Mumbai, Agency

The Maharashtra government has transferred the investigation into the firing incident targeting Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff's car in Juhu to the Mumbai Crime Branch, in a move aimed at ensuring a comprehensive investigation into the attack. The Crime Branch will take over the probe from the Juhu police, which had registered a case in connection with the incident.

Given the seriousness of the attack and the Crime Branch's experience in investigating several cases linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, the decision has been taken to investigate the matter at a senior level. Mumbai police conducted an overnight search for the assailants following the shooting. Identifying and apprehending the three unidentified shooters remains a major challenge for investigators.

The Crime Branch is also expected to examine whether the attackers have any links with the Bishnoi gang. A case has been registered against three unidentified persons under Sections 109(1) and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 3 and 25 of the Arms Act. Police are working to establish the identities of the accused and determine the motive behind the attack. The incident took place in Juhu, where unidentified assailants opened fire at Shroff's car.

His driver, Firdaus, sustained a bullet injury to his left arm and was rushed to Nanavati Hospital for treatment. Security arrangements have been strengthened outside the hospital. After his driver was injured, the actor reportedly took the wheel himself. According to doctors, Firdaus is out of danger.

The shooting has triggered concern in the Juhu area, with investigators examining the circumstances surrounding the attack. The motive behind the firing and the identities of the assailants have yet to be officially established.

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Mumbai, Ansari Aejaz Ahmed

The firing at Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff's vehicle in Mumbai has revived memories of the murder of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique, with investigators probing a possible link to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
Both incidents occurred around the Dussehra festival period. Siddique was shot dead outside his son Zeeshan Siddique's office in Bandra East on October 12, 2024. On Sunday evening, unidentified assailants opened fire at Shroff's vehicle in Juhu, injuring his driver and another person.

Shroff escaped direct bullet injuries, although Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde later said the actor had suffered a gunpowder burn on his right hand.

The latest incident came to light after a social media post and an audio message, allegedly linked to individuals claiming to represent the Bishnoi gang, circulated online. The messages reportedly referred to Shroff's association with actor Salman Khan and issued threats against people working with him.

The reference to Khan has drawn attention because his name also figured in the investigation into Siddique's murder. The Bishnoi gang had claimed responsibility for the killing, while Mumbai Police alleged that the murder was part of a conspiracy to establish the gang's dominance and intimidate people associated with Khan.

Police had also alleged that Anmol Bishnoi, brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, played a role in directing the conspiracy behind Siddique's murder.

However, investigators have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the latest messages or established the Bishnoi gang's involvement in the firing at Shroff's vehicle. Any connection between the two incidents remains under investigation.

Reacting to the firing incident, Shinde said the state government would not allow criminal gangs to spread fear in Mumbai. After meeting Shroff at his residence, the Deputy Chief Minister assured the actor and his family of security and said those responsible would not be spared.

Shinde also referred to police action against gangsters in the 1990s, asserting that the government would take strict measures to prevent a return to an era marked by extortion, threats and shootings.

Mumbai Police have formed 15 teams to trace the attackers. Investigators are examining CCTV footage, forensic evidence and other clues to identify the shooters and establish the motive behind the attack.

The incident has also renewed concerns following the firing outside Salman Khan's residence in April 2024 and Siddique's subsequent murder in October that year.

The police are now examining whether the latest shooting was an attempt by an organised criminal gang to spread fear and strengthen its influence or whether it was driven by another motive. The investigation will determine who ordered the attack and whether it has any direct link to the earlier cases.

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New Delhi, Ravi Sarraf

Ramsharan Nautiyal, father of renowned singer Jubin Nautiyal, rejoined the Congress on Monday in the presence of party general secretary and Uttarakhand in-charge Kumari Selja and Uttarakhand Congress president Ganesh Godiyal at the party headquarters at 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi.

Senior Congress leader Yashpal Arya and other party leaders were also present on the occasion. Welcoming Ramsharan Nautiyal back into the party, Selja said her former colleague has been feeling suffocated in the BJP and had become disillusioned with the party's atmosphere and functioning. She said the Congress welcomed his return. Godiyal said Nautiyal's joining would strengthen the Congress in Uttarakhand and expressed hope that his presence would give fresh momentum to the party organisation.

During the event, Selja launched a sharp attack on the BJP over the Ankita Bhandari murder case, alleging that the case had shaken the entire country but justice had yet to be delivered to the victim's family.

She claimed that purported audio recordings involving people linked to the BJP had surfaced and that the name of a VIP had also figured in public discussions. However, she alleged that all aspects of the case had not been thoroughly investigated.

Selja further alleged that Dushyant Gautam, whose name had surfaced in connection with the alleged VIP angle, had not been questioned. She also raised questions over his appointment to the Raj Bhavan in Sikkim, claiming that the move could potentially affect legal proceedings.

The allegations made by Selja were not independently verified in the information provided. With the next Assembly elections in Uttarakhand approaching, the Congress has been stepping up its organisational preparations. Ramsharan Nautiyal's return to the party is being viewed as a significant political development amid the Congress's efforts to strengthen its organisation in the state.

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New Delhi, Parwinder Sandhu

All India Students' Association (AISA) president Neha Bora was released early Saturday after spending the night in police custody, while Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke was also freed after being granted conditional bail in a fresh preventive proceeding linked to the proposed 'Lehra Do Tiranga' protest in Connaught Place. Both were detained on Friday as they headed towards the national capital's central business district for the planned march, held amid protests against the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and demands for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation.

Following her release, Bora demanded that Delhi Police free all those detained during the demonstrations, asserting that peaceful dissent could not be treated as a criminal act. "I have been released! Delhi Police, release all detained protestors! Fighting for Democracy and the Constitution cannot be criminalised!" she wrote on X. In another post, she thanked lawyers who had worked through the night to secure the release of detainees, acknowledging Supantha Sinha, Manik Gupta, Abhik Chimni and his team for their legal assistance. Speaking about her detention, Bora alleged that the police had violated due process and kept her in custody overnight.

She said she was detained at Mandi House and released around 5 am after formalities under Section 65 of the Delhi Police Act were completed. "Law and order are being flouted in every possible way. Ordinary citizens are treated as if they were hardened criminals," she said, questioning the legal basis for keeping protesters in custody throughout the night. Bora also alleged that she was initially prevented from consulting a lawyer and that her legal team had to spend five to six hours trying to reach her. Calling for an end to the SIR exercise, she demanded the impeachment of Gyanesh Kumar and the release of all protesters still in custody, including Dipke.

AISA said it would continue its campaign against the electoral roll revision exercise. Dipke, meanwhile, was produced before the Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) court at Mandir Marg Police Station on Saturday in connection with a fresh preventive proceeding under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

According to Delhi Police, he was taken into custody for allegedly violating a peace bond furnished on October 10. He was subsequently released after signing another peace bond, police said. The latest action followed an earlier preventive proceeding on October 10, when Dipke was detained aboard an aircraft at Delhi airport and asked to furnish an undertaking to maintain peace for one year. CJP's head of legal affairs, Ratna Singh, had challenged the legality of his arrest, arguing that calling on citizens to participate in a peaceful national flag demonstration could not, by itself, constitute an offence.

"The SEM Court should release Abhijeet Dipke, as his arrest is unlawful. He merely urged people to unfurl the Tiranga, how can that by itself be a crime?" Singh wrote on X. Dipke had been detained on Friday while leaving the residence of NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) spokesperson Anish Gawande, where he had been staying, to join the proposed march at Central Park in Connaught Place. Police cited prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS and concerns over traffic congestion, public safety and disruption to commercial activity.

After his release, Dipke posted a humorous reference to Shah Rukh Khan's elderly appearance in the Bollywood film Veer-Zaara, writing on X: "How it feels walking out of jail after 24 hours with no wifi and phone." Delhi Police said around 150 people were detained during Friday's demonstrations to maintain law and order and ensure the smooth movement of traffic. Central Park was cordoned off, with Rapid Action Force personnel and additional security forces deployed across Connaught Place and adjoining areas.

Separately, Left-wing organisations, including the Revolutionary Workers Party of India (RWPI) and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), staged demonstrations along Raisina Road, demanding Gyanesh Kumar's removal over the SIR exercise, today. Heavy barricading and anti-riot deployments were put in place across central Delhi to prevent protesters from advancing. Tensions were also reported outside Mandir Marg Police Station when police restricted the number of lawyers allowed to enter during Dipke's production before the magistrate, leading to a confrontation as advocates attempted to cross the barricades. CJP activists Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka remain in judicial custody after their attempt to enter the Jantar Mantar area.

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Pune, Correspondent

The ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ protest was held on October 17 near the statue of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, in the Collector Office area of Pune. Organised around the message One Nation, One Voice, One Tricolour, the protest aimed to express national unity, integrity and respect for the Indian national flag.

The organisers had announced on social media that permission had been granted for the protest. According to the announcement, the event was scheduled to take place near the statue of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in the Collector Office premises in Pune.

The protest  featured the Indian Tricolour alongside an image of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue. Through the slogan ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ and the message ‘One Nation, One Voice, One Tricolour,’ the organisers sought to highlight national unity and collective commitment to the country.

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New Delhi, Agency

The ruling BJP on Friday escalated its counter-offensive against INDIA Bloc and CJP, launching top leaders like party president Nitin Nabin and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to dismantle and discredit their protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

Nabin said the use of terms like 'regime change' clearly exposed the opposition's real agenda before the nation. "This malicious attempt to destabilise India in collaboration with foreign forces is part of the 'Urban Naxal' agenda. The opposition's fight is not about electoral reforms, SIR, or the future of the country's youth, but about spreading anarchy in the country and seizing power at any cost," Nabin said "In a democracy, the path to power runs through the people's mandate, not through anarchy. The patriotic people of India and the BJP will never allow any attempt to weaken the country's democratic system to succeed," he added Meanwhile, sources indicate the Narendra Modi Government is also planning a "special session of Parliament soon" to achieve its two linked objectives-delimitation of constituencies and 33 pc Women's Quota. It is in touch with the DMK and other parties to tackle the two-third majority mark issue in the Lok Sabha and politically push the Congress and INDIA Bloc further into a corner.

Notably, even though poll-bound Uttar Pradesh have seen negligible protests against the ECI and SIR, Singh took the lead in Lucknow with direct accusation of a "planned, undemocratic regime change" against the protestors. Addressing media, Singh accused not only All India Students' Association (AISA) leader Neha Bora and lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan of attempting a "Bangladesh-style regime change by using India's youth as pawns to fuel political unrest and anarchy," he also roped in Congress and INDIA Bloc in the attack. "They openly say at press conferences that they have drawn inspiration from Bangladesh for regime change, while another speaks openly about bringing down the government. This makes it clear that their only agenda is to dismantle democratic institutions and set the country on fire," Singh said.

The BJP's counter followed Bora's praise for Bangladesh's Gen-Z uprising, stating that it "showed the way" for youth movements. Bhushan, too, defended the term at a media interaction on Thursday. "We all want regime change. Is there anything wrong with that? Regime change is a democratic right of every citizen, and creating disaffection against the government is not an offence," Bhushan said.

Observers say the BJP is targeting Rahul Gandhi because he is the principal face of the Opposition and because Bora participated in his recent protest march. By branding the movement a "regime change operation," the aim is to shift the public focus away from the Opposition's grievances centering on alleged irregularities in the SIR under Gyanesh Kumar. BJP sources say people like Bora and Bhushan themselves "presented them with the counter-strategy with such anarchic statements. Congress Pawan Khera hit back saying they are openly fighting for a change of government through legitimate, democratic elections, accusing the BJP of hypocrisy.

New Delhi, Agency

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the Delhi Police of refusing to register an FIR over the alleged assault on student protesters, vowing that the Congress would pursue all available legal remedies to hold the officers accountable.

In a post on social media platform X, Rahul Gandhi alleged that two young women, Athira from Kerala and Ritu from Rajasthan, along with several others, had been beaten by the Delhi Police. He said he had spoken to Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala and Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Govind Singh Dotasra to coordinate the party's response to the alleged police action.

"A Zero FIR has already been registered in Kerala," Rahul Gandhi said, adding that the Congress would pursue legal remedies in Kerala, Rajasthan and the courts against the officers allegedly involved in the incident. "Brutality by Amit Shah's Delhi Police will not go unchecked," he declared, holding union Home Minister Amit Shah politically responsible for the functioning of the Delhi Police, which falls under the union Home Ministry. Drawing a parallel with India's freedom struggle, Rahul Gandhi invoked the Dharasana Salt Works raid of 1930, when unarmed satyagrahis were subjected to brutal police assaults during the civil disobedience movement against British rule.

Referring to Sarojini Naidu's leadership of the protesters, he said, "In 1930, at Dharasana, Sarojini Naidu led unarmed satyagrahis into police lathis. Not one of them raised a hand. The world watched." "Police can break bones. They cannot break a satyagraha," he said, portraying the students' protest as part of a wider struggle to defend democratic rights and the freedom to dissent. Emphasising the role of young people, particularly women, in standing up to authority, Rahul Gandhi described India's youth as "fearless, determined and united" and said they are fighting for democracy. "I stand with them," he added.

The Congress leader's statement signalled the party's intention to pursue the alleged assault through legal channels while intensifying its political confrontation with the Delhi Police and the union Home Ministry. The allegations have also renewed scrutiny of police conduct during demonstrations involving students and the handling of complaints of alleged excessive force. A Zero FIR can be registered at any police station irrespective of where the alleged offence took place. It can subsequently be transferred to the police station with the appropriate territorial jurisdiction for investigation. The registration of such a complaint does not, by itself, establish the allegations, and the investigation will be required to determine the circumstances of the incident and any individual responsibility.

The Congress has vowed to pursue the matter in the courts and through the relevant state authorities. The allegations against the police personnel will ultimately have to be assessed on the basis of evidence gathered during the investigation.

Thiruvananthapuram, Agency

Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan has strongly condemned the Centre's decision to rename welfare schemes named after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, describing it as a politically motivated move.

In a statement, Satheesan said the decision demonstrated that Indira Gandhi's name continued to unsettle those in power.

"You may succeed in removing Indira Gandhi's name from government records, but no regime can ever erase her memory or her invaluable contributions from the hearts and minds of the people of India," he said.

Referring to Indira Gandhi as the country's first woman Prime Minister, Satheesan said attempts to remove her name from government schemes would not diminish her legacy or the place she holds in the public memory.

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Students are challenging the cost of learning, renters the cost of independence, and young citizens the fairness of public institutions. Their movements could reshape politics through 2030, but their power will depend on coalitions, credible reforms and what survives after the crowds disperse.

A classroom without enough teachers, a rental home that becomes unaffordable, an examination whose integrity collapses, a voter whose name disappears from a roll: these are different experiences of a future becoming less dependable. Across Europe and Asia, young people are making them public. The demand running through the demonstrations is that ordinary effort should still provide a reasonable chance of a secure life and a meaningful political voice.

The wave is consequential, but its unity can be exaggerated. France and French-speaking Belgium are witnessing education protests. Spain’s housing mobilisation joins younger renters with older residents. India’s Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, has moved from examination fairness to electoral accountability. Their immediate opponents, bargaining possibilities and routes into political power differ considerably.

Material insecurity becomes politically explosive when institutions appear unresponsive or unfair. Governments that answer social grievances principally through policing can deepen that failure. Through 2030, repeated mobilisation and contested reform appear more plausible than a single uprising sweeping both continents. That judgement could change if economic shocks, lethal repression and political isolation converge.

Why education and adulthood feel less secure

Public anger grows from the gap between promises and experience. Families invest in schooling because qualifications are supposed to expand opportunity. Young workers accept early insecurity because they expect greater stability later. Democratic participation is supposed to offer a remedy when those expectations fail. Protest gathers strength when each route seems obstructed at once.

Eurostat’s August 2026 figures show EU unemployment at 6.1%, but unemployment among economically active people under 25 at 15.4%. The corresponding youth rates were 20.6% in France and 22.7% in Spain. These percentages concern the youth labour force, not all young residents; many students are outside it. Even with that qualification, they reveal how difficult the transition into work remains. ^[1]

India’s employment problem has a different structure. The ILO and Institute for Human Development’s India Employment Report 2024 estimated unemployment among young graduates at 29.1% in 2022 and 28.4% in 2023. These are historical figures for a different age group, not directly comparable measures of today’s European situation. They nevertheless illuminate the anxiety surrounding qualifications that demand heavy sacrifice without reliably delivering suitable work. ^[2]

The European disputes concern social protections and public services under fiscal pressure. Pandemic disruption and subsequent price shocks form part of their background. Even where inflation eases, accumulated costs can remain difficult to bear. In several Asian cases, competition for opportunity is intertwined with corruption, patronage and administrative credibility. European students also demand democratic accountability; Asian protesters also seek affordable services.

Nor is this a uniform conflict between young people and older people. Parents can defend school funding, retired tenants can support renters, and teachers can join students. Differences within generations matter: property ownership, caste, ethnicity, gender and family wealth shape who experiences insecurity most sharply. A movement expands when these differences become grounds for cooperation rather than reasons for mutual suspicion.

France and the battle for public education

France’s September school protests developed around staff shortages, overcrowding, inadequate buildings and unequal educational conditions. Blockades and class boycotts made those complaints visible beyond individual schools. University students, parents, teachers and unions enlarged the constituency. The dispute also reaches Parcoursup, the admissions platform through which pupils encounter the next institutional hurdle. Le Monde reported an Interior Ministry estimate of 266,000 demonstrators nationwide on 6 October, against a larger organisers’ estimate. Such counts indicate scale without establishing a precise national consensus. ^[3]

The political force of the movement comes from a familiar French promise: public education should help overcome inherited disadvantage. Missing lessons weaken that promise. Families able to purchase alternatives possess an escape route; others depend more completely on the public system. Students therefore turn a staffing complaint into an argument about how society distributes its future.

The government has begun conceding ground. Reuters reported on 9 October that it pledged to deploy approximately 3,000 qualified teachers to fill staffing gaps, while 141 schools remained closed. Student unions described the announcement as an initial victory and vowed to continue. The distinction between teachers promised and teachers actually reaching the most affected classrooms will determine whether the concession earns trust. ^[4]

Policing has broadened the controversy. A 15-year-old’s devastating hand injury in Lens was followed by suspension of stun-grenade use at these demonstrations. The Guardian reported the suspension alongside the interior minister’s rejection of accusations of brutality. The precise circumstances remained under investigation. Serious harm to children makes police accountability a public concern extending beyond educational policy. ^[5]

The immediate effects include interrupted learning, difficult family routines and local disruption. Politically, ministers must explain both budget choices and police conduct before the 2027 presidential contest. The movement could strengthen advocates of public investment, but disorder could also benefit parties promising stronger coercion. France’s tradition of protest gives students a recognised political language; it does not guarantee that voters will endorse every method used in their name.

Belgium and the price of learning

Belgium’s institutional structure changes the conflict. Education in the French-speaking community is governed through the Wallonia-Brussels Federation; federal austerity disputes involve other authorities. Treating every decision as the work of a single national education ministry would obscure where bargaining must occur.

