Editorial

The Gujarat High Court’s confirmation of the death penalty for 38 individuals convicted in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts marks an unprecedented moment in India’s judicial history. The devastating attacks, planned and executed by the banned extremist group Indian Mujahideen, killed 56 innocent people and injured many others. The severity of this coordinated, violent act, indeed, calls for accountability. In its July 7 judgment, the court cites the “humongous” conspiracy involved in the dastardly act. However, a judgment that upholds a mass death sentence also challenges the tenets of modern jurisprudence. The central argument against capital punishment posits that a civilised, constitutional society must not respond to killings with state-sanctioned killings. Legal systems must prioritise justice over retribution, even when they engage with acts of terror. It is not the finality of execution that achieves real justice; it is the adherence to the rule of law and compliance with the established constitutional processes. Now, the convicts have been met with the violence they inflicted on society. A legal stamp of approval notwithstanding, this furthers the idea of retributive justice. Capital punishment may be legally permitted for the “rarest of rare” cases. The blasts could be considered within the scope of that definition. However, legality and justice are not the same. The ruling – by a division bench of justices A Y Kogje and Samir Dave – is also marked by its scale. A death sentence is wrong even for one person, and multiplying it across 38, in a single case, makes it 38 times as wrong. In this context, the claims of “just and equal” treatment are misplaced. Many hail the judgment as evidence of the state’s resolve for strong action against terrorism. But the state is a human institution. It must be humane before it becomes strong. The state has evolved over centuries, but the legal systems it prescribes are sometimes based on a primitive idea of justice that considers it right to take an eye for an eye. As Gandhi said, that would make the whole world blind. The legal system should be rooted in an idea of justice that is reformative, not vindictive or retributive. Most countries in the world have either abolished the death penalty or have suspended its operation. India should join them and honour its own rich, traditional values of humaneness and compassion. Executing 38 people at once would not deliver lasting justice; it would only leave the nation’s sense of humanity with a stain. (Source: DH)

Recent developments in West Bengal – centred on the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, the subsequent lynching of an innocent man, and the police killing of one of the accused – have exposed serious shortcomings in the two-month-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The incident occurred in Baruipur, near Kolkata. Women’s safety was central to the BJP’s campaign against the previous Mamata Banerjee administration, with the 2024 rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College cited as evidence of governmental failure on this front. Responding to the latest case, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari asserted that his government was making every effort to prevent such incidents, reaffirming what he called a long-standing commitment to protecting women and girls. This position merely echoes the assurances offered by Mamata Banerjee’s government. Meanwhile, the victim’s family has alleged that the police were slow in the initial stages of their investigation, raising questions about accountability. The discovery of the young girl’s body triggered mob violence, resulting in the lynching of a man whom police later confirmed was not a suspect. Adhikari had a communal take on the incident, insinuating that political interests were in play, and “fundamentalists” may have targeted the man based on his Hindu identity, given that the murdered girl was Muslim. Since the protests started, police have arrested more than 30 people. Bringing a communal or political angle into the rape and murder of a child is perverse. Such divisive narratives only serve to divert public attention from the heinous crime, undermining the pursuit of justice for the victim. The state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the crime, leading to four arrests. However, one of the accused men has been killed in a police encounter. The authorities offered a familiar justification: the accused allegedly tried to snatch a service rifle, forcing the police to shoot. This reflects a troubling trend where instant justice and encounter killings are becoming normalised. Senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh defended the police action, labelling critics “anti-socials”. Yet, most encounters are calculated, extrajudicial executions rather than acts of self-defence. They are a gross violation of due process and the rule of law. Governments are elected with a constitutional commitment to uphold the law. Encounter killings and “justice” through bulldozer action are fundamentally illegal. People accused of crimes, even the most heinous of them, have a right to a fair trial. The police are only investigators with no legal right to punish the offenders through arbitrary executions. (Source: DH)

