Reporter. Writer. Cook.
Bangalore, India
Joined July 2009
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Samar Halarnkar retweeted
"Everyone is worried"
Asra Khatoon, 47, her husband & two sons were deleted from the electoral roll
@_sabahgurmat reporting from the people's audit of the #SIR, a camp to help deleted voters organised by volunteer groups in Trilokpuri, Delhi, today
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
“The Opposition is united, voting is the right of every citizen…this right is being snatched from crores of people”, @RahulGandhi said at the people's audit of the #SIR in Trilokpuri, Delhi, today
@_sabahgurmat reporting
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
"Why were we deleted?"
Ramesh, a long-time #Delhi voter, said “13 or 14 members” of his family were deleted. He didn’t receive any notice. He found out 3 days ago through volunteer groups helping deleted voters in the national capital
@_sabahgurmat reporting from Trilokpuri
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
"The govt should see this person has been voting for so long"
Delhi voter Mohammad Yameen said that both his parents passed away in 1987, which is why he couldn’t map himself to the 2002 electoral roll
@_sabahgurmat reporting from a public audit of the #SIR in Trilokpuri, Delhi
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
A resident of Kope (Jharkhand) explains how he is unable to comply with SIR document requirements.
Scrap SIR!
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
🕉️ Speeches peppered with Sanskrit shlokas
🕉️ Invoking Ramayana during Op Sindoor
🕉️ Ram Temple CEO job to IAF pilot post retirement
"One can detect the growing disillusionment of juniors with seniors who are taking the Hindutva route to the top": Ajai Shukla in @the_hindu
My op-ed in @the_hindu newspaper this morning, on the leadership deficit in the military.
"There is something gravely flawed with our leadership training. Many young officers start out as gallant captains and majors. Why then, when they become generals, admirals and air marshals do so many fail to seize the moment?"
thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a…
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
A Delhi police officer asking to drag a Muslim woman calling her an anti national in full view of the cameras. This is a complete radicalisation of the police force in the heart of the nation’s capital !
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
“I had brought 3 books with me, but I am not even being allowed to read them," Dr Randall Sequeira told @karmrath after he was arrested
“I was picked up from my home without being shown any papers or identification. I asked them whether I was being detained or arrested, but they did not give me any answer. I was taken from one place to another for nearly four hours. I was then kept under arrest for approximately 16 hours and produced before the court after around 18 hours.”
He said they made him sleep on the bare floor that first night.
He was not allowed a pen or paper
Link: karmrath.com/2026/10/police-…
The most enduring image of Randall Sequeira among tribal communities in the bauxite-rich hills of southwestern Odisha is that of a bearded, bespectacled, lanky doctor on a Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle travelling between far-flung villages to treat the sick, @Ayaskant_Das writes about him
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
A field verification of just 200 names in ASDD list of just one block in an area finds that more than 30% are wrongly deleted!
Most of these 'present' voters were declared 'absent' or 'shifted' and one 'alive' voter declared 'dead'.
Now, imagine lakhs of wrongful deletions among the 47 lakh+ in ASDD list in Delhi alone. And now imagine crores of wrongful deletions across the country.
To add insult to injury, all these wrongly deleted voters will now need to fill Form 6 to come back on the voter roll by falsely declaring themselves as 'first time voters'.
SIR is an exercise in mass disenfranchisement of 'delete first, ask later'. SIR needs to go and any voter list revision needs to happen in a transparent manner through public audits. Gyanesh Kumar and others responsible for this fraud on our democracy must be brought to justice!
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
He said he had received no notification.
His BLO had assured him that his paperwork was complete. He was "relaxed"
Today, while visiting a park where a volunteer group had set up a camp for complaints over #SIR voter deletions, Anurag, 30, who has voted 3 times, discovered that he & his family members had been marked as “not available"
@_sabahgurmat reporting from Trilokpuri, Delhi
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
Did the BJP apply for permission to hold this protest 10 days in advance? Has @DelhiPolice rejected the application as it was not submitted in time?
Above all, has the BJP applied for permission to hold the protest at all?
STORY | BJP to hold nationwide protest on Monday against Kharge's 'baap' remark for Modi
The BJP has announced a nationwide protest on Monday against Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's "indecent and offensive" remarks targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Kharge sparked a controversy on Sunday with his "Modi ka baap bhi jayega" remark in response to an audience member's comment that "the prime minister would not go anywhere", during an event in Delhi marking the birth anniversary of Bihar's first chief minister, Shrikrishna Singh.
