Editorial

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategic three-day visit to Seychelles has reinforced India’s relations with the Indian Ocean archipelago. Despite its small size, Seychelles occupies a crucial geopolitical position near critical sea lanes that connect Asia and Africa. While India’s ties with its immediate neighbours remain fraught, its diplomatic and economic relations with Seychelles have stood out as robust and stable. Modi, as the Guest of Honour at the country’s 50th Independence Day celebrations alongside President Patrick Herminie, underscored the significance of this partnership. The bilateral talks and the subsequent agreements focused on elevating economic and strategic cooperation between the two countries. Given Seychelles’ expansive Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), enhanced marine cooperation may emerge as a pivotal, mutually beneficial outcome. India handed over a patrol vessel and additional equipment to the Seychelles Coast Guard, sharpening its capabilities in ocean surveillance. This extends a series of Indian deliveries of patrol and interceptor vessels and maritime surveillance aircraft to the Seychelles defence force, alongside assistance in installing coastal surveillance radars. India also feeds Seychelles real-time intelligence on threats, such as narcotics trafficking, and trains its forces to counter them. The economic partnership also runs deep. Discussions are progressing on India’s $175-million aid and economic package, which was announced earlier this year. The two sides inked agreements spanning multiple areas: from healthcare and agriculture to digital payment systems and space cooperation. India will also station four defence advisors in Seychelles under a fresh bilateral agreement, signalling intent for a deeper strategic collaboration. As an island nation, Seychelles is acutely vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Prime Minister Modi and President Herminie noted that small island states and the wider Global South will bear a disproportionate share of the costs of global warming. India has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Seychelles through cooperation in sustainable marine development, renewable energy and coastal management, and capacity-building efforts to confront climate risks. This partnership assumes greater strategic significance as the Indian Ocean becomes an arena of growing geopolitical competition, as China expands its influence across the region through infrastructure investments and financial assistance. India’s engagement with Seychelles becomes vital against this backdrop. As Prime Minister Modi observed, the next fifty years of cooperation should be shaped by innovation, sustainability, and shared prosperity. (Source: DH)

As the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) – VB-G RAM G – gets set for a rollout on July 1, the scheme has drawn criticism even from states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Its predecessor, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, implemented by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, even with some implementation challenges, effectively addressed rural joblessness. The Narendra Modi government reduced financial allocations to the scheme but retained it, given its proven value and public support. Last year, the programme was overhauled and rebranded, a restructuring that has curtailed its scale and utility. The scheme has undergone a structural shift, from a fully centrally funded wage guarantee programme to a 60:40 Centre-state cost-sharing model, placing a significant financial burden on states, many of which are already struggling with constrained budgets. This shift also marks a departure from the scheme’s original rights-based, demand-driven character, raising concerns that increased centralisation and conditional funding could undermine its core objective of guaranteeing employment. Although the Centre highlights the provision for a higher number of statutory wage employment days, there is scepticism over whether this promise will translate into practice. The introduction of a 60-day pause during the agricultural season and other procedural restrictions may reduce the scheme’s flexibility and responsiveness to local employment needs. These changes threaten a larger impact amid projections of deficient rainfall and drought conditions. Rural distress may significantly increase the demand for employment across large parts of the country. Ironically, at a time when the scheme’s relevance as a social guarantee is most critical, its redesigned funding structure and operational constraints threaten to reduce it to a shadow of its original promise. States, including those governed by the BJP, have expressed concerns. Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand have appealed to the Centre to reconsider the proposed changes in the funding pattern. Sikkim and Uttarakhand, which have to bear only 10% of the programme’s cost, being hill states, have also sought a review of the funding model. Some states have sought higher wages for workers and the withdrawal of the 60-day blackout period. While Karnataka has agreed to implement the revised scheme, it plans to challenge the changes in the Supreme Court, alongside Telangana. The Centre should engage with these concerns, review the new framework, and restore the scheme’s effectiveness. At a time of deepening rural distress and employment insecurity, weakening a crucial social safety net risks leaving millions of vulnerable workers without adequate support. (Source: DH)  

The statement made by an official of the Ministry of External Affairs that a passport is only a travel document and not conclusive proof of Indian citizenship has raised questions and created confusion. Strictly speaking, the statement is not news. It does not lay down any new policy. Passports are issued under the Passports Act, and citizenship is governed by the Citizenship Act,1955. Although passports are generally issued after confirming citizenship, in special cases, they can be issued to non-citizens. The courts have also affirmed that it is a travel document. The Constitution defines citizenship, but does not mention a document that conclusively establishes it. Even procedures for obtaining voter IDs or PAN cards do not demand proof of citizenship. The statement about the passport may, therefore, not be about it, but about citizenship. It might be meant to create uncertainties about citizenship, and to show that citizenship needs to be proved afresh. By law, citizenship may be acquired through birth, descent, registration, naturalisation or incorporation of territory. The citizenship of all those who are now citizens, or deem themselves to be citizens, may be seen as valid only on any of those grounds. The MEA statement on the passport’s inadequacy suggests that citizenship must be established in the way the government wants it to be proved. The situation could be like the demand made by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to the voters that they prove their status as voters. Millions of names have been removed from the voters’ rolls, and lakhs of people are waiting for a decision on their voting status. The ECI asked for a clutch of documents to prove that a person is a voter. Many could not provide them because it was practically not possible for them to procure them. The names of many who produced the documents were also removed. It could be much worse in the case of citizenship. The only document that could prove citizenship is the birth certificate, that too with conditions relating to the year of birth or parentage attached to it. Many people do not have it and can’t get it even if they try because the original records may not exist. So, the situation in India will be much worse than the SIR of the electoral rolls if there is a special intensive revision of citizenship. There has been talk about a National Register of Citizens (NRC) and a Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The reference to passports has caused concern that it might lead to a citizenship survey, with all its consequences. (Source: DH)  

For most Indians, the passport has long stood as the gold standard of identity — a document issued only after police verification, address checks and a government attestation that its holder is a citizen. So when the MEA declared on Passport Seva Divas that the passport does not, by itself, establish citizenship, the reaction was less legal nuance and more public alarm. If a document obtained through months of scrutiny under the Passports Act, 1967 — which explicitly bars issuance to non-citizens — isn’t proof enough, citizens are entitled to ask what is. The trouble is, no one in government has been willing to answer that. The Union home ministry has twice declined in Parliament to specify which documents count as valid proof of citizenship, instead pointing vaguely to the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls — which has already led to the deletion of crores of names from voter lists — initially listed eleven documents for citizenship verification, excluding Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards and PAN cards, before the Supreme Court forced Aadhaar’s grudging inclusion as proof of identity alone. The Supreme Court itself has said the EC cannot adjudicate citizenship, even as it allows the EC to set the very documentary bar by which citizenship gets tested. Into this already murky picture, the MEA has now placed the passport itself in doubt. This is not merely a semantic dispute. Opposition leaders, lawyers and ordinary citizens have a legitimate practical worry: in a country with no citizenship card and a growing machinery of exclusion-by-document, ambiguity is not a neutral, technical gap — it is a lever. A booth-level officer empowered to doubt a passport-holder’s citizenship, with no clear standard to apply, is a recipe for arbitrary disenfranchisement, particularly for the poor, the rural, and those without the resources to fight a bureaucratic challenge. The legal point being made is not wrong: a passport, like Aadhaar or a ration card, is evidence that authorities once believed something about a person, not a permanent judicial finding. India genuinely lacks a single, conclusive “citizenship certificate” for most of its 1.4 billion people, and the law was never designed to require one for daily life. But that is precisely why the way out cannot be more disclaimers. It requires the government to do three things it has so far avoided. First, define — in law, not in anonymous official remarks — a clear hierarchy of documents, with birth and parentage records treated as primary, and widely-held IDs like passports and long-held Aadhaar enrolment treated as strong corroborative evidence that shifts the burden of proof onto the state, not the citizen. Second, codify the principle several courts have already endorsed: that a person should be presumed a citizen unless the state proves otherwise, rather than the reverse. Third, build fast, accessible appeal mechanisms before any document-based exclusion — from voter rolls or anywhere else — takes effect, not after. The government is entitled to draw fine legal distinctions. It is not entitled to draw them and then walk away, leaving citizens to discover, document in hand, is no good  to prove  their citizenship. (Source: The Pioneer)

