About: A break free commentary on events on our Planet, anchored on the news of the world. Any comments beyond the storyline, are entirely mine, without prejudice -take it or leave it. This is a run of interesting events from 1 November to 29 November 2025: Downfall of a Prince; India’s Bahubali; India’s Bad Doctors; Stunning Bihar Elections; and India’s Women’s Cricket on a high.

A Prince is Taken Down

The scandalous Jeffery Epstein story has been telling in the media over many years and this October it took down a Prince-who was blamed for being ‘sincerely’ involved.

Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted sex offender operated a vast sex trafficking network of underage girls for himself and his elite associates. His death by suicide in a New York jail in 2019, while awaiting trial, triggered widespread outrage and conspiracy theories.

On 31st October, Prince Andrew of Britain’s Royal Family, brother of the reigning King Charles, was stripped of his royal titles and duties and asked to move out of his royal residence at Windsor Mansion, Royal Lodge, following weeks of intense scrutiny over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew will now be known simply as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

He will now live in private accommodation in Sandringham Estate, which is privately funded by the King. Andrew’s two adult daughters, Eugenie and Beatrice, will retain their titles as Princesses. Sarah Ferguson, his ex-wife, will also move out of Royal Lodge.

Earlier in October, Andrew gave up his other royal titles, including the Duke of York. In a separate development, it has come to light that Andrew hosted Jeffrey Epstein at Royal Lodge as part of his daughter Beatrice’s birthday celebrations in 2006 – two months after a US arrest warrant had been issued for Epstein for the sexual assault of a minor. What perhaps was the final ‘gold’ nail on the coffin of Andrew’s sacking as Prince arising from his misadventures, was the memoir of Virginia Giuffre who repeated allegations that, as a teenager, she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions.

Virginia Giuffre was an American and Australian advocate for survivors of sex trafficking and one of the most prominent accusers of Jeffrey Epstein. She founded Victims Refuse Silence, a US non-profit organization dedicated to supporting survivors. Giuffre provided elaborate details about being trafficked by Epstein and his partner-in-crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Giuffre pursued criminal and civil actions against Epstein and Maxwell while appealing directly to the public for justice and awareness. She sued Ghislaine Maxwell for defamation in 2015 and the case was settled in her favour in 2017 for an undisclosed sum. In July 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the unsealing of documents from Giuffre’s civil suit against Maxwell. The first batch of documents was released in August 2019, further implicating Epstein, Maxwell, and their associates. The following day, Epstein was found dead in his prison cell.

In December 2019, Giuffre described being trafficked by Epstein to the Royal Lodge, which shifted public opinion against Andrew. She later sued him in a New York civil court. The suit was settled in February 2022 with Andrew paying Giuffre an undisclosed amount and also making a substantial donation to her charity. Giuffre died by suicide in April 2025. Her memoir ‘Nobody’s Girl’ was published posthumously in October 2025 and perhaps galvanised the King to act.

The Royal Family is bound to be, and set, an example in all aspects of life in the Kingdom, and there are no ifs and buts.

ISRO’s Bahubali

India’s, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after being quiet for quite some time, is back with a bang and a new swag.

On 2nd November, ISRO successfully deployed GSAT-7R, a next-generation communication satellite for the Indian Navy, using its LVM3-M5 heavy-lift launch Vehicle Rocket, nicknamed as ‘Bahubali’. The launch took place from the time-tested Sriharikota, and with this success India’s space capabilities received a mighty upgrade. ‘Bahubali’ means ‘one with strong arms’ and the name reflects the Launch Vehicle’s immense lifting strength and consistent reliability across missions.

The name Bahubali is most famously associated with a revered figure in Jain mythology. Bahubali also known as Gomateshvara was a prince who renounced his kingdom after winning a nonviolent duel with his elder brother. Thereafter he meditated for a long time, eventually leading to his spiritual liberation. And the name became famous after a movie – nothing to do with the original -was made showing Bahubali as one of immense physical strength and of heroic character. He is worshipped across India and especially in the State of Karnataka with huge statues showing his full form. One even had creepers crawling up his body, while he was lost in meditation.

Bahubali is India’s heaviest operational rocket, earlier known as GSLV Mk-III with a payload capacity of up to 4,000 kg to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and up to 8,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It is configured as a three-stage launch system consisting of S200 solid strap-on boosters for liftoff thrust; L110 liquid core stage powered by twin Vikas engines; C25 cryogenic upper stage-developed entirely in India.

Bahubali will serve as the baseline launcher for India’s Moon venture – Gaganyaan Human Spaceflight Mission, where its modified version is called Human-Rated LVM3 (HRLV).