READ: ptinews.com/story/national/b…
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
This ex parte order is a death certificate for political speech. Court says video is "dramatised narrative" so how is it an assertion of fact? Court says no authority has found allegations true, but absence of such finding doesn't automatically make political opinion defamatory
Lying through their teeth. But no point hoping that the court will call it out
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
"Doctor Babu is like a mobile hospital. He lives in a tiled hut. He visits households & provides free treatment"
Odisha police arrested Randall Sequeira, a doctor who serves Adivasi communities & supports the anti-mining movement. @Ayaskant_Das reports
article-14.com/post/-mobile-…
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
The lush Siang Valley in #Arunachal, where govt plans a 11000 MW mega dam, drowning 27 villages of the Adi people
@ShamikBag talks to journalist @ShaanJijong, one of 4 censored online, amid criminal cases & a crackdown on protests by security forces
article-14.com/post/-their-l…
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
“The powerful can kill one, two, or even one hundred roses. But they will never stop the arrival of spring.”
What a guy. What a guy. What a guy.
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
Historian Ramachandra Guha questions the Karnataka government’s restrictions on protests at Bengaluru’s Town Hall.
“Just two weeks ago, the CM was demanding the right to protest on Delhi’s streets for Congressmen, while denying the same right to people in the state he governs,” Guha said.
He called for designated protest spaces such as Town Hall, Gandhi statue and Maurya Circle to be restored, arguing that they are essential to democratic functioning.
#Karnataka #Bengaluru @Ram_Guha
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
I almost laughed after a BJP supporter said that Pema should resign in protest against the centre's militarisation of the Siang valley, after someone commented that it is the centre's doing to bring in forces to crush the protests against the Siang upper multipurpose project. Such deep love for their spineless CM, who initiated the violent method of starting a study on the Siang without seeking the consent of the community.
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
'UP Police Need Education In Investigation' : Supreme Court Orders ₹6 Lakh Compensation To Man Acquitted After 6 Years In Jail |@mittal_mtn
“Six years have been erased from the life of a man on the strength of a concocted story," the Court noted.
livelaw.in/supreme-court/sup…
Samar Halarnkar retweeted
We all need to learn how to lie from Election Commission of India
#BREAKING on Bar & Bench
Election Commission of India files counter affidavit in Supreme Court on plea against CEC's functioning; says petition built entirely on a single news report
What ECI says:
🔹 Affidavit approved unanimously by all three members: the CEC and both Election Commissioners
🔹 All three SIR orders (June 2025, October 2025, May 2026) were unanimous decisions of the Commission
🔹 Notes, queries or suggestions by the CEC or ECs while a file moves are not decisions of the Commission
🔹 Files go to one EC, then the other EC, then the CEC. In urgent cases, approval is taken electronically and recorded on file later
🔹 Any officer issuing orders beyond delegated powers will face action
🔹 July 28 work allocation order was issued by an Additional Secretary on deputation. Both ECs wrote to the Cabinet Secretary the next day. The order was never implemented after the ECs' joint direction of July 30
🔹 Form 6 has not been amended. Only the Centre can amend it. The SIR declaration is a separate document
🔹 Admits the online display could be read as an amendment. From October 21, the online application will be split into Form 6 and the declaration, as in the physical form
🔹 Unmapped voters need not attend hearings. BLOs will collect documents from their homes. Hearings only in exceptional cases, preferably online
🔹 ECINet: no name is added or deleted except by order of the ERO. A committee with experts from IIT and IISc has been set up to check compliance
🔹 Goa: of 97 "left out" voters, 88 had already been enrolled, 6 were abroad and 3 held Portuguese passports
🔹 West Bengal appeals against inclusion of voters were filed by officers of the CEO, West Bengal, under Supreme Court orders. "These matters were not brought to the Commission"
🔹 Plea to restrain the CEC is not maintainable. CEC can be removed only like a Supreme Court judge
🔹 Commission never released or authorised the release of any internal note or file to the media
🔹 Repeated challenges to EVMs already rejected by the Supreme Court
🔹 Short reply filed due to Dussehra vacation. ECI seeks liberty to file a detailed para-wise response
#ElectionCommission #SupremeCourt #SIR
