Twenty-three Opposition parties have sent a letter to Chief Justice Surya Kant expressing its concerns about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The exact contents of the letter were not immediately known.

Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose said that the Opposition had urged the judiciary to look into the manner in which the exercise was “being manipulated” by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The decision to write to the chief justice was taken at the INDIA bloc meeting on June 8. Though the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Aam Aadmi Party had skipped the Opposition alliance meeting, they also signed the letter. Read on.

A question to ask as the INDIA bloc turns three: Where is it going?

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLC Sachin Ahir filed his nomination for the post of deputy chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council on behalf of the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance. He filed the nomination in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, indicating that he has switched sides to the ruling alliance.

Uddhav Sena leader Ambadas Danve said that MLC Jagannath Abhyankar would be the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi’s candidate for the post.

The development comes eight days after six of the Uddhav Sena’s nine Lok Sabha MPs joined the Shinde Sena. Ahir was considered a confidante of Uddhav Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray. Read on.

The Congress’ Maharashtra unit leader Vijay Wadettiwar said that talks about a merger between his party and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) are underway. “Those who subscribe to the secular ideals of the Congress and Sharad Pawar are always welcome in our party,” he added.

Sharad Pawar founded the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 after he broke away from the Congress. The NCP had split in two in 2023 when Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, along with several party MLAs, joined the Mahayuti government comprising the BJP and the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde. Read on.

The Supreme Court declined to grant bail to religious leader Asumal Harpalani, also known as Asaram Bapu, in a 2013 case pertaining to the rape of a minor. The bench sought a response from the Rajasthan government within three weeks to Asaram’s plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court’s May decision upholding his conviction in the case.

It said it would consider granting interim bail to Asaram only if there was a grave medical necessity, “such as danger to life”. Read on.

The sowing of kharif crops has fallen by 22.7% as compared to last year. This came as the delayed southwest monsoon slowed planting in several states.

As of Thursday, the area under kharif crop cultivation was at 182.7 lakh hectares, down from 236.4 lakh hectares in 2025, as per data released by the Union government. Oilseeds recorded the steepest decline, with acreage falling 53.3%. While cotton acreage declined by 34.6%, paddy sowing fell 25.2%.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast seasonal rainfall at 90% of the long-period average this year. Read on.

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to grant bail to religious leader Asumal Harpalani, also known as Asaram Bapu, in a 2013 case pertaining to the rape of a minor, Live Law reported.

The court sought a response from the Rajasthan government within three weeks to Asaram’s plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court’s May decision upholding his conviction in the case, according to Bar and Bench.

In April 2018, a sessions court in Jodhpur 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.

In May, the Rajasthan High Court acquitted Asaram on charges related to gangrape and sexual assault. However, it upheld his conviction for rape, which carried the punishment of life imprisonment.

While rejecting Asaram’s petition to set aside the life sentence, the High Court bench had held that the charges of rape under the IPC, sexual assault under the Pocso Act and offences under the Juvenile Justice Act had been proved.

Asaram subsequently challenged the judgement in the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, a bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Sheel Nagu said they would consider granting interim bail to Asaram only if there was a grave medical necessity, “such as danger to life”.

The bench directed that the medical treatment being provided to him in prison should continue and said he could seek an urgent hearing if his health deteriorated, Live Law reported.

Asaram’s counsel urged the court to consider his age and medical condition and claimed that he had been subjected to a “social media” trial.

The state opposed interim relief, arguing that the case involved a minor complainant and that Asaram had been taken to hospital when required earlier this month, Bar and Bench reported.

In January 2023, a sessions court in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar also sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment in a separate case about 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 Sneha.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLC Sachin Ahir on Tuesday filed his nomination for the post of deputy chairman of the Maharashtra legislative council on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance.

Ahir, who was considered a confidante of Uddhav Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray, filed the nomination in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, indicating that he has switched sides to the ruling alliance.

Ahir, a former Nationalist Congress Party leader, joined the then-united Shiv Sena in 2019 and became an MLC in 2022.

🔸CM Devendra Fadnavis at the nomination filing of MLC Sachin Ahir for the election of Deputy Chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council at Vidhan Bhavan, Mumbai.
DCM Eknath Shinde, DCM Sunetra Ajit Pawar, Minister Chandrakant Patil, Minister Sanjay Shirsat and other… pic.twitter.com/qGxeuLmkby

— @OfficeOfDevendra (@Devendra_Office) June 30, 2026

Meanwhile, Uddhav Sena leader Ambadas Danve said on Tuesday MLC Jagannath Abhyankar would be the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi’s candidate for the post of deputy chairman of the legislative council, PTI reported.

The development comes eight days after six of the Uddhav Sena’s nine Lok Sabha MPs joined the Shinde Sena.

The MPs who have switched sides are Hingoli MP Nagesh Patil Ashtikar, Omprakash Nimbalkar from Osmanabad, Mumbai North-East MP Sanjay Dina Patil, Sanjay Deshmukh from Yavatmal-Washim, Sanjay Jadhav from Parbhani and Bhausaheb Wakchaure from Shirdi.

The defections have reduced the Uddhav Sena’s strength in the Lok Sabha to three MPs and increased the Shinde faction’s tally to 13.

Commenting on Ahir’s move, Uddhav Sena MLA Sunil Raut said that the party has weathered several challenges and would remain intact, PTI reported.

“We have received many shocks, but the party was never finished,” Raut was quoted as saying. “This shock is not a big one for Shiv Sena (UBT).”

Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule claimed that his party had nothing to do with Ahir’s decision, The Indian Express reported. However, he claimed that repeated exits from the Uddhav Sena were the outcome of the “arrogance” of party leaders Uddhav Thackeray and Sanjay Raut.

Crisis in the Uddhav Sena

On June 18, the six rebel MPs had skipped a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group. The meeting was held a day after the faction alleged that its MPs were being offered Rs 15 crore each to join the Shinde Sena.

It was attended by the other three Lok Sabha MPs of the faction and Raut.

The following day, the Uddhav Sena initiated disciplinary action against the six MPs.

The Shiv Sena had split in June 2022 after Shinde and 39 MLAs backing him rebelled against the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government that also comprised the undivided Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.

After more than a week of political drama, Shinde had been sworn in as the chief minister with the backing of the BJP. He became the deputy chief minister after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance comprising the Shinde Sena, the BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP, retained power in the 2024 Assembly elections.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Talks about a merger between the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the Congress are underway, Maharashtra Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar was quoted as saying by NDTV on Tuesday.

“Those who subscribe to the secular ideals of the Congress and Sharad Pawar are always welcome in our party,” the former leader of Opposition in the state told the channel.

The talks are in the final stages and progressing positively, NDTV quoted unidentified sources as saying.

Sharad Pawar founded the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 after he broke away from the Congress over his objections to Sonia Gandhi leading the party. However, the NCP allied with the Congress to form the government in Maharashtra in October 1999.

The Congress and NCP remained in power in the state till 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance won the Assembly election.

In 2023, the NCP split into two groups when Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, along with several party MLAs, joined Maharashtra’s Mahayuti coalition government comprising the BJP and the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde.

In February 2024, the Election Commission ruled that Ajit Pawar’s faction was the real NCP and allocated it the “clock” symbol.

Ajit Pawar died on January 28 when a small aircraft crashed near an airstrip in Baramati town while attempting to land.

The reported discussions about a merger between the Congress and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) come against the backdrop of a spate of defections from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the Trinamool Congress to the fold of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Edited by Sneha.

The Election Commission will devise a mechanism to ensure that voters whose homes have been demolished recently are not excluded from the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, The Hindu quoted Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar as saying on Monday.

Kumar’s statement came a day before the door-to-door enumeration exercise for the revision of electoral rolls began in the national capital under phase three of the special intensive revision. The month-long enumeration drive will be carried out from June 30 to July 29 in Delhi, as well as in Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Meghalaya.

The poll panel is carrying out the exercise to revise electoral rolls through house-to-house enumeration and verification of old voter data.

Addressing a press conference on Monday, Kumar said that there could be electors whose registered addresses no longer exist because their houses had been demolished by the time of the booth-level officer’s visit.

“They might not be able to obtain alternative residence proof during the duration of the [special intensive revision],” The Hindu quoted him as saying. “We will work out a plan to ensure their inclusion.”

Responding to a question about homeless persons, Kumar said that booth level officers would visit every registered address, even if it was a temporary location.

“BLOs will visit the registered address of the elector, even if it is a pillar under a flyover,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “If they are not there, they can file claims and objections after the draft list is published.”

Delhi has 13,033 polling booths with 1.4 crore voters.

The draft electoral roll will be published on August 5, following which claims and objections can be filed until September 4. These will be disposed of by October 3 and the final electoral roll will be published on October 7.

The third phase of the special intensive revision is underway in 16 states and three Union Territories.

With this phase, the exercise will cover the entire country except Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. The Election Commission said that the schedule for the revision in these regions will be announced later considering the Census exercise and the adverse weather.

In 2025, the first phase of the voter roll revision exercise was conducted in Bihar and the second phase in 12 states and Union Territories.

Concerns have been raised that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll.

Several petitions were filed in the Supreme Court against the voter roll revision.

On May 27, 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 elections”.

However, the court said that the poll panel’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.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Where did your father vote in 2003? Why demand for legacy documents under SIR has no legal basis

• Why a scholar of citizenship is taking on Bengal SIR exclusions

• An ex-editor writes: My name was deleted during SIR. Now police won’t clear my passport application

The West Bengal Assembly on Monday passed a bill that would allow the preventive detention of “anti-social” persons for up to a year, The Hindu reported. The bill would not allow detainees to be represented by a lawyer before the panel reviewing their detention, except in certain cases.

Every detention case would be reviewed within three weeks by an advisory board headed by a serving or former High Court judge, which would decide whether the detainee should remain in custody or be released, the newspaper reported.

The Assembly also passed the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Amendment Bill which would require those found responsible for damaging public or private property during riots or unlawful assemblies to pay compensation.

The first piece of legislation, titled the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Bill, would allow the government to order the preventive detention of a person for up to one year if they are “generally reputed to be desperate and dangerous to the community”.

Such detention orders could be issued by a district magistrate, a commissioner of police or a state-authorised police officer of at least the rank of deputy inspector general, The Indian Express reported.

The bill would also expand the definition of “anti-social” activities to include organised extortion, obstruction of business and other acts that create fear or insecurity among the public, the Deccan Herald reported.

Under the bill, the police would be able to conduct raids, seize property and make arrests in cognisable and non-bailable offences. It would also make it an offence to harbour or assist persons against whom detention or externment orders have been issued, The Indian Express reported.

The second piece of legislation, the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order Amendment Bill, provides for the establishment of a Claims Commission to assess losses and determine compensation, the Deccan Herald reported. Unpaid compensation could be recovered through the attachment and auction of property.

It would also make not only those directly involved in violence, but also organisers, financiers, instigators and those providing logistical support, liable to pay compensation, the newspaper reported.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that the two bills were needed because of the “criminalisation of politics”, The Hindu reported.

“The law will not be used against any one for the purpose of political vendetta,” the newspaper quoted the Bharatiya Janata Party leader as saying.

Several Opposition MLAs raised concerns that the bills would curb peaceful protests and student movements.

Trinamool Congress MLA and former Indian Police Service officer Prasun Banerjee described certain provisions of the bill as “scary” and said the law would not stand judicial scrutiny, The Hindu reported.

State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sankar Ghosh defended the legislation, saying that “anarchy” had prevailed in the state because of the Trinamool Congress’ 15-year rule.

“Right to protest can be a fundamental right, but right to destroy public property cannot be a right,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Twenty-three Opposition parties have sent a letter to Chief Justice Surya Kant raising concerns about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, the Congress said on Tuesday.

The exact contents of the letter were not immediately known.

Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose told ANI that the Opposition has urged the judiciary to look into the manner in which the exercise is “being manipulated” by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The parties also alleged “biased” conduct by the Election Commission in the letter, The Hindu reported.

The decision to write to the chief justice was taken at the INDIA bloc meeting on June 8.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Aam Aadmi Party, which had skipped the Opposition alliance meeting, also signed the letter, TMC MP Derek O’Brien said on Tuesday. An Independent MP was also among the signatories.

After the June 8 meeting, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that the Opposition parties would write to the chief justice about the special intensive revision of electoral rolls being conducted by the Election Commission in the country, and the alleged “vote loot” and the “stealing of elections”.

The Opposition has for long alleged that the BJP has been colluding with the Election Commission to secure favourable electoral outcomes. It has also alleged that the revision of voter lists was an attempt to undermine democracy.

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

By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed from the electoral rolls. Ahead of the Assembly elections in April, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before the tribunals.

On May 27, the Supreme Court bench headed by Kant upheld the legality of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, saying that the exercise “advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”.

However, the court said that the poll panel’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.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: A question to ask as the INDIA bloc turns three: Where is it going?

The sowing of Kharif crops fell by 22.7% as compared to last year as delayed southwest monsoon has slowed planting in several states, showed data released by the Union government on Monday.

As of Thursday, the area under kharif crop cultivation was at 182.7 lakh hectares, down from 236.4 lakh hectares in 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said.

The Kharif season in India is between June and October. The crops are sown at the beginning of the monsoon and harvested at the end of it.

Oilseeds recorded the steepest decline, with acreage falling 53.3% to 16.9 lakh hectares from 36.4 lakh hectares a year earlier. Soybean sowing saw the biggest drop within the category, followed by groundnut.

While cotton acreage declined by 34.6% to 29.6 lakh hectares, paddy sowing fell 25.2% to 25.7 lakh hectares. Pulse acreage dropped 30.5% to 14.9 lakh hectares, led by lower sowing of arhar, urad and moong.

The India Meteorological Department has forecast seasonal rainfall at 90% of the long-period average this year. Moreover, El Niño conditions are also expected to strengthen during the June-September season.

The El Niño weather phenomenon involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to reduced monsoon rainfall in India.

Rainfall has remained uneven across the country. The rainfall deficit reached 43% on June 29, with 48% of the country classified as deficient and another 26% facing large deficiency, the weather agency said.

The Union government has advised farmers to wait until cumulative rainfall reaches 75-100 mm before sowing to improve germination and avoid re-sowing, the Economic Times reported.

On June 23, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said contingency plans had been activated in 315 vulnerable districts in view of the rainfall deficit.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

India on Monday condemned Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan that killed civilians, describing it as a “blatant act of aggression” against Kabul.

New Delhi said that the Pakistani military’s bombing was an assault on Afghanistan’s sovereignty, and a direct threat to regional peace and stability.

“It reflects Pakistan’s persistent pattern of reckless behaviour and its futile attempt to externalise internal failures through desperate acts of violence beyond its borders,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

The ministry expressed its condolences to the families of those killed, and reiterated India’s support for Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On Sunday night, Pakistani airstrikes killed 36 civilians and injured 163 in eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban government in Kabul said on Monday. The airstrikes hit the eastern provinces of Paktia, Paktika and Kunar overnight.

Islamabad claimed that it had targeted militants. The strikes were in response to a militant attack on a Pakistan Rangers camp in Karachi in which three security personnel were killed, it added.

The Taliban, however, said that the strikes had killed civilians and damaged homes.

This marks the latest escalation between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their ties have been strained since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.

Islamabad has accused the Afghan Taliban of not acting against militant groups that allegedly operate in its territory and carry out attacks in Pakistan. The Taliban has denied the claim.

On Monday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said that it had confirmed the death of 28 civilians and 49 persons being injured. This included women and children. The toll was preliminary and may increase as hospitals continue to treat the injured, the agency said.

Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, urged restraint, accountability and called for civilian lives to be protected. Bennett said that Pakistan's security concerns must be addressed in accordance with international law.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The West Bengal Assembly on Monday passed two bills to amend laws pertaining to Other Backward Classes reservations and remove several Muslim communities from the OBC list as directed by the Calcutta High Court in May 2024, the Hindustan Times reported.

The amendments will revise the share of the Other Backward Classes quota in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state to 7% from 17% and reorganise the backward classes categories. A law applicable to the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes was also amended.

The West Bengal government’s earlier list of Other Backward Classes had 113 sub-groups, of which 77 were Muslim and 36 non-Muslim. The High Court had struck down the list in May 2024 and reduced OBC reservations to 7% from 17%.

The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government at the time had challenged the judgement in the Supreme Court.

Introduced by Backward Classes Development Minister Gourishankar Ghosh, the bills were passed with 186 MLAs voting in favour and 17 against it in the 294-member Assembly.

Six members abstained from voting, The New Indian Express reported. A section of TMC rebels led by Ritabrata Banerjee staged a walkout, the Hindustan Times reported.

Ghosh told the Assembly that “as directed by the High Court, all communities included in the OBC list without any survey by the former government, solely to offer undue advantage to Muslims, have been removed”, the newspaper reported.

He added: “Only 66 communities added after surveys have been retained.”

Under the amended laws, the new Other Backward Classes list would include Muslim groups such as Jolah, Fakir, Pahadia Muslim, Hajjam and Chowduli.

The minister also said that the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes would conduct surveys to determine the status of communities seeking OBC status.

“The previous government completely bypassed the commission,” the Hindustan Times quoted him as having alleged. “The bills will also ensure that fake OBC certificates are not issued any more. This was rampant during the previous regime.”

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

A 33-year-old man in Patiala – resident at the same address since birth, with his mother registered as a voter at that same address for decades – is being asked by his Booth Level Officer to produce proof of where a qualifying relative was registered as a voter in 2002.

The Election Commission’s enumeration form allows legacy linkage through a father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother – not just the father, as many Booth Level Officers have been incorrectly demanding in the field.

In this case, the obvious qualifying relative is his father – a retired senior government officer and ex-serviceman who, as the law expressly provides for service personnel, was registered at various posting addresses during his career rather than at the family home.

His Electors Photo Identity Card, or EPIC, bears an old posting address with no connection to the family’s Patiala home. The son has voted in multiple elections over 15 years without incident. His mother’s registration at the family address is uncontested – and the mother is herself a valid qualifying relative under the form’s own instructions.

Yet neither the mother’s registration nor the son’s 15-year record has been treated as sufficient. The Booth Level Officer is fixated on the father’s posting-address EPIC. That fixation reflects a training failure, not a legal requirement. And that training failure is causing unlawful distress to voters across Punjab.

A journalist’s testimony

The Patiala case is not unique. Journalist Gopikrishna has shared a strikingly parallel experience. A voter in Kerala since 1989, he relocated to Delhi for professional reasons. Field officers, acting on neighbours’ reports, deleted his name from the Kerala roll. When he complained to the Chief Electoral Officer of Kerala, he pointed out that his neighbour – defence minister AK Antony – had also been absent from Kerala since mid-2005 and had not had his name deleted. The Chief Electoral Officer could not answer. She acknowledged the sarcasm.

Gopikrishna eventually registered in Delhi from 2012 by declaring his Kerala enrolment for cancellation. His conclusion: the Election Commission’s rules are not user-friendly. They were not user-friendly in 2009. The SIR has made them actively hostile to the very voters whose franchise it claims to protect. The law is clear that ordinary residence is determined by the voter’s own settled intention – not by a neighbour’s report to a field officer. Both cases, separated by 17 years, demonstrate the same institutional failure.

Both cases point to the same systemic problem: Booth Level Officers in the field are operating with incomplete and inconsistent training about what the ECI’s own form actually says. The enumeration form on voters.eci.gov.in offers three options: (a) my own name exists in the last SIR roll; (b) my parent’s name (Father, Mother, Grandfather, or Grandmother) exists in the last SIR roll; or (c) neither my name nor my parent’s name exists. The term used is “parent” in the widest sense – four qualifying relatives, not one.

An investigation by Siasat during the Telangana SIR found that even ECI call-centre executives were unclear on whether maternal grandparents qualified, while the Rajasthan CEO had to issue a specific clarification that married women should trace legacy to their parents, not their marital homes. This confusion at the highest administrative level is replicated at the Booth Level Officer-level on the doorstep.

In Punjab, Booth Level Officers asking voters exclusively for the father’s 2003 registration are not following the ECI’s form – they are following an imperfect briefing. The booth level agent, present at the visit, must know the form better than the Booth Level Officer and correct the error on the spot. The citizen, opening the door, must know their rights before the knock arrives.

This is not an argument against the SIR as an exercise. The Supreme Court upheld its legality on May 27 and that judgement is not in contest here. Electoral rolls need cleaning and the Commission has constitutional authority to conduct that exercise.

What is contested is the specific legacy linkage methodology – the demand that voters enrolled after 2003 trace a genealogy of voter registration going back to that year, and produce parental registration records from a quarter-century ago as proof of their own current eligibility. That demand has no basis in the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act, or the Registration of Electors Rules. It treats the 2003 base roll not as a reference point for administrative matching – which is legitimate – but as a presumptive threshold of eligibility that no law authorises.

I. The Constitutional starting point

Article 326 of the Constitution is unambiguous. Every citizen who is not less than eighteen years of age shall be entitled to be registered as a voter. The Constitution specifies grounds for disqualification: non-citizenship, unsound mind, crime, and corrupt or illegal practice. Inability to trace a parent’s 2003 voter registration is not among them.

Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of electoral rolls in the Election Commission – a power of supervision and revision, not a power to create eligibility conditions the Constitution does not authorise.

The Supreme Court’s judgment of May 27 upheld the SIR as constitutionally valid under Article 324 and Section 21(3) of the RP Act. That judgement is binding and not in contest here. But it does not, and cannot, authorise the Election Commission to demand of any voter a condition of eligibility that the Constitution and the RP Act do not prescribe. The SIR is legal. The legacy linkage demand, as currently implemented, is not.

II. What the Representation of the People Act Says

Section 19 of the Representation of People Act, 1950, prescribes two conditions for registration: age of 18 years on the qualifying date, and ordinary residence in the constituency. Two conditions. Nothing else.

Section 20 defines ordinary residence. Section 20(1A) provides that a person temporarily absent from his ordinary residence shall not cease to be ordinarily resident there. Section 20(3) provides that persons with a service qualification – armed forces and para-military personnel – shall be deemed ordinarily resident in the constituency where they would have been but for their service. This directly protects the Patiala family: the father’s registration at posting addresses was a legal consequence of his service, not evidence that the family home was elsewhere.

Section 22’s proviso is equally critical: before any deletion on the ground that a person has ceased to be ordinarily resident or is otherwise not entitled to be registered, the Electoral Registration Officer shall give the person concerned a reasonable opportunity of being heard. This is not discretionary. It is a statutory guarantee.

A deletion processed without this hearing is unlawful. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 – Rules 13 and 21 – govern inclusion and objection procedures. Neither authorises a Booth Level Officer or an Electoral Registration Officer to demand parental voter registration from 23 years ago as a condition of continued enrolment.

III. The 2003 Baseline

The legacy linkage requirement is an administrative methodology chosen by the Election Commission for computational matching – not a statutory requirement. The 2025-26 exercise has departed critically from the 2003 design of the SIR.

Documents placed before the Supreme Court in the Bihar SIR litigation show that the 2003 guidelines used the existing electoral roll and EPIC card as the base for verification — a voter could establish continued registration by producing their own EPIC. The current SIR initially excluded the EPIC from its list of valid documents for post-2003 voters, reversing the Commission’s own prior practice with no statutory justification, corrected only through Supreme Court interim directions.

There is a further contrast: the 2003 SIR was conducted over six months, well before any state election. The current exercise was compressed to three months and run close to election dates. The Commission cannot invoke the authority of its own 2003 precedent while simultaneously abandoning that precedent’s most voter-protective features.

A voter enrolled lawfully in 2008, 2012, or 2018 – through a process that was verified, legally compliant, and EPIC-supported – cannot be retrospectively treated as provisionally unverified because the Commission changed its methodology two decades later.

IV. The parental linkage demand

Even with the form’s wider definition of qualifying relative — father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother – the legacy linkage requirement systematically disadvantages three categories of citizen.

First, voters who were minors in 2003 and whose qualifying relatives were not enrolled that year for lawful reasons: service personnel registered at posting addresses rather than family homes, internal migrants who had not yet re-enrolled, or persons who had moved constituencies.

Second, newly married women: the Rajasthan CEO issued a specific clarification that married women must trace legacy to their own parents, not their marital homes – yet Booth Level Officers across states have been directing women to produce their father-in-law’s or husband’s 2002 registration, which is procedurally wrong and contradicts the form’s own instructions.

Third, orphans, adopted persons, and those whose family records were lost in displacement, natural disaster, or the upheavals of partition-era migration. For none of these categories does inability to produce a qualifying relative’s 2003 voter record bear any relationship to the person’s own citizenship or ordinary residence.

The ex-serviceman father in the Patiala case illustrates a specific iniquity under Section 20(3). That provision deems a service person ordinarily resident in the constituency where he would have been resident but for his service. His voter registration accordingly reflects a deemed legal residence, not his physical location at any given time. His EPIC records one address; his service record reflects others; his retirement address may be a third.

These non-linearities are the direct legal consequence of a provision Parliament enacted to protect service personnel and their families. To penalise a son for his father’s service-mandated registration history is not roll-cleaning. It is the SIR’s algorithm punishing the very statutory accommodation Parliament designed for those who served the nation.

V. SIR and the law

The SIR can lawfully verify that every person on the roll satisfies the two conditions of Section 19 – age and ordinary residence – as of the qualifying date. It can direct Booth Level Officers to conduct door-to-door enumeration, collect enumeration forms, record discrepancies, and flag entries for review.

Following the hearing mandated by Section 22, it can delete entries that are demonstrably ineligible: deceased voters, voters who have demonstrably ceased to be ordinarily resident, duplicate entries, non-citizens. All of this is within the ECI’s authority under Article 324 and the RP Act.

What the SIR cannot lawfully do is create a presumption of ineligibility against any voter who cannot trace their or their parent’s name to the 2003 roll, and then require that voter to discharge that presumption through a documentary standard the Act and the Rules do not prescribe.

The burden of proof for deletion rests on the Electoral Registration Officer, not on the voter. The Supreme Court’s August 2025 interim direction in the Bihar case – requiring acceptance of Aadhaar and EPIC as valid documents – was an implicit acknowledgment that the legacy linkage requirement, as originally formulated, imposed on voters a burden the law does not authorise. It is that burden which this article addresses.

VI. What the citizen must do

If your Booth Level Officer is demanding parental 2003 voter registration documentation, the following steps are your legal protection.

First, do not refuse to cooperate. Fill the enumeration form, produce your own EPIC and Aadhaar, and write clearly on the form: “Parent’s 2003 voter registration not traceable due to service posting history. Voter enrolled by due process. EPIC and Aadhaar attached. Ordinary residence at enrolled address established.” This creates a written record of your cooperation and your inability to comply with a demand the law does not authorise.

Second, check the draft roll the day it is published on July 31. Do not wait. If your name has been deleted or flagged, file a claim under Form 6 or Form 8 immediately, citing: (a) Section 19 requires only age and ordinary residence as conditions of registration; (b) Section 20(3) of the RP Act protects the families of service voters from exactly this kind of documentation trap; (c) Section 22’s proviso requires a hearing before any deletion Booth Level Officer a deletion without a hearing is unlawful; (d) the Supreme Court has directed acceptance of Aadhaar and EPIC as proof of identity and residence. Attach copies of both.

Third, if your claim is rejected without a hearing, appeal to the Chief Electoral Officer under Section 24 of the RP Act, simultaneously approaching the District Election Officer. Fourth, if the CEO’s response is unsatisfactory, approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. The legal arguments are available. The statutory framework is on your side. Act in the first week of August – not the last.

VII. Political Parties, BLAs

Every booth level agent must be trained, before June 25, to identify the legacy linkage demand when it is made and to note in writing on the Booth Level Officer’s enumeration record: “Voter has produced EPIC and Aadhaar. Parental 2003 registration not traceable due to service posting history [or: migration / family circumstances]. Party objects to deletion without hearing under Section 22, RP Act 1950.”

That single notation, consistently made across flagged voters, creates an evidentiary record the Electoral Registration Officer cannot ignore without legal exposure. The booth level agent must also understand that his role is not merely to witness whatever the Booth Level Officer has been directed to do. He is the party’s active legal representative at the point where a voter’s franchise is either protected or compromised.

Parties must simultaneously run a data exercise now, before the visits begin: download the current roll for each of Punjab’s 25,000 booths, identify voters enrolled after 2003, and confirm that each has consistent EPIC and Aadhaar documentation at the enrolled address. Voters with self-supporting documentation are legally protected regardless of parental traceability.

When the draft roll is published on July 31, parties must monitor the deletion reasons field – required to be published following the Supreme Court’s Bihar direction – and file a standardised legal claim for every deletion coded as legacy-linkage-unresolved. A party that prepares that standard brief now will file a hundred claims in the time it would otherwise take to draft one from scratch.

VIII. The Line the SIR Cannot Cross

Twenty-three years have passed since the 2003 SIR. Voters enrolled lawfully in the intervening period did so by satisfying the two conditions the law prescribes: age and ordinary residence. Families have moved. Ex-servicemen have retired to addresses different from their service rolls. Children born into long-established households have grown up, enrolled, and voted across multiple elections without once being asked to prove their parents were on a voter list in a year when they themselves were ten years old.

The SIR cannot, without statutory authority, retrospectively impose on these voters a burden of proof that the RP Act never placed on them. The Election Commission’s power under Article 324 is wide. It is not unlimited. The Constitution and the RP Act are not administrative guidelines adjustable at the Commission’s convenience. They are the boundary within which even the most legitimate institutional exercise must remain – and a methodology that exceeds that boundary is not an exercise of constitutional power. It is a departure from it.

The Patiala voter has been a registered elector for 15 years. His mother has voted at the same address for decades. His father served the nation under terms that Section 20(3) of the RP Act specifically accommodates. The family’s roots at that address are corroborated by every document the household possesses and by every revision of the roll in which the mother’s name has appeared.

No field algorithm designed in 2025, anchored to a base roll from 2002, can take that franchise without a hearing, without legal authority, and without a statutory basis that simply does not exist. The law gives this voter his registration. The law protects his registration. The SIR’s methodology cannot override the law.

This article was first published on The KBS Chronicle.

Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Rai was allegedly placed under house arrest at a hotel in Ayodhya on Monday, a day before a party delegation was to visit the Ram temple, IANS reported.

This came against the backdrop of a row about the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the temple.

On Monday night, Rai alleged on social media that he had been “arrested” from the hotel and taken away in a police vehicle.

भाजपा सरकार की तानाशाही चरम पर है!

​उत्तर प्रदेश कांग्रेस का प्रतिनिधिमंडल कल 30 जून को अयोध्या में प्रभु श्री राम के दर्शन-पूजन के लिए जाने वाला था।

मैं अयोध्या पहुँचा ही था कि भाजपा सरकार इतनी डर गई कि पुलिस मुझे होटल से गिरफ़्तार कर अपनी जीप में बैठाकर ले जा रहीं है।… pic.twitter.com/hjC9eSPy9r

— Ajay Rai🇮🇳 (@kashikirai) June 29, 2026

In a video posted on social media, his wife Rina Rai claimed that he had been arrested and that the family had not been informed where he was being taken. “His life is under threat from the government,” she alleged.

मेरे पति की आवाज़ दबाने के लिए भाजपा सरकार किसी भी हद तक गिरने को तैयार है!

पुलिस जीप में ले जाने के बाद, अब हमारे सहयोगियों को गलत जानकारियां देकर भटकाया जा रहा है।

'चढ़ावा चोरों' के खिलाफ हमारी लड़ाई जारी रहेगी। अगर मेरे पति को कुछ भी होता है, तो उसकी पूरी जिम्मेदारी इस… pic.twitter.com/c805MHvzat

— Ajay Rai🇮🇳 (@kashikirai) June 29, 2026

The Uttar Pradesh Congress claimed that its Pratapgarh district chief Neeraj Tripathi had also been placed under house arrest or detained without any reason being given.

The state unit said that the Bharatiya Janata Party government “must stop its repressive policy, immediately release” the Congress leaders who have been placed under house arrest.

The party leaders should be allowed to go to Ayodhya “without any hindrance”, the Congress said.

A Congress delegation led by Rai was scheduled to offer prayers at the Ram temple on Tuesday.

Congress MPs Kishori Lal Sharma, Rakesh Rathor, Ujjwal Raman Singh and Tanuj Punia, and former Barabanki MP SP Gautam, former MLC Deepak Singh, former Maharajganj MLA Virendra Chaudhary and former Barabanki MLA Mita Gautam are expected to be part of the delegation.

The party had informed the administration about the visit.

Ram temple donation ‘theft’ row

On June 25, a first information report was filed in the alleged embezzlement of donations to the Ram temple against eight persons. The FIR was based on a complaint by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which manages the temple. All eight accused have been arrested.

A day later, the trust’s general secretary, Champat Rai, and trustee Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” amid the controversy.

This came after the Special Investigation Team probing the alleged irregularities at the Ram temple submitted on June 23 its preliminary report to the Uttar Pradesh government. The contents of the report have not been made public.

However, unidentified persons aware of its contents told The Indian Express that the report highlights alleged lapses, inadequate supervision and negligence in the handling, maintenance and counting of donated cash and valuables.

The government said that the investigating team would continue its work and submit a final report after 15 days.

The team was set up by the state government on June 14 following a request from the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.

Opposition leaders and a whistleblower have claimed that cash and jewellery offerings made by devotees had been embezzled by temple staffers under the trust’s watch.

The Ram temple in Ayodhya was built on the site of the Babri Masjid, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born.

In 2019, the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque 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 built.

The Ram temple was inaugurated in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2024.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya

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

Heavy rain continued to lash several parts of India, killing at least 10 persons in Arunachal Pradesh, disrupting normal life across the North East and inundating parts of Mumbai after a brief lull.

The authorities continued rescue and relief operations in flood-affected areas even as the India Meteorological Department warned of more rain across north India.

• Arunachal Pradesh: At least 10 persons have died in rain-related incidents, including landslides, lightning and storms in June, the state disaster management department said on Sunday.  
• Two women were also reported missing in the state’s Keyi Panyor district in flash floods since June 24, the bulletin said. Overall, more than 70,000 people have been affected by heavy rains across the state.

Hair raising video from Arunachal Pradesh shows a biker riding a landslide (28.06.2026)

Amidst incessant rains across NE India, a video from Siji, Lower Siang shows a landslide carrying a biker down with it & blocking the Siji River.

Luckily, the biker escaped unharmed. He… pic.twitter.com/ypRiZRQjQJ

— Kyang Thang རྐྱང་ཐང་ (@Kyangs_Thang) June 28, 2026

• Assam: Rains have affected 96 villages across six districts – Dhemaji, Nalbari, Dibrugarh, Chirang, Lakhimpur and Kokrajhar, the state’s Disaster Reporting and Information Management System said on Sunday. However, there have been no reported casualties or missing persons so far.

• In Dhemaji district, a railway bridge over the Simen River has collapsed, while an iron bridge has been washed away in a flash flood. Several roads have also been damaged due to rainfall, the district administration said on Sunday.

• Monsoon advance: The India Meteorological Department said on Sunday that conditions are favourable for the southwest monsoon to advance into more parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand by Wednesday. It added that the rains would arrive in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and southeast Rajasthan within four to six days.

• Mumbai: Heavy rain returned overnight on Monday after a brief lull, leading to waterlogging in several parts of the city. The Andheri subway was closed to traffic due to flooding, India Today reported.

• The weather agency has issued a yellow alert for thunderstorms, moderate rain and gusty winds in Mumbai, with more rain expected through the week.

VIDEO | Mumbai: Rain lashes parts of the city, waterlogging reported in Andheri subway area (3.30 am visuals).#MumbaiRains #MumbaiWeather

(Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvrpG7) pic.twitter.com/VBcVMRtT13

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 29, 2026

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The Ayodhya Bar Association on Monday refused to represent the accused persons in a case about the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya, The Hindu reported.

The president of the association, Kalika Prasad Mishra, warned that any lawyer representing the accused persons will be fined Rs 5 lakh.

A first information report has been filed against eight persons in the case, all of whom have been arrested. Those named in the FIR are Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey, Manish Yadav, Lavkush Mishra, Ramashankar Mishra and Subhash Srivastava.

Kalika Prasad Mishra, the president of the bar association, said that a committee comprising 15 to 20 members has been formed to handle the prosecution’s case, ANI reported. He also noted that demands have been made that the Central Bureau of Investigation should look into the case.

“People are questioning the point of making offerings to the deity when a group of five individuals might simply misappropriate them,” Mishra was quoted as saying by ANI. “They argue that while the accused currently in jail have been formally charged, there are others, far more culpable, who remain implicated.”

The chief of the bar association said that the alleged misappropriation could not have taken place without the knowledge of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust General Secretary Champat Rai, trustee Anil Mishra and temple construction in-charge Gopal Rao. Rai and Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” on June 26.

The FIR in the case was filed on a complaint by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which manages the temple. It invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to theft by a clerk or servant, criminal breach of trust, stolen property and criminal conspiracy.

Opposition leaders have claimed that cash and jewellery offerings made by devotees had been embezzled by temple staffers under the trust’s watch. They have also alleged that Rai, Anil Mishra and Rao are being protected by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Ram temple was built on the site of the Babri Masjid, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born.

In 2019, the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque 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 built.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The national honour granted by Seychelles to Prime Minister Narendra Modi left social media users puzzled after spelling errors were visible in the presidential citation of the award. Some users questioned the authenticity of the document.

Seychelles President Patrick Herminie conferred Modi with the Guardian of the Blue Horizon award on Sunday during the Indian prime minister’s visit to the island nation. Modi was the guest of honour at the golden jubilee celebrations of Seychelles’ national day.

The honour, described by the Seychelles government as the country’s highest presidential distinction, was instituted on June 24, three days before Modi’s visit.

Modi was honoured for his leadership, commitment to sustainable development, international cooperation and supporting the aspirations of the small island developing states, the citation said. It also said that Modi was being awarded to appreciate his contribution to bilateral relations.

Social media users were quick to point out the spelling error. The citation had misspelt “republic” as “repubblic” and Seychelles as “Seycheeles”.

The Congress said that there was “so much haste” that the name on the award was printed wrong.

“Seychelles created the award four days back, and Modi ji rushed over to collect it,” party leader Supriya Shrinate said on social media. “Along with that, he also provided economic aid of Rs 1,500 crore.”

“His awards are like that – no one got it before, nor will anyone after him,” she added.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra said that the prime minister “loves awards” and foreign travel. “He used our money to give Rs 500 crore grant and Rs 1,250 crore line of credit to Seychelles who happily gave him a misspelt certificate,” she said on social media.

Some highlighted the irony of the environmental conservation honour in view of the concerns about the Great Nicobar Project’s ecological impact and implications for the tribal communities.

One user said that the citation “must be for the Great Nicobar Project where a pristine forest is being destroyed by felling at least one million trees”. Another described it as “tragically funny on so many levels”.

Seychelles gave Modi a newly made up award - Guardian of the Blue Horizon. Yes to the very man whose govt has sanctioned the decimation of Nicobar and Andamans. This is tragically funny on so many levels.

— Sangita (@Sanginamby) June 29, 2026

The spelling errors also led some to question the authenticity of the citation.

Misspelling Republic on an official citation is embarrassing enough. But misspelling Seychelles on the country's own national honour document? That's not just a typo it raises serious questions about authenticity. One would expect a nation to at least spell its own name correctly https://t.co/wt2l3Lz8YL

— Vinay Gupta (@Vinay_Gupta_CG) June 28, 2026

The seal evokes high suspicion…how come the words “republic” and “Seychelles” both are wrongly spelt? https://t.co/KsuOss56Tn

— Shikha Salaria (@Salaria_Shikha1) June 28, 2026

The award given to Modi by Seychelles is so new and so fake that it has spelling mistakes in the certificate. Looks like someone from BJP printed the certificate in India and Modi took it with him to Seychelles. pic.twitter.com/5ClCUELgsP

— The Armchair Activist (@thrmchrctvst) June 29, 2026

Some users claimed that the citation could have been created using generative Artificial Intelligence tools.

Journalist Suhasini Haidar, the diplomatic editor of The Hindu, said that the question of who had created the misspelt citation had become more significant because neither the Seychelles government, nor India’s Ministry of External Affairs had uploaded the document to their websites.

The people of Seychelles were in such a hurry to create this 'new honour' that they even misspelled 'REPUBLIC & Seychelles" on the STAMP. pic.twitter.com/Hwaquj7GiK

— Ashish Joshi (@bismil_prasad) June 28, 2026

So Seychelles awarded "Guardian of the Blue Horizon" to the PM Modi but the doubt rises, did he took the stamp along with him from India as it has the spelling error "REPUBBLIC"?
I repeat again, You are living in a Prank. pic.twitter.com/WUO5NVQiHm

— Pankaj Jain (@pj77in) June 28, 2026

A misspelling of "Republic" in the citation seal is surprising enough. But misspelling "Seychelles" on its own national honour document is an even more remarkable lapse, one that naturally raises questions about the document's authenticity or the process behind it. https://t.co/37Q86G3KFB

— Dhananjay Shinde INDIA 🇮🇳 (@Dhananjay4INC) June 28, 2026

Edited by Sara Varghese.

The teaser of the Hindi film Chauhaan faced criticism from a Kshatriya group, which remarked that it was “irresponsible and disrespectful” to use a Rajput clan name as a title to inflame caste and communal sentiments. The Kshatriya Parishad said it “rejects every attempt to weaponise Rajput history or appropriate Rajput identities for electoral or ideological purposes”.

The film, directed by Neeraj Yadav and starring Ajay Devgn, will be released on October 1, 2027. The teaser depicts scenes from a 2018 demonstration in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, with a voiceover by Devgn saying pellet guns and water cannons caused only “limited damage” and were merely “temporary solutions” against protesters who throw stones.

The video sparked criticism from many Kashmiris on social media, several of whom questioned the description of pellet guns as causing only “limited damage”, and noted that thousands were injured by such guns in Kashmir, especially between 2016 and 2019. Read on.

The Telangana Police arrested a Bharatiya Janata Party leader for allegedly assaulting the principal of a private school in the Nizamabad distirct over claims that he undertook unauthorised Urdu lessons for 25 students. The BJP leader who was arrested was Mandula Balu, the Armoor town president of the party.

A group of men led by Balu allegedly assaulted the principal of the Bharat Chandra High School, also known as Bhavishya Darshini School, in the Perkit village of Nizamabad on Saturday.

The police registered two cases after the incident. One of them was filed against Balu and others for allegedly trespassing on the school premises and assaulting the teacher. The other FIR named principal Ameer Khan, the school’s administrative official Mallaiah and teacher Huma Hania for the allegedly unauthorised classes. Read on.

The Central Board of Secondary Education said that the current batch of Class 10 students will not have to follow its new language policy. The new rules, which will take effect on July 1, will make it mandatory for Class 9 students to learn three languages, of which two must be Indian ones. English will be counted as a non-native language.

The CBSE said that while there will be no change for the current Class 10 batch, students who are presently in Class 7 to 9 will be given relaxations to enable the transition to the new policy. Students currently in Classes 7 to 9 will be evaluated on their third language through a school-level assessment, instead of a board examination, when they progress to Class 10.

The three-language policy will apply in full to the batch of students currently in Class 6, who will not be given a transitional relaxation. Read on.

The national honour granted by Seychelles to Prime Minister Narendra Modi left social media users puzzled after spelling errors were visible in the presidential citation that accompanied the award. The document misspelt ‘republic’ as ‘repubblic’ and Seychelles as ‘Seycheeles’.

The errors led some social media users to question the authenticity of the document.

Seychelles President Patrick Herminie conferred Modi with the Guardian of the Blue Horizon award on Sunday during the Indian prime minister’s visit to the island nation. The honour, described by the Seychelles government as the country’s highest presidential distinction, was instituted on June 24, three days before Modi’s visit.

The Congress said that there was “so much haste” that the name on the award was printed wrong. “Seychelles created the award four days back, and Modi ji rushed over to collect it,” party leader Supriya Shrinate said on social media. Read on.

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

A Kshatriya organisation on Monday objected to the teaser of the upcoming Hindi film Chauhaan, saying that it was “irresponsible and disrespectful” to use a Rajput clan name as a title to inflame caste and communal sentiments.

The organisation, the Kshatriya Parishad, said it “rejects every attempt to weaponise Rajput history or appropriate Rajput identities for electoral or ideological purposes”.

The film Chauhaan, directed by Neeraj Yadav and starring Ajay Devgn, is slated for release on October 1, 2027. The teaser depicts scenes from a 2018 demonstration in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama, with a voiceover by Devgn saying pellet guns and water cannons caused only “limited damage” and were merely “temporary solutions” against protesters who throw stones.

The voiceover adds that an “answer is on its way” for the protesters after 75 years, saying, “tell the Pathaans: Chauhaan is coming”.

The teaser sparked widespread criticism from Kashmiris on social media. Many questioned the description of pellet guns as causing only “limited damage”, noting that thousands were injured by such guns in Kashmir, especially between 2016 and 2019.

The Kshatriya Parishad on Monday said it was unfortunate that Rajput identity was “once again being dragged into a political narrative that Rajputs neither initiated nor sought”. It said that at a time when Rajput voices are underrepresented in mainstream media, it was inappropriate to invoke a clan name from the community only to provoke outrage.

We strongly condemn the attempt by Neeraj Yadav and Ajay Devgn's upcoming film Chauhaan to appropriate the Chauhan clan name for contemporary communal politics.

Rajput history is not a political prop. The legacy of the Chauhans belongs to Rajput history , not to electoral… pic.twitter.com/nDRRKoikv4

— Kshatriya Parishad (@kshatriya_org) June 29, 2026

The organisation also noted that the subcontinent’s history could not be reduced to “simplistic communal binaries”, citing examples of Afghans and Rajputs fighting alongside one another. “These episodes illustrate that medieval political alliances were shaped by statecraft, loyalty and military strategy – not by the communal narratives being imposed upon them today,” it said.

Among those who objected to the teaser of Chauhaan on social media were Kashmiri political leaders. National Conference MP Ruhullah Mehdi remarked that while the teaser described pellet guns as ineffective, they in fact left behind thousands of shattered lives.

“Official figures acknowledge that over 6,200 people were injured by pellet guns during the 2016–17 unrest alone, including hundreds with devastating eye injuries,” the Srinagar MP said.

The MP further remarked: “For those who lost their eyesight, those who still live with pellets lodged in their bodies, and the families who continue to bear those scars, this is not an action sequence or a cinematic backdrop. It is lived trauma.”

The teaser of Chauhaan is deeply disturbing for every Kashmiri who carries the memories of the years when pellet guns became a symbol of pain and irreversible loss.

The teaser dismisses tear gas, water cannons and pellet guns as "ineffective measures" before introducing a hero…

— Office of Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi (@Office_ASRM) June 29, 2026

National Conference spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said that the teaser was full of content that could incite violence in Kashmir. “Mocking children and young prople who lost their eyesight, some even their life, and opening up old scars of their families is nothing short of a spiteful agenda against Kashmiris,” he said.

This trash of a compilation is a propaganda that has put Goblean propaganda to shame.

It is full of content that can incite violence in Kashmir. Mocking children and young prople who lost their eyesight, some even their life, and opening up old scars of their families is… https://t.co/ndaxkNMOxR

— Imran Nabi Dar (@ImranNDar) June 27, 2026

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Telangana Police on Monday arrested a Bharatiya Janata Party leader for allegedly assaulting the principal of a private school in the Nizamabad distirct over claims that he undertook unauthorised Urdu lessons for a class of 25 students, The Hindu reported.

Mandula Balu, the Armoor town president of the BJP, was arrested by the police on Monday.

A group of men led by Balu on Saturday allegedly assaulted the principal of the Bharat Chandra High School, also known as Bhavishya Darshini School, in the Perkit village of Nizamabad, The Indian Express reported.

The police registered two first information reports following the incident.

One of the cases was filed against Balu and others for allegedly trespassing the school premises and assaulting the teacher. The second case named principal Ameer Khan, the school’s administrative official Mallaiah and teacher Huma Hania for the allegedly unauthorised classes, The Times of India reported.

A Muslim Urdu teacher was slapped by a BJP leader in Telangana for teaching Urdu to students, despite Urdu being an officially recognized second language in the state. The incident took place in the presence of Telangana Police. Instead of taking immediate action against the… pic.twitter.com/4nECGucpIT

— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 28, 2026

The district authorities ordered an inquiry into the alleged unauthorised teaching of Urdu. The inquiry was conducted by the revenue inspector, the mandal education officer and the police, The Times of India reported.

The team questioned students, staff, parents and the school management.

The inquiry found that Hania, who had been appointed to teach Hindi to students between Class 1 and Class 5 had allegedly been teaching Urdu during Hindi lessons without authorisation, Inspector P Satyanarayana told The Times of India.

Satyanarayana was quoted as saying that several students confirmed that Urdu had been taught during the classes and that the principal and correspondent acknowledged receiving complaints from parents before directing the teacher to stop the lessons.

The police also alleged that Urdu notes in students’ exercise books had been torn out by the school management after parents objected, leading to a law and order situation.

The principal told The Indian Express that he is an English teacher and that the Urdu classes were conducted by another educator on the instructions of the school management after requests from parents of Muslim students, who make up 25% of the students in the school.

He told the newspaper that the school management board was “headed by Hindu persons who decided that Urdu can be taught as a second language in the school”.

Khan said: “At the beginning of the school year, in June, two days of Urdu classes were held, and when parents of Hindu students opposed this, we decided not to conduct these classes anymore.”

However, members of the BJP alleged that the school had been teaching namaz and the kalima, the Islamic declaration of faith, in school, The Indian Express reported.

The school management denied this claim.

“There was no question of teaching any religious text,” an official who filed a complaint about the assault said. “The students were being taught the Urdu alphabet for two days.”

Balu said that he had assaulted the principal, alleging that he was “sure that he was trying to force Hindu students to take up Islam”.

Separately, fact-checker Mohammed Zubair said on social media that his post about the incident had been flagged for removal after Hyderabad Police allegedly sent a request to the platform X, claiming that it violated the law.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar and Neerad Pandharipande.

The Central Board of Secondary Education said on Monday that the current batch of Class 10 students will not have to follow its new language policy.

The policy, which will come into effect from July 1, will make it mandatory for Class 9 students to learn three languages, of which two must be Indian ones. English will be counted as a non-native language.

Since the guidelines were announced on May 15, several parents and teachers have approached the Supreme Court challenging them.

The CBSE on Monday clarified that for students currently in the Class 10 batch of 2026-’27, there will be no change, and they do not need to take up a third language.

Class 9 students will need to study three languages, of which two must be Indian ones. Those who currently have two Indian languages can either take up a foreign language or a third Indian language.

Class 9 students who currently have one Indian and one non-native language can choose any Indian language as the third language. Those who are presently studying two foreign languages have been given a “special one-time relaxation” under which they can add an Indian language as the third one.

There will be no board examination for the third language for the current batch of Class 9 students, and there will instead be an internal school-based assessment.

For Class 7 and 8 students too, those who have already chosen two foreign languages can continue studying them. Such students will, however, have to study an additional Indian language till Class 10. The CBSE said that the third language for these batches will also be assessed by the school itself through an internal evaluation.

The three-language policy will apply in full to the batch of students currently in Class 6, who will not be given a transitional relaxation.

The CBSE announced the language guidelines in line with the 2020 National Education Policy, which recommends learning three languages, of which at least two are native to India.

Petitioners against the CBSE guidelines have argued before the Supreme Court that the circular violates constitutional protections, including the right to equality and the right to education.

The petitioners 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. 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 Supreme Court on May 27 agreed to examine whether the policy places undue pressure on students and if there are logistical challenges in implementing it.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

More than 100 girls at a residential school in Jharkhand’s Garhwa district fell ill allegedly after drinking water from an overhead storage tank, The Indian Express reported on Monday.

The incident took place at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in Kharaundhi block, which has about 300 students.

Kharaundhi Block chief Abha Rani alleged that many girls had to drink from the overhead plastic tank that had become very hot because of the intense summer.

On Friday, the girls reported symptoms including stomach ache, vomiting, dizziness and weakness and were taken to hospital.

The district administration said that about 100 students were affected, the newspaper reported.

However, Garhwa Deputy Commissioner Pashupati Nath Mishra later said that about 77 girls had been admitted to hospital. He said on Saturday that while most had been discharged, five or six remained under observation and were out of danger, IANS reported.

A preliminary inquiry found prima facie negligence by the school management, prompting the district administration to suspend the school warden, a full-time teacher and a cook, The Indian Express reported.

“The hostel had an RO [reverse osmosis] system, it was installed in the warden’s room and students were allegedly not allowed to use it,” The Indian Express quoted the Kharaundhi block chief as further saying.

She also alleged that the school premises and kitchen were unhygienic, meals were not being served according to the prescribed menu and that a power outage linked to Muharram had left students without drinking water on Friday.

The deputy commissioner issued a show-cause notice to the block education officer and ordered the officer’s salary to be withheld pending an explanation of why routine inspections had failed to identify deficiencies at the school, The Indian Express reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

For years, anthropologist Adil Hossain has studied the politics of citizenship and written extensively about the subject. But the special intensive revision of voter rolls in West Bengal made the 39-year-old scholar’s own life what he calls a “laboratory of citizenship”.

Despite possessing a passport and land records dating back to the 1950s, Hossain’s name was removed from the electoral roll of his village in the Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, weeks ahead of the Assembly elections. On April 23, the day of the vote in his constituency, his parents and his sister went to the polling booth, while he had to stay at home.

“All of a sudden, it dawned on me that the things I have read about are happening to me now,” said Hossain, who teaches at a private university in India. “It was very unsettling. I felt a sense of alienation. This is hierarchical citizenship. Others could go and vote, but I could not.”

The special intensive revision removed over 91 lakh names from the voter list of Bengal. This figure nearly matched the Bharatiya Janata Party’s claims that there were one crore “Bangladeshis, Rohingyas” on the electoral rolls of the state.

The Election Commission, though, has not disclosed how many foreigners, if any, it identified through the exercise. Many of the names that it purged from the rolls were removed because of spelling errors. At least 34 lakh deleted voters have filed appeals before tribunals set up by the Supreme Court. Hossain is one of them.

Since the BJP came to power in the state on May 9, the new administration has taken a series of decisions that render deleted voters ineligible for welfare schemes. Some of these decisions have put deleted voters in the dock even as the tribunals have yet to hear their appeals and decide their fate.

“I had a sense of foreboding about what they [the BJP] would do,” Hossain said. Historically, he noted, such processes do not end with one step. “The SIR snatched away the right to vote. The next step is taking away social welfare benefits,” he alleged.

He is now preparing to legally challenge one such controversial order passed by the new government. On May 14, it had instructed officials to verify all the 1.69 crore caste certificates issued during the 15-year reign of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in the state.

The order, of which Scroll has seen a copy, stated that the caste certificates of deleted voters “shall be examined and may be cancelled”. Hossain contended that any such move would be unconstitutional.

“The SIR was carried out to draw up a list of the electorate,” he explained. “To link it with social welfare benefits is to create new categories of citizenship. This is how people are slowly pushed to the margins.”

Hossain argued that till the tribunal decides all appeals, the lives of deleted voters should not be impacted. His own appeal, which he filed over two months ago, has yet to be heard. He estimated that the tribunals could take eight to ten years to dispense with all the appeals.

More legal challenges

The scholar is hardly the only one petitioning the Calcutta High Court against the new government’s use of the roll revision exercise as the basis for administrative action.

On June 19, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation had also filed a public interest litigation suit against the same order. In a press statement, the party said that “linking the inclusion or exclusion of a person's name in the SIR to the verification of caste certificates is wholly illegal and without constitutional basis.”

Separately, Isha Khan Choudhury, the MP from Maldaha Dakshin, has filed a petition seeking information about the status of pending appeals and asking for the process to be expedited.

“Nobody knows what is going on,” the Congress leader complained. “The process has completely slowed down. One top judge has resigned out of frustration.”

After the recent split in the Lok Sabha contingent of the Trinamool Congress, Choudhury is the only remaining Opposition MP from the Muslim-majority districts of Malda and Murshidabad, which saw high deletions during the special intensive revision.

He asked for more judges to be appointed for deciding the appeals of deleted voters. “They can’t drag this on,” he said. “They are playing with people’s lives.”

‘Living in terror’

Deleted voters whom Scroll met while covering the West Bengal Assembly elections echoed Choudhury.

Wasip Biswas, 32, runs a construction business in the border village of Debipur in Murshidabad district. His elder brother works in the Border Security Force. Both their names were struck off the rolls before the elections even though they possess land documents from over a century ago.

“There is no update about our appeals,” Biswas grumbled over the phone. “I am hearing that our driving licenses will be cancelled and we will not get ration. People are living in terror.”

Biswas mentioned the case of 12 deleted voters from Malda about whom there was constant discussion in his village. They were allegedly declared to be Bangladeshis and put in a holding centre after the elections. “They are all Muslims from one family,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, civil society protests for disenfranchised voters have more or less wound up in Kolkata. Quazi Mohmmad Alfred, a professor who actively took part in one such sit-in demonstration at the city’s Park Circus Maidan for two months till May, was candid when asked about this.

“We are not sitting there anymore,” he admitted. “It is unlikely that the new government will listen to us. One of our fellow protestors was even arrested by the police.”

Alfred suggested that it had become risky to protest in the state. “All activists have to think a lot before doing anything now,” he explained.

But Hossain, the anthropologist, was unfazed. He said he would go ahead with his petition against the government’s order regarding the verification of caste certificates because he was convinced that the Constitution was on his side.

While Hossain belongs to an Other Backward Class community, he claimed that his case did not stem from the need to safeguard personal interests. He pointed out that he worked at a private university and had not availed reservations for Other Backward Classes in his career so far.

“I am very privileged,” he acknowledged. “I have travelled the world. I have a degree from Oxford. I never thought this would happen to me.”

The roll revision showed that exclusionary processes can affect even privileged Muslims, he said. “We are in limbo. We don’t know what kind of rules they will make for people who have no voting rights,” he added. “This is slow poisoning.”

The Minister of External Affairs on Sunday rejected allegations made by Pakistani officials linking India to the militant attack in Karachi on Saturday.

“Instead of pointing fingers at others, Pakistan would do better to look inwards, take credible action against the terror infrastructure on its territory and rid itself of its proclivity to rely on terrorism as an instrument of state policy,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.

On Saturday, at least three personnel of the Pakistan Rangers were killed and four injured in the militant attack in Karachi. The gunmen had blasted the gate of the Rangers' camp and tried to breach perimeter security.

On Sunday, the Pakistan military had claimed without providing evidence that the attack had been carried out by a group, which it alleged is an Indian proxy.

On Monday, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said that the country had carried out airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan in response to the attack in Karachi and other incidents in the border regions, AFP reported.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The Editors Guild of India on Sunday condemned the manner in which R Rajagopal, a former editor of The Telegraph, was “being treated by the bureaucracy that gets to decide who is an Indian citizen and who is not”.

On Saturday, Rajagopal said that he had been removed as a voter in West Bengal during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in March, apparently because his and his father’s names could not be traced in the 2002 voters’ list.

Rajagopal said that his name had been excluded by the Election Commission citing “logical discrepancies”, which refers to situations such as a mismatch in parents’ names, low age gap with parents and the number of children of the parents being more than six.

Statement on the Denial of Electoral and Passport Rights to R. Rajagopal pic.twitter.com/xa4kJij9Tw

— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) June 28, 2026

He said that he had been facing problems while renewing his passport. While his biometric formalities had been completed on March 19, his application was not cleared at the police verification stage because his name no longer appears in the voter list.

Rajagopal, the editor of The Telegraph between 2016 and 2023, said that he was informed that the alternative documents he had submitted were insufficient.

“For all practical purposes, I find myself in a state of civic uncertainty although recently the government iterated that a passport is no proof of citizenship,” he said. “Much of my time is now consumed by efforts to reconstruct family records and secure documents dating back several decades.”

On Sunday, the Editors Guild said that despite decades of work in the public domain as a journalist and editor, Rajagopal had found himself not only disenfranchised as a voter, but also had been unable to renew his passport “allegedly due to an ‘adverse report’” from the Kolkata Police.

The police must have been familiar with Rajagopal as he was the editor of one of the city’s major newspapers, the guild said.

Rajagopal’s plight “highlights the misery that millions of Indians are being put through” because of the voter list revision, the news association said.

“If it could happen to someone like Mr Rajagopal, a known public figure, the fate of others who have similarly been disenfranchised by a bureaucratic stroke of the pen, and lacking the voice to seek redressal can only be imagined,” it said in a statement.

The guild called on the Election Commission “to display common sense – and sympathy” – and restore Rajagopal’s identity as a voter. It also urged the poll panel to “extend similar consideration to all those who have suffered a similar fate.

Voter roll revision and citizenship

The special intensive revision of voter rolls in West Bengal was carried out before the elections in April.

Final rolls 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 West Bengal’s electorate before the revision process began, had been removed from the electoral rolls.

Ahead of the Assembly elections, about 34 lakh appeals were reportedly pending before appellate tribunals. Of these, 27 lakh were filed by persons who were excluded from the voter list. The tribunals set up as part of the special intensive revision process had allowed 1,607 names to be added back to the electoral rolls.

