Digital rights groups Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center said on Thursday that they have moved the Delhi High Court, challenging notices purportedly issued by the police to social media platform X, asking it to take down their accounts and posts for allegedly defaming the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

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

The organisations have sought that the notices be quashed, as the Delhi Police had neither denied nor withdrawn the takedown requests that were communicated to them by X.

Due to the lack of any official denial or rescision by the Delhi Police for the takedown notices for IFF's X Account that were communicated by X to us, IFF has been constrained to file a writ petition in the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi. The matter is registered and will come up… https://t.co/0L3cOF7dM3 pic.twitter.com/EV7tXBo0SM

— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) November 5, 2026

“Our attempts to verify the notices with the Delhi Police have not yielded any confirmation,” the Software Freedom Law Center said on social media. “Several emails were returned as undeliverable, and we are yet to receive an official response from the Delhi Police.”

The notices

On Tuesday, the organisations said that they and an X account, Geo Blocked in India, which compiles blocking orders in the country, had received a legal notice in the name of the RSS.

https://t.co/NhFrIS6sdb has filed a petition challenging the takedown notices purportedly issued by the Delhi Police on 31 October and 2 November, 2026. We have approached the Delhi High Court seeking the quashing of the takedown notices that directed the removal of our X account… https://t.co/NE2POfqzFC

— SFLC.in (@SFLCin) November 5, 2026

The October 29 notice asked the three to stop opposing the government’s blocking directions, stop documenting restricted content or posting details of geo-blocked posts, and confirm within a week that they would comply, the Internet Freedom Foundation said. The notice “was signed by an unnamed ‘authorised signatory’”, it added.

The foundation also said that several office-bearers of the RSS had clarified on X that the notice was not authentic.

“IFF replied to the notice, wrote to the RSS at its official address asking whether it had authorised it, and published both the notice and its reply on October 30,” the foundation said.

On October 30, the special commissioner of police (crime) filed an “illegal content report” with X listing posts by the Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center that day, alleging that the content was defamatory towards the RSS under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the foundation said.

The boxes on the content report for “safety/security”, “defamation” and “other” were ticked and the “fields for the nature of the court order and court order details were left empty”, the Internet Freedom Foundation said. The desired action section said “remove/withhold content”, it added.

On November 1, a second notice was sent in the RSS’ name, the Internet Freedom Foundation said.

“It said the matter had been handed to the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, that complaints had been filed in several states, and that requests had been made to block IFF’s X account and suspend the organisations,” the foundation stated.

The Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad is a lawyers’ organisation linked to the RSS.

A day later, the police filed a second report with X listing 40 links of 37 posts and the entire accounts of the Internet Freedom Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center and Geo Blocked in India. In this, the boxes for “hate speech”, “defamation”, “safety/security”, “enforcement of court order” and “other” were ticked, the foundation added.

The notice also asked X to take down posts by 16 others, including RSS leader Ratan Sharda, technology journalist Abhishek Baxi, The Wire’s Editor Seema Chishti and Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Naseer Hussain, purportedly for commenting on the notice, according to the Internet Freedom Foundation.

The Delhi Police had not written to the Internet Freedom Foundation and no court had been approached, the organisation had said.

The Software Freedom Law Center and Geo Blocked India had separately reported notifications from X about requests from the Uttar Pradesh Police, the Telangana Police and the Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime unit, it added.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Bengaluru, a city rapidly losing its green cover to infrastructure projects, had an important job to do: count its trees. In August 2019, the Karnataka High Court mandated the exercise under the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976, setting a three-year deadline which wasn’t completed even seven years later.

Residents in some neighbourhoods decided to then take the task into their own hands, driven by the apprehension of losing trees to several large-scale infrastructure projects announced for the city, including flyovers and tunnel roads. What they found has prompted them to push back against some of these impending projects.

In east Bengaluru’s Indiranagar, a group of residents mapped the trees along the alignment of a proposed 13-km flyover from Swami Vivekananda Metro Station in the east to Silk Board Junction in the south, via Indiranagar.

The flyover’s detailed project report estimates that 89 trees will be felled for the proposed elevated corridor, while 235 trees fall within its construction width. The latter figure indicates the number of trees within the designated construction area, not necessarily the number that will be cut.

Unconvinced that these figures reflected the trees on the ground, I Change Indiranagar, a network of resident welfare associations in the area, decided to conduct an independent survey, starting with a roughly 3.5-km stretch of the route. The group counted 1,001 trees.

There is, however, a caveat. The detailed project report’s count of 235 trees covers the entire 13-km flyover alignment, while the residents surveyed only one section of it. Also, since they could not determine which trees would be directly affected by construction, they counted every tree along that stretch.

“Our survey didn’t include the trees that will be cut inside the Swami Vivekananda Metro Station where the ramp will begin or a nearby church and temple whose premises will be taken. The count would be more than 1,001 if we included those,” says Sneha Nandihal, co-founder of I Change Indiranagar.

Four residents’ associations, including one Nandihal represents, filed a petition over the discrepancy, which is currently being heard in the Karnataka High Court. As a result, Bengaluru Smart Infrastructure Limited, or B-SMILE, the agency implementing the project, has dropped one stretch of the flyover while the rest of the project continues. “There was a writ petition, so we did not want to hurry. We will abide by the court decision,” said Balaji MT, an official with B-SMILE.

Multiple campaigns to save trees

Harini Nagendra, Director of the School of Climate Change and Sustainability at Azim Premji University, has conducted several independent environment impact assessments in Bengaluru since 2007.

She says discrepancies of this kind are common because detailed project reports tend to count trees selectively, often resulting in lower estimates. Smaller trees are left out, undervaluing them, while “overmature” trees are excluded on the assumption that they are likely to die soon. “They are the very trees that deserve more attention,” she says, considering the carbon sequestration potential of mature trees.

The Indiranagar flyover is one of the 11 elevated corridors proposed across 75.6 km of the city, at an estimated cost of Rs 13,000 crore. A separate citywide citizen’s campaign, “Dear Dr DK, Flyover Yaake?” is urging the authorities to rethink this approach and redirect the funds towards public transport. “Flyovers shift the choke point from one place to another,” says Asadullah MA Ansari, one of the campaign organisers.

He points to the recently opened double-decker flyover between Silk Board and Ragigudda, which, instead of easing congestion at the junction, has been accused of shifting it to the next one.

Mongabay-India had earlier reported on a tunnel project in north Bengaluru’s Hebbal, where residents are opposing the proposed removal of 1,128 trees for a 2.2-km tunnel. GBA officials confirmed that they had received around 1,600 objections from residents after issuing a public notice on the proposed tree removal on September 19.

On October 16, the National Green Tribunal, hearing a petition challenging the felling, ordered that no trees be cut for the project until the case is decided. The next hearing is scheduled for December 15. The order does not halt other work on the tunnel, which is ongoing. A separate petition challenging the project is also before the Karnataka High Court.

Why green covers matter

These protests come against the backdrop of a city whose once-vaunted green cover has been thinning due to urbanisation, with far-reaching consequences. A 2014 study by the Indian Institute of Science estimated that Bengaluru had 1.47 million trees for a population of 9.5 million, or roughly one tree for every seven residents. This was not enough to sequester even the carbon dioxide residents produce simply by breathing, estimated at 540g-980g per person per day, says TV Ramachandra, author of the report and head of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at IISc.

A 2025 study by the Indian Institute of Science found that Bengaluru’s built-up area increased by 1,078% between 1973 and 2025. During the same period, vegetation cover shrank by 88% and water bodies by 79%. According to the study, this transformation contributes to the urban heat island effect, in which built-up areas become hotter than surrounding non-urban areas because surfaces such as concrete and asphalt absorb and radiate heat.

Vegetation and water bodies help counter this effect by acting as natural heat sinks. The IISc study found that land surface temperatures reached 40 degrees celsius in built-up areas, falling as green cover increased to as low as 31 degrees celsius in areas with dense vegetation or water cover.

Mature trees provide greater cooling than young plantings because of their larger canopies. “We have this wicked cluster of urbanisation, pollution, and climate change, which is trapping so much heat into our cities. The oldest trees are our best safeguard, especially in heat waves,” says Nagendra.

The other safeguard is unfragmented green cover, such as parks and tree-lined avenues. While comparable India-based research is lacking, studies elsewhere have shown that microclimate is not just affected by the number of trees, but the spatial pattern and connectivity of trees, says Nagendra. “When trees are more interconnected, you have better amelioration of urban heat islands and increased protection with shade because there are spillover effects to neighbourhood areas.”

Street trees are also among the best weapons to reduce air pollution, she adds.

The study by the Indian Institute of Science recommends at least 30% vegetation cover in any given area to sustain a comfortable microclimate, but Ramachandra estimates that less than 4% of the city is currently under green cover.

Offsets are not enough

Mobility infrastructure projects often come with a stated offset. The DPR of the Indiranagar flyover sets aside Rs 4.26 crore to plant 2,350 saplings “wherever possible in and around Bengaluru city area”.

Compensatory plantings are often carried out on the city outskirts or on secluded government land, Nagendra says, doing little for affected neighbourhoods. “If you compensate in some other place, you’re not going to get the social, environmental or ecological benefits for that region. That region is still going to suffer heat waves, pollution and the mental stress that comes from complete lack of greenery.” Replacing mature trees with saplings is no immediate solution either, as they take at least 30-40 years to provide some of the same benefits, she adds.

Some project reports propose tree transplantation, which involves relocating a tree with much of its root system intact. Bengaluru’s guidelines require trees to be assessed for species, age, size and health before transplantation.

However, the Indiranagar flyover’s DPR, which proposes relocating 37 trees, provides no such details. At Hebbal, 1,050 of 1,128 trees marked for removal are slated for transplantation. The tree survey lists species, girth, height and condition, but not age or which trees will be moved.

Mature trees are difficult to transplant, with poor survival rates, Nagendra points out. “When they survive, they’re shocked so badly it takes them a really long time to recover.” Transplantation is largely limited to trees younger than 25 years, says Vijay Nishanth of Vruksha Foundation.

DPRs forget urban wildlife

By focusing narrowly on tree counts, project reports also fail to account for the broader impacts on urban biodiversity. I Change Indiranagar’s survey mapped ancient rain trees alongside saplings just five- or six-years-old, belonging to diverse species. “There are really old trees in the Swami Vivekananda Metro parking. In CMH park, there’s a huge banyan tree,” says Nandihal, pointing to birds such as parakeets and barbets that use these trees. Such details find no mention in the flyover’s detailed project report.

Similarly, the Hebbal tunnel tree survey does not assess the impact on Hebbal Lake, which is home to about 183 bird species. The tunnel will also pass through the Veterinary College campus, which hosts at least 95 bird species.

Project reports and many urban environmental impact assessments typically overlook habitat fragmentation, says Nagendra, with consequences for urban wildlife. Research shows that insects and butterflies respond to green spaces within a three-kilometre radius, while birds respond within five kilometres. “So they need unfragmented habitats to move,” she says.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have moved the Supreme Court seeking bail in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, registered under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, reported Bar and Bench on Thursday.

The trial in the case is yet to begin.

Khalid and Imam have challenged the September 30 order of the Delhi High Court denying them bail.

The High Court had said that it was “bound by judicial discipline” and could not modify conditions imposed by the Supreme Court in its January 5 order concerning the activists.

In January, the Supreme Court denied bail to Khalid and Imam, but granted relief to activists Gulfisha Fatima, Meera Haider, Shifa-Ur-Rehman, Muhammad Saleem Khan and Shadab Ahmed.

The top court had said that Imam and Khalid could renew their bail petitions after the examination of protected witnesses was completed or after one year, whichever came earlier.

Khalid and Imam “stand on a qualitatively different footing as compared to other accused”, the Supreme Court had said at the time.

On May 18, a Supreme Court bench criticised the January order, observing that “bail is the rule and jail is an exception” even in prosecutions under the anti-terror law.

In his petition, Imam stated that despite spending six years and nine months in jail as an undertrial, the prosecution has failed to examine even one of the 47 protected witnesses, Live Law reported.

In view of this, the condition of “whichever is earlier” set by the Supreme Court was unlikely to be met before the deadline, he added.

Khalid, Imam and the other activists had been arrested between January 2020 and September 2020 in connection with the communal violence that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020 between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

The persons accused in the matter have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The police have claimed that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame the Narendra Modi government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Act.

Edited by Sneha.

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The Supreme Court ruled that the 24-hour deadline to produce a detained person before a magistrate begins when they are taken into custody, not when the investigating agency formally records their arrest. “Any attempt to draw an artificial distinction between arrest and detention would dilute or negate the fundamental protection guaranteed by the Constitution,” the bench said.

The only permissible exclusion is the time needed to travel to the magistrate’s court, it added.

The court also ruled that anyone detained beyond 24 hours without being produced before a magistrate must be released immediately. Read on.

The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court directed the Election Commission to restore the names of six members of a family who were deleted from the electoral rolls during the special intensive revision. Their applications for a change of address had been rejected.

The direction came after the petitioners said that their booth-level officer had asked them to submit Form 8 to update their addresses after they moved to a new home in the Santa Cruz Assembly constituency in North Goa eight years ago.

However, an assistant electoral registration officer told them that their names had been deleted from the draft rolls during the special intensive revision and their Form 8 applications could, therefore, not be processed. Instead, they were reportedly asked to submit Form 6, which is used to register new voters. Read on.

Two persons were killed and at least 15 others are feared trapped after a three-storey building that was under construction collapsed in Delhi’s Chawri Bazaar area. A junior engineer and an assistant engineer with the municipal corporation have been suspended.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said that a first information report was registered against the contractor. Read on.

The Election Commission announced a special summary revision of electoral rolls in four states and two Union Territories. The exercise will be undertaken in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim, Chandigarh, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, starting November.

The exercise will update existing electoral rolls through additions and deletions, as opposed to the special intensive revision where fresh voter lists are prepared. The annual revision had been paused after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections due to the special intensive revision that began in 2025. Read on.

A Delhi court has directed the police not to take any coercive action against Jawaharlal Nehru University professor and Congress MP Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, who has been accused of sexual harassment by 11 students. The court directed the police to give him seven days’ notice before arrest.

The bench observed that the university had not provided the complainants’ details and their statements were yet to be recorded. Read on.

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The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission to restore the names of six members of a family who were deleted from the electoral rolls during the special intensive revision in the state, The Indian Express reported. Their applications for a change of address had been rejected.

A division bench of Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar ordered the poll panel to restore their names within 10 days.

The petitioners said that they had moved to a new house in the Santa Cruz Assembly constituency in North Goa eight years ago, the newspaper reported. Their booth-level officer had asked them to submit Form 8 to update their addresses.

However, an assistant electoral registration officer told them that their names were deleted from the draft rolls during the special intensive revision and their Form 8 applications could, therefore, not be processed, the petitioners claimed. Instead, they were allegedly asked to submit Form 6, which is used to register new voters.

The petitioners argued that this was legally untenable, as Form 6 is meant for first-time voter registration and not for updating the details of existing voters, The Indian Express reported.

The form requires applicants to declare that they have not been voters before.

The court also rejected a request by the Election Commission’s counsel to stay its order to allow the poll panel to approach the Supreme Court, Bar and Bench reported.

During the hearing, the poll panel’s counsel argued that the omission of names from the draft rolls during the special intensive revision did not mean that they had been deleted, as the exercise involves preparing electoral rolls afresh instead of automatically carrying forward existing entries.

Since the draft rolls are prepared strictly from newly collected enumeration forms, people who have not been enumerated do not have an existing entry that can be modified through Form 8, the legal news outlet quoted the counsel as saying.

Therefore, those omitted from the draft rolls must apply afresh through Form 6 during the claims and objections period, the lawyer added.

EC on Form 6

On Tuesday, the Election Commission clarified that voters whose names are missing from the draft electoral rolls prepared under the special intensive revision can submit Form 6 to seek inclusion without facing prosecution for making a false declaration, even if they had been enrolled previously.