The Bad Doctors

India’s capital New Delhi has been relatively free from terrorism for over 14 years. The last time there was a bomb blast was in September 2011 when Dr Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister of India. It took place outside Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court, where a briefcase bomb was planted. The blast killed 15 people and injured 79. The Terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) ) claimed responsibility, carrying out the attack with the support of the Indian Mujahideen-an Islamic jihadist group and designated terrorist organisation. Its signature weapons are timed Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) made from Ammonium Nitrate. To complete the connections, HuJI is a Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The motive for the attack was the commuting of the death sentence, ordered by India’s Supreme Court, for the 2001 Indian Parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal Guru. The demand was that Afzal Guru should not be hanged. Later, Afzal Guru was indeed hanged, in February 2013, in Tihar Jail.

Over to the present.

In early November this year, Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) police stumbled upon wall posters that appeared in Nowgam, Srinagar, expressing support for Jaish-e-Mohammad- yet another Pakistani militant group active in J&K. Until 2019, posters glorifying terror groups were a common sight in Kashmir. The police would usually remove them, but not every time was there a serious investigation into who put them up.

This time, an alert Indian Police Service (IPS) Officer Sundeep Chakravarthy, currently Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Srinagar, had a hunch that it might be something more than the usual, and began probing. He started the hunt for the man who put-up the posters. And what followed was not routine. It was a revelation.

From those wall-posters unraveled a terror web, 2900 kilograms of IEDs, a chain of sleeper cells, and a treacherous plot meant to tear through India.

Sundeep didn’t just see paper on a wall, he saw the writing on it and acted before it became an epitaph. The rest never saw it coming. The probe led to the busting of Faridabad’s – what is now termed- White-Collar Doctor (Medical) terror module. That single decision, to investigate promptly, set off a butterfly effect. CCTV footage led to Dr Adil Ahmed Rather of Saharanpur, which led to Dr Muzzammil Shakeel, the seizure of IED-making material, and finally to a full-blown terror module stretching from Kashmir to Delhi and Faridabad.

It’s abundantly clear that had the J&K Police not acted when they did, those explosives, ten to fifteen times more than the one that happened in Pulwama in 2019, could have unleashed devastation on a scale India has not seen since 26/11.

In the following days a joint operation by J&K police, Intelligence Bureau and Haryana police lead them to the residence of Dr Muzammil Ahmad Ganai, a Pulwama native and faculty member at Al-Falah Medical College in Dhauj, Faridabad. Adeel Ahmed Rather of Kulgam, employed at a private health facility in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, is arrested soon after. On Monday, 10th November around 2,900 kg of explosive material, including 360 kg of ammonium nitrate, is seized from Dr Ganai’s rented home in Faridabad along with an assault rifle, ammunition, batteries, remotes, and timers. An AK-47 rifle and some ammunition are recovered from a sedan car owned by a female doctor, Dr Shaheed, from the same medical college. Several arrests are made in connection with the terror module, all linked to Jaish-e-Mohammad.

Meanwhile, on the same day, 10th November, during peak hours near New Delhi’s Red Fort in the evening, a Hyundai i20 car came to a halt at a traffic signal near Gate No. 1 of Lal Qila Metro Station, roughly 300 metres from the Red Fort, in the midst of slow-moving traffic. The time was 6.52 pm; the signal had turned red. Just then, the car exploded. Several people nearby were blown apart, their body parts strewn. Multiple other cars caught fire, windowpanes were blown, buildings trembled. The explosion killed 13 and injured several others, leaving nearby vehicles gutted, but no shrapnel or pellets were found at the site. It took about three minutes for someone to call the fire brigade.

Then the police and India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) swiftly began a hunt for the attackers and piece-together the ‘doctored’ plan. The multiple-times -sold i20 Hyundai car is traced through registration records and the driver is identified as Dr Umar Mohammad alias Umar Nabi, from Pulwama, J&K. The Bad Doctor was part of the terror module, and panicked after the arrests and seizure of the Ammonium Nitrate, earlier in the day. And turned himself as a suicide bomber driving the i20 Hyundai Car across Delhi, staying put in a parking lot, probably waiting for the busy evening, and then moving into the traffic, for the kill.

Dr Umar was working as an Assistant Professor in the general medicine department at Al-Falah University in Faridabad. His identity was established forensically by the NIA.

Ammonium Nitrate is an odourless, white crystalline chemical widely used as a fertiliser but is also a powerful oxidiser that, under the right conditions, can cause a powerful explosion resulting in fires that burn at high temperatures for sustained periods. Ammonium Nitrate by itself is not considered an explosive. It needs to be mixed with a secondary substance-in this case, fuel oil, which is a petroleum-based product- and triggered by an external detonation that gives off immense heat to explode. And it can be mixed with almost any kind of volatile substance. But the quality is important; pure Ammonium Nitrate is chemically and thermally stable, meaning it requires that external detonation. When combined with fuel oil, it becomes ammonium nitrate fuel, or ANFO, which is a commonly used bulk explosive in the construction and mining industries. It is popular because it is an inexpensive and simple explosive to manufacture and, if handled correctly, safe to store.

