West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday said that his government will be cautious in identifying alleged undocumented immigrants to ensure that cases such as the one involving Sunali Khatun are not repeated, The Telegraph reported.

Last year, Khautun and her eight-year-old son were forced into Bangladesh by Indian authorities on claims that they were undocumented immigrants. The Birbhum resident was pregnant at the time.

She was brought back to India on December 5, 2025, after the Supreme Court, taking note of her advanced pregnancy, asked the Union government whether the mother and the son could be returned to India.

The Union government had said it would bring Khatun back on humanitarian grounds, but “without prejudice” to New Delhi’s “contentions on merits and our right to put them under surveillance”.

Adhikari on Saturday asserted that undocumented immigrants would not be allowed to stay in West Bengal, and would be sent back, The Telegraph reported. However, he said that unlike the “previous regime”, the state government would not be very cautious in sending undocumented immigrants to Bangladesh.

“No Indian citizen would face difficulties,” The Telegraph quoted Adhikari as saying.

Khatun was forced into Bangladesh by the Border Security Force, which reports to the Union home ministry.

On June 7, Adhikari had said that 4,800 alleged undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh who are not eligible for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act have been deported in the past month.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader had said that 836 more “illegal infiltrators” who are currently in holding centres will soon be deported to Bangladesh.

The holding centres were ordered to be set by the state government on May 22 for alleged undocumented immigrants and for released foreign prisoners awaiting deportation or repatriation.

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

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

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

Also read:

• Pregnant woman from Bengal forced into Bangladesh. Family has land records from five generations ago

The Surya river has been a part of our lives ever since 2004, when my husband Ravi began to farm a plot of land in Dahanu in Maharashtra’s Palghar district. We have seen its ebbs and flows for more than two decades so we were not unduly worried when it began to rise almost to the level of our farm on July 23, after three days of unusually heavy rains.

We had no inkling of the ordeal that lay in store for us. Around noon, the Surya crashed through the fences, cascaded through our farm and swept all our rice crops away.

For over five hours that day, the waters swirled furiously around our house before gradually abating.

A few minutes before the water entered the farm, our neighbour, Hemant Gharat, his wife, Hema and their three children, ran into our farm. “The water’s coming,” they yelled as they fled the water rushing into their home.

A little later, their house collapsed.

At the same time, our neighbour, the filmmaker Praveen Kumar, was stuck on the terrace of his house with a visitor as the river swamped his house and submerged his car. The mobile network stopped working so he could not communicate with us.

He had, however, managed to call the helplines of the National Disaster Management Authority, and the police. But no help was forthcoming. It was only at 1.30 am, as the water level fell, that two of his friends rescued him.

Kumar described the hardship he faced, the lack of response from the authorities and the mental anguish and financial loss he has suffered in a petition he sent government officials on July 25.

“We were left to fend for ourselves in the middle of a life-threatening flood, abandoned in our darkest hour by the very machinery that is meant to protect citizens in times of disaster,” he wrote. “This failure of response, coming on top of the failure to warn us before the water was released, is unpardonable and demands the strongest accountability.”

It was only five days after the floods that I was able to visit other villages in the area. Everywhere, I heard horror stories. Shubham Sugandh Gorewala told me how he and his eight-member family – including four children and his mother- in-law – clambered atop the 20-foot-high stack of bricks at their kiln opposite their home in Bharad village around 10 am on July 23 to escape the rising river waters.

They spent the whole day perched on the pile before they were rescued by the fire brigade and the police. Luckily for Gorewala, he still had a phone network and was able to call a revenue official he knew to inform him of his situation.

But the water flowed in through the windows of his home, damaging his possessions, including a fridge and cots. Gorewala said that 40,000 bricks from his kiln were washed away, as was his mini-tractor. He lost several fruit trees, and two acres of rice. He says it will be impossible for him to sell his remaining bricks as the road by the kiln had been washed away.

In Bharad village, the flood destroyed the house of Subhash Mali, who suffers from paralysis. He watched the water inundate his rice field opposite his home and cover it with mud. His wife Ratne said the water gushed into the area and they found it difficult to stay afloat. No one warned them that this would happen. Subhash Mali said he did not have a phone, so there was no question of getting any warnings.

We would later learn that the rain had left 23 people in Palghar dead in July. A preliminary damage assessment report by the district administration said that 15,802 homes had been inundated, The Times of India noted. The damage to private property and public infrastructure was estimated at Rs 180 crore.

The incessant rain had started on July 20 in South Gujarat and the areas bordering Palghar. Dahanu town, about 150 km from Mumbai, was paralysed. The Surya river was flowing much above its normal level but residents had not been warned that the gates of the Dhamni dam upstream were going to be opened to discharge water from its rapidly filling reservoir.

That happened on July 23. According to official information, the Dhamni dam was 94% full at 10 am and the spillway gates were increased by 50 cm, opening to 125 cm. As a result, 18,037 cusecs of water was discharged. The reservoir from the eathern Kawadas dam below Dhamni was also overflowing. It is a pickup weir and has no gates. It discharged a total of 59,599 cusecs of water.

At 11 am, the gates of the Dhamni dam were opened further to 150 cm, discharging 30,671 cusecs. Together with the overflow from Kawadas, this amounted to a massive 116,235.75 cusecs.

According to official sources, the gram sevaks and talatis – village-level revenue officials – were sent Whatsapp messages telling them to inform villagers that a flood was likely. However, the collapse of the mobile phone networks meant the warning could not be passed on to the villages downstream of the Dhamni.

The Palghar District Disaster Management Plan 2024-2025 says that the residents of 17 villages should be shifted in case of floods. But it is not clear whether that happened. The Palghar district collector had only issued instructions warning villagers to move to safer locations and be in touch with the gram panchayat for updates.

By the time district officials held a meeting about the flooding at 5.30 pm on July 23, the water had already started abating.

As we realised, electricity was not available for five or six days as many trees and poles had fallen during the heavy rain. Even drinking water was not supplied in most places for several days.

In an emergency, the plan also says that food, clothing and shelter should be provided to the affected population if necessary. But the flood kits that were distributed had only a single bedsheet, a small toothpaste, a bar of soap and a towel – a single packet for each family. Now, grain is also being provided.

On July 27, I sent questions by Whatsapp to the district collector Indu Rani Jakhar and the deputy resident collector on how many villages had been notified about the flood, the extent of flood damage and about relief measures. Newspapers reported that 200 villages in Dahanu and Talasari talukas of Palghar district had been cut off and 800-odd people were evacuated so I also sought information about this.

This article will be updated if they respond.

In the past, we enjoyed the sound of falling rain but it now portends disaster. Extreme weather events like this one will only intensify due to climate change. On average, the district receives 2,458 mm of rain for the entire year. This year, until July 31, Palghar district had already received 1,758 mm.

Just over a week after the deluge, farmers are back to planting rice and going about their activities. There is a crowd at the talati’s office to submit claims for compensation and documents. But our neighbours, the Gharat family, are living in a make-shift shelter with a plastic roof because their house collapsed.

Ravi and I had a narrow escape this time. We suffered only material damage to our crops, trees and fences. But we cannot ride on providence and luck all the time. The administration must take greater responsibility and issue early warnings in situations like this.

Meena Menon is a freelance journalist and a postdoctoral visiting fellow at the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK.

Eight persons died and thirteen were injured in rain-related incidents between Friday and Saturday in Kerala as heavy downpour triggered landslides and flash floods, reported The Hindu.

Four fishermen from Thiruvananthapuram district and two from Kollam were also missing. Two residents of Kannur had also gone missing after falling into a river, according to the newspaper.

The search operations are ongoing.

Among those who died are two children – three-year-old Abdul Muhaini and four-year-old Adam Ayman. They drowned after falling into a swollen stream in Malappuram.

Another child, 11-year-old Milan K Shinu, died after falling into a waterlogged pit dug for a Jal Jeevan Mission project, reported The Hindu.

The mission is a Union government scheme launched in 2019 to provide piped water connections and safe drinking water to all rural households.

In Idukki’s Thodupuzha, 69-year-old Sumanthi was killed after her home in Kudayathoor panchayat was buried due to a landslide. In the district’s Kolahalamedu, 72-year-old Prabhakaran Nair died when a mudslide struck his house.

In Kottayam’s Kaippally, 28-year-old Josephin Johny and his 48-year-old mother Regina Johny were buried under debris after a landslide triggered by heavy rains caused part of the hillside adjoining their home to collapse.

One death due to electrocution was reported from Wayanad.

Chief Minister VD Satheeshan has announced that financial assistance would be provided to families of those killed and to persons who lost homes, farms or livelihoods due to the rains.

The chief minister’s office said that 27 homes were completely destroyed, 196 homes were partially damaged and 5,792 people have been taken to 209 relief camps, PTI reported.

Heavy rains in Gujarat

Gujarat also received heavy rains from Friday to Saturday, leading to authorities issuing flood alerts in five districts, reported The Indian Express.

Overnight rainfall led to flooding in Vadodara district and nearby areas. Rescue teams evacuated around 150 persons, including 140 students, from a hostel near Waghodia, where they were stranded in waist-deep water, according to the newspaper.

In Narmada district, seven gates of the Karjan Dam were opened due to heavy rainfall in the catchment area. Fifteen to 20 downstream villages were on alert after around 82,100 cusecs of water, including hydropower discharge, was released into the Karjan river.

Bharuch district was also on high alert, with authorities closing 15 roads as heavy rain caused several causeways to overflow.

In Kheda district, heavy rain since caused the Shedhi river to flow above danger level. The authorities have advised residents along the riverbanks to remain alert.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: Deluge with monsoon deficit is India’s new climate normal

The Tamil Nadu government will withdraw cases registered against students who had protested against the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, state minister A Rajmohan said on Sunday.

In a social media post, the minister for school education said that the decision was taken as per the directions of Chief Minister Vijay. He also said that the government would announce further details shortly.

Protesters in Tamil Nadu alleged that repeated irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, including question paper leaks, had eroded public trust in the medical entrance examination, The New Indian Express reported. They demanded that the NEET examination be scrapped, and that the National Testing Agency, which conducts the test, be dissolved.

The NEET-UG examination is the mandatory entrance examination for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

The protesters in Tamil Nadu also demanded a judicial inquiry into the alleged irregularities and restoration of education to the state list, the newspaper reported. In 1976, education was moved from the state list to the concurrent list, which allowed both the Union government and state governments to make laws about it.

The demonstrations in Tamil Nadu included flash protests at several locations, The Hindu reported. A continuous sit-in was organised at Balan Illam, the state headquarters of the Communist Party of India in Chennai.

The statement by the Tamil Nadu government came in the backdrop of youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party that led to the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The protesters had been demanding Pradhan’s resignation on account of alleged mismanagement of a series of competitive examinations, including NEET-UG.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he wanted to forgive the students who allegedly made abusive remarks about him, Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Saturday asked whether Modi would also “seek forgiveness for the brutal lathi-charge on students”.

In a video posted on social media, Dipke said that if Modi uploads another video, he hopes that the prime minister would apologise for the police action that took place during the march to Parliament on July 20.

Dipke also alleged that during the lathi-charge, “12-year-old girls were hit on the head by the police”.

Will PM Modi seek forgiveness for the brutal lathi-charge on students? pic.twitter.com/4HtYoksu0E

— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) August 1, 2026

“Women’s clothes were torn by male police officers. They also hit girls on their private parts,” Dipke said.

Modi, in a video posted on social media on Friday, had said that “some mischievous children used abusive language that doesn’t dignify any civilised society.”

The prime minister had appealed for restraint from the public, saying that making the student protesters run around courts would not provide solutions to problems.

“I want to forgive them,” Modi had said. “The children are ours and we have to show them the right path even if it is difficult to do for people who have been misled,” he added.

Modi’s video message, the fifth in a week, came a day after a 15-year-old girl in Noida was booked for making purportedly objectionable remarks about him on social media during the youth protests at Jantar Mantar.

A first information report was registered against Ruchika Singh under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation. The FIR was based on a complaint by a Ghaziabad resident.

On Friday, Singh apologised for the remarks she had made about the prime minister.

The Cockroach Janta Party, which led the youth protests, said that the “misuse of criminal machinery” against Singh was unacceptable. “Harassment of the young must stop immediately,” a spokesperson said on Friday.

The Hyderabad Police also registered cases against technology firm Meta’s India head, and several Facebook and Instagram accounts over purportedly objectionable videos and photographs of Modi shared on the two social media platforms during the protests.

The content was posted online during the youth protests demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time on account of alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators.

The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

In South Mumbai’s Mandvi Koliwada sits a terracotta-colored building bearing the name Janabai and Madhavrao Rokade Municipal School.

As is the case with public buildings in many Indian cities, the names of the personalities that adorn them are often unfamiliar. Some of them are linked to relatively recent politicians and cultural figures. A few of them have a deeper historical connection. The Rokade municipal school falls in the second category.

The school was established in 1879, making it one of Mumbai’s earliest modern schools. It was started by Madhavrao Rokade.

For anyone interested in Mumbai’s socio-political history from this period, Madhavrao Rokade is remembered as a key member and writer associated with the Satyashodhak movement. This was a movement started by Jotirao and Savitribai Phule in Pune in 1873 to confront the upper-caste dominance in everyday life and to work toward inculcating a sense of collective consciousness among Bahujan communities, especially through education.

Rokade contributed to this movement by starting and running this school for many years with limited support. He was also known for his periodic writings in the late 19th century in newspapers such as Dinbandhu (Brother of the Oppressed) and Shetkaryacha Kaivari (Protector of Farmers).

Along with his role in education, Rokade had garnered immense respect for his engagement with workers’ problems at the Bombay Mill Hands Association and for his role as a mediator in pacifying communal tensions during the Bombay riots in 1893.

But who was Janabai?

Most of the scholarly works on social reform movements in colonial India are marked by copious profiles of men and their contributions. Due to a severe paucity of vernacular archives about lesser-known Marathi women writers and reformers and the haphazard cataloguing of the others, coupled with limited vernacular language skills among scholars to explore the social milieu, our understanding of social reform in colonial India remains limited.

Women, especially if they had Bahujan backgrounds, tend to get only a cursory mention as the wives, sisters or daughters of male reformers.

In this story, too, we know that Janabai Rokade was the daughter of Madhavrao. However, Janabai’s story is not entirely lost to obscurity, thanks to a Marathi biography written of her by Krishnarao Arjun Keluskar in 1929.

Keluskar was one of the most prolific Marathi writers in this period, who was known for his penchant for writing biographies. He wrote popular biographies of historical characters such as the Buddha, the medieval bhakti saint Tukaram, and the Maratha warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji.

Remarkably, for someone who also had an abiding scholarly interest in global topics ranging from ancient Stoic philosophers such as Seneca and Epictetus to the modern political history of France, Keluskar chose to write a biography on a Marathi-speaking Bahujan woman from Mumbai.

At a time when there were innumerable logistical and financial hurdles involved in documenting the social works of figures, a short biography like this one provides valuable insights on less-privileged women in colonial India.

As a family friend of the Rokades, Keluskar eulogised Madhavrao’s social work. At the same time, he had also been privy to how Janabai had steadily managed to amplify her own public presence. Instead of treating her as merely a supporter of the movement, Keluskar’s biography explores her individual contributions, spanning from educational achievements to public service.

In this account, Janabai emerges as one of the most respected public figures in colonial Bombay.

Janabai was born in 1888 in Mandvi Koliwada. A plaque in the school says the building was constructed on the site of the tomb of a spiritual leader named Raghunath Maharaj.

Madhavrao passed away in 1896 when Janabai was merely eight so she was raised by her uncle, Dharmajirao.

Devastated by the loss of her father, Janabai was only able to study to the fourth standard. In the time between her abrupt end to education and her marriage at the age of 14, she taught school children.

Unfortunately for Janabai, her misery continued as her marriage was a disaster. Seeing that her husband was a spendthrift who wasted his ancestral holdings, Dharmajirao called Janabai back home. As he was aware of Janabai’s intellect and her predilection for social service, Dharmjirao realised that she was destined to play a role beyond her current school teaching.

Dharmajirao helped Janabai join Mumbai’s Cama Hospital, which is still reputed for its care of women and children. Janabai’s nursing and midwife skills blossomed here. She performed these roles for women from all strata of society, including for British expectant mothers and women from royal families such as the Queen of Bhuj.

