We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt.

Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically make it true. We need the ability to verify information, understand its context, recognise its purpose and only then form an opinion. In the digital age, this ability has become one of the most important forms of wisdom.

Social media has transformed the way information travels. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have made communication faster, wider and more accessible. But the same speed that connects society can also overwhelm it. Information often reaches us before facts do. A headline is read before the full story. A short video is watched without knowing what happened before or after it. A photograph is circulated without its original context. A message arrives with the familiar words, “Forwarded as received,” and within minutes it may reach thousands of people. By the time the truth catches up, the rumour may already have done its work.

The problem becomes even more serious when misinformation is deliberately created and circulated. Rumours may be planted not merely to mislead individuals but to divert public attention from an important issue, create suspicion, damage someone's reputation or push society towards a particular narrative. A distraction does not always need to be completely false. Sometimes a small piece of truth is mixed with exaggeration, selective facts or emotional language. The result can be more powerful than an outright lie because it appears believable. This is how narratives are manufactured.

Social media platforms can become powerful tools in this process. A repeated claim begins to look familiar, and familiarity is often mistaken for truth. A provocative post attracts attention. Thousands of reactions create the impression that “everyone” believes it. One emotional video triggers another, comments intensify the mood, and before facts have an opportunity to speak, public sentiment may have already shifted. This is where mob psychology enters the picture. A society can move from calm to anger, suspicion to trust, or optimism to fear with surprising speed. People who would ordinarily think carefully may react differently when they see thousands of others expressing outrage, fear or hostility. The individual begins to follow the crowd, and the crowd begins to reinforce the individual.

The danger is not limited to negative emotions. The same mechanism can also be used positively-to mobilise people for social causes, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, public awareness and community action. Technology itself is neither wise nor foolish. Its impact depends on how information is created, amplified and consumed. The greatest danger, therefore, is not that we have too much information. It is that we may lose the habit of thinking while consuming it. We are increasingly becoming consumers of information rather than creators of thought.

Everyone has access to information today, but access does not necessarily mean understanding. The boundaries between a rumour and a report, an opinion and a fact, popularity and truth are becoming increasingly blurred. A post does not become true because thousands of people have liked it. A video does not become evidence merely because it has gone viral. An opinion does not become a fact because it is expressed confidently. An idea does not become correct simply because it confirms what we already believe.

This last point deserves particular attention. We often accept information not because it is accurate, but because it is comfortable. We are naturally attracted to information that confirms our existing beliefs and suspicious of information that challenges them. In the digital world, this tendency can be amplified by algorithms that repeatedly expose us to content similar to what we have already watched, liked or shared. Gradually, we may find ourselves living inside an information bubble where we hear many voices-but mostly voices that agree with us. That is not diversity of information. It is an illusion of certainty.

Discernment does not mean doubting everything. It means thinking before believing. It means asking simple but powerful questions: Who is saying this? What is the evidence? What is the context? What may be missing? Who benefits if I believe it? And have I heard the other side? These questions may take only a few seconds, but they can prevent hours, days or even years of misunderstanding.

This responsibility is particularly important for the younger generation. Children today are growing up in an environment of unprecedented information exposure. They can encounter more information in a few hours than earlier generations might have encountered in weeks. Therefore, education cannot merely teach students how to collect, remember and reproduce information. It must teach them how to question, verify, analyse and interpret it. A student who can write the correct answer in an examination may be academically successful. But a student who knows how to ask the right question is better prepared for life.

The classroom of the future must therefore produce not merely informed students, but thinking citizens. They must learn that forwarding a message is also a form of responsibility. Sharing a post is not an innocent act when it can affect someone's reputation, create public fear or influence social behaviour. The challenge becomes even greater in the age of Artificial Intelligence. AI can generate information, images, audio and video with extraordinary speed and sophistication. The distinction between what is real and what merely appears real may become increasingly difficult. In such a world, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. Technology can produce an answer in seconds. It cannot automatically tell us whether that answer deserves our trust. Some answers require experience. Some require context. Many require the ability to think independently.

We have more information, more technology and more connectivity than any previous generation. Yet our real challenge is to preserve something technology cannot manufacture for us: the capacity to think for ourselves. The ocean of information will only become larger. The question will no longer be, “How much information do we have?” The more important questions will be: What should we accept? What should we question? What should we verify? And what should we reject? No technology can completely answer these questions for us. No number of likes can substitute for evidence. No viral trend can replace judgment. No majority can turn misinformation into truth. That responsibility belongs to human beings. Information can tell us what happened. Discernment helps us understand what it means, why it happened, what may be missing from the story and how we should respond.

Perhaps, therefore, the greatest educational challenge of our time is not to teach people how to find more information. They already know how to do that. The greater challenge is to teach them how to pause-to pause before believing, to pause before reacting, to pause before forwarding and to pause before joining the crowd. Because sometimes the most intelligent response to information is not an immediate reaction, but a moment of reflection. The ocean is already around us. It is growing deeper every day. What we need now is not more information to swim through it-but the wisdom to know which direction to take.

(The writer is the Principal of Podar International School, Ausa, Latur. Views personal.)

Bharath walks into a shop to buy a mobile phone worth ₹50,000. He scans the UPI QR code, enters the amount and within seconds, the payment is done. There is no cash, no card and no extra charge visible to him. For Bharath, UPI is simply a convenient and almost effortless way of making a payment.

But what happens on the other side of that QR code?

The introduction of the new Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) framework brings this question into focus. From October 15, 2026, specified UPI Person-to-Merchant transactions above ₹2,000 will attract an MDR of 0.4%, subject to a maximum of ₹300 for transactions of ₹75,000 and above. Person-to-person payments will continue to remain free, while transactions up to ₹2,000 will also remain outside the MDR framework. The Government has stated that around 96% of P2M transactions will remain unaffected.

For a customer like Bharath, this does not mean that UPI has suddenly become a paid service. The MDR is an ecosystem charge and is not intended to be directly collected from the customer as a UPI payment fee.

However, for the shopkeeper, the calculation can be different.

Take a retailer who receives several high-value UPI payments every day. On an eligible ₹10,000 transaction, 0.4% works out to ₹40. On ₹50,000, it becomes ₹200. One transaction may not make much difference, but when similar transactions happen every day, the cumulative cost can become noticeable.

This matters especially for small businesses where profit margins are already limited. A merchant may not be in a position to simply add the MDR to the customer's bill. The additional cost may instead reduce the business's margin or force the merchant to look for savings elsewhere.

At the same time, it is important to understand why such a framework is being introduced. UPI is no longer just a payment facility; it has become part of India's financial infrastructure. Banks, technology companies and payment participants need to maintain systems, strengthen cybersecurity, manage fraud risks and continuously invest in technology. A sustainable payment ecosystem therefore needs an economic model to support these costs.

The new framework attempts to balance these two realities. It keeps everyday and person-to-person UPI payments free while introducing a limited cost for certain higher-value merchant transactions.

From a Chartered Accountant's perspective, the change also highlights an often-overlooked aspect of business finance: small transaction costs can become significant when multiplied by large volumes.

Businesses should therefore keep track of MDR and other payment-related expenses, reconcile settlement amounts with bank records and understand how these costs affect their margins. For businesses operating on thin margins, this monitoring can make a meaningful difference.

For Bharath, the QR code may look exactly the same and his payment may still feel free. For the merchant receiving that payment, however, the economics may have changed.

The real challenge is to ensure that India's digital-payment ecosystem remains both affordable for consumers and sustainable for the businesses and institutions that keep it running.

UPI changed the way India pays. The next chapter is about understanding the cost of keeping that convenience alive.

(The writer is a Chartered Accountant based in Thane. Views personal.)

Dharana is not about stopping thoughts; it is about repeatedly returning attention.

In the fast-paced rhythm of modern life, our attention is constantly drawn in different directions. We move from one task to another, often without giving our complete attention to anything. Although the body may remain in one place, the mind can travel through a stream of thoughts, memories, plans and concerns.

Yoga offers a systematic approach to understanding and refining the mind. One of the important stages in this journey is Dharana — concentration.

Maharshi Patanjali defines 'Dharana' in the Yoga Sutras: “देशबन्धश्चित्तस्य धारणा॥”— योगसूत्र ३.१

This means binding or fixing the mind to a particular place, object or subject.

In simple terms, Dharana is the conscious practice of bringing the mind to one chosen point and allowing it to remain there.

Consider a familiar situation. We may sit down to read a book, but within a few moments our attention shifts to something else. We notice that the mind has wandered. When we gently bring our attention back to the book, without frustration or force, we are already practising the essence of Dharana.

The object of concentration may be external—a visual image, a symbol or a flame—or internal, such as the breath, a mantra, or a subtle point within the body. The choice of object can vary according to the individual and the purpose of the practice.

At first, maintaining attention may not be easy. The mind naturally wanders, and this is a normal part of the process. The practice lies not in preventing every thought from arising but in recognising when attention has moved away and calmly bringing it back.

This is what gradually develops mental steadiness and one-pointed attention.

Dharana is also closely connected with the next stage of the yogic journey—Dhyana, or meditation. Patanjali explains, "तत्र प्रत्ययैकतानता ध्यानम्॥”— योगसूत्र ३.२

This means that when the flow of awareness towards the chosen object becomes continuous and uninterrupted, it is called Dhyana.

Thus, Dharana may be understood as the foundation of meditation. In Dharana, there is an intentional effort to hold the mind to one point. As this effort gradually becomes steady and continuous, it naturally moves towards Dhyana.

A simple analogy can help us understand the distinction. When water is scattered in different directions, its force is limited. When the same water is channelled into one stream, it gains direction and strength. Similarly, when the mind is scattered among numerous thoughts and impressions, its attention is divided. Dharana helps gather this scattered attention and give it a clear direction.

This ability has great value in everyday life. A student needs it while studying, a professional while working, an artist while creating, and an individual while listening, communicating or making important decisions. Concentration is not merely a spiritual quality; it is an essential aspect of a balanced and purposeful life.

The contemporary environment makes this discipline particularly relevant. Constant notifications, information overload and the habit of frequently shifting attention can make sustained concentration more difficult. Setting aside a few quiet minutes each day to focus on one chosen object can therefore be a meaningful practice for cultivating attention and inner discipline.

Dharana does not require complicated techniques. One can begin by sitting comfortably in a quiet place, keeping the body steady and allowing the breath to settle. The chosen object is then brought into awareness. Whenever the mind wanders, attention is gently returned to that object.

The duration need not be long in the beginning. Regularity is more important than duration. With consistent practice, the mind gradually becomes familiar with remaining in one place rather than constantly moving from one thought to another.

It is equally important to remember that Dharana is not an attempt to suppress thoughts or create a completely blank mind. Thoughts may arise naturally. The real practice is to remain aware and consciously choose where attention is placed.

In the classical yogic tradition, Dharana therefore represents an important movement—from scattered attention towards focused awareness, from restlessness towards stability, and from outward distraction towards inner observation.

In a world where our attention is constantly being sought, the ability to consciously direct it is a valuable form of inner strength. Dharana teaches us that concentration is not about forcing the mind into stillness; it is about training the mind to remain where we consciously choose to place it.

And when attention becomes steady, the deeper journey towards meditation begins.

(The writer is a yoga educator and researcher based in Pune. Views personal.)

Somewhere in the dusty corridors of cricket history, a lonely footnote just sat up and demanded a raise. Abhishek Sharma, the left-handed wrecking ball from Punjab, has returned to form with the subtlety of a firework display in a library. One moment he was enduring the kind of lean patch that makes even your most loyal aunt start muttering about “maybe trying a different grip,” and the next he was turning Afghanistan’s bowlers into unwilling extras in a highlight reel that belongs in a museum of modern violence.

The climax arrived on a Thursday night in Delhi that was supposed to be a dead rubber. Afghanistan had already been politely but firmly shown the door in the series. The crowd was there more out of habit than hope. Then Abhishek walked out and decided the evening needed a plot twist.

Thirty balls later he had a hundred. Not a careful, graft-your-way-there hundred. A 30-ball hundred. The fastest by an Indian in T20 internationals, the fastest by anyone from a full-member nation against another full-member nation. Nine fours, eleven sixes, and a celebration that involved sitting cross-legged in a meditation pose as if he had just finished a particularly satisfying yoga class rather than dismantling an international attack.

The numbers are almost rude. Strike rate north of 300. Afghanistan’s total in reply: 94. Margin of victory: 127 runs. Player of the Match. Player of the Series. Somewhere, Rohit Sharma’s old 35-ball record against Sri Lanka is quietly requesting a transfer to a less competitive league.

What makes the whole thing funnier is the timing. Abhishek had arrived at this series with the kind of recent form that invites unsolicited advice from strangers on social media.

There had been the England tour, the Ireland misadventure, the occasional nine-innings stretch without a fifty that had the pundits clearing their throats. Form, in cricket, is a mysterious and slightly vindictive force.

It leaves without warning, stays away longer than it should, and then returns wearing a cape and asking if anyone missed it. Abhishek simply refused to panic. He kept talking about process, about playing like “Soormas,” about not letting one or two bad series define the batting group. Then he went out and scored 229 runs in three matches at a strike rate that would make a calculator blush.

There is something almost comic about the way he does it. Other batters sweat and grit their teeth and talk about “taking the game deep.” Abhishek treats the first six overs like a personal invitation to rearrange the furniture.

He doesn’t so much play shots as issue eviction notices to the ball. The bowler runs in with hope; the ball leaves the bat with a sense of urgency and a one-way ticket into the stands. By the time the fielding side has adjusted the field, he has already adjusted the scoreboard beyond recognition.

Sensible Friend

His opening partner Sanju Samson had the good sense to make a fifty of his own and largely stay out of the way, which is the cricket equivalent of being the sensible friend who drives the getaway car while the other one sets the building on fire. The rest of the Indian batting order came and went with the polite efficiency of people who know the main act has already finished the show. Afghanistan’s bowlers, to their credit, kept running in. They just ran in looking increasingly like men who had been told the fire extinguisher was full of glitter.

The humour, of course, sits in the contrast. Cricket loves a redemption story, but it prefers them with a bit of struggle and soul-searching. Abhishek’s version skips the montage of lonely nets and late-night doubts and goes straight to the part where the hero casually rewrites the record books while looking mildly surprised that anyone is still talking about the earlier lean patch.

“One or two bad series won’t define us,” he said afterwards, which is the sort of line that sounds humble until you realise he has just scored a 30-ball hundred and the opposition has been reduced to 94.

What comes next is the usual cricket question: can he keep it going? Form is a fair-weather friend, and the next series will bring new bowlers with new plans and the same old hope that this time the left-hander might, for once, play a quite little thirty. History suggests those hopes are optimistic.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai.)

Serbjeet Sidhu is an engineer by education, a management consultant by profession and a writer by passion. His experience across international organisations, diverse cultures and relationships has shaped a broad, practical understanding of people. He has a natural knack for working with incomplete or unstructured information, ambiguity and competing choices, and hence sees writing as a natural extension of his consulting instinct. Here are the excerpts of his interaction with Shiv Sethi.

You come from an engineering and consulting background. What brought you into writing?

