
Mumbai train accident: Four dead after falling off local train due to overcrowding
Four commuters were killed after falling off a train heading to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSTM) near Mumbra on Monday.
According to initial information received, due to overcrowding the passengers were hanging into the train gates and a push or jostle caused around 13 passengers to fall onto the tracks resulting in four fatalities. The railway administration and police have reached the spot and the injured were taken to the nearest hospital. Meanwhile, police are investigating into the accident.
'Around 9:50 a.m., eight passengers fell off a fast local train travelling from Kasara to CSMT near Mumbra railway station. The incident occurred between Mumbra and Diwa on the down fast line when around eight passengers, who were travelling on the footboard of two locals, their bags collided with each other and fell off the train, as per the preliminary information,' said Dr. Swapnil Nila, Central Railway PRO.
New coaches will have automatic door closing system, Mr. Nila said. The injured are being treated at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa, with two in serious condition and shifted to Jupiter Hospital.
Shiv Sena Lok Sabha member from Thane, Naresh Mhaske demanded a probe into the death of passengers. 'The cause of the incident needs to be addressed. How did they fall...was there a crowd, were they pushed, was there a fight,' he told a regional news channel.
Mr. Mhaske said, 'One can understand if it was a crowded local train. But in this case, the tragedy happened in a moving express train. The administration also needs to be alert.'
Leader of Opposition in the State legislative council Ambadas Danve in a post on X said the incident of so many people suddenly getting out of the Pushpak Express and resulting in the accident is heartbreaking and serious. This incident raises questions about railway safety in Mumbai, he said.
Mumbai Railway Passengers Association demanded action against Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) as they had already complained to the Railway Board regarding the safety of the route from Diva to Kalwa. 'Many passengers have lost their lives on this route in the past. After the addition of two new routes between Kalyan and Thane, it was expected that passengers would get more local services. However, DRM reversed this decision and gave priority to mail and express trains on these routes,' the association said.
Sonam Raghuvanshi, the 'missing' wife among 4 arrested for Indore man's murder during honeymoon in Meghalaya
The 'missing' wife of Raja Raghuvanshi, the tourist from Madhya Pradesh's Indore who was murdered near Meghalaya's Sohra (Cherrapunjee), has surrendered before the police in Uttar Pradesh.
Officials in Meghalaya stated that Sonam Raghuvanshi surrendered at the Nandganj police station in the northern State's Gazipur district.
Two others, suspected to be involved in Raja's murder, were arrested in Madhya Pradesh. Raja's body was recovered on June 2 from a 200-foot gorge used as a garbage dumping, and the murder weapon – a new locally used machete – was found nearby.
Several teams of local police, National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, local volunteers, drones, and sniffer dogs failed to locate Sonam, who was declared missing. A woman's shirt and a raincoat, presumably used by her, were found near the murder spot.
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma praised the police for cracking the 'Raja murder case' that threatened to smear the State's tourism industry.
'The police achieved a major breakthrough within seven days. The female [Sonam] has surrendered, and the operation is on to catch one more assailant,' he said. 'We hope to find out the motive behind the murder after interrogating the arrested suspects,' a police officer in Sohra said.
Pressure was mounting on the Meghalaya government from its Madhya Pradesh counterpart and the Centre to get to the bottom of the case after Raja and Sonam, a newlywed couple, went missing after leaving a homestay at Mawlakhiat village in the East Khasi Hills district on May 23.
A two-wheeler they had rented from the State's capital, Shillong, about 60 km away, was found abandoned at a roadside cafe on May 24. Incessant rainfall and slippery conditions hampered the search operations until a police drone spotted Raja's body nine days later.
Raja and Sonam's relatives, who reached Meghalaya after the news of their disappearance, expressed unhappiness with the pace of the operation to locate them. They demanded the police search for Sonam as if she were alive and not make it seem they were trying to find her body.
The police received a clue last week when a local guide reported seeing the couple walking uphill with three others who were conversing in Hindi. 'The woman trailed behind the man who was speaking with the other three. I did not understand what they were discussing, as I am not conversant in Hindi,' Albert Pde, the guide, said.
Meghalaya's Tourism Minister, Paul Lyngdoh, said the arrests related to the case should reset some caustic views about the State being unsafe for tourists. He had earlier rejected calls to hand over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
'We are a hospitable people. Why should we kill the goose that lays golden eggs?' he said.
