A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Pratik Kanjilal, Sidharth Bhatia, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Seema Chishti, and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writers: Kalrav Joshi, Anirudh SK
How to subscribe to The India Cable
To subscribe for free: Click this link, enter your email address and select the FREE subscription plan.
Important: Do not select any of the paid options on Substack. Stripe, its payment gateway, does not process payments for Indian nonprofits.
To take out a paid subscription: Visit our dedicated Razorpay payment page to make your payment.
To renew an existing subscription: Use the same Razorpay payment page to renew your monthly or annual subscription.
Want to sample our newsletter? The India Cable is normally paywalled, but we lift the paywall once a week so that new readers can sample our content. Today is that day.
Editor’s note: This post may be cut off in your inbox due to length. Click on the title above to read it in full on Substack.
Snapshot of the day
November 6, 2026
Kalrav Joshi, Anirudh S.K., Siddharth Varadarajan
Voters whose enumeration forms were purportedly not received during the special intensive revision – and who were excluded from the draft rolls on grounds of being absent, shifted, dead or duplicate – in seven states where the exercise is ongoing have been given an opportunity to resubmit their enumeration forms. Until now, such voters were only given the option of participating in the Election Commission’s special enrolment drive and submitting Forms 6, by doing which they would have made the false declaration that they are first-time voters. Once restored, these wrongly excluded electors are to be given their old voter ID numbers, Nirvachan Sadan announced today.
Its move comes days after Supreme Court Justice Joymalya Bagchi had suggested that wrongly deleted voters could be allowed to belatedly submit their enumeration forms instead of being made to fill Forms 6. It also comes a day after the Goa bench of the Bombay high court said that such a deleted voter would indeed be making a false declaration by submitting Form 6 – this was despite the EC arguing recently to the contrary. The states that will benefit from this new move are Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana, Delhi, Haryana and Maharashtra.
Still, there are deleted voters who won’t benefit from this relaxation, and they are individuals who were struck off the rolls shortly before the SIR began and didn’t have any enumeration forms generated in their name (no enumeration form, no benefit). The Hindu‘s Suruchi Kumari and Aroon Deep had reported two months ago that in Delhi, between the February 2025 assembly elections and when the rolls were frozen before the SIR this June, a net 10.28 lakh deletions had already taken place, mostly during the pre-SIR ‘mapping’ period. Former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi had called the scale of these pre-SIR deletions massive and unprecedented.
Appearing before the high court the Delhi police denied that it sent any takedown notices to X demanding that it withhold the handles of the Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Law Freedom Centre – in addition to many other tweets – for defaming the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. X too told the bench that the notices it received were sent by an ‘impostor’. The IFF and SLFC had moved the court after the police neither confirmed nor denied sending the notices.
Ayush Tiwari notes that there were red flags in both sets of communications purporting to be from the RSS and the police that pointed to them being part of a hoax. One of the legal notices sent in the Sangh’s name contained an address belonging to another right-wing group, the Rashtriya Seva Sangh, and was delivered from an email ID that was created just six hours prior. And one of the police’s notices was sent from an email ID that, as the SFLC has pointed out, does not seem to be functional at all. The SFLC also noted that X’s Law Enforcement Request Form for submitting takedown notices did not verify the authenticity of the entity submitting such requests.
Another question that the government’s sudden decision to let Agniveers serve for two more years has thrown up is what will happen to their marriage prospects during their extended tenure – recruits are often from rural areas and their standing in the matrimonial market may take a hit if they stay unmarried for that long. That’s why, reports Ajay Banerjee citing sources, another emendation of Agnipath is on the cards, to let this first batch of extended-service Agniveers marry while still part of the scheme. What isn’t on the cards is any grant of pension benefits to them in the event of their death in service. In other words, they can marry but their kin will still not receive a payout if they die in service.
Agnipath had also caused consternation among the Gurkha community that has been a source of recruits for the Indian Army for decades. The topic is likely to figure during discussions that will take place when Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah visits New Delhi later this month, reports Rahul Bedi.
The Hemant Soren government’s move to cancel the outcome of the Combined Graduate Level recruitment test after protests against exam irregularities rocked Ranchi a few months ago was unfair and unjust, the Jharkhand high court ruled today while reversing the administration’s decision. Those who were recruited but had their careers drop into limbo can continue to serve now while the investigation into the irregularities in connection with the test is to carry on. The state government had cancelled the CGL alongside 21 other exams in response to the weeks-long protests, which had immediately followed the Cockroach Janta Party-led agitation in Delhi that resulted in then-education minister Dharmendra Pradhan getting the sack.
The Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi and Yash-starring Ramayana – also featuring DNEG in the graphics department and a soundtrack by A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer – is now playing in theatres. Expectations are high and the movie has so far divided critics.
The Supreme Court has declined to suspend the Bombay high court’s decision to overturn journalist Tarun Tejpal’s acquittal and sentence him to ten years’ prison for raping a junior colleague. “We do not find it to be a fit case to grant suspension of sentence. On a prima facie view, we are not inclined to grant suspension of sentence,” the apex court said today. The high court while sentencing the former Tehelka editor had pointed to glaring deficiencies in the trial court’s judgment, including its assumptions on how the survivor ‘should’ have behaved after her assault.
Yashica Dutt has a useful thread explaining the progressive turn South Asian Americans appear to have made in the recent US mid-term elections.
Ro Khanna, the California Democratic Congressman of Indian origin, is “laying the groundwork” for a presidential bid in 2028, news reports say. Khanna is one of a handful of Indian -origin members of the US House of Representatives. He is also a critic of the Narendra Modi government. “I have unequivocally condemned Hindu nationalism & applauded the students in the streets speaking out against corruption and for inclusion,” he tweeted today. “My grandfather was part of Gandhi’s independence movement and I believe in Gandhi and Nehru’s vision of pluralism.” Promoting a Modi government official to launch a scathing attack on him.
Approached by vendors against the Gir Somnath district collector’s move to ban the preparation, sale and storage of meat in a 500-metre radius of the Somnath temple, the Supreme Court today declined to do anything. However it requested the Gujarat high court to expedite its hearing of the matter. A single-judge bench of the high court had held the collector’s ban to be ultra vires of the constitutional right to carry out trade, but a division bench in turn stayed the judge’s order. “This is during Diwali, this is bread and butter, [you] are killing an enterprise,” senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for the petitioners, told the apex court.
A group named ‘Crafty Falcon’ carried out a spate of AI-driven attacks on Indian non-bank lenders, fintech companies and crypto exchanges in recent weeks, CERT-In has said, revealing that it used four publicly available AI tools, including two linked to China. CERT-In did not say more about this ‘Crafty Falcon’, which “surveys its targets with machine intelligence, operates at machine speed and strikes by invoking the victim’s own payment and disbursement APIs”.
Cyber fraudsters are always a step ahead and the explosion in generative AI’s capabilities is making it extra hard to verify things online too. As per the latest official data – from the National Statistics Office’s Comprehensive Annual Modular Survey of 2023 – only three in ten men and two in ten women in their 20s were able to check the authenticity of social media content, determine when something was published online and establish the legitness of a web address, Nileena Suresh recalls. That was three years ago, before AI became such a big part of our lives.
Calm began returning to several of Bangladesh’s urban centres yesterday, a day after the newly set up wage board agreed to increase garment workers’ pay. Protests demanding a wage hike – the need for which has become pressing amid rising prices – saw hundreds of factories shut shop in Bangladesh, where garments account for 80% of all export earnings. However, the board hasn’t said how much it will hike workers’ pay by.
Gauhati HC quashes NSA, frees activist Pranab Doley after 117 days
Indigenous and land rights activist Pranab Doley walked out of Golaghat District Jail today, bringing an end to 117 days in custody after the Gauhati High Court quashed his preventive detention under the National Security Act. Doley walked free hours after the High Court set aside the Assam government’s detention order dated July 30, 2026, and directed that he be released and set at liberty forthwith, who was arrested in connection with protests against a proposed luxury hotel project near Kaziranga National Park in Golaghat district.
Doley’s lawyer, Dipesh Agarwala, told the Wire that the court set aside the detention order on several grounds, including the absence of a proximate link between old criminal cases cited against him and his detention, failure to disclose all relevant documents to him, and the authorities’ failure to consider his second representation against the detention.
Delhi chokes as AQI worsens
Even as the India Cable goes to press and firecrackers continue to burst across the national capital on the eve of Diwali weekend, Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) touched 382 on Friday evening, edging close to the “severe” category. In response, authorities have invoked Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), a set of emergency measures aimed at curbing air pollution in the national capital. The restrictions include a ban on piling work and demolition activities, major road construction and repairs, and the use of coal and wood for heating. Several curbs will also apply to vehicles on the roads, depending on their engine types.
However, several Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitoring stations across Delhi-NCR have already recorded AQI readings above 400, placing those areas in the “severe” category.
In UP, BJP turns to ‘infiltrators’ scare as SIR backlash mounts
Facing mounting criticism over the SIR, discrepancies in electoral rolls and growing demands for CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, the BJP has turned to its polarised bogey of “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and Pakistan-backed anarchy to defend the EC and the voter-list revision, reports Omar Rashid. The message at its ‘Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao’ padyatras in Uttar Pradesh is blunt: those allegedly stealing your ration and resources are being struck off the voter lists. That, in essence, is the BJP’s narrative to battle resentment over the integrity of the SIR.
