News & Updates

It was an incredible batting effort from Mumbai Indians as the hosts at the Wankhede Stadium beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by seven wickets in the 2024 Indian Premier League on Thursday.

Bengaluru were sent in to bat first and put up a solid 196/8 after captain Faf du Plessis, Rajat Patidar and Dinesh Karthik scored half-centuries, albeit of different natures.

It was a good start for the home team with Jasprit Bumrah getting the best of Virat Kohli, yet again, along with Akash Madhwal dismissing debutant Will Jacks cheaply. But du Plessis and Patidar came good as the duo put on an 82-run partnership for the third wicket. While the former South African captain reached his half-century in 33 balls, Patidar found some good form with his 26-ball fifty.

However, Bumrah came back to break the Bengaluru batting flow with consecutive wickets in both the 17th and 19th overs to finish with 5/21 in his four-over spell. Karthik ended unbeaten on 53 off 23 balls with the final over going for 19 runs.

However, the dew came into full effect in the Mumbai chase along with some shoddy bowling on the part of the Bengaluru team. Ishan Kishan and Rohit Sharma put on a stunning 101-run partnership for the opening…

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The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) will release the results for the various posts under Agriculture Department, Govt. of Bihar in the last week of April 2024. Once declared, candidates can download their results from the official website bpsc.bih.nic.in.

The exam was conducted from March 1 to 4, 2024. The recruitment drive aims to fill up a total of 1051 vacancies.

Here’s the official notification.

Steps to download Agriculture Dept result

1. Visit the official website bpsc.bih.nic.in

2. On the homepage, click on the results link for various posts under Agriculture Department

3. The result will appear on the screen

4. Check and download the result

5. Take a printout for future reference

For more details, candidates are advised to visit the official website here.

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Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal, a newsletter on Indian politics. As always, if you’ve been sent this newsletter and like it, to get it in your inbox every week, sign up here (click on “follow”).

Have feedback, interesting links or think I am wrong? Write to me: theindiafix@scroll.in

In her book How India Became Democratic, academic Ornit Shani described Independent India’s first election and its adoption of universal suffrage as a “stark act of decolonisation”, one that required “an immense power of imagination”.

India had had elections before. In 1920, British India held elections for both a central as well as provincial legislatures. But elections in colonial India were limited to a small number of wealthy voters. So Independent India first general election on October 25, 1951, was something special, as every adult Indian got the right to vote. Shani identifies this as the outcome of India’s freedom movement, which was mass-based.

India managed to keep this miracle going. Elections were held regularly and keenly fought. Popular participation was high and voters enthusiastic. As I’ve argued in a previous India Fix, unlike other democracies with strong checks and balances in the form of judiciaries and legislatures, in India, the only real check on the executive are…

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The Allahabad High Court on Monday observed that credible proof is required to show that an individual changing their religion has taken the decision voluntarily and an oral or written declaration that a religious conversion has taken place is not enough to legitimise it, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Prashant Kumar said that it is open for any individual to change their religion in the country. However, credible proof of the individual’s desire to convert their religion is required along with clear overt actions to carry it out, according to Bar and Bench.

Kumar made the observations while hearing a petition by a man to dismiss the case filed against him after he married a woman who belonged to a different religion. The petitioner had converted to his wife’s religion.

The petitioner had been accused by the woman’s father of kidnapping her and of criminal intimidation, rape and offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences.

Earlier, the court had ordered the petitioner to produce the woman’s high school certificate to ascertain her age.

On Monday, the court took note of the submission of a medical report that showed that the woman was not a minor when she married the petitioner. His counsel also told the court that he had converted voluntarily and…

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The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has released the exam schedule of the Engineering Services (Main) Examination, 2024. As per the notification, the Main exam is scheduled to be conducted on June 23, 2024. The exam will be held in two shifts — 9.00 AM to 12 noon and 2.30 PM to 5.30 PM.

The admit card will be available a week before the commencement of the Main exam at upsc.gov.in. The recruitment drive aims to fill up approximately 167 vacancies.

Steps to download ESE Mains schedule 2024

1. Visit the official website upsc.gov.in

2. On the homepage, click on the Engineering Services (Mains) Examination, 2024 schedule

3. The schedule will appear on the screen

4. Check and download the schedule

5. Take a printout for future reference

Direct link to ESE Mains scheduled 2024.

For more details, candidates are advised to visit the official website here.

