'Last week I wrote about the Union home ministry’s admission under The Right to Information Act, 2005 that they do not have any information about orders issued to shutdown telecommunication channels, TV and radio reception and advisories for the return of tourists and pilgrims undertaking the Amarnath Yatra from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). They also admitted to a lack of information about arrests/detentions of politicians, social activists and RTI activists.
'India has slipped to 102 position in the Global Hunger Index 2019 of 117 countries, behind its neighbours Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Seventeen countries, including Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI scores of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Wednesday. The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency, Concern Worldwide, and German organisation, Welt Hunger Hilfe termed the level of hunger in India "serious". In 2000, India was ranked 83 out of 113 countries.
'A headmaster of a government primary school in Uttar Pradesh has been suspended after Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers complained that he was making students recite a “religious prayer,” reported Indian Express. The “prayer” in question is the iconic Urdu poem Lab pe aati hai gua, also known as Bachche ki dua, which was written in 1902 by Muhammad Iqbal, who also wrote Saare jahaan se achchha. The poem is frequently sung in schools across India and deals with the subject of god guiding one from darkness to light.
'Maharashtra BJP unit on Tuesday said it will ask the party-led NDA government at the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In its election manifesto, released by BJP working president J.P. Nadda along with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state party president Chandrakant Patil and Mumbai unit head Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the state unit also sought the honour for social reformers Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, a party leader told PTI...'
'On September 29, Tathagata Roy, retweeted a tweet with the headline, “Muslims rape 16-year-old Hindu girl, who begs them ‘Please leave me for your Allah’s sake’.” The original tweet was by Robert Spencer, the founder of the extremist Islamophobic propaganda blog, Jihad Watch, which based the news on a report by another propaganda website – one inspired by Hindutva – the Hindu Post. Roy’s Twitter timeline is replete with tweets of this nature: incendiary, hate-filled communal propaganda. Why are we talking about Roy?
'Ideally, the 14th convention on the RTI, on October 12, where Central and state commissioners were present, should have resolved against the amendment which reduces their collective independence. However, I am surprised that even non-bureaucrat commissioners also did not raise their voice against it. The least a convention of commissioners could have done was to ask for information on the status of commissioners themselves. But do information commissioners have the right to information on the status of commissioners?
'The News Broadcasting Standards Authority has ordered the TV channel to air an apology at 10 pm on an issue pertaining to its #CongBharatMataClaim debate... Republic TV is supposed to tender an apology tonight at 10 for a broadcast from March this year. The issue pertains to a primetime debate, #CongBharatMataClaim, where the anchor Arnab Goswami, with the help of a panellist, Shantanu Gupta, cornered another panellist, Faheem Baig, into chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”...'
'The expulsion of six students of a Wardha-based university for organising a function without permission on campus and writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over contentious issues like mob-lynching and rape cases against political leaders was revoked on Sunday. The students, from Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya (MGAHV), were expelled on October 9 after varsity officials accused them of violating the code of conduct which is in force throughout the state for the October 21 Assembly polls...'
'The Bharatiya Janata Party released its manifesto or “Sankalp Patra” for the Haryana elections on Sunday... The manifesto, which has 15 chapters and 248 points, has been termed by the BJP as its vision document for “The Haryana of My Dreams”. Khattar said the manifesto is in line with the principles of creating a “Ram rajya”... Since Haryana has earned the dubious distinction of becoming the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country at around 28%, the manifesto also makes promises for promoting industry and providing jobs to the youth...'
'This is the ‘desh badal raha hai (the country is changing)’ story in all its finery. It encompasses everything and makes no attempt to hide anything: communal tension, society’s attitude towards inter-community marriages, right-wing assertion on ‘deviant’ women, Beti Bachao-Sanskari Banao, the partisan attitude of the police and media, and the helplessness of the judiciary. Anjali Jain (22) met Ibrahim (34) at a college festival and fell in love. They got married in February 2018. Ibrahim was already married when he met Anjali, but estranged from his wife whom he subsequently divorced.
