Wangchuk's Fast Approaches Week Three but Modi Govt Does Not Deign to Dialogue; US Judge Not Done Just Yet With Adani; At Least Two Killed in Puri ‘Crowd Rush’
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Snapshot of the day
July 16, 2026
Anirudh S.K.
If it wasn’t for the Modi government assuring the Delhi high court today that its doctors will regularly monitor the health of a hunger-striking Sonam Wangchuk, there would have been virtually no official acknowledgment of the inventor-activist’s protest – let alone any calls for dialogue. Those remain elusive even as Wangchuk’s indefinite fast, undertaken to press his demand for Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation in view of the NEET paper leaks among other issues, completed its 18th day today. Many have called on Wangchuk to give up his fast but he has indicated he will keep at it. After a lawyer approached the high court seeking that the government be directed to aid Wangchuk – including by ‘force-feeding’ him – the bench recorded the solicitor general’s assurance that ‘government doctors/experts’ will monitor the activist’s health every day and ‘intervene’ if they deem it necessary.
Pradhan’s misplaced priorities have become a feature, not a bug. He has not deigned to respond to Wangchuk and neither has his government (the activist had previously suggested that those on high floated feelers for talks when he announced his strike, but said he rejected the move as reactionary), even as the minister found time to celebrate the ‘Sanatan tradition’ of the Rath Yatra and pray for everyone’s “well-being”. Everyone, apparently, is a carefully edited category. It does not seem to include a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee who has been on hunger strike over the collapse of trust in India’s examination system. The hypocrisy is not subtle: piety for the public, prayers for the timeline and not one serious word for the protest at the door.
Given the Modi government’s continued silence on dialogue, it is worth recalling how Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded when another environmental activist, G.D. Agarwal, went on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the ill-health of the Ganga (the basis of one of Modi’s poll-time promises). Agarwal, who ultimately died of hunger in October 2018 after four months of fasting, is not known to have heard back from the PM despite writing to him multiple times.
Meanwhile the Congress has issued its first official acknowledgment of Wangchuk’s strike. Party MP and general secretary K.C. Venugopal said that the Congress shares Wangchuk’s ‘anguish and outrage’ but called on him to stop fasting in view of his weakening health.
Rinchen Norbu Wangchuk, meanwhile, has turned the mirror back on to the Cockroach Janta Party itself, asking what the movement that Wangchuk has put his body behind has actually done to make his sacrifice matter.
Two people were killed and many others injured today in a crowd crush during a rath yatra procession at the Puri Jagannath temple in Odisha. The incident occurred when the crowd was pushed aside to make way for an ambulance, reports Satyasundar Barik. A stampede at the Gundicha temple in the same city last year had killed at least three people.