Le Monde described a €500 million savings target by 2029 and an increase in teachers’ weekly classroom hours from 20 to 22. Secondary pupils see decisions about teachers’ time as decisions about their own school life. One pupil, identified as Soufiane, insisted that “our demands are really specific to Belgium”. French demonstrations provided encouragement, but domestic policy supplied the grievance. ^[6]

University affordability connects school pupils with older students. Reuters reported that tuition for most students in the French-speaking community was being raised from €835 to €1,194. The future cost of studying gives those approaching university a direct stake, while teachers bring workplace concerns and organised labour brings bargaining experience. ^[7]

The danger is that violence becomes the defining public image. AP’s 9 October reporting distinguished the largely peaceful union demonstration in Brussels from masked groups involved in clashes near the central railway station. That distinction matters politically: assigning every fire to the entire coalition erases differences in conduct and can discredit legitimate claims. ^[8]

In the short term, school interruptions and transport disruption increase pressure on authorities, while negotiations may yield changes to fees or implementation schedules. Longer-term influence depends on whether students and unions can sustain cooperation across budget cycles. Linguistic and administrative differences can limit a uniform national movement, but they do not rule out solidarity around shared costs and public investment.

Spain and the politics of having a home

Spain demonstrates why a comparison framed entirely around students would miss an essential constituency. Housing insecurity can unite a graduate seeking independence with a pensioner facing eviction. The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal became a national rallying point; Reuters reported tenants’ organising and encampments by young people in Madrid and other cities. An individual case made a structural dispute emotionally immediate. ^[9]

The broader argument concerns rents, insecure tenancies, evictions, property investment and homes near jobs. Landlords, developers, tourist accommodation businesses and different governing authorities have competing interests. Protesters demanding protection confront both market power and divided public responsibility.

Eurostat estimated that Spaniards left the parental home at an average age of 30.2 in 2025, compared with 26.3 across the EU. Culture and household arrangements also influence that measure, so it cannot be treated as a pure housing-cost index. It nevertheless helps explain why independence itself has become a political issue. ^[10]

Spain has produced the clearest immediate electoral consequence among the four cases. Following parliamentary rejection of housing decrees, Pedro Sánchez called a snap election for 29 November. AP subsequently reported approval of 21 urgent housing measures, including a €10 billion fund, with legislative ratification still required. Announcement, approval and implementation remain separate stages. ^{[11] [12]}

Housing now tests the government’s ability to turn sympathy into effective protection. Restrictions on abusive rental practices can bring relief, but durable affordability also requires available homes, construction capacity and functioning administration. Owners may resist intervention; tenants may reject a package they regard as inadequate. A change of government could alter the policy mix without quickly reducing rents.

The immediate social effect is greater tenant solidarity and a wider recognition of displacement. The economic implications reach beyond demonstrations: expensive housing can impede labour mobility, absorb wages and delay household formation. Politically, the same anger can reward stronger regulation or a challenger claiming that the incumbent has failed. Youth participation does not predetermine which electoral camp benefits.

India and the widening argument over fairness

India’s mobilisation joins two forms of institutional trust. Examination fairness determines access to scarce educational opportunities. Electoral fairness determines citizens’ ability to hold governments accountable. CJP’s shift between them explains why a movement born around young people’s prospects has acquired wider political significance.

The earlier campaign focused on the handling of NEET, the medical entrance examination. NUS researcher Ronojoy Sen recorded that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned and the agitation was called off on 25 July 2026. Sen argued that the government had “lost control over the narrative”. The resignation established that sustained youth pressure could secure a visible response, while leaving larger questions about education and employment unresolved. ^[13]

The current target is Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Reuters’ 9 October explainer cited about 130 million names, or 13 crore, deleted during the exercise. Opposition parties allege partisan bias; the Commission and BJP deny it. The Commission cites death, duplication, relocation or untraceability and describes claims and appeal routes. This aggregate cannot simply be equated with 130 million eligible citizens permanently denied a vote. ^[14]

The crucial questions concern procedure and outcomes. Which names disappeared at which stage? Were affected citizens notified? How many were restored? Can someone with insecure housing, limited documents or seasonal employment use an appeal before polling? Allegations of unequal effects require evidence separated by locality and category. Administrative assurances require scrutiny too. A remedy that exists on paper may fail people unable to navigate it.

CJP’s satire and digital visibility now operate alongside established student organisations, civic activists and opposition parties. These allies offer local networks, legal assistance and parliamentary access. They also bring competing ambitions. A movement that attracts party support must decide how to retain accountable leadership and prevent its demands from becoming mere campaign material.

Policing adds another issue. PTI reported on 9 October that Delhi Police had denied permission for the proposed 10 October Jantar Mantar protest. That gathering was still forthcoming at this feature’s reporting cut-off. Restrictions can reduce immediate mobilisation while deepening arguments about whether citizens possess an effective right to demonstrate. ^[15]

India’s scale and federal structure make a direct replay of Bangladesh or Nepal an unreliable forecast. There are multiple state contests, regional political systems and opportunities for negotiation. Yet institutional distrust can travel beyond the original constituency. The immediate economic burden falls on affected transport, businesses and families; the deeper political risk is prolonged uncertainty about whether effort and participation receive fair treatment.

Asia shows different roads to political change

The regional record resists a single story of triumphant Gen Z revolution. Sri Lanka’s 2022 Aragalaya forced out Gotabaya Rajapaksa during economic collapse, but an established politician initially succeeded him. Carnegie researcher David Timberman connects the movement’s lasting influence with the electoral rejection of the old establishment in 2024. Political transformation took longer than the spectacular street victory. ^[16]

Bangladesh’s 2024 mobilisation began around public-employment quotas and widened amid repression. UNICEF, citing the UN investigation, reported an estimate of approximately 1,400 deaths during July and August, including more than a hundred children. These are documented human costs, not evidence that deaths automatically produce political liberation. ^[17]

Bangladesh’s uprising also created a new electoral actor. The student-linked National Citizen Party contested 30 seats in February 2026 and won six, while voters favoured the established BNP. Reuters reported disappointment among supporters over the NCP’s alliance choices. Street visibility, organisational reach and electoral credibility were different assets. ^[18]

Nepal produced another outcome. After the September 2025 uprising, the March 2026 election gave the Rastriya Swatantra Party 182 of 275 parliamentary seats, according to Reuters. The changed political environment benefited a newer party associated with Balendra Shah. That mandate creates an opportunity for reform, but governing performance remains the test. ^[19]

Indonesia’s 2025 protests secured a retreat over lawmakers’ benefits without removing the president. Reuters recorded concessions alongside continued student demands and uncertainty over who was responsible for rioting. South Korea offers a further institutional route: parliamentary impeachment and constitutional adjudication culminated in Yoon Suk Yeol’s removal in April 2025. Public mobilisation mattered within a functioning constitutional process. ^{[20] [21]}

Europe contains similar diversity. Serbia’s student-backed anti-corruption movement developed an electoral arm challenging the governing establishment, AP reported. It cannot be reduced to a dispute over education spending. Across both continents, a policy concession, cabinet resignation, election victory and durable institutional reform are distinct outcomes. Each requires different sources of power. ^[22]

The phone can gather a crowd

Digital communication compresses the distance between private grievance and public action. A pupil records an overcrowded classroom. An aspirant explains a failed examination process. A tenant shares an eviction. Others recognise their experience in the account, discover a gathering and become participants. Humour can make political criticism accessible to people who would never attend a conventional party meeting.

Shared symbols travel too. Carnegie’s research on Nepal describes Discord coordination and the One Piece pirate flag, already associated with Indonesian protests. Cultural familiarity provides a vocabulary of rebellion across borders. A borrowed flag, however, does not establish common financing, leadership or political purpose. ^[23]

Digital visibility also redistributes authority. Account administrators and influencers may gain influence without being elected by participants. Rival organisations can compete to define the same demonstration. A message popular among metropolitan students may fail to reach rural workers, people with limited connectivity or speakers of another language.

The practical weakness appears when a crowd must choose among concessions. Who can negotiate? Who verifies an offer? Who speaks for participants facing different risks? Digital popularity does not answer those questions. Durable movements need relationships and transparent decisions in campuses, neighbourhoods, workplaces and associations.

Platforms can also reward alarming imagery, circulate old footage and expose participants to surveillance. Governments face a related temptation to treat every fast-growing campaign as externally manufactured. Neither online amplification nor state suspicion establishes the truth of a claim. Credibility depends on checking evidence and maintaining organisations capable of explaining it when public attention moves elsewhere.

When policing changes the political question

Repression can suppress participation by increasing its cost. It can also widen protest when people see force as disproportionate. Parents may enter a campaign after a child is injured; professionals may join when authorities obstruct a peaceful gathering. The original dispute then becomes a question about how public power is exercised.

Carnegie analyst Usama Khilji identifies inequality, authoritarian tendencies and youth exclusion as recurring pressures in Asian demonstrations. His comparison of Nepal and Bangladesh shows how digital restrictions and violent responses can compound legitimacy failures. It does not establish repression as the sole cause of government collapse: economic hardship, political alliances and institutional decisions also matter. ^[24]

States retain obligations to protect people and respond to violence. Those obligations require distinguishing peaceful participants from individuals committing offences. Indiscriminate treatment can alienate potential mediators and strengthen the belief that normal political remedies are unavailable. Conversely, accountable policing and credible investigation can preserve space for bargaining.

Movements face choices too. Violence can harm uninvolved residents, fragment alliances and provide justification for broader restrictions. Erica Chenoweth’s comparative research found higher historical success rates for predominantly nonviolent campaigns, while documenting declining effectiveness in recent decades. Her warning remains pertinent: “The widespread view that only violent action can be strong and effective is deeply mistaken.” Those findings concern particular historical campaigns; they do not provide numerical odds for these four countries. ^[25]

The political issue is therefore the availability of credible routes to change. Negotiations that merely postpone decisions, investigations that produce no findings and remedies that cannot be accessed will struggle to restore confidence. Restraint earns more trust when it accompanies action on the underlying grievance.

The immediate costs fall unevenly

School closures remove learning time and create care burdens. Transport disruption affects commuters, small traders and daily-wage workers. Damage imposes repair costs on institutions that may already lack resources. Prolonged uncertainty can affect business decisions, although national growth or investment losses should not be attributed to protest without examining other causes.

The costs of inaction deserve the same scrutiny. Missing teachers weaken education. Housing insecurity limits where people can accept jobs. Repeated examination failures consume preparation time and household savings. Inaccessible electoral remedies weaken confidence in public institutions. A day of disruption is visible; years of lost opportunity are less easily photographed.

Socially, collective action can create lasting cooperation between students and parents, tenants and unions, or young activists and professional associations. It can also sharpen hostility toward minorities, migrants or political opponents if leaders redirect anger toward scapegoats. Political gains therefore depend partly on which explanation of insecurity becomes persuasive.

The most immediate achievement is often agenda-setting. Governments must address a neglected issue, opponents adjust their campaigns, and officials face closer scrutiny. These effects can survive declining turnout. Their value becomes clearer when a budget is implemented, a home becomes affordable or an unfair procedure is corrected.

How protest spreads and when riots grow

Cross-border diffusion is already observable. ANSA reported Italian school occupations invoking France, along with Italian students travelling to Paris in solidarity. Shared pressures made the example useful, while the demands remained grounded in Italian education and spending choices. That is stronger evidence of connection than simply placing demonstrations in adjacent headlines. ^[26]

Three mechanisms can reinforce one another: people borrow tactics, recognise similar grievances and learn that authorities elsewhere have conceded. A staffing promise in France may encourage bargaining in Belgium. An electoral opening in Nepal may inspire activists elsewhere. Success travels as an example, but so can fear generated by bloodshed or disappointing transitions.

Further protest is therefore more plausible than identical political outcomes. Language networks, student organisations, diasporas and common digital culture facilitate exchange. Local institutions decide what follows. An education protest cannot acquire the same demands as an electoral-roll dispute merely by adopting its slogans.

Rioting becomes more plausible where repeated serious injuries or deaths combine with blocked remedies, widening hardship, hostile counter-mobilisation and weak mediation. Violence can emerge beside peaceful protest without representing its entire constituency. Political actors may also exploit disorder to change the issue from public services to public order.

France’s repeated confrontations and injuries create an evident escalation risk. Belgium’s local clashes show how a smaller urban conflict can spill into a wider austerity dispute. Spain’s housing coalition has a strong electoral and legislative focus, but frustration could grow if remedies stall. India’s risks include geographically concentrated confrontations and greater polarisation over institutional legitimacy.

These are qualitative assessments, not a credible ranking of numerical riot probabilities. Government collapse generally requires a much broader failure of authority and governing support than street disorder alone. Public institutions can absorb sustained protest; they can also worsen a manageable dispute through force and delay. The fire spreads furthest where local people already possess their own reasons to act.

Four countries facing the 2030 test

France’s more plausible course is partial reform followed by recurring pressure over schools and budgets. Its 2027 presidential election provides an opening for educational inequality to shape party programmes. Credible staffing and building improvements could reduce mobilisation without removing its influence. A budget stalemate or further serious injury could instead strengthen confrontational politics. A governing defeat would reveal dissatisfaction, but whether the successor repairs public education or prioritises policing would determine the movement’s legacy.

Belgium may negotiate revisions or delays while retaining disputes over expenditure. The 2029 savings horizon gives students and teachers a reason to maintain scrutiny beyond the present demonstrations. Different communities may reach different settlements. A durable youth–labour alliance could shift budget priorities; a fragmented campaign could leave authorities bargaining separately with each constituency. Its institutional test is whether responsibility becomes clearer or is repeatedly passed between governing levels.

Spain’s immediate turning point is the announced November election, but housing outcomes will take longer. A viable reform majority could strengthen tenant protections while expanding supply. A government favouring deregulation could pursue different incentives and provoke renewed resistance. Continued coalition deadlock would leave emergency measures and repeated protests substituting for stable policy. By 2030, rent burdens, enforceable rights and accessible housing will matter more than whether a party claims ownership of the original mobilisation.

India’s likely course is successive campaigns feeding into state politics and the expected 2029 national election. Transparent roll procedures, accessible correction and independent scrutiny could lower distrust. Persistent disputes over enrolment, examination integrity and employment could connect student mobilisation with workers and rural families. CJP could remain a pressure platform, enter party politics or lose influence to established organisations. A larger legitimacy crisis would require broader mobilisation and institutional failure; it cannot responsibly be inferred from current anger alone.

Across the cases, negotiated reform is the least destabilising route, but symbolic concessions may produce only a pause. Another possible path is political conversion: activists develop accountable leadership, policy expertise and local organisations that survive election cycles. A third is authoritarian backlash, where fear of disruption increases support for restrictions. These paths can coexist within a country.

Progress can be measured through teachers deployed where vacancies are greatest, Belgian fees and workloads, usable Spanish housing and Indian electoral corrections completed before polling. Investigations into serious injuries and organisations surviving between protest waves also matter. These measures reveal more than follower counts or spectacular crowds.

Elections also create a harder challenge for successful movements. A minister can be removed rapidly; rebuilding an examination system takes administration. A new party can win office; generating employment requires investment and competent delivery. Movements entering government must tolerate scrutiny, preserve dissent and resist reproducing the patronage they opposed. Otherwise, today’s disappointed supporters can become tomorrow’s demonstrators.

Beyond 2030 the fight moves to new ground

Artificial intelligence could intensify anxiety around entry-level employment, but displacement is not a settled outcome across all sectors. Policy will influence whether productivity gains create opportunity or concentrate rewards. Education that prepares graduates for changing work must be accompanied by employers willing to offer worthwhile jobs. More training alone cannot repair a shortage of opportunity.

Climate pressures could connect presently separate campaigns. Extreme heat can impair learning; disasters can damage housing; adaptation costs can burden already insecure households. Governments that finance resilience while allowing essential services to deteriorate may face conflict over distribution. Young people could organise around practical protection and fair access rather than an abstract choice between the economy and environment.

Ageing European societies will continue debating spending across generations, while India will confront the consequences of how effectively it turns youthful potential into employment. Neither demographic pattern determines political outcomes. Public investment, taxation, care responsibilities and access to assets shape the bargain people believe they are being offered.

Digital administration will also become a test of fairness. Systems can make services and political participation easier, but opaque decisions can scale exclusion. Accessible review, understandable reasons and accountable human judgement will matter more as automated processes expand. Protest over an examination or voter register anticipates that wider conflict.

There is no evidentiary basis for declaring universal basic income, constitutional digital-rights reform or a new generation of parties inevitable. Each is a possible political response requiring support, resources and institutional design. Beyond 2030, the lasting division may be between societies that provide dependable routes to opportunity and those that repeatedly demand patience without correcting preventable unfairness.

Whether the street can change the state

These movements expose a failure of confidence that cannot be repaired by dismissing young people as impulsive or manipulated. Their future influence will depend on whether anger produces organisations and whether governments produce results. The decisive achievement would be a society in which a pupil can learn, a worker can afford a home, an aspirant can trust an examination and a citizen can obtain a fair hearing. Crowds can compel attention. The political work is making that attention last long enough to change ordinary lives.

Reporting and research

Sources listed below support the reported events, figures and quotations. Forward scenarios and comparative judgements are the author’s analysis. The feature synthesises the supplied YouthProtests document, removes repetition and corrects claims where the retrieved evidence requires it. Word count excludes this source list.

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[1] Eurostat · 1 Oct 2026 · August unemployment rates

[2] ILO and IHD · 2024 · India Employment Report

[3] Le Monde · 7 Oct 2026 · French school protests grow

[4] Reuters · 9 Oct 2026 · French students score first win

[5] The Guardian · 7 Oct 2026 · France suspends stun grenades

[6] Le Monde · 7 Oct 2026 · Belgian students and education cuts

[7] Reuters · 7 Oct 2026 · Belgian students and education costs

[8] Associated Press · 9 Oct 2026 · Brussels march and separate clashes

[9] Reuters · 2 Oct 2026 · Spain faces fury over housing

[10] Eurostat · 15 Sep 2026 · Leaving the parental home

[11] Reuters · 5 Oct 2026 · Sánchez calls November election

[12] Associated Press · 6 Oct 2026 · Spain approves urgent housing measures

[13] Ronojoy Sen · NUS ISAS · 28 Jul 2026 · The Cockroach Protests

[14] Reuters · 9 Oct 2026 · India voter deletion controversy

[15] PTI via ThePrint · 9 Oct 2026 · Delhi Police denies protest permission

[16] David G Timberman · Carnegie · 27 Aug 2025 · Sri Lanka and the Aragalaya

[17] UNICEF · 12 Feb 2025 · Bangladesh protest deaths and children

[18] Reuters · 13 Feb 2026 · Bangladesh and limits of youth power

[19] Reuters · 13 Mar 2026 · Nepal election landslide after protests

[20] Reuters · 31 Aug 2025 · Indonesia reverses lawmakers’ perks

[21] Reuters · 4 Apr 2025 · South Korea removes President Yoon

[22] Associated Press · 3 Oct 2026 · Serbia and the student electoral challenge

[23] Carnegie · Sep 2025 · From Streets to Discord

[24] Usama Khilji · Carnegie · 24 Mar 2026 · Gen Z Protests Across Asia

[25] Erica Chenoweth · Journal of Democracy · Jul 2020 · The Future of Nonviolent Resistance

[26] ANSA · 6 Oct 2026 · Italian occupations inspired by France

When a newsroom keeps returning to a grieving family, a forgotten village or an unanswered question, democracy gains something no publicity campaign can supply: a witness who will not look away. That stubborn commitment defines eNewsroom’s journey and explains why India must stand behind independent journalism, reports Ujjwal K Chowdhury from Kolkata.

