India's opposition parties march to top court as protests over voter lists escalate

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s opposition parties marched toward the Supreme Court on Monday to protest a purge of voter lists they say favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, after police detained thousands of activists over the weekend in a sweeping crackdown.

Opposition lawmakers and their supporters sought to submit a petition to the chief justice demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Protests led by the “Cockroach” youth movement have intensified since election authorities began the revision last year, removing more than 130 million voters from the lists. Critics say the process is politically motivated and risks disenfranchising eligible voters. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission deny allegations of manipulation, saying the move is needed to remove duplicate and ineligible names.

Ahead of the march, authorities closed six metro stations in the capital on Monday and warned of traffic disruptions.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party described the growing protests as a fight to defend the constitution.

“We will not back down,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

Gandhi, scion of India’s most influential political dynasty, is seeking to turn the protests into a broader challenge to Modi.

Police detained thousands of demonstrators in New Delhi over the weekend, including leaders of the “Cockroach” movement. Modi has not publicly commented on the protests, but leaders of his party have dismissed them, with some calling the activists “anarchists.”

Meanwhile, New Delhi police announced Monday that Jantar Mantar, a longtime site of mass protests in the capital, would no longer be a designated venue for rallies. Police said three replacement sites had been chosen.

The “Cockroach” movement earlier this year staged a sit-in at Jantar Mantar that lasted for weeks, forcing the resignation of Modi’s education minister in July.

A security personnel member arrives to escort workers of India's opposition Congress party as they gather for a march toward the Supreme Court demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi, India, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Security personnel watch as workers of India's opposition Congress party gather for a march toward the Supreme Court demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi, India, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

A commuter watches as security personnel arrive to escort workers of India's opposition Congress party gathering for a march toward the Supreme Court to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi, India, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Workers of India's opposition Congress party shout slogans atop a bus as they gather for a march toward the Supreme Court demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi, India, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Security personnel in riot gear arrive to escort workers of India's opposition Congress party as they gather for a march toward the Supreme Court demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi, India, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

STOCKHOLM (AP) — American-born economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford won the Nobel memorial prize in economics on Monday for their work on models that have helped governments and central banks manage economic shocks, such as energy crises and inflation.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners in Stockholm, saying the two were being honored for work that has helped policymakers deal with economic fluctuations.

“The laureates have helped us smooth out the economy’s peaks and troughs,” the academy said in a statement.

Hall is affiliated with Stanford University in California, and Woodford with Columbia University in New York.

Woodford spoke to the committee by phone Monday from New York, saying: “It’s a tremendous honor, it’s a surprise."

“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a news release.

“With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.”

For decades, governments responded to economic shocks by following the Depression-era prescriptions of the British economist John Maynard Keynes: intervene in the economy by lowering taxes and hiking government spending, thereby encouraging consumers and businesses to spend and invest themselves and help growth get restarted.

“This is the Keynesian recipe and it worked well – until it didn’t,’’ said Timo Boppart of the Nobel economics prize committee. Policymakers had thought economic management involved simple tradeoffs – unemployment, for instance, would stay low at a time of high inflation and rise when inflation fell. But the “stagflation’’ of the 1970s – when the world economy experienced simultaneous high inflation and high unemployment – proved the formula was simplistic.

Hall and Woodford set about coming up with an improved model that took into account how consumers and businesses actually made decisions about whether to invest and spend.

“In separate contributions, Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford helped build this new foundation for stabilization policy,” Hassler said.

Last year, three researchers who study business innovation won for explaining how new products and inventions promote economic growth and human welfare, even as they leave older companies in the dust.

The economics prize is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The central bank established it in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes.

Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, but it is always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, small group of laureates or organization.

Dazio reported from Berlin and Wiseman from Washington.

AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

Portraits of Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford are shown on the screen as they are announced as the laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Portraits of Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford are shown on the screen as they are announced as the laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Portraits of Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford are shown on the screen as they are announced as the laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference to announce the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)

FILE - A Nobel medal is held up during a ceremony in New York, Dec. 8, 2020. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP, File)