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France and Spain race to control wildfires as suburbs of Bordeaux begin evacuation – live

In the UK, a major incident has been declared after a wildfire in the Cairngorms national park in Scotland forced the evacuation of hundreds of people. Nethy Bridge, a village of about 600 people, was evacuated last night as a precaution and all access roads to the village have been closed, police said. The Scottish government convened its emergency response committee – the Scottish government resilience room, known as SGORR – yesterday to the evacuation of Nethy Bridge, with the meeting chaired by first minister John Swinney. “[Scottish Fire and Rescue Service] resources are focused on creating a fire break and additional police resources are being deployed to assist with the evacuation, including identifying vulnerable residents who may need extra support,” Swinney said in a statement. The Scotsman newspaper reported the wildfire, which broke out in the Glenmore area of the Cairngorms national park more than a week ago, has prompted calls for military support after strong winds caused the blaze to spread despite a large-scale response involving more than 500 firefighters and other emergency personnel. Supt Judy Hill of Police Scotland said: “The weather conditions experienced within the Cairngorms over the last 24 hours have added further complexities to this situation. With evidence suggesting the fire is spreading towards Nethy Bridge, the decision has been taken to declare a major incident and evacuate residents as a precaution.”

UK’s largest Muslim event goes ahead with added security as hate crime rises

Security has been increased by several hundred additional staff at the UK’s largest Muslim convention, Jalsa Salana, alongside enhanced coordination with police, emergency services and local authorities, against a backdrop of growing anti-Muslim sentiment. Last month, another big Islamic gathering was forced to close early after 12 people were arrested, including three on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, over a suspected far-right threat. Did Jalsa Salana’s organisers think twice about going ahead? “Not once. Not for a second,” said Rafiq Hayat, the head of the UK chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which organises the festival. Now in its 60th year, Jalsa Salana is expected to draw about 50,000 people from more than 100 countries to a temporary site in Hampshire this weekend. The convention opened on Friday with prayers, speeches – including an address from the community’s global leader, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad – and the raising of a union jack at the centre of the 208-acre site. MPs, bishops and other public figures are expected to attend. Hayat says the community has weathered hostility before. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has been in Britain for more than a century, having established itself in 1913, and built one of London’s first purpose-built mosques in 1926. “I personally have been in London since 1967, so I have been through all of the various rightwing movements: from skinheads, to the ‘rivers of blood’ speech by Enoch Powell to the British National party. We have seen it all,” Hayat said. During the construction of the movement’s mosque in Morden in the 1990s, hundreds of British National party supporters protested outside planning meetings, he added. But rather than withdrawing, Hayat said, the community deliberately invested in relationships with its neighbours. “We created a liaison group,” Hayat said. “We invited people from the church and from various local groups, from the local authority to the police. And we said we would hold a meeting every month at our mosque, and appointed a local councillor as the chair of the meeting.” He added that the first two meetings were “very heated”. But, 30 years later, “they will not do anything without us being involved”. For Hayat, that experience provides a useful lesson to how to respond to this current climate of rising anti-Muslim hatred. Latest figures show that one mosque is attacked in Britain every five days, while anti-Muslim hate crime in England and Wales rose by 19% in the 12 months to March 2025. “One of the things that the community has been doing over the last 60 years is to bring people of all faith, all backgrounds, all ethnicities, everyone, together,” Hayat said. “The founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community reminded us that true Muslims should embody the teaching of the holy prophet Muhammad – that loyalty to the country in which you live is an integral part of your faith.” But hostility towards the Ahmadiyya community does not come solely from the far right. Ahmadis have long faced persecution from extremist Muslims, both abroad, particularly in Pakistan and, at times, in Britain. In 2016, Asad Shah, an Ahmadi Muslim man, was killed outside his shop in Glasgow by another Muslim in a religiously motivated murder. “The saddest part is that it is sometimes easier to deal with the rightwing than with some Muslim extremists,” Hayat said. “I grew up with lots of Muslims. Some of my closest friends are Muslims who are not Ahmadi. But there are some who have very extreme views. “But when we have these conferences, lots of Muslims come. When we had the big iftar at our large mosque, about 60% were young Muslims who weren’t Ahmadi.” Hayat said the community’s answer to threats was not to retreat from public life but to become more visible. “We say to our children that they must not be embarrassed about being Muslim in this country,” he said. “These misconceptions about Islam have to be dealt with. And this is what I say to the larger Muslim community: please engage with people.” He didn’t minimise the level of threat facing the Muslim community, pointing to a recent incident in which one of their mosques was attacked, while hatred against Muslims had become increasingly visible online. Yet, he passionately believes that personal encounters remain the most effective antidote. Hayat recalled one visitor who admitted she had shared her live location with her husband before visiting the mosque, telling him that if he did not hear from her every 15 minutes, he should come to get her. Afterwards, she told Hayat she found warmth at the mosque and wanted to return with her family. “You don’t see my colour any more. You see the human being behind it. This is the key to peaceful coexistence,” Hayat said.

