Every day, 21-year-old Amjad Hussain, from Tapatjuri village in the Nagaon district of Assam, walks one kilometre to his neighbour Dilwar Hussain’s house, where he weaves patis (mats) made from the agar tree to earn an income. His family considers this a small miracle considering that a few years ago, Amjad couldn’t even take a step without a walking stick.

“Three of my sons developed bodily deformations, which we later learnt was because of the water we drink,” says Amjad’s mother, Halima Khatun. Her sons were showing symptoms of skeletal fluorosis, which is caused by consuming water with excess fluoride content. Her daughter was spared from this “pani wala bemar” (water-borne disease), she says.

Dharani Saikia, a 62-year-old social worker based in Kampur town in Nagaon district, has been gathering evidence of fluorosis cases in Assam, particularly in Nagaon, Hojai and Karbi Anglong districts for over two decades. He says that as of 2020, 13 districts are affected.

In 2022, the Ministry of Jal Shakti confirmed fluoride contamination beyond safe levels in nine districts of Assam. However, no official findings detailing contamination levels of groundwater, number of affected people and symptoms have not been published since nearly a decade ago, when surveys were conducted in 2017-’18. Meanwhile, fluorosis continues to grip lives across the state.

How fluoride enters Assam’s water

Fluoride contamination in the state’s groundwater was first detected in 1999 by AB Paul, an engineer in the Public Health Engineering Department in Karbi Anglong.

PhD scholar Nikita Neog, who studies fluoride contamination across the state, says that geogenic factors play a role. “The Assam region is an extension of the Shillong plateau, which has Precambrian rocks rich in minerals like fluorite. These release fluoride into the groundwater. The World Health Organisation (WHO)’s safe limit for fluoride in drinking water is 1.5 mg/l, and anything exceeding that is not safe for consumption,” she says. A study Neog co-authored in 2021 tested groundwater samples from Nagaon, Kamrup Metropolitan and West Karbi Anglong districts detected a maximum of 9 mg/l in a sample from Nagaon.

In Tapatjuri village, more than 1,000 kids have contracted fluorosis, according to Saikia. “In Binakandi, there are 485 villages where most of the population has been affected, making it one of the worst fluoride-affected zones of Assam,” he says.

Tapatjuri falls under the Barhampur legislative constituency. Local legislator Jitu Goswami of the Bharatiya Janata Party says, “Fluoride presence has been detected in many places [in Barhampur] like Doboka and Kathiatoli. I have written to the Water Supply Department to look at the issue. Also, I am trying to raise awareness among people so that they avoid groundwater sources and use water from rivers and springs more.” So far, Goswami’s conversation with the department has not progressed further.

Natural or geogenic fluoride contamination, as in the case of Assam, largely impacts groundwater, leaving surface water resources such as rivers, ponds and springs generally safe.

Impacts of fluorosis on the human body

Saikia has observed that symptoms generally emerge years after consuming fluoride-affected water. He shares that mineral supplements seemed to improve the condition of many children with fluorosis, including his own son, who developed dental fluorosis in 2011.

Dr Jutika Ojah, Head of Department of Community Medicine, Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, adds that while mineral consumption can help manage fluorosis among children, there is no cure.

At levels of 0.5-1.0 mg/l, fluoride can help prevent tooth decay by strengthening the enamel. Higher doses, however, cause problems. “[Excess] fluoride affects humans in three ways – dental fluorosis, whose symptoms are discolouration, mottling, and pitting [of teeth]; skeletal fluorosis, whose symptoms are joint pain, stiffness, and deformities; and non-skeletal symptoms such as gastrointestinal issues and muscle weakness,” says Dr. Ojah.

“Management focuses on removing exposure and supportive care,” she says. She notes that in high-fluoride areas, around 10-30 cases are reported each month.

Dr Anuj Kumar Borah, a dental surgeon at the Kathiatoli Block Public Health Centre, says, “I get five to six patients with dental fluorosis symptoms every month. However, the actual number of cases will be much higher.”

While symptoms of fluorosis among children is sometimes manageable, some people live with fluorosis their entire lives.

Fifty-year-old Sadhani Kalita who lives a few kilometres from Amjad Hussain’s residence says, “I face constant pain in my body, and my feet get swollen. I also have fever, high pressure, and diabetes, for which I have to take medicines.”

A pipe dream

The Public Health Engineering Department launched the Jal Jeevan Mission Scheme in 2019 to provide piped water supply in rural areas, sourced from dams, springs and lakes. According to their data, of the 914 schemes handed over in Nagaon – one of the highest in the state – only 510, or roughly 55%, are functional.

The Public Health Engineering Department has also set up 83 water-testing labs in rural areas, according to Bhupen Barman, Assistant Engineer, Water Sanitation Support Organisation.

In the most recent tests, no fluoride was detected in water samples from taps installed under the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme, according to Barman. This indicates water provided by the scheme in the district is safe but fluoride could be present in other groundwater sources, he adds.

Ground realities

According to the Public Health Engineering Department, 83% of the state’s rural areas are covered by the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme. However, regular access to the water is limited because of operational challenges.

Bong Rongpi is employed as a Jal Mitra (workers that are trained in maintaining piped water systems by JJM) in Dhikharumukh village in Nagaon district, which provides piped water to four fluoride-affected villages. “The source of this water is the Udharjuri spring, which is three kilometres away. We draw water from the spring and store it in a 50,000-litre tank,” says Rongpi.

However, the process requires high-voltage power, which is hampered by frequent power outages. “During summer and monsoon, we sometimes don’t have power for a day or two at a stretch. During these times, people in the villages have to go back to groundwater sources,” he says. In these cases, the people are once again vulnerable to fluoride contaminated water.

Fluoride removal

A research group at Tezpur University led by Robin Kumar Dutta has developed a tool to remove excess fluoride from drinking water through certain chemical treatments, but there have been certain challenges to scale the tool and implement it in Assam.

Currently, a pilot of this tool is underway in parts of Yemen with support from Dutch-based nonprofit ZOA. Dutta, a professor in the Department of Chemical Sciences, has previously developed tools to remove arsenic and iron from water.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLA and former Tamil Nadu minister Anitha R Radhakrishnan was arrested on Friday for making remarks about Chief Minister Vijay that a member of the state’s ruling party alleged were derogatory.

Radhakrishnan, who represents the Tiruchendur constituency, was arrested at Authoor in Thoothukudi district shortly after the Madras High Court denied him anticipatory bail, reported Live Law.

Radhakrishnan had made the allegedly derogatory remarks during a public meeting held on June 20. He had been booked on June 23 under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace and statements conducing to public mischief, reported The Indian Express.

The complaint was filed by an office-bearer of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam named S Selvam.

On Friday, he was inspecting records at the Authoor Town Panchayat when he was arrested.

DMK president and former Chief Minister MK Stalin asked the new Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government “what was the urgent need to arrest” Radhakrishnan.

“Why did this ‘pure power’ administration – which has taken no action so far on the complaint filed by a gangrape survivor against the TVK MLA from Srivaikuntam – fail to show similar urgency in that case?” Stalin asked on social media.

He was referring to allegations against TVK MLA G Saravanan, who has been accused of supporting two men who raped a woman in May, reported The News Minute.

Stalin asked that if arrests are made for making defamatory remarks, “how many people would have to be arrested for the things today’s ministers say”.

“Without delivering any benefits to the people who voted for it, and having retained power through horse-trading, the chief minister seems to think he can bide his time by arresting Opposition parties that criticise him,” he alleged.

HC observations

Dismissing Radhakrishnan’s petition, Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan said that he should not have made the statements as an MLA.

“Being a member of the legislative assembly, what kind of speech you have spoken?” Live Law quoted the bench as asking. “Whoever it maybe, you have to respect the chief minister.”

It added: “In state of Tamil Nadu, since 1967, people from the cinema are being voted. Then why are you making these statements? You are not a layman. You are a member of the Assembly.”

Radhakrishnan had argued that his speech should not attract the sections he has been charged under.

“Whatever he has spoken may be defamation,” his counsel was quoted as saying. “But not these sections.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh urged Hindus to “thwart the conspiracies of anti-Hindu and anti-national forces”, who it claimed were trying to exploit the case about the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The general secretary of the Hindutva organisation, Dattatreya Hosabale, said the alleged thefts from the donation boxes at the temple had “deeply hurt the sentiments and faith of the entire society and Ram devotees”.

He added that said the RSS expects the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which manages the temple, to treat the matter as an extraordinary one and “take effective steps to rectify all shortcomings in temple management and operations”.

This was the first public response of the RSS, the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, since allegations emerged. Read on.

The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya, reports Ayush Tiwari

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLA Anitha R Radhakrishnan was arrested for allegedly making remarks about Chief Minister Vijay that the police claimed were defamatory. The action against the former minister came hours after the Madras High Court denied him anticipatory bail.

DMK president and former Chief Minister MK Stalin asked the new Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government why there had been an “urgent need” to arrest Radhakrishnan. He also asked why similar urgency had not been shown against TVK MLA G Saravanan, who has been accused of supporting two men who allegedly raped a woman in May.

Radhakrishnan has been booked under sections pertaining to intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace and statements conducing to public mischief. Read on.

The Union government issued notices to messaging platforms Telegram and Signal seeking details about the safeguards they have put in place to prevent fraud and impersonation through username-based communication features. Such features could facilitate “scams, phishing, digital arrest frauds and identity impersonation”, said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The action came two days after the ministry asked WhatsApp to pause the rollout of a similar feature. “The rules apply to everyone,” said an official.

In Telegram’s case, the government has also asked why the platform should be allowed to continue offering the username feature. The companies have been given three days to respond. Read on.

The Delhi High Court directed the Union government’s Grievance Appellate Committee to decide within 15 days an appeal seeking the removal of a video by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee. He had noted in the video that Hindu scriptures said that deities such as Ram and Krishna consumed meat and alcohol.

Lawyer Amita Sachdeva had filed the appeal against it, alleging that the video was derogatory, inflammatory and communally sensitive. She has also filed a criminal complaint, alleging that Rathee distorted Hindu scriptures and “mocked the sanctity of Sanatan Dharma”. Read on.

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Vivek Kumar has made Jantar Mantar his home since June 20, the day that the Cockroach Janta Party began a sit-in protest at the site. The 19-year-old wakes up every day at 6 am, goes to the nearby Bangla Sahib Gurudwara to freshen up and comes back to volunteer with the campaign.

“The Cockroach Janta Party is not a party, but a family,” he said. “Abhijeet Dipke [founder of Cockroach Janta Party] has given me a platform to express myself. Before this, I used to be scared of the government. But I have become fearless now.”

Kumar is not alone. Hundreds of young people have been gathering every day at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for repeatedly failing to hold examinations for medical college seats and government jobs in a secure manner.

Who are these cockroaches? What are their hopes and dreams? And what is keeping them going?

Scroll visited the protest site over several days to find out.

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Union government’s Grievance Appellate Committee to decide within 15 days an appeal seeking the removal of a video by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, in which he claimed that Hindu gods consumed meat, reported Bar and Bench.

The Grievance Appellate Committee deals with the appeals of users against social media intermediaries regarding complaints about online content.

The court’s direction on Friday came on an appeal filed by lawyer Amita Sachdeva about a video Rathee uploaded on YouTube on March 21.

In the video, Rathee discussed dietary habits in Hindu scriptures. He noted that texts have mentioned that deities like Ram and Krishna consumed meat and alcohol.

Sachdeva alleged that the video is derogatory, inflammatory and communally sensitive, reported Live Law.

Appearing for the Union government, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma told the court that YouTube should have taken down the video.

“Either Google [the parent company of YouTube] says they will do it now, or my ladyship may pass a judgement based on what the division bench has said,” said Sharma, referring to an order that held that the social media intermediary should check if any content is harmful and block it.

Sharma added: “He [Google’s counsel] should take it down and say he will not permit such fissiparous content that hurts the sentiments of the majority community.”

The counsel appearing for Google told the court that the company had given its response to Sachdeva and she has already filed an appeal before the Grievance Appellate Committee.

Disposing of the plea, the court told the committee to decide on the appeal within 15 days and said that “any disregard of this order will be taken note of seriously”.

Sachdeva has also filed a criminal complaint against the video before the magistrate court. She had alleged that Rathee distorted Hindu scriptures and “mocked the sanctity of Sanatan Dharma”.

Sanatana Dharma is a term some people use as a synonym for Hinduism.

The metropolitan magistrate has sought an action-taken report from the police, reported Bar and Bench.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Friday urged Hindus to exercise “patience and restraint” in connection with the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya and also exhorted them to “thwart the conspiracies of anti-Hindu and anti-national forces” who were allegedly trying to exploit the matter.

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

In a statement, the general secretary of the Hindutva organisation Dattatreya Hosabale said the alleged theft from the donation boxes at the temple had “deeply hurt the sentiments and faith of the entire society and Ram devotees”.

“We are all extremely pained and angered by this event,” he said.

Hosabale added that the Uttar Pradesh government had constituted a Special Investigation Team at the request of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which manages the temple, and initiated legal proceedings based on its recommendations.

He said it was essential that anyone found guilty after the investigation should face severe punishment.

The RSS functionary also said the organisation expected the trust to treat the matter as an extraordinary one and “take effective steps to rectify all shortcomings in temple management and operations”.

He said this was “crucial” to ensure that the faith and reverence of Ram devotees remains “unbroken and steadfast”.

The general secretary added that the prevailing “confusion and uncertainty” surrounding the case must end and expressed confidence that the trust would strengthen public faith through proper financial management and transparent operational systems.

This was the RSS’ first public response since allegations emerged that donations from the Ram temple had been embezzled.

Commenting on the statement, Congress leader Pawan Khera said that Hosabale’s “performative condemnation” was a desperate attempt to sanitise the “loot” of funds from the Ram temple. He claimed that the purpose behind the video was to “lend legitimacy” to the Special Investigation team set by the Uttar Pradesh, and questioned why a preliminary report submitted by it on June 23 had not been made public.

The RSS is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Dattatreya Hosabale's performative condemnation is not about exposing the loot of Ram Mandir funds. It is desperate damage control aimed at sanitising it.

The video's real purpose is to lend legitimacy to the UP government's SIT –… https://t.co/gqlFmZETYo

— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 ಪವನ್ ಖೇರಾ (@Pawankhera) July 3, 2026

“The truth is that if the RSS were sincerely committed to safeguarding devotees' donations, embezzlement on such a scale would never have taken place at a temple that is directly under its own watch,” Khera remarked in a social media post.

Unidentified persons aware of the report’s contents told The Indian Express that it highlights alleged lapses, inadequate supervision and negligence in the handling, maintenance and counting of donated cash and valuables.

The SIT is expected to submit a final report next week.

On June 25, an FIR was filed against eight persons based on a complaint by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. All eight accused have been arrested.

They were booked under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to theft by a clerk or servant, criminal breach of trust, stolen property and criminal conspiracy.

The accused had allegedly misappropriated donations collected through the donation boxes installed on the temple premises.

A day after the arrests, the trust’s general secretary, Champat Rai, and trustee Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” amid the controversy.

The Ram temple in Ayodhya was built on the site of the Babri Masjid, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born.

In 2019, the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque was illegal but handed over the land to a trust for a Ram temple to be constructed. At the same time, it directed that a five-acre plot in Ayodhya be allotted to Muslims for a mosque to be built.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read:

• The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya

• In Ayodhya, it’s Sangh Parivar vs Sangh Parivar as Ram temple fund ‘theft’ charges blow up

A day after India and Japan signed a series of agreements to boost supply chains and energy resilience, China said on Friday that the partnership between New Delhi and Tokyo “should not target” Beijing, reported AFP.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun was quoted as saying that countries should work to “foster understanding and trust”.

“Cooperation between nations...should not target or harm the interests of third parties, let alone serve as a pretext for forming exclusive cliques or stoking confrontation,” added Jiakun.

On Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi, who is on a three-day visit to New Delhi.

They agreed to work more closely on critical minerals to boost resilience in their supply chains.

After the talks, Takaichi told reporters that both Japan and India were facing challenges including “weaponisation of the economy and non-market policies and practices”.

Her statement came in the wake of deteriorating ties between Tokyo and Beijing. In November, Takaichi said that Japan could intervene militarily to help protect Taiwan in the event of a potential Chinese invasion.

While China claims the democratically governed island as its territory, Taiwan has rejected Beijing’s sovereignty claims and has prioritised boosting the island’s homegrown defence capabilities.

Takaichi’s statement had resulted in Chinese authorities restricting flows of rare earths to Japan.

India and Japan are part of the Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which also comprises the United States and Australia.

In May, the Quad also announced initiatives to improve collaboration on critical minerals and emerging technology.

The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework is designed to help the four countries coordinate investments to strengthen critical mineral supply chains.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government on Friday issued notices to messaging platforms Telegram and Signal seeking details of the safeguards they have put in place to prevent fraud and impersonation through username-based communication features, the Hindustan Times reported, quoting an unidentified government official.

The notice was two days after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had asked WhatsApp to pause the rollout of a similar feature.

“The rules apply to everyone,” the official told the newspaper. “Similar notices will be sent to Telegram and Signal on Friday.”

The ministry has asked Telegram and Signal to explain how they prevent misuse of features that allow users to communicate without revealing their phone numbers, according to The Times of India.

The ministry has raised concerns that such features could facilitate “scams, phishing, digital arrest frauds and identity impersonation”.

In Telegram’s case, the government has also asked why the platform should be allowed to continue offering the username feature.

The companies have been given three days to respond, The Times of India reported, quoting unidentified persons familiar with the matter.

The notices follow the ministry’s direction to Meta-owned WhatsApp on Wednesday to pause the rollout of its proposed username feature until consultations with the government are completed.

In response to the government’s concerns, WhatsApp said that, to protect against misuse, usernames associated with public figures, government entities, celebrities and verified accounts on its parent company Meta’s platforms had been reserved so they could only be claimed by their legitimate owners, The Indian Express reported.

A spokesperson for platform said that the users would still need a phone number to create and use an account, The Indian Express reported. The spokesperson added that persons would need to know a user’s exact username to contact them for the first time, with an optional username key providing an additional layer of control.

On Thursday, digital rights organisation Internet Freedom Foundation criticised the government’s action and called on the ministry to withdraw the notices issued to WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.

The organisation said the new notices “widen an unconstitutional dragnet over privacy features” and that it had no basis in law.

The organisation argued that any restrictions on such features should be grounded in legislation rather than executive action.

It also called on the ministry to publish the notices and specify the legal provisions under which it was acting.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Allahabad High Court on Thursday held that while the Places of Worship Act prohibits the conversion of the religious character of a place of worship from one faith to another, it does not prevent the state from acquiring such properties for a genuine public purpose, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices JJ Munir and Arun Kumar made the statement while dismissing a petition filed by six shopkeepers and tenants from Varanasi’s Dalmandi area, who sought to stop a road widening and beautification project linked to the Uttar Pradesh government’s Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham Corridor.

The petitioners sought protection against their eviction and asked the court to restrain the state from acquiring six mosques in the area, arguing that they had existed before August 15, 1947, and were therefore protected under the Places of Worship Act.

The six mosques are Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, Masjid Rangile Shah, Masjid Ali Raza Khan, Masjid Karimullah Baig, Masjid Nisaran and Masjid Sangamarmar.

The petitioners also contended that the project would deprive thousands of persons of their livelihoods, homes and places of worship.

They further alleged that the acquisition was arbitrary and was designed to “target a particular community”, Live Law reported.

Rejecting the plea, the court held that the 1991 Act was enacted to preserve the religious character of places of worship as they stood on August 15, 1947, by preventing their conversion from one religious denomination to another.

However, it said that this did not limit the state’s authority to acquire land, including religious property, for “secular and public purpose[s]” such as road development or infrastructure projects, The Hindu reported.

The bench added that this was subject “to the owner’s right to receive just and fair compensation”, Live Law reported.

The court also found that the petitioners, as tenants rather than owners of the properties, had limited standing to challenge the acquisition.

“We would think that the petitioners are more or less here, in order to protect their business and source of livelihood, rather than proprietary rights”, it noted, according to the legal news website.

Further, the court rejected the petitioners’ contention that they could seek protection for the mosques as Muslims. It observed that the structures were registered waqf properties and that responsibility for protecting them primarily rested with the respective mutawallis and the Waqf Board.

A mutawalli is the person incharge of administering and managing a waqf, which is property permanently dedicated under Islamic law for religious, charitable or pious purposes.

Moreover, the court also described the allegation that the acquisition was designed to target a particular community as an “odd” pleading.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday took suo moto cognisance of death threats and communal abuse directed at a Muslim judge in Narmadapuram district after she convicted seven men in a 2022 case where a truck driver was assaulted by a group that claimed he was a cattle smuggler, Live Law reported on Friday.

On June 12, Additional District and Sessions Judge Tabassum Khan sentenced seven men for killing truck driver Sheikh Lala Nazir Ahmed in Barakhar village of Seoni Malwa tehsil.

Soon after, videos containing death threats and communal slurs were shared on social media. Videos also showed effigies of the judge being burnt in some of the protests.

On Wednesday, a division bench observed that such actions undermine judicial independence. The court directed that the Khan should continue to receive police protection as an interim measure.

Threats against judges “directly hampers the judicial independence and fearless working of our judicial officers”, Live Law quoted the bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and Avanindra Kumar Singh as observing.

The court also directed the Madhya Pradesh director general of police and the additional chief secretary or principal secretary (home) to file personal affidavits detailing the steps taken to ensure Khan’s security and the action taken against those responsible for the threats.

The bench observed that judicial orders are subject to appeal and revision under the law. It added that “our judicial officer cannot be threatened merely because he or she chooses to pass a particular order and that is not of liking of the certain section of the society”.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association issued a statement saying that it “unequivocally condemns the threats and targeted social media campaign” against Khan.

On June 23, the police registered a first information report against unidentified persons under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity and using words to deliberately hurt religious feelings.

The case

On August 2, 2022, Nazir Ahmed and two others were transporting cattle from Nandarwada village to Maharashtra when their vehicle was intercepted near Barakhad by a mob armed with sticks and wooden rods, according to the prosecution.

Ahmed later died of his injuries, while the two others survived.

In her judgement, Khan held that the prosecution had proved the charges beyond reasonable doubt.

Despite the two surviving occupants turning hostile during the trial, the court relied on medical and forensic evidence, along with the recovery of blood-stained weapons and clothing to convict the seven men.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The India Meteorological Department on Friday issued an orange alert for Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad for moderate to intense spells of rain at isolated places, The Times of India reported.

Mumbai continued to receive heavy monsoon rainfall.

Between 8 am on Thursday and 7 am on Friday, the city had recorded an average rainfall of 114 mm. While the eastern suburbs received 102 mm of rain, the western suburbs recorded 109 mm during the period.

Two electrocuted in rain-related incidents

A 17-year-old girl died after suffering an electric shock in a waterlogged area outside her home in Mumbra on Wednesday night, The Times of India reported.

The police have registered a first information report against officials of Torrent Power Limited for alleged negligence.

The girl, Aliya Mohamad Sajid Chandiwala, had stepped out while it was raining when she allegedly came in contact with electricity that had leaked into the waterlogged area near the building’s iron gate. She was taken to hospital, where doctors declared her dead, the newspaper reported.

The incident came a day after a 26-year-old sweet shop worker, Mustafa Shaikh, died after being electrocuted in Bhiwandi.

Also read: Mumbai man dies after falling into manhole, third rain-related fatality this week

Monsoon in Delhi

The southwest monsoon arrived in Delhi on Thursday, five days later than its normal onset date of June 27.

The weather department said that it is for the first time since 2021 that monsoon had arrived in July.

The meteorological department has forecast thunderstorms in several parts of the national capital on Friday, NDTV reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: El Niño likely to intensify as India’s monsoon advances slowly

The Congress on Thursday demanded a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader KC Venugopal said the allegations had caused “deep anguish and outrage” among millions of Indians.

He also alleged that a preliminary investigation indicated that the fraud was not the work of “few rogue employees” but was “orchestrated with the complicity of higher-ups instead”.

Further, Venugopal questioned the probe by the Special Investigation Team constituted by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh on June 13. He said the SIT and the first information filed in the matter on June 25 were an “eyewash”.

“A state-appointed SIT is neither equipped nor institutionally independent to investigate individuals wielding immense political institutional influence,” the Congress leader said in his letter.

He added that there was “growing apprehension” that the probe was a means to “erase the remaining evidence while shielding the ‘big fish’ who allegedly orchestrated this multi-crore embezzlement”.

On June 23, the SIT submitted its preliminary report to the Uttar Pradesh government. The contents of the report have not been made public.

However, unidentified persons aware of its contents told The Indian Express that the report highlighted alleged lapses, inadequate supervision and negligence in the handling, maintenance and counting of donated cash and valuables.

The SIT is expected to submit a final report next week.

On June 25, an FIR was filed against eight persons based on a complaint by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which manages the temple. All eight accused have been arrested.

A day later, the trust’s general secretary, Champat Rai, and trustee Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” amid the controversy.

In his letter on Thursday, Venugopal noted that the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, constituted by the Union government in 2020, is a public trust and should be “held to the highest standards of probity, transparency and accountability”.

“It is therefore the moral responsibility of the government and of you as its head to restore the faith of over 1.4 billion Indians in the government’s intent and ability to safeguard donations and preserve the sanctity of an institution established in the name of the Lord Ram,” the Congress leader said in his letter.

The Ram temple in Ayodhya was built on the site of the Babri Masjid, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born.

In 2019, the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque was illegal but handed over the land to a trust for a Ram temple to be constructed. At the same time, it directed that a five-acre plot in Ayodhya be allotted to Muslims for a mosque to be built.

The Ram temple was inaugurated in a ceremony led by Modi in January 2024.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• An SBI manager questioned in Ayodhya ‘theft’ case was a tenant of Ram temple trustee

• The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya

• In Ayodhya, it’s Sangh Parivar vs Sangh Parivar as Ram temple fund ‘theft’ charges blow up

The Chhattisgarh High Court on Thursday clarified that no student can be compelled to recite Hindu prayers in a government school, Bar and Bench reported.

It was hearing a petition challenging a June 12 order by the Bharatiya Janata Party government directing state-run schools to mandate that prayers such as the Saraswati Vandana and the Gayatri Mantra be recited daily from the new academic session.

The court noted the state government’s submission that although the circular was issued in June, it had not yet been implemented.

In view of this, the court disposed of the petition while granting the petitioners liberty to approach it again if any child is compelled to recite the prayers. It added that appropriate action would be taken if such a case is brought to its notice.

The June 12 circular had directed government schools in Chhattisgarh to follow a structured daily routine centred on “intellectual development and cultural awareness”, The New Indian Express reported.

The circular mandated the recital of the national anthem, the national song, the Deep Mantra, the Saraswati Vandana and the Guru Mantra during morning assembly. It also ordered that the Bhojan Mantra be recited before mid-day meals, and the Gayatri Mantra and Shanti Mantra before the students leave the school.

Chhattisgarh Waqf Board Chairperson Abdul Salam Rizvi, former Minority Department Chairperson Mahendra Chhabda and Bilaspur-based activist Shafique Ahmed challenged the order in court.

Their petition argued that the circular violated the constitutional principle of secularism and fundamental rights. It also contended that it had failed to protect students who did not wish to participate in religious observances, Bar and Bench reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Tanya Thakur makes her way to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar every night.

The 17-year-old distributes water bottles among the protestors camping there to ask for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. She picks up trash left behind by other visitors.

When not performing these duties, she borrows books to read from the stalls set up by left-wing student outfits or chats with other young protestors.

“I worry that if I don’t come one day, others will also stop coming and the site will be empty,” she said.

Thakur recently finished her school education in Himachal Pradesh. An aspiring chef, she came to stay with her sister in Delhi because she was keen to take part in the protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party.

The fledgling outfit started as a satirical social media campaign but has now organised protests in at least eight major Indian cities. It draws its support mostly from young people angry with the Modi government for repeatedly failing to hold examinations for medical college seats and government jobs in a secure manner.

It first staged a protest on June 6 at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Then, on June 20, its leaders decided to turn its second protest in the city into a sit-in. Since then, around 150 protestors, many of whom have travelled from distant cities, can be found at the site at any time.

Scroll visited Jantar Mantar over several days to speak to the young protestors and find out why they felt so invested in the protest and how they were keeping it going.

‘A lot of fun’

Thakur, known to her friends as Rosie, said that she was drawn to the campaign because her close friends had been affected by recent instances of paper leaks.

“My friend came to Kullu all the way from Chandigarh to sit for the NEET [National Eligibility cum Entrance Test] exam,” she recalled. “I felt really bad for her when her paper leaked out and the exam was cancelled.”

So, she joined the protest to raise her voice against what she sees as corruption on the part of the government. Not that she had any hopes from opposition parties, she added.

Thakur began volunteering at the site from the first night itself. She is among the handful of women who spend the night at the sit-in.

She shows up at the protest site after sunset every day and leaves for her sister’s home in the southern neighbourhood of Malviya Nagar around daybreak. She said that she felt safe at the protest, where the nights are anything but dull.

“Something or the other is always going on here,” she pointed out. “Seeing people sing protest songs is a lot of fun. We don’t have all this in Himachal Pradesh. I had only heard of comrades before this.”

Vivek Kumar, 19, concurred. Even though there is no dearth of left-wing activists in Bihar, where he comes from, his own circumstances had kept him away from university politics.

Kumar wanted to become an engineer, but a health condition left his father incapacitated and he had to step up to the task of providing for his parents and younger brother. For the past year, he has taken up several different jobs in Noida and Gurugram. He also drives a motorbike taxi at night to supplement his income.

However, since the Cockroach Janta Party sit-in began on June 20, Kumar has been camping at Jantar Mantar. “I could not continue my studies so I know the value of education,” he said. “Students from poor families take loans to study. They are worst affected by paper leaks. I have come here for them.”

Although he was losing out on work and wages, Kumar was not too worried. Supporters of the campaign show up every day with food for the protestors. For a shower, he walks down to the nearby Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, which is 800 metres away. When he suffered a finger injury recently, a doctor present on the spot treated it immediately.

For Kumar, being at the protest was itself proving to be an education. “I am learning a lot from talking to the arts students here,” he said. “They think very deeply about everything and respond to arguments calmly. I am not like this.”

The experience has inspired Kumar to start his own political party in the future. “I am treating it like a course for becoming a politician,” he stated. He, too, borrows books from the stalls at the site. The books he has read so far were about Bhagat Singh, Mohandas Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar, he added.

Recording reels, making history

Not everybody supporting the cause is immersed in reading. Mohammed Faizan Siddiqui, a 22-year-old filmmaker, has been making short videos about his time at Jantar Mantar ever since the Cockroach Janta Party held its first protest in Delhi.

When the organisers noticed that his videos were being viewed by lakhs of people online, they gave him access to the stage and the campaign’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke. He now puts out several videos of himself bantering with Dipke every day in addition to the updates that organisers want him to share with his audience on social media.

“I had been waiting for an initiative like this for a while,” said Siddiqui. “I knew I could make it go viral on social media because everybody knows that what is happening in this country is very wrong. Hindus and Muslims are being divided in the name of religion.”

Siddiqui dismissed criticism that the campaign was overly focused on social media, arguing that it was the only way for it to reach the masses. “The news channels are not showing us on TV at all,” he complained.

He boasted that supporters from far-off cities had joined the sit-in after watching his videos, adding that he had made several new friends there over the last two weeks.

“We have fun together here,” Siddiqui explained. “We play chess and UNO [card game]. This is like our home now. If we succeed in this struggle, we will be able to brag about it years later.”

Ruchith Asha Kamal, 21, also framed his participation in the protest in similar historical terms. He had come from Hyderabad to extend his support to the campaign because his younger sister was affected by the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test paper leak in May. Before he came to Delhi, he had helped the Cockroach Janta Party organise a gathering in his home city too.

“I love movements, I love to see people resisting,” the law student and budding environmental activist said. “Whether this becomes a wave or not, we will continue to organise people. For me, looking at this is an education in how patterns come and go.”

Questions that loom

Older protestors at the site were less buoyant.

Durgesh Kuhike, a 28-year-old actor who owns a mobile phone shop in Nagpur, came for the sit-in with three sets of clothes and a pair of crocs. The first time Scroll met him on June 22, he claimed that he was prepared to stay in Jantar Mantar for up to two weeks. But five days later, he was preparing to return home.

“My mother is not well,” Kuhike explained, adding that he would come back in a few days if the protest continues.

“Do you know if the cabinet reshuffle is happening?” he asked, echoing widespread speculation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to make significant changes in the composition of his government.

“We will have nothing left to say if Pradhan is removed from the education ministry,” Kuhike said. If the education minister was given another portfolio, their protest would have made no difference, he contended.

Should they be asking for Pradhan to be dropped from the cabinet altogether? Or should they be demanding more substantial interventions that lead to systemic change? Those were the questions bothering him.

Others shared his disquiet.

Sheetal Choudhary, 29, teaches at a school in Ghaziabad. She came to the protest with her partner, Saurabh Yadav, who is a lawyer by profession. Both of them expressed concern that left activists had “hijacked” the sit-in and were using it as an opportunity to promote their outfits.

“They should rise above these organisational considerations for the sake of making this a people’s movement,” Yadav argued.

Choudhary had personally suffered on account of paper leaks and delays. A recruitment drive for teachers in Delhi that she took part in three years ago wound up only earlier this year.

“Our presence here is important to keep the organisers motivated,” she said.

But, like Kuhike, she wondered what would become of their efforts if Pradhan was shifted to another ministry or dropped from the Modi cabinet. “Will it be considered our victory?” she asked.

With questions such as these looming over it, the sit-in continues for now.

Protesting against the decisions of the government or shouting slogans against it are not grounds to expel a citizen from an area, the Bombay High Court observed on Thursday while quashing an externment order against a political leader.

Justice Madhav Jamdar set aside an order issued by Chembur deputy commissioner of police in Mumbai that directed Maharashtra General Secretary of the Socialist Democratic Party of India Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary to stay out of the city and adjoining areas for one year.

During the hearing, the judge asked why slogans such as “BJP government murdabad”, or down with BJP government, and “Amit Shah murdabad” had attracted an externment order against Chaudhary, Bar and Bench reported.

The judge verbally observed that police officers are accountable to the public and not to ministers, the legal news outlet reported.

“The action taken [by the state] of externing the petitioner, merely for opposing certain decisions of the government of India, affects the petitioner’s fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression and also right to live with dignity,” the judge held in his order.

The court also noted that there have been several protests in the country recently, including against the paper leak of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test. “Will you pass such orders against them too?” the Hindustan Times quoted the court as having asked the prosecution.

Chaudhary, a resident of Chembur, has organised protests on matters such as the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens, alleged corruption in the waqf board and fuel price hikes, Bar and Bench reported.

Externment proceedings against him were initiated in October under the Maharashtra Police Act based on several first information reports registered between 2019 and 2024.

The FIRs were linked to protests organised by him, and accused Chaudhary under a section of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to disobeying an order issued by a public authority.

In December, the deputy commissioner of police directed that Chaudhary be externed from Mumbai for 12 months.

The order cited claims in the FIRs that his activities “created fear and posed a danger to public order”, the legal news outlet reported.

The order had been upheld by the divisional commissioner of the Konkan division on appeal.

Chaudhary had challenged both orders in the High Court.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

A 55-year-old man died on Thursday after falling into an open manhole in Mumbai’s Sakinaka area as heavy rains continued to lash the city.

The man, identified as Aslam Esaf Shaikh, fell into the manhole during drain maintenance work, reported The Times of India.

This is the third rain-related death in Mumbai this week. On Tuesday, an 11-year-old student was killed after a peepal tree got uprooted amid the rains and fell on a school bus. A day later, a 51-year-old man died after a portion of a building collapsed in the Walkeshwar area.

On Thursday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation stated that Shaikh was pulled out of the manhole by firemen and sent to the Rajawadi Hospital. The doctors declared him brought dead.

Ashwini Bhide, the commissioner of the civic body, suspended four officials and initiated an inquiry, according to The Times of India.

Those against whom action has been taken are Dhanaji Herlekar, assistant commissioner of L Ward, Deepak Chougule, assistant/deputy engineer (maintenance) of the ward, Abhijit Chougule, junior engineer (maintenance) of the ward and Uttam Patil, assistant engineer in the Sewerage Operations Department.

The civic corporation has also instructed all departments to erect barricades on all sides of a manhole during maintenance work, reported The Times of India.

Bhide has also instructed all 26 administrative wards to ensure that all manholes in the city are inspected in the next eight days and to submit a compliance report.

This came as the India Meteorological Department issued a red alert for the city, forecasting heavy to very heavy rainfall during the day. In the last 24 hours, several areas in Mumbai reported 200 mm of rainfall.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

At least 29 houses were set on fire in separate incidents in Kuki and Tangkhul Naga villages in Manipur near the India-Myanmar border on Wednesday, said an Assam Rifles official.

Officials said that unidentified persons set fire to all 15 houses in Phaimol, a Kuki village, in Kamjong district at around 12.30 pm, The Times of India reported. The village had already been evacuated because of security concerns and its residents are temporarily staying at Aishi village, where an Assam Rifles camp is located.

At about 1.45 pm, armed persons set fire to Shangkhalok, a Tangkhul Naga village, in Kamjong district, in what officials described as an apparent retaliatory attack, the newspaper reported. Around seven houses were partially burnt but saved.

In a third incident, around seven houses in Huimine Thana, a Tangkhul Naga village between Shangkhalok and Phaikoh, in Kamjong district were also set on fire, allegedly by Kuki militants, the newspaper reported.

No one was killed or injured in the incidents, the newspaper quoted the police as saying.

A fourth incident was reported on Thursday morning in the Kuki village of Liekot in Noney district, said the Kuki Inpi Manipur, an apex Kuki body.

The Kuki body claimed that alleged Naga militants attacked Leikot around 5 am using automatic weapons before setting the village on fire.

On Wednesday, the Kuki Inpi alleged that cadres of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), or NSCN-IM, and the Myanmar-based Shanni Nationalities Army had carried out the attack on Phaimol.

It alleged that the attack was part of a “systemic campaign of violence and destruction targeting Kuki villages in the Tangkhul-dominated hill districts” of the state.

The Kuki CSO Working Committee in Kamjong also accused armed Naga groups of carrying out the attack on Phaimol.

The committee claimed that a similar attack had taken place in Kultuh village on June 11.

“These repeated acts of arson, intimidation and violence constitute a serious violation of human rights, threaten peace and public safety and undermine the rule of law,” the committee said on Wednesday. “Such actions have caused fear, displacement and suffering among innocent civilians.”

Meanwhile, Naga organisations rejected the allegations and accused Kuki armed groups of carrying out a “strategic” attack on a Kuki village.

The Eastern Command Naga Village Guard said Phaimol had been “advertently set on fire to establish a basis for preplanned attack on two Tanghkhul Naga settlements”.

It alleged that about 20 armed Kuki men crossed the Namya River from Phaikoh and set fire to houses in the two villages. It also claimed that 20 camps sheltering 365 Myanmar refugees at Kherongram were also destroyed.

The organisation claimed that the attacks took place in the presence of personnel from the Assam Rifles, Border Security Force, Indian Reserve Battalion and Manipur Police stationed nearby.

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.

‘Result of Modi government’s divisive ideology’

On Thursday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the fresh tensions in Manipur were the result of the Narendra Modi government’s “divisive ideology, which divides people in the name of religion, caste, language, region, and identity”.

“Even with two governments and president's rule, the conflict is only deepening,” the MP said on social media. “Thousands have lost their lives, countless families have been shattered – the unbearable agony Manipur is enduring is hard even to imagine.”

He added: “Today, not just Manipur but the entire country has given up hope of even two words of empathy from the prime minister, let alone any action.”

मणिपुर सालों से जल रहा है, और आज फिर नफ़रत और हिंसा की आग में 20 घर राख हो गए।

दो सरकारों और राष्ट्रपति शासन के बावजूद संघर्ष गहराता ही जा रहा है। हज़ारों लोग अपनी जान गंवा चुके हैं, अनगिनत परिवार उजड़ गए हैं - मणिपुर जिस असहनीय पीड़ा से गुज़र रहा है, उसकी कल्पना भी मुश्किल है।… pic.twitter.com/oT8d2N4Ord

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 2, 2026

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 the President’s Rule for a year until Yumnam Khemchand Singh took oath as chief minister on February 4.

Written by Sara Varghese. Inputs from Rokibuz Zaman. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

At least 29 houses were set on fire in separate incidents in Kuki and Tangkhul Naga villages in Manipur near the India-Myanmar border. Four attacks were reported between Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday morning, with Kuki and Naga organisations blaming each other.

The attacks took place in the Kuki villages of Phaimol and Liekot, and in the Tangkhul Naga villages of Shangkhalok and Huimine Thana.

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 then. Read on.

India and Japan agreed to boost their partnership in the fields of artificial intelligence, energy resilience and economic security. This came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi, who is on a three-day visit to New Delhi.

Takaichi’s visit follows Modi’s trip to Tokyo in 2025, during which Japan pledged to more than double its investment in India to more than $61 billion in the next decade. Trade between New Delhi and Tokyo in the financial year 2025-’26 had topped $27 billion.

India and Japan are part of the Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which also comprises the United States and Australia. Read on.

Seven workers were killed after a boulder collapsed at a stone quarry on the outskirts of Bengaluru. Six others were injured and several more workers are feared trapped under the debris.

The incident occurred around 7.30 am at a stone quarry in Madapattana village, located in Bengaluru South taluk. The boulder collapsed from a height of about 40 feet at the spot where workers were operating machinery.

At least 20 labourers, most of them migrants from Bihar and from Karnataka’s Yadgir district, were working at the site. Read on.

Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar was released from prison because of political pressure and not due to the mercy petitions he wrote to the British administration, his grandnephew Satyaki Savarkar told a Pune court. He said that VD Savarkar was released from jail due to “efforts made in National Assembly in 1937”.

The case stems from a complaint filed by Satyaki Savarkar in April 2023 against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of making false and malicious remarks about the Hindutva ideologue during an event in London in March 2023. Read on.

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India and Japan on Thursday agreed to boost their partnership in the fields of artificial intelligence, energy resilience and economic security, reported Reuters.

The agreements were ​signed after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi, who is on a three-day visit to New Delhi.

After the talks, Takaichi told reporters that building “such a mutually complementary cooperative relationship has become increasingly important” amid an increasingly turbulent international landscape.

Her visit follows Modi’s trip to Tokyo in 2025, during which Japan pledged to more than double its investment in India to more than $61 billion in the next decade, reported Reuters.

Citing figures from India, AFP reported that trade between New Delhi and Tokyo in the financial year 2025-’26 topped $27 billion.

India and Japan are part of the Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which also comprises the United States and Australia.

On Thursday, Modi said that the countries had prepared a joint roadmap for economic security by strengthening supply chain resilience in areas such as semiconductors, according to PTI.

To ensure energy security, India and Japan will set up a thousand bio-gas and organic fertiliser plants in India, he added.

The two countries also agreed to work more closely on critical minerals to boost resilience in their supply chains, reported AFP.

In May, the Quad also announced initiatives to improve collaboration on critical minerals and emerging technology.

The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework is designed to help the four countries coordinate investments to strengthen critical mineral supply chains.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Seven workers were killed after a boulder collapsed at a stone quarry on the outskirts of Bengaluru on Thursday, said Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.

Six others were also injured and have been shifted to a hospital, reported The Indian Express.

Several more workers are feared trapped under the debris, and rescue operations are ongoing, the newspaper quoted an unidentified police officer as saying.

The incident occurred around 7.30 am at a stone quarry in Madapattana village, located in Bengaluru South taluk.

The boulder collapsed from a height of about 40 feet at the spot where workers were operating machinery. At least 20 labourers, most of them migrants from Bihar and from Karnataka’s Yadgir district, were working at the site, reported The Hindu.

The quarry reportedly belongs to a man identified as Anandaswamy, who has been taken into custody, said the police. A case is yet to be registered, reported The Indian Express.

Shivakumar said the government was waiting for a detailed report on the boulder collapse and that further action wou;d be taken based on it.

The police and the Mines and Geology Department have already visited the site, the chief minister told reporters.

“It is also being ascertained whether the quarry was operating legally and whether all safety regulations were followed,” he added.

Shivakumar also said that a decision on the compensation for the victims would be taken after confirming the toll.

“First, we need clarity on how many people have died and what exactly happened,” he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. “Announcing compensation in haste will not bring the deceased back. There is a proper procedure for this. The victims will definitely be compensated. It is also important to ensure that such incidents do not recur.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar was released from prison because of political pressure and not due to the mercy petitions he wrote to the British colonial administration, his grandnephew Satyaki Savarkar claimed before a Pune court on Monday, reported Bar and Bench.

Satyaki Savarkar made the statement during his cross-examination before Special Judge Amol Shinde in a criminal defamation trial against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The case stems from a complaint filed by Satyaki Savarkar in April 2023 against Gandhi, accusing him of making false and malicious remarks about the Hindutva ideologue during an event in London in March 2023.

On Wednesday, he told the court that VD Savarkar was released from jail due to “efforts made in National Assembly in 1937”, reported Bar and Bench.

VD Savarkar was lodged at the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar islands from 1911 from 1921. He was then transferred to the Ratnagiri jail in present-day Maharashtra, from where he was granted conditional release in 1924. From 1924 to 1937, Savarkar was confined to the Ratnagiri district and was barred from taking part in politics.

During the cross-examination on Monday, Satyaki Savarar also claimed that the Kakinada session of the Indian National Congress in 1923 had passed a resolution to release VD Savarkar. “Because popularity of Savarkar was increasing day by day and public pressure was increasing for his release,” the court recorded him as saying, according to Bar and Bench.

He further said that similar efforts could have also saved freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru from being executed.

On the mercy petitions, Satyaki Savarkar said he could not confirm whether VD Savarkar had requested that he be released from jail on the condition that he would not participate in any political movement.

The cross-examination will continue on July 7.

During the previous hearing on June 15, Satyaki Savarkar had told the court that VD Savarkar filed 10 mercy petitions before the British colonial administration.

However, he rejected the suggestion that filing clemency petitions was inconsistent with the Hindutva ideologue’s title of “veer”, or heroic.

He further stated that clemency petitions were part of “a standard procedure under the British government” and that many prisoners used the mechanism to seek remission or reduction of sentences.

He acknowledged, however, that several other freedom fighters of the period, including Rajguru, Singh, Batukeshwar Dutt and Ashfaqulla Khan, did not submit clemency petitions.

Satyaki Savarkar had told the court that the British government rejected all of Savarkar’s petitions and feared that he would rejoin revolutionary activities if released.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Fact check: Did VD Savarkar write mercy petitions on Gandhi’s advice, as Rajnath Singh claimed?

Uttarakhand on Wednesday abolished its statutory madrasa board and brought educational institutions run by all six notified minority communities under a single regulatory authority, becoming the first state in India to do so, The Indian Express reported.

The Uttarakhand Minority Education Act came into force on Wednesday, repealing the 2016 Uttarakhand Madrasa Education Board Act and the 2019 Uttarakhand Non-Government Arabic and Persian Madrasa Recognition Rules.

In many parts of the Islamic world, a madrasa is an institution that imparts education – secular, or religious. In the Indian subcontinent, however, the word “madrasa” has evolved to refer solely to Islamic seminaries.

The new law establishes the Uttarakhand State Authority for Minority Education, which will regulate educational institutions run by Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Buddhists.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami inaugurated the new authority on Wednesday and said the government did not intend to “affect the identity or traditions of any community” but only aimed “to provide better educational opportunities to all sections of society”, the newspaper reported.

“The government’s effort is to ensure that children remain connected to their cultural roots while becoming proficient in science, mathematics, computers, skill development and modern education,” he added.

The state government has also introduced National Council of Educational Research and Training textbooks in minority educational institutions, The Times of India reported.

The new 12-member minority education authority includes academics from fields such as economics, psychology and law, a retired English teacher from Kumaun University, two social workers, and the directors of higher education, the state council of educational research and minority welfare.

It will oversee recognition of minority educational institutions, design academic curricula and monitor educational standards.

Under the new system, all minority educational institutions must complete a two-stage process by obtaining affiliation from the Uttarakhand Board of Education and recognition from the new authority.

Applications must be submitted online and recognition will remain valid for three academic years, after which institutions must apply for renewal.

The law based on which the body was created was passed by the Uttarakhand Assembly in August 2025.

It followed a crackdown on madrasas that the government said were operating without recognition.

In March 2025, the Uttarakhand government had sealed 136 madrasas, claiming that they were not registered with the education department or madrasa board.

At the time, officials estimated that Uttarakhand had about 452 registered madrasas alongside several hundred unrecognised institutions.

The move comes more than a year after Uttarakhand became the first state in independent India to implement a Uniform Civil Code.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read:

• How Uttarakhand is selectively targeting Muslim shrines

• The only Indian high schools that teach Aristotle and Plato

India’s fiscal deficit was Rs 1.6 lakh crore in the first two months of the 2026-’27 financial year, reaching 9.6% of the government’s annual target, the Business Standard cited government data as showing.

This was 12 times the percentage of the annual target recorded during the same period last year, when it was 0.8%.

A fiscal deficit arises when the government’s expenditure exceeds the revenue it earns in a financial year.

The increase came despite a record Rs 2.8 lakh crore surplus transfer from the Reserve Bank of India in May, the newspaper reported.

Revenue receipts fell to Rs 6.9 lakh crore in April and May from Rs 7 lakh crore a year earlier, according to data released by the Controller General of Accounts on Tuesday.

Both tax revenue and non-tax revenue declined by 1% year on year. Total receipts fell 2% to Rs 7.1 lakh crore, or nearly 20% of the government’s annual revenue target, the Business Standard reported.

Within tax revenue, excise duty collections fell nearly 20% to Rs 2.1 lakh crore. In March, the government cut the special additional excise duty on petrol to Rs 3 per litre from Rs 13 per litre and on diesel to zero from Rs 10.

At the same time, government spending increased. Total expenditure rose 18% year on year to Rs 8.8 lakh crore, while revenue expenditure increased 20% to Rs 6.3 lakh crore, Business Standard reported.

Capital expenditure, which includes spending on infrastructure and other long-term projects, rose more than 13% to Rs 2.5 lakh crore, Reuters reported.

This means the government has already spent about 21% of its full-year capital expenditure target of Rs 12.2 lakh crore in the first two months of the 2026-’27 financial year, Business Standard reported.

In May alone, the government recorded a fiscal surplus of nearly Rs 2 lakh crore after receiving the RBI’s record surplus transfer.

The payment lifted non-tax revenue for the month by nearly 13% to Rs 3.2 lakh crore.

This is the third consecutive year that the government has recorded a fiscal surplus in May because of the central bank’s dividend.

Every year, the central bank pays a dividend to the government to help with the finances from its surplus or profit. It serves as a key source of revenue for the government.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

A Muslim judge in Madhya Pradesh’s Narmadapuram district has received death threats and faced communal abuse after she sentenced seven men to life imprisonment in a 2022 case where a truck driver was assaulted by a group that claimed he was a cattle smuggler, Bar and Bench reported on Wednesday.

On June 12, Additional District and Sessions Judge Tabassum Khan sentenced seven men for killing truck driver Sheikh Lala Nazir Ahmed in Barakhar village of Seoni Malwa tehsil.

Soon after, videos containing death threats and communal slurs were shared on social media, Bar and Bench reported. Videos also showed effigies of the judge being burnt in some of the protests.

On June 23, the police registered a first information report against unidentified persons under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to promoting enmity and using words to deliberately hurt religious feelings, Newslaundry reported.

Narmadapuram Additional Superintendent of Police Abhishek Ranjan told The Indian Express that the judge’s security has been increased while the investigation is underway.

“The accused are yet to be identified,” Ranjan was quoted as saying. “We are taking the help of various units to track down those behind the social media posts.”

Congress leader Vivek Tankha condemned the abuse faced by Khan and said the “silence of the higher judiciary and the government” was “more shocking” than the hate campaign itself, Bar and Bench reported.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association issued a statement saying that it “unequivocally condemns the threats and targeted social media campaign” against Khan.

“Judicial orders are to be challenged before appellate courts, not through intimidation, vilification or threats against judges,” the association said. “Such conduct strikes at the very foundation of judicial independence and the rule of law.”

It added: “If judges are made to fear personal consequences for decisions rendered in accordance with law, it can have a serious negative impact on the independence and functioning of the district courts.”

The case

On August 2, 2022, Nazir Ahmed and two others were transporting cattle from Nandarwada village to Maharashtra when their vehicle was intercepted near Barakhad by a mob armed with sticks and wooden rods, Bar and Bench quoted the prosecution as saying.

Ahmed later died of his injuries, while the two others survived.

In her judgement, Khan held that the prosecution had proved the charges beyond reasonable doubt.

Despite the two surviving occupants turning hostile during the trial, the court relied on medical and forensic evidence, along with the recovery of blood-stained weapons and clothing, Bar and Bench reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Union government has asked WhatsApp to pause the rollout of its new username feature, which would allow users to connect with contacts without sharing their phone numbers, the Hindustan Times reported on Thursday.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a notice to the messaging platform, citing concerns that the feature could increase impersonation, identity theft, phishing and online fraud.

The notice came after WhatsApp announced on Monday that users can reserve a unique username ahead of the feature’s launch “later this year”.

In response to the government’s concerns, WhatsApp said that, to protect against misuse, usernames associated with public figures, government entities, celebrities and verified accounts on its parent company Meta’s platforms had been reserved so they could only be claimed by their legitimate owners, The Indian Express reported.

In its notice, the ministry directed WhatsApp not to roll out the feature “until the consultation on this point is achieved to the satisfaction of the government” and asked the company to explain its plans within three days, the Hindustan Times reported.

It said that the feature could enable bad actors to solicit and message potential victims, increasing the risk of digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks.

The ministry added that usernames resembling those of public authorities, financial institutions and government agencies could “facilitate impersonation and identity spoofing”.

However, a WhatsApp spokesperson said that the users would still need a phone number to create and use an account, The Indian Express reported. The spokesperson added that persons would need to know a user’s exact username to contact them for the first time, with an optional username key providing an additional layer of control.

Meanwhile, digital rights organisation The Internet Freedom Foundation criticised the government’s notice on Wednesday, arguing that it “has no clear basis in law”.

Statement on MeitY's notice to WhatsApp over the "usernames" feature

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has sent WhatsApp a notice about the usernames feature it announced on 29 June 2026. The notice asks the company to explain, within three days, why… pic.twitter.com/OZYfoIT1yE

— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) July 1, 2026

The organisation said that neither the Information Technology Act nor the Information Technology Rules give the Centre the power to approve or block product features before they are launched.

“It is an attempt by the executive to decide what a company may build and ship, which no statute permits,” the organisation added.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

More than 100 prominent citizens from India and Pakistan wrote to the prime ministers of both countries on Tuesday, urging them to resume dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir and to work on creating lasting peace in the region, reported The Indian Express.

They also called for restoring full diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, reinstating high commissioners in both capital cities and resuming normal visa services for citizens of the countries.

India had revoked all visas for Pakistani citizens on April 27, 2025, following the Pahalgam terror attack, which had killed 26 persons on April 22, 2025. In retaliation, Pakistan suspended all visas issued to Indians under the SAARC exemption scheme.

India and Pakistan had also expelled diplomats working at the High Commissions in New Delhi and Islamabad.

Following Pakistan’s downgrade of diplomatic ties with India in August 2019 over New Delhi’s decision to abrogate the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, both countries’ diplomatic missions have been led by chargés d’affaires instead of high commissioners.

The letter on Tuesday was signed by 61 persons from India, including National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti, Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha, Kashmir chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the Congress’ Mani Shankar Aiyar and ex-chief of the Research and Analysis Wing AS Dulat, reported The Hindu.

On the Pakistani side, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, ex-diplomat Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, diplomat Shamsher Ahmed Khan and artist Beena Sarwar were among the 56 signatories.

“India and Pakistan together are home to nearly one-fifth of humanity,” The Indian Express quoted the letter as stating. “A large proportion of our population is young…The people of both countries deserve a future defined by peace, development, connectivity and cooperation, rather than perpetual mistrust and confrontation.”

The group asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif to revisit the framework on Jammu and Kashmir, negotiated between 2004 and 2007, towards demilitarisation and de-escalation, while addressing “legitimate security concerns of both countries”.

Between 2004 and 2007, India and Pakistan had engaged in negotiations to produce the closest-ever breakthrough on Jammu and Kashmir through an informal “four-point formula”.

It would have included a gradual reduction of troops on both sides of the Line of Control, granting local autonomy to Kashmir without altering international borders, creating mechanisms for seamless movement of persons and free trade, and establishing a joint oversight body to manage cross-border matters.

Additionally, in the letter on Tuesday, the group also advocated for reopening the Attari-Wagah land border, and resuming the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Delhi-Lahore bus services.

The bus services were suspended in 2019. The Attari-Wagah land border remains indefinitely closed to general civilian and tourist travel between India and Pakistan. The crossing was shut down following the Pahalgam terror attacks.

The group also said that the airspace, which was shut after the Pahalgam attack, should also be opened for commercial airlines to reduce travel time and costs.

“This appeal is not an endorsement of any political position,” The Hindu quoted the letter as saying. “It is a call to place the welfare, aspirations and future of nearly two billion people above conflict, confrontation, and division.”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

On June 28, Seychelles President Patrick Herminie draped a brand new presidential distinction round Narendra Modi’s neck: the “Guardian of the Blue Horizon”. Modi was its first recipient. He will, in all likelihood, also be its only one.

The Seychelles cabinet had approved the honour a mere three days before the ceremony. The citation was riddled with errors: “Republic” became “Repubblic”. “Seychelles” turned into “Seycheeles”.

A technology journalist reported that the certificate image carried a SynthID signature, suggesting it had been produced using an AI image generator.

Neither the Seychelles government nor India’s Ministry of External Affairs posted the citation on their official websites, a curious omission for a state honour bestowed on a sitting prime minister.

Seychelles officials later offered an explanation. Their old honours framework had become politically contentious and had been repealed by the National Assembly, forcing the government to draft a fresh system in a hurry. Modi’s visit served as the convenient occasion to launch it.

That account may well be true. However, it does not explain the typos, the apparent AI generation or why a 50-year-old nation marking its golden jubilee could not produce a clean certificate for a visiting head of government.

This was not an isolated embarrassment. Four months earlier, on February 25, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana presented Modi with the “Medal of the Knesset” after his address to the Israeli parliament. This too was newly minted, with no prior recipients, no published regulations and, according to Israeli opposition lawmakers cited by Middle East Eye, no committee or presidential approval process behind it.

Opposition members in the Knesset accused Ohana of inventing the award for the occasion, turning the parliament into an instrument of government public relations.

A rare honour. A defining moment.

Hon’ble PM Shri @narendramodi Ji has been conferred with the Speaker of the Knesset Medal, the highest honour of the Israeli Parliament.

This recognition rises above ceremony. It reflects the strength of India-Israel friendship and the enhanced… pic.twitter.com/BKWAKL11L5

— Rekha Gupta (@gupta_rekha) February 25, 2026

These honours are part of a long list of awards that Modi has collected from foreign states over the past decade: Russia’s Order of St Andrew the Apostle, Saudi Arabia’s Order of Abdulaziz Al Saud, Bahrain’s King Hamad Order of the Renaissance and the UAE’s Order of Zayed, among them.

These longstanding state decorations have real institutional histories and have been awarded to several world leaders over the decades. But they speak less to Modi’s personal qualities than to an underlying balance sheet.

Roughly nine million Indian workers power Gulf economies with their labour and send home remittances that keep Indian households afloat, while Gulf crude supplies much of the oil consumed by India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer.

Russia, for its part, remains India’s largest arms supplier and, since 2022, its biggest source of discounted oil.

Yet the Seychelles and Knesset honours are different. They were built, apparently from scratch, around the timing of Modi’s visit and have not been awarded to anyone else since.

Why go to this trouble? The uncharitable but increasingly hard to dismiss reading is that foreign states have understood something about India’s prime minister: that ceremonial flattery earns disproportionate goodwill from Modi, which translates into real outcomes.

Modi’s Seychelles trip coincided with India extending a $125 million credit line and $50 million in grant assistance to the island nation, on top of patrol vessels, ambulances, rice and cement. Whether the award smoothened the way for the aid package or merely accompanied it is impossible to prove.

PM Modi hands over ambulances to Seychelles President Patrick Herminie pic.twitter.com/qLe37P2h1S

— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) June 27, 2026

The Israeli case illustrates the same dynamic. India has been Israel’s largest arms buyer for years, accounting for around a third of all weapons exported by Israel – and a flow that has continued uninterrupted through the genocide in Gaza even as several European governments faced public pressure to scale back.

Modi’s Knesset visit in February, which produced the freshly invented medal, was followed by reports of proposed defence deals worth an estimated $10 billion covering missile defence, drones and joint production. India’s Supreme Court has twice declined to intervene in petitions seeking to halt arms exports to Israel, and New Delhi has repeatedly abstained on United Nations resolutions critical of Israeli conduct in Gaza.

While none of this proves the medal bought anything, it does show a relationship in which ceremonial warmth and substantial material favour move in lockstep, with remarkably little public scrutiny of either.

Unlike established state honours, the Knesset “medal” and the Seychelles title are similar to another award conferred on Modi some years ago.

In January 2019, Modi received the inaugural “Philip Kotler Presidential Award” from the World Marketing Summit, an organisation with no published jury or disclosed selection process and was tied to an obscure Aligarh-based company. The award has never been conferred on anyone else, before or since.

In all three cases, a foreign institution invented a distinction with no known precedent and conferred it on Modi as its sole recipient. Each honour was wrapped in superlatives about leadership, vision and friendship. Yet, on closer inspection, they appeared to be something assembled specifically for the occasion.

The Kotler “award” differs only because the World Marketing Summit was a private outfit. There was no bilateral relationship to lubricate. What it shared with the other two was the absence of any discernible institutional process, and Modi’s willingness to accept the title regardless.

When amplified through official publicity and partisan media, such honours serve to sustain the image of a leader uniquely admired on the world stage, which may help explain why they are so readily accepted.

More importantly, it is the opacity surrounding these episodes that should concern anyone who cares about how Indian public money and strategic commitments are decided. Under the present dispensation, foreign and security policy runs heavily through the Prime Minister’s Office, with cabinet ministries and the diplomatic bureaucracy increasingly reduced to executing decisions taken at the very top.

When that much power sits with one office, and that office shows an appetite for ceremonial validation, foreign governments potentially gain a cheap lever. A medal costs a government almost nothing to mint, unlike a trade concession, a defence contract or a development package that would ordinarily be subjected to competitive bidding and parliamentary oversight.

A democracy should treat such episodes as a warning rather than a triumph. What did India quietly give away each time a fresh medal was hung round the prime minister’s neck? And which democratic institution, if any, exercised due diligence?

Far from being a matter of national pride, this is a matter that ought to worry every citizen who expects a democratic government to be accountable rather than merely decorated.

Vishal R Choradiya is an assistant professor with the Department of Professional Studies, Christ University, Bengaluru.

Vegetables and eggs were hurled at a Trinamool Congress office in West Bengal’s Krishnanagar while party MP Mahua Moitra was inside.

In a video on social media, Moitra said that “goons” from the Bharatiya Janata Party were responsible.

Moitra represents Krishnanagar in the Lok Sabha.

This was the latest in a series of attacks on Trinamool Congress leaders since the BJP came to power in West Bengal on May 4. Trinamool Congress National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee was attacked by a mob with eggs and stones during a visit to Sonarpur on May 30, while TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee alleged on the next day that he was also attacked in the Hooghly district.

On Wednesday, Moitra shared a video on social media in which a group of persons could be seen outside the office, throwing eggs and shouting slogans. The police were also present at the spot.

“This is a BJP mob that has been standing here for the past one hour,” the MP says in the video. “I have called the DGP [director general of police]. The police are sitting and watching. The CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force] is sitting and watching.”

Currently being attacked by @bjp4india goons with @wbpolice watching on.@MamataOfficial @RahulGandhi @akhliesh @supriya_sule @mkstalin @ArvindKejriwal pic.twitter.com/eD2gYU0NPx

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) July 1, 2026

Minutes later, she shared another video in which some persons were seen carrying BJP flags.

“These are no public outbursts,” Moitra wrote on social media. “These are coordinated BJP attacks. See the BJP flags.”

These are no public outbursts. These are coordinated BJP attacks. See the BJP flags pic.twitter.com/yrGYoaabB9

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) July 1, 2026

The TMC alleged that West Bengal has been “spiralling into unchecked violence, fear, and absolute anarchy every single day” since the BJP came to power in the state.

On May 4, the BJP defeated the TMC in the state polls, ending the party’s 15-year rule in West Bengal.

“They came to power loudly promising ‘Nari Suraksha’ [women’s safety], but it now appears that this so-called protection is reserved only for BJP’s own workers,” alleged the party.

It described the attack on Moitra’s office as “disturbing” and asked if it had become “the new normal for BJP-backed hooligans to gather anywhere and violently target anyone they please”.

“One thing stands absolutely exposed – these are not ordinary citizens,” claimed the TMC. “These are BJP-backed goons, emboldened and shielded by a complicit administration.”

With @BJP4Bengal in power, #Bengal is spiralling into unchecked violence, fear, and absolute anarchy every single day. They came to power loudly promising "Nari Suraksha", but it now appears that this so-called protection is reserved only for BJP's own workers.

In a shocking and… https://t.co/eADYZtEZQI

— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) July 1, 2026

Written by Sneha. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government asked the Delhi Gymkhana Club to explain why it should not be evicted from its 27.3-acre premises in central Delhi. The club has been told to respond to the show cause notice by July 7.

The club’s continued occupation of the property was “unauthorised” after its lease ended on May 22, stated the Centre.

The Delhi Gymkhana is one of the national capital’s oldest and most exclusive social and sporting clubs. The property was leased in 1928 to the then Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club under a perpetual lease deed. Clause 4 of the lease allows the government to resume possession if the land is required for a public purpose. Read on.

Eggs and vegetables were hurled at Trinamool Congress office in West Bengal’s Krishnanagar when Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra was inside. In a social media post, she said that “goons” from the Bharatiya Janata Party were responsible. In a video she shared on social media, a group of persons were seen carrying the BJP’s flag.

The police were also at the spot. “These are no public outbursts,” Moitra wrote on social media. “These are coordinated BJP attacks. See the BJP flags.”

The TMC alleged that West Bengal has been “spiralling into unchecked violence, fear, and absolute anarchy every single day” since the BJP came to power in the state. Read on.

The Delhi High Court refused to pass an order directing the blanket takedown of allegedly defamatory content about Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha. However, the judge ordered that five “profane and vulgar” social media posts be removed, saying that they fell outside the purview of harmless satirical humour.

On a preliminary reading, the content flagged by Chadha did not violate his personality rights and was political criticism, the judge added. He asked the MP whether he could be “so sensitive” as a political leader.

In April, seven of the Aam Aadmi Party’s 10 Rajya Sabha MPs, led by Chadha, split from the party and joined the BJP’s legislature unit in the Upper House. Chadha had moved the court against several social media posts, flagging content that alleged that he had sold himself for money. Read more.

The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin Act came into effect, with the Union government notifying revised wage rates under the Act. The new law replaces the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The government set the interim base wage at Rs 300 per day. This is the first time a wage floor has been set under the national rural employment guarantee programme.

The VB-G Ram G Act received presidential assent on December 21, two days after it was passed by Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties. Economists and labour rights experts have criticised the programme, saying that it consolidates decision-making with the Union government. Read on.

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Inside the narrow lanes of Shahbad Dairy, a suburb outside north-west Delhi, is a concrete maze of houses packed tightly together. Trees are scarce. A breeze is hardly able to pass through these cramped and unventilated alleys, and by afternoon, the heat is oppressive and inescapable.

Poonam and her sister-in-law Ritika, who live next door to each other, ask their kids not to play outdoors under the hot sun. But though the temperature outside is 40 degrees celsius, it feels a lot hotter indoors. The tin and concrete roofs of their houses trap heat. With no windows, there is barely any ventilation.

Had they been men, Poonam and Ritika could have changed into shorter or looser clothing. Instead, tradition dictates that they cover their bodies in multiple layers.

“This material makes you sweat more. It does not absorb sweat,” says Poonam, gesturing towards her salwar kameez and dupatta made of synthetic textiles. This forms a three-piece ensemble consisting of a long tunic, ankle-length trousers and a scarf – the dupatta – draped around the shoulders, neck and sometimes over the head.

As heatwaves become more frequent and intense, experts Dialogue Earth spoke to say wearing natural fabrics like cotton and linen is emerging as a form of heat adaptation. But for many like Poonam and Ritika, they are a luxury, costing double their synthetic counterparts.

Their family belongs to the Dalit community, a historically oppressed group of castes. Despite finishing high school, their father-in-law Paale Ram was pushed into sanitation work because of his caste, cleaning sewers like his father and grandfather before him. His sons do the same work, their family’s economic circumstances reflecting generations of exclusion from better paid and more secure livelihoods. (The Dalit families Dialogue Earth spoke to do not use last names to avoid further caste-based discrimination.)

The family’s earnings barely cover household expenses, leaving little money for clothing.

In Delhi, many of the workers most exposed to extreme heat, including sanitation and informal labourers, continue to come from historically marginalised caste communities. A 2024 analysis by The Hindu notes that nearly 70% of sewer and septic tank workers in India belong to oppressed castes.

For workers spending long hours performing physically demanding labour in hot conditions, clothing matters. But “when income is limited, food and shelter become bigger priorities,” says Afrose Farid, a professor in the Department of Textile Design at Kerala’s National Institute of Fashion Technology.

The cost of comfort

Natural fabrics such as cotton and linen are widely preferred for hot weather because of their superior moisture absorption and breathability, Farid tells Dialogue Earth. Synthetic materials like polyester and nylon can feel uncomfortable in extreme heat, particularly for those spending long hours outdoors or in poorly ventilated homes.

But the cost of polyester and cotton in India differ significantly. Dalit families struggle to reconcile that steep difference.

Paale Ram earns around Rs 35,000 a month, while Poonam’s husband, a bus conductor who also cleans sewers, earns up to Rs 40,000. Their combined income, for a family of seven, barely covers household expenses and their three children’s education.

“A cotton salwar suit [consisting of a salwar kameez and dupatta] will cost you more than Rs 1,000, whereas blended fabric or synthetic fibres will only cost you Rs 300,” says Riya, who is also from a Dalit household in Shahbad Dairy. Her husband works on the city’s sewer lines and earns Rs 15,000 a month. They have five kids, and buying them clothes made of breathable fabric has been an added expense the family never anticipated.

“Unequal access to comfortable clothing is not just poverty but a caste issue,” says Bezwada Wilson, the national convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan, an Indian organisation campaigning to eradicate manual scavenging, which means cleaning human waste from sewers by hand.

Historically, clothing has been a tool of caste discrimination, Farid notes. “Earlier, caste-based discrimination focused on giving them less clothes to wear to humiliate them. But today, they are unable to access proper clothing because of their economic conditions,” she says.

“In India, class is always … going to be affected by caste. You cannot take caste away from class,” anti-caste activist and designer Jay Sagathia tells Dialogue Earth.

Double discrimination

Marginalised communities face “double discrimination” – economic deprivation layered with caste-based exclusion that determines where services, infrastructure and dignity are available, notes Wilson, who is also from the Dalit community.

Many Dalit families working in caste-linked occupations rely on second-hand clothing or local markets that cater to low-income customers, he says. Local markets often reflect assumptions about what poor communities can afford. “Near our houses, we won’t get cotton at all because they know that we are not using this,” Wilson adds.

Despite India being one of the largest producers of cotton globally, with an industry employing up to 50 million people, the fabric remains out of reach for many low-income families.

Sagathia says during visits to craft-producing communities in Gujarat, he met artisans from marginalised communities making intricate garments that were sold at prices they themselves could not afford. “The people who are making it are not able to wear it,” he says.

Synthetic clothing could also become more ubiquitous in India through government schemes to boost the textile industry. In 2021, the government began offering companies incentives totalling over Rs 10,000 crore to expand production of manmade fabrics such as polyester, acrylic and viscose. Government officials told industry publication Apparel Resources earlier this month that the scheme could be extended by several years to accommodate more applicants.

Unequal impacts of heat

For five to six hours a day, 60-year-old Paale Ram wears a uniform made of synthetic materials to carry out his sanitation work, which involves shovelling waste from open drains near hot paved surfaces. Though it’s a simple vest worn over clothes, it traps heat, he says.

“The vest sometimes suffocates me. It is easier when I wear softer clothes in which my body can breathe while I work outside,” he says. Paale Ram has fainted twice this summer, often feels dizzy and says his eyes have been hurting. He has also had frequent bouts of diarrhoea. These symptoms have been associated with heat exhaustion.

He owns two weathered sets of cotton kurta pyjama – a long tunic paired with loose trousers – which he alternates wearing to work. “I am not sure when I can buy my next set of clothes.”

According to Sagathia, such suffering shows how labour itself is valued, and whose comfort and safety is prioritised. “If you come from an oppressed caste, your body is … disposable,” he says. Heat protection is rarely treated as part of occupational safety for informal workers, of which many belong to oppressed castes.

Beyond clothing, multiple factors intensify heat exposure for workers, like Paale Ram, in caste-based occupations, says Wilson. These include poor housing conditions, limited nutrition, irregular sleep and restricted access to water. Caste discrimination further deepens heat vulnerability, he adds; sanitation workers often cannot request drinking water while on duty due to continuing practices of untouchability.

At home, it is not any easier. The family bought a second-hand air cooler after months of saving, but “it only makes the air more humid”, Poonam says.

Then there is the added layer of gender. Women face expectations around modesty, having to wear saris, dupattas or work uniforms over garments. “The number of layers a woman wears in such settings is much more, and they are more affected by heat,” says Farid.

“We ensure the kids are at least wearing cotton clothes. Their bodies are more sensitive,” Poonam says.

Desire vs durability

Dependence on synthetic clothing is not necessarily down to preference, says Wilson. “Polyester and nylon clothes are often the preferred choice, despite the discomfort, because they are more durable, so people don’t have to keep buying clothes,” he notes. Cotton garments wear out faster with frequent use and washing than synthetic fabrics.

Market research from consulting firm IMARC points to the dominance of polyester clothing in India, with nearly 62% market share in product demand due to its durability, cost efficiency and versatility.

Dalit families Dialogue Earth spoke to acknowledged that cotton turns soft after multiple washes, making it more comfortable to wear. But Poonam says clothes washing is not a priority for her family, as their current daily water supply is only half of what they need, and most of it is for drinking.

Clothing needs more thought

“Heat is pushing oppressed communities into another layer of vulnerability”, Wilson says, adding that heatwaves are not experienced equally.

Both Wilson and Farid note that discussions on heat protection often focus on infrastructure such as fans, coolers and air conditioning, while clothing is rarely seen as a form of protection. Yet for those from marginalised communities working long hours outdoors, who already face barriers to accessing relief from heat, clothing is often the first source of protection against extreme temperatures.

“They are the ones working in open skies, under extreme weather conditions. With climate change, their occupational heat exposure will only increase,” says Farid. “Nobody is looking properly at the last person who’s harvesting, or who’s working in the farm, or in the hot sun,” she says. “We need clothing designed specifically for these conditions.”

For Sagathia, clothing cannot be separated from basic rights. “It’s part of our roti, kapda aur makaan (bread, clothing and shelter),” he says.

However, experts Dialogue Earth spoke to caution against treating natural fibres as a silver bullet. While cotton and linen are generally more breathable than synthetic fabrics, neither can fully protect outdoor workers from the prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures that many now face. Farid notes that sweat takes a long time to evaporate from clothes, making them heavy in the meantime.

“A more sensible option is a careful blend of these fibres where the best properties of each fibre create a comfortable experience for people wearing it,” says Farid. Being blended means they will also be more affordable than pure cotton clothing, says Farid.

Back in Ritika’s home in Shahbad Dairy, her four-month-old has woken up. She tries soothing him in front of the air cooler, but the baby is inconsolable, crying through much of the afternoon. The heat refuses to die down even after the afternoon passes.

Every few months, Ritika’s mother sends cotton clothes for the children. “It is impossible to make them wear synthetic clothes,” she says. “They take them off out of irritation. They also can’t sleep.”

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

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

The Union government has asked the Delhi Gymkhana Club to explain why it should not be evicted from its 27.3-acre premises in central Delhi, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

The show-cause notice was sent to the club on Monday, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying. Representatives of the club have been asked to appear before the Land and Development Office on July 7.

If they fail to appear or submit a response to the notice, the matter may be decided ex parte, or without hearing the opposing parties, reported News18.

The Delhi Gymkhana Club is one of the national capital’s oldest and most exclusive social and sporting clubs, frequented by diplomats, bureaucrats and military officers, amongst others. It is located near the prime minister’s official residence and other high-security installations.

On May 22, the Land and Development Office directed the club to vacate and hand over its premises to the Union government, saying that it was required for “strengthening and securing of defence infrastructure”, governance facilities and other “vital public security purposes”.

The club had moved the Delhi High Court against the order on May 25.

The next day, the court refused to grant interim relief to the club. However, it issued summons on the suits filed by the members and employees of the club against the Union government’s order.

In the notice on Monday, the Centre stated that the club’s continued occupation of the property is “unauthorised” after the termination of its lease on May 22.

The premises in question “constitute valuable public premises vested in the Union of India and the government is under an obligation to regulate, protect and utilise such public property in accordance with public interest and public purpose”, The Indian Express quoted the notice as saying.

In the May 22 order, the Centre said that the land had originally been leased for maintaining a social and sporting club.

The Land and Development Office, which functions under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, had invoked clause 4 of the lease deed, which allows the lessor to re-enter the premises if the land is required for a public purpose.

The government stated that when such action is taken, the entire plot, along with all buildings, structures, lawns and fittings, would vest in the President of India.

Edited by Sneha.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to issue an order directing the blanket takedown of allegedly defamatory content about Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha, reported Bar and Bench.

Justice Subramonium Prasad, however, directed the removal of five posts that allegedly contained “explicit content, which is profane and vulgar in nature and falls outside the purview of harmless satirical humour”, according to Live Law.

Prasad also said that on a preliminary reading, the content flagged by Chadha did not violate his personality rights and was political criticism.

On April 26, seven of the Aam Aadmi Party’s 10 Rajya Sabha MPs, led by Chadha, split from the party and joined the BJP’s legislature unit in the Upper House. Rajya Sabha chairperson CP Radhakrishnan accepted the merger on April 27.

Chadha had moved the court, flagging content that alleged that he had sold himself for money, according to Bar and Bench.

He had sought an injunction against artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes, manipulated videos and deceptive digital content allegedly circulated on social media platforms.

During the hearing on the matter, the court asked if politicians could be so sensitive. Prasad also held that actions by politicians or political parties will be criticised by their rivals. This may also take the form of satire, he added.

“However, that does not automatically make such content offensive or defamatory,” the judge was quoted as saying by Live Law. “At the cost of repetition, public figures assuming such positions of power must accept being at the receiving end of the satirical humor as a necessary and inevitable aspect of their profession, though unpleasant.”

The judge added that the court does not endorse the use of artificial intelligence to produce deepfake videos or morphed images, “when employed to harm the dignity of an individual”, reported The Indian Express.

At the same time, he acknowledged that the use of AI “has become an instrument for voicing opinions across social media platforms, which is fairly evident in the political context”.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The United States on Tuesday removed four Indian companies from its list of firms sanctioned for allegedly supplying goods and technology to Russia’s military-industrial base.

Hyderabad-based RRG Engineering Technologies Private Limited and Lokesh Machines Limited, Ahmedabad-based Galaxy Bearings Limited and New Delhi-based Shaurya Aeronautics Private Limited had been sanctioned in November 2024.

The action was taken under an order targeting individuals and entities whom the US accused of providing financial, material or technological support to the Russian government.

This was part of the broader US sanctions imposed after Moscow began its war on Ukraine in 2022.

At the time, the US had claimed that Galaxy Bearings had exported dual-use equipment, including roller bearings and roller assemblies, to Russian entities, PTI reported.

Shaurya Aeronautics was said to have shipped radar and radio navigation equipment to Russia, while RRG Engineering Technologies allegedly sent more than 100 shipments of microelectronics to a sanctioned Russian company, the news agency reported.

Lokesh Machines was said to have supplied machine tools to Russian manufacturing companies.

Following the sanctions in 2024, the Ministry of External Affairs said that India was a “responsible member of the international community” and participated in key multilateral export control regimes, Hindustan Times reported.

It added that the government regularly conducted outreach programmes to ensure Indian companies complied with export control laws and domestic regulations.

In addition to removing the four companies as part of its latest update on Tuesday, the US Department of the Treasury also included new sanctions targeting individuals and entities allegedly linked to fuel smuggling networks associated with a Mexican drug cartel.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.

The Tamil Nadu government has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Madras High Court order that imposed a blanket ban on slaughtering cows and calves in the state, Live Law reported on Wednesday.

In its petition, the state argued that the May High Court exceeded the scope of the public interest litigation before it and issued a blanket prohibition that was contrary to the statutory framework governing animal slaughter in Tamil Nadu, Bar and Bench reported.

The order in question was passed on May 27 by a bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayan on a petition filed by the general secretary of the Hindutva organisation, Hindu Makkal Katchi.

The petition had sought directions to ensure that cows were slaughtered only at designated places during Bakrid in Coimbatore and not in public places as per existing laws and directions, Bar and Bench reported.

The state said the authorities had informed the High Court that measures had already been taken to ensure that no slaughter took place in public places.

According to its counter affidavit, the police had stepped up surveillance, identified designated slaughterhouses, deployed officials for inspections and taken steps to ensure that any slaughter was confined to authorised facilities, Bar and Bench reported.

However, after initially observing that slaughter should take place only in designated slaughterhouses, the High Court directed the state to ensure that “no cow or calf is slaughtered on the eve of Bakrid or on any other day”.

The Tamil Nadu government argued that the direction amounted to a statewide ban, even though the 1958 Tamil Nadu Animal Preservation Act permits the slaughter of cows over the age of 10 years that are unfit for work or breeding after certification by the competent authority, Live Law reported.

It added that other laws regulating animal slaughter regulate the conditions under which animals may be slaughtered, but do not impose a total prohibition.

The state contended that the High Court granted relief that had neither been sought nor pleaded, and that its order effectively “substituted judicial legislation for statutory law”.

The Tamil Nadu government has asked the Supreme Court to set aside the High Court’s order and sought an interim stay on its imposition until the matter is dealt with, Bar and Bench reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government on Tuesday rejected media reports claiming that it had told the Supreme Court that its 20% Ethanol Blended Petrol programme was “still an ongoing experiment” and that its impact would become clearer next year.

It said that the reports did not accurately reflect the submissions made by Attorney General R Venkataramani.

The Ministry of Law and Justice said the reports were “completely false and do not reflect anything even close to the actual submissions made before [the Supreme Court]”.

The clarification came after the Supreme Court heard a petition filed by state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited against a June 23 Karnataka High Court order on ethanol allocation for the 2025-’26 supply year, India Today reported.

The High Court had directed Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Indian Oil Corporation to consider a distillery’s request for a higher ethanol allocation before finalising tenders for the supply year, the news outlet reported.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited had argued that changing allocations after supply contracts have been finalised could affect the implementation of the national ethanol-blending programme.

On Tuesday, the ministry said that during the hearing, the attorney general told the court that similar writ petitions involving allocation of ethanol to dedicated ethanol plants were pending before several high courts.

The Supreme Court was told that transfer petitions would be filed to move all such cases to the apex court so they could be heard together, to avoid parallel proceedings and the possibility of conflicting decisions, it added.

The government said the Supreme Court took note of the submission and observed that the proposed transfer petitions should be filed. It also directed that status quo be maintained on ethanol allocation for the current 2025-’26 Ethanol Supply Year in the case, the government said.

The ministry added that “at no stage” was any submission made that the Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme was an “experiment”.

The government’s programme currently mandates the sale of petrol blended with 20% ethanol, or E20 fuel.

India hit its target of reaching a 20% ethanol mix in petrol in July 2025, five years ahead of schedule.

This was part of India’s broader energy transition strategy aimed at reducing dependency on fossil fuels, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting income for sugarcane farmers.

Consumers have complained that the new fuel mix damages engines and reduces their mileage.

A report in October, which analysed government and industry data, said that only about 20% of new petrol vehicles sold in India in the last 15 years were compliant with the E20 fuel blend.

On December 11, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari told Parliament that the government had tested older vehicles running fuel blended with 20% ethanol and found no case of engine failure.

The vehicles covered almost 1 lakh km in the tests conducted by the government-run Automotive Research Association of India, the road transport minister said.

Gadkari added that the research association had observed “no impact” of E20 fuel on the vehicles’ performance, start ability, drive ability and metal capability.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• Drivers fear engine damage, mileage drop as India increases ethanol in petrol to 20%

• Race to rollout E20 fuel leaves behind most vehicles on Indian roads

Congress leader KC Venugopal on Tuesday moved a privilege notice against Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in the Lok Sabha, alleging that he misled the House by stating during last year’s debate on Operation Sindoor that no Indian soldier had been killed during the military operation.

In a letter to Speaker Om Birla, Venugopal referred to Singh’s statement in the Lok Sabha on July 28, 2025, during the discussion on the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor.

“If you have to ask a question, ask whether any harm came to our brave soldiers during this operation,” Singh had said. “The answer to that is no.”

Venugopal argued that the government’s recent disclosure of the names of six military personnel killed during Operation Sindoor contradicted Singh’s statement.

On June 26, the names of five Indian Army personnel and one Indian Air Force staffer who were killed during the operation were published in the Roll of Honour section of the National War Memorial website. Their deaths had been previously acknowledged, and all six were conferred with gallantry awards in August 2025.

In his letter, Venugopal said that Singh’s statement in the House was “misleading and incorrect”.

He added: “It is well established that misleading the House or withholding information from the House by a minister on the floor of the House constitutes a breach of privilege and contempt of the House.”

After social media posts alleged that Singh had lied to Parliament, the Union government said on Saturday that the claims were “deliberately misleading and factually incorrect”.

The defence ministry said that several social media posts “selectively quoted an isolated portion” of Singh’s July 2025 speech in Parliament to falsely imply that the minister claimed that no Indian soldiers were killed during the operation.

It added that Singh’s remark was in response to an “entirely false” narrative on media outlets and on social media that Indian pilots had been lost during Operation Sindoor.

“It was in direct reference to this specific and mischievous narrative that the [defence minister] made the statement in question,” the ministry said. “His remarks were, therefore, a targeted and contextually specific response to a falsehood that was gaining dangerous traction at that moment.”

On May 7, 2025, the Indian military carried out strikes on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which had killed 26 persons on April 22, 2025. The two sides had reached an “understanding” to halt firing on May 10, 2025.

The six personnel whose names were published in the Roll of Honour section of the National War Memorial website were Subedar Major Pawan Kumar, Rifleman Sunil Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar, Agniveer Murali Naik, Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh and Air Force Sergeant Surendra Kumar.

On June 27, the Integrated Defence Staff clarified that homage had been paid to the six personnel “at the earliest opportunity”, before the recent reports in the matter.

The military said that during a press conference on May 11, 2025, the director general of military operations had “paid solemn tribute to these brave soldiers and specifically acknowledged their sacrifice in the line of duty” during Operation Sindoor.

During the Army Day Parade on January 15, the Army chief had presented the Sena Medal (Gallantry) to the families of three of the personnel, the Integrated Defence Staff said in a statement. The Air Force chief had also done this in October at a ceremony.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

For Akla Chamar, owning even a small land parcel meant security.

For two decades, the 80-year-old farmer held on to government documents that identify him to be the “bhu-swami”, or land owner of 2.23 hectares in Dagadkhedi village in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district.

One of them is a 4x6 inch land rights and loan booklet that the state revenue department issued in 2001 under a scheme for Adivasi farmers with small landholdings. The other is a notarised land registry document in his name from the same year.

The booklet has the signature of the tehsildar of Bhagwanpura under which Dagadkhedi falls, and carries entries of cooperative bank loans taken by Akla against his land over the years.

Yet, when Akla searches for his details on the land records portal, MP Bhulekh, he draws a blank. The portal allows users to search land records by district, tehsil, village, plot number or the landholder’s name. But the plot, or khasra number, listed in Akla’s documents does not exist on the portal.

Like Akla, around 40 Barela and Bhil Adivasi farmer families in Dagadkhedi village close to the Maharashtra border, face a similar predicament. They possess land rights and loan booklets acknowledging their ownership of land they have cultivated.

But on the land records portal, neither their names nor khasra numbers appear in the village records. This is part of a larger problem with how land records have been digitised in Madhya Pradesh.

In June, Akla and more than 100 residents of Dagadkhedi staged a protest outside the Bhagwanpura tehsil office for nine days demanding corrections in the digital land records of the village. With day-time temperatures crossing 40 degrees celsius, Akla and the others slept outside the office with only a tent for shelter and khichdi as their daily meal.

In response, the administration sent a 12-member team of patwaris, or revenue officials, to conduct a survey and demarcation exercise to determine who was cultivating the land. But the farmers say they want the digital records to reflect that the land is theirs.

For now, the farmers are waiting for the survey to be completed and the government to provide clarity on their land parcels. If the land records are not updated correctly, they will launch another protest.

Digitisation problems

Madhya Pradesh first began digitising its land records in 1999-2000 under the Centre’s land records computerisation programme. The initiative was later incorporated into the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme in 2008, through which the state continued to digitise and update land records in phases. In December 2023, the Union government’s department of land records claimed 99% of all records had been digitised.

It is not clear when Dagadkhedi’s land records went online.

Farmers in the village say they became aware of the digitisation only after the disbursal of government subsidies was linked to having an entry on MP Bhulekh, the state’s land record portal, sometime around 2014.

Until then, they could buy subsidised seeds and fertilisers and take cooperative loans using their land rights and loan booklet, said Subhash Bhai, who cultivates four acres of land and supports a family of seven. He showed his family’s booklet, now yellow with age, which had entries dating back to 1995 and 2013.

After they were unable to find their khasra or plot numbers online, the farmers approached the administration seeking help. Since 2022, they have submitted a letter or representation to the administration almost every six months.

But the matter became more urgent this year when the District Trade Industry Centre, Khargone, applied to allot around 200 acres from Dagadkhedi for an industrial zone under the MP Nazul Nivartan Niyam 2020, which allows the government to assign land classified as state property for commercial use. In February, the tehsildar wrote to the gram panchayat asking for a no-objection certificate before proceeding.

The same month, the Dagadkhedi Gram Sabha voted against the project and passed a resolution demanding its cancellation. The Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, 1996, gives Adivasi communities in Scheduled Areas the right to govern land and natural resources within their jurisdiction. Madhya Pradesh notified its own PESA rules in 2022, after a long delay.

While the proposed industrial zone was to come up on government land, villagers said that the move sparked concern among the community about the status of the neighbouring parcels that they cultivate which are either missing from digital records or classified incorrectly.

“The land is all we have,” said Thebri Bai, Subhash Bhai’s mother. She said she had seen generations of her family farming their land. “If there is any attempt to take our land, it is better to take our lives.”

Subhash Bhai said that the administration should explain why there was a discrepancy despite them holding government-issued land records.“We don’t want to wait any longer, we want clarity,” he said, adding that despite this being the time to prepare fields ahead of the monsoon sowing season, many villagers had left their farms to protest.

The administration, however, said the villagers do not have a claim on the land. Satyendra Bairava, Khargone sub-divisional magistrate, said the land for which the community is protesting has been “government land for the last 100 years”.

“Using the land and treating it as private property is their choice,” he said.

When asked about the ownership records that farmers possessed, he refused to respond. “You can ask the tehsil office to show you the records,” he said.

The tehsildar who was in charge during the protest, Sanjay Chouhan, has been transferred. He refused to comment on the matter. The tehsildar who is to replace him is yet to join duty. This story will be updated if either of them respond.

Nitin, an activist who has been helping Dagadkhedi residents navigate the online records, said one possible explanation for the missing records is that most of the village land was classified as forest land until the 1960s, after which it was transferred to the revenue department. It is possible that the department did not update the records systematically, he said.

The gaps in records

Historically, land records have been poorly maintained in the Adivasi areas of Madhya Pradesh, said Madhuri, a member of the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, a collective that has worked for more than two decades on the rights of Dalit and Adivasi communities in the state.

“Most Adivasi families do not possess complete land records today, even if they once had them,” she said.

Ramesh Sharma, national coordinator at Ekta Parishad, a social movement working on land and forest rights, said a steady weakening of the revenue administration has added to the problems.

Earlier, the basis of land records in Madhya Pradesh was a process called girdawari, he explained. Twice a year, the patwari would visit every field in his jurisdiction, record who was cultivating it and what crop was sown. A farmer’s claim to land was linked to these entries which makes the land records more reliable.

“The girdawari process was stopped in Madhya Pradesh about 20-22 years ago,” Sharma said. The official reasons were lack of funds and staff. “After it stopped, the records were not updated and became easy to manipulate or lose track of,” he added.

He pointed out that the revenue department also no longer regularly updates the atikraman panji, or the encroachment register, which logs instances where land recorded as government property is being cultivated by farmers. Under revenue rules, updating this register would normally lead to regularisation of records on cultivation or other land use of parcels.

The digitisation of land records has further complicated the matter.

Land records became easier to access but digitisation also carried forward existing errors, said Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, founder of Land Conflict Watch, a data research organisation.

He explained that land records are maintained at the tehsil and block level. When paper records were transferred to digital systems, they were uploaded without adequate verification. As a result, mistakes or discrepancies in the original records continued into the digital database.

The activist Nitin, who is also a member of Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, said farmers find it difficult to verify land records on the MP Bhulekh portal.

The portal does not open on mobile phones or laptops easily and accessing it requires a level of digital literacy and stable internet connection that most farmers in Dagadkhedi do not have, he said. Scroll also faced difficulty accessing the portal on several occasions despite using a high-speed internet connection.

Activist Madhuri said the responsibility for maintaining and updating land records lies with the revenue department and not with the Adivasi community.

“If there are discrepancies, the government should produce the khasra registers and other revenue records from the 1970s and 1980s and establish what is on record,” she said. “If the records are inconsistent then a fresh field survey should be conducted in consultation with the Gram Sabha.”

The cost of being left behind

For the farmers of Dagadkhedi, the missing land records are leading to financial loss.

The family of Nan Bhaiya Narla, 45, has farmed land in Dagadkhedi for three generations. He cultivates maize on nine acres, but the family has records for only four.

One kg of maize seeds costs Rs 1,600 in the open market. The same would have cost Rs 600 if Narla could claim the government’s seed subsidy, which he cannot without a valid entry in the state’s digital land records.

Similarly, the government’s minimum support price for maize is Rs 2,410 per quintal, but Narla had to sell his last maize harvest at a nearby mandi for Rs 1,500-Rs 1,600 per quintal.

Nitin, the activist, said a valid khasra entry in the state’s digital land records is a mandatory to avail the minimum support price or crop insurance or the Rs 6,000 annual cash support that the Union government provides farmers under PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi.

For the already marginalised Adivasi community, being excluded from direct cash transfer schemes and agricultural subsidies cuts deep. Most small farmers cultivate on fragmented landholdings, so even small losses add up.

In a good monsoon year, Narla’s household earns around Rs 1.5 lakh. In a bad year, losses can reach Rs 70,000-80,000. Whenever farmer families face large crop losses, members travel to neighbouring Maharashtra for daily wage work to make up the shortfall, Narla said.

“Jo hai usse jod ke hum apne bachchon ko khila rahein hain,” Narla said. “We cobble together whatever we have to feed our children.”

The way out

The Khargone district administration has suggested a way out of the mess in land records. Shivram Kanse, a resident of Dagadkhedi, said officials said that the Adivasi cultivators could seek rights under the Forest Rights Act.

This process would first require the land to be classified as forest land and then converted back to revenue land, with the farmers having to prove their claims once again. Nitin, the activist, said that under Rule 17 of the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, the Dagadkhedi Gram Sabha can directly recommend corrections to existing land records.

Farmers in Dagadkhedi say there are similar problems in land documentation in nearby villages. However, officials refuse to pay attention to the complaints of one or two persons if they go alone, Kanse said.

What worked in their favour was collective action. “They agreed to halt the project and order a survey only because we refused to leave the tehsil office,” said Kanse, referring to the proposed industrial project.

The farmers are now preparing for the sowing season in the fields they have cultivated for decades.

The Union government on Tuesday notified revised wage rates under the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin Act, which came into effect on Wednesday. The VB-G Ram G Act replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The government set the interim base wage at Rs 300 per day. This is the first time a wage floor has been set under the national rural employment guarantee programme.

The national average notified wage was increased 9.5% to Rs 327.4 per day under VB-G Ram G Act from Rs 298.8 per day under MGNREGA, the Hindustan Times reported.

To facilitate the rollout of the scheme, the government has released an interim allocation of Rs 95,692.3 crore to states and Union Territories for paying wage and making a transition from the first day of implementation, the Ministry of Rural Development said in a statement.

In May, the government announced that after VB-G Ram G comes into force on July 1, ongoing works under MGNREGA as on June 30 will be carried over in the new framework.

Existing e-KYC verified MGNREGA job cards will remain valid under the new Act until Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Cards are issued, the ministry had said at the time.

The VB-G Ram G Act received presidential assent on December 21, two days after it was passed by Parliament amid protests by Opposition parties.

The MGNREGA, which was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, guaranteed 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wanted it, covering all districts in the country.

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

The legislation has drawn criticism from economists and labour rights experts, who have said that it consolidates decision-making with the Union government, while transferring greater financial burden on to the states.

Five Opposition-ruled states – Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Telangana and Jharkhand – have passed resolutions opposing the VB-G Ram G Act, and seeking that the MGNREGA scheme be restored.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

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

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push for a “pied-à-terre tax” on luxury second homes owned by the ultra-rich is a fiscal idea Indian cities should pay close attention to. New York State lawmakers passed Mamdani’s tax proposal in May

A pied-à-terre tax is a surcharge on high-value residential properties that are not primary residences. In cities such as New York, London, Vancouver and Paris, these homes are often luxury apartments owned by wealthy investors, global elites, or absentee owners who keep them vacant for most of the year.

They benefit from urban infrastructure, public services, security, transport networks and soaring land values generated by the city economy, yet contribute relatively little to municipal finance relative to their wealth.

New York’s proposal targeted second homes worth more than $5 million and is expected to raise roughly $500 million annually.

The proposal emerged from a multi-billion-dollar budget gap in New York City, where the new administration argued that the burden of urban recovery should not fall on ordinary residents through broad property tax hikes.

What exactly is the argument against a pied-a-terre tax for second (or third / fourth / fifth) homes worth more than $5 million owned by people who do not even live in the city? It just seems like such a glaringly obvious common-sense policy.

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) April 17, 2026

India’s cities face a similar – and arguably far deeper – fiscal crisis. Yet the country continues to ignore one of the most undertaxed forms of wealth in the economy: urban real estate.

Urban India today produces nearly two-thirds of the country’s gross domestic product, but municipal governments control less than 1% of total public revenues. This mismatch is at the heart of India’s collapsing urban governance model. Cities are expected to provide essential infrastructure such as roads, drainage, public health, waste management, transport and housing for rapidly growing populations – but they do so with extraordinarily weak fiscal capacity.

The consequences are visible everywhere: flooded roads in Bengaluru, collapsing drainage systems in Mumbai, worsening air pollution in Delhi, chronic waste crises in Kochi, and crumbling public infrastructure across second-tier cities. Municipal corporations remain dependent on erratic grants from state governments, politically-mediated transfers and debt.

Property taxation in India is astonishingly low by international standards. According to World Bank estimates, India collects only around 0.2% of GDP through property taxes, compared to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of roughly 1.1%.

Even within municipal finance, collection efficiency is poor because of undervaluation of properties, incomplete property records, exemptions and political reluctance to tax affluent urban property owners.

Indian cities have become enormous engines of speculative real-estate wealth accumulation. Luxury apartments in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Hyderabad are being treated like financial assets.

Government estimates and research, based on the Census 2011, shows that urban India had around 11.1 million vacant housing units, representing about 12.4% of the total urban housing stock, despite persistent housing shortages and widespread homelessness.

Cities create land value, but private owners capture most of the gains while municipalities remain fiscally starved. A pied-à-terre tax offers one way to partially correct this imbalance.

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich. pic.twitter.com/Wky2LFXC9W

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) April 15, 2026

Unlike taxing production or employment, taxing luxury real estate is economically less distortionary. A surcharge on high-value second homes does not discourage industrial investment, manufacturing output or job creation. Wealth stored in speculative urban property is relatively immobile and cannot easily relocate overnight in the same way financial capital can.

More importantly, such a tax directly targets accumulated wealth rather than productive activity. Given that India’s indirect taxation has expanded significantly after the 2017 rollout of the Goods Services Tax regime, and the burden of consumption taxes is disproportionately borne by ordinary households, taxing luxury urban property can help rebalance public finance.

India’s existing municipal property taxes are generally low and politically constrained. The affluent neighbourhoods of metro cities are often undertaxed relative when compared to actual market values.

A pied-à-terre tax would target non-primary residences above a high threshold – say Rs 10- Rs 20 crore – and that are vacant or infrequently occupied luxury properties. It would affect only a tiny segment of elite property owners while generating substantial municipal revenues.

Mumbai is an obvious example.

The city has some of the most expensive real estate in the world alongside infrastructure deficits and housing inequality.

The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament in 2018 showed that Mumbai had nearly five lakh vacant homes.

A progressive urban property surcharge could therefore serve three important functions.

First, it could generate local revenues. The 74th Constitutional Amendment envisioned empowered urban local bodies, but most municipalities remain financially subordinate to states. Fiscal autonomy will improve urban governance by decreasing the dependence of municipalities on state governments.

Second, such a tax could curb speculative ownership in elite housing markets. In Canada, Vancouver’s tax on empty homes was linked to both revenue generation and housing utilisation.

Third, it could change urban taxation by requiring wealthier property owners to contribute proportionately more than ordinary residents. In India, ordinary residents are often burdened with municipal taxes such as levies and user fees.

Implementing a pied-à-terre tax in India will require serious reforms in property valuation and grappling with the varied aspects of land ownership in India. Often, municipal records are outdated, assessment mechanisms opaque and enforcement is weak. Overhauling property valuation will require digital mapping and geographic assessments.

A pied-à-terre tax is no magic fix for municipal finances. But it represents an important principle that cities must have the power to tax concentrated urban wealth created within their own boundaries.

Like Mamdani in New York, India’s municipalities must ask who should pay for the city before the urban crisis deepens further.

Muhammed Riyas is a faculty member at Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bengaluru.

The India Meteorological Department on Tuesday forecast below-normal rainfall across the country in July.

This follows a 40% rainfall deficit in June, the Deccan Herald reported.

India is likely to receive less than 94% of its average rainfall for the month, the weather department said. The long period average rainfall for July, based on data from 1971 to 2020, is 280.4 mm.

Below-normal rainfall is expected in most parts of the country. However, some areas in northwestern and northeastern India, east-central India and the eastern peninsular region are likely to receive normal to above-normal rainfall.

The IMD said that the first seven to ten days of July are expected to bring good rainfall, but the situation is likely to worsen in the second half of the month, which traditionally accounts for one-third of the rainfall during the southwest monsoon season.

“Below-normal rainfall can pose significant challenges for agriculture, water resources, hydropower generation, ecosystem sustainability, and drinking water availability,” the weather department said. “Such conditions may increase the risk of heat stress, and pressure on available water resources in several regions.”

Maximum temperatures are expected to remain above normal in most parts of the country during July, except a few isolated areas in west-central India where they are likely to be normal to below normal.

Minimum temperatures are also expected to remain above normal in most regions, except some areas of central and northeastern India where they are likely to be normal.

Rainfall deficit

Meanwhile, June was the fifth driest June since 1901 even as rainfall picked up during the last two days of the month, Reuters reported.

There was a 40% deficit in rainfall during the month.

For comparison, June 2009 was the driest in 126 years, with a rainfall deficit of 47%, the Deccan Herald reported.

However, deficient rainfall in June does not necessarily indicate a below-normal monsoon season, the Deccan Herald quoted a weather department official as saying. Since 1951, there have been 26 years when June rainfall was below normal, but only eight of those years ended with below-normal southwest monsoon rains.

El Niño has affected the monsoon so far, while the Indian Ocean Dipole, a weather pattern that can reduce the impact of El Niño, has remained neutral. However, some weather models show a positive Indian Ocean Dipole in the second half of the monsoon. If that happens, it may to some extent offset the effects of El Niño, the Deccan Herald reported.

The El Niño weather phenomenon involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to reduced monsoon rainfall in India.

On Monday, data released by the Union government showed that the sowing of Kharif crops fell by 22.7% as compared to last year as delayed monsoon slowed planting in several states.

The Kharif season in India is between June and October. The crops are sown at the beginning of the monsoon and harvested at the end of it.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: El Niño likely to intensify as India’s monsoon advances slowly

Talks about a merger between the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Congress are underway, Maharashtra Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar was quoted as saying by NDTV on Tuesday.

“Those who subscribe to the secular ideals of the Congress and Sharad Pawar are always welcome in our party,” the former leader of Opposition in the state told the channel.

The talks are in the final stages and progressing positively, NDTV quoted unidentified sources as saying.

Sharad Pawar founded the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 after he broke away from the Congress over his objections to Sonia Gandhi leading the party. However, the NCP allied with the Congress to form the government in Maharashtra in October 1999.

The Congress and NCP remained in power in the state till 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance won the Assembly election.

In 2023, the NCP split into two groups when Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, along with several party MLAs, joined Maharashtra’s Mahayuti coalition government comprising the BJP and the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde.

In February 2024, the Election Commission ruled that Ajit Pawar’s faction was the real NCP and allocated it the “clock” symbol.

Ajit Pawar died on January 28 when a small aircraft crashed near an airstrip in Baramati town while attempting to land.

The reported discussions about a merger between the Congress and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) come against the backdrop of a spate of defections from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Trinamool Congress to the fold of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Edited by Sneha.

The Union government on Tuesday extended full customs duty exemption on about 40 petrochemical products by 15 days till July 15, citing the conflict in West Asia and the resulting disruptions in global supply chains.

The waiver on customs duty on critical petrochemical products was implemented on April 2 and was set to lapse on June 30.

The waiver was provided to ensure sufficient availability of petrochemicals in the domestic market, considering that Indian petroleum companies “had been asked to concentrate on the production of LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] during this period”, the Union Finance Ministry noted on Thursday.

“As the situation is gradually normalising, to ensure a smooth and non-disruptive transition for the affected sectors, it has been decided to extend the said exemption by a further period of 15 days, that is, till 15th July 2026,” the ministry said in a press release.

👉 Government extends full customs duty exemption on critical petrochemical products in view of ongoing conflict in West Asia till 15th July 2026

Read more ➡️ https://t.co/DimWPAcEol pic.twitter.com/QKArKKSC4v

— Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) June 30, 2026

Among the products for which the full customs duty waiver has been implemented are polypropylene, polystyrene, polyols, polybutadiene, styrene butadiene and anhydrous ammonia.

Although India produces some of the petrochemical products locally using liquefied petroleum gas and ethane, it is a net importer of such derivatives.

Soon after the conflict in West Asia broke out on February 28, the Union government had invoked the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, directing domestic oil refiners to prioritise the production of LPG.

Since the conflict in West Asia began on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterbody connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea, had effectively been blocked for most international commercial vessels, triggering a global energy crisis.

The United States and Iran on June 17 signed an interim peace deal, which included a 60-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for commercial traffic. The agreement requires the United States to end its naval blockade of Iran, and Iran to remove technical navigation through the strait, including mines.

However, military strikes and threats of recrimination between the two sides have intensified in the past week.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sneha.

Global meteorological agencies have confirmed El Niño is here. In India, El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are expected to intensify as the southwest monsoon progresses, confirms the India Meteorological Department’s June bulletin. Experts say the developing El Niño should be treated as a serious climate risk and an early warning, urging timely planning and preparedness rather than alarm.

The World Meteorological Organization, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the India Meteorological Department and are converging on the increasing likelihood of the El Niño event developing to a moderate to strong event in the next few months.

“There was a high likelihood of El Niño developing during June-August 2026, with probabilities around 80%. The probability of El Niño conditions continuing through August to November is near or above 90%,” says Barbara Tapia Cortes, World Meteorological Organization Technical Coordinator (Services).

Recent updates about a developing El Niño have triggered a wave of headlines warning of droughts, heatwaves and monsoon disruptions, sparking concerns globally. However, while El Niño has been confirmed and is likely to strengthen further, there is still considerable uncertainty about its intensity and impacts on India.

Cortes explains, “The impacts depend on the event’s intensity, duration, timing and interaction with other climate drivers.”

For India, where agriculture, water resources, and urban water supplies remain closely tied to monsoon performance, even a moderate El Niño could have significant consequences.

“The emerging 2026-27 El Niño should be treated as a serious climate risk. If it strengthens as forecast, this period could also push global temperatures to new record levels, because El Niño will be acting on top of an already warmer climate system,” says Roxy Mathew Koll, Scientist, Centre for Climate Change Research, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

El Niño might get stronger

El Niño is the warming phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), defined by sustained sea-surface warming in the Niño 3.4 region of the east-central tropical Pacific ocean.

El Niño is generally declared when sea surface temperatures in this region remain at least 0.5 degrees celsius above a standard 30-year average, for five consecutive overlapping three-month periods, with accompanying atmospheric changes. Currently, the Niño 3.4 region has warmed by about +0.7 degrees celsius above average, 0.2 degrees celsius above the threshold required for El Niño conditions.

The event can range in intensity from weak to very strong on the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI), with anomalies of +0.5-0.9 degrees celsius considered weak, +1.0-1.4 degrees celsius moderate, +1.5-1.9 degrees celsius strong, and ≥2.0 degrees celsius very strong.

Notably, only a handful of El Niño events have reached “very strong” intensity: those of 1982–83, 1991-92, 1997–98, and 2015–16 (RONI ≥ 2.0°C). These episodes reshaped weather patterns across continents, contributing to droughts, floods, coral bleaching, and spikes in global temperatures.

The most recent 2023-’24 event nearly breached 1.5 degrees celsius above average, and ranks among the five strongest on record, contributing to record high temperatures in 2024.

NOAA probability data further shows a 63% chance of a ‘very strong’ (RONI ≥ 2.0 degrees celsius) El Niño developing between November 2026 and January 2027.

Sensational messages

Scientists emphasise that there is a crucial difference between forecasting the onset of El Niño and its eventual intensity.

Cortes explains, “El Niño events normally develop between March and June and tend to peak between November and February, so the coming months will be critical for monitoring its evolution. At this stage, most models suggest this event will be at least moderate and possibly strong.”

While Cortes states that it is still too early for definitive statements, news reports and social media are already abuzz with sensational phrases like “Super El Niño” and “Godzilla El Niño”, which are not official or recognised terms.

“The downside is that these (sensational) terms can oversimplify a complex climate phenomenon, create unnecessary alarm, and distract from the more useful message: El Niño increases the likelihood of certain climate impacts, but it does not affect all regions in the same way,” states Cortes.

Uncertainty in forecasts

ENSO forecasts issued during the Northern Hemisphere spring in the first half of the year are generally less reliable than those made later in the year, because of the spring predictability barrier where small uncertainties in coupled ocean-atmosphere processes can grow rapidly during seasonal transition, reducing forecast accuracy.

As a result, models may broadly agree that the Pacific is warming while remaining less certain about how strong the event will ultimately become.

“The next updates will be important in confirming the strength, timing and persistence of the developing El Niño, and how it may interact with other climate drivers. This information is especially important for regional climate outlooks and for sectors such as agriculture, water management, health, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian preparedness,” says Cortes.

The World Meteorological Organization issues El Niño/La Niña updates every quarter, and the next update in September 2026 will offer more clarity.

What this means for India

The Indian Ocean is warming faster than the global average, close to maintaining a state of near-constant heatwave, affecting rainfall patterns, marine temperatures, cyclone activity, and atmospheric circulation across South Asia.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation can further amplify heatwaves in southwest India by weakening cloud formation and moisture transport, creating conditions favourable for prolonged high temperatures.

Naturally, the possibility of a strong El Niño event raises rainfall and drought concerns, especially as the country has already been experiencing unusual heatwaves and erratic weather which are predicted to continue, with current temperatures fuelling the trend.

Koll notes, “We have already had a weak start to the monsoon, with rainfall running close to 25% below normal after the first ten days.” Recent IMD forecasts have also predicted delayed and below-normal rainfall for the country from June to September.

However, El Niño does not automatically guarantee a poor monsoon as several other climate drivers influence India’s southwest monsoon simultaneously. Importantly, the Indian Ocean Dipole, an oscillation in sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Indian Ocean, can either reinforce or offset El Niño’s influence.

According to the IMD, currently neutral Indian Ocean Dipole conditions may turn positive in the coming months, which could enhance rainfall, partially offsetting El Niño’s drying influence.

However, Koll adds that the Indian Ocean Dipole is not yet in place as a counteracting factor, “Even if it develops later, its influence may become more relevant only toward the latter part of the southwest monsoon season.”

Adding that El Niño could amplify erratic weather, Koll states, “India must prepare for both dry and wet extremes at the same time. Weak monsoon winds can increase drought, crop stress, water scarcity, and heat stress. At the same time, warmer oceans can feed intense rainfall, floods, landslides, and urban flooding when the monsoon winds become active.”

For major cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune, the concern extends beyond seasonal rainfall totals. Water supply systems increasingly depend on stressed groundwater reserves and reservoirs, and adding intense, erratic rainfall and heatwaves to the mix could add pressure on already vulnerable infrastructure.

Preparing for uncertainty

As updates roll in, Cortes reinforces the WMO’s stance, “The focus should be on preparedness, early warnings and risk-informed decision-making, rather than on dramatic labels.”

With human-induced climate change, this El Niño is developing in an already much warmer world, exacerbating erratic events and amplifying risk. Koll urges preparedness for intensifying extreme events, “El Niño is a warning signal, predicted early enough for us to take precautions to secure water, food, and livelihoods.”

Recent events have offered a reminder of that vulnerability. During March-April 2026, parts of Karnataka witnessed unusually intense pre-monsoon hailstorms driven by extreme heat and atmospheric conditions, resulting in significant damage to mango crops.

“Physical impact from large hailstones caused irreversible damage to the fruits, that only showed up after ripening. This impact was far more devastating than pest damage,” shares the Bangalore-based owner of a mango farm in Gauribidanur, Karnataka, who wishes to remain anonymous for job-related reasons. “Our yield dropped to 3.3 tons, where we’d expected 5.1-5.3 tons this year.”

The El Niño picture will become clearer in the coming months’ forecasts. Until then, climate agencies and experts are repeatedly urging caution and preparedness as there is a very real possibility of a difficult year ahead.

The Maharashtra government on Monday acknowledged that it will miss its June 30 deadline for implementing a farm loan waiver scheme that was approved earlier this month, Sakal reported.

State Agriculture Minister Dattatray Bharane told the Assembly that loan waiver amounts under the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Shetkari Karjmafi Yojana will begin reaching eligible farmers from July 5.

Bharane said that the rollout was delayed because the financial provision for the scheme was made through supplementary demands, The Indian Express reported.

“After the supplementary demands are approved by the legislature, they will require the governor’s assent,” the minister was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “Once the governor signs them, the loan waiver amount will be credited to farmers’ accounts from July 5.”

Bharane also clarified that no farmer will be denied the benefit of the scheme on account of the absence of an Agristack Farmer ID. An Agrstack ID is a unique identification number assigned to farmers, with which they can access benefits such as crop insurance and agricultural loans.

Several MLAs on Monday demanded in the Assembly that the government should relax some of the eligibility conditions of the loan waiver scheme, The Indian Express reported. To this, the agriculture minister said the government was willing to consider modifications and recalled Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ statement that a sub-committee looking into the matter would take a positive view on the proposed changes.

The scheme

The state government had announced the farm loan waiver scheme during the budget presentation in March and the cabinet had approved it on June 2.

The Rs 36,585-crore scheme is expected to benefit around 55.72 lakh farmers. It has three components: loan waiver, one-time settlement and incentive benefits for the farmers who have repaid their loans on time.

Under the first component, farmers with outstanding crop loans of up to Rs 2 lakh that remained overdue on September 30, 2025, and unpaid by March 31 this year will get a complete waiver.

The one-time settlement component will cover farmers with crop debts above Rs 2 lakh. They will be given a grace period till March 31, 2027, to pay the amount exceeding Rs 2 lakh. Once that is done, the government will waive up to Rs 2 lakh in debt.

Under the last component, the government will incentivise farmers who have repaid their loans on time by giving them a grant of Rs 50,000.

Farmers who have taken crop loans in any two of the three financial years – 2022-’23, 2023-’24 and 2024-’25 – and repaid them within the prescribed timelines will be eligible for this.

Edited by Sneha.

Twenty-three Opposition parties have sent a letter to Chief Justice Surya Kant expressing its concerns about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The exact contents of the letter were not immediately known.

Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose said that the Opposition had urged the judiciary to look into the manner in which the exercise was “being manipulated” by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The decision to write to the chief justice was taken at the INDIA bloc meeting on June 8. Though the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Aam Aadmi Party had skipped the Opposition alliance meeting, they also signed the letter. Read on.

A question to ask as the INDIA bloc turns three: Where is it going?

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLC Sachin Ahir filed his nomination for the post of deputy chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council on behalf of the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance. He filed the nomination in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, indicating that he has switched sides to the ruling alliance.

Uddhav Sena leader Ambadas Danve said that MLC Jagannath Abhyankar would be the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi’s candidate for the post.

The development comes eight days after six of the Uddhav Sena’s nine Lok Sabha MPs joined the Shinde Sena. Ahir was considered a confidante of Uddhav Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray. Read on.

The Congress’ Maharashtra unit leader Vijay Wadettiwar said that talks about a merger between his party and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) are underway. “Those who subscribe to the secular ideals of the Congress and Sharad Pawar are always welcome in our party,” he added.

Sharad Pawar founded the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 after he broke away from the Congress. The NCP had split in two in 2023 when Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, along with several party MLAs, joined the Mahayuti government comprising the BJP and the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde. Read on.

The Supreme Court declined to grant bail to religious leader Asumal Harpalani, also known as Asaram Bapu, in a 2013 case pertaining to the rape of a minor. The bench sought a response from the Rajasthan government within three weeks to Asaram’s plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court’s May decision upholding his conviction in the case.

It said it would consider granting interim bail to Asaram only if there was a grave medical necessity, “such as danger to life”. Read on.

The sowing of kharif crops has fallen by 22.7% as compared to last year. This came as the delayed southwest monsoon slowed planting in several states.

As of Thursday, the area under kharif crop cultivation was at 182.7 lakh hectares, down from 236.4 lakh hectares in 2025, as per data released by the Union government. Oilseeds recorded the steepest decline, with acreage falling 53.3%. While cotton acreage declined by 34.6%, paddy sowing fell 25.2%.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast seasonal rainfall at 90% of the long-period average this year. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to grant bail to religious leader Asumal Harpalani, also known as Asaram Bapu, in a 2013 case pertaining to the rape of a minor, Live Law reported.

The court sought a response from the Rajasthan government within three weeks to Asaram’s plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court’s May decision upholding his conviction in the case, according to Bar and Bench.

In April 2018, a sessions court in Jodhpur sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment for raping a minor at his ashram in 2013. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment under several provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Juvenile Justice Act.

In May, the Rajasthan High Court acquitted Asaram on charges related to gangrape and sexual assault. However, it upheld his conviction for rape, which carried the punishment of life imprisonment.

While rejecting Asaram’s petition to set aside the life sentence, the High Court bench had held that the charges of rape under the IPC, sexual assault under the Pocso Act and offences under the Juvenile Justice Act had been proved.

Asaram subsequently challenged the judgement in the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, a bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Sheel Nagu said they would consider granting interim bail to Asaram only if there was a grave medical necessity, “such as danger to life”.

The bench directed that the medical treatment being provided to him in prison should continue and said he could seek an urgent hearing if his health deteriorated, Live Law reported.

Asaram’s counsel urged the court to consider his age and medical condition and claimed that he had been subjected to a “social media” trial.

The state opposed interim relief, arguing that the case involved a minor complainant and that Asaram had been taken to hospital when required earlier this month, Bar and Bench reported.

In January 2023, a sessions court in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar also sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment in a separate case about raping a 16-year-old girl several times at his ashram between 2001 and 2006.

Before his convictions, Asaram was a religious leader who established his first ashram in the 1970s along the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad and built a multi-crore business empire comprising various products and spiritual literature.

Edited by Sneha.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLC Sachin Ahir on Tuesday filed his nomination for the post of deputy chairman of the Maharashtra legislative council on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance.

Ahir, who was considered a confidante of Uddhav Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray, filed the nomination in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, indicating that he has switched sides to the ruling alliance.

Ahir, a former Nationalist Congress Party leader, joined the then-united Shiv Sena in 2019 and became an MLC in 2022.

🔸CM Devendra Fadnavis at the nomination filing of MLC Sachin Ahir for the election of Deputy Chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council at Vidhan Bhavan, Mumbai.
DCM Eknath Shinde, DCM Sunetra Ajit Pawar, Minister Chandrakant Patil, Minister Sanjay Shirsat and other… pic.twitter.com/qGxeuLmkby

— @OfficeOfDevendra (@Devendra_Office) June 30, 2026

Meanwhile, Uddhav Sena leader Ambadas Danve said on Tuesday MLC Jagannath Abhyankar would be the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi’s candidate for the post of deputy chairman of the legislative council, PTI reported.

The development comes eight days after six of the Uddhav Sena’s nine Lok Sabha MPs joined the Shinde Sena.

The MPs who have switched sides are Hingoli MP Nagesh Patil Ashtikar, Omprakash Nimbalkar from Osmanabad, Mumbai North-East MP Sanjay Dina Patil, Sanjay Deshmukh from Yavatmal-Washim, Sanjay Jadhav from Parbhani and Bhausaheb Wakchaure from Shirdi.

The defections have reduced the Uddhav Sena’s strength in the Lok Sabha to three MPs and increased the Shinde faction’s tally to 13.

Commenting on Ahir’s move, Uddhav Sena MLA Sunil Raut said that the party has weathered several challenges and would remain intact, PTI reported.

“We have received many shocks, but the party was never finished,” Raut was quoted as saying. “This shock is not a big one for Shiv Sena (UBT).”

Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule claimed that his party had nothing to do with Ahir’s decision, The Indian Express reported. However, he claimed that repeated exits from the Uddhav Sena were the outcome of the “arrogance” of party leaders Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut.

Crisis in the Uddhav Sena

On June 18, the six rebel MPs had skipped a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group. The meeting was held a day after the faction alleged that its MPs were being offered Rs 15 crore each to join the Shinde Sena.

It was attended by the other three Lok Sabha MPs of the faction and Raut.

The following day, the Uddhav Sena initiated disciplinary action against the six MPs.

The Shiv Sena had split in June 2022 after Shinde and 39 MLAs backing him rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government that also comprised the undivided Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.

After more than a week of political drama, Shinde had been sworn in as the chief minister with the backing of the BJP. He became the deputy chief minister after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance comprising the Shinde Sena, the BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP, retained power in the 2024 Assembly elections.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Election Commission will devise a mechanism to ensure that voters whose homes have been demolished recently are not excluded from the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Hindu quoted Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar as saying on Monday.

Kumar’s statement came a day before the door-to-door enumeration exercise for the revision of electoral rolls began in the national capital under phase three of the special intensive revision. The month-long enumeration drive will be carried out from June 30 to July 29 in Delhi, as well as in Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Meghalaya.

The poll panel is carrying out the exercise to revise electoral rolls through house-to-house enumeration and verification of old voter data.

Addressing a press conference on Monday, Kumar said that there could be electors whose registered addresses no longer exist because their houses had been demolished by the time of the booth-level officer’s visit.

“They might not be able to obtain alternative residence proof during the duration of the [special intensive revision],” The Hindu quoted him as saying. “We will work out a plan to ensure their inclusion.”

Responding to a question about homeless persons, Kumar said that booth level officers would visit every registered address, even if it was a temporary location.

“BLOs will visit the registered address of the elector, even if it is a pillar under a flyover,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “If they are not there, they can file claims and objections after the draft list is published.”

Delhi has 13,033 polling booths with 1.4 crore voters.

The draft electoral roll will be published on August 5, following which claims and objections can be filed until September 4. These will be disposed of by October 3 and the final electoral roll will be published on October 7.

The third phase of the special intensive revision is underway in 16 states and three Union Territories.

With this phase, the exercise will cover the entire country except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The Election Commission said that the schedule for the revision in these regions will be announced later considering the Census exercise and the adverse weather.

In 2025, the first phase of the voter roll revision exercise was conducted in Bihar and the second phase in 12 states and Union Territories.

Concerns have been raised that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll.

Several petitions were filed in the Supreme Court against the voter roll revision.

On May 27, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission, saying that the exercise “advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”.

However, the court said that the poll panel’s inquiries for the purpose of including a person in the voter list do not mean that it can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

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

• Why a scholar of citizenship is taking on Bengal SIR exclusions

• An ex-editor writes: My name was deleted during SIR. Now police won’t clear my passport application

The West Bengal Assembly on Monday passed a bill that would allow the preventive detention of “anti-social” persons for up to a year, The Hindu reported. The bill would not allow detainees to be represented by a lawyer before the panel reviewing their detention, except in certain cases.

Every detention case would be reviewed within three weeks by an advisory board headed by a serving or former High Court judge, which would decide whether the detainee should remain in custody or be released, the newspaper reported.

The Assembly also passed the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Amendment Bill which would require those found responsible for damaging public or private property during riots or unlawful assemblies to pay compensation.

The first piece of legislation, titled the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, would allow the government to order the preventive detention of a person for up to one year if they are “generally reputed to be desperate and dangerous to the community”.

Such detention orders could be issued by a district magistrate, a commissioner of police or a state-authorised police officer of at least the rank of deputy inspector general, The Indian Express reported.

The bill would also expand the definition of “anti-social” activities to include organised extortion, obstruction of business and other acts that create fear or insecurity among the public, the Deccan Herald reported.

Under the bill, the police would be able to conduct raids, seize property and make arrests in cognisable and non-bailable offences. It would also make it an offence to harbour or assist persons against whom detention or externment orders have been issued, The Indian Express reported.

The second piece of legislation, the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Amendment Bill, provides for the establishment of a Claims Commission to assess losses and determine compensation, the Deccan Herald reported. Unpaid compensation could be recovered through the attachment and auction of property.

It would also make not only those directly involved in violence, but also organisers, financiers, instigators and those providing logistical support, liable to pay compensation, the newspaper reported.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that the two bills were needed because of the “criminalisation of politics”, The Hindu reported.

“The law will not be used against any one for the purpose of political vendetta,” the newspaper quoted the Bharatiya Janata Party leader as saying.

Several Opposition MLAs raised concerns that the bills would curb peaceful protests and student movements.

Trinamool Congress MLA and former Indian Police Service officer Prasun Banerjee described certain provisions of the bill as “scary” and said the law would not stand judicial scrutiny, The Hindu reported.

State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sankar Ghosh defended the legislation, saying that “anarchy” had prevailed in the state because of the Trinamool Congress’ 15-year rule.

“Right to protest can be a fundamental right, but right to destroy public property cannot be a right,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Twenty-three Opposition parties have sent a letter to Chief Justice Surya Kant raising concerns about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, the Congress said on Tuesday.

The exact contents of the letter were not immediately known.

Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose told ANI that the Opposition has urged the judiciary to look into the manner in which the exercise is “being manipulated” by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The parties also alleged “biased” conduct by the Election Commission in the letter, The Hindu reported.

The decision to write to the chief justice was taken at the INDIA bloc meeting on June 8.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Aam Aadmi Party, which had skipped the Opposition alliance meeting, also signed the letter, TMC MP Derek O’Brien said on Tuesday. An Independent MP was also among the signatories.

After the June 8 meeting, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that the Opposition parties would write to the chief justice about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls being conducted by the Election Commission in the country, and the alleged “vote loot” and the “stealing of elections”.

The Opposition has for long alleged that the BJP has been colluding with the Election Commission to secure favourable electoral outcomes. It has also alleged that the revision of voter lists was an attempt to undermine democracy.

Scroll’s analysis of the West Bengal Assembly election results in May found that in half the seats that the BJP won, the total deletions that took place during the voter list revision exercise outnumbered the victory margin.

By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed from the electoral rolls. Ahead of the Assembly elections in April, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals.

On May 27, the Supreme Court bench headed by Kant upheld the legality of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, saying that the exercise “advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”.

However, the court said that the poll panel’s inquiries for the purpose of including a person in the voter list do not mean that it can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: A question to ask as the INDIA bloc turns three: Where is it going?