Can ECI announce the date by which electoral-roll data of Haryana, Maharashtra will be handed over: Rahul Gandhi
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday (June 9, 2025) lauded the Election Commission's (EC) reported decision to share the electoral-roll data for Haryana and Maharashtra as 'a good first step' and urged the poll body to announce the exact date by which the data will be handed over in a digital, machine-readable format.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha shared the screenshot of a media report that claimed that the EC has cleared the way for sharing the electoral-roll data for Haryana and Maharashtra from 2009 to 2024, following an assurance it gave to the Delhi High Court earlier in the year.
There was, however, no official word from the EC on the reported move as yet.
In a post on X, Mr. Gandhi said, 'Good first step taken by EC to hand over voter rolls. Can the EC please announce the exact date by which this data will be handed over in a digital, machine-readable format?' the former Congress chief asked.
After Mr. Gandhi sought the EC's response on his article alleging rigging in last year's Maharashtra Assembly election, sources in the poll authority said on Sunday (June 8, 2025) that the constitutional body would respond only if the Leader of Opposition writes to it directly.
They also pointed out that as part of its outreach, the EC had invited all six national parties for separate interactions. While the other five met the EC brass, Congress cancelled the May 15 meeting.
Mr. Gandhi hit back at the EC on Saturday after sources in the poll panel rejected his allegation of rigging in the Maharashtra election, saying evasion would not protect its credibility but telling the truth would.
In an article published in a newspaper, Mr. Gandhi had alleged 'match-fixing' in the Maharashtra polls and claimed that it would next happen in the Bihar election and 'anywhere the BJP is losing'.
Congress releases BJP's '11 year' report card, flags rising hunger, inequality
The Congress on Monday released a booklet to mark Narendra Modi's 11 years at the Centre, highlighting stagnated growth rate, rising hunger, and his 'unfulfilled promises'.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, said that the booklet, '11 Saal, Jhoothe Vikaas ke vade', commemorates 'some of the biggest lies of this Government.'
Addressing a press conference, AICC research department head Rajeev Gowda, who prepared the booklet, alleged, 'This government is very good at fake news and propaganda. It is our job as the Opposition to get people to know this grim reality.'
He said that to expose the BJP on its promises the party was releasing two sets of documents.
The booklet, 'Ek Aur Baar Jumla Sarkar', he said, looks at the promises made by the BJP in its 2024 manifesto, and has since made.
The other one, he said, is '11 Saal Jhoote Vikaas Ke Vaade', which is a 'detailed exposé' of the 'hollow promises' of the BJP.
'In the 11-Saal document, one of the first themes that they (BJP) highlight is taking care of the poor and the marginalised. They are very happy that 81 crore people are getting free food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). But the basic problem of hunger is a much larger crisis in India, and it puts us at 105th out of 127 countries in the World Hunger Index.
'Its implications: malnutrition is affecting our children in a horrible way, crippling their growth. Stunting is at 35.5%; Wasting is at 19.3%; Underweight is at 32.1%,' Mr. Gowda said. He said that nearly a third of Indian children are suffering from malnutrition, even as the BJP insists on Viksit Bharat.
'Let's remind our PM that he has a duty to our children and their future. They (BJP) claim that they have created 4 times the Eklavya residential schools since 2014. They have announced 700+ schools, out of which 300 are still non-functional. Is it rocket science to set up and run a school?' he wondered.
The Congress leader also alleged that the Centre's claim that India added over 5,000 defence items to the indigenisation list was also not true. 'Sadly, 40% of the items listed for indigenisation have not been indigenised as of now. India remains one of the top importers of defence rather than a producer and exporter.
'If you look at 'mission mode DRDO projects', 23 out of 55 have been delayed, and the share of R&D in our defence budget is only 5.45%,' he said.
Neither is the claim that India was the fastest-growing large economy was true, he said. 'This is true, but what rate are we growing? Are we able to encash our demographic dividend? Any economist will tell you that if we grow below 8.5% a year, we are sacrificing the future of crores and crores of our youngsters because we will not have enough growth, jobs and opportunities that are required to just fulfil the target—the great jumla — 2 crores jobs per year,' he claimed.
He said India's growth is 6.5% over the last year, which is the lowest rate after the COVID period. 'So, what is happening in this 11th year of your Sarkaar, PM Modi? What is happening is reflected in the response of the private sector. Is the Indian private sector investing in India? If you look at the investment figures, after you have given the bonanza tax cut, nothing has changed. They still don't have confidence in the management of your economy to invest,' the Congress leader said. He said the fixed capital formation has come down to 32.4%, which was an 11-year low.
