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2013 rape case: HC convicts former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal, reverses 2021 acquittal

NL Team — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 06:06:09 GMT

The court is likely to pronounce the quantum of sentence after a hearing in the afternoon.

The Bombay High Court’s Goa bench on Thursday found former Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal guilty of rape, setting aside the sessions court verdict that had cleared him four years ago. Tejpal has asked the bench to take a lenient view before it pronounces the quantum of sentence in the afternoon.

The case dates to November 2013, when a journalist working at the magazine alleged that Tejpal assaulted her on two consecutive nights. The sessions court dismissed the charges in 2021, reasoning that the complainant’s conduct after the incident did not match what it considered the expected reaction of someone who had been sexually assaulted. It pointed to messages she sent Tejpal afterwards as evidence that she showed no signs of fear or trauma, and treated this as fatal to the prosecution’s case. The Goa government appealed that decision.

The state described the court’s handling of the case as deeply troubling, saying the judge had effectively invented a template for how a survivor ought to behave.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Goa, submitted that the proceedings had inverted the roles of accused and complainant. He objected to the line of cross-examination she faced – questions probing her views on consensual sex, drinking and smoking, and on the tenor of private exchanges with friends – arguing that such material was neither relevant nor something the judge should have weighed.

Tejpal’s side challenged the appeal, contending that the complainant’s account contained inconsistencies and fell short of the reliability standard courts apply to a witness whose testimony can stand alone. His lawyers relied on hotel CCTV recordings, saying the footage contradicted claims that he had pulled or dragged her into the elevator.

Mehta countered by pointing to an email Tejpal sent the woman in the days after the alleged assault, in which he expressed remorse and referred to a failure of judgment. That message, the state argued, was in effect an acknowledgment that something had occurred between them.

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Before HC convicted him: How Tejpal was given access to the victim’s personal chats to build his defence

PTI apologises to Priyank Kharge for misreporting remarks on police constable exam

The News Minute — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 10:52:25 GMT

The Minister’s remark referring to the BJP was misreported as referring to the student protesters at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar who had sought the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Press Trust of India (PTI) on Tuesday, August 4, apologised to Karnataka Home Minister Priyank Kharge after admitting it had misinterpreted his remarks on the controversy surrounding the police constable recruitment examination in Karnataka. The news agency withdrew its earlier social media post, but Kharge said the apology could not undo the damage caused by the misinformation.

The controversy centred on Kharge’s response to the opposition’s demands for his resignation over the police constable recruitment examination. Speaking to reporters on August 3, Kharge had said, “Yeah, I will resign. Let them first... 25 days, let them go on hunger strike. Then if they don't control, we will do one lathicharge, and then I will resign. Just like how they did for this thing...”

The Minister’s remark was misreported as referring to the student protesters at Delhi's Jantar Mantar who had sought the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. In a post on X, PTI said, “Mr Priyank Kharge’s statement was misinterpreted, and the word 'aspirants' was inadvertently ascribed to him in an earlier X post (August 3, 2026). We have withdrawn the post. The error is deeply regretted.”

In a separate letter to Kharge, PTI Editor (Visual Media) Shazi Zaman apologised for what the agency described as a “human error”.

“This is regarding the misunderstanding caused over your remarks to the media on August 3, 2026. It is unfortunate that a human error at our end resulted in such a misunderstanding. We have taken corrective steps, including rectifying the mistake as well as seeking an explanation from the person concerned. We apologise for the error. We hope you would consider this matter as closed,” the letter said.

Responding to the apology, Kharge said the misinformation had not only been amplified by political parties but had also been picked up by independent content creators on social media.

“Who is going to undo the damage now? How many creators can realistically be held accountable for spreading misinformation once it has gone viral?” he asked, adding that “responsible journalism is increasingly becoming a myth in India.”

The damage has already been done, @PTI_News. What is the use of your apology?

This misinformation wasn’t amplified only by political parties. It has also been picked up and spread by independent content creators across social media, including @lakhshya_speaks.

Who is going to… https://t.co/G44subNb5B pic.twitter.com/6xWl6w3hl1
— Priyank Kharge / ಪ್ರಿಯಾಂಕ್ ಖರ್ಗೆ (@PriyankKharge) August 4, 2026

The remarks were made against the backdrop of protests over the police constable recruitment examination held on August 2. Hundreds of candidates at Sharadamba PU College in Tikota, Vijayapura district, boycotted the written examination, alleging delays in the distribution of question papers and irregularities in the handling of question papers and OMR sheets.

Candidates alleged that question papers, scheduled to be distributed at 10.30 am, reached them about 30 minutes late. They also alleged that the procedure for distributing question papers and OMR sheets varied across classrooms, prompting many to walk out and demand a re-examination.

Addressing reporters, Kharge rejected the allegations of irregularities and said the controversy stemmed from a “misunderstanding” among a section of candidates over the serial numbers on the OMR sheets and question booklets.

“There was some misunderstanding among the candidates saying that the OMR serial number and the question booklet serial number have to be the same. It is not necessary, nor have we specified anywhere,” he said.

He said only a small group of candidates had walked out despite being informed they would not be allowed to return. “It is just a handful of them who thought it was necessary and they walked out, despite us telling them that once you walk out, you cannot come back in. When they realised what they had done was not wise, they wanted to come back. But once you leave the premises with the OMR sheets, you cannot come back in. Let us see what can be done about that,” he said.

According to reports, candidates who left the examination hall carrying question papers and OMR sheets were denied re-entry, as it violated Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) rules.

Defending the police action against protesters, Kharge said authorities had to ensure the examination proceeded without disruption.

Kharge also dismissed calls for his resignation by drawing a comparison with the PSI recruitment scam under the previous BJP government.

“They should first explain why the then Home Minister Araga Jnanendra and the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai did not resign during the PSI recruitment scam,” he said, adding that “lakhs of people wrote the examination and there is a problem only with around 120 people.”

This report was republished from The News Minute as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. Read about our partnership here and become a subscriber here.

Modi govt spent Rs 910 crore on print ads in 5 years; Times of India biggest beneficiary

NL Team — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:18:51 GMT

The central government has spent nearly Rs 1.5 crore per day on ads across different mediums, including TV and digital.

(Prachi Dureja)

The Narendra Modi government spent Rs 910.4 crore on print media advertisements between 2020-21 and 2024-25, according to information shared by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) in the Lok Sabha. The data was furnished in a written reply to a question by Congress MP Radhakrishna.

Among newspapers, the Times of India received the highest amount in government print advertising during the five-year period, at Rs 78.22 crore, followed by Dainik Jagran with Rs 59.14 crore and the Hindustan Times with Rs 47.80 crore.

Other major recipients included Amar Ujala, which received Rs 24.92 crore; Hindustan, Rs 21.56 crore; and Dainik Bhaskar, Rs 20.53 crore. The Indian Express received Rs 6.51 crore.

A year-wise break-up of the data shows that the Times of India was the highest recipient of government print advertising in each of the five financial years, receiving Rs 17.87 crore in 2020-21, Rs 16.95 crore in 2021-22, Rs 21.01 crore in 2022-23, Rs 16.32 crore in 2023-24 and Rs 6.04 crore in 2024-25.

Dainik Jagran received Rs 13.04 crore, Rs 12.40 crore, Rs 16.08 crore, Rs 12.81 crore and Rs 4.80 crore, while the Hindustan Times received Rs 12.66 crore, Rs 11.25 crore, Rs 13.88 crore, Rs 9.10 crore and Rs 4.21 crore during the corresponding years.

Amar Ujala received Rs 4.73 crore in 2020-21, Rs 5.19 crore in 2021-22, Rs 7.37 crore in 2022-23, Rs 7.18 crore in 2023-24 and Rs 2.42 crore in 2024-25, according to the ministry's reply.

In a previous response in Parliament, the Narendra Modi-led government said it spent a total of Rs 5,987.46 crore on advertisements across different media platforms over the 11 financial years from 2014-15 to 2024-25. This works out to an average expenditure of nearly Rs 1.5 crore a day on advertising over the period.

That data also showed a sharp increase in advertising expenditure in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The government spent Rs 353.98 crore on advertisements in 2023-24, the financial year preceding the general election. In 2024-25, the expenditure stood at Rs 323.41 crore.

Government advertisements are issued to publicise welfare schemes, policy initiatives and public awareness campaigns. However, opposition parties have often alleged that this spending is merely aimed at BJP propaganda and Brand Modi ahead of elections.

A senior official said there are rules that govern the release of advertisements by the central government to publicise and promote policies and programmes. Rates are determined by the circulation and number of editions of a newspaper. There is neither discriminatory choice nor preferential treatment.

“Unlike advertising by certain other political parties that are in power in the states, central government advertisements are programme and policy centric and they do not promote the party or a person or a group of persons,” the official said, adding that the annual year-wise expenditure is not as striking as the cumulative expenditure.

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Follow the money: Inside Modi govt’s Rs 1.5 crore-a-day ad spend

Ghar se salon tak: TV news turns ‘investigative’ reporter and language police over CJP protest

NL Team — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:36:09 GMT

From Sudhir Chaudhary’s morality lessons to News18’s deleted ‘exclusives’, TV news ignores doxxing and rape threats to teach India a lesson in ‘sanskaar’.

Mainstream TV media has seemingly not taken any feedback on board in its coverage of the CJP protest. Emblematic of this are two recent pieces of ‘investigation’ by CNN-News18, which shows how far their coverage of the CJP protest continues to stray from the real issues of the protest – deep-seated anger and resentment against exam paper leaks and the dwindling standards of the education system in this country, among others.

Ruchika Singh, a 15-year-old minor, has not been seen in public since a video of her using expletives against Prime Minister Modi at Jantar Mantar went viral, prompting six FIRs including charges of defamation and “intentional insult to provoke breach of peace”.

One report by News18 on the case treated her continued absence itself as the story. A reporter stood outside her locked Noida flat, informing viewers that “the 25-year-old lady who’s a beauty salon worker continues to be MIA,” and speculated at length about whether the family had fled anticipating police action or gone into hiding “expecting” the case to be dropped, since Singh had reportedly represented the CJP during the protest.

Guards at her housing society were questioned on camera about the last time they had seen the “mother-daughter duo” – all without a single new fact about the original video or the case, not to mention the fact that the channel got her age wrong.

The channel’s second report went further still. Reporters tracked down the beauty salon where Singh had briefly trained in nail art, running what the channel called an “exclusive” interview with the owner, who explained that Singh had allegedly used a false name because she “didn't have an Aadhaar card” and had been asked to stop coming after repeatedly promising to bring it. The segment also aired a WhatsApp exchange in which Singh’s mother apologised to a former co-worker, writing that she was “truly sorry” and that the family would “continue to submit letters of apology to whoever asks for them”.

At no point did either report allege any new wrongdoing. They simply followed a young girl’s brief, unrelated employment history and her mother’s private messages onto primetime television and dressed that up as an investigation.

Suffice to say, people on social media platforms like X had a lot to say about their coverage. Saurav Das, the CJP spokesperson, had this to say:

CNN-News18 and other such godi channels must IMMEDIATELY STOP this witch hunt against Ruchika. This is neither journalism nor reporting in the public interest. It is a media trial that serves no democratic purpose and only fuels harassment and intimidation against a 25-year old.… https://t.co/GjZgMdT79f
— Saurav Das (@SauravDassss) July 31, 2026

Here’s what others had to say about their coverage:

Seriously a mass tv channel is character assassinating & witch-hunting a young girl because she abused Modi? Truly disgusting you are wrecking her life. And, then the whining why are people on the street targeting us. Because this is your “journalism”. Use the same skills to… https://t.co/syNOQtggZW
— Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) July 31, 2026

What an investigative Journalism by employees of Ambani News Channel @CNNnews18! The Women Employees of the channel tracks down the location of the Saloon, Spoke to the owner, Co-Workers and her mother.
Reason : She abused PM Modi and other ministers during the protest.…
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) July 31, 2026

Path breaking journalism. Please also interview her gol gappa wala ki wo aate waale khaati hai ya sooji https://t.co/eeyGDpAdtx
— Aditya Menon (@AdityaMenon22) July 31, 2026

CNN-News18 subsequently deleted their post on the salon ‘exclusive’ on X after a torrent of negative feedback. The deletion did little to change the broader tenor of coverage, where several anchors were busy running their own campaigns in civility.

Looks like ⁦@CNNnews18⁩ took down their tweet after PM’s video. They didn’t feel any shame doing this story. Same channels won’t spare a resource to cover a flood but will put a reporter on this job pic.twitter.com/uT0TL5bPPR
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) July 31, 2026

Other anchors turned the moment into a morality lesson of their own, several borrowing near-identical language. Sudhir Chaudhary of DD News launched an on-air campaign against protest profanity under the slogan “Respect is cool. Abuse is not” and “India Against Gaalibaaz”, framing politeness as a matter of Indian family values.

Chitra Tripathi of ABP News told viewers “you would never expect your own children to use such language,” and suggested that leaders defending the protest’s tone were letting the whole movement look “sanskaar viheen” – devoid of values.

Arnab Goswami's monologue on Republic TV urged viewers to withhold forgiveness from protesters now apologising “with folded hands,” insisting that arrests were needed “so that a lesson goes out to the people of this country.”

Sushant Sinha's show on News18 India claimed the language used against Modi was so vulgar that “we cannot even write those words on the screen,” while running a follow-up segment on how hurt ordinary citizens felt on the prime minister’s behalf.

If all this wasn’t enough, journalists from mainstream TV media couldn’t stop sermonising like the language police even after she had issued a public apology to Modi.

None of these anchors turned similar scrutiny toward the volume or severity of the abuse being directed back at the minor. According to this report in Scroll, dozens of BJP supporters on X and Instagram went after her as her video of abusing Modi gained traction online. One X user shared screenshots of her Instagram profile, falsely claimed she had a Muslim partner, and called for “strict action” against the “cheap girl” making “insulting comments” against the prime minister.

Another tweet, which crossed a million impressions, threatened to withdraw support for the BJP unless she was arrested. Replies beneath these posts were filled with abusive, sexually charged comments. Others went straight to doxxing by circulating the address of her purported workplace, a phone number, and the names of her family members, while her photo was lifted for an AI-generated “Most Wanted” poster on another post.

And she isn’t the only one who has suffered. Shradha Singh, a 23-year-old content creator who attended the protest posted a reel on Instagram mocking the Rapid Action Force. After posting this reel, she began receiving calls threatening rape and murder after BJP supporters traced her car's number plate – visible in an older post – to her phone number and home address, according to the report in Scroll. Instagram added to her woes by removing 33 of her protest-related posts without offering any avenue to appeal.

News18 India and DD News aired the reel and couldn’t help themselves here as well, calling her content “objectionable” and engaging with the usual sermonising.

Another protester, Ruchika Chawla, was singled out by Shashi Kumar, a BJP social media coordinator in Uttar Pradesh, who shared her video and told followers to “make these three girls famous” and file FIRs, adding that “no apology should be accepted”.

One of the conditions on which the CJP called off its protest was the Centre’s assurance that all FIRs against protesters would be withdrawn. The Supreme Court, however, narrowed that relief, ruling that withdrawal would apply only to those protesters with no prior criminal antecedents, leaving the door open for cases like Singh’s to continue.

Against this backdrop, Modi's own response to “forgive” protesters whose abuse directed at him and his late mother was “a cultural shock”, has been framed by sympathetic anchors as magnanimous rather than examined for what it actually did.

#WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared a video on his Instagram handle, in which he says, "Today I just feel like talking to you. The country and the world have witnessed what happened at Jantar Mantar. Some mischievous children used very crude and abusive language, words… pic.twitter.com/HhSPWaFmzz
— ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2026

In a Friday-night Instagram reel, he described the abuse directed at him as coming from “naughty children,” adding that these were his own children whom he would guide onto “the right way”. It positioned Modi as the reasonable and forgiving figure even as the FIRs he did not call off, and the online mobs he did not condemn, continued unabated in his name.

Singh, meanwhile, remains in hiding, while the case against her has been transferred to the Parliament Street police station for further investigation, according to The Hindu.

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Modi govt assurances, FIRs, and what’s next for CJP | Abhijeet Dipke with Manisha Pande A truck full of stones appeared near the CJP protest. We found out how

CJP calls off protest ‘in good faith’ following Dharmendra Pradhan’s exit

NL Team — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 12:54:36 GMT

With their primary demand met and ‘assurances’ given that cases against protesters will be dropped, student leaders ask the crowds to withdraw, adding that the next round of talks on examination reforms will be held in four weeks.

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Saturday called off its 36-day protest at Jantar Mantar “in good faith” after a round of talks with the government, CJP spokesperson Saurav Das said at a joint press conference with a government delegation at the Constitution Club of India in New Delhi. The press conference included CJP spokespersons Das and Ashutosh Ranka, Union minister JP Nadda, and minister of state Jitendra Singh.

The announcement came shortly after education minister Dharmendra Pradhan submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a letter shared on X, Pradhan said he was “saddened by the sequence of events” of the last ten days and that his decision was taken “in interest of the unity of the country”.

pic.twitter.com/VSArqS98OJ
— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) July 25, 2026

“Our first demand of Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation has been met,” said Das. Reacting to the resignation, the CJP posted on social media: “Cockroaches won, Democracy won.”

Cockroaches won.. Democracy won!

Jai Hind! 🇮🇳✊🏼
— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) July 25, 2026

Ranka said the government had accepted all the movement’s demands after over a month of protest. “We urge everyone to peacefully withdraw from protest sites,” he said.

Cockroach Janta Party withdraws its nationwide agitation with immediate effect

All demands of the Cockroach Janta Party have been accepted by the government:

1. Maximum possible compensation for families of NEET paper leak-related suicides

2. All FIRs by Central govt and…
— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) July 25, 2026

Five-point charter discussed

Nadda said the talks had covered the CJP’s full charter of demands in detail. “They had a five-point charter. We discussed this in detail,” he said.

No action against protesters

Das, meanwhile, said: “All FIRs filed against protesters all over the country will be withdrawn; the government has assured us.”

“CJP has sought assurance from the government that no case will be registered against protesters or organisers in future as well. The government said it will get back on this on Tuesday in writing,” he added.

Compensation for NEET suicide victims

On the CJP’s demand for Rs 1 crore compensation for the families of students who died by suicide after the NEET-UG paper leak, Ranka said the government had agreed to a payout, though without confirming the amount. “[The] Government has agreed to give an honorary compensation to the [the] kin of students who ended their lives,” he said.

Nadda struck an even more cautious note on the figure itself. “The government’s sympathies are with the families of those who died by suicide. Honorary compensation will be based on rules,” he said, without specifying a timeline or final sum.

Next round of talks in four weeks

“The fourth round of talks on education and examination reforms will be held in 4 weeks,” Nadda said. The CJP delegation confirmed the same timeline for a broader review of progress on its remaining demands.

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Dharmendra Pradhan resigns under pressure from student protests

NL Team — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:35:50 GMT

Facing escalating calls at Jantar Mantar and a deadline from the CJP, the education minister has submitted his resignation to “prevent anti-national forces from exploiting this situation.”

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, a day after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led protests at Jantar Mantar demanded he be sacked over the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak.

In a letter addressed to “young friends” on X, Pradhan said he had always respected the aspirations of the country’s youth and took full responsibility from the outset for the “irregularities” that came to light in the NEET-UG exam held in May 2026, after which the government handed the matter to the CBI, cancelled the exam and ordered a re-examination, alongside a move to computer-based testing from next year. He said the re-examination was completed on June 21 and results declared on July 16 were “satisfactory”, but that “individuals holding responsible positions” had tried to mislead students during this period, which he said “caused me deep distress”.

Pradhan said his resignation was intended to prevent “anti-national forces” from exploiting the situation at Jantar Mantar, “preserve national unity”, and ensure no student’s future got “entangled in legal complexities” – allowing them to focus on their studies instead.

President Droupadi Murmu has accepted Pradhan’s resignation, and Prahlad Joshi has been handed charge of the education ministry.

pic.twitter.com/VSArqS98OJ
— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) July 25, 2026

The minister’s letter comes after a second round of talks on Friday between CJP spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka and Union ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh, held at the Constitution Club of India – a “neutral” venue the CJP had insisted on. Nadda had also met the two CJP leaders on July 20, the day of a Parliament march that saw police deploy lath-charge and tear gas to turn back protesters.

In a letter submitted at the meeting, addressed to Nadda, the CJP said its three demands – Pradhan’s resignation, monetary compensation for the families of students who died by suicide following the NEET-UG paper leak, and no legal action against protesters – were “non-negotiable”, according to a Hindustan Times report. The letter also called on the government, the Rapid Action Force chief and the Delhi Police commissioner to “publicly apologise” to students it said were assaulted during the July 20 march. It further sought a response to the CJP’s five-point charter on examination reforms, warning that the movement would “grow bigger and spread across the country” if its demands went unmet.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Ranka said Pradhan “needs to resign or he needs to be sacked”, adding that the government had sought until Saturday afternoon to respond.

“We have told them we can't wait a lot more time on this. If Pradhan does not leave his seat within the next 1-2 days, then one more national call for protest will be given. This one will be much bigger than July 20, and it will be national. We have explained all this and we think they have understood it, that everyone in the country only wants Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation. Nothing less will work for us,” said Ranka.

Reports had earlier indicated that the government would not concede on the demand for Pradhan’s resignation. According to an Indian Express report last night, a source present at a meeting of senior ministers was quoted as saying the government could not be seen “succumbing to the pressure of any protesting forces or groups”, warning that conceding once would invite similar demands for the removal of other ministers, or even the prime minister.

NTA overhaul, but the story remains incomplete

On Friday, the government dismissed 47 officials of the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body that conducts NEET, as part of what many among the mainstream media described as a major overhaul following the paper leak that triggered the protests. Unnamed “sources” cited in the report suggested further action against other officials could follow.

One issue, however, complicates the official narrative. In a Rajya Sabha reply to MP V Sivadasan two days prior, minister of state for education Sukanta Majumdar had stated that the NTA employs only 24 permanent officers, against 39 sanctioned posts, spanning ranks from Director General down to Senior Superintendent. Additionally, the NTA has 73 personnel on contract – including advisors, consultants and young professionals – and 124 more through outsourcing, covering roles such as data analysts and legal associates.

With only 24 permanent officers on the rolls, the dismissal of 47 officials raises the question of exactly who was let go – whether the number includes contractual staff, and if so, how many. Only the government can clarify this.

Modi pushes ministers towards Instagram, new paper leak bill

Separately, The Hindu reported that Prime Minister Modi has directed Cabinet colleagues to become more active on Instagram and engage directly with young people, a day after posting a vertical-format reel promising strict action against exam paper leak “mafias”.

Modi’s own Instagram following reportedly grew substantially following the video, in which he said fast-track court approvals for such cases had been cleared and would go before Cabinet before the Bill was tabled in Parliament’s second sitting week, from Monday.

Meanwhile, the Centre is set to introduce the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, in Parliament on Monday.

The proposed amendments raise the minimum punishment for unfair means and paper leaks from three years to five, with a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of Rs 50 lakh; for organised paper-leak crimes, the minimum sentence rises to seven years with a Rs 10 crore fine. The Bill also provides for a Central government-constituted Special Task Force to investigate such cases, with investigations to be completed within two months, trials conducted on a day-to-day basis and concluded within three months of the chargesheet being filed, and appeals – as far as possible – decided within three months.

Police scrutiny and detentions

Mohammad Junaid, a Ghaziabad resident volunteering at the protest, alleged that the Uttar Pradesh Police detained his family members and seized their bank passbooks and PAN cards during a raid at his house, and that relatives in Meerut were also harassed, in what he claimed was retaliation for his role distributing free food and water at Jantar Mantar. Meerut Police denied carrying out any action against Junaid’s family.

Meanwhile, an Indian Express report described Delhi Police visiting restaurants and cafes near Jantar Mantar, using discarded food packaging recovered from the protest site to trace suppliers and ask them to stop free or bulk deliveries to protesters.

In classic military strategy you choke food supply lines of the enemy army. Here it is being done to young students at Jantar Mantar. What kind of mindset is this? Delhi police harassing restaurants by probing who is ordering for the students from all over India.
— M K Venu (@mkvenu1) July 25, 2026

Some eateries said they were asked to furnish proof of orders, including free consignments, while others said they were summoned to police stations. One restaurant owner, who said his south Delhi outlet had supplied roughly 800 food items daily to the protest site over three days, said officers visited while he was away and later summoned staff to a police station. A cafe employee said they took down a social media post offering shelter and refreshments to protesters “after the Delhi Police officers came to our premises”.

🚨 Food Alert | Jantar Mantar Protest

We need food at the protest site right now!

Please send food to the Tolstoy Road entrance, Jantar Mantar 🙏

All supporters who wish to contribute — your help is needed and welcomed. 🪳🇮🇳
— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) July 25, 2026

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‘Nobody asked us to’: Meet the silent engine of the Jantar Mantar protestJantar Mantar: As Modi govt steps up outreach, what do students think about the road ahead?

Modi replaces TV anchors with a reel but the crisis isn’t scrolling away

NL Team — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:37:28 GMT

While the media cheered 12 million views, clean chits in paper leak cases and university warnings exposed the hollow core of the government’s grand midnight message.

“Here comes PM Modi’s video! This is BIG!” tweeted Sudhir Chaudhary.

“12 million views for a message recorded on selfie mode and posted just after midnight. Quite a departure from (the) earlier style of communication. Innovative and effective,” tweeted Smita Prakash.

“PM Narendra Modi always talks about the youth. When the NEET paper leaked, he stepped forward and announced fast-track courts. Because in a democratic country like India, courts are the means to get justice,” proclaimed Amish Devgan.

So what was this “BIG” video everyone was talking about?

Well, after choosing silence over the month-long protests in Delhi led by the Cockroach Janta Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted a rare selfie video on Instagram late Thursday night acknowledging the gravity of the situation.

The PM assured that fast-track courts will be set up to “ensure swift and stringent punishment for those involved in paper leaks”. An assurance that appeared hollow on a day the CBI clarified why it gave a clean chit to Sanjeev Mukhiya, the alleged mastermind of the 2024 NEET paper leak. It was the same case in which he had already secured bail back in July 2025 after the CBI failed to file a chargesheet in time.

Modi also announced that a law would be introduced in Parliament to address paper leaks. He also announced that the cabinet would take up the issue in a meeting on Friday.

But the one thing Modi didn’t get around to, of course, was the protesters’ central demand: the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Though the biggest takeaway from the PM’s midnight message may be in how he said it instead of what he said. He didn’t address the nation through Godi news channels, but released a vertical video, cut for reels and shorts. (Was he reading something from a …? Ah, nevermind.) And instead of addressing the audience with his patented “Mitron”, he opted for “Friends”.

Meanwhile, activist and educationist Sonam Wangchuk – whose forcible removal from Jantar Mantar by the Delhi Police had escalated the protests in the first place – broke his 26-day hunger strike late Thursday night at Medanta Hospital, Gurugram, in the presence of two Union ministers.

Rather than insist on Pradhan’s resignation, Wangchuk said the ministers had assured him the government would consider “adequate compensation for the families of the students who had committed suicide following the examination paper leak”, along with assurances of “a meaningful discussion in Parliament to ensure accountability including consideration of the resignation” of the education minister. The government made no guarantees.

On the resignation and compensation demands, the government made no firm commitments. Wangchuk did, however, share one written assurance the government had given him in a video message on his X handle that no cases would be filed against peaceful protesters, including those who had taken part in the July 20 march in Delhi. According to the Hindustan Times, 11 FIRs have been registered at five police stations in New Delhi district “in connection with the alleged violence against security personnel” during the July 20 protest march.

Probably delighted by the first real piece of good headline his government has got this month without giving up anything, Modi then posted his own message on X, offering health tips to Wangchuk: “I urge Sonam ji to follow doctors’ advice and regain his previous weight as soon as possible. I pray to the Lord that Sonam ji remains healthy.”

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, reacting to the news, expressed gratitude and relief at Wangchuk’s decision to break his hunger strike, but said they will continue to protest at Jantar Mantar till Dharmendra Pradhan resigns. CJP spokespersons are due to meet the Union government at the Constitution Club later today to discuss their demands.

We are relieved and grateful that Sonam sir has ended his hunger strike after 26 days.

Thank you, sir, for your extraordinary courage and sacrifice. By putting your own life on the line, you awakened the conscience of an entire nation. Your life is far too precious to this…
— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) July 23, 2026

Read together, it looks rather like the government simply outlasted Wangchuk’s resolve – there has been no commitment yet to sack Pradhan, nor to compensate the families of the students who died by suicide following the NEET-UG paper leak earlier this year.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Centre also transferred higher education secretary Vineet Joshi to the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, replacing him with Naresh Pal Gangwar – a 1994-batch Rajasthan-cadre IAS officer whose family members, per The Indian Express, received over Rs 1.16 crore in farm subsidies across five years under an agriculture ministry scheme.

And as if to complete the picture, our educational institutions seem far more invested in producing compliant students than in reckoning with the questions being asked at Jantar Mantar.

Delhi University’s official account urged “all students... to stay away from Jantar Mantar and to prioritise their safety and compliance with the law”, adding that students should “exercise caution as a significant amount of fake and misleading content is being created and circulated to fuel the situation.”

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) chipped in, posting on its official account that “in accordance with the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India's directions on public demonstrations, you are requested to refrain from participating in or visiting gatherings at or around Jantar Mantar, New Delhi”, warning that violations “may invite legal consequences under applicable laws as well as disciplinary action under the University's code of conduct”. JNU added that students were “encouraged to uphold the values of academic responsibility and responsible citizenship.”

Amid all this, the crowds at Jantar Mantar show no sign of thinning. People from across the country continue to arrive in the capital to join the gathering, with ordinary citizens forming human chains to keep confrontation with the police at bay.

But the state never sleeps. According to The Indian Express, two Delhi Police surveillance vans are sitting outside Kerala House near Jantar Mantar – a “Mobile Command and Control Vehicle” streaming live CCTV to officers on site, and the AI-driven “Ikshana” van — which runs the footage through facial recognition against a police database. These vans have been deployed since the 2023 G20 Summit. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is technically the law meant to govern this, but it carves out broad exemptions for government agencies, police included, from most of the safeguards it otherwise sets out.

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They got beaten at the Parliament march. But they returned to Jantar MantarFrom ‘Godi media’ taunts to assault: The reporters caught in Jantar Mantar’s anger

Nepal reference, Pak ‘link’, and opposition conspiracy theories: How TV anchors spun the July 20 march

NL Team — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:36:55 GMT

Republic, News18, ABP News and DD News sidelined protester grievances to focus on conspiracy theories and a national security threat.

By late afternoon on July 20, the images from Delhi were difficult to ignore: protesters marching from Jantar Mantar towards Parliament were met with tear gas shells, lathi charge, and mass detentions, while internet services were suspended around central Delhi. But anyone switching on primetime television that evening would have encountered a different story.

Across Republic, News18 India, DD News and ABP News, the focus shifted away from the protesters’ central demands – accountability over the NEET paper leak and student suicides – and towards another narrative: the demonstrations were no longer about students, but about violence, political conspiracy and threats to national security.

The protest did leave at least 100 police personnel injured and several vehicles vandalised, but as the TV visuals and headlines focussed on police injuries, the police crackdown on protesters nearly vanished on air. As did the protesters’ central demands.

This playbook bears a striking resemblance to how Indian media handled regional uprisings last year, such as the coverage of youth-led movements in Nepal, where anchors similarly leaned on tropes of “foreign hands” and “data addiction” rather than systemic grievances.

Nepal, Bangladesh and national stability

Republic TV escalated the rhetoric.

Arnab Goswami repeatedly invoked Nepal’s recent political upheaval, arguing that activists such as Sonam Wangchuk were signalling a desire to replicate similar events in India. Throughout the broadcast, he insisted that “India is not Nepal”, linked Wangchuk’s earlier references to Nepal with allegations about foreign funding, and framed the protest as part of an organised attempt to destabilise the country. The effect was to recast a student-led movement over examination irregularities into a question of national security.

A similar framing appeared on India TV as well as other mainstream media outlets, where debate participants repeatedly returned to a clip of a protester saying “ukhad denge Parliament” (we will uproot Parliament), treating one incendiary remark as emblematic of the movement. The discussion with anchor Prachi Parashar then broadened into allegations of political sponsorship, references to Article 370, Umar Khalid and “Free Kashmir” slogans, and questions over whether the protest had been infiltrated by “professional protesters”, shifting attention further away from the demonstrators’ stated demands over the NEET paper leak.

Chitra Tripathi from ABP News framed the protests as political opportunism, asking, “Kya kuch log apni siyasat ke liye yuvaon ki is aseem urja ka galat istemaal kar rahe hain?” (Are some people misusing the boundless energy of the youth for their own politics?) She later asked whether there are forces that “want India to become like Nepal and Bangladesh under the cover of public anger”.

News18 India’s Aman Chopra introduced a Pakistan angle into the coverage. He said “Pakistani handles” had become active on social media “They are saying that seven people have died during the protest, hundreds have been injured, and more than 250 people have been arrested.”

On News18 India, Amish Devgan asked, “The question is: Is the protest merely a pretext, with the real objective being to spread instability in the country?”

On DD News, Sudhir Chaudhary argued that the organisers had jeopardised national security by allegedly flying a drone in Delhi’s no-fly zone, suggesting they themselves had used the footage to exaggerate the scale of the mobilisation.

Vandalism and the ‘goonda’ narrative

Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami described the protest as one “carried out by the goons of the CJP” and repeatedly referred to demonstrators as “goondas masquerading as students”.

Throughout the broadcast, Republic foregrounded allegations of stone-pelting and injuries to police personnel, presenting the confrontation primarily as an attack on law enforcement rather than examining the circumstances that led to the use of force.

The underlying question of why thousands of students had gathered in the first place received comparatively little attention.

On DD News, Sudhir Chaudhary devoted much of his programme to damaged police vehicles, alleged vandalism and claims that demonstrators had forced the police to resort to lathi charges. Chaudhary declared that the movement had “lost its purpose”, with footage of alleged stone-pelting, damaged police vehicles and injured personnel.

Aman Chopra adopted an even more confrontational frame.

Calling the demonstrators “professional pattharbaaz” (“professional stone-pelters”), he said, “This is Kashmir-like stone-pelting... there was an attempt to lynch police personnel.”

Opposition conspiracy

While asserting that “the country stands with the students” and noting ongoing negotiations with the government, Chitra Tripathi’s programme on ABP News devoted far greater attention to conspiracy theories about the Opposition. She suggested that controversies routinely surface immediately before Parliament sessions, citing the timing of the Pegasus revelations, the release of the Manipur video, and the Hindenburg report as examples.

Tripathi also drew parallels with previous movements, claiming, “The same people were there during the CAA protests, at Shaheen Bagh, in the farmers’ protest and in the wrestlers’ protest.”

Sudhir Chaudhary described the agitation as having been “hijacked” by anti-Modi groups, “urban Naxals” and “anti-national” elements, comparing it to the Anna Hazare movement than to Shaheen Bagh. Social media posts documenting police action were dismissed as part of an “afwah (rumour) gang” that, he argued, was spreading misinformation despite Delhi Police’s ‘fact-checks’.

Chaudhary further criticised Abhijeet Dipke’s leadership, claiming that the Aam Aadmi Party’s leadership, IT cell and social media machinery were effectively directing the protest from behind the scenes.

‘I stand with the police’

Amish Devgan explicitly defended the police response, declaring: “Main bol raha hoon, I stand with police. Police pitne ke liye nahin hai.” (I’m saying, I stand with the police. The police are not there to be beaten.)

Chaudhary devoted much of his programme to damaged police vehicles, alleged vandalism and claims that demonstrators had forced the police to resort to lathi charges. Social media posts documenting police action were dismissed as part of an “afwah gang” that, he argued, was spreading misinformation despite Delhi Police's fact-checks.

Aman Chopra adopted an even more confrontational frame. Calling the demonstrators “professional pattharbaaz” (“professional stone-pelters”), he said, “This is Kashmir-like stone-pelting... there was an attempt to lynch police personnel.”

With odd exceptions like this Preeti Chaudhary report on India Today, few channels scrutinised the blatant acts of police violence against young protesters.

Most channels highlighted that the government had opened backchannel negotiations with the protesters. However, they did not mention the nearly month-long official silence that had preceded JP Nadda’s meeting with CJP representatives on Monday afternoon.

(Inputs from Chenab Guha, an editorial intern with Newslaundry.)

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Lathis, tear gas and injured protesters: The ‘Chalo Sansad’ crackdown in picturesUnder shadow of lathis and barricades: The day the Modi govt finally engaged the CJP

11 dailies, differing narratives: How front pages covered the CJP march on Parliament

NL Team — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:51:31 GMT

From ‘crackdown’ in the English broadsheets to ‘rampage’ in the Hindi dailies and zero-photo tickers in the business press – how publications presented yesterday’s events.

Eleven newspapers, one Monday of chaos in central Delhi.

On July 21, the front pages of five English dailies, three business papers and three Hindi dailies tell strikingly different stories about the same afternoon – thousands of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) supporters attempting to march on Parliament, police lathi-charges and tear gas, an internet shutdown, and differing injury figures. Whether that afternoon reads as a “crackdown” or a “rampage” depends entirely on which paper landed on your doorstep.

The English dailies

All five English papers – Times of India, The Tribune, The Indian Express, The Hindu and Hindustan Times – led with the story. But the verbs they chose to headline it tell you most of what you need to know.

The Hindu went furthest in centring police action, with “Several hurt in crackdown on CJP stir”, leading with harm before numbers and quoting activist Sonam Wangchuk’s “brutality” charge in a subhead. It was also the most granular paper on injuries, specifying that 38 people taken to Lady Hardinge Medical College suffered “fractures, swellings, and head and eye injuries,” and the only paper to quantify the internet shutdown precisely – mobile services cut “at 150 spots” rather than described in general terms. It also carried the police’s own counter-framing, quoting officials who called the crowd a “violent mob”.

The Indian Express was the only paper to name both lathis and tear gas directly in its main headline: “Protesters storm heart of Delhi, police use lathis and tear gas to stop march.” Its most distinctive front-page choice was a human-interest secondary story, “Sons injured, a mother breaks down: ‘Attack on country's children’” – the strongest victim-centred framing in the set – alongside a flagged edit-page line, “Can't have sabka vishwas with lathi and tear gas,” making its editorial position visible from page one itself.

Its lead photo showed Delhi Police personnel beating protesters with lathis – one protester notably wrapped in an Indian flag, another lying on the ground with his clothes torn. Its caption, however, merely noted that Delhi Police “disperse protesters.”

Notably, Express attributed its injury figures to the police, noting “118 personnel injured, 70 protesters detained, says Delhi Police” rather than presenting them as settled fact. But it carried no dedicated internet-shutdown box.

Hindustan Times took a both-sides approach. They led with “Chaos on streets echoes in House,” with “Capital turns into battlefield as cops, protesters clash”, the meeting between CJP leadership and union minister JP Nadda and Sonam Wangchuk’s decision to continue the fast as part of the paper’s top of the fold package. They framed the day as competing claims rather than an established narrative. Its internet-shutdown detail (10.30 am–6 pm) was specific but buried in body copy rather than flagged upfront.

Times of India and The Tribune, by contrast, led with police action as something done to protesters rather than by police. TOI’s “Police block protesters' march to Parl; Nadda meets CJP reps” and Tribune’s “Roach Rage Rattles Delhi” makes police the subject of a containment story, not the violence. Both papers cited cop injuries (118) ahead of protester injuries (60) in their headlines and kickers.

TOI’s lead photo caption, “Demonstrators hurl stones and a chair at cops”, foregrounded protester aggression in its visual package. The Tribune ran a standalone box, “Net disruption leaves commuters stranded", giving the shutdown dedicated display but framing it entirely around commuter inconvenience rather than as a civil liberties issue.

Across the five papers, the injury figures themselves (118 police, 60–70 protesters, 70–100 detained) were broadly consistent – all attributable to a Delhi Police statement.

The business press: a story pushed to the margins

None of the three business dailies led with the protest, and the contrast with the general dailies is stark. The Economic Times ran it as a brief item in a boxed “Pure Politics” column, headlined around the government’s outreach – “Nadda Meets CJP Leaders as Student Protest Sparks Clashes” – with clashes reduced to a subordinate clause and no photograph.

Financial Express gave the story its biggest business-press play, with a large photo captioned “CENTRE OF PROTEST,” but no separate headline or article. The caption attributed the force allegation explicitly to the CJP (“accused the Delhi Police of using excessive force”) rather than reporting it independently.

Business Standard gave it the lightest touch of all eleven papers surveyed – a single ticker line in its top promo strip, pointing to page 7, with no injury figures, no shutdown mention, and no independent headline treatment.

Across all three, the story competed for space with RBI swap data, Q1 earnings and oil-import bills, and none carried specific injury or shutdown detail on the front page itself.

The Hindi papers: A different set of omissions

The three Hindi dailies gave the story comparable front-page weight to the English press, but with a distinct tonal range. Dainik Jagran was the most protester-critical framing of any paper surveyed, putting “peaceful” in scare quotes — “‘शांतिपूर्ण' संसद मार्च में उत्पात, दिल्ली बंधक” (“‘Peaceful’ Parliament march turns to rampage, Delhi held hostage”) – and sequencing its sub-heads to lead with stone-pelting and vehicle damage before mentioning police lathi-charges and tear gas last. Its injury box (200 injured, including 100 police) again put a non-police-attributed figure into circulation without a shutdown box to match.

Dainik Bhaskar took a slightly different approach instead, framing the day as the “biggest protest at Parliament in 14 years” and drawing an explicit comparison to the 2012 Nirbhaya protests. Its sub-heads were more evenly balanced between barricade-breaking, clashes with “hundreds injured,” and lathi-charges, and it was the only Hindi paper to report government back-channel outreach to CJP in detail – a 6 am call preceding the Nadda meeting with CJP spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka.

Amar Ujala was the most neutral in language, listing actions from both sides in sequence – stone-pelting, lathi-charge, Jantar Mantar cleared – without the loaded terms Jagran used, while still carrying a photograph of an injured protester on the ground.

None of the three Hindi front pages gave the internet shutdown dedicated treatment and where it appeared at all, it was folded into traffic-jam framing rather than reported as a communications blackout.

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Under shadow of lathis and barricades: The day the Modi govt finally engaged the CJP

Cops detain AAP councillor as she prepares to leave for Parliament march with supporters

NL Team — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 05:15:01 GMT

Thakur claimed police personnel had been stationed outside her home since 4 am.

Ashu Thakur had appealed to people to gather at her CR Park office to proceed to the march location.

Delhi Police detained AAP councillor Ashu Thakur from her CR Park office on Monday morning, hours after she had circulated a video urging citizens to gather on the spot and join a march to Parliament organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).

In the video, posted to her X account on Sunday night, Thakur had offered to arrange transport for participants. “Aapko le jaane aur waapas laana meri zimmedaari hogi,” she said. Her caption for the post read: “Tomorrow morning at 8:00 am, we – fellow citizens – will unite and march from the Municipal Councilor’s office, proceeding from Jantar Mantar to the Parliament House. Come, let us take a step together for the future of our children.”

📢 चलो जंतर-मंतर!

कल सुबह 8:00 बजे निगम पार्षद कार्यालय से हम सभी साथी एकजुट होकर जंतर-मंतर से संसद भवन तक निकलेंगे।

आइए, अपने बच्चों के भविष्य के लिए एक कदम साथ मिलकर बढ़ाएँ।@ArvindKejriwal @Saurabh_MLAgk @AamAadmiParty pic.twitter.com/ofAlZVsYW1
— Ashu Thakur (@ashuthakuraap) July 19, 2026

Newslaundry witnessed the detention, in which a police team that included several women officers arrived at Thakur’s office and took her to the police station. Thakur repeatedly demanded to see a copy of the detention orders and questioned the rationale behind the action. “You shouldn’t have allowed people to be at Jantar Mantar. How will it help if you stop me?... will the crowd reduce if you stop me?” she said.

According to Thakur, police personnel had been stationed outside her house since 4 am to prevent her from joining the march. She said a constable had visited on Sunday night for what she described as a routine inquiry, but she had not anticipated that it would escalate into what she called a “house arrest” by the next morning. A small group of local residents had gathered at the office near her home as the police moved in. The officers present were not authorised to speak to the media.

Thakur’s detention came against the backdrop of prohibitory orders imposed by Delhi Police under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), banning large public gatherings ahead of the CJP’s planned march to Parliament.

In a statement on Sunday night, Delhi Police said: “Delhi Police categorically clarifies that no permission has been sought or granted for any such protest march/procession.” The Section 163 BNSS order — the successor provision to the erstwhile Section 144 of the CrPC — remains in force across the New Delhi district, the statement noted, meaning that any protest march, procession, demonstration or gathering of five or more people is barred except at the designated protest venue of Jantar Mantar, and only with prior permission.

The CJP had called for the march to press for the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG examination.

Sonam Wangchuk forcibly taken to hospital as Delhi Police tighten grip on Jantar Mantar protest

NL Team — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 04:05:59 GMT

Sonam Wangchuk was forcibly hospitalised on the 21st day of his fast, after which his wife said no treatment should be administered without the family’s consent. CJP founder Abhijit Dipke has since begun his own hunger strike in solidarity.

Delhi Police forcibly removed activist Sonam Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar and took him to Safdarjung Hospital on Saturday morning with heavy deployment at the protest site as his indefinite hunger strike stretched into its 21st day. The move came a day after Anurag Kumar took over as Delhi Police Commissioner, and set off a scramble as supporters tried to physically stop Wangchuk from being taken away, according to The Indian Express.

#WATCH | Delhi: Activist Sonam Wangchuk, who was sitting on a hunger strike from last 20 days at Jantar Mantar, taken to the hospital by the police.

More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/81DTO3cyh4
— ANI (@ANI) July 18, 2026

🚨Delhi Police has picked up Sonam Wangchuk forcefully! WATCH! pic.twitter.com/AlSSRf77vS
— Saurav Das (@SauravDassss) July 18, 2026

The Hindu reported that police climbed onto the protest dais and shielded Wangchuk from view as he was moved – a detail that would later fuel questions online about what the police were trying to hide. It further reported that Wangchuk was admitted to the emergency ward of the Safdarjung Hospital and is currently under medical supervision.

On X, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) said: “Sonam Wangchuk was peacefully protesting in a Gandhian way in Gandhi’s land. But he has been forcefully kidnapped by the Police and taken away. But Dharmendra Pradhan the Minister whose actions led to 20+ students dying – he can enjoy the good life! Cockroaches unite!”

Sonam Wangchuk was peacefully protesting in a Gandhian way in Gandhi’s land. But he has been forcefully kidnapped by the Police and taken away.

But Dharmendra Pradhan the Minister whose actions led to 20+ students dying - he can enjoy the good life!

Cockroaches unite! https://t.co/M1eVDfCMIo
— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) July 18, 2026

Wangchuk had been on an indefinite hunger strike in solidarity with the CJP, which had primarily demanded Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over the recent NEET-UG paper leak and other failures.

Police maintained they were acting under Delhi High Court orders and on medical advice, given Wangchuk’s worsening health. On X, the Deputy Commissioner of Police claimed: "As per orders of Hon'ble High Court and on expert medical advice due to the deteriorating health condition of Sh. Sonam Wangchuk, he has been shifted to the hospital for essential medical care. While complying with the orders of Hon'ble High Court, the protestors tried to create obstruction, in which slight commotion ensued. However, police exercised maximum restraint and carried out the exercise safely. We request the protestors at Jantar Mantar to peacefully vacate the place at the earliest.”

As per orders of Hon’ble High Court and on expert medical advise due to the deteriorating health condition of Sh. Sonam Wangchuk, he has been shifted to the hospital for essential medical care.
While complying with the orders of Hon’ble High Court the protestors tried to create…
— DCP New Delhi (@DCPNewDelhi) July 18, 2026

That account of the court order was contested by journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, who wrote on X that the court had only directed the government to monitor Wangchuk’s health, and not to remove him from the site or clear the protest.

Breaking news this morning: Activist Sonam Wangchuk, who was sitting on a hunger strike from last 20 days at Jantar Mantar, taken to the hospital by the police. Delhi Police claim that they are acting on court orders: truth is, court asked govt to monitor his health and not… pic.twitter.com/1tbGpfqMFC
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) July 18, 2026

Dipke says he was confined; AISA hunger strikers also targeted

Away from Jantar Mantar, CJP founder Abhijit Dipke said on an Instagram Live session that he had been stopped from leaving a friend’s residence in Jhandewalan, where he’d gone to freshen up. “Claiming he had effectively been placed under house arrest, Dipke showed the gate of the housing society locked, with Delhi Police personnel stationed outside, according to The Indian Express.

CJP spokesperson Saurav Das made a similar claim on social media, saying Dipke had been barred from returning to the protest site, and separately alleged that police had lathi-charged protesters and moved in on the spot where some students were holding their own hunger strike.

#BREAKING: The Delhi Police has stopped Abhijeet Dipke where he was staying. People are telling me that Sonam Wangchuk is being picked up from the protest site. Students are being lathicharged! pic.twitter.com/kkKtSI83hO
— Saurav Das (@SauravDassss) July 18, 2026

Delhi Police disputed this: DCP (New Delhi) Sachin Sharma said, “In accordance with the Honorable High Court's order and considering his health condition and expert medical advice, Mr Sonam Wangchuk has been shifted from here to a government hospital for treatment; there has been absolutely no lathi-charge or anything of that sort.”

According to Deccan Herald journalist Shemin Joy, three AISA leaders remained on hunger strike at Jantar Mantar even after Wangchuk was removed, with students forming a human chain to prevent them from being taken away as well. Joy also reported that Abhijeet Dipke had arrived at the site to join the protest in solidarity.

After Sonam Wangchuk was removed from Jantar Mantar protest site, three AISA leaders who are on hunger strike still at site with students making a human chain to prevent their removal. Abhijeet Dipke arrive at site to join in solidarity @DeccanHerald pic.twitter.com/Bj3z53pwMX
— Shemin (@shemin_joy) July 18, 2026

CJP founder Abhijit Dipke is now on an indefinite hunger strike himself, according to the party’s official handles.

Abhijeet Dipke sits on an indefinite hunger strike.

The ‘Chalo Sansad’ march on 20 July will proceed as planned.
— Cockroach is Back (@Cockroachisback) July 18, 2026

Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, confirmed on X that she was at Safdarjung Hospital where he had been admitted but stated in no uncertain terms: “Nothing should be administered to him orally or intravenous without take consent from me, his family and his doctors who have been monitoring his health for the past 20 days.”

I am at Safdarjung hospital in Delhi where @Wangchuk66 has been admitted. Nothing should be administered to him orally or intravenous without take consent from me, his family and his doctors who have been monitoring his health for the past 20 days.
— Gitanjali J Angmo (@GitanjaliAngmo) July 18, 2026

According to The Hindu's Aroon Deep, the CJP has called for a nationwide protest following Wangchuk's forced hospitalisation.

CJP calls for nationwide peaceful protests after Sonam Wangchuk's forced hospitalisation
— Aroon Deep (@AroonDeep) July 18, 2026

The political fallout

The visuals of Wangchuk being covered and escorted away drew sharp reactions online. NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande called it “a full-scale clampdown on a democratic protest,” writing on X: “Sonam Wangchuk has been picked up from Jantar Mantar. Abhijeet Dipke has been hit and detained outside my residence. This is a full-scale clampdown on a democratic protest. How scared is the government?”

Sonam Wangchuk has been picked up from Jantar Mantar. Abhijeet Dipke has been hit and detained outside my residence. This is a full-scale clampdown on a democratic protest.

How scared is the government? pic.twitter.com/d0NSDjvn3I
— Anish Gawande (@anishgawande) July 18, 2026

The Hindu's Vijaita Singh questioned the decision to obscure Wangchuk from cameras, posting: “Might of the State. Delhi Police forcibly takes away activist Sonam Wangchuk who has been on a hunger strike for 20-days. But why are they covering him?” Several replies to her post speculated that police wanted to avoid images of Wangchuk in visible distress.

Might of the State. Delhi Police forcibly takes away activist Sonam Wangchuk who has been on a hunger strike for 20-days. But why are they covering him? 🙄 pic.twitter.com/MICAdWedRL
— Vijaita Singh (@vijaita) July 18, 2026

Delhi Police, for its part, urged remaining demonstrators at Jantar Mantar to disperse peacefully.

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‘Our collective conscience’: Filmmakers, writers join appeals to Wangchuk to end fastCockroach Janta Party: 15 days later, bigger protest or bigger hype?

‘Our collective conscience’: Filmmakers, writers join appeals to Wangchuk to end fast

NL Team — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 06:33:49 GMT

Wangchuk says he is ‘weak outside, strong inside’. He has appealed to supporters to ensure a massive turnout for the CJP’s proposed march to Parliament on July 20.

A cross-section of India’s film, literary, and journalistic community has issued a joint appeal to climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, urging him to end his hunger strike, now in its 20th day. Wangchuk has been fasting as part of the broader Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) protests over paper leaks.

In their letter, the signatories called Wangchuk their “collective conscience” and a protector of the environment and of India’s youth, writing that he was “too precious to lose in this tragic way” and that his “sacrifice and courage have inspired people around the world”. They urged authorities to open a dialogue with him and “honor the spirit of public service” he represents.

The letter carries over 60 signatures, including filmmakers Zoya Akhtar, Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, Kiran Rao, and Payal Kapadia; writers Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, and Pankaj Mishra; and actors Nandita Das and Konkona Sen, among others from academia, journalism, and human rights advocacy.

On Friday, Wangchuk said he would “stay alive till July 20 at any cost”, despite doctors warning that his prolonged fast has reached a critical stage and could soon lead to organ damage. Wangchuk also appealed to supporters to ensure a massive turnout for the CJP’s proposed march to Parliament on July 20.

The CJP’s protest at Jantar Mantar over alleged examination irregularities entered its 28th day, with the July 20 march coinciding with the opening day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

Addressing supporters at the protest site on Friday, Wangchuk admitted that his health had weakened but said his determination remained intact.

“I am weak from the outside but very strong inside. I am sure all of you are strong from the inside, and outside too. We need this energy for July 20, when we will take out a peaceful march to Parliament. We will go together and present our plea in the temple of democracy,” he said, according to PTI.

The letter with 60 signatures follows earlier expressions of support from the film industry. Zeenat Aman voiced concern over Wangchuk’s deteriorating health and called for meaningful dialogue, while actor Omi Vaidya asked the public to understand the protest’s underlying issues. Sonakshi Sinha also released a video message backing Wangchuk, saying she had never felt compelled to make such a public statement before but could no longer stay silent.

Opposition leaders have echoed the calls for dialogue as well, with former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav, Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders, and farmer leader Rakesh Tikait extending solidarity with Wangchuk at the CJP protest site.

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‘Deeply flawed’ spin: Editors Guild slams MEA’s defense of Modi’s press conference dodge

NL Team — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:42:22 GMT

An Indian diplomat in Auckland recently claimed rural voters don’t want media “intermediaries”, but the Guild says one-way social media is no substitute for public accountability.

Secretary (East) in the MEA, Rudrendra Tandon

Why doesn’t Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold press conferences?

The question has almost become a recurring theme at Modi’s overseas engagements, and last week we heard the latest iteration of the MEA’s response.

At a media briefing in Auckland on Friday, during the final leg of Modi’s three-nation tour, a journalist asked Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Rudrendra Tandon, why Modi has still not held a press conference. Tandon smiled and called the question a case of “deja vu” given that Indian diplomats have fielded it before. He then said it would not be proper for a civil servant to comment on the prime minister’s political choices.

But he went on to comment anyway. “Prime Minister Modi is a quintessential Indian politician,” Tandon said. “By and large, Indian politicians favour direct contact with their electorate, and you must remember that the Indian electorate is predominantly rural folk. They want direct contact – they don’t like being spoken down to, and they don’t like being spoken to through intermediaries. Mr Modi has perfected the art of direct contact with his electorate, and he seems to be doing a rather good job of it, since he’s in his third term, and he’s one of the longest serving prime ministers in our country.”

The Editors Guild of India, however, has now called that explanation “deeply flawed”.

In a statement issued earlier today, the Guild said the PM has to routinely answer both his urban and rural people on urgent political and economic issues, especially at a time when the world is mired in an unprecedented energy crisis in the wake of the war in West Asia. “The truth is that he has been reluctant to share his views on this gargantuan crisis with any kind of media,” it said.

The statement also took issue with the idea that direct, one-way messaging can substitute for a press conference. “All over the democratic world, leaders not only do not ignore the media but regularly interact with and face questions from it as an integral part of the participatory process. In every functioning democracy, the media speaks on behalf of the public, seeking accountability from those in public office, and soliciting responses to the urgent and pressing issues faced by the masses,” it said.

“Scripted, one-way communications, largely through social media channels, are not a substitute for public interaction with independent media,” the statement added.

The guild then appealed to senior MEA officials not to issue such “glib platitudes, which only serve to have a further chilling effect on free speech and media freedom.”

Statement on the MEA Official's Remarks on Prime Minister Modi’s Media Engagement pic.twitter.com/ACZXRkyHWs
— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) July 16, 2026

This is not the first time the question has followed Modi abroad. In May, at a joint appearance in Oslo with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, journalist Helle Lyng asked Modi directly why he does not take questions from the press. Modi did not respond and walked on. The moment made headlines and prompted debate on social media.

Modi arrived in Auckland last Friday for what he described as a “historic” visit – the first by an Indian prime minister to New Zealand in nearly four decades.

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Sudhir Chaudhary’s heart bleeds for Sonam Wangchuk but no one is buying it

NL Team — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:43:15 GMT

Less than a year after laying wild allegations against Sonam Wangchuk, the anchor is deeply worried about his health – provided you blame an activist for it instead of the government.

For 17 days, Sonam Wangchuk has been sitting on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, demanding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation over the NEET-UG paper leak and a string of other failures. His weight has dropped by roughly 8.5 kg, and his blood pressure and blood sugar levels are falling.

On July 14, Sudhir Chaudhary decided he was worried about him. His expression of worry was revealing. “Nobody wants #SonamWangchuk to die,” he wrote on X. “The person who can save his life today is Abhijit Dipte. Convince him to end his hunger strike. Take him to a hospital.” He went on: “If Abhijit wants to make a point, he can start a hunger strike himself but spare Sonam. Don’t turn an old man’s life into a political campaign.”

Nobody wants #SonamWangchuk to die. The person who can save his life today is Abhijit Dipte. Convince him to end his hunger strike. Take him to a hospital.
If Abhijit wants to make a point, he can start a hunger strike himself but spare Sonam.
Don’t turn an old man’s life into a…
— Sudhir Chaudhary (@sudhirchaudhary) July 14, 2026

The reaction on X was swift and largely unimpressed. Dipke was having none of it, tweeting: “Not everyone can be controlled the way the govt controls you, Tihari ji.”

Not everyone can be controlled the way the govt controls you, Tihari ji. https://t.co/w8LnBTaJlc
— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) July 14, 2026

Others pointed out how this prominent member of the Indian media was seeking accountability from protesters and not the government they are protesting against.

very inspiring to see accountability being sought from protesters and not from the minister & govt they are protesting against 🙏 https://t.co/nGGmDFUc26
— Buffalo Intellectual (@ProfRavikantK) July 14, 2026

And, of course, there were those who asked why his first instinct, watching a man’s health deteriorate over a stated demand, was to interrogate the protester rather than the minister who could end it by resigning.

Nobody wants #Journalism to die. The person who can save this today is @sudhirchaudhary. Convince him to end his farcical show on TV. Take him to Tihar.
If Sudhir wants to make a point, he can start by becoming an official party spokesperson but please spare Journalism. Don't… https://t.co/WYkmTMh52t
— The DeshBhakt 🇮🇳 (@TheDeshBhakt) July 15, 2026

Chaudhary, however, repeated and extended the argument on his primetime DD News show that evening. “Abhijit Dipke khud 30 saal ke yuva hain aur vah apni maange manwane ke liye ek 59 saal ke vyakti se bhookh haadtaal karva rahe hain aur khud anshan par nahi baithe” (Abhijit Dipke is himself a 30-year-old young man; yet, to get his demands met, he is having a 59-year-old man go on a hunger strike instead of undertaking the fast himself).

What was his prescription?

Chaudhary said that if Dipke wanted to take the protest further, he should first get Wangchuk to end his fast and get him admitted to hospital, and only then, if he wished, go on a fast himself — adding that he was “fully confident” Dipke could sustain a fast “for a much longer period than Sonam Wangchuk,” given that he was young and only 30.

As for the people, particularly celebrities and eminent personalities, posting appeals online, Chaudhary told them they had the wrong audience: “Yh apeel kisee aur se nheen desh ke logon se nheen blki Abhijit Dipke se krnee chahie kyonki vhee ek vykti hain jo sonm vangchuk kee jan bcha skte hain.” (This appeal should not be made to anyone else – not even the people of the country – but to Abhijit Dipke, because he is the only person who can save Sonam Wangchuk’s life.)