The voter list revision has taken place in several other states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the past year. The third phase is underway in 16 states and three Union Territories.

On May 27, 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 elections”.

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

On Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs reiterated that the passport is a travel document and not proof of citizenship.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read:

• Bihar to Bengal, the great Indian disenfranchisement now has the Supreme Court’s approval
• Explained: Why an Indian passport is not proof of citizenship – and no single document is

The Indian gazelle, also known as chinkara, found across the subcontinent’s drylands, carries a quiet sense of security. Protected under Schedule I of India’s Wildlife Protection Act and listed under the least concern category by the IUCN, it is not an obvious candidate for a conservation crisis. However, a new study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management by researchers from the Zoological Survey of India, challenges that assumption.

The study projects that under the worst-case emissions pathway, RCP 8.5, where temperatures rise by 4°C or more by 2100, the chinkara could lose nearly 89% of its suitable habitat by 2070. When climate alone is isolated as a driver, projected habitat loss climbs to almost 96.5%. Under RCP 2.6, which aligns with the Paris Agreement’s 2°C target, habitat losses were lower, but still severe.

“A loss of 89%-96% of habitat within roughly 50 years represents a biodiversity emergency for this species in India,” said lead author of the study Amar Paul Singh. The study is among the first to examine these risks at a national scale for a dryland ungulate.

Mapping a shrinking future

The researchers compiled more than 200 verified chinkara records from field surveys, published literature and biodiversity databases spanning between 2000 and 2022. They layered those records against climate, land-cover, topographic and human-disturbance data, then ran them through an ensemble of seven different species-distribution models to reduce the bias any single model might introduce into the final projection.

Under current conditions, the models identified a little over 195,733 square kilometres of suitable habitat, about the size of Gujarat, across western and central India, with patches on the Deccan Plateau. The chinkaras are found to roam across 11 states in the country, ranging from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

But by 2070, much of central and southern India is projected to become unsuitable for chinkaras. Liveable habitat would largely retreat to Rajasthan and the northwest. “This is not a gradual drift – it is a potential collapse of range for a species that many people assume to be secure,” said Singh.

The researchers looked at two main categories of threats that cause chinkara’s habitat loss: climate change and human land-use. The data models showed that climate change is by far the biggest threat to where the chinkara can live, dictating over 70% of the model’s results. Specifically, shifts in weather patterns like aridity, temperature and seasonal precipitation, will damage the chinkara’s habitat significantly more than human development or agriculture will.

Desert adaptation isn’t enough

There’s a tempting logic that says desert animals are essentially climate-proof, considering they have already adapted to living in one of the harshest environments on earth. The study also confronts the reasoning.

“Chinkaras are indeed desert-adapted animals, but adaptation does not mean they can tolerate unlimited heat or drought,” said Singh.

The models suggest chinkaras thrive in moderately dry conditions, not extreme aridity. The concern is as much ecological as physiological. The chinkara has the ability to survive without water for many weeks and can sustain hydrating itself by extracting moisture from desert plants, seeds and wild fruits. “When vegetation becomes severely stressed due to extreme aridity, food quality and quantity decline, creating indirect pressure on the species even if the animal can tolerate heat reasonably well. In essence, they can survive in deserts, but they need a desert that still has functioning, water-bearing vegetation,” Singh explained.

Threats beyond climate change

Parts of Rajasthan emerge from the analysis as potential climate refugia, but the study does not account for several emerging threats on the ground.

Rajasthan is India’s largest solar energy producer, with several large-scale parks sitting within or adjacent to the climatically-stable habitat, the study identifies.

Sumit Dookia, a wildlife researcher who has spent more than two decades studying chinkara in Rajasthan, welcomed the study’s projections but also pointed to the rapid expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. “This study does not account for the existing and future case scenario of solar energy parks in this landscape. These renewable energy parks are altering the existing habitat of chinkara and such landscape-level fenced parks are going to become inaccessible,” he said.

Dookia also questioned whether the northwest can reliably serve as a future stronghold, given the irrigation initiative – Indira Gandhi Canal Project’s transformation of the region. Improved irrigation has enabled two to three crops a year, eliminating the fallow periods that once gave wildlife room to move. He also listed habitat degradation and free-ranging dogs as immediate threats, largely absent from long-term climate projections.

Community guardians

In north-western Rajasthan, the Bishnoi community has functioned as an informal, effective conservation force for generations. For the Bishnoi, harming or killing a chinkara is a sin. Those who violate this norm face social pressure and the community intervenes directly.

“Populations near Bishnoi villages are notably healthier and denser than in adjacent areas without such community protection. As our projections show Rajasthan becoming the primary refuge for chinkara under climate change, the cultural stewardship of communities like the Bishnoi becomes even more ecologically significant,” Singh said.

What next?

Dookia argues that broader policy changes are needed. “There is an urgent need to recognise so-called ‘wastelands’ as biodiversity refuges inside human-dominated landscapes. We need a grassland policy for the protection of one of the most fertile ecosystems, which supports many wild herbivores outside protected area regimes,” he said.

The study’s authors also outline four interconnected priorities. Population monitoring must first be strengthened across the species’ current range. Simultaneously, habitats in central and southern India need to be prioritised for protection before further land-use change accelerates losses.

Looking further ahead, wildlife corridors connecting existing populations to projected future refugia in the northwest will be essential to enable the range shift the models anticipate. Finally, as a key prey species for cheetahs reintroduced in India, the chinkara’s conservation carries broader ecological significance for India’s rewilding project as a whole.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

Activist Sonam Wangchuk on Sunday began a hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar where the Cockroach Janta Party has been holding a protest since June 20. The protesters are demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged mismanagement in the conduct of competitive exams.

Hundreds of protesters gathered at the site on Sunday.

Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke alleged on Sunday that the Delhi Police cut off sanitation facilities at Jantar Mantar as Wangchuk began his hunger strike. “No water connection and hygiene measures,” he alleged on social media.

Dipke said that despite repeated requests and citing Wangchuk’s age and health concerns, the police was “not cooperating and we suspect that other such basic facilities too will be cut off”.

Earlier on Sunday, Dipke alleged that several farmers’ leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab were being put under house arrest to prevent them from joining the protest in Delhi.

After holding its first protest at Jantar Mantar on June 6, the Cockroach Janta Party – which started as a satirical political campaign – organised demonstrations in several cities demanding the resignation of Pradhan.

Wangchuk had participated in the protest in Delhi on June 6.

The campaign was launched on May 16 in response to reports of remarks by Chief Justice Surya Kant on the previous day comparing some unemployed youngsters to “cockroaches”. Within a week, the campaign had garnered more than 22 million followers on social media platform Instagram.

The chief justice claimed on May 16 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 he had specifically criticised “those who have entered professions like the Bar [legal profession] with the aid of fake and bogus degrees”.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

Also read:

• Why India’s Opposition parties should be worried about the cockroach movement
• Watching the Cockroach Janta Party – cautiously
• ‘We want accountability’: Voices from the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest in Pune

Seventy nine years after Independence, most colonial names have been wiped clean in Mumbai. So when Maharashtra minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha found one that was still intact and proposed that the municipal King Edward Memorial Hospital be rechristened, there really shouldn’t have been much of a debate.

“The name King Edward represents colonial rule,” Lodha said at an event to celebrate the hospital’s centenary in January. “It has no connection with India today. Therefore, the civic body should think about changing it.”

This week, the minister reiterated his demand. Edward, he said, was actually “King Kasab who looted India and killed lakhs of Indians” – a reference to the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab who along with 11 others massacred 175 people in the city in 2008.

Oddly, Lodha’s suggestion has met with opposition from members of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction – whose predecessors in 1995 had changed the name of the city from Bombay to Mumbai.

“There is a history behind the KEM Hospital’s name and contribution of Edward towards health that can’t be denied,” party MLC Sunil Shinde told The Print.

Historians point out that sites with colonial names, even those that memorialise controversial personalities, serve as resonant reminders that the past is more complicated that politicians often try to suggest. Others note that the campaign to replace colonial names is a low-effort emotion-driven strategy by governments to deflect attention from their inability to solve current problems.

Still, the impulse to purge colonial names is easy to understand: the British were insatiably extractive and forced India to pay a colossal human price for their imperial project.

That corrosive memory informed Indian foreign policy for decades. During the Cold War, New Delhi was justifiably wary of being drawn into neo-imperialist blocs and attempted to forge a path of non-alignment.

No wonder Indians with a perspective on global history have been alarmed at the country’s recent willingness to bend over backwards to pander Donald Trump’s America – even in the face of indifference (most recently, Trump refused to apologise for the deaths of three Indian sailors in US fire) and insult (India was slapped with crippling tariffs and can buy crucial Russian oil only at Washington’s forbearance).

In fact, India is so eager to flatter the US president, the street by the US consulate in Hyderabad was designated Donald Trump Avenue earlier this week (even though Telangana is ruled by the Congress).

That is a move that would meet with the approval even of Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the Maharashtra minister pushing to give KEM Hospital a more Indic identity. In addition to being a politician, Lodha runs a construction conglomerate, erecting towers with decidedly Western names. His projects include Lodha Bellissimo, Lodha Fiorenza – and Lodha Trump Tower.

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

Ayodhya embezzlement case. Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust chief Champat Rai and member Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” following the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The trust manages the temple.

On Thursday, a first information report was registered against eight persons in the matter based on a complaint by the trust. It invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to theft by a clerk or servant, criminal breach of trust, stolen property and criminal conspiracy.

This came after a Special Investigation Team submitted its preliminary report on the allegations to the Uttar Pradesh government. The contents of the report have not been made public. Opposition leaders and a whistleblower have claimed that cash and jewellery offerings made by devotees had been embezzled by temple staffers under the trust’s watch.

Spotlight on the Madhya Pradesh CM. The Congress asked whether the Bharatiya Janata Party would agree to an independent judicial inquiry into allegations pertaining to land purchases by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, his family members and their real estate companies. The Congress’ state chief Jitu Patwari asked whether Yadav would release a white paper on the land he had bought since taking oath as the chief minister.

This came a day after The Indian Express reported that Yadav, his family and their real estate firms bought at least 137 plots worth Rs 45 crore in areas that will benefit most from infrastructure projects announced by him.

Patwari urged Yadav to explain the source of the funds used by him and his family to buy the land.

A destructive natural disaster. At least 920 persons died and 3,360 were injured as of Friday after two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck Venezuela on Wednesday. More than 50,000 persons were reported missing. The epicentres of both the quakes were close to the capital city of Caracas.

The “doublet” earthquake was the most powerful to occur in the region in 126 years. There were more than 20 aftershocks. Several countries sent search and rescue teams to look for survivors.

War crimes. The Israeli military deliberately killed Palestinian children and has committed a genocide, said the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry. More than 20,000 children have been killed by the forces and 44,000 injured since October 2023, it added.

“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, the chair of the commission.

The panel also alleged that sexual violence had been used against children as part of the “collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities”.

Also on Scroll last week

• In Ayodhya, it’s Sangh Parivar vs Sangh Parivar as Ram temple fund ‘theft’ charges blow up
• The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya
• A ban on meat in Amritsar triggers a legal challenge – and rakes up a contentious history
• Food regulator took credit for a ‘crackdown’ on Bournvita. But it gave the drink a clean chit
• Explained: Why an Indian passport is not proof of citizenship – and no single document is
• How two men refused to bend to press censorship during the Emergency
• How India can keep cool as energy demands overheat its power grid
• The SpaceX reckoning: Elon Musk’s empire is built on taxpayer money, government subsidies
• ‘Eetha’ and the long fade of the tamasha tradition in Maharashtra
• How a Ritwik Ghatak restoration will make us see the master filmmaker in a new light

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

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Bengaluru Airport’s newly renovated, much-discussed Terminal-2 features lush landscaping that draws on the city’s heritage as a “garden city” to brand itself the “terminal in a garden”.

The ambitious plans for the green spaces developed by the UK- and Singapore-based landscape architecture firm Grant Associates make nature ubiquitous in the experience of the airport.

Nature is everywhere.

There are plants suspended from bell-shaped scaffolds to massive green walls that snake their way through the airport. There are double-height foyers and vestibules through which palms and skinny trees perforate the built-space. There is an impressive two-storeyed waterfall that provides a panoramic background to the baggage-claim belts.

This is not only landscape design, say the executive designers, Landscape Accord. This is choreography.

The impact is almost that of visiting a museum and seeing dioramas behind glass cases: an endless parade of carefully curated vistas that not only delight, but impress and inform.

The average passer-by may not give the dramatic spectacles of nature any importance above aesthetic appreciation, but as architect Balkrishna Doshi said, “I talk to nature, and nature talks back to me.” The nature that designers create and curate also talks back to users, and reinforces narratives and ideas of what nature and beauty are.

However, in the case of Bengaluru airport, those narratives seem far removed from their local, or even their regional context.

As travellers walk through the airport, the plantings tell the story of verdant tropical plantings conjuring images of a per-humid climate like that of a dense tropical forest. Ecologically, this is consonant with rainforest ecosystems like the Western Ghats of those in South East Asia. Aesthetically, this draws on tropical landscape aesthetics typical of modern landscapes in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Seeing the portfolio of high-profile projects previously designed by Grant Associates such as the Gardens by the Bay and the Grant Hyatt Hotel in Singapore, this is in line with their aesthetic vocabulary. Apart from being an entirely imported aesthetic divorced from its local or historical context, the design implies that this is what nature looks like in this part of the world.

It is most decidedly not. Karnataka consists primarily of three ecoregions – the Western Ghats rainforests, the south Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests and the Deccan thorn scrub forests. Except for the first of these, the others simply do not support the kind of tropical flora utilised in the airport.

Bengaluru in particular, located on the Mysore plateau is a seasonally dry, semi-arid landscape with shrubby, mostly low-lying vegetation. This begs the question of how a city founded in this natural ecology got the monicker of the “garden city” in the first place. To attempt an answer requires a brief inquiry into the origins of the urban landscape aesthetic in Bengaluru.

The earliest version of the garden city in the context of Bengaluru can be traced back to the 16th century, and was characterised by the tota or multi-use market garden around which urban settlements were organised. These were made possible by a sophisticated and ancient network of over a thousand cascading and interlinked waterbodies (“kere”, in Kannada) that ensured perennial water in the otherwise dry landscape.

Totas consisted of mixed plantings of economic plantation crops, including coffee, spices, fruits and timber. They were the precursor of today’s plantations and estates.

Gardens in the 18th century under the cultural influence of the Deccan sultanates and planted by rulers like Haider Ali, incorporated Mughal aesthetics including an influx of species that defined the latter. Roses, cypresses and fruit trees were planted in gardens like Lalbagh, which continued to exist in the tota-kere urban fabric of Bengaluru, operating in a mode between agri- and horti-culture with the aim of expanding production and commerce in the growing city.

The garden city witnessed the first truly foreign landscape influence at this time, when Haider Ali planted formal palace gardens in Srirangapatna in the “French taste”, and his son Tipu Sultan introduced many plants of horticultural and economic importance (as well as gardeners) from France and Mauritius to the gardens and totas of Bengaluru.

Tipu’s espousal of French tastes and technologies was perhaps as much a political choice as it was an aesthetic one, as he was counting on the support of Napoleon to rid India of the British.

This was not to be. When Bangalore was annexed by the British East India Company at the turn of the 18th century, Bangalore’s gardens became temporary depots for holding and testing introduced plants of commercial importance. Hundreds of species were introduced to the urban landscape through the imperial network of botanical gardens (including those in Calcutta and Bombay).

The garden city entered its English era. Gardens such as Cubbon Park were established in the “Victorian style”, which were crucially used to “introduce the Wodeyar princes and the native elites to European tastes for recreation and British ways of urban living”.

The present interpretation of the garden city concept in Bengaluru was perhaps most greatly influenced by the German horticulturist Gustav Herman Krumbiegel, who served Mysore state in many capacities including as Superintendent of Horticulture for 24 years from 1908 and 1932.

While he continued the longstanding tradition of developing economic botany and market-gardening, as an architectural consultant to the state, Krumbiegel crucially introduced the concept of “bioaesthetic planning” in the conceptualisation and planting of urban spaces.

In line with European aesthetic ideals, in Bengaluru this was interpreted as planting trees that would flower sequentially throughout the year, and provide year-round interest in the urban landscape. Krumbiegel’s palette included trees from across the world such as gulmohurs, colvilleas, African tulip-trees, copperpods, jacarandas, crepe myrtles, and amaltas, placing a clear emphasis on the ornamental value of the species.

So while the paradigm of the “garden city” in the context of Bengaluru predates colonial influence, the urban form it brings to mind today is far removed from its kere-tota origins.

Over time, Bengaluru’s urban landscape aesthetic has gone from projecting agricultural subsistence, to a particular style of European urbaneness, to projecting a technocratic vision for a modern Indian city.

Modern landscape design largely overlooks this historical context to take the term at face value. However a question for landscape designers and urban planners today should be how the term can be reimagined for our present context.

Contemporary urban planting in India largely draws on a design language developed in South America and South East Asia, complete with its vocabulary of plants, as is reflected in the plantings in the New Airport. Aroids, ferns and other foliage plants dominate its sterile living walls; palms, birds-of-paradise, heliconias and a whole host of other imported foliage and flowers reflect an ostentatious and generic tropicality.

The endangered species that the airport claims to conserve (perplexing, given that it is not a botanical garden or similar conservation organisation) are in fact African cycads. This species, says the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, is one of the most illegally trafficked plants on the planet.

The “600- to 800-year-old trees” that the designers claim to have transplanted are from Europe – they are in fact olive trees. The spindly forms of Madagascar almonds (Terminalia mantaly) are everywhere – making one wonder whether the over 16 species of native trees in the genus were not suitable for consideration.

This interpretation of the “garden city” seems to be yet another appropriation of foreign aesthetics and plantings, to project the “world-class” aspirations of the metropolis. The problem here lies with the ecological cost of such an aesthetic, both in terms of the resources required to maintain it in an unsuitable dry environment, as well as the subconscious establishment of the belief that this is what good site-specific landscaping, and nature more broadly looks like.

The greatest cost of the new terminal is perhaps the opportunity cost of what could have been a showcase of an innovative, paradigm-shifting reimagination of the culturally and ecologically relevant “garden city”.

Soham Kacker is an ecologist, horticulturist and writer interested in the intersection of plant science, literature, culture and history. He is currently based in Sri Lanka where he serves as the Garden Curator for the Geoffrey Bawa Trust. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

The great founding figures of the Republic have each of their birth anniversaries commemorated in public and on social media. However, landmark anniversaries of less famous but nonetheless admirable servants of India often go unnoticed. This column is inspired by the birth centenary of one such patriot, named Har Mander Singh.

Born on June 27, 1926, he was an outstanding member of the Indian Frontier Administrative Service, a daring experiment in nation-building that should be better known than it currently is.

I myself first heard of the IFAS in the early 1990s, while working on a biography of the anthropologist, Verrier Elwin. Of British descent, Elwin spent two-and-a-half decades living with and writing about the tribes of central India. After Independence, he took Indian citizenship, and in 1954 was appointed Anthropological Adviser to the North East Frontier Agency, as the state of Arunachal Pradesh was then known.

Elwin had been handpicked by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru as “a recognised authority in regard to tribal affairs”, who, thought Nehru, would bring to his new assignment a “sympathy and understanding which is most unusual and most helpful”.

Five reasons Indians should know about a long-dead Englishman who lived with adivasis https://t.co/IQh5NyxmQL

The British-born Oxford scholar Verrier Elwin was a rebel against the Raj. pic.twitter.com/zrp3QOPdrD

— Scroll.in (@scroll_in) November 3, 2018

Nehru and Elwin were instrumental in setting up the IFAS, whose first recruits came from an army or air force background, which meant that they were used to arduous physical work, getting along with people of different backgrounds, and building a spirit of camaraderie and teamwork.

In mentoring the IFAS officers, Elwin was guided by what an educated Mishmi tribal had told him: “Remember that we are not by culture or even by race Indian. If you continue to send among us officers who look down on our culture and religion, and above all look down on us as human beings, then within a few years we will be against you.”

The prime minister himself took a close and continuing interest in the IFAS. One officer recalled Nehru telling them: “The staff must go along with the flag and the typewriters can follow later on”; i.e., the officers must first make human contact and befriend villagers before taking the formal State apparatus to them.

In her book, Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910-1962, the scholar, Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, writes that the emphasis of the frontier administrators was “on expressing state presence in benevolent terms”. Unlike the British officials who preceded them, members of the IFAS travelled into the interior villages without an armed escort, and often with their wives, which helped in developing rapport.

I was in N.D. Jayal's team only for two years. But the lessons that he taught are for life - https://t.co/PPkJyxuTeo pic.twitter.com/Vgu7grM408

— Gopi Warrier (@GopiWarrier) March 31, 2019

In the course of my research on Elwin, I interviewed some half-a-dozen IFAS officers. Har Mander Singh was the first, and the others included Rashid Yusuf Ali, RN Haldipur, TS Murthy and ND Jayal. All were now long retired, yet all recalled with feeling the excitement of those early years in NEFA, building trust among remote villages and little-known tribes that had, through an accident of history, now come under the formal territorial jurisdiction of the Republic of India.

Sadly, there is not (so far as I know) a book or even a doctoral dissertation devoted to the IFAS. We do however have an informative essay on the IFAS written by Claude Arpi, a French scholar of the Indo-Tibet borderlands long resident in our country. Arpi’s website also contains many useful documents relating to NEFA/Arunachal Pradesh.

Among the pioneering group of IFAS officers was Ralengnao “Bob” Khathing, who played a key role in bringing the ancient monastery town of Tawang under Indian control. Then there was SM Krishnatry, the first Indian government official to make contact among the Tagins of the Upper Subansiri valley, adjacent to the Indo-Tibet border.

Krishnatry was to write that his aim was to replace the “bloody culture of armed legacy of British expeditions against our own people” with “a human rights approach of love, humour and patience.” This indeed was the approach adopted by other IFAS officers, as endorsed and articulated by Elwin and Nehru as well.

#Arunachal Pradesh Chief minister @PemaKhanduBJP announced to build a memorial to honoring Major Ralengnao (Bob) Khathing who hoisted the Indian flag in 1951, officially bringing #Tawang under India.#IndianHistory #BobKhathing #Northeastindia #Manipur #India pic.twitter.com/NpksJ5aoFv

— Amit Singh (@editorneindia) January 16, 2021

Har Mander Singh himself is a major figure in Rani Singh’s book, An Officer and His Holiness, which revolves around the flight of the Dalai Lama from Chinese-occupied Tibet to seek refuge in India. When the Dalai Lama chose to go into exile in 1959, he entered the Kameng Frontier Division, of which Har Mander was Political Officer, with his headquarters at Bomdila.

The Tibetan leader was met at the border by the Assistant Political Officer, TS Murthy, while Har Mander made his way from Bomdila to the monastery at Tawang, a distance of some 140 miles which had to be covered slowly on horseback in the absence of a motorable road. The Political Officer had meanwhile made arrangements for a doctor, Tibetan-speaking officials, and an armed escort to bring the Dalai Lama to Tawang, where they halted for a few days.

It was at Tawang, on April 6, 1959, that Har Mander read out the message Prime Minister Nehru had sent for the Dalai Lama. It read: “My colleagues and I welcome and send greetings on your safe arrival in India. We shall be happy to afford the necessary faculties to you, your family and entourage to reside in India. The people of India, who hold you in great veneration, will no doubt accord their traditional respect to your personage.”

From Tawang the party carried on to Bomdila. Along the way the two young men – the Tibetan still in his early twenties, the Indian in his early thirties – conversed with the aid of an interpreter. Har Mander was to write feelingly of the stoic optimism of the Dalai Lama even though he had been exiled from his homeland and separated from his people. The Buddhist god-king and the secular civil servant developed a deep affection for one another and remained lifelong friends.

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The Indian Frontier Administrative Service was formally disbanded in 1968. Its officers went on to play further parts in nation-building. Har Mander became chief commissioner of Andamans and Nicobar; Bob Khathing served as ambassador to Myanmar; RN Haldipur was appointed lieutenant-governor of Pondicherry; KC Johorey became chief secretary of Goa; Murkot Rammuny served in Nepal and Bangladesh and also wrote an interesting book on the Nagas.

In my biography of Verrier Elwin, I wrote of the IFAS that it constituted “a cadre of capable and massively committed young men, almost unique in Indian political history for their readiness to live with and think like the people they had been sent to govern”.

To these words let me append the judgement of Claude Arpi, who writes that “the fact remains that these officers who decided to sacrifice their careers to join the IFAS were all remarkable personalities and still today, even though the cadre does not exist anymore, they should be role models for young IAS/IPS officers”.

Arunachal Pradesh today suffers from problems of state corruption, the dominance of the politician-contractor nexus, and galloping environmental degradation. On the flip side, however, unlike the other states of the North East, there has been no insurgency in Arunachal Pradesh, for which the visionary policies of Nehru and Elwin and the selfless work of the IFAS officers surely deserve credit.

This article first appeared in The Telegraph,

Ramachandra Guha’s latest book, Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism, is now in stores. His email address is ramachandraguha@yahoo.in.

The Union government on Saturday said that social media posts claiming that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament that no Indian soldiers were killed during Operation Sindoor were “deliberately misleading and factually incorrect”.

The defence ministry said that the social media posts “selectively quoted an isolated portion” of Singh’s speech in Parliament on July 28 to falsely imply that the minister claimed that no Indian soldiers were killed during the operation.

The clarification came a day after the names of five Indian Army personnel and one Indian Air Force staffer who were killed during Operation Sindoor were published in the Roll of Honour section of the National War Memorial website.

This was the first time that the government formally disclosed the identities of the military personnel killed during the operation. The deaths of the personnel had been previously acknowledged. The six personnel had been conferred with gallantry awards in August 2025.

Certain posts circulating on social media platforms have sought to misrepresent the Raksha Mantri’s address delivered on the floor of Parliament on July 28, 2025. These posts have selectively quoted an isolated portion of the speech to falsely imply that the Raksha Mantri claimed…

— Ministry of Defence, Government of India (@SpokespersonMoD) June 27, 2026

After the names of the six personnel were published in the Roll of Honour, Congress leader Pawan Khera accused Singh of misleading Parliament, and alleged that the government “concealed the sacrifice” of those killed during the operation.

Khera had cited a clipping from the defence minister’s address to Parliament in which he had said: “If you have to ask a question, ask whether any harm came to our brave soldiers during this operation. The answer to that is no.”

सिर्फ़ दो ही संभावनाएँ हैं।

या तो रक्षा मंत्री @rajnathsingh ने जब संसद को संबोधित किया तो उनकों यह जानकारी ही नहीं थी कि छह सैनिक शहीद हो चुके थे। यदि ऐसा है, तो यह उस मंत्री पर गंभीर प्रश्नचिह्न है, जिसे उसी मंत्रालय के मामलों की जानकारी नहीं है जिसका वह नेतृत्व कर रहे हैं।… pic.twitter.com/5JdSjaqf0B

— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 ಪವನ್ ಖೇರಾ (@Pawankhera) June 27, 2026

The defence ministry on Saturday said that Singh’s remark was in response to an “entirely false” narrative on media outlets and on social media that Indian pilots had been lost during Operation Sindoor.

“It was in direct reference to this specific and mischievous narrative that the Raksha Mantri made the statement in question,” the ministry said. “His remarks were, therefore, a targeted and contextually specific response to a falsehood that was gaining dangerous traction at that moment.”

The six personnel whose names were published in the Roll of Honour section of the National War Memorial website were Subedar Major Pawan Kumar, Rifleman Sunil Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar, Agniveer Murali Naik, Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh and Air Force Sergeant Surendra Kumar.

On May 7, 2025, the Indian military carried out strikes on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which had killed 26 persons on April 22, 2025. The two sides had reached an “understanding” to halt firing on May 10, 2025.

On Saturday, the Integrated Defence Staff clarified that homage had been paid to the six personnel “at the earliest opportunity”, before the recent reports in the matter.

The military said that during a press conference on May 11, 2025, the director general of military operations had “paid solemn tribute to these brave soldiers and specifically acknowledged their sacrifice in the line of duty” during Operation Sindoor.

During the Army Day Parade on January 15, the Army chief had presented the Sena Medal (Gallantry) to the families of three of the personnel, the Integrated Defence Staff said in a statement. The Air Force chief had also done this in October at a ceremony.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

In March, my name was deleted from the Ballygunge constituency electoral roll in Kolkata, apparently because the Special Intensive Revision process could not trace either my name or that of my late father in the 2002 voters’ list.

My father, a Gandhian, retired professor and former State Secretary of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi in Kerala, passed away in 2016. I remain unable to understand how a conscientious voter like him could have been absent from the rolls.

Like nearly 27 lakh other residents of West Bengal, I was excluded on account of what were described as “logical discrepancies”. No reason was furnished even after I submitted my matriculation certificate and my appeal is now pending before one of the tribunals constituted pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions.

As a consequence, I was unable to vote in the recent election.

More distressing has been the fate of my passport renewal application. Although I completed the biometric formalities on March 19, 2026, police verification has not been cleared because my name no longer appears on the electoral roll. Despite submitting several alternative documents, I have been informed that they are insufficient.

In fact, today, June 27, is the 100th day since my biometrics for passport renewal were taken. I was formally informed last week by the passport-issuing authority that Kolkata Police sent an adverse report, citing the deletion of my name from the voters’ list. I have been asked to appear before the Regional Passport Office in Calcutta “immediately” but when I sought an appointment, without which it is difficult to gain entry, the date granted is July 17.

In between, our daughter, a journalist in California, got married in San Francisco on April 17. Needless to say, it would have been impossible for me to attend the wedding in the absence of an active passport, notwithstanding my possession of a valid ten-year US visa.

For all practical purposes, I find myself in a state of civic uncertainty although recently the government iterated that a passport is no proof of citizenship. Much of my time is now consumed by efforts to reconstruct family records and secure documents dating back several decades,

My days begin with checking my voting right appeal status and then the passport tracker. Then I write to the college where my mother taught in 1965 and to her school from where she passed out in 1959, asking for any document that proves she existed. The school has been very helpful but not the college.

Similarly, I speak to prohibition campaign activists in Kerala, running down a list I collected after coming across an activist’s name in a group by chance, asking for any news clipping or photographs that show my father campaigning against illegal liquor vends and communalism.

Some close friends and public figures have helped me in all these efforts. However, I am unaware if any media outlet or journalists’ association or guild (of which I am not a member) has shown any interest in my situation. A senior journalist reminded me that this situation is by no means unique as “rejection” has been the daily certainty confronting millions of Indians for centuries. I accept that point.

My intention has never been to project myself as a victim. Rather, I have wanted to underline a larger point: if someone who spent his professional life in journalism and edited a relatively known newspaper can encounter such difficulties, one can only imagine what the truly marginalised must endure.

Did I approach any newspaper? No, because I do not want it to become an issue concerning me. Do editors and journalists know about my issue? Of course, several do. If they don’t, they should not be in the profession, don’t you think?

Yet, the complete silence of newspapers on this issue has confirmed my suspicion, now reinforced with personal experience, that so-called mainstream journalism has little to do with my life. I do not “read” any newspaper now. I glance at some but hardly find anything that piques my interest.

R Rajagopal was the editor of The Telegraph from 2016 to 2023.

Opposition leaders on Saturday questioned Union minister of state Bhagirath Choudhary in connection with a report that he availed a Rs 99-lakh commercial farming subsidy through a scheme under his own ministry.

Choudhary, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, received a subsidy of Rs 99.6 lakh under a scheme to promote commercial farming at a large scale under the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture, The Indian Express reported on Saturday. The mission is run by the National Horticulture Board, an autonomous organisation under the agriculture ministry.

Choudhary’s project for cultivating cucumber over 16,592 square metres was one of 467 projects that were approved by the National Horticulture Board under the scheme in 2025, according to the newspaper. The scheme offers a maximum subsidy of 50%, capped at Rs 1 crore per family.

The National Horticulture Board is managed by a board of directors with the Union agriculture minister as the ex-officio president, and the minister of state for agriculture as the ex-officio vice-president.

The minister of state officially does not have any direct role in clearing projects for subsidies under the scheme, The Indian Express reported. The clearance is granted by a project approval committee of the National Horticulture Board, which does not include its president or vice-president.

However, Congress leader Pawan Khera, commenting on the report on Saturday, said that Choudhary’s actions amounted to “blatant loot” and said that calling them a conflict of interest would be an understatement.

“He is the applicant, the sanctioning authority, and the beneficiary – all rolled into one,” Khera said in a social media post.

Khera remarked that while the poor are “expected to be grateful for 5 kg of free ration and a modest midday meal for their children”, ministers and their kin “have the state treasury at their disposal – cornering subsidies, drawing benefits and treating public funds as their father’s estate”.

They say charity begins at home. For the BJP, subsidy begins at home.

In yet another blow to the Chanda-Chor RSS-BJP's claims of zero tolerance for corruption, @IndianExpress has reported that Union Minister of State for Agriculture Bhagirath Choudhary approved a ₹99.03 lakh… https://t.co/qfHMbmNTGI

— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 ಪವನ್ ಖೇರಾ (@Pawankhera) June 27, 2026

In a similar vein, Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP John Brittas remarked that the Narendra Modi-led government appeared to have changed the Direct Benefit Scheme to “Direct Family Transfer”.

Commenting on the allegations, Choudhary said that he is a farmer and has been in agriculture since his childhood, ANI reported. He said that he availed a subsidy in the same way that thousands of farmers do when they build polyhouses, or polymer-covered structures meant to control factors such as temperature and ventilation.

#WATCH | Ajmer, Rajasthan: On a media report that his own ministry gave him Rs 99-lakh subsidy, under a scheme, for his cucumber farm, MoS Agriculture Bhagirath Choudhary says, "I am a farmer and have been in agriculture since my childhood days...I have not hidden anything.… pic.twitter.com/c8dk0f3D7h

— ANI (@ANI) June 27, 2026

“I have installed a board there and mentioned all the loans and subsidies I took,” the minister was quoted as saying by the news agency. “I also train farmers there in new techniques and natural farming...All local officials have visited the spot. So, what did I hide?”

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

The names of five Indian Army personnel and one Indian Air Force staffer who were killed during Operation Sindoor were published in the Roll of Honour section of the National War Memorial website on Friday. This is the first time that the government has formally disclosed the identities of the military personnel killed during the operation.

The deaths of the personnel had been previously acknowledged. The six personnel had been conferred with gallantry awards in August 2025.

The six personnel were Subedar Major Pawan Kumar, Rifleman Sunil Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar, Agniveer Murali Naik, Havildar Sunil Kumar Singh and Air Force Sergeant Surendra Kumar.

On May 7, 2025, the Indian military carried out strikes on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which had killed 26 persons on April 22, 2025. The two sides had reached an “understanding” to halt firing on May 10, 2025.

The names of the six personnel will also be inscribed on the “Tyag Chakra” or the “Circle of Sacrifice” at the National War Memorial in Delhi. Their names were released alongside the list of all soldiers who were martyred in various military operations in 2025.

The Tyag Chakra commemorates military personnel who have been killed in combat since Independence.

On Saturday, the Integrated Defence Staff clarified that homage had been paid to the personnel “at the earliest opportunity”, before the recent reports in the matter.

The military said that during a press conference on May 11, 2025, the director general of military operations had “paid solemn tribute to these brave soldiers and specifically acknowledged their sacrifice in the line of duty” during Operation Sindoor.

During the Army Day Parade on January 15, the Army chief had presented the Sena Medal (Gallantry) to the families of three of the personnel, the Integrated Defence Staff said in a statement. The Air Force chief had also done this in October at a ceremony.

“With regard to the engraving of the names of fallen soldiers on the National War Memorial, it is emphasised that this sacred process is governed by an established and well-defined protocol,” the military said. “The defence forces follow these laid-down procedures with due diligence, care and reverence, commensurate with the solemnity of the honour being conferred. Any suggestion that due process was not followed is factually incorrect.”

Corrections and clarifications: This article has been updated to add the Integrated Defence Staff’s clarification in the matter.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The National Investigation Agency has named three more persons in a supplementary chargesheet in connection with the November 10 blast near Delhi’s Red Fort, ANI reported on Saturday.

This takes the total number of persons named in the chargesheet to 13.

The supplementary chargesheet names three residents of Jammu and Kashmir: Zameer Ahmad Ahanger, Tufail Ahmad Bhat and Muzafar Ahmad, also known as Faraz/Zafar, the news agency reported.

The NIA alleged that Muzafar Ahmad was among the key conspirators behind the blast.

The blast near the Red Fort metro station left at least 11 persons dead and several injured. Umar Un Nabi, a doctor, was believed to have been driving the car that exploded. Two days after the explosion, the Union government described it as a “terrorist incident”.

The National Investigation Agency, which is probing the case, said that Muzafar Ahmad attended a secret meeting at Eidgah in Srinagar in June 2022, where Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind Interim was formed.

The agency alleged that he was involved in manufacturing, testing and storing triacetone triperoxide-based improvised explosive devices at a clandestine facility allegedly run from Al-Falah University in Haryana’s Faridabad, The Hindu reported. A non-bailable warrant has been issued against him.

Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind was formed in Kashmir in 2017 when some militants broke away from Hizbul Mujahideen – the largest indigenous militant organisation in Kashmir – and claimed that they were affiliated to terror group Al Qaeda.

The NIA alleged that Ahanger worked as an overground worker for Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind Interim and acted as a courier for arms, ammunition and cash.

It also alleged that Bhat, a former overground worker of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, was the module’s arm supplier, the newspaper reported.

In May, the agency filed its first chargesheet against 10 persons in the case. It alleged that all of them, including Nabi, were linked to Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, which it had described as an offshoot of Al Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent.

The agency also alleged that the group aimed to overthrow the Indian government and impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in the country.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

The latest debate over eggs being dropped from school midday meals in West Bengal reflects yet another attempt to ideologically reshape India’s diverse food habits while disregarding the health of children from poor families.

Earlier in June, the new West Bengal government, now ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, said it would hand over the preparation of school meals to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, a Hindu religious organisation.

A spokesperson of the organisation said eggs will be replaced with alternatives such as soybeans, rajma and paneer. Hindutva supporters say the alternatives provide adequate nutrition. But others, including Opposition leaders, have criticised Hindutva supporters for redefining what Indians should eat according to ideological preferences rather than nutritional needs or cultural realities.

Other Indian states had dropped eggs from their midday meal programmes long before West Bengal. In 2015, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh refused to include eggs in school meals. In 2025, Maharashtra withdrew government funding for eggs and millet-based sweet dishes in school midday meals.

Since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014, debates over food have moved well beyond questions of diet or health. Beef bans have devastated the livelihoods of Muslims, Dalits, and communities dependent on cattle trade and leather industries. Vigilante violence in the name of cow protection has claimed numerous lives and spread fear across several states. University hostels have seen conflicts over “non-vegetarian” food. Festivals have become occasions for policing dietary practices.

Malnutrition, food diversity

Unlike disputes over adult dietary choices, this concerns children, many of whom depend on school lunches as the most nutritious meal they receive each day. Should ideological commitments override scientific evidence when India faces a serious malnutrition crisis?

The findings of India’s latest National Family Health Survey, released in May, shows that many children are wasted, or too thin for their height, and stunted, or too short for their age due to poor nutrition.

At least 19% of children under the age of five surveyed were wasted while 29.3% were stunted. In Bengal, 20.3% of children under the age of five were wasted and 22.4% were stunted. A child deprived of adequate nutrition is more likely to carry those disadvantages throughout life.

School feeding programmes were aimed at breaking this cycle. The Mid Day Meal Scheme started in 1995 and was later rebranded as PM POSHAN in 2021-2022, For children from poor households, particularly in rural areas and urban slums, the school lunch is often the only balanced meal of the day.

Eggs are among the cheapest and most efficient sources of protein and other nutrients. The plant-based alternatives that ISKCON proposes are nutritious but imperfect substitutes that are more expensive, take longer to cook and may also not be widely accepted by children. Nutrition is about affordability, accessibility, consistency and acceptability, and eggs satisfy all four conditions. The West Bengal government should examine why it is replacing an inexpensive, scientifically-proven source of protein in a programme aimed at improving child nutrition.

Malnutrition is also a national security issue. Malnourished children will grow into a weak future workforce, reducing economic productivity and increasing healthcare costs, limiting development goals. The government aspires to build an “atmanirbhar” or self-reliant India, yet compromises on one of the most simple and effective nutritional interventions available.

There is also the irony in dropping eggs from school meals when meat is widely consumed in Bengali society – at least 98% of Bengalis are reportedly non-vegetarians. Meat and fish have been part of festive celebrations cutting across communities.

Yet, Hindutva supporters claim vegetarianism is an authentic expression of Hindu identity despite the enormous diversity of dietary practices among Hindus. Millions of Hindus across eastern, southern, and northeastern India consume fish, meat, and eggs without seeing any contradiction with their faith.