'There is another legacy: the glaring inequality. The share of wealth in India's top 1% of people is 40%. And the bottom 50% have to make do with just over 3%,' the former Congress MP said, adding that this is not the economy the country wants.
Mr. Gowda said that at top universities, 5,000 teaching posts were vacant as of November 2024 and 35% of faculty posts at AIIMS-Delhi and the new AIIMS had over 40% faculty vacancy.
Sanjay Raut slams Election Commission, asks if BJP has 'contract' to defend poll body
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Monday launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission (EC), questioning whether the poll body had handed a 'contract' to the ruling BJP to counter Opposition allegations about its functioning.
Mr. Raut's remarks came a day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis penned a newspaper article refuting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's claims of 'match-fixing' and 'rigging' in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls. The EC had earlier dismissed Mr. Gandhi's allegations as 'absurd,' stating that blaming the poll panel over unfavourable results was unacceptable.
Mr. Fadnavis, in his article, accused Mr. Gandhi of repeatedly 'insulting' the democratic process and undermining the people's mandate. However, Mr. Raut hit back, demanding to know why Mr. Fadnavis was responding on behalf of the EC
'Rahul Gandhi raised questions for the EC, not the BJP. Why is Devendra Fadnavis answering? Has the EC outsourced its defence to the BJP to clear doubts about its credibility?' Mr. Raut asked.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader alleged that the issue was not limited to recent elections but extended to the EC's conduct over the past decade. He accused the poll body of facilitating the split in the Shiv Sena and 'handing over' the NCP to Ajit Pawar despite Sharad Pawar's presence.
'All this was done under pressure from Union Minister Amit Shah to manipulate election outcomes. The EC will have to answer for these actions,' Mr. Raut claimed.
He further alleged that the EC had become a 'caged parrot,' working as an extension of the BJP rather than an independent constitutional body. The strong remarks have intensified the political debate over the EC's neutrality, with the Opposition parties stepping up pressure for greater accountability.
Bengaluru stampede: Crime Branch arrested because CM ordered, says lawyer of RCB's marketing head to HC
Central Crime Branch of Bengaluru (CCB) sleuths arrested Nikhil Sosale, the marketing and revenue head of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), because Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered the arrest, submitted his lawyer to the Karnataka High Court on Monday.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Sosale challenging his arrest on June 6.
Sosale was arrested at Bengaluru Airport, as he was heading to Dubai, on an FIR filed in the aftermath of the stampede incident near M Chinnaswamy Stadium, which claimed 11 lives.
Sosale's lawyer had also argued that he was not arrested by either Ashok Nagar police (where Sosale stays) or Cubbon Park police (under whose jurisdiction the stadium falls) but by the Central Crime Branch of Bengaluru.
'It was not part of the investigation, just because the CM said CCB arrested him, though they are not investigating the case,' he contended. When the petition came up for hearing on June 6 afternoon session, Justice S R Krishna Kumar, who heard the petition, had declined an interim relief from arrest and had adjourned the case to June 9.
Later, Sosale, along with three others from DNA Entertainment Pvt Ltd, were remanded to 14-day judicial custody by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court.
Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys hundreds of National Guard troops
Tensions in Los Angeles escalated on Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump's extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd.
Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and the police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who don't leave. Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street, and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.
Sunday's protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents.
The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the downtown detention centre where protesters concentrated. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers were 'overwhelmed' by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who show up at demonstrations to cause trouble.
Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend of protest. One was detained Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers. Mr. Trump responded to McDonnell on Truth Social, telling him to arrest protesters in face masks. 'Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!' he wrote.
In San Francisco, officers monitoring protests arrested dozens of people on Sunday night after a group of people refused to comply with an order to disperse, police said in a statement on social media.
