The Hindu Editorial Analysis : 6th October 2026

The Hindu Editorial Analysis

We understand the significance of reading The Hindu newspaper for enhancing reading skills, improving comprehension of passages, staying informed about current events, enhancing essay writing, and more, especially for banking aspirants who need to focus on editorials for vocabulary building. This article will explore today’s editorial points, along with practice questions and key vocabulary.

Over 500 Detained During Protest Against CEC in Delhi

• Protests demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the stopping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls entered their third day on Sunday. Demonstrations continued in both New Delhi and Mumbai.
• The protests started on October 2 and included leaders of Opposition parties, civil society activists, and members of youth and student organisations.
• In New Delhi, clashes took place between protesters who were trying to reach Jantar Mantar and the Delhi Police, which had put up heavy barricades in the area. The police stopped the march on Ashoka Road and detained nearly 500 people.
• In Mumbai, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray led a march demanding the removal of the CEC and the stopping of the ongoing SIR exercise.
• Uddhav Thackeray called the CEC a “weapon” in the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party and alleged that the ruling party was using Mr. Kumar to “take away the right to vote”.
• Uddhav Thackeray said, “You can control institutions, but streets belong to us.” He also said that removing “around 13 crore names” from the draft electoral rolls across the country was equal to taking away people’s right to vote.
• Several videos showing clashes between protesters and the police in New Delhi were shared on social media. One of the videos showed protesters breaking the rear window of a bus and then jumping out of the bus.
• The All India Students’ Association (AISA) alleged that its national president, Neha Bora, was taken away by police personnel in a private car from Ashoka Road at around 5 p.m. The organisation said that her whereabouts were not known immediately after she was picked up.
• AISA also alleged that the police personnel who picked up Neha Bora were not wearing name tags. She was later released from the Narela Industrial Area police station.
• Among those who took part in the protest in the national capital was 83-year-old screenwriter and director Saeed Akhtar Mirza. Speaking from a wheelchair, he said, “These children have faced so much. History is being created, and I want to be a part of it.”
• Saeed Akhtar Mirza also said, “This regime is corrupt, communal and criminal. It should go.”
• In Mumbai, MNS chief Raj Thackeray also demanded the removal of the CEC and called for electronic voting machines to be replaced with ballot papers.
• Raj Thackeray called the SIR exercise “illegal” and questioned the increase in the number of voters between the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the Maharashtra Assembly election held later that same year.
• He asked the Election Commission to give details about how many of the people who were left out of the draft electoral rolls had been identified as immigrants from Bangladesh.
• Raj Thackeray asked, “Are the 2 crore people from Bangladesh? Give details. We will throw them out of the country,” while demanding information about the people who had been left out of the draft rolls.
• Leaders from the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) also joined the ‘Virat Garjana Morcha’ held in Mumbai.
• The ‘Virat Garjana Morcha’ in Mumbai was attended by nearly 6,000 people.

Jaishankar: India in Talks with Both Kyiv and Moscow

• External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that India is going “beyond advocacy” in relation to the Russia–Ukraine conflict, indicating for the first time that New Delhi is actively involved in conveying messages between Moscow and Kyiv regarding agreements on maritime safety in the Black Sea and grain exports.
• Speaking at an event organised by a German think tank, Jaishankar was asked about India’s close relationship with Russia. He defended these ties by highlighting that Russia has stood by India during difficult times and suggested that other countries could also form coalitions to work on matters such as international peace and security.
• At the Munich Leaders Meeting in Delhi on Sunday, Jaishankar stated that India is in communication with both Russia and Ukraine regarding the importance of dialogue and diplomacy.
• He explained that India is trying to be helpful, beginning with the issue of Black Sea shipping safety, but that its efforts extend beyond this to several immediate concerns shared by both sides.
• These ongoing discussions include grain exports, energy exports, and possibilities for non-attack arrangements. Jaishankar said that these conversations between India and the two countries are currently continuing.
• Jaishankar’s strong defence of India’s relationship with Russia indicates that New Delhi is unlikely to reduce its purchases of Russian oil, which currently account for more than 50% of India’s oil imports, even though India could face possible U.S. sanctions under a new law enacted on September 18.
• While explaining the importance of India’s relationship with Russia, Jaishankar said that Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, had stood by India in several ways when India’s security and territorial integrity were under threat.
• He particularly referred to the period when much of the world preferred to support a military regime next to India, highlighting Soviet support during the 1971 India–Pakistan war and the liberation of Bangladesh.
• Jaishankar also expressed concern about the changing global landscape and said that one of its major features is the radical repositioning of the United States.
• According to him, this repositioning is a posture of choice, through which the United States has, in a sense, deliberately become a more isolated or “lonelier” power.
• He identified another major feature of the changing global landscape as the rise of China. He said that China views itself as a unique country and that the world is witnessing very sharp competition involving China.
• Jaishankar further observed that this intense competition has resulted in the weaponisation of whatever leverage any country possesses, making the changing international environment increasingly complex.

