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Anti-Paper Leak Amendment Bill Passed in Lok Sabha: Lok Sabha approves tougher anti-paper leak law, mandating fast-track trials, quicker investigations, and harsher penalties for examination fraud nationwide. By Pranjal Gupta New Delhi, July 29: Amid an uproar in the Lok Sabha, the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, was passed on Wednesday. Under the new changes, anyone responsible for question paper leaks or using unfair means in exams will face up to 10 years in jail and a Rs 50 lakh fine. The bill was introduced in the Lower House by Union Minister Jitendra Singh on July 27 after nationwide protests over the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, which originated at Delhi's Jantar Mantar. Before the bill was passed, Opposition leaders raised questions over the use of pellet guns on protesting students on July 20 during the 'Chalo Sansad' march in Delhi. The House was adjourned twice after the situation escalated due to the absence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the discussion. The Opposition demanded that Shah address the firing incident, saying the RAF (Rapid Action Force) comes under the jurisdiction of his ministry. In the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Jitendra Singh stated that the government acted swiftly in the NEET paper leak case, and that as many as 52 FIRs have been lodged since the anti-paper leak law came into force in 2024. Anti-Paper Leak Amendment Bill Passed in Lok Sabha: Stricter penalties and faster investigations into public examination fraud included. (File Image) Immediately after the passage of the bill, the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day. Anti-Paper Leak Amendment Bill Here is what bill that amends a 2024 law says: Empowers all state governments and Union Territory (UT) administrations to designate any Sessions Court as a Special Fast Track Court to try offences under the proposed law. Provides that proceedings in such Special Fast Track Courts be conducted on a day-to-day basis, and that trials be completed within three months from the date of filing of the chargesheet. Empowers the central government to constitute a Special Task Force to investigate any offence. Provides that investigations into offences under the legislation be completed within two months. Empowers all state governments and UT administrations to appoint one or more Special Public Prosecutors to conduct cases under the legislation. Provides an appeal mechanism against any judgment, sentence, or order before a bench of two High Court judges, with disposal of the appeal within three months from the date of its admission. Under the new law, individuals involved in paper leaks or unfair means in exams will face a minimum jail term of five years and a maximum of 10 years, along with a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh. For organised crimes, the bill proposes a minimum sentence of seven years and a fine of up to Rs 10 crore. The 2024 law was enacted after the government faced widespread controversy over paper leaks. Before this legislation, there was no specific substantive law to deal with unfair means adopted or offences committed by various entities involved in conducting public examinations by the central government and its agencies. The law aims to prevent unfair means in public examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), the Railways, banking recruitment examinations, and the National Testing Agency (NTA), among others. Having been passed by the Lok Sabha, the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill will now be introduced in the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House) for debate and voting. (With PTI Inputs)

By The Slate Bureau Staff Moscow, Jul 29 (AP) Russia's main domestic security agency said Wednesday that Pavel Durov, founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram, has been charged with aiding terrorism and put on an international wanted list. The charges against Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia but later moved abroad, came as the Russian authorities restricted Telegram, one of the most popular messaging apps in the country. It is part of a long-term effort to bring the internet under the Kremlin's full control that has intensified since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB, accused Telegram's administration in a statement of failing to remove “numerous channels, chats and bots” that are “actively used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorists, and extremist organisations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass murder, and cyberfraud" in Russia, which resulted in “numerous human casualties.” The agency accused Ukrainian security services of using a popular dating chatbot on Telegram to lure and recruit Russians for “sabotage and terrorist activities,” and said 46 users of the chatbot, from 12 to 22 years old, have been detained across Russia since July 2025 for assaulting law enforcement officers, arson and other acts. Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been placed on his birth country's wanted list over alleged legal violations linked to the messaging app. (AI-Generated Image) Durov earlier this year announced that the Russian authorities opened a criminal investigation against him and accused them of fabricating pretexts to restrict access to Telegram as part of an attempt to “suppress the right to privacy and free speech.” If convicted, the entrepreneur could face up to life in prison in Russia. Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its official website says that the company is based in Dubai and that Durov, who holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates, lives there, too. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russian authorities have engaged in multipronged efforts to rein in the internet. They have adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that don't comply, and focused on improving technology to monitor and manipulate online traffic. Multiple popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, have been banned in Russia; YouTube has been throttled; popular messaging apps, such as Signal and Viber, have been blocked, and the most popular ones — WhatsApp and Telegram — have been restricted. Russia's popular Facebook-like social media platform VK, founded by Durov long before he launched the Telegram messaging app, had come under the control of Kremlin-friendly companies. Russia tried to block Telegram between 2018 20 but failed. While it's still possible to circumvent some of the restrictions by using virtual private network services, many of them are routinely blocked, too. At the same time, Russia actively promotes the “national” messaging app known as MAX, which critics say could be used for surveillance. The platform is touted by developers and officials as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more. It openly declares it will share user data with authorities upon request, and experts also say it doesn't use end-to-end encryption. Durov has faced criminal investigations elsewhere. In 2024, he was arrested in Paris over allegations that his platform was being used for illicit activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images. Durov said in March 2025 that he returned to Dubai after spending “several months” in France. The Kremlin at the time criticised the French authorities for their move against Durov as “selective.” “I know that many countries have raised concerns about the platform being used in certain ways by certain individuals and entities whose activities could harm the economy or security of certain countries. I think the Russian government might also have had some questions," Putin said in September 2024, after Durov's arrest. “But all platforms of this kind are guilty of this. If this is what they're doing to Durov, then others should probably be arrested,” the Russian leader said, adding that the French government's “actions are not entirely clear to me, as they are selective.” (Except headline, the contents is sourced from a syndicated feed).