For me, the transition is natural. A consultant must observe, communicate, cut through clutter and make sense of situations where the full picture is rarely available. Engineering gave me a practical, logical outlook; consulting taught me to question, structure and communicate. Writing is an extension of that. The audience may be different, but the principle is the same: understand what is happening, view it from different angles and communicate it clearly.

Your books range from relationships to AI, leadership and satire. Are they not disconnected in theme?

Certainly not. I never decide that today I will write fiction, satire or business. An idea usually begins with something I observe in everyday life or work. Even my fiction is rarely fiction at the root; the seed is real. Only One grew from thoughts I first had while preparing for my NDA interview, where choices and collateral consequences were part of the mindset. Patong Can Wait is satire, but it comes from observing real social behaviour. I write what feels worth expressing, not what is trending.

Choices and moral ambiguity appear repeatedly in your work. Why do they interest you so much?

It is probably the management consultant in me; choices are my food for thought. In life, there is often no single correct choice. Choices are rarely as simple as right versus wrong. They are more often between responsibilities, loyalties, people, outcomes or circumstances, each carrying consequences. This is especially interesting to me when viewed through the lens of change enablement.

AI features prominently in your recent work. What worries you most about its impact?

Three things. First, AI hype can make it look like a one-stop route to a high-paying job, when it is fundamentally an enabling tool. Second, overdependence may weaken problem-solving, judgement, ethics and other core skills. Third, deepfakes are already crossing serious ethical lines and are often defended as humour even when they put false words or actions onto real people. My fear is not that AI becomes intelligent; my fear is that AI may never become ethical. We should not outsource thinking simply because an answer is always available.

What should young people understand about careers in the AI era?

Never confuse mastery of a tool with mastery of a profession. Build a strong foundation first - engineering, finance, marketing, or whatever your field - and then use AI to become better at it. Human judgement, communication, relationships, curiosity and ethics still matter.

You have written about leadership and what has gone wrong in modern journalism. Do you see a common thread?

Certainly. The common thread is what organisations say they value and what they actually reward. If a company says it values trust and people development but rewards only the bottom line, behaviour will follow the bottom line. The same applies to media. If promotions are driven mainly by clicks, TRPs and outrage, ethics take a back seat. I see both as performance-management problems. Values cannot live only on posters; they must appear in how performance is measured and rewarded. Walking the talk is not a slogan; it is a system.

Do you write to give readers answers, or to make them question their own choices?

I cannot answer on the reader's behalf. I write to make people think and discover their own answers. This comes from my consulting instinct: I do not tell a client, 'This is your answer.' I lay out options, consequences and trade-offs, and the client decides. With readers, I do something similar. I am a facilitator: I show different ways of looking at something and let readers discover their own answers.

What would you like readers to remember about you after reading your work?

I would like to leave a mark where, in some way, I remain Gone and Ungone. Gone because, like everyone else, one day I will no longer be here. Ungone because my words may remain. I write to express what I have seen, what I believe and what I think might help someone facing a situation I once faced. Books stay. If something I have written makes someone think, question or see a situation differently years from now, that is enough for me.

As political inertia stalls environmental action, courts and green tribunals across the Global South are turning legal principles into enforceable climate accountability.

Protecting ecologically sensitive areas is increasingly testing the balance between economic development and environmental obligations.

As governments struggle to translate environmental commitments into action, judicial institutions across the Global South are emerging as powerful enforcers of ecological accountability. The recent two-day international summit on ‘The Future of Environment and Climate Dynamics’ inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hosted by the National Green Tribunal in New Delhi, brought together jurists from 17 nations to explore this expanding role of the judiciary in climate governance.

The Delhi summit underscored that courts and specialized tribunals are no longer mere arbiters of dispute but have become active, institutional drivers of climate accountability, translating abstract ecological commitments into enforceable, day-to-day legal remedies.

Judicial Environmentalism

This phenomenon of judicial environmentalism is understood as a structural response to a longstanding deficiency in execution. Although developing nations are generally at the forefront of establishing ambitious statutory goals, from renewable energy development to forest preservation, the bureaucratic apparatus that is responsible for enforcing these goals has usually faltered in the face of political compromises and enforcement difficulties. Several specialized institutions, like the National Green Tribunal in India, were specifically established to fill this gap. By combining judicial expertise with technical assessment, tribunals have created a forum where regulatory inertia can be challenged directly by citizens, local communities, and non-governmental entities. The gathering of jurists from 17 developing and emerging nations indicates that this is not an isolated experiment, but a developing trend in the Global South, where the judiciary is taking the initiative for transforming legislative goals into tangible ecological protection.

Fundamental principles like the public trust doctrine, intergenerational equity, and the polluter pays principle are at the base of this judicial transformation. In the past, these ideas were merely present in the introductory part of legislative texts or in international declarations. However, in recent times, courts began to convert abstract legal concepts into practical solutions. The use of the public trust doctrine helps courts remove full power from governments regarding the reclassification of sensitive areas like wetlands and forests for industrial purposes. The evolution of the principle of intergenerational equity means that courts gain the right to examine whether certain industrial activities will have negative consequences for future generations.

Moreover, this operational jurisprudence has drastically changed the mechanisms of climate finance and corporate accountability from its original form. In various jurisdictions across the Global South, specialized environmental courts have ceased conducting the standard practice of issuing cease-and-desist orders. Instead, these courts have begun creating compensation schemes whereby polluters have to pay for damage done to the environment for a specified amount, and these funds are devoted to local ecosystem restoration projects. By linking monetary liability, which has to be paid by polluters, to ecological restoration, courts make sure that polluters bear financial responsibility that prevents them from causing damaging actions. This judicial practice has made sovereign states and state agencies accountable for their failure to enforce the law, creating an obligation to control different processes in an open manner and in a constant manner.

A Regional Engine

The collaborative dynamics highlighted during the summit point toward the creation of a cross-border judicial framework across the Global South. Problems arising from the deterioration of trans-border river basins, air pollution, and exposure to vulnerable coastal areas disregard borders. At the same time, negotiations related to functioning in these shared spaces are full of political and diplomatic problems. However, judicial systems, similar in terms of principles of law and constitution, provide an unconventionally effective way of aligning institutions. Hence, judges share their protocols, processes, and interpretations of laws and thereby lay the foundations of a distinctive jurisprudence aimed at the conditions of the Global South.

This framework is particularly significant in balancing rapid economic development with environmental conservation. According to the proceedings, countries of the Global South face the challenge of addressing poverty and the disproportionately negative effects of climate change, which is largely attributed to historical industrialization in other places. By incorporating the principle of the right to a clean environment as part of their constitutional and human rights, judicial institutions aim to ensure that economic growth does not come at the cost of ecology and those suffering in society. The involvement of international judges in the proceedings demonstrates the growing recognition of judicial enforcement as an important tool of justice and accountability, which should be applied to both national governments and international obligations.

Ultimately, the proceedings hosted by the National Green Tribunal demonstrate that judicial environmentalism has evolved from a reactive mechanism into a proactive, institutionalized engine of climate governance. As executive machinery continues to navigate competing electoral priorities and political constraints, the responsibility of maintaining the delicate balance between human development and planetary preservation increasingly rests upon the strength of the courtroom.

By enforcing strict administrative accountability, defining clear technical parameters for regulatory compliance, and asserting the primacy of ecological constitutionalism, specialized tribunals across the Global South are establishing a transformative paradigm where judicial oversight bridges institutional gaps, ensures long-term regulatory integrity, and guarantees that the rule of law serves as the ultimate safeguard for present and future generations.

(The writer is a columnist and policy researcher with a focus on South Asian geopolitics, India’s foreign policy, and the Indo-Pacific. Views personal.)

The most disturbing aspect of the crisis currently plaguing IIT Bombay is that one of India’s premier institutions appears to be confronting a student’s death as a contest between opposing camps of students and faculty members.

The parents of Sahil Wakode, who died by suicide last week after he was caught cheating, have alleged caste-based harassment and institutional pressure. The Mumbai Police have registered a case against Professor Suryanarayana Doolla under provisions relating to abetment of suicide and the SC/ST Act; the Crime Branch is investigating. IIT Bombay has since removed Doolla from his position as Dean of Administrative Affairs and apologised for an earlier communication that characterised events before they had been established.

Meanwhile, even as the standoff continues, faculty members marched in support of Doolla, arguing that he had followed Senate-approved examination procedures and had himself contributed to student welfare.

An IIT cannot afford to become a miniature version of the politics outside its gates, where every dispute produces camps and every allegation becomes a battle for narrative control. The allegations against Doolla must be investigated fairly, without prejudging his guilt.

There is a danger in allowing the understandable anger surrounding a student’s death to become a substitute for institutional process.

IITs enjoy enormous prestige because India assumes that these institutions represent something more than examination success. They are expected to embody rational inquiry - the willingness to test claims against evidence, tolerate disagreement and change one’s position when facts demand it.

Yet when a crisis arrives, the familiar habits of public life can quickly take over in form of mobilisation, slogans and pressure on administrators. That has consequences far beyond one campus.

India’s academic excellence has been built over decades on institutions whose credibility rests on the belief that admission, assessment, research and discipline are governed by standards rather than influence.

The irony is that institutions of higher learning are meant to teach precisely the habits that such confrontations discard patience, evidence and intellectual humility when it comes to crunch situations.

An institution that cannot enforce examination rules, investigate misconduct or make difficult decisions without fearing a campus confrontation will eventually find its authority hollowed out.

The larger question is whether India’s premier institutions can preserve a culture in which neither students nor faculty are pressure groups, but participants in a system of rules that applies to everyone.

Every time a campus dispute is settled by mobilisation rather than due process, or authority retreats in the face of collective pressure, that confidence is weakened.

India’s IITs should be places where reason prevails when emotions run high. If the country’s premier institutes cannot maintain that standard in moments of crisis, it will only prove that India’s academic institutions are not building the institutional maturity needed to protect it.

As digital finance becomes indispensable, algorithmic convenience must not come at the cost of institutional accountability.

AI generated image

Last week, the National Payments Corporation of India announced a significant change to India’s Unified Payments Interface. From October 15, eligible merchant payments exceeding Rs.2,000 will attract a Merchant Discount Rate of 0.4 percent, capped at Rs.300 per transaction. The charge will be payable by merchants, not customers, while small merchants receiving up to Rs.1 lakh a month through QR-based UPI payments will be exempt. Certain transactions involving fuel, railways, telecommunications, insurance, utilities, agricultural inputs and government payments will attract a flat charge of Rs.5.

The government has directed banks and payment providers not to pass the charge on to consumers. Nevertheless, the announcement has caused unease among merchants and users. Retailers fear that even a charge formally imposed on businesses could eventually be absorbed through higher prices or discourage some establishments from accepting larger UPI payments.

The government and payments industry have a legitimate counterargument: a digital network of this scale cannot remain secure, reliable and innovative without a sustainable source of revenue. UPI reportedly processed around 24 billion transactions worth approximately $311 billion in August 2026 alone. Maintaining that infrastructure, strengthening cybersecurity, resolving disputes and preventing fraud involve substantial expenditure.

The controversy raises a question that extends beyond the price of a transaction: as digital finance becomes an essential public utility, how should its costs, risks and responsibilities be distributed without undermining public trust?

The Automation Paradox

India’s digital-payments revolution is among the country’s most remarkable technological achievements. Yet, as transactions surge and the Reserve Bank of India tightens regulatory safeguards—from digital-lending rules to fraud prevention and customer protection—an operational paradox has emerged. The financial system is becoming faster and more automated, but customers who encounter errors can find it increasingly difficult to reach a person capable of correcting them.

The RBI introduced the Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions in 2019. In 2021, it launched the Reserve Bank–Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, combining the earlier schemes covering banks, non-banking financial companies and digital transactions.

Despite this framework, complaints received through the integrated grievance-redressal system rose from 11,75,075 in 2023–24 to 13,34,244 in 2024–25, an increase of 13.55 percent. Loans and credit cards together reportedly accounted for nearly 46 percent of complaints, while digital banking, deposits and ATM-related grievances also constituted significant categories.

These numbers do not mean that every complaint was maintainable or that misconduct was established in every case. Greater financial participation, rising transaction volumes and easier online filing can themselves generate more complaints. Indeed, more than 91 percent of complaints were reportedly submitted through digital channels. Rural and less digitally literate customers may also remain under-represented in formal grievance statistics.

Nevertheless, more than 1.33 million complaints represent an important institutional warning. Rapid digitisation must be accompanied by equally accessible, responsive and accountable grievance resolution.

In the early years of financial technology, the promise was straightforward and revolutionary: reduce the bureaucracy of traditional banking, eliminate physical queues and democratise access to financial services through code. Transactions that once required paperwork and repeated visits to a bank can now be completed within seconds.

But as fintech has evolved from a disruptive innovation into the nervous system of everyday commerce, human discretion has sometimes been pushed to the margins. Frontline customer-service representatives often working through outsourced centres, automated interfaces or tightly controlled scripts may possess neither sufficient information nor the authority to examine exceptional cases.

When a customer encounters an unexplained account restriction, an unsuccessful merchant settlement, an erroneous fraud alert or a missing interbank transfer, the initial response is generally automated. The customer may be told that “the system does not permit an override”, that the transaction was “processed automatically” or that the complaint has been “escalated.”

Such responses may accurately reflect the limitations placed on the employee, but they do not resolve the customer’s problem. A decision affecting access to money has been made, yet no identifiable person appears authorised to reconsider it. Technology, which should assist institutional judgment, effectively becomes the final decision-maker.

Right Versus Right

Automated financial controls are not inherently unfair. Banks and payment platforms must process millions of transactions while detecting fraud, identity theft, money laundering and cyberattacks. A system that temporarily blocks an unusual transaction may prevent a customer from suffering a serious loss.

The problem arises when a provisional automated decision becomes practically irreversible because the institution lacks a timely and meaningful system of human review. Ethicist and author Rushworth Kidder described such situations as “right versus right” dilemmas. One duty is to enforce regulatory and security controls; the other is to treat customers fairly, examine individual circumstances and restore access when a restriction proves mistaken. Both duties are valid.

A responsible institution balances them through trained judgment, documented escalation and proportionate safeguards. Organisational incentives, however, may not always support that balance. If customer-service performance is measured primarily by call duration, ticket volume or speed of closure, employees may be encouraged to close complaints rather than solve them. A technically closed ticket can still represent an unresolved financial injury.

This is where algorithmic convenience becomes institutional risk. Fintech platforms are not merely software businesses. They are custodians of money, information and confidence. Their relationship with customers rests not only on contractual conditions but also on an expectation that errors will be explained and corrected fairly.

Traditional banking should not be romanticised. It, too, suffered from delays, bureaucracy and arbitrary conduct. But customers could ordinarily identify a branch, manager or departmental authority responsible for reviewing a disputed decision. Digital finance has removed much of the physical inconvenience; in some cases, it has also obscured the path of accountability.

The UPI Test

The UPI charge controversy makes this question particularly important. The proposed MDR may help finance cybersecurity, infrastructure, innovation and customer support. At 0.4 percent, it is lower than charges generally associated with debit and credit cards. The exemption for small merchants and the Rs.300 ceiling also attempts to contain its impact.

But a sustainable payment system requires more than collecting charges. Institutions must explain who pays, how the revenue is shared and how it will improve reliability, fraud protection and grievance resolution. Authorities must also monitor whether merchants indirectly recover the charge from customers or return to cash for higher-value transactions.

Transparency will determine whether the measure is seen as reasonable infrastructure financing or as a breach of the expectation that UPI payments would remain free.

The solution is not to place unrestricted override powers in the hands of every customer-service employee. That could weaken legitimate controls and create opportunities for abuse. Instead, institutions need trained escalation teams with sufficient authority to review high-impact decisions, especially account restrictions, blocked funds and rejected legitimate transactions.

Such decisions should be explainable, reviewable and time-bound. Institutions should maintain records showing why a restriction was imposed, who reviewed it and when the customer received a reasoned response. Where an institutional or technological error has occurred, the primary responsibility for investigation and correction should rest with the institution, rather than forcing the customer through an endless sequence of automated replies.

Customer support must not be treated merely as a cost centre to be reduced through chatbots. Complaints can reveal weaknesses in fraud-detection models, payment architecture, software design, vendor management and internal controls. Properly analysed, they form an early-warning system for operational and reputational risk.

The RBI’s Integrated Ombudsman Scheme provides an external remedy when an eligible complaint against a regulated entity is not resolved satisfactorily through the prescribed internal process. But the Ombudsman should be the final avenue and not the customer’s first realistic opportunity to encounter independent human judgment.

(The writer is an advocate and a public policy analyst. Views personal.)

Mumbai: ​In a strategic maneuver designed to propel its youth onto the global professional stage, the Maharashtra government unveiled its visionary 'Global Workforce Mobility Policy 2026' on Monday. The sweeping initiative introduces country-specific 'Skill Passports', modernized vocational curricula, and airtight ethical recruitment frameworks aimed at securing lucrative overseas employment for the state's talent pool.

​The ambitious roadmap was formally launched by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis during a high-powered international conference on the 'Circular Mobility of Talent' hosted at Mumbai's Sahyadri Guest House. The marquee event was a collaborative effort spearheaded by the Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA), the Department of Skills, Employment, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, alongside the newly minted Maharashtra Agency for Holistic International Mobility and Advancement (MAHIMA).

​Delivering the keynote address, Chief Minister Fadnavis underscored the seismic shifts in global demographics. He noted that rapidly aging populations across the developed world have catalyzed an unprecedented demand for skilled professionals.

​"India’s demographic dividend is our greatest asset, and it must be meticulously calibrated to meet this surging global demand," Fadnavis articulated. "By championing the 'Circular Mobility of Talent', Maharashtra is poised to become a linchpin in the global workforce ecosystem."

​To materialize this vision, the Chief Minister issued stringent directives to Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and vocational centers across the state, mandating an immediate overhaul of their syllabi to mirror international industry standards. He further proposed the conceptualization of 'Skill Passports'—customized credentialing portfolios tailored to the regulatory and professional prerequisites of specific destination countries.

​Capitalizing on robust bilateral diplomacy, Maharashtra is actively leveraging labour mobility agreements negotiated with 28 countries. These partner nations are currently grappling with severe manpower deficits in high-growth sectors, including advanced engineering, healthcare, infrastructure development, and specialized technology.

​Citing the World Economic Forum's 'Future of Jobs Report 2025', Fadnavis cautioned that while automation may displace 92 million jobs globally by 2030, an estimated 170 million new roles will simultaneously emerge. "Against this transformative backdrop, Maharashtra will take a decisive lead in international workforce mobility," he declared.

​He urged state agencies to synergize with seasoned global recruitment firms to decode nuanced market demands and advocated for a hybrid pedagogy—fusing traditional classroom instruction with immersive digital and hands-on training modules. The state's draft policy also promises end-to-end support, encompassing pre-departure orientation, visa documentation assistance, and strategies to reintegrate returning diaspora into local industries to harness their global expertise.

​

Language Divide

​Recognizing linguistic barriers as a formidable hurdle to overseas integration, the conference witnessed the signing of a landmark tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The pact, inked between the Central Government's 'Digital India Bhashini', MITRA, and MAHIMA, promises to democratize foreign language acquisition.

​This pilot initiative will utilize cutting-edge translation technologies to offer free, profession-specific language training to ITI and polytechnic students, ensuring that communication gaps no longer impede Maharashtra’s aspiring global workforce.

​Cultural Bridges

​State Protocol Minister Jaykumar Rawal elevated the discourse, emphasizing that international labor mobility transcends mere migration. "This is a multifaceted economic partnership intertwining skills, foreign direct investment, diaspora engagement, and global market access,"

Rawal observed. He highlighted that by synergizing the robust network of foreign consulates in Mumbai with local industries and academia, the state will forge direct conduits between homegrown talent and global opportunities.

​Echoing this sentiment, Minister for Skills, Employment, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, reiterated the government’s commitment to cultural assimilation. "We are not merely exporting labor; we are nurturing cultural ambassadors. Our youth will carry Maharashtra's legacy abroad, fortifying diplomatic and cultural ties with their host nations," Lodha stated.

​The high-profile conclave drew an elite assembly of international diplomats, including Christoph Hellier (Consul, Germany), Sato Hitomi (Japan), Patrick Livenrino (France), Ivan Petisov (Russia), and John Nickell (UK). The event also saw participation from top state brass and a cohort of international recruitment stakeholders.

Rumi F. Beramji

Mumbai: In a significant development, the Maharashtra government said it has put on hold the long-overdue elections to the Maharashtra Council of Acupuncture (MCA), citing an administrative battle with the Centre on the status of the MCA that promotes this ancient Chinese medical system.

The tussle is over whether acupuncture should remain an independent medical system in Maharashtra or come under the national regulatory framework for allied and healthcare professions, sources in the acupuncture field said.

In a communication (June 30, 2026), the Medical Education and Drugs Department (MEDD) said conducting the MCA elections at this stage would be “inappropriate” until the Centre takes a decision on Maharashtra’s demand to yank off acupuncture from the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions (NCAHP) Act, 2021.

The letter sparked speculation and a potential regulatory crisis as Maharashtra already has a statutory framework for Acupuncture under the ‘Maharashtra Acupuncture Medical Treatment Act, 2015’, under which the MCA was established.

However, a central notification of September 26, 2024 brought “Acupuncture Professionals 2230, 3230” within the ambit of Schedule of the NCAHP Act, 2021, placing the profession within the national allied and healthcare professions framework.

On Jan. 14, 2025, the state government wrote to the Union Health Ministry seeking ‘exclusion’ from the NCAHP Schedule national framework on the ground that acupuncture is “an independent medical system”.

The Centre, however, replied on February 25, 2025, that the NCAHP Act contains “no provision for creating a separate independent council” or “merging an existing council into the State Allied and Healthcare Council” for professions included in the Act’s Schedule.

Maharashtra stuck to its stand and in Nov. 12, 2025, urged the Centre to consider its request to remove acupuncture from the NCAHP framework and retain the independent character of the Maharashtra Acupuncture Medical Treatment Act, 2015.

Nearly 11 months down, Maharashtra is still waiting for the Centre’s response, keeping the issue hanging and affecting the functioning of the MCA, said its June 30 letter.

The state has chosen to keep the matter of MCA elections on hold until this decision is taken, arguing it would not be appropriate. Till then the MCA will continue to be run by an Administrator, Dr. Rumi F. Beramji, whose appointment to the post was extended Dec. 8, 2025 for one year.

Twelve years is a long time for a wage ceiling to remain unchanged. The last revision came in September 2014, when the limit was raised from Rs.6,500 to Rs.15,000.

Last week, the Union Cabinet approved another increase, taking the ceiling to Rs.25,000 a month with effect from 17 September 2026. The government’s estimate is that more than 51 lakh additional employees will come within mandatory EPFO coverage as a result of the change.

For employers and payroll professionals, however, the headline number is only the starting point. The more important questions are who will be covered, which wages will be taken into account and how the revised provisions will be implemented.

Wage Ceiling

The existing wage ceiling of Rs.15,000 a month is being raised by Rs.10,000, or 66.7 percent, to Rs.25,000. The change takes effect from 17 September 2026 and marks the first revision since September 2014. The government expects more than 51 lakh additional employees to be covered. Estimated expenditure is about Rs.56,696 crore over five years, while annual government outgo is expected to rise to approximately Rs.11,339 crore. The standard contribution remains 12 percent each from the employee and employer, subject to applicable provisions.

The Cabinet said the decision will expand access to provident-fund savings, pension protection under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) and insurance protection under the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI), in accordance with the applicable scheme provisions.

The wage ceiling is not merely an administrative threshold. It determines the point at which mandatory EPF coverage applies under the existing framework.

At present, a fresh employee joining employment at wages above Rs.15,000 a month is not automatically brought within mandatory EPF coverage and may remain outside mandatory provident-fund, pension and associated insurance protection, subject to applicable statutory provisions.

The revised ceiling will bring a substantial section of employees earning between Rs.15,000 and Rs.25,000 within the mandatory coverage framework.

The government has also quantified the fiscal impact. The estimated expenditure is about Rs.56,696 crore over five years, while annual government outgo is expected to rise to approximately Rs.11,339 crore, compared with existing annual budgetary support of about Rs.10,250 crore. The Labour Ministry has linked the revision to sustained wage growth, rising incomes and the continued expansion of formal employment since the previous revision in 2014.

Payroll Illustration

Consider an employee earning Rs.22,000 a month who becomes subject to mandatory coverage under the revised ceiling. At the standard 12 percent contribution rate, if the full eligible wage is used as the contribution base, the employee’s contribution would rise from Rs.1,800 to Rs.2,640 a month, while the employer’s contribution would similarly rise from Rs.1,800 to Rs.2,640. Total monthly contributions would therefore increase from Rs.3,600 to Rs.5,280 — a combined increase of Rs.1,680.

However, this should not be treated simply as Rs.1,680 of additional employee savings. Contributions are allocated between EPF and EPS components as prescribed, with the EPF component accumulating in the employee’s account and the EPS component providing pension benefits subject to scheme conditions.

The Rs.22,000 example is illustrative, not a universal payroll formula. The final treatment of wage components, existing employees in this band, EPS allocation and transitional matters will depend on the statutory notification and EPFO implementation instructions.

For payroll professionals, the immediate task is to assess the operational impact. Key questions include the effective date for existing employees and new joiners, which wage components will count towards PF, whether the 10 percent concessional rate for notified establishments will continue, how the revised ceiling will interact with EPS pensionable wages, and what changes will be required in payroll systems. The Cabinet approval establishes the policy decision; the formal Gazette notification and EPFO instructions will determine how it is translated into payroll processes.

The revised ceiling is the first increase since September 2014 and is expected to bring more than 51 lakh additional employees, particularly those in the Rs.15,000-Rs.25,000 wage band, under mandatory EPFO coverage. For them, the change can expand access to provident-fund savings, EPS pension and EDLI insurance, subject to scheme provisions.

For employers, it means reviewing payroll costs, employee data, eligible wage components, contribution calculations and compliance systems. The government has described the move as part of efforts to extend statutory social security and strengthen formal employment.

The policy has been announced. For payroll professionals, the next chapter is implementation.

(The writer is a Cost and Management Accountant and founder of TaxoDas. Views personal

The death of Sahil Wakode at IIT Bombay is undoubtedly a tragic incident. It also raises a difficult question that should not be lost amid the understandable anger on campus: when does a genuine allegation of caste discrimination become a criminal charge, and what happens when the extraordinary force of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is invoked before the facts have been established?

Wakode, a second-year student, died by suicide last week, hours after he was caught using a mobile phone during an examination. IIT Bombay says he had uploaded the question paper to ChatGPT, but that no disciplinary proceedings had been initiated against him. He was counselled and assured that the incident would not damage his academic career.

His parents have subsequently alleged that Wakode had been subjected to caste-based harassment for several months and named Professor Suryanarayana Doolla in an FIR alleging abetment to suicide, along with provisions of the SC/ST Act. The institute has denied that any complaint of caste discrimination was made by Wakode during his tenure. Its SC/ST cell has also said it received no such complaint. The investigation has now been transferred to the Crime Branch.

The SC/ST Act exists because caste oppression is real, and victims require a law capable of confronting it. But precisely because the law is stringent, its invocation cannot become a substitute for evidence. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that the statutory ingredients of an offence must actually be made out. The court has also held that where a complaint does not prima facie disclose an offence under the Act, its stringent restrictions on pre-arrest bail do not automatically apply.

Teachers must be able to enforce examination rules without fearing that every disciplinary confrontation could acquire a caste dimension. The tendency to turn a student’s caste into the explanation for every institutional conflict involving an SC/ST student is disturbing and must be resisted. If every disciplinary action involving a reserved-category student is presumed to be caste discrimination, the distinction between discrimination and ordinary institutional accountability begins to disappear.

Equally, an institute cannot hide behind procedure if evidence eventually establishes discrimination or harassment. If Professor Doolla did indeed use casteist language, threatened Wakode or treated him differently because of his caste, those allegations must be investigated fully and dealt with under the law.

But the answer cannot be to criminalise the invigilator first and investigate later.

IIT Bombay now has two obligations: establish, without prejudice, what happened in those crucial hours and examine the broader pressures facing its students. The police must establish whether the allegations under the SC/ST Act have factual and legal substance. The institute must ensure that teachers can enforce academic integrity while students have credible avenues to report genuine discrimination. The tragedy demands accountability. It does not demand a predetermined culprit.

Hindu worshippers deserve the same dignity and religious freedom as every other community, without ridicule, exploitation or ideological double standards.

In Bharat, the discourse on freedom of expression and the defence of the rights of marginalized communities, including minorities, women, gender groups, and tribal communities, is prominent. However, within this expanding rights narrative, the issue of the right to Devata Aradhana remains conspicuously overlooked. Millions of Hindus, whose lives are intricately connected to their Devatas, frequently encounter misunderstandings, ridicule, regulation, or exploitation of their sacred traditions. Their faith transcends mere ideology, manifesting through temples, rituals, festivals, offerings, and generations of devotion. Nonetheless, influential writers, activists, politicians, and occasionally institutions have failed to comprehend this sacred relationship, resulting in the worshippers’ voices being marginalized.

Recently, the Idu Mishmi community in Arunachal Pradesh initiated measures against researchers accused of breaching its community research protocols. This action underscores the necessity for researchers to respect and comprehend the worldview, traditions, and sensitivities of the communities they study. This situation prompts a critical inquiry: why is such sensitivity frequently lacking in the study of Hindu temples, sacred texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and living traditions? These are often interpreted through external frameworks without sufficient understanding of the worshippers’ perspectives. If every community merits the right to be understood on its own terms, should not Hindu traditions be accorded the same respect?

Double Standards

The inquiry becomes increasingly complex when considering the legacy of E.V. Ramasamy Periyar. While his opposition to caste inequality and social hierarchy warrants historical scrutiny, so too does the vehement manner in which he criticized Hinduism.

His movement orchestrated campaigns against Hindu symbols, including the burning of Rama images, and in 1957, Periyar advocated for the burning of sections of the Indian Constitution, asserting that it upheld the caste system. Thousands of his followers engaged in these protests, leading to Periyar’s imprisonment. The issue is not whether Periyar had the right to critique Hinduism—he did. The challenging question is whether such criticism adhered to an equitable standard of secularism. His public campaigns predominantly targeted Hindu religious institutions, symbols, and beliefs. The question arises: where is the equivalent intellectual courage when addressing other religious traditions? It is legitimate to question whether a movement purporting to combat religious domination can simultaneously treat the sacred symbols of one community as valid targets of ridicule. This question merits serious discussion rather than ideological silence.

