India Archive

The Congress party, long criticised for placing narrow political interests above national priorities, has once again found itself at the centre of controversy for echoing narratives that closely resemble those pushed by Pakistan.

On 16th December, Tuesday, the Election Commission released the draft electoral rolls of West Bengal after completing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). This exercise resulted in the removal of over 58 lakh voter names from the state’s electoral records. Election officials explained that the deletions were carried out for several reasons, including death, migration, and the non-submission of enumeration forms during the verification process.

Sardar Abdul Rehman Baloch, known across Karachi as Rehman Dakait, was born in 1975 and grew up inside a world where violence was not the exception but the rule. Over the 2000s, he became one of Lyari’s most dominant and unsettling figures, a gang boss whose name was spoken with caution in homes, markets, and police stations.

Lionel Messi’s highly anticipated visit to Kolkata for the first leg of his G.O.A.T. Tour turned into a day of frustration for thousands of fans at the Yuva Bharati Krirangan. Many people had paid large sums for tickets, expecting a memorable experience with the football legend. Instead, a lack of proper visibility and crowd control left them disappointed and angry, creating tension that eventually forced organisers to escort Messi out of the venue earlier than planned.

Fifty-six retired judges from the Supreme Court and various High Courts have jointly criticised the impeachment notice issued against Justice G.R. Swaminathan of the Madras High Court. Their statement expresses strong concern about the direction in which this action may lead the country’s judicial framework, arguing that the move undermines the independence of the courts.

A Sessions Court in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, delivered a decisive judgment in the high-profile 2024 Ram Gopal Mishra murder case, a case tied closely to the communal violence that shook the Bahraich-Maharajganj region. In its ruling, the court sentenced the prime accused, Sarfaraz (also known as Rinku), to death, while nine other accused were given rigorous life imprisonment, bringing strong closure to a crime that had disturbed public order for months.

The Madhya Pradesh government has taken major action against senior IAS officer Santosh Verma after finding that he entered the Indian Administrative Service through fraudulent means.

Umar Khalid, one of the accused in the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots, has been given interim bail once again, this time so he can attend his sister’s wedding.

The Film Critics Guild (FCG), a private group of film reviewers, issued a strong statement this week to condemn the online reactions that followed reviews of the film Dhurandhar.

The Supreme Court on 11 December delivered a clear decision in the long-running matter involving former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt. The court declined his request to suspend the 20-year prison sentence he is serving for the 1996 drug planting case. This ruling came after yet another attempt by Bhatt to seek relief from the punishment imposed on him.