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Snapshot of the day
November 11, 2026
Sidharth Bhatia, Anirudh S.K.
Two website blocking orders issued by the Department of Telecommunications earlier this year, both against illegal betting websites, cited court orders that have turned out to be fake, reveal Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra. The orders, issued in July and September, cite judgments by the Rajasthan and Allahabad high courts, both of which have now indicated that they were fabricated. The latter court filed a police complaint last week but the DoT’s takedown orders remain online, and the department did not respond when approached for comment. The incidents, note Vengattil and Kalra, “are the latest sign that fake orders are slipping past India’s official content removal mechanism, [which is] considered one of the world’s strictest”. Now gambling is indeed illegal but given this government’s penchant for censoring a whole bunch of things that are not – criticism, satire and cartoons – the episode could bear portents for the already diminishing state of free speech in India.
Delhi’s leaders would like us to believe that bursting crackers on Diwali is not a major cause of air pollution. But data published by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology shows that fireworks accounted for a hefty 71% of the PM2.5 pollutant hovering over the capital on November 9, the day after Diwali, when revellers disregarded the apex court’s directions on bursting crackers only from 8 pm to 10 pm on the festival.
Surely after having no choice but to breathe in Delhi’s noxious air its ruling class would be jolted into doing something about it? Maybe not – the parliamentary committee on home affairs was scheduled to discuss the NCR’s air pollution in a meeting next Tuesday but the subject has been abruptly dropped from its agenda. Congress MP and panel member Ajay Maken has asked that the matter be restored to the agenda.
Speaking of Diwali, though we were told that the upcoming merchant discount rate on certain UPI transactions would be rolled out after the festival, there is still no sign of when – if at all – it will materialise. A spokesperson at the National Payments Corporation of India told The Hindu‘s T.C.A. Sharad Raghavan they had no comment to offer.