In the caste-based beliefs of purity and pollution, meat and eggs are “impure” unlike vegetarian food. But Dalits, Adivasi and tribal communities and Other Backward Classes have depended on affordable animal protein for nutrition and survival. When governments remove affordable animal protein from public welfare programs, it is the poorest families who suffer.

Religion and food

Finally, public nutrition programmes paid for taxes must serve all citizens, irrespective of religious beliefs or dietary philosophies. A democratic state should accommodate food diversity rather than be decided by the ethics of one religious organisation.

School meals must reflect the Constitution’s promise that there will be no discrimination and that public policy advances social justice rather than religious orthodoxy. Every child should receive food based on nutritional science and public health, not on the dietary preferences of those who happen to hold political power.

The debate over eggs in West Bengal is a test of whether the most vulnerable children will become casualties of political symbolism a majoritarian ruling party or receive the nutrition they need to grow and thrive.

Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden.

The Maharashtra government on Saturday postponed the Teacher Eligibility Test 2026 after parts of the question paper were allegedly leaked a day before the examination.

The exam was scheduled to be held on Sunday at 1,028 centres across the state.

In a statement, the Maharashtra State Council of Examination said that it had put in place all necessary security measures in light of the alleged irregularities surrounding the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test earlier this year. However, the police received information on Saturday that some persons in Bhiwandi city in Thane district had access to examination paper.

Acting on the information, the Bhiwandi Police conducted a raid and recovered documents from the site. Officials from the examination council verified the material and found that some of the questions in the seized documents matched the eligibility test’s question paper, the statement added.

A criminal case has been registered and an investigation is underway.

The Maharashtra State Examination Council said a fresh date for the examination will be announced later on its official website.

Around 4.28 lakh aspiring teachers were expected to appear for the examination on Sunday, Hindustan Times reported.

The Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test paper leak came even as a protest is underway at Jantar Mantar since June 20, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged paper leak in the Undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test and other alleged irregularities in competitive examinations.

The protest is led by the Cockroach Janta Party, which began as a satirical political campaign.

The NEET examination originally scheduled for May 3, was cancelled by the National Testing Agency following allegations of a paper leak. More than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for the test the first time.

It was 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.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.

The Narendra Modi government’s continued silence about Israeli “genocidal actions” in Palestine “cannot be explained rationally or morally”, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said in a column in The Indian Express on Saturday.

Gandhi said that two and a half years after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an “absolutely unacceptable” attack on Israel, it has become clear that Tel Aviv’s retaliation has been “characterised by wanton cruelty and barbarity”.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began in October 2023 after Hamas killed 1,200 persons during its incursion into southern Israel and took hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, leaving more than 73,000 persons dead.

On Saturday, Gandhi wrote in The Indian Express that senior Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “called for the ‘complete siege’” of Gaza and described Palestinians as “‘animals’ who have ‘no right to exist’”.

‘India remains a lone voice of silence’

While the Donald Trump administration in the United States had enabled Tel Aviv to “continue its brutal campaign” against Palestinians, the rest of the world “has felt the pricking of its conscience”, the Congress leader said.

Gandhi said that amid the conflict several countries in the West, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, had recognised Palestinian statehood “after decades of indifference to the Palestinian cause”.

She noted that South Africa had taken Israel to the International Court of Justice for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention and that several European nations had restricted arms sales to Tel Aviv. The International Criminal Court had issued arrest warrants for the Israeli political leadership, the Congress leader added.

“Amidst the growing public backlash against Israel and the international community’s cognisance of the unjustifiable brutality unleashed on Gaza, India remains a lone voice of silence,” she said.

Gandhi said that India had been “historically exceptional” for its commitment to postcolonial solidarity, sovereignty and international peace.

However, today India was “exceptional in our continued indifference to the flagrant violation of the global rules-based order”, the suffering of the public in the Global South and to the “abasement of human dignity” in Palestine, she added.

India’s longstanding position has been to support a two-state solution for establishing a sovereign, viable and independent state of Palestine within recognised and mutually agreed borders, living alongside Israel in peace.

“We are slipping further into Israel’s strategic orbit, at a time when the world is increasingly pivoting away from it. The Prime Minister’s visit to Israel will go down in history as a bewildering strategic decision.

The spirit of Indian nationhood demands that we speak up for… pic.twitter.com/GmB28smfl1

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 27, 2026

Gandhi said that the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry had in September said that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. She also noted a report published by the panel on Tuesday that the Israeli military has deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children.

By targeting the children, Tel Aviv was attacking the capacity of the Palestinian people “to exist and to determine their future”, said the commission headed by retired Indian judge S Muralidhar. Israel’s foreign ministry has rejected both the reports.

Stance ‘inexplicable from national interest perspective’

Gandhi said that the Modi government’s “silence and inaction are not just morally reprehensible, but also inexplicable from a national interest perspective”.

“We are slipping further into Israel’s strategic orbit, at a time when the world is increasingly pivoting away from it,” the Opposition leader said.

Modi’s visit to Israel amid these circumstances and only days before Israel launched its war on Iran and assassinated the top political leadership in Tehran, “will go down in history as a bewildering strategic decision”.

Modi had visited Israel on February 25 and February 26 before the war in West Asia began on February 28. During the visit, Modi told the Israeli Parliament that India stands with Israel “firmly, with full conviction, in this moment and beyond”.

“Our sacrifice of our strategic interest and morality has yielded us nothing but the friendship between [Modi and Netanyahu], who is now under attack all over the world, including in the US,” Gandhi added.

The Congress leader said that India must speak up for Palestinians.

“The calculus of national interest demands that we respond to the global public opinion” against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its “brutal displacement and dispossession of lakhs of Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank”, she added.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

Also read:

• India’s discernible shift away from Palestine
• Opinion: Could India be considered complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza?

The Madras High Court on Thursday struck down a Tamil Nadu government order that allowed persons from the Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Denotified Communities and Scheduled Castes to be treated as Backward Class Muslims after they had converted to Islam.

A bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and PB Balaji ruled that the March 2024 order was unconstitutional.

The court held that a person who has converted to Islam cannot claim the status of a Backward Class Muslim. “He is only a Muslim and that’s all there is to it,” the bench said.

The observations came while ruling on a plea filed by a 33-year-old man who was born as a Hindu in Thoothukudi district.

The man converted to Islam in 2015, changed his name and married as per Islamic traditions. He had subsequently applied for a community certificate that identified him as a Muslim Lebbai, one of the seven sects recognised as Backward Class Muslims in Tamil Nadu under the 2024 government order.

He approached the High Court after the tahsildar had rejected his application for the certificate.

During the proceedings, he had cited the 2024 government order.

The state government also defended its order, contending that it was based on a recommendation made by the state Backward Classes Commission. It said that only the persons who were eligible for reservations before conversion would continue to receive the benefits.

However, the bench rejected the state’s defence. It said that a High Court order from “more than 75 years ago” had established that when a person converts to Islam, he becomes a “just another Mussalman”.

It held that the legal position cannot be undone by a government order.

The High Court further observed that the government order had clubbed converts from the Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Denotified Communities and the Scheduled Castes into the Backward Class Muslims category “just for the sake of ensuring” that the persons continue to get reservations.

Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sara Varghese.

A United States judge on Friday ordered the US Department of Justice to justify its decision to drop fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani, Reuters reported.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York declined to rule immediately on a request filed by Gautam Adani’s lawyers to dismiss the case. The court gave the prosecutors time till July 13 to submit more information to support their decision to drop the charges.

“The government’s terse, ​bland and conclusory statement affords the court neither a sufficient basis to reach any conclusion, nor the opportunity to conduct ​any analysis of the government's request for dismissal,” Reuters quoted Garaufis as having said.

The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.

The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.

On May 18, the Donald Trump administration asked the court to dismiss the fraud charges against Gautam Adani.

The justice department had told Garaufis that it had decided, “in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants”.

For the charges to be dropped, Garaufis must approve the request.

The request to drop the charges came days after reports said that Gautam Adani’s lawyers had told the justice department that he would invest $10 billion in the country’s economy and help create 15,000 jobs if the charges against him were dropped.

Earlier this month, two Democratic senators alleged that the reported proposal by Gautam Adani to invest in the US economy if the fraud charges against him are dropped appeared to be an “egregious quid pro quo offer”.

On May 14, The New York Times reported that the justice department was planning to drop the charges against Gautam Adani after he hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.

The newspaper reported that Giuffra met officials at the justice department’s headquarters in Washington in April. He presented about 100 slides arguing that the prosecutors lacked evidence and jurisdiction in the matter, The New York Times quoted unidentified persons familiar with the meeting as saying.

One slide allegedly made an offer that Gautam Adani would make investments in the US, according to the newspaper.

Even if the criminal charges are dropped, Gautam Adani is still expected to pay financial penalties, the US newspaper quoted persons aware of the case as saying.

During the same meeting, the lawyer also sought to resolve a parallel civil case filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Gautam Adani, The New York Times had reported.

On May 14, the US markets regulator reached a settlement with Gautam Adani in the matter, the Financial Times reported. As part of this settlement, Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million and Sagar Adani $12 million.

Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, had told stock exchanges on May 15 that the “company is not a party to this proceeding, and no charges have been brought against it”.

However, the company confirmed that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty”, while stating that the decision was made “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint”.

The final judgement of the US Eastern District Court of New York is awaited in the matter, the company had said.

On May 18, the US Department of Treasury ‌also said that Adani Enterprises had agreed to pay $275 million to settle its potential civil liability for alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran. Adani Enterprises is the flagship company of the Adani Group.

Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.

The toll from an ammonia gas leak at a private seafood processing and export unit near Periyapalayam in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur district has risen to 15, the state government said on Thursday.

Eighty-three persons were affected by the leak, which occurred on Sunday at a facility in the Kannigaipair-Manjangaranai area, the health and family welfare department said.

The incident reportedly took place during routine industrial operations and exposed workers at the site to ammonia gas.

The affected workers experienced symptoms associated with ammonia inhalation, including breathlessness, irritation of the eyes and respiratory tract, coughing, chest discomfort and respiratory distress, the department’s bulletin said.

Of the 83 affected individuals, 40 were being treated and under medical observation. Among them, 38 are women and two are men.

Two patients are on ventilator support, nine are receiving oxygen through nasal support and 29 are in stable condition.

The leak occurred at a shrimp processing and export facility that employed several migrant workers, many of them women from Odisha, Assam and Jharkhand.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust General Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” following the alleged embezzlement of donations to the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The trust manages the temple.

A day earlier, eight persons were arrested in the case. They have been booked under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to theft by a clerk or servant, criminal breach of trust, stolen property and criminal conspiracy.

The first information report stated that the eight were involved in counting the cash and valuables donated by devotees at the temple. Read on.

Karnataka has made it mandatory for the police to register first information reports in cases involving the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and videos, including revenge pornography, sextortion and blackmail-related cases. “Consent to record is not consent to share,” state Home Minister Priyank Kharge said.

The minister warned that police officers who refuse to file cases over prior consent by the complainant may face departmental action. Read on.

The toll from the twin powerful earthquakes in Venezuela increased to 589, acting president Delcy Rodríguez said. At least 4,300 persons were injured, the country’s health ministry had said.

The two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck the South American country on Wednesday. Videos posted on social media showed several collapsed buildings and damage at the airport in the capital city of Caracas. Operations were underway to rescue persons trapped under the debris.

The “doublet” earthquake was the most powerful to occur in the region in 126 years. There were several aftershocks. Read on.

Canada rejected 71% of the visa applications filed by Indian citizens to watch the 2026 football world cup. Of the 1,225 Indians who applied for visas, only 355 were approved.

Indians were the fourth-largest group to apply for Canadian visas for the football world cup, after Ghana, Colombia and Pakistan. Canada is co-hosting the FIFA World Cup along with the United States and Mexico.

Canada did not have a special visa category for the world cup. Instead, for tracking purposes, applicants were asked to mention in their regular visitor visa forms that they planned to attend the tournament. Read on.

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Nasibi Shermamad Jat, 55, remembers how, as a child, she would walk to the rakhal near her village with her mother to take their buffaloes for grazing. “I plucked imli [tamarind] from the trees and collected grass during drought,” she recalls. After she got married, her visits to the rakhal continued with her husband and their camels.

A protected area, a rakhal is typically characterised by sparse tree cover, shrubs, and grass in a savannah-like landscape, found in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kachchh, Gujarat.

Nasibi’s village is one among the many villages across the parched region of Kachchh, where shades of white, beige and sandy brown dominate the landscape. Belonging to the pastoralist Maldhari community in Dhragavandh, a village near the India-Pakistan border, Nasibi’s family of eight owns 30 camels and six buffaloes. There are four rakhals surrounding her village located inside the Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary.

“The kings gave us rakhals to graze our animals,” says Nasibi. Rakhals began as grass preserves in the 1880s, with the purpose of supplying fodder for animals and for hunting by the rulers of the princely state of Kachchh. Cutting trees was banned even then.

The royal court earned revenue from some rakhals by allowing Maldharis to graze their herds in these areas. After Independence, the rakhals were taken over by the state forest department.

In present times, rakhals are facing several pressures in the form of urbanisation, industrialisation, the fading away of traditional ecological knowledge, invasive species, renewable energy expansion, and a younger generation that knows little about them.

Biodiversity of rakhals

More than a hundred plant species are present in just five such rakhals in Kachchh, according to a recent study by the botanists from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat. “We tend to believe there is very little diversity in desert areas,” says Kavi Oza, the lead author of the study, adding that the study has proved otherwise.

Conducted between 2020 and 2023 across five rakhals in the Mandvi region of Kachchh – Sherdi, Vanothi, Pyaka, Godhara, and Hamla-Manjal – the study utilised field interviews of locals, including those from pastoral communities, to conclude that Azadirachta indica (neem), Cocos nucifera (coconut), Acacia nilotica (babul) and Prosopis juliflora (vilayati kikar, known as gando baval in Gujarati), were the most present. The majority of the species have medicinal uses for the local communities, followed by their use as food, firewood, and fodder, among others.

Co-author of the study Vinay M Raole shares that rakhals remain most critical in Bhuj, Khavda, Nakhatrana, and Naliya talukas, where water and arable land are scarce.

Invasive problem

An invasive species, P juliflora, plays a significant role for the community because of its value, such as firewood, the study finds. Ecologist Arun M. Dixit, who has studied the plant biodiversity of Kachchh extensively, acknowledges that this is a concern, but notes that communities have genuine use of this tree and their knowledge of it cannot be dismissed. “We use gando baval as firewood to cook,” says Nasibi.

A plant species found in rakhals that is struggling for survival is Commiphora wightii (Guggul), used as a medicinal resin, says Raole. He says that there has been a steep decline in mature Guggul trees between 1985 and 1995, adding that only young saplings remain in many locations.

“When I was a child, there were many native trees in rakhals, such as desi babul (Acacia nilotica subsp. indica), Kher (Acacia chundra), liyar (Cordia gharaf), gangeti (Grewia tenax), and guggul, but now those trees are very few in numbers. Gando baval has spread over the entire area,” says Nasibi.

Rakhals today

After Independence, the forest department classified rakhals as “superior” and “inferior”. The superior rakhals served as emergency grass stores, Dixit explains. “During drought periods post independence in Kachchh, the department distributed grasses harvested and stored from these rakhals to Maldharis at nominal prices or for free,” he adds. The inferior rakhals are leased out to villagers for grazing.

Most rakhals continue to be managed by the forest department, according to Dixit. The local community has some formally recognised rights such as right of way, grazing, and limited fuelwood collection, but tree cutting is prohibited, he adds.

Despite having recognised forest rights in some rakhals, Maldharis such as Nasibi struggle to find grazing land. The forest department has threatened her family with action if they take their animals to the rakhals, which are within the Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary. In rakhals that fall under national parks sanctuaries, grazing and grass collection are not allowed. Nasibi will soon have to find a new place to feed her animals.

Traditional knowledge

To document these rakhals that are under various pressures, the research team spent three years conducting field visits to Kachchh and spoke to village heads, traditional healers, and members of pastoral communities. After data collection, the team used ethnobotanical indices to understand it further.

The restricted grazing in rakhals makes them better managed than surrounding unprotected areas, points out Dixit as a reason for the high biodiversity in those lands. He notes that an index used in the study indicates significant species richness and habitat heterogeneity within the rakhals – the rocky, uneven terrain creates a microhabitat, where rarer species survive alongside dominant ones such P. juliflora, sheltered from competition.

The researchers faced some challenges. Most interviewees were elderly males and the study acknowledges the need for more inclusive research in the future. Dixit shares that one of the limitations of the study is the two separate investigations presented – one, the ethnobotanical survey of community knowledge and the other, the biodiversity assessment of rakhals – without building an explicit relationship between them. He also points to the small sample study of just 45 informants across one taluka as a drawback.

Studies like this can feed directly into People’s Biodiversity Registers – documents listing all bio-resources and their uses, that every village panchayat is required to maintain under the Biological Diversity (BD) Act, 2002 in India. “This in turn, can protect community knowledge from commercial exploitation,” says Dixit. “The younger generation is losing touch with their roots,” Oza says.

Future of rakhals

The study recommends formally recognising rakhals as critical biodiversity zones in local conservation policy, prioritising species that have high cultural importance, and planting saplings and knowledge sharing initiatives where elders share their ecological knowledge with the youth.

The study opens ground for further work which could include identifying the actual custodians of traditional knowledge, and linking research findings to biodiversity conservation, eco-restoration, and climate resilience policy, Dixit says.

Back in Dhragavandh, Nasibi’s 19-year-old grandson Hussain uses his phone to look up rakhals in maps and learn more about the plant life there. Her daughters know the land very well. “Our parents taught us about the rakhals and we teach our grandchildren about them. They take an interest in it because they also have their own small herds,” she says.

This article was first published on Mongabay.

The Right to Information Act has been hollowed out by Indian governments over the years – most recently by way of amendments to the law through the Digital Personal Data Protection Act.

Transparency activists and legal experts have warned that India’s new Digital Personal Data Protection Act bars the disclosure of personal information about public officials even on the grounds of larger public interest.

The RTI is a very, very strong weapon, said veteran activist and retired bureaucrat Aruna Roy, who led the movement that resulted in the passage of the Right to Information Act in 2005. “And it’s this fear of the weapon that makes them all want to destroy the RTI.”

In this special episode with author and peace worker Harsh Mander, recorded in Tillonia village in Rajasthan, days before Roy’s 80th birthday on June 26, she reflects on the many struggles that shaped her life. They discuss the challenges before Indian democracy, and the moral and political crises India faces today.

In their conversation, they talk about the legacy of the RTI movement and how it transformed the relationship between the citizen and the Indian state to one of equals. “What a change that was,” she notes.

The RTI brought in a very small equation, said Roy. It may be tall claim, she says, but like all the greatest scientific equations, it’s very simple: “everything in the government is mine because the Constitution says, in its Preamble, that I am sovereign, and if I am sovereign, I have a right to know what is happening because you’re dealing with my money.”

The fight to keep the RTI alive is also a fight against data collection and data wars, she said. From the education system to consumption and lifestyle-driven debt among families, Roy said the battle is very dense. We have to desegregate these battles and fight many small battles, she tells Mander.

But Gandhi’s wisdom about the fighting the “little battles” is Roy’s guiding light. “Fight the little battles, lest you forget how to fight,” she says. “Who knows, one day multiple small battles may one day become a large battle.”

The name of Karwan e Mohabbat’s Yeh Daag Daag Ujala series is a tribute to the iconic poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Canada rejected 71% of the visa applications filed by Indian citizens to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup, CTV News reported on Wednesday.

Of the 1,225 Indians who applied for the visa, only 355 were approved. Indians were the fourth-largest group to file Canadian visa applications for the football world cup, after Ghana, Colombia and Pakistan.

Canada did not have a special visa category for the world cup. Instead, for tracking purposes, applicants were asked to mention in their regular visitor visa forms that they planned to attend the tournament, CTV News reported.

Canada is co-hosting the FIFA World Cup with the United States and Mexico. The 13 matches in Canada are being held in Toronto and Vancouver. The tournament began on June 11 and will conclude on July 19.

Between November 14 and March 31, the Canadian immigration authorities processed nearly 17,000 visitor applications that were related to the world cup from more than 160 countries and territories. Only 41% of them were approved, the news outlet reported citing data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Citizens of countries that need an electronic travel authorisation to enter Canada had a 96% approval rate as compared to 32% for those requiring a visa.

The highest number of visa applications (1,725) came from the citizens of Ghana. Less than 11% of the applications were accepted, CTV News reported. The second-highest number of applications (1,630) came from Colombian citizens and 69% of them were approved.

