Here are the top 5 stories of the day:

‘Don’t comment, post views’: Army issues policy on use of social media apps

The Army has issued a new policy regulating the use of social media and messaging applications by its personnel, allowing access with strict limitations. As per the guidelines, platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter) and Quora may be used only for passive viewing or monitoring purposes, with posting of comments, messages or other user-generated content strictly prohibited. Read full story

Odisha encounter: Top Maoist with Rs 1.2 crore bounty among 4 killed

A senior Maoist leader was among four Naxals killed in an encounter with security forces in Odisha’s Kandhamal. The slain included Ganesh Uike (69), a central committee member of the CPI (Maoist) and the outfit’s Odisha in-charge, marking the first instance in recent years of a commander of his rank being neutralised in the state. With this operation, the number of Maoists killed in Kandhamal over the past two days has risen to six, following a separate encounter on Wednesday in which two cadres, including an area committee member, were shot dead. Read full story

Nitin Gadkari recalls meeting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh hours before assassination

Union minister Nitin Gadkari has recalled an encounter with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh just hours before Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, citing the episode as an example of the increasing influence of technology in contemporary warfare and national security. He recalled noticing one individual among the dignitaries who was not a head of state. “I wondered who he was. I also shook hands and asked. He was the head of Hamas,” he said, adding that Haniyeh later walked into the ceremony alongside Iran’s president and chief justice, while other delegates followed. Read full story

Bangladesh unrest: Ex-PM Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman returns after 17 years in exile

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) acting chairman Tarique Rahman arrived at Sylhet airport in Dhaka, bringing to an end more than 17 years of self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom. He had left Bangladesh in 2008 for medical treatment amid mounting legal and political challenges. The elder son of former prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, Rahman is widely regarded as the party’s key electoral figure ahead of the parliamentary polls scheduled for February 12, especially with Zia continuing to remain in poor health. Read full story

Rich Indians rush to transfer money abroad as rupee falls, banks expand regulations

Banks have stepped up scrutiny of overseas remittances, with several Indians being asked to provide detailed proof of the source of funds amid a weakening rupee, according to a media report. Over the past month, at least two Mumbai-headquartered private sector banks have sought chartered accountant–certified documents from high net worth individuals, non-resident Indians and a film production company to validate funds proposed to be sent abroad. In some cases, customers were told the certification must be issued by accountants empanelled with the bank, the report said. Read full story

NEW DELHI: It has been a year bookended by elections. It started with the intense campaigning for the Delhi assembly elections and ended with the surprising results of Bihar. In between, there were parliamentary showdowns, infights and figures emerging and fading away from the centre stage.In 2025, while several heavyweights failed to live up to expectations, many asserted their place back in, proving themselves the dark horses of Indian politics.The year was also a reminder that power is rarely static — and that survival often matters as much as victory.So, who were the winners and losers in politics in 2025? Here’s a look.

Winners

Nitish KumarAhead of the Bihar assembly elections, the opposition was in a hurry to write the political obituary of chief minister Nitish Kumar. Throughout the campaign, Nitish’s former deputy and RJD scion Tejashwi Yadav claimed that the chief minister was “mentally unfit” and “too old” to govern the state.Additionally, political pundits were also skeptical about Nitish’s return. They flagged anti-incumbency and infighting within the NDA to argue that the odds were stacked against him.

However, the results presented a different picture. Bihar once again handed a sweeping mandate to the NDA, extending Nitish Kumar’s two-decade-long hold on power. The NDA secured a thumping majority, winning 202 seats in the 243-member House.Within the NDA, the BJP emerged as the strongest performer, securing 89 seats — its best-ever result in the state — followed by Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) with 85 seats.SiddaramaiahAs the Congress government reached the halfway mark in Karnataka on November 20, talk of a secret agreement became public. Several MLAs and MLCs from deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar’s faction camped in Delhi to press the party high command to honour the “deal” and make him chief minister for the next two and a half years.DKS added fuel to the speculation after he confirmed the “secret deal,” claiming that there had indeed been “a confidential understanding on leadership transition among five or six leaders” soon after the Congress won a landslide in the 2023 elections.