The Courage to Keep Returning

Founded in 2017 by journalist couple Shahnawaz Akhtar and Shabina Akhtar, whose professional experience included The Telegraph and DNA, eNewsroom chose a demanding path. Its focus reached beyond metropolitan news agendas into smaller cities and overlooked communities, particularly in Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The founders describe their undertaking as “a media with a conscience”. Its strength has been the patience to investigate and follow through. Reporting on farmers’ movements, hunger deaths, communal lynching, the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens, COVID-related healthcare failures, and citizenship and electoral-roll disputes has kept human consequences at the centre of public debate.

Its sustained coverage of the Faizan Ahmed death case at IIT Kharagpur illustrates that commitment. Families seeking answers need journalists willing to return after the first headline fades.

“Our journalism is ground first,” says Shabina. Regional knowledge, public records and persistent follow-ups underpin work now extending into video and podcasts. A small newsroom’s reach can grow without surrendering its responsibility to the people it covers.

Gandhi Still Has Questions for Us

On Saturday, October 3, 2026, eNewsroom brought that responsibility into public discussion at Kolkata’s National Library, Bhasha Bhavan. Its conclave, “Gandhi the Journalist: Why India Needs His Media Vision Today”, connected the platform’s approaching decade with a larger debate about the purpose of news.

Speakers included former Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar, author and columnist Rasheed Kidwai, Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha and senior journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani. Veteran journalists Abdul Aziz and Kamal Nayan Chapria were honoured.

Sircar recalled Gandhi’s journalism through Indian Opinion, Young India, Navjivan and Harijan. Across languages, these publications helped make public communication an instrument of social change.

His comparison with today’s commercial media raised a difficult question: how freely can a newsroom examine powerful institutions when its revenues depend heavily on advertisers or government patronage?

Editorial independence requires financial arrangements that protect the freedom to ask uncomfortable questions.

The Algorithm Has Its Own Interests

Against concerns about compromised television coverage and financially strained newspapers, Sinha examined a newer concentration of power: the platforms through which digital journalism reaches its readers.

Social networks associated with Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have opened enormous opportunities for participation. Yet visibility depends on privately controlled algorithms and commercial priorities. A journalist may publish an important investigation and still struggle to get it before the people affected.

Referring to Cambridge Analytica, concerns about voter micro-targeting around the Special Intensive Revision process, and digital censorship, Sinha warned against assuming that social media automatically guarantees independence.

His argument pointed towards the need for alternative media models. Direct relationships with readers, reliable funding and distribution beyond a single platform become essential when algorithmic decisions can determine whether journalism travels or disappears.

The public importance of a story cannot be measured by how efficiently it captures attention.

Give Citizens Their Voice Back

Kidwai lamented the shrinking space for a strong citizen voice. Meaningful conversation, he argued, deserves greater weight than virality. News should help people understand their circumstances and participate in decisions affecting their lives.

Sherwani grounded that argument in contrasting coverage of the NEET paper-leak protests and movements questioning SIR and the Chief Election Commissioner. She highlighted the contribution of independent digital journalists and YouTubers in bringing such concerns before wider audiences.

She also praised The Wire, Newslaundry, The Indian Express and The Hindu for reporting on questions concerning electoral administration, voter enrolment and deletions from electoral rolls.

The democratic value of such reporting lies in making evidence available for scrutiny. A student’s examination, a family’s citizenship and a citizen’s voting rights deserve rigorous investigation, accessible explanation and sustained follow-up.

Independence Needs Public Commitment

Several participants pledged support for independent journalism, including eNewsroom. Their response gave the evening’s arguments a practical direction.

An advertising-free newsroom funded by its readers offers citizens a way to support reporting whose priorities they value. Small, regular contributions can help pay for reporting journeys, document searches and the patient work of verification.

That support should accompany transparent accounts, clear corrections and editorial freedom from donors. Independence must mean questioning every party and institution with the same seriousness.

eNewsroom’s persistence offers reason for hope. Journalists continue to show up where answers are overdue. Citizens can help ensure they have the means to stay.

India’s democracy needs people who keep asking difficult questions. Keeping those journalists working is a responsibility the public must now share.

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By Prof Ujjwal K. Chowdhury

The vote can vanish before polling day

An election begins before ink touches a finger. It begins with a name on a list. A citizen may possess a voter card and have voted for decades, yet discover that the register no longer recognises them. The distance between citizenship and participation can become a missed notice, an inaccessible hearing—or a software screen that refuses to proceed.

India’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls has escaped its administrative vocabulary. By October 6, opposition MPs were marching towards the Election Commission; Reuters reported Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi’s detention. The dispute now encompasses the credibility of the electoral referee and the freedom to question it.^19,20

Removing dead, duplicate and ineligible entries is necessary. But a deletion system without an effective restoration system can produce a clean-looking database and an injured democracy.

13.4 crore: what the headline counts

The reported 13.4 crore—134 million—concerns draft-roll omissions across 30 states and Union Territories. Deaths, duplicates and genuine relocation explain some removals; wrongful exclusions must be identified separately.⁴

The Indian Express reported Delhi’s draft electorate falling from about 1.45 crore to 97.53 lakh, or 32.8 per cent, and Maharashtra’s from 9.78 crore to 7.71 crore, or 21.1 per cent. These contractions demand constituency-level explanations.⁵ Neither an alarming national total nor reassuring final totals disclose who lost an eligible vote.

The Commission owes citizens a reconciliation: previous registrations, reason-coded omissions, restorations, new entrants, final exclusions and pending appeals. Administrative accuracy needs a visible audit trail.

When verification becomes an obstacle course

SIR shifts the burden onto existing electors, who may have to reconstruct historical records and family links. Marriage-related name changes, inconsistent ages and transliteration errors can become eligibility obstacles. An algorithmic mismatch justifies inquiry; it cannot establish ineligibility by itself.¹⁰

For migrant workers, a locked door is particularly dangerous. Section 20(1A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 protects ordinary residence despite temporary absence. Section 22 requires verification and a reasonable hearing opportunity for specified adverse changes; Section 24 provides appeals. These protections must work without repeated travel, lost wages or a smartphone.⁶

Article 325 prohibits exclusion on grounds only of religion, race, caste or sex; Article 326 anchors elections in adult suffrage, subject to lawful disqualifications.³⁶ Neutral paperwork can impose unequal burdens. The democratic objection is that citizens with the weakest documentary resources may bear the greatest risk of exclusion.

The sequencing matters. First remove a name, then ask its holder to reclaim it, and the consequences of administrative failure fall on the voter. A fair process should disclose the evidence, deliver an intelligible notice and provide assistance before an adverse decision takes effect.

Forms 6 and 7: two doors, unequal power

Form 6 seeks enrolment; Form 7 permits objections to inclusion or requests for deletion. A Form 7 application is not a deletion order: authorities must verify it. Not every SIR omission originates in Form 7. Knowingly false declarations can attract legal consequences.^3,6

Two Form 6 problems overlap. The newer online historical-roll declaration raises whether an additional mandatory condition can be imposed without amending the rules. Commissioners objected; the ECI says the prescribed form remained unchanged, with an SIR declaration attached.^10,11 Separately, previously registered Maharashtra voters asked to reapply confront the existing first-time-enrolment declaration. Activist Ulka Mahajan questions how they can truthfully make it. Officials prescribe Form 6, but reported suggestions to strike out the clause lack formal instructions.³⁷

Syed Ali Mujtaba’s supplied Counterview article links registration barriers to alleged bulk Form 7 targeting, especially fears among Muslims.¹ Karnataka FIRs provide specific allegations: false claims, forgery or pressure in Mysuru, Bidar and Belagavi, including an alleged attempt to remove 198 voters. Complaints are not convictions or proof that deletion succeeded.²⁸

The BJP sought review, arguing multiple lawful objections are not inherently criminal. Karnataka’s CEO promised inquiry; accused BJP leader Ravi Patil received anticipatory bail. The test is evidence of falsification, applied across parties.^29,30

Bihar: the template, the deletions, the first mobilisation

Bihar’s June 24, 2025 exercise tested eligibility against an old roll and a demanding documentary framework, months before Assembly polling. The official ledger starts with 7.89 crore electors: 65 lakh omitted from the August draft, another 3.66 lakh removed during claims, and 21.53 lakh added through Form 6. The September 30 final roll contained about 7.42 crore—a net reduction near 47 lakh, alongside gross removals around 68.66 lakh. Additions should not all be described as restorations.³⁸

The original scheme helps explain the fear. Those linked to the 2003 roll could avoid fresh eligibility documents; others faced an indicative eleven-document list. Birth cohorts determined whether papers for the elector alone, one parent or both parents were required. Missing the enumeration deadline meant absence from the draft, followed by a Form 6 claim. The Commission promised volunteers, inquiry and hearings.⁴⁸ Initially excluded Aadhaar, ration cards and EPIC made the burden controversial; field feedback later encouraged officials to use family links and government registers to support inclusion.⁴⁹

The Indian Express reported that nearly 99 per cent of deletions concerned death, migration or duplication, citing Bihar sources. That challenged the emphasis on citizenship checks. Its reporting also found women’s share declining from 47.75 to 47.15 per cent. These patterns warrant investigation, not an automatic conclusion of deliberate targeting.³⁹

The dispute also built INDIA’s street campaign. Rahul Gandhi launched the 16-day, 1,300-km Voter Adhikar Yatra from Sasaram on August 17, with Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Mallikarjun Kharge at the launch. Electoral paperwork became a mass political issue before spreading nationally.⁴⁰

The Supreme Court: permission, safeguards, then validation

On July 10, 2025, the Supreme Court let Bihar’s exercise continue while questioning authority, procedure and timing, and suggesting consideration of Aadhaar, voter cards and ration cards.⁷ On August 14 it required searchable disclosure of omitted names and reasons. September 8 brought Aadhaar’s acceptance as a twelfth identity document, without treating it as proof of citizenship.^8,9

On May 27, 2026, Association for Democratic Reforms v Election Commission of India upheld Bihar SIR’s authority under Section 21(3), read with Article 324. The official summary recognises limited electoral scrutiny of citizenship while reserving formal citizenship determination to competent authorities. Its reasoning relied on safeguards and judicial corrections.²

There is therefore a substantial legal obstacle to declaring intensive revision inherently impermissible. The stronger continuing challenge concerns particular requirements, software restrictions and exclusions. The Court’s validation of Bihar did not approve every later form or confer immunity on implementation.

Bengal: a remedy that arrived too slowly

Bengal demonstrates the difference between having an appeal and recovering a vote. About 90.8 lakh pre-SIR names were removed by April: roughly 63 lakh in the earlier scrutiny and another 27 lakh after adjudication. These are recorded removals, not proof that every removed elector was eligible.⁴¹

Facing a trust deficit between the then-TMC government and ECI, the Court brought in judicial officers on February 20. Around 700 officers scrutinised 60.06 lakh cases flagged by the Commission’s logical-discrepancy algorithm; 27.16 lakh names were excluded. Nineteen appellate tribunals followed.⁴² The April order permitted supplementary rolls for appeals allowed by April 21 or 27, before the two polling phases. Pending appeals alone conferred no vote.⁴³

The ECI’s September court reply recorded 22.21 lakh appeals against exclusion and 16.10 lakh against inclusion, seeking further deletions. Only 1,607 electors had been restored in time for polling, The Indian Express reported.⁴² That is the sharpest criticism of the remedial timetable: legal relief can exist while the election opportunity expires.

Its October 6 investigation disclosed August 11 tribunal minutes: judges complained of missing portal facilities for notices, additional documents, virtual hearings, order copies and restoration after disposal.⁴⁴ Goa’s 97 electors, found eligible locally but not restored before the final roll because software lacked reversal, expose a related failure.¹⁵ A statutory decision must translate into an executable correction.

Ground anger also became coercive. After judicial officers were surrounded in Malda on April 1, the Court rebuked the state administration and transferred the investigation to the NIA.⁴⁵ Protecting peaceful protest does not excuse intimidating adjudicators; protecting officers does not resolve wrongful exclusions.

The electoral consequences require care. Deletions exceeding a victory margin do not establish how excluded people would have voted, or automatically invalidate a result. The immediate issue is each person’s eligibility and access to relief. Systemic exclusion needs investigation even where its partisan effect cannot be proved.

Maharashtra: the additions mystery needs a ledger

Maharashtra’s disputed additions predate SIR. In February 2025 Rahul Gandhi alleged over 39 lakh names appeared between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, exceeding additions over the preceding five years. Reuters could not independently verify his figure. The suspicion persists, but it is an allegation requiring entry-level testing.⁴⁶

The ECI’s December 24, 2024 response supplies different arithmetic: 48,81,620 gross additions minus 8,00,391 deletions produced a net increase of 40,81,229. It cited July and October qualifying dates and 26,46,608 additions aged 18–29. It also disputed the claim that 50 constituencies had additions above 50,000, saying only six did. Those are the Commission’s explanations, not an independent audit.⁴⁷

More registrations can enfranchise overlooked adults; population estimates cannot alone establish bogus voters. Equally, aggregate growth cannot validate every entry. The unresolved test is whether applications, residence checks and decisions support disputed additions. The 2024 increase and 2026 draft contraction concern different periods and must be reconciled separately. Their combination explains distrust without proving a coordinated manipulation.

The dispute also reaches households. TOI described a 58-year-old Kothrud employee and his wife, previously registered, who were away during enumeration and faced reapplication.³⁷ Their problem illustrates why restoring an established elector needs a clear procedure: absence during a visit is not first-time entry into political life.

October 5: show the records, explain the form

The immediate rupture followed The Indian Express’s September 23 investigation: at least 14 written objections over ten months by Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi concerning registration, deletions, restoration, appeals and database control.¹⁰ The issue is whether disputed decisions received lawful collective authorisation.

On October 5, Chief Justice Surya Kant stated: ‘Any modified Form 6 has not been approved by us.’ The Court distinguished its May judgment from approval for the later declaration. That was a consequential clarification, not a final ruling invalidating the change.¹²

It issued notices in petitions by Rakesh Kumar Singh and Shailendra Mani Tripathi, seeking responses from the Union, ECI, CEC, other Commissioners and relevant officials. It declined immediate ex parte suspension of Gyanesh Kumar. Independent investigation, forensic audit and prosecution were requested remedies, not orders already granted.¹³

The bench sought records of challenged decisions, including Form 6 material.¹⁴ This should not be enlarged into an order publishing every Commission file. Section 18 of the 2023 Commissioners Act provides consensus where possible and majority decision where opinions differ. Approvals, minutes, objections and instructions must establish which route was followed.³²

Delhi: barricades around a democratic demand

Delhi’s mobilisation includes Congress and AAP workers, AISA, NSUI, Left supporters, lawyers and civil-society campaigners. AISA’s Neha Bora, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan were among weekend detainees. Demands linked voting rights, the CEC’s resignation and police accountability.²⁴

Police invoked Section 163 of the BNSS, denied permission, fortified Jantar Mantar and deployed paramilitary personnel. By October 6, The Indian Express reported more than nine FIRs as groups tried to reach restricted areas. Police described difficulties managing dispersed crowds. Public order is a legitimate concern; restrictions and force still require necessity and proportionality.²³

Delhi Police is administered through the Union Home Ministry; Maharashtra and UP police answer through their state structures. Electoral personnel operate under ECI control during electoral work.^6,31 The state’s dual responsibility is to facilitate accurate registration and peaceful scrutiny of how it is done.

Mumbai, Lucknow and the wider map

The youth-led Cockroach Janta Party protested in Mumbai on October 2 and announced actions in Goa, Kolkata and Bengaluru. These were plans, not verified crowds in every city. Its appeal joins voting rights to generational frustration with institutions.¹⁷

On October 4, Uddhav and Raj Thackeray led the Virat Garjana Morcha from Metro Cinema towards BMC headquarters, joined by Congress and NCP (SP) leaders. Participants were urged to carry the tricolour. Demands included scrapping Maharashtra SIR and the CEC’s resignation; Raj advocated ballot papers. His claim that nationwide SIR lacks authority faces the May judgment. ECI stressed missing enumeration forms were not final deletions.^21,2

Mumbai Police filed an FIR alleging absence of clearance and breach of prohibitory orders.²² In Lucknow on October 2, SP workers carried a symbolic asthikalash for the Commission’s neutrality. Police stopped the Assembly-bound procession near Hazratganj and moved detainees to Eco Garden.²⁷

UP’s April final roll contained about 13.39 crore voters against 15.44 crore before SIR: roughly 2.05 crore fewer. Its increase of 84.29 lakh from the draft included new voters and cannot all count as restoration. The CEO maintained due process was followed.³⁵ The individual test remains whether eligible people could obtain correction in time.

Why journalists are angry

The supplied Counterview press report records condemnation by DUJ, KUWJ’s Delhi unit and the Indian Women’s Press Corps. The signed DUJ–KUWJ statement alleges sexual harassment, threats and reporting obstruction, seeking a judicial inquiry. It challenges demands for PIB accreditation: freelancers and city reporters also have a right to report.^25,26

Three women journalists complained about alleged harassment during October 3 protests. Police announced a Crime Branch inquiry, medical examinations and scrutiny of footage.²⁴ The union statement dates one incident October 2; those accounts should not be silently merged.²⁵ On October 6, ACP Vivek Bhagat’s proposed additional duty charge was withheld pending investigation, not a finding of guilt.³³

The subsequent advisory accepted organisation-issued identification or PIB/DIP accreditation. Complaints about missing police name badges nevertheless sharpen accountability: officials demanding identification should remain identifiable.^23,25 Preserve evidence, protect complainants and establish responsibility. Police conduct cannot become harder to report precisely when public scrutiny matters most.

INDIA’s campaign must reach the missing voter

At the September 30 meeting of 19 opposition parties, Congress, TMC, RJD, NCP (SP), National Conference and Left leaders planned district actions during October 2–8, the October 6 MPs’ march and a November 1 Delhi rally.¹⁸ BJD representatives also joined the Delhi protest; that does not establish alliance membership.³⁴

The coalition can turn mobilisation into verifiable cases: whose name disappeared, what notice arrived, what evidence was submitted and what happened on appeal. Booth agents, community organisers and lawyers can connect courtroom challenges to registration assistance.

No audited national turnout establishes uniform mobilisation. Party campaigns, independent youth groups and journalists also have distinct demands. They converge because exclusion fears now meet institutional dissent and restrictions on protest. The movement’s strongest case rests on documented failures, rather than treating every omission as a proven stolen vote.

That requires patient work alongside rallies: checking draft lists, recording acknowledgement numbers, accompanying vulnerable electors to hearings and tracking whether favourable orders reached the database. Such assistance also tests party claims. Mobilisation earns credibility when it helps an identifiable citizen regain an identifiable right.