In Brief:
The Supreme Court on Monday refused Tamil Nadu's oral plea for an urgent listing of its original suit criticising the Centre of stopping its annual share of crucial education funds to the tune of over ₹2000 crore under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme. A Vacation Bench headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra found no urgency in the case. Senior Advocate P Wilson, who mentioned the suit, said the lack of funds would impact the future of nearly 48 lakh students in the State, and the academic year had commenced on June 3 'Since when were the funds deprived?' Justice Mishra asked. 'Last year the funds were not given. We have filed the suit on May 20, 2025,' Wilson said. 'No urgency,' Justice Mishra said.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
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Time of India
7 hours ago
- Time of India
Meghalaya hits back: After solving honeymoon murder, state demands apology for online vilification and tourism smear
With police in Meghalaya resolving the murder mystery of a Honeymoon couple, several organisations and pressure in Meghalaya are demanding apology from social media users and organisations who vilified the state in the wake of murder and tried to harm the tourism industry of the state. Various organisations in Meghalaya, including the Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC), staged a silent demonstration at Police Bazar on Monday to denounce the recent murder of a tourist from Indore Raja Raghuvanshi. On Tuesday a rally was organised by some organisations denouncing the remarks made by the several people against the state in its people. HYC President Roykupar Synrem said that Meghalaya has always been a peaceful and hospitable place for visitors. 'This incident is unfortunate and should not define our state. There have been several instances in the recent past where individuals from outside committed crimes and fled Meghalaya." Synrem further urged the government to implement the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system in the state at the earliest. He stressed that doing so would act as a deterrent to criminal elements and enhance the safety and monitoring of outsiders entering Meghalaya. The Meghalaya government has filed FIRs against some media outlets, some YouTubers and family members of the accused and the victim for running a campaign against the state soon after reports of disappearance of the honeymoon couple emerged. Tourism minister Paul Lyngdoh on Monday said that the murder case is the fallout of a love triangle where Sonam Raghuvanshi and her lover hired contract killers to kill her husband, Raja. 'As far as the attack on the image of Meghalaya, the media trial and slugfest that was orchestrated by some news channel, the state government through police has registered FIRs and we will also move legally on the matter to ensure all perpetrators who attacked the image of Meghalaya are brought to book." A'chik Youth Welfare Organization (AYWO) has also issued a statement condemning the 'pernicious' and 'prejudiced' narratives propagated against the state and its indigenous people in the wake of a crime involving the disappearance of a tourist couple from Indore in Meghalaya. While calling upon the state government to take 'decisive action' to safeguard the state's dignity and honour and initiate legal action against the brother of the deceased, AYWO urged the government to address the 'broader' defamatory campaign by engaging with national media to ensure accountability and demand retraction of their misleading reports. Sonam Raghuvanshi, the woman who is suspected to be involved in the murder of her husband, surrendered to police. Sonam was located and taken into custody from Ghazipur district in Uttar Pradesh. She surrendered at the Nandganj police station late Sunday night. Meghalaya police claimed that it has successfully solved the mysterious case. Sonam, who had reportedly gone missing after her husband's body was discovered in a gorge beneath the Weisawdong Falls parking lot in East Khasi Hills on June 2. The police have so far arrested four individuals, including Sonam. Three others were apprehended from different states; one in Uttar Pradesh, and two in Madhya Pradesh's Indore. Sonam is accused of orchestrating her husband's killing by hiring contract killers. Sonam's family has strongly refuted the murder allegations. Her father, Devi Singh, maintains that his daughter is innocent and has called for an independent inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Indore Parliamentarian Shankar Lalwani recently came and met with senior police officials, including Director General of Police Idashisha Nongrang to take stock of the details into the matter. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav personally reached out to his Meghalaya counterpart, Conrad Sangma, to discuss the case, following which Lalwani made his visit. Raja, a transport businessman, and Sonam had travelled to Meghalaya for their honeymoon on May 20. They were last seen in Shillong's Sohrarim area on May 23. Their abandoned scooter was discovered near Osara Hills the same day.