The amendment to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act [FCRA] rules, notified by the Union government this week, has made the law’s provisions more stringent, constraining the activities of NGOs and other organisations that fall under the law’s purview. This is the 10th amendment to these rules since 2011. Questions arise on the risks of repeated amendments altering the law’s character and eventually diluting its original purpose. Earlier this year, the government brought forward an FCRA Amendment Bill ahead of Assembly elections in some states, but shelved it following public criticism, especially from minorities groups. The question of legislative propriety is relevant, given that the latest amendment is seen as a revival of this aborted intent. According to the new rules, all associations seeking foreign funding must register for a specific field of work, ending the broad permissions previously available under the law. NGOs are now required to disclose their social media accounts, websites, publications, and other activities, significantly expanding the obligations of compliance. While foreign contributions may still support social, educational, religious, economic, and cultural programmes, organisations must clearly specify both the purpose and location of fund utilisation; violations attract penalties. The rules identify 105 permitted activities but do not specifically include health, despite it being a major area of work for many NGOs. While religious education, documentation of faith traditions, and preservation of indigenous beliefs remain permissible, proselytisation is prohibited. Minority organisations fear that legitimate religious or cultural activities could nevertheless be interpreted as attempts at conversion, exposing them to scrutiny. By confining organisations to narrowly defined fields, the regulations may force many to curtail their work or seek multiple registrations, increasing costs without guaranteeing approval. Mandatory disclosure of publications is seen as restricting freedom of expression and undermining an organisation’s right to communicate its work. The cumulative impact of these restrictions is to shrink the operational space of NGOs while raising the risk of penalties for actions that authorities may interpret as rule violations. The regulations also grant the government greater scope to monitor, influence, and potentially control the functioning of civil society organisations. Critics fear the rules could extend beyond minority organisations to target citizen rights groups, environmental organisations, research institutions, and other bodies that challenge official policies. The broad scope for interpretation raises concerns that dissent and criticism may be selectively suppressed. Reflecting these anxieties over the amended rules, some Christian organisations have called for June 28 to be observed as a Day of Prayer. (Source: DH)

With the preliminary report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) reportedly confirming irregularities in the management of donations at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the temple’s functioning has come under the scanner.  The temple’s administrators – the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust – face a tough task explaining the alleged embezzlement involving jewellery and crores of rupees. After the charges became public, ornaments and cash valued at about Rs 2 crore have been reportedly recovered. The final report of the three-member SIT, set up by the Uttar Pradesh government, is expected to reveal the real scale of the misappropriation. The disclosures carry significant political implications because the Ram Temple has been integral to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s ideological and electoral narratives, with its construction framed by leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as an act of nation-building. Allegations of financial misappropriation and administrative lapses, therefore, risk tarnishing not only the temple’s management but also those politically associated with it. With Uttar Pradesh heading into Assembly elections next year, the controversy is particularly uncomfortable for the ruling party. While Opposition leaders have accused the establishment of shielding the culprits, the BJP has dismissed the allegations as an attempt to defame the temple and hurt religious sentiments. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has urged devotees to await the SIT’s findings. Yet questions have been raised about the credibility and scope of the ongoing inquiry. Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav questioned the rationale of an SIT investigation in the absence of a First Information Report (FIR). On Thursday, two days after the preliminary report, an FIR was registered against eight people in connection with the allegations. The concerns are compounded by the composition of the investigation team. The SIT is headed by Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant. Its preliminary report was submitted to Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Sanjay Prasad, who also serves as the state government’s ex officio representative on the temple trust. This official structuring of the probe has invited allegations of a conflict of interest. The charges call for a credible and independent investigation that must lead to a full public disclosure of the temple’s accounts. Built through donations from the devotees, the temple owes its supporters complete transparency. The issue extends far beyond allegations of theft or administrative lapses. It concerns the integrity, accountability, and sanctity of one of the country’s most revered religious institutions. (Source: DH)  