Because Janabai could speak Urdu and Gujarati in addition to Marathi, she was a coveted nurse and midwife beyond her immediate social circle. Soon, she started working independently and became one known as of Mumbai’s most efficient midwives.

Janabai’s public stature helped her uncle Dharmajirao raise funds to run the school. She contacted organisations such as the Wadia Trust to help her with the school as more children moved to the low-cost housing chawls in Mandvi built by the government-run Bombay Improvement Trust.

SM Edwardes, the city’s police commissioner, encouraged the Wadia Trust to increase their annual contribution to the school from Rs 50 to Rs 100. Janabai continued supporting this school even after Dharmjirao died in 1918.

Mindful of the support she had received from Dharmajirao and his family in her early life, Janabai had a profound desire to pay back her debt by running this school, Keluskar said.

For close to 15 years, Dharmajirao had run the school free of cost. This was a time when only a few schools in Mumbai catered to poor students. Understandably, the more pragmatic emphasis was on industrial education.

In a little while, Janabai ventured into other domains. She opened the Ahilyabai Maternity Hospital for poor women, named after Dharmajirao’s daughter. To honor Dharmajirao’s social service, she opened a free reading room in his memory.

Along with her pioneering role in the education sector and providing maternity care for poor women, Janabai also participated in influential social and cultural organisations. She was invited to be a member of the Maratha Aikechyu Sabha, became a partner of the Maratha Provident Fund and accepted the role of the president of the Student’s Brotherhood in Pune.

The Maratha Aikeychu Sabha worked towards spreading awareness about education and inculcating a feeling of brotherhood among people from different caste communities. Established in 1887, it supported students with scholarships.

The Maratha Provident Fund, established in 1894, sought to spread awareness among poor Marathi people about the importance of saving a percentage of their monthly income. Both these organizations had a capacious definition of the word “Maratha”, which was meant to include all non-Brahmin communities.

The Students’ Brotherhood, established in 1911, worked toward helping students in need of financial support by buying books and organising lecture series.

She also engaged in public service alongside the editor of Jagruti.

Jagruti was an important Satyashodhak newspaper that wrote about widow remarriage, education, untouchability and the problems of farmers and workers. It was first published between 1917 and ran until 1949.Even though these organisations were male-dominated, Janabai’s indefatigable persona compelled them to solicit her membership.

For her contributions to the field of education and public service, she was awarded the bronze badge of the Kaisar-i-Hind medal, which was awarded by the British emperor for distinguished service in the advancement of public service in India. Janabai was most probably the first Bahujan woman to receive this award.

Surajkumar Thube is a visiting professor at the political science department at Ashoka University.

The Allahabad High Court has said that if women voluntarily convert to Islam and marry persons of their choice, nobody, including their father, could interfere with the decision, reported The Indian Express on Saturday.

The court was hearing a petition by two sisters, aged 20 and 35, on July 30.

Through their counsel, they told Justice Sandeep Jain that they had voluntarily converted from Hinduism to Islam and decided to marry as per their own wishes, which was their fundamental right, reported The Hindu.

Jain ordered the Uttar Pradesh police and the father of the two women to produce them before the court on August 6.

The direction came after the counsel for the sisters alleged before the court that their father had filed a police complaint in Agra in May 2025 to stop them from exercising their choices.

A first information report was registered based on this under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to punishment for kidnapping, abducting or inducing women to compel her into marriage, reported The Indian Express.

They also alleged that they were being illegally confined with the help of police.

Since the sisters had converted voluntarily and there was no evidence of coercion or deception, the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, does not apply in this case, their lawyer told the court.

“If these assertions are ultimately found to be correct, any interference by respondent number four [their father] or any other person in the exercise of such personal choices would amount to an unwarranted encroachment upon their constitutionally protected rights to dignity, privacy, personal liberty, and decisional autonomy,” said the court.

It added that if the women are not produced before the court on August 6, the police should file personal affidavits explaining the reasons for their absence, according to The Indian Express.

The affidavit should also detail the steps the police took to secure the women’s production.

Edited by Sneha.

Last Saturday, with the sudden exit of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a protest in Mumbai’s Bandra neighbourhood called to demand his resignation was transformed into a victory rally. The waterfront resounded with whoops of triumph.

But in a community hall down the road, the mood was markedly different. As volunteers helped visitors fill out forms for the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls underway in 16 states and three Union Territories, the room was filled with murmurs of aggravation and sighs of frustration.

A mere 750 metres separated the two venues, but the visions of India they represented were worlds apart.

At the amphitheatre on the waterfront, the supporters of the youth protests against the mismanagement of national examinations (and more) were aiming to deepen democracy, to pressure the government to listen to the voices of the people who had voted them to power.

In the community hall, however, the government machinery had been deployed to conduct an exercise that views every Indian with suspicion and casts doubt on the fact that their voices are actually legitimate.

The government says that it is conducting the revision to remove the names of voters who have died or moved away.

But many believe that a more pernicious endeavour is unfolding: the revision is yet another piece of evidence that illustrates how India, under the Bharatiya Janata Party, is carefully curating who it will allow to be counted as a bonafide citizen.

The special intensive revision places all residents under suspicion until they can prove that they belong. However, as Scroll staffers noted last fortnight, producing the documents required to prove eligibility to stay on the electoral rolls is inconvenient at best, impossible at worst.

When the exercise to “purify” the voting rolls was conducted in West Bengal earlier this year, for instance, 91 lakh names were deleted – removing 12% of the state’s 7.6 crore electorate. Of them, 34 lakh have appealed against their voting rights being extinguished. At the rate at which tribunals are processing cases, it could take 21 years for petitioners to be heard.

It isn’t surprising that by June, a year into the revision, the rolls in states and Union Territories where the exercise has been completed have been pruned by 10.2%.

Not only is the BJP trying to control who can vote, it is working hard to stifle the voices in the legislatures that oppose its policies and ideology. Since June, 20 of 28 MPs of the Trinamool Congress have left the party, presumably under pressure, while six of nine MPs owing allegiance to the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena have defected to a BJP ally.

These moves by the ruling party demonstrate why the exhilaration sparked by the campaign catalysed by the Cockroach Janta Party must be tempered with realism.

Street protests of this sort are effective in achieving single-point agendas – demanding that a minister resign or that a set of laws be repealed. But structural reform requires electing representatives to frame sagacious laws and policy. And over the past decade, India’s ability to make its voice heard in legislatures has been critically imperilled.

Until that changes, India will remain what boomer uncles believe Gen Z protestors would describe as a delulu democracy – an electoral autocracy deluding itself that it truly represents the aspirations of its people.

Follow Scroll’s coverage of the youth protests here.

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

Opposition mounts pressure. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded that Amit Shah be removed as the Union home minister, alleging that he was responsible for “the brutality carried out against students” during their protest in Delhi on July 20. He also demanded an investigation by a Supreme Court-monitored high-powered committee into violence against protesters.

Gandhi said at a press conference that either Shah ordered the violence or that he did not know it was happening. “If he didn’t know it was happening, he is incompetent,” the Congress MP said. “If he knew, then he is culpable. In either case, he has to go.”

Earlier, while speaking in the Lok Sabha, Gandhi had alleged that Shah had “authorised the shooting of our students” during the nationwide youth protests. “He put the pellets into the blood of our students,” the leader of the Opposition in the House said. “He ordered the students of India to be shot.”

New laws, old problems. Parliament passed a bill to amend the 2024 anti-paper leak law in the wake of nationwide protests against alleged irregularities in competitive examinations. It awaits presidential assent. The draft legislation proposes imprisonment of five to ten years and a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh for those found using unfair means in public examinations.

If instances of paper leaks or other offences listed under the bill are found to be organised, the bill proposes a minimum sentence of seven years and a fine of up to Rs 10 crore.

Fifteen illegal acts, including leaking question papers, tampering with optical mark recognition sheets, creating fake websites and issuing fake admission cards have been listed as offences under the bill.

Saffronisation of sports? Hockey India chief Dilip Tirkey sought an explanation from the sport’s national governing body about its decision to change the colour of the Indian team’s jersey to saffron from blue, ahead of the world cup. Tirkey also said that Hockey India’s executive board had not been consulted before the change was implemented.

Following backlash on social media, including from former captains, Hockey India had said on Thursday that the colour had been changed following consultations with players and the staff because of technical requirements. The federation said that the blue jersey blended with the blue synthetic playing surface used in international hockey, affecting visibility, and that players and coaches had suggested alternative colours, including saffron and yellow.

Critics said that the change hurt the identity and legacy of the team that has traditionally worn blue as its primary colour.

Also on Scroll last week

• Watch: Arundhati Roy: ‘Does Modi know what was being said about him?’
• Modi government took over trusted helpline for distressed children. Two years later, it’s struggling
• Cockroach protests show Modi’s deep disconnect with India’s impatient youth
• Two days after Bihar promise to withdraw cases, families wait anxiously for protestors’ release
• ‘Wounds from CAA are fresh’: Why young Muslims remained ambivalent about the ‘cockroach’ protests
• Why the trans community fears exclusion in the ongoing SIR
• Three reasons why India’s household savings are falling despite a huge working-age population
• Why an Aadhaar fix for India’s education crisis won’t work
• Tigmanshu Dhulia on playing the waiting game: ‘When you go against the tide, there will be problems’
• ‘Bhai Tera Star Hai’ review: Pointless comedy strains patience levels

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In a little over a month, the Cockroach Janata Party-led student movement that began as a joke held one of the world’s most immovable governments to a single demand and won. When Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as education minister on July 25, the students who had occupied Jantar Mantar wept and embraced. Abhijeet Dipke, who founded the movement, fell to his knees.

Since coming to power in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has rarely bowed to public pressure, and almost never to the young. The repeal of the farm laws in 2021 is remembered because such retreats are so uncommon.

But a victory of this kind is most vulnerable in the days just after it is won, when the crowds go home and the terms of the settlement are set by the side that conceded – in this case, the government.

That a leaderless, meme-driven mobilisation extracted a cabinet resignation, compensation for the families of students who died by suicide after the leak of the NEET question, and a promise to drop police cases against protesters is a genuine achievement.

But none of these concessions disturb the arrangement that produced the grievances in the first place. The examination system remains in the hands of the institutions that failed it, the education ministry continues under a new minister and the power to appoint, staff, and to decide what schooling is for is unchanged.

For many protesters, Pradhan’s resignation was seen as the first step towards accountability.

But the distinction worth holding onto is that concession and accountability are not the same thing, though the moment of victory tends to blur them. Accountability changes who answers to whom, whereas a resignation changes only who holds the office. There are already signs that accountability, in this fuller sense, is not what the government has in mind.

First, the protests succeeded in getting Pradhan to resign, but had no part in the choice of his successor: Pralhad Joshi, a long-serving member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the ruling party. Almost immediately, commentators pointed out Joshi in 2022 had defended the release of the men convicted of gang-raping Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Joshi already held the portfolios of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, and of new and renewable energy. He has now assumed additional charge of education.

The movement had demanded Pradhan’s resignation, and the government supplied that. But, in the same motion, it installed a figure whose commitments may sit further from the students’ than those of the man who was removed. Has the education portfolio truly been handed to someone more accountable?

The second is what happens to the protesters once the celebrations have ended. The government had publicly accepted that all cases against protesters will be dropped. But two days after Pradhan’s resignation, the Cockroach Janata Party reported that at least a 100 of its participants had been arrested across the country, many on non-bailable charges, and had begun raising a legal fund for their defence.

This is a familiar pattern. Ladakhi activist Sonam Wangchuk, whose hunger strike and forced hospitalisation had swelled the students’ protest, had been released only in March after nearly six months in jail without trial. Wangchuk was arrested under the National Security Act in September, after leading a statehood protest demanding constitutional protections for Ladakh.

The state’s method is consistent: concede in public and then pursue the participants once the cameras have moved on.

The underlying logic that connects Joshi’s appointment and the arrest of protesters explains why this victory may prove smaller than it feels. The government can easily absorb reactive demands because they name a wrong that has already happened and ask for its nearest available symbol be removed.

The examination paper leak, the Chief Justice of India calling the young and unemployed “cockroaches”, the education minister’s resignation can be acted upon without conceding much about how ministers are chosen, how institutions are staffed, or whom the system is ultimately built to serve. A resignation extracted after a crisis is simply damage control that both sides can call a victory.

Accountability starts with the questions that arose before the crisis: instead of asking who will be removed now that students have died, the more pressing question was on what basis was a minister appointed and to what end?

Similarly, it was not about whether those responsible for the paper leak will be punished but what steps were taken so that it does not recur. Even during the protests and after, there were reports of other question papers being leaked.

Reactive questions allow the government to choose the terms of its answer, unlike proactive questions, which is why these are never invited but are worth asking.

None of this diminishes what the movement achieved. However, the generation that refused to accept a rigged examination should be wary of accepting a victory where the demand is met in form, but reversed in substance.

This victory is best understood as the first step on a much longer road. The questions that carry weight now are why this system produces the people it does, and whom it is built to serve.

As the state redirects its attention towards the students and young Indians who forced the concession, the focus has understandably turned to the arrests. But amid the celebration – and now the crackdown – one question has gone unasked. Why Pralhad Joshi?

While the streets are still watching, it is among the first of proactive questions this generation must ask and certainly not the last.

Ritika Arora-Kukreja is a researcher at the London School of Economics. Her doctoral research examined education markets and majoritarian politics in India.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and two other Opposition MPs have been booked in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi for allegedly insulting Sanatan Dharma during a protest outside Parliament, The Hindu reported.

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

On Friday, INDIA bloc MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Gandhi, staged a protest over the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

During the protest, the MPs enacted a skit. They dropped money into a donation box, while Independent MP Pappu Yadav, dressed in saffron robes, pretended to take the money out and put it into his pockets.

On Saturday, a first information report was registered at Kotwali police station against Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Yadav and Samajwadi Party MP Awadhesh Prasad.

They have been charged under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings and uttering words with the deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person, the newspaper reported.

The FIR was registered on a complaint by Jagadguru Balak Das, head of the Patalpuri Math, a Hindu religious institution.

Ram temple donation embezzlement case

A new special investigation team has begun probing the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple

An earlier three-member SIT was formed on June 13 at the request of the temple trust after Opposition leaders and a whistleblower raised questions about how donations were being handled at the temple.

In its preliminary report, submitted to the Uttar Pradesh home department on June 23, the SIT found 70 instances of counting staff hiding bundles of notes and loose cash in their clothes, pockets and shoes. Scroll has seen a copy of the report.

The report alleged that offerings were stolen during the counting process with staff routinely hiding cash on their bodies and walking out with it, as systems meant to stop this were not enforced. It also flagged serious lapses by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust and the State Bank of India, the banker to the trust.

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

While it did not name Champat Rai, the trust’s general secretary, one of his aides was among the eight staffers it recommended the police investigate. The eight persons were also named in a first information report registered on June 25.

Mishra and Rai have resigned from their positions in the trust.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• What the SIT report on Ram temple donation theft does and does not say

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

President Droupadi Murmu on Friday gave her assent to the 2026 Public Examinations Prevention of Unfair Means Amendment Act, a day after Parliament passed the legislation.

The amendments were introduced on Monday following nationwide youth protests over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations.

The Act raises the punishment for using unfair means in public examinations from the current three to five years’ imprisonment to five to 10 years. It also increases the maximum fine from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh.

One of the key provisions of the Act empowers the Union government to set up a Special Task Force to investigate paper leak offences. The probe by police, central investigating agencies or the task force would have to be completed within two months, it says.

The Act also requires state governments and Union Territory administrations to set up special fast track courts. Pending cases under the Act would also be transferred to these fast track courts and disposed of within three months of transfer.

If instances of paper leaks or other offences listed under the Act are found to be organised, the legislation proposes a minimum sentence of seven years and a fine of up to Rs 10 crore.

The Act lists 15 offences, including leaking question papers, tampering with optical mark recognition sheets, creating fake websites and issuing fake admit cards.

Optical mark recognition is a system that reads answers marked by candidates by detecting filled bubbles or marks on an answer sheet.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Election Commission on Friday extended the enumeration deadline for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Telangana by a week to August 10, ANI reported. Earlier, the deadline for enumeration was August 3.

This is the second extension in the state. On July 15, the poll panel had extended the enumeration deadline to August 3 from July 24.

Data shared by the Election Commission showed that only 77% of the enumeration forms had been digitised in the state as of Friday. The digitisation rate was 56.3% in Hyderabad.

Yadadri Bhongiri district had recorded the highest form digitisation rate of 94.2%, followed by Jangaon at 91.4%.

Under the revised timeline, the draft voter list in the state will be published on August 17 instead of August 10.

The claims and objections by persons who are removed from the draft list can be filed between August 17 and September 16. The claims will be heard between till October 15 before the final electoral roll is published by October 19.

Telangana is among the 16 states where the voter roll revision is underway in the third phase of SIR.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

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

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

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Scroll’s SIR experience is a microcosm of what urban India is facing

The toll in flood-related incidents in Assam rose to 82 on Friday, the state disaster management authority said.

Meanwhile, in Kerala and Gujarat, four persons each were killed in rain-related incidents.

In Assam, Sivasagar has reported the highest number of deaths at 42, followed by Charaideo at 21 and Jorhat at nine. Two persons remain missing in Sivasagar and Dhemaji districts.

The flood situation has improved since Thursday, with the number of affected people falling from more than two lakh to around 1.9 lakh. The number of affected districts has also declined from eight to five, The Tribune reported.

🚨 Update on #AssamFloods | 1 August

Relief operations continue to expand across the State, with the number of relief distribution centres increasing to 1,811 now.

Every effort remains focused on relief, rehabilitation & restoring normalcy. https://t.co/u4iXHu088j pic.twitter.com/eSKBjf6JX7

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) August 1, 2026

Since April 29, floods have affected 25 districts and impacted a total of 11.4 lakh persons in the state, the disaster management authority said.

Kerala

Four persons were killed after heavy rain triggered flash floods and landslides in parts of central Kerala on Friday night, The New Indian Express reported.

Two deaths were reported from Idukki district and two from Kottayam district, The Indian Express reported.

The India Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for extremely heavy rain in Thrissur, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Idukki, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur and Kasaragod districts, while an orange alert warning of very heavy rain is in place for Ernakulam, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Alappuzha.

Chief Minister VD Satheesan said that the government was prepared to deal with rain-related emergencies, with teams of the National Disaster Response Force and other agencies deployed and on standby.

The authorities have also declared holidays for educational institutions in several districts as heavy rain is expected to continue, The New Indian Express reported. They have also advised against non-essential travel between Wayanad and Kozhikode districts, the Deccan Chronicle reported.

Gujarat

Four persons were killed in Gujarat on Friday due to rain-related incidents, The Indian Express reported.

Three farm labourers were electrocuted after a vehicle that they were travelling in, came into contact with a live high-tension power line in Navsari district, while an 11-year-old girl was swept away in a canal in Anand district.

The IMD has issued a red alert for five districts and an orange alert for 11 districts.

More than 16,500 people have been evacuated to safer locations and 41 people rescued, the newspaper quoted the state government as saying.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Political commentator Tehseen Poonawalla on Saturday alleged that police had put him under house arrest at his home in Delhi ahead of his planned protest against petrol being blended with 20% ethanol.

Poonawalla was scheduled to begin a hunger strike at the Gandhi Smriti in the national capital at 10 am, to protest against the government’s Ethanol Blended Petrol programme.

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

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

Speaking with reporters on Saturday, Poonawalla claimed that the police informed him that he had been put under house arrest because “thousands of protesters” were expected to participate in the protest.

The police did not give him any documents explaining the action, Poonawalla alleged.

“An entire battalion of Delhi Police cops including women officers have put me under house arrest!” Poonawalla alleged on social media, adding that Nitin Gadkari, the Union transport minister “is scared” of the protest against the ethanol policy.

The @DelhiPolice force that has put me under house arrest so I cannot speak against Ethanol. #EthanolScam
BETA BADHAO YOJNA
SUGAR DADDY pic.twitter.com/qcfvly9o91

— Tehseen Poonawalla Official 🇮🇳 (@tehseenp) August 1, 2026

On Thursday, Poonawalla claimed that the police had not allowed him to do media interviews at Vijay Chowk, near Parliament. He had claimed at the time that his Instagram account had been suspended. It was accessible on Saturday morning.

He had planned a “Gaadi March”, or car march, on Friday against the ethanol blending policy. However, he cancelled the event since the police denied permission for it, stating that he did not want anyone to get hurt “or their vehicles seized”.

His alleged house arrest came two days after his brother Shehzad Poonawalla, a Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson, on Thursday removed the party’s name from his bio on social media platform X, leading to speculation that he had quit the organisation.

E20 fuel row

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

Gadkari has been defending the government’s ethanol blending policy, claiming on July 9 that no car in the country was facing problems because of E20 petrol.

He has also been quoted as having maintained that the policy had been framed collectively by several government departments and was not his decision alone. “The entire process is conducted after consultation with the petroleum ministry, the Cabinet and scientific research,” he had said.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

A migrant worker succumbed to his injuries sustained during a suspected militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Friday.

The labourer had been taken to a hospital in Srinagar.

Another migrant worker had died in the attack on Friday. Both were from Chhattisgarh.

The suspected militants had opened fire at them in the Kellam area of Kulgam. Following the attack, the security forces cordoned off the area and began a search operation to track down the assailants.

Following the attack, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha condemned the attack, and said that he had spoken to Director General of Police Nalin Prabhat and other security officers.

The lieutenant governor said that he had directed the security forces “to step up their operations and eliminate the terrorists”.

On Saturday, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh each to families of the two workers. Additionally, the district administration will provide immediate assistance of Rs 6 lakh each, the chief minister’s office said

The attack came a week after a policeman was killed when militants opened fire on security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district on July 22. The policeman was identified as Head Constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

When Shradha Singh created an Instagram reel alongside two Rapid Action Force personnel in Connaught Place, she had no idea the seven-second clip would be weaponised against her.

The 23-year-old content creator and yoga instructor from Madhya Pradesh was part of the growing crowd of young people who converged on New Delhi's Jantar Mantar protest site in the third week of July to express anger against question paper leaks. Like many others, Singh had seen the Indian public examinations system up close and had grown disillusioned with it. This prompted her to turn up to support the protesting students.

Today, she cannot step outside her home.

Her ordeal is part of a chilling new reality unfolding for young protesters in the capital. Their open – and sometimes abusive – challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party has made them the targets of relentless harassment from both online mobs as well as the police.

“There is no limit to the death threats and rape threats that I’ve been receiving,” Singh told Scroll. “They’ve even found the Instagram accounts of my mother and my friends, who are being abused and badgered to share my whereabouts.”

In an Instagram reel posted on July 25, Singh drew from the soundtrack of a popular advertisement for a line of cleaning products. When the narrator announces “blue is for the toilet”, Singh gestures to blue-clad Rapid Action Force personnel. When the audio track said “red is for the bathroom”, she points to her own red t-shirt.

“I uploaded it purely for entertainment and not to show disrespect to the armed forces,” Singh said.

Within hours, anonymous meme pages reshared the video, claiming that Singh had abused the armed forces. The next day, major news channels such as News18 India and Doordarshan broadcast the reel and criticised her for her “objectionable” content.

“The captions of several videos reproducing my reel are saying that I made abusive remarks, which I did not,” Singh said.

The consequences were immediate and terrifying. BJP supporters spotted the number plate of her car in an older post on her Instagram account and used it to track down her mobile number and address.

“Some called and said, ‘we will kill you the moment we meet you, we will rape you,’” Singh recounted.

The 23-year-old noted a pattern among her attackers: most of the abusive accounts had zero posts and zero followers, hallmarks of coordinated troll farms. “The rest were genuine users who were swayed by these accounts,” she said.

Singh even pleaded with one Instagram meme page administrator to remove a misleading video he had posted on her. He declined. "He said I won’t because I’m making money from it,” she said.

Far from helping, even Instagram seems to be attacking her for her role in the protests. So far, the Meta-owned social media network has removed 33 of Singh’s posts documenting the protests. She said that it offered her no avenue for appeal.

Late night on Friday, Prime Minister Modi himself addressed the abuse directed at him. “Some naughty children have used dirty swear words,” he said in a reel on Instagram, going on to say that the “children” who have abused him were his own and he would show them the “right way”.

Abuses never solve anything.

Let’s guide the misguided.

Let’s work together.

Let’s work for Bharat. pic.twitter.com/yAePG60KYL

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 31, 2026

‘Anything against Modi is against India’

The harassment of protesters has gone beyond Instagram. Another protester, Ruchika Singh, 15, is facing the wrath of the criminal justice system. Several videos from Jantar Mantar show her using expletives as she talks about Prime Minister Modi – just like countless other protesters did.

As her videos gained traction, dozens of BJP supporters on Twitter and Instagram began to target her. “Please take strict action against this cheap girl who is making very cheap and insulting comments against the Prime Minister of India,” said one Twitter user, sharing screenshots of her Instagram ID and alleging that she had a Muslim partner.

Said another tweet with more than a million impressions, “Arrest her or I will never vote for BJP.”

These posts had several abusive and sexually-coloured comments about Ruchika Singh.

Several others shared the address of her purported workplace, a phone number and the names of her family members. Her photo was used on an AI-generated “Most Wanted” poster.

Scroll was unable to contact Singh. A friend of hers declined to speak, citing fears of online abuse.

Online to physical intimidation

On July 29, Smriti Singh, the Ghaziabad district president of the Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) women's wing, filed six first information reports in Noida against Ruchika Singh for these videos. One of them was a zero FIR, which allows the investigation to be transferred to the Parliament Street police station under the Delhi Police.

Smriti Singh told Scroll that Ruchika Singh had not only defamed the prime minister but also the country. “Anything against Modi is against India,” she said.

In the FIRs, Ruchika Singh has been charged with sections 352, 353(1) and 356(1) of the new penal code: intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation.

The Cockroach Janata Party has defended Ruchika Singh. On July 30, spokesperson Saurav Das said that one could condemn abusive language in a protest, but the use of “criminal justice machinery to target and harass them through the police is absolutely unjustifiable.”

The next day, Ratna Singh, another Cockroach Janata Party spokesperson, tweeted that lawyers were looking into Ruchika Singh’s case. “I have also been assured that no punitive action will be taken against her,” the spokesperson said. “We are now awaiting official confirmation.”

The legal action was coupled with physical intimidation. Smriti Singh said that on July 29, she had visited Ruchika Singh’s Noida address with several people. Finding the family absent, they made a neighbour phone the young woman.

“I asked her to make a video apologising for her language but she refused,” said Smriti Singh, claiming that the young protester was “very ill-mannered” for standing her ground.

Smriti Singh, an advocate practicing at the Supreme Court, said she filed the FIR to make an example out of the young woman. “It will make sure that other kids don’t do this,” she said, adding that she intends to file more complaints if she identifies other protesters who abuse Modi.

On July 31, an editor at CNN News18 released a video of Ruchika Singh apologising to Modi. She said that during the protest, she had met others who were abusing Modi in Delhi’s Connaught Place. “I came under their influence and said a lot of things,” she said, her hands folded in apology. “This is my first and last mistake. I will never do anything like this.”

It took multiple complaints, threats of all kinds, doxxing, witch-hunt from BJP IT CELL & Godi Media to pressurise a 15-years old minor girl to apologise after so many days.

You are brave Ruchika. We are proud of your courage. Stay safe! Come back stronger. pic.twitter.com/ysdrvwFPt8

— Tarun Gautam (@TARUNspeakss) July 31, 2026

Flawed legal action

Shahrukh Alam, a constitutional lawyer and Supreme Court advocate, told Scroll that the legal provisions invoked in the FIR are flawed. The mention of section 352 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with insulting a person and provoking him to breach public peace, is “most inappropriate”, said Alam – it implies that Ruchika Singh’s comments would provoke the prime minister to break public peace.

Section 353 deals with "fear and alarm" arising out of a statement, rumour, or report, which carries the false presumption of truth.

“Ruchika’s statement is a lampoon and does not presume to be the truth,” the lawyer said. “It is evidently an exaggeration, a caricature, and a mockery of a public figure.”

Alam added: “A false statement is different from mocking a public figure. Her remarks might be abusive, but it conveys an opinion, a radical dislike even. I don't quite see how it would incite a mutiny in the armed forces, or even turn any class or community against any other class or community, which is the requirement under Section 353(1).”

Lastly, the lawyer said that the police cannot invoke section 356, or defamation. “Whoever feels defamed has to file a private complaint before a judicial magistrate,” Alam said. “The police cannot invoke this section in an FIR.”

In this case, Modi should have filed the defamation complaint himself since Ruchika Singh’s statements were directed at him.

New targets

After news of Smriti Singh’s FIR became public on July 30, BJP members and supporters began finding new targets online. Shashi Kumar, who describes himself as a co-convenor of BJP’s social media team in Uttar Pradesh, shared a video of three women from the protest using expletives. “Now let's make these three girls famous,” he wrote. “Identify them and file an FIR. No apology should be accepted.”

One of these women, Ruchika Chawla, took to Instagram on July 30 and defended her comments in the video. “Sometimes the public gets frustrated,” she said. “We have the right and responsibility to criticise the ruling government. I admit that I shouldn’t have been abused…I didn’t personally target anyone…But to target me with abuses…those people should use their brains a little bit.”

Chawla concluded her video with an appeal to viewers to not abuse her family members.

For Shradha Singh, the past few days have been traumatic. A former National Cadet Corps cadet with a master’s degree from a college in Delhi, she now fears the social repercussions from the Rajput community in her home village. “Villagers will tell my parents, ‘See, this is what happens when you give her freedom,’” she said. “They will make potshots at my mother.”

Despite the distress, which has left her with little strength to respond to countless requests for television interviews, she remains firm on one point. “I regret making the video on RAF but not about going to the protest,” said Singh.

A Noida woman was booked on Thursday for making purportedly objectionable remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a social media video during the youth protests at Jantar Mantar, The Indian Express quoted the police as saying.

A first information report has been registered against Ruchika Singh under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation, The Times of India reported.

Saurav Das, spokesperson for the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign that had called for the protests, said that if the language used during the demonstrations was “derogatory in nature”, the person was free to pursue civil and criminal defamation proceedings against the individual, PTI reported.

“However, the use of criminal justice machinery against protesters is highly condemnable,” the news agency quoted Das as saying. “No one should be punished merely for using objectionable language.”

He urged the “younger generation to be very careful about the words they use and the kind of insults or remarks they make against people”.

Das also urged the police to “remain calm and not misuse their powers for any political ends”.

Reacting to FIRs being filed against several young protesters in recent days, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah “cannot threaten” Gen Z into silence.

“First you broke their bones,” Gandhi said on social media, referring to the Delhi Police’s crackdown on protesters on July 20. “Now you are filing FIRs and taking down their accounts. You are India’s past. Be careful about how you treat India’s future.”

The FIR against Ruchika Singh was based on a complaint by Ghaziabad resident Smriti Singh. The complaint alleged that Ruchika Singh used purportedly abusive and objectionable language about Modi on social media which not only “undermine the dignity of the constitutional office”, “but also deliberately intended to spread hatred and disrupt public peace”, The Indian Express reported.

This came two days after the Delhi Police registered a first information report against X for allegedly objectionable and defamatory posts about Modi on the social media platform.

A case was registered at the Special Cell’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit under charges of criminal intimidation, public mischief and defamation.

The police had also written to X seeking that the “derogatory, malicious and defamatory content” about “constitutional heads” be removed from the platform.

It had asked the social media platform to provide details of the account from which the content was posted, including the holder’s name, address, contact details and email ID. The police also asked for login and logout details along with date and time stamps.

It further directed the platform to preserve details related to the posts or videos for future investigation and provide a certificate under Section 63(4) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. The section requires any electronic record submitted as evidence in court to be accompanied by a certificate.

On Monday, The Indian Express reported that notices had been issued to three social media platforms directing them to take down purportedly objectionable content about Modi. The posts were being identified by the police’s social media monitoring team.

The Delhi Police had identified 450 social media accounts that shared alleged deepfake videos and content generated using artificial intelligence during the protests, the newspaper reported.

The content was posted online during the youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time, over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet gun against the demonstrators.

The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Amid police cases against youth protesters for social media posts making purportedly objectionable remarks about him, PM Narendra Modi on Friday said that he wants to forgive the students.

“The country and the world witnessed what happened at Jantar Mantar,” he said in a video posted on social media. “Some mischievous children used abusive language that doesn’t dignify any civilised society. They not only abused me but even my late mother.”

Modi said that a person can make an error of judgement when they are young, but such mistakes can be corrected.

“I understand the anger in our society,” Modi said. “There is a cultural shock about our daughters using such language. This is the time to show them the right path. They are misguided.”

The prime minister appealed for restraint from the public, saying that making the student protesters run around courts will not provide solutions to problems.

“I want to forgive them,” Modi said. “The children are ours and we have to show them the right path even if it is difficult to do to people who have been misled,” he added.

Abuses never solve anything.

Let’s guide the misguided.

Let’s work together.

Let’s work for Bharat. pic.twitter.com/yAePG60KYL

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 31, 2026

Reacting to the video, the Congress on Saturday said that Modi had “forgiven the country” even as the country demands the prime minister’s apology.

Modi’s video message, fifth in a week, came a day after a woman in Noida was booked for making purportedly objectionable remarks about him on social media during the youth protests at Jantar Mantar.

A first information report has been registered against Ruchika Singh under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation. The FIR was based on a complaint by a Ghaziabad resident.

On Friday, Singh apologised for the remarks she had made about the prime minister, The Times of India reported.

“People [at the protest] were saying all sorts of things, including filthy abuses about the prime minister,” she was quoted as saying in a video. “I got influenced because they told me to say something too.”

Reacting to FIRs being filed against several young protesters in recent days, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi had said on Friday that Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah “cannot threaten” Gen Z into silence.

The Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, which led the youth protests, said that the “misuse of criminal machinery” against Singh was unacceptable. “Harassment of the young must stop immediately,” a spokesperson said on Friday.

The Hyderabad Police also registered cases against technology firm Meta’s India head, and several Facebook and Instagram accounts over purportedly objectionable videos and photographs of Modi shared on the two social media platforms during the protests.

Also read: ‘We will kill, rape you’: Online mobs are targeting women protesters for ‘abusing’ Modi

The case against Singh came two days after the Delhi Police registered an FIR against X for allegedly objectionable and defamatory posts about Modi on the social media platform. A case was registered at the special cell’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit under charges of criminal intimidation, public mischief and defamation.

The police had also written to X seeking that the “derogatory, malicious and defamatory content” about “constitutional heads” be removed from the platform.

It had asked the social media platform to provide details of the account from which the content was posted, including the holder’s name, address, contact details and email ID. The police also asked for login and logout details along with date and time stamps.

The content was posted online during the youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time, over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators.

The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Youth protests: Can an FIR be withdrawn by political promise?
• Why the BJP is struggling to crack Gen Z’s reel-driven algorithm
• Follow Scroll’s coverage of the youth protests here.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that he has “strongly urged” Iran that attacks on cargo ships must be avoided.

Jaishankar’s statement came after he held a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.

“Conveyed our deep concerns at the ongoing hostilities in the region,” Jaishankar said. “Strongly urged that attacks on commercial shipping and seafarers be avoided under any circumstance.”

He added that India condemns “any such attack by any party”.

The external affairs minister also said that he was apprised of Tehran’s “perspective of the current developments and discussions underway” and that New Delhi supports dialogue and diplomacy to ensure peace in West Asia.

In recent weeks, several cargo vessels with Indians on board have been attacked in and around the Strait of Hormuz amid renewed tensions between the United States and Iran.

On Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs told Parliament that 16 Indians, including 10 seafarers, had been killed during the conflict. Eight of the deaths were reported in Oman, four in the United Arab Emirates, two in Kuwait, and one each in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the government said.

On July 14, New Delhi said that it will establish a dashboard to track every Indian seafarer on vessels operating in the conflict-hit Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. A day later, the government directed shipping companies not to deploy Indian seafarers on vessels travelling through the Strait of Hormuz.

The US and Iran had arrived at an interim agreement on June 15 to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels. They also held talks in Switzerland aimed at reaching a final peace deal within two months.

However, on July 9, the US military launched fresh attacks on Iran hours after President Donald Trump said that the ceasefire was “over”. This came after Tehran’s alleged attacks on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has been retaliating by striking sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

In recent weeks, New Delhi has also summoned Russian and Ukrainian diplomats to register a protest about the attacks on cargo vessels in the Black Sea in which Indian citizens were killed.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

More than 16% of the voters in Haryana and 10.8% in Andhra Pradesh were removed from the draft lists published on Friday as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Times of India reported.

Nearly 45 lakh names were deleted in Andhra Pradesh’s draft roll and 33.8 lakh in Haryana after the enumeration phase in the two states concluded on July 24.

In Haryana, the names of 24.1 lakh voters, or 11.6% of the electorate, were removed from the draft list because they had either permanently shifted or were absent during the revision process.

More than 7.6 lakh names, or 3.7% of the electorate, were deleted as they had been marked as deceased. More than two lakh names, or 0.9% of the electorate, were removed because of duplications.

In Andhra Pradesh, the names of 22.3 lakh voters, or 5.3% of the electorate, was removed from the draft list because they had either permanently shifted or were absent during the revision process.

More than 15.2 lakh names, or 3.6% of the electorate, were deleted as they had been marked as deceased. More than 7.3 lakh names, or 1.7% of the electorate, were removed because of duplications.

In both states, the claims and objections of voters against their removal from the draft list will be heard between July 31 and August 30 before the final electoral roll is published.

The deletions in Haryana are the third-highest after Arunachal Pradesh (19.09%) and Uttar Pradesh (18.7%), The Indian Express reported. While the exercise in Arunachal Pradesh was underway, it had been completed in Uttar Pradesh in April.

Haryana and Andhra Pradesh are part of the third phase of the special intensive revision exercise, which is taking place in 16 states and three Union Territories.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026. Since it began, concerns have been raised that the revision could eliminate genuine voters from the rolls and even shape electoral outcomes, as Scroll has reported.

Earlier in July, more than 22 lakh names were removed from the voter lists of four states Odisha, Manipur, Mizoram and Sikkim. The names accounted for 6.1% of the voters in the states’ earlier electoral rolls.

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

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Scroll’s SIR experience is a microcosm of what urban India is facing

One migrant worker was killed and another sustained injuries after suspected militants fired at them in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, ANI quoted the police as saying.

The attack took place in the Kellam area of the Kulgam district.

Following the attack, security forces cordoned off the area and began a search operation to track down the assailants, the news agency quoted the police as saying.

The worker who was killed hailed from Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said.

Following the attack, Sinha spoke to Director General of Police Nalin Prabhat and other top security officials. “I strongly condemn this cowardly act,” the lieutenant governor said. “I have directed our security forces to step up their operations and eliminate the terrorists.”

The attack came days after a policeman was killed when militants opened fire on security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district on July 22. The policeman who was killed was identified as Head Constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Congress MP KC Venugopal on Friday moved a privilege motion against Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh, objecting to his claim that “no firing” took place during student protests outside Parliament on July 20.

Singh made the statement in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday during a debate on the anti-paper leak bill

According to the notice sent by Venugopal to Speaker Om Birla, the minister said that “no firing took place at all” and that only tear gas had been used.

However, Venugopal said in his notice that “contrary to the minister’s assertions, firing did occur”, and alleged that Singh had “knowingly and deliberately provided incorrect information to Parliament and misled the House”.

He argued that misleading the House constitutes a breach of privilege and requested that the matter be referred to the Privileges Committee.

Parliamentary privileges are rights conferred to MPs for conducting the business of Parliament. MPs can file breach of privilege motions seeking action if these rights are violated. The chairperson of the House decides whether to admit the motion and whether to refer it to the Privileges Committee.

In a social media post, Venugopal further said that Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had met a pellet gun victim, adding that media reports and hospital records also documented injuries caused by such firing.

“The government cannot get away with such obvious falsehoods in Parliament,” Venugopal said. “There should be action against the Minister.”

The privilege motion comes as the Opposition continues to criticise the government over the police response to the student protests in Delhi.

Gandhi, during his speech in the Lok Sabha, had earlier accused Union Home Minister Amit Shah of “authorising the shooting of students”. However, parts of the Congress leader’s address were later expunged from the parliamentary record.

Moved a Privilege Motion against MoS Jitendra Singh for blatantly lying on the floor of Parliament and claiming that ‘no firing took place’ in response to the peaceful protests of our students.

LOP Sh. @RahulGandhi ji met a pellet gun victim in front of the media, there are… pic.twitter.com/4J52xVXMv2

— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) July 31, 2026

Anurag Thakur files breach of privilege notice against Rahul Gandhi 

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur on Thursday submitted a breach of privilege and contempt of the House notice against Gandhi over his remarks about Shah in the Lok Sabha.

In his notice to the speaker, Thakur accused Gandhi of using “unparliamentary and derogatory language” and making “grave and unsubstantiated allegations” against Shah, The Hindu reported.

He sought that the matter be referred to the Privileges Committee and that Gandhi be directed to apologise to the House and the minister.

Youth protests

The agitation in Delhi began on June 6, when the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign began a protest at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Pradhan from his post over alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams. Pradhan resigned on Saturday.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet guns against the demonstrators.

A day after the pellet guns were fired, the Delhi Police had denied using the weapon against the protesters. However, reports said that the pellet guns had been carried by the Rapid Action Force, a unit of the Central Reserve Police Force that was also deployed at the protest, as part of its riot-control equipment.

The police in the national capital and the Central Reserve Police Force report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read:

• Delhi hospital reports show pellet wounds on journalist covering students’ protests

• Follow Scroll’s coverage of the youth protests here

In the first week of July, in Mumbai’s Mankhurd, torrential monsoon rains triggered a building collapse that buried five children beneath the debris, transforming one of the city’s wettest July days in half a century into a humanitarian tragedy. Streets disappeared beneath floodwaters, transport networks ground to a halt, and emergency services struggled to reach stranded residents.

Thousands of kilometres away, London faced an entirely different manifestation of the same crisis. During the June 2026 heatwave, temperatures exceeded 36 degrees celsius, commuters fainted inside sweltering Underground trains, and climate activists covered Tube stations with stickers reading, “Heatwave, sponsored by Shell”, highlighting the perceived role of fossil fuels in intensifying global warming.

These events unfolded in vastly different economic and geographic settings. Yet they reflected a common reality: climate change no longer distinguishes between developed and developing nations. Whether through floods, heatwaves, landslides or dust storms, extreme weather is increasingly becoming the defining challenge of the twenty-first century.

The scientific evidence underpinning this reality has become overwhelming. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported in 2023 that the global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 degrees celsius above the pre-industrial average, bringing the world dangerously close to the 1.5 degrees celsius threshold established under the Paris Agreement.

At the same time, atmospheric concentrations of the three principal greenhouse gases reached unprecedented levels. Carbon dioxide stood at approximately 150% of pre-industrial concentrations, methane at 264%, and nitrous oxide at 124%. These figures represent not merely statistical milestones but indicators of an accelerating climate system that is storing increasing amounts of energy.

The consequences became starkly visible across Europe during the summer of 2026. More than 3,700 deaths were associated with the June heatwave in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Mortality within homes increased by an estimated 91% during the final week of June as prolonged high night-time temperatures prevented buildings from cooling.

Spain recorded temperatures of 43.7 degrees celsius, the Czech Republic reached 41.9 degrees celsius, while Germany experienced 41.7 degrees celsius. In several locations, overnight temperatures remained above 29 degrees celsius, marking some of the warmest nights recorded in over a century.

The impacts extended well beyond public health. Belgium experienced unprecedented electricity price spikes as air-conditioning demand surged during the evening peak. Outdoor cultural events, including the historic Battle of Waterloo reenactment, were cancelled because of dangerous heat conditions. Public transport systems, particularly in older European cities designed for temperate climates rather than prolonged heatwaves, struggled to function safely.

Heat dome effect

Meteorologists partly attributed these conditions to an Omega blocking pattern, commonly known as a heat dome. Under this phenomenon, a persistent high-pressure ridge becomes trapped between two low-pressure systems, resembling the Greek letter Omega (Ω).

The resulting atmospheric “traffic jam” prevents weather systems from moving normally, allowing hot air to accumulate over the same region for days or even weeks. While Omega blocks are natural atmospheric phenomena, climate change significantly increases the baseline temperatures upon which they operate, making heatwaves both hotter and longer. Europe is warming at roughly twice the global average, amplifying these risks further.

India presents a parallel but more complex picture. Rather than experiencing only heat, the country increasingly confronts multiple climate extremes simultaneously. In Kerala’s Wayanad district, heavy rainfall triggered landslides near Meenakshi Bridge, claiming lives, injuring several others and destroying homes. Rainfall over twenty-four hours reached nearly ten times the average daily rainfall normally expected during July.

Maharashtra witnessed similar devastation. Landslides destroyed homes in Ratnagiri, disrupted traffic along the Mumbai-Pune Expressway near Khandala, and contributed to at least 13 fatalities over a three-day period. Waterlogging paralysed Western Railway services, while several flights into Mumbai were diverted because of severe weather.

Ironically, these local disasters occurred during a season when India simultaneously recorded an overall 38% deficit in monsoon rainfall. Instead of consistent seasonal rainfall, the country experienced highly uneven precipitation, with some districts receiving 600% to 1,700% of their normal rainfall through intense cloudburst events. More than 94,000 people across hundreds of villages were affected by floods and landslides.

Erratic rainfall patterns

This growing contrast illustrates one of climate science’s most important observations: climate change increases variability as much as it changes averages. Rain no longer falls where or when it traditionally did. Instead, prolonged dry spells are increasingly interrupted by brief episodes of exceptionally intense rainfall that overwhelm drainage systems, trigger flash floods and destabilise mountain slopes.

Another striking example occurred on May 30, when western Rajasthan experienced an extraordinary sequence of extreme weather events. A powerful dust storm swept across Bikaner and neighbouring districts, turning the sky orange-brown, reducing visibility almost to zero, uprooting trees, damaging buildings and disrupting electricity supplies. Wind speeds reached 70-80 kilometres per hour before heavy rainfall followed.

Although western disturbances provided the immediate meteorological trigger, the sequence itself reflected a broader climate pattern. Extreme heat dried soils and increased dust availability. Strong winds lifted enormous quantities of loose sediment into the atmosphere before unstable weather systems produced sudden rainfall. Rather than isolated incidents, heatwaves, dust storms and intense rainfall increasingly occur as interconnected components of cascading climate events.

An equally important contributor to India’s climate uncertainty is the growing influence of El Niño. This naturally occurring warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean alters atmospheric circulation patterns across much of the world. In India, El Niño often weakens the southwest monsoon, increasing drought risks in some regions while simultaneously enhancing atmospheric instability capable of producing intense localised cloudbursts elsewhere.

Scientists have warned that particularly strong El Niño episodes may rival some of the most severe historical events, dramatically increasing agricultural, water and food security risks. Although El Niño is a natural climate oscillation, its interaction with long-term global warming creates increasingly unpredictable outcomes. Human-induced climate change effectively raises the baseline upon which natural variability operates, making both droughts and floods more severe.

This apparent contradiction reflects a broader climate principle frequently summarised as “Wet Gets Wetter, Dry Gets Drier.” As global temperatures rise, evaporation increases, allowing the atmosphere to retain substantially more water vapour. Regions already prone to heavy rainfall often receive even more intense precipitation, while dry regions experience greater evaporation and prolonged drought. The hydrological cycle becomes faster, stronger and more erratic.

India increasingly embodies this paradox. National rainfall deficits coexist with devastating floods. Agricultural drought occurs alongside urban inundation. Reservoirs run low in one region while neighbouring districts confront catastrophic flooding. Climate change is not simply producing more rainfall or less rainfall; it is fundamentally redistributing water in increasingly unpredictable ways.

Beyond meteorological explanations lies the deeper question of vulnerability. Climate disasters rarely affect everyone equally. Poor households living in informal settlements, farmers dependent upon rain-fed agriculture, elderly citizens lacking access to cooling, and workers employed outdoors bear a disproportionate share of climate risks. A collapsed building in Mumbai, a flooded Himalayan village, or an overheated apartment in Europe each reveals how social inequality magnifies environmental hazards.

The economic costs are equally profound. Damage to transport infrastructure, agriculture, energy systems and public health increasingly strains government budgets. Insurance losses continue to rise, while repeated climate shocks discourage investment and deepen existing inequalities. Developing countries face the added challenge of financing adaptation while simultaneously pursuing economic growth.

Scientific advances have greatly improved weather forecasting, seasonal outlooks and disaster early-warning systems. Yet prediction alone cannot eliminate vulnerability.

Governments must invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, strengthen urban drainage, modernise building standards, expand heat action plans, protect wetlands and forests, and improve emergency response capabilities. Climate adaptation can no longer remain a secondary policy objective; it must become central to national development planning.

At the international level, the challenge demands greater cooperation on emissions reductions, climate finance, technology transfer and disaster preparedness. Climate change is reshaping economies, public health, infrastructure and national security in real time.

The scientific debate over whether climate change is occurring has long been settled. The pressing question today is whether governments, institutions and societies can respond with the urgency that an increasingly volatile planet demands.

Abhiroop Chowdhury is Professor and Dean, Jindal Global School of Environment and Sustainability, OP Jindal Global University in Sonipat, Haryana.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

A Delhi court sentenced former Aam Aadmi Party councilor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment for the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 riots in the capital. The court rejected the Delhi Police’s plea seeking death penalty, saying that capital punishment is the “last resort”.

The judge held that the convicts were not beyond reformation. It described the crime as committed with “utmost brutality” but noted that there was no evidence of a violent disposition or previous violent crimes.

Sharma was killed by a mob during the violence, and his body had been dumped in a drain. Hussain was convicted for murder and other offences but was acquitted of criminal conspiracy. Read on.

The Assam government invoked the National Security Act against activist Pranab Doley, a day after he was granted bail by a sessions court. The invocation of the Act means that the activist will not be released despite the bail order.

Doley was among among two activists arrested on July 12, days after he took part in a protest against a hotel project at Ingle Pathar, a village adjoining the Kaziranga National Park. The police alleged that during the protest, he “unlawfully trespassed into the site of the Tea Tribes Museum and thereafter trespassed into the nearby ATDC [Assam Tourism Development Corporation] Hyatt project at Ingle Pathar with deadly weapons”.

The court had said in its bail order that the police had already recorded the statements of key witnesses and that there was no possibility of Doley tampering with evidence.

The judge also said that on a preliminary reading, the dispute originated “from a deep-rooted anxiety regarding environmental degradation” and its impact on the socio-cultural fabric of the local tea tribes. Read on.

India continues to export weapons to Israel despite the risk that they could be used in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International said in a new report. The Indian government had “forged a close and profitable partnership” with the Israeli defence sector and has become a “significant contributor” to the supply chains that support Israel’s military operations, the global human rights organisation said.

The findings in the report were based on shipment-level trade data between India and Israel. It showed how Indian weapons, ammunition and components had been shipped to large Israeli firms that supply the Israeli military.

“Companies that are directly owned and controlled by the state of India are also identified in the report,” the organisation said. Read on.

Exiled Bangladesh-born author Taslima Nasreen returned to Kolkata for the first time in nearly 19 years ahead of a literary event. She is scheduled to attend an anti-fundamentalism literary programme at Rabindra Sadan on Saturday, where she is expected to recite poetry

Nasreen was forced to leave Kolkata in November 2007 after some Muslim fundamentalists claimed that her autobiographical book Dwikhandito had hurt religious sentiments.

The author has lived in exile since fleeing Bangladesh in 1994 after receiving death threats over her for her writings, particularly Lajja, her novel examining the persecution of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya.

She had initially settled in Kolkata in 2004, where she spent three years and described the city as her second home before being asked to leave during the unrest in 2007. Read on.

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

A Delhi court on Friday sentenced former Aam Aadmi Party councilor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment for the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 riots in the national capital, Bar and Bench reported.

Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of the Karkardooma Court rejected the Delhi Police’s plea for the death penalty and said capital punishment is the “last resort”, The Indian Express reported.

The court held that the convicts were not beyond reformation and could be “disciplined and made to follow rules”.

However, the judge described the crime as being committed with “utmost brutality” and called the barbarity involved “nauseating and sickening”, the newspaper reported.

The court noted that the prosecution had not presented evidence showing that the convicts had a violent disposition or a tendency to commit such offences.

It also said there was no evidence of previous violent crimes and that their conduct in custody had been “entirely satisfactory”, apart from minor infractions, Bar and Bench reported.

The Delhi Police had sought the death penalty, arguing that Sharma’s murder was brutal and cold-blooded.

“Those who want mercy should also show mercy,” the police’s counsel had said.

The defence opposed the plea, arguing that the death penalty should only be awarded in the rarest of rare cases.

Sharma was killed by a mob during the violence, and his body had been dumped in a drain.

On July 13, a sessions court had convicted Hussain for murder, rioting, disobedience to an order promulgated by a public servant, promoting enmity between groups, rioting armed with a deadly weapon, unlawful assembly, and kidnapping or abducting with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person.

However, it cleared him of a criminal conspiracy charge.

In February 2020, communal violence broke out in North East Delhi between supporters of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it. The violence had left 53 dead and hundreds injured. Most of those killed were Muslims.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: What exactly happened in Delhi locality where AAP councillor stands accused of IB staffer’s murder?

Exiled Bangladesh-born author Taslima Nasreen returned to Kolkata on Friday for the first time in nearly 19 years ahead of a literary event, PTI reported.

Nasreen arrived at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport and told reporters: “I'm feeling very good to be back”.

#WATCH | Bangladeshi writer and activist Taslima Nasreen arrives in Kolkata, West Bengal pic.twitter.com/ELHV54LHmF

— ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2026

The visit marks her first return to Kolkata since November 2007, when she was forced to leave the city after some Muslim fundamentalists claimed that her autobiographical book Dwikhandito had hurt their religious sentiments.

As protests escalated and the Army was deployed to restore order in parts of Kolkata, the then Left Front government led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asked Nasreen to leave the city.

Nasreen has lived in exile since fleeing Bangladesh in 1994 after receiving death threats over her for her writings, particularly Lajja, her novel examining the persecution of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya.

She had initially settled in Kolkata in 2004, where she spent three years and described the city as her second home before being asked to leave during the unrest in 2007.

She is scheduled to attend an anti-fundamentalism literary programme at Rabindra Sadan on Saturday, where she is expected to recite poetry, PTI reported.

According to organisers, the event is intended to celebrate her “lifelong opposition to religious fundamentalism and reaffirm the principle of freedom of expression rather than serve as a political platform”.

Ahead of her visit, Nasreen said she felt she was returning to her own country because “Bengal has never been divided in my heart by a border or a barbed-wire fence”.

Nasreen thanked the organisers and the West Bengal government for facilitating her visit and providing security.

The programme she is due to attend has acquired political significance on account of the Bharatiya Janata Party having formed the government in West Bengal. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay are expected to attend the event.

However, Nasreen has rejected suggestions that the BJP arranged her return and said she had been invited by an organisation called Secular Mission, headed by Osman Gani Mallik.

She said the state government was only providing security, which she described as a “normal administrative responsibility”.

In a subsequent post, Nasreen said the invitation from the Secular Mission had provided the occasion for her visit, but it was the West Bengal government’s security arrangements that had made the trip possible.

She added that she required protection because “Islamist militants” had threatened to kill her.

Why am I able to go to Kolkata? Because the Secular Mission invited me? No, not merely because of the invitation. The invitation provided the occasion, but the visit has become possible because the West Bengal government is providing me with security. Without that protection, it…

— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 20, 2026

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Taslima Nasrin is returning to Kolkata. But will Bangladesh ever end her exile?

The Assam government on Thursday invoked the National Security Act against activist Pranab Doley, a day after he was granted bail by a sessions court in Golaghat.

Golaghat District Commissioner Biswajit Phukan told Scroll that the National Security Act has been invoked against Doley based on a report prepared by the police. The invocation of the Act means that the activist will not be released despite the bail order, and will remain in detention.

The Assam government said in a communication to Doley that 13 cases have been filed against him, in which he has been accused of inciting hatred against the state, instigating violence between communities and obstructing officials from carrying out their duties, among other charges.

The government also alleged that Doley had carried out “suspicious foreign transactions from doubtful sources” in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.

Doley was among two activists arrested on July 12, days after he took part in a protest against a hotel project at Ingle Pathar, a village adjoining the Kaziranga National Park. The police alleged that during the protest, he “unlawfully trespassed into the site of the Tea Tribes Museum and thereafter trespassed into the nearby ATDC [Assam Tourism Development Corporation] Hyatt project at Ingle Pathar with deadly weapons”.

Additional Sessions Judge NM Abdullah Ahmed said in his bail order on July 29 that the investigating officer had already recorded the statements of key witnesses, and that there was no possibility for the accused person to conceal or tamper with evidence. The judge granted Doley bail on a surety of Rs 20,000.

The judge said that on a preliminary reading, the dispute originated “from a deep-rooted anxiety regarding environmental degradation” and its impact on the socio-cultural fabric of the local tea tribes.

“In matters where ecological preservation intersects with indigenous survival, the standard apparatus of criminal law cannot be used to suppress local anxieties. True public order is achieved not by silencing the affected, but by listening to them,” the court said.

The judge said he hoped that the underlying grievance behind the protest would be addressed “through structured, peaceful community dialogue involving all stakeholders, rather than adversarial confrontation”.

Inputs by Rokibuz Zaman. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the arrest of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLA V Senthil Balaji in a corruption case linked to the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation, or Tasmac, subject to his cooperation with the investigation, Live Law reported.

Tasmac is a government-owned company that has a monopoly over the wholesale and retail sales of alcoholic beverages in the state.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi passed the interim order while hearing the MLA’s appeal against the Madras High Court’s decision on Thursday to deny him anticipatory bail.

However, the bench directed him to surrender his passport and barred him from influencing witnesses or tampering with evidence, the legal news outlet reported.

The chief justice questioned the state’s counsel on why custodial interrogation was necessary when the case was largely based on documentary evidence.

The counsel argued that the allegations relate to incidents between 2021 and 2025 and claimed that Balaji, who was a minister at the time, prevented the registration of a first information report. However, the court highlighted that Balaji was no longer a minister.

The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam formed the government in Tamil Nadu in May following the state Assembly elections.

The bench said that with the change in government in Tamil Nadu, there was little reason for the state to fear that Balaji would influence the course of the investigation, The Hindu reported.

On July 28, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption registered the FIR against Balaji and others for alleged irregularities in Tasmac’s functioning between 2021 and 2025. Balaji was serving as the minister for electricity and prohibition and excise at the time.

The case relates to alleged irregularities in liquor procurement, transport contracts, bar licences and other administrative decisions during this period, Bar and Bench reported.

The FIR invoked provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Prevention of Corruption Act, Law Live reported.

Balaji has been accused of conspiring with six others, including private individuals, liquor manufacturers, transport and bottling firms, and Tasmac officials. They are accused of misusing their positions, forging documents and misappropriating public funds, allegedly causing losses to the public exchequer.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey has sought a formal explanation from the sport’s national governing body about the decision to change the colour of the team’s jersey to saffron from blue, ahead of the World Cup, The Times of India reported on Friday.

Tirkey also said that Hockey India’s Executive Board was not consulted before the change was implemented, The Indian Express reported.

Following a backlash on social media, Hockey India had said on Thursday that the change had been made following consultations with players and the staff because of technical requirements.

The federation said the blue jersey blended with the blue synthetic playing surface used in international hockey, affecting visibility, and that players and coaches had suggested alternative colours, including saffron and yellow.

The jersey also has darker patterns to “celebrate India’s rich cultural heritage”. The federation said that the change “embodies the spirit of Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat [One India, Supreme India]”.

The new jersey was launched ahead of the men’s and women’s world cup in Belgium and the Netherlands in August.

Tirkey sent two emails to Executive Board members and Hockey India executive director RK Srivastava on Friday, stating that the decision appeared to have been taken without being placed before the Executive Board or brought to his knowledge, according to The Indian Express.

“My concern is not with the choice of saffron itself,” he purportedly said. “However, a decision of this significance, involving the identity and representation of our national team, should ideally have been discussed with the elected leadership and the Executive Board before implementation.”

He further highlighted that the change had attracted “considerable media attention and, unfortunately, political interpretation in certain quarters”.

He further said in his email that he decided to publicly describe the jersey change as a “purely sporting decision” so that the focus remained on India’s World Cup preparations.

Tirkey said the Odisha government had also sought an explanation from him and requested Hockey India officials to provide a written clarification outlining the basis for the decision, the process followed and the circumstances under which it was approved and implemented.

🚨 Breaking

Jersey row escalates. Mails from Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey now out in the public domain. Says he wasn't kept in the loop when the decision was made.

What's the way ahead?#HockeyIndia #TeamIndiaJersey pic.twitter.com/SFUiJpC35c

— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) July 31, 2026

In a separate email, he reportedly asked Srivastava to circulate a detailed note to Executive Board members by 5 pm on Friday explaining the rationale for the change and who authorised it, The Indian Express reported.

The controversy follows criticism from former India captain Viren Rasquinha, who said the team’s “legacy and identity” had always been associated with the blue jersey and questioned the decision to switch to saffron.

Former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik also criticised the change on Thursday saying the blue jersey was “an emotion associated with the nation’s sporting heritage” and derived from the Ashoka Chakra in the national flag.

Patnaik, under whose government Odisha became the Indian hockey team’s principal sponsor, said changing the team’s traditional colours was “a crass attempt to erase our priceless sporting legacy”.

He alleged the decision had been taken under pressure from the present Bharatiya Janata Party government in Odisha.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the police’s response to a bail plea filed by activist Umar Khalid in the 2020 riots conspiracy case, The Indian Express reported.

Khalid has sought an interim bail on the same ground on which two other suspects – Tasleem Ahmad and Abdul Khalid Saifi – were granted six months’ interim bail by the Supreme Court on May 22, the newspaper reported.

A division bench of Justices Prathiba Singh and Vikas Mahajan will hear Khalid’s bail plea on August 27 along with the regular bail plea of activist Sharjeel Imam, who has also been accused of involvement in the case.

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

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

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

On July 4, a Delhi court rejected Imam and Khalid’s bail petition. Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai of Karkardooma Courts said that he was bound by the Supreme Court’s order from January that denied them bail.

The Supreme Court in its January order had said that both activists can file fresh petitions after all protected witnesses are examined or after one year.

However, the bench had granted bail to Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider, Shifa-ur-Rehman, Shadab Ahmed and Muhammad Saleem Khan.

The Karnataka High Court on Friday suspended the life sentences of former Congress MLA Vinay Kulkarni and eight others convicted for the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party member Yogesh Gowda in 2016, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Justices Mohammad Nawaz and G Basavaraja ordered their release on bail while their appeals are pending.

The suspension of the sentence paves the way for Kulkarni to be restored as an MLA. He was disqualified as a legislator in May based on his conviction, The Hindu reported.

The court on Friday also suspended the seven-year sentence imposed on suspended police officer Channakeshava B Tingarikar and ordered his release on bail, the legal news outlet reported.

On April 15, a special court in Bengaluru had convicted Kulkarni along with 15 others in the murder case. Two days later, it sentenced the Congress leader to life imprisonment.

Gowda was killed in June 2016. The case had been investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The central agency had filed a chargesheet for murder, criminal conspiracy, public servant disobeying the law to shield a person accused in a matter, destruction of evidence, rioting and illegal possession of weapons.

Kulkarni had been arrested in November 2020, but was granted bail by the Supreme Court in August 2021.

The top court cancelled his bail in June 2025, observing that there was credible evidence that he may have tried to influence witnesses during the trial.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

India continues to export weapons to Israel despite the risk that they could be used in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International said in a new report on Thursday.

The Indian government had “forged a close and profitable partnership” with the Israeli defence sector and has become a “significant contributor” to the supply chains that support Israel’s military operations, the global human rights organisation said.

The findings in the report were based on shipment-level trade data between India and Israel. It showed how Indian weapons, ammunition and components had been shipped to large Israeli firms that supply the Israeli military.

“Companies that are directly owned and controlled by the state of India are also identified in the report,” the organisation said.

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said that India was manufacturing and supplying weapons transferred to Israel “through its ownership and control over key supplier companies”.

“Not only has India failed to regulate arms exports to Israel by private companies in line with international law and standards; it has also deepened its defence partnership with Israel,” Callamard stated.

The official said that in light of the International Court of Justice’s provisional measure orders recognising a plausible risk of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, “the Indian authorities cannot credibly argue that they did not know that continuing to authorise and facilitate arms transfers to Israel carries a substantial risk of contributing to serious violations” of international law.

“While the Israeli military was inflicting widespread death, destruction and suffering on Palestinians in Gaza, Indian companies continued to profit by supplying components and munitions destined for Israel’s defence sector,” Callamard added.

Amnesty International said that its investigators had analysed nearly 2,600 shipments of weapons, ammunition and components from India to Israel since October 7, 2023.

The right group cited records as showing that Indian companies supplied at least 3,90,516 small arms parts for military grade weapons, more than 5,64,900 parts of explosive ordnance such as drone warheads and artillery shell casings, and 298 components of military vehicles to large Israeli companies that are direct suppliers to the Israeli military.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began in October 2023 after Hamas killed 1,200 persons during its incursion into southern Israel and took hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, leaving more than 73,300 persons dead.

In September, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry said that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In June, commission said that the Israeli military had deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children to commit a genocide. The Israeli forces have killed more than 20,000 children and injured 44,000 since October 2023, the panel said.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• Opinion: Could India be considered complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza?
• India’s silence on Gaza cannot be explained rationally or morally, says Sonia Gandhi
• India’s discernible shift away from Palestine

A government may negotiate the end of a protest. It cannot, through the same negotiation, bring a criminal case to an end.

This distinction lies at the centre of the controversy following the negotiations by the Cockroach Janta Party last weekend to end the nationwide student protests over alleged irregularities and question-paper leaks in the national examination for places in medical colleges.

The agitation by the satirical campaign had intensified on July 20, when protesters attempted to march to Parliament, demanding the resignation of the education minister. Students accused the police of using excessive force. The police alleged that stones were thrown and personnel were attacked.

Criminal cases, including cases alleging rioting, were registered in Delhi and several states.

When the Cockroach Janta Party called off its protest on Saturday, it said that the government had promised that no punitive action would be taken against protesters in states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party or its allies and that the criminal cases would be withdrawn.

Shortly after, Bihar, Assam, West Bengal and Maharashtra said they would begin steps to withdraw the cases against protestors and release those who had been detained.

Supreme Court interim order

An apparent contradiction emerged on July 28, when the Supreme Court permitted the investigations to continue but directed that no coercive action should be taken against protesting students with no previous criminal records. In simple terms, the police could continue collecting evidence but the protected students could not be arrested for the time being.

How can investigations continue after the government promises to withdraw cases? The answer lies in what a first information report actually does within the criminal process

A first information report is the formal record prepared by the police when they receive a complaint alleging that a cognisable offence has been committed.

In cases involving cognisable offences, the police may begin investigating even without obtaining the permission of a magistrate. The report sets the criminal process in motion, but does not establish that an offence occurred or that every person named in it is guilty.

An investigation is the process of finding out what happened. An arrest is a coercive measure that restricts liberty. The two need not occur together.

The Supreme Court’s order is therefore not legally inconsistent with protection against coercive action. It allows the police to preserve evidence, question witnesses and identify individual roles. At the same time, it protects students from arrest while the facts are being examined.

That protection matters in protest cases. A crowd may contain organisers, peaceful participants, journalists, bystanders and persons accused of specific violence.

Criminal liability cannot ordinarily be imposed merely because a person was present in a crowd. The investigation must identify that person’s conduct or establish the legal basis on which collective liability is being alleged.

A fair investigation may support some allegations. It may also show that names were added mechanically, accusations were vague or particular students had no connection with any offence.

After the investigation

After the investigation, the police must place their findings before a magistrate. If they believe there is sufficient evidence, they file a police report commonly called a chargesheet. It states that the police believe there is sufficient material to prosecute. It remains an accusation to be tested in court, rather than a finding of guilt.

If the police conclude that no offence is established, the evidence is insufficient or some persons were wrongly implicated, they may file a closure report. This is only a recommendation that the case should not proceed. It does not close the case automatically.

The magistrate independently examines the investigation. The magistrate may accept the closure report, reject it and proceed on the available material or order further investigation.

The Supreme Court explained this division of responsibility in Abhinandan Jha v Dinesh Mishra in 1967. The police decide what report to file, but the magistrate is not bound by their conclusion.

In Bhagwant Singh v Commissioner of Police in 1985, the Supreme Court held that before a magistrate accepts a closure report, the person who first informed the police must ordinarily be given an opportunity to be heard.

Judicial scrutiny prevents inconvenient cases from being buried and weak cases from being kept alive through selective investigation.

This is one reason why a government cannot guarantee that a first information report will be withdrawn. Even when the police recommend closure, an independent judicial officer decides whether the case should end.

Withdrawing the prosecution

There is another legal process called “withdrawal from prosecution”. It is governed by Section 360 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the law that regulates criminal procedure in India.

Withdrawal from prosecution is different from withdrawing a first information report. It applies after a criminal case has reached court. A prosecution is the formal effort to prove that the accused committed an offence.

The request must be made by the public prosecutor or assistant public prosecutor handling the case – who are lawyers appointed by the state to conduct criminal cases. However, though they are appointed by the government, prosecutors must act fairly and assist the court.

The prosecutor may ask the court for permission to withdraw the prosecution before judgment. The prosecutor cannot end the case merely because a minister made an announcement, the government issued a circular or a political settlement was reached.

The court must consent. Before granting permission, it must also give the victim an opportunity to be heard. The judge must examine whether the prosecutor has applied an independent mind and whether withdrawal would serve justice rather than political convenience.

In Sheonandan Paswan v State of Bihar in 1986, the Supreme Court accepted that a government may ask the prosecutor to consider withdrawal on grounds of public policy. But the prosecutor must independently examine the evidence, the seriousness of the allegations, the interests of victims and the wider public interest. The final decision belongs to the court.

This is another reason why a promise that cases will be withdrawn is legally misleading. The government may support withdrawal. It cannot guarantee that the prosecutor will seek it or that the judge will approve it.

What government may promise

The government can lawfully promise to review the cases, avoid unnecessary arrests and ask the police to investigate fairly. It can place its position before the prosecutor and support withdrawal from prosecution at the appropriate stage.

It cannot honestly promise that a first information report will simply disappear. Once registered, the case enters a process in which authority is deliberately divided among the police, the prosecutor and the judiciary. That division protects criminal proceedings from being started, sustained or terminated solely according to executive preference.

The phrase “withdrawal of cases” may be politically convenient. In law, it hides the steps and independent decisions that must still follow.

A political assurance may initiate a review, influence the government’s position or lead a prosecutor to consider withdrawal. It cannot predetermine the legal result. To suggest otherwise creates the impression that the executive can erase a criminal proceeding by announcement, as though the police, the prosecutor and the court were merely implementing a political bargain.

A government may promise fairness, restraint and a lawful review of the cases. Whether a criminal proceeding ends must still be decided through the procedure established by law and by the authorities entrusted with that decision.

Shubham Kumar is a constitutional lawyer and an alumnus of the University of Delhi and the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Sixteen Indians were killed during the war in West Asia, the Union government informed Parliament on Thursday. Ten of those who died were seafarers.

Eight of the deaths were reported in Oman, four in the United Arab Emirates, two in Kuwait, and one each in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

On June 15, the US and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels. They also held talks in Switzerland aimed at reaching a final peace deal within two months.

However, on July 9, the US military launched fresh attacks on Iran hours after President Donald Trump said that the ceasefire was “over”. This came after Tehran’s alleged attacks on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has been retaliating by striking sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

On Thursday, the ministry also told Parliament that 75 Indians were injured during the conflict. Of these, 32 were injured in the United Arab Emirates, 24 in Oman, 13 in Kuwait, four in Qatar, and one each in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

It added that in “all cases involving war-zone incidents, under Directorate General of Maritime Administration Welfare Scheme, an ex-gratia compensation of Rs 10 lakh is provided”.

The ministry said that seafarers covered under collective bargaining agreements with their respective unions were also eligible for “additional war-zone compensation”.

Officers covered by the Maritime Union of India would receive Rs 12 lakh, while crew members covered by the National Union of Seafarers of India would receive Rs 10 lakh.

In a separate accident, not related to the conflict, 12 Indians lost their lives in an explosion at Ras Laffan Gas Facility in Qatar amid the conflict in June, the ministry added. The families of the Qatar blast victims were sanctioned an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh under the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

At least nine persons were killed when a building collapsed in Maharashtra’s Bhiwandi on Friday, ANI quoted National Disaster Response Force as saying.

Several persons were feared trapped under the rubble of the four-storey structure. The National Disaster Response Force and other agencies were conducting a search and rescue operation.

The building in Balaji Nagar area of the town collapsed at about 11.30 pm on Thursday.

#WATCH | Maharashtra | The death toll in the Bhiwandi building collapse incident increases to six after a four-storey building partially collapsed in Bhiwandi, late night. Rescue operations are underway. pic.twitter.com/AjdWO953B0

— ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2026

The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear. PTI reported that the building had been declared dangerous by the municipal body and the incident occurred when repair work was underway on the premises.

Edited by Anamika Pathak and Tanya Shrivastava.

A question paper for an Odisha postgraduate medical examination was shared on social media allegedly while the test was underway, prompting the Odisha University of Health Sciences to order an internal inquiry, PTI reported on Friday.

The photos of the paper were shared on WhatsApp allegedly during the general surgery theory examination for the 2023-’26 batch on Monday.

A preliminary inquiry suggested that the question paper was shared by someone at the MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur minutes after it was distributed to students, The Indian Express quoted an unidentified official as saying.

The matter came to light when a student of a private medical college in Bhubaneswar, who allegedly had the photos, informed the authorities.

Following the incident, Odisha University of Health Sciences Vice Chancellor Manas Ranjan Sahoo convened a virtual meeting with principals of the medical colleges where the examinations were held, The Times of India reported.

MKCG Medical College Principal Harekrushna Dalai said that the vice chancellor directed the institutes to tighten security arrangements for the remaining examinations.

Dalai also stated that the incident cannot be described as a paper leak.

“Had the question paper come out before it reached the students, we could have termed it a leak,” The Times of India quoted the principal as saying. “But in this case, the question paper came out from the exam hall.”

The theory examinations batch began on July 21. Two papers are scheduled to be held on August 1 and August 5. More than 150 students are appearing for the examinations at the Behrampur college.

This came three days before Parliament cleared a bill to amend a law against exam paper leaks following nationwide protests over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations. The amendments provide for stricter punishments, a two-month investigation deadline and a Special Task Force to probe serious examination-related offences.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Hyderabad Police has registered cases against technology firm Meta’s India head, and several Facebook and Instagram accounts over purportedly objectionable videos and photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared on the two social media platforms during the youth protests, The Indian Express reported on Friday.

The first information reports were registered on Wednesday based on complaints by Bharatiya Janata Party supporters. The police in Congress-ruled Telangana have invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act.

One of the complainants, T Saikiran Goud, a member of the Telangana BJP’s social media core committee, alleged that about 20 Facebook and Instagram accounts had posted morphed content about the prime minister, The Times of India reported.

“On behalf of Telangana BJP [workers], we seek an investigation into certain Instagram accounts that have been publishing and circulating content which…is derogatory towards the prime minister,” the newspaper quoted Goud as alleging in his complaint. “[The content] appear[s] to promote narratives that may be prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and public order of the nation.”

Goud also sought action against Meta for hosting the content. Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

Another BJP supporter alleged that several Instagram accounts had shared “obscene” videos and images, The Indian Express reported.

“I came across multiple morphed and digitally manipulated videos and images depicting the prime minister, [United States President Donald Trump] and former Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan in an obscene, derogatory and misleading manner,” the newspaper quoted the complaint as saying. “Such content has the potential to mislead the public.”

All links cited in the complaints had become inactive by Thursday, The Times of India reported.

The content was posted online during the youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign to demand the resignation of Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time, over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.

On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet gun against the demonstrators.

The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.

Delhi Police’s FIR against X

The FIR in Hyderabad came two days after the Delhi Police registered a case against X for allegedly objectionable and defamatory posts about Modi on the social media platform.

An FIR was registered at the Special Cell’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit under charges of criminal intimidation, public mischief and defamation.

The police had also written to X seeking that the “derogatory, malicious and defamatory content” about “constitutional heads” be removed from the platform.

It had asked the social media platform to provide details of the account from which the content was posted, including the holder’s name, address, contact details and email ID. The police also asked for login and logout details along with date and time stamps.

It further directed the platform to preserve details related to the posts or videos for future investigation and provide a certificate under Section 63(4) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. The section requires any electronic record submitted as evidence in court to be accompanied by a certificate.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Delhi to drop FIRs against youth protesters, cases against those with criminal records to continue
• Youth protests: Noida woman booked for ‘objectionable’ remarks about Modi in social media video
• Why the BJP is struggling to crack Gen Z’s reel-driven algorithm

Petrol blended with 20% ethanol can reduce fuel efficiency by 2% to 6% in vehicles designed to run on fuel blended with 10% ethyl alcohol, the Union government told Parliament on Thursday.

Citing studies by government agencies and automobile manufacturers, Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said that the reduction in fuel efficiency was “influenced by several factors, including driving conditions, driving habits and vehicle maintenance”.

Gadkari added that tests on engine durability, drivability, startability, corrosion resistance and material compatibility had confirmed that E20 fuel was safe for use under prescribed standards.

The minister also said that “more than 20 crore two-wheelers and over three crore petrol cars have been operating on these blends without any verified evidence of widespread engine failure or vehicle breakdown attributable to ethanol blending”.

The details were shared in a written reply to the Lok Sabha in response to questions about the impact of the Ethanol Blended Petrol programme on consumers, automobile manufacturers and the transport sector.

Gadkari said that the programme had been introduced in a phased manner after consultations with automobile manufacturers, oil marketing companies, ethanol producers and other stakeholders.

He cited data from an automobile manufacturer that reported servicing 2.8 crore vehicles during the financial year 2025-’26, including about 1.5 crore older vehicles, without finding any E20-linked engine damage, abnormal corrosion or reduction in component life.

“A leading two-wheeler manufacturer has similarly reported no higher incidence of damage in E20-operated vehicles,” the minister said.

On Thursday, responding to a question about the price of fuel after the ethanol blending, Gadkari said that the programme had helped shield consumers from “sharp increases in global crude prices” during the recent war in West Asia.

He claimed that although global crude prices had risen by around 70% to 80% since February, domestic fuel prices had increased by only 7% to 8%.

“During the peak of West Asia crisis, the market price of petrol could have been around Rs 125 per litre, however Indian consumers continued to pay only Rs 94.7 per litre…because [oil marketing companies] could procure ethanol at Rs 70 per litre,” Gadkari said. “By replacing a part of imported petrol with domestically produced ethanol, India has reduced its exposure to international crude oil price volatility and exchange-rate fluctuations.”

The Union government’s Ethanol Blended Petrol programme currently mandates the sale of petrol blended with 20% ethanol. India hit its target of reaching a 20% ethanol mix in petrol in July 2025, five years ahead of schedule.

The blending of ethanol with petrol is 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.

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

An opinion poll by LocalCircles published on July 5 showed that 53% of the surveyed petrol vehicle owners said that they believe that the government’s handling of the E20 rollout was “disastrous” or “ineffective”.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Food corporation sold rice to ethanol plants at lower price than it paid for the grain: Centre

In January 2025, a social activist dialled 1098, the number of the national child helpline, flagging a case of child labour that needed urgent attention: about a dozen children were being illegally made to work at a brick kiln in a village near Dhule in North Maharashtra.

Usually, within 60 minutes of such a call, members of a local non-governmental organisation would have reached the spot.

But the call centre transferred the matter to the district child protection unit in Dhule. Instead of visiting the spot, an official contacted the organisation that had made the call, the Saptshrungi Bahuuddeshiya Mahila Sanstha, and asked it to inform the labour department. “He said this is not in their jurisdiction,” said a social worker from the Sanstha who did not want to be identified.

The Sanstha wrote to the district labour department but by the time help reached the spot, some days had passed. “Someone had alerted the brick kiln owner,” said the social worker. “Several children had been moved out by the time they reached. Only six to seven were left.”

The child welfare committee sent the rescued children back to their parents, who had first pushed the children into illegal labour. The case was closed.

On March 10, activist Lotan Karankal, too, called 1098, seeking urgent medical help after four children under the age of six fell sick in Tonde village in Shirpur, in North Maharashtra.

When no help came, local residents took the children to the village’s primary health centre. The four boys, under the age of six, had been given stale khichdi by the anganwadi worker.

Three days later, “someone from 1098 came, noted details and left”, said Karankal. He alleged that no action was taken against the anganwadi. “Earlier our complaints on 1098 were promptly handled,” Karankal said. “Now there is a delay.”

The national toll-free emergency number 1098 is for children who need any kind of assistance, care or protection.

It was launched by a professor from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1996. Eventually, it was funded by the Indian government and run by the Childline India Foundation in collaboration with over 1,000 nonprofits.

Over the next three decades, the Childline helpline became the one-stop contact for any child-related issue, from psychological support, to complaints of child labour, or child marriage. It became the model for similar helplines in Bangladesh and Nepal.

But in 2023, the government took over the helpline’s operations as part of its push for a “one nation, one helpline”.

Since then, activists and current staff say there is a noticeable decline in the quality of assistance the helpline provides to children in distress.

Significantly, the number of calls made to 1098 has plummeted in several states, records accessed by Scroll show.

Call #CHILDLINE @ 1098 to help any child in distress. #WCDMin4Children pic.twitter.com/hErKnPnztk

— Maneka Sanjay Gandhi (@Manekagandhibjp) September 10, 2016

A child-support network

When the Childline India Foundation received a call at any of its five call centres, a trained contact officer would answer and try to provide resolution.

A large number of calls were “silent calls”, shows data accessed by Scroll, in which the child was too scared to speak. In such cases, the contact officer would try to re-establish contact. Most callers were children between the ages of 11 and 15, who required emotional support or protection from abuse at home. More difficult cases involved trafficking, labour, marriage or abuse.

If intervention was required, the contact officer would reach out to a partner NGO in that particular district. NGO workers would usually reach the child in 60 minutes. If not, a support NGO would be contacted to help reach the child.

Children in need of shelter would be transferred to child welfare committees, autonomous bodies that provided care and protection under the Juvenile Justice Act.

Nishit Kumar, who handled technology and telecom for Childline, said that about 40% of the children they helped were marginalised due to poverty, caste, disease, trafficking or labour. Kumar helped expand Childline’s telecom network across India. By 2022, Childline covered more than 600 of the country’s 800-odd districts.

Childline appointed NGOs after careful scrutiny, said Kumar, so that “only those genuinely doing child work were roped in”.

Each NGO that worked with Childline received Rs 15 lakh annually. The funding came from the government via the Childline India Foundation. “With that money, we handled rescue, provided transport, aid, food to children, and paid salaries to our staffers,” said Ujwal Paikrao, who runs Ujwal Shikshan Prasarak Mandal in Maharashtra’s Hingoli district.

Paikrao’s organisation had nine employees dedicated to Childline work. “Every week we had a review meeting. We looked at our cases, their status,” said Paikrao. “It was a dedicated effort to provide genuine support to children. If a child needed counselling, we continued it for as long as required.”

BP Suryawanshi of Kalapandhari, an organisation which works on women and child welfare, collaborated with Childline for 12 years in Latur. “In some cases our role did not end with rescue and handing over the child to child welfare committees,” said Suryawanshi. “We continued the process of counselling and rehabilitation.”

By 2022, Childline had set up units at 135 railway stations and 11 bus stands to provide immediate support to runaway children or children found lost at stations. It began to advertise the helpline number through water bottles.

The success of Childline, said Kumar, inspired similar helplines in Bangladesh and Nepal.

Prakash Fernandes, former research head at Childline India Foundation, said it was always a partnership between the government, academic institutions and NGOs. “And it worked well,” said Fernandes. “We never envisaged that this would end.”

Even before the government takeover, pressure had been building on the helpline after the BJP came to power in 2014. “We would get requests to collaborate with NGOs which had RSS affiliations,” said a senior Childline India Foundation employee. “And we would decline because we were looking for NGOs who did genuine work for child rights.”

Calls drop

In 2023, the Centre announced its “one nation one helpline”. All helplines, including Childline, were to be merged into one Emergency Response Support System – number 112. The Childline number continued to be 1098.

Government data shows that between 2018 and 2022, Childline received between 90 lakh and 50 lakh calls annually. In 2021-’22, 54.8 lakh calls were recorded, averaging to over 15,000 calls a day across India. The helpline had assisted 3.95 lakh children that year.

When the Centre took over completely, it ended its long-standing collaboration with Childline India Foundation and all partner NGOs. The name was changed from Childline to Child Helpline and all states were told to manage calls in their jurisdiction.

With the change of guard, the helpline’s role and efficacy appears to have been hit.

Call data statistics of Childline between 2018 and 2022, accessed by Scroll, showed that Maharashtra was among five states that had received the highest number of calls by distressed children or activists.

It saw a three-fold drop in calls in 2024-’25 and 2025-’26.

The number of calls has also came down in Punjab, Delhi and Assam.

Similarly, the calls declined in Punjab and Assam.

Scroll filed a Right to Information query asking the Union Women and Child Development ministry for data on calls made to 1098 in all the states. But though the service is part of the national emergency helpline, the ministry said it did not have the data and said that the “information sought is state specific”. Scroll has filed a first appeal, the data will be updated if the ministry responds.

In the national capital Delhi, 1.64 lakh calls were made to the childline in 2021-’22. News reports showed that the number reduced to over 98,000 calls in 2025-’26.

Maharashtra’s women and child development secretary Anup Kumar Yadav said, “Before 2023, a lot of calls on 1098 were test calls made by school students during awareness campaigns. Those calls are no longer made, hence the numbers have dropped.”

He claimed that the functioning of the 1098 helpline has become “efficient and lean” since the state took over the call centre. “We have handled several child marriage cases and prevented them,” he added.

The new system

While ending its association with the Childline Foundation, the government reasoned that Childline was not available in 200 districts and was not integrated with other services like police, fire, and ambulance.

Earlier, Childline had an advisory board along with a nodal organisation and a collaborative organisation in each district. Under the new system, the district child protection unit began to head the helpline and partner NGOs were removed.

Paikrao, of the Ujwal Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, said several NGO staffers who worked for Childline were transferred to the new system as contractual workers with a wage hike. The nine employees who worked with his NGO earned Rs 9,000 each. Some of them were transferred to the Child Helpline for a monthly salary of Rs 18,000.

“Many of us were very happy with the salary hike,” a Mumbai-based counsellor who did not want to be identified told Scroll. “But the number of employees was reduced and the workload was increased.”

Overworked, pending dues, speedy closures

The changes are now visible on the ground.

At Thane Railway station, the child help desk is a tiny room made of aluminium frames. Until three years ago, it had a mattress, a water purifier, and a table full of snacks. A staffer told Scroll that children found lost or rescued would often be hungry and were given something to eat and a place to sleep before their counselling began.

Now, there are three plastic chairs and a table. The NGO involved with Childline took away its belongings but the government has not purchased replacements. “We even have to buy our own water,” a staffer said.

But their biggest concern is delayed salaries and reimbursements.

The staff attached with 1098 in Thane have not received their salary since March, at least four staff members told Scroll. At least two have quit their job in the last one month over delay in salary in the district.

A staff member, who did not want to be identified, told Scroll that their salary was increased from Rs 8,000 to Rs 20,000 per month once they moved from Childline to the government’s Child Helpline. “We were all excited. But in the first six months, the salary was delayed. Currently, my salary has been pending for three months,” they said. “At least when we were with the NGO, the payments came on time.”

Earlier, each staffer also got Rs 3,000 every month for expenses such as transport, food for children and their medical aid. Now, the government reimburses bills for what they spend on a child’s transport, food and medical aid. But the reimbursements are pending.

Another staffer told Scroll that they had spent Rs 8,000 on food and transport for children rescued over the last one-and-a-half years. “The government is yet to pay back that amount,” she said.

However, Maharashtra secretary Yadav said that the file for processing salaries of staffers has been sent to the state finance department. “The salaries are usually paid in three to six months,” he said. “They will be processed soon.”

A district child protection officer from Maharashtra said that “such financial constraints affect the kind of intervention they can provide”.

“If there is no money for travel, how will they reach the child?” this person said,

Another Mumbai-based staffer told Scroll that earlier, they could book a cab and rush to the spot. “Now we have to wait for a bus or train,” they said. At Thane railway station, a staffer told Scroll that rescued children are usually hungry. “It breaks our heart when we can’t do enough for them,” said the staffer.

The government has also scaled down on staff. In Thane, for instance, the Childline team had 36 members. The strength was cut to 21 posts of which six are vacant.

Child Helpline staff members are also given other work under the Women and Child Development department. Many complained that they have to do data entry and paperwork for schemes like Bal Sangopan Yojana, which provides monthly aid to orphan children.

“There is pressure to close cases quickly too,” said one staffer in Thane. “Earlier we would counsel a child for five to six sessions. Now we have to do one or two sessions and close the case. We keep getting calls from higher ups.”

Santosh Shinde, director at child rights NGO Vidhayak Bharti, said the transition ultimately “deprives children of their rights”.

“A system that was perfectly functioning was changed overnight,” he said.

With inputs from Safwat Zargar and Rokibuz Zaman.

Hours after Parliament cleared a bill to amend a law against exam paper leaks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the education system needed reforms.

In his fourth social media video in a week, Modi said that the “future of children had been at risk” for the “past several decades” because of paper leaks.

Rajya Sabha passed the 2026 Public Examinations Prevention of Unfair Means Amendment Bill through a voice vote. The Lok Sabha had cleared the bill on Wednesday. It will be sent for presidential assent.

The bill was introduced on Monday, days after nationwide protests by the youth against alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive examinations. It proposes imprisonment of five to ten years for individuals found using unfair means in public examinations. The maximum fine for such persons would increase from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh.

In his video, Modi said that the country’s competitive examinations system needed to use technology more.

He added that the Union government “won’t spare any paper mafia, paper leak gang or anyone that tries to play with the future” of the youth. That is why tougher laws were needed, he said.

“We took the bill to Parliament and, as you were promised, over the last two days in both Houses, a majority of MPs discussed it in detail,” he said. “And today, both Houses have passed this bill with tough laws and provisions.”

The prime minister said that with the passing of the bill, the country had “achieved a significant milestone in ensuring transparency in education”.

Members of the Opposition INDIA bloc walked out of the House before Jitendra Singh, the minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions, replied to the debate on the draft legislation.

Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said that the bill was “incomplete”, and would not make any difference in cases of paper leaks.

Key provisions

One of the key provisions of the bill cleared by Parliament on Thursday empowers the Union government to set up a Special Task Force to investigate offences of paper leaks. The probe by police, central investigating agencies or the task force would have to be completed within two months, it says.

The bill would also require state governments and Union Territory administrations to set up special fast track courts. Pending cases under the Act would also be transferred to these fast track courts and disposed of within three months of transfer.

If instances of paper leaks or other offences listed under the bill are found to be organised, the bill proposes a minimum sentence of seven years and a fine of up to Rs 10 crore.

Fifteen illegal acts, including leaking question papers, tampering with optical mark recognition sheets, creating fake websites and issuing fake admit cards, have been listed as offences under the bill.

Optical mark recognition is a system that reads answers marked by candidates by detecting filled bubbles or marks on an answer sheet.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday temporarily restrained the West Bengal Police from taking any coercive action against Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee in three first information reports registered against him, Live Law reported.

The interim protection has been granted till August 6, when the court will hear Banerjee’s plea seeking the quashing of multiple cases registered against him.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya directed the police not to take steps against Banerjee in connection with cases registered at Bhabanipur police station on May 27, Kalitala police station on June 1, and Bishnupur police station on June 16, The Indian Express reported.

The court also directed the state to provide a complete list of first information reports registered against Banerjee, Live Law reported.

The interim protection was granted after Banerjee alleged before the Calcutta High Court that multiple “unreasonable complaints” had been filed against him since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in West Bengal after defeating the TMC in the Assembly election in May.

His counsel said 11 FIRs had been filed against the TMC leader, including cases that were registered after Banerjee filed the petition.

Banerjee’s lawyer argued that the complaints were delayed and politically motivated, Live Law reported.

He said some FIRs pertained to allegations dating back to 2020 and questioned the delay in registering them.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state, objected to Banerjee filing a single petition seeking relief against multiple FIRs, Live Law reported.

He argued that such an omnibus petition was not maintainable and that separate petitions should be filed for each FIR.

Mehta also opposed protection against future FIRs, saying the court could not issue an advance order preventing the police from registering cases.

The court declined to grant blanket protection against future FIRs, saying that any additional FIRs would require appropriate pleadings and the concerned complainants would have to be included, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Delhi government stated that it would not take action against participants in the youth-led protests that demanded that Dharmendra Pradhan resign as the Union education minister. However, it stated that this protection would not be extended to those with “criminal antecedents”.

The Home Department said that 13 cases had been registered by Delhi Police in connection with the protests in the capital as of 6 pm on Wednesday.

In cases where arrests or detentions had already been made, the review process for releasing those arrested will be carried out expeditiously, the Delhi government said. The home department also said does not propose to take further action against those involved in the protests.

The cases relate to the violence that broke out during the Cockroach Janta Party’s planned march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament on July 20.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the authorities to proceed with investigations in cases that have already been registered. However, it directed that no coercive action should be taken against minors and protesting students, provided they did not have any criminal antecedents. Read on.

The Lok Sabha passed a bill criminalising insults to the national song, Vande Mataram, a day after the Rajya Sabha passed the legislation. The bill will now be sent for presidential assent, after which it will become law.

The 2026 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha through a voice vote amid protests by Opposition MPs demanding a discussion on police action against youth protesters last week.

The bill seeks to provide Vande Mataram with the same statutory protection as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. It states that intentionally preventing the singing of the national song, or disrupting an assembly singing it can be punished with imprisonment of up to three years, a fine or both. Read on.

The Supreme Court told the Union government to preserve the ammunition logs of the Rapid Action Force members deployed at Jantar Mantar in Delhi during the youth protests against the alleged mismanagement of competitive examinations. A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant passed the order in response to petitions seeking a ban on using pellet guns to disperse crowds during protests.

Two of the petitioners, Prashant Kumar Singh and Sheikh Irshad Mansoor, said they were injured by pellets fired by security personnel during the protesters’ march to Parliament on July 20. The lead petitioner is former Intelligence Bureau Special Director Yashovardhan Azad.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that the court was “not averse to examining” the use of pellet guns during the protest, but added that the petitioners would have to show whether their use was permissible under the “graded approach”. Read on.

The decision of the Indian hockey federation to change the colour of the team’s jersey to saffron from blue has drawn criticism from social media users, including a former captain of the national team. Former hockey captain Viren Rasquinha said that the change was embarrassing, and remarked that the “legacy and identity of the Indian team has always been blue”.

The hockey federation launched the new jersey on Monday. In a social media video, the federation said that the saffron colour “symbolises courage, sacrifice and victory”. The new colours scheme has been inspired by the national flag and the rising sun, it said, adding that the new jersey “reflects new beginnings”.

Several social media users criticised the colour blue being replaced with saffron, saying that the change hurts the team’s legacy and identity. Read on.

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India’s demographic dividend of a large, youthful workforce is being unsettled by a troubled trend: even as the share of working-age Indians climbs to record highs, household savings have fallen to their lowest level in nearly two decades.

This puzzle strikes at the heart of an influential economic theory.

In 1985, Franco Modigliani won the Nobel Prize for his life-cycle hypothesis of household savings. People spread out their consumption across a lifetime: borrowing when young, saving hard through their prime working years and drawing down those savings in retirement.

On a population scale, Modigliani’s theory implies that a country’s saving rate depends less on its wealth and more on how its people are distributed across the life cycle.

A nation with a bulge of prime-age workers should save a lot. Economists Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason later sharpened this insight into what they called the “second demographic dividend”.

The first dividend – the one India routinely celebrates – is the mechanical boost to output per person that comes from a rising share of working-age people. The second is subtler and, crucially, not guaranteed. It materialises only where pensions, formal financial systems and functioning labour markets allow the instinct to save for later life to translate into real, investable wealth.

Set India’s recent data against that framework, and something clearly does not add up.

The country’s share of the working-age population has climbed steadily from around 58% at the turn of the century to nearly 65% today, and it is projected to keep rising into the 2040s.

By Modigliani’s logic, household savings should be rising in step. Instead, they have moved sharply in the opposite direction, sliding from a peak of roughly a third of disposable income around 2010 to about a fifth today.

It indicates that India’s economic growth is increasingly powered by household consumption rather than by savings channelled into productive investment, such as capital formation, industrial expansion and infrastructure development.

More Indians are working, but fewer are saving, and that gap is being bridged by borrowing. In effect, the country is forfeiting its second demographic dividend before it has had the chance to bank it.

Why isn’t the life-cycle theory working as advertised? Three explanations stand out.

The first is a missing wage dividend.

The theory assumes that middle-aged workers sit at the peak of their productivity and income. In India, real wage growth across large parts of the informal sector has been weak. Female labour force participation remains among the lowest of any major economy. A significant share of the working-age population is either underemployed or absent from the paid workforce altogether.

When a country experiences a demographic bulge, but employment is insecure, poorly paid or low-quality, households struggle to save. As consumption outpaces income, the gap is increasingly financed through borrowing.

The second is weak institutions.

Households accumulate financial resources for retirement only when they have access to credible, accessible and trusted savings instruments. In India, for instance, the Employees’ Provident Fund and Public Provident Fund are trusted, state-backed retirement instruments. However, formal pension coverage is modest and social insurance for informal workers is patchy.

Nearly 87%-90% of India’s workforce is engaged in informal employment, thus excluded from the Employees’ Provident Fund scheme. The Public Provident Fund is open to any resident Indian regardless of employment status, but voluntary participation is low, likely held back by limited financial literacy.

The third is debt-financed consumption.

Household liabilities have crept up over the same period, 2021-’25, driven by unsecured retail credit, credit cards, and consumer-durable financing, even as households financial assets, such as bank deposits and small savings, have failed to keep pace with liabilities.

This has caused net financial savings to decline, leaving households increasingly dependent on borrowing to sustain consumption.

This shift shows up clearly in regulatory concerns. In late 2023, the Reserve Bank of India expressed concern over the boom in unsecured personal loans and credit card debt. By requiring banks to hold more capital against these loans, it made such lending costlier. It sought to slow the rapid expansion of consumer credit, an indirect signal that household borrowing, and potentially spending, was outpacing income growth.

Consumption is being financed with debt rather than sustained by savings, and the domestic pool of capital available to fund investment is shrinking relative to demand. Household savings have long been India’s primary source of domestic capital, financing investments in infrastructure businesses, and industrial expansion. A structurally lower savings rate, paired with a heavier debt load, shifts the burden of financing investment onto government borrowing.

India must now earn its second demographic dividend: by increasing quality employment and female participation so that prime-age incomes peak, by building both public and private pension instruments that informal workers can trust, and by monitoring the composition of retail credit as closely as its volume.

Otherwise, India risks spending the next two decades consuming a dividend it never bothered to save for.

Neha Jain is an assistant professor (economics) at the Delhi Technological University.

Srinivas Goli is an associate professor at the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, and author of A Treatise on Families in Contemporary India. Views are personal.

The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed a bill criminalising insults to the national song, Vande Mataram, a day after the Rajya Sabha cleared the legislation.

The bill will now be sent for presidential assent, after which it will become law.

The 2026 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Amendment Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha through a voice vote amid protests by Opposition MPs demanding a discussion on police action against youth protesters last week.

The protests were held against the alleged mismanagement in conducting competitive exams.

The bill seeks to provide Vande Mataram with the same statutory protection as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. It states that intentionally preventing the singing of the national song, or disrupting an assembly singing it can be punished with imprisonment of up to three years, a fine or both.

At present, the 1971 Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act provides that insulting the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, the national flag or the Constitution is punishable with up to three years’ imprisonment, a fine or both.

The bill faced opposition from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, with MP Kanimozhi accusing the government of using it to advance a “Hindutva agenda” under the cover of nationalism, ANI reported.

“This song goes against the secularism of this country,” she said, adding that the bill disrespects people from Tamil Nadu.

Responding to the debate, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the legislation was about “Indian pride” and not against any state or ideology, the news agency reported.

He said the government respected state songs and only sought equal recognition for the national song alongside the national anthem.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has accused the Congress of insulting Vande Mataram by resorting to appeasement politics.

The Union government is commemorating the 150th year of Vande Mataram.

A Press Information Bureau note issued on November 6 to mark the 150 years stated that the Constituent Assembly had adopted Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem and Vande Mataram as the national song.

The note quoted Rajendra Prasad, the first president, as having told the Assembly in January 1950 that Vande Mataram, because of its role in the freedom movement, “shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it”.

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

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

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read: Vande Mataram debate: The novel in which the poem appears is a cry for freedom – but from whom?

The Delhi government on Thursday said it will not take any adverse legal action against those who took part in youth-led protests seeking the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union education minister, ANI reported.

However, it stated that this protection would not be extended to those with “criminal antecedents”.

The Home Department said that 13 cases had been registered by Delhi Police in connection with the protests in the national capital as of 6 PM on Wednesday.

A Delhi government press release said that in cases where arrests or detentions had already been made, the review process for releasing those arrested will be carried out expeditiously, ANI reported. The government does not propose to take any further action against those involved in the protests, and the matter “shall be treated as closed without any future proceedings on this account”, it said.

The cases relate to the violence that broke out during the Cockroach Janta Party’s planned march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament on July 20.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had allowed the authorities in Delhi and other states to proceed with investigations in cases that have already been registered.

However, it directed that no coercive action should be taken against protesting students and that minors who had been detained should be released, as long as they did not have any “criminal antecedents”.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant also directed the police authorities to preserve all surveillance camera footage, drone footage and camera recordings relating to the protests as a measure of “abundant precaution”.

The Delhi Police has identified 2,873 persons through surveillance footage with previous criminal records, The Hindu reported on Monday.

Delhi joins Bharatiya Janata Party governments in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Assam and Bihar in making similar announcements about withdrawing cases.

Also read: Two days after Bihar promise to withdraw cases, families wait anxiously for protestors’ release

Wangchuk urges Centre to honour no-FIR assurance

Earlier in the day, activist Sonam Wangchuk had called on the Union government to honour its written assurance that no legal action would be taken against students who took part in the nationwide youth protests

In a video shared on social media, Wangchuk urged the government to honour the commitments it had made to him and later to the Cockroach Janta Party, saying it had agreed that it would take “no legal action” against students who joined the demonstrations.

He urged the Centre to “remain steadfast” to its promise and help create “an environment of trust”, especially among the country’s youth.

The agitation in Delhi started on June 6, when the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign began a protest at Jantar Mantar to demand Pradhan’s resignation on account of alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams. Solidarity protests were held in several states. Pradhan resigned on Saturday.

On Monday, the Cockroach Janta Party remarked that there had been a “complete breach” of its agreement with the Union government with respect to its promise that no police action would be taken against peaceful protesters. It had warned of restarting protests if the cases were not withdrawn.

The Cockroach Janta Party also said that the Supreme Court’s Tuesday directive was “wholly unacceptable” and described it as “uninformed”.

The campaign’s spokesperson Saurav Das said that the group had a “credible apprehension” that the Union government and BJP-ruled states may “seek to use and weaponise” the order to continue filing and investigating FIRs against individual protesters and “subject them to great harassment”.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The ruling Congress in Karnataka has alleged that more than 84 lakh voters could be removed from the state’s electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise “without thorough verification”, The Indian Express reported.

The party warned that genuine electors could be disenfranchised in the process.

However, the state’s Chief Electoral Officer V Anbukkumar, has rejected suggestions of mass deletions, saying voters listed under the “Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate and Others” category will not be removed automatically and that the verification process is continuing, The New Indian Express reported.

In a petition submitted to the chief electoral officer, the Congress said data from the election authorities showed that 84.31 lakh of the 5.54 crore voters mapped before the exercise had been classified for deletion on grounds including being absent, shifted, dead, duplicate or under other categories during door-to-door verification by booth-level officers, The Indian Express reported.

The figure represents about 15% of the electorate before the revision process began.

The party has called for a second round of physical verification before any names are removed from the rolls.

“Ensure that no elector is deleted merely on the basis of a single house visit or incomplete verification,” the newspaper quoted the petition as saying. “Provide adequate notice and reasonable opportunity to every affected elector before any deletion is finalised.”

According to the election office’s data, the category includes 51.74 lakh voters listed as permanently shifted, 14.99 lakh listed as dead, 11.61 lakh listed as absent, 5.62 lakh identified as duplicate entries and about 33,000 classified under other reasons.

The four electoral districts in the Greater Bengaluru Area account for nearly half of all these cases in the state.

Responding to the concerns, Anbukkumar said the names of the 84 lakh electors in the category would not be deleted automatically, The New Indian Express reported.

He added that booth-level officers and electoral registration officers could amend records even after forms had been digitised.

The Election Commission extended the deadline for the house-to-house verification exercise from July 29 to August 8.

As of Wednesday, 4.26 crore forms had been digitised, while 43.24 lakh remained pending digitisation, the state’s electoral authority said.

The draft electoral roll is due to be published on August 17, followed by the claims and objections process, with the final roll scheduled for publication on October 19.

In 2025, the first phase of the exercise was conducted in Bihar. It was extended to 12 states and Union Territories in the second phase in late 2025 and the first half of 2026.

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

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

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

A Madhya Pradesh court has acquitted 11 persons accused of rioting and arson during the communal violence that erupted during a Ram Navami procession in Khargone district in 2022, holding that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges, PTI reported.

In its judgement delivered on Monday, the court said that eight of the 11 eyewitnesses examined by the prosecution failed to identify any of the suspects, The Indian Express reported.

Communal violence broke out in Khargone on April 10, 2022 after some persons had allegedly hurled stones at a Ram Navami procession, objecting to loud and provocative music being played in the Talab Chowk area. One person was killed and at least 24 were injured in the violence. Ten houses were also burnt.

A day after the violence, the Madhya Pradesh government demolished the homes and shops of Muslims in Khargone.

The police had charged 11 persons with rioting and arson – Ibadat Ali, Sadiq Khan, Abdullah Khan, Sahab alias Shahib, Sher Yar, Faisal Khan, Azam Khan, Shabbir Khan, Imran Ali, Mushtaq Ali and Razik Ali.

The prosecution had alleged that the suspects were armed with stones, swords and petrol bombs, the newspaper reported. They allegedly set several houses on fire and vandalised properties in the Bhatwadi area.

The court noted that the police did not provide any explanation on how they selected the suspects from a mob of about 50 people. The forensic evidence collected in the case also failed to establish the alleged use of petrol bombs or any explosive substance.

The court also found the identification testimony of key witness Vaishnavi Jain unreliable, The Indian Express reported. The court noted that no test identification parade was conducted and that Jain’s statement was recorded 51 days after the incident without any satisfactory explanation from the prosecution.

A test identification parade is a procedure to determine whether a witness can accurately identify the suspect from among a group of people.

Jain had claimed that she recognised all the suspects by their faces. However, the court noted that her brother and father said that the rioters had “their faces covered with cloth”.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

A Delhi court on Thursday cancelled the non-bailable warrant issued against student leader Aishe Ghosh in connection with a 2021 case about a protest outside Bangla Bhavan after she appeared before the court, Live Law reported.

The Patiala House Court cancelled the warrant after the Students’ Federation of India joint secretary appeared in person.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Vijayshree Rathore also imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 on Ghosh before cancelling the warrant.

On Wednesday, the court stayed the non-bailable warrant after Ghosh’s lawyer said she had been unable to attend the previous hearing because of unavoidable circumstances and directed her to appear in person.

The case relates to a first information report registered at Barakhamba Road Police Station in 2021 about a protest held outside Bangla Bhavan.

Ghosh has been booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to disobedience of an order issued by a public servant, criminal trespass and common intention. A chargesheet has already been filed in the case, PTI reported.

The matter has been listed for further proceedings on November 21.

The development follows allegations by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday that the Delhi Police attempted to arrest Ghosh at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi in connection with the case.

The party said police officers arrived in a private vehicle and that one officer was not in uniform. It said the officers left without making an arrest after Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas questioned them.

“This brazen intrusion into a political party office and the continuing witch hunt against student protesters expose the Modi government's escalating assault on democratic rights,” the party had said.

The Students’ Federation of India is the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Union Minister JP Nadda subsequently said that the Delhi Police had acted in accordance with the rules and added that “any student who is into activism will have to face such a situation”, NDTV reported.

“I have been a student activist and I was arrested several times from the classroom during the Emergency under Congress rule,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The decision of the Indian hockey federation to change the colour of the team’s jersey to saffron from blue has drawn criticism, with former captain Viren Rasquinha describing the change as embarrassing.

“The legacy and identity of the Indian team has always been blue,” he said on social media on Wednesday. “I wore the blue jersey with pride for many years. Fans want to see our Indian team in blue. What is the logic of orange?”

The hockey federation launched the new jersey on Monday. In a social media video, the federation said that the saffron colour “symbolises courage, sacrifice and victory”.

The new colours scheme has been inspired by the national flag and the rising sun, it said, adding that the new jersey “reflects new beginnings”.

Several social media users criticised the colour blue being replaced with saffron, saying that the change hurts the team’s legacy and identity.

India has traditionally had blue as the colour of the primary jersey. The country’s sports teams are often called by fans as the “men in blue” or “women in blue”.

Following the backlash, Hockey India said on Thursday that the change had been made following consultations with players and the staff because of technical requirements.

Presenting the new India jersey! 🇮🇳

Every stitch tells a story. Every pattern, every colour carries India's pride.

Our teams are ready to once again do the country proud at the FIH Hockey World Cup Belgium & Netherlands 2026.

🎥: Select 2 (SD+HD)+ Khel & JioHotstar
🗓️: August… pic.twitter.com/8GvwbByapq

— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) July 27, 2026

The collar of the new jersey is blue, alongside thin saffron, white and green stripes on the shoulders.

The jersey also has darker patterns to “celebrate India’s rich cultural heritage”. The federation said that the change “embodies the spirit of Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”. One India, Supreme India.

The new jersey was launched ahead of the men’s and women’s world cup in Belgium and the Netherlands in August.

On Thursday, Rasquinha, who played for India between 2002 and 2008, said that he was “seeing many unnecessary political comments” on his remarks and that he did not want to get into it. “My simple and humble point is on pride, identity and legacy,” he added.

India is to hockey what Argentina is to football, he said. “Will we ever see Argentina wearing orange and white stripes as their 1st jersey?” the former hockey player asked.

The Argentine football team’s traditional colours are blue and white stripes.

Change made after consulting players and staff, says federation

Hockey India said that the decision to change the colour was based on recommendations made by the support staff and the players, and consultations with them.

The primary consideration was technical, the federation said, adding that it had been observed that the blue jersey “tended to blend/merge with the blue synthetic playing surface, which is now the standard colour of international hockey pitches”.

The visual similarity affected on-field clarity and visibility for the players, Hockey India said.

“In light of the above, the coaches and players suggested alternative colours such as yellow or saffron,” it added. “…Apart from addressing the technical requirement, saffron also holds deep significance as one of the colours of our national flag…”

The federation also said that the change in jersey colour was not unprecedented in Indian hockey. During the 2014 world cup, the team’s jersey colour had been changed to yellow. During the 2018 edition of the tournament, the colour was changed to sky blue.

In the 2019 men’s cricket world cup, the Indian team wore an alternate jersey, which was mostly orange, for its match against home team England. The change was in line with the International Cricket Council’s regulation at the time requiring designated away kits.

The change had led to criticism by fans and Opposition leaders alleging that it was an attempt to “saffronise the entire country”.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Forty-seven sanitation workers died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks across India in 2025, the Union government said on Wednesday.

Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of deaths at 10, followed by Haryana with seven and Tamil Nadu with six, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment said in response to an MP’s question.

Manual scavenging – the practice of removing human excreta by hand from sewer lines or septic tanks – is banned under the 2013 Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act. However, the practice remains prevalent in several parts of the country.

Responding to a question on the effectiveness of existing laws, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale said that the scheme was evaluated in 2025. He added that it provides sanitation workers with safety equipment, occupational training, health insurance and financial support to promote mechanisation of the process.

The government said that states and Union Territories have been asked to ensure that the 2013 law is implemented.. It also noted that the Union housing and urban affairs ministry had issued standard operating procedures for cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

In July 2023, the Union social justice ministry’s Central Monitoring Committee claimed that the practice of manual scavenging had been eliminated. The ministry had made the claim despite noting that only 520 of the 766 districts across the country are free of manual scavenging.

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.