Bihar electoral roll shame: The missing women and Muslims

Written by: Aarthi Ramnath, Raghav Bikhchandani & Yash Budhwar

The daily Souk: On my shopping list

Editor’s note: As you may have noticed, we just unveiled a beta version of Souk—which has one simple goal: To help you find unique, high quality products that are worth your time and money. And to help us—the splainer team, lol! We have been happily wasting work hours browsing Souk—and thought it fun to share what made our shopping list—with Deputy Advisory Editor, Aarthi, making her picks today.

One: I am eyeing this Iced Matcha Latte Candle which looks like the real deal—and I’m a big fan of the yummy vanilla scent. As someone who loves her matcha lattes and has a sizable candle collection, how can I resist? Plus, it is a fraction of the price of Bath and Body Works candles!

Two: I’ve been eyeing the raunchy, witty ‘Museum Bums’ even though it is in the housewarming gift guide. I appreciate a coffee-table book that can spark colourful (awkward?) conversations.

Three: It is very hard to come by clean Kantha embroidery especially online so the moment I saw this hand-embroidered shirt, I was sold. I love that it can be styled in many ways, even worn as a jacket. The piece is by Ajija Sultana and her collective, btw.

PS: This is a beta launch and feedback—good or bad—is key. So please email the team at dearsouk@splainer.in with your thoughts. We want to get this right!

Bihar electoral roll shame: The missing women and Muslims

The context: Ahead of the Bihar assembly elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) directed a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state’s voter rolls. The justification: Bihar has undergone significant demographic changes in the past 20 years due to urbanisation and migration—which means additions, deletions and checking for duplicate entries in the electoral roll.

The problem: Voters who are not on the 2003 rolls have to prove their eligibility by giving one of 11 forms of ID—a list that strangely does not include the most commonly used documents—PAN, Aadhaar, ration cards and MGNREGA cards. Hence the hue and cry over deliberate disenfranchisement—and a Supreme Court petition which is still under review.

Data point to note: Bihar’s total voting population is 79.6 million—of which the ECI had claimed 29 million would have to verify their credentials. Independent experts say the number is way higher—more than 47 million.

What happened now: The ECI has released initial data from 43 districts—which show the deletion of 65 lakh (6.5 million) people from the rolls: “Of them, 22.3 lakh were dead, 36.3 lakh had permanently moved or were absent, and 7 lakh were enrolled in multiple places.” But some parts of the citizenry are suspiciously over-represented in these deletions—namely women and Muslims. In fact, women account for a staggering 55% of the deleted voters—and five out of the ten districts in the state with the highest Muslim populations have the most voters left out.

Red flags ahoy! The sheer number and blatant skew in the deletions raise worries about vote manipulation—in key districts where “the smallest of vote differentials may be likely to effect big electoral shifts.” In 2020, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) emerged as the single largest party in the state—thanks to a significant number of seats settled by slender margins.

What’s next: Activists hoping for a Supreme Court intervention are likely to be disappointed. The early signs are not promising:

“Political parties should act as NGOs at this stage to help them apply,” suggested Justice Surya Kant, as the petitioners argued that it would be difficult for normal citizens to cross-check whether their names are on the revised rolls.

The Bench also remarked that the Election Commission of India is a “Constitutional Institution” and any actions or decisions by the EC would be “deemed to be right” as far as its lawful decisions are concerned.

The big picture: Bihar is just the beginning. The ECI plans to conduct SIRs before elections across the country in the coming months.

Reading list: Scroll and The Wire have the nerdy data breakdowns.

How Chinese tech helped Pakistan beat the Rafale

The context: Pakistan claimed it downed six Indian fighter jets during Operation Sindoor, including three Rafales. New Delhi stayed silent—which was sorta telling—but numerous news reports seemed to confirm Islamabad’s claim. In recent months, various military chiefs have conceded some losses—but have been thin on the specifics.

What happened now: Reuters pieced together what really went down on May 7—speaking to eight Pakistani and two Indian officials to reconstruct the aerial battle. Turns out, Pakistan didn’t just get lucky. It pulled off a highly coordinated, sophisticated ambush—deploying an effective network called a “kill chain”. It seamlessly integrated a Pakistani communication system called Data Link 17 with Chinese J-10 fighter jets and a Swedish-made surveillance plane:

[Pakistan] managed to more efficiently connect its military hardware to surveillance on the ground and in the air, providing it with a clearer picture of the battlefield. Such networks, known as "kill chains," have become a crucial element of modern warfare…

The system allowed the [Chinese] J-10s flying closer to India to obtain radar feeds from the surveillance plane cruising further away, meaning the Chinese-made fighters could turn their radars off and fly undetected.

Also a problem: A serious intelligence failure. Indian pilots falsely believed that the Chinese-made PL-15 missiles only had a range of 150 km—sadly not:

"The Indians were not expecting to be shot at," said Justin Bronk, air warfare expert at London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank. "And the PL-15 is clearly very capable at long range."

The PL-15 that hit the Rafale was fired from around 200km (124.27 mi) away, according to Pakistani officials, and even farther according to Indian officials. That would make it among the longest-range air-to-air strikes recorded.

The big picture: The very next day, India hit back hard—launching BrahMos missile strikes that “sliced through” Pakistan’s air defenses and targeted at least nine air bases, radar sites, and even a surveillance plane. But the loss of the planes offer an important lesson—and this blood-chilling detail: “Beijing's air chief Lt. Gen. Wang Gang visited Pakistan in July to discuss how Islamabad had used Chinese equipment to put together the ‘kill chain’ for the Rafale, two PAF officials said.”

Reuters has lots more details. We recommend reading our Big Story on why China was the biggest winner of the Operation Sindoor battle.

Extreme heat is also extremely ageing

New research reveals extreme heat is affecting us at the cellular level—ageing our bodies at a rapid rate. The study found that people living in hotter areas—with at least 140 extreme heat days in a year when the temperature exceeded 32°C—aged 14 months faster than people in cooler climates. The reason: the unrelenting stress of high temperatures push our organ systems to the limit:

The cardiovascular system, for instance, must work harder to divert blood to the skin for heat release, forcing the heart to beat faster. The nervous system can become overstimulated, triggering symptoms like dizziness, confusion, and memory lapses. The kidneys strain to conserve water, increasing the risk of dehydration and kidney damage. And the immune system may flood the body with inflammatory chemicals, mimicking an infection response.

These are all useful protective responses—but they are meant to work in short bursts—not over the course of days or even weeks. Over time, these overworked body parts just get worn down—hence the accelerated ageing.

Key quote to note: “Researchers found that heat-related aging effects persisted regardless of income, health, or habits—pointing to temperature itself as a key driver of cellular decline.” (National Geographic, paywalled, CNN)

MAP Academy fellowships alert!!

Editor’s note: As you know, the wonderful MAP Academy is our content partner for Advisory. It is one of the few Indian institutions deeply invested in cultural research and education. They also offer rare funded opportunities for researchers, designers, archivists, journalists, writers and educators. The Nalli Fellowship is one of them.

Over to MAP Academy…

We’re pleased to announce that a new cycle of the MAP Academy & Nalli Fellowships will open to applications soon. Designed to support research and practice in South Asia’s diverse textile traditions, the Fellowship is born out of a collaboration between MAP Academy and Nalli Silks, a heritage textile brand based in India.

Programme Details: Four fellowships, each with a grant of INR 5,50,000, will be awarded.

The programme is open to a wide range of people, from individuals to collectives, from researchers to practitioners. We’re hoping to receive applications on a range of subjects, and these include:

Histories of clothing and costume
Community or personal textile archives
Textiles in religious or liturgical contexts
Environmental impact of textile production and consumption
Endangered or disappearing textile traditions
Critical perspectives on revivalism
Labour in textile production, with a focus on caste, class, and gender
Textiles in relation to other cultural forms—storytelling, poetry, music, architecture, and material culture
Textiles in the context of archaeological study
Textiles as symbols or metaphors in literature or mythology
Techniques and tools used in specific textile traditions

You can read more about the Fellowships here. We will begin accepting applications starting August 18, 2025.