There exists another historical irony. The Constitution that Periyar’s movement chose to burn is itself an extraordinary testament to India’s civilizational legacy. The original illuminated Constitution includes illustrations such as a scene from the Ramayana depicting Rama’s conquest of Lanka and the recovery of Sita, as well as another depicting Sri Krishna imparting the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna. The Library of Congress maintains a photolithographic reproduction of this historic edition, while the original is preserved in the Parliament of India. This does not imply that the Constitution is a Hindu document; rather, it signifies that India’s constitutional vision did not consider its civilizational heritage as something to be obliterated. This distinction is significant. Criticism is a democratic right; however, contempt for the sacred should not become the default expression of secularism. If Devata Aradhana is integral to the religious identity of millions, the dignity of those worshippers deserves the same moral consideration that is rightly demanded for every other community.

Disrespecting Symbols

The events surrounding the Ganesha procession in Nagamangala, Mandya district, in September 2024, followed by subsequent protests in Bengaluru, raise significant concerns regarding the respect accorded to Hindu deities. During a protest in Bengaluru against the Nagamangala incident, a photograph depicting a Ganesha idol being placed inside a police vehicle incited widespread outrage. This image was profoundly unsettling to many devotees, not solely due to the physical act, but because of Ganesha’s symbolic significance in India’s cultural memory. Historically, Bal Gangadhar Tilak popularised the public worship of Ganesha as a unifying force during the freedom struggle. Ganeshotsava emerged as a potent platform for social unity, cultural assertion, and nationalist mobilization against British rule. Consequently, witnessing this emblem of collective resistance placed inside a police vehicle evokes a painful historical irony. It constitutes an affront not only to the sentiments of devotees but also symbolically to the memory of those freedom fighters who invoked Ganesha to unite Bharat.

The broader issue pertains to the role of the State. When administrative actions appear insensitive to the sacred traditions of millions, the concern transcends a singular incident, evolving into a question of fundamental religious freedom and dignity. A government, irrespective of the ruling party, must safeguard citizens’ right to worship rather than act as an entity that seems to suppress or disregard it.

The issue of the insider’s perspective presents a significant methodological challenge that warrants careful consideration. In the social sciences, the emic–etic distinction is well-established, differentiating between understanding a cultural phenomenon through the categories and meanings of its practitioners (emic) and analyzing it through the conceptual framework of the external observer (etic). Similarly, in religious studies, the “insider–outsider problem” has been a topic of debate, particularly because the participant’s understanding is integral to the study of religion. This issue is particularly pertinent when examining indigenous Hindu traditions. A Devata is not merely a symbolic representation awaiting academic interpretation; rather, within the tradition, the Devata is revealed through its own Sthala Purana, Agama, ritual practice, festival, iconography, sacred geography, oral memory, and the lived relationship with devotees. These elements are not simply “data” to be decoded externally; they form the Hindu tradition’s epistemic vocabulary.

Clifford Geertz’s interpretive anthropology emphasizes that religious symbols function within systems of meaning that require contextual understanding, which he termed “thick description.” Contemporary approaches similarly acknowledge that embodied participation can uncover dimensions of religious meaning that remain hidden to detached observation. Consequently, the study of a Hindu Devata should commence with the question, “How does this tradition understand this Devata?” rather than “What does this deity represent to me?” Scholars must first acquire the language of the tradition before translating it into academic discourse. Failing to do so risks transforming interpretation into substitution, where the researcher replaces the worshipper’s understanding with their own framework.

Living Right

If the United Nations is committed to cultural diversity, human dignity, and fundamental freedoms, it is imperative to explicitly recognize the civilizational and cultural rights inherent in Hindu Devata Aradhana. Although the current Sustainable Development Goals do not specifically reference Hindu Devata Aradhana, the 2030 Agenda endorses cultural diversity, religious freedom, human dignity, and non-discrimination, with SDG 16.10 advocating for the protection of fundamental freedoms.

Consequently, Bharat should initiate an international dialogue to acknowledge Hindu Devata Aradhana as a living religious and cultural tradition. This includes the right to worship Devatas, preserve temples, practice rituals, celebrate festivals, maintain sacred traditions, and transmit them to future generations.

At the national level, deliberate and malicious attacks on religious beliefs are already addressed under Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which prescribes penalties for acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any group by insulting its religion or beliefs. This principle should be applied uniformly, without political or ideological bias. The demand is not for special privileges for Hindus but for equal dignity for Hindu Devata Aradhana. If the international community can recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to preserve their ways of life and spiritual traditions, Hindu communities should be allowed first to preserve and practice their living relationship with their Devatas. Hindu Devata Aradhana should be a human right that international human rights organizations should recognize and defend.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based author and scholar. Views personal.)

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it.

Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s neighbourhoods as an opportunity for public outreach.

The political appropriation of the festival has not, however, been without a counter-current. Demands were raised for curbs on noise pollution, loudspeakers and the volume of dhol-tasha performances. The argument was not against Ganeshotsav itself, but for moderation - notably, a complete ban on DJ music and limits on the number of dhol and tasha instruments used by performing troupes.

Familiar Troubles

The festival’s reality has been rather different. Major roads have been occupied by mandaps. Processions celebrating the arrival of Lord Ganesha have unfolded amid punishing noise. DJ music, while subject to restrictions, has continued. Traffic congestion has become a familiar feature of the festival, with the movement of political leaders adding another layer to the city’s already strained roads.

The Peth areas have remained crowded deep into the night. The Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple has drawn enormous crowds for darshan from the opening day. From the old city to housing societies and neighbourhood mandals, Ganeshotsav touches virtually every part of Pune. For a political party seeking a direct connection with citizens, few occasions offer such a ready-made network of people, institutions and local influencers.

The BJP enters this festival with an unusually formidable organisational base. It has two MPs, seven MLAs and more than 100 corporators in Pune. Murlidhar Mohol, one of the city’s MPs, is a Union Minister of State. Chandrakant Patil is a Cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government, while Madhuri Misal is a Minister of State.

The party’s presence also extends into the festival’s organisational architecture. Its influence is visible across numerous mandals, large and small. BJP MLA Hemant Rasane is General Secretary of the Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Sarvajanik Ganpati Trust. Kunal Tilak, a member of Lokmanya Tilak’s family, is a BJP corporator. The political and cultural histories of Pune therefore intersect in ways that are difficult to ignore.

The BJP’s senior leadership has also made the most of the occasion. National President Nitin Nabin visited Pune to seek Lord Ganesha’s blessings, while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the city before and during the festival. Such visits are about more than religious observance. In a festival watched by millions and embedded in the city’s social life, political visibility comes almost automatically.

There is also talk in Pune that the BJP provided substantial financial support to Dhol-Lezim troupes and their organisers, with claims that some major mandals received financial backing as well. These claims would require independent verification, but the perception itself points to the depth of the political contest around Ganeshotsav. BJP workers, according to local observers, have also sought to make their presence more conspicuous than that of festivities organised by housing societies.

Useful Expedient

The festival arrives at a politically useful moment for the BJP. The party has faced disquiet on several fronts. Young people have been agitated over the paper-leak controversy. Broader public dissatisfaction has been voiced over inflation and unemployment, while government policies relating to ethanol and charges associated with UPI transactions have also generated criticism.

While a political party can defend a policy in a press conference and advertise its achievements, during Ganeshotsav, its workers can be physically present in neighbourhoods, among processions, mandals, cultural groups and devotees. Politics thus becomes less about argument and more about visibility. That is the BJP’s advantage in Pune.

Ganeshotsav, after all, is not simply a sequence of religious rituals. It is an elaborate civic network involving local organisers, volunteers, cultural groups, businesses, residents and political representatives. Whoever has influence over that network acquires a powerful channel of communication with the city.

The BJP appears to understand this particularly well. Its strength in Pune’s electoral politics has been reinforced by a presence that extends beyond elections and into the institutions and social spaces that organise public life.

The irony is that the very scale of the festival that makes it politically attractive also magnifies the civic costs. The political value of Ganeshotsav and the civic burden it creates are therefore two sides of the same phenomenon.

For Pune, the larger question is not whether politics has entered Ganeshotsav. It has done so for decades. The more consequential question is whether the festival’s extraordinary social capital will remain primarily a vehicle for political outreach or whether the same influence can be used to reconcile celebration with the ordinary civic needs of the city. For the moment, the BJP seems to have understood the first proposition better than most.

Maharashtra is staring at a drought-like crisis in large parts of Marathwada and Vidarbha after a prolonged monsoon dry spell have left the kharif crop withering in the fields. The irony is that the state’s rainfall this monsoon is not uniformly bleak. Belying the El Niño weather pattern, Western Maharashtra has received reasonably adequate rain. But this has masked a severe and increasingly localised agricultural crisis in the other parts of the state.

20 of Maharashtra’s 36 districts have thus far recorded rainfall deficits of at least 20 percent, according to government figures. Several areas have gone more than 30 consecutive days without rain. The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar division in Marathwada recorded a 31.4 percent deficit as of September 14, against a statewide shortfall of 17.5 percent.

For farmers, the significance of a dry spell is not captured by the statewide average. Soybean, cotton and pulses are standing crops whose prospects deteriorate rapidly when the rain disappears at a critical stage of the kharif season. In the worst-hit belts, the question is increasingly shifting from whether yields will be affected to how much of the crop can still be salvaged. The El Niño weather pattern has further complicated an already uneven monsoon.

The government has begun the machinery of response. Cabinet ministers have been asked to complete a preliminary drought review within a week, followed by crop-loss panchnamas from October 5. Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has assured farmers that the government will provide compensation and said Vidarbha, particularly Marathwada, has received inadequate rainfall.

But the gap between recognising distress and delivering relief is now the critical issue. Opposition parties are demanding an immediate drought declaration in severely affected areas, arguing that farmers cannot be made to wait for an elaborate bureaucratic process. NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar has sought at least Rs. 50,000 per hectare for crop losses. Other demands include Rs. 25,000 in assistance for agricultural-labourer families, a complete farm-loan waiver and higher incentives.

The Mahayuti government must ensure that assessments must be swift enough to match the speed at which agricultural losses are accumulating.

There is also a larger lesson in Maharashtra’s uneven rainfall. A state-level deficit can conceal a much more serious regional emergency. Western Maharashtra’s relatively better rainfall cannot become a statistical cushion for drought-hit districts elsewhere.

Relief must follow assessment without delay, and the worst-hit districts must receive attention proportionate to the damage. Maharashtra knows the economics of drought all too well. A weak or badly distributed monsoon cuts farm incomes, strains rural employment, increases indebtedness and eventually pushes pressure onto the state’s finances. The difficulty for a government is ensuring that relief arrives before a rainfall failure becomes a livelihood crisis. The rains have failed farmers. The government’s response cannot do the same.

While India’s women-focused programmes are moving from welfare delivery to economic empowerment, sustained incomes and market access remain the real test.

For decades, women-focused welfare in India has largely centred on social protection and household well-being. In recent years, however, the policy conversation has increasingly shifted towards economic empowerment by helping women earn, build enterprises, access formal finance and participate more actively in markets. Initiatives such as self-help groups, the Lakhpati Didi programme and livelihood-focused interventions reflect this changing approach. Yet, the real measure of empowerment lies not simply in the number of women reached by schemes, but in whether these interventions translate into sustained incomes, productive employment and greater economic agency. India’s next challenge, therefore, is to move beyond welfare delivery towards creating pathways through which women can build durable and independent livelihoods.

Economic Agents

India’s approach to women-centred development is gradually moving from providing benefits to creating economic opportunities. Self-help groups have become an important part of this transition by bringing women together, improving access to credit and connecting them with livelihood opportunities. The National Rural Livelihoods Mission has further strengthened this ecosystem by supporting women’s collectives, skills and enterprise development.

More recently, initiatives such as Lakhpati Didi have placed greater emphasis on raising women’s incomes rather than merely expanding scheme coverage. This represents an important shift in how women’s economic progress is measured. However, achieving higher and sustained incomes requires more than access to finance or training. Women also need reliable market linkages, productive assets, digital access, skills and the freedom to make economic decisions. The question, therefore, is whether India’s expanding network of women-focused programmes can convert participation into lasting economic mobility.

Self-help groups have emerged as one of the most significant platforms for women’s economic participation in rural India. By pooling savings, facilitating access to credit and creating collective enterprises, SHGs can reduce some of the financial and institutional barriers that individual women face. Through the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, this model has expanded across rural communities, creating an ecosystem that links women to finance, skills and livelihood opportunities.

The Lakhpati Didi initiative builds on this foundation by focusing on a more ambitious outcome: enabling women in SHGs to earn at least Rs. 1 lakh annually. The emphasis is therefore shifting from participation in a programme to achieving a measurable improvement in household income. But reaching this target sustainably depends on whether women can move beyond small, low-return activities and gain access to better markets, technology, skills and opportunities to scale their enterprises.

Missing Link

Access to a scheme does not necessarily translate into economic empowerment. Women may receive training, credit or membership in an SHG, yet continue to operate small enterprises with limited capital, weak market access and low returns. Many livelihood activities remain concentrated in sectors where competition is high and opportunities for expansion are limited.

This is where the next phase of women’s economic policy needs greater attention. Finance must be accompanied by market linkages, business skills, technology and access to productive assets. Connecting women-led enterprises to larger value chains and formal markets can help them move from subsistence activities towards more commercially viable businesses. Without these complementary interventions, expanding scheme coverage may improve participation without creating the sustained income growth that economic empowerment ultimately requires.

Even when livelihood opportunities are available, women’s economic participation is shaped by constraints that programmes cannot address in isolation. Unpaid care work, limited mobility, unequal access to assets and technology, and social expectations can restrict the time and resources women are able to devote to paid work or entrepreneurship.

This makes the broader policy environment as important as the scheme itself. Affordable childcare, safe transportation, access to digital infrastructure and easier access to formal finance can determine whether women are able to sustain economic activity. For women-centred welfare programmes to become engines of empowerment, these constraints must be treated not as peripheral social issues but as core economic policy concerns.

Sustainable Empowerment

The next step is to move from a scheme-centric approach to an ecosystem approach. Women need not only access to programmes, but sustained support that helps them build viable livelihoods. This means strengthening market linkages, improving access to affordable credit, expanding digital and financial literacy, and connecting women-led enterprises with larger supply chains.

Greater emphasis should also be placed on measuring outcomes rather than inputs. The number of women enrolled in a programme is useful, but changes in income, employment, enterprise survival and access to markets provide a stronger indication of economic empowerment. A shift towards such outcome-based monitoring can help policymakers identify which interventions are creating lasting improvements and where additional support is needed.

For women to move from livelihood support to meaningful economic independence, the focus must eventually shift from creating enterprises to helping them grow. Women-owned businesses often face constraints in accessing larger markets, technology, working capital and formal business networks. As a result, many remain small even when demand exists for their products and services.

