Protest, Repression, Violence Push Nepal Into Constitutional No-Man's Land; India’s Elites Need Not Fear Modi's Pivot to China
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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Snapshot of the day
September 9, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
Nepal today became the second country in South Asia in a year to have its Prime Minister driven out of office by their inability to deal with public demonstrations in a democratic manner. A day after the police in Kathmandu shot dead 19 unarmed protesters, KP Sharma Oli was forced to submit his resignation. Unlike Sheikh Hasina, who fled Bangladesh on a military plane for India, Oli and other ministers were spirited away to safety by the Nepal Army but their chances of returning to active politics and power seem today as remote as that of Hasina’s. The deadly force the Oli government unleashed on young men and women protesting endemic corruption and then the ban on social media platforms (imposed to curb those protests) succeeded in converting the peaceful ‘Gen Z’ led movement into something anarchic and vengeful: violence erupted on Tuesday morning and quickly spiralled into attacks on policemen and on the private homes of top politicians cutting across party lines – including Oli, Maoist supremo Prachanda and Nepali Congress leaders. Some leaders were also assaulted. Three policemen were reportedly killed.
On Tuesday night, Nepal Army chief General Ashok Raj Sigdel issued a video appeal to protesters and politicians alike:
"To provide a peaceful solution for the nation from this situation, I call on the protesting groups to suspend all protest programs and come for talks…
“Since the demands raised by citizens in a democracy can be resolved through dialogue and discussion including representatives of Gen-Z, I appeal to all parties to be restrained, to not cause further damage to the country, and to come to the negotiating table.”
Shortly after his appeal went out, the Nepal Army issued a warning that it intended to crack down on the violence. "We would like to inform you that if such activities are not stopped, all security agencies, including the Nepali Army, will be firm in their commitment to controlling the situation from 10 pm to fulfill their primary responsibility of protecting Nepal and its people,” it said.
Nepal’s constitution envisages the peaceful transition of power via elections but President Poudel’s initial suggestion that Oli could remain as caretaker till a new government is sworn in has no takers. With the public mood seemingly set against the three major parties that have effectively squabbled over and shared power for over two decades now – the UML, Maoists and Nepali Congress – and the parliament building itself a target of mob attack today, it is unlikely that a new arrangement of old names and faces will pass muster. Among the names young Nepalis have floated on the street and on social media as possible interim leaders are Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah and Sumana Shreshtha, an MP from the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a relatively new formation that won 10% of the popular vote in the 2022 national election, compared to 27% for UML, 25% for the Nepali Congress and 11% for the Maoists. RSP’s leader, former TV anchor Rabi Lamichhane was deputy PM and home minister in separate stints in the government Prachanda headed from 2022 to July 2024. But if President Poudel and the Army Chief set the ball rolling in the direction of a Bangladesh-style interim government, then Nepal will be in constitutional no-man’s land. Early elections could be one way forward but whether they would generate the kind of change people want is not at all obvious.
Pranaya, a Kathmandu based reporter, covered Monday’s Gen-Z protests in this striking report. Speaking to The Wire today he noted the changed character of the disturbances on September 9 violence – when young people were relatively absent and their place taken by “more experienced” political workers. There is speculation about the involvement of RSP workers and also supporters of the pro-monarchy Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) in the violence.
In a development that could have ramifications for India, United States President Donald Trump claimed that he is ready for another round of sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine. “Yeah, I am,” he told reporters when asked about it at the White House. This comes after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed claims that tariffs were harming American businesses and consumers, and pushed for joint US-EU tariffs on countries importing Russian oil, which also includes India. He said, “If America and the European Union can put more sanctions and secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, the Russian economy will collapse”.
As Washington and Brussels signal the tightening of sanctions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky backed US tariffs on nations still trading with Russia, taking questions on New Delhi’s ties with Moscow without naming India. “I think the idea to put tariffs on the country who are continuing to make deals with Russia is the right idea,” said Zelensky in an interview with ABC News. Zelensky also emphasised that he was counting on a strong US response to the latest massive Russian barrage on Ukraine, its largest ever.
US President Trump’s controversial senior trade advisor, Peter Navarro, launched a fresh wave of criticism against the BRICS alliance and described the member countries as “vampires” whose “unfair trade practices” were exploiting America. Speaking on the Real America’s Voice show, Navarro stated that BRICS member countries cannot survive if they do not sell to the US. Navarro spoke on what he sees as contradictions within the group which came into being in 2009. On Monday, there was an online BRICS summit which Modi did not attend but India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar did in his place. Navarro spoke about China assisting Pakistan with getting a nuclear bomb, and sending ships with its flags all over the Indian ocean:
“India and China have been at war for decades, China have Pakistan the nuclear bomb and now Chinese ships are in the Indian Ocean, so let’s see how that works out for Modi.”