With the southwest monsoon in an extended pause, India may be bracing for the consequences of deficient rainfall across sectors. The current deficit is in the range of 40-45% in most regions, and as high as 66% in the western and central regions, including Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh.  Sowing of kharif crops such as paddy, cereals, pulses, and soybean has already been affected, with the shrinking in the overall sowing area estimated at around 4%. In Karnataka, sowing has covered only 30% of the seasonal target. In many regions, farmers are waiting for the rains to start planting. Projections of a fall in farm output and a rise in the prices of food items are getting increasingly real. Strong foodgrain stocks offer respite, but it will take more to keep the food inflation down.  The impact on rural livelihoods and demand will show across diverse sectors of the economy. Since rural incomes are likely to feel the first shocks of a weak monsoon, monitoring support schemes and employment programmes needs to be prioritised. Reservoir levels have started coming down, with about 80% reported at less than half their capacity. This signals water stress and shortfalls in power generation. As irrigation remains a major area of concern, a persistent rain deficit and further depletion of the reservoir levels threaten to extend the fallout to the rabi season. Drought conditions have also been projected in isolated pockets. The Union Ministry of Agriculture has identified 326 districts across 12 states as highly vulnerable to severe agricultural impacts and potential drought conditions. The government has released a revised manual detailing drought management. It has also factored in the El Niño estimations in its assessment of the emerging situation. There is still time for the monsoon to recover and mitigate some of the damage caused by its faltering start. The current pause does not necessarily mean that rainfall will remain deficient across regions. The India Meteorological Department (IMD)’s broader seasonal outlook suggests that the overall picture may not be as grim as present conditions indicate. But hope cannot substitute for preparedness. Governments must plan for the worst-case scenario now, not after the reservoirs run dry. Drought-resistant seeds, fertilisers, and other critical inputs should be made available without delay. A prolonged rainfall deficit can trigger crop losses, deepen rural distress, and erode already fragile farm incomes. It is in such periods of uncertainty that farmers become most vulnerable to debt, making timely government support essential. (Source: DH)

Fourteen young people, most of them students and staff at a coaching-cum-gaming centre in Lucknow’s Aliganj, died on June 22 when fire tore through the building they were working in. The visuals were chillingly familiar: panicked youngsters jumping from windows, fire tenders struggling through narrow lanes, a chief minister cutting short his tour to visit the dead. It had happened before — barely three weeks earlier, in Delhi, where 21 people, many of them foreign nationals who had come to the city seeking medical treatment, burned to death in a guesthouse with no valid fire safety certificate. Two cities, two tragedies, one unchanged answer to the question of why: India has still not learned to keep its buildings from killing the people inside them. The two fires look different on the surface — a gaming zone and coaching institute in one city, a budget hotel in another — but strip away the location and the post-mortem is identical. A commercial activity was running inside a structure never built, inspected, or certified for it.  A narrow staircase was often the only way out. Combustible material — foam seating, plastic partitions, electronics, bedding — fed the flames once they started. And nobody in the chain of approval seems to have asked whether the building could empty itself in an emergency. That is the real culprit, and it is not one person. It is a system that treats fire safety as paperwork rather than physics. Municipal bodies issue occupancy and trade licenses without verifying clearances from the fire department; fire departments, chronically short-staffed, cannot audit even a fraction of the buildings under their charge; owners convert residential and storage spaces into hotels, coaching centres, and gaming arcades because the rent is higher than the cost of compliance; and enforcement, when it happens at all, follows the fire rather than precedes it. In Delhi, a cook has been arrested and a case has been registered against unnamed persons — a formulation that conveniently keeps the officials who cleared or ignored the building’s status out of the dock. Lucknow’s probe has barely begun, but the script rarely changes: a few low-level arrests, a compensation cheque, a promise of audits, and silence once the cameras leave. This is not India’s first warning. Uphaar Cinema in 1997, the Surat tuition-centre fire in 2019, the Anaj Mandi factory blaze that same year, hospital fires since — each produced the same commissions, the same recommendations, and the same inertia. Fire safety byelaws already exist on paper. What is missing is the political will to make violating them costlier than complying with them, and the administrative capacity to actually check. What would change this is unglamorous but specific: independent, surprise fire audits instead of self-certification by owners; criminal liability that reaches the municipal and fire officials who sign off on unsafe buildings, not only the staff on the ground; a public, searchable database of which commercial buildings hold a valid fire clearance; and prosecutions fast enough that cases don’t quietly die in years of litigation. Until that changes, the next fire is not a possibility — it is a certainty waiting for an address. The only question is which city’s name fills the headline next. (Source: The Pioneer)

