Thirty-five-year-old Haroli Shekhar lives in a village in Raichur, one of Karnataka’s poorest districts.

Every day, seven members of his large family of landless labourers go out seeking work. Sometimes, they labour at construction sites, but most of the time they end up finding work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The landmark law was enacted by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in 2005. It made the government legally bound to provide at least 100 days of work to every rural household that demands it, failing which it must pay them an unemployment allowance.

Shekhar, a resident of Heerapur village, said he sometimes has to wait a month or two to get work under the scheme and payment is often delayed. Even so, he manages to earn Rs 15,000 a year through MGNREGA. “I mostly dig trenches or help in building canals for irrigation in the area around my village,” he told Scroll.

The major benefit, he said, is that he gets to live in his village with his two children, rather than move to distant cities for work.

On Monday, with the Narendra Modi government proposing a new bill to replace the law, Shekhar’s safety net might be under threat.

Experts Scroll spoke to said the new bill removes several key provisions of the rural employment guarantee, such as the power of gram panchayats to allocate work in response to demands from workers.

It consolidates decision-making with the central government, while transferring greater financial burden on to the states. It even proposes to give the Centre the power to decide in which region or area it wants to allocate work and how much funds a state should be sanctioned.

Economist Jean Dreze said the new law “is all set to destroy MGNREGA in the guise of revamping it as a new scheme”.

“It provides a work guarantee without any guarantee that the guarantee applies,” he added.

Chakradhar Buddha, a researcher with LibTech India, a coalition that works to improve public service delivery, agreed with Dreze. “This was the first programme which guaranteed employment in the country,” said. “But if the new bill is passed, people will not get jobs if they demand it. They will get jobs if the central government has the budget and thinks it fit to give work in their village.”

He added: “With this, we are going back to pre-NREGA days.”

For states, fewer rights, greater burden

The central government plans to replace the rural employment guarantee law with the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), or VB–G RAM G, Bill, 2025.

The bill increases the minimum number of guaranteed work days from 100 to 125.

But the most contentious part of the bill relates to the powers that the central government has kept for itself.

Section 4 (5) of the bill states. “The Central Government shall determine the State-wise normative allocation for each financial year, based on objective parameters as may be prescribed by the Central Government.”

“NREGA was a demand-based scheme that determined work allocation,” said Nikhil Day, rural activist and founder of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan. “Through this section, the government ends that demand. Now the central government will decide the allocation.”

Moreover, the work will be planned under Viksit Gram Panchayat plans, which will be prepared by local gram panchayats, but only after approval by the central government. This effectively reduces the power of gram panchayats to formulate work orders.

The funding pattern has also changed, to the detriment of states.

Under the existing scheme, the Centre paid 100% of the wages and 75% of material cost.

According to the new bill, the Centre will provide 60% of funds to all states, apart from the ones in the North East. The rest has to be borne by the state governments. In the North East and in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre will pay 90% of the wages.

“The new scheme is just another centrally-sponsored scheme with 60:40 cost-sharing, at the discretion of the central government,” said Dreze.

State governments can only decide on procedures to maintain accounts of labourers and expenditure related to implementation of the scheme.

If the state spends in excess of the funds allocated by the Centre, it will have to bear the cost, as per procedures laid down by the central government, the bill says.

Dey pointed out that if states are forced to pay more under the scheme, they may no longer be able to afford it or prioritise work under the scheme for people.

John Brittas, Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from Kerala, said on the social media platform X that if the new bill is implemented, “states will have to shell out around Rs 50,000+ crore. Kerala alone will have to bear an additional Rs 2,000-2,500 crore”.

VB–G RAM G Bill repealing MGNREGA: removing Mahatma Gandhi was only the trailer. The real damage is deeper.

Govt removed the soul of a rights-based guarantee law and replaced it with a conditional, centrally controlled scheme stacked against States & workers.

“125 days” is the…

— John Brittas (@JohnBrittas) December 15, 2025

For Venkateswarlu Kuruva, a social activist based in Raichur, the whittling down of state powers is a clear reason to worry.

He lives in Karnataka, a state run by the Congress, the party that sits in Opposition at the Centre. “People will lose the right to work and earn” if this comes into effect, he said.

‘Landlords back in feudal control’

Several experts told Scroll that the new law will lead to inequitable access to employment and incentivise distress migration.

For instance, Section 5 of the bill states that the Centre will pick rural areas in every state where work will be provided.

In Raichur, Kuruva said that after MGNREGA was implemented in 2005, there was a decline in migration and people began to work near their home. “But now if a particular village is not listed for work allocation, people may be forced to move to cities for work,” he said. “That will be the worst possible outcome.”

The bill also proposes a 60-day pause on guaranteed work during agricultural seasons. The government has reasoned that this will “facilitate adequate farm-labour availability during peak agricultural seasons”.

Experts pointed out that this puts farm labourers at a disadvantage.

The rural employment guarantee scheme not just acted as a cushion, but also empowered them to bargain for better wages during peak agricultural seasons. “If there is a clause that there will be no work at all during that time, then labourers will lose the bargaining power,” Dey said.

Buddha, from LibTech, said, “MGNREGA destroyed the dependence of labourers on landlords. But this bill effectively destroys that privilege for at least two months.”

Dey added: “It will put landlords in feudal control, and can lead to exploitative wages.”

The digital burden

As Scroll has reported, the Modi government’s insistence on biometric attendance and mandatory Aadhar-based payments has derailed the scheme and squeezed out workers.

The new bill increases the digital burden on workers.

It proposes to track attendance and payments with the help of artificial intelligence and dashboards.

Buddha, the researcher from LibTech, said that the introduction of technology had already squeezed workers out of the scheme.

For instance, he said, mandatory online Know Your Customer, or e-KYC, verification, led to the deletion of at least 27 lakh workers between October 10 and November 14. The new bill may push more needy beneficiaries away from the scheme if there is a tech failure in remote rural areas.

Kuruva, who has been helping workers get re-registered after their names were deleted due to e-KYC, said, “Technology has been stripping away the right to earn”.

More than 200 flights were delayed at the Delhi airport on Tuesday morning amid dense smog, reported the Hindustan Times.

The Delhi airport warned that while operations were steadily recovering after hundreds of cancellations on Monday, flight disruptions “may persist for certain departures and arrivals”.

On Monday, there were more than 800 delays at the airport, over 220 cancellations and five diversions, according to the newspaper.

The airport operator on Tuesday urged passengers to contact the airlines for “accurate and timely updates”. “Our personnel are available across terminals to assist passengers and provide necessary support,” it said.

Air India said that the dense fog enveloping Delhi and parts of northern India had disrupted flights across airlines, leading to traffic congestion at the airport and other challenges.

Several Air India flights had also been delayed or cancelled, which had a “cascading, network-wide impact” on the airline’s schedule, it added.

Air India said that its staff was working assisting passengers with rebookings or refunds if their flights were cancelled.

The airline also said that the India Meteorological Department has forecast fog conditions for Wednesday, with significantly reduced visibility expected in the morning.

“Accordingly, we have proactively cancelled select flights scheduled for tomorrow,” stated Air India. “To minimise inconvenience, we have activated our Fog Care programme, whereby passengers booked on affected or likely-to-be-affected flights are being notified in advance and automatically offered complimentary rescheduling or a full refund without penalty.”

The airline also advised passengers travelling on Wednesday to check their flight schedule on the website before arriving at the airport.

#WATCH | Delhi | Drone visuals around Sarai Kale Khan area as a layer of smog engulfs the city; GRAP 4 restrictions enforced in the national capital

(Drone visuals shot at 7:35 am ) pic.twitter.com/7Zu4vVOy8V

— ANI (@ANI) December 16, 2025

IndiGo issued a similar advisory for the passengers, saying that the airline was “well prepared and closely monitoring weather conditions”.

“Wherever possible, we are making thoughtful adjustments on the ground to reduce inconvenience and ensure any waiting time is as comfortable as possible,” it added.

AQI improves slightly

This came as the air quality in Delhi improved marginally to the “very poor” category on Tuesday from “severe plus” on Monday.

The national capital’s average Air Quality Index stood at 376 at 9.05 am, according to data from the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates published by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Eleven of the city’s 40 monitoring stations recorded AQI readings above 400.

Delhi’s air quality had deteriorated sharply in the past few days. The capital’s average AQI rose from 307 on Thursday to 349 on Friday and 431 on Saturday, before touching 461 on Sunday.

On Monday, the average air quality in the city stood at 427.

An index value between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air. Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” and “severe plus” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

The deterioration in the air quality has been attributed to unfavourable weather conditions, including very low wind speeds caused by a western disturbance.

Delhi and the National Capital Region are under Stage 4 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to curb pollution. The restrictions came into force on Saturday.

GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.

This was the first time this season that Stage 4 restrictions, triggered when the AQI breaches the 450 mark, were enforced in Delhi-NCR.

The curbs include a ban on the entry of trucks into the region, a halt on construction activities for public and private projects, and a shift to hybrid mode for schools, except Class 10 and Class 12.

Amid the high pollution levels, the Delhi government on Monday directed schools to shift to online mode, from hybrid, for students up to Class 5, reported Hindustan Times.

Delhi-NCR has been recording air quality in the “poor” or worse categories since mid-October.

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

Also read:

• Coastal cities may no longer offer escape from air pollution
• Why air quality numbers in Delhi vary widely

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the government why the full audio clip allegedly linking former Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh to the ethnic violence in the state was not sent to the National Forensic Science University laboratory for examination, The Hindu reported.

The court said it was a “little disturbed” by the affidavit filed by the petitioners, the Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust, on November 20 that stated that only select clips had been sent for forensic examination, PTI reported.

In the recordings believed to be from 2023, a voice purported to be that of Singh is heard taking credit for “how and why the conflict started”, bragging that he had defied Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s order against the use of “bombs” in the conflict and shielding individuals who snatched thousands of weapons from the state police armouries from arrest.

At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024.

President’s Rule was imposed in February after Singh resigned as the chief minister.

The Kuki group had submitted to the court in November that the Manipur Police had forwarded only short and edited clips to the laboratory in Gujarat instead of the complete 48-minute recording.

The Kuki organisation made the allegation in an affidavit responding to a report submitted by the laboratory in October, which claimed that the clips had been tampered with and were not scientifically fit to compare the voice.

The laboratory had told the court that it could not provide an opinion on whether the voice in the clips is that of Singh.

The court has been hearing a petition filed by the Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust, which has demanded an independent investigation into the audio clips purportedly featuring Singh’s voice.

On Monday, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati asked for time to respond to the affidavit.

The court will hear the matter next on January 7.

In February, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner, told the court that the tapes had been examined by the independent forensic laboratory Truth Labs. The laboratory had confirmed with 93% certainty that the voice heard in the recordings was that of the chief minister, he had said.

In August, the Supreme Court directed that the audio clips be sent for a fresh forensic examination to the National Forensic Science University laboratory in Gandhinagar to verify their authenticity.

The court had said at the time that a fresh examination would help clarify two aspects: whether the audio clips were modified, edited or tampered with in any manner and whether the voice in the disputed clips matched the admitted audio sample, with a clear finding on whether the same person is speaking in all the recordings.

The laboratory had been asked to submit its report directly to the court in a sealed cover.

On December 3, Siddhartha Das, a faculty member at IIIT Hyderabad, was flying from Tirupati to Chandigarh via Hyderabad on an IndiGo aircraft.

But a shortage of crew and pilots led to delays across the airline’s operations. By the time the flight from Tirupati reached Hyderabad, his connecting flight had departed. The airlines booked him on an alternate flight but that too kept getting delayed.

After he had spent 12 hours at the airport, Das said the airline crew suggested he cancel the flight. “It was absolutely horrible, passengers were crying and panicking,” he said.

His ordeal did not end after the cancellation. The airlines were unable to trace his bags at the Hyderabad airport.

“I tried calling but the staff said they have 2,000 bags with them and it will take them time to find my bag,” he said. He got his baggage after 10 days.

From December 3 onwards, thousands of passengers like Das suffered inordinate delays, had trips cancelled or entirely missed out on their travel plans because the operations of the country's largest carrier, IndiGo airlines, were derailed by its inability to meet stricter flight duty norms.

But as the airline resumes routine operations, the question for Das and other passengers remains: How do they go about seeking refunds? And will they be compensated for their ordeal?

Aviation experts and lawyers Scroll spoke to said they can seek damages in consumer courts, though most passengers either seem reluctant or are unaware about how to take the legal route.

What passengers are entitled to vs what they got

On December 5, Dr Vasundhara Rangaswamy drove from Baroda to the Ahmedabad airport. Her IndiGo flight to Chennai had already been delayed by a day and converted from a non-stop one to a layover.

But that was the least of her inconveniences. At the airport, her newly assigned flight kept getting delayed, hour by hour.

Eventually she waited at the airport for over 20 hours, spending an entire night wide awake before she decided to cancel the flight the next evening.

When she finally returned home, the 53-year-old fell sick. “I had not slept the entire night because they kept postponing by an hour each time,” she said. “By the time I got home, it was 24 hours since I had left. So it took a toll on me.”

According to rules laid down by the Director General of Civil Aviation, the national regulatory body for airlines, Rangaswamy was entitled to more assistance than she got. If a passenger has checked in on time and the flight is delayed for two to four or more hours, they must be provided free meals.

Rangaswamy told Scroll: “The airlines should have provided at least food and water and maybe even some warm clothing. I learnt later that the staff was providing food outside the airport,” she said. “But how could I have come out, taken the food and gone back inside?” She claimed that unless passengers asked, they were not provided with the food packets.

In such scenarios, passengers are entitled to “limited rights”, said Professor Sandeepa Bhat, director at the Kolkata-based Centre for Aviation and Space Laws. “These rights include free meals, accommodation, and a limited amount of compensation in appropriate cases.”

Thousands of passengers who were made to wait for their flight for over two hours can seek compensation through consumer commissions if they were not provided meals, said Bhat. “Not providing a hotel stay in appropriate cases can also be challenged.”

Compensation rules

In case the airline cancels the flight within 24 hours of the scheduled departure, as it did in Rangaswamy’s case, the DGCA rules say it must either provide an alternate flight or provide compensation in addition to the full refund of the air ticket.

For flights with a duration of one hour, a compensation of Rs 5,000 must be provided, for a flight between one to two hours, a compensation of Rs 7,500 and for longer flights, a compensation of Rs 10,000. Alternatively, the airline can also provide one-way basic fare plus fuel charge cost to passengers.

But IndiGo’s refund and cancellation policy does not exactly follow these norms. The airline’s policy says it has a right to cancel flight “without incurring any liability in damages” to the passenger.

While the DGCA allows an airline to cancel a flight without being liable to pay any compensation in case of a terror attack, weather conditions, or a natural calamity, the IndiGo policy also includes shortage of critical manpower as an extraordinary circumstance in which passengers are not entitled to seek damages.

However, Bhat, the professor, said the airline’s policy was overruled by the national rules. “The passengers can approach the appropriate consumer commissions for remedy,” Bhat said.

Several passengers told Scroll on December 10 that the airline was not entertaining most compensation requests.

On December 12, however, IndiGo announced a compensation of Rs 10,000, in the form of travel vouchers, to “severely affected” passengers who were stranded at airports between December 3 and 5. The vouchers will be valid for 12 months.

Scroll contacted IndiGo to understand the process of identifying “severely affected” passengers for Rs 10,000 travel vouchers. The airlines spokesperson said it will compensate people who were stranded for several hours at the airport due to the flight disruptions.

In addition, it said it would offer an additional compensation of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 to passengers whose flights were cancelled within 24 hours of departure.

According to Bhat, passengers can definitely seek damages if they have suffered financial losses because of missing the flight. “When the delay or cancellation of the flight results in material damage to passengers, which may be in the form of loss of earnings, increased medical costs, loss of contract, or any other economic loss, in those circumstances, the Carriage by Air Act is applicable, and the carrier is liable to pay full compensation by adhering to the principle of restitution,” he said.

The amount offered by the airlines and mentioned by the DCGA rules are “basic” provisions, R Harikrishnan, an advocate at the Kerala High Court, told Scroll.

“If passengers encountered a special situation, mental loss and agony, they can always sue the airline at a consumer court,” he said. “They can approach the consumer court for compensation if they felt there was a ‘deficiency in services’ or that they experienced ‘unfair trade practice’, which both fall under the Consumer Protection Act.”

Passengers can file a complaint online but would need to have a lawyer to appear at the forum for hearings, Harikrishnan said. Consumer courts have to settle cases within six months, though cases often drag on for many years. “If a large number of cases against IndiGo come to the court at the same time, maybe some kind of uniform action will be taken,” he said.

Refunds stuck

According to the DGCA rules, in case of delays of more than two hours or if the flight takes off an hour or more earlier, passengers are entitled to a full refund or they should be re-booked onto an alternative IndiGo flight at no additional cost.

If a passenger is in transit and has connecting flights which have been delayed or cancelled, they are entitled to a partial refund for the portion of the flight not completed or they can return to the city they began their journey in and demand a refund. They can also demand credit for future travel.

But in multiple cases, passengers had no option to return to their point of origin or to take alternative IndiGo flights. In such cases, IndiGo must refund them fully. But the airline is yet to begin paying back in such cases.

For instance, Das, who missed his connecting flight from Hyderabad to Chandigarh, told Scroll: “The staff at the airport insisted that I can only seek a refund from customer care but no one is responding. Even my emails are not getting any responses,” he said.

Scroll found many more passengers unable to seek refunds. They have been waiting for their flight money to be credited to their account. Many complained how difficult it was to contact the airline's customer care.

According to IndiGo, it has been attending to two lakh queries every day through its various communication channels, including customer helpline number and social media. Scroll found that the wait time on the helpline ranged between 20 to 30 minutes since December 3.

Till December 8, refunds of Rs 827 crore have been disbursed for flights cancelled till December 15. Over 9,500 passengers were provided hotel accommodation and 10,000 cabs and buses were arranged for them, the airlines spokesperson said.

In addition, till December 8, 4,500 bags were delivered to passengers.

But the backlog is huge. Major airports continue to have suitcases spread across the baggage claim section and passengers are left to find their luggage themselves.

Rangaswamy said when she went to collect her bags at the Ahmedabad airport, she found “hundreds and hundreds of bags”. “I asked the staff how I’m supposed to find my bag,” she said. “I realised that the airline had no way to track my baggage, there was no system in place.”

‘It’s a hoax’

Their experience with IndiGo has left Das and Rangaswamy sceptical and frustrated.

On December 14, when Rangaswamy followed up with the airlines’ customer care regarding her refund, she was shocked to find that she had been entered into the system as a “no show”, making her ineligible for a refund.