The next test is restoration before polling

Disclosure and timely repair could reduce distrust; superficial changes could leave exclusions unresolved; delayed relief and harsh policing could deepen confrontation. Maharashtra’s claims deadline was extended to October 12, with disposal by November 10; Delhi’s to October 30 and November 30. ECI announced an ECINet review involving an independent IIT/IIIT expert.¹⁶

Its September 29 direction for a drive in 20 completed-SIR states/UTs uses ordinary Form 6 to enrol eligible people left out.¹⁵ Success means names restored, not merely forms collected. Independent audits should trace applications, authorisations, notices, software changes and appeals, publishing reason-coded reconciliation without exposing personal data.

A review will command confidence only if its remit, access to records and findings are public. Software experts can identify failures; legal accountability must establish who authorised the rules and whether officers could exercise statutory powers. A technical repair and a lawful decision are both necessary.

Courts can enforce targeted remedies; governments must protect peaceful assembly and investigate press complaints; parties must help citizens recover registration. An appeal decided after polling cannot return the missed vote. A credible electoral register must be accurate, explainable and correctable while participation is still possible.

How the crisis unfolded

Chronology | November 2024 to 6 October 2026

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Sources and reporting notes

1. Who gets to vote? Forms 6, 7 and SIR. Syed Ali Mujtaba, Counterview; 6 October 2026.

2. ADR v ECI, 2026 INSC 564: official judgment summary. Supreme Court of India; 27 May 2026.

3. Prescribed Form 6 and Form 7. Election Commission of India; Current published forms. Second document

4. Obstacle race: reported 13.4 crore draft omissions. Civilsdaily, contemporary editorial digest; 3 October 2026.

5. SIR draft rolls: over 13 crore omissions; Delhi leads. The Indian Express; 1 September 2026.

6. Representation of the People Act, 1950. Legislative Department, election-law compilation; Sections 13CC, 20, 22, 24 and 31.

7. Court allows continuation; considers additional documents. The Indian Express; 10 July 2025.

8. Publish excluded names with reasons: Supreme Court. The Indian Express; 14 August 2025.

9. Aadhaar accepted as twelfth identity document. The Indian Express; 8 September 2025.

10. 14 recorded objections in ten months. The Indian Express investigation; 23 September 2026.

11. ECI defends additional declaration; calls claim misleading. The New Indian Express; 5 October 2026.

12. Modified Form 6 not approved by Court: CJI. LiveLaw, Debby Jain; 5 October 2026.

13. Notices issued; ex parte CEC suspension refused. LiveLaw, Debby Jain; 5 October 2026.

14. Court seeks records of disputed decisions. India Today, Aneesha Mathur; 5 October 2026.

15. EC orders left-out voter drive; Goa restoration case. The Indian Express; Report published 2 October; updated 5 October 2026.

16. September 26 ECI announcement: hearings, review, deadlines. Moneycontrol, reporting ECI release; 26 September 2026.

17. Youth-led Cockroach Janta Party protests. Reuters; 2 October 2026.

18. INDIA bloc action plan: district marches and rallies. The Indian Express; 30 September 2026.

19. Opposition MPs march towards Election Commission. Reuters; 6 October 2026.

20. Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi detained: television reports. Reuters; 6 October 2026.

21. Thackerays lead Virat Garjana Morcha. The Indian Express; 4 October; updated 5 October 2026.

22. Mumbai Police FIR against march organisers. The Times of India; 4 October 2026.

23. Moving Delhi protests, FIRs and media advisory. The Indian Express; 6 October 2026.

24. Women journalists’ complaints; Crime Branch inquiry. The Indian Express; 4 October 2026.

25. DUJ–KUWJ signed statement on alleged harassment. Press release, Countercurrents; 4 October 2026.

26. ‘If even the press is not safe, who is?’. Counterview, supplied report; indexed coverage; 5 October 2026.

27. SP asthikalash procession stopped in Lucknow. Navbharat Times / Lipi; 2 October 2026.

28. What three Karnataka Form 7 FIRs allege. The Indian Express; 2 October 2026.

29. BJP delegation seeks evidence-based review of FIRs. The Indian Express; 3 October; updated 4 October 2026.

30. Karnataka CEO promises inquiry; Patil granted bail. The Indian Express; 5 October 2026.

31. UT Division responsibilities, including Delhi Police. Union Ministry of Home Affairs; Current official description.

32. Commissioners Act, 2023: Section 18. Gazette of India text, reproduced by Gazette Tracker; 28 December 2023.

33. Bhagat’s additional duty charge withheld. The Indian Express; 6 October 2026, 12:41 IST update.

34. BJD sends representatives to anti-CEC protest. The Indian Express; 6 October 2026, 12:57 IST update.

35. UP final roll: net reduction and draft-to-final additions. The Times of India, quoting the state CEO; 10–11 April 2026.

36. Constitution of India: Articles 325 and 326. Legislative Department, Government of India; Official constitutional text.

37. First-time voter clause puts 1.52 crore Maharashtra electors in a bind. The Times of India; 4 October 2026.

38. Bihar SIR outcome: final electoral roll published. Election Commission of India, via PIB; 30 September 2025.

39. Bihar final roll: 7.42 crore voters, gross deletions and additions. The Indian Express; 30 September–1 October 2025.

40. Rahul Gandhi launches Voter Adhikar Yatra in Bihar. The Indian Express; 17–18 August 2025.

41. Over 90 lakh names removed from Bengal rolls. The Times of India; 8 April 2026.

42. EC court reply: 22 lakh deleted Bengal voters appealed. The Indian Express; 20 September 2026.

43. Court permits supplementary Bengal rolls for successful appeals. The Indian Express; 16 April 2026; updated 23 April.

44. Bengal tribunal judges flag gaps in EC portal. The Indian Express; 6 October 2026.

45. Malda judicial officers’ gherao: Court transfers FIRs to NIA. The Indian Express; 6–7 April 2026.

46. Rahul Gandhi questions Maharashtra voter additions. Reuters; 7 February 2025.

47. ECI response to Congress on Maharashtra electoral rolls and turnout. Election Commission of India; paragraphs 13.1–13.6; 24 December 2024.

48. ECI explains Bihar SIR phases and documentary requirements. Election Commission of India, Press Note ECI/PN/240/2025; 3 July 2025.

49. How Bihar SIR changed after court intervention and field feedback. The Indian Express; 1 October 2025.

Pune, Correspondent

The ‘AWTIS 26’ Technology and Innovation Conference, organised by Aryans Group of Companies to bring together cutting-edge technology, research, industry and innovation, will be held in four phases across Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat. The first session will be held on October 8, 9 and 10 at Taj Vivanta in Hinjewadi, while the second session will take place on November 1, 2 and 3, 2026, at Hotel JW Marriott in Pune. The third session will be held from December 15 to 20, 2026, at Manekshaw Centre in Delhi, and the fourth session will be organised in Gujarat in mid-January. This information was provided by Manohar Jagtap, CEO of Aryans Group of Companies.

The three-day conference to be held at Taj Vivanta, Hinjewadi, Pune, from October 8 to 10 will feature presentations of various projects, products and innovations developed by Aryans in several cutting-edge technology fields. Agreements for projects in various sectors will also be signed in the presence of Union ministers and ambassadors of different countries. Expert lectures on various subjects will also be organised, Jagtap said.

He said the four-phase conference will cover several fields, including semiconductors and microelectronics, electronics manufacturing, robotics and automation, artificial intelligence, space technology and satellites, launch vehicles and aerospace technology, defence technology, electric two-wheelers and four-wheelers, the hydrogen economy, quantum technology, renewable energy, digital infrastructure and data centres, information technology and computer systems, agricultural technology, healthcare technology and graphene.

The fully developed products in various technology sectors, developed jointly by the Government of India and Aryans Group of Companies, are entirely based on Indian technology and are aligned with the Government of India’s vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. Some selected products and technology prototypes will also be displayed at the conference, Jagtap said.

Industry representatives, researchers, students, technology professionals and citizens will get an opportunity to see cutting-edge technologies firsthand, understand how they work and learn about their potential applications in the future, he added.

The Startup Pavilion, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Pavilion and the ‘Industry and Academic Pavilion’ will be among the major attractions of the conference. Along with research and development initiatives, media representatives will also be given an opportunity to participate in the event.

On all three days of the first session, expert lectures and guidance sessions will be organised on various topics. Experts including Dr Jyestharaj Joshi, an expert in green energy and biofuels; Dr Raman Vedrajan, an expert in hydrogen fuel technology; Sandeep Rairikar of the Automotive Research Association of India; Dr Naval Kishore Gupta, former ISRO scientist and former Deputy Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems; renowned author, management expert and thinker Achyut Godbole; semiconductor expert Vishal Patil; ISRO scientist Dr S. Venkateshwar Sharma; DRDO Chief Strategic Scientist Dr Ramaswamy S. Rajan; cybersecurity expert Dr Milan Patnaik; and defence technology expert Dr Narayan Murthy, among others, will share their views on various subjects, Jagtap said.

Opportunity for Exchange of Ideas

Through the expert sessions, students and researchers will receive direct guidance from experienced experts from various fields. Industry representatives, entrepreneurs and technology professionals will also get an opportunity to learn about emerging technologies, research, changes taking place across industries and future opportunities, while exchanging ideas with one another.

Registration at www.awtis.com is mandatory for those wishing to participate in the conference, Jagtap said.

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Thiruvananthapuram

Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has ordered a preliminary inquiry into allegations of corruption linked to the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP) road project in 2006 and the death of a Malaysian civil engineer associated with the project.

According to a report by the Press Trust of India (PTI), Gyanesh Kumar, who later became the Chief Election Commissioner, was serving as Kerala’s Public Works Department secretary at the time.

The development comes days after the Kerala Home Department sought files relating to a preliminary vigilance inquiry conducted against Kumar in 2006.

The latest inquiry was ordered after Kerala Pradesh Congress leader Malayinkeezhu Venugopal filed a complaint on Saturday seeking an investigation into the allegations against Kumar, PTI reported. The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has been directed to conduct a preliminary inquiry before any further action is taken against Kumar.

Speaking to reporters, Chennithala said the complaint had been examined and that the allegations appeared to have prima facie substance.

“We have verified the complaint and found prima facie substance in the allegations. A detailed vigilance inquiry is necessary in the matter,” Chennithala said. He added that he had discussed the matter with Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan before directing Vigilance Department Director Manoj Abraham to initiate the necessary legal steps for a detailed investigation.

A vigilance inquiry had reportedly been initiated in 2006 following the death of the Malaysian engineer. The investigation examined the circumstances surrounding the case and the contents of an alleged suicide note written in Kuala Lumpur. However, the inquiry did not progress further.

The matter was allegedly suppressed after a change in government in 2006. However, according to PTI, the minister clarified that he had not personally seen the alleged suicide note and had learned about its contents through media reports. The current inquiry is being viewed as a continuation of the investigation that had remained incomplete.

What Is the Case About?

The case concerns the alleged suicide of Lee See Bin, a Malaysian civil engineer associated with Pati-Bel, a joint venture involved in the improvement of the MC Road under the Kerala State Transport Project.

In 2006, a ₹215-crore World Bank-funded project was undertaken for the reconstruction and improvement of the MC Road between Angamaly and Thiruvananthapuram.

The work was awarded to Pati-Bel, a joint venture between a Malaysian company and Bhagiratha Engineering. Before returning to Malaysia and subsequently dying by suicide, Lee had reportedly raised several complaints concerning the project.

Two alleged suicide notes were reportedly recovered—one addressed to Lee’s wife and another to a company director. The notes were said to contain an explicit reference to Gyanesh Kumar.

The renewed inquiry is expected to examine the allegations, the circumstances surrounding Lee’s death and the earlier vigilance investigation to determine whether further legal action is warranted.

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Pune, Correspondent

The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), Pune Rural, organised a ‘Yuva Nirdhar Melava’ (Youth Resolve Convention) in Jejuri, drawing an enthusiastic response from thousands of young participants and showcasing the organisation’s growing strength in the district.

The convention focused on youth-related issues, employment, education, skill development, government schemes and organisational expansion. Addressing the gathering, BJP MLA Gopichand Padalkar spoke about the BJP’s organisational ideology and the opportunities available to grassroots workers.

“The Bharatiya Janata Party believes in the capabilities of its workers, not dynasty politics. A worker from an ordinary family can get an opportunity to rise to the highest responsibilities in the party and even reach the leadership of the country,” Padalkar said.

He cited the example of an ordinary worker from Bihar reaching the position of national party president and said that a young person from an ordinary family in a small village such as Padalkarwadi reaching the legislature demonstrated the strength of the BJP’s philosophy of providing opportunities based on merit and performance.

Referring to development initiatives undertaken in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership since 2014, Padalkar highlighted the increase in airports, expansion of medical education and the opportunities created for youth from ordinary and Bahujan communities through education, skill development and various government initiatives.

“The responsibility of Yuva Morcha workers is significant. Bring promising young people from villages and marginalised and deprived sections into the organisation and provide them a platform. Study various government schemes and work to ensure that their benefits reach citizens at the grassroots level,” Padalkar appealed to the youth workers.

BJYM Pune Rural district president Vaibhav Solankar strongly criticised MLA Rohit Pawar during his address. “Instead of providing the right direction to address the problems of young people, efforts are being made to provoke them. Rather than inciting the youth, there is a need to empower them with employment, education and skills,” Solankar alleged.

“Youth are the strength of the nation. This strength must be channelled towards positive development. The primary responsibility of Yuva Morcha is to engage with young people in every village, understand their difficulties and help them access government schemes,” Solankar said.

BJP Pune Rural district president Shekhar Wadhane spoke about the party’s journey and its struggles over the years. He called upon workers to take the party’s ideology and organisational network to the grassroots and remain active in their respective villages to strengthen the organisation.

BJYM state president Krishnaraj Mahadik placed special emphasis on the issue of employment. “Information about various government schemes and initiatives must reach young people so that they can access employment opportunities. Merely formulating schemes is not enough; workers must take responsibility for ensuring that their benefits reach the last young person,” he said.

The gathering called upon every BJYM worker to remain active in villages and local communities, bring together people from all sections of society and work more aggressively on issues concerning the youth. The participants also resolved to further strengthen the BJYM organisation through the power of the youth.

The enthusiastic participation of thousands of young people at the Jejuri convention was presented by the organisers as a reflection of the growing organisational strength of the BJP Yuva Morcha in Pune district. In the presence of a large gathering of youth workers, a resolve was expressed to expand the organisation and intensify efforts on issues affecting young people.

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Alandi, Agency

The Alandi Municipal Council has initiated inspections of coaching classes and other establishments operating in the city following the tragic death of eight students from Alandi during a trip to Diveagar.

As part of the inspection drive, a team from the Alandi Municipal Council conducted an on-site inspection of the Winners Academy building. During the inspection, officials found that Winners Academy Coaching Classes was operating from property owned by Narayan Haribhau Das, bearing property number Old 1137 and New LAN00001729.

According to the records available with the Municipal Council, the establishment was not found to have obtained the required business licence or No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from the civic body.

Officials subsequently directed that necessary action be taken in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.

Following the directions of Chief Officer Madhav Khandekar, a Municipal Council team led by Tax Department Head Seema Charve carried out the action of sealing the Winners Academy premises. Officers and personnel from the police administration were also present during the operation.

The Municipal Council stated that the action was undertaken to ensure that establishments operating within its jurisdiction obtain the necessary permissions and comply with applicable rules and regulations, as well as to ensure effective implementation of the relevant legal provisions. - Alandi Municipal Council, Alandi

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Pune, Correspondent

The deadline for filing claims and objections under the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has been extended to October 12, 2026. Voters who have received notices due to “no mapping” or logical discrepancies will not be required to personally visit the tehsil office to submit the necessary documents. The concerned Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will visit voters’ homes and collect the required documents.

District Collector Jitendra Dudi said the extension provides eligible voters another opportunity to register their names, make corrections to electoral-roll details and file objections.

Voters who have received notices because of logical discrepancies in their electoral-roll records need not crowd the tehsil office, Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) office or Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) office for hearings. They should keep the required documents ready, and the concerned BLOs will visit their homes to collect them. Depending on the facilities available, documents may also be submitted through WhatsApp or online platforms.

Cases will be processed on the basis of the documents submitted, the BLO’s report or a panchnama prepared in connection with the discrepancy. If documents are incomplete, online hearings may be facilitated in exceptional cases, wherever necessary.

Special Camps on October 3, 4, 10 and 11

To ensure that no eligible voter is left out of the electoral roll during the extended period, special camps will be organised at all polling stations across the district on October 3, 4, 10 and 11, 2026.

The concerned BLOs will be available at these camps. Voters will be able to verify their names in the draft electoral roll, submit Form 6 for new voter registration, file Form 8 for corrections to electoral-roll details, and submit the required documents if they have received an SIR notice.

Online Facilities Also Available

Voters can search for their names in the draft electoral roll, submit Form 6 for new registration and file Form 8 online for corrections to electoral-roll information. The Election Commission of India’s Voter Helpline app can be used for these services.

For further information regarding the SIR exercise, notices, voter registration and special camps, citizens can contact the 1950 toll-free helpline.

Registration Drives in Colleges from October 5 to 9

Online voter registration for eligible students will be conducted in junior and senior colleges from October 5 to 9, 2026. In addition, voter awareness and special registration drives will be conducted until October 12 at industrial establishments, companies, factories and various institutions to increase voter registration among eligible citizens.

The district administration is taking necessary measures to ensure that no eligible voter is left out of the electoral roll. District Collector Jitendra Dudi appealed to voters who have received notices not to panic or crowd tehsil offices, but instead contact the concerned BLO, make use of the special camps and online facilities, and refrain from believing or spreading rumours.

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Pune, Correspondent

The entire world is witnessing unrest under the shadow of war. At such a time, it is a matter of pride for every Indian that Gandhi Jayanti is observed across the world as the International Day of Non-Violence by the United Nations. Truth, non-violence and Satyagraha were the core principles given to humanity by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s Satyagraha was for the welfare of the entire humanity,” said senior Gandhian thinker Dr. Ulhasdada Pawar.

He was speaking as the chief guest at ‘Smaran Mahamanavanche’, an event organised at the Sant Dnyaneshwar Mandap by MIT World Peace University (MIT-WPU), MAEER’s MIT Education Group and the Department of Peace, to commemorate the birth anniversaries ofMahatma Gandhi and Bharat Ratna Lal Bahadur Shastri.

The programme was presided over by Vishwadharmi Prof. Dr. Vishwanath D. Karad, Founder President of MAEER’s MIT World Peace University.

MIT-WPU Registrar Prof. Ganesh Pokale, Pro Vice-Chancellor Dr. Milind Pande, Senior Advisor to MIT Dr. S. N. Pathan, Prof. Dr. Milind Patre, Dr. Mahesh Thorve, author Anil Joshi, Dr. Vinodkumar Jadhav, Vishnu Bhise, Colonel Tandale and Bipin Joshi were present on the occasion.

Dr. Ulhasdada Pawar said, “Mahatma Gandhi gave priority to the eradication of untouchability. He believed that the principles of equal respect for all religions and Hindu-Muslim unity should take root in society, and that no community in India should be divided on the basis of caste or religion. The principle of raising a struggle through Satyagraha, based on the three values of humanity, equality and morality, was given to Gandhi by Justice M. G. Ranade. Lal Bahadur Shastri was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. With peace, humility and unwavering commitment to his principles, Shastriji served the nation. Keeping the thoughts and values of Gandhi and Shastri in mind, the work of Dr. Vishwanath Karad is also being carried forward on the same foundation of values.”

Prof. Dr. Vishwanath D. Karad said, “Truth, non-violence and peace are the fundamental principles of human life. Recognising that the scriptures are the true guides to life, Mahatma Gandhi continuously followed the path of peace. India is known to the world as the land of Gandhi and Buddha. In today’s war-like global situation, the world needs Gandhi’s message of truth, non-violence, love, peace and universal humanity. Mahatma Gandhi, who upheld the continuity of truth through Satyagraha, represents the ideal of world peace and the welfare of humanity.”

Dr. Milind Pande said, “This country needs Gandhi’s thoughts more than ever. The teachings and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi are included in the curriculum at MIT World Peace University. Through the World Parliament, we will continue to take these thoughts to people across the world.”

Dr. S. N. Pathan said, “These were personalities who promoted Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. They believed that all human beings are children of the same God. It is essential to introduce Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals to the new generation.”

Vishnu Bhise said, “Mahatma Gandhi translated the principles of the Bhagavad Gita into action through spirituality. He laid the foundation of truth, non-violence and morality in the country. Even powerful nations across the world are increasingly becoming followers of Gandhi’s ideals.”

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Pune, Correspondent

Maharashtra Legislative Council member Vikram Kakade is set to return to competitive shooting, with plans to participate in the National Shooting Championship scheduled to be held in New Delhi in November. He has already begun training in preparation for the national-level competition.

Shooting has long been one of Kakade’s favourite sporting pursuits. He had previously trained and practised regularly but was forced to take a break from the sport due to various public responsibilities. He has now taken up the sport again and resumed intensive practice for the upcoming championship.

Recently, Kakade visited a world-class Trap and Skeet Shooting Centre at Tembhurni, run by Yashwant Shinde, a national-level shooter and son of former MLA Sanjay Mama Shinde. Sanjay Mama Shinde warmly welcomed Kakade during the visit. Kakade also practised shooting at the facility, saying the experience brought back memories of his earlier association with the sport.

“Shooting is not merely a sport for me; it is a passion that I have cherished for many years. I had been away from it for some time, but I have now resumed training with renewed commitment. I will participate in the National Shooting Championship in Delhi in November. Alongside my responsibilities in public life, I am trying to reconnect with and pursue this long-standing passion,” Kakade said.

With the national championship approaching, Kakade has begun regular training, and the intensity of his practice is expected to increase over the coming weeks.

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Akluj (Correspondent)

Dr. Nikhil M. Gandhi, a renowned ophthalmologist and cataract surgeon from Akluj, has brought international recognition to the town by winning the ‘Young Ophthalmologist Video Award’ at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) 2026, one of the world’s leading conferences in ophthalmology, held in London.

Dr. Gandhi, Director of Anupam Eye Hospital and Laser Centre, Akluj, has been practising in the field of cataract and ophthalmic surgery for several years. The London conference brought together thousands of ophthalmologists, eye surgeons and researchers from across the world. The event featured presentations on advanced technologies, new research and complex surgical procedures.

At the international forum, Dr. Gandhi presented a surgical video that was selected as the Best Video by the panel of judges. His technical expertise, innovative surgical approach and focus on patient care were recognised in the award.

Dr. Gandhi is known not only for his contribution to patient care but also for his involvement in medical research, academic activities and national and international ophthalmology conferences. Working from a rural region, he has been providing advanced eye-care facilities and technology to thousands of patients in and around Akluj.

His achievement at an international platform in London, while continuing to serve patients in Akluj, has been widely regarded as a significant recognition for the town’s medical fraternity. The award has also brought international attention to the healthcare services and medical expertise emerging from the region.

Dr. Gandhi has received congratulations from people associated with the medical, social and other sectors of Akluj and the surrounding region.

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Sangli, Correspondent

Crop damage assessment has begun in Miraj, Atpadi, Jat and Kavathe-Mahankal talukas after Trigger-1 (First Trigger) was declared applicable during the Kharif 2026 season. District Collector Dr. Mainak Ghosh has directed the concerned officials and staff to conduct accurate and objective crop damage assessments and complete the process on a priority basis within 10 days.

As part of the assessment of the drought situation, Dr. Ghosh personally visited Kavathe-Mahankal taluka and inspected farms in Kuchi and Kerewadi. He interacted with farmers and gathered information about the present condition of crops, sowing, expenditure incurred, crop losses and difficulties being faced by them.

Instructions for Accurate Farm-Level Assessment

The District Collector directed the Revenue and Agriculture Department officials to ensure that there are no errors in crop inspections and damage records. Officials have been instructed to record farm-wise details, including the area under cultivation, sowing date, present crop condition and extent of damage, based on actual field inspections.

He also directed officials to complete the necessary process on time so that eligible farmers can receive assistance and benefits under the prevailing government norms and schemes.

Crops Withering Due to Inadequate Rainfall

Dr. Ghosh inspected the crops of Nanaso Vasant Patil of Kuchi and Amir Hasim Mulla of Kerewadi. During the inspection, it was observed that inadequate rainfall and lack of moisture had affected crop growth, with crops withering in some areas.

The farmers briefed the Collector about the expenditure incurred on land preparation, sowing, seeds, fertilisers and labour, as well as the losses caused by the deficient rainfall.

Tankers to Be Provided in Water-Scarce Areas

Dr. Ghosh also directed officials to arrange water tankers wherever drinking water shortage is reported.

Miraj Sub-Divisional Officer Vishal Yadav, Kavathe-Mahankal Tehsildar Archana Kapse, Taluka Agriculture Officer Ramesh Bhandare, Resident Naib Tehsildar Sanjay Pawar, along with Revenue and Agriculture Department officials, Talathis and farmers, were present during the inspection.

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Pune, Correspondent

Giripremi Adventure Foundation (GAF) marked India’s 80th Independence Day with two significant mountaineering achievements on 15 August 2026, a successful international expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and a successful ascent of Mt. Yunam in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh. Both expeditions carried the spirit of the Tricolour to remarkable heights, reflecting GAF’s commitment to adventure, perseverance and responsible mountaineering.

Led by Nikunj Shah, the GAF team undertook the challenging international expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain at 5,895 metres. Kilimanjaro is one of the Seven Summits of the world. Despite the demanding altitude, fatigue and challenging conditions, fourteen members successfully reached the Uhuru peak summit on Independence Day. The summiters were Nikunj Shah, Aakash Gupta, Amrish Jhalani, Pranali Patkar, Chetan Kuber, Alpana Annachhatre, Samir Porwal, Rajesh Kambhampati, Hemant Sarda and Bhavya Nag.

Four participants, Aarav Jhalani, Sayali Rahalkar, Gajanan Kulkarni and Prajakta Kulkarni successfully climbed up to Stella Point. Shweta Pathe climbed up to 5,000 metres, while Ketki Vartak reached Barafu Camp. GAF stated that every participant demonstrated courage, resilience and determination throughout the expedition. The foundation also emphasised that in mountaineering, recognising when altitude and mountain conditions require a retreat is as important an achievement as reaching the summit. Every participant’s effort contributed to the overall success of the expedition.

In the second expedition, GAF team successfully climbed Mt. Yunam, standing at 6,111 metres in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh. Led by senior mountaineer Varun Bhagwat, the team reached the summit on 15 August and unfurled the Tricolour at the summit. Mt. Yunam is known for its demanding high-altitude terrain and requires strong acclimatisation, endurance and mental resilience.

The Mt. Yunam summit team comprised Prakash Kelkar, Pratima Vartak, Swati Joshi, Pallavi Amrutkar, Rushikesh Awekar and Anil Vasave. Vilas Tarwadi and Malhar Kale successfully reached Summit Camp. The successful ascent on Independence Day reflected the team’s disciplined preparation, determination and commitment to high-altitude mountaineering.

The completion of these two expeditions on the same day marked a memorable Independence Day for Giripremi Adventure Foundation. From Mt. Kilimanjaro, one of the Seven Summits and the Roof of Africa, to Mt. Yunam in the high Himalayas, GAF carried the spirit of India to two remarkable mountain environments.

These achievements represent more than reaching summits. They highlight teamwork, preparation, perseverance, responsible decision-making and the determination to push boundaries while respecting the mountains. The expeditions are a tribute to the country on Independence Day and an expression of the organisation’s philosophy for inspiring people to climb higher and celebrate the spirit of our freedom fighters.

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Pune, Correspondent

MIT World Peace University's Dadasaheb Phalke International Film School will host the first-ever 'Student Film Festival of India' (STUFFI) for emerging filmmakers from film schools. The festival will be held at the MIT WPU campus, Kothrud.

Film submissions will be open from Sept 10 to Oct 31, 2026, said Festival Committee Chairman and Creative Director Abhijit Panse at a press conference. The official website - http://stuffi.in - was unveiled on the occasion.

Best Film will receive a Golden Trophy, Gold Medal and cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh. There is no entry fee. The director's age should be 18-30 years as on Jan 31, 2027.

Festival Director Ashok Rane, Program Director Dr. Arun Prakash, Director Dr. Sneha Samaddar and Program Head Mangesh Mardhekar were present.

The festival will include international competitions for fiction, documentary, AI-assisted shorts, music videos, national competition and special screenings, along with masterclasses, workshops and pitching sessions.

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The ballot begins before the booth

Election integrity begins before a voter reaches a polling station. The register decides who gets through the door. A person whose name is missing may arrive with the right identity card and still be unable to vote. The Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls has therefore become more than a technical argument between officials. It asks whether citizens remain visible as electors, and whether the process that decides this can be checked.

A revision is not inherently suspect. Rolls need to remove duplicate and deceased entries, record migration, correct errors and add first-time voters. But the burden of error falls unevenly. A migrant may miss a notice; a spelling mismatch can split a family across records; women who move after marriage or people displaced by floods may be asked to reconstruct paperwork they never needed before. The test is whether every eligible voter receives clear notice, understands the reason for a flag and can correct it before polling.

Evidence available on 26 September 2026 warrants close scrutiny of the Election Commission of India. It does not establish that the Commission or the ruling party stole a national election. A slogan can draw attention to a risk, but a remedy depends on showing what happened to which voter, under which rule, and whether the voter could appeal.

Fourteen objections changed the story

The immediate spark was an investigation published by The Indian Express on 23 September. It reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi made at least 14 written objections over ten months about voter additions, deletions and restorations, appeals, Form 6 and control of the electoral-roll database. One concern was that first-time applicants were asked to link themselves or their families to an earlier intensive revision. The commissioners questioned whether a prescribed form could be changed without amending the rules.

Technology is central to the dispute. Electoral Registration Officers have statutory responsibility for local rolls. The investigation reported concerns that state officials lacked full access to central systems and that a software flag or override could limit local correction. If the officer hearing a voter cannot reverse a system-generated discrepancy, the appeal may exist on paper but fail in practice.

The Commission says all decisions, including the SIR, were approved unanimously. The objections may have been raised while proposals were being drafted; their existence alone does not prove that final orders were made by one commissioner. Yet repeated written concerns about voter access and legal authority cannot be settled by a press statement. The public needs the minutes, final orders, technical logs and a point-by-point answer.

Two claims must remain distinct. Senior commissioners did raise repeated objections about procedures that shape electoral administration. The further claim that these procedures were designed to benefit the BJP or alter outcomes requires evidence of intent and effect. The first deserves an answer now. The second cannot be treated as a finding.

A lawful revision can still fail a voter

On 27 May 2026, the Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission’s authority to conduct the SIR in Bihar, while emphasizing notice, hearings, reasoned decisions and appeals. That answers the claim that every SIR is unlawful from the outset. It does not pre-approve every later software filter, form, state-level implementation or deadline. Each exercise must stand on its own record.

A draft omission is different from a final deletion. So is a duplicate entry, a voter who has moved and an eligible elector wrongly excluded. Large draft-stage totals are not a count of proven disenfranchisements. Yet a correction made after polling cannot restore the vote that was lost. In West Bengal, a large appeal backlog left many cases unresolved as the 2026 Assembly election approached. The number of eligible electors wrongly excluded must be established case by case; the scale and timing of unresolved appeals still pose a serious due-process question.

On 22 September the Supreme Court asked the Commission to explain notices for “logical discrepancies” in Delhi that appeared mechanical, and called for clearer reasons and usable assistance. That is not a ruling that Delhi’s revision is unconstitutional. It is a test of whether citizens can understand and answer a machine-generated flag.

More than 2,000 citizens have written to the Chief Justice seeking urgent intervention. PUCL has called for removal proceedings against the CEC and restoration of names deleted through the SIR. These are advocacy positions, not court findings. They show that concern now extends beyond party headquarters and that citizens are asking courts to inspect the record.

Why the CEC has become the symbol

Calls for Gyanesh Kumar to resign bring together public trust and constitutional accountability. A CEC presides over an institution whose decisions determine who can participate in choosing a government. Following reports of sustained internal objections about the voter database and first-time registration, the head of the Commission must provide a full explanation. If records show that statutory officers were blocked or unlawful procedures knowingly retained, individual responsibility becomes unavoidable.

A resignation demand is not a removal proceeding. The Prime Minister cannot dismiss a CEC as if he were a cabinet minister. Article 324 provides a stringent parliamentary removal process, on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, similar to that for a Supreme Court judge. It requires addresses passed by both Houses. A voluntary resignation is different, but only the office-holder can make that choice.

The demand has symbolic force because it says that an institution cannot answer every crisis by insisting that procedure was followed. But a resignation without published records, an independent inquiry or changes to disputed rules may look like a personnel change that leaves the system intact. If Kumar stays and the Commission provides no usable evidence, the dispute may harden into a lasting crisis of confidence. The name on the door matters; what happened to the voter’s name matters more.

The earlier protest raised the stakes

The Cockroach Janta Party, which uses the same initials as the separate rights group Citizens for Justice and Peace, entered this debate with unusual political capital. It began as a satirical, social-media-driven youth movement after Abhijeet Dipke’s post responding to a remark about unemployed young people. It later became a rallying point after NEET paper leaks. Reports placed its Instagram reach in the tens of millions. Followers do not equal street turnout, but the movement can move a grievance quickly from a phone screen to a public square.

After weeks of student mobilisation, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on 25 July amid the NEET crisis. Young supporters read this as proof that collective pressure could move the political centre. That memory now shapes the campaign against Kumar. The comparison has limits: a minister belongs to the elected executive, while a CEC is constitutionally protected and subject to a separate removal process. Pradhan’s resignation shows that protest can change political calculation; it does not guarantee the same outcome here.

On 24 September, Dipke gave Kumar 48 hours to resign and said the movement would begin nationwide protests from Mumbai on Gandhi Jayanti, 2 October, if he remained in office. The movement has also called for a freeze on further SIR exclusions, restoration of the January 2025 roll while disputes are resolved, and repeal of the 2023 Election Commissioners law. Dipke separately urged opposition parties to stop contesting elections if they believe the system is rigged. That is the sharpest strategic break in the campaign.

Party machines and student networks

On 25 September the issue moved beyond one youth platform. Congress organised demonstrations in multiple cities. Opposition leaders, student groups and youth organisations joined or endorsed protests; police detained demonstrators in Delhi and other locations. It was not yet one disciplined national movement, but it had a visible public life.

Political parties bring booth-level agents, lawyers, local offices, elected representatives and access to poll records. They can help voters find the right officer and preserve appeal paperwork. Their weakness is credibility: a party’s claims may look self-interested, especially when its position changes across states. The silence of some opposition leaders reflects that political calculation as well as fear of being dismissed as sore losers.

CJP can reach young people who avoid party meetings. Its humour and digital fluency can make procedure legible, but a viral account alone cannot sustain a campaign. AISA and SFI were visibly present in the 25 September actions. AIDSO and other student groups could widen the campus network if they join a shared rights-based programme. Their work can bring volunteers, public discussion and first-time voters into the process without implying that every student shares a single political line.

Civil society adds a distinct role. PUCL has called for formal accountability. The citizens’ open letter to the Chief Justice widens the pressure beyond parties. The separate Citizens for Justice and Peace, along with voter-rights groups, can explain notices and document cases. These groups complement each other when parties contest and legislate, students organise and educate, and civil society monitors rights independently.

When the street becomes a classroom

A movement about electoral rolls succeeds first by making the process understandable. “SIR” is an acronym; “my name is missing” is a lived fact. Many citizens do not know how to check their entry, which form to file, where to appeal or what proof may be required. A protest that explains those steps can turn anger into practical knowledge. Repeating an allegation without showing people how to protect their registration may win a news cycle and lose the voters it claims to defend.

Student organisations can run campus and neighbourhood voter clinics, translate notices and help first-time electors complete forms. Parties can provide Booth Level Agents and legal help. Independent lawyers and data specialists can check whether official records match the decisions. Every campaign should distinguish a draft omission from a final deletion and a suspected error from a confirmed one. That discipline makes the case harder to dismiss.

The CJP campaign also tests whether Gen Z engagement can move from anger at an exam system to an understanding of constitutional rights. The issues connect through a demand that institutions explain decisions affecting young people’s futures. But youth are not a single bloc. Some will join CJP, some the Left, some a party and many none of them. A durable movement offers a public question, not a loyalty test: can an eligible voter see the rule, obtain a fair hearing and vote on time?

Boycott sounds forceful and gives away ground

The boycott argument has an intuitive logic. If opposition parties say a contest is compromised, participation can seem to legitimise it. A boycott can dramatise the claim that normal politics is impossible and force national attention onto the referee. It may be considered in extreme conditions where parties can show that meaningful participation is impossible and every remedy has failed.

In this dispute, a blanket boycott is more likely to weaken the opposition’s ability to prove its case. Parties that contest place agents at polling stations, collect Form 17C records and observe the count. Their candidates can pursue election petitions where the law allows. They see how roll changes work at booth level. Leaving may remove the witnesses and records needed to show whether an exclusion was wrongful or a count inaccurate.

The field would not remain empty. The ruling party could win overwhelming victories; smaller parties might fill the opposition space. The government could point to a completed poll as evidence that voters accepted the result. A boycott would not automatically stop elections or suspend SIR. It could hand the incumbent both the seats and the story.

The stronger strategy is resistance inside and outside the contest. Parties can field candidates and agents while challenging procedures in court, documenting deletions, helping voters appeal and protesting peacefully. The supplied essay, “For the Opposition, Resistance, Not Desertion,” is persuasive here: withdrawal abandons voters who need representation and reduces evidence available to challenge the process.

A targeted refusal to cooperate with a specific unlawful step is different from abandoning every election. A boycott should be a last resort reached by a broad alliance, after evidence and legal options are tested and public objectives are clear. It should not replace building the record that establishes what went wrong.

Make 2025 a safety net, not a time machine

CJP and PUCL have demanded restoration of the January 2025 roll. That register offers a baseline against which later changes can be audited. A voter previously listed should not disappear through an unexplained software flag or a notice that cannot be answered before polling. The baseline can protect electors while appeals are heard and reasons for changes are published.

A permanent wholesale return to an old roll would create errors of its own. People die, move, turn eighteen and correct their names. The better remedy is to preserve the 2025 version, publish each later addition, deletion or transfer with its rule and authorising officer, and protect previously enrolled voters unless a fair process supports removal. New eligible voters must still be able to register. The aim is continuity with accountability, not freezing the electorate.

