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Nobody killed Vishal Kumar: Read what reasons the court gave to acquit all 20 accused in ABVP activist murder case in 2012

Anurag
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Nobody killed Vishal Kumar: Read what reasons the court gave to acquit all 20 accused in ABVP activist murder case in 2012

On 30th December, the Additional Sessions Court in Mavelikkara acquitted all 20 adult accused in the 2012 murder of ABVP activist Vishal Kumar. The court stated that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The verdict was delivered by Judge P P Pooja. OpIndia accessed the copy of the judgment in the matter.

While the verdict did not dispute that Vishal was murdered, it concluded that the State could not legally establish who did it, or how a large group could be fastened with collective liability for the crime. The prosecution said that it would challenge the verdict in the High Court.

The judgment came as a second injury for the victim’s family, not because courts are expected to convict without proof, but because the reasons cited for the acquittal exposed a deeper institutional failure. The judgment pointed out that the investigation that began the day Vishal was killed could not preserve the basics, a reliable first version, prompt procedure, credible identification, clean recoveries, and consistent witness testimony.

The system allowed gaps and contradictions to grow so large that a murder in a busy campus setting ended in a legal conclusion that no one could be punished. It left behind an uncomfortable headline that almost wrote itself, a young ABVP activist was stabbed to death, and 13 years later, nobody killed him.

The campus murder of July 2012

Vishal was only 19 years old when the incident happened. He was a first year BSc student at NSS College, Konni, and an ABVP activist from Chengannur. On the morning of 16th July, he was at Christian College to welcome freshers as part of ABVP activities. The prosecution’s case was that Campus Front members arrived at the college, abused the ABVP group, got into an altercation, and it spiralled into a violent attack with a knife and other objects. Vishal, who tried to alleviate the situation, was stabbed. Two other ABVP members, Vishnuprasad and Sreejith, were also injured.

Vishal was rushed to the government hospital in Chengannur and was then shifted to Kottayam Medical College Hospital. He succumbed to his injuries in the early hours of the next day. This was not a crime that happened in a private space or in isolation. It took place in a politically charged campus atmosphere, outside the college gate, where hundreds of students were present.

This detail mattered because the judgment repeatedly returned to the central theme that in a situation like this, the prosecution must either produce strong independent corroboration, or it must present an unimpeachable, consistent account from its key witnesses. The court stated that nothing of this sort was present in the prosecution’s arguments.

Who were the accused, and why this case carried a wider political shadow

The 20 individuals who were acquitted by the court were described as members of Campus Front of India (CFI), which was the student wing of the Popular Front of India (PFI). PFI was banned by the Government of India in September 2022. One more accused was a juvenile at the time of the offence. His case was separated for proceedings before the Juvenile Justice Board in Alappuzha.

The list of acquitted accused, as reported at the time of the verdict, included Ashiq, Shafeeq, Ansar Faisal, Shafeeq, Asif Muhammad, Nasim, Sanuj, Althaj, Shameer Rawther, Safeer, Afsal, Abdul Wahab, Shibin Habeeb, Shahjahan Maulavi, Nawaz Sherif, Shameer, Sajeev, and Saleem.

They faced serious charges including murder, unlawful assembly armed with deadly weapons, rioting, wrongful confinement, and allied provisions, along with conspiracy. Some of them were also booked for harbouring the accused. The defence position was that the case had been inflated to rope in many, and that only one person stabbed the victim while the others were made to stand trial on a broad political narrative.

In substance, the court’s verdict leaned towards a similar conclusion, not necessarily by accepting every defence claim, but by finding that the prosecution could not meet the strict threshold required for conviction.

This is where the victim centric lens matters. Even if courts must acquit when evidence does not cross the legal threshold, the question that remains is why the evidence did not cross it. The judgment pointed to avoidable gaps, and those gaps, in turn, pointed to avoidable failures by the police and prosecution.

A thirteen year journey, and the cost of delay

The case was first investigated by the local police, later handed to the Crime Branch, and a chargesheet was filed against 20 individuals including the juvenile. During the trial, the prosecution examined 55 witnesses and produced 205 documents, and the case was handled over time by multiple officers.

Long timelines corrode cases in predictable ways. Memories fade, witnesses turn hostile, and early investigative omissions become impossible to cure later. But the troubling part in this matter was that key weaknesses were not merely the product of time. Some were present from the first hours and days, the handling of the first information, the lack of proper identification procedures, and the way search and seizure material was documented and presented.

The judgment must be studied as a manual on how reasonable doubt grows, not because the crime is unclear, but because the case construction was not disciplined enough to survive cross examination.

The court’s first major finding, the first version itself was suspect

One of the most damaging parts of the judgment for the prosecution was the court’s conclusion that the first information and related documents appeared to have been antitimed, and possibly even antedated.

In its judgment, the court noted that the prosecution’s claim that recording of the first information began at 11.45 am could not be relied on. Furthermore, the court said that there was merit in the defence contention that the first information and the connected document were antitimed. The court also noted that the endorsement showed the documents reached the court office only at 10.45 am on 17th July 2012, the day after the incident, and recorded that there was merit in the defence contention that the documents were antitimed and may have been antedated as well.

This was not a minor technicality. In criminal trials, a prompt and reliable first version anchors the narrative. When the first version becomes doubtful, the entire prosecution story begins to look like a product of later stitching, particularly when later testimonies add names, roles, and motive details that were missing at the start.

The court went further and pointed out that even claims about when information was received at the police station, and how that was recorded, did not inspire confidence. When a court places the first version under suspicion, every later improvement becomes easier to dismiss as embellishment.

The court’s second major finding, the prosecution ‘suppressed the genesis’ and presented a ‘one sided story’

A key portion of the judgment addressed the context of the clash and the presence of other student groups at the spot. The court stated that the prosecution suppressed the genesis of the crime and projected a one sided version of the ABVP members, creating doubt regarding the entire prosecution story.

This line was particularly significant because it was not merely about a witness contradicting himself. It was a judicial finding that the prosecution narrative was incomplete in its portrayal of what led to the incident, who all were present, and how the confrontation unfolded.

In a politically charged campus environment, courts look for neutrality and corroboration. If multiple groups were present, the court expects either independent witnesses, or at least a credible attempt to capture and present the wider scene. The court’s criticism suggested that the investigation and prosecution did not sufficiently grapple with this basic expectation.

Eyewitness testimony, when ‘injured witness’ was not enough

The prosecution relied heavily on the injured eyewitnesses, Vishal’s companions who were themselves wounded in the incident. Ordinarily, injured witnesses carry weight because they are presumed to have been present and to have little reason to falsely implicate random people while sparing real attackers.

But courts still test credibility, consistency, and procedure. Here, the judgment repeatedly noted omissions in early statements, later improvements, and contradictions, especially on whether several accused were already known to the witnesses.

The court observed that if certain accused were known to the primary witness as later claimed, he should have stated that fact in the first information itself, and the absence of those details created doubt about their identity, their presence, and their complicity. The court also noted that claims about several accused being known previously did not find place in the first version, and the later expansion created doubt.

This was where the tragedy of delay and poor documentation merged. If a witness truly knew several accused, the case needed to capture that clarity immediately. If he did not know them, then the investigation needed a proper identification procedure.

The prosecution appeared to have ended up in the worst of both worlds, claiming familiarity later without recording it early, and failing to properly identify unknown accused through robust legal procedure.

The fatal procedural gap, no reliable test identification parade

One of the most repeated themes in the judgment was the weakness of identification evidence. The court noted that identification not preceded by a Test Identification Parade could not be safely relied on in the facts and circumstances of the case, especially when improvements from prior statements made a witness unreliable.

For at least one accused, the judgment noted that he was not identified by any witness through a test identification parade. The court also noted that the prosecution had no case that several accused were identified by the witness through a test identification parade or otherwise.

This was not a small lapse. When accused persons are not previously known, test identification is a basic step, not a luxury. It preserves the evidentiary value of recognition before memories fade and before witnesses are exposed to photographs, media reports, or informal police cues. When that step is skipped, dock identification years later becomes vulnerable to the argument that the witness was merely pointing to the person he knew was the accused, not the person he genuinely remembered.

In a mass assault case where the prosecution wants the court to apply unlawful assembly and common object principles, identification becomes even more critical. If individuals cannot be firmly placed at the scene with credible identification, the entire architecture of group liability collapses.

Motive and later improvements, the ‘love jihad’ claim that did not exist at the beginning

The prosecution side suggested that Vishal faced hostility because he had opposed “love jihad” activity and that this contributed to motive. The judgment, however, highlighted that such a claim did not appear in the earliest statements, and it recorded admissions by witnesses that they had not given statements to that effect at the initial stage.

When motive is introduced late, courts treat it with caution. Motive is not always necessary when there is direct evidence, but when direct evidence becomes shaky, motive becomes the glue that holds the narrative. If the glue itself looks like a late addition, it weakens the structure further.

The larger point was not about whether that motive was true or false in the real world. It was about case building. If the State wanted motive to matter, it needed to record it early, corroborate it, and present it consistently. The court found that did not happen.

Search and seizure, when a missing witness and late documentation became reasonable doubt

The judgment also flagged significant issues in the way searches and seizures were handled, particularly around a search in the house of the accused described as the alleged stabber. The court noted that the officer who conducted the search in the house of that accused was neither cited nor examined before the court. It also noted that while the search memo showed the search proceedings, the search memo reached the court only on 25 July 2012, even though the search was stated to have occurred on 17 July 2012.

A search memo reaching the court late, coupled with failure to examine the searching officer, is a gift to the defence in any serious trial. It invites the argument that the recovery is tainted, that documentation was created later, or that the chain of custody is uncertain. Courts do not need to declare evidence fabricated to still find that the manner of proof is unreliable.

Forensics did not rescue the case, and the judgment said so

Where eyewitness testimony becomes contested, forensic corroboration can often rescue the prosecution. Here, the judgment indicated that it did not.

The court noted, for instance, that a material object contained blood insufficient to ascertain origin and group. It also noted that certain clothing items contained human blood but the group could not be ascertained, and it added that these circumstances alone were insufficient to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

This is again a familiar pattern in failed prosecutions. Forensic results that do not conclusively link the weapon or clothing to the victim, or do not establish blood group match, do not provide the kind of hard corroboration that courts prefer when other parts of the narrative are under doubt.

This does not mean forensics disproved the prosecution. It means it could not strengthen it enough to cross the criminal standard of proof.

Conspiracy and harbouring, the add on charges that could not stand without a strong core

Once the court found the core murder case unproven beyond reasonable doubt, the add on charges, conspiracy and harbouring, had little chance of surviving unless independently established. The judgment indicated that the prosecution could not convincingly prove that particular accused sheltered offenders as claimed, or that a conspiracy was established in a manner the law requires.

This was not merely a technical outcome. It revealed how the prosecution appeared to have built a wide net, but without reinforcing the foundation that would allow the net to hold.

In politically sensitive cases, the temptation is often to charge broadly, to show seriousness, to bring in common object and conspiracy, and to present the incident as an organised attack. The risk is that if identification and procedural proof are not airtight, the breadth becomes a weakness. Every additional accused becomes another point of doubt, another gap to exploit, and another reason for the court to hesitate.

What comes next

The prosecution has said it intends to appeal. The High Court will examine whether the trial court’s view was a plausible view of the evidence, whether key evidence was misread, whether legal principles were wrongly applied, and whether an acquittal can be overturned. Appeals against acquittals are possible, but they are not easy, because appellate courts are cautious about reversing a finding of reasonable doubt unless there is a clear error.

Meanwhile, the human truth remains unchanged. Vishal Kumar was 19. He died from a stab injury after an attack outside a college gate. He did not return home. His family has lived with a thirteen year wait that ended in a verdict that offers no closure.

If the system wants to avoid more such verdicts, it must learn from what this judgment flags, not by attacking the court for applying the law, but by forcing accountability on investigation and prosecution for failing to do what the law requires from the beginning.

Because when the first information is doubted, identification is not secured, witnesses improve, key officers are not examined, and forensics do not corroborate, the courtroom outcome becomes almost prewritten. The accused walk free, the victim is buried again, and the public is left with a brutal line that should never become normal in a civilised society.

Nobody killed Vishal Kumar, not because the crime did not happen, but because the State could not prove who did it.

You can read the judgment here.

Trouble in Arabia: Traditional oil kingdom allies Saudi Arabia and UAE come face to face in Mukalla port of Yemen. Read what caused this

Shraddha Pandey
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Trouble in Arabia: Traditional oil kingdom allies Saudi Arabia and UAE come face to face in Mukalla port of Yemen. Read what caused this

Tensions boiled in the Middle East after the Saudi Arabia-led coalition force conducted an airstrike on military vehicles and cargo at the port of Mukalla in the Hadramout Al-Mahra in Yemen. The Saudis claimed that the UAE sent the shipment, and it contained weapons for separatist forces, in violation of UN resolutions. The Saudis alleged that the UAE’s military support to separatist forces in Yemen threatens regional stability.

Why did Saudi forces strike the UAE shipment they claimed was sent for separatists in Yemen?

What triggered Saudi Arabia to carry out the bombing was the United Arab Emirates’s backing of the Yemeni separatist forces, particularly the Southern Transitional Council. The STC extended open support to the UAE’s presence in Yemen.

In early December, the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist group which seeks southern Yemen’s independence again, launched a swift military offensive. The STC captured important areas in the oil-rich Hadramout (also spelt Hadramaut), and then moved into the neighbouring Al-Mahra province.

Interestingly, the STC captured these areas without much fighting as most Saudi-backed government forces and local outfits either withdrew or posed almost no resistance. In a matter of days, the UAE-backed STC took control of major cities, oil fields, export facilities, and ports that used to be under the official Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council government’s control.

This was a historically significant episode, as before 1990, when Yemen united, there was a southern state called the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. By seizing control of major provinces in the southern Yemen, the STC essentially controls almost all the land that was once officially part of the southern state of Yemen, including the oil-rich areas and key ports.

The STC and UAE pulled off a massive power move to manufacture facts on the ground for a future independent southern Yemen. However, this move did not sit well with Saudi Arabia, which wants Yemen to remain united under one government, of course, a pro-Saudi one.

Consequently, the Saudi forces launched an airstrike on Tuesday targeting the alleged UAE weapons shipment destined for the STC. The Saudi airstrikes marked the first direct attack against UAE-linked assets in a restive Yemen. Saudi Arabia declared the UAE’s actions in Yemen as “extremely dangerous”. Riyadh accused Abu Dhabi of backing the activities of Yemeni separatist groups that could divide Yemen further.

The episode stoked apprehensions that the long-simmering Saudi-UAE rivalry will escalate into open friction.

Saudi Arabia accuses ‘brotherly’ UAE of pressuring STC to conduct military operations in Hadramout and Al-Mahra near Saudi borders

In a statement issued on 30th December, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs echoed the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council’s claim that the UAE sent ships carrying weapons and armoured vehicles from the port of Al-Fujairah to the port of Al-Mukalla, “without obtaining official approvals of the Coalition Joint Forces Command.”

Saudi Arabia called the STC’s takeover of Hadramout and Al-Mahra a “threat to the Kingdom’s national security, and the security and stability of the Republic of Yemen and the region.”

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expresses its disappointment by the actions taken by the brotherly United Arab Emirates, pressuring the Southern Transitional Council’s forces to conduct military operations on the southern borders of the Kingdom in the governorates of Hadramout and Al-Mahara, which is considered a threat to the Kingdom’s national security, and the security and stability of the Republic of Yemen and the region,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said.

“The steps taken by the UAE are considered highly dangerous, inconsistent with the principles upon which the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen was established, and do not serve the coalition’s purpose of achieving security and stability for Yemen.

In this context, the Kingdom stresses that any threat to its national security is a red line, and the Kingdom will not hesitate to take all necessary steps and measures to confront and neutralize any such threat,” it added.

UAE denies sending weapons to the separatist group in Yemen

After Saudi Arabia remarked that it views the UAE’s arming of the STC as “a red line for its national security”, the UAE’s Foreign Ministry claimed that it is not a part of any regional effort to undermine Saudi Arabia.

The UAE categorically rejected the claims of the Coalition Forces that the UAE is fuelling conflict in Yemen. Abu Dhabi claimed that the shipment attacked by the Saudi forces did not include weapons, adding that the vehicles were not for the use of any Yemeni party but for UAE forces active in Yemen. The UAE also expressed surprise over the Saudi airstrike.

“With regard to the statement issued by the military spokesperson of the Coalition Forces concerning the military operation at the Port of Mukalla, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms its categorical rejection of claims alleging the fueling of the Yemeni conflict, noting that the referenced statement was issued without consultation with the Coalition member states,” the UAE foreign ministry said.

“The Ministry confirms that the shipment concerned did not include any weapons, and that the vehicles unloaded were not intended for any Yemeni party, but were shipped for use by UAE forces operating in Yemen. The Ministry stresses that the allegations circulating in this regard do not reflect the nature or purpose of the shipment, and underscores that there was high-level coordination regarding these vehicles between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, along with an agreement that the vehicles would not leave the port. Nevertheless, the UAE was surprised by the targeting of the vehicles at the Port of Mukalla,” it added.

UAE announces voluntary troop withdrawal from Yemen: Abu Dhabi prioritising peace, or is it a tactical retreat?

While Yemen’s UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council declared open support to the UAE amidst escalating tensions on Tuesday, the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the UAE forces, asking them to withdraw all military and fiscal support to separatist Yemeni factions.

After calling for “restraint and wisdom” and disputing Saudi Arabia’s allegations, the UAE suddenly announced that it will withdraw its remaining troops in Yemen. However, it remains unclear if the UAE-backed separatist factions will relinquish control over the territories they recently captured.

The UAE’s fast bend in the face of rising tensions comes across more as a tactical retreat to avoid direct confrontation with a large and powerful former ally, Saudi Arabia, than a complete discontinuation of support for separatist groups in Yemen.

Not to forget, the UAE has significantly reduced its direct military presence in Yemen since 2019, only to shift to proxies like the STC. The UAE has invested in Southern Yemen’s infrastructure, and Abu Dhabi knows that any broader conflict can disrupt its trade and energy projects there. However, the UAE’s announced troop withdrawal does not essentially mean a full disengagement.

The future course of action

On the face of it, the things between the UAE and Saudi Arabia seem to be cooling down, given the former’s announcement of voluntary troop withdrawal from Yemen. However, the rift will not end that easily, and this UAE-Saudi rift may weaken the anti-Houthi front, allowing the Iran-backed outfit, which now controls western Yemen, to consolidate gains.

Furthermore, if the dispute fails to reach a diplomatic resolution, it could lead to an economic fallout, which could bring volatility in the oil markets, given that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are decision-making players in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Saudi Arabia’s accusation that the UAE is attempting to undermine its security could stir up tensions in the Gulf Cooperation Council relations as well, leading to broader implications. Pakistan, which has been dependent on both KSA and UAE for financial aid and defence partnerships, could face a dilemma if Saudi-UAE friction refuses to ease.

The prolonged civil war in Yemen has killed over 3 lakh people, and the local populace grapples with famine. If a fresh UAE-Saudi conflict, be it directly or via proxies, escalates, the already wounded Yemen will bleed further.