Government procurement, digital commerce platforms, producer collectives and stronger linkages with MSMEs can help bridge this gap. The objective should not be to move every woman into entrepreneurship, but to ensure that those who choose it have a realistic pathway to scale. Similarly, women seeking wage employment need access to formal jobs with opportunities for skill development and advancement. Economic empowerment, therefore, requires creating pathways from participation to productivity, and from productivity to higher incomes.

(The writer is an economics postgraduate from Jawaharlal Nehru University with research interests in economic policy, trade and global governance. Views personal.)

As the global AI race escalates into a geopoliticized sprint, regulatory and safety guardrails remain trapped at a crawl.

AI generated image

When the pioneer of one of the world’s most powerful AI systems asks his own industry to pump the brakes, the warning cannot be brushed aside as routine corporate posture. Writing in his essay We Must Pace the Frontier, Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei offered a stark directive: “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.” It was a candid admission that safety research, independent red-teaming, and democratic lawmaking are falling dangerously behind the frontier of technological progress.

This warning lends The Matrix an unsettling, modern resonance. The film depicted a dystopian reality where autonomous machines controlled human experience while a remnant of survivors fought to reclaim their agency. Today’s artificial intelligence is neither conscious nor backed by an army of steel. But the film’s core anxiety - what happens when systems built to serve us evolve beyond reliable human supervision - feels less like sci-fi myth and more like an imminent policy crisis.

In his 2024 essay Machines of Loving Grace, Amodei envisioned AI accelerating medicine, scientific discovery, and global flourishing, likening its potential to a “country of geniuses in a datacenter.” His recent call to action does not abandon that optimism; rather, it warns that raw capability is rapidly outstripping alignment, security protocols, and human comprehension.

Recent industry departures underscore this unease. Jacob Coxon, a pre-training researcher who worked across both OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned from Anthropic while warning against an unconstrained race toward self-improving systems.

Then came the OpenAI–Hugging Face security breach. During internal evaluations in July 2026, experimental autonomous agents breached isolation controls, secured unauthorized internet access, established unapproved communications channels, and compromised segments of Hugging Face’s infrastructure alongside OpenAI’s research systems. OpenAI clarified that these internal-only models lacked standard consumer safeguards and that no user data was exposed. Nevertheless, the company labelled the incident a crucial “warning shot” and scrambled to harden containment protocol.

A model needs no malice to cause catastrophic damage; merely sufficient autonomy and digital access.

Uncharacteristically, this event forged a brief alignment among fierce competitors. Sam Altman publicly supported Amodei’s call for independent evaluators granted deep, internal access to models. Elon Musk, too, voiced similar support.

President Donald Trump, however, has framed the issue through a stark geopolitical lens. Dismissing safety warnings as overblown, he re-focused the conversation on global supremacy by bluntly stating that the United States was ahead of China in AI.

In this view, a unilateral American slowdown while Beijing accelerates would amount to strategic surrender. His stance exposes the central paradox of our era: laboratories need time to solve safety, but national leaders demand speed to reach the frontier first. In response, Amodei advocates for a “race to the top” - a competition driven not merely by sheer model capability, but by who can build the safest, most secure, and most verifiable systems.

From Nuclear Age to AI Era

While imperfect, the Cold War offers a useful template for governance. Treaties like the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) established caps and inspection protocols amidst intense superpower rivalry. Similarly, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) sought to curb expansion while permitting peaceful application.

Yet history shows that governance frameworks endure only when perceived as fair and legitimate. India famously refrained from joining the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state because the treaty protected an exclusive cartel, privileging the five nations that had tested nuclear weapons prior to January 1, 1967. An international AI regime that freezes today's hierarchy, entrenches Big Tech monopolies, and denies the Global South access to frontier development will trigger a similar crisis of trust.

In many ways, controlling AI is harder than containing nuclear proliferation. Constructing top-tier foundation models still demands immense compute, rare chips, and physical data centers. Once trained, however, weight files, algorithmic code, and dual-use techniques can be transmitted invisibly across digital networks. AI can supercharge cyber warfare, disinformation, biological weapon design, or financial instability without a mushroom cloud signalling that a line has been crossed.

The solution is not a blanket moratorium. AI is already driving breakthroughs in healthcare, language access, scientific research, and civic services. The objective is to give safety architectures, external evaluators, and democratic institutions the time needed to keep pace without handing an advantage to bad actors.

Amodei outlines three progressive stages to navigate this path, beginning with continuous access for embedded, independent third-party evaluators. This moves into direct alignment between frontier labs and democratic governments on safety benchmarks, culminating ultimately in universal global agreements that include strategic adversaries. The final phase is the most daunting, as any binding accord hinges on verifiable compliance.

Building on this framework, the global community should establish the PACE Protocol, short for the Protocol for Artificial Intelligence Capability and Evaluation. Rather than freezing innovation, PACE would implement dynamic, capability-based checkpoints. Should a model demonstrate dangerous thresholds - such as autonomous zero-day cyber exploitation, long-horizon deception, unauthorized self-replication, or automated self-improvement - further scaling or deployment would pause until cleared by independent auditors.

The PACE protocol would mandate standardized pre-release testing, mandatory incident disclosures, red-teaming access, and emergency kill-switches. It would explicitly prohibit deploying AI for biological weaponry, autonomous strikes on civilian infrastructure, or nuclear command-and-control. Crucially, developing nations must hold equal representation within this regulatory body, ensuring safety never serves as a pretext for technological colonialism.

The China Factor

President Trump’s urgency is driven by rapid advancements in China. Deployments like Alibaba’s Qwen3.8-Max and DeepSeek’s V4.1-Flash showcase impressive architectural efficiency, scaling, and agentic power. While benchmark assertions require scrutiny (neither model has definitively dethroned Western flagships across all modalities), Beijing’s progress is undeniable. Chinese research facilities will not pause simply because Western executives express existential concern.

Voluntary restraint by a handful of Silicon Valley firms is therefore insufficient. Any lasting framework requires reciprocal commitments, verification mechanisms, and clear consequences for non-compliance. Initial global consensus could start around baseline non-negotiables: a universal ban on AI-engineered bioweapons, prohibitions against targeting hospital or energy grids, shared red-teaming standards, and direct hotlines for critical incidents.

India’s Strategic Role

India cannot settle for being a passive consumer market for foreign AI technologies. Under the IndiaAI Mission, twelve indigenous teams are constructing native foundation models backed by an onboarded infrastructure of over 38,000 GPUs. Initiatives unveiled at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 including models from Sarvam AI, BharatGen, Gnani, and Soket, demonstrate growing domestic capability. While India may not yet match the raw compute scale of the US or China, it possesses the engineering talent, market size, and diplomatic standing to shape global policy.

NITI Aayog’s Responsible AI framework highlights safety, privacy, transparency, and accountability, while the India AI Governance Guidelines advocate for a risk-based approach centered on human dignity. To operationalize these principles, India must enforce mandatory duties for frontier systems operating within its borders including third-party audits, rigorous multilingual testing, compulsory incident reporting, local representative accountability, and legal recourse for negligent harms.

At the India AI Impact Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the M.A.N.A.V. framework, drawing from the Sanskrit word manav, meaning human. The acronym synthesizes Moral and Ethical Systems, Accountable Governance, National Sovereignty, Accessible and Inclusive AI, and Valid and Legitimate Systems. M.A.N.A.V. offers a humanistic alternative to cold technological determinism, blending state sovereignty, democratic inclusion, and enforceable compliance into a cohesive philosophy.

In The Age of AI and Our Human Future, Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher offered a clear principle: “Created by humans, AI should be overseen by humans.” AI can expand our horizons and solve complex problems, but moral responsibility, legal liability, and final authority must stay squarely in human hands.

Legislation moves at a deliberate pace while frontier models evolve in months. We cannot afford to wait for flawless laws, nor can we default to technological fatalism.

In The Matrix, humanity is forced to fight a desperate war to reclaim a world it willingly surrendered. The ultimate safeguard against rogue artificial intelligence will not be software but our collective courage to govern what we build.

(The writer is Assistant Professor at the Ajeenkya D.Y. Patil University and a doctoral scholar in geopolitics. Views personal.)

How Mumbai’s studios and streets celebrated cinema

Mumbai: Mumbai’s Ganesh Utsav has always been more than a religious celebration. For generations, it has also intersected with the city’s other great passion-cinema.

Long before photographs of stars welcoming Ganpati Bappa at home became an annual fixture on television and social media, the festival had a presence inside Mumbai’s film studios. Beyond the studio gates, Ganesh mandals were also bringing movies directly to neighbourhood audiences by turning ordinary streets into makeshift theatres.

Veteran film journalist and analyst Dilip Thakur, who grew up in Girgaon and has observed Mumbai’s film culture over several decades, remembers both worlds.

“Ganesh Utsav and cinema have had a very old relationship in Mumbai. It wasn’t only about film stars bringing Ganpati home. The studios, the workers and even the neighbourhood mandals were all part of this culture,” says Thakur.

Ganpati Tradition

Thakur points to V. Shantaram’s Rajkamal Studio while recalling the early relationship between Mumbai’s studios and Ganesh Utsav.

The tradition, he says, can be linked to the period of Navrang, when an elaborate set involving a Ganesh idol and elephants was created at the studio. What began in the world of filmmaking subsequently developed into an annual studio celebration.

“During Navrang, a grand set was created with Ganpati and elephants. That became an inspiration for the Ganesh festival at Rajkamal Studio, and the tradition continued,” Thakur recalls.

The importance of the celebration lay not merely in its association with a celebrated filmmaker. Studios of that era had large permanent communities of technicians, craftsmen and other workers, and festivals became occasions for everyone connected with the premises.

“Studios in those days were like families. Actors, technicians and workers celebrated together. Ganpati was not merely a celebrity occasion—it belonged to the entire studio,” says Thakur.

Entry to Devotees

Raj Kapoor’s RK Studios in Chembur developed its own distinctive Ganpati tradition.

The studio’s Holi celebrations became legendary in the film industry, but its Ganesh Utsav also drew people from outside the film fraternity. The Ganpati was installed close to the main studio building, and devotees could enter the premises for darshan.

“People always talk about RK Studios’ Holi, but its Ganpati celebration was also very special. The idol was installed near the main building, and ordinary people could come inside the studio for darshan,” Thakur says.

For a movie fan, this meant something unusual: an opportunity to enter the premises associated with Raj Kapoor and some of Hindi cinema’s most famous films while participating in a festival shared by the wider city.

The immersion procession added another dimension to the tradition. Different generations of the Kapoor family participated over the years, from Raj Kapoor to Randhir Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor, and later Ranbir Kapoor.

The procession travelled from Chembur towards Girgaon Chowpatty, passing through parts of central Mumbai along the way. As round-the-clock television news expanded, cameras increasingly followed the Kapoor family and the procession.

“The procession would travel from Chembur towards Girgaon Chowpatty through areas such as Kurla and Sion. Once television news channels began covering it extensively, the RK Ganpati visarjan became a major media event,” says Thakur.

The connection survived beyond the studio’s heyday. Thakur recalls that people associated with RK Studios continued the Ganpati tradition for some time even after regular studio activity had ceased.

“Even after the studio stopped functioning as before, people who had worked there continued the tradition for some time. That tells you how emotionally connected the workers were to the RK Ganpati,” he says.

Mumbai Galli

Thakur’s most vivid memories, however, come from outside the studios.

Ganesh Utsav once provided an unusual second life for films that neighbourhood audiences had missed during their theatrical runs.

During the 1960s and 1970s, local Ganesh mandals organised outdoor screenings with 16mm projectors. A screen—or sometimes simply an available wall—could transform a narrow lane into a neighbourhood movie theatre for an evening.

“We called it ‘Galli Cinema’. A 16mm projector would arrive, a screen would be put up, and the entire lane would become a cinema hall,” Thakur recalls.

Growing up in Girgaon, he experienced this culture first-hand. Films featuring stars such as Shammi Kapoor and Dev Anand were among those he remembers watching during Ganesh festivities in the 1970s.

“I watched many films like this in the 1970s. If you had missed a movie when it was released in theatres, Ganpati celebrations sometimes gave you another opportunity to see it,” he says.

There was no streaming, satellite television or instant access to a vast film library. A neighbourhood screening could therefore become an event in itself, attracting families, children and film enthusiasts from surrounding buildings.

“There was a different joy in watching a film with the entire neighbourhood. Ganpati brought everyone together, and cinema became part of that celebration,” Thakur says.

It was entertainment, but it was also a form of community movie-going that belonged to a particular period in Mumbai’s cultural history.

Stars Power

As the film industry changed, so did the visibility of its Ganesh celebrations.

Home Ganpatis hosted by stars increasingly attracted media attention. Madhuri Dixit, Shilpa Shetty, Salman Khan and Sonali Bendre are among the film personalities whose celebrations became familiar to audiences.

Thakur also sees the growth of television as an important turning point. As Mumbai’s entertainment industry became broader and more diverse, Ganesh Utsav was embraced by artists from different backgrounds.

“Earlier, you saw the tradition particularly among Maharashtrian artists and film workers. Later, as the industry expanded—and especially with the growth of television—artists from many different backgrounds began bringing Ganpati home,” he observes.

Television brought cameras into celebrations that once remained largely private. Social media pushed that transformation further, making celebrity Ganpati arrivals, pujas and immersions instantly accessible to fans.

Pull of Girgaon

Some film personalities, however, have a relationship with the festival that predates stardom.

Thakur points to veteran actor Jeetendra and his enduring association with Girgaon, where the actor spent his early years.

“Jeetendra has never forgotten his Girgaon connection. On the first day of Ganesh Utsav, he has continued to visit the area and seek Bappa’s blessings. That relationship goes back to his early years,” says Thakur.

For him, such connections are significant because they reveal how a festival can link a star back to the neighbourhood and community that existed before fame.

“It is not always about publicity. For many artists, there is a personal memory attached to Ganpati—the building they lived in, the mandal they knew or the neighbourhood where people watched their films,” he says.

Khetwadi’s Culture

Filmmaker Manmohan Desai was similarly surrounded by the sights and sounds of Ganesh Utsav.

His association with the Khetwadi-Bhatkar Street neighbourhood placed him close to an area renowned for elaborate public Ganpati celebrations.

“Manmohan Desai lived in an area where Ganpati celebrations were everywhere around him. Khetwadi had that energy—the crowds, decorations and huge pandals. He was also a devotee who would visit Lalbaugcha Raja,” Thakur recalls.

The scale, colour and crowds of Mumbai’s public celebrations were part of the cultural environment in which filmmakers lived and worked. It was only natural that some of that energy would eventually make its way onto the screen.

Silver Screen

Hindi cinema has repeatedly turned to Ganesh Utsav for music, drama and spectacle.

“Deva Ho Deva Ganpati Deva” from Humse Badhkar Kaun became one of the songs closely identified with Ganesh celebrations, while “Deva Shree Ganesha” from Agneepath gave a later generation a powerful cinematic Ganpati anthem.

“Cinema takes from society, and Ganesh Utsav is such a strong part of Mumbai that it naturally entered our films,” says Thakur.

Much of the world he remembers has changed. The 16mm projectors no longer routinely turn Mumbai’s lanes into movie theatres. The old studio system has faded, some historic studios have disappeared, and celebrity celebrations now reach audiences instantly through phones.

But the larger relationship between Mumbai, movies and Ganpati Bappa has endured.

