During a demonstration by auto drivers that initially appeared peaceful, violence erupted when the protesters suddenly began throwing stones at police and damaging government and public transport vehicles.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will chair the 31st Southern Zonal Council meeting at a seaside resort in Kovalam on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram, bringing together the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala — Chandrababu Naidu, DK Shivakumar and VD Satheesan respectively — along with Telangana’s Deputy CM Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka. The Southern Zonal Council comprises Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana and the Union Territories of Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

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Express investigation: Noida workers jailed 53 days on average before courts stepped in

An investigation has found that workers arrested during the April protests in Noida were jailed for an average of 53 days before courts intervened, granting bail in 84 per cent of cases involving substantive allegations. Judges held that “mere presence is not enough to deny bail” and that workers could not be equated with instigators. However, bail has offered cold comfort to many families who face debt and fear of re-arrest, while some protesters had bail denied after the NSA was invoked and books and articles cited as evidence of dangerous intent.

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Ministers handed social media report cards after Cabinet meeting

Each Union minister was handed a sealed envelope after the Cabinet meeting containing a detailed assessment of their social media performance from May 1 to August 15 — covering X, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn — with the government asking them to step up engagement with Gen Z, in what amounts to one of the most formal internal digital accountability exercises the BJP has run.

NTA to cut experts’ tenures to prevent compromise, stagger information spread

The NTA is overhauling its system by shortening the tenures of subject experts, staggering the spread of question paper information and introducing air-gapped systems — steps the agency says are necessitated by the existence of “a big mafia that tries to get experts compromised,” according to an NTA official, in a candid admission of the scale of the threat to examination security.

How India plans to count caste — and what went wrong before

India’s plan for a caste census involves open-ended enumeration — a method that has historically produced messy, contested and politically charged data, with problems ranging from self-reporting inconsistencies to the challenge of mapping thousands of sub-castes onto a usable administrative framework. An explainer lays out the method and its risks.

Structures outside Pakistan High Commission demolished in Delhi

Unauthorised structures outside the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi have been demolished — a routine administrative action, but one whose timing, in the post-Operation Sindoor diplomatic environment, has not gone unnoticed.

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