The Bihar government has told the Supreme Court that a constable fired four shots into the air from his AK-47 rifle after getting “trapped” in a crowd protesting against alleged irregularities in competitive examinations on July 25 in Siwan, reported Live Law on Monday.

No one was injured by the bullets fired from the AK-47, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government said in an affidavit filed on August 11 in response to petitions alleging excessive use force against protesters, reported The Indian Express.

On July 25, three protesters were injured in police firing during a demonstration in Siwan district after the demonstrators allegedly threw stones at security personnel.

The police had also opened fire during violent protests in Jehanabad on July 23.

The protests were held in solidarity with the youth agitation in Delhi to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time. Pradhan resigned on July 25.

The state government said in its affidavit that the three protesters who were injured had sustained minor injuries after an assistant sub-inspector fired a 9-mm pistol. They were not present at the spot where the AK-47 was fired, reported Live Law.

The state government also said that the director general of police has since issued instructions about the use of the rifle, noting that it is a “platoon-level weapon used in special operations” and not for “law-and-order situations”.

The constable who fired the AK-47 has also been suspended, the government added.

Further, it claimed that the protests against alleged exam irregularities in Bihar had turned violent in Jehanabad, Patna, Chapra, Bhagalpur, Sitamarhi, Aurangabad, Katihar, Kishanganj and Siwan.

In Siwan, at around noon on July 25, an unruly mob vandalised public property and threw stones at the police, The Indian Express quoted the affidavit as saying.

This resulted in 20 police personnel, including the superintendent of police, getting injured, claimed the state government. Others who were injured are two sub-divisional police officers, two inspectors, two sub-inspectors and 13 constables. Two police vehicles and several traffic trollies were also damaged, it added.

Between July 22 and July 25, the police registered 69 first information reports and arrested 500 persons, according to the affidavit.

As per directions from the Supreme Court, 222 student protesters with no criminal record were released on bail. Another 75 persons below the age of 18 were released by the Juvenile Justice Board, reported Live Law.

The government further stated that the Bihar Police was not taking any coercive action against protesters with no criminal record.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Monday cancelled the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination results, 24 days after students began protesting alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations for government jobs.

Soren also announced the cancellation of all examinations conducted since 2014 by TSR Data Processing Private Limited, a blacklisted agency. An investigation will be conducted into the exams, added the chief minister.

TDPL द्वारा आयोजित की गई परीक्षाएं, TDPL द्वारा प्रकाशित रिजल्ट, TDPL द्वारा जो भी अभ्यर्थी चुने गए हैं या TDPL द्वारा जो भी गतिविधियां यहां की गई है, उन सभी को रद्द किया जाता है : श्री @HemantSorenJMM pic.twitter.com/cGP8DNkzR2

— Office of Chief Minister, Jharkhand (@JharkhandCMO) August 17, 2026

Following the announcement, Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha leader Devendra Nath Mahto ended his hunger strike after 16 days, reported ANI.

However, student leader Ravindra Paswan said that the protest would continue as a key demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the alleged exam irregularities had not been met, reported The Hindu.

“We have won a major battle, but there is still more to be done,” Paswan was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Soren’s announcement was met with protests from the candidates who had qualified for the now-cancelled exam. A group of them gathered outside the state secretariat and said they should not be made to suffer for alleged irregularities for which they were not responsible, reported The Indian Express.

The protests in Jharkhand began on July 25, inspired by the agitation across the country against the alleged mismanagement of national competitive exams. The protesters have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium.

On August 9, the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations, including the preliminary examination of the 14th state Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services, on the protesters’ demand.

However, students continued their protest, demanding that the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination be cancelled as well.

The government had refused to cancel the graduate-level examination, saying that it was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It had instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

After a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Soren said that his government had decided to cancel the examination as the facts emerging from the ongoing investigations were “shocking”.

“Since the investigation is ongoing, it is not possible to disclose every detail openly,” said the chief minister. “The matter involves a complex and interconnected network of various companies that have operated here at different times. The Crime Investigation Department will probe all examinations conducted from 2014 to the present.”

He added that standard operating procedures for conducting competitive examinations had not been followed.

The government has constituted a committee headed by Indian Administrative Service officer Amitabh Kaushal to work on education reforms in consultation with institutions, experts and other stakeholders, said Soren.

He also announced a portal where students, teachers and parents can submit suggestions on examination reforms.

The Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level exam was notified in 2023 for several posts in state government departments. Around 6.4 lakh candidates applied for the regular and backlog exams, reported The Indian Express.

The examination was initially scheduled for January 2024 but was cancelled following allegations of a paper leak. It was eventually held in September 2024, and around 1,975 candidates have since been appointed through the recruitment process.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Sara Varghese.

June had come and gone. It was almost the end of July. But Babul Bora of eastern Assam’s Golaghat district was still waiting for rains to sow paddy.

This was unusual. Monsoon typically arrives in Assam in the first week of June. Between mid-June and mid-July, farmers across the region get busy in sowing and transplanting paddy.

“Khorang asile,” Bora told Scroll. “There was a drought.” The 56-year old cultivator from Balidowa village in Pachim Brahmaputra panchayat saw cracks appear in his fields.

Many other villages in Golaghat recorded such conditions. According to reports by district authorities, three of Golaghat’s six revenue circles faced “drought-like” conditions as of July 14.

Four days later, disaster struck.

On July 19, heavy rain caused the Gelabil river near Bora’s village to swell up, submerging homes and farmlands.

In the week between July 16 and 22, Golaghat received 147% more rain than usual, data from the India Meteorological Department shows.

Golaghat became one of the four worst-hit flood districts in Assam. Over 100 people have lost their lives and around seven lakh people displaced across the state in devastating floods. The waters have wreaked havoc in Upper Assam, areas which have rarely seen such intense floods in the past.

“The floodwater killed us,” said Bora. The water has not receded from his fields even today.

For the first time since 1998, Bora’s family has not been able to sow paddy. “It is the first time that we have suffered drought and flood at the same time,” he said. “It is a disaster.”

In Sarupatha revenue circle, official documents that Scroll saw indicated that 57 villages were affected by drought-like situation, impacting over 12,000 farmers.

Six of these villages were subsequently flooded, according to the flood report prepared by the district disaster management authority.

Dipok Gogoi, a cultivator of Kenduguri village under Morongi revenue office, faced drought-like conditions followed by floods a few days later. His family managed to sow paddy around August 1 by pumping up groundwater. Six days later, his village was inundated. “Ten bighas of our paddy fields are still under water,” said Gogoi.

But, strikingly, even as fields remain inundated and uncultivable in Golaghat, latest data from the met department shows that between August 6 and August 12, the total rain the district received is still short by 45%.

‘A dual risk’

Golaghat has always been vulnerable to both droughts and floods. But scientists point out that what might be changing is the nature and impact of these extremes.

“Our district-level assessment identifies Golaghat, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Charaideo and South Salmara–Mankachar as facing dual risks of both flood and drought,” said Surbhi Vyas, a research fellow with Centre for Disaster Management and Research at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

A 2024 District Level Climate Risk Assessment, which included inputs from Vyas, noted that Golaghat is susceptible to floods “due to its proximity to the Brahmaputra river” and excess rain than usual in some places.

At the same time, the district has also experienced drought in the last few decades “due to erratic rainfall, especially in August and September.”

That is true of the region as a whole. A 2015 study found that the south-west monsoon rainfall in the North East has “gradually dropped” compared to the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in drought conditions.

In recent years, the Assam government has declared several districts as drought hit – specifically Golaghat in 2021.

This year, from the beginning of June till July 15, Golaghat district received “large deficient” or “deficient” rain ranging between 30% and 80% lesser than usual, barring one week in late June.

This delayed paddy cultivation in almost 90 villages in revenue circles of Golaghat, Sarupathar, and Morongi.

In Sarupatha revenue circle, the circle officer wrote to the district management disaster authority on July 17 apprising the office of the “drought-like situation” because of which “agricultural activities especially paddy cultivation, have not started in some villages.”

The situation even prompted a discussion about drought-like conditions in the state’s Assembly in early July, suggesting that the dry conditions were pushing farmers to distress.

“Just a day before the flood hit on July 19, we were planning to issue a notification to make arrangements for water in the paddy field through pipes from the rivers,” Rupam Jyoti Borah, Golaghat district project officer of state disaster management authority, told Scroll.

The shortening of the window between two disasters could be due to “more intense short duration rainfall events,” said Akshay Deoras, senior research scientist with National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading in England. His research focus included Indian monsoon.

“A district can experience a prolonged dry spell, with soils drying out and water availability coming under pressure, and then receive a very large amount of rainfall within a short period,” Deoras said. “[But] the ground and drainage systems may not be able to absorb or carry the water away quickly enough, leading to flash flooding.”

Sanjay O’Neill Shaw, scientist at IMD’s Regional Meteorology Centre, Guwahati agreed. “Since this is an El-Nino year, we were prepared that there will be comparatively lower rainfall which has led to an overall deficit.”

As of August 13, Assam has received 38% less rainfall than usual since the start of the monsoon in June, putting the state in the category of states with “deficient” rainfall. But, Shaw said, some rainfall spells like the one experienced on July 19, have been very heavy.

Climate change? Jury out

The Assam government pinned the responsibility on “exceptionally” heavy rainfall in Nagaland. A statement issued by the state’s chief secretary on July 22 stated that an “extreme hydrometeorological” event over the Nagaland hill catchments during July 18-July 20” rather than “merely local rainfall or drainage congestion” in the downstream districts was responsible.

This resulted in “unusually high river flows and flash flooding in areas not normally flood-prone,” said the statement.

Climate scientists, however, contended that the high rainfall was not out of the ordinary, and it was unlikely that it was connected to climate change.

Soon after the floods, scientists from across the world used peer-reviewed climate models to assess both short, high intensity downpours and longer rainfall data in Assam to assess if the flood was an extreme weather event attributing to climate change.

They found that the heaviest three-day rainfall observed in this region in June and July were “routine events expected roughly one to two years,” a press release by the scientists, part of the World Weather Attribution said.

Connecting flood-drought risk to climate change, however, “would require a dedicated long-term trend and event attribution analysis,” said IIT’s Guwahati's Vyas.

The data they analysed “suggest no discernible role of climate change”, said Mariam Zachariah, research associate in Extreme Weather and Climate Change at the Imperial College London in an online press briefing on August 13.

Instead, the scientists pointed out that unplanned urbanisation and riverbank erosion have degraded the natural drainage capacity of rivers, increasing flood height and downstream impacts.

“Construction, changes in drainage, loss of wetlands and other land-use changes can mean that the same amount of heavy rainfall produces a much greater impact than it might have in the past,” said Deoras, from the University of Reading.

Local residents highlighted other factors. Gunandra Bharali, a retired government teacher of Pachim Brahmaputra panchayat said that the rising waters of Gelabil river in his village caused most of the flooding.

The river, he said, rose because of the release of water from Nagaland’s Doyang Hydropower project, inundating all 10 village wards of his panchayat. He lost all his paddy saplings and his 16-bigha farmland is now under water, a loss of about Rs 3 lakh, he estimated. Scroll has seen a statement from the Doyang dam authorities, dated July 22, that confirmed Bharali’s claim. “The project has been wreaking havoc for the last three years,” he said.

After continuous rainfall on July 30 in Nagaland, the dam authorities opened three sluice gates of the Doyang project, a process that continued till August 9, which led to some rivers flowing above the danger mark.

Meanwhile, farmers in Golaghat district continue to reel from the impacts of two calamities within days. “The rice we get from the paddy field is enough for the whole year, and we can sell and earn the rice for another Rs 50,000,” said Bora. But his three bighas of land with a crop of cucumber and ridge gourd and a green house with leafy vegetables lie damaged. “I have crop insurance for one hectare of paddy, hopefully the government will provide us compensation.”

The Gujarat Police seized electronic devices of journalist Ravi Nair, his son and a colleague in simultaneous raids on Monday afternoon in Kerala and Delhi, said a person familiar with the situation.

The matter pertains to social media posts by Nair in October relating to an article he had written in The Washington Post about the Life Insurance Corporation’s investments into the Adani Group, said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who has co-authored a book and several articles with Nair.

An employee had filed an FIR on behalf of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited alleging that Nair “wrote and posted false and fabricated information” that “attempted to tarnish the image and reputation of the Adani Group of Companies”.

Earlier in the day, a court in Ahmedabad had allowed the police to search Nair’s home in Delhi to seize “incriminating evidence, essential documents and electronic devices”.

Nair was not in Delhi, but his son’s laptop and the iPad of a colleague who happened to be there were seized even though they had nothing to do with the case, said Guha Thakurta. Nair was in Kerala. Two of his phones were seized, said Guha Thakurta.

The FIR against Nair lists the sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to cheating and dishonestly, forgery committed with the intent to harm the reputation of any party and using fake or forged paper or digital file as real.

The devices were seized six days after the Gujarat High Court on August 11 refused to quash the FIR against Nair, The News Minute reported.

The Washington Post report alleged that the LIC, a public sector company, had made investments of $3.9 billion in industrialist Gautam Adani’s Adani Group following directions from the Union government at a time when the conglomerate was facing financial and legal challenges.

The LIC had at the time rejected the report, describing the allegations “that the investment decisions of LIC are influenced by external factors are false, baseless and far from truth”.

The Adani Group had also categorically denied involvement in “any alleged government plans” to direct LIC India funds, according to the newspaper.

The first information report against Nair is based on his social media posts relating to the report, not the article itself.

The complainant stated that the LIC had issued another clarification on October 28 categorically stating that the firm had “neither received any such document nor issued any such document”.

The insurance company had also “clarified that it had not received any information or instructions from the government regarding making investments in companies of the Adani Group”, the complainant said.

The complainant claimed that the clarifications establish that the article written by Nair, “the statements made therein, and the documents and information relied upon in support of those statements were false and fabricated from the very beginning”.

The social media posts by Nair had caused “substantial financial losses” to the Adani Group and its domestic and international investors, the complainant alleged.

The complainant demanded an investigation into the post.

Nair had moved the High Court against the FIR.

The lawyer representing Nair argued before the High Court that a mere denial issued by LIC cannot make the journalist liable for the offence alleged against him.

“...and also mere denial of the facts narrated in the article by the LIC, would not make the documents, based upon which, the article was published by the petitioner in The Washington Post, forged, and therefore, the petitioner herein cannot be prosecuted for the offence in question,” the counsel added.

Guha Thakurta claimed that the FIR was “not just to harass Ravi Nair but to find out the source of the information that he has used in an article in The Washington Post”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has urged Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to meet the students protesting against the alleged irregularities in competitive examinations conducted for state government jobs since July 25.

In a letter on Friday, Gandhi told Soren that he personally meeting the students will help “reinforce the government’s commitment to resolve their concerns”.

The Mahagathbandhan alliance, led by Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and comprising the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, is in power in Jharkhand.

Gandhi also alleged in the letter that the Indian education system had been “captured by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party and transformed into a tool for the exploitation and oppression of students”.

It is “no longer the robust” knowledge system that it used to be a decade ago, he wrote.

Demonstrators in Jharkhand have been holding a sit-in at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, with six protesters on an indefinite hunger strike.

Gandhi said that the protest in the state has been peaceful and the demands of the students are legitimate.

He also appreciated that the Jharkhand government had initiated a dialogue with the students through a committee constituted by Soren. However, he noted that while the government has agreed on several of the students’ demands, the protests were continuing, with some students still on a hunger strike.

On August 9, the Jharkhand government agreed to cancel three examinations, including the preliminary examination of the 14th state Public Service Commission Combined Civil Services, on the protesters demand.

However, students have continued their protest, demanding that the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combined Graduate Level examination also be cancelled.

The government has refused to cancel the graduate-level examination, saying that it was conducted under the monitoring of the Supreme Court and the Jharkhand High Court. It has instead proposed a high-level judicial inquiry headed by a retired judge to investigate allegations related to the examination.

“The Congress party believes that the right to peaceful protest as enshrined in the Constitution of India is one of the central pillars of our democracy,” the Congress MP wrote.

He added that his party has offered full support to students protesting paper leaks and irregularities in the education system over the last few months.

He urged Soren to take action to resolve the students’ issues.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the Election Commission’s decision to keep 2002 as the base year for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Sikkim, PTI reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing the plea filed by a Sikkim-based non-governmental organisation seeking a direction to the poll panel to consider 1993 as the base year instead of 2002.

Sikkim is among the 16 states where the voter roll revision is underway in the third phase of SIR. While the draft electoral roll for the state was released on July 5, the final list is scheduled to be published on September 6.

“The goal post cannot be shifted in the middle of the exercise,” PTI quoted the court as saying.