In October, the poll panel had directed its state units where the revision had been completed to identify and restore eligible voters who may have been wrongly excluded, using Form 6.

However, former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi had said at the time that Form 6 cannot be filled by deleted voters as it is only for new voters.

“All those who have been forced to fill it have committed a criminal offence carrying one year prison,” Quraishi said on social media. “EC officials who forced them are abetters to crime. This press note shows EC’s abetment!”

A contentious exercise

In 2025, the first phase of the voter roll revision was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026. The third phase of the exercise is underway in 19 states and Union Territories.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision. But it said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Since October 2, nationwide protests have been held calling for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and the alleged irregularities in how the voter roll is being revised.

On Saturday, the Opposition INDIA bloc held a symbolic “public impeachment” of Kumar.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• Follow Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls here.
• Explainer: Why the Election Commission’s Form 6 for new voters has triggered a legal row
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

The Election Commission on Wednesday announced that it would conduct a special summary revision of electoral rolls in four states and two Union Territories, starting this month.

The exercise will be conducted in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Odisha, Sikkim, Chandigarh, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, where the special intensive revision of voter rolls has been completed.

While the special summary revision involves updating the existing electoral rolls through additions and deletions, voter lists are prepared afresh under the special intensive revision.

The annual special summary revision was paused after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections due to the special intensive revision, which began in 2025 and is still underway in some states and Union Territories.

In its letter to the chief electoral officers of the six states and Union Territories on Wednesday, the Election Commission said that rationalisation or rearrangement of polling stations under the special summary revision should be conducted by November 20.

Following this, draft electoral rolls should be published on November 30. Voters will be able to file claims and objections to the draft rolls between November 30 and December 30, while the final electoral rolls are scheduled to be published on January 21.

On October 15, the Election Commission announced the special summary revision in 13 states and three Union Territories where the special intensive revision of electoral rolls has been conducted, as well as in Assam, where the poll panel decided not to undertake the exercise.

The poll panel had been conducting a special revision of the voter list in Assam, which is similar to the usual updates to the electoral roll.

The special summary revision in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal will also be conducted from November.

The draft rolls after the revision will be published on November 12. Following this, claims and objections will be invited till December 11 and the final rolls will be published on January 4.

The poll panel’s announcement came days after media reports said that the freezing of the annual revision of electoral rolls after 2024 due to the special intensive revision could affect the enrolment of voters who have recently turned 18.

On September 24, The Economic Times reported that the poll panel had overshot its May-June announcement timeline for the annual revision due to a lack of consensus between Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

The newspaper reported that Sandhu and Joshi had been advocating for resuming the exercise, while Kumar sought legal opinion on it.

This had followed a September 23 investigation by The Indian Express that showed that Sandhu and Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

A Delhi court on Thursday directed the police not to take any coercive action against Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, who has been accused of sexual harassment by students, Bar and Bench reported.

Akoijam is a Congress Lok Sabha MP from Manipur.

Justice Digvinay Singh directed that the police give Akoijam seven days’ notice before arresting him. The court noted that he had been cooperating with the investigation.

It also observed that the university administration had not provided the names and details of the students who filed the complaints and that their statements were yet to be recorded.

Singh said that if Akoijam failed to cooperate with the investigation, the Delhi Police could approach the court for appropriate directions.

On Monday, the Delhi High Court stayed the October 9 order of Jawaharlal Nehru University dismissing the professor.

The university had said that the allegations against Akoijam had been investigated by its internal committee. Based on the panel’s findings, the professor who taught at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, was dismissed from service with immediate effect on October 9.

Akoijam, who lived on campus, has been accused of inviting students to his residence for gatherings and making sexual advances. Some complainants also alleged that he made lewd and inappropriate comments during classes and viva examinations, including demands for sexual acts in exchange for marks.

Akoijam has denied the allegations, accusing what he described as “racist schemers” attempting to tarnish his reputation with unverified claims and lies.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Two persons were killed after a three-storey building under construction collapsed in Old Delhi’s crowded Chawri Bazar area on Thursday, ANI quoted the Delhi Police as saying.

At least 15 persons are feared trapped under the debris, PTI quoted a Delhi Fire Services official as saying.

VIDEO | Delhi: A three-storey under-construction building collapsed in Old Delhi's Chawri Bazaar, with several people feared trapped under the debris. Rescue operations underway. A DFS official says, "At least 15 people are feared trapped... several have been injured. We received… pic.twitter.com/7PMs4zVQRQ

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 5, 2026

At least six fire department vehicles were at the site to oversee rescue operations, the news agency reported.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the Municipal Corporation has suspended a junior engineer and an assistant engineer, while a first information report has been registered against the contractor.

This came two months after seven persons were killed after a five-storey building in Satya Niketan collapsed on September 6. The building was being used as paying guest accommodation.

On October 7, five persons were killed as a four-storey building collapsed in northeast Delhi’s Seemapuri.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar and Tanya Shrivastava.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the 24-hour deadline to produce a detained person before a magistrate begins when they are taken into custody, not when the investigating agency formally records their arrest, Live Law reported.

Treating detention and “formal arrest” as separate events for the deadline is constitutionally unsustainable, held a bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar.

“Any attempt to draw an artificial distinction between arrest and detention would dilute or negate the fundamental protection guaranteed by the Constitution,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying.

Article 22(2) of the Constitution requires that an arrested person be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, excluding the time needed to travel to the court.

On Thursday, the court also ruled that anyone detained for more than 24 hours without being produced before a magistrate must be released immediately.

The bench said that the magistrates must record the date and time when a person’s liberty was first curtailed and verify whether the 24-hour deadline has been observed.

They must also examine whether the detention was reasonable and can refuse further custody if it was excessive, even if the person was produced within 24 hours.

The court was hearing petitions filed by four persons against a Tripura High Court judgement that had denied them bail under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

They said that they were detained on September 29, 2025, at 2 pm and were shown as formally arrested at 11 am on September 30, 2025, reported Live Law.

The accused persons alleged that this was done by the investigating agency to circumvent the 24-hour deadline.

Edited by Sneha.

The Kerala High Court has said that “political activities” such as dharnas, or sit-ins, hunger strikes and satyagraha, or peaceful protests, have “no place in a constitutional democracy”, particularly in academic institutes, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh High Court quashed a first information report against a student accused of violating an order prohibiting unlawful gatherings during a protest, the newspaper reported.

The Kerala High Court made the observation while setting aside a single-bench order that allowed 16 suspended students of the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in Ernakulam district to appear for their semester examinations.

The students, members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s student wing, were suspended after they protested for better infrastructure and academic facilities, and held a street play that allegedly insulted Vice Chancellor Ciza Thomas in August.

The students had failed to meet the university’s attendance requirements as they had been suspended and approached the single-judge bench seeking permission to appear for their semester examinations. The bench had allowed them to appear for the examinations, subject to the final outcome of their writ petition.

The university appealed against the order on October 30.

On Tuesday, the division bench said the students had not provided evidence that they were eligible to appear for the examinations, The Indian Express reported.

The division bench said allowing the students to take the examinations without meeting the university’s requirements would undermine its academic and disciplinary rules.

Any students involved in “political activities like dharna, hunger strikes or satyagraha” would be liable to being “expelled and/or rusticated”, the High Court was quoted as saying.

“Educational institutions are meant for imparting education and not politics,” The Indian Express quoted the bench as saying. “By their political ambition, the political parties cannot hold to ransom the educational institution or the right of the civilized students to receive education.”

MP High Court quashes FIR against student over protest

In Madhya Pradesh, the High Court quashed the FIR against a student accused of violating an order prohibiting unlawful gatherings during a protest against a case filed in June 2024 against some members of the Adivasi community.

The student had been charge-sheeted in the matter.

The court observed that the “bright student” should not be “unnecessarily dragged” into criminal proceedings, spoiling his career.

The court granted his plea on Monday. It also noted that the student had scored distinction in four of the five subjects in Class 12, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

A Guwahati-based businessperson accused of shooting five persons dead near a hotel last week was killed by the police during an alleged gunfight while allegedly trying to escape custody on Wednesday, the Hindustan Times reported.

Ghanakanta Gogoi had allegedly committed the murders over a dispute involving the lease of the hotel. He allegedly shot six persons on October 26, killing five, including the owner of the hotel.

He was arrested the same day and sent to judicial custody on Tuesday. An investigation was underway to ascertain his motives.

The alleged gunfight occurred when he was being taken from Guwahati to Sibsagar, which is about 350 km away, in connection with another case, the police said.

“When the team reached Gaurisagar, he said he wanted to answer nature’s call,” Sibsagar Senior Superintendent of Police Papori Chetia was quoted as saying. “After he got down from the vehicle, he tried to snatch the service weapon of the investigating officer. A scuffle ensued.”

The police claimed that it had to “resort to extreme measures” to protect its personnel as there was a “threat” from Gogoi.

A district court in Kamrup Metro had directed the Guwahati Police not to take Gogoi out of the jail after sunset following a request for security by him, the Hindustan Times reported. The police had also been ordered to ensure his safety in custody.

After the alleged gunfight on Wednesday, the senior superintendent of police was quoted as saying that the court’s directions were “part of a process”, alleging that Gogoi “is a criminal and also a shooter involved in a heinous crime”.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Congress on Wednesday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party over reported cases of fake attendance recorded under the VB-G RAM G rural employment scheme, asking “how many more sins” would the Hindutva party commit in the name of Hindu deity Ram.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that in October a case of fake attendance under the scheme had been reported in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. The government had issued a clarification after the Opposition had raised the allegations, he said.

At the time, Ramesh had shared a report about alleged irregularities in the state’s Bahraich, Chandauli and Ghaziabad districts.

Ramesh said that a similar case had now been reported in the Sant Kabir Nagar district. It was not immediately clear which report the Congress leader was referring to.

The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin Act took effect on July 1. It replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

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

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

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

Five Opposition-ruled states have passed resolutions opposing the VB-G Ram G Act, and seeking that the MGNREGA scheme be restored.

On Wednesday, Ramesh said that cases of “recording fake attendance through clone apps are repeatedly being exposed, which is an extremely serious matter”.

“Donations stolen and offerings stolen in the name of Ram, fake employment in the name of Ram,” the former Union rural development minister said on social media. “How much more sin does the BJP have left to commit in the name of Ram?”

Ramesh was referring to the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The allegations are being investigated by a Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court.

The matter had come to light after Opposition leaders and a whistleblower raised questions about the handling of donations at the temple.

In its preliminary report, submitted to the Uttar Pradesh government in June, an earlier investigative team had found several instances of counting staff hiding bundles of notes and loose cash in their clothes, pockets and shoes.

The report held temple trustee Anil Mishra, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader, responsible for the dilution of security protocols in the counting room but did not recommend any action against him. Mishra resigned from their positions in the trust.

The RSS is the parent organisation of the BJP.

On October 15, the Uttar Pradesh Congress alleged irregularities in the V B-G RAM G scheme’s digital attendance system in 11 districts and demanded an investigation. Besides Bahraich, Chandauli and Ghaziabad, the districts included Ayodhya.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

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

Three suspected militants were killed in a gunfight between rival Naga groups in Manipur’s Noney district on Wednesday, a senior police officer told Scroll.

The gunfight began at around 3.30 am in Taodaijang village and continued for several hours, The Hindu reported. The exchange of fire had prevented security personnel from immediately reaching the area, the newspaper quoted an unidentified district official as saying.

The persons who died were from the armed Naga group Zeliangrong United Front (Jenchui faction) and the Naga insurgent group National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), NDTV reported.

However, The Hindu quoted residents as saying that one person who was killed was from the Kamson faction of the Zeliangrong United Front.

Several persons from the groups were injured, the newspaper reported.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the gunfight.

The incident follows ethnic clashes that broke out in Manipur in May 2023 between the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities. Tensions between the Kuki and the Naga communities have also escalated in the state since February.

At least 310 persons have been killed and 49 are missing in Manipur since the beginning of the clashes, the Assembly was informed in September. About 60,000 persons were displaced during the violence. Of them, 36,000 persons had been resettled and 24,000 remained in relief camps across Manipur.

Inputs from Rokibuz Zaman. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Corrections and clarifications: This article was updated to quote the senior police officer as saying that three suspected militants were killed. The earlier version quoted reports as stating that four had been killed.

Also read: ‘No one to protect us’: In Manipur, civilians easy targets as armed groups step up violence

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on companies and persons based in India and Türkiye for supporting Iran amid the war in West Asia.

The sanctions are part of the Donald Trump administration’s “Operation Economic Outcast” aimed at cutting-off Tehran’s ability to sell oil to fund the conflict with the US and Israel.

The US Department of Treasury’s action targeted what it alleged was a “vast criminal network” run by Chandigarh-based Suniel Kumar ⁠Sharma and his wife Jaspreet Preeti Shahid.

Washington alleged that the couple “supported Iran’s shadow fleet through a web maritime fraud”.

It also sanctioned two other Indian citizens, Ashwani Kumar Dhiman and Ishwinder Singh, who head two of the couple’s businesses, and nine entities linked to ​Sharma and Shahid.

Their schemes “provided false flags and certifications to sanctioned vessels involved in transporting Iranian petroleum, including vessels operating on behalf of the Iranian military and its proxies,” the department alleged.

False flags and fake maritime certifications allow ships engaging in illicit activity to evade international regulations aimed at ensuring crew safety and safeguarding against environmental harm, Washington said in a statement.

Vessels that are falsely flagged carry no valid protection and indemnity insurance, meaning that Iranian shadow fleet vessels operating under false flags “could potentially cause billions of dollars in damages to the economies of the countries in whose territorial waters they operate”.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, a treasury department agency, also sanctioned Türkiye-based Fugo Ground Services “for its ongoing services in support of Iran’s aviation sector”.

Fugo Ground Services provides ground handling and other services to several US-sanctioned Iranian airlines that continue to fly to Türkiye, the department said.

The department said it had “repeatedly warned” that it will take action against entities that continue to support Iran’s aviation industry.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that “you are either with us or against us”.

He added: “We know where you are, and we will sanction those who continue supporting the Iranian regime, whether by land, sea or air.”

The fresh sanctions came more than eight months after the war in West Asia began on February 28. Peace talks between Washington and Tehran have stalled amid periodic upticks in fighting and US strikes on Iran.

In August, four India-based companies were among several entities sanctioned by the US for importing petroleum and petrochemical products from Iran.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

In its October 2026 Poverty and Equity Brief, the World Bank shows a sharp decline in extreme poverty in India between 2011 and 2024. But there are significant shortcomings in its calculations.

The bank says that India’s extreme poverty rate fell from 27.1% in 2011-’12 to 2.6% in 2023-’24, and that an estimated 496 million people escaped poverty over the period. This, the bank said, was one of the fastest declines anywhere in the world.

India has made real gains in food security, housing, electricity and banking for poorer households but the Bank’s estimates are based on flawed data.

For one, it is unclear how the World Bank arrived at the estimate when data on India’s household consumption can no longer be compared due to changes in survey methods.

Second, the large decline conceals the nature of poverty among Indians, including borderline existence where one setback can push a household or family back into poverty.

Data problems

The government think tank, NITI Aayog, says multidimensional poverty fell from 29.17% in 2013-’14 to 11.28% in 2022-’23, with about 24.82 crore people moving out of poverty. These estimates were arrived at based on calculations made using data from the three rounds of the National Family Health Surveys.

Other economists using India’s own poverty lines have also found low figures for 2022-’23, as The Wire’s review of one such calculation notes. Defenders of the numbers point to expanded food transfers, housing, sanitation and electricity as real improvements in people’s lives.

The estimate compares household consumption surveys that were designed very differently. India’s consumption surveys are conducted by the National Sample Survey Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

They measure how much households spend each month on necessities such as food, clothing, rent, transport, health, education and more, which help indicate living standards and purchasing power for the economy.

In the 2011-’12 round, surveyors took down spending details from households in a single visit. The newer Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys of 2022-’23 and 2023-’24 spread this out over multiple visits, separate questionnaires for different kinds of spending, and a changed sampling design.

This difference means the two rounds are not strictly comparable, so some of the apparent rise in spending may reflect the new method, and any poverty estimates should account for this. The Indian government had withheld the 2017-’18 consumption survey, and has not updated its official poverty line since 2011-’12 – it still stands at Rs 32 per day. Instead, the government has relied on other estimates to calculate a reduction in poverty.

The World Bank’s methodology note warns of comparability problems and says changes in survey methods can substantially affect measured poverty. It tries to correct for them, but without a bridge survey that measures consumption under both methods, it is unclear how distorted the data might be.

The World Bank’s numbers have also changed sharply in a short span: in 2025, it said extreme poverty in India was at 5.3% for 2022-’23, using the same bar of $3 a day. The new brief puts it at 2.6% a year later. It is possible that poverty halved in a year, but it is also possible that the measure is sensitive to survey design.

The bar is low

The World Bank’s international poverty line of $3 a day is based on purchasing power parity, or PPP, at 2021 prices. It measures what $3 can buy in every country. In India, that works out to roughly Rs 60 per person per day. The international poverty line, however, is meant for the world’s poorest countries. For lower-middle-income countries like India, the World Bank’s framework uses a higher line of $4.20, about Rs 84 a day, in terms of purchasing power parity.

With that as the bar, the share of Indians surviving on less than Rs 82 per day falls from 57.7% to about 16%, which still leaves roughly 23 crore people. It means that roughly three in five Indians were below the line in 2011-’12, and now about one in six are.

Even as per this definition, a household spending a little over Rs 84 per person a day is not poor but precariously positioned where an illness or job loss can push the family into poverty. The World Bank’s brief projects poverty at the $4.20/day line to decline from 14.2% in 2026 to 12.1% by 2028.

The World Bank brief also measured the rural-urban divide in poverty rates. At the $4.20 line, 19.3% of the rural population is poor, while among the urban population, it is 8.6%. This indicates that poverty in India is concentrated in rural areas, so the countryside accounts for most of the country’s remaining poor. Despite employment growth, much of the rural job creation has been in low-productivity work, which limits how far it lifts household incomes.

The World Bank’s October 2026 Poverty & Equity Brief records India’s progress as one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.
The report highlights several significant gains:

✅ 49.6 crore people moved above the lower-middle-income poverty line of $4.20 a day between 2011…

— Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) October 30, 2026

Poor jobs growth, stagnant wages

The brief acknowledges stagnant real earnings and higher youth unemployment.

A critical analysis of the report notes that agricultural employment has risen in recent years, which runs against the usual path of development, in which labour moves from farms to factories and services.

Similarly, much of the increase in female labour force participation has come through self-employment and unpaid help in family enterprises, particularly in farming. For instance, Periodic Labour Force Survey data issued this year shows that about 73.5% of rural women workers were engaged in agriculture and 72.7% were self-employed in January-March, while only about 11% held regular salaried jobs.

These women are counted as workers, but their work may add little to household earnings, and does not count the hours spent in unpaid domestic chores and household care work.

The World Bank’s brief counts employment growth among the factors, including welfare and food transfers, leading to a fall in poverty while also saying that real earnings have barely moved. It falls short of explaining the dramatic reduction in poverty.

Who is missing from the survey?

Household consumption surveys also have limits on who they reach. Surveys sample households at a fixed address, and are likely to be less suited to capturing people whose work takes them from place to place, such as seasonal migrants in brick kilns and construction sites. The World Bank acknowledges that the richest households are poorly captured, which can understate inequality.

The Bank’s consumption-based inequality measure shows a decline, while its own data show the top-earning tenth of workers making about 13 times what the bottom tenth earns.

Consumption, income and wealth are different things, and a fall in one says little about the others. Consumption is what households spend, income is what they earn, and wealth is what they own after debts.

A family can keep spending from savings or through borrowing, and can spend more when prices fall even if its income is flat. The festive season shows the difference: last year’s record Diwali sales were driven largely by cuts in the Goods and Services Tax, which lowered prices. This year, spending is expected to decline amid inflation and borrowing costs.

Way forward

The World Bank’s numbers must be used to measure how much poverty in India has declined and how securely.

India should collect consumption data under both the old and new methods in the same households, so that researchers can separate real change from measurement change. Accurate and comparable data on earnings, the quality of employment, and the time women spend on unpaid care are crucial to understanding India’s poverty decline.

Pintu Paul is an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. He holds a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Email: pintu.paul@tiss.ac.in.

On October 10, the Delhi Police detained a group of people near INA Market for protesting against the controversial Special Intensive Revision of India’s voter rolls.

One of them was 22-year-old Ananya, who climbed onto the bonnet of the detention bus. A video shows that as the crowds closed in, a policeman shoved his pelvis against Ananya as she clung to the vehicle, while other women tried to push him away.

Ananya, a member of the Left-aligned All India Students Union, was undeterred by the incident, and was back on the streets the next day. “They think that if they hurt and traumatise us, we women won’t return to protest. But they can’t scare us off like this,” she said. “It is our right to have fair elections and protest peacefully.”

Like Ananya, many women protestors have been subjected to violence on the streets this year, both in July and October. Photos and videos from the recent agitations show police dragging and bodily hauling away protesters, many of them young women. Some women told Scroll they were groped and even beaten by the police.

Despite facing immense risks to their safety, women protestors have joined the protests in large numbers. In October, many had already been participating in ongoing agitations focused on violence against women, and continued on to join those against the SIR.

“While women had already participated in the paper leak protests in large numbers, it appears as if even more women have joined the protests this time,” said Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association. “It’s possibly because a lot of them were already out on the streets protesting against a series of rape cases that occurred in the country.”

Scroll spoke to women protesters in Delhi and Pune about the rage driving them to hit the streets. Their accounts suggest that they view their fight for safety, independence and rights as part of larger political struggles against injustice to marginalised groups, broader state failures, and importantly, a political regime that they view as misogynistic.

Referring to the Modi government’s “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” campaign, Sahar, a 20-year-old who is pursuing a master’s degree at Delhi University, said: “They see us as daughters when it’s convenient and question us using slurs. But do we not remain daughters when we’re being beaten up by the police?”

She added: “From facing sexual violence to losing your voting right to SIR, everything is political, and all these issues converge together.”

Political awakening

For many women who participated in the recent protests, the roots of their political awakening lay in experiences of gender discrimination at home.

Dhanashri, who is 21 years old, grew up in Pune watching her family favour her brother: he was gifted a bicycle and sent to a better school, and even served more food during meal times. Meanwhile, she was told to “adjust”.

“When we are young, we don’t understand or identify this discrimination as patriarchal but I did not like it,” she told Scroll in October during a small protest by student groups in Pune. “I still kept speaking up against it.”

Three years ago, in college, she joined the Left-leaning New Students and Youth Federation. That was when she began to understand patriarchy as more than discrimination, she said. “I used to get very angry in my initial years.”

Women’s liberation can often be perceived as an elite concern, but Dhanashri said, “Independence is important, be it a woman or man.”

Dhanashri clashed frequently with her parents over the years because they did not like her being part of the student group. “My parents have even hit me for coming home late,” she said. However, with time, her parents have come to accept her beliefs. “They now know that I am fighting for the right things,” she said.

She added, “I keep open space for discussion with my family, even though sometimes we get irritated with each other. But it is okay, they have also grown up with a social conditioning, and it will take time to unlearn and change.”

Swapnaja, who is 29 years old, and is the Pune coordinator for Stree Mukti League, a revolutionary women’s organisation, recounted growing up with a father who hit her mother frequently. “I would read things about women’s choices, but often wondered, where is the full plan for women’s liberation, mukti, and how will we achieve it?” she said.

She went on to study engineering in Mumbai. She did not have very defined political ideas through these years, but her observations of the world around her troubled her – for instance, the glaring contrast between the rich and the poor. This motivated her to volunteer during the Covid-19 lockdown and help provide food to migrant workers.

“It felt wrong, given that they were being denied their right to earn a livelihood with dignity,” she said. “I was consumed by this question.”

This experience led her to formally join the Stree Mukti League. Today, she describes herself as a revolutionary, and says that understanding the “root of things” has been an important part of her politicisation.

She explained that anyone who was “bothered by the woman’s question” would try and “delve deep into it”. Analysing the problem more carefully would reveal a wider context – such as “the BJP’s propaganda” on so-called love jihad, as well as other socioeconomic matters.

“On why there is inflation today – we are told it is because of Muslims. Why is there unemployment – because Muslims are stealing jobs,” she said. “This attempt to create the figure of the “other” is automatically undone when you go to the root of matters.”

Apart from gender discrimination, some young women were inspired to take up political activity by other socioeconomic problems. For instance, 23-year-old Juliya, a member of the Left-aligned Students Federation of India, who grew up in Kerala, said she joined the organisation in school when it organised against buses that were refusing rides to children who could not afford tickets.

“SFI was the only group organising about this, and they managed to get the buses to accept students riding with their passes,” said Juliya. “This was a personal issue for me, so I joined them then and have stayed on ever since.”

The current protests

The protests that women had been organising and participating in Delhi before the SIR agitations focused on several problems, many pertaining to students. For instance, they demanded the improvement of crumbling campus infrastructure and the implementation of University Grants Commission regulations on equity on campuses, and also more broadly demanded better safety for women in public spaces.

Smriti, who is 20, and is the president of the Women’s Development Cell at Hindu College, had organised a protest against sexual violence in early October. “Public places are already unsafe, but often men stand outside our college gates, or they even come inside campus and leer at us, molest or flash us,” she said. She compared these agitations to the upswell of angry protests against the lack of safety for women in the winter of 2012 after a 22-year-old was brutally violated and gangraped, and died of severe injuries. “Why has nothing changed in so many years?” she said.

Young women were also angered by what they saw as the “protectionist, patriarchal logic” with which institutions responded to their demands, explained a feminist scholar who has studied women’s movements. The scholar cited the example of the Lady Shri Ram College shifting classes online after a 17-year-old girl was gangraped by three men in a park. Further, in response to the same incident, the Delhi Development Authority restricted access to its parks after sunset.

“Women’s safety really becomes a kind of code word for reconfiguring control over women,” said the scholar, who asked to remain anonymous because she works with a public institution and was not authorised to speak to the media. “But it is interesting for a new generation of women to discover that question in some ways for themselves.” She added, “Once you start seeing the politics in something, it’s easier to connect it to the politics of something else.”

Ananya recounted that the calls to protest against the SIR in October were circulated in several women’s WhatsApp groups active for “the smash the patriarchy” protests. “Women, even those who aren’t ideologically affiliated, responded with enthusiasm,” said Ananya. “They got enraged when they heard of the police sexually violating women protestors and journalists.”

Lalita, a 30-year-old member of the Revolutionary Workers Party of India in Pune, said young women had realised the limitations of “choice feminism” – which is the idea that women’s liberation is tied to their freedom to make choices for themselves.

“I have the right to wear what I want, but after getting educated – and look at the cost of education – do I have jobs?” said Lalita. “If I try to become independent, would I be able to sustain myself?”

Women’s slogans

The women’s protest marches drew particular attention and commentary on social media for their use of creative slogans such as “Ek chai, do samosa, inn mardon pe kya bharosa!” – a tea and two samosas, there is no trusting these men.

But women recounted that they had also raised more pointedly political slogans that did not receive as much attention – including some that targeted politicians who had been accused or convicted of crimes against women.

“We chanted – Kuldeep Singh se azaadi, Brij Bhushan se azaadi,” said Ananya. Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a legislator expelled from the BJP, was convicted in 2019 for raping a minor, and for later killing her father. Brij Bhushan Singh, a former BJP member of parliament, was accused of sexual assault by India’s top female wrestlers. His acquittal in August has been challenged by four wrestlers.

The slogans angered members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student organisation aligned with BJP’s ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Ananya recounted. “The ABVP miscreants suddenly came up to us and started misbehaving with us,” she said.

The feminist scholar argued that the regime’s lenience towards these leaders was revealing of its misogyny. “And I think that is also translating in some ways into how young women are making sense of their world,” she said.

Sahar, the 22-year-old Delhi University master’s student, argued, “Women know where the blame lies. While the protests were about the rape cases and our anger against patriarchal institutions, we know what kind of example this government has set by keeping leaders in power who have raped women.”

Women also targeted the regime’s most senior leaders. Sahar recalled that one of the placards said “Modiji kya ab culture shock hua?”

This was a response to a short video that Prime Minister Narendra Modi put up in July, after he came across videos of placards and slogans ridiculing him and the government. In his video, he had said it was a “cultural shock” for him to hear “daughters using such language”.

Sahar noted that apart from failing to tackle sexual violence, the government had also pursued policies which impacted women and minorities disproportionately. “It is married women, trans people and religious minorities who are facing the worst brunt of the SIR,” she said. “All of this is interconnected.”

Hypocrisy on gender

Many women protestors argued that it was ironic that the government had launched welfare schemes for girls and women, and yet unleashed violence against women in Delhi when they protested for their rights.

Lalita, who has organised protests in Pune, said that she found the videos of police violence against women in Delhi unsurprising. “We should all know what we are up against,” said Lalita. “All of this is being live-streamed. The evidence is available for all of us to see how this fascist state operates.”

She added, “We must know that the fascists use sexual violence and brutal violence as a tool to subjugate us.” Further, “We must also understand that our honour does not lie in women’s bodies,” she noted.

Like Ananya, many other women are also undeterred by police brutality. “So many of my comrades have been slapped, groped, their clothes have been torn, their t-shirts or kurtas pulled up,” said Juliya. “But we will still return.”

Dhanashri, the 21-year-old student from Pune, was traveling to Delhi on October 8 to participate in protests when she and other students were pulled off their train in Itarsi and detained by the Madhya Pradesh police. “When I got detained, I felt that the only thing I had to do was resist,” she said. Her fear has since vanished. “I am no longer afraid of the state,” she said.

Ananya, too, echoed arguments about the government’s hypocrisy. “The state can mobilise so much security against peaceful protestors,” she said. “Where are these personnel, where is the state when women face sexual violence?

The feminist scholar argued that part of the reason police had responded violently to women was to make an example of them. “You don’t want other women to get the same kind of ideas, because there is a lot more at stake in ‘keeping women in control’,” she said.

The scholar pointed out that since many of the young women protestors are from Left groups, the regime was pushing forward a narrative about the protests that suggested, “These are not our betis and our betis wouldn’t do this”.

This argument, she said, was also being deployed to justify the use of force. “It’s almost like the argument is that because these are Left women, we need to treat them as ‘Left’, as ‘naxals’, and not as women,” she said.

If a 20-year-old has found her way to this politics, she said, “All of us don’t need to tell her what to do with that politics.” In fact, she explained, the recent protests had shattered the common belief that young women are not interested in feminist politics, or politics more generally. “There’s always a potential once someone starts seeing the world differently,” she said.

The Karnataka High Court has quashed criminal proceedings against a man accused of shouting “Pakistan Zindabad”, or long live Pakistan, at a Bharatiya Janata Party rally in 2022.

In the judgement delivered on October 28, the court took note of the petitioner’s submission that he had mistakenly shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” instead of “Pakistan Murdabad”, or death to Pakistan.

The petitioner had shouted the slogan in the heat of the moment due to a “slip of the tongue”, his lawyer told the court.

The matter pertains to a complaint filed in 2024 in connection with a demonstration organised on December 18, 2022, by supporters of the BJP.

The complainant said that a video of the incident had caused him mental distress and prompted him to seek police action.

The Mandya Police registered a case under the Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to public mischief and assertions prejudicial to national integration.

The accused subsequently moved the High Court urging it to quash the case.

In his order, Justice V Srishananda said: “At the outset, in a demonstration organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party, it is highly unimaginable that the protesters therein would raise the slogan ‘Pakistan Zindabad’.”

He held that continuing the criminal proceedings against the petitioner would be unnecessary and amount to an abuse of the process of law.

During the hearing, the prosecution had alleged that the petitioner deliberately shouted the slogan “in order to create unrest in the society”.

However, the court held that the investigation had failed to establish that the slogan had led to any social unrest.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

In the plains of Assam, different kinds of rain are often distinguished through vivid local expressions that reflect their intensity and impact on everyday life. One such term is “sagoli-kheda-borokhun” (the rain that chases goats). It refers to a light shower, enough to send goats hurrying into their sheds while people continue with their daily activities.

As the rainfall intensifies, it may be described as “goru-kheda-borokhun” (cow-chasing rain), followed by “manuh-kheda-borokhun” (people-chasing rain), when even humans seek shelter from the downpour. At the extreme end of this scale of vernacular expressions of rainfall intensity lies “gor-kheda-borokhun” (the rain that chases away rhinos), evoking a deluge so intense that even Assam’s iconic one-horned rhinoceroses would retreat and look for shelter.

With rapid urbanisation and changing rainfall patterns, such beautiful expressions of rain have lost continuous usage, especially among the younger generation, who no longer name types of rains.

These expressions reveal the richly textured ways in which communities inhabiting the water-abundant landscapes of North East India have understood and interpreted rainfall. Their environmental imagination is shaped not only by the rains themselves but also by the sounds, movements, and rhythms of the ecosystems around them.

Among the most evocative signs of the approaching monsoon was the chorus of frogs inhabiting the “pukhuris” (ponds), “khaals” (natural drainage channels), and “beels” (wetlands). Their persistent croaking, described locally as the rhythmic “tur-tu-rai” of an assembled army of frogs, would fill the night air. Hearing this familiar symphony, people would often remark that the rains were on their way.

In today’s times, such soundscapes have diminished considerably and the traditional knowledge of being able to predict rains by observing sounds and signs in nature have not been passed on. The familiar chorus of frogs on humid nights has grown noticeably quieter as ponds have deteriorated, wetlands have been drained, and traditional water bodies have gradually disappeared from the landscape.

Here, I look at the languages and imaginations of communities, and how these interact with the annual rains and storms along the eastern Himalayas, how they keep record of the changes in the climate patterns in their community lives through their vernacular depictions of storms and rains, and how the current climate crisis has clouded their traditional communication methods.

Water-abundant worlds

The Himalayan river-systems and the plains they nourish have always been regarded as a water-abundant environment, with monsoons, storms and rains forming an essential part of the lives and imaginations of communities living there. Nation-state borders, which straddle river-systems and regions across the Himalayas, bring in an additional layer of complexity to the various discourses of climate change disasters and patterns in the region, which are already exacerbated by infrastructural interventions on the river systems.

The languages and imaginations of Himalayan communities through which they describe the monsoons, climate change, storms, and rainfall patterns in their daily lives and natural environment, and how they are shaped by the interventions and narratives deployed by the nation-state in the eastern Himalayas serve as critical crisis communication, often proving more useful and timely than government communication.

The monsoon rains that stream in from the Indian Ocean currents and extend up to the heights of the easternmost fringes of the Himalayas bring most of the Himalayan river-systems to life. The monsoon clouds, after they enter Northeast India, play a veritable ping-pong between the low-lying rolling hills of the Patkai ranges and the towering eastern Himalayan mountain ranges, and the rains and storms that ensue from this match nourish the various communities, sustain the forests, and shape the landscape. This interaction forms an archive of climate disasters in the region.

Modern meteorological forecasting methods have greatly improved with scientific progress and modelling and availability of long-term data. However, from my research, it has been evident that the medium-range and long-range predictions of storms and rainfall patterns have low reliability at the local level, meaning state-led communication methods are not effective or timely. There are externalities of data collection challenges and reliability of what actually constitutes long-term data and the rapid infrastructure push and anthropogenic changes in the context of the fragile and ever-crumbling-and-forming eastern Himalayas.

Bordoisila is the personified name given to an annual spring storm that ravages the foothills of the eastern Himalayas, often spanning across Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Bhutan. The community memory of Bordoisila is archived over time through stories of the storm returning to “her maternal home,” Assam, to celebrate Bohag Bihu, the mid-April spring festival, and accounting for the ferocity and devastation it regularly brings along, as well as the variation in timing of the storm’s arrival and when “she returns” after celebrating.

Communities provide token offerings of festive food and clothing to Bordoisila, imploring the storm to pass by gently in “her path.” The variation in timing and ferocity of the storm is recorded in recent community memory as the personified storm managing to come home early this year as “she got to leave early from her workplace.” Originating in the Chotanagpur plateau and gathering force from the Bay of Bengal, she again returns in an angry mood as if “she was not treated well by her mother” with festive goodies and good food.

Personified storms

Over years of research in the region, I have noted that communities rarely rely on modern meteorological forecasting information for the stormy season. They know it only by community memory and their sense of the ferocity of the storm when it passes by – among a series of spring storms – and declare that “she has finally arrived” and “she will soon return after celebrating Bihu.”

It is along the trail of Bordoisila that the first wave of floods also arrives in Assam, and the traditional knowledge repository known as “Dakor Boson,” a collection of vernacular prose and poetry sayings, depicting how the coming monsoon and the ensuing agricultural cropping cycle will span out. The first floods were always celebrated with the Bihu dance, and the storm Bordoisila is revered despite its ferocity, as it brings the rain and nutrient-rich silt to nourish the overall landscape. However, with climate change and anthropogenic interventions, the language of climate crises has changed from a sense of celebration and reverence to utter despair.

Over the past several decades, North East India has witnessed profound shifts in its monsoon patterns. Periods of unusually intense rainfall have triggered devastating floods, while prolonged dry spells have brought drought-like conditions to many areas. In response to persistent droughts, communities across Assam have continued to observe customs such as frog-marriage ceremonies, invoking these creatures regarded as messengers of the rain-gods, to restore the rains through their renewed croaking.

In Meghalaya, rainfall that used to last nine nights and days in a continuous rhythmic pattern, known as “slap-khyndai-miet-khyndai-sngi,” has, over recent years, lost its original community language emphasis, as such long-enduring rainfall patterns have diminished greatly.

Among the Idu-Mishmi of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, traditional ritual specialists are called upon to communicate with rain spirits, seeking their intervention both when the rains fail to arrive and when incessant downpours raise fears of catastrophic flooding. The Idu-Mishmi term for rain, “ayyo or ayyoyo,” carries deep cultural significance within these practices.

Jibi Pulu, an Idu-Mishmi community leader and environmental activist, points to how different kinds of rainfall were once understood to perform distinct ecological functions in the forests of the Dibang Valley. Certain rains signaled the shedding of leaves, others supported flowering cycles, while some heralded the arrival of migratory birds that seasonally visited the region’s rich forest ecosystems. However, he observed that such patterns have become increasingly difficult to anticipate, as deforestation, climate change, and human intervention have disrupted environmental rhythms that earlier generations could interpret with a high confidence.

Many Idu-Mishmi elders similarly attribute the growing unpredictability of rainfall and the increasing occurrence of extreme floods on the Dibang River and its tributaries to a deterioration in the relationship between people and the natural world. They regard practices such as the indiscriminate slaughter of animals and the growing trend of winter picnics on dry riverbeds (where meals are prepared directly on the exposed riverbed) as acts that offend river spirits.

In their understanding, these transgressions disturb the balance between humans and the spiritual forces inhabiting the landscape, contributing to erratic weather patterns and destructive flooding events. Some historic flooding events are referred to by communities with names of where such flooding originated, such as the “China-paani” of the year 2000 and the recent episodes of “Bhutan-baanpaani” along the Bhutan-Assam border. This vocabulary has expanded to include specific dam-induced floods such as Ranganadi-floods in Assam.

Culturally grounded approaches

The diverse linguistic expressions, traditional knowledge systems, and lived experiences through which indigenous communities across Northeast India understand rainfall, storms, climate variability, and recurring flood events deserve to be documented, connected, and amplified within broader conversations on environmental democracy and transboundary cooperation.

Bringing these perspectives together can help foster more inclusive dialogues across the Eastern Himalayas and the Patkai mountain ranges, enabling local communities to participate meaningfully in decision-making processes concerning ecology, environmental governance, infrastructure development, disaster preparedness, crisis communication, and other issues that directly shape their everyday lives and livelihoods. For generations, communities have relied on close observation of their surroundings to interpret changes in weather and rainfall patterns, rhythms of rivers, and flood cycles.

As environmental transformations become more pronounced and traditional indicators grow increasingly uncertain, their ability to understand and articulate these changes offers valuable insights into the realities of climate change on the ground.

Recognising and engaging with such lived experiences, local knowledge, and environmental imaginations is, therefore, essential to strengthening civil society participation and building more democratic, responsive, and culturally grounded approaches to environmental governance in the region.

Modern meteorological forecasting methods need to learn from traditional wisdom and social innovation and the vast archive of knowledge which have recorded past disasters and also can predict future ones. The rapid pace and scale of transformation along the eastern Himalayas are rendering traditional knowledge systems incapable of providing climate solutions.

Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman completed his doctoral research on the Brahmaputra river basin geopolitics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, and is currently a Research Associate at Heinrich Boell Stiftung, India and Visiting Associate Fellow at Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, India.

All photos courtesy of Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman.

This is the second in a multi-part series published in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, at the Shiv Nadar University, Delhi NCR, a research center focused on the economy, borders, identities, environment, and regional geopolitics of the wider Himalayan region including the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram.

This article was first published on India in Transition, a publication of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.

Could your home be at risk from rising seas? Scroll is investigating coastal flooding in Mumbai and Kolkata, mapping vulnerable areas and examining whether developers and the authorities are accounting for the risks. Support this investigation and help us make this reporting possible. Fund the project here.

Seventy-five percent of Agniveers who are not enrolled in the armed forces permanently after their four-year tenure will be given an option to extend their service by two more years. After this six years of service, Agniveers will get another opportunity to join the armed forces as regular soldiers, provided they meet the prescribed criteria, said Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani

The introduction of the Agnipath scheme on June 14, 2022, had triggered protests in several states as aspirants demanded permanent recruitment with pension benefits. The announcement came as around 18,000 Agniveers from the first batch are expected to complete their four-year tenure and exit in December.

Subramani said that Agniveers who opt for the additional two-year service will receive higher salaries and an increased exit package. Read on.

An Agniveer died in Operation Sindoor. A year later, his parents are still fighting for pension, reports Anant Gupta

The Delhi Police said that it has filed a first information report against advocate Prashant Bhushan for sharing a video of the Russian foreign minister manipulated using artificial intelligence. The manipulated video showed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying that New Delhi and Moscow were merely trading partners and that their commercial relationship “did not give India the right to interfere in our foreign policy”.

It also showed him saying that India was “neither an ally, nor a superpower whose advice” Russia was bound to follow.

While sharing the video, Bhushan had said that the comments were “a tight slap” by the Russian foreign minister on India. Read on.

The Democrats took control of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives from the Republicans as votes in the mid-term elections were being counted. Before the polls, President Donald Trump-led Republican party had a 53:47 majority in the 100-member Senate.

It had a slim 219:214 majority in the 435-member Lower House of the Congress. As of 5.30 pm Indian time on Wednesday, the Democrats held 54 seats and the Republicans had 44 in the Senate.

The Democrats had won 228 seats and the Republicans 139 in the Lower House. The remaining 68 seats had not been called. A party needs 218 seats for a majority. Read on.

An Indian citizen who was critically injured in the attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on October 10 has died, the Indian embassy said. The man had been in an intensive care unit for 25 days.

The October 10 attack killed 14 persons and injured more than 300, making it the deadliest strike on Saudi Arabia since May 2015. Read on.

The Delhi government has granted consent to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Cockroach Janta Party legal affairs head Ratna Singh for her social media posts about a judge of the Saket District Court. Singh had approached the court seeking an FIR against police officers who allegedly prevented her from participating in a protest called by the political campaign to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 10.

After the court rejected her petition, Singh posted on social media that the judge was “serving the master” and had taken several breaks during the proceedings. In another post, she alleged that both the Delhi Police and the judge were following orders from an unidentified “master”. Read on.

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The Delhi government has granted consent to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Cockroach Janta Party legal affairs head Ratna Singh for her social media posts about a judge of the Saket District Court, Live Law reported on Wednesday.

Singh had approached the Saket court seeking a first information report against police personnel who allegedly wrongfully detained her and prevented her from a protest called by the Cockroach Janta Party to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on October 10.

The court had rejected her petition.

Following the hearing, Singh posted on social media that the judge was “serving the master” and had taken several breaks during the proceedings. In another post, she alleged that both the Delhi Police and the judge were following orders from an unidentified “master”, Bar and Bench reported.

Judge serving the master. Went for break/meeting 4 times during entire hearing. Order without any application of law.

Welcome to new India, where Sarkar can put 30 police personnel confining you & then say we won coz armless people couldn’t come to the protest site.

Irony is… https://t.co/SosmVKcgBK

— Ratna Singh (@whattalawyer) October 10, 2026

On Monday, the Delhi government’s counsel, Amol Sinha, said Singh’s remarks questioned the judge’s independence and could undermine public confidence in the judicial system.

Sinha said there was a difference between criticising a court order and alleging that a judge was acting under someone else’s instructions, Live Law reported.

He said Singh had not backed her claims with facts.

“Such imputations, in my opinion, strike at the independence and impartiality of the judicial process,” Sinha stated.

The consent was granted under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, section 15(2), which allows a law officer to move the High Court to initiate criminal contempt proceedings.

The consent was granted on a complaint filed by an advocate.

Edited by Sneha.

Seventy-five percent of Agniveers who are not enrolled permanently after their four-year tenure will be given an option to extend their service by two more years, announced Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani on Wednesday.

After the extension is completed, the willing Agniveers will get another opportunity to join the armed forces as regular soldiers, provided they meet the prescribed selection criteria, added Subramani.

Agniveers are recruited into the armed forces under the Agnipath short-term recruitment scheme. Under the scheme, citizens aged between 17 and a half and 21 years are eligible to apply for a four-year term in the military with a provision that 25% of them will be retained for permanent service and will be required to serve for a minimum of 15 years.

The introduction of the Agnipath scheme on June 14, 2022, had triggered protests in several states as aspirants demanded permanent recruitment with pension benefits.

Agniveers are not entitled to pension and emoluments on the completion of the four years of service and are instead offered a lump-sum package.

The announcement on Wednesday came as around 18,000 Agniveers from the first batch are expected to complete their four-year tenure and exit in December. There are around three lakh Agniveers in the defence forces currently, reported The Hindu.

Subramani said that Agniveers who opt for the additional two-year service will receive higher salaries and an increased Seva Nidhi package if they choose to leave the armed forces after completing the extended tenure.

The decision was taken after evaluation of the performance of the Agniveers, he added.

“Based on these evaluations…the Indian defence forces recommended to the government that 75% of the Agniveers be granted an additional engagement period,” he said. “We have been discussing this for the past three to four months.”

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Also read: An Agniveer died in Operation Sindoor. A year later, his parents are still fighting for pension

The Keralam government on Wednesday ordered a preliminary investigation into fresh allegations that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had sought bribes from contractors to clear bills during his tenure as the secretary of the state’s Public Works Department in 2006, The Indian Express reported.

On October 4, the Congress-led United Democratic Front government in the state directed the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to investigate bribery allegations against Kumar after Congress leader Malayinkeezhu Venugopal filed a complaint.

The development came amid allegations against Kumar about irregularities in the conduct of the special intensive revision of voter rolls and calls from Opposition parties seeking his removal from office.

The fresh allegations were made by a contractor named Sajan, who alleged that Kumar sought Rs 2 crore from Malaysian engineer Lee See Been, the project manager of a road project undertaken by the Indo-Malaysian construction company PATI-BEL, The Indian Express reported.

Lee died by suicide in Kuala Lumpur in November 2006, allegedly leaving behind a note in which he accused PWD officials of withholding payments over demands for bribes.

In their complaints, Venugopal and Sajan have claimed that Lee had mentioned Kumar in his suicide note.

The project was delayed and saw cost escalations during Kumar’s tenure while the Left Democratic Front government was in power.

The PATI-BEL consortium had been awarded the contract to upgrade the Main Central Road under the Kerala State Transport Project by the previous United Democratic Front government.

In his complaint to state Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala on October 23, Sajan claimed that he worked closely with Lee as one of the material suppliers for the PATI-BEL, reported The Indian Express.

“As the bills were not cleared on time, Lee could not make payments to local contractors and suppliers,” he alleged. “Lee had told me that Kumar had sought Rs 2 crore to clear the bills.”

However, PATI-BEL was unwilling to pay bribes to get the bills cleared, Sajan claimed.

He further alleged that Kumar had deliberately withheld cheques for bills amounting to around Rs 17 crore, despite engineers approving them, PTI reported.

Sajan said that if the government ordered a probe, he was ready to produce evidence, including Lee’s family members, before the investigators.

Protests against Kumar

Since October 2, nationwide protests have been held calling for Kumar’s resignation over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and the alleged irregularities in how the voter roll is being revised.

The trigger for the protests was a September 23 investigation by The Indian Express, which revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.

Edited by Sneha.

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday quashed a criminal defamation case filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s state unit against former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah about the “corruption rate card” advertisements by Congress during the Assembly elections that year, Live Law reported.

In July 2025, the High Court had stayed proceedings in the case.

Ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections, the Congress’ advertisements alleged that the BJP-led government in Karnataka had fixed rates of bribes for job appointments and transfers.

The BJP alleged that the advertisements damaged the Hindutva party’s image by claiming that certain “rates” and “commissions” were charged for facilitating the appointments in government jobs, Live Law reported.

The complaint also alleged that the advertisements used the words “trouble engine sarkar” to malign the BJP’s reputation. The phrase was a play on the “double engine sarkar” slogan used by the BJP to urge voters to elect it at the Centre and in states.

The Congress was elected to power in Karnataka in 2023, replacing the BJP government.

In May 2023, the Election Commission issued a notice to the Congress’ Karnataka unit in connection with the advertisements. There appeared to be a prima facie violation of the Model Code of Conduct, said the poll panel.

The code is a set of guidelines issued by the poll panel that political parties, candidates and the government must follow during an election. It sets guardrails for speeches, campaigning, meetings, processions, election manifestos and other aspects of the polls.

“While the general references and allusions to the alleged lack of achievement, misdeeds, not ensuring corruption-free governance of political opponents, do float in political campaigns, specific accusations and charges need to be segregated as the same must be backed by verifiable facts,” the poll panel said in the notice to DK Shivakumar, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief at the time.

In February, the High Court quashed a separate defamation case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over the party’s advertisements.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that the salaries of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Ashwini Bhide and other officials be withheld till December 1 while hearing a case about the civic body failing to comply with its directions to remove encroachments from land earmarked for a bus stand, Bar and Bench reported.

It was not immediately clear who the other officials are.

The court initiated contempt proceedings against Bhide. It issued a show cause notice asking why action should not be taken against her.

The court also rejected the commissioner’s request for more time to comply with its earlier directions and imposed cost of Rs 5 lakh on the municipal corporation, The Indian Express reported.

The land in Borivali earmarked for a Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport bus stand has been at the centre of a dispute between the municipal corporation and a private developer for several years.

In an order passed in August 2025, the Supreme Court directed the developer to hand over possession of the 3,400 square metre-plot to the municipal corporation.

It had asked the municipal corporation to make the bus stand functional within three months. The court had also directed the corporation to continue taking steps to remove encroachments from the property.

in November 2025, the court raised concern that the municipal authorities had not removed the encroachments.

It had sought a personal affidavit from the commissioner listing who was occupying the property, eviction notices issued to them and any claims of tenancy or ownership.

Bhide was appointed the commissioner in March this year.

A day after the court’s order on Wednesday, the municipal corporation cleared the encroachments, a journalist from The Times of India reported.

Update: BMC has cleared encroachments on the 3,400 sq m plot reserved for a BEST bus depot on Swami Vivekanand Road in Borivli East.

27 commercial units demolished in a drive conducted by the R Central ward on Wednesday. Around 70 personnel, 2 JCBs and 4 dumpers deployed for the… https://t.co/t0ssfPLOkA pic.twitter.com/a0bZUP7kXD

— Richa Pinto (@richapintoi) November 4, 2026

On Tuesday, the commissioner sought more time to comply with the directions. Rejecting the request, the bench took strong exception to the corporation’s explanation that its officials needed to have documents in Marathi translated into English before they could act.

“The officer who filed the affidavit is Dr Tambe,” Justice Joymala Bagchi was quoted as saying. “Do you want us to believe that they do not know Marathi?”

Chief Justice Surya Kant said that the authorities may be colluding with the encroachers, Bar and Bench reported. “This is an absolutely mischievous breach of the directions of the Supreme Court, with the direct connivance and support of the encroachers,” he was quoted as having verbally observed.

The court refused to grant further time even as the municipal corporation’s lawyer offered to ensure compliance within a month.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

At least six schools in Bhopal were closed on Wednesday because of the traffic disruptions expected during a “save democracy, remove anarchy” march organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Dainik Bhaskar reported.

The district education officer on Tuesday issued an order asking all government and private schools to assess the likely impact of traffic congestion and diversions on the commute of students and make necessary changes to school timings, including declaring a holiday if required, The Times of India reported.

The march passed through New Market, one of Bhopal’s busy commercial areas.

The rally in the capital of the BJP-ruled state was organised in response to Opposition protests since October 2 demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over concerns about the Election Commission’s functioning and alleged irregularities in the revision of electoral rolls.

The Hindutva party has held similar rallies in Jabalpur, Indore and Hyderabad, among other cities.

Opposition reaction

Congress state president Jitu Patwari asked why children and parents should “bear the brunt” of disruptions caused by the BJP’s rally.

He added: “Has education for kids in Madhya Pradesh now become hostage to the BJP’s so-called programs?”

भोपाल में भाजपा फिर भाड़े की भीड़ जुटा रही है! नतीजा, प्रशासन ने स्कूलों को समय बदलने या छुट्टी करने के निर्देश दे दिए! कई निजी स्कूलों में तो कल अवकाश घोषित हो गया!

• @BJP4MP की रैली का खामियाजा बच्चे और अभिभावक क्यों भुगतें? क्या मध्य प्रदेश में अब बच्चों की पढ़ाई भी भाजपा के… pic.twitter.com/Eyx2Cu23B8

— Jitendra (Jitu) Patwari (@jitupatwari) November 3, 2026

Congress leader Abhinav Baroliya said that the Hindu festival of Dhanteras, which falls on Friday, is an important occasion for traders and business owners.

Dhanteras, celebrated two days before Diwali, is considered an auspicious day for shopping.

He said that disrupting access to markets and public amenities to hold a political event was inappropriate at this time, PTI reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

An Indian citizen who was critically injured in the attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on October 10 has died, the Indian embassy said on Wednesday.

The man had been in an intensive care unit for 25 days after the attack.

With a heavy heart, we share that another Indian national, critically injured in the 10 October attack on Riyadh airport, has passed away in ICU.

We have been by his family's side throughout, and we remain with them now. We convey heartfelt condolences to the family and friends.…

— India in Saudi Arabia (@IndianEmbRiyadh) November 4, 2026

The Indian diplomatic mission said it had been in contact with the man’s family throughout his treatment and would continue to assist them. It added that it would help bring his remains to India or arrange a funeral in Riyadh, depending on the family’s wishes.

The October 10 attack killed 14 persons and injured more than 300, making it the deadliest strike on Saudi Arabia since May 2015.

The embassy had earlier said that 11 Indians were injured in the attack.

The first Indian who died was identified as Mohammad Yousuf Ali, a resident of Hyderabad.

Four Saudis, two persons from Bangladesh and one person each from the United States of America, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt also died in the attack, said the Saudi civil aviation authority.

Saudi Arabia has faced several attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militant group, including the strike on Riyadh’s international airport

The attacks marked an escalation in the conflict between the Iran-backed Houthis, who are seeking to topple Yemen’s internationally recognised government, and Saudi Arabia, which backs the government.

On October 28, the Ministry of External Affairs said that three Indians had been killed in Saudi Arabia.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.

The Election Commission on Tuesday clarified that voters whose names are missing from the draft electoral rolls prepared under the special intensive revision can submit Form 6 to seek inclusion without facing prosecution for making a false declaration, even if they had been enrolled previously, The Hindu reported.

In a letter to the chief electoral officers of all states and Union Territories, the poll panel said that some voters were hesitant to submit Form 6 because it requires applicants to declare that their names are being included in the electoral rolls for the first time, The New Indian Express reported.

Form 6 is meant for first-time voter registration.

Such voters “believe that submission of Form 6, in view of their previous enrolment, would amount to making a false declaration and render them liable for prosecution” under the 1950 Representation of the People Act, the poll panel was quoted as saying.

It clarified that no action would be taken against them, provided they were not already enrolled in another constituency.

BIG: another @ECISVEEP ‘clarification’ this time on Form 6: those eligible voters whose names are not on draft electoral roll can now submit their form 6 irrespective of whether they were previously enrolled or not. How many more clarifications before there is an acceptance that… pic.twitter.com/Q4pEsJOCA9

— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) November 3, 2026

The Election Commission added that voters whose names do not appear in the draft rolls must seek inclusion afresh, regardless of whether they had been enrolled previously.

The clarification is in line with an October 14 ruling by the Delhi High Court, the poll panel said.

The High Court had said that a voter’s apprehension of being accused of making a false declaration by submitting Form 6 to restore their name to the electoral roll after exclusion during the revision was “misplaced” since the direction to do so had come from the Election Commission.

In October, the poll panel had directed its state units where the revision had been completed to identify and restore eligible voters who may have been wrongly excluded, using Form 6.

However, former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi had said at the time that Form 6 cannot be filled by deleted voters as it is only for new voters.

“All those who have been forced to fill it have committed a criminal offence carrying one year prison,” Quraishi said on social media. “EC officials who forced them are abetters to crime. This press note shows EC’s abetment!”

Why tell deleted voters to fill Form 6, asks Supreme Court

On October 28, the Supreme Court verbally asked why the Election Commission was telling voters who had been enrolled before the revision to use Form 6 after they were deleted from the draft rolls for not filling the enumeration forms during the exercise.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant had noted that some voters in Delhi might not have received enumeration forms because they had moved residences or were travelling during the exercise. The enumeration phase of the exercise in Delhi was held in July.

The court asked why voters cannot now be allowed to fill the enumeration form or Form 8, which is for changing addresses, instead of Form 6.

The counsel representing the Election Commission had said that the authorities will examine the suggestions made by the court.

The bench’s observations came two days after the Supreme Court on October 26 in a separate matter, verbally assured voters that they would not be prosecuted for submitting Form 6 to restore their names after being excluded during the special intensive revision.

The petitioner’s counsel, in a matter pertaining to the voter roll revision in Maharashtra, had pointed out that “pre-existing voters misrepresenting themselves as fresh voters is an offence and liable for prosecution”.

In response, the chief justice had said: “Do not worry. Nobody will be prosecuted.”

A contentious exercise

In 2025, the first phase of the voter roll revision was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026. The third phase of the exercise is underway in 19 states and Union Territories.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision. But it said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Since October 2, nationwide protests have been held calling for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and the alleged irregularities in how the voter roll is being revised.

On Saturday, the Opposition INDIA bloc held a symbolic “public impeachment” of Kumar.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Follow Scroll’s coverage of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls here.
• Explainer: Why the Election Commission’s Form 6 for new voters has triggered a legal row
• SIR explained: Why the voter roll revision has become so controversial

Booth-level officers in Delhi have been asked to collect additional documents to verify the citizenship of voters who submitted only Aadhaar cards in response to “no mapping” notices issued during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Hindu reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the exercise but clarified that the Election Commission cannot decide whether a person is an Indian citizen.

In Delhi, electoral registration officers had directed that voters be asked to prove that they were not “Bangladeshi” or “Rohingya” by furnishing additional documents, the newspaper quoted several booth-level officers as saying.

The officers said that some of these voters had already submitted field verification reports and undertakings confirming that they were eligible to vote and had been living at their addresses for years.

Voters who submitted only Aadhaar cards were flagged in the system, the newspaper reported. This was despite electoral registration officers having the authority to mark a voter as eligible for inclusion in the final roll if they were satisfied with the booth-level officer’s field report and undertaking.

An unidentified booth-level officer said that instructions on collecting additional documents had changed repeatedly. Officers had initially been told that they could submit an undertaking confirming a voter’s eligibility if they did not possess the documents prescribed by the Election Commission.

Another booth-level officer flagged that in one situation a voter who had submitted a passport was also asked to furnish additional documents for verification.

However, senior officials have denied that any such instructions had been issued, The Hindu reported.

Of the 97.5 lakh voters included in Delhi’s draft electoral roll that was published on, 33.1 lakh were issued notices asking them to establish their eligibility.

Of these, 13.7 lakh had not been linked to the electoral rolls from the previous special intensive revision, while the remaining 19.3 lakh were flagged for “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration forms.

On October 27, the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer's office said that 31.2 lakh of the 33.1 lakh cases had been cleared for inclusion in the final electoral roll, accounting for more than 94% of those issued notices.

The deadline for disposing of the notices has since been extended to December 15. The final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on December 22.

A contentious exercise

In 2025, the first phase of the voter roll revision was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026. The third phase of the exercise is underway in 19 states and Union Territories.

Since the exercise began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

Despite the Supreme Court ruling that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Delhi Police on Wednesday said that it has filed a first information report against advocate Prashant Bhushan for sharing a video of the Russian foreign minister manipulated using artificial intelligence.

The manipulated video showed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying that New Delhi and Moscow were merely trading partners and that their commercial relationship “did not give India the right to interfere in our foreign policy”.

It also showed him saying that India was “neither an ally, nor a superpower whose advice” Russia was bound to follow.

The video was widely shared online.

While sharing the video, Bhushan had said that the comments were “a tight slap” by the Russian foreign minister on India. “What kind of advice was [Indian External Affairs Minister S] Jaishankar giving to Russia?” he had asked.

After the video, first posted by another account on social media platform X, was shared by Bhushan, the Ministry of External Affairs had said on Tuesday that it was fake.

The Russian embassy in Delhi also said that it was fake.

On Wednesday, the police said that it had noticed a post by another account claiming that “a purported doctored video of the Russian foreign minister, hostile to India” was shared by Bhushan’s account.

“Through the said video, there is an allegation of disseminating misleading, defamatory, and inflammatory content to incite public disturbance and spread rumours,” the police said on social media.

The police said that it had filed a case under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to forgery, statements conducing to public mischief, defamation and dishonest use of a forged document or electronic record as genuine.

Bhushan, who was also booked under the Information Technology Act for alleged identity theft, has deleted the post.

The police did not elaborate on whether it had also booked other handles that had shared the video.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

On October 27, students of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Kolkata held a march across campus to mark a month of their agitation against the vice-chancellor, Santosh Ajmera.

It ended with a mashaal jaloos, a procession with torches, which, a senior member of the administration who asked to remain unidentified said, “was scary”. This person explained, “We were worried someone would throw a mashaal at one of our quarters.”

That was a “silly” claim to make, one student retorted, given that “it was a peaceful protest”. Nonetheless, the administration called in the police, who have since stayed in and around the campus.

Members of the administration put the number of police personnel in the campus since October 27 at “four or five”. But some students put it at around 50.

That difference in perception about the number of police personnel is just one sign of the enormous chasm of the distrust between students at the government-funded film school and the administration.

The students have several demands. They want accountability to be fixed for violence that occurred on campus on September 27, when protests greeted an event organised by a group affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that was allowed to be held in an auditorium.

They want Ajmera to resign and rustication orders against six students to be withdrawn. They are also demanding that the police be removed from the premises and hostel and mess facilities be resumed.

“We were attacked inside our residential campus,” said Saptarshi Bardhan, a student. Added Akanksha, another student, “Everything [on the part of the students] that can be villainised is being villainised.”

Vice-Chancellor Ajmera, on his part, in a statement issued on October 27, claimed that the protest had been “turned into a platform for political and ideological battles, with demands that went beyond the institution’s jurisdiction”.

The statement added: “A few students, with the help of external forces, are driving the entire agenda, and halting classes even as many want academic activities to resume soon.”

The Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute has been in tumult since September 27, when the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat hired an auditorium at the institute to conduct a programme on consumer awareness.

Students say that, as they went about their assignments, they heard Hindutva slogans being chanted inside the auditorium. One student who requested anonymity said the organisers of the event had turned up well before they were scheduled to and roamed around the campus.

Some shoots were in progress and some people there to attend the event walked into frames. The students were upset already. When they heard the chants, they hurriedly made posters criticising the RSS and put them up in the corridors and inside the auditorium. One thing led to another. A video showed one of the programme organisers kicking a student.

In the scuffle that followed, stones and bottles were thrown. Reports suggested that around 30 students and two faculty members were injured.

Vice-Chancellor Ajmera, an Indian Information Service officer whose previous postings included a stint as joint secretary of the Union Public Service Commission, had assumed charge only two days before the incident. A member of administration said that the students targeted Ajmera even though permission for the RSS-linked event had been granted before he took charge.

The students did not dispute that but claimed the vice-chancellor has been refusing to speak to them or listen to their demands. The students boycotted classes after September 27.

On October 4, there was more violence. Members of a Hindtuva group called Bangiya Hindu Jagaran Mancha went to the institute and threw bricks, stones and bottles at the students from outside the main gate. The group claimed that the students had insulted spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda, and also Bharat Mata.

That evening, students gheraoed Ajmera in his office, refusing to let him out for around five hours. They demanded that he resign.

On October 16, classes were formally suspended and students asked to vacate the campus.

The developments at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute came not long after the Bharatiya Janata Party registered its first-ever victory in the West Bengal state elections in May, sweeping up 208 of the 294 seats.

Since then, Kolkata has experienced violence of the sort that other major educational institutions across the country have faced since the Hindutva party came to power at the Centre in 2014.

On August 19, for instance, at the 120-year-old Jadavpur University in Kolkata, there were clashes between the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the institution’s left-leaning student unions.

“Everyone has ganged up against the students,” alleged Srijan Bhattacharya, national general secretary of the left-wing Students’ Federation of India. “The same thing that’s been happening across the country: systemic onslaught on educational institutions where there is free thinking, where there is space for discussion and debate, where students don’t bow down to RSS ideology. Then there is intimidation.”

On October 15, a fact-finding committee, comprising three professors, the senior manager (IT) and the admin officer, began an inquiry. Alongside, the state government has put in place another one involving senior police officials.

The same day, the Dean’s Council, comprising academics and administrators, recommended the rustication of six students who were perceived to be the leaders of the agitation. One of the things they were charged with was “manhandling” the vice-chancellor on October 4.

According to a member of the administration who did not want to be identified, one of the six students had kicked the vice-chancellor and some of them had abused Ajmera in “filthy language”.

The students denied the charges of violence, but admit that there was some pushing and shoving and intemperate language.

An FIR was filed by Ajmera against a student, one of the six who were rusticated.

The next day, academic activities were suspended and students were asked to vacate the hostel rooms “within 24 hours”. All academic activities were suspended until November 13 to ensure “orderly functioning of the institute”, the message said.

The Durga Puja vacation was underway, running from October 16 to October 21.

Access to water, electricity and hostel rooms was shut off for the students. “Most people have left the hostel, but some people always stay here during holidays,” said Nirmal, a student. “The mess and other facilities are kept open, our classrooms and the auditorium are accessible; we watch films, we study. They are treating us like Class 12 kids. But the campus is like home for us.”

It stopped being that almost entirely on October 28, when the police were given space inside the campus. Water and electricity supply have since resumed, though not as well as before.

What has changed now is that many members of the faculty, who were initially reluctant to speak up, have openly come out in support of the students.

On October 28, 31 faculty members signed a list of three demands and presented it to Ajmera: they asked him to restore the hostel facilities in full to provide a dignified living to the students; remove the police from the campus and said that faculty members would not represent SRFTI on any external platforms until the matter was resolved.

A faculty member who asked to remain anonymous said, “Rather nonchalantly, they [administration] asked us to start classes and show normalcy on October 6, just after the second attack. Faculty members who were the ones to actually deal with the stones and water-filled bottles thrown from outside couldn’t say a word, because there is no space of communication with him [the vice-chancellor].”

As the agitation stretches on, students say they are resolute and do not see any end in sight. “We will fight until our demands are met,” said Jai, a student. “The VC must go and the rustications must be revoked. There is no room for negotiating.”

The students have received support from important voices from the film world: Naseeruddin Shah, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Payal Kapadia, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, among others.

But National Award-winning film-maker Joshy Joseph, who has been in Kolkata since before the trouble at SRFTI started, said that it is important for the students to consider their futures. “What they are doing is good, but if there is a dignified way to reach a compromise, this can be averted,” he said. “Their main focus is cinema. They should not lose the opportunity to make their films, that is the ultimate aim. This regime has no scruples. Hope some mediation happens.”

Despite this, he admits that it will be a struggle to maintain the ethos of SRFTI. “I know from my friends at FTII [the government-run Film and Television Institute of India in Pune] that there was an attempt to push the students to make propaganda films for their diplomas,” he said. “The same thing will happen here.”

That is what some students fear too. “There was no censorship at SRFTI earlier, when filmmakers and other cinema people ran it, but it will eventually happen,” said the student named Nirmal.

The teachers are not pleased with how things are at the institute at the moment and want matters to be resolved soon.

“For the first time in the history of this institute, the state government and the Central government have aligned and that has given the admin a single-channel access to use both the political forces [state and centre],” said one faculty member.

Emails were sent to Ajmera asking him to recount his version of events, but no reply had been received at the time of publication. The article will be updated if he responds.

Shamya Dasgupta is a journalist, writer and translator, and the editor of the recently published Unmechanical: Ritwik Ghatak in 50 Fragments.

The Delhi Police asked social media platform X to take down the accounts and posts of digital rights groups Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center on the grounds that they allegedly defamed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the organisations said on Tuesday.

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

The posts document and comment on a legal notice sent in the name of the RSS to the two digital rights groups and an X account Geo Blocked in India, which compiles blocking orders in the country.

The notice had demanded that the three accounts stop criticising and documenting blocking orders issued by the government, the Internet Freedom Foundation said.

The foundation said that X had on Tuesday forwarded to it the copies of the two take down orders by the police. The organisation said it will challenge the notices in court if the police did not withdraw them.

The notices

On October 29, the Internet Freedom Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center and the operator of Geo Blocked in India “received a ‘legal notice’ said to be issued on behalf of the RSS”, the foundation said.

The notice asked the three to stop opposing the government’s blocking directions, stop documenting restricted content, stop posting details of geo-blocked posts and confirm within a week that they would comply, the foundation said. The notice “was signed by an unnamed ‘authorised signatory’”, the Internet Freedom Foundation said.

The Internet Freedom Foundation said that several office-bearers of the RSS had clarified on X that the notice was not authentic.

“IFF replied to the notice, wrote to the RSS at its official address asking whether it had authorised it, and published both the notice and its reply on October 30,” the foundation said.

On October 30, the special commissioner of police (crime) filed an “illegal content report” with X listing posts by the Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center that day, alleging that the content was defamatory towards the RSS under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the foundation said.

The boxes on the content report for “safety/security”, “defamation” and “other” were ticked and the “fields for the nature of the court order and court order details were left empty”, the Internet Freedom Foundation said. The desired action section said “remove/withhold content”, it added.

On November 1, a second notice was sent in the RSS’ name, the Internet Freedom Foundation said.

“It said the matter had been handed to the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, that complaints had been filed in several states, and that requests had been made to block IFF’s X account and suspend the organisations,” the foundation stated.

The Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad is a lawyers’ organisation linked to the RSS.

Scroll has requested comment from the Delhi Police, the RSS and its affiliate, the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad. This story will be updated if they respond.

Delhi Police asks X to take down IFF's account and posts. IFF will challenge the notices in court unless they are withdrawn.

The Delhi Police has asked X to remove the Internet Freedom Foundation's account, six of its posts, the accounts of SFLC and @geoblockedindia, and posts… pic.twitter.com/4sYLlAyANU

— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) November 3, 2026

A day later, the police filed a second report with X listing 40 links of 37 posts and the entire accounts of the Internet Freedom Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center and Geo Blocked in India. In this, the boxes for “hate speech”, “defamation”, “safety/security”, “enforcement of court order” and “other” were ticked, the foundation added.

The notice also asked X to take down posts by 16 others, including RSS leader Ratan Sharda, technology journalist Abhishek Baxi, The Wire’s Editor Seema Chishti and Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Naseer Hussain, purportedly for commenting on the notice, according to the Internet Freedom Foundation.

The Delhi Police had not written to the Internet Freedom Foundation and no court had been approached, the organisation said.

The Software Freedom Law Center and Geo Blocked India had separately reported notifications from X about requests from the Uttar Pradesh Police, the Telangana Police and the Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime unit, it added.

Organisations demand withdrawal of take down order

The Internet Freedom Foundation said it condemns the “legal action”, adding that the police had “made itself the enforcement arm of a private legal notice whose authenticity the organisation it names has not confirmed, and whose demand was that three organisations stop documenting censorship”.

The foundation said that the posts in question are about a legal notice it had been sent.

“...A person who receives a threat is entitled to publish it and answer it and that is not defamation of the sender,” it added. “Documenting censorship and challenging it in court is what the Constitution expects of citizens.”

The foundation said that defamation is not a police matter and that no court can take cognisance of it except on a complaint by the person who is aggrieved.

The police cannot investigate a non-cognisable offence without an order of a magistrate, it added.

“The notices disclose no complaint by the RSS and no order of any magistrate,” the foundation said. “Whether a statement is defamatory is for a court to decide after hearing its author, with the defences of truth, fair comment and good faith available to that author.”

The notices by the police, demanding that the accounts be taken down, are disproportionate, it said.

The Software Freedom Law Centre also said that it was concerned about the “legal basis, necessity and proportionality” of the requests made by the police, particularly their inclusion of the entire accounts, the absence of any disclosed court orders supporting the proposed restrictions and the potential circumvention of procedural safeguards.

The Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Centre demanded that the take down reports filed with X be withdrawn by the police. The Internet Freedom Foundation also asked the RSS to state publicly whether it authorised any notice or complaint.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Delhi Police told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the area that was the Jantar Mantar protest site in Delhi is a “public road”, Bar and Bench reported.

It should never have been designated as a venue for protests, said Delhi Commissioner of Police Anurag Kumar in response to a petition challenging the de-notification of Jantar Mantar as a protest site.

In an affidavit, Kumar said that the October 11 order to remove Jantar Mantar from the list of designated protest sites was taken due to the venue’s limited capacity to accommodate large crowds.

Kumar had issued the order based on recommendations from a committee constituted by the Union home ministry.

The police designated three alternative venues for protests: Ramlila Ground in central Delhi, Burari Ground in northern Delhi and CBD Ground in eastern Delhi’s Shahdara area.

The order was issued against the backdrop of protests in the national capital by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, the Opposition parties and student groups to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Protests had also been held in June and July at Jantar Mantar against alleged exam irregularities.

On Tuesday, Kumar said Jantar Mantar’s proximity to government institutions and foreign embassies was another reason behind the decision to denotify the site.

“In the era of digital technology and widespread use of social media, the geographical proximity of a protest site to the seat of the government has ceased to be relevant and has become redundant,” Bar and Bench quoted the affidavit as saying.

The petitioner had contended that the police decision violated the fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression and to assemble peacefully, the legal news outlet reported.

A protest site’s proximity to the government institutions and its visibility to the intended audience are central to the effectiveness of a protest, the petitioner further argued.

On the other hand, the police said that the petitioners “cannot claim a fundamental right to insist upon exercising their right to protest at any particular site”, Live Law reported.

They also said that Jantar Mantar can only accommodate 1,500 persons and the protest by the Cockroach Janta Party in July far exceeded that capacity.

The police pointed out that 78 embassies and diplomatic missions and 99 Union government offices, with a combined daily footfall of more than 1.4 lakh, are located within a three to four km radius of the site, reported Bar and Bench. Nearby residential areas have around 64,500 residents, they added.

The police claimed that the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a protest site had been under consideration “for a considerable period” in view of “increasing concerns relating to public order as well as public safety”, Live Law reported.

It rejected the claim that the decision was taken after the Supreme Court, on October 9, issued notice to the Union government asking it to consider whether another location should be designated for peaceful protests.

Edited by Sneha.

Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference’s Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar, on Tuesday quit the party and resigned from his parliamentary seat.

Speaking at a gathering in Budgam, Mehdi said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was “incompetent” and accused the ruling party in the Union Territory of abandoning its promises made during the 2024 Assembly elections, including the restoration of Article 370.

The article gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and was abrogated on August 5, 2019. While abrogating it, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government had also bifurcated the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Honourable Speaker Lok Sabha @ombirlakota

Email and hard copy will follow. pic.twitter.com/7bG5StrH55

— Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi (@RuhullahMehdi) November 3, 2026

“You told people that you were the guardians of their dignity,” Mehdi said. “You said that if anyone touched that dignity, it would be like grabbing you by the collar. That dignity was buried on August 5, 2019. Tell me now, where is that dignity? Where is that autonomy?”

He said that he would not “sacrifice” his dignity for power.

Reacting to the remarks, the National Conference asked what Mehdi had done in Parliament to restore the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

“Wasn’t he elected to the Parliament to represent the sentiment of people and garner support of secular parties and MPs in the Parliament,” the party stated.

It asked if Mehdi had ever “made an effort” to gather support for the restoration of special status or statehood for Jammu and Kashmir.

“Our thrust on restoration of statehood is not and will never be at the expense of the special status. If it was so, the first transition of business of this government would not have been the special status,” stated the party.

The National Conference also claimed that the party leadership had told Mehdi to resign.

Aga Ruhullah’s speech was a manifestation of his mental and moral bankruptcy, and an example of his self-obsession. While invoking the holy Quran and the divine message of dignity and respect for human beings, Ruhullah’s speech was full of derogatory, abusive and unparliamentary…

— JKNC (@JKNC_) November 3, 2026

Speaking in Budgam, Mehdi criticised Omar Abdullah for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s visits to Jammu and Kashmir. He asked why the chief minister had not used those occasions to press for the restoration of the region’s constitutional rights.

Mehdi’s resignation came following a Friday resolution, signed by at least 16 National Conference MLAs, that gave the party leadership 15 days to address concerns about “unilateral decisions” and “coterie culture”, The Hindu reported.

Around 25 MLAs had backed the demands and also issued an ultimatum to the leadership to replace all eight ministers within the specified time, The Times of India reported.

Reports differed on the number of legislators who supported the resolution but did not sign it for reasons such as not being in town.

VIDEO | Budgam, Jammu and Kashmir: I will never sacrifice dignity for power, says Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi as he announces his resignation from National Conference.#JammuAndKashmir

(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/d8jp61yd2p) pic.twitter.com/PA22hwE8CX

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 3, 2026

The dissent followed Omar Abdullah’s Cabinet expansion on October 27, when four new ministers were inducted and one was dropped. The Cabinet’s strength rose from six to nine, including the chief minister, The Times of India reported.

Several legislators were reportedly unhappy about being left out, the newspaper reported.

Around a dozen legislators from the party also boycotted a dinner hosted by National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah after the Cabinet reshuffle, The Hindu reported.

The National Conference has 42 MLAs in the 90-member Assembly and runs a coalition government with the support of eight others.

Written by Abeer Khan and Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sara Varghese.

When I was a child, I would chase the sun around my village in western Sikkim to bask in it before it went behind the mountains. I would then plunge my hot feet into the cool stream near my house, watching the tadpoles and fish swim around them.

One day, I came across a uniquely shaped stone in the water – it was round and flat, and had a large indented hole in the middle, and I thought it looked like a “gadung,” which we used for pounding grains. With great effort, I lifted the stone from the river and dragged it home to show my parents. They asked where it had come from, and then my father pronounced it was a “tendrel,” or auspicious connection, that had led me to find it, as it was indeed a “gadung,” and may well have been used by his late brother-in-law, my uncle, who used to pound his grains while sitting on the river bank.

My child’s eyes and imagination had found the “gadung” among many other pebbles and stones that had been worn down over thousands of years of water flow that connected the mountains above us to the mighty rivers below, and then eventually, to the plains and the ocean.

I was reminded of that day and my father’s comment recently when I watched Naga anthropologist Dolly Kikon’s new documentary A Sacred Place (2026), which delves into lithic histories in Makhel, the Naga village in northern Manipur, that is believed to be the place of origin for the Naga peoples. Makhel is a village of stones and stone formations, formed by the interactions between tectonic plates, water, and minerals over millions of years.

In the documentary, Kikon centers community knowledge about the stones and the unique salt-water wells found in the area. This method allows us to vividly understand the multiple connections, or in my father’s terminology, “tendrel,” between humans, stones, water, and other beings including tigers and spirits.

From the Naga Hills to the Sikkim Himalayas, I was struck by how lithic histories are like human histories – multilayered and open to different forms of narration and understanding. The documentary includes interviews with elders and young students sharing their relationships with the land, as well as songs and the documenting of a photographic exhibition held in Makhel which allowed for multiple perspectives about Naga history and peoples’ relationship with the land to converge.

Layers of sedimentation

As viewers, we are introduced to one pathway of understanding lithic histories, as local knowledge holders and students share historical narratives with us. But, just as the Himalayas are created through layers of sedimentation, there are strata of the story that different viewers may not see or understand.

Kikon’s documentary conveys the important idea that not all knowledge needs to be public knowledge – that there can be strata that different viewers understand and recognise based on their own knowledge and positionality. This approach resists the extractive forms of research that are unfortunately all too common in the Himalayas by intentionally not elaborating on or explaining every element of history and knowledge present in Makhel.

Community histories, as presented in the stones in A Sacred Place and represented in my uncle’s grinding stone, provide communities with health and nourishment in multiple ways. And as in the documentary, not all elements of these histories are open to all viewers, nor should they be.

As a child, I managed to identify the “gadung” because I had been taught to by my elders and experiences, where another person may have just seen a rock. Lithic histories allow us to think about multiple perspectives in the ethical sharing of knowledge and creation of relationships between humans, nonhuman animals, and spirits.

In the documentary, the presence of salt water, which connects Makhel with pre-human histories, acts as medicine and in food preparation for the human and nonhuman communities in the area. They interact with these salt water wells, created through geological processes over millions of years, carefully and ethically by only taking which is needed. This salt water has not been commodified or marketed. It remains in community care. The centering of these salt waters in A Sacred Place allows us to reflect methodologically on how to have non-extractive relationships with stones, water, and knowledge.

Why is this an important methodological insight? Because all too often in our present moment, rocks, minerals, and water are reduced to commodities. In the Sikkim Himalayas, mineral and sand mining, hydroelectric projects, and extractive research processes see our environment as valuable for human gain and accumulation.

The oral traditions of stones in Makhel that invoke and uplift kinship between humans, tigers, and spirits resonate with Indigenous Rong kinship with the mountains in Sikkim; the precious saltwater wells, formed over millions of years, are used for medicine and cooking in Makhel, much in the ways that our streams, lakes, and glaciers provide us with wellbeing in Sikkim. This kinship posits an alternative way of understanding the abundance of the land, where rocks and water provide sustenance, but in turn must also be cared for as my uncle demonstrated when he returned his “gadung” to the river. When I removed it, the “gadung” entered a new period in history, as it continues to be used in my family home for cooking.

Lithic Histories and Development Discourse

Returning the “gadung” was following Indigenous protocol about practicing reciprocity with the land. These forms of reciprocity and lithic history are found elsewhere in Sikkim, especially in sacred landscape traditions among Sikkim’s many ethnic and cultural communities. Rong communities started the tradition of creating longtsoks, towers of stones, that act as offerings and conduits for communication with the spirits of the land.

In different Buddhist sacred sites, unique stones have different layers of stories associated with them. At Yoksam, a crucial political capital in Sikkim’s history, a footprint in stone is traced to Lhatsun Namkhai Jikme, the Tibetan yogi who established and consolidated a distinctive form of Buddhism in Sikkim in the seventeenth century.

At Tashiding, a centerpoint in Sikkim’s Buddhist geography, stones heal and reveal the future, and my mother’s family trace our lineage to a rock there believed to have cracked open and given birth to humans who then settled in the area. The tourist town of Pelling is traced to the Bhutanese saint Pema Lingpa (1450-1521), who is believed to have sat on a rock throne there to give Buddhist teachings.

Today, that throne is beside a busy road that connects Pelling town with the area’s major tourist draw, a giant 137-foot statue of Chenrezik, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, which is adjacent to a glass SkyWalk and a cable car. There are multiple lithic histories that have been displaced by these large concrete interventions. The statue is directly beside a historically significant retreat center, Sangha Choeling, and the entire ridge below was once a forest where Buddhist yogis lived and practiced.

Today, their retreat cabins are almost entirely gone, though some mounds of stones remain, covered with moss and grass. Most of the visitors who travel through Pelling never notice these, and instead only pause to watch children playing soccer on the large concrete plain that was briefly a helipad. When the helipad was installed in the late 1990s, it promised ease of transport for tourists and thereby revenue generation, as well as medical care transport for locals. These promises did not materialise.

The helipad never operated regularly for tourists or, more significantly, to ease access to healthcare facilities during medical emergencies. These concrete interventions were not accepted passively by the community – there were petition campaigns and discussions for years about how Pelling’s history and culture could be retained. Ultimately, development discourses were triumphant, though whether giant statues and cable cars will bring the promised abundance to local communities remains to be seen.

Concrete in Sikkim, then, provides a new type of lithic history, though the relationship between its materiality and other forms of rock and mineral knowledge is not always easy to trace. But even in these new landscapes, older traces remain – moss, grass, and flowers emerge from cracks in concrete, and elders continue to share their knowledge of the land with new generations.

As with Makhel village in A Sacred Place and my uncle’s “gadung,” to appreciate Pelling’s layers of history requires careful observation, listening, and acknowledging multiple layers of sedimentation, even if we cannot always see or understand these multiple layers and connections.

Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia is a scholar from the Lhopo community in western Sikkim who studies human relationships with more-than-human environments in western Sikkim through engaging with Indigenous and Buddhist cosmovisions. He completed his PhD at Delhi University and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Global Value Inquiry (Berlin) and the Center of Excellence in Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar University (Delhi). His articles have explored different ways of knowing Sikkim’s powerful mountains, lands, and waters, including propitiation of the land, smoke offerings, trees, birds, and chiles, and through knowledge return and repair.

This is the first in a multi-part series published in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, at the Shiv Nadar University, Delhi NCR, a research center focused on the economy, borders, identities, environment, and regional geopolitics of the wider Himalayan region including the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram.

This article was first published on India in Transition, a publication of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.

The Ladakh administration has directed a school founded by activist Sonam Wangchuk not to commence classes or other activities until proceedings regarding the allotment of a plot of land in Leh for the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives are pending before the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, The Hindu reported on Tuesday.

The Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, also founded by Wangchuk, is the parent institution of the Desert Flower School, located in Phyang, Leh.

In August 2025, the administration cancelled the allotment of a plot of land to Wangchuk for his institute. The land was allotted to him in 2018.

The administration had issued an order stating that the 135 acres of land “stands escheated to the state” after the 40-year lease granted in 2018 had lapsed in May 2019, as the institute did not execute the required deed, set up the proposed university or complete a formal handover of the land.

The institute subsequently moved the High Court challenging the decision. The matter is pending before the court.

In the notice issued on Sunday, the administration said that while the institute’s land allotment cancellation case was pending before the High Court, Wangchuk had started classes at the Desert Flower School without obtaining clearance from the authorities.

The notice was addressed to Gitanjali J Angmo, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives. Angmo is also Wangchuk’s wife.

On September 22, Angmo wrote to the Leh deputy commissioner, seeking a “no-objection certificate” for proposed members of the school’s managing committee, The New Indian Express quoted the notice as saying.

The administration asked Angmo to “strictly maintain the status quo in the matter”.

Wangchuk had described the administration cancelling the land allotment for his institute as a “witch-hunt” to suppress the demands of residents in the region.

The activist had been detained last year on September 26 under the National Security Act, two days after protesters demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution clashed with security personnel, injuring several of them. Four persons were killed in police firing.

The Sixth Schedule guarantees certain protections for land and a nominal autonomy for citizens in designated tribal areas.

He was released on March 4.

Edited by Sneha.

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The Bombay High Court said it was disturbed by remarks made by some politicians targeting actor Dia Mirza for a video she had shot on behalf of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, urging Mumbai residents not to light firecrackers on the streets during Diwali. The court directed the municipal corporation to re-upload the video to “restore the confidence of the people”.

The municipal corporation had removed the video from its social media handles after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s city unit chief Ameet Satam declared, “We don’t need lessons on how to celebrate Diwali from Dia Mirza.”

The court said that the objections to Mirza’s participation in the civic body’s anti-pollution campaign were unfortunate and appeared to have given the matter a communal angle. Read on.

Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference’s Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar, left the party and resigned from his parliamentary seat. He said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was “incompetent” and accused the ruling party in the Union Territory of abandoning the promises it made during the 2024 Assembly elections.

This came days after several MLAs of the party signed a resolution, giving the party leadership 15 days to address concerns about “unilateral decisions” and “coterie culture”.

The dissent followed Abdullah’s Cabinet expansion on October 27, when four new ministers were inducted and one was dropped. The Cabinet’s strength rose from six to nine. Read on.

The Centre has told the Delhi High Court that it plans to demolish the century-old Qadeemi Masjid at Krishi Bhawan. It said that retaining a religious structure in a government office complex is “incompatible” with its “secular character”.

The mosque is located in a courtyard on the premises of Krishi Bhawan, which, along with neighbouring Shastri Bhawan, is set to be demolished to make way for new buildings under the Central Vista redevelopment project.

In its affidavit before the court, the Union government said that reserving any part of the site for a religious structure would be inconsistent with the project’s master plan. Read on.

An assistant commissioner of police in Delhi was suspended allegedly for leading a protest against his transfer and that of another officer. The officer was transferred from the post of sub-divisional police officer of Gandhi Nagar to the special police unit for women and children after an alleged face-off between police personnel and lawyers in October.

On Monday, about 150 police personnel staged a protest outside the Delhi Police headquarters against the transfers. The police officer was placed under suspension for “violation of discipline”. Read on.

An Indian tourist was killed as two helicopters collided while landing in Solukhumbu district of Nepal. Another passenger and two pilots were injured in the accident that occurred at Pheriche.

The village serves as a stopover and an acclimatisation point for climbers on their way to the Mount Everest base camp. Read on.

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The Centre has told the Delhi High Court that it plans to demolish the century-old Qadeemi Masjid at Krishi Bhawan, arguing that retaining a religious structure in a government office complex is “incompatible” with its “secular character”, Bar and Bench reported on Tuesday.

Krishi Bhawan is the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.

In an affidavit filed before the court, the government said that Krishi Bhawan and the Central Secretariat complex were meant exclusively for government, administrative and public service functions.

The mosque is located in an open courtyard on the premises of Krishi Bhawan, which, along with neighbouring Shastri Bhawan, is set to be demolished to make way for new buildings under the Central Vista redevelopment project, The Indian Express reported.

The Central Vista project, which started in 2019, is aimed at redeveloping a stretch of central Delhi. So far, the new Parliament building, the vice president’s residence, the central secretariat and the new Prime Minister’s Office have been completed.

Critics have described the plan as a “vanity project” of the Bharatiya Janata Party government.

In its affidavit before the court, the Union government said the mosque “is required to be removed”.

It also said that reserving any part of the site for a religious structure would be inconsistent with the project’s master plan, The Indian Express reported.

On Monday, the High Court asked the Centre whether there were rules barring religious structures or prayer spaces within government premises.

Justice Anish Dayal asked the Centre to clarify whether no space could be provided for prayer to any religious community within a government complex.

The court has given the mosque’s caretaking committee time to respond to the government’s submission, The Indian Express reported.

The matter will be heard next on November 23.

The committee had approached the High Court in September, seeking protection for the mosque amid fears that it would be demolished as part of the redevelopment project. It asked the court to restrain the Central Public Works Department and the New Delhi Municipal Council from removing the structure.

It has also requested an alternative prayer facility if retaining the mosque at its present location is “genuinely unavoidable or incompatible with the approved redevelopment”.

According to the committee, the mosque has been used by employees of Krishi Bhawan and neighbouring government offices for prayers for several decades. The Delhi Waqf Board notified it as a Waqf property in 1970, Bar and Bench reported.

A waqf is an endowment under Islamic law dedicated to a religious, educational or charitable cause. Each state has a waqf board led by a legal entity vested with the power to acquire, hold and transfer property.

However, the Centre has said that it could not be compelled to set aside space for the mosque within the Krishi Bhawan compound or the Central Secretariat complex. It also pointed to Shahi Masjid Zabta Ganj near India Gate, which it said was within a two-kilometre radius and could serve as an alternative prayer facility.

In 2021, the Delhi Waqf Board approached the High Court seeking protection for six mosques that could be affected by the Central Vista project, including Qadeemi Masjid.

“Nothing is happening to these properties,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said at the time. “It [the project] is a very long plan and we have not reached anywhere near it.”

The matter resurfaced in January after the Central Public Works Department invited tenders for new government buildings at the sites of Krishi Bhawan and Shastri Bhawan. Although the mosque was not listed for removal, it was missing from the plans for the proposed buildings, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Sneha.

Could your home be at risk from rising seas? Scroll is investigating coastal flooding in Mumbai and Kolkata, mapping vulnerable areas and examining whether developers and the authorities are accounting for the risks. Support this investigation and help us make this reporting possible. Fund the project here.

The Supreme Court allowed the manufacture, sale and bursting of certified green firecrackers in Delhi and the adjoining areas that form the National Capital Region for two days during the Hindu festival of Diwali. The bench permitted the bursting of green firecrackers between 6 am and 8 pm on November 7, and between 7 am and 10 pm on November 8.

The complete ban on firecrackers should be restored from November 9, added the bench.

The order came even as Delhi’s air quality worsened to the “very poor” level. As of 7.05 am, the national capital recorded an average Air Quality Index of 307. Read on.

How an El Niño winter could worsen pollution in Delhi, explains Vaishnavi Rathore

Following objections from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has deleted a video from its social media handles featuring actor Dia Mirza urging citizens not to burst firecrackers during the Hindu festival of Diwali. In the video, Mirza had urged the residents of Mumbai to limit air and noise pollution during the festive season.

The BJP’s Mumbai unit chief Ameet Satam said on social media: “We don’t need lessons on how to celebrate Diwali from Dia Mirza. Our traditions are deeply rooted in our culture.”

Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde said that Mirza had “always taken an anti-Hindu and anti-government stand”. “That is the reason for opposing her, not her religion,” Tawde was quoted as saying. “We believe in secularism.” Read on.

The Bombay High Court said that Overseas Citizen of India cardholders do not have the right to protest and asked actor Imran Khan to apologise for participating in a demonstration against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in Mumbai in October. Khan tendered an unconditional apology and gave an undertaking that he would not participate in similar protests.

