India Today

Jammu and Kashmir is turning a historic corner. Its people are voting for an assembly after a full 10 years. Even the rural interiors of the Valley are buzzing with door-to-door and street-corner campaigners. For the first time in 30 years, there’s no boycott call. But it’s not as if paradise has been regained and disquiet banished for good: the political soil is still stirring from the definitive changes seen in the last decade. In 2019, the Narendra Modi government annulled Article 370 and downgraded J&K to Union Territory status, hiving off Ladakh. Actions that would normally call for the state assembly’s seal were done under President’s rule. Happily, the debate is being taken to the ballot—amid mass participation. The first phase of voting, on September 18, saw an unprecedented…

After two years of frozen relations between India and China, there seems to be indications of a defrost. On September 13, when National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of a BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, both sides agreed to expedite “complete disengagement” on the remaining friction points along the border, where Chinese and Indian armies have been engaged in a protracted stand-off since May 2020. On the same day, highlighting progress in India-China talks, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar acknowledged that “75 per cent” of the “disengagement problems” have been resolved. Some see the use of the term “complete disengagement” as significant in that the stage is being set for a resumption of high-level political dialogue between the…

The ruling BJP has an outsized majority in the Uttar Pradesh assembly, so why then is the state and, to a certain degree even New Delhi, waiting with bated breath for the byelections in 10 seats there? Well, the party’s dismal Lok Sabha results for one: its cave-in from 62 seats to 33 was like the hit to the solar plexus that nearly felled the whole body. The public spats that erupted within—between saffron stalk, root and sundry branches—have not ceased. As a consequence, Yogi Adityanath and his ‘bulldozer’ government look less than rock-solid for perhaps the first time. On the other hand, the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) looks a lot more peppy after becoming the party with the most MPs from the state—37, with ally Congress snaffling six more.…

It is not every day that the Supreme Court, especially the bench of the Chief Justice of India, finds itself “disturbed” by a status report filed by an investigating agency. But the rape-and-murder case of a junior doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital (RG-KMCH) in Kolkata moved even CJI D.Y. Chandrachud into imagining the worst. While hearing the matter on September 17, he said: “What the CBI has revealed in the report is worse, really disturbing…we ourselves are concerned.” Chandrachud said the CBI is probing if the crime scene has been tampered with, whether evidence was destroyed, whether there was complicity of other people in the crime as well as financial irregularities at RGKMCH. The CJI said that the investigating agency must be given more time…

The devastating floods that submerged half of the 64 municipal divisions in Vijayawada in early September were largely a man-made disaster, say experts. Unbridled urbanisation along with delayed and non-existent flood mitigation measures combined to make it a nightmarish experience for residents. As water levels in the Krishna river rose in the wake of incessant rains through August 31 and September 1, when 27 per cent of the annual average rain fell in 48 hours, many buildings along the river were submerged, forcing residents to shift to safer places. But the real cause of the devastaton was the swollen Budameru stream, flowing through Vijayawada, which speedily swamped low-lying colonies. An dhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu moved in to survey the situation, camping in a bus parked in the…

On September 15, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Ranchi, a heavy downpour prevented his helicopter from taking off for Jamshed-pur—125 km from Jharkhand’s capital—where he was scheduled to address a public meeting. Undeterred, he flagged off six Vande Bharat Express trains and laid the foundation stones for crucial railway projects via video conference. Later, he travelled to the steel city by road to address the gathering. From the stage, Modi reminded the audience that it was the BJP that gave birth to Jharkhand, and called the ruling parties—the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress—the state’s three greatest enemies. Modi’s rally effectively put the state with 81 assembly seats in full election mode, although the Election Commission has yet to announce the poll dates—set for…