The J&K Police quickly arrested Dr Shaheen, a member of the Faridabad terror module, from Al-Falah University in Faridabad and later took her to Srinagar for questioning. Dr Shaheen confessed during interrogation that she and her group of doctors were plotting terror attacks across India. Shaheen told the Police that they had been collecting explosives for the last two years. She was in direct contact with Saadia Azhar, the sister of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar, and was an active member of Jamaat-ul-Mominat, the women’s wing of the JeM terror outfit. The wing was established by Saadia in October 2025 to avenge her husband’s death during India’s Operation Sindoor, earlier this year.

Dr. Shaheen completed her MBBS from Allahabad Medical College (1996–2001) batch and later earned an MD in Pharmacology. From 2006 to 2013, she worked as an Assistant Professor at Kanpur Medical College after being selected through the UP Public Service Commission. After that, she suddenly disappeared. She was later dismissed in 2021 for not responding to college notices. After this, she started working at Al-Falah University and where she came in contact with Dr Muzammil.

To sum up, the NIA identified the accused as Dr Muzammil Shakeel Ganai, Dr Adeel Ahmed Rather and his brother Mufti Irfan Ahmad Wagay of J&K and Dr Shaheen Saeed of Uttar Pradesh. The Bad Doctors involved in the Delhi blast were radicalised over the last five years and freely operated from a room in the campus of the Al-Falah University. Of course, the College denies any knowledge, but it’s their job to know what’s happening on its campus. The heat turned on the Medical College itself and further skeletons began tumbling from the proverbial cupboard. The origins of the College had a dubious history. Maybe we need more Sundeep Chakravarthys in the right places?

The Indian Press had a blast of a week with terms such as White-Collar Terror, Home-Grown Terror, gaining traction. Meanwhile, recall that the Government had vowed to treat any terrorist action from the Pakistan side as an ‘act of war’. For the moment we have to wait as the investigation works its way and finds inconvertible evidence to nail the people or country behind. The Bad Doctors had links to Turkey and that would an interesting angle.

Bihar Elections

The Assembly Elections in the State of Bihar was one of the most anticipated this year. When the counting of votes was done on 14th November and final results tumbled out it was an unbelievable, stunning, landslide victory of the India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

The NDA secured 202 of the 243 seats, defeating the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led Mahagathbandhan (MGB) Alliance, which secured just 35 seats.

In the NDA, the BJP won 89 seats (20.08% votes); JDU (Janata Dal-United)- 85 seats (19.25%); LJPRV (Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas) -19 (4.97%); HAMS -5 (Hindustani Awami Morcha-Secular); RLM (Rashtriya Lok Morcha) -4.

In the MGB, the RJD won 25 seats (23% of the vote); INC (Indian National Congress -6 (8.7%), plus others.

Incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar took the oath for a record tenth time. Incumbent deputy chief ministers Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha took the oath as the deputy chief ministers for the second consecutive time. For the first time, the BJP won the most seats in a Bihar Legislative Assembly election. The RJD, led by Tejashwi Yadav, fell to third for the first time since 2010, while Nitish Kumar’s JDU recorded its best result since 2010. The LJPRV and RLM secured seats for the first time. That’s a great making of new records.

The Congress’ Opposition Leader in Parliament who made wild, baseless statements and allegations against the Prime Minister and the Election Commission of India suffered his record 95th defeat in elections. He left abroad – perhaps of a yet another holiday – tail firmly between his legs.

Sports

India’s Women’s Cricket Team captained by Harmanpreet Kaur clinched the ICC Women’s World Cup in a first-ever win, on 3 November 2025, at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai. India beat South Africa by 52 runs in the Finals.

South Africa won the toss and chose to field. India made 298 for the loss of 7 wickets, in 50 overs. That total was the second-highest ever achieved in a Women’s World Cup final.

India’s Shafali Verma, in an extraordinary batting display made 87 off 78 balls to set-up a total of 298 for South Africa to chase down. Deepti Sharma, a world-class off spinner who has raised her batting to a new level this year, backed up with a run-a-ball half-century, making 58 runs.

In reply, South Africa were bowled out for 246 in the 46th over, despite a superb 101 runs off 98 balls, by Captain Laura Wolvaardt. Again, India’s Shafali Verma took two unexpected wickets of characteristic cheek at a crucial juncture, while Deepti Sharma took a five-wicket haul that combined old-school overspin with new-age defensive skills to power the historic win. Perhaps it was the day for Indian all-rounders to discover their class.

India’s has been a campaign of redemption and resilience. From three straight defeats in the group stage to a flawless knockout run, India’s turnaround was as dramatic as it was defining. For a cricket-mad nation long waiting for its women to stand shoulder to shoulder with its men, this triumph felt epochal! Hope, it is the bellwether of a new era!

Overall, sports in India has seen an upswing in recent years, with people making their mark in various games across continents.

More wonderful stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Stay with Freewheeling.