To register your interest and receive a reminder when applications open, please visit this link. For any queries, contact us at: fellowships@map-india.org

what caught our eye

business & tech

A Florida jury has found Tesla responsible for a 2019 crash involving its Autopilot-equipped Model S—and ordered the company to pay $243 million in damages.

sports & entertainment

Bad light has forced a dramatic finish, with England needing just 35 runs and India chasing 4 wickets to win the series-deciding Test.
Hindustan Times has all you need to know on Khalid Jamil—India’s new men's football coach who edged out names like Stephen Constantine and Stefan Tarkovic for the top job.
The Pakistan Cricket Board has banned its players from future World Championship of Legends tournaments.
Variety reports that 'A Quiet Place Part III' will hit theatres in July 2027, with John Krasinski returning as director—but the cast lineup, including Emily Blunt, is still under wraps.
At India’s 71st National Film Awards, Shah Rukh Khan and Vikrant Massey were jointly named best actor, Rani Mukerji won best actress, and '12th Fail' was crowned best feature film.

health & environment

Scientists have found traces of hibernation-related genes in humans—raising hopes for future medical treatments that tap into these natural healing powers.
Trump has brought back the Presidential Fitness Test—originally introduced by Eisenhower—meaning American schoolkids will once again be timed on their push-ups, sit-ups, and mile runs.
New research finds that great tits—a common European songbird—don’t just split up after breeding at random; their “divorces” are shaped by surprisingly complex social dynamics.
Iron-rich, bio-fortified potatoes developed by the Peru-based International Potato Center will soon hit Indian markets, aiming to tackle nutritional deficiencies.

meanwhile, in the world

With Gaza ceasefire talks stalled, US and Israeli officials are now pushing for an all-or-nothing deal to end the war.
At least 68 African migrants have died after their boat capsized off the coast of Yemen—the latest in a string of deadly shipwrecks involving African migrants fleeing poverty and conflict in search of work in Gulf countries.
The Trump administration has frozen $339 million in research grants to UCLA over alleged civil rights violations—marking another attack on universities, this time targeting a public institution.
President Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a disappointing jobs report, drawing criticism from economists and sparking concerns over political meddling in federal data.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir offered Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa compound—violating a decades-old arrangement that bars non-Muslim worship at one of the region’s most sensitive religious sites.
A new twist on the famous double-slit experiment offers the clearest proof yet that light behaves as both a wave and a particle—challenging Einstein’s long-standing doubts about quantum theory.

meanwhile, in India

A special court has sentenced former JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna to life in prison for raping a domestic worker multiple times on his family’s farm—one of four sexual abuse cases filed against him.
The Dharmasthala mass burial case has seen a fresh twist as a social activist from Puttur has come forward claiming he witnessed the improper burial of a teenage girl 15 years ago—and says fear in the village kept people from speaking out.
Hindustan Times has the details on how all accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case—including BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit—have been acquitted by a special court.

Four things to see

One: An Army officer has been charged with “murderous assault”—for severely beating four members of the SpiceJet ground staff at Srinagar airport last week. According to the airline, their staff suffered “a spinal fracture and serious jaw injuries after being attacked with punches, repeated kicks.” The reason for his rage: The man was asked to pay for excess baggage. The Indian Army has put out a statement saying it is “fully committed to maintaining discipline and mutual respect in all civil spaces across the country.” You can see the altercation below. (Indian Express)

Two: During Day 3 of the fifth and final Test between India and England at The Oval, Google CEO Sundar Pichai joined Harsha Bhogle in the commentary box. It was not good. (Mint)

Three: How many adaptations of Ramayana do we need? A Mumbai-based AI studio, Cinefai, has released the trailer for a new series based on the epic. The first episode is out on Instagram—if you want to check it out. The trailer for the series is below. (India Today)

Four: Dua Lipa is officially a citizen of Kosovo! The English popstar of Kosovan-Albanian descent was hailed by Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani as “one of the most iconic cultural figures in our country's history”—even though she only stayed in the city briefly at the age of 11. But we loved the clips of the swearing-in ceremony—including that of a children’s choir singing ‘Levitating’. See the clip below. (BBC News)