NEWS BRIEFINGS: LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN INDIA

A new study has found that smoking may increase the risk of dementia by triggering a chain of biological events that starts in the lungs and ends up damaging brain cells. The findings offer the clearest biological explanation to date for a link that population studies have observed for years without being able to fully explain.

A global study has found that work is now in a state of constant change due to rapid technological advances, with India feeling this more acutely, as roles, tools and expectations keep changing all at once. As workers are having to adjust, the pressure shows in how they feel, with 67 percent in India saying they are anxious about becoming obsolete.

A new study has found that India is undercounting stillbirths because a large share of pregnancy losses occur earlier than what official systems record. The research reached this conclusion by examining stillbirths at different stages of pregnancy, rather than counting only those that occur after a fixed point in pregnancy, pointing to a larger global issue in how stillbirths are counted.

Opposition parties have criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's letter to all political party leaders seeking their support to pass amendments during an extended sitting of Parliament, saying he framed the issue as a collective responsibility to mask what they call a political calculation.

The documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein, a U.S. financier who built a network of relationships with political leaders, business figures and public personalities, contain several references involving India, including instances of direct contact between Epstein and Indian political and business figures. Here is a clear account of what the Epstein files say about India and how to read those references.

India’s bottom half owns just 6.4% of the country’s total wealth, while an extremely small group at the top holds wealth equal to nearly half of the country’s annual economic output, according to Wealth Tracker India 2026, released by the Centre for Financial Accountability and Tax The Top. The report also states that the wealth of Gautam Adani and his family rose by over 600% between 2019 and 2025. The comparison offers a sense of scale.

The Supreme Court expressed frustration on April 6 over repeated forensic delays in authenticating audio clips that allegedly implicate former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh in the state’s ethnic violence. Meanwhile, a bomb attack the following day in Manipur’s Bishnupur district killed two children and triggered fresh unrest.

The education ministry has reportedly written to all university vice-chancellors, forwarding a suggestion from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that journalism syllabuses be reviewed “to make them more effective.” The ministry offered no specification of what the review should contain or why the current syllabuses fall short. This vagueness, which appears to be deliberate, is concerning.

The Congress party has alleged that Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sharma, holds multiple foreign passports and undisclosed overseas assets, triggering a political confrontation with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has rejected the claims and announced legal action.

The Roblox gaming platform, widely used by children under 13 and estimated to have tens of millions of users in India, has come under increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny following documented cases in which its social features have been used by predators to groom children for sexual abuse. Children and parents in India, one of Roblox’s fastest growing markets, need to take note and act to protect themselves.

A draft amendment to the IT Rules would allow authorities to direct platforms to take down not only content from media organisations but also posts by individual users on social media. It would remove the distinction between a media organisation that publishes news as an institutional activity and an ordinary citizen who speaks, comments, jokes, shares, records, criticises or reports from a phone, by bringing such user generated content within a regulatory structure designed for digital media entities and publishers.

The Indian rupee is falling sharply and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is struggling to hold it steady even after taking strong steps. The weakening rupee, which is driven by high oil costs, may raise fuel and transport prices, increase prices of goods and services, and reduce business investment, hiring and household spending.

India’s middle class is getting economically squeezed as automation is destroying jobs, wages have stagnated and the cost of living has outpaced incomes, according to an analysis by the BBC. The class that pays the state’s taxes and drives its consumption is borrowing to cover basic expenses, putting the foundations of the post-1991 growth model under pressure.

The central government has proposed changes to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, which regulates how non-profit organisations receive foreign funding for work in health, education, nutrition and other welfare sectors. The amendment would give the government greater power to halt funding and also take control of assets, including property, created with that money, potentially reducing humanitarian, rights-based and climate-related advocacy work in the country.

Over the past four weeks, the war in West Asia has disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and increased the cost of raw materials and components used not only in fuel, but also in medicines, plastics and packaged goods in India. If the war continues for two more months, the impact is likely to become much harsher and more widespread in household expenses and access to essential services, as seen in many countries around the world during earlier conflicts.

India’s strategic petroleum reserves can cover only about 9.5 days of national crude oil demand if the reserves are filled to their maximum capacity, according to a government response obtained through the Right to Information law. The disclosure places India at the lower end of energy preparedness at a time of heightened supply risks linked to the ongoing Iran war.

