Innholdsfortegnelse for 22 September 2025 i India Today

BALLOT PAPER, NOT EVM. That’s the line Karnataka’s ruling Congress is now toeing. It may be a leap across a tangent from Rahul Gandhi’s expose—of ‘vote chori’ via electoral rolls. As allegations go, dubious voter lists are a different matter from rigged EVMs. But the two were fused into one general vote of no confidence when, on September 4, a state cabinet meeting chaired by CM Siddaramaiah recommended the use of ballot paper for all upcoming local body elections, including the long-overdue municipal elections in Bengaluru. If it comes to pass, this may become the first such shift back to the old-style voting on paper on a big scale since 2001. The Opposition BJP was caustic in response, accusing the Congress of taking India’s silicon hub back to the “stone…

AJIT PAWAR’S NCP SWIMS with the Mahayuti, but with a presumed teflon coating: it kept a distinct aloofness from the majoritarianism of its senior ally, the BJP. But this complex game is now threatening to jeopardise its social and political base. Chafing at the nub of this perceived incongruence was a photo tweeted lately by the BJP’s star MP Kangana Ranaut: it showed Ajit’s wife Sunetra Pawar, a Rajya Sabha MP, attending a meeting of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the RSS women’s wing. The flutter it caused in Maharashtra was to be expected. Rohit Pawar, Ajit’s nephew and an MLA of the rival NCP(SCP), promptly accused his uncle of “double standards”, for claiming to be of “progressive” stock while consorting with the saffron brotherhood. They were under pressure to capitulate…

SUNITA DEVI, 40 Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh Subhash had died in December 2024, at just 45, after a long, punishing fight with liver disease. He left behind a widow, three sons and his broken autorickshaw parked outside their half-built house. A month after his death, two visitors—an ASHA didi and a man who said he was a doctor—arrived at their door, offering to help the family claim a government benefit. But first, they insisted, every photo of Subhash had to be destroyed. They even carried away all ID cards and medical papers. What Sunita didn’t know then was that those strangers had already taken out a Rs 15 lakh insurance policy in Subhash’s name, months before he died. The claim would later be quietly processed. She saw just Rs 20,000. “They used my…

PRIYANKA SHARMA, 35 Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh Priyanka still recalls the day in 2023 when three men came to her home, offering a health insurance policy that promised to cover the treatment of her husband, Dinesh Chandra, recently diagnosed with throat cancer. Clinging to hope, the family handed over documents and Rs 50,000 in cash and, after Dinesh’s death, even his death certificate along with another Rs 40,000. The men made her open a new bank account and took away the passbook. Later, they handed her a cheque for Rs 10 lakh. It bounced. When she called them, they threatened her. “We were already broken after my husband’s death,” Priyanka says. “Then they cheated us in his name. I don’t know how I will raise my children”—a son and two daughters, all between…

At Delhi’s India Habitat Centre (IHC), theatre has never been just about performance. It has always been about provocation, empathy and conversation. Over the years, IHC has nurtured not only a loyal audience but also a fraternity of theat-remakers who return, season after season, to share their stories. That continuum finds new resonance this September with the IHC Theatre Festival 2025. From September 19 to 28, IHC will host 14 productions that push past entertainment to probe the anxieties of our times—from gender and caste to mental health, climate change and identity. IHC WILL HOST PLAYS THAT PROBE THE ANXIETIES OF OUR TIME, EXPLORING GENDER, CASTE, MENTAL HEALTH, CLIMATE CHANGE AND IDENTITY “The vision is of the theatre practitioners who have chosen to invest their passion in addressing issues that need…

When we are introduced to the protagonist of Daisy Rockwell’s novel Alice Sees Ghosts, she is worried that she sounds too formal and contrived in her speech, as though she were “speaking written language”. Alice has just recovered from an extended bout of aphasia (a language disorder that affects one’s ability to speak) with the help of kindly psychiatrist Ronit, who ends their professional relationship and becomes engaged to her soon afterwards. A surprise visit from the ghost of her grandfather prompts Alice to go to India in search of her family’s connection to the land—why did her grandfather take secretive annual trips to Rishikesh, much to her grandmother Nanette’s irritation? Ronit, torn between his concern for Alice’s well-being and his professional curiosity about her visions, tags along. Once the…

