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15-year-old Nishu Azad perfectly exemplifies how Leftists indoctrinate and weaponise children for ideological agenda: Understanding the ‘Liberal’ playbook of hate

Shraddha Pandey
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15-year-old Nishu Azad perfectly exemplifies how Leftists indoctrinate and weaponise children for ideological agenda: Understanding the ‘Liberal’ playbook of hate

During the infamous Shaheen Bagh sit-in protest back in 2020, Islamo-leftists decided to bring forward women and children to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Five years later, the Cockroach Janta Party-led ‘student protest’ in New Delhi saw a massive presence of ideologically driven youngsters, hurling abuses against Hinduism, Brahmins, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and continuing the degeneracy since then. One such Hinduphobic CJP supporter is Nishu Azad.

‘Tum Talwar uthao, hum kalam uthayenge’: Nishu Azad, the Ambedkarite CJP ‘cockroach’ who didn’t know the full forms of NEET and CBSE

Nishu Azad is a 15-year-old Dalit student and social media ‘activist’ from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, who identifies as an ‘Ambedkarite’ and atheist. Azad gained prominence during the CJP protests in July this year.

The self-declared ‘Ambedkarite’ Nishu Azad was actively involved in the CJP protest. She gave various interviews to the media.

Nishu Azad would deliver aggressive speeches, confront critical media questions with expectedly juvenile arguments, read ‘Tum Talwar uthao, hum kalam uthayenge’ type poems, but fail to even tell the full form of NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), the very examination that triggered the CJP agitation. She would boast to be a CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) student and not know CBSE’s full form.

To escape the embarrassment, Azad blamed the education system, which somehow has been so careless that it failed to teach Nishu Azad these basic full forms.

In June this year, Nishu Azad was seen hurling abuses at PM Modi and inviting people to a 13th-day funeral feast for PM Modi’s death. Now she has issued a ‘clarification’ that she did not say ‘Modi ke Terhavi ka khana’ on her own but read from a board. The video, however, shows her reading the highly insensitive poster quite gleefully.

Nishu Azad is the daughter of an Ambedkarite ‘activist’ Sanjay Azad, who has been in the news over his allegations against an influencer, Swatantra Bhardwaj, that the latter assaulted him during the CJP protests at Jantar Mantar. Bhardwaj, however, denies deliberately hitting Sanjay Azad’s head.

Seeing the massive opportunity of polishing his image as a messiah of Dalits and ‘youth’ at one go, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi extended support to Nishu Azad despite her own abusive and anti-Hindu proclivities.

Case filed against Nishu Azad and her father for Hinduphobic posts

As the controversy around the anti-Hindu activist and her father rages on, advocate Amita Sachdeva has lodged a police complaint against Nishu Azad and her Ambedkarite father Sanjay Azad over Nishu’s Hinduphobic posts.

Speaking to ANI, advocate Sachdeva said, “Yesterday I came across some tweets posted by her on ‘X’. They were old tweets. She used the word Vaishya [prostitute] for goddess Maa Durga; she mocked goddess Saraswati. So yesterday I gave her a warning and asked her politely to delete these posts. You cannot insult my gods. If you want to believe them, it’s your choice. We will not allow that. So I gave her time till 1 pm (on Saturday), but they didn’t do that. Neither she nor her father. Then I was constrained to file the complaint, which I did. And the police have assured us that they will take necessary steps.”

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) member Priyank Kanoongo has said that CJP leaders can face legal action for involving the minor girl in their ‘illegal protest’, under Section 83(2) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. The provision criminalises the use of minors by an adult or a group of adults for illegal activities.

Nishu Azad has a track record of hurling abuses against Hinduism and Hindu deities

Minors, youth or adults, all Islamo-leftists claiming to be liberal and progressive are inherently and selectively hateful towards Hinduism. For them, Hinduism alone is regressive, anti-woman, dogmatic, and whatnot, while several other religions being way more explicitly anti-women and regressive are not subjected to even any performative criticism.

Earlier this year, OpIndia reported about an adult Ambedkarite activist, Satish Bauddh, who identifies as a Buddhist but hurls the worst abuses at Hindu deities and scriptures in the name of promoting rationality and scientific temper.

In late April, Satish Bauddh addressed a public event commemorating Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar’s birthday in Delhi’s Ashok Nagar. Satish Bauddh delivered a speech wherein he began with the usual hateful commentary against the ‘Manuwadi ideology’, caste, and superstition, to incite Dalit Hindus to convert to Buddhism. The rhetoric soon shifted to spewing vitriol against Hindu deities, scriptures and beliefs.

Nishu Azad is no different. Her rhetoric and social media activity indicate that, despite her young age, the ‘atheist-Ambedkarite’ harbours deep hatred towards the Hindu community, Hindu faith, and Hindu Devi Devtas.

Declaring Hindu Gods as ‘imaginary’, Nishu Azad wrote in November 2024 on X, “Brahmins insulted the female gender in the name of Hindu Vedic religion, saying that the Dalit bride was sent to a Savarna house on the first night after marriage for her disrobing; Savarna people raped a Dalit pregnant girl.  #हिंदू_भगवान_काल्पनिक_है .”

In one of her videos, Azad suggested that instead of Maa Saraswati, Savitribai Phule should be considered goddess of knowledge.

Commenting on the shoe-hurling against former Chief Justice of India BR Gavai in early October 2024, Nishu Azad wrote, “What even Vishnu himself couldn’t uproot, what can these lime thieves possibly uproot… A case should be filed against the one who threw a shoe at Gawai Sahib under sedition charges, and he should be sentenced to life imprisonment….”

In another such post, she wrote, “Sir @grok ji, Ram, Hanuman, and Krishna—are all these fictional, or is there any evidence of their existence? If there is any evidence of them, please share it.”

While Nishu Azad tagged Grok to confirm if there is any proof of the existence of Lord Hanuman, Ram or Krishna, Azad never used AI to question if Allah exists in reality or is fictional.

When it comes to Islamic festivals, her rationality goes into hibernation, as exemplified by this post in which she wrote, “Heartfelt congratulations to all of you on the month of Ramadan. May Allah accept all our prayers and keep love and brotherhood intact.”

Expressing her hatred for Brahmins during the UGC protests in March this year, Nishu Azad wrote, “Earth can’t bear Brahmins’ burden.” The story goes that Brahmins possess so much “divine energy” that they can’t sit directly on the ground—otherwise, the Earth would shake. Wow, what divine merit! But when it comes to rules, equality, and standards like UGC, that same “divine energy” suddenly vanishes. Greatness in myths, privilege in reality on the ground. #MeritMyth #CasteDebate”

As her Hinduphobic posts gained widespread attention, Nishu Azad behaved like a typical Islamo-leftist and declared all such posts as “fake and AI-created tweets”, even as the same posts are still publicly available.

OpIndia has highlighted earlier, how akin to Islamists, a section of people claiming to be ‘social justice’ activists, perceive women belonging to the Brahmin, Kshatriya and other Savarn Hindu groups as objects of pleasure, means of conquest and humiliation against the upper caste Hindus. For them, Brahmin or Kshatriya women are trophies they want to brandish to humiliate upper-caste men.

The hatred is so deep that even a minor girl like Nishu Azad celebrates this perverted mindset, as reflected in this post. “Brahmin girl Khushbu Pandey married a Dalit boy. The video is old but teaches a lot. Anyone who has faith in the Constitution and stays within its bounds can do anything.”

Indoctrination and weaponisation of children: The Islamo-leftist playbook of hate

While Nishu Azad is receiving criticism from the Hindu community for her display of the anti-Hindu mindset with impunity, there are bigger questions that need to be addressed. Who is indoctrinating children as young as 15 into a Hinduphobic political and ideological agenda, and why? Who is instilling deep hatred in these young minds against Hinduism and Hindu deities, so much so that these children are confusing Hinduphobia for progressiveness? Why drag children in issues too complex for their young minds?

Be it protests, viral abusive videos aimed at a sitting Prime Minister, or years of hateful, derogatory public posts against Hindu deities, positioning a 15-year-old at the centre of such charged ideological confrontations is quite evidently not organic child activism. It is an adult-directed political performance. Not only the CJP but the extended anti-BJP ecosystem platformed Nishu Azad, amplified her hateful content, and conveniently used her age and caste as a shield when backlash and legal action arrived.

During the infamous 2020 Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA sit-in, women and children were brought on the frontline to become the face of anti-CAA protests. The Islamo-leftists were using children as props for their agenda. Several children were seen raising inflammatory slogans and protesting in Shaheen Bagh.

Even during Muslim mob violence, in many cases, it has been seen how women and children are brought to the front to act as a shield. If the police or the targeted individuals retaliate with violence and end up hurting women and children, the original attackers get to play the victim card, and those who acted in self-defence become ‘inhuman villains who don’t spare even innocent women and children’.

Even during the recent Cockroach Janta Party protests, which drew large numbers of young people, held over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations, including the NEET paper leak, and demands for accountability from the government. It was seen how minor boys and girls, boasting their Gen-Z belonging, were at the forefront of hurling abuses at Brahmins, Hinduism, PM Modi, and even his deceased mother.

While ‘Brahminvad se Azadi’, ‘Modi ki Terhavi ka khana’, and other such derogatory remarks were being openly made, the organisers stayed one step removed, letting the children, high on their ‘we are Gen-Z revolutionaries’ delusion, deliver the most hateful and inflammatory statements.

Their abusive language and gestures were celebrated by the Islamo-leftist cabal as some cool and hilarious ‘resistance ’, and any criticism or police action was instantly framed as ‘harassing minors and Dalits’, backed by ‘Jab jab Modi darta hai, Police ko aage karta hai’ rhetoric.

This is akin to the Laughtivism core of the CJP’s foundation and activities, OpIndia analysed earlier. Under this method of anti-government protests, the agitators are asked to create a Backfire Effect, wherein the targeted government is trapped in such a way that all of its actions backfire on them only.  If the government ignores jokes or memes, the movement gradually gains more space and grows. And if the government, angered by this, takes legal action or resorts to repression, it ends up appearing extremely cruel, intolerant, and cowardly.

Be it Delhi Police acting against violent protestors on 20th July or later the government accepting the demands of the CJP, both ways, the government was trapped in a lose-lose situation.

Be it anti-BJP politics, Ambedkarite atheism, anti-Hindu hate, or a blend of these three, the Islamo-leftists rely on indoctrinating youngsters into their adult venomous ideological projects, weaponise them to produce content, hurl invectives, and say things that would expose an adult activist to stronger legal and social costs. Once backlash and legal process knock on the door of these children, their ideological masters then invoke child-protection language, and the ‘children are too young to be subjected to legal scrutiny’ victim card.

There are many like this minor girl who have been indoctrinated into hating Hinduism, selectively targeting and insulting Hindu deities and scriptures. This indoctrination begins either at home, through social media or after coming in contact with adult adherents of ideologies that normalise abusing Hindu religion in the name of rationality, taking insensitive jibes at supposed ideological adversaries, and even celebrating the idea of their death.

The Narendra Modi-led NDA government has not gone out of power since 2014. Reason? Three consecutive electoral wins driven by voter support across all eligible age groups. The fact that the so-called Hindu nationalist government achieved near-invincibility in such a short time rattled the Islamo-leftist cabal.

This followed a multifaceted action plan: on one hand, political parties are casting aspersions on the integrity of the Election Commission of India and the transparency of the electoral process; on the other, the voter base of the BJP/NDA, especially middle-class parents, is being villainised, their intellect being questioned for simply voting for the Modi government.

After ‘Bhakt ka Chashma’ style mockery of the intellect of the pro-BJP voters backfired, the Islamo-leftist cabal intensified the radicalisation of young Gen Z minds, turning them against their own parents over political leanings.

In fact, it was seen during the CJP protests how several Gen Z participants gave interviews to leftist media portals and boasted that they had ‘confronted’ their ‘Modi-loving’ parents and even severed relations over ideological differences.

In recent times, confronting parents over their political views, recording these intense arguments, and broadcasting family clashes on social media has become some sort of badge of honour among a section of Gen Z youth. 

Unable to comprehend how subtly and gradually they themselves have been indoctrinated into hating their own religion, culture, and in many cases, even their own country, these youngsters, in their delulu phase of romanticising communism and revolution, are villainising their own parents as ‘bigoted and brainwashed’.

This glorification of breaking families for political-ideological validation is best exemplified by the case of Neha Bora, the 29-year-old national president of the All-India Students’ Association (AISA). 

In an interview with Barkha Dutt earlier this year, Bora opened up about her absolute ideological detachment from her parents, a serving Army officer father and a homemaker mother, both of whom support the BJP. Bora’s ‘rebellion’ against her own parents has not been called what it truly is: a tragic and destructive outcome of blind adherence to the Leftist ideology, but rather an inspirational act of courage for the supposed ‘higher purpose’ of resisting the ‘fascists’.

Under her leadership, AISA launched campaigns like “Cockroaches on the streets” and joined the CJP protests, where activists quickly shifted slogans from exam irregularities to demands for “Azadi” and political rhetoric. Such is the ideological influence that Bora has whitewashed anti-terror charges against figures like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, calling them “ordinary students” subjected to ‘political prosecution’, while ignoring court observations regarding their roles in the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots. 

For any normal human being, family is way more important than any ideology or political cause; however, the leftist playbook is such that whoever gets influenced by it slips into a constant state of struggle and views everyone even slightly opposed to them as nothing short of enemies.

Since the family unit acts as a natural buffer, teaching children heritage, religious and traditional values, authority, and unconditional personal loyalty, Leftists encourage youngsters in their influence to either force their parents into aligning with them ideologically or completely detach from them, essentially declaring them ideologically adversarial.

Once the detachment is done, the party or leftist ideological collective steps in to replace the family, becoming their primary source of identity and belonging. This near-irreversible indoctrination aids the ultimate weaponisation for furthering the Leftist ideological causes.

In Nishu Azad’s case, however, her left-allied Ambedkarite father appears to be the major influence that drove her to indulge in anti-Hindu commentary and express extreme hate for the sitting Prime Minister of India.

Despite the minor girl’s track record of anti-Hindu commentary and activism, the leftist coterie, led by Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, and Chandrashekhar Azad of the Azad Samaj Party have openly backed her, rewarded her imprudent actions by glorifying her, further boosting her confidence that no matter what you do, as long as you are ideologically and politically useful, they will back you.

Similarly, a 15-year-old Noida teen, Ruchika Singh, who gained national attention during the CJP protests for hurling abuses at PM Modi and his deceased mother, apologised after criticism. However, she soon published a fresh video, issuing a defiant message. She accused PM Modi of ‘harassing’ her so much that she has nothing to lose anymore.

Singh received support from Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, who, instead of condemning Singh’s derogatory remarks, chose to back her, declaring her uncouth behaviour and subsequent portrayal of herself as a ‘victim ’ as an act of ‘bravery’.

First, children are indoctrinated, then weaponised for a political agenda, and once these youngsters demonstrate their usefulness, the left-liberal ideological coterie jumps in to shield them with ‘they are just children’ arguments and ‘fascist government is harassing Gen-Z’ to paint the ideological adversary, the Modi government in the present case, as an oppressive regime that harasses children to silence dissent.

ISRO scientists seek clarity over ‘privatisation’: Read what is happening at India’s premier space agency 

Shriti Sagar
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ISRO scientists seek clarity over ‘privatisation’: Read what is happening at India’s premier space agency 

The government opened India’s space sector to private players in 2020. Employee associations at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have now formally raised concerns for the first time over how the transition is being carried out. Nine employee bodies representing staff across major ISRO centres have written to ISRO Chairman and Department of Space Secretary V Narayanan, seeking written clarification on the government’s plans and the space agency’s future role.

The five-page representation, dated 4th September, was submitted just after the successful launch of the GSLV F-17/EOS-05 mission. It was signed by representatives of nine employee associations from centres including the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Space Applications Centre (SAC), National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC).

Together, these associations represent around 5,000 employees, which is roughly 27% of ISRO’s stated workforce of 18,100.

The employees have made it clear that their concern is not simply about private companies entering India’s space sector. They say they support private participation and commercialisation. Their concern is that activities currently carried out within ISRO could gradually shift to private companies or other entities without a clearly explained policy on what ISRO will continue to do.

Why are ISRO employees worried about privatisation?

The immediate concern comes from a statement made by Pawan Goenka, chairman of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), at Business Today’s India @ 100 Economy Summit. Goenka said that eventually ISRO would not manufacture launch vehicles and that the work would be carried out by private companies or public sector undertakings.

For ISRO employees, the statement raises an important question: if the organisation stops manufacturing its own rockets, what happens to the engineering, manufacturing and operational expertise that ISRO has built over several decades?

The employee associations have therefore sought to know whether Goenka’s statement represents an officially approved decision of the government, the Space Commission or the Department of Space.

Their concern is not that private companies should have no role. Instead, they want clarity on where the responsibility of ISRO ends and where the private sector begins.

The representation says, “Private participation in defined commercial activities can coexist with a strong, publicly owned ISRO. What cannot be accepted without debate is a policy that reduces ISRO to a residual R&D boutique while the realisation of the nation’s launch vehicles and the operation of its launch infrastructure pass out of public hands.”

How did privatisation of India’s space sector begin?

The government’s push to bring private companies into the space sector began more clearly in 2020 as part of the broader economic reforms announced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

While announcing the fourth tranche of the Atmanirbhar Bharat package in May 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government wanted private companies to become partners in India’s space journey.

“The Indian Space Research Organisation has brought a lot of laurels to the country. However, the private sector is also doing a lot of work in the arena now. We want the Indian Private sector to be a co-traveller in India’s space sector journey,” Sitharaman said.

The government also announced that private companies would be allowed to use ISRO facilities and other relevant assets to improve their capabilities. “We will provide a predictable policy and regulatory environment to private players. They will be allowed to use the ISRO facilities and other relevant assets to improve their capacities,” Sitharaman said.

The idea was to make better use of India’s existing space infrastructure while allowing startups and private companies to develop their own capabilities.

The government also planned to liberalise access to geospatial data, allowing Indian technology companies to use remote-sensing satellite data for applications such as agriculture and other sectors.

The larger aim was to move from a space ecosystem dominated almost entirely by the government to one in which private companies could design, manufacture and operate space systems.

ISRO’s role began to change

The reform did not mean that ISRO would simply be handed over to private companies. Instead, the government’s stated approach was to give private players a larger role across the space ecosystem while allowing ISRO to concentrate increasingly on research, advanced technology and strategic capabilities.

For decades, ISRO was effectively the only major Indian organisation where engineers could work on launch vehicles, propulsion systems and spacecraft at scale. This helped the country develop a strong space programme despite relatively limited budgets.

However, the same model also meant that a very large part of India’s space capability remained concentrated within one government organisation.

The opening of the sector was meant to change this. IN-SPACe was created as a regulatory and facilitation mechanism for private participation, while NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) has a commercial role in taking ISRO-developed technologies and systems to industry.

The Indian Space Policy 2023 subsequently gave private companies a much wider role across the space value chain, including the development and operation of space systems.

What is already being transferred?

The employee associations have pointed to several developments that they say show the transition is already underway.

One major example is the transfer of technology and production of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The associations have also referred to the ongoing process for transferring technology related to the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3), one of India’s most powerful launch vehicles.

LVM3 is particularly important because it was used for the Chandrayaan-3 mission and is among India’s key launch vehicles. Similar efforts are also being discussed in relation to the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

The representation also refers to reports that routine satellite manufacturing could eventually move outside ISRO. It raises concerns about new launch infrastructure, including the Space Launch Complex at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu, being opened to private entities.

For the employee associations, each of these steps may have its own justification. What they want is an overall policy explaining how these decisions fit together and what the final structure of India’s space programme is expected to look like.

What exactly are ISRO employees asking?

The employee bodies have sought detailed answers on the future role of ISRO and the status of the government’s plans.

One of their key questions concerns Goenka’s statement that ISRO would eventually stop manufacturing launch vehicles. They want to know whether this represents an approved decision of the Government of India, the Space Commission or the Department of Space. If it does, they want details about when and how the decision was approved and by which authority.

They have also asked what the future mandate of ISRO will be, specifically whether the design, development, realisation, integration, testing and launching of PSLV, LVM3, SSLV and future launch vehicles will remain ISRO functions.

The associations have also sought clarification on whether public sector undertakings will be excluded from the proposed transfer of PSLV and LVM3 production and why such an arrangement, if planned, would be followed.

Another major demand is transparency about the institutional framework under which technologies, test facilities, launch complexes and technical know-how developed with public money will be made available to private operators.

The employees argue that they deserve to know what is happening to the organisation they work for. “…Serving employees have an earned right to be informed, consulted and protected. Natural justice and good administration require that policy of this magnitude be explained to the workforce by the Department itself,” the representation says.

‘ISRO built with public funds, public purpose and public workforce’

The employee associations have also stressed that ISRO is not simply a manufacturing organisation. They argue that its ability to design, build, test and launch rockets represents decades of institutional experience.

“ISRO was built as a national scientific institution with public funds, public purpose and a public workforce. Launch-vehicle design, realisation, integration, testing and launch operations are not merely ‘manufacturing contracts’. They are the core competence, institutional memory and strategic capability of the organisation,” the letter says.

The government’s argument for private participation is that India needs a much larger space industry, with private companies contributing investment, technology, manufacturing capacity and new ideas. The employees, however, want to ensure that this expansion does not come at the cost of ISRO’s own capabilities.

They are also worried about the impact on employees. If activities currently performed by ISRO are increasingly handed to private contractors, they fear that some existing employees could become surplus or be moved to other jobs without meaningful work.

What is happening to ISRO scientists?

The debate over the future of ISRO has also coincided with reports that around 120 scientists have resigned or sought voluntary retirement from the organisation in recent months. The departures have triggered concerns about a possible “brain drain”, particularly because ISRO works on highly specialised programmes. The Department of Space has tightened scrutiny of resignations involving scientists working on critical projects.

However, there is another way to look at these departures.

India’s space sector is no longer limited to ISRO. As private companies build launch vehicles, satellites and other space technologies, they need experienced engineers and scientists. Many of these professionals have spent years working inside ISRO and possess exactly the kind of expertise that new space companies require.

The emergence of private space companies therefore means that some scientists leaving ISRO may not be leaving India’s space ecosystem. Instead, they may be moving from one Indian organisation to another.

Skyroot Aerospace is one example of how this transition can work. Two former ISRO scientists left the organisation in 2018 to establish the company. Their move could initially have been seen as ISRO losing experienced talent. But the company has since developed the Vikram series of rockets and emerged as one of India’s leading private space companies.

This illustrates the larger argument behind the government’s reforms. If India wants a genuine private space industry, experienced engineers will have to move between organisations. A growing space sector will naturally create talent competition.

The real question, therefore, is not simply how many scientists remain inside ISRO. It is whether India as a whole is gaining more capability in space.

Meet Barun Biswas: The schoolteacher who became the voice of women when West Bengal’s Sutia turned into a “rape village” under CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s Left govt

Rukma Rathore
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Meet Barun Biswas: The schoolteacher who became the voice of women when West Bengal’s Sutia turned into a “rape village” under CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s Left govt

On 5th September, India celebrates “Teachers Day” to mark the birth anniversary of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. He was the country’s first vice-president, second president, as well as a distinguished philosopher and educator. Teachers are often described as the silent architects of the future. From ancient times to the decades following Independence, generations of teachers have shaped lives, built their communities and even made extraordinary sacrifices in the face of adversity.

Stories of their courage and commitment continue to emerge from different corners of the country. One such episode unfolded in West Bengal, where a schoolteacher found himself at the centre of a struggle against a criminal gang that had terrorised an entire community through rape, murder, extortion and intimidation.

It was in the early 2000s, when the state was under the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, headed by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. An organised gang had created an atmosphere of fear that extended far beyond individual victims in Sutia village of Gaighata Block in North 24 Parganas district close to the India-Bangladesh border. Women were subjected to sexual violence, people were killed, and threats were used to terrorise the locals.

For years, fear kept the area subdued. Speaking out could mean becoming the next target, leaving vulnerable residents with little choice but to endure the brutality around them. The gang was headed by Sushanta Chowdhury, and they used sexual torture as a tool of control. Officially, 33 rapes and 12 murders were recorded but the actual number was much higher. However, the devastated people were too scared to report them.

Any protest against the despicable acts was met with equal cruelty, and the person was subjected to gang rape for weeks on end. Sometimes all women of a family had to endure this savagery irrespective of their age to punish them and serve as a lesson for others. Just half a dozen nearby hamlets were aware of this horrifying tale, while the authorities showed no interest in protecting the people. Unsurprisingly, these criminals were also known to have ties with the CPM leadership and enjoyed the patronage of Left politicians.

The reign of terror and a police force that looked away

Girls were violated in the presence of their parents. “Two of the goons had pinned down my father on the floor. They had thrust a revolver in his mouth, threatening to shoot him if he tried to shout. My mother was held at a dagger’s edge. And in front of their eyes, I was raped by three persons,” a victim shared while recounting the harrowing experience she suffered inside her home at the tender age of 13.

Another woman described how her neighbour, whom she referred to as uncle, had sexually attacked her. She was only 14 years old at the time. He took her to a remote location one evening and forced her to consume alcohol, after which she was raped throughout the night. “I don’t know how many men and how many times. In the morning I was dumped at my place in a semi-conscious condition,” she unveiled.

However, the torment was far from over. A few days later, members of the gang abducted her to an abandoned house in Sukhsadhur Bhiteya, a less populated area of Sutia, where they also raped her, forcing her family to vacate the area.

A woman recalled that her father, who worked for a private company in Kolkata, had been asked Rs 50,000 by the gang commanded by Sushanta Chowdhury and his associate Bireswar Dhali a few days prior to her rape. The family had recently begun constructing a pucca home. The demand was turned down, and the perpetrators threatened with consequences “worse than death.”

She revealed, “My father tried to protect me when the gang pounced on me. But they hit him on the head with a gun. My younger sister, too, was beaten up and dragged out of the house. One of them shoved a pistol barrel into my father’s mouth and forced him and my brother to watch as they took turns raping me. A chill runs down my spine when I remember that night. They laughed and joked. I bore the pain and humiliation because I was afraid they would kill my father or rape my sister also. Mercifully, I fell unconscious after a couple of hours.”

The neighbours locked themselves in their homes, as any attempt to intervene would result in the same outcome for all the women in their family regardless of their age. Her father was also barred from visiting the doctor or going to work by the gang. He remained confined to his home for approximately two months until his injuries healed.

“It was nine years ago when the gang first raided my house. They raped me in front of my husband and son, who was a teenager then. When I resisted, they became furious and threatened to teach me a lesson for daring to speak up,” noted another victim of their atrocious actions.

They returned after a few days to resume the torture as she mentioned, “One of them kept hitting me on my bare thighs with a stick while I was being raped. The pain from those blows keeps returning on and off. The gangrapes continued regularly for a month,” adding that she had become accustomed to the pain.

These were merely a handful of the shocking accounts left behind by countless victims as Sutia descended into a nightmare and acquired the chilling reputation of a “rape village” as the gang seized and oppressed an entire community, effectively creating a parallel system where it dictated terms and turned fear into power.

Law and order completely collapsed, and the police behaved like mute spectators while the criminals tightened their grip over the village. The message was loud and clear: the nefarious elements could act with impunity, while those entrusted with protecting the citizens seemed unwilling and unable to perform their duty.

It was against this backdrop that one schoolteacher decided that silence was no longer an option.

Barun Biswas: The voice that defied fear

Barun Biswas, a schoolteacher and social activist, surfaced as a beacon of hope for the people of Sutia. He, along with a few others, established the “Sutia Pratibad Mancha” in 2002 in his late 20s. It was a forum that intended to seek justice for the victims and protest against the criminals to liberate the area from their suffocating chokehold.

“If we can’t protect our daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, then we shouldn’t be living in a civilised society. If we lack the courage to take on the rapists, we deserve more severe punishment than they do. So come and join us to protect the honour of our women,” the young man urged during his passionate speech. He had entered the battle carrying a copy of Ramakrishna Paramhansa’s writings.

The movement gradually evolved into a mass mobilisation, compelling the gang leader, Sushanta Chowdhury and his aides to surrender. Afterwards, Barun gave him a copy of Ramakrishna’s work and advised, “Jele boshe poris (read it in jail).” However, the dynamic idealist paid a heavy price for his noble efforts as he was shot dead upon exiting the nearby railway station after returning from school on 5th July 2012.

News of his death shattered the hearts of many in Sutia, but perhaps none felt the loss more deeply than the women he had helped rescue and counsel. They mourned the loss of their beloved “Barun Kaku,” a term of affection that reflected the place he had earned in their lives as a protector and a source of courage against the marauding gang of rapists who had once held their village hostage.

Sushanta Chowdhury’s men were apprehended in connection with the murder and admitted that the directive originated from the gang leader at Dum Dum Central Jail. Subhankar Biswas alias Fotke informed the police that his boss summoned him, after which he reached out to contract killers.

They were tasked with eliminating Barun and monitored his activities for several days before ultimately taking his life. In a coordinated operation, the police from Habra, Gaighata and Gopal Nagar arrested five individuals, including Fotke, after the deadly occurrence. A Bengali film titled “Proloy,” inspired by Barun’s life and struggle, was produced in 2013.

Last month, his father Jagadish Biswas named ex-state minister and former leader of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Jyotipriya Mallick, also known as Balu, as one of the persons he suspected of involvement in the murder. The family accused investigating agencies of carrying out a “farce in the name of investigation” and argued that justice had not yet been served.

The aftermath

Sushanta Chowdhury was booked in the Sutia gang rape cases and received life sentences in at least 16 incidents involving extortion, murder and rape. Additionally, he was charged with being involved in Barun’s killing. He was incarcerated at Alipore Central Jail on concurrent life sentences.

The 47-year-old had a near-fatal case of septicaemia and heart problems and was moved to M R Bangur Hospital by jail officials. However, his health worsened, and he was brought to the Calcutta National Medical College Hospital, where he passed away in 2014. He was initially housed at Dum Dum Central Jail before being transferred to Alipore Central Jail when his condition deteriorated.

At least 40 cases of gang rape, murder and extortion were filed against Chowdhury and his four goons, including the equally dreaded Anish Majumdar and Bireswar Dhali, who had considerable political clout. These three members of the infamous “Kargil gang” remained behind bars.

According to other reports, Judge Debiprasad De found Sushanta Chowdhury, Ripon Biswas and Ramesh Majumder guilty of raping 19 women. The three would take pictures of their victims and then blackmail them. Bijoli Mondal was the first woman to submit a formal complaint with the Gaighata police, accusing the three of sexually violating her in a classroom.

Ten of their accomplices also received varied prison sentences. Bablu Poddar and Naresh Majumdar, two fugitives from Nagberia hamlet, were sentenced in absentia.

Local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and volunteer groups had also brought the state women commission’s attention to the matter in September 2001. On 15th August 2002, a team headed by its chairwoman at the time also visited Sutia and spoke with a few victims. The period of terror was eventually put to an end after persisting unabated for at least two years.

Telangana Minister Konda Surekha sacked: How Congress governments sideline women while Rahul Gandhi talks about ‘smashing the patriarchy’

Rukma Rathore
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Telangana Minister Konda Surekha sacked: How Congress governments sideline women while Rahul Gandhi talks about ‘smashing the patriarchy’

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi wants to cultivate the image of a champion of women’s rights and empowerment. The entire Indian National Congress ecosystem, too, has consistently worked to reinforce this makeover, presenting him as a political voice committed to feminism and greater inclusion for women.

However, there is one glaring problem with the carefully manufactured narrative: when the grand old party actually controls the levers of power, women’s representation appears to become an afterthought. It currently holds power in three states, but the party’s commitment has shrunk dramatically in relation to providing a meaningful place to the fairer gender at the table where authority is actually exercised.

Both Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka have no women in their state cabinets, while Telangana has experienced a reduction in its already limited female representation, falling from two ministers to one after the controversial ouster of Konda Surekha. She ultimately paid the price for her political tussle with Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, facing disciplinary action over comments made by her daughter, despite her explanation that she had no involvement in them.

The status of women empowerment under Congress

One woman among nearly 60 ministers across three states. That, in a nutshell, is the truth of the much-hyped women empowerment practised by Congress. For a party so eager to claim the feminist high ground, this is more than an awkward statistic which exposes the disparity between its claims and the reality of its actions.

After all, feminism cannot simply be a branding exercise reserved for election speeches and political attacks. It has to show up in the cabinet room too. However, the record of Congress looks very different from the picture it has been aggressively marketing, especially in the recent weeks. Notably, this is hardly the first time the party has been caught on the wrong side of the very ideals it alleges to endorse.

The contradiction runs deeper than induction in cabinet. Rahul Gandhi and his party, which routinely invoke the rhetoric of “smashing patriarchy” in their political addresses, voted down the Modi government’s delimitation bill linked to the implementation of 33% reservation for women (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam) in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies.

Interestingly, they have been leading the charge to demand this reservation, but when the time came to act, it was revealed that their convenient stand was driven by optics rather than principle. The opposition headed by the Congress first wanted its immediate rollout, only to later accuse the government of rushing the same for political gains.

These parties had already made up their mind not to support the legislation and were instead looking for reasons to justify their position. More tellingly, Congress that assures to keep women’s issues above politics could not support a landmark measure concerning them without viewing it through the narrow prism of political advantage.

