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Good evening, India has laid down its rules for satellite communication companies, including Elon Musk’s Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, Eutelsat OneWeb, and Jio. To operate within the country, these companies must comply with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) guidelines, which include five key requirements. They must share their manufacturing plans with the government while ensuring India’s satellite navigation system, NavIC, integrates into their user terminals. Other mandates include real-time traffic monitoring and data localisation, meaning their data centres must be within Indian territory. Primary national security measures include collaboration with law enforcement agencies and implementing service restrictions for “any individual, group of subscribers, or certain geographical areas” during “hostilities.” This move comes as Starlink undergoes a security review and has already announced retail partnerships with major telecom companies Airtel and Jio. On that note, let’s dive in 👇🏽
📝 The Debrief
Things are getting serious
Until about 7 pm last evening, around the same time Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with his National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the perception was that the flurry of visitors at 7 LKR for individual discussions (and televised) was intended for those sitting across the border. Another “drip irrigation” attempt to psyche the already frenzied Pakistanis out about an incoming Indian military response to Pahgalgam. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notification, ordering some states and Union Territories to test and strengthen civil defence mechanisms, upped the ante a little. For a few generations that haven’t heard the sound of an air raid warning siren or, for that matter, taken civil defence lessons, the notification may have come as a bolt out of nowhere. The proverbial was indeed getting real. The fine print: The government is seemingly leaving no stone unturned, anticipating a Pakistani response to whatever action it intends (and whenever). The last time these air raid sirens were activated was over 50 years ago, in 1971. Monday’s notification directed states to operationalise air raid warning sirens, implement crash blackout measures in selected areas, and train civilians, including students, on the safety protocols to follow during an aerial or ground assault. Additionally, this would entail conducting evacuation rehearsals and early camouflaging of vital installations such as power plants and military-linked infrastructure. The objective: enhance civilian and administrative preparedness in case of a hostile attack. (Or, psych the Pakistanis even further!) Water button: Over the past week or so, if you’ve been glued to your X app, frantically scrolling through “OSINT” videos about water levels in areas around the Chenab and Jhelum rivers drying up or overflowing on alternate days, you know something is up. On Monday, water levels in the Chenab in Jammu’s Akhnoor fell below waist level for the first time in ages. Why? The sluice gates of the Salal and Baglihar hydel power dams in Reasi and Ramban districts were closed on Sunday. Senior officials had earlier told us that the lowering (or indeed the closure in this case) was done to restrict water flow to Pakistan’s Punjab as a “short-term punitive action.” Also, given that Baglihar and Salal are “run-of-the-river” projects, India can regulate the timing of water release downstream. This could play a part when Punjab, Pakistan’s agrarian heart, transitions into the kharif season in one or two months. On Monday, however, as the Baglihar and Salal started filling up, India opened some gates to allow downstream flow towards Pakistan.
Also read: India-Pakistan water wars: A Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohd Ali Jinnah story
✍️ From our newsroom
The BJP’s play: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decision last week to greenlight the caste census, coming right after the gruesome Pahalgam attack, seems less like a coincidence and more like calculated political choreography. Even as national grief simmers, and Delhi signals intent for a muscular response, the caste narrative offers a parallel track – one aimed squarely at the OBC voter ahead of the Bihar polls. The move also positions the BJP better for challenges such as delimitation and the 50% quota cap. As our contributing editor Neerja Chowdhury notes in this must-read piece, while the Congress talks big on proportional representation, it lacks the political ground game. The BJP, meanwhile, is doubling down on its Mandal 2.0 play, hoping to balance upper-caste unease with the apparent promise of deeper social justice. But caste is no tame tiger, as VP Singh would remember. What began as clever electoral arithmetic may soon reshape the country’s political calculus once again.
🔎 Need to know Musk 1 Altman 0: ChatGPT maker OpenAI has abandoned its plan to restructure itself as a for-profit company. Its CEO, Sam Altman, said the Microsoft-backed company would remain under the control of its non-profit board. Historic: Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan became the first Indian male actor to walk the Met Gala carpet. Khan sported an all-black suit by noted designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, which included high-waisted trousers with kamarbandh, a black silk shirt, and a tailcoat. Nabbed: The Indian Army apprehended a Pakistani national on Tuesday from near the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district’s Chakkan da Bagh area. The Army confirmed his nabbing and was questioning him.
🎙️Expresso Playlist! In today’s Playlist, I’ll recommend an eight-part podcast I breezed through last evening. It’s called Vine: Six Seconds That Changed The World and is about an app called Vine that grew popular a decade ago, before Twitter acquired and killed it. The podcast looks at its stunning rise and steep fall, coming at a time when Instagram and TikTok were just getting started.
✋🏽 One last thing 🐶I’ll leave you with a super fun, breezy read from the Smithsonian Magazine, which involves the world’s tallest dog – a Great Dane named Reggie and the world’s shortest dog – Pearl, a Chihuahua. They recently met for a playdate at Reggie’s house in Idaho; long story short, they had a ball! That’s all from me today. Thank you so much for reading this edition. If you enjoy the Evening Expresso, tell your friends to subscribe to the newsletter. You can do so by signing up for the Morning Expresso. Additionally, you can reach me via email for tips and feedback or simply to say hello! 😀 Until tomorrow, Venkat Ananth |
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