Analysts said India had been trying to balance between its ties with the US and with China and Russia at BRICS, as other member states used the platform to sharply criticise Washington’s tariff measures, albeit without naming the United States, Jaishankar framed India’s intervention around wider global challenges.
Meanwhile, Trump’s team is turning India into the latest battleground for MAGA politics – a predatory wolf pack unleashed, with Navarro at the helm, reports Keshav Padmanabhan.
Bhadohi and Varanasi’s famed carpet industry is staring at ruin, trapped in unsold inventory worth Rs 6,000 crore as US tariffs bite and reckless trade practices deepen the crisis, reports The Telegraph. Veteran manufacturers blame a new breed of young exporters who bypassed reliable wholesalers and tied up with small-time American retailers notorious for delayed payments. “They only pay when the carpets are sold, locking up our working capital and breaking the chain that kept the market afloat,” one trader lamented. With US demand collapsing under Trump-era tariffs and exporters’ risky experiments backfiring, thousands of weavers now face uncertainty. Manufacturers are demanding an urgent bailout to prevent mass job losses and salvage India’s reputation in its biggest carpet market.
The US’s shock 50% tariff on Indian goods from August last month has thrown the country’s engineering exporters into turmoil too, threatening losses of nearly $7.5 billion in FY26 and sparking fears of mass layoffs. Industry leaders warn that the sudden duty hike, targeting India’s largest export market for engineering goods, could cripple factories already running on thin margins. “The impact will be so severe that it will inevitably result in job losses, as domestic diversification is not possible for this much value of exports,” says Pankaj Chadha, chairperson of the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) in an interview with Mint. Exporters accuse Washington of weaponising trade for political ends, while New Delhi’s slow-footed response risks turning a tariff shock into an employment bloodbath.
Against this backdrop, Sushant Singh argues that Modi’s visit to Tianjin reflects deeper problems within India itself. He contends that domestic shortcomings – rising economic inequality, sluggish growth, weak investment in research and development, poor productivity and a shrinking manufacturing base – are steadily eroding India’s ability to project influence abroad He says that these internal weaknesses not only constrain India’s international leverage but also expose the limits of its global ambitions.
The Modi government can project normalcy and boast of progress, but the ground reality in eastern Ladakh tells a different story. Despite the recent thaw in ties with Beijing, the Indian Army’s military posture along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) remains unchanged, reports The Tribune. Indian patrols are still barred from entering buffer zones, restricted instead to agreed-upon routes in disengagement areas, while China refuses to even entertain the idea of de-escalation. Yet, the public is led to believe that the status quo ante has been restored – a claim far removed from reality.
Israel and India have signed a bilateral investment agreement to expand mutual trade during far-right Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich’s trip to India, which deepened its ties with Israel under the leadership of Modi. The agreement, signed in New Delhi by Smotrich and Indian Minister of Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman, aims to boost trade and investment flows between the two countries. Sitharaman stressed the need for greater collaboration in “cybersecurity, defence, innovation and high-technology”. The deal marked “an important strategic step for our joint vision”, said Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by several Western countries for his links to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The deal comes as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has caused a global outrage. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza in October 2023.
On the very same day, Anuparna Roy, who made history at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival by becoming the first Indian filmmaker to win Best Director in the Orizzonti section for her debut Songs of Forgotten Trees, used her award-receiving speech as a powerful solidarity statement to the Palestinian children enduring the ongoing genocidal war by Israeli occupation. “I might upset my country, but it doesn’t matter to me anymore,” she said in apparent reference to the much-criticised stand of the Modi government’s pro-Israeli position. She also dedicated the award to “every woman who’s ever been silenced, overlooked, or underestimated,” hoping her recognition would inspire “more voices, more stories, and more power for women in cinema and beyond – from India to the world.” Watch the speech here.