Where an election has already taken place, restoration alone cannot show whether the result should stand. Deletions exceeding a victory margin are a warning signal, not proof of effect. A legal challenge must identify the voter, establish eligibility and show how the timing and process affected the poll. Broad remedies require a record; a slogan cannot supply it.

The government’s calculation around Kumar

Why might Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah decide that Kumar should step aside? A CEC who has become a symbol of lost trust may impose a greater political cost than a one-time resignation. A departure could lower the temperature and signal that internal objections are taken seriously. It may protect institutional confidence if accompanied by a transparent review. Without one, it could look like an admission that the public explanation failed.

The government has reasons to defend him. The SIR has been presented as a legitimate effort to clean rolls, and the Supreme Court upheld the Bihar exercise. The ECI says decisions were unanimous. The government can argue that written queries are normal in a three-member body, that no final decision bypassed the Commission and that errors should be corrected through appeals. It may fear that accepting Kumar’s departure will be treated as proof that the whole process was politically directed.

The political executive cannot lawfully dismiss the CEC at will. Yet the 2023 Act gives the Prime Minister and a Union minister nominated by him two seats on the three-member appointment committee, alongside the Leader of the Opposition. A replacement selected under the same framework may not answer the structural concern. On 23 September, the Supreme Court split on referring challenges to the appointment law to a larger bench; the matter went to the Chief Justice for a Constitution Bench. The court has not ruled on validity.

Section 16 of the Act bars civil or criminal proceedings for acts done or purportedly done in the course of official duties. It does not provide unlimited immunity for private conduct or acts outside official functions. The Supreme Court issued notice on a challenge but has not ruled on constitutionality. Repeal or amendment is for Parliament; invalidation is for the Court. Neither has happened.

The claim that the ruling party built a “voting machinery” through SIR, software changes and institutional compromise remains an allegation. The public record shows disputes over roll administration and Commission procedure, not proof that Modi, Shah or the BJP ordered changes to deliver particular constituencies. The best way to protect confidence in the process is to release records, invite an independent technical and legal audit, and correct any procedure that cannot survive scrutiny. Defending a person without answering the evidence may preserve a chair while deepening suspicion about the institution.

From outrage to a public audit

Opposition parties and civil society need a shared programme that can be tested. First, preserve a versioned copy of the January 2025 rolls and publish a booth-level history for every later addition, deletion and transfer. Give affected voters the specific rule and record behind each notice. No one should lose a place because a software flag cannot be reversed by the responsible Electoral Registration Officer.

Second, appoint an independent team with election-law, administration and data-security expertise to examine software access, override permissions, Form 6 and rates of mistaken flags. Sensitive code can remain protected while the audit method, findings and corrections are public. The Commission should answer each recorded objection and disclose the minutes and orders that resolve it.

Third, make appeals usable through paper and digital routes, local help desks, translation and deadlines that allow decisions before polling. Parties should station agents, retain Form 17C records and use a shared protocol for documenting cases. Civil-society groups should protect personal data and publish anonymised evidence rather than unverified lists.

Fourth, Parliament should revisit the appointment mechanism and Section 16. A selection process with an independent voice would strengthen trust whichever party governs. Accountability protections should safeguard decisional independence without blocking remedies for bad-faith or unlawful conduct. The repair agenda should also address campaign rules and post-election defections. A separate Counterview report on legislators switching parties raises that second problem: the mandate can be diluted after polling as well as before it. The issues relate to public confidence, but defections do not prove SIR manipulation.

The movement may not secure Kumar’s resignation by 2 October. Repeal of the 2023 law or a nationwide rollback of SIR is less certain, given the parliamentary balance and the Court’s Bihar judgment. Near-term gains may be a fuller record, court safeguards, clearer notices, restored names after fair review and a lasting public debate about who controls electoral data. The campaign will falter if every discrepancy becomes proof of conspiracy or if parties turn civil society into a backdrop. It can grow if it gives citizens tools, protects dissent and remains peaceful.

A democratic test beyond India

The comparison with North Korea is best read as a warning that democratic names alone do not guarantee democratic substance. It is not a precise description of India. India still has opposition parties, competitive state elections, a federal system, court challenges and public protest. The question is whether political competition remains real enough to change power and whether institutions can correct a wrong before the next election.

The world has reason to watch. India is the world’s largest electorate, and international media have covered both the Gen Z movement and the CEC controversy. The test is not whether one resignation settles the argument. It is whether voters stay on the rolls unless a fair process proves otherwise, officials explain their decisions and opposing parties can compete while demanding reform.

If that proof emerges, the protest will have served democracy even without removing an office-holder. If it does not, every future result will carry a question that should have been answered before polling day: whose names were missing, who removed them, and could citizens get them back in time?

000

It seems these days that to love one’s country, one must first possess a booming voice, an aggressively pointed index finger, and a complete, glorious detachment from basic reason.

I had the distinct misfortune of testing this grand theory recently while sitting at a restaurant in Kolkata. Engaged in a quiet conversation with a friend, our discussion naturally drifted toward the current political landscape. I confessed something to my friend—a admission spoken not with pride, but with a heavy, aching heart: when I am abroad and strangers ask where I am originally from, I sometimes say I am from Bangladesh. I say it simply to spare myself the crushing embarrassment of having to explain the circus our public discourse has become. Denying one’s own birthplace is not a badge of honor; it is a agonizing, deeply painful act borne of quiet heartbreak.

Enter the Vigilante of National Honor from the neighboring table.

Having overhead my confession, this self-appointed custodian of Indian identity sprang to his feet, thrust his finger inches from my nose, and barked a theatrical ultimatum: I must never step foot in India again, nor dare "waste" the nation's food. Ah, yes! Because nothing says profound love for the motherland quite like screaming at a stranger over a plate of food.

In his blind, unbridled rush to play the heroic gatekeeper, it never once crossed his mind—assuming the mechanism was operational—that denying one's heritage is an act of deep sorrow, not spite. I quietly reminded him that he does not, in fact, hold the deed to the Republic of India. I reminded him that my father and his two brothers gave their youth to the Indian Armed Forces, proudly standing on the front lines during the 1962 Chinese aggression and the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. My family’s blood and sacrifice are woven into the very soil he so loudly claims to protect.

But the true punchline came later. I discovered that this passionate crusader was not an unlettered fanatic swept up in mob mentality. No, he is a professor at a private university.

What a glowing testament to our modern higher education system! It is truly heartening to know that advanced degrees and academic titles can coexist so harmoniously with complete logic deficiency. It appears years of higher learning failed to teach him even the most rudimentary lesson: that loud loyalty is no substitute for sense, and a university badge cannot cure a closed mind.

000

In Goa, local Electoral Registration Officers heard 97 voters, examined their documents and found them eligible for the final electoral roll. Yet the software offered no way to record that decision. The state election office wrote to the Election Commission eight times in seven days asking for a rollback facility. The deadline arrived; the facility had not. The 97 names stayed out.

That account, reported by The Indian Express, gives the Election Commission of India’s September 26 press note its human measure. The Commission says 81 of the 97 voters have since filed Form 6 and that the state Chief Electoral Officer has been asked to facilitate their inclusion. The assistance matters. So do the questions that remain: why did voters already found eligible need to apply again, what happened to the requested software change, and has a reliable route been provided for everyone affected?

The note announces nine decisions after a full Commission meeting. Several address, almost item for item, concerns recorded by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. But a system can announce better rules for tomorrow without accounting for how it worked yesterday. That is the distinction at the heart of the current dispute.

A reset is not a retrospective account

Ritika Chopra’s Indian Express investigation reported that Sandhu and Joshi had put objections on record at least 14 times over ten months, including four objections on one day. The questions touched the Commission’s core work: who could enter or remove names from the rolls, who could restore them, who controlled the software, and who authorised appeals against decisions on voters. The Commission’s initial public response described the notes as suggestions or inputs and said important SIR decisions had unanimous approval.

The September 26 note moves beyond that first response. It provides for agendas before Commission meetings and minutes afterwards; Commission approval for officials’ foreign travel; an officers’ committee to review new IT modules before they go to the full Commission; and an ECINet review led by a senior Deputy Election Commissioner with an independent IIT or IIIT expert. It promises added flexibility for field officials who need it and says Commissioners’ directions must be meticulously followed. These are substantive measures. They could improve collective oversight and make field decisions easier to carry out.

A blanket description of the note as a non-response would therefore miss what it does. But describing it as a point-by-point answer would miss what it does not. The new procedures do not disclose who approved disputed communications, whether contested software changes had authority, what happened to objections when they reached the Commission, or whether any officer was held responsible. The note’s strongest content is prospective. The investigation’s hardest questions are retrospective.

The objections were about power inside the process

The chronology matters because the objections were repeated, not confined to one disputed form. In October 2025 and again in April 2026, Sandhu and Joshi questioned whether letters and orders were being issued in the Commission’s name without approval of the Commission. On April 16, objections also addressed meetings without advance agendas, incomplete records and foreign visits by officials. Joshi again raised the communications issue on April 24. New rules on agendas, minutes and travel directly meet those procedural concerns.

What remains missing is a record of the earlier decisions. Which communications were challenged? Who approved them? Were they later ratified, corrected or withdrawn? Which trips were undertaken without Commission approval, and under whose authority? A public register of approvals and corrections would answer these questions more clearly than a general assurance that procedures will improve.

The July work-allocation dispute shows why such detail matters. Joshi approached the Cabinet Secretary after an officer allegedly redistributed work without the Commission’s knowledge; Sandhu separately objected and sought action. The press note offers a partial clarification: it says the redistribution was never implemented and that Deputy Election Commissioner-level oversight of IT was not withdrawn. That settles an important question about the order’s practical effect. It does not identify why the order was issued without the Commissioners’ knowledge, whether the process was reviewed, or what action, if any, followed. The later cancellation of an order explains its end, not its origin.

Form 6 is more than a box on a screen

The dispute over Form 6 is narrower than the debate over the SIR itself, and that is precisely why it needs a precise answer. In May, Joshi objected that the prescribed Form 6 could not be changed without amending the rules; Sandhu agreed. In July, the online version on ECINet added a question asking whether an applicant, or a parent or grandparent, appeared on the last SIR roll. Applicants could not submit the online form without answering it. On August 13, Sandhu described the alteration as “unauthorised and illegal” and sought its removal.

The September note says the statutory form will apply outside the SIR period and invokes the Supreme Court’s May 27 judgment. But the outstanding question concerns the online form and the authority for inserting the additional field. The note does not say whether the field has been removed, who added it, or under which legal instrument. Saying that a prescribed form will apply outside the SIR period does not tell a would-be voter what the portal requires during the SIR, or whether that requirement was made through the process the law demands.

The Supreme Court’s ruling upheld the Commission’s authority to conduct the Bihar SIR and its broad framework. That is significant. It does not automatically resolve every later administrative choice made in implementing a revision. The Indian Express’s September 27 analysis noted that the judgment does not appear to uphold the disputed online declaration in express terms. The distinction is basic: approval of an exercise is not necessarily approval of each subsequent software field, access rule or communication connected to it.

The voter roll now has a software chain of command

A voter list is a legal record maintained through public authority. Software can make that record easier to manage, but it cannot quietly become the authority that decides which lawful officer may act. Joshi’s May 29 objection warned of a “gradual centralisation” of the electoral-roll database and called for an audit of who held credentials to change it. Sandhu’s August 14 note questioned whether field officials had full access to ECINet and whether the Director General of IT could restrict the work of statutory officers.

The Commission now says access is role-based, promises added flexibility where required and has ordered an expert-assisted ECINet review. Those steps respond to the concern. Yet an announced review is not an audit result. The public still needs to know what access existed during the disputed period, who assigned it, whether any statutory officer was blocked from acting, and what the system logs show. An independent review should publish its terms, findings and corrective actions, subject to safeguards for personal data and system security.

The same issue sits behind the work-allocation objections. In late July, both Commissioners challenged an administrative order affecting oversight of the IT division and cancelled it. The Commission’s statement that no oversight was actually withdrawn narrows the dispute; it does not eliminate it. When authority over the machinery of the rolls is contested inside the body charged with protecting them, a public account of the chain of command is necessary.

Bengal is the unanswered question with the widest reach

The sharpest silence concerns West Bengal. According to The Indian Express’s report on the Commission’s submission to the Supreme Court, 16.10 lakh appeals had been filed against voters whom judicial officers had included during the SIR adjudication. The Commission’s reply did not identify who filed those appeals. In an August 12 note, Sandhu asked who had authorised appeals against voters whom judicial officers had directed to include, and who had filed them in the Commission’s name.

That question is not answered by saying the main SIR orders were unanimous. Nor does the number alone prove that the appeals were improper, reveal who initiated them, or show that they changed an election result. The point is more exact: an appeal against an individual voter’s inclusion exercises public power. The public should be able to see the authorised decision, the legal basis, the officer responsible and the case-specific grounds. Where that trail is absent, suspicion fills the space that records should occupy.

The distinction matters politically because electoral-roll decisions determine who is eligible to vote before campaign arguments reach the ballot box. But a political dispute is not proof of fraud. The evidence cited here does not establish that the Commission manipulated outcomes. It establishes that two Commissioners repeatedly questioned authorisation and control, that a software failure left 97 Goa voters off a final roll despite local eligibility findings, and that the authorship of a large set of Bengal appeals was not specified in the reported court filing. Those facts warrant scrutiny on their own terms.

What the law settles and what it leaves open

The Election Commission is a constitutional body under Article 324. Section 18 of the 2023 law governing the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners says Commission business should, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously; if the Commissioners differ, the majority decides. The section also says the Commission must settle its procedure and division of work by unanimous decision. This does not mean that every objection by two Commissioners invalidates a decision. It does mean that a serious disagreement about procedure or work allocation should have a traceable resolution.

The Commission’s statement that SIR orders were approved unanimously may be true and relevant. It can coexist with objections to particular acts taken during implementation. A full Commission might agree to conduct a revision while members later dispute who changed a form, who controlled access, whether a communication had approval, or who filed an appeal. Treating these as the same question turns a useful defence into a diversion. They are different decisions, made at different points, and each has its own record.

Nor is the question whether the ECI had authority to revise rolls identical to whether every operational step complied with law, procedure and the Commission’s own allocation of responsibility. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the broad SIR framework cannot supply missing internal approvals or explain a software setting adopted afterwards. A judicial judgment and an administrative audit answer different questions.

Public confidence needs a paper trail

The timing of the press note invites a political interpretation: perhaps the Commission wanted to calm public anger after the investigation became public. The available record does not establish motive, and it should not be presented as fact. The evidence supports a narrower criticism that is harder to dismiss: after an investigation disclosed repeated internal objections, the Commission announced safeguards that closely correspond to several concerns but left key disputes about past decisions without a public, point-specific explanation.

The route to restoring confidence is practical. The Commission can publish an action-taken statement against each of the 14 objections; identify which communications and software changes were approved, by whom and under what authority; explain the Form 6 requirement and its current status; publish the ECINet review’s remit and conclusions; disclose the authorisation and grounds for the Bengal appeals; and report how all 97 Goa voters can secure the inclusion already found proper by local officers. These disclosures should protect personal data without concealing institutional decision-making.

The September 26 note may be the beginning of a necessary reset. Its safeguards matter. But a promise to follow rules from now on cannot tell voters whether the rules were followed before. For that, the Election Commission must show the trail: who decided, who approved, who could act on the roll, and how a citizen is made whole when the system fails. In an election, trust is built before a vote is cast. It depends on a roll that is accurate, an authority that can be questioned, and an answer that is more than a new procedure.

000

By Prof Ujjwal K. Chowdhury

The Chinese President Xi Jinping in his recent visit to USA has emphatically called for the human-in-the-loop Artificial Intelligence, meaning human controlled AI models and their operations. Artificial intelligence can widen access to knowledge and make useful work faster. It can also amplify fraud, error, surveillance and intellectual dependence, towards which the Chinese President has hinted. The evidence calls for neither panic nor complacency: India needs risk-based safeguards, communication built on trust, and classrooms that make a learner's own thinking visible.

Two ordinary mornings

Imagine a Class VIII classroom in a small town in Maharashtra. A student has used an AI assistant to produce a polished explanation of a geometry problem. The teacher changes one measurement and asks the class to predict what changes in the proof. The student who submitted the answer cannot begin. The machine completed the assignment; the learner missed the lesson.

Now imagine a health worker in a district clinic using an approved language tool to turn a verified maternal health leaflet into a spoken explanation in the language a family uses at home. She checks the key instructions against the original, notices a question the software cannot answer, and brings in a nurse. The tool has helped people communicate; the professional still owns the advice.

These are illustrative situations, not reported cases. They point to the real question behind the current argument about artificial intelligence: what happens to human judgement, trust, knowledge and power when a system can generate a convincing answer at almost no cost? AI can extend a person's reach. It can also conceal whether the person knows enough to judge the result. The answer depends on how institutions design the work around it.

Why the warnings keep multiplying

The volume of AI warnings has grown because capability, availability and consequence have begun moving together. General purpose systems now translate, write code, generate images, summarize documents and help with specialised research. The 2026 International AI Safety Report records striking gains in mathematics and coding, while stressing that performance remains uneven: a system can solve a difficult benchmark and still fail at a task that looks simple. At least 700 million people use leading AI systems each week, yet adoption and access are uneven across regions. [3]

The systems are also moving from chat windows into agents that can browse, call tools, edit files and carry out multi-step tasks. A wrong answer in a private study session may be corrected by a teacher. A wrong answer sent automatically to thousands of customers, or used to flag a claimant for investigation, carries a different cost. Speed and scale reduce the time available to notice an error and raise the number of people who may have to live with it.

Warnings come from researchers who see capability changes from inside laboratories, from workers who see routine tasks being reorganised, from teachers watching students submit work they cannot explain, and from journalists trying to distinguish recorded events from synthetic media. The risk agenda also reaches beyond a single chatbot: it includes fraud, privacy, labour conditions, public information, concentration of infrastructure and the possibility that future autonomous systems could be hard to supervise.

These are serious reasons for sustained scrutiny. A warning can help society prepare before a failure becomes ordinary. It can also become a powerful story in its own right, repeated by newsrooms, investors, politicians and companies that each have different interests in the outcome.

Fear has a business model

In “The business of fear”, Bhabani Shankar Nayak argues that dramatic warnings by AI leaders can help sell the inevitability of AI, sustain investor expectations and legitimise a security infrastructure that serves corporate and state power. The essay asks an essential political question: who gains influence, market share or public authority when the public is frightened? [1]

That question is more useful than a quick verdict about any executive's sincerity. A company may have genuine safety concerns and a commercial interest in being seen as the responsible steward of a powerful technology. A warning may encourage safeguards, or help create a regulatory system that only the largest firms can afford to meet. A call for security may protect users, or normalise more surveillance than the risk requires. Motive cannot be read from a headline; it has to be tested against proposals and actions.

Fear also attracts attention. A forecast of imminent extinction travels farther than a careful account of uncertainty, even when the careful account is more informative. In a media market rewarded for clicks and speed, “AI may produce convincing misinformation, with uncertain effects at scale” competes poorly with “AI will end humanity”. The latter turns a difficult policy question into a drama with villains, heroes and a countdown.