This triggered one of the most cordial tussles between chief minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy. The two leaders even sat down for breakfast meetings to reach an understanding, but the question over the chief ministerial post remained unanswered.For now, the standoff appears to have eased. Siddaramaiah seems to have bought more time from the high command, while DKS appears to have chosen to wait it out, with both leaders refraining from making any public remarks on the issue.Nitin NabinBihar MLA Nitin Nabin’s elevation as the working president of the Bharatiya Janata Party was a rise that few saw coming. While political pundits were speculating about the names of bigwigs with strong RSS links, Nabin’s appointment marked a major organisational shift at the top of the ruling party.Although he is only 45 years old, Nabin is a five-term MLA and has handled several key organisational responsibilities. He served as the Bihar president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha from 2016 to 2019 and managed the BJP’s Lok Sabha and assembly campaigns in Sikkim in 2019, before being appointed co-incharge of Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh in 2021.At a time when the Congress was considered the frontrunner to retain power in the 2023 Chhattisgarh assembly polls, Nabin’s inputs to the BJP leadership predicted victory, which ultimately came true.Caste arithmetic also aligns with Nabin’s elevation as party president. The choice of Nabin, an upper-caste Kayastha — a community that constitutes barely 0.6% of Bihar’s population and is considered politically insignificant in the state — is significant because Kayasthas are among the key castes in West Bengal, where assembly elections are scheduled for May next year.Welfare schemes targeting womenPolitical mobilisation of the women vote bank through welfare schemes saw its peak in the 2025 Bihar assembly elections. Just days ahead of the elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the Mukhya Mantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, which credited Rs 10,000 to the bank accounts of 1.2 crore women. Additionally, social security schemes like free electricity up to 125 units and a pension increment were also announced by chief minister Nitish Kumar in the run-up to the elections. This translated into the polling booths as women voters outnumbered men and shattered turnout records. While the overall turnout stood at 66.91 per cent, an extraordinary 71.6 per cent of women cast their votes — nearly nine percentage points higher than the 62.8 per cent turnout among men.This overwhelming participation tilted the mandate toward the NDA, boosted by welfare schemes for women. The contrast between the two alliances was simple: the NDA had already delivered the benefit, while Mahagathbandhan’s offer remained a campaign promise. For many women, that difference — money already in the bank versus a promise of future help — mattered.Chirag PaswanAt a time when stars are not aligning for Dalit leaders like Mayawati and Jitan Ram Manjhi, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan emerged as the third hero in the NDA’s success in Bihar.LJP(RS) won 19 out of 29 seats, propelling the NDA past the 200-seat mark.Chirag’s dominance in Bihar and within the NDA was evident even during the seat-sharing talks, when his party got a fair share despite only one of its 143 candidates winning during the 2020 assembly polls. His bargaining power came from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when LJP(RV) won all five seats it contested.

Losers

CongressThe fortune wheels did not spin for Congress this year either, as 2024 was marred with poll routs and infighting for the party. Wounded by the defeats in Haryana and Maharashtra in 2024, the grand old party continued its lackluster performance in 2025.It began with the poll rout in the Delhi assembly elections, where Congress could not win even a single seat. In addition to the poll results, it also suffered an alliance breakup as collateral damage after the Aam Aadmi Party decided to walk away from the INDIA bloc.In the Bihar assembly elections, Congress experienced its steepest decline after it managed to win only six seats. Rahul Gandhi travelled over 1,300 kilometres to galvanise voter support but fell flat in comparison to the local issues that resonated more strongly with Bihar’s electorate.Meanwhile, the party encountered another crisis in Karnataka after a tussle broke out between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar over the chief ministerial post. Although the situation seems defused for now, the party is sitting on a ticking time bomb that may detonate soon.Moreover, several Congress leaders flagged serious problems within the party. One of them was former Odisha MLA Mohammed Moquim, who wrote to Sonia Gandhi, calling for an “open-heart surgery” in the party and flagging a growing disconnect between the leadership and its workers.