The Supreme Court has accepted CBI's closure report against late former PM Manmohan Singh in the Talabira-II coal block case, setting aside the summoning order and formally closing the matter. The bench found the trial court had no valid grounds to reject CBI's closure report and compel further proceedings, a ruling on procedural standard rather than a verdict on guilt. New Delhi, July 29: The Supreme Court's decision to accept the CBI's closure report against former prime minister Manmohan Singh formally ends a criminal proceeding that had already been rendered largely academic by his death in December 2024, but the bench's reasoning does something more precise than simply disposing of a moot appeal, it engages directly with the standard a trial court must apply when deciding whether to accept or reject a closure report filed by an investigating agency, and finds that the special court judge who took cognisance and summoned Singh had no basis to depart from that standard. A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was explicit that it could have disposed of the appeal as infructuous given Singh's death, which would have closed the matter without addressing whether the original summoning order was correct on its own terms. It chose not to take that route. Instead, the bench examined both closure reports filed by the CBI and applied what it described as the parameters this court has consistently laid down governing acceptance of an investigating agency's closure report, concluding that Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar had no reason to reject those reports and proceed to summon the six accused. This distinction matters because a closure report accepted on these grounds is not equivalent to an acquittal following trial on merits, it is a judicial finding that the investigating agency's conclusion not to prosecute was itself sound, evaluated against settled criteria for when a court may override that conclusion. The result for Singh is a formal, final closure of the case, but the legal architecture behind it concerns the limits of a trial court's discretion to second-guess an investigating agency, not a determination of guilt or innocence tested through evidence. The case's procedural history illustrates why that discretion became contested in the first place. The CBI's original FIR named former coal secretary P C Parakh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and Hindalco Industries in connection with the 2005 allocation of the Talabira-II coal block in Odisha, invoking criminal conspiracy provisions under the IPC alongside the Prevention of Corruption Act. When the agency later filed a closure report recommending no prosecution, the special court declined to accept it and instead directed the CBI to examine Singh, who held the coal portfolio at the time of the allocation, along with senior PMO officials including his then principal secretary T K A Nair and then private secretary B V R Subramanyam. That directive to examine Singh was itself stayed by the Supreme Court, and it was only after further investigation that the summoning order which forms the subject of this appeal was passed, prompting Singh to challenge it on the ground that no sanction for prosecuting a public official had been obtained, while denying any criminality in the coal block decision. What the Supreme Court's order resolves, then, is not merely Singh's individual liability but the narrower and procedurally more consequential question of whether a special court can reject an investigating agency's closure report and compel further proceedings against a former holder of high constitutional office absent a stronger evidentiary basis than existed here. The bench's finding, that there was no reason for the special judge to have taken cognisance over CBI's closure reports, operates as a check on trial court discretion in exactly this category of case, where a court substitutes its own view for the investigating agency's closure recommendation. Coming as it does after Singh's death, the ruling settles that question for the historical record rather than for any live prosecution, but the standard it reaffirms will bear on how closure reports in other public-servant corruption matters, including in the coal allocation cases still pending against other accused, are evaluated going forward.