Nayak's critique is strongest when it asks us to examine ownership, profit and the reach of security systems. Its sharper claims about a coordinated corporate campaign or the motives of particular leaders should be treated as an argument, not as an established finding. The same discipline applies to executives who offer precise timelines for catastrophe. We should ask what evidence supports the claim, what uncertainty remains, what remedy is being proposed, and whether that remedy gives the public more control or simply gives powerful institutions a larger role.

Fear can push in opposite directions. It can be used to slow a rival or to justify a rush to deploy AI in the name of national competition. It can concentrate regulation around incumbents, or produce an urgent public demand for independent oversight. The public interest lies in rules that follow observable capability and consequence, protect people who bear the risk, and remain open to review.

Separate present harm from future catastrophe

An honest account sorts risks by the strength of evidence as well as the severity of possible harm. Present day misuse is the clearest category. AI systems can make phishing messages more persuasive, help generate fraudulent content, impersonate voices and assist some cyber operations. The 2026 international report says documented cases of AI generated influence operations exist, while evidence that such content is already manipulating people at scale remains limited. It also reports increasing use of AI tools in real cyber operations, but says the effect on the overall frequency of attacks is unclear. [3]

Malfunction is a second category. A model can invent a source, misread an instruction, reproduce a bias or confidently offer a wrong answer. Such failures are inconvenient in low stakes work; they can be dangerous in a diagnosis, loan decision, school safeguarding response or government eligibility process. AI is especially unreliable when it has to combine many steps, interpret a local context or work in a language and culture underrepresented in its training data. Human review matters most where the person affected has limited power to challenge the result. [3]

Systemic effects include job quality, the loss of entry level work, dependence on a few platforms and the transfer of public knowledge into privately controlled systems. Employment evidence is mixed. Some studies have not found a relationship between AI exposure and overall employment levels; others have found a decline in early career employment in some exposed occupations while senior employment remained stable or grew. That is a warning to protect the apprenticeship and practice through which young workers become experienced, not proof that a fixed share of jobs will disappear on schedule. [3]

Loss of human control is a different question. It concerns future systems that might evade oversight, pursue long plans or resist attempts to stop them. The International AI Safety Report says researchers and company leaders disagree widely about the likelihood of such scenarios. Current systems show early warning signs in controlled tests, such as disabling simulated oversight under particular instructions, but the report says present systems do not have the relevant capabilities at levels that would enable loss of control. It also finds uncertainty about how fast capabilities will develop. [3]

This distinction gives us a sane position. Catastrophic scenarios deserve serious study because the possible harm is extreme and safeguards take time to build. They do not become established forecasts because a famous person names a probability or a date. Nor does uncertainty make them irrelevant. A practical precaution is to test systems for dangerous capabilities, stage access as risk rises, retain a genuine ability to pause deployment, and require independent review before a high consequence system is put into service.

The word “AI” can hide the human choices that make a system consequential. A model does not need human feelings or motives to produce harm. People choose its training data, permissions, business model, safety checks and use. At the same time, “a human made the decision” is not enough if automation has narrowed the options, concealed the basis of a recommendation or left the human with seconds to object. Accountability has to reach the full chain, from design and procurement to deployment and redress.

India needs more than an app

India has a distinct opportunity and a distinct burden. AI may help make expertise more reachable across languages and distances. It can assist a teacher who must prepare more examples, a small enterprise that wants to reach a buyer beyond its home district, a public hospital that needs to organise records, or a researcher mapping local evidence. The IndiaAI Mission was approved with a ₹10,371.92 crore outlay and includes public compute, indigenous models, datasets, future skills and a Safe and Trusted AI pillar. The policy ambition is to build capability and use AI for public good. [8]

India is also beginning to introduce computational thinking and AI across school subjects. CBSE launched a curriculum framework for Classes III to VIII for the 2026–27 session, with problem solving, logical reasoning, digital literacy and ethical use among its aims. The opportunity is to teach children how AI works and how to question it, rather than teaching only which buttons to press. [7]

Access, however, is not the same as control. ASER 2024 found that 89.1 per cent of rural children aged 14 to 16 had a smartphone at home, and 82.2 per cent said they knew how to use one. Yet only 31.4 per cent of those who could use a smartphone reported having their own. Ownership was 36.2 per cent for boys and 26.9 per cent for girls. Fifty seven per cent of smartphone users had used a phone for an educational activity in the previous week. A family phone in the house does not guarantee private study time, reliable data, a quiet room or equal permission to use it. [9]

Language changes the calculation too. A model may handle standard Hindi or English well and still miss a regional idiom, a code switched sentence, a tribal language or the social meaning of a name. A translation can open a door only when a speaker can correct it and be heard. Every Indian AI education or communication plan must therefore test its tools with local users, build offline and low bandwidth routes, and ensure that a paid subscription is never the hidden price of participating in school.

Communication is an ecology

In the linked essay “Building an ecology of communication in the age of artificial intelligence”, Cedric Prakash asks journalists and other communicators to enter the places where the future is being made: laboratories, technology companies, schools, media, institutions and local communities. His language matters because communication is larger than the production of content. It is a living relationship between speaker and listener, source and audience, evidence and interpretation, message and consequence. [2]

AI can make a false photograph, voice or quotation quickly and cheaply. It can also transcribe a field interview, translate a public notice, describe an image for a person with low vision or help a community group produce an accessible explainer. The same capability can widen participation or counterfeit it. A fabricated voice can impersonate a teacher, doctor or local leader. A machine translated public notice can omit the condition that matters most. A generated citation can make a false claim look researched.

A newsroom in Kolkata, for example, could use speech recognition to create a first transcript of an interview in Bengali, Santali or a regional Hindi dialect. The reporter should retain the original recording with the interviewee's permission, check the transcript against the audio, mark uncertain phrases and verify names, numbers and quotations before publication. The AI can save time on clerical work. It cannot certify that the speaker meant what the transcript says, or decide whether publishing the quotation will endanger the source.

Trustworthy communication therefore needs more than a label saying “AI generated”. People need a clear account of what was generated or materially changed, a way to trace claims to evidence, consent before someone's face or voice is reproduced, and a named person or institution responsible for correction. Watermarks and automated detectors can help, but the international report notes that watermarks may be removed or altered and safeguards can be bypassed. Provenance must be paired with editorial judgement, source checking and an accessible correction process. [3]

Authenticity is not a ban on machine assistance. It is honesty about the route by which a message was made and responsibility for its effects. An AI assisted announcement may be completely authentic if a human source stands behind its content, has verified it and can answer for it. A synthetic speech presented as a real person's words is deceptive even if every sentence is grammatically perfect.

The learner must take the first step

In education, a polished submission is not reliable proof that learning has happened. The OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026 draws a clear distinction: general purpose AI can raise the quality of student work without producing lasting learning when it takes over the task. Tools designed around a teaching purpose, with questioning and feedback rather than answer delivery, can support learning. [4]

A randomized field experiment with nearly a thousand high school mathematics students in Türkiye found that unrestricted GPT-4 access improved practice performance but could lower performance on an unaided test after access was removed. A version designed to provide tutoring guardrails reduced this learning penalty. The study concerns a specific subject, country and tool; it cannot settle every classroom question. Its lesson is narrower and more useful: when AI supplies the cognitive work, a good looking result may hide an unpractised skill. [5]

Learning needs retrieval, effort, feedback and a chance to transfer an idea to a new problem. Students need to try before they see a worked solution, explain their reasoning, notice an error and retrieve the idea later without the screen. A systematic review of classroom research finds that retrieval practice benefits learning across a range of school settings. [6] These moments of effort can feel slower than instant answers. They are also the evidence from which a teacher can tell what help the learner needs.

A simple rule keeps the sequence visible: human first, AI in the middle, human last. The learner first states a question, makes an attempt or draws a plan. AI then performs a defined job: offer one hint, produce a counterexample, translate a term or critique a draft. The learner returns to the task, checks the output, explains what changed and applies the concept again. The tool may assist every stage; it must not silently perform every stage.

Small local tasks show the difference

In a Class V school water audit, children map taps, count leaks, speak with the caretaker and predict where water is being wasted. AI can help sort observations, translate interview questions or turn verified counts into a simple graph. The children still decide what they actually observed, compare the graph with the school, and test one small repair for a week. Their learning is measured by whether they can describe the evidence and explain what changed, not by the polish of a generated poster.

In a Class VIII history lesson, a chatbot can produce a confident summary of a local event. Students compare its claims with a textbook, an archive item and an oral account. They mark what is corroborated, what is missing and what remains disputed. Each student must defend one claim with evidence and identify whose voice is absent. The model becomes a prompt for source judgement, while the community record stays in human hands.

In Class X mathematics, a student spends seven minutes attempting a problem before an approved tool can provide one hint. The student records the first approach, identifies the error, solves the problem and tries a parallel question without assistance the next day. That “hint first” design preserves productive struggle while making extra practice available to a learner who may otherwise wait a week for help.

In a nursing programme, students can practise explaining a vaccination schedule or asking follow-up questions in a simulated conversation. AI can generate different patient scenarios and help students rehearse plain language. Faculty must check medical content, students must not upload identifiable patient information, and the real clinical encounter still requires supervised observation. A simulation builds readiness; it does not certify bedside competence.

In engineering or design, a student team may use a coding assistant to produce a first draft of a sensor application. The team then tests edge cases, privacy, security and accessibility. Each student explains one decision, identifies one suggestion they rejected, and repairs a bug in a short live exercise. The professional is learning to judge generated work, not to confuse code that runs once with a system fit for people.

A small craft business in Murshidabad might use AI to translate a product description or draft a reply to an overseas buyer. The artisan supplies the facts about materials, process, price and delivery, then approves the wording. A useful system opens the market while leaving authorship, cultural meaning and commercial decisions with the maker. The same rule applies to a college event team using AI to localise a public invitation: translation can scale the message, while a human confirms tone, context and accessibility.

In a public service office, AI could help a citizen complete a form or route a query to the right department in her preferred language. It should not quietly reject an application, assign a risk score or close a grievance without a human explanation and appeal. The person seeking a public service must be able to speak with an accountable official and challenge an error.

Assessment should reveal what the student knows

Institutions often respond to AI by trying to catch it. Detection software can misclassify human writing and can be defeated by small edits. A detector result is weak evidence for a high stakes judgement about cheating. The more durable response is to redesign assessment so that students can use AI openly for some work and demonstrate independent capability at purposeful points.

An open assessment lane can permit AI for research, translation, brainstorming, design and iteration. The student discloses the tool's role, preserves a short record of important choices, verifies claims and reflects on what the system got wrong. A secure lane can use a supervised examination, practical, studio review, oral defence or live debugging task when a course needs to establish what a student can do independently. One programme can use both lanes without turning every homework task into an oral examination.

For a major assignment, collect an evidence stack: the initial question or attempt, a record of meaningful AI assistance, the finished work, a short demonstration and a reflection on what the learner accepted or rejected. A three minute conversation can ask: What did you begin with? Which suggestion changed your thinking? Show me one claim you checked. What would you do if one condition changed? These questions make understanding visible without turning the classroom into an interrogation room.

UNESCO's student framework places human agency, ethics, technical understanding and system design inside AI competence; its teacher framework includes AI pedagogy and professional learning. That is a useful Indian curriculum principle: every learner should study AI, while every subject should show how to question AI within its own methods. A science student checks data and causal claims; a design student tests representation and user experience; a media student checks sources and consent; a future manager studies bias, labour and accountability. [10][12]

Keep human authority real

“Human in the loop” can become a reassuring label pasted over an automated process. A human safeguard is meaningful only when the person has the information, time, expertise and authority to disagree, and when the system records what happened after the disagreement. Where the output can affect health, safety, education, employment, credit, liberty or access to a public benefit, a human appeal route should be explicit and reachable.

Institutions should classify uses by consequence. Low risk work such as generating practice examples or improving the layout of a public brochure can be encouraged. Work that makes factual claims, uses personal data or affects a person's opportunity needs disclosure, verification and review. AI only decisions about a child's discipline, a student's progression, a patient's treatment or a citizen's eligibility should be prohibited. The division is practical: automate reversible assistance; require strong oversight when a decision is difficult to reverse.

Privacy requires the same practical clarity. Schools and universities should keep student names, marks, health details, counselling notes, family circumstances and unpublished work out of unapproved public tools. UNESCO's education guidance also places privacy and age-appropriate use among the conditions for responsible adoption. [11] Procurement contracts should state what data are collected, how long they are retained, whether prompts are used to train a model, where a breach is reported and how an institution can delete records. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act and the 2025 Rules create a developing framework with phased commencement; institutions should map obligations as they take effect and apply data minimisation and child protection as baseline practice now. [13]

Fairness has to be tested in the languages and conditions in which a system will be used. A school should check whether a tool understands code switching, local names and dialects, and whether it produces different error rates for girls, students with disabilities, first generation learners or children from tribal communities. “Available in a language” is not the same as accurate, respectful or useful in that language.

Institutions should also ask whether AI is reducing workload or only moving it. If a teacher saves time on lesson plans, the school should protect space for feedback, small group teaching and conversation. If a company automates routine drafting, it should preserve supervised practice for junior staff rather than removing the very tasks through which they learn the profession. Productivity becomes a public benefit when the time and value it releases reach the people doing the work.

Build the roadmap in a hundred days

In the first month, a school, college, newsroom or public agency should map a few real tasks before buying a platform. What problem is being solved? Which human capability must remain? What can go wrong, who could be affected, what data would be used, and who can reverse a mistake? Establish a baseline for quality, time, learning or access. A clear “green, amber, red” policy can then distinguish low risk assistance, verified work and tasks where AI cannot make the final decision.

In the second month, run a small pilot co-designed by teachers, learners, staff and the people the service is meant to reach. Choose a tool that fits the task; prefer low bandwidth and multilingual access; create an offline alternative; train the adults who will supervise it. Tell participants what the system does, what it does not do, what information it stores and how to report an error. Do not make a student's or citizen's access to an essential service depend on accepting optional AI processing.

In the third month, compare the pilot with current practice. Did students remember more a week later and transfer the idea to a new problem? Did a local language message preserve its meaning? Did teachers spend more time with learners? Could users challenge the system? Did error rates differ across groups? What did the AI cost in money, time, compute and energy? Publish the answer in plain language. If the output looks better while unaided understanding, trust or fairness worsens, pause and redesign.

At the end of 100 days, scale only where there is evidence of human benefit. Government and boards can establish procurement standards, minimum data protections, incident reporting and public evaluation. Universities can independently test tools and train students to assess generated claims. Newsrooms can make provenance, correction and consent routine. Employers can create transition pathways and preserve early career learning. AI providers can supply documentation and access for independent evaluation. Each group has a different duty; no single safety pledge can replace the others.

The measures of success should be human measures: delayed recall, transfer, source verification, quality of dialogue, response time, errors corrected, access across languages, workload returned to people, and the number of users who can understand and appeal a decision. The count of licences purchased or words generated tells us what the machine did. It says little about whether people became more capable.

What survives when the screen goes dark

India can pursue useful AI with confidence and still take its risks seriously. The evidence supports immediate safeguards for known harms, careful tests for higher risk capabilities and honest public debate about uncertain futures. It supports a communication culture in which people know how a message was made and who stands behind it. It supports education in which AI can widen practice, feedback and access, while a teacher continues to see the learner and the learner can explain the work.

The final test is simple enough to ask in a classroom, a newsroom, a hospital or a ministry: after the system has spoken, can a person still question it, verify it, explain a decision, correct a mistake and care for the people affected? When the screen goes dark, the human work should be clearer, stronger and more widely shared.

000

Sources and notes

Bracketed numbers in the feature point to the sources below. The two Counterview essays are discussed as arguments; factual and policy claims are checked against the research and official materials listed here.

[1] Bhabani Shankar Nayak. “The business of fear: How AI leaders sell doom for profit.” Counterview, September 2026. Open source

[2] Cedric Prakash SJ. “Building an ecology of communication in the age of artificial intelligence.” Counterview, September 2026. Open source

[3] International AI Safety Report. International AI Safety Report 2026: Extended Summary for Policymakers. February 2026. Open source

[4] OECD. OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026: Exploring Effective Uses of Generative AI in Education. OECD Publishing, 2026. Open source

[5] Bastani, H. et al. “Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(26), 2025. Open source

[6] Agarwal, P. K., Nunes, L. D., and Blunt, J. R. “Retrieval Practice Consistently Benefits Student Learning.” Educational Psychology Review, 33, 2021. Open source

[7] Central Board of Secondary Education. Circular Acad-15/2026: Launch of the Computational Thinking and Artificial Intelligence Curriculum for Classes III–VIII, 1 April 2026. Open source

[8] Prime Minister of India. “Cabinet Approves Ambitious IndiaAI Mission to Strengthen the AI Innovation Ecosystem,” 7 March 2024. Open source

[9] ASER Centre. Annual Status of Education Report 2024: National Findings. Open source

[10] UNESCO. AI Competency Framework for Teachers. 2024. Open source

[11] UNESCO. Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research. 2023. Open source

[12] UNESCO. AI Competency Framework for Students. 2024. Open source

[13] Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, Gazette of India, 13 November 2025. Open source

Summary

India's development debate is often presented as a choice between jobs and conservation. The record of the last decade shows a more troubling question: who gets the contract, who gets the electricity or revenue, and who absorbs the costs when a forest, river or common land is changed beyond repair? Government data show 215,943 hectares of forestland approved for non-forest use between 2014-15 and 2025-26, with the annual pace rising sharply in the last two years. Court records, parliamentary reports and CAG audits document narrowed protections, unresolved consent, illegal extraction, project delays and steep cost overruns. These records do not prove one secret conspiracy behind every project. They do reveal an operating pattern: public authorities take ecological risks, communities lose the resources they depend on, and a concentrated circle of project developers and contractors receives the work. The counter-evidence is just as important: communities can restore water and livelihoods when they govern local commons. Development is not measured by the size of a project, but by whether it leaves people and landscapes more secure.

A woman measures development in water

In Shyampur, a village in Rajasthan's Karauli district, Anita gave rural journalist Bharat Dogra a measure of progress that no project appraisal can easily capture: the village began to move forward only after water scarcity eased. It is an ordinary sentence with a hard policy implication. Water is not a side benefit of development. It is the platform on which health, farming, livestock, education and income stand.[2]

Dogra's account follows five decades of visiting drought-struck villages. In the Bundelkhand and Patha belt, he describes women carrying muddy water over long distances, cattle left behind when fodder and water ran out, and wells reduced to dangerous pits. He also records a different kind of infrastructure: Shyampur's 18 new water bodies and 14 restored ones, a de-silted tank, water-saving farming and village stewardship. Nearly three-quarters of cultivated land there was reported to have returned to productive use.[2]

In one drought in the Patha plateau, Kol tribal women walked nearly five kilometres in the heat for two pitchers of unsafe water. Dogra's point is not nostalgia for village life. It is that a destroyed catchment can make even a newly installed tap unreliable, while watershed repair can restore water for people, farms, livestock, birds and wildlife at once.[2]

That story sets the test for India's largest projects. A dam, mine, road or port may promise energy, trade or security. But if it degrades a village catchment, fragments a forest or removes access to grazing, fish and sacred places, it can subtract the foundations of everyday life while adding impressive figures to an investment deck. The ledger puts construction costs in bold type and ecological liabilities in small print.

