The Kerala police registered a case against X and a user on the social media platform for sharing an artificial intelligence-generated video about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Election Commission. The police alleged that the video depicts Modi and the poll body in a “misleading and defamatory manner”.

It said that the allegedly defamatory content was brought to its notice through official channels, including the Election Commission. The Kerala Police is currently reporting to the Election Commission since the Model Code of Conduct is in force in the state ahead of the Assembly elections. Read on.

With Islamabad mediating peace talks between the United States and Iran, the Congress said that the “colossal failure” in India’s diplomacy, outreach and narrative management has made a “broken country” like Pakistan a “broker country”. The statement came a day after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India does not view itself as a “dalaal”, or broker, like Pakistan.

Jaishankar made the comments at an all-party meeting convened by the government on the West Asia conflict. Responding to Jaishankar’s comments, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that for Pakistan to “even be…considered for a mediating role is a most damning indictment of both the substance and style of…Modi’s diplomacy”. Read on.

A Supreme Court-appointed advisory committee has written to Union Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar, asking that the 2026 Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Amendment Bill be withdrawn. The bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday and in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

It will now be forwarded to the President Droupadi Murmu for her assent.

Transgender, intersex and gender-diverse organisations have been protesting against the bill, stating that the changes remove the protections guaranteed under the 2019 Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act. The proposed amendments focus on redefining who qualifies as a transgender person. Read on.

Iran has allowed “friendly countries”, including India, to pass the Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in West Asia, the country’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. He added that vessels linked to Iran’s adversaries will not be allowed transit.

The other countries whose vessels were being allowed to pass through the maritime chokepoint are China, Russia, Iraq and Pakistan, Araghchi added. Read on.

US President Donald Trump said that Iranian negotiators “are very different and ‘strange’”. Tehran was “begging” Washington to make a deal, Trump claimed on social media. “...They should be doing [that] since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal’”, he said.

Reports a day earlier had said that Iran had dismissed the 15-point ceasefire plan proposed by the US and instead countered it with a proposal of its own.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has claimed that the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Alireza Tangsiri was killed in a strike. Iran has not yet commented on the claim. Read on.

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