India news: Supreme Court likely to hear Rahul Gandhi's Election Commission plea

October 15, 2026

India's top diplomat in UAE for talks

Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has met United Arab Emirates' Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan while on a visit to Abu Dhabi.

Jaishankar called the meeting "warm and productive" in a post on X and said that the two sides discussed bilateral and global issues.

The Indian top diplomat's three-day visit to the UAE began on Wednesday. 

A statement released by the Foreign Ministry in New Delhi earlier this week said the bilateral talks would review the progress of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between India and the UAE. 

Jaishankar is also taking part in the Raisina Middle East forum in Abu Dhabi, co-hosted by New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation and the foreign ministries of India and the UAE.

He said a discussion with Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the event underpinned the importance of recognizing the increasing pace of change in the global order, highlighting that it reflects "long term trends and immediate shocks."

"Countries respond as per their specific situation. New partnerships and fresh options are inevitably explored in that pursuit," he said, adding that it involved going beyond "traditional comfort zones and developing sharper strategic awareness."

Jaishankar also called for an urgent "reform of multilateralism," which he said could be supported through a more robust "minilateralism."

On Wednesday, Jaishankar also met  Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili in Abu Dhabi and discussed ways to further deepen bilateral cooperation in areas such as business, connectivity and culture. 

October 15, 2026

Rahul Gandhi's key petition on mass voter deletions listed in Supreme Court today

The Supreme Court is slated to hear a petition filed by India's main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and several other opposition lawmakers over a sweeping exercise which has so far purged over 130 million names from the country's electoral rolls.

A list of cases to be taken up on Thursday by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kanta shows the petition named "Rahul Gandhi and others versus Election Commission of India and others." 

The plea was filed on Monday at the end of a protest march to the Supreme Court that saw Congress' Gandhi rallying thousands, including members of the opposition INDIA bloc, student leaders, activists and civil society, through a heavily barricaded part of the capital. 

The protest was the latest in a series of demonstrations calling for India's Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to step down over alleged manipulation of voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The poll body, whose neutrality has come under scrutiny, rejects the allegations and says the exercise, called Special Intensive Revision (SIR), removes deceased, relocated and duplicate voters and also prevents the inclusion of "foreign illegal immigrants." 

Modi's party has also dismissed the accusations and deems the protests as attempts to "create anarchy."

Meanwhile, neither Modi nor Kumar have publicly addressed the issue.

Gandhi's petition seeks an interim suspension of the nationwide revision of voter rolls, along with an audit of voter deletions and safeguards against deletions without prior notice.

October 15, 2026

Welcome to our coverage

This is Dharvi Vaid Dhulia from DW's studio in New Delhi, bringing you our Thursday digest of all the biggest headlines that have got India talking.  

The country's top court is set to hear a batch of petitions over this month's clampdown on protests called by India's 'Cockroach' movement against the election chief as ire over mass voter deletions intensifies.

The court is also expected to hear a plea filed by Congress' Rahul Gandhi and several other opposition leaders over alleged irregularities in voter lists. 

On the diplomatic front, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is in the middle of a trip to the United Arab Emirates, where he has held talks with Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan. 

Also making news, three Indians have died in an apartment fire in the western German city of Bochum. German media reports say authorities are probing suspected arson and have arrested a building resident on suspicion of murder. 

Stay with us for all this and more.