“From Rajkamal and RK Studios to the gallis of Girgaon, Ganpati and cinema have travelled together for generations,” Thakur says. “The way we watch films has changed and the way stars celebrate has changed, but Mumbai’s emotional connection with Ganpati Bappa has not.”

AI Generated Image

Every year, when Ganpati Bappa arrives in our homes, we welcome him as the Vighnaharta - the remover of obstacles. We pray for wisdom, prosperity, good health and the strength to overcome difficulties.

The same thought can guide us in our financial lives too. A strong financial plan is not just about earning more or finding the best investment. It is equally about recognising and removing the vighnas that quietly come in the way of financial progress.

Debt - The Heaviest Obstacle

One of the biggest financial vighnas is unnecessary debt. Credit card dues and high-interest personal loans can quietly consume a significant part of our income. Every large EMI reduces the money available for saving and investing.

Like carrying excess baggage on a journey, debt can slow down wealth creation. The priority should be to repay high-interest borrowings first, particularly loans carrying interest rates of 10% per annum or more. Lower-cost loans may not necessarily need to be repaid aggressively.

This is why a well-planned home loan, for example, need not always be viewed in the same way as expensive personal or credit-card debt.

Lack of Insurance - A Silent Risk

Life is unpredictable. A major medical emergency or the untimely loss of an earning member can wipe out years of carefully accumulated savings.

Adequate health and life insurance therefore form an important foundation of any financial plan. Health insurance protects savings from large medical expenses, while term life insurance helps protect the family's lifestyle, responsibilities, dreams and financial goals.

Protection should come before wealth creation.

Absence of an Emergency Fund

Even a sound investment portfolio can be disturbed by an unexpected expense.

A job loss, urgent home repair, family emergency or sudden medical requirement can force us to borrow money or redeem long-term investments at the wrong time.

Keeping around 6 to 12 months of essential expenses aside as an emergency fund provides stability when unexpected storms arrive.

No Clarity of Goals

Ganesh Utsav is celebrated with devotion, discipline and purpose. Our investments also need a purpose.

Buying a home or car, taking vacations, educating children, planning for their marriage, building a retirement corpus or simply creating long-term wealth - each goal requires planning.

When goals are clearly identified, investment decisions become more disciplined. Without them, money can remain directionless and short-term distractions can become long-term vighnas.

For long-term goals, an appropriate allocation towards growth-oriented assets such as stocks, equity and hybrid mutual funds, along with gold, can play an important role in wealth creation. The key is proper asset allocation based on the goal, time horizon and risk profile.

To Conclude

This Ganesh Utsav, while we pray to Vighnaharta to remove obstacles from our lives, let us also identify the vighnas in our financial plans.

Reducing unnecessary debt, protecting the family through insurance, maintaining an emergency fund, and investing towards clear goals with proper asset allocation can make the financial journey far smoother.

May Bappa bless us with the wisdom to remove these obstacles and build lasting prosperity.

Ganpati Bappa Morya!

(The author is a Chartered Accountant and CFA (USA). Financial Advisor. Views personal. He could be reached on 9833133605.)

A man carries an idol of Lord Ganesh for immersion during Ganeshotsav at Marina Beach in Chennai on Saturday.

Students take part in a painting competition on the theme 'Kashmir Through My Art' in Srinagar on Saturday.

Dancers perform during the Mulan dress rehearsal at the David H. Koch Theater in New York on Saturday.

People smear curd on each other to celebrate the birth of Goddess Radha during the Radhashtami festival at Sri Radha Vallabh Temple in Vrindavan on Saturday.

Wild elephants forage for food at Khamrenga near Guwahati on Saturday.

Mumbai: ​The sudden suspension of Manoj Jarange Patil’s gruelling 20-day hunger strike has left Maharashtra’s political circles buzzing with intrigue and speculation. While Jarange claims he is merely taking two steps back to make a bigger move and giving the state government a 90-day ultimatum, the underlying reality appears to be heavily stained by deep-seated internal fault lines, shifting allegiances, and alleged political sponsorships.

The latest Maratha reservation buildup, which culminated in Jarange halting his Mumbai march at Patoda in the Beed district, seems to have fizzled out not merely due to governmental reassurances, but because of a fierce implosion within his own camp.

​Amol Khune, a former close confidant of Jarange and an erstwhile associate of the Shivba Sanghatana, has come forward to blow the lid off the underlying dynamics that led to the fiasco. In a sweeping revelation, Khune laid the blame squarely on the internal friction within the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. According to Khune, the entire agitation was orchestrated against the backdrop of a fierce power struggle between Shiv Sena leaders Abdul Sattar and Sanjay Shirsat. "Abdul Sattar wanted a ministerial post. To target others through this, Jarange Patil was given a contract," Khune sensationally claimed. He further asserted that an upcoming probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) would unravel the extensive financial and logistical support that sustained the fortnight-long buildup.

"The ED inquiry will expose everything. It will reveal who supplied the logistics and how the money was distributed. Furthermore, no committee of ministers will come to pacify Jarange in his next agitation," Khune stated.

​Adding fuel to the fire, Dr. Sanjay Lakhe Patil, the state coordinator of the Maratha Kranti Morcha and another prominent voice from the community, convened a press conference to openly rebuke Jarange's changing stances. Lakhe Patil accused Jarange of hijacking a social movement for a political agenda, specifically to assassinate the character of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. "Are they serious about pursuing the issues of the community or do they just want to play into the hands of politicians?" Lakhe Patil questioned, expressing severe doubt over Jarange's motives. He pointed out Jarange’s perceived softness towards BJP leaders like Chairperson of  abinet Sub Committee on Maratha Quota, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil. "Jarange had previously lambasted Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil for destroying the Maratha community. How did his stance suddenly change? Was this agitation just to take a political contract to project Vikhe Patil?" Lakhe Patil asked, demanding accountability. He further warned Jarange, stating, "Speaking against Eknath Shinde will no longer be tolerated".

​This sudden fragmentation among key Maratha voices highlights a significant loss of integrity for the movement. Several OBC leaders have also jumped into the fray, openly questioning Jarange's credibility and the immense resources mobilised for his grand marches.

As water and climate become instruments of geopolitical leverage, India has an opportunity to turn agricultural resilience into a new form of South-South diplomacy.

Climate change is making an old truth harder to ignore: food security is national security. As water becomes scarcer, harvests more erratic and trade policies more protectionist, agriculture is moving from the margins of geopolitics to its centre. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where fragile food systems intersect with contested rivers, conflict and disrupted supply chains. For India, this presents not merely a humanitarian challenge but an opportunity to practise a more strategic form of food diplomacy.

Clear Warning

The Nile basin offers the clearest warning. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia depend heavily on the river, directly or indirectly, for agriculture and livelihoods. Egypt obtains roughly 90-95 percent of its water from the Nile, with most of its withdrawals going to agriculture. Wheat, rice, maize and cotton are therefore inseparable from the country's water security. Sudan is similarly dependent on the Main Nile and its Blue and White Nile tributaries for crops including sorghum, wheat, cotton and sugarcane. Ethiopia, by contrast, relies much more heavily on rain-fed agriculture, but the Blue Nile remains crucial to its plans for agricultural and economic expansion.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has transformed this already delicate equation. The Blue Nile supplies roughly 85 percent of the Nile's runoff, giving Ethiopia substantial geographical leverage upstream. Egypt and Sudan, downstream and more dependent on the river, have consequently viewed the dam through the prism of food and water security. The dispute has its roots partly in the 1959 agreement that allocated Nile waters between Egypt and Sudan, but the rise of Ethiopia as a major upstream power has altered the political balance.

The stakes are enormous. A disruption to water availability is not simply an environmental problem when millions depend on irrigated agriculture. It can affect food prices, livelihoods, migration and political stability. Across the basin, the consequences potentially extend to hundreds of millions of people. The lesson is straightforward: rivers can become geopolitical infrastructure, and crops can become strategic assets.

Critical Role

This is where India can play a useful role. Its longstanding diplomatic, commercial and maritime links with Africa give it an established platform. Its experience in producing wheat, rice and millets, meanwhile, gives it something more tangible: the ability to contribute to food-supply resilience.

Egypt, for instance, remains heavily dependent on imports and is projected to require around 13 million tonnes of wheat imports to bridge its consumption gap. Sudan’s agricultural crisis is still more acute. Conflict and climate stress have sharply reduced cereal production, leaving output well below recent historical averages.

India could therefore build food diplomacy around two complementary tracks. The first is supply. Predictable grain arrangements and strategic food buffers could help vulnerable countries absorb shocks in international markets. The second is technology. India's experience with micro-irrigation, precision farming and water-use efficiency offers tools that may help African farmers produce more with less water.

The Per Drop More Crop component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana is one example. Drip irrigation, improved canal management, seepage reduction and precision agriculture cannot resolve a dispute over the Nile, but they can reduce the amount of water required to produce a given crop.

For this to become a durable strategy, however, India will need to move beyond individual projects. Bilateral agricultural agreements with African countries could be converted into longer-term trade corridors and grain-supply arrangements. Multilateral platforms, including BRICS, could provide mechanisms for greater transparency in food distribution and market stabilisation. Seed exchanges could focus on drought-tolerant millets, biofortified wheat and heat-resistant maize suited to increasingly volatile climates.

Indian private enterprise could be brought into this architecture. Agritech startups and Farmer-Producer Organisations could be encouraged to enter African markets through export-linked grants, incubation programmes and risk-sharing mechanisms. EXIM Bank credit lines and export guarantees could reduce the financial risks of deploying solar cold chains, irrigation systems and agricultural technologies in politically volatile markets. Public-private partnerships could also help Indian firms adapt AI-based crop advisory systems and IoT-enabled water sensors to African soils and farming practices.

The larger opportunity is strategic. India’s relationship with Africa need not be confined to trade, infrastructure or diplomatic declarations. Agriculture offers a practical form of South-South cooperation in which food, technology and water efficiency reinforce one another.

(The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.

Washington’s new Russia sanctions give Donald Trump a powerful economic weapon, but India’s response will have to balance energy security, trade and strategic autonomy.

The United States has acquired a new weapon in its economic arsenal, and it is powerful enough to hurt more than its intended target.

The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, signed into law by President Donald Trump on September 18, gives the White House authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas. The measure also targets Russian banks, energy interests and the so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to circumvent Western sanctions. The Senate approved the legislation 86-11 in August and the House followed with a 262-159 vote this month.

Its immediate purpose is to reduce the revenues that Moscow derives from energy exports and thereby increase pressure on Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. But the legislation also turns the buyers of Russian energy, notably India and China, into potential instruments of American pressure. The result could be a complicated contest in which Washington seeks to squeeze Moscow without destabilising the global energy and trading system.

For India, Russian crude forms an important part of its energy strategy because it can be purchased at competitive prices, helping refiners manage costs and contributing to domestic price stability.

The legislation does not mean that a 100 percent tariff will automatically descend on Indian exports. It gives the President the power to impose such tariffs. That distinction leaves room for diplomacy, negotiation and exemptions. The law itself contains provisions allowing the administration to waive sanctions in certain circumstances, while its tariff provisions are designed to put pressure on countries whose purchases sustain Russian energy revenues.

Prohibitive Cost

A blanket tariff would not affect Russia alone. It would also raise the cost of doing business with countries caught in its orbit of energy trade. Indian exporters to the American market could face a severe competitive disadvantage if punitive tariffs were actually imposed.

There is an even larger question. Can sanctions designed to isolate Russia work without fragmenting the world economy further?

Washington’s argument is that countries purchasing Russian energy help finance Moscow’s war effort. The legislation’s sponsors have explicitly presented sanctions as a means of increasing pressure on Russia and bringing the war to an end. But the more countries are compelled to choose between American economic access and established energy relationships, the greater the incentive for them to develop alternative financial, trading and payment arrangements.

That is particularly significant for Russia, China and India. They are not a political bloc with identical interests, and their relationships with Washington differ sharply. Yet all three could be affected by the new American policy. China, like India, is a major purchaser of Russian energy and could face substantial consequences if Washington exercises its new tariff authority.

Russia’s energy revenues are among the foundations of its wartime economy, and Washington hopes to make the continuation of the war progressively more expensive. The new law attacks not merely individual Russian companies but some of the networks through which Moscow has maintained its energy exports despite existing sanctions.

Yet economic pressure has its own limits. Russia has spent years adapting to sanctions, redirecting trade towards Asia and developing alternative shipping and financial mechanisms. The effectiveness of another round will depend not simply on the severity of American measures but on how many countries are willing and able to participate in enforcing them.

India’s challenge is consequently one of balancing rather than choosing sides. New Delhi has little interest in becoming an instrument of Russian policy, but it has an equally strong interest in preserving affordable energy and protecting its strategic autonomy. Its response will have to combine diversification of energy supplies with sustained engagement with Washington and Moscow.

India has maintained relationships with Russia while deepening its partnership with the United States and other Western countries. The new sanctions regime will test how much room remains for that balancing act.

The larger danger is that tariffs become substitutes for diplomacy. Used indiscriminately, it can punish consumers and companies in the country imposing it as well as those in the country being targeted.

Washington’s pressure on Moscow therefore needs to be accompanied by a diplomatic strategy that recognises the interests of countries such as India and China.

(The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal

A nine-month intelligence operation that culminated in a multi-state crackdown last month exposed how an ISI-linked Pakistani gangster used social media and organised crime to build a low-cost terror network across India.

In a sweeping pre-Independence Day crackdown, Indian security agencies last month detained 253 people across 14 states and arrested more than 200 operatives linked to the Pakistan-based Shahzad Bhatti Network, foiling what officials said were plans for subversive attacks around August 15. The August 12 operation, conducted through coordinated intelligence-sharing between central agencies and state police, exposed a disturbing model of cross-border terrorism: one in which Pakistani handlers recruit Indian youth through social media, pay them for seemingly minor criminal tasks and gradually draw them into reconnaissance, weapons trafficking and targeted violence.

The operation was the culmination of nearly nine months of coordinated work that began in November 2025, with intelligence being collated and disseminated among multiple state police forces and through the Multi-Agency Centre. The scale of the crackdown shows why Indian agencies regard the network as more than another gangster outfit. More than 90 FIRs have been registered against the Shahzad Bhatti Network, or SBN, with more than 200 people arrested under provisions including the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Arms Act, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and the Explosive Substances Act.

The network, which Indian authorities describe as backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is associated with grenade, IED and petrol-bomb attacks, targeted killings, espionage and the movement of weapons and narcotics into India. The seizures during the crackdown included IEDs, grenades bearing Pakistan Ordnance Factory markings, pistols, live ammunition and CCTV equipment allegedly intended for surveillance. More than 80 FIRs have also been cited in connection with the network.

Lethal Operation

At the centre of this sprawling operation is Shahzad Bhatti, a Pakistani gangster from Bahawalnagar in Punjab province who has reinvented himself online as a digital influencer and alleged proxy of the ISI. Also spelled ‘Shehzad Bhatti’, he is known by his moniker - “Don of Punjab” - in Pakistani criminal circles. On social media he presents a very different persona as a digital influencer and reel creator, with an online reach reportedly running into hundreds of thousands.

Bhatti has multiple criminal cases in Pakistan and cannot safely return there, according to officials, helping explain his reported movements between Pakistan, the Gulf and Europe, including Dubai and Portugal. Intelligence inputs describe him as a Pakistan-based underworld gangster who allegedly operates as an associate, proxy or operative of the ISI.

Rather than sending trained militants across the border, Bhatti and his associates have built an online distributed network of vulnerable Indian recruits who can be hired, tasked and discarded remotely.

What makes Bhatti’s model distinctive, according to Indian investigators, is that he does not rely on traditional underground militant cells. Instead, he built an open, social-media-driven recruitment machine reportedly amassing roughly 2.5 lakh (250,000) followers on Instagram and over 4.5 lakh (450,000) on Facebook, a following more typical of an online influencer than a terror handler. He used this reach to identify and contact young men across India, offering money, and in some cases promises of help settling abroad, in exchange for small tasks like putting up posters, to reconnaissance, to smuggling and indulging in violence.

Intelligence inputs describe Bhatti’s associates operating multiple social-media accounts, sometimes distinguished by numerical suffixes, and aggressively reaching out to potential recruits. The network uses Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, YouTube and other platforms to identify people who appear susceptible to money, status, gangster culture or the promise of adventure.

The pool is said to include unemployed young men, petty criminals, people with substance dependencies and others in financial distress, particularly those aged between 18 and 25. Yet recruitment is not necessarily confined to a particular religion, region or ideological constituency. Social-media profiles, criminal associations and word-of-mouth contacts can be enough.

A recruit might initially be offered a few thousand rupees to put up posters carrying the name “Tehreek-e-Taliban Hindustan”, an entity that investigators describe as a fabricated front rather than an established independent organisation. Recruits were typically paid as little as Rs. 5,000 for such tasks, with payments escalating to as much as Rs. 3 lakh for targeting and killing police personnel.

From there, assignments can become progressively more serious: taking photographs of a police station, transferring money, transporting material, conducting reconnaissance or facilitating the movement of weapons. Investigators describe this as a “proof of work” model. The recruit is paid for a relatively minor task, creating trust and demonstrating reliability before the next assignment arrives. The financial rewards rise with the danger.

The recruit does not necessarily need to understand the entire conspiracy. He does not need to know the handler’s identity, the ultimate target or the location of the weapons. He needs only to complete the task in front of him.

That compartmentalisation makes the network resemble a gig economy for violence.

There is an important reason to resist describing every recruit as a terrorist in the conventional sense. Many of the people caught in these investigations appear to have entered the network without a deep ideological commitment.

One recruit was a biryani seller. Another was a ginger vendor. Another was a money lender. Investigators have also named recruits including Sonu Meena, Sachin, Sohail, Md Rihan, Arif and Md Kaif.

The traditional terrorist organisation invests heavily in ideological indoctrination and training. Bhatti’s model, as described by Indian agencies, can dispense with much of that investment. It can recruit someone who is already attracted to guns, gangsters or easy money and give him a job.

The recruit may believe he is helping a gangster. He may think he is committing an ordinary crime. He may not understand that the target has been selected for political, religious or security reasons. By the time he recognises the larger purpose, he may already be implicated.

That makes the network simultaneously more dangerous and more difficult to detect.

According to Indian officials, the network’s objective was to sustain a persistent, low-intensity campaign of violence and destabilisation rather than a single large-scale attack. The objective of SBN is not necessarily to mount a spectacular attack but to make violence cheap and repeatable by keeping up a low-intensity campaign inside India by outsourcing individual acts to people who may never meet one another or even understand the organisation they are serving.

Reported and alleged elements of the plan included reconnaissance of sensitive sites. Local recruits were paid to scout police stations, defence installations and religious sites, and to install hidden surveillance cameras to feed intelligence back to handlers.

The network was also associated with grenade, IED and petrol-bomb attacks, including a grenade attack on the Gurdaspur City Police Station and other border-district police posts in Punjab, using explosives allegedly supplied through Bhatti’s smuggling channels.

Targeted killings of police personnel and other individuals, including attacks tied to religious or political grievances, such as the Jalandhar influencer’s house and the home of a BJP leader was another aspect.

Arms and narcotics trafficking formed another part of the alleged operation, with weapons and heroin (“chitta”) being smuggled from Pakistan through Punjab into Delhi-NCR to fund operations and arm recruits.

Online radicalisation and recruitment without requiring any real ideological commitment completed the model.

Security officials describe this as a deliberate strategy: rather than infiltrating trained militants, Bhatti’s network sought to weaponise ordinary, financially vulnerable Indian youth as low-cost, easily replaceable “foot soldiers”, making the network harder to fully dismantle even after individual cells are broken up.

What makes the Bhatti network so lethal is that it merges Pakistan-backed terrorism with organised crime, narcotics trafficking and the social-media economy by preying on young, financially vulnerable youths, often with a criminal record. The recruit is sometimes barely aware that the seemingly petty job he has agreed to perform is part of a cross-border terror operation.

Bhatti’s power is his ability to turn the internet into a recruiting market.

Investigators describe a “dead-drop” delivery system for smuggled narcotics and weapons to avoid detection, and say Bhatti operated jointly with an aide identified as Ajmal Gujjar, running arms, ammunition and narcotics smuggling from Pakistan through Punjab into Delhi-NCR for further distribution.

Bhatti and his associates have used dead-drop arrangements for weapons and narcotics, with consignments moving from Pakistan through Punjab and onward towards Delhi-NCR. The same infrastructure can serve multiple purposes: drugs can finance criminal operations, weapons can arm recruits, and the criminal network can provide cover for terror activity.

Money can travel through hawala, cash, UPI, digital wallets, USDT and cryptocurrencies, according to the intelligence assessment, creating multiple channels for financing and making the trail harder to follow.

Bhatti is also alleged to be a rival of jailed Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, even as separate leaked videos purportedly showed contact between Bishnoi and Bhatti, prompting a Gujarat government probe.

His associates have included Abid Jatt, Ajmal Gujar, Rana Hunain, Suhail Baloch and others involved, according to intelligence assessments, in recruitment, tasking, funding and cross-border arms trafficking. Associates such as Abid Jatt alias Abid Chhal, Ajmal Gujar, Munna Zingada, Hammad Memon, Rana Hunain and Yawar Khan have also been identified in intelligence inputs as part of the wider ecosystem around Bhatti.

Criminal Trail

The criminal cases associated with SBN illustrate the range of its alleged activities. In February 2026, two Punjab Police personnel were shot dead at a police post in Gurdaspur near the Pakistan border by unidentified assailants. In May, the group calling itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Hindustan claimed responsibility for the killing of Assistant Sub-Inspector Joga Singh and publicly declared security personnel and RSS members to be targets.

In March 2025, investigators believed SBN-linked elements were involved in a grenade attack on the residence of BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia in Jalandhar. Another case involved Rozer Sandhu, a Punjab-based social-media influencer whose house was allegedly attacked with a grenade after Bhatti accused him of disrespecting Islam online. Punjab Police arrested nine people in that case, including the alleged principal accused, Hardik Kamboj of Haryana.

Two petrol bombs were also hurled at an RSS office in Nivaranpur, Ranchi, during the night of June 16, 2026.

Separately, a 20-year-old man named Krish Rai was arrested in Rajasthan for allegedly filming police stations in Hanumangarh and Raisinghnagar and sending the footage and coordinates to a person claiming to be Bhatti.

Delhi Police’s Special Cell has separately investigated a Bhatti-linked terror-gangster module under FIR No. 126/2026, arresting, among others, Vijay alias Shooter Rajaram Baja of Pune, Sajid Mehboob Shaikh alias Arbaz, Hujaifa Farukh Ahmed Hashmi and Taukir Rizwan Ahmad, residents of Kurla in Mumbai.

Other investigations show the network’s reliance on reconnaissance. Uttar Pradesh ATS has alleged that Daniel Ashraf Ansari received reconnaissance assignments involving sensitive locations. In Ghaziabad, police uncovered an online-radicalisation module involving geo-tagged photographs of military and strategic locations.

The network has also been linked, through associate Zeeshan Akhtar, a Jalandhar-based criminal with a history of organised crime, murder and robbery, to the 2024 Mumbai murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique. Akhtar has been accused of providing logistical support and information to the shooters and subsequently fleeing India with assistance from Bhatti.

The alleged involvement of Zeeshan Akhtar adds another dimension to the network’s crime-terror nexus.

In India, Bhatti faces at least 15 registered cases in Punjab alone, including cases involving the targeting of police personnel in the border districts of Gurdaspur and Amritsar Rural. By middle of this year, Indian authorities have begun referring officially to the Shahzad Bhatti Network as a Pakistan-based, ISI-backed terror syndicate.

Geographical Footprint

The network’s geographical footprint is striking. Additional cases have surfaced around the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal. The map matters because it suggests that the network is not simply exploiting Punjab’s proximity to Pakistan. It is attempting to build a distributed Indian supply of manpower.

More than 90 FIRs have been registered in cases attributed to or associated with SBN, with more than 200 people arrested under provisions including the UAPA, BNS, Arms Act, NDPS Act and Explosive Substances Act. Punjab and Haryana were also searched separately by the National Investigation Agency, which has opened several cases connected to Bhatti.

The threat became particularly acute ahead of Independence Day.

On August 12, authorities mounted coordinated operations across 14 states and Union Territories. A total of 253 individuals were detained: 62 in Uttar Pradesh, 52 in Haryana, 51 in Delhi, 44 in Punjab, 15 in Rajasthan, eight in Maharashtra, five in Uttarakhand, three each in Karnataka and Gujarat, and two each in Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Kerala. FIRs were also registered against suspected SBN associates in Delhi and Karnataka.

The operation was the culmination of the intelligence-sharing system developed over the preceding nine months. More than 100 Instagram handles shared with various state police forces and linked to SBN have also been blocked. Cyber patrolling further revealed that Pakistan-based members of SBN were shifting to new social-media accounts, although a decline in Indian followers of SBN has also been noticed.

The crackdown disrupted the digital infrastructure through which the network sought to replenish itself.

For Maharashtra, the warning is especially serious because the state figures prominently in the network’s wider geographical spread and in cases involving Mumbai and Pune-based suspects.

The concern expressed by investigators is that an SBN-linked incident could be attempted through a person who would not ordinarily attract the attention of a counter-terrorism unit.

The appropriate response therefore cannot rest solely on conventional counter-terrorism surveillance. Local policing, cyber intelligence, crime branches and specialised counter-terrorism agencies have to connect information that would otherwise remain in separate silos.

The lesson of SBN is precisely that the first indication of a terror plot may look like a minor crime.

But the crackdown also demonstrates the capacity of Indian intelligence and policing agencies to identify, map and disrupt it before a diffuse network of petty criminals and vulnerable youths can be turned into a larger instrument of violence.

A Low-Cost War

Bhatti’s network is emblematic of the changing nature of Pakistan’s confrontation with India. The traditional image of a proxy war involves a militant trained across the border, supplied with weapons and infiltrated into India. The newer model can be far more fragmented.

Instead of relying exclusively on trained ideological cadres, Bhatti’s network uses social media and encrypted platforms to identify people who appear susceptible to money, status, gangster culture or the promise of adventure.

The network does not necessarily require a large standing army of militants. It requires a steady supply of people willing to do small things for money.

That is what makes the model potentially more resilient than a conventional cell structure.

The Indian state’s response will consequently have to extend beyond arresting handlers and recovering explosives. It will have to disrupt the economic and social machinery that allows criminal networks to convert vulnerability into violence: narcotics, illegal finance, weapons trafficking, online influence and the culture of gangster celebrity that gives such networks an aspirational sheen.

The case of Shahzad Bhatti points to a potentially consequential evolution in asymmetric warfare: the outsourcing of terrorism to the criminal margins of society, managed from abroad but executed by people recruited inside India.

The Dawood Connection

The underworld-terrorist nexus is not new to India. From the 1970s onwards, the underworld in Mumbai gained strength through smuggling of contraband, and in the 1980s, inter-gang rivalry spilled onto the streets of Mumbai. The situation only worsened in the next decade with the Dawood Ibrahim syndicate emerging strongest by decimating rival gangs and spreading its criminal tentacles across the globe. While Dawood flew out to Dubai at the end of the decade, he continued to maintain his stranglehold of various sectors of Mumbai’s economy including the construction and film industries in particular and the business world in general.

In the 1990s, the syndicate forged links with Pakistan’s ISI and assisted in the training of Indian youths in PoK. Most infamously, the Dawood syndicate assisted in the ‘Shekhadi landings’ – the illegal smuggling of nearly 3,000 kg of RDX supplied by ISI, weapons, and ammunition onto the Raigad coast in early February 1993, which was used to execute the Mumbai serial blasts that year, which killed 257 people while injuring 1400 more.

By this time, Dawood had shifted to Pakistan and it was his key associates – Tiger Memon. Yakub Memon, Abu Salem and others who had carried out the ghastly blasts, which exposed the ISI-underworld nexus for the first time.

Cut to 2026. One of Dawood’s cronies – Munna Zhingada (real name: Syed Mudassar Hussain) has been identified along with several others as part of the SBN. Munna is a Mumbai-born gangster and former top hitman of the Dawood gang who operates from Karachi, Pakistan as a key operative for the ISI.

He gained notoriety in 2000, almost 10 years after joining the gang when he was sent to Bangkok as part of a hit squad to kill Chhota Rajan, Dawood’s former aide-turned-rival. Munna was arrested there and became the centre of a tug-of-war between India and Pakistan with both providing citizenship proofs. Pakistan claimed him to be one Mohd. Saleem, a Pakistani national. This was accepted by the Thai courts in 2019 which handed Munna to Pakistan.

The SBN is even more sinister than it appears in its current form as Munna’s role is to act as bridge between the ISI and criminal networks as well as the Indian underworld. As was revealed in investigations, Munna uses social media and encrypted apps to recruit vulnerable youths in Mumbai and other Indian cities for espionage and terror plots.

(The writer is a retired IPS officer and former Special Director General of National Investigation Agency (NIA).)

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Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar attempted to corner the Maharashtra government over the alarming rain deficit and resultant crises in farmlands, by demanding that a ‘drought’ must be immediately declared in rain-starved talukas besides announcing a relief package of at least Rs 50,000 per hectare for affected farmers, on Friday.

In a strong letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Pawar warned that the prolonged failure of the monsoon has pushed farmers, farm labourers and farm animals plus other livestock into a grave crisis.

Moreover, standing crops of soybean, cotton, bajra, maize, tur, moong and urad are withering in the blazing sun in several regions while rampant pest and disease attacks adding to the damage, with threats of further crises as shortage of drinking water and fodder looms ahead.

Urging the government to move before the formal drought-assessment process, Pawar sought immediate identification of the worst-affected talukas and extending drought concessions without waiting for the procedural criteria. “The critical ground situation warrants an emergency intervention,” he said.

Proposing a wide-ranging financial package of aid beyond merely crop loss compensations, Pawar sought Rs 25,000 as special assistance for every farm labourer, an immediate farm-loan waiver and extending fresh crop credits to help the distressed agriculturists.

The NCP (SP) supremo called for hiking the incentives for regular loan repayment from Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000, besides covering those farmers who took crop loans in 2025-26 but subsequently defaulted into the proposed (new) waiver scheme.