Finland stands first again in the World Happiness Report 2026, while Afghanistan sits at the bottom of the ranking. India is placed 116^th among the 147 countries included in the report. The countries at the top and bottom of the report, based on how people rate their own lives, help explain why people in some societies report greater satisfaction with their lives than those in others.

The Supreme Court has said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) appeared reluctant to proceed in the alleged loan fraud case involving Anil Ambani-led companies. A court pressing the country’s main financial crime investigators to act in a case involving public sector bank money raises uncomfortable questions about the state’s willingness to pursue accountability where corporate power is involved.

A new analysis reports that glaciers across the Hindu-Kush Himalaya, which stretches across eight countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar, have been reduced by 12 percent in 20 years. This may lead to uncertainty in water availability and increased exposure to natural calamities in South and Southeast Asia in the coming decades, a trend scientists say is already contributing to rising risks of glacial lake floods, avalanches and landslides in the Himalayan region.

India is on track to become the world’s fourth largest economy in nominal gross domestic product, a measure of output at current market prices, as it moves toward overtaking Japan. But, one of the world’s top consulting firms asks if this rise in the global rankings on paper translate into larger gains for the people who live and work in India?

A major labour study from Azim Premji University reports that about 40 percent of graduates in India’s labour force are unemployed, a level that has remained largely unchanged for four decades. The finding shows that economic growth has failed to create enough skilled jobs for the number of graduates the country now produces.

A new medical review that brought together evidence from many earlier studies on why women develop Alzheimer’s disease more often than men suggests that the years around menopause may be one of the most important periods for protecting women’s brain health. The findings are widely useful because they can help women reduce that risk.

India is experiencing a decline in democratic standards and is now classified as an “electoral autocracy,” according to the Democracy Report 2026 published by the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute. The report places India in a political category where multiparty elections still take place but core democratic conditions, including freedom of expression, freedom of association and fair political competition, are judged to be insufficient.

Interfaith dialogue and freedom of belief can strengthen a city’s economy by making it more stable and attractive to investors and skilled professionals, according to a new international system developed to measure how cooperation between religious communities influences economic conditions in cities.

While two Indian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers have crossed the Strait of Hormuz and are heading toward Indian ports, an event widely seen as a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, the shipment represents only a small fraction of the Indian energy traffic currently waiting outside the strait. It seems India’s friendly relations with Iran have given it only limited influence over decisions that Tehran now treats as part of its wartime strategy.

The Union government revoked Ladakhi climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s detention under the National Security Act, or NSA, on March 14, just before the Supreme Court was due to resume hearing a case filed by his wife challenging the legality of his detention and seeking his release. From a legal and political perspective, the timing reveals at least three issues.

The stunning rise of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), powered by the popularity of its senior leader Balendra “Balen” Shah, has reduced the Nepali Congress and the communist parties to their smallest presence ever in Nepal’s parliamentary election history. The results of the 2026 election mark a dramatic break in a political system long dominated by these parties, but the question now is whether a new movement led by younger leaders will be able to replace the traditional forces that have shaped the country’s politics for decades.

The ongoing U.S.–Israel confrontation with Iran is already reaching Indian kitchens, petrol pumps, factories and household budgets. Disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have slowed or halted tankers carrying oil and gas, triggering supply shocks that are spreading through India’s energy system and everyday economic life. The effects are visible on the ground in long queues outside LPG agencies, restaurants cutting menus because commercial cylinders have run short, and factories pausing production for lack of fuel.

The Pentagon has told lawmakers in the United States that the first six days of the Iran war cost the exchequer about $11.3 billion, a sum that could theoretically fund basic food assistance for around 18–20 million people for an entire year. The spending is likely to rise sharply in the coming weeks and months, and much of that spending will flow to a small circle of industries, while ordinary citizens in many countries will carry the economic shock.

Scientists studying urban sewage in India have found that wastewater flowing through city drains carries large numbers of bacteria that can survive treatment with many antibiotics. The finding suggests that sewage systems, which often flow into rivers, agricultural water, floodwater and soil, may allow these resistant bacteria to spread through the environment and eventually reach people, making some infections harder to treat.