The Wire
12 hours ago
- The Wire
What A Murder Tells Us About India's Hypocritical Treatment of Its Northeast
An illustration showing, from left, Sonam Raghuvanshi being brought into a Ghazipur hospital; relatives and friends of Sonam Raghuvanshi in a protest against the Meghalaya government, in Indore, Saturday, June 7, 2025; and the Meghalaya map. Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute Now In Meghalaya, the last few days have been nothing short of a crime drama written consciously against the backdrop of the pristine, 'aesthetically pleasing' hills. A newlywed couple from Indore who arrived in the state for their honeymoon mysteriously went missing. The husband was soon found dead in a crevice in the hills, and a frantic search for the wife continued while calls for a CBI probe were heard. As CCTV footage, witness accounts and social media takes surfaced, one could almost hear suspenseful music in the background. Then the wife, along with three others, was arrested in Uttar Pradesh. She is now the prime accused in the case. While the possible explanations for the case still remain myriad, what is most appalling is that between the initial disappearance, and the woman's arrest, the case managed to put an entire state – in fact, an entirety of a notably marginalised region of India – on a public and media trial. The clarity facilitated by the woman's arrest has sparked a notable outrage against this unwarranted defamation that is likely to damage the state's tourism industry. This presumptuous hypocrisy of not just the Indian mainlander but also of a major national news portal was called out even during the initial stages of the case by the likes of Meghalaya journalist and Padma Shri awardee Patricia Mukhim, who criticised a Times of India article that had irresponsibly labelled the hills 'crime-prone.' TOI appears to have now edited the online version of the article. Edward Said, through his theory of Orientalism (1978), suggests that one of the modes of upkeep of a lopsided power dynamic between an oppressor and the oppressed is the synthesis of a romanticised and 'exoticised' image of the oppressed through a process which he calls 'orientalism'. The chief characteristic of orientalism is that it establishes prejudices about and against the oppressed via their cultural representations which are synthesised and presented by the oppressor themselves. This representation determines the power dynamic between the two classes as they engage. While Said's own work revolves around the specific dichotomy of the West and the East, this theory can no doubt be transplanted into this mainland-periphery relationship within India, and its historically lopsided unfolding. Until his wife's arrest, the public discourse around the Indore man's murder predictably saw the demonisation of Meghalaya, and the Northeast as a whole, as 'non-tourism-friendly', 'unsafe for outsiders', 'crime-prone', ' jungalee ' and 'brainwashed by Christian missionaries'. These accusations were ironically and arrogantly prefaced by the claim that the region is heavily tourism dependent. The Northeast has historically been treated as an exotic amalgam of the mystical, the natural and of 'simple-minded and backward' tribes by the mainland. Of course, there has not been any true engagement with the people of these lands – be it from podcasters accusing women from Mayong of turning men into goats, or Bollywood, where films show 'NE' written on the registration plates of vehicles in a film about, and set vaguely, in the Northeast. It is this exoticisation – now optimised through the powers of social media – that has triggered the idea that the Northeast is, or if not, that it must become a 'tourist destination'. Having lived in Meghalaya for a significant portion of my own life as an 'outsider', I find this idea nothing more than a clandestine attempt towards breaking the spirit of the Meghalayan people and their right to self-determination on economic and political terms. It also quite clearly contradicts the tangible realities of the state. As prominent literature about the region, such as Sanjoy Hazarika's Strangers of the Mist (2000) suggests, having been significantly starved of the ointment of social, political and economic attention unlike the country's mainland, the Northeast is recovering from the pangs of British imperialist plunder at a much slower pace than the former. This is one of the catalysts of dissent amongst various peoples of the Northeast against the Indian state itself. Also read: An Open Letter: 'I Have Small Eyes, Mr Prime Minister' Even without accounting for armed secessionist movements, and within the constitutional fold itself, there are indications that the region craves a more equitable protection of cultural and linguistic rights in face of continuing threats of their erasure, along with demographic changes. In Meghalaya, these include demands for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) system that makes the tracking of entry and egress of non-residents of the state a more transparent (and perhaps complicated) process. There is also a longstanding organised dissent against the Union government's railway extension plans into the state, led by major political organisations such as the Khasi Student's Union (KSU). Moreover, much of the state's and region's public memory retains the historically proven idea that the reaction of the Indian state to these concerns has generally been that of violence. In recent times, this has been coupled with a significant insecurity regarding the mainland-centric Hindutva agenda of reimagining 'tribality' as an offshoot of Hindutva, to make political inroads into the peripheral state. Speaking of Meghalaya as a 'tourist hotspot' is in the same ballpark as Donald Trump's declaration about 'wanting to turn Gaza into a luxurious tourist spot', and the frequent mentions of 'tourism' in post-Article 370 Kashmir. One senses a re-packaged imposition of the mainland's interests over the right of the Northeastern people to make their own political and economic, and therefore cultural, decisions. In fact, the almost neo-colonial characteristic of travel-influencing in the Northeast is palpable in people's phone screens now, as reach-hungry vloggers 'discover the undiscovered' with every other video, no differently from how Columbus 'discovered' America. 