Senior journalist Neelabh Mishra passes away

New Delhi: Two new airlines - Al Hind Air and FlyExpress - are set to take to the skies, with the carriers receiving their no objection certificates from the Civil Aviation Ministry.

In 2026, apart from these two carriers, Uttar Pradesh-based Shankh Air, which already has a No Objection Certificate (NOC), is likely to start operations.

Al Hind Air is being promoted by Kerala-based alhind Group.

The ministry is keen to have more airline operators in the country, which is one of the world's fastest growing domestic civil aviation markets.

Currently, there are nine operational scheduled domestic carriers in the country. Fly Big, a regional airline, suspended scheduled flights in October.

IndiGo and Air India Group - Air India and Air India Express - together have over 90 per cent of the domestic market share.

Concerns about apparent duopoly in the fast-growing domestic airlines' industry got amplified this month in the wake of the massive operational disruptions at IndiGo, which has a market share of more than 65 per cent.

"Over the last one week, pleased to have met teams from new airlines aspiring to take wings in Indian skies- Shankh Air, Al Hind Air and FlyExpress. While Shankh Air has already got the NOC from the Ministry, Al Hind Air and FlyExpress have received their NOCs this week," Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said in a post on X on Tuesday.

According to him, it has been the endeavour of the ministry to encourage more airlines in Indian aviation which is amongst the fastest growing aviation markets.

Schemes like UDAN, have enabled smaller carriers Star Air, India One Air and Fly91 to play an important role in the regional connectivity within the country and there is more scope for further growth, he added.

Apart from Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo and state-owned Alliance Air, other scheduled carriers are Akasa Air, SpiceJet, Star Air, Fly91 and IndiaOne Air, as per latest data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

In the past years, many airlines, including Go First and Jet Airways, stopped flying amid debt woes.

A Pakistani lawmaker has called out the hypocrisy of his country's leadership, drawing a parallel between Islamabad's military actions against Kabul and India's 'Operation Sindoor'.

Condemning the Pakistan army, led by Asim Munir, for strikes on Afghanistan - which resulted in civilian casualties - Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman questioned the consistency of Islamabad's logic. He argued that if Pakistan's cross-border attacks are considered justified, then the country has little ground to object when India enters Pakistani territory to eliminate terrorists.

Rehman was addressing the 'Majlis-e-Ittehad-e-Ummat' conference on Monday in Karachi's Lyari. The town recently gained international attention as the setting for the Ranveer Singh-starrer Dhurandhar, which depicted the intersection of informants and operatives within the Lyari underworld.

"If you say that we attacked our enemy in Afghanistan and justify this, then India can also say that it attacked Bahawalpur, Muridke, and the headquarters of groups responsible for the attack in Kashmir," Rehman said, referring to India's retaliatory strikes. "Then how can you raise objections? The same accusations are now being levelled against Pakistan by Afghanistan. How do you justify both positions?"

The JUI-F chief's remarks specifically referenced 'Operation Sindoor'.

On May 7, Indian armed forces carried out pre-dawn missile strikes on nine terror targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad stronghold of Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba's base in Muridke.

Pak-Afghanistan Tension

Fazlur Rehman has been a consistent critic of the Pakistani government's policy towards Afghanistan. In October, during a peak in bilateral tensions, he offered to mediate between the two nations. According to a Dawn report, he stated, "In the past, I have played a role in reducing tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I can still do so."

Rehman is known to wield significant influence within the region and remains the only Pakistani lawmaker to have met with the Taliban's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada.

Recently, India condemned Pakistan's fresh strikes on Afghanistan. "We have seen reports of border clashes in which several Afghan civilians have been killed," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a weekly media briefing.

"We condemn such attacks on innocent Afghan people. India strongly supports the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan," he said.

A spokesperson for the Taliban regime claimed Pakistan initiated the attacks and that Kabul was "forced to respond".

The two countries have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its neighbour of harbouring terrorists - a charge that the Afghan government denies.

The deletion of over 58 lakh names from West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls following a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has sparked widespread concern and is likely to deepen political tensions in the poll-bound state.

According to the Election Commission, the revision exercise has identified 24 lakh voters as deceased, 19 lakh as relocated, 12 lakh as missing, and 1.3 lakh as duplicate entries. The draft list, published after the completion of the first phase of SIR, aims to remove errors and duplication from the electoral rolls.

However, the scale of deletions has raised fears that a large number of eligible voters may have been wrongly excluded. The Election Commission has said that individuals whose names are missing can file objections and seek corrections. The final voter list is scheduled to be published in February next year, after which the Assembly election announcement is expected. Notably, the last Special Intensive Revision in Bengal was conducted in 2002.

The development has intensified the political row over the SIR process. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress have strongly opposed the exercise, accusing the Centre and the Election Commission of attempting to disenfranchise lakhs of voters ahead of the elections.

Addressing a rally in Krishnanagar earlier this month, Banerjee urged people to protest if their names were removed from the voter list, alleging intimidation during elections and warning of serious consequences if voting rights were taken away.

The BJP, meanwhile, has defended the revision and accused the Trinamool Congress of politicising the issue to protect what it claims is an illegal voter base. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the ruling party fears losing power due to the removal of deceased, fake, and illegal voters.

The controversy comes amid earlier allegations by the Trinamool Congress that excessive work pressure during the SIR led to the deaths by suicide of some Booth Level Officers (BLOs), for which the party blamed the Election Commission. With the draft list now out, another round of political confrontation appears imminent.

As objections begin to be filed, the focus will be on whether the correction mechanism is accessible, transparent, and timely—critical factors in ensuring that no eligible voter is denied their democratic right ahead of a crucial election.