Reclaiming stolen childhoods: swimming classes resume in Gaza after three years of war

Swimming classes have started again in Gaza after three years of war, with hundreds of children learning to float, doggy paddle and take their first strokes in five makeshift sea pools built from sandbags and rubble. The lessons allow a few hundred girls and boys to reclaim their childhood for a few hours in a place where there are no playgrounds, no formal education and children live in fear of continuing Israeli attacks. A UN survey in March found that 96% of children felt death was imminent. Activity on the Gaza seafront “Swimming gives me a chance to escape the war, and the worries I live with,” said Alma Shabat, 13, who saw her mother killed in an Israeli strike in May. After three weeks of classes, her favourite stroke is freestyle, she has made new friends and she is no longer afraid of the waves and open sea. “Coming to the beach is a beautiful and enjoyable experience,” she said. Amjed Tantesh, who founded Gaza’s first swimming academy more than two decades ago, has mobilised dozens of volunteers this summer to create the string of pools on the beaches of central Gaza, with tarpaulins providing some shade from the fierce Mediterranean sun. There is very little heavy machinery left in Gaza so they did everything by hand, moving tonnes of rubble and filling sandbags to build walls, then excavating sand to deepen the pools. Children take part in a swimming class In the morning they hold free classes for children whose parents were killed in Israeli attacks. In the afternoon, the pools are open to everyone and constantly filled with delighted children splashing in the warm water. Tulin Al-Othmaneh, 10, and Aseel Al-Kafarna “Its a rare chance to enjoy, relax and reclaim part of their stolen childhood,” said Tantesh, who has also worked as a journalist for the Guardian and other outlets. His niece, Seham Tantesh, reports for the Guardian from Gaza. “The pools attract children from all along the beach like huge magnets”. Most Palestinian children have endured years of extreme trauma. There is the loss and maiming of loved ones, with one in ten of the prewar population killed or injured in Israeli attacks. Thousands more are thought to be buried under the rubble. A big group of the children pose for a photo on the beach Children form a chain before getting into the water Gaza has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world. “Disability among Palestinian children has ceased to be an individual medical condition and has now become a defining demographic reality,” a UN commission said in a report on Israel’s targeting of Palestinian children. The human-made famine caused by Israel’s siege last year will leave some children with lifelong mental and physical stunting. Instructor Ali Al-Attar with a group of the children There has been no formal schooling for three years, and almost all school buildings have been damaged or destroyed. There are nearly 700,000 school-age children in Gaza, and only a minority have access to the makeshift tent schools run by aid groups. Survivors are crammed into crowded, hot and noisy tent camps in just a third of the prewar Gaza without adequate water or sanitation. Amjed Tantesh takes a selfie while a swimming class takes place behind him Swimming classes are a desperately needed escape from this grim reality, physically and mentally. “Being here allows me to train, play and breath fresh air, away from the tents,” said Maryam al Musri, 10, who lost her father in the war. Laila Qahman, 14, who lost her seven-year-old brother when a mosque near where he was playing was bombed and who dreams of becoming a pharmacist, said swimming gave her the chance to relax, cool down and forget about life in a tent. Laila Qahman “I come here every other day because it makes me feel like I’m living my life and enjoying my time, instead of staying in the tent listening to the sounds of shelling and living with fear and sadness,” she said. “Before I learned how to swim, I was a little afraid of the sea and did not have the courage to go into the water. Now, I feel much more confident and no longer feel afraid when I swim.” So far 700 children have attended six weeks of classes, and Tantesh hopes to teach thousands more over the summer if he can get funding to pay teachers, who are currently all working for free, and cover other basic expenses. The joy of these young swimmers has been healing for him as well, as he mourns his older brother Bahjat, a karate champion killed in an Israeli attack last year as the brothers fled their family home under Israeli evacuation orders. “Bahjat was the one that taught me swimming in the first place, then inspired me to pursue sporting excellence as a young man,” he said. “To have him die in my arms was the worst thing imaginable.” A group of children sitting on the beach after their swimming class The original academy was inspired in equal measure by hope and tragedy. Palestine made its Olympic debut at the Atlanta Games in 1996, giving athletes from Gaza the first chance to compete on the world’s biggest stage, and Tantesh a new mission. “I wanted to be at the Olympics, but I started as a professional swimmer at a very late age. So I decided to achieve my dream through a new generation,” he said. Closer to home, each summer brought deaths by drowning at sea. Families would flock to the beach to relax, splash around and cool off but few people could swim and there were no lifeguards at his local beach. Swimming lessons would make children safer and they could train future lifeguards, he decided. Kamal Taha, 12, being interviewed by a local TV channel His biggest challenge when the classes first launched was persuading parents to sign up their children. “People were terrified by water, the sea looked like a monster to them as it consumed dozens of people annually,” he said. For the first few years children learned to swim in Gaza’s port, where breakwaters protected children from the waves. Then he constructed a series of pools along the coast for classes, where about 11,000 people learned to swim. The biggest, built with rubble from homes bombed by Israel in 2014, was more than 1,000 square metres. Israeli attacks since 2023 razed all the pools, killed tens of swimming students and at least six coaches, and injured countless more. Restarting classes seemed almost impossible. “I only had the sea, but the sea is dangerous even during summer. You have jellyfish, you have high waves, strong currents, rocks,” he said. So he came up with the plan for new pools, for the sake of Gaza’s children and as a tribute to his brother. Seeing the children leave the horrors of war behind for a brief period, when they dive into the sea, has also been healing for him. “Actually the first person I helped with this project was myself,” he said. “It has given me a great feeling of happiness and recovery. I am alive again.” You can find more about the swimming pool project here

