West Bengal’s action against 352 madrasas is more than a regulatory exercise. Coming barely four months after the BJP government took office, it is the latest in a series of decisions reshaping the state’s approach to Muslim institutions, welfare and religious identity. The immediate trigger is administrative. A statewide survey covering Kolkata and all 22 districts found 2,132 madrasas with valid approval and 2,396 operating without approval. The government has ordered 252 closures and issued show-cause notices to 100 others. Officials cite inadequate infrastructure, deviations from prescribed curricula, management irregularities and lack of valid authorisation. But the political significance lies in the wider sequence. Since May, the government has scrapped religion-based welfare measures including assistance for imams and muezzins, changed the previous OBC framework by removing several Muslim communities from the earlier categorisation, and made Vande Mataram mandatory in madrasas. The Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Department’s allocation fell 62%, from Rs 5,713.61 crore in the interim Budget to Rs 2,175.43 crore in the full 2026–27 Budget. The Aikyashree scholarship allocation fell to Rs 250 crore from Rs 741 crore in 2025–26. The government says these changes replace religion-specific benefits with broader, religion-neutral welfare and bring institutions under common regulatory standards. Of the 252 institutions facing closure, 44 are in Malda, 37 in Uttar Dinajpur, 32 in South 24 Parganas and 25 each in Nadia and Murshidabad. Several have substantial Muslim populations, while some are near the Bangladesh border. The distribution does not establish communal targeting. Nor do the findings establish radicalisation or terrorism. Yet BJP leaders have linked some unrecognised madrasas to possible radicalisation and alleged that border-area institutions could facilitate anti-national activity. The question is whether the new government is applying a uniform...

Is the mineral-rich state Odisha planning a strategic shift from mining-led to hi-tech mind economy? Its huge natural reserves have attracted large metal industries. But, now Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi guided by the IT & Electronics Minister Aswini Vaishnaw is planning to transform the state into eastern India’s premier hi-tech semiconductor and electronics manufacturing hub. Towards this objective, the state government has already identified an 870-acre Silicon Valley type land bank hub between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. It may be mentioned that at the recently concluded SEMICON India 2026 the state had secured investment proposals worth over Rs 23,600 crore in the Semicon area. Building a strong foundation for the next generation electronics and semiconductor manufacturing is Majhi’s new vision. Immediately, the Odisha government has already begun working on two specific semiconductor projects worth Rs 11,200 cr. Apart from Odisha’s semiconductor focus, CM Majhi is also making sustained efforts to make Odisha emerge as a global sports capital. He is pursuing this status by strengthening grass roots infrastructure, nurturing sporting talent and providing world class sporting facilities. It may be mentioned that Odisha has already been selected to host the 2028 Asian and World Athletics Indoor Championships.

This is not the first time Bigg Boss has treated its own host as raw material. It has happened around Salman Khan before, and around other stars who walked into that house believing the show would protect the line between drama and damage. This time the cut was so clumsy that the superstar himself had to step out and apologise for a promo his own team put on air. The Weekend Ka Vaar promo showed Salman clutching his chest, asking for water, looking breathless, then lying down. Fans did what fans do when they have watched this man for three decades: they panicked. Some thought it was a heart scare. Some thought the show was using his health the way it uses everything else. Within hours Salman was on Instagram saying there was nothing wrong with him, that the pain was staged to show Qazi Touqeer what it feels like when someone fakes illness and 15 people in the house actually worry. Then the line that should shame the edit bay: the promo “should not have been cut like the way it was cut.” It “totally beats the purpose.” He even apologised on their behalf. The least the makers owed him was an edit that did not make his lesson look like the offence. They chose the clip that would travel. He chose the clarification that would stop the rumour. Rectifying the promo after Salman went public is not professionalism. It is damage control after the superstar did their job for them. A show that lectures contestants about using health for entertainment just used its biggest star the same way and then let him say sorry.