A two-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court has addressed serious threats to personal freedom posed by the arbitrary use of the provision of preventive detention. A division bench of the court recently ordered penalties on officials who misuse the provision under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and issued guidelines on how detentions should be carried out. Police have been widely found to detain people, at times indefinitely, on the grounds of suspicion that they may commit an offence. The court ruled that compensation of Rs 25,000 be paid to the victims for every day of unlawful confinement beyond the statutory 24 hours, and that officials responsible for such detentions be held personally liable. It said the amount should be recovered from the salaries of the officials, who should also face disciplinary proceedings for dereliction of duty under the service rules. The directions were issued in connection with a case in Ghaziabad, in which a physically challenged Dalit advocate was taken into custody after a dispute over the construction of a gate, and was sent to jail, though he was willing to furnish a bond as required by the law. The court decided, based on an inquiry, that the detention was unnecessary. It found that the Ghaziabad police had used the provision to keep in detention about 2,500 people over a period of one year. It has been noted that the detentions are normally followed by demands for the execution of expensive bonds for release. Many detainees find these sureties unaffordable. The court ruled that the detained persons should be required to furnish only a personal bond, without depositing the money, and that the amount should not exceed Rs 20,000. No surety should ordinarily be demanded. If a detainee refuses to execute the bond, it should be recorded in writing and through audio-visual means before they are sent to jail. These are essential safeguards that will help ensure people are not unnecessarily harassed by the police or the administration. At the centre of the issue is the paradox of people being sent to jail only because the system decides they might be involved in offences yet to occur. But the larger concern is about the subversion of established practices that make their release increasingly difficult. The court said citizens should not be mechanically deprived of their right to personal freedom guaranteed by Article 21. Its guidelines also have a national significance in potentially preventing these subversions in other states. (Source: DH)  

The government order requiring that cough syrups be sold only on a doctor’s prescription is a welcome intervention to address the threat of poisoning from contaminated syrup-based medicines. Cough syrups have been removed from Schedule K, which earlier allowed them to be sold even in general stores in villages, and over-the-counter sales from pharmacies have been prohibited. They can only be sold from licensed pharmacies on a valid medical prescription. Cough syrups have caused deaths and sickness, especially among children, as they were readily available as popular medication. Many deaths have been reported from within India and from other countries where the syrups were exported. Last October, 22 children died after consuming cough syrups in Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh. There were many other cases of deaths from different states. Cough syrups exported from India were linked to the deaths of dozens of children in Gambia, Uzbekistan, and Cameroon. The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued an alert about Indian cough syrups. Many people consume cough syrups without understanding the risks. Making a doctor’s prescription mandatory might help to curb sales, but such rules are commonly flouted. The order does not address the real problem at the manufacturing stage, where the syrups are contaminated with dangerous chemicals. There are no effective safety regulations and guidelines, and an efficient system for monitoring and supervision of processes. The statutory mechanism for quality control and inspections does not work for various reasons, including lack of necessary infrastructure, facilities and manpower, loopholes in the legal framework, delays in the working of the system, and corruption and malpractices. Cases are forgotten soon, and erring units come back into business. Penalties and other punitive actions are often reversed on various grounds. Even after incidents of contamination become public, cough syrups made by the same company continue to be available in the market. The solution to the problem must begin at the source, not at the point of sale. There are over 2,000 cough syrup manufacturers in India, including major pharmaceutical units and small and third-party units. It must be ensured that they follow the right processes, backed by a rigorous regime of testing, monitoring, and quality assurance. Rules demand that the raw materials and every batch of the product should be tested for their quality, but that is not done. The responsibility for the implementation of the rules and regulations rests with the state agencies and regulatory bodies in the sector. There is no effective co-ordination between central and state agencies in the field. Unless these weaknesses are addressed, a restriction at sales points will not achieve the intended results. (Source: DH)