After this episode, it is expected that Yemen will witness a power realignment, with Saudi Arabia trying to consolidate control over the anti-Houthi camp, and pushing for a unified state, while the UAE will intensify indirect influence in southern Yemen. It remains to be seen whether the fragile UN-led peace talks will yield peace, or Yemen’s fragmentation, power tussle and bloodbath will continue.

Old enmity, attack on a Hindu family and stone-pelting: FIR filed against a mob including Shah Rukh — what happened in Kalana village of Sanand?

OpIndia Staff
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Old enmity, attack on a Hindu family and stone-pelting: FIR filed against a mob including Shah Rukh — what happened in Kalana village of Sanand?

There has been an atmosphere of tension in Kalana village of Sanand taluka in Ahmedabad for the past two days. The situation deteriorated after some history-sheeters from the Muslim community allegedly attacked a Hindu family due to an old rivalry, eventually leading to stone-pelting. Some videos related to the incident have also gone viral on social media, showing stones being hurled. Following the incident, the police registered FIRs based on complaints from both sides. Police and CRPF teams have been deployed in the village.

OpIndia has accessed a copy of the FIR. Based on a complaint registered at the Sanand GIDC police station on 29 December, an FIR was filed against 22 Muslim individuals, including Shah Rukh Khan, Moin Khan, and Liaqat. The FIR was lodged on the complaint of a 17-year-old minor from Kalana village.

What does the complaint say?

According to the complaint, about a year ago there was a minor altercation between members of the Hindu Thakor community and some members of the Muslim community in the village. After prolonged tension over the issue, community elders from both sides had arrived at a compromise around a month ago.

As per the complaint, on the day of the incident, the minor complainant was sitting on the outskirts of the village with a friend when Shah Rukh Khan arrived and began arguing. When Shah Rukh started abusing him verbally, the minor took out his mobile phone and began recording a video. Enraged by this, Shah Rukh allegedly snatched the phone from the minor’s hand, slapped him, and threatened to kill him before leaving the spot.

After returning home, the minor narrated the entire incident to his family members. Some of his relatives and other villagers then went to speak to Shah Rukh to resolve the matter. However, it is alleged that Shah Rukh’s family members, including some women, abused them instead.

The complaint further alleges that Shah Rukh, along with around 20–25 Muslim individuals armed with sticks and batons, then attacked the Hindu family. The mob later resorted to stone-pelting and vandalism. Elderly members and women of the Thakor family sustained injuries and were subsequently shifted to a hospital for treatment.

FIR registered against the accused

After the police arrived, the situation was brought under control. Based on the complaint, the Sanand GIDC police station registered a case against Shah Rukh and others under Sections 115(2), 352, 351(3), 189(2), 191(2), 190, 194(2), 324(2), and 125(a) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and further investigation was initiated.

Meanwhile, a Muslim woman from the other side has also filed a complaint alleging assault by some members of the Thakor community, and the police are taking action in that case as well.

The entire incident occurred on the night of Monday (29 December). On Tuesday, both groups again came face to face, leading to fresh stone-pelting. Subsequently, a large police contingent reached the village and carried out combing operations. Fearing arrest, the accused reportedly fled their homes and hid in nearby fields, from where they were tracked and arrested using drones. It is learnt that the police have arrested 42 people in connection with the case.

Considering the situation, police and CRPF units have been deployed in the village. At present, the situation in Kalana village remains peaceful.

A generational reset with roots: Why the rise of Nitin Nabin marks a quiet BJP–RSS reconciliation

Dr. Prosenjit Nath
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A generational reset with roots: Why the rise of Nitin Nabin marks a quiet BJP–RSS reconciliation

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to appoint 45-year-old Nitin Nabin as its national working president on December 14, 2025, is far more than a routine organisational reshuffle. It is a landmark moment that encapsulates a delicate yet profound renewal in the BJP’s evolving relationship with its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). At a time when Indian politics is marked by coalition compulsions, generational churn, and ideological contestation, Nabin’s elevation signals a strategic pause and reset rooted in continuity rather than confrontation.

There is symbolism in abundance. Born in 1980, the same year the BJP itself was founded, Nitin Nabin represents a political generation that has grown alongside the party’s ideological maturation. At an age when many leaders are still negotiating state-level relevance, Nabin arrives at the national stage with a rare blend of youth, administrative credibility, organisational depth, and ideological grounding. Crucially, he does so without having been “Delhi-fied” a distinction that the RSS has historically valued, and one that has often placed it at odds with the BJP’s central leadership.

Nabin’s political journey began under tragic circumstances. Following the untimely death of his father, a respected BJP leader who twice won from Patna West during the politically hostile era of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s dominance, Nabin entered electoral politics in 2006 through a by-election. Critics initially dismissed his victory as a sympathy-driven mandate. Yet nearly two decades later, as a five-term MLA from Bankipur and Bihar’s Road Construction Minister, Nabin has decisively outgrown that label. His sustained connection with constituents, emphasis on accessibility, and focus on delivery over rhetoric have earned him cross-party respect.

In Nitish Kumar’s often-fluid alliance governments, Nabin stood out as a dependable and non-controversial performer. His stewardship of Bihar’s road infrastructure aimed at shrinking travel time between Patna and remote districts to mere hours, mirrored Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national infrastructure vision. Roads, after all, are not merely concrete; they are instruments of economic integration, social mobility, and state capacity. That even persistent critics such as Prashant Kishor refrained from targeting Nabin on corruption underscores his clean image in a political environment not known for generosity.

Equally significant is Nabin’s organisational résumé. As head of the BJP’s youth wing in Bihar, and later as election in-charge in states like Chhattisgarh and Sikkim, he demonstrated an ability to mobilise cadres, manage internal dynamics, and convert ideological clarity into electoral outcomes. These experiences have shaped him into a rare hybrid: an administrator who understands organisation, and an organiser who respects governance.

It is here that historical parallels emerge most notably with the 2009 elevation of Nitin Gadkari as BJP president. That move, driven by the RSS after consecutive electoral setbacks, was an explicit attempt to break the dominance of Delhi-centric leadership and inject the organisation with ideologically grounded, non-metropolitan energy. Gadkari, then an outsider to Lutyens’ Delhi, brought innovation: digital mobilisation, diaspora outreach, and structured think-tank engagement. Many of these are now staples of the BJP’s formidable electoral machinery.

Yet Gadkari’s tenure was abruptly truncated amid allegations related to his private business ventures, controversies the RSS believed were amplified to sabotage its organisational reboot experiment. The subsequent reversion to familiar Delhi faces reinforced the perception that genuine decentralisation and generational renewal faced internal resistance.

The post-2024 Lok Sabha scenario offered a similar moment of introspection. While the BJP retained power, it fell short of its more ambitious targets and entered a phase of coalition dependence. Ground-level feedback from cadres and Sangh functionaries alike pointed to the need for grooming younger leaders steeped in ideological ethos, capable of sustaining the movement beyond immediate electoral cycles. Nitin Nabin fits this blueprint almost perfectly.

What distinguishes his appointment, however, is the absence of overt friction. Unlike 2009, this does not appear as an RSS imposition but as a consensual evolution within the Modi-Shah framework. For a leadership known for centralised control, accommodating Nabin reflects pragmatic adaptation. He is not an ideological novice being parachuted in, nor an organisational rebel. He has delivered within the existing strategic architecture, while also embodying the renewal many seek.

The RSS, for its part, has long maintained the formal separation between itself and the BJP mentor versus political instrument. Yet it has always excelled at long-term planning, preferring subtle cultivation over public confrontation. By backing a leader unexposed to what many in Nagpur view as Delhi’s “foul political air,” the Sangh advances its vision quietly: “I will not impose, but develop through you.”

Shared long-term perspectives make this truce sustainable. Prime Minister Modi’s intense engagement with Bihar, evident in repeated visits and development commitments, aligns with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s personal familiarity with the state, where he served as prant pracharak. Bhagwat likely observed Nabin’s early ideological grooming, lending the appointment an additional layer of trust and continuity.

Geography, too, matters. As the first BJP working president from eastern India, Nabin’s rise signals a deliberate eastward thrust. With Bihar as the anchor, the party aims to consolidate gains and push deeper into challenging regions such as West Bengal, Odisha, and the Northeast. The objective is clear: replicate the ideological and organisational hegemony achieved in western India by blending development narratives with cultural self-assertion. Nabin’s Kayastha background adds a layer of social nuance without overshadowing the broader Hindutva agenda.

Ultimately, Nitin Nabin’s ascent represents a mature phase in the BJP-RSS relationship, one that balances ideological steadfastness with electoral pragmatism. In an era defined by coalition arithmetic, ambitious visions like Viksit Bharat, and an increasingly competitive political landscape, this appointment strengthens the party’s organisational spine. By entrusting a young yet seasoned leader with the task of organisational surgery, cutting inefficiencies while reinforcing core strengths, the BJP signals its intent to think not just in terms of the next election, but the next few decades.

In that sense, this is not merely a promotion. It is a statement: resilience lies not in abandoning roots for realism, but in reconciling the two with confidence and clarity.

The year without verdicts, Kashi, Mathura, Madurai and beyond: How courts put India’s religious disputes on pause in 2025

Dhruv Mishra
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The year without verdicts, Kashi, Mathura, Madurai and beyond: How courts put India’s religious disputes on pause in 2025

In 2025, religious conflicts once again took the front stage in India’s judicial system. From temple-mosque conflicts to questions of the administration and state intervention, courts across the country were repeatedly called upon to adjudicate matters where faith, law, history, and public order intersected. However, the year saw very few definitive results despite ongoing judicial involvement. Instead, most high-profile disputes were steered into a holding pattern through interim stays, status quo orders, court-appointed committees, and procedural pauses. Rather than delivering conclusive rulings, courts prioritised stability, restraint, and prevention of unrest, effectively postponing resolution.

