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✍️ Written by Saket Suman The campaign that produced more than seven thousand detentions in Delhi in a single day and a finding of prima facie contempt against the authorities, was announced to the press on 30 September with the dates attached Representational image Source: @INCIndia on X The opposition alliance published its calendar stating dates for district marches from 2 to 8 October, a march to the Election Commission on the 6th, a rally in Delhi on 1 November. The Congress Working Committee had resolved a day earlier to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner and the suspension of the nationwide revision of electoral rolls. Behind both lay a newspaper investigation reporting that two of the Commission’s three members had objected on record at least fourteen times in ten months. What followed is mostly on the court record now.  On 9 October the Supreme Court called the Delhi Police orders restricting public trans...

Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a car carrying the Indian film actor Tiger Shroff in a western suburb of Mumbai on Sunday evening, wounding his driver and a second man. The actor was unhurt. File Photo Source: @MrDemocratic_ on X The shooting took place at about 7pm in Juhu, close to Pushpa Park, as Shroff was leaving a birthday gathering, according to multiple reports. Officers quoted in reports said three men, all in white shirts, fled on the motorcycle towards a nearby railway station. The car was struck a few hundred metres from the local police station. #WATCH : Krishna Shroff arrives at brother Tiger Shroff’s residence in Mumbai following the firing incident in Juhu. #TigerShroff #KrishnaShroff #MumbaiFiring #BollywoodNews https://t.co/v8v3hy5hPU — upuknews (@upuknews1) October 18, 2026 Shroff’s driver was shot in the left hand and taken to Nanavati Hospital. A second man was admitted to Cooper Hospital with a gunshot wound; one account describes him as an onlooker,...

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday suspending a sanctions law aimed at Russia’s economy two days before it was due to take effect, lifting the threat of punitive tariffs on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, a group that includes India Image Source: AFPost on X Trump told Congress the suspension was in the national interest. The waivers remain in force until he or the secretary of state determines that further action is warranted. The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 was signed into law in early October after passing both chambers of Congress by large bipartisan margins. It is named after the South Carolina senator who died in July at the age of 71 and who had pressed for tougher measures against Moscow over the war in Ukraine. The law targeted Russia’s energy and defence industries and the fleet of tankers used to move its oil outside Western price controls. It provided for tariffs of up to 500 per cent on Russian good...

At least 17 people were killed and about 25 injured in a stampede outside a Durga Puja marquee in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata on Saturday evening Image Source: All India Radio The stampede took place at about 7.30pm at a pandal, one of the temporary structures erected across the city for the festival and visited by crowds late into the night. Initial reports suggested people queuing outside surged when it began to rain, and that some fell in the road, setting off the stampede. Officials at the scene initially attributed the surge to an announcement made over the organisers’ loudspeakers. The chief minister said rain had been a factor, along with what he described as shortcomings in the arrangements, and said anyone found negligent would face legal action. One of the injured was described as critical and the rest out of danger. Those hurt were taken to a state medical college, with the more seriously injured later moved to a second hospital. Police, fire crews, disaster respo...

Three Indian vessels left Seychelles on 15 October after a four-day port call that included joint drills at sea with the islands’ coast guard and training ashore for Seychellois forces, the Indian government said. Image Source: @hci_seychelles on X The ships — the naval vessels INS Tir and INS Sujata and the coast guard ship Sarathi, which make up the Indian Navy’s First Training Squadron — arrived at Port Victoria on 12 October during what the ministry described as an ongoing training deployment. The squadron’s senior officer and the commanding officers of the three ships called on Major General Michael Rosette, chief of the Seychelles Defence Forces. The two sides discussed bilateral cooperation. Indian personnel conducted firefighting and small-arms training for Seychellois troops, and the two navies ran cross-training visits. The squadron carried out a passage exercise with the Seychelles coast guard ship Andromache involving joint patrolling, communication drills and coordi...

India’s defence minister said on Friday that some of those behind two weeks of protests over the country’s electoral rolls were seeking a change of regime on the Bangladeshi model and accused them of making young people instruments of what he called the politics of anarchy Representational Image Source: @rajnathsingh on X Speaking at a news conference in Lucknow, Rajnath Singh said one person had openly told a press conference that she drew inspiration for regime change from Bangladesh while another had spoken of bringing down the government. Their only agenda, he said, was to destroy democratic institutions and set the country alight. He was referring to remarks made this week. The student leader Neha Bora has reportedly said she is influenced by the movement that removed Sheikh Hasina from power in Bangladesh. The advocate Prashant Bhushan told a news conference on Thursday that a change of government was the declared aim, that this is the purpose of any opposition in a democracy...

India commissioned the first of class Multi-Purpose Vessels (MPVs) built by a private company for the first time. This is being seen as a shift in a naval shipbuilding programme that had run for decades almost entirely through state-owned yards Image Source: @VPIndia on X INS Samarthak entered service at the navy’s base at Karwar on the Arabian Sea coast at a ceremony presided over by Vice-President C P Radhakrishnan and attended by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Karnataka’s labour minister Santosh Lad, and executives of Larsen and Toubro, the engineering group that built her. Swaminathan described the ship as the first major warship contracted to and constructed by a private shipyard. Indian private firms have supplied the navy with components, smaller craft and dock infrastructure for years, but the warships themselves have come from government-owned yards. The admiral was measured about what follows. Shortening the journey from prototype to pr...

India’s statutory press regulator has issued guidelines instructing journalists how to cover protests safely, nearly two weeks into a confrontation in the capital during which some reporters were detained. The guidelines are addressed to the press Representational Image The Press Council of India adopted the Guidelines for Journalists Covering Protests and Demonstrations at a meeting on 14 October and released them, citing what it called the prevailing scenario and the need for orderly and effective coverage.  They seek, the Council said, to promote the safety of media personnel, responsible reporting and better coordination among journalists, media organisations and law enforcement. Much of the document is practical. Reporters are told to keep a safe distance from confrontations, to take short steps in crowds to avoid falling, to keep an escape route in mind and update it as conditions change, and in tear gas to use visible landmarks to leave rather than move deeper into a crowd...

India marked the 95th birth anniversary of A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday, with tributes from the prime minister and senior ministers to a rocket engineer who became the country’s eleventh president and remains one of its most widely admired public figures File Photo Via: @sameer_kasture on X PM Narendra Modi described him as a visionary who ignited young minds and inspired the nation to dream big, and said his life showed that humility and hard work matter. Home Minister Amit Shah said Kalam had dedicated a rare scientific genius to making India a significant strategic power. The defence minister, Rajnath Singh, called his contribution to self-reliance in defence unforgettable, and the foreign minister, S Jaishankar, said his vision and dedication continued to inspire. Tributes crossed party lines. Akhilesh Yadav offered what he called a hundredfold salutation, and Pawan Kalyan said Kalam’s journey showed the power of education, discipline and perseverance. Kalam was born on 15 ...