interchanged or showed fewer attempted answers than they had marked, The Indian Express reported.

Optical Mark Recognition is a system that reads answers marked by candidates by detecting filled bubbles or marks on an answer sheet.

The NTA said on Monday that it examined each representation individually and found that its official records remained consistent in every case reviewed so far.

It said genuine answer sheets held by the agency carried the correct roll number, booklet number, barcode, candidate details, signatures, thumb impression and invigilators’ signatures, and that the declared scores matched the official answer key and evaluation records.

The agency also issued case-by-case responses with respect to five candidates – Avaneesh Srivastava, Pratibha Trivedi, Abhay Yadav, Lakshya Singh and Arya Singh – whose allegations of discrepancies had been widely shared on social media.

It said the optical mark recognition sheets for all five candidates had been correctly evaluated and their scores remained as declared.

According to the testing agency, the disputed images were digitally regenerated or altered versions of the candidates’ genuine answer sheets.

In Srivastava’s case, the agency said the genuine answer sheet bearing his details was on record and had also been emailed to him during the response key challenge window. It said the circulated image carried the identity of “Ajeet Singh”, a person who did not exist in the NEET-UG database.

It further alleged that printed sections had been regenerated using artificial intelligence or optical character recognition-based tools while identity fields had been overwritten. The agency said his score of 337 had been verified.

The agency also rejected Trivedi's claim that she should have scored about 640 marks instead of 38. It said the genuine answer sheet was on record and had been emailed to her during the challenge window, while the image being circulated was a significantly altered digital version.

In Yadav's case, the NTA said his public claim that he had left only five questions unanswered did not match the official answer sheet, which showed 44 unanswered questions.

For Lakshya Singh, the agency said the circulated image contained additional answer bubbles that had been digitally shaded.

Responding to Arya Singh’s case, the agency said the image being circulated was a digitally altered version of her genuine answer sheet. It said the recorded time of one invigilator’s signature had been changed from 3.45 pm to 2.45 pm and that there were several other signs of digital alteration.

The NTA said it had identified several methods used to create fake examination documents. These included using artificial intelligence-based image tools to regenerate printed sections of answer sheets, digitally overwriting candidate details while leaving barcodes and answer bubbles unchanged and altering marks or response counts on downloaded scorecards without changing embedded barcodes.

The agency has warned that creating, possessing, submitting or circulating fabricated, digitally altered or AI-generated answer sheets, scorecards or other examination documents is a cognisable offence under the 2024 Public Examinations Prevention of Unfair Means Act.

It added that action could also be taken under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act and said legal proceedings could extend to third parties involved in preparing or circulating forged documents.

The clarification comes amid a sustained protest by the Cockroach Janta Party in Delhi. The political campaign has been staging a sit-in at Jantar Mantar since late June, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk began a hunger strike on June 28 in support of the campaign.

On Monday, protesters attempted to march to Parliament, where they were stopped by security personnel.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


Read more updates on the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest march here.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094401/neet-ug-2026-nta-claims-viral-omr-sheets-were-fabricated-warns-of-criminal-action?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:16:25 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Modi is the most anti-youth PM’: Opposition after police crackdown on CJP protest in Delhi https://scroll.in/latest/1094409/modi-is-the-most-anti-youth-pm-opposition-after-police-crackdown-on-cjp-protest-in-delhi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Uddhav Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray said that ‘when a brutal regime points guns towards young Indians...you know that the regime is anti- India’.

The Opposition on Monday sharply criticised the police action against protesters during the Cockroach Janta Party’s march towards Parliament in Delhi, calling Narendra Modi “the most anti-youth prime minister in India’s history”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Modi had failed to act against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan despite repeated allegations of irregularities in competitive examinations.

Gandhi claimed that about 7.5 crore students had been affected by question paper leaks, and alleged that those responsible had not been punished while students raising “legitimate questions” were met with “batons and detention”.

“This government isn’t just failing the youth–it's cracking down on them,” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

For several days, thousands of protesters had been demonstrating at the national capital’s Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The Cockroach Janta Party had planned a march to Parliament on Monday, coinciding with the start of the Monsoon Session. While police stopped the protest leaders from proceeding, some demonstrators moved closer to Parliament and gathered at other locations in central Delhi. Security personnel later fired tear gas shells at and lathi-charged protesters during the demonstration, Scroll reported.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha earlier in the day, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said students protesting against paper leaks at Jantar Mantar had been subjected to a lathi-charge and accused the Modi government of trying to suppress the voice of the youth.

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the government should review its policies and shortcomings instead of “wielding lathis on children”.

Congress leader Sachin Pilot also condemned the use of lathis and tear gas, saying it “is completely wrong”.

“Instead of suppressing the students’ voices, their concerns should be addressed,” Pilot said.

Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she strongly condemned “the police brutality unleashed on our youth and students in Delhi today”.

The Trinamool Congress chief questioned why a government would fear its own students.

“Dissent is not a crime,” Banerjee said. “Brutality is not governance.”

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, who visited Jantar Mantar on Monday morning, said she was shocked by the security deployment and accused the police of cracking down on unarmed students.

Calling the Centre a “satanic government”, she said the Delhi Police should “hang their heads in shame” for cracking down on “poor defenceless kids”.

The Aam Aadmi Party also criticised the police action. Party chief Arvind Kejriwal alleged that instead of fixing the education and examination system, the government had “declared war” on the country’s youth.

“The youth will by no means tolerate Modi ji’s arrogance,” he added.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray alleged that “when a brutal regime points guns towards young Indians who are asking for a better education system, you know that the regime is anti- India”.

He said the world will see that “India is no longer a democracy but captured by a regime”.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Kanimozhi condemned the lathi-charge on students participating in the march to Parliament and said the Union government had chosen “brute force over dialogue”.

The Samajwadi Party condemned the detention of its MPs, including Dimple Yadav, who had gone to Jantar Mantar to meet the protesters.

It added that “the lathi charge on students is highly condemnable and undemocratic”.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government of choosing repression over democracy and said the use of lathi-charge, tear gas, barricades and metro closures marked a “confession of the BJP government’s fear”.

Bhim Army chief and Lok Sabha MP Chandrashekhar Azad asserted that “those who set out on the path of truth are not bowed down, the voice of truth is never suppressed by batons”.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.



]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094409/modi-is-the-most-anti-youth-pm-opposition-after-police-crackdown-on-cjp-protest-in-delhi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:13:46 +0000 Scroll Staff Rush Hour: Police crack down as thousands join Delhi protest to demand minister’s resignation & more https://scroll.in/latest/1094404/rush-hour-police-crack-down-as-thousands-join-delhi-protest-to-demand-ministers-resignation-more?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Become a Scroll member to get Rush Hour – a wrap of the day’s important stories delivered straight to your inbox every evening.

Security personnel in Delhi fired tear gas and lathi-charged protesters as thousands of demonstrators thronged the national capital to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. At Jantar Mantar, protesters told Scroll that several of them were injured in police action as they attempted to march to Parliament.

They blame Pradhan for allegedly mismanaging competitive examinations.

Some of the protesters had travelled from faraway places, including Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, to join the protest.

“I’ve one demand: Dharmendra Pradhan must resign,” a protester who had travelled from Indore told Scroll. Another protester alleged that the police asked the demonstrators “to sit down and then started the lathi-charge”.

A 16-year-old student who was beaten with a lathi asked if it was his mistake to wish India well.

The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, which led the protest, accused the police of resorting to a “brutal lathi-charge” and described its actions as a “black day” for democracy. Read on.


Activist Sonam Wangchuk said on Monday evening that he would continue his hunger strike, and criticised the “brutality with which peacefully protesting youth” were being dealt with in Delhi. The statement came hours after security personnel fired tear gas shells and lathicharged protesters seeking the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Wangchuk said his fast would continue until youth leaders are allowed to meet parliamentarians, or till he is permitted to meet them at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital. The Cockroach Janta Party had planned a march to Parliament to press for Pradhan’s resignation on account of allegations of widespread mismanagement of competitive examinations.

However, security forces put in place a multi-tiered lockdown at Parliament to prevent the protesters from breaching the premises.

Members of the Cockroach Janta Party met with Union minister JP Nadda in Delhi amid the protests. Apart from Pradhan’s resignation, they demanded that Wangchuk should be released from the Safdarjung Hospital, and that compensation should be paid to the families of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test aspirants who died by suicide.

Saurav Das, a spokesperson for the political campaign, said that despite Nadda’s assurance that no further crackdown on protesters would take place at Jantar Mantar, there were “no reports yet of police stopping”. Read on.


Watch: What next as youth storm Delhi


The National Testing Agency has claimed that images of answer sheets from the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test that were widely shared on social media were “digitally fabricated”. The NEET-UG exam for seats in medical colleges was conducted for a second time on June 21 after the NTA cancelled the original exam held on May 3 following allegations of a question paper leak.

The re-examination results were declared on July 16. Subsequently, some candidates alleged that the optical mark recognition answer sheets uploaded against their roll numbers did not belong to them, had been interchanged or showed fewer attempted answers than they had marked.

The NTA said that it examined each representation individually and found that its official records remained consistent in every case reviewed so far. Read on.

Tripura Director General of Police Anurag Dhankar was found dead at the state police headquarters in Agartala. The 60-year-old Indian Police Services officer was taken to hospital, where doctors declared him dead at 12.48 pm.

Preliminary reports have suggested that Dhankar may have died by suicide, though the authorities have not officially confirmed the cause of death.

The police have registered a case of unnatural death and begun an investigation.

Dhankar had taken charge as Tripura’s police chief in May 2025 and had previously held several senior positions in the state police. He had also served on deputation with the Central Bureau of Investigation and Border Security Force. Read on.


The Calcutta High Court has refused to allow the Trinamool Congress to operate three bank accounts frozen by the Enforcement Directorate. Justice Krishna Rao, in an interim order, refused to lift the freeze on the TMC’s bank accounts.

The party had approached the High Court challenging the Enforcement Directorate’s action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

The case pertains to alleged financial irregularities, unlawful collection of money and routing of suspected funds through certain bank accounts of the TMC. Read on.


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

]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094404/rush-hour-police-crack-down-as-thousands-join-delhi-protest-to-demand-ministers-resignation-more?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:01:43 +0000 Scroll Staff In Ladakh, climate change is raining on apricots, central to life and the economy https://scroll.in/article/1094194/in-ladakh-climate-change-is-raining-on-apricots-central-to-life-and-the-economy?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Irregular and increased rainfall, as well as decreased snow in winter months, are changing the fragile environment.

Nusrat Rehman can’t wait to be home from school. It’s summertime in the otherwise cold and arid Kargil in Ladakh, where the 10-year-old lives. It’s also the season to harvest her favourite fruit – apricots.

When the finishing bell at her primary school rings, Rehman bounds down the hill and crosses the Suru River into her neighbourhood. “I cannot wait to pluck and eat the fresh apricots from our orchard!” she exclaims.

Between the summer months of July and September, her usual routine after school, like most other children in the region, is to help older women from the community harvest apricots in their orchards.

Ladakh is the biggest producer in the country, accounting for 62% of India’s total apricot yield, as per government data.

In Ladakh’s stark, high-altitude desert, where the growing season is brief and the winters are long, apricot trees are not ornamental additions to a household. They are foundational, woven into daily survival, local economy and cultural identity. While they are consumed as fresh fruit in summer, dried apricots sustain households through winter, when communities can be isolated for months. They provide both calories and essential nutrients when little else is available.

But climate change may be threatening this pivotal relationship between Ladakh’s people and apricots. Irregular and increased rainfall, as well as decreased snow in winter months, are changing this fragile environment.

“Last year due to intense rainfall and snowfall, there was a huge loss of apricot flowers in the region,” says Sonam Lotus, director of the India Meteorological Department of Jammu and Kashmir. “The rainfall is for a short time, but it’s heavy and intense, which is affecting Ladakh especially during the months of July and August.”

A way of life

Apricots thrive in Ladakh’s dry climate, requiring relatively little water compared to other crops. Over generations, families have learned that these trees are among the few reliable biological assets in an otherwise fragile agricultural system.

Not one part of the fruit goes to waste. The seeds yield kernels, which are pressed into apricot oil used in cooking, as well as for medicinal and cosmetic purposes. In a region where supply chains are uncertain, apricots function as a self-contained food system within each household.

Beyond sustenance, apricots are one of the few dependable sources of cash income in Ladakh’s rural economy. Families sell surplus produce: primarily the dried fruit, but also value-added products like oil, jams and juices. In recent years, with growing recognition and commercialisation of Ladakhi apricots as a premium product, these orchards have also connected remote households to wider markets.