The airlines have refunded Rs 944 which was a tax she had paid, denying her the cost of the flight which was Rs 6,443.

“I told them that they were the ones who cancelled my flight and it was extremely unfair that they were now claiming I did not show up, when I had to wait so many hours,” she said. “I thought I would request them for food and taxi expenditure refund, but now it looks like I will be denied even the flight refund.”

Das, too, is uncertain about how to proceed. “I have no idea how to apply for compensation, I feel it’s a hoax,” said Das. “The airlines have all our contact details. If they really intend on giving us compensation, they should email us the process so we can know how to do it.”

He said he was wary of approaching the consumer court all by himself but if a group of other passengers joined him, he would consider the option.

The National Investigation Agency on Monday charged seven persons in the Pahalgam terror attack case.

Those charged include Pakistani handler Sajid Jatt of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and its affiliate The Resistance Front. The Pakistan-based organisations were also charged as one legal entity for their role in planning, facilitating and executing the attack.

The terror attack at Baisaran near Pahalgam town in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22 left 26 persons dead and 16 injured. The terrorists targeted tourists after asking their names to ascertain their religion, the police said. All but three of those killed were Hindu.

The chargesheet also named three Pakistani terrorists who were killed by the Indian security forces during a security operation codenamed Mahadev on July 28. They were identified as Faisal Jatt alias Suleman Shah, Habeeb Tahir alias Jibran and Hamza Afghani.

The terror group and the four persons were charged under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the 1959 Arms Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The investigating agency also invoked a section against the persons accused in the matter for waging war against the country.

In a press statement on Monday, the National Investigation Agency also said that it had traced the conspiracy in the case to Pakistan.

In June, the agency arrested two men, Parvaiz Ahmad Jothar and Bashir Ahmad Jothar, for allegedly harbouring the terrorists who carried out the attack. They have also been named in the chargesheet.

“During interrogation, the two men had disclosed the identities of the three armed terrorists involved in the attack, and had also confirmed that they were Pakistani nationals affiliated to proscribed LeT terror outfit,” the agency said.

Further investigation in the case is underway, the National Investigation Agency said.

On September 24, the Jammu and Kashmir Police also arrested 26-year-old Muhammad Yousuf Katari in Kulgam district for allegedly providing logistical support to the terrorists.

On December 9, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Election Commission on a writ petition challenging why Assam alone had been exempted from the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

The Special Intensive Revision being conducted across India requires election officials to re-verify voter identity, documents and records to “purify” the electoral rolls by removing duplicate entries and the names of “illegal immigrants”.

In Bihar, for instance, this resulted in 47 lakh names being deleted from the rolls.

But the petition in the Supreme Court about Assam brought into focus an impression that many have had: that the special intensive revision is not a routine administrative exercise. Instead, it signals a shift in how citizenship, identity and political belonging are being reorganised in India.

Of all the states in India, Assam is where citizenship has been most intensely contested for decades. As a consequence, it would be expected that this stringent special intensive revision of the voter rolls would be conducted most rigorously there.

Instead, the state will undergo only a milder “special revision”, where Booth Level Officers, who update entries on the electoral rolls, will arrive at homes with pre-filled registers to identify duplicate entries – without requiring voters to establish their citizenship with documentation.

A state built on verification

Assam is the only state where Indian citizenship has been examined repeatedly, through a variety of tools created expressly for the purpose. This was the consequence of the Assam Movement between 1979 and 1985, which demanded that “foreigners” be deleted from the voter rolls. The movement claimed that millions of immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh had been granted Indian citizenship.

The agitation resulted in the creation of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act – a provision that applies only to Assam. It says that anyone who entered the state after midnight on March 24, 1971, as the Bangladesh liberation movement intensified, must be treated as a foreigner unless they can prove that they or their ancestors lived in Assam before that date.

To enforce this regime, the Election Commission in 1997 introduced the category of “D-voters” or “doubtful voters”, which allows the authorities to bar people from voting until they prove their citizenship. Their cases are then sent to Foreigners Tribunals, special courts created in Assam to decide who is Indian.

All of this culminated in 2019 with the publication of the updated National Register of Citizens, a massive exercise of a list that exists only in Assam. Every resident had to produce family documents establishing that they or their families had lived in the state before 1971. When the register was published, 19 lakh people were excluded.

Given this history of scrutiny, one would expect Assam to undergo the most thorough examination of its electoral rolls.

Why has the burden of proof been tightened elsewhere but softened only in Assam? The answer lies in Assam’s political landscape after the updated National Register of Citizens was published.

Political risk

The publication of the updated register caused a political shock in Assam. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s rise in Assam was predicated on stoking anxieties about Muslim “infiltators” and reassuring Hindu migrants that they would not be labelled as “outsiders”.

It turned out that only seven lakh of the 19 lakh excluded names were Muslim. The rest, Assam Chief Minister Himata Biswa Sarma admitted, were Hindu – including Bengali Hindus, Assamese Hindus and Gorkhas, communities that the BJP actively courted.

A stringent special intensive revision in Assam today would require the Election Commission to reconcile the current voter rolls with the exclusions from the National Register of Citizens. This could place thousands – perhaps even lakhs — of voters from the ruling party’s core support base at risk of being questioned or removed months before the 2026 Assembly election.

Assam’s exemption from the special intensive revision does not reflect confidence in its rolls but the political cost of reexamining the National Register of Citizens deletions.

Verification standards

The implications of Assam’s exemption from the special intensive revision extend far beyond the state. It demonstrates that the revision is no longer being conducted uniformly. It appears to be calibrated depending on the political consequences of deletions. Where deletions do not threaten ruling-party arithmetic, verification is strict. Where strictness may unsettle political alignments, verification softens.

Assam reveals a deeper truth about the future of democratic belonging in India. The presumption of citizenship is weakening for many, who must repeatedly prove their identity. This burden falls heavily on migrant workers, linguistic minorities, flood-affected communities and others with fragile documentation trails.

When voters in some states must produce documents, match names with older rolls and justify entries that have existed for decades but Assam is not required to do any of this, it is clear that verification is not a matter of ensuring electoral credibility. It is being shaped by political convenience.

That is a warning the rest of India cannot afford to ignore.

Sahil Hussain Choudhury is a lawyer and Constitutional Law Researcher based in New Delhi. His X handle is @SahiHChoudhury, his Instagram handle is @voxjuris_ and his Linkedin profile is Sahil Hussain Choudhury.

A parliamentary committee on Thursday warned that India’s heavy dependence on imported crude oil and growing geopolitical risks pose significant challenges to the country’s energy security, and urged the government to diversify supply sources.

In a report tabled in the Lok Sabha, the Public Undertaking Committee noted that India imports nearly 89% of its crude oil requirements, leaving it vulnerable to global disruptions caused by conflicts, sanctions, civil unrest in oil-producing countries and interruptions along key shipping routes such as the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, PTI reported.

“Recent global events, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tensions in the Middle East, have underscored the vulnerability of India's energy supply chain and its dependence on international trade flows,” the news agency quoted the report as saying.

The committee recommended that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and state-run oil companies intensify efforts to diversify crude sourcing both geographically and contractually, expand strategic petroleum reserves and develop alternative import routes.

It also called for risk management practices, through “improved hedging, revenue diversification and operational efficiency, along with cost optimisation via digital transformation, energy efficiency and overhead rationalisation”.

The report also highlighted internal challenges facing the oil and gas sector, including ageing oil fields, delays and cost overruns in projects, rising land acquisition hurdles and domestic crude production failing to keep pace with capital expenditure.

The committee recommended closer coordination between the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and the Ministry of External Affairs to strengthen diplomatic engagement with oil-producing nations, secure favourable investment terms and address taxation and regulatory concerns faced by Indian companies abroad, PTI reported.

Amid the conflict in Ukraine that began in February 2022, Indian entities have been facing a threat of Western sanctions for purchasing oil from Russia.

United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that purchases of Russian oil, including by India, are helping fund Moscow’s war. In August, his administration doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50% in response to New Delhi’s continued imports of Russian crude. India called the move “extremely unfortunate”.

On November 10, Trump said the tariffs would be reduced “at some point” and claimed India had cut its Russian oil purchases.

On November 20, Reliance Industries halted imports of Russian oil to its Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat. The conglomerate which is India’s largest fuel exporter used to account for roughly half of the country’s total imports from Russia.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday called for action against those allegedly hindering the construction of power projects in the union territory, The Indian Express reported.

“There should be no interference, and it [interference] should be taken seriously,” Abdullah told reporters in Srinagar. “This is why I said the institutions, which were earlier with the elected government, should be given back to us. I am the power minister, but the Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation has not been given to us yet.”

Srinagar, J&K: On the Ratle Hydropower Project, CM Omar Abdullah says, "There should have been no interference. This must stop. If the allegation had been against my minister, the ACB would have pursued it..." pic.twitter.com/NDbjulneJS

— IANS (@ians_india) December 15, 2025

His comments came after an official from the Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited company alleged that Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Shagun Parihar was interfering with the 850-megawatt Ratle Hydroelectric Project on the Chenab river in the Kishtwar district.

Harpal Singh, the person in charge of the project alleged the near two-year delay was primarily “due to continued interference by local politicians and indiscipline by their supporters”.

Singh claimed that the politicians and their supporters were trying to pressure project officers into fulfilling illegitimate demands, PTI reported. The demands were about awarding contracts and large-scale recruitment, despite there being no vacancies, he alleged.

Singh also warned that continued disruptions could force the company to pull out of the project.

On Monday, the chief minister said the project was of national importance, highlighting that if the allegations were raised about any ministers from his party, “by now the ACB (anti-corruption bureau) would have already raided him”, The Indian Express reported.

“These projects are not only for Jammu and Kashmir but for the entire India,” he added. “The agencies should look into it.”

Abdullah also alleged that while only the name of one MLA has surfaced, “two opposition MLAs are interfering in all projects in Kishtwar district”, in a reference to Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma.

The Union government is expected to introduce the 2025 Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The bill proposes to increase the number of guaranteed working days per year under the Act to 125 from 100 and to raise the states’ share of the costs to 40%.

It also proposes that only the Union government should be allowed to notify rural areas in a state where the scheme will be implemented.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and is aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guarantees 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

NREGA Sangharsh, a rights group representing MGNREGA workers, demanded that any changes to the Act should come only after “public disclosure and democratic consultations” with labourers, workers’ organisations, trade unions and the states. Read more.

The Indian rupee fell to an all-time low of 90.64 against the United States dollar. The drop came amid uncertainty over a potential trade deal between New Delhi and Washington.

The previous all-time low of 90.55 was hit on Friday.

It has fallen 5.5% in 2025. This makes the rupee the worst-performing Asian currency of 2025.

Foreign investors have also pulled out $18 billion from the Indian equity markets this year.

Without a trade deal with Washington, Indian goods are facing a combined US tariff rate of 50%. A 25% so-called reciprocal duty was imposed on August 7, followed by an additional 25% punitive levy on August 27. Read more.

The Supreme Court granted interim bail to Mahesh Langa, a journalist with The Hindu in Ahmedabad, in a money-laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate on the basis of two other cases of alleged cheating. It directed him to furnish bail bonds as per the instructions of the special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The bench also directed him not to write any articles about the allegations against him. It also directed the special court to take up the case on a daily basis to record the statements of nine witnesses.

Langa was first arrested by the city Crime Branch on October 7, 2024, for his alleged involvement in a Goods and Service Tax-related scam. On February 20, he was arrested in the money-laundering case.

At least seven cases have been filed against Langa. Read more.

The Haryana government relieved Director General of Police Shatrujeet Kapur of his post, over two months after he was named in a purported suicide note by Indian Police Service officer Y Puran Kumar. Puran Kumar was found dead on October 7 after he allegedly shot himself at his residence in Chandigarh’s Sector 11. The police said that he died by suicide.

In a “final note” recovered from the scene, Kumar had named 11 serving and retired officers, including Kapur, accusing them of caste-based discrimination.

The state government sent Kapur on leave for two months on October 14. He has now been formally relieved of his charge as the DGP, and has been posted as the chairman of the Haryana Police Housing Corporation. Read more.

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The Haryana government on Sunday evening formally relieved Director General of Police Shatrujeet Kapur of his post, after he was named in a purported suicide note by Indian Police Service officer Y Puran Kumar, The Indian Express reported.

On October 7, Puran Kumar was found dead after he allegedly shot himself at his residence in Chandigarh’s Sector 11. The police said that he died by suicide.

In a “final note” recovered from the scene, Puran Kumar had named 11 serving and retired officers, including Kapur and Rohtak Superintendent of Police Narendra Bijarniya, accusing them of caste-based discrimination.

The state government sent Kapur on leave for two months on October 14, while Birjaniya was replaced as the Rohtak superintendent of police on Saturday.

Indian Police Service officer OP Singh, who was given the additional charge as the chief of the state police during Kapur’s absence, has been appointed as the officiating director general of police till further orders, The Indian Express reported.

He will continue to retain his responsibilities as the chief of the Haryana narcotics control bureau and the director of the forensic science laboratory in Madhuban.

Singh is due to retire on December 31, and thus it is likely that the state government will send a list of senior IPS officers to the Union Public Service Commission to appoint a new chief of the state’s police force, PTI reported.

Kapur has been posted as the chairman of the Haryana Police Housing Corporation.

The new orders for both officers came on Sunday, the day that Kapur’s two-month leave ended.

The Union government is expected to introduce the 2025 Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill to replace the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

The proposed legislation will increase the number of guaranteed working days to 125 per year from the 100 days per family per year under the current employment scheme under the MGNREGA.

The MGNREGA was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and is aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guarantees 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

While the wage bill for the scheme is borne by the Union government, the states share the cost of materials and administrative expenses.

The new bill proposes that the states will now bear 40% of the costs.

The governments in the North East states, Himalayan states (Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) and the Union Territories with Legislature (Jammu and Kashmir) will contribute to 10% of the funding.

The Centre will bear all costs in Union Territories that do not have a legislature.

The Union government will determine the state-wise normative allocation for each financial year based on “objective parameters”.

It also proposed that only the Union government can notify rural areas in a state where the scheme will be implemented.

The proposed legislation retains the provision that a person is entitled to a daily unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days of applying under the scheme. The cost of the allowance will be borne by the state governments.

On Monday, NREGA Sangharsh, a rights group representing MGNREGA workers, demanded that any changes to the Act should be introduced only after “public disclosure and democratic consultations” with labourers, workers’ organisations, trade unions and the states.

“We will oppose and resist this regressive step,” NREGA Sangharsh said. “We will not allow the law, made from the struggles of workers, to be ended by unilateral decisions.”

‘Cost-shifting by stealth, not reform’, says Opposition

Opposition MP John Brittas said that the Union government was removing the “soul of a rights-based guarantee law” and replacing it with a “conditional, centrally controlled” scheme stacked against the states and the workers.

“Cost-shifting by stealth, not reform,” the Communist Party of India (Marxist) member said. “This is the new federalism: states pay more, Centre walks away, yet claims the credit.”

He added: “This bill doesn’t reform MGNREGA – it dismantles it fiscally, institutionally and morally.”

This came two days after reports that the Union government was considering a revamp of MGNREGA, including an increase in the number of guaranteed working days.

Several states have demanded that the maximum working days under the scheme should be increased.

In April, a parliamentary standing committee urged the Union government to raise the wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to at least Rs 400 per day and increase the number of guaranteed working days to at least 150 days.

Daily wages under scheme currently range between Rs 241 and Rs 400 in different states.

The committee had said that the base wage rates under the scheme should be revised to ensure that they align with current economic realities.

While the law guarantees work for 100 days, the average days of employment provided per household under the scheme was 50 days in the financial year 2024-’25.

On Friday, the Congress said that the “same MGNREGA that Narendra Modi once called a bundle of Congress’ failures” had “proved to be a lifeline for rural India”.

“Modi ji has an old habit of renaming Congress’ schemes and claiming them as his own,” the party leader Supriya Shrinate said. “That’s exactly what he has been doing for the past 11 years – rebranding UPA’s schemes with his own label and using them for publicity.”

West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress said on Friday that the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s decision to “erase ‘Mahatma’” from MGNREGA was “not merely an administrative revision”, and was “an ideologically motivated act”.

India has never allowed its territory to be used for activities inimical to the interests of the people of Bangladesh, New Delhi said on Sunday.

The statement came after Dhaka alleged that deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India in August 2024 after protests in her country, had made “incendiary” remarks that were inciting her supporters to carry out “terrorist” attacks to “thwart” the parliamentary elections scheduled for February in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Indian High Commissioner Pranay Verma on Sunday to express its “serious concern” about the alleged statements made by Hasina, PTI reported. It also reiterated its demand for her “expeditious extradition”, The Hindu reported.

Later in the day, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that New Delhi “categorically rejects” the assertions made by Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus.

It reiterated that New Delhi had consistently supported “free, fair, inclusive and credible elections” in Bangladesh held in a peaceful atmosphere.

“We expect that the interim government of Bangladesh will take all necessary measures for ensuring internal law and order, including for the purpose of holding peaceful elections,” the ministry said.

Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled to India on August 5, 2024, after weeks of widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government. She had been in power for 16 years.

Yunus, a Nobel laureate economist, took over as chief adviser of the interim government three days after Hasina resigned.

Bangladesh has been seeking her repatriation since the fall of her government. The demand became a formal request after Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal were sentenced to death by the country’s International Crimes Tribunal on November 17.

The tribunal found Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity for the deadly crackdown on the protests. The verdict was the first in a series of four cases related to alleged crimes committed during her government’s response to the agitation.

Hasina had described the tribunal as biased and politically motivated, and denied ordering security forces to fire on protesters.

In February, a United Nations report said that Hasina’s government, the country’s security and intelligence services and “violent elements” associated with her Awami League party had “systematically engaged in a range of serious human rights violations” during the agitation in 2024.

Of the 1,400 killed and thousands injured between July 1, 2024, and August 15, 2024, the vast majority were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces, the UN report had said. Of these, 12% to 13% killed were children.

Bangladesh is also scheduled to hold its 13th national election on February 12. Yunus has said that he would step down once an elected government takes office.

The last elections in the country were held in January 2024, when Hasina returned to office for a fourth consecutive term. The Awami League had won 222 out of the 300 elected seats in Parliament.

Notably, the vote was boycotted by her main rivals, who accused her administration of rigging the result.

In May, Bangladesh’s interim government banned all activities of the Awami League, including its online platforms, under the country’s anti-terrorism act.

Hasina had in October described the decision as unjust and warned that it could undermine the legitimacy of the vote. She also warned that millions of her supporters would boycott the general election unless her party is allowed to participate

“The next government must have electoral legitimacy,” she had said at the time. “Millions of people support the Awami League, so as things stand, they will not vote. You cannot disenfranchise millions of people if you want a political system that works.”