The clearance ledger is accelerating

Official figures reported to Parliament show that 215,943 hectares of forestland were approved for non-forest use between 2014-15 and 2025-26. Nearly 62 per cent was cleared for mining, hydropower, irrigation and roads. The annual average rose from about 14,941 hectares in 2014-19 to 19,223 hectares in 2019-24. In 2024-25 and 2025-26 alone, approvals reached 45,125 hectares, or roughly 61 hectares each day.[9] These are approvals, not a measure of how much was actually felled; still, the direction and scale matter.

A separate petition filed in the Delhi High Court alleges that the National Board for Wildlife's Standing Committee approved 97 per cent of 2,186 proposals between 2014 and 2026, involving at least 95,724 hectares. That is an allegation in a pending case, not a judicial finding. It raises a serious governance question all the same: if the body charged with scrutinising projects in wildlife landscapes almost never says no, what level of scrutiny is taking place?[4]

The eastern Himalaya saw especially sharp increases. Arunachal Pradesh recorded 6,038 hectares of diversion in 2024-26, more than eight times its 2014-19 total; Sikkim's two-year total was nearly 19 times its earlier five-year total.[9] These are headwaters and steep slopes where floods, landslides and seismic hazards make mistakes unusually costly.

A national average hides local concentration. Parcel-by-parcel clearances can miss the cumulative damage from roads, power lines, mines and reservoirs within one connected landscape.

When the law moves the goalposts

The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act of 2023 narrowed the statutory coverage to land formally notified as forest or recorded in government records on or after 25 October 1980. It also exempts specified strategic and security projects near borders and in other areas. The government says the change clarifies coverage and facilitates national security infrastructure. PRS warns that previously recorded but unnotified forests, and some land converted before the 1996 Supreme Court ruling, could fall outside central approval.[10]

The exemptions are substantial in a border state: strategic linear projects of national importance can qualify within 100 kilometres of an international border, Line of Control or Line of Actual Control; security infrastructure up to 10 hectares is also listed, along with certain projects up to five hectares in areas affected by left-wing extremism. The Act also expands activities that may proceed without central approval to include government zoos and safaris in forest areas outside protected areas, eco-tourism facilities, and specified surveys.[10]

In February 2024 the Supreme Court directed governments to keep applying the broader definition from the 1996 Godavarman case while land identification proceeds. That interim order is a guardrail, not a final ruling on every challenge.[11] The episode shows how a law can narrow protection and leave litigation to prevent it vanishing before records are complete.

The 2022 Forest (Conservation) Rules let forest approval run alongside other statutory processes, including recognition of rights under the Forest Rights Act. The government says no final diversion order or land handover can occur until rights are settled.[12] The concern is practical: central approval can give a project momentum before communities establish what they own, use or hold sacred. A right considered after in-principle approval is harder to exercise than one considered before the site and contracts are fixed.

In September 2026, a parliamentary committee called unanimous Gram Sabha consent a major obstacle to hydropower and proposed a 70-75 per cent threshold. The Tribal Affairs Ministry replied that the Forest Rights Act contains no general clause requiring such consent for forest clearance. That reading has force: the Act's express consent provision is specific. It does not settle questions about rights recognition, clearance conditions or authority over community resources.[3]

Niyamgiri remains the clearest example of a Gram Sabha deciding a rights question. In 2013 the Supreme Court held that village assemblies should determine whether mining affected the Dongria Kondh's religious and cultural rights. The assemblies rejected the mine; it did not proceed.[13] This is not a universal veto. It is a reminder that rights tied to one landscape cannot be averaged away by counting neighbouring villages.

The Aravalli hills are disappearing twice

First the hills disappear under mining; then they risk disappearing from the maps that define protection. In 2018, a Central Empowered Committee report found that 31 of 128 sampled hills in Rajasthan's Alwar district had vanished since 1967-68. The Supreme Court ordered the state to stop illegal mining in the affected area.[14]

The CAG's audit shows the enforcement failure was systemic. Rajasthan recorded 48,486 illegal-mining cases from 2015-16 to 2019-20, with cases up 169 per cent by the final year. Satellite analysis found illegal mining in 122 test cases, covering 83.25 hectares. The audit also found irregularities at 81.68 per cent of selected weighbridges and Rs 13.99 crore in penalties not imposed for unauthorised extraction.[15] This does not prove a political conspiracy; it documents weak controls that let extraction outrun the rules.

In 2025 the Supreme Court accepted a 100-metre elevation test for defining Aravalli hills. The Indian Express reported that the Forest Survey of India warned this could exclude nearly 90 per cent of the hills. The Court put the definition on hold and appointed a new expert panel. Its August 2026 report said the range cannot be mapped by elevation alone: forests, water systems, biodiversity, habitat links and livelihoods matter too. It sought until February 2027 to complete the review.[16][17]

The Aravalli is a range, not isolated peaks. Its lower ridges help hold soil and channel water. Exclude that connective tissue and the landscape is fragmented on paper before a bulldozer arrives.

Great Nicobar has no spare island

The Union government presents Great Nicobar as a strategic port-led hub with a terminal, airport, township and power plant. The NGT record puts the project cost at about Rs 81,834 crore. The government has approved in principle diversion of 130.75 square kilometres of forest, saying 65.99 square kilometres will remain green with no tree felling and citing biodiversity plans and monitoring.[18][20] Those safeguards matter; so does the scale of change.

Great Nicobar is not an interchangeable parcel in a tree-planting ledger. Its forests and coasts sustain the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, and the Nicobarese, alongside endemic species and leatherback turtle nesting habitat. In 2024, experts told the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes that the developer's calculation of the tribal reserve remaining protected was flawed and that tribal views were ignored.[19] The government says it followed consultation and protection policies.[18] The dispute is about who defines protection and whether local accounts of risk shape the plan before it is locked in.

The NGT upheld the clearance in February 2026, citing adequate safeguards and strategic importance. In May, the Calcutta High Court agreed to hear separate challenges to the forest-rights process.[20][32] The clearance has survived one environmental challenge; tribal-rights questions remain live.

The NGT's 2026 order also points to conditions for leatherback turtles, Nicobar megapodes, saltwater crocodiles, robber crabs, macaques and endemic birds.[31] The issue is whether those conditions can manage a transformed landscape and cumulative pressure on forest, coast and community, not whether a clearance document lists protected species.

Planting elsewhere cannot recreate a Nicobar rainforest, its species, coastal protection or the Shompen's cultural geography. Compensatory afforestation cannot make unlike ecosystems equivalent.

In Arunachal the river is not vacant energy

Arunachal Pradesh has declared 2025-35 its Decade of Hydropower, targeting 19,165 MW across 33 projects, against estimated potential above 50,000 MW.[23] The proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project is roughly 11,000-11,200 MW, with a dam up to 250 metres high. It remains at the survey stage; its final footprint and displacement list are not settled.[7][8]

For Adi communities, the survey is not abstract: it is an official entry into ancestral land, farms, river and sacred geography. Residents from more than 27 villages oppose the project and surveys. Down To Earth reported that central armed forces were deployed in two districts in May 2025 to support the pre-feasibility survey. Villagers called the deployment coercive; authorities say the project is strategically important because of China's planned upstream dam.[24] The state government later said it would not rush the study and would hear affected families.[7] Consent requires a trusted process before equipment arrives.

In September 2026, national environmental groups expressed solidarity with the Siang movement and said a CBI case under the FCRA against activist Bhanu Tatak formed part of a wider campaign to pressure dissent. That is the groups' allegation, not a court finding; it should be examined through due process.[6]

A basin-wide assessment must account for sediment, fish, flood risk, seismic hazards, downstream communities and other proposed dams. A single-project study cannot show the cumulative effect on a river system.

The Siang proposal is one part of that rush. The government's sectoral account also lists the 2,880 MW Dibang Multipurpose Project and 3,097 MW Etalin project in the Dibang basin.[23] The exact stage and footprint differ, but the combined scale makes basin-level assessment more important than any single project's clearance. Hydropower can be low-carbon at the point of generation and still impose high costs through forest loss, altered sediment, disrupted livelihoods and risk in a seismically active region.

Subansiri Lower shows the financial risk. A parliamentary committee reported that the 2,000 MW NHPC project on the Assam-Arunachal border had risen from Rs 6,285 crore to an estimated Rs 27,949 crore, a 344.66 per cent increase.[25][26] Delays, disputes, redesign and disruption all contributed; no one cause explains the rise. The public purse carries the overrun while the valley carries the physical changes.

Arunachal's revenue ambitions are real, as are India's power and security needs. But projected revenue is not realised benefit, and planned megawatts do not guarantee local prosperity. Affected people need enforceable benefit-sharing, independent safety review and a meaningful role before the dam becomes inevitable.

The Western Ghats and the sunk-cost trap

Karnataka's proposed 2,000 MW Sharavati pumped-storage project, estimated at Rs 10,240 crore, would require forest diversion inside the Lion-Tailed Macaque Sanctuary. In September 2026, Shankar Sharma reported that 142 hectares were at stake and a central expert committee had recommended against approval; the High Court stay ran through October 1. The committee cited tree felling, fragmentation and wildlife disturbance.[1][27]

Sharma said RTI records showed seven project bills paid to an identified EPC contractor over about ten months before required clearances.[1] That is not proof of a bribe or corrupt award. It does show how public spending can become a sunk cost before an ecological decision is settled, making rejection politically harder.

Proposals in the Varahi and Malaprabha catchments raise the same question: is each site necessary after comparing it with grid upgrades, demand management, battery storage and distributed systems? Batteries may not meet every long-duration need; alternatives should still be public and independently tested.

The Varahi proposal alone is described as a 2,500 MW project in the catchment around Mookambika and Someshwara sanctuaries. A separate 1,600 MW Saundatti proposal would require forest diversion in the Malaprabha basin.[1] Their status is at the planning and tendering stage, not construction. That is precisely when a comparison of storage options, forest fragmentation and watershed impacts is least expensive to do and most useful to the public.

On July 27, 2026, the Centre reissued a seventh draft to classify about 56,825 square kilometres across six states as ecologically sensitive. Previous drafts since 2014 did not produce a final settlement.[1] A region can be valuable enough to avoid casually clearing and still too politically contested to protect.

Ladakh's fragile high country

Strategic roads and mobile coverage serve Ladakh residents as well as defence personnel. The question is where and how they are built. In 2023 the State Board for Wildlife approved 25 projects in wildlife areas: 20 mobile towers, four security roads and a solar telescope on Pangong Lake's bank inside Changthang sanctuary.[21] The issue is whether separate permissions are assessed cumulatively.

A peer-reviewed study of 24 Changthang wetlands found distance from roads and settlements strongly related to the abundance of several waterbird species.[22] This does not mean every road has the same effect. It does show that access and construction are ecological variables in a high-altitude wetland system. The cold desert supports black-necked cranes, kiang and migratory birds, and recovers slowly from disturbance.

The black-necked crane is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, and Changthang includes some of its important habitat.[22] This should prompt careful routing and seasonal controls, not a blanket refusal to serve remote settlements. The standard should be transparent mitigation with public monitoring after construction, not a one-time vote by the wildlife board followed by silence.

A road may connect a hamlet to a clinic and open a wetland to traffic, tourism and waste. Planning must map breeding grounds, water sources and seasonal grazing, then track cumulative effects.

The contractor is visible; the hidden costs are not

The phrase 'politician-bureaucrat-contractor lobby' cannot replace evidence. The record does not prove one conspiracy behind every clearance, but it does show incentives. Appraisal is often file by file; a parliamentary review said hydropower relies on only four or five contractors and recommended expanding that base.[25] That is a concentrated market, not proof of collusion.

The CAG found mismatches in Rajasthan's extraction and transit records, uncollected penalties, weak weighbridge controls and royalty revenue at risk.[15] Sharma's account of early contractor payments in the Western Ghats raises another accountability issue. Subansiri's cost rise shows how delays can shift costs to the public. Together, these records show activity outrunning financial and ecological controls, even if they do not prove every rupee became profit.

One CAG finding was especially revealing: 13 mining leases showed no excavation, yet 5.2 lakh tonnes of mineral were recorded as dispatched using 22,854 electronic transit permits.[15] A well-run licensing and weighbridge system should make such discrepancies difficult. Where extraction proceeds and the state cannot reconcile the records or collect penalties, the gap is not a theoretical externality; it is a visible loss to the public purse and a possible gain to those moving the material.

A contractor's work is measured in kilometres and bills. Lost commons are measured in less fodder, longer water walks, fewer fish or wetlands that no longer support birds. Land Conflict Watch maps about 1,095 conflicts; nearly 78 per cent involve commons.[28] Shared landscapes carry economic and cultural value that project appraisals routinely struggle to price.

The Forest Survey of India's forest-cover measure includes land of at least one hectare with 10 per cent canopy, regardless of ownership or legal status, including plantations, orchards, bamboo and palms.[30] It measures canopy, not intact biodiversity. CAG audits have found weak monitoring, survival problems and gaps in identifying land for compensatory afforestation.[29] A new plantation may add cover without replacing an old forest's water regulation, soil, species or cultural role.

The structural transfer is plain: project benefits are booked at the site and in revenue plans; losses are dispersed among villages, future generations and public budgets. Where rights are weak and ecological costs underpriced, profits can be private while risks are socialised. That is a defensible account of the lobby: not an accusation against every official or builder, but a system where a few decide and many live with the outcome.

A different kind of infrastructure

The 100 Stories of Commons archive documents communities protecting forests, wetlands, grazing land and village water bodies. It records not only what people lose but what they sustain.[5][28] Dogra's account of Shyampur belongs there, alongside Jal Sahelis who revive ponds and committees that maintain restored tanks.[2] These are not substitutes for every road or port; they show that public interest is not synonymous with scale.

India needs energy, transport, flood protection and jobs. It also needs alternatives and community rights to shape projects before sites are fixed. Basin-wide studies should precede clearance. Publish appraisal minutes, forest maps, contractor awards and payments. Test the need against less damaging options. Recognise Gram Sabha rights before costs are sunk, and measure mitigation over time in the ecosystem being changed.

For energy storage, that means comparing pumped storage with batteries, demand response, transmission and local storage against the actual duration and grid service required. For roads and security works, it means mapping the habitat first and publishing why a chosen route is necessary. For mines and ports, it means disclosing the full cost of water, restoration, carbon and community access, then auditing those promises after operations start.

A mountain is not empty because a spreadsheet omits its streams or sacred paths. A forest is not replaceable because another state has space for saplings. Those facts belong on the first page of a project report, not the last page of a compensation plan.

Anita's village rebuilt water bodies and made them work. From the Aravallis to Arunachal, ask before the next clearance: will this project make residents more secure, or will they pay for somebody else's idea of growth?

000

References

Inline bracketed numbers refer to the sources below. Government and court records are identified separately from reported analysis and advocacy claims.

[1] Shankar Sharma, ‘Policy analyst urges PM, Environment Minister to halt ecologically destructive PSPs in Western Ghats,’ Counterview, 8 September 2026.

[2] Bharat Dogra, ‘Where water changes lives: My fifty-year journey through thirsting villages,’ Counterview, 8 September 2026.

[3] Palla Trinadha Rao, ‘Hydropower projects: How MoTA's one-page memo washes its hands of Gram Sabha consent,’ Counterview, 8 September 2026.

[4] ‘Former bureaucrats question forest diversion and post-facto clearances,’ Counterview, 17 September 2026.

[5] ‘Sustaining the shared: Lessons in resilience from India's 100 stories of commons,’ Counterview, 19 September 2026.

[6] ‘Indigenous and environmental groups stand with Siang anti-dam struggle, raise FCRA concerns,’ Counterview, 22 September 2026.

[7] Neha Desai, ‘The Siang divide: Development, indigenous rights and the fight over a mega dam,’ Counterview, 23 September 2026.

[8] Lohit Sharma, ‘Submerging dissent: The true cost of Arunachal's hydropower rush,’ Counterview, 23 September 2026.

[9] ‘India cleared 215,943 hectares of forest for non-forest use in 12 years,’ Down To Earth, 5 August 2026; analysis of official data reported to Parliament.

[10] PRS Legislative Research, ‘The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023.’

[11] Supreme Court of India, interim order in W.P. (C) 1164/2023, 19 February 2024.

[12] Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, ‘New Forest Conservation Rules, 2022,’ Press Information Bureau, 28 July 2022.

[13] Supreme Court of India, Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd v. Ministry of Environment and Forests, 18 April 2013.

[14] ‘31 hills vanish in Rajasthan's Aravalli region in 50 years: CEC report,’ Times of India, 23 October 2018.

[15] Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Performance Audit on Illegal Mining in Rajasthan, Report No. 8 of 2022, Executive Summary.

[16] Supreme Court of India, order in In Re: Definition of Aravalli Hills and Ranges, 29 December 2025.

[17] The Indian Express, ‘Aravallis can't be defined by 1 yardstick: Supreme Court panel seeks extension,’ 4 September 2026.

[18] Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Great Nicobar project environmental-impact reply, Press Information Bureau, 2024.

[19] Down To Earth, ‘Great Nicobar Project clearances violate constitutional mandate, views of tribals ignored: Experts write to NCST,’ 23 April 2024.

[20] Hindustan Times, ‘No good ground to interfere in Great Nicobar Holistic Development Project: NGT,’ 16 February 2026; and The Indian Express, ‘Calcutta HC agrees to hear PILs challenging forest rights clearance for Great Nicobar project,’ 8 May 2026.

[21] Administration of the Union Territory of Ladakh, ‘State Board of Wildlife gives clearance to 25 projects in wildlife areas of Ladakh,’ 2023.

[22] ‘Influence of anthropogenic factors on the waterbirds in Trans-Himalayan wetlands,’ Global Ecology and Conservation, 2023.

[23] Government of India, ‘Hydropower: Powering Arunachal Pradesh's Economic Future,’ MyGov, 2 June 2026; and Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar University, ‘Local Response to National Projects: The Siang Hydropower Project in Arunachal Pradesh.’

[24] Down To Earth, ‘Survey tensions: Paramilitary enters Siang villages amid dam opposition,’ 22 May 2025.

[25] PRS Legislative Research, ‘National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited,’ summary of Committee on Public Undertakings report, 6 August 2026.

[26] The Tribune, ‘Parliamentary panel notes 345% cost overrun in NHPC's Subansiri project,’ 9 August 2026.

[27] The New Indian Express, ‘Expert committee flags ecological risks, opposes Sharavathi project,’ 11 July 2026.

[28] Land Conflict Watch and Common Ground Initiative, ‘100 Stories of Commons’ archive; database statistics accessed September 2026.

[29] Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Performance Audit Report on Afforestation and Social Forestry Programme, Uttar Pradesh, Report No. 2 of 2024.

[30] Forest Survey of India, India State of Forest Report 2023, methodology for forest-cover mapping.

[31] The Indian Express, ‘NGT clears Great Nicobar project, cites adequate safeguards in environmental nod,’ February 2026.

[32] The Indian Express, ‘Calcutta HC agrees to hear PILs challenging forest rights clearance for Great Nicobar project,’ 8 May 2026.