This May marks 11 years since The Wire was launched. In this time, we have strived to bring you stories that matter and your support has kept us going. But it has not been easy. We have faced intimidation, threats, lawsuits and censorship. Above all, ensuring we raise the money month-on-month to keep our newsroom running has remained a major challenge.
Unlike Big Media, our journalists are not paid by ad giants or corporations who wish to control the narrative. Our funding comes from you, our loyal readers and viewers.
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Illustration by : @pariplab_chakraborty
This May marks 11 years since The Wire was launched. In this time, we have strived to bring you stories that matter and your support has kept us going. But it has not been easy. We have faced intimidation, threats, lawsuits and censorship. Above all, ensuring we raise the money month-on-month to keep our newsroom running has remained a major challenge.
Join one these three cohorts to continue to support our work:
1. Patrons contribute Rs 111,000 a year
2. Sustainers contribute Rs 11,000 a year
3. Supporters contribute Rs 1,100 a year
Remember this - The Wire needs only 45,000 supporters or 4500 sustainers or 450 patrons to ensure its newsroom thrives and grows every year. Contribute Now: support.thewire.in
#JournalismNeedsYou #SupportIndependentJournalism #SupportTheWire
Follow: @thewirein@thewire.hindi@thewireurdu
To our readers, thank you for keeping independent journalism alive.
This May marks 11 years since The Wire was launched. In this time, we have strived to bring you stories that matter and your support has kept us going. But it has not been easy. We have faced intimidation, threats, lawsuits and censorship. Above all, ensuring we raise the money month-on-month to keep our newsroom running has remained a major challenge.
Unlike Big Media, our journalists are not paid by ad giants or corporations who wish to control the narrative. Our funding comes from you, our loyal readers and viewers.
Not everyone can afford to pay for news. But if you can, then consider supporting independent journalism. Consider supporting us.
Join one of the three cohorts to support The Wire and become a part of our 11 year celebrations.
#SupportIndependentJournalism #SupportTheWire (Link in Story)
This is the sixth article in the series ‘Law and Justice: A Journey through History’.
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Rule of law is the bedrock of any modern society. It ensures equality of all before the law. Through notions of justice, punitive mechanisms, and multiple avenues of enforcement, law shapes social relationships and also in turn gets reconstituted and challenged by actors and contexts. In these moments law takes on another attribute – that of virtue. As we explore the troubled relationship between law, justice and society in the following essays, we will note how law struggles to negotiate a delicate balance between its punitive trait and as a messiah for justice. The essays in this series will uncover some fascinating aspects of law by turning to the archives of law. This will help uncover the commonalities between history, legal history, and socio- legal studies and also foster greater dialogue between historians and lawyers in South Asia.
The essays for this special series will be curated by Dr Nitin Sinha (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, ZMO Berlin), Dr Sukhalata Sen (Former Assistant Professor, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru) and Vidhya Raveendranathan (Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen).
On March 25, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly passed a motion which recognised the transatlantic slave trade as one of the “gravest crimes against humanity”. The proposal was first moved by Ghana, other nations of the African Union, and the Caribbean Community. It was accompanied by a demand for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs.” The proposal claimed that years of servitude had not only hollowed out generations and resources from African countries and the Caribbean islands, but also created structural inequalities in these regions. While the proposal was passed by 123 nations, 52 (including the United Kingdom and European Union) abstained from voting, and three (United States of America, Israel and Argentina) voted against it .
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The following is an excerpt from Staying Alive by Ramani Atkuri.
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On a wet July morning in 2018, I found myself seated in the room of Dr Gupta, the Block Medical Officer (BMO) of a CHC in Panna district, Madhya Pradesh, waiting for him to finish signing a stack of files. For years, he had been the only doctor at the CHC, running the block hospital single-handedly. The nine other sanctioned posts were vacant. Dr Gupta sat at a large desk cluttered with papers and files. A man in a khaki uniform stood behind him, holding an umbrella over his head as he worked, protecting him from a slow but steady drip of water from the ceiling. A sheet of blue polythene had been tied under the ceiling, but this too had developed leaks in a few places. Hence the umbrella.