“Apricots are a huge part of Ladakhi culture,” says Stanba Gyaltsan, co-founder of the social enterprise Ladakh Orchards. “I think the apricot dessert [Phating] is the only traditional dessert of Ladakh.” “I would say apricots are the means to keep us connected with relatives who lived far away. Whenever they would visit us, or we would visit them, we would take apricots with us as an offering or gift,” he tells Dialogue Earth.

Apricot trees are often inherited across generations, standing as living markers of lineage, land ownership and continuity. “Right now, the trees we have are mostly planted by my grandfather almost a hundred years ago. We are still reaping the fruits of his labour,” Gyaltsan says.

Anuja Dasgupta, artist and the other co-founder of Ladakh Orchards, stresses the importance of traditional farming in sustaining the sense of community.

“All the orchards and farmlands we work with, still do continue some form of traditional agriculture in terms of labour. It’s shared labour. So, there is always some kind of coming together, not just for farming but also for different moments in a family’s life, like celebrations or grieving,” says Dasgupta. Ladakh Orchards works with farmer families over a 100-km stretch, from the Sham to the Aryan valley.

These familial practices are more than agricultural routines; they are repositories of memory. Knowing when the fruit is perfectly ripe, how to cut it for optimal drying, or how to store it through winter are all forms of inherited knowledge.

For the harvesting season to be timely, the most significant part comes just before springtime, when the white and pink flowers bloom. Late March to early April usually brings the blossom, when the trees turn pink after months of barren winter.

But spring last year wasn’t as anticipated. April saw both snow and rain, Gyaltsan says. As a result, Ladakh Orchards faced serious production issues.

“It rained heavily for an entire day, and all the blossoms fell off in just one day. Production was very little last year. It was not just in our village, but the entire Sham valley and Aryan valley. Most of the farmers in that area lost up to 40-50% production,” he says.

In 2026, Ladakh barely had a winter, with a warmer than usual spring. If such drastic changes in weather are to continue, temperate weather fruits like apricots will need to be grown in higher elevations, Kunzang Lamo, a local scientist, told Down To Earth.

Disrupting an ancient but fragile system

Extreme weather is disrupting traditional farming practices, says Dasgupta.

“Traditional agriculture is absolutely attuned to the seasonal rhythms that have existed for time immemorial. But now that the timeline is shifting so rapidly, we have practically no guidance as to what to expect,” she adds.

Gyaltsan compared his farm to orchards in the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh where large nets are installed to reduce the impact of severe precipitation.

“In Himachal, they have nets which can cover the entire orchard. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do anything of that sort yet, but hopefully, we can work towards that,” Gyaltsan says.

As Ladakh gets ready for another apricot harvesting season, last year’s memories weigh heavy on locals. Due to erratic snow and rainfall, the apricot blossom suffered heavily in 2025, affecting the apricot produce as well. Multiple apricot farmers in the region took to social media to show their ruined apricot trees and to ask for damage relief.

According to data from the India Meteorological Department, Ladakh recorded a historic amount of rainfall in the month of August 2025, nearly 930% more than normal, making it the wettest August in recorded history. Leh, the region’s capital, received around 55 mm rainfall, ten times over its monthly average of 5.6 mm.

Floodwaters damaged infrastructure, cut off roads and flights, and isolated villages. The extreme rainfall also exposed the fragility of Ladakh’s ecological and agricultural systems.

This volatility is particularly dangerous in the Himalayas, where fragile terrain, loose soil, and glacier-fed systems make landscapes highly sensitive to sudden climatic shifts.

According to AP Dimri, director of the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, changes in weather systems, known as “western disturbances”, may be the cause of the erratic precipitation.

These originate around the Mediterranean region and travel eastward toward South Asia. They carry moisture and cold air, and when they reach the Himalayas, they usually bring snow in winter and light rain in some regions. Historically, Ladakh being in the rain shadow of the Himalayas received very little precipitation from them. But this pattern is changing.

Earlier, a western disturbance would die by the time it crossed a major part of northern Himalayas. Its energy would be lost by the time it reached the elevation of Ladakh, which is supposed to be a cold desert with very low precipitation.

“Western disturbances used to travel in the lower elevation, but now because of climate change, it has more energy and is flying high. It [now] crosses Pir Panjal, crosses Zanskar, and dumps at Ladakh,” Dimri says.

Dimri urges that adaptation to this changing climate is critical for the local population.

“When you start living in a new set of rules defined by that particular place, you keep adapting, keep changing your lifestyle, your food habits. That’s what [the] Ladakhi [need] to do,” Dimri says.

As the 2026 apricot harvest season nears, Gyaltsan is anxious but hopeful.

This year’s springtime blossom season was nothing like last year’s. Not only was there no snow, 2026’s April was unexpectedly warm, resulting in apricot blossoms blooming a few weeks earlier in March.

“It’s really becoming unpredictable,” Gyaltsan says. He now hopes this change in seasons doesn’t impact his incoming harvest.

This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.

Avidha Raha is an Indian multimedia journalist and photographer.

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

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094194/in-ladakh-climate-change-is-raining-on-apricots-central-to-life-and-the-economy?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:00:01 +0000 Avidha Raha Tripura DGP found dead at state police headquarters https://scroll.in/latest/1094405/tripura-police-chief-found-dead-at-agartala-office?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt While preliminary reports suggested that Anurag Dhankar died by suicide, the authorities have not officially confirmed the reason.

Tripura Director General of Police Anurag Dhankar was found dead at the state police headquarters in Agartala on Monday, The Hindu reported.

The 60-year-old Indian Police Service officer was taken to the Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, where doctors declared him dead at 12.48 pm.

Preliminary reports have suggested that Dhankar likely died by suicide, but the authorities have not officially confirmed the cause of death.

“We don’t know what the cause of death was at this point,” The Indian Express quoted Dr Pradip Bhowmik, head of the department of general medicine, as saying. “We are sending the body for post-mortem examination.”

The police have registered a case of unnatural death and launched an investigation, The Hindu reported.

According to the hospital, Dhankar was brought in around noon, where doctors attempted resuscitation before declaring him dead, The Indian Express reported.

Bhowmik said Dhankar had no vital signs when he was brought in. Doctors attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation but could not revive him, he added.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, Chief Secretary JK Sinha and other senior officials visited the hospital, The Hindu reported.

Dhankar had taken charge as Tripura’s police chief in May 2025. During his career, he held several senior positions in the Tripura Police and also served on deputation with the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Border Security Force.

He had also served with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo during 2003-’04.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094405/tripura-police-chief-found-dead-at-agartala-office?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 12:00:35 +0000 Scroll Staff Calcutta HC refuses to allow TMC to operate bank accounts frozen by ED https://scroll.in/latest/1094402/calcutta-hc-refuses-to-allow-tmc-to-operate-bank-accounts-frozen-by-ed?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The case pertains to alleged financial irregularities, unlawful collection of money and routing of suspected funds through certain bank accounts of the TMC.

The Calcutta High Court on Monday refused to allow the Trinamool Congress to operate three bank accounts frozen by the Enforcement Directorate, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Krishna Rao, in an interim order, refused to lift the freeze on the TMC’s bank accounts.

The party has approached the High Court challenging the Enforcement Directorate's action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

The case pertains to alleged financial irregularities, unlawful collection of money and routing of suspected funds through certain bank accounts of the TMC.

The Kolkata Police froze debit operations on the three accounts on June 19, a day after rebel TMC MLA Biswanath Das filed a complaint alleging that funds had been misused. The party has been grappling with factionalism after its loss in the West Bengal Assembly elections in May.

Later, on July 8, the Enforcement Directorate said that it had frozen three bank accounts of the TMC, holding deposits worth Rs 440 crore.

The agency claimed that around Rs 160 crore was transferred from the party’s bank accounts to Carewell Aviation India Private Limited and a related company between April 2023 and June 2026.

Carewell Aviation then transferred around Rs 83 crore to another related entity, which was used to buy an Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft and an Agusta 109 Grand New helicopter, the agency claimed. It alleged that Rs 112 crore was spent on the purchases.

On July 9, another bench of the High Court had passed a separate order regarding the same bank accounts, permitting the TMC to use the funds for day-to-day operations under the supervision of a special officer till September 30. The order related to the freeze imposed by the West Bengal Police.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094402/calcutta-hc-refuses-to-allow-tmc-to-operate-bank-accounts-frozen-by-ed?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:11:06 +0000 Scroll Staff Calcutta HC halts demolition of building housing Abhishek Banerjee’s office https://scroll.in/latest/1094399/calcutta-hc-halts-demolition-of-building-housing-abhishek-banerjees-office?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The stay will remain in place until the matter is heard next or till the end of July, whichever is earlier, said the bench.

The Calcutta High Court on Sunday directed the West Bengal government to stop further demolition of a building where Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee has his office in the Amtala town of South 24 Parganas, Bar and Bench reported.

The stay will remain in place until the matter is heard next or till the end of July, whichever is earlier, said Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury.

District authorities had reportedly ordered the building to be demolished on the grounds that it had been constructed in violation of municipal laws.

On Saturday, parts of the building were demolished by the district administration, reported the Hindustan Times.

Following this, Leaps and Bounds Private Limited, the company that owns the building and of which Banerjee’s father is a director, moved the High Court seeking an urgent hearing.

Appearing for the company on Sunday, lawyer Kishore Datta told the court that the complaint, on the basis of which the demolition was ordered, was never given to the petitioner.

Representing the state government, Advocate General Surojit Nath Mitra, said that the petitioner had failed to establish that the construction was authorised, reported Bar and Bench.

He said that the demolition followed a notice dated June 30, which had been served on the petitioner.

However, the court noted that the building’s owners may not have been given adequate opportunity to respond before the demolition was ordered.

Based on the material currently on record, there was nothing to indicate that the petitioner had been furnished with the complaint or the hearing officer’s recommendation for demolishing the building, said the bench, restraining the authorities from further action.

Edited by Sneha.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094399/calcutta-hc-halts-demolition-of-building-housing-abhishek-banerjees-office?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 07:31:44 +0000 Scroll Staff Census 2027 will count caste – but the data it produces won’t be usable https://scroll.in/article/1094386/census-2027-will-count-caste-but-the-data-it-produces-wont-be-usabale?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Those in the OBC and General categories will remain unseen, even though the caste census was revived specifically to make them visible.

A trial for the second phase of the census now underway is testing an open column for counting caste. But by the government’s own admission, it is likely to produce data that reservation or welfare policy cannot actually use.

Since July 6, a “pre-test” for the second phase of Census 2027 has been underway across 16 states and Union Territories. In the first phase, data was collected on housing conditions and amenities. In the second phase, significantly, caste will be counted for the first time since 1931.

The form for the trial carries an “open column” for caste, officials told the media. Instead of a fixed list or boxes to tick, the form has a blank space for respondents to write down their caste.

The pre-test finishes on July 20. The government’s lessons from it will shape how caste is counted and governed for the next decade.

The open column sounds respectful, asking nothing of the state and everything of self-description. But the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census used an identical method, which returned over 46 lakh distinct “caste names” such as Gupta, Agarwal and dozens of variants for what was, each time, the same caste.

The dataset was unusable for policy. Successive governments of different political persuasions chose not to publish it.

The current census pre-test is baffling because the government has already told the Supreme Court why open self-reporting fails. In a 2021 affidavit, it argued that because castes are divided into sub-castes under self-description, the resulting count cannot be relied upon to allot reservations of seats in educational institutions, government employment or electoral constituencies.

That is the government’s own assessment of the method now piloted as the front-runner for independent India’s first caste census.

There is another inconsistency in the paperwork of the first phase. The form asked the sex of the head of household, offering male, female, and – unlike 2011, which used only a residual “other” – a specifically named transgender category.

The next row, asking about the head of household, offered only Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other. The Other Backward Classes and General category are absent. Instead, there is a single bucket “Other” for everyone the state does not consider worth separately naming.

Yet, Central government data lists roughly 2,650 Other Backward Classes, alongside 1,170 Scheduled Castes and 890 Scheduled Tribes. States also maintain their own OBC lists. This is proof that caste names can be identified and administered at scale, whatever the gaps in how thoroughly they have been coded.

Even so, the state has not extended this method to the names of Bania, Brahmin and other caste groups whose multiplying spellings sank the count of the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census in the first place. Unlike that of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, there is no comparable list of caste names for the groups beyond these categories.

Listing caste names will never be exhaustive. But the state is obliged to try extending the list as far as the evidence allows before resorting to “open” for names that don’t tally.

The closed method means that the Other Backward Classes and the socially dominant groups (Bania, Brahmin, and other dominant castes) sit together in a single box. The open method guarantees a flood of self-reported variants that, by the government’s own admission, cannot be relied upon either.

Two opposite designs have one identical outcome: the OBC and the General category – the population a caste census was revived specifically to make visible – remain, by design, unseen.

This has implications beyond methodology. The policy of reservations for places in educational institutions and employment, welfare targeting and representation in electoral politics, all depend on caste data that can be acted upon.

