Poisonous Water Kills 10 in India's 'Cleanest City'; How Public Funds Help Properl BJP at the Polls; A Democracy that is All Skin and Bones; Gig Workers Protest
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December 31, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
Indore is touted as India’s ‘cleanest city’ but this week ten people died after drinking dirty water there. “I feel that a mistake has been committed, but it is better if we first ensure that all patients recover and create a positive environment rather than discuss this now,” said Kailash Vijayvargia, the senior BJP leader who represents the neighbourhood where the deaths took place. A video clip of him speaking rudely to a reporter has also gone viral, thanks also to the reporter, Anurag Dwary, giving it right back.
In a ‘grassroots’ example of how public funds are being misused to hand the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies a clear electoral advantage, Vallabh Ozarkar reports that over the past three years, “more than 99 per cent of funds allotted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for development work went to wards in constituencies represented by Mahayuti lawmakers”.
Amid tension between India and Bangladesh – which has spiked recently – external affairs minister S. Jaishankar travelled to Dhaka on Wednesday to attend former premier and Bangladeshi Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia’s funeral. He met with Zia’s son, the BNP’s de facto leader and Bangladesh’s next expected prime minister Tarique Rahman, and gave him a letter on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s behalf. Jaishankar did not call on chief adviser Muhammad Yunus unlike other foreign leaders in Dhaka. He did meet Pakistan’s representative, National Assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq, which came to light from photos released by the Bangladeshi interim government. That marks the first meeting between Indian and Pakistani officials since the military clashes of May 7-10.
Modi’s tweet expressing ‘deep concern’ following Moscow’s claim that Kyiv launched a drone attack at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Novgorod