It is neither willing to give women a meaningful share of positions of power nor willing to create greater space for their participation in decision-making. Its grandstanding about supporting them is just political jargon directed at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and designed to appeal to its own captive audience rather than serving the wider population.

A shameful spectacle of misogyny

The party’s much-vaunted respect for women was on display at an event in New Delhi, where Rahul Gandhi hugged veteran leader Sandeep Dikshit during the Rachnatmak Congress National Convention in what appeared to be a carefully staged moment for the cameras. However, the political spectacle quickly took an ugly turn when the latter mocked, “Did you hug me thinking I am Meloni,” making a distasteful reference to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her cordial relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Rahul Gandhi, who is the self-styled messiah of women, did not object or call out his party colleague and simply chose to smile gleefully at his disturbing misogyny. The comment was greeted with laughter and applause from the Congress audience. Its national spokesperson Supriya Shrinate was captured laughing at the derogatory jibe directed at a woman.

Her reaction, however, sits uneasily alongside her own controversial record, particularly her statement about actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut, who was contesting the Lok Sabha election from the Mandi constituency in 2024. She had written, “Kya bhav chal raha hai Mandi mein koi batayega (Will someone tell me what the rate system in Mandi is),” alongside Ranaut’s photograph. She had to delete the post and asserted that her account had been used by another person after severe backlash.

Congress functionary HS Ahir had also abused Ranaut by referring to her as “Mandi se R*ndi.” These are the prominent leaders of a party that aspires to portray itself as a leading voice of women’s issues in the country. However, they have no qualms about dragging a woman down in the most insulting manner when it suits their political agenda.

Congress version of women empowerment

The aforementioned shortcomings are not confined to the ministerial choices of Congress, but its internal record also raises equally uncomfortable questions. Several women leaders have walked away after complaining about mistreatment within the organisation.

Radhika Khera resigned after accusing party leaders of harassing and abusing her, outlining that her appeals for justice went unanswered. Priyanka Chaturvedi, who was among the most prominent television faces of Congress, was also forced to quit. She stated that the party’s supposed commitment to women’s safety, dignity and advancement was not matched by the conduct of its members.

Meanwhile, Assam Youth Congress president Angkita Dutta was expelled for daring to charge then Indian Youth Congress (IYC) president Srinivas BV and its national secretary Vardhan Yadav with harassment. On the other hand, a woman leader was similarly targeted in the presence of Lok Sabha MP Deepender Singh Hooda during a rally in Haryana.

“She (the victim) told me that she was harassed on stage. There can be nothing worse or more condemnable than such an act against a woman. Action must be taken,” expressed Congress stalwart and Lok Sabha MP Selja Kumari at the time.

Moreover, Ranjit Mukher, who was accused of harassing a party colleague and exhibiting “predatory behaviour” towards another woman, was reinstated by Congress and appointed secretary for three key states, Tripura, Nagaland and Sikkim in 2021. He had been removed from the party a year earlier amid the controversy, but it seemed that he was soon rewarded by the party for his misconduct.

These incidents unfolded as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was sharpening her attack on the BJP government with her slogan, “Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon” (I am a girl, I can fight), while women seeking justice within her own party were either struggling to make themselves heard or being effectively silenced. Unsurprisingly, the party’s history is replete with such alarming hypocrisy and double standards.

If this disgraceful showcasing of anti-women sentiment was not enough, senior Congress leader Yashomati Thakur blamed the victims of the Amravati sexual abuse case involving Ayan Ahmed Tanveer. He preyed upon hundreds of girls, including minors. The party’s purported pro-women stance, much like its secularism, collapses under the pressure to cater to the Muslim vote bank.

Conclusion

These occurrences barely touch the surface of the barrel. Of course, this is not to suggest that Congress is the only party guilty of misogyny or discrimination against women. However, it has increasingly become a striking example of double-speak, projecting itself as a well-wisher of women while simultaneously curtailing their political space as well as allowing demeaning and sexist treatment of them both within and outside the party.

Wherever Congress has formed a government, women have been pushed to the margins of political power, with authority remaining overwhelmingly in male hands. However, Rahul Gandhi wants the women of India to believe that he is going to “smash patriarchy.” If he is genuinely serious about this promise, why not start with his own party? Ensuring fair representation for women in the council of ministers within Congress governments should be the bare minimum.

The harsh truth is that virtual signalling and fashionable Gen Z rhetoric are far easier than delivering meaningful change where it matters. However, Rahul Gandhi and Congress have repeatedly failed this test. And if one hopes to find feminist slogans and promises of empowerment that rarely travel beyond the podium, the Raebareli MP and his party offer plenty but very little beyond that.

What is the EOS-05 satellite launched by ISRO and why it marks a major milestone for India

Aditi
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What is the EOS-05 satellite launched by ISRO and why it marks a major milestone for India

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is back in swing with the successful launch of India’s first dedicated Earth imaging satellite. After an eight-month hiatus, the Indian space agency made an illuminated comeback by executing the launch of an EOS-05 satellite in the wee hours of Friday.

Prime Minister Modi described the achievement as a proud moment for the country. “Yet another outstanding achievement by ISRO and a proud moment for our nation. The successful launch of GSLV-F17 carrying EOS-05, India’s first-ever imaging satellite from Geosynchronous orbit, is a reflection of the excellence, innovation and growing capabilities that define India’s space sector. The growing partnership between ISRO and Indian industry is adding new strength and scale to our space programme and expanding India’s capabilities across the entire space ecosystem,” PM Modi said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah congratulated the Indian space agency and its scientists for the feat. “India pushes new frontiers in space! Congratulations to @ISRO scientists as GSLV-F17 successfully carried EOS-05 into orbit. India now has its first-ever imaging satellite operating from geosynchronous orbit. Under the leadership of Modi Ji, India is emerging as a self-reliant and ambitious nation, harnessing the power of its industry for its space programs,” Shah wrote on X.

ISRO chief V Narayanan expressed great pleasure over the successful launch. “I am very happy to announce that the GSLV F-17 vehicle has successfully and precisely injected the advanced EOS-05 geo imaging satellite in the intended and required orbit,” Narayanan rejoiced. The ISRO chief said that this was the second launch of the financial year and the first for ISRO. The EOS-05 satellite was the 107th launch from Sriharikota.

Narayanan divulged that six more launches are lined up for the current financial year, including the ISRO-made second-generation navigation satellite, NVS-03. He added that the teams of scientists are also working on the Gaganyaan mission, with the first uncrewed mission under the programme scheduled for launch during this financial year.

‘Naughty Boy’ made its way into the space

The EOS-05 satellite, nicknamed ‘Naughty Boy’, was carried into space by the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F17) on its 19th flight at 2:55 am on Friday. The launch was made from the Second Launch Pad (SLP) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

The satellite, also called Gisat-1A, was placed into the desired Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit at 3.14 am, roughly 18 minutes after its launch. The launch involved three stages: solid, liquid propulsion and cryogenic. The completion of the cryogenic stage was announced by the directors 15 minutes after the launch, filling the launch room with joy and cheers. The achievement is a result of the tiring efforts of the ISRO scientists to give the country its own dedicated advanced Earth imaging satellite, operating from a geosynchronous orbit.

The launch is significant not only for its success but also because it marked several ‘firsts’ for the Indian space endeavours. This was ISRO’s first launch of the year, involving the country’s first dedicated Earth imaging satellite. EOS-05 is a state-of-the-art Earth observation spacecraft and the heaviest satellite ever launched into a geosynchronous orbit in India so far. A 51.7-metre-tall GSLV with a 420.5 tonnes lift-off mass was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, carrying the satellite with an inclination of 19.28 degrees and a payload mass of 2,367 kg.

A long-awaited success

The idea of having an advanced GISAT has been in the plans for years. The journey to the success of the EOS-05 satellite has been painful, cumbersome, and full of failures. The first attempt to launch an advanced geo-imaging satellite was made by ISRO on August 12, 2021, when the space agency launched GISAT-1 (later designated EOS-03) on GSLV-F10. However, the mission failed as the rocket’s cryogenic upper stage did not ignite, and the satellite never reached orbit.

This was followed by two successive failures of EOS-09 launched on PSLV-C61 (May 18, 2025) and EOS-N1 launched on PSLV-C62 (January 12, 2026). Both launches failed after experiencing a technical glitch at the third stage of firing. After this, the ISRO halted the launches, re-examined the vehicle’s cryogenic systems, and rebuilt the satellite as Gisat-1A.

Why India needed the EOS-05

The EOS-05 will keep a close watch on the Indian subcontinent from the sky. It will provide real-time imagery of large-area regions at frequent intervals, which will be useful in activities such as agriculture, disaster management, and the monitoring of cyclones, cloudbursts, and thunderstorms.

What sets EOS-05 apart is its ability to remain stationary with respect to Earth’s movement. The satellite’s orbital period matches the Earth’s rotation, which allows it to retain its position over the same broad region and observe it constantly, without interruption from nearly 36,000 kilometres above the Earth.

This is a significant advantage that EOS-05 has over lower-orbiting Earth observation satellites, which pass over a certain location at intervals, since their orbital period is not in sync with the Earth’s rotation. The majority of Indian remote sensing satellites, including the Cartosat series and RISAT, operate closer to Earth in low Earth orbits, roughly 500 km to 800 km above Earth.

The proximity of these satellites to Earth gives them enhanced resolution but limited operational capability. They get a very brief and fixed window of time to capture a certain point on Earth, that too, once every few days. If a natural disaster takes place in a region from which the satellite has already passed, it would not be able to observe the region in time. This limitation will be removed with the successful placement of the EOS-05 satellite in its orbit.

Swara Bhasker drags Roop Kanwar case into Jauhar debate after calling it ‘cowardly’: A false equivalence to erase the brutality of Islamic invasions of India

Jinit Jain
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Swara Bhasker drags Roop Kanwar case into Jauhar debate after calling it ‘cowardly’: A false equivalence to erase the brutality of Islamic invasions of India

Swara Bhasker appears determined to win an argument against Jauhar by changing the argument itself. Days after describing the portrayal of jauhar in Padmaavat as “cowardice”, Bhasker has now doubled down on her attack on Jauhar by drawing a false equivalence and invoking the tragic 1987 Roop Kanwar case.

In a post responding to critics, she accused those defending the historical context of Jauhar of “chamka-o-ing” their politics and described the practice as “the most gruesome, brutal, painful and grotesque culture sanctioned; society celebrated violence that can happen to a woman.”

The problem is that nobody in this debate is arguing that women in the 21st century should burn themselves alive.

That is a straw man Swara has created to deflect criticism for her remarks on Jauhar at a recent event, where she referred to the act of committing Jauhar as “cowardly” without explaining the context in which the women were forced to make that decision.

The question being raised is considerably more straightforward: why is it intellectually honest to condemn Jauhar without acknowledging the circumstances in which Rajput women historically believed it to be preferable to capture following defeat against invading Islamic armies?

What did the Islamic armies do that Hindu women chose an immensely painful death over living under them?

And that is precisely where Bhasker’s invocation of Roop Kanwar falls apart.

Roop Kanwar was a tragedy. But it was not jauhar.

Roop Kanwar was an 18-year-old woman who died on her husband’s funeral pyre in Deorala, Rajasthan, on September 4, 1987. The incident triggered national outrage and eventually led to the enactment of the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, which specifically sought to prevent sati and its glorification.

There is no need to sanitise what happened to Kanwar. If she was coerced, as accounts and subsequent reporting alleged, then she was the victim of a horrific crime. The fact that people allegedly participated in, facilitated or glorified her death makes the episode even more disturbing.

But what does that have to do with Jauhar?

Very little. And Swara’s ad hominem attack against her critics proves it. It had nothing to do with Jauhar and everything to do with how she could get back at her critics. But as usual, she has, once again, failed.

Nevertheless, Sati and Jauhar are not interchangeable terms. Conflating the two is plain dishonesty.

Sati traditionally referred to the immolation of a widow on her deceased husband’s funeral pyre. Jauhar, in the Rajput historical context, referred to collective self-immolation by women when a fort was facing imminent defeat and capture, particularly in circumstances where the women feared a lifetime of enslavement, sexual violence or forced concubinage after the fall of the fort.

The historical circumstances surrounding both practices can certainly be debated. But pretending that they were the same phenomenon simply because both involved fire is not serious historical analysis.

Bhasker has taken a modern criminal case involving the death of a young widow and placed it beside medieval accounts of women facing the consequences of a defeated fortress.

That is not contextualisation.

It is conflation.

Nobody is asking women today to commit Jauhar

This is perhaps the most important point Bhasker seems unwilling to engage with.

The people criticising her remarks are not campaigning for the revival of Jauhar. They are not asking modern Indian women to kill themselves rather than survive sexual violence. They are not suggesting that a rape survivor has lost her dignity or her right to live.

In fact, the opposite is obvious.

A woman subjected to sexual violence today has every right to live, recover, seek justice and rebuild her life. There is no legitimate argument for suggesting otherwise. In fact, comparing what Rajput women went through and equating them with rape survivors itself deserves closer scrutiny and criticism, for judging a historical atrocity from a modern prism.

But that modern moral principle does not magically erase the historical context in which Jauhar occurred.

The controversy began because Bhasker passed a judgment on women living under radically different circumstances. While speaking about the Padmaavat sequence, she said that if she were a rape survivor, she might feel like a “coward” for not having killed herself to preserve her honour. Her remarks have since been clarified by her, with Bhasker insisting that she did not call Rani Padmavati or the women who performed jauhar “cowards” and that her words had been misrepresented.

That clarification, however, does not resolve the underlying historical question.

The movie didn’t glorify Jauhar. It paid tribute to hundreds, if not thousands, of Hindu women and their determination to endure a painful death rather than be reduced to sexual slaves, concubines of Islamic invaders.

The issue is not whether suicide should be encouraged today.

The issue is why women in a particular historical setting believed death, and that too a painful one undertaken through Jauhar, was preferable to capture.

Those are two entirely different questions.

The uncomfortable historical context Bhasker avoids

Across the history of Islamic conquest, the capture of women was a grim reality. Be it India, Iran, or Afghanistan, the invading Muslim armies treated women of the losing kingdom as war booty. Non-Muslim women were subjected to unspeakable atrocities. They were enlisted in harems, trafficked off to the Middle East in perpetual sexual slavery.

The Islamic conquests were extraordinarily brutal, and defeated populations often faced a fate that is difficult for modern audiences to comprehend. It is precisely this uncomfortable historical context that Swara Bhasker appears to strip away when she reduces Jauhar to an act of “cowardice”.

That context is important.

If women in a besieged Rajput fort believed that defeat would expose them to capture and sexual exploitation, then their decision to enter the fire cannot honestly be analysed as though they were sitting in a modern room with access to a police station, a court, a women’s shelter and a constitutional guarantee of bodily autonomy.

Their world was not ours. It was their agency to choose death, and in the form of Jauhar, to escape a lifetime of atrocities under an Islamic invader.

And that distinction is precisely what Bhasker’s argument fails to confront.

And this is where Roop Kanwar becomes a convenient distraction

The Roop Kanwar case is horrifying precisely because it demonstrates what happens when a society turns a woman’s death into an instrument of custom, coercion, prestige and even economic or political interest.

There is absolutely nothing to defend in such a crime.

But using Kanwar to settle the jauhar debate is like using a modern murder case to explain why soldiers historically chose to die rather than surrender during a war.

The fact that both involve death does not make the circumstances identical.

Kanwar’s case happened in independent India in 1987, under a modern legal system. Indeed, the law specifically criminalised the commission and glorification of sati.

Jauhar belongs to a radically different historical context: siege warfare, Islamic atrocities on a predominantly Hindu India, and the anticipated consequences of military defeat.

The distinction is fundamental.

And yet Bhasker uses the 1987 case to suggest that those defending the historical context of jauhar are somehow defending violence against women.

They are not.

They are saying that historical actors deserve to be understood within their historical circumstances before they are judged through the assumptions of the present.

That is not glorification of Jauhar. It is respecting and acknowledging the circumstances that led to it. It is context.

The double standard in the debate

There is another question Bhasker’s intervention raises.

Why is there such reluctance to discuss the Islamic barbarity that created the conditions in which jauhar became imaginable?

When Padmaavat depicts the women of Chittor choosing death as the fort falls, the conversation frequently becomes an indictment of the women, their society and their concept of honour.

But what about the military conquest by invading Islamic armies that forced women to commit Jauhar? Swara conveniently remains silent on it because the context adds meaning to the sacrifices made by those women and renders her argument weak.

One can disagree with the film’s artistic treatment.

But calling the women who made such a choice “cowardly”, or then issuing a convoluted clarification saying the words weren’t meant for the women but what she would have felt if she had committed the same act, or creating the impression that their decision can be evaluated without examining the circumstances surrounding it, is something else altogether.

It strips the act of its historical meaning and context.

That is particularly important when dealing with practices as horrific and complicated as sati and jauhar.

Modern India has rightly outlawed sati. It has rightly criminalised its glorification. No woman should ever be coerced into such an act.

But acknowledging that does not require pretending that jauhar and sati were identical. Nor does it require pretending that medieval women made decisions in circumstances remotely comparable to those available to women today.

Swara is free to criticise Padmaavat. But she is not free to criticise choices made by women 600 to 700 years ago in the face of a lifetime of sexual slavery and torture, after stripping away the context in which those choices were made. Any assessment of history to determine what forced Hindu women to commit Jauhar would instantly attract cries of ‘Islamophobia’ by the same set of people who are passionately criticising Jauhar and insulting those who committed it.

She is free to argue that modern cinema should be careful not to romanticise self-immolation.

But if she wants to enter a debate about history, she cannot selectively remove historical circumstances and context around it.

The tragedy of Roop Kanwar should be remembered as a warning against coercion and the glorification of a woman’s death.

The women who performed jauhar should be understood in the context of the Islamic brutality of the times, the treatment of women as war booty, and the mass conversion violence that followed after the conquest.

These two truths can coexist.

What cannot withstand scrutiny is the attempt to use one tragedy to erase the context of another.

And that is ultimately what makes Bhasker’s latest intervention so disingenuous: she argues against a position nobody is actually taking, while avoiding the historical question her critics are raising.

Why does Kenya want Tata Chemicals gone? Inside the escalating row over a 100-year-old soda ash business

Jinit Jain
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Why does Kenya want Tata Chemicals gone? Inside the escalating row over a 100-year-old soda ash business

Kenyan President William Ruto has effectively told Tata Chemicals that its long innings in Kenya is over.

During a visit to Kajiado County on Thursday, Ruto said he had ordered the Indian company to stop its operations in the country, accusing it of failing to deliver meaningful benefits to Kenya despite having operated around Lake Magadi for decades.

And Ruto was not exactly subtle about his frustration.

“That TATA company … had that contract for 100 years. They have not built anything in Kajiado, they have not built any factory in Kajiado,” he said, questioning whether Kenya should remain dependent on foreign companies to exploit its natural resources.

“Are we slaves to other people?” Ruto asked.

The remarks mark a dramatic escalation in what had initially appeared to be a regulatory dispute between Nairobi and Tata Chemicals. The Kenyan government had already suspended mining operations at Tata Chemicals Magadi in July. Ruto is now talking about replacing the Indian company altogether.

So, what exactly has gone wrong?

The dispute is not simply about Tata leaving Kenya

At the heart of the controversy is Tata Chemicals Magadi Limited (TCML), which operates the Magadi soda ash business in Kajiado County.

Tata Chemicals acquired the Magadi operation in 2005. But the business itself dates back much further: commercial operations at Lake Magadi began in 1911.

The facility extracts trona, a naturally occurring mineral found around Lake Magadi, and processes it into soda ash, or sodium carbonate.

That may sound like an obscure industrial chemical, but soda ash is hardly insignificant. It is used extensively in glass manufacturing, detergents, chemicals and water treatment.

Tata Chemicals says its Kenyan operation exports more than 350,000 tonnes of soda ash every year to markets in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa.

This is therefore not a case of a small foreign company quietly running an inconsequential facility in Kenya.

It is an established industrial operation with a century-long history.

And that is precisely where the Kenyan government’s frustration appears to begin.

Kenya wants value addition, not just minerals leaving the country

Ruto’s criticism goes beyond the immediate question of whether Tata Chemicals complied with individual regulations.

His central complaint is about value addition.

In simple terms, Kenya does not want to merely extract a natural resource, process it to some extent and export it. Nairobi wants more of the economic activity associated with that resource to happen inside Kenya.

That means factories, jobs, skills, local suppliers and downstream industries.

Ruto specifically said Kenya would bring in two companies to replace Tata’s operations—one to establish a large glass manufacturing business in Kajiado and another to manufacture chemicals locally.

That reveals the broader economic thinking behind the confrontation.

Kenya has soda ash. Soda ash is an important raw material for glass. So why, Nairobi appears to be asking, should Kenya stop at producing and exporting soda ash instead of building a domestic glass industry around it?

The government wants to move further up the value chain.

And it believes Tata’s decades-long presence has not delivered enough of that transformation.

Then came the July crackdown

The immediate trigger for the current crisis came on July 28.

Kenya’s Mining Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho ordered Tata Chemicals Magadi to suspend all mining operations.

The government cited a long list of unresolved issues.

These included questions surrounding royalty reconciliation and payments, export reporting, mineral beneficiation and value addition, community development agreements, employment and skills transfer for Kenyan citizens, procurement from local suppliers and environmental compliance.

In other words, Nairobi’s complaint was not limited to one alleged violation.

The government raised questions across almost the entire chain connecting Tata’s mining operation to the Kenyan economy: what the company pays, what it exports, how much it processes locally, what it gives back to the community, whom it employs, whom it buys from and how it complies with environmental rules.

The suspension also disrupted soda ash exports from the facility.

The Kenyan government maintained that it had been engaging with Tata Chemicals for years over its statutory obligations and demanded documentation demonstrating compliance and addressing outstanding liabilities.

Tata Chemicals, however, disputes that characterisation.

Tata says: We are compliant

Tata Chemicals has taken a notably conciliatory position publicly.

The company says its Kenyan subsidiary submitted the information, reports and documentation requested by Kenya’s Ministry of Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs.

It maintains that it is compliant with the applicable regulatory requirements and is waiting for the Kenyan government to review its submissions.

The company has also said it respects the authority of the Kenyan government and remains committed to resolving the outstanding issues through legal and regulatory channels.

So there are effectively two competing narratives.

Kenya says: A foreign company has operated around a valuable natural resource for decades without generating enough local industrial development and has outstanding regulatory and statutory issues.

Tata says: It has provided the information demanded by the government, complied with applicable regulations and remains willing to engage with Nairobi to resolve the dispute.

The disagreement is now moving beyond a regulatory spat into a much larger question over who gets to control and benefit from Kenya’s natural resources.

But has Tata really contributed nothing?

This is where the Kenyan president’s claim becomes contested.

Tata Chemicals strongly rejects the suggestion that its presence has failed to benefit Kenya.

According to the company, around 500 employees and their families, along with contractors, suppliers, transporters and local businesses, depend directly or indirectly on the economic activity generated by its operations.

The company has also said around 30,000 people in the Magadi community directly benefit from its support for water, healthcare, education, infrastructure and community development.

That does not necessarily settle the government’s argument about value addition.

A company can provide employment, community services and export revenues while a government can simultaneously argue that it should be doing substantially more to build downstream industries.

That appears to be the fundamental fault line.

Kenya is not merely asking whether Tata has generated some economic activity.

It is asking whether the economic model surrounding Lake Magadi is ambitious enough for Kenya.

There is also a legal battle in the background

The confrontation has already spilled into Kenya’s courts.

Tata Chemicals challenged the July suspension, but Kenya’s High Court declined to lift it. The government argued that Tata had been given earlier notices concerning its obligations and also contended that the company did not have a current mining licence because its application was still being processed.

A Kenya Gazette notice recorded Tata Chemicals Magadi’s application for a mining licence covering approximately 63.5 square kilometres in Kajiado County for soda ash.

There is also a separate history of friction between Tata and Kajiado County.

In 2025, Kenya’s Court of Appeal ruled in Tata Chemicals’ favour in a dispute involving land rates demanded by the county government, holding that the demand was arbitrary and illegal and that the company was not obliged to pay the claimed arrears in the absence of an open and accountable mechanism for determining the rates.

The present dispute, however, is considerably broader.

What happens now?

Ruto has moved the goalposts.

This is no longer simply a case of “fix the compliance issues and restart operations.”

The Kenyan president has publicly spoken about bringing in two new companies to replace Tata Chemicals and creating glass and chemical manufacturing capacity in Kajiado.

For Tata, that could turn a regulatory dispute into a major commercial and legal confrontation.

For Kenya, it is an attempt to rewrite the economics of one of its oldest mineral industries.

But there is an obvious complication: replacing an established industrial operator is easier said than done.

Tata says hundreds of employees and a wider ecosystem of contractors, suppliers, transporters and local businesses depend on Magadi. The company also says tens of thousands of people benefit from its community programmes.

At the same time, some Magadi residents have welcomed the suspension and raised their own concerns about employment, community participation and the benefits flowing to local people.

That leaves Kenya facing a difficult balancing act.

If Tata is indeed failing to deliver the level of local value addition Nairobi expects, then demanding more from a multinational company is hardly unusual. But if Kenya wants to replace an established operator with companies that will build glass and chemical manufacturing capacity, it will have to demonstrate that the promised industrialisation is more than political rhetoric.

For now, Tata Chemicals says it is waiting for the Kenyan government’s review of its submissions and remains committed to resolving the dispute through legal and regulatory channels.

Ruto, meanwhile, appears to have already reached a much more dramatic conclusion.

The question is no longer simply what Tata Chemicals owes Kenya.

It is whether Kenya believes it can get a better economic deal from someone else.

Estonia’s €70 million ammunition scandal: How a Ukraine arms deal involving an Indian-owned company ended with the Defence Minister’s resignation

Jinit Jain
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Estonia’s €70 million ammunition scandal: How a Ukraine arms deal involving an Indian-owned company ended with the Defence Minister’s resignation

Estonia, one of Europe’s most vocal supporters of Ukraine, is now grappling with an embarrassing question: how did a government end up paying tens of millions of euros upfront for artillery ammunition to companies that had never previously sold a single artillery shell?

The fallout has already reached the top.

Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur announced his resignation on September 2, saying he was accepting political responsibility for problems in the country’s defence sector. His resignation came after the National Audit Office raised serious concerns about defence spending and procurement, including the functioning of the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI), the agency responsible for military procurement.

At the heart of the controversy is a 2024 procurement agreement for artillery ammunition intended for Ukraine. Estonia ultimately paid about €70 million in advance, with the money coming through the EU’s European Peace Facility (EPF). The intended supplier was Datasel S.R.L., an Italy-registered company acquired by India’s Neco Defence Munitions in March 2024. According to reports, neither the companies nor their relevant operations had a previous record of selling artillery shells.

What followed was a procurement nightmare involving delayed deliveries, disputed quality, terminated contracts, arbitration, and now a ministerial resignation.

The €70 million ammunition deal

The story begins in 2024, when Estonia was attempting to secure artillery ammunition for Ukraine at a time when Kyiv was desperately seeking more shells for its war against Russia.

The Estonian Centre for Defence Investments signed multiple contracts with Datasel. The first agreement in August 2024 was accompanied by an advance payment of approximately €15 million. A further €10 million was reportedly paid in October. Additional contracts followed, eventually taking the advance payments to roughly €70 million.

The urgency was understandable. Ukraine’s artillery ammunition requirements were enormous, while European countries were under pressure to increase military assistance.

But urgency appears to have come with a price: risk.

Estonian officials acknowledged that the procurement involved greater-than-usual risks because of the need to get ammunition to Ukraine quickly.

The companies involved, however, had never previously sold artillery shells.

That is the detail that has turned an ordinary procurement dispute into a political scandal.

Where did the €70 million go?

The simple answer is: it has not simply vanished, but a huge chunk of the money is stuck in a legal dispute.

Estonia says ammunition deliveries were delayed and that inspections subsequently found problems with the material supplied.

The Estonian side terminated the contracts and took the matter to arbitration. Estonian media have reported that between €60 million and €70 million in advance payments are caught up in the dispute. Tallinn is also working with the European Commission on how the money can be recovered.

The National Audit Office has warned of an even more uncomfortable possibility: Estonia could ultimately have to cover around €70 million from its own state budget if the money cannot be recovered.

In other words, money intended to facilitate military support for Ukraine could end up becoming a liability for Estonia itself.

And that is where the political embarrassment becomes much larger than a delayed arms shipment.

The ammunition itself is disputed

Estonia’s version is that the material supplied did not meet the required standards.

Estonia’s current Defence Ministry leadership has described shipments as incomplete or unsuitable. According to ERR, an artillery round requires components including a fuse, propellant charge and primer; Estonian officials said the shipment they rejected lacked essential components.

But Datasel has rejected Estonia’s account.

In a statement reported by Euractiv, the company described itself as the victim of the dispute. Datasel said it had supplied and invoiced approximately €58 million worth of material against about €59 million in advance payments and disputed the claim that quality problems had been established by the relevant inspections.

The company also blamed delays in approvals, authorisations and documentation involving multiple countries and regulatory authorities. It said Estonia later refused to accept some material that was ready for delivery or already in production before terminating the contracts.

Therefore, calling this a proven “€70 million fraud” would go beyond what has been established.

The facts currently point to a deeply troubled procurement contract, a substantial amount of money tied up in litigation/arbitration and competing claims over deliveries and quality.

The legal dispute remains unresolved.

Why is an Indian company involved?

This is where the controversy has acquired an Indian angle.

Datasel S.R.L. is registered in Italy but was acquired by Neco Defence Munitions, an Indian company, in March 2024. Estonia subsequently contracted Datasel to supply artillery ammunition.

The important caveat is that the controversy does not establish that Neco Defence Munitions committed fraud.

Nor does the resignation of Estonia’s defence minister amount to a finding of criminal wrongdoing by the Indian-owned company.

Datasel has expressly rejected Estonia’s allegations and maintains that the contract was disrupted by factors including regulatory approvals and Estonia’s refusal to accept certain material. The dispute is now being fought through arbitration.

So the striking question is not simply, “How did an Indian company scam Estonia?”

It is more accurately:

Why did Estonia choose a supplier with no established track record of selling artillery shells for a wartime procurement worth tens of millions of euros, and why were such large sums paid upfront?

That is the procurement question now hanging over Tallinn.

The minister says: I did not negotiate the contract

Pevkur has attempted to distinguish between political responsibility and operational responsibility.

He said the defence minister does not personally negotiate individual procurement contracts or scrutinise every piece of ammunition being purchased.

But that defence did not prevent him from accepting political responsibility.

“A leader must have the courage to take responsibility,” Pevkur said while announcing his resignation. He argued that although the minister does not conduct individual contract negotiations, the National Audit Office’s findings concerning the defence forces and ECDI raised a question of political responsibility.

Pevkur had served as defence minister since July 2022.

He also maintained that Estonia had made the right strategic choices in strengthening its defence capabilities and argued that continued support for Ukraine remained vital to Estonia’s own security.

But politically, the argument was difficult to sustain.

The National Audit Office had already raised concerns about Estonia’s defence-sector financial management and procurement. A criminal investigation into issues surrounding defence-sector finances has also been opened following the audit findings. (euronews)

The ammunition controversy therefore arrived at precisely the wrong time.

Why was Estonia using EU money?

There is another important layer to the story.

The ammunition procurement was linked to the European Peace Facility, the EU mechanism used to support military assistance and strengthen the defence capabilities of partner countries, including Ukraine.

The EU has increasingly channelled the extraordinary revenues generated from immobilised Russian sovereign assets towards Ukraine. In July 2024, the European Commission announced that €1.4 billion of the first €1.5 billion tranche of such revenues would go through the European Peace Facility for military equipment, including artillery ammunition. (Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood)

So this was not simply Estonia spending €70 million of its own money on a failed procurement.

The transaction was part of a much broader European effort to get weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

That makes the procurement failure particularly awkward.

The EU was attempting to use Russian-linked windfall revenues to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Instead, a substantial amount of the money involved in one procurement has become entangled in a dispute between a European government and an Indian-owned ammunition company.

The bigger problem: wartime urgency versus procurement safeguards

The episode exposes a dilemma that goes well beyond Estonia.

Ukraine needs ammunition immediately. European governments want to replenish their own stocks while simultaneously supplying Kyiv. Defence manufacturers are under pressure to increase production. And governments have to make procurement decisions much faster than they ordinarily would.

But defence procurement is precisely where haste can become expensive.

Estonia appears to have accepted greater procurement risk because of the urgency surrounding Ukraine’s ammunition requirements. The question now is whether the safeguards were strong enough to prevent that risk from turning into a potential €70 million liability.

The fact that the supplier had no established track record in selling artillery shells makes the question even more uncomfortable.

A government can take a calculated risk on an untested supplier.

But when the bet involves tens of millions of euros in advance payments—and the product is ammunition required for an active war—the consequences of getting that calculation wrong are considerably greater.

What happens now?

Pevkur’s resignation does not resolve the dispute.

Estonia is pursuing arbitration and seeking to recover the money. The European Commission is also in contact with Tallinn over the fate of the funds. Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said there are safeguards and recovery procedures designed to ensure EU taxpayers’ money is properly spent, while declining to give details about the ongoing discussions.