In his letter to Sonia Gandhi dated December 8, ex-Odisha MLA Mohammed Moquim highlighted six consecutive election losses in Odisha and three in the Lok Sabha while also questioning the selection of Mallikarjun Kharge as the party’s leader, claiming that the 83-year-old veteran “is unable to resonate with India’s youth.”Lalu clan2025 was a year of autumn for the Lalu clan. Lalu Yadav, along with his family and party, had to suffer setbacks throughout the year. In the Bihar elections, the party only won 25 seats in the assembly elections, registering one of its poorest performances.Soon, things went south on the family front as well. Just days after the poll results, Rohini Acharya — the second of RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s nine children and the donor of the kidney that saved him — announced that she was quitting politics and “disowning” her family.Reportedly, Rohini had a heated argument with her brother Tejashwi Yadav over RJD’s assembly election disaster. She also alleged she was accused of donating a “dirty kidney” to her father after “extracting crores of rupees and a Lok Sabha ticket.”Earlier, Lalu had expelled his eldest, Tej Pratap Yadav, from the party for six years after he shared a photo with a woman on Facebook and claimed he had been in a relationship with her for 12 years.Later, Tej Pratap went on to form his own party — Jan Shakti Janta Dal — which drew a blank in the assembly elections.Prashant KishorPrashant Kishor, once hailed as India’s top election strategist, entered the Bihar polls as a political aspirant and walked out as its biggest loser.After a two-year padyatra across Bihar and massive media hype around Jan Suraaj, Kishor positioned himself as a transformative alternative to both the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan. However, Jan Suraaj did not manage to win a single seat, losing security deposits in the majority of the constituencies where it fielded candidates.However, PK has repeatedly said that he won’t back down. His next test comes much sooner than 2030 — the panchayat elections in 2026 — where he may attempt to make a comeback.Arvind KejriwalAfter two sweeping victories in 2015 and 2020, Kejriwal’s AAP was swept out of power in the 2025 Delhi assembly elections. Of the 70 assembly constituencies, the BJP clinched 48 seats, while AAP managed to secure only 22.Adding insult to injury, Kejriwal also lost the New Delhi seat to BJP’s Parvesh Verma.Rising to power as an anti-graft crusader, Kejriwal found himself embroiled in corruption cases days ahead of the elections.After walking out of jail on bail, Kejriwal resigned from the top post, seeking validation from the public of Delhi. The union territory, however, refused to give the stamp of ‘Mr Clean’ to Kejriwal.DK ShivakumarDespite pulling every trick in the book, DK Shivakumar failed to replace Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah. After the tussle came out in the open, DKS made several trips to Delhi, but the high command has not budged.

DKS checked all the criteria to become the Karnataka CM. He generated funds for the party during the elections, and Vokkaliga seers — one of the strongest sects in Karnataka — are also backing him. Additionally, the majority of Congress MLAs are on his side.Despite this, DKS has decided to take a step back, obey the party high command and wait for the right time to come as the high command huddles in Delhi to deliver an answer.Honorable mention: Shashi TharoorThrough his charm and “Tharoorosaurus,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor remained in the headlines throughout the year. Another reason he grabbed eyeballs was his standoff with his own party on different occasions. Despite being a member of the CWC, the Thiruvananthapuram MP skipped several important party meetings and refused to toe the party line on multiple issues. This irked many senior leaders of the grand old party, leading to repeated to-and-fro exchanges on social media platforms and in media bites.It all began after Shashi Tharoor emerged as one of the prominent voices articulating New Delhi’s position following the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s Operation Sindoor. Later, the Centre invited him to lead an Indian delegation as part of a global outreach after Operation Sindoor, even as the Congress was raising tough questions for the government. This did not go down well with his party colleagues, who accused him of cosying up to the BJP.However, just ahead of the Kerala assembly elections, the Congress is finding it difficult to take strict disciplinary action against a popular leader in the state, effectively giving Tharoor a free lane to drive on the wrong side.Now, it is yet to be determined whether Tharoor came out as a winner or a loser after the tug-of-war session with his own party.

NEW DELHI: After Uddhav and Raj Thackeray joined hands, are the senior and junior Pawar also entering into an alliance ahead of the upcoming local body polls in Maharashtra? Speculation is rife after NCP (Sharad Pawar) MP Supriya Sule said that her party is in talks with Ajit Pawar and senior party leaders have spoken to each other.“Of course, we are looking at all alliances. Ajit Pawar constantly says that he has not given up that ideology. Right now, the focus is on the corporation elections. A lot of our colleagues have spoken to each other,” Sule said.“We are engaged in dialogue with them, but no decision or final offer has come,” she added.

This comes as municipal corporation elections are expected to be held next month. Against this backdrop, various parties have been working on different alliance combinations. As the BJP has established its dominance in both the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) areas, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP has been contemplating an alliance with the senior Pawar’s party in both these municipal corporations of Pune district.The undivided NCP, founded by Sharad Pawar, split in 2023, with the Ajit Pawar-led faction not only joining the BJP–Sena alliance in the state government but also bagging the “real NCP” status via an Election Commission’s ruling.The NCP (SP) has since been contesting against the NCP in various polls and on social issues.In the Maharashtra assembly elections in 2024, Ajit Pawar’s NCP upped its score from a mere six Assembly segment leads in the Lok Sabha results to a tally of 41 MLAs, in the process beating the senior Pawar’s nominees in 27 head-to-head clashes; the latter won seven of those contests.The 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections saw the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance win 235 seats, including 132 for the BJP, 57 for the Shiv Sena, and 41 for the NCP (Ajit Pawar faction). The Maha Vikas Aghadi was reduced to 20 seats for Shiv Sena (UBT), 16 for the Congress, and 10 for the NCP (Sharad Pawar faction).

