India

This Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) is qualitatively different in methodology (including sampling) from the earlier Household Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) last conducted in 2011-12, and therefore the two are not comparable. So the claim that India’s poverty has declined to below 5% doesn’t hold water: Second, the NITI Aayog has made no effort to even determine an official poverty line, last defined in the Census 2001.

Bihar’s electoral roll crisis: ECI defends excluding Voter IDs for new entries and power to citizenship verification; ECI’s revision flags 52.3 Lakh (6.62%) electors not found at their addresses (including 18.6L deceased, 26L shifted, 7.5L multiple entries and 11K untraceable voters), amid concerns over disenfranchisement of genuine voters and procedural hurdles, opposition stages black-clad protests outside the Bihar assembly

Marketed as a tool to fight disinformation, the Karnataka Misinformation and Fake News (Prohibition) Bill, 2025 hands sweeping powers to the executive, criminalises speech, and threatens to silence dissent, satire, and critique—under vague and ideological pretexts

Questioning the modus of the recently begun controversial SIR exercise, the TDP letter to Election Commission (ECI) states categorically that any such ‘Special Intensive Revision’ (SIR) should provide voters enough time, and that those in electoral rolls must not be required to re-establish eligibility “unless specific and verifiable reasons are recorded”

A recent article by noted economist Indira Hirway, titled...

An intrepid critique of entrenched and entitled Muslim elites, CM Naim, a historian and essayist, recently passed away at 85. Here his work is remembered for its out of the box thinking and commitment to both the culture and language around Urdu; an essay that recalls his works

The UP-born professor was said to be among the finest and authoritative voices on Urdu.

The ECI's credibility, already under sharp public scrutiny post-Lok Sabha Elections 2024, is further strained by its Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) order of June 24, a controversial directive announced even after electoral rolls were finalised in January 2025: the move faces multiple judicial challenges before the Supreme Court. Hearings are scheduled before a vacation bench tomorrow, July 10

Over 440 people, mostly Bengali-speaking migrant workers, have been detained in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district under suspicion of being “illegal Bangladeshis”, prompting a political storm, allegations of ethnic profiling, and appeals for immediate release

Electricity workers, employees and officers have been on agitation...