Lok Sabha Adjourned: The Lower House disrupted twice as the Opposition demanded Union Home Minister Amit Shah's presence over the NEET protest and RAF action. By Pranjal Gupta New Delhi, July 29: Within minutes of Lok Sabha beginning the proceedings on Wednesday, it was adjourned till 2 pm due to the absence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The Opposition leaders argued that Shah must remain present in the Lower House to address the incident of firing at students during the NEET-UG protest at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. With slogans of "where is home minister," a wave of chaos took over the Parliament, leading to a pause till 2 pm. The Rapid Action Force (RAF) fired multiple non-lethal munitions, including two rounds of plastic pellets, under permission from a Delhi Police officer while controlling a mob near Jantar Mantar during the July 20 'Sansad Chalo' march by protesters on the NEET paper leak issue, officials said on Tuesday, citing official police records. The RAF is a specialised anti-riot wing of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The CRPF is a Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) that falls entirely under the command and authority of the Union Home Ministry. Therefore, the Opposition pressed for Amit Shah's presence in the Parliament. What Opposition Said Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury questioned about the home minister, and was joined by other Opposition leaders in demanding his presence in the House. "Where is the Home Minister? Call him here," Chowdhury said. "You fire at students..." she said, as slogans were raised demanding Shah to come to the House. Opposition members protest in Lok Sabha, demanding Amit Shah's presence as repeated disruptions force the House to adjourn twice in one day. (File Image) Following this, Chairman C P Radhakrishnan adjourned the House till 2 pm. Adjourned Twice on Single Day Earlier, the House was adjourned for about 40 minutes till 12 noon amid uproar by Opposition members over the entry of Delhi Police at the CPI(M) office in the national capital to arrest former JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh. The incident took place on Tuesday. Soon after listed papers were laid, CPI (M) Member John Brittas raised the issue, saying a Delhi Police team, in plain clothes, entered the party office to arrest Ghosh in the 2021 protest case in JNU. Brittas sought to relate the police action to the recent students' protest, saying Ghosh's only mistake was that she participated in the Jantar Mantar protest. Supporting him, Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge said democracy was under threat. Responding to the charges, Leader of the House J P Nadda said it was a normal law and order case. He said the police had to act accordingly, and the "police has acted accordingly". The Union minister also said that any student who indulges in activism faces such actions. The Rajya Sabha has been witnessing repeated disruptions since the beginning of the monsoon session on July 20. (With inputs from news agency PTI)

UN reform talks have failed for the 18th straight year, with the process rolled over yet again to 2027. India says the real problem isn't slow progress but design, any reform that adds seats without touching the five permanent members' veto power changes nothing. By Mahima Katal New Delhi, July 29: Seventeen rounds of negotiations on reforming the United Nations Security Council have produced no structural change to the body's decision-making architecture, and India's latest intervention at the UN General Assembly suggests this is not simply a failure of process but a reflection of what the Intergovernmental Negotiations were designed to avoid resolving. The General Assembly on Tuesday adopted a decision to roll over the IGN on Security Council reform to its 81st session, an annual procedural step that has now recurred for eighteen consecutive years without a concrete outcome or an end-date attached to the process. India joined the consensus to adopt the rollover but used the occasion to draw a sharper distinction than procedural frustration alone would suggest. Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, told the Assembly that the 80th IGN session, like those preceding it, had not produced outcomes capable of translating into actual reform, with cluster debates largely restating positions member states have held for years. The more consequential part of India's statement, however, concerned what reform would need to include to qualify as reform at all: an expansion of both the permanent and non-permanent categories of Council membership, with greater representation for the Global South. India has previously cautioned, and reiterated in substance here, that any outcome confined to expanding the non-permanent category alone would amount to a structural failure, since it would leave the decision-making power concentrated among the five permanent members unchanged regardless of how many additional seats are added around the table. This is the fault line that separates the reform debate from the diplomatic language typically used to describe it. The Uniting for Consensus group, comprising Canada, Pakistan, Türkiye and Italy, has proposed a 27-member Security Council expanded exclusively through additional non-permanent seats, leaving the permanent five and their veto authority untouched. India's position, aligned with the broader G4 push for permanent-seat expansion, treats this model as the version of reform that changes appearance without changing power. The distinction matters because the annual rollover itself does not indicate disagreement over whether reform is needed; every member state involved in the IGN process has, at some point, endorsed reform in principle. What the repeated rollovers indicate is disagreement over whether reform should touch the veto-holding core of the Council or leave it structurally intact while redistributing seats elsewhere. Harish's statement invoked the idea of successive cycles without resolution, framing the IGN's seventeen rounds as cycles that have not yet produced the intended outcome, and asked how much longer the process should be allowed to continue in its current form. He argued that the path to an actual outcome exists and is not mysterious: text-based negotiations conducted with defined timelines and milestones, rather than the recurring cluster debates that have characterised the IGN to date. India described the current arrangement as one in which member states restate known positions from within the UN's own institutional setting while the practical case for a Security Council capable of intervening meaningfully in ongoing conflicts grows harder to sustain outside it. The reform question intersects with India's own institutional interest in Council membership, though the two are procedurally distinct. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar formally launched India's campaign for a non-permanent Security Council seat for the 2028-29 term earlier this month, with elections for that single Asia-Pacific Group seat scheduled for June next year, where India will compete against Tajikistan. India has held a Council seat eight times since 1950, most recently in 2021-22. That contest, however, concerns the allocation of a seat within the Council's existing structure and does not bear on the separate, unresolved question of whether the structure itself will change. The rollover to the 81st session ensures that question remains open, with no indication from Tuesday's proceedings of what would need to shift for the eighteenth year of negotiations to produce a different result than the previous seventeen.

Jerusalem, Jul 28 (AP) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday is the first since the two leaders launched a joint war against Iran and marks a chance for Netanyahu to smooth out strains in their relationship. The meeting comes as both face growing pressures at home. Netanyahu is up for reelection and is embattled in part because of his deteriorating relationship with Trump. Trump is under pressure to end an unpopular war that has wreaked economic havoc and driven prices higher ahead of midterm elections this November. Trump revealed some tension with Netanyahu ahead of their meeting, complaining Tuesday about reports that the Israeli leader plans to discuss intelligence on Iranian activities at Pickaxe Mountain, a potential nuclear site that the US president has threatened repeatedly to bomb. “I know exactly what's going on at Pickaxe,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” He insisted that whatever Iran is doing is “not a big problem” and that “Bibi's telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.” US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House amid emerging differences over Iran, Gaza and regional diplomacy. “Why do you have to announce to the world?” Trump added, flashing his frustrations with his ally. The two leaders also plan to discuss the framework agreement the US and Israel signed with Lebanon over the Israel-Hezbollah war and the expansion of the Abraham Accords, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the meeting. “We have a little difference,” Trump said Monday when asked by reporters if he and the Israeli prime minister were on the same page with Iran. “But pretty close, yeah.” Trump and Netanyahu's relationship has ebbed before Trump has had a hot-and-cold history with Netanyahu over the years, but upon his return to the White House last year, their alliance seemed stronger than ever. When they started the war together in February, it was with a united front, touting their respective militaries as acting in lockstep to take out Iran's leadership and pave the way for a government more friendly to the West. But as Iran fought back — sending drones and missiles slamming into US bases and high-rises in cities in the Gulf, and choking off the Strait of Hormuz — Trump came under immense pressure both at home and by allies in the region to end the conflict. Since then, Netanyahu, who wanted to continue the fighting in Iran and against its ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, has been sidelined as Trump sought a deal with Tehran. His visit to the White House this week comes as the disagreements with Trump and Vice President JD Vance have burst into the open over the war in Iran and more. “The Americans are making it clear to the Israelis they are the ones who are running the war,” Israeli journalist and political analyst Amit Segal wrote Monday in the daily newspaper, Israel Hayom. “It is clear to everyone that Israel has been put in the back seat.” Netanyahu keeping focus on Iran's nuclear programme With US-Iran tensions flaring again in recent weeks, Netanyahu plans to share with Trump Israeli intelligence on Tehran's nuclear programme, according to a person familiar with Netanyahu's visit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. On Fox News Channel's “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, Netanyahu said he hoped to sit down with Trump “to hear what he has in mind” for Iran. “Because I think, in many ways, it's his decision” on how to move forward, Netanyahu said. “If he can do so without returning to intense military fighting, that's fine. Why not? "But one way or the other, they have to end their nuclear programme,” he said of Iran. Netanyahu also used the interview to warn Iran against attacking his country, saying Israel's response would be “very forceful.” (Except headline, the content is sourced from news agency AP) Steps to allow other forces in Gaza and in Lebanon ----------------------------------------------------------- But even as Netanyahu sees an opportunity, he also needs to persuade Trump that he won't play spoiler to US diplomatic and reconstruction efforts in Gaza and in Lebanon, where the president has previously complained that “too many people are being killed” by Israeli strikes. Israel has taken recent steps in both places. In Lebanon, where the Israeli military occupies much of the south, Israel agreed to allow the Lebanese army to deploy to some villages as part of a “pilot programme” testing their ability to secure areas where Hezbollah once operated. The US State Department said Monday that the next round of talks between Israel and Lebanon will take place next week in Rome with a focus on expanding the programme. On Gaza, Israel's security cabinet green-lit on Sunday a measure that would, in theory, grant entry to the first members of an international stabilisation force outlined last year in a US-backed ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Few countries have pledged troops for the force, however, and Israel would approve their entry into Gaza on a case-by-case basis. The troops — including from Morocco and Uganda — would only be allowed to operate in a small, desolate area in Rafah in the south, where the plan is to vet and house some displaced Palestinians. The Israeli military continues to carry out strikes it says target militants but that have also killed civilians. Support for Israel has eroded ---------------------------------- Israel has lost a significant amount of bipartisan support in the United States, particularly over its conduct in Gaza. In June, Vance warned Israeli officials that Trump was their only friend among world leaders. Vance is expected to attend the meeting with Netanyahu, according to a person familiar with the plan who was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. An AP-NORC poll published earlier this month found a dramatic erosion of support among American adults for Israel. “We've lost America. Thank you, Bibi,” wrote Ben Caspit, a political commentator for Israel's Maariv newspaper.

By Ajay Haldar New Delhi, July 28: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday lashed out against the government in Parliament over the anti-paper leak bill. She questioned why pellet guns were used against students, asking if they were terrorists. Speaking in support of the students, she remarked that one should not mock anyone's suffering. She also questioned why the government fears the country's youth, alleging that the education system has been filled with RSS members. Addressing the Lok Sabha, Priyanka Gandhi stated that this system is crushing the future of children. She asked if the demand for action against paper leaks was not legitimate. She further noted that while the students were protesting peacefully, they were subjected to a lathi-charge. She demanded to know who had ordered the use of pellet guns against the students. Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi speaks in Lok Sabha, questioning pellet gun use against students during the debate on the anti-paper leak bill. (Representative Image) Priyanka Gandhi expressed regret that, despite all this, the Prime Minister and his associates still believe they can sail through by relying on PR and other such tactics. Accusing the government, she pointed out that while the country's education budget stands at ₹1.4 lakh crore, ₹1.32 lakh crore is collected from NEET aspirants. She remarked that the former Education Minister was being felicitated just a day after a family in Maharashtra was mourning the death of their daughter. She questioned what exactly they were proud of and what kind of arrogance this was—honoring someone when there ought to be shame.

MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal addresses media after questions over Pakistani support for the student-led CJP protest in New Delhi. By Pranjal Gupta New Delhi, July 28: The student-led protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar received support from beyond India's borders. From climate activist Greta Thunberg in London to young people in Pakistan, voices of solidarity emerged for the movement, which concluded with the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister. When questioned about expressions of support from Pakistani social media handles and youth groups, official channels in New Delhi drew a clear distinction between India's domestic democratic movement and cross-border geopolitical issues. "Let me say that, as we all are aware, Pakistan has been sponsoring cross-border terrorism against India for several decades now. The people of India, including Gen Z, have been demanding that Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism must come to an end. We hope their counterparts are taking due note," Randhir Jaiswal told the press. Two Sides of Pakistan Last week, when the Jantar Mantar was still echoing with demands for fair education system, several Pakistani influencers claimed to have same concerns in their country. They asked the Delhi protestors to remain united and vigilant. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal addresses media after questions over Pakistani support for the student-led CJP protest in New Delhi. However, their government categorically kept itself from making any comment, saying it was India's "personal matter". The Protest What began as a satirical social media response to controversial public remarks quickly evolved into a disciplined nationwide movement. The protests culminated over the weekend with Pradhan's resignation from the Cabinet, marking one of the most significant youth-led political outcomes in recent Indian history. While international figures such as Thunberg praised the movement as a masterclass in peaceful civil resistance, Indian diplomats maintained that the CJP's victory was an entirely domestic democratic achievement. The Ministry of External Affairs reiterated that India's youth continue to demand accountability within the country's democratic framework while remaining steadfast against cross-border terrorism and any attempts by foreign actors to exploit internal discourse.

Nepal India Border Curfew: Nepal imposes curfew in Sunsari after communal violence near the India border leaves one dead, several injured, and tensions unresolved. By Pranjal Gupta New Delhi, July 28: Rallies, demonstrations, public meetings, sit-ins and the assembly of more than four persons at a time are currently prohibited in several parts of Nepal bordering India. On Sunday, communal tension broke out between two religious communities over the use of loudspeakers, escalating into violence. Police personnel were prompted into action and opened fire to disperse the crowd, making the situation even more volatile. One person was killed in the police firing, while many others were injured. According to the District Administration Office (DAO), Sunsari, curfew and prohibitory orders will remain in effect from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm on Tuesday in several areas. The DAO issued a notice announcing restrictions across the entire Harinagar and Devgunj rural municipalities, while curfew is in force in five market areas of Harinagar, Bhutaha, Kaptangunj, Ghuski and Devangunj. Brief Pause on Curfew Curfew was lifted along the East-West Highway passing through Sunsari district from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm to facilitate the movement of travellers. It was reimposed at 3:00 pm. Nepal India Border Curfew: Security personnel enforce curfew in Nepal's Sunsari district after communal violence near the India border left one dead and several injured. What and Where It Happened The restrictions in the district were first imposed on Monday after communal violence erupted on Sunday in the Kaptangunj area. One person was killed and more than a dozen people, including security personnel, were injured when police opened fire to disperse clashing groups after a dispute during celebrations by two religious communities, police said. Two of the injured remain in a serious condition, according to police. The violence broke out after members of two religious communities, who were holding separate programmes, clashed over the use of loudspeakers and the display of religious flags. A verbal altercation escalated into violence, prompting security personnel to intervene. Situation Being Monitored Meanwhile, Chief District Officer Ishowari Prasad Aryal convened a meeting of representatives of political parties and local stakeholders to review the security situation and explore measures to ease tensions. Acting Chief District Officer Poshan Lamichhane said demonstrations have continued in various parts of the district despite the prohibitory orders imposed by the local administration. "We are holding discussions with representatives of various political parties and civil society members to maintain peace and restore normalcy in the district," he said. The District Administration Office in neighbouring Morang has prohibited the use of DJs at religious, cultural and social functions across the district in view of the sensitive situation following the violence in Sunsari. Sunsari, located in southeastern Nepal along the border with India's Bihar, is an important transit and commercial corridor between the two countries. (With Inputs from news agency PTI).

The Supreme Court barred coercive action against NEET protesters and ordered release of minors without criminal records, while allowing Delhi's FIRs to proceed rather than quashing them. It also directed states to preserve all protest-related digital evidence, CCTV, drone and body-camera footage, without making protester data public, and flagged a possible independent probe or SIT. New Delhi, July 28: The Supreme Court's intervention in the student-led protests against the NEET paper leak illustrates a familiar but consequential pattern in Indian constitutional litigation: a bench choosing to regulate process rather than adjudicate merits at the interim stage. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, sitting with Justices Joymala Bagchi and V Mohana, restrained states from taking coercive action against protesters while explicitly declining to close the FIRs already registered, and directed the release of minors involved in the agitation on the condition that they carry no criminal antecedents. The order neither vindicates the protesters' claim that the criminal cases against them are retaliatory nor endorses the state's continued use of arrest and custody as an investigative tool. It does something narrower and, in its own way, more disciplined: it lets the investigation proceed while foreclosing the coercive machinery that ordinarily accompanies one. That distinction matters because the petitions before the court did not merely allege police excess in the abstract. They arose from a specific and escalating sequence, the Cockroach Janta Party-led march on July 20 in Delhi, which spread to several states and drew allegations of pellet gun use, lathis fitted with nails, and electric batons producing what the bench itself described as severe and life-threatening injuries. The protests sought the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak, a demand the government met on Saturday alongside a commitment to compensate the families of those who had died by suicide during the agitation and to withdraw FIRs against protesters generally. The order under discussion carves out an exception to that withdrawal commitment for the Delhi FIRs specifically, permitting the investigation to continue while ring-fencing protesters from arrest or custodial coercion during its pendency. The bench's language is instructive on where it drew that line. It stated that whoever committed excesses or took the law into their own hands should be taken to task, a formulation aimed symmetrically at both police conduct and any protester-driven violence, including the reported attacks on over 250 police personnel that the court has asked to be independently examined alongside the allegations against the state. This is not a court treating the protest as uniformly lawful or the police response as uniformly unlawful. It is a court withholding judgment on both until a fact-finding mechanism, potentially an independent committee or a Special Investigation Team, can establish what happened, while using its interim powers to prevent either side's conduct from being punished or exonerated by default in the meantime. Procedurally, the more far-reaching part of the order may be the directions on evidence preservation rather than the protection from coercive action itself. The bench directed states to preserve CCTV footage, drone recordings, body-camera footage, wireless communication records and PCR logs relating to the protests, while barring the public release of any digital data collected on individual protesters. This combination, preserve but do not disclose, addresses two separate risks simultaneously: the risk that evidence relevant to establishing what occurred on July 20 and after could be lost or overwritten before any probe is constituted, and the risk that data gathered on protesters could itself be used to identify, surveil or intimidate them in the interim. Read against the diary-entry disclosures already emerging in reporting on the RAF's use of pellet guns that day, the preservation direction functions as an anticipatory safeguard, ensuring that the documentary record the courts and any future SIT will need does not degrade while the larger question of an independent probe remains under consideration. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta's submissions on behalf of the Centre and the Delhi government sought to locate responsibility for the violence outside the student body itself, telling the bench that individuals with records in serious offences, including murder, rape and cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, had entered the protests and perpetrated violence against police personnel, distinct from the students who had gathered peacefully and retained the right to do so. The bench did not reject this account, but it did not adopt it as a finding either. Instead, both the government's characterisation of "miscreants" and the protesters' allegations of disproportionate force were left as competing claims for the contemplated probe to test, with the Centre and states directed to place their versions on record before the court considers constituting an independent mechanism. The Chief Justice's observation that it was time to collate the legal principles courts have developed on protest policing over the years, and to arrive at uniform protocols governing such situations, signals an ambition beyond this particular batch of petitions. Indian courts have addressed the boundaries of permissible force against protesters episodically, case by case, without a consolidated doctrinal framework analogous to, for instance, the graded-response standards developed in some other jurisdictions for crowd control. Whether this bench eventually produces such a framework, or confines itself to resolving the specific allegations before it, remains to be seen once the states and the Centre file their responses and the court decides on the composition of any SIT or task force. What Tuesday's order establishes for now is narrower but still significant: an interim architecture under which the criminal process continues, the evidentiary record is preserved, and the coercive power of the state is held in abeyance until that process, and the independent probe the court is contemplating, can determine what actually happened.

RBI Plastic Notes: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has once again proposed to switched cotton-rag currency notes to plastic ones. The government has allowed the testing of plastic notes of Rs 10 and Rs 20 alongside the traditional ones. By Pranjal Gupta New Delhi, July 28: India sets the stage to induce currency notes of Rs 10 and Rs 20 in polymer form for field trials. The central government has given the approval to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) proposal to switching cotton-rag notes to plastic ones. The proposal was first announced in 2012, but did not make any significant growth. However, the Centre has clarified that there is no plan to wipe out the existing notes. Instead, the new notes will be circulated alongside the current ones to check and compare their efficiency. Government Approves Trial of RBI Polymer Notes The Centre's intention of the plastic notes were revealed by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary while replying to a question in the Lok Sabha. He said the RBI had proposed issuing one billion Rs 10 polymer notes and one billion Rs 20 polymer notes for field trials. He said the idea was proposed by the RBI's Central Board and the government has given it an approval. If the trials are successful, the RBI may begin regular circulation of polymer notes in these denominations. Why Is RBI Introducing Polymer Notes? The main reason is durability. According to the RBI, international experience shows that polymer notes last much longer than traditional paper notes. Lower denomination notes such as Rs 10 and Rs 20 change hands frequently and wear out quickly. RBI Plastic Notes: India revives polymer currency plan with field trials for Rs 10 and Rs 20 notes. (AI-Generated Image) A longer lifespan means: Fewer replacement notes Lower printing and handling costs over time Less waste Better quality notes in circulation The RBI believes these benefits could improve India's currency management system. Will Polymer Notes Affect Digital Payments? The government says it is too early to assess the impact. Minister Pankaj Chaudhary told Parliament that the proposal is still in the trial stage. Any effect on digital payments can only be studied after polymer notes enter regular circulation. He also said that cash and digital payments complement each other and both will continue to be available for public use. Why Has the Plan Returned After 14 Years? The proposal gained fresh momentum after Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited (BRBNMPL), a subsidiary of the RBI, issued an Expression of Interest (EOI) inviting companies to supply polymer substrate with advanced security features for printing banknotes. The RBI subsidiary said the current requirement is only for field trials. If the trials are successful, it plans to purchase larger quantities through future tenders. This indicates that the RBI is preparing for a possible wider rollout in the future. India First Proposed Polymer Notes in 2012 This is not a new idea. In December 2012, the RBI and the Government of India announced plans to introduce one billion Rs 10 polymer notes in five cities on a trial basis. At that time, the government said the aim was to increase the life of banknotes rather than fight counterfeit currency. The project never moved forward and remained on hold for more than a decade. What Are Polymer Notes? Polymer notes are banknotes printed on a special plastic-like material instead of paper. Unlike ordinary paper, polymer is: Non-porous Water resistant More durable Harder to tear Easier to keep clean Current Indian banknotes are printed on paper made entirely from long cotton fibres. They do not contain wood pulp, so trees are not cut to produce Indian currency. Which Countries Already Use Polymer Notes? More than 60 countries use polymer banknotes in some form. Australia became the first country to introduce polymer currency in 1988. Other countries using polymer notes include: Australia Canada United Kingdom New Zealand Singapore Malaysia Thailand Vietnam Many of these countries have reported lower replacement costs because polymer notes last much longer than paper currency. What Happens Next? The RBI will now begin field trials of one billion Rs 10 polymer notes and one billion Rs 20 polymer notes. The trials will help the central bank study: Durability in Indian weather conditions Public acceptance Printing quality Handling by banks and ATMs Overall cost effectiveness If the trials are successful, the RBI may gradually introduce polymer notes into wider circulation while continuing to use paper banknotes. For now, the government has made one point clear. Polymer notes are being tested to improve the quality and lifespan of Indian currency, not to replace every paper note in circulation.

Bombay HC granted Nitin Gadkari leave under Clause XII of the Letters Patent to sue Meta, X and Google over alleged deepfakes, ruling that content's accessibility in Maharashtra suffices to root part of the cause of action there. The order only clears a jurisdictional threshold, questions of platform liability under IT Act safe harbour provisions remain untested. By Mahima Katal The Bombay High Court's order allowing Union Minister Nitin Gadkari to sue Meta Platforms, X Corp, Google LLC and unknown persons over allegedly defamatory deepfakes settles a threshold question and nothing more. Justice Abhay Ahuja's grant of leave under Clause XII of the Letters Patent clears Gadkari to file the suit in Bombay despite the fact that the impugned content, and the unidentified persons who uploaded it, may have no clear physical connection to Maharashtra at all. The order does not touch the question that will actually decide the case: whether Meta, X and Google can be held liable for content that unknown third parties uploaded to their platforms. Gadkari's counsel, Sandeep Ladda, secured leave by arguing that the allegedly defamatory and deepfake material concerning the ethanol-blended fuel programme is accessible to users within Maharashtra, and that this accessibility supplies a substantial part of the cause of action within the state's territorial limits. The court accepted the submission. That finding lets the suit proceed, but a suit permitted to be filed is not a suit decided, and the platforms named as defendants have not yet had occasion to respond. When they do, the central contest is likely to run through Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, which grants intermediaries conditional immunity from liability for third-party content hosted on their platforms, subject to compliance with due diligence obligations and the requirement that they act on actual knowledge of unlawful content, typically triggered by a court order or government notification. Platforms have historically resisted being treated as publishers of user-generated content, arguing instead that their function is that of a conduit, and Indian courts have had to work out, case by case, where that conduit function ends and editorial or publisher-like responsibility begins, particularly once a platform has been notified of specific unlawful material and has failed to act. Gadkari's proposed suit seeks a permanent injunction restraining the continued availability of content that, he claims, falsely attributes personal responsibility for the fuel programme to him and falsely suggests financial benefit to him and his family. Framed this way, the claim sits in defamation, not in the personality or publicity rights framework that has anchored a separate recent line of Indian cases involving unauthorised AI-generated use of a public figure's name, voice or likeness. That distinction will matter once the platforms respond, since a defamation claim against an intermediary invites arguments about safe harbour and actual knowledge that a personality rights claim, framed around unauthorised commercial exploitation of identity, does not squarely raise in the same way. There is also the more basic evidentiary problem sitting underneath the jurisdictional order: the suit names unknown persons as defendants because the actual uploaders of the deepfake content have not been identified. Discovery against the platforms, to the extent Indian procedure permits it in this context, may become the practical mechanism through which Gadkari's side attempts to trace the origin of the content, which in turn raises further questions about what platforms can be compelled to disclose about anonymous or pseudonymous users, and under what conditions. None of this diminishes what Monday's order accomplished. Leave to sue under Clause XII is not a formality, and the reasoning by which accessibility within the forum was treated as sufficient to root part of the cause of action there is itself a data point in how Indian courts are approaching territorial jurisdiction over globally hosted online content. But the order is a gate, not a verdict, and the more consequential legal questions, on intermediary liability, safe harbour, and the platforms' actual knowledge obligations, remain entirely untested by anything decided so far.