Nineteen People Dead in Anti-Government Clashes in Nepal; India Defends H-1B Visa Programme as Mutually Beneficial; Friends With Modi But Not Happy at What He’s Doing, Says Trump

Despite Truce Meitei People Not Travelling on Highways in Manipur, Gaza and Ukraine are Key to Indian Strategic Autonomy, Infiltration From Pakistan Continues Even After Operation Sindoor

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

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Over to Sidharth Bhatia for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

September 8, 2025

Sidharth Bhatia

Clashes between protesters and security personnel in Nepal today have killed 19 people as of this evening, with 17 people succumbing in hospitals in Kathmandu and two others in Sunsari in the country's east, reports the Kathmandu Post. The protests, which are largely being led by students and youth groups, were sparked by the Nepal government's decision to ban a number of social media platforms last week following a Supreme Court order for not registering themselves as per the law, but have also focussed on dissatisfaction with Kathmandu's alleged failure to tackle corruption. They have spread to many of Nepal's cities, per the Post. In Kathmandu, Reuters reports that police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at violent protesters who broke through barricades in front of the parliament complex. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has called an emergency cabinet meeting and the country's human rights commission has urged restraint on both sides.

Senior National Conference leader and the member of Lok Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar constituency Syed Ruhullah Mehdi on Sunday called on the authorities to release suspects who have been detained in connection with the vandalism at the Hazratbal shrine last week. Terming the detention of “nearly 30 persons” an act of “operational retribution”, Ruhullah said that the incident in which the national emblem engraved on a plaque inside the Hazratbal shrine was defaced by a mob of agitated men and women last week happened “due to administrative insensitivity, if not deliberate provocation”. The statement came out after Imran Nabi, a ruling party spokesperson, pointed out on X that the Wakf Board headed by senior BJP leader Darakhshan Andrabi had not depicted the national emblem on the plaque of a developmental project at another shrine in Khimber village of Srinagar which was inaugurated on September 4, a day before the controversy erupted at Hazratbal shrine.

The Aam Aadmi Party’s lone legislator in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly Mehraj Malik was arrested under the stringent Public Safety Act on Monday. He was due to visit flood hit areas in the state, his aides said. He was dragged by policemen bundled into a van and arrest, “under full camera gaze” was condemned by the other parties in the Union Territory. Malik had been critical of the local administration. Protests broke out following his arrest. Malik has been shifted to a jail in Doda.

Hours after he sarcastically wished Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin a “long and prosperous future together” with Chinese President Xi Jinping – to whose “deepest, darkest” country he said America was losing India and Russia to – US President Donald Trump told reporters in the White House that he would “always be friends with Modi” and that India and the US enjoy a “special relationship”. However he qualified this by saying that he ‘just doesn't like what he [Modi]'s doing at this particular moment’. The latter was quick to respond, saying he “deeply appreciate[d] and fully reciprocate[d]” Trump's remarks. Incidentally, Modi issued his remark in response to a tweet by ANI, which just happened to leave out Trump's mention of dissatisfaction with the prime minister's policy.

And hours in turn of Modi's upbeat response came another