Eight People Killed in Stampede at Temple in Bihar’s Nalanda; China and Pakistan Jointly Call for End to West Asia War; Biju Patnaik’s Legacy Cannot be Undermined by BJP MP’s Malicious Charges
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Snapshot of the day
March 31, 2026
Sidharth Bhatia
At least eight people, most if not all of them women, were killed today in a stampede at the Maa Sheetla temple in Bihar’s Nalanda. Several others were injured. Locals speaking to various news outlets said that crowd control measures at the site were inadequate. A probe has been ordered and the local station house officer suspended for alleged dereliction of duty.
China and Pakistan have jointly called for an end to the West Asia war triggered by the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, the commencement of peace talks at the earliest and the safe passage of commercial and civilian ships through the Strait of Hormuz that Tehran is currently blocking in retaliation. The two sides’ ‘five-point initiative’ was issued after Pakistani foreign minister Ishaq Dar and his Chinese opposite number Wang Yi met in Beijing and came amid Islamabad’s efforts to mediate between the US and Iran. They also called for the UN to be strengthened – incidentally Pakistan is part of US President Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ that the latter has openly touted as an alternative of some sorts to the UN.
India has condemned the recent attacks on UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon that as of Monday night left three Indonesian personnel injured and three others injured, two of them critically. Their deaths come amid intense fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. India is the fourth-largest contributor to UNIFIL, which stands for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
Already standing dented by capital outflows – there has been reluctance among foreign investors over India because of “high equity valuations, lack of AI‑linked stocks and punitive US trade tariffs” – the rupee owing to the oil shock resulting from the West Asia war “now faces a widening current account deficit, expected at 0.9% of GDP in the upcoming fiscal year”, Reuters’s Ira Dugal writes. Bernstein has predicted that the currency could slide down to 98 to the dollar if the conflict winds down in less than a month in a “best-case scenario”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi placed himself at the centre of Indian foreign policy and “now the joke is on him”, writes Anant Gupta on the spate of social media takedown orders targeting posts critical of the PM. “Analysts say this is because many Indians are coming to terms with the reality of the “Vishwaguru narrative”,” he says.
There have been two leadership shuffles in