‘No time to waste’: Greece bids for Mount Olympus to be included on Unesco list of world heritage sites

More than four decades have elapsed since Evangelos Geroliolios made his first ascent to the home of the ancient gods. At the top of Mount Olympus, on the rocky peak of Greece’s highest mountain, he felt unalloyed awe. “I’ve never forgotten that unique moment, that unique feeling up there on the throne of Zeus,” recalled Geroliolios, who as mayor of Dion-Olympus now spends a great deal of his time administering the area around the site. Described by Homer as the “seat of the immortals”, its craggy summit – where Zeus, the father of the gods, is said to have held court – rises 2,918 metres above the sea. “You get this incredible sense of place, fused by myth, beauty and the weight of history – all of which we want to share and hope will be recognised internationally,” he said. Greek officials have long lobbied for Mount Olympus to be included on the Unesco list of world heritage sites; soon champions of the cause will learn if the site will finally be granted the coveted designation. The World Heritage Committee is scheduled to begin discussing the nomination on Sunday at its 48th session, now under way in Busan, South Korea. The annual meeting ends on 29 July. Greece first proposed the mountain’s inclusion on the list of places considered by Unesco to be “of outstanding value to humanity” in 2014, citing both its cultural and environmental significance. The area was declared a national forest – the country’s first – in 1938, in tribute to the uniqueness of terrain covered not only by verdant forest but alpine fields, gorges, ravines and springs, all within close proximity of the sea. Litochoro, the nearest town to the mountain, lies three miles (5km) away from breathtaking beaches practically at the foot of the mountain. In recognition of its abundance of flora and fauna, Unesco designated Olympus a biosphere reserve in 1981. Further environmental protection came in the form of a presidential decree, when the mountain was declared a national park, in 2021. “But,” says Geroliolios, “becoming a world heritage site would not only be important for Greeks. It would speak to the entire planet. Olympus is up there with the Parthenon and it’s vital that we safeguard this environment of myth and history. For us, protection is the alpha and omega.” Last year, the committee inscribed 26 new properties on Unesco’s World Heritage list, bringing the total number of sites to 1,428 across 170 countries. Of the 21 in Greece, only two have been inducted as mixed cultural and natural world heritage sites. Under an international treaty overseen by Unesco, the treasures, which include landmarks such as the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, automatically become protected zones. Increasingly the designation is regarded as a bulwark against the depredations of development and overtourism. Like much of Greece, the mountain’s popularity has soared over the past decade, with about 500,000 visitors recorded last year. It is a number that is widely predicted to rise on the back of revived interest in the ancient world after the 17 July release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The record-breaking blockbuster, inspired by Homer’s epic, was partially filmed in Greece, which also helped subsidise the movie. “We’re happy to have tourists but more of them will mean more risks,” said Dimitris Pappas, the deputy director of the Olympus national park management agency. “There’s no doubt that if the area is declared a Unesco world heritage site it will help contribute to the mountain’s protection. If we lose what we have it will be a catastrophe.” Pappas said by far the biggest threat to the site was forest fires exacerbated by climate breakdown. “They could be averted with extra funds to improve fire protection measures, including clearing walking paths and building shelters. River bridges and roads could be upgraded, too.” World heritage sites are provided with technical support and financial assistance from Unesco, which also gives expert advice to help preserve the monuments. Tourists visiting the site this week said the designation was not only deserved, but overdue. “It’s not just a good idea, it’s the best idea,” enthused Lenka Hotmarova, 62, from the Czech Republic. “There’s room for improvement along the trails and it would help raise awareness about the need for preservation. It should have happened earlier.” Greece has also highlighted the region’s religious significance, citing the discovery of an open-air sanctuary, on one of the mountain’s lowest peaks, in its nomination file. The sanctuary is believed to have been described by Plutarch, the philosopher historian, in the second century AD in connection with animal sacrifices made to Zeus. Mount Olympus is thought to be home to the highest altitude chapel in the Christian Orthodox world with Byzantine monasteries and other places of worship built into its folds and peaks. The bid’s outcome is still far from certain. Advisory bodies from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and International Union for Conservation of Nature are reported to have recommended further details with the draft agenda of the Unesco meeting in Busan suggesting the nomination will be referred back to Greece – prolonging the quest further. At a time of soaring tourism, that worries Geroliolios. “It’s all about balance,” he says. “Olympus’s carrying capacity has reached its limit.” Designation as a world heritage site would “place greater responsibility on our part to protect the environment”, he said, adding: “But even if we don’t succeed, there’s no time to waste. Further protective measures have to be taken.”

