The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine whether the Central Board of Secondary Education’s mandatory three-language policy for Class 9 students places undue pressure on students and if there are logistical challenges in implementing it, The Hindu reported.

In a circular issued on May 15, the Central Board of Secondary Education said that studying three languages would be mandatory for Class 9 students from July 1. Among the three, at least two must be Indian languages.

On Wednesday, a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant sought responses from the CBSE, the Union government, and the National Council of Educational Research and Training on the petitions challenging the circular.

The bench said that it was concerned about whether schools had adequate teachers, textbooks and infrastructure to implement the policy, The Hindu reported.

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Mukul Rohatgi argued that students were already “saddled with academic load and peer pressure”.

He submitted that the burden would increase further as students would now need to pass an additional language for Class 10 certification, even though the assessments are said to remain internal and school-based.

The bench initially proposed listing the matter on June 15. However, following a request by the Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, it postponed the hearing to the second week of July.

The petitioners had urged the court to direct the CBSE not to implement the policy from July 1, when the academic session begins. The bench declined to pass any interim order.

‘Violates constitutional rights’

The petitions, filed by a group of parents and teachers from Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Chennai, have argued that the circular violates constitutional protections, including the right to equality and the right to education.

The petitioners have contended that the policy’s implementation in the middle of an academic session would impose an additional burden on students and disrupt preparation for Class 10 Board examinations, Bar and Bench reported. They also argued that many schools lack trained teachers, textbooks and the infrastructure needed to implement the policy effectively.

They also flagged concerns about unequal regional impact and the absence of clarity on evaluation patterns for the additional language.

The CBSE has maintained that there will be no Board examination for the third language in Class 10 and that assessments for the additional language will remain internal to schools. As part of the transition, schools will temporarily use Class 6 textbooks for the third language until dedicated material is introduced, the board had said in its circular.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

There is corruption in the judiciary and judges should not be treated as “holy cows”, the Madras High Court has remarked while refusing to ban a Tamil film for portraying the judicial system in an allegedly damaging manner, Live Law reported on Wednesday.

The court was hearing a petition filed by an advocate, who claimed that the film Karuppu scandalised the judicial system. The petition sought directions to the state government and the Central Board of Film Certification to ban or regulate the film in theatres and on streaming platforms.

The petitioner also argued that the film amounted to criminal contempt of court.

Karuppu, which was released on May 15, was directed by RJ Balaji and starred actors Suriya and Trisha Krishnan. In the film, a guardian deity disguises himself as a lawyer to fight corruption in a court system that exploits a young girl awaiting a liver transplant.

In its order on May 21, a bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and V Lakshminarayanan said that courts and judges are not above criticism, Bar and Bench reported. “None can deny there is corruption in the judiciary,” the bench was quoted as saying. “There were and are corrupt judges.”

It added: “Judges need not be treated as holy cows. Justice is not a cloistered virtue; she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful even though outspoken comments of ordinary men.”

In his petition, the advocate said that a judge had been shown as being involved in bribery and consuming drugs in one of the scenes in the film, Live Law reported. Such scenes were against the Constitution and damaged the reputation of judges, the petition added. It also claimed that the director had criticised the judicial system without any application of mind.

The bench, in its order, agreed that the portrayal of the judicial system in the film is “grossly exaggerated”, Bar and Bench reported.

“But that is the way movies are taken in Tamil,” the legal news portal quoted the bench as saying. “The hero will single-handedly vanquish a dozen villains who surround him. Everything is melodramatic in Tamil cinema. Therefore, Karuppu should also be taken as one of a piece.”

The High Court said that an artist is entitled to present a story in his own way, adding that artistic licence must be placed on a high pedestal.

It also noted that the film had been cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification for public viewing, Live Law reported. When the film certification board did not view the film as contempt of court, a writ petition cannot substitute its opinion, the bench added.

The bench also held that the makers of the film had not scandalised or lowered the authority of an actual court, the legal news portal reported.

It added that the judges and lawyers of an imaginary court were portrayed as corrupt in the film and not the entire judicial system.

Remarks by SC on ‘judicial corruption’

The observations by the High Court came after the Supreme Court, on May 22, recalled its order barring three academics from all government projects for drafting a chapter about “corruption in the judiciary” in a now-withdrawn textbook.

The chapter in question was part of a Class 8 social science textbook published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. The chapter had listed “corruption at various levels of the judiciary” among the challenges that the judicial system faces. It was part of a textbook titled “Exploring Society: India and Beyond”.

The educational body on March 10 apologised for the chapter and said that the entire book had been withdrawn. The apology came two weeks after the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the matter and banned the publication and re-printing of the textbook.

On March 11, the Supreme Court held that the three academics – Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar – either did not have “reasonable knowledge about the Indian judiciary” or that they knowingly misrepresented facts “in order to project a negative image of the Indian judiciary”.

On May 22, the top court modified the “harsh” observations made in the March 11 order and expressed satisfaction that there was no malice on the part of the three academics in preparing the chapter.

Edited by Sneha.

The municipal corporation in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi has closed down a decades-old goat market ahead of Bakrid, claiming that it had received complaints about overcrowding and poor sanitation, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.

Bakrid, also known as Eid al-Adha, is a Muslim festival that commemorates the spirit of sacrifice. The festival, which is traditionally marked by the slaughtering of goats, will be observed on Thursday this year.

Popularly known as the “Bakra Market”, or goat market, Benia Bagh is a seasonal livestock market that has operated for nearly four decades. It is considered one of eastern Uttar Pradesh’s largest goat markets.

It is located about a km from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and usually operates for a week ahead of Bakrid.

Permission for the market had initially been granted, but was later revoked following “complaints related to sanitation and hygiene”, Municipal Commissioner Himanshu Nagpal was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

He claimed that the decision was taken after officials inspected the site.

The authorities then sealed the 6,000-square-foot site four days after trading began.

This prompted protests from livestock traders, who said the action was taken without adequate notice.

They alleged that officials had ordered them to vacate the market within 30 minutes.

Shakambhari Nandan Sonthalia, the public relations officer for Smart City Varanasi, denied the allegation. He said that permission for the market had been revoked on Friday and traders were given three days to vacate the site.

When traders and shopkeepers did not leave, teams from the administration and police cleared the area on Monday and enforced the closure, The Indian Express quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Opposition parties alleged that the action was taken to create communal tensions ahead of Bakrid, according to the newspaper.

“Nobody had any problem while the market was functioning,” Congress’ Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Rai was quoted as saying. “Granting the permission for the market first, and then abruptly withdrawing it, appears to be a deliberate move by the government.”

Dilip Dey, the president of the Samajwadi Party’s Varanasi metropolitan unit, also alleged that the government was “looking for excuses to create communal tension”.

Edited by Sneha.

Approximately 30 lakh beneficiaries of Lakshmi Bhandar, a cash transfer scheme for women implemented by the previous Trinamool Congress government, were ineligible for it, The Indian Express quoted West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari as saying on Wednesday.

This was because the women had either been deleted from the voter rolls after the special intensive revision, or they had not applied for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, added the Bharatiya Janata Party leader.

The remarks came weeks after Women and Child Development Minister Agnimitra Paul said on May 12 that women whose names were deleted during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls will not receive benefits of the Annapurna Bhandar scheme, which is set to replace the Lakshmi Bhandar programme from June 1.

Under the new scheme, women will receive a monthly cash handout of Rs 3,000. Beneficiaries were getting Rs 1,500 per month under Lakshmi Bhandar.

On Wednesday, Adhikari claimed that the new government’s objective was to “create a clean list” before implementing the new scheme. The administration would have “a clear idea” once fresh application forms were submitted and reviewed, he added.

Adhikari said that fresh forms would be issued for the Annapurna Bhandar scheme and that verification would be carried out by the Women and Child Development Department, The Indian Express reported.

He clarified that until the verification is completed, the beneficiaries of the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme will continue to receive payments.

Describing the transition to the new scheme as a “huge task”, Adhikari said several departments would assist in preparing a transparent beneficiary list.

The Assembly elections in West Bengal followed a special intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission.

By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed. Ahead of the polling, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals. Of these, seven lakh were against names being included in the rolls and 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded. Appellate tribunals set up as part of the special intensive revision process had allowed 1,607 names to be added back to the electoral rolls.

Edited by Sneha.

When she saw me walking into her home in Assam’s Barpeta district, Amina Begum attempted valiantly to get up from the bed.

Her body shook as the 68-year-old tried – and failed – to raise herself.

When I had visited Begum in June last year, she was not this infirm. She was walking, her eyes alert, her memory vivid.

But a year later, she is a shadow of that self. She cannot walk without support, or sit up straight. She is mostly confined to her bed. Her face is vacant, but it is her sorrowful eyes that speak of hopelessness and fear.

“Everything has changed in one year,” her husband, Ajmal Khan said. Both their names have been changed to protect their identity.

Exactly a year ago, Begum was secretly “pushed back” into Bangladesh by Indian authorities at gun point in the dead of the night amid a renewed crackdown on undocumented migrants. At least 300 Assam residents have been expelled from Indian territory in this fashion.

After a month, Begum managed to cross the border with the help of residents of the borderlands of India and Bangladesh and came back home to her village.

Since her return, Khan said, Begum has been wasting away. She falters while recalling incidents from her past, and loses the train of her thought while speaking. She has withdrawn from regular life and does not speak much, her daughter-in-law told me.

“But she remembers how she was dumped across the barbed wire, the days at the detention centre,” Khan said. “She is afraid that the police will pick her up and throw her in Bangladesh again.”

In 2012, Begum was declared a non-citizen by a foreigners tribunal, a decision later upheld by the Gauhati High Court in 2015, despite the fact that all her brothers and sisters are Indian citizens.

Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies unique to Assam that rule on citizenship cases, relying on documentary evidence to decide if a person is a citizen of India.

In the last four decades, the tribunals have stripped about 1,30,000 people of Indian citizenship through a process that has been criticised by courts, legal experts and human right groups as arbitrary and loaded against the poor and marginalised.

Those who lose their cases at the foreigners tribunals have the right to challenge the orders in the higher courts. Sometimes, they have been sent to the state’s detention or holding centres. But, until May last year, they were rarely deported to Bangladesh, as a tribunal order is not proof that they are citizens of another country.

An ordinary life

Khan and Begum have spent over 20 years fighting a citizenship trial, leaving them devastated financially and emotionally.

But for nearly six decades of her life, Begum had barely stepped out of a couple of villages in Barpeta district.

“I have lived my entire life here,” Begum said. “I have not even seen any other country. How could they send me to Bangladesh?”

Khan added: “All her nine brothers and sisters live here as legitimate citizens. Her father and mother died in this country. We have been together for more than 50 years now. So how can she be a Bangladeshi?”

Begum was born into a typical Bengali Muslim peasant family in Tetlirtal village in Barpeta, a district that is home to a large number of Muslims of Bengali origin, who are also known as Miya Muslims.

According to Khan, Begum’s grandfather had come to the village before Partition from the Mymensingh region of colonial Bengal. Hundreds of Bengali Muslim peasants had been settled in the region at the time by the British, who wanted labour to expand agriculture in Assam.

“Her forefathers cleared the forest and started to live and cultivate the land – paddy, jute, among others,” Khan said.

Begum, one of nine children, was married off to Khan before she turned 18. She never went to school.

“I travelled outside my village for the first time on my wedding day,” she said.

Khan drove buffalo carts and grew paddy for a living. They had a son and a daughter.

The couple looks back on that ordinary life with longing. “We did not earn a lot,” Khan said. “But it was enough for a peaceful life. Allah gave us a lot.”

The case

Their ordeal began in 1998, around the time thousands of Bengali-speaking residents of the state – both Hindus and Muslims – were hauled up before foreigners tribunals and asked to prove their citizenship.

The border police of Barpeta district made a reference against Begum, asking her to prove her citizenship before the foreigners tribunal.

In Assam, the border police can flag any person as a doubtful citizen, much like the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in the United States, and report them to foreigners tribunals.

“Their life changed completely with the case,” Khan’s 45-year-old nephew said. “For about five decades, they had lived together, like a pair of roosting pigeons. The fear that they would be separated started to affect their health and lives.”

Khan and Begum fought the case at the tribunal and lost. “We went to the High Court but there too we lost,” Khan said.

The cost of a legal battle was prohibitive. “This case destroyed our lives,” Khan said. “We had to sell everything. They turned us into beggars.”

A woman without documents

Both the tribunal and the high court found Begum’s documents wanting.

As Begum was married before the age of 18, she did not have any documents that could show she was the daughter of her father – no birth certificate, no school certificate. Nor did she have a name in any land documents.

This was hardly unusual in the state – or across India.

Women, especially those from marginalised Bengali-origin Muslim families, have struggled to prove their identities in Assam, especially during the 2019 exercise to update the National Register of Citizens, because of this lack of documentation. Many of them, like Begum, had not attended school, got married before being registered on the electoral roll with their parents and had no property in their name.

Begum’s name appeared on the electoral roll for the first time in 1985, as Amina Khatun, the 24-year-old wife of Ajmal Khan, a resident of a village in Barpeta.

Four years later, the family shifted to another village and her name was recorded in the 1989 voter list. However, there was an error in the spelling – ‘Amin Khatun’, her voter card said. Her husband’s name too was recorded as ‘Ahmed Ali Kha’, not Ajmal Khan.

In the voter list of 1997, her name appeared as a resident of that village again.

The only other identity document she had was a certificate issued by the headman of Tetlirtal village, which said that she was the daughter of her father and married to Khan. However, the foreigners tribunal did not take this into account.

At the tribunal, Begum submitted a voter list of 1966 featuring her father’s name and a voter list from 1997 in which she was included as Khan’s wife. The tribunal said these “two voter lists were not sufficient” to prove her nationality.

The tribunal also pointed out that she had delayed in responding to the case, which “cannot be taken lightly”.

The Gauhati High Court held that Begum “has failed to establish her linkage” with her father.

The court noted the discrepancies in her names on the voter lists while rejecting her plea, saying she had not been able to meet the burden of proof as demanded by Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

Advocate Sauradeep Dey, who has represented hundreds of people in citizenship cases before the Gauhati High Court, pointed out that divergences in spellings on voter lists are “quite common and normal”. “But it has become a Herculean task to make the courts understand that,” he said.

“The courts refuse to believe that the two names with some distortion can belong to one person,” Dey said. “This is despite the fact that the state authorities do not conduct any field verification nor do they adduce any other evidence to rebut the document provided and the person’s claim.”

Detention centre

The high court order led to Begum’s arrest. On August 8, 2015, she was taken to Kokrajhar detention centre, one of six such centres in Assam at the time.

All the centres were inside jails, although the detainees were separated from convicts and criminals.

A 2018 National Human Rights Commission report on the detention centres for suspected illegal immigrants in Assam said the camps are known for “the enormous and unending human tragedy of the detainees, and the extensive flouting of national and international laws.”

The NHRC mission, which also visited Kokrajhar camp, found a “situation of grave and extensive human distress and suffering”. “The [detainees] were held in a corner of the two jails for several years, in a twilight zone of legality, without work and recreation, with no contact with their families, rare visits from their families, and with no prospect of a release,” the NHRC report said. “In the women’s camp, in particular, the women wailed continuously, as though in mourning.”

Begum remembers her days at the detention camp with a shudder. “I only thought of my home, my grandchildren and my husband,” Begum said. “I wept thinking of my husband. I could not eat. I only screamed and cried.”

Khan regularly visited her for the four years she was in the detention centre. “There was not a single month when I did not visit Kokrajhar,” he said.

On each visit, he carried fruits and food from home. “I had to pay bribes at three gates to meet her,” he said. “Sometimes, she would scream and weep and become senseless during these visits. I cannot express the suffering and pain we endured.”

In September 2019, Begum was released on bail after the Supreme Court ordered that inmates who had spent over three years in detention centres be let go.

“It was a respite,” Khan said. “We thought that we were saved, but we had a horrible thing waiting for us.”

‘I am old. I could not run’

Begum’s bail conditions demanded that she report at the Barpeta police station every Thursday, which she religiously followed from September 2019.

On May 25 last year, she was asked to visit the police station again.

She was surprised.

“It was a Sunday, not Thursday,” Begum told me. “I had already visited on Thursday.”

“The police told us that they will completely withdraw the case against her,” her son said. “When we went to the office of the Barpeta superintendent of police office, it was full of people who had [foreigners’ tribunal] cases.”

By evening, Begum along with others, was arrested and taken to the Matia transit camp, the largest detention centre in India.

Her son said he feared the worst. “We thought that they would be thrown into the water or sea.”

For 15 days, they had no news of where Begum was.

Begum recalled being herded with about 50 other declared foreigners and forced beyond the “barbed wire” by the Border Security Force.

She spent the night in the swampy marshes in no man’s land, somewhere along Assam’s Mankachar-Dhubri border. “The others ran away to save themselves. I am old. I could not run.”

The next morning, she was found by the roadside, her clothes soaked with water and mud, by a Bangladeshi family. She had landed up in an area called Rawmari in Bangladesh’s Kurigram district.

“They let me have a bath, gave me clothes and food,” she said. But, fearing trouble, they soon asked her to leave.

Another woman then stepped forward. She was the wife of an elected official in the village, Begum said. “She said she will face whatever trouble comes her way. ‘You will stay with us,’ she told me.”

Begum lived with them for close to a month. “They kept me as one of their own,” she said. “Whenever I wept and said I wanted to come home, they kept my hopes up.”

Back in Assam, Khan spotted Begum in an interview by a journalist in Bangladesh.

“Until then, we did not know her whereabouts,” he said. “We got in touch with her with the help of journalists there.”

Khan spoke daily to her and began taking steps to arrange her return.

First, he wrote a letter to Barpeta district commissioner urging him to bring Begum back. “My wife is an Indian,” Khan wrote on June 19 last year. “She was sent to Bangladesh wrongfully. We have got to know that she is taking refuge in Kurigram district of Bangladesh. We request you to take necessary steps to bring her back."

There was no response from the district authorities, her family said.

