India to Release Staines' Killer Early, Days After Modi's Australia Visit; EC Ignored its Own Rules During Bihar SIR; Government Portal Exposes Data of Millions
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
If you like our work and want to support us, then do subscribe. Sign up with your email address by clicking on this link and choose the FREE subscription plan. Do not choose the paid options on that page because Stripe – the payment gateway for Substack, which hosts The India Cable – does not process payments for Indian nonprofits.
Our newsletter is paywalled but once a week we lift the paywall so newcomers can sample our content. To take out a fresh paid subscription or to renew your existing monthly or annual subscription, please click on the special payment page we have created – https://rzp.io/rzp/the-india-cable.
Snapshot of the day
July 14, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Australia and was feted by Anthony Albanese, the BJP government in Odisha is getting ready to release Dara Singh – the main convict in the brutal murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children in Odisha 27 years ago. Singh was initially sentenced to death for the heinous crime but the Supreme Court commuted it to a life sentence. Now, the state sentence review board has recommended remitting his life sentence on grounds of ‘good behaviour’. Bajrang Dal leader Singh and others had set fire to a van in which Staines, along with his 11 and seven-year-old sons, were sleeping and beat them back as they tried to escape. Notably chief minister Mohan Majhi, who has a background in the RSS, had campaigned for Singh’s release before he ascended to office.
Legendary actor Zeenat Aman and Omi Vaidya – who acted in a film inspired by the life of Sonam Wangchuk – have posted messages on social media in support of the educationist and activist who is on the 17th day of his hunger strike, along with others, at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. The protest, under the umbrella of the Cockroach Janata Party, is demanding the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the irregularities in the NEET exam. As the condition of the hunger strikers grows increasingly critical, more than 1,800 prominent citizens have urged them to end their fast — with the bleak reminder that the present “government does not have a heart or a conscience” and that society must not sit back and watch “one of its greatest minds be sacrificed”.
As questions are raised about the Congress’s response to the CJP protest, Dalit youth leader and party MLA Jignesh Mevani has pushed back, saying the Congress has offered “consistent solidarity without turning grief into spectacle”. But the larger question is not whether the opposition has done enough; it is why the Modi government has allowed a protest over students, exams and accountability to reach this point at all.
India summoned a senior Iranian diplomat to the foreign office on Tuesday to register “a strong protest” against attacks on two commercial vessels – MT Al Bahiyah and MT Mombasa – during their transit through the Strait of Hormuz that killed an Indian seafarer and wounded several others. The two vessels had a total of 46 crew members, including 30 Indian seafarers, one of whom “tragically lost his life”, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement while calling for an immediate cessation of violence and a return to dialogue and diplomacy “in keeping with international law”. The Iranian embassy has not yet commented as India Cable goes to press. The fresh attack comes after another commercial vessel with 11 Indians on board was attacked off the coast of Oman on Sunday; ten Indians were rescued, while one remains missing.
Tuesday’s attacks came after the US launched a fresh salvo of strikes against Tehran, marking a new escalation in the resumption of hostilities in the war in West Asia.
The larger bill from the conflict is also arriving. India’s merchandise trade deficit widened to $30.43 billion last month as exports fell faster than imports, with shipping disruptions in Hormuz adding to the drag and traffic through the strait has already fallen to a two-month low.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has added his own surcharge to the crisis, proposing a 20% charge on cargo moving through the Strait of Hormuz – a move the UN shipping agency has opposed, saying fees on international straits have no legal basis. Meanwhile, Dubai-based DP World is reportedly planning a new port and container terminal on the UAE’s east coast, around Fujairah, to reduce dependence on Jebel Ali and bypass the Strait of Hormuz altogether.
The Indian government on Tuesday said that the country remains “committed to working with our partners in combating terrorism and transnational organised crime” through close law enforcement and security cooperation after the US indicted Lawrence Bishnoi, his gang members and other transnational criminal networks, including charges linked to the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Responding to the US Department of Justice’s action, the MEA said India and the US share a strong and expanding partnership in tackling terrorism and organised crime. The MEA also commented “on the Nijjar issue”, saying:
“We have noted the remarks made by RCMP Deputy Commissioner. These remarks are consistent with the recently unsealed US indictment which attributes responsibility to the members of the Lawrence Bishnoi organised crime group.”
In fact, as Devirupa Mitra has earlier reported, the RCMP Deputy Commissioner’s words were not as comforting as the MEA is suggesting. “There’s current people in Canada that are facing charges on that, so I can’t comment in relation to that investigation”, the official had said, indicating that while the latest indictments do not allege any involvement by Indian government officials, the Nijjar murder case was on a separate track. (Note: Mitra’s reminder has not gone down well with the establishment: the government has used the IT Rules to get Meta to delete a video version of her story from Facebook/Instagram.
A US investigation into forced labour practices in 60 countries, including India, appears to have done what domestic concern often does not: move policy. With several countries facing proposed American tariffs of up to 12.5% over failure to block goods made with forced labour, New Delhi was forced to