The Supreme Court on Monday granted interim bail to journalist Mahesh Langa in a money-laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate on the basis of two other cases of alleged cheating, Live Law reported.

Langa, a journalist with The Hindu in Ahmedabad, was first arrested by the city Crime Branch on October 7, 2024, for his alleged involvement in a Goods and Service Tax-related scam. On February 20, he was arrested in the money-laundering case.

The Supreme Court, while granting Langa interim bail on Monday, directed him to furnish bail bonds as per the instructions of the special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant also directed him not to write any articles about the allegations against him, Live Law reported.

The bench directed the special court to take up the case on a daily basis to record the statements of nine witnesses.

The bench also asked Langa and his counsel to cooperate with the special court, and not seek an adjournment on the grounds that proceedings to quash the case are pending before the High Court, The Indian Express reported.

The Supreme Court will hear the matter next on January 6. It has directed the Enforcement Directorate to file a status report on that date on Langa’s compliance with the court’s directions.

The court warned that the interim bail would be cancelled in case Langa does not comply with its directions, Live Law reported.

During the hearing on Monday, Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Enforcement Directorate opposed the bail saying that a journalist allegedly extorting money was a serious matter.

In response advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for Langa said: “Industrialists targeting journalists is also serious.”

Allegations against Langa

At least seven cases have been filed against Langa. These include five FIRs by the Gujarat Police and two cases by the Enforcement Directorate.

Langa was first arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on October 7 in an alleged Goods and Services Tax-related fraud.

The police alleged that a company named Dhruvi Enterprise created six firms from a single Permanent Account Number to fraudulently receive input tax credit. One of the companies named in the FIR is DA Enterprise.

On October 22, 2024, the police registered the second case against Langa for allegedly possessing confidential documents on the Gujarat Maritime Board. The documents were recovered from him during his arrest in the first case.

On October 29, 2024, Langa was booked on charges of allegedly cheating a businessman in Ahmedabad.

On the same day, the Ahmedabad Zonal Office of the Enforcement Directorate announced it had filed a money-laundering case against Langa and others.

Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar on Sunday questioned the Supreme Court’s December 11 decision about the selection of vice-chancellors to two universities, asserting that this authority rested with the chancellor under the University Grants Commission Act, Live Law reported.

The governor is the ex-officio chancellor of state universities.

Arlekar said that the “trend” of courts making appointments despite the chancellor having the authority to do so was not correct.

On December 11, the Supreme Court ruled that it would pick the vice-chancellors to Kerala University of Digital Sciences and APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University amid a stalemate between the state government and the governor over the appointments.

The Supreme Court appointed a committee headed by retired Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia to recommend names for the posts as no consensus had emerged.

On Sunday, at an event in Thiruvananthapuram, Arlekar criticised the tendency of one institution to usurp the role of another in a democracy, The Hindu reported.

The power to amend the Constitution was vested in Parliament and the elected legislature, and the courts were there to “interpret the Constitution and not to amend the Constitution”, he added.

Noting that the authority to appoint the vice-chancellor rested with the chancellor, the governor added that this was also upheld in a previous verdict issued by the Supreme Court in 2023.

Arlekar was referring to a case pertaining to Kannur University in which the re-appointment of the vice-chancellor was quashed on the ground that there was “unwarranted interference by the government”, Live Law reported.

The top court was now overlooking such provisions, the governor said.

Arlekar said that such actions amounted to judicial overreach.

The case stems from a notification issued by the former governor on November 27, 2024, appointing Ciza Thomas and K Sivaprasad as interim vice-chancellors of the digital university and the technological university.

On May 19, a single bench of the Kerala High Court struck down both appointments but allowed the incumbents to continue until May 27 to avoid disruption.

A division bench of the High Court later upheld the ruling, saying the governor could appoint temporary vice-chancellors for only up to six months, and only on the basis of recommendations from the state government.

The High Court also directed the state government to propose names of qualified candidates, as prescribed by the University Grants Commission, for temporary appointments until permanent vice-chancellors were selected.

The state government then submitted a panel of three nominees for each post.

However, instead of appointing from the panel, the governor approached the Supreme Court.

On July 31, the Supreme Court said that the Kerala governor could appoint temporary vice-chancellors to both universities until permanent appointments were made.

While issuing the notification for the reappointment of Thomas and Sivaprasad on August 1, Arlekar cited the Supreme Court order.

Subsequently, the Kerala government in August moved the Supreme Court challenging Arlekar’s decision to appoint Thomas and Sivaprasad as interim vice-chancellors.

The Congress on Saturday expelled former Odisha MLA Mohammed Moquim, days after he wrote a letter to former party chief Sonia Gandhi expressing dissatisfaction with the current leadership and flagging a “deeper organisational disconnect”, The Indian Express reported.

A notice from the Congress’ Odisha unit said that Moquim had been expelled from the party due to his “anti-party activities”, ANI reported.

AICC expels Md. Moquim from the primary membership of the party, due to anti-party activities. https://t.co/ob9ImiiIXI pic.twitter.com/pgInaUoDcn

— ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2025

After his expulsion, Moquim said that he had “taken the right step [in writing the letter] after due deliberation” and accepted the decision of the party leadership, ANI reported.

“Rahul ji himself says ‘daro mat [don’t be afraid]’,” he added. “I told the truth to the party’s high command but had to be expelled.”

#WATCH | Odisha: Mohammed Moquim, who has been expelled by the Congress, says, "I came to know that I have been expelled from the party. I had taken the right step after due deliberation. We are such a big party but we are unable to connect to people in every state. We are unable… pic.twitter.com/dGU8NdhKcP

— ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2025

The letter 

Moquim had written the letter to Sonia Gandhi on December 8, demanding a change in leadership and highlighting the wide distance between the party’s top leadership and workers.

The party’s recent losses in several state elections, including Maharashtra, Bihar, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana, reflected a “deeper organisational disconnect”, DD News quoted the letter as stating.

“A series of wrong decisions, misguided leadership choices and the continued concentration of responsibility in the wrong hands have weakened the party from within,” Moquim added.

He said that his letter was reflective of the “silent cries of lakhs of dedicated Congress workers” who felt abandoned, according to DD News.

Former #Odisha MLA Mohammed Moquim has written a strongly worded letter to #SoniaGandhi, expressing deep anguish over the #CongressParty’s organisational decline and internal leadership failures. He warns that the party is losing its legacy not due to external rivals but because… pic.twitter.com/x93PqlMsUk

— DD News (@DDNewslive) December 12, 2025

The former MLA from Barabati-Cuttack said that the current leadership style under 83-year-old party chief Mallikarjun Kharge had meant an inability to “resonate with India’s youth”.

He claimed that the nation was waiting on Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi to take a “central, visible and active leadership role”.

Moquim listed other leaders, including Sachin Pilot, DK Shivamar, Revanth Reddy and Shashi Tharoor, as leaders who had the credibility to “inspire and mobilise young Indians”.

He also highlighted his failed attempts to meet Rahul Gandhi for over three years as a sign of the “wider emotional disconnect” felt by workers.

“The Congress must once again become an example of how India can be governed by vision, inclusiveness and dignity,” he said. “But to achieve this the party needs nothing less than an open heart surgery – deep structural, organisational and ideological renewal”.

Moquim was previously suspended from the party in July 2023, months before the Assembly elections in Odisha on account of his conviction in a vigilance case. Following this, the party fielded his daughter Sofia Firdous from the seat, which she won by over 8,000 votes, The Indian Express reported.

During the 2022 presidential election, Moquim had also gone against the party line and voted for the National Democratic Alliance’s presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu, who is from Odisha.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Sunday claimed that four crore voters were “missing” from the electoral rolls in the state amid the special intensive revision, adding that a majority of them backed the Bharatiya Janata Party, The Indian Express reported.

Speaking to party workers at an event to announce the name of BJP leader Pankaj Chaudhary as the party’s new state chief, Adityanath said: “There is a gap of four crore missing voters. They are not your opponents, but 90% of them are your [BJP’s] voters.”

The chief minister said that Chaudhary had taken charge as the “new captain” in the state’s next political journey, the Hindustan Times reported. However, new challenges lay ahead, he added.

Adityanath asked the party workers to reach out to every voter in their booths in the remaining 12 days of the revision exercise to get enumerated. He added that Uttar Pradesh’s population was about 25 crore, of which roughly 65% should be voters, including those turning 18.

“As per this calculation, the number of voters should be around 16 crore,” The Indian Express quoted the chief minister as saying. “But in the SIR counting so far, it has come to around 12 crore only.”

His remark came as the voter roll revision exercise is underway in 12 states and Union Territories, including in Uttar Pradesh. Booth-level officers began distributing enumeration forms on November 4.

On Thursday, the enumeration phase in Uttar Pradesh was given a nearly two-week extension till December 26. The Election Commission also extended the timelines for the revision in five of the other 12 states and Union Territories.

The poll panel said that the decision was taken based on requests received from the state chief electoral officers. It came hours before the updated deadline set by the Election Commission on November 30.

At Sunday’s event, Adityanath said elections are contested at the booth level and described the voter roll revision as an “opportunity”, The Indian Express reported.

“Raise objections against fake names in every booth,” the newspaper quoted the chief minister as telling the party workers. “Get missing names included.”

Adityanath told the party workers that if they “do the hard work today, then your three-fourths work of the election will be completed, clearing the way for our victory in at least three-fourths seats”.

The BJP leader also claimed that Opposition parties had “Bangladeshis” registered as voters, the newspaper reported.

Flagging these alleged instances of irregularities, Adityanath claimed that the names of Bangladeshi citizens were found on the voter list, along with anomalies in age details across generations, during his visit to one district, the Hindustan Times reported.

“There is still time to add and remove names,” he added.

The chief minister also said that the Opposition parties lacked the strength to pose a serious challenge in the Assembly elections in the state in 2027. But the BJP workers must remain alert and capable of countering their every “trick and conspiracy”, he added.

The final electoral rolls will be published on February 14 instead of the earlier date of February 7, the poll panel announced on November 30. It was not immediately clear if this date had also been pushed ahead as a result of the Election Commission’s decision on Thursday.

In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.

Delhi’s air quality remained in the “severe plus” category on Monday, with 26 of the city’s 40 monitoring stations recording Air Quality Index readings above 450, according to data from the Sameer application at 7.05 am.

The national capital’s average AQI stood at 454, showed the application, which provides hourly updates from the Central Pollution Control Board.

The cities adjoining the capital also reported hazardous air quality levels on Sunday. While Noida recorded an AQI of 456, Ghaziabad 464 and Greater Noida 451, Gurugram remained in the “very poor” category at 328.

Delhi’s air quality has deteriorated sharply in the past few days. The capital’s average AQI rose from 307 on Thursday to 349 on Friday and 431 on Saturday, before touching 461 on Sunday.

An index value between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air. Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” and “severe plus” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

The deterioration in the air quality has been attributed to unfavourable weather conditions, including very low wind speeds caused by a western disturbance, the Hindustan Times reported on Saturday.

A thick layer of smog covered the national capital on Monday morning, reducing visibility in several areas. The India Meteorological Department issued an orange alert in Delhi for fog, urging residents to remain cautious.

Amid the dense fog and smog, Delhi airport issued an advisory on Monday morning warning of possible flight disruptions. Passengers were advised to check with airlines for updates on flight timings and other information.

VIDEO | Delhi: A thick layer of smog engulfs the national capital as winter intensifies across North India. Drone visuals from Kashmiri Gate show reduced visibility across the area. GRAP 4 has been implemented in the Delhi–NCR region to curb rising air pollution levels.… pic.twitter.com/aaDFMCAmga

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 15, 2025

Delhi and the adjoining National Capital Region are under Stage 4 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to curb pollution. The restrictions came into force on Saturday after the air quality slipped into the “severe plus” category.

GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.

This was the first time this season that Stage 4 restrictions, triggered when the AQI breaches the 450 mark, were enforced in Delhi-NCR.

The curbs include a ban on the entry of trucks into the region, a halt on construction activities for public and private projects, and a shift to hybrid mode for schools, except Class 10 and Class 12.

While these measures have been made compulsory in Delhi, neighbouring districts have also begun adopting similar steps.

In Noida, the district administration on Sunday directed schools to shift to online and hybrid modes, India Today reported. While students from pre-nursery to Class 5 will attend online classes, those in Class 6 to Class 9 will follow a hybrid schedule. The order also applies to coaching centres.

#WATCH | A thick layer of smog engulfs the National Capital. Visuals from the Akshardham area. AQI here is 493, categorised as 'severe' as per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) pic.twitter.com/b9k9fthFDk

— ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2025

Delhi-NCR has been recording air quality in the “poor” or worse categories since mid-October.

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

#WATCH | Delhi | Visuals around Anand Vihar area as a thick layer of toxic smog engulfs the national capital.

AQI (Air Quality Index) around the area is 493, categorised as 'Severe', as claimed by CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board).

CAQM (Commission for Air Quality… pic.twitter.com/yuchgBixdq

— ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2025

Singapore High Commission issues advisory

On Monday, the Singapore High Commission in New Delhi issued an advisory urging its citizens to follow the guidelines released by the authorities in the national capital.

Noting that Stage 4 restrictions under GRAP had been imposed, the High Commission said that the Indian authorities had urged residents, especially children and those with respiratory or cardiac ailments, to stay indoors and to use masks when stepping out.

Given the low visibility, flights to and from the national capital are likely to be affected, the advisory said, adding that the Delhi airport and several airlines had also issued advisories. “Travellers should take note of this, and check with the respective airlines for updates,” it added.

In light of the Indian Central Pollution Control Board invoking Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan, the Singapore High Commission has issued the following advisory for Singapore nationals in the Delhi NCR. - HC Wong pic.twitter.com/vPIv0LjTnd

— Singapore in India (@SGinIndia) December 15, 2025

Also read:

• Coastal cities may no longer offer escape from air pollution
• Why air quality numbers in Delhi vary widely

Maredumilli is a bustling eco-tourism hub in the Alluri Sitarama Raju district of Andhra Pradesh.

In late November, SUVs from nearby cities threaded along its scenic roads. Eco-cottages overflowed with visitors. Young people snapped selfies near the Pamuleru canal that runs along the hills.

Others paused at smoke-filled kitchenettes to sample bamboo chicken, a specialty of the local Adivasi community, unaware that just days ago the police had gunned down top Maoist commander Madvi Hidma in a nearby forest.

Hidma, 51, was the youngest and only Adivasi member of the central committee of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), which has been mounting a low-intensity insurgency in the forests of central and eastern India for decades.

For the Maoists, Hidma, born in Puwarti village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, was a son of the soil who had risen through the ranks to become the commander of their most important military unit.

For Chhattisgarh police, he was one of their most wanted insurgents – a man who had led 16 major attacks in the state, including the 2010 ambush in which 76 paramilitary jawans lost their lives. According to them, Hidma was responsible for the deaths of 300 security personnel.

Eventually, however, it was the police of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh that got to him.

On November 18, Andhra Pradesh police announced that it had killed Hidma and five other Maoists in an exchange of fire in the forests near Kondavada village in Maredumilli mandal.

A statement released by the CPI (Maoist) on November 20, signed by its central committee spokesperson who uses the nom de guerre Abhay, claimed that the police had detained Hidma on November 15 in Vijayawada, where he had gone to seek medical treatment. Vijayawada is more than 230 km from Maredumilli block.

Scroll travelled to Maredumilli in late November. After a bumpy ride down Chhattisgarh’s highways, a 66-km stretch from the interstate border town of Konta brought us to Kondavada village.

Most of the residents of the small Adivasi village were out at work when we reached around 11 in the morning. Among the women present and busy with household chores, one spoke up to say they had not heard any gunfire on November 18.

Kondavada is part of the Pamuleru gram panchayat. The sarpanch of Pamuleru, Rama Devi, a young, confident Adivasi woman in her early 30s, told us she had come to know about the killings only from the news.

She said that she received a call from the deputy superintendent of police two days later. He had asked her about the number of households in Kondavada and whether the village had BSNL connectivity, but made no mention of the November 18 encounter, she said.

The sarpanch denied the possibility of local residents sheltering or supplying provisions to the insurgents. She said there had been no presence of the Maoists in the area for decades.

The police superintendent of the district, Amit Badar, maintained that the November 18 gunfight had happened close to Kondavada, and had concluded with the death of Hidma and five other Maoists.

The police statement noted that another gunfight had followed on November 19, also in the Maredumilli block, resulting in the death of another seven Maoists.

The police reported no casualties or injuries in either of the incidents.

The encounters in Maredumilli are part of the Modi government’s anti-Maoist offensive that aims to wipe out the insurgency before March 31, 2026. A statement released by the Union Home Ministry three days before Hidma’s killing put the number of Maoists killed this year at 312.

Civil liberties groups and Opposition parties have questioned some of these killings, alleging that they constitute “fake encounters”.

The encounter site

In Maredumilli block, local journalists said they had been unable to visit the spot where Hidma and others were gunned down. They added that the police had not allowed them to view the bodies either, when they were brought to Rampachodavaram government hospital for postmortem.

A reporter pointed out that the police initially claimed the site was close to Uttaluru village, but later said it was near Kondavada. Scroll reviewed two press statements from the police which bear this out.

Police superintendent Amit Badar brushed this aside as “initial confusion over the gram panchayat”, confirming that the encounter site was close to Kondavada.

A person, who is professionally associated with the police, offered to take us to the spot on the condition of anonymity. He said he had visited the spot with the police, days after the encounter, as part of his official duties.

About 7 km from the Maredumilli block headquarters, a gentle climb up a narrow path, flanked by teak plantations on both sides, led us to a cleared-up patch of forest land. It was here that the police claimed to have exchanged fire with the Maoists, the person said.

Barring a few bullet marks on a tree trunk, there were no visible signs of the gunfight that had reportedly taken place two weeks ago. The person, however, pointed to the tree under which he had seen a large spot of blood when he had initially visited the spot. He said the police had told him this is where Hidma was killed.

He pointed to other trees close by where he said he had seen blood marks, albeit much smaller.

Strewn on the ground, he said, he had seen less than 50 empty bullet shells which appeared to be from the same weapons.

The person added that the forest was dry when he had visited. It had rained the day we reached. A few tomatoes and brinjals lay on the wet forest floor. They had been there when he had first visited, the person said. But apart from them, he added that he had seen no other food provisions or utensils to indicate that the Maoists had camped in the area.

Kondavada village lies about three and a half kilometers from the spot. It is one of six villages part of the Pamuleru gram panchayat.

The sarpanch of Pamuleru, Rama Devi, expressed surprise at the recent events – particularly when told by Scroll that the police claimed the encounter had happened near Kondavada.