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed serious concern over the unrest in Bangladesh, saying the violence, including the lynching of a person in police custody, was an outrage and warning that the deteriorating law-and-order situation could undermine the country’s scheduled elections.“Look, it’s a very serious problem because obviously, from our point of view, we want Bangladesh to be stable and calm and we do want the minorities there to feel safe. This lynching was truly an outrage because it was completely unwarranted. There was no question of any act of blasphemy by this person. And he even was in the custody of the police. He should not have been handed over to the mob and lynched in this horrible way,” Tharoor said.Tharoor said the broader street violence and protests across Bangladesh, including demonstrations outside Indian diplomatic missions, had created an atmosphere of instability ahead of elections scheduled for February.“But the other disturbances across the streets in many parts of Bangladesh, including protests outside our consulates, which we call Assistant High Commissions there, all of this have created, unfortunately, an atmosphere which is not conducive to the kind of calm and stability we would all like to see leading up to the elections that are scheduled for February,” he said.The Congress leader also rejected allegations blaming India for the death of a student leader in Bangladesh, calling such claims baseless and harmful.“At the same time, the unnecessary rhetoric blaming India for the death of the student leader, which is preposterous. There’s no reason why India would have any interest in creating destabilization in Bangladesh. That has also created an atmosphere of hostility towards the minorities, which obviously has raised concerns across the country,” Tharoor said.Referring to protests in India triggered by developments across the border, Tharoor said such demonstrations were within democratic rights but must remain peaceful.“It’s not entirely surprising that with this kind of volatile atmosphere across the border, that in India also, some groups have organized protests in return. In our democracy, they have a right to do so. I don’t think anyone has felt that these protests are getting out of hand. There has been no violence, no lynching, and certainly any attempted violence will and should be clamped down upon by our police,” he said.Speaking separately in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Tharoor said the Bangladesh government must move beyond statements of regret and take firm action to restore order.“What we want to see is for the Bangladeshis to do the same thing. That is, they must curb the violence. There’s not enough for the government of Bangladesh to just express regrets or condemnation. They have to take action because controlling the violence on the streets is their obligation as a government,” he said.He warned that holding elections in the current atmosphere would be difficult. “They need to ensure that the streets are calm again, that people can feel safe again. How can you have an election in less than two months’ time in an atmosphere of lawlessness and intimidation, where the voters may not even feel safe?” Tharoor said.Calling for decisive measures, he added, “We’re urging the government to take matters into its hands. If the police can’t do it, send the army, but stop this nonsense.”Tharoor also stressed that protests in India would not be allowed to cross democratic limits. “And in India, of course, the protests are protests, but they will not be allowed to cross any of the boundaries of a democratic protest. Certainly no violence will be encouraged or permitted,” he said.

PM Modi offers homage (PTI image)

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid tributes to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his 101st birth anniversary at the ‘Sadaiv Atal’ memorial. Viajpayee, who is also a Bharat Ratna recipient is one of India’s most respected leaders remembered for his conduct, dignity and unwavering commitment to national interest.In a post on X, the Prime Minister wrote, “The birth anniversary of the esteemed Atal Ji is a special occasion for all of us to draw inspiration from his life. His conduct, dignity, ideological steadfastness, and resolve to place the nation’s interest above all serve as an ideal standard for Indian politics. Through his life, he demonstrated that excellence is established not by position, but by conduct, and it is that which guides society.”

Several other leaders also paid tribute to the former PM, whose birthday is observed as Good Governance Day. President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President CP Radhakrishnan, former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Union Minister JP Nadda, BJP National Working President Nitin Nabin, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta and other dignitaries offered floral tributes at the memorial.Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to visit Lucknow later in the day to inaugurate the Rashtra Prerna Sthal and address a public gathering. Spread over 65 acres at an estimated cost of Rs 230 crore, the memorial honours towering figures of independent India, including Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. A key highlight is the installation of 65-foot-high bronze statues, alongside a state-of-the-art, lotus-shaped museum spanning nearly 98,000 square feet, showcasing India’s national journey and the contributions of these visionary leaders.Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a founding member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), served as India’s Prime Minister three times, briefly in 1996 and then from 1998 to 2004. He was born on December 25, 1924 in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. He passed away on 16 August 2018 at AIIMS, Delhi, at the age of 93. His birthday is observed annually as Good Governance Day to honour his commitment to principled leadership and public service.