India on Sunday (June 22, 2025) dismissed as “fake” claims by certain social media handles that the U.S. fighter jets used Indian airspace to launch strikes against Iran.

Also read: Israel-Iran conflict updates

The U.S. bombed three nuclear sites in Iran on Sunday (June 22, 2025), with U.S. President Donald Trump warning of additional strikes if Iran retaliates.

“Several social media accounts have claimed that Indian airspace was used by the United States to launch aircraft against Iran during Operation #MidnightHammer. This claim is fake,” PIB Fact Check said in a post on X.

“Indian Airspace was NOT used by the United States during Operation #MidnightHammer,” said the fact check unit of the Press Information Bureau that functions under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

It said that the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine had explained the route used by U.S. aircraft during a press briefing.

The Tripura Government has started the process of distributing job offers to families whose members were killed in incidents of political violence before the incumbent alliance government came to power in 2018. Jobs were handed to 18 next of kin of the victims, which an official on Sunday (June 22, 2025) described as the first phase of such recruitment.

“A committee was constituted to provide government jobs to persons whose family members were victims of political murders. So far, the panel has received 39 applications, and out of these, 18 persons have been given jobs,” Tripura Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ratan Lal Nath said at a press conference.

“Several families couldn’t even file FIRs with police, and many case records are missing,” he claimed.

The BJP-led government in December 2020 announced a scheme to provide jobs to next of kin of those killed in political violence over a period of 46 years with 2018 as the cutoff year. Thereafter, some jobs were disbursed to the affected families, but not blockwise like now.

A State Government official said 18 aspirants who were selected from the list recommended by a committee which was earlier set up to identify the victim families. “The primary consideration for recruitment is based on the financial condition of the families, but all those lost kin would also be considered in the next phases,” the official stated.

The apparent policy of the State Government is to support only non-left families who fell prey to violence during previous CPI(M)-led governments. The victims, according to the official assessment, had been connected with the Congress party, as it was the main Opposition party in the state before 2018.

CPI(M), now in opposition, alleged that the policy of providing government jobs only to non-left families is “inhumane”, as scores of left supporters were killed in political violence. A party leader pointed to targeted killings of left leaders, workers and supporters during the “repressive” five-year rule of the Congress-TUJS alliance government from 1988 to 1993.

(With PTI inputs)

Recently, in village in Bhojpur district, Bihar, which is dominated by Most Backward Castes (MBC), I heard a sohar (birth song) sung by a few unlettered women. It goes, “Babua hamar DM hoyihe, okara upar CM hoyihe (My son will become a District Magistrate and he will also become Chief Minister)”. I also heard a slogan during a political rally in Sasaram town, which goes, “Vote se lenge CM, PM, Aarakshan se lenge Collector, DM (I will become Chief Minister with votes and District Magistrate with reservation)”. Both these expressions reflect aspirations for social justice. They also show how the aspirations of backward communities becomes the essence of their politics. Together, these anecdotes illustrate how social justice is the driving force in grassroots development and politics in Bihar.

In north India, for several centuries, the Bhakti movement challenged social hierarchies and promoted equality and inclusivity. But the road to social justice has nevertheless been long and fraught. Leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule, and Ram Manohar Lohia have had their own visions and versions of social justice; these various imaginations continue to co-exist in India.

While in most parts of India, the social justice discourse remains mostly centred around Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in Bihar the most dominant social justice discourse is of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). According to the Bihar caste survey of 2023, OBCs and Extremely Backward Classes comprise more than 63% of State’s population.

This is not new — Bihar politics has always been largely dominated by OBC politics. OBC communities, particularly the Yadavs, Kurmis, and Koirees, began emerging as lower and middle peasants due to various land-based reforms implemented in both pre-independent and independent India. The leaders of these three communities formed the Triveni Sangh in 1934 and began asserting their voice for political representation. Other leaders echoed the aspirations of OBC communities in later years as well. Apart from the OBC social justice discourse, Bihar has other social justice models, which can be loosely categorised as Gandhian, Congressi, Nehruwadi, Ambedkarite, Lohiyaite, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led social justice model (samgra samajik nyay model).

Bihar is set to go to polls later this year. I have found during my fieldwork that the contest is set to take place primarily between two models. The first is the social justice model crafted by selective interpretations of the views of Ambedkar and Lohia. It emphasises caste-based historical inequality. The propagators of this model are Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The RJD and Congress are part of the Mahagathbandhan. This model appears to be unilinear as it focuses on the demand for a caste census and the extension of reservations.

The second is the samgra samajik nyay model. It combines the arguments of caste-based historical inequality with other forms of horizontal social inequalities that emerged during the process of distribution of democratic resources. The BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, promotes this model, which combines the visions of Swami Vivekananda, Deendayal Upadhyaya, and Ambedkar. In Mr. Modi’s book Samajik Samrasata, we may find the traces of the evolution of this model of social justice. This model combines historical injustices with developmental injustices. It tries to address vertical and horizontal injustices faced by marginal communities. Social justice appears to be a multi-pronged strategy to counter backwardness of various forms. Countering caste-based injustice is tied to beneficiary politics, which refers to the use of government welfare programmes and benefits for targeted communities. Beneficiary politics emerged through the implementation of various social support schemes for backward castes, Dalits, Adivasis, and women.

Thus, both the alliances have two different yet overlapping social justice models. The difference is that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has a few advantages. Both Mr. Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar enjoy a positive image. On the other hand, the Mahagathbandhan is represented by Mr. Lalu Prasad, whose regime was perceived as corrupt. The image of Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav as a popular youth leader does not seem to have served as a counter-balance yet. And the benefit of the caste census, which the RJD-led Opposition was advocating, has been minimised by the Union government’s announcement of a caste enumeration in the Census.

Badri Narayan is Director, Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute