IndianRepublic.in

Delhi Police have refused permission for a protest planned at Jantar Mantar on Saturday by the Cockroach Janata Party, and have registered 25 cases connected with a week of demonstrations so far Representational Image Source: @IPSMadhurVerma A joint commissioner of police, Nupur Prasad, said the force received an application on 7 October from the group's co-convenor, Saurabh Das, giving notice of a protest on 10 October over what it described as the accountability of the Chief Election Commissioner. Under the rules governing the site, applications must be submitted at least ten days before the event. The application arrived three days before.  Prasad said permission was also refused because the group had been allowed to protest at Jantar Mantar on an earlier occasion and had not complied with police guidelines or with the undertakings it gave at the time.  She cited the law-and-order situation, public safety and traffic management in the New Delhi district, and said pro...

The Leaders of India's INDIA bloc held a silent protest at Rajghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, on Thursday, a day after police detained them short of the capital's designated protest site.  Image Source: @INCIndia on X They said they prayed for wisdom for the government and for the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar.  They alleged that the prime minister, the union home minister and CEC had hijacked the country through what they described as a criminal conspiracy involving the theft of votes.  Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, LoP Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, along with other INDIA bloc leaders, staged the protest at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial. The protest was peaceful today and police did not intervene, in contrast to the previous two days, when opposition MPs were stopped and detained on their way first to the Election Commission's headquarters and then to Jantar Mantar. चलिए शुरू करते हैं! https://t.co/kX3own1AUp — Supriya Shrinate (@...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed 25 years as head of a government on Wednesday, and drew congratulatory messages from heads of state and government across continents Image Source: @narendramodi on X Modi was sworn in as chief minister of Gujarat on 7 October 2001 and held that office until May 2014, when he became the Indian prime minister. He has held one or other post continuously since. He began the day with prayers in New Delhi, and later addressed a Seva Jyoti programme at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.  Modi said gratitude was his overriding feeling on the anniversary. "Whoever brought me victory taught me to be humble; whoever made me fall taught me to stand back up again," he said. He said critics had prompted introspection, supporters had shown him the value of trust, and opponents had demonstrated the strength of democracy. 25 वर्षों का जनविश्वास मेरे लिए और अधिक ऊर्जा के साथ काम करने की प्रेरणाशक्ति है। ईश्वररूपी जनता-जनार्दन के लिए मेरा एक ही...

Delhi Police detained the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and other opposition MPs on Wednesday evening after stopping them about a hundred metres short of Jantar Mantar, the site designated for protests in the Indian capital Image Source: INCIndia on X The MPs had set out for Jantar Mantar a day after being prevented from marching to the headquarters of the Election Commission. They are demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. I am thankful to every INDIA alliance MP standing firm in defence of our democracy - in Parliament, outside on the streets, and today near Jantar Mantar. They can stop a march. They can refuse a meeting. But they cannot stop the will of our people. Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Gyanesh Kumar and the entire system will be brought to justice. — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 7, 2026 Police had earlier detained INDIA bloc leaders and workers at ...

India's Leader of the Opposition climbed a police barricade on Parliament Street on Tuesday with the national flag in hand and got a hundred metres near the Election Commission but he could not reach it. What happened in those hundred metres and what is happening now will be read one way in Delhi and quite another abroad Representational Image Via: INCIndia Let us discuss the facts first. Opposition MPs gathered at Makar Dwar, a gate of India's Parliament House, and set off for Nirvachan Sadan, a walk of roughly a kilometre. Rahul Gandhi later said more than 300 members of both Houses had joined while some from the other side refuted the figure. Security personnel stopped them in front of the NITI Aayog building. Police said no permission had been given. Barricades went up, buses were already waiting when detentions began. Among those taken away, reportedly, were Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Abhishek Banerjee and Derek O'Brien of the Trinamool Congress and the C...

Switzerland's president arrived in New Delhi on Monday with a large business delegation, a year after the trade agreement between India and the European Free Trade Association came into force, and left behind five signed documents covering migration, young workers, transport technology and scientific research Image Source: MEA India Guy Parmelin was given a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan, received by President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and held talks at Hyderabad House. His state visit runs until 7 October. The agreement underpinning the visit is worth understanding on its own terms. The European Free Trade Association is not the European Union. It consists of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, four countries that stayed outside the EU while trading closely with it. Their agreement with India was concluded after sixteen years of negotiation and entered into force last October. It is India's first trade agreement with any economic...

India and Switzerland signed five agreements in New Delhi on Monday, and the two that will matter most to ordinary Indians concern the right to travel, study and work Image Source: MEA India. The Migration and Mobility Partnership provides for multiple-entry visas valid for up to five years, allowing stays of up to six months on each visit, and for student permits of one year that can be renewed. The memorandum is built on what the two governments describe as principles of equal treatment, and it also commits both sides to working against irregular migration, human exploitation and trafficking under their own laws. Alongside it sits a separate agreement on the exchange of young professionals. It allows 300 people from each country every year to take temporary employment in the other in order to build skills in their field and improve their language, a number that can later rise to 500. Verification of a candidate's nationality or residence is to be completed within 30 or 90 days d...

India's Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission, the central government, the Chief Election Commissioner and the two other Election Commissioners to respond within a week to petitions arguing that decisions belonging to the Commission as a body have been taken by its chairman alone. Image Source: @tarunjatav50 on X A bench of the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, issued notice on two petitions and tagged them together. It declined to grant any interim relief. The petitions turn on a distinction that is ordinarily academic. Article 324 of the Constitution vests the superintendence and control of elections in the Election Commission, a body that currently has three members. The Chief Election Commissioner chairs it but, the petitioners argue, holds no separate authority of his own. Under the law governing the Commission, business is to be transacted unanimously so far as possible, and where the members differ, by majority. ...

A third day of marches in Delhi ended with buses, barricades and a student leader driven fifty kilometres out of the city before being let go. What the protesters want is the Chief Election Commissioner's resignation, which the Indian Constitution leaves almost nobody in a position to grant. File Photo: @SpokespersonECI on X Neha Bora was picked up for the third consecutive day on Sunday. She heads the All India Students' Association, a left-wing student body founded in 1990 and affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, which has long been among the strongest organisations on campuses such as Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University. She was taken from near Jantar Mantar at about five in the evening and driven to a police station in Narela, roughly fifty kilometres away in the far north of Delhi. She was released that same evening and posted a video afterwards. AISA says she came back without her bag or her phone. The officials have maint...