The court extended the order putting on hold the October 15 notice to Khan by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office.

The office had directed Khan, a citizen of the United States, to leave the country by October 28, allegedly for participating in the protests against Kumar. Read on.

In Modi’s India, only ‘good’ OCIs are welcome, writes Devyani Kacker

Three Aam Aadmi Party MLAs from Punjab joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, ahead of the Assembly elections expected to be held early next year. Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra and Chetan Singh Jauramajra had resigned from the AAP on Sunday, a day after the party released its first list of 40 candidates on Saturday.

Their names were not included in the list. On Monday, Amritsar North MLA Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh resigned from the Assembly and the AAP. Read on.

The Enforcement Directorate has registered a money laundering case against media baron Subhash Chandra in connection with an alleged loan fraud that caused a Rs 1,322 crore loss to Life Insurance Corporation Housing Finance Limited between 2018 and 2026. The agency registered the case based on a first information report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation on August 31.

The complaint alleged that Chandra had submitted fake certificates with inflated net worth to avail loans. Read on.

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An assistant commissioner of police in Delhi was suspended on Tuesday allegedly for leading a protest against his and another officer’s transfer after an alleged face-off between police personnel and lawyers in October, reported India Today.

On October 23, advocate Lalit Bansal allegedly sustained a head injury during a scuffle with a salon owner inside the Shahdara police station in east Delhi, reported The Indian Express.

The Coordination Committee of All District Courts Bar Associations of Delhi had claimed that Assistant Commissioner of Police Manasvi Vashishtha and Station House Officer Arun Kumar assured action would be taken against the accused person.

A day later, the committee learnt that the man who allegedly assaulted Bansal was released, reported The Indian Express. When the advocates went to the police station to “express their concern”, Vashishtha “displayed his revolver and threatened and intimidated the advocates present”, the newspaper quoted the committee as alleging.

On the other hand, the police had alleged that a group of nearly 20 lawyers had misbehaved with Vashishtha and Kumar on October 24.

On October 27, district court lawyers launched an indefinite strike demanding action against the officers.

Vashishtha and Kumar were transferred the next day, which led to the lawyers calling off their strike.

While Vashishtha was transferred from the post of sub-divisional police officer of Gandhi Nagar to the special police unit for women and children, Kumar was moved from Shahdara police station to the Delhi Police security branch, The Hindu reported.

On Monday, about 150 police personnel staged a protest outside the Delhi Police headquarters against the transfers.

They raised five demands, including the reinstatement of the two officers and legal action against the lawyers who had allegedly misbehaved with them, reported India Today.

On Tuesday, Vashishtha was placed under suspension for “violation of discipline”, reported The Hindu.

Edited by Sneha.

One Indian seafarer was killed and 13 were rescued after a commercial vessel was attacked off the coast of Oman on Monday, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Tuesday.

The Indian-flagged MSV Al Jusufi was struck by an “unidentified aerial object” while navigating near Limah, Oman, said Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal.

The seafarer who died was identified as Gandhar Nahim Ajij from Gujarat.

Sonowal said that the 13 crew members were rescued by the Omani Coast Guard. The Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian embassy in Oman were coordinating with the authorities to provide assistance to the survivors, he added. Arrangements were also being made to repatriate the rescued crew members and Ajij’s mortal remains.

The ministry said that the attacks on commercial shipping in the region were “deeply concerning”. It called for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions” and the conclusion of ongoing negotiations towards a diplomatic solution to restore peace and stability in the region.

The incident came amid a series of attacks on commercial vessels in West Asia since the conflict began in February.

Eleven Indian citizens were reported injured on October 6, after a projectile struck the Panama-flagged MT On Peace while it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman.

On October 28, the Ministry of External Affairs said 22 Indians had been killed in the West Asia conflict since February, including 14 seafarers.

The war in West Asia began when the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region, targeting major cities in Gulf countries and ships.

On June 15, the US and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels. However, diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled since then.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Cyclone Murasu made landfall along the coast of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, bringing heavy rainfall in the region.

The severe cyclonic storm made landfall near Ongole in Andhra Pradesh with wind speeds of 100 km per hour to 110 km per hour, gusting to 120 km per hour.

The cyclone was forecast to continue moving north-northwestwards and weaken into a cyclonic storm, with wind speeds gusting to 100 km per hour by 12 noon.

Several trees had fallen in Bapatla district, showed photos posted by the Andhra Pradesh Police.

On Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department issued red alerts for heavy rainfall Prakasam, Krishna, Bapatla, Guntur, NTR and Palnadu districts.

An orange alert was in place for Tirupati, Sri Potti Sriramulu Nellore, Nandyal, Eluru, East Godavari and West Godavari districts.

A red alert requires the administration to “take action” in view of an extreme weather event. An orange alert requires the authorities to “be prepared to take action”.

The weather department also issued orange alerts for heavy rainfall in Chennai, Chengalpattu, Tiruvannamalai districts of Tamil Nadu.

Over 30,000 hectares of crops were damaged across 15 districts, including Krishna, Bapatla and Nandyala in Andhra Pradesh, PTI reported.

Paddy, cotton and corn crops were reported to be the worst affected.

The cyclone prompted the evacuation of 10,805 persons to shelters. The state government set up 171 relief camps and distributed 14,810 packets of food, PTI reported, quoting an official press release.

Eleven National and 13 State Disaster Response Force teams were deployed for relief operations, while 613 generators were arranged for emergencies. The government also deployed 185 Fire Department teams to clear uprooted trees and stagnant water, PTI reported.

Trains, flights disrupted

At least 12 trains in the Vijayawada division were cancelled on Tuesday, four were diverted and one rescheduled, the railways said.

At least seven flights to and from Vijayawada were cancelled on Tuesday, the airport operator said.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday said it was “disturbed” by remarks made by “some politicians” targeting actor Dia Mirza for a video she had shot on behalf of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, urging Mumbai residents not to light firecrackers on public streets during Diwali, Live Law reported.

The court directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to re-upload the video to “restore the confidence of the people”.

The civic body had on Sunday removed the video from its social media handles after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s city unit chief Ameet Satam objected to it.

“We don’t need lessons on how to celebrate Diwali from Dia Mirza,” Satam said on social media. “Our traditions are deeply rooted in our culture.”

This year, the Hindu festival of Diwali will be celebrated on November 8.

On Tuesday, a division bench of Justices Girish S Kulkarni and Neela K Gokhale said the objections to Mirza’s participation in the civic body’s anti-pollution campaign were unfortunate and appeared to have given the matter a communal angle.

“India is a secular country,” Live Law quoted the bench as verbally observing. “A festival is for everyone to celebrate. No individual can be isolated from celebrating any festival in this country. How can you object to someone's participation just because that person is from some other religion?”

The bench held that Mirza had delivered a “really good message” on air pollution in accordance with the court’s directions.

The court also referred to the Supreme Court’s observations that Diwali is celebrated by people irrespective of their caste or religion, Live Law reported.

Further, Gokhale said the matter was purely about the environment and public health. “Everyone is breathing the same air, be it anyone,” she observed.

“When we are speaking about health and pollution and environment...there is no room for factionalism,” the court said.

The video was shot by Mirza at the BMC’s request as part of an awareness campaign on the harmful effects of firecrackers and the court’s directions against lighting them on public streets, Live Law reported.

In the video, Mirza, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme, urged the residents of Mumbai to limit air and noise pollution during the festive season.

Mumbai’s average Air Quality Index on Tuesday was 82, in the “satisfactory” category, showed data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly air-quality updates from the Central Pollution Control Board. Air in the “satisfactory” category may cause minor breathing discomfort to sensitive persons.

On Monday, Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde also objected to the actor’s inclusion in the campaign and alleged that Mirza had “always taken an anti-Hindu and anti-government stand”.

The BMC had not clarified the reason behind deleting the clip, even as videos featuring other actor Madhuri Dixit and cricketer Ajinkya Rahane remain available on its social media handles.

On October 15, amid rising air pollution in the city, the Bombay High Court directed the municipal corporation, the Maharashtra government and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to launch awareness campaigns against lighting firecrackers during festivals and enlist celebrities for the purpose.

The High Court had said that its September 22 order banning firecrackers on public streets and roads, and the use of laser lights during festivities, would remain in force throughout the year, covering all festivals, including Diwali.

Edited by Sneha.

Following objections from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has deleted a video from its social media handles featuring actor Dia Mirza urging citizens not to light firecrackers during the Hindu festival of Diwali, reported PTI on Monday.

In the video, Mirza, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme, had urged the residents of Mumbai to limit air and noise pollution during the festive season.

The average Air Quality Index of Mumbai on Monday was “79” in the satisfactory category.

On Sunday, the BJP’s Mumbai unit chief Ameet Satam said on social media: “We don’t need lessons on how to celebrate Diwali from Dia Mirza.”

Tagging the actor and the BMC in his post, Satam said: “Our traditions are deeply rooted in our culture.”

Hours later, the BMC took down the video. The municipal corporation did not clarify the reason behind deleting the clip, even as videos featuring other actor Madhuri Dixit and cricketer Ajinkya Rahane remain available on its social media handles.

On October 15, amid rising air pollution in the city, the Bombay High Court directed the municipal corporation, the Maharashtra government and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to launch awareness campaigns against lighting firecrackers during festivals and enlist celebrities for the purpose, Bar and Bench reported.

The High Court had said that its September 22 order banning firecrackers on public streets and roads, and the use of laser lights during festivities would remain in force throughout the year, covering all festivals, including Diwali.

On Monday, Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde said that Mirza had “always taken an anti-Hindu and anti-government stand”, reported NDTV.

“That is the reason for opposing her, not her religion,” Tawde was quoted as saying. “We believe in secularism.”

The mayor added that she would ensure Mirza was “blacklisted in our Mahayuti government”.

The Mahayuti comprises the BJP, the Shiv Sena led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Sunetra Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party.

After the BMC posted the video featuring Mirza, the Shinde Sena said that “Mumbaikars do not need lessons from others”, PTI reported.

Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the manufacture, sale and lighting of certified green firecrackers in Delhi and the adjoining areas that form the National Capital Region for two days during the Hindu festival of Diwali, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and PB Varale permitted the lighting of green firecrackers between 6 am and 8 pm on November 7, and between 7 am and 10 pm on November 8. The complete ban on firecrackers should be restored from November 9, added the bench.

This year, Diwali will be celebrated on November 8.

The order came even as Delhi’s air quality worsened to the “very poor” level on Monday.

As of 7.05 am, the national capital recorded an average Air Quality Index of 307, showed the Sameer application that provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

The court had permitted similar relaxations for the sale and use of firecrackers during Diwali last year. Despite the restrictions, several residents lit crackers outside the permitted period.

On Monday, the court asked the authorities to ensure that only green firecrackers approved by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research–National Environmental Engineering Research Institute are sold in the market, Live Law reported.

Green firecrackers are less polluting than regular ones as they are made with modified formulations and do not contain certain harmful elements such as lithium, arsenic, barium and lead.

The bench also said that firecrackers must not be lit within 300 metres of hospitals, nursing homes, primary and district health centres, old-age homes and notified silence zones. These areas, designated as “no-cracker zones”, must be marked on the ground and publicised.

The restriction would also extend to educational institutions.

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

The court has asked the Central Pollution Control Board and State Pollution Control Boards within the National Capital Region to monitor air quality and prepare reports for three periods: pre-Diwali, Diwali and post-Diwali.

The pre-Diwali report would detail air quality for each day from November 2 to November 6. The report for Diwali would cover November 7 and November 8, while the post-Diwali report would provide daily air quality data from November 9 to November 30.

Firecracker ban

On October 14, 2024, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee banned the production, storage, sale and use of all types of firecrackers in the national capital till January 1, 2025.

Despite this, firecrackers were lit across the city during Diwali festivities. On November 1, 2024, the morning after the festival, Delhi’s air pollution was recorded at 14 times the “safe” limit prescribed by the World Health Organization.

In April 2025, the Supreme Court imposed a year-long ban on the manufacture, storage, sale and use of firecrackers in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read:

• Why some Delhi residents leave the city during Diwali
• How Delhi’s rich are escaping air pollution
• How an El Niño winter could worsen pollution in Delhi

Union minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh on Friday said that voter ID cards, not Aadhaar, will be the basis for availing benefits under panchayati raj schemes.

“Aadhaar won’t remain the basis for making payments to beneficiaries,” Singh, the panchayati raj minister, said during a national workshop on the Jan Yojana Abhiyaan.

“Organisations that issue Aadhaar cards are available in every locality now,” Singh said. “They can create an Aadhaar card for anyone within five minutes. So, Aadhaar won’t be the basis [for identifying beneficiaries].”

Instead, beneficiaries will need to provide their biometric data and their Elector’s Photo Identity Card, or voter ID number, he said.

It was unclear what benefits Singh was referring to. But the comments came while talking about the new Pradhan Mantri Viksit Gram Swaraj Yojana, which replaces the Rashtriya Gram Swarajya Abhiyan.

The new scheme is aimed at strengthening gram panchayats as the authorities for “integrated and participatory development planning”.

The announcement came amid the Opposition, activist and citizens’ groups raising concerns about how voters were being deleted during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, alleging that 13 crore electors had been removed where the exercise has taken place.

Since the revision began, concerns have been raised that the exercise could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

In May, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the revision. But it said that the exercise does not mean that the Election Commission can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

Despite this, Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have cited the SIR to deny ration cards to those who have been eliminated from the rolls. In some cases, the police have denied permission for their passports to be renewed.

Since October 2, nationwide protests have been held calling for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and the alleged irregularities in how the voter roll is being revised.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: SIR applies a decade of exclusion lessons perfected on welfare schemes

Sixty-one allegedly undocumented immigrants were detained in Ahmedabad on Monday as part of a public safety drive ahead of Diwali, The Indian Express quoted the police as saying.

This year, the Hindu festival of Diwali will be celebrated on November 8.

The police claimed that most of those detained were Bangladeshi citizens. Women and children were also among those detained.

They were taken to the Gujarat Police’s crime branch headquarters. They would later be sent to the Joint Interrogation Centre, a specialised detention and inquiry facility where central intelligence agencies, state police and the military conduct coordinated interrogations.

The legal proceedings to deport those detained were underway, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states, most of them ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

Scroll has also reported on several cases of persons who were forced into Bangladesh being brought back to India, as the authorities had failed to follow the process laid down by the Union home ministry for such deportations.

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Two persons were arrested on Monday in connection with the poaching of a cheetah cub in the forests of Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, ANI reported.

The 19-month-old cub, that was part of the cheetah population at Kuno National Park, died from pellet injuries on October 26, a day after it was found wounded in the forest.

The cub was found injured by a monitoring team in the Morena territorial forest division. The cub was taken to the veterinary institute in Jabalpur.

It is the first killing, and the 25th death, of a cheetah since the wild animal was reintroduced in the country in 2022.

On Monday, the Special Task Force in Madhya Pradesh arrested the two suspects, Bhagwan Singh and his brother Pritam Singh, for allegedly poaching the cub using a licensed muzzle-loading shotgun in the forests of Sheopur, ANI reported.

The Special Task Force (STF) in Madhya Pradesh has arrested two suspects, Bhagwan Singh and his brother Pritam Singh, for poaching a male cheetah (KNG-22) using a licensed muzzle-loading shotgun in the forests of Sheopur. The accused have been booked under sections 9 and 51 of… pic.twitter.com/eMJ6mSae8o

— ANI (@ANI) November 2, 2026

The accused have been booked under sections of the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act pertaining to hunting.

In September 2022, cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa were reintroduced to India seven decades after the species was declared extinct in the country.

The cheetah had been officially declared extinct by the Indian government in 1952. Before their reintroduction, the wild cats were last recorded in the country in 1948, when three cheetahs were shot in the sal forests in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya District.

There are now a total of 54 cheetahs in India, of whom 50 are in the Kuno National Park and four are in the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.