Iran-backed Houthis claim missile attack on Saudi Arabia as Middle East war widens

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed a missile attack on the southern Saudi city of Jizan on Saturday, after vowing retaliation against the kingdom for attacks this week. It came after US ally Riyadh struck Houthi military targets on Friday, following the Yemeni group announcing a maritime blockade of the top oil producer and hitting its ships in the Red Sea. The rebels accused Saudi Arabia of a “dangerous escalation” and said its actions “will not go unanswered”. The flare-up marks a new front of the war that has engulfed the region, and comes on top of Iran’s parallel blockade of the strait of Hormuz, Riyadh’s only other maritime route. A Yemeni security source told Agence France-Presse that a naval base in the Yemen port city of Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran island were among the Saudi targets hit, which prompted the claimed Houthis’ reprisal attack. The Saudi-led coalition said it hit Houthi sites and destroyed targets that were threatening commercial vessels, in response to attacks on Red Sea shipping. The tit-for-tat strikes came after the Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi ships this week, with Saudi Arabia confirming one of the attacks in the Red Sea. “The terrorist Houthi military … targeted commercial ships in the Red Sea,” Turki al-Maliki, the Saudi-led coalition’s spokesperson, said on X. The coalition “carried out a decisive and strong response” targeting Houthi military sites used to threaten Red Sea shipping and that the “military response is now over”, he added. Earlier, Donald Trump said he had not decided on whether to launch major strikes on Iran yet, as Tehran was now getting “serious” in talks with Washington. His comments came after reports that an increasingly frustrated Trump was meeting senior advisers to discuss launching a large-scale military operation against Iran. “No I haven’t,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office when asked if had made a decision. “Look, we’re talking to them right now. I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason.” The New York Times reported earlier that Trump had met advisers on Friday, while the Axios news outlet quoted the US leader as saying on Thursday that he was considering a “massive attack” on Iran. Trump separately doubled down on comments in an earlier social media post in which he said he believed that Russia and China were not arming Iran, despite reports that both countries were giving Tehran intelligence to target US forces. “I will tell you that President Xi said he will not partake, and President Putin said the same thing. I think you know I trust them,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t think they’d want to have me disappointed.” The conflict shows no signs of easing. US embassies in the Middle East have warned Americans that options to leave could become limited. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards advised residents of neighbouring countries to avoid bases with US troops. The US military said on Friday that it fired on another merchant vessel that was trying to breach its blockade of Iran’s ports. American forces disabled the M/T Lavine in the Gulf of Oman after the ship attempted to run the blockade at least four times, Capt. Tim Hawkins, a US Central Command spokesperson, told the Associated Press. Hawkins stressed that the ship’s crew was warned and didn’t comply with commands. The military then fired into its engine room. It’s the second commercial ship to be disabled since the military reimposed its blockade. In the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, which is home to a contingent of American military advisers, security officials said Friday that US-led forces had shot down five explosives-laden drones. Repeated blasts echoed in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, and plumes of black smoke were seen near its airport, where US forces are based. US military officials did not respond to a request for comment on the apparent attacks. Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it had targeted the US base in Udairi, Kuwait, destroying three ammunition and storage sheds. It also claimed to have struck a watchtower for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain. US Central Command did not respond to inquiries about the claims. Both Bahrain and Jordan said they had intercepted aerial attacks by Iran on Friday. With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

Ukraine war briefing: Russia launches deadly attack on weapons exhibition near Kyiv

A Russian ballistic missile strike in Ukraine’s Kyiv region has killed 10 people and ⁠injured almost 100 at ⁠the site of a defence industry event that Volodymyr Zelenskyy said should never have taken place. Pictures posted online by the Ukraine Emergency Services showed teams sifting through piles of rubble at the site north of the capital, adjacent to several houses, after Friday’s attack. “Of course, the cause of this attack ⁠is Russian missiles, nothing but Russian terror,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “However, we have said a thousand times that under these wartime conditions, with such ‌an enemy, it is absolutely unacceptable ‌to hold any weapons exhibitions with large crowds of people, especially near residential buildings.” The event, hosted by a ‌drone manufacturers’ association, was taking place in an area a short drive from the outskirts of the capital. The acting governor of Kyiv region, Ruslan Oliynyk, said that a day of mourning would be observed on Saturday in the region. The rightwing US influencer Laura Loomer has visited Ukraine and met Zelenskyy, who says he expects to meet Donald Trump in Washington next week. In an interview with Loomer, the Ukrainian president said he would probably attend the funeral of senator Lindsey Graham and hold talks with Trump. Loomer interviewed Zelenskyy in the garden of the presidential palace in Kyiv – a remarkable move for the online provocateur who has previously minimised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amplified Kremlin propaganda to her nearly 2 million followers on social media. In the interview Zelenskyy said cooperation between ⁠Kyiv and Washington on drones would include a US factory to produce the unmanned aerial vehicles using Ukraine’s ⁠advanced technology. He said Ukraine wanted to build quickly on an initial agreement on drones clinched ⁠with Washington. Ukraine has excelled at drone innovation as it ‌has pursued asymmetrical warfare ‌against Russia during their four-year-old conflict, and Kyiv has shared its advances ‌with some allies. “Important technology. This is what we have. And America has great technology. Our drone deal is win-win,” Zelenskyy said. “We will build a great factory in the United States. We want to [have] lines of production.” In Washington, a source familiar with the matter said details of an agreement were still being worked out ahead of Zelenskyy’s talks with Trump, scheduled for Tuesday, according to a White House official. Romania’s ⁠defence ministry said a second ⁠drone breaching ⁠national airspace in as many ⁠days was shot down by a ⁠pilot in an F-16 ‌fighter ‌jet in an uninhabited ‌area near the border with Ukraine. The first drone, which Romanian ‌prosecutors investigating the fragments said was Russian, was shot down by the Nato ⁠state on Friday, marking the first time it has done ‌so after dozens of airspace breaches. In eastern Ukraine, a Russian aerial bomb attack ⁠killed five people and injured nine in the city of Sloviansk, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Friday. He later said that a new Russian strike on the city in the evening injured 16 people and damaged residential buildings. In the northern Sumy region, a Russian drone strike killed two people, regional governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram. And in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian strike set fire to a shopping centre, injuring a number of people. On the Russian side, the acting governor of the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, reported on social media early on Saturday a “massive enemy drone attack” on the city of Belgorod. “Sadly, there are wounded, who have been promptly taken to hospitals,” he said. “There is damage and fires on the streets, which fire crews are extinguishing.” A wave of Ukrainian attacks on warehouses belonging to Wildberries – Russia’s largest e-commerce company and the country’s answer to Amazon – has brought the war closer to ordinary people, Pjotr Sauer writes. The strikes have destroyed billions of dollars worth of goods made, sold and bought by everyday Russians and devastated small businesses.

