The Kerala Assembly unanimously passed a second resolution on Monday, requesting the Centre to officially change the state’s name to ‘Keralam’. This comes nearly a year after a similar resolution was unanimously passed and subsequently returned by the Centre for corrections.

The resolution will be sent to the Union government for approval. In August last year, the Union Home Ministry reviewed the previous resolution and suggested some technical changes after the Kerala government sought “immediate steps” to change the state’s name.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan proposed the resolution, asking the union government to change the state’s name in all the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

While presenting the resolution, Vijayan noted that the state has traditionally been called ‘Keralam’ in Malayalam, and the demand for a united Kerala for Malayalam speakers has been strong since the national freedom struggle.

“But the name of our state is written as Kerala in the First Schedule of the Constitution. This Assembly requests the Centre to take immediate steps to amend it to ‘Keralam’ under Article 3 of the Constitution and have it renamed as ‘Keralam’ in all the languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution,” PTI quoted Vijayan as saying.

Members of both the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF supported the resolution. UDF legislator N Shamsudeen suggested some changes, but the government rejected them. Speaker A N Shamseer announced that the assembly then unanimously adopted the resolution.

Since India’s independence, over a hundred cities and several states have changed their names. Uttaranchal became Uttarakhand in 2007, honouring the Uttarakhand Andolan movement that led to the state’s separation from Uttar Pradesh in 2000. Orissa was renamed Odisha in 2011, following the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Act. In 2006, the Union Territory of Pondicherry became Puducherry. Some capital cities that have undergone name changes include Bombay, now Mumbai, and Madras, now Chennai.

West Bengal has also been seeking a name change to Bangla, which would move it up in the alphabetical listing of Indian states.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will commence the auction of ₹96,317.65 crore worth of spectrum on Tuesday.

On February 8, the Union Cabinet approved the auction of 10,523.15 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum across various bands at a reserve price of ₹96,317.65 crore, according to Business Standard.

All unsold spectrum from the previous sale will be available for bidding again, including airwaves in the 800, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300, 2500, 3300 MHz, and 26 GHz bands, covering a substantial portion of voice and data spectrum.

Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea have collectively deposited ₹4,350 crore for the bidding, as announced by the DoT.

This auction is significantly smaller—five times less—than the last 5G spectrum auction in 2022, Business Standard reported.

Companies earn points based on the earnest money deposit (EMD) they have made, which allows them to bid for the number of circles and the amount of spectrum they desire. Higher points indicate a greater capability to place bids. Telcos can bid for spectrum worth up to 12 times their EMD. Due to much lower demand for spectrum and a cautious approach by market leader Reliance Jio, the auctions are expected to be more subdued, according to a recent note by IIFL Securities.

Although all unsold spectrum from the last sale is up for bidding again, the amount of spectrum available has decreased by more than seven times since 2022, Business Standard noted.

Jio (108 million) and Airtel (72 million) have seen their 5G penetration rise to about 20-22% of their subscriber bases.

Airtel plans to add at least 25,000 5G sites in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, and West Bengal to enhance rural coverage, for which it has sufficient spectrum, as reported by Mint.

Vodafone Idea has decided not to renew some of its spectrum in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh West, where renewals for 12 MHz in the 1800 MHz and 900 MHz bands were due. This decision will reduce its renewal expenditure from ₹1,500 crore to ₹200 crore for just the 900 MHz band, according to Mint.

While the government had expected to generate about ₹10,000 crore from the sale, various brokerage reports leading up to the auction on June 25 suggest that the auctions may bring in anywhere between ₹4,000 crore and ₹16,600 crore.

The Delhi High Court is set to pass an order tomorrow, June 25, regarding the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) plea challenging the bail granted to Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal in the money laundering case related to the now-scrapped Delhi excise scam.

The order is scheduled to be pronounced at 2:30 p.m.

On Monday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) submitted written arguments to the Delhi High Court, opposing any relief for Arvind Kejriwal in the Excise Policy money laundering case.

