After a five-storey building collapsed in Delhi, focus is on how urban areas can adapt to growing populations. Plus, Ahmedabad’s ace newspaper delivery driver goes viral

Recently, I may have saved a woman’s life on the road. Somehow, this was something I had expected to happen.

On that day, I saw a truck leave a construction site with a tangled wire trailing behind. I frantically looked to see what the wire was attached to and spotted the scaffolding a few meters ahead. I shrieked and grabbed the hand of the woman walking in front of me just as the metal pipes came crashing down. We hugged for a brief second, and then walked our separate ways.

Bei ihrem Treffen in Delhi demonstrieren die Brics-Staaten Einigkeit – für Gastgeber Modi ist das ein Erfolg. Russlands Präsident nutzt die Bühne für Drohungen gegen Europa.

Chinese president’s arrival in Delhi seen as step towards reconciliation after deadly 2020 military clash

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has received a red-carpet welcome in India for a summit of Brics developing nations, as regional rivals Beijing and Delhi make a public display of thawing relations while quietly competing to lead at a time of shaky US global dominance.

As Xi stepped off the plane, he was walked past an honour guard of Indian soldiers and traditional dancers in colourful dresses. Later on Saturday, he was due to attend a gala dinner for the two-day summit.

Russian president is due to meet his Iranian counterpart during visit, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping also set to attend summit

Vladimir Putin has arrived in India’s capital of Delhi ahead of an 11-member Brics summit set to be dominated by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as economic challenges.

The Russian president and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, were due to hold talks with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping was also expected to attend the two-day meeting.

Das Staatenbündnis Saarc könnte einen wichtigen Beitrag für Frieden und Wohlstand in einer komplizierten Region leisten. Wenn nur die beiden Atommächte Indien und Pakistan mitspielen würden.

Opposition parties say nationwide protests that forced resignation of education secretary are beginning to dent BJP support

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has lost a byelection in a seat it had held for three decades, after the Cockroach movement student protests that have shaken Narendra Modi’s government.

Prashant Kishor, a high-profile electoral strategist turned politician, scored a breakthrough win for his fledgling Jan Suraaj (Good Governance) party in the Bankipur constituency in Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar.

Sie wollen Indien verändern: Nach den erfolgreichen Demonstrationen der Satire-Partei Cockroach Janta Party keimt Hoffnung bei der Gen-Z.  Für Premier Modi sind das schlechte Nachrichten.

For the first time in more than a decade, a government minister in India has resigned following pressure from a street protest movement. The demonstrations erupted after the chief justice compared unemployed youths to cockroaches.

For many young Indians, the remark became the tipping point after years of high unemployment and repeated exam paper leaks that had shattered the hopes of millions of job seekers. The Guardian spent a week embedded with protesters as they faced police crackdowns, arrests and intimidation, documenting an extraordinary week that culminated in the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation.

They turned the news into a Funny or Die video. They cooked up a romcom between PM Modi and Giorgia Meloni. And they fought the police with Lana del Rey memes. Our writer observes the Cockroach party’s bold new strategy

I’ve spent 16 years doing standup in India, 10 of them under prime minister Narendra Modi’s government. I’ve learned – especially at corporate events, private shows and turns at various associations, universities and business schools among the English-speaking urban elite – that people are most thrilled when politics doesn’t come up, as if it doesn’t exist. I’m often told: “Anuvab, you can joke about anything – just don’t mention any specific names, places, incidents or events.”

You might read that and think I live in some humourless, semi-monarchic stasis. That isn’t true either. Many comedians and influencers joke about the government. Some get into trouble and some don’t, the overall assessment being that it is not worth the risk. In India, whatever is true, the opposite is often true as well.

A youth movement born from exam leaks and online mockery has pierced Narendra Modi’s aura of invincibility and may yet reshape Indian politics

“What if all cockroaches come together?” was the question that humbled India’s strongman prime minister, Narendra Modi. It was posted on X by Abhijeet Dipke, an Indian student in the US with a master’s in public relations. Enraged that India’s top judge likened unemployed youths to insects and “parasites”, and that millions saw medical exams compromised by leaks, Mr Dipke lit a fuse. For India’s nearly 400 million gen Z, public exams are often the only ladder to a secure future. When papers leak or tests are cancelled, that ladder is kicked away. By June, young people were protesting peacefully in Delhi as the Cockroach Janta party (CJP), a parody of Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). They demanded the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.

