Kumar

They agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything

[Kumar @Cumar]

@ushrit2020 I envy your optimism

[Vinay Kumar @bahudari]

Very few newspapers will be on the right side of history.

@the_hindu is one of them

[PKR | প্রশান্ত | پرشانتو @prasanto]

A year into the SIR, we still don't know who took the decision to do this exercise and why. An RTI response from the ECI told us that this decision was not taken in the ECI. Which begs the question: Where was it taken? Was it taken in BJP HQ? Or somewhere else? Now, a year down, crores of citizens have been disenfranchised because a secret algorithm decided they were not eligible to vote: @AnjaliB_ at the Conclave on Federalism & Citizenship. [Social activist Anjali Bhardwaj is an influential voice in transparency and accountability.]

[Nirupama Menon Rao 🇮🇳 @NMenonRao]

A yellowing newspaper clipping from @the_hindu from September 1979 recalls a landmark moment in the history of the Indian Foreign Service.

This report records the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case brought by Ambassador C.B. Muthamma after she was denied promotion to Grade I of the Indian Foreign Service despite an outstanding record of service.

While the immediate issue before the Court was her non-promotion and seniority, the judgment went much further. The Court expressed deep concern over service rules that discriminated against women, observing that ��the stain of sex discrimination” should be removed without waiting for further litigation.

Some of its words remain strikingly relevant even today. The Court spoke of the “disturbing thought” that prejudice against women could still pervade government service decades after Independence, and reminded the Government that equality of opportunity is a constitutional guarantee, not a concession.

I joined the Indian Foreign Service only a few years before this judgment. For women officers of my generation, it marked a turning point. We owed a debt of gratitude to C.B. Muthamma, whose determination to contest the injustice done to her helped transform the professional landscape for those who followed.

Progress in institutions rarely comes by accident. It comes because individuals of courage insist that merit, not prejudice, must determine opportunity. Ambassador Muthamma’s case stands as one of those defining moments when constitutional values prevailed over entrenched convention.

Nearly half a century later, this fragile newspaper clipping reminds us that lasting institutional reform often begins with one person refusing to accept unfairness in silence.

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

Apart from Rape Threats, There are several videos of Hindutva Influencers abusing and threatening Sitting Judge Tabasum Khan.
Below videos by - @Anurag_Dwary

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

‘Give him any award, and he’ll come running’: Narendra Modi racks up honours on overseas trips

The world is taking note of the Indian Prime Minister.

https://t.co/IkNMkydMhy

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

Indian Billionaire Son Anant Ambani visits the world's famous Oncologist, Dr. Dheerendra Shastri from Bageshwar Dham. Dr. Dheerendra Shastri prescribes cow urine as a cure for cancer.

[Sucheta Dalal @suchetadalal]

This is not limited to rush hour. Wake up Mumbai politicians/industrialists! ordinary Mumbaikars are forever on edge- incessant honking, mindless crush in trains, buses; reckless driving; zero traffic rules; blocked pavements; endless construction! It is waiting to burst!

[The Indian Express @IndianExpress]

🚨 #ExpressInvestigation | The Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Bhagirath Choudhary, received a subsidy of Rs 99 lakh for his cucumber farm under a scheme administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare.

The subsidy was granted under the "Development of Commercial Horticulture through Production and Post-Harvest Management of Horticulture Crops" scheme, which aims to promote large-scale commercial cultivation of select vegetables and flowers.

Under the scheme, eligible beneficiaries — including individuals, farmer groups, companies, cooperatives and other institutions — can receive a subsidy of up to 50 per cent of the project cost, capped at Rs 1 crore per family.

The subsidy is linked to a term loan taken for the project and is released after the completion of the project, following multiple stages of approval and inspection by the National Horticulture Board (NHB).

Express Investigation by: Harikishan Sharma

[ParanjoyGuhaThakurta @paranjoygt]

The Telegraph editor’s passport not being renewed in Kolkata

Note from R. Rajagopal
Former Editor, The Telegraph
——-
In March this year, my name was deleted from the Ballygunge constituency electoral roll in Kolkata, apparently because the Special Intensive Revision process could not trace either my name or that of my late father in the 2002 voters' list. My father, a Gandhian, retired professor and former State Secretary of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi in Kerala, passed away in 2016. I remain unable to understand how a conscientious voter like him could have been absent from the rolls.

Like nearly 27 lakh other residents of West Bengal, I was excluded on account of what were described as “logical discrepancies”. No reason was furnished even after I submitted my matriculation certificate, and my appeal is now pending before one of the tribunals constituted pursuant to the Supreme Court's directions. As a consequence, I was unable to vote in the recent election.