Europe is in the grip of a severe heat wave that has caused widespread health problems, upset lives and lifestyles, and posed risks to most economies. Over 1,500 deaths have been reported across the continent, with France and Britain suffering the worst so far. Britain recorded its hottest June in history, while Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany have all seen temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius, which is boiler-class weather in Europe. It is 10-12 degrees above normal. Some deaths occurred when people jumped into rivers to escape the heat and drowned. Weather alerts have been issued across many regions. Schools have closed, advisories urge limited travel, and train services have been curtailed amid fears that rail lines could expand and cause accidents. Much of Europe’s infrastructure, houses and other buildings are not designed for this level of heat. Humans and animals alike are struggling to adapt to the new climate reality. Europe is now caught between hot winds from Africa and a warming Arctic region. Climate change has disrupted weather patterns worldwide, making extreme events increasingly common. Predictions that each year would be warmer than the previous one are proving true. The chances of weather extremes have increased a hundredfold in the last two decades. Nearly half of the 850 cities across 30 European countries have broken, or are expected to break, heat-stress records. Scientists warn that Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising at twice the global average since the 1980s. Many argue that the global warming predictions by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which present a scary scenario, may need revision, as the situation could worsen. Experts have called for adoption of techniques to avoid heat stress, which include better ventilation and creation of more green cover in cities. But it is difficult for people to adopt measures that need longer-term planning and investment. When the risks from climate change are discussed, it is always said that the poor countries will be the worst affected by it. But it is increasingly becoming clear that climate does not discriminate and the whole world will have to pay the price. Climate negotiations have stalled because the rich world has failed to accept its historical responsibility for creating the conditions for climate change and to support the poor world to counter it. The climate disasters in Europe should prompt the rich countries to change their attitudes and policies. (Source: DH)    

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched down in Melbourne on Wednesday evening, fresh from a warm reception in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, he was on an important leg of a three-nation Indo-Pacific tour. This is his third visit to Australia as Prime Minister — a frequency no Indian premier has matched — and it says something about how central Canberra has become to New Delhi’s calculus east of Singapore, defined by ‘Act East’ policy. At the third Australia-India Annual Summit, Modi and his host Anthony Albanese oversaw what officials describe as eighteen distinct outcomes: a Joint Declaration on Defence and Security Cooperation that upgrades the relationship with an Annual Defence Ministers’ Dialogue, a new maritime security roadmap, and — most striking — a commercial uranium supply agreement building on the 2014 Civil Nuclear Agreement, under which Australia has so far shipped uranium to India just once, in 2017, to feed India’s ambitious 100-gigawatt nuclear power goal. Talks on the long-pending Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement were formally accelerated, building on the 2022 Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement that was India’s first developed-country trade deal in a decade. Education, critical minerals, and cultural repatriation rounded out a genuinely wide canvas. Trade negotiators have set a target of AUD 100 billion in two-way commerce by 2030, roughly double current levels, and Thursday’s acceleration announcement gives that number a fighting chance.  For decades, India and Australia were bound loosely by cricket and Commonwealth ties rather than strategic convergence; the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, now six years old, has since matured from rhetoric into structure. A 2021 logistics agreement already lets warships use each other’s ports, and the new defence declaration reads less like an aspiration than a maintenance upgrade on an alliance-adjacent partnership. But it was not smooth sailing for the Indian Prime Minister. Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, used the visit to press Canberra to raise India’s democratic backsliding, a criticism that has trailed Modi’s Australian visits since 2023. It was indeed a low point of the visit but was not allowed to overshadow the visit. Where does this leave the two countries? Well, the trajectory is unmistakably upward, but increasingly instrumental rather than sentimental. Both governments now speak the language of supply-chain security, critical minerals, and an “open, rules-based” Indo-Pacific. The Quad remains the scaffolding; bilateral deals are increasingly the substance built upon it. If the Jakarta leg was about breadth — reviving an old civilisational friendship into hard defence contracts like BrahMos — the Australia leg was about depth, converting decades of trade and strategic dialogue into binding commitments. The test now is delivery: whether CECA is actually concluded, whether uranium shipments follow the ink, and whether the partnership can absorb criticism without either side flinching. (Source: The Pioneer)

UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026, released recently, carries a stark warning about the growing impact of climate change on children, with India figuring among the most vulnerable regions. The report estimates that 1.1 billion children – nearly half the world’s child population – are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards: drought, extreme heat, and heatwaves. It emphasises the fallout on children’s health, education, and survival. No child is entirely free from climate risk, while around four million of them face as many as six climate-related threats. These primary threats are compounded by secondary impacts, including air pollution and vector-borne diseases. UNICEF has mapped these risks in detail, providing a template for governments to design child-centric climate frameworks. It has called for strategies to improve education, healthcare, sanitation, and other essential infrastructure to help children withstand the impact of climate change. The report also underscores the need to integrate child-critical social services into national adaptation plans. Children in India are significantly impacted, with nearly every child exposed to at least one climate hazard. Alarmingly, 97% face two or more risks, while 55% – over 234 million children – confront three or more such risks. These statistics need to be seen in a larger context for what they represent as real-world consequences: widespread malnutrition, disease, disrupted schooling, and denied development opportunities. Climate manifestations such as droughts, extreme heat, floods, and storms devastate agriculture, livelihoods, and broader economic stability. As society’s most vulnerable members, children suffer the heaviest toll during environmental crises. Although public rhetoric claims that the safety and welfare of women and children receive top priority during disasters, actual practice tells a different story. In 2024, climate-related disruptions affected nearly 54 million students in India. India’s massive child population may have contributed to this statistic, but it still highlights a failure to shield children from such events. Climate change affects societies differently, with social inequalities considerably influencing the outcomes. The UNICEF report notes that 40% of children in the country experience food poverty, and almost half of those aged under 15 years lack access to social security programmes. Despite years of warnings regarding these environmental impacts, effective action has remained elusive. The report is yet another call for the world, and India, to step up with informed policies that keep pace with the evolving crisis. Systemic interventions to safeguard the youngest – and most vulnerable – citizens must be integral to the country’s climate strategy. (Source: DH)

The police rescue of 12 bonded labourers from a factory in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh starkly reminds us of India’s persistent, shameful system of forced labour. Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, and Nepal, the labourers were lured by false promises of decent wages, food, and accommodation for working in the manufacturing unit. The victims’ identity documents were taken away, and they were forced to work gruelling, day-long shifts. They were under constant surveillance in the premises guarded by pit bulls. Some of them reportedly endured this ordeal for over 18 months. Their demands for wages were met with severe beatings and torture. Police and government officials acted on a tip-off and raided the unit, rescuing the workers. However, some of the culprits involved in the operation are still at large. Bonded labour was abolished by law in 1976, but cases continue to surface across the country, exposing an unaddressed systemic failure in enforcing the ban. The Muzaffarnagar incident highlights administrative shortfalls in monitoring for possible violations. It is alarming that an industrial unit was allowed to exploit workers undetected for months. This incident also reflects the desperation of job-seekers and growing vulnerabilities that push them into exploitative workplaces. Most of the victims were picked up from railway stations and public places while they were looking for work. A substantial segment of work-related migration in India is tied to the informal and unorganised sectors, exposing many to deceptive offers of employment. Once trapped in these abusive setups and the documents seized, escape becomes extremely difficult. That many of these captive workers are unaware of their legal and human rights further complicates redress. Weak enforcement, despite strong criminal laws, enables such informal workplaces to function outside the regulatory scope. For the administrators, rehabilitating the rescued workers remains one of the toughest challenges. Many survivors require medical treatment and psychological counselling, apart from fair compensation and sustainable livelihoods to rebuild their lives. The onus is on the state to provide these; its role extends beyond legal obligations to ensuring justice and dignity for the victims. The persistence of bonded labour and manual scavenging raises deeper moral questions for society. Oppressive labour practices adopted on farms, in factories, and at other workplaces reflect not only a failure of law enforcement but also a disregard for human dignity. The continued existence of practices that violate individuals’ fundamental rights and honour reminds us simultaneously of institutional gaps and society’s collective inability to eliminate such exploitation. (Source: DH)

As Artificial Intelligence expands into all areas of life, UN Women has made an important call for wider adoption of gender-sensitive AI. The appeal goes beyond general caution; it stems from a study revealing that algorithmic bias is reinforcing systemic gender inequalities, leaving women increasingly vulnerable to discrimination and violence. The problem has been built into the technology. When systems learn from historical, flawed data, they tend to replicate and amplify societal prejudices. An analysis of 133 generative AI systems found that 44% demonstrated clear gender bias, while 26% exhibited a combination of both gender and racial bias. The study found that AI actively absorbs human prejudices, racial biases, and tendencies to discriminate based on gender. These biases are not mere algorithmic glitches; they are systemic patterns reflecting deep-seated societal flaws. Large Language models (LLMs) routinely perpetuate stereotypes, linking women with home, family, and children, and men with careers, business, executive roles, and salaries. Many systems have also been seen as exhibiting sexist or misogynistic attitudes, reducing women to sex objects or the property of their husbands. UN Women noted that these toxic outputs are the natural outcome of training AI on decades of unequal data. Global policy has failed to keep pace with these emerging realities. Out of the 138 countries assessed in the analysis, only 24 referenced gender in their national AI strategies, and only 18 adopted substantive gender-responsive measures. UN Women sees this as a choice made “over and over” in training data, design rooms, and policy documents “that stay silent on half of the population”. Under-representation of women across the AI ecosystem, particularly in decision-making roles managing core technology and product development, has been cited as a key reason for AI systems inheriting gender bias. UN Women notes that women risk bearing higher costs of AI adoption, as they face a bigger threat of losing jobs to automation and are more vulnerable to AI-enabled abuse. Addressing these inequities requires systematic gender- and race-based audits of AI models and the output they generate. Investment must be enhanced towards equipping women with AI skills; their representation in leadership roles is critical in shaping gender-sensitive technological decisions. UN Women has urged governments, companies, and experts researching and developing AI to integrate gender equality throughout the AI life cycle, from design and development to deployment and governance. The group has rightly noted that “when designed with safety and used with intention,” AI can help detect stereotypes, broaden representation, and improve accessibility at scale. (Source: DH)

The Bombay High Court recently reaffirmed that peaceful protest is a constitutional right for every Indian. This is a vital democratic truth delivered at a time when basic rights are increasingly under strain. The court also underscored the self-evident principle that the police are servants of the people, not of top government authorities. It issued the ruling after hearing a case of petitioner Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). Chaudhary had organised protests, allegedly without police permission, against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s decisions regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the Gyanvapi mosque. In response, Mumbai Police filed FIRs and issued an externment order against him in December 2025. The court questioned these actions and ruled that slapping FIRs and debarring a citizen from entering a city merely for criticising the government is unjustified. Since there was no evidence of a threat to public safety or property, the order infringed upon his fundamental rights. Justice Madhav Jamdar quashed the externment, holding that the order is a severe measure that cannot be arbitrarily invoked simply because a citizen holds public protests. Raising slogans like “government murdabad” cannot be legal grounds to file criminal cases or banish individuals from a city. The court affirmed that dissent and protests are legitimate responses of citizens to the government’s actions, protected by the right to free speech and expression under Article 19. Treating such protests as threats to public order without credible evidence erodes the very freedom that distinguishes a democracy from an authoritarian state. The judge’s suggestion that the petitioner should consider switching political affiliations to get the FIRs quashed through the ruling party’s “washing machine” was made in a lighter vein, but it shows how judicial minds are concerned over trends that pose a threat to democratic and constitutional ideals. While the Bombay High Court’s ruling should resonate beyond the immediate context of the case, its democratic spirit is frequently violated in cases where victims find no judicial relief. Two days after the ruling, a Delhi court rejected the bail applications of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, both accused in the larger conspiracy case in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots. They have been incarcerated for over five years, and their bail pleas have been repeatedly dismissed by various courts, including the Supreme Court. Their prolonged imprisonment further reveals a contradiction in the legal landscape. The judicial protection of dissent, underlined in Justice Jamdar’s judgment, has failed to reach everyone. (Source: DH)

