The Congress on Wednesday asked whether the Bharatiya Janata Party will agree to an independent judicial inquiry into allegations that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, his family members and their real estate companies bought large tracts of land in areas that will benefit most from infrastructure projects.

Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Jitu Patwari asked whether Yadav would agree to release a white paper providing details of the land that he and his family bought since the Bharatiya Janata Party leader became the chief minister in December 2023.

The Congress leader held a press conference a day after a report in The Indian Express reported that Yadav, his family and their real estate firms bought at least 137 plots worth Rs 45 crore between December 13, 2023, when he took oath as chief minister, and December 2025.

Most of the properties are either close to road projects announced in and around Ujjain or in areas where the land use will be changed from agriculture to residential or commercial under the Ujjain Master Plan 2035, the newspaper reported.

Ujjain is among Madhya Pradesh’s important religious tourism centres and has been the focus of several infrastructure projects in recent years. Yadav has been the MLA from Ujjain (South) since 2013.

On Wednesday, Patwari questioned whether farmers who had land holdings in the areas knew about the projects planned there. He urged the state’s BJP government to make public the details of changes in the area’s land use for development.

He also urged Yadav to explain the source of the funds used by him and his family to buy the land. “Should the complete details of the land bought by the chief minister’s family not be made public?” he asked.

हमारे सवाल:

• क्या मोहन यादव के CM बनने के बाद परिवार ने जमीन खरीदी?

• क्या ये सच है कि जमीन का बड़ा हिस्सा वहां है, जहां विकास परियोजनाएं बाद में आईं?

• क्या सरकार उन सभी प्रोजेक्ट्स की टाइमलाइन सार्वजनिक करेगी?

• यदि सबकुछ पारदर्शी है तो क्या BJP स्वतंत्र न्यायिक जांच… pic.twitter.com/hxZEGRKskh

— Congress (@INCIndia) June 24, 2026

On Tuesday, The Indian Express reported that of the 168 acres that Yadav and his family had acquired after he took oath as the chief minister, 111 acres are located next to one of the road development projects in and around Ujjain announced by him.

Within the city limits, Yadav and his family own land in almost every zone where land use will change under the 2035 master plan, the newspaper reported.

After the report was published, the Congress on Tuesday alleged that the “engine of loot was running at full speed” in Madhya Pradesh and that Yadav was the mastermind behind the alleged corruption.

State BJP chief Hemant Khandelwal on Tuesday said that the allegations were baseless and accused the Congress of “targeting an [Other Backward Classes] chief minister”, PTI reported.

In response, Patwari questioned why the BJP was invoking caste instead of addressing the allegations. “I belong to the OBC category myself,” he said. “Does my community not belong to the state’s economic system? Was their [OBCs’] share not stolen too?”

Yadav and his family have not yet responded to the allegations in the report or to the Congress’ demands.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Congress on Tuesday alleged that the “engine of loot was running at full speed” in Madhya Pradesh, citing a report by The Indian Express, that said Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, his family members and their real estate companies have bought at least 168 acres of land since December 2023 in areas that will most benefit from infrastructure projects.

“The chief minister of the state himself has become the mastermind of this loot,” claimed Congress leader Jairam Ramesh in a social media post.

Mohan Yadav became the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in December 2023 after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Assembly elections in the state.

भाजपा की मध्य प्रदेश की 'डबल इंजन' की सरकार में 'लूट का इंजन' तेज रफ्तार से चल रहा है।

खुद प्रदेश के मुख्यमंत्री मोहन यादव इस लूट के कर्ताधर्ता बने हुए हैं।

चर्चा यह भी है कि मुख्यमंत्री के खिलाफ "खबर की खेती" मप्र से केंद्र में गए कृषि मंत्री ने ही करवाई है! आपसी लड़ाई कुर्सी… pic.twitter.com/RjV3xDtUJ2

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) June 23, 2026

According to The Indian Express, Mohan Yadav’s family and their real estate companies bought at least 137 plots worth Rs 45 crore between December 13, 2023, when he took oath as chief minister, and December 2025. Most of the properties are either close to road projects announced in and around Ujjain or in areas where the land use will be changed from agriculture to residential or commercial under the Ujjain Master Plan 2035.

Ujjain is among Madhya Pradesh’s important religious tourism centres and has been the focus of several infrastructure projects in recent years.

Mohan Yadav has been the MLA from Ujjain (South) since 2013.

The newspaper noted that the chief minister has for long been involved in the development of the city’s tourism and infrastructure. Before becoming the chief minister, he served as the chairperson of the Ujjain Development Authority from 2004 to 2010 and as the head of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation during 2011-13.

On Tuesday, at a press conference, Congress’ Madhya Pradesh unit chief Jitu Patwari listed the land holdings of the chief minister and his family members, as well as the infrastructure development works that have taken place around the plots.

He asked if the government will make public every aspect of these land transactions and if the chief minister will order an investigation into the allegations.

“Narendra Modi often speaks about clean and ethical politics...will Modi Ji take cognisance of these unethical acts and ask Mohan Yadav to resign?” PTI quoted Patwari as asking.

What does the report say?

The Indian Express reported that Mohan Yadav and his family members, including his son Vaibhav Yadav and sister Kalavati Yadav, owned at least 108 plots measuring 179 acres in and around Ujjain before he became the chief minister.

Of this, at least 85 acres were purchased between 2021 and 2023, when Mohan Yadav was the education minister in the state.

Of the 168 acres that Mohan Yadav and his family acquired after he took oath as the chief minister, 111 acres are located next to one of the road development projects in and around Ujjain announced by him.

Within the city limits, Mohan Yadav and his family own land in almost every zone where the land use will change under the master plan, reported The Indian Express.

In 2025, his family and their companies acquired at least 62 plots measuring 92 acres in Ujjain, reported the newspaper. The purchases were made despite the state government facing resistance from farmers over plans to pool agricultural land for permanent Kumbh infrastructure.

The Madhya Pradesh chief minister and his family members have not yet responded to the questions sent to them by The Indian Express.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Three persons went missing after heavy rains triggered flash floods in Arunachal Pradesh’s Keyi Panyor district on Wednesday morning, PTI reported.

They were at the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited project colony near Poosa under the Yazali circle, where an under-construction retaining wall collapsed due to the downpour, the news agency quoted State Disaster Management Secretary Dani Sulu as saying.

The flash floods inundated low-lying areas and damaged at least 18 houses.

The rains also triggered landslides along a national highway, disrupting traffic and leaving several persons stranded.

The government in neighbouring Assam has issued a high alert, warning of possible impacts of the flash floods in districts in downstream areas, PTI reported.

Mumbai records heavy rain

A day after the monsoon arrived in Mumbai, heavy overnight rainfall disrupted suburban train services and caused waterlogging in several low-lying areas, PTI reported.

Parts of the city recorded more than 200 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 8 am on Wednesday.

The IMD had issued a red alert for Mumbai and Palghar in the early hours of Wednesday, warning of thunderstorms, lightning, intense to very intense rainfall and winds of 40-60 kmph.

The alert was later downgraded to orange, though moderate to intense spells of rain are expected to continue in Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Palghar and Sindhudurg districts.

Monsoon advances further

The southwest monsoon has advanced into more parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, and some areas of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, the India Meteorological Department said on Wednesday.

#WATCH | Delhi: On monsoon arrival across India, IMD Scientist, Dr Shashi Kant says, "... In the past 24 hours, monsoon progress has been strong. It has now covered all of Maharashtra, parts of southern Gujarat, southern Madhya Pradesh, and nearby areas. It has also advanced into… pic.twitter.com/Q4yVb4xOeN

— ANI (@ANI) June 24, 2026

Conditions remain favourable for its further advance into the remaining parts of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, more areas of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, parts of Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Uttarakhand over the next two to three days.

However, heatwave conditions are likely to continue over eastern Uttar Pradesh for the next four to five days and over northeastern Madhya Pradesh and Bihar for the next two to three days.

Edited by Sneha.

Eggs will be removed from mid-day meals served in government and aided schools in Kolkata after the West Bengal government announced that the International Society for Krishna Consciousness would provide cooked food under the scheme, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

Radharaman Das, the Kolkata spokesperson of the Hindu religious organisation, said that the meals would not contain eggs but would instead include ingredients such as paneer, rajma, soybeans, pulses and other vegetarian protein sources.

Under the existing arrangement in West Bengal, students are usually served eggs once a week, with rice, dal and potato curry on the remaining school days.

Egg is a wholesome, nutritious food with high nutrient density. It is a high value protein and provides other nutrients such as vitamins, essential amino acids and minerals that are crucial for growth and good health, the Union government’s department of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries.

Some schools have also occasionally arranged chicken or fish through additional funds raised by teachers. Students who do not eat eggs or follow vegetarian diets could choose other food options.

However, the new arrangement will introduce a vegetarian menu.

“We have empanelled dietitians to curate our menus,” The Times of India quoted Das as saying. “We will ensure that whatever nutrients a child gets from eggs will be matched or exceeded by the superior quality protein and vitamins in our meals.”

Das said that the programme would be implemented through ISKCON’s Annamitra Foundation. He added that the organisation was awaiting a list of schools from the government, and planned to set up kitchens to prepare and distribute the cooked meals.

He said that ISKCON was already operating similar mid-day meal programmes in more than eight states and 22 cities, and had been serving about 12 lakh students nationwide.

In other states such as Karnataka and Odisha, the ISKCON-linked Akshaya Patra Foundation, which runs government mid-day meal programmes, has faced criticism from Right to Food activists for excluding eggs, onions and garlic from its menus in line with the organisation’s religious dietary principles.

On Wednesday, Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien said that the BJP government was depriving children of nutrition by removing eggs from the midday meals. The Rajya Sabha MP said that the Hindutva party was “imposing vegetarianism” and that the state “rejects this”.

After the fish🐠eating tamasha during the election campaign, the Gujarat Gymkhana finally reveals itself. New BJP govt at work in Bengal. Throw eggs at rivals. But DEPRIVE CHILDREN of nutrition by taking🥚🥚eggs off from midday meals. Imposing vegetarianism. Bengal rejects this

— Derek O'Brien | ডেরেক ও'ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) June 24, 2026

The mid-day meal scheme, which is officially known as the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education, was launched in August 1995 to boost universalisation of primary education, while improving nutrition levels of children.

The scheme simultaneously lays emphasis on providing cooked meals with minimum 450 calories, between eight and twelve grams of proteins, and adequate quantities of other nutrients. The 2013 National Food Security Act made the mid-day meal up to Class 8 a legal right.

State Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta had announced in his Budget speech on Monday that the International Society for Krishna Consciousness would provide cooked meals in schools in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area.

Dasgupta also said that the material cost for mid-day meals in primary schools would increase to Rs 10 per student from Rs 6.7 per student, The Times of India reported. It would remain unchanged at Rs 10.2 per student at the upper primary level.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Not just Madhya Pradesh: Denying eggs to malnourished children is common in BJP-run states
• Odisha finds a way to serve children eggs at mid-day meals catered by ISKCON-linked NGO

A video installation at London’s National Portrait Gallery has been withdrawn after a controversy erupted over claims about the role of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the Bengal famine in colonial India, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

The 40-minute video by artist Helen Cammock, titled Persistence, had been on temporary display at the gallery, scheduled to end in August. In the video, which Cammock narrated, she described 17th-century English soldier and parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell’s military campaigns in Ireland, and remarked that he “starved people en masse, a little like the wilful starvation of the Indian population by Winston Churchill”, The Guardian reported.

The Bengal famine of 1943 resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30 lakh persons in eastern India. Many scholars, including Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, have argued that the famine was caused by the wartime policies of the Churchill-led British government, such as failure to control inflation and the prioritisation of food for soldiers.

However, some have maintained that the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1941, which cut off a major source of rice to India, was the primary reason for the famine, rather than Churchill’s policies.

Cammock’s video installation at the National Portrait Gallery earlier this month prompted an open letter to the gallery by historian Andrew Roberts. The letter, signed by 50 peers, alleged that the video’s description of Churchill was an “ideologically motivated rant”, The Guardian reported. Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, was among the signatories to the letter.

On Monday, the gallery said that the installation was removed at Cammock’s request.

“We respect her decision, just as we acknowledge the opinions of those who were offended by what was said in the film,” BBC quoted the National Portrait Gallery as saying. “The aim of this project was to give artists the opportunity to create works as personal and creative responses to our collection.”

It clarified that the work was an artistic piece, not a documentary, and the views expressed in the film do not necessarily reflect those of the gallery.

Cammock said her installation was based on academic work, and that it “asks us to think about who is honoured and valorised and who is not; whose stories are told and whose are not”, the BBC reported.

She was further quoted as saying: “Nina Simone [American musician and civil rights activist] once said ‘An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times’ and sometimes this means revisiting, enquiry and challenge.”

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: This work of micro-history illustrates how laissez faire economics killed millions in British India

India has recorded a 43% rainfall deficit so far this monsoon, raising concerns about how it will hurt the kharif crops, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday.

To tackle the problem, the Union government has activated contingency plans for vulnerable districts and stepped up monitoring of the advance of monsoon, and crop conditions, Chouhan said.

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.

About 315 districts in the country are likely to have been affected by low monsoon rainfall, Chouhan said after chairing a meeting with state agriculture ministers, district collectors and experts from agricultural and weather agencies.

Of these, 111 districts with irrigation coverage of less than 25% have been classified as high priority, 76 districts with coverage between 25% and 50% as medium priority, and 128 districts with relatively better irrigation facilities as low priority.

The minister said that most of the districts that have been affected by low rainfall are in 12 states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.

Chouhan said that India was facing the possibility of a weak monsoon because of El Niño weather conditions, which were already affecting rainfall patterns.

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.

Besides the 43% deficit, forecasts suggested that weak rainfall conditions could continue into the week ending July 2, the minister said.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast seasonal rainfall at 90% of the long-period average. For June, rainfall had been projected at 92% of normal levels, but with one week remaining in the month, the national rainfall deficit stood at more than 42%, The Indian Express reported.

As of Tuesday, 26 of the country’s 36 states and Union Territories had recorded rainfall deficiencies of at least 20%. Nine had deficits exceeding 60%.

Chouhan said the Union government had set up an El Niño Monitoring Cell and a Crop Weather Watch Group to track the advance of monsoon, crop sowing, crop conditions, agricultural inputs and market trends based on real time data feedback and advice.

States have also been directed to establish control rooms and appoint nodal officers to coordinate with the Union government.

The Union government has also advised states to promote short-duration and low-water crops, with particular emphasis on pulses, oilseeds and millets in rain-fed areas.

Chouhan said that districts should be ready to switch to alternative crops if rainfall delays continue and added that the government did not want agricultural land to remain uncultivated.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

India’s energy challenge is increasingly becoming a cooling challenge. As extreme heat drives electricity demand from air conditioning and other cooling services, it is straining an already stressed grid.

On May 21, for instance, peak demand exceeded the Central Electricity Authority’s 2026 projection of 270 gigawatt, with some regions in the country facing power cuts.

Air conditioners account for 40% to 60% of peak summer load in large Indian cities, studies show. The growing demand has exposed the vulnerability of India’s power system, as is evident in the regular power cuts, equipment breakdowns, outages, and transformer burnouts across the country.

Such disruptions highlight that the challenge of India’s energy transition is no longer limited to adding renewable energy capacity – it is also about building a resilient power system capable of equitably meeting rapidly increasing demand.

A power system under stress

Extreme heat does not merely increase power demand; it also weakens the infrastructure required to meet that demand. Around 1.3 million distribution transformer failures occur in India annually due to factors such as overloading and poor repairs.

Heatwaves also impact transmission infrastructure, as overhead lines sag and trip under soaring temperatures. All this results in mounting transmission and distribution losses and further adds to power shortages.

India’s cooling energy demand has been increasing drastically and is poised to grow 15-fold by 2050. This increase is driven in part by rising household incomes, rapid urbanisation and the necessity to adapt to frequent heatwaves, resulting in a surge in AC ownership.

The government’s India Cooling Action Plan projects the residential AC ownership to increase five-fold by 2038, driving the current 8% penetration rate to a staggering 40%.

This surge would test the resilience of our power grid and intensify heat-related hardships for low-income households due to frequent outages and breakdowns.

Power system failures disproportionately impact vulnerable populations who are not only the most heat-exposed but also contribute minimally to energy demand. Many low-income households continue to rely only on fans and work in the most heat-exposed occupations. They also live in dense informal settlements, which act as heat traps with tin roofs and minimal green and blue cover.

Heat stress is exacerbated on severely hot days when AC usage in well-to-do neighbourhoods pushes power demand to unprecedented levels. This often leaves low-income neighbourhoods among the first to face load shedding, thus worsening energy inequity during extreme heat.

The rising cost of cooling

The challenge of managing peak power demand is increasingly becoming intertwined with efforts to advance a clean energy transition. India has certainly improved power availability during daytime peaks, thanks to the expansion of renewable energy sources.

Between March 2021 and March 2026, renewable energy, including hydro, expanded from 140 GW to 275 GW, raising its share of India’s total installed capacity from 37% to 52%. This rapid expansion has translated into a growing role of renewable energy sources in daytime peak demand management. Renewable energy, led by solar, helps meet around one-third of the daytime peak demand in India.

However, managing evening peaks remains a challenge.

Moreover, peak demand patterns are changing, with cooling demand emerging as one of the largest contributors. Escalating heat stress has thus exposed gaps in traditional demand forecasting based on a normal summer. As a result, electricity distribution companies are forced to procure costly power from the spot market to meet peak demand, further straining their already frail financial health.

Beyond supply expansion

The growing cooling demand and the power system’s exposure to heat stress are an opportunity for India to rethink how electricity demand, infrastructure resilience, and equitable energy transition pathways are planned. Rather than responding only through short-term supply augmentation, the emerging challenge calls for a broader approach that combines technological innovation, policy reform and socially inclusive adaptation strategies.

At the technical level, India needs to move beyond simply adding generation capacity. Improving energy-efficient cooling technologies, strengthening appliance efficiency standards, and promoting passive cooling measures could significantly reduce peak demand.