Reportedly
You might think right wing social media influencers are at least consistent in their trolling but it turns out they too are capable of big U-turns, where a person targeted for being ‘anti-national’ is capable of redemption.
Drawn and quartered
Deep dive
The 2026 Chicago Council Survey, conducted from July 10–21 by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, finds that American views of India have rebounded from last year but are increasingly divided along party lines under Donald Trump’s second administration, with Democrats generally more favourably inclined towards India than Republicans. “Democrats’ feelings remain slightly warm (55), as do Independents (52)—but Republicans remain on the cooler side of the ledger (47),” the report notes. The decline in support for India as a US ally, however, cuts across party lines: “Democrats and Independents have declined 11 points since 2021 (from 22% to 11% today) and Republicans have declined 10 points (from 19% to 9% today).”
Wade into the report here.
Prime number: 31.2%
The E20 petrol controversy has taken a fresh turn, with the Karnataka government alleging that fuel sold by major oil marketing companies in the state contains ethanol in excess of the prescribed 20% blend. Tests conducted by the Karnataka Legal Metrology Department on 63 petrol samples collected from seven districts reportedly found ethanol levels as high as 31.2% in an Indian Oil sample and 30.5% in an HPCL Power sample. Other samples recorded levels ranging from 20.6% to 27%, while the lowest was 13.5%. At a press conference, Karnataka Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Rizwan Arshad demanded action against the companies and compensation for consumers through a dedicated fund. “Vote chori is being discussed, but what about petrol chori and the exploitation of common people? We demand transparency, accountability and protection of consumer rights,” he said.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
A Supreme Court bench (of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar) has held that detention by any investigating agency beyond 24 hours violates Article 22(2) and that the 24-hour limit within which an accused has to be produced before a magistrate begins from the actual detention and not formal arrest. This is a significant and much-needed direction, writes Maneesh Chhiber but the only trouble is: “How to get the investigating agencies to play ball?”
In an editorial on Modi’s having second thoughts on the controversial Agnipath military recruitment scheme, the Deccan Chronicle notes that “the government dismissed mounting criticism. Now, barely four years later, it has changed the rules. A supposedly non-negotiable military reform has been substantially diluted. Call it a recalibration, but it is unmistakably a U-turn.”
What changes for India now that the US Congress has come under the control of the Democrats? Not all that much, says K.P. Nayar, though he notes that it remains to be seen whether the results have made Trump more tractable or even more mercurial. If treasury secretary Scott Bessent and trade representative Jamieson Greer have mellowed out, the time is now to strike the trade deal, Nayar also advises.
Bharat Bhushan points to one minus for Modi: there will not just be more Democratic scrutiny of the Trump administration’s policies but also of the Indian government’s actions at home, he says. Things like USCIRF reports will start getting more play, he warns.
India must eliminate situations that lead to sewer cleaning deaths, says The Hindu in an editorial.
Sobhana K. Nair’s experience with government press notes as of late has been that they belong to two categories: ‘generic misdirection’ and ‘concealment charm’. They offer a masterclass on how to say very little while sounding like you’ve hung the moon, she points out with several examples.
Listen up
India prides itself for its pharma industry but is China outpacing it? And even the US in terms of medical innovation? China’s “DeepSeek moment” in artificial intelligence may have a rival in biotech. The Chinese company Akeso, whose cancer drug outperformed Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda in a clinical trial, is being held up as a sign of China’s growing prowess in medical research. On the China Books Podcast, Dr Ruby Wang, a London-based physician and author of China Cure: The Rise of Biotech, AI Medicine and a Global Health Superpower, discusses China’s healthcare revolution.
Watch out
Elizabeth Threlkeld, senior fellow and director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center and a former US Foreign Service officer, offers a sobering assessment of the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict—asking why neither side seems to have learned the lessons of the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ and how Washington’s public role in the ceasefire could complicate its efforts to mediate future crises.
Over and out
The most popular Bollywood star in the former Soviet Union was not Raj Kapoor—depite the popularity of Awara, or ‘Vagabond’, as it was called in Russian—or Amitabh Bachchan but Mithun Chakarborty for his role as Jimmy in Disco Dancer.
Despite its staggering budget and grand ambitions, writes Tatsam Mukherjee, Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Part 1 “settles for a cautious, visually underwhelming spectacle that struggles to bring fresh life to a familiar epic.”
Happy Diwali!
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.