India Becomes Fourth Country to Achieve ‘Space Docking’; Donald Trump’s Plans to Take Over Countries is Alarming; Saif Ali Khan is Out of Danger After Surgery

Dear reader,

Substack’s default payment processor (Stripe) has been facing consistent issues with some subscription renewals. Due to this subscription renewals for some readers are failing. We are working with them to resolve this issue and apologise for the inconvenience caused to you.

IF your subscription to The India Cable has lapsed AND you are facing difficulties in renewing your subscription then please click on the following link to make a payment and renew your subscription - https://razorpay.me/@theindiacable

1. Make sure you enter INR 200 for monthly, INR 2000 for an annual subscription, and INR 10,000 for a lifetime subscription to The India Cable

2. Please share your email id in the ‘Add a note’ section of the link

3. Please give us 24 hours to activate/upgrade/renew your subscription

4. These are one-time payments and there will be no auto-renewal

5. You can pay using UPI, Credit/Debit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, and Rupay only), Netbanking and Mobile Wallets

Over to Sidharth Bhatia for today’s Cable

---

The India Cable is the most definitive daily news bulletin about all that matters to India. This premium newsletter is delivered to your inbox 5 days a week.

Founded by Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Tanweer Alam, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

---

Snapshot of the day

January 16, 2025

Sidharth Bhatia

Having received treatment for being stabbed six times early today at his Bandra flat, Saif Ali Khan is out of danger, his representatives have said. Sudipto Ganguly and Shilpa Jamkhandikar cite a police officer as saying that Khan was stabbed during what seems to have been a robbery attempt. His doctors said he was operated on to have the knife removed from his body and to repair a leak of spinal fluid resulting from the attack. Faizan Khan writes that the police have identified one suspect and that a case has been registered invoking multiple provisions of the BNS.

Ashok Swain has asked for an early hearing of his petition against the Union government’s cancelling his Overseas Citizen of India status, saying his mother is grievously ill and he has not met her in five years because of his inability to travel to India. The Sweden-based academic argued in court: “They believe I’m anti-India because I criticise the policies of the current [ruling] dispensation.” The government has alleged that Swain gave inflammatory speeches and participated in anti-India activities. The court asked him if he would consider retracting his X posts the government cites in its allegations – he appeared to disagree with the idea – and asked the government if he could be given a temporary passport.

A contingent of 111 farmers wearing black outfits began fasting indefinitely at the Khanauri border crossing between Punjab and Haryana yesterday in support of farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal, whose own hunger strike reached its 51st day. Dallewal, who