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
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Snapshot of the day
September 7, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan, Anirudh SK and Kalrav Joshi
The text of last week’s Allahabad High Court order quashing the imposition of the National Security Act on student activist Akriti Chaudhary is out and its unusually harsh and direct language should serve as a warning for all IAS and IPS officers out to serve their political bosses. Akriti was arrested for campaigning in support of Noida’s underpaid industrial workers who went on strike in April 2026:
“The conduct of the District Magistrate Gautam Buddha Nagar who passed the impugned order, is worthy of derision”
“…it shan't be long before the errant in the bureaucracy reduce the State of Uttar Pradesh to an Orwellian Dystopia.”
“The District Magistrate desired to set an example out of the Petitioner and deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in public spaces in support of the labourers.”
“On account of the casual and cavalier exercise of authority by the State through the District Magistrate Gautam Buddha Nagar, which has violated the constitutional rights of the petitioner, this Court considers it sufficient to grant ₹5 lakhs as compensation to the petitioner. This Court also directs that the said amount must be recovered from the salary of the District Magistrate Gautam Buddha Nagar, who has passed this order of detention without application of mind and from all such other officers who may have been responsible.”
The judgment was delivered by Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev. Justice Sreedharan was transferred out of the Madhya Pradesh High Court last year after he pulled up a BJP minister for calling a Muslim Indian Army officer a “sister of terrorists”.
Fun fact: Noida DM Medha Roopam is the daughter of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
While ‘virtually’ addressing the inaugural event of the ‘Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir’ in Paris yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “this temple will surely enrich the diversity of France”. Well, thanks to the misogyny of its promoters – the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha – the most visible impact on the diversity of France so far has been to impoverish it: Female employees at the Eiffel Tower were asked by management to make themselves ‘invisible’ on Saturday during a visit by a delegation from the Swaminarayan Sanstha at the request of BAPS representatives, says Le Monde. The offensive diktat only came to light because the staff at the Eiffel Tower decided to go on strike on Monday to protest the guidelines "which have led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex". Le Figaro reports that around a hundred members of BAPS conducted a private tour of the Paris landmark on Saturday. Quoting the CGT Union, AFP reports:
“Instructions were given to female employees of the Eiffel Tower and to female employees of service companies to make themselves invisible in order to welcome this delegation ,” reports the staff, indignant at having found themselves in a situation “serious and profoundly contrary to the values of equality and non-discrimination.”
The exclusion of women and the capitulation of the Eiffel management has drawn widespread criticism from politicians in France. “It is not acceptable that such conditions can be tolerated,” tweeted Emmanuel Gregoire, the Socialist mayor of Paris. “Equality between women and men will never stop at the foot of our historical monuments, nor anywhere in this city. It must be applied everywhere, for everyone. I will ensure this, everywhere and without exception. An investigation will be launched as quickly as possible.” “In
