RajivBuzz

Global civil society alliance CIVICUS has placed India on its latest CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist , citing what it describes as a rapid deterioration in civic freedoms during Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's third term in office. The organisation says the move reflects an escalating crackdown on activists, journalists, civil society organisations and critics of the government through restrictive legislation, censorship measures and expanded state powers.

At least 66 sanitation workers across India died between February and July 2026 while cleaning sewers, septic tanks, sewage treatment plants, and open drains, according to the Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch (DASAM), a rights group tracking caste-based forced labour in sanitation work. The deaths continue despite a 2013 law banning manual scavenging , repeated Supreme Court orders requiring full mechanisation of such cleaning, and constitutional guarantees of equality and the right to life.

  By Rajiv Shah  The recent decision of the Supreme Court of India to initiate contempt proceedings against 15 states and Union Territories for failing to eradicate manual scavenging and for non-compliance with its 2023 directions on eliminating hazardous sewer cleaning and paying ₹30 lakh compensation to the families of victims could have significant implications for Gujarat .

The relationship between civil society, the state, and the creative arts has reached a critical juncture. At a time when democratic discourse is increasingly filtered through surveillance, market-driven logic, and shrinking public spaces, the ability to "see" and "listen" differently has become a radical act. In the latest episode of the UnMute podcast , hosts Gagan Sethi and Minar Pimple joined forces with interdisciplinary practitioner Avni Sethi and design educator Dr. Vijayendra (Vijay) Singh Sekhon to explore a provocative question: can art, design, and education cultivate the human capacities required to sustain a healthy democracy?  

  In the flood-prone Kosi Diyara region of Bihar, water security is often defined not by scarcity, but by the challenges of living with hydrological volatility and seasonal extreme flows. In a field report published on July 28, 2026, by the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), Dr. Rahul Yaduka , Postdoctoral Researcher with the WATCON Project at SOAS University of London , outlines how seasonal migrant farmers are redefining water security by adapting to the erratic nature of the Kosi River rather than fighting it.

  Pakistan finds itself at both the center and the periphery of a mounting food security crisis gripping the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan region, according to a new World Bank report , " Building Food Security, Creating Jobs ." With a population of 151 million people unable to afford a healthy diet, Pakistan has, by the report's account, the largest group of people in the region who cannot afford a nutritious diet , ahead even of Egypt's 66 million.

A new study, " Exploring the interlinkages between child marriage and family laws in South Asia ," has shed light on the profound legal ambiguities and systemic challenges that perpetuate child marriage in India , despite the country's significant progress in reducing its prevalence. 

  Away from my home (Ahmedabad) in the United States, I have been staying in Los Angeles for quite some time. "Los Angeles" is Spanish for "The Angels." Founded in 1781, the city was originally named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , which translates as The Town of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels—a reference to the Virgin Mary.

    A new study analyzing the attendance records of Members of Parliament during the Budget Session of 2026 has revealed significant disparities in the attendance patterns of MPs across both Houses of Parliament, highlighting that less than two-thirds of the members met a minimum attendance threshold of 75% of the sittings, raising crucial questions about legislative accountability and citizen representation.

   A technical regulatory notice issued by India's Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee (CIB&RC) in April 2026 has drawn sharp criticism from public health advocates and farmers' organizations, who warn that proposed relaxations in pesticide residue testing could compromise food safety and public health. The notice invites comments on recommendations from the Scientific Panel on Pesticide Residue (SPPR) under FSSAI , proposing the adoption of a " Crop Grouping " framework for setting Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs)—the legal ceiling on pesticide residues permitted on food crops.

A new book by economists Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati Parida argues that India is squandering its demographic dividend even as the country's labour market slides deeper into crisis. In "India Out of Work: Rethinking India's Growth Story," released via Bloomsbury , the authors write that non-farm job creation has stalled at a time when it is most needed, and that the formal sector, which offers security and fair wages, remains stagnant. 

One and a half years ago, I wrote a blog wondering whether merely hiding the promise of a bribe in India — not actually paying it — is a crime in the US. Citing a CNN report on the Adani case in the US, I quoted it to say that the US justice department had sought to indict Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and others for "promising" more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts.

A recent piece of news , that Ambalal Patel , considered a prominent Gujarat-based astrologer, has decided to stop predicting daily weather based on his "calculations" of how he sees the stars behaving, took my memory back to 2001. It was January 26, and I was having my morning tea, hoping to enjoy a holiday.

  A new report by Parineeta Dandekar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has brought to light a recurring and largely unstudied crisis in the Indian Himalayas : the phenomenon of glacial streams, or nallahs , experiencing devastating flash floods not from rainfall, but under a blazing sun.

In the latest episode of the Unmute podcast , corporate strategist and institution-builder Dr Sunil Parekh made a case for a renewed dialogue between industry, government and civil society, arguing that India urgently needs new institutional spaces where the three can jointly address the tensions thrown up by decades of market-led growth. 

India’s rights-based welfare architecture, painstakingly built over two decades through legal guarantees to work, food, and education, has undergone a systemic legislative and budgetary rollback over the last decade. In its place, a discretionary model of "New Welfarism"—characterized by centralized cash transfers, digital gatekeeping, and diminished state accountability—has been institutionalized, driven primarily by electoral calculations rather than administrative reform.

A new legal research paper argues that Indian courts have become a central arena for what its author calls the "Hindu majoritarian project" to convert historic Muslim places of worship into temples, through a pattern of civil litigation that departs from established legal principles.

Nine out of India's ten hottest cities globally are located within the country's borders, with the majority concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and the surrounding plains, according to climate and energy expert Soumya Dutta, who has spent three decades studying climate change, environment, rivers and energy issues while working with communities across the world. In a recent detailed discussion, Dutta sought to explain why Indian and South Asian cities are becoming unbearably hot and who bears the brunt of this crisis.

  DigiLocker has been functioning in rather strange ways, at least in my experience over the past year. For quite some time now, I have been trying to retrieve various documents from the Government of India's official app, but every attempt ends with an inexplicable "mismatch" error. I even lodged a complaint through its official email ID, explaining that I was unable to retrieve or download essential documents such as my PAN card , driving licence, and the registration certificates of my car and scooter. The response has remained the same: the system refuses access on the grounds of a so-called mismatch.