Rigged rankings, fake assessments – is your degree at risk? Fund our special project: India’s Great Education Betrayal

Security forces killed 22 suspected Maoists in two separate gunfights in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur and Kanker districts on Thursday, police said. Eighteen suspected Maoists were killed in an early morning gunfight near the Bijapur-Dantewada border, while another four were killed near Koroskodo village in Kanker district.

One District Reserve Guard also died in the operation. Search operations and combing efforts were underway in both areas, police said. A cache of weapons was recovered from the Kanker site.

Later in the day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the operations were part of the government’s “zero tolerance” approach to left-wing extremism and reiterated that India would be “Naxal-free” by March 31 next year. With these deaths, at least 81 suspected Maoists have been killed in gunfights with security forces this year. Read on.

Rs 5 crore bounty: Are rewards making anti-Maoist operations more deadly?

The Madras High Court has asked the Enforcement Directorate to pause action in a money-laundering case involving the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation, or Tasmac, which has a monopoly on the state’s liquor market. The court did not issue an interim stay order, but verbally expressed concern over the ED’s conduct during searches at the corporation’s Chennai headquarters earlier this month.

Tasmac alleged that officials seized employees’ phones and held them for hours without proper summons. The ED denied the claims. The agency has accused Tasmac of being at the centre of a Rs 1,000-crore corruption network involving liquor distilleries and bottling firms.

The Tamil Nadu government argued the case raises questions about federal overreach. Read on.

Social media platform X has moved the Karnataka High Court challenging the Centre’s power to revoke safe harbour protections under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act. The provision allows online platforms to lose legal immunity if they fail to remove content used for “unlawful acts” despite government directions.

X argued that the Centre is using this clause to bypass the more stringent content-blocking process under Section 69A, which includes a review mechanism and is limited to specific grounds such as public order and national security. Read on.

How India is using its Information Technology Act to arbitrarily take down online content

The Allahabad High Court has held that actions like grabbing a child’s breasts, breaking the strings of her pyjama strings do not constitute rape or attempted rape. The court made the remarks while altering charges against two men accused of attempting to rape a 11-year-old girl in 2021.

The two men were originally summoned by a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj district to stand trial under charges of rape and attempted rape. The High Court, however, directed them to be tried for assault with intent to disrobe – which carries a lesser punishment – and aggravated sexual assault. Read on.

If you haven’t already, sign up for our Daily Brief newsletter.