Discrepancies in Rabies Death Data Pose a Major Challenge

• In 2025, India recorded 55 deaths from malaria, 131 deaths from dengue, and 27 deaths from kala-azar (black fever), according to data from the Union Health Ministry.
• Unlike these diseases, India does not have one complete and comparable national figure showing how many people die from rabies every year, even though the country has set a target to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies by 2030.
• A community-based study conducted by researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research–National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE) and recently published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases estimated that around 5,726 people die from rabies in India every year.
• The Health Ministry’s Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme–Integrated Health Information Platform (IDSP-IHIP) reported 21 rabies deaths in 2022, 50 in 2023, and 54 in 2024.
• The Registrar-General of India’s Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD) system recorded 66 medically certified rabies deaths in 2022 and 271 in 2023.
• However, the MCCD system records only deaths for which the cause has been medically certified. Therefore, it does not include all registered deaths in the country.
• The figures from IDSP-IHIP and MCCD cannot be directly compared, because the two systems collect information in different ways. IDSP-IHIP is used for disease surveillance, while MCCD records medically certified causes of death through the civil registration system.
• At the national level, the MCCD system covered only 22.3% of all registered deaths in 2022 and 22.0% in 2023.
• This means that neither the IDSP-IHIP system nor the MCCD system gives a complete national picture of rabies deaths.
• For its study, the ICMR surveyed 337,808 people from 78,807 households in 60 districts spread across 15 States.
• From this survey, the researchers estimated that India has around 9.1 million animal-bite cases every year, including about 5.6 million dog-bite cases.
• The researchers used information from the community survey, laboratory data, and a probability decision-tree model to estimate how many people who are bitten by animals go on to develop rabies and eventually die from the disease.
• Therefore, the figure of 5,726 deaths every year is an estimated figure produced through a model. It is not a direct count of rabies deaths recorded in hospitals or by government surveillance systems.
• There is a large difference between the government’s reported figures and the study’s estimate. The 54 rabies deaths reported through government surveillance in 2024 were less than 1% of the study’s estimated annual figure of 5,726 deaths.
• A senior Health Ministry official explained that the two figures were obtained using different methods, so they should not be treated as directly equal or compared as if they came from the same system.
• The lack of one consolidated set of rabies data is a major problem in efforts to eliminate the disease. Many rabies cases and deaths happen in places where they are not properly recorded or measured.
• Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, a medical scientist and former ICMR chief, said that the lack of consolidated data is a challenge for rabies eradication. He also pointed out that cases and deaths often occur in areas of the country where they are difficult to measure.
• The Health Ministry has also accepted that there are problems with rabies surveillance and data collection, especially when people die outside the formal healthcare system, where their deaths may not be properly recorded.
• Around the world, rabies is estimated to cause about 59,000 human deaths every year.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that India accounts for around 35% of all rabies deaths worldwide. This shows that India has a very large share of the global rabies burden.

Important Questions

1. Why did nearly 500 people get detained by the Delhi Police on Ashoka Road while trying to reach Jantar Mantar during the protest demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and stopping of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls?
2. What did Uddhav Thackeray say about the removal of “around 13 crore names” from the draft electoral rolls across the country during the protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the SIR exercise?
3. What did External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar say about India’s communication with both Russia and Ukraine regarding dialogue, diplomacy and Black Sea shipping safety?
4. What are the immediate concerns discussed in the ongoing conversations between India, Russia and Ukraine regarding grain exports, energy exports and possibilities for non-attack arrangements?
5. Why does India not have one complete and comparable national figure showing how many people die from rabies every year, despite the target to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies by 2030?
6. How did the ICMR-NIE study estimate that around 5,726 people die from rabies in India every year after surveying 337,808 people from 78,807 households in 60 districts across 15 States?

Important Vocabulary

1. Detained — Kept in police custody for a period of time.
2. Barricades — Temporary barriers used to block or control movement.
3. Communal — Related to conflict or division between religious communities.
4. Whereabouts — The place where someone is or can be found.
5. Advocacy — Public support for a particular cause or policy.
6. Diplomacy — The management of relations between countries.
7. Territorial — Related to a country’s land or territory.
8. Weaponisation — The use of something as a weapon or for strategic advantage.
9. Discrepancies — Differences or inconsistencies between sets of information.
10. Surveillance — The monitoring of a disease or situation.
11. Consolidated — Combined into one complete or unified set.
12. Eradication — The complete removal or destruction of something.