'Hidden gems' and 'secret spots' are unveiled and 'tourist spots' are manufactured in the aphotic parts of the region. This is, of course, also facilitated by private tour operators presenting sanitised clips of 'must visit' spots in the region as 'alternatives to international destinations'. Unintended consequences of this are microcosmic shifts from agrarian or natural resource-based economies in these places, to the more unpredictable and 'tourist-dependent' models of income. And of course, there is the mushrooming of 'concrete' structures in and around such spots and the ecological threat they bring. In a clear attempt to render it toothless, even the Northeasterner's anger becomes exoticised as a product of what the mainland portrays as their 'simplemindedness'. This idea legitimises mainland India's racially prejudiced 'we know what is better for them' attitude. Consequently, the image of the Northeastern people as 'mindlessly violent' and 'wild' tribals has been intricately embedded in the mainland's consciousness. Thus, when any tangible violence against the mainlander unfolds within the northeastern region, such as the case of the Indore man's murder, the quickest assumption is that it was inflicted by the local. And it must be noted that this is despite the fact that there are no real statistics to back up claims of any patterns of hostilities towards tourists in the state. In fact, as tourism gradually increases in the Northeast, instances of tourists not respecting the land have grown. For instance, in December, 2024, Akash Sagar, a social media influencer with 1.5 million followers on Instagram, uploaded videos of himself provocatively chanting 'Jai Shri Ram', and singing Hindu hymns inside the Church of Epiphany located in Meghalaya's famously 'cleanest Asian village', Mawlynnong. This led to criticism and an FIR. Similarly, in another incident in June, 2025, a local man was physically attacked by a group of intoxicated tourists from Uttar Pradesh. And yet, in these cases, national – and local –reports have had the decency to not speculate such incidents as indicators of stereotypical characteristics of tourists visiting the state. Meghalaya need not be at the beck and call of its tourism industry for its prosperity. There is no precondition to its existence that compels its people to turn every inch of their homeland into an amusement park for tourists from other states. Whether or not it is, and will be a tourist destination —and to what extent it will—depends significantly on the consent and mandate of its people, and not only on government policy and state highhandedness. It is of the utmost importance that the discourse, and the industry itself, de-centres the mainlander and makes it about the people of the state and their interests. Ayaan Halder is a poet, author and doctoral research scholar at the Department of Law, Gauhati University, Assam (India). He spent his childhood and teenage years in Meghalaya, and is still closely associated with residents of the state. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.


News18
15 hours ago
- News18
News18 Afternoon Digest: Sonam Led Husband To Killers, 3 Dead In Delhi Fire & Other Top Stories
Last Updated: In today's News18 afternoon digest, we bring to you the latest update on Raja Raghuvanshi's murder in Meghalaya, Dwarka building fire and other top stories. In today's News18 afternoon digest, we bring to you the latest update on Raja Raghuvanshi's murder in Meghalaya, Dwarka building fire and other top stories. Sonam Raghuvanshi chose the less frequented and more difficult Mawlingkhiyiat trail instead of the popular Tyrna route on the day her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, was allegedly murdered during their honeymoon in Meghalaya. According to sources, Sonam is likely to have led her husband's killers to the remote stretch. Read more Man, His 2 Kids Jump To Death As Fire Engulfs Dwarka Apartment | Video A 35-year-old man along with his two children jumped to death after a massive fire engulfed their apartment in Dwarka in the national capital on Tuesday morning. According to police, the flames had erupted on the seventh floor of a residential building. The deadly incident was reported in Shapath Society, in Dwarka Sector-13 at around 10am on Tuesday. Read more In an interview with Sky News journalist Yalda Hakim, Pakistan People's Party Senator Sherry Rehman appeared to indirectly acknowledge Pakistan's troubled past with terror groups, including long-standing concerns about state links to organizations operating within its borders. The interview, which touched on Pakistan's recent removal from the FATF grey list, turned sharply when the conversation shifted to the country's past record on terrorism and its alleged complicity in harbouring extremist elements. Read more In a stunning development, talented West Indies cricketer Nicholas Pooran has announced his international retirement at the age of 29. The wicketkeeper-batter played 61 ODIs and 106 T20Is between 2016 and 2024. Read more 14-Day Space Odyssey, 60 Experiments: All You Need To Know About Axiom-4 Mission As India awaits the lift off of 'Axiom-4' space mission, International Space Station (ISS)-bound Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will register his name in history for being the second Indian to go to space after Rakesh Sharma. Read more First Published: June 10, 2025, 13:52 IST