Three Indian cities—Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi—rank among the slowest globally in terms of average travel speeds, according to the TomTom Traffic Index 2025. The report, drawing from over 450 billion miles driven worldwide in 2024, shows a pressing challenge for the country’s urban hubs: the deteriorating quality of urban mobility.

The 2025 Maha Kumbh is set to begin on Jan. 13 in the city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, representing one of the largest religious gatherings on the planet. According to media reports, over 400 million people are expected to participate in the gather. Is this assembly purely religious, or has it evolved also into a platform for political influence?

News reports on the spread of Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) are bringing back memories of the initial alerts regarding COVID-19 a few years ago. While HMPV is not typically fatal, its capacity to infect individuals across all demographics has raised significant public concern. However, it must not become part of a recurring pattern in global health responses: illnesses that also affect the privileged often dominate headlines and governmental priorities, overshadowing diseases that primarily affect marginalised groups and less developed countries.

The Delhi High Court has asked the state’s police, which reports to the central government, whether an individual who merely organises a protest site could face charges under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Judges pressed for clear evidence showing that the act of setting up demonstrations against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act warranted a law typically invoked for serious offenses.

Three people have been confirmed dead, and one body had been recovered as of Jan. 8, two days after at least nine miners became trapped in a flooded “rat hole” coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district. The incident resembles several similar accidents over recent years, despite numerous protests by local residents. The issue persists.

China is building the world’s largest dam on a major river in Tibet, which originates from a glacier in the northern Himalayas and flows downstream as the Brahmaputra River, crossing into India before merging with the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh. The project is expected to significantly impact crucial ecosystems and the livelihoods of millions of people, including those in India and Bangladesh.

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini’s “war on drugs” is reportedly being bolstered by vigilantes, resulting in a rise in casteism, which is not the only adverse outcome. Similar experiments in other countries have demonstrated that such measures can lead to extremely dangerous and long-term consequences.

A 33-year-old journalist, Mukesh Chandrakar, was killed in Chhattisgarh, prompting an investigation by the authorities. He had exposed possible corruption in a 1.2 billion rupees road project. Police have arrested three suspects, including two of his relatives and a construction supervisor.

A 70-year-old farmer leader in Punjab reached his 40th consecutive day of indefinite fasting to demand a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) for crops on Jan. 4. A fast beyond 40 days in older adults may lead to the depletion of fat and muscle, increasing the risk of organ failure and sudden cardiac complications.

India recorded a decline of 15 million students in schools in 2023-2024, compared to the average of the previous years, despite the addition of new institutions, according to data from the Education Ministry, which shows that enrolment dropped from an average of over 263 million to 248 million.

Authorities have initiated the long-overdue removal of hundreds of tons of toxic material from the 1984 Bhopal gas leak accident in Madhya Pradesh; however, doubts persist regarding the potential environmental consequences.