Recently, the United States announced that it was renaming the US Indo-Pacific Command back to its original US Pacific Command. William Shakespeare, who asked ‘What’s in a name?’, might not have thought much of it, but in diplomacy, optics are often as decisive as substance. This is bad news for India as it is yet another sign of New Delhi being pushed to the periphery of Washington’s vision. The US’ claim that there would be no change in the geographic jurisdiction and mission is hard to believe. This move underscores that Washington no longer sees New Delhi as a counterweight to an aggressive Beijing in the region. In September 2018, when then US Defence Secretary James Mattis announced the USINDOPACOM, geopolitical equations were very different: Washington championed a free and open rules-based international order. It focused on containing Beijing’s influence, and India-US ties were riding high on the personal rapport between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump. Today, Sino-US ties are undergoing a cautious recalibration, with Trump even seeing a ‘G2’ (Group of Two). This shift spells trouble for the US’ allies in the region and puts the Quad’s future in uncertainty. The renaming signals that the US no longer considers India central to its South Asian calculus. From regime change in Bangladesh to its policies in Myanmar, recent US actions have cut against India’s interests. Above all, the current Washington-Islamabad bonhomie has come at New Delhi’s expense. Sergio Gor, the US Ambassador to India, downplayed the renaming, saying he didn’t “care what name is on the letterhead”. It would appear that Gor is a fan of Shakespeare. Yet, his appointment as ambassador was a clear sign of Washington downgrading its ties with India – not because of his lack of diplomatic chops, but because of his dual role as both ambassador to India and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs, with 12 other countries on his roster. This is the latest in a string of anti-India actions by Washington: from terminating duty-free access to many Indian goods to imposing exorbitant tariffs and penalties, and from interfering in India’s energy policies to hosting Pakistani leaders while both neighbours were at heightened hostilities. Though it cannot stand up to the US like China, by now it must be clear to New Delhi that Washington is not a reliable ally. Towards that end, India’s trade deals with various countries and blocs are steps in the right direction. Strategic autonomy must be safeguarded, along with geopolitical and defence interests. (Source: DH)

America turned 250 this weekend, and the birthday came wrapped in fireworks, heat warnings, and a president who could not resist turning it into his own campaign. That combination — genuine national milestone, genuine logistical chaos, and unmistakable self-promotion — tells you almost everything about where the country stands as it enters its next quarter-millennium. The official festivities were real enough. Crowds gathered on the National Mall after it reopened despite a punishing heatwave. But the anniversary’s defining image came a day earlier at Mount Rushmore, where Donald Trump delivered a speech billed as a tribute to American exceptionalism that veered, as several outlets noted, into warnings that communism poses a “mortal threat” to American liberty — an odd note of menace for a birthday toast. It fit a pattern: at an earlier Freedom 250 kickoff in Iowa, Trump told supporters of his political opponents, “I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country.” Trump has been building a parallel apparatus — Freedom 250, a White House-created entity he personally chairs — that sits awkwardly alongside the congressionally chartered America250 commission. The Interior Department funneled at least $68.3 million in taxpayer money to the effort, while Freedom 250 solicited corporate sponsorships up to $10 million from companies like Palantir, Boeing, and United Airlines — firms that also hold hefty federal contracts. House Democrats have called it a “hotbed of corruption”; Freedom 250 calls the charge false. Either way, a shared national anniversary has been split into two competing brands, one of them built around a single man. Which raises the harder question the fireworks can’t hide: is any of this evidence of a country still capable of running the world, or of one too distracted by its own internal fights to notice it’s slipping? The honest answer is that both camps have real evidence. Beijing’s leadership calls America a “fading giant,” and there’s no shortage of American commentators cataloguing debt, dysfunction, and eroding alliances to match. But the counterargument is equally solid: no rival, China included, has matched America’s combination of military reach, financial centrality, and technological depth, and polling shows Americans themselves remain divided rather than resigned about their country’s trajectory. What’s genuinely new isn’t decline — it’s the spectacle of a leader treating a shared civic milestone as personal marketing. Empires have survived worse than a gaudy sponsor list. Whether they survive a citizenry that no longer agrees on what the anniversary is for is a different, and much older, American question. (Source: DH)