As a large share of future housing has yet to be built, greater emphasis on climate-responsive building design could reduce energy demand. Such measures are particularly important in urban areas where heat stress is amplified by a dense built environment that absorbs, retains and re-radiates heat, making urban areas warmer than the surrounding areas. This is often referred to as the urban “heat island” effect.

In addition, decentralised renewable energy, such as solar rooftops with battery storage, could help manage demand peaks during non-solar hours. An emphasis on storage infrastructure and demand-side management technologies could further reduce pressure on the transmission and distribution infrastructure during peak demand and improve the reliability of power supply.

At the policy level, escalating heat stress highlights the need for climate-resilient power system planning. Heatwave scenarios, volatile cooling demand and peak load variability should be integrated into electricity planning, urban governance frameworks and adaptation policies. India also needs to strengthen and promote measures like time-of-day tariffs, smart metering, and incentives for storage and flexible consumption.

Most importantly, energy transition must be reimagined to strengthen grid resilience in the face of uncertain future climatic conditions.

Making cooling equitable

At the social level, the growing demand for cooling raises important questions about equity and energy access. With rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves, cooling is increasingly becoming essential for protecting health, livelihoods, and productivity, rather than being just a luxury. However, infrastructure failures disproportionately affect low-income households, who have limited access to affordable cooling options.

Therefore, ensuring affordable and reliable thermal comfort requires socially inclusive approaches that combine energy access, housing design, public infrastructure and decentralised energy systems.

Heatwaves are no longer temporary disruptions to India’s power system; they are emerging as one of its defining operating conditions. The challenge is not merely to keep pace with rising power demand, but also to build a power system that is reliable, climate-resilient, socially equitable, and capable of supporting the country’s long-term energy transition.

Sarada Prasanna Das and Anna Agarwal are fellows with Sustainable Futures Collaborative, New Delhi, and Shubhranshu Suman is a research associate with the organisation.

The new Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government in Tamil Nadu has moved the Supreme Court against a Madras High Court order from January that allowed the lighting of a lamp at a stone pillar on Thiruparankundram hill near Madurai, Live Law reported on Tuesday.

The Vijay-led government had challenged the High Court order on June 11.

On December 1, High Court judge GR Swaminathan ruled that the stone pillar on Thiruparankundram hill near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, was a deepathoon, or a structure designed to hold lamps, and that the temple should restore the tradition of lighting the lamp at the site. This came after some temple devotees had sought permission to light a lamp at the stone pillar.

Swaminathan had also held that the practice would not infringe upon the religious rights of the nearby Muslim shrine.

The hillock has the Arulmigu Subramania Swamy temple and the Sikkandar Badhusha dargah.

The previous Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government, the temple authorities and the dargah management, among others, had challenged the order of the single judge, raising concerns about law and order, ownership of the site and the nature of the ritual that had been allowed.

On January 6, another bench of the High Court upheld Swaminathan’s order, observing that the stone pillar is located on the land that belongs to the Subramania Swamy temple.

However, it said that the lamp should be lit only by members of the temple management and that the public would not be allowed to accompany them.

This direction was challenged in the High Court by a Hindu association named the Hindu Dharma Parishad. In April, the court dismissed the challenge and criticised the association for filing a plea allegedly for political benefits and imposed a cost of Rs 50,000.

The Hindu Dharma Parishad then moved the Supreme Court, which also dismissed its petition earlier this month.

The top court, however, reduced the cost to Rs 5,000, saying that a penalty of Rs 50,000 was “on the excessive side”.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Refusing an urgent hearing, the Supreme Court told petitioners to approach the Calcutta High Court against the Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal denying ration benefits to those excluded from the electoral rolls after the special intensive revision. The petition was filed by the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, a farm labourers’ union.

It had argued that 35 lakh to 60 lakh ration cards could become inactive if the government applies the new criterion.

Linking ration benefits to the electoral roll revision exercise violated the fundamental rights to equality and life, the union said, adding that the court itself had clarified that exclusion because of the revision exercise would not determine the citizenship status of a person. Read on.

The Congress on Tuesday alleged that the “engine of loot was running at full speed” in Madhya Pradesh, citing a report by The Indian Express. The newspaper reported that Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, his family members and their real estate companies have bought at least 168 acres of land in Ujjain since December 2023 in areas that will most benefit from infrastructure projects.

The land, spanning at least 137 plots, was bought at Rs 45 crore between December 13, 2023, when Yadav took oath as chief minister, and December 2025, according to the newspaper. Most of the properties are either close to road projects or in areas where the land use will be changed from agriculture to residential or commercial under the Ujjain Master Plan 2035.

Congress’ Madhya Pradesh unit chief Jitu Patwari asked if the government will make public every aspect of these land transactions and if the chief minister will order an investigation into the allegations. “Narendra Modi often speaks about clean and ethical politics...will Modi Ji take cognisance of these unethical acts and ask Mohan Yadav to resign?” Patwari asked. Read on.

The Trinamool Congress has sent a fresh list of its office-bearers and National Working Committee members to the Election Commission, stating that Mamata Banerjee is the party chief. This came after a group of rebel West Bengal MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee “removed” Mamata Banerjee as the party chairperson on Monday.

The rebel MLAs named party leader Arup Roy as the chief of the “real TMC”. Ritabrata Banerjee said that the legislators wanted Mamata Banerjee to serve as their chief adviser. Read on.

The southwest monsoon has advanced further into parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, said the India Meteorological Department. It added that the weather system has also reached the remaining parts of Telangana and Odisha and some areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

The usual date of onset of the southwest monsoon in Mumbai is June 11. In southern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, it typically arrives between June 10 and June 15. Read on.

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Non-profit organisations seeking foreign funds will now be required to declare whether the association or its key functionaries have published a book, magazine or newspaper article during the year, and disclose their social media accounts and websites, under amended rules notified by the Union government on Monday.

The amended rules also require such organisations to choose from a pre-defined list of purposes and specify the states or the Union Territories where they will operate.

The home ministry issued a notification amending the Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules to this effect. Registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act is mandatory for a non-profit organisation to receive funds from abroad.

The pre-defined list of purposes for non-governmental organisations encompasses a range of faith-based activities, but explicitly excludes religious conversions. Among the religious activities for which foreign funding can be sought are constructing places of worship, documenting and preserving religious philosophy, carrying out religious education and facilitating inter-faith dialogue and peace initiatives.

“Every application for registration shall mention…the purpose or purposes for which registration is sought, chosen only from such list of purposes as specified in the schedule appended to these rules; and…the states or Union Territories in which the association proposes to undertake the activities,” the amendment states.

All organisations that are already registered under the Act have been given one year to inform the government about their specific purpose, and the states and Union Territories in which they operate. Some categories specifically exclude political activities. The amended rules also state that a fee of Rs 300 will be charged for every additional state of operation.

The government also introduced a minimum spending limit of Rs 10 lakh of foreign contribution on its chosen activities in the course of the last two financial years.

The home ministry stated that any organisation with foreign citizens, other than those of Indian origin, as its key functionaries will “ordinarily not be considered” for registration to receive foreign funds.

However, the Union government can specify cases or circumstances in which foreign citizens can be permitted to be key functionaries of non-governmental organisations.

The rules also widened the definition of a “key functionary” to include company directors, partners in firms, trustees, the karta, or head, of a Hindu Undivided Family.

Earlier this year, the Centre amended the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to allow the government to take control of an NGO’s foreign funds and assets if its registration under the law lapses.

Under the proposed framework, such funds and assets will provisionally vest in a government-appointed “designated authority”. If the organisation fails to regain registration, the government’s control would become permanent. The authority would then be empowered to use, transfer or dispose of these assets for “public purposes”.

Between 2016-’17 and 2021-’22, more than 6,600 NGOs lost their FCRA licences, the government had told Parliament in December 2022. In 2023, it informed Parliament that 13,520 registered non-profit organisations had received Rs 55,741 crore in foreign contributions between 2019-’20 and 2021-’22.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar and Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: How India’s crackdown on NGO funds has crushed key grassroots services and ended livelihoods

The southwest monsoon has advanced further into parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, the India Meteorological Department said on Tuesday.

It added that the weather system has also reached the remaining parts of Telangana and Odisha and some areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

The usual date of onset of the southwest monsoon in Mumbai is June 11. In southern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, it typically arrives between June 10 and June 15.

Amid the delayed arrival of the monsoon in Mumbai, the municipal corporation had said on June 16 that only 10.3% of reserves were remaining in the reservoirs that supply water to the city.

Southwest Monsoon Update !

The Southwest Monsoon has further advanced into some more parts of Maharashtra (including Mumbai), remaining parts of Telangana & Odisha, some more parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand & Bihar today, the 23rd June, 2026.#SouthwestMonsoon2026… pic.twitter.com/hPAvgpaq0U

— India Meteorological Department (@Indiametdept) June 23, 2026

On Tuesday, the weather department issued an orange alert for Mumbai and neighbouring districts, forecasting heavy rainfall. The city received rain for the third consecutive day.

The India Meteorological Department stated that the Pune and Nashik administrative divisions will receive thunderstorms, lightning and isolated rains from Tuesday till June 29. Isolated heavy rainfall is also likely in the region on Wednesday and Thursday.

Conditions are favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into parts of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh during the next two to three days, added the weather department.

The weather system is also expected to reach the remaining parts of Jharkhand and Bihar, and advance into parts of Uttar Pradesh during the subsequent three to four days.

Despite the progress of the monsoon, heatwave conditions are likely to persist in isolated pockets of Bihar and southeast Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday and Thursday, the weather department said.

The arrival of monsoon has been delayed in the country this year due to the El Niño effect.

El Niño weather phenomenon, which 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.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Trinamool Congress has sent a fresh list of its office-bearers and National Working Committee members to the Election Commission, stating that Mamata Banerjee is the party chief, IANS reported on Tuesday.

This came after a group of rebel West Bengal MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee “removed” Mamata Banerjee as the party chairperson on Monday. The rebel MLAs named party leader Arup Roy as the chief of “real TMC”.

Ritabrata Banerjee said that the legislators wanted Mamata Banerjee to serve as their chief adviser.

Twenty-nine other members have been elected to the “real TMC’s” National Working Committee, he added.

However, in a letter issued on Monday, the TMC reiterated that Mamata Banerjee remained the party chief. The document named Subrata Bakshi as the party’s vice president, Abhishek Banerjee as the national general secretary and Lok Sabha leader, and Derek O’Brien among the six office-bearers. It also listed 24 members of its National Working Committee.

The AITC faction led by Mamata Banerjee has reconstituted its National Working Committee and submitted the details to the Election Commission of India (ECI). In the submitted list, Mamata Banerjee has been shown as the Chairperson of the AITC. pic.twitter.com/GSaOIJy1oL

— IANS (@ians_india) June 23, 2026

Ritabrata Banerjee had contended that the TMC’s Constitution required the formation of a national working committee every three years and that the last panel was set up in February 2022.

“We are the Trinamool Congress,” he was quoted as saying. “We will shortly set up a state committee, district committees, spokesperson and frontal organisations.”

He added that the MLAs would inform the Election Commission about their decision.

Internal divisions in TMC

The TMC has been beset by internal divisions and rebellions after it lost the Assembly elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party in May. On June 3, nearly 60 out of the TMC’s 80 MLAs rebelled against the party leadership to choose Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition in the House.

The group has been recognised by the Assembly speaker as the party’s legislature party in the House, and Ritabrata Banerjee has been recognised as the leader of the Opposition.

On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court declined to grant interim relief in a petition challenging the speaker’s decision to recognise Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition. The petition was filed by TMC leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, who had been nominated by the group supporting Mamata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition.

On June 14, TMC leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said that 20 of the party’s Lok Sabha MPs will merge with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens’ Party and back the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

On Friday, Abhishek Banerjee submitted petitions to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla demanding that the 20 rebel MPs be disqualified on the grounds of leaving the party.

Earlier this month, three of the TMC’s Rajya Sabha MPs resigned, and two of them quit the party.

Edited by Sneha.

Also Read: Why the Trinamool Congress is collapsing like a house of cards

I almost never write a response to articles – especially not in Indian publications – but this subject matters to me far too deeply, and I have simply done too much research over the past 30 years to let it pass without comment (“Was Akbar really a ‘secular’ icon?”).

As a consequence of India’s intensely politicised climate, it has become nearly impossible to say anything remotely objective about the Mughals. This otherwise valuable contribution by Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi once again demonstrates how even the remaining serious Indian historians feel compelled to defend a figure such as Akbar against the most simplistic caricatures of his empire propagated by Hindutva pamphleteers.

Yet, Rezavi neglects to mention that the very circle of Aligarh historians with whom he twice seeks to associate himself with are themselves largely responsible for the anachronistic image of Akbar as a secular, proto-nationalist ruler. It is, to say the least, somewhat paradoxical that Rezavi continues to rely on these same authors precisely while attempting to nuance the notion of Akbar as a secular icon. That image emerged from the political need of the global Left, both in India and in the West, to portray Akbar simultaneously as the perfect Muslim and the perfect Indian citizen.

The historical reality, however, is considerably more nuanced. Akbar was far from a secular ruler; his ʿaql (reason) was in no sense liberal or modern, but rather deeply Sufic in character: an intuitive mode of attaining higher cosmic insight. No, Akbar was indeed not merely a shrewd opportunist, but neither was he a wicked Muslim tyrant nor a nice, secular proto-nationalist.

When we reread his ideologists, the brothers Abul Fazl and Faizi, it becomes crystal clear that Akbar was nothing more – and nothing less – than an Alexander-like Platonic philosopher-king. Unfortunately, such an observation requires a sober empathy toward the past – something that has become virtually impossible within the poisoned academic climate of contemporary India but increasingly also beyond India. – Jos Gommans

Kerala, caste and the Left

The annihilation of caste has never been on the agenda of the Indian Left (“This book asks why Kerala, long ruled by the Left, has not succeeded in annihilating caste”). The Left leadership has always come from dominant caste groups whose very social sustenance is derived from perpetuating social hegemony over the Dalits and Adivasis. The Indian Left leadership that is mostly drawn from hegemonic castes naturally protects caste interests rather than annihilating Caste. – Lella Karunyakara

Like rupee finding its own value, let trans people self-identify

I am delighted to learn that the rupee is now free to find its own value. This is a historic victory for self-identification in India, especially during this Pride Month.

However, this newfound respect for identity has left me puzzled. Curiously, when the Indian currency is now allowed to self-identify, why is the right taken away from its transgender citizens?

It is remarkable that we appear more comfortable with the self-determination of our currency value than with living, breathing people who are facing extreme oppression in their everyday lives. – Swarupa Deb

Hindutva ‘phobia’

Hindutva has been quoted endlessly in this article but not once does the author adequately and honestly define it (“Beyond the Modi phenomenon, what makes up the anatomy of India’s new regime?”). It signals an incapacity or phobia in understanding a self-declared adversary. The much-maligned Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is reaching out to all segments of Indian society with open welcoming arms. – Chaitanya Aggarwal

David Attenborough made people love nature

The author is right that mainstream nature media has long ignored indigenous knowledge and the politics of who destroys the environment and who suffers for it (“The problem with David Attenborough’s spectator environmentalism”). But arguing that Attenborough’s work – over a 70-year career – produces passive, politically disengaged viewers, needs more evidence

The author also does not once engage with A Life on Our Planet (2020), Attenborough’s most personal and urgent film, in which he speaks directly about collapsing ecosystems and the human choices behind them.

What stayed with me most, however, was something Kurien wrote: that people cannot care for something they do not first learn to love. If that is true, then Attenborough’s work is not the problem. Kurien wanted to prove that Attenborough does more harm than good. But with this one line, he accidentally proves the opposite.

The questions about power, inequality, and whose voices shape our understanding of nature are important and necessary. But they will carry far greater force when they are grounded in evidence and not just in feeling. – Prashant Mansajjan Jibhakate

Portraits of artists

I am deeply impressed by both the intent and the content of The Joint Indian Family Album (“In a new book, portraits of India’s arts community by the scion of an iconic Delhi photo studio”). Having been fortunate this year to visit both the Kochi Biennial in Kerala and the 7th Mardin Biennial here in Türkiye, it is so clear to me that our ever-changing arts community needs this kind of recognition. And the stunning black-and-white studio portraits by Ajay Shankar, themselves works of art, are a fitting tribute to various members of the Indian art scene. Well done to those at Scroll for drawing this important publication to wider public attention. – Paul Molyneux

***

The portraits bring out the best side of their personalities. Every portrait looks different and speaks for itself. I hope I am similarly photographed one day. – Kanv

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to urgently list a petition challenging the decision of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal to deny ration benefits to those excluded from the electoral rolls after the special intensive revision exercise, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Joymala Bagchi told the petitioners to approach the Calcutta High Court instead.

The petition was filed by the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, a farm labourers’ union. The union had challenged a June 4 order by the West Bengal department of food and supplies, and a May 19 notification by the department of women and child development and social welfare, Bar and Bench reported.

The order and the notification link beneficiary status under the public distribution system and the state government’s Annapurna Yojana scheme to an individual’s classification after the special intensive revision exercise.

The petitioners argued that 35 lakh to 60 lakh ration cards could become inactive if the government applies the new eligibility criterion.

The organisation contended that linking ration benefits to the electoral roll revision exercise violated the fundamental rights to equality and life, noting that the court itself had clarified that exclusion because of the special intensive revision would not determine economic vulnerability or the citizenship status of a person, Bar and Bench reported.

However, the bench on Tuesday asked why the petitioners had approached the Supreme Court instead of the High Court.

The counsel for the petitioners said that the matter was of national importance as several states were following the West Bengal government’s precedent, Live Law reported.

However, the court said that any similar decisions by other states constituted different matters.

As per the order by Bengal’s food and supplies department, the ration cards of persons deleted from the voter list during the special intensive revision would be marked as inactive.

This means that beneficiaries who were marked as absent, shifted, duplicate or dead in the draft list published in December would become ineligible under the public distribution system. Those who were removed from electoral rolls in the subsequent supplementary lists would also become ineligible.

Unmapped voters identified during the revision exercise who were excluded after the hearing process and persons removed from the electoral roll after adjudication will also be ineligible under the public distribution system.

However, persons who have filed appeals before the appellate tribunals or submitted their applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act will receive the benefits until the process concludes.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Lucknow Police on Monday arrested four persons in connection with a fire in the city’s Aliganj area in which 15 persons were killed, The Times of India reported.

The police have filed a first information report against six named persons and several unidentified individuals. The two other named persons accused in the matter are absconding and efforts are underway to arrest them, the newspaper quoted the police as saying.

The fire erupted in a building that housed a pet shop-cum-clinic, a library and a gaming studio.

Those arrested have been identified as Ramakrishna Upadhyay, Virendra Prasad Shukla, Tushok Krishna Jaiswal and Suresh Kumar Sahu.

Upadhyay owned the pet shop, Shukla owned the building, Jaiswal owned a game development office there and Sahu had rented the upper portion of the structure, The Times of India reported.

The case has been registered under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash acts endangering human life, and under the Uttar Pradesh Fire Service Act.

The case will be handled by a Special Investigation Team, which has been directed to submit its findings within seven days, the newspaper reported.

The Uttar Pradesh government also suspended four persons in connection with the fire, PTI reported.

They are Gaurav Kumar, an executive engineer for collection at the electricity department, Indira Nagar Fire Station Second Officer Kamlendra Kumar Singh, Anil Kumar, an assistant engineer with the Lucknow Development Authority and Pramod Kumar, a junior engineer with the urban authority.

State Urban Development and Energy Minister AK Sharma said that preliminary information suggested that the fire originated in the building’s air conditioning duct, and the smoke led to suffocation as there was no proper exit route available.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

India does not treat local democracy with the same seriousness as national and state institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the conduct of elections to local governments.

Elections to Parliament and state Assemblies are held with near clockwork precision but those to urban and rural local bodies are frequently delayed or stalled across many states. Article 243U of the Constitution mandates that elections to urban local governments be completed before the expiry of their five-year term, and State Election Commissions are empowered under Article 243ZA to conduct them.

Yet, over the past decade, delays in elections to rural local governments – village and taluk panchayats and zilla parishads – and urban local governments like municipal councils and corporations have become routine. A 2024 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General noted that two-thirds of 2,625 cities audited across 17 states did not have elected councils.

Judicial interventions have so far addressed individual instances rather than the systemic gaps in the legal framework governing local polls. This undermines the intent of the 74th Constitutional Amendment for democratic decentralisation and deprives citizens of elected and accountable governments at the first mile of governance.

After years of delays, some states held local body elections in recent months. But that only signals the need to shift from merely conducting overdue elections to building institutional safeguards.

Local elections and delays

Kerala maintained its streak of on-time elections with its latest cycle in December 2025. Gujarat in April completed a major round of polls, broadly sustaining its record of regular local government elections.

Haryana, Telangana and Punjab held municipal elections in 2025 and 2026, though with delays ranging from six to 24 months.

In Maharashtra, after repeated interventions and deadlines set by the Supreme Court, citizens across panchayats and municipalities – including the country’s richest city government, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation – elected new local governments in January after a delay of nearly four years.

Municipal elections are also expected in Rajasthan and Jharkhand soon, after delays of one to three years and on the directions of their respective high courts.

In Himachal Pradesh, local self-government elections were held in May after delay due to a stand-off between the state government and the State Election Commission. The Supreme Court had directed that elections be held by the end of May with no further extensions.

Karnataka, meanwhile, retains the dubious distinction of not conducting elections to hundreds of rural and urban local governments – including in Bengaluru – for periods ranging from two to six years. The Karnataka State Election Commission has filed multiple cases against the state government, holding it responsible for the delays and seeking judicial intervention to restore local democracy. After repeated reprimands from the High Court and the Supreme Court – and even fines in some cases – elections are likely to be held this year.

Odisha and Andhra Pradesh are expected to conduct their local body elections scheduled for later this year.

These developments appear to signal a revival of grassroots democracy. But the structural issues that enable delays remain unresolved and there is no institutional guarantee that elections will not be postponed again when the next cycle is due.

Many state governments have repeatedly managed to defer local elections through administrative inaction and legal manoeuvres.

Delays in ward delimitation and reservation notifications, along with last-minute municipal restructuring, are frequently cited technical reasons for postponements. In practice, these actions allow state governments to supersede elected councils and install bureaucrats as administrators for months, and sometimes years, in violation of the constitutional mandate.

The root of the problem lies in the weak institutional design of State Election Commissions. Though constitutionally mandated to conduct local elections, the commissions lack operational autonomy in critical areas such as ward delimitation and reservation of seats, functions that are largely under executive control.

A 2025 study by Janaagraha found that only eight of 34 State Election Commissions had the powers to undertake delimitation and reservation exercises. This leaves state commissions unable to enforce election timelines independently.

The discourse on simultaneous elections, popularly termed One Nation, One Election, also provides an opportunity to consider the reforms necessary for timely local elections.

A report of the High-Level Committee on simultaneous elections, in its report submitted in March 2024, recommended synchronising municipal and panchayat elections with Lok Sabha and state assembly elections, with a 100-day deferment.

Seven reforms

Fundamental reforms are urgently needed, ideally through amendments to Part IX‑A of the Constitution, or alternatively through changes to state municipal laws.

First, State Election Commissions must be explicitly empowered to undertake ward delimitation and determine reservations. Removing these functions from the executive will eliminate one of the most common causes of election delays and reduce politically motivated interventions and litigation.

Second, delimitation and reservation exercises should occur at a fixed frequency, once every 10 years following the national census, rather than immediately before elections. Ad-hoc exercises tied to electoral cycles have caused avoidable delays across states.

Third, significant time and resources are spent by State Election Commissions in obtaining and adapting electoral rolls from the Election Commission of India for local elections. Instead, common electoral rolls or voter lists must be adopted for all elections, from Parliament to panchayats.

Fourth, State Election Commissioners should be appointed through a transparent and independent process similar to that used for other constitutional authorities. A high-level committee comprising the chief minister, the leader of Opposition in the state assembly and the Chief Justice of the High Court should make these appointments, replacing the current practice of nomination by the state government.

Fifth, State Election Commissions often struggle to secure essential election materials such as EVMs and indelible ink. State Election Commissions, therefore, be empowered through staffing and financial autonomy, with their expenditures charged directly to the Consolidated Fund of the State rather than requiring approval from state governments.

Sixth, State Election Commissions should submit annual reports to the governor detailing their preparedness and timelines for upcoming elections. These reports must be tabled in the state legislature, introducing much-needed transparency and accountability.

Finally, state governments must be prohibited from dissolving municipalities before the completion of their five-year term or altering municipal boundaries within six months of elections becoming due, except through explicit legislative sanction. Ideally, such reorganisation must be restricted to once in 10 years after the Census.

Stronger State Election Commissions are the constitutional bulwark against discretionary action – or inaction – by state executives.

Santosh Nargund is Director, Policy Engagement at Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. The views expressed are personal.

Rebel West Bengal MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee on Monday “removed” Mamata Banerjee as the chairperson of the Trinamool Congress, The Indian Express reported.

The rebel MLAs named party leader Arup Roy as the chief of what they described as the “real TMC”.

“We have held a special session today [Monday] and delegates have elected the national working committee,” The Indian Express quoted Ritabrata Banerjee as saying.

The Uluberia Purba MLA said that Roy had been with the party “from the beginning”.

Twenty-nine other members have been elected to the committee, Ritabrata Banerjee added.

Ritabrata Banerjee said that the legislators want Mamata Banerjee to be their chief adviser.

He contended that the TMC’s Constitution required that a national working committee be formed every three years, and that the last panel was set up in February 2022, The Telegraph reported.

The MLAs will inform the Election Commission about their decision, The Indian Express quoted Ritabrata Banerjee as saying.

He said that the name of Abhishek Banerjee, the national general secretary of the TMC, was not discussed in the meeting.

“We are the Trinamool Congress,” he was quoted as saying. “We will shortly set up a state committee, district committees, spokesperson and frontal organisations.”

However, former West Bengal minister Madan Mitra, a supporter of Mamata Banerjee, said that the rebel MLAs did not have the power to change the party structure.

“There is a party Constitution and Mamata Banerjee is the chairperson of the party,” The Indian Express quoted Mitra as saying. “This [new party structure] simply cannot be done. They [rebel group] cannot do this.”

The TMC has been beset by internal divisions and rebellions after it lost the Assembly elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party in May. On June 3, nearly 60 out of the TMC’s 80 MLAs rebelled against the party leadership to choose Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition in the House.

The group has been recognised by the Assembly speaker as the party’s legislature party in the House, and Ritabrata Banerjee has been recognised as the leader of the Opposition.

On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court declined to grant interim relief in a petition challenging the speaker’s decision to recognise Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition. The petition was filed by TMC leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, who had been nominated by the group supporting Mamata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition.

On June 14, TMC leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said that 20 of the party’s Lok Sabha MPs will merge with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens’ Party and back the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

On Friday, Abhishek Banerjee submitted petitions to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla demanding that the 20 rebel MPs be disqualified on the grounds of leaving the party.

Earlier this month, three of the TMC’s Rajya Sabha MPs resigned, and two of them quit the party.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

There are an estimated 258 million widows in the world, with one in ten living in extreme poverty. Widows are significantly more numerous than widowers, who usually remarry quickly, almost always to younger women – so tend to die before their wives.

June 23 is International Widows’ Day, officially established by the United Nations to draw attention to widows and their all-too-problematic position and neglected rights.

The word “widow” naturally conjures up an image of elderly women. But in most countries where 23 June is marked, little attention has so far been paid to children who become widows.

Every year, 12 million girls around the world under the age of 18 are married off, mainly in parts of Africa and Asia. These children sometimes do not attend school, or drop out as soon as they get married. Afterwards, they rarely have the opportunity to continue their education.

The millions of girls married far too young are mainly found in rural areas, where customs and discriminatory interpretations of religious laws often take precedence over modern legislation that has long raised the legal age of marriage. In these contexts, widowhood means social death.

A Child Widows Report in 2018 states that an estimated 1.36 million widows are under the age of 18, often even younger. The actual number is undoubtedly higher, since many child brides and child widows are undocumented. Some are little girls, not yet ten, or young mothers of around 12 years.

There are even toddlers and babies among them. In this photograph from a century ago are eight child widows cast out by their in-laws; they were fortunate enough to be taken in by a children’s home in Delhi.

A young widow from Bangladesh, who had only been married for a few months, summed up her married life in 2017: “I was absolutely terrified when I saw my future husband. He had one tooth, a hunchback, and was very old. I was so scared when I was left at his house that I tried to crawl under his mother’s bed to escape him. He hurt me. I was glad when he died.”

In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of child marriages is highest. In Niger, 76% of girls marry before the age of 18 and 28% before the age of 15. But most child brides live in South Asia because of the region’s larger populations.

Most countries have developed legislation prohibiting child marriage, and many have also signed the relevant international conventions. Thus, the number of child marriages has fallen, and the number of child widows.

But in rural, impoverished regions, custom carries more weight than national legislation. This is certainly true where parents are required to provide a dowry for their daughters. If there are many daughters, this can spell financial ruin. Those who cannot meet the demands of the in-laws cannot be choosy.

It is not uncommon for their much-older husbands to die before them, sometimes shortly after the marriage. In some places, the girls remain widows for life due to the tradition that dictates that a woman must never remarry out of respect for her deceased husband.

Modern Indians have long been opposed to the age-old practice of child marriage, but in many parts of the country, conservative families uphold the traditional rules, particularly in regions where poverty and illiteracy are rife.

In many families, there is barely enough food for the children, and so the boys are given lion’s share. The notion that baby boys are more valuable certainly does not exist in India alone. Wherever a vocal preference for sons has been passed down, giving birth to boys has earned their mothers the highest possible social prestige. No wonder, then, that many mothers would rather have a son than a daughter.

‘Life was a misery’

In 1994, a Widows’ Conference was held in Bangalore, where widows from a caste in which remarriage was forbidden dared to speak openly about their situation for the first time. A 70-year-old woman, widowed when she was five, told her own story:

“I was playing outside with my little sister and a cousin when my mother called me inside and said, ‘Your husband is dead.’ I asked, ‘Who is a husband, Mummy?’ I had never seen him. From that day on, my life changed. I was no longer allowed to play outside with the other children. I had to take off my jewellery. I continued to live with my mother, but she kept me indoors. I did all the housework – cooking, cleaning and washing. From that moment on, my life was a misery. I turned to god for help.”

In some countries, if her husband dies young, a girl is accused of having committed grave sins in a previous life; otherwise, her husband would not have died so soon.

Child brides who have not attended school are entirely dependent on that older husband. Without social security, they are constantly at risk as child widows: they have no defence against violence, have no right to inheritance and, in many cases, are driven away, often accused of witchcraft.

The 2018 Child Widows Report first drew attention to their alarming situation at the United Nations. These child widows inevitably fall between two stools: they are often not covered by aid programmes for children, yet organisations concerned with the plight of widows also fail to recognise their rights.

Mineke Schipper is a writer and emeritus professor of literary studies at Leiden University. Her latest book Widows: A Global History, published by Speaking Tiger.

June 23 is International Widows’ Day.

Twelve Indians were among the thirteen persons killed in an explosion at Qatar’s main liquefied natural gas processing facility on Sunday, the Indian embassy said.

In a press briefing on Monday, Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi said that persons of Pakistani origin were also among those killed in the blast at the Barzan local gas supply facility in the Ras Laffan industrial complex, Doha News reported.

The complex is home to the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facility and supplied 19% of global liquefied natural gas exports in 2025.

Sixty persons were injured in the incident, al-Kaabi said. He confirmed that the explosion was “an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature”.

The Indian embassy said that the Qatari authorities had confirmed that all persons injured in the incident were in stable condition and receiving treatment.

Qatari authorities have confirmed that 12 Indian nationals have unfortunately passed away in the Ras Laffan incident yesterday night. We extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved families and prayers for the departed souls.

Qatari authorities have also confirmed that all…

— India in Qatar (@IndEmbDoha) June 22, 2026

State-run QatarEnergy stated that the explosion on Sunday occurred as workers began to try to resume services at its export terminal, reported AP.

On March 18, Iran struck the Ras Laffan complex in retaliation for the Israeli-United States forces hitting its energy facilities associated with its South Pars gas field, amid the war in West Asia. South Pars, which Iran shares with Qatar, is the world’s largest natural gas reserve.

Qatar had said at the time that “extensive damage” was reported in the industrial complex after the Iranian strikes.

India was the largest importer of Qatari LNG after China in 2025. The supply disruption caused by the West Asia conflict had already triggered concerns and panic in India and globally.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava and Nachiket Deuskar.

Fifteen students died on Monday after a fire broke out in a three-story building from which a coaching centre operates in the Aliganj area of Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow, ANI quoted Medical Superintendent of King George Medical University Prem Raj Singh as saying.

At least seven persons are admitted at the hospital, Singh added.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak told ANI that action will be taken against those found responsible with no leniency.

Videos shared on social media showed persons jumping from the first floor of the building to escape the fire.

Eyewitnesses said that at least eight students jumped from the building, The Hindu reported.

The building also housed a pet shop. Several animals were rescued after the fire, ANI reported.

#WATCH | Uttar Pradesh | Firefighting and rescue operations underway at a coaching centre in Aliganj, Lucknow. Some people are feared trapped inside the building. pic.twitter.com/p4QQiFLTpD

— ANI (@ANI) June 22, 2026

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of those who died. The injured persons would be given Rs 50,000 each, the prime minister’s office stated in a social media post.

“Anguished by the loss of lives in a fire mishap in Lucknow,” read the statement. “My condolences to the bereaved families.”

Anguished by the loss of lives in a fire mishap in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. My condolences to the bereaved families. May the injured recover at the earliest. Rescue operations are underway and authorities are providing all possible assistance.

An ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh from…

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) June 22, 2026

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi stated that the news of the deaths of and injuries “is extremely heartbreaking”.

“I extend my deepest condolences to all the bereaved families and hope for the speedy recovery of the injured,” he wrote on social media.

लखनऊ के कोचिंग सेंटर में आग लगने के हादसे में कई लोगों की मृत्यु और कई अन्य के घायल होने का समाचार अत्यंत पीड़ादायक है।

सभी शोकाकुल परिवारों को अपनी गहरी संवेदनाएं व्यक्त करता हूं और घायलों के जल्द स्वस्थ होने की आशा करता हूं।

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 22, 2026

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav said that the incident was “extremely tragic” and called for an “honest investigation” into its cause.

“Those children could have belonged to anyone’s family,” he said. “Preventing such heartbreaking accidents in the future should be our collective endeavour.”

The incident in Lucknow came weeks after 21 persons were killed in a fire at a ground-plus-five-storey bed-and-breakfast establishment in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar. Of those who died in the June 3 fire, 10 were Indians, nine were from African countries and two were from Turkmenistan.

Most of the foreign nationals were medical tourists who had come to India for treatment, or were accompanying patients.

Edited by Sneha.

This is a developing story. It will be updated as new details are available.

Six Lok Sabha MPs of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) switched to the rival faction led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. 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.

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.

Before they formally joined the Shinde Sena, Uddhav Thackeray held a meeting with leaders of his faction in Mumbai to discuss “upcoming political developments, organisational matters and the legislature’s strategy”. Read on.

Fourteen students died after a fire broke out in a three-story building from which a coaching centre operates in the Aliganj area of Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow. Four others were injured and admitted to hospital, he added.

Videos shared on social media showed persons jumping from the first floor of the building to escape the blaze. Read on.

Odisha Assembly Speaker Surama Padhy has dismissed the Biju Janata Dal’s petition seeking the disqualification of eight of its MLAs for allegedly cross-voting during the Rajya Sabha elections in March. The petition was “cryptic, vague, unsubstantiated” and did not fulfil the statutory requirements to go into its merits, said the speaker.

The Biju Janata Dal had on March 16 alleged that the eight MLAs voted in favour of independent candidate Dilip Ray, who was supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party. BJD chief Naveen Patnaik had accused the BJP of “horse-trading”. Read on.

After at least 14 mosques and dargahs were demolished in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, Opposition leaders have alleged that Muslim places of worship were being targeted. Notices have been issued to hundreds of other religious structures, including the 250-year-old shrine of Hazrat Mahmood Shah Jilani in Jaisalmer, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi has claimed.

He claimed that so far, four mosques in Bikaner have been bulldozed. Nine mosques and dargahs in Phalodi, Jaisalmer and Barmer have also been targeted, claimed Owaisi. These districts are close to the India Pakistan border. The demolitions are being “justified on national security grounds”, the Hyderabad MP said.

Since May, at least 23 Muslim religious structures have been demolished in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, according to the Muslim Mirror. Read on.

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The demolition of at least 14 mosques and dargahs in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh has sparked a political row, with Opposition leaders alleging that Muslim places of worship are being targeted.

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

These are districts bordering Pakistan. The Hyderabad MP claimed that the demolitions were being “justified on national security grounds”.

“However, none of the people in these areas have ever been involved in any such activities,” he said. “Only Muslim places of worship are being targeted.”

In Uttar Pradesh, the authorities last week demolished a mosque in Moradabad, alleging that it had been built illegally on gram sabha land. Separately, a notice was pasted on the wall of the Ganj Shahida mosque in Varanasi on June 12, alleging that it had been illegally constructed on railway land. The notice asked the mosque committee to vacate the premises by June 20, warning that the structure would be demolished, Maktoob Media reported.

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

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

He called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah to immediately stop the “discriminatory and targeted demolitions”.

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

“Despite the presence of a diverse religious population in these sensitive areas along the India-Pakistan border, there has never been any communal tension in their history,” the former chief minister said. “Places of worship of all faiths here are interconnected and enjoy deep reverence among all sections of society.”

He said that there are several mosques and shrines in the area that have been cared for and maintained by the Hindu community for years. “The vocal opposition by local Hindus to this one-sided administrative action is itself a unique example of the deep communal harmony that exists here,” he said on social media.

The demolition “while specifically targeting one religion” appeared to be motivated by the objective of “creating political polarisation and disrupting the social fabric”, Gehlot said.

Since May, at least 23 Muslim religious structures have been demolished in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, according to the Muslim Mirror.

On Saturday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected comments made by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, saying that the remarks about the demolition of the Muslim religious sites in India were unwarranted.

Zardari had expressed concern about the demolitions, including that of Varanasi’s Ganj Shahida mosque, which he claimed was 1,000-year-old. He had urged India to stop the demolitions, “warning that they risk leading to the disintegration and perennial chaos” of India.

New Delhi said that Zardari had no locus standi, or a legal standing, to comment on matters that are internal to India.

The Indian ministry said that Zardari’s comments were “particularly absurd given Pakistan’s own abysmal record on human rights, which is a matter of global commentary”.

Pakistan’s “long history of systematically targeting and victimising minorities across various faiths is notorious”, the ministry spokesperson added.

The president’s remarks are a “deliberate political attack, driven by Pakistan’s national policies of bigotry and hatred”, New Delhi said.

Barmer demolition

On Thursday, a mosque in Malana village of Rajasthan’s Barmer district was bulldozed as part of a drive to remove allegedly illegal structures within a 15-km radius of India’s border with Pakistan.

During a meeting in Bikaner in May with district collectors and superintendents of police on border security, the Union home minister had directed the authorities to remove encroachments in the border areas, The Indian Express reported.

Following this, the administration in Barmer conducted a survey of the areas near the border to identify allegedly unauthorised structures.

The mosque in Malana was demolished as part of the drive, with the authorities claiming that it had been built on grazing land.

Maulvi Hasam Khan said that while the mosque had been constructed about two years ago, a madrasa had been functioning at the site since 2009, The Indian Express reported.

Khan said that the land had been classified as residential when the madrasa was built. He was quoted as having claimed that the madrasa had been issued a lease deed by the gram panchayat.

Uttar Pradesh demolition

On Wednesday, the authorities in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad bulldozed a mosque that had been allegedly constructed illegally on land belonging to the gram sabha, PTI reported.

After verifying the land records and the ownership status, the administration found that the structure was allegedly unauthorised and initiated action following a legal process, the news agency reported.

The mosque was razed as part of a drive to remove alleged encroachments from government land.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Six Lok Sabha MPs of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) switched to the rival faction led by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday.

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.

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.

On Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis described the act of splitting the Uddhav Sena’s Lok Sabha MPs as an “operation” and said that it had been successful, India Today reported.

Shinde said that “we don’t leave operations incomplete, we complete what we take up”.

Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray on Monday held a meeting with party leaders in Mumbai to discuss “upcoming political developments, organisational matters and the legislature’s strategy”, ANI reported.

He has also called for an emergency meeting of all party legislators, reported The Indian Express on Monday. There have been speculations that the Shinde Sena may try to persuade MLAs, MLCs, and municipal corporators of the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction to defect.

On Friday, Uddhav Thackeray offered an apology to voters who had elected the rebel MPs. He had said that he was willing to resign as the party chief if the workers did not have faith in him but added that he had not lost his resolve to fight.

‘Loyalty for sale’

On Monday, Uddhav Thackeray’s son and party MLA Aaditya Thackeray described the MPs who switched sides as “greedy” and said that their action had proved that their loyalty was “for sale”.

“All of the ones that are jumping over now were elected on the platforms of the MVA [Maha Vikas Aghadi] and the INDIA [bloc], against the NDA [National Democratic Alliance],” Aaditya Thackeray said on social media. “The voters voted against the NDA candidates and for INDIA in your constituencies and for all it stands for.”

He added: “Just accept that your greed got you to ditch all of it overnight, shamelessly.”

To the greedy MPs who have hopped over, you only prove the following, stronger than before:
1) Your loyalty, your reputation is for sale, shamelessly
2) The government is biased and uses public money, politically, as funds

All of the ones that are jumping over now were elected…

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) June 22, 2026

Crisis in Uddhav Sena

On Thursday, the six rebel MPs had skipped a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group. The meeting was held a day after the Uddhav Sena 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.

On Friday, 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 polls.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Nine persons were detained on Sunday for allegedly appearing in place of registered candidates during the re-examination for the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test in Bihar’s Lakhisarai district, PTI quoted the police as saying.

Superintendent of Police Prerna Kumar told the news agency that a first information report will be registered after written complaints are received from the centre superintendents concerned.

Kumar said that 10 to 12 more persons, including biometric operators and middlemen, were being questioned in the case.

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

It was conducted after the National Testing Agency cancelled the May 3 examination following allegations of a paper leak. More than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for the test the first time.

It is unclear how many students appeared for the re-test.

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

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

Indore law student arrested

In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, a first-year law student was arrested by the Crime Branch for allegedly selling a question paper to NEET UG 2026 aspirants ahead of the re-examination, reported The Indian Express on Monday.

Akshay Malviya, 19, was allegedly claiming on Instagram that he had access to a leaked question paper and exclusive study material for NEET.

He was selling the paper, which was generated through artificial intelligence, for Rs 50 to Rs 200, The Indian Express quoted the police as saying.

Around 20 to 35 students may have transferred money to Malviya, the police added.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Odisha Assembly Speaker Surama Padhy has dismissed the Biju Janata Dal’s petition seeking the disqualification of eight of its MLAs for allegedly cross-voting during the Rajya Sabha elections in March, ANI reported on Monday.

The speaker said that the disqualification petition was “cryptic, vague, unsubstantiated” and did not fulfil the statutory requirements to go into its merits, Odisha TV quoted the order as saying.

On March 16, the BJD had alleged that the eight MLAs cross-voted in favour of independent candidate Dilip Ray, who was supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the polls to the Upper House of Parliament.

Four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha were to fall vacant on April 2 and elections had been held on March 16 to fill them.

While two BJP candidates and one from the BJD were elected to the Rajya Sabha. The fourth candidate supported by BJD and the Congress lost to Ray after falling short by 11 votes. Of the eleven, eight were allegedly from the BJD and three from the Congress.

Earlier on the day of polling, BJD chief Naveen Patnaik had accused the BJP of “horse-trading”.

In April, the BJD urged the speaker to disqualify the eight legislators for “going against the party line”.

The Hindu had quoted Pramila Mallick, the party’s chief whip in the Assembly, as saying that the BJD wanted the MLAs to resign and seek a fresh mandate from their constituencies “to prove how popular they are”.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Five workers died and 67 are undergoing treatment after an ammonia gas leak at a private seafood export unit near Periyapalayam in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur district on Sunday, the state government said.

The revised toll came after reports on Sunday evening said that seven workers had been killed.

Seventy-four persons were hurt in the incident and two of them have been discharged, according to a bulletin issued by the Tamil Nadu Health and Family Welfare Department on Monday morning.

Among those 67 undergoing treatment, 31 are on ventilator support, 11 patients in intensive care units and one on non-invasive ventilation, in government and private hospitals in Chennai and Tiruvallur districts, the bulletin added. The 24 others were in stable condition.

The leak was reported at St Peter’s Paul Seafoods Exports Private Limited, where nearly 120 migrant workers were staying on the premises, reported The Indian Express. The factory processes and exports shrimp.

Most of the workers are women from Assam, Odisha and Jharkhand. As Sunday is the weekly holiday at the processing unit, most of the workers were in the residential unit of the factory, the newspaper reported. The leak originated from the processing unit and quickly spread to the rest of the premises.

The police have registered a case and an investigation into the cause of the leak is underway.

Chief Minister Vijay directed that an enquiry committee be formed to probe the incident.

The three-member committee will comprise the director of industrial safety and health, member secretary of the Pollution Control Board and the additional director of public health. They have been ordered to submit an interim report within 24 hours and a final report in three days.

The chief minister announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the families of those who died.

Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar expressed his condolences to the families.

“I am deeply saddened by the tragic ammonia gas leak incident at a shrimp processing factory in Kannigaipair Village, near Periyapalayam, Thiruvallur district, which has resulted in the loss of precious lives and caused injuries to several workers,” he stated.

" I am deeply saddened by the tragic ammonia gas leak incident at a shrimp processing factory in Kannigaipair Village , near Periyapalayam, Thiruvallur district, which has resulted in the loss of precious lives and caused injuries to several workers.
My heartfelt condolences to…

— LOK BHAVAN, TAMIL NADU (@lokbhavan_tn) June 21, 2026

Corrections and clarifications: The story has been updated based on a health department bulletin on Monday that said that the toll was five. A previous version had quoted the police as having told a newspaper that seven workers had been killed.

Edited by Sneha and Sara Varghese

India has made notable progress in reducing child marriage in the past two decades, the latest National Family Health Survey indicates. But adolescent pregnancy has remained largely stagnant, indicating that some of the gains are a result of the legal age of marriage being 18 rather than changes in social norms.

The sixth round of the National Family Health Survey was conducted across 6,79,238 households in 2023-’24, and the findings were released in May. One in every five women, or 20.1%, between the ages of 20-24 were married before turning 18 in the NFHS-6, down from 23.3% during the NFHS-5, which was conducted between 2019-’21.

Long-term trends show that child marriage nearly halved from 47.4% in 2005-’06 during the NFHS-3 to 26.8% in 2015-’16, in the NFHS-4 findings.

Despite these gains, the scale of the problem is alarming. In terms of absolute numbers, millions of girls continue to enter marriage before reaching adulthood. The survey findings show that India’s target to eliminate child marriage by 2030 is far from reality, and the country will need to accelerate its efforts.

The negligible decline in adolescent pregnancy points to the continuing challenges of tackling child marriage: 6.7% of women and teenagers between the ages of 15-19 were already mothers or pregnant at the time of the survey, a negligible decrease from 6.8% in NFHS-5.

In some cases, marriages may be postponed until shortly after a girl turns 18, satisfying the legal requirement while preserving the expectation of early childbearing. As a result, girls may still leave school early, enter motherhood during adolescence, and experience many of the same disadvantages associated with child marriage.

Many varying dimensions

Child marriage is unevenly distributed across India, concentrated in specific geographical regions and shaped by poverty and social norms. The rural-urban divide is particularly striking. In rural areas, 23.3% of women were married before the age of 18, compared with 11.4% in urban areas.

State-level disparities are even more pronounced. West Bengal recorded the highest prevalence of child marriage in the country at 36.4%, indicating that more than one in three young women were married before reaching adulthood.

Bihar (34.6%) and Rajasthan (34.0%) follow closely, while Jharkhand (28.1%), Assam (25.3%), and Andhra Pradesh (25.1%) were also above the national average.

Better-performing states like Kerala report a prevalence of just 2.9%, Goa (6.8%) and Himachal Pradesh (7.9%).

Most states have recorded improvements since the fifth NFHS. Telangana, for instance, saw child marriage decline from 23.5% to 17.9% between NFHS-5 and NFHS-6. Uttarakhand reduced child marriage from 16.2% to 8.8%, while Karnataka registered a decline from 21.3% to 15.3% during the same period.

Even states with the highest prevalence have made measurable progress. In West Bengal, child marriage declined from 41.6% in NFHS-5 to 36.4% in NFHS-6. Bihar recorded a reduction from 40.8% to 34.6%, while Rajasthan saw its prevalence fall from 40.1% to 34.0%.

The latest data is also a warning sign that social and economic challenges can quickly erode progress. Some states that previously reported relatively low levels of child marriage have experienced reversals. In Punjab, child marriage increased from 8.7% to 10.2%, while Meghalaya witnessed a particularly sharp rise from 5.6% to 10.2%. Himachal Pradesh also recorded an increase, from 5.4% to 7.9%.

Economic uncertainty, disruptions to schooling, and the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic years may have increased pressures on vulnerable households, prompting some families to revert to early marriage practices.

Shadow of adolescent pregnancy

Child marriage is closely linked to adolescent pregnancy, which increases the risks of related health indicators such as maternal morbidity, maternal mortality, adverse birth outcomes, and results in long-term socioeconomic disadvantage.

The burden of adolescent pregnancy is heavily concentrated in states where child marriage remains widespread. In West Bengal, 18% of girls between the ages of 15-19 were already mothers or pregnant, 11.7% in Jharkhand and 11.4% in Bihar.

Child marriage and adolescent pregnancy are a self-perpetuating cycle. Girls who marry early, enter motherhood soon after, discontinue their education, and face constrained economic opportunities throughout their lives. These disadvantages can carry forward across generations.

Efforts to reduce child marriage must also address social and economic pressures that continue to drive early motherhood and curtail the autonomy of girls.

Education, the best catalyst

The survey reiterates the importance of education in reducing child marriage.

In states with the lowest child marriage rates, women with 10 or more years of schooling was high: Kerala (86.6%), Himachal Pradesh (72.1%), and Goa (66.5%). Nationally, women with 10 or more years of schooling increased slightly to 46.4% from 41% in NFHS-5.

States with high rates of child marriage recorded low secondary level education among women: Bihar was 33.1%, Rajasthan 33.7% and West Bengal 39.5%.

Girls with higher education are more likely to delay marriage, aspire for more than traditional gender roles and assert their autonomy. Completing secondary education also improves future employment opportunities, increasing the perceived economic and social returns to investing in girls.

Aside from awareness campaigns and enforcing the legal age of marriage, investing in the education of girls is crucial to reducing child marriage.

This means expanding access to secondary education, reducing financial barriers to continued schooling, and incentivising school attendance and completion. The fight against child marriage is a fight for girls’ education.

Limits of legal prohibition

In 2023, the government proposed raising the minimum age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, aligning it with men, by passing the Prohibition of Child Marriage Amendment Bill. The bill, however, lapsed with the dissolution of the 17th Lok Sabha.

But, as the latest survey shows, despite two decades of 18 being the legal age of marriage for women, one in five women between the ages of 20-24 was still married before the age of 18.

It means that legal reform is symbolically important but unlikely to be sufficient on its own. If the enforcement of the existing minimum age is incomplete, simply raising the legal threshold will have a limited impact among communities where early marriage continues to be socially accepted and economically driven.

Effective implementation of the law requires far more than statutory provisions. It depends on the commitment of district administrations, child protection systems, community surveillance, accessible grievance and reporting mechanisms, and coordinated action across education, health and social welfare departments. Equally important are support systems that enable girls and their families to resist social pressures to marry early without economic hardship or social exclusion.

Improving girls’ retention in secondary education must become a central policy priority, particularly in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Rajasthan. The focus should be on ensuring the successful completion of secondary schooling. India has made undeniable progress, but as the data shows, the challenge is to expand the capabilities and choices available to adolescent girls.

Pintu Paul is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi. His email ID is: pintupaul383@gmail.com.

Strawberrito is cheating on her husband Banananito. Chawal falls for Tacito (taco) during a trip to Mexico while his girlfriend Rajma pines away in their village in Punjab. Potato discovers the money-laundering scheme of his co-worker Brinjal at Onion’s car repair firm.

This is one genre of the ever-expanding, AI-generated universe of brain-rot reels: talking food and beverages, perpetually caught up in one drama-filled predicament or another.

Watching these “food dramas” was a reminder of a similar – though considerably more imaginative and decidedly less cringe-worthy – phenomenon that flourished across the interconnected Persian, Arabic, and Urdu literary worlds.

Between the 11th and 19th centuries, poets and storytellers from Cairo to Shiraz and Hindustan transformed flowers, trees, fruits, vegetables, and kitchen ingredients into rivals, vigilantes, rulers, counselors, and companions, endowing them with voices, personalities, and ambitions of their own. Through their quarrels, alliances, and adventures, these poets reflected on the social and cultural transformations of their times.

Many of these literary conceits are familiar to contemporary readers through the poetry of Rumi, Sa’di, Hafiz, Mirza Ghalib, and even the playful riddles posthumously attributed to Amir Khusrau.

In their verses, the rose could appear as a beloved, a bride, a queen, or the sovereign of the garden enthroned beneath a jewelled canopy. Elsewhere, rosewater – privileged by its association with the Prophet Muhammad’s sweat – became a rival to wine, boasting: “O wine, I am licit while you are forbidden.” The narcissus, meanwhile, might take the form of the beloved’s languid, intoxicated eye or a vigilant sentinel presiding over a gathering of drinkers.

Even court nobles and warriors engaged in such anthropomorphic literary exercises. A notable, though little-known, example is a munazara (debate poem) by Khushal Khan Khattak, the 17th-century Pashtun chief who, after falling out with Aurangzeb, led resistance against the Mughal state on the northwestern frontier.

In this poem, which contrasts fleeting success with the virtues of patience, resilience, and longevity, a fast-growing gourd vine climbs a pine tree and mocks its slow growth. The gourd boasts, “Look at me – in just one week, I have reached your height.” The old, wise pine responds, “Wait until the hardships of winter arrive; then we shall speak of age and growth.”

Culinary imagination

The same creative impulse animated kitchens, food markets and dining spreads. One of the most entertaining examples of this culinary imagination is a 15th-century Arabic work from Mamluk Cairo titled Kitab al-Harb al-Maʿshuq bayna Lahm al-Daʾn wa Hawadir al-Suq (The Delectable War between Mutton and the Snacks of the Marketplace).

Authored by Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Hasan al-Hajjar (the Stone Mason), the poem narrates a conflict between two camps, each represented by a range of personified edible goods.

The story recounts how King Mutton, proud of being savoured by the old money elite, is alarmed at the rising influence of his rival, King Honey, ruler of the “snacks of the marketplace”. Determined to assert supremacy, King Mutton dispatches his envoy – a sheep’s fatty tail – with an ultimatum demanding submission. King Honey refuses. Letters dripping with insults are exchanged. Armies are mobilised, and a full-scale culinary war begins.

On one side stood the meat camp: King Mutton joined by his wazir Goat Meat, commander Beef, and an assortment of meats, animal fats, and meat dishes. On the other stood King Honey at the head of a remarkably diverse coalition: His kingdom included Syrian and local milks, Lebanese yogurt delicacies, Sicilian cheeses, and honey imported from North Africa, Turkey, and Portugal, as well as sweets and sweetening agents such as fruit molasses; Palmyran olives; turnips, cucumbers, and eggplants pickled with mint; capers; olives; and salted lemons.

This army also included vinegars, Alexandrian fish paste, salted sparrows, salted fish, river mussels in oil and lemon water; fish dishes; and numerous river and sea fishes – both imported and local, preserved and fresh; fried eggs; omelettes; hot grilled colocasia; lentils; hummus; and broad beans.

Other members of this ensemble were cold snacks such as seasoned pumpkin in mustard seeds, beans in olive oil and caraway, fried spinach, and fried eggplant. Fats included clarified butter, sesame oil, tahina (a paste ground from sesame seeds), and fresh butter.

Before the battle, there was treachery. Sheep’s Tail secretly bribed several of Honey’s advisers, who agreed to betray their sovereign when war broke out. The first clash ended badly for Honey’s forces.

Hoping to reverse his fortunes, King Honey summoned reinforcements in the form of an impressive corps of fruits. They arrived in splendour and joined the fight, only to suffer an even more crushing defeat. The forces of King Mutton prevailed, and the meat camp emerged victorious.

Food, taste and hierarchy

Beneath this comically absurd warfare lies a simmering commentary on hierarchies of food, taste, class, and meal structure in medieval Cairo. Mutton and its supporters repeatedly dismissed Honey’s followers as the food of paupers and rabble, insisting that only meat deserved the status of a proper or “real” meal. Yet many members of Honey’s kingdom were expensive imports, hardly the fare of the poor.

The result is a text that probably captures a reactionary impulse among the old elite of society against the flooding of Cairo’s markets with a diverse range of imported produce.

The mass or easy availability of these delicacies may have been perceived as indicating a shift in taste fuelled by a parvenu merchant community, and as threatening the dominance and prestige of the old elite’s dietary preferences, centred on locally procured meat and its by-products.

King Honey and his army of foods were thus snubbed and relegated to the category of snacks – smaller in portion and seen as less substantial and combatively less nourishing.

Other rivalries within the edible kingdom that found an audience in the early modern Persianate world were contests staged by a 15th-century poet from Shiraz between the staple dish, bughra (a seasoned flour paste, meat, and vegetable-based preparation), and rice, a relatively new entrant to the culinary order. Having risen to prominence in the wake of the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, rice dramatically transformed the cuisines of the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia. The Mongols had first encountered rice as a dietary staple in China and went on to popularise it in the other regions they invaded.

These poems were penned by Abu Ishaq Hallaj (the Cotton Carder) Shirazi. A boon companion at the court of Timurid ruler Iskandar Mirza, he earned the title Bushaq-i Atʿima (“Bushaq of Foods”) for building an entire literary career around culinary poetry.

Parodying the great Persian masters – Firdausi, Khayyam, Rumi, and Hafiz – he subjected their lofty compositions about heroes, lovers, mystics, and kings to the vocabulary of kitchens, markets, and dining spreads. Bushaq’s poetry circulated widely in Mughal South Asia, forming part of a shared literary universe that stretched from Iran to the Indian subcontinent.

In Bushaq’s Dastan-i Muza‘far wa Bughra (The Story of Saffron Rice and Bughra), written in imitation of Firdausi’s Shahnama, rice appears as an ambitious newcomer that challenges and ultimately prevails over bughra’s established supremacy.

The poem narrates how rice begins life buried in mud and water, only to be beaten and stripped of its enclosing husk, as if lamenting its condition like a tragic lover in a Persian romance. Upon reaching the grocery store, rice finds itself seated beside ugly black lentils and cries out to God for deliverance: “Give me meat, give me oil, give me saffron!” This plea expresses an ambition to climb the dietary hierarchy through sophisticated cooking and seasoning techniques, such as the addition of meat, oil, and saffron, which signified refinement.

Eventually, rice is adorned with these ingredients, crowned, enthroned, and acknowledged as ruler of the dining spread by the surrounding dishes.

In another of Bushaq’s compositions, Majara-i Birinj wa Bughra (The Quarrel of Rice and Bughra), the conflict takes a different turn. This time, bughra overcomes the combined forces of rice and fried meat by imprisoning them inside a gipa – a stuffed tripe dish. The conflict might have escalated into another culinary war had a squash not intervened as mediator. Peace is restored, and the rival foods conclude by paying tribute to one another’s tastiness.

Beneath this reconciliation lies a history of cultural assimilation. It mirrors the evolution of Timurid cuisine, which was shaped by the convergence of diverse culinary traditions: Central Asian and Turkic influences exemplified by Bughra and Gipa, and the growing prominence of rice, fostered by increased contact with China and India, which encouraged the adoption of this grain and the creation of new dishes based on it.

The Timurid culinary repertoire reached Hindustan through diplomatic ties, the migration of Sufi saints, and the movement of artists, all of which linked the region’s sultanates with the Timurid courts in Khurasan, Herat, and Shiraz. This culinary connection took deeper root with the arrival of Babur, the Timurid prince who founded the Mughal Empire.

Recipes for bughra and gipa are recorded in manuals from the regional sultanates of Malwa and the Deccan, as well as in Mughal cookbooks.

References to Mughal emperors consuming these dishes also survive in autobiographical and biographical literature, including an account of Humayun and his retinue finding time, amid a demanding military campaign, to gather and prepare bughra.

In Hindustan, however, Timurid cuisine encountered a foodscape where rice was a longstanding staple. As a result, the South Asian khichri came to sit as comfortably on elite spreads as pulao and rice biryan(i).

Pulao and biryan(i), though of Central Asian and Iranian provenance, were reworked in Mughal kitchens by incorporating spices and ingredients readily available in Hindustan. What began as a quarrel between different foods ultimately gave way to cosmopolitan cuisines shaped by movement, encounter, and exchange across Asia.

All this to say, the next time an AI-generated lovestruck mango or a scheming tomato appears on your phone screen, remember that food has been talking for centuries. It simply had better things to say, its stories were crafted by sharper minds, and telling them placed no significant demands on water, land, or energy resources.

Neha Vermani is an Honorary Fellow in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at Durham University. She is a historian of early modern South Asia, and her research focuses on the intersections of food practices, material culture, and scientific and ethical discourses on the body, the senses, and the natural world.

The Indian Union Muslim League on Saturday said it had ended its nearly six-decade-long alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, The Hindu reported.

The party passed a resolution to this effect at a meeting of its general council on Friday.

The Indian Union Muslim League, which won two seats in last month’s Tamil Nadu Assembly election, extended support to the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam for forming the government. However, it had contested the election as part of the alliance led by the DMK.

Kader Mohideen, the chief of the Indian Union Muslim League, said that the party had hoped that the “Dravidian Model government” would return to power and DMK chief MK Stalin would become the chief minister for a second term.

“We worked for that outcome during the election,” Mohideen said, according to The Hindu. “But God’s will appears to have been otherwise. The [TVK’s] ‘whistle’ symbol resonated across the state, people rallied behind Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, and the party won 108 seats.”

The IUML chief said that if his party had not extended support to the TVK, it could have led to Governor’s Rule, which would have “indirectly amounted to BJP rule”.

While the Vijay-led TVK emerged as the single-largest party in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, it had fallen short of the majority mark by 10 seats. Apart from the IUML, the TVK secured the support of the Congress, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi.

On May 22, IUML MLA AM Shahjahan was inducted into the state Cabinet. He holds the minority welfare portfolio.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Delhi High Court on Friday ordered the removal of “entirely false” reports claiming that Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, several other judges and Union ministers travelled to London at public expense to participate in a badminton tournament.

Justice Tejas Karia ordered the removal of several media reports and social media posts making these claims in response to a petition by the Badminton Association of India. He directed the government to issue notifications requiring social media platforms and search engines to remove the “false, malicious and derogatory” content within 24 hours.

“Members of the public are further restrained from uploading, publishing, circulating, sharing or otherwise disseminating the impugned content on any social media platform, search engine, web-hosting platform, digital media platform or other online media or platform,” the court ordered.

Among the links ordered to be removed were reports by The Print, National Herald and The Tribune, and a post on X by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi.

The Badminton Association of India contended that the media reports and social media posts falsely suggested that the chief justice and several other judges travelled to London for a tournament along with Union ministers, thus compromising judicial independence.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the photographs accompanying these posts were not from London, but were from a badminton event held at Delhi’s Thyagaraj Stadium in November. He said that the photos showed a ceremonial first match played by Kant, Justice Vikram Nath and Union ministers Arjun Ram Meghwal and Kiren Rijiju.

The court on Friday also referred to a clarification by the Press Information Bureau’s Fact Check Unit saying that the claims on social media were “entirely false”.

Karia said that the claims being made in the reports and social media posts appeared to be part of a “systematic misinformation campaign intended to malign the reputation” of the chief justice and judges of the Supreme Court and High Court.

The court said it was of the view “that the impugned content is ex-facie false, malicious and derogatory to the judiciary, the executive and the sport of badminton”.

The content in question did not amount to fair criticism, but appeared to be based on “demonstrably incorrect factual assertions”, the court said.

The judge directed the government to file a status report showing compliance with the court’s directions within three weeks. The matter will be heard again on July 17.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

We are living through profoundly troubled times. So much that is good and precious is badly broken – kindness, justice, love, courage, caring, compassion and empathy. There sometimes seems little hope that we can ever mend.

Look around us. An unarmed man is lynched to death by a crowd, screaming piteously for hours, yet we look away. Young couples who dare to cross the borders of religion and caste risk being slaughtered by mobs or even men of their own families in the name of family and community honour. A young girl is gang-raped, a schoolboy beaten to death by his schoolmaster, a bridegroom pulled off his wedding horse and killed for the supposed transgression of their caste.

In our land, it has become customary for the rest of us to look away as people of Muslim religious identity are being disenfranchised, their houses bulldozed, their worship criminalised, their citizenship rights trampled. Or when targeted people are pushed at gunpoint across international borders or tossed from naval boats into the deep sea.

Not just India. Look at the world today. A trillion dollars is the wealth of one single man. If he spends a million dollars every single day, it would take 2,700 years for his wealth to get exhausted. Yet one in 12 people in the world sleep hungry every night, one in two are denied affordable healthcare, and one in five children are malnourished.

The most powerful countries in the world support the genocidal slaughter of children, aid workers, doctors and press persons in Gaza. The most powerful leader in the world speaks nonchalantly of expelling the people of Gaza – people who have lived in that land for thousands of years – to build, in place of the ruins of their devastated homeland, an upmarket riviera.

Each day there are new stories, sombre stories of our fraught and pitiless times. Stories of surging hate, fear and inequality signal nothing short of a civilisational crisis.

We must bear public witness to all of this, to burden our public conscience, and call to resist. We must battle hate violence and state injustice in every way that we can; we must fight in the courts, on the streets, and in hearts and minds.

Courage and kindness

But despair is not an option. Hope is a public duty. Therefore, we must also realise that this is not enough.

We must be mindful that there are other stories as well, all around us. Stories of stouthearted courage, of aching compassion, of heroic solidarity, of tender forgiveness.

Stories that we forget to tell.

We must pay heed when historian Howard Zinn reminds us that human history is not just a history of cruelty and oppression. It is also the story of kindness and courage. And what we emphasise in this complex history of ours will in the end determine what we become.

We must realise, therefore, that while it is imperative to bear witness to the hate and injustice that crushes us, it is profoundly important also to recognise and celebrate acts of courage and kindness.

These acts are what I call radical love, a love so robust that I am prepared to go to prison, even to endanger my life to protect and defend the other who is persecuted.

We most often don’t notice these acts of courage and kindness. We rarely celebrate them.

The idea grew among us for a series of local celebrations of acts of kindness and courage, of radical love. Of crowd-sourcing such stories. Of building maybe even a movement of love.

It is this that will give us hope, it will heal, it will mend, it will illuminate the path ahead.

Rehmat festivals

The name we coined for these celebrations of radical love and courageous kindness is Rehmat, which in Urdu means compassion, kindness, caring. The core idea of the Rehmat initiative is to identify and publicly honour people who stand tall against hate violence. People who demonstrate courageous kindness and radical love.

These are people who bravely act to prevent communal, caste and gender violence, people who rescue and shelter persecuted persons, people who save lives. People who fight great odds (like mob hate, fury, state persecution or their own deprivations) to defend, protect and care for individuals who are in danger, who are oppressed, who are suffering.

In brief, individuals who stand up against the forces of hate.

We agreed that this should not be one event but an ongoing series in many parts of the country and that we should try to crowdsource also the identifying of such acts of courageous kindness. We hope the idea can grow incrementally.

Starting in Hyderabad

We needed to start somewhere. A wonderful group of friends in Hyderabad offered to host the first Rehmat festival in the country, one we hope would be only one of ever more stories, ever more festivals to honour people who have demonstrated courageous kindness. Humera Ahmed and Ashhar Farhan offered the beautiful space they created 16 years ago called Lamakaan for the festival. They were joined by Elahe Hiptoola, Saleema Razvi, Azam Khan, Asiya Ahmed Khan and Amir Ullah Khan. This band of seven friends joined hands to create our first luminously beautiful celebration of courageous kindness.

Our task in the Karwan e Mohabbat was to identify the (s)heroes who we would honour. For this we reached the mountains of Kashmir, the lacerated combat zones of Manipur, and the bitterly divided lands of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Mustafabad in north-east Delhi and coastal Karnataka. My colleagues spoke with each of the protagonists of courageous kindness over many days, explained to them what we were trying to do and why, and invited them for the Rehmat celebration in Hyderabad.

There was hesitation, some shyness, then they agreed. Tickets were bought, and the programme was fixed for June 13 and 14 at Lamakaan, Hyderabad. Some adventures ensued in their journeys to Hyderabad. Haider Shah – the father of Adil Hussain Shah, the heroic pony operator in Pahalgam who had given his life to defend the tourists targeted by terrorists in Pahalgam in Kashmir in April 2025 – had not all his life stepped out of Kashmir or entered an aeroplane or train. My colleague Mohd Aamir Khan was with him on the phone at every step, gently guiding him through puzzling procedures like the airport security and check-in.

Ngaineikim Lunkim, the Kuki peace worker from Manipur, could not take the one-hour road journey to Imphal to catch her flight because it is unsafe for Kukis to enter Imphal. Instead, she had to take a ten-hour mountainous road journey to Aizwal to take the plane to Hyderabad.

At Hyderabad, a team of young volunteers received each of the guests and took them to see the city. My Hyderabad friends invited them by turns to their homes. On Sunday, Ngaineikim went to pray at a church, Iman Rashidi and Haider Shah at a mosque and Mohinder Singh at a gurudwara. Over the few days, this unusual collection of (s)heroes built bonds with each other. While parting, there were tears. They formed a WhatsApp group to remain in contact with each other.

Haider Shah

The first evening at Lamakaan began with Haider Shah, the father of Syed Adil Hussain Shah, the 28-year-old pony operator in Pahalgam who was shot dead while trying to save the lives of the innocent tourists last April by grappling with a terrorist and trying to snatch his rifle.

His father spoke to us with great dignity and conviction in simple words. He spoke of how much he loved and missed his eldest son, who was also the principal breadwinner of the family, but that he was happy that his son did what he did. He did this for humanity. This is what his culture, religion and love for his country had taught him. He misses his son each day but is proud of him.

Himanshi Narwal

Next, Lalita Ramdas accepted the award for Himanshi Narwal, the extraordinary young woman who lost her naval officer husband to the bullets of a terrorist during their honeymoon in Pahalgam, and made a passionate call against hate, violence and revenge.

Lalita Ramdas is the daughter of India’s first naval chief and wife of the 13th naval chief. She read out a letter she had written after as a personal tribute “from possibly one of the oldest Navy daughters/wives alive to the newest and youngest among the special fraternity of Naval Wives”.

She wrote, “I am so proud of you as I watch the clip of your words to the press, over and over again. Your extraordinary strength, composure and conviction when you speak out against hate and targeting of Muslims and Kashmiris after the horrific killing of so many innocent men in Pahalgam on the 22nd is truly remarkable!” She added, “You have echoed the thoughts and feelings of every thinking citizen of this country…And we should all take your message of love and compassion far and wide”.

Imam Rashidi

Next came Imam Rashidi. I recalled for the gathering how in 2018, after a communal skirmish had broken out in Asansol in West Bengal, two Hindu children were trapped in the Muslim dominant segment of the city and one Muslim child was caught in the Hindu area. Negotiations began for an exchange of the trapped children. But Imam Rashidi intervened and insisted that the Hindu children be safely returned to their parents with no conditionalities. After the Hindu children were restored, they waited for the Muslim child. This Muslim child was the Imam’s own son.

Near midnight, the police reported to the Imam that the boy had been tortured and killed. Had the Imam not intervened, the city would have burnt in a frenzy of revenge. But the Imam appealed to the Muslims saying, “The death of my son is a great tragedy for me, but it would be an even greater tragedy if a single Hindu was harmed in revenge”.

I recalled going to Asansol just days later with a Karwan e Mohabbat team. Young Muslim men told me that instead of the retributive violence that they would have unleashed, they formed groups to protect the Hindus in their part of the city. There were more Hindus than Muslims at the boy’s funeral, and peace returned to the city.

As I spoke, the Imam’s eyes welled up with tears. He said this was the first time after five years that he had broken down in public. He spoke of why he had chosen this path of peace after he cruelly lost his son. “This is what my religion, Islam, has taught me,” he quietly affirmed.

Ngaineikim

Next came Ngaineikim, the president of the Kuki women’s human rights association. The day when violence broke out on May 3, 2023, she was at her daughter’s clinic. Some Meitei men ran a gunshop just across the road from the clinic. When a mob of Kuki men descended on the shop to kill the Meitei men and loot the guns, she stood between the mob and the men and helped them escape to the police station. She returned to the clinic to find that two terrified Meitei men had hidden themselves there, and they begged her to save their lives. She locked them inside the clinic, and at 3 in the morning she drove to the clinic on her scooter and transported them to the police station.

The next day she called upon all the members of the Kuki women’s group to save their Meitei members. The women formed a human chain between the armed Kuki mobsters and the Meitei men to ensure their passage to safety.

Ngaineikim also spoke of calls that she got from her Kuki relatives who were similarly trapped in the Imphal Valley. She advised them to try to run to the safety of the police station. But they were caught by the mob and killed. She spoke of the great wound this had created in her heart, because no one had rescued the Kuki men in the valley in the way she and other women members had saved Meitei men in the hills.

But in Hyderabad she met Kshetrimayum Onil, the Meitei peace worker who had saved many Kuki people, and she said that this meeting had healed 70% of the wound that she carried in her heart. Both Ngaineikim and Onil spoke of how it would have been impossible for them to meet in the violently divided Manipur. But in Hyderabad it was as though Ngaineikim had found a brother in Onil. They both wept as they sat together on the dais.

Kshetrimayum Onil

The next evening began with listening to the story of Kshetrimayum Onil. Onil is a prominent human rights and peace worker of Manipur, who worked in the past with Amnesty, Oxfam and Greenpeace. He recalled working in relief camps with victim survivors of the Gujarat communal carnage in 2002-’03.

It took a lot of courage to do what Onil did after combat broke out in Manipur in 2023. Even as heavily armed militant groups of his own Meitei community roamed the streets with light machine guns, killing, looting and burning Kuki-Zo people, properties and churches, he rescued and evacuated Kuki-Zo children, women and men to the Manipur Rifles Station. He continued to supply them food, clothes and provisions in the temporary camp that was set up at Manipur Rifles before they were taken to the Kuki-Zo regions of the hills.

Despite threats by the militant groups, he persists in calling for dialogue and peace in Manipur. He spoke to us of the need to build a Manipur that is safe for people of every ethnicity and religion.

Sunny Sharma

Sunny Sharma owns a mobile phone shop in his village Lisadh in Shamli district (formerly part of Muzaffarnagar district) and is an influential member of the local khap panchayat. He recalled how in 2013, when communal violence broke out, he rescued his shop assistant, a young Muslim worker Nadeem and his mother and sister by hiding them in his home.

He ferried many others to safety as well on his motorcycle, defying the violent mobs of armed young men who tried to block his path. His friend, Babloo, joined him by transporting many people on his tractor to his poultry farm where they stood guard with local country pistols, until they could take them to the safety of government relief camps.

In the camps, Sunny Sharma would supply food rations and clothes to Muslim people of his village. He persuaded many terrified former residents to return to their village, and he helped them rebuild their homes and livelihoods.

In the meeting in Hyderabad, he spoke caustically about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and its role in dividing their society with hate. “There are 36 communities in Western Uttar Pradesh. Muslims are one among them. We have always lived together with peace. We will not allow the RSS to tear us apart”.

Abdul Basheer

Naushad, Abdul Basheer’s brother, was honoured on behalf of the family of Abdul Basheer. In 2018, a young Bajrang Dal activist Deepak Rao was brutally killed in Mangalore. In retribution, local Hindutva activists chose to kill Abdul Basheer, a 48-year-old who had returned after working for 25 years in the Gulf and now ran a fast-food outlet.

It was around 10 at night when he was pulling down the shutters that four men assaulted him and ran away. It was a dark and isolated part of the city and he lay bleeding when 15 minutes later, an ambulance driver found him and rushed him to a local hospital, where he died.

A large restive crowd gathered outside the hospital, and the city was on edge fearing another retaliatory killing. Activists wanted to take his body in a procession through the city and organise a grand funeral. But Abdul Basheer’s family firmly declined. They spoke through the media that Basheer would never have wanted his killing to spark more violence.

They quietly shifted the body to a mosque near their home and the funeral was restricted to the family. But large numbers of people – Hindus and Christians outnumbering Muslim residents – lined up to pay homage to his body. The family in this way halted the cycle of retaliatory violence.

Mohinder Singh

The Rehmat festival in Hyderabad concluded with honouring Mohinder Singh, a Sikh local leader who – with his son Inderjeet Singh – rescued around 70 to 80 Muslim women, children and men during the 2020 communal carnage in Delhi.

A mob gathered to destroy a mosque close to their home – the Jannati Masjid. When they learned that Muslims had hidden in the mosque, they went into the mosque through a back door and smuggled them to their home, at great risk to their own lives.

Mohinder Singh kept speaking of how supportive his wife and daughter-in-law were of their rescue efforts. They tied turbans on the heads of the Muslim men, disguising them as Sikhs. Inderjeet Singh also sheltered around 30 Muslims in his home.

When the violence began to ebb, both father and son made around 20 trips on their three-wheelers to transport the people they had sheltered to the relative safety of Kardampuri, a Muslim-majority neighbourhood about a kilometre away.

Like Haider Shah and Imam Rashidi, he too spoke of being inspired by the teachings of his faith to risk his life to save people who were victims of hate violence. They said if you truly followed your religious faith, you could never endure the harm to another in the name of religion.

More Rehmat

The Rehmat event was luminous, beautiful beyond imagination. Our friends in Hyderabad and our moderators Kunal Purohit and Rana Ayyub steered the two evenings with feeling and caring, with love, sensitivity, respect and grace. Singer Anuj Gurwara and his band rounded off the festival with some old Hindi songs. They sang the lyrics of the Sahir Ludhianvi classic – Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega; Insaan ki aulad hai, insaan banega.

As our (s)heroes spoke during the festival, I could see that there was not an eye that was not moist in the audience, not a heart that was not full. Our guests inspired every one of us. Their words assured us that there is still goodness in our society, that we are not yet fully broken as a people and that we can rebuild our humanity again.

I hope that this is only the first of many Rehmat celebrations.

By affirming our capacities for kindness and courage in the midst of tempests of hate, I see in these the potential to become essential to our robust resistance to the politics of hate, to the ways our country and world are being radicalised, coarsened and diminished with hate and fear. These are forms of citizen resistance for taking back our country and world of love, justice, fraternity and equality.

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

A Mumbai court on Saturday acquitted eight persons, including former Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Padamsinh Patil, in the murder of former MLA Pawanraje Nimbalkar and his driver, The Hindu reported.

Nimbalkar and his driver were shot dead by two assailants in Navi Mumbai on June 3, 2006. The prosecution had alleged that Patil orchestrated the killing of the Congress leader as he considered him a political threat.

The court, however, said on Saturday that the prosecution had failed to prove the conspiracy beyond reasonable doubt. It said that there were several shortcomings in the probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, including unreliable witness testimonies, missing mobile phone records, and inconsistent statements, The Hindu reported.

The others who were acquitted were Patil’s associates Satish Mandade and Mohan Shukla, alleged shooters Dinesh Tiwari and Pintusingh Chaudhary, Bahujan Samaj Party member Kailash Yadav and his associate Gyanendra Pandey, and former state excise inspector Shashikant Kulkarni. A ninth accused man, Parasol Badala, had turned an approver, in exchange for which he was granted pardon, the Hindustan Times reported.

Although the CBI’s case was based largely on Badala’s testimony, the court found his statements to be unreliable. The judge said that he had been held in illegal police custody for a significant amount of time, and that the police had tortured him to secure a confession, according to the Hindustan Times.

Patil is the step-brother of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar, while Pawanraje Nimbalkar was the father of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Omprakash Nimbalkar.

Omprakash Nimbalkar is one of the six rebel Uddhav Sena MPs who did not attend a parliamentary party meeting in Delhi on June 18.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Yoga has become a prominent feature of India’s cultural diplomacy abroad, with the government, from 2014 onwards promoting it more forcefully as a key instrument of soft power.

“Yoga is truly universal. Friends, when we do yoga, we feel physically fit, mentally calm and emotionally contained,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in 2014.

“But this is not just about doing exercises on a mat, yoga is a way of life. A holistic approach to health and wellbeing, a way to mindfulness in thought and action. A way to live in harmony with self, with others and with nature,” he added.

Much of this yoga diplomacy has been concentrated in the West.

Led by India’s Ministry of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy), the Indian government has used yoga as a means of marketing India as a place of peace, harmony and safety.

This has been especially egregious given that India has grown increasingly authoritarian and intolerant towards minorities under Modi’s administration.

“Modi has mobilised yoga to obfuscate the increasing violence, inflexibility, and intolerance of difference under his administration,” Anusha Lakshmi wrote in 2020.

And it is in Palestine that India’s use of yoga has been arguably most problematic.

Exhibit A: March 9, 2025

In the midst of the genocide in Gaza, the Indian mission to Palestine asked for nominations for the Prime Minister’s Award for yoga.

In the graphic shared online, the Mission wrote: “Celebrate the power of yoga in transforming lives.”

Just the day before, on March 8, 2025, seven Palestinians were killed by Israel in Gaza, taking the death toll by the end of the day to 48,453 , with a further 111,000 injured, and thousands more still buried under the rubble.

The next morning, on March 9, Israel’s Energy Minister Eli Cohen ordered an immediate halt to electricity supplies to Gaza, jeopardising the operation of desalination plants relied upon by hundreds of thousands.

It was Ramadan. Aid shortages were worsening, and a tenuous ceasefire hung by a thread.

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, attacks on Palestinian civilians in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas continued.

It was reported that there were around 10 incidents in January 2025, with attacks surging to nearly 100 in February 2025.

“Since the operations began on 21 January, around 40,000 Palestinians have fled camps in Jenin and Tulkarm, marking the largest such displacement since the 1967 Six-Day War,” the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data monitor said.

India’s response to these calamities was to promote yoga to Palestinians.

Exhibit B: December 21, 2025

In this post published by the Indian Mission in December 2025, the Indian government called on Palestinians to “Meditate online with Daaji” on World Meditation Day.

That the Indian government would call on the people of Palestine to join an online meditation session to come together for “peace, compassion and unity” while Israel bombed and destroyed some of the oldest and most iconic mosques in Gaza is an unfathomable irony.

If that wasn’t enough, on 21 December 2025, the following incidents took place:

A Palestinian, named Mohammad Wael al-Sharouf, was shot in the head and killed by Israeli forces outside Hebron.

Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces shot dead a 16-year-old child during a raid in the occupied West Bank town of Qabatiya.

And Israel approved 19 new illegal West Bank settlements.

India’s post suggested that Palestinians should turn to meditation.

On one hand, these posts may be seen as simply ill-timed and insensitive.

But given India’s close relationship with Israel, it is hard to escape the conclusion that these events serve a more sinister purpose: masking complicity through the performance of peace.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Indian Mission’s repeated posts extolling yoga as a source of resilience for Palestinians, while remaining conspicuously silent on the forces that make such resilience necessary in the first place.

As many scholars have argued, yoga and more broadly the “wellness” brand, are far from apolitical.

This is evident in how yoga is used in Israel, too.

Zionists in Israel have hosted pro-Israel yoga demonstrations, and former Israeli soldiers have created yoga groups to “heal their wounds from war and terror.”

While the notion of Israeli soldiers using yoga to cope with the mental toll of war may appear incongruous, India’s promotion of yoga in Palestine functions as cultural diplomacy that projects neutrality and goodwill, even as its strategic and military ties with Israel remain firmly intact.

This logic becomes clearer when one considers the other tools India uses to project a soft image to Palestinians.

In addition to hosting yoga events, the Indian Mission offers scholarships to Palestinian students and has also promoted Indian-Palestinian business ties in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, India is the largest buyer of Israeli arms by a factor of four.

Moreover, India has sent tens of thousands of construction workers to Israel to replace the Palestinian workers whose visas have been revoked since October 7, and the two nations recently upgraded their relationship to a “Special Strategic Partnership.”

Other posts by the Indian mission highlight the importance of reducing plastic waste as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “One Nation, One Mission: End Plastic Pollution” campaign.

Even this effort is stripped from context.

It ignores how Israeli settlers frequently destroy attack olive trees in the West Bank, and how the Jewish National Fund plants invasive pine forests over the ruins of depopulated Palestinian villages.

To foreground plastic waste in a context of occupation and genocide is akin to promoting yoga in Palestine: a pose that serves to disguise India’s close ties with Israel.

This article first appeared on Hostile Homelands, a newsletter about India and Israel.

Male Asian elephants are often described as solitary. But the results of a 2026 study conducted in Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand suggests that the picture may be more complex. Researchers found that males regularly form groups, and these associations are far from random.

Patterns of grouping shift with age, reproductive state and habitat. Many of these interactions unfold in open, human-used landscapes – the same spaces where negative interactions between people and elephants are often reported.

“Elephant responses to threats are context-based and vary across regions and populations. By understanding how individuals associate with one another, we can develop more targeted conflict-mitigation strategies,” says Abhimanyu Madhusudanan, a wildlife biologist at the Wildlife Institute of India and the corresponding author of the study.

Elephant group dynamics

The study recorded 706 elephants (excluding calves), of which 219 were males. Each sighting was logged to build individual histories. Researchers also recorded whether males were alone, in all-male groups or part of mixed herds, along with their age and reproductive state.

The team then analysed the data using spatially explicit capture-recapture, a method that estimates population size by tracking how often individual animals are detected and where those sightings occur.

From these sightings, the spatially explicit capture-recapture modelling estimated around 40 adult males in the study area. Males were most often seen in mixed herds, accounting for about half the sightings (50.8%), followed by solitary bulls at 29.8% and all-male groups at 19.4%. Overall, researchers found roughly two adult females for every adult male.

Group sizes also varied. Mixed herds averaged about 9.4 individuals, while all-male groups were much smaller, averaging 3.4 elephants.

Age emerged as a key factor in how male elephants associate. Younger males were far more likely to be in mixed herds than in all-male groups – juveniles were 66 times more likely and sub-adults 22 times more likely. This pattern changed with age. Early adults were seen more often in all-male groups, while older males were frequently solitary or at times, with herds.

Physiological state also played a role. Males in musth were more likely to join mixed-sex herds, while non-musth males were more likely to form all-male groups.

A critical elephant landscape

Rajaji National Park offered a useful setting to study this. It has been less affected by poaching and holds a relatively stable elephant population. At the same time, it is also fragmented by roads, human settlements and industry.

The study was carried out between January and May 2024 in the eastern part of Rajaji National Park and the adjoining ranges of Haridwar Forest Division, covering 475 sq. km. To estimate elephant numbers and behaviour, researchers divided the landscape into 19 grid cells of 25 sq km each and surveyed each one 10 times between February and May 2024. Field teams tracked elephants along forest trails, using signs such as dung, footprints, broken branches, and foliage. Elephants were photographed and identified using features such as tusks, ear shape, tail characteristics and scars.

“It was a monumental task for a small team to cover a large area, from dense forests to hills and riverine patches. Tracking some males was easier than others. Once we tracked them, photographing them from all angles was a challenge. We had to maintain a safety buffer given the wide range of male personalities and the unpredictability of musth (a temporary reproductive state marked by heightened aggression),” says Madhusudanan.

Influence of habitat

Habitat made a visible difference. All-male groups were most often seen in open areas such as grasslands and scrublands, often close to human settlements. These landscapes reported frequent crop foraging by elephants, suggesting a possible link between grouping and high-risk behaviour. Mixed herds were present in these areas but less frequently. The study, however, cautions against over-interpreting these patterns.

“We were surprised by how much the habitat affected the association patterns. All-male groups were significantly more common in open habitats both inside and outside the national park. This is quite interesting, as this is evidence that socialising with other males is an inherent part of their biology and not just a response to anthropogenic pressure,” says Madhusudanan.

Understanding when and where males form groups could help anticipate conflict, particularly near human settlements where these patterns are most visible. For forest departments, it means shifting the focus from broad responses to tracking specific individuals and monitoring stable male groups.

The study also found that methods such as SECR can provide more reliable estimates of elephant populations, data that are critical for conservation planning.

“There is a lot more to learn about the long-term stability of all-male groups. We also need to better understand how decisions are made during collective movement and the role each individual plays. How much do older males teach younger ones? These are some of the questions that remain,” Madhusudanan shares.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Delhi Police on Saturday began asking demonstrators, gathered at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, to vacate the site, saying that the Cockroach Janta Party had permission to protest only until 5 pm.

Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, however, said that the protesters would not leave until Pradhan stepped down from his post.

After the police cleared the protest site, Dipke and about 150 demonstrators remained at Jantar Mantar.

Here are more top updates from the protest:

• The Delhi Police has blocked entry to Jantar Mantar. More than 200 personnel of Delhi Police and Rapid Action Force are present at the site.
• Earlier in the day Dipke wrote to the Delhi Police commissioner seeking an extension of the protest until Sunday. The police denied his request, Dipke claimed on social media.
• The Cockroach Janta Party founder had also appealed to parents and young persons in Delhi to reach Jantar Mantar by 6 pm to support the protest. Dipke also urged the demonstrators to ensure that the protests are peaceful.
• During the protest, Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk said that he would launch an indefinite hunger strike if the government does not take responsibility for alleged irregularities in the education system by June 27.

Delhi Police is trying to declare a peaceful protest illegal. Since when is peace illegal @DelhiPolice?

We will not leave until we get justice for those who have lost their lives to Dharmendra Pradhan’s incompetence! pic.twitter.com/uZKw23qQHI

— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) June 20, 2026

• On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of protesters who had gathered at the site shouted “Go Pradhan Go” while banging plates and spoons. Dipke said that doing so would help remove the “virus in the education system named Dharmendra Pradhan” from office.
• Dipke’s remarks were an apparent dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s March 2020 appeal asking Indians to clap and bang utensils from their homes to express gratitude to healthcare workers and others involved in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. While the government did not claim that the exercise would eliminate the coronavirus, misinformation and rumours were shared on social media suggesting that the act could help destroy the virus.

Go Pradhan Go! pic.twitter.com/FyF7DWEvMz

— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) June 20, 2026

Cockroach Janta Party protest

The protest took place a day before the re-examination for the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical college admissions, which was ordered following allegations of a paper leak.

Students and job seekers have also alleged irregularities in the Class 12 examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education and government recruitment examinations conducted by the Staff Selection Commission.

The Cockroach Janta Party – which started as a satirical political campaign – held its first protest at Jantar Mantar on June 6, followed by demonstrations in several cities demanding the resignation of Pradhan.

The Cockroach Janta Party was launched on May 16 in response to reports of remarks by Chief Justice Surya Kant on the previous day comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches”. Since then, the campaign has garnered more than 22 million followers on Instagram.

The chief justice claimed on May 16 that he had been misquoted by sections of the media and that it was baseless to say that he criticised young people in general. Kant claimed he had specifically criticised “those who have entered professions like the Bar [legal profession] with the aid of fake and bogus degrees”.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Inputs from Anant Gupta. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• ‘We want accountability’: Voices from the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest in Pune

• Watching the Cockroach Janta Party – cautiously

• Why India’s Opposition parties should be worried about the cockroach movement

A Nagpur-based candidate for the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test re-examination on Sunday was initially allotted a test centre in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, ANI reported on Saturday.

Following a complaint by the candidate’s family, the National Testing Agency, which conducts the examination, said that the “grievance is being addressed and the candidate will be allotted a centre in Nagpur in the next few hours”.

Later, the agency said that its records showed the examination city had been changed to Abu Dhabi through the candidate’s registered login during the correction window that was opened after the test was rescheduled.

The National Testing Agency said it had also found two instances in which the allotment to Abu Dhabi was “previewed” through the same account.

Nevertheless, the agency said it acted on a request received on Friday evening to shift the examination centre to Nagpur and contacted the candidate’s father to complete the formalities.

“The NTA’s priority is that no candidate misses the examination over an administrative doubt,” the statement added.

Reference the issue with regard to allotment of a centre in Abu Dhabi to a candidate in Nagpur, NTA would like to state the following:

Following the rescheduling of NEET (UG) 2026 to 21 June, the National Testing Agency reopened the examination-city correction window to assist…

— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) June 20, 2026

Earlier the testing agency had described the incident as a “lapse” caused by a technical glitch, The Hindu reported.

Mohammad Talib, the father of the candidate, Abdullah Mohammad Talib, told ANI that his son downloaded the admit card at 4 pm on Thursday and found that his examination centre had been assigned to a school in Abu Dhabi.

“We were really shocked as we had not given anything as such in our options,” the father was quoted as saying. “We dialled up the helpline number. They told us to send them a mail. When we sent a mail, we received a call that we will be issued a fresh admit card by 4pm on Saturday.”

Mohammad Talib added: “He cried a lot yesterday and did not even want to write the exam…His mother tried to convince him. If he is convinced, he will appear for the exam.”

#WATCH | Nagpur, Mahrashtra: Family of a NEET aspirant, Abdullah Mohammad Talib, claims that he was allocated a school in Abu Dhabi as his exam center for NEET-UG re-exam scheduled to be held on 21st June.

His father, Mohammad Talib, says, "...After the admit card was downloaded… pic.twitter.com/EmFqhIFVRK

— ANI (@ANI) June 20, 2026

Reacting to the Nagpur student’s case, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday that the National Testing Agency was “testing the patience of the country’s children and their parents”.

“Stop gambling with our children’s future,” Gandhi said. “They deserve a sensitive, responsible and accountable education system and exam authority – and we will ensure they get it.”

NEET controversy

The incident came amid controversy surrounding the NEET-UG examination.

The NEET-UG exam was conducted on May 3, and more than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for it. However, the exam was cancelled after the Rajasthan Special Operations Group began investigating allegations that a “guess paper” circulated before the examination contained questions closely matching the actual paper.

The “guess paper” contained around 410 questions, of which about 120 matched the questions asked in the chemistry section, according to the Rajasthan Police.

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report in the matter based on a complaint by the Union education ministry. It has invoked charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the 2024 Public Examinations Prevention of Unfair Means Act.

The 2024 examination was also hit by allegations of paper leaks and irregular grace marks, leading to nationwide protests.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Karnataka High Court on Friday quashed criminal proceedings against Chief Minister DK Shivakumar for allegedly sharing a morphed photo of a protest held by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in 2024, Bar and Bench reported.

The bench allowed Shivakumar’s petition to set aside the proceedings.

BJP leaders had held a protest in January 2024 against the arrest of a person who had participated in the agitation relating to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, Bar and Bench reported. The leaders had held placards saying “I’m also a Kar Sevak, arrest me too”.

The complainant, the Karnataka BJP’s legal unit chief, had alleged that the Congress publicity team had altered the text on the placards to make it appear as if the Hindutva party leaders were admitting to having been involved in scams and other irregularities, the legal news outlet reported.

The allegedly edited photo had been posted on social media and shared through Shivakumar’s account, who was the Karnataka deputy chief minister and Congress state president at the time.

The complainant alleged that the post amounted to the use of a false document and was intended to create enmity between groups.

The counsel for Shivakumar contended that the offences of promoting enmity between groups, circulating false statements to create hatred, intentional insult to provoke a breach of peace and making false document, had been invoked only because the allegedly objectionable post was shared on the Congress leader’s social media accounts, Bar and Bench reported.

The photo had been uploaded by a member of the social media team, the counsel said.

The complaint against Shivakumar was an attempt to implicate him only because he headed the Congress’ Karnataka unit at the time and was based on claims that the content could not have been posted without his permission, the legal news outlet quoted the counsel as having stated.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The West Bengal Police on Friday launched an investigation into three bank accounts of the Trinamool Congress, The Times of India reported.

The police also ordered the bank to freeze withdrawals from the accounts.

The probe was initiated under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to organised crime, cheating and criminal conspiracy as well as the Information Technology Act, The Times of India reported.

The action followed a complaint by rebel MLA Biswanath Das seeking a probe into the source and routing of funds into the accounts, The Indian Express reported.

The newspaper quoted Das as having stated in his complaint that the money coming from allegedly illegal activities “may have been” deposited in the accounts.

The investigation was ordered a day after it was reported that former state minister Aroop Biswas had asked HDFC Bank on June 12 to freeze the party’s account, citing uncertainty surrounding the authority and control of the organisation’s affairs and assets. In the letter to the bank, Biswas had identified himself as the party’s treasurer and said he was acting in that capacity.

However, unidentified persons in the party had told NDTV on Thursday that Biswas had been removed as the treasurer on June 5 after he lost the Tollygunj seat, a party stronghold, to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Assembly elections. He was replaced by Subhashish Chakravarty.

Biswas was reported as having written in the letter: “At present rival groups are claiming to be the legitimate representatives and office bearers of AITC [All India Trinamool Congress], resulting in uncertainty regarding the authority of persons who may seek to operate the bank accounts maintained in the name of AITC.”

Further, Biswas had expressed concern that signed cheques already in circulation or held by people whose authority was under dispute could be misused, NDTV reported.

In December, Biswas stepped down as West Bengal’s sports minister after alleged mismanagement during footballer Lionel Messi’s visit to Kolkata led to chaos at Salt Lake Stadium.

The developments come amid internal divisions and rebellions in the TMC after it lost the Assembly elections in May.

A group of 58 of TMC’s 80 MLAs has been recognised by the Assembly speaker as the party’s legislature wing in the House.

The stand taken by the group led by expelled TMC MLA Ritabrata Banerjee is being viewed as a challenge to party chief Mamata Banerjee, who is supporting another legislator as the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.

On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court declined to grant interim relief in a petition challenging the speaker’s decision to recognise Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.

TMC MLA Kunal Ghosh, who is aligned with the group supporting Mamata Banerjee, questioned the motive for Das’ complaint, The Times of India reported.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

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

America’s AI gold rush is staring at a haunting challenge as most US companies struggle to see real-world benefits.

India’s $300-billion IT industry is moving to capture the “deployment layer” to execute the messy, unglamorous work needed to make artificial intelligence actually profitable.

After decades of running technology systems for global banks, retailers, airlines, and hospitals, Indian IT companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra are banking on their strong client relationships and enterprise experience to implement AI at scale. If they succeed, it will reshape who captures the biggest profits from the AI boom.

An August 2025 MIT Media Lab report said 95% of generative AI pilots at companies fail because of flawed integration and a “learning gap” between available tools and the teams implementing them. Even as 90% of executives experiment with AI, 60% say the data and technologies at their companies are not ready, according to a 2026 Bain survey.

“The IT industry’s real value is the context and understanding of every enterprise’s business and technology landscape, and making the right technology work inside the processes,” N Chandrasekaran, chairperson of the Tata Group, which owns TCS, said at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in February. “AI will expand that role much further.”

This repositioning puts Indian IT companies in direct competition with American consulting giants such as Accenture, Deloitte, and McKinsey. Indian firms will need to go beyond just executing projects to helping clients make technology choices, redesign workflows, govern agent behaviour, and tie outcomes to business metrics.

“That is a materially different role from what most of these [Indian IT] firms have historically played,” Ashwin Venkatesan, executive research leader at advisory firm HFS Research, told Rest of World.

TCS, which employs nearly 600,000 people, manages core technology systems for some of the world’s largest companies, including Citibank, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, and Rolls-Royce. Infosys, with around 320,000 employees, counts Goldman Sachs, Apple, and Mastercard among its clients. Together with Wipro, HCLTech, Tech Mahindra and others, these firms lead an industry that has quietly run the technology backbone of Western business for decades.

Still, an India IT pivot is not assured and fraught with risk. That mastery of back-office tech automation is also considered a liability as agentic AI eats away at the need for outsourcing.

The threat became so apparent to the market that India’s benchmark IT stocks index slumped nearly 6% in early February, after Anthropic launched its Claude Cowork agentic plug-in designed to automate high-volume, repetitive knowledge work. If Indian IT firms successfully implement AI agents that do the work of 500 offshore employees, they could effectively destroy their own legacy revenue streams.

The messy middle

The US discourse on AI has been dominated by companies creating advanced large language models – OpenAI, Google, Anthropic. Beneath it is a bottleneck of chaotic data built up over decades, aging legacy software, compliance requirements, and a shortage of people who understand both the technology and the business context it needs to operate.

Indian IT companies could step in as the “middle person” to navigate these challenges, Venkatesan said.

“The real question in enterprise AI is not who builds the most capable model. It is, ‘Who can make AI work inside messy, complex enterprise environments that have accumulated decades of process debt, data debt, technology debt, and cultural debt?’” he said. “That is precisely the terrain Indian IT firms know best.”

Referring to this as a “deployment gap”, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and non-executive chairperson of Infosys, India’s second-largest IT company, said AI technology is far ahead of its actual use inside large corporations. This offers an opportunity for companies like his, he told investors at Infosys’ AI Day in February.

“Somebody was telling me the other day that there are some old systems and, on contract, they have guys as old as me – 70, 75-year-old guys – because nobody else knows what the hell is going on,” Nilekani said. “The tech will keep getting better and better because billions are going to be poured into it; there is a massive competition. But enterprise deployment is not going to go up, and this deployment gap is what we can help to address.”

The numbers support the pivot.

TCS reported over $2.3 billion in annualised AI services revenue during the first quarter of 2026 – roughly 7.5% of its total revenue, up from $1.8 billion in the previous quarter.

Infosys told investors it is doing AI work for 90% of its 200 clients, all large corporations. AI services accounted for 5.5% of its total revenue in the last quarter of 2025.

Tech Mahindra is seeing demand for AI solutions from clients in industries including manufacturing, telecom, banking and financial services, and healthcare. Clients are looking to use AI for supply chain optimiation, autonomous workflows, and decision intelligence, Kunal Purohit, president of Next Gen Services, told Rest of World.

Big American rivals

Partnering with AI companies has become standard practice across the tech and consulting industry. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic can build models, but they don’t implement them alone. This has led to a wave of partnerships across the industry. TCS has agreements with Google Cloud, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft. Infosys has tied up with Anthropic and OpenAI. Accenture, Deloitte, and McKinsey have struck similar deals.

The pivot puts Indian IT in direct competition with American tech and consulting giants like IBM, Accenture, McKinsey, and Deloitte, which US companies have long paid to overhaul how they work.

IBM’s generative AI book of business surpassed $12.5 billion in 2025. Accenture has made AI the centerpiece of its strategy and pursued several acquisitions in the space. Companies are all chasing the same clients and the same budget line.

Indian IT’s pitch is access. While structurally sound, it is conditional, said Venkatesan.

“Familiarity alone is not enough. Being close to systems is not the same as being close to the decisions that matter,” he said. “The honest assessment from our work with enterprise buyers is that no Indian IT firm consistently occupies the upstream advisory and agenda-setting role that clients are now explicitly asking for. There is a consulting muscle gap relative to Accenture, Deloitte, or McKinsey.”

Indian tech firms typically enter conversations after the problem has already been framed by a consulting firm, said Venkatesan, which limits their ability to shape direction and commercial terms.

The companies that help large enterprises make the AI transition will sit at the centre of one of the largest technology spending cycles in history. Infosys estimates the total addressable market for AI services could reach between $300 billion and $400 billion by 2030.

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

Itika Sharma Punit is a deputy editor at Rest of World with a focus on India's business and tech sectors.

Public discussions of the Mughal Empire today are often framed in terms of conflict between religious communities. Yet the surviving records of 17th-century India frequently tell a more complicated story.

One such document, preserved at Aligarh Muslim University, offers a glimpse of a social world where religious identities were real and important, but did not always function as rigid boundaries.

The document is the Tazkira-i Pir Hassu Teli. Written between 1644 and 1647 during the reign of Shah Jahan, it narrates the life and miracles of a Muslim saint, Pir Hassu Teli, and his successors. This biography of a holy man was composed a Hindu Mughal official named Surat Singh, a devotee who belonged to a different religious tradition entirely.

Who was Surat Singh?

Surat Singh belonged to a Kambo family from Punjab. His ancestors had been traders, but by the early 17th century his family had entered Mughal service. He held various administrative positions, moving between Lahore, Bhatinda, Kabul and Agra.

More significantly, he became a disciple in a mystical order centred around Pir Hassu Teli and his successor, Shaikh Kamal. The Tazkira, thus, is the work of a believer.

Surat Singh’s identity was multiple and layered: a Hindu, born into the Kambo caste, a Mughal servant, a Persian poet, and a disciple of a Muslim saint. Rather than contradictions, these were different facets of a single life.

Dreams of the Prophet and Imam Ali

Perhaps the most remarkable evidence of Surat Singh’s spiritual openness comes from his accounts of dreams. Despite never converting to Islam, he records having performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in a dream and meeting the Prophet Muhammad. He describes approaching the Prophet and seeing Imam Ali standing next to him. In other visions, he claims to have met numerous saints, including Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and Baba Farid Ganj Shakar.

What makes these accounts so striking is that Surat Singh records them as a proud Hindu who saw no contradiction between his own religious identity and these profound mystical experiences. He simply presents them as genuine spiritual encounters that need no defending or explaining.

Guru Nanak in a Sufi biography

Surat Singh’s reverence for Guru Nanak is equally telling. The Tazkira contains several references to Baba Nanak, always spoken of with deep respect. On one occasion, Surat Singh describes a vision in which Guru Nanak and his mentor Pir Hassu Teli appear interchangeable. The lesson is that spiritual truth transcends external labels.

The manuscript also records Surat Singh’s visit to Guru Nanak’s shrine at Kartarpur. He describes travelling there with his mother and finding a funeral shrine and a tomb beside it. He was told the famous story of Guru Nanak’s death: the Hindus insisted he should be cremated, the Muslims insisted he should be buried. According to the account, two bodies appeared. One was cremated, the other buried. Surat Singh records this tradition with evident reverence.

Life in a shared neighbourhood

These spiritual experiences did not occur in isolation. Surat Singh lived in Lahore during Shah Jahan’s reign, and his neighbourhood, or mohalla, was home to both Hindus and Muslims living side by side.

His lifelong neighbour was Abdul Karim, the same Muslim scholar under whom he studied Persian. The two families lived next to each other, a common arrangement in Mughal cities such as Agra, Lahore and Banaras.

Poetry gatherings, literary life

Surat Singh was also an active participant in the literary culture that brought Hindus and Muslims together. He refers to a poetical session, a mushaira, at Agra where he was present alongside other poets, including the celebrated Hindu Persian poet Chandar Bhan Brahman.

In this mushaira, an equal number of Hindu and Muslim poets participated. A Hindu official could sit alongside Muslim poets, recite his verses, and be judged on literary merit alone.

Shah Jahan’s reign

Shah Jahan is often remembered for his monumental architecture and also for a turn toward more orthodox Islamic policies. But the Tazkira complicates that picture. Surat Singh was writing in the middle of Shah Jahan’s reign. He held official positions under the emperor’s government. Yet, he felt free to write a Persian biography of a Muslim saint as a Hindu devotee, to record dreams of the Prophet Muhammad, to revere Guru Nanak, and to live alongside Muslims.

This suggests that the character of any large empire cannot be reduced to the personal policies of its ruler. Whatever Shah Jahan’s own religious inclinations, the society over which he ruled remained deeply plural in its everyday workings.

A forgotten voice

The significance of Surat Singh’s manuscript lies in its ordinariness. Instead of emperors or battles, it records the experiences of a middling official moving between cities, attending literary gatherings, following a spiritual guide and negotiating life.

At a time when historical narratives are increasingly shaped by rigid communal categories, Surat Singh’s voice from the 17th century is a valuable reminder that the past was often more intertwined, complex, and perhaps more humane than the simplified histories we sometimes tell ourselves today.

The Tazkira-i Pir Hassu Teli deserves to be remembered as a record of how real people actually lived.

Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi teaches medieval Indian history at Aligarh Muslim University, where he is a senior professor. He is the general secretary of the Indian History Congress.

The Delhi High Court upheld the Union government’s decision to ban messaging application Telegram till the day after the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test re-examination for seats in medical colleges. The court held that the government “strictly followed the procedure” under the Information Technology Act given the “emergency nature” of the order.

Telegram had argued in its petition that the government had singled it out, violating Article 14 of the Constitution that guarantees the right to equality. Read on.

The Supreme Court held that walking safely on demarcated footpaths is a fundamental right. The persons walking on footpaths take priority over vehicles, the court said.

While the freedom to walk is subject to reasonable restrictions, the authorities must ensure that common spaces are not monopolised by persons driving vehicles, the bench said. Read on.

A case has been filed against a principal and two teachers in Maharashtra’s Jalna district after students performed to a song claimed to be Pakistani at a school event. The principal Wazhiyoddin Siddiqui said that the song is actually from the Turkish television series Ertuğrul.

The event was held in February 2025. The three were booked for acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, promoting enmity between groups, spreading misinformation affecting national integration and circulating false information likely to cause public alarm. Read on.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution against the Karnataka government’s plan to construct the Mekedatu dam on the Cauvery river. However, Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge said that the state would continue to pursue its interests through legal means.

The Mekedatu dam project entails building a reservoir in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka with an aim to provide drinking water to Bengaluru and nearby areas. Tamil Nadu has claimed that it will impede the free flow of water from the Cauvery into the state. Read on.

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

Jharkhand reports the highest number of ‘witch’ murders in India – crimes in which women are labelled witches and killed. Most of the victims belong to Adivasi and lower caste communities – for a reason.

In this episode of True Story, Scroll’s Executive Editor Supriya Sharma speaks to reporter Nolina Minj about the historical forces of Adivasi land dispossession and impoverishment that have created conditions in which ‘witch’ murders persist.

Anxieties over loss of Adivasi land also keep women deprived of inheritance rights and fuel conspiracies theories about Muslim men luring Adivasi women through ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’ – claims that Minj debunks.

The Supreme Court on Friday held that walking safely on demarcated footpaths is a fundamental right. The persons walking on footpaths take priority over the movement of vehicles, the court said.

While the freedom to walk is subject to reasonable restrictions, the authorities must ensure that common spaces are not monopolised by persons driving vehicles, the bench of Justices PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar said.

The court said that municipal bodies are under an obligation to provide and maintain footpaths, adding that the right flows from the freedoms guaranteed under Articles 19 of the Constitution.

“Clear articulation and declaration of such a right is necessary to recognise the correlative duty to provision and maintain footpaths,” the court said. “The duty bearers are the urban development authorities, municipal corporations, municipalities and even panchayats.”

The court added that the “absence of safe and comfortable footpaths to walk on, and even when they exist, their subjugation to motor transport, has been a civilisational problem”.

The bench said that a violation of the right to walk safely would entitle citizens to seek legal remedies for compensation against the authorities responsible for providing pedestrian infrastructure. This would be separate from their right to file compensation claims under the Motor Vehicles Act.

The Supreme Court directed that a copy of the judgement be sent to the Law Commission and the government to consider a legislation to define rights, duties and enforcement mechanisms. The legislation must protect the right and provide remedies for violations, and set up a regulator to plan and implement the right, it said.

The ruling came in a case pertaining to a road accident in which a five-year-old had been killed after being struck by a tanker while walking to school with his father. The court said that the accident occurred where there was no footpath or pedestrian crossing.

The bench set aside a High Court order that had reduced the compensation awarded to the child’s family, and increased the amount.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution against the Karnataka government’s plan to construct the Mekedatu dam on the Cauvery river, The Hindu reported.

The resolution, moved by Chief Minister Vijay, said that the House was objecting to the “unilateral attempt” by Karnataka to build the dam “without respecting” the final award given by Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in 2007 and the Supreme Court’s judgement in 2018.

The project entails building a reservoir in a deep gorge at the confluence of the river Cauvery with its tributary Arkavathi in the Ramanagara district. The project aims to provide drinking water to Bengaluru and nearby areas and also to generate 400 megawatts of power. It will cost about Rs 9,000 crore.

Tamil Nadu has claimed that it will impede the free flow of water from the Cauvery into the state.

The distribution of Cauvery water has been a long-standing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It dates back to two agreements in 1892 and 1924 between the erstwhile Madras Presidency and the Princely State of Mysore.

The Union government set up the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in 1990, which delivered its verdict in 2007. The tribunal allocated 419 thousand million cubic feet of water per year to Tamil Nadu and 270 thousand million cubic feet of water to Karnataka.

However, this did not settle the dispute as both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka filed petitions to review the decision.

The Supreme Court in February 2018 asked the Union government to set up the Cauvery Water Management Authority within a month to implement the tribunal’s verdict.

The resolution passed on Friday said that Karnataka had neither obtained the “concurrence of the concerned basin states”, nor secured an approval from the Union government.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly also urged the Union government not to grant approvals or clearances for the project, the newspaper reported.

It said that the tribunal and the Supreme Court had observed that the river basin had a water deficit and that the available water had been apportioned among the states through which the Cauvery passes. Therefore, neither a dam can be built in the basin, nor can additional water be used by Karnataka, resolution added.

In response to the resolution, Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge on Friday said that the state would continue to pursue its interests through legal means, ANI reported.

The Tamil Nadu government “is free to pass whatever resolution they want”, Kharge said, adding that “it is not our business”.

“...We are not trying to take away anybody’s rights...” he told reporters. “Whatever excess is flowing, that is all we are trying to harness for our people.”

The Congress is in power in Karnataka. It is part of the ruling coalition in Tamil Nadu.

In November, the Supreme Court declined to hear the Tamil Nadu government’s plea against Karnataka’s plan to construct the dam. The bench had said that the detailed project report was still under consideration by experts in the Cauvery Water Management Authority and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee.

The court said the process was taking place after considering objections raised by Tamil Nadu and therefore, its petition was “premature”.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

A case has been filed against a principal and two teachers in Maharashtra’s Jalna district after students performed to a song claimed to be Pakistani at a event, PTI reported on Friday.

The principal Wazhiyoddin Siddiqui claimed that the song is from the Turkish television series Ertuğrul.

The event was reportedly held in February 2025.

The three were booked for acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, promoting enmity between groups, spreading misinformation affecting national integration and circulating false information likely to cause public alarm.

Social media posts had claimed that the students at the school in Partur town had danced to a Pakistani song during the annual programme and that a photograph of a former Pakistani commando Mumtaz Qadri had been displayed during the performance, PTI reported.

Qadri was hanged in 2016 for assassinating Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, in 2011. Qadri, who was among Taseer’s bodyguards, had claimed that he killed the politician for defending Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Bibi was subsequently acquitted.

The principal claimed that the photograph displayed during the event was of an actor from the Turkish series and that the footage that was widely shared on social media had been manipulated, the news agency reported.

The police said that the matter was being investigated.

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Babanrao Lonikar demanded action against the management of the school and that the institute's recognition be cancelled, PTI reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Madras High Court in an interim order halted the construction of a church near a Mariamman Temple dating back over 100 years in Coimbatore, observing that “mala fide intentions cannot be ruled out” if a large church is proposed in the vicinity of the temple.

A division bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan passed the order while hearing a petition filed by a man who challenged official decisions relating to the proposed construction by the Church of South India near the temple in Kalapatti.

The court noted that the Mariamman Temple had existed for over a century and that the proposed church would be located “a stone’s throw away”.

The bench also described Coimbatore as “a communally sensitive city”, stating that it has “witnessed bomb blasts and bloody religious riots”.

Referring to submissions made before it, the bench recorded that there were about 1,000 families in the area, of whom around 950 were Hindus, 15 were Muslims and only a few were Christians.

“When Hindus constitute an overwhelming majority and they vigorously oppose the construction of a church in the immediate vicinity of the temple, then, the authority must not casually brush the objection aside,” the bench said.

The court, however, said that its remarks should not be construed to mean that whenever there is opposition, the state must submit to it. “If right is established or if the opposition is found to be unreasonable…the state should go to any extent to uphold the right,” it said.

The court clarified that its observations were based on the specific facts of the case, including the disputed status of the land, the proximity of the proposed structure to the temple and the objections raised by residents.

“Considerations could have been different if the construction is on a patta land whose title is beyond dispute and there is no religious structure belonging to other communities in the immediate vicinity or if there is no opposition,” the bench said.

The dispute dates back to 2010, when permission was granted for the construction of a church near the temple. Temple worshippers subsequently filed a civil suit challenging that permission, which remains pending before the District Munsif Court in Coimbatore.

While the suit was pending, the Coimbatore collector and the revenue divisional officer issued orders in May 2023 granting police protection for constructing a church, The Hindu reported. The collector later issued a stop-work order in June 2023 after law-and-order concerns were raised.

The Church of South India challenged the Collector’s order before the High Court in 2024. On April 28, the court disposed of that petition but granted liberty to the church to submit a fresh application for construction after the civil suit is decided.

The present petition was then filed in May challenging the 2023 orders passed by the collector and revenue divisional officer.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Near Dhansa Bus Stand Metro Station in South West Delhi, a white marquee tent designated as a “cooling zone” was set up by the state government this summer. The facility is part of Delhi’s heatwave response, under which 14 cooling zones have been established in eight districts. In addition, 13 “mobile heat relief units” that distribute water, oral rehydration solution and other heat-relief supplies have been set up across the city.

For those able to reach them, these facilities offer something simple but critical: a reduction in the body’s heat burden. High temperatures, humidity and physical exertion can together dangerously overwhelm the body’s ability to cool itself. This could cause fatigue, dizziness and dehydration, and in severe cases, heat stroke.

Measurements in the Dhansa cooling zone around 2.30 pm on June 1 showed a clear contrast: outside, the air temperature was 38.9°C; inside it was 33.3°C. Globe temperature – a measure of radiant heat from surrounding surfaces – fell from 43.8°C outside to 34.3°C within.

The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, a measure of environmental heat stress that combines the effects of temperature, humidity, radiant heat and air movement on the human body, was 33.5°C outside and 29°C inside.

The World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization classify a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature of 32°C as high occupational heat stress. This means that the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature reading of 33.5°C recorded outside the tent in Delhi indicated extreme heat-stress conditions for sustained outdoor work.

However, protection depends not only on whether such facilities work, but also on who can access them and for how long. A short distance from the cooling tent, a juice seller continued serving customers despite the heat.

He occasionally used the facility to refill water, but his earnings depended on staying by his cart outside. “The tent is nearby, but I cannot stay there,” he said. “If I leave the stall, I lose customers.”

His predicament is not unusual. Across Delhi, extreme heat is experienced unevenly. While some residents can retreat into air-conditioned homes, offices or metro stations, many others remain exposed because their livelihoods require it.

Official advisories recommend avoiding outdoor exposure between noon and 4 pm, staying hydrated and reducing strenuous activity. From a public-health perspective, the advice is sensible.

But it assumes that people can withdraw from heat when necessary – an option unavailable to those whose livelihoods depend on being outside throughout the day, including the afternoon hours. For them, heat is a part of their working conditions.

Across Delhi, that reality was visible in a range of workplaces we visited in May and June: construction sites, roadside markets, waste collection points and transport corridors. During the hottest part of the day, workers continued to labour even as temperatures exceeded 40°C and reached 45°C at some locations.

“If we stop, who will pay us for the day?” one construction worker asked.

For street vendors, even a short break could mean missed customers and lost sales. Heat imposed a double burden: it reduced physical capacity while also threatening income. About 70% of the outdoor workers we surveyed reported heat-related health concerns, including exhaustion, headaches, dizziness, dehydration and disrupted sleep.

Leaving work is not an option

In Kusumpur Pahari, an informal settlement near Vasant Vihar in New Delhi, a sanitation worker was clearing waste from an open dump site at 1.30 pm. Field measurements recorded an air temperature of 43°C and a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature of 36°C – conditions that pose a serious risk of heat stroke for anyone doing sustained physical labour.

There was no rest area, drinking-water facility or visible heat-protection measures. “The heat is difficult, but the work cannot wait,” the man said.

Some workers improvised their own protection. On the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, an auto-rickshaw driver had placed a mattress on the top of his vehicle to reduce the heat in his vehicle.

“The roof gets very hot under the sun,” he said. “The gadda helps reduce some of that heat, so it feels a bit better inside for both me and the passengers.” In the absence of formal protection, workers try to make their own workplaces bearable.

Extreme thermal exposure was evident in more formal workplaces as well. At a shopping complex near Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi, surrounding surfaces recorded a temperature of around 65.1°C during working hours. Security and sanitation staff remained there through their shifts, exposed not only to high air temperatures but also to intense radiant heat from the surrounding paved and built surfaces.

The most striking observation was at the main gate post of Jawaharlal Nehru University, where thermal imaging recorded the corrugated metal roof of a security post at 84.64°C – the highest surface temperature documented during the survey.

A guard stood beneath the structure, while another nearby held an umbrella for shade. The roof intended to provide shelter had become a source of exposure, radiating heat onto the workers below.

Together, these sites show how dangerous heat is built into the everyday spaces of urban work. Workers remained on duty while the surfaces around them absorbed and radiated dangerous levels of heat. Even where some form of shelter existed, it was inadequate for Delhi’s extreme summer conditions.

Reducing heat exposure

This points to a larger problem. Delhi’s heat response is equipped to offer relief after exposure rather than reduce exposure where it is produced.

In May, announcing the expansion of Delhi’s heat-relief programme, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said, “In a metropolitan city like Delhi, where even a glass of cold water is often not easily available to people, these initiatives launched by the government are providing real relief.”

These initiatives are important, even life-saving. But in a city of more than 23 million inhabitants, 14 cooling zones and 13 mobile heat relief units cannot by themselves address the scale of urban heat exposure.

For workers who cannot leave their worksites, a cooling tent or mobile supply of water and ORS can only offer temporary relief that is not the same as protection at the worksite itself.

Reducing heat exposure requires ordinary but essential changes: shade along pedestrian corridors, covered vending areas, worker rest stations, safe drinking water, reflective roofing, better ventilation, flexible work hours and scheduled rest breaks during peak heat.

These measures remain largely outside the scope of emergency heat responses. The result is cooling measures that respond to crises rather than prevent the conditions that create them. Heat is still being governed as a seasonal emergency rather than a intrinsic part of urban life in a changing climate, especially during summer months.

The challenge now is for Delhi to reduce exposure where it is produced: in the streets, workplaces and infrastructure that shape everyday urban life. Until then cooling zones, like the one at the Dhansa Bus Stand Metro Station, can only offer a respite as life goes on outside in the extreme heat.

All photographs were taken during the field study carried out by the authors.

Rakhohori Bag is a research scholar at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University. His research focuses on climate justice, environmental inequality and urban governance in cities of the Global South.

Sneha Saha is a research scholar at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research focuses on gendered vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in urban India.

The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a petition by messaging application Telegram challenging the Union government’s ban on it till June 22, the day after the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test re-examination, Live Law reported.

The court held that the Centre “strictly followed the procedure” under the Information Technology Act given the “emergency nature” of the order.

“The government's measures are least restrictive,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “It cannot be held that the order is disproportionate.”

The court held that under the Information Technology Act, there was no basis to exclude the platform from the scope of the term “information”.

Justice Tejas Karia held that the government was empowered under Section 69A of the Act to order that access to Telegram be temporarily blocked. The section allows the government to block information from public access in the interests of national sovereignty, security and public order, among other grounds.

The ministry of electronics and information technology imposed the temporary ban on June 16 on the recommendation of the National Testing Agency. The agency had claimed that channels on Telegram had been demanding large sums of money from candidates and their families while fraudulently promising to give them access to the question paper for the entrance test for medical college admissions.

Telegram had argued that the government had singled it out, violating Article 14 of the Constitution that guarantees the right to equality. It also contended that the blocking order had affected more than 150 million users.

However, the Union government on Thursday claimed before the High Court that Telegram was becoming the new “dark web”, enabling illegal activities and linking criminals. The dark web is a hidden layer of the internet that cannot be accessed through regular search engines and browsers.

The NEET-UG exam was conducted on May 3, and more than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for it. However, the exam was cancelled after the Rajasthan Special Operations Group began investigating allegations that a “guess paper” circulated before the examination contained questions closely matching the actual paper.

The “guess paper” contained around 410 questions, of which about 120 matched the questions asked in the chemistry section, according to the Rajasthan Police.

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report in the matter based on a complaint by the Union education ministry. It has invoked charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the 2024 Public Examinations Prevention of Unfair Means Act.

The 2024 examination was also hit by allegations of paper leaks and irregular grace marks, leading to nationwide protests.

Edited by Sara Varghese.