A census that produces either an unusable flood of names or a residual bucket “Other” with no internal structure gives policymakers nothing new, spending the effort of the first caste census in a century without the evidentiary gain that was its entire justification.

Neither format on offer explores a third path: a coded list of caste names, built the way the list of Other Backward Classes already was, alongside an open field reserved for exceptions – the rare respondent whose caste does not tally with any existing entry.

In practice, enumerators moving locality by locality will encounter only a handful of recurring caste names at a time. The “open” field would be for the occasional residual case. Write-in responses that do not match an existing code would then run through expert coding before publication, rather than being left raw.

Phase-one enumerators visiting households already work on digital tablets, which can be used to offer a drop-down menu of existing entries as a category is typed, letting the enumerator select a match with a tap rather than write the name out by hand.

Every enumerator may not be carrying digital tablets, but where they do, offering such an option to specify caste identity is easy. Not doing so is a deliberate choice rather than oversight.

This option has been tested elsewhere. The United States codes race and ethnicity in its census in broadly the same spirit – broad categories at collection, write-in detail classified afterward. Even so, its coding rules have produced their own distortions and offer no model to import wholesale.

The step that India’s caste census keeps skipping is neither unusual nor unbuilt. It is simply the government’s willingness to do the coding work that makes either method – counting caste as open or closed – mean anything at all.

Sumit Baudh is the author of Law at the Intersection of Caste, Class and Sex (forthcoming, Routledge). Views are personal.

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094386/census-2027-will-count-caste-but-the-data-it-produces-wont-be-usabale?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:45:02 +0000 Sumit Baudh 16 killed as heavy rainfall triggers flash floods, landslides in J&K, Uttarakhand and Nagaland https://scroll.in/latest/1094398/16-killed-as-heavy-rainfall-triggers-flash-floods-landslides-in-j-k-uttarakhand-and-nagaland?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The worst-hit was Jammu and Kashmir, where 11 persons died in incidents related to the incessant rains in Poonch and Rajouri.

Sixteen persons were killed in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Nagaland in rain-related incidents on Sunday, reported PTI.

The worst-hit was Jammu and Kashmir, where 11 persons died after heavy rainfall triggered flash floods and landslides in Poonch and Rajouri.

Most of the deaths were reported from Surankote tehsil in Poonch. Some persons remain missing in the district, the news agency quoted unidentified officials as saying.

The rainfall began early on Sunday, after which cloudbursts were reported in the forests of Kashmir.

The Union Territory is expected to receive moderate to widespread rainfall from Sunday to Thursday, the India Meteorological Department said.

In view of this, the authorities have suspended the Amarnath Yatra on the Pahalgam and Baltal routes, reported PTI.

Rainfall in Uttarakhand

In Uttarakhand, two persons died after being struck by lightning in Haridwar district. Additionally, landslides triggered by incessant rains have blocked 84 roads, including two national highways, at several locations in the state.

With most districts receiving continuous rainfall, the authorities issued an orange alert for Dehradun, Tehri, Pauri, Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Haridwar and Bageshwar districts. A yellow alert is in place for Chamoli, Almora and Pithoragarh districts.

Flash floods in Nagaland

Three persons died in Nagaland’s Mon district after flash floods washed away homes and blocked roads, PTI quoted officials as saying.

Several areas in the district were inundated and major routes were blocked due to landslides. Homes, roads and public infrastructure were damaged extensively in Mon town.

The toll in rain-related incidents may rise as several persons were reportedly trapped under the debris brought in by flash floods and landslides.

Situation in Assam

Heavy rainfall led to floods in 12 districts of Assam – Biswanath, Cachar, Charaideo, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Jorhat, Karbi Anglong, Lakhimpur, Sivasagar, Tinsukia and Udalguri.

About 580 villages, housing 1.7 lakh persons, have been affected, the Assam government stated. It added that crops in more than 10,300 hectares of land have been submerged in the floods.

As of 8 am on Monday, five rivers were flowing above the danger mark – Brahmaputra at Neamatighat, Buridihing at Khowang, Dikhou at Sivasagar, Disang at Nganglamuraghat and Dhansiri at Numaligarh.

IMD forecast

The weather department has forecast active monsoon conditions in North, East and northeastern states for the next six to seven days. Rainfall activity in west-central and southern Peninsular India will be subdued for the next seven days, according to the IMD.

It said that Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and Uttarakhand will receive fairly widespread to widespread rainfall from July 19 to July 25.

Similar conditions will also be seen in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi from July 20 to July 23, in Uttar Pradesh from July 19 to July 24, and in eastern Rajasthan from July 23 to July 25.

Heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely at some places, with extremely heavy rainfall expected at isolated locations in Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh in the next three days.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura will also likely get widespread to fairly widespread rains from July 19 to July 25.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094398/16-killed-as-heavy-rainfall-triggers-flash-floods-landslides-in-j-k-uttarakhand-and-nagaland?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:28 +0000 Scroll Staff Madhya Pradesh Cabinet clears draft UCC bill, exempts Adivasis https://scroll.in/latest/1094397/madhya-pradesh-cabinet-clears-draft-ucc-bill-exempts-adivasis?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The draft legislation proposes to ban polygamy and mandate registration of live-in relationships.

The Madhya Pradesh Cabinet on Sunday approved the draft Uniform Civil Code Bill that proposes to ban polygamy and introduce strict provisions for live-in relationships. Adivasi communities have been exempted from the bill.

It is expected to be tabled in the Assembly during the Monsoon Session, which begins on Monday.

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

On Sunday, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said that the objective of the code is to ensure equal rights and justice for all citizens.

Citing suggestions made to the committee drafting the bill, he claimed that more than 80% of Muslim women and 40% of Muslim men had expressed their support for the Uniform Civil Code.

The draft legislation proposes to exclude the Scheduled Tribe communities to protect their “unique cultural heritage and traditional lifestyle”, The Hindu quoted the chief minister as saying.

The bill proposes to ban polygamy and declares practices such as triple talaq and nikah halala as illegal and punishable, the newspaper reported.

It also seeks to make it mandatory for live-in couples to submit an affidavit to the local registrar within a month of entering into such a relationship. Legal action could be taken if the couple violates the provision.

The bill proposes that if either partner in a live-in relationship is below the age of 21, their parents or guardians will be informed, and records will be shared with the police, The Hindu reported.

A married person who gets into a live-in relationship would be liable for a punishment of up to five years in jail, Yadav said.

The Opposition has questioned the need for the legislation.

BJP and UCC

Introducing a common personal law has for long been on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s agenda and several states ruled by the party have been making advances towards implementing it.

In January 2025, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to implement the Uniform Civil Code after independence. The Gujarat Assembly cleared a similar legislation in March amid protests by the Opposition. A common civil code has been in place in Goa since the Portuguese Civil Code was adopted in 1867.

The Assam Assembly on May 27 passed the Uniform Civil Code bill seeking to ban polygamy and make the registration of live-in relationships compulsory. The Opposition had demanded that the bill be sent to a select committee for scrutiny.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha.


Also read: Under UCC, only those with one marriage will have the right to live in Madhya Pradesh: CM


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094397/madhya-pradesh-cabinet-clears-draft-ucc-bill-exempts-adivasis?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 04:14:59 +0000 Scroll Staff MP: Leader of agitation against Ken-Betwa river linking project detained, police clear protest site https://scroll.in/latest/1094385/mp-leader-of-agitation-against-ken-betwa-river-linking-project-detained-police-clear-protest-site?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The demonstrators have alleged irregularities in land acquisition, rehabilitation and compensation for families affected by the project.

The Madhya Pradesh Police on Sunday morning detained Amit Bhatnagar, the leader of a protest against the Ken-Betwa river linking project, among several other demonstrators, The Indian Express reported.

The Ken-Betwa Link Project, said to be India’s first river interlinking initiative, aims to transfer surplus water from the Ken basin to the water-scarce Betwa basin to provide irrigation and drinking water to drought-prone regions of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

However, the project has sparked protests on account of alleged irregularities in land acquisition, rehabilitation and compensation for families affected by the project. The protest had been going on in the Kupi village of Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district for the past two weeks. Bhatnagar, a social activist, was on an indefinite hunger strike for 14 days.

On Sunday, Chhatarpur Additional Superintendent of Police Aditya Patle told The Indian Express that Bhatnagar was not arrested, but detained, and then taken to the local hospital for treatment. Around 150 protesters were detained and transported to Panna district in buses, the newspaper quoted Patle as saying.

“Our investigation showed these are not people from the locality but from Panna who had issues with other dam projects,” the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “So we detained them and sent them to Panna.”

Before his detention, Bhatnagar told The Indian Express that the government has not been fair and transparent in its land acquisition process.

He claimed the proceedings registers of the gram panchayats in Ratiya, Kari, Khatwani, Palkhua, Naiyyapur, Khajuri and Sukwaha contained identical, word-for-word entries. The activist also claimed that several gram sabha meetings were recorded as having taken place simultaneously at 11.30 am on February 17 and 18, 2022, raising questions about the authenticity of the proceedings.

The protests

Earlier, a group of protesters, mainly tribal women, launched a jal satyagraha, standing waist-deep in the Barana river, and a chita satyagraha, in which they were seen floating on symbolic funeral pyres in the river, PTI reported.

On the eighth day of the agitation, they also launched a symbolic faansi satyagraha, wearing nooses around their necks to protest their alleged displacement, loss of livelihoods and inadequate compensation.

On Sunday, videos on social media showed police officers at the protest site, dressed in riot gear, urging the protesters to call off the agitation. Meanwhile, the protesters waded into the Barana river to keep their distance from the force.

The project

To be implemented in two phases over eight years, the project includes the construction of the Daudhan Dam, a link canal and associated infrastructure, and is also expected to generate hydropower, according to the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

The project will cost Rs 44,605 crore and requires the displacement of nearly 2,000 families from villages falling within the reservoir’s submergence, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


Also read: Where is the data to support the government's rationale for linking the Ken and Betwa rivers?


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094385/mp-leader-of-agitation-against-ken-betwa-river-linking-project-detained-police-clear-protest-site?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 01:50:12 +0000 Scroll Staff Why tree cutting on Dehradun highway could upend the life of a community https://scroll.in/article/1094377/why-tree-cutting-on-dehradun-highway-could-upend-the-life-of-a-community?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Citizen protests have highlighted the environmental costs of the now halted work. But for forest-dwelling Van Gujjars, it poses a more direct threat.

On July 7, citizens gathered along a road in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun district, near the city’s airport. They came together to protest the cutting of trees in Badkot forest range for a road-widening project.

The National Highway Authority of India announced that day that it was “taking forward” the project, which would involve widening to four or six lanes existing roads in a stretch of 20 km connecting Dehradun airport to Rishikesh.

For this, it plans to cut more than 4,400 trees, according to its 2021 proposal to the ministry of environment, forest and climate change. The proposal noted that the work would require the use of around 20 hectares of reserved forest.

The highway authority said the project aims to “strengthen connectivity between Dehradun, Jolly Grant Airport, and Rishikesh, while supporting tourism, Char Dham Yatra and the state’s growing transportation needs”.

But protestors argued that the environmental cost of the work is too high. “A lot of the trees being cut were sal trees which are almost 200 years old,” said Ashutosh Kothari, an environmentalist and advocate based in Dehradun.

Anoop Nautiyal, founder of the Social Development for Communities Foundation, in Dehradun, noted that the road expansion was part of a larger push to build infrastructure in the region. For instance, a new Delhi-Dehradun expressway was inaugurated earlier this year, and the Dehradun airport is set to expand, for which around another 90 hectares of forest in Thano forest are to be cut.

He argued that this work was ill-advised. “It’s very clear that this is all tourism-centric,” said Nautiyal. “This model is making Uttarakhand more vulnerable to climate risks and amplifying the frequency and severity of disasters.”

But these are not the only concerns with the project. Not far from where the protestors had gathered, a group of Van Gujjars found their livelihoods at stake because of the deforestation plans.

The community is a semi-nomadic Sunni Muslim tribe that is classified as an “other backward class” in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. In the past, it has collaborated with citizen groups to protest deforestation but found that the focus of these campaigns differed from their concerns which centre primarily on the threat to forest access which the community has traditionally enjoyed.

This time, therefore, they chose a different way to oppose deforestation. A day after the protests began, the Bhaniyawala 2B-Jhakhan 2B-Rainapur Grant gram sabha in Badkot range, formed under the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, wrote to the chief secretary of Uttarakhand and Dehradun’s district magistrate, requesting him to “intervene against the illegal felling of trees” in the area.

“We have permits from the forest department to use this forest for more than 70 years. Forty-three claims under the Forest Rights Act are pending with the sub-divisional level committee,” said Noordin, a member of the community who lives in Badkot panchayat and is the secretary of the Forest Rights Committee. “Then why are we not even informed before the trees are cut in our forests?”

On July 18, Uttarakhand’s chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami announced that the tree felling for the highway expansion would be halted with immediate effect, and that the government would enter into a dialogue with stakeholders.

Van Gujjars, however, do not feel reassured by the announcement. Noordin pointed out that while tree cutting for the road project had been halted, “more of our permit areas might still be cut for the airport expansion”.

An urgent call

Noordin first heard about the cutting from an acquaintance in the forest department, who called him one day in the first week of July. “He told us in urgency that a contractor has come with his labour, and has started cutting down our trees,” Noordin told Scroll.

He began to walk from his home in the forest opposite the Dehradun airport. To get to the site the acquaintance had described, he then walked through a forest of kanju trees, whose leaves are important fodder for the buffaloes he raised.

This part of the forest, which Noordin and around 50 other Van Gujjar families use, is known as Bhaniyawala 2B. It flanks the first 5-km stretch of the road which is being expanded – the highway authority proposes to cut a total of 123 trees in this stretch.

When Noordin arrived at the site, he realised they could not do much to prevent the felling. “We tried stopping them, but they told us to take the matter to higher authorities,” Noordin said. “In over two days, they cut around 30 to 40 trees.”

A long history

Van Gujjars in the region have a connection with the forest that traces back more than a century.

Pranav Menon, a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota’s anthropology department, whose work focuses on Uttarakhand’s Van Gujjars, told Scroll that the earliest archival records he found of the community in the region date back to 1820, and are from Saharanpur. “In Badkot, I found annual migration of Gujjars which lays down their routes across different forest ranges,” he said. “That dates to the 1890s.”

The community rears the indigenous Gojri buffaloes – families in Badkot panchayat own between eight and ten buffaloes each, while a few also rear cows. Historically, they have migrated between the mixed deciduous forests of the Shiwalik ranges and the lower Himalayas to alpine meadows of the upper Himalayas, which allowed the cattle to graze on a variety of fodder. In recent years, the extent of their migration has reduced, but the community still moves across distances of between 25 and 30 km to graze the animals and lop trees for fodder.

This movement and use of the forest has government sanction – members of the community obtain permits from the state forest department, paying fees that vary depending on the number of buffaloes they own.

For instance, a receipt from 2022 that one member of the community showed Scroll granted permission to a Van Gujjar from “Badkot range, Dehradun” to “graze their cattle in Bhaniyawala 2B for the year 2021-22” in exchange for Rs 540.

As further evidence of their historical links to the forest, the Van Gujjars also point out that official records confirm that their ancestors lived in the range before Independence. In the letter to the Uttarakhand’s chief secretary and Dehradun’s district magistrate, they wrote that their ancestors “have been residing in the Barkot range as specified in the working plans of Dehradun Forest Working plan 1924-25, 1932-33, and 1945-46,” referring to documents that are prepared by the forest departments, and serve as scientific blueprints to manage forest resources.

A shrinking area

Over time, the forested areas in the Badkot range covered under Van Gujjars’ permits have seen a decline.

In the early 2000s, the Uttarakhand government diverted a portion of the forest around Bhaniyawala 2B to resettle families whose homes were being submerged by the Tehri dam and hydropower project. In total, 11 settlement colonies were built in Dehradun, including in Athoorwala, a village adjacent to the Badkot forest range. For this work, “forests which included our permit areas were cut”, Noordin said.

Noordin estimated that only about one-fourth of the forest that the community was earlier permitted to graze in is now available to them.

Van Gujjar communities elsewhere also face this problem. In Shivpuri, near Rishikesh, for instance, Van Gujjars have lost land to the construction of a railway line that will connect Rishikesh to Karnaprayag. “Around 2018, the forest department cut the forests that we had permits in for the railway project,” said Gami Gujjar, president of the Forest Rights Committee of Sindhan Top in Shivpuri. “Since then, the department has not been issuing us permits to graze. We are buying fodder.”

Menon noted that because many in the community now rely on market systems for fodder, they have begun to accrue debt. Further, the shrinking of permit areas has increased conflicts amongst Van Gujjars. “If buffaloes from one family end up grazing in areas that another family usually uses, or one lops trees of another family, this causes problems,” he said. “This did not happen earlier since there was a bigger range of permits”.

Noordin noted that a lack of access to forests “will harm us, our animals, and the coming generations”.

The question of forest rights

A 2009 letter from the environment ministry to all states instructed that deforestation work could only be carried out in a particular area after the process of settling all forest rights claims, under the Forest Rights Act, had been completed in it. Further, it noted, such work could only proceed after all gram sabhas in the forest had given their consent to the work.

Van Gujjars in Badkot allege that this process was violated in Badkot.

Noordin and Menon noted that the Van Gujjar community in their gram sabha in Badkot had filed individual and community forest rights claims under the Forest Rights Act last year. They are currently pending with the sub-divisional level committee, after whose approval it will be sent to the district level committee for a final approval.

Yet, the proposal that the highways authority submitted in 2022 claimed that the project was not acquiring forest land that belonged to any Adivasi or forest-dwelling communities and that the forest rights of such communities were not being violated.

In the July 8 letter, the gram sabha made it further clear that they had “not granted consent to the expansion project, either in whole or in part, till their rights could be settled or they were offered suitable rehabilitation”.

“It feels like they are making us go around in circles,” said Noordin. “Information should come to us through our forest rights committee so that at least we can put our point of view in front of the government.”

Scroll emailed queries to the highway authority and the state forest department about the Van Gujjars’ concerns with the project, and of their assertions about statutory processes being violated. This story will be updated if they respond.

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094377/why-tree-cutting-on-dehradun-highway-could-upend-the-life-of-a-community?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Mon, 20 Jul 2026 01:00:01 +0000 Vaishnavi Rathore No permission granted for CJP march to Parliament on July 20, says Delhi Police https://scroll.in/latest/1094393/no-permission-granted-for-cjp-march-to-parliament-on-july-20-says-delhi-police?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The political campaign is planning to hold the march as part of its protest seeking Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation over exam mismanagement.

The Delhi Police on Sunday said that no permission has been sought or granted for the march of political campaign Cockroach Janta Party to Parliament slated for July 20.

The office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, New Delhi, said that orders prohibiting public gatherings under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita are in force in the New Delhi district.

“Accordingly, protest marches, processions, demonstrations and assemblies of five or more persons are strictly prohibited, except at the designated protest site at Jantar Mantar, with prior permission,” the police said.

The police warned that anyone violating prohibitory orders would be liable for prosecution under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and other laws.

The march to Parliament slated for Monday is part of a protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike as part of the protest since June 28. On Saturday morning, Wangchuk was forcibly removed from the protest site at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and taken to the Safdarjung Hospital by the police.

On Sunday evening, the activist’s wife Gitanjali Angmo told reporters that Wangchuk will end his fast on Monday “if political leaders meet him at hospital and assure him that they will raise the issue of education accountability during Parliament session”, PTI reported.

After Wangchuk was forcibly removed from Jantar Mantar, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke began an indefinite hunger strike.

Dipke also called for nationwide peaceful protests. “We need to send a message that the people won’t accept this kind of dictatorship,” he said in a video shared by the political campaign.

Three members of the All India Students’ Association – Neha Bora, Manish Kumar and Aameen Amitosh – are also continuing their hunger strike.

The Monsoon Session of Parliament will begin on Monday.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094393/no-permission-granted-for-cjp-march-to-parliament-on-july-20-says-delhi-police?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:00:16 +0000 Scroll Staff Maharashtra sets up panel to examine if STs who convert to other faiths should get quota benefits https://scroll.in/latest/1094392/maharashtra-sets-up-panel-to-examine-if-sts-who-convert-to-other-faiths-should-get-quota-benefits?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt In May, an organisation backed by the RSS-affliated Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram had sought the ‘de-listing’ of Scheduled Tribe members who convert to other religions.

The Maharashtra government has set up a 27-member committee to look into whether members of Scheduled Tribes who convert to another religion can be allowed to avail reservation and other government benefits.

The committee, headed by state Tribal Development Minister Ashok Uike, will examine central laws as well as the legal position in other states, and then recommend a policy for Maharashtra, a government resolution on July 16 said.

The government resolution did not specify any deadline by when the committee has been asked to submit its report.

The 1950 Constitution Scheduled Caste Order states that only persons belonging to the Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh faiths can claim Scheduled Caste status. However, no such provision exists for Scheduled Tribes, who continue to be recognised as such irrespective of the religion they practice.

However, in May, the Janjatiya Suraksha Manch, supported by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, submitted representations to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding that members of Scheduled Tribes who convert to another religion should be “delisted” from the category, The Indian Express reported. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Janjatiya Suraksha Manch argued that those who give up traditional Adivasi faith and customs after converting to another religion should not be eligible for Scheduled Tribe benefits.

Scheduled Tribes account for 9.35% of Maharashtra’s total population, according to the 2011 Census. While 97.2% of them identified as Hindus, the 2011 Census also stated that there were 1.13 lakh Muslims, over 20,000 Christians and nearly 21,000 Buddhists among Scheduled Tribes, The Indian Express reported.

Adivasi activist Sanjay Dabhade was quoted as saying by the newspaper that the setting up of a committee on July 16 was “illogical” and was driven by the agenda of the RSS.

“The RSS and the Vanvasi organisations have been raising this demand for years, and, despite being in power in several states, they know it cannot be implemented without a constitutional amendment,” Dabhade told The Indian Express. “The Constitution does not make religion a criterion for ST status. What is being attempted is unconstitutional and part of Hindutva politics.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094392/maharashtra-sets-up-panel-to-examine-if-sts-who-convert-to-other-faiths-should-get-quota-benefits?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:29:48 +0000 Scroll Staff India’s tussle with WhatsApp over usernames could set a bad precedent for privacy https://scroll.in/article/1094276/indias-tussle-with-whatsapp-over-usernames-could-set-a-bad-precedent-for-privacy?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Giving in to India’s pressure is a slippery slop that may encourage copycat demands globally, say experts.

AFTER JULY 19

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

The Indian government’s latest tussle with WhatsApp has raised concerns about the censorship of app features globally.

On June 29, WhatsApp began rolling out usernames globally, allowing users to chat without sharing their phone numbers. The Indian government has objected to the feature, arguing that pseudonymous accounts could make it easier for bad actors to impersonate others and carry out scams and financial fraud.

India has also sought explanations from Telegram and Signal, which already allow users to create accounts using usernames instead of phone numbers. The government asked all three platforms to respond by July 9. WhatsApp has reportedly submitted a written response, which the government is reviewing.

If WhatsApp gives in to India’s pressure, and modifies or scraps the feature, it could lead to far-reaching consequences that may discourage innovation and encourage copycat demands globally, Namrata Maheshwari, senior policy counsel and encryption policy lead at international nonprofit Access Now, told Rest of World.

“It’s a slippery slope because the moment you concede something in one jurisdiction and make it known as something that is possible to do technically, other countries will follow suit,” Maheshwari said. “Most governments around the world are vying to co-opt the kind of power and access that technology companies have over people’s lives and personal data.”

India is WhatsApp’s largest market with over 850 million users. The app underpins everything from personal messaging to banking, ticketing, and shopping in the country. Even without the username feature, the app has faced several allegations of propagating financial fraud, data theft, and misinformation.

Username versus phone number

Experts say the Indian government has not backed up its argument with evidence.

“Yes, WhatsApp can be misused for cybercrimes. So can email. So can your phone. So can everything. That’s pretty much the definition of infrastructure: It can be used for good and for bad,” security technologist Bruce Schneier told Rest of World.

Allowing usernames could help users separate online identities from real-world identities, protecting those facing harassment or political retaliation, Erica Portnoy, senior staff technologist at nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Rest of World.

Meanwhile, authorities can still trace user information through legal channels, if needed.

“The ability to use a username is not yet live and will roll out slowly later this year,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Rest of World. “To protect against impersonation, we’ve held the highest-profile names – think public figures, government entities, celebrities, verified Meta accounts – so they can only ever be claimed by their legitimate owners, and lookalike derivatives of known names are held as well. Users still require a phone number to use WhatsApp and we’ve built multiple layers of defense against scams into usernames.”

People will need to know the exact username to contact anyone for the first time, and users can add an optional username key, the company said. WhatsApp will limit how many new people an account can contact, block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key, and have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns.

Telegram launched in 2013 with optional public usernames and without end-to-end encryption. Signal, on the other hand, is among the world’s most secure messaging apps that collects minimal user data.

“If India’s IT ministry wants to make the argument that Telegram and Signal’s username features have led to a notable increase in cybercrime, they are welcome to make their case, but they make no attempt to do so here,” Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Rest of World.

The threat

Several governments have blocked social media and messaging apps over content and security concerns in the past. But this is a rare case where a government is opposing a design feature.

“India is doing something different,” Apar Gupta, founder-director at digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation, told Rest of World. “It is objecting to a design before any harm has occurred, and asking companies to justify a feature ‘to the satisfaction of the government.’ No law allows that.”

Government and Big Tech have historically addressed product design questions in closed rooms, and this public notice is a “less harsh form of regulation than blocking or investigating the service,” Rihan Shareef, research analyst at nonprofit public research institution Aapti Institute, told Rest of World. “However, the question of government overreach and control remains.”

The Indian government’s move may lead companies to ship different versions of secure communication tools in different jurisdictions, which “risks weakening privacy protections incrementally, one market at a time, and that does not bode well for citizens, journalists, and anyone who wants privacy without being treated as suspects,” Mishi Choudhary, technology lawyer and founder of nonprofit SFLC.in, told Rest of World.

Usernames aren’t a minor feature to be tweaked for individual markets, Mallory Knodel, executive director and founder of San Francisco-based nonprofit Social Web Foundation, told Rest of World. It’s “a rather large overhaul from an architectural point of view,” which affects contact discovery, security standards, and more.

WhatsApp has addressed the Indian government’s concerns in the past, adding forwarding limits and labels, and complying with law enforcement requests. But it has also been resisting the requirement for traceability of the “first originator” of certain messages – an ask that’s incompatible with end-to-end encryption.

Ananya Bhattacharya is a reporter for Rest of World covering South Asia's tech scene. She is based in Mumbai, India.

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094276/indias-tussle-with-whatsapp-over-usernames-could-set-a-bad-precedent-for-privacy?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000 Ananya Bhattacharya, Rest of World Government must open dialogue with students on hunger strike in Delhi: Group of citizens to PM Modi https://scroll.in/latest/1094387/government-must-open-dialogue-with-students-on-hunger-strike-in-delhi-group-of-citizens-to-pm-modi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The letter accused the government of displaying a ‘callous disregard’ for students protesting in the national capital along with activist Sonam Wangchuk.

A group of citizens on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to “open a dialogue” with the students who have been on a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, since June 28.

Three members of the All India Students’ Association - Neha Bora, Manish Kumar and Aameen Amitosh - had started the hunger strike along with activist Sonam Wangchuk demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan due to the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The fast is a part of a protest led by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party. It entered its 22nd day on Sunday.

On Saturday, Wangchuk was forcibly taken to hospital by the Delhi Police. The police claimed that he had been shifted to hospital for “essential medical care” in compliance with a High Court order.

The letter said that instead of talking to Wangchuk, the government “forcibly” removed him to the hospital, where he remains “against his will and is not allowed to meet visitors freely”.

The letter further added that even while taking the “extraordinary step” of removing Wangchuk, the government continued to display a “callous disregard” for the protesting students as if “their lives were of little consequence”.

“If anything untoward happens to any of them then the responsibility for it will lie squarely on your government’s shoulders,” the letter read.

Among the signatories to the letter were economist Prabhat Patnaik, activist Harsh Mander, retired Indian Administrative Service officer Najeeb Jung and journalist Prabir Purkayastha.

Soon after Wangchuk was taken away from the protest site, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke began an indefinite hunger strike on Saturday.

Dipke called for nationwide peaceful protests. “We need to send a message that the people won’t accept this kind of dictatorship,” he said in a video shared by the political campaign.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094387/government-must-open-dialogue-with-students-on-hunger-strike-in-delhi-group-of-citizens-to-pm-modi?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:32:40 +0000 Scroll Staff The Indian Foreign Service built the country’s reputation. Now, it seeks awards for one leader https://scroll.in/article/1094179/the-indian-foreign-service-built-the-countrys-reputation-now-it-seeks-awards-for-one-leader?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Limited diplomatic capital should be invested in advancing India’s long-term interests.

Nearly a decade ago, when the Indian Embassy in Stockholm still enjoyed cordial relations with me, a senior diplomat made an unusual request. An important Indian political leader was scheduled to visit Sweden, and the embassy wondered whether I could help arrange an honorary doctorate from my university. I politely but firmly declined. I also advised the diplomat not to approach any of my Swedish colleagues with the same request. Universities confer honorary degrees to recognise exceptional achievement, not because foreign embassies ask for them on behalf of visiting leader Lobbying for such honours would diminish India’s image.

A few weeks ago, another conversation reminded me of that episode. I asked a professor at the University of Ghana why the university in 2016 had removed MK Gandhi’s statue from its campus after installing it with much fanfare. She replied that many academics believed the statue had been placed on the campus under pressure from the Indian High Commission and that the university leadership had been left with little choice. Whether that perception was entirely accurate is almost beside the point.

Faculty members and students, upset that they had not been consulted and objecting to Gandhi’s documented views on Africans, mobilised against the installation until the statue was finally relocated. Instead of celebrating Gandhi’s legacy, the episode ended with both Gandhi and India being publicly embarrassed.

These two incidents are separated by continents, but they reveal the same disturbing mindset. Indian diplomacy increasingly appears preoccupied with manufacturing symbolic honours for political leaders instead of advancing India’s national interests. That is why the growing obsession with foreign awards for Prime Minister Narendra Modi should concern every Indian.

Hardly an overseas visit of Modi passes without another medal, another state decoration or another ceremonial honour. The latest controversy emerged in Seychelles, where the “Guardian of the Blue Horizon” distinction was reportedly created days before Modi’s visit, making him its inaugural recipient. The award soon attracted international attention after observers pointed out spelling mistakes and factual errors in the citation, turning what should have been a diplomatic success into an avoidable embarrassment.

Whether these honours are initiated entirely by host governments or quietly encouraged through diplomatic channels is not the central issue. Diplomacy is built on perception as much as reality. When almost every foreign visit concludes with another award, and when some of these honours appear to have been created just in time for the occasion, the unavoidable impression is that India’s diplomatic machinery is investing considerable energy in securing personal recognition for the Prime Minister.

India is not a country struggling for international recognition. It is the world’s most populous nation, one of the largest economies, a nuclear power, a space power and a leading voice of the Global South. It possesses one of humanity’s oldest civilisations and commands growing strategic importance in an increasingly unstable world. Countries seek India’s friendship because India matters, not because its Prime Minister returns home with another medal.

For a country of India’s size, history and civilisational confidence, the appearance of chasing awards projects insecurity rather than strength. Respect must be earned through national achievement instead of being collected like a souvenir.

The responsibility of every Indian embassy is straightforward. It must protect India’s interests. That means strengthening trade and investment, securing technology partnerships, assisting Indian citizens abroad, deepening defence cooperation, building strategic alliances and promoting India’s positions in international institutions. None of these objectives is advanced because another ribbon is pinned on the Prime Minister’s jacket.

Diplomatic goodwill is also a valuable national resource. Every ambassador has limited access to political leaders, limited opportunities to shape outcomes and limited diplomatic capital. Those scarce resources should be invested in advancing India’s long-term interests instead of cultivating the image of one political leader.

Foreign visits that should be remembered for major agreements or strategic breakthroughs are instead remembered for elaborate award ceremonies. Headlines celebrate medals while substantive negotiations receive secondary attention. Spectacle replaces substance. This is unhealthy for Indian democracy and damaging for Indian diplomacy.

Successful foreign policy should be judged by outcomes that improve the lives of Indian citizens. Did India gain greater access to foreign markets? Did it secure investment? Did it strengthen supply chains? Did it obtain advanced technologies? Did it build stronger security partnerships? Did it improve the welfare of the Indian diaspora? Those are achievements worthy of celebration. Another ceremonial decoration for Modi is not.

The Indian Foreign Service has historically been one of the country’s finest institutions. Its officers built India’s international reputation through professionalism, strategic thinking and intellectual excellence. They navigated the Cold War, regional conflicts, economic transformation and shifting global power balances with remarkable competence. Their mission has never been to enhance the personal prestige of the Prime Minister of the day.

When diplomats begin to appear more concerned with managing symbolism than protecting national interests, institutional priorities become dangerously distorted. The Republic is gradually overshadowed by the ruler.

Few people today can list the foreign honours received by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh. Yet their foreign policy legacies continue to shape debates because they are measured by decisions, achievements and strategic vision, not ceremonial decorations.

India’s global standing will not rise because another foreign government invents another award. Nor will India’s prestige increase because another university confers another honorary degree or another campus installs another statue. On the contrary, when such honours appear to be sought rather than spontaneously bestowed, they often produce exactly the opposite effect. Instead of admiration, they invite scepticism. Instead of respect, they provoke ridicule. Instead of strengthening India’s image, they weaken it.

India’s diplomats should be known for securing trade agreements, strengthening strategic partnerships, protecting Indian citizens and advancing India’s influence in the world, not for creating the impression that every foreign visit must end with another trophy for the Prime Minister. Diplomats are servants of the Republic. Their highest duty is to protect India’s interests, not to polish a leader’s legacy.

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

Also read: Why flattering awards for Modi by foreign countries are not necessarily good for India

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094179/the-indian-foreign-service-built-the-countrys-reputation-now-it-seeks-awards-for-one-leader?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:56:21 +0000 Ashok Swain HC declines interim relief to Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, says activist’s hospitalisation not arbitrary https://scroll.in/latest/1094382/have-lost-faith-sonam-wangchuks-wife-moves-delhi-hc-to-shift-him-from-safdarjung-hospital?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The court noted that Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike for 17 days, and remarked that his health condition is ‘perilous’.

The Delhi High Court on Sunday refused to grant interim relief to Gitanjali J Angmo, activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, who had sought permission to shift him from the government-run Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, The Hindu reported.

The court noted that Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike for 17 days, and remarked that his health condition is “perilous”. It said that the decision to shift him to a hospital was taken based on his health, and was not an “arbitrary” one, according to Bar and Bench.

Angmo, while seeking that Wangchuk be shifted from the Safdarjung Hospital, had said that she had “lost faith” in the institute.

In a social media post on Sunday, Angmo alleged that the hospital had told her that Wangchuk’s potassium level had dropped to 2.9 and described it as “life-threatening”.

However, the hospital’s public health bulletin omitted the figure and referred only to “decreasing potassium levels”, she added.

She claimed that an independent laboratory test conducted later found his potassium level to be 3.5, within the normal range.

Angmo also said that the hospital had repeatedly refused to discharge Wangchuk or allow his transfer to a private hospital of the family’s choice.

“With around 30 police personnel stationed on our floor and well over 100 across the hospital, our movement is severely restricted,” she said.

She added that this was not “medical care” but “illegal detention”.

Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike since June 28. His fast is part of a protest led by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

On Saturday morning, the activist was forcibly removed from the protest site at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and taken to the hospital by the police.

On Sunday at 8.30 am, updates by Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital said that Wangchuk’s vital parameters were stable. However, his blood parameters remain “marginally altered”, it added.

CJP protests

After Wangchuk was removed from Jantar Mantar, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke began an indefinite hunger strike.

Dipke also called for nationwide peaceful protests. “We need to send a message that the people won’t accept this kind of dictatorship,” he said in a video shared by the political campaign.

He said that Wangchuk’s removal from the protest site would not end the campaign and reiterated the protester’s plan to march to Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session begins.

Three members of the All India Students’ Association – Neha Bora, Manish Kumar and Aameen Amitosh – are also continuing their hunger strike.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha and Neerad Pandharipande.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094382/have-lost-faith-sonam-wangchuks-wife-moves-delhi-hc-to-shift-him-from-safdarjung-hospital?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:13:43 +0000 Scroll Staff What Irom Sharmila, who fasted for 16 years, thinks about Sonam Wangchuk’s hunger strike https://scroll.in/article/1094358/hunger-striker-sonam-wangchuck-needs-mass-support-says-irom-sharmila-who-fasted-for-16-years?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The Indian government will listen to demands for change only if there is a sustained, widespread agitation, says the activist from Manipur.

Manipur activist Irom Sharmila said that Indians in large numbers should join activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar since June 28. The “burden to correct the system” does not fall solely on Wangchuk, but is the responsibility of every citizen who has a conscience and wants to bring about change, she said.

Wangchuk’s hunger strike is part of the protest by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on account of alleged mismanagement in conducting competitive exams.

“It is not Sonam’s burden alone and people should not expect him to be martyred,” Sharmila told Scroll over a phone conversation from Bangalore, where she now lives with her twin daughters and husband. “It is a collective cause and demand, and everyone should join him and if everyone comes to the street, the security forces won’t be enough and the government will have to address the issue.”

She added: “For collective cause, persistence and united voices are needed for social change. You can not just let the individual protestor become a martyr.”

Sharmila, now 53, fasted for 16 years from November 2000 to demand the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which has been operational in Jammu and Kashmir and parts of North East–Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.

The act creates a culture of impunity by granting security forces immunity from prosecution, enabling human rights abuses, legal experts say.

Sharmila was 28 when she started her fast to protest the killing of 10 civilians in Malom town by Assam Rifles personnel, and to demand that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act be repealed. Three days into her protest, she was was charged with attempting to commit suicide under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code. She was later transferred to hospital and force-fed through her nose.

As Scroll reported in 2014, two years before she ended her hunger strike, every year since she began in protest, “in what has been a cynical routine, Sharmila is charged with attempting to commit suicide…imprisoned for about 365 days (the maximum punishment under Section 309), released for two-odd days, and then taken back into custody”.

On Friday, Wangchuk’s protest entered its 20th day. The Indian government is yet to respond to his demands.

“The demand is big, but as the people are not united, the impact of the protest on the government is not there,” Sharmila said. “That’s why the government doesn’t care. The government does not get threatened by a protest of a single person. The government just waits and sees, avoids and lets it go.”

Sharmila cited the example of the year-long farmers’ agitation in 2020-’21, which forced the government to agree to repeal the three farm laws that the protestors contended were unfair. Lakhs of farmers participated in the protest.

“A protest will be successful only if there is a mass united agitation,” Sharmila said. “When I was doing a hunger strike in Manipur, the support from the public was not there much.”

Tweet does not exist

Sharmila said that she did not receive the support of the public when she needed it. “People in Manipur wanted me to be a martyr for its cause,” she said. “They want to sacrifice me. Because they saw that I was the only one who was protesting, all the responsibility and burden was on my head despite it being a collective cause. The people were only singing my glory that I was protesting for years. But the people did not help when I needed help.”

When asked in light of Wangchuk’s protest, how does she view fasting as a method of protest to make demands of the government in the current Bharatiya Janata Party regime, Sharmila said that political parties in India – be it the Congress or the Hindutva party – do not respect democratic rights.

“In India, they will just kill and jail whoever criticises the government,” Sharmila said. “There is no real democracy in India.”

Even though Wangchuk has been staging a non-violent protest at the heart of the country’s capital Delhi, where millions of people live, only a few hundred young people are participating the protest, she said.

“In a democratic society, its youth have a duty to correct a wrong in the system or administration,” Sharma said. “It is not just Sonam Wangchuk’s responsibility. Sonam Wangchuk needs a collective moral support, commitment and participation of the masses. If the people are united and physically go there at Jantar Mantar, the government will be afraid and will be forced to address the demands.”

]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094358/hunger-striker-sonam-wangchuck-needs-mass-support-says-irom-sharmila-who-fasted-for-16-years?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 09:09:12 +0000 Rokibuz Zaman Supreme Court halts demolition of structures along Pakistan border for two weeks https://scroll.in/latest/1094383/supreme-court-halts-demolition-of-structures-along-pakistan-border-for-two-weeks?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The bench told the petitioners to move the Rajasthan High Court with their appeal.

The Supreme Court on Friday halted the demolition of some structures located within 50 kms of the India-Pakistan border, reported Live Law.

Refusing to entertain the plea filed by eight petitioners, a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe told them to file an appeal in the Rajasthan High Court.

On Monday, the Rajasthan High Court dismissed the petitions challenging the proposed demolition of several mosques, dargahs and madrasas in the border area.

The Union government’s decision to enhance the territorial jurisdiction and operational powers of the Border Security Force showed a well-calibrated approach to address security challenges, the bench was quoted as saying.

As the structures were near the border, there was a need for heightened vigilance and regulatory oversight, the bench added.

Nearly 40 persons affected by the Union government’s demolition order had moved the Supreme Court against the High Court judgement, reported The Hindu.

The petition was filed after a fact-finding visit undertaken by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, according to the newspaper. This followed the demolition of at least four mosques in the border districts of Barmer and Jaisalmer in June.

On Friday, the Supreme Court told the petitioners to move the High Court within two weeks.

“It is made clear that we have not examined the matter and we are not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case,” the bench was quoted as saying by Live Law. “It is for the High Court to consider the petitions on their own merits.”

The demolition of several mosques and dargahs in Rajasthan, among other states, had sparked a political row in June, with Opposition leaders alleging that Muslim places of worship were being targeted.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi said on June 21 that he had been informed by his party’s Bikaner unit that four mosques in the district had been demolished. Nine mosques and dargahs in Phalodi, Jaisalmer and Barmer had also been demolished, he added. All three districts are along the border with Pakistan.

Opposition leaders, including Owaisi and the Congress’ Ashok Gehlot, alleged that the demolitions disproportionately target Muslim religious sites.

Owaisi had claimed on social media that notices have been issued to hundreds of other religious sites, including the 250-year-old shrine of Hazrat Mahmood Shah Jilani in Jaisalmer.

Gehlot had accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Rajasthan of targeting “historical religious sites that are several decades old” as part of “this coercive action”.

Edited by Sneha.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094383/supreme-court-halts-demolition-of-structures-along-pakistan-border-for-two-weeks?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 07:43:29 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Cops move Wangchuk to hospital’: How newspapers played down police action at CJP protest https://scroll.in/latest/1094381/cops-move-wangchuk-to-hospital-how-newspapers-played-down-police-action-at-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt While most focused on the police’s claims that they had acted on the High Court’s order, the ‘Hindustan Times’ buried the story in the bottom half of the page.

A day after activist Sonam Wangchuk was forcibly removed from the site of his hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and taken to a hospital, leading newspapers on Sunday highlighted the police’s claims that they had acted on the High Court’s order.

While most newspapers covered the story on their front page, the Hindustan Times buried the story in the bottom half of the page and limited it to the Opposition parties’ comments on the developments.

Hindi daily Amar Ujala did not mention the story on its front page.

Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike since June 28. His fast is part of a protest led by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

On Saturday morning, he was taken away from the protest site, with the police claiming that he had been shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital for “essential medical care” in compliance with a High Court order.

The Delhi High Court had on Thursday directed the Centre and the Delhi government to ensure that the health and medical condition of the activist is monitored daily. Any medical intervention required to improve his health should be undertaken by the government, the court had said.

On Sunday, while not giving the story a prominent space on the front page, the Hindustan Times mentioned that Wangchuk was “forcibly removed” from the protest site. The newspaper described the series of events of Saturday morning on the ninth page.

The Indian Express covered the police’s actions as its main story on the front page and said that Wangchuk had been “shifted” to a hospital.

It mentioned that the action came a day after Anurag Kumar took charge as the new commissioner of the Delhi Police and two days before a planned march by the protesters to the Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session begins.

The Hindu also gave the story the lead space on the front page and pointed out that he was moved to hospital on the 21st day of his fast.

On the other hand, The Times of India focused on the lift-off of Vikram-1, the country’s first privately developed orbital-class rocket, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

Covering the story about Wangchuk on the second-most prominent space on the front page, the newspaper focused on the police’s claims. It mentioned that the police had claimed the protesters were lathi-charged.

Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran also covered the story as the second lead, but claimed that the police moved Wangchuk on Saturday as his health had deteriorated further.

It mentioned that Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke began a hunger strike after the police removed Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar.

Amar Ujala, another Hindi daily, only covered the story on the third page.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094381/cops-move-wangchuk-to-hospital-how-newspapers-played-down-police-action-at-cjp-protest?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 06:40:53 +0000 Scroll Staff CJP protest: Two arrested for allegedly painting Sonam Wangchuk mural in Guwahati https://scroll.in/latest/1094379/cjp-protest-two-arrested-for-allegedly-painting-sonam-wangchuk-mural-in-guwahati?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt In Mumbai, the police detained and booked several persons who held demonstrations after the activist was forcibly taken to hospital.

Two persons were arrested in Assam’s Guwahati on Friday for allegedly painting a mural of activist Sonam Wangchuk, The Indian Express quoted the police as saying on Saturday.

They were arrested under charges of damaging public property, according to the newspaper.

Wangchuk has been on a hunger strike since June 28 at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. His fast is part of a protest led by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations.

The activist was forcibly taken to hospital by the Delhi Police on Saturday.

Following this, student organisations and Opposition parties staged a protest in Mumbai against the police action.

The Mumbai Police detained several of the protesters and registered cases against them before releasing them, reported The Indian Express.

Action in Guwahati

The two persons were arrested by a patrol team on Friday night while they were in the process of painting on a wall, an unidentified police official in Guwahati East was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The action came a day after a mural of Wangchuk appeared on a flyover pillar in the city with the text “Save Sonam Wangchuk”.

It was reportedly painted by students of the Government College of Art & Craft on Thursday night. The police have registered a case in connection with this painting as well, according to The Indian Express.

“We have been seeing for the past few days that suddenly at night some people come and damage bridges and government building walls or campus walls, etc, which are public property,” a police official told the newspaper.

He added: “This is becoming a trend that suddenly someone comes and destroys and tampers with public property, which is not acceptable.”

Protests in Mumbai

Several students organisations – Mumbai Against Suppression of Students, members of the Students’ Federation of India, All India Students’ Federation and Aamchi Padhai Aamchi Ladai – staged a protest at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan on Saturday after the police forced Wangchuk into the hospital, reported The Indian Express.

The demonstration, which was attended by around 100 persons, was against the Delhi Police’ action and to express solidarity with students protesting over alleged irregularities in entrance examinations.

However, soon after it began, the police detained around 50 protesters, citing lack of permissions, the newspaper quoted organisers as saying. The protesters were later released.

Separately, a first information report was registered against the organisers of a protest by the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar).

Nearly 15 to 20 workers of the party were detained during the protest held near Mantralaya, according to The Indian Express.

The Mumbai Police also registered a case against seven persons after around 25 supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party shouted slogans against the Delhi Police’s action outside Azad Maidan.

The organisers were booked under the charges of disobedience to a public servant’s order, wrongful restraint, unlawful assembly and provisions of the Maharashtra Police Act.

CJP protests

After Wangchuk was removed from Jantar Mantar, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke began an indefinite hunger strike.

Dipke also called for nationwide peaceful protests. “We need to send a message that the people won’t accept this kind of dictatorship,” he said in a video shared by the political campaign.

He said that Wangchuk’s removal from the protest site would not end the campaign and reiterated the protester’s plan to march to Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session begins.

Edited by Sneha.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094379/cjp-protest-two-arrested-for-allegedly-painting-sonam-wangchuk-mural-in-guwahati?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 04:16:27 +0000 Scroll Staff Manipur: Two more arrested in killing of six Naga villagers in Kangpokpi district https://scroll.in/latest/1094380/manipur-two-more-arrested-in-killing-of-six-naga-villagers-in-kangpokpi-district?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The Naga persons had been abducted on May 13 and their bodies were found in the vicinity of the Leilon Vaiphei village on June 10.

Two more persons were arrested on Saturday in connection with the killing of six Naga villagers in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district, said the police.

The six Naga persons had been abducted on May 13.

Their bodies had been recovered in the vicinity of the Leilon Vaiphei village on June 10, leading to protests by Naga and Meitei groups demanding the arrest of those responsible.

The two persons arrested on Saturday were identified as Lungoulal Vaiphei, a resident of Leilon Vaiphei village, and Lunminthang Sitlhou, from Molhoi Village, also in Kangpokpi.

“Further efforts are on to arrest other individuals connected with the case,” stated the police.

On July 10, a joint team of the Manipur Police, National Investigation Agency and Central Reserve Police Force stated that they had arrested two persons in connection with the killings.

They were identified as Pradip and Ayingbi, both residents of Leilon Vaiphei village.

Days after the bodies of the six Naga villagers were found, Kuki-Zo Council chairman Henlienthang Thanglet apologised for the incident and called for an impartial investigation into all acts of violence linked to the ethnic conflict in Manipur.

“I admit the Kuki-Zo people made a grave mistake in killing the six Naga civilians. It was done out of emotion,” he said. “I strongly condemn it. I am very sorry and apologise on behalf of my people.”

Naga groups had blocked routes to Kangpokpi district, resulting in a rise in the prices of essential commodities in the Kuki-Zo-majority district.

A day later, the Kuki-Zo Council clarified that parts of Thanglet’s remarks had been “misconstrued as an admission of responsibility by the Kuki-Zo community”.

The developments came amid tensions between Kukis and Nagas in Ukhrul that had erupted on February 7 after an alleged assault involving members of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki-Zo communities escalated into clashes. At least 25 persons from the two communities have been killed since tensions erupted.

Ethnic clashes had first broken out in Manipur in May 2023 between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities. At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since then in the conflict.

Biren Singh had stepped down as the chief minister in February 2025 amid allegations from Kuki-Zomi-Hmar groups that his response to the violence had been partisan and that he had stoked majoritarianism.

After he resigned, Manipur was under President’s Rule for a year until Yumnam Khemchand Singh took oath as chief minister on February 4.