Pakistan, the third-largest group of applicants (1,250), had an approval rate of just under 9%.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

One day, around two years ago, Raghav D, a newly recruited assistant professor at a government college in Delhi, was summoned to the principal’s office. There, he was handed an envelope.

Raghav had a guess for what was in it – and he was right. The envelope contained Rs 5 lakh.

The principal instructed him to hand over the money to three members of an assessment committee from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, who were on an inspection visit to the college. As part of the process of assessing colleges on metrics such as infrastructure, curricula and teaching, the central government body sends inspection committees to verify information that colleges submit to the council before assigning them grades.

Raghav, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym in this story, was puzzled that he had been chosen for the task, given that he was new at the college. But the principal explained his rationale.

“The principal told me that if he went to meet the NAAC officials in person, they would push him to cough up more money,” he said. “But the NAAC officials would not be able to do that with me, so it was a better bet to send me.”

As he was directed, Raghav proceeded to a hotel where the committee members were staying. “It was a posh five-star hotel,” he recalled. The committee members were waiting for him in the lobby of the hotel. He handed them the envelope and a bouquet of flowers, along with a few gifts whose value also totalled about Rs 5 lakh, he recounted.

As soon as the committee members opened the envelope, their faces dropped in disappointment. They asked why the principal of the college had not bothered to come and meet them personally. Raghav told them that the principal was busy with other work, an answer he had been asked to rehearse.

The officials were not satisfied with this answer. “They told me that they had given the college a higher grade than we deserved despite not being given the amount due for doing so,” Raghav said.

The principal’s strategy appeared to have worked – the committee had already assigned its grade, and Raghav did not have the authority to negotiate with the committee.

He recounted that just as the committee members were boarding the taxi to leave, the chairman called out to Raghav and asked him to tip a butler at the hotel Rs 500. “I found this quite amusing,” Raghav said. “Even the tipping they wanted me to do.”

This was not the only task related to the NAAC that Raghav was assigned. He and other staff were informed about the NAAC team’s visit weeks in advance, and were directed to ensure that the college was adequately prepared for it, based on the criteria that the committee would assess. If there were any criteria the college did not fulfil, staff were instructed to manipulate data to show that it did.

Raghav, for instance, had to create documents that served as proof of seminars and lectures that never happened. “We were also asked to manipulate financial data to show that the donations made by the alumni were utilised for college activities, but honestly we have no idea where it went,” he said. “We also had to create files that showed that the college conducted classes that had never once taken place.”

Raghav’s college is far from unique in its efforts to manipulate NAAC assessments. Scroll spoke to ten faculty from several institutions across the country, all of whom said that for years now, it has been an open secret in the academic community that NAAC committees take bribes to overlook manipulations in data submitted for assessment, and to turn a blind eye to flaws they may encounter during campus inspections.

This manipulation of data has massive ramifications. A high NAAC grade can ensure, among other benefits, that an institute attracts a high calibre of students and faculty and also becomes eligible for certain government funds.

“With so many private universities popping up, students often have no way of being sure of institutional quality,” said Ravikant Kisana, an associate professor at a private university. “All websites claim research excellence and pedagogical innovation. Students and parents often look to NAAC ratings, since it is from a government agency. A good rating signifies institutional quality and depth.”

Thus, Kisana explained, when a college falsely boosts its rates, it may attract students who assume it is better than it is. “Once admitted, it’s difficult to drop out even after discovering the sham, since there is a social stigma of dropping out and starting anew,” he said.

While this corruption has long been known in academic circles, it was recently brought into the limelight.

In February, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested seven members of a NAAC inspection committee, who were employed in different institutions in the country, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Davanagere University and Bangalore University. According to a first-information report filed by the agency, members of the committee accepted bribes in exchange for agreeing to provide a favourable grading to the Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation in Andhra Pradesh.

The CBI recovered Rs 37 lakh in cash, as well as gold, mobile phones and laptops, across 20 locations.

This appeared to be just the tip of the iceberg. In late February, the NAAC removed from duty 900 of the 5,000 assessors it employed because of “irregularities in their work”.

In statements following this move, NAAC officials said that they would be taking measures to curb corruption within the system, but academics are pessimistic about these promises. Sai Balaji, an assistant professor at a private college, questioned the NAAC’s decision to simply remove the assessors who were caught indulging in corruption. “Why were they just removed? Why are they not being prosecuted?” he said.

He argued that it was a “joke” that arrests and investigations were being limited to NAAC assessors. “We should be looking at the entire organisation,” said Balaji.

Scroll emailed the NAAC seeking responses to the cases filed against inspection committee members, and our own findings of corruption in the system. This story will be updated if any responses are received.

Are the institutions and frameworks governing higher education in India serving the country’s students as they should? We find out in this three-part series. You can read the other two stories here and here.

A boom in competition

The NAAC was established in 1994 after the Programme of Action, 1992, a revised version of the National Education Policy, 1986, advocated for the establishment of a body that would independently assess institutes of higher education. It is funded by the University Grants Commission and is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

“The standards of education in the country were dipping and so NAAC was introduced to ensure that certain standards were maintained by institutions,” said Kisana.

The NAAC assessment is voluntary, and institutions can apply for accreditation by uploading their information on the council’s portal. Any institution of higher education that has a record of at least two batches of students who have graduated or has been in existence for six years is eligible to apply to be assessed.

While assessments began as a method to monitor institutions and ensure they were maintaining prescribed standards of education, academics said that over the years, competition between institutions has steadily increased, which has led to administrations bribing inspection committees and manipulating data.

Many linked this to the boom in the number of new institutions over the past two decades. “In the late 2000s, more private institutions started to pop up,” said Jawahar Nesan, a former vice-chancellor, who served as a chairperson on NAAC committees for close to a decade.

Balaji concurred with this view. “Not to say that corruption did not exist before, but in the last eight years especially, institutions have been mushrooming at a very fast pace,” he said.

Academics pointed out that today, nearly every institution’s website mentions its NAAC grade right below its name. “Today a NAAC grade is mandatory for marketing,” Nesan said. “The better the grade, the more students enroll.”

He added, “Parents will only consider the institution if it has an A or A++, so it is very essential that institutions garner this grade.”

There is another reason why NAAC grades are important for institutions: they are categorised by the education ministry based on their grades which also determines the funds and grants they receive. “All A, A+ and A++ institutions are categorised at Category 1 and this means that they are prioritised over others when it comes to funds,” Nesan said.

It was for these benefits, academics said, that many institutions resorted to unscrupulous measures to secure their grade.

Mock inspections

All the ten academics that Scroll spoke to said that the months leading up to a NAAC committee visit were usually among the most stressful ones of their professional lives, in which they would be burdened with significant excess work beyond their teaching hours.

“About six months before NAAC is supposed to visit, all the staff were called for a meeting and we were informed about the visit and we were asked to get ready to take on more work,” one professor, who asked to remain anonymous, said of a private university where he was previously employed.

The professor said that in the year in which he was part of the process, the institution hired a former NAAC assessor to conduct a mock inspection. “He went through all our files and data,” he said. “He point-blank said that there was no way that we were going to get more than a B grade.”

But the consultant was not merely tasked with predicting what grade they would get, the professor said. “He was there to tell us what we could do to change the outcome of the assessment,” he said. For instance, the assessor pointed out that though the institution had good infrastructure, what mattered more was showing better results in terms of faculty research work, an area in which it was severely lacking.

Aware that research can sometimes take years to be published, the professor felt that there was nothing the institution could do in the six months that remained before the inspection to change the outcome of the NAAC assessment. But he was in for a surprise.

“The management told us that they would give us the funds for the research but that somehow we needed to try to get published in the next six months,” he said. “Some teachers took the funds and some didn’t. The institution treated the teachers who took the funds very well and looked down on those who didn’t.”

The professor said that some teachers resorted to paying for their papers to be published. “There are journals that are not legitimate that publish such papers,” he said.

Further, he recalled, the administration now began to display posters on sexual harassment across the campus, in keeping with UGC rules – as mandated, these posters carried details of laws against harassment, and contact details of the internal complaints committee. This was despite the fact that he had worked there for close to a decade, and had not ever seen these posters displayed on the campus before.

“I remember telling the students too that soon after the NAAC visit is done, the posters will disappear,” the professor said. “And I was right.”

Former NAAC assessors and professors also described other kinds of last-minute changes that institutions would make on campus before the team visits, including building ramps and other mandatory infrastructure on campus.

E Balagurusamy, a former vice chancellor who has also been a chairman of NAAC committees, recounted that he had noticed institutions buying library books just a few days before the NAAC visit. “But each time, we cannot always sit and check if all the books have been bought recently or in the past,” he said.

Another teacher from a private college said that he was asked to generate false data to show high placements for students who had graduated from the institution. “We either need the offer letters, salary slips or a copy of the ID cards of the students to prove this. We had neither,” he said. Therefore, he added, faculty were asked to fabricate documents that would show high placements.

Often, the teacher explained, the process of inspecting facilities and infrastructure was far from thorough. He recounted that, for instance, the NAAC inspection team would meet faculty in a conference room, select a file at random from those submitted to the council and put questions about data it contained to the faculty member in charge of compiling it.

“All the information is already uploaded on the NAAC site,” the teacher said. “The team visits so they can physically verify the information that we have uploaded. If they paid attention to what information we were handing to them, they would know that there’s something amiss. But they overlook it.”

Despite these numerous flaws in the inspection and accreditation process, Kisana said, experience in preparing for NAAC inspections has itself become desirable in faculty during hiring. “If a candidate mentions in their resume that they have participated in an NAAC inspection and been on the team that compiles data, institutions are keen on hiring them,” he said.

How bribery happens

A former vice chancellor of a prominent university in Tamil Nadu alleged that during his tenure at the university, he had been approached by a third party seeking bribes for the inspection committee. “I would get phone calls from people claiming they were a third party who would facilitate with the NAAC team and get us a good rank,” he said. Sometimes, he added, this “third-party person” would be somebody who worked for the NAAC.

He said that peers at other institutions had also complained of being approached by third parties, and that some entertained the demands in the fear that they would be given a low grade if they did not.

“Everybody knows this happens,” he said.

Nesan, as a former chairperson on a NAAC team, however, recounted that it was institutions that would seek to bribe the committee members during their visits, before or after inspections. “Somebody from the institution will come and try to convince me to give the institution a good grade,” he said.

In his years of carrying out assessments, Nesan said, around 30% of the time, members of institutions would overtly offer him bribes seeking a higher grade, while about 60% of the time, they would hint that they were open to such means of improving their grade.

He recounted that often, institutions would ensure that their offers were not so obvious that any conscientious committee members might penalise them for their actions.

Nesan explained that this process could occur through committee members who were more amenable to corruption. On some occasions, he suspected that members of his teams were trying to influence the assessment in favour of institutions.

He recounted that he would first notice them fraternising with faculty of the institution during their off-duty hours, and then “during the discussion, I noticed that they would try to influence the assessment by defending the institution or promoting them”.

But, Nesan said, the process largely depended on the head of the inspection committee. “If the chairperson is sincere and honest, there is no chance of any wrongdoings. Even if the members try to indulge in it,” he said.

Even in cases where direct bribery might be difficult to establish, academics said, even the manner in which NAAC teams are treated suggested that the process was inherently compromised. For instance, institutions typically book them into luxurious hotels, they said. Further, “The NAAC teams are given the best food and fancy cars to chauffeur them around,” one teacher said.

This was not always the case. Moushumi Basu, faculty from Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that until a few years ago the NAAC team that visited the campus would only stay in the guesthouse on the campus.

“It actually makes sense for them to stay on campus so they get the full experience of the campus,” she said. “But the last time, they didn’t stay on campus, they were instead put up in a private five-star hotel. I’m not sure how the university even had the money to pay for that.”

These practices persist despite formal changes to NAAC policy intended to prevent them from occurring, Nesan said. “About ten years ago, they made it mandatory for us to stay in the hotel that is booked for us and only travel by the tickets that are booked for us by NAAC.”

He added, “Only food and travel can be arranged by the institution.”

But in spite of these rules, several teachers said, institutions continue to host inspection committee members in extravagant hotels, and provide them with cars, and lavish meals.

The vice chancellor of the prominent university in Tamil Nadu said that, indeed, in his experience NAAC teams visiting campuses carry these expectations too. “Those few days are very hectic for us,” he said. “Our staff is burdened with work and we have to focus especially on making their stay and travel comfortable.”

Changes to the process

In 2022, a committee formed by the ministry of education recommended reforms intended to “strengthen assessment and accreditation” by the NAAC. In November 2023, the committee released its report, recommending reforms such as eliminating field visits as far as possible, converting the assessment process to an entirely online one, making the accreditation purely binary and dropping the grading system but introducing one that categorised institutions as being between Level 1 and Level 5.

The NAAC did not implement the reforms for two years, but stated in January 2024 that it would do so by December 2024. In February, after the incidence of corruption came to light, the NAAC stated that the reforms would be fully implemented by May 2025.

In any case, Nesan said, the reforms were unlikely to have a significant impact because, in his view, many institutions also had access to the NAAC as an organisation, and that while inspections were a key step, the final grade was assigned by NAAC officials, not the inspection committee.

He recounted that in some instances, he had given a poor grade after inspecting an institution, only to later find that its final grade was an A. “How is that even possible?” he said.

Balaji and Kisana also believe that the decision to go completely online appeared to have been taken hurriedly, in response to the controversy, and was unlikely to make any difference in the long term. “Just because something is online doesn’t mean corruption doesn’t take place,” Balaji said. “People will always find a way.”

Kisana said, “Because NAAC is under pressure to take some measures they have announced this decision. How can there be any transparency when the process is online?”

Meanwhile, in the new binary system, according to an NAAC document, an institution will be either be “‘Accredited’, ‘Awaiting Accreditation’ (for those who are close to the threshold level) or ‘Not Accredited’ (for those who are far below the standards for accreditation).”

In theory, Nesan believes this is a good idea. “India is the only country where there is a grading system, which is why institutions are in a rat race to get the best grade,” he said.

He explained that he had visited universities across the world and had observed that all of them had a binary system of accreditation. “You are either accredited or not. That’s it,” he said. “All they need to know is that the university meets minimum standards of quality education. And 100% of the score is based on the field visit, and it’s a completely qualitative assessment.”

But, experts argued, the new binary system is unlikely to be significantly different given that the NAAC has also brought in “maturity-based grading accreditation” where institutions that are graded can move from Level 1 to Level 5, a scale in which the first four levels mark an institution out as being of national excellence, while the fifth marks it out as being of global excellence.

“So all they seem to have done is moved from alphabets to numbers,” Kisana said.

Balaji noted that the National Education Policy, 2020, had exacerbated the problem of institutions racing to secure good NAAC grades and even indulging in corruption in the process.

“The NEP states that the education ministry will come up with an accreditation system and determine parameters” to grade institutions, Balaji explained. The NEP recommends that this grade should determine whether an institution can be granted autonomous status, or the status of a university.

“Essentially what the NEP is saying is that all colleges need is a good grade to become a university, which has led to the mushrooming of private institutions and the privatisation of education,” he said.

Further, he noted, this new system and parameters that the NEP laid out were never set up – rather, the ministry continues to rely on the three-decade-old NAAC system, which is riddled with problems.

Some academics believe that the very introduction of the NAAC was itself problematic because the quality of teaching and learning cannot be quantified. “Each person teaches differently. How do you quantify something like that?” Kisana said.

Nesan said that the NAAC followed a “rote and notorious backward system”. Any quantification should “assess outcomes, not functions of the institution”, he said. How, he asked, “do you assess teaching, the ambience and culture on campus and its social aspects?”

Kisana argued that in effect, the NAAC pushes “institutions to invent a whole paper bureaucracy”.

He added, “There is no mechanism for teachers to come out and openly state these things out in the open. The minute we do, we will be fired from our jobs and also be unable to get any jobs in the future.”

Every year, around the time when the new academic year begins, the ministry of education releases its annual rankings of government and private higher education institutions in the country. The rankings, which have been published since 2016, are calculated based on the government’s National Institutional Ranking Framework.

The rankings are published across different categories, including engineering, management, medicine and law. In each category, the ministry lists the 200 institutions that in its assessment are the best in the country that year.

The NIRF rankings are a crucial resource for millions of students who have to decide what institutions and programmes to seek admission in each year.

But are the rankings based on a rigorous methodology and consistent data?

This question came to fore last September when an employee of the Indian Institute of Management Mumbai alleged that the institute had inflated numbers pertaining to income, expenditure and faculty strength in the data it submitted to the NIRF. Scroll cross-checked these claims by sourcing data that the institute had submitted to the NIRF, as well as the data published in its annual reports, and found that there were indeed significant discrepancies between the two. Neither the institute nor the ministry of education had responded to Scroll’s requests for comment.

However, the case highlighted one of the fault lines of the rankings system: it relies on self-reported data. Data that the institutions submit is used to assign ranks to them, raising questions about the reliability of the process.

The IIM Mumbai employee’s allegations raised concerns over whether similar discrepancies could be found in data from other leading institutions.

Scroll examined the data submitted to NIRF by all government engineering and management institutes ranked in the top ten. We picked data from 2022-’23, the same year for which IIM Mumbai’s data came into question.

That year, seven Indian Institutes of Management were among the top 10 institutes in the management category. The engineering category featured nine Indian Institutes of Technology.

We compared the data submitted by the institutes to NIRF with the data published in their annual reports. We specifically considered the data in these documents pertaining to income and expenditure.

Our analysis showed significant discrepancies between data submitted for NIRF and data published in the annual reports of institutions.

Most institutes did not respond to our questions about these discrepancies. But professors with administrative experience in public institutes, speaking on the condition of anonymity, admitted there was a widespread lack of clarity about how data should be categorised. One IIT professor said he had heard that “institutions often exaggerate numbers to get higher rankings, even when it comes to their number of published papers”.

Are the institutions and frameworks governing higher education in India serving the country’s students as they should? We find out in this three-part series.

Confusion over data

Experts who have analysed the NIRF system have raised concern in the past over the lack of clarity and transparency when it comes to the data submitted for the rankings.

In June 2024, V Ramgopal Rao, a former director of IIT Delhi, and Abhishek Singh from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science published a paper on the rankings and found several flaws and inconsistencies in the system.

“The reliance on self-reported data raises pertinent questions regarding the consistency and accuracy of the information presented,” they wrote.

This was not only because it would be in each institution’s interest to report favourable data. “Institutions varying in size, structure and resources may interpret and report data differently, potentially leading to disparities in the ranking outcomes,” they wrote. “The absence of stringent mechanisms for verifying the accuracy and uniformity of the submitted data introduces an element of uncertainty into the rankings.”

This, they noted, has serious implications on the reliability of the rankings system. “Without standardised reporting practices, the rankings may inadvertently favour institutions adept at presenting data in a favourable light rather than those genuinely excelling in academic parameters,” the paper stated.

The paper also criticised the NIRF system for the lack of transparency about its methodology, specifically about the assessment of financial data.

“To mitigate ambiguity and potential misinterpretations, it is imperative to establish unambiguous and explicit definitions of metrics, especially those which capture financial data,” the paper noted. “Formulating clear and well-defined rules and criteria is essential to ensure a standardised and equitable assessment.”

Comparing data for the IIMs

In the NIRF documents of the IIMs, expenditure is broken down into two heads: operational expenditure and capital expenditure.

In contrast, the annual reports of the IIMs break down expenditure into several heads, including staff payments and benefits, academic expenses, and administrative and general expenses.

The IIT professor mentioned above, who has been involved in submitting data for NIRF, and an IIM professor, who has analysed such data closely, told Scroll that the categories of expenditure mentioned in the annual reports correspond to the “operational expenditure” category of the NIRF documents.

Thus, we compared these two sets of figures between the NIRF documents and annual reports.

We found that only in one instance, of IIM Lucknow, did the two figures correspond exactly. IIM Bangalore reported an operational expenditure of around Rs 287.87 crore to NIRF, which was Rs 70 crore higher than what it declared in its annual report. In the remaining four IIMs, expenditure figures declared to NIRF were lower than those declared in the annual reports.

Thus, the data did not suggest that a majority of these institutes had exaggerated expenditure figures in their NIRF submissions. This was despite the fact that the framework’s methodology rewards institutions for high operational expenditure, as part of a calculation termed “financial resources and their utilisation”. But the data did show widespread discrepancies between these figures and those in the annual reports, indicating a lack of clarity about what data that falls under these heads.

When it comes to income, the IIM NIRF document lists income from three categories: sponsored research, consultancy projects and “executive development programs/management development programs”.