It noted that 2002 has been kept as the base year across the country and said that it will not interfere with the Election Commission’s decision.

The petitioner’s lawyer contended that Sikkim’s distinct demographic composition set it apart from other states, Live Law reported. The lawyer further argued that the state’s “population data did not correspond with the electoral data”.

The bench said that those included in the 2002 electoral roll had subsequently voted in elections held in Sikkim, PTI reported. However, it said the petitioner could take up the matter with the poll panel and seek a “reasonable exemption” for the state.

More than 37,000 voters, or 8% of electors, have been removed from the draft rolls in Sikkim. The state had 4.7 lakh voters before the special intensive revision process started. It now has 4.3 lakh voters in the draft list. The process of hearing claims and objections against removal from the draft list is underway in the state.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Former Union minister Smriti Irani was appointed as one of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s eight national general secretaries, while Amit Malviya was dropped as the chief of the party’s social media department. Ram Madhav, a leader of the BJP’s parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was named as one of its 13 vice presidents.

Union minister Piyush Goyal will replace Rajesh Agarwal as the party treasurer.

This was part of the first major changes in the Hindutva party’s national leadership since Nitin Nabin became the BJP chief in January. Read on.

The Supreme Court directed the Allahabad High Court to defer the hearing of a case involving allegations of disproportionate assets against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The bench also told the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate not to file any report in response to directions by the High Court.

The High Court had in May directed the two central agencies to verify claims made by a Bharatiya Janata Party worker that Gandhi possesses assets disproportionate to his income. Gandhi had challenged the directions before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court bench headed by the chief justice said that the High Court appeared to have passed orders without giving the Opposition leader the opportunity to be heard. Read on.

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a chargesheet against retired judge Giribala Singh and her son Samarth Singh in a case pertaining to the death of his wife Twisha Sharma, who was allegedly harassed for dowry. The central agency invoked sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to dowry death, matrimonial cruelty, abetment to suicide and acts done with common criminal intention, as well as provisions of the Dowry Prevention Act.

Sharma, a 33-year-old model-turned-actor from Noida, was found dead at her marital home in Bhopal on May 12, five months after her wedding. Her husband’s family claimed that she had died by suicide. However, her family alleged that she was harassed for dowry and murdered. Read on.

India’s dowry problem is actually a marriage problem, writes Divya Aslesha.

The Delhi Police said that they were looking into a complaint alleging that Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi disrupted the singing of Vande Mataram at the party’s Independence Day function in the national capital. The complaint filed by a lawyer alleged that the Congress leaders intentionally obstructing the singing of the national song at the event on Saturday.

The complaint came days after the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Act, which criminalises insults to the national song, came into effect.

A video from the event posted by news agency ANI showed Sonia Gandhi gesturing and speaking to a party worker while the full version of Vande Mataram was being played. It was not clear what she was saying. Read on.

The Union government should restore the E10 fuel option at petrol pumps for older vehicles, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said in an article published in The Indian Express. Nageswaran and Akash Poojari, a consultant with the Department of Economic Affairs, said that India has up to 80 million older carburettor-based two-wheelers, which may run hotter due to petrol blended with 20% ethanol.

They also said that older rubber seals that are not designed to withstand ethanol. The condition of the seals can deteriorate when exposed to the fuel, irrespective of engine temperature, they said.

In July 10, the government said that the suggestions from the public that petrol not blended with ethanol and the E10 variant should be available at fuel stations alongside E20 “ignores the realities” of India’s fuel distribution network. Read on.

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The Union government should restore the option of 10% ethanol-blended fuel, or E10 fuel, at petrol pumps for older vehicles, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said in an article published in The Indian Express on Monday.

The government’s Ethanol Blended Petrol programme mandates that all petrol sold in the country be blended with 20% ethanol – a substance produced from sugarcane and food grain. The policy is aimed at reducing India’s dependency on fossil fuels, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and boosting income for sugarcane farmers.

However, consumers have complained that the new fuel mix damages engines and reduces their mileage.

Nageswaran and co-author Akash Poojari, a consultant with the Department of Economic Affairs, said that India has roughly 75 million to 80 million older two-wheelers that run on carburettors, which regulate the air-fuel mixture in an engine.

The carburettor-based engines cannot detect the additional oxygen in the E20 variant of petrol and adjust the fuel-air mixture accordingly, they said. As a result, the engine receives too little fuel for the amount of air drawn in, causing it to run hotter.

They also pointed to a separate concern involving older rubber seals that are not designed to withstand ethanol. The condition of the seals can deteriorate when exposed to the fuel, irrespective of engine temperature, they said. While replacing them with ethanol-compatible seals is relatively inexpensive, the process would have to be carried out vehicle by vehicle.

“Covering 75 to 80 million two-wheelers that way will take years, even if every workshop starts today,” they said.

Restoring E10, with the option to buy E20 fuel would “calm most public concern, lower total ethanol use instead of raising it and protect the existing fleet while the retrofit programme catches up”, they added.

On July 10, the Union government said that the suggestions by the public that petrol not blended with ethanol and E10 should be available at fuel stations alongside E20 “ignores the realities” of India’s fuel distribution network.

The Ministry of Petroleum had said that there are more than one lakh petrol pumps, besides a network of refineries, terminals, depots and pipelines.

“Maintaining multiple grades of base petrol across this vast supply chain would create an enormous logistical challenge, increase handling costs, complicate inventory management and reduce operational efficiency,” it had added.

The government had also said that while premium fuels are often cited as an example of simultaneous sale, they are “niche products sold in limited quantities” and “not separate nationwide base fuel streams”.

The article published on Monday also rejected claims that E20 fuel causes engine damage or increases wear in cars not rated for E20.

Nageswaran and Poojari said that ethanol carries about two-thirds the energy of petrol, and provides slightly lower mileage. However, since ethanol accounts for only 20% of the blend, the “energy penalty is around 6% to 7%, not the 30% doing the rounds”.

On engine durability, they cited testing by the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which ran 86 vehicles for nearly 10 million km on fuel blends of up to E20 and found no increased wear in cars not rated for E20.

“India’s own testing by the Automotive Research Association of India, the petroleum institute, and Indian Oil reached the same conclusion,” they added.

The article came amid criticism of the E20 rollout from some vehicle owners. An opinion poll by survey platform LocalCircles published on July 5 showed that 53% of respondents who owned petrol vehicles believed that the government’s handling of the E20 rollout was “disastrous” or “ineffective”.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a chargesheet against retired judge Giribala Singh and her son Samarth Singh in a case pertaining to the death of his wife Twisha Sharma, who was allegedly harassed for dowry, NDTV reported on Monday.

In the 636-page document, the central agency has invoked sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to dowry death, matrimonial cruelty, abetment to suicide and acts done with common criminal intention, as well as provisions of the Dowry Prevention Act.

Sharma, a 33-year-old model-turned-actor from Noida, was found dead at her marital home in Bhopal’s Katara Hills area on May 12, five months after her wedding.

Her husband’s family claimed that she had died by suicide. However, her family alleged that she was harassed for dowry and murdered.

Samarth Singh was arrested on May 22 from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur city and brought to Bhopal. Giribala Singh was arrested on May 28 after the High Court quashed her anticipatory bail.

The former judge and her son are in judicial custody.

According to the first information report, Samarth Singh had on May 12 taken Sharma to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhopal, where he claimed that she had hung herself at home, PTI reported.

However, a doctor at the institute told the police that Sharma was brought dead, after which a medico-legal case was registered.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: India’s dowry problem is actually a marriage problem

E Coli bacteria, usually found in human and animal excreta, was detected in water samples collected from coolers at railway stations across the country, according to a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

The bacteria was found in drinking water samples at eight out of 49 railway stations, including three in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, the CAG said in an August 5 report titled “Passenger Amenities and Sanitation at Non-Suburban Railway Stations in Indian Railways”.

E Coli bacteria was found in water coolers at Coimbatore and Palakkad Junction in the Southern Railway region, Hyderabad in the South Central Railway region, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Bhiwandi Road, Kalyan and Lonavala in the Central Railway region and Madhupur in the Eastern Railway region.

E coli in water indicates faecal contamination and can cause a range of diseases, including food poisoning, diarrhoea and urinary tract infections.

The CAG report also said that total coliform bacteria, including E Coli, were found in drinking water samples collected from platform taps at 49 stations.

Total coliforms are a group of bacteria that are usually found in soil and in human and animal waste. Total coliform counts are an indicator of the sanitary level of water supply.

The audit conducted by the CAG also found that bacteriological tests on parameters other than total coliforms gave unsatisfactory results at eight stations across four zones in 2022-’23 and 11 stations across five zones in 2023-’24.

At 179 stations, health inspectors had not carried out chemical tests of drinking water, the authority said. It added that at 77 stations, the tests had not been carried out at the prescribed frequency of twice a year.

The CAG said that the railways ministry, in a reply sent in September, said that action had been initiated based on the audit’s findings about the frequency of testing drinking water and unsatisfactory test results.

“However, the fact that unsatisfactory test results had been reported at different locations on multiple occasions indicates that railways needs to work out a more effective system to ensure provision of safe drinking water to passengers at all railway stations,” the authority said.

The report said that 458 out of the 512 stations were deficient in “minimum essential amenities”, such as drinking water, toilets and seating arrangements. It noted that the Railway Board had stipulated that the amenities be made available at all stations by August 31, 2018.

However, it remarked that “even high-revenue, high-footfall NSG-1 to NSG-3 [Non-Suburban Group-1 to Non-Suburban Group-3] stations exhibited significant shortfalls” on these parameters.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Thank you for writing (“In London, an exhibition reveals the fascinating lives of the Duleep Singh princesses”). It’s a beautifully written and moving piece. I liked the way it began with Peter Barrall’s memories of Sophia and Bamba. The detail about the dupattas mistaken for saris was a good addition too.

If I may, I wanted to offer some constructive feedback, in the spirit of the underrepresented histories this exhibition is trying to recover.

I was disappointed that the piece, like much coverage of the Duleep Singh family, did not extend its attention to Maharajah Duleep Singh’s two youngest daughters, Princesses Pauline and Irene, the last-born Duleep Singh princesses. They are in the exhibition, albeit marginalised.

Princess Victor Duleep Singh, Lady Anne Coventry, who married into the Sikh Punjabi royal family, was also excluded from the exhibition, even from the family tree.

As a British Sikh and Punjabi woman, I also find it disappointing that so much of the Duleep Singh archive is in a private collection. Private collections are a hot topic in heritage circles because they enable gatekeeping and hierarchy. Sikhi discourages hierarchy, instead promoting ideas like langar. – Sundeep Braich

‘Upper castes don’t discriminate’

Should India also apologise for all the unaccounted and forgotten brutal crimes against Brahmins or “ the other privileged castes” (“Should India apologise for caste injustice, like Nepal did?”)? Should it also apologise for all the land and amenities inherited by people who never faced any discrimination and still have the perks of being so called “oppressed classes”?

What about those who have converted to other unoppressing religions of the world from Hinduism claiming discrimination? It is not the upper castes that discriminate, but the others that love being called oppressed. Grow up, focus on better issues at our doors. – Pragya Tiwary

In Rama’s land, law will prevail

It’s very sad to see these things (“‘She had stepped out to buy food’: Another Bengali woman forcibly pushed to Bangladesh from Mumbai”). Our forefathers had chosen this land and we were born and brought up in a free India. This government’s sole propaganda is religious politics – they don’t want any development. But no one can escape the consequences of their deeds. In the land of Rama, the corruption at the Ram temple will be exposed and they will be prosecuted by the laws and people of India. – Anzar Hussain

Bhutan’s ‘mindfulness city’

Before complaining about Bhutan, think carefully about why things happened like that (“The dark shadows of Bhutan’s Gelephu ‘mindfulness city’ project”). Without any cause, nothing happened. Fake news or fake stories can easily show up but the reality will always be unknown. Many people are misled by the false leaders. It is very common for us to give mistakes to others. – Pemba Herrmann

Marathi rule for cab, auto drivers

It is sad to note that Maharashtra’s regional politics is discriminating against ordinary taxi and autorickshaw drivers (“Taxi, auto drivers who fail Marathi test to lose license starting August 16, says minister”). Plain bullying is the trend in India. – Atul Agarwal

The problem with economics

This article was well written and worth a read (“‘Markets know best’ and other 20th century economic theories are harming the world”). The reference to Nobel laureates and their awards made it easy to understand the historical structural incentives that lead to over-mathematisation and the wrong approach to improving the wellbeing of complex living systems.

This is almost never emphasised even in the country’s top economics colleges like the Delhi School of Economics, where I graduated from this year, and this topic was never discussed in our lectures.

The article would have been more complete had the author included the debate of whether economics is a natural science, like physics, or a social science. I find that this debate is at the core of the discipline’s nature and the sidelining of other major social sciences like sociology. – Santhosh Kumar M

Women writers and Indian patriarchy

This was a wonderful account of the patriarchal mindset in the middle-class household towards gifted women during that period (“Ramachandra Guha: In Mannu Bhandari’s memoir, an unflinching spotlight on Indian patriarchy”). Ashapurna Devi, a famous Bengali writer, had to fight the same conservative mindset to establish herself. Her husband, however, was supportive of her endeavour. – Rajib Sarkar

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Rajasthan on Sunday restricted the entry of outsiders in state-run schools without permission after the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign announced that its team will visit government schools in several districts to assess their conditions.

This visits will be part of a nationwide drive of the Cockroach Janta Party to improve the condition of government schools. The campaign has been sharing videos of schools on social media recorded by its volunteers in several states.

“If there is a dilapidated school in your city or village too and the administration is not listening, then tag me,” the campaign’s co-convener Ashutosh Ranka said on social media on Sunday. “Cockroach Janta Party’s team will soon reach there.”

He added: “We will get the schools of our children fixed, come what may!”

राजस्थान से मुझे अब तक जयपुर, अजमेर, जोधपुर, उदयपुर, धौलपुर, भरतपुर, कोटा, बाड़मेर, हनुमानगढ़ में ख़राब स्कूल का निरीक्षण करने की रिक्वेस्ट आई है। इन जगहों पर प्रशासन स्कूल ठीक करने की माँग नहीं मान रहा।

अगले कुछ दिनों में मैं यह सभी जगह कवर करूँगा।

अगर आपके शहर या गाँव में भी… pic.twitter.com/vO4uo1Yi40

— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) August 16, 2026

Soon after, the Rajasthan government announced that no outsider, except government officials on duty, will be allowed to enter school campuses without permission from the principal.

Photography, videography, interviews, audio recording or live streaming of students, teachers or school activities will also not be permitted without approval of the principal, said the circular issued by Director of Secondary Education Lalit Kumar.

It further directed the school authorities to ensure that no photograph, video or personal information of a student is collected, published or disseminated without the consent of their parents or guardians.

The government order empowered school principals to deny entry to visitors and said that the police should be informed if anybody refuses to leave the premises, or attempts unauthorised photography or videography.

On August 5, hearing and speech-impaired students of a government school in Jaipur held a protest about poor infrastructure and a lack of basic facilities. The principal of Government Seth Anandilal Poddar Senior Secondary School was suspended subsequently.

After the government’s Sunday order, Ranka said that while the police may file a first information report against him and his team, “nothing can stop us from visiting the government schools in Rajasthan and getting them fixed”.

In another social media post, he said that even if the government arrests them, the campaign will not “stop inspecting the schools until all schools in Rajasthan are fixed”.

मदन दिलावर जी या तो राजस्थान के सभी जर्जर स्कूल ठीक करे, या फिर हम पर एडवांस में FIR करवा दे।

आप हमें एडवांस में गिरफ्तार भी कर सकते है। आपकी सरकार है, आपकी पुलिस है।

लेकिन हम तब तक स्कूलों का निरीक्षण नहीं रोकेंगे जब तक राजस्थान के सभी स्कूल ठीक नहीं हो जाते।#SchoolThikKaro https://t.co/4vzjumSaFl

— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) August 17, 2026

The Congress’ Rajasthan chief Govind Singh Dotasra said that “instead of improving the condition of government schools, the BJP government has sought a way to cover up its failures and hide the dilapidated state of the education system”.

“The question is, if everything is fine in the schools, then why the fear?” he said on social media. “Why is the government so restless at the emergence of pictures of dilapidated buildings, crumbling rooms, shortage of teachers, problems faced by children, and the failures of the government machinery?”

भाजपा सरकार ने सरकारी स्कूलों की हालत सुधारने के बजाय अपनी नाकामी को ढकने और शिक्षा व्यवस्था की बदहाली छिपाने का रास्ता खोजा है।

शिक्षा विभाग ने पारदर्शिता की बजाय स्कूल परिसर में प्रवेश, फोटो व वीडियो पर रोक, और सवाल पूछने वालों पर पहरा लगा दिया है।

सवाल ये है कि अगर स्कूलों… pic.twitter.com/neLftTQiws

— Govind Singh Dotasra (@GovindDotasra) August 16, 2026

Written by Sneha. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: India’s cockroaches are offering a reality check about the country’s development model

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Allahabad High Court to defer the hearing of a case involving allegations of disproportionate assets against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant also told the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate not to file any report in response to directions by the High Court.

The High Court had in May directed both agencies to verify claims made by a Bharatiya Janata Party worker S Vignesh Shishir that Gandhi possesses assets disproportionate to his income, Bar and Bench reported. In July, the High Court directed the CBI to file a fresh affidavit explaining the status of its inquiry, saying that the agency’s earlier submission did not make the progress of the case clear.

Gandhi had challenged the directions before the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the bench headed by the chief justice said that the High Court appeared to have passed orders without giving the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha the opportunity of a hearing.

“Suppose somebody commits murders, etc police does not need permission,” Kant was quoted as saying by Bar and Bench. “But what appears to us is, subject to the assistance provided to us from both sides, if the court wants to issue a direction, the courts are expected to follow the principle of natural justice.”

The Supreme Court also said that if any agency knew about alleged disproportionate assets being held by any person, it could proceed on its own and would not need court orders, PTI reported.

“If it is so serious, why has your agency kept quiet?” Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who was representing the CBI. “Do you need a direction from the court…Have you taken any suo motu action? No, right?”

Lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for Gandhi, questioned whether Shishir, the complainant, had the legal standing to file a petition before the High Court, PTI reported.

“This is absolutely unknown to law,” Sibal told the court. “This is a witch-hunt process, which is not recognised by law. This is most unfortunate. Attempts after attempt are being made by this very petitioner.”

Shishir has also filed a separate petition before the Allahabad High Court alleging that Gandhi is a British citizen.

In April, the High Court had ordered a first information report to be registered against the Congress leader in the case. However, it stayed the directive a day later.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Delhi Police on Monday said that they were looking into a complaint alleging that Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi disrupted the singing of Vande Mataram at the party’s Independence Day function in the national capital, ANI reported.

The complaint filed by a lawyer alleged that the two Congress leaders intentionally obstructing the singing of the national song at the event.

The complaint came days after the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Act, which criminalises insults to the national song, came into effect.

A video from the function released by ANI showed Sonia Gandhi gesturing and speaking to a party worker while the full version of Vande Mataram was being played. It was not clear what she was saying.

#WATCH | Delhi: The full Vande Mataram, was played at 80th Independence Day celebrations held at Congress headquarters today

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi and LoP Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and others were present on the occassion pic.twitter.com/BOkL9lbvMQ

— ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2026

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, accused Sonia Gandhi of disrespecting the national song and attempting to stop it from being sung in full. However, the Congress denied that she obstructed the singing of Vande Mataram.

“Look at their shamelessness,” Shah said at an event in Rajasthan. “Vande Mataram was being sung at the Congress party headquarters. During the song, Congress leader Soniaji asked the Congress president to stop the song. We all watched it on TV. After 80 years, Bankim Babu’s immortal mantra, his immortal song, was once again receiving respect, but Soniaji didn’t like it.”

स्वतंत्रता दिवस पर कांग्रेस मुख्यालय में वंदे मातरम् के गायन को बीच में रोकने का कहकर सोनिया गांधी ने वंदे मातरम् का अपमान करने का जो पाप किया है, उसके लिए जनता उन्हें कभी माफ़ नहीं करेगी। pic.twitter.com/Fdpm7x3YNH

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) August 16, 2026

BJP chief Nitin Nabin said that Sonia Gandhi’s actions showed that even eight decades of independence, the Congress had “no respect” for Vande Mataram. “This is no coincidence, but the bitter truth of the Congress’s distorted thinking,” he said in a social media post.

However, Jairam Ramesh, the Congress’ communications in-charge, maintained that there was no attempt to stop the singing of the national song. “Since Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had been standing for long, Soniaji had merely asked for a chair for him. That’s all,” The Indian Express quoted him as claiming.

On January 28, the Union home ministry directed that all six stanzas of the Vande Mataram be sung first when it is played together with the national anthem Jana Gana Mana.

Only the first two stanzas of the national song had been played at official functions earlier. The remaining stanzas, which invoke Hindu goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, had been omitted.

The BJP has long alleged that the Congress had agreed to drop the four stanzas to “appease Muslims”.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Does ‘Vande Mataram’ need the threat of criminal law to be honoured?

Three persons were arrested on Sunday after a Cockroach Janta Party volunteer’s father died from injuries sustained in an assault in West Bengal’s Bankura district, reported The Hindu.

The political campaign had alleged earlier in the day that Janab Mafik, the father of Shaik Abdul Hafeez, died two days after Bharatiya Janata Party workers attacked him on Thursday.

However, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari denied that BJP workers were involved in the attack.

He told reporters that a first information report was registered against five persons in connection with the case, reported The Hindu.

“The two others will also be arrested,” Adhikari was quoted as saying. “There is no BJP connection here. They are all criminals. Action will be taken according to law.”

In a video posted on social media on Thursday, Hafeez said he had visited a primary school in Karisunda to conduct a survey as part of the Cockroach Janta Party’s nationwide campaign to improve government schools in villages.

He alleged that BJP workers arrived at his home later that day and demanded that he record a video apologising for highlighting the school’s condition. They also allegedly told him to say that he had conducted the survey under “external influence”, stated the Cockroach Janta Party.

When he refused, the men allegedly attacked him and his family, leaving Mafik with a head injury.

Hafeez’s father died of his injuries on Saturday night, Ratna Singh, the legal affairs head of Cockroach Janta Party, told Scroll on Sunday.

She also alleged that the police had refused to file a complaint in the incident.

On the other hand, a local police official told Scroll on Sunday morning that they had not received a complaint regarding Mafik’s death.

BJP planning violence, alleges CJP

On Sunday, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke and co-convener Ashutosh Ranka announced that representatives of the campaign will go to West Bengal to “deliver justice to Abdul’s family”.

“An appeal to all cockroaches of Bengal to reach Indas police station, Bankura district,” Ranka said in a social media post.

In a subsequent post, he claimed that he had received multiple calls “from well-wishers, activists, government insiders, informing that the BJP is planning violence” during the visit.

“Let the world document that when the youth of this country was fighting for education and better schools, BJP was responding with violence,” Ranka said.

Ever since this announcement, I have received 15+ calls from well-wishers, activists, govt insiders informing that the BJP is planning violence during my visit tomorrow.

Let @BJP4Bengal do it - And let the world watch them do it.

Let the world document that when the youth of… https://t.co/nmdceL4hGx

— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) August 16, 2026

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test for English, Commerce and Sociology will be re-conducted as the question papers for the subjects contained several factual, typographical and translation errors, said the National Testing Agency on Sunday.

Several questions that appeared in the exams held in June also repeated from previous years, added the testing agency.

The test is conducted for the post of assistant professor in universities and colleges, determines eligibility for Junior Research Fellowships, and is also used for admission to Doctor of Philosophy programmes.

This year, the National Testing Agency conducted the exam in 87 subjects from June 22 to June 30 as a computer-based test in two daily shifts.

The National Testing Agency said that it received multiple complaints about errors in the question papers for English, Commerce and Sociology. “Accordingly, NTA formed a committee to enquire into and look into these errors,” it added.

The committee found that names of scholars had been misspelt in the question papers, book titles were unclear, there were errors in the wording of questions and non-standard coined terms were used for established concepts.

📢 UGC-NET June 2026 | Important Notice

NTA had received several complaints about multiple errors in the papers of English, Commerce and Sociology. NTA formed a committee to enquire into and look into these errors and as per the recommendation of the committee, NTA will… pic.twitter.com/oejnlRSe0c

— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) August 16, 2026

“Papers carrying such defects do not meet the standards of fairness and error-free examination, and defects of this extent cannot be cured merely by dropping questions after the challenge process,” said the National Testing Agency.

The retests will be held on September 9 and September 10. The English paper will be held on September 9 from 9 am to noon, followed by the Commerce paper from 3 pm to 6 pm on the same day. The Sociology paper will be held on September 10 from 9 am to noon.

The process for the other 84 subjects will continue as scheduled, with results to be declared on time, the testing agency said.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi criticised the agency over the development, saying students were being made to pay for its mistakes.

“Thousands of candidates who prepared for years, filled forms, paid the fees, travelled to distant centres, must now do it all again in September,” the Congress leader said. “NTA makes the mistake but the student serves the sentence.”

He further questioned whether the papers were leaked before the exam.

“This is no longer an education system,” he added. “It is an extraction machine. It takes your money, your years, your mental health, and your confidence and returns nothing. Not even a job.”

Modi ji, look at what your NTA has just done.

UGC-NET exams for Sociology, English and Commerce were held between 22 and 30 June. Nearly two months later, NTA has cancelled all three because it set faulty papers and repeated old questions.

Thousands of candidates who prepared… https://t.co/TUMhhMhjvL

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 17, 2026

The National Testing Agency’s announcement came following large-scale youth protests in the country in July, which led to the resignation of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union education minister.

The protests were held against the alleged mismanagement of several competitive exams.

The UGC-NET, held in June 2024, also had to be cancelled after the Union government said the integrity of the examination “may have been compromised”.

Written by Sneha. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Why the National Testing Agency continues to fail students in India

Seven persons were killed and 12 others were injured in a stampede at Ashok Dham temple in Bihar’s Lakhisarai district on Monday, reported Hindustan Times.

Most of those killed were women, according to the newspaper.

The incident took place at around 6.40 am when a large crowd attempted to enter the temple, one of the oldest shrines of the Hindu deity Shiva in Bihar.

“The barricade broke down, which triggered a sudden stampede,” Lakhisarai District Magistrate Shailendra Kumar was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

An electric pole also fell at the site, Sub-Divisional Police Officer Shivam Kumar told ANI.

#WATCH | UPDATE | Bihar: Seven people died in a stampede-like incident at Ashokdham in Lakhisarai. Several injuries reported.

SDPO Shivam Kumar tells ANI, "Seven casualties have been reported. It is being said that an electric pole fell there and people were electrocuted, which… pic.twitter.com/jqOdIBj8rw

— ANI (@ANI) August 17, 2026

Quoting unidentified witnesses, Hindustan Times reported that an estimated 50,000 persons had gathered at the temple on the third Monday of the Hindu month of Sawan, which is said to be auspicious.

Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary described the incident as extremely tragic and heart-wrenching.

Expressing condolences to the families of those killed, he announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh for them.

“Necessary instructions have been issued to the administration for the proper and expeditious treatment of the injured,” he said in a social media post.

लखीसराय के अशोकधाम की घटना अत्यंत दुःखद एवं हृदयविदारक है।

हादसे में श्रद्धालुओं की मृत्यु की खबर से मन व्यथित है। शोक संतप्त परिवारों के प्रति मेरी गहरी संवेदनाएं हैं।

घायलों के समुचित एवं त्वरित इलाज के लिए प्रशासन को आवश्यक निर्देश दिए गए हैं। ईश्वर दिवंगत आत्माओं को शांति…

— Samrat Choudhary (@samrat4bjp) August 17, 2026

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The fortunes of millions of households in India, from those of software engineers to stock market investors, are increasingly tied to the same distant number: the valuation of seven American technology companies.

The S&P 500 – a stock market index tracking the largest publicly traded companies in the US – has climbed nearly 80% over five years, propelled largely by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.

An AI-driven surge has pushed their stocks to record highs. But the economic fundamentals underneath that surge should worry anyone who depends on the health of the global economy, including India.

‘AI bubble’

Data centres and AI-linked spending now account for a disproportionate share of American growth, helping the world’s largest economy remain resilient despite considerable headwinds.

Goldman Sachs predicts that spending on AI infrastructure, from data centres to chips, will rise from $765 billion this year to $1.6 trillion by 2031. Corporate adoption has surged too, with McKinsey finding that regular generative AI use has doubled since 2023, from about a third of firms to over two-thirds.

But is this boom healthy?

A financial bubble forms when asset prices are detached from what an asset is worth. Estimating that underlying worth is always contested, since it is based on assumptions and models rather than observable facts.

Today’s high spending could well be the seeds of productivity gains that are large enough to justify current valuations with hindsight. But the existing gap between AI spending and AI revenue is enormous. Enterprise software sales built on AI remain far smaller than the sums being poured into AI infrastructure, leaving an annual revenue shortfall estimated at $600 billion.

The concentration of risk compounds the problem. A handful of large technology companies most exposed to AI now make up roughly 40% of the S&P 500’s total market value, well above its peak concentration during the dot-com bubble of 2000.

Leading AI hardware and infrastructure firms are valued at more than 30 times their annual sales, a level that has historically preceded sharp corrections.

Should the bubble burst, the consequences could be severe and immediate. Valuations of the “Magnificent Seven” tech companies and their stocks could collapse, wiping trillions of dollars from portfolios and pension funds worldwide.

Since AI capital expenditure has been propping up American economic growth, a pullback in that spending could push the US, and by extension much of the global economy, into recession. As with most downturns, the damage would fall hardest on lower-income and precariously employed workers.

A mixed bag for India

For India, the fallout may arrive in two waves: one painful, the other potentially beneficial over time. A sharp correction on Wall Street could trigger global risk aversion. Foreign portfolio investors could withdraw capital from Indian equities to cover losses elsewhere, weakening the rupee further and unsettling domestic markets.

Indian retail investors too have stakes in American technology giants through Nasdaq-focused and AI-themed international mutual funds. A correction in these stocks will affect retail portfolios and systematic investment plans – the same channels through which Indian households have exposure to Wall Street’s AI rally.

The risks extend beyond financial markets. More than 2,100 global capability centres, run by multinational corporations across sectors, now operate in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and the National Capital Region. Nasscom, the National Association of Software and Service Companies, says these centres employ 2.36 million professionals across India and generate over $98 billion in annual revenue.

Should Western technology giants freeze their spending, hiring at these hubs could drop sharply, with knock-on effects for commercial property and consumer demand in those cities.

India’s ambitions to build domestic chip assembly and semiconductor capacity could also suffer, since a global slowdown would dampen foreign investment in these nascent projects.

Global technology companies have also committed enormous sums to building AI infrastructure in India. Microsoft has pledged $17.5 billion over four years, from 2026 to 2029, to expand its cloud and AI capacity. Amazon Web Services has committed as much as $35 billion through 2030. Google has partnered with the Adani Group on a gigawatt-scale AI campus in Visakhapatnam.

Should the broader AI investment cycle stall, these announced investments – and the construction, power and land deals built around them – would face the most direct exposure.

Then there are India’s AI startups, which have leaned just as heavily on this wave of global capital. Funding for the sector rose more than fourfold in the first half of 2026, with international venture funds such as B Capital, Accel, Bessemer and Khosla now writing some of the largest cheques into Indian AI companies.

A pullback in Silicon Valley’s funding cycle tends to move quickly downstream into markets like India’s, leaving founders who scaled on the assumption of continued global appetite facing lower valuations and hiring freezes of their own.

Yet, a bursting bubble could also lift a considerable weight off Indian information technology.

Software-focused companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro have spent the past two years under pressure from fears that generative AI could eliminate demand for outsourced coding and managed services. Should the crash expose AI deployment as slower, costlier and more complicated than the hype suggested, that existential threat would recede.

Global enterprises could rediscover their continuing need for the unglamorous but essential work India specialises in: data engineering, cloud migration, privacy compliance and systems security. Clients that had drifted away chasing AI promises may well return to the dependable, cost-effective outsourcing India has long provided.

None of this offers grounds for complacency. India’s exposure to a global correction is real, and the damage to markets, hiring and investment could be substantial before any silver lining emerges.

The current AI boom may rest on shakier foundations than its champions admit. Indian policymakers and businesses would do well to prepare for turbulence rather than assume that the upswing will continue indefinitely.

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

Hindi film actors Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff have received show-cause notices from the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration in connection with an advertisement for Vimal Elaichi, PTI reported on Sunday.

The agency has alleged that the advertisement amounts to surrogate promotion of Vimal Pan Masala, a product prohibited in the state.

Maharashtra has prohibited gutka and pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine since 2012 under the Food Safety and Standards Act, with the ban renewed annually. The latest prohibition order was issued by the state food safety commissioner on July 13.

The action against the actors comes as the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration has stepped up checks on food safety, including adulterated milk and food at restaurants, the sale of junk food near schools, and the manufacture and sale of banned gutka and tobacco-containing pan masala.

In the notice dated August 11, the Food and Drug Administration said that the use of the term “Vimal Elaichi” in the advertisement appeared to create an association with the Vimal Pan Masala brand and could mislead consumers while indirectly promoting the prohibited product, PTI reported.

It sought a response from the three actors, who were listed as brand endorsers, within 15 days.

The agency asked the actors to provide documentary evidence showing that Vimal Elaichi is an independent product available for sale in the market, PTI reported. They have also been directed to immediately stop participating in or endorsing the advertisement and remove the promotional content from their official social media accounts, websites and other digital platforms under their control.

The three actors have 15 days from the date of receiving the notice to submit written explanations and supporting documents. If the administration does not receive a response or if it is found to be unsatisfactory, further action may be initiated without notice, the agency said.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Bangladesh said on Sunday that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman would not visit India until New Delhi extradited former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, AFP reported.

The neighbouring countries have had strained relations since massive student-led protests erupted in Bangladesh in July 2024 against a controversial quota scheme for government jobs and later snowballed into a broader agitation against Hasina’s government. Her government was eventually brought down, forcing her to flee to India.

Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal in November sentenced Hasina to death for crimes against humanity in connection with the deadly crackdown on protesters in 2024. In February, a court sentenced her to 10 years’ imprisonment in two corruption cases relating to alleged irregularities in the allocation of land in a government housing project in Dhaka.

Dhaka has repeatedly demanded that Hasina be extradited. It has also expressed concerns about the ousted leader being allowed by the Indian authorities to address her supporters from Delhi.

New Delhi has previously said that it was for Hasina to decide whether she wants to return to Bangladesh.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry official AKM Shahidul Karim played down media speculation about a possible trip by Rahman to India next week.

“We are of the view that a propitious environment needs to be created for the visit,” AFP quoted him as saying. “To this end, we have urged the Indian authorities to expedite their efforts to extradite Sheikh Hasina and other fugitives.”

Rahman took office in February and has since visited Malaysia and China, departing from the tradition of Bangladeshi leaders heading to India for their first overseas trip.

Officials from Bangladesh and India have been in contact in recent weeks about the possibility of a visit by Rahman, Karim said. “But the process has been vitiated by Sheikh Hasina’s open media interactions, despite her being a convict in crimes against humanity,” the news agency quoted him as saying.

He was referring to Hasina’s remarks on August 5 during an audio-only virtual press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. During the event, she said that she was determined to return home in December to put the country on the “right track”.

The interaction was Hasina’s first public media appearance since she fled to Delhi in August 2024 amid widespread protests against her government.

Hasina said that she would return to Bangladesh to restore democracy despite the risk of imprisonment or even a death sentence.

She also demanded that the ban on her party, the Awami League, be lifted and political prisoners be released. The former prime minister urged the international community to support the people of Bangladesh in their struggle for democracy and justice.

On August 7, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the Indian government does not endorse remarks made at a press conference held by Hasina in Delhi, particularly those relating to Dhaka.

The ministry also said that New Delhi had no role to play in the event, reiterating that it was organised by a private media entity.

After Hasina’s event, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had said that it was “outraged” by former prime minister being allowed to speak to the media in Delhi, and said such events were detrimental to relations with India.

Dhaka said that it “deeply regrets” that the programme had been allowed despite having conveyed its concerns to New Delhi about the “likely ramifications of this event on the reset” of bilateral relations.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

“We pay Rs 600 every month whether we get electricity or not. We used to pay more but there are now two electricity mafias competing in this area,” says Ajuma Sheikh, a 63-year-old social worker who stays in Patra chawl in Mumbai’s Mankhurd suburb.

For the past 25 years, she has been caught between the powerful stakeholders of Mumbai’s electricity sector: the government, Adani Electricity and local unauthorised operators.

In and around the Mumbai Port Trust, reserve forest areas and on land owned by the Railways and Defence departments, thousands of people live like the residents of Patra chawl – in densely-packed, make-shift homes made of tin sheets and plastic tarp with poor ventilation and no reliable electricity.

“We sit outside all day because it’s too hot to go in,” Sheikh says, pointing to clusters of plastic chairs, cardboard sheets, cement bags, wooden planks, and ripped mattresses arranged haphazardly along the Mankhurd railway track. “We go indoors at 2 am but get bit by mosquitoes all night. We can’t put up a net or light a coil because there’s no ventilation. We’ll suffocate.”

A survey from several South Asian cities including Yavatmal and Jalna in Maharashtra found that temperatures inside tin-roofed homes often exceeded those inside concrete-roofed homes and even outdoor temperatures.

Sheikh lists the myriad heat-related conditions her community faces daily: suffocation, dehydration, fainting spells, skin rashes, heat stroke, low blood pressure, and asthma. While Mongabay-India was unable to get in touch with doctors, residents said that the doctors they met with confirmed their conditions were heat-induced.

In Mumbai, this is a climate emergency in the making, one that is impacting the health of working-class Indians who form the backbone of the country’s financial capital as drivers, domestic workers, security guards, and street vendors.

Unauthorised connections

For respite from the heat, residents of Patra chawl are forced to negotiate with the “light mafia”, illegal distributors of electricity in the area.

“They have to resort to electricity theft by illegal operators who tap local wires and feeder boxes, even underground,” explains Sachin Warghade, chairperson of the Centre for Regulatory Policy and Governance and assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Despite this, power continues to run only for a few hours at extremely low, fluctuating voltages that can hardly charge a mobile phone, let alone power kitchen appliances.

“Food spoils quickly in this heat so women are forced to cook in small batches more often. Our kids can’t study in the dark either so they sit at the station, but parents are afraid to let their daughters stay out after sunset which puts girls behind on their studies,” says Sheikh. “Even with these issues, if we don’t pay the mafia the full bill amount, they’ll cut our wires.”

Sunil Jaiswal, a 31-year-old social worker, loses sleep over the looming threat of cut wires as well. He lives across the city in Malad’s thousands-strong Ambedkar Nagar settlement, which was built on protected forest land in the 1980s, leaving them with unreliable amenities like water and electricity. He, like Sheikh, reports heat-related conditions from his settlement, like dehydration, skin rashes, and low blood pressure.

Residents had survived by illegally tapping the legal connections in adjacent authorised settlements, until distribution companies cut the tapped wires in 2007. Neighbours in regularised settlements then agreed to upgrade their residential connections to commercial ones under the condition that the local mafia would broker tapped connections with Ambedkar Nagar and absorb additional expenses.

This has, so far, pacified distribution companies as commercial connections are designed for higher loads, Jaiswal explains. He is now working with a lawyer to draft a Public Interest Litigation petitioning for his settlement to access basic amenities.

While Ambedkar Nagar residents receive electricity more regularly than Sheikh, around 25 households share one unauthorised source. “The fans are very slow, lights are dim. Appliances can’t be used simultaneously,” says Jaiswal. “I’ve lost two laptops over motherboard short circuits due to voltage fluctuations and can’t afford to repair them.”

The unauthorised wires and meters, made with low-quality materials, often spark fires. They run overground and pose a hazard, especially during the monsoons.

Jaiswal’s settlement pays exorbitant rates – between Rs 14-18 per unit when the maximum rate for a legal connection from Adani Electricity is Rs 8.55 per unit. “People here will skip meals to save up for the electricity bill,” says Jaiswal, recalling how his own meter was removed when he lost his job during the pandemic and couldn’t pay the bill.

Push for better housing

Back in Patra chawl, residents are uniting to tackle housing issues. Sheikh is a founding member of Jan Haq Sangharsh Samiti, a rights-based collective. The Samiti has helped locals procure and verify land documents, register for ration cards, schemes, education scholarships, flagging irregularities in slum surveys, establish a labour union, and so on. The collective acts as a housing rights movement of the working class.

“JHSS work has been demand-driven so far. In a meeting, people said electricity access was a major issue,” says Sanjana Krishnan, a data analyst and researcher at University of Kentucky, who first volunteered for the organisation in 2022.

In 2022, the Indian Railways issued eviction notices to thousands of people in informal settlements on land earmarked for Mumbai’s western railways, including Patra chawl. Sheikh and her neighbours upon approaching the Bandra District Collector’s Office for help, uncovered a dispute in land ownership.

However, according to the Electricity Act, 2003, and Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission Supply Code, distribution companies don’t need to establish land ownership before providing connection, says Krishnan – anyone who submits an application with the necessary documents is entitled to supply. Adani Electricity, however, has been insisting on a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from landowners.

With the help of JHSS, Sheikh and Krishnan have now taken their case to the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum, where it is currently being heard.

Electricity for climate adaption

Sheikh’s work remains pro bono, while her husband employed at a composting facility, earns a monthly income of Rs 9,000. Every month, the couple spends around Rs 3,000 on heat-related medical expenses alone: doctor’s fees, tests, and medication.

Sheikh’s 64-year-old husband was recently hospitalised due to heat-induced heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and heat stroke. Sheikh and Jaiswal say every summer is hotter than the one before. Heatwave frequency across India has increased; even minimum temperatures at night are unusually high especially in urban areas.

In the 2026 heatwave, temperatures in some parts of the country touched 50°C with high humidity levels that make it harder for human bodies to cool through perspiration. In India, electricity is now a necessity to deal with the impacts of climate change.

The Samiti has met with around 8,500 households across Mankhurd, Borivali, Kandivali, PL Lokhande Marg, Ghatkopar, Govandi, and Versova, many of whom face similar issues.

The organisation is now focusing on holding community meetings, awareness campaigns, and collecting data on electricity access in Mumbai. “We’re in the early stages, and work like this takes years of consistent effort to establish electricity as a right – not just in law but also in practice,” says Krishnan.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign alleged on Saturday that the father of one of their volunteers in West Bengal’s Bankura district died after being critically injured by Bharatiya Janata Party workers.

The incident took place in Karisunda village of the district’s Indus block. The local police confirmed to Scroll that a person had died. However, they claimed that they were yet to receive a complaint regarding this.

On the other hand, the Cockroach Janta Party alleged that when the volunteer, Shaik Abdul Hafeez, approached the police, they refused to file a complaint.

Abdul’s father sustained serious head injuries yesterday after he was attacked by RW goons. His condition turned critical today, and I have just received the heartbreaking news that he has passed away.

Is this how @BJP4Bengal and @WBPolice are functioning? When a family is under… https://t.co/4zog7rqqyv

— Ratna Singh (@whattalawyer) August 15, 2026

In a video posted on social media on Thursday, Hafeez said he had visited a primary school in Karisunda to conduct a survey as part of the Cockroach Janta Party’s nationwide campaign to improve government schools in villages.

He alleged that BJP workers arrived at his home later that day and assaulted him and his family.

They also demanded that he record a video apologising for highlighting the school’s condition and claiming that he had done so under “external influence”, the campaign said in a statement. When he refused, the men allegedly attacked him and his family, leaving Hafeez with a neck injury and his father, Janab Mafik, with a head injury.

Our supporter from Indas PS, Bankura district, West Bengal, Abdul Hafiz was beaten up by BJP goons for visiting nearby school as a part of #SchoolThikKaro campaign. His father was also brutally beaten up.@WBPolice - Are you still Police of West Bengal or already migrated to… pic.twitter.com/21MnooygL1

— Ashutosh Ranka (@AshutoshRanka) August 13, 2026

Hafeez was harassed and intimidated further after he posted the video, alleged Ratna Singh, the legal affairs head of Cockroach Janta Party, on Friday.

“These individuals have now allegedly gheraoed his house, preventing Abdul and his family from leaving,” she alleged.

Singh added: “Local police officials have refused to take action. The police’s responsibility is to maintain law and order and protect citizens, not to shield or enable those accused of intimidation.”

Singh told Scroll that Hafeez’s father died of his injuries on Saturday night.

“Police, who are responsible for maintaining law and order, did not do their duty,” she said. “They are equally liable in this death. The CJP is providing all possible support to Abdul at the moment.”

Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke said that a team of the political campaign will visit West Bengal and “ensure that Abdul and his family get justice”.

“We demand the immediate arrest of those responsible for his father’s death,” he added.

Abdul went to inspect the govt school in Bengal where he once studied. He lost his father after they were attacked by goons (allegedly from BJP) for speaking up about the poor condition of govt schools.

It makes my blood boil that people are being murdered simply for demanding… pic.twitter.com/S9PtFPGIMk

— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) August 16, 2026

With inputs from Anant Gupta. Edited by Sneha.

Bar Council of India Chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra on Saturday apologised to law students, days after the body withdrew its directive to state bar councils to defer the enrolment of graduates of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research as advocates, Live Law reported.

The council had objected to a campaign by some students against the institute’s decision to invite Chief Justice Surya Kant to their convocation. It had triggered a backlash.

On Thursday, the council withdrew the directive, but said it had sought an inquiry report from the university identifying those who were “principally instrumental” in opposing Kant’s participation in the convocation. Later that night, it closed the proceedings against the students, saying it was satisfied that the 2026 batch had no role in any “disturbance or movement”.

Chief Justice Surya Kant on Friday criticised the Bar Council of India for the move, describing it as “absolutely uncalled for”.

Kant had said: “It’s a dialogue between students and me. Who are they to raise an issue?”

On Saturday, Mishra wrote in a three-page letter that “if anything connected with the present controversy, any of my words, or letter, has hurt the feelings of our law students, I sincerely regret and apologise for the same”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party MP said students at the national law universities were “fully capable of applying their own independent minds” and “do not require anyone to decide for them”, Live Law reported.

He said some of these students would one day occupy the highest positions in the legal and judicial system, and therefore “their decisions carry significance beyond a single event or controversy”.

“Peaceful disagreement, questioning and protest are important features of a constitutional democracy,” he wrote.

On the convocation, Mishra appealed to the students to make their decision independently, “after considering the matter in its entirety and according to their own judgment”.

He said he hoped the matter would be considered with “fairness and a spirit of reconciliation”. “The issue should not be allowed to acquire a political or extraneous colour through outside influence,” he said.

NALSAR row

NALSAR has extended an invitation to the CJI for the upcoming convocation despite students urging the university to reconsider the decision, citing Kant’s response to a petition alleging that police had used excessive force against protesters in Delhi on July 20.

Kant had reportedly told the lawyer not to “waste our time” and said the bench was not interested in watching video evidence of the alleged police action.

In a communication addressed to state bar councils and NALSAR Vice-Chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao, the bar council chairman had asked the university to submit a factual report within three days about the persons involved in mobilising the “organised campaign” against the CJI’s participation.

Political campaign Cockroach Janta Party had described the directive as “grossly disproportionate” and warned of protests by law students and advocates if it was not taken back.

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, had warned of a protest outside the Bar Council’s office and Mishra’s official residence by law students, advocates, senior lawyers, and “well-meaning young cockroaches”, if the order was not withdrawn.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

West Bengal’s former deputy speaker and Trinamool Congress leader Asish Banerjee was found dead inside the party office near his home in Birbhum district on Sunday morning.

Nilanjan Das, a TMC spokesperson, posted on social media a note written in Bengali that was purportedly recovered near Asish Banerjee’s body. It said that false allegations of corruption had been made against him.

“Primarily it is a suicide case,” Birbhum Superintendent of Police Vidit Raj Bhundesh told The Indian Express. He added that the note also stated: “No one is responsible for my death.”

The body has been sent for post-mortem.

Sad. Shocking.
Dr Ashish Banerjee, 5 time AITC MLA, Ex Minister & Deputy Speaker has committed suicide.
“I had nothing to do with corruption and yet all these completely false allegations to malign me…” pic.twitter.com/gwBGpFMHOQ

— Nilanjan Das (@NilanjanDasAITC) August 16, 2026

Asish Banerjee served as the deputy speaker of the West Bengal Assembly during Mamata Banerjee’s tenure as the chief minister. A five-term MLA from Rampurhat, he was defeated by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Dhruba Saha in the 2026 Assembly elections.

A relative of Asish Banerjee told The Indian Express that the note recovered near his body stated that he “never took a single penny in exchange for any work in my entire life”.

“Although I could not accept all of the party’s wrongdoings throughout my life, I could not protest either,” the relative quoted the letter as saying.

He also wrote that he was not involved in approving building plans or issuing no-objection certificates for the Tarapith Rampurhat Development Authority, The New Indian Express reported.

TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee said that the former MLA’s death “should trouble the conscience of everyone who believes that politics and journalism must have boundaries”.

In a social media post, he said that Asish Banerjee’s suicide note raises serious questions “about the sustained smear campaign he said he had endured”.

The BJP and sections of the media “must reflect on the consequences of a politics where allegations are amplified” and individuals are “condemned in the court of public opinion before the truth is established”, he added

The tragic death of former MLA and former Dy Speaker of WBLA Ashish Banerjee is not merely heartbreaking, it should trouble the conscience of everyone who believes that politics and journalism must have boundaries.

A lifelong teacher and public servant, Ashish Banerjee devoted… pic.twitter.com/6bkd6GQlGM

— Abhishek Banerjee (@abhishekaitc) August 16, 2026

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sneha.

Everything arrived late in my hometown – the news, wrapped up in the day-old newspaper from Calcutta. The movies came even later at rickety, smoke-filled theatres.

Not that it mattered. For most of my childhood, I don’t remember going to the cinemas.

It was one of the many things one accepted as a child in the 1980s – like the pine trees growing near our home, the mists that would curl around the hills, and the pockets of time that would open up when curfew was imposed on this sleepy outpost in the Northeast.

Years ago, when the town did not have to shut down by evening, when you could be safe on its streets after dark, our parents told us how they had traipsed down with friends to watch evening shows of Bengali films in the old Kelvin cinema in Police Bazaar.

Out at night watching movies? That was not the hometown I was growing up in. A year before I was born, riots had broken out, turning the town into ghettos of us and them.

And so, everyone had to be home – or at least in the safety of their neighbourhoods – within an hour of the blue-grey dusk drawing a curtain over the town.

But the movies did come to us. First, slowly – Chitrahaar every Wednesday and a film every Sunday on state-run television. And then, all at once, through video cassette libraries and the VCR.

It turns out that here too, we were late to the “video revolution” that had become commonplace to the rest of the country 4-5 years ago.

The belatedness did not cast a shadow on our excitement. Even the names of the video cassette libraries that had sprouted in our part of town suggested we were in the orbit of something new. Not staid like Shah’s Stores or RB Brothers’ or Mampi Stationers’, they called themselves Eureka, Needo, Aristo and Electrovision.

But to experience this new world, you needed a VCR or a VCP. And few homes in our neighbourhood could afford those sleek machines at the time.

There was a way out. Bhara, the Bangla word meaning rent, which we would chant plaintively to the elders at home.

Those same video cassette libraries would rent out VCRs – but you had to finish watching three films in two days and return the machine.

On the day the VCR was set to arrive, the house hummed – all cooking, chores, homework rushed through. Neighbours and their children trooped in, the television room was darkened, and in plopped the cassette.

We emerged hours later, sometimes after back-to-back movies, as if out of a night’s dreaming, groggy and reluctant to yield to the light.

Even on the small screen, the films showed us a world of heroism and love and injustice, where so much was possible. I remember my heart soaring as I watched Mazhar Khan in Shaan, playing a valiant beggar with no legs, wheeling around on a wooden plank as if he was the king of Bombay. Or the delight at Hema Malini jumping on top of a fan in a police station as Seeta (or was it Geeta). We learnt the music of the names of neighbourhoods in Bombay – Oshiwara, Sakinaka, Borivali, Chinchpokhli – as if they were just around the corner.

“Tora jeno cinema geelre aarki”, an annoyed elder would remark. It’s like you are drinking up all these films.

We did drink them up without discrimination – the campiness, the melodrama and the downright absurd.

For days, I wondered how a woman rescued from a storm, freezing wet, given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by the hero had ended up pregnant (Ganga Jamuna Saraswati).

We watched enough films to be able to predict dialogues, to the discomfort of parents. “Ekhoni bolbe dekho, ‘Main tumhare bachhe ki maa banne wali hoo’,” piped up a playmate of ours, at one such movie marathon. “Just wait, she is going to say, ‘I am pregnant with your child.’”

We mopped up, like sponges, the wild films of that decade, their excess. The zaniness of Govinda’s dances, Sridevi’s sexy buffoonery, the ridiculous villainy of Shakti Kapoor and the headiness of a Kimi Katkar, dressed in smoking-red, dancing in a crowd of men. It loosened something in us – like the juddering of the dhaks during the annual immersion of Durga idols which pulled us dancing on to the streets.

In a few years, when the house got a VCR on its own – a sleek, black Funai – who could stop us? Every weekend was movie time. Looking back, the grown-ups of the house seemed extraordinarily indulgent.

Often they would pick up films for us on their way back from the evening market – the black cassette jostling in a bag of tightly-coiled greens, dried fish and bountiful vegetables.

Their parental antennae did perk up, but for the oddest reasons. I remember the awkward silence and stern faces on my mother and aunt, when my cousin and I asked them to get us a copy of Love, a Revathi-Salman film released in 1991. “You should be careful of the films you watch,” they said. The irony. We had devoured all that Hindi cinema had to teach us about pyaar, bewafai, balatkar to stumble at innocent love.

Another time, an aunt of mine flinched at us watching Aa gale lag jaa, because of the risks involved in looking the shopkeeper in the eye and asking for such a title. “No, no, no. I cannot go and tell Dileep from Electrovision, Aa gale lag jaa. It will be a scandal.”

She might have shrunk from mixing up life and the movies, but our neighbour from a few houses up the hill had no such misgivings. She is known to have sighed to her friends, when the discussion came around to film songs. “Tarar ki moja. They have all the fun, these actors. They lie on flower beds, dance around trees, sing to each other. Why can’t we be like that?”

Then, without missing a beat: “But it’s not that he doesn’t love me. He keeps the biggest slice of fish for me.”

The women sniggered at her in gossip sessions that endlessly replayed her words, but surely wondered at the fish slices they were getting after their husbands had their fill?

The effect of Hindi film songs on us was undeniable. Songs were how we consumed movies. They were messages in a bottle from another universe, love letters that stood in for the lover – better than the films, and endlessly replayable.

I was a shy, awkward, plump girl, growing up with a sense of inadequacies, with heroes who were too far away, with clothes that were too frumpy, daydreaming about moulting out of my body and small-town life – and I loved sad songs from Hindi films.

I remember spending hours with the National Panasonic two-in-one at home, twiddling between the rewind and forward buttons, coaxing them to arrive, over and over again, at the track of my choice.

On many days, it would be Mohammad Rafi giving voice to yearning, from a four-cassette collection that I had saved up money to buy. Or the startling adult-ness of Gulzar’s lyrics, which promised that life would be enigmatic in both love and pain.

Sometimes, the destination would be naughty – Ila Arun and Alka Yagnik singing Choli ke peechhe kya hai. Here I was trying to figure out how to walk-slouch to the bazaar in a way that could hide that I now had breasts, on instructions from my mother. Back home, I grooved deliriously to the two women – by turn raunchy and virginal – singing about what’s hidden in blouses.

A few years later, when I realised that the popular image of my hometown was that of a rock-pop music hub, where every second person was a Bob Dylan acolyte, I felt shock, and then the twinge of shame.

I did not know the difference between Bob Marley and Bob Dylan – at least till satellite TV arrived. The homes in my neighbourhood had harmoniums, not guitars. Even the children who went to the posher convent schools did not seem initiated into that world.

I felt a bit like an impostor, and definitely uncool – something I was not unused to, since as Bengalis in this town, we were often reminded that we were outsiders.

One day, while walking back from math tuition, a friend – much better versed in Western music – casually confided in me that Hindi film music was no longer uncool. AR Rahman had made things better.

The hours I was spending watching Channel V and MTV had given me some inkling. Reggae could meet Punjabi folk could meet ghazal. Bally Sagoo had flicked that switch.

But to me, the melancholy of old Hindi film music seemed at home in this town. A certain longing streaked our days. We always seemed to be waiting for something to arrive.

In the monsoons, the light outside the window itself was a shade of dark. When drizzle turned into downpour, as the rains pummelled the tin roof, I retreated into its shell of sound, the Umrao Jaan soundtrack, and my daydreams.

Five Army personnel went missing after heavy rainfall triggered flash floods in Arunachal Pradesh’s Dibang Valley district, PTI quoted officials as saying on Saturday. Additionally, four persons died after a landslide on a road construction site in Upper Subansiri district.

Both incidents took place on Friday night, the news agency quoted the State Emergency Operations Centre as saying.

In Dibang Valley district, seven Army personnel had gone missing after two shelters of the 5th Grenadier at the Pasu Pani Camp were washed away by a flash flood.

Two of them were later rescued

The missing personnel are Upendar, Kundan, Vinod, Aditya and Samunda, reported PTI.

Teams from the Army, Indo-Tibetan Police Force, the Arunachal Police, State Disaster Response Force and the General Reserve Engineer Force have been deployed to rescue them.

The landslide in Upper Subansiri district occurred at the Keojaring-Byaching road cutting site.

Those who died in the incident are Tadu Baki, Taji Rai, Markosh Basumatari and Babul Ali.

Personnel from Nacho Police Station, the fire services and the State Disaster Response Force have been deployed for the search and rescue operation.

Edited by Sneha.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi describing his opponents as “dimagi Naxals”, or persons with “Naxal mentality”, was a “sure sign of his desperation”, said the Congress on Saturday.

“It is a separate matter that he ends up doing whatever these so-called ‘urban Naxals’ or now ‘dimaagi Naxals’ are demanding or advocating,” said party leader Jairam Ramesh.

The term “urban Naxals” was first used by Union ministers and leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party after several activists and academics were arrested in the Elgar Parishad case in 2018. Since then, the term has often been used to describe some dissidents of the Narendra Modi government.

Earlier in the day, addressing the nation from the Red Fort on the 80th Independence Day, Modi had said that “dimagi Naxals” are a threat to Indian society and called for them to be “found and isolated”.

He also claimed that persons with Maoist ideology had for years “established themselves in the corridors of power and influenced policy making, including as advisers on government committees”.

First He called his opponents ‘urban naxals.’

Now He calls them ‘dimaagi naxals.’

It is a sure sign of His desperation. It is a separate matter that He ends up doing whatever these so-called ‘urban naxals’ or now ‘dimaagi naxals’ are demanding or advocating.

It is not for…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) August 15, 2026

Congress leader Sachin Pilot said that the prime minister’s remarks showed that he was “rattled”, reported The Indian Express.

He said that anybody who opposed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government or its politics was earlier dubbed “anti-national”. “The people of India are now asking right and tough questions on governance and deliverables,” said Pilot. “The prime minister is rattled.”

Communist Party of India General Secretary D Raja said that Modi’s comments were “nothing but an attempt to stigmatise dissent and intimidate those who question the government”.

“Modi ji, India’s youth and students are on the streets demanding educational and employment reforms,” Raja wrote on social media. “Did you answer their questions? Why have nearly a lakh government schools been closed? Why has public education been allowed to deteriorate so badly? Why are millions of young people struggling for secure employment?”

He added that on the occasion of Independence Day, the prime minister should answer the citizens’ questions, “not manufacture new labels to silence them”.

Prime Minister Modi finds time and opportunity to target dissenters even on a solemn national occasion like Independence Day, conveniently forgetting what the people of India are asking of him and his government.

To the baseless categories repeatedly conjured up by the Right…

— D. Raja (@ComradeDRaja) August 15, 2026

Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale said it was “shameful” that Modi “used the occasion of Independence Day to take cheap shots calling his opponents ‘dimagi Naxals’”.

“Instead of apologising to the youth for using violence and pellet guns on them, Modi is peddling his usual nonsense,” he added.

Shame that Modi used the occasion of Independence Day to take cheap shots calling his opponents “Dimaagi (Mental) Naxals”.

Instead of apologizing to the youth for using violence & pellet guns on them, Modi is peddling his usual nonsense.

Dump the ego, Mr PM. It’s not helping.

— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) August 15, 2026

Gokhale was referring to the police allegedly using excessive force on youth protesters in Delhi during a demonstration against alleged mismanagement of several competitive examinations. The agitation, which culminated in the resignation of BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union education minister, was led by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign.

A crackdown by security personnel on July 20 had left dozens injured, with protesters reporting injuries from lathis and pellet guns.

The Opposition parties had been demanding that Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the prime minister make statements about the police action during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, which concluded on Thursday.

Edited by Sneha.

In recent weeks, the authorities in several Indian cities have taken action against protesters who have reportedly displayed support for jailed activist Umar Khalid.

On August 7, the police in Mumbai arrested Abhirup Paul, a former student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, for allegedly chanting slogans in support of Khalid at a campus event.

Two days later, in Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University officials withdrew permission for a discussion on Khalid’s book, Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power.

Last month, while youth protesters were demanding the resignation of the education minister, a first information report was filed against a demonstrator in Bengaluru for carrying a poster that said “Umar Khalid zindabad”. Long live Umar Khalid.

Around the same time, Instagram complied with a demand made by the Modi government and restricted access to a profile named “Free Umar Khalid” in India.

Shortly after, two protesters in Goa were detained for expressing their support for Khalid at an event to celebrate the education minister’s resignation.

Legally, there is no basis for these actions, asserted Arvind Narrain, a Bengaluru-based lawyer, academic and president of the Karnataka unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. “At worst, he [Khalid] is an accused,” he explained. “Article 19 of the Constitution includes the right to advocate for the release of those accused under any law, including the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.”

Article 19 guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expression. Khalid is accused under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

It is the Hindutva framing of Khalid as an “anti-national” that has rendered those supporting him vulnerable to such state action, Narrain added.

This framing dates back to February 2016, when Khalid and two other Jawaharlal Nehru University students were embroiled in a controversial sedition case. Since then, he has come under fire, quite literally, for his persistent opposition to Hindutva politics.

Khalid’s admirers say that despite these attacks, his popularity has only grown, making him a sore point for Hindu nationalists. The support for him, they argue, is driven by his refusal to be boxed into any single identity, be it Muslim or communist.

But the “anti-national” label is no longer effective in stigmatising the activist, given that he has spent nearly six years in prison without trial, Narrain said.

“Umar Khalid’s name was taken every day at the protest in Bengaluru,” Narrain pointed out. “It’s not like the FIR killed the discourse. People were still talking about him.”

In April, when the People’s Union for Civil Liberties organised a discussion in Bengaluru on a book about Khalid, the venue was “jam-packed”, Narrain said. It is precisely this burgeoning support for Khalid that had triggered the clampdown, contended the activist’s partner, Banojyotsna Lahiri, a researcher based in Delhi.

Soon after Khalid was arrested for his purported role in organising the 2020 Delhi riots, some of his friends had begun campaigning for his release on social media and offline. Though the campaign had few supporters in the beginning, the police did not try to stop them, Lahiri recalled.

“Why now, after all these years?” she asked. “It is because the support and acceptance for Umar is becoming mainstream. People are becoming fearless and speaking out. That is why the state is flexing its muscles.”

The recent youth protests showed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party views anybody opposed to the policies of the Modi government as “anti-national”, Lahiri said. She urged those who sympathise with Khalid to become more vocal instead of getting intimidated.

But this is easier said than done. At the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest in Delhi, for example, the prolonged incarceration of activists such as Khalid was a taboo topic. Throughout the 36-day sit-in, the movement’s spokespersons ducked questions about Khalid, arguing that this threatened unity on the demand for the education minister’s resignation.

It is not as if the tactic went unnoticed or unopposed. Nabiya Khan, one of Khalid’s friends, sharply criticised the Cockroach Janta Party for its position.

“With this logic, Umar is a distraction,” she wrote in The Quint. “And a movement against the corporatisation and degradation of higher education must not mention a political prisoner who emerged from a university campus and student movements.”

An activist from the All India Students’ Association, a left-wing student outfit that was closely involved in organising the protests, had discussed the issue with this reporter in Jantar Mantar.

“If Sonam Wangchuk can bring up Ladakh, why can’t we talk about Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam?” this person asked. The dispute was eventually settled with both sides agreeing to stick to education alone.

Clifton D’Rozario, a central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, said that Khalid is an “ideological threat” to Hindutva. He explained: “He does not respond only as a Muslim, but also raises the questions of caste and class. He is scary to them because he is an intellectual.”

D’Rozario summed it up elegantly. “Every authoritarian era produces its own defining political prisoner who faces persecution, but also embodies hope,” he said. “Umar Khalid epitomises that idea for this era.”

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

FCRA bill under review. The Lok Sabha on Wednesday referred the 2026 Foreign Contribution Regulation Amendment Bill to a joint parliamentary committee for detailed examination. Registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act is mandatory for a non-profit organisation to receive foreign funds.

Among the key provisions under the amendment bill is one that allows the Union government to take control of an organisation’s foreign funds and assets if its FCRA registration lapses or is cancelled. The bill was introduced in Parliament in March during the Budget Session.

The proposed legislation was sent for wider consultation in the wake of protests by Opposition parties, who said that the bill grants “sweeping and disproportionate powers” to the executive without adequate constitutional safeguards.⁠

Phase two of Census 2027. The Census 2027 will ask respondents if they belong to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and will also include an open-ended question for other communities about the caste that they belong to. This will be the first time in independent India that caste will be enumerated across communities. Until now, Census exercises only recorded the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Among the 40 questions notified on Friday are also those seeking information on the place where respondents received their Covid-19 vaccination, the total number of bank accounts they hold and digital literacy. The form also seeks information on Aadhaar numbers, mobile numbers, passport numbers and voter IDs.

Row over invite to CJI. After students of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research opposed Chief Justice Surya Kant’s participation as a chief guest at their convocation, the Bar Council of India on Thursday issued an order directing state bar councils to defer the enrolment of any student from the university graduating in 2026. Hours later, it withdrew the order following a backlash.

Last month, a group of students had urged the university authorities to reconsider Kant’s invitation after his response to a petition alleging police excesses against protesters in Delhi on July 20. On Friday, Kant criticised the council’s decision as “uncalled for”. “It’s a dialogue between students and me. Who are they to raise an issue?” he said.

Also on Scroll last week

• Why disability support still evades those with blood disorders
• NHPC knew of risks at Sikkim tunnel before deadly July blast, documents show
• ‘She had stepped out to buy food’: Another Bengali woman forcibly pushed to Bangladesh from Mumbai
• True Story: Food companies are lying to you. The regulator failed to stop them
• What happened to Modi’s $5 trillion economy promise?
• Does ‘Vande Mataram’ need the threat of criminal law to be honoured?
• Kanwar Yatra’s deafening noise goes unheard by the state
• Should India apologise for caste injustice, like Nepal did?
• In Pakistan, Prisoner No 804 seems to be everywhere
• How Moscow tried to make Soviet cinema popular in Cold War India

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

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As August 1947 drew near, MK Vellodi was faced with a peculiar problem. The seasoned civil servant from Madras had taken over as the acting High Commissioner of British India to the UK only a few months before, in April. He had been tasked with overseeing the Independence Day celebrations at the historic India House, British India’s diplomatic mission in London, on August 15.

But, as he explained in a telegram to the Ministry of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations in New Delhi on July 22, he had still not received proper instructions from the government of India about the event. He needed them sent well in time so that he could make the necessary arrangements.

Vellodi also complained that the mission had no national flag to hoist, so he would need details of the colours and dimensions of the tricolour.

The lack of such details isn’t surprising. Lord Mountbatten, the British viceroy, had announced only on June 3 that the colonial power would leave India on August 15, instead of the earlier scheduled date of June 30, 1948. He also declared that British India would be divided into India and Pakistan.

In July, he appointed a Partition Council to decide upon the division of financial assets, communication services, armed and civilian personnel, and institutions between the two dominions. In his personal reports to London during this time, Mountbatten expressed satisfaction in the progress that the Council was making in New Delhi and Karachi.

But there were many loose ends. For instance, Vellodi was concerned about the future of India House – which, until August 15, was to serve as the foreign mission for all of British India, both India and Pakistan. He wanted to confirm whether the building would remain the High Commission of India on August 15 and the Pakistani authorities would be accommodated elsewhere.

“Clear orders and press publicity should be given to this decision so that no embarrassment and disorder is caused here on August 15th by Pakistan supporters insisting on hoisting the Pakistani flag on India House,” he wrote. “Pakistan demonstration at India House would be most unfortunate and should obviously be avoided.”

Vellodi concluded on a pacificatory note, suggesting that both the Indian and the Pakistani flags should be hoisted together on August 15.

New Delhi’s response to these concerns was rather unhelpful. Vellodi was told that the matter of the future of the India House had still not been decided by the Partition Council, the administrative body headed by Britain’s viceroy Louis Mountbatten to coordinate the division of the subcontinent.

As it turns out, both India and Pakistan had staked their claim to consular buildings. The Partition Secretariat gave an indication that the matter could only be settled through arbitration.

The matter of the flag was soon settled. On July 22, the day Vellodi sent his telegram, the Constituent Assembly, which had been assembled to draft India’s Constitution, approved the tricolour with a charkha as the national flag of India. But Vellodi was still worried. He told New Delhi on July 30 that invitations could not be sent to guests without resolving the debate about the ownership of India House.

Besides, the Constituent Assembly had not fixed on a national anthem. So Vellodi asked if a patriotic song such as Jhanda Uncha Rahe Humara could be played while hoisting the flag.

New Delhi responded only on August 6, saying that in India, the flag would be hoisted without accompanying music. But it gave Vellodi the liberty of choosing any popular song to perform alongside the ceremony, provided it was not confused as the national song.

The same day, Girija Shankar Bajpai, the secretary general of the Ministry of External Affairs, also responded to Vellodi, confirming that since the Indian High Commissioner was already occupying the India House, the building would be retained as the mission of the Indian dominion after August 15. Hence, only the Indian flag along with the Union Jack could be flown from there.

Notwithstanding these assurances from New Delhi, Vellodi was not satisfied. Local representatives of the Muslim League had already approached him to demand the right to hoist the Pakistani flag at the India House on August 14, just as it was scheduled to be in Pakistan. Already irritated with the persistent lobbyists for the Indian princely states in London demanding independence for their own territories, the High Commissioner was losing his patience. To his relief, the Muslim League representatives did not mind the Indian flag being hoisted alongside the Pakistani one on August 15.

But Bajpai did not budge. He replied unambiguously on August 8, “Although legal transfer of power to India and Pakistan will take place at midnight of 14th August, factual partition between India and Pakistan has already taken place. Inability of the Partition Council to determine division of assets, including property like India House, does not affect occupation of India House which is and will continue to be representative of India.”

Flying the Pakistani flag alongside the Indian flag and the Union Jack, Bajpai maintained, would “detract from the impressiveness of the ceremony”. As a compromise, he suggested that the Pakistani flag could fly with the Indian flag on India House on August 16 or any other day deemed suitable by the Pakistani authorities. The Indian mission could loan them the building’s reception rooms for that purpose.

But the Pakistani authorities were already gearing up for their celebrations at India House on August 15. They had appointed a noted Muslim League politician, HI Rahimtoola, as the first High Commissioner of Pakistan to the UK, and were negotiating to acquire Clarence House as their future High Commission.

That was not to be. On August 15, the Indian flag was hoisted at India House, while the Pakistan flag was raised at the nearby Lancaster House, which was loaned to them by the UK government for a day. The records do not reveal what actually transpired in the week between August 8 and August 15 to untangle the complicated knot.

However, it could be speculated that since Rahimtoola was reported to be an old friend of Vellodi, amicable personal relations might have saved both the countries from an international embarrassment.

The Indian Independence Day celebrations at the India House on the morning of August 15, 1947, were joyous. Dignitaries filled the ceremonial hall, as a huge portrait of Mahatma Gandhi looked over them. They included the High Commissioner of Pakistan, and the Ambassadors for China, Brazil, and Turkey, along with the dean of the diplomatic corps of the UK and representatives of the British government.

Following an address by Vellodi, messages from the British king, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and officials of the British government were read out. Due to the restricted entry, many Indians had to satisfy themselves by standing outside.

Held immediately after, the Pakistani celebrations were not as elaborately organised, possibly because they had a very short time to make the arrangements. But Rahimtoola was in a jubilant mood, as were the guests.

The celebrations by each country underscored the importance of friendship over political tussles. Rahimtoola attended India’s celebrations while Vellodi attended Pakistan’s. The show of unity between freshly-minted diasporic Indians and Pakistanis in the capital of the imperium was possibly due to their distance from the heated communal atmosphere in the subcontinent.

But the weeks leading up to August 15, 1947, in London highlight the strength of dialogue and negotiation, even through times of conflict and confusion.

Watch a video of the ceremony here.

Ananyo Chakraborty is a doctoral scholar of History at the Australian National University, working on an Environmental History of the Partition of India.

The Union Finance Ministry has cut the windfall tax on exports of petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel from Saturday, according to a gazette notification.

India first imposed the windfall tax in July 2022 to capture extraordinary gains made by oil companies as crude prices surged. The tax was scrapped two years later and reintroduced in March after oil prices rose amid the crisis in West Asia.

The special additional excise duty, through which the windfall tax is levied, has been cut on diesel exports to Rs 24 per litre from Rs 25.5.

The duty on aviation turbine fuel exports has been reduced to Rs 19.5 per litre from Rs 22, while the levy on petrol exports has been cut to zero from Rs 3.5 per litre.

The revised rates took effect on Saturday. There was no change in the existing duty rates on petrol and diesel sold for domestic consumption.

The government imposed the export duty on diesel and aviation turbine fuel on March 27 and has revised the rates every fortnight. The levy was extended to petrol exports from May 16.

The windfall tax is intended to ensure domestic availability of petroleum products and discourage exporters from benefiting excessively from differences between domestic and international prices.

The export levies are revised every fortnight based on international prices of crude oil and petroleum products.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

A Eurasian lynx has been recorded in a camera-trap image from the Tso Lhamo plateau in Sikkim. This encounter marks the first confirmed photographic evidence of the species in the state. It is also the second such record from the Eastern Himalayas. The image, captured in January 2026 at an altitude of 5,250 metres in Mangan district, shows the animal moving across a rocky, sparsely vegetated high-altitude slope.

The sighting comes from a long-term snow leopard and rangeland monitoring programme led by the Sikkim forest department and WWF-India. The initiative tracks snow leopards and associated wildlife while studying the ecological condition of the trans-Himalayan rangelands.

The Sikkim record follows a 2025 photographic documentation of a Eurasian lynx in Arunachal Pradesh during a joint survey by WWF-India and the Arunachal Pradesh forest department.

“It highlights the ecological significance of our high-altitude rangelands and reinforces our commitment to protecting these fragile ecosystems. The cooperation of the Lachen Dzumsa (traditional local self-governance body) in facilitating access to these remote areas has been important to this work,” Sikkim’s Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Udai Gurung, said in a press note.

A meeting point of two biological worlds

For researchers, the record adds to the limited scientific understanding of Tso Lhamo, a high-altitude border landscape that remains difficult to study because of its terrain, weather and location.

“Ladakh and Sikkim have similar trans-Himalayan elements. Ongoing monitoring exercises are evidence that forest departments and researchers are now getting such encouraging results. Since Sikkim shares an open international boundary with Tibet and lynx are capable of long-distance movements, transboundary collaboration might reveal the overall picture for this region more clearly,” said Neeraj Mahar, a wildlife researcher who was not part of the WWF’s monitoring programme and has worked on high-altitude landscapes and carnivores.

Rohan Pradeep Pandit, the associate coordinator at WWF-India works on species habitat conservation in Eastern Himalayas. According to him, the record challenges the perception that high-altitude rangelands are empty or ecologically unproductive.

“High-altitude rangelands like Tso Lhamo have long been dismissed as empty, barren cold deserts of little ecological consequence. The presence of a wide-ranging predator like the lynx is direct evidence against that view. These are functioning, productive ecosystems, and Tso Lhamo in particular works as a biogeographic bridge between two very different biological worlds,” Pandit said.

The Tso Lhamo plateau lies in a transition zone where the steep trans-Himalaya meets the flatter Tibetan Plateau. This position allows species adapted to different high-altitude habitats to occur within the same landscape.

“Geographically, the plateau sits at the juncture where the steep, vertical trans-Himalaya meets the flatter, rolling expanse of the Tibetan Plateau. Ecologists call this kind of transition an ‘ecotone’, a boundary zone where two distinct biological communities overlap. That location is what makes Tso Lhamo significant. Species adapted to sheer, rocky cliffs occur alongside species evolved for open steppe. The lynx is one more line of evidence that the plateau is not an isolated pocket but a corridor where the biodiversity of the Central Asian steppe meets that of the Eastern Himalaya,” Pandit said.

Camera traps in the landscape have also recorded snow leopard, Pallas’s cat, Tibetan wolf, Tibetan sand fox, Tibetan gazelle, Tibetan argali and southern kiang.

Rishi Kumar Sharma, head of the Himalayas Program at WWF-India, said the presence of several predators and wild herbivores indicates that the lynx record should not be viewed in isolation.

“It is undeniable evidence that the Tso Lhamo Plateau supports a high-quality and largely intact trans-Himalayan predator-prey system. To have three distinct wild felids — the snow leopard, the Pallas’s cat, and now the Eurasian lynx — recorded in the same landscape points to a food web healthy enough to support multiple apex and meso-predators,” Sharma said.

What remains unknown

Despite the significance of the photograph, it does not establish whether Tso Lhamo hosts a stable lynx population. Researchers do not yet know whether the photographed animal was a resident, part of a breeding population or an occasional visitor moving through from the Tibetan side.

“What we have so far is a single photographic record after several years of intensive camera trapping, which means we cannot yet say whether the lynx is a resident, breeding animal on the plateau or an occasional disperser moving through from the Tibetan side,” Sharma said.

“The first task is to establish the species’ own status here – how widely it is distributed across Tso Lhamo and the adjacent valleys, a first estimate of how many animals the landscape actually holds, and whether there is evidence of residency and breeding, such as repeat captures of identifiable individuals or family groups,” he added.

Pandit said knowledge of the Eurasian lynx in India has largely come from the western trans-Himalayan region, particularly Ladakh. Far less is known about its distribution, population and habitat use in the Eastern Himalayas.

“This photographic record confirms that the lynx is very much an important predator in the Eastern Himalayan ecosystem, but it also highlights how little baseline data we actually have on them here. We cannot protect a species effectively if we are operating in the dark regarding its population size, movement patterns, and specific habitat preferences,” Pandit said.

Mahar said camera trapping should be combined with genetic research to study the species and the pressures affecting it.

“More insights could be obtained through intensive camera trapping across Sikkim trans-Himalaya combined with non-invasive genetic identification techniques to decipher aspects of Eurasian lynx ecology and associated threats. It would be interesting to study how lynx is thriving amidst pastoralists and defence installations,” Mahar said.

Conservation pressures in a border landscape

The Tso Lhamo landscape remains ecologically functional, but it faces pressures from tourism, road traffic, waste, free-ranging dogs and infrastructure associated with its border location.

The WWF-India press note identifies wildlife-friendly traffic management, sustainable waste management, sterilisation and vaccination of free-ranging dogs, and livestock health camps as important conservation measures.

Sharma identified free-ranging dogs as one of the most immediate concerns. Packs can prey on wildlife, compete with wild carnivores and transmit diseases.

“These dogs hunt in packs. They compete directly with wild carnivores for prey, actively attack smaller wild species, and act as vectors for diseases like canine distemper, which can wipe out wild feline populations overnight,” Sharma said.

Road traffic associated with tourism and border logistics also increases the risk of wildlife collisions. Open waste dumps can change animal behaviour, attract predators and heighten the possibility of conflict, Sharma added.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

An Independence Day event at Delhi’s Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, where Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Zoya Hasan was invited as the chief guest, was cancelled on Friday after members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad allegedly gathered outside the school to protest, The Print reported.

The Vishva Hindu Parishad is part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Hasan was scheduled to speak on “Pluralism” at the event, which was to begin at 10 am. The event was not publicly announced, but the invitation was shared with parents.

Hasan, professor emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University, confirmed to The Print that the event had been cancelled. The news outlet quoted sources as saying that the cancellation was due to “security concerns” for the professor and the school.

The school is yet to comment on the matter.

On Friday, the Delhi Police also deployed several personnel at the school after receiving a call about the law and order situation there, The Print reported.

“We were informed that, considering the threat to Professor Hasan’s well-being and safety, the school was cancelling the event,” the news outlet quoted an unidentified police officer as saying. “It was not cancelled at the behest of the Delhi Police. We only sent personnel to ensure that there was no law-and-order escalation.”

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Students from the graduating batch of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, on Saturday condemned the Bar Council of India’s now-withdrawn action against the outgoing National Academy of Legal Studies and Research batch and demanded an unconditional apology from the regulatory body, Live Law reported.

The statement expressed solidarity with NALSAR students and faculty over two letters issued by the council on Thursday.

On Thursday, the council had directed state bar councils to defer the enrolment of NALSAR’s graduating batch as advocates, objecting to a campaign by some students against the institute inviting Chief Justice Surya Kant to their convocation.

It withdrew the decision a few hours later, but said it had sought an inquiry report from the university identifying those who were “principally instrumental” in opposing Kant’s participation in the convocation.

Later in the night, the council closed all proceedings against the students, saying it was satisfied that the 2026 batch had no role in any “disturbance or movement”.

Graduating students of National Law School of India University condemn BCI Chairman’s actions against NALSAR 2026 batch.

They demand unconditional apology from the Bar Council of India, and explanation of the protocol for the use of BCI letterhead by Manan Kumar Mishra.… pic.twitter.com/qjNjh9hGJc

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) August 15, 2026

The Bengaluru law school students said the withdrawal did not “alter the nature or the larger impact of such actions”. It highlighted that at no point did the council “acknowledge the arbitrary and illegal nature of its actions”.

They argued that the council’s powers under the 1961 Advocates Act did not extend to directing state bar councils to suspend or prevent the enrolment of otherwise qualified advocates. The statement also questioned Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra’s authority to issue such directions unilaterally, Live Law reported.

They accused the council of infringing on the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression, particularly by directing NALSAR to identify students and faculty members who had participated in the representation. They described the move as “nothing less than a witch-hunt” that could have a “chilling effect” on free speech.

The students from NLSIU said the actions sent “a clear signal” that any act of dissent could be met with severe personal and professional consequences, Live Law reported.

The statement backed the NALSAR students’ request to reconsider Kant as chief guest at their convocation and opposed his attendance at NLSIU’s convocation for the same reasons.

SC plea seeks term limits for Bar Council chief

Meanwhile, a petition filed in the Supreme Court has sought structural reforms to the functioning of the Bar Council, including limits on the tenure and number of terms of its chairman and other office-bearers, Bar and Bench reported.

The petition challenges provisions that allow members of the council to continue in office until their successors are elected.

The plea seeks a fixed tenure for the chairman and vice-chairman, a maximum of three terms in their lifetime and a rotational system to provide representatives from different states and regions an opportunity to hold the top post, Live Law reported.

The plea points to Mishra’s continued tenure as chairman since November 2014 and argues that prolonged continuation of the same individuals in senior positions has weakened the representative character of the statutory body.

NALSAR row

NALSAR has extended an invitation to the CJI for the upcoming convocation despite students urging the university to reconsider the decision, citing Kant’s response to a petition alleging that police had used excessive force against protesters in Delhi on July 20.

Kant had reportedly told the lawyer not to “waste our time” and said the bench was not interested in watching video evidence of the alleged police action.

In a communication addressed to state bar councils and NALSAR Vice-Chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao, the bar council chairman had asked the university to submit a factual report within three days about the persons involved in mobilising the “organised campaign” against the CJI’s participation.

Political campaign Cockroach Janta Party had described the directive as “grossly disproportionate” and warned of protests by law students and advocates if it was not taken back.

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, had warned of a protest outside the Bar Council’s office and Mishra’s official residence by law students, advocates, senior lawyers, and “well-meaning young cockroaches”, if the order was not withdrawn.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: What the Bar Council’s bid to curb NALSAR students says about university autonomy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that “dimagi Naxals”, or persons with “Naxal mentality”, are a threat to Indian society and called for them to be “found and isolated”.

Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on the 80th Independence Day, Modi alleged that persons with Maoist ideology had for years “established themselves in the corridors of power and influenced policy making, including as advisers on government committees”.

“In our jungles, we have been successful in weeding out Naxals with weapons,” he said. “But those with Naxal mentality are still around. They are threatening our society. We have to find and isolate these dimagi Naxals.”

He added: “The dimagi Naxals are waiting for an opportunity…they are trying to revive the paths of violence and anarchy and are making various attempts to drag society in the wrong direction.”

#WATCH | Delhi: From the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, "... It is imperative to eliminate the challenges that have persisted for decades in the 21st century. Naxalism and Maoism have devastated the futures of lakhs of youths; they snatched away… pic.twitter.com/zXGH8Hpjif

— ANI (@ANI) August 15, 2026

Modi said that the left-wing extremist violence had destroyed the future of lakhs of young persons and killed more than 3,500 police and security personnel. He added that his government had resolved to rid the country of Maoist violence when it came to power in 2014 and claimed that the movement was now “breathing its last”.

In 2025, the government’s anti-Maoist offensive saw several key Maoist leaders killed and others surrender. However, civil liberties groups and Opposition parties have questioned some of the killings, alleging that civilians were among those killed and that they amounted to “fake encounters”.

Free coaching, AI training for youth

Modi also used his Independence Day address to announce measures aimed at India’s youth, including free online coaching for competitive examinations and artificial intelligence training for 1 crore young persons over the next year.

The announcement came weeks after nationwide youth protests over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations led to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Dharmendra Pradhan stepping down as Union education minister.

Modi said that the government would create a network for free online coaching by bringing together digital public infrastructure, teachers and educators.

He said that the move was intended to ease the financial burden on poor and middle-class families, who spend thousands of crores of rupees on coaching.

“Every parent feels that if they do not send their child to a coaching centre, they are somehow falling behind or do not belong to a respectable family,” Modi said.

Modi said that India had added nearly 650 new universities in the past 10 to 12 years and that the number of medical seats had increased substantially since 2014.

Protests over alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations began on June 6 with a demonstration at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar demanding Pradhan’s resignation. The agitation intensified on July 20 when thousands joined the protests and police action against demonstrators marching towards Parliament left dozens injured.

The protests subsequently spread to other parts of the country, with Pradhan resigning as education minister on July 25.

Women reservation

Modi also appealed to political parties to support 33% reservation for women in Parliament and state assemblies.

“For one reason or another, in the political arena over the last 40 years, this dream had persistently fallen victim to political games and political battlegrounds,” he said.

He urged political opponents to support the move and “take credit for it”.

The 75-minute address was Modi’s shortest Independence Day speech in four years.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Friday alleged that the Nadia district administration had directed her to leave the circuit house in Krishnanagar late at night, as a hostile crowd gathered outside.

Moitra, the Lok Sabha MP from Krishnanagar, said she reached the circuit house around 6.30 pm and was given the same room she usually stays in.

“Dinner was served to me in room at 9.20 pm,” she said in a social media post. “I received call at 9.47 asking me to vacate. Now at 10.52 I receive this message with this ‘order’! Outside the gates are huge crowd shouting Jai Shri Ram!”

She shared an order dated August 12 issued by the deputy collector of Nadia, stating that the circuit house would be unavailable from the evening of Friday until further orders for “annual maintenance” and cleaning. The order said reservations confirmed before Thursday would be exempt from the directive.

The Nadia district administration has not yet commented on the matter.

Huge crowd outside Krishnagar Circuit House shouting “Jai Shree Ram” while district administration calling/messaging me repeatedly to vacate room. Supreme Court asked me to face bullets so here I am … not backing down pic.twitter.com/1o0GmywXg8

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) August 14, 2026

In a video message, Moitra said she would not vacate the circuit house, claiming that as an elected MP from the district she was entitled to stay there.

“The Supreme Court asked me to face bullets, so here I am…not backing down,” she said.

She was referring to the August 7 order of the Supreme Court in which it refused to entertain Moitra’s petition seeking permission to appear virtually before the police in a case about purportedly provocative remarks she had made in July.

She had raised concern about her safety following the July 1 incident during which vegetables and eggs were hurled at a TMC office in West Bengal’s Krishnanagar while Moitra was inside. She alleged that “goons” from the Bharatiya Janata Party were responsible.

Later, Moitra had said in a social media post that she would file a police complaint against persons responsible for the incident. In a video, she had said that those wanting to throw eggs at her “should wear a burqa” if they wish to stay hidden.

A BJP leader, Hirak Bhattacharya, had filed a complaint against Moitra, alleging that her comment had hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community. Following the complaint a first information report was registered at the Hogalbaria police station in Nadia district in June.

On July 21, the Calcutta High Court granted Moitra interim protection from arrest until October 5. The court, however, directed her to appear before the investigating officer on Friday.

“The Calcutta High Court had told me that the district administration would provide me protection,” Moitra said in a video on social media on Friday. “…And yet it is the same authority that’s ordering me to move out and harass me.”

After Moitra’s posts, Opposition leaders raised concerns about her safety. Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said it was concerning that a woman MP was being asked to leave a government property in the middle of the night, The Hindu reported.

Congress leader Pawan Khera also urged the West Bengal government and the Centre to ensure Moitra’s safety, the newspaper reported.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

For years, August 15 in Bangladesh commemorated one event above all others: the assassination of the country’s founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and most of his family in 1975. It was observed as a day of state mourning.

It rarely evoked the day British rule over the subcontinent ended in 1947 and Bengal was bifurcated. That older date was treated as an event belonging only to India and Pakistan (which attained independence one day earlier).

Bangladesh, after all, was a nation born only in 1971, the “east wing” of Pakistan that achieved its independence after a bloody Liberation War.

But now, two years after the July uprising that brought down Sheikh Hasina’s government and turned her father Sheikh Mujib into a taboo subject, that quiet estrangement from 1947 shows signs of ending.

However, the reasons for this deserve as much scrutiny as the shift itself.

An awkward question

Bangladesh’s reluctance to dwell on Partition was never simply a matter of forgetting. It reflected a deeper discomfort about where 1947 belonged in a national story built overwhelmingly around 1971.

To examine the creation of Pakistan honestly is to ask whether the Two-Nation Theory – the idea that the subcontinent’s Hindus and Muslims constituted separate nations – was sound in the first place.

That question sits awkwardly in a country whose independence was ultimately fought in the name of Bengali nationalism rather than religious nationalism.

Under successive governments led by the Awami League, which had been founded by Mujib, that discomfort hardened into a state-enforced version of a “correct history”: a sanctioned narrative anchored to 1971 that left little institutional room for 1947 or for the people displaced by it.

The July uprising loosened that narrative discipline. But what has rushed into the space it left behind is not primarily a reckoning with the human cost of Partition. Instead, 1947 is increasingly being revived as a way of reasserting Bengali Muslim political identity and creating distance from India.

Since Hasina’s fall, Dhaka has presided over a rapid thaw in the relationship with Islamabad, a trajectory that Tarique Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party government has continued ever since it won power in the February election.

During the period under an interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi resumed after a 14-year gap. Foreign Office talks restarted for the first time since 2010 and Pakistan’s foreign minister made his country’s first high-level visit to Dhaka in more than a decade.

Commentary in sections of the Pakistani press has gone further, framing Hasina’s fall as a belated vindication of those who, in 1971, stood by the old Two-Nation logic.

Whatever one makes of such claims, they help explain why 1947 has become politically usable again in Bangladesh: not as a tragedy to be confronted, but as a precedent – evidence that distance from India carries its own legitimacy.

However, what this revival consistently leaves out is what actually happened to people in 1947 and in the decades that followed.

Punjab violence

Partition in Bengal was never the single, compressed catastrophe that Punjab experienced, with trains carrying corpses crossing the new border within months.

Historian Joya Chatterji described Bengal’s experience as a “long partition”: a process of displacement that began with the Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946, when three days of rioting left, by some estimates, between 4,000 and 10,000 people dead; continued through the violence in Noakhali that year; and then returned in fresh waves in 1950, 1964 and 1971.

Over this drawn-out period, an estimated four million to six million people crossed from East Bengal into India, while roughly 1.5 million moved in the opposite direction.

Because Bengal’s Partition in 1947 was not a single dramatic rupture, it never acquired the same cultural canon as Punjab’s did through writers such as Saadat Hasan Manto, Khushwant Singh and Bhisham Sahni.

This is not to say that Bengal did not produce its own literature of loss: Ritwik Ghatak’s films about displaced Bengalis and Jyotirmoyee Devi’s fiction on the particular suffering of refugee women are among the most powerful examples.

Bangladesh also produced an important body of writing on the upheavals surrounding Partition, including Hasan Azizul Huq’s Agunpakhi, Akhtaruzzaman Elias’s Khwabnama, Abu Zafar Shamsuddin’s Padma Meghna Jamuna and Selina Hossain’s Gayatri Sandhya.

Yet much of this work remained confined to Bengali readers on both sides of the border rather than becoming part of the subcontinent’s shared vocabulary of Partition.

That imbalance remains visible even in popular culture this year.

The Bollywood film Main Vaapas Aaunga has helped bring Partition back into India’s popular conversation in June, while Batwara 1947, released this week, has returned to the subject again.

But both films centre on the Partition of Punjab rather than Bengal. Even as 1947 re-enters the cultural mainstream around the subcontinent and becomes part of popular conversation in Bangladesh too, the Bengali experience of Partition remains largely a peripheral story.

Even in West Bengal, refugees who rebuilt their lives in camps and squatter colonies became, for generations, more valuable to political parties as a loyal constituency than as citizens whose particular losses deserved to be named and mourned on their own terms.

Political raw material

Bangladesh’s renewed interest in 1947 risks repeating that pattern in reverse.

Partition could once again become political raw material – this time for arguments about foreign policy, religious identity and the country’s relationship with India – rather than a history of human beings whose descendants are still living with its consequences.

There is an uncomfortable present-day echo worth considering.

Since August 2024, rights groups in Bangladesh have documented hundreds of incidents of violence against Hindus and other minorities, including dozens of deaths and widespread damage to temples. Much of this has been explained by officials as having political, personal and other reasons rather than being communal violence.

None of this is equivalent to 1947, and collapsing the two moments into one would do a disservice to both. But it is a reminder that no country can claim to be reconsidering Partition in good faith while remaining indifferent to the safety of the very community that Partition displaced in the first place.

If 1947 is finally to enter Bangladesh’s historical imagination, it should enter in the way it has always deserved to: as a history of ordinary people, ordinary homes and ordinary losses – not merely as a convenient argument about which South Asian country to trust.

Jannatul Naym Pieal is a Dhaka-based writer, researcher and journalist. His email address is jn.pieal@gmail.com.

The Census 2027 will ask respondents if they belong to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and will also include an open-ended question for other communities about the caste that they belong to.

This will be the first time in independent India that caste will be enumerated across communities. Until now, Census exercises only recorded the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Among the 40 questions notified on Friday are also those seeking information on the place where respondents received their Covid-19 vaccination, the total number of bank accounts they hold and digital literacy. The form also seeks information on Aadhaar numbers, mobile numbers, passport numbers and voter IDs.

The population enumeration phase of the census will take place from September 1 to September 30 in Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, according to a gazette notification issued earlier this month. The online self-enumeration window for the second phase will be open from August 17 to August 31.

It will be conducted in other parts of the country in February 2027.

Scroll had reported on July 20 that during a trial for the second phase of the census, the government tested an open column to collect caste details from respondents other than those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Instead of a fixed list or boxes to tick, the form had a blank space for respondents to write down their caste.

The pre-test for the second phase of Census 2027 was conducted from July 1 to July 20 in 16 states and Union Territories.

The last decennial census exercise was held in 2011. In 2020, India was set to begin the first phase of the exercise – in which housing data is collected – but it had to be delayed as the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

India had last conducted an exercise to count the population of all caste groups in 1931.

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

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava and Neerad Pandharipande.

The National Human Rights Commission on Friday said that it had issued notice to the Union government following reports that 19 Central Reserve Police Force personnel died allegedly by suicide between January and May 22, PTI reported.

The rights panel said that the reported figures raise concern about the well-being and safety of the paramilitary force personnel.

Taking suo moto cognisance of an August 11 news report, the panel noted that 59 personnel reportedly died by suicide in 2025, the highest number recorded by the force in the last five years.

The commission has issued notices to the Union Home Secretary and the force’s director general, seeking a detailed report within two weeks.

According to the media report, 281 Central Reserve Police Force personnel died by suicide in the last five years, of whom 216 were on duty. The force recorded 57 suicides in 2021, 43 in 2022, 57 in 2023 and 46 in 2024, the rights panel noted.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Chief Justice Surya Kant on Friday criticised the Bar Council of India for directing state bar councils not to enrol students from the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research graduating in 2026 as advocates, calling the now-revoked action “absolutely uncalled for”, Bar and Bench reported.

Kant said: “It’s a dialogue between students and me. Who are they to raise an issue?”

On Thursday, the council had directed state councils to defer the enrolment of the graduating batch of NALSAR students as advocates, objecting to the campaign of some students against the institute inviting Kant to their convocation.

It withdrew the decision a few hours later, but said it had sought an inquiry report from the university identifying those who were “principally instrumental” in opposing Kant’s participation in the convocation.

Later in the night, the council closed all proceedings against the students, saying it was satisfied that the 2026 batch had no role in any “disturbance or movement”.

The matter was mentioned on Friday before a bench comprising Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana after Advocate K Parameshwar challenged the council’s action.

Kant said that he had been actively involved in student activities in his student days, adding that “even if they are wrong, they have a right to protest”.

The court recorded that the circular had been withdrawn and directed that no punitive action be taken against students or faculty of NALSAR or any other national law university.

It also issued notice to the Bar Council, directing it to file a response within two weeks.

Kant also said the students should enrol as advocates and join the Supreme Court Bar, adding that they could be empanelled for legal aid cases. “This will be the befitting answer to all those who caused impediment in their professional career,” he said.

NALSAR has extended an invitation to the CJI for the upcoming convocation despite students urging the university to reconsider the decision, citing Kant’s response to a petition alleging that police had used excessive force against protesters in Delhi on July 20.

Kant had reportedly told the lawyer not to “waste our time” and said the bench was not interested in watching video evidence of the alleged police action.

In a communication addressed to state bar councils and NALSAR Vice-Chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao, Bar Council Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra had asked the university to submit a factual report within three days about the persons involved in mobilising the “organised campaign” against the CJI’s participation.

Political campaign Cockroach Janta Party had described the directive as “grossly disproportionate” and warned of protests by law students and advocates if it was not taken back.

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, had warned of a protest outside the Bar Council’s office and Mishra’s official residence by law students, advocates, senior lawyers, and “well-meaning young cockroaches”, if the order was not withdrawn.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: What the Bar Council’s bid to curb NALSAR students says about university autonomy

Two Naga persons were killed in firing by suspected militants in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district on Friday, Ukhrul Times reported.

A group of men armed with “sophisticated weapons” attacked Langka Naga village at around 8 am, an unidentified police officer told PTI.

The officer said that a man identified as W Chawang died at the scene after suffering gunshot wounds to the head, while three others were injured.

The second person who died has been identified as Kawidinang Abonmai, India Today NE reported.

Residents said that an armed group from the Naga village also opened fire at the suspected attackers following the incident, PTI reported.

The Liangmai Naga Council-Manipur condemned the attack and alleged that militants from the Kuki National Front (P) were behind it.

The council announced an immediate total shutdown of Liangmai Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur until further notice.

It said shops, officers institutions and non-essential activities would remain closed, while medical, fire and other emergency services would be exempted.

It also appealed to residents to remain calm and urged the authorities to ensure public safety and bring those responsible to justice.

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

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

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

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read:

• Naga-Kuki strife began with a drunken brawl. But five months later, Manipur fault lines run deeper
• How ambush of church leaders on a forested road escalated Naga-Kuki conflict across Manipur hills

Two Naga persons were killed in firing by suspected militants in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district. A group of men armed with “sophisticated weapons” attacked Langka Naga village at around 8 am, an unidentified police officer said.

Residents said an armed group from the Naga village opened fire at the suspected attackers after the incident.

The Liangmai Naga Council-Manipur alleged that militants from the Kuki National Front (P) were behind the attack and announced an immediate shutdown across areas inhabited by Liangmai Nagas. Read on.

The Supreme Court quashed criminal proceedings against comedian Samay Raina and four others in connection with purportedly insensitive remarks about persons with disabilities on the comedy show India’s Got Latent. The court praised their efforts to conduct awareness programmes and raise funds for persons with disabilities.

“Once there are genuine efforts, positive results are bound to be there,” the bench said. “They are very bright youngsters. If they have started working in a positive direction, there will be positive output.”

The other respondents are comedians Vipul Goyal, Sonali Thakkar and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar, along with Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, owner of the comedy venue The Habitat. Read on.

The Census 2027 will ask respondents if they belong to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and will also include an open-ended question for other communities about the caste that they belong to. This will be the first time in independent India that caste will be enumerated across communities. Until now, Census exercises only recorded the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

This will be the first time in independent India that caste will be enumerated across communities. Until now, Census exercises only recorded the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

India had last conducted an exercise to count the population of all caste groups in 1931. The last decennial census exercise was held in 2011. Read on.

The Supreme Court quashed a criminal complaint against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for remarks he allegedly made about Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar in November 2022. The bench noted that in the Uttar Pradesh government’s affidavit, there was “no disclosure of sanction [for prosecution] having been granted”.

The complaint was filed by lawyer Nripendra Pandey, who alleged that the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha had said during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in November 2022 that Savarkar was a British servant who received a pension from the colonial authorities.

In April 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the criminal defamation proceedings against the Congress leader. However, it criticised him for saying that Savarkar had collaborated with the British. Read on.

Several locations in Delhi, including the High Court and Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport, received bomb threats on the eve of Independence Day. However, officials said that no suspicious objects were found at the sites.

The Delhi High Court received a threatening email with the subject line “Bomb Blast Delhi High Court @ 2:11PM”. The email warned of a blast at the High Court premises at 2.11 pm on Saturday, followed by explosions at district courts in the national capital at 3.11 pm.

Threats were also received at Jamnagar House, the Jhandewalan Flatted Factory Complex, the district magistrate’s office in Saket and the sub-divisional magistrate’s office in Delhi Cantonment, the fire department said. Read on.

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Such a lovely piece, beautifully explaining the shared legacy and current challenges (“A letter from Lahore for Abhijeet Dipke: We watch with wonder and longing”). The Cockroach Janata Party here in India and Gen Z across South Asia have given me hope that we can come together, despite our bitter history, for a brighter future. I wish our boundaries would not stop us from learning and sharing with love, and in legal ways. – Manish

***

I was overwhelmed by the letter written by Ehtesham Hassan. My heart fills with joy and hope when I see these young people dream of a larger space for themselves, defeating the border lines that pierced our hearts and had sown the seeds of hatred. I wish these lines too were imaginary. My good wishes to the young people. – Anshumitra Kayal

***

I was active during my student days, particularly during the Emergency when our government deprived us of our human rights. India’s Gen Z has rallied and made sure they were heard by the ruling party of the country about certain shortcomings. Several opportunists and anti-social elements have infiltrated and tried to exploit the movement. I agree with your write-up. You said what many were longing to say. May your tribe increase for the betterment of the future generations of your country. – Ramesh Shetty

***

This is a heart-warming letter written from across the border. Imagine if there were no borders and only a unified greater India with united souls, no communal unrest and a utopian world. – Kalpana Dube

CJP coverage

In fact, one needs to be a nationalist only in times of a just war (“Ramachandra Guha: Sangh calls them ‘deshdrohis’ but ‘cockroach’ protestors are true nationalists”). At all other times, being a critic of the government is patriotism. – Subbarao Prabhala

***

Well said and so true (“Delhi unrest: Police conduct can never be equated with that of a protesting crowd”). But the sad part is that most of our ruling politicians may not even understand the scope and depth of this writing. It is an unfortunate situation for our country. It is thanks to social media that the world at large is able to see what kind of governance we have – a mockery of “democracy”. – Shalan Dere

Will donate to Scroll once I get a job

I have been reading articles on Scroll’s app for a month now. I thought of taking up a membership but I cannot afford it so I am here to apologise. Once I get a job, I’ll donate a lot more to Scroll for your excellent journalism. – Roshan Mandvi

Scroll’s ‘hatred propaganda’

For seven decades, accountability was largely ignored (“‘Now Modi should go’: Jantar Mantar erupted in celebration after Pradhan’s resignation”). Scroll is perpetuating a biased system that marginalises non-Muslim and non-Christian perspectives.

The fundamental driver of this breakdown is a societal obsession with securing individual and familial success, detached from merit or ethics. Ultimately, the blame lies less with the government and more with individual choices, rapid population growth, and unchecked illegal immigration. – Prakash Singh

***

I think Scroll follows the ideology of hatred propaganda in Bharat (“‘People’s sympathy is now with the youth’: BJP workers worry about crackdown on protests”). We saw videos of journalists and women police personnel being attacked. People stand with Modi and the BJP to keep away that agenda of divide and rule. – Uday Shetty

***

This entire article was written without providing a shred of evidence of liberal scepticism (“Cockroach Janta Party protest: How liberal scepticism induces paralysis in oppositional politics”) . Putting random words in quotes does not become proof that these words were actually said. – Subhasis Ghosh

Digital India causing suffering

We are now citizens of “digital India” and it is supposed to be making our lives easier and it has (“In MP village, Adivasi farmers’ land goes missing from digital records”). But the land owner Adivasis of Khargone have all their land papers but they are not the owners of the land, according to the government records.

This is a challenge that is causing immense suffering. While private websites open easily, government websites are difficult to reach. Even people working in government sectors are not digitally well versed. If gaps like this are not filled or acknowledged such farmers are bound to suffer without any reason. No one will think about them in “digital India”. – Chitra Srivastava

The Supreme Court on Friday quashed a criminal complaint against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for remarks he allegedly made about Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar in November 2022, reported Bar and Bench.

A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu noted that in the Uttar Pradesh government’s affidavit, there was “no disclosure of sanction [for prosecution] having been granted”.

The complaint was filed by lawyer Nripendra Pandey, who alleged that the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha had said during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in November 2022 that Savarkar was a British servant who received a pension from colonial authorities.

In June 2023, an additional chief judicial magistrate dismissed Pandey’s complaint, which led to him challenging the order before the sessions court. The sessions court allowed the plea and remanded it back to the Lucknow magistrate court.

The sessions court summoned Rahul Gandhi in December 2024. The Congress leader had challenged the order before the High Court, which refused to set aside the summons on April 4, 2025.

Gandhi had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court against this.

On Wednesday, the court held that without the prosecution sanction from the Uttar Pradesh government, “the complaint and orders passed by the magistrate stand quashed”, reported Live Law.

In April 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the criminal defamation proceedings against the Congress leader. However, it criticised him for saying that Savarkar had collaborated with the British.

The bench had said that Gandhi’s comments about Savarkar were irresponsible. The court verbally warned the Lok Sabha MP that it would initiate suo motu action if he made similar statements again.

Gandhi is also facing a defamation case in Maharashtra for his remarks about Savarkar during an event in London in March 2023. The case is based on a complaint by the Hindutva ideologue’s grand-nephew Satyaki Savarkar.

Satyaki Savarkar has alleged that Gandhi had made the remarks “fully knowing the said allegations to be untrue, with the specific objective of harming the reputation and to defame the surname Savarkar”.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Supreme Court on Friday quashed criminal proceedings against comedian Samay Raina and four others in connection with allegedly insensitive remarks about persons with disabilities on the comedy show India’s Got Latent, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana passed the order after noting that Raina and the other respondents had complied with directions to conduct awareness programmes and raise funds for persons with disabilities.

The other respondents are comedians Vipul Goyal, Sonali Thakkar and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar, along with Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, owner of the comedy venue The Habitat.

The court praised their efforts to organise programmes for persons with disabilities.

“Once there are genuine efforts, positive results are bound to be there,” the Hindustan Times quoted the bench as saying. “They are very bright youngsters. If they have started working in a positive direction, there will be positive output.”

The respondents had organised a chess tournament for persons with disabilities from March 14 to 16, Live Law reported.

They had also proposed four additional fundraising shows. The court noted that logistical difficulties prevented specific arrangements to invite persons with disabilities to those events, but the respondents expressed their willingness to involve people with spinal muscular atrophy and provide financial support.

The court also noted that constructive discussions had taken place between the respondents and Cure Foundation, the petitioner organisation.

The NGO had initially brought the matter to light through an intervention application filed in another case related to sexually explicit remarks made by YouTuber and podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia during an episode of the show India’s Got Latent in February 2025. The show was hosted by Raina.

In August 2025, the Supreme Court had directed Raina and the other comedians to make an unconditional apology and undertake measures to make amends. The court later imposed a cost of Rs 3 lakh on the respondents for failing to comply with their earlier undertakings.

The petition concerning Raina and the four other respondents has now been closed.

However, a separate petition by Allahabadia seeking relief in the matter remains pending before the Supreme Court, the Hindustan Times reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Clashes erupted between protesters and police personnel in Haryana’s Ambala on Thursday, leaving six officers and several demonstrators injured, The Indian Express reported.

The Sikh protesters were demanding action against Gursimran Singh Mand, national president of the International Anti-Khalistani Terrorist Front, alleging that he attempted to run over several persons with his car on August 7, the newspaper reported.

The police were trying to restore traffic on the Delhi-Amritsar National Highway, which was blocked by the protesters, The Indian Express quoted a statement by the Haryana Police as saying. A Deputy Superintendent of Police-rank officer was also injured, the statement added.

The police resorted to lathi-charge and tear gas after the protest “turned violent and led to stone pelting” on the highway, The Hindu quoted Haryana Director General of Police Ajay Singhal as saying. He, however, said that the police have accepted the protesters’ demand.

Ambala Superintendent of Police Ajit Singh Shekhawat said that a first information report will be registered against persons accused of attacking the policemen after identifying them, The Indian Express reported.

On August 7, Mand was allegedly assaulted by a mob following a confrontation with a group of youths after he attempted to drive his car through a route crowded with devotees heading towards Gurdwara Panjokhra Sahib.

Mand was said to have suffered minor injuries in the incident, while two security personnel protecting him were also injured. Mand is under central paramilitary protection.

The police subsequently arrested two persons in connection with the alleged attack. While the police said that an FIR was registered against Mand under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the protesters have demanded the release of the persons accused of attacking him.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Madras High Court ruling striking down a Tamil Nadu government order granting government jobs on compassionate grounds to the family members of the persons who died in the Karur stampede, Live Law reported.

The stampede took place on September 27 at Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam chief Vijay’s rally in Karur district when he was addressing supporters from his campaign vehicle. Forty-one persons had died in the stampede.

Vijay went on to become the chief minister of Tamil Nadu on May 10 after his party became the single-largest party in the Assembly elections.

A bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran passed the interim order on Friday while issuing notice on a petition filed by the state and others challenging the High Court’s judgement.

The lawyers appearing for the state submitted that the government was within its powers to grant compassionate appointments as a policy decision, the legal news outlet reported.

“A stampede took place. An unfortunate incident happened,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “The government has decided to compensate them. Should the government not give employment?” it added.

On July 27, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had held that the appointments of the family members of the victims of the stampede violated constitutional provisions pertaining to the right to equality and the right to equal opportunity in matters of public employment.

The bench observed that many people were waiting for compassionate appointments in government departments.

The court also observed that allowing compassionate appointments in the stampede case could open the floodgates for claims in other cases, such as firework explosions and road accidents. The court said that even if the loss of lives in other incidents is caused due to state inaction, the victims’ families are typically given only ex gratia compensation and not government jobs.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Multiple locations in Delhi, including the High Court and Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport, received bomb threats on Friday, a day ahead of Independence Day, The Hindu reported.

The Delhi High Court received a threatening email with the subject line “Bomb Blast Delhi High Court @ 2:11PM”. The email warned of a blast at the High Court premises at 2.11 pm on Saturday, followed by explosions at district courts in the national capital at 3.11pm, the newspaper reported.

Threats were also received at Jamnagar House, the Jhandewalan Flatted Factory Complex, the district magistrate’s office in Saket and the sub-divisional magistrate’s office in Delhi Cantonment, ANI quoted the Delhi Fire Services as saying.

Police, bomb disposal teams, fire department personnel, dog squads and other security agencies carried out searches at the sites, The Indian Express reported.

Officials said nothing suspicious had been found so far.

The threats come as security arrangements have been tightened across Delhi ahead of Independence Day on August 15.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

A former student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences has sought anticipatory bail from the Bombay High Court in a case alleging that he shouted slogans in support of jailed activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam at an event in October, Bar and Bench reported on Thursday.

On August 7, a Mumbai court denied anticipatory bail to Kamakhya Das and his fellow student, Abhirup Paul, in the case. Paul was arrested by the Mumbai Police hours later.

In his petition, Das submitted that no person present at the event had shouted slogans in support of Khalid and Imam. He described the complaint as based on “untrue events and allegations” and “completely unreliable”, the legal news outlet reported.

Khalid and Imam have been in jail for more than five years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for their alleged role in a conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi riots. The trial in the case has not yet begun, and their petitions for regular bail have been repeatedly rejected.

Das and Paul had also been booked for possessing downloaded books and other material that the prosecution alleged reflected Maoist ideology.

Das’s petition said that possessing such literature “is not a criminal offence” and that downloading it did not make him its author or establish that he was affiliated with a banned organisation or subscribed to its ideology.

The petition also said that the grave allegations and charges made out against the applicant such as that of unlawful assembly and promoting enmity between groups on religious grounds were not supported by facts. It also rejected the allegation that he had participated in the gathering to implement his “alleged ideology of Maoism on other students of the institute” as “complete bogus”.

Justice Prafulla Khubalkar has listed the matter for hearing on Saturday.

The case

In October, some students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences gathered on campus to light candles and display posters of former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba commemorating his death anniversary.

Saibaba, who had more than 90% disability and used a wheelchair, spent over seven years in jail on accusations of having links with Maoists. In March 2024, he was acquitted by the Bombay High Court and released. Seven months later, in October 2024, he died of post-operative complications in Hyderabad.

After the event, the police registered a case against the students who attended it based on a complaint filed by the institute’s administration. The first information report invoked charges including causing prejudice to the nation, promoting enmity between groups and participating in an unlawful assembly.

Seven other students booked in connection with the event were granted anticipatory bail on August 7. While granting them bail, the court said that paying homage to Saibaba was not unlawful. However, it said allegations that the students had shouted slogans in support of Khalid and Imam, along with material recovered from their electronic devices, weighed against granting them anticipatory bail.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.