Edited by Sneha.


Also read:


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094380/manipur-two-more-arrested-in-killing-of-six-naga-villagers-in-kangpokpi-district?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 04:07:56 +0000 Scroll Staff Scroll’s SIR experience is a microcosm of what urban India is facing https://scroll.in/article/1094357/scrolls-sir-experience-is-a-microcosm-of-what-urban-india-is-facing?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt If missing names and spelling errors are bothering the Scroll newsroom, one can imagine the impact the exercise is having on others.

The third phase of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is underway and, in a repeat of the choppiness that has unfolded in other parts of the country, voters are expressing their frustrations at the process of ensuring that their names are included on the “purified” list.

The Election Commission says the revision aims to eliminate the names of voters who are dead, have moved to other places or are not citizens.

The exercise began in Bihar last year and, in the second phase, was expanded to 12 states and Union Territories. In the latest phase, the voter rolls are being revised in 16 states and three Union Territories.

Since it began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported. In West Bengal alone, about 91 lakh voters – nearly 11.9% of the state’s electorate before the revision process began – had been removed from the electoral rolls as of April 6. About 27 lakh appeals against exclusions are believed to be pending before appellate tribunals.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision, but said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen. However, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have attempted to weaponise the SIR by denying ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

The Scroll newsroom, a microcosm of urban India, is also witnessing difficulties and confusion. Here’s what is bothering us:

Nandini Ramnath: My brother, our late mother and I moved to Mumbai’s north eastern suburbs in the mid-1990s. Since then, we have been registered as voters in a constituency there. We have voted in successive elections, including the most recent Assembly election in 2024. We have voter ID cards, proof of address, every document that establishes us as residents of that constituency.

To qualify for inclusion in the latest SIR, voters need to be “mapped” to the 2002 rolls. For reasons we can’t figure out, our names are not on those rolls.

We have given our documents to the block level officer, but he says that we will need to appear before a tribunal to establish our right to vote. This is not what other booth level officers in the city are making others in our situation do. The approach seems to differ from BLO to BLO.

It seems disproportionate. If Indian citizens have valid documents and have slipped out of the SIR 2002 rolls for whatever reasons, they should be able to hand in additional documents and have themselves re-enrolled, rather than appear before a tribunal.

Nachiket Deuskar: I was too young to be a voter in 2002, the Election Commission’s benchmark year for the exercise in this round. So to prove that I should remain a voter, I need to mandatorily map myself to my parents’ or grandparents’ voting status in 2002.

However, the names of my parents and paternal grandparents have been omitted from the 2002 electoral rolls. Several other names in the locality are also missing. My parents possess their voter ID numbers from 2002 (they have even retained their voter ID cards from 1994), and voted consistently before and after 2002. So we are unsure how they were omitted. Neither my family, nor the booth level officer has been able to find their names.

My maternal grandparents’ names are present in the 2002 list. There is uncertainty about whether that would suffice because their surname differs from mine – as it would in the case of many Indians.

We have been told that, if necessary, we can submit additional documents as proof to be reinstated to the voter list only after the draft rolls are published. This means an anxious wait.

Johanna Deeksha: The main problem my parents faced was with the 2002 list. They were unable to download it. After visiting two to three election offices, they were finally given the necessary list. But because it was so long, my elderly parents were overwhelmed trying to find their names.

They were unsure whether their names were not on the list or whether they had simply missed them. This resulted in confusion about which sections of the SIR enumeration form to complete.

They have been seeking help from volunteers to confirm that their names are not on the list. They say that even government officials to whom they have spoken are unsure about the process.

Despite being regular voters all their lives, the fact that their names do not exist in the 2002 rolls has caused them a lot of stress.

Divya Aslesha: More than 12 years after my grandfather passed away, I am glad for unintentionally having held on to all his documents. Without his fraying voter ID (with his name spelt wrong), it would have been much more difficult to have hunted down his name on the 2002 list, along with my grandmother’s and mother’s names.

We submitted our forms but now face another worry: names differ across our various documents, a natural outcome of how government forms require Indians to identify themselves – first name, surname, father’s name/husband’s name/middle name and so on. This information, when translated across languages and scripts, is a recipe for disaster resulting in all kinds of spellings and errors.

The helpful booth level officer has said corrections can be made later. But this mammoth exercise that relies on records that are nearly 25 years old in a country where document coverage is patchy and error-prone does not seem to have accounted for how corrections can be made.

Now, while waiting for the first draft rolls to be issued, there is more work to be done: enrolling my sister as a voter online even though she has been out of the country for nearly a decade. Rumours that passports will be up for scrutiny if your name is not on the rolls do not seem very credible, but in these times, one would rather not find out.

If missing names, spelling errors and minor discrepancies are bothering the Scroll newsroom, one can imagine the impact the exercise is having on others.

Also read: Where did your father vote in 2003? Why demand for legacy documents under SIR has no legal basis


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

Sonam Wangchuk’s fast. Activist Sonam Wangchuk was taken to hospital by the Delhi Police on Saturday, the 21st day of his hunger strike. The police said he had been shifted to hospital for “essential medical care” in compliance with a Delhi High Court’s order.

Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, alleged that he was beaten. Soon after, Dipke began an indefinite hunger strike.

Wangchuk’s fast was part of the protest by the Cockroach Janta Party to demand Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation on account of alleged mismanagement in how competitive exams have been conducted. The activist had begun the hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on June 28.

On Thursday, the Congress had urged Wangchuk to end his hunger strike. The party said that it shared the activist’s concerns and that it would continue to demand the resignation of Pradhan.

This was the first comment about Wangchuk’s protest by the largest Opposition party, which, along with its allies, has been demanding Pradhan’s resignation.

Maritime safety concerns. The country’s maritime regulator directed shipping companies not to deploy Indian seafarers on vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. This came after a series of attacks on commercial ships in the waterway amid renewed tensions between the United States and Iran.

The Directorate General of Maritime Administration also asked vessels operating in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and nearby waters to maintain heightened security, monitor navigational warnings and security advisories, and comply with ship security measures under the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code.

At least 13 Indian sailors have died in the region since the war in West Asia began on February 28.

Places of worship disputes. Both Hindu and Muslim parties declined the Supreme Court’s proposal for mediation in the disputes relating to the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura and the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal. The litigants will continue to pursue the cases in court.

Each of these mosques, Hindutva groups contend, is actually a Hindu temple.

The court had sought consent of parties involved in the three cases to engage in mediation of the disputes under the 2026 Supreme Court Action for Mediated Adjudication and Disputes Harmonization Across Nation Samadhan Samaroh. The initiative began in April and will conclude with a Special Lok Adalat in August.


Also on Scroll last week


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]]> https://scroll.in/article/1094357/scrolls-sir-experience-is-a-microcosm-of-what-urban-india-is-facing?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:30:01 +0000 Scroll Staff Eco India: How Chennai's children are redesigning their sweltering city https://scroll.in/video/1094364/eco-india-how-chennai-s-children-are-redesigning-their-sweltering-city?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt A 2026 study found that a single day of extreme heat causes over 3,000 excess deaths across India.

]]> https://scroll.in/video/1094364/eco-india-how-chennai-s-children-are-redesigning-their-sweltering-city?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:25:00 +0000 Scroll Staff Punjab Police arrest officer charged in US for allegedly extorting Los Angeles family https://scroll.in/latest/1094373/punjab-police-arrest-officer-charged-in-us-for-allegedly-extorting-los-angeles-family?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt An inquiry had been launched against Gurinderjit Singh after the indictment in the United States was unsealed.

The Punjab Police has arrested an officer more than a week after he was charged in the United States in an alleged extortion conspiracy involving India-based organised crime groups, PTI reported on Saturday.

On July 7, the authorities in the US charged Gurinderjit Singh for allegedly extorting $400,000 from a family in Los Angeles by threatening to file false murder cases against their relatives in India.

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli had said at the time that Washington will seek the extradition of the Indian police officer.

The US federal indictments alleged that he colluded with members of an organised crime group led by Jaggu Bhagwanpuria to target perceived rivals with threats of false cases and demands for money, The Tribune reported.

The indictment alleges that in April, a California-based member of the Bhagwanpuria syndicate named Gurlal Singh threatened a victim in the US before passing on the person’s details to a “corrupt law enforcement officer” in Punjab.

Gurinderjit Singh allegedly implicated the victim, as well as the victim’s father and sister in a murder case in Punjab in connection with the killing of a person in January, The Tribune reported.

When the charges were made public, Gurinderjit Singh claimed that he had no idea why he had been named, The Indian Express reported. He had been shifted to the Police Lines in Hoshiarpur and an inquiry has been ordered against him.

Crackdown on Indian gangs

Gurinderjit Singh is among 37 defendants charged for organised crimes in three indictments unsealed on July 7, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said. The charges are part of an action against India-based transnational gangs.

Those charged include gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar for organised crimes and ordering the 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Bishnoi is in a Gujarat jail awaiting trial in several cases. Brar, whose real name is Satinderjeet Singh, is absconding.

Those charged in the US include two “who ran their global criminal syndicates while imprisoned” in India, the federal authorities stated.

The law enforcement agencies in the US, Canada and Europe arrested 24 persons allegedly linked to three India-based transnational organised crime groups, the authorities said. Seven defendants were already in custody.

The agencies were looking for 10 fugitives, seven of whom are in the US, two in India and one in Europe, the attorney’s office said.

The persons have been charged with several criminal acts.

The arrests – codenamed “Operation Hard Ball” – followed a years-long federal investigation into Indian crime syndicates, the attorney’s office said.

The groups are alleged to be involved in racketeering, targeted killings, shootings, extortion and the smuggling of narcotics, among other crimes “whose impact is especially felt in the Indian diaspora”.

Edited by Sara Varghese.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094373/punjab-police-arrest-officer-charged-in-us-for-allegedly-extorting-los-angeles-family?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:52:00 +0000 Scroll Staff CJP protest: Police force Sonam Wangchuk into hospital, Dipke begins indefinite hunger strike https://scroll.in/latest/1094360/delhi-police-says-sonam-wangchuk-shifted-to-hospital-under-hc-order-cjp-alleges-he-was-detained?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The Cockroach Janta Party said that Wangchuk has continued his fast at the hospital.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike since June 28, was forcibly taken to hospital by the Delhi Police on Saturday. The police claimed that he had been shifted to hospital for “essential medical care” in compliance with a High Court order.

Wangchuk’s fast at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, which is part of a protest led by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations, had entered its 21st day on Saturday.

The activist has been admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital, Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo said on social media.

The campaign said that Wangchuk had continued his hunger strike at the hospital.

Here are more updates from the protest:

Dipke’s fast

  • Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, who was allegedly stopped by the police from returning to the protest site on Saturday morning, reached Jantar Mantar and began an indefinite hunger strike.
  • Dipke called for nationwide peaceful protests. “We need to send a message that the people won’t accept this kind of dictatorship,” he said in a video shared by the political campaign.
  • He said that Wangchuk’s removal from the protest site would not end the campaign and reiterated the protester’s plan to march to Parliament on Monday, when the Monsoon Session begins. “Until now, we were demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation,” ANI quoted him as saying. “But after this despicable act, we will now demand the resignation of [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi.”
  • Three members of the All India Students’ Association – Neha Bora, Manish Kumar and Aameen Amitosh – continued their hunger strike after Wangchuk was taken away from the protest site. Protesters formed a human chain to prevent the police from forcibly removing them.
  • Hours later, an unidentified woman threw ink at Dipke while he was at the protest site, PTI reported.

Wangchuk in hospital

  • Safdarjung Hospital said that Wangchuk was weak because of prolonged fasting and dehydration, The Hindu reported. “Although he is currently stable, he requires continuous observation, monitoring and treatment to restore his body parameters,” the hospital was quoted as saying.  
  • Wangchuk’s wife said on social media that no treatment should be administered to the activist without the consent of “his family and his doctors who have been monitoring his health for the past 20 days”.
  • The Cockroach Janta Party alleged that the hospital administration and the police were not sharing Wangchuk’s medical reports or allowing phones inside the room where he was being treated. The campaign claimed that his lawyer and personal doctors had also not been allowed to meet him.
  • Later in the day, Wangchuk’s wife wrote to the hospital authorities seeking his discharge and transfer to a medical centre of “our choice”, saying that the “lack of transparency has shaken their trust”, The Hindu reported.
  • Wangchuk “has refused all intravenous fluids, oral rehyderation or any other medication”, PTI quoted the hospital’s medical superintendent as saying in a health bulletin on Saturday afternoon.

