News Dabba for 31 March 2026: Five stories for a balanced news diet

Indie Journal brings you the daily updates that the internet is talking about through various news websites. Here's a glance through some of the National and International news updates, from stampede at Bihar temple, Iran war, to Haiti gang attack.

The Wire on what J&K High Court said on another 'dubious' PSA detention

The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh high court has held that a youngster from Anantnag district was taken into preventive detention last year “purely on hollowed dubiety” by the civil and police administration, The Wire reports. While ordering the release of Sehran Bashir Nadaf, 19, a resident of south Kashmir who was detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA), the court said in its order on March 25: “Personal liberty of a citizen of India guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution of India is not meant to be a matter of skating on a thin ice that at any given point of time a person can be tripped to suffer deprivation and loss (of rights).” Read the full report here.

Eight devotees killed, over a dozen injured in stampede at Bihar temple, NDTV reports

Eight devotees, all of them women, were killed and over a dozen were injured in a crowd crush at a temple in Bihar's Nalanda on Tuesday, NDTV reports. The stampede took place at Sheetlaashtami Temple in Maghra Village, which is nearly five kilometres from Bihar Sharif in Nalanda district. As this was the last Tuesday of the month of Chaitra, the report says that a massive crowd of devotees had gathered at the temple. Read the full report here.

At least 70 killed, 30 wounded in Haiti gang attack, Al Jazeera

At least 70 people have been killed and 30 injured during an attack near Petite-Riviere in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region, a human rights group said, Al Jazeera reports. This number is significantly higher than ⁠official estimates, which put the death toll at approximately 16. Residents and officials told local media that the attack began in the early hours of Sunday in rural communities around Jean-Denis, and continued into the early hours of Monday, with gang members storming the area and setting homes on ⁠fire, the report adds. Read the full report here.

Hindustan Times on notices to apply draft IT rules to content from non-publishers

News and current affairs content posted online by individual users will now come under the same framework as that posted by publishers, allowing for deletion, modification, even emergency blocking. Hindustan Times reports that social media platforms will now have to comply with guidelines or advisories issued by the IT ministry (MeitY), or risk legal action. Both are changes in the IT Rules, 2021, proposed by the ministry, with a draft being released for public consultation on Monday. Comments can be submitted till April 14. Read the full report here.

Spain closes airspace to US aircraft involved in Iran war, BBC reports

Spain has closed its airspace to US planes involved in attacks on Iran, BBC reports as per Madrid's Defence Minister Margarita Robles. "We will not authorise the use of Morón and Rota [military bases] for any acts related to the war in Iran," she said, adding that Spain had "made this clear to the American government from the beginning". Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares stated that the aim of the decision was to "not do anything that could encourage an escalation in this war". A White House official told the BBC that the US military was "meeting or surpassing all of its goals under Operation Epic Fury and does not need help from Spain or anyone else". Read the full report here.