IN JANUARY 2018, four senior Supreme Court judges staged a press conference, an unprecedented airing of grievances against the then Chief Justice of India (CJI). Seated on a lawn before television cameras, they shattered a tradition of judicial reticence. For decades, India’s judges had guarded a cloistered collegiality, speaking to one another as “learned brother” or “learned sister”, and keeping disputes either buried in carefully worded judgments or confined behind closed doors. But today, that fraternal code appears frayed. From terse public remarks to conveniently leaked letters, judges now air their differences in full public view, a spectacle once unimaginable. Consider the almost soap-operatic saga surrounding former CJI D.Y. Chandrachud’s official bungalow. He retired in November 2024, but by mid-2025, he was still occupying the CJI bungalow on Krishna Menon…

India’s government schools have seen enrolment declines for three consecutive years, slipping from 251.8 million in 2022–23 to 248 million in 2023–24, and further down to 246.9 million in 2024–25. But before drawing hasty conclusions about the state of public education, it is essential to understand why this shift is happening. The primary reason is India’s changing demographic landscape. The country’s fertility rate has fallen below replacement level, resulting in a shrinking school-age population. This is a fundamental change in India’s population structure, moving the country away from its historically young demographic profile toward a more mature one. Additionally, a significant redistribution of students is occurring. Families are increasingly choosing private schools over government institutions, driven by perceptions of superior learning outcomes, enhanced English language proficiency, and better opportunities for…

IN UTTAR PRADESH, 2014 HAD COME AS AN INFLECTION point for its post-Mandal political grammar. The BJP built a sweeping coalition by reframing identity in more omnibus religious terms, with Hindutva seeming to slather an adhesive all over the plurality of caste. For a decade, that strategy worked. It yielded two famous wins for the Yogi Adityanath electoral phenomenon. But today, with a cabinet reshuffle due and the assembly election less than two years away, the old caste equations are reasserting themselves in new ways, and the BJP finds itself negotiating pressures it had once claimed to transcend. The signals are coming not from the Opposition but from within. Over the past month, Thakur, Kurmi and Lodh leaders have staged a series of community gatherings—framed as cultural or social events,…

HOW DID THE LITTLE RANN of Kutch, all 65 sq. km of it, turn into a salt lake filled with Narmada water? Swimming somewhere within that question is an old quandary: how to manage Narmada waters across the length and breadth of Gujarat. Answers exist, but only in theory. The result: for over a decade, an overrun of lakhs of litres of fresh water from Narmada canals, meant to irrigate farmlands in border villages, has been going waste, flowing into the desertlike Little Rann almost round the year. In theory, the Narmada’s use is bound by strict norms, each drop accounted for, with farmerled Water Use Associations (WUAs) formally requisitioning the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) for the exact quantums they need. In practice, ad hocism flows unhindered. “On…

THE RAGHU DIXIT PROJECT LIVE Phoenix Marketcity, Whitefield, Bengaluru | Oct. 11 Back to the Roots Celebrate 25 years of musical brilliance as the legendary Raghu Dixit takes the stage for a special Silver Jubilee concert. Blending Indian folk traditions with global sounds, The Raghu Dixit Project has redefined contemporary folk music. This milestone performance at Phoenix Marketcity promises an unforgettable evening of soul, energy and artistry, marking a quarter-century of Raghu Dixit’s trailblazing journey. SHAAN’S INFINITY TOUR 2025, Biswa Bangla Exhibition Centre, Kolkata | Oct. 10 EVERGREEN Kolkata, get ready to welcome home the voice that defined a generation. Presented by Bengal Web Solution, Shaan’s Infinity Tour 2025 celebrates three decades of the beloved singer’s unforgettable music. From ‘Tanha Dil’ to ‘Chand Sifarish’ and ‘Behti Hawa Sa Tha Woh’, the evening…

Q. As one of the curators of the music section for the Serendipity Arts Festival this year, can you tell us what visitors can expect? There are three projects I am working on for SAF this year, all curated jointly with Dr Aneesh Pradhan. In the inaugural act, titled ‘Clay Play’, we bring together percussion instruments essentially made from clay. Our second project, ‘Serendipity Soundscapes 2025’, features groups that will present music from Gujarat and Bengal. Our third project is ‘1871 in 2025: The Parsi Gayan Uttejak Mandali’. Based entirely on Aneesh’s research in the area of Hindustani music in colonial Bombay, this will be a reconstruction of the first jalsa or concert held by the mandali on April 28, 1871. Q. How much have your roots in classical music…

While IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has been flaunting the fact that Apple is producing iPhones in India, his other ministry, the Railways, doesn’t seem to believe phones are useful for official work. The finance ministry policy permits government officers to buy laptops, tablets and mobiles to the tune of Rs 1.3 lakh for official purposes. But when the Railway Board came out with the same policy recently, officers were startled to see that it had removed ‘mobile’ from the list of devices. Officers were quick to spot the irony: while one ministry under Vaishnaw is pushing India as a tech hub, the other seems to be stuck on a track of its own. Entreaties to the Railway Board for a correction have so far fallen on deaf years, we’re told.…

RELIGION AND POLITICS may be like the two sides of a corbelled arch, but Kashmir’s Hazratbal is living up to its history as a site where the two often meet to make fire. The white-domed shrine on the banks of Dal Lake, which houses the Prophet’s holy relic, has seen renovation before. The most feted one, under Sheikh Abdullah in 1968-79, yielded its present marble avatar. But now, the J&K Waqf Board’s year-long revamp has hit the headlines for a different kind of novelty. Some of it was enchanting fusion: newly painted interiors got custommade Turkish chandeliers, woven into a native architectural space, whispering cordially with the traditional khatamband ceiling art. But that wasn’t the only new entry. Also on a wall was an inauguration plaque, with the Ashokan…

A powerful new playbook for changing governments midstream is being executed by young voters in the subcontinent with metronomic regularity, although it is far from democratic. Take 1, Sri Lanka, July 2022. Youth facing severe economic distress formed the Aragalaya (the Struggle) and stormed the citadels of power, including the secretariats of the president and the prime minister, forcing the ruling Rajapaksa family to flee, and an interim government takes their place. Take 2, Bangladesh, August 2024. University students’ unions protesting job reservations turned violent after the Dhaka police indiscriminately opened fire against them, resulting in more than 100 casualties. Symbols of power, including the Parliament building, were vandalised, and prime minister Sheikh Hasina had to escape to India in a military aircraft to avoid being lynched by the mob.…

BENGALURU-BASED ZORAVAR ALI (NAME CHANGED), AN EXECUTIVE WITH A TELECOM FIRM, HAD JUST BOU-GHT HIMSELF A BYD ATTO 3, a compact SUV electric vehicle, and was really looking forward to a road trip with best pal Rahul Bajpayee (name changed) last July. Rahul, who had just come down from Delhi, had a work meet in Chennai, so that is where the two set off for. Things seemed smooth for the first 250 odd kilometres on the 340kmlong journey along NH44 and NH48 via Kanchipuram. But then it was time to charge the battery. They found a charging point soon enough. But it was only of 20kW capacity and would have taken more than an hour to bring the battery to full life. The two turned to an online app to…

One of Delhi’s oldest and most respected art spaces—Gallerie Ganesha—is presenting a solo exhibition of the late modernist K.S. Kulkarni. The show features a curated selection of Kulkarni’s works from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, offering a rare glimpse into the evolution of his artistic language. A pioneering figure in Indian modern art, Kulkarni was not only a celebrated painter but also a revered educator. He co-founded Triveni Kala Sangam—Delhi’s iconic cultural hub—and served as its first art director. He was also instrumental in the post-Independence Delhi Shilpi Chakra movement—a parallel movement to the Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay—aimed at fostering self-reliance among artists. Kulkarni taught Master’s students at Delhi College of Art as a visiting faculty member, and was also appointed dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts and head…

ANIMESH KUJUR The first Indian sprinter to have qualified, Animesh Kujur bettered the national marks for the 100 and 200m—the latter fetching him bronze at the Asian Championships. Finishing just outside of the podium places in the 200m of the under-23 Monaco Diamond League in July, he appears ready to take on the best. PRAVEEN CHITHRAVEL After a dismal performance at the 2024 Paris Games, Praveen Chithravel is gradually finding his feet again. In April, he equalled his own triple jump national record of 17.37m, a mark he first achieved two years ago. He has had a good run of results since then, with silver at the Asian Championships and the World University Games. NEERAJ CHOPRA Since the gold at the 2023 World Championships, Neeraj Chopra has annexed an Olympic…