More distressing has been the fate of my passport renewal application. Although I completed the biometric formalities on March 19, 2026, police verification has not been cleared because my name no longer appears on the electoral roll. Despite submitting several alternative documents, I have been informed that they are insufficient. In fact, today (June 27, 2026) is the 100th day since my biometrics for passport renewal were taken. I was formally informed last week by the passport-issuing authority that Kolkata Police sent an adverse report, citing the deletion of my name from the voters' list. I have been asked to appear before the Regional Passport Office in Calcutta "immediately" but when I sought an appointment, without which it is difficult to gain entry, the date granted is July 17, 2026.

In between, our daughter, a journalist in California, got married in San Francisco on April 17. Needless to say, it would have been impossible for me to attend the wedding in the absence of an active passport, notwithstanding my possession of a valid ten-year US visa.

For all practical purposes, I find myself in a state of civic uncertainty although recently the government iterated that a passport is no proof of citizenship. Much of my time is now consumed by efforts to reconstruct family records and secure documents dating back several decades….

My days begin with checking my voting right appeal status and then the passport tracker. Then I write to the college where my mother taught in 1965 and to her school from where she passed out in 1959, asking for any document that proves she existed. The school has been very helpful but not the college. Similarly, I speak to prohibition campaign activists in Kerala, running down a list I collected after coming across an activist's name in a group by chance, asking for any news clipping or photographs that show my father campaigning against illegal liquor vends and communalism.

Some close friends and public figures have helped me in all these efforts. However, I am unaware if any media outlet or journalists' association or guild (of which I am not a member) has shown any interest in my situation. A senior journalist reminded me that this situation is by no means unique as "rejection" has been the daily certainty confronting millions of Indians for centuries. I accept that point.

My intention has never been to project myself as a victim. Rather, I have wanted to underline a larger point: if someone who spent his professional life in journalism and edited a relatively known newspaper can encounter such difficulties, one can only imagine what the truly marginalised must endure. Did I approach any newspaper? No, because I do not want it to become an issue concerning me. Do editors and journalists know about my issue? Of course, several do. If they don't, they should not be in the profession, don't you think?

Yet, the complete silence of newspapers on this issue has confirmed my suspicion, now reinforced with personal experience, that so-called mainstream journalism has little to do with my life. I do not "read" any newspaper now. I glance at some but hardly find anything that piques my interest.

[Saurabh Bharadwaj @Saurabh_MLAgk]

गिरो
Fall

[Siddharth @svaradarajan]

We need to strongly caveat this formulation of yours:

"A passport is issued because the Government has satisfied itself that you are an Indian citizen. It is therefore powerful evidence of citizenship in ordinary life and in international travel. But in a legal dispute over citizenship itself, the governing law remains the Citizenship Act, and a passport is not conclusive proof that overrides all other evidence."

Unless its validity is undermined on proper grounds, an Indian passport has to be treated as conclusive proof of Indian citizenship just as a Driving License is proof that a person is authorised to drive a motor vehicle.

If there is a legal dispute, and it is proved subsequently that the passport or DL were acquired through fraudulent means or doctored evidence (in contravention of the Passport Act or Citizenship Act, or the MV Act) then the passport or DL can be impounded or revoked.

Of course, in the case of a revoked/impounded passport, the person will likely still remain a citizen because (under the Citizenship Act) that is based simply on the status of someone either (1) being born in India before 1987; or (2) being born in India after 1987 to at least one Indian parent; or (3) being born in India after 1987 to at least one Indian parent, provided the other parent is not in India 'illegally'; or (4) being naturalised through residence, marriage, refugee status etc. All of this subject to, inter alia, the person not having acquired the citizenship of another country.

At the time of issuing an Indian passport to an individual, it is expected that the Indian State would have definitively satisfied itself that the applicant belongs to one of these categories. This is because the very first grounds on which a passport is to be refused under Section 6(2) of the Passports Act, 1967 is: "(a) that the applicant is not a citizen of India."

If it emerges that the individual fabricated evidence and acquired an Indian passport fraudulently, including the proof of his citizenship, then the issuing authority has the power under Section 10 of the Passport Act to impound/revoke it. Thereby depriving the concerned individual of this proof of citizenship.

The individual has the right to challenge this cancellation in court but let us be clear : the dispute is actually not over the citizenship of the person but over whether a particular document – i.e. passport – which the Indian State tells the world is proof of Indian citizenship – was acquired fraudulently.