However, the annual reports of the IIMs list income under several heads, including from academic receipts, “grants/subsidies”, income from investments, income from sponsored research and consultancy projects, and income from executive/management development programmes, as well a category termed “other income”.

Where the NIRF documents and the income statements of annual reports contained identical categories, we compared figures directly. When the categories did not match, we examined other sections in the annual reports to locate income from sources mentioned in the NIRF documents, such as sponsored projects. Even in instances where money from sponsored research was listed under sections such as “current liabilities and provisions”, we included it in our calculations, despite three IIM professors maintaining that these entries were not technically categorised as income.

Thus, we compared the total income from sponsored projects and consultancy listed in the NIRF documents, with the highest income or credit shown under these heads in any section of the institutions’ annual reports.

Separately, we compared the income from executive and management development projects in the former documents, with the highest income or credit listed under this category in the annual reports.

We found that of a total of 12 such comparisons across the six institutes, in 10 cases, the income reported to NIRF was higher than that declared in the annual report. The highest such difference was found in the instance of IIM Kozhikode, whose NIRF documents listed an income from executive development programmes of Rs 137.13 crore, which was Rs 60.16 crore higher than the figure declared in its annual report.

“Higher income and expenditure allows institutions to project a bigger scale of operations,” a professor from a private university told Scroll.

Another professor from a public university said, “If institutions are able to garner higher earnings from their consultancy programmes and research, it secures them a higher ranking.”

Indeed, the NIRF methodology rewards institutions for high research funding and consultancy income, and in the case of management institutes, for income from executive and management development programmes.

Scroll emailed all the above institutions, seeking clarity on these apparent discrepancies. As of publishing, only IIM Bangalore had responded.

The institute did not reply to specific queries about figures in the two sets of documents. It noted that a “NIRF Methodology document spells out the ranking formula for Financial Resources Utilisation”. A guidelines document “has further instructions on what kind of expenditure should be included and what are those that are to be specifically excluded”, it noted. It added, “Our reporting is compiled on the basis of the Methodology and Guidelines documents.”

For their annual reports, the institute said, “institutes like the IIMs are governed by the uniform reporting format issued by the Ministry of Education in consultation with the CAG”. It stated, “The Income and Expenditure and Balance Sheet formats and significant accounting policies are spelt out in that document. Our annual accounts are also compiled on the basis of the mandated reporting format.”

Further, it said, “Given this background, when we report relevant data under Financial Resources utilisation for the NIRF evaluation, data is taken from the annual accounts and specific inclusions and exclusions as per the guidelines are made in order to arrive at the final number that is used in the methodology document to arrive at per student values.”

Data for the IITs

Similarly, Scroll also analysed the data submitted by all the IITs that figured in the top 10 ranks of the engineering list for the year 2022-’23. Nine out of the ten ranks were occupied by the IITs – but since data was unavailable for the Hyderabad and Rohtak institutes, we analysed data for a total of seven institutes.

With regard to the IITs too, Scroll compared the sums of operational expenditure mentioned in the NIRF with the total expenditure mentioned in the institutions’ annual reports.

Out of the seven, three institutions stated higher expenditure figures in the NIRF documents. IIT Madras had the largest difference between the figure submitted to NIRF and the figure mentioned in its annual report. In its NIRF submissions, the institute stated that its expenditure for the year was around Rs 1,360 crore, but in its annual report, the figure mentioned was around Rs 727 crore, or Rs 633 crore less.

The other two institutions that stated higher expenditure figures in the NIRF documents were IIT-Delhi and IIT BHU.

When it came to income, the NIRF documents listed income from sponsored research and consultancy projects. As with the IIMs, we looked through the annual reports and compared these figures with figures listed in any section of the annual report under the same category. If more than one section contained an entry under the same head, we used the higher number.

This analysis indicated that four IITs had reported higher income from sponsored research and consultancy projects to NIRF than the figures they had declared in their annual reports.

The largest such difference was seen in the case of IIT Bombay, which showed a total income from these sources of Rs 569.49 crore. Of this, the consultancy income mentioned in the two sets of documents was identical: Rs 99.63 crore. But the declared income from sponsored research in NIRF documents, Rs 469.86 crore in NIRF documents, was Rs 196.52 crore higher than the figure in the annual report.

On the other end of the spectrum was IIT Madras, which in its annual report declared income of Rs 1505.16 crore from consultancy and sponsored projects, which was Rs 656.74 crore higher than that declared in its NIRF documents.

Only IIT Kharagpur explicitly mentioned a specific category under the income statement of its annual reports that listed income from “Sponsored/Research/Consultancy Projects”. While the institute listed income from these sources of Rs 227 crore in its NIRF documents, it listed income of Rs 116 crore from them in its annual reports.

“I’ve also heard that institutions often exaggerate numbers to get higher rankings, even when it comes to their number of published papers,” the IIT professor said. “There is no proper verification that happens to ensure all the data institutions are sending in is true.”

Another professor from an IIT noted that “if NIRF made definitions clearer”, confusion over data categories could be avoided. “Some of these discrepancies happen because there is not enough clarity,” the professor said. “Sometimes when we have doubts, we ask counterparts in other IITs to find out what data to submit.” The professor suggested that NIRF conduct sessions or workshops to clearly explain all the categories and what they entail.

After the IIM Mumbai staffer flagged concerns about the institution’s data, the administration suspended two of its staff for six months – one, the whistleblower themself, and another staffer who the adminstration believed was involved in the process of drafting the letter. Staff at IIM Mumbai said that the author of the letter faced pressure from the institute and decided to give up on the matter. After their six-month suspension ended, they were absorbed back into the administration.

However, the other employee, a professor at the institution, continued to be targeted by the administration, other staffers told Scroll. His six-month suspension was extended to nine months and in January to his surprise, he was handed a termination letter. Both the reasons for his suspension and termination were that he had allegedly “maligned the name of the institution”.

It was Saipriya S’s second time taking the National Eligibility Entrance Test, the entrance exam for undergraduate medical programmes, conducted by the National Testing Agency.

She began studying for it while in school, and wrote the exam first in 2024. Then, on May 4, 2025, Saipriya, who is from Chennai, attempted the exam for the second time after taking a gap year to focus on preparing for it, a common strategy among candidates. The venue was a Kendriya Vidyalaya government school in the city.

Like most candidates, Saipriya was nervous before the exam – but she was confident about performing well. The paper was handed to her exactly at 2 pm. At first glance, it looked long and difficult, but the first hour went off smoothly, and Saipriya settled in.

Then, in the middle of the exam, invigilators began the process of verifying the identities of students, which cut into their precious writing time, Saipriya recounted.

The first time she wrote the exam, she said, students were given an optical mark reader, or OMR, sheet, with details such as their names and roll numbers filled in. They had to confirm that the information was accurate. But this time, they were given two such sheets and had to fill in the information themselves in the middle of the exam, as well as register a fingerprint. “They took so long and it caused a lot of disturbance,” she said.

From there, the situation went downhill. A little after an hour, there was a power outage in the exam hall. “Around the same time, it also became really cloudy and dark outside because of the rains,” Saipriya said. “I couldn’t even read the question paper.”

Saipriya tried to read the questions by holding the paper up close to her eyes. “We have a minute to answer each question,” she said. “These questions were very long, and because it was so dark, I took longer.”

For about 20 minutes in between, Saipriya recounted, the electricity returned – but when she saw the paper more clearly, she realised that she had missed many questions. “I began to panic and started crying, but I knew I just had to keep pushing until the end,” she said.

A similar scene played out in a testing centre in Indore, where Devesh Tripati was writing the same exam. As heavy rains lashed the city, “Rainwater was coming in through the windows and his paper got wet,” said SS Tripati, Devesh’s father.

This centre also saw a power outage, for one-and-a-half hours, which hampered Devesh’s ability to read questions properly. “The collector said the next day that the NTA had not prescribed guidelines that advised on what centres have to do if the power goes off,” the father said. “These are big shortcomings on the part of the administration. How can they not have a generator?”

Criticisms, failures

Last year, the NTA had faced a storm of criticism over its functioning after several exams, most prominently NEET, saw a range of irregularities, from paper leaks and errors in question papers and answer keys, and apparent discrepancies in final scores.

Students and parents from across the country petitioned the Supreme Court over these problems, demanding measures such as retests and investigations into malpractices.

The court directed the NTA to formulate reforms to improve its functioning. In June 2024, the ministry of education constituted a seven-member committee which recommended a range of reforms, many of which have been implemented by the NTA.

Despite this, a year later, the agency’s conduct of exams has fallen short.

For instance, after the Joint Entrance Exam Main, for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes, was held in April, factual errors were discovered in some questions, which were then dropped. Meanwhile, some students claimed their answers were recorded incorrectly in their response sheet, which they can access online after the exam, while others reported facing other technical glitches.

Takers of the Common University Entrance Test, for admission to various central government universities, also faced hurdles. The exams were initially supposed to begin on May 8, but on May 7, the NTA announced that it was not prepared to conduct them, and that it would do so between May 13 and June 3 instead.

Other problems followed. After the CUET exams for accountancy were held in mid-May, the NTA offered retests to students because it had included questions in the paper that were not part of the prescribed syllabus. Retests were also announced for the Tamil and Urdu papers, held later in the month.

Further, on May 27, media reported that the first shift of CUET tests was delayed in several centres across the country due to technical glitches in the servers.

Many educationists argue the continuing failures of NTA point to larger questions surrounding its very nature and structure – questions that they say the committee set up last year failed to address.

Are the institutions and frameworks governing higher education in India serving the country’s students as they should? We find out in this three-part series.

Misguided reforms

The committee was led by Dr K Radhakrishnan, the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, and included academics from the All India Institute of Medical Science, Delhi, the University of Hyderabad, and the Indian Institutes of Technology in Delhi and Kanpur.

In October 2024, the committee submitted its recommendations to the ministry of education. Among these were that the NTA conduct only entrance exams and not recruitment exams, such as those for jobs in bodies like the National Highway Authority of India and the Employees Provident Fund Organisation. The committee also recommended that security for exams be improved, that “mobile testing centres” be created for students in remote areas and that it set up grievance redressal cells.

Some of the recommendations made by the committee were to be implemented for the exams conducted in 2025, while others were to be implemented over a longer period.

Faculty across the country argued that these recommendations were riddled with problems – while some were misguided, others were insufficient. “The reforms are more a knee-jerk reaction to the NTA controversies and court case and nothing more,” said Prince Gajendra Babu, an education activist from Tamil Nadu. “The recommendations seem extremely superficial.”

Scroll emailed queries to the NTA about its failures and criticisms of its functioning. This story will be updated if the agency responds.

Many criticisms of the NTA, as well as the committee’s report, pertained to the very nature of the agency.

Among these is that the NTA is not fully a government body, rather a society registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1896. And while other bodies that play a crucial role in education, such as the Central Board of Secondary Education, which formerly conducted the NEET exam, are also societies, educationists noted that these bodies operate with a significantly higher degree of transparency.

For instance, after the 2024 leaks, educationists expressed concerns that the NTA had not published its memorandum of association on its website, as the CBSE had. They argued that doing this would be crucial to informing the public about how the agency was established and how it functions. As of this story’s publication, the agency had still not published the document on its website.

For its part, the expert committee suggested only that the government “consider continuing NTA as a Society or re-define it as a Statutory Body (under the Union Ministry of Education) in due course”.

Maya John, a member of the Delhi University Academic Council and a faculty member of Delhi’s Jesus and Mary College, argued that the recommendation needed to be far clearer and more decisive. “The committee’s recommendations call for restructuring the setup of the National Testing Agency,” she said. “However, in the very first recommendation, it leaves to the government the decision regarding operating the NTA as a society or making it a statutory body.”

Babu said that it was particularly worrying that the NTA outsourced some of its work, such as setting up exam centres, managing security and capturing biometric data. “They are an autonomous body that continues to outsource all their work,” he said. “So there is no way that the NTA is an academic body. I don’t see the report delving into the question of why a non-academic body has been given the responsibility of conducting such large-scale exams.”

Earlier, students had more access to personnel in charge of conducting the examinations, explained Dr Amalorpavanathan, a retired surgeon from the Madras Medical College. “In Tamil Nadu, you could just go to the office and get assistance,” he said. Now, however, the work had been centralised and they “have to rely on some nameless office in Delhi”, he added.

Question papers

Another crucial aspect that experts argued the NTA had faltered on, and which the committee had not sufficiently addressed, was the setting of question papers.

In numerous exams in 2024, such as JEE and NEET-UG, question papers were found to contain a variety of errors or flaws – for instance, some papers contained questions outside the designated syllabus.

In one prominent instance, a paper had two correct answers, resulting in confusion among students. “In the 2024 NEET-UG exam, students suffered because one of the physics questions had two different answers,” Babu explained. One of these was listed in an old textbook and another in a newer one.

After students and academics pointed out that both answers were technically accurate, the NTA announced that students would be granted marks if they provided either answer. But K Ravi Kumar, a physics professor from Tamil Nadu, explained that many students lost time in the confusion, and that many left the question unanswered because of it.

When the Supreme Court demanded that the NTA explain how this situation had arisen, Kumar said that the agency merely blamed the National Council of Educational Research and Training, which had published different versions of a textbook that contained the question, with both answers.

“The NTA is an independent body, it has no connection to NCERT, so if there is a mistake that was made, the NTA must hold itself accountable for it,” Kumar said. “Are they just copy-pasting the questions? If they have a team that is given the responsibility of setting these questions on their own, why are they reliant on a textbook?”

Critics explained that they had hoped that the committee would frame recommendations that would address this problem, and prevent it from recurring. Instead, the committee’s recommendations were superficial, they argued.

“The committee recommends that NTA must have a ‘secure and trusted question bank’,” said Kumar. Such a recommendation was too vague to serve any purpose, he noted. “Firstly, I’m not sure what having a question bank means. And second, did they not have a secure and trusted source for their questions before? That’s extremely concerning.”

Babu explained that the report also had a vaguely phrased recommendation about the kind of resources that should be used to set question papers, which was likely to cause immense stress to students. Specifically, the report states that the “NTA should create an extensive resource library catering to each subject area covering the textbooks and reference books by different authors.” Further, it noted that while these resources could include prescribed school and university textbooks, “they are not limited to these alone”.

Such an approach would be entirely unsuitable to young people who have just completed school and have limited exposure to subjects and resources, he argued. “The method that the report recommends for preparing question papers may be best suited for post PhD appointments or civil service exams, but definitely not applicable for higher secondary students,” he said.

He added that “evaluation can be only to assess the knowledge gained from the prescribed syllabus. One cannot go beyond the prescribed syllabus and expect the candidate to know the full depth of the subject at the higher secondary level.”

Experts said they were also worried by the committee’s apparent inclination towards a greater centralisation of the tests. In its report, the committee stated that the agency should draw insights specific to India from some large-scale examinations, such as those for admission to the IITs and IIMs.

But as Maya John pointed out, while these intensely competitive exams are based on their own syllabus and have their own formats, the NTA in fact needed to be more cognisant of a wider range of students who write some of its exams. For instance, the CUET exams determine admissions for a range of universities – John argued that for such an exam, the agency should ensure that paper-setters take into account “the differences in secondary education boards across the country” so as not to exclude any students.

Further, N Sukumar, a professor from Delhi University, said he was apprehensive of a suggestion by the committee that test administrators print question papers at the test centres, as a way to prevent papers from leaking. “It seems unlikely that all the test centres will have printing machines,” he said. “And how do we know it’s safe to print at these centres?”

Governance and functioning

Some recommendations that the committee made were implemented by the NTA. For instance, the committee noted that since its inception in 2018, the NTA had conducted 244 exams, including those for jobs in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya schools and the National Horticulture Board. It stated that the agency was “overstretched”, a concern that many academics echoed.

“NTA should primarily conduct entrance examinations,” the report said. “Enhancing its scope for other examinations may be considered after the capacity of NTA is augmented.”

Following through with the recommendations, the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced in December 2024 that the NTA would only conduct entrance examinations.

But other recommendations remain unfulfilled, educationists noted, including those pertaining to the agency’s governance.

For instance, the report recommended that the NTA appoint two additional director generals to oversee key functions – however, as of publication, the NTA website only names the chairperson and the director general, while others in the governing body are merely referred to as members.

The report also recommended that the NTA work in tandem with other agencies, such as the UGC, as “knowledge partners”. But they specify that the NTA and the other agency “should clearly define their roles and responsibilities through an MoU and set up an Advisory Body”. No documentation pertaining to such arrangements is available on the website.

Legal challenges

This year as well, the NTA faces a slew of legal challenges over the conduct of the NEET exam.

In Chennai, Saipriya and Akhtar, along with 11 other students, approached the Madras High Court seeking a stay on the NEET results. On May 18, the court directed the NTA to temporarily hold back the results. Students in Madhya Pradesh also approached the high court seeking a stay on their results after many exam centres faced power cuts. Here too, the court put a temporary stay on the results of students from 11 centres in the state.

On June 6, however, the Madras High Court dismissed the petitions, in effect allowing the agency to proceed with the release of the results. In Madhya Pradesh, the high court ordered on June 9 that results for 75 petitioning students be held back – as of publication, it was unclear whether the court would order that a retest be held for the candidates.

Parents, meanwhile, fear their children will face lifelong consequences as a result of the agency’s inefficiencies. “Even the chief minister has several ministers under him because he cannot take on all the jobs. Then why does the NTA think that they can conduct every exam?” said A Yousaf Ali, a parent, whose son wrote the NEET exam at the same centre as Saipriya did. “Why is the government giving the NTA responsibility for all the exams? That’s why they are unable to conduct any of them properly.”

Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust General Secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra on Friday resigned from their posts on “moral grounds” following the alleged embezzlement of donations made to the Ram temple in Ayodhya, ANI reported.

The trust manages the temple.

The development came a day after a first information report was registered against eight persons in the case. The FIR was filed based on a complaint by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.

All eight accused named in the FIR – Ramashankar Yadav alias Tinnu, Anukalp Mishra, Avinash Shukla, Karunesh Pandey, Manish Yadav, Lavkush Mishra, Ramashankar Mishra and Subhash Srivastava – have been arrested.

They were booked under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to theft by a clerk or servant, criminal breach of trust, stolen property and criminal conspiracy.

The FIR stated that the accused were involved in counting the cash and valuables donated by devotees at the temple, The Hindu reported. The accused had allegedly misappropriated donations collected through the donation boxes installed on the temple premises, the newspaper reported.

On Tuesday, the Special Investigation Team probing the alleged irregularities at the Ram temple submitted its preliminary report to the Uttar Pradesh government. The contents of the report have not been made public.

However, unidentified persons aware of its contents told The Indian Express that the report highlights alleged lapses, inadequate supervision and negligence in the handling, maintenance and counting of donated cash and valuables.

The government said that the investigating team would continue its work and submit a final report after 15 days.

The team was set up by the state government on June 14 following a request from the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.

Opposition leaders and a whistleblower have claimed that cash and jewellery offerings made by devotees had been embezzled by temple staffers under the trust’s watch.

The Ram temple in Ayodhya was built on the site of the Babri Masjid, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born.

In 2019, the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque 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 built.

The Ram temple was inaugurated in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2024.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read:

• The RSS man at the centre of Ram temple trust’s controversial run in Ayodhya

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

Karnataka has made it mandatory for the police to register first information reports in cases involving the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and videos, including revenge pornography, sextortion and blackmail-related cases, state Home Minister Priyank Kharge said on Thursday.

“Consent to record is not consent to share,” Kharge said, warning that police officers who refuse to file cases over prior consent by the complainant may face departmental action.

The Karnataka Police has issued a standing order directing its officers to take immediate action in all such cases, he said.

The order clarifies that even if content was originally recorded with consent, any subsequent sharing, publishing, forwarding or transmission without consent is a “distinct cognizable offence”.

The police cannot refuse or delay registering cases on the grounds that the complainant had earlier consented to recording the content, the order adds.

The police have been instructed to mandatorily register cases under Section 77 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita that pertains to voyeurism, and Section 66E, Section 67 and Section 67A of the Information Technology Act that cover violations of privacy, and the electronic publication or transmission of obscene and sexually explicit material.

In cases involving threats, extortion, demands for sexual favours or other forms of coercion, officers have been directed to also invoke provisions relating to extortion and criminal intimidation, the home minister added.

He further said that in cases where jurisdiction is a problem, police stations have been directed to register a Zero FIR and transfer the case to the correct station.

Moreover, the police have been instructed to take immediate steps to remove or block offending content, preserve electronic evidence and coordinate with cyber crime units for investigation.

Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.