The criminal investigation and the National Audit Office’s findings will also keep the spotlight on Estonia’s defence procurement system.

For Estonia, the episode is an uncomfortable lesson in the risks of wartime procurement.

For the European Union, it raises questions about how quickly billions in support can be deployed without compromising financial safeguards.

For Ukraine, it highlights the practical problem behind Europe’s promises of ammunition: getting shells from a government ledger to an artillery unit is considerably more complicated than announcing another aid package.

And for India, the controversy has drawn attention to an Indian-owned defence manufacturer, but it is important not to confuse an unresolved contractual dispute with a proven fraud case.

The most damaging fact for Estonia is already beyond dispute: around €70 million was paid upfront in an ammunition procurement that subsequently unravelled, and the country’s defence minister has now stepped down, taking political responsibility for the wider failures in the defence sector.

The ammunition may still become part of a legal accounting between Estonia and Datasel.

But politically, the bill has already arrived.

Double deflation, base year, GVA and others: Demystifying India’s 7.8% GDP growth

Raju Das
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Double deflation, base year, GVA and others: Demystifying India’s 7.8% GDP growth

Beating global economic uncertainties due to ongoing geopolitical issues, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 7.8% in the first quarter (April to June) of the financial year 2026-27. PM Modi called the exemplary growth a herculean feat, saying that “the collective strength of our people ensured India delivered such growth despite oil price shocks and supply chain issues in the midst of global uncertainties.”

However, the 7.8% figure also became the subject of intense political and economic debate. Usual suspects, including critics and opposition leaders, questioned the credibility of these numbers, pointing to downward revisions in previous data and certain statistical anomalies—like how manufacturing inflation seemed to fall while everyone knows costs are rising.

To put an end to the confusion, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released a detailed set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) explaining the complex mathematics behind the numbers. If you have been reading the news and feeling lost in a sea of financial jargon like “double deflation,” “base year revision,” and “implicit deflators,” this article is for you. We will break down exactly what the government said, explain the technical terms in plain Indian English, and unravel why the 7.8% GDP growth is calculated the way it is.

What the numbers say

According to the government estimates, real GDP, or GDP at Constant Prices, is estimated at ₹81.36 lakh crore in Q1 FY 2026-27.  It recorded 7.8% rise, compared with 6.9% growth in Q1 FY 2025-26. On the other hand, nominal GDP, or GDP at Current Prices, is estimated at ₹88.27 lakh crore, registering 10.3% rise, compared with 8.1% last year.

Real Gross Value Added (GVA) for the same period has been estimated at ₹73.82 lakh crore, recording 8.2% growth. The Nominal GVA is estimated at ₹80.53 lakh crore, recording 11.5% growth.

In the first quarter of FY 2026-27, manufacturing recorded 9.2% growth in terms of GVA, supported by strong output across key segments. Capital goods production also increased by 15.2%. The secondary sector expanded by 8.6% in Q1 2026-27, compared with 6.1% in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The tertiary sector grew by 10.0% in Q1 2026-27, up from 8.0% in Q1 2025-26. Within the sector, financial, real estate, IT and professional services recorded 12.1% growth.

The new estimates also revised the real GDP growth for the previous 3 years. Accordingly, the GDP grew by 7.3% in 2023-24, by 7.2% in 2024-25, and by 7.7% in the FY 2025-26. Each of these numbers represent upward revision by 0.1%. The annual revised estimates reflect the use of new price and production indices with base year 2022-23. This includes the Output Producer Price Index (PPI) and Banking Services Price Index (BkSPI). Updated administrative data from different sources were also incorporated, the govt said.

Understanding the Basics: A Guide to Economic Terms

Before diving into the controversies and the government’s defence, we must first understand the basic building blocks of economic measurement.

What is GDP?

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is simply the total monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within India’s borders in a specific time period, like a quarter of a year. Imagine India as one giant factory. Everything this factory produces, from the cars manufactured in Chennai to the IT services delivered from Bengaluru, and the wheat grown in Punjab to tea grown in Assam, everything adds up to form the GDP.

What is GVA

While GDP measures the final value paid by the consumer (which includes taxes), GVA (Gross Value Added) looks at the economy from the producer’s side. GVA is the value of output minus the value of intermediate consumption, which is the raw materials used to make the product.

For example, if a baker buys flour, sugar, and butter for ₹50 and sells a cake for ₹150, the GVA is ₹100. It measures the actual “value added” by the baker’s physical and intellectual effort.

Nominal vs. Real GDP

This is where many people get confused, and it sits at the heart of the recent debate.

  • Nominal GDP calculates the value of goods and services using current prices, the prices at the exact time they were produced.
  • Real GDP calculates the value of goods and services using the prices of a fixed base year. This removes the illusion of growth caused merely by rising prices, which is inflation.

For example, a farmer sells 100 apples in 2025 at ₹10 each. The revenue is ₹1,000. In 2026, he sells the exact same 100 apples, but because of inflation, the price is now ₹15. His revenue is ₹1,500. A nominal calculation says the business grew by 50%. But a real calculation, using 2025 as the fixed base year price, says he still only sold 100 apples, so the GDP will remain ₹1,000. Therefore, the real growth will be 0%. Real GDP reflects the actual increase in physical production, which is a truer measure of a country’s economic health.

What is a Base Year

A base year is a reference point used to compare economic performance over time. Because the economy constantly evolves—new industries emerge, consumer habits change, and old technologies die—the base year must be updated periodically so that the yardstick remains relevant. India recently updated its GDP base year from 2011-12 to 2022-23.

What is a Deflator

A deflator is the mathematical tool used to strip out the effect of inflation from Nominal GDP to arrive at Real GDP. It essentially “deflates” the inflated current prices back to the base year’s reality.

The controversy of the revised base year and past GDP figures

The Allegation: Was last year’s GDP “shrunk” on purpose?

One of the loudest criticisms raised by the opposition was regarding a downward revision of last year’s GDP numbers. Initially, the GDP for the first quarter of last year (2025-26) was reported as ₹86.05 lakh crore under the old 2011-12 base year. However, in the recent reports, this baseline figure was shown as ₹80.00 lakh crore.

Critics, including a former finance secretary, argued that the government purposely shrank last year’s GDP figure by ₹6 lakh crore so that the current year’s figure of ₹88.27 lakh crore would look like a massive jump, thereby ‘artificially manufacturing’ a 7.8% growth narrative.

The Congress also picked up the claim to attack the government. In a post on X, the party alleged that the Modi government had “fudged GDP figures” and claimed that, without the alleged manipulation, real GDP growth would have been only 2.6%.

But this comparison is misleading because the 2.6% figure being circulated is not an alternative calculation of India’s real GDP growth. It comes from comparing figures from two different GDP series.

The government’s clarification: Comparing apples to apples

The Centre issued FAQs amid opposition’s questions over 7.8% GDP growth, emphatically denying the allegation of manipulating numbers. The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation explained that this revision was not a deliberate manipulation but a necessary mathematical adjustment resulting from the shift to the new 2022-23 base year.

When the base year changes, the baseline prices used to value the entire economy change. Furthermore, the new calculation series incorporated vastly improved data sources, such as the new Output Producer Price Index (PPI) and the Banking Services Price Index. Because of this updated methodology, the actual measured size of the economy in Q1 2025-26 under the new framework was recalculated to ₹80.32 lakh crore, which was later finalised to ₹80.00 lakh crore as more accurate indicator data rolled in.

The government stressed that one simply cannot compare ₹86.05 lakh crore calculated with 2011 prices and old methodologies against ₹88.27 lakh crore calculated with 2022 prices and new methodologies. To measure true growth, 2025-26 figures must be recalculated using the new methods so that it can be properly compared with the 2026-27 numbers. When compared fairly under the exact same methodological umbrella, the real GDP growth stands robustly at 7.8%.

The Puzzle of the Manufacturing Sector

How Can Inflation be Negative When Prices are Rising?

Perhaps the most complex point of debate was the manufacturing sector. In the latest numbers, the manufacturing sector recorded a negative inflation rate in its GVA implicit deflator of “-1.5%”.

To the average person, this sounds absurd. If the cost of raw materials like steel, plastic, and energy is going up, and the price of finished goods like cars, appliances, and clothes is also going up, how can the government claim that manufacturing inflation is negative? Critics quickly pointed to this as proof that the data was flawed.

What is “Double Deflation”?

To answer this, the government explained a concept called “Double Deflation”. It sounds intimidating, but let us break it down.

In the past, statisticians would calculate the inflation of the final output and simply assume that the raw materials experienced the exact same rate of inflation. As a result, they used a single deflator. However, in reality, input prices and output prices often move at completely different speeds.

Double deflation is a more advanced, highly accurate method recommended globally by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under this method, output (finished goods) and inputs (raw materials) are deflated separately using their respective price indexes.

Here is exactly how the “-1.5%” deflator happened:

During the April-June 2026 quarter, the prices of inputs (what factories buy) rose much faster than the prices of outputs (what factories sell). Imagine a scenario where the cost of raw cotton shoots up by 15%, but a textile factory can only increase the price of a finished shirt by 5% because of market conditions.

Because the input costs rose so aggressively, the nominal GVA (the unadjusted profit margin, essentially) grew slower—at 7.7%—than the real GVA (the physical volume of value added), which grew at 9.2%.  The resulting difference between nominal and real GVA growth produced a negative implicit GVA deflator of 1.5%.  Mathematically, when Real Growth outpaces Nominal Growth, the formula gives a negative deflator.

Thus, a -1.5% deflator does not mean manufacturing prices dropped; it merely reflects the harsh reality that input prices squeezed the producers far more than output prices rose. The government noted that this trend was heavily seen in sectors like basic metals, rubber, plastics, and textiles.

Importantly, a negative GVA deflator does not mechanically imply lower real growth. It also does not imply that manufacturing output prices declined. It reflects the relative movement of output and input prices in the double-deflation framework. Real GVA growth depends on the relative movements in real output and real intermediate consumption.

Reconciling the 2.5% Implied GDP Inflation Rate with CPI and WPI

When the government announced an implied GDP inflation rate, called the GDP deflator, of just 2.5%, many observers were left scratching their heads. How could this be accurate when everyday retail inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was at 3.9%, and wholesale inflation measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) had crossed a massive 9%?

To understand this, we must look at exactly what these three inflation metrics measure, as they cover entirely different parts of the economy.

Understanding CPI, WPI and GDP Deflator

  • Consumer Price Index (CPI): This is the inflation everyone feels every day. It tracks a very specific “basket” of items that common households buy, such as food, clothing, housing, and transport. If the price of vegetables or retail milk spikes, the CPI goes up.
  • Wholesale Price Index (WPI): This tracks the prices that businesses and factories pay for bulk goods and raw materials before they reach the retail consumer. It is heavily influenced by global commodity prices, fuel, and manufactured goods. Importantly, WPI completely ignores the “services” sector like IT, banking, and education.
  • Implied GDP Inflation Rate (GDP Deflator): This is the ultimate, all-encompassing measure of inflation for the entire country. Unlike CPI or WPI, it does not just look at household groceries or factory raw materials. The government clarified that the GDP deflator covers the broader economy, which includes personal consumption, corporate investments, government spending like building infrastructure, exports, and the massive services sector.

Why the numbers do not need to match

Because the GDP deflator covers a much wider footprint of the economy, including massive areas completely untouched by CPI and WPI, the government has explicitly stated that the implied GDP inflation rate “need not move in line with either CPI or WPI”.

For instance, while WPI was pushed over 9% due to a sharp rise in specific raw materials such as crude petroleum and metal ores, these industrial inputs only make up a fraction of the total economy. At the same time, large segments of the economy, like broad services, long-term capital investments, and government expenditure, may not have experienced that same severe price jump.

When the average inflation across the entire GDP pie is calculated, the severe spikes in wholesale goods are diluted by the relative stability in other sectors, resulting in the broader 2.5% implied GDP inflation rate.

In simple terms: The 2.5% figure is a blended average for the whole country’s total output, while the 3.9% CPI is specific to the household shopping basket, and the 9% WPI is specific to factory inputs. Because they are measuring three entirely different things, it is mathematically normal for the numbers to be different.

Why double deflation doesn’t affect household budget

The adoption of the “double deflation” method caused some critics to worry if it artificially altered household consumption figures, known technically as Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE). If factory math is changing, does that mean the government is changing how they calculate our spending?

The government has firmly stated: No. Double deflation is strictly a production-side tool used exclusively to calculate industry GVA. It applies to factories and businesses to accurately measure the value they add. When the government calculates how much households are spending (PFCE), they use completely different, consumer-centric data sets. As PFCE is a measure of final demand (expenditure on goods and services for final use), it has no intermediate consumption to subtract, like in case of industries. Therefore, the mathematical anomalies seen in the manufacturing sector’s inputs and outputs have zero artificial impact on how household consumption is recorded and presented in the final GDP figures.

At the quarterly level, PFCE is estimated at a detailed item/item-group level. For various goods such as food and manufactured products, constant-price estimates are compiled first using appropriate volume indicators, and current-price estimates are subsequently derived using relevant Consumer Price Indices. For several services items under PFCE, such as education, health, restaurants and accommodation services, current-price estimates are compiled using relevant output indicators and the corresponding constant-price estimates are derived using appropriate price indices.

Therefore, double deflation is relevant to the estimation of production-side GVA and is not a method used directly for estimating PFCE.

Why agriculture and mining showed different trends

Another question after the GDP numbers were announced was: if manufacturing showed a negative deflator, why did other sectors behave differently?

The positive inflation in agriculture

For the agricultural sector, the GVA implicit deflator showed a positive inflation rate of 3.9%. The government explained in its detailed FAQ releases that agriculture is calculated using a completely different methodology than manufacturing.

Agricultural Real GVA is first calculated based on physical production estimates, how many tonnes of wheat, rice, pulses etc., were actually harvested. Once the physical volume is known, it is multiplied by the relevant Producer Price Index (PPI) to get the current Nominal GVA. In Q1 2026-27, the output PPI for agriculture, forestry, and fishing rose by roughly 5%. Because agricultural nominal GVA is tied directly to these final output prices, its implied inflation stayed in positive territory at 3.9%.

Gap between nominal GVA and real GVA estimates of mining sector

Critics also pointed out discrepancies in the mining sector, citing a large gap between nominal and real estimates. But the government has clarified that this is the result of high Inflation based on PPI in the sector.

The nominal estimates are derived by applying the relevant Producer Price Indices (PPI) to the corresponding real estimates for different mineral groups. The PPI data for Q1 2026-27 indicate significant price increases in the Mining & Quarrying sector. In particular, prices of Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas increased by 69.5% in April, 72.2% in May and 33.7% in June, while Mining of Metal Ores recorded inflation of 27.6%, 25.2% and 23.5%, respectively. The nominal GVA growth of the Mining & Quarrying sector accordingly stood at 22.3% in Q1 2026-27.

On the other hand, the real GVA growth for Mining & Quarrying was -2.4% during Q1 2026-27. This perfectly aligns with the high-frequency Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data, which showed negative growth in April (-3.8%) and May (-1.4%), dragging down the overall quarterly average despite a slight recovery (1.6%) in June. The data was consistent across different government tracking tools, leaving no room for statistical discrepancy.

Therefore, the substantial difference between real and nominal GVA growth is primarily a result of the strong increase in mineral prices, particularly crude petroleum and natural gas and metal ores. In simple terms, the difference is the result of a sharp increase in prices and a slight decrease in production volume.

Conclusion: Trusting the process

The debate surrounding the 7.8% GDP growth rate for Q1 2026-27 is a perfect example of how complex economics can become tangled with political narratives. To a layperson, seeing past data revised downward or seeing a negative inflation figure for a sector where costs are rising can understandably look highly suspicious.

However, as the detailed FAQs issued by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation illustrate, these numbers are not the result of random manipulation or a desire to artificially inflate current growth. They are the outcome of adopting more rigorous, globally accepted statistical standards. Updating the base year to 2022-23 and implementing the double deflation method brings India’s statistical tracking in line with recommendations from international bodies like the IMF.

While it may require a bit of patience to look past the dense jargon, understanding these concepts is vital for every citizen. The revision of past data was an apples-to-apples normalisation process, not a deliberate downgrade. The peculiar manufacturing numbers merely showed that businesses faced severe input cost pressures that outpaced their ability to raise final prices.

Ultimately, robust methodologies ensure that policymakers, businesses, and everyday citizens have the truest possible picture of the Indian economy. The extensive breakdown provided by the government confirms that the 7.8% real GDP growth is built on solid, transparent statistical foundations.

Konda Surekha vs Revanth Reddy: How a row over her daughter’s remarks escalated into a Cabinet crisis

Rukma Rathore
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Konda Surekha vs Revanth Reddy: How a row over her daughter’s remarks escalated into a Cabinet crisis

On 3rd September (Thursday), Konda Surekha, who was serving as the Forest and Environment as well as Endowments minister in the Telangana government, has been dropped by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, ending a weeks-long disciplinary row. Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla has been requested to approve the recommendation to remove her from the state cabinet.

The action was proposed by the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) disciplinary committee. The dispute was sparked by comments made against Revanth Reddy and his family by Konda Sushmitha Patel, Surekha’s daughter. Now, the decision has revealed escalating tensions within the party in the state. Interestingly, there is already a political tussle between Revanth Reddy and Surekha.

“Discipline is paramount within the Congress party as the party’s prestige hinges on discipline of its rank and file. Disciplinary action must be taken so that the party comes to power again,” mentioned Lok Sabha MP and disciplinary committee chairman Mallu Ravi.

The controversy rocks Telangana Congress

The conflict began in August, when Sushmitha made heated remarks about Revanth Reddy at a public function. The Parkal Assembly constituency is at the heart of the issue. Revanth Reddy publicly supported current MLA Revuri Prakash Reddy during a recent event there and asked voters to support him once more in the upcoming election.

However, Sushmitha questioned, “Who is Revanth to decide my ticket?” She dared Prakash Reddy to step down and run against her in a by-election. She also declared that she is going to run from the constituency as an independent candidate if she is denied a ticket by the party.

Moreover, she accused Revanth Reddy of favouring his family members in commercial operations. He was confronted for selling prime land for substantially less than its value to a shell firm connected to his brother. Afterwards, several Telangana Congress leaders demanded action against Sushmitha and Surekha in response to her remarks, which triggered a significant backlash inside the party.

The controversy soon intensified, moving from the state Congress unit to the central leadership. Surekha’s failure to openly disassociate herself from her daughter’s comments further increased the political pressure. However, she insisted that the latter’s opinions were personal and she shouldn’t be held accountable for them.

“Expecting another person to take political responsibility or demanding an explanation for someone’s opinions merely due to family relations is improper,” she submitted as an explanation before the TPCC Disciplinary Committee.

In addition to defending her political record, Surekha cited her and her husband Konda Murali’s social and political status, emphasising that they are members of two backward communities that together make up a sizable portion of Telangana’s population.

Surekha insisted that she had not been charged with corruption and pressed the party to let her stay in the cabinet. She even asserted that she was being targeted by some members of Congress and the demand for her expulsion from the cabinet was the result of a conspiracy.

A series of political meetings

On the other hand, more than 20 Congress MLAs and MLCs, as well as a few ministers, sought strict punishment against Surekha and Sushmitha. Hence, Surekha hurried to Bengaluru to meet Indian National Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and argued that she was being unfairly singled out during the meeting. She insisted that she had not personally spoken anything negative about Revanth Reddy or the party.

According to sources, Kharge clarified that unilateral statements about running from a specific constituency and public criticism of the chief minister were against party discipline. He brought up the fact that the party’s central leadership chose the candidates for the election. She also met with the Telangana in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan to clarify her stand.

Surekha’s refusal to resign in the face of mounting scrutiny worsened the situation. She reportedly told the senior leaders to take disciplinary action against her, challenging that Revanth Reddy should also endure the same consequences.

On 2nd September, she rushed to Delhi and met with Kharge again as the party’s top brass discussed her future. Senior Congress officials, including All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and Lok Sabha MP KC Venugopal, Revanth Reddy, Telangana deputy chief minister Bhatti Vikramarka, TPCC chief B Mahesh Kumar Goud and other state leaders deliberated concerning the disciplinary matter.

Revanth Reddy also met with KC Venugopal in the national capital and demanded strict measures against Surekha. However, some others pointed to her political influence and popularity among some of the state’s backward communities and advised the high command to proceed with caution.

The TPCC disciplinary committee eventually stated that Surekha should be ousted from the cabinet, and Revanth Reddy took action.

Surekha denies sacking, Sushmitha curses Revanth Reddy

“I have not received this as of now. No signature, no letter pad, only white paper. I think it’s not correct. I was not given any intimation. I replied to the show-cause notice also and clarified my point. Nobody contacted me from the party,” Surekha contended while talking to CNN-News18, after the development. “Letterhead is not signed. This is not correct,” she insisted, ed raising doubts on the validity of the communication.

“They first had to contact me and take my version. They have removed me without taking my version. After getting official confirmation, I will decide the further course of action,” she conveyed. “I have no sorrow over losing my ministerial post. We have the support of the people. Nobody can do anything to us. A ministerial post is only an ornament for us. Losing it does not cause us any loss. Ministers and MLAs are not happy. What happened to me today will happen to you tomorrow. Nothing is getting done in this government,” she shared with the reporters.

“My statement was personal and not against any party. I just spoke against one person in my personal capacity,” Sushmitha also stressed in a conversation with the media house. She expressed, “Injustice is done to my mother. I am deeply hurt that she has been treated like this.” Sushmitha announced that she would always stand by Surekha, remarking, “My mother will not be silenced. I curse Revanth Reddy,” daring him to contest from her seat.

Meanwhile, senior Congressman G Chinna Reddy’s appointment as vice-chairman of the Telangana Planning Board was also revoked by the government due to comments about Wanaparthy MLA T Megha Reddy. He stated that the latter was handed a party ticket after being lured with money.

Furthermore, Revanth Reddy appointed Gadwal Vijayalakshmi as vice-chair of the Telangana Planning Board, Nerella Sharada as chair of the Telangana State Commission for Women and former Rajya Sabha MP G Sudha Rani as chair of the Kakatiya Urban Development Authority as part of an overhaul of important positions.

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