Taking everyone by surprise, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee hit the streets of Kolkata on Wednesday. She led a peaceful protest march in Dharmatala to fight for roadside hawkers who are losing their shops to new government drives.

The political crisis engulfing the Trinamool Congress (TMC) reached a high-voltage flashpoint on Monday, June 15, 2026, when the Lok Sabha Speaker’s office slapped TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee with a thin, two-hour ultimatum to appear in New Delhi—at the exact moment he was locked inside an 11-hour interrogation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Kolkata. The dramatic standoff unfolds as the Mamata Banerjee-led party battles a massive parliamentary rebellion, with 20 out of its 28 sitting Lok Sabha MPs—led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar—petitioning Speaker Om Birla to recognize their formal merger with the Tripura-based Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), effectively tilting their allegiance to the BJP-led NDA. While Banerjee was isolated from his communication devices at the ED’s Salt Lake CGO complex in connection with a 2023 primary teacher recruitment scam, an urgent email dispatch from New Delhi at 2:00 PM demanded his presence at Parliament by 4:00 PM. Sounding the alarm, fellow lawmaker Kirti Azad physically intercepted the Speaker’s secretariat, clarifying that the Diamond Harbour MP was legally detained by federal investigators and could not fly out. Emerging from the marathon grilling near midnight—which followed an 8-hour state CID interrogation the previous day—a defiant Banerjee struck an uncompromising tone to reporters, declaring that even if his opponents “slit his throat,” he would not cower down to coordinated central pressure.

A viral internet joke turned into real violence in Jaipur. Abhijeet Dipke, the leader of a funny parody group called the ‘Cockroach Janta Party,’ was slapped during a peaceful student protest.

Igniting a massive nationwide offensive against systemic examination irregularities, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi urged India’s youth to aggressively fight for their future, declaring every paper leak and canceled exam an explicit attack on their dreams. Speaking ahead of his high-stakes ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ student convention in the coaching hub of Kota on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, Gandhi lashed out at the ruling administration on social media, asserting that hard work is being actively penalized rather than rewarded. To highlight the administration’s alleged apathy, Gandhi shared a viral video depicting severe commuter suffocation and chaos, which he claimed occurred at Patliputra railway station as desperate police constable aspirants scrambled for inadequate train services. However, the East Central Railway swiftly countered the narrative, clarifying that the footage did not originate from Patliputra and refuting rumors of a casualty, attributing the visible distress of an individual to a fatigue-induced medical episode. Undeterred by the administrative pushback, the Congress party finalized blueprints for the first phase of this multi-state youth mobilization campaign, locking in subsequent mega student conventions across major academic centers, including Allahabad on July 10, Patna on July 11, and New Delhi on July 14, to force systemic accountability.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has begun its inquiry into allegations of irregularities in the management of donations received by the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The team, constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government, visited the temple premises and examined financial records as part of the investigation.

The city of joy is set to host a grand celebration of the 12th International Yoga Day on June 21, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to lead a massive yoga session at the iconic Red Road.