South Asia

The Court’s refusal to treat voter IDs, PAN cards, bank records and ancestral documents as proof of nationality highlights the widening gap between documentary recognition by the State and legal recognition of citizenship

A sessions court points to hostile witnesses, unexplained delays, lack of identification procedures and forensic inconsistencies; accused, all of whom who were Muslim, spent up to 827 days in jail

Maharashtra, with 9,78,54,049 has electors which is the base figure for the re-examination of electoral rolls under the ongoing SIR; now the CEO Maharashtra has outlined a schedule detailing deadlines for enumeration, draft publication, claims and objections, verification, final electoral roll publication and post-publication correction procedures

While Parliament broadens the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, crime records show only 60 convictions from over 1,100 arrests between 2014 and 2024

The July 28 interim order preserves evidence and contemplates an SIT, but leaves unresolved who should investigate when the police themselves stand accused

The author argues that varied protests and movements of the past dozen years --from the anti-CAA/NRC protests, to the farmers’ mass mobilisations to the recent Gen ‘Z’ upsurge --these movements may differ in their immediate demands, but they share a common democratic foundation: Citizens do not take to the streets because they have abandoned faith in the Republic. They do so because they believe the Republic can still be made to listen.

Following weeks of pressure from student groups and opposition parties, the state has begun withdrawing police cases linked to the NEET protests, while assuring there will be no coercive action during the legal process