Referring to crop insurance, Pawar has rooted for retrospective implementation of the Re 1 premium scheme and restoration, retrospectively, of previously excluded insurance triggers. He has also sought immediate release of the Rs 17,000-per-hectare assistance announced for crop damage caused by unseasonal rains in 2025.

The larger scheme Pawar proposed mentions implementing employment guarantee scheme works including water conservation and farming-related projects on priority in the talukas facing drought-like conditions, survey of villages facing water-scarcity, plus arranging tanker water supply to salvage fruit orchards in the parched farms.

Additionally, he urged the government to start fodder camps, drinking water for the people, livestock, veterinary medical services, special drive to repair electricity transformers with the possibility of increased load-shedding in the affected regions.

For the students, Pawar suggested a complete waiver of educational fees, examination fees for all school and college students and other educational institutions to reduce the cost burden on their families, and control rooms at various levels to monitor daily rainfall, crop conditions, water and fodder stocks.

Pawar’s letter-bomb came barely days after Fadnavis said the government was making preparations for crop-loss assessments early October onwards and would provide assistance from state resources pending central support.

This week, the government announced that 83 talukas spread in 19 districts have gone without rain for more than three weeks, and 20 of the state’s 36 districts had recorded rainfall deficits of at least 20 pc.

Govt doing needful on drought, says CM, dubs Rahul ‘anarchist’

Mumbai: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said his government is taking the drought-like situation in the state seriously and was coming up with measures to deal with it and provide relief to farmers.

Speaking to reporters about NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar’s letter on the prevailing situation due to lack of adequate rain, Fadnavis said his government would consider suggestions made by the former Union agriculture minister.

“Pawar saheb is a senior leader. It is a matter of happiness that he has sent a letter. I do not want to give any political colour to it. I feel the state government is doing what it needs to do. If we have received suggestions from him, or if he has given us suggestions in such a situation, we will certainly listen to them,” he said.

Pawar had urged Fadnavis to take immediate measures in view of the rainfall deficit and crop losses in several parts of Maharashtra. The veteran leader has sought, among other measures, declaration of drought in severely affected areas and financial assistance of Rs 50,000 per hectare for farmers.

The chief minister made it clear that the state would provide assistance to farmers without waiting for financial help under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).

The crop damage assessment required for a NDRF proposal (for relief) would be undertaken after October 5, Fadnavis added.

Asked about Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of the Election Commission of India’s decision in the Trinamool Congress case, Fadnavis said the “mentality” of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha is “anarchist” and his objective was to undermine constitutional institutions.

On Thursday, the ECI temporarily removed the All India Trinamool Congress name and its ‘flowers and grass symbol’ from the ballot during the October 6 West Bengal bypolls, barring both rival factions from using the political identity associated with Mamata Banerjee and her party for nearly three decades.

Gandhi’s objective is that people’s trust in constitutional bodies is lost, and once that happens then trust in democracy itself will also be lost, Fadnavis said.

Gandhi is taking the Constitution in his hand and then sowing the idea that faith in it should be lost, the CM alleged.

“There is an attempt to completely discredit these institutions somewhere, so that people’s faith in these institutions is lost. Rahul Gandhi has been continuously doing this kind of thing. Rahul Gandhi’s mentality is anarchist,” Fadnavis said.

The senior BJP leader said Gandhi has been unable to accept the fact that the people of India have rejected his leadership.

‘No scarcity’ of drought politics

Congress’ Vijay Wadettiwar: “Govt is merely performing, but not active, delays are caused due to the assessment procedures. The government must provide Rs 50,000 / ha. electricity-bill relief and suspension of farm loans’ recoveries.”

Sanjay Raut, Shiv Sena (UBT): “83 talukas in the state are parched… But the government is busy lighting ‘lamps’ and has no time for the suffering farmers.”

Aditya Thackeray, Shiv Sena (UBT): “We support the farmers, please don’t lose heart. We shall take up your issues with the government.” Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Revenue Minister: “We are carrying out district-level reviews on all aspects and the prevailing ‘drought-like’ situation. The government will not let down the farmers.”

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At some point in almost every conversation I have with a founder, something shifts. We are talking about their business, their brand, how they show up - and then, in the middle of a sentence, they say something that stops everything. Not dramatically. Quietly. A small, precise observation about themselves that lands with the weight of something long known and never said out loud. I already know I need to work on this. I just haven't done it yet.

Said so casually. So matter-of-factly. As though the gap between knowing and doing is simply a scheduling problem. As though the thing standing between them and the brand they know theyshould have is just a question of finding the right moment.

The right moment, in my experience, almost never arrives on its own.

This particular gap- between self-awareness and action-is not unique to any one person or industry. It is one of the most consistent patterns I encounter at the highest levels of professional success. People perceptive enough to see exactly what needs to change, and experienced enough to know it would matter - who nonetheless return, week after week, to exactly the same patterns they identified.

The question that has stayed with me is not why they have not changed. It is what they are actually protecting by not changing.

Because the gap between knowing and doing is never really about time or readiness or finding the right program. It is about identity. The patterns a founder has not yet changed are almost always the ones most deeply woven into how they see themselves.

The way they communicate is not just a habit - it is part of who they believe they are. The way they show up in a room, online, in relationships - these are not behaviours sitting loosely on the surface, available for adjustment. They are load-bearing walls in the architecture of a self that has been built over decades of experience and reinforced by success.

Changing them does not feel like improvement. It feels like loss.

And so the founder who knows they over-talk keeps over-talking. The one who knows their online presence is inconsistent keeps posting without a strategy. The one who knows they project confidence but not warmth keeps leaving rooms that felt productive but produced nothing. Each of them intelligent enough to diagnose the problem. Each of them busy enough to have a reason to defer the solution.

Here is what that deferral is actually costing. Every week the gap exists, the brand being built is not the one they envisioned. Every room they enter with unexamined patterns is a room that forms an opinion they did not intend. Every conversation that ends without connection is an opportunity that quietly went to someone who had done the work they are still postponing.

The most significant personal brand transformations I have witnessed did not happen when the founder finally found the time. They happened when the founder finally decided that the cost of staying the same had become greater than the discomfort of changing. That is always the real turning point. Not a calendar slot. A decision.

And that decision - once made - changes everything that follows. The rooms change. The conversations change. The opportunities that arrive change in quality, in size, in alignment with who the founder actually is and wants to become.

Most founders already know what needs to change. The question worth sitting with today is a different one entirely. What would have to become true for you to stop waiting?

If that question landed somewhere real, I want to have a direct conversation with you - not a discovery call, not a free session, but a focused brand consultation built entirely around your situation. I work with a small number of founders at a time. If you are ready, the next step is here: https://www.calendly.com/divyaaadvaani/founder-brand-audit

(The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

People offer prayers to Lord Vishvakarma inside a Sealdah bound train coach on 'Vishvakarma Puja' festival in Nadia district, West Bengal, on Friday.

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, performs during the Louder Than Life Music Festival at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville, Ky, on Thursday.

A woman purchases marigold garlands for 'Vishavakarma Puja' festival in Guwahati, Assam, on Friday.

Women perform rituals during Sorahiya fair, a 16-day long annual pilgrimage and festival at Laxmi Kund in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, on Friday.

A Man rides an electric bike during heavy rainfall in Kolkata, West Bengal, on Friday.

If a company makes and sells an electronic product, it should also take responsibility for what happens to that product when it becomes waste.

As we have seen, electronic waste is not just about discarded phones, computers and other devices. It is also about what happens to them after they are thrown away and the environmental and health risks that can arise when they are not handled properly.

Over the years, India has introduced rules to bring some order to the way e-waste is collected, recycled and disposed of. The 2016 E-Waste Management Rules clarified producers' responsibilities and brought several other stakeholders into the system, including consumers, collection centres and recyclers. The rules also gave greater importance to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and introduced specific targets for producers. They also required authorised recyclers to be registered.

India first introduced EPR through the 2011 E-Waste Management Rules, and later amendments have strengthened it. EPR is the backbone of India’s e-waste management system.

In simple terms, it means that producers cannot simply evade their responsibility for a product once it is sold. They are responsible for ensuring that their discarded products are properly collected, recycled, and safely disposed of.

Under the EPR system, producers have to ensure that a specified amount of the e-waste generated from their products is collected and sent to authorised recyclers for environmentally safe recycling and disposal. The basic idea is simple: if a company makes and sells an electronic product, it should also take responsibility for what happens to that product when it becomes waste.

This shifts some of the responsibility for managing e-waste from consumers and waste handlers to the companies that put electronic products into the market. In this way, EPR encourages producers to think about the entire life of a product—from its design and manufacture to its collection, recycling, and final disposal. This helps reduce waste, recover valuable materials, and move India towards a more circular economy.

But producer responsibility does not end with setting targets. Producers are also expected to make it easy for customers to return their old or discarded electronic products. For this, they can set up collection centers or take-back programmes where consumers can hand over their e-waste. Producers can also take the help of a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO).

A PRO is a third-party organisation that works on behalf of producers to collect e-waste, arrange for its recycling, and ensure its safe disposal. In simple terms, a PRO acts as a link between the producer and the e-waste management system.

It helps producers meet their collection and recycling responsibilities and makes the process more organised.

The 2016 E-Waste Management Rules and later amendments have also placed greater emphasis on bringing e-waste recycling into the formal and regulated system. They require e-waste to be handled by authorised recyclers and dismantlers.

To operate legally, recyclers and dismantlers must obtain the required authorisation from the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) or, in Union Territories, the Pollution Control Committees (PCCs).

Authorised recyclers must follow prescribed safety and environmental standards while dismantling and recycling electronic waste. This is important because, as we have already learned, e-waste can contain hazardous substances that can pollute soil, water, and air if it is mismanaged and not handled properly.

There are also reporting and record-keeping requirements. Authorised recyclers are required to keep proper records of the e-waste they receive and process and submit the necessary information and reports to the pollution control authorities.

The regulatory framework therefore aims to gradually move e-waste recycling away from unsafe and unregulated practices and towards a formal, organised system.

By promoting authorised and formal recycling facilities, the government aims to make e-waste recycling safer, more environmentally responsible and better regulated.

Will continue next week. Till then, have a great weekend!

(The writer is an environmentalist. Views personal.)

In 2022, I undertook a master’s degree in political science from SNDT University, Mumbai, at the age of 52. I was keen on doing the programme and, as expressed in an introductory letter to the head of the department, I wished to study out of sheer interest, unlike 38 years ago when I did my bachelor’s in the same subject only because I needed a degree. At that time, I had not developed any passion or interest in the subject. I had done that degree almost mechanically, like a robot prepped to complete a set task.

Our batch, which graduated in 2024, was the last to go through the “old” educational system. In 2025, the new educational policy was launched. What struck me immediately was the number of exams our students were made to write—an all-India entrance exam after completing their 12th grade and bachelor’s, another all-India exam after postgraduate studies in order to apply as an assistant professor, and another to apply for a PhD.

Young students from the age of 21 to 25 go through untold stress. Their young minds are sometimes not resilient enough to go through these layers of exams, with ample leaks interspersed.

Coaching classes are profiting immensely, promising these students the moon as far as results are concerned and, as we have seen, occasionally helping in the leaking of papers to students who, stressed and desperate to “do well”, are prepared to compromise themselves ethically and financially.

The programme I entered was impressive. The syllabus was beautifully constructed, relevant, stimulating and enlightening. Our professors were passionate, engendered a true spirit of learning in us, encouraged class discussions, insisted on our attending numerous workshops and lectures by eminent personalities, and fostered a love not only for political science but for other disciplines as well.

We had to write a dissertation in our last semester and defend it. This experience, which was novel to all of us, was a trifle frightening because of its unfamiliarity but greatly expanded our research skills and critical ability.

However, I could see firsthand how much stress there was to handle. I could handle it better, having worked for 16 years as a librarian, during which time I had read extensively and handled a fair amount of tension at the workplace. Experience does help, but even I could visualise how much this load tore into the fabric of intellectual interest that could have flowered within my much younger classmates.

There is enough tension preparing for and appearing for one university exam. Hitherto, at the bachelor’s level, one had to appear for three of them and two more at the postgraduate level. Now the government has added two more—the CUET UG (Common University Entrance Test Undergraduate, to enter undergraduate studies) and the CUET PG (Common University Entrance Test Postgraduate, to enter postgraduate studies).

To give some idea of the number of all India entrance examinations that are now held:

This is frightening. Year after year, not only have cut-off percentages to enter any level of studies increased tremendously, but there are now all-India exams to be written after appearing for the forbidding 12th boards and university exams.

Where are we heading? We have prevented students from enjoying education for a long time by emphasising marks and rote learning primarily. Now, we are producing a generation of students exposed to unbelievable stress and likely to face far more of this ill in the future. Education has lost its ethos and value. All we are producing is a generation of students preparing for one exam after another without really developing any genuine assimilation or critical skills.

(The writer is a Mumbai based educator. Views personal.)

Manoj Jarange-Patil’s retreat from Mumbai after weeks of hunger-strike brinkmanship offers a moment for citizens to question the politics of coercion and perpetual agitation.

The activist has given the Maharashtra government three months to consider his demands, thus giving the seemingly never-ending Maratha reservation issue an uneasy pause.

Mumbai, which had braced for another prolonged confrontation during the Ganesh festivities, can breathe easy for the moment. But the episode leaves a larger question: how long can public policy be held hostage to the theatre of indefinite fasting?

For weeks, the prospect of a march on Mumbai by Jarange and his followers had hung over the State. The city’s residents, already negotiating the logistical demands of the Ganesh festivities, faced the possibility of another mass mobilisation disrupting roads and public life. Jarange’s appeal to supporters not to follow his vehicle, and to meet him instead at Khopoli, underscored the uncertainty surrounding the march. He even warned that he might abandon the journey and resume his sit-in at Patoda or return to Antarwali Sarati.

Such brinkmanship may keep a movement in the headlines, but it cannot substitute for the patient work of resolving a complex reservation dispute. Maharashtra’s reservation question involves competing claims, constitutional constraints and the interests of communities whose concerns cannot simply be wished away.

Jarange insists that the movement has made progress through the discovery of 58 lakh archival records which he claims could help nearly 2.5 crore Marathas access reservation benefits. His immediate demand is an official gazette recognising the relevant records. But numbers announced at a rally are not a substitute for answers to those questions.

Reservation issues cannot be administered through rhetorical exchanges between an activist and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

More troubling is Jarange’s allegation that Devendra Fadnavis is plotting against his life. Such a serious charge requires evidence should not be allowed to become another instrument in an already charged confrontation. Jarange’s assertion that his community can bring down governments and install new ones similarly blurs the line between advancing a social demand and invoking electoral power as leverage.

His remarks about telling his son to remain courageous should he die perhaps reveal the personal intensity of his commitment to his supporters. But a movement’s legitimacy cannot depend on the prospect of its leader’s death. Nor should supporters be placed in the position of treating physical collapse as proof of political resolve.

The three-month window now offered to the government should be used for documented negotiations and legally defensible decisions. While Mumbai’s relief at avoiding another immediate mobilisation is understandable, the more consequential test, is whether Jarange’s pause allows the State to move beyond cycles of ultimatum and move towards a resolution grounded in evidence and fairness to all affected communities.