ECI is Obliged to Conduct a Bipartisan Nationwide Clean Up of Voter's List  https://youtu.be/-imz4NiGf6k?si=_MR4J8gSOBPoF_qA  The Wire

battle lines?or armaments flow? Eighteen days after gunmen killed 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir’s resort town of Pahalgam, nearly 1.6 billion people on either side of the border reeled under the fears of another India-Pakistan war over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region claimed in full by both the nations that rule over parts of it. 11th May 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QwCtBfbPBA क्या भारत बड़ी जंग के लिेए हो रहा तैयार, क्या पाकिस्तान को अमेरिका दे रहा शह, क्यों है युद्ध का खतरा 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/12/india-pakistan-ceasefire-kashmir-conflict/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/11/difficult-ceasefire-guns-silent-but-will-the-india-pakistan-truce-hold “It feels like a psychological war has been waged on us. The fear isn’t just from the blasts; it is from the uncertainty and a lack of transparency,” he said. “Kashmiris are once again stuck in the middle, with no refuge, no escape.”

Nehru’s record of instituting secularism as the guiding principle for a plural India and Modi’s decade of promoting a culture of conflict are incomparable.

by Ajay K. Mehra

Nehru and Contemporary Sectarianism - The Wire

18/08/2025

Mass Surveillance: Indian Railways Use Facial Recognition Tech And AI  https://www.boomlive.in/explainers/mass-surveillance-indian-railways-use-facial-recognition-tech-and-ai-26094    Herta Security is supplying its advanced facial recognition technology for the Indian railways project. Its systems can detect emotions, micro-expressions, and even gaze directions.  

There are concerns that increased surveillance could deter public protests and other forms of democratic participation, as seen in previous instances of using surveillance for policing protests.  The project adds to the growing list of government undertaking relying on citizens' sensitive personal data, implemented while India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act remains in limbo.

Headquartered in Barcelona with offices in Madrid, London, and Los Angeles, Herta provides video surveillance, access control, and marketing solutions. Currently, it services are being used for surveillance in various international projects, including safe cities, airports, train and metro stations, prisons, banks, casinos, sports stadiums, shopping malls, military, police, and forensic applications.

This tracker  has recorded 204 incidents between June 2024 and 18 Aug 2025 https://www.thequint.com/quintlab/uncovering-hate-crime-tracker-communal-violence-india/

QuintLad: Compilation by Aliza Noor,  Syed Faheem Ahmed., Ashutosh Singh

A Class 10 girl said that she was first requested to take off her burqa in order to be permitted to take an exam.Later, she was permitted to wear a face cover for the SSC exam when the police intervened. 

 Postcolonial theory has a Hindutva problem  https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/modern-science-hindutva-postcolonial-theory-meera-nanda/article69795241.ece
Ideas meant to challenge colonial power are now being used to justify myth and religion in India, with real costs to science and secularism.

 Seeing all endeavours based on empiricism as “Western” and hence colonial neglects significant movements within our own country that have sought to loosen the hold of superstitions and irrational beliefs, however sporadic these efforts may have been.

In her book  Postcolonial Theory and the Making of Hindu Nationalism: The Wages of Unreason  Meera fleshes out the synergies between the Hindu Right and the postcolonial Left. .. how the two ideologies that arose from opposing sides of the political spectrum have merged with disastrous implications for India. Both sides would like to see a revival of indigenous cultural norms, and “both seek to decolonise and indigenize science and social theory”.

the problem lies in the overreach of postcolonial theory that suggests that true decoloniality can come only when all the tools deployed during colonisation are rejected and indigenous ways of knowing are excavated.

Nanda warns that while these excavations are negotiated, the Hindu Right is filling them with whatever it sees fit to claim supremacy.

The Left's Accidental Gift to Hindu Nationalism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANRZTh1eDTI 

How the academic critique of "mental slavery" was weaponized to label any opposition as anti-national.

How relativizing truth created a vacuum for state-backed superstition and pseudo-science to thrive.

How the argument that secularism is alien to India gave birth to the political jibe of "pseudo-secularism."

How idealizing "authentic faith" created an argument where the feelings of the majority can crush the rule of law.

Published : Jul 21, 2025

'detention' of Bengali-speaking migrant workers: SC seeks replies of Centre, states https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pil-on-detention-of-bengali-speaking-migrant-workers-sc-seeks-replies-of-centre-states-101755184929411.html  any order will have consequences especially with respect to people, who genuinely came from across the borders.  

Bhushan alleged harassment of people by the states only because they were Bengali speaking and possessed documents in the language on the basis of a circular issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs .

"They are being detained while an inquiry is being held about their bonafide and in some cases, they are even tortured. Kindly pass some interim order that no detention will be held. I have no problem with enquiries but there should not be any detention," Bhushan submitted.

ustice Kant suggested the presence of a nodal agency to coordinate between home and work states and help in establishing the bonafide of the migrant workers.

Justice Bagchi said the scale of migration from eastern states to the northern and southern states was "too much" and a nodal agency could help in managing the verification process.

SC directs ECI to publish list of deleted voters and reason for deletion https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/bihar-voter-list-row-supreme-court-hearing-special-intensive-revision-bihar-polls-live-updates-august-14-2025/article69931451.ece  August 14, 2025 The Supreme Court, in its interim order directed th e Election Commission of India to make public a searchable list of 65 lakh voter names deleted from the draft electoral roll, after the Special Intensive Revision Exercise, and give the reason for deletion.  In the previous hearing, Justice Joymalya Bagchi summarised the petitioners’ argument that it was a battle between Constitutional entitlement and Constitutional right. The petitioners argued that the Election Commission did not have the right to decide on citizenship, nor de facto remove an elector for the list. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDO0HIaKD4o