Supreme Court Clears Vantara Probe; Trump’s Envoy Pick for India Deepens Modi’s Diplomatic Bind; Modi's BA to Remain Hidden; Anurag Thakur Flaunts Ignorance

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 Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

August 25, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

Delhi University displays all the information about the degrees it awards to students on the Internet but the Delhi High Court today accepted its plea that privacy concerns prevent it from sharing any details about the BA degree Narendra Modi said he received as an external student in 1978.

In 2022, the Central Information Commission directed Delhi University to allow inspection of its record of those students who passed the BA exams in 1978 – a group that Prime Minister Modi has said he is part of – as well as to the CBSE to let its records of former Union minister Smriti Irani's class ten and 12 results be seen. Quashing these orders today, the High Court ruled that the “mere act of publishing certain information on some occasions does not dilute the legal protection accorded to personal information” under the RTI Act.

Criminal proceedings in two FIRs against psephologist Sanjay Kumar for posting incorrect data on his X account shall stand paused, the Supreme Court ordered today. The cases against him even as he withdrew his posts upon realising their inaccuracy constitute an “abuse of state power” and “serve to create a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech”, LiveLaw quotes him as arguing before the apex court. Kumar, who heads the Lokniti programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, had claimed that there had been large decreases in the number of electors in Maharashtra's Deolali and Ramtek assembly seats between the general and assembly elections in 2024, but later took down his post after realising it was