The unusual events leading up to death of a Dalit student Sahil Wakode by suicide in IIT Bombay on September 18, after his professor advised him against use of phone in exam led to a piquant situation. Since then the IIT Bombay has been under immense pressure to act against a much-decorated Prof Suryanarayana Doolla for the death of Wakode. The institute is under pressure to proceed against the professor under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act presumably for doing his job.  However, in a mighty pushback, the IIT Bombay Faculty rallied behind Prof Doolla’s favour and clarified that Prof Doolla has not been suspended, and continues to be a member of the faculty of the institute in “good standing”. It noted that Prof Doolla, who had won several awards for teaching, had received at least two such awards on the recommendations of the students. At this stage it is not clear how one odd statement will help Prof Doolla as political parties like the Congress are already trying to capitalise the incident. In this backdrop with the deceased student’s parents pressing for strong action, Prof Doolla got some support from Dalit leader from Tamil Nadu, Ananthan Ayyasamy, who has vocally opposed pressing SC/ST Act against Prof Doolla. He feels such a step would be counter-productive. Explaining how he himself belongs to the Devendra Kula Vellalar community, classified as SC, he says slapping the “harsh” SC/ST Act could drive away our IIT teaching faculty abroad. He says his community has been wanting to get out of the reserved category.  A qualified engineer from NIT, Trichy, who has had a stint at Intel in India and the U.S., he says his community is opposed to using the SC/ST Act per se.  “We are about 9% in Tamil Nadu. We should not do anything to harm our nation.” 

Lalbaugcha Raja was never only an idol. It was a promise: stand long enough, and Bappa will see you. This year that promise looks thinner than the barricade tape. Videos from the Parel queue are doing what official statements will not. People are telling friends to skip Raja. Not out of lost faith. Out of fear of the arrangement. Jaydeep Meghraj Nemade, 25, a Pune engineer with an MBA, came with friends for darshan on September 17. Around 11.40 pm, still in the line, he felt uneasy and could not breathe. He was rushed to Global Hospital. He died there. Police booked an accidental death and spoke of a suspected heart attack. The post-mortem will settle the medical line. It will not settle the other one: a young devotee collapsed in the most photographed queue in Mumbai, and the first public instinct was not surprising. It was recognition. That line has looked unsafe for years. What the videos show is not devotion. It is sorting. The common public is packed, shoved, held, and moved like volume. A few metres away, the paid and the connected walk a cleaner path. Pay more, wait less. The same mandal that sells “Raja of the poor” runs two religions under one shamiana: one for those who can buy speed, one for those who can only buy patience. Promotion gets louder every year. The callousness of the ground gets cheaper. Security looks like crowd control, not care. When regular visitors start saying it is better to avoid Raja, then it’s time organisers must sit up and take notice. 

Sydney Sweeney’s “Just Sports” ad for Novig has made the argument unavoidable. The actor appears almost nude, covering herself with footballs, basketballs and hockey sticks while repeating the line “just sports.” India has lived with a quieter version of the same trade. IPL still packages cheerleaders as part of the night’s entertainment. Condom and lubricant spots have run through India–South Africa and India–Pakistan broadcasts, turning family living rooms into an interval of innuendo. On Instagram, a squat filmed from behind still travels farther than a clean cover drive. The contradiction is sharpest around the women who actually win. Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma and Deepti Sharma now sell brands that once belonged only to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. P V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal did the same in badminton; Mary Kom, Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain in boxing; Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik in wrestling; Mirabai Chanu in weightlifting; Rani Rampal and Savita Punia in hockey. The better work: Nike’s “Da Da Ding,” Gatorade’s sweat-and-gold films with Sindhu, shows the grimace after a long rally, not a pose. The weaker work still frames the same athletes as lifestyle accessories: glowing, smiling, rarely exhausted. Sex sells faster than a late cut or a smash. Brands chasing young male viewers treat sport as a ready-made stage and the athlete as set dressing. Young girls watching Mandhana bat or Sindhu jump see two messages at once: you can win, and you will still be looked at first. Indian sport is growing fast enough to demand better. Sell Harmanpreet’s six, Sindhu’s defence, Mary Kom’s footwork. The contest is enough. The rest is just advertising.

Chennai’s Pattinapakkam loop road was buzzing and teeming with fresh fish sale on this Saturday (Sept 19) evening. This writer travelled from the Lighthouse Point, all along the beach loop road to Santhome exit.  Every rickety wooden shelf stacked with the best sea catch, the vendors beaming, expecting not just the Saturday evening bumper sale but something more …relief that their livelihood was not about to be struck down by the Tamil Nadu government’s New Secretariat building plan. Saturday evenings are eagerly awaited by the vendors and buyers. Most families plan for the Sunday special lunch with fish entrees in the starring role.  As we drive down, on the right, eateries (tin and bamboo sheds) that are lit up, invite the foodie with the overpowering smell of fried fish and “meen kuzhambu” (fish curry) to go with mounds of hot rice. But wait, what is this brand new structure that draws attention? It is the almost completed snazzily designed fish market, built to enable sale and display, water vents to quickly drain…a clean, comfortable and well organised bazaar.  Pattinapakkam and its nine villages never had it so good for fishing and sale. All is well that ends well …even as the CM announced that the planned Secretariat project was shelved here, a huge sigh of relief pacify the fisherfolk. Even as you turn right at Santhome, the Neo-Gothic Basilica and Cathedral of St Thomas, an apostle of Jesus Christ, rises up to the sky. Knock and the door shall be opened!

