India's Modi Gov't Purged Millions of Muslim Voters Before Elections in "Direct Attack" on Democracy http://www.democracynow.org/2026/5/7/india_state_elections
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India’s Modi Gov’t Purged Millions of Muslim Voters Before Elections in “Direct Attack” on Democracy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won big in state-level elections this week, with the Hindu nationalist BJP now controlling over 70% of the country. Leading opposition politician and Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee has refused to recognize the results as legitimate, accusing the Modi government of mass disenfranchisement. Ahead of elections, 9 million names were deleted from the rolls under a process called “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR). The process, conducted by India’s Election Commission, “vitiates and creates an electoral advantage by pitting Hindu voters against Muslim voters,” says political scientist Gilles Verniers. Rather than the advertised purge of deceased and duplicate voters, SIR appears to have primarily affected Muslims and other minorities. Nearly 3 million voters in West Bengal, where more than a quarter of the population is Muslim, were unable to cast their vote.
From New Delhi, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani says blatant election interference has destroyed Indians’ faith in democratic elections. “The general public does not think the elections are free and fair in India,” she explains. “So this is a sad day for democracy, for people who believe that not only today — but tomorrow’s — India should also be democratic.”
Headlines for May 07, 2026
Israel Bombs Beirut in Further Violation of April Ceasefire; Trump Threatens Iran with Heaviest Bombing Yet, Then Predicts “It’ll All Work Out”; Trump Abandons “Project Freedom” After Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Suspend Access to Bases and Airspace; Satellite Photos Reveal Iran Has Hit Far More U.S. Military Targets Than Previously Reported; Israel Begins Bypass Road Linking Jerusalem to West Bank Settlements; U.N. Calls on Israel to Immediately and Unconditionally Release Abducted Gaza Flotilla Activists; U.S. Renews Deportation Proceedings Against Palestinian Student Activist Mohsen Mahdawi; Rutgers Rescinds Invitation to Graduation Speaker over Support for Palestinians; University of Michigan Apologizes for Professor’s Commencement Address Praising Pro-Palestinian Student Activists; Protesters Gather Outside New York Synagogue to Demonstrate Against West Bank Real Estate Expo; Russia Fires Dozens of Drones at Ukraine, Hitting a Kindergarten; Tennessee Protesters March to State Capitol as Lawmakers Unveil Gerrymandered Congressional Map; FBI Raids Office of State Senator L. Louise Lucas; FBI Launches a Criminal Leak Probe on Atlantic Journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick; Commerce Secretary Lutnick Grilled by Congress over Epstein Ties; Federal Judge Releases Purported Suicide Note from Epstein
Gaza Faces Public Health Collapse Amid Rat Infestation & Disease as Israel Blocks Reconstruction http://www.democracynow.org/2026/5/7/gaza_apocalypse
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Gaza Faces Public Health Collapse Amid Rat Infestation & Disease as Israel Blocks Reconstruction
Gaza is facing an “environmental and biological apocalypse” under Israeli bombardment and blockade, reports Palestinian aid worker Eyad Amawi of the Gaza Relief Committee. Israel’s destruction of infrastructure has become a “generator for disease,” with sewage contamination and rodent infestation now an everyday hazard for refugees living in tent camps. “[It’s] no longer just bombardment or physical destruction. It is the collapse of every essential condition required for human survival: water, food, health, dignity, shelter, safety, everything.” Amawi also comments on the extended detention of two international activists with the Global Sumud Flotilla. Thiago Ávila and Saif Abukeshek will not be released before this weekend, according to the latest update from the Israeli military. Neither has been charged with any crime.
“Gerrymandering Arms Race”: GOP Rushes to Erase Black Representation After SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights
“The country’s most important civil rights law no longer effectively exists, and that’s going to have ramifications on American democracy for a very long time.” Mother Jones correspondent Ari Berman reacts to the Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision rejecting key principles of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Since the court issued its ruling last week, Republican-controlled states have begun to redraw their voting maps in a “gerrymandering arms race” that “could lead to the largest drop in Black representation since the Jim Crow era,” explains Berman. “We’re returning to the days of literacy tests and poll taxes — not through those devices, but through specifically trying to eliminate Black office holders. And Southern legislators are very clear they are going to do this. They feel unshackled by the Supreme Court ruling. They are being pressured by President Trump to do it, and they feel like all the guardrails are off right now.”