The year 2025 emerged as one defined not by judicial closure but by judicial caution, as evidenced by the Gyanvapi complex in Varanasi, the Krishna Janmabhoomi dispute in Mathura, Madurai’s Karthigai Deepam row, and the Bhojshala controversy in Madhya Pradesh. These cases reveal a consistent pattern of the management of religious disputes through interim control rather than constitutional finality.

This article examines how and why these cases remained unresolved, where each dispute stood at the end of 2025, and what this prolonged judicial limbo signals for the future of religious litigation in India.

A year of interim orders, not judgments 

In 2025, the commonality among religious disputes was the consistent reliance on interim mechanisms rather than final adjudication. Rather than settling questions of title, worship rights, or historical claims, courts repeatedly chose to pause proceedings through temporary legal tools.

Courts have granted temporary stays to halt surveys, inspections, or construction-related actions across cases. Status quo orders became the preferred instrument, freezing ground realities and preventing either side from gaining an advantage. In some cases, like the Banke Bihari Temple dispute, courts appointed committees to manage day-to-day affairs, effectively deferring substantive decisions. Elsewhere, administrative pauses were imposed to prevent escalation while appeals were heard.

One of the key factors of this type of judicial approach was the fear of violence and breakdown of public order. Many of these disputes carry the potential to trigger communal tensions, making the courts wary of making rulings that might exacerbate a situation beyond the bounds of the law. Moreover, these disputes were highly politically sensitive. Any final decision on disputes between temples and mosques, or between religious administrations, risks political mobilisation, public demonstrations, and charges of judicial overreach.

Courts seemed aware that they were operating in a politically sensitive atmosphere. At last, judges were walking a constitutional tightrope. Questions involving the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, religious freedom, secularism, and historical claims present complex constitutional dilemmas. Courts choose to exercise caution rather than create irrevocable precedents or open legal floodgates.

Where each case stood at the end of 2025

Despite consistent judicial attention throughout the year, no significant religious disputes have reached substantive closure in 2025. But each case remained suspended at different procedural stages largely due to interim judicial interventions.


Gyanvapi–Kashi Vishwanath Dispute (Varanasi)

By the end of 2025, its proceedings in the Gyanvapi dispute remained firmly paused. The Supreme Court continued its interim stay on substantive actions arising from orders of the Varanasi court and the Allahabad High Court. Earlier, the Varanasi district court ordered an ASI survey and found the devotees’ 2023 lawsuit maintainable. Then, in January 2024, the court ordered that appropriate arrangements be made to allow worship in the basement of the Gyanvapi complex. The maintainability of the original 1991 suit had earlier been upheld in 2022.

The case originated in a 1991 suit filed on behalf of the deity Adi Vishweshwar, claiming that the mosque was constructed on the site of the Kashi Vishwanath temple.

In 2021, five Hindu women filed a separate suit before a Varanasi civil court seeking permission to worship idols located inside the mosque complex.


Krishna Janmabhoomi–Shahi Idgah Dispute (Mathura)


Multiple civil suits were filed seeking the removal of the Shahi Idgah mosque. It claims to stand on the birthplace of Lord Krishna. In May 2023, the Allahabad High Court transferred all the pending suits to itself and later rejected objections to their maintainability in August 2024. In January 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the high court’s order allowing inspection of the Shahi Idgah complex by a court-appointed commissioner. The mosque committee filed an appeal challenging the High Court’s remaining proceedings. As of now, the stay on inspection continues, and no further fact-finding or trial proceedings have been permitted to advance. The dispute centres on competing claims over land adjoining the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple complex and raises questions under the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.


Shahi Jama Masjid-Harihar temple, Sambhal


The dispute arose after a civil court in Sambhal allowed a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid premises in November 2024 on Hindu claims that the mosque stood on the site of the Harihar temple dedicated to Kalki. The mosque’s committee of management reached the Supreme Court to challenge the Survey order. In January 2025, the Supreme Court stayed the execution of a municipal notice concerning a well near the mosque and sought a status report. In August 2025, the Court ordered maintenance of the status quo and issued notice to the Hindu petitioners. The status quo order was subsequently extended, effectively halting any survey or alteration of the site. As of now, the dispute remains frozen pending consideration of procedural and jurisdictional issues.

Madurai Karthigai Deepam Lamp Dispute (Tamil Nadu) 

This dispute centers on whether Hindu devotees can light traditional Karthigai Deepam atop Thiruparankundram Hill, which houses both the Murugan temple and a dargah. Hindu devotees argue that lighting the lamp on the hilltop is an essential and longstanding religious practice, and that the State and the HR&CE Department have repeatedly blocked it, citing law and order concerns. In December 2025, the Madras High Court allowed a plea seeking permission to light the Karthigai Deepam lamp at the ancient Deepathoon pillar on Thiruparankundram Hill, rather than its usual location near the Uchi Pillayar temple.

Justice G R Swaminathan allowed and directed the Subramaniya Swamy Temple management to arrange for the Karthigai Deepam lamp to be lit at the ancient Deepathoon pillar on the festive day on December 3. The Tamil Nadu government opposed the order, citing tradition and public order concerns. On the day of the festival, a protest broke out, which led to the violence and deployment of central security forces. The High Court subsequently initiated contempt proceedings against state officials for alleged failure to implement its directions. The Tamil Nadu government approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order, and the matter is pending.

Banke Bihari Temple management Dispute(Vrindavan)

The dispute centers on control and administration of the historic Banke Bihari Temple, which the Sevayat families have traditionally managed. In August 2025, the Supreme Court constituted a high-powered Temple Management Committee to oversee daily functioning and crowd management.

The committee was appointed pending adjudication of the constitutional validity of an Uttar Pradesh ordinance that brought temple administration under a statutory trust. In December 2025, the temple’s management committee and a Sevayat filed a fresh petition questioning the scope and authority of the court-appointed committee.

As of now, the matter is listed for further hearing in early 2026.


Ajmer Sharif Dargah Demolition Case


In December 2025, the Delhi High Court restrained the central government from demolishing structures within the Ajmer Sharif Dargah complex without providing an opportunity of hearing to affected parties. The interim order was passed on a plea filed by a khadim of the dargah challenging notices issued by the Ministry of Minority Affairs for removal of alleged encroachments.The Court emphasised adherence to principles of natural justice and also directed the Centre to expedite the formation of the Dargah Committee under the Dargah Khawaja Sahib Act, 1955. The matter remains pending.

Conclusion

By the end of 2025, Major religious disputes remained unsolved, governed largely by interim judicial control rather than final adjudication. While this cautious approach may have prevented immediate unrest, it also ensured that fundamental questions of history, rights, and constitutional interpretation were deferred. As these disputes move into 2026, the challenge before the judiciary will be whether continued restraint can substitute for constitutional clarity or whether decisive resolution will eventually become unavoidable.

DW News, Dhruv Rathee and KAS: Germany’s ideological battle against India through NGOs and activism. Why Rahul Gandhi went to the Hertie School

आशीष नौटियाल
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DW News, Dhruv Rathee and KAS: Germany’s ideological battle against India through NGOs and activism. Why Rahul Gandhi went to the Hertie School

In 2023, an Indian court convicted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case. He was sentenced, and his membership of the Lok Sabha was temporarily disqualified. This was an entirely domestic Indian matter, from the complainant to the court and the law, everything was Indian. Yet the first international reaction to the verdict did not come from any of India’s neighbours or strategic rivals, but from Germany. The German Foreign Ministry said it was “monitoring the situation” and hoped that judicial independence would not be compromised.

This immediately raises a larger question. The issue is not that a statement was made, but why Germany felt compelled to comment on an internal judicial matter of India. That question forms part of a larger puzzle that has largely gone unnoticed.

DW News and Germany’s presence in the Hindi–Urdu space

When foreign interference, regime change, or narrative warfare in India is discussed, fingers usually point straight at the United States. Terms like CIA, USAID, and “deep state” have become commonplace. In this noise, however, one country often escapes attention: Germany.

After the BBC and Voice of America, if any foreign power has strategically cultivated India’s Hindi–Urdu media space, it has not been Russia or France, but Germany. Deutsche Welle (DW) News is the clearest example. In 2024, DW’s Hindi–Urdu platform completed 60 years in India. This taxpayer-funded, state-supported media outlet shows a clear pattern in its India coverage: sustained attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian media, and the majority community; narratives such as “out of control India” during COVID; describing security forces in Kashmir as an “occupying force”; and providing platforms to separatist voices.

The BBC’s deep roots in India can be understood through colonial and Commonwealth history. DW’s long, organised presence, however, cannot be dismissed as coincidence. It is part of Germany’s newer soft-power strategy, low noise, deep penetration, and consistent narrative-setting.

Post–World War II Germany: A return through ideas, not tanks

After World War II, the world assumed Germany would remain merely a commercial partner. In reality, after the initial shock, Germany never truly receded. Its return did not come with tanks and missiles, but through institutions, moral language, and the vocabulary of democracy.

Post-war Germany adopted the policy of Wandel durch Handel (“change through trade”), low politics, limited moral lecturing, and strong economic soft power. That was phase one. Today, Germany seeks to project itself not just as an economic power, but as a “moral superpower” that defines what democracy should look like, what human rights mean, and how freedom ought to be understood.

This is where the problem begins. When a country appoints itself as a moral arbiter, the sovereignty of others starts to feel like an obstacle. India, which does not seek certificates of democratic legitimacy from Western capitals, naturally becomes a focal point of this friction.

From guilt to moral bullying

Modern German foreign policy is deeply shaped by guilt over its Nazi past and the Holocaust. To move beyond this guilt, Germany chose “moral rebranding”, positioning itself as a global moral teacher. Over time, atonement turned into interference. That interference now manifests as an urge to “fix” the democracies of countries like India.

Where the United States often uses overt military interventions, coups, and wars, Germany’s approach is quieter and institutional, through NGOs, academic networks, media, and foundations. This is why Germany is less visible, yet often more deeply embedded at the grassroots level.

Germany’s fronts in India

Germany’s influence in India appears through multiple faces: civil society, academic networks, media, digital influencers, and frameworks such as “democratic backsliding.” The faces differ; the direction is the same.

This has not gone entirely unnoticed. When OpIndia researched CSDS, it highlighted how deeply German involvement runs behind such institutions. Our research paper documents how Germany funds organisations to operate in countries it has designated as places where “democracy is under threat.”

This is why the German Foreign Ministry does not hesitate to comment on the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, the Manipur violence, or other internal Indian matters. These are not mere diplomatic reactions, but expressions of a new German foreign policy in which “human rights protection” is placed above national sovereignty.

Rahul Gandhi, the Hertie Foundation, and narrative export

Rahul Gandhi’s visits to Germany must be viewed in this context. Recently, he delivered a lecture at the Hertie School of Governance. This institution itself is linked to Germany’s post-Nazi “atonement” ecosystem. The Hertie Foundation, which established the school, traces its origins to a 19th-century department store (Tietz). During the Nazi era, the Jewish Tietz family’s assets were expropriated under “Aryanisation,” from which the foundation benefited. Today, under the banner of atonement, the foundation invests heavily in “strengthening democracy.”

This so-called atonement has become a pretext for intervention in other countries’ democracies, including attempts to shape politics in India. When Rahul Gandhi speaks on such platforms about “institutional capture” or warns that “people will fight each other,” these are not just speeches; they are exported narratives. The real engine behind this export is KAS.

KAS: an ideological engine

The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) is the most important actor in this story. It is not a neutral NGO or a generic think tank. KAS is the ideological machine of Germany’s ruling political tradition, directly rooted in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). KAS openly acknowledges on its official website that it is politically affiliated with the CDU.

This should not surprise anyone. Both the CDU and KAS share the same ideological soul: Konrad Adenauer. Understanding him is key to understanding modern German politics, and why Germany today appears restless and aggressive on multiple fronts.

Konrad Adenauer: The first chancellor of post-war Germany

Konrad Adenauer was no ordinary leader. He became the first Chancellor of West Germany after World War II, rebuilding a country reduced to rubble by Nazi devastation and reintegrating it into the Western world. He aligned Germany with the United States and Western Europe, joined NATO, and laid the foundations of European integration beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community.

This was not merely strategic politics; it was ideological. Adenauer was a devout Roman Catholic who believed politics could not be separated from Christian morality. For him, Europe was not just a geographical entity but a Christian civilisation. Remove Christian values, he believed, and Europe would become hollow.

In Adenauer’s view, the real post-war global conflict was Christianity versus Marxism. He saw communism as just as dangerous as Nazism and regarded the Soviet Union as the greatest threat to freedom. This worldview led him to NATO and a close partnership with the United States.

On this ideological foundation, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was created, designed to unite Catholics and Protestants on a single platform rooted in Christian principles. Adenauer believed politics must be guided by Christian ethics.

A lawyer by training, Adenauer became Mayor of Cologne in 1917 but was removed in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. He was imprisoned under the Nazi regime and arrested again by the Gestapo after the failed attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944. After the war, he rose through the CDU, becoming President of the Parliamentary Council and eventually Chancellor of West Germany.

On 20 December 1955, CDU leaders founded the Society for Christian Democratic Educational Work to spread Christian democratic ideology through education, research, and international networks. In 1964, it was renamed the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, making KAS the institutional extension of Adenauer’s ideology.

KAS in India and the ideological battlefield

Today, KAS operates actively in India. It funds institutions such as CSDS, through which India’s democratic processes are questioned, the majority community is targeted, and sovereignty-weakening narratives are constructed. Reportedly, since 2016, KAS has provided over ₹2.6 crore in funding to CSDS.

On paper, KAS speaks of education, research, and scholarships. On the ground, it trains youth, shapes policy narratives, and builds media and academic networks. Governments may not fall overnight, but societies are reshaped. Today, regimes are destabilised not by tanks, but by ideas and digital narratives.

German statements on India, whether on Kejriwal’s arrest, Manipur, or “human rights versus sovereignty”, emerge from this ideological framework. Organisations like KAS do not send tanks; they send narratives, networks, and ideas.

This model resembles USAID’s approach. The difference is that USAID promotes the American model, while KAS promotes a European—specifically German, path, often aligned with EU norms. This also explains occasional friction between the two.

Historically, Germany’s stance toward India has followed similar logic: criticism of India during the 1961 Goa liberation because Portugal was a NATO member; initial criticism during the 1971 Bangladesh war; suspension of assistance and pressure to join the NPT after India’s nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998.

Germany’s Stiftung model

Germany’s political system features a unique element: Stiftungen, political foundations affiliated with parties, funded by the state, and active worldwide to “teach democracy.” Because of their patterns in India, the Ministry of Home Affairs has often taken a strict stance. In this process, organisations such as CPR and Oxfam India have seen their FCRA licences cancelled.

Three major German foundations stand out:

  1. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), linked to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), accused of funding NGOs that promote industrial unrest under the banner of labour rights. In 2022, an FES report controversially compared India to authoritarian regimes.
  2. Heinrich Böll Stiftung (HBS), linked to the Green Party, considered the most aggressive toward India—opposing coal projects, nuclear energy, large infrastructure initiatives, and even the Aarogya Setu app. Investigations into money trails in some cases reportedly led back to such foundations.
  3. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), linked to the CDU, focusing on youth, policymakers, and academia. Through surveys, fellowships, and programmes, it is said to ideologically shape opposition narratives across media, research, and training.

Feminist Foreign Policy: morality or interference?

Germany has recently promoted the concept of “Feminist Foreign Policy,” championed by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. In India’s context, this has raised concerns. German statements on Kashmir echoing Pakistan’s line, framing Manipur violence as “Hindu versus Christian,” and commenting publicly on Kejriwal’s arrest are seen as crossing India’s red lines.

Experts argue that Germany is not limited to diplomatic statements but has prepared digital and information-war fronts in India. International media and social platforms play a key role here, with DW frequently cited in these debates.

Some Indian digital platforms and media outlets are also discussed in connection with German networks. Publications like The Caravan are linked to KAS’s Media Programme Asia. Germany is said to adapt its information-war strategies with changing times.

Questions have also been raised about digital influencers whose reach surged ahead of the 2019 general elections, for example, Dhruv Rathee, who later appeared prominently on platforms like the BBC and NDTV on sensitive issues such as caste, reservations, elections, and EVMs.

Germany has effectively become a safe haven for India-critical digital influencers, aided by its strict privacy and free-speech laws that shield them from Indian legal action.

Germany’s normative power

Analysts describe all this as part of Germany’s strategy of “normative power.” In a multipolar world, Germany seeks influence not through military strength but through narratives, institutions, and ideology, positioning itself as the arbiter of who is “democratic” and who is not.

India is a key economic partner for Germany, but Germany’s political and intellectual elite appears uncomfortable with India’s rise as a civilisational state, especially as India advances toward the global top three economies, potentially pushing Germany back.

The question is whether we recognise that today’s battles are no longer fought at borders, but within institutions, ideas, and narratives. OpIndia continues to monitor these developments and will soon publish further in-depth research, similar to our CSDS investigation, into Germany’s other fronts, so readers can better understand the nuances and modus operandi of this entire nexus.

Minnesota’s Somali-linked scams drain US taxpayers of a sum rivalling Somalia’s GDP: Read how the welfare system was gamed in a multi-billion-dollar fraud

Rukma Rathore
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Minnesota’s Somali-linked scams drain US taxpayers of a sum rivalling Somalia’s GDP: Read how the welfare system was gamed in a multi-billion-dollar fraud

With around 80,000 residents, Minnesota hosts the biggest Somali diaspora in the United States. Many of them are refugees from the civil war that has raged in their native nation since 1991. They moved to Minneapolis and its suburbs, enticed by meatpacking jobs, Lutheran charity networks, and a more generous welfare system than others.

Notably, anti-India Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is also of Somali descent. However, the community has often come into the spotlight following significant scandals that erupted concerning Minnesota’s social programmes. An astounding $9 billion is the anticipated overall damage, which is close to Somalia’s entire GDP.

It was also determined that of the 98 defendants indicted and over 60 convictions in significant fraud cases across the state, 85 are either Somali Americans or of Somali heritage.

The truth comes to light

On 27th December, the issue surfaced after Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old YouTuber, exposed the pervasive fraud at childcare centres run by Somalis using publicly accessible data from the Minnesota Department of Human Services. These facilities had received millions in government subsidies, but the footage showed deserted playgrounds, blacked-out windows, closed doors at licensed daycares and angry employees who screamed or ran away when confronted.

A woman even yelled, “Don’t open up, it’s ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).” A neighbour also attested that no kids had been spotted there in eight years. Shirley stated, “This could be the largest fraud scandal in US history,” during his investigation. He pointed out that federal and state funding were diverted to businesses that had negligible or no operational history.

The places that were authorised to look after dozens of kids seemed empty during the day. Shirley’s guide, David, a local researcher who reported having been stabbed during his own inquiry, assisted him in recording $110 million in dubious payments. “I would drive by these childcare centres in the middle of the day, and there were never any kids there. That’s when I started asking, where are these children?” David remarked.

Shirley maintained that these centres received annual payments of hundreds of thousands of pounds, and in some instances, millions, even though they didn’t appear to be functioning. Additionally, abuse within home healthcare programs and non-emergency medical transport services was revealed in the video.

According to the YouTuber, officials knew about the suspicious activities but did nothing about them. Vice President JD Vance and former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk both shared the footage.

The alarming reality sparks inquiry and outrage

The explosive disclosures in Shirley’s video resulted in major backlash against the administration, including Democrat Governor Tim Walz, after which an investigation was launched. On 29th December, federal agents were in Minnesota conducting a probe into the matter. ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) were present in Minneapolis.

A video of officers walking “door to door” at suspected fraud locations was made public by Homeland Security. It wrote, “The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and arrests when abuse is found.”

“Our agents are conducting a massive operation to identify, arrest, and remove criminals who are defrauding the American people at daycares, healthcare facilities, and other suspected sites. We will not stop until we’ve rooted out this rampant fraud plaguing Minnesota,” Homeland Security vowed in another post.

The agency promised to deliver results under the leadership of Secretary Kristi Noem. A law enforcement official mentioned that Shirley’s video had a role in the increase of DHS (Department of Homeland Security) agents in Minneapolis, including visits to about thirty companies, reported CNN.

FBI director pledges to eliminate fraud schemes

The Federal Bureau of Investigation director also took to social media to address the issue. He informed, “The FBI is aware of recent social media reports in Minnesota. However, even before the public conversation escalated online, the FBI had surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs. Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide.”

He further highlighted a $250 million scam in Minnesota that concluded in multiple charges. “The case led to 78 indictments and 57 convictions. Defendants included Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud, Ahmed Ali, Hussein Farah, Abdullahe Nur Jesow, Asha Farhan Hassan, Ousman Camara, and Abdirashid Bixi Dool, each charged for roles ranging from wire fraud to money laundering and conspiracy,” Patel noted.

Patel emphasised, “The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing. Furthermore, many are also being referred to immigration officials for possible further denaturalisation and deportation proceedings where eligible.”

SBA ends funding for Minnesota

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has also taken action to halt the grant from entering Minnesota in response to the critical development. “This administration will not continue to hand out blank checks to fraudsters – and we will not rest until we clean up the criminal networks that have been stealing from American taxpayers,” SBA chief Kelly Loeffler announced.

Earlier in December, a federal prosecutor suggested that at least half of the approximately $18 billion in federal monies that have been used to support 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been pilfered, and the majority of the accused are Somali Americans. “The magnitude cannot be overstated. What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud,” voiced First Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson.

The fresh action ensued as 57 Minnesotans were found guilty after years of inquiry that started with the $300 million corruption at the charitable organisation “Feeding Our Future,” which was at the centre of the biggest COVID-19-related scam in the nation. The perpetrators misused a state-run, federally sponsored program designed to feed children.

Meanwhile, Tom Emmer, majority whip in the United States House of Representatives, charged, “Well, it’s amazing to me that a 23-year-old journalist, a YouTuber who’s now got over 80 million views on this video, found more in a matter of hours than Governor Tim Walz and Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General, have found in 7 years.”

The history of the scam extends to 2014

There has been widespread fraud in Minnesota involving taxpayer-funded day care since at least 2014. The scammers stuffed carry-on luggage with up to $1 million each to smuggle out of the country. Tens of millions of dollars of cash flew out of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport roughly a decade ago, per a report in Fox 9. Minnesota taxpayers lost $100 million annually as a result.

The passengers left with a total of $84 million in 2016 and an additional $100 million the following year, marking an enormous rise. The amount travelled to Dubai, the Middle East and other locations. According to sources, MSP lost over $100 million in cash in 2017.

As of 2018, the state was probing potential fraud by dozens of companies suspected of obtaining millions of dollars in payments from the government for bogus childcare services. The state began to crack down on such scams in 2014. Ten companies were the subject of ongoing investigations at the time.

Millions of dollars in stolen funds have reportedly been moved to Somalia and ended up with al-Shabab, a terror group connected to al Qaeda, according to federal counterterrorism sources. A source unveiled, “The largest funder of al-Shabab is the Minnesota taxpayer,” according to the New York Post.

“It’s welfare fraud, it’s all about the daycare,” Glen Kerns quoted sources. He is a veteran Seattle police detective and served on the FBI’s joint terrorism task force for fifteen years. The extent of the rot was illustrated when Fozia Ali, who was under investigation for wire fraud and the misappropriation of public funds, took the oath as a member of the Hopkins Park Board.

The state’s food program, autism program and the Housing Stabilisation Program are considered to have lost at least $300 million, $220 million and $302 million, respectively. The scammers used the money to purchase expensive honeymoon trips to the Maldives, luxurious vehicles including Mercedes and Porsches, and even a suite at a Minnesota Timberwolves game in addition to shipping the illicit proceeds overseas.

President Trump lashes out at the Somali community in the U.S

President Donald Trump has been candid about his disapproval of Ilhan Omar and the Somali community. “Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for prey as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” he outlined on the evening of Thanksgiving eve. He also attacked Governor Tim Walz for not taking any action and termed Omar as “the worst Congressman/woman” in the country and even talked about her controversial past including marriage.

“I wouldn’t be proud to have the largest Somalian – look at their nation. Look how bad their nation is. It’s not even a nation. It’s just people walking around killing each other. Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. Billions and billions,” Trump later outlined.

“Those Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country,” he further stated. “Go back to your own country and figure out your constitution. All she (Omar Ilhan) does is complain about this country, and without this country, she would not be in very good shape. She probably wouldn’t be alive right now. Somalia is considered by many to be the worst country on Earth. I don’t know. I haven’t been there, I won’t be there anytime soon, I hope,” the president added.

The Trump administration intends to deploy additional federal agents to Minneapolis with the authority to target Somalis, especially those who have final deportation orders.

BL Santhosh is right: Bengal is a civilisational battle. Here’s why the land of Netaji must be saved from TMC’s appeasement, with a volatile Bangladesh next door

Shraddha Pandey
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BL Santhosh is right: Bengal is a civilisational battle. Here’s why the land of Netaji must be saved from TMC’s appeasement, with a volatile Bangladesh next door

India, that is Bharat, is a civilisational state. Home to diverse social, religious, ethnic and linguistic communities, India, despite its modern nation-state outlook, has its roots in the Hindu civilisation and cultural continuity. The Indic civilisation has been under constant threat from foreign invaders and colonisers. Bengal, which has been the cradle of the Indian renaissance, is crumbling under the burden of TMC’s appeasement politics. Recently, BJP leader BL Santhosh declared that the coming West Bengal assembly election is a “civilisational battle”.

At the recently held ‘Sagar Manthan’ program in Goa, BJP’s organisational secretary, BL Santhosh, declared that the assembly election in West Bengal is not a mere battle for power but a civilisational battle.

“Bengal is not a political battle, it’s civilisational. We look at it in the same way. To save India, we have to save Bengal. That will not be our 19th or 20th state…to save India from a big demographic challenge, we want to win Bengal, and we will win Bengal because of your blessings,” he said.

Predictably, the BJP leader’s remarks have irked the ruling Trinamool Congress. The TMC leaders have criticised Santhosh’s remarks, saying that his remarks are divisive and that somehow India’s civilisation faces a threat from the BJP itself.

TMC’s Shashi Panja claimed that for the last decade, the BJP has undermined India’s foundational values, including pluralism, tolerance, and freedom, replacing them with hatred, cultural dominance and intimidation.

Amusingly, while the TMC government appeases Muslims in the state and the sitting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee proudly declares that she is fighting against “Kafirs”, TMC MP Sagarika Ghosh invoked Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, and Swami Vivekananda to highlight Bengal very civilisation that TMC’s politics threatens.

While political violence is not a TMC-exclusive phenomenon in West Bengal, the state has seen its worst form under over a decade of Mamata Banerjee’s rule. Muslim appeasement, rapid demographic alteration, illegal infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims via the porous Indo-Bangladesh borders and anti-Hindu activities coupled with economic downslide have defined the Mamata era in West Bengal. It is said that demography is destiny, and no civilisation can prevail and thrive if this ‘destiny’ is corrupted or dangerously modified.

Why West Bengal must be saved from TMC for the Civilisation to be saved

Such was Bengal’s intellectual and philosophical richness that it was said that “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.” Bengal is the sacred soil that gave the country gems like Bankimchandra Chatterji, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. However, in the contemporary political scenario, this civilisational goldmine is being reduced to a barren and gloomy desert by the Mamata regime.

For over three decades, the Communists ruled West Bengal; their Marxist ideology resulted in driving out big companies and investments. The communists stripped the state’s people of numerous jobs these industries could have generated, a better life, prosperity and dignity. Besides, mocking Hindu Dharma was also a core aspect of their ideological-political agenda.

Mamata Banerjee was a sharp, critical voice against the CPIM. When she came to power in the state in 2011, it was expected that Banerjee would heal the wounds West Bengal suffered under the communists. However, Mamata Banerjee only scratched the wounds and sprinkled salt over them, but also inflicted new injuries.

In around 14 years of the reign of “Didi”, over 6,668 companies have migrated out of West Bengal. Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of civilisations”. Under the TMC rule, West Bengal has become a “graveyard of industries”.

While the people of West Bengal are already grappling with unemployment, the TMC government abolished all the policies implemented from 1993 to 2021 to attract industries, ensuring that businesses will not get any concession on setting up industries in the state, whether in the form of land or electricity prices.

Such is the condition that despite being the fourth most populous state in India, West Bengal has only a 3.5% share in India’s industrial output. It is estimated that over 22 lakh to 30 lakh Bengalis have moved to other states as migrant workers, because of a shortage of employment in their home state.

As per the latest CAG report, West Bengal’s debt-to-GSDP ratio now touches 33.7%, one of the highest in the country. In over a decade of Mamata Banerjee’s rule, West Bengal has witnessed a sharp jump in its debt burden. 

In addition, West Bengal also falls into the category of 11 states that are using borrowed funds to finance routine expenditure, such as salaries, subsidies, and administrative costs, rather than creating assets that could improve the state’s financial health in the long run. Scams, syndicate raj and consequent migration of workers is crippling West Bengal’s economy, while the only flex TMC is left with is having a woman as the state’s Chief Minister.

The question arises: If economic growth is not the TMC government’s priority, what is? The answer is simple: Clinging to power through appeasement politics and political high-handedness is TMC’s modus operandi. Basically, TMC replaced Marx with Muslim appeasement. In a slogan, TMC’s rule is about ‘Maa, Maati and Manush’, in reality, it is ‘Mamata, Muslims and Menace’.

OpIndia has reported several incidents wherein the state government demonstrated its blatant favouritism towards Muslims and disdain towards Hindus. It was reported last year that a Durga Mandir was found blocked and barricaded in Kaliachak town in Malda district of West Bengal. The development came a day before the Islamic month of Muharram. Before this, CM Mamata Banerjee imposed restrictions on the immersion of Durga idols in 2016 and 2017 to make way for Muharram processions. 

TMC’s Muslim appeasement is not confined to suppressing Hindu rights and doing special favours to its Muslim votebank; it extends to blatant support to the Islamisation of West Bengal. Last year, TMC leader and a Cabinet Minister in the state government, Firhad Hakim, derided non-Muslims as ‘unfortunate’ and openly called for their religious conversion to Islam. “Those who were not born into Islam were born with misfortune. If we can give them Dawat (call for proselytisation) and bring Iman (Faith) in them, then we will make Allah happy. We need to spread Islam among non-Muslims. If we can bring someone on the path of Islam, then we will prove to be true Muslims by ensuring the spread of Faith,” said Firhad Hakim, who is also Mamata Banerjee’s close aide.

The TMC leader getting a free hand to insult non-Muslims and openly advocate for the state’s Islamisation should not be a surprise, given CM Mamata Banerjee herself has on many occasions declared her political adversaries as “Kafirs” or infidels as per Islam, and that she is fighting against them.

In Mamata’s Bengal, a TMC MLA, Hamidul Rahman’s alleged close associate, Tajemul Haque alias JCB, holds an ‘Insaf Sabha’, and brutally assaults a woman in public, and the TMC MLA justifies this Taliban-style flogging by saying that there are some ‘codes’ in a ‘Muslim Rashtra’. 

Another question here would be, why do ‘secular’ political parties go for a Muslim appeasement tactic when there are other religious communities too, with significant populations? Why not Hindu appeasement? This is because Muslims are arguably the only community who vote as a religious community; they think about elections from a religious perspective, consider voting out parties not coddle them as almost a religious duty. No other community trades their vote for religious benefits or dominance; the others largely consider local issues, governance, economy, inflation and other regular issues while voting.

Thus, Muslim appeasement is an effective tactic to consolidate votes, and since the influential section of the community has somehow mastered the art of being the extremists and victims of extremism at the same time, ‘secular’ parties go to any extent to have their backing.

This extent stretches to even allowing demographic change in the state. It is reported that West Bengal has nine districts presently that are Muslim majority, compared to three that were predominantly Muslim both before and after independence.

 In districts like Murshidabad, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, and North and South 24 Parganas, the Muslim population grew at a higher rate than the Hindu population. For this reason, the Hindu share in these districts declined. Even the Hindu population declined by over 1% in some districts, much higher than the national average. With a change in religious demography, a lifestyle change, the look of the localities, politics and overall functioning of an area alter. Shifting demographics determine local politics, school education, festival management, and land disputes. The inorganic Muslim population surge in once Hindu-dominant districts essentially indicates the eventuality of the erasure of Hindus and the civilisation there.

Hindus are now minorities in large parts of their own homeland, courtesy TMC’s state-sponsored vote engineering. While Hindus are forced to leave their state and work in other states for a livelihood, they are replaced by Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators.

Any attempt to diffuse the demographic time bomb is met with sharp opposition from the TMC. OpIndia reported earlier about the Mamata regime’s scathing criticism of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. When the SIR began in Bihar, thousands of names of illegal voters emerged, and the ‘secular’ parties, including TMC, claimed that the BJP is targeting minorities (read, Muslims). When authorities launched a crackdown on Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslim infiltrators illegally residing in various Indian states, the TMC government claimed that Bengali Muslims are being targeted and invoked ‘Bengali Asmita’ (Bengali pride).

During the ongoing SIR in West Bengal, it was recently revealed that since the last SIR in 2002, registered voters in the state have increased by 66% from 4.58 crore to 7.63 crore. Out of the 10 districts in the state which have experienced the alarming rise in the number of voters, 9 districts border Bangladesh.  The minimum increase in the number of voters is over 70% with the highest percentage of increase crossing 100%. Uttar Dinajpur has witnessed the highest spike in the number of voters at 105.49%, followed by Malda at 94.58%. As discussed earlier, the Muslim population in these districts has increased inorganically and abruptly, indicating that a deliberate demographic shift is being pulled off.

When the security agencies and the Central government want to prevent the influx of Bangladeshi illegals into India via a 2,217 km porous Indo-Bangladesh border, the TMC government shows reluctance in cooperation. Earlier this year, it was reported that the TMC government did not agree to provide land for fencing 600 kilometres of area, which allowed several illegal immigrants to enter India. In December 2024, BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari accused the West Bengal government of not cooperating with the Border Security Force (BSF) in curbing infiltration.

Even when the state government approves the land acquisition for border fencing, the district officials are found to be causing delays in the disbursal of funds. Besides, when the Modi government brought the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019 to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindu and other non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring Islamic or Muslim-majority countries, Mamata Banerjee and her party, linked it to the NRC and Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to fearmonger that somehow Muslims will be singled out, their citizenship will taken away, and they will be dumped in detention centres.

This fearmongering politics triggered violence back then, and the ultimate target in such Islamist violence, be it during anti-CAA agitation or the anti-Waqf Bill protests, is Hindus.

In Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal, political violence, particularly after elections, be it assembly elections or panchayat elections, is almost ritualistic. The Trinamool Congress workers often attack workers from opposition parties, indulge in booth capturing during elections, and target voters who did not vote for TMC. Be it Islamist-orchestrated violence or TMC-unleashed post-poll violence, the casualty is always Hindus.

Before BL Santhosh, Assam BJP leader and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had also called the impending Assam state elections a “civilisational battle”. CM Sarma’s remarks stemmed from the rampant menace of demographic change in the state. Illegal Muslim immigrants expelling tribals and local Hindus to settle there, illegal encroachment of land and properties, as well as assertion of Islamic religious dominance, have been highlighted by the Assam Chief Minister.

The BJP government in the state has been working relentlessly to free lands from illegal encroachments by illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya settlers and prevent demographic change. The state government has been detecting, detaining and deporting Bangladeshi and Rohingya illegals from the state.

Earlier, CM Sarma warned that the rate at which the Muslim population is increasing in the state, Assam would make it a Muslim-majority state by 2041. In fact, the entire northeast is grappling with a rapid shift in the religious composition of the population. This is alarming. A seemingly slow but certain death of the Indic civilisation sans timely policy interventions.

What is happening in Bengal becomes even more concerning when we look at a chaotic Bangladesh, where lynching of Hindus for being Hindus, desecration of their temples by Muslims has become a disturbing ‘normal’.

Ever since the forced ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power and her country in August 2024, the persecution of Hindus and other non-Muslim communities, and Islamisation of the country, have been ongoing in full swing. The 5th of August 2024 marked the tearing apart of the semi-torn secular fabric of the Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Since Hasina’s ouster, Rabindranath Tagore’s and Satyajit Ray’s ancestral properties have been vandalised by Islamist and India-hating mobs. Muslim mobs in Bangladesh attack cultural, religious, and historical sites. The visuals of mobs vandalising the statue and residence of Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, made it clear that the Islamist-dominated post-Hasina Bangladesh will cut off its secular roots.

Under Muhammad Yunus’s leadership, Islamists are erasing their secular history and mainstreaming Islamist anti-Hindu and anti-India viewpoints by groups which were earlier dismissed as fringe. Once the civilisational battle is lost and a civilisation collapses, the Islamist adversary gets on with the task, erasing even the memories of the fallen civilisation.

Even the Islamists in Bangladesh claim to be ultra nationalist and true protectors of Bangladeshi interests. However, crushing of the media, systematic targeting of political adversaries, glorification of anti-India ‘activists’, crackdown on music and cultural events, appeasement of Islamist populace and unchecked killings of Hindu minorities, and forced mass resignation of Hindu employees, indicates, that secularism, plurality, tolerance and other such cliches are used only till the ultimate power grab, be it via street veto, political conspiracy, a gradual demographic shift or through a combination of these. What follows is a full-blown erasure of the existing civilisation and establishment of Islamist anarchy.

India’s West Bengal is vulnerable to cross-border influences and infiltration. A restive Bangladesh under Islamist dominance may fuel communal tensions in the state. While it took only a few months to turn Mujibur Rahman and Sheikh Hasina’s somewhat secular and economically sound Bangladesh into a full-fledged Islamist dominated mess, the way demographic change, rising Muslim population and dominance as well as a systematic suppression of Hindu rights is unfolding in West Bengal, the state is indeed in a civilisational crisis and the coming elections, which the BJP calls a civilisational battle, will see the BJP fighting to save the civilisation while the TMC will defend its empire.

India has boarded the ‘Reform Express’, 2025 marks decisive shift towards next generation reforms and Viksit Bharat: PM Modi

Narendra Modi
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India has boarded the ‘Reform Express’, 2025 marks decisive shift towards next generation reforms and Viksit Bharat: PM Modi

India has emerged as the centre of global attention. This is due to the innovative zeal of our people. Today, the world sees India with hope and confidence. They appreciate the manner in which the pace of progress has been accelerated with next-generation reforms, which are cross-sectoral and amplify the nation’s growth potential.

I have been telling many people that India has boarded the Reform Express.

The primary engine of this Reform Express is India’s demography, our young generation and the indomitable spirit of our people.