Jadavpur University is emerging as a battleground in West Bengal, underscoring the BJP’s difficulty in making inroads into a campus associated with the Left. The BJP won the Jadavpur Assembly constituency in the 2026 election, yet the university remains outside the political influence of the BJP or Trinamool Congress. Demands for “neutral” campuses have raised concerns over attempts to suppress critical discourse. For decades, student politics at JU has been dominated by Left formations, including SFI, AISA and FETSU. The TMC has failed to establish a comparable foothold. That equation came under strain in August after clashes involving ABVP and Left-leaning groups, with allegations of outsider entry and vandalism. The confrontation centred on a FETSU meeting at Aurobindo Bhavan. The BJP has accused students and faculty of encouraging anti-national politics, citing graffiti and slogans concerning Palestine and Kashmir, invoking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s phrase “Dimagi Naxal”. Following its electoral success, the RSS has intensified efforts to reshape academic institutions. The campaign intensified on September 9, when chief minister Suvendu Adhikari led a saffron procession involving BJP workers and Naga sadhus towards JU. He warned that those raising “azadi” slogans would be “uprooted”. The government passed the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, allowing inter-university transfers. It says the measure can deploy experienced faculty to institutions including Jhargram and Cooch Behar. Teachers’ groups, including JUTA, have opposed it, arguing that it threatens university autonomy and could enable punitive transfers. Meanwhile, BJP MLA Sarbori Mukherjee has sought to rename JU after Sri Aurobindo. CPI(M) state secretary and JU alumnus Mohammad Salim criticised the proposal, alleging that the BJP’s objective is to extend RSS ideology across Bengal. He argued that, after JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia and Hyderabad...

Union Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari’s lament that he feels ashamed for incompletion of the crucial Mumbai-Konkan-Goa highway even after 17 years has assumed another dark hue since it has come to light that the expenditure for the strategic link has almost doubled over the years. RTI activist Jitendra Ghadge has been informed by the ministry headed by Gadkari that the projected expenditure for four-laning of the highway will be around Rs 16909 crore. Earlier, it was tagged at Rs 11409 crore. Thus, the rise amounts to 48%. So far, Rs 11577 crore has been spent on the project. This amount exceeds the original estimate. Despite the delay and so much expenditure, many large tracts of the highway NH-66 are still incomplete. The result is harassment for the road users, especially during festival occasions. While it was announced in the past that the distance of 460 km between Mumbai and the Maharashtra-Goa border would be crossed within seven to eight hours due to the expansion of the highway, the common experience is that it is impossible to guess how long it can take to drive down to the destination. This is owing to the pitiable condition of the road. This delay is compared with the 700-km Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Expressway, which was completed within seven years from the day the work started. Exasperated, Gadkari has announced that he will not remain present for the inauguration of the link as he felt ashamed for the inability to complete the project.

On PM Narendra Modi’s birthday on September 17, Tamil Nadu CM C Joseph Vijay was among the many leaders and CMs who posted their birthday greetings on X.  What however caught the political eye was that the TVK supremo’s “heartfelt birthday wishes” to “Modi avargal” was his acknowledgement that PM Modi “leads with dedication towards building a strong India”. He significantly wished for PM Modi’s “a long life filled with good health”. These were significant, considering it was made in the backdrop of a dogfight within the Congress in Tamil Nadu as to who will be the PM face for 2029 Lok Sabha polls. In fact, a public spat  erupted within the party over its alliance with TVK and the recent campaign projecting Vijay as a potential prime ministerial face, with two senior party leaders — former Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) chief Selvaperunthagai and former MP Praveen Chakravarty — trading sharp remarks. The dispute began after Selvaperunthagai said any alliance involving the Congress should accept Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate. “If Rahul Gandhi is the PM, alliance partners should accept that. If not, what is the point of being in this alliance? It is only honest to have an alliance with those who openly and sincerely accept Rahul as the prime minister,” Selvaperunthagai said. Chakravarty, however, dismissed the former state Congress chief’s intervention, saying there was no confusion within the alliance and that TVK had not officially taken a position against Rahul Gandhi.