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Journalism of Courage
Good morning,
We begin today with an important weather update for the eastern coast. Cyclone Montha is expected to make landfall in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada port city today. The administration has set up relief camps with rations and food for the next 2-3 days, while all beaches have been closed and fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea. Besides Andhra Pradesh, the states of Odisha and Tamil Nadu are also on alert as heavy rains and high-speed winds are expected in some areas.
On that note, let’s get to the rest of today’s edition.👇
As the Election Commission (EC) prepares to conduct the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls nationwide, the poll body announced the next phase in 12 states and Union Territories. These include Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and West Bengal, where Assembly elections are due early next year.
Round 2: The process will begin on November 4, with 51 crore electors expected to submit enumeration forms by December 4. A draft roll will be published on December 9, and the final list will be released on February 7, 2026. All those who cannot be traced back to the last intensive revision of rolls in 2002-2005 would be required to establish their eligibility by submitting one of 13 documents.
Bihar effect: The SIR of Bihar electoral rolls led to several procedural changes in the EC’s exercise. It led to the inclusion of the Aadhaar card as one of the eligibility-proving documents and a provision in the enumeration form for voters to trace their link to the last revision roll. My colleagues Damini Nath and Ritika Chopra explain how lessons learnt from the Bihar phase widened SIR’s scope.
Pushback: Ever since the exercise was conducted in the poll-bound Bihar, Opposition parties have been raising concerns over the SIR. They have alleged that the exercise risks disenfranchising eligible voters, and have also questioned the EC’s powers to conduct a ‘citizenship-verification’ drive. Now, Opposition-ruled governments in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala have opposed the SIR, with Chief Minister M K Stalin calling an all-party meeting on November 2 to discuss the issue. Notably, Assam has been left out for now, owing to the pending exercise for the National Register of Citizens in the state.
🎧 For more on the pan-India SIR, tune in to today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode.
Speaking of voters’ verification, turns out poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor is enrolled in the voter lists of two states — West Bengal and Bihar. In Bengal, his address is listed as 121 Kalighat Road, which houses the Trinamool Congress office in Bhabanipur, while in Bihar, he’s registered to vote in the Kargahar assembly constituency. Kishor did not respond to queries, but a senior team member clarified that he has applied to have his Bengal voter card cancelled.
Kishor’s Jan Suraaj party, a new entrant to Bihar polls, is billed to be a disruptive force. However, Tejashwi Yadav, RJD leader and the Opposition’s Chief Ministerial face, dismissed Kishor as a “mass media creation” and not a mass leader. “Can you tell me one concrete thing he has done for the state?”
Tejashwi was speaking in an exclusive interview with The Indian Express, where he also spoke about his pre-poll promises (“jobs, jobs, jobs”), friendly fights in the Opposition camp, and the politics of freebies. Read.
Milestones: As Bihar gears up for the ballot, The Indian Express will bring you a series of articles tracing the state’s fascinating political history, marked by ideologies of almost every shade. We start off with Santosh Singh’s explainer on five landmarks of Bihar politics, from the Shri Babu era to the rise of Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Also read: A look at Deep Narayan Singh, the man who was CM for only 18 days
‘D’Mello tu toh gaya’: Many remember Satish Shah from his iconic role as the genial Indravadan or “Indu” in Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. But there’s a separate fan base for D’Mello, his character in the 1983 classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. Among them is Naseeruddin Shah. In a tribute to his friend of over 50 years, Naseeruddin remembers Satish’s ad-libs in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (“they are some of the funniest bits in that whole enterprise”), their time at FTII, and his “joie de vivre and relentless joke-telling”. Read Naseeruddin’s moving farewell.
Caution: Will the US sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil impact India’s imports? Well, India’s largest refiner, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), has said that it will “abide by all sanctions imposed by the international community”. Earlier, Reliance Industries, which accounts for half of India’s Russian oil imports, had also said that it would comply fully with guidance from the Indian government. Industry insiders suggest that caution will be the watchword going forward.
Remember Harshvardhan Jain? He was posing as the ambassador of Westarctica – an icy, uninhabited land — and other micro-nations. He had a Ghaziabad-based fake embassy, self-claimed ‘His Excellency’ title, and even diplomatic plates for his vehicles. Well, a special task force of the UP police caught him in July, and this month, they filed an 800-page chargesheet in the city court detailing his crime. He hoodwinked several businessmen, promising them business deals with European countries and diplomatic plates in exchange for lakhs of rupees. Read all about it here.
That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta