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It’s been more than a quarter of a century since Manmohan Singh pressed the switch on financial sector reforms, which have changed and (in many ways) undone a wobbly architecture that had been designed and erected in another era. Singh’s adoption of a twin-track reforms process – targeting industry and finance – was logical. If Indian industry had to be made productive and competitive, it needed access to an equally productive financial services sector which could efficiently allocate capital as well as provide a cost-effective pool for capital accumulation.

Interestingly, the reforms process has endured through different political regimes, even if it’s been somewhat episodic and haphazard in sequencing. The subsequent chapters explore the grand design or overarching strategy behind the financial sector reforms in India. It is this book’s thesis that even if there was indeed a master plan, many of the changes and reforms processes were induced by one or other crisis; and in areas where there were close to no crises or where scams affected people only marginally, reforms have remained half-hearted.

This book does not purport to be a laundry list of all the reform measures implemented in the past three decades, but attempts to examine some of the main…

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The Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) will close the online application window for recruitment to the posts of Assistant Prosecution Officer today, April 12. Eligible candidates can apply for the posts on the official website rpsc.rajasthan.gov.in.

The recruitment drive aims to fill up a total of 181 Assistant Prosecution Officer or APO posts.

Eligibility Criteria

Age Limit: Candidates should be between the age of 21 years and 40 years as on January 1, 2024. Upper age limit relaxations applicable for reserved category candidates.

Educational Qualification: Candidates must possess a Bachelor Degree in Law (LLB) and a good understanding of Rajasthani language and culture. More details in the official notification.

Here’s the official notification.

Application Fee

Candidates from General/Unreserved categories will have to pay an examination fee of Rs 600 while SC/ST/OBC/PwBD and other reserved category candidates will pay Rs 400 at the time of application.

Steps to apply for APO posts 2024

1. Visit the official website rpsc.rajasthan.gov.in

2. On the homepage, click on the “Apply Online” tab

3. Register and proceed with the application process

4. Fill up the form, pay the fee, and submit the form

5. Download and take a printout for future reference

For more details, candidates are advised to visit the official website here.

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Voting is often the only chance that many of India’s marginalised groups get to express themselves. As national elections approach, Scroll’s reporters fanned out across the country to talk to groups with little socio-political power as part of a series called the View from the Margins. The aim: try to understand how the powerless and the voiceless have fared under a decade of the Modi government.

Mayalmit Lepcha had just a few hours in Delhi after landing from Sikkim and before heading out to Himachal Pradesh for a meeting. In that time she wanted to squeeze in three important things – meeting a senior lawyer, an interview with this writer and enjoy sev batata puri.

“I eat it every time I come to Delhi,” she gushed. As she indulged in chaat at Delhi’s India Habitat Centre, she painted a picture of her home in North Sikkim’s Dzongu – the Teesta flowing below, the snowfall on higher mountains, and the hugging Kanchenjunga national Park.

Mayalmit is a general secretary of the Affected Citizens of Teesta, an organisation formed by the indigenous Lepcha community of Sikkim that is fighting against the indiscriminate building of hydropower projects on River Teesta. Lepchas, a Scheduled Tribe, form 7% of the state’s…

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Three years ago, Neeraj Chopra was one among many athletes hoping to join an elite club of Olympic gold medallists. Cut to 2024, and Chopra is gunning to join an even more elite club; that of multiple athletes with multiple gold medals.

As he looks towards winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics, Chopra knows that the weight of expectations has increased. But as he attests to himself, Chopra has matured since that historic day in Tokyo.

“After Tokyo, there was an increase in self belief,” Chopra said at an online press conference.

“I’ve won a gold and silver medal at two World Championships, won the Diamond League trophy and had good throws in the seasons. So the events I have won between Tokyo and Paris has given me confidence that I can compete against good athletes.”

“There’s a saying that the tree which has more fruits bends more. You need to be humble. If I meet kids, I need to behave well and give them time. I feel happy that I have been able to not become arrogant,” he added.

What has not yet changed though is Chopra’s approach. Since 2017, the 26-year-old Haryana native has been asked when he will be able to throw the javelin past…

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The division between right and left around the world has rarely felt more polarised. Of course there have always been differences between people on the different ends of the political spectrum, but now it seems they are living in different worlds entirely. This is perhaps related to the tendency for those on the right to focus on the past and to strive for a world that once was and the tendency for those on the left to do the opposite.

Take two of the most famous political slogans of recent times: Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” and Donald Trump’s “Make America great again”. While Obama’s message evokes glimpses of a prosperous future, Trump’s expresses a nostalgic outlook towards the past.

In the UK, the successful Brexit campaign, which was largely led by conservatives, famously called on people to “take back control”, while the Labour party has just launched its local election campaign under the slogan “Britain’s future”.

The pattern is similar around the world. In South Africa, the right-wing Freedom Front Plus has recently carried the slogan “Stop the decay”. For the upcoming presidential elections in Mexico, the left-wing National Regeneration Movement is mobilising voters with “United for the transformation”.

In a recent study, I explored whether, within the general public, people on…

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Indian forces are eliminating terrorists in their home turf under a strong Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre, ​Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed ​on Thursday, reported PTI.

The remark came a week after The Guardian reported that the Indian government allegedly assassinated at least 20 persons in Pakistan since 2020 as part of a new strategy to eliminate terrorists living on foreign soil.

Speaking during an election rally in Uttarakhand, Modi said on Thursday: “Enemies took advantage and terrorism spread whenever there were weak and unstable governments in the country.”

The prime minister said that a “weak” administration led by the Congress during the United Progressive Alliance governments was unable to strengthen India’s borders.

The Guardian had claimed in its report to have seen documentation allegedly tying India’s Research and Analysis Wing to the killings of Indian dissidents in Pakistan, which are said to have been orchestrated by sleeper cells based in the United Arab Emirates. Pakistani officials have accused these cells of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations.

The Ministry of External Affairs denied the allegations to The Guardian, reiterating an earlier statement against Pakistan’s allegations and terming them as “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”.

However, Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh said in an interview with News18 on April 5 that the Indian government…

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Unemployment is a major concern among Indian voters, according to a survey by Lokniti and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies released on Thursday. Three-fifth of the survey’s respondents felt that getting jobs has become more difficult in the past five years.

Here’s a look at today’s top developments:

• A pre-poll survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Lokniti found that unemployment is one of the key issues for voters ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The survey found that 62% of respondents across various demographics, including those living in villages, towns and cities, indicated that finding jobs has become increasingly difficult.
• In Punjab, the Bharatiya Janata Party welcomed into its fold Parampal Kaur Sidhu, an Indian Administrative Service officer and the daughter-in-law of prominent Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sikander Singh Maluka. Sidhu’s husband and the Akali Dal leader’s son Gurpreet Singh Maluka also joined the BJP ahead of the general elections. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, however, said that Sidhu’s resignation as an IAS officer has not yet been accepted by the Punjab government.
• The Telugu Desam Party, led by former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, announced on Thursday that it will not contest the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana. The party, however, has yet to take a…

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Sumit Nagal enforced a deciding set against world No 7 Holger Rune before losing his Round of 32 match to exit the 2024 Monte Carlo Masters on Thursday.

The Indian lost 3-6, 6-3, 2-6 in an encounter that took two days to complete after the match was stopped on Wednesday night due to inclement weather.

Coming into the match on Thursday, Nagal was trailing 3-6 and 1-2 in the second set. But the Indian brushed off the dust and managed to recover to break Rune’s serve and force the match into a deciding set by taking the second set 6-3.

Nagal then ended up dropping his serve in the second game of the final set, but broke back immediately to get things back on level terms after holding his serve to make it 2-all. However, Rune then ended up winning the next four games with relative ease to close out the 2-hour 11-minute match.

Earlier on Wednesday, top seeds Rohan Bopanna along with his Australian partner Matthew Ebden also crashed out in the second round of the men’s doubles.

Rain delayed W ☔️@holgerrune2003 weathers the Nagal storm 6-3 3-6 6-2 in Monaco 🫡#RolexMonteCarloMasters pic.twitter.com/t3VsOia1Dh

— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) April 11, 2024

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When it seemed that gender violence did not exist for most of society or that it was a matter of “passionate anger”, Ana Orantes put a face, voice, and words to it. The abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband, this woman born in Granada in the south of Spain, entered Andalusian homes in 1997 when she told on television the hell she had been living for 40 years. Only 13 days after her television appearance, José Parejo murdered her.

The case was a shock. Over the years, Ana Orantes not only became a symbol but also contributed to the legislative reforms that made Spain a pioneer in the implementation of public policies against gender violence and a benchmark at the European level.

This is how the country is perceived from the outside, where the Integral Law against Gender Violence, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, is often highlighted as the jewel in the crown.

François Kempf, a member of the secretariat of the Group of Experts against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence of the Council of Europe, GREVIO, which ensures compliance with the Istanbul Convention by the States, emphasises: “Spain has been a pioneer in adopting a comprehensive approach to combat gender violence, anchored in…

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