India Archive

A major change has just come to how food and drink items are labeled in India. After years of concern about misleading claims, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has taken a firm stand: no product can use the label “Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS)” unless it meets the standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In a sharp twist in the Durgapur sexual assault case, the West Bengal Police on 14 October arrested Wasif Ali, the 23-year-old friend of the victim, with whom she had gone out on the evening in question. The police have claimed that, contrary to earlier reports of a gangrape, the evidence now suggests that only one person was involved in the assault.

Senior Congress leader and former Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has sparked uproar within his own party by questioning the handling of Operation Blue Star under the Indira Gandhi government. Speaking at the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, on Sunday (12 October), Chidambaram expressed a harsh assessment of that chapter in history.

In a public gathering in Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal, a senior figure of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) raised alarm across political circles by issuing a direct challenge to her opponents—particularly the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—with a warning of a “terrifying game” in the forthcoming 2026 Assembly elections.

The West Bengal police on Sunday, 12 October, arrested three individuals in connection with the gang rape of a medical student in Paschim Bardhaman district. The case has provoked widespread outrage across the state.

A shocking incident has surfaced in Saligrama town, Mysuru district. Locals say that “a portion of a government school building was allegedly demolished by Islamists using a JCB and tractor to create a road.”

Some controversies happen by chance; others are intentionally built for attention. The uproar over the recent Taliban press interaction in New Delhi clearly belonged to the second type — a piece of political theatre directed by the usual figures of Lutyens’ Delhi.

A terrifying event in Durgapur has shaken not only the medical community but also ordinary citizens. On the night of October 10, 2025, a second-year MBBS student from Odisha was abducted and gang-raped by a group of men in a forested area near her college campus.

In a landmark ruling handed down on 10 October, a division bench of the Kerala High Court declared that the Kerala Waqf Board’s decision to classify the contested Munambam land as a waqf property was “bad in law” and amounted to a “land-grabbing tactic.”

After more than four decades of unchecked influence, the Uttar Pradesh administration has finally tightened its grip on Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan (65)—a man long known in Bareilly for his fiery speeches and intimidation of local Hindus. The crackdown follows the violent 26 September 2024 riots triggered by the “I Love Mohammad” controversy that shook the city.