I was not seated opposite the doctor’s desk, but about 10 feet away at an angle. It soon became clear that the chair I occupied had been strategically placed to avoid drips from the ceiling. The walls were damp and showed signs of fungal growth. Another thick blue polythene sheet covered the floor, which was now wet and grimy from people walking over it. A single tube light cast a dull light. A cupboard and a refrigerator in the room had been pulled at least a foot away from the damp walls to prevent further damage.
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The Narendra Modi government frequently posits India as a ‘Vishwaguru’ or world leader. How the world sees India is often lost in this branding exercise.
Outside India, global voices are monitoring and critiquing human rights violations in India and the rise of Hindutva. We present here monthly highlights of what a range of actors – from UN experts and civil society groups to international media and parliamentarians of many countries – are saying about the state of India’s democracy.
Read the monthly roundup for April 1-30, 2026 on thewire.in
After the capture of West Bengal, The Hindutva Brigade has successfully completed its eastern expedition. On the very eve of the electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it resorted to vandalism and violence against its political opponent Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Muslims. It also began renaming places named after patriotic Muslims with names of secular icons like Subhas Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore.
Even the swearing in ceremony of the new BJP government was planned for May 9, the birth day of Tagore. His iconic poem, ‘Where the head is held high’ was given a communal colour by depicting that Hindus can hold their head high now. All this is a part of the BJP’s politico-cultural project to capture the Bengali society and its icons to its side.
BJP’s victory is only the beginning
For the BJP and the Sangh parivar, this electoral victory is not the end but a new beginning since its agenda is not only the realisation of Hindu Rashtra but also Hindutva Brahminical Social Order. Since it is a civilisational and historic project, the Sangh would embark on rewriting history and reconstruct historical personalities to suit their agenda.
In this project, Aryan colonialism is depicted as indigenous and as a great epoch in Indian history while the rest is treated as colonialism, especially the medieval Mughal rule. In the history of Indian independence, all those who were opposed to the Congress, like B.R. Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh, or against Nehru post-independence, like Lal Bahadur Shastri or Ram Manohar Lohia, are rechristened as having sympathy for the RSS and BJP or its predecessor, the Jan Sangh.
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Members of the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a forum of retired Indian civil servants, have written an open letter to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav expressing their shock and raising concern over the recent purchase of over 2,000 hectares of agricultural land by IAS and IPS officers.
The letter, dated May 15, 2026, was undersigned by 62 former civil servants. “We have been shocked by a news report, published in the Dainik Bhaskar of 10 April, 2026, regarding purchase of land by officers of the IAS and IPS in Village Gudari Ghat of Kolar region of your state. The allegations are serious,” they said, listing them under seven points based on a Dainik Bhaskar report.
According to the daily, an investigation into the Immovable Property Returns (IPR) filed by the IAS officers in Madhya Pradesh revealed a massive land investment in Guradi Ghat village near Kolar area in Bhopal. Nearly 50 IAS and IPS officers from across the country reportedly purchased plots on the same day – April 4, 2022.
The land purchases also happens to be around a proposed Rs 3,200-crore Bhopal Western Bypass. the project was green-lighted on August 31, 2023, around 16 months after this land purchase.
They reportedly purchased 2.023 hectares of agricultural land in the above-named village through one registered deed, even though no society has been incorporated by them.
As per the letter, the sale amount in the deed is Rs. 5.50 crores, though the market value of the land at the time was Rs. 7.78 crore. Moreover, it skyrocketed after the approval of the bypass project.
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The World Health Organisation declared the Ebola disease outbreak caused by a rare virus in Congo and neighbouring Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday (May 17), after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths.
The WHO said the outbreak does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency like COVID-19, and advised against the closure of international borders.
The WHO said on X that a laboratory-confirmed case has also been reported in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, which is about 1,000 kilometers from the outbreak’s epicentre in the eastern province of Ituri, suggesting a possible wider spread. It said the patient had visited Ituri and that other suspected cases have also been reported in North Kivu province, which is one of Congo’s most populous and borders Ituri.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.
The WHO’s emergency declaration is meant to spur donor agencies and countries into action. By the WHO’s standards, it shows the event is serious, there is a risk of international spread and it requires a coordinated international response.
The global response to previous declarations has been mixed. In 2024, when the WHO declared mpox outbreaks in Congo and elsewhere in Africa a global emergency, experts at the time said it did little to get supplies like diagnostic tests, medicines and vaccines to affected countries quickly.
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Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) hiked its retail CNG price by Re 1/kg on Sunday (May 17) citing a rise in input gas costs and “steep appreciation” of the dollar, marking the latest fuel price increase in India as the West Asia crisis continues to disrupt its energy supplies.
IGL supplies CNG, which is often used by autos and city buses, to Delhi as well as parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan. Against the background of reports that prices of the fuel were hiked by Rs 2 in Delhi and Mumbai among other cities on Friday, Sunday’s move would mark the second rate increase in the capital in two days.
“The revision in retail prices of CNG has been effected only to marginally offset the impact of increase in input gas cost along with steep appreciation of USD,” IGL said in a statement on Sunday.
Its move also comes two days after state-run fuel retailers increased prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 3 per litre, marking the first hike in four years.
Days prior, Union petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri while maintaining that India does not face energy shortages hinted that retailers staring at mounting losses would have to hike prices at the pump.
Coming shortly after votes cast in the recently concluded assembly elections were counted, the price hike was met with criticism by the opposition.
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A heatwave will hit parts of central and northwest India including Delhi, as per a press release by the India Meteorological Department on May 17.
The IMD announced that both daytime and night temperatures were “markedly above normal” – that’s more than 5.1 Degrees Celsius above normal – in many regions on May 16, including in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat.
Heatwave conditions – which can also turn into a “severe heatwave” in parts of Uttar Pradesh – will prevail till May 23 in some parts of these regions.
Another heatwave over India
On May 17, the IMD announced that heatwave conditions would occur over some pockets of Rajasthan from May 17- 23, and over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi from May 18 to 23. Maximum temperatures in Delhi are predicted to hit 45 Degrees Celsius on May 18, 19 and 20.
Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region will witness a heatwave till May 21, and Chhattisgarh on May 20 and 21. In Telangana, the heatwave will hold sway from May 17 to 23, and western Rajasthan will witness warm nights on May 17 and 18.
Uttar Pradesh will also witness heatwave conditions till May 23, and this could aggravate into a “severe” heatwave in some isolated pockets of the state from May 19 to 23.
A heatwave is said to occur over a region if the maximum temperature goes above 45°Celsius, or when temperatures increase from between 4.5-6.4°Celsius above normal. A severe heatwave is said to occur when maximum temperatures exceed 47°Celsius, or rises above normal levels by 6.4°Celsius and higher.
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An ordinance must, by the Constitution’s text, name a circumstance. The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Ordinance, 2026, promulgated on May 17, names none. Its preambular recital reproduces Article 123 verbatim. ‘WHEREAS Parliament is not in session and the President is satisfied that the circumstances exist which render it necessary for her to take immediate action’: that is the recital, and it supplies no fact for the constitutional formula to attach to. The substantive change the ordinance effects is one word: ‘thirty-three’ in section 2 of the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 becomes ‘thirty-seven’. The procedural change is greater than the substantive one. So is what it conceals.
Pendency at the Supreme Court is, and has been, in the public domain. The sanctioned strength of 33 is set by statute. The proposal to raise it reached the government in March 2026, from the office of Chief Justice Surya Kant. Parliament was then sitting through the second leg of the Budget Session, which continued until April 2. The government did not introduce a Bill. The Cabinet took five weeks more to clear the proposal, on May 5. The president signed the ordinance 11 days after that. The Monsoon Session begins on July 21.
On these facts the ordinance’s recital is doubly empty. The first limb, that parliament is not in session, is true only in the trivial calendar sense. It elides the question of why the legislature was not consulted while it was sitting. The second limb, that immediate action is necessary, is unsupported by any specific reason. The Cabinet note that preceded the ordinance was a policy decision with reasons; the recital that followed is an incantation without them. The intervening event that converts a routine policy choice into a constitutional emergency is nowhere named. None is named because none occurred.
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