Jammu and Kashmir's administration curbed high-speed mobile internet in Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district today as it apprehends protests against the detention of Doda MLA Mehraj-ud-Din Malik of the Aam Aadmi Party yesterday under the Public Safety Act. The Union territory's home department has not yet made public any order about the internet restrictions in Doda in contravention of Supreme Court guidelines, notes Jehangir Ali. He reports that massive protests have already occurred in Doda over the detention of Malik, for which the administration has reportedly cited over 18 FIRs and daily diary reports even though he has not been convicted in any of these cases (the PSA dossier against him is not yet public). The case, writes Ali, “has once again brought the limited powers of Jammu and Kashmir’s elected government under a spotlight”.
Elsewhere in the territory, two army soldiers and a militant were killed in a gunfight yesterday in south Kashmir's Kulgam district. A joint team of the army, the Jammu and Kashmir police and the Central Reserve Police Force was conducting a search operation in Kulgam's Guddar forest when the gunfight took place. Another soldier who was injured was receiving treatment as of late yesterday.
In The Hindu journalist Mahesh Langa's plea for bail in the Enforcement Directorate's money laundering case against him, the Supreme Court yesterday issued notice to the agency and to the Gujarat government. Justice Surya Kant, reports the Indian Express, asked the curious question of ‘what kind of journalist’ Langa is. “What kind of a journalist is he? There are very genuine journalists. But there are also people on vehicle/scooter saying we are patrakaar [journalists] and what they do, everybody knows,” the paper quotes his lordship as asking. Langa's lawyer Kapil Sibal pointed out that Langa has already received anticipatory bail in the two FIRs that the ED has based its case against Langa on.
The Foothills Naga Coordination Committee, an organisation that represents Nagas living along the edge of the Imphal valley in Manipur, has denounced the slated shifting of a Kuki militant camp under the renegotiated Suspension of Operations pact into what it says is ancestral Naga land. It has warned of “inevitable bloodshed” if the move proceeds, reports Bikash Singh. Meanwhile, the United Naga Council has said it will go ahead with its ‘trade embargo’ in Manipur's predominantly Naga areas as a mark of protest against the Union government's fencing of the border with Myanmar. This embargo is likely to disrupt the movement of goods trucks along the arterial National Highway 2 that connects Imphal with Nagaland, notes The Hindu.
Pakistan is developing one of the world's most comprehensive surveillance programmes outside China, warns Amnesty International, comprising a phone-tapping system known as the Lawful Intercept Management System and an internet firewall known as the Web Monitoring System or WMS 2.0. The former can surveil at least four million phones at any given time while the latter can block two million active internet sessions at once. Amnesty found that the LIMS is made by German firm Utimaco and deployed through centres run by the UAE-based Datafusion, while the firewall is linked to Chinese state-run companies and uses equipment from US and France-based companies as well. Ariba Shahid reports.
Protesting housekeeping staff at Ashoka University were allegedly pressured into signing an apology letter yesterday afternoon after their contractor Bluespring Enterprises – whose parent company Quess is led by university trustee Ajit Isaac – withheld their wages for August, Pavan Korada reports. The staff had demanded an increase in their monthly wages of Rs 12,000 as well as the reinstatement of three colleagues who were fired in what they say was a misunderstanding leading to allegations of theft.
Priests at the Kashi Viswanath temple in Varanasi have been getting a state salary since 1983 when the governemnt took over its administration but their salary is now being hiked three-fold to Rs 90,000 a month and they will get the same status and benefits as state government employees. In contrast, agniveers – the contractual soldiers now being taken in by the Indian Army – get a starting salary of around Rs 25,000 and most will be asked to leave their jobs after two or three years.
In a one-of-its-kind, Modi has given BJP MPs a wake-up call: building roads and schools won’t win you votes, but a flurry of social media posts just might. Party sources say MPs were “ticked off” in a workshop held at Parliament’s library, where a meticulously prepared three-page report card graded their activity on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube. The system is colour-coded like a school report: red for inactive, yellow for barely active, green for prolific posters. MPs with zero posts on Facebook in a month were marked red, while those with over 60 posts earned green. In short, governing the country matters less than curating an Instagram feed. Deccan Herald reports that Modi stressed engagement with the people – though apparently, “people” now means scrolling followers rather than actual voters. The message was clear: in 21st-century Indian politics, hashtags trump highways.
One of India’s oldest and most respected Parsi magazines, Parsiana, will stop publication this October after six decades of chronicling the Zoroastrian community. The decision, announced in its August editorial, has left readers mourning the loss of a publication that served as both a mirror and a bridge for a dwindling population. Founded in 1964 by Pestonji Warden, a doctor and sandalwood trader, Parsiana began as a monthly journal featuring essays and medical writings. It was transformed into a fortnightly in 1973 by Jehangir Patel, who bought it for one rupee and turned it into a full-fledged journalistic endeavour. “Nobody expected to read something like that in Parsiana,” Patel told BBC, recalling his first story on the community’s high divorce rate.
Maharashtra governor CP Radhakrishnan will succeed Dhankhar as vice president
Having secured 452 first-preference votes, Maharashtra governor CP Radhakrishnan won the vice presidential election today; the opposition INDIA bloc's candidate, Justice (retired) B Sudershan Reddy, secured 300 votes, Rajya Sabha secretary general PC Mody announced this evening. 98.2% of MPs voted in the election, the Indian Express reports, and 752 of the 767 votes that were cast were deemed valid. Yesterday the Biju Janata Dal of Odisha, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi of Telangana and the Shiromani Akali Dal of Punjab announced that they would abstain from voting in the poll.
A native of Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, Radhakrishnan had joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a young man and went on to serve as the BJP's Tamil Nadu chief as well as MP for Coimbatore. Apart from being Maharashtra governor he has also been governor of Jharkhand, as well of Telangana and Puducherry on an additional charge.
Further buys of Russian S-400 air defence systems by India could incur fresh US sanctions
With the Russian S-400 air defence systems having served the Indian armed forces well during Operation Sindoor, New Delhi in recent weeks has reportedly started talks with Russia to procure additional S-400s and has been considering purchasing the higher-range S-500 systems in the near-term, but in proceeding along this path it risks incurring American sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act or CAATSA, Rahul Bedi cites military and defence industry sources as saying. This risk, they say, is unlikely to stand mitigated by the apparent detente between Trump and Modi over the weekend, and is certainly ‘live’ given senior US officials' rhetoric critical of India as of late. Bedi also recalls that it was not Trump during his first term but Joe Biden who had exempted India from CAATSA sanctions for buying S-400s in light of Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy.
As EC weighs special voter roll revision in West Bengal, Mamata queers pitch
A special intensive revision of the voter rolls in West Bengal could be fraught with difficulty as it is state government employees who typically serve as booth-level officials on the ground; indeed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is wary of an SIR in her state, underlined this recently when she ‘reminded’ Bengal officials that they ‘work under the state government’ whenever election-related exercises aren't notified. Banerjee's Trinamool Congress and the BJP have sparred over the issue and Bengal's BLOs, caught in the crossfire, have been keenly watching. Meanwhile, the Election Commission over recent weeks has hiked BLOs' pay, may be moving to hire permanent employees (something the opposition in the state has demanded) and has conducted training for some BLOs for an SIR. Anant Gupta's report runs the gamut of concerns brewing in the state over a potential SIR.
The Long Cable
Why India’s Elites Need Not Fear the Latest Geopolitical Pivot to China
MK Venu
There is a sort of reflexive fear and anxiety among our elites about a substantial pivot in India's relations away from the United States and towards China which they feel cannot be trusted. This feeling is so strong that even after the humiliations President Trump has heaped on India regularly since Prime Minister Modi's extremely unpleasant visit to the US this February, it is felt that India should endure insults and still try to make up with the US. This is understandable because the upper caste Indian policy influencers – comprising tech business owners, the bureaucracy and political class – have organic links with American society via families settled there for decades. So the US has this inherent advantage over China in the crafting of policy towards the two countries.
That is why one is not surprised that the overwhelming opinion from think tanks and foreign policy analysts in New Delhi and tech entrepreneurs in the south, is in favour of somehow riding the ever rising tide of Trump tariffs, insults and humiliations.
Even after the imposition of 50% tariffs on Indian goods exports to the US and many other associated threats, there is a general sentiment that one should be careful about dealing with China as it cannot be trusted for various reasons, most notably for its real time operational defence tech cooperation with Pakistan.
Of course, before China entered this space, US defence cooperation with Pakistan was a reality India swallowed for decades. We are told that even in the Op Sindoor episode, it was the possibility of US F-16 fighter aircraft and American engineers getting hit in the crossfire at a Pakistani air base is what partly triggered the urgency of Trump's quest for a ceasefire. So India has to practically endure both Chinese and US involvement in Pakistan's defence capabilities in future. Also, previously held differentiators between the US and China in terms of the formers' value system and its alignment with India are also blurring with Trump's own authoritarian instincts testing the traditional American institutional and democratic framework on a daily basis. The US is probably as much of a surveillance driven society – with every student's social posts being watched in real time – as some of the quasi democracies in East Asia today.
Given this reality, what kind of pivot away from the US and towards China will be acceptable to Indian elites is a question which is now being debated . One argument being made is India could act like some of the East Asian or Gulf nations who combine strong security ties to the US with deep economic engagement with China. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia etc all fall in this category. Here, the only challenge for India is to persuade the US to tolerate Russia as a co-provider of defence tech partnership. Will Trump be amenable to this geopolitical cohabitation is an open question. Perhaps a resolution of the Ukraine war with some credit to Trump may help resolve this problem.
Since geo-economic transactionalism is largely driving Trump's present world view and the radical changes that he is proposing, India can at the very least normalise its bilateral economic ties with China to the pre-Galwan times as they existed in the beginning of Modi's first term as PM – with an open, non discriminatory trade and investment policy regime towards China. This is the least China would expect in order to observe the spirit of the resolution India signed on to at the SCO summit in Tianjin earlier this month.
For instance, Press Note 3 of 2020, which puts all Chinese investment in the automatic negative list to be scrutinised case by case, will have to be done away with. The government will have to remove the assorted bans against Chinese apps and generally allow a non-discriminatory investment regime to China. Opening up to Chinese investments in Indian startups is the easiest thing to do. Some of the most successful listed companies today like Paytm, Zomato etc had large Chinese incubating investments initially. In short, Indian businesses could do with a renewed dose of Chinese capital investment. The Economic Survey last year stated this very clearly. Later, the Secretary, Industrial Promotion said India would be committing self harm by not opening up to Chinese investments in future technologies. Many economic ministries and even business houses echoed this sentiment.
Now is the time to open up to China and let investments happen in Electric Vehicles, EV batteries, solar power generation, transport infrastructure etc. China has half the world's installed capacity of solar power generation which can link up with India's own solar mission in a structured manner. At present, only the Adani group, with its clout, is bringing Chinese equipment and engineers in the solar power sector on scale amidst myriad restrictions. Why can't this become more open and easy for all businesses? This is indeed a no brainer. This would merely signal a normalisation of economic relations. This does not constitute a sharp or undesirable pivot towards China. Meanwhile, the United States can remain India's strategic partner on many other levels.
In fact there could be a neat division of India's engagement with the US and China. The US remains India's most valuable partner in the services sector. Trump has not put any tariffs or taxes on India's services exports. India's services exports ( dominated by IT services and the Global Capability Centres doing cutting edge research in India for US and European MNCs) have in recent years grown to roughly the same level as our total manufacturing exports net of petroleum products and gems and jewellery. Services exports are growing at double digit compared to a mere 1.5% annual growth in India's manufacturing exports in recent years. Soon, services exports will leave manufacturing far behind.
So the dynamic part of India's exports, i.e. services, remains intact and is the basis of the future strategic partnership with the US. This will also cover the non linear growth in AI related business partnerships likely between US and Indian companies in the years ahead. Of course, we should let the US compete with China in AI adoption based on cost and competencies. Deep Seek has opened everyone's eyes in this respect.
So there is still a lot going for the India-US strategic partnership. India should ideally engage with China to boost manufacturing and infrastructure while the US can play a big role in the services partnership. The two can easily co-exist.
In conclusion, a partial pivot towards China need not unduly worry the ruling Indian elites. There is room for both partnerships to thrive. All that is happening is instead of 100% of Indian eggs being placed in the US basket it is possible that some 40% get shifted to China's, especially in non security-sensitive areas of business and economic activities. That seems like a fair deal even from the perspective of multi-alignment in geopolitics which Donald Trump is inadvertently pushing India towards.
Reportedly
DK Singh writes that the real reason Modi-Shah and the RSS are locking horns over the selection of the next BJP president is because what’s actually at stake is the question of who will succeed Modi as PM should the BJP continue its dominance of parliament in 2029 and beyond. An empowered BJP president is best suited to help or hinder the ambitions of putative successors because he would control the selection of leaders at the state level – the primary building block for claimants to the top job.
Deep dive
Behind flashy apps and jackpots lies a complex web of mule accounts, payouts and payment tricks that move thousands of crores beyond the screen. Arti Singh of The Head and Tale dug into the hidden mechanics to show how gaming became a money-moving machine. Despite strict punishments, her tests show: The Game is still on.
Prime number: 42%
At 42%, the share of contractual workers in India's organised manufacturing sector is at its highest in at least 27 years, Sachin Mampatta reports citing data from the Annual Survey of Industries. This share has risen nearly eight percentage points over the last decade and the only time it has contracted since the late 1990s was in 2013-14. Contractual workers are often paid less than their permanent counterparts and have fewer social security benefits. Mampatta quotes TISS professor Bino Paul as saying: “Unless Indian manufacturing shifts from the comparative advantages of cheap labour to real economies of innovation and productivity, the contractual labour force will continue to expand”.Opeds you don’t want to miss
“For the first time in the history of the world’s largest democracy, a large chunk of the voting population is at risk of being disenfranchised,” writes Venkatesh Nayak of the Bihar voter list revision. “These provisionally ‘deleted voters’ constitute almost 9% of the 7.36 crore registered electors for whom Assembly elections were conducted in Bihar in 2020.”
Net FDI and capital outflow data make it clear that foreign firms are withdrawing funds after short-term profit gains and Indian firms are investing abroad, writes Amarbahadur Yadav:
“If India seeks to lead as a global investment hub, it must look beyond headline FDI figures and focus on the quality, durability and strategic alignment of capital inflows. An overemphasis on gross figures neglecting their origin or economic impact risks masking deeper vulnerabilities. What the country truly needs is committed capital investment that builds domestic capability and furthers national priorities.”
What exactly should we make of the recent statement by Chief of Defence Staff Anil Chauhan that “Just as blood is indispensable to the human body, so is ideology for a nation”, asks Ali Ahmed. More so that it was made at the precincts of the Gorakhnath temple trust, helmed by Yogi Adityanath, and against the backdrop of a Hindutva leader involved in the Ram temple agitation that led to the demolition of a mosque?
Calling RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s green signal to start agitations on the Kashi and Mathura issues a googly that is aimed at Union home minister, Amit Shah, Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari say this is because the kind of campaign which will be launched “could propel Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, known as the Hindutva poster boy, to the fore, sidelining others in the BJP aspiring for the prime minister’s post.”
With eye clearly on the foreign policy rethink Trump is prompting in Indian official circles, Iraj Ilahi, Iran’s ambassador to New Delhi, makes a pitch for stronger bilateral ties: “With their civilisational wisdom, strategic independence and constructive partnership, Tehran and New Delhi can give the changing world a new order”.
The UGC seems to be taking a retrograde step by introducing misleading and even dubious mathematics in the name of topics such as Vedic Mathematics, writes Dinesh Singh.
Listen up
India is home to a wealth of fossils – of plants, dinosaurs, whales, horses and humans among others – but this is threatened by theft, trade and the lack of effective legal safeguards. Against this backdrop, palaeontologist Ashok Sahni speaks with Anupama Chandrasekaran in this episode of InFocus about “how India became such a rich ground for fossils, why these discoveries matter for both our past and our future and what it will take to preserve them”.
Watch out
Justice Murlidhar, delivering the A. G. Noorani Memorial Lecture, reflects on the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Shah Bano case, the Ayodhya judgment and the broader themes of constitutional morality and secularism.
Over and out
When unusually heavy rainfall in Piplodi in Rajasthan – as in the entirety of the state – in July caused the roof of its village school to collapse, killing seven students and leaving it unusable, 60-year-old resident Mor Singh moved into a bamboo and tarpaulin shack so that the school could operate out of his home. Speaking to the BBC, he said:
“If I had not taken that quick decision, many children would have dropped out. The only other school is in a neighbouring village, which is a two kilometre trek in the hills. While the older students would have managed, the younger ones wouldn't have.”
His kind gesture has earned him kudos but the episode has shone a spotlight on the state of schools in Rajasthan, where over 5,600 schools are in a decrepit state per a recent government survey, reports Abhishek Dey.
A casting coup is on the horizon as Tamil superstars Kamal Haasan, 70, and Rajinikanth, 74, are set to reunite on the big screen 46 years after their last collaboration in IV Sasi’s 1979 fantasy film Allauddinum Albhutha Vilakkum, inspired by Aladdin’s One Thousand and One Nights. Haasan confirmed the development after weeks of speculation at the SIIMA Awards in Dubai. When the host, actor-comedian Sathish, asked Haasan if the news doing the rounds holds any truth, Haasan replied in the affirmative. “We were united long ago, but chose to remain apart because they kept splitting a biscuit and giving us only half each. We wanted a full biscuit each, and we got it and relished it well. Now we are content with just half a biscuit again, so we have come together,” said Haasan.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you tomorrow, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.