‘I will die for this cause’: how India’s cockroach meme became the biggest challenge to Modi’s grip on power

As the poster bearing the face of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was thrown to the floor, a cheer went up. Then came the feet, trampling the image into the muddy ground with gleeful abandon. “Thief, thief,” chanted the crowd. Just a week earlier, such scenes in the heart of India’s capital would have been almost unthinkable. For the 12 years Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) have been in power it was widely acknowledged that you criticised the government at your peril. Dissent was swiftly, routinely and expertly crushed. That was, until the cockroaches came along. A movement that began as an online meme has swiftly escalated into one of the most unexpected and significant challenges to Modi’s political power in years, instigated by a young generation who are fed up and startlingly unafraid of their government. Humour has become their greatest weapon and insults to Modi now abound online in the form of memes and Instagram reels as gen Z Indians vilify the government. Education, and the scandal over a leaked examination for medical colleges, remain at the heart of the protest, and the resignation of Modi’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, is the core demand. But after a peaceful protest held on Monday in Delhi was met with police batons, teargas, pellet guns and the alleged manhandling of female protesters, it has escalated into something far bigger: a fight for the country’s flailing democracy. Among those who braved the police response to take part in the Delhi demonstrations this week was Aniruddh Gautam, a 21-year-old law student from the capital. “I had a place to study at a UK university and I chose to stay in India because I believe in my country,” he said. “But this government has taken away the hopes and dreams of young people. Young people have died because of their failures. I will die for this cause if I need to.” While protests have erupted in India under the Modi government before – first in 2019 against a divisive citizenship law and then in 2020 with a huge farmers’ strike – analysts say the “cockroach” movement presents a more complex problem for the government. Education failures and exam leaks are uniquely bipartisan issues that concern even Modi’s most vital vote bank: upper-class Hindu families. The visuals of children and young students being beaten by police caused discomfort even among the BJP’s own ranks. “Modi has always been very good at overcoming a crisis,” said Tavleen Singh, a political columnist. “But I talk to people who are quite close to him and they’re all really puzzled and not sure what to do next. They say that he’s been listening to the wrong people and misread the mood completely.” While previous protests have been smeared by the government as the actions of Muslim or Pakistani terrorists, or sinister forces abroad, the fiercely secular nature of these demonstrations has made that impossible. Those taking part are from across religions and social classes and many of them are children of BJP supporters. At the Delhi protest site, Hindus and Muslims have prayed and eaten together. A Muslim cook has become a celebrity for feeding protesters every day and Sikh gurdwaras have set up community kitchens on site. “They are clever because they’ve made these protests deeply patriotic and taken back the nationalism card from the BJP,” said Singh. “They’ve also taken back secularism. These guys are using religion to unite.” Crucially, the BJP has come up against the limits of its own propaganda machine. While in the past decade mainstream media outlets have been co-opted to follow a strict government line, gen Z protesters have taken to social media to create their own information ecosystem, exposing the stark dissonance between what is being broadcast on mainstream news channels – referred to as godi, or lapdog, media – and what they are experiencing on the ground. “Our media is disgusting. Night after night they have broadcast lies to try and bring down our movement, calling us terrorists, Pakistanis and anti-nationals,” said Sanna, 26. “But unfortunately for them, we are here getting the message out.” Anish Gawande, a young politician who has been a champion of the cockroach movement, said the protests were erupting en masse because “increasingly, young people do not see a bright future for themselves in this country”. “An entire generation of aspirational young Indians grew up on the idea – and this includes me – that the country had flaws and needed to improve, but was on the whole heading towards progress,” he said. Now, he added, “we are confronted with the bitter reality that the whole story we were sold by the BJP in 2014 never materialised. The promises that have been made over the last 12 years have been repeatedly broken – and the crushing of that illusion is unleashing a pent-up rage unlike any other.” Gawande was insistent they posed an unassailable challenge to the BJP’s grip on power: “This is a rude awakening for the government that the people of India cannot be silenced forever.” When it