Indiens Wahlbehörde hat das Wahlregister um mehr als  130 Millionen Namen erleichtert. Besonders Bewohner der Slums sind betroffen. Kritiker fragen: Wie demokratisch ist die größte Demokratie der Welt noch?

Led by Congress party, India’s opposition alliance channels anger over removal of 130 million names from voter roll

Thousands of opposition supporters have gathered in Delhi as protests against the Narendra Modi government continue to gather momentum.

Led by the Congress party, India’s opposition alliance has brought together supporters from across the country, amid growing anger over a large-scale revision of the country’s voter roll that has seen 130 million names erased.

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka spent a week in jail after defying restrictions on protests in Delhi amid government crackdown

An Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests.

The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week.

The singing, dancing and sheer joy in the face of police brutality at the protests led by the Cockroach Janta party show people no longer fear India’s regime

In July, as supporters of the Cockroach movement took to Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi, incensed over exam-paper leaks and demanding the resignation of India’s education minister, the rest of the nation realised that for the first time since the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the curse of inertia and the grip of fear had been smashed irrevocably. Prime minister Narendra Modi’s image of invincibility has been punctured.

People in India have been conditioned to believe in an idea of intense slow-burn protests that eventually bring change – but the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) has shown us that the revolution can be fast-tracked.

Meena Kandasamy is a poet and writer based in Chennai

Abhijeet Dipke was arrested before planned anti-government demonstrations in Delhi

The leader of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) youth movement, Abhijeet Dipke, was detained by police on Friday as authorities cracked down on fresh anti-government protests in the Indian capital.

Dipke was detained before a planned Friday evening demonstration he had called in central Delhi, urging supporters of the movement to come out and hold up the Indian flag.

A fresh wave of protests by India’s youth-led Cockroach movement has been met with a brutal crackdown by Narendra Modi’s government and the closure of a historic protest site in Delhi. Two of the movement’s leaders have been imprisoned for five days for violating suppression measures. The protests, which began over frustration about education and unemployment, are now focused on voting rights. Modi’s government denies claims that it is seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters. But its treatment of protesters has been criticised by the UN and Amnesty International and raised concerns that the country is sliding further into autocracy. Lucy Hough speaks to the south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen – watch on YouTube

Anger at electoral roll changes has boiled over, sparking a crisis for Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government

• Leaders of India’s Cockroach party jailed

Born into a small village in West Bengal, Shahida Fakir had always taken her vote for granted. That was, until it was suddenly taken away. She presented officials with her Indian birth certificate and family land documents from the village going back to 1962.

Both her parents had been on the electoral roll going back decades, so she showed proof of that too. But when the final revised voter list came out in April, Fakir was not on it.

Young protesters have exposed the limits of a strongman’s authority. Crushing dissent risks deepening the democratic crisis he should confront

Narendra Modi’s heavy-handed crackdown on protests over electoral rights in Delhi appears to have backfired. Over the weekend, his government tried to crush demonstrations led by the gen Z Cockroach Janta party (CJP). It locked up thousands of young people, detained journalists and shut down the capital as if he had declared emergency rule. Abhijeet Dipke, who launched the CJP in May after India’s chief justice compared jobless youths to “cockroaches”, was detained with other leaders when he landed in Delhi. Those who did take to the Indian capital’s streets were roughed up by police or taken into custody. Even when the usually deferential supreme court ordered peaceful assembly be protected, Mr Modi’s government showed its authoritarian contempt for fundamental constitutional rights.

This was less a display of strength than a government showing its fear of voters it claims to represent. But the actions did not stop the protests. On Monday, thousands marched in Delhi, demanding the resignation of India’s election chief over reports that the names of more than 130 million voters were deleted from the electoral roll to benefit Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in recent elections. It’s a charge that India’s election commission denies, although some commissioners have raised concerns over voters’ names being removed without their knowledge.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Die Bewegung Cockroach Janta Party demonstriert gegen die Überprüfung der Wahlregister. Ihre Vorwürfe sind heikel für die Regierung in Delhi, die 2000 Menschen festnehmen lässt. Die größte Demokratie der Welt ringt um ihre Glaubwürdigkeit.

Authorities impose strict lockdown in capital to try to stop rally against removal of 130m names from electoral roll

Indian authorities have placed Delhi under a severe lockdown and detained tens of thousands of people, including the leader of the youth-led “Cockroach” movement, in an attempt to stop an anti-government protest.

Thousands of people from across India were blocked from attending the demonstration, which had been called by the “Cockroach Janata party” (CJP) to protest against an exercise that has stripped 130m names from India’s electoral roll.

Thousands expected to march in Delhi on Saturday, as anger mounts over controversial changes to voter lists in world’s largest democracy

India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which began as a satirical movement but is now emerging as a political force among gen Z’s, says authorities have begun detaining its members en masse days before a major anti-government protest in Delhi.

Opposition parties, their student units, and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been holding almost daily demonstrations seeking the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial revision of ⁠voter lists.

Modi government, election body and its head issued notices after removal of millions from lists prompts mass protests

India’s supreme court has demanded accountability from the government and the election body over a controversial exercise that has led to the deletion of tens of millions of voters from the electoral roll and prompted mass protests.

Demonstrations have erupted across the country in recent days as opposition parties, student groups and the youth-led Cockroach movement have demanded the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, the head of the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Indiens Regierung hat 2014 eine Toiletten-Offensive gestartet, schon fünf Jahre später hieß es: Niemand muss sich mehr im Freien erleichtern. Doch ein Besuch bei Familie Khan zeigt, dass das nicht ganz der Wahrheit entspricht.

Der verletzte Pilot äußert sich in einem Videotelefonat mit dem indischen Premierminister Narendra Modi zu den Geschehnissen während des Fluges FZ1073.

Beim Brics-Treffen in Indien wurde ein rein vegetarisches Menü serviert, auch für die notorischsten Fleischesser unter den Staatschefs. Dafür bekommt Narendra Modi nun Kritik – allerdings aus dem eigenen Land.

Während Narendra Modi von einer Wirtschaftswunderwelt träumt, müssen sich Lehrer wie Rajendra Singh gegen die Bildungsmisere Indiens stemmen. Er unterrichtet allein 56 Kinder, alle Altersstufen. Eine Schulstunde in einer Welt der Abgehängten.

Modi’s bid to ‘purify’ voter lists has affected a third of the city’s residents. In the GB Road red light district, those who lack permanent homes and documents are among the hardest hit

Rows of hardware and car-part shops line Garstin Bastion Road, with faded signs crammed together above their shutters. By day, the street is one of Old Delhi’s busiest commercial thoroughfares. But as dusk falls, GB Road, as it is known locally, transforms into one of the city’s most notorious red-light districts.

An estimated 2,800 sex workers live and work in brothels that occupy the upper floors of the dilapidated buildings, their entrances tucked behind narrow stairways and unmarked doors. Women sit on plastic stools beneath the stairways, calling out to men passing on the street, while others watch from windows above, their eyes following the movement below before customers are directed upstairs.

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.