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Snapshot of the day
August 20, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
A month after the brutal crackdown on protestors in Delhi, Gen Z outreach is going splendidly. And the government’s? Not so well.
If the student protests forced the Modi government into an embarrassing retreat, political devotion has produced its own response. At Delhi’s Press Club, a ‘Modi Chalisa’ was recited before an image depicting the prime minister as Lord Ram, accompanied by chants of ‘Jai Jai Modi’ and ‘Har Har Modi’. The Press Club subsequently clarified that it had not organised the event and stopped it after those who had rented the hall for a press conference violated the terms of the booking.
The Modi government, meanwhile, has come up with a more official answer to its Gen Z problem. PTI reports that under a proposed ‘One Day, One University’ programme, a Union minister will be dispatched to a university every day to “listen” to students and tell them about government schemes. Having recently discovered that Gen Z can march to Parliament, the government has apparently decided it would be safer if ministers reached campus first. Modi is also keeping a score of his ministers’ social media traction. “Does Gen Z ‘like’ you” is his “new KRA for the cabinet”, a Godi media editor breathlessly tweets.
And then there is the internet. The BJP has brought in a new social media team, officially part of party president Nitin Nabin’s organisational rejig but with timing difficult to ignore: it follows the party’s failure to counter the online narrative around the youth protests, particularly on Instagram, which helped power them. Sravasti Dasgupta reports on why the BJP’s new IT Cell may be rather better at changing personnel than repairing the damage. Or at explaining the abusive nature of their earlier tweets. IT Cell head Deepak Mhaskey’s audio suddenly went dead when he was asked an ‘out of syllabus’ question about this on a regime friendly channel.
“Protecting Kaziranga also meant protecting the people living alongside it.” BBC reports on the arrest of Pranab Doley and the luxury hotel controversy in Kaziranga.
Barely two days after the Jharkhand government cancelled the outcome of 22 recruitment exams citing complaints of irregularities – thereby halting the youth protests in the state – the state high court today stayed the administration’s move as far as four tests are concerned: the 11th to 13th civil services examinations and the food safety officer exam. It ordered the reinstatement of a total of 598 officers as well as that the Hemant Soren government explain on what basis it cancelled their outcomes. It was hearing petitions by those who had cleared some of the exams the government cancelled on Tuesday night.
While that decision prompted protesters to suspend their weeks-long agitation it also threw into limbo the careers and aspirations of swathes of others, some of whom staged a protest in front of the secretariat in Ranchi. Speaking to Shubham Tigga of the Indian Express, Ashish Akshat, who had ranked first in the 11th-13th combined civil services exam, said that he is not sure what comes next even as he has completed almost a year’s worth of job