Claims and counter-claims

  • Earlier in the day, the Cockroach Janta Party claimed that Wangchuk had been “detained” and said it did not know where the activist had been taken.
  • The campaign’s spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said on social media that roads leading to Jantar Mantar had been blocked, and alleged that Dipke and other protesters had been beaten up.
  • Dipke had also claimed on social media that he had been beaten up and detained by the police.
  • However, the Delhi Police said that Wangchuk was shifted to hospital on expert medical advice because of his deteriorating health condition.
  • Protesters tried to obstruct the action by the security personnel while they were complying with the High Court’s directions, leading to a “slight commotion”, the police added. The police claimed that its personnel exercised “maximum restrain and undertook the exercise safely”.
  • On Thursday, the High Court directed the Centre and the Delhi government to monitor Wangchuk’s health daily and undertake any medical intervention required to improve his condition.
  • However, on Saturday afternoon, the police claimed that the doctors had arrived at Jantar Mantar in the morning for a routine medical examination, as directed by the court, when some protesters obstructed the process. They add that Wangchuk was taken to hospital on medical advice given his “delicate health condition”, for examination and any further intervention required.
  • The police has deployed several personnel at the Safdarjung Hospital and Jantar Mantar.
  • The police action drew criticism from several Opposition leaders, who accused the Union government of suppressing peaceful protest. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Wangchuk was on a non-violent hunger strike and removing him from the protest site was wrong. Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal said the action against Wangchuk amounted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi insulting the activist.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava, Sara Varghese and Nachiket Deuskar.


Also read:


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094360/delhi-police-says-sonam-wangchuk-shifted-to-hospital-under-hc-order-cjp-alleges-he-was-detained?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 12:44:26 +0000 Scroll Staff Dombivli doctors’ assault: HC stays Shinde Sena corporator’s bail https://scroll.in/latest/1094374/dombivli-doctors-assault-hc-stays-shinde-sena-corporators-bail?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Ramesh Mhatre has been directed to surrender to the police 5 pm on Sunday.

The Bombay High Court on Saturday stayed the bail granted to Shiv Sena corporator Ramesh Mhatre who was arrested for allegedly assaulting doctors and staff at a civic hospital in Maharashtra’s Dombivli, Live Law reported.

The court directed him to surrender to the police by 5 pm on Sunday.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra V Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad took suo motu cognisance of reports about the July 6 assault on doctors at Shastri Nagar Hospital and the trial court’s decision to grant bail.

The High Court also stayed the bail granted to four others accused in the case.

“In the event he doesn’t surrender or isn’t reachable, the authorities will be at liberty to follow the due procedure for initiating steps for attaching his immovable properties,” Live Law quoted the bench as saying.

The High Court also appealed to doctors working in municipal and state government hospitals, as well as the Indian Medical Association, to reconsider their proposed strike “in the larger interest of society and service to mankind”, The Indian Express reported. The strike is planned to begin on Monday.

The case relates to Mhatre and his associates allegedly assaulting doctors at the hospital on July 6 after the family of a pregnant woman was asked to transfer her to another medical centre because there were no beds available in the neonatal intensive care unit, which the newborn was expected to require.

The family contacted Mhatre, a municipal corporator from the Shiv Sena faction led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who arrived at the hospital with his supporters, according to the police.

Surveillance camera footage shared on social media showed the corporator and his associates punching and slapping the hospital staff.

Mhatre had been absconding until he surrendered to the police on July 8.

After complaining of health problems, he was taken to hospital before being formally arrested following his discharge. His associates had been arrested earlier.

He was granted bail by a court in Kalyan on Tuesday.

While staying the bail, the High Court said the magistrate had failed to adequately consider Mhatre’s criminal antecedents, Live Law reported.

It noted that 18 criminal cases had been registered against him in the past 36 years and observed that the bail order did not deal with his antecedents or the alleged assault on three doctors, The Indian Express reported.

“We find from the order granting bail that the magistrate did not even notice that the accused was not even interrogated after recording his first statement,” the judges further stated.

The High Court also questioned the circumstances surrounding Mhatre’s release.

It noted that he had been admitted to Thane District Government Hospital while in custody because of health issues, including high blood pressure, and was discharged after being granted bail.

“Till the bail was not granted, he was hospitalised, and the moment bail was granted, he became fit to be discharged,” The Indian Express quoted the bench as having verbally remarked.

When asked why the state had not challenged the bail order earlier, Advocate General Milind Sathe and Chief Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray told the bench that the trial court’s order had been made available only on Friday night.

The case will continue being heard on Tuesday, Live Law reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094374/dombivli-doctors-assault-hc-stays-shinde-sena-corporators-bail?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 12:40:00 +0000 Scroll Staff SIR: Election Commission extends deadline in Maharashtra until August 8 https://scroll.in/latest/1094370/election-commission-extends-sir-timeline-in-maharashtra?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Booth level officers were given time 10 additional days to complete the house-to-house verification of voters.

The Election Commission on Friday extended the enumeration deadline for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra till August 8, The Indian Express reported.

The poll panel gave booth level officers 10 additional days to complete the house-to-house verification of voters, extending the deadline from what was July 29.

The extension was granted after Maharashtra’s chief electoral officer sought additional time, citing heavy rainfall in the state.

The draft voter list will now be published on August 17 instead of August 5, The Hindu reported.

Under the revised timeline, claims and objections against exclusions can be filed between August 17 and September 16. Earlier, the deadline for filing the objections was September 4.

The final electoral roll will be published on October 19 instead of October 7.

Data shared by the Election Commission showed that only 35.1% of the enumeration forms had been digitised in the state as of Friday. The digitisation rate was 15.3% in Mumbai city, 8.3% in its suburbs and 8.4% in neighbouring Thane district.

Yavatmal district had recorded the highest form digitisation rate of 67.6%, followed by Ratnagiri at 65.9%.

Maharashtra is among the 16 states where the voter roll revision is underway in the third phase of SIR.

On Wednesday, the poll panel had extended the timelines for the exercise in Delhi, Punjab, Karnataka and Telangana.

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

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094370/election-commission-extends-sir-timeline-in-maharashtra?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 10:52:16 +0000 Scroll Staff ‘Modi insulted Sonam Wangchuk’: Opposition criticises police forcing activist into hospital https://scroll.in/latest/1094371/modi-insulted-sonam-wangchuk-opposition-criticises-activist-being-forced-into-hospital?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt The police action at Jantar Mantar was ‘another black stain on democracy and the Constitution’, said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.

The Opposition on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of insulting activist Sonam Wangchuk after he was forcibly taken to hospital by the Delhi Police from Jantar Mantar where he had been on a hunger strike.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that Wangchuk was on a non-violent hunger strike and removing him from the protest site was wrong. “The core tenets of the Modi government are Asatya [falsehood] and Hinsa [violence],” Gandhi said on social media.

The leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said that paper leaks, the rising cost of education and student suicides are critical issues for India’s future. “No amount of force can deter India’s students, and those of us who love and believe in them, from raising these issues,” he said.

Wangchuk, who has been on a fast since June 28, was taken away from the protest site on Saturday morning, with the police claiming that he had been shifted to hospital for “essential medical care” in compliance with a High Court order.

His fast, which is part of a protest led by the Cockroach Janta Party demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations, had entered its 21st day on Saturday.


Follow the latest updates from the protest here.


Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal said on social media that the government should have held a dialogue with Wangchuk instead. In another post, Kejriwal said that the government should focus on reforming the country’s education and examination system rather than “crushing the cockroach movement”.

“The Modi government’s defeat is in forcibly dealing with Sonam Wangchuk,” the former Delhi chief minister said.

Kejriwal also called on the public to join the protest by the political campaign Cockroach Janta Party. Wangchuk, the campaign’s founder Abhijeet Dipke and the young protesters were fighting for the future of children, the AAP chief added.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge described the incident at Jantar Mantar as “another black stain on democracy” and the Constitution.

“This tyrannical government has spared no one”, Kharge said on social media. “In their eyes, anyone who raises their voice is an ‘Anti-National’, a ‘parasite’!”

Congress’ General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said that instead of sacking Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the government had removed Wangchuk from the protest site.

Venugopal said there was a need for “compassion and humanity” from the government, but alleged that it had chosen to break up a peaceful protest as public pressure mounted. He described the action as “highly condemnable” and said the public would punish the government “at the appropriate moment”.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said she was concerned about Wangchuk’s health.

The activist had sought dialogue, but his appeal had been met with silence, the former West Bengal chief minister said. “In a democracy, peaceful dissent deserves engagement, not silence,” she said.

She demanded that the activist be moved to a private hospital.

The activist has been admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital, Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo said.

TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose alleged that the police action was taken “because the Modi government is rattled” and was in “a state of panic”, ANI reported. “It is dictatorship and is unacceptable, unfortunate, and constitutes an assault on democracy and on the rights of the people,” she added.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said it was “utterly reprehensible” that Wangchuk was forcibly removed from his indefinite hunger strike and demanded that his medical care be conducted under judicial oversight.

Yadav also criticised the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party saying that it was “not the BJP government – it’s arrogance!”. He alleged that the Hindutva party’s “divisive” mindset led it to disperse movements based on unity and solidarity.

Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav described the action as an “assault on democracy” and said the BJP government could no longer tolerate peaceful protests.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat visited Jantar Mantar and expressed her solidarity with the protesters after the police action.

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) spokesperson Anish Gawande said that the right to protest was a fundamental right and questioned the decision to move Wangchuk to hospital without the consent of his family and doctors.

“This is a country of Mahatma Gandhi,” he said. “Disobeying a Satyagrahi’s wishes goes against the moral fabric of this country.”

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray also criticised the police action, saying that peaceful protests against exam paper leaks were being broken up by a government that believed in “dictatorship” instead of “simple dialogue”.

Lok Sabha MP Chandra Shekhar Azad criticised Wangchuk’s forced removal, saying “democracy is once again disgraced”. He alleged that the action was “a direct assault on democratic values”.

“Has the right to peaceful protest now been limited only to the convenience of those in power,” the Bhim Army chief asked.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.


Also read: What Irom Sharmila, who fasted for 16 years, thinks about Sonam Wangchuck’s hunger strike


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094371/modi-insulted-sonam-wangchuk-opposition-criticises-activist-being-forced-into-hospital?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 10:43:11 +0000 Scroll Staff Eco India, Episode 329: How cities around the world are beating extreme heat https://scroll.in/video/1094363/eco-india-episode-329-how-cities-around-the-world-are-beating-extreme-heat?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Every week, Eco India brings you stories that inspire you to build a cleaner, greener and better tomorrow.

]]> https://scroll.in/video/1094363/eco-india-episode-329-how-cities-around-the-world-are-beating-extreme-heat?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:55:00 +0000 Scroll Staff Under UCC, only those with one marriage will have the right to live in Madhya Pradesh: CM https://scroll.in/latest/1094367/under-ucc-only-those-with-one-marriage-will-have-the-right-to-live-in-madhya-pradesh-cm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt ‘If Ram will marry once, why should Rahim marry twice or four times,’ Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Friday said the state’s proposed Uniform Civil Code would legally recognise only one marriage and that only those with one legal spouse would have the right to live in the state, ANI reported.

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

A government-appointed committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai submitted its draft Uniform Civil Code report to Yadav on Monday, recommending that Adivasis be excluded from the proposed law.

On Friday, the chief minister said that the draft bill would be approved at the next Cabinet meeting. It will be introduced in the Assembly during the Monsoon Session which begins on July 20.

“Why should there be separate laws for Hindus and Muslims?” ANI quoted him as saying. “There should be one law for everyone. If Ram will marry once, why should Rahim marry twice or four times? Muslim sisters are also our sisters.”

Referring to the abolition of instant triple talaq, Yadav said that anyone who said “talaq” three times would be sent to jail, adding that the “era of triple talaq is over”.

Triple talaq allows a Muslim man to instantly divorce his wife by pronouncing “talaq” three times.

The Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Act criminalises instant triple talaq, or Talaq-e-Biddah, and provides for imprisonment of up to three years for any man who seeks to divorce his wife in this manner.

The Act was notified on July 31, 2019, and came into force with retrospective effect on September 19, 2018. The law was implemented over a year after instant triple talaq was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on August 22, 2017.

BJP and UCC

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

In January 2025, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to implement the Uniform Civil Code after independence. The Gujarat Assembly cleared a similar legislation in March amid protests by the Opposition.

The Assam Assembly on May 27 passed the Uniform Civil Code bill seeking to ban polygamy and make the registration of live-in relationships compulsory. The Opposition had demanded that the bill be sent to a select committee for scrutiny.

A common civil code has been in place in Goa since the Portuguese Civil Code was adopted in 1867.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.


]]> https://scroll.in/latest/1094367/under-ucc-only-those-with-one-marriage-will-have-the-right-to-live-in-madhya-pradesh-cm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=dailyhunt Sat, 18 Jul 2026 07:45:38 +0000 Scroll Staff