India news: Neha Bora refuses to sign peace bond, cites right to democratic dissent

Here are the top headlines from India on Saturday, October 24:

Student leader Neha Bora said on Saturday they would not sign a peace bond, alleging that the evidence cited by police was factually incorrect.

The All India Students' Association (AISA) leader, who uses they/them pronouns, made the statement a day after the Delhi High Court dismissed their plea challenging a police notice directing them to execute a Rs 10,000 (€94.39) personal bond with surety to maintain peace.

AISA and India's youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), along with other organizations, are demanding the resignation of controversy-hit Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar after a newspaper investigation alleged impropriety during a large-scale voter-roll revision, which saw the deletion of more than 130 million names from draft electoral rolls nationwide.

"Our concern is that people may be deprived of one of their most fundamental democratic rights: the right to vote," Bora wrote in an oped in the Indian Express newspaper on Saturday.

Bora said AISA had not called the Central Park protest cited in the notice as grounds for the bond. They also questioned whether peaceful demonstrations against alleged voter deletions under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise could be considered a breach of peace.

"It is essential that peaceful protests and democratic demonstrations on the streets are not declared a breach of peace," they said, adding that they would challenge the interpretation and enforcement of such bonds in court.

Bora said neither they nor AISA would sign the bond, arguing that it violated the fundamental right to democratic dissent.

Five people were killed on Saturday when explosive material misfired during road-widening work in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the Hindustan Times reported citing the police.

The blast occurred in Pinakota village in Alluri Sitharama Raju district during rock blasting for road expansion.

The explosion also destroyed two vehicles, the report said.

State Home Minister Vangalapudi Anitha expressed condolences to the victims' families and directed officials to ensure medical treatment for the injured and provide assistance to those affected.

A police station was reportedly burnt down and seven police vehicles torched on Friday by angry protesters opposing a proposed hydropower project in Pasighat in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, the Arunachal Times newspaper said.

The violence broke out in Pasighat after police fired tear gas at youths protesting the proposed 11,000-megawatt Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP), according to local media.

Protesters also allegedly set fire to a National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) office, while a journalist was injured in the unrest, reports said.

Protesters are demanding the release of detained activists, the withdrawal of security forces from the Siang region and an immediate halt to survey work on the hydropower project.

Authorities have deployed additional security personnel in the region as tensions remained high.

Bids for Jio Platforms' initial public offering (IPO) topped $77 billion (€68.74 billion) on Friday, making it India's most subscribed share offering. Demand exceeded 22 times the shares on offer.

The IPO of the telecoms and digital unit of Reliance Industries, owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, attracted more than 13.8 million applications — a record for India.

The offering values Jio Platforms at up to $108.3 billion.

Led by Ambani's son Akash, the company operates a mobile network serving more than 500 million users and counts Meta and Google among its investors.

The shares are expected to list on Wednesday.

The IPO comes just days after Elon Musk criticized regulatory delays facing Starlink in India, accusing Reliance Industries head Mukesh Ambani of keeping Starlink out of the India market.

Three children were among the five killed on Friday when a series of explosions ripped through a firecracker workshop operating from a private home in the eastern state of Bihar, police said.

According to the police residents fear more people may be buried under the rubble.

The workshop's owner and four relatives were among those killed in the incident in Siwan district.

According to the Hindustan Times newspaper, a witness said that body parts of some of those killed in the blast were "strewn all over."

Industrial accidents, especially in firework factories, are common in India, where safety standards are often poorly enforced.

India's Foreign Ministry said on Friday the situation along the India-China border was periodically disrupted when Chinese forces deviated from established patrolling patterns.

"Both sides continue to use existing diplomatic and military mechanisms to resolve outstanding issues and avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)," the ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said while addressing the media.

The two countries have also agreed to discuss ways to improve their understanding of the LAC in certain areas to strengthen border management, he added.

"I would also like to emphasize that maintaining peace and tranquillity in the border areas is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations," Jaiswal said.

This development comes a day after India's China border police chief, Shatrujeet Singh Kapur, said on Thursday that face-offs between Indian and Chinese troops are continuing at multiple locations along the border in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, despite ongoing talks between the two countries, according to Indian media.

The face-offs in Arunachal Pradesh underscore the challenges of maintaining peace along the border even as the two countries have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks this year.

The issue was also taken up by the opposition Congress party with Member of Parliament and senior party leader Jairam Ramesh criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and and the government for "remain silent on this grave issue."

"The nation is asking: Amid ongoing tensions on the border, what kind of nationalism is this softness toward China and the growing economic dependence?" Ramesh posted on X.

Hello! This is Shakeel from DW's New Delhi Studio bringing you the top updates from across India.

The issue of India-China border tensions has its made its way back into focus as India on Friday said Chinese forces deviating from established patrolling patterns continue to disrupt the border situation.

Meanwhile, in the eastern state of Bihar, three children were among the five killed when a series of powerful explosions tore through a firecracker workshop at a private house, where the manufacturing was taking place.

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