This weekend, Mr Pradhan became the first senior minister in Mr Modi’s 12 years in power to be forced from office by a mass-protest movement. It came after credible reports suggested police officers attacked protesters marching to parliament. Security sources say it was they who were attacked. This may be just the beginning. The concession has taught the Cockroach movement’s leadership that pressure works. They could have declared victory and gone home. Instead they have accused the government of breaching the terms of the settlement offered by Mr Modi’s government. The CJP claims at least 100 people have been arrested, many on non-bailable charges. Its leaders are now demanding the release of detainees and threatening to remobilise nationally.

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Cockroach Janta party says government has broken promise, with detentions in Delhi, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar

India’s youth-led “Cockroach” movement, whose nationwide protests forced the resignation of the education minister, has accused the government of backtracking on its promise not to act against student protesters and has threatened to restart demonstrations.

The Cockroach Janta party (CJP), which organised mass protests over exam paper leaks and other irregularities, said it had received reports of hundreds of students being detained or “harassed” by police.

Abhijeet Dipke ist mit Witz und Willen zu einer Symbolfigur der indischen Gen Z geworden. Seine Protestbewegung Cockroach Janta  Party bringt sogar die Regierung in Delhi zum Einlenken.

Ally forced to resign, with opposition parties reinvigorated and strongman leader’s grip over media channels rocked

Even the night before Narendra Modi accepted the resignation of his education minister, India’s prime minister appeared confident that the largest mass uprising to take place in his 12 years in power would do little to rattle his government.

Addressing his “young friends” in a late-night Instagram selfie reel on Friday, he thanked the people – who were mobilised en masse across the country, shouting anti-government slogans – for their “thoughtful suggestions”.

Dharmendra Pradhan steps down after demonstrations over exam leak scandal, prompting celebrations among thousands of protesters

India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned after a week of mass demonstrations, handing a major victory to a new youth movement that has posed an unprecedented challenge to Narendra Modi’s government.

In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Pradhan said he had submitted his letter of resignation to the prime minister after student pressure.

Prime minister’s propaganda machine falters as fiercely secular youth protests reclaim nationalism

by Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi

As the poster bearing the face of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was thrown to the floor, a cheer went up. Then came the feet, trampling the image into the muddy ground with gleeful abandon. “Thief, thief,” chanted the crowd.

Just a week earlier, such scenes in the heart of India’s capital would have been almost unthinkable. For the 12 years Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) have been in power it was widely acknowledged that you criticised the government at your peril. Dissent was swiftly, routinely and expertly crushed.

Sonam Wangchuk halted strike amid concerns about ‘possible violence’ in India as protest movement urges demonstrations across country on Friday over police brutality

The Indian “cockroach” activist Sonam Wangchuk has ended a 26-day hunger strike over an exam paper scandal that has spiralled into a wide ranging, youth-led wave of demonstrations against Narendra Modi’s government.

Supporters meanwhile have called a nationwide day of protest on Friday.

PM says ‘those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared’ as scandal spirals into widespread anger

Narendra Modi has vowed to set up “fast-track courts” to speed up the punishment of officials accused of leaking examination papers, as the Indian prime minister seeks to quell a youth-led “cockroach” protest movement that has rocked Delhi and posed one of the biggest challenges to his government.

In his first public remarks on the movement, Modi posted on X: “Nothing is more important than the welfare and future of our youth … Those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared.”

Opposition leader taken away after accusing Narendra Modi of ‘destroying the future of India’s youth’ in solidarity with cockroach movement

Indian police briefly detained the opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, during protests on Tuesday calling for the resignation of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, in solidarity with the new youth-led “cockroach” movement.

Gandhi, the leader of India’s Congress party, was forcefully removed by police as he staged a sit-in outside Modi’s house on Tuesday afternoon, accusing the prime minister of “destroying the future of India’s youth”.

Thousands of people again on the streets of Delhi calling for education reforms despite police violence on Monday

Taru had come to the protest prepared this time. In one hand was an anti-government poster and in the other was a bicycle helmet. “We need to have protection in case Delhi police beat us up again,” said the 25-year-old, who stood among her friends. “We are not scared of them and we won’t run away, no matter what they do. We’ll stay here till they listen.”

On Tuesday, central Delhi still thronged with thousands of protesters, as an unprecedented expression of dissent against the powerful ruling Narendra Modi government showed no sign of abating.

Explosion of anger over education system and youth unemployment has led to movement’s rapid rise

• Tens of thousands of Cockroach party protesters defy police with Delhi march