The return

Khan did not rest there. With the help of activist Faruk Khan, he went to Mankachar, which shares a boundary with Kurigram district. “We went to the local police station and BSF offices in Mankachar but they chased us away,” Khan said.

He returned to Barpeta without her.

On June 27, Begum was able to cross the border with the help of residents from either side of the border.

“Two people from the Bangladesh village helped me cross a river,” she said. “We waded through chest-deep water. They left me on the Indian side. Then, our villagers picked me up in a vehicle. They dropped me at Goalpara, from where Faruk Khan brought me home.”

Her return cost the impoverished family Rs 60,000, but they fear that their ordeal is far from over. “We are glad she is home now. But everything is uncertain,” Khan said.

Then, as if giving in to despair, he said: “If the police catch her again, they should kill her. It is better to die than live this suffocated life.”

Begum, too, considered the future with dread. “I am scared they will take me away again,” she said.

She said she has been praying to Allah “to take me for good”. “It is better to die now,” she said. “I don’t want to die in a foreign land. Let me die at home.”

Several labour unions have demanded, in writing, that India’s labour codes be reformed to include more explicit provisions for working in extreme heat. Record-breaking heat in recent years has moved government bodies to issue advisories urging employers to reschedule working hours and make drinking water available to workers. But workers say this isn’t enough in the face of life-threatening heat.

“Advisories don’t scare anybody, so no one is compelled to comply with them,” said Nirmal Gorana, National coordinator of the Gig & Platform Service Workers Union.

Working in conditions where ambient temperatures are sustained above 32 degrees celsius are found to raise the risk of heat-related illness significantly. For India’s largely informal workforce, this type of exposure can be deadly. Workers and researchers woke up to this reality in 2024 – India’s hottest year on record – when temperatures crossed 40 degrees celsius for several days and resulted in more than 40,000 suspected heatstroke cases.

“That year really shaped public opinion about the importance of improving safety measures against heat,” said Aravind Unni, an urban practitioner and researcher on informality and urban spaces.

Each degree rise in temperature is estimated to reduce annual plant output by 2% and worker productivity by 2%-4%, but India’s labour laws haven’t kept pace with these impacts.

In 2020, India’s numerous labour laws were simplified and consolidated into four distinct codes – the Code on Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security, and Occupational Safety. The codes were modified to include platform and gig workers, and expanded social security and minimum wage provisions to the informal sector. They didn’t, however, specify worker protections on extreme weather event days.

Integrating heat into health and safety protections is the next frontier for long-term, preventive action, three labour unions have said in their formal submissions, including The Amazon India Workers Association, Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers, and National Hawkers Federation.

The problem with advisories

In 2025, the National Disaster Management Authority issued comprehensive advisories for both gig and informal workers in response to brutal working conditions that came to light during heatwave days in 2024. Platform workers reported lost wages and penalties for taking breaks during peak heat hours, with no access to water or shade. Amazon workers were reportedly made to pledge that they would not use the bathroom to avoid losses in productivity, which the company attributed to an “isolated incident of poor judgement”.

A joint survey by the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union and HeatWatch in 2024 found that 51.81% of participants had experienced heat exhaustion while working, 18.07% had experienced sunburn or other skin issues, and 27% reported experiencing symptoms of dehydration.

The National Disaster Management Authority’s 2025 advisory was published after workers groups, nonprofits, and labour rights researchers pointed out vagaries in the prevailing 2019 heatwave guidelines, which mostly advised ad-hoc measures like providing shade and water.

“The latest advisory was an improvement because it recognised the exposure of gig workers specifically, and focuses on preventive rather than ad hoc measures when it comes to managing extreme heat,” said Unni, adding, “It also sets a precedent for other government departments to make similar guidelines, which they were hesitant to.”

The National Disaster Management Authority’s recommendations included providing safety kits to gig workers (UV protective shirts, ORS), making heat-specific breaks mandatory, and suspending work between 11am and 4 pm. While some of these provisions were resisted, like suspending work during peak heat hours, several platforms have since announced a slew of measures promising rest and cooling facilities for their partners. Amazon India announced a network of 250 cooled resting centres for its delivery partners, and Zomato and Blinkit have also rolled out “cooling vests”, enhanced health insurance coverage, and introduced resting points for partners.

Unions are opposing the recommendatory nature of the advisory. “The point is that platforms need to be held accountable. If they are rolling out resting points, it needs to be checked how accessible and useful they are for workers. Every restaurant or shop should have provisions for resting space and washrooms, and platforms shouldn’t engage with establishments that cannot provide it,” said Gorana, who also believes gig workers should entitled to fixed minimum wages under the Code of Wages.

In its written submission, the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers said that instead of advisories, what was needed “is a statutory conversion of these protections into enforceable minimum standards that apply consistently across aggregators and locations during notified extreme heat events.”

The Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers’ submission, dated April 21, proposes linking heat protection measures with entitlement schemes like insurance under the Social Security code. “The Code on Social Security should introduce a heat-risk protection scheme covering heat-related illnesses, income loss during heatwaves, emergency medical support, and death linked to heat exposure. This should be funded through aggregator contributions, possibly through a dedicated heat or climate-risk welfare fund,” said Ananya Tiwary, a Project Associate at HeatWatch which co-authored the IFAT’s submission.

Among the recommendations it makes are allowing paid cooling breaks of at least 20 minutes per two hours of logged work on heatwave days. Instead of generic guidelines like providing drinking water and ORS, the submission also recommends making water, shade, and rest a “verifiable mandate” by making platforms maintain a water access plan with regular audits.

Heat-related time off shouldn’t be met with penalties, and platforms should be required to provide an earnings-protection formula “so that time off is compensated. Any adverse action must be human-reviewed, recorded, and appealable via the worker’s Universal Account Number (UAN).”

Investigative media reports have revealed that some platforms had linked health insurance to coverage to the number of deliveries made, while others penalised gig workers for turning down orders.

Occupational safety hazards law

Ideally, inclusions for heat protection measures should come from the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (OSH), which governs health and safety at the workplace, said Deepa Padmar, a senior resident fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

The OSH code combines 13 labour laws covering entitlements for factory, construction, mining, dock, contract workers, and others. It does not, however, include gig workers, who instead find coverage under the Social Security code.

Before the OSH code was consolidated, laws such as the Factories Act 1948 included health and safety conditions around heat and ventilation that employers were bound to comply with, which is no longer the case.

“Neither the OSH code nor the draft rules specify temperature or ventilation thresholds, even for factory workers. The language around heat management has been broadened,” said Padmar. Under the erstwhile Factories Act, states had the power to notify their own thresholds and appoint inspection officers to check compliance. For example, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat notified their own rules mandating wet bulb temperatures not exceed 30 degrees celsius, beyond which work was considered unsafe. Wet bulb temperatures are a measure of both heat and humidity.

But section 23 of the new OSH code has centralised this provision, enabling only the central government to prescribe ventilation, temperature and humidity standards. “Even if states wanted to make such provisions in their own draft rules, it’s unclear to what extent they are empowered to do so,” Padmar added.

The failure of the code and draft rules to include provisions for heat could constitute a violation of International Labour Organisation conventions, the Amazon Workers Union has argued. “Though Chapter III of the [OSH] Code deals with responsibilities of the employer, no specific responsibilities are set out in the Rules, leaving it to the discretion of the Central government to issue necessary notifications, with no minimum requirement,” the submission adds.

The lack of specificity will lead to “more worker injury, accident, and deaths if not clarified, enforced, and regulated at both the Central and State government level with appropriate consultation with workers and unions.”

Integration with Heat Action Plans

For outdoor workers who don’t clearly receive entitlements under the labour codes, like street vendors and hawkers, workers groups are demanding better integration within Heat Action Plans – policy strategy documents outlining how states, districts, and urban local bodies should prepare for and manage extreme heat.

“In response to rising temperatures, street vendors are compelled to create temporary shade using tarpaulins, cloth, or other materials. However, these necessary coping mechanisms are frequently met with eviction drives, confiscation of goods, and harassment by local authorities on grounds of encroachment,” the National Hawkers Federation says. Inclusion as priority stakeholders in Heat Action Plans could ensure such retaliatory action stops.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Supreme Court upheld the legality of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission, saying that the exercise “advances the constitutional imperative” of free and fair polls. The Election Commission has constitutional powers to conduct the exercise, the bench said.

However, the court noted that the Election Commission’s inquiries for the purpose of including a person in the voter list do not mean that it can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen.

It directed the poll panel to forward to the Union government within a week the names of the persons who had been deleted from Bihar’s electoral rolls on account of doubtful citizenship, so that their citizenship could be adjudicated upon. Read on.

The Assam Assembly passed the Uniform Civil Code bill seeking to ban polygamy and make the registration of live-in relationships compulsory. The draft legislation was passed even as the Opposition demanded that it should be sent to a select committee for scrutiny.

It paves the way for Assam to become the third state, after Uttarakhand and Gujarat, to introduce such a code after independence.

Chief Minister Himanta Sarma said that the state’s tribal population would be kept outside the purview of the code. Read on.

The Enforcement Directorate carried out searches at former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s residences in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram as part of a money laundering investigation. The central agency is investigating whether Cochin Minerals and Rutile, a private company, paid about Rs 1.7 crore to a now-defunct information technology firm run by Vijayan’s daughter T Veena between 2017 and 2021.

The mining company, in which the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation has 13.4% stake, had allegedly made the payments to Veena’s firm with no evidence of any services rendered in return.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) condemned the searches, describing them as “a targeted attack on a top Opposition leader by the Bharatiya Janata Party government”.

A team of ED officials that carried out the searches in Thiruvananthapuram were attacked and their vehicles vandalised allegedly by CPI(M) workers. Read on.

A Singapore court sentenced Byju Raveendran, the founder of education technology company Byju’s, to six months in jail for contempt. The court said that he had disobeyed several orders related to his assets dating back to April 2024.

Raveendran has been directed to surrender, pay costs of 90,000 Singaporean dollars, or Rs 67 lakh, and provide documents proving his legal ownership of Beeaar Investco Pte, a corporate entity that held shares in a related company.

The proceedings in Singapore were initiated by a subsidiary of sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, which had invested in Byju’s as it was cutting jobs and laying off staff. Read on.

The Rajasthan High Court acquitted religious leader Asumal Harpalani, also known as Asaram Bapu, of charges related to the gangrape of a minor. However, it upheld his conviction for rape in the case, which carries the punishment of life imprisonment.

While rejecting Asaram’s petition to set aside the life sentence, the bench held that the charges of rape under the Indian Penal Code, sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and offences under the Juvenile Justice Act had been proven. However, the evidence on record was not sufficient to sustain the charges related to gangrape and criminal conspiracy, the judges said.

Asaram had been sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Jodhpur in 2018 after which he had approached the High Court. Read on.

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Enforcement Directorate officials who raided the house of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday were attacked and their vehicles vandalised allegedly by Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers, The Indian Express reported.

The officials were attacked while leaving Vijayan’s house after completing the seven-hour-long raid.

The central agency had carried out searches at the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader’s residences in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram as part of a money-laundering investigation.

It is investigating whether Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited, a private company, paid around Rs 1.7 crore to a now-defunct information technology firm run by Vijayan’s daughter, T Veena, between 2017 and 2021.

The mining company, in which the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation has 13.4% stake, had allegedly made the payments to Veena’s Exalogic Solutions with no evidence of any services rendered in return.

On Wednesday, the ED carried out searches at 12 locations in the state, including the homes of his daughter and son-in-law, former minister PA Muhammad Riyas, in Kozhikode. Offices linked to Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited were also raided.

Exalogic Solutions had entered into a contract with the CMRL in 2017 for providing software and marketing services, The Wire reported.

#WATCH | Keralam: Commotion outside the residence of former Chief Minister and present LoP Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram, as CPI(M) workers attacked a vehicle of ED officials.

The workers are protesting against the central agency over its searches at 10 premises in… pic.twitter.com/fx7Y4xutLB

— ANI (@ANI) May 27, 2026

The case came to light after the income tax department carried out searches on the premises of the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited in 2023, when Vijayan was the chief minister of Kerala.

The raids came a day after the Kerala High Court dismissed a petition by CMRL seeking to quash the ED proceedings.

Following the raids on Wednesday, Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers led by party state secretary MV Govindan had conducted a march and staged a sit-in in front of Vijayan’s house in Thiruvananthapuram, The Indian Express reported.

Party workers allegedly threw eggs and bricks at the vehicles used by the ED officials. Protesters also reportedly smashed the windshields of the cars with sticks.

Personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force and the Kerala Police struggled to control the crowd, PTI reported.

Additional Director General of Police H Venkatesh asserted that a team has been sent to arrest those accused of engaging in violence, but did not say how many persons had been taken into custody, ANI reported.

“The police are not backing away from here,” the official was quoted as saying by the news agency. “None of the accused will be let off. The police will act strictly according to the law.”

Vijayan reacts to raids

Speaking to reporters after the raids, Vijayan alleged that the ED searches were part of a “targeted crackdown” on Opposition leaders across the country, The New Indian Express reported.

The searches may provide “mental satisfaction” to leaders like the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, the CPI(M) leader said. Vijayan alleged that Gandhi had repeatedly questioned why his home had not been searched and why he had not been arrested.

The former chief minister asserted that the action would not weaken him or the CPI(M).

“This is only a beginning,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “Nobody should harbour the illusion that such actions can intimidate or weaken us.”

Vijayan further claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government had been using central agencies against Opposition leaders since it came to power, and claimed that the action against him was also part of that strategy.

Earlier in the day, Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary A Baby condemned the searches, describing them as “a targeted attack on a top Opposition leader by the Bharatiya Janata Party government”.

“Such actions will not intimidate Pinarayi Vijayan or the CPI(M),” Baby added.

He also questioned whether the new Congress-led United Democratic Front government in Kerala was complicit in the action.

In the Assembly election results announced on May 4, the UDF won 102 seats in the 140-member Assembly, defeating the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front after a decade in Opposition.

Another protest in Delhi

In a statement, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said that it had also organised a protest against the raids at the ED headquarters in New Delhi, adding that the demonstration was led by the party’s general secretary.

The Delhi Police detained more than one hundred demonstrators during the protest, the statement said. Those detained included party leaders Brinda Karat, Ashok Dhawale, Mariam Dhawale and Vijoo Krishnan, it added.

“Addressing the gathering, MA Baby strongly condemned the action carried out by the ED under the direction of the central government and stated that the raid on Pinarayi Vijayan’s residence was a politically motivated act of vendetta,” it said. “He pointed out that courts have repeatedly observed that Pinarayi Vijayan has absolutely no connection with the Exalogic case, yet the political witch-hunt against him continues unabated.”

Baby also said that such an action taking place after Chief Minister VD Satheesan’s recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi raised serious questions and appears to be a “politically orchestrated drama”.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday barred Eid prayers at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar for the eighth consecutive year and placed Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who traditionally leads the prayers, under house detention, he alleged.

Farooq said on social media that Muslims in Kashmir had again been denied the right to offer Eid prayers at the Jamia Masjid. He said that on the occasion of Eid, people in Kashmir were met with “barricades, restrictions, locked gates and intimidation”.

“This is not governance; it is a systematic assault on our religious identity, dignity and fundamental rights which deeply hurts us,” he said.

Eid-al-Adha, also known as Bakrid, is a Muslim festival that commemorates the spirit of sacrifice. The festival is traditionally marked by the slaughtering of goats.

Farooq said that it was unfortunate that the children in Kashmir were growing up without witnessing the “spiritually uplifting Eid prayers” at the Eidgah and the associated festivities. He said that an entire generation was being deprived of traditions and memories that had shaped the collective life of Kashmiris for centuries.

Kashmir’s chief cleric further stated that “faith cannot be imprisoned or suppressed through force” and asserted that “no power on earth can erase” the spiritual bond the people “share with Eidgah, Jama Masjid and their religious institutions”.

The cleric has said that he had been placed under house arrest several times in the past years.

In March, Farooq alleged that he had been detained at his home and was not allowed to offer congregational prayers at the Jamia Masjid during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan.

He had alleged in September that he had been placed under house arrest and stopped from leading congregational prayers at the mosque, a week after an inauguration plaque bearing the Ashoka emblem inside the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar was damaged.

In July, Farooq claimed that he was placed under house arrest to stop him from referring to Kashmir Martyrs’ Day in his sermon.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday acquitted religious leader Asumal Harpalani, also known as Asaram Bapu, of charges related to the gangrape and sexual assault of a minor, PTI reported.

However, a bench of Justices Arun Monga and Yogendra Kumar Purohit upheld his conviction for rape in the case, which carried the punishment of life imprisonment. The verdict was delivered on appeals filed by Asaram and his co-accused, Sharatchandra and Shilpi, India Today reported.

In April 2018, a sessions court in Jodhpur had sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment for raping a minor at his ashram in 2013. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment under several provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Juvenile Justice Act.

On April 20, the High Court had reserved its verdict on the appeals filed by Asaram and the co-accused in the matter, PTI reported.

While rejecting Asaram’s petition to set aside the life sentence on Wednesday, the bench held that the charges of rape under the Indian Penal Code, sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and offences under the Juvenile Justice Act had been proved.

However, the evidence on record was not sufficient to sustain the charges related to gangrape and criminal conspiracy, the judges said.

The High Court also acquitted Sharatchandra and Shilpi of all charges. Both of them had earlier been sentenced by the sessions court to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.

In its verdict, the bench also directed Asaram to surrender in view of the conviction, PTI reported.

He is currently out on temporary bail, which was extended by seven days on May 25.

In January 2023, a sessions court in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar also sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment for raping a 16-year-old girl several times at his ashram between 2001 and 2006.

Before his convictions, Asaram was a religious leader who established his first ashram in the 1970s along the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad and built a multi-crore business empire comprising various products and spiritual literature.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to consider a representation seeking that Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail slips have time stamps that record the exact moment that an elector casts his or her vote, Live Law reported.

A public interest litigation seeking such a direction had been filed by a businessman.

His counsel contended that the absence of a time stamp creates a “physical audit gap”, especially in cases where there are questions surrounding voting patterns in the closing hours of polling, according to Live Law.

He argued that this weakens the evidentiary value of the paper trail in dealing with such concerns.

Introduced in 2013, VVPAT machines allow voters to verify that the votes have been cast as intended, by printing the name and symbol of the party the voter has voted for. This printout is visible to the voter for a few seconds before it drops into a box.

In the court, the petitioner referred to cases where a sudden jump in the voter turnout after 5 pm had led to “widespread doubts” being cast about the integrity of the process, The Hindu reported.

“All that would be put to rest by time-stamping VVPAT slips,” his counsel told the court.

The counsel added that while the Conduct of Elections Rules require that names, serial numbers and symbols of candidates should be displayed on VVPAT slips, they do not mandate the time of voting to be recorded.

He contended that including this information would improve transparency, according to Live Law.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant remarked that while the subject of the petition pertained to electoral integrity, the specific demand raised in it involved questions of technical feasibility, which were for the Election Commission to decide.

The court disposed of the petition without passing any substantive directions. It directed the registry to forward the plea to the poll panel, which could consider it as a representation, Live Law reported.

Edited by Leah Thomas.

The Assam Assembly on Wednesday passed the Uniform Civil Code bill seeking to ban polygamy and make the registration of live-in relationships compulsory, even as the Opposition demanded that it should be sent to a select committee for scrutiny.

The passing of the 2026 Uniform Civil Code Bill paves the way for Assam to become the third state, after Uttarakhand and Gujarat, to introduce such a code after independence.

The Uniform Civil Code refers to a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce, succession and adoption for all citizens. Currently, such personal affairs of different religions are based on community-specific laws, largely derived from religious scripture.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the tribal population in the state would be kept outside the purview of the Uniform Civil Code. “It does not interfere with the religious practices of any community or traditional practices of our indigenous”, he said on social media.

The code will override personal laws and will “ensure national integration by removing disparate loyalties to law, which have contracting ideologies”, Sarma added.

The bill was tabled in the Assembly on Monday, and was taken up for consideration and passing on Wednesday. It was introduced nearly two weeks after the proposed legislation was cleared by the state Cabinet on May 13.

Today, with the passage of the #UCCAssam bill, every person from every religion across any region of Assam (except 6th schedule areas), will be equal before the law in terms of these civil matters.

I thank all NDA legislators for wholeheartedly supporting this crucial Bill. pic.twitter.com/xQrCGXedCJ

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) May 27, 2026

Key changes

The bill proposes to make it mandatory for live-in relationships to be registered within one month.

Failing to register a live-in relationship within one month may lead to imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to Rs 10,000. Concealing material facts or submitting false information while registering a live-in relationship may lead to imprisonment of up to three months and a fine up to Rs 25,000.

“[The bill] protects vulnerable individuals by declaring that any child born out of a live-in relationship is fully legitimate, and by granting a deserted live-in partner the explicit legal standing to claim financial maintenance through the courts,” a government note on the draft legislation said.

According to the draft legislation, the minimum age of marriage would be 18 years for women and 21 years for men.

The legislation will also make the registration of marriages and divorces mandatory “to prevent fraud”.

Couples will be required to submit a marriage memorandum to the sub-registrar within 60 days of the marriage ceremony. The deliberate non-registration of marriage or divorce within the two-month period may lead to a penalty of Rs 10,000.

A person making false declarations or submitting forged documents may be punished with up to three months of imprisonment or with a fine of up to Rs 25,000, or both.

The failure to register a marriage or submit a memorandum for divorce deliberately despite being served a notice by the sub-registrar to do so, may be punished with a fine of up to Rs 25,000.

The bill also codifies uniform grounds for divorce such as cruelty, desertion or mutual consent. The draft law proposes to ensure that the early childhood custody of children who are below age five “ordinarily remains with the mother”.

BJP and the Uniform Civil Code

Introducing a common personal law has long been on the BJP’s agenda and several states ruled by the party have been making advances towards implementing it.

In January 2025, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to implement the Uniform Civil Code after independence. The Gujarat Assembly cleared a similar legislation on March 24 amid protests by the Opposition. A common civil code has been in place in Goa since the Portuguese Civil Code was adopted in 1867.

In its campaign for the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand, the BJP had mainly targeted Muslim personal law, arguing that it discriminated against women as it allows Muslim men to practice polygamy, inherit a greater share of property, initiate divorce and deny alimony.

Legal experts have said that Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code is drawn primarily from Hindu personal law and could lead to the erasure of the personal law practices of minority communities.

In the run-up to the Assembly elections in Assam, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on March 29 also said that a Uniform Civil Code would be introduced in Assam if the BJP retains power in the state.

On May 4, the BJP secured its third consecutive term in Assam. Sarma was sworn in as the chief minister for the second term on May 12.

Separately, the Assembly had in November passed the 2025 Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill to ban polygamy, the practice of having more than one wife.

The legislation proposes up to seven years of imprisonment for persons convicted of polygamy. Further, those found guilty of having concealed their previous marriage can face punishment of up to ten years’ imprisonment.

The introduction of the legislation was viewed as a step towards implementing the Uniform Civil Code in the state.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday carried out searches at former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s residences in Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram as part of a money laundering investigation, reported The Hindu.

The central agency is investigating whether Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited, a private company, paid around Rs 1.7 crore to a now-defunct information technology firm run by Vijayan’s daughter, T Veena, between 2017 and 2021.

The mining company, in which the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation has 13.4% stake, had allegedly made the payments to Veena’s Exalogic Solutions with no evidence of any services rendered in return.

On Wednesday, the Enforcement Directorate carried out searches at about 12 locations in the state, including the homes of his daughter and son-in-law, former minister PA Muhammad Riyas, in Kozhikode. Offices linked to Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited officials were also raided.

Exalogic Solutions had entered into a contract with the CMRL in 2017 for providing software and marketing services, The Wire reported.

The case had come to light after the income tax department carried out searches on the premises of the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited in 2023, when Vijayan was the chief minister of Kerala.

#WATCH | Thiruvananthapuram: Enforcement Directorate is conducting searches at 10 premises in Keralam, including the residences of former Chief Minister and present LoP Pinarayi Vijayan, in the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) case. pic.twitter.com/fmHZbftho0

— ANI (@ANI) May 27, 2026

The raids came a day after the Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition by CMRL seeking to quash the ED proceedings.

In a social media post, Vijayan’s son-in-law Riyas said: “We will fight till the last breath.”

Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary A Baby condemned the searches, describing them as “a targeted attack on a top Opposition leader by the Bharatiya Janata Party government”.

“Such actions will not intimidate Pinarayi Vijayan or the CPI(M),” Baby added.

He also questioned whether the new Congress-led United Democratic Front government in Kerala was complicit in the action.

The CPI(M)’s Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas also condemned the “brazen ED raids”, describing it as “yet another example of the systematic misuse of central agencies to harass and target political opponents”.

“It is clear that the Congress leadership actively encouraged the ED to target him, just as they did in the case of Arvind Kejriwal,” he added.

In the Assembly election results announced on May 4, the UDF won 102 seats in the 140-member Assembly, defeating the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front after a decade in Opposition.

#WATCH | Keralam: In protest against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid at the residences of former Chief Minister and present LoP Pinarayi Vijayan, CPI(M) workers agitate outside his residence in Kannur. pic.twitter.com/c5gc6rXMu9

— ANI (@ANI) May 27, 2026

Edited by Sneha and Nachiket Deuskar.

Upholding the legality of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said the exercise “advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”, reported Bar and Bench.

The Election Commission has the powers to conduct the exercise under Article 324 of the Constitution, read with the 1950 Representation of the People Act, Live Law quoted a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi as saying.

Article 324 establishes the Election Commission and vests in it the power of superintendence, direction, and control over the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of all elections.

Citizenship question

However, the bench noted that the poll panel’s inquiries into an individual’s citizenship status for the purpose of including them in the voter list do not mean that it can decide on whether the person is an Indian citizen, Live Law reported.

“Such an inquiry does not amount to a determination of citizenship in the strict sense and any action taken pursuant thereto is confined to electoral consequences alone,” Kant was quoted as saying.

The court directed the Election Commission to forward to the Union government within four weeks the names of the persons who had been deleted from Bihar’s electoral rolls on account of doubtful citizenship, so that the adjudication on their citizenship could be carried out, Live Law reported.

The judgement came in response to a batch of petitions challenging the poll panel’s decision to carry out the voter roll revision exercise, which began in Bihar before being extended to 12 other states and Union Territories. On May 14, the poll panel announced the voter roll revision exercise in 16 more states and three Union Territories.

In Bihar, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30. Concerns had been raised after the announcement in the state that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll.

On Wednesday, the court said that free and fair elections “do not rest merely upon the mechanics of polling”.

“They fundamentally depend upon the integrity, accuracy and credibility of the electoral rolls, which form the foundation of the democratic process,” said the bench.

In view of this, it said it was satisfied with the reasons for the revision exercise cited by the Election Commission, which included the passage of more than four decades since the last intensive revision, large-scale additions and deletions to electoral rolls over the years, and migration and urbanisation leading to possible duplication and inaccuracies.

The court also held that it could not accept the contention that the list of documents required by the poll panel was “arbitrary or devoid of rational basis”, particularly after Aadhaar had been included among the accepted documents following an earlier court order.

“Any verification exercise necessarily requires a structured framework,” the chief justice said. “In that context, the prescription of a set of documents is intended to ensure administrative consistency and evidentiary reliability.”

The petitioners’ contentions

The petitions against the exercise had been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms, political activist Yogendra Yadav, and several Opposition politicians, including Mahua Moitra, Manoj Jha, KC Venugopal and Supriya Sule, Live Law reported.

They argued that the exercise effectively turned the Election Commission into a citizenship adjudicating authority by requiring voters already on the rolls to prove their citizenship through documentary evidence.

They contended that the process was “NRC-like” and created the risk of disenfranchisement.

The National Register of Citizens is a proposed exercise to create a list of Indian citizens and identify undocumented immigrants.

The register was updated in Assam in 2019, after a mammoth scrutiny of ancestral family documents to weed out “illegal immigrants”, and ended up excluding 19 lakh residents of the state. The updated list, however, has not been notified seven years on.

The Election Commission defended the process by arguing that the SIR was not a citizenship determination exercise but an electoral verification process intended to ensure that only eligible citizens remained on voter rolls.

On January 29, the court declined to stay the process while reserving judgment in the matter.

The exercise has since been completed in 13 states and Union Territories, including Bihar, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal.

Scroll’s analysis of the Assembly election results in West Bengal found that in half the seats that the Bharatiya Janata Party won, the total deletions that took place during the voter list revision exercise outnumbered the victory margin.

While the BJP won 207 seats in West Bengal’s 294-member Assembly, the Trinamool Congress won 80.

Ahead of the elections, the final electoral rolls for the state published in February initially excluded more than 61 lakh voters, with the process continuing through supplementary lists and adjudication of about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases.

By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed.

Nearly 25 lakh cases challenging their removal from the voter list are pending before appellate tribunals, according to The Indian Express. Till mid-May, 12 out of the 19 tribunals had only disposed of 6,581 of these appeals, or 0.26% of the cases, the newspaper reported.

Edited by Sneha, Neerad Pandharipande and Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Three reasons why West Bengal’s SIR exercise was unconstitutional

More than 200 police personnel were deployed around a housing society in Maharashtra’s Mira Bhayandar after clashes erupted between Muslim residents and Hindutva groups in connection with goats being brought into the premises ahead of Bakrid, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

Bakrid, also known as Eid-al-Adha, is a Muslim festival that commemorates the spirit of sacrifice. The festival is traditionally marked by the slaughtering of goats. The festival is on Thursday.

The tension at Poonam Cluster 1, a housing society in Mira Bhayandar of Thane district, erupted on Monday night after some residents objected to a temporary shed being built to allegedly keep around 50 goats for sacrifice.

An unidentified resident told The Indian Express that for several years, animals have been brought in for sacrifice, but some persons “feel uncomfortable” about it.

Municipal rules earlier permitted the temporary grant of permission for sacrifice in housing society common areas if conditions related to hygiene, sanitation and the absence of nearby licensed slaughter facilities were met, according to the newspaper.

However, the situation escalated this year after some residents called members of the Bajrang Dal to the society.

The Bajrang Dal is part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

At around 10 pm on Monday, Bajrang Dal leaders arrived and asked residents to remove the goats, leading to arguments, according to The Indian Express.

About two hours later, another leader of the Hindutva group, Nagnath Kamble, reached the spot with his supporters. Police said a man allegedly tried to attack Kamble with a knife around 12.50 am on Tuesday. Harsh Singh, a Bajrang Dal worker, was injured while trying to intervene.

Tensions flared again on Tuesday afternoon when more than 100 members of the Hindutva group gathered outside the society and recited the Hindu hymn Hanuman Chalisa while demanding that the goats be removed.

Clashes broke out between the protesters and Muslim residents before the police intervened and dispersed the crowd.

Police also stopped some protesters who allegedly tried to bring a pig into the area in protest against the goats kept for sacrifice, reported India Today.

Pigs are often used as a form of provocation during communal incidents as they are considered forbidden in Islam.

#WATCH | Maharashtra: Clashes erupt in Mumbai’s Mira Road as residents of Poonam Cluster Society protest against having goats inside the premises for sacrifice during the festival of Eid Al-Adha.

Heavy police deployment to maintain peace. pic.twitter.com/aV25rJAvPe

— ANI (@ANI) May 26, 2026

As tensions rose, the local administration arranged for the goats to be shifted to an alternative location provided by the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation, Deputy Commissioner of Police Rahul Chavan told The Indian Express.

“The goats have now been shifted there,” Chavan said.

The police have registered a first information report under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against an unidentified person for the attack on Singh. The police said one person had been detained and would be formally arrested after questioning, The Indian Express reported.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kirit Somaiya visited the area during the protests and alleged that goats were “deliberately being brought into Hindu-majority localities to create an atmosphere of fear among vegetarian and Jain families”.

Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde and other BJP leaders called on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to impose a blanket ban on goat sacrifice in housing societies and chawls during Bakrid, India Today reported.

On the other hand, Congress leaders in the area accused the BJP and affiliated organisations of escalating tensions.

Congress corporator Zuber Inamdar said residents had been bringing goats into the complex every year and claimed slaughter had never taken place within the premises.

Edited by Sneha.

A Delhi court on Tuesday sought a response from Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to a petition filed by Delhi-based activist and writer Harsh Mander seeking the registration of a first information report against him for alleged hate speech, Live Law reported.

Additional Sessions Judge Sonu Agnihotri of Saket courts also sought the response of the Delhi Police in the matter.

Mander is seeking that an FIR be registered against the Bharatiya Janata Party leader under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to promoting enmity, statements conducive to public mischief and acts intended to outrage religious feelings.

In February, Mander filed a complaint at Delhi’s Hauz Khas police station against Sarma after the chief minister repeatedly made remarks targeting the Miya community, and said that it was his job to “make them suffer”.

In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Sarma claimed on January 27 that four lakh to five lakh “Miya” voters will be deleted when the special intensive revision of electoral rolls takes place in Assam. “Yes, we are trying to steal some Miya votes,” he said. “Ideally, they should not be allowed to vote in Assam. They should be able to vote in Bangladesh.”

Responding to Mander’s complaint, Sarma at the time had said that he would file “at least 100 cases” against the activist. He also claimed he had the “necessary material” to do so.

Mander had also filed a complaint case before the Saket courts seeking an FIR against Sarma, Bar and Bench reported.

On April 20, the Judicial Magistrate First Class dismissed Mander’s petition and refused to direct the filing of an FIR against Sarma, citing a lack of territorial jurisdiction, Live Law reported. Mander failed to show any material on record proving that the alleged remarks caused enmity, disharmony or incitement within the court’s jurisdiction, it added.

On Tuesday, Mander’s counsel argued before Agnihotri that the magistrate court had wrongly dismissed the application.

Relying on the concept of Zero FIR, the counsel also noted that Section 173(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita permitted information related to the commission of a cognisable offence to be given to a police station “irrespective of the area where the offence is committed”.

The matter has been listed for further hearing on July 15, Bar and Bench reported.

Edited by Sneha.

A Singapore court has sentenced Byju Raveendran, the founder of embattled education technology company Byju’s, to six months in jail for contempt, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

The court said that he had disobeyed several orders related to his assets dating back to April 2024, the news agency quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Raveendran has been directed to surrender himself to officials, pay costs of S$90,000 (around Rs 67 lakh) and provide documents proving his legal ownership of Beeaar Investco Pte, a corporate entity that held shares in a related company.

The proceedings in Singapore were initiated by a subsidiary of sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, which had invested in Byju’s during a funding round for the education technology firm as it was cutting jobs and laying off staff, Bloomberg reported.

Raveendran is also battling lenders in the United States in connection with a $1.2 billion loan. US courts had earlier held him in contempt and imposed daily sanctions for not complying with disclosure orders tied to the dispute.

In a statement after the Singapore court’s ruling, Raveendran said that the US-based lender GLAS Trust and the Qatar Investment Authority have been in advanced settlement discussions for months with other stakeholders and the founders of Byju’s.

“A settlement has been agreed in principle, with only minor residual issues left between certain parties – none involving me,” he wrote on social media. “As part of those discussions, the parties have acknowledged there is no wrongdoing on my part or by the other founders.”

He added that all parties had agreed not to actively pursue cases against each other, “and have effectively been at a standstill for the last three months while working towards a comprehensive resolution”.

“I chose resolution over confrontation,” said the Byju’s founder. “Against that backdrop, QIA’s decision to press this matter now appears to be an unnecessary pressure tactic at a sensitive stage.”

2/ All parties - the lenders and the founders - had in principle agreed not to actively pursue cases against each other, and have effectively been at a standstill for the last three months while working towards a comprehensive resolution. I chose resolution over confrontation.…

— Byju Raveendran (@ByjuofBYJUS) May 27, 2026

Timeline of the company

Raveendran launched educational technology firm Think & Learn Private Limited, better known as Byju’s, in 2011, which developed into a learning app that quickly became one of the best known brands across India.