The ED has argued that the trial court’s order was “perverse,” “one-sided,” and “wrong-sided,” with findings based on irrelevant facts. The agency is seeking to overturn the trial court’s decision, contending that the vacation judge made erroneous findings in nearly every paragraph of the order and neglected crucial prosecution evidence.

According to the ED, the judge failed to review new evidence gathered after 2023, including statements from 13 Angariyas, Goa AAP workers, and AAP office bearers, which the ED considers significant in the case against Kejriwal.

Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP national convenor, was arrested on March 21 by the ED. He could have been released from Tihar jail had the high court not granted interim relief to the central anti-money laundering agency.

The trial court granted bail to Kejriwal on June 20, ordering his release on a personal bond of ₹1 lakh and imposing conditions that he must not hamper the investigation or influence witnesses.

The excise policy was scrapped in 2022 after the Delhi lieutenant governor ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities and corruption in its formulation and execution.

Vidit Varshney, a user on X, shared a picture of a dead cockroach found in the food served to passengers on the Vande Bharat Express. He mentioned that the incident involved his uncle and aunt, who were traveling from Bhopal to Agra on June 18. Varshney urged the authorities to take “strict action” against the vendor. The Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) responded to his post, “apologizing” for the inconvenience and stating that a “suitable” penalty had been imposed on the service providers.

“Today, on 18-06-24, my uncle and aunt were traveling from Bhopal to Agra on Vande Bharat. They got a ‘cockroach’ in their food from IRCTC. Please take strict action against the vendor and make sure this does not happen again,” wrote Vidit Varshney on X, sharing a picture of the food with a dead cockroach in it.

RailwaySeva, the official support handle on X for train passengers, requested Varshney to share his “PNR number and mobile number” and expressed regret for the experience his aunt and uncle endured.

Two days later, the official IRCTC handle responded. They wrote, “Sir, we apologize for your travel experience. The matter has been viewed seriously, and a suitable penalty has been imposed on the concerned service provider. We have also intensified the production and logistics monitoring.”

“If people just see the condition of the canteen where food is prepared, most would never order. I prefer to bring home-cooked meals whenever possible,” expressed Nitish Kumar, another X user.

Another user added, “Whenever a person raises a complaint, the railway asks for details only and after that, no action is taken. Not only is the food quality poor, but there is also overcharging in the pantry. Authorities are well aware of this but do not act due to some ‘other reason’.”

“I don’t eat railway food. Take your homemade food with you,” said yet another user, Feroz Ahmad.

“Thoughts are with those who ate the rest of the food from this batch,” wrote a fourth user.

French journalist Sebastien Farcis claimed on Thursday that he had to leave India because the Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew his journalist permit, ending his 13-year tenure as a correspondent in the country.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Farcis wrote, “After 13 years working as a correspondent in India, the authorities have denied me a permit to work as a journalist. I have thus been forced to leave the country.”

“On 17th June, I was forced to leave India, a country where I had lived and worked as a journalist for 13 years, as a South Asia correspondent for Radio France Internationale, Radio France, Liberation and the Swiss and Belgian public radios,” he stated on the microblogging site.

Farcis mentioned that on March 7, the Ministry of Home Affairs denied renewing his journalist permit without providing a reason, despite his formal requests. He described this as “incomprehensible censorship.”

Having worked as a journalist in India since 2011, Farcis said he had always obtained the necessary visas and accreditations. “I have respected the regulations imposed in India for foreign journalists and never worked in restricted or protected areas without a permit. On several occasions, the MHA even granted me permits to report from border areas.”

“This work ban comes as a big shock: it was communicated to me on the eve of the Indian general elections, the largest democratic elections in the world, which I was hence forbidden to cover. This appeared to me as an incomprehensible censorship,” his statement read. Farcis further stated that his family was also pushed out of India “without explanation” and “uprooted overnight” for no apparent reason. “I am married to an Indian woman, and I have the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status. I am therefore deeply attached to India, which has become my second homeland,” he said.

He added that he is the second French journalist, after Vanessa Dougnac, forced to leave India under similar conditions in the past four months. Additionally, five OCI foreign correspondents have been banned from working as journalists in less than two years.