2025 will be remembered as a year for India when it focused on reforms as a continuous national mission, building on the ground covered over the past 11 years. We modernised institutions, simplified governance, and strengthened the foundations for long-term, inclusive growth.

We moved ahead decisively…with higher ambition, faster execution and deeper transformation. The reforms have been about enabling citizens to live with dignity, entrepreneurs to innovate with confidence and institutions to function with clarity and trust.

Let me cite a few examples of the reforms undertaken.

GST reform:

  • This reform has boosted consumer sentiment and demand. Sales have grown in the festive season.
  • A clean two-slab structure of 5% and 18% has been implemented.
  • The burden has been eased on households, MSMEs, farmers and labour-intensiVE sectors.
  • The purpose is to ensure dispute reduction and better compliance.
Source: Narendra Modi/LinkedIn

Unparalleled relief for the middle class:

  • In a first, individuals earning up to Rs. 12 lakh a year faced no income tax at all.
  • Obsolete Income-tax Act of 1961 has been replaced with the modern and simple Income Tax Act, 2025.
  • Together, these reforms mark India’s move towards a transparent, technology-driven tax administration.

Boost to small and medium businesses:

  • Definition of “small companies” has been expanded to include firms with turnovers up to Rs. 100 crore.
  • Compliance burdens and associated costs for thousands of companies will get reduced.

100% FDI Insurance reform:

  • 100% FDI permitted in Indian insurance companies.
  • This will give a fillip to insurance penetration and security for the people.
  • Apart from enhanced competition, it would offer better insurance choices and improved service delivery for the people.

Securities Market Reform:

  • Securities Market Code Bill has been introduced in Parliament. It will enhance governance norms in SEBI, also enhance investor protection, reduce compliance burden and enable a technology-driven securities market for a Viksit Bharat.
  • Reforms will ensure savings thanks to reduced compliances and other overheads.

Maritime and Blue Economy Reforms:

  • In a single Parliament session, the Monsoon Session, five landmark maritime legislations were passed: the Bills of Lading Act, 2025; the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, 2025; the Coastal Shipping Bill, 2025; the Merchant Shipping Bill, 2025; and the Indian Ports Bill, 2025.
  • These reforms simplify documentation, make dispute resolution easier and reduce logistics costs.
  • Outdated Acts dating back to 1908, 1925 and 1958 have also been replaced.
Source: Narendra Modi/LinkedIn

Jan Vishwas…Ending the Era of Criminalisation:

  • Hundreds of outdated laws have been scrapped.
  • 71 Acts have been repealed through the Repealing and Amendment Bill, 2025.

Boosting Ease of Doing Business:

  • A total of 22 QCOs were revoked across synthetic fibres, yarns, plastics, polymers, and base metals, while 53 QCOs were suspended in various steel, engineered, electrical, alloy, and consumer end product categories, covering a broad spectrum of industrial and consumer materials.
  • This will increase India’s share of apparel exports; lower production costs in diverse industries like footwear, automobiles; ensure lower prices for domestic consumers for electronics, bicycles and automotive products.

Historic labour reforms:

  • Labour laws have been reshaped, merging 29 fragmented laws into four modern codes.
  • India has created a labour framework that secures the interests of workers while boosting the business ecosystem.
  • The reforms focus on fair wages, timely payment of wages, smoother industrial relations, social security and safer workplaces.
  • They ensure greater female participation in the workforce.
  • Unorganised workers including contract workers are brought under the ESIC and EPFO expanding the coverage of formal workforce.
Source: Narendra Modi/LinkedIn

Diversified and expanded markets for Indian products:

Trade deals inked with New Zealand, Oman and Britain. These will add to investments, boost job creation and also encourage local entrepreneurs. They reinforce India’s position as a trusted and competitive partner in the global economy.
The FTA with the European Free Trade Association, comprising Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, has been operationalised. This marks India’s first FTA with developed European economies.

Source: Narendra Modi/LinkedIn

Nuclear Energy Reforms:

  • The SHANTI Act is a transformational step in India’s clean-energy and technology journey.
  • Ensures a strong framework for the safe, secure and responsible expansion of nuclear science and technology.
  • Enables India to meet the rising energy demands of the AI era, like powering data centres, advanced manufacturing, green hydrogen and high-technology industries.
  • Promotes the peaceful application of nuclear technologies in healthcare, agriculture, food security, water management, industry, research and environmental sustainability, supporting inclusive growth and improved quality of life.
  • Opens new pathways for private sector participation, innovation and skill development. Creates opportunities for India’s youth to lead in frontier technologies and next-generation energy solutions.

This is an opportune moment for investors, innovators and institutions to partner with India, to invest, innovate and build a clean, resilient and future-ready energy ecosystem.

A Landmark reform in Rural Employment guarantee:

  • Viksit Bharat- G RAM G Act, 2025 Rozgar Guarantee framework raises employment guarantee from 100 to 125 days.
  • This will result in increased spending towards strengthening village infrastructure and livelihoods.
  • The aim is to turn rural work into a means to ensure higher incomes and better assets.

Education Reforms:

Bill has been introduced in Parliament.

  • Single, unified higher education regulator will be established.
  • Multiple overlapping bodies like the UGC, AICTE, NCTE will be replaced with the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
  • Institutional autonomy will be strengthened, with innovation and research boosted.

What makes the reforms of 2025 significant is not only their dimension but also their underlying philosophy. Our Government has prioritised collaboration over control and facilitation over regulation in the true spirit of a modern democracy.

These reforms were designed with empathy, recognising the realities of small businesses, young professionals, farmers, workers and the middle class. They were shaped by consultation, guided by data and anchored in India’s constitutional values. They add momentum to our decade-long efforts to move away from a control-based economy to one that operates within a framework of trust, keeping the citizen at its core.

These reforms are aimed towards building a prosperous and self-reliant India. Building a Viksit Bharat is the polestar of our development trajectory. We will continue pursuing the reform agenda in the coming years.

I urge everyone in India and abroad to deepen their bond with the India growth story.

Keep trusting India and investing in our people!

This article was written by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on LinkedIn and has been republished here with due credit. The original article can be read here.

Congress govt in Karnataka rushes to appease illegal squatters, compensates them with cash, govt houses after clearing encroachments

Aditi
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Congress govt in Karnataka rushes to appease illegal squatters, compensates them with cash, govt houses after clearing encroachments

In a blatant attempt to appease land grabbers, the Karnataka Congress government on Monday (29th December) announced compensation and alternate housing after they were removed from the government land in a demolition drive in the Kogilu in the northern part of Bengaluru during a demolition drive.

Facing political backlash for the demolition drive carried out in Waseem Layout and Fakir Colony on 20th December, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said that he directed Housing Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan to provide alternate housing to encroachers. “Keeping humanitarian concerns in mind, I have directed officials to identify eligible families who lost shelter and submit the list within two days. After discussions with Deputy Chief Minister Shri @DKShivakumar(DK Shivakumar), Housing Minister Shri @BZZameerAhmedK (Zameer Ahmed Khan), and local MLA Shri @krishnabgowda (Krishna Byre Gowda), we have decided to provide alternative houses at Baiyappanahalli, barely 7 km from Kogilu,” CM Siddaramaiah wrote on X on Monday.

He said that the displaced encroachers will be provided government-built houses at Baiyappanahalli at heavily subsidised prices. “About 1,087 government-built houses are available there. Each house costs around ₹11.20 lakh. Beneficiaries will receive substantial State and Central subsidies. General category families will receive subsidies up to ₹8.70 lakh, and SC/ST families up to ₹9.50 lakh. The remaining amount will be provided as a small, verified loan,” the CM. Housing Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan has been directed by Siddaramaiah to ensure that the displaced families can move into the new houses by 1st January after the verification process.

Relief to encroachers on “humanitarian grounds”

Siddaramaiah said that the displaced families were occupying the government land illegally, and yet the state government has decided to provide them with alternate housing on “humanitarian grounds.” The demolition drive was carried out at Konglu’s Waseem Layout and Fakir Colony by the Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Limited to clear encroachments for a proposed solid waste processing unit. However, the legit demolition drive stirred a political controversy after Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan criticised the Karnataka government’s action, describing it as “brutal normalisation of the bulldozer raj”.

Subsequently, a review meeting was held by CM Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar with officials. After the meeting, the relief measures, including alternate housing under the Ashraya scheme, the CM’s one lakh housing scheme and up to ₹5 lakh compensation, were announced. “I have asked officials of the revenue department and the GBA to prepare a list of people who do not own land or houses so that alternative arrangements can be made. They will also be eligible for financial assistance,” Siddaramaiah said after the meeting.

Kerala CM created a political issue: Siddaramaiah

CM Siddaramaiah admitted that his government’s compensatory action was influenced by the Kerala CM’s remarks against the demolition. He accused CM Vijayan of turning the demolition drive into a political issue and added that his government was compelled to announce the relief measures. “While the state govt does not intend to encourage such illegal constructions on govt land, the Kerala chief minister turned this into a political issue. So we had to act,” Siddaramaiah said.

Justifying the demolition drive, CM Siddaramaiah said that “inhumane conditions” prevailed in the vicinity of the area, where around 15 acres were being used as a landfill and leachates or contaminated liquids were found in the groundwater. Around 167 sheds were reportedly cleared in the area after issuing multiple notices.

Disciplinary action against erring officials

In addition to that, he announced disciplinary action against officials who allowed encroachment on the government land. “To set a precedent, we will initiate disciplinary action against officials who were on duty when these encroachments began in 2021. These encroachments could not have happened without the knowledge of the tahsildar, shirestadar and village accountants,” the CM added. Siddaramaiah warned of strict action in future if encroachment happens on the government land. “If govt property is encroached upon, local officials will be personally held responsible and face disciplinary and administrative action,” he added.

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