In 2022, the Bengaluru-based company was valued at about $22 billion, with roughly 60,000 employees and millions of paying users. Backed by global investors, Raveendran acquired several firms, including Aakash Educational Services, WhiteHat Jr, Great Learning and Epic.

However, concerns about governance practices, delayed financial disclosures, mounting losses and aggressive expansion began surfacing in 2023, the Hindustan Times reported. The company also laid off thousands of employees amid a severe funding crunch and disputes with lenders.

In April 2023, premises linked to Byju’s and Raveendran were raided by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with alleged violations of foreign exchange laws, the newspaper reported.

At the time, the central agency had claimed that it had seized incriminating documents and data during the searches.

Byju’s also defaulted on repayments linked to a $1.2 billion term loan in the US, with lenders accusing the company and its founders of concealing funds and failing to comply with court-ordered disclosures.

In India, the company faced shareholder revolts, board resignations and insolvency proceedings, according to the Hindustan Times.

Edited by Sneha.

Also read: The unravelling of Byju’s billion-dollar empire

India on Tuesday categorically rejected what it called “unwarranted references” to Jammu and Kashmir in a joint statement issued by China and Pakistan.

The statement had been issued on Monday after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif concluded a three-day visit to China.

It stated that Pakistan had briefed China on the latest developments in Jammu and Kashmir, while Beijing said the “dispute is left over from history, and should be properly and peacefully resolved” in accordance with the United Nations Charter, UN Security Council resolutions and bilateral agreements.

In response, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that New Delhi’s position was “consistent and well known to the concerned parties”.

“The Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have been, are and will always remain integral and inalienable parts of India,” stated the ministry. “No other country has the locus standi to comment on the same.”

The foreign ministry also rejected references related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, saying some of the projects are in India’s sovereign territory.

“We resolutely oppose and reject any moves by other countries to reinforce or legitimise Pakistan's illegal and forcible occupation of these territories, impinging on India's sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it added.

The ministry said that this position has been conveyed to the authorities in Pakistan and China several times.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, launched in 2015 as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is a major infrastructure project in Pakistan. It aims to enhance economic connectivity between China and Pakistan by developing a network of roads, railways, pipelines and energy projects.

The corridor passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and is a key part of Beijing’s wider Belt and Road Initiative.

On references to the “so-called trans-boundary water resources cooperation” between China and Pakistan, New Delhi said the two countries do not share a boundary and therefore such cooperation does not arise.

“India has never recognised the so-called 1963 boundary agreement between Pakistan and China,” the statement added.

The Shaksgam Valley is a disputed territory historically part of Jammu and Kashmir, which Pakistan ceded to China in 1963. India has not recognised this agreement.

New Delhi has also repeatedly objected to the infrastructure projects undertaken by Beijing there.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court on May 19 refused to modify its orders issued last year to remove stray dogs from public spaces and to have them kept in shelters after they are vaccinated and sterilised. However, the judgement creates an exception: it said that the community dogs on the campus of Hyderabad’s NALSAR University of Law could stay.

The court said that the animal management model being implemented by the university could be permitted “on an experimental basis”.

The university’s campus is home to 19 dogs, each named and photographed, with a health profile, including vaccination history, and its mapped territory. These details are maintained by a student task force operating under the university’s Animal Law Centre. It was inaugurated in 2018 and is India’s only research centre on animal law.

As former students of the university, we saw how the Animal Law Centre’s efforts helped create an atmosphere of coexistence for dogs and campus residents. The university’s model offers useful insights at a time when the court has ordered stray dogs to be removed from public spaces, including educational institutes.

The court took note of the arguments raised on behalf of the institute’s Animal Law Centre and said that it could be a model for other educational institutes to inculcate “empathy among students and inspire them to be kind to the animals”.

It is an example of how well-framed strategies, ensuring the involvement of students and residents, and institutional support can create a safe environment for humans as well as animals.

It also shows that India’s capture-sterilise-vaccinate-release model is scientific, humane and adequate, but must be supported with community accountability and institutional infrastructure to be effective.

The NALSAR Model

On NALSAR’s Hyderabad campus, the dogs cared for by the Animal Law Centre were not so much strays as managed residents.

The dogs were known by name to most residents and were usually found in specific spots on the campus: outside the mess hall, near the library steps, along the hostel corridors at dusk. Since the dogs were regularly fed and checked for health, they were calmer than those living in open, unregulated spaces.

It was a contrast from open residential neighbourhoods, where packs of dogs sometimes chase motorists and residents, especially children.

For students living away from home for the first time, the dogs offered companionship. Their presence added more life to the campus as well.

However, it should be acknowledged that sterilisation does not eliminate a dog’s territorial instincts. There have been episodes of aggression among the dogs, such as an incident when an unfamiliar dog wandered into their areas.

There was still the threat of being bitten, especially at a university which had promised accessible spaces for its disabled candidates. Debates among students focused on how dogs must be managed.

Student volunteers ensured that the designated feeding areas were adhered to. Animals were separated where necessary. Veterinarians were called in when required. There was a continuously updated record of every dog’s behaviour.

The institute’s model is resource-intensive, built on the law school’s infrastructure with faculty supervision and student volunteers that other spaces may find hard to replicate.

Overall, it is an imperfect model that works reasonably well with accountability and detailed records.

The Supreme Court’s exemption was granted on one condition: that the Animal Law Centre furnishes an undertaking to the vice-chancellor accepting full tortious liability for any dog-bite incident on campus. This means that if a dog bites someone on campus, the Centre will be legally responsible for compensating the victim.

The legal dispute

The Court’s orders in May centre on a debate over Rule 11(19) of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, which mandates that once a dog is sterilised and vaccinated, it must be returned to the locality from where it was picked up.

Animal welfare organisations and activists had filed appeals to reverse the court’s November 2025 order to have stray dogs removed from educational institutions, hospitals, bus stands and railway stations.

They argued that the Animal Birth Control Rules apply to street dogs and community dogs found within gated campuses as well and that these animals should be returned to these areas after sterilisation and vaccination.

The court disagreed.

First, it said that the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, provide for the classification of dogs – as community owned, street dogs or those living within a gated campus. This classification does not grant the animals “a perpetual or unqualified right of existence” where they may be found, said the court.

Second, the court said “street,” as defined in Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, covers roads and open spaces to which the public has access. It said that when the Animal Birth Control Rules refer to returning the dog back “same place or locality”, it cannot be expanded to include controlled-access spaces such as hospitals and colleges.

Third, the court laid out accountability for those feeding and caring for stray dogs in an institutional campus. The court said rights cannot “operate in isolation, divorced from the corresponding responsibility to safeguard human life”.

In recognising NALSAR’s model while upholding its broader order, the court signals that a managed coexistence is permissible, but only where those who care for the animals are willing to accept accountability in writing, and bear the legal consequences of it.

Shubham Kumar and Bhavya Adhana are alumni of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. Their email IDs are shubhamkumar2021@nalsar.ac.in and bhavyaadhana@nalsar.ac.in.

From Punjab to West Bengal, leaders of major Opposition parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have voiced support for the Cockroach Janta Party over the past week. The satirical political campaign has gone viral, amassing more than two crore followers on Instagram so far.

But the largest Opposition party has yet to jump on the bandwagon. Though the Congress has for years been raising the same issues that the cockroach campaign is focused on – judicial independence, media freedom and election integrity – it has chosen to keep its distance from the initiative.

Scroll spoke to representatives from various parties which constitute the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance to understand how they view the campaign. Most of them said that the significant support for the Cockroach Janta Party on social media signalled growing discontent against the Modi government, especially among young Indians.

However, Sandeep Dikshit, a former MP who liaisons with civil society on behalf of the Congress party, remained sceptical of the initiative. He questioned the ideological moorings of those supporting the campaign and aired his doubts about their commitment to political activism. The youth wing of the Congress has even claimed that its workers are the “real cockroaches” because they protest on the ground and not just on social media.

This divergence between the largest Opposition party and its allies has once again brought the INDIA bloc’s internal divisions to the fore.

For ‘the lazy and unemployed'

The Cockroach Janta Party began as a tongue-in-cheek response to a comment made in the Supreme Court by Chief Justice Surya Kant. Its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, was among those who took exception to the chief justice’s remarks likening unemployed youngsters to the insect.

The chief justice later clarified that he was only censuring seemingly ill-motivated lawyers and had nothing against the youth.

Dipke floated social media accounts under the name of Cockroach Janta Party and started a website to reach out to “the lazy and unemployed” in India with his five-point manifesto. The campaign began to make headlines because of the swift rate at which it acquired followers online. Opposition politicians such as Mahua Moitra were quick to endorse it.

Though the Cockroach Janta Party’s X account was restricted in India, on Instagram its follower count eventually exceeded that of the Bharatiya Janata Party. It also came up with an internet petition demanding that Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s education minister, be sacked because of the repeated instances of paper leaks under his watch. The petition has received nearly six lakh signatures thus far.

Dipke, the man behind this social media storm, is a 30-year-old political communications strategist from Maharashtra and currently lives in the United States of America. He has worked with the Aam Aadmi Party in the past, but denies having any present links to it. BJP leaders have pointed to his history with the political party to raise questions about his independence.

A platform that was needed?

Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, a national spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party, acknowledged Dipke’s previous association with his outfit and admitted to having met him before. However, like Dipke, he too rejected the accusation that his organisation had propped up the Cockroach Janta Party. “We have nothing to do with them,” he said.

Even though he denied any links, Singh welcomed the initiative taken by Dipke and extended his best wishes to the campaign. “The youth needed an alternative platform to express their anger,” he added. “We will wait and see how big of a revolution this spark can ignite.”

Singh contended that the “economic crisis” caused by the US-Israel war on Iran, which in his view had been made worse by the Modi government’s foreign policy, was to blame for the Cockroach Janta Party’s online popularity. Inflation, driven by the rising cost of fuel, was pinching people’s pockets, he argued.

“Narendra Modi has brought this inflation upon us,” Singh alleged, claiming that the Modi government had reduced oil imports from Iran and Russia under US pressure. “The Cockroach Janta Party reflects people’s anger against his policies. The Opposition should stay out of this. If we try to stand behind them [Cockroach Janta Party], it will put their credibility at risk.”

Samajwadi Party leaders in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh made a similar point.

“There is resentment among the youth for a lot of reasons,” said Udaiveer Singh, a spokesperson from the party. “When an issue is taken up outside a party forum, it gets a lot more support. If any political party raises the same issue, it is asked what it did when it was in power. The discussion becomes ideological and divisive.”

Besides tackling questions about their past record at governance, Opposition parties are also expected to put forth policy ideas and plans when they criticise the government, he pointed out. A social media campaign, on the other hand, is not encumbered by such expectations.

This is perhaps why, on May 20, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav pitted the Cockroach Janta Party directly against the ruling party at the Centre. “BJP versus CJP,” he wrote on X.

Derek O’Brien, who represents the Trinamool Congress in the Rajya Sabha, echoed what Yadav had written. In his view, the Cockroach Janta Party had the potential to go beyond social media and bring all non-BJP parties on one page.

“In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP got only 37% of the vote,” O’Brien told Scroll. “They are 32 seats short of a majority. Any platform which takes the BJP on is welcome. Many like-minded parties will be on board.”

In a social media post, the MP even wrote that former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the party’s National General Secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, had “expressed their fondness and full support for cockroaches”.

‘A fad’

The Congress party, though, is not pleased with the cockroach trend. The Indian Youth Congress, which is the party’s youth wing, has created its own website mirroring that of the Cockroach Janta Party. It has also made a new X account by the name of Indian Youth Cockroaches. “Real cockroaches fight on the streets, not just on timelines,” reads its bio.

Well done IYC Cockroaches 🪳

क्रांति सिर्फ सोशल मीडिया से नही, भारत की सड़कों पर उतरकर ही आएगी। pic.twitter.com/2GDzCYcpbM

— Indian Youth Cockroaches (@iyccockroaches) May 22, 2026

While top Congress leaders continue to lend their support to causes that concern the youth, they have so far avoided supporting the Cockroach Janta Party.

“I don’t take this seriously,” said Sandeep Dikshit, a former MP from the party who was twice elected to the Lok Sabha. “People clicking on something and thinking they are political – it’s nonsense. I think it’s a fad like the Aam Aadmi Party.”

Dikshit is supposed to engage with the civil society to “link Congress with what is happening on the field” as the chairperson of the Rachnatmak Congress, the revamped avatar of the party’s outreach cell. Rachnatmak means constructive or creative in Hindi.

The manner in which the Cockroach Janta Party had presented itself was also creative, but it was mostly benefiting from the curiosity of social media users, Dikshit assessed.

“You go and follow an Instagram account because others are following it,” he elaborated. “The number of people following it is what is attracting you. In the olden days, more people used to go and watch a film when it completed its golden jubilee. It’s like that.”

In stark contrast with his party’s allies, who have welcomed the Cockroach Janta Party as an avenue for the youth to express their frustration, Dikshit framed it as a threat.

“If people use this platform to vent, then they will stick to the same options,” he surmised. “Once a hungry person has satiated his hunger at a new restaurant, they will go back home.”

And “home”, Dikshit contended, was the BJP.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday verbally observed that the WhatsApp chats of Athar Khan, one of those accused of involvement in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case, prima facie prove a conspiracy, Live Law reported.

The comments were made by a division bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Madhu Jain, which reserved its judgement in the bail application filed by Khan.

The verbal observation came while Khan’s counsel placed on record messages from a WhatsApp group.

“These messages actually prove the conspiracy, that they were together...” Bar and Bench quoted the court as having verbally remarked. “Sometimes when people conspire things go out of hand, and that is what has happened. We all were witness to these riots. These messages prove you were an active participant. This is shocking. If you agree to conspiracy, then what relief?”

Khan has sought bail on grounds of parity with Shadab Ahmad, another person accused in the matter who was granted bail by the Supreme Court.

The counsel for Khan contended that the WhatsApp chats show that the plan was to conduct non-violent protests. He also stated that no weapons were recovered from Khan.

Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the Delhi Police, argued that the role allegedly played by Khan was different to that of Ahmad, Live Law reported.

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

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.

Several persons are facing charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Arms Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government on Tuesday set up a high-level committee on demographic changes taking place because of alleged “illegal immigration and other abnormal reasons”.

The panel, which will report to the Union home ministry, will study the nature, causes and consequences of demographic changes “occurring across the country”. It will also recommend policy, administrative and legal measures.

This committee will submit its report within one year, the government said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in a social media post that “unnatural demographic change” caused by “infiltration and other reasons” constitutes a big challenge for any country.

“Demographic change is a serious problem linked not only to our sovereignty but also to national security, law and order, major changes in social structure, and the protection of tribal societies,” Shah said.

The panel will analyse the “patterns of abnormal population changes at the level of religious and social communities” and will present solutions to address the problem, he added.

The committee will be chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar.

It will include the census commissioner, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, former Bureau of Police Research and Development chief Balaji Srivastava and Shamika Ravi, who is a member of the prime minister’s Economic Advisory Council. The joint secretary (foreigners-I) of the Union home ministry will be the member secretary of the panel.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a “High-powered Demography Mission” on August 15.

The committee’s mandate

The panel has been asked to examine the challenges arising from demographic changes, including undocumented migration, “abnormal settlement patterns” and “orchestrated migration”, the Union home ministry said.

The committee will analyse “structural population changes at the level of religious or social communities, particularly where they deviate from broader trends”.

It has been tasked with recommending a “streamlined and permanent” operational mechanism for the “legal, fair and time-bound identification, detention and deportation of illegal immigrants already residing” in India.

The panel will also recommend mechanisms to strengthen the management of borders, stabilisation of the population and systems to monitor the trends.

The terms of reference of the committee include proposing a policy framework “to enhance coordination between the central and state governments on matters related to illegal immigration and the resulting demographic imbalances”.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Union government set up a high-level committee on demographic change to study changes in population patterns allegedly “arising from illegal immigration and other abnormal reasons”. Union Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that “unnatural demographic change” caused by alleged “infiltration” and other reasons constitutes a big challenge for the country.

The committee will be headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar. The other members will be the Census commissioner, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, former Bureau of Police Research and Development chief Balaji Srivastava and economist Shamika Ravi.

The panel will analyse the “patterns of abnormal population changes at the level of religious and social communities” and will present solutions to address the problem, Shah said. Read on.

India and the United States announced a framework to cooperate in ensuring a steady supply of critical minerals amid concerns about China’s export controls on rare earth elements. The framework was signed on Tuesday by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Delhi.

It aims to deepen bilateral cooperation in supply chains of critical minerals and rare earths, including mining, processing, recycling and related investments. The minerals are essential for manufacturing advanced technology products and defence equipment.

On Tuesday, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue also announced initiatives to improve collaboration on critical minerals and emerging technology, and strengthen maritime security. The Quad grouping comprises India, the US, Japan and Australia. Read on.

The Manipur Police arrested four persons suspected of being involved in the abduction of six Naga men in the Kangpokpi district on May 13. They are suspected of being “active cadres of armed village volunteer groups” in Kangpokpi, the police said.

On May 13, more than 38 persons from the Kuki and Naga communities had been taken hostage by armed groups in Kangpokpi and Senapati districts. All but six have been released. Read on.

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh walked out of jail once again after getting a 30-day parole. This is the 16th time that Singh has been released from prison since he was convicted in a rape case in August 2017.

During his parole, he will stay at the headquarters of his organisation in Sirsa district. This is the fifth time since his conviction that Singh has been allowed to visit the place. Singh was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in 2017 for raping two of his women disciples at the Dera’s Sirsa headquarters.

In 2021, he and four others were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder case of a former manager of his sect. However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted him in the murder case in May 2024. Read on.

The Congress asked the Centre why fuel prices have increased when global crude oil is cheaper than what it was when the Narendra Modi government came to power 12 years ago.

Citing data from the Press Information Bureau, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge said on social media that the price of crude oil on May 26, 2014, the day Modi became the prime minister, was $108 per barrel. The price of petrol at the time was Rs 71.5 per litre and diesel Rs 56.7 per litre, he said.

“Today, the price of crude oil is less than $99 per barrel, but the prices of petrol and diesel have risen to Rs 102.12 and Rs 95.20 per litre, respectively,” Kharge added.