To come back to the DL analogy, a person is authorised to drive a motor vehicle on the strength of the DL. It is *proof* of this authorisation. Tomorrow, it may be canceled if the person violates the DL's terms or if it is established that they acquired it illegally. But to say it is not "proof" of the person's authorisation to drive would be plain wrong.

The reason this is such a big deal is because what the Modi government is doing is introducing arbitrariness in administration, with a view to penalising and disenfranchising individuals considered politically suspect by the ruling BJP and perhaps eventually even stripping bona fide citizens of their citizenship.

Why do I say this? Because modern democratic States put in place systems in order to avoid adhocism and arbitariness (and corruption) in administrative functioning. In the case of passports, the Indian State devised rules based on the Passport Act (and, indirectly, the Citizenship Act) which apply to all, which every applicant must satisfy, following which a passport is issued, as proof that the rules the Indian State devised in order to implement the Passport Act—which bars Indian passports for those who are not Indian citizens (with one narrow exception, under Section 20)—have been complied with.

Once the Competent Authority issues a passport, it is not up to other officials or branches of government to say "this is not proof that you are an Indian citizen". If a government official or department has doubts, it needs to inform the competent authority, which will decide if suitable action — i.e. revocation or impounding — is required or not, and then follow the set procedure.

It is dangerous to say "in a legal dispute over citizenship itself, the governing law remains the Citizenship Act" because if one says a passport is not enough, then no document can ever be enough—not a birth certificate, not even a video cleared by the FSL in Gujarat showing a bonny baby emerging from their mother's womb (with a pre-1987 date stamp, to take the simplest example). Once we say a citizenship dispute can only be settled by reference to the Citizenship Act and not by any document issued by the Competent Authority, one is opening the door to shady Citizenship Tribunals staffed by shadier political appointees or officials.

In short, one has entered the world of Kafka. A world designed for Joseph K and Jamal K. But probably not for Jagdishbhai K.

[Sumanth Raman @sumanthraman]

The way the National media has ignored the @IndianExpress allegations and expose against MP CM Mohan Yadav is simply shameful. 15 years ago this would have been headline news for weeks and the man may have lost his job. Now there is only silence.

[Tony Joseph @tjoseph0010]

Essentially, there is nothing that can prove you are a citizen. It has to be decided on a case by case basis, for a limited period at a time, by the 'proper authorities' using their intuition and gut-feeling. Since no one can at any point of time be sure if they are a citizen or not, they need to, at all times, be propitiating the 'authorities concerned', so that whenever required, they may be granted a few drops of citizenship. Radical reinvention of the Constitution that we can all applaud. The next step towards progress could be to determine four hereditary hierarchies of citizenship.

[Yogendra Yadav @_YogendraYadav]

The true significance of Rahul Gandhi’s June 8 address to the INDIA bloc leaders lies in its diagnosis and prescription. This is the first clear-eyed recognition by the Opposition of a watershed moment in our political life: India’s transition from competitive authoritarianism to electoral autocracy. This is also the first coherent articulation of a strategic shift: The Opposition’s transition from politics of electoral contestation to politics of resistance.

Read: https://t.co/wnBbsIkceC

[Andy Mukherjee @andymukherjee70]

India’s education system is mired in exam-related chaos, causing deep anxiety among students and parents. In the middle of all this comes a hasty switch to a weird 3-language policy. Parents have gone to court. A link to my latest column below 👇 https://t.co/CSSy9Ojl6G

[Joy @Joydas]

Telegram will be blocked in India till June 22 for NEET exam. This is a great move because it was Telegram which was responsible for paper setting and leaks. If still paper leaks, next option is to block Internet in India.

[वरुण 🇮🇳 @varungrover]

Living in 100% Amrit Kaal,
driving 80% ethanol cars,
breathing 60% polluted air,
drinking 40% adulterated milk,
in an education system with 20% credibility,
to get killed with 0% dignity, by USA missiles, by mob lynchings, by a badly made bridge or a pothole, or just a stampede.

[Tony Joseph @tjoseph0010]

When you raid a store of goodwill your predecessors have left behind for you, it feels really great. As if a new era has opened. Until the store becomes empty and everyone realises that you created virtually nothing and was simply coasting along on the achievements of your predecessors. In foreign affairs, in economy, in institutional credibility. The crash that follows can be very hurting emotionally.

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

Look at the public statement released by Rubio. This is what this lot - Modi, Doval and Jaishankar- have reduced India to. Unable to protect Indian lives, and being threatened when one of them tries to mildly object about it. Modi’s silence, of course, is the most galling.