It’s a not-so-slick piece of reframing. Wangchuk began this fast entirely of his own volition, has resisted repeated appeals from people around him at Jantar Mantar to break it, and has stated his own terms for ending it. None of that features in Chaudhary’s monologue.

Instead, the man on hunger strike becomes an instrument of someone else’s ambition, and the person with the actual power to end the crisis – Dharmendra Pradhan, or the Modi government – disappears from the frame entirely. Chaudhary gives the game away with this line: “Is poore prakaran se aisa lagta hai ki jaan kisi aur ki ja rahi hai aur rajneeti kisi aur ki chamak rahi hai (It appears from this entire episode that someone else is losing their life, while someone else is reaping the political benefits).

Ironically, it’s the same anchor, who less than a year ago, was piling on wild allegations against Wangchuk after violence broke out in Leh last September. Back then, Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act. Those charges were revoked six months later.

Chaudhary did not treat Wangchuk’s detention as a story about a crackdown on a protest leader. He treated it as an unmasking. “Aaj unka asli chehra hum desh ke saamne rakhenge (today we will show the country his real face),” Chaudhary said on September 26.

On Wangchuk's public persona, he said: “Woh aksar bhookh hartaal par baithkar apne aap ko ek Gandhivaadi sabit karne ki koshish karte hain” – he often sits on hunger strikes to try and prove himself a Gandhian – “lekin is sabke peeche, woh Ladakh ke yuvaon mein asantosh paida karke... sarkar ke khilaf vidroh karna chahte hain” – but behind all this, he wants to provoke rebellion against the government by stoking discontent among Ladakh’s youth.

Set those two Chaudhary broadcasts side by side, and the throughline doesn’t seem to be a concern for Wangchuk’s wellbeing.

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4 years on, MSP committee has no report to show, but Rs 53 lakh spent

Akankhya Rout — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:09:30 GMT

The panel has held several meetings since its formation in July 2022. But the minutes of these meetings were not shared in RTI responses citing confidentiality.

The panel was formed months after the Modi government withdrew the contentious farm laws.

Nearly four years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised a committee to make the Minimum Support Price (MSP) more effective and transparent, the panel has not submitted a single report — even as it has spent almost Rs 54 lakh and held dozens of meetings whose proceedings have not been disclosed in RTI replies.

The committee has held 6 meetings and 42 meetings via sub-committees since its formation on July 18, 2022. The most recent meeting was held on May 14 this year. The CPIO declined to share the minutes of any meeting, saying the proceedings were confidential and attended only by the chairman and members, according to a reply received from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare in May.

The CPIO put total spending at Rs 53,97,280 up to May 17, with a single meeting on April 2 costing Rs 62,380.

Three farm bills, introduced in the Lok Sabha in June 2020 and pitched as a means to raise farmers’ incomes, triggered widespread agitation, with protesters demanding a legal guarantee for MSP. As the protests escalated, PM Modi announced in November 2021 that the three laws would be repealed. The committee followed the next year. It was meant to promote natural farming, change cropping patterns, and make MSP more effective and transparent.

It has 27 members apart from chairperson Sanjay Agarwal, who did not respond to a questionnaire.

Newslaundry has earlier reported on the panel and previous RTI replies here.

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Bhutan editor stands by E20 report after Modi govt denial

NL Team — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 13:26:57 GMT

A Bhutanese newspaper had reported that Bhutan had declined an offer from Indian Oil Marketing Companies to supply E20 petrol.

Last week, Bhutanese newspaper The Bhutanese reported that Bhutan had declined an offer from Indian Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to supply E20 petrol.

The report cited concerns over ethanol’s hygroscopic nature – its tendency to absorb water – which, combined with old and potentially leaky underground storage tanks in Bhutan’s Himalayan terrain, could contaminate the fuel and damage vehicles.

Bhutan has politely declined offers by Indian Oil Marketing Companies to buy E 20 petrol as Bhutan does not have the storage facilities for such a hygroscopic (water absorbing) fuel.
This is especially tricky in a Himalayan terrain with seepage in tanks.https://t.co/MTB09mp7oy
— Tenzing Lamsang (@TenzingLamsang) July 3, 2026

Three days later, India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas disputed the report. In a fact-check posted on its official X account, the ministry said the claims were “incorrect,” adding that no OMC had made any such offer and that no proposal to export E20 to Bhutan existed.

Fact Check

❌ Claims that Bhutan declined an offer to import E20 petrol from India are incorrect.

No such offer has been made by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), and there is no proposal for export of E20 petrol to Bhutan.

✅ Please rely only on official information from… pic.twitter.com/sqyAcEIvbw
— Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas #MoPNG (@PetroleumMin) July 5, 2026

However, Tenzing Lamsang, the editor of The Bhutanese, stood by the paper’s report. He tried to counter the ministry with his tweet, which had a written reply from Bhutan’s Department of Trade, confirming the claim that Indian OMCs had raised E20 during technical meetings, and that the department had asked them to continue supplying normal petrol instead. He said his verbal interviews with officials corroborated this account as well.

Since there is an official denial, please find the written response by the Department of Trade of the Bhutanese Govt confirming to me an offer was made by Indian OMCs & the Department requested the OMCs to supply normal petrol.
My verbal interviews confirmed it too. pic.twitter.com/0z1Q9zbqTD
— Tenzing Lamsang (@TenzingLamsang) July 5, 2026

The document does not use the words “formal offer” or “proposal,” which is the basis of the ministry’s denial. It does, however, detail Bhutan’s concerns over its storage tank infrastructure, and states that Bhutan has asked India for advance notice if the country eventually shifts to fully ethanol-blended petrol, so fuel dealers have time to upgrade their tanks.

Bhutan’s largest fuel distributor, Tashi BOD, has separately said its stations are not currently equipped to handle ethanol-blended fuel because of the seepage issue.

This comes as India’s own E20 rollout faces domestic scrutiny over reports of reduced mileage and vehicle wear.

Neither Lamsang nor the ministry uploaded the full document. So the question remains unresolved whether an offer was formally made or informally raised during discussions.

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Months before Satluj vanished, Honey Trehan told us why he kept hoping

NL Team — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 05:24:38 GMT

Originally titled Punjab 95, the film traces the journey of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.

Less than two days after its long-awaited release on OTT platform Zee5, Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Satluj, previously titled Punjab 95, has been taken down from the streaming service in India.

Some viewers said the film vanished midway through their viewing. Zee5 said it stood firmly behind the film but confirmed that it would remain unavailable for streaming in India until further notice. “We remain committed to exploring every appropriate avenue through due process to bring the film back to our audiences at the earliest opportunity. Our commitment to creators and to stories told with conviction, artistic integrity and purpose remains unwavering,” the statement read.

Originally titled Punjab 95, the film traces the journey of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who exposed the alleged mass disappearances and extra-judicial killings in Punjab during the turbulent 10-year period from 1984 to 1994, before “disappearing” in 1995. The film had originally been slated for a theatrical release on February 7 last year. However, it remained in limbo after the Central Board of Film Certification refused certification and reportedly asked the makers to implement 127 cuts before approving it for theatrical release. After months of uncertainty, the uncut version was eventually released directly on Zee5 with the different title.

Besides Diljit Dosanjh, the film also stars Arjun Rampal, Kanwaljit Singh, Suvinder Vicky and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan. It is directed by Honey Trehan.

If you have followed Newslaundry’s coverage of the film’s long and troubled journey, this latest development will sound familiar. At The Media Rumble last year, while Punjab 95 was still awaiting certification, Honey Trehan spoke candidly about the uncertainty surrounding its release. He revealed that he had submitted the film to the CBFC in December 2022 and was still waiting for approval nearly two years later. Asked whether he was still hopeful, Honey replied, “Yes, I think only me.” Watch the full session here.

Speaking about the cuts in an episode of South Central, Honey Trehan had said, “Khalra has been part of my childhood, the story of my land. I feel like he has been abducted again now, with his story being censored.” He adds that challenging Khalra’s story is equal to challenging the Constitution itself, because it is an assault on our right to freedom of speech and expression.

Tune into the full conversation here.

Following the film’s release on Zee5, Trehan had described Satluj as a “labour of love“ made with honesty, sensitivity, and without compromise.

“After a long wait, audiences will finally witness our labour of love and hard work. Satluj is not just the story of one individual; it is a tribute to the strength of human spirit in the face of adversity. Everyone associated with the film deeply believed in the importance of this narrative, as it draws inspiration from the life of the great martyr Jaswant Singh. I'm delighted that it is now reaching audiences on Zee 5,“ he said.

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Meta pushes child sexual abuse material on Instagram, finds BBC investigation

The News Minute — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 04:46:29 GMT

During the course of the investigation, BBC’s Divya Arya found that child sexual abuse material and adult pornography are promoted by Instagram through advertisements, with no effective checks in place.

The thumbnail of the BBC Documentary "The Careless Machine: Exposing Instagram’s Darkest Secret" (BBC)

Videos containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) are being pushed by the Meta algorithm, and advertisements of child pornography are rampant on social media platforms, a BBC investigation has found. Most advertisements contained links to Telegram that reportedly contained sexually explicit content involving children.

During the course of the investigation, BBC’s Divya Arya found that such content is actively promoted by Instagram, with no effective checks in place. Even though Meta’s ad policy explicitly bans nudity, such advertisements are still available on Facebook and Instagram.

Brian Boland, a former vice president at Facebook turned whistleblower, told the BBC that he was both “horrified and unsurprised” to learn that Meta was pushing CSAM and adult pornographic materials through advertisements. He said, “Because they (Meta) are not responsibly guiding and controlling it (the algorithm) and it is just pursuing the goals of revenue and clicks, it will create these outcomes if people are not being truly aggressively protective over these systems.”

According to Brian, the algorithm that pushes advertisements to users is an “absolutely careless machine”. He added that there has been an increased reliance on technical solutions when it comes to putting in place checks and balances. For instance, advertisements are approved through a fully automated review process.

Decisions about the level of control and/or monitoring to be exercised over advertisement reviews are unlikely to be taken without the knowledge of top officials, Boland said. “It is hard to say exactly who is responsible. But you don't get major decisions made without the most senior people – Adam Mosseri at Instagram or Mark Zuckerberg at Meta – knowing about it,” he alleged. “The company has dramatically underinvested in keeping people safe,” he further said.

The BBC also spoke to cybercrime officials in India and attempted to get responses from top officials at Meta.

Watch the comprehensive investigation here:

Watch on YouTube

TNM investigation: Hospital CCTV clips of women are being leaked and sold as porn

HC refers Anjana Om Kashyap-Khan Sir defamation matter to mediation

NL Team — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 06:55:42 GMT

The court told the anchor to stop targeting the online educators.

The Delhi High Court has directed journalist Anjana Om Kashyap, educator Khan Sir, and other parties to attempt mediation. Justice Tushar Rao Gedela instructed the lawyers involved to meet with a mediator on Thursday evening, Bar and Bench reported.

The order came in connection with a defamation suit worth Rs 2 crore filed by Kashyap and TV Today Network against Khan Sir and others, stemming from remarks made after Kashyap criticised the rising influence of “star teachers”. Besides Khan Sir, the suit names other educators – Abhinay Sharma, Babita Tyagi, and Arvind Bhadauriya – along with certain social media accounts and the 4PM News Network.

The court instructed Khan Sir and fellow educators to take down posts containing information about Kashyap’s children, while asking Kashyap to stop targeting the educators.

According to the complaint, several defendants with substantial online followings ran a coordinated campaign against Kashyap and her network after the anchor criticised online educators, using disparaging Hindi terms to describe her and the channel as corrupt or biased, and accusing them of spreading misinformation for profit.

Kashyap is being represented by advocates Hrishikesh Baruah, Utkarsh Dwivedi, and Pragya Agarwal.

The court had earlier declined to grant any interim injunction in the defamation suit.

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Rs 700-cr Delhi medical ‘scam’ ignored by primetime TV

WhatsApp is introducing usernames: What they are and how they work

The News Minute — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 05:58:33 GMT

The update, however, has also raised concerns about scams and impersonation.

Representational Image (Courtesy Flickr/Yuri Samoilov)

WhatsApp is introducing usernames, allowing users to chat without sharing their phone numbers. The optional feature marks one of the biggest changes in the messaging app's history, which has relied entirely on phone numbers since its launch.

Rivals such as Telegram and Signal have offered username-based identities for years, but WhatsApp has so far resisted moving away from phone number-based communication.

The Meta-owned platform has already opened username reservations globally ahead of a wider rollout later this year. With more than three billion users worldwide and an estimated 850 million in India, the feature could significantly change how people interact on the app.

The update, however, has also raised concerns about scams and impersonation. Here's what users need to know.

What are WhatsApp usernames?

WhatsApp usernames are an additional identity layer that sits on top of a user's phone number. Instead of giving someone your mobile number, you can choose to share your username and let people contact you that way.

The feature is designed primarily as a privacy tool. Once usernames are fully rolled out, users who message or call someone for the first time will not automatically reveal their phone number, provided the recipient does not already have it saved in their contacts.

The change could prove useful in situations such as meeting someone at a conference, joining a community group, interacting with businesses, or connecting with people you do not know personally.

However, the introduction of usernames does not mean phone numbers are disappearing from WhatsApp. A phone number will still be required to create and use a WhatsApp account. People who already have your number saved will continue to see and contact you through it.

How will usernames work?

Users can choose a unique username that others can use to find and contact them. Usernames must be between three and 35 characters long and can contain Latin letters, numbers, periods and underscores.

WhatsApp will not allow usernames that consist entirely of numbers, nor will it permit restricted words and phrases. Every username will automatically begin with an "@" symbol, allowing users to distinguish usernames from display names and phone numbers.

People who struggle to find an available username can use a built-in username generator that suggests unique alternatives.

Users will also have the option to change or delete their username at any time. If a username is deleted, other people will once again see the person's phone number in situations where it would otherwise remain hidden. WhatsApp says users will have 14 days to reclaim a deleted username.

How can someone contact another user through a username?

When the feature becomes widely available, people will be able to enter a person's exact username into WhatsApp to start a conversation. Unlike Instagram, Facebook or Telegram, however, WhatsApp will not provide a searchable directory of usernames or suggest matching accounts as users type. This means people will need to know the precise username of the person they want to contact.

The company is also introducing an additional security measure called a "username key". Users can set this key and require unknown contacts to enter it before they can send a message for the first time. The key can be changed whenever the user wants.

How can users reserve a username?

To reserve a username:

Open WhatsApp -> Go to Settings -> Tap Account -> Select Username.

The company has opened reservations before the full launch because of its enormous user base, which now exceeds three billion users globally. With millions of people likely to choose similar names, reserving early gives users a better chance of securing the username they want.

Users can also choose their Instagram or Facebook username, but with a condition. Meta is reserving existing Facebook and Instagram usernames during the reservation period and for a limited period afterwards. Users who want the same username across platforms will have to link their WhatsApp account to Meta's Accounts Centre.

Accounts Centre acts as a central hub for settings, security and connected experiences across Meta's apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads.

Meta says linking accounts may allow it to personalise experiences and deliver more relevant content and advertisements across its services. However, the company has maintained that personal messages and calls on WhatsApp will remain end-to-end encrypted and that WhatsApp contact lists will not be shared with other Meta companies.

If multiple people use the same username across Facebook and Instagram, the handle on WhatsApp will go to whoever claims it first.

Users who do not want to link their accounts can instead choose a different username that exists only on WhatsApp.

Safety and impersonation concerns

The rollout has also raised concerns about scams and impersonation, particularly in India, WhatsApp's largest market with an estimated 850 million users.

Entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo questioned whether adequate safeguards are in place to prevent fraudsters from creating deceptive usernames that resemble those of well-known personalities. He argued that many users do not pay close attention to verification indicators and could be vulnerable to impersonation attempts. He also warned that username-based identities could create new opportunities for scammers if strong anti-abuse systems are not in place.

In a country such as India, this could be a disaster, if the right anti-abuse systems are not set up by WhatsApp.

Imagine receiving a message from warikoo / awarikoo / ankurwarikooo / ankur_warikoo / a_warikoo / ankurwarikooofficial etc etc - soliciting money.

1. Most people… https://t.co/AaiH7F1szN
— Ankur Warikoo (@warikoo) June 30, 2026

Jasveer Singh, co-founder and chief executive of KnotDating, also expressed concerns, saying phone numbers provide at least one identifiable piece of information that can be reported when suspicious messages appear.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm, also suggested that verified usernames may eventually be accompanied by numerous similar-looking, unverified alternatives, potentially making it harder for users to distinguish genuine accounts from fake ones.

However, WhatsApp says it has built several safeguards into the system. Names associated with public figures, celebrities, government entities and verified Meta accounts are being reserved so that they can only be claimed by their legitimate owners. The company is also restricting certain lookalike variations of known names.

The platform says its automated systems will detect and remove accounts displaying common patterns of impersonation and abuse. It also plans to limit how many new people an account can contact through usernames and block repeated attempts to guess someone's username key.

WhatsApp has also imposed restrictions on how frequently users can change their usernames and says it will revoke usernames or ban accounts if it detects impersonation or scams.

How can users verify unknown contacts?

When users receive a message from someone they do not know, WhatsApp will display a details card with additional information.

The card may show whether the account is newly created, whether the person is messaging from another country and whether the two users share any groups. Users can then choose to add the person as a contact, block them or report them.

WhatsApp also suggests that users can place a voice or video call within the app to verify a person's identity before sharing sensitive information or responding to requests.

For contacts already saved on a user's phone, WhatsApp will continue to display the saved contact name instead of the person's username.

Centre issues notice to Meta

However, the Centre moved swiftly against WhatsApp's proposed “username” feature, issuing a notice to Meta and instructing it to hold off on launching the feature in India.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sent the notice on Tuesday (July 1), seeking an “explanation” from Meta about the new feature “within three days”.

“You are also directed not to roll out this feature until the consultation on this point is achieved to the satisfaction of the government,” the notice says.

The Centre’s notice says the feature could “materially increase fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams”, enable “bad actors to solicit and message victims” and warns that users might impersonate individuals or government authorities if they get usernames.

This piece was republished from The News Minute as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. Read about our partnership here and become a subscriber here.

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Missing in print: The Telegraph ignores its former editor’s ordeal

NL Team — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:28:50 GMT

While press associations, politicians, and social media outrage over R Rajagopal’s SIR ordeal, the newsroom he led for seven years has barely breathed a word.

For four days now, the passport troubles of R Rajagopal, former editor of The Telegraph, have consumed social media and drawn the attention of the Editors Guild of India, the Press Club of India, opposition politicians and a clutch of senior journalists.

In that time, The Telegraph’s print edition has not carried a single line on the case, not even as a routine news brief, despite it involving a man who spent a total of 29 years in the newsroom, 7 of which were spent as editor between 2016 and 2023.

The only acknowledgement has come in a solitary online report that covers the letter Kerala chief minister V D Satheesan wrote to his West Bengal counterpart on the issue.

The silence was first flagged by journalist Krishna Prasad on X, who noted that, despite the “intricacies of the case” drawing national attention, Kolkata’s own paper of record had nothing to say about its former editor’s predicament.

For four days, the passport travails of R.Rajagopal, former Editor of 'The Telegraph', has drawn national media and political attention.

Yet, not a word in the Calcutta newspaper for four days running, notwithstanding the intricacies of the case? Amazing. @ttindia @devdanmitra pic.twitter.com/UiIEAfP6R2
— churumuri (@churumuri) July 1, 2026

In a note Rajagopal wrote, which caught traction on X (formerly Twitter), he stated that in March 2026 his name was struck off the Ballygunge constituency electoral roll in Kolkata during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise because Election Commission officials could not trace his name or his late father’s in the 2002 voters’ list. His father was a Gandhian and a former state secretary of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi in Kerala. His appeal is now before a tribunal, and in the meantime, he could not vote in the recent West Bengal assembly election.

The deletion has since snowballed into a passport crisis for him. Though Rajagopal completed his biometric formalities for renewal on March 19, Kolkata Police sent an adverse verification report citing his absence from the electoral rolls, and as of today, his renewal remains stuck. He was summoned to the Regional Passport Office in Calcutta “immediately”, but the earliest appointment he could secure is July 17. This meant that he could not travel to San Francisco in April for his daughter’s wedding, despite holding a valid 10-year US visa.

Rajagopal has been careful not to portray himself as a lone victim, writing that if someone who spent a career in journalism can run into this wall, “one can only imagine what the truly marginalised must endure”. He said he deliberately did not approach any newspaper about his case, adding that editors and journalists who know of it but choose to look away “should not be in the profession”.

The Press Club of India and the Editors Guild of India have both weighed in on the matter.

On Sunday, the Guild said that Rajagopal’s case highlights the wider misery inflicted by the SIR exercise, warning that if a public figure of his stature could lose his voting rights this way, ordinary citizens were likely faring worse.

The Press Club followed suit on Monday, disclosing that Rajagopal isn’t an isolated case. Senior journalist and author Samrat Choudhury also had his passport impounded on Passport Seva Divas (June 24) over an adverse police report, despite holding an Indian passport since 1993, appearing on Meghalaya’s electoral rolls, and having renewed it under Tatkal as recently as 2022.

However, not everyone has been sympathetic to Rajagopal’s case.

Kanchan Gupta, a former journalist now serving as a senior adviser in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, dismissed the Guild’s concern as selective, invoking Rajagopal’s past coverage of the Modi government as editor of The Telegraph, including a headline that referred to Union minister Smriti Irani as “Aunty National”, and suggesting the outrage over his passport was misplaced.

Where was @IndEditorsGuild’s ethics when day after day R Rajagopal ran a toxic campaign against Modi Govt, not to critique it but indulge in ad hominem vitriolic abuse?
Remember how @smritiirani was labelled ‘Aunty National’ in a front page banner headline?
Roll your outrage and… https://t.co/dJuDp5BgTH
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) June 29, 2026

That tweet drew pushback.

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Deleted from the rolls, barred from the world: A former editor’s SIR ordealPress club flags another passport case after govt adviser tries to shift focus to old headlines

Rs 700-cr Delhi medical ‘scam’ ignored by primetime TV

NL Team — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 11:54:56 GMT

Major channels skipped a massive procurement fraud and three arrests to debate the Ram Mandir donation theft case, a Tamil Nadu minister’s drug controversy, and the Ketan Agarwal murder case.

A scam involving alleged siphoning of approximately Rs 700 crore, three arrests, and roughly a dozen government officials under investigation went entirely unmentioned on primetime television on Monday, even as anchors spent their segments on the Ayodhya Ram Mandir donation theft case, a viral video implicating a Tamil Nadu minister in a drugs controversy, and updates on the Ketan Agarwal murder case.

The Delhi medical procurement scam centres on the Central Procurement Agency (CPA), under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) of the Delhi government, which allegedly inflated bills for medical equipment and supplies by several times their market value, according to a report in The Indian Express.

Portable X-ray machines were billed at Rs 33 lakh against a market price of roughly Rs 10 lakh, hospital linen at Rs 450 a piece against a real cost of Rs 150, and 50 lakh ORS sachets at Rs 15 each versus a market rate of about Rs 2.5, the report said.

Three arrests have been made so far, including former DGHS Director Dr Vatsala Aggarwal, former Deputy Controller of Accounts Neeraj Chopra, and former CPA Head of Office Dr Vinod Kumar Ranga, who is in judicial custody. Around 10 more officials are reportedly under the Anti-Corruption Branch’s scanner.

None of this was mentioned in the major English- and Hindi-language primetime debates on Monday. Instead, the Ram Mandir donation theft case dominated primetime slots helmed by anchors including Arnab Goswami (Republic TV), Sudhir Chaudhary (DD News), Anjana Om Kashyap (Aaj Tak), Rubika Liyaquat (Times Now Navbharat), Amish Devgan (News18 India), Navika Kumar (Times Now), Padmaja Joshi (NDTV), Sucherita Kukreti (NDTV India), and Aman Chopra (News18 India) – with discussions ranging from the Faizabad Bar Association’s refusal to represent the accused, to Champat Rai’s role and testimony and the political slugfest over the case in UP.

A separate controversy over a viral video allegedly showing a Tamil Nadu minister consuming drugs also found space on Arnab Goswami’s show, alongside the Ketan Agarwal murder case, which Sudhir Chaudhary and Anjana Om Kashyap both returned to.

Rahul Shivshankar (News18) and Sudhir Chaudhary also took up PM Modi’s recent visit to Seychelles, including questions raised by Opposition leaders over why the PM visited “such a small nation”, an explanation of Seychelles’ role in India’s MAHASAGAR vision, and an award conferred on Modi by the Seychelles government during the trip.

While some of these channels may have flagged the scam in their regular news bulletins, its complete absence from primetime debate fits a familiar pattern.

Earlier this month, primetime television similarly ignored an Indian Express investigation into Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav's land dealings, even as coordinated social media activity sought to drown out the story online.

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A front-page exposé on MP CM’s family land deals. But primetime couldn’t care lessTV Newsance 346 | Ram Mandir scam, MP land grab and TV’s fake teachers

Press club flags another passport case after govt adviser tries to shift focus to old headlines

NL Team — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:45:55 GMT

For former journalist and government advisor Kanchan Gupta, the real scandal was not the passport denial but old headlines.

The Press Club of India has waded into the growing controversy over journalists being denied passports on Monday, revealing that it isn’t just R Rajagopal, former editor of The Telegraph, who has faced passport-related hurdles due to an adverse police report.

The Press Club of India calls for common sense in R Rajagopal, Samrat Choudhury citizenship and passport cases. pic.twitter.com/2AcZYKZOwn
— Press Club of India (@PCITweets) June 29, 2026

The Club said Samrat Choudhury, a senior journalist and author, had his passport impounded earlier this month over an “adverse police report”. This was despite Choudhury holding an Indian passport since 1993, despite his name appearing on Meghalaya’s electoral rolls, and despite having had his passport renewed under Tatkal as recently as 2022. The Club noted that “no reason was cited for doubting his Indian citizenship status,” and that the document was confiscated on Passport Seva Divas on June 24, according to Choudhury.

This follows Rajagopal’s own revelation last week that he couldn’t vote in the West Bengal assembly elections after his name vanished from the rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a deletion that then came back to bite his passport renewal via an adverse police report.

Rajagopal’s remarks came just days after the Ministry of External Affairs claimed that a passport is merely a “travel document,” not proof of citizenship.

The Editors Guild of India had flagged the matter on Sunday, saying Rajagopal’s case “highlights the misery that millions of Indians are being put through” by the SIR exercise, and warning that if a public figure of his standing could be stripped of voting rights, ordinary citizens were likely faring worse.

Where was @IndEditorsGuild’s ethics when day after day R Rajagopal ran a toxic campaign against Modi Govt, not to critique it but indulge in ad hominem vitriolic abuse?
Remember how @smritiirani was labelled ‘Aunty National’ in a front page banner headline?
Roll your outrage and… https://t.co/dJuDp5BgTH
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) June 29, 2026

Though Kanchan Gupta – former journalist, now a senior advisor in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting – decided the real scandal here was Rajagopal’s old headlines, not his missing passport.

“Where was @IndEditorsGuild’s ethics when day after day R Rajagopal ran a toxic campaign against Modi Govt, not to critique it but indulge in ad hominem vitriolic abuse? Remember how @smritiirani was labelled ‘Aunty National’ in a front page banner headline? Roll your outrage and smoke it,” he tweeted.

Interesting..what exactly does Mr. Rajagopal's journalism and criticism of the government have to do with his passport and voting rights?? Unless...it does. https://t.co/bAIpfShmE0
— Suhasini Haidar (@suhasinih) June 30, 2026

Good that here is a confirmation that the Editor is indeed being penalized for his editorial work. Just a small problem--one thought that there will be a proper procedure for punishing transgressions? Or is unauthorized highhandedness a fair response against disliked critics? https://t.co/z5ee2eEQaG
— suhas palshikar (@PalshikarSuhas) June 29, 2026

To even suggest that a former editor deserves to be punished for what he wrote and edited just because you didn't like it makes you a petty little vindictive man regardless of the "position" you hold! https://t.co/dtlX5Qlj3q
— anuradha raman (@raman_anuradha) June 30, 2026

Several journalists were quick to ask the obvious: what, precisely, does a decade-old headline have to do with a passport renewal, and is “I didn’t like your journalism” now an acceptable substitute for due process?

A so-called Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, @KanchanGupta, is writing a new rule for citizenship under the @narendramodi government.

He is clearly saying that journalist R. Rajagopal’s passport is not being renewed just because he criticised the… pic.twitter.com/lWVcSPCfmU
— Dr. Shama Mohamed (@drshamamohd) June 29, 2026

भारत में यदि रहना होगा
वंदे मोदी कहना होगा ? https://t.co/TlYqXO1ugt
— Pawan Khera 🇮🇳 ಪವನ್ ಖೇರಾ (@Pawankhera) June 30, 2026

Since he ran a ‘toxic campaign’ we will take away his citizenship rights. Actually this sounds worse than anything else i have read in defense about the whole issue.
What intolerance looks like ⬇️ https://t.co/TNbM52uK4l
— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) June 29, 2026

Politicians piled on comments through the week.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, calling the episode a matter of “constitutional due process, statutory coherence and the rule of law”. He pointed out that Rajagopal had held a passport since 2005, renewed without incident in 2015, with no change in identity, parentage, address or nationality – only to be undone now by a single line on a government form.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor shared a letter from Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan to his West Bengal counterpart Suvendu Adhikari, calling the whole affair “an egregious miscarriage of justice”.

This is a valuable intervention from one CM to another, which will no doubt get the response that it is a Union government matter and not for the state to handle. But the fact is that whenever there is an egregious miscarriage of justice like this one, all democratic Indians… https://t.co/DKwP51VZbZ
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 29, 2026

Satheesan described Rajagopal as a “renowned journalist who has been based in Kolkata for the past three decades,” and noted that the SIR-linked police report had “had the effect of delaying the renewal of his passport” even as the underlying electoral dispute works its way through appeal.

Trinamool MP and former journalist Sagarika Ghose, meanwhile, asked why the story wasn’t getting more attention: “If this can happen to R Rajagopal, former Editor of @ttindia, imagine what citizens with far fewer resources are enduring.” She called it evidence of “the slow erosion of basic citizenship rights” and asking “WHY ARE SUCH HARROWING STORIES being INVISIBILISED.”

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Review of Gaza journalist deaths: CPJ board votes to affirm definition of journalist

NL Team — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:31:01 GMT

While Palestinian reporters face retroactive disqualification over political affiliations, critics ask why Western and Israeli state-media journalists get a pass.

The Committee to Protect Journalists’s Board of Directors has voted to affirm the organisation’s existing definition of who is a journalist and rejected claims it planned to change its definition to exclude particular groups.

This came days after CPJ announced on June 25 that it was conducting a full review of its database of journalists killed in Gaza after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) published obituaries identifying as combatants individuals previously listed by CPJ as journalists.

CPJ also shared a thread on X walking through names that were removed from its database, explaining the decisions.

Eight individuals were removed from the CPJ database after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) published obituaries identifying them as members of their armed groups. Subsequent research by CPJ staff, which involves speaking directly to at least two independent sources,…
— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom) June 30, 2026

“CPJ frequently considers its definition of a journalist, including a review that took place in 2025 led by CPJ staff and the board’s Policy Task Force,” CPJ board Chair Jacob Weisberg said in a statement. “Board members asked for a vote on a plan to look again at this definition and today voted to affirm the existing definition.”

CPJ defines journalists as people who regularly cover news or comment on public affairs through any medium to report or share fact-based information with an audience.

CPJ’s longstanding policy has been to include journalists working for state-backed media and those working with media organisations affiliated with militant groups provided they are not engaging in combat or inciting violence in a manner likely to have imminent effect. CPJ has never included, and removes from its lists, anyone found to be engaging in combat or inciting imminent violence, it said.

“It is not true that CPJ planned to change our definition of who is a journalist to exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese press killed in the Israel-Gaza war. Such unsubstantiated allegations undermine the rigorous documentation of our Middle East and North Africa program over many years, while endangering Palestinian and Lebanese journalists documenting events on the ground today,” Weisberg said.

“The board stands fully with the staff of CPJ, whose difficult daily work of documenting attacks on journalists is today more important than ever, and with all journalists wrongly smeared and maligned for doing their jobs.”

Internal dispute?

Within days of the June 25 announcement, an internal dispute became public.

Nika Soon-Shiong, publisher of Drop Site News and a CPJ board member since 2021, circulated a letter to the board raising concerns about the scope and purpose of the review – and was subsequently removed.

In her letter, Soon-Shiong said the proposal to potentially exclude journalists who exhibit certain “behaviours and activities” or who work for “state-backed propaganda outlets, militant- and designated terror-affiliated organisations” had emerged from a Washington Free Beacon article by reporter Adam Kredo. The piece had placed her on its cover and accused her of terrorism by virtue of her role as publisher of what it described as an “extremist” outlet.

“Reopening the question of ‘who is a journalist’ carries profound implications for the individuals CPJ protects and for the organisations with which they are affiliated,” she wrote. “It’s a betrayal to our colleagues in Gaza who have faced the deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded.”

Soon-Shiong said she had no objection to CPJ's existing practice of removing individuals confirmed as combatants. Her concern was with what she described as a separate “special task force” set up to redefine who qualifies for protection, and the risk that the exercise would apply different standards based on a journalist’s politics or employer.

She raised two specific lines of questioning.

First, whether the proposal meant revisiting CPJ’s existing definition of a journalist as a civilian under international law so long as they don’t directly participate in combat, or introducing a new and undefined category of disqualifying “behaviours and activities”.

Second, whether outlets would be excluded by institutional affiliation, asking why Hamas and PIJ were the only organisations named in the press release while outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, The Atlantic, the LA Times and the BBC – some of whose staff she alleges have served in or have family in the Israel Defense Forces – went unmentioned.

Citing the absence of a clear objective, defined scope, or assessment of institutional risk, she asked the board to formally vote on whether to proceed before any further work was carried out.

After sharing the letter with the board, Soon-Shiong said on X that she had been informed she was no longer a board member. The CPJ has not publicly commented on her removal.

I have been informed that I'm no longer a member of the Committee to Protect Journalists board. Below is the email I sent the board last night. pic.twitter.com/jWCIMCOpf7
— Dr. Nika Soon-Shiong (@nikasoonshiong) June 29, 2026

The wider debate

The review drew sharp responses from journalists and commentators covering the conflict.

Mohammed El-Kurd, Palestine correspondent for The Nation and editor-at-large for Mondoweiss, had said the CPJ’s board would “formally change its definition of who qualifies as a journalist, to broadly exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets,” while Israeli, American, and Ukrainian journalists working for state-funded outlets or embedded with militaries would remain recognised.

El-Kurd also said a “special task force” had been assembled to explore excluding journalists working for “state-backed propaganda outlets and terror-affiliated organisations”.

One user, who works for Databases for Palestine – an organisation that maintains a database of Palestinian journalists killed and cases of incitement – published a lengthy thread on X pointing to a series of Israeli journalists with alleged concurrent or recent military roles, questioning whether CPJ's proposed criteria would apply to them equally. The thread named several Israeli television and print journalists working for outlets including Channel 12, Channel 14 and Ynet, alongside claims about their military affiliations.

Thread of Israeli "journalists" that CPJ will continue to recognize after this change they are making to protect Israel / their own racism.

1/ Lital Shimesh, Israel's Channel 14 https://t.co/Ma7QgjN93k pic.twitter.com/hXWiPwdyBK
— Zo Brown (@receipts_lol) June 28, 2026

The stakes

The CPJ’s database carries significant institutional weight. It is cited by international media, United Nations bodies, and diplomatic actors as an authoritative record of journalist deaths in conflict zones. In 2025, Israel was responsible for over two-thirds of the 129 media fatalities documented worldwide, the highest figure since CPJ began collecting records.

Adam Johnson, author of How to Sell a Genocide, told Al Jazeera that Palestinian journalists were being "exterminated” in Gaza “to make sure that Palestinians themselves are not allowed to report on their own genocide”. He added that even when Palestinian journalists do get platforms at major American outlets, the work is transformed before publication: “The New York Times and others will use Palestinian journalists as stringers or translators, but they will rarely give them their byline, if ever, and they will heavily edit them back in New York and in Jerusalem to make sure that they have the right line.”

By which he meant “the editorial line of The New York Times, rather than the actual line of reality”, one in which, he said, “Israeli denials are frontloaded, Israeli claims that the people who were killed were Hamas or whatever are frontloaded, the death count for Palestinians is given this ‘Hamas-run Health Ministry’ pejorative to effectively downplay the deaths.”

Update: This report has been updated with CPJ's latest statement. The headline has been revised.

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Labelled a terrorist, questioned as journalist: A Palestinian man’s year in Israel prison’s ‘real hell’Palestine freer for journalists than India: It’s the Press Freedom Index again

Typos, AI claims: The strange story of the award created days before Modi’s Seychelles visit

NL Team — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 07:12:40 GMT

The award coincided with Seychelles’ Golden Jubilee celebrations marking 50 years of independence.

Just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Seychelles, the island nation created a new presidential distinction – the “Guardian of the Blue Horizon”. It then made Modi its first recipient.

But more than the award, it was the citation circulated by the BJP that went viral.

The certificate was peppered with typos. Republic became “Repubblic”. Seychelles turned into “Seycheeles”. And the Latin word OPUS appeared as OPVS on the official-looking seal.

It's OPVS and not OPUS.
It's Republic and not Repubblic.
It's Seychelles and not Seycheeles. pic.twitter.com/qX13eYhpBn
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 28, 2026

The award itself had been approved by the Seychelles cabinet only on June 24, just four days before the ceremony.

Seychelles used ChatGPT to make a state honor for PM Modi. https://t.co/3dNni4TOnA pic.twitter.com/XYqBBuxe6c
— Aroon Deep (@AroonDeep) June 28, 2026

Then came another twist. Some social media users suggested the citation had been generated using AI. That speculation grew after OpenAI’s image verification tool reportedly detected a SynthID watermark in the publicly circulated image of the certificate. The watermark indicates the online image was AI-generated, though it does not establish that the physical certificate presented during the ceremony was.

Adding to the mystery, neither India’s Ministry of External Affairs nor the Seychelles State House has published the citation on its official website, making it impossible to independently verify whether the online version matches the one handed to the prime minister.

The question over who created the misspelt Seychelles government Citation becomes more significant- Neither @MEAIndia nor @StateHouseSey has the citation on website. https://t.co/kH5Kweqt4i https://t.co/o5YTgAyRiz https://t.co/0qyPpBIPEW
— Suhasini Haidar (@suhasinih) June 29, 2026

The award coincided with Seychelles’ Golden Jubilee celebrations marking 50 years of independence. Modi attended the National Day parade as guest of honour alongside Mauritian Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam and African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.

The world has figured Modi out.

Give him any award, and he’ll come running.

Seychelles approved a brand-new award - ‘Guardian of the Blue Horizon’ - just four days ago.

It had never been given to anyone before Modi. They were in such a tearing hurry that they even got the… pic.twitter.com/dKpNt3SCJp
— Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) June 28, 2026

The visit produced 19 bilateral outcomes across defence, maritime security, digital payments, healthcare, agriculture, education and space cooperation. Modi also announced a USD 175 million Special Economic Package for Seychelles.

Modi said India envisions an Indian Ocean where maritime security is ensured alongside economic prosperity and where partnership is not based on size, but on mutual respect and trust.

Seychelles President Patrick Herminie said maritime security in the Indian Ocean region remained central to bilateral ties, with the two countries reaffirming their commitment to counter piracy, drug trafficking, illegal fishing and cross-border crime.

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After Sena turncoat’s threat to journalists, Eknath Shinde seeks apology

NL Team — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 07:02:02 GMT

“If you come asking questions, I will beat you,” MP Sanjay Dina Patil had told journalists. He has since apologised over the issue.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Dina Patil

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Dina Patil is facing criticism after he allegedly threatened TV journalists during a press interaction in Mumbai on Thursday. The episode has prompted Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to urge Patil to apologise, while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis warned that anyone making threats would face consequences.

Tensions rose further when Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut wrote to Mumbai Police Commissioner Deven Bharti, calling for criminal proceedings against Patil over earlier comments in which he reportedly said he would “throw bombs” at people protesting against him.

Patil is one of six Lok Sabha MPs who recently broke from Shiv Sena (UBT) to join the Shinde faction, a move that has reignited the rivalry between the two Sena camps. Footage that emerged on Thursday captured the MP losing his composure while fielding questions about the recent move of six Lok Sabha MPs into the Shinde-led Sena faction. Reporters at the scene said Patil grew agitated after being asked about claims that his daughter, a sitting corporator, was still backing Shiv Sena (UBT).

In the clip, Patil is heard saying: “Record this and complain to the Commissioner. I have tolerated enough. There is a limit to everything. If you come again asking questions, I will beat you.”

Patil has since issued an apology over the issue on his Instagram account. He said, "I sincerely apologise if my reaction today hurt the sentiments of my journalist colleagues."

The comments triggered sharp condemnation from press organisations and opposition leaders alike. The Mumbai Press Club denounced the alleged threat as an assault on press freedom and called on Patil to issue an unconditional apology.

Shinde said he had personally spoken with Patil and made clear that elected representatives should not address journalists in such a manner, according to The Indian Express. Shinde further noted that Patil had attributed his outburst to frustration over allegations directed at him and his family in recent days.

Fadnavis said police would act against anyone resorting to intimidation, according to the report.

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Maulana assaulted in TV studio after remarks against Dimple YadavAfter bail, accused visits village of Pune journalist beaten on camera. She says ‘worried for family’

Caste, conspiracy, old clips: Inside the X ‘toolkit’ shielding a CM’s dubious land deals

NL Team — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:53:43 GMT

A network of blue-tick handles weaponises bad-faith arguments, old footage, and hashtags to deflect from an Indian Express investigation into the Madhya Pradesh CM family’s land dealings.

On Tuesday morning, The Indian Express published an investigative report regarding land deals involving the family of Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav in his hometown of Ujjain.

From the time Yadav took oath as Chief Minister on December 13, 2023, until December 2025, a scrutiny of land records by Express journalist Jay Mazoomdaar reveals that his inner circle – including his wife Seema, daughter-in-law Shalini, brothers, and first cousins – acquired at least 137 plots, totalling 168 acres, for approximately Rs 45 crore.

Most of these freshly bought parcels are either close to new road projects announced in and around Ujjain, or in areas demarcated for change of land use from agriculture to residential or commercial – all decisions taken by the state government, which Yadav helms. Furthermore, these purchases swelled a family land bank that already held 179 acres.

A senior state government official said it was “not appropriate to link the business or land dealings of the Chief Minister's family with the Chief Minister and his office.”

Following the report, Yadav came under fire across political circles and social media. However, by evening, a coordinated pushback had swung into action on X (formerly Twitter), with blue-ticked accounts rushing to his defence.

The caste deflection

A user on X with over 400,000 followers, for instance, wrote, “Mohan Yadav ji is not a poor man; he has possessed substantial wealth for a long time.” He claimed the CM was being targeted simply because he is a Yadav – effectively playing the caste card – yet offered no response to the actual issue at hand. To bolster his argument, he shared a clip from an interview Saurabh Dwivedi, founder of The Lallantop and now Hindi digital editor at the Express, did with Mohan Yadav, in which they discussed his business ventures.

Citing this same interview clip, another user with around 57,000 followers on X wrote, “It was Saurabh ji himself who gathered this information back then, yet now he appears on another channel saying something different, raising issues about a specific location... I do not know why, at whose behest, or for what reason he is saying this – that is for him to know – but it is evident to everyone that Dr Yadav belonged to an affluent family, and now that he has become Chief Minister, he has become an eyesore to others…”

The clip in question is from an interview published on YouTube that predates the Express report by more than two years. It is worth noting that the investigative report was written by Jay Mazoomdaar; Saurabh’s involvement was limited to a Hindi video explainer of the report.

More troublingly, some users were seen spreading casteist arguments regarding reporter Jay Mazoomdaar. For instance, a user wrote, “One must find out the caste of the Indian Express journalist who did the reporting. People of his caste harbour hatred against the Bahujan community.”

The ‘attack on faith’ defence

Prominent right-wing commentator Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) tweeted that the properties are “neither secret nor new” and were openly disclosed on the state’s Sampada property app. “Mohan Yadav and his family have been in the real estate business for decades... What’s interesting is the timing... [the] ecosystem is clearly trying to create a narrative that links every major Hindu pilgrimage centre with controversy and corruption.”

Just look at the immediate pivot from real estate to religious sentiment by blue-tick accounts like these. By dragging in Ujjain’s famous Mahakal temple, Sinha took a story about a CM’s family profiteering from state projects into a grand ‘anti-Hindu’ conspiracy.

The same talking points were amplified by another major account, String Reveals (@StringReveals): “Another day, another manufactured narrative by Congress... By dragging Mahakal into the discourse and drawing parallels with Ayodhya, there’s a clear attempt to link major Hindu pilgrimage sites with controversy and corruption.”

String Reveals then deployed another oft-used weapon of such coordinated attacks on social media: whataboutism. “Now let's talk facts 👇 Kamal Nath — approx ₹800 crore assets, 100+ acres of land. Yet, no outrage,” the account added, entirely ignoring the fact of a sitting CM’s family acquiring land next to freshly announced government roads.

Rishi Bagree, meanwhile, hit every note in a single tweet.

Opposition groups are once again attempting to target Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav with selective claims. This comes as the government fast-tracks development projects in Ujjain for Simhastha 2028.

All property records are available on the official Sampada portal. Election… pic.twitter.com/fhSLAPN962
— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) June 23, 2026

The toolkit chorus

When multiple accounts start using identical vocabulary within a tight window, the coordination ceases to be subtle. Accounts with massive followings like Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates), desi mojito (@desimojito), and Bhiku Mhatre (@MhatreBhiku) all unholstered the favourite buzzword of the ruling dispensation: “Toolkit”.

desi mojito shrieked in all-caps: "TOOLKIT ACTIVATED WITH FAKE NEWS... Saw many LW accounts posting the same image since [this] morning. REASON: Ujjain is witnessing unprecedented development and preparations for a historic Simhastha 2028. That's exactly why the ecosystem is in panic mode.”

Bhiku Mhatre echoed this sentiment line for line: “Fake news toolkit activated again 🚨 ... Cabinet Reshuffle is Underway in MP, They can't stop development on ground, so they run media trials.”

To cement this defensive wall, these blue-tick accounts began aggressively circulating the video clip from March 2024 – the footage of Dwivedi interviewing Mohan Yadav. The troll army weaponised this interview as absolute “proof” that The Indian Express report was completely redundant.

The larger accounts had their talking points. Further down, however, it got messier.

The #FactsOverPropaganda hijack

Ignoring the crucial questions raised by the investigative report, various arguments were concocted to defend the land deals involving the Chief Minister and his family. But the matter did not end there. When some people attempted to counter these specious arguments with facts – posting tweets with the hashtag #FactsOverPropaganda – defenders of the chief minister stepped in again. Here, the defence of the CM’s land deals shifted to his official responsibilities and the work he had done for the state.

For example, a user wrote, “A major move by the Dr Mohan Yadav government. A new era is beginning in MP, spanning 16,000 square kilometres. This will realise the roadmap for a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (Developed India) 2047.”

The user then mentioned CM Mohan Yadav’s X account and used the hashtag #FactsOverPropaganda. Curiously, however, the graphic accompanying his tweet focused on decisions taken by the Madhya Pradesh government for livestock farmers.

Similarly, another user wrote, “Dr. Mohan Yadav government's Blue-Green Development policy for environmental protection. There will be strict restrictions on construction near the Narmada River and forest areas.” She, too, mentioned CM Mohan Yadav’s X account and used the hashtag #FactsOverPropaganda. Yet, while her tweet focused on one set of facts, the graphic she shared highlighted that the Madhya Pradesh government's efforts were improving neonatal and maternal health indicators in the state.

Similarly, a user wrote, “Under the leadership of Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav, the UIMR project is scripting a new story of development. The goal of transforming the lives of 1.25 crore people by bringing modern amenities to 6 districts, 38 tehsils, and 2,781 villages is commendable.” His tweet also included hashtags and tagged the CM, yet the attached graphic was incorrect. The graphic shared by this user indicated that a provision of over Rs 4,000 crore had been made in the Madhya Pradesh budget, and that tap water had reached 83 lakh households by May 2026.

Likewise, numerous such posts can be found under the #FactsOverPropaganda hashtag; their apparent sole objective was to convey that Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and his government were taking major strides toward the development of Madhya Pradesh.

To bolster their arguments, some cited the proposed Ujjain-Indore Metropolitan Region (UIMR) project — a proposal drafted by the MP government for a vast metropolitan area spanning approximately 16,000 square kilometres, encompassing 38 tehsils and 2,781 villages across the districts of Indore, Ujjain, Dewas, Dhar, Shajapur, and Ratlam.

Incidentally, the Express report also points out that the land deals involving Yadav and his family are largely concentrated in areas where new projects have been announced, are upcoming, or are currently underway – directly raising the question of whether this information was leveraged to profit from land purchases. Newslaundry could not verify whether any of those deals fall within the UIMR project's specific vicinity.

However, not all influencers, particularly of the pro-Hindutva variety, were buying into this coordinated social media defence of the Madhya Pradesh CM.

Ajeet Bharti, for example, had this to say:

सुधिजन बता रहे हैं कि टाइमलाइन पर जो मोहन यादव जी के विरोध में ट्वीटों की बाढ़ आई हुई है, वह एक कॉर्डिनेटेड कैंपेन का हिस्सा लग रहा है।

सुधिजन ये नहीं बता पा रहे कि टाइमलाइन पर मोहन यादव के परिवार के पास बाल्यकाल से ही 3000 गाँव होने की बातों का जो तूफ़ान आया हुआ है वो कितना…
— Ajeet Bharti (@ajeetbharti) June 23, 2026

Taken together, the pushback against the Express report was less a rebuttal than a distraction, a coordinated effort to change the subject.

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A front-page exposé on MP CM’s family land deals. But primetime couldn’t care less

NL Team — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:42:35 GMT

An Indian Express investigation detailed the shady land dealings of the MP CM’s family. On primetime, only one anchor bothered to notice.

(Cutout of Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav and blank TV screens in the background.)

Remember the primetime coverage of 2G, Commonwealth Games, Robert Vadra’s land deals in the UPA years? None of it would have been possible without the unspoken compact between print and television. Where one format would follow the stories broken by the other.

But it seems that compact is gone.

On Tuesday morning, The Indian Express published an investigation by reporter Jay Mazoomdaar into land deals involving the family of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav. The findings were stark: from the day Yadav took oath in December 2023 until December 2025, his wife, daughter-in-law, brothers, and first cousins, acquired at least 137 plots totalling 168 acres, for approximately Rs 45 crore. Most of these plots sit either along new road projects announced around Ujjain or in areas being rezoned from agricultural to residential and commercial use. The family already held 179 acres before these purchases began.

The investigation described, in granular detail, how the state apparatus appeared to function as a wealth multiplier for the Chief Minister’s family. A senior state government official’s response, when contacted, was that it was “not appropriate to link the business or land dealings of the Chief Minister’s family with the Chief Minister and his office.”

It was, by any measure, a story that warranted primetime attention. It got almost none.

Of all the anchors across all the major Hindi and English news channels that evening, only one – Rajdeep Sardesai of India Today – took it up.

He noted: “A BIG story that not surprisingly most TV channels on prime time have chosen to ignore. Will MP CMO answer the serious questions raised by this Indian Express investigation into land deals in Ujjain?”

A BIG story that not surprisingly most tv channels on prime time have chosen to ignore. Will MP CMO answer the serious questions raised by this @IndianExpress investigation into land deals in Ujjain. https://t.co/LvSogOieTd
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) June 23, 2026

What were the other channels discussing?

Anjana Om Kashyap on Aaj Tak covered the Lucknow gaming centre fire, a pharma scam, TMC’s party funds, and ethanol.

Arnab Goswami on Republic TV debated the re-NEET examination and AAP’s alleged use of AI-generated helpline images.

Rubika Liyaquat, the newly minted senior executive editor at Times Now Navbharat, covered the same Lucknow fire, four students caught in traffic at a Rahul Gandhi rally, and why we pour full glasses of water for guests.

Sushant Sinha, also of Times Now Navbharat, covered the Lucknow fire, the alleged theft at Ram Mandir, an encounter in UP, and why mosquitoes prefer certain people over others.

Rahul Shivshankar of News18 focused on BJP’s emerging younger leadership, while on its sister channel News18 India, Amish Devgan ran a debate on whether Congress can beat BJP in UP’s 2027 assembly elections.

NDTV’s slate that evening was similarly occupied elsewhere. On NDTV 24x7, Shiv Aroor tracked the TMC rebellion and the statements of rebel MPs before pivoting to national security briefs. Padmaja Joshi interviewed legal experts on the anti-defection implications for West Bengal’s rebel MLAs. On NDTV India, Sucherita Kukreti covered bulldozer action in Bihar and municipal safety inspections following the Lucknow fire. Syed Suhail highlighted the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s crackdown on illegal encroachments and filed ground reports on the Lucknow complex fire’s safety violations.

Sudhir Chaudhary on DD News, meanwhile, covered the Lucknow fire and a murder investigation. None of them touched Ujjain.

Oddly enough, even social media accounts in the pro-Hindutva ecosystem didn’t shy away from highlighting the Express report and expressing their criticism.

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Equivalent to 83% of TV spend: Odia print daily tops Odisha’s govt’s Rs 84-crore ad list

Akankhya Rout — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 05:30:00 GMT

Ad spend trends favour print media in Odisha, leaving news channels and digital platforms with minor shares.

One newspaper alone nearly matched what the Odisha government spent on 26 TV channels in the 18 months since the BJP under Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi took office in June 2024. Prameya, the Odia daily, received Rs 7.73 crore, accounting for nearly 83 percent of the state government’s total TV ad spend of Rs 9.36 crore.

Meanwhile, its television counterpart, Prameya News 7, also topped the TV ad spend list at Rs 1.39 crore. This makes its parent company, Summa Real Media, the single largest beneficiary of the government’s Rs 83.85 crore advertising spend.

These figures come from the Odisha government’s written response in the state Assembly to a question by Rama Chandra Kadam, Congress MLA from Pottangi in Koraput district.

Prameya’s Rs 7.73 crore ad share was the highest for any newspaper in the state. With a circulation of 4,28,593 from September 2025 to February 2026, it is also the most widely circulated daily, ahead of Dharitri (3,07,592) and Sambad (2,51,825), according to government empanelment data.

Newspapers accounted for the bulk of the state government's advertisements, at Rs 69.78 crore. After Prameya, the biggest beneficiaries were Dharitri (Rs 5.81 crore), Sambad (Rs 5.32 crore), The Times of India (Rs 4.87 crore) and Samaj (Rs 4.24 crore).

Of 211 print publications paid, 32 were national, 178 were Odisha-based regional papers, and one – Mumbai Odia Samaj (Rs 2.94 lakh) – was published in Mumbai. The 32 national papers together received Rs 16.71 crore, with the top five – ToI (Rs 4.87 crore), Hindustan Times (Rs 1.51 crore), The New Indian Express (Rs 1.36 crore), The Hindu (Rs 1.34 crore) and The Indian Express (Rs 1.27 crore) – accounting for about 62 percent of national newspaper ad spend.

On television, the government spent Rs 9.36 crore. Nine channels – Prameya News 7, Kalinga TV, Argus News, Kanak News, Doordarshan Kendra, News 18 Odia, Taranga, Zee Sarthak and Nandighosh TV – each received more than OTV, one of the state’s most-watched news channels, which ranked tenth in receiving government ads.

Online, national news websites were paid more than regional ones – Rs 1.87 crore versus Rs 16.87 lakh across 25 regional sites. Among national sites, Dailyhunt and OneIndia received the most at Rs 13.37 lakh each, followed by News18, Hindustan Times and The Indian Express at Rs 9.87 lakh each. IRCTC's site (MS Korshine) received Rs 2.88 lakh. Among regional sites, OdishaTV.in (Rs 2.46 lakh) and ETV Bharat (Rs 2.11 lakh) topped the list.

On radio, FM channels received Rs 2.15 crore, more than all regional websites combined, led by All India Radio at Rs 1.07 crore. Community radio received Rs 12.70 lakh. Hoardings for government publicity cost Rs 39.39 lakh and were placed across state headquarters, district offices, corporation and municipal offices, and block-level offices.

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58% news from YouTube, 56% via WhatsApp: Reuters report on India’s news consumption habits

NL Team — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:44:37 GMT

Social media has overtaken TV and websites globally. India’s media ecosystem faces a massive migration to video, falling trust, and a generation abandoning traditional news habits, according to the Reuters Digital News Report 2026.

For the first time globally, social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have overtaken television and news websites as the most widely used way to access news, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026. “This shift has now happened in around two-thirds of the markets we cover, with direct access still leading in West and Central Europe and in more affluent Asian markets,” according to the report.

The report, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, tracks news consumption across dozens of markets. Its 2026 edition, covering 48 markets, describes a news landscape that is “more platform-based, video-led and creator-shaped, with news becoming less trusted, less central to daily life, and harder to monetise.”

Platforms overtake TV and news websites

Since 2021, social and video networks have risen to become the top source of news globally, now used by 54 percent of respondents. They sit ahead of television, which dropped from 64 percent to 52 percent over the same period, though social networks themselves slipped slightly from their 56 percent baseline. News websites and apps fell precipitously from 63 percent to 51 percent during this time period. Radio dropped from 26 percent to 21 percent, and print from 24 percent to 16 percent. The share of people consuming no news at all rose from 4 percent to 6 percent.

Meanwhile, trust in news overall has hit its lowest point since 2015. Only 37 percent of global respondents say they trust most news most of the time, down 3 percentage points from 2025. In the United States, that figure stands at 25 percent, and among right-leaning Americans, at just 15 percent. A small number of markets recorded modest gains, including Kenya which rose 3 points, Japan and Spain 2 points each.

India: YouTube, WhatsApp, and a trust deficit

The data from India underscores this massive migration toward digital and social spaces. The report notes that “India witnessed a 4 pp (percentage points) decrease in trust levels,” with overall trust in news standing at 39 percent – two percentage points above the global average. This marks a notable shift: the 2025 report had described India’s trust levels as having “remained largely stable over the last few years,” with the figure then at 43 percent. On platforms, “around 58 percent of respondents rely on YouTube for news,” while WhatsApp is the second biggest platform for news at 56 percent, up 10 points from 2021. At the same time, 52 percent of Indian respondents sometimes or often avoid the news.

Even higher usage for news is reported in countries such as India for YouTube, the report notes, describing it as “a more mature platform which has grown less since 2021, but remains by some distance the biggest video network for news around the world.”

Legacy TV has not collapsed entirely, according to the report. It notes that in India, “legacy sources like TV (44 percent) have retained popularity for news by offering multiple avenues such as traditional subscription models or connected TV, blurring the lines between traditional broadcast and digital content formats.”

The report identifies India as a case where press freedom pressures have shaped the creator landscape. “In countries where press freedom is under pressure, we find news creators as a source of opposition and scrutiny,” the report states. In India, “where Prime Minister Narendra Modi exercised considerable control over leading media outlets – especially television – the two most-mentioned creators are Dhruv Rathee and Ravish Kumar, who are both known for being critical of the government.”

Globally, individual news creators occupy an ambiguous position in this landscape. Twenty-seven percent of global respondents get news from creators or influencers, though only 3 percent say creators fully meet all their news needs. Audiences broadly find creators more entertaining and easier to understand than traditional outlets, but less trustworthy and less impartial.

Regulation tightens around AI content and creators

Early in 2026, the Indian government introduced amendments to the IT Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code. The amendments cover identifying and labelling synthetically generated information (SGI), and streamlining procedures to take down content flagged by authorities.

Critics raised concerns that these amendments may dilute procedural safeguards around the removal of content and in the protection of free speech. According to the report, concerns include “a reduced time limit for platforms to remove content, exercising restraint before publishing content that may violate the law, overlooking benign or creative purposes of AI by way of a broad definition for SGI, and overreach of executive powers to take down content.”

On the AI front, Indian newsrooms are experimenting unevenly. Scroll.in “developed a tool that extracts and converts media from a text article into a short video for social channels.” Meanwhile, The Hindu “experimented with an AI character during the recent Assembly elections for poll-related video news.”

AI integration is “uneven across newsrooms due to a lack of resources, knowledge, or genuine concerns around the dilution of editorial safeguards and trust in news.”

Trust in legacy brands holds, but with caveats

Despite declining overall trust, trust in legacy print publishers and public broadcasters remains comparatively high in India.

“At the brand level, trust in legacy print publishers and public broadcasters remains high,” the report states. The Times of India leads at 69 percent, followed by Hindustan Times (67 percent), The Economic Times (65 percent), and The Hindu and The Indian Express (both 63–64 percent). Digital-native outlets fare lower with Scroll.in at 48 percent and The Wire at 51 percent.

A note on methodology

A significant caveat runs through the India data. The report repeatedly notes that findings “are based on a survey of mainly English-speaking, online news users in India – a small subset of a larger, more diverse, media market.”

With internet penetration at 70 percent, the gap between the online sample and the national population is significant, and “findings in this online poll are not nationally representative and will tend to under-represent the continued importance of traditional media such as TV and print.”

A shift across all generations

The platform shift is not confined to India alone. Globally, this is not a story restricted to a generation. Social media as a primary news source grew across every age group: from 52 percent among 18-24 (up 12 percentage points since 2021) to 18 percent among those 55 and older (up 7 percentage points), with the sharpest increases recorded among 25-34 and 35-44, both up 13 points.

Television declined as a news source across all age groups, with the steepest drop of 9 percentage points recorded among 35-44. The report adds that “younger audiences are unlikely ever to acquire the news habits of their parents: 56 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds have never regularly read a newspaper.”

Rise of the video format

The report also documents a significant move towards the video format. About 77 percent of global respondents watch online news videos every week, and a majority do so across all markets covered. Consumption of video on news organisations’ own sites and apps, however, fell 5 percentage points from 2025 and 10 points since 2021, suggesting audiences are watching news videos but not on the publishers’ own websites.

On YouTube, the most popular formats are the 2–5-minute video, watched by 44 percent of users, and content under 2 minutes, watched by 37 percent. About 35 percent watch videos between 6 and 20 minutes, and 23 percent watch content longer than 20 minutes; a fifth go to the platform to watch live broadcasts. TikTok skews sharply towards shorter videos: 55 percent of its news video viewers watch content under 2 minutes, and only 12 percent watch content over 20 minutes. The report separately notes that “TikTok has been banned in India and does not operate in Hong Kong.”

AI chatbots in the news ecosystem

Into this shifting landscape has come a new source of news, namely AI chatbots. Weekly use of AI chatbots for news rose from 7 percent to 10 percent globally between 2025 and 2026, with usage among under-35s at 16 percent, compared with 7 percent among those aged 35 and above.

Trust in chatbot-generated news responses, however, remains low (just 20 percent globally), and roughly half of users click through to get more details, while just under half do so to verify the answer or learn more about the source. The report notes that “those accessing news through AI chatbots tend to be highly engaged rather than disengaged users abandoning news brands.”

The preference for impartial news

The preference for impartial news, though slightly eroded, remains the dominant expectation of the respondents. Almost half (45 percent) of respondents still prefer news that does not take sides, and a similar share (46 percent) also believe that consuming news that does not take sides is best for others in society.

Those preferring impartial news still outnumber those preferring news aligned to their own viewpoint by more than two to one. Those preferring news that challenges their viewpoint rose slightly from 11 percent to 13 percent, while “don’t know” responses rose from 14 percent to 19 percent, suggesting a degree of growing uncertainty about news preferences.

The broader picture of rising platform dependence, declining trust, and growing misinformation concerns, holds for India as much as anywhere else. But the report’s own caveat is worth holding onto given that its India findings are drawn from a survey of mainly English-speaking, online news users. This is a small and unrepresentative slice of one of the world’s most diverse media markets.

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Student suicides to education budget: The issues Rahul put at the centre of ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ in Kota

NL Team — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 05:38:30 GMT

The campaign will hold events in UP, Bihar and Delhi next month.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has launched a new student outreach campaign, “Chhatron Ki Goonj” (Echo of Students), in Kota, calling for an end to “India’s exploitative education system”.

Watch on YouTube

Addressing thousands of students at the rally in Kota, widely known as India’s coaching hub, Gandhi argued that the country’s education system functions less as a pathway to opportunity and more as a barrier to it. “India’s education system is an extortion machine. We want a system that allows you to dream big,” he said, adding that young people are being subjected to excessive pain and stress.

He insisted the gathering was not a political event but a platform to hear out the everyday struggles of the country’s youth. “This is not a political meeting. This is a meeting about you, about the young people who are struggling to get a future,” he told the audience.

According to a release issued alongside the campaign, “Chhatron Ki Goonj” aims to spotlight issues including “crushing coaching fees, paper leaks that wipe out years of preparation overnight, fewer seats with more fees, and a degree that no longer secures a job”. The campaign – to be carried forward by Congress-affiliated youth wings NSUI and Youth Congress – will next move to Prayagraj on July 10, Patna on July 11, and Delhi on July 14, with Gandhi expected to address conventions at each stop.

Gandhi presented figures to argue that competitive exams impose a disproportionate financial strain on middle-class families. He claimed NEET aspirants alone collectively spend close to Rs 1.32 lakh crore annually on coaching, fees and related costs – a sum he equated to the Union government’s entire education budget. Widening the lens to five major exams (NEET, JEE, UPSC, SSC and RRB), he put the combined annual spending by aspirants at nearly Rs 3.5 lakh crore, which he said matches the combined budgets of five central ministries covering women and child development, labour, education, health and science.

On NEET specifically, he pointed to the scale of competition: “For NEET alone, around 22 lakh students appear, but less than one lakh get selected. These are extremely difficult odds,” he said.

Gandhi also argued that the system funnels students toward a narrow set of careers – medicine, engineering, civil services, law and the armed forces – while sidelining other ambitions and talents. “The system takes huge amounts of money from families and then shuts the door on most students,” he said, questioning whether the model creates genuine opportunity for India's youth.

In one of the event’s most charged moments, Gandhi displayed the suicide note of Akanksha Chaturvedi, a NEET aspirant. “I want all of us to work together to ensure that no student in this country ever feels what this girl felt,” Gandhi said.

The BJP accused Gandhi of politicising the issue ahead of the NEET-UG re-exam scheduled for June 21. Party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi asked at a press conference in Delhi whether the Kota event was driven by “Congress’ internal politics” at the expense of medical aspirants in the final stretch of their preparation.

In a post on X, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said he has set out for Kota, but two names are echoing in his heart.

“Yesterday, Umesh in Sikar and Riya in Dehradun – both ended their lives under the pressure of Re-NEET. 22- and 23-year-old kids – who were meant to soar in the open skies of their dreams – lost to this unjust system. These deaths are the result of a broken, corrupt system,” he said.

“Today, from Kota, we will begin that fight with just one goal – that no child’s dreams shatter like this again, that no parent ever has to lose their child in this way again. Every family’s pain will now echo across the country as the ‘chhatron ki goonj’,” Gandhi said.

In another post, he criticised the government after it temporarily restricted access to Telegram, saying it was like locking the victim’s house instead of catching the thief.

Gandhi’s campaign around the education system comes days after the Cockroach Janta Party organised its first series of protests in Delhi, Lucknow and Pune. The CJP had recently been discussed at a significant INDIA bloc meeting held after the recent assembly elections. Several leaders had questioned whether support for the CJP meant the people no longer had faith in the Opposition parties.

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‘Attack on free press, fishing exercise’: HC quashes PMLA case against NewsClick

NL Team — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:15:30 GMT

Multiple agencies have probed the outlet following a 2023 NYT report.

(NewClick's office in New Delhi.)

The Delhi High Court has ruled that the Enforcement Directorate’s actions against independent digital news outlet NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha – stemming from a foreign direct investment case – constituted an abuse of power targeting free and impartial journalism. The court has quashed the money laundering case against the portal, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna delivered the judgment on May 29, quashing both the First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and the subsequent money laundering proceedings that the ED had initiated.

“Not only are the present proceedings only mala fide, but also an arbitrary attack and abuse of powers on the free and impartial journalism of the petitioners,” the court stated, according to Bar and Bench.

Despite a lengthy investigation, during which NewsClick staff were summoned and questioned on multiple occasions, the court noted that no incriminating evidence had surfaced. “Pertinently, extensive investigations have been carried out by ED for about a year and a half and petitioners as well as its employees have been summoned and examined many a times, but nothing incriminating till date has been found or placed on record. Aside from bald assertions of there being a criminal conspiracy, there is not a whisper of any incriminating allegation, which would even remotely suggest the commission of the offence punishable under Section 4 PMLA,” the court said.

The court characterised the ED’s approach as a “fishing and roving exercise”. “The manner in which the investigations have been conducted clearly show that the same is a fishing and roving exercise in the financial affairs of the Petitioners without the existence of any offence.”

In quashing the EOW’s FIR as well, the court said allowing it to continue would amount to a serious misuse of legal process.

The case originated from a 2018 investment NewsClick received from a US-based entity, M/s Worldwide Media Holdings LLC, which authorities alleged was non-existent. The ED raided the homes and offices of Purkayastha and several employees in February 2021, with searches lasting over four days and Purkayastha detained at his residence throughout.

Investigators alleged that NewsClick had overvalued its shares, diverted funds, and breached FDI regulations.

The court rejected these allegations one by one. Citing a Ministry of Information and Broadcasting response, it noted that no 26 percent FDI cap on digital media existed at the time the investment was received in 2018. It found the share overvaluation claim baseless.

The allegation that FDI funds were siphoned off to cover salaries, consultancy fees, rent, and operating expenses was similarly dismissed as untenable. The court also noted that the EOW’s own status report made no mention of whether the US company was genuinely non-existent – an allegation in the case.

NewsClick had earlier approached the Delhi High Court seeking a copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and protection from coercive action by the ED.

The court order noted that “pertinently, no copy of ECIR has been supplied to the petitioners till date despite the aforesaid submission of the ED. It is, therefore, submitted that the ECIR and all the proceedings emanating therefrom may be quashed.”

“The ED in the reply has alleged that criminal conspiracy is made out ‘in view of the connivance between Prabir Purkayastha, Jason Pfetcher and Neville Roy Singham’. It is asserted that such allegation of conspiracy is completely baseless and there is absolutely no material on record to substantiate the allegations of ED.”

The ED had raided premises linked to NewsClick and its editors in February 2021.

Separately, the CBI had filed an FIR against the outlet in October 2023 over alleged foreign funding violations, coming roughly a week after Delhi Police arrested individuals linked to NewsClick under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

It came after a 2023 report in The New York Times alleged that the portal was part of a global network that received money for pushing Chinese propaganda

Newslaundry has reported on the case against NewsClick from the start. See a timeline of events here and the rest of our reportage here.

The latest verdict has now drawn swift responses from the media fraternity.

IMPORTANT: BREAKING| 'Gross Abuse Of Law' : Delhi High Court Quashes FIR & ED Case Against NewsClick, its editor Prabir Purkayashta. Yet again, PROCESS IS PUNISHMENT! 😡 https://t.co/t9bh6i2SC2
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) June 10, 2026

Some Good News 👇#JournalismIsNotACrime https://t.co/Ap2WWb4vKc pic.twitter.com/EawDfTqxH3
— Mahtab महताब مہتاب (@MahtabNama) June 10, 2026

इसका प्रायश्चित कौन करेगा https://t.co/mvLLtEMNAI
— ravish kumar (@ravish_journo) June 10, 2026

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4,399 days of Modi: Ministers and media join the aarti

NL Team — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 06:47:20 GMT

India celebrated Modi’s 4,399 days in office with prayers and ads. Yet the milestone also highlights another record: nearly 12 years in power without a single open press conference in India where journalists could freely question the prime minister.

On June 10, India achieved what every civilisation secretly dreams of: day number 4,399.

This is not about GDP growth. Neither universal healthcare. Nor clean air. Not a World Cup either.

Just 4,399 days.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi overtook Jawaharlal Nehru’s record to become India’s longest-serving elected prime minister, the official machinery responded with havans, front-page advertisements, temple visits, editorials, television coverage, and celebratory content that could make a cricket World Cup victory look understated.

Newspapers marked the occasion with advertisements tucked beneath their mastheads. “12 saal vishwaas ke, vikas ke, jan-kalyan ke,” declared one, accompanied by a smiling farmer looking at his phone and a smiling prime minister. Readers were reminded of Rs 4.3 lakh crore under PM-Kisan, Rs 26 lakh crore worth of MSP procurement, Rs 2 lakh crore in crop insurance, and eight crore Kisan Credit Cards.

The news coverage followed. The Indian Express, for example, explained the arithmetic of history, noting that Modi’s 4,399th day edged past Nehru’s 4,398. A full page in Hindustan Times traced how Modi reshaped India’s political map. It carried a piece by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, on Modi’s mission to “expand welfare, opportunity, and access to essential services for all citizens”.

Editorial pages weighed the achievement. Some praised the government’s break from a stagnant status quo. Others gently suggested that the rise of polarisation and winner-takes-all politics might be worth worrying about between the congratulatory bouquets.

Outside newspaper offices, meanwhile, the gods were having a particularly busy day.

#WATCH | Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Annpurna Devi, BJP MP Anil Baluni and NDMC Vice Chairman Kuljeet Singh Chahal offer prayers at a temple in the Chanakyapuri area, to offer prayers to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi completing 12 years as India’s longest continuously… pic.twitter.com/LukedyessV
— ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2026

#WATCH | Puri, Odisha: Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and MP Sambit Patra offered prayers at the Jagannath Temple to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi completing 12 years as India’s longest continuously serving leader. pic.twitter.com/vptiaiTNXP
— ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2026

#WATCH | Delhi | BJP National President Nitin Nabin, along with BJP MPs Harsh Malhotra and Bansuri Swaraj, offers prayers at Jhandewalan Mandir to mark PM Modi becoming India’s longest continuously serving elected Prime Minister pic.twitter.com/VhFJ1Bee25
— ANI (@ANI) June 10, 2026

Across the country, BJP leaders organised special prayers and havans. At Delhi’s Jhandewalan Mandir, leaders gathered to offer thanks. In Chanakyapuri, more prayers were offered. In Bhopal, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav sought blessings from Mahakal, expressing the hope that Modi would become prime minister again. In Puri, prayers were offered at the Jagannath Temple. In Delh’'s Kishanganj, prayers were planned at the Ram Mandir.

One almost felt for the deities. Having already been petitioned for rain, jobs, exam results, marriages, cricket matches and election victories, they were now being informed about a statistical milestone.

Yet perhaps the most remarkable number attached to this anniversary was not 4,399. It was zero. That is the number of full-fledged press conferences in India at which Narendra Modi, as prime minister, has taken unscripted questions from journalists.

Over these 4,399 days, India has witnessed demonetisation, a pandemic, farm protests, communal violence, economic upheavals, military confrontations, constitutional changes, and countless elections. Through all of it, the prime minister has maintained the record of a clear lack of a free examination by the media at a press conference.

The closest the world came was during his 2023 visit to the White House, when a joint press conference was announced with President Joe Biden. White House officials reportedly described the prospect of Modi taking questions as a “big deal”.

When Wall Street Journal reporter Sabrina Siddiqui asked about minority rights and free speech, Modi responded by invoking India’s Constitution. Siddiqui, meanwhile, was rewarded with a torrent of online abuse severe enough for the Biden administration to publicly condemn it.

In 2023, the government restricted a BBC documentary on Modi. One of the most chilling sections in one episode was an interview by BBC correspondent Jill McGivering with Modi in 2002. It concluded with this exchange. McGivering asked, “Do you think you should have done anything differently?” Modi responded: “Yes. One area where I was very, very weak. That was how to handle the media.”

Which makes this week’s celebrations faintly surreal.

There were advertisements about governance. Editorials and opeds and analytical pieces about leadership. Speeches about democracy. Prayers for continuity. Saturation coverage of a numerical milestone. But precious little discussion of the fact that India’s longest-serving elected prime minister has also presided over one of the longest stretches in democratic history without regularly subjecting himself to questions from the press.

Perhaps the next milestone deserves its own havan. Day 5,000. Or, more ambitiously, Question Number One.

Modi ji celebrates 4,399 uninterrupted days as Prime Minister. And we celebrate over 5,000 days of independent public interest journalism. Uninterrupted by any sarkari or corporate ads.

Celebrate this milestone with us at just Rs 549 per month.

Shamli’s conversion story falls apart when its ‘victim’ speaks. But Aaj Tak calls him brainwashed

NL Team — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:14:35 GMT

The Shamli ‘forced conversion’ story rests on the claim that Ayush Malik was manipulated into embracing Islam. There is just one problem: Ayush Malik himself says no one forced him.

Mohammad Ali, officially identified as Ayush Malik, has told the media clearly that nobody forced him to convert to Islam. That he has no interest in his family’s property. That his family could give it to others for all he cared. At that point, coverage of the “forced conversion” case from Shamli that has dominated television news space had an obvious next move.

But all this was ignored.

Here is what is not in dispute about the case: on June 7, Shamli police arrested Chandni Qureshi and her father Islam Qureshi, and booked nine people, including a maulvi, under various sections of the BNS covering alleged extortion, cheating, forgery and criminal intimidation, as well as the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

The complaint was filed by medicine trader Devraj Malik, who alleged that his son Ayush had been converted to Islam under the pretext of marriage to Chandni, and that a nikah had been performed in Delhi using forged documents. Ayush’s father also alleged the conversion was connected to a bid to seize the family’s property – they own two pharmacies. Hindu activists including Swami Yashveer Maharaj had already called for an agitation. Shamli SP N P Singh told reporters that Ayush “might still be in touch with Pakistani religious scholar Dr Israr Ahmed. Israr Ahmed died in 2010.

What is in dispute is everything the coverage treated as settled because Ayush Malik, the man whose alleged victimhood is holding this entire story together, has contradicted almost all of it. In fact, he said the pressure he was feeling was from people urging him to revert to Hinduism, not from Chandni Qureshi.

There were claims that he was forcefully converted by the girl because of the property. In this video, Ayush Malik says, He doesn't want the property share, He asks his father to transfer the property to his mother and sisters. pic.twitter.com/DxqKwHbwyx https://t.co/cy6oCfTdD0
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 8, 2026

Ayush told News18 India that his decision to convert was voluntary and that no one had forced or influenced him. He said he didn’t want the property – his father could transfer it to his mother and sisters. He said his family was under pressure, and so was he, but the pressure was coming from people pushing him to revert to Hinduism. He asked that no false allegations be made linking his conversion to the property dispute, saying the conversion had happened well before any of that. He also alleged that officials did not allow him to change his name.

Alt News cofounder Mohammed Zubair flagged the distance between the coverage and the man at its centre in several posts. In one, he called out News18 India’s Rahul Shivshankar for his claims being debunked by his own channel.

Hello @RShivshankar, Your claim was debunked by Ayush Malik on your own News Channels.
Stop running one sided state run Propaganda. pic.twitter.com/DxqKwHbwyx https://t.co/abHSwj6wLv
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 8, 2026

The most glaring example of how the TV media deprived Ayush of his agency was on Aaj Tak.

What Aaj Tak did

Watch on YouTube

Aaj Tak reporter Arvind Ojha interviewed Ayush. Stood next to him. Heard him out. And then, in his piece-to-camera, said this:

“He keeps harping on the same point – that he had an interest in Islam. From childhood, he preferred offering namaaz over performing traditional Hindu rituals. Look at this man – Ayush Malik, alias Mohammad Ali; he is deeply influenced. Just show his picture. He is so heavily indoctrinated that – as various investigations have revealed – once someone has been brainwashed and converted, the process of deradicalisation becomes extremely difficult. The Shamli police have done an excellent job in this case, arresting Chandni Qureshi and her father. The maulvi is currently absconding. However, recent investigations by the UP ATS and other agencies have uncovered a well-planned conversion racket.”

The camera then panned over Ayush – top to bottom – as though his body were Exhibit A.

Ojha conducted the interview, but decided the subject was too compromised to be believed, and then told viewers as much while the man stood beside him. The word he reached for – deradicalisation – has a meaning. The Centre for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation defines radicalisation as a process whereby people adopt extremist belief systems, including the willingness to use, encourage or facilitate violence, as a means of social transformation. Ayush converted to Islam, married someone, claims he was in touch with his family and also employed. That is not radicalisation by any definition that exists outside a TV studio.

चांदनी कुरैशी का वो मायाजाल! करोड़पति आयुष मलिक से जिम में बढ़ाई नजदीकी, PAK मौलाना के वीडियो से 'ब्रेनवॉश'; इसलिए रचा पूरा 'चक्रव्यूह'

उत्तर प्रदेश के शामली में एक रसूखदार हिंदू व्यापारी के बेटे के धर्मांतरण का सनसनीखेज मामला सामने आया है. आरोप है कि चांदनी कुरैशी ने… pic.twitter.com/75hBqqJ2un
— AajTak (@aajtak) June 8, 2026

The social media posts from the same channel described Chandni Qureshi’s “मायाजाल” – web of illusion, the videos of a Pakistani maulana, and a “चक्रव्यूह” to seize crores in property. A ticker reduced it to nine words: “Prem jaal, dharmantran aur croron ki property.”

At the time of writing this report on Tuesday afternoon, the channel was still broadcasting the same interview.

Notably, the controversy comes weeks after the News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority fined Zee News Rs 1 lakh for broadcasts that framed a woman’s consensual marriage as a communal conspiracy – while airing her own statement saying the opposite. The order by NBDSA Chairperson Justice A.K. Sikri (Retd.) concerned three segments from May 26 and 27, 2025, about a Hindu woman named Sonika who had married a Muslim man named Akbar in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad. Sonika had put out a video saying she married Akbar willingly and was leaving with him. The police said the FIR came from her family.

Zee News ran the segment anyway, with tickers like “Love Jihad kerke phans gaye Bhaijan,” “Hindu ladki ke peeche Akbar,” and “Love Jihad pehchan chipakar?” Segment titles called Sonika a victim revealing the “poora sach”. One voiceover called for exposing a “jihadist conspiracy against most Hindus.” All of this ran alongside Sonika’s own statement: “Mati se apne pati ke saath yahaan se ja rahi hoon” – I am leaving from here willingly, with my husband.

The NBDSA’s decision should have paused the Shamli coverage. But it seems it was just a ceiling that’s already been broken through.

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Punjab journalist approaches HC over police summons after AAP’s ‘identical’ complaints

NL Team — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:30:27 GMT

Several AAP MLAs filed complaints against him following his remarks on a podcast about tickets for the upcoming state elections.

Rattandeep Singh Dhaliwal

A journalist from Bathinda, Rattandeep Singh Dhaliwal, has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court after several police complaints were filed against him by AAP MLAs, Bar and Bench reported.

During a recent podcast, Dhaliwal claimed that approximately 32 current MLAs may not receive party tickets for Punjab’s upcoming state assembly elections. This prompted several legislators to file complaints with the police, resulting in official notices being served to the journalist.

Justice Rohit Kapoor scheduled the case for a Wednesday hearing, indicating that the court intended to review the podcast content before issuing any directions. Through his petition, Dhaliwal sought to have the police proceedings against him set aside.

The journalist contended that rather than issuing a rebuttal or denial in response to his broadcast, the party directed its legislators to lodge complaints against him. His petition, according to Bar and Bench, pointed out that the complaints appeared to follow a pre-drafted template where MLAs only needed to fill in their personal details, while the main text was identical across all filings and contained inflated allegations – including claims that his video had triggered hostility and public unrest across Punjab – which he argued were both factually incorrect and legally unsustainable.

As a consequence of these complaints, Dhaliwal received police notices from Patiala, Amritsar, Bathinda, and Ferozepur, summoning him. He further alleged that officers conducted a search of his home even after he had volunteered to cooperate with the investigation, characterising the raids as an act of intimidation rather than a genuine investigative measure.

The petition also argued that Dhaliwal’s case was not an isolated incident, asserting that Punjab had a well-documented pattern of misusing criminal law as a tool against members of the press.

Update on June 10: The court on Wednesday asked Punjab Police not to take any coercive action against Dhaliwal, according to Bar and Bench. The court also added that if a journalist acts with an agenda only against one political party, it cannot be called independent journalism. It asked the journalist to produce the document he relied on to make his claims. The matter will now be heard on June 16.

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‘Don’t call homeopaths quacks’: AYUSH body flags insults, govt blocks Liver Doc’s post

NL Team — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 06:07:47 GMT

Censored within a three-hour window, the hepatologist’s sarcastic response to the circular issued by the National Commission of Homoeopathy on Instagram was swiftly scrubbed from feeds in India.

On the evening of June 8, the Board of Ethics and Registration for Homoeopathy (BERH) under the National Commission for Homoeopathy, a statutory body under the Ministry of AYUSH, issued a circular warning that calling registered homoeopathic practitioners “quacks” is defamatory and may be legally actionable.

The circular, signed by BERH president Dr Harcharan Jeet Kaur, declares that calling a registered homoeopathic practitioner a “quack” in any medium, including social media posts, press releases, or even FIRs, is “misleading, defamatory, and detrimental to their professional reputation.” It goes further, warning that such characterisation “may violate applicable statutory provisions and the constitutional rights of registered Homoeopathic practitioners.”

The second directive instructs “all practitioners, institutions, and stakeholders” to “exercise due diligence” while making public statements about homoeopathy, and to avoid language that may be “defamatory, misleading, or prejudicial.” The circular neither defines who may make that determination nor specifies what legal action may follow.

Screenshot of the circular

Within hours, the warning seems to have translated into state action.

Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist better known online as TheLiverDoc, posted on Instagram in direct response to the circular.

His post, captioned “I’m sorry I’m not sorry”, was a carousel of sardonic ‘apologies’ that included slides compiling a British Medical Association (BMA) call to ban homoeopathy from the NHS, an explainer in The Economist calling it “nonsense”, a TED talk titled “Homeopathy, quackery and fraud”, peer-reviewed research calling it pseudoscience, and a Reddit thread describing it as “a total fraud”, among other slides. The second-to-last slide quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “Never apologise for being correct.”

Screenshot of the post

Barely an hour or two later, the hepatologist’s post was blocked in India. Instagram’s notification to Dr Philips read: “Your post is unavailable in India.” The platform cited legal requirements under India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules.

The government of India is blocking my posts on Instagram that criticizes Homeopathy based on a directive from the Homeopathy Council. This is very shameful of the government...protecting pseudoscience and it's practitioners from scientific scrutiny.

This is the post:… pic.twitter.com/yjzAiiDMWt
— TheLiverDoc™ (@theliverdoc) June 8, 2026

Under the latest amendments to these rules, notified in February 2026, social media platforms like Instagram are required to remove or restrict access to content flagged by the government within three hours of receiving an order.

Dr Philips confirmed in the comments that the block appeared to be “as per demand from the Government,” and asked followers outside India to share the post widely. A US-based commenter confirmed it was visible abroad.

Meanwhile, this morning, he issued a statement on his X account against the blocking order, noting that the “alternative medicine industry and its practitioners in India have been given immunity against criticism from the medical science community by the Government of India and AYUSH Ministry.”

The alternative medicine industry and its practitioners in India have been given immunity against criticims from the medical science community by the Government of India and AYUSH Ministry, through the recently amended Information Technology rules via the Ministry of Electronics… https://t.co/uXJq2LpglZ pic.twitter.com/alWdrj5pG6
— TheLiverDoc™ (@theliverdoc) June 9, 2026

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Your Instagram reel is now ‘news’ — and the Govt wants to censor it

HC refuses interim injunction in Anjana Om Kashyap’s case against Khan Sir, others

NL Team — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:21:32 GMT

The court will now hear the matter on June 17.

The Delhi High Court on Monday declined to grant any interim injunction in the defamation suit filed by Anjana Om Kashyap and TV Today Network against online educator Faisal Khan, widely known as Khan Sir, and several others.

The vacation bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna directed the defendants to file their replies to the interim injunction application, posting the matter for further hearing on June 17.

The plaintiffs are seeking removal of all defamatory content, a direction restraining further such posts, and damages of Rs 2 crore.

During the first hearing on Monday, counsel for one of the defendants raised a preliminary objection, arguing that the suit was not maintainable in its current form. The contention was that Kashyap had bundled multiple, distinct causes of action against several defendants into a single suit, and that these should instead be pursued through separate proceedings.

Kashyap’s counsel countered by urging the court to examine the allegedly toxic and abusive nature of the content. The court, however, stopped short of any interim relief, asking the defendants to first file their replies.

The suit, filed through advocates Hrishikesh Baruah, Utkarsh Dwivedi and Pragya Agarwal, stems from a controversy triggered after Kashyap hosted a debate on Aaj Tak on May 29 in which she commented on the growing commercialisation of education and the outsized influence of online “star teachers”, according to Bar and Bench. She has maintained the remarks were fair journalistic commentary on a matter of public importance.

According to the suit, several defendants, including Khan Sir and fellow educators Abhinay Sharma, Babita Tyagi, and Arvind Bhadauriya, along with certain X handles and 4PM News Network, subsequently ran a social media campaign against her and India Today between May 30 and June 4. The suit alleges the campaign involved videos, posts and broadcasts that described Kashyap and Aaj Tak using terms such as “bikau patrakar,” “chatukar,” and accused them of “dalaali” and running a “fake news ki dukaan”, according to Bar and Bench.

An allegation in the suit concerns Khan publicly disclosing the name of the school attended by Kashyap’s child – information the suit describes as irrelevant to the public controversy and potentially exposing her family to harassment and security risks.

The court will now hear the matter on June 17.

Khan has simultaneously found himself at the centre of a separate controversy in Patna, where violence outside his coaching institute, Khan Global Studies, has snowballed into a criminal case against him.

On June 2, a group allegedly vandalised the premises in the city’s Kadamkuan area and attacked a security guard. Khan initially claimed that rivals had fired multiple outside the institute, but the investigation took a turn when police arrested three persons linked to a rival coaching institute and then two of Khan’s own security guards, who allegedly told investigators they had opened fire on his instructions. He has consequently been booked on charges including attempt to murder, though his lawyer has denied the allegations, describing the case as retaliatory, with an anticipatory bail plea in the works.

Compounding his troubles, Bihar Fire Services conducted a safety audit of Khan Global Studies as part of a statewide compliance drive and claimed to have found multiple deficiencies, including the absence of a fire alarm system, no fire pump, and an inadequate overhead water tank. The institute has been issued a notice to rectify the shortcomings within a week. Officials have warned that failure to comply could result in the premises being sealed.

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‘Go Back, Godi media’: CJP protesters at Jantar Mantar had no time for TV media

NL Team — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 12:06:27 GMT

At Jantar Mantar, the anger of protesters wasn’t just directed at Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

While Instagram, X and YouTube were flooded with videos from the ground, India’s mainstream television news channels – central to what many derogatorily call Godi Media – seemed to be watching an entirely different country.

At around 10:40 am, India Today was discussing whether Gen Z wanted change. Aaj Tak was debating paper leaks and education issues. NDTV was busy with Karnataka politics and the latest moves of the new chief minister, DK Shivakumar. And Republic Bharat was doing god knows what.

But what was remarkable was what wasn't being shown. None of these channels appeared particularly interested in cutting to the live developments dominating social media feeds, namely, the young people gathered at the protest held by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) at Jantar Mantar in Delhi — a movement that began as online satire and has since taken on a life of its own. They had gathered to protest recurring exam paper leaks, including the recent NEET-UG 2026 leak, discrepancies in the CBSE On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, and broader failures in the education system. Their demand was clear: the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

On a day like today, if you wanted to know what was happening in real time at Jantar Mantar, you were more likely to find it on Instagram than on a news channel. However, as the gathering at Jantar Mantar grew in size and scale, some of these Godi media channels began appearing. Suffice to say, they weren’t received well by protesters, who regularly raised “Go Back, Godi Media”, “Godi Media, Hai Hai” or “Godi media chor hai” slogans against them.

#JustNow | Protesters at Jantar Mantar raised slogans of “Godi Media Hay Hay,” expressing criticism of sections of the mainstream media and voicing concerns over press freedom and media independence during the CJP demonstration. pic.twitter.com/tejpAxrqWN
— The Wire (@thewire_in) June 6, 2026

“गोदी मीडिया हाय हाय गोदी मीडिया हाय हाय”

जंतर-मंतर पर कॉकरोच जनता पार्टी के प्रदर्शन में TV चैनल्स का हाल pic.twitter.com/eKSBniKjxJ
— Nikhat Ali (@INikhatAli) June 6, 2026

Sloganeering against Godi Media
At Jantar Mantar
Where the GenZ’s are going to protest on the call of Cockroach Janta Party pic.twitter.com/DqNzBfsl40
— Saurabh shukla (@Saurabh_Unmute) June 6, 2026

Slogans of

"GODI MEDIA CHOR HAI
GODI MEDIA DALAL HAI"

The protest seems to be as much against the Govt. as against Godi Media

Reflect the impression of Indian Media in the eyes of Youth!! pic.twitter.com/sE6ETQkqDX
— Nehr_who? (@Nher_who) June 6, 2026

Young people at the protest had little patience for Godi media, and they made no effort to hide their disdain. One protester wearing a cockroach mask, when asked whether she was angry with the media, told Newslaundry, “Media se bahut zyaada hai, matlab itni dalal media duniya mein nahi hoga jitna Bharat mein hai.” (I am very angry with the media. I mean, there is no other place in the world with as much ‘broker’ media as there is in India.)

‘Itni dalaal media duniya main kahin nahin hogi jitni bharat main hai…’

Have to listen to this lady describe how some in the media are covering this protest. What sort of questions they are asking. Brilliant byte by @anmolpritamND @nlhindi pic.twitter.com/uMfY2mW9ED
— Manisha Pande (@MnshaP) June 6, 2026

She added that instead of engaging with the substance of their grievances, Godi media journalists would either engage in “whataboutery” or ask them to spell out the full form of NEET, and that “even if I lack knowledge, it is still my right to raise my voice against any mismanagement in the country.”

Here are a few more instances of protesters expressing their anger towards Godi media:

A protestor at Jantar Mantar explaining what is Godi media. pic.twitter.com/AH13xL244P
— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) June 6, 2026

Godi YT channels chased away by the public when they tried to defend the Govt

The bhakt channels are cancerous to India

Imagine defending the Govt on the paper leak and asking people not to protest & criticize the Go8 pic.twitter.com/H4ZzBmzkij
— Nehr_who? (@Nher_who) June 6, 2026

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TV Newsance 344 | The exam system failed you. The media failed you harder

At CJP’s first presser, questions on funding, June 6 protest and politics

NL Team — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:26:30 GMT

At its first press conference in Delhi, the Cockroach Janata Party unveiled its new spokespersons and laid out plans for a June 6 protest demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.

Saurav Das, chief spokesperson of CJP, flanked by spokespersons Vijeta Dahiya and Ashutosh Ranka

Journalists filed into the Deputy Speaker Hall at the Constitution Club of India well before the stipulated time. Seating ran out quickly, with some journalists settling on the floor.

It was a press conference that marked the first time the Cockroach Janata Party’s newly appointed spokespersons interacted with the media, fielding questions and articulating the party’s position amid swelling public interest. The briefing came just days before the movement’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, is set to return to India on June 6.

The CJP had announced its three new spokespersons the same day. Journalist Saurav Das was named Chief Spokesperson, joined by political researcher and filmmaker Vijeta Dahiya, and former management consultant Ashutosh Ranka.

The trio quelled speculation surrounding the party’s primary agenda – demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the scandals that have roiled India’s education sector. Citing a petition that has already gathered eight lakh signatures, Das called the current system “unaccountable” and argued that the “culture of non-accountability needs to go”.

The spokespersons also laid out a detailed plan of action for June 6, the day the CJP has designated for protests at Jantar Mantar. Dipke is expected to land in Delhi by 8 am and has called on supporters to receive him at the airport. The group plans to then proceed to the Parliament Street Police Station to seek permission for the demonstration before marching to the protest site.

“We have given an open call. Anybody can join us without a party banner. We are ready to have a dialogue with everybody, be it those in power or the Opposition,” Das said.

The open nature of the call, however, came with a caveat: participants were asked not to carry visible markers of political affiliation. “We have given an open call - do come without your party banner, your organisation banner. We are ready to have a dialogue with everybody, be it in power or the opposition.”

The media pressed the spokespersons on a significant procedural concern. Delhi Police typically requires a seven-day notice period before demonstrations, yet the CJP intends to seek permission and protest on the very same day. What, reporters asked, was the contingency plan if permission were denied?

The spokespersons responded by underscoring that the issues being raised – paper leaks, flawed evaluation systems – affect the children of Delhi Police personnel as much as anyone else. They expressed confidence that, given the peaceful and lawful nature of the protest, permission would be granted.

What they did not satisfactorily address was why the permission request had not been filed earlier. When the question was put to Spokesperson Vijeta Dahiya, he redirected attention to the party’s core demand, questioning why the media was focusing on procedural matters rather than on the call for Pradhan’s resignation.

Since the movement’s launch on May 16, it has been shadowed by allegations of opaque funding and, more pointedly, claims of a foreign financial angle – none of which have been substantiated so far. When asked where the money for the press conference came from, Das was dismissive. “What do we even need funding for? The poster costs Rs 200!” he said. He characterised the foreign-hand narrative as a “counter-narrative” and called it a tactic that is a standard practice against any political movement.

The CJP also faced questions over its alleged ties to the Aam Aadmi Party, particularly given that Dipke previously served as a core member of AAP’s social media team. Spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka addressed this, stating that their “past affiliation is not important,” and urging the public not to reduce a national movement to its members' individual histories.

Das framed the AAP-linkage allegations within a broader pattern: those who challenge the system, he argued, are routinely labelled “anti-national,” “Pakistani,” or aligned with the Opposition.

All eyes are now on the June 6 demonstration, which is expected to be attended by climate activist Sonam Wangchuk.

With inputs from Samagra Thakur. He's an editorial intern with Newslaundry.

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‘I started a joke…now I get death threats’: Cockroach Janata Party founder speaks

Delhi blaze: 11 foreigners among 21 dead as questions emerge over building safety and response time

NL Team — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:38:52 GMT

As guests trapped on upper floors tried to escape, locals say they broke locks, used mattresses to cushion jumps, and rescued dozens allegedly before emergency teams arrived.

The scenes inside the Flourish Inn Stay in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar were so horrifying that they were “indescribable,” Wasim, an eyewitness, told Newslaundry as he tried to recall what unfolded at the property on Wednesday morning, when a major fire tore through the building, leaving at least 21 people dead.

Locals were the first to act. Israr Khan, a resident of the area, said he and his associates rescued around 45 people from the building using mattresses. Visuals showed those trapped on the upper floors trying to jump off.

Watch on YouTube

“We broke the locks…there was a canteen on the first floor…thankfully there was no cylinder blast,” Khan told Newslaundry. He added that they immediately transported victims to the nearby Max Hospital.

Another eyewitness said fire tenders arrived only after locals had already completed much of the rescue effort – an allegation that has since become a flashpoint for political recrimination.

Among the 21 dead are 11 foreign nationals and 10 Indians. Five foreigners are also among the injured. The injured are being treated at AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, and Max Super Specialty Hospital.

Max Hospital, which received the bulk of the casualties, said 39 people were brought in, of whom 18 were declared dead on arrival. Fifteen patients have been admitted to the ICU, including eight on ventilator support who remain in critical condition. Five with minor injuries were given first aid and discharged; one with severe burns was transferred to Safdarjung Hospital.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

A building with one staircase

Abhilash Kumar Malik, Chief Fire Officer (South Zone), said the fire department received information about the incident at 8:50 am and initially dispatched seven fire tenders and one Assistant Divisional Officer. Additional vehicles and senior officers followed as distress calls multiplied.

Malik’s description of the building’s structure raised immediate questions about safety. “When we were conducting the search operation, I thoroughly inspected the building from top to bottom. This building has a basement, a ground floor and five upper floors. For the entire building, there is only one staircase along with a lift... The building has been completely sealed,” he said.

Delhi cabinet minister Ashish Sood said action would be taken against establishments operating without the required permissions.

“The entire administration is deeply concerned and distressed by this tragic incident... We have decided that action will be taken against establishments that do not possess the necessary permissions. For instance, this building (Flourish Stay) was granted permission in 2024 to operate as a six-room bed-and-breakfast establishment. The permissions of establishments found violating the rules will be cancelled,” Sood said.

Political fallout

Lieutenant Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu ordered a month-long drive to ensure fire safety compliance across hotels, nursing homes, coaching centres, and resorts. Delhi Mayor Pravesh Wahi ordered a probe and sought a report within three days.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund for the next of kin of each deceased, and Rs 50,000 for those injured. “The loss of lives due to a fire incident in Malviya Nagar, Delhi is tragic. My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones. Wishing a speedy recovery to the injured. Authorities are providing all possible assistance to those affected,” the PMO wrote on X.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the government was “standing shoulder to shoulder with the bereaved families”. “My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured and for strength & courage to all those affected by this heartbreaking tragedy. Delhi Govt. is closely monitoring the situation. All necessary medical assistance & support are being extended to the affected families,” she tweeted.

The Aam Aadmi Party and Congress alleged delays in the fire department’'s response. Former AAP MLA from Malviya Nagar, Somnath Bharti, said the fire brigade took nearly an hour to arrive despite the station being just minutes away.

“The rescue teams were dispatched, but the fire brigade, which should have arrived within a few minutes of the incident, reached almost an hour later, despite the station just three minutes away from the spot. Residents were extremely proactive. Because of their efforts, many lives were saved. We could have saved many more lives had the fire brigade arrived on time,” Bharti said.

Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav, after visiting the site, also alleged serious lapses in the handling of the incident.

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66 stations, 98 daily calls, 80% station officers unrecruited: Inside Delhi’s fire service crisis