first emerged in early May, it was easy for the government to dismiss the Cockroach Janata party (CJP), whose name was a deliberate poke at Modi’s ruling party. Its founder, Abhijit Dipke, 30, who had recently completed a masters at Boston University, initially created the CJP as a parody website in response to remarks by India’s chief justice, Surya Kant, referring to the swathes of unemployed young people and activists as “parasites” and “cockroaches” during a court hearing (though he later denied saying it). The CJP’s original tagline was: “A voice for the lazy, unemployed and chronically online”. But when young Indians pounced upon it with delight, following in their tens of millions online, it became clear to Dipke that satire was proving more representative of their frustrations than mainstream politics. Two days before Kant’s alleged “cockroach” comment, the lives of more than 2 million students were upended when it emerged that a highly competitive exam for admission to medical college had been leaked and sold for millions of rupees. About 2.2 million students would have to take the gruelling test for a second time, competing for just 130,000 places. For some, it was too much to bear. More than a dozen took their own lives. It was not the first time this had happened: dozens of leaks had blighted these exams and others in recent years. The government had set up the private agency responsible, yet has never been held accountable. As he flew back into Delhi in early June, Dipke formalised the CJP’s core objectives: accountability for the exam leak, the resignation of Pradhan and the reform of a higher education system seen as chronically underfunded, corrupt and systematically failing millions of young Indians. The turnout at the CJP’s first Delhi protest was just a few hundred. But by the end of June, they returned, vowing they would not move from their Delhi protest site until Modi sacked his education minister. This time, the CJP had a new powerful figurehead. Sonam Wangchuk, a renowned Indian engineer and activist, announced that he would go on hunger strike in solidarity with the “cockroaches” – resonant of the hunger strikes made by Mahatma Gandhi in the fight for Indian independence. He too had come up against the Modi government’s crackdown on dissent, when he was jailed under terror laws for a protest last year. The Modi government initially met the protests with silence. But after the Delhi police aggressively removed Wangchuk on the 20th day of his hunger strike and dragged him to hospital against his will, popular outrage galvanised the movement. Delhi police, who are directly under the control of the home minister, Amit Shah, Modi’s closest political ally, had refused permission for protesters to march on parliament the following Monday. But that did not stop young people coming in unprecedented numbers. Delhi police prepared for 10,000 – an estimated 100,000 turned up, many chanting Wangchuk’s name. The demonstration was a critical turning point, an expression of dissent unlike anything seen in Delhi in years. For many of the young people, it was their first ever protest, marking something of a political awakening. They sobbed at the solidarity and fanned each other in the heat. But as the numbers swelled, the police were far outnumbered and began to resort to brutal tactics to prevent people marching on parliament. The use of teargas, batons and alleged pellet guns against young people made for horrifying footage, and hardened the position of many protesters. Among those targeted was 17-year-old Deeksha Mishra. She was there for her sister, whose dream was to be a doctor, but who had fallen into depression since the exam leaks. “I watched her losing her dream and passion and I knew I had to come,” she said. “We came peacefully but they treated us as terrorists,” she added. “The police beat us so badly. Some had blood flowing down their skulls and their noses were broken.” Hundreds ended up in hospital, some in intensive care. At the protest site days later, Mishra said she was now standing for more than just exam leaks. “This is about corruption, it’s about our dying democracy,” she said. “The government want to keep ignoring us until the protest dies but it’s not going to happen. We are not afraid any more.” While Modi has promised fast action against those responsible for the exam leaks, he has still refused to sack his minister. Analysts say he has been backed into a tricky corner: Pradhan is one of his most loyal and politically important ministers – to fire him could undermine cabinet loyalty and be seen as a sign of weakness for the strongman leader. Yet protesters say they won’t move until he’s gone. It remains to be seen just how much the movement has rattled the electoral grip of Modi, who still has three years left in office and recently won a string of crucial state elections. But as the political analyst and columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta said: “Most importantly, this movement has lifted the pall of fear.” “This government is used to governing with impunity,” he said. “Re-establishing unchallenged authority is going to be difficult for them.”