“Every economist knows that inflation in petrol and diesel affects every sector,” he said. “From transportation to food items, the burden of inflation on the common man increases. Despite this, the government’s profiteering continues.” Read on.

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Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday asked the Centre why fuel prices have increased when global crude oil is cheaper than what it was when the Narendra Modi government came to power 12 years ago.

Citing data from the Press Information Bureau, Kharge said on social media that the price of crude oil on May 26, 2014, the day Modi became the prime minister, was $108 per barrel. The price of petrol at the time was Rs 71.5 per litre and diesel Rs 56.7 per litre, the Congress chief said.

“Today, the price of crude oil is less than $99 per barrel, but the prices of petrol and diesel have risen to Rs 102.12 and Rs 95.20 per litre, respectively,” he added.

Kharge said that in other words, while crude oil had become cheaper as compared to 2014, the price of petrol had increased by about 42.8% and diesel about 67.9%.

The Congress chief also said that on May 26, 2014, the value of the Indian rupee was 58.5 against the United States dollar.

On Tuesday, the Indian currency traded at 95.6 against the dollar.

“Every economist knows that the inflation in petrol and diesel affects every sector,” he said. “From transportation to food items, the burden of inflation on the common man increases. Despite this, the government’s profiteering continues.”

He added: “The question is straightforward: when crude oil has become cheaper, why have petrol and diesel become more expensive?”

The Congress chief asked why there had been no relief for the public.

“हाथ कंगन को आरसी क्या,
पढ़े-लिखे को फ़ारसी क्या!”

PIB के अधिकृत बयान के अनुसार, आज से ठीक बारह साल पहले 26 मई 2014 को जब प्रधानमंत्री नरेन्द्र मोदी ने सत्ता संभाली थी, उस दिन भारतीय basket का कच्चा तेल $108.05 प्रति बैरल था और डॉलर-रुपया exchange rate 58.59 रुपए थी। उस समय… pic.twitter.com/HzqJZhY0wW

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) May 26, 2026

Kharge’s comments came amid a series of fuel price revisions.

On Monday, the prices of petrol and diesel were raised by an average Rs 2.8 per litre nationwide. This was the fourth increase in the prices of the retail fuel within two weeks.

In Delhi, petrol costs Rs 102.1 per litre and diesel 95.2 per litre. The price of petrol in Mumbai is Rs 111.2 per litre and diesel Rs 97.8 per litre. While Kolkata recorded the highest petrol price among the four metros at Rs 113.5 per litre, the rates in Chennai stood at Rs 107.7 per litre for petrol and Rs 99.5 per litre for diesel.

The prices of petrol and diesel have risen by nearly Rs 7.5 per litre since May 15 when the first round of revision took place.

On Tuesday, the price of Compressed Natural Gas was increased by Rs 2 in Delhi to reach Rs 83.09 per kg. This was the fourth time that CNG rates have been hiked in two weeks. It has gotten costlier by Rs 5 per kg since May 15.

The price hikes have come amid elevated global energy prices after supplies were disrupted because of the war in West Asia.

On Tuesday, the price of benchmark Brent crude was nearly $100 per barrel. It was $78 a barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started. The price had reached as high as $114 per barrel on May 4.

India imports 88% of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas requirement. This mostly comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked due to the conflict.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read: Excesses in the time of austerity

India and the United States on Tuesday announced a framework to cooperate in ensuring a steady supply of critical minerals amid concerns about China's export controls on rare earth elements.

The framework, signed by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Delhi, aims to deepen bilateral cooperation in supply chains of critical minerals and rare earths, including mining, processing, recycling and related investments.

The agreement seeks to strengthen “resilient and diversified supply chains, while promoting collaboration in financing and effective management of critical minerals and rare earths scrap”, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

Jaishankar said that the agreement was “something very timely and critical”.

“...it’s one more sign of how close our [bilateral] cooperation is and how important it is today in a world where there are so many challenges but also so many opportunities,” the external affairs minister added.

Rubio said that the strategic partnership between India and the US is important for their national interests.

“We are two countries that have strategic interests in ensuring reliable long-term access to critical minerals and supply chains that are important for our innovation economy...and today’s [signing is] tangible evidence of why we are strategic allies,” Rubio said.

Since 2023, China has been increasing export controls on some critical minerals and rare earth elements. In April 2025, China imposed export controls on more specific heavy rare earth elements and expanded the list in October 2025.

The minerals are essential for manufacturing advanced technology products and defence equipment.

New Delhi said on Tuesday that India and the US had in a statement in February 2025 recognised the strategic importance of critical minerals for emerging technologies and advanced manufacturing. They had also recognised “secure and resilient” supply chains for critical minerals as a shared strategic priority of both countries, the external affairs ministry said on Tuesday.

In February 2026, India became a signatory to the US-led Pax Silica initiative to coordinate supply chains for semiconductors, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.

The signing ceremony on Tuesday was held on the sidelines of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue that comprises India, the US, Japan and Australia.

The Quad on Tuesday also announced initiatives to improve collaboration on critical minerals and emerging technology, and strengthen maritime security.

The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework is meant to help the four countries coordinate investments to strengthen the supply chains of critical minerals.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Four persons were arrested on Monday for their suspected involvement in the abduction of six Naga men in the Kangpokpi district on May 13, the Manipur Police said.

The men were apprehended from an area between P Molding and Leilon Veiphei in the district. They are 51-year-old Thangkhomang Khongsai, 40-year-old Seikholet Khongsai, 27-year-old Lunminthang Dimngel and 30-year-old Kamgoulal Khongsai.

The men are suspected to be “active cadres of armed village volunteer groups” in Kangpokpi and are “suspected to have been involved in anti-social activities” such as extortion, criminal intimidation and possession of arms and ammunition, the police stated.

The term “village volunteers” has been used for armed civilians guarding villages since ethnic clashes broke out in the state in May 2023.

The four men were apprehended in a joint operation conducted by the state police, the Central Reserve Police Force and the Assam Rifles.

On May 13, more than 38 persons from the Kuki and Naga communities had been taken hostage by armed groups in Kangpokpi and Senapati districts, according to state Home Minister Govindas Konthoujam. However, an unidentified police officer had told The Indian Express at the time that the total number of persons being held hostage was unclear.

The abductions had taken place after three church leaders were killed and five persons injured when the vehicles they were travelling in were ambushed while they were returning from a meeting in Churachandpur to Kangpokpi. Another civilian was also killed and his wife wounded in Noney district.

The police have said that 31 of the persons, including Nagas and Kukis, who were abducted had been released. The six Nagas are missing.

On Saturday, Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh said that the inquiry into the abductions and the killing of the church leaders would be handed over to the National Investigation Agency.

The developments came amid tensions between Kukis and Nagas in Ukhrul that had erupted in February after an alleged assault involving members of the Tangkhul Naga and the Kuki-Zo communities escalated into clashes.

Since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023, at least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted interim bail to jailed Lok Sabha MP Abdul Rashid Sheikh to attend the rituals and the ceremony to mark 40 days after the death of his father in Jammu and Kashmir, Live Law reported.

Sheikh, who is popularly known as Engineer Rashid, was arrested since August 2019 in connection with a terror-funding case filed by the National Investigation Agency. He has been held under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

He is currently on interim bail till June 3 to attend his father’s last rites.

A High Court bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Madhu Jain said on Tuesday that Sheikh will have to surrender after expiry of the present interim bail period, the legal news portal reported.

He will then be released again from June 25 till June 30 so that he can attend the rituals and 40th-day ceremony of his deceased father, the bench added.

It also said that Sheikh does not need to furnish a personal bond and surety again if it has already made to the satisfaction of the jail superintendent, adding that conditions for the interim bail will remain the same as the previous order.

“In reasonable cases like this, you should let it be,” Live Law quoted the court as telling the counsel for the National Investigation Agency during the hearing. “Look at how much judicial time [is] consumed.”

In July 2024, Sheikh was granted custody parole for two hours to take the oath in Parliament. He had contested and won the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Baramulla while in jail, defeating National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.

He was also released from Delhi’s Tihar jail in October to allow him to campaign for the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue on Tuesday announced initiatives to strengthen maritime security, and improve collaboration on critical minerals and emerging technology.

The Quad grouping, comprising India, the United States, Japan and Australia, launched an initiative to collaborate on maritime surveillance in the Indo-Pacific.

The programme aims to enhance the sharing of information and maritime domain awareness capacities. The initial focus of the initiative will be in the Indian Ocean, including through tabletop exercises, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

The announcement was made after the meeting of foreign ministers of the Quad member nations in Delhi on Tuesday.

The four countries also announced the creation of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework. The programme is meant to help member nations coordinate investments to strengthen the supply chains of critical minerals.

The countries also announced the Quad Initiative on Indo-Pacific Energy Security.

“Each country will leverage unique resources and capabilities from their respective energy sectors,” New Delhi said, adding that the programme is meant to strengthen regional energy resilience through cooperation on technology, policy and emergency response exercises.

The initiative to cooperate on energy security comes amid the war in West Asia having disrupted global fuel supplies. The disruption has led to a spike in the prices of fuel and gas.

The benchmark Brent crude traded at $114 per barrel on May 4 – the highest point since the war began – before falling to about $100 a barrel by Tuesday. The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

India imports 88% of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas requirement. This mostly comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked due to the conflict in West Asia.

The grouping will help develop port infrastructure in Fiji. This is part of the Quad’s efforts to identify “critical port projects that it can support to increase trade and economic prosperity by increasing port infrastructure and capacity for key Indo-Pacific corridors”.

The Quad partners said that they will conduct a counterterrorism tabletop exercise focused on state-sponsored terrorism threats and uncrewed aerial vehicles in June.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Quad in limbo with US-India ties in churn

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to grant interim relief to the Delhi Gymkhana Club against an order issued by the Union government directing it to hand over its 27.3-acre premises by June 5, Live Law reported.

However, Justice Avneesh Jhingan issued summons on the suits filed by the members and employees of the club against the order, Bar and Bench reported.

This came after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the judge that the club had been asked to peacefully hand over the premises and that the eviction would take place only after due notice.

The Delhi Gymkhana Club is one of the national capital’s oldest and most exclusive social and sporting clubs, frequented by diplomats, bureaucrats and military officers, among others. It is located next to the prime minister’s official residence and other high-security installations.

On Friday, the Land and Development Office directed the club to vacate and hand over its premises to the Union government, saying that it was required for “strengthening and securing of defence infrastructure”, governance facilities and other “vital public security purposes”.

The land had originally been leased for maintaining a social and sporting club, it said.

The department, which functions under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, invoked clause 4 of the lease deed, which allows the lessor to take back the premises if the land is required for a public purpose.

The Union government stated that when such action is taken, the entire plot, along with all buildings, structures, lawns and fittings, would vest in the President of India.

In the court, two petitions were filed against the Union government’s order. While one was filed by Vijay Khurana, a member of the club, the other was filed by the Staff Welfare Association of the Delhi Gymkhana Club, Bar and Bench reported.

Khurana sought a declaration and a permanent injunction restraining the Union government from “illegally determining the perpetual leasehold rights” of the club. He also sought to restrain the Union government from “forcibly dispossessing” the club and its members from the “historic 27.3-acre premises” in central Delhi.

On Tuesday, the last elected body of the club, represented by advocate Kapil Sibal, told the judge that they have also filed a petition against the Union government order, Bar and Bench reported.

During the hearing, advocate AM Singhvi, representing Khurana, said that the Union government had passed the final order against the club without issuing any show cause notice, Live Law reported.

The advocate stated that no natural justice was followed and that there was no mention of compensation either.

However, the solicitor general said that clause 4 of the deed provided for a system under which the Union government could determine the lease, Bar and Bench reported.

Mehta added that there is no question of forceful eviction and that the Union government has directed a “peaceful hand over of possession”, Live Law reported.

The solicitor general noted that an option has been given to the club to vacate on its own. “It’s not that police will rush in and forcible possession will take over,” he said. “It will be as per law. We will have to give notice, etc.”

In response, Sibal argued that all the clauses in the deed had to be tested on the touchstone of the Constitution.

HC allows eviction proceedings against Delhi Race Club

On Tuesday, the court also allowed the Union government to resume eviction proceedings against the Delhi Race Club in connection with its continued occupation of government land in the central area of the national capital, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia permitted an appeal filed by the Union government against an interim order that had stopped eviction proceedings against the Delhi Race Club under the Public Premises Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants Act.

A single judge of the court had earlier granted interim protection against the proceedings.

The dispute pertained to about 53 acres of government land on Race Course Road, now called Lok Kalyan Marg, occupied by the Delhi Race Club.

The Union government has claimed that the club’s lease expired on December 31, 1994. This was not renewed, it has said.

On April 24, the single judge had stopped the Estate Officer from proceeding on a show cause notice issued to the club on April 17. This notice had asked the club to explain why eviction proceedings should not be initiated against it.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Four All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLAs have resigned from the Tamil Nadu Assembly over two days, with three of them joining the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, The Hindu reported.

Three of them, Maragatham Kumaravel, the MLA from Madurantakam, Sathyabama P from Dharapuram and Jayakumar S from Perundurai, resigned from the Assembly on Monday. The Speaker later announced that the resignations had been accepted.

Later in the day, the three leaders met Public Works Department Minister Aadhav Arjuna at the Secretariat and joined Chief Minister Vijay’s TVK.

On Tuesday, a fourth MLA, Esakki Subaya from the Ambasamudram constituency, met the Speaker and resigned, The Hindu reported.

The resignations have triggered a political row with respect to the speaker’s decision to accept them while disqualification proceedings against the MLAs are pending.

The resignations have reduced the AIADMK’s strength in the Assembly to 43.

Subaya said he had taken the decision “keeping in mind the welfare of the people” of his constituency and would issue a detailed explanation later, The New Indian Express reported.

The other three MLAs also said their resignations were taken in the interest of their constituencies and were not motivated by any “selfish agenda”.

The resignations came amid an internal split within the AIADMK.

All four MLAs are part of the faction led by former ministers CV Shanmugam and SP Velumani. The other faction is led by the party’s general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami.

On Monday, Palaniswami criticised the defections, accusing the ruling TVK of engaging in “horse trading” and “underhand dealings”, The Hindu reported.

Without naming the chief minister, Palaniswami accused a “cinema celebrity” who had promised purity in politics of introducing “vulgar politics” in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, AIADMK leaders submitted a representation from Palaniswami to the Speaker objecting to the acceptance of the resignations, The New Indian Express reported

The faction argued that petitions seeking the disqualification of 25 MLAs for allegedly defying the party whip during the confidence vote on May 13 were still pending, and that the Speaker acted in haste by accepting their resignations.

In the Assembly elections, the AIADMK won 47 of the 167 seats it contested, while the TVK emerged as the single-largest party in its electoral debut with 108 seats in the 234-member House, falling short of the majority mark of 118.

On May 13, the Vijay-led government won a confidence motion in the Assembly with support from 144 MLAs, including 105 from the TVK, five from the Congress, Two each from the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and the Indian Union Muslim League, along with 25 rebel AIADMK MLAs led by Velumani and one Independent MLA.

Congress leader quits citing party principles 

Meanwhile, Congress youth wing national secretary V Srinidhi resigned from the party’s primary membership after the TVK inducted the three former AIADMK MLAs, The Hindu reported on Tuesday.

In her resignation letter, Srinidhi said the move by the Congress’ post-poll ally had raised concerns about the party’s political principles and consistency, especially as the Congress had maintained it would not align with “divisive forces”.

“This is not just a resignation from a post; it is a response born out of conscience that can no longer accept the breakdown of trust between leadership,” she said.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Monday announced financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of three persons who died in February 2003 during protests seeking to declare the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula mosque complex in Dhar district as a temple, The Hindu reported.

The 11th-century building, protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, is claimed by both Hindus and Muslims. While the Hindus believe that the Bhojshala is a temple dedicated to the deity Vagdevi, or Saraswati, the building is a mosque for the Muslim community.

In February 2003, several Hindutva groups, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, launched a protest demanding complete access to the site after claiming that it was a temple built by King Bhoja, an 11th-century ruler of the Parmar dynasty, The Hindu reported.

Three men – Van Singh Araadi, Lakshman Singh and Anwar Singh – were killed in clashes with security forces at the time.

Subsequently, under an arrangement made by the Archaeological Survey of India on April 7, 2003, Hindus performed prayers on the premises on Tuesdays and Muslims offered namaz in the complex on Fridays.

However, on May 15, the Madhya Pradesh High Court held that the disputed complex is a temple of the Hindu deity Saraswati and quashed the 2003 Archaeological Survey of India order.

During an event in Dhar on Monday, the chief minister described the May 15 verdict as the “result of a 750-year-long struggle”, The Hindu reported.

“Dhar is now stepping into a new era,” the newspaper quoted Yadav as saying. “I congratulate the residents of Dhar on this judgement by the High Court. Underlying this verdict is your 750-year-old struggle.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader added that the court had “clearly distinguished right from wrong”.

The case

In May 2022, the Hindu Front for Justice filed a public interest litigation in the High Court against the Archaeological Survey of India’s 2003 arrangement.

The group had argued that the Kamal Maula mosque was constructed during the reign of Alauddin Khilji between the 13th and 14th centuries by “destroying and dismantling ancient structures of previously constructed Hindu temples”.

On March 11, 2024, the High Court directed the Archaeological Survey of India to carry out a survey of the site. The Archaeological Survey of India found in July 2024 that the mosque was constructed using parts from earlier temples at the site.

Holding that the disputed complex is a temple of the deity Saraswati in its verdict on May 15, the High Court allowed the Muslim side to seek alternative land within Dhar district to build a mosque.

The bench said that it arrived at its decision on the basis of the precedent laid down by the Supreme Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case from Ayodhya.

In November 2019, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 was illegal, but handed over the land to a trust for a Ram temple to be constructed. At the same time, it directed that a five-acre plot in Ayodhya be allotted to Muslims for a mosque to be constructed.

More than four years later, the Ram temple was inaugurated in Ayodhya in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22, 2024.

