Daily Briefing | Delhi car blast: eyewitness accounts and the probe so far

What we know: The blast’s cause is yet to be ascertained. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that the investigators will probe “all angles”. The investigators found that the i20 in question exchanged hands more than once, and eventually, a Pulwama resident bought the car just weeks earlier, on October 29. They also tracked the car’s movements before the blast, which showed that it was parked for three hours at the Red Fort before it was driven out. Read our report.

You can also follow our live blog for real-time updates.

On that note, let’s get to the rest of the edition👇

🗳️ Decision 2025

The ripples of the car blast in Delhi were felt in Bihar, where polling for the Assembly elections concludes today. Police have fanned out across the state for heightened security measures, including patrolling and frisking in crowded areas.

The 122 seats voting today are concentrated along Bihar’s borders with Nepal, West Bengal and Jharkhand. The BJP won a majority of these seats in the 2020 Assembly elections, followed by the RJD.  In our election coverage today:

👉 In the last elections, the RJD had emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats. Can it reign once again? The party has been working hard to extend its appeal beyond the Yadav-Muslim base. But as D-Day arrives, this attempt appears to be a work in progress. Deeptiman Tiwary and Santosh Singh report.

👉 In her weekly column, Neerja Chowdhury puts the ambitious debutant Prashant Kishor and his party Jan Suraaj under the spotlight. PK has occupied a space left empty by Congress to help his new outfit emerge as the third pole in Bihar. They are banking on a desire for change to win the elections. But will that be enough?

🎧 In today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode, we take a closer look at Bihar’s economy and how it compares with other states.

📰 From the Front Page

‘White-collar terror’: The J&K Police has arrested two doctors, Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganai and Dr Adeel Majeed, in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The doctors are allegedly linked to terror groups Jaish-e-Mohammad and Ansar Ghazwatul Hind (AGH). This link came to light during a police probe into the appearance of posters supporting Jaish on the outskirts of Srinagar that revealed a “white collar terror ecosystem” of radicalised professionals and students in contact with “foreign handlers”.

Revamp? The Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium in the national capital was built for the 1982 Asian Games. It got a Rs 961-crore makeover ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and a recent Rs 50-crore upgradation. The JLN stadium will now likely be dismantled to make way for a sports city, similar to the one in Doha, to house venues for all major Olympic disciplines and residential facilities for athletes. The concept is currently in “ideation phase”, according to a high-ranking Sports Ministry official.

📌 Must Read

‘Do no harm’: Artificial intelligence (AI) has posed a pressing question for governments worldwide. How should it be regulated, and to what extent? In India, the government has resisted tightening the regulatory noose around AI in favour of an innovation economy. However, amid growing concerns about data privacy and inference risks, it has drawn up guidelines. The focus is on improving infrastructure, defining accountability and building capacity. Crucially, they flag the need to label AI content across platforms. Soumyarendra Barik explains what the guidelines say, and what they mean for the future of AI regulation.

Single? Living by yourself offers a certain kind of freedom. The one where you can binge-watch till 3 am, come and go as you please, and have cereal for dinner if you’d like. But in 2025, there’s a price to be paid for this independence: “singles tax”. Olimita Roy writes on how crowded cities with soaring rents and grocery bills make living alone a privilege only a few can sustain.

⏳ And Finally…

Sheetal Devi was born without arms, but there’s little she cannot do. Last week, she became the first Indian para archer to earn a spot on the able-bodied national team, which will be competing in next month’s Asia Cup. But how does the 18-year-old, who eats and writes with her toes, also shoot arrows with them? It takes a lot — an improvised strap, training to improve toe grip, and a whole lot of grit.

That’s all for today, folks! Until next time,
Sonal Gupta

Business As Usual by EP Unny