She said Kondavada had 134 residents, almost all of whom belonged to the Konda Reddy community, listed as a particularly vulnerable tribal group. They farmed small patches of land and collected forest produce, apart from working as seasonal labourers in nearby towns and cities.

The sarpanch added that she had relatives in Kondavada, and had there been any unusual activity in the forest, they would have reported it to her.

The second site

According to the police, the security operation did not cease with Hidma’s death – more gunfire was exchanged the next day in the forest near GM Valasa village, killing seven.

We visited the village four days after the encounter, with the help of local workers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and members of the Adivasi Girijana Sangham.

Residents of GM Valasa, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recounted hearing gunfire between 4 am and 7 am on November 19, as some of them made their way to tap rubber at their plantations. A young man part of the group said the sound of gunfire frightened him and he rushed back home.

Kishore, a local resident whose real name is being withheld on request, said he was at home when he heard gunfire around 5 am. As he stepped out of his home, he saw a large group of security personnel. An officer, in civil dress, asked for his phone – perhaps because it had a BSNL SIM card, which has better connectivity in the area.

Kishore said he overheard the officer deliver a cryptic message: “Target finished”. The officer deleted the number he had called before he handed back the device.

Around 1 pm, local residents recalled, a vehicle arrived, and several bodies were swiftly loaded onto it. A few media personnel arrived and took video footage before leaving. Kishore said he had also recorded some videos on his phone, but the police insisted that he delete them. He showed us one blurred image in his phone which he managed to save.

Initially, the police had barred local residents from accessing the forest where the gunfire had taken place. But four days later, when we visited, two young residents led us past shallow water streams and rubber plantations to a relatively open patch of wooded land about 2 km away.

Several police personnel in civilian clothes, including the station house officer of Maredumilli Police, were present at the spot. The officer declined to speak to us before heading out on his motorcycle.

Unlike the site near Kondavada, the forest floor here, strewn with dry leaves, had visible patches of what villagers described as dried blood. Several tree trunks bore bullet marks. Some even displayed large smears of blood, with single streaks running down as if from close-range gunfire.

‘Fear and restlessness’

Back in the village, home to about 150 families, almost entirely Adivasi, we asked locals whether the Maoists had been in the forest for an extended period or had sought food, water, or other necessities from them – everyone shook their heads.

Several elders recalled an older Maoist influence dating back to the 2000s not just in Maredumilli but also in other parts of East Godavari, the larger district from which Alluri Sitarama Raju district was carved out three years ago. “But that is history now,” said K Survana Raju, a 70-year-old Maredumilli block councillor. Over the last 15 years, the Maoists had disappeared from the area, he said.

He said there was no possibility of the Maoist cadres getting local support since the Adivasis in Maredumilli were not in favour of an armed struggle. On the recent encounters, he added: “These incidents are created to instill fear and restlessness among the community.”

The district police superintendent dismissed such claims. “Maoists have their own underground network that may not be apparent, and it would be misleading to state there is no support for them,” Amit Badar said.

On the day that Hidma was killed, Andhra Pradesh police claimed to have arrested about 50 Maoist cadres from the state. However, no arrests have been reported from the villages close to the encounter sites. Both the sarpanch of Pamuleru and the block councillor of Maredumilli told Scroll that no one from the area had been detained or called in for questioning by the police.

Until June 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs counted five districts in Andhra Pradesh as “left-wing extremism affected” – a term used to indicate Maoist presence in an area. This included East Godavari, West Godavari, Srikakulam, Vizianagram and Vishakhapatnam.

In 2022, a new district was created by merging mandals or blocks from the Rampachodavaram division of East Godavari district with mandals from the Paderu division of Vishakhapatnam.

This new district is called the Alluri Sitarama Raju district. By December 2024, it was the only Andhra Pradesh district left on the home ministry’s list of LWE-affected districts.

In November 2025, the home ministry claimed further success in shrinking the Maoist footprint. “The number of districts most affected by Naxalism have been brought down to three,” it said, identifying them as Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh.

Grief and anger in Puwarti

In Puwarti village in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, where Hidma was born, local residents said the police forced them to conduct his funeral in haste.

“We Adivasis traditionally hold funerals at sunset, but the family was pressured to conduct it around noon,” said Adivasi leader Soni Sori, who was present at the funeral. “Many relatives and well-wishers from nearby villages could not attend.”

Local media reported that the police wanted to prevent a large funeral gathering.

Soni said Hidma had attained a heroic stature among local Adivasis. They saw him as “someone who fought with his life to protect their land, water, and forest,” she said.

Many residents of interior villages in Sukma and Bijapur were in shock at Hidma’s killing. They pointed out that the deputy chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Vijay Sharma, had recently visited Puwarti village to meet Hidma’s family as well as that of his close associate Barse Dewa. Sharma had urged Hidma and Dewa’s mothers to appeal to their sons to lay down arms and return to the mainstream.

A week later, the Maoist leader was killed in Andhra Pradesh.

The Himalayan Institute of Alternatives in Ladakh, founded by activist Sonam Wangchuk, is doing “exemplary” work, a parliamentary panel has said, recommending that the institution be granted recognition by the University Grants Commission, PTI reported on Sunday.

Wangchuk has been in jail since September 26 after he was arrested under the National Security Act, two days after four persons were killed in police firing during protests in Leh demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

He was shifted to a jail in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

The Union government has alleged that the violence was incited by Wangchuk’s “provocative statements”.

In a report tabled in Parliament last week, the Standing Committee on Education, Women, Youth and Sports expressed concern about the pending recognition for the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives by the University Grants Commission, which assesses and accredits higher educational institutions to determine their “quality status”.

The parliamentary panel is headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh.

“The [parliamentary] committee was concerned to learn that the UGC has not yet granted recognition to HIAL and that the matter has been pending for many years now,” PTI quoted the report as saying. “The committee recommends that the UGC should consider granting recognition to HIAL.”

The panel also recommended that the Ministry of Education study the institute’s model and consider how it could be replicated elsewhere through Centres of Innovation in Education or other interventions.

“The committee noted that the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives has had a significant impact on the local community and has gained international recognition for initiatives such as ice stupas and other community engagement activities,” PTI quoted the report as stating.

The panel also said Wangchuk’s institute reflects the goals of the 2020 National Education Policy, particularly its emphasis on experiential learning, community engagement and Indian Knowledge Systems.

Following the violence in Ladakh, the Union home ministry cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act licence of Wangchuk’s non-governmental organisation, the Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, citing several violations.

In August, the Ladakh administration cancelled the allotment of a plot of land in Phyang village in Leh for the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives.

The land had been allotted in 2018, but the government said the lease lapsed in 2019 as its conditions were not met.

Two persons, including a woman, in Assam have been granted Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, PTI reported.

With this, four persons have received citizenship in Assam under the Act, their lawyer Dharmananda Deb said.

This was the first time that a woman was given citizenship under the Act in the state, Deb was quoted by the news agency as saying.

“The 40-year-old woman had entered India from Bangladesh in 2007 and had been living in Sribhumi, while the 61-year-old man, who came to the country in 1975, had been living in Cachar,” Deb said.

The Union home ministry granted them citizenship on December 12. Their citizenship will be deemed to be effective from the dates when they entered India, the lawyer said.

The woman hails from the Chittagong district in Bangladesh, and had come to Silchar to accompany a relative for medical treatment, Northeast News reported. Subsequently, she met a man from Sribhumi in Assam, and married him.

The second individual who was granted citizenship hails from Bangladesh’s Moulvibazar district. He came to India at the age of 11 years, and subsequently a woman from Silchar, PTI reported.

The Citizenship Amendment Act seeks to provide a fast track to citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and have entered the country by December 31, 2014.

The law had sparked massive protests across the country in 2019 and 2020.

Many Indian Muslims fear that the law could be used, along with the nationwide National Register of Citizens, to harass and disenfranchise them. The National Register of Citizens is a proposed exercise to identify undocumented immigrants.

The extended summers, delayed monsoons and shorter winters – collectively featuring a warmer climate – are triggering pest infestations across tea estates in Bangladesh and India.

Entomologists have observed significant growth of several pests, including red spider mites (Oligonychus coffeae) and thrips (Scirtothrips dorsalis), which were minor in the tea gardens even a decade ago. Moreover, rising temperatures have contributed to the reemergence of the devastating looper caterpillars (Biston suppressaria) in many tea gardens.

Tea (Camellia sinensis) plants are known to be vulnerable to attack from insects, mites and nematode pests.

Tea plantation researchers in Bangladesh and India (the world’s second–largest tea producer) have rung the warning bell, stating that tea mosquito bugs (Helopeltis theivora), red coffee borers (Zeuzera coffeae), green weevils (Hypomeces pulviger) and red slug caterpillars (Eterusia aedea) are booming in tea estates, in addition to red spider mites, thrips and looper caterpillars.

Bangladesh Tea Research Institute’s principal scientific officer in the Entomology Division, Mohammad Shameem Al Mamun, tells Mongabay, “Due to rising temperatures, pest infestation is increasing as well as pest status is changing.”

Based on local meteorological data, the Bangladesh Tea Association estimates that the average maximum temperatures (daytime) slightly reduced from 33.9 degrees celsius to 31.2 degrees celsius, but the minimum temperatures (nighttime) rose from roughly 16 degrees celsius to 20.7 degrees celsius in the Sylhet region between 2011 and 2024.

In 2024, Bangladesh produced 93 million kg of processed tea in 10 valleys, mostly across the hilly eastern Sylhet and Chattogram regions. The previous year, the amount of tea produced was 102.9 million kg.

According to a local news article published in July, pests like looper caterpillars cost India’s tea industry approximately 147 million kg of tea, worth about 28.65 billion rupees ($318 million) annually.

Joydeep Phukan, principal officer and secretary of the Tea Research Association of India, observes that tea plantation areas across India, especially in the valleys of Assam and West Bengal, are experiencing extended summers with rising temperatures.

He tells Mongabay that while temperatures around 25 degrees celsius are ideal for tea cultivation, plantations in India are now enduring 35-40 degrees celsius heat for days at a stretch during April and June.

“Given the temperature rise, pest infestations are increasing,” he adds.

In 2024, India produced 1.3 billion kg of processed tea in the valleys located in Assam, West Bengal, North India and South India. In the previous year, 1.4 billion kg of tea were produced in India.

Once-minor trouble

According to research, 1,034 species of arthropods, meaning insects and mites, and 82 species of nematodes or worms are associated with tea plants globally. Among them, 25 species of insects, four species of mites and 10 species of nematodes were recorded from Bangladesh.

Many pests that were formerly “minor” even a few years ago are now becoming “major” problems in Bangladesh’s tea estates, entomologist Shameem says, citing that looper caterpillars and thrips are reemerging as dominating factors in some tea gardens.

Shameem adds that tea plants under stressed conditions become more vulnerable as insects and mites like red spider mites and thrips breed faster in warmer and drier conditions.

Besides the boom of looper caterpillars and thrips, new pests such as the red coffee borer, green weevil and red slug are emerging in tea gardens due to climate change and deforestation, Shameem says.

He and his team are researching the impacts of climate change on tea plantations in Bangladesh, with a paper scheduled to publish soon.

The July local news article reports that the Dooars valley, located north of West Bengal, has been hit by erratic rainfall, prolonged dry spells and unusually warm winters that lead to a 10%-25% lower yield in gardens like Madarihat-Birpara, Kalchini and Kumargram.

The reported conditions allow looper populations to surge. The article cites a century-long weather study that confirms an increase of 1-1.2 degrees celsius in winter minimum temperatures and the shrinking forest cover further exacerbates these pest outbreaks.

In April 2023, the United Planters Association of Southern India sought urgent government intervention while reporting an expansion of the territory of tea mosquito bugs in the valleys of both low- and high-elevation plantations. The real cause was a warming climate.

According to the association, Helopeltis mosquito bugs are affecting tea production in the northern and southern states in South India.

A report published in August 2023 estimated that tea production from Tamil Nadu’s Valparai hills declined by 50% from 30 million kg in 2009-’10 to 16.7 million kg in 2021-’22 due to pest infestations.

Remedies

In a desperate bid to control the pests, tea garden managers are now rotating up to six or eight types of approved pesticides, targeting mites, termites, nematodes and tea mosquito bugs.

However, tea garden managers are struggling to contain the pest outbreaks, as pesticide applications have become largely ineffective due to rising resistance among many pest species.

A 2024 study reported that the extensive usage of neonicotinoids, carbamates and synthetic pyrethroids against sap-sucking pests has become “almost chemically unmanageable” as these insects have developed various defense mechanisms.

Given the changing conditions, Shameem suggests integrated pest management measures such as cultural control with plucking and pruning of the tea bushes, shade regulation, field sanitation, proper fertilizer application, managing or removing alternate hosts and selecting pest-resistant or tolerant varieties to minimise pest infestations in the tea garden.

According to his research, mechanical methods, including manual removal, heat treatments, light traps and the use of biopesticides, biological control agents and sex pheromone traps, could play a more prominent role in pest management programs.

Besides integrated pest management, Tea Research Association of India secretary Joydeep recommends improving soil health to strengthen the immunity of tea plants.

Saying the tea industry in South Asia is older than 200 years, Joydeep argues that soil quality in tea plantation areas, dominated by monoculture, has been depleted due to overuse.

According to him, the Tea Research Association of India has developed a biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from organic materials such as wood or plant waste, for use in the tea areas. The nutrient-rich biochar improves soil health.

“Minimum five years and onwards would be needed to improve soil health of a particular tea plantation plot. Once soil health is restored, more than 50% of the pest-related problems can be resolved,” Joydeep says.

He notes the importance of building a data hub on the use of pesticides and pest management across Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka to help the tea industry adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts.

Offering cooperation, Roshan Rajadurai, a member of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon and managing director of Kelani Valley Plantations in Sri Lanka, tells Mongabay that the country’s tea industry has been facing short-term episodes of excess rainfall rather than rising temperatures.

According to him, the Sri Lankan tea industry is fortunate to have very few pests. Despite this advantage, Sri Lankan tea planters follow integrated pest management and maintain good agricultural practices, including planting new trees, improving soil fertility and restoring water storage systems.

Only in areas with high humidity and heavy rainfall do they apply approved pesticides.

“That is why Sri Lanka is recognised as the source of the world’s cleanest tea, with the lowest pesticide residues,” Roshan says.

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday appointed Bihar minister Nitin Nabin as its national working president with immediate effect.

Nabin is a minister in the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, and holds the road construction portfolio.

An official order issued by BJP National General Secretary Arun Singh said that the party’s parliamentary board approved the appointment, India Today reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Nabin as a young and industrious leader with rich organisational experience.

“He has diligently worked to fulfil people’s aspirations,” Modi said on social media. “He is known for his humble nature and grounded style of working.”

Shri Nitin Nabin Ji has distinguished himself as a hardworking Karyakarta. He is a young and industrious leader with rich organisational experience and has an impressive record as MLA as well as Minister in Bihar for multiple terms. He has diligently worked to fulfil people’s…

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 14, 2025

JP Nadda, the current BJP chief, congratulated Nabin on his appointment as the party’s national working president, calling him a “dynamic leader” from Bihar.

“I am confident that under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji and your leadership, the organisation will set new benchmarks in national and public service,” he said.

Nadda took over as the president of the BJP from Union Home Minister Amit Shah in January 2020. His term ended in 2024, but was extended on account of the Lok Sabha election that year.

Nabin, born on May 23, 1980, is the son of former MLA Nabin Kishore Prasad Sinha. He was first elected to Bihar’s Patna West Assembly constituency in 2006 through a bye-election. Subsequently, he won the Bankipur seat in Patna in elections held in 2010, 2015, 2020, and 2025.

In the Assembly polls held earlier this year, he won by over 52,00 votes from Bankipur, India Today reported.

The chief organiser of Argentine footballer Lionel Messi’s India tour, Satadru Dutta, was on Sunday denied bail and sent to 14-days police custody, a day after fans vandalised the venue in West Bengal’s Kolkata over poor management, The Indian Express reported.

Messi is in the country until Monday for the three-day GOAT (Greatest of All Time) India Tour 2025. After completing the Kolkata and Hyderabad legs of the tour, he is now in Mumbai and is due to visit Delhi on Monday.

He is also joined by his Inter Miami teammate Luis Suárez and Argentine footballer Rodrigo De Paul.

At Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday, thousands of spectators from several parts of the country had arrived to catch a glimpse of Messi. The footballer’s convoy entered the stadium at 11.30 am.

However, as the footballers entered the stadium, a crowd of 70 to 80 persons, including the organisers of the event, state Sports Minister Aroop Biswas and representatives of football clubs, surrounded them.

The spectators on the stands were unable to see Messi, Suarez and Paul as the group surrounding the footballers tried to take selfies and autographs from them. The fans started shouting: “We want Messi”.

However, Messi was taken out of the stadium at about 11.52 am, before Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and actor Shahrukh Khan arrived to greet him.

Subsequently, chaos ensued as angry spectators started breaking chairs in the stands and throwing them on the field. Bottles were also thrown. The spectators broke the gate along the edge of the field and entered in large numbers.

Temporary structures were overturned and some were even set on fire, prompting the police to resort to lathi-charge to control the crowd. Personnel from the Rapid Action Force were also deployed inside the stadium.

Following the incident, Dutta was arrested by Kolkata Police, for the alleged mismanagement.

He was produced before the Bidhannagar Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate on Sunday, where his lawyer sought bail, arguing that he had been framed, NDTV reported.

The court rejected the bail application and remanded Dutta to 14-day police custody.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose visited the stadium on Sunday, a day after he claimed that was “denied” entry to the venue following the chaos, PTI reported.

Bose said he was denied entry on Saturday, finding the gates closed and the lights switched off, and alleged the move was intended to block his visit.

He had earlier described the incident as a “dark day for the sports-loving people of Kolkata”.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Saturday alleged that the Bihar government wrongly transferred money to the bank accounts of several men under a cash-tranfer scheme meant exclusively for women, accusing the ruling National Democratic Alliance of being in a “frantic rush to buy votes” ahead of the Assembly elections.

On August 29, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced a scheme to provide financial assistance to one woman from each family to start an employment venture of her choice. The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 26.

Under the scheme, titled the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, one woman from each family in the state was to be given Rs 10,000 as the first instalment to start an employment venture.

The move came months ahead of the Assembly elections that the National Democratic Alliance won on November 14, bagging 202 of the 243 seats.

On Saturday, the Rashtriya Janata Dal shared screenshots on social media of purported letters issued by the Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society, also known as Jeevika, asking the recipients to return the money after the error was detected.

The letter, dated December 5 was reportedly sent by the Block Project Manager of Jeevika in the Jaale block of the Darbhanga district to two recipients from Ahiyari and Berhampur panchayats.

The letter stated that the Chief Minister’s Women’s Employment Scheme was intended only for women members of Jeevika self-help groups, but due to a technical error, Rs 10,000 had been transferred to the recipients’ accounts, requesting them to deposit the amount back into a specified account.

बिहार में एनडीए नेताओं और अधिकारियों को रिश्वत देकर वोट खरीदने और सत्ता पाने की इतनी हड़बड़ी थी कि बेचारे भयंकर गड़बड़ी कर बैठे। बेचैनी और असुरक्षा इतनी ज्यादा थी कि महिलाओं की बजाय 10,000 रुपए पुरुषों के खाते में भेज दिए।

अब पुरुषों को दस हजार रुपए लौटाने के लिए लव लेटर लिखे… pic.twitter.com/DTqdMU5ohO

— Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) December 13, 2025

“In Bihar, hunger, inflation, migration, and unemployment are so rampant that whatever thousand rupees they got must have been spent the very moment it hit their accounts,” the party remarked, adding that several of the men would not be able to return the money.

The Bihar government has said that so far Rs 10,000 has been transferred to more than 1.56 crore women under the scheme, The Hindu reported.

In Maharashtra, similar irregularities were flagged in July this year after a state government review found that 14,298 men had received monthly payouts under the Mukhya Mantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana by misrepresenting their identities, causing a loss of Rs 21.44 crore to the exchequer over 10 months.

Delhi’s air quality remained in the “severe plus” category on Sunday, with 25 of the city’s 40 monitoring stations recording Air Quality Index readings above 450, according to data from the Sameer application at 12.05 pm.

The national capital’s average AQI stood at 457, the application which provides hour updates from the Central Pollution Control Board, showed. Data from one monitoring station was unavailable at the time.

The cities adjoining the capital also reported hazardous air quality levels on Sunday. Noida recorded an AQI of 466, Ghaziabad 457 and Greater Noida 434.

A day earlier, Delhi’s overall AQI had touched 431, rising sharply from 349 on Friday and 307 on Thursday.

An index value between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air.

Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” and “severe plus” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

The deterioration in the air quality has been attributed to unfavourable weather conditions, including very low wind speeds caused by a western disturbance, the Hindustan Times reported.

#WATCH | Delhi | Visuals around India Gate this morning as a layer of toxic smog blankets the city; GRAP 4 invoked in the national capital.

AQI (Air Quality Index) around the area is 483, categorised as 'Severe', as claimed by CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board pic.twitter.com/gDTBfayTRJ

— ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2025

On Saturday, as the air quality slipped into the “severe plus” category, the Commission for Air Quality Management imposed Stage 4 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to curb pollution in the Delhi-National Capital Region.

Earlier in the day, the authorities had reimposed Stage 3 curbs, which were upgraded to Stage 4 by night as pollution levels worsened.

This was the first time this season that Stage 4 restrictions, triggered when the AQI breaches the 450 mark, were enforced in Delhi-NCR.

The curbs include a ban on the entry of trucks into the region, a halt on construction activities for both public and private projects, and a shift to hybrid mode for all schools except Classes 10 and 12.

GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.

Delhi has been recording air quality in the “poor” or worse categories since mid-October.

Air quality deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital.

Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, along with the lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, vehicular pollution, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

Watch: Delhi’s pollution crisis needs drastic action

One cold January evening, three young royals dined at a palatial mansion in Allahabad, now Prayagraj, in 1911, around the time the British administrative centre witnessed an historic event.

The city, located at the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers, was the venue of what came to be known as the Allahabad Exhibition of 1911, inaugurated on December 1, 1910, by John Hewett, the British lieutenant governor of the United Provinces.

On display at the exhibition, which ran till February 1911, were crafts and technology from around the world, including stalls – or rather Mughal- and Rajasthani-architecture-inspired pavilions – that hosted German Engineering Works, British manufacturers of agricultural equipment and domestic machinery and the artworks of Abanindranath Tagore.

Celebrated singers and courtesans Gauhar Jaan of Calcutta, the first Indian artist to record on the gramophone, and Janki Bai Allahabadi were invited to perform at the exhibition, which drew visitors and guests not only from Indian royal families but also from across the world.

The hum of their enthralling voices seems to have been drowned, at least in popular memory, by the sounds of flying machines. British aviation pioneer Walter Windham who had brought two airplanes to the exhibition organised aerial demonstrations for the crowds.

On February 18, 1911, French pilot Henri Pequet flew a Humber-Sommer biplane carrying around 6,000 to 6,500 letters and postcards from Allahabad over the Yamuna River to Naini, a distance of 13 km. This was the world’s first official airmail flight, commemorated with a special bright pink cancellation stamp depicting an aeroplane, mountains, and the words “First Aerial Post, 1911, U.P. Exhibition Allahabad.”

Among those who attended this gala exhibition were the great-grandson of Queen Victoria and the eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, the Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst, and the Oxford-educated, globe-trotting Kumar Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal, who was considered the reincarnation (tulku) of a Buddhist spirtual master, Karmapa Lama, and was recognised by the British as the heir to the throne of Sikkim.

These two men had little in common, apart from their enchantment with the Burmese princess Hteiktin Ma Lat, the daughter of the Burmese Prince of Limbin, who was himself the cousin of the last king of Burma, King Thibaw.

After the third Anglo-Burmese War and the fall of his kingdom in 1885, Thibaw and the royal family were exiled to British-colonised India. They first landed in Calcutta and then moved to the Bombay Presidency, with the Limbin Prince eventually settling in Allahabad with his family, leasing a mansion on Clive Road.

It was in Allahabad that Ma Lat, born in Calcutta in 1894, received her education, built her social life, and met the two men who would be captivated by her beauty.

Maharaja Kumar, described as a devout Buddhist of quiet and amenable character, attended the exhibition at the invitation of the British, who were aware of his repeated, unsuccessful attempts to find a suitable bride – a quest that had led him to approach aristocratic families as far away as Japan.

His streak of poor luck finally came to an end as the 33-year-old Kumar, aided by the machinations of the British Government of India and the lieutenant governor of the United Provinces, met the “English-educated and speaking” Ma Lat during his visit to the exhibition.

Though records do not describe their interaction at the exhibition, the event likely served as their first point of acquaintance – an introduction that would be followed by further meetings in Allahabad.

Amid the festivities surrounding the grand exhibition, Ma Lat’s aunt and uncle organised a gala dinner at their mansion in Allahabad. The guest list included local Indian elites, British officers and Kumar, but the evening became all the more interesting when German Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm turned up uninvited. British officers close to Wilhelm later recounted how he frequently remarked that the teenage Ma Lat was the most striking woman he had encountered during his eastern tour.

Another guest at the dinner, Ethel Anderson – poet, novelist, and painter, who in 1904 married British Brigadier-General Austin Thomas Anderson, stationed in Lucknow and Bombay – recounted the events of that night in an essay published in 1952.

Waxing eloquent about Ma Lat’s porcelain-like, biscuit-tinted, and delicately luminous appearance that so captivated Wilhelm, Anderson described the lively banter between the prince and the princess. When the prince teasingly remarked that the stunning Limbin mansion, doused in soft light filtering through its archways, must have been designed either by an eccentric architect or by a complete novice, the princess – comparing the structure to wedding cakes – retorted that a cook was responsible for its finesse.

To this, the prince replied that a honeybee seemed a more likely architect, for laid out before them were a myriad of intricate Indian dishes. These included deep-fried unripe poppy heads coated with gram flour, which the prince particularly enjoyed, a dish made with rice, meat, vetches and vinegar served with a sauce of ground coriander seeds and mint, and incomparably rich pulaos, kebabs and paranthas.

While Ma Lat’s cautious flirtation with the German Crown Prince came to nothing, love quietly blossomed between her and Kumar. Following Ma Lat’s return to Burma with her family in late 1911 or early 1912, the two exchanged letters expressing the pain of being separated and their longing to see each other again. They also discussed possible timelines for their marriage – eventually settling on 1915 – and often debated differences in their customs, including what kind of dress and jewellery would be appropriate for the wedding.

Correspondence between the two came to an end in 1914, a year before their wedding, when Kumar suddenly died under suspicious circumstances – although some suspected British foul play. Upon ascending the throne of Sikkim in February 1914, Kumar’s assertive and independent nature as king soon became evident, straining his relations with the Political Officer, Charles Bell. In December 1914, while Kumar was somewhat indisposed, a British physician from Bengal administered a heavy transfusion of brandy, wrapped him in multiple blankets and kept a fire burning beneath the bed. Kumar is reported to have died within the hour.

Several years later, in 1928, Ma Lat married Herbert Bellamy, a British-Australian horse breeder, bookmaker, and orchid collector who had moved to Burma at the suggestion of the Sultan of Johor (a state in southern Malaysia).

In recent years, the memory of Ma Lat and the culinary splendour of the Limbin dining table have been swept into the booming spectacle of culinary-heritage tourism. With history increasingly reduced to social-media aesthetics and business enterprises capitalising on the demand for Instagram-ready cultural experiences, the Rampriya House – a colonial-era mansion of the Pratapgarh estate in Prayagraj – is now advertised as Ma Lat’s former residence, a claim I have not been able to verify or find evidence for so far.

The mansion was supposedly built in the 1800s for Pratap Bahadur, the Raja of Pratapgarh, and named after his wife, Rani Rampriya.

The house now hosts curated dining experiences that promise a taste of the past, carefully recreated by a female Brahmin cook, while simultaneously promoting the venue as the place where Ma Lat dined with – or, according to the internet, hosted – the Crown Prince of Germany. It reflects a deliciously twisted, commercially-driven alliance in the landscape of social-media-worthy heritage experiences, which thrives alongside increasingly hostile everyday food encounters marked by caste and communal boundaries.

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

A Muslim cloth vendor, who was assaulted by a mob that allegedly targeted him after asking his religious identity, died of his injuries in Bihar’s Nawada district on Friday night, The Indian Express reported.

Mohammad Athar Hussain, a resident of Gagan Diwan village, sold clothes on a bicycle. The assault took place on December 5 near Bhattapar village under Roh police station when Hussain was returning home and stopped to look for a puncture repair shop after his bicycle broke down, the newspaper reported.

According to his brother, Mohammad Shakib Alam, Hussain was intercepted by a group of villagers who asked his name and profession before attacking him.

“They assaulted him, cut his ears, beat him with a heated rod,” Alam told The Indian Express.

In a video recorded after the incident, Hussain said that the assailants first asked his name, pulled him off his bicycle, robbed him of Rs 18,000 and assaulted him. He said the group later grew to about 15-20 people.

He also alleged that the mob had “stripped him to check his private parts and branded his body with a heated iron rod”.

Hussain was first taken to a primary health centre in Roh and then referred to Nawada Sadar Hospital before being shifted to Pawapuri VIMS, where he succumbed to his injuries late on Friday night.

A post-mortem examination has been conducted.

Police said six people have been arrested and two minors detained in connection with the case so far.

In a complaint filed on December 6, Hussain’s wife, Shabnam Parveen, named 10 residents of Bhattapar village as accused. Ten other persons who assaulted Hussain are unidentified.

The first information report alleged that Hussain was assaulted after being falsely accused of theft and that family members who reached the village were also abused and threatened.

Based on the complaint, police initially registered a case under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to unlawful assembly, rioting and grievous hurt. Murder charges were added after Hussain died.

Meanwhile, a cross-complaint filed by one of the persons accused in the case, Sikandar Yadav, alleged that Hussain had attempted a burglary that night. Police said they are examining both complaints.

Nawada Superintendent of Police Abhinav Dhiman said that a Special Investigation Team arrested four suspects within 24 hours and four more on Saturday, The Indian Express reported.

“Eight persons have been either arrested or detained, and raids are ongoing to trace the remaining accused,” Dhiman was quoted as saying.

An unexpected perk of having a geographically dispersed newsroom is the casual weather updates that we exchange on news calls. As winter sets in, these are often replaced by updates on the air quality in different cities. Those of us from Delhi usually have a lot to contribute on the subject, from complaints about the sting in our eyes when we step outside to analyses of which N95 mask will get us through the season.

This year, however, colleagues visiting or settled in even coastal cities noticed that they had encountered high Air Quality Index readings in them.

To confirm, I checked the latest available data from across 249 cities in India, collected by the Central Pollution Control Board. The data showed that as of December 9, most major coastal cities were recording “moderate” AQI levels. Mumbai had an AQI of 115, Chennai 138, Mangaluru 140, Puducherry 124 and Sri Vijaya Puram (formerly Port Blair) in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had an AQI of 121.

While these are significantly lower than the numbers a north Indian city such as Delhi sees, at these AQI levels, possible health impacts could include “breathing discomfort to the people with lungs, asthma and heart diseases”. On the same day, Visakhapatnam saw “poor” AQI, at 216.

Some seasonal factors could play a role in this pollution, since PM10 and PM2.5 levels are generally higher in winter than in summer and monsoon. In fact, the annual average AQI of some of these cities has fallen over the years. In the last 10 years, for instance, Chennai has seen a fall in average annual AQI from 114 to 74, and Mumbai from 110 to 83, a recent study by think-tank Climate Trend showed. Visakhapatnam, however, has seen an increase in average annual AQI from 98 in 2016 to 113 in 2025.

The study warns that though some cities have seen improvement, they “fail to reach consistently safe levels” of air and even show “regular oscillations indicating ongoing pollution pressures”. Improvement in annual averages also does not reflect possible increases in individual pollutants: for instance, one study shows that between 2015 and 2020, Chennai saw a “net increase” of PM10 by 4 micrograms per cubic metre.

The high AQI readings of coastal cities on specific days seemed surprising, given that they have the benefit of natural dispersal of pollutants at night, as a result of the land-sea breeze.

This breeze forms because land cools down at night, while warm air continues to rise over the sea. The resulting low pressure over the sea draws cooler land air out, which carries with it suspended dust and other pollutants.

So why was this natural flushing not helping?

A quick chat with Sarath Guttikunda, founder and director of UrbanEmissions, an open data source on air pollution trends and analysis, revealed a simple answer.

He explained that emissions are rising year after year in these cities, but the meteorological and geographical advantages they enjoy are limited, and are not seeing major changes. “If you would look at the meteorological patterns in 2000 and 2025, they will pretty much look the same”, said Guttikunda.

The natural next question is: what is the source of high emissions in these cities?

Very few studies look at pollution sources of India’s coastal cities. One such is from 2014, co-authored by Guttikunda, which showed that industrial activity was a major cause of pollution in some of these cities. Chennai and Visakhapatnam, for instance, are industrial hubs, and 21% of Chennai’s PM10 and 15% of Visakhapatnam’s came from coal, diesel and gas combustion.

The study also found that between 2011 and 2012, sulphur dioxide emission, from increasing industrial activity and consumption of coal, increased by at least 30% in both cities.

But rather than these “point sources”, the paper noted, a greater contribution came from “diffused sources” of pollution, such as vehicles and road dust, which are dispersed over a larger area. For instance, vehicle exhaust contributes 35% of Chennai’s PM10 levels and 23% of Visakhapatnam’s, according to the study.

The authors noted that much of this dispersed pollution is also linked to industrial activity. “While the growth of private vehicles has occurred at a rapid rate, major contributors to road transport emissions were the freight vehicles” that were running on diesel, to and fro from ports and industrial hubs, they wrote.

Meanwhile, Mumbai, as we had reported earlier, is plagued by a different diffused source – construction activity that has seen a boom in recent years.

The authors noted that these sources are of particular concern because emissions from them “are steadily increasing”.

Granular data over years for pollution levels is available in only limited cities and for limited time periods – thus getting a detailed picture of the shift in pollution in coastal cities remains a challenge. Annual AQI averages often do not capture the changes in spikes in emissions of different pollutants.

But data from individual days, and increases in emissions of particular pollutants over some years offer some clues. They suggest that while north India’s inland cities are well known to be the country’s most polluted, coastal cities may also no longer offer any escape.

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

The IndiGo crisis. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation removed four of its flight operations inspectors following the enormous disruption of IndiGo’s operations last week. The aviation regulator directed them to return to their parent organisations.

The officials had been working for the regulator on a contractual basis and were responsible for monitoring safety, pilot training and regulatory compliance.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation directed the airline to cut its scheduled flights by 10% to stabilise its operations. IndiGo holds about 60% of India’s domestic civil aviation market, making it the country’s largest airline.

Indian railways is running trains for passengers hit by the IndiGo crisis. But they are going empty, writes Tabassum Barnagarwala.

Kerala sexual assault case. A trial court in Kerala acquitted Malayalam film actor Dileep in a 2017 case pertaining to the abduction and rape of an actor. He was acquitted of all offences after a nearly eight-year trial. However, the court found six other persons guilty of rape, conspiracy and abduction, among other offences. They were sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.

On February 17, 2017, six men kidnapped and sexually assaulted an actor inside her car for two hours. They had allegedly also filmed the assault to blackmail the woman. Dileep was among the 10 persons accused in the case and was alleged to be the mastermind of the assault.

Goa nightclub fire. A Delhi court denied anticipatory bail to Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, who allegedly fled India after a fire at their nightclub in Goa killed 25 persons. They were detained by the Thailand Police in Phuket at the request of the Indian government and the process of bringing them to India is underway.

Their lawyer told the court that they had not fled the country, but had gone to Thailand for business. However, the Goa government said that the Luthra brothers booked the flight at 1.17 am on December 7, shortly after the fire.

It also alleged that the brothers had no business interests in Thailand and that their family did not cooperate with the police when the officers went to their home.

The expensive fantasy of Goa displaces Goans and runs on cheap migrant labour, writes Kaustubh Naik.

Striking inequality. The top 1% of India’s population holds 40% of the wealth, making the country one of the most unequal in the world, according to the 2026 World Inequality Report. The richest 10% hold about 65% of the total wealth.

In terms of income inequality, the top 10% of earners receive about 58% of national income, while the bottom 50% get only 15%. According to the report, the income gap between the top 10% and the bottom 50% remained stable between 2014 and 2024.

Globally, wealth has reached historic highs, but remains “very unevenly distributed”. The top 0.001%, which is fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires, owns three times more wealth than the entire bottom 50% of humans put together, said the report.

Also on Scroll last week

• What Assam’s new Scheduled Tribe reservation proposal could mean for its marginalised groups
• Why Centre’s new order pruning financial powers has added to disquiet in Ladakh
• What keeps witch-hunting alive in Jharkhand
• First person: In an Uttar Pradesh town, the air is thick with anxiety as SIR is underway
• Why scholars around the world are growing increasingly wary of studying India
• Harsh Mander: Why India’s doctors leave for foreign shores while Cuba’s serve their poorest
• Indian American turnout soared in mayoral poll despite Hindutva campaign against Zohran Mamdani
• COP30 shows why governments won’t solve the climate crisis
• Review: Great actresses in ‘The Great Shamsuddin Family’
• ‘Sholay’ revisited: Three pivotal scenes in Ramesh Sippy’s classic film

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A retired Indian Air Force officer was arrested in Assam’s Tezpur for allegedly establishing links with Pakistani intelligence operatives and sharing defence-related documents with them, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

Kulendra Sharma retired as a junior warrant officer in 2002 and worked as a technical assistant in the department of electronics and communication engineering at Tezpur University before leaving his job three years ago.

Sonitpur’s Superintendent of Police Barun Purkayastha told The Hindu that Sharma had been under surveillance for about two weeks after they received intelligence inputs suggesting that he was in contact with Pakistani operatives.

He has been booked on charges pertaining to acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, waging war against the Indian government, criminal conspiracy, and causing disappearance of evidence.

Sonitpur Additional Superintendent of Police Haricharan Bhumij told The Indian Express that preliminary investigation indicated that Sharma had shared certain defence-related documents with unknown persons.

A laptop and a mobile phone were seized from Sharma and will be sent for forensic examination.

“We suspect that highly confidential information may have been shared,” The Indian Express quoted Bhumji as saying. “The investigation is ongoing to ascertain who the information was shared with and whether the documents are genuine.”

Police are also trying to ascertain if Sharma had any local associates.

As the air quality in Delhi dipped to the “severe+” category, the Commission for Air Quality Management on Saturday imposed Stage 4 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to control pollution in the National Capital Region.GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.

Earlier in the day, the authority had reimposed Stage 3 restrictions under the plan, which mandate a ban on non-essential construction work and the closure of stone crushers and mining activities.

Stage 4 of GRAP is implemented when the Air Quality Index in Delhi breaches the 450-mark. It includes a ban on trucks entering the region and halting construction activities for public and private projects.

All schools, except for classes 10 and 12, will also have to shift to hybrid mode.

The measures came into force as the national capital’s average AQI at 8.05 pm stood at 452, showed the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates from the Central Pollution Control Board.

A day earlier, the overall AQI had reached 349, rising from 307 on Thursday and 259 on Wednesday.

An index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air.

Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

Delhi has been recording air quality in the “poor” or worse categories since mid-October.

Air quality usually deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital.

Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular pollution, along with the lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

Watch: Delhi’s pollution crisis needs drastic action

The Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala on Saturday emerged as a clear winner against the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front in the elections to the local bodies in the state.

The results are being seen as a major boost for the UDF ahead of the Assembly elections slated for April 2026.

The elections were conducted for six corporations, 14 district panchayats, 87 municipalities, 152 block panchayats and 941 gram panchayats in two phases on December 9 and December 11.

The UDF won four among the six corporation seats – Kollam, Kochi, Thrissur and Kannur – all considered strongholds of the LDF. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance secured its first-ever win in the Thiruvananthapuram corporation.

The LDF secured a win in Kozhikode.

The municipalities saw the UDF winning in 54 seats, dominating in Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Malappuram and Kottayam. On the other hand, the LDF managed to hold on to several seats in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Kozhikode, among others.

The NDA managed to retain Palakkad for a third consecutive term, Onmanorama reported.

The UDF was also leading in 492 gram panchayats, while the LDF was ahead in around 347 seats. The NDA secured 25 seats.

The Congress-led alliance was ahead in eight district panchayats, while the LDF was leading in six. In the block panchayats, the UDF was leading in around 81 seats and the LDF in over 63.

In the 2020 local body elections, the LDF had secured a sweeping mandate, Onmanorama reported.

Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly and Congress leader VD Satheesan said that the results were a “thumping victory” for the UDF.

“Winning four Corporations and over 500 Panchayats is a powerful endorsement from people,” Satheesan said on social media. “We accept this mandate with humility & a deep sense of responsibility. This victory strengthens our resolve to work even harder stay closer to the people.”

His party colleague and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor congratulated the Congress-led alliance “for a truly impressive win across various local bodies”.

“This is a massive endorsement and a powerful signal ahead of the state legislative elections,” said Tharoor. “Hard work, a strong message and anti-incumbency have all clearly paid off to achieve a much better result than in 2020.”

He also offered to the BJP his “humble congratulations” on the Hindutva party’s “significant victory” in the Thiruvananthapuram corporation.

“A strong showing that marks a notable shift in the capital's political landscape,” said Tharoor.
I campaigned for a change from 45 years of LDF misrule, but the voters have ultimately rewarded another party that also sought a clear change in governance.”

What a day of amazing results in the Kerala local self-government elections! The mandate is clear, and the democratic spirit of the state shines through.

A huge congratulations to @UDFKerala for a truly impressive win across various local bodies! This is a massive endorsement…

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 13, 2025

Congress MLA Ramesh Chennithala thanked the residents of Kerala for “giving their wholehearted support” to the party and the UDF in the elections.

“We are now confident and will work to garner more support of the common people for the upcoming Assembly elections and defeat the corrupt and incompetent LDF government in the state,” he said on social media.

Thanking the people of Kerala for giving their wholehearted support for Indian National Congress and #UDF in the LSG Elections.

We are now confident and will work to garner more support of the common people for the upcoming Assembly elections and defeat the corrupt and… pic.twitter.com/WZfVvTU7U2

— Ramesh Chennithala (@chennithala) December 13, 2025

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also thanked the residents of the state who voted for the BJP and the NDA in the elctions.

“Kerala is fed up of UDF and LDF,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said on social media. “They see NDA as the only option that can deliver on good governance and build a #VikasitaKeralam with opportunities for all.”

My gratitude to the people across Kerala who voted for BJP and NDA candidates in the local body polls in the state. Kerala is fed up of UDF and LDF. They see NDA as the only option that can deliver on good governance and build a #VikasitaKeralam with opportunities for all.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 13, 2025

The Congress on Saturday criticised the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, stating that it was “not very surprising” that India was excluded from a new United States-led initiative named Pax Silica, which is aimed at securing global silicon and high-technology supply chains.

“Undoubtedly it would have been to our advantage” if India had been one of the countries part of the initiative, said party leader Jairam Ramesh on social media.

The US Department of State has described Pax Silica as a “strategic initiative to build a secure, prosperous, and innovation driven silicon supply chain – from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics”.

The countries participating in the inaugural Pax Silica Summit are Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.

Ramesh claimed that India was not included in the initiative “given the sharp downturn in the Trump-Modi ties since May”.

According to some news reports, the US has excluded India from a nine-nation initiative it has launched to reduce Chinese control on high tech supply chains. The agreement is called Pax Silica clearly as a counter to Pax Sinica. The nations included (for the moment at least) are…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) December 13, 2025

He was referring to United States President Donald Trump repeatedly claiming credit for brokering the ceasefire between India and Pakistan following the four-day conflict in May.

Rubio had on May 10 claimed that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”.

New Delhi has rejected the claims and maintained that the ceasefire was not the result of mediation.

Bilateral ties between New Delhi and Washington further deteriorated in August after President Donald Trump doubled the tariffs on goods imported from India to 50% for purchasing Russian oil amid the war in Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly alleged that India’s imports were fuelling Russia’s war on Ukraine.

After the “reciprocal” levies were announced, New Delhi had said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the US had chosen to impose additional tariffs on India “for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest”.

On Saturday, Ramesh stated that the news of India not being part of the Pax Silica came a day after “the prime minister had enthusiastically posted on his telephone call with his once-upon-a-time good friend”.

Modi on Thursday said that he had spoken with Trump on the phone and “reviewed the progress in our bilateral relations and discussed regional and international developments”.

The prime minister described his conversation with Trump as "warm and engaging" and said the two countries would continue to work together for global peace, stability and prosperity.

Modi and Trump have spoken three times since Trump doubled tariffs on imports from India.

After Modi’s statement on Thursday, Union minister Piyush Goyal said that the US should sign the free trade agreement with India if it is happy with the offers that New Delhi has made.

Goyal was responding to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s statement on Tuesday that Washington had received the “best ever” offer from India amid trade negotiations.

The Union minister, however, did not provide details on India’s offer to the US or the potential deadline for signing the agreement.

Chaos erupted at the Salt Lake Stadium in West Bengal’s Kolkata on Saturday as fans vandalised the venue, alleging poor management after footballer Lionel Messi made a brief public appearance there.

Later in the day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee apologised for the incident and ordered an investigation. Director General of Police Rajeev Kumar said that Shatadru Dutta, chief organiser of the event in Kolkata, had been detained for the alleged mismanagement, PTI reported.

Messi is in the country from Saturday to Monday for a three-day GOAT (Greatest of All Time) India Tour 2025. The footballer is scheduled to visit Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi for exhibition matches, meet-and-greets and interactions with athletes.

He is also joined by his Inter Miami teammate Luis Suárez and Argentine footballer Rodrigo De Paul.

As part of the tour, Messi is scheduled to visit Telangana's Hyderabad later in the day. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is likely to greet him there, The Hindu reported.

At Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday, thousands of spectators from several parts of the country had arrived to catch a glimpse of Messi, The Hindu reported. The footballer’s convoy entered the stadium at 11.30 a.m.

Messi was accompanied by Suarez and Paul.

However, as the footballers entered the stadium, a crowd of about 70 to 80 persons, including the organisers of the event, state Sports Minister Aroop Biswas and representatives of football clubs, surrounded them.

The spectators on the stands were unable to see Messi, Suarez and Paul as the group surrounding the footballers tried to take selfies and autographs from them, the newspaper reported. The fans started shouting: “We want Messi”.

However, Messi was taken out of the stadium at about 11.52 am, before Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and actor Shahrukh Khan arrived to greet him, The Hindu reported.

Kolkata, West Bengal: Angry fans vandalise the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, alleging poor management of the event

A fan of star footballer Lionel Messi said, "Absolutely terrible event. He came for just 10 minutes. All the leaders and ministers surrounded him. We couldn't see… pic.twitter.com/a3RsbEFmTi

— ANI (@ANI) December 13, 2025

Subsequently, chaos ensued as angry spectators started breaking chairs in the stands and throwing them on the field. Bottles were also thrown. The spectators broke the gate along the edge of the field and entered in large numbers.

Temporary structures were overturned and some were even set on fire, The Hindu reported.

Police officers resorted to lathi-charge to control the crowd. Personnel from the Rapid Action Force were also deployed inside the stadium, PTI reported.

VIDEO | Kolkata: Angry fans vandalise Salt Lake Stadium, hurl chairs at security personnel alleging poor management as Argentine footballer Lionel Messi leaves the venue during his G.O.A.T. India Tour.#LionelMessi #GOATIndiaTour #Kolkata

(Full VIDEO available on PTI Videos –… pic.twitter.com/u4rwPYRreL

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 13, 2025

An unidentified fan told ANI that it was an “absolutely terrible event”, adding that Messi came for only 10 minutes.

“All the leaders and ministers surrounded him,” the news agency quoted the fan as saying. “We couldn’t see anything. He didn’t take a single kick or a single penalty. He came for 10 minutes and left. So much money, emotions, and time wasted.”

Ajay Shah, another fan, told PTI that there was complete mismanagement.

“People have spent a month’s salary to see Messi,” the news agency quoted Shah as saying. “I paid Rs 5,000 for a ticket. We came to watch Messi, not politicians. There was no drinking water, and even the police were busy taking selfies.”

Ticket prices for the event ranged between Rs 4,500 and Rs 10,000, PTI reported.

CM Mamata orders probe

Apologising for the incident, Banerjee said that she was “deeply disturbed and shocked by the mismanagement witnessed today” at Salt Lake Stadium.

“I was on my way to the stadium to attend the event along with thousands of sports lovers and fans who had gathered to catch a glimpse of their favourite footballer, Lionel Messi,” the chief minister said on social media. “I sincerely apologise to Lionel Messi, as well as to all sports lovers and his fans, for the unfortunate incident.”

The Trinamool Congress chief also said that an enquiry committee had been constituted under the chairmanship of retired Justice Ashim Kumar Ray, along with the chief secretary, the additional chief secretary, and home and hill Affairs Department as members.

“The committee will conduct a detailed enquiry into the incident, fix responsibility, and recommend measures to prevent such occurrences in the future,” she added.

Separately, the director general of police said that action will be taken “against the mismanagement we have seen from the organisers’ side, with their security team and press team running around”, The Hindu reported.

Noting that Dutta had already been detained, Kumar added that the organiser were told that the tickets sold for the event would have to be refunded.

“A lot of fans must have felt that they would see Messi playing, but could not,” the newspaper quoted the director general of police as saying. “We expect that the organisers will come through as far as the refund of the ticket is concerned. We will make sure legal action is taken.”

Jawed Shamim, the additional director general of police (law and order), also said that peace had been restored in the stadium area, The Hindu reported. A first information report is being prepared, he added.

The police officer added that the incident was limited only to the stadium and that no arson or vandalism had taken place outside.

The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed appeals against a single-judge ruling from November 14 quashing four of the six cuts ordered by the Central Board of Film Certification to the Malayalam film Haal, Bar and Bench reported.

A division bench of Justices Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and PV Balakrishnan was hearing an appeal filed by the certification board and another one by an outfit named the Catholic Congress of the Thamarassery Diocese, which claimed that the film defamed the Thamarassery bishop for allegedly endorsing interfaith marriages.

Haal, depicting an interfaith love story between a Muslim boy and a Christian girl, was originally scheduled to release on September 12.

However, the release was postponed after the certification board in October told the producer, JVJ Productions, that the film was not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition.

The Central Board of Film Certification said that the film could be certified “A” (adults only) after making six prescribed deletions and modifications, including one scene that involved eating beef biryani.

The makers of the film subsequently moved the court against the directions.

During the hearing before a single-bench judge, the Catholic Congress and an office-bearer of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre, were impleaded to present their objections to the film, Onmanorama reported.

An impleading petition is a formal request to a court to add a new party to an ongoing lawsuit.

On November 14, the judge ruled that four of the excisions to the film ordered by the Central Board of Film Certification were unwarranted.

This included a dance sequence featuring a Christian girl in a burqa, another scene depicting the residence of the Thamarassery bishop and police interrogation scenes, Onmanorama reported. It also included a suggestion to blur the name of a Christian institution.

The makers of the film told the judge that they had made two of the cuts prescribed by the certification board on their own. One pertained to the scene involving the beef biryani, while the other depicted court proceedings.

Additionally, lines referencing “dhwaj pranamam”, a salutation associated with the RSS, “Ganapati Vattam”, the name the BJP had proposed for Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad, and “abhyantara shatrukkal”, meaning internal enemies, were also deleted by the makers.

The certification board had objected to these lines.

The single judge directed the Central Board of Film Certification to issue a fresh certification to the film after the filmmakers made the modifications and resubmitted it.

Subsequently, the certification board and the Catholic Congress moved the division bench against the order.

The Catholic Congress had claimed before the division bench that Haal depicted the Thamarassery bishop and the Bishop House without consent, Bar and Bench reported. It also claimed that some scenes could disturb communal harmony.

The single judge erred in overturning excisions two, three and four, the outfit submitted. It added that since the filmmakers had agreed to excisions five and six, allowing only those cuts would be “biased to one group”.

“How can you compel them [filmmakers] to remove?” Bar and Bench quoted the division bench as telling the counsel for the Catholic Congress. “It is their film. Please tell us any law being a respondent what relief can we grant. Whatever relief is granted is granted to the petitioner.”

It added that no relief could be granted to the outfit.

On the other hand, the Union government and the Central Board of Film Certification told the division bench that the single judge should not have heard the filmmakers’ petition at all.

The Cinematograph Act already provides a specific appeal process for anyone unhappy with an order issued by the certification board, it said, adding that the filmmakers should have used that route instead of approaching the court directly, Bar and Bench reported.

The Central Board of Film Certification also told the division bench that all six cuts to the film fell within the purview of reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) of the Constitution, which allows restrictions to the freedom of expression for public order, decency, morality or to prevent defamation.

The division bench, however, concluded that there was no reason to overturn the previous order.

The Commission for Air Quality Management on Saturday reimposed Stage 3 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan to control pollution in the National Capital Region after the air quality worsened to the “severe” level, The Hindu reported.

GRAP is a set of incremental anti-pollution measures that are triggered to prevent further worsening of air quality once it reaches a certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region.

Stage 3 measures include a ban on non-essential construction work and the closure of stone crushers and mining activities, in addition to the measures already imposed under Stage 1 and Stage 2.

They also include the shifting of primary school up to Class 5 to hybrid mode. Parents and students have the option to choose between offline and online classes wherever available.

Additionally, the use of BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel cars is restricted in Delhi and the NCR.

BS norms, or Bharat Stage Emission Standards, are regulations set by the Indian government to control air pollutants from motor vehicles. The higher the BS norm, the stricter the standard and the lower the permissible emissions.

The measures on Saturday came amid 27 of the 40 monitoring stations in Delhi recording Air Quality Index readings of above 400, which is categorised as “severe”, as per data provided by the Central Pollution Control Board.

The national capital’s average AQI at 12.05 pm also stood at 409, the Sameer application, which provides hourly updates from the pollution board, showed.

A day earlier, the overall AQI had reached 349, rising from 307 on Thursday and 259 on Wednesday.

An index value between 0 and 50 indicates “good” air quality, between 51 and 100 indicates “satisfactory” air quality and between 101 and 200 indicates “moderate” air quality. As the index value increases further, air quality deteriorates. A value of 201 and 300 means “poor” air quality, while between 301 and 400 indicates “very poor” air.

Between 401 and 450 indicates “severe” air pollution, while anything above the 450 threshold is termed “severe plus”.

An AQI in the “severe” category signifies hazardous pollution levels that can pose serious risks even to healthy individuals.

A toxic haze shrouded the national capital on Saturday morning, prompting the Delhi airport to issue an advisory that “low visibility procedures” were in progress. “All flight operations are presently normal,” it said in a statement at 6.55 am, but urged passengers to contact the airline for updated flight information.

#WATCH | Delhi | Visuals around Ghazipur area this morning as a layer of toxic smog blankets the city.

AQI (Air Quality Index) around the area is 435, categorised as 'Severe', as claimed by CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board). pic.twitter.com/2x1IUbI8v3

— ANI (@ANI) December 13, 2025

Delhi has been recording air quality in the “poor” or worse categories since mid-October.

Air quality usually deteriorates sharply in the winter months in Delhi, which is often ranked the world’s most polluted capital.

Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular pollution, along with the lighting of firecrackers during Diwali, falling temperatures, decreased wind speeds and emissions from industries and coal-fired plants contribute to the problem.

Earlier, measures under Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the Graded Response Action Plan to bring pollution under control were in force in Delhi and the adjoining regions. Amid worsening levels, Stage 3 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan were imposed on November 11.

However, the Commission for Air Quality Management on November 26 withdrew the Stage 3 restrictions, citing improved air quality. These measures have been reimposed on Saturday.

The Union government on Thursday told Parliament that global standards for air quality, including those issued by the World Health Organization, were not binding and only serve as a “guidance document”.

On Tuesday, the Union government told Parliament that there was no conclusive data available in the country to establish direct correlation of death or disease exclusively because of air pollution.

Union Minister of State for Health Prataprao Jadhav had said that air pollution was one of the triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases.

However, a report by medical journal The Lancet said that more than 17 lakh persons died in India in 2022 because of exposure to atmospheric pollution, an increase of 38% since 2010.

The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change 2025, released on October 29, was prepared by 128 experts from 71 academic institutions and United Nations agencies.

Also read: Why air quality numbers in Delhi vary widely

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu on Friday said that while the government has the exclusive power to cap airfares, it can do so in extraordinary circumstances and not as a long-term solution.

The government uses its powers to cap airfares when it feels that the prices have risen above normal level, the minister told Parliament.

Airfares usually rise during the festive season because of increased demand on specific routes, he said.

“It is not that I can cap the fare for the entire season, entire year for a certain sector because...market demand and market supply is very very important for us to understand,” the minister said. “They kind of play in such a way that they regulate the fares on its own.”

The minister added: “When you are saying deregulation, you are letting the market dynamics flow in. You’re letting the market supply and demand play its own role so that the passenger gets the ultimate benefit.”

On December 6, the civil aviation ministry imposed distance-based fare caps, going up to Rs 18,000 on the longest routes, amid continued disruptions in IndiGo’s operations and a sharp spike in ticket prices. The ceiling on airfares was to apply only to economy-class tickets.

Air travel has been severely affected since December 2, when a shortage of pilots and crew forced IndiGo to cancel or delay hundreds of flights. The disruption also pushed fares to unusually high levels on several routes.

The disruptions began earlier this month amid the rollout of stricter work hour norms introduced in November. The revised rostering norms, issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in January 2024 after concerns about pilot fatigue, were meant to take effect on June 1.

However, airlines asked for delayed implementation because of staffing shortages and operational challenges, and the key changes were eventually introduced on November 1.

The new rules required longer weekly rest, restricted night landings, extended the definition of night hours and limited consecutive night duties.

IndiGo used to operate about 2,300 flights daily and holds about 60% of India’s domestic civil aviation market, making it the country’s largest airline.

The Union government is likely to revamp the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and increase the number of guaranteed working days to 125 from 100, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

The scheme will be renamed the Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Yojana, The Hindu reported. The proposal was discussed in the Cabinet meeting on Friday.

The MGNREGS was introduced in 2005 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and is aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. The scheme guarantees 100 days of unskilled work annually for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country.

Funds for the scheme are contributed by the Union and the state governments.

The Times of India quoted unidentified officials as saying that the Cabinet approved the draft legislation, titled the Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Bill, that will replace the MGNREGS.

The bill will be introduced in Parliament during the ongoing Winter Session, which will conclude on December 19.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in his press briefing after the Cabinet meeting on Friday had not listed the bill among the proposals that had been cleared.

Several states have demanded that the maximum working days under the scheme should be increased.

In April, a parliamentary standing committee urged the Union government to raise the wages under MGNREGS to at least Rs 400 per day and increase the number of guaranteed working days to at least 150 days.

Daily wages under MGNREGS currently range between Rs 241 and Rs 400 in different states.

The committee had said that the base wage rates under the scheme should be revised to ensure that they align with current economic realities.

While the law guarantees work for 100 days, the average days of employment provided per household under the scheme was 50 days in the financial year 2024-’25.

BJP erasing ‘Mahatma’, says Opposition

The Congress said that the “same MGNREGA that Narendra Modi once called a bundle of Congress’ failures” had “proved to be a lifeline for rural India”.

“Modi ji has an old habit of renaming Congress’ schemes and claiming them as his own,” the party leader Supriya Shrinate said. “That’s exactly what he has been doing for the past 11 years – rebranding UPA’s schemes with his own label and using them for publicity.”

West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress said that the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s decision to “erase ‘Mahatma’” from MGNREGS was “not merely an administrative revision”, and was “an ideologically motivated act”.

The Trinamool Congress said that the decision “exposes” the Hindutva party’s “long-standing hostility toward Bengal’s cultural and intellectual legacy”.

“It was Tagore who popularised the title ‘Mahatma’ for Gandhi, making it part of India’s ethical vocabulary,” the Opposition party said. “Erasing it reshapes the way India remembers freedom itself.”

For decades, the global narrative of innovation has been monopolised by the gleaming corridors of Silicon Valley and the research and development hubs of multinational corporations. It is a story of disruption, scalability, and exponential growth, often untethered from the ecological and social realities of our planet.

But what if we have been looking for innovation in all the wrong places?

My life’s work, spent alongside the artisanal fishing communities of Kerala, Indonesia and Cambodia, taught me a profound lesson. The true pioneers of a sustainable future are in fishing villages, in the weaving clusters, pottery quarters and craft workshops across India and the globe.

They are the millions of “ecosystem people” – farmers, fishers, weavers, potters, and artisans – whose lives are a deep, iterative dialogue with nature. Their story is one of a sophisticated, embodied knowledge system that we have systematically dismantled, and which we must now, urgently, learn from and restore.

Grassroots ingenuity

Living with the kattumaram fishermen of Kerala’s coast, I witnessed a dynamic, living R&D ecosystem. The same principles of innovation can be found in the hands of a master weaver in Varanasi or a potter in Kanyakumari.

This universal system is characterised by core principles:

Ecological and contextual sophistication: the fishing gear was designed for specific fish and sea conditions. Similarly, a handloom weaver’s choice of cotton, silk, or wool, the complex loom geometry, and the organic dye recipes – extracted from indigo, madder, or pomegranate – are a deep material conversation with the local ecology. A potter’s knowledge of clay sources, tempering materials, and firing techniques is a geological wisdom passed down through generations.

Evolutionary and “in-process”: Innovation was never a “final product”. For fishers, it was a continuous dance with the sea. For weavers, designs evolve subtly with cultural shifts, customer feedback and the weaver’s own creative spark, all while rooted in tradition. A pottery glaze is perfected over a lifetime of trial and error.

Open-source and collective: Knowledge was shared in a spirit of “technological democracy”. Just as fishing designs diffused without borders, weaving techniques and motifs traveled along trade routes, and potting styles were shared across communities. The mastery was in the individual’s skill, but the foundational knowledge was a “collective commons”.

Governed by customary institutions: Guilds, cooperatives, and community norms often regulated quality, raw material access, and fair practice. They ensured that innovation did not come at the cost of community cohesion or resource depletion, whether that resource was a fishing ground or a shared indigo vat.

Underpinning this is a distinct form of “embodied knowledge”: It is knowledge that resides in the muscles, the senses and the intuition. It is the fisher’s abductive reasoning about the sea, the weaver’s feel for the tension of the thread and the potter’s intimate understanding of the plasticity of clay. It is, in essence, science performed through the wisdom of the hands.

Assault on artisanal knowledge

This sophisticated system has been actively dismantled through subalternisation: the systematic denial of a community’s right to shape its own history and knowledge.

The post-independence National Planning Committee of 1948 dismissed fishers as “ignorant” just as the logic of mass production and industrialisation dismissed the weaver and potter as “inefficient”. This was a form of epistemicide: the killing of a knowledge system.

The push for power looms, synthetic dyes, and cheap standardised ceramics has been an ideological takeover that led to:

De-skilling and loss of autonomy: Fishers became dependent on Yamaha outboard engines; weavers on synthetic yarn and dictated designs; potters on commercial glazes and electric kilns. The artisan was transformed from a creator into an operator.

The enclosure of the knowledge commons: Traditional designs were copied and mass-produced without credit or compensation. The communal knowledge of natural dye recipes or clay pits was rendered obsolete or privatised.

The erosion of techno-cultural heritage: The deepest loss was the severing of the bond between a community, its knowledge, and its identity. The unique jamdani weave, the distinct black pottery of Nizamabad, the narrative patachitra scrolls are entire languages of culture and meaning, now at risk of being silenced.

Weaving a new framework

The way out is to redefine technology around the principle of conviviality – a concept championed by philosopher Ivan Illich. A convivial tool enhances human autonomy, fosters community and can be understood, controlled, and repaired by its user.

Building this convivial future requires a deliberate effort to valorise subaltern knowledge across all artisan sectors:

Reviving and re-appropriating technology: Just as we can revive sails for fishers, we can promote hand-operated looms over power looms that deskill the weaver. We can support the use of natural, locally-sourced dyes over imported synthetics, and champion energy-efficient, small-scale kilns that allow for artistic expression over standardised, high-energy industrial furnaces. The technology should serve the artisan, not the other way around.

Fostering co-creation and ethical markets: The success of the co-designed plywood vallams for fishers by South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies has its parallel in initiatives like Dastkar and Chetna Organic, which connect weavers and farmers directly to conscious consumers. Digital platforms can now tell the story of the maker, ensuring that the value of the handcrafted is recognised and compensated fairly, challenging the tyranny of the cheap, mass-produced commodity.

Creating living heritage institutions: Mentoring schools for fishers should be mirrored by weaver resource centres and pottery schools where masters can apprentice a new generation. These must be spaces for dialogue, where traditional knowledge of natural dyes can meet modern color-fastness testing, and where the chemistry of glazes can be explored without losing the soul of the craft.

Embracing a new policy and global framework: Beyond the UN’s Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines, we have powerful models to draw from. UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage designation can protect the art form and the knowledge system behind it.

The Slow Food movement’s philosophy of “good, clean, and fair” food is directly applicable to “good, clean, and fair” craft. Policies must move beyond mere welfare and actively create protected economic spaces for these knowledge systems to thrive, through public procurement, GI tags that are meaningfully enforced, and curricula that incorporate embodied knowledge as a valid form of science and engineering.

The centre is in the margins

The ingenuity of India’s ecosystem people and artisans are the seeds for a more sustainable, humane and beautiful future. They teach us that true innovation is sustaining yield and beauty, fostering resilience and collaborating with nature.

The challenge before us is to reverse the gaze. We must stop seeing the handloom weaver, the potter, and the fisher as vestiges of a bygone era and start recognising them as vital partners in building a convivial future. The path forward, it turns out, leads us back to the wisdom of the hands.

John Kurien is a reflective development practitioner. He resides in Kozhikode, Kerala.

India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has spent the last decade telling the world a story about itself: that it is the Indo-Pacific’s decisive power, a civilisational state rising to challenge China and a natural partner of the United States in leading the “free world”. Modi has invested enormous political capital into choreographed diasporic spectacles, G20 extravagance and the belief that a new US-India alignment is both historic and inevitable. Yet Washington’s National Security Strategy, released in November, gives India barely a passing mention. In a blueprint that reorders American foreign policy priorities, India appears only as a supporting actor, sometimes even as a problem for the US president to fix.

The harsh truth is that India is not central to the strategic worldview expressed in America’s National Security Strategy. It is not viewed as critical to US security, nor does it satisfy the political or economic criteria that now guide American policy. Europe occupies centre stage as a civilisational ally whose identity the US claims must be saved; West Asia is celebrated as a theatre of personal US diplomatic victories; China is the defining adversary shaping every military and economic calculation.

India, meanwhile, is mentioned primarily as a party to be managed, especially in conflicts with its neighbours. The document boasts that Trump “negotiated peace… between Pakistan and India” as one in a list of eight conflicts solved through his personal diplomacy. India is not portrayed as the world’s next great power, but as one more dispute-prone state requiring American intervention.

Even when India appears in the Asia section, it is framed narrowly as a tool to help Washington counter China, not as an indispensable strategic pillar. The National Security Strategy states that the United States will continue quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and India to encourage New Delhi to contribute more to Indo-Pacific security. There is no suggestion that India’s independent rise is essential to the global balance of power. Instead, India is one among many potential contributors to a US-led anti-China architecture. Strategic autonomy, Modi’s core principle, is not admired; it is tolerated only so long as it does not get in the way of American priorities.

New Delhi’s assumption that geopolitical flattery from Washington was equivalent to mutual dependence has been exposed as wishful thinking. India has never been indispensable to US defense guarantees. The American vision for the Indo-Pacific, articulated clearly in this National Security Strategy, revolves around maritime chokepoints, naval bases and high-end technological advantage. India brings none of these to the table at scale.

The US requires carriers in the First Island Chain, deterrence over Taiwan and control of shipping routes through the South China Sea, a region through which one-third of global shipping passes annually and where China’s dominance could harm the US economy. India cannot contribute meaningfully to any of these core missions. Its naval modernisation lags behind its rhetoric and its reluctance to sign defence-access agreements makes it a difficult partner in any coordinated regional strategy.

Modi’s government has often acted as if symbolic politics, addressing joint sessions of the US Congress, stadium rallies with American presidents, lavish diaspora events, could substitute for the structural requirements of a real alliance. Instead of reforming its defence sector, India continues to depend heavily on Russian systems. Instead of liberalising its economy to attract stable foreign investment, it engages in blatant cronyism and erratic protectionism.

Instead of strengthening democratic institutions to align with Western values, it increasingly undermines judicial independence, journalistic freedom, and minority protections. These trends erode India’s credibility as a partner in any project presented as defending liberty or international order.

The National Security Strategy lays out clear filters for determining American foreign priorities: the purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests. By that measure, India fails the test. The United States is not obligated to secure India’s borders. It does not depend on Indian manufacturing for critical supply chains. It does not rely on Indian markets to sustain its economic dominance. And unlike Japan, South Korea or Germany, India does not host US forces or integrate its military planning with NATO-like frameworks.

Washington’s cooling enthusiasm also reflects ideological divergence. The National Security Strategy speaks of a mission to rescue Europe from civilisational erasure driven by immigration and declining birthrates, arguing that Europe must regain its cultural self-confidence. The ideological energy of this foreign policy is invested not in defending global democracy but in defending what Trump believes, Western cultural identity.

India, multireligious, multilinguistic, post-colonial cannot be made part of this imagined civilisational West. Even Modi’s Hindu-nationalist politics, which some of Trump’s political allies celebrate domestically, does not translate into strategic centrality. It only confirms that India has its own civilisational anxieties and priorities, which rarely align neatly with Washington’s.

Furthermore, Trump’s worldview sees immigration as a national security threat. India, once a major source of high-skilled immigration the US actively prized, no longer sits naturally inside America’s strategic self-image. A Modi government lobbying for more visas is increasingly at odds with a United States that portrays foreign workers as undermining American jobs and cultural cohesion.

Even where India has tried to align with US interests, by signing the Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement for cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries, banning Chinese apps, joining the Quad, engaging in military exercises, its commitment remains narrow and reversible. Modi proudly hosts Russian President Vladimir Putin, refuses to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hesitates to participate in sanctions, and prioritises cheap Russian oil over Western geopolitical concerns. This reinforces the perception in Washington that India seeks maximum gain with minimal strategic risk.

The National Security Strategy emphasises fairness and burden-sharing: allies must assume primary responsibility for their regions rather than expect the US to prop up the entire world order like Atlas. India’s reluctance to shoulder security risk beyond its immediate borders, places it outside the new burden-sharing club.

There is also a more uncomfortable truth: India is not important for what Washington needs. American strategy under Trump is driven by solvable emergencies and transactional gains. Europe faces what the National Security Strategy calls an existential struggle over identity. West Asia offers deliverable diplomatic wins that the document celebrates repeatedly, calling the region a place of partnership, friendship, and investment. China is the paramount threat. India is still unimportant and too complicated to do Washington’s bidding.

Modi’s so-called foreign policy successes, therefore, have been misinterpreted and misreported at home. What India viewed as recognition of its inevitable rise was, for Washington, a temporary convenience shaped by China’s ascent and America’s need for symbolic support in its rhetoric around the Indo-Pacific. The new National Security Strategy makes clear that the United States is reorganising the world into a civilisational West, a militarised Asia defined by China and a transactional West Asia. India fits fully into none of these categories.

What this moment demands is humility in New Delhi. India’s rise is not assured because speeches in Washington are warm or because American presidents attend Namaste Trump rallies and call Modi on his 75th birthday. Power must be built by capability, trust, and alignment, not pageantry and self-congratulation. A foreign policy that avoids commitments may preserve flexibility, but it also guarantees marginality.

For a nation that aspires to shape the future world order, being a footnote in America’s strategic vision should serve as a wake-up call.

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

A Special Investigation Team probing the death of Assamese singer Zubeen Garg filed a chargesheet in the matter on Friday, charging four out of the seven arrested persons with murder, ANI quoted the police as saying.

Zubeen Garg, a renowned Assamese singer, died on September 19 during a yacht trip in Singapore, a day before he was scheduled to perform at the North East India Festival there.

The event had been organised by the Indian government and the Indian High Commission in Singapore, with support from the Assam Association and the North East India Association in the country.

The four persons accused of murder are Shyamkanu Mahanta, who was the organiser of the North East India Festival, Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddharatha Sharma and two musicians who were with the singer on the yacht – Shekharjyoti Goswami and Amritprava Mahanta – the chief of the SIT Munna Prasad Gupta told ANI.

Besides, Zubeen Garg’s cousin, Deputy Superintendent of Police Sandipan Garg, who had travelled with him to Singapore, has been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, while two of the singer’s personal security officers have been accused of criminal breach of trust.

Gupta, who is also the special director general of police leading the criminal investigation department, stated that the main chargesheet is around 2,500 pages long, reported ANI. When combined with various additional documents, such as bank records, digital evidence and forensic reports, it adds up to approximately 12,000 pages, he added.

A death certificate issued by the Singaporean authorities on September 20 stated the cause of Zubeen Garg’s death as drowning.

The Singapore Police Force on October 17 had said that it did not suspect foul play in the singer’s death following preliminary investigations into the matter.

It had added that the probe may take up to three more months to complete, following which the findings would be submitted to the State Coroner, a judicial officer, who would determine whether the matter required a Coroner’s Inquiry.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has repeatedly claimed that Zubeen Garg’s death was not accidental but was a “plain and simple murder”.

The chief minister had said on November 25 that the SIT would file a “watertight chargesheet”, adding that the motive behind the alleged crime “will shock the people of the state”.

Also read:

• Are Assam protests over Zubeen Garg’s death becoming a political challenge for Himanta?

• ‘Police raj’: In aftermath of Zubeen Garg death, a spate of arrests, detentions of protesting fans

• Why musician Zubeen Garg’s death has unleashed a storm of anger in Assam

• What does Assam’s moment of unity around Zubeen Garg’s death mean in a time of divisive politics?

The Indian rupee on Friday fell to an all-time low of 90.55 against the United States dollar. The drop came amid uncertainty about a trade deal between New Delhi and Washington.

The rupee also weakened because of the continued outflow of foreign capital from the equity market. It has fallen about 6% in 2025, making the rupee the worst-performing Asian currency this year.

Foreign investors have pulled out $18 billion from the Indian equity market this year. The merchandise trade deficit had also hit an all-time high in October. Read on.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation removed four of its flight operations inspectors following the enormous disruption of IndiGo’s operations last week. The aviation regulator directed them to return to their parent organisations.

The officials had been working for the regulator on a contractual basis. They were responsible for monitoring safety, pilot training and regulatory compliance.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation employs experienced pilots as flight operations inspectors but does not allow them to operate commercial flights while serving the role. With the suspensions, the aviation regulator has 13 such officers remaining. Read on.

A Kerala court sentenced six persons, convicted in the 2017 abduction and rape of an actor, to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment. The bench said that “considering the mitigating circumstances, there is no circumstance warranting the maximum punishment”.

The six convicted in the matter are NS Sunil alias Pulsur Suni, Martin Antony, B Manikandan, VP Vijeesh, H Salim and Pradeep. They were found guilty of rape, conspiracy and abduction, among other offences, on Monday. The court had acquitted Malayalam film actor Dileep in the case.

Dileep had been booked for criminal conspiracy, intimidation and destruction of evidence. Read on.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Anurag Thakur filed a complaint with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, alleging that a Trinamool Congress MP had smoked e-cigarettes in the House. A row had erupted in Parliament on Thursday after the BJP MP asked Birla if smoking e-cigarettes, or vapes, was permitted inside the House, noting that the device was banned in the country.

E-cigarettes are banned under the 2019 Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act.

The BJP leader, without naming anyone, claimed that a Trinamool Congress MP had been “constantly smoking e-cigarettes in the House for the past several days”. Read on.

Former Union Home Minister and Congress leader died in Maharashtra’s Latur district. He was 90.

Patil started his political career in the Latur Municipal Corporation in 1967. He went on to be elected as an MLA from the Latur constituency in 1972 and served a second term in 1978. He was elected as an MP from Latur seven consecutive times between 1980 and 1999.

He served as the Union home minister from 2004 to 2008. However, he resigned from the position on November 30, 2008, after taking moral responsibility for the security lapses during the terror attack in Mumbai that took place days earlier. Read on.

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Maharashtra’s solar energy plans are facing a policy clash. The central government’s PM Surya Ghar Yojana aims to expand rooftop solar by offering households up to 300 units of free electricity each month, while the state government is considering a night-time tariff hike to manage its power distribution costs.

Many consumers who turned to solar power to cut their electricity bills now worry that new rules will make clean energy less affordable.

“We currently only pay Rs 130 a month, but we have no idea how much they may charge us in the near future,” says Chandrakant Shelke, a 49-year-old farmer from Shelkewadi. “With new laws, who can predict how the government will tax us and modify the tariff?”

Shelkewadi is a 100% solar-powered village in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district. It is a model village, self-sufficient in solar energy, progressive, and known for its clean energy status. However, the villagers are now worried with the Maharashtra State Electricity Board’s proposed changes in time-of-day tariffs. They worry that these charges could undo their years of efforts in clean energy.

This uncertainty is not just confined to one village. Across Maharashtra, many consumers with rooftop solar, small-scale resellers and commercial users are confused about the state government’s shifting strategy and new charges. Industrial and commercial rooftop solar consumers are struggling with no offset benefit, prolonged payback periods and heavy upfront investment for renewable energy.

Regulations favour large-scale utilities

The state electricity board and regulating commission in Maharashtra have proposed a new time-of-day structure in the electricity regulations. Under the proposal, electricity generated by rooftop and other solar would be priced at the lowest between 9 am to 5 pm.

But the excess solar power generated, which the consumers would typically send to the grid expecting to use it at night-time, would now be available at a higher rate. In effect, solar consumers would face a night tariff hike.

Currently, any extra electricity generated by the individual consumers is sent to the state grid. Consumers later draw power from the grid, and their exported daytime units are credited against what they use at night. With the new regulations, the way this extra solar energy is saved and used later, and the financial impacts on the consumers, could change.

According to rooftop solar entrepreneurs, these regulations are not consumer-friendly, and favour large-scale utilities and benefit discoms (distribution companies). Those who have installed solar, expecting net metering and other benefits, may find it unviable and it will lower the incentive for installing rooftop solar.

Rajendra Patil, a solar entrepreneur, said, “The Maharashtra government recently announced an additional incentive of up to 30% subsidy for rooftop solar consumers who are below the poverty line and are consuming less than 100 units per month. But MSEB has also proposed that solar-generated electricity offset only during off-peak hours, in daytime. Because of that, rooftop solar consumers cannot offset (balance out energy use) during evening peak hours, which are when most homes and commercial establishments use power.”

In effect, consumers cannot use solar power generated earlier in the day to balance out night time usage.

He added that rooftop and open access consumers are targeted by Maharashtra State Electricity Board in such a way that they cannot get an offset, while the discoms continue earning revenue after installing solar rooftop. “Meanwhile, MSEB and the state government are favouring and promoting utility-scale solar plants that benefit discoms.”

This time-of-day structure will effectively discourage rooftop adoption and lengthen the payback period in Maharashtra.

Patil further argues that the regulations are changing swiftly, creating ambiguity and lack of trust in the state discom, as well as its amended norms and regulations. “The rooftop solar has already had an impact on MSEB’s earnings,” he says, “and that’s why the discom is implementing new revenue-generating strategies by blocking rooftop consumers from receiving benefits.”

State vs Centre

The central government’s rooftop solar policy and funding assistance under the rooftop solar scheme PM Surya Ghar Yojana were designed to scale up rooftop solar installations across India. However, state-level discoms incurred losses in revenue and started struggling. Over the past few years, they have introduced banking charges, peak hour variable rates, and exclusions for industrial and commercial consumers.

“The discom is indirectly opposing rooftop solar by putting unfair laws to dissuade or restrict consumers, resulting in solar becoming uneconomical,” Patil claims. “This is a breach of the original agreement between rooftop consumers and Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, which was to provide zero bills or only meter rentals. Now, consumers are being billed for peak-hour usage, except for residential consumers as of 2025.

A petition filed by Sudhir Budhay, a renewable energy consultant, and the National Solar Energy Federation of India, has challenged the grid support and banking charges, warning that this may cause up to 30% decline in new rooftop solar installations.

Unstable policy

From 2.82 GW in 2014 to 100 GW in 2025, India’s solar power capacity has grown by 3,450 % in this time period. But this growth has come with a cost – state discoms’ declining revenues. In response, many states, including Maharashtra, have started revising consumer tariffs to recover losses.

“The smart metre implementation policy encourages consumers to use solar energy during solar hours, while the discom buys power at higher rates during off-solar hours and forces users to pay bills for peak-hour usage,” said Samir Gandhi, a solar energy advocate from Pune. “They are moving the goalposts, asking you to use solar, but then increasing tariffs for using grid power once the sun is down.”

He added that commercial and industrial customers who invested in rooftop solar installations in 2022-2023 face the same one-sided agreement modification. “Consumers are afraid to trust the government, and it appears the government is modifying policies for political motives without including the consumer.”

Ajay Jain, a financial expert from Indusbridge, expressed concerns, saying that investors look for long-term, stable policies to safeguard their investments. “The same mistrust is visible with smart meters, so the public is concerned about the government’s intention to install it.”

Battery storage

As energy pricing becomes more dynamic, Battery Energy Storage Systems are emerging as a practical solution to rising tariffs.

Bhavani Singh Rathore, a renewable energy coach with expertise in Battery Energy Storage Systems, said, “The pattern of solar and non-solar hours has changed; the ToD [time-of-day] reform has a dual effect on rooftop solar systems. This creates an imbalance. Consumers can use this self-generated energy effectively. Whereas energy consumed after the sun goes down falls in high-tariff hours. Without storage, consumers are forced to buy expensive grid power.”

He also spoke about a possible solution to compensate inflated energy bills. “By adding even a small BESS [Battery Energy Storage Systems] setup, consumers can store self-generated solar energy during the day (9 am–5 pm) and discharge it during expensive peak hours.

“This lets them avoid high-cost electricity during peak hours and benefit from solar round-the-clock. Integrating lithum-ion BESS with a proper energy management system is key.” Rathore added that Maharashtra has become India’s testing ground for real-time energy intelligence, and those who adopt storage early will lead the transition toward net-zero energy lifestyles.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Kerala High Court’s order that a disputed 365-acre land in the Munambam area of Ernakulam district was not intended to be a waqf property, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan in its interim order said that the status quo be maintained till the matter is heard next on January 27.

The Supreme Court said that the matter required consideration and issued notice to the Kerala government and other respondents, seeking their response.

The bench said that it was not staying the High Court’s observation upholding the state government’s decision to appoint a one-member commission, Bar and Bench reported. “It is made clear that we have not stayed the inquiry,” it said.

During the hearing on Friday, the judges asked whether the High Court had been the correct forum to examine the nature of the land when related proceedings were pending before the Waqf Tribunal, Live Law reported.

Justice Misra observed that if the High Court thought the writ petition was not maintainable, “he could have stopped there”, adding that the bench had gone beyond its remit.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi, Live Law reported.

The dispute dates back to 1950, when a man Mohammed Siddeeq Sait gifted more than 400 acres of land to Farook College. The college is located in Kozhikode, although it owns this land.

Over the years, parts of the land were sold and has been inhabited by about 600 Christian and Hindu families. The land, which is along the coast, had also decreased in size due to sea erosion.

In 2019, the Kerala Waqf Board declared the land as waqf and sought to cancel those sales.

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

After the Kerala Waqf Board’s declaration in 2019, the state government set up a judicial commission to give recommendations for a resolution.

The commission had recommended that the Kerala government acquire the disputed land if the occupants failed to get justice in the court.

However, a single bench of the court cancelled the commission in April.

This was challenged by the state government, after which a division bench on October 10, held that the land was not intended to be a waqf property and had been given as a gift to the management of Farook College.

The court said that the Kerala Waqf Board classifying the land as waqf in 2019 was “bad in law” and “palpably violative” of several Waqf Acts.

A history of the dispute

In the early 1900s, the erstwhile Travancore royal family had leased more than 400 acres of land to a trader Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait, The Indian Express reported. The land had already been occupied by fishing communities.

In 1948, the trader’s son-in-law, Mohammed Siddeeq Sait, got the leased land registered in his name and decided to hand it over to the management of Kozhikode’s Farook College. The college had been established in 1948 to empower Muslims from northern Kerala through education.

In the 1960s, a legal battle began between the occupants of the land and the management of the college, which wanted to evict them, according to The Indian Express. The occupants did not have legal documents to prove ownership of the land despite residing there for generations, the newspaper added.

Subsequently, the college management sold the land to its occupants.

However, the college management did not mention in the sale deeds that the land in question was waqf property but instead said that the property was received under a gift deed in 1950.

In 2019, the Kerala Waqf Board staked claim on the land. In 2022, the state revenue department froze the owners’ revenue rights, The Indian Express reported.

Since then, the residents, a majority of whom are Catholics, had been demanding restoration of the rights.

A Kerala court on Friday sentenced six persons, convicted in the 2017 abduction and rape of an actor, to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment, Bar and Bench reported.

The six convicted in the matter are NS Sunil alias Pulsur Suni, Martin Antony, B Manikandan, VP Vijeesh, H Salim and Pradeep.

After a nearly eight-year trial, Ernakulam Principal Sessions Judge Honey M Varghese on Monday found them guilty of rape, conspiracy and abduction, among other offences. The court had acquitted Malayalam film actor Dileep in the case.

“Find that considering the mitigating circumstances, there is no circumstance warranting the maximum punishment,” the judge was quoted as saying on Friday.

The convicts were also ordered to pay fines for other offences they were found guilty of.

On February 17, 2017, six men allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted the actor inside her car for two hours. They had allegedly also filmed the assault to blackmail the woman. Later, the woman was dropped near the home of a film director, who helped her contact the police and register a case.

Dileep was among the 10 persons accused in the case and was alleged to be the mastermind of the assault

Investigators had found that the alleged abduction and sexual assault were the result of an alleged conspiracy to intimidate and humiliate the woman.

Most of the persons accused in the matter, including NS Sunil alias Pulsur Suni, were charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and gang rape, among others. Sections of the Information Technology Act were also invoked.

Dileep had been booked for criminal conspiracy, intimidation and destruction of evidence.

The resignation of two special prosecutors and appointment of new ones had delayed the hearing. About 100 appeals against several orders of the trial court had also been filed by the prosecution, the accused men and the complainant.

Twenty-eight prosecution witnesses reportedly turned hostile during the trial.

Nearly nine lakh persons relinquished their Indian citizenship in the last five years, the Ministry of External Affairs told Parliament on Thursday.

The ministry said that 85,256 persons gave up their citizenship in 2020, 1.6 lakh in 2021, 2.2 lakh in 2022, 2.1 lakh in 2023 and 2 lakh in 2024.

From 2011 to 2019, the number was between 1.2 lakh per year and 1.4 lakh per year.

The details were provided in response to a question by an Opposition MP, who also asked whether the government has data on the income profile or occupations of those who give up Indian citizenship.

Kirti Vardhan Singh, the minister of state for external affairs, said that the government does not have such information.

In March, the Union government told Parliament that the reasons for renunciation of citizenship were “personal and known only to the individual”.

The government added that it recognised the “potential of the global workplace in an era of knowledge economy”, which had brought about a “transformational change in its engagement with Indian diaspora”.

“A successful, prosperous, and influential diaspora is an asset for India,” the government had said. “India stands to gain a lot from tapping its diaspora networks and productive utilisation of the soft power that comes from having such a flourishing diaspora.”

Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday told Parliament that the government had tested older vehicles running fuel blended with 20% ethanol and found no case of engine failure.

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

The Union government’s Ethanol Blending Programme mandates the sale of petrol blended with 20% ethanol, or E20 fuel. A report in October, which analysed government and industry data, said that only about 20% of new petrol vehicles sold in India in the last 15 years were compliant with the E20 fuel blend.

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

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

In a written response to an MP’s question, Gadkari said that the safety standards for E20 had been “well established“ through specifications of the Bureau of Indian Standards and Automotive Industry Standards.

“In most parameters, including driveability, startability, metal compatibility and plastic compatibility, there are no issues,” he said.

E20 complaint vehicles

Trinamool Congress MP Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia had asked whether the Union government had prescribed norms mandating vehicle manufacturers to label or certify models as E10 or E20 fuel compatible, if the certification data had been made public.

Basunia also sought to know how many vehicles in the country were not compliant with E20 fuel standards and whether a phase-out or retrofit programme for non-compliant vehicles has been announced.

The minister said that the compatibility of a vehicle with the level of ethanol blend of E20 is to be defined by the vehicle manufacturer. It should be displayed on the vehicle by putting a clearly visible sticker, he said.

The vehicles sold before April 1, 2023, were compliant with E10 and those after the date are E20 material compliant, the minister said.

Based on the recommendation of a study conducted by the Automotive Research Association of India, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, “there would be no requirement for a phase out or retrofit of non-compliant vehicles”, the minister said.

“The normal wear and tear can be managed during routine servicing regime of the vehicle,” he added.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers is an association of all major vehicle and vehicular engine makers in the country.

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

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

Also read:

• Drivers fear engine damage, mileage drop as India increases ethanol in petrol to 20%
• Race to rollout E20 fuel leaves behind most vehicles on Indian roads

Former Telangana Special Intelligence Bureau chief T Prabhakar Rao surrendered before the Special Investigation Team probing a phone-tapping case on Friday, following a Supreme Court order, the Deccan Chronicle reported.

The case pertains to allegations that officers of the Special Intelligence Bureau, during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi government, illegally surveilled private citizens and political figures and later attempted to destroy evidence. Four police officials, including a suspended deputy superintendent of police, have been arrested since March 2024 and are out on bail.

On Thursday, the court directed Rao to appear before the police by 11 am for investigation.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said Rao must surrender at Jubilee Hills police station and allowed custodial interrogation “in accordance with law”.

The court also permitted him to have home-cooked food and regular medication.

The bench passed the order while hearing Rao’s anticipatory bail plea and clarified that it had not dismissed the petition but kept it pending, The News Minute reported.

The state government had alleged in the court that the police officer deleted electronic evidence from his devices during the interim protection he was granted from arrest, The News Minute reported.

The next hearing is listed for December 19.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Thursday removed four of its flight operations inspectors following the disruption of IndiGo’s operations last week, The Indian Express reported.

The officials relieved of their duties with immediate effect are Deputy Chief Flight Operations Inspector Rishi Raj Chatterjee, Senior Flight Operations Inspector Seema Jhamnani, and flight operations inspectors Anil Kumar Pokhriyal and Priyam Kaushik, ANI quoted the order as saying.

The aviation regulator directed them to return to their parent organisations. The officials had been working for the regulator on contractual basis.

The inspectors were responsible for monitoring safety, pilot training and regulatory compliance, The Indian Express reported. Questions have been raised about the regulator’s oversight that possibly led to the crisis.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation sacked four Flight Operations Inspectors (FOIs) in connection with the IndiGo flight cancellation crisis.

"They are relieved from DGCA with immediate effect to join their respective parent organisations." pic.twitter.com/GrZ2isKcca

— ANI (@ANI) December 12, 2025

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation employs experienced pilots as flight operations inspectors but does not allow them to operate commercial flights while serving the role. With the suspensions, the aviation regulator has 13 such officers remaining, according to the newspaper.

Air travel has been severely affected since December 2, when a shortage of pilots and crew forced IndiGo to cancel or delay hundreds of flights. The disruption also pushed fares to unusually high levels on several routes.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation directed the airline to cut its scheduled flights by 10% to stabilise its operations. The curtailed operations will also lead to reduced cancellations of IndiGo flights, the Union government said.

While the airline has said its schedule has stabilised, at least 54 flights were cancelled on Friday, the Hindustan Times reported.

The disruptions began earlier this month amid the rollout of stricter work hour norms introduced in November. The revised rostering norms, issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in January 2024 after concerns about pilot fatigue, were meant to take effect on June 1.

However, airlines asked for delayed implementation because of staffing shortages and operational challenges, and the key changes were eventually introduced on November 1.

The new rules required longer weekly rest, restricted night landings, extended the definition of night hours and limited consecutive night duties.

IndiGo used to operate about 2,300 flights daily and holds about 60% of India’s domestic civil aviation market, making it the country’s largest airline.