“Backtalker”: Kimberlé Crenshaw on New Memoir, Voting Rights, Critical Race Theory & Clarence Thomas
Leading scholar in the field of critical race theory Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality,” which she has described as a “lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.” Crenshaw, a professor of law at UCLA and Columbia University and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, has just published a new book, Backtalker: An American Memoir.
“Backtalker is a frame that I use to encourage people to talk back against claims that the world as we have experienced it is the way it can only be, that there is no reason to continue to advocate for change,” says Crenshaw. She also discusses the Supreme Court’s recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the sociopolitical environment that allowed for Clarence Thomas to be appointed to the Supreme Court despite Anita Hill’s claims of sexual harassment against him.
Israel’s Destruction of Southern Lebanon Turns Villages into “Moonscapes”: Reporter Lylla Younes
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, warning residents of 12 towns and villages, including some north of the Litani River — beyond its current zone of occupation — to leave their homes. Those warnings were followed by reports of airstrikes in the south.
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a fragile temporary ceasefire in mid-April that has since been extended, but fighting has continued at a lesser scale. More than 1 million Lebanese, nearly one-fifth of Lebanon’s population, have been displaced.
“So this is dozens of villages that now no one can technically access. They’re calling it a 'forward defensive zone,'” says Lylla Younes, an investigative journalist based in Beirut. “There’s nothing defensive about it. It’s an offensive operation, and they’re using the word 'cleanse' to describe what they’re doing there. They’re just bulldozing homes.”
Global Press Freedom Hits Record Low, U.S. Drops to 64th in the World: Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders warns press freedom has fallen to its lowest level since the group began publishing its annual World Press Freedom Index in 2002. The index has charted how press freedoms have deteriorated in the United States and elsewhere over the past 25 years. The U.S. was ranked 17th in the world in 2002. In the latest index, the U.S. is down to 64th, falling seven places since last year.
“It’s tempting to lay all of this at the feet of President Donald Trump, and to be clear, he is the single biggest threat to American press freedom today,” says Clayton Weimers, the North America director for Reporters Without Borders. “But the mere fact that we fell from 57th last year tells us that this isn’t just a Trump problem. We have structural deficiencies that are imperiling the future of press freedom in this country.” Weimers cites these deficiencies as the consolidation of U.S. media and loss of journalism jobs, “emboldened” politicians’ attacks on reporters, and violence against journalists by law enforcement agents.
Weimers also comments on the January FBI raid on the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting and Israel’s attacks on journalists in Lebanon and Gaza.
Headlines for May 06, 2026
Trump Announces Pause of So-Called Project Freedom Operation in Strait of Hormuz; Husband of Imprisoned Iranian Human Rights Activist Narges Mohammadi Speaks Out After Her Hospitalization; Israeli Strikes Kill at Least Three Palestinians in Gaza; Israeli Court Extends Detention of Two Gaza Flotilla Activists; Four Palestine Action Activists Convicted over Raid at Factory Operated by Israeli Defense Firm Elbit; House Democrats Urge U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Acknowledge Israel’s Secret Weapons Program; Pentagon Launches Another Strike on a Vessel in the Eastern Pacific, Killing Three People; New Report Casts Blame on U.S. Sanctions for Cuba’s Increasing Infant Mortality Rate; Guardian: ICE Hires Private Security Company Accused of Torture to Help Track Down Undocumented Children; CNN: Department of Veterans Affairs Probes Staffers Who Attended Vigils Honoring Alex Pretti; Senate GOP Tucks In $1 Billion for Trump’s White House Ballroom in Immigration Enforcement Package; Trump-Backed Challengers Unseat Five Indiana GOP State Senators Who Voted Against Redistricting Plan; Activists Protest at the Philippines Consulate Calling for Probe into Killing of 19 People in Negros
Trump’s War on Iran & Strait of Hormuz Crisis Reveal “Limits of American Imperial Power”
We speak with Middle East history professor Toby Jones about the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where overlapping blockades by Iran and the United States have disrupted shipping and the wider global economy since the start of the war in late February. Jones says this latest conflict is part of a decadeslong project by the United States to exert imperial control over the oil-rich region, but that it’s now in danger of a strategic loss signaling a deeper imperial decline.
“Through an unprovoked assault on Iran, Trump has accelerated, or at least clarified, the real limits of American imperial power,” says Jones. “He’s definitely put the United States in a much more vulnerable and weakened position globally as a result of this war.”
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