The High Court remarked that every government has a “constitutional obligation to ensure preservation and protection of not only ancient monuments and their structures, including temples of historical and archaeological importance, but also of sanctum sanctorum as well as the deities of spiritual importance.”

Edited by Sneha.

A Delhi court on Monday convicted Congress leader Alka Lamba for assaulting a police officer during a protest at Jantar Mantar in 2024, reported Bar and Bench.

Lamba and several others had staged the demonstration ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to demand the implementation of women’s reservation in Parliament.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Ashwani Panwar of the Rouse Avenue Court held Lamba guilty of assaulting or using criminal force to deter a public servant, obstructing public servants, and disobeying lawful orders and causing danger or obstruction.

“From the documentary evidence and deposition of the witnesses as well as the other material on record, this court has no hitch in saying that the accused is liable to be convicted of all the four offences she is charged with,” the judge said.

The prosecution had said that when the demonstration was held, prohibitory orders were in place under Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Section 163 and permission to march towards Parliament had been denied to protesters.

Despite this, they attempted to breach barricades and shouted slogans calling others to “gherao” or surround Parliament, the prosecution alleged.

It also alleged that Lamba and other protesters pushed police officials and blocked a public road by sitting on it, Live Law reported.

A first information report was registered at Parliament Street police station following the incident, Bar and Bench reported.

Lamba’s counsel argued that the protest was peaceful and took place in a designated area. She also told the court that there was no medical evidence that police officers had been injured. The video footage did not show her assaulting police officers, said her counsel.

However, the court stated that she was seen among the protesters who had crossed barricades, Live Law reported.

In the order, the judge noted that Lamba “played a pivotal role in leading the protesters and continued with her gestures in guiding every move of the protesters”.

While the right to protest is protected under the Constitution, it is subject to reasonable restrictions, and for every right there is a corresponding duty, he added.

“The accused miserably failed to fulfil the corresponding duty and paid no heed to the warning given to her by the police officials declaring her protest as unlawful,” the judge said.

Arguments to decide the sentence will be heard on June 5, The Hindu reported.

Edited by Sneha.

When George W Bush bit into an Alphonso mango during his 2006 visit to New Delhi when he was US president, he reportedly turned to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and said, “This is a hell of a fruit.”

The following year, the US lifted its long-standing ban on Indian mango imports, permitting entry of mangoes treated with irradiation. It was the start of the prized fruit’s foray into the US market.

Nearly two decades later, there are signs that the market is finally picking up – Indian mangoes are available at retail outlets such Costco for the first time. Earlier this month, a headline in The Wall Street Journal declared. “Americans Will Do Anything to Get Indian Mangoes.”

Behind the surge in the demand for the fruit seems to be a switch from promoting the Alphonso variety to the kesar.

Americans are going to extraordinary lengths to get their hands on Indian mangoes. “I literally stop whatever I'm doing.” https://t.co/Xc53LYQtMV

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 23, 2026

India produces roughly 40 % of the world’s mangoes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The fruit’s primary export destinations have been the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Kuwait and Qatar.

The US receives around 4,000 tonnes of Indian mangoes a year, according to Kaushal Khakhar, the CEO of Mumbai-based Kay Bee Exports, the largest exporter of Indian mangoes in the US.

“We handle between a quarter and a third of Indian mangoes that arrive in the US,” he said.

Khakhar is aware of the headlines the fruit has been generating in this summer season. “The market is real and it is growing but we are very pragmatic that the growth has been par for the course,” he said.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, exports to the US came to a halt for two years. Since they resumed in 2023, exports have grown from an estimated 2,500 tonnes to around 4,000 tonnes today, Khakhar said.

The news coverage about the demand for Indian mangoes is driven in part by the Indian consulate in Seattle announcing on social media this month that Indian mangoes were available at Costco with a box of four mangoes selling for $19.99.

Kesar mangoes from India arrive in Greater Seattle region from 15th May !

As a follow up to the Consulate's Indian mango promotion event organized on 10 July 2025, Kesar variety of Indian mangoes will be available, at select Costco locations in Greater Seattle.

More details as… pic.twitter.com/Vri3DbLz0M

— India In Seattle (@IndiainSeattle) May 12, 2026

An official at the consulate told Scroll that there had been a year-long push to expand the market for Indian mangoes in the US. Last year, the consulate hosted a mango promotion event in Seattle that brought together Indian exporters and American retail representatives.

Part of the push involved promoting different varieties of Indian mangoes in the US. Kesar mangoes from Gujarat now account for more than 50% of Indian mango exports to the US, said Khakhar.

The Alphonso, harvested in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri coast, is more prone to spoilage in transit.

Every mango exported to the US must be irradiated at one of four certified facilities in India, cleared by a US Department of Agriculture officer stationed there, and flown on passenger jets, all roughly within a week.

“Of all the Indian varieties, the Alphonso has the thinnest skin,” said Khakhar. “That means it respires faster, warms up faster, and that warmth causes spoilage.”

The switch to kesar appears to be working for now even though Indian mangoes are priced four times higher than mangoes from Mexico.

In addition, new direct flight connections to smaller cities in the US are helping reach diaspora communities that previously did not receive Indian mangoes. Kay Bee currently ships to around 15 to 20 American cities – New Jersey, San Francisco and Dallas the largest, with Minneapolis and Denver among the more recent additions.

“Our aspiration is to take the flavour of Indian mangoes to a wider community,” Khakhar said.

The Embassy of India hosted a vibrant Mango Tasting Fest at Dupont Circle Park! 🥭🇮🇳

Visitors got a taste of fresh, flavorful Indian mangoes and a slice of Indian summer right in the heart of DC.#MangoFestDC #EmbassyOfIndia #IndianMangoes #DupontCircle pic.twitter.com/vIXnC00joa

— India in USA (@IndianEmbassyUS) July 12, 2025

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh walked out of jail once again on Tuesday after getting a 30-day parole, reported The Indian Express. This is the 16th time that Singh has been released from prison since he was convicted in a rape case in August 2017.

During his parole, he will stay at the headquarters of his organisation in Sirsa district. Singh will not be permitted to gather his followers at his dera, but has been allowed to address them virtually.

This is the fifth time since his conviction that Singh has been allowed to visit the place. At other times when he has been released on parole or furlough, he stayed at his organisation’s ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat.

Singh was last released from prison on January 5 on a 40-day parole. Before that, he was granted a 40-day parole on August 5 to celebrate his birthday on August 15.

He was also released on furlough in April 2025 for 21 days and was granted a 30-day parole in January 2025, ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections.

While a furlough can be given without any specific reason after a prisoner has served a stipulated period of time in prison, parole is based on an urgent demand or need.

Singh was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in 2017 for raping two of his women disciples at the Dera’s Sirsa headquarters.

In 2021, he and four others were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder case of a former manager of his sect. However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted him in the murder case in May 2024.

In February 2024, the High Court told the Haryana government that Singh could not be granted parole without its permission. This came a month after Singh was released for 50 days, which was his seventh parole in 24 months and ninth in four years.

In August 2024, the High Court said that the application for temporary release filed by Singh will be decided by competent authorities as per the provisions of the 2022 Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners Temporary Release Act without “favouritism or arbitrariness”.

The bench left the decision on Singh’s application for furlough to the Haryana Prisons Department.

With the latest parole, the dera chief has exhausted his 10-week parole entitlement for this calendar year under the 2022 Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners Temporary Release Act, Hindustan Times reported.

The law allows prisoners a total of 10 weeks of parole in a calendar year, which can be taken in two parts, along with up to three weeks of furlough that must be availed in a single stretch.

Edited by Sneha.

The price of Compressed Natural Gas was increased by Rs 2 in Delhi to reach Rs 83.09 per kg on Tuesday, reported The Indian Express. This is the fourth time that CNG rates have been hiked in two weeks.

Cumulatively, CNG has gotten costlier by Rs 5 per kg since May 15. The prices were increased by Rs 2 per kg on May 15, followed by a Re 1 per kg on May 17 and May 23.

After the revision on May 23, the rates in Noida and Ghaziabad were Rs 89.7 per kg, while CNG in Gurugram cost Rs 86.12 per kg.

The latest increase follows broader fuel price revisions announced on Monday, when petrol and diesel prices were raised by an average of Rs 2.8 per litre nationwide. This marked the fourth hike in the prices of the retails fueld within two weeks.

In Delhi, petrol now costs Rs 102.12 per litre, while diesel is priced at 95.20 per litre. The price of petrol in Mumbai has reached Rs 111.21 per litre and diesel went up to Rs 97.83 per litre.

Kolkata recorded the highest petrol price among the four metros at Rs 113.51 per litre, while rates in Chennai stood at Rs 107.77 per litre for petrol and Rs 99.55 per litre for diesel.

Since the revision of rates resumed on May 15 after a four-year freeze, the prices of petrol and diesel have risen by nearly Rs 7.5 per litre.

The increase comes despite some easing in global oil prices this week, following weeks of elevated crude prices linked to the conflict in West Asia.

Brent crude, which had risen as high as $106 a barrel on Friday and traded around $103 later in the session, fell to $97.7 a barrel early on Tuesday on hopes of a possible agreement between the United States and Iran.

The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

India imports 88% of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas requirement. This mostly comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked due to the conflict in West Asia.

Edited by Sneha.

Bangladesh took note in April last year when India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack.

By setting aside a landmark six-decade-old water-sharing agreement that had survived wars and repeated crises, New Delhi sent a clear message across South Asia: treaties are not eternal.

Last week, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government approved the Padma Barrage, a $2.8 billion project in Rajbari district.

The proposed 2.1-km dam on the Padma river – as the Ganga is known when it crosses the border – aims to store nearly 2,900 million cubic metres of monsoon water for redistribution during the dry season across Bangladesh’s salinity-hit southwest region.

Officials say it could irrigate 2.88 million hectares of land, revive dying rivers and add around 0.45% to the country’s gross domestic product.

The decision comes as the 1996 Ganga Water Sharing Treaty approaches expiry in December 2026. Hailed at the time as a “new dawn” after decades of bitter disputes, the treaty was signed on December 12, 1996, by Indian Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The treaty established a 30-year framework for dividing the river’s dry-season flows at the Farakka Barrage, allocating water between the two countries across fifteen 10-day cycles each year from January to May.

But with India suspending the Indus treaty with Pakistan, it is evident that Dhaka is building water self-reliance. The Padma Barrage project is an engineering and a geopolitical statement – a sign that Bangladesh is increasingly unwilling to rely solely on upstream goodwill.

It also forces New Delhi to confront the failures of its “Neighbourhood First” policy.

Two countries, one river

The roots of the crisis stretch back to 1975, when India commissioned the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal, just 18 km from the Bangladesh border.

Intended to divert Ganga water into the Hooghly river to maintain the navigability of Kolkata Port, the project had severe consequences downstream in Bangladesh.

Before the Farakka Barrage, dry-season flows in the Padma-Ganga system averaged around 70,000 cusecs. After 1975, they frequently fell to between 10,000 cusecs and 20,000 cusecs.

As a result, the Gorai River, once the lifeline of southwest Bangladesh, now runs virtually dry between February and May.

Studies have documented the consequences: 79 rivers in Bangladesh dead or dying, groundwater levels in the Barind Tract falling by 10 metres to 15 metres, and rising salinity intrusion in the Sundarbans.

Between 1997 and 2016, Bangladesh received its stipulated treaty share during only 21 of 60 critical dry-season periods.

The 1996 treaty, based on hydrological data from 1949 to 1988, failed to account for climate change, growing upstream withdrawals, ecological requirements, or sediment dynamics.

In effect, it treated the Ganga as a divisible pipeline rather than a living river system.

Talks between India and Bangladesh about renewing the water-sharing agreement are already proving difficult. During his visit to New Delhi in April, Bangladesh’s foreign minister, described the treaty as a “life and death” issue, yet returned with little visible progress.

India’s proposals for a shorter 10- to 15-year renewal period are viewed in Dhaka as a way of keeping Bangladesh in a state of perpetual diplomatic dependence.

Infrastructure over diplomacy

Bangladesh’s logic behind the Padma Barrage is straightforward: capture excess monsoon flows and release them strategically during the dry months. Three offtake canals are planned to feed the Gorai, Chandana, and Hisna rivers.

Built entirely with domestic funding, unusual for a project of this scale, the barrage reflects declining confidence that diplomacy alone can guarantee Bangladesh’s water security.

After more than six decades of studies and delays since the project was first proposed in 1961, Bangladesh has chosen infrastructure over indefinite negotiation.

The political irony is difficult to miss. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party once criticised the Awami League’s mega-projects as debt-fuelled vanity schemes. Now, in power, it is championing the Padma Barrage as survival infrastructure.

Yet, the project also faces serious criticism in Bangladesh.

First, the barrage can only store the water that actually reaches it. If the treaty renewal with India falters and upstream flows decline further, Bangladesh could end up with an expensive valve at the end of an uncertain river.

Second, sediment management is a major challenge. The Padma carries enormous Himalayan sediment loads that have sustained the Bengal delta for centuries.

Trapping too much sediment behind the barrage could accelerate land sinking in the coastal southwest, where elevation has already fallen by 1 metre to 1.5 metres, mainly as a result of reduced sediment deposition from upstream river regulation and embankments blocking natural silt flow, compounded by subsidence and sea-level rise linked to climate change.

Third – and perhaps most important, diplomatically – is bargaining power. By investing heavily in a project whose effectiveness still depends on upstream flow, Bangladesh may unintentionally weaken its negotiating leverage with India.

India knows Dhaka has already staked a great deal on securing reliable water releases.

The barrage also symbolises deeper strains in the relationship between Dhaka and New Delhi.

The perception that India had supported Sheikh Hasina’s increasingly unpopular government in exchange for strategic alignment has generated lingering resentment among sections of Bangladeshi society.

At the same time, Dhaka is diversifying its partnerships, particularly with China, which remains a major infrastructure investor. Every failed dry season and every saline-damaged harvest in Khulna further erodes the grassroots credibility of India’s “Neighbourhood First” policy.

India’s domestic politics complicate matters further. West Bengal’s resistance to the Teesta water-sharing agreement – rooted in former CM Mamata Banerjee’s insistence that the river holds too little water to share without depriving North Bengal of irrigation and drinking supplies, and her fury at being excluded from negotiations altogether – demonstrates how state-level politics can constrain New Delhi’s diplomatic flexibility.

The change of state government, with the BJP winning West Bengal, may create room for compromise, but Bangladesh’s trust is neither unlimited nor guaranteed.

The Padma Barrage is the infrastructure response of a neighbour that believes it has waited too long for a durable solution to a slow-moving crisis.

If India and Bangladesh can negotiate a credible successor treaty to the 1996 Ganga Water Sharing Treaty, one incorporating real-time monitoring, binding minimum flow guarantees, climate adaptation, and ecological safeguards, the barrage could complement diplomacy.

However, if the treaty lapses or is renewed in weakened form, the project risks becoming a monument to strategic anxiety: a costly hedge for Bangladesh that will still not compensate for unreliable upstream flows.

Jannatul Naym Pieal is a Dhaka-based writer, researcher and journalist. He can be reached at jn.pieal@gmail.com.

In May 2025, Maini Oraeen fell sick while she was working in searing heat in her village of Murkuni, in Jharkhand’s Ranchi district. The 51-year-old was unwell for a week, and then died.

Oraeen had been allocated the work of building wells under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. “My mother used to do MGNREGA work every year,” said her only son, Vishwanath Oraon. “The work she did was a lifeline for us in the summer months, where there is not much else we can do.”

He added, “It was not her time to die yet.”

Oraon’s description of the work as a “lifeline” despite the fact that his mother fell fatally sick while engaged in it is a poignant reminder of just how much rural India relies on the programme.

This reliance has come into even sharper focus in the months since December 2025, when the union government passed the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) or the VB-G RAM G act. The new law replaces MGNREGA, which was enacted by the United Progressive Alliance government and has been operational since 2006.

The shift has activists, experts and workers worried – they fear that it will be accompanied by an overall reduction in the allocation of work to those who live in India’s villages. In Jharkhand, one of the most economically marginalised states in the country, they cite the fact that the first month of the current financial year saw a dramatic drop in work allocated under the original act.

In the state, the total number of persondays generated in April under MGNREGA this year fell by a staggering 92.8% compared to last year, from around 1.4 crore persondays to just over 10 lakh persondays.

The decline in April was reflected on the ground in Bishakhatanga panchayat, in which Murkini falls. The panchayat had a population of around 3,300 according to the 2011 census, but data shows that in this financial year, only 169 individuals and 156 households have been allocated work under MGNREGA so far.

Vishwanath has been looking for employment under the programme, but there is little to no work being allocated in the village. “There is some work going on, like mango plantation, but it is very less compared to previous years,” said Sneha Ekka, the mukhiya of the Bishakhatanga panchayat, under which Murkini falls. “The fact is very little funding has been made available for MGNREGA work this year. We are now awaiting VB-G RAM G.”

Like other states, the Jharkhand government has a provision to compensate MGNREGA workers in case of accidents and deaths. Vishwanath is thus entitled to compensation of Rs 2 lakh for his mother’s death. But, he has not received any money yet – and now that a transition is underway between the two programmes, he is unsure if he will receive any. “I found out about this provision quite late, so I only submitted the application in January,” he said. “Now with things transitioning for the RAM G scheme, let’s see if the money reaches me.

A troubled transition

The union government has claimed that the transition to the new act will be smooth.

On May 11, when the government notified the implementation of the act from July 1, the ministry of rural development noted in a press release that “In order to ensure seamless, smooth and worker-centric transition, employment under MGNREGA shall continue uninterrupted till the date of commencement of the new Act.”

It noted further, “Ongoing works under MGNREGA as on June 30th shall be saved and carried over in the new framework seamlessly by ensuring consistency with the provisions of Viksit Bharat G RAM G.”

But activists are unconvinced. A report prepared by LibTech India, a non-profit which studies rural social policies, compared data from financial years 2024 and 2025.

The report found that there had been a drop of 21.5% across the country in the total number of persondays generated under MNREGA between the two years, from 268.44 crore persondays to 210.73 crore persondays. It also found that there had been a 40.5% drop in households that completed 100 days of employment between the two years, and a potential wage loss of Rs 15,408.57 crore in the second year.

This widespread decline has left them alarmed despite the fact that in the previous financial year, some states saw a rise in the number of persondays of work generated – Jharkhand, for instance saw an increase of nearly 13%.

“The alarming figures on MGNREGA reflect an employment crisis for unskilled workers and demonstrate the state’s anti-labour stance,” said activist James Herenj, the Jharkhand convenor of MGNREGA Watch, a network that works on the act and its implementation.

In Murkini, Vishwanath’s neighbour echoed this finding. “Work under MGNREGA has just dried up,” said the neighbour, Dulle Oraon, who has been taking up MGNREGA work for the past decade or so.

This threatens to inflict a serious blow on locals’ livelihoods. “Our area doesn’t have irrigation facilities, so money really dries up in the summer months,” Dulle said. “When we had MGNREGA work, we had a lifeline in the summer before paddy season, and we earned between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 between January to May to spend on agriculture.”

Dulle noted that in fact, some villagers preferred to migrate in search of other work, because they felt the MGNREGA wages were too low – the average wage rate under the programme in Jharkhand is Rs 254 so far in 2026 this year. “Many people from our region migrate seasonally to earn money,” he said.

The current decline of work under the programme has exacerbated this trend. “With almost no MGNREGA work available in the past few months, even more people have had to find work outside,” said Dulle.

Activists have also criticised what they say is the heavy-handed way in which the old programme was replaced. “MGNREGA was the response to decades of workers’ movement demanding their right to work,” said Herenj. “It was implemented after a lot of consultations. The new VB-G RAM G was introduced without any stakeholder consultation.”

Further, they have criticised specific changes in the framework of work allocation – for instance, while work was an entitlement under the old law, its allocation is subject to several forms of administrative discretion under the new law. For instance, Herenj noted, “The centre will play a bigger role in this act by notifying the areas where the right to work is applicable. It remains to be seen how all of this will play out.”

Growing disillusionment

Though researchers are wary of the new act, on the ground, workers have been far from satisfied with the old one.

At 7.30 am on May 15, daily wage women workers started gathering at Ranchi’s Lalpur Chowk, hoping to be hired for the day. While a few of those who had gathered lived within Ranchi itself, most had travelled from the rural areas of Ranchi district.

Most women said they came to the chowk almost daily, and were hired two or three times a week, depending on their luck. For eight hours of work as labourers, they earned a daily wage of Rs 600, while for catering and other work in events, they earned Rs 700. “Prices keep rising and there is never enough work for everyone,” said Choti Devi, a worker from Angara village, around 40 km from the city.

When I asked the women about MGNREGA work, many of them scoffed at the mention of the programme. “All of us who come here daily looking for work are mostly from villages,” Choti said. “If MGNREGA work was widely available and paid well back home, why would we wake up at 4 in the morning and come to look for work in the city?”

Part of the reason for workers’ hesitation was their experience of poor implementation of the programme.

Choti herself had worked on building a cowshed around two years ago, but had never been paid for it. “I worked for some 15-20 days and I never got a rupee for it,” she said. Under the programme, Choti should have received payment for her work directly into her bank account, but as researchers have noted, there have been inordinate delays and hurdles in the payment of wages in the last mile.

Other women voiced other complaints, such as that the programme did not function in their villages, that work was not usually available for the guaranteed hundred days, that they faced obstacles in recording attendance with the National Mobile Monitoring Software app, and that wages were often delayed or not paid at all. Many of the younger women present at the chowk had not seen MGNREGA work being carried out in their villages at all.

But this did not translate into optimism for the new act – in fact, most of the women had not heard of it at all.

When I explained it to them, most workers said they had little hope from the new programme – some argued that the problem ran too deep to be fixed by the shift. “With MGNREGA there were a lot of issues in implementation, there was so much corruption that many people never received their wages,” said Laxmani Kumari, a worker from the neighbouring district of Ramgarh. “Unless and until the government fixes that corruption at all levels, any new scheme or programme will fail the workers yet again.”

Around 320 tourists were rescued from stranded cable cars in Jammu and Kashmir’s Gulmarg on Monday after a technical fault stalled the service.

The Army, the police and the disaster relief force conducted a large-scale rescue operation after information was received about the incident around 1.20 pm, ANI reported. Late on Monday evening, Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Nalin Prabhat confirmed that the rescue operation had ended and all the tourists had been brought down.

Sixty-five cabins had been stranded in all.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s office said that the administration was monitoring the situation, adding that all cabins were intact and there was no need to panic.

Update Rescue Ops | #GulmargGondola | 06:15PM

As of now,
total 166 persons have been rescued from 29 Cabins.

Rescue operations by trained teams continue. All passengers are safe and situation is under control. No need to panic.#NationFirst#AlwaysInCombat@adgpi… pic.twitter.com/8SNB1BjG8H

— NORTHERN COMMAND - INDIAN ARMY (@NorthernComd_IA) May 25, 2026

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority cautioned NDTV against using the term “thook jihad” in a generalised and stereotypical manner after a programme depicted a cook allegedly spitting on rotis.

“Thook jihad” or spit jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that claims that Muslims deliberately spit into food to spread disease among Hindus.

A complaint about the broadcast had been registered with the news regulator in December 2024 about a widely circulated video from Meerut that purportedly showed a man spitting on rotis as he made them. NDTV described the claimed incident as “thook jihad” and allegedly suggested that similar acts were being reported from other places.

The channel said that it had voluntarily removed the video. It claimed that the word “jihad” was not intended to attribute the act to any particular community. However, the regulator rejected the argument, adding that the term itself carried an implicit meaning. Read on.

Hindutva has found a new target – “gym jihad”, writes Sneha.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Assam introduced a bill on the Uniform Civil Code in the Assembly seeking to ban polygamy and make registration of live-in relationships compulsory.

The bill is slated to be taken up for discussion on Wednesday.

The bill proposes to make it mandatory for live-in relationships to be registered within one month. Failing to register a live-in relationship within one month may lead to imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to Rs 10,000.

According to the draft legislation, the minimum age of marriage would be 18 years for women and 21 years for men. The legislation will also make the registration of marriages and divorces mandatory “to prevent fraud”.

On Sunday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had asserted that the provisions of the Uniform Civil Code will not apply to Adivasis and will not encroach upon the rights of Scheduled Tribe communities. He claimed that there was a “conspiracy underway to send out the message that UCC will take away tribal communities’ traditions and way of life”. Read on.

Petrol and diesel prices were increased for the fourth time in two weeks, with fuel rates going up by an average of Rs 2.8 per litre across the country.

In Delhi, the price of petrol increased by Rs 2.61 to reach Rs 102.12 per litre, while diesel increased by Rs 2.71 to Rs 95.20 per litre.

Petrol rates in Mumbai reached Rs 111.21 per litre and diesel went up to Rs 97.83 per litre. Kolkata recorded the highest petrol price among the four metros at Rs 113.51 per litre, while rates in Chennai stood at Rs 107.77 per litre for petrol and Rs 99.55 per litre for diesel.

Commenting on the fuel price hike, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi quipped on social media: “Inflation man Modi strikes again”. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that “every fuel price hike is another blow to household budgets, and has a cascading effect on every aspect of the economy”. Read on.

The Supreme Court issued notice asking the National Testing Agency to respond to a batch of petitions on the alleged paper leak in the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical college seats.

The court said that the authority seemed to have not learnt any lessons from the past.

The bench sought a status report from the agency on the steps it had taken as per the recommendations of a committee set up in 2024 following similar allegations of a paper leak.

A petition has sought a panel chaired by a retired judge, along with a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist, to supervise the re-exam that will be held on June 21. A separate plea argued that the National Testing Agency lacked direct parliamentary accountability and sought a direction to the Union government to replace it with a statutory authority. Read on.

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The Wildlife Institute of India has documented early evidence of wildlife using underpasses built along the Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor, a 200-km expressway that has been operational since 2025 and officially inaugurated last month, in April.

The team studied a 20-km stretch, which is a crucial biodiversity area in the Terai landscape where elephants, tigers, great hornbills and king cobras are found. About half of this stretch, 10.97 km, includes elevated and underpass structures for animals to pass, built with the goal of reducing animal mortality, human-animal conflict and population isolation.

The study area forms part of the wider Rajaji-Shivalik landscape, where highways, settlements and other linear infrastructure intersect with elephant movement routes between Rajaji Tiger Reserve, adjoining forest divisions and the Doon valley.

For the study, the corridor was divided into three zones, including a riverbed, a hilly section and a sal forest stretch and data was collected using camera traps and acoustic recorders. About 150 camera traps were used on the structures in the first zone from May 16 to June 24, 2025, covering 40 days. In addition, 29 AudioMoth acoustic recorders were installed across the three zones to record traffic noise and assess how it may be influencing animals and what that meant for underpass use.

Early evidence of use

Camera traps recorded 111,234 images of humans, domestic animals and wildlife. Of these, 40,444 images showed 18 different wild species using the underpasses. Golden jackals were recorded most frequently, followed by nilgai, sambar, Indian hare and spotted deer. The study also recorded 60 instances of elephants using the underpasses.

In terms of how quickly the animals adapted to the structures, nilgai were among the earliest and most frequent users, while elephants, golden jackals, hares, sambar and spotted deer were documented within the first five days of monitoring. Leopards, rusty-spotted cats and the grey mongoose appeared later in the sampling period of May-June 2025.

The study results, released in February 2026, show that wildlife use was not evenly distributed across the structures. Elephants and ungulates clustered at specific points within the underpass and did not spread uniformly across the corridor.

Noise and disturbance

The study found that noise may be influencing how different species use these structures. Using acoustic recordings, the researchers found that anthropogenic sound, mainly traffic noise, exceeded the biological sound or the sound of the animals, throughout the monitored stretch.

When the authors compared species detections with sound conditions, they found that sambar, spotted deer and Asian elephants used the quieter underpass sections. By contrast, golden jackals, nilgai and wild boar were more often detected in noisier sections.

The study also examined the timing of animal activity beneath the underpasses and how it overlapped with people, cattle and vehicles. Leopards avoided overlaps with human, cattle and vehicular activity and so did elephants. They were mostly recorded at dusk, dawn and night, when human disturbance was lower. Golden jackals were active at the same time as humans.

The authors say further noise-abatement measures, including sound barriers in major crossing sections, could improve the structures for sensitive species.

The 2026 WII report provides post-construction evidence that wildlife, including elephants, is using highway crossing structures on the Delhi-Dehradun corridor.

“Early evidence of wildlife use is encouraging, but it should be seen as a starting point rather than proof of long-term success, because what matters is consistent use over time, across seasons, by multiple species, and particularly by groups such as elephant herds,” said Upasana Ganguli of the Wildlife Trust of India.

Similar patterns

The Delhi-Dehradun corridor passes through the broader Rajaji-Shivalik landscape, where Rajaji Tiger Reserve, adjoining forest divisions and elephant movement routes intersect with highways, settlements and other infrastructure.

The new report is not the first WII-linked assessment to document wildlife using highway crossings in the wider Rajaji-Shivalik landscape. A 2022 technical report by the Wildlife Institute of India and Uttarakhand Forest Department evaluated newly commissioned underpasses at Motichur in the Chilla-Motichur corridor and Teen Pani in the Kansrao-Barkot corridor. These underpasses are located in the Rajaji landscape along the NH-72 corridor, but are separate from the Ganeshpur-Asarori stretch monitored in the latest Delhi-Dehradun study.

Motichur and Teen Pani are important crossing locations in the Rajaji landscape, where roads and other infrastructure intersect with wildlife movement between forest patches. The underpasses were built to move vehicular traffic onto flyovers while leaving space below for animals to cross.

Over 94 days, the 2022 report recorded 1,468 images of eight individual mammals, including elephant, leopard, sambar, nilgai, chital and wild pig. At the same time, there were 32,194 records of humans, 2,429 livestock images and 113 feral dog images in the same period. The report stated that continued human presence was limiting wildlife using the corridors.

The 2022 report also found that wildlife did not use all sections of the underpasses evenly. Areas with trails showed higher wildlife use. The report also found lower wildlife captures in sections near the Motichur range office complex, indicating that human activity and infrastructure around parts of the underpass may affect how animals use these crossings.

It recommended restricting human activity below the flyovers, diverting all traffic to the flyover, allowing natural vegetation to regenerate, and carrying out long-term monitoring and periodic review.

For elephants, the 2022 report found that while both solitary males and female herds with calves were recorded at Motichur, only solitary males were recorded at Teen Pani. It also noted that the elephant capture rate was higher at Teen Pani even though total elephant captures were higher at Motichur.

Fragmentation concerns

These findings sit alongside court records on infrastructure-related fragmentation in the Shivalik elephant landscape. A January 2021 Uttarakhand High Court order in a public interest litigation recorded submissions that the Shivalik Elephant Reserve houses and preserves wild elephants that migrate across large areas and therefore require extensive habitat for survival.

The court stayed the state notification de-notifying the Shivalik Elephant Reserve, observing that irreversible loss could be caused to both the environment and elephant population.

Abhijay Negi, the lawyer representing the petitioner in that case, said the current findings by WII should be read cautiously. “It is too early to tell if these measures have solved the crossing issues, but nature does have resilience,” he said.

On the underpasses themselves, Negi said they correspond with known movement routes, but not all elephant crossings are captured by such structures.

Negi also criticised the broader planning approach. “There is a massive gap between planning and actual corridor use,” he said. “Studies were conducted with the primary goal of implementing this mega infrastructure project, which carries political connotations.”

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority has cautioned NDTV against using the term “thook (spit) jihad” in a generalised and stereotypical manner after a broadcast on the news channel about an alleged incident related to spitting on food.

A complaint had been registered with the news regulator by an advocate, Utkarsh Mishra, about a broadcast on NDTV from December 2024, which was based on a widely circulated video from Meerut that showed a person preparing rotis while spitting on them.

The incident in the report on the news channel was described using the phrase “thook jihad” and allegedly suggested that similar acts were being reported from several other places. “Thook jihad” is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that claims that Muslims deliberately spit into food to spread disease among Hindus.

In his complaint, Mishra said that the “anti-social” activity of one person spitting in rotis was reported as “thook jihad” to give it a communal angle.

He added that the usage of the word jihad to describe the incident was a violation of the guidelines on preventing a communal colour while reporting crimes and on hate speech.

Mishra also argued that the broadcast included an interview of the alleged accused conducted by a private person, which was presented as a police inquiry. The complaint further alleged that the version aired was incomplete.

In a response to the complaint, NDTV had told the news regulator that its coverage was focused on public health and anti-social behaviour, adding that the broadcast was based on material already available in the public domain.

The news channel noted that the phrase “jihad” reflected ongoing public discourse and was not intended to attribute the act to any particular community. The content had also been voluntarily removed, it added.

In an order on May 19, News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority chairperson Justice (Retired) AK Sikri rejected the argument that NDTV had not referred to any specific community, adding that the terminology itself carried implicit meaning.

“It was the assertion that it did not refer to any specific community in its coverage term of the incident,” the news regulator said. “However, even in the absence of explicit attribution, the use of the ‘jihad’ in the report referred to a particular community.”

Sikri held that the underlying incident was serious and warranted coverage. However, the issue lay in how the incident was contextualised by NDTV, he added.

“The sweeping generalisation of this incident as ‘thook jihad’ and the suggestion that this was not an isolated incident, but was a widespread occurrence, without substantiating the same, amounted to a violation of the Code of Conduct, particularly broadcaster's guidelines against Racial and Religious Stereotyping,” the News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority said.

Noting that the TV channel had already removed the broadcast, the news regulator said it would not impose any penalty and instead issued a caution.

“In view of the action taken by the broadcaster, NBDSA decided to close the complaint by cautioning the broadcaster to be careful in principles the future and to avoid such sweeping generalisations, consistent with the of the Code of Conduct,” it said.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Hindutva finds a new target – ‘gym jihad’

The Assam government on Monday introduced a bill on the Uniform Civil Code in the Assembly seeking to ban polygamy and make the registration of live-in relationships compulsory.

The Uniform Civil Code refers to a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce, succession and adoption for all citizens. Currently, such personal affairs of different religions are based on community-specific laws, largely derived from religious scripture.

The 2026 Uniform Civil Code bill was tabled on Monday by Assam Parliamentary Affairs Minister Atul Bora. It is proposed to be taken up for discussion on Wednesday, reported ANI.

The bill was introduced nearly two weeks after the proposed legislation was cleared by the state Cabinet on May 13. At the time, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that the tribal population in the state would be kept outside the purview of the Uniform Civil Code bill.

“We have also kept all rituals, traditions and customs practised by the people of Assam outside the scope of the Uniform Civil Code,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader had said, adding that the code will deal with succession, marriage, live-in relationships, and compulsory registration of marriage and divorce.

On Monday, Sarma said that the introduction of the bill in the Assembly “paves the way for an on record discussion on why UCC Assam is the need of the hour and how it will help realise the path laid down by our founding fathers”.

Key proposals

The bill proposes to make it mandatory for live-in relationships to be registered within one month.

Failing to register a live-in relationship within one month may lead to imprisonment of up to three months or a fine of up to Rs 10,000. Concealing material facts or submitting false information while registering a live-in relationship may lead to imprisonment of up to three months and a fine up to Rs 25,000.

“[The bill] protects vulnerable individuals by declaring that any child born out of a live-in relationship is fully legitimate, and by granting a deserted live-in partner the explicit legal standing to claim financial maintenance through the courts,” a government note on the draft legislation said.

According to the draft legislation, the minimum age of marriage would be 18 years for women and 21 years for men.

The legislation will also make the registration of marriages and divorces mandatory “to prevent fraud”.

Couples will be required to submit a marriage memorandum to the sub-registrar within 60 days of the marriage ceremony. The deliberate non-registration of marriage or divorce within the two-month period may lead to a penalty of Rs 10,000.

A person making false declarations or submitting forged documents may be punished with up to three months of imprisonment or with a fine of up to Rs 25,000, or both.

The failure to register a marriage or submit a memorandum for divorce deliberately despite being served a notice by the sub-registrar to do so, may be punished with a fine of up to Rs 25,000.

The bill also codifies uniform grounds for divorce such as cruelty, desertion or mutual consent. The draft law proposes to ensure that the early childhood custody of children who are below age five “ordinarily remains with the mother”.

The introduction of the Uniform Civil Code 2026 Bill in the Assam Vidhan Sabha paves the way for an on record discussion on why #UCCAssam is the need of the hour and how it will help realise the path laid down by our founding fathers. https://t.co/vRurZ65qBA

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) May 25, 2026

BJP and the Uniform Civil Code

The introduction of a common personal law has for long been on the BJP’s agenda and several states ruled by the party have been making advances towards implementing it.

In January 2025, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to implement the Uniform Civil Code after independence. The Gujarat Assembly cleared a similar legislation on March 24 amid protests by the Opposition. A common civil code has been in place in Goa since the Portuguese Civil Code was adopted in 1867.

In its campaign for the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand, the BJP had mainly targeted Muslim personal law, arguing that it discriminated against women as it allows Muslim men to practice polygamy, inherit a greater share of property, initiate divorce and deny alimony.

Legal experts have said that Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code is drawn primarily from Hindu personal law and could lead to the erasure of the personal law practices of minority communities.

Sarma has repeatedly said that Assam will be the third state, after Uttarakhand and Gujarat, to implement a Uniform Civil Code after independence.

In the run-up to the Assembly elections in Assam, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on March 29 also said that a Uniform Civil Code would be introduced in Assam if the BJP retains power in the state.

On May 4, the BJP secured its third consecutive term in Assam. Sarma was sworn-in as the chief minister for the second term on May 12.

Separately, the Assembly had in November passed the 2025 Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill to ban polygamy, the practice of having more than one wife.

The legislation proposes up to seven years of imprisonment for persons convicted of polygamy. Further, those found guilty of having concealed their previous marriage can face punishment of up to ten years’ imprisonment.

The introduction of the legislation was viewed as a step towards implementing the Uniform Civil Code in the state.

Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.

No provision of the Uniform Civil Code would apply to Adivasis and that the law will not encroach upon the rights, customs or traditions of the Scheduled Tribe communities, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday.

“There is a conspiracy underway to send out the message that UCC will take away tribal communities’ traditions and way of life,” Shah said. “As the home minister of the Narendra Modi government, I am telling you clearly that UCC will not apply anywhere in tribal areas or to any tribal person. It will not encroach upon any tribal rights.”

The Uniform Civil Code refers to a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce, succession and adoption for all citizens. Currently, such personal affairs of different religions are based on community-specific laws, largely derived from religious scriptures.

Shah made the comments at the Janjati Suraksha Samagam in Delhi, which was organised by the Janjati Suraksha Manch and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. The outfits are affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Union home minister said that the BJP had implemented the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand and Gujarat. The laws there have special provisions to exclude Adivasis from the Uniform Civil Code.

Shah said that he wanted to send a message to those attempting to “divide” Adivasi communities.

The introduction of a common personal law has long been on the BJP’s agenda and several states ruled by the party have been making advances towards implementing it.

In January 2025, BJP-ruled Uttarakhand became the first state to implement the Uniform Civil Code after independence. The Gujarat Assembly cleared a similar legislation on March 24 amid protests by the Opposition. A common civil code has been in place in Goa since the Portuguese Civil Code was adopted in 1867.

On Monday, a bill to implement a Uniform Civil Code in Assam was introduced in the Assembly. When the draft legislation was cleared by the state Cabinet on May 13, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that the tribal population in Assam would be kept outside the purview of the Uniform Civil Code.

In its campaign for the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand, the BJP had mainly targeted Muslim personal law, arguing that it discriminated against women as it allows Muslim men to practice polygamy, inherit a greater share of property, initiate divorce and deny alimony.

Legal experts have said that Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code is drawn primarily from Hindu personal law and could lead to the erasure of the personal law practices of minority communities.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The prices of petrol and diesel were increased on Monday for the fourth time in two weeks. The fuel rates went up by an average of Rs 2.8 per litre across the country.

In Delhi, the price of petrol increased by Rs 2.61 to reach Rs 102.12 per litre, while diesel increased by Rs 2.71 to Rs 95.20 per litre, PTI reported.

The price of petrol in Mumbai reached Rs 111.21 per litre and diesel went up to Rs 97.83 per litre. Kolkata recorded the highest petrol price among the four metros at Rs 113.51 per litre, while rates in Chennai stood at Rs 107.77 per litre for petrol and Rs 99.55 per litre for diesel.

Since the revision of rates resumed on May 15 after a four-year freeze, the prices of petrol and diesel have risen by nearly Rs 7.5 per litre.

News Alert ! Petrol, Diesel prices hiked for fourth time in less than four weeks.

Petrol Increased by Rs. 2.61 in Delhi from Rs 99.51 to Rs. 102.12. Diesel price Increased by Rs. 2.71 in Delhi from Rs 92.49 to Rs 95.20.

RSPs of four Metros for 25.05.26 are as under:

Petrol:… pic.twitter.com/UP1KqQ4jEL

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 25, 2026

On May 15, prices of both retail fuels were increased by around Rs 3 per litre. Oil marketing companies hiked the rates again on May 19 by around 90 paise, followed by another upward revision of up to 95 paise on Saturday.

The increase comes despite some easing in global oil prices on Monday, following weeks of elevated crude prices linked to the conflict in West Asia.

Brent crude, which had risen as high as $106 a barrel on Friday and traded around $103 later in the session, fell more than 5% to $98.22 a barrel early on Monday on hopes of a possible agreement between the United States and Iran.

The price of Brent was $78 per barrel on February 27, a day before the conflict started.

However, United States President Donald Trump tempered expectations of an immediate agreement, saying on social media that he had “informed my representatives not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side”.

In a subsequent post, he said the deal “isn’t even fully negotiated yet”.

India imports 88% of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas requirement. This mostly comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked due to the conflict in West Asia.

‘Inflation man Modi strikes again’: Rahul Gandhi

Commenting on the fuel price hike, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi quipped on social media: “Inflation man Modi strikes again”.

Gandhi said that the prices of petrol and diesel were being increased in instalments “so that your pocket keeps getting quietly fleeced”.

“I’ve been warning for months about an economic storm coming,” Gandhi said on social media. “But [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi ji, as always, was busy with elections back then – and the moment elections ended, the prices of petrol-diesel were hiked by Rs 8.”

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that the Modi government “has sprinkled petrol to burn the savings of common people”. Kharge said that “every fuel price hike is another blow to household budgets, and has a cascading effect on every aspect of the economy”.

“From Farmers to MSMEs, every strata of the society bears the brunt of BJP’s loot,” he added.

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal asked why India is not buying fuel and gas from Russia and Iran. “If they are willing to sell us oil and gas at a cheaper rate, what is the prime minister's compulsion?” he asked.

On May 11, the Union government ruled out any immediate bailout package for state-run oil companies despite losses linked to the crisis in West Asia.

The clarification had come as concerns grew about under-recoveries, the gap between the cost of producing fuels such as petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas and their retail selling prices.

Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on May 10 that oil companies were facing under-recoveries of about Rs 2 lakh crore, with losses of up to Rs 1 lakh crore projected in the current quarter.

Puri had said that oil companies were purchasing crude oil, gas and liquified petroleum gas at elevated international prices while continuing to sell fuels at unchanged retail rates to shield consumers, leading to losses of up to Rs 1,000 crore a day.

Edited by Sneha.

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to urgently hear a petition seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the activities of persons associated with the satirical political campaign Cockroach Janta Party, Bar and Bench reported.

A lawyer representing the petitioner alleged before the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and VM Pancholi that the social media campaign was tarnishing the image of the judiciary.

The advocate submitted that despite Kant having clarified his remarks, a “distorted and malicious narrative is being continued”.

In response, the bench told the lawyer not to “take it so sentimentally”, Live Law reported.

On Monday, when a separate plea seeking directions to prevent verbal observations made in the court from being monetised for commercial purposes and requesting a probe by the CBI into alleged fake lawyers was mentioned before the bench for urgent listing by another lawyer, the chief justice said that there was no urgency in the matter.

Since it was launched in response to reported remarks by Kant on May 15 allegedly comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches”, the campaign has garnered nearly 23 million followers on Instagram.

“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in profession,” PTI had quoted Kant as having said. “Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists and they start attacking everyone.”

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

The campaign, which began on May 16, describes itself as a “political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth”. It was created by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist from Pune. He has a background in public relations and journalism, and was part of the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media team.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Uttar Pradesh Police has booked two teachers at a government college under the state’s anti-conversion law in Kaushambi district for allegedly brainwashing a minor Hindu student in a purported attempt to convert her, The Indian Express reported.

The first information report was based on a complaint filed by the father of the Class 10 student, who told the police that he allegedly began noticing unusual changes in his daughter’s behaviour over the past few months, the newspaper quoted unidentified police officers as saying.

The complainant told the police that when questioned, his daughter alleged that she was being “pressured by the teachers to change her religion, embrace Islam, and take part in Islamic prayers and practices”.

She allegedly told him that the two female teachers at her college had been continuously subjecting her to mental harassment, the police was quoted as saying.

The complainant also alleged that his daughter claimed that she was being pressured to read Urdu texts related to Islam and “participate in Islamic prayers and practices”, The Indian Express reported.

As per the police, the father further alleged that the two teachers frequently “portrayed Hinduism negatively” while presenting Islam in a favourable light.

The FIR was filed against the two teachers and several unknown persons under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to criminal intimidation and the 2021 Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

Kaushambi Circle Officer Satyendra Prasad Tewari told The Indian Express that an investigation is underway, but no arrests have been made so far.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice asking the National Testing Agency to respond to a batch of petitions on the alleged paper leak in the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical college seats, adding that no lessons seemed to have been learnt from the past, Bar and Bench reported.

The agency, which conducts the exam for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India, on May 12 cancelled the test following allegations of a paper leak. More than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for the test that was conducted on May 3.

Similar allegations of paper leaks and irregular grace marks had emerged during the 2024 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

“It is sad that they have not learnt their lesson,” Bar and Bench quoted a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe as saying. “We passed an order [after the alleged paper leak in 2024]. A committee was formed. It made recommendations, it was accepted…”

Petitions filed in court

In the court, several petitions were filed after the National Testing Agency cancelled the test.

One of the petitions was filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association. It has sought directions to “replace or fundamentally restructure” the National Testing Agency with a “more robust, technologically advanced and autonomous” body.

The Federation of All India Medical Association also sought the appointment of a high-powered monitoring committee chaired by a retired judge, along with a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist, to supervise the re-exam until a new independent body is formed.

The national body representing doctors and medical students sought directions for the digital locking of question papers and a transition to a computer-based test model to eliminate the physical chain-of-custody risks.

Another petition filed by the United Doctors Front sought the dissolution of the National Testing Agency in its present form, Bar and Bench reported. The petition noted that the agency, being a society registered under the 1860 Societies Registration Act, lacked direct parliamentary accountability and acts in what it described as an “accountability vacuum”.

It sought a direction to the Union government to establish a statutory national testing authority through an Act of Parliament, the legal news portal reported.

A separate petition has also been filed by Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Sudhakar Singh, social activist Anubhav Garg, Indian Medical Association member Dhruv Chauhan and political leader Harisharan Devgan, according to Bar and Bench.

Their petition also seeks an immediate transition of the exam, including the one on June 21, to a computer-based test. Additionally, the petition sought the replacement of the National Testing Agency with a new independent authority having statutory accountability, judicial oversight and technological safeguards.

The hearing

After the allegations in 2024, a high-level committee, led by former Indian Space Research Organisation Chairperson K Radhakrishnan, had been formed. The committee had reportedly submitted 95 recommendations to reform the process.

On Monday, the court sought a status report from the National Testing Agency on the steps it had taken as per the recommendations of the committee, Live Law reported. It then listed the matter for Friday.

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

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

On May 15, the National Testing Agency said that the re-exam for the 2026 NEET-UG would be held on June 21. On the same day, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the exam will be computer-based from next year.

On Saturday, the Union education ministry said that the CBI had arrested a Pune-based botany teacher in connection with the alleged paper leak. Nine persons have been arrested from Delhi, Jaipur, Gurugram, Nashik, Pune and Ahilyanagar in the case so far.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Recent procedural objections that have paralysed executive transitions at two of India’s most venerated higher education institutions put the spotlight on how bureaucratic oversight has prevented women from taking over top leadership roles.

In May, the Supreme Council of St Stephen’s College announced that Susan Elias, an eminent computer scientist, had been selected as its 14th principal. Elias was slated to become the first woman principal in the institution’s 145-year history.

Yet, within days, the Delhi University ordered a freeze on her appointment, saying it was not in compliance with the University Grants Commission Regulations, 2018.

The Delhi University argued that because St Stephen’s is fully funded by the Centre, its selection panel should have included university-nominated higher education experts and a nominee of the Vice-Chancellor.

This standoff is a reminder of the gridlock last year at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. In October, the 156-year-old Jesuit institution appointed Karuna Gokarn, a distinguished microbiologist with over three decades of academic service, as its first female principal.

Like with the St Stephen’s case in Delhi, approval for Gokarn’s appointment was withheld by Maharashtra’s Joint Director of Education and the University of Mumbai. In response, St Xavier’s moved the Bombay High Court a few months later, asserting that protected minority institutions possess an unassailable right to choose their own institutional heads.

In both instances, the bone of contention is identical: the colleges allegedly failed to invite Vice-Chancellor and government nominees to sit on their selection interview panels.

Minority educational institutions have administrative rights as outlined in Article 30(1) of the Indian Constitution that grants religious and linguistic minorities the fundamental right to “establish and administer educational institutions of their choice”. This includes the autonomy to select qualified principals, directors, and teaching staff to preserve the distinct character of the institution.

Minority administrations do not have to strictly adhere to normal seniority-based rules. Decades of jurisprudence have affirmed that an indispensable aspect of this right is the autonomy to choose a principal who embodies the vision and character of the founding community.

However, state funding has created ambiguity. While the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act protects freedoms for such institutions, the courts have generally held that the state can impose reasonable regulations regarding minimum qualifications and eligibility criteria to ensure academic excellence.

When an educational institution receives public funds, the state often attempts to intensify its regulatory grip. The stand-offs at St Stephen’s and St Xavier’s embody an escalation of this tendency, as state authorities assert that financial dependence demands absolute surrender to procedural uniformity.

Yet there is a more uncomfortable cultural reality: these deadlocks deprive young students of having accomplished female authority figures as role models.

When the state or its affiliating universities choose to engage in protracted battles over the composition of selection panels rather than facilitating the ascension of qualified women, they signal that maintaining bureaucratic dominance is more important than promoting diverse leadership.

If Indian academia is to evolve beyond its patriarchal foundations, the state and university administrations must abandon adversarial governance and work towards constitutional autonomy and gender equity.

Hasnain Naqvi taught history at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

The Union government on Monday told the Supreme Court that the Central Bureau of Investigation will take over the inquiry into the death of a woman in Madhya Pradesh, whose family has alleged that her in-laws harassed her for dowry, Live Law reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi was hearing a suo motu case registered about allegations of institutional bias and procedural irregularities in the investigation into the death of the woman, Twisha Sharma.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the CBI will take over the probe and that the required administrative steps will be completed immediately.

“Fair trial has been ensured now,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “Now CBI is probing.”

The bench said it was “slightly pained” by the narrative suggesting that the judiciary was shielding the accused because Sharma’s husband Samarth Singh is a practicising lawyer and her mother-in-law Giribala Singh is a former district judge.

“A narrative was also created that a fair investigation was denied due to involvement of judiciary,” the court said. “That is why suo motu proceedings were initiated.”

The judges also appealed to the media not to record statements from potential witnesses or family members, saying such coverage could prejudice matters that were still under investigation.

“Let the things move as per law and procedure,” Kant said.

The court also asked the family of the woman to record their statements before investigators rather than in public or through the media, Bar and Bench reported.

“We request the general public to refrain from speculation and have trust and faith in the most premier investigating agency [CBI],” the court added. “It is clarified that we have not expressed any opinion on merits of allegations. It is up to investigating agency to look into all aspects.”

Twisha Sharma, a 33-year-old model-turned-actor from Noida, was found dead at her marital home in Bhopal’s Katara Hills area on May 12. Her husband’s family claimed that she had killed herself.

However, her family has accused her in-laws of persistent domestic violence and demands for dowry. They have also alleged that Sharma was murdered.

On Friday, Sharma’s husband Samarth Singh, who had been on the run for over a week, withdrew an anticipatory bail petition he had filed in the Madhya Pradesh High Court and surrendered before a court in Jabalpur.

The Bhopal Police subsequently arrested the advocate.

Following this, the Bar Council of India suspended him from legal practice with immediate effect.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Delhi Gymkhana Club has moved the High Court against the Union government’s order directing it to hand over its 27.3-acre premises by June 5, Live Law reported on Monday.

The matter was mentioned before Justice Avneesh Jhingan on Monday by advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who sought an urgent hearing. The court agreed to hear the case on Tuesday.

The Delhi Gymkhana Club is one of the national capital’s oldest and most exclusive social and sporting clubs, frequented by diplomats, bureaucrats and military officers, amongst others. It is located near the prime minister’s official residence and other high-security installations.

On Friday, the Land and Development Office directed the club to vacate and hand over its premises in central Delhi to the Union government, saying that it was required for “strengthening and securing of defence infrastructure”, governance facilities and other “vital public security purposes”.

The land had originally been leased for maintaining a social and sporting club, it said.

The department, which functions under the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, invoked clause 4 of the lease deed, which allows the lessor to re-enter the premises if the land is required for a public purpose.

The government stated that when such action is taken, the entire plot, along with all buildings, structures, lawns and fittings, would vest in the President of India.

According to NDTV, the club has written to the Land and Development Office seeking clarity on whether the government